It was a beer commercial a few years ago... but the question remains.
The answer of course is that "Why" is a question that any creature as dependent on thinking as we are, will ALWAYS have to ask, or suffer the ignominious consequences of genetic defeat.
So the "Why" question is hardwired into us. As anyone who's ever raised kids will realize.
When we come to a question we can't get a "Because" for, it makes us damned uncomfortable. It increases stress levels and depending on the level of education and natural ability, those questions can become more or less frequent.
God (and religion) is a marvelous way to quiet that endless and impossible to fully satisfy "why". It leaves an internal peace where there was just uncertainty before, and strangely enough, that is one of the things the religious folks among us describe.
Such internal peace instead of stress would go a long way to explain survival in-extremis cases as well.
So yes, we are hardwired for it... and the less we know, the harder the wires.
I got my nomex suit handy now.
BJ
If you generate a random code for each voting machine and another for each vote, printed it at the top of the ballot/receipt and filed the vote in a database properly according to both, you'd have the paper trail AND the possibility of anonymous verification.
The vote machine wouldn't know WHO you are, nor would anyone be able to retrieve that information. If you (or your party) suspect fraud or error, you can check the DB against the receipt without EVER giving your name.
Van-Allen has done all the homework a Scientist needs to do. He knows all about his particular field and how much it costs to get the information needed to understand his particular field. His limited view of the problem is akin to a scientist peering through a telescope at distant planets, too distracted to notice that his lab is burning down around him
There are six billion humans on this planet and there will be 10 billion before long. We already have global warming to worry about, petroleum shortages, food shortages, and medical crises. We are rather better armed than fed (obesity in the western world notwithstanding:-)
To change the outcome for the species from the most likely (self-annihilation) or the ultimately inevitable (pulverization by an errant space-rock), to survival and expansion we must not only "explore" space in person, but also learn to live and work there.
This is not something that is learned by scientists, it is learned by engineers. It is sometimes referred to as "applied science" but it has no status at NASA or among "real" scientists like Van-Allen. So we spend millions on medical research combatting 40 million years of evolution in a gravity well and zero on a spacecraft with dimensions and spin capable of replicating that well.
There are energy, metal, water and hydrocarbon resources elsewhere than on the surface of the earth. If we want any hope at all of saving the one planet we have real access to we have to use those external resources. It really isn't as hard as it looks, but first we have to learn to live and work in space
So the investment in the ISS is wasteful because a robot did more "science" at less cost? No... It is wasteful only if the only thing you know how to count is "pure" science. The ISS is the IDEAL platform for us to learn to live and work there. The Shuttle is unfortunately, the only vehicle we have to make the trip regularly, but that CAN be corrected. Cheap Access To Space should be one of our two primary projects at NASA and understanding how to live and work there must be the other.
With those two things in hand, exploration of space will be done without further government intervention and our future as a species is all but assured. If either one is managed we MIGHT be able to survive the next century. If we fail to do either one we are as doomed as dinosaurs looking at a sudden bright light on the horizon.
There are 6 going on 10 Trillion people overpopulating the planet, better armed than fed, with diminishing resources and religious animus to fuel their desire for war over what remains of those resources.
Engineers and Scientists can't solve those problems, but we CAN go out to the asteroid belt to collect metals, to orbit to build Satellite Solar Power Stations, to the gas giants for methane... and in the doing of these things, just by the way, spread ourselves around the entire Solar System so that accidents to the one planet we have MIGHT not be fatal to the species
We can do this and deserve to survive as a species, or we can take this view that there is nothing out there worth having and deserve to go the way of the Dinosaurs
What can I tell my children's children as they are starving to death, facing bio-chemical-nuclear ruin, being overrun by some quasi-human mob with spears bent on cannibalism... the "real returns were questionable"? Looking at the question from the viewpoint of money and science and from that viewpoint you are correct, but that view is completely innocent of troubles outside those two areas, and like the billiard player saying "8 ball in the corner pocket" just before a Richter 8 quake, it'd be right IF nothing else were happening to us
After saying that, it is a LOT cheaper than most of the things we spend on anyway. Check this little op-ed piece. An excerpt "$31 billion go annually in the US on tobacco products - twice the NASA budget -, and $58 billion is spent on alcohol consumption -almost four times the NASA budget. Forget space spin-offs - here are genuine tangible benefits: $250 billion are spent annually in the US on the medical treatment of tobacco- and alcohol-related diseases - only sixteen times more than on space exploration."
Self-Aware computers are possible but not through the single minded application of processor power that you think engenders intelligence.
Personally I am quite sure I know HOW to do this. I have neither the time or money to pursue it. The key to understanding the self-aware property of the brain is to understand that you are NOT just a brain, and that the distinction between brain and body is inherently an error.
Moreover, a computer AI without a set of relationships to the external world identical to those that a human possesses will almost certainly be judged insane by human standards, should it achieve self-awareness
We are our memories, but our memories are of our interactions with the environment around us. Without those, we would have the same self-awareness as the machines we presently build
That would work. My preference would be to hand receipts to the voters. The votes themselves would be assigned a random number which would be printed on the receipt. The individuals vote could at any time thereafter be checked. A duplicate could be printed for the state to hold.
Since the county clerk wouldn't know who had what ballot/random number assigned, the anonymity of the voter would be preserved. That anonymity would not necessarily be abandoned if he/she used the receipt to check for fraud.
People are definitely nervous about this. The more you know about it the more nervous you get.
papaZen
Placing the photocopier is not, but the library could indeed be party to a suit (at least in the USA) if it allowed patrons to copy egregiously. A civil suit, not a criminal offence. However, the issue is actually that the copier in the library is incapable of making (economically) a copy of any but the smallest magazine article. The song you rip AND share is digitally indistinguishable from the original, and someone who copies your copy may as well have had the original.
Your suggested defense might well work. Indeed I am reasonably sure the record labels themselves would stop at the VPN. They could sue you for negligence for NOT securing the share if you didn't, but would have a much harder time convicting in a criminal case. Reasonable doubt gets a play in the criminal court, not in civil actions.
If you remember your library (not the one in/usr/lib;-) the copier is:
A. Ancient, providing poor quality copies
B. $0.05 per sheet
C. Incapable of turning pages.
The poor thing is not CAPABLE of reproducing a book and any reproduction of the reproduction is almost uselessly degraded.
My point is that the analogue to the song that is being "ripped" is the entire book, and the copier cannot easily OR economically be misused for that purpose. The copies here ARE digital and hence perfect no matter how many generations removed from the originator.
The library and copier analogy fails on two points.
The first is that the library itself bought the books. This is only true of the first person to provide the MP3 file for uploading. Any uploading of the copy cannot be related to any library/copier function.
The second is that the copier is not used to provide another copy of "War and Peace". It is used to grab bits and pieces of information. Using if for an entire book is just as illegal as downloading the MP3.
Note, I am NOT taking a position on the MP3 copy issue, not interested, but bad analogies annoy me and this one is worse than usual.
papaZen
Given that the W won't answer questions without his Papa's puppeteer Cheney beside him I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and left (with my 3 degrees) already......but not for Canada:-)
Since my first Pascal compiler the MS products have proved more bug-ridden and erratic than any competition I tried. That was true with C, MSDOS, Word and again with C++.
We won't discuss Java:-)
I called them on a problem with fdisk. A decade later I hit the SAME bug and now MS is now convicted of playing monopoly on 2 continents. Coincidence doesn't come in that size. As a monopoly they don't HAVE to care, and it shows.
I grant the nice pages of info and examples from MS now, but the OS is dangerously monolithic and its applications and compilers are insultingly inferior to those they pushed out of the market.
More to the point, I have found that I can google a better technical answer than I get from any published info or formal tech support. There are rare exceptions to this, but MS is not one of them.
respectfully
papaZen
Slashdot Mirror
It was a beer commercial a few years ago... but the question remains. The answer of course is that "Why" is a question that any creature as dependent on thinking as we are, will ALWAYS have to ask, or suffer the ignominious consequences of genetic defeat. So the "Why" question is hardwired into us. As anyone who's ever raised kids will realize. When we come to a question we can't get a "Because" for, it makes us damned uncomfortable. It increases stress levels and depending on the level of education and natural ability, those questions can become more or less frequent. God (and religion) is a marvelous way to quiet that endless and impossible to fully satisfy "why". It leaves an internal peace where there was just uncertainty before, and strangely enough, that is one of the things the religious folks among us describe. Such internal peace instead of stress would go a long way to explain survival in-extremis cases as well. So yes, we are hardwired for it... and the less we know, the harder the wires. I got my nomex suit handy now. BJ
If you generate a random code for each voting machine and another for each vote, printed it at the top of the ballot/receipt and filed the vote in a database properly according to both, you'd have the paper trail AND the possibility of anonymous verification.
The vote machine wouldn't know WHO you are, nor would anyone be able to retrieve that information. If you (or your party) suspect fraud or error, you can check the DB against the receipt without EVER giving your name.
respectfully BJVan-Allen has done all the homework a Scientist needs to do. He knows all about his particular field and how much it costs to get the information needed to understand his particular field. His limited view of the problem is akin to a scientist peering through a telescope at distant planets, too distracted to notice that his lab is burning down around him
There are six billion humans on this planet and there will be 10 billion before long. We already have global warming to worry about, petroleum shortages, food shortages, and medical crises. We are rather better armed than fed (obesity in the western world notwithstanding :-)
To change the outcome for the species from the most likely (self-annihilation) or the ultimately inevitable (pulverization by an errant space-rock), to survival and expansion we must not only "explore" space in person, but also learn to live and work there.
This is not something that is learned by scientists, it is learned by engineers. It is sometimes referred to as "applied science" but it has no status at NASA or among "real" scientists like Van-Allen. So we spend millions on medical research combatting 40 million years of evolution in a gravity well and zero on a spacecraft with dimensions and spin capable of replicating that well.
There are energy, metal, water and hydrocarbon resources elsewhere than on the surface of the earth. If we want any hope at all of saving the one planet we have real access to we have to use those external resources. It really isn't as hard as it looks, but first we have to learn to live and work in space
So the investment in the ISS is wasteful because a robot did more "science" at less cost? No... It is wasteful only if the only thing you know how to count is "pure" science. The ISS is the IDEAL platform for us to learn to live and work there. The Shuttle is unfortunately, the only vehicle we have to make the trip regularly, but that CAN be corrected. Cheap Access To Space should be one of our two primary projects at NASA and understanding how to live and work there must be the other.
With those two things in hand, exploration of space will be done without further government intervention and our future as a species is all but assured. If either one is managed we MIGHT be able to survive the next century. If we fail to do either one we are as doomed as dinosaurs looking at a sudden bright light on the horizon.
respectfully BJThere are 6 going on 10 Trillion people overpopulating the planet, better armed than fed, with diminishing resources and religious animus to fuel their desire for war over what remains of those resources.
Engineers and Scientists can't solve those problems, but we CAN go out to the asteroid belt to collect metals, to orbit to build Satellite Solar Power Stations, to the gas giants for methane... and in the doing of these things, just by the way, spread ourselves around the entire Solar System so that accidents to the one planet we have MIGHT not be fatal to the species
We can do this and deserve to survive as a species, or we can take this view that there is nothing out there worth having and deserve to go the way of the Dinosaurs
What can I tell my children's children as they are starving to death, facing bio-chemical-nuclear ruin, being overrun by some quasi-human mob with spears bent on cannibalism... the "real returns were questionable"? Looking at the question from the viewpoint of money and science and from that viewpoint you are correct, but that view is completely innocent of troubles outside those two areas, and like the billiard player saying "8 ball in the corner pocket" just before a Richter 8 quake, it'd be right IF nothing else were happening to us
After saying that, it is a LOT cheaper than most of the things we spend on anyway. Check this little op-ed piece. An excerpt "$31 billion go annually in the US on tobacco products - twice the NASA budget -, and $58 billion is spent on alcohol consumption -almost four times the NASA budget. Forget space spin-offs - here are genuine tangible benefits: $250 billion are spent annually in the US on the medical treatment of tobacco- and alcohol-related diseases - only sixteen times more than on space exploration."
So lets all go out and get drunk instead.You'll excuse me if I don't come along
respectfully BJSelf-Aware computers are possible but not through the single minded application of processor power that you think engenders intelligence.
Personally I am quite sure I know HOW to do this. I have neither the time or money to pursue it. The key to understanding the self-aware property of the brain is to understand that you are NOT just a brain, and that the distinction between brain and body is inherently an error.
Moreover, a computer AI without a set of relationships to the external world identical to those that a human possesses will almost certainly be judged insane by human standards, should it achieve self-awareness
We are our memories, but our memories are of our interactions with the environment around us. Without those, we would have the same self-awareness as the machines we presently build
respectfully BJThat would work. My preference would be to hand receipts to the voters. The votes themselves would be assigned a random number which would be printed on the receipt. The individuals vote could at any time thereafter be checked. A duplicate could be printed for the state to hold. Since the county clerk wouldn't know who had what ballot/random number assigned, the anonymity of the voter would be preserved. That anonymity would not necessarily be abandoned if he/she used the receipt to check for fraud. People are definitely nervous about this. The more you know about it the more nervous you get. papaZen
Placing the photocopier is not, but the library could indeed be party to a suit (at least in the USA) if it allowed patrons to copy egregiously. A civil suit, not a criminal offence. However, the issue is actually that the copier in the library is incapable of making (economically) a copy of any but the smallest magazine article. The song you rip AND share is digitally indistinguishable from the original, and someone who copies your copy may as well have had the original.
Your suggested defense might well work. Indeed I am reasonably sure the record labels themselves would stop at the VPN. They could sue you for negligence for NOT securing the share if you didn't, but would have a much harder time convicting in a criminal case. Reasonable doubt gets a play in the criminal court, not in civil actions.
respectfully papaZenIf you remember your library (not the one in /usr/lib ;-) the copier is:
A. Ancient, providing poor quality copies B. $0.05 per sheet C. Incapable of turning pages.
The poor thing is not CAPABLE of reproducing a book and any reproduction of the reproduction is almost uselessly degraded.
My point is that the analogue to the song that is being "ripped" is the entire book, and the copier cannot easily OR economically be misused for that purpose. The copies here ARE digital and hence perfect no matter how many generations removed from the originator.
respectfully papaZenThe library and copier analogy fails on two points. The first is that the library itself bought the books. This is only true of the first person to provide the MP3 file for uploading. Any uploading of the copy cannot be related to any library/copier function. The second is that the copier is not used to provide another copy of "War and Peace". It is used to grab bits and pieces of information. Using if for an entire book is just as illegal as downloading the MP3. Note, I am NOT taking a position on the MP3 copy issue, not interested, but bad analogies annoy me and this one is worse than usual. papaZen
Given that the W won't answer questions without his Papa's puppeteer Cheney beside him I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and left (with my 3 degrees) already... ...but not for Canada :-)
Since my first Pascal compiler the MS products have proved more bug-ridden and erratic than any competition I tried. That was true with C, MSDOS, Word and again with C++. We won't discuss Java :-)
I called them on a problem with fdisk. A decade later I hit the SAME bug and now MS is now convicted of playing monopoly on 2 continents. Coincidence doesn't come in that size. As a monopoly they don't HAVE to care, and it shows.
I grant the nice pages of info and examples from MS now, but the OS is dangerously monolithic and its applications and compilers are insultingly inferior to those they pushed out of the market.
More to the point, I have found that I can google a better technical answer than I get from any published info or formal tech support. There are rare exceptions to this, but MS is not one of them.
respectfully
papaZen
My experience to date is that I'd rather have the Indian MD as well.