Yes, I too am appaled that scientist don't leap to conlusions about non-human intelligence, based upon the existence of a possibly random collection of molecules.
Hell, Ethanol is pretty good, the way those carbons and hydrogens just line up, must have been made by an Intelligent Designer.
I read an article in a guitar magazine discussing how having a longer ring finger on the left hand gave you a distinct advantage in playing guitar, and since this implies higher levels of testosterone in the womb, was used to explain why rock and roll guitarists are just born to be wild.
As with most sweeping generalities however, it is bollocks. My ring finger is significantly longer than my index finger, and yet I play guitar poorly, and conform more towards the usual "geek" stereotype than "rampant wild man of rock".
I'm sorry, but less than 24 hours after a story here discussed the pirate industry in Russia, and made the point that the average monthly wage is $240, and some software licences cost $600, comes this?
Please. Cheaper hardware is going to exacerbate the situation by providing even more poor people with the desire for new software that the can't affoard. The only solution is to take computers from poor people. I'm joking, but I hope you can see my point...
From the one photo I could find, it looks more like a camera-that-is-also-a-phone rather than vice versa. I like my phone to be able to fit into my pocket.
Actually, I just like my phone, period. Nokia 7610, baby:)
Robotics, like space travel, is one of those technologies that we've been assuming would happen along in the not too distant future for years!
Recent events, including the launching of some commercial robotic vacuum devices that sport some level of intelligence (they have been rigorously designed to identify, and not eat, cats... there goes one form of Monday night entertainment), the announcement of work on programmable er, pleasure robots, and the progress made by all parties in the Ansari X-Prize are very heartening.
Maybe after a couple of decades sebbatical, space and robots are back in vogue, and we can yet live in the future we dreamed of as children. (Yes, replete with programmable sex toys - hey, I was a sick kid...)
When it comes down to it, the only reason Google would roll this out, is if they could search it, and provide contextual advertisements in a sidebar.
To that end, I've seen a demonstration of a data mining tool, that can distinguish on an IRC channel, who is talking to whom, and about what (keywords).
As well as advertisements this sort of technology has online privacy ramifications. The suite of software is shaping up to be quite a piece of spyware: if you chat about something controversial, you, and your friends, could have the contents of your inboxes and desktops examined.
While I think this is encouraging, I feel that it's a little alarmist: Microsoft still have an incredible monopoly. Of you non-techie friends (if you have any unconverted) how many *don't* run Windows? How many are terrified by the prospect of having to learn something other than Windows? How many think that Windows, OfficeXP, IE, and Outlook are the only applications they need, apart from games, which lets face it, are mostly written for Windows.
I think Microsoft would have to play a lot of consecutive bad hands before they'll cede their desktop stranglehold.
So it has a scanner, and I'm expected to scan everything in as I walk around.
There is no way this system will actually work without RFID - presonally I am far too lazy to wander around scanning everything I take off the shelves.
Damn that's interesting. I seriously hope no-one ever tries - it's the sort of thing that would go horribly wrong (along the lines of "You know what's missing here in Australia? - rabbits"). Still, very interesting.
So along with collaborating with Federal Agencies, giving me my own special cookie, tracking everything I search, and which sites I link to from the results, storing and searching through my email, they'd now like me to install a service that searches my hard disks, suspiciously requires the closing of browsers for installation, and tries to run some kind of network service...
Is it just me, or am I willingly buying into 1984, because they're "cool" and have a pretty logo?
I'm defecting to the "google are creepy" camp...
NEW MIRACLE CURE!!
Lets freeze the carbon dioxide blanketing the earth, and store it underground! Genius!
Is this the best we can come up with? Pretty soon someone is going to suggest we blast it into space...
I'm guessing that their goal is to cull stem cells from the cloned embryos, and use those for disease research, as a team in South Korea did in February.
If they're allowed it could free up stem cell research in general by providing "victimless" stem cells.
With all the talk of "super cures", it's about time somebody got the ball moving.
I will definately agree that our dietry habits need adjusting.
It feels too cheeky to say that we have to live naturally, but our current intake of steak is unnatural, so I won't.
And I cede that cows are incredibly inefficient systems, and all the energy they expend respiring, digesting, walking, and farting (which, if the numbers are to be believed, they must do a lot of) means it's probable an artificial steak could be created more efficiently.
Well said, and I'm going to have to concede to you on all but one point:
Humans consuming every possible resource is unnatural, and is an ability given to us by our technical augmentation (sorry to borrow, but it's elegant).
In general "uncivilised", which could mean "untechnical", peoples live (or lived, this is a dying phenomena) in symbiosis with their environment.
While technology has given us the chance to live past 30, and choose how we have our offspring, a side effect of all this choice has been the ability to miic locusts. Just because we're able doesn't mean we have to - I believe we can strive to be technical and more natural.
Don't misunderstand me, it's not the fact that it was grown in a lab, or that it's alive - it's the cavelier attitude to life, the universe, and everything that spawned the idea, and then the arrogance that produced the product.
As has arisen in the post numerously, killing is natural. Combining skin and bone cells to grow a coat is not. Maybe I have an overly microscopic focus on this,
So you'd like for us to grow steak in the lab to save the environment?
Lets consider that.
The steak cells would require just as much energy to grow in a lab as elsewhere. Thing is we haven't quite caught up with nature in the energy efficency stakes (sorry, sorry) so this would require more energy than feeding a cow.
Furthermore, while the cow, at no extra cost, turns sunlight into steak via grass, our process would probably require us to harvest some cereal, process it, extract the relevant nutrients, and feed these to our steak cells, all of which requires more energy.
So there we have it. No cows died in the producing of our steak, but it had a terrific net cost to the environment. Plus it is no doubt homogenous, and bland, like all man-made food.
In short I completely disagree - IMHO the only way to avoid wreaking havoc all around us is to conform to nature, and live more naturally. Artifical steak is not the way.
Slashdot Mirror
Except in programming, of course, and most maths apps, since the conventions are generally US english...
Surely. At least until americans figure out how to enslave the heathens...
Yes, I too am appaled that scientist don't leap to conlusions about non-human intelligence, based upon the existence of a possibly random collection of molecules.
Hell, Ethanol is pretty good, the way those carbons and hydrogens just line up, must have been made by an Intelligent Designer.
I really wish that some of these vast quantities of capital would be invested the the Search for Asteroids.
It would just be typically ironic for our SETA projects to be succesful just as we're decimated by an asteroid
I read an article in a guitar magazine discussing how having a longer ring finger on the left hand gave you a distinct advantage in playing guitar, and since this implies higher levels of testosterone in the womb, was used to explain why rock and roll guitarists are just born to be wild.
As with most sweeping generalities however, it is bollocks. My ring finger is significantly longer than my index finger, and yet I play guitar poorly, and conform more towards the usual "geek" stereotype than "rampant wild man of rock".
That's going to bring a whole new symantec to OS "crash"
... I'm not convinced it's alive. Certainly it's perkier than a prion, but...
I'm sorry, but less than 24 hours after a story here discussed the pirate industry in Russia, and made the point that the average monthly wage is $240, and some software licences cost $600, comes this?
Please. Cheaper hardware is going to exacerbate the situation by providing even more poor people with the desire for new software that the can't affoard. The only solution is to take computers from poor people. I'm joking, but I hope you can see my point...
From the one photo I could find, it looks more like a camera-that-is-also-a-phone rather than vice versa. I like my phone to be able to fit into my pocket.
:)
Actually, I just like my phone, period. Nokia 7610, baby
Robotics, like space travel, is one of those technologies that we've been assuming would happen along in the not too distant future for years!
Recent events, including the launching of some commercial robotic vacuum devices that sport some level of intelligence (they have been rigorously designed to identify, and not eat, cats... there goes one form of Monday night entertainment), the announcement of work on programmable er, pleasure robots, and the progress made by all parties in the Ansari X-Prize are very heartening.
Maybe after a couple of decades sebbatical, space and robots are back in vogue, and we can yet live in the future we dreamed of as children. (Yes, replete with programmable sex toys - hey, I was a sick kid...)
I graciously accept your apology on behalf of Europe (though it's "kilogrammes"), and send you a vial of culture as a peace offering.
I'm tossing it in your direction with a force of 27 slugs. Oh no, was it imperial slugs or metric slugs?
Seriously, like the slug, imperial units are slimy. This is one instance where europeans (especially engineers) can be justifiably smug.
When it comes down to it, the only reason Google would roll this out, is if they could search it, and provide contextual advertisements in a sidebar.
To that end, I've seen a demonstration of a data mining tool, that can distinguish on an IRC channel, who is talking to whom, and about what (keywords).
As well as advertisements this sort of technology has online privacy ramifications. The suite of software is shaping up to be quite a piece of spyware: if you chat about something controversial, you, and your friends, could have the contents of your inboxes and desktops examined.
While I think this is encouraging, I feel that it's a little alarmist: Microsoft still have an incredible monopoly. Of you non-techie friends (if you have any unconverted) how many *don't* run Windows? How many are terrified by the prospect of having to learn something other than Windows? How many think that Windows, OfficeXP, IE, and Outlook are the only applications they need, apart from games, which lets face it, are mostly written for Windows.
I think Microsoft would have to play a lot of consecutive bad hands before they'll cede their desktop stranglehold.
So it has a scanner, and I'm expected to scan everything in as I walk around.
There is no way this system will actually work without RFID - presonally I am far too lazy to wander around scanning everything I take off the shelves.
Damn that's interesting. I seriously hope no-one ever tries - it's the sort of thing that would go horribly wrong (along the lines of "You know what's missing here in Australia? - rabbits"). Still, very interesting.
So along with collaborating with Federal Agencies, giving me my own special cookie, tracking everything I search, and which sites I link to from the results, storing and searching through my email, they'd now like me to install a service that searches my hard disks, suspiciously requires the closing of browsers for installation, and tries to run some kind of network service... Is it just me, or am I willingly buying into 1984, because they're "cool" and have a pretty logo? I'm defecting to the "google are creepy" camp...
NEW MIRACLE CURE!! Lets freeze the carbon dioxide blanketing the earth, and store it underground! Genius! Is this the best we can come up with? Pretty soon someone is going to suggest we blast it into space...
I'm guessing that their goal is to cull stem cells from the cloned embryos, and use those for disease research, as a team in South Korea did in February.
If they're allowed it could free up stem cell research in general by providing "victimless" stem cells.
With all the talk of "super cures", it's about time somebody got the ball moving.
I will definately agree that our dietry habits need adjusting.
It feels too cheeky to say that we have to live naturally, but our current intake of steak is unnatural, so I won't.
And I cede that cows are incredibly inefficient systems, and all the energy they expend respiring, digesting, walking, and farting (which, if the numbers are to be believed, they must do a lot of) means it's probable an artificial steak could be created more efficiently.
Here's to the happy middle ground!
Well said, and I'm going to have to concede to you on all but one point:
Humans consuming every possible resource is unnatural, and is an ability given to us by our technical augmentation (sorry to borrow, but it's elegant).
In general "uncivilised", which could mean "untechnical", peoples live (or lived, this is a dying phenomena) in symbiosis with their environment.
While technology has given us the chance to live past 30, and choose how we have our offspring, a side effect of all this choice has been the ability to miic locusts. Just because we're able doesn't mean we have to - I believe we can strive to be technical and more natural.
Don't misunderstand me, it's not the fact that it was grown in a lab, or that it's alive - it's the cavelier attitude to life, the universe, and everything that spawned the idea, and then the arrogance that produced the product.
As has arisen in the post numerously, killing is natural. Combining skin and bone cells to grow a coat is not. Maybe I have an overly microscopic focus on this,
So you'd like for us to grow steak in the lab to save the environment?
Lets consider that.
The steak cells would require just as much energy to grow in a lab as elsewhere. Thing is we haven't quite caught up with nature in the energy efficency stakes (sorry, sorry) so this would require more energy than feeding a cow.
Furthermore, while the cow, at no extra cost, turns sunlight into steak via grass, our process would probably require us to harvest some cereal, process it, extract the relevant nutrients, and feed these to our steak cells, all of which requires more energy.
So there we have it. No cows died in the producing of our steak, but it had a terrific net cost to the environment. Plus it is no doubt homogenous, and bland, like all man-made food.
In short I completely disagree - IMHO the only way to avoid wreaking havoc all around us is to conform to nature, and live more naturally. Artifical steak is not the way.
but it's so comfy in here - it's bigger than my apartment :)
And the Lord saw that it was good, and said, "w00t!"
Definately hasn't convinced me to change the "My New iRiver" sticker on my penny jar.