Funny he mentions one thing I was trying to explain to some dickhead here, that computers can't play chess. They don't 'see' the position, they have to do math to get it.
Lying to yourself to make you feel better about your lack of ability is one thing, but admitting this public and then calling "dickhead" someone who calls you on it is outright pathetic.
Your assertion that using math to do something means it doesn't count is, in itself, rather interesting. Is there some connection to anti-intellectualism here - do you think that math is somehow inferior to "human instinct" or whatever you think you're using to play? Or are you simply bad at math?
Having said that, I do use the computer to practice and analyse my games.
So computers can't play chess in some philosophical sense, but can in the sense of actually playing the game?
People will PAY EXTRA to cheat depriving themselves of any glory in accomplishment... for the empty bragging rights that come with having something you didn't earn, and which has no inherent real world value.
"Glory" basically means having bragging rights. It's not about accomplishing something, it's about having other people look at you in awe.
And nothing has inherent value. There's nothing in physics you could derive value from. Value is always a matter of how much someone appreciates a thing.
It's bad enough what they *wanted* to call it â" The Ronald Reagan Center for High Energy Physics
Well, seeing how the idea of a particle accelerator is to keep hitting the small and weak until they break so that you can profit from the wreckage, the name would had been quite appropriate.
You are in a single circular passageway, all alike.
I took a look at Dungeon Masters Handbook, and it seems to devote quite a lot of pages on how to keep the players from straying from the tracks. Various Internet forums back this up. So why would a single-corridor dungeon be a problem?
However, I do feel that a government that was more limited with that POV would work out better.
The problem is that if you make the government weaker, the corporations and the rich elite gets more powerful since there's less to oppose them, thus making things worse for everyone else.
Globalization may have put a serious dent into our standard of living, but considering how fat Americans are, we can afford to take the hit.
It's good to know that you can take the hit. But "we"? Sorry, but no: minimum-wage jobs already pay insufficiently to live without getting food stamps or equivalent, and there's further downward pressure there. Also, as industrial jobs disappear, those minimum-wage service jobs become the only ones available to anyone but the best of the best. And the situation is heading the same way in all Western countries.
If you are doing well, fine; but plenty of others aren't.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
Thus far it has only lifted CEO bonuses and left everyone else to drown.
A strong Indian middle class is almost as good for us as a strong American middle class.
A strong Indian middle class is good for India. It's pretty much useless to everyone else.
Those of us in the middle should bear in mind that CEOs do not see national borders, only markets. Perhaps we should emulate them. We have more in common with Chinese factory workers and Indian tech support than we think we do.
"Workers of the world, unite!"
You know, the time is getting ripe for another try. Nothing helps the Communist cause as much as unfettered capitalism.
Laws and law enforcement should be working on the harm personal acts afflict on the unwilling. Should there be a Law? is an excellent flowchart depicting the flow of reason that should occur in deciding what laws there will be.
And the reason I should simply accept this flowchart as authoritative is ?...
I will handle this in two different ways. The first one being who gives corporations their power? Government does.
No, money - or more generally controlling resources - does.
If corporations have too much power it's because government gave them that power.
No, it's because the government didn't do its job and rein them in.
Thirty years after Thomas Jefferson drafted the "Declaration of Independence" he wrote this warning:
âoeI hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
So Thomas Jefferson once again proved himself a smart man. I wish his wise warning had been heeded. But why are you quoting him where said quote directly contradicts your position?
I could go on but you should now have a clear idea why corporations exist.
Gee, thanks, I had no idea:o.
And you want to trust government?
I don't trust the government or, indeed, any powerful group or individual. I simply have more control over government than over corporations, so I prefer it.
The damn where my power comes from was privately built without any subsidies.
Really? The power company has set money aside to pay for all the damage downstream in case the dam bursts? Because otherwise it seems to me that everyone living there is being forced to subsidise the dam. And of course the continued operation of said dam requires cooperation from those upstream as well, by for example not drawing too much water from the river.
I suppose we can cut them slack on the use of public roads during construction and the electric network itself.
Blowing up the chemical plant requires building a normal bomb and sneaking it through a largely outdoor security perimeter.
Not necessarily. If you have access to a bazooka or something similar you can do it from the outside. Even if you don't, a simple high-powered rifle might be sufficient to damage a container or its cooling lines, or control devices, potentially leading to a catastrophic chain reaction/failure.
Or, given that terrorists seem to have access to suicide bombers, simply smash through the front gate in a truck loaded with a fertilizer bomb. It's not like a wire fence can stop it.
I'm not an anarchist but I want government as small as possible. A justice system is about it.
A justice system requires making and enforcing laws, at which point scope creep is both inevitable and desirable. After all, I'd rather have power wielded by a democratic government - which I can influence - than corporations (which I can't).
Did he add a sound modulator that makes the PEW sound every time he squeezes the trigger?
If it vaporizes enough iron to cut through a razor blade in 100ns, the expanding cloud of gas from the target should provide more than adequate sound effects.
I thought that thing died-out with Newspapers last decade? Or maybe that was netscape? (shrug). It's time soon will come, and it can join the dustbin of history along with horsewhips, candle trimmers, and steam trains.
Newspapers have been (at least here in Finland) busily expanding into the Web, where they adapt an ad-funded "article and comments" -model (just like Slashdot, execpt the articles are actually edited). They are in no danger of dying out.
Neither is Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia might have a different name, but it's the cultural descendant of EB. The various Wikias might spell doom, except that they link to each other and to Mothership Wikipedia everywhere appropriate.
Frankly, what is really needed is splitting Wikipedia into various Wikia wikis, and reserving Wikipedia solely for summaries. Namespaces are awesome, because they establish the context of what is being discussed; trying to cram everything into a single namespace is probably not a good idea.
Then again, as Google and other AI systems evolve, it probably doesn't matter what is stored where, for the relevant info is found anyway.
Ultimately Wikipedia's greatnest weakness is that it is a single Web site. As such, it must lay on some server somewhere. By contrast, Usenet groups don't lay on any specific server or physical location, and neither freesites. The current centralized design of the Web is an anomaly in the history of the Internet, and it causes constant trouble, both from the resource usage and censorship viewpoints. A future Wikipedia should be distributed and versioned, with the client program putting together a version to use.
Wikipedia is an example of why we continue to need printed books, and why the Internet will never be a complete substitute - distributed archiving in an unarguable format. If I have a physical copy of, say, Ricardo's The High Speed Internal Combustion Engine, it is easy to demonstrate that it is real - the binding, paper, ink and so on can all be analysed to show that its claimed publication date is correct, the pages can be viewed to show that they have not suffered alteration. No file can offer that security.
I think you should go back through - they've become very good at culling crap about anime and the like as a secondarly consequence of the push for citations.
So... does this make Wikipedia a better source for anime-related things? Does it make it a better source for non- anime-related things? Or does it simply make it worse?
The only thing made better by deleting information are page summaries.
Every single character from a book, movie, cartoon, video game, anime (pokemon, etc) gets a many-paged detailed entry while real people quickly get the brush because someone gets a thorn in their ass over something.
Anime character bios are unlikely to affect any corporation's bottom lines negatively; real people's ones just might.
I wonder how much deletionism is just plain old paid-for censorship?
Oooh you better be careful there, some Anonymous fan will come whining about how Anonymous is not a group but its a concept or something along those lines;)
"Anonymous" is the set of users of the set of Web sites known as "image boards". Since any two members of Anynymous can't be combined to form a third member, or in general any entity, Anonymous is not a group. Q.E.D.
What Anonymous is, is a bunch of nerds with unwarranted self-importance. But then again, they provide entertainment and drama on the Internet, so who cares:).
Do not challenge/b/-tards to come up with offensive content. We're talking about a place where nipples shaped like penises ejaculating feces is considered cliche.
Shitting dick nipples are not offensive, they're disgusting. There's a difference. That's why I was kinda disappointed with AMV Hell 0 -series, for example.
WBC, on the other hand, is offensive to pretty much every other Christian or really anyone - which, of course, is why Phelps found it: he got kicked out from all other churches. Even Ku Klux Klan refuses to have anything to do with him (which made for an awesome page picture for "Even Evil Has Standards" -page of tvtropes for a while).
Still, it's a good thing that Anonymous are letting Phelps be. The price of freedom is that even assholes have freedom. You can't silence the likes of Phelps yet demand freedom of speech on the Internet.
Hold on there, Stalin. Why not just save us all the hassle and ship them off to the gulag?
Yeah, why not? If I am told I need to have my brakes fixed, but refuse to do so since I'm cheap and consequently run over and kill people, I'll get sent to jail and have to pay compensation. Why would the BP executives, who were told they needed additional security measures but neglected that and went on with it anyway and got people killed as a direct result, be allowed to walk free? Does demanding the rich and powerful be subject to laws make one Stalin?
I'm sure the next batch of "supervisors" will be highly motivated to ensure that no more disasters befall the Proud Industry of the Motherland.
So you agree it would make oil companies act more responsibly?
Then you scale that down to your reef tank, and see if you would be comfortable adding that much oil.
Then you scale down the total amount of biomass in your reef tank and the size of individual organisms. Then you compensate for the amount of oxygen that reaches the bottom. Then you stop adding nutrients and cleaning the tank and/or the water; after all, the real Gulf of Mexico must survive on photosynthesis. Oh, and you must somehow keep the light from reaching more than a few millimeters into the water.
In short, an aquarium is not "an ocean, only smaller". But don't worry: we all know that BP, being a large corporation, is not going to be held responsible for the effects of its deeds. Personal responsibility is for the serfs, not the lords.
Offtopic, but that is a very interesting link you have posted, and to my eye, looks correct.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Stop bitching about US healthcare reform already. I'm sure you have enough entrenched interests to keep it broken for the foreseeable future. You'll keep on paying more and receiving worse care than the rest of the Western countries, due to corporate propaganda managing to convince you that government is bad and anything that benefits people is also bad since it's socialism. You'll continue paying a robber baron and have him have more controll over your life than a democratically elected government you might actually influence some way. So relax.
If you read the whole thing, I did state that growth would be curved, not literally linear. I meant "linear" only in the sense that it simply amounts to adding more and faster hardware and software...
That's not what "linear" means, and you shouldn't use the word in a context where it's likely to cause confusion.
but the fundamental nature of that hardware and software hasn't changed since the 1970s or maybe even before. There is something that is missing other than just quantity.
Well, no. Current independent robots have about as much computing power as insects, and behave just as intelligently, if not more so. There's no indication that there's anything missing, at least on the level we're currently capable of reaching in terms of raw power.
Correct. Each of those achievements has been due to nothing more than larger amounts of the same old hardware, following strict instructions ("rules") that were defined by humans, using essentially the same old software, and which the machines could not break or even bend in any way whatever.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Of course computers follow rules; so do your brains, namely the laws of physics. Or did you mean that they are unable to adapt? The very computer you're reading this on uses heuristic algorithms to try to keep everything working well, from protecting against viruses to managing virtual memory.
Or did you mean that something with a tiny fraction of the computing power of human brain isn't as adaptable? To repeat myself: Well, duh!
So yes, I say that those are not breakthroughs. They are the inevitable result of "more of the same, faster". That is all.
Having watched animals try problem-solving, I can't help but notice that they use the same techniques that humans do. Humans are simply much better at building models of the world (simulations, really), manipulating those models within their minds, and communicating them to each other.
In other words, when a real-time system accumulates enough of "more of the same, faster", it undergoes a qualatitive change.
While the feats are impressive, the pet rats I had as a child were vastly more "intelligent", in any significant way you measure intelligence. That still hasn't changed.
The rats have more processing power, and are programmed by evolution for behaviour you'd consider intelligent (such as self-protection and socialization) while your computer is programmed to help you with proofreading, compiling programs, surfing the Internet and whatever.
Slashdot Mirror
Lying to yourself to make you feel better about your lack of ability is one thing, but admitting this public and then calling "dickhead" someone who calls you on it is outright pathetic.
Your assertion that using math to do something means it doesn't count is, in itself, rather interesting. Is there some connection to anti-intellectualism here - do you think that math is somehow inferior to "human instinct" or whatever you think you're using to play? Or are you simply bad at math?
So computers can't play chess in some philosophical sense, but can in the sense of actually playing the game?
Makes sense :).
"Glory" basically means having bragging rights. It's not about accomplishing something, it's about having other people look at you in awe.
And nothing has inherent value. There's nothing in physics you could derive value from. Value is always a matter of how much someone appreciates a thing.
Well, seeing how the idea of a particle accelerator is to keep hitting the small and weak until they break so that you can profit from the wreckage, the name would had been quite appropriate.
I took a look at Dungeon Masters Handbook, and it seems to devote quite a lot of pages on how to keep the players from straying from the tracks. Various Internet forums back this up. So why would a single-corridor dungeon be a problem?
The problem is that if you make the government weaker, the corporations and the rich elite gets more powerful since there's less to oppose them, thus making things worse for everyone else.
It's good to know that you can take the hit. But "we"? Sorry, but no: minimum-wage jobs already pay insufficiently to live without getting food stamps or equivalent, and there's further downward pressure there. Also, as industrial jobs disappear, those minimum-wage service jobs become the only ones available to anyone but the best of the best. And the situation is heading the same way in all Western countries.
If you are doing well, fine; but plenty of others aren't.
Thus far it has only lifted CEO bonuses and left everyone else to drown.
A strong Indian middle class is good for India. It's pretty much useless to everyone else.
"Workers of the world, unite!"
You know, the time is getting ripe for another try. Nothing helps the Communist cause as much as unfettered capitalism.
And the reason I should simply accept this flowchart as authoritative is ?...
No, money - or more generally controlling resources - does.
No, it's because the government didn't do its job and rein them in.
So Thomas Jefferson once again proved himself a smart man. I wish his wise warning had been heeded. But why are you quoting him where said quote directly contradicts your position?
Gee, thanks, I had no idea :o.
I don't trust the government or, indeed, any powerful group or individual. I simply have more control over government than over corporations, so I prefer it.
Really? The power company has set money aside to pay for all the damage downstream in case the dam bursts? Because otherwise it seems to me that everyone living there is being forced to subsidise the dam. And of course the continued operation of said dam requires cooperation from those upstream as well, by for example not drawing too much water from the river.
I suppose we can cut them slack on the use of public roads during construction and the electric network itself.
Not necessarily. If you have access to a bazooka or something similar you can do it from the outside. Even if you don't, a simple high-powered rifle might be sufficient to damage a container or its cooling lines, or control devices, potentially leading to a catastrophic chain reaction/failure.
Or, given that terrorists seem to have access to suicide bombers, simply smash through the front gate in a truck loaded with a fertilizer bomb. It's not like a wire fence can stop it.
A justice system requires making and enforcing laws, at which point scope creep is both inevitable and desirable. After all, I'd rather have power wielded by a democratic government - which I can influence - than corporations (which I can't).
This raises a question: why do browsers need to support particular codecs? Media players use those installed in the system; why don't browsers?
If it vaporizes enough iron to cut through a razor blade in 100ns, the expanding cloud of gas from the target should provide more than adequate sound effects.
Newspapers have been (at least here in Finland) busily expanding into the Web, where they adapt an ad-funded "article and comments" -model (just like Slashdot, execpt the articles are actually edited). They are in no danger of dying out.
Neither is Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia might have a different name, but it's the cultural descendant of EB. The various Wikias might spell doom, except that they link to each other and to Mothership Wikipedia everywhere appropriate.
Frankly, what is really needed is splitting Wikipedia into various Wikia wikis, and reserving Wikipedia solely for summaries. Namespaces are awesome, because they establish the context of what is being discussed; trying to cram everything into a single namespace is probably not a good idea.
Then again, as Google and other AI systems evolve, it probably doesn't matter what is stored where, for the relevant info is found anyway.
Ultimately Wikipedia's greatnest weakness is that it is a single Web site. As such, it must lay on some server somewhere. By contrast, Usenet groups don't lay on any specific server or physical location, and neither freesites. The current centralized design of the Web is an anomaly in the history of the Internet, and it causes constant trouble, both from the resource usage and censorship viewpoints. A future Wikipedia should be distributed and versioned, with the client program putting together a version to use.
Incorrect. Cryptographic hash functions have been developed precisely for this purpose.
I think you should go back through - they've become very good at culling crap about anime and the like as a secondarly consequence of the push for citations.
So... does this make Wikipedia a better source for anime-related things? Does it make it a better source for non- anime-related things? Or does it simply make it worse?
The only thing made better by deleting information are page summaries.
Anime character bios are unlikely to affect any corporation's bottom lines negatively; real people's ones just might.
I wonder how much deletionism is just plain old paid-for censorship?
Because Encyclopedia Britannica would not have included the article.
Deletionists win again.
"Anonymous" is the set of users of the set of Web sites known as "image boards". Since any two members of Anynymous can't be combined to form a third member, or in general any entity, Anonymous is not a group. Q.E.D.
What Anonymous is, is a bunch of nerds with unwarranted self-importance. But then again, they provide entertainment and drama on the Internet, so who cares :).
But then the people might chose between the old and new systems rather than just get used to the new system deemed superior by the Slashmins.
And my ISP doesn't carry newsgroups, so I can't use the actually superior system. DAMN!
Shitting dick nipples are not offensive, they're disgusting. There's a difference. That's why I was kinda disappointed with AMV Hell 0 -series, for example.
WBC, on the other hand, is offensive to pretty much every other Christian or really anyone - which, of course, is why Phelps found it: he got kicked out from all other churches. Even Ku Klux Klan refuses to have anything to do with him (which made for an awesome page picture for "Even Evil Has Standards" -page of tvtropes for a while).
Still, it's a good thing that Anonymous are letting Phelps be. The price of freedom is that even assholes have freedom. You can't silence the likes of Phelps yet demand freedom of speech on the Internet.
Mod parent up!
It hit the bullseye.
Yeah, why not? If I am told I need to have my brakes fixed, but refuse to do so since I'm cheap and consequently run over and kill people, I'll get sent to jail and have to pay compensation. Why would the BP executives, who were told they needed additional security measures but neglected that and went on with it anyway and got people killed as a direct result, be allowed to walk free? Does demanding the rich and powerful be subject to laws make one Stalin?
So you agree it would make oil companies act more responsibly?
Then you scale down the total amount of biomass in your reef tank and the size of individual organisms. Then you compensate for the amount of oxygen that reaches the bottom. Then you stop adding nutrients and cleaning the tank and/or the water; after all, the real Gulf of Mexico must survive on photosynthesis. Oh, and you must somehow keep the light from reaching more than a few millimeters into the water.
In short, an aquarium is not "an ocean, only smaller". But don't worry: we all know that BP, being a large corporation, is not going to be held responsible for the effects of its deeds. Personal responsibility is for the serfs, not the lords.
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
Stop bitching about US healthcare reform already. I'm sure you have enough entrenched interests to keep it broken for the foreseeable future. You'll keep on paying more and receiving worse care than the rest of the Western countries, due to corporate propaganda managing to convince you that government is bad and anything that benefits people is also bad since it's socialism. You'll continue paying a robber baron and have him have more controll over your life than a democratically elected government you might actually influence some way. So relax.
That's not what "linear" means, and you shouldn't use the word in a context where it's likely to cause confusion.
Well, no. Current independent robots have about as much computing power as insects, and behave just as intelligently, if not more so. There's no indication that there's anything missing, at least on the level we're currently capable of reaching in terms of raw power.
I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. Of course computers follow rules; so do your brains, namely the laws of physics. Or did you mean that they are unable to adapt? The very computer you're reading this on uses heuristic algorithms to try to keep everything working well, from protecting against viruses to managing virtual memory.
Or did you mean that something with a tiny fraction of the computing power of human brain isn't as adaptable? To repeat myself: Well, duh!
Having watched animals try problem-solving, I can't help but notice that they use the same techniques that humans do. Humans are simply much better at building models of the world (simulations, really), manipulating those models within their minds, and communicating them to each other.
In other words, when a real-time system accumulates enough of "more of the same, faster", it undergoes a qualatitive change.
The rats have more processing power, and are programmed by evolution for behaviour you'd consider intelligent (such as self-protection and socialization) while your computer is programmed to help you with proofreading, compiling programs, surfing the Internet and whatever.