The difference between the idea of the religious and the techo-rapture is that the means of making it happen lie within our grasp... We have the technology, we have the knowledge, what we lack is the wisdom.
No, they aren't in our grasp, they aren't even close to being in our grasp. They're no more in our grasp than transmutation of lead into gold was within the grasp of alchemists -- we can describe conceptually what we would like to happen (we mix chemicals, lead turns to gold; we download our minds into a machine, get rid of our bodies), but can't say how it actually would work. Forget the technological problems involved, even if we could solve every technological hurdle instantly we still couldn't do it because we can't even say what it is we need because we don't even know what it is that makes a mind a mind. Forget wisdom, we aren't even close to having either the knowledge.
there's at least one way to do it that we know exactly how to implement: particle-level brain simulation. assuming you don't believe in souls, an atom-accurate (or possibly lower, if the speculations about quantum effects in cognition turn out to be true) scan of the brain, loaded into a physics simulator, is by definition a mind. of course, we're a few (dozen) orders of magnitude away from the capacity and speed requirements, but that's just a matter of time.
furthermore, anything we learn about the brain that lets us simulate it at a more granular level brings us much closer--the capacity to simulate at the neuron level is here right now; what's missing is the ability to scan at that level (and possibly some details about how exactly all the neurons interact, and what other mechanisms (RNA memory, etc.) are involved).
so brute-force hard AI isn't here yet, but it's not as far off as you seem to think.
how hard is it to sort existing CO2 by isotope? i remember reading somewhere that artificial diamonds made from pure C12 have a much higher thermal conductivity than ones made from the natural mix of C (due to having a more regular crystal structure), so presumably it's possible at least in small amounts.
My favorites tend to be the Irish whiskys, I just wish it were easier to get some variety in them in America--Jameson and Bushmill's are boring, Powers is terrible, and even Tullamore Dew is hard to find, let alone something interesting like Knappogue Castle. Any suggestions for other interesting ones?
bzzt fail. hoover tried a bunch of socialist stuff, none of which worked. fdr ran on a laissez-faire platform, then turned a 180 the moment he got into office, and tried a bunch of socialist stuff, none of which worked. (WWII solved the depression.) the difference between hoover and fdr is that fdr had better propagandists.
i still use VLC as the player-of-last resort on OS X--i've found quite a few things that perian and mplayer choke on that it will handle just fine. that said, i currently prefer quicktime with perian, if only because no one at vlc seems interested in implementing the software subtitle standards necessary for most current fansub anime.
otoh, i really miss the fine-grained keyboard-based playback controls when i'm in quicktime--"skip back five seconds", aka, "what was that? the phone was ringing" is a highly under-appreciated function.
i never got into escape velocityet sec., but i'd be very surprised if its mod community wasn't still going strong. they used to make the marathon people look normal by comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference between the idea of the religious and the techo-rapture is that the means of making it happen lie within our grasp... We have the technology, we have the knowledge, what we lack is the wisdom.
No, they aren't in our grasp, they aren't even close to being in our grasp. They're no more in our grasp than transmutation of lead into gold was within the grasp of alchemists -- we can describe conceptually what we would like to happen (we mix chemicals, lead turns to gold; we download our minds into a machine, get rid of our bodies), but can't say how it actually would work. Forget the technological problems involved, even if we could solve every technological hurdle instantly we still couldn't do it because we can't even say what it is we need because we don't even know what it is that makes a mind a mind. Forget wisdom, we aren't even close to having either the knowledge.
there's at least one way to do it that we know exactly how to implement: particle-level brain simulation. assuming you don't believe in souls, an atom-accurate (or possibly lower, if the speculations about quantum effects in cognition turn out to be true) scan of the brain, loaded into a physics simulator, is by definition a mind. of course, we're a few (dozen) orders of magnitude away from the capacity and speed requirements, but that's just a matter of time.
furthermore, anything we learn about the brain that lets us simulate it at a more granular level brings us much closer--the capacity to simulate at the neuron level is here right now; what's missing is the ability to scan at that level (and possibly some details about how exactly all the neurons interact, and what other mechanisms (RNA memory, etc.) are involved).
so brute-force hard AI isn't here yet, but it's not as far off as you seem to think.
puttycyg. it's a hack on putty to run local processes. (inside that, i run screen.)
sounds about right. (it's been fifteen years, but applescript's not that different.)
Use rice paper, then you can eat any extra printouts.
specifically a mac....
i wrote hypertalk on my mac plus. stfu n00b.
schizophrenia: a one-man unpopular religion.
how hard is it to sort existing CO2 by isotope? i remember reading somewhere that artificial diamonds made from pure C12 have a much higher thermal conductivity than ones made from the natural mix of C (due to having a more regular crystal structure), so presumably it's possible at least in small amounts.
My favorites tend to be the Irish whiskys, I just wish it were easier to get some variety in them in America--Jameson and Bushmill's are boring, Powers is terrible, and even Tullamore Dew is hard to find, let alone something interesting like Knappogue Castle. Any suggestions for other interesting ones?
anybody else used to hang in alt.pave.the.earth? "one planet, one people, one slab of asphalt".
word-based palindrome: escher, drawing hands, drew hands drawing escher
this is starting to sound like A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer....
bzzt fail. hoover tried a bunch of socialist stuff, none of which worked. fdr ran on a laissez-faire platform, then turned a 180 the moment he got into office, and tried a bunch of socialist stuff, none of which worked. (WWII solved the depression.) the difference between hoover and fdr is that fdr had better propagandists.
i still use VLC as the player-of-last resort on OS X--i've found quite a few things that perian and mplayer choke on that it will handle just fine. that said, i currently prefer quicktime with perian, if only because no one at vlc seems interested in implementing the software subtitle standards necessary for most current fansub anime.
otoh, i really miss the fine-grained keyboard-based playback controls when i'm in quicktime--"skip back five seconds", aka, "what was that? the phone was ringing" is a highly under-appreciated function.
Actually there was a time when Microsoft was hailed as the white knight in the shiny armor freeing us from the evil IBM empire.
Yeah but that was ~twenty years ago, which is like two hundred in do^H^H computer years.
Since then Lancelot has screwed the king's wife and is off in the wilderness slowly going insane.
so who's mordred?
well hey, at least it's an appropriate number of years. :-)
i never got into escape velocity et sec., but i'd be very surprised if its mod community wasn't still going strong. they used to make the marathon people look normal by comparison.
hebrew-speaking friends tell me that "El Al" means "on a plain", thus making the airline's name a truly horrible bilingual pun.
how about knuth arrows?
Ooops, typo'd the link code: Marathon Eternal.
There have been a couple Marathon mods that took about that long--Eternal comes to mind.
karma hit be damned, i finally got my fp!
but only a billionth of a geithner
I doubt Jim Henson and his crew thought of the show as a compilation of independent works.
isn't that kinda the definition of a variety show?
yeah, but the real question is, could he have brought home the gold for australia?