They have to go thru the trouble to make the card, only to find out it doesn't work. And their face pop up at the video camera's of the ATMs all the time with failed withdrawals.
I doubt they are making cards and showing up an ATM machine to use these numbers. They can buy merchanise over the internet, using each of their collected numbers until one works. Having a few bad numbers or accounts with little cash in them does not pose a significant problem to an operation like this.
What experiments are you thinking of? While I agree with your conclusion that this is not good way to recognize someone, I totally disagree that brain activity can not be consciously controlled. True, activity in some regions is less accessible to conscious control, but certain things are quite easy to control. For example, I can quite consistently regulate the activity in my left inferior frontal gyrus (a language area) by adjusting internal speech. If we did not have conscious control over our brain activity we would not have conscious control over.. anything.
If you want to retrieve identity from the human brain, a structural scan will do much better than a functional scan. The pattern of folds and grooves in the cortex is highly individualized, and relatively static. Functional activity is much more dynamic and inconsistent over time. I can, for example, recognize my own brain fairly easily because I have an unusual shape to my precentral sulcus on the left side.
Their idea of utilizing brain-wave signatures as "pass-thoughts" is based on the premise that brain waves are unique to each individual. Even when thinking of the same thing, the brain's measurable electrical impulses vary slightly from person to person. Some researchers believe the difference might just be enough.
One big problem is that while each person's EEG may be slightly different from the next's while "thinking the same thing" (don't even get me started on the problems with that phrase!), there is also a tremendous amount of variability in brain activity each time the same person engages in the "same" mental activity. Which is why normally when you are measuring EEG response to a psychological event, you measure each person doing it many, many times. The idea that you can identify a person with a single measurement seems pretty far-fetched to me. Especially with EEG where there are so many "noise" factors that influence the measurement (did sweat change on the scalp? did the person's hair move? did they "think the password" at the same speed this time?). I am very skeptical that this will be the best way to identify someone.
Well, it seems to me the problem is more that we do not have a non-invasive, cheap way to record brain activity in real time.
Once you connect the output of neural firing to some observable feedback, the brain itself will learn to take control. We
don't need to know more about the brain to accomplish this, we just need to technology to interface with it.
Agreed. EEG signal is so spatially blurred by the scalp that fine control is not likely to be achieved this way. Any reasonable
degree of control will require extensive training. People have learned to move a cursor left or right on a screen using things like
change in alpha asymmetry between left and right hemispheres, but it's not easy and it's crude.
A more likely future technology is a direct brain implant under the scalp. (There have already been several monkey
experiments where monkeys have learned to control robotic arms through electrodes implanted in parietal cortex). Just implant a small chip and have a wireless transmitter send the signals to the controller....
It's normal to be annoyed when a company like Verizon screws up like this, but lashing out at the tech support staff just because they're the easist people to reach really doesn't help anybody.
I disagree. Part of the what is so frustrating about dealing with a company like Verizon is the massive diffusion of responsibility. It is almost impossible to get a hold of someone who is really responsible and accountable to you, because everyone's job is so specialized and compartmentalized. If they can't solve the problem themselves, they should take reponsibilty for finding someone who can. We should hold each individual we contact responsible as a representative of the company.
You're saying that pot has the same effects as alcohol but without
the hangover? It seems to me the effects of these two substances are quite distinct. I'm not saying they have nothing in common, but they work on quite different systems in the brain, and it's quite easy to tell apart someone on alcohol from someone on marijuana (from a 1st or 3rd person point of view). Each of these states of consciousness are useful in their own way, but they are not the same state; one does not adequately substitute for the other.
In order to evaluate this claim we need to know about the reliability of the test. What is the variance if the test is repeated many times on the same RAM? Without this piece of information we don't know if 50 MHz is a small or large difference, or if even if it is a real one.
Re:Symphathy for Apple
on
Apple vs Bloggers
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Yes, but the lawsuit involves a more subtle issue: who is responsible, the insider violated
an NDA and leaked the info, or the person who reports on the leaked info? O'grady claims that
the information was not specifically requested, and he merely
reported on it when it was passed along to him. That's why they are framing it as a journalistic
freedom issue. Definitely a gray area...
The implication that the motivation here is to sell more drugs is ludicrous. Not that someone isn't going to get rich, but RTFA:
They gave a group of six monkeys who were taking these drugs a shot of AIDS up the butt every week for 14 weeks and none of them got the disease. In a group of monkeys who didn't get the drug, all but one did contract the disease. That's pretty damned good. Four months later, still no AIDS in the monkeys who got the drug.
If I were in a high risk population I would take these drugs.
Aside from all the other reasons why this won't happen, which other posters have mentioned, it seems to me that one of the big ones is that we don't want this to happen. One of the biggest advantages of these individual virtual worlds is that they are isolated - that's what gives them their unique character. Part of the fantasy of playing in one of these games is that you get to be someone different in each one.
My level 60 mage does not want to steal cars in GTA!
A) you think people can write faster than they can type
I'm sure there's a lot of variability in this. Some people can probably type faster, some can write faster. I don't
think it matters all that much. Either kind of transcription activity can take attention away from the interaction
with the teacher.
B) if you feel that the burden is on the student to learn or on the teacher to teach.
I think both have responsibilities to the relationship. If a teacher assumes that his/her responsibility ends
at providing information, then not too much learning is going to happen. Similarly, if a student thinks all
s/he has to do is show up to lectures and be there, not much learning is going to happen either. As a teacher
your task is to do the best you can to facilitate the learning of the student. It would be nice if all students came to you already knowing how to learn, but unfortunately it doesn't work out that way and I find it's always fruitful to spend
some time, even at the university level, advising the students on learning strategies. Many people have made the point that everyone learns differently, which is true to an extent, but there are some basic principles.
I think the laptop does disturb other people, both directly and indirectly. It certainly disturbs the professor. It can change the whole dynamic of the class, and thereby alter the learning process for everyone.
I'm a Graduate Student and I take my Powerbook to all classes. I pay for University and I'll be damned if a Professor will tell me how I'm going to learn and if I can/can't take my laptop to the class I am paying for.
Should you also be allowed to take your boombox into the classroom and blast it? After all, you are paying for the class.
Part of the job of a teacher is to teach how to learn.
If someone wants to stack the deck against themself, let them. Its not for her to regulate the way people learn. I really don't see why she cares so much.
I have to disagree with this. It is precisely the job of a teacher to regulate the way people learn. Teaching is not just about producing a set of material and dumping it on students, leaving it up to them to learn. It is about creating a process that results in student learning. That involves engaging the students in a particular way; some ways are more effective than others. Regulating the environment is an important part of this - you would not hold class on a busy street (unless that was the subject of the class).
It's a great thing that she cares so much, and students would be better of if more teachers did care enough to make decisions like this.
I totally agree with this professor. When I teach I often feel like I am in a room full of stenographers. It's a distraction to me, and definitely is not the kind of interaction I want to have with a student. It's also counterproductive in my opinion since the best way to really remember something is to process it at the deepest level you can - think about it, connect it with other thoughts and knowledge, etc. That cannot happen when one is focused on the low level aspects of the information, e.g. translating the sounds into written text. The visual barrier the laptop screen forms is also a problem. Not only does it prevent me from seeing the student's reactions, but it's hard to compete with all that light for a student's visual attention.
To counteract this I try and provide as much material as I can - lecture slides available on line before class for example, so they don't feel there is a ton of information that will be lost if it isn't written down immediately. This improves classes immensely.
I think more to the point is whether a liquid can be "wet". Usually we use the term "wet" to refer to a solid that is covered with or has absorbed a liquid.
What's always seemed strange to me is that prostitution is illegal unless you film it.
In other words, I can pay a woman to have sex with me if she is an actor in my porn film. I just can't do it for
my own private pleasure, I have to be making something for others to see. Bizarre.
I do research on mirror neurons... I work with Marco Iacoboni who is quoted in the article. I also play WoW.
One question that is not yet answered is just how realistic a computer generated movement has to be to engage the mirror neuron system, and what properties of the movement our motor neurons really pay attention to. Much of the research on mirror neurons focuses on reaching and grasping movements (since these are important to monkeys where the data were first recorded). Those kinds of things tend to be pretty poorly implemented in computer games in my experience, while gross movements like walking and running seem pretty convincing.
It would be an interesting study to compare mirror neuron activity while watching live actors to watching computer generated avatars. You would probably get more activity in gamers who are familiar with the virtual movements.
But it is possible that there are combination of different biological (or even social?) factors that lead to the cluster of symptoms known as Autism. There may be no one biological marker since this is a condition defined by its behavioral attributes; as you said youself, "I expect we are seeing several different viral and environmental causes of autism spectrum disorders". Then why would you require a biological test? If they show the behaviors, then they have the disorder by definition.
Slashdot Mirror
Very good point. Get into the online banking and transfer away...
They have to go thru the trouble to make the card, only to find out it doesn't work. And their face pop up at the video camera's of the ATMs all the time with failed withdrawals.
I doubt they are making cards and showing up an ATM machine to use these numbers. They can buy merchanise over the internet, using each of their collected numbers until one works. Having a few bad numbers or accounts with little cash in them does not pose a significant problem to an operation like this.
What experiments are you thinking of? While I agree with your conclusion that this is not good way to recognize someone, I totally disagree that brain activity can not be consciously controlled. True, activity in some regions is less accessible to conscious control, but certain things are quite easy to control. For example, I can quite consistently regulate the activity in my left inferior frontal gyrus (a language area) by adjusting internal speech. If we did not have conscious control over our brain activity we would not have conscious control over.. anything.
If you want to retrieve identity from the human brain, a structural scan will do much better than a functional scan. The pattern of folds and grooves in the cortex is highly individualized, and relatively static. Functional activity is much more dynamic and inconsistent over time. I can, for example, recognize my own brain fairly easily because I have an unusual shape to my precentral sulcus on the left side.
From the article:
Their idea of utilizing brain-wave signatures as "pass-thoughts" is based on the premise that brain waves are unique to each individual. Even when thinking of the same thing, the brain's measurable electrical impulses vary slightly from person to person. Some researchers believe the difference might just be enough.
One big problem is that while each person's EEG may be slightly different from the next's while "thinking the same thing" (don't even get me started on the problems with that phrase!), there is also a tremendous amount of variability in brain activity each time the same person engages in the "same" mental activity. Which is why normally when you are measuring EEG response to a psychological event, you measure each person doing it many, many times. The idea that you can identify a person with a single measurement seems pretty far-fetched to me. Especially with EEG where there are so many "noise" factors that influence the measurement (did sweat change on the scalp? did the person's hair move? did they "think the password" at the same speed this time?). I am very skeptical that this will be the best way to identify someone.
It's WE, not WHY. At least get the jokes correct.
Seems to me one of the problems with this name is that it's not immediately clear how to pronounce it from the way it is written.
We already have a pretty effective neural interface to video game consoles.
They are called "hands".
Now how long will it be until this sort of input is reversed and a game will directly impact our physical body?
You mean like with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)?
But, really more to the point, every kind of "input" you interact with affects your physical body, i.e. your brain, in some fashion or another.
Well, it seems to me the problem is more that we do not have a non-invasive, cheap way to record brain activity in real time.
Once you connect the output of neural firing to some observable feedback, the brain itself will learn to take control. We don't need to know more about the brain to accomplish this, we just need to technology to interface with it.
Agreed. EEG signal is so spatially blurred by the scalp that fine control is not likely to be achieved this way. Any reasonable degree of control will require extensive training. People have learned to move a cursor left or right on a screen using things like change in alpha asymmetry between left and right hemispheres, but it's not easy and it's crude.
A more likely future technology is a direct brain implant under the scalp. (There have already been several monkey experiments where monkeys have learned to control robotic arms through electrodes implanted in parietal cortex). Just implant a small chip and have a wireless transmitter send the signals to the controller....
It's normal to be annoyed when a company like Verizon screws up like this, but lashing out at the tech support staff just because they're the easist people to reach really doesn't help anybody.
I disagree. Part of the what is so frustrating about dealing with a company like Verizon is the massive diffusion of responsibility. It is almost impossible to get a hold of someone who is really responsible and accountable to you, because everyone's job is so specialized and compartmentalized. If they can't solve the problem themselves, they should take reponsibilty for finding someone who can. We should hold each individual we contact responsible as a representative of the company.
No....
You're saying that pot has the same effects as alcohol but without the hangover? It seems to me the effects of these two substances are quite distinct. I'm not saying they have nothing in common, but they work on quite different systems in the brain, and it's quite easy to tell apart someone on alcohol from someone on marijuana (from a 1st or 3rd person point of view). Each of these states of consciousness are useful in their own way, but they are not the same state; one does not adequately substitute for the other.
In order to evaluate this claim we need to know about the reliability of the test. What is the variance if the test is repeated many times on the same RAM? Without this piece of information we don't know if 50 MHz is a small or large difference, or if even if it is a real one.
Yes, but the lawsuit involves a more subtle issue: who is responsible, the insider violated an NDA and leaked the info, or the person who reports on the leaked info? O'grady claims that the information was not specifically requested, and he merely reported on it when it was passed along to him. That's why they are framing it as a journalistic freedom issue. Definitely a gray area...
The implication that the motivation here is to sell more drugs is ludicrous. Not that someone isn't going to get rich, but RTFA:
They gave a group of six monkeys who were taking these drugs a shot of AIDS up the butt every week for 14 weeks and none of them got the disease. In a group of monkeys who didn't get the drug, all but one did contract the disease. That's pretty damned good. Four months later, still no AIDS in the monkeys who got the drug.
If I were in a high risk population I would take these drugs.
Aside from all the other reasons why this won't happen, which other posters have mentioned, it seems to me that one of the big ones is that we don't want this to happen. One of the biggest advantages of these individual virtual worlds is that they are isolated - that's what gives them their unique character. Part of the fantasy of playing in one of these games is that you get to be someone different in each one.
My level 60 mage does not want to steal cars in GTA!
A) you think people can write faster than they can type
I'm sure there's a lot of variability in this. Some people can probably type faster, some can write faster. I don't think it matters all that much. Either kind of transcription activity can take attention away from the interaction with the teacher.
B) if you feel that the burden is on the student to learn or on the teacher to teach.
I think both have responsibilities to the relationship. If a teacher assumes that his/her responsibility ends at providing information, then not too much learning is going to happen. Similarly, if a student thinks all s/he has to do is show up to lectures and be there, not much learning is going to happen either. As a teacher your task is to do the best you can to facilitate the learning of the student. It would be nice if all students came to you already knowing how to learn, but unfortunately it doesn't work out that way and I find it's always fruitful to spend some time, even at the university level, advising the students on learning strategies. Many people have made the point that everyone learns differently, which is true to an extent, but there are some basic principles.
I think the laptop does disturb other people, both directly and indirectly. It certainly disturbs the professor. It can change the whole dynamic of the class, and thereby alter the learning process for everyone.
I'm a Graduate Student and I take my Powerbook to all classes. I pay for University and I'll be damned if a Professor will tell me how I'm going to learn and if I can/can't take my laptop to the class I am paying for.
Should you also be allowed to take your boombox into the classroom and blast it? After all, you are paying for the class.
Part of the job of a teacher is to teach how to learn.
If someone wants to stack the deck against themself, let them. Its not for her to regulate the way people learn. I really don't see why she cares so much.
I have to disagree with this. It is precisely the job of a teacher to regulate the way people learn. Teaching is not just about producing a set of material and dumping it on students, leaving it up to them to learn. It is about creating a process that results in student learning. That involves engaging the students in a particular way; some ways are more effective than others. Regulating the environment is an important part of this - you would not hold class on a busy street (unless that was the subject of the class).
It's a great thing that she cares so much, and students would be better of if more teachers did care enough to make decisions like this.
I totally agree with this professor. When I teach I often feel like I am in a room full of stenographers. It's a distraction to me, and definitely is not the kind of interaction I want to have with a student. It's also counterproductive in my opinion since the best way to really remember something is to process it at the deepest level you can - think about it, connect it with other thoughts and knowledge, etc. That cannot happen when one is focused on the low level aspects of the information, e.g. translating the sounds into written text. The visual barrier the laptop screen forms is also a problem. Not only does it prevent me from seeing the student's reactions, but it's hard to compete with all that light for a student's visual attention.
To counteract this I try and provide as much material as I can - lecture slides available on line before class for example, so they don't feel there is a ton of information that will be lost if it isn't written down immediately. This improves classes immensely.
I think more to the point is whether a liquid can be "wet". Usually we use the term "wet" to refer to a solid that is covered with or has absorbed a liquid.
What's always seemed strange to me is that prostitution is illegal unless you film it.
In other words, I can pay a woman to have sex with me if she is an actor in my porn film. I just can't do it for my own private pleasure, I have to be making something for others to see. Bizarre.
I do research on mirror neurons... I work with Marco Iacoboni who is quoted in the article. I also play WoW.
One question that is not yet answered is just how realistic a computer generated movement has to be to engage the mirror neuron system, and what properties of the movement our motor neurons really pay attention to. Much of the research on mirror neurons focuses on reaching and grasping movements (since these are important to monkeys where the data were first recorded). Those kinds of things tend to be pretty poorly implemented in computer games in my experience, while gross movements like walking and running seem pretty convincing.
It would be an interesting study to compare mirror neuron activity while watching live actors to watching computer generated avatars. You would probably get more activity in gamers who are familiar with the virtual movements.
But it is possible that there are combination of different biological (or even social?) factors that lead to the cluster of symptoms known as Autism. There may be no one biological marker since this is a condition defined by its behavioral attributes; as you said youself, "I expect we are seeing several different viral and environmental causes of autism spectrum disorders". Then why would you require a biological test? If they show the behaviors, then they have the disorder by definition.