come now, surely you can imagine a multi-plex painting one theater room with the paint, and advertising that one room as "cell phone free". you could advertise it as a benefit... hell, you could probably even charge extra for films shown in it.
I do not believe that Google's actions in China are evil. Censorship by itself is a completely neutral action. Take, for example, the censorship of child pornography in the United States. This is a censorship that is clearly not evil, and one for which I am glad. An important thing to note is this- Google is not the entity which made child pornography illegal; it was the U.S. gov't. In the same way, Google cannot and should not presume to be able legislate anything in China either.
So, just as Google neutrally censors child porn in the U.S., it neutrally censors banned materials in China.
If you are still not convinced, consider instead this question: Is Google harming the people of China by censoring certain materials, or are they HELPING the people of China as much as they legally can by providing them with as much of their service as possible?
You sound as if you are angry at Google. Why is your anger not directed at the Chinese government? I strongly agree that the censorship in China is a political issue, and one that should be addressed by the governments of the world, not by individual corporations- and the corporations should definitely not be singled out like this.
explain how the undoing of a terrible act can be noble.
www.m-w.com
1 a : possessing outstanding qualities : ILLUSTRIOUS b : FAMOUS, NOTABLE (noble deeds)
3 a : possessing very high or excellent qualities or properties (noble wine) b : very good or excellent
5 : possessing, characterized by, or arising from superiority of mind or character or of ideals or morals : LOFTY (a noble ambition)
(I skipped definitions 2 and 4 because I didn't think you wanted to hear about nobility or noble gases)
Seems to me that reversing a terrible act would be a *good* thing, kinda like in definition 3b there.
the fact that our universe's expansion was supposedly accelerating, I formulated an impromptu theory of my own, which is (imo) equally likely and silly. here it goes.
our universe- the big nothing- is surrounded by super-dense matter- the big everything, if you will- and the super-dense matter is pulling everything in our universe out toward the edge. (yes, it did all start in the middle in accordance with the big bang.) i suppose you could call this theory 'the big tear' or 'the big rip', since everything is just being pulled apart.
what's outside 'the big everything', you ask? perhaps we are like one little spherical hole in a sponge, or in a block of swiss. perhaps there are many many other 'verses in their own bubbles.
Oddly enough, I just experienced this today. I had been taking a nap (since I was pretty short on sleep) between classes and work today. I woke up from my nap still feeling tired, but I forced myself to get up, because I wanted to get stuff done and not just sleep until work. I sat at my computer for about 15 minutes, still feeling groggy. I cranked up some music to try to wake me up- to no effect. I eventually left the house to get something to eat.
On the drive to Taco Bell, my response times were slightly slowed, and my thought processes weren't very deep. However, I noticed that I was tired before I got in my car, so I made a conscious effort to not let that endanger my drive. For example, I kept a longer following distance, and made sure to use my turn signal well in advance, etc. I have never been drunk, but I definitely felt like my driving was not quite up to par.
I have driven while tired before, but for some odd reason I was more conscious about it today. Then I came back to/. to find this article... weird.
It's a highway now, but we know it wasn't a highway in 1883. However, what most likely laid along the path of what is now the highway? A trail or a road. And what traveled along roads? Wagons. At night, these wagons would surely have lights attached to them, which, if viewed from the side, would appear to "merge, divide and disappear" as the wagons moved by at different speeds.
That's just a guess, but worth looking into. Someone more interested should do that for me:).
I don't know where you got the 27MB/s [sic, I assume you meant Mb/s] number, but this is what I found from TFA:
The Tapestry holographic system can store more than 26 hours of broadcast-quality high-definition video on a single 300 gigabyte (GB) disk, recorded at a 160 megabit per second (Mb/s) data rate.
Customer shipments of the 300 GB InPhase Tapestry product will commence in 2006, representing the initial offering in the family of InPhase holographic drives and media, which have capacities ranging up to 1.6 terabytes (TB) and data rates of 960 Mb/s.
I couldn't agree with you more. I suggest we make the fuel cell a goal to be reached, like private space flight. Make a contest out of it, with a big cash prize. Of course, the best option would win and would hopefully go into production... now all we need is an independently wealthy philanthropist who is tired of double-A's.
It all depends on what motivates the company. Let's imagine we're the power company, and we can go about this idea any way we want. What are we going to consider?
Cost Ways to profit Is this going to be a fad or long-term? Ease of Implementation Reliability
I think BPL would probably beat your idea (inventive though it was) in cost, ease, and reliability.
but who is going to train the meter reading populace to do the IT jobs?
It can't be that hard. "You mean to say that all I have to do is read this number off of my monitor, just like i was reading it off the meter, and charge them accordingly?"... "That's what I'm saying."
Sometimes you have to put the needs of everyone else, and the world, before your own.
Many important inventions in the age of technology (and before that also) were a result of people thinking of their own needs (or, if it sounds better to you, 'the greater good of all'), even if it would inconvenience everyone's current way of life.
Fuck you, at least you got Internet access, some people don't have broadband at all.
That's terribly unfortunate for you... I hear there's this new promising service coming out soon called BPL that may interest you...:)
This idea would not fly with Google. While it is true that they say "don't delete, archive" for emails, this is because they want to be able to use your emails for directing personalized ads to you. Not news, I know.
The difference between that and logging IMs in a similar fashion on their servers is this: emails usually have a fair bit of content and are often about one topic (or they at least stay on one topic for a while before jumping to another. depends on the type of email, whether it's personal, business, spam (ugh), etc.). IMs, on the other hand, usually go like this:
"yo"
"hi"
"where's john?"
"saw him earlier"
"why didn't he call me?"
"i dunno"
"wanna go grab a coffee?"... you get the idea. Not useful for Google at all.
Hentai does exist, and can be generally used to describe any anime that would be rated NC-17 or X because of nudity and sexual themes. That said, some animes will flash the occasional boob, panty shot (some more than others here), and not be considered hentai by the anime world. It's up to you to decide what you're comfortable watching. Despite what 'they' may have told you, most anime is not for kids. At all.
Good anime series: (Haven't read other replies to this as they are below threshold, so sorry for repeats. Also, having now completed the list, I'm not sure how much of the japanese culture you'll learn from these. Most of them take place in settings that clearly aren't, or aren't supposed to be, Japan.)
Cowboy Bebop Trigun Naruto Noir Vanguard True Lunar Chronicles (Tsukihime) Monster Ghost in the Shell: Stand-alone Complex Bleach (though I personally stopped watching at ep. 13. you may agree with me there or stick with it:) )
Good Movies: Vampire Hunter D (and sequel, Bloodlust) Metropolitan (older animation style) Cowboy Bebop (hopefully you'll grab this as soon as you finish the series)
I feel as though there are many many shows I haven't been able to remember that were really good also. Good luck with exploring the world of anime yourself. Other advice I have for you: Watch everything you can in the original Japanese with English subtitles (subs). To give you an idea, my friends and I once set up a show playing with subtitles, turned the sound down, and played the sound of the dubs over that. It was very funny, yet sad, how they did not AT ALL match. Wasn't even the same show. Characters might be saying something like "I feel as though I have been looking through a foggy glass the whole time. Thank you for rescuing me." and the English dubs would be like "Nice dress! Did I ever tell you you're cute???"
Sorry to post on myself, but I just thought of this.
People are upset because other people are taking their product, modifying it ever-so-slightly, and selling it. Isn't that like selling a batch of cookies, along with the recipe for those cookies, and then complaining when someone else bakes those same cookies (or slightly modified cookies) and sells them?
From what I'm hearing, my analogy needs to add the condition that the original seller of the recipe, in the GPL, is saying, "Here's the recipe, but don't ever sell these cookies or I'll sue you (or whatever)."
To me, that's one of 2 things. It's a very devious way of tempting the otherwise innocent into a situation where you would be able to sue them, or it's just plain naive.
So.. here is as good place as any in the thread to post my question.
You say that open source is given away, and for the purpose of the benefit of others. Then you complain when someon takes this code that was, as you said, given away, (which I'm assuming to mean 'given for free') and uses it. True, perhaps they are not modifying it very much, and perhaps the GPL still protects the original code, but aren't these people just trying to use OS code within the intended measures?
For that matter, why IS there a copyright or a GPL on OS code? Is it truly open source if it's still protected? Are we supposed to somehow benefit from just watching the source scroll by our awe-glazed eyes and not actually touch it?
I am, by far, not the most informed person on this issue, but this seems rather absurd to me.
*grammar.. uh.. spitfire pilot?*
The gp phrase in question was:
"one of your only requirements".
It is acceptable to say this, because, if we consider a small group of requirements that are set apart from all possible requirements, they will be the only requirements needed.
For example, the phrase could be:
"one of your only four requirements".
Leaving out the number four only changes the meaning of the phrase to mean that the exact number is not known (and may not need to be known).
as long as how you make money has no negative impact on anyone including your competition.
Sorry, but I don't think you understand the definition of competition on the economic market. There is only so much disposable income in the hands of the private sector, and if that money goes to company X, it can't replicate itself and go to company Y. So you could say that the opportunity cost of buying from company X is the product you could have bought from company Y. The two products are substitutes, and are, by definition, mutually exclusive. Given all that, how can company X gain without harming company Y? Simply by selling one copy of their software (or one of whatever product), they are essentially taking the opportunity out of company Y's hands.
In short, competitors in a capitalist economy must harm each other, or they are not competing.
stop with the moronic rumors that have NO BASIS IN FACT WHAT-SO-EVER.
Your suggestions of a book-search program, etc. are no more based in fact than the suggestion of a web browser. In fact, the suggestion that Google is doing nothing with the domain name is not based in any fact either. It's simply unknown.
Having said that, I actually think it's a quite fair assumption that, if Google is doing anything related to the domain name, it could very well be a web browser, since they are a search engine company, and the term "browser" has become associated with applications that..well, "browse" the web.
Some rumors start for good reasons.
If Google made a distro that featured Google made products (and it catches on) the zeloats will just have another Windows to complain about.
I think Google would be infinitely better at the OS game than MS. First off, I think they wouldn't be somehow afraid of open source. Secondly, if they're even reasonably smart (which they have, IMO, more than proven themselves to be), they will learn from MS's myriad of mistakes and build a kickass OS the first time.
Some of the ways they could go one-up on MS I have thought of: - keep it simple: don't bundle all sorts of software in the install.. or at least make it required that some sort of optimization process occurs during install (yes, i want this, no i don't want that)...maybe "further applications" could be available for download once you have installed - as mentioned, go open source - go cheaper than MS (big reason to switch over) - code it right the first time: no one is perfect, but i honestly think that google's coders could be better than MS's.. and google can learn from MS's past bad strategies with software patching - plan functionality from the start: if you want your apps to cover all your user's needs, you should consider what those needs are. i'm not saying google would need to write all the apps for their OS, since 3rd party software still plays a huge part in computing. however, google certainly could do this. (googleIM, GMail, GBrowser, maybe GWrite, GPaint, etc.)... I say this because I am all for OS-integrated apps _that work well_.
I truly hope Google finds it profitable or otherwise worthwhile to build GoogleOS. If I were Google, I would do it just to give MS some serious competition, and drive MS prices down and quality (hopefully) up. Of course, even if that did happen, I would likely stay with GoogleOS. =)
Whew.. didn't mean to ramble that long. Took longer to say than to think.
Re:Just because we can?
on
Flying By Brain
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Merriam Webster defines conscious as: 1 : perceiving, apprehending, or noticing with a degree of controlled thought or observation 2 archaic : sharing another's knowledge or awareness of an inward state or outward fact
Also, consciousness is: 1 a : the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself b : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact
I think the question we are really worried about is: When does a neural network become a living, sentient being?
True, a biological neural network has been alive from day 1, and a consciousness is what we generally attribute sentience to, but consider this:
One poster commented that we might possibly create a sentient being that could feel pain and was, in fact, feeling constant pain, but unable to communicate this to us. What if we simply created the neural network without the ability to ever feel pain? (How, you ask? As I understand, pain is interpreted as a chemical change in a sensory nerve.. I didn't do too well in HS biology, so don't quote me.)
In short, we could make sentient beings with our installed sense of motives (10 laws of robotics perhaps?) and no ability to feel pain. Sentient, but not human, you might say. This would seem, to me, perfectly ethical (speaking to grandparent here) and practical.
Slashdot Mirror
and, in either case, the world's second profession was probably the selling of said hoes...*rimshot*
Neal, is that you??
first post? weird... maybe i just don't see them yet
come now, surely you can imagine a multi-plex painting one theater room with the paint, and advertising that one room as "cell phone free". you could advertise it as a benefit... hell, you could probably even charge extra for films shown in it.
how about 'What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?'.... i would think that would be the obvious question :P
I do not believe that Google's actions in China are evil. Censorship by itself is a completely neutral action. Take, for example, the censorship of child pornography in the United States. This is a censorship that is clearly not evil, and one for which I am glad. An important thing to note is this- Google is not the entity which made child pornography illegal; it was the U.S. gov't. In the same way, Google cannot and should not presume to be able legislate anything in China either.
So, just as Google neutrally censors child porn in the U.S., it neutrally censors banned materials in China.
If you are still not convinced, consider instead this question: Is Google harming the people of China by censoring certain materials, or are they HELPING the people of China as much as they legally can by providing them with as much of their service as possible?
You sound as if you are angry at Google. Why is your anger not directed at the Chinese government? I strongly agree that the censorship in China is a political issue, and one that should be addressed by the governments of the world, not by individual corporations- and the corporations should definitely not be singled out like this.
How many 'Made in China' shirts do YOU own?
explain how the undoing of a terrible act can be noble.
www.m-w.com
1 a : possessing outstanding qualities : ILLUSTRIOUS b : FAMOUS, NOTABLE (noble deeds)
3 a : possessing very high or excellent qualities or properties (noble wine) b : very good or excellent
5 : possessing, characterized by, or arising from superiority of mind or character or of ideals or morals : LOFTY (a noble ambition)
(I skipped definitions 2 and 4 because I didn't think you wanted to hear about nobility or noble gases)
Seems to me that reversing a terrible act would be a *good* thing, kinda like in definition 3b there.
the fact that our universe's expansion was supposedly accelerating, I formulated an impromptu theory of my own, which is (imo) equally likely and silly. here it goes.
our universe- the big nothing- is surrounded by super-dense matter- the big everything, if you will- and the super-dense matter is pulling everything in our universe out toward the edge. (yes, it did all start in the middle in accordance with the big bang.) i suppose you could call this theory 'the big tear' or 'the big rip', since everything is just being pulled apart.
what's outside 'the big everything', you ask? perhaps we are like one little spherical hole in a sponge, or in a block of swiss. perhaps there are many many other 'verses in their own bubbles.
yup, that's what i'm sticking with.
Oddly enough, I just experienced this today. I had been taking a nap (since I was pretty short on sleep) between classes and work today. I woke up from my nap still feeling tired, but I forced myself to get up, because I wanted to get stuff done and not just sleep until work. I sat at my computer for about 15 minutes, still feeling groggy. I cranked up some music to try to wake me up- to no effect. I eventually left the house to get something to eat.
/. to find this article... weird.
On the drive to Taco Bell, my response times were slightly slowed, and my thought processes weren't very deep. However, I noticed that I was tired before I got in my car, so I made a conscious effort to not let that endanger my drive. For example, I kept a longer following distance, and made sure to use my turn signal well in advance, etc. I have never been drunk, but I definitely felt like my driving was not quite up to par.
I have driven while tired before, but for some odd reason I was more conscious about it today. Then I came back to
why the lights merge, divide and disappear.
:).
It's a highway now, but we know it wasn't a highway in 1883. However, what most likely laid along the path of what is now the highway? A trail or a road. And what traveled along roads? Wagons. At night, these wagons would surely have lights attached to them, which, if viewed from the side, would appear to "merge, divide and disappear" as the wagons moved by at different speeds. That's just a guess, but worth looking into. Someone more interested should do that for me
I don't know where you got the 27MB/s [sic, I assume you meant Mb/s] number, but this is what I found from TFA:
The Tapestry holographic system can store more than 26 hours of broadcast-quality high-definition video on a single 300 gigabyte (GB) disk, recorded at a 160 megabit per second (Mb/s) data rate.
Customer shipments of the 300 GB InPhase Tapestry product will commence in 2006, representing the initial offering in the family of InPhase holographic drives and media, which have capacities ranging up to 1.6 terabytes (TB) and data rates of 960 Mb/s.
I couldn't agree with you more. I suggest we make the fuel cell a goal to be reached, like private space flight. Make a contest out of it, with a big cash prize. Of course, the best option would win and would hopefully go into production... now all we need is an independently wealthy philanthropist who is tired of double-A's.
It all depends on what motivates the company. Let's imagine we're the power company, and we can go about this idea any way we want. What are we going to consider?
Cost
Ways to profit
Is this going to be a fad or long-term?
Ease of Implementation
Reliability
I think BPL would probably beat your idea (inventive though it was) in cost, ease, and reliability.
but who is going to train the meter reading populace to do the IT jobs?
... "That's what I'm saying."
:)
It can't be that hard. "You mean to say that all I have to do is read this number off of my monitor, just like i was reading it off the meter, and charge them accordingly?"
Sometimes you have to put the needs of everyone else, and the world, before your own.
Many important inventions in the age of technology (and before that also) were a result of people thinking of their own needs (or, if it sounds better to you, 'the greater good of all'), even if it would inconvenience everyone's current way of life.
Fuck you, at least you got Internet access, some people don't have broadband at all. That's terribly unfortunate for you... I hear there's this new promising service coming out soon called BPL that may interest you...
This idea would not fly with Google. While it is true that they say "don't delete, archive" for emails, this is because they want to be able to use your emails for directing personalized ads to you. Not news, I know. The difference between that and logging IMs in a similar fashion on their servers is this: emails usually have a fair bit of content and are often about one topic (or they at least stay on one topic for a while before jumping to another. depends on the type of email, whether it's personal, business, spam (ugh), etc.). IMs, on the other hand, usually go like this: "yo" "hi" "where's john?" "saw him earlier" "why didn't he call me?" "i dunno" "wanna go grab a coffee?" ... you get the idea. Not useful for Google at all.
Hentai does exist, and can be generally used to describe any anime that would be rated NC-17 or X because of nudity and sexual themes. That said, some animes will flash the occasional boob, panty shot (some more than others here), and not be considered hentai by the anime world. It's up to you to decide what you're comfortable watching. Despite what 'they' may have told you, most anime is not for kids. At all.
:) )
Good anime series: (Haven't read other replies to this as they are below threshold, so sorry for repeats. Also, having now completed the list, I'm not sure how much of the japanese culture you'll learn from these. Most of them take place in settings that clearly aren't, or aren't supposed to be, Japan.)
Cowboy Bebop
Trigun
Naruto
Noir
Vanguard
True Lunar Chronicles (Tsukihime)
Monster
Ghost in the Shell: Stand-alone Complex
Bleach (though I personally stopped watching at ep. 13. you may agree with me there or stick with it
Good Movies:
Vampire Hunter D (and sequel, Bloodlust)
Metropolitan (older animation style)
Cowboy Bebop (hopefully you'll grab this as soon as you finish the series)
I feel as though there are many many shows I haven't been able to remember that were really good also. Good luck with exploring the world of anime yourself. Other advice I have for you: Watch everything you can in the original Japanese with English subtitles (subs). To give you an idea, my friends and I once set up a show playing with subtitles, turned the sound down, and played the sound of the dubs over that. It was very funny, yet sad, how they did not AT ALL match. Wasn't even the same show. Characters might be saying something like "I feel as though I have been looking through a foggy glass the whole time. Thank you for rescuing me." and the English dubs would be like "Nice dress! Did I ever tell you you're cute???"
Anyway, done with that rant.
Stand really still for a couple of passes, and you could be a statue .. in .. SF.. oh, never mind.
um... that's .. not .. backwards
Sorry to post on myself, but I just thought of this.
People are upset because other people are taking their product, modifying it ever-so-slightly, and selling it. Isn't that like selling a batch of cookies, along with the recipe for those cookies, and then complaining when someone else bakes those same cookies (or slightly modified cookies) and sells them?
From what I'm hearing, my analogy needs to add the condition that the original seller of the recipe, in the GPL, is saying, "Here's the recipe, but don't ever sell these cookies or I'll sue you (or whatever)."
To me, that's one of 2 things. It's a very devious way of tempting the otherwise innocent into a situation where you would be able to sue them, or it's just plain naive.
So.. here is as good place as any in the thread to post my question.
You say that open source is given away, and for the purpose of the benefit of others. Then you complain when someon takes this code that was, as you said, given away, (which I'm assuming to mean 'given for free') and uses it. True, perhaps they are not modifying it very much, and perhaps the GPL still protects the original code, but aren't these people just trying to use OS code within the intended measures?
For that matter, why IS there a copyright or a GPL on OS code? Is it truly open source if it's still protected? Are we supposed to somehow benefit from just watching the source scroll by our awe-glazed eyes and not actually touch it?
I am, by far, not the most informed person on this issue, but this seems rather absurd to me.
*grammar.. uh.. spitfire pilot?*
The gp phrase in question was:
"one of your only requirements".
It is acceptable to say this, because, if we consider a small group of requirements that are set apart from all possible requirements, they will be the only requirements needed.
For example, the phrase could be:
"one of your only four requirements".
Leaving out the number four only changes the meaning of the phrase to mean that the exact number is not known (and may not need to be known).
as long as how you make money has no negative impact on anyone including your competition.
Sorry, but I don't think you understand the definition of competition on the economic market. There is only so much disposable income in the hands of the private sector, and if that money goes to company X, it can't replicate itself and go to company Y. So you could say that the opportunity cost of buying from company X is the product you could have bought from company Y. The two products are substitutes, and are, by definition, mutually exclusive. Given all that, how can company X gain without harming company Y? Simply by selling one copy of their software (or one of whatever product), they are essentially taking the opportunity out of company Y's hands.
In short, competitors in a capitalist economy must harm each other, or they are not competing.
stop with the moronic rumors that have NO BASIS IN FACT WHAT-SO-EVER.
..well, "browse" the web.
Your suggestions of a book-search program, etc. are no more based in fact than the suggestion of a web browser. In fact, the suggestion that Google is doing nothing with the domain name is not based in any fact either. It's simply unknown.
Having said that, I actually think it's a quite fair assumption that, if Google is doing anything related to the domain name, it could very well be a web browser, since they are a search engine company, and the term "browser" has become associated with applications that
Some rumors start for good reasons.
If Google made a distro that featured Google made products (and it catches on) the zeloats will just have another Windows to complain about.
... I say this because I am all for OS-integrated apps _that work well_.
I think Google would be infinitely better at the OS game than MS. First off, I think they wouldn't be somehow afraid of open source. Secondly, if they're even reasonably smart (which they have, IMO, more than proven themselves to be), they will learn from MS's myriad of mistakes and build a kickass OS the first time.
Some of the ways they could go one-up on MS I have thought of:
- keep it simple: don't bundle all sorts of software in the install.. or at least make it required that some sort of optimization process occurs during install (yes, i want this, no i don't want that)...maybe "further applications" could be available for download once you have installed
- as mentioned, go open source
- go cheaper than MS (big reason to switch over)
- code it right the first time: no one is perfect, but i honestly think that google's coders could be better than MS's.. and google can learn from MS's past bad strategies with software patching
- plan functionality from the start: if you want your apps to cover all your user's needs, you should consider what those needs are. i'm not saying google would need to write all the apps for their OS, since 3rd party software still plays a huge part in computing. however, google certainly could do this. (googleIM, GMail, GBrowser, maybe GWrite, GPaint, etc.)
I truly hope Google finds it profitable or otherwise worthwhile to build GoogleOS. If I were Google, I would do it just to give MS some serious competition, and drive MS prices down and quality (hopefully) up. Of course, even if that did happen, I would likely stay with GoogleOS. =)
Whew.. didn't mean to ramble that long. Took longer to say than to think.
Merriam Webster defines conscious as:
1 : perceiving, apprehending, or noticing with a degree of controlled thought or observation
2 archaic : sharing another's knowledge or awareness of an inward state or outward fact
Also, consciousness is:
1 a : the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself b : the state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact
I think the question we are really worried about is: When does a neural network become a living, sentient being?
True, a biological neural network has been alive from day 1, and a consciousness is what we generally attribute sentience to, but consider this:
One poster commented that we might possibly create a sentient being that could feel pain and was, in fact, feeling constant pain, but unable to communicate this to us. What if we simply created the neural network without the ability to ever feel pain? (How, you ask? As I understand, pain is interpreted as a chemical change in a sensory nerve.. I didn't do too well in HS biology, so don't quote me.)
In short, we could make sentient beings with our installed sense of motives (10 laws of robotics perhaps?) and no ability to feel pain. Sentient, but not human, you might say. This would seem, to me, perfectly ethical (speaking to grandparent here) and practical.