I take spiritual as being belief in spirits, i.e. belief in the existence of non-physical things. I suppose an Atheist might believe in ghosts or some sort of "gaia" junk, since that doesn't explicity require belief in God, but such people require the very same "faith" any Christian or Muslim requires. It could just be a conflict of definitions, but as far as I'm concerned, believing in Gaia theory or Ghosts or ESP, etc.. is synonymous with Religion.
I think the best way to convince yourself of free will is the notion of creativity. I refer to creativity of many forms: be it in art, in design, in science, in discussion; take your pick. If someone gives me a set of design requirements, I use rules and laws to achieve the desired goal. There's very little free will involved, and if it is, it's mostly hidden or non-obvious. However, take something without a set goal in mind, say a hobby or a past-time (or in my case, my doctorate). There's no clear cut methodology used to reach whatever loosely defined goal (if any) that has been set. It's a case of the ride being far more enjoyable than the destination. The entire process is one of creativity because there are no pressures to perform. Perhaps by analogy one can think of it as the observer effect: until someone is on your back, telling you what to do, you're in a superposition of states. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if in 50 years we find out that a lot of the brains' processes are QM in nature, especially the creative aspects.
I debated on whether to write this, since I cherish my karma oh so much...
What difference does it make? Doped or not doped, the entirety of professional sports is a sham. These people are treated with far greater respect, given far more opportunities to excel and far more financial compensation than any scientist, engineer or teacher ever will. Someone making 30 million a year for what amounts to being lucky to have their genetics is ridiculous (sure, training is involved, but training without supporting genetics means squat).
And I say all of this as an avid sports enthusiast: lots of mountain climbing, hiking, soccer, cycling, etc... but none professionally. People in science, education, arts and entrepreneurial business have to work their asses off to achieve something tangible as opposed to one of these "sports professionals" who have trained themselves to run REALLY fast in a straight line (sometimes in an oval too!)
I say fuck the games, let's simply let professional sport die as it should and leave sports as an enjoyable hobby / past time; not the enormous waste of time, money and space that it currently enjoys.
You mean your supervisor is too cheap to foot the bill? Mine is very stingy on money and he's shelled out $1000's for draft print outs, committee print outs, good copies, etc...
Has anyone noticed the trend of a lot of video games, namely on the Wii? We have Rock Band and Guitar Hero, which takes a substatial amount of practice to do well - and just imagine if that time were put into learning a REAL instrument? Don't give me the bullshit of the positive effect of getting people together - I jam regularly with 4 people - the only tricky part is drums which will be solved when one of us gets a house. Then you have the Wii sports games - why not get out and visit a Golf course, or mini-putt? Anyone go bowling lately? Maybe it's just my in-laws and neighbours, but everyone seems to sit on their asses and / or not leave the house / apartment anymore.
And there we have the White Elephant. If there is a correlation between excess cell phone use and cancer, perhaps we should be considering the lifestyles of the people who excessively use cell phones. Correlation != Causation.
Give him access to alternatives. I was interested in computers, programming, etc... as a kid but I also had access to hardware. I began with Basic / C (coding games) and ended up migrating to coding for PLDs / FPGAs, then to designing audio amplifiers, until finally I found myself in antennas / electromagnetics - I'm now working on my doctorate. Computers are the first introduction to technology, and programming is the easiest to start with, but it certainly isn't the only thing to learn. All I'm saying is to make sure there are options.
Re:What happened to interchangable parts?
on
Inside the Lego Factory
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I hit my LEGO peak about 15 years ago, when Castles (Knights, Woodsmen, Dragons) were the rave. I recall getting a full castle set and integrating the pieces into larger, more substantial castles. The pieces were very specialized (i.e. parapet pieces, pre-built castle walls) but what this did is allowed me to construct more elaborate add-ons since I didnt have to exhaust my regular pieces on building spires, walls, etc.. So yes, I would say even 15 years ago the sets were certainly specialized, but you could really use it to your advantage. My nephews and nieces now play with my old stuff and I find their newest sets are even MORE specialized, but yet again, they use it in a similar manner when I was a kid. Speaking of which, I have a 1 month old so I have to make plans on getting my lego back for my little one!
I think it goes without saying that humankind will eventually need more living space than what is offered here on Earth. I guess we could expand habitation into the oceans on platforms, or force people to live in much close quarters than they would like. I suspect either way at some point we will need more real estate. That being said, perhaps space habitations would be the solution rather than colonization / terra forming.
Either way, whether the need for more real estate exists, the need to explore will be there. Why wouldn't we want to have habitations on the Moon, or Mars, or Venus, moons of Jupiter/Saturn? If you consider how much money and resource is wasted on total garbage here on Earth (Iraq, Media, Military in general) and assuming we solve the majority of problems here (poverty, crime) then what better endeavour than space exploration to spend our resources on? I agree, robots are a wise choice for the exploration, but why not include humans? Sure it's more expensive, but at the current dismal rate of hard-AI research, nothing will compare to direct human interaction!
I shudder at your comment "There's no reason to do it except SF fantasy wish fulfillment or too much time spent watching scientifically nonsensical films and books". Assuming the "New World" had no resources to speak of, would it have been a waste to explore the Americas? Just purely for the sake of human inquisitiveness? There doesn't need to be a dollar value attached to the unknown to make it worthwhile to explore.
I must say the same to you... I don't know what you're talking about. In the scientific community I've only seen Software Eng. / Comp Sci. researchers happy with (for example) Linux. I'm in no way saying scientific computing can't occur in a Linux environment, I'm just saying from experience the options are far greater and the user experience much smoother by comparison (this is for Electrical, Mechanical and Civil Engineering, as well as Physics / Mathematics). As a quick example, FEKO works under Linux, but the company recommends using Windows if you have the opportunity due to performance and stability issues running under Linux. Nothing inherently wrong with Linux, just a fact that Windows is the native OS. I'm very much into the hard sciences (physically building, measuring, testing) so I'm not much for open source or coding things when there's more tangible things to be done. I can, however, see how open source software is a veritible wet dream for S/W Eng & Comp. Sci. folks.
Well, a subset of the "Geek" race are the "Nerds". These include scientists, engineers and the like who rely on many Windows-only computational tools. I am fully capable of installing, configuring and perpetually running Linux but I would be shooting myself in the proverbial academic foot by doing so. What's worse is the "linux-compatible" tools DO NOT run properly in Linux (which most of the S/W companies admit). If all relevant computational electromagnetics tools could run as smoothly under Linux as they do under Windows, I would switch in a heartbeat.
Which begs the question: if you can determine which parts of the Bible to follow (i.e. golden rule), and which parts to ignore (i.e. slavery, rape, stoning), where does the ability to "sift" come from? It certainly can't come from the book that you have to be critical about. It's clearly something innate in (most) people that is a product of genetics and culture. More than that, some truths are universal, they go without saying, and do not require a book as a guideline. As for the grandparent, if these people NEED the book to live a good life, you need to look for more competent friends. I say anyone who reads the Bible as anything more than an interesting work of fiction is a fool.
It's fundamentally scary that anyone living in the US couldn't locate Canada on a map. I'm a Canuck, and I've taken the "name the 50 US states in under 10 minutes" test and finish in under 5 minutes. And I haven't even stepped foot in the US, nor taken any course in US History / Geography. It's called reading books. Spread the word to your Yank friends: turn off the TV. But I suspect this is not an American only thing, but a general trend in Western society.
I wonder if on a planet that has no Carbon and an over-abundance of Silicon (obviously an exteme case - but not impossible) if life could evolve using silicon. I mean, when you really come down to it, life could be Germanium, Tin or Lead based by the same arguments, it's just "easier" for Carbon-based to start up. Does anything stop other elements from forming the basis of life? Say Boron (assuming a Boron rich environment void of Carbon and Silicon)?
Agreed! Working in industry I found PMs can be the worst thing for a project. Sure, things get done on time, but they're forced through half-assed. Without PMs, things are completed with much higher standards of quality (from experience, with high profile side contracts with no financing to support an accompanying PM) but certainly finished late - if the original deadline was unreasonable. On one occassion, we had a PM who was a fantastic design engineer (HW) to begin with, and his main role was to fight the higher-ups regarding deadlines and get us extensions. Sad, but that's the most useful thing he could do!
Hell yes. I think the sets (say Castle) were great for unique spare parts. One xmas I was given one of the large castle sets, with four spires. I had already built many-a-castle before using generic pieces, so I used the "spire" pieces to make a single badass extremely tall (and foreboding) wizard's tower. I had tried before with generic pieces but found I ran out too quickly. Ergo, the speciality pieces came in handy. I still have all my lego sitting in a massive tupperwear, and with my first born on the way, it will soon be time to start building again.
Bah. Bullshit. I'd lay down all my possessions that this fucker married some bimbo, twit, bleach-blond, nympho money obsessed bitch that he genuinely loved, but did not genuinely love him back. There are clear signs. People aren't blind-sided, they blind themselves. Murder, accidents, natural disasters, etc.. are unexpected occurances in life -- a cheating spouse is never unexpected. This guy was just blissfully ignorant.
Bullshit. Humans are finite beings, with finite brains and finite neurons, etc... how could anyone possibly conclude we'll never get sentient AI? In no way am I saying it would be easy, maybe 1000's of years off, but it IS possible. If life and subsequently humans evolved through natural means in our universe, what could possibly stop us from artificially creating intelligence?
There's a BIG difference between mental retardation and missing a limb. As heartless as it sounds, I agree that a fetus with mental retardation offers very little to society, and is predominantly a burden. It's still a personal choice for parents as to how one proceeds in utero, but I wouldn't fault a couple for wanting to abort. As for cripples, missing limbs, etc. I don't agree. If your mental faculties remain complete and you're able to express them in full, such a person can become more productive than you or I despite (or inspite) of the "disadvantage".
Slashdot Mirror
I take spiritual as being belief in spirits, i.e. belief in the existence of non-physical things. I suppose an Atheist might believe in ghosts or some sort of "gaia" junk, since that doesn't explicity require belief in God, but such people require the very same "faith" any Christian or Muslim requires. It could just be a conflict of definitions, but as far as I'm concerned, believing in Gaia theory or Ghosts or ESP, etc.. is synonymous with Religion.
Spiritual == Care (but looking at religious people today it's hard to believe)
Care != Spiritual (believe it or not, Athiests, Agnostics and the like DO feel love!)
I think the best way to convince yourself of free will is the notion of creativity. I refer to creativity of many forms: be it in art, in design, in science, in discussion; take your pick. If someone gives me a set of design requirements, I use rules and laws to achieve the desired goal. There's very little free will involved, and if it is, it's mostly hidden or non-obvious. However, take something without a set goal in mind, say a hobby or a past-time (or in my case, my doctorate). There's no clear cut methodology used to reach whatever loosely defined goal (if any) that has been set. It's a case of the ride being far more enjoyable than the destination. The entire process is one of creativity because there are no pressures to perform. Perhaps by analogy one can think of it as the observer effect: until someone is on your back, telling you what to do, you're in a superposition of states. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if in 50 years we find out that a lot of the brains' processes are QM in nature, especially the creative aspects.
What difference does it make? Doped or not doped, the entirety of professional sports is a sham. These people are treated with far greater respect, given far more opportunities to excel and far more financial compensation than any scientist, engineer or teacher ever will. Someone making 30 million a year for what amounts to being lucky to have their genetics is ridiculous (sure, training is involved, but training without supporting genetics means squat).
And I say all of this as an avid sports enthusiast: lots of mountain climbing, hiking, soccer, cycling, etc... but none professionally. People in science, education, arts and entrepreneurial business have to work their asses off to achieve something tangible as opposed to one of these "sports professionals" who have trained themselves to run REALLY fast in a straight line (sometimes in an oval too!)
I say fuck the games, let's simply let professional sport die as it should and leave sports as an enjoyable hobby / past time; not the enormous waste of time, money and space that it currently enjoys.
You mean your supervisor is too cheap to foot the bill? Mine is very stingy on money and he's shelled out $1000's for draft print outs, committee print outs, good copies, etc...
Has anyone noticed the trend of a lot of video games, namely on the Wii? We have Rock Band and Guitar Hero, which takes a substatial amount of practice to do well - and just imagine if that time were put into learning a REAL instrument? Don't give me the bullshit of the positive effect of getting people together - I jam regularly with 4 people - the only tricky part is drums which will be solved when one of us gets a house. Then you have the Wii sports games - why not get out and visit a Golf course, or mini-putt? Anyone go bowling lately? Maybe it's just my in-laws and neighbours, but everyone seems to sit on their asses and / or not leave the house / apartment anymore.
... short answer is yes with an if, long answer no with a but ...
And there we have the White Elephant. If there is a correlation between excess cell phone use and cancer, perhaps we should be considering the lifestyles of the people who excessively use cell phones. Correlation != Causation.
The blog is a breath of fresh air being free of ads. I suspect a lot of other /.'ers will agree, especially being used to Roland's crapfest.
Give him access to alternatives. I was interested in computers, programming, etc... as a kid but I also had access to hardware. I began with Basic / C (coding games) and ended up migrating to coding for PLDs / FPGAs, then to designing audio amplifiers, until finally I found myself in antennas / electromagnetics - I'm now working on my doctorate. Computers are the first introduction to technology, and programming is the easiest to start with, but it certainly isn't the only thing to learn. All I'm saying is to make sure there are options.
I hit my LEGO peak about 15 years ago, when Castles (Knights, Woodsmen, Dragons) were the rave. I recall getting a full castle set and integrating the pieces into larger, more substantial castles. The pieces were very specialized (i.e. parapet pieces, pre-built castle walls) but what this did is allowed me to construct more elaborate add-ons since I didnt have to exhaust my regular pieces on building spires, walls, etc.. So yes, I would say even 15 years ago the sets were certainly specialized, but you could really use it to your advantage. My nephews and nieces now play with my old stuff and I find their newest sets are even MORE specialized, but yet again, they use it in a similar manner when I was a kid. Speaking of which, I have a 1 month old so I have to make plans on getting my lego back for my little one!
I think it goes without saying that humankind will eventually need more living space than what is offered here on Earth. I guess we could expand habitation into the oceans on platforms, or force people to live in much close quarters than they would like. I suspect either way at some point we will need more real estate. That being said, perhaps space habitations would be the solution rather than colonization / terra forming.
Either way, whether the need for more real estate exists, the need to explore will be there. Why wouldn't we want to have habitations on the Moon, or Mars, or Venus, moons of Jupiter/Saturn? If you consider how much money and resource is wasted on total garbage here on Earth (Iraq, Media, Military in general) and assuming we solve the majority of problems here (poverty, crime) then what better endeavour than space exploration to spend our resources on? I agree, robots are a wise choice for the exploration, but why not include humans? Sure it's more expensive, but at the current dismal rate of hard-AI research, nothing will compare to direct human interaction!
I shudder at your comment "There's no reason to do it except SF fantasy wish fulfillment or too much time spent watching scientifically nonsensical films and books". Assuming the "New World" had no resources to speak of, would it have been a waste to explore the Americas? Just purely for the sake of human inquisitiveness? There doesn't need to be a dollar value attached to the unknown to make it worthwhile to explore.
I must say the same to you ... I don't know what you're talking about. In the scientific community I've only seen Software Eng. / Comp Sci. researchers happy with (for example) Linux. I'm in no way saying scientific computing can't occur in a Linux environment, I'm just saying from experience the options are far greater and the user experience much smoother by comparison (this is for Electrical, Mechanical and Civil Engineering, as well as Physics / Mathematics). As a quick example, FEKO works under Linux, but the company recommends using Windows if you have the opportunity due to performance and stability issues running under Linux. Nothing inherently wrong with Linux, just a fact that Windows is the native OS. I'm very much into the hard sciences (physically building, measuring, testing) so I'm not much for open source or coding things when there's more tangible things to be done. I can, however, see how open source software is a veritible wet dream for S/W Eng & Comp. Sci. folks.
Well, a subset of the "Geek" race are the "Nerds". These include scientists, engineers and the like who rely on many Windows-only computational tools. I am fully capable of installing, configuring and perpetually running Linux but I would be shooting myself in the proverbial academic foot by doing so. What's worse is the "linux-compatible" tools DO NOT run properly in Linux (which most of the S/W companies admit). If all relevant computational electromagnetics tools could run as smoothly under Linux as they do under Windows, I would switch in a heartbeat.
Which begs the question: if you can determine which parts of the Bible to follow (i.e. golden rule), and which parts to ignore (i.e. slavery, rape, stoning), where does the ability to "sift" come from? It certainly can't come from the book that you have to be critical about. It's clearly something innate in (most) people that is a product of genetics and culture. More than that, some truths are universal, they go without saying, and do not require a book as a guideline. As for the grandparent, if these people NEED the book to live a good life, you need to look for more competent friends. I say anyone who reads the Bible as anything more than an interesting work of fiction is a fool.
It's fundamentally scary that anyone living in the US couldn't locate Canada on a map. I'm a Canuck, and I've taken the "name the 50 US states in under 10 minutes" test and finish in under 5 minutes. And I haven't even stepped foot in the US, nor taken any course in US History / Geography. It's called reading books. Spread the word to your Yank friends: turn off the TV. But I suspect this is not an American only thing, but a general trend in Western society.
I wonder if on a planet that has no Carbon and an over-abundance of Silicon (obviously an exteme case - but not impossible) if life could evolve using silicon. I mean, when you really come down to it, life could be Germanium, Tin or Lead based by the same arguments, it's just "easier" for Carbon-based to start up. Does anything stop other elements from forming the basis of life? Say Boron (assuming a Boron rich environment void of Carbon and Silicon)?
Agreed! Working in industry I found PMs can be the worst thing for a project. Sure, things get done on time, but they're forced through half-assed. Without PMs, things are completed with much higher standards of quality (from experience, with high profile side contracts with no financing to support an accompanying PM) but certainly finished late - if the original deadline was unreasonable. On one occassion, we had a PM who was a fantastic design engineer (HW) to begin with, and his main role was to fight the higher-ups regarding deadlines and get us extensions. Sad, but that's the most useful thing he could do!
Aye aye Captain. Setting course for Rigel 7... errr... I mean the 1970's.
Hell yes. I think the sets (say Castle) were great for unique spare parts. One xmas I was given one of the large castle sets, with four spires. I had already built many-a-castle before using generic pieces, so I used the "spire" pieces to make a single badass extremely tall (and foreboding) wizard's tower. I had tried before with generic pieces but found I ran out too quickly. Ergo, the speciality pieces came in handy. I still have all my lego sitting in a massive tupperwear, and with my first born on the way, it will soon be time to start building again.
Bah. Bullshit. I'd lay down all my possessions that this fucker married some bimbo, twit, bleach-blond, nympho money obsessed bitch that he genuinely loved, but did not genuinely love him back. There are clear signs. People aren't blind-sided, they blind themselves. Murder, accidents, natural disasters, etc.. are unexpected occurances in life -- a cheating spouse is never unexpected. This guy was just blissfully ignorant.
Bullshit. Humans are finite beings, with finite brains and finite neurons, etc... how could anyone possibly conclude we'll never get sentient AI? In no way am I saying it would be easy, maybe 1000's of years off, but it IS possible. If life and subsequently humans evolved through natural means in our universe, what could possibly stop us from artificially creating intelligence?
Followed by: "Sweet Zombie Jesus!"
We need a '-1 Dumbass'
There's a BIG difference between mental retardation and missing a limb. As heartless as it sounds, I agree that a fetus with mental retardation offers very little to society, and is predominantly a burden. It's still a personal choice for parents as to how one proceeds in utero, but I wouldn't fault a couple for wanting to abort. As for cripples, missing limbs, etc. I don't agree. If your mental faculties remain complete and you're able to express them in full, such a person can become more productive than you or I despite (or inspite) of the "disadvantage".