not that too many people really care all that much about Power Calculator.
Speak for yourself. Power Calculator rocks! It's not regular calculator, it's POWER Calculator! It's the Chuck Norris of software calculators. We're talking abs() of steel. It'll tan() your hide. Power Calculator once gave a computer virus a round(housekick) so hard it got cancer.
On one hand, you're bringing religion into a discussion about technology. My initial urge is to stare at you blankly until you go away, or yell "keep your religion off of my science", or tell you that if you object you don't have to take part but you shouldn't tell other people how to live, blah blah etc etc. Most likely, I just wouldn't respond at all.
On the other hand, you correctly used "raises the question" instead of incorrectly using "begs the question", for which I want to applaud.
What to do, what to do....
Anyway, your statements were:
When does someone stop being human, once we can replace their body with a machine?
"If you could replace a single neuron with a device that responds exactly the same way, would you be less than human? All input to that device is the same, all output is the same, for all the neurons around it, absolutely nothing has changed. Now, imagine that you start replacing every neuron, one by one. After each replacement, for the natural neurons around it, still nothing has changed. When you are finished, you have a functioning brain that continues to process all input exactly the same as before, only now it is mechanical instead of biological. Now is it less than human? If not, at which point did it change into something else?"
It's an interesting problem, and if you are as intelligent as you seem, you can ponder it out without me contaminating your process with my opinions.
Is it just the brain?
Yup. I hope that wasn't a surprise.
What of AI then?
It depends on what you mean when you think of the term "AI". Like so many other terms, it has partially lost its original meaning due to overuse. By the very definition, though, it is artificial. A computer program designed to fool humans is not true intelligence. A computer program that emulates probable human responses is not true intelligence. Ah, but what if, similar to the above thought experiment, we could somehow copy a person's neurological responses... and put that data into a program that would simulate a complete working brain, down to the last neuron. Would =that= be true intelligence? Hmm...
What of the soul?
What of it? If you believe in such things, good for you. However, there has never been any scientific evidence* that such a thing exists or exerts any force over my choices or actions. So, I'm comfortable living my day to day life without such worries. YMMV.
*For those that would respond "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (which is a true statement), I would say "No, but it sure is an =indication= of absence." But as Carl Sagan said, "You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe"
Launch a watchdog application and let that watchdog application launch the real OS in a virtualized environment [...]
ALAN It's called Tron. It's a security program itself, actually. Monitors all the contacts between our system and other systems... If it finds anything going on that's not scheduled, it shuts it down. I sent you a memo on it.
DILLINGER Mmm. Part of the Master Control Program?
ALAN No, it'll run independently. It can watchdog the MCP as well.
The only thing holding back the web is people (like you) that continue to support the broken browsers. The reason that 90% of the people on the web use IE is because they have no motivation to change. It does everything 'well enough'.
However, if more and more sites were built TO STANDARD with a little conditional (IE only) statement thrown in saying "You are using a broken browser. Please download one of the following: Firefox, Opera, (etc); I don't care which one. They are all free and standards-compliant", people would be motivated to change.
If you run a free site, or a blog, or anything non-commercial (eg, you don't need web traffic in order to put food on your table), you have no reason NOT to do this. You do everyone a disservice by breaking your site's code to support a broken browser.
There were several items of disputable value in your post, but I will try to stick to ones easily proved false.
This is the regular excuse, but it doesn't really work this way. Students aren't thought to apply critical thinking. They are thought to learn facts and formulas by heart, and to fit a specific mold the educational material has created.
I will assume you meant to say taught instead of thought and reply that it depends on the _teacher_.
It's not a coincidence that some of the greatest mathematicians of the 20-th century never were good at math in school. Actually Einstein was pretty bad at physics and math in school too.
Oh really? Name two. (difficulty: can't actually be an urban legend. That Einstein myth has got to go)
Our brain has limited capacity[...]
Well, maybe =yours= does. (badumbump!)
In other words, the more you learn based on a "mold" applied to all students, the more limited you become in your views.
Again, it depends on the teacher. If your "mold" includes things like "Question everything", your stated limitation does not apply.
Instead we should be given our options and let us learn organically, based on what we're interested in and what makes sense in the context of each individual. This is how we're built to work.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, my interests were mostly along the lines of playing games. If I had been allowed to study only things that interest me, I likely never would have looked at a history book, or started learning a foreign language, or any of the other things that were requirements in school.
Apparently though some people think they're smarter and want to force their "wisdom" on the people around them.
Boy...I hate to be the one to break this to you, but... some people ARE smarter than others. Perhaps you meant to say that some people only *think*, falsely, that they are smarter than others. Upon that point, (if that is the point you meant to make), we agree.
The drive to build up every student's self-esteem has done more harm to public education than just about anything else I can think of (except perhaps the corrupt teachers' union). [full discloser: I'm a teacher]
Or you could, you know, switch to FireFox or Opera. It's certainly not Google's fault that you continue to use a broken browser that allows all those things on your list to affect you.
by twistedsymphony (956982) -Buying a DVD, popping it in and watching the mandatory "you wouldn't steal a car" anti-piracy add. You know the one that gets stripped out when they make pirate releases so the only person who sees it are the paying customers.
Actually, I wouldn't know the one you're talking about....perhaps I've said too much...
by 16K Ram Pack (690082) How about something at the start with the cast and crew saying "Thank you for paying for this film. We appreciate it". Real customers feel better, and those who ripped it might feel some guilt if they see it.
Brilliant!
Although, I'd still prefer to start with the ACTUAL MOVIE I PAID FOR.
That would be Irish comedian Ed Byrn. Other examples from this routine are:
No, there's nothing ironic about being stuck in a traffic jam when you're late for something. Unless you're a town planner. If you were a town planner and you were on your way to a seminar of town planners at which you were giving a talk on how you solved the problem of traffic congestion in your area, couldn't get to it because you were stuck in a traffic jam, that'd be well ironic: "I'm sorry I'm late, you'll never guess."
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break, that's inconsiderate office management. A no-smoking sign in a cigarette factory - irony. It's not a difficult concept Alanis. It's very rare you see a ironic no-smoking sign, although if you ever see one of those that say 'Thank-you for not smoking' and you are: fairly ironic.
Optional individual close buttons on each tab (or current tab, or tab currently under mouse, or...). And if you accidentally close a tab? "Undo close tab". Or open up the closed tab list and find it.
And many, MANY more features. It's like the best of all the tab extensions, rolled into one.
This is an essential plugin for anyone using a lot of tabs.
When you're feeling blue, you don't know what to do, sitting all alone, waiting by the phone... The world seems so unfair, no one seems to care. When your worlds are ripped and torn you've got a friend in porn.
Thank you for the porn! Though other folks may scorn the constant mindless sex and the crude special effects, it gets you through the day whether bi or straight or gay. When you wish you were never born, you've got a friend in porn.
When the night is long, everything is wrong. Your heart is on a shelf, you have to touch yourself. Reach for your old friend. The pleasures never end, and I think you'll find it's a friend you can rewind!
Thank you for the porn! porny porny porn porny porny porn porny porny porn
porny porno porni porniddly niddly new pornography for you, pornography for me,
You've got a friend in porn You've got a friend in porn You've got a friend in pooooooorn!
But there comes a time after which we actually run out of relevant data to put on it.
Trust me, if your "relevant data" includes pornography, you will NEVER run out of data to put on it. Call that "Gabriel's Law" if you will. ^_^
"In addition, Magic Carpet [...] featured a 3-D mode that utilized red and blue glasses, and a realtime stereogram mode."
Honestly, the stereogram mode sounded better on paper. With stereogram, you ONLY have depth information, you lose colors. So, it's hard to aim at your enemies. ^_^ 3-D mode was much better. And you didn't need a dual-core processor to play it.
Here is a copy of Alex's original newspost on the Toys for Bob site, to which TFA references.
The petition referenced at the end of the post is old and busted, and he gave the wrong link anyway. It was part of The Pages of Now and Forever
I know it's not SOP to RTFA, but for those of you that are unfamiliar with the off-the-wall humor that comes out of TfB, you might want to check it out.
Apr 11 2006 Star Control Sequel - Get Out Of My Dreams..
You know what I haven't done in a while? Written any news. Some things have happened but nothing you would be that interested in. We've definitely hired a bunch of people in the last 6 months (See? I told you so.)
The game we've been working on for about a year is scheduled to come out in early November or so. What game are we working on? That's the funny thing. I can't tell you. I don't even know myself. What I mean is, "I don't even know, (comma) myself." Actually that doesn't make sense if I write it that way. I just didn't want you to think that I didn't know myself, even though I really don't. I wanted you to think that I didn't know what game we're working on, even though I really do.
Apparently, Activision is going to finally reveal the secret identity of our game at E3, which is about a month away. Hopefully I will know what game it is beforehand because I am supposed to be demo-ing it down at the show. If you're down there and want to say hi, just try and find me. You never will. I'm extremely difficult to find. And I won't answer to my own name (Alex). If you think you see me and call out a different name, like say, Stefan Jacobs, look for the person that doesn't turn around. That person is probably me. You may think that makes me fairly easy to find but again, you are wrong (I can't remember the first time you were wrong but I'm assuming it's happened at least once). Most people, you will notice, will turn around to the name Stefan Jacobs.
So it's taken me my usual 3 paragraphs to get to the real meat of this news article. And here it comes: A Star Control Sequel. We (I) want us to do a Star Control sequel. Back in the early 90s, Paul and Fred and some other people made Star Control 2. Personally, I thought it was pretty amazing. It was like a drug to me. Not quite as much like a drug as the drugs were but very, very close. I know there are other people that loved this game too. Sometimes you email me and ask if we'll ever do a sequel. And I always tell you that I wish we could do a sequel but it's very hard to convince large publishing companies that a new Star Control would sell very well in the current video game market. But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send me emails requesting that Toys For Bob do a legitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.
Will you do that for me? Your old pal, Alex? If you were working at a video game development company who had 2 founders that had worked on a classic, epic space role-playing and combat game years ago for which you had recently re-acquired rights to and were hoping to convince your new parent company to let you make a sequel by asking for the public to send in requests for said sequel, I'd email you. There's actually even a petition online. I have no idea how to sign it but here it is: http://starcontrol.classicgaming.gamespy.com/petit ion/petition_signed.shtml
Q.If this was such a great year for movies, why are box-office receipts so far down from last year, even though admission prices are at an all-time high? Do you feel that there is such a growing disconnect between Hollywood and America that Hollywood had better wake up or face serious consequences?
Cal Ford, Corsicana, Texas
A: No, I don't, because the "box-office slump" is an urban myth that has been tiresomely created by news media recycling one another. By mid-December, according to the Hollywood Reporter, receipts were down between 4 percent and 5 percent from 2004, a record year when the totals were boosted by Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which grossed $370 million. Many of those tickets were sold to people who rarely go to the movies. 2005 will eventually be the second or third best year in box-office history. Industry analyst David Poland at moviecitynews.com has been consistently right about this non-story.
Additionally, you can read his ideas for real ways to revitalize the movie-going experience here.
The line between hardcore developers and the average Joe will start to get very fuzzy.
The people that think this are not hardcore developers.
It is akin to believing that because modern dietary supplements are so good, the line between hardcore Olympic athletes and the average Joe will start to blur.
Bruce Schneier has some excellent things to say about "security" measures that defend against movie-plot threats. If you don't read Crypto-Gram yet, go sign yourself up, and learn how counter-intuitive reality can be.
Slashdot Mirror
Gah! Dilemma!
On one hand, you're bringing religion into a discussion about technology. My initial urge is to stare at you blankly until you go away, or yell "keep your religion off of my science", or tell you that if you object you don't have to take part but you shouldn't tell other people how to live, blah blah etc etc. Most likely, I just wouldn't respond at all.
On the other hand, you correctly used "raises the question" instead of incorrectly using "begs the question", for which I want to applaud.
What to do, what to do....
Anyway, your statements were:
When does someone stop being human, once we can replace their body with a machine?
There is an old thought experiment that goes something like this:
"If you could replace a single neuron with a device that responds exactly the same way, would you be less than human? All input to that device is the same, all output is the same, for all the neurons around it, absolutely nothing has changed. Now, imagine that you start replacing every neuron, one by one. After each replacement, for the natural neurons around it, still nothing has changed. When you are finished, you have a functioning brain that continues to process all input exactly the same as before, only now it is mechanical instead of biological. Now is it less than human? If not, at which point did it change into something else?"
It's an interesting problem, and if you are as intelligent as you seem, you can ponder it out without me contaminating your process with my opinions.
Is it just the brain?
Yup. I hope that wasn't a surprise.
What of AI then?
It depends on what you mean when you think of the term "AI". Like so many other terms, it has partially lost its original meaning due to overuse. By the very definition, though, it is artificial. A computer program designed to fool humans is not true intelligence. A computer program that emulates probable human responses is not true intelligence. Ah, but what if, similar to the above thought experiment, we could somehow copy a person's neurological responses... and put that data into a program that would simulate a complete working brain, down to the last neuron. Would =that= be true intelligence? Hmm...
What of the soul?
What of it? If you believe in such things, good for you. However, there has never been any scientific evidence* that such a thing exists or exerts any force over my choices or actions. So, I'm comfortable living my day to day life without such worries. YMMV.
*For those that would respond "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (which is a true statement), I would say "No, but it sure is an =indication= of absence." But as Carl Sagan said, "You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe"
It's called Tron. It's a security program itself, actually. Monitors all the contacts between our system and other systems... If it finds anything going on that's not scheduled, it shuts it down. I sent you a memo on it.
DILLINGER
Mmm. Part of the Master Control Program?
ALAN
No, it'll run independently. It can watchdog the MCP as well.
The only thing holding back the web is people (like you) that continue to support the broken browsers. The reason that 90% of the people on the web use IE is because they have no motivation to change. It does everything 'well enough'.
However, if more and more sites were built TO STANDARD with a little conditional (IE only) statement thrown in saying "You are using a broken browser. Please download one of the following: Firefox, Opera, (etc); I don't care which one. They are all free and standards-compliant", people would be motivated to change.
If you run a free site, or a blog, or anything non-commercial (eg, you don't need web traffic in order to put food on your table), you have no reason NOT to do this. You do everyone a disservice by breaking your site's code to support a broken browser.
IE is not holding back the web. You are.
Huh.
A joke is when I repeat something funny we both heard somewhere else and we laugh!
... so delicious)
(The irony on this
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know they're just ripping off Condorman!
Which is exactly why Duke Nukem Forever is just so awesome! They REALLY took the time to get it right.
Those pirates are screwed.
Oh, when will Pirates and Ninjas stop this pointless, bloody feud?
...
And join forces to take out those damn dirty Vikings!
The drive to build up every student's self-esteem has done more harm to public education than just about anything else I can think of (except perhaps the corrupt teachers' union). [full discloser: I'm a teacher]
And, here's how it should have ended:
Torrent
Direct
Or you could, you know, switch to FireFox or Opera. It's certainly not Google's fault that you continue to use a broken browser that allows all those things on your list to affect you.
Brilliant!
Although, I'd still prefer to start with the ACTUAL MOVIE I PAID FOR.
One mis-click on a tab ... and you've just closed an important page with no confirmation dialog.
Tab Mix Plus
Optional individual close buttons on each tab (or current tab, or tab currently under mouse, or...). And if you accidentally close a tab? "Undo close tab". Or open up the closed tab list and find it.
And many, MANY more features. It's like the best of all the tab extensions, rolled into one.
This is an essential plugin for anyone using a lot of tabs.
Haven't you seen Blade Runner?
What will you PUT on it? But there comes a time after which we actually run out of relevant data to put on it.
Trust me, if your "relevant data" includes pornography, you will NEVER run out of data to put on it. Call that "Gabriel's Law" if you will. ^_^
Magic Carpet (1994) Honestly, the stereogram mode sounded better on paper. With stereogram, you ONLY have depth information, you lose colors. So, it's hard to aim at your enemies. ^_^ 3-D mode was much better. And you didn't need a dual-core processor to play it.
The petition referenced at the end of the post is old and busted, and he gave the wrong link anyway. It was part of The Pages of Now and Forever
I know it's not SOP to RTFA, but for those of you that are unfamiliar with the off-the-wall humor that comes out of TfB, you might want to check it out.
Denholm: Nice screensaver... I love the way the smoke seems to be coming off the top of it. (The IT Crowd)
Additionally, you can read his ideas for real ways to revitalize the movie-going experience here.
The line between hardcore developers and the average Joe will start to get very fuzzy.
The people that think this are not hardcore developers.
It is akin to believing that because modern dietary supplements are so good, the line between hardcore Olympic athletes and the average Joe will start to blur.
Nonsense.
In this country (Malaysia), wifi is free at Starbucks.
In this country (Japan), wifi is free at Starbucks, as long as one of the nearby businesses forgets to secure their hotspot. ^_^
Bruce Schneier has some excellent things to say about "security" measures that defend against movie-plot threats. If you don't read Crypto-Gram yet, go sign yourself up, and learn how counter-intuitive reality can be.
Here's a link.