The Nook color has apps when you root it. The Archos 70 costs less than $300, and is very usable. Good inexpensive tablets are there, you just have to look for them.
Octopi are not anywhere near as intelligent as humans or dolphins or even parrots. They are very smart for invertebrates (mostly in the form of hunting techniques), but they simply do not have neurons in sufficient numbers to be considered sentient. Of course, it's possible that they actually are sentient, but if shown, this would overturn well neigh everything we know about consciousness and the brain. Some species of spiders show similar signs of intelligence.
Nice. Finally a good post. This is a fantastic idea: you have a chance to find solid, hard, evidence of something that most people (myself included) believe doesn't exist, and much more importantly, teach people about the scientific method, critical thinking, electromagnetism, and so much more.
There's about two good suggestions here in the comments: The guy talking about infrasound, and the guy who said find an objectively testable prediction. The latter especially is right on the money. What, exactly, constitutes evidence of a ghost? EM? How will you control for cell phones, cameras, faulty wiring, etc.? Temperature? How will you control for drafts? A "feeling" in one particular area? How will you control for infrasound? Include all family/friends in this stage, it's critical that they approve the criteria.
Once you have a list of criteria which suggest the presence of a ghost, establish "control" areas in the house which feature non-supernatural causes to each of these criteria. Keep this a secret from your family/friends. For example, lots of old industrial fans generate infrasound. Set one up behind a door or otherwise out of sight. There's lot of other fun things you can do, too: Grab a sound file from System Shock or Amnesia: Dark Descent and have it play on a hidden speaker system when people are nearby.
Now, the tricky part. Take your family/friends on a bunch of tours around the house. Do this in several small groups, and have each group fill out a quick questionare about the "hauntedness" of each room in the house.
Bring along an infrasound detector (someone suggested a microphone, make sure it can record sounds As you've probably guessed, this is an experiment-in-an-experiment: You're testing your family members' willingness to believe in ghosts (hence the surveys), by taking them on a "debunking" expedition. Once you've found everything possible and eliminated it, take them on another tour, this time activating the planted ghost generating equipment - sound effects, infrasound, etc. Make a big deal about not being able to identify the sources. You should probably do this before rather than after with one group, just to better control the experiment.
Anyway, at the end of all this, you'll have tons of data: you can go over, bit by bit, the recordings and make what you will from them (people will of course say that these do not disprove ghosts). But, you can also compare people's surveys on "hauntedness" from both with and without the planted evidence. Since you made a big deal about not being able to find anything the second time around, people should really think the place is haunted. Compare the results of the surveys: BAM: you've just shown that people only believe in ghosts because they can't find a rational explanation for something. Or: BAM: you've just shown that people will still believe in ghosts when they find a rational explanation for something. Win/win for science, doesn't matter whether ghosts are real or not.
This is probably a little more over-the-top than you were looking for, but if you actually go through with it, you could probably get it published in a psychology journal. A much lower budget version would be to randomize people into two groups, one which tries to eliminate the stuff Artifakt listed above and finds causes (even planted "causes"), and another which searches but can't find anything. Compare surveys between the two groups. At any rate, you should report back to us on what you do find (about your friends/family. I think I can predict what you'll find for evidence on ghosts).
In case you're serious, a T-test is a very simple statistical test used when you have two groups of subjects and want to know if there's a statistically significant difference between them. AC was incorrect to say that this article used just a simple T-test, though. It actually uses Stouffer’s Z method, which is a way of combining results from several studies (in this case a bunch of difference sub experiments) to support a single hypothesis. I have never worked with Stouffer’s Z method, so I can't really comment on it's strengths and weaknesses.
The actual experimental design of the experiments was to take a well known psychology paradigm and run it backwards: training someone on a word list after they have already taken the test on it, for example.
For what it's worth, there are those of us (myself among them) who genuinely appreciate your articles and comments. Sorry if we're less vocal about our thoughts than the trolls, but please keep up the good work.
If you really need help on an exam due to language related learning differences, you can stop by the access office (most major universities have one). They have people that can read the exam aloud to you, translate it into different languages, or just give you extra time. There's no excuse for giving native speakers an unfair advantage on exams.
Just when I was think how stupid Vikings are, and how no one in their right mind would create a military vehicle to switch between two forms of combat when you could just stay in the air, I see this.
You mean you lined it with tinfoil? Yeah, me too. I've also got a stylish hat and matching suit made of the same material. The underwear is a little itchy at times, but you'll get used to it.
I'd like to point out that it's not even to the level of what a newborn can do...there's quite a bit of syanptic plasticity that occurs throughout development (much of which we're just starting to understand thanks to environmental toxins), and there's two separate stages of neuronal dieback that occur - one before birth, and the other right around birth. 90% of the neurons end up dead, and it's not a signal encoded in the genome (well, the pro and anti-apoptosis genes are part of the genome, but they're activated by environmental signals). Specifically, neurons which are not being used die. Kurzweil would have a system with an order of magnitude more neurons than it needs, and those neurons are going to generate more noise in his system than a rock band playing next to a patch-clamp recorder.
Following this line of dieback+plasticity logic, I'd be more inclined to suggest that "strong AI" is not likely to come around from trying to understand the role of every gene in the genome (that's the holy grail of biology), but rather to come about from an artificial neural network trained via dieback and backpropagation (backpropagation is fairly similar to LTP seen in biological systems). But, I'm no expert.
Re:Won't bode well with the gaming community...
on
DRM vs. Unfinished Games
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Huh. I don't think you're seeing a representative sample of the gaming community. I think the majority of gamers, even on the PC, are willing to fork over cash for DLC. (Slashdot is not a representative sample, and neither are the modding forums I frequent. Visit some Steam forums, or Fileshack, or pretty much any non-technical gaming forum, and you'll see that the overwhelming opinion is that people are willing to pay for DLC, as long as it's more elaborate than horse armor.
Oh, you'd probably like a source for this. Go here, click on top sellers. That's right, the best-selling game at the moment is the one where Activision charges suckers $15 for 5 maps. Factor in the cost of bandwidth, and that works out to be, oh, a pretty freaking good deal for Activision.
OK, TFA has absolutely no details, but I think all it's doing is recording information about the demographic that looks at the billboard, thus allowing the billboard owner to say: "57% of the people looking at this billboard are male, 18-35 years old" and then pick an appropriate ad for the space.
The issue with this, of course, is that if you have a billboard showing some iteration of rule 34, a certain demographic is going to look, and you'll get the impression that only this demographic looks at ads, and then show more ads targeted to this demographic (lolcats) when in fact (hypothetically) there is a much larger entire demographic (say, 65+ women) walking by that doesn't stare because they don't care about lolcats. Maybe they just have a blank wall to get a sense of whose walking by before they show any ad? Or maybe this is just to get a sense of how many people are actually seeing the ad?
I don't know, this seems like a case of over-engineering, privacy issues aside ("operators have promised they will save no recorded images" yeah right).
Can you provide a citation for any of that? Frankly, I'd be shocked if the government were able to do anything that competent. Besides the obvious constitutional violations, you'd almost need a strong AI to accomplish that type of deep packet inspection. Also, wouldn't simple encryption (that any terrorist group would probably be using) render a system like that worthless?
As someone with experience, right now (dial-up at home).
Ad-block plus is a must have, no-script is essential, I haven't even loaded a picture in months.
Once in a while, a site won't work without some stupid JavaScript, and I'm reduced to choosing between waiting 15-20 minutes to load the page, or looking for information elsewhere.
Email is fine if you just use POP3, but if you're trying to do more than read message boards online, it's impossible.
Patches for the OS, programs, and games are impossible except via sneakernet.
The fact is, science does provide truth, or near enough to it that the average person (and even every scientist I know) accepts solid findings as such.
The trick is knowing which findings are solid (gravity), which are sketchy (Lamarkism), and how to determine whether the finding you're looking at is the former or the latter. That's what we need to teach kids. Yes, teach ID in schools. Then, have the kids explain for themselves how it isn't science. Don't fail the ones that think it is (at least a first); help every single one of them see the inherent issues with reaching a conclusion based on an a priori decision.
When science is able to create life from non-living components, to create matter from electromagnetism, and to create human-level consciousness in a computer, it is unlikely that the average school child will be able to distinguish these things from the magic proposed by religion (hello there, Mister Clarke!). But even well-educated children should be able to figure out the processes that lead to these - and understand the difference between someone starting with a conclusion and gathering evidence in support of it, and building a complex process by understanding its constituents.
Exactly. If you cared about the writing and characters in the original Fallout games, you will be sorely disappointed with FO3. However, combat was better in FO3, the world was neat to explore, and it felt just right - until you started talking with the NPCs.
You've got a lot of replies talking about gravity, CO2, magnetospheric issues, etc.
These problems drop away when you consider a floating city (our atmosphere: 70% N2 / 20% O2 is a lifting gas on Venus). Besides the awesome sci-fi factor, we have the technology, almost literally right now, to put something like this together. Can anyone tell me why it wouldn't work? (apart from funding problems).
Slashdot Mirror
You should email this to Gabe. It's unlikely anyone from Valve is reading these forums.
The Nook color has apps when you root it. The Archos 70 costs less than $300, and is very usable. Good inexpensive tablets are there, you just have to look for them.
No, greater than. Why do you think so many companies lose money?
The profitable ones have executives smart enough to keep their mouths shut.
The courts recognize intent. If you're sharing a paragraph of a book with others with the intent to discuss its impact on modern society, that's fine.
If you're sharing the same paragraph with the intent of combining it with other paragraphs hosted by different people, that's copyright infringement.
IANAL
Octopi are not anywhere near as intelligent as humans or dolphins or even parrots. They are very smart for invertebrates (mostly in the form of hunting techniques), but they simply do not have neurons in sufficient numbers to be considered sentient. Of course, it's possible that they actually are sentient, but if shown, this would overturn well neigh everything we know about consciousness and the brain. Some species of spiders show similar signs of intelligence.
"A fool and his money will soon boost the economy."
Nice. Finally a good post. This is a fantastic idea: you have a chance to find solid, hard, evidence of something that most people (myself included) believe doesn't exist, and much more importantly, teach people about the scientific method, critical thinking, electromagnetism, and so much more.
There's about two good suggestions here in the comments: The guy talking about infrasound, and the guy who said find an objectively testable prediction. The latter especially is right on the money. What, exactly, constitutes evidence of a ghost? EM? How will you control for cell phones, cameras, faulty wiring, etc.? Temperature? How will you control for drafts? A "feeling" in one particular area? How will you control for infrasound? Include all family/friends in this stage, it's critical that they approve the criteria.
Once you have a list of criteria which suggest the presence of a ghost, establish "control" areas in the house which feature non-supernatural causes to each of these criteria. Keep this a secret from your family/friends. For example, lots of old industrial fans generate infrasound. Set one up behind a door or otherwise out of sight. There's lot of other fun things you can do, too: Grab a sound file from System Shock or Amnesia: Dark Descent and have it play on a hidden speaker system when people are nearby.
Now, the tricky part. Take your family/friends on a bunch of tours around the house. Do this in several small groups, and have each group fill out a quick questionare about the "hauntedness" of each room in the house. Bring along an infrasound detector (someone suggested a microphone, make sure it can record sounds As you've probably guessed, this is an experiment-in-an-experiment: You're testing your family members' willingness to believe in ghosts (hence the surveys), by taking them on a "debunking" expedition. Once you've found everything possible and eliminated it, take them on another tour, this time activating the planted ghost generating equipment - sound effects, infrasound, etc. Make a big deal about not being able to identify the sources. You should probably do this before rather than after with one group, just to better control the experiment.
Anyway, at the end of all this, you'll have tons of data: you can go over, bit by bit, the recordings and make what you will from them (people will of course say that these do not disprove ghosts). But, you can also compare people's surveys on "hauntedness" from both with and without the planted evidence. Since you made a big deal about not being able to find anything the second time around, people should really think the place is haunted. Compare the results of the surveys: BAM: you've just shown that people only believe in ghosts because they can't find a rational explanation for something. Or: BAM: you've just shown that people will still believe in ghosts when they find a rational explanation for something. Win/win for science, doesn't matter whether ghosts are real or not.
This is probably a little more over-the-top than you were looking for, but if you actually go through with it, you could probably get it published in a psychology journal. A much lower budget version would be to randomize people into two groups, one which tries to eliminate the stuff Artifakt listed above and finds causes (even planted "causes"), and another which searches but can't find anything. Compare surveys between the two groups. At any rate, you should report back to us on what you do find (about your friends/family. I think I can predict what you'll find for evidence on ghosts).
T-test is short for Turing test, duh.
In case you're serious, a T-test is a very simple statistical test used when you have two groups of subjects and want to know if there's a statistically significant difference between them. AC was incorrect to say that this article used just a simple T-test, though. It actually uses Stouffer’s Z method, which is a way of combining results from several studies (in this case a bunch of difference sub experiments) to support a single hypothesis. I have never worked with Stouffer’s Z method, so I can't really comment on it's strengths and weaknesses.
The actual experimental design of the experiments was to take a well known psychology paradigm and run it backwards: training someone on a word list after they have already taken the test on it, for example.
This is probably correct. PubMed: 98% advanced
Nature: 61% advanced
Science: 94% advanced
PNAS: 99% advanced
Can anyone figure out why science is so much more "advanced" than Nature? Both seem pretty similar to me.
Oh, and by way of a control group:
I Can Has Cheez Burger, surprisingly 11% intermediate
For what it's worth, there are those of us (myself among them) who genuinely appreciate your articles and comments. Sorry if we're less vocal about our thoughts than the trolls, but please keep up the good work.
If you really need help on an exam due to language related learning differences, you can stop by the access office (most major universities have one). They have people that can read the exam aloud to you, translate it into different languages, or just give you extra time. There's no excuse for giving native speakers an unfair advantage on exams.
Thank you for this. It has been a long time since I've laughed this hard. That website is probably the finest piece of satire I've ever read. ;)
Just when I was think how stupid Vikings are, and how no one in their right mind would create a military vehicle to switch between two forms of combat when you could just stay in the air, I see this.
Oh, and it's VTOL, too? Better and better.
You mean you lined it with tinfoil? Yeah, me too. I've also got a stylish hat and matching suit made of the same material. The underwear is a little itchy at times, but you'll get used to it.
I'd like to point out that it's not even to the level of what a newborn can do...there's quite a bit of syanptic plasticity that occurs throughout development (much of which we're just starting to understand thanks to environmental toxins), and there's two separate stages of neuronal dieback that occur - one before birth, and the other right around birth. 90% of the neurons end up dead, and it's not a signal encoded in the genome (well, the pro and anti-apoptosis genes are part of the genome, but they're activated by environmental signals). Specifically, neurons which are not being used die. Kurzweil would have a system with an order of magnitude more neurons than it needs, and those neurons are going to generate more noise in his system than a rock band playing next to a patch-clamp recorder.
Following this line of dieback+plasticity logic, I'd be more inclined to suggest that "strong AI" is not likely to come around from trying to understand the role of every gene in the genome (that's the holy grail of biology), but rather to come about from an artificial neural network trained via dieback and backpropagation (backpropagation is fairly similar to LTP seen in biological systems). But, I'm no expert.
Hmm, I think Gene Ray just failed the Turing Test. We should put up some horribly unaesthetic statue in his honor.
Did you check his user name?
Huh. I don't think you're seeing a representative sample of the gaming community. I think the majority of gamers, even on the PC, are willing to fork over cash for DLC. (Slashdot is not a representative sample, and neither are the modding forums I frequent. Visit some Steam forums, or Fileshack, or pretty much any non-technical gaming forum, and you'll see that the overwhelming opinion is that people are willing to pay for DLC, as long as it's more elaborate than horse armor.
Oh, you'd probably like a source for this. Go here, click on top sellers. That's right, the best-selling game at the moment is the one where Activision charges suckers $15 for 5 maps. Factor in the cost of bandwidth, and that works out to be, oh, a pretty freaking good deal for Activision.
P.S. I wish you were right.
OK, TFA has absolutely no details, but I think all it's doing is recording information about the demographic that looks at the billboard, thus allowing the billboard owner to say: "57% of the people looking at this billboard are male, 18-35 years old" and then pick an appropriate ad for the space.
The issue with this, of course, is that if you have a billboard showing some iteration of rule 34, a certain demographic is going to look, and you'll get the impression that only this demographic looks at ads, and then show more ads targeted to this demographic (lolcats) when in fact (hypothetically) there is a much larger entire demographic (say, 65+ women) walking by that doesn't stare because they don't care about lolcats. Maybe they just have a blank wall to get a sense of whose walking by before they show any ad? Or maybe this is just to get a sense of how many people are actually seeing the ad?
I don't know, this seems like a case of over-engineering, privacy issues aside ("operators have promised they will save no recorded images" yeah right).
Can you provide a citation for any of that? Frankly, I'd be shocked if the government were able to do anything that competent. Besides the obvious constitutional violations, you'd almost need a strong AI to accomplish that type of deep packet inspection. Also, wouldn't simple encryption (that any terrorist group would probably be using) render a system like that worthless?
As someone with experience, right now (dial-up at home).
Ad-block plus is a must have, no-script is essential, I haven't even loaded a picture in months.
Once in a while, a site won't work without some stupid JavaScript, and I'm reduced to choosing between waiting 15-20 minutes to load the page, or looking for information elsewhere.
Email is fine if you just use POP3, but if you're trying to do more than read message boards online, it's impossible.
Patches for the OS, programs, and games are impossible except via sneakernet.
Anyone know how I go about getting a refund for the cash I contributed to the 200 billion the teclos got?
Riiight. I'll just leave this here (PDF).
(P.S. Things haven't gotten better since then.)
Ah, yes. The non-overlapping magisteria idea.
The fact is, science does provide truth, or near enough to it that the average person (and even every scientist I know) accepts solid findings as such.
The trick is knowing which findings are solid (gravity), which are sketchy (Lamarkism), and how to determine whether the finding you're looking at is the former or the latter. That's what we need to teach kids. Yes, teach ID in schools. Then, have the kids explain for themselves how it isn't science. Don't fail the ones that think it is (at least a first); help every single one of them see the inherent issues with reaching a conclusion based on an a priori decision.
When science is able to create life from non-living components, to create matter from electromagnetism, and to create human-level consciousness in a computer, it is unlikely that the average school child will be able to distinguish these things from the magic proposed by religion (hello there, Mister Clarke!). But even well-educated children should be able to figure out the processes that lead to these - and understand the difference between someone starting with a conclusion and gathering evidence in support of it, and building a complex process by understanding its constituents.
Exactly. If you cared about the writing and characters in the original Fallout games, you will be sorely disappointed with FO3. However, combat was better in FO3, the world was neat to explore, and it felt just right - until you started talking with the NPCs.
You've got a lot of replies talking about gravity, CO2, magnetospheric issues, etc.
These problems drop away when you consider a floating city (our atmosphere: 70% N2 / 20% O2 is a lifting gas on Venus). Besides the awesome sci-fi factor, we have the technology, almost literally right now, to put something like this together. Can anyone tell me why it wouldn't work? (apart from funding problems).