This may be funny, but it's also quite true!
I use ELinks as my web browser, and I think it's the best client I've ever used.
Of course, no image-based ads will be loaded, but there are tons of other neat features (tabbed browsing, smart bookmarks, excellent customizable keyboard control, etc.).
Even before I switched to lynx/links/elinks, I always made sure to disable Javascript, and I've never regretted it.
I'm most certainly not advocating any such decisions when imposed upon people against their will-- I'm merely trying to express my (unusual?) point of view, which is based on voluntary action. I don't think there is any acceptable way to rank people's value and take action based on that "score".
Do you know what humanity will be capable of if we live much much longer?
If you're referring to the tragic loss or abandonment of unfinished thoughts and research when people die, I completely agree. I'm not necessarily against increasing lifespan, I just think it deserves caution.
I do hope that the human numbers will reach 50 billion.
Wow, that's peculiar. I can't say I agree with _that_ statement, even if it would get us off to another planet. Increasing the population by such a drastic factor sounds like a disaster, regardless of interplanetary travel plans. Also, I think it's been mentioned that ferrying humans to new planets really wouldn't be all that effective when you take the number of people per ship into consideration.
Beyond that, I do agree that there would be useful aspects to increased lifespan... as well as serious problems.
Very much like the old religious assertion that if someone becomes diseased, "god" has cursed them and they deserve their fate.
Well, even if they were wrong, their (now-crazy-sounding) beliefs might have actually been beneficial.
If your car has a problem with it's breaks do you say "Does I really need this car?" and chuck it in the river.
An interesting comparison, but I don't think it fully applies. A car is meant to serve its owner. If it stops working, it's only a temporary problem and can be repaired fairly simply and get back to its job. . . Humans are much more complex, and repairing a human is repairing a unique and highly interesting glob of material. Regardless of religious beliefs, I'd say that many/most people agree that humans are "designed" (one way or another) to die after an amount of time. This time is obviously subject to change, but sometimes it may be taken too far. "Repairing" a human who can no longer function in any worthwhile manner might fall under this category, as might repairing a human against their will.
I'm sure back when the average human lifespan was 34 years, someone thought the same about living to 100.
Maybe we should go back to dying after 40 years?;) But seriously, I think things like this can go a certain distance, but then they might become just plain silly. Hmm, why do humans live so long compared to many other animals?
Sounds like you don't have children and hate people in general.
Finally someone understands me!:) I don't have any children, but nah, I don't hate people.
Death is an important part of life in the same way that 0 is an important part of 1.
True enough, death is the opposite of life, but 1 would be useless without 0.
This is called "hedonism" and is, like all other non-reproductive theories of what is or is not important in life, unsupported by evidence.
Things like this can be studied until the end of time, but it still won't yield any direct answer that could be considered factual.
Maybe the question should be "Does this organ need replacement?" This is not 600 B.C.
Yep, that's a question too. This is not 600 B.C.
None of us need to be alive at all.
Quite true. This is why we need to pursue "The meaning of life".
[20]Knock yourself out, then.
Heh.
Earth doesn't have a population problem, humans have a resource distribution problem.
I would say it has both, even if the resource distribution problem has more of an effect. Humans also need to spread out into unused space (uhm, without destroying it).
I think scientists need to invent a time machine and give this advice to your parents.
Oh, damn. I guess you got me there.
You first.
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Plenty of people accept death, but some have a strong attachment to their lives or the lives of others. Of course, this isn't a bad thing, but it can produce bad side-effects. I don't think this is anything crazy enough that I must be the first one to do it.
Re:Saviour for people in need in of transplants?
on
Synthetic Life In The Lab
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Would I try to preserve my own life?
Well, that's a good question. I honestly can't say at this point, since I haven't had the opportunity to experience any such serious medical issues. I'm also a bit too young to be making guesses about how my mind will work many years from now.
I do believe, however, that it would be my duty as a human being to die if I could no longer serve any useful purpose. If I go for self-preservation after my "time is up", it will be against what I currently believe to be reasonable.
More memory, faster processor.. USB?
on
TI-84 Plus Released
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Is this a calculator or a PDA?
Re:Saviour for people in need in of transplants?
on
Synthetic Life In The Lab
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
>... might spell the end of people dying due to lack of suitable organ donors.
Death is one of the most important parts of life. It doesn't matter too terribly much when or how it occurs, as long as the person has enjoyed their life. If an organ fails, maybe the question "Does this person still need to live" should be asked. After all, we don't all need to be alive forever. I'd hate to see the day when people live to be 180 years old.
If people stop dying (or death slows down, as it surely will continue to do), the world's population problem will only grow.
I think people really need to 1) stop having children 2) try to accept death a little more.
The schools aren't making a lesson available to the kids.
The schools are making the kids available to the lesson.
I couldn't have thought of a better way to put it. This isn't about education, it's about "teaching" the potential market to think a certain way. And what better place to find a bunch of little market-units than in a school?
There's more than wishful thinking in some people.
Some people do believe that information and data should be freely distributable, and that any restrictions in the matter would be unfairly limiting their freedom to communicate. Of course, I'm not claiming that the mojority of illegal file-sharers share this viewpoint, but it's something to consider.
What the hell? They're going to just start exploiting schools in order to dump their brainwashing propaganda on young people? Does anyone else think this is completely ridiculous?
Sure, they would be talking about something which is illegal, but that doesn't make this right. The children and parents should have time to discuss things like this and make their own decisions, without being misguided by the people who want to make money.
It sort of reminds me of this "War on Drugs", except the "War on Drugs" is actually more reasonable.
Some real criminals _do_ hurt "wallets"-- they steal your money. "Pirates" do not hurt wallets, they simply discourage some people from paying for something that could be made available free of charge. Yes, that's a crime, but even if you don't agree with what they're doing, it seems like it would be obvious that they are nowhere near as harmful as some other people.
Why not go after those sea pirates, engaging in actual pirate activity?
>... then they would easily have been wiped out by a pet project of Microsoft or Sony...
True enough, but that doesn't justify allowing someone to control who is allowed to use or implement such things.
Even if a nasty Microsoft/Walmart/etc. decides to profit from that idea, who's to decide? Certainly not those fools who would let someone patent water. I think many/most people would agree that preventing the immediate exploitation of an idea, giving the smaller guys a chance to take advantage of it, is generally a good thing, but doing so in a fair manner seems quite impossible.
I don't know what this technology was that your company developed, but even so-- why should they get to restrict how others can use it? Is it so extraordinarily original that nobody else would ever have come up with it? How _can_ you own an idea?
> Sure, they're huge, but you've got broadband, right?
Photographs ought to be stored using lossless compression anyway. Who wants to worry about slowly degrading the quality of their images with repeated editing and re-saving?
If PNGs are too huge, why not reduce the color bit depth or scale it down? (for internet transfer)
Absolutely. When patents are doing nothing but preventing a good (or in the case of jpeg, fair) technology from being fully utilized, they are complety useless. I would argue that they are useless anyway, but this is just ridiculous.
It doesn't make sense for one person or group of people to have control over some process, operation, or method. Copyrights are a bit closer to being reasonable, but patents just give away power that should never be had in the first place.
On the other hand, internet 'radio' lets just about anyone broadcast audio to anyone willing to listen. I'd say that's a major advantage, even if the quality isn't as high as ordinary radio.
I think mp3/ogg streams are especially nice for voice, since the quality only needs to be high enough to make it understandable, while music requires the listener to appreciate the actual sound.
I don't think that simply testing the fingerprint of the actual data in the file would work very well, since there isn't a very good chance that an mp3 of a track encoded by Person A will match an mp3 of that same track as encoded by Person B. Aside from the obvious changes such as higher or lower bitrates, the actual data is likely to be different depending on the encoder used (though producing basically the same sound).
I assume a more complex system involving actual analysis of the sound would be necessary in order to detect illegal audio files.
Slashdot Mirror
This may be funny, but it's also quite true!
I use ELinks as my web browser, and I think it's the best client I've ever used.
Of course, no image-based ads will be loaded, but there are tons of other neat features (tabbed browsing, smart bookmarks, excellent customizable keyboard control, etc.).
Even before I switched to lynx/links/elinks, I always made sure to disable Javascript, and I've never regretted it.
On Linux or FreeBSD:
ratpoison, rxvt, irssi, Links/lynx/ELinks, nvi/vim/elvis or emacs.
On Windows:
Nothing - I don't install things on other people's computers.
Dangerous think over there.
I'm most certainly not advocating any such decisions when imposed upon people against their will-- I'm merely trying to express my (unusual?) point of view, which is based on voluntary action.
I don't think there is any acceptable way to rank people's value and take action based on that "score".
Do you know what humanity will be capable of if we live much much longer?
If you're referring to the tragic loss or abandonment of unfinished thoughts and research when people die, I completely agree. I'm not necessarily against increasing lifespan, I just think it deserves caution.
I do hope that the human numbers will reach 50 billion.
Wow, that's peculiar. I can't say I agree with _that_ statement, even if it would get us off to another planet. Increasing the population by such a drastic factor sounds like a disaster, regardless of interplanetary travel plans. Also, I think it's been mentioned that ferrying humans to new planets really wouldn't be all that effective when you take the number of people per ship into consideration.
Beyond that, I do agree that there would be useful aspects to increased lifespan... as well as serious problems.
Time to crack open "My First Math Primer" again. 0 is not the opposite of 1, it is NOTHING.
Sorry, I assumed you were comparing true (1) and false (0).
Very much like the old religious assertion that if someone becomes diseased, "god" has cursed them and they deserve their fate.
;)
:)
Well, even if they were wrong, their (now-crazy-sounding) beliefs might have actually been beneficial.
If your car has a problem with it's breaks do you say "Does I really need this car?" and chuck it in the river.
An interesting comparison, but I don't think it fully applies. A car is meant to serve its owner. If it stops working, it's only a temporary problem and can be repaired fairly simply and get back to its job. . . Humans are much more complex, and repairing a human is repairing a unique and highly interesting glob of material. Regardless of religious beliefs, I'd say that many/most people agree that humans are "designed" (one way or another) to die after an amount of time. This time is obviously subject to change, but sometimes it may be taken too far. "Repairing" a human who can no longer function in any worthwhile manner might fall under this category, as might repairing a human against their will.
I'm sure back when the average human lifespan was 34 years, someone thought the same about living to 100.
Maybe we should go back to dying after 40 years?
But seriously, I think things like this can go a certain distance, but then they might become just plain silly. Hmm, why do humans live so long compared to many other animals?
Sounds like you don't have children and hate people in general.
Finally someone understands me!
I don't have any children, but nah, I don't hate people.
Death is an important part of life in the same way that 0 is an important part of 1.
True enough, death is the opposite of life, but 1 would be useless without 0.
This is called "hedonism" and is, like all other non-reproductive theories of what is or is not important in life, unsupported by evidence.
Things like this can be studied until the end of time, but it still won't yield any direct answer that could be considered factual.
Maybe the question should be "Does this organ need replacement?" This is not 600 B.C.
Yep, that's a question too. This is not 600 B.C.
None of us need to be alive at all.
Quite true. This is why we need to pursue "The meaning of life".
[20]Knock yourself out, then.
Heh.
Earth doesn't have a population problem, humans have a resource distribution problem.
I would say it has both, even if the resource distribution problem has more of an effect. Humans also need to spread out into unused space (uhm, without destroying it).
I think scientists need to invent a time machine and give this advice to your parents.
Oh, damn. I guess you got me there.
You first.
Well, I'm not sure what you mean by that. Plenty of people accept death, but some have a strong attachment to their lives or the lives of others. Of course, this isn't a bad thing, but it can produce bad side-effects. I don't think this is anything crazy enough that I must be the first one to do it.
Would I try to preserve my own life?
Well, that's a good question. I honestly can't say at this point, since I haven't had the opportunity to experience any such serious medical issues. I'm also a bit too young to be making guesses about how my mind will work many years from now.
I do believe, however, that it would be my duty as a human being to die if I could no longer serve any useful purpose. If I go for self-preservation after my "time is up", it will be against what I currently believe to be reasonable.
Is this a calculator or a PDA?
> ... might spell the end of people dying due to lack of suitable organ donors.
Death is one of the most important parts of life. It doesn't matter too terribly much when or how it occurs, as long as the person has enjoyed their life. If an organ fails, maybe the question "Does this person still need to live" should be asked. After all, we don't all need to be alive forever. I'd hate to see the day when people live to be 180 years old.
If people stop dying (or death slows down, as it surely will continue to do), the world's population problem will only grow.
I think people really need to 1) stop having children 2) try to accept death a little more.
I'm guessing it will be rewriten by plenty of people in various different languages. C, perl, python... fortran77?
I don't even have a C# compiler.
The schools aren't making a lesson available to the kids.
The schools are making the kids available to the lesson.
I couldn't have thought of a better way to put it. This isn't about education, it's about "teaching" the potential market to think a certain way. And what better place to find a bunch of little market-units than in a school?
There's more than wishful thinking in some people.
Some people do believe that information and data should be freely distributable, and that any restrictions in the matter would be unfairly limiting their freedom to communicate. Of course, I'm not claiming that the mojority of illegal file-sharers share this viewpoint, but it's something to consider.
What the hell? They're going to just start exploiting schools in order to dump their brainwashing propaganda on young people? Does anyone else think this is completely ridiculous?
Sure, they would be talking about something which is illegal, but that doesn't make this right. The children and parents should have time to discuss things like this and make their own decisions, without being misguided by the people who want to make money.
It sort of reminds me of this "War on Drugs", except the "War on Drugs" is actually more reasonable.
A lot.
And there might be some drool involved.
(I actually thought about sun.com as I was posting)
I know, I had a bit of a chuckle myself when I saw that. It showed up as "3, Informative" for a minute or so.
Okay, everybody stare directly at the Sun.
Yes! Get the real criminals!
Some real criminals _do_ hurt "wallets"-- they steal your money. "Pirates" do not hurt wallets, they simply discourage some people from paying for something that could be made available free of charge. Yes, that's a crime, but even if you don't agree with what they're doing, it seems like it would be obvious that they are nowhere near as harmful as some other people.
Why not go after those sea pirates, engaging in actual pirate activity?
> ... then they would easily have been wiped out by a pet project of Microsoft or Sony ...
True enough, but that doesn't justify allowing someone to control who is allowed to use or implement such things.
Even if a nasty Microsoft/Walmart/etc. decides to profit from that idea, who's to decide? Certainly not those fools who would let someone patent water. I think many/most people would agree that preventing the immediate exploitation of an idea, giving the smaller guys a chance to take advantage of it, is generally a good thing, but doing so in a fair manner seems quite impossible.
I don't know what this technology was that your company developed, but even so-- why should they get to restrict how others can use it? Is it so extraordinarily original that nobody else would ever have come up with it? How _can_ you own an idea?
> Who needs lossless images anyway!
You mean "Who needs _lossy_ images"?
> Sure, they're huge, but you've got broadband, right?
Photographs ought to be stored using lossless compression anyway. Who wants to worry about slowly degrading the quality of their images with repeated editing and re-saving?
If PNGs are too huge, why not reduce the color bit depth or scale it down? (for internet transfer)
Absolutely. When patents are doing nothing but preventing a good (or in the case of jpeg, fair) technology from being fully utilized, they are complety useless. I would argue that they are useless anyway, but this is just ridiculous.
It doesn't make sense for one person or group of people to have control over some process, operation, or method. Copyrights are a bit closer to being reasonable, but patents just give away power that should never be had in the first place.
The Forgent JPEG patent issue is mentioned on burnallgifs.org: "Yes, but it wouldn't stand up in court, so ignore Forgent."
With a link to a July/2002 message by Greg Aharonian.
On the other hand, internet 'radio' lets just about anyone broadcast audio to anyone willing to listen. I'd say that's a major advantage, even if the quality isn't as high as ordinary radio.
I think mp3/ogg streams are especially nice for voice, since the quality only needs to be high enough to make it understandable, while music requires the listener to appreciate the actual sound.
I don't think that simply testing the fingerprint of the actual data in the file would work very well, since there isn't a very good chance that an mp3 of a track encoded by Person A will match an mp3 of that same track as encoded by Person B. Aside from the obvious changes such as higher or lower bitrates, the actual data is likely to be different depending on the encoder used (though producing basically the same sound).
I assume a more complex system involving actual analysis of the sound would be necessary in order to detect illegal audio files.