Yeah I would think just throwing a pointed stick is a pretty ineffective strategy. But using another stick to give yourself a little leverage, along with bone tips instead of stone, makes it a pretty deadly weapon.
The atlatl, of course, is in a class by itself. That's an awesome piece of engineering.
I remember seeing this exact prediction made in 1980, with the same time frame. Progress isn't linear - we may never have real AI. Or we may have it in six months.
Besides all that, don't you think that your points don't quite match the observed facts? I mean, in most rampages so far, we have seen the perpetrators use long guns.
No, in fact I don't think that's true at all. The guy who shot Rep Giffords used pistols, as did the VA Tech shooter.
I disagree. Concealment is a pretty big plus for these kinds of people - if you lug a rifle around populated areas people start calling the cops. Beyond that, pistols are lighter, pistol ammunition is lighter and deadly enough at close range, pistols are faster to reload, it's easier to shift targets with a pistol, and it's harder to grapple someone with a pistol. Beyond that these guys are mostly penniless losers, and pistols are cheaper.
There are a whole lot of people out there who can hit the kill zone on a man-sized target from 265 ft. That's not a long distance for a rifle. A novice could probably do it after a lesson and a half hour of practice. Qualification range for marines is 500 meters from a prone position.
Long guns are almost never used to kill people (domestically, anyway). Your odds of being beaten to death with fists are five times greater. For the rampage killer pistols make more sense for a whole host of reasons.
Somehow you have to tell the gun where you want the bullet to go, if not with the laser than with the cross-hairs. There's no practical difference from the shooter's perspective.
I agree with this. It's a hideous cross between a web page and a free-standing application, giving you the worst of both in an unintuitive, bloated package.
I remember sitting in a physics lecture where the professor assured us no computer would ever have more than about ten megabytes of RAM, since stray gamma radiation would cause bits to flip at an unacceptably high rate for larger memory "pools".
I get what you mean, but the real culprits are of course the filthy rich people who spew out the most earth-destroying shit and level the greatest areals of rainforest...
... making stuff to satisfy demand from people like you.
It's easy to tell what somebody's politics are after a comment like that. If I refused to see movies because the people involved don't share my world view, I'd never, ever see movie made in Hollywood.
This. Guns are incredibly easy to make, and the plastic gun that comes out of a printer is only going to be good for a few rounds before it breaks. Anybody who actually wants to make a gun would do well just to skip the 3D printer and hop on the internet.
The project is interesting in that someday it might be possible to produce something better. I'm skeptical, though, given the materials involved.
Here we go again with the hyperbole. Foxconn employees are not slaves. Nobody who can quit his job and walk away is a slave. There are a lot of slaves in the world, and this kind of empty-headed rhetoric doesn't do them any favors.
Did you ever wonder if this explains some of the fervor in the US abolitionist movement? If I'm working in a factory in Maine and people ask me if slavery is bad I say "Yes, it's evil and should probably not be allowed." But if they say "We're thinking of moving your job to Georgia and using slaves to operate the machinery" then I say "Slavery is so evil I'm prepared to risk my life in a war to stamp it out."
I still cannot understand why the insistence on one person for 60 hrs per week when we could have two working 30 hrs per week.
Because you don't see many of the costs associated with your employment. One worker means one person on the health care plan. One person to manage. One person to train. One cubicle to outfit.
Also, for a lot of jobs two people working 30 hour weeks aren't as productive as one person working 60 hour weeks. The single employee is going to have a more intimate understanding of the code (in software) or, say, the patients (in medicine). It's not just that you have to train two people, but also in jobs where the employee is expected to figure things out you're constantly paying double because two people spend time figuring out the same thing.
When robots are sufficiently cheap and capable, as the economy expands in proportion to the resources available new production results in new automation instead of new jobs. The advantage people have always had is the "general purpose" nature of the human body and mind. Once robots are sufficiently general purpose the number of jobs for which people will be better suited is going to shrink dramatically.
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Yeah I would think just throwing a pointed stick is a pretty ineffective strategy. But using another stick to give yourself a little leverage, along with bone tips instead of stone, makes it a pretty deadly weapon.
The atlatl, of course, is in a class by itself. That's an awesome piece of engineering.
"creatures"?
I remember seeing this exact prediction made in 1980, with the same time frame. Progress isn't linear - we may never have real AI. Or we may have it in six months.
Besides all that, don't you think that your points don't quite match the observed facts? I mean, in most rampages so far, we have seen the perpetrators use long guns.
No, in fact I don't think that's true at all. The guy who shot Rep Giffords used pistols, as did the VA Tech shooter.
I disagree. Concealment is a pretty big plus for these kinds of people - if you lug a rifle around populated areas people start calling the cops. Beyond that, pistols are lighter, pistol ammunition is lighter and deadly enough at close range, pistols are faster to reload, it's easier to shift targets with a pistol, and it's harder to grapple someone with a pistol. Beyond that these guys are mostly penniless losers, and pistols are cheaper.
Understood. But he was saying the laser was only for rangefinding.
What I meant was there's no difference between using the cross-hairs to select the aim point and using a laser.
There are a whole lot of people out there who can hit the kill zone on a man-sized target from 265 ft. That's not a long distance for a rifle. A novice could probably do it after a lesson and a half hour of practice. Qualification range for marines is 500 meters from a prone position.
Long guns are almost never used to kill people (domestically, anyway). Your odds of being beaten to death with fists are five times greater. For the rampage killer pistols make more sense for a whole host of reasons.
Well, you can always file a lawsuit. But I doubt you'd actually win.
Somehow you have to tell the gun where you want the bullet to go, if not with the laser than with the cross-hairs. There's no practical difference from the shooter's perspective.
I agree with this. It's a hideous cross between a web page and a free-standing application, giving you the worst of both in an unintuitive, bloated package.
I remember sitting in a physics lecture where the professor assured us no computer would ever have more than about ten megabytes of RAM, since stray gamma radiation would cause bits to flip at an unacceptably high rate for larger memory "pools".
Reset? It was "overcharge".
... making stuff to satisfy demand from people like you.
Card doesn't use his work to advance his political views. Not that I can see, anyway.
It's easy to tell what somebody's politics are after a comment like that. If I refused to see movies because the people involved don't share my world view, I'd never, ever see movie made in Hollywood.
This. Guns are incredibly easy to make, and the plastic gun that comes out of a printer is only going to be good for a few rounds before it breaks. Anybody who actually wants to make a gun would do well just to skip the 3D printer and hop on the internet.
The project is interesting in that someday it might be possible to produce something better. I'm skeptical, though, given the materials involved.
What unrest? I haven't seen any unrest.
We do not condone slavery here, but Foxconn does.
Here we go again with the hyperbole. Foxconn employees are not slaves. Nobody who can quit his job and walk away is a slave. There are a lot of slaves in the world, and this kind of empty-headed rhetoric doesn't do them any favors.
Did you ever wonder if this explains some of the fervor in the US abolitionist movement? If I'm working in a factory in Maine and people ask me if slavery is bad I say "Yes, it's evil and should probably not be allowed." But if they say "We're thinking of moving your job to Georgia and using slaves to operate the machinery" then I say "Slavery is so evil I'm prepared to risk my life in a war to stamp it out."
I still cannot understand why the insistence on one person for 60 hrs per week when we could have two working 30 hrs per week.
Because you don't see many of the costs associated with your employment. One worker means one person on the health care plan. One person to manage. One person to train. One cubicle to outfit.
Also, for a lot of jobs two people working 30 hour weeks aren't as productive as one person working 60 hour weeks. The single employee is going to have a more intimate understanding of the code (in software) or, say, the patients (in medicine). It's not just that you have to train two people, but also in jobs where the employee is expected to figure things out you're constantly paying double because two people spend time figuring out the same thing.
That's true. However...
When robots are sufficiently cheap and capable, as the economy expands in proportion to the resources available new production results in new automation instead of new jobs. The advantage people have always had is the "general purpose" nature of the human body and mind. Once robots are sufficiently general purpose the number of jobs for which people will be better suited is going to shrink dramatically.
Eventually, either wealth redistribution or revolt will happen.
To be put down by automated soldiers.
They're demanding a level of service for something they're getting for free? Really?