Evolution versus artificial modification
on
Cosmetic Neurology
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
While I am not against the use of such drugs because of safety reasons per se, to me, it feels like we're cheating evolution. Perhaps evolution could come up with many of these modifications (intelligence/less drowsiness) naturally.
Heck, it's only a theory, and would be impossible to enforce in reality, but if nobody say... showered, shaved or brushed their teeth, I bet evolution would eventually bias towards those who were naturally less smelly, or clean-shaven looking. Thus saving everyone half an hour per day or whatever in the future.
I recall almost fainting once or twice in the distant past (sudden rush of blood to the head or something). It spanned about 5 seconds, so I consciously took evasive action, as I knew I could pass out. The tell-tale signs are when the eyes get 'noisy' and you see more of a 'grey mess'.
I'm not sure if those are the symptoms for the kind of oxygen deprivation that we're speaking of. But if they are, then one would have 5 seconds or so to get out of the room.
In one sense I despite bloatware, and graphical sugary like Vista's aero skin (despite how cool it looks), if it comes at the cost of unresponsiveness.
On the other hand, it's actually a really good thing, since the market then forces CPU speeds to increase. Extra CPU speed = good for scientific research, day to day tasks and of course games etc.
The great thing is that previously small, efficient, fast apps can now be lightning fast. Everything steps up a gear. Realtime raytracing becomes possible. Writing code can become simpler and more modular etc.
I agree. To extend the idea, I reckon the time spent in lectures should instead be solely used for Q+A/explanation time. Students can try to learn the material from books/online before they go to the lectures.
If I was somehow in Heaven, I'd sacrifice myself for two people who were in hell, despite the terrible eternal punishment. I hope you could say the same.
Jesus in the new testament seems to enjoy speaking about it quite a lot, or at least hinting/implying it. That itself (or at least the ambiguity) is enough to turn me off pretty quickly.
I just wish people would stop equating employment with general prosperity.
If people lose jobs because a task has become more efficient or even 100% automated, that is in essence a very good thing, not a bad thing. Those people are free now to work on other things now (or at least have more free time).
Ignoring the possibility of a soul, I'd still say the mind is special, in much the same way that a computer is special. Things still have to be arranged in a relatively particular way for us to function.
TBH, as long as the *receiver* of the email is the one getting paid, then transactions will tend to balance each other out over time. It will also serve those well who get hundreds of emails per day, but only want the important ones to read.
Give it another 5-10 years, and the SSD will be used for everything. A good thing that will be too (unless you want to keep the spinning platters for nostalgia reasons...)
If they don't already, medical schools should teach basic mathematical probability (as part of evidence-based medicine). One time, I had chicken pox late (about 28), and at the surgery, I asked one of the doctors what would be the chance I would develop deadly condition x if I took treatment y (treatment y would otherwise potentially help in other ways). I got something along the lines of:
"Well if you're the one who gets the (deadly) condition in the end, what matter is it that there was z chance of getting it?".
I went on to explain I'd rather have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance, than a 1 in 10 chance and I think that brought the message home. Still it was quite painful to hear...
It would nice to see a study at hand to back up most treatments given out, rather than just the doctor's experience/hunch.
Occasionally, I do the same thing too. I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to kick the habit. The time used to hold the mouse button before releasing can instead just be used for whether to press in the first place.
The chess piece thing is sort of a good analogy. Except I suppose there's the issue with that you can check to 'see' what the piece looks like on its new square, which helps with the calculation.
Only vaguely related to this story but apparently, the mandelbrot shape has been found in cross-sections of magnetic field borders. I only found the reference from one page a while back though, so I can't say how true it is.
I bet most unintended button clicks would happen in 99.8% of cases regardless, since the 'drag out' technique you mentioned (which I have done myself on occasion) has such a small 'time window'.
The thing is if you're gonna hesitate about clicking, then you could simply click 0.2s later (covering for the fractions of a second between mouse-up/down) which would give you the same time gap to correct your mistake. In any case I rarely make a mistake, and when I do I don't usually have enough reaction time in between the mouse down and mouse up to realise my mistake. In the very rare times I do, then there's always the 'undo'.
Also, allowing immediate action on mouse-button-down means you can move the mouse away immediately to do something else, and you can be certain the action has been carried through. Sometimes, I find that I've clicked, and moved the mouse away to soon, and find it didn't really click at all.
Overall, things are more snappy/responsive, and stuff can be done faster. Google Chrome's tabs operate like this, and I bet that's part of the reason people say it feels so fast.
A bit random, but how about this for a feature to make Windows generally more 'snappy'.
Button widgets only function once the mouse button has been *released*, rather than on the initial click of the button. If this was corrected, the GUI would feel more responsive due to the latency involved in releasing the mouse button.
Yes, I agree. I wish I still had my old electronic typewriter. I'd much rather type letters out on that, and use the computer for er... other things. That's what it was meant for.
Equally, I'm quite upset that my microwave can also grill (even if it saves space), and also how one can emulate bulky audio hardware equipment inside a PC these days. The heavy duty stuff was more nostalgic. Instead of converging everything into one system, the future is surely lots of separate devices for a computer diary, watch, phone, camera, music player, and all the other gizmos. Perhaps we can have two watches as well - one that displays the minutes and seconds, and one that displays the hours and date. One can but dream...
Slashdot Mirror
While I am not against the use of such drugs because of safety reasons per se, to me, it feels like we're cheating evolution. Perhaps evolution could come up with many of these modifications (intelligence/less drowsiness) naturally.
Heck, it's only a theory, and would be impossible to enforce in reality, but if nobody say... showered, shaved or brushed their teeth, I bet evolution would eventually bias towards those who were naturally less smelly, or clean-shaven looking. Thus saving everyone half an hour per day or whatever in the future.
I recall almost fainting once or twice in the distant past (sudden rush of blood to the head or something). It spanned about 5 seconds, so I consciously took evasive action, as I knew I could pass out. The tell-tale signs are when the eyes get 'noisy' and you see more of a 'grey mess'.
I'm not sure if those are the symptoms for the kind of oxygen deprivation that we're speaking of. But if they are, then one would have 5 seconds or so to get out of the room.
Is the 'passing out' phase instant or drawn out somewhat? In other words, would one be able to notice feeling as though they might pass out?
In one sense I despite bloatware, and graphical sugary like Vista's aero skin (despite how cool it looks), if it comes at the cost of unresponsiveness.
On the other hand, it's actually a really good thing, since the market then forces CPU speeds to increase. Extra CPU speed = good for scientific research, day to day tasks and of course games etc.
The great thing is that previously small, efficient, fast apps can now be lightning fast. Everything steps up a gear. Realtime raytracing becomes possible. Writing code can become simpler and more modular etc.
It's all good.
I agree. To extend the idea, I reckon the time spent in lectures should instead be solely used for Q+A/explanation time. Students can try to learn the material from books/online before they go to the lectures.
Until we have microphones and video cameras at either end of each PC.
Yeah I know, sounds terribly impersonal...
If I was somehow in Heaven, I'd sacrifice myself for two people who were in hell, despite the terrible eternal punishment. I hope you could say the same.
You should be modded +5 for that. I've always thought the same way.
It's one instance where I would ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE people to go against the status quo so that the language has a chance of improvement in this area.
Jesus in the new testament seems to enjoy speaking about it quite a lot, or at least hinting/implying it. That itself (or at least the ambiguity) is enough to turn me off pretty quickly.
I used to be a 'Christian' too until I realized how cruel and plain unfair hell would be for even the worst person that ever existed.
You know how everyone never reads the story on slashdot? Well, I've set a record for laziness in not reading your original post, only its reply ;)
Plus the success rate would be >50%. Spammers only need about 10% and they're laughing.
Guesswork would reveal a 50% success rate. Spammers only need about 10%, and they're laughing.
I just wish people would stop equating employment with general prosperity.
If people lose jobs because a task has become more efficient or even 100% automated, that is in essence a very good thing, not a bad thing. Those people are free now to work on other things now (or at least have more free time).
Ignoring the possibility of a soul, I'd still say the mind is special, in much the same way that a computer is special. Things still have to be arranged in a relatively particular way for us to function.
TBH, as long as the *receiver* of the email is the one getting paid, then transactions will tend to balance each other out over time. It will also serve those well who get hundreds of emails per day, but only want the important ones to read.
Give it another 5-10 years, and the SSD will be used for everything. A good thing that will be too (unless you want to keep the spinning platters for nostalgia reasons...)
If they don't already, medical schools should teach basic mathematical probability (as part of evidence-based medicine). One time, I had chicken pox late (about 28), and at the surgery, I asked one of the doctors what would be the chance I would develop deadly condition x if I took treatment y (treatment y would otherwise potentially help in other ways). I got something along the lines of:
"Well if you're the one who gets the (deadly) condition in the end, what matter is it that there was z chance of getting it?".
I went on to explain I'd rather have a 1 in 1,000,000 chance, than a 1 in 10 chance and I think that brought the message home. Still it was quite painful to hear...
It would nice to see a study at hand to back up most treatments given out, rather than just the doctor's experience/hunch.
I wonder if it's even theoretically possible scientifically to get decent bass from paper thin speakers.
Occasionally, I do the same thing too. I reckon it wouldn't be too hard to kick the habit. The time used to hold the mouse button before releasing can instead just be used for whether to press in the first place.
The chess piece thing is sort of a good analogy. Except I suppose there's the issue with that you can check to 'see' what the piece looks like on its new square, which helps with the calculation.
Only vaguely related to this story but apparently, the mandelbrot shape has been found in cross-sections of magnetic field borders. I only found the reference from one page a while back though, so I can't say how true it is.
I bet most unintended button clicks would happen in 99.8% of cases regardless, since the 'drag out' technique you mentioned (which I have done myself on occasion) has such a small 'time window'.
The thing is if you're gonna hesitate about clicking, then you could simply click 0.2s later (covering for the fractions of a second between mouse-up/down) which would give you the same time gap to correct your mistake. In any case I rarely make a mistake, and when I do I don't usually have enough reaction time in between the mouse down and mouse up to realise my mistake. In the very rare times I do, then there's always the 'undo'.
Also, allowing immediate action on mouse-button-down means you can move the mouse away immediately to do something else, and you can be certain the action has been carried through. Sometimes, I find that I've clicked, and moved the mouse away to soon, and find it didn't really click at all.
Overall, things are more snappy/responsive, and stuff can be done faster. Google Chrome's tabs operate like this, and I bet that's part of the reason people say it feels so fast.
A bit random, but how about this for a feature to make Windows generally more 'snappy'.
Button widgets only function once the mouse button has been *released*, rather than on the initial click of the button. If this was corrected, the GUI would feel more responsive due to the latency involved in releasing the mouse button.
Any thoughts?
What, like some of these? ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q_ESdiF2wM
Yes, I agree. I wish I still had my old electronic typewriter. I'd much rather type letters out on that, and use the computer for er... other things. That's what it was meant for.
Equally, I'm quite upset that my microwave can also grill (even if it saves space), and also how one can emulate bulky audio hardware equipment inside a PC these days. The heavy duty stuff was more nostalgic. Instead of converging everything into one system, the future is surely lots of separate devices for a computer diary, watch, phone, camera, music player, and all the other gizmos. Perhaps we can have two watches as well - one that displays the minutes and seconds, and one that displays the hours and date. One can but dream...