I think you failed to comprehend what the original poster said, actually. I wasn't attacking him, I was just pointing out that a good encryption - in this case OTP encryptions - don't respond to brute force. At all. There's no amount of force that is sufficient or appropriate. Nor are they solvable. They are not only "good encryptions", they are *awesome* encryptions.
That's not updating. instead of my original OTP, I now have a new OTP of exactly the same length.
Yes, exactly. So... in what sense is this not an updated OTP? Are you saying that because it is limited to the length of the reserved original OTP (which I absolutely agree with, btw) that it's not new? It'll be different, will it not? And it is every bit as secure as the original reserve, is it not? And it serves as yet another completely incomprehensible stream of X to burn useless cycles on decrypt attempts, does it not? Maybe you're using "updated" in a way I don't understand, or as a synonym for "OTP of equal length", which is not something I meant to imply.
A good encryption should not be "solvable" - it must be brute forced.
How do you brute force (or solve) a one-time pad, where the pad was created from random atmospheric noise or any other truly random source?
[...]
...that's what I thought. You can (a) beat the message out of the sender or receiver, (b) sweet-talk the message out of the sender or receiver, or (c) steal the pad ahead of time (proper use of OTPs requires they be destroyed when used.) But you can't brute-force it or solve it. It's unbreakable. Properly implemented, you can't even determine the symbol size. And it's *easy* to implement; any PDA or phone has the horsepower to encode using OTPs to any size message these days, and what's more, to stick it nicely inside a JPG or PNG or MPEG or something as a LS-bitstream and fire it off, at the same time destroying the source OTP and *any* hope an interceptor has of breaking it.
The only downside (and it's really not much of a downside) of OTP technique is that you need the pads before you need the message. However, I actually can't think of a situation where that would seriously inconvenience modern users of the technique.
Oh, and how do you unbreakably update OTPs in the field? Easy: You encrypt them with the last/reserved OTP the other end has. Cyclic encryption of truly random numbers? Incomprehensible. It's just another 100% opaque data stream. Done deal.
Ah... no. God is about as likely as a talking teapot, or any other example you care to think of...
for which there is absolutely no evidence consisting of objective facts
which flies in the face of known science
for which the only available metric is some quantity of unsubstantiated, non-consensual belief
It is a straightforward cognitive failure to assume that something unknown has equal odds of being so, or not. Do flying pink elephants have equal odds of existing, or not? Does a troop of dancing fairies in an opposite solar orbit have equal odds of existing or not? Of course not. And the same is true for other superstitions and mythological propositions, such as parting of the red sea, or turning someone to salt, or "creating" the heavens and the earth, or even turning water into wine. They're not equally unlikely as likely, they are *extremely* unlikely and not likely at all. Or in other words, WAY over at the "what a silly idea" end of the scale.
Also, agnosticism (lacking knowledge) is not a valid middle ground between atheism and theism; theism is belief in a god or gods; a-theism is the lack of such a belief. Neither position is based upon knowledge. A person either believes in a god or gods, or they don't; and that makes them either a theist, or an atheist, regardless of any protestations to the contrary.
Nah, it's not what you think. I wired the building myself (it used to be a church, so it was basically an empty box when we bought it), and what I like to do is run one breaker, via one heavy line, to one outlet, lighting system or utility. I use multiple sub-boxes like this one to route power to everything, plus there is a generator and a set of special lines for stuff that I don't want to lose power - like the furnace, our food refrigeration, and our fish tanks. The way it works out is that the total load is low, but the capacity at any one point is high. The 50's are in the obvious places: central air, electric range, one in the shop, one for the home theater, that sort of thing.
This way, first, every outlet is capable of a full load if I want to plug a table saw or an air compressor, for instance, into a kitchen outlet. Even the GFA outlets are 20 amp. You never have to worry about the toaster being on plus the pizza oven blowing a breaker, either; each box has a calculated power budget for what's assigned to it, plus a decent margin. There's a benefit in terms of almost no star connections / wire nuts in internal wall boxes, either, because every line just goes from the breaker to the destination. There are a few exceptions; if ceiling lamps for a room consist of more than one fixture, then yes, I had to break the line, and also, light switches do it, but overall the building has a lot of wire and comparatively few splices and connections. That's worth some peace of mind to me.
From a monitoring point of view, since everything has its own line, if I watch them, I'll be able to spot anything unusual fairly easily, because (for instance) the toaster load never appears on the kitchen island line, and the stereo, fishtanks, etc. all have their own dedicated lines. That's also part of why I did it, but I've yet to implement the monitoring. Been kind of hoping to find some inexpensive commercial AC current sensors so I don't have to make them by hand, but so far, they're pretty dear. I'm in no rush, though -- lots more to do, this whole "build a house interior yourself" thing turned out to be a bit of a challenge. We're re-doing all the old gnarly casement windows in double-paned stained glass right now and want to have that done before it gets too cold for window sealants to set properly, and then... well, there's plenty more work where that came from.:)
It's just an idea I have, was thinking of using it in conjunction with my PD meter generation python library to snoop on what's happening in my house. I have almost eighty, 20-amp circuits, plus a few 50's; be interesting to have a way to watch them, end up with a big panel like this one (different project, but you can see how the meters are multi-use, etc.)
Given drivers for the A/d units, Apache, and python - all that needs to be done is build a bunch of current sensors, and that looks to be easy, if somewhat tedious.
You didn't understand what you read. I'm talking about a software em/sim-ulation. One that is undertaken at the level of (simulated/emulated) neurons. Not an organic one. Go back, re-read, and see if you can get it.
If it's over your head, fine, but please, refrain from jousting without a lance, eh? It's not much sport for the rest of us.
I'm always throwing code away because I went down a rabbit hole and came out with highly powerful building blocks almost as complex as the original problem:-/
(laughing) Yeah, been there. Writing my image processing software, At one point I needed to populate a list gadget. A coupe of days later, I have this huge linked-list-handling module built, does everything you can legally do to lists and probably some things that are illegal in Georgia and Texas as well.
The brain does need an I/O system. Simply removing sensory input and motory output will result in a brain that fires randomly
This is a straw... neuron.:) I wasn't suggesting any such thing. I'm just observing that the ability to think doesn't depend upon having any *particular* sense stimulated. Otherwise, blind or deaf people would be unintelligent, and we know that not to be the case. Give the thing input, of course, and derive output from it too. But you *still* don't need everything we have to come up with a thinking brain -- that's my point.
Besides, if you are building a model of a human brain, and suspect that this model will be functional - that is, it can think - then crippling it would be no less cruel than crippling any other human.
Not so. As a software system, it can be enhanced beyond its starting point far more easily (and for more extensively) than a human brain can. For a simpler start, you get a greater ending. I don't see it as unfair at all. It's just... different. Different may be just fine. Might even be better. Remember: We're the result of a random process; that result works, but it is surely not optimum (heck, I could point all day at non-optimum issues with our production and reproduction, not the least of which is that it is risky as hell for the mother, and that some results, after considerable time to learn, still think fox news provides a reasonable summary of reality.)
If it doesn't answer me for a thousand years, it never will, since I'll be long dead by then.
Wrong. That's like saying if you cut a tree, but the tree doesn't fall until you've left the area, it doesn't fall at all. It's not about *you*. It's about the AI.
Similarly, if it takes more than a small fraction of a second to decide where to put it's robot body's foot, it can't walk, but will fall on its face.
Also wrong. All decisions can be made before the foot is lifted, then the task carried out with no more than the usual fuzzy logic kind of local decisions we make. Biped walking doesn't require thinking - it's a *very* simple undertaking compared to thinking. We have lots of simplistic electronic/mechanical systems that can walk already, and they sure as heck can't think. And who says biped walking is the best target to aim for? A spider is a much better model, frankly. For many reasons; stability, generality, speed, terrain handling, simpler joint structure yet considerably more situationally adaptable, etc. Furthermore, just as walking doesn't require intelligence, intelligence doesn't require walking either, so really, your point is... pointless.
And don't think that you can get around this problem by making the thing immobile.
You have not identified a problem, except with your position. An immobile intelligence is not any less intelligent. Go see if you can outwit Stephen Hawking, then get back to me.
There's also the issue of scalability. Your brainpower is limited by what can fit inside your skull, while a computer doesn't have that problem.
On the contrary, computers have a very similar problem - they are limited in available fast memory and in how fast they can manipulate that memory. At the moment, they appear to be *more* limited than we are (but again, that could be an impression falsely presented by not having the right algorithms, and in fact I strongly suspect that is the case.)
Neural networks are also embarassingly parallel - all your neurons are working in parallel
No, they aren't all working in parallel - large bunches operate together, yes, but some are working with what you see, some are banging your heart around, some are pumping your short term memory, some are doing
Suppose you stare at a bright green object. Now you close your eyes. You see a red afterimage. No light in the range of 630-740 nm was involved -- but you see red anyway. It's not a "false" red. It's just red, period.
I think that what is going on (guessing) is that you're getting more input from receptors that were not stimulated, while the ones that were stimulated are relatively quiet for a little while.
Suppose you're dreaming. You see a bright red button on a console with a note that says "push me." No light involved. It's still red, though.
So you can't encapsulate that answer as "light of a particular range." It's also about perception.
And that's not even getting into what a particular person makes of it when the receptors in the eye send along a signal in response to wavelengths of 630-740 nm. You and I might perceive something similar, but Mortimer over there, he hears middle C, while Janet smells roses, and Fergus perceives a distinct lack of green..
I strongly suspect that if a brain is to be simulated, it will be done by simulation that begins at the "build it from following a cellular model", not the "build it from the DNA expression" level.
For one thing, to get a brain thinking, there's a whole lot of the brain you don't need. You don't need heartbeat and breathing regulation; you don't need vision, hearing, touch, etc.; you don't need blood vessels, you don't need carefully constructed layers of fluids... there is a *lot* about the physical structure of the brain that either isn't involved in thinking at all, or is involved in a way that we know you can do without (e.g. hearing.)
So a simulation job can be simplified IF we can get a decent model of neural structure and IF we can get a solid model of the neuron itself.
All of this is based on the premise of simulation. But it is unlikely that simulation is the only valid path, it seems to me. Just as there are a myriad ways to construct images and to sense light, odds are there are many ways to create cognition. We don't know how yet, but I don't think that's any kind of a signal that we *won't* know how. And the higher level this is done at, the less complex it will be, just as with most any complex software undertakings.
No doubt the knowledge here is pyramidal; you're not going to get to the top without building a solid base. Just as you're not going to be able to do rotation without someone understanding some really cool things about how and why sine and cosine interact; but once someone *does* understand it, *you* don't have to, you just need to know when you want to rotate, and by how much. And again, the "how" is varied; you can feed every point into a matrix multiply, or you can call sin/cos for every point, or you can do a table lookup on run-once-time pre-calculated values to optimize, or, if all the rotations are known, you can just hard code them.
Someone comes up with a solid library for doing neuron (and other active element) simulation, the problem moves to a higher level -- and you don't need to know as much about the construction of the neuron, more about connections and relevant states. Presuming there's no magic we're missing (quantum activity, etc.), the problem should be solvable.
If and when success is achieved by modeling after us, we might learn a good bit more because we'll actually be able to examine what is going on without killing the subject. And that in turn may lead to algorithms at a much higher level than "connect this here neuron to those thousand, just this way, and load the electrical potentials, thus, and the chemical potentials thus."
If we can get there, then we will finally know how much computing power we can get away with for AI. Because if the problem can be reduced to algorithms, then memory requirements will finally be known; CPU power is relevant only in that the more there is, the faster it'll go... technically speaking, it's still AI even if it doesn't answer you for a thousand years, as long as it eventually cooks up the correct response(s.) Think of it in terms of shoving a note under a door to Einstein in order to get a note back from him; if he answers you in five minutes, or waits until the next morning to answer, it's still Einstein's answer either way. That's why I say speed isn't actually a factor here -- AI is AI, the *only* relevant metric is does it work, or not. Speed is just an engineering problem, as long as we can determine it's working. So we need to find out what the memory requirements are, and what speed will get us an adequate response rate is a problem we can hand to Intel, etc.:)
Of course, once you have a "brain" in software/digital form, a simple copy operation gets you 2...N. That alone makes the undertaking worth any amount of effort imaginable: and I should point out, there are simpler brains than humans that might serve us very well for many common tasks, which reduces the magnitude of the problem yet again.
The one thing I'm pretty confident of is that it'll get done, and probably not all that long from now. years, maybe a few decades.
That's why I brought it up. I like it too. Doesn't seem like it could be interfered with, intercepted, or compromised; Doesn't seem like it could cause interference; I just haven't got a clue if it will ever be practical.
There might yet be something else, too. Physics continues throwing little surprises our way.
That's strictly a local solution; it doesn't address creating an Internet-like entity. How do you get a packet from NYC to London, or even Montana to Texas?
The FCC controls wifi frequencies in the USA, and can regulate what you can do with them. Quite aside from the fact that wifi frequencies don't get you long links -- they're basically only good for local and semi-local (with special antenna setups) connections. Even when you have a city-wide network in a big city, it can't grow into an Internet-like entity.
The FCC has long been complicit in awarding, maintaining and ensuring that access to the RF spectrum is thoroughly monopolized through them. That's why they never allowed local AM and FM stations at the citizen level worth a damn; that's why even the ridiculously expensive "low power FM" stations were only drizzled out, and even then, incompetently and mega-slowly; that's why HRO's are restricted from playing music, "broadcasting" (meaning, transmitting to a general listening audience, like SWLs, rather than just to other HROs); that's why any number of restrictions exist. The government protects and serves the corporations before the citizens get even one moment of consideration. And that in turn is part of why we'll *never* have access to a citizen's "network band" or anything like it. The other part is the government's perceived need to monitor us. That's only getting more intense as well.
What we actually need is a new *method* of communication, and worse, we need to get a jump on it before the government does. What? I don't know. But as different from RF as laser links are, and as non-interfering as they are as well. Quantum coupling or something. I don't know. All I know is that the Internet as it exists now is more locked-down and regulated every day. The odds of actually increasing freedom within its bounds... pitiful.
It's fine to build a better server. But a network is not just the nodes; a network is also the paths, and the paths, my friends, are not anything either the telecomm concerns or the government are going to allow us to control, or have any of our own. And this gives them, if they think they need it, complete control over these new systems. If traffic passes over their paths that concerns them, they'll just shut it down.
So while I appreciate the idea, it's literally only half-baked. Wake me up when someone builds an inexpensive network in unregulated RF space. Until then, control, and therefore freedom, is unattainable.
...no, but RF field intensities do decrease with the square of the distance from the transmitter, which could (not saying it does) explain why an effect is notable near a transmitter, and not further away.
Without being overbearing, now is the time to ask questions and make a permanent record of memories she has of her childhood; her experiences are what made her the person she is today, and this type of thing will really help other family members understand her a bit better. And once the person has passed away, this is otherwise almost completely lost unless an old acquaintance takes pity on you (and that's really not something to count on.)
I put together one of the deepest family genealogy sites on the net for my family - many thousands of well researched individuals going back to the early 1500's - and if there's one thing I've learned, it's ask [whatever] before someone passes on, or you'll probably never know.
And you know what? People are usually pretty happy to tell you the story of their life; all you have to do is ask questions and be a good listener. From the standpoint of your kids and later descendants, just add making a record. If photos are involved, make sure you carefully associate the stories with the photos.
Also from a genealogical standpoint, make sure you know as much as she does about her family connections. This information is all too easily lost.
You say you're making HD video; I suggest you make some audio recordings too. We can't always be watching a display. You might have her read a favorite book or poetry, or something else that can be listened to long-term while you or whoever is doing something else. Also, people are often more comfortable off-camera, especially if they are debilitated.
This is not a "disease" of the system - this is the system.
You are not only wrong, you are very wrong.
The constitution provides the legitimate framework for the government
Legitimate legislation must comply with the constitution, and legislators swear an oath to see that is the case as a condition of holding a legislative position.
The Judiciary must only act in compliance with the constitution, and they swear an oath to do so as a condition of holding a legislative position.
The executive must comply with the constitution, and the president swears an oath to do so as a condition of holding the presidency
To even give lip service to the idea that the government should exist or operate outside these bounds in any way is to advocate and support tyranny.
To any degree that the government is operating outside these bounds, it is entirely illegitimate.
The first issue is that the Sullivan Act isn't a ban on handguns. It requires a license to carry them.
Which directly infringes on your right to carry, which the 2nd amendment explicitly denies the federal government the ability to do. And then there's incorporation to consider. There's no way around it: if I don't have a license, and the feds say I can't carry, there's the infringement, plain as day. This isn't a power that has ever been granted the feds. It is a power they have taken in an unauthorized and tyrannical mode, and which they enforce by coercion and/or violence.
the question isn't whether the constitution supersedes local regulation, but rather what exactly the constitution means.
In the case of the second amendment, there are two clauses. The first is prefatory, and contains no instructions to the government. This phrase is of historical interest, but it does not enable, or disable, any power or right.
The second is explicit: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The meaning of the words here have not changed in any significant way since the amendment was penned. To "infringe" means to affect in any way, even at the meanest boundaries; "shall not" still means "no"; "keep" and "carry" still mean exactly the same things; "Arms", while somewhat broader today, certainly included an extremely wide range of weapons and weapons platforms, and by standing alone, obviously allows for invention, as invention and improvement was the perfectly normal order of business at the time; and the phrase itself can be parsed by anyone who knows what those words mean, or can look them up and successfully take in a dictionary definition.
Even a moderately intelligent reader will realize that the meaning of the second phrase does not change one whit when one fiddles with the objects in the prefatory phrase; in other words, even if the prefatory phrase stated "in order that teddy bears may not be abducted by native Americans", the second phrase would still constrain the government from infringing in any way upon the keeping and carrying of arms - swords, caltrops, firearms, cannon, brass knuckles, etc. So the prefatory phrase is entirely irrelevant as to the powers of the federal government. In this way, it resembles the preamble to the constitution itself, which is also prefatory / explicatory, but embodies no allocation or restriction of powers.
Things only began to get foggy when legislators decided they wanted to do things the constitution forbids, but were too lazy and/or cowardly to attempt the appropriate procedure, which is defined in article five: amendment. Then we began to see idiot arguments like the shotgun argument in Miller; the attempt to incorporate the explicatory or prefatory phrase as if it was a filter (not to mention the complete misinterpretation of what "militia" means in this context); and then of course there is the painfully naive "living document" mental meltdown.
The question is truly "What rights does the constitution grant, and where do the lines of those rights get drawn?"
That's not how it works in the case of the 2nd. The second amendment consists of two explicit restrictions on the government from infringing upon keeping and carrying arms (not just guns, mind you, which are a single category of arms, but arms in general.) These rights are not granted - they are defined as pre-existing and entirely insulated from any interference from the government.
There is only one way that the government can legitimately create any infringing law (including licenses, etc.), and that is to instantiate the amendment process, and further, to succeed at it. Since they hav
You deserve mod points for not quoting the Constitution in your post.
Where do you think "ex post facto" comes from?
SCOTUS justices are pragmatic philosphers, not objective clarifiers of the Constitution - cases are decided on personal philosophy and weighed against the impact on the government. The text of the Constitution is then mined to find justification of the decision, but it's just a formality.
You're describing the pathology; my interest is in seeing some/any degree of retreat from the situation you (somewhat optimistically) describe.
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I think you failed to comprehend what the original poster said, actually. I wasn't attacking him, I was just pointing out that a good encryption - in this case OTP encryptions - don't respond to brute force. At all. There's no amount of force that is sufficient or appropriate. Nor are they solvable. They are not only "good encryptions", they are *awesome* encryptions.
But thanks for playing: HDCUTWSVZPXYAZZC.
Let me know when you brute force that. :)
Yes, exactly. So... in what sense is this not an updated OTP? Are you saying that because it is limited to the length of the reserved original OTP (which I absolutely agree with, btw) that it's not new? It'll be different, will it not? And it is every bit as secure as the original reserve, is it not? And it serves as yet another completely incomprehensible stream of X to burn useless cycles on decrypt attempts, does it not? Maybe you're using "updated" in a way I don't understand, or as a synonym for "OTP of equal length", which is not something I meant to imply.
How do you brute force (or solve) a one-time pad, where the pad was created from random atmospheric noise or any other truly random source?
[...]
The only downside (and it's really not much of a downside) of OTP technique is that you need the pads before you need the message. However, I actually can't think of a situation where that would seriously inconvenience modern users of the technique.
Oh, and how do you unbreakably update OTPs in the field? Easy: You encrypt them with the last/reserved OTP the other end has. Cyclic encryption of truly random numbers? Incomprehensible. It's just another 100% opaque data stream. Done deal.
Ah... no. God is about as likely as a talking teapot, or any other example you care to think of...
It is a straightforward cognitive failure to assume that something unknown has equal odds of being so, or not. Do flying pink elephants have equal odds of existing, or not? Does a troop of dancing fairies in an opposite solar orbit have equal odds of existing or not? Of course not. And the same is true for other superstitions and mythological propositions, such as parting of the red sea, or turning someone to salt, or "creating" the heavens and the earth, or even turning water into wine. They're not equally unlikely as likely, they are *extremely* unlikely and not likely at all. Or in other words, WAY over at the "what a silly idea" end of the scale.
Also, agnosticism (lacking knowledge) is not a valid middle ground between atheism and theism; theism is belief in a god or gods; a-theism is the lack of such a belief. Neither position is based upon knowledge. A person either believes in a god or gods, or they don't; and that makes them either a theist, or an atheist, regardless of any protestations to the contrary.
Nah, it's not what you think. I wired the building myself (it used to be a church, so it was basically an empty box when we bought it), and what I like to do is run one breaker, via one heavy line, to one outlet, lighting system or utility. I use multiple sub-boxes like this one to route power to everything, plus there is a generator and a set of special lines for stuff that I don't want to lose power - like the furnace, our food refrigeration, and our fish tanks. The way it works out is that the total load is low, but the capacity at any one point is high. The 50's are in the obvious places: central air, electric range, one in the shop, one for the home theater, that sort of thing.
This way, first, every outlet is capable of a full load if I want to plug a table saw or an air compressor, for instance, into a kitchen outlet. Even the GFA outlets are 20 amp. You never have to worry about the toaster being on plus the pizza oven blowing a breaker, either; each box has a calculated power budget for what's assigned to it, plus a decent margin. There's a benefit in terms of almost no star connections / wire nuts in internal wall boxes, either, because every line just goes from the breaker to the destination. There are a few exceptions; if ceiling lamps for a room consist of more than one fixture, then yes, I had to break the line, and also, light switches do it, but overall the building has a lot of wire and comparatively few splices and connections. That's worth some peace of mind to me.
From a monitoring point of view, since everything has its own line, if I watch them, I'll be able to spot anything unusual fairly easily, because (for instance) the toaster load never appears on the kitchen island line, and the stereo, fishtanks, etc. all have their own dedicated lines. That's also part of why I did it, but I've yet to implement the monitoring. Been kind of hoping to find some inexpensive commercial AC current sensors so I don't have to make them by hand, but so far, they're pretty dear. I'm in no rush, though -- lots more to do, this whole "build a house interior yourself" thing turned out to be a bit of a challenge. We're re-doing all the old gnarly casement windows in double-paned stained glass right now and want to have that done before it gets too cold for window sealants to set properly, and then... well, there's plenty more work where that came from. :)
It's just an idea I have, was thinking of using it in conjunction with my PD meter generation python library to snoop on what's happening in my house. I have almost eighty, 20-amp circuits, plus a few 50's; be interesting to have a way to watch them, end up with a big panel like this one (different project, but you can see how the meters are multi-use, etc.)
Given drivers for the A/d units, Apache, and python - all that needs to be done is build a bunch of current sensors, and that looks to be easy, if somewhat tedious.
You didn't understand what you read. I'm talking about a software em/sim-ulation. One that is undertaken at the level of (simulated/emulated) neurons. Not an organic one. Go back, re-read, and see if you can get it.
If it's over your head, fine, but please, refrain from jousting without a lance, eh? It's not much sport for the rest of us.
In conjunction with some powered USB hubs, some cheap A/D->USB devices ($50 per 8 channels), and some hacked-together AC current probes, a power monitoring system for every line into your breaker box.
(laughing) Yeah, been there. Writing my image processing software, At one point I needed to populate a list gadget. A coupe of days later, I have this huge linked-list-handling module built, does everything you can legally do to lists and probably some things that are illegal in Georgia and Texas as well.
This is a straw... neuron. :) I wasn't suggesting any such thing. I'm just observing that the ability to think doesn't depend upon having any *particular* sense stimulated. Otherwise, blind or deaf people would be unintelligent, and we know that not to be the case. Give the thing input, of course, and derive output from it too. But you *still* don't need everything we have to come up with a thinking brain -- that's my point.
Not so. As a software system, it can be enhanced beyond its starting point far more easily (and for more extensively) than a human brain can. For a simpler start, you get a greater ending. I don't see it as unfair at all. It's just... different. Different may be just fine. Might even be better. Remember: We're the result of a random process; that result works, but it is surely not optimum (heck, I could point all day at non-optimum issues with our production and reproduction, not the least of which is that it is risky as hell for the mother, and that some results, after considerable time to learn, still think fox news provides a reasonable summary of reality.)
Wrong. That's like saying if you cut a tree, but the tree doesn't fall until you've left the area, it doesn't fall at all. It's not about *you*. It's about the AI.
Also wrong. All decisions can be made before the foot is lifted, then the task carried out with no more than the usual fuzzy logic kind of local decisions we make. Biped walking doesn't require thinking - it's a *very* simple undertaking compared to thinking. We have lots of simplistic electronic/mechanical systems that can walk already, and they sure as heck can't think. And who says biped walking is the best target to aim for? A spider is a much better model, frankly. For many reasons; stability, generality, speed, terrain handling, simpler joint structure yet considerably more situationally adaptable, etc. Furthermore, just as walking doesn't require intelligence, intelligence doesn't require walking either, so really, your point is... pointless.
You have not identified a problem, except with your position. An immobile intelligence is not any less intelligent. Go see if you can outwit Stephen Hawking, then get back to me.
On the contrary, computers have a very similar problem - they are limited in available fast memory and in how fast they can manipulate that memory. At the moment, they appear to be *more* limited than we are (but again, that could be an impression falsely presented by not having the right algorithms, and in fact I strongly suspect that is the case.)
No, they aren't all working in parallel - large bunches operate together, yes, but some are working with what you see, some are banging your heart around, some are pumping your short term memory, some are doing
I didn't read all your post, because you didn't read all of mine.
You've got to stay current to keep abreast of the latest, lest your income be affected, and you end up ducking the bill collector.
Suppose you stare at a bright green object. Now you close your eyes. You see a red afterimage. No light in the range of 630-740 nm was involved -- but you see red anyway. It's not a "false" red. It's just red, period.
I think that what is going on (guessing) is that you're getting more input from receptors that were not stimulated, while the ones that were stimulated are relatively quiet for a little while.
Suppose you're dreaming. You see a bright red button on a console with a note that says "push me." No light involved. It's still red, though.
So you can't encapsulate that answer as "light of a particular range." It's also about perception.
And that's not even getting into what a particular person makes of it when the receptors in the eye send along a signal in response to wavelengths of 630-740 nm. You and I might perceive something similar, but Mortimer over there, he hears middle C, while Janet smells roses, and Fergus perceives a distinct lack of green..
I strongly suspect that if a brain is to be simulated, it will be done by simulation that begins at the "build it from following a cellular model", not the "build it from the DNA expression" level.
For one thing, to get a brain thinking, there's a whole lot of the brain you don't need. You don't need heartbeat and breathing regulation; you don't need vision, hearing, touch, etc.; you don't need blood vessels, you don't need carefully constructed layers of fluids... there is a *lot* about the physical structure of the brain that either isn't involved in thinking at all, or is involved in a way that we know you can do without (e.g. hearing.)
So a simulation job can be simplified IF we can get a decent model of neural structure and IF we can get a solid model of the neuron itself.
All of this is based on the premise of simulation. But it is unlikely that simulation is the only valid path, it seems to me. Just as there are a myriad ways to construct images and to sense light, odds are there are many ways to create cognition. We don't know how yet, but I don't think that's any kind of a signal that we *won't* know how. And the higher level this is done at, the less complex it will be, just as with most any complex software undertakings.
No doubt the knowledge here is pyramidal; you're not going to get to the top without building a solid base. Just as you're not going to be able to do rotation without someone understanding some really cool things about how and why sine and cosine interact; but once someone *does* understand it, *you* don't have to, you just need to know when you want to rotate, and by how much. And again, the "how" is varied; you can feed every point into a matrix multiply, or you can call sin/cos for every point, or you can do a table lookup on run-once-time pre-calculated values to optimize, or, if all the rotations are known, you can just hard code them.
Someone comes up with a solid library for doing neuron (and other active element) simulation, the problem moves to a higher level -- and you don't need to know as much about the construction of the neuron, more about connections and relevant states. Presuming there's no magic we're missing (quantum activity, etc.), the problem should be solvable.
If and when success is achieved by modeling after us, we might learn a good bit more because we'll actually be able to examine what is going on without killing the subject. And that in turn may lead to algorithms at a much higher level than "connect this here neuron to those thousand, just this way, and load the electrical potentials, thus, and the chemical potentials thus."
If we can get there, then we will finally know how much computing power we can get away with for AI. Because if the problem can be reduced to algorithms, then memory requirements will finally be known; CPU power is relevant only in that the more there is, the faster it'll go... technically speaking, it's still AI even if it doesn't answer you for a thousand years, as long as it eventually cooks up the correct response(s.) Think of it in terms of shoving a note under a door to Einstein in order to get a note back from him; if he answers you in five minutes, or waits until the next morning to answer, it's still Einstein's answer either way. That's why I say speed isn't actually a factor here -- AI is AI, the *only* relevant metric is does it work, or not. Speed is just an engineering problem, as long as we can determine it's working. So we need to find out what the memory requirements are, and what speed will get us an adequate response rate is a problem we can hand to Intel, etc. :)
Of course, once you have a "brain" in software/digital form, a simple copy operation gets you 2...N. That alone makes the undertaking worth any amount of effort imaginable: and I should point out, there are simpler brains than humans that might serve us very well for many common tasks, which reduces the magnitude of the problem yet again.
The one thing I'm pretty confident of is that it'll get done, and probably not all that long from now. years, maybe a few decades.
That's why I brought it up. I like it too. Doesn't seem like it could be interfered with, intercepted, or compromised; Doesn't seem like it could cause interference; I just haven't got a clue if it will ever be practical.
There might yet be something else, too. Physics continues throwing little surprises our way.
That's strictly a local solution; it doesn't address creating an Internet-like entity. How do you get a packet from NYC to London, or even Montana to Texas?
Sorry, that's topped by the government routing around citizen's freedoms.
The FCC controls wifi frequencies in the USA, and can regulate what you can do with them. Quite aside from the fact that wifi frequencies don't get you long links -- they're basically only good for local and semi-local (with special antenna setups) connections. Even when you have a city-wide network in a big city, it can't grow into an Internet-like entity.
I know. I'm an extra-class HRO.
The FCC has long been complicit in awarding, maintaining and ensuring that access to the RF spectrum is thoroughly monopolized through them. That's why they never allowed local AM and FM stations at the citizen level worth a damn; that's why even the ridiculously expensive "low power FM" stations were only drizzled out, and even then, incompetently and mega-slowly; that's why HRO's are restricted from playing music, "broadcasting" (meaning, transmitting to a general listening audience, like SWLs, rather than just to other HROs); that's why any number of restrictions exist. The government protects and serves the corporations before the citizens get even one moment of consideration. And that in turn is part of why we'll *never* have access to a citizen's "network band" or anything like it. The other part is the government's perceived need to monitor us. That's only getting more intense as well.
What we actually need is a new *method* of communication, and worse, we need to get a jump on it before the government does. What? I don't know. But as different from RF as laser links are, and as non-interfering as they are as well. Quantum coupling or something. I don't know. All I know is that the Internet as it exists now is more locked-down and regulated every day. The odds of actually increasing freedom within its bounds... pitiful.
It's fine to build a better server. But a network is not just the nodes; a network is also the paths, and the paths, my friends, are not anything either the telecomm concerns or the government are going to allow us to control, or have any of our own. And this gives them, if they think they need it, complete control over these new systems. If traffic passes over their paths that concerns them, they'll just shut it down.
So while I appreciate the idea, it's literally only half-baked. Wake me up when someone builds an inexpensive network in unregulated RF space. Until then, control, and therefore freedom, is unattainable.
Without being overbearing, now is the time to ask questions and make a permanent record of memories she has of her childhood; her experiences are what made her the person she is today, and this type of thing will really help other family members understand her a bit better. And once the person has passed away, this is otherwise almost completely lost unless an old acquaintance takes pity on you (and that's really not something to count on.)
I put together one of the deepest family genealogy sites on the net for my family - many thousands of well researched individuals going back to the early 1500's - and if there's one thing I've learned, it's ask [whatever] before someone passes on, or you'll probably never know.
And you know what? People are usually pretty happy to tell you the story of their life; all you have to do is ask questions and be a good listener. From the standpoint of your kids and later descendants, just add making a record. If photos are involved, make sure you carefully associate the stories with the photos.
Also from a genealogical standpoint, make sure you know as much as she does about her family connections. This information is all too easily lost.
You say you're making HD video; I suggest you make some audio recordings too. We can't always be watching a display. You might have her read a favorite book or poetry, or something else that can be listened to long-term while you or whoever is doing something else. Also, people are often more comfortable off-camera, especially if they are debilitated.
You are not only wrong, you are very wrong.
To even give lip service to the idea that the government should exist or operate outside these bounds in any way is to advocate and support tyranny.
To any degree that the government is operating outside these bounds, it is entirely illegitimate.
Which directly infringes on your right to carry, which the 2nd amendment explicitly denies the federal government the ability to do. And then there's incorporation to consider. There's no way around it: if I don't have a license, and the feds say I can't carry, there's the infringement, plain as day. This isn't a power that has ever been granted the feds. It is a power they have taken in an unauthorized and tyrannical mode, and which they enforce by coercion and/or violence.
In the case of the second amendment, there are two clauses. The first is prefatory, and contains no instructions to the government. This phrase is of historical interest, but it does not enable, or disable, any power or right.
The second is explicit: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The meaning of the words here have not changed in any significant way since the amendment was penned. To "infringe" means to affect in any way, even at the meanest boundaries; "shall not" still means "no"; "keep" and "carry" still mean exactly the same things; "Arms", while somewhat broader today, certainly included an extremely wide range of weapons and weapons platforms, and by standing alone, obviously allows for invention, as invention and improvement was the perfectly normal order of business at the time; and the phrase itself can be parsed by anyone who knows what those words mean, or can look them up and successfully take in a dictionary definition.
Even a moderately intelligent reader will realize that the meaning of the second phrase does not change one whit when one fiddles with the objects in the prefatory phrase; in other words, even if the prefatory phrase stated "in order that teddy bears may not be abducted by native Americans", the second phrase would still constrain the government from infringing in any way upon the keeping and carrying of arms - swords, caltrops, firearms, cannon, brass knuckles, etc. So the prefatory phrase is entirely irrelevant as to the powers of the federal government. In this way, it resembles the preamble to the constitution itself, which is also prefatory / explicatory, but embodies no allocation or restriction of powers.
Things only began to get foggy when legislators decided they wanted to do things the constitution forbids, but were too lazy and/or cowardly to attempt the appropriate procedure, which is defined in article five: amendment. Then we began to see idiot arguments like the shotgun argument in Miller; the attempt to incorporate the explicatory or prefatory phrase as if it was a filter (not to mention the complete misinterpretation of what "militia" means in this context); and then of course there is the painfully naive "living document" mental meltdown.
That's not how it works in the case of the 2nd. The second amendment consists of two explicit restrictions on the government from infringing upon keeping and carrying arms (not just guns, mind you, which are a single category of arms, but arms in general.) These rights are not granted - they are defined as pre-existing and entirely insulated from any interference from the government.
There is only one way that the government can legitimately create any infringing law (including licenses, etc.), and that is to instantiate the amendment process, and further, to succeed at it. Since they hav
Where do you think "ex post facto" comes from?
You're describing the pathology; my interest is in seeing some/any degree of retreat from the situation you (somewhat optimistically) describe.