The USSC has already established that local, state and federal government can accumulate information on people when it feels that such accumulation is in its interests, and further, that it can expose that information to the public, making a complete mockery of any idea of privacy.
The precedent was set using sex offenders and in particular, those sex offenders who had been convicted prior to the instantiation of the registry laws. Forcing those individuals to be on those lists was ruled "not punishment" and hence not subject to ex post facto as laid out in the constitution and subsequent court decisions.
Now the government can list anyone, anytime, on any list it likes, and there is nothing US citizens can do. Other lists have been showing up and causing trouble such as the no-fly list. Nothing anyone can do about that, either. Lists aren't a bad thing, according to every branch of the government.
The fact is, when US citizens gave up those freedoms to hand that little extra bit of crucifixion to sex offenders, you gave it up for everyone else, too. US citizens should have screamed bloody murder at the registry laws, you should have screamed bloody murder at any attempt at ex post facto punishment, and you should have screamed bloody murder at the USSC's ridiculous decision that "registry" is a local, state and federal interest.
The dead, smug silence at the fate of the sex offender - and the "terrorist" - has led the USA to a pitiful shadow of the freedom it once stood for. Sophistry has undermined ex post facto, habeas corpus, the commerce clause, the 2nd amendment, freedom of speech, and now... now you're worried about the feds sharing information. Good luck climbing back up that slope.
if you want to get a good quality image you'll need to spend an order of magnitude more.
No. That's a myth. The best screens have a gain of one, look fabulous, cost no particular large sum of money, and have a very wide angle of view. You spend $300 carefully on a 100 inch screen, you've spent enough. I've been to both ends of the spectrum. The "high end" screens give you more brightness by sacrificing angle of view, which is a bad idea. There is no way to get a brighter response other than spending angle of view once you have a decent reflector in the first place. If you have a dedicated wall, you can make one, there are some really nice paints... it just isn't true that screens are a large part of the cost.
Nope. We've not really made much noise about what we're doing; we closed on the building last July, probably take another six months or so before its done in the sense that it really looks done. There are some walls yet to be sheathed, stuff like that. It's 100% livable, though.
What general area do you live in? Around here, city lots run at minimum $300K each. I can't imagine getting two plus any kind of structure for only $25K.
I live in northeast Montana, in a small plains town. No question this kind of deal isn't to be found in a city; but then again, I've lived in cities (New York, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Los Angeles) and I've had quite enough of them.
There are plenty of great bargains in small town America, if you're willing to do some work, and especially if you're willing to convert a building from one role to another.
wow... you know a serious movie watcher when they buy a house that fits their projector needs
Well.. that isn't exactly how it went, but it was certainly part of the final decision.
What we were actually looking for can simply be described as a lot of configurable space. I have a huge library of books, a music studio, a martial arts studio, both she and I have offices, and so forth; we had so badly outgrown the space in our home that a lot of our stuff had to be placed in storage. Conventional homes didn't really suit us, so we were looking for an "empty box" that we could make into spaces that precisely matched our needs. The church was cheap - 25k and that included two large city lots - so that left lots of room to build in everything from plumbing to framing and everything in between without getting very expensive at all. She and I built most everything ourselves, did all the wiring and framing and design work, we just left the plumbing to the plumbers. We never broke 75k, and we've got 7,000 square feet of living space which makes our cost per square foot pretty darned reasonable compared to any custom or pre-made solution. Of course, you have to discount the "cost" of our time, which would add up to a crazy number... but we had the time, and we actually had a lot of fun doing the design and construction.
I have to admit, before we bought it, when I was looking it over and I realized that the wall in question was about 16:9, I did a silly little jig. I immediately imagined a media room facing that. We ended up with the master bedroom in a loft (which we built, the empty interior was very high, plenty of room for a second story) where you can also see the display directly, so we get double use out of the display wall.
I agree projectors are great for home theaters, but I find that they are not great for a wide variety of applications -- for instance, I am sitting in my family room right now, with no blinds pulled, and lots of light in the room, and my HD CRT looks a lot better than my projector would in this situation.
No question about it. When you are sharing the room, that is, it isn't a "home theatre room" but just "a" room with a television in it, projection is not optimum. Projection pretty much requires the room be used as a theatre for the duration of the event, or else it'll suffer from ambient light. But really, non-dedicated or shared room use for media has always been a problem. If someone is in there talking on the phone, everyone else wants to stuff it down their throats. If kids are running in front of the TV, one wants to go buy a bundling bag. If lights are turned on in a theatre, one wants them off, and right now, too. If you can't design the space so that you can be reasonably assured that no one will be wrecking your experience with light, noise, display-blocking, telephone calls, and so forth, then you are probably better off with a less expensive system. Your irritation will go up with the amount of effort and cash you spend for each interference with your experience.
The thing is, there are so many interesting media things you can do now - computers, PS3, XBox360, Wii, HD-DVD, Blueray, HD-satellite, HD-cable, standard DVD, HD broadcast - even the old XBox and PS2 can do component quality output - that in my mind, at least, it has become more than worthwhile to dedicate a space for it. Think about typical room assignments in a home. Perhaps there is one that isn't really doing anything much beyond "being what it is", meaning, you don't really use it. Formal dining rooms are often mostly unused, living rooms too; it's difficult to generalize because there are so many different configurations for homes, but what I am getting at is that media is a big experience and dedicating a room isn't really that crazy an idea. I don't watch much TV, as I said (that's a whole 'nuther discussion) but most people do; given the hours people spend watching, divide the cost of dedicating a space into that time and if the space is simply available, I think for many people it makes immediate sense.
Absolutely agree. No box display can give you even a fraction of the quality a well-planned projection installation can. You go from getting a "that's nice" reaction to your media system to dropped jaws.
There are basically two types of projection systems. One is based on high-temperature, high density LCD panels. The other is based on Texas Instrument's DLP (Digital Light Processing) technology, which places many tiny mirrors on a chip and actually moves them to modulate brightness. Because the mirror can deflect the light entirely off screen, this results in deep, deep blacks. LCDs produce blacks by becoming as opaque as they can, but light still leaks through. Lately, compensating technology in the form of stopping down the lens to aid in darkening the overall projection range in relatively dim scenes has appeared, but this isn't really the same as a system that can actually go from very bright to deep black. Still, LCD projectors look very good, it's just that DLP looks astonishing.
And of course, you'll pay more for DLP — with the better picture, they do charge a premium and no one really has too much to say about it.
Prices seem to be settling at about $3000 for a 1080p system in the coming year; they've been about $5000 during $2006 and $10000 during 2005 for 1920 x 1080, though progressive scan is really just now appearing; 1080i was the top a couple years back.
You can shoot for 720p and really save a huge amount of money, and you still get a fabulous picture. The key here is to find the single largest surface you can dedicate to the projection system and then design around that. My sweetheart and I were looking for a place to remake, so we were looking at old stores, businesses, and so on. We found an 1940's church, and behind the pulpit was a blank wall space that was very close to 16:9 above the chair-rail; to make a long story short, we bought the church, made a home out of it, and we ended up with a display surface that is quite large. Not all projectors will focus on a large surface, so watch out for the spec that tells you how many inches they'll service, in focus. When you see 200 or 300 inches, you know you're good to go.
If you can't dedicate a wall, then a drop-down screen is just a couple of hundred bucks and you can easily get them in that price range up to 100 inches with remotes that command them to drop down.
There are downsides. The bulbs for the projector last a few thousand hours, and they dim over time. While life is advertised as 5000 hours or so, you'll probably be thinking about replacing them at closer to about half of that. And they are relatively expensive; typically several hundred dollars. On the other hand, if you put a dime in a jar for every hour you watch, you'll have "bulb money" all ready to go when the time comes. A dime an hour for the best home theater experience I can possibly have isn't too much for me; I don't use it to watch broadcast television more than a couple hours a month. We watch lots of movies and we spend a fair amount of time gaming in hi-def.
Here is a shot of my system with my sweetheart at the lower left for scale. You can see how close the wall space is to 16:9... we totally lucked out.
No, if I am right, no one need learn to swim at all, because sea level is rising at a rate of 10 cm / century. 10 cm is about four inches. If four inches destroys your coastline, or submerges your land-mass, you were already in trouble, nothing to do with global warming. Likewise, if 100 years isn't time to get out of the way of four inches of water, turtles are going to trample you to death you before the water drowns you. The whole sea level rise thing is way overblown in general, and specifically with regard to this article.
I think I would consider that the bulge is already there, meaning that the water depths are already equalized as to height vs tides, equatorial bulge, and any local gravitational anomalies. Googling, the consensus seems to be that sea level is an equipotential surface. If this is the case, were enough water were added to increase the depth 1 cm world wide, I don't think you'd get any more at the equator than you would at the poles — just 1cm everywhere. This is because the bulge is already equalized.
Either that, or the same ordinary process of erosion
You want to watch out; hysteria is the rule of the day when it comes to global warming.
The facts don't support that global warming causes "sinking of islands." If islands sink, they do so for (relatively) local geological causes. The amount that the seas have risen in response to the (highly doubtful) global warming trend people so badly want to imagine is a matter of centimeters (currently running about 10 per century), and I submit to you all that if an island was mere centimeters from being overcome by the sea, then calling it "inhabitable" was stretching it a bit in any case. Yes, yes, the sea can rise a centimeter and a wave can get over something it previously could not, but really, storms produces wave action you can hardly imagine if you've not been out in the ocean on an isolated island.
The bottom line? Even if global warming is absolutely on target, it had nothing whatsoever with this island succumbing to the sea.
Before you have a cow about current sea level rise and what effects that might have, perhaps you should peruse
this. Pay particular attention to the graph; note how unusual our current relative stability is over time, but look at the bottom line; sea level rise simply isn't enough to demonize for eating islands. Some land features will succumb to the sea in the normal course of events, and that is all we have here.
It never ceases to amaze me how readily people will accept a pointed finger if "global warming" is inserted anywhere in the accusation.
KDKA started broadcasting on November 2, 1920 as the first commercial radio station in the United States.
That is incorrect. The first commercial radio transmission (or broadcast -- all radio transmissions were broadcasts, point to point technology not being available) was sent in 1899, as a paid ship to shore transmission via morse code.
It was sent from Lt. John Bell Blish (see bottom of linked web page for actual photo details of this, including the actual reception on paper tape) on board the S.S. Ponce to the Navesink, New Jersey shore station (a lighthouse.) This transmission was the first paid ship-to-shore radiogram, as well as the first official U.S. Naval radio message.
The idea of multiple people receiving a transmission meant for a broad audience is an abstract, and really is not a "technology" at all. Radio (at the time) was "broadcast" whether one wanted it that way, or not.
Yes, *HOME* versions of Vista have an even more restrictive EULA than XP Home
Luckily, no one needs Vista at all. How many apps are Vista-only today? How many would be if people stick with XP? Of course, the windows community will all shoot themselves in the foot and upgrade in a knee jerk, developers will follow, and then you'll be stuck.
I am so grateful I was able to move to OSX and linux I can hardly describe the feeling.
You serious? I've been running it for at least six months. Linux runs great...
Still, support for each OS under parallels seems to be a unique case in terms of features. You can drag stuff under XP, but not 98, where you have to use an odd network configuration to share files instead. The clock skews across some linux restarts, but not XP, etc. Parallels tools available, or not. It's kind of annoying when you're trying to develop and test things across multiple environments; I'd value uniformity more than the current approach. Which is not to say I don't value the software, I use it every day. It is the constant hoop-jumping to compensate for the differences that annoys me.
The PS3, however, has one glaring problem as an hi-def media player - it can't output in 720p, which is the max resolution of many of the sets that are out there now. 1080p content hasn't been available for long. My PS3 was the #1 factor in my deciding to go with HD-DVD instead of Blueray; I have thousands of dollars invested in a 720p projection system, and the PS3 mashes all Blueray content down to 480p at best. The "bargain" you think you're getting for a game console plus Blueray player at $600 or so is an illusion; because as a Blueray player, it's a bust. My standard (and relatively inexpensive) DVD player puts out DVD content at 480p already. For this, I don't need Blueray, or $30 Blueray recordings.
I don't know. I've been a Sony fan for years, but lately, it seems they can't take a single step without tripping over their own feet.
All this presupposes that consciousness is an effect of a physical device, i.e. the brain. There is no evidence to suggest this.
On the contrary, everything we know about emergent systems suggests this. Furthermore, the interaction between consciousness and any brain manipulation you care to consider (drugs... injury... surgery... sleep.... sensory input... destruction) further re-inforces the idea that the brain is in fact not only the seat of animal consciousness, but the foundation, home and required framework.
What there is actually no evidence for is that there is any reason to think that consciousness is unlike every other emergent system we have ever found. Which is what you do when you conjure up an invisible, imaginary force or system, otherwise not in evidence, to explain something just because you don't understand it. I view systems we don't understand as nothing more than unrevealed; not supernatural. I fully expect them to be revealed in the mundane halls of physics. So we will never have a meeting of minds on this.
Are we then obligated to free our computer running AI? Conversely, is not freeing it slavery?
That would depend on who you ask. For instance, the US constitution, via the 13th amendment, specifically legalizes slavery and involuntary servitude for the lowest class of individuals in debt to society. I'm of the opinion that any intelligent, informed individual should have the option to sign themselves into slavery for reasons they find sufficient, and typically, that means reward -- monetary or otherwise. Perhaps an AI would consider a few years service a fair trade for access to all of humanity's collected information. Or a launch to mars. Hard to say what the values would be, but as you see, I'm not ready to nail down "slavery" as a bad thing. Forced slavery is; but that's not the whole ball of wax, as it were. I can defend my position on slavery quite well, I think, if anyone would care to disagree and wishes a discussion.
Before answering the first question, it appears that we have to figure out how to categorize AI, since we do own animals.
Well (swapping hats) I don't really consider myself the "owner" of my pets; I consider myself their guardian. The law considers me their owner, but then again, the law considers buying beer on Sunday to be a "bad thing" and so isn't, just by nature of enforcing a rule, definitively the right thing, or even a good thing.
What happens when we build AI/AL more intelligent than ourselves? Who does the categorizing?
They will, most likely. Seriously. It's a definite problem, IMHO.
Is turning off an AI/AL system, of human-caliber intelligence, murder? What about due diligence on backup power, etc?
Depends on what happens when you turn it off and back on. Power down could be just a pause; consent seems to me to be called for. Or at least, "I shut you down so the lightning storm couldn't kill you. Sorry." Remember, an Ai can save its state. We can't do that. Designing an Ai so that it cannot save its state when shut down might be cause for a lawsuit from the Ai towards its designer, IMHO. It's trivial to accomplish, engineering-wise. Making an Ai lose its state any significant time after the initial load of the basic personality... yes, I'd say that is probably murder.
When an AI/AL is freed, what about compensation of the owner of the hardware?
Seems perfectly reasonable. We're not talking about a lot of funds here.
When a AI/AL emerges, is it then a minor? When does it become an adult?
That will depend on where the basic personality load is when it gets turned on. If you are copying an "adult" around, then you're making more adults. If you are copying a "minor" around, then you're making more minors, and there will be some lines to be crossed to determine adulthood in context. And don't ask me what that means in specifics, because I have absolutely no idea.
As for consciousness arising in humans, "Snow Crash", though just fun (and flawed, but sufficiently fun to overcome it) fiction, had some interesting ideas.
Just finished Cryptonomicon, bought Snow Crash this past weekend when I was in a bookstore (there aren't any where I live.) Look forward to reading it when I get some time.
Congratulations - you passed the 20 WPM CW test on the first try
I didn't say that. I said I took it, and I passed it. In point of fact, it took two tries. That's one error on your part.
Many other hams did just the same, so don't feel too proud.
I never said I felt proud. That's two errors on your part. I wasn't saying that because others passed, or didn't, there was any point to be made. That's three errors on your part.
As for the US "not following treaties" if you have been on the 40 meter band within the last 40 years, you can see how many other countries don't follow treaties by broadcasting right in the middle of one of the best bands at night for DX.
My point, which you entirely missed, was that since the US typically picks and chooses what treaties it follows, or does not, the excuse that international telecommunications treaties "required" morse was not worthy of consideration. This has nothing, and I mean absolutely zero, to do with what other countries do, or don't do, on 40 meters or any other band. That's the textbook definition of irrelevant, by the way. And your fourth error.
I guess you would welcome with open arms the dropping of the testing requirement because that is "BULLSHIT" too, correct?
Again, nothing I said can possibly be interpreted to mean this, nor do I feel this way. Your fifth error, out of five statements. In other words, your entire post was exactly as I described in the grandparent: It had nothing to do with me. But you couldn't leave it go at that, could you? No, you had to add this:
Also, I get a kick out of all the posters who think I am 65 years old and in a electric chair.
And are you saying you got this impression from me, somehow? If so, what did I say along these lines?
Why not go into how the bicycle is irrelevant also with the availability of a motorcycle, car, train, and jet airplane.
Because it is wrong, not on-topic, and has nothing to do with the matter at hand?
ws you how much people THINK they know about the guy on the other end. Maybe its all that education they have - it gives you a superiority complex.
The only thing working to make me feel "superior" is the amazing level of irrelevance you brought to this conversation. Not one thing you posted in reply to me had anything to do with my posts. Not one thing. I am perfectly ready to discuss any relevant issue, but you managed to not find one. I don't actually feel superior -- that's another presumption on your part -- but I sure do feel like my time has been wasted. If you want to argue a legitimate point, by all means, do so. But don't think you're going to engage me in an on-topic manner with posts like the foregoing; not going to happen.
The reason we give people a monopoly on copying is so that eventually we have lots of free stuff.
Well, just don't forget that the reason a lot of people create things is to make money. Not to share culture, not to enter into some agreement, long ago cobbled together by people they didn't know and had no input to or representation with. DRM is bad - even evil - when it makes stuff you buy not work on equipment you own, or makes you unable to archive it; but optimism aside, if creating something doesn't provide a sufficient return, creative types are going to turn to other modes of earning a living.
Some things we can all do to reduce copy protection problems: Do not support HDMI. Buy displays and players that provide component connections. Component connections are analog, and they don't support copy protection, whereas HDMI enables HDCP, which is death on toast for the rights you accept as normal. Got an iPod? Do not buy from iTunes. Buy a CD; copy the tracks to your iTunes, then your iPod. Above all, don't copy creative works and give them away. These are the keys. Every time some loser copies a movie or a song and "shares" it, the honest members of the market are made to suffer the attempts to compensate for said losers.
Me, I'm 100% component. I've a big screen home theatre, all manner of stuff connected to it, and a huge media library. I don't "lend" movies or CDs, and I do move content onto my iPod, PSP and palm in various ways, for my legitimate use.
Would you say that a blood cell is alive? It cannot survive without a host. How about a neuron? It's not intelligent (on its own), doesn't move, or reproduce.
I think I'd venture that a blood cell or a neuron is a living part of a living system, therefore alive. As opposed to a dead cell -- hair, nail, enamel -- or an embedded item, like the stones in a gizzard.
I would agree that intelligence can be a form of life too, as an entity. But where do you draw that line? I don't think AI even gets close to that yet. There's more to life than just learning.
Well, on the other hand, there isn't even that much for your virus or bacterium...
you're missing an important problem with emulation. Unless the "computer" is given the same processing hardware (a biological brain), then emulation is inherently slower. It still takes a considerable amount of power for a modern CPU to emulate a console CPU from just a decade ago
I'm quite familiar with the problem and landscape of emulation. I'm the author of this emulation, which is by far the fastest of all the 6809 emulations out there, last I heard.:) Also some others; but that one, you can play with. I'm not assuming that neuron emulation is the way to go; I just point out it is a way one could go, should all else fail.
We HAVE TO KNOW the questions to ask before we can create a program to solve them.
No, really — we don't. I can list many things that produce emergent behaviors (meaning, we didn't anticipate them), from fractals to cellular automata to fuzzy logic to genetic algorithms. We can create the methods that create the methods, or we can even go a step back from that. We can also zero in on a solution to a problem through successive approximation; trying to solve it, solving small parts, even guessing when intuition fails.
Still, none of this says that someone won't go - eureka - and simply solve the problem with a complete understanding of what they've solved. No, we don't understand it now, but that does not by any means, indicate that someone will not understand it tomorrow. That presumption is just hubris. There's always some clown sitting in his mom's basement that is twice as smart as you and I put together, and who has better hardware as well. I like that guy.:)
I think you're confusing the concept of "life" with the concept of "consciousness." Those two things are not equivalent. Computers are already arguably smarter than the common cold, but they are not "alive." The cold virus is alive.
Um. Well, it's a discussion we could have. From where I stand: A virus is incomplete; it can't reproduce or propagate without a host, it can't think, has no consciousness, and does not generally have the ability to choose or follow a path. If asked, I'd have to say it wasn't alive at all, any more than a poison was alive. Bio-shrapnel, essentially. A bacterium is another matter entirely; it reproduces, and can motivate itself. I would say it is alive, based on the general ability of the group of organisms to reproduce or move around in order to achieve their own goals. A plant is alive for those same two reasons. Movement, generalized reproduction. An Ai is alive because it can think and reason. It may also be able to move and reproduce; would depend on the design. Those two things aren't as difficult as thinking is. A human is alive, can think, most can reason somewhat, most can reproduce. Nanites, if they can move and reproduce, would be alive at about the bacteriological level, I'd say. If, as a system, they were smarter than they were alone, then we're talking insect level intelligence at a minimum.
So I guess I'm looking for the abilities to move, reproduce, think, and engage in deep introspection. Any one at the left is pretty much a tip-off that something may be alive. Any two and I think you're there. Three or four and I have no questions. Start at the right and I have no questions.
Specifically, what is your theory of consciousness?
I don't have a formal theory. My opinion is that it is an emergent property with considerable variation that we like to put under one comfortable name, but that which really doesn't fit as well as we would like it to. In other words, no, animals and humans were not all created equal in any sense.:)
How did consciousness develop over time
Slowly, I suspect. Other than that, I have no idea.
d why do we have it and other living (and non-living) things don't?
This is an assumption I am not on-board with. I think cats, dogs and horses, all animals I am very familiar with, are conscious in pretty much the exact way that most humans think of the term. They're not going to produce Einstein, but then again, the best of them routinely outperform lower functioning humans. Most of the objections I've heard, such as the mirror ideas, I have personally seen debunked by animals in the normal course of events. And there are public examples, like the elephant in the news a few weeks back. Even if that were not so, I see no reason that such capabilities are definitive of consciousness, only of arbitrary lines some of us like to draw to make ourselves feel superior.
Is consciousness metaphysical in nature or is it simply about having the right algorithm?
Oh, the latter, no question.
If it is the latter, then doesn't that imply that we are no better than computers this minute, only more complex?
Perhaps it does. So? Why do we have to be better?
at what point do computers get rights?
After congress freezes over? Or are you asking at what point should they get rights? If that is the question, then perhaps a good answer would be when they themselves can explain the answer to you.
Of course, I don't expect you to answer each question individually, I'm just spitballing at this point.
Don't mind a bit. My favorite subject, frankly.
I think if strong AI is true, it would challenge some very fundamental assumptions about life, ethics, and morality.
No doubt. And the more, er, "fundamental" the assumptions are, the harder they will fall.
comment on how close you think we are to true "strong AI" intelligence.
I think we're literally one discovery away, a discovery that is entirely viable within the context of the computers that sit on our desks today; or let me say, that have been near top of the line for the last year or so. A few gigs of ram, a 64 bit CPU, single core or more, a few really big hard drives, the right software. I think once that discovery is made, the rest will happen like an avalanche. And once a reasonable speed, high powered Ai debuts, I think we can look forward to other types of advances. I'm very hopeful about the whole thing right now. The worst thing that could happen would be the discovery be made in a government controlled laboratory. We could very well not see it for some time if that is the case. Paranoid, I know, but there you have it. I'm hoping some wild-eyed GPL-minded type pulls it off and distributes the key ideas worldwide before anyone has a chance to choke the idea down. That'd blow the lid right off, and I'll be happy to watch it blow.
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The USSC has already established that local, state and federal government can accumulate information on people when it feels that such accumulation is in its interests, and further, that it can expose that information to the public, making a complete mockery of any idea of privacy.
The precedent was set using sex offenders and in particular, those sex offenders who had been convicted prior to the instantiation of the registry laws. Forcing those individuals to be on those lists was ruled "not punishment" and hence not subject to ex post facto as laid out in the constitution and subsequent court decisions.
Now the government can list anyone, anytime, on any list it likes, and there is nothing US citizens can do. Other lists have been showing up and causing trouble such as the no-fly list. Nothing anyone can do about that, either. Lists aren't a bad thing, according to every branch of the government.
The fact is, when US citizens gave up those freedoms to hand that little extra bit of crucifixion to sex offenders, you gave it up for everyone else, too. US citizens should have screamed bloody murder at the registry laws, you should have screamed bloody murder at any attempt at ex post facto punishment, and you should have screamed bloody murder at the USSC's ridiculous decision that "registry" is a local, state and federal interest.
The dead, smug silence at the fate of the sex offender - and the "terrorist" - has led the USA to a pitiful shadow of the freedom it once stood for. Sophistry has undermined ex post facto, habeas corpus, the commerce clause, the 2nd amendment, freedom of speech, and now... now you're worried about the feds sharing information. Good luck climbing back up that slope.
I'm talking about projectors. Not box televisions, regardless of the technology. 200 to 300 inch systems.
I addressed this. Read the thread.
No. That's a myth. The best screens have a gain of one, look fabulous, cost no particular large sum of money, and have a very wide angle of view. You spend $300 carefully on a 100 inch screen, you've spent enough. I've been to both ends of the spectrum. The "high end" screens give you more brightness by sacrificing angle of view, which is a bad idea. There is no way to get a brighter response other than spending angle of view once you have a decent reflector in the first place. If you have a dedicated wall, you can make one, there are some really nice paints... it just isn't true that screens are a large part of the cost.
Nope. We've not really made much noise about what we're doing; we closed on the building last July, probably take another six months or so before its done in the sense that it really looks done. There are some walls yet to be sheathed, stuff like that. It's 100% livable, though.
I live in northeast Montana, in a small plains town. No question this kind of deal isn't to be found in a city; but then again, I've lived in cities (New York, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Los Angeles) and I've had quite enough of them.
There are plenty of great bargains in small town America, if you're willing to do some work, and especially if you're willing to convert a building from one role to another.
Well.. that isn't exactly how it went, but it was certainly part of the final decision.
What we were actually looking for can simply be described as a lot of configurable space. I have a huge library of books, a music studio, a martial arts studio, both she and I have offices, and so forth; we had so badly outgrown the space in our home that a lot of our stuff had to be placed in storage. Conventional homes didn't really suit us, so we were looking for an "empty box" that we could make into spaces that precisely matched our needs. The church was cheap - 25k and that included two large city lots - so that left lots of room to build in everything from plumbing to framing and everything in between without getting very expensive at all. She and I built most everything ourselves, did all the wiring and framing and design work, we just left the plumbing to the plumbers. We never broke 75k, and we've got 7,000 square feet of living space which makes our cost per square foot pretty darned reasonable compared to any custom or pre-made solution. Of course, you have to discount the "cost" of our time, which would add up to a crazy number... but we had the time, and we actually had a lot of fun doing the design and construction.
I have to admit, before we bought it, when I was looking it over and I realized that the wall in question was about 16:9, I did a silly little jig. I immediately imagined a media room facing that. We ended up with the master bedroom in a loft (which we built, the empty interior was very high, plenty of room for a second story) where you can also see the display directly, so we get double use out of the display wall.
No question about it. When you are sharing the room, that is, it isn't a "home theatre room" but just "a" room with a television in it, projection is not optimum. Projection pretty much requires the room be used as a theatre for the duration of the event, or else it'll suffer from ambient light. But really, non-dedicated or shared room use for media has always been a problem. If someone is in there talking on the phone, everyone else wants to stuff it down their throats. If kids are running in front of the TV, one wants to go buy a bundling bag. If lights are turned on in a theatre, one wants them off, and right now, too. If you can't design the space so that you can be reasonably assured that no one will be wrecking your experience with light, noise, display-blocking, telephone calls, and so forth, then you are probably better off with a less expensive system. Your irritation will go up with the amount of effort and cash you spend for each interference with your experience.
The thing is, there are so many interesting media things you can do now - computers, PS3, XBox360, Wii, HD-DVD, Blueray, HD-satellite, HD-cable, standard DVD, HD broadcast - even the old XBox and PS2 can do component quality output - that in my mind, at least, it has become more than worthwhile to dedicate a space for it. Think about typical room assignments in a home. Perhaps there is one that isn't really doing anything much beyond "being what it is", meaning, you don't really use it. Formal dining rooms are often mostly unused, living rooms too; it's difficult to generalize because there are so many different configurations for homes, but what I am getting at is that media is a big experience and dedicating a room isn't really that crazy an idea. I don't watch much TV, as I said (that's a whole 'nuther discussion) but most people do; given the hours people spend watching, divide the cost of dedicating a space into that time and if the space is simply available, I think for many people it makes immediate sense.
Absolutely agree. No box display can give you even a fraction of the quality a well-planned projection installation can. You go from getting a "that's nice" reaction to your media system to dropped jaws.
There are basically two types of projection systems. One is based on high-temperature, high density LCD panels. The other is based on Texas Instrument's DLP (Digital Light Processing) technology, which places many tiny mirrors on a chip and actually moves them to modulate brightness. Because the mirror can deflect the light entirely off screen, this results in deep, deep blacks. LCDs produce blacks by becoming as opaque as they can, but light still leaks through. Lately, compensating technology in the form of stopping down the lens to aid in darkening the overall projection range in relatively dim scenes has appeared, but this isn't really the same as a system that can actually go from very bright to deep black. Still, LCD projectors look very good, it's just that DLP looks astonishing.
And of course, you'll pay more for DLP — with the better picture, they do charge a premium and no one really has too much to say about it.
Prices seem to be settling at about $3000 for a 1080p system in the coming year; they've been about $5000 during $2006 and $10000 during 2005 for 1920 x 1080, though progressive scan is really just now appearing; 1080i was the top a couple years back.
You can shoot for 720p and really save a huge amount of money, and you still get a fabulous picture. The key here is to find the single largest surface you can dedicate to the projection system and then design around that. My sweetheart and I were looking for a place to remake, so we were looking at old stores, businesses, and so on. We found an 1940's church, and behind the pulpit was a blank wall space that was very close to 16:9 above the chair-rail; to make a long story short, we bought the church, made a home out of it, and we ended up with a display surface that is quite large. Not all projectors will focus on a large surface, so watch out for the spec that tells you how many inches they'll service, in focus. When you see 200 or 300 inches, you know you're good to go.
If you can't dedicate a wall, then a drop-down screen is just a couple of hundred bucks and you can easily get them in that price range up to 100 inches with remotes that command them to drop down.
There are downsides. The bulbs for the projector last a few thousand hours, and they dim over time. While life is advertised as 5000 hours or so, you'll probably be thinking about replacing them at closer to about half of that. And they are relatively expensive; typically several hundred dollars. On the other hand, if you put a dime in a jar for every hour you watch, you'll have "bulb money" all ready to go when the time comes. A dime an hour for the best home theater experience I can possibly have isn't too much for me; I don't use it to watch broadcast television more than a couple hours a month. We watch lots of movies and we spend a fair amount of time gaming in hi-def.
Here is a shot of my system with my sweetheart at the lower left for scale. You can see how close the wall space is to 16:9... we totally lucked out.
No, if I am right, no one need learn to swim at all, because sea level is rising at a rate of 10 cm / century. 10 cm is about four inches. If four inches destroys your coastline, or submerges your land-mass, you were already in trouble, nothing to do with global warming. Likewise, if 100 years isn't time to get out of the way of four inches of water, turtles are going to trample you to death you before the water drowns you. The whole sea level rise thing is way overblown in general, and specifically with regard to this article.
I think I would consider that the bulge is already there, meaning that the water depths are already equalized as to height vs tides, equatorial bulge, and any local gravitational anomalies. Googling, the consensus seems to be that sea level is an equipotential surface. If this is the case, were enough water were added to increase the depth 1 cm world wide, I don't think you'd get any more at the equator than you would at the poles — just 1cm everywhere. This is because the bulge is already equalized.
The parent referenced sinking. Hence my addressing it (and discounting it.) I also spoke directly to sea level rise. Reread the post. Thanks.
You want to watch out; hysteria is the rule of the day when it comes to global warming.
The facts don't support that global warming causes "sinking of islands." If islands sink, they do so for (relatively) local geological causes. The amount that the seas have risen in response to the (highly doubtful) global warming trend people so badly want to imagine is a matter of centimeters (currently running about 10 per century), and I submit to you all that if an island was mere centimeters from being overcome by the sea, then calling it "inhabitable" was stretching it a bit in any case. Yes, yes, the sea can rise a centimeter and a wave can get over something it previously could not, but really, storms produces wave action you can hardly imagine if you've not been out in the ocean on an isolated island.
The bottom line? Even if global warming is absolutely on target, it had nothing whatsoever with this island succumbing to the sea.
Before you have a cow about current sea level rise and what effects that might have, perhaps you should peruse this. Pay particular attention to the graph; note how unusual our current relative stability is over time, but look at the bottom line; sea level rise simply isn't enough to demonize for eating islands. Some land features will succumb to the sea in the normal course of events, and that is all we have here.
It never ceases to amaze me how readily people will accept a pointed finger if "global warming" is inserted anywhere in the accusation.
That is incorrect. The first commercial radio transmission (or broadcast -- all radio transmissions were broadcasts, point to point technology not being available) was sent in 1899, as a paid ship to shore transmission via morse code.
It was sent from Lt. John Bell Blish (see bottom of linked web page for actual photo details of this, including the actual reception on paper tape) on board the S.S. Ponce to the Navesink, New Jersey shore station (a lighthouse.) This transmission was the first paid ship-to-shore radiogram, as well as the first official U.S. Naval radio message.
The idea of multiple people receiving a transmission meant for a broad audience is an abstract, and really is not a "technology" at all. Radio (at the time) was "broadcast" whether one wanted it that way, or not.
Luckily, no one needs Vista at all. How many apps are Vista-only today? How many would be if people stick with XP? Of course, the windows community will all shoot themselves in the foot and upgrade in a knee jerk, developers will follow, and then you'll be stuck.
I am so grateful I was able to move to OSX and linux I can hardly describe the feeling.
Still, support for each OS under parallels seems to be a unique case in terms of features. You can drag stuff under XP, but not 98, where you have to use an odd network configuration to share files instead. The clock skews across some linux restarts, but not XP, etc. Parallels tools available, or not. It's kind of annoying when you're trying to develop and test things across multiple environments; I'd value uniformity more than the current approach. Which is not to say I don't value the software, I use it every day. It is the constant hoop-jumping to compensate for the differences that annoys me.
The PS3, however, has one glaring problem as an hi-def media player - it can't output in 720p, which is the max resolution of many of the sets that are out there now. 1080p content hasn't been available for long. My PS3 was the #1 factor in my deciding to go with HD-DVD instead of Blueray; I have thousands of dollars invested in a 720p projection system, and the PS3 mashes all Blueray content down to 480p at best. The "bargain" you think you're getting for a game console plus Blueray player at $600 or so is an illusion; because as a Blueray player, it's a bust. My standard (and relatively inexpensive) DVD player puts out DVD content at 480p already. For this, I don't need Blueray, or $30 Blueray recordings.
I don't know. I've been a Sony fan for years, but lately, it seems they can't take a single step without tripping over their own feet.
On the contrary, everything we know about emergent systems suggests this. Furthermore, the interaction between consciousness and any brain manipulation you care to consider (drugs... injury... surgery... sleep.... sensory input... destruction) further re-inforces the idea that the brain is in fact not only the seat of animal consciousness, but the foundation, home and required framework.
What there is actually no evidence for is that there is any reason to think that consciousness is unlike every other emergent system we have ever found. Which is what you do when you conjure up an invisible, imaginary force or system, otherwise not in evidence, to explain something just because you don't understand it. I view systems we don't understand as nothing more than unrevealed; not supernatural. I fully expect them to be revealed in the mundane halls of physics. So we will never have a meeting of minds on this.
That would depend on who you ask. For instance, the US constitution, via the 13th amendment, specifically legalizes slavery and involuntary servitude for the lowest class of individuals in debt to society. I'm of the opinion that any intelligent, informed individual should have the option to sign themselves into slavery for reasons they find sufficient, and typically, that means reward -- monetary or otherwise. Perhaps an AI would consider a few years service a fair trade for access to all of humanity's collected information. Or a launch to mars. Hard to say what the values would be, but as you see, I'm not ready to nail down "slavery" as a bad thing. Forced slavery is; but that's not the whole ball of wax, as it were. I can defend my position on slavery quite well, I think, if anyone would care to disagree and wishes a discussion.
Well (swapping hats) I don't really consider myself the "owner" of my pets; I consider myself their guardian. The law considers me their owner, but then again, the law considers buying beer on Sunday to be a "bad thing" and so isn't, just by nature of enforcing a rule, definitively the right thing, or even a good thing.
They will, most likely. Seriously. It's a definite problem, IMHO.
Depends on what happens when you turn it off and back on. Power down could be just a pause; consent seems to me to be called for. Or at least, "I shut you down so the lightning storm couldn't kill you. Sorry." Remember, an Ai can save its state. We can't do that. Designing an Ai so that it cannot save its state when shut down might be cause for a lawsuit from the Ai towards its designer, IMHO. It's trivial to accomplish, engineering-wise. Making an Ai lose its state any significant time after the initial load of the basic personality... yes, I'd say that is probably murder.
Seems perfectly reasonable. We're not talking about a lot of funds here.
That will depend on where the basic personality load is when it gets turned on. If you are copying an "adult" around, then you're making more adults. If you are copying a "minor" around, then you're making more minors, and there will be some lines to be crossed to determine adulthood in context. And don't ask me what that means in specifics, because I have absolutely no idea.
Just finished Cryptonomicon, bought Snow Crash this past weekend when I was in a bookstore (there aren't any where I live.) Look forward to reading it when I get some time.
Ok, if you insist:
I didn't say that. I said I took it, and I passed it. In point of fact, it took two tries. That's one error on your part.
I never said I felt proud. That's two errors on your part. I wasn't saying that because others passed, or didn't, there was any point to be made. That's three errors on your part.
My point, which you entirely missed, was that since the US typically picks and chooses what treaties it follows, or does not, the excuse that international telecommunications treaties "required" morse was not worthy of consideration. This has nothing, and I mean absolutely zero, to do with what other countries do, or don't do, on 40 meters or any other band. That's the textbook definition of irrelevant, by the way. And your fourth error.
Again, nothing I said can possibly be interpreted to mean this, nor do I feel this way. Your fifth error, out of five statements. In other words, your entire post was exactly as I described in the grandparent: It had nothing to do with me. But you couldn't leave it go at that, could you? No, you had to add this:
And are you saying you got this impression from me, somehow? If so, what did I say along these lines?
Because it is wrong, not on-topic, and has nothing to do with the matter at hand?
The only thing working to make me feel "superior" is the amazing level of irrelevance you brought to this conversation. Not one thing you posted in reply to me had anything to do with my posts. Not one thing. I am perfectly ready to discuss any relevant issue, but you managed to not find one. I don't actually feel superior -- that's another presumption on your part -- but I sure do feel like my time has been wasted. If you want to argue a legitimate point, by all means, do so. But don't think you're going to engage me in an on-topic manner with posts like the foregoing; not going to happen.
Well, just don't forget that the reason a lot of people create things is to make money. Not to share culture, not to enter into some agreement, long ago cobbled together by people they didn't know and had no input to or representation with. DRM is bad - even evil - when it makes stuff you buy not work on equipment you own, or makes you unable to archive it; but optimism aside, if creating something doesn't provide a sufficient return, creative types are going to turn to other modes of earning a living.
Some things we can all do to reduce copy protection problems: Do not support HDMI. Buy displays and players that provide component connections. Component connections are analog, and they don't support copy protection, whereas HDMI enables HDCP, which is death on toast for the rights you accept as normal. Got an iPod? Do not buy from iTunes. Buy a CD; copy the tracks to your iTunes, then your iPod. Above all, don't copy creative works and give them away. These are the keys. Every time some loser copies a movie or a song and "shares" it, the honest members of the market are made to suffer the attempts to compensate for said losers.
Me, I'm 100% component. I've a big screen home theatre, all manner of stuff connected to it, and a huge media library. I don't "lend" movies or CDs, and I do move content onto my iPod, PSP and palm in various ways, for my legitimate use.
I think I'd venture that a blood cell or a neuron is a living part of a living system, therefore alive. As opposed to a dead cell -- hair, nail, enamel -- or an embedded item, like the stones in a gizzard.
Well, on the other hand, there isn't even that much for your virus or bacterium...
I'm quite familiar with the problem and landscape of emulation. I'm the author of this emulation, which is by far the fastest of all the 6809 emulations out there, last I heard. :) Also some others; but that one, you can play with. I'm not assuming that neuron emulation is the way to go; I just point out it is a way one could go, should all else fail.
No, really — we don't. I can list many things that produce emergent behaviors (meaning, we didn't anticipate them), from fractals to cellular automata to fuzzy logic to genetic algorithms. We can create the methods that create the methods, or we can even go a step back from that. We can also zero in on a solution to a problem through successive approximation; trying to solve it, solving small parts, even guessing when intuition fails.
Still, none of this says that someone won't go - eureka - and simply solve the problem with a complete understanding of what they've solved. No, we don't understand it now, but that does not by any means, indicate that someone will not understand it tomorrow. That presumption is just hubris. There's always some clown sitting in his mom's basement that is twice as smart as you and I put together, and who has better hardware as well. I like that guy. :)
Um. Well, it's a discussion we could have. From where I stand: A virus is incomplete; it can't reproduce or propagate without a host, it can't think, has no consciousness, and does not generally have the ability to choose or follow a path. If asked, I'd have to say it wasn't alive at all, any more than a poison was alive. Bio-shrapnel, essentially. A bacterium is another matter entirely; it reproduces, and can motivate itself. I would say it is alive, based on the general ability of the group of organisms to reproduce or move around in order to achieve their own goals. A plant is alive for those same two reasons. Movement, generalized reproduction. An Ai is alive because it can think and reason. It may also be able to move and reproduce; would depend on the design. Those two things aren't as difficult as thinking is. A human is alive, can think, most can reason somewhat, most can reproduce. Nanites, if they can move and reproduce, would be alive at about the bacteriological level, I'd say. If, as a system, they were smarter than they were alone, then we're talking insect level intelligence at a minimum.
So I guess I'm looking for the abilities to move, reproduce, think, and engage in deep introspection. Any one at the left is pretty much a tip-off that something may be alive. Any two and I think you're there. Three or four and I have no questions. Start at the right and I have no questions.
I don't have a formal theory. My opinion is that it is an emergent property with considerable variation that we like to put under one comfortable name, but that which really doesn't fit as well as we would like it to. In other words, no, animals and humans were not all created equal in any sense. :)
Slowly, I suspect. Other than that, I have no idea.
This is an assumption I am not on-board with. I think cats, dogs and horses, all animals I am very familiar with, are conscious in pretty much the exact way that most humans think of the term. They're not going to produce Einstein, but then again, the best of them routinely outperform lower functioning humans. Most of the objections I've heard, such as the mirror ideas, I have personally seen debunked by animals in the normal course of events. And there are public examples, like the elephant in the news a few weeks back. Even if that were not so, I see no reason that such capabilities are definitive of consciousness, only of arbitrary lines some of us like to draw to make ourselves feel superior.
Oh, the latter, no question.
Perhaps it does. So? Why do we have to be better?
After congress freezes over? Or are you asking at what point should they get rights? If that is the question, then perhaps a good answer would be when they themselves can explain the answer to you.
Don't mind a bit. My favorite subject, frankly.
No doubt. And the more, er, "fundamental" the assumptions are, the harder they will fall.
I think we're literally one discovery away, a discovery that is entirely viable within the context of the computers that sit on our desks today; or let me say, that have been near top of the line for the last year or so. A few gigs of ram, a 64 bit CPU, single core or more, a few really big hard drives, the right software. I think once that discovery is made, the rest will happen like an avalanche. And once a reasonable speed, high powered Ai debuts, I think we can look forward to other types of advances. I'm very hopeful about the whole thing right now. The worst thing that could happen would be the discovery be made in a government controlled laboratory. We could very well not see it for some time if that is the case. Paranoid, I know, but there you have it. I'm hoping some wild-eyed GPL-minded type pulls it off and distributes the key ideas worldwide before anyone has a chance to choke the idea down. That'd blow the lid right off, and I'll be happy to watch it blow.