I'm of the opinion that a death is a terrible thing to waste.
There's so many great things that could be done, that ought to be done, but will ultimately go undone for only one reason: fear of death.
So many crimes go unpunished that vigilante justice would shore up. That doesn't happen though, because it's a suicide mission. In today's society, you can't well expect to murder a high profile target and get away with it. It may be possible, but it's a long shot. It's simply too risky for any sane person to even attempt. Of course, we could talk about whether vigilante justice is compatible with sanity, but let's assume it is for the purpose of this discussion.
That's why I'm upset by the wasted suicides we hear about every day. These people, caught up in the misery of their own lives, kill themselves in an ultimately selfish act. They fail to consider the impact of their choice on those who care about them. But they also fail to consider that they're wasting a truly rare opportunity. A person with nothing left to lose is a most frightening force, and so often it gets squandered on nothing. Nothing at all.
Imagine if all of these suicidal people could be harnessed as a force for good. If we taught people that suicide could instead be a noble, selfless act. That in taking one's own life, one could also make the world a better place for those of us left behind. Imagine if this girl had, prior to her demise, went and killed someone deserving of death. Now imagine that on average every 14 seconds (that's how many suicides there are in the US alone), some suicidal person takes some living scum with them on their journey to death. The impact would be immediate and tangible.
Of course, this could be generalized to support any ideology. Upset about the increasing disparity in wealth distribution? Go kill a billionaire. Unhappy with organized religion? Go kill some mouthpiece of God. Political concerns? Take out an elected official you disagree with. If you're already set on killing yourself, these otherwise-impossible courses of action seem viable. Now it's not just a potential force for good, it's a potential force for anything.
I'm amazed that this doesn't happen more often, frankly. How myopic must suicidal persons be that this is so rare? To me, this is indicative of total self-centeredness being nearly universal among those who actually commit suicide. It seems self-evident that these people are not capable of stopping to think about the impact of their actions on anyone but themselves. It's too bad, really. They're squandering something that most of us will never enjoy.
After a life of wading through knee-deep shit, riddled with ulcers induced by a corn diet so bad that antibiotics are required to keep them alive, don't you suspect that they perhaps might welcome death?
Could you recommend a pair of headphones that someone who would best be described as an anti-audiophile would be able to enjoy dubstep soundtracks with? I used to have an old (early 90s?) over-the-ear Sony set that got me hooked on over-the-ear headphones, but those are long gone. I was thinking about getting something along those lines but with better low end, but I really haven't been keeping up with audio tech. I refuse to pay for branding (I didn't pay for the Sony ones!), so the Beats stuff was never under consideration. I don't necessarily need to rattle my brain apart, and I'd very much prefer to keep it under/around $200 per pair if possible. I mean, I don't want to spend more on two pairs of headphones than I would on a decent amp and set of subwoofers.
Not asking you to shop around for me, but simply offer a suggestion if you've got anything off the top of your head.
If you spend $500 on a pair of headphones and you aren't a professional musician (or someone else that works with audio in a professional capacity), you're about as smart as the guy that buys that volume knob.
"AR-15" refers to the civilian version of the M16, which is necessarily a "civilian AR-15". That the AR-15 can be used in a non-civilian capacity doesn't change the fact that it's the civilian version of the M16. There is no such thing as a "non-civilian AR-15", since the very reason it's an AR-15 and not an M16 is the fact that it's a civilian firearm.
"Colt then started selling the semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle as the Colt AR-15 for civilian sales in 1963 and the term has been used to refer to semiautomatic-only versions of the rifle since then." -- Wikipedia
Reference: Blue Book Publications – COLT'S MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LLC AR-15, Pre-Ban, 1963–1989 Mfg. w/Green Label Box
If you're talking about other AR-15-style rifles, that's fine. However, "AR-15" is a trademark registered to Colt, and the only actual AR-15 that has a select fire switch is the one that predates Colt's purchase of the design from ArmaLite. So yes, ArmaLite did build a non-civilian AR-15... in the 50s.
Note, even all civilian variants of the AR-15 are semi-automatic, as per this list. None of the select-fire models are called an "AR-15" (M16, M4, etc.)
Also, yes, the M- is a US military designation. That's because ArmaLite (and then Colt) were producing this firearm for the US military. Note also that the SA-80, FN FAL, etc., are not AR-15 variants and have nothing to do with my complaint.
Why would you want the end product to be capable of learning? It'd just be a support nightmare when they learn incorrectly.
Artificial neural networks have been found to be useful for voice recognition, for example. While it is possible to train one single ANN to recognize words from a given language, better recognition accuracy can be realized by training the system to be tailored to individual speakers. That, however, requires the ANN to continue learning after it has left the supercomputer and been shipped to end users. This would not be possible if this component doesn't support backpropagation.
That being said, I'm sure there are uses for neural nets that can no longer learn. However, that limits the demand for this product to a small subset of the neural network market.
Sure, that works. Unless, of course, you want the mass-produced devices to be capable of learning. I thought that was the whole point.
The feed-forward computations are already sufficiently quick, and the benefit of implementing that part in hardware is lost on me. Especially as a discrete component.
This seems rather interesting. I've dabbled in artificial neural networks out of curiosity. This seems like it could be really useful.
Neural nets are fast. Training them can be very slow, though. Backpropagation for multilayer perceptron nets is more computationally costly than simple feed-forward usage, and training a net can take many, many iterations if the training data set is large. Neural nets implemented in hardware could make this process much faster.
Of course, TFA doesn't have much detail. Are these chips going to be capable of "learning" like this? Or will you have to pre-load them with the appropriate matrix of interconnection-weights and only run them in feed-forward mode? If they can't actually do learning, I'd imagine the utility of such a device will be very limited.
I have no recollection of people complaining that Senator Obama would end up being a conservative right wing leader hell bent on attacking our civil liberties at home while exporting undeclared warfare worldwide.
I do remember plenty of idiots rambling about how he is a foreign born Muslim communist. None of those claims panned out, however.
So yes, Obama supporters were misled. They were perhaps naive to think that a candidate supported by one of the two established parties could possibly be a departure from business as usual. However wrong Obama supporters were in their opinion of Obama, the detractors were doubly wrong. None of you asshats was claiming that Obama was a closet conservative, so don't try to spin it like that's what you were saying all along.
Since we're being pedantic, what does temperature have to do with anything? Wouldn't superconductors of any temperature store electricity just as well?
In 2000, Iraq converted all its oil transactions under the Oil for Food program to euros. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it returned oil sales from the euro to the USD.
I know wikipedia makes a lousy citation, but you can go from there.
In case you don't understand why this would make sense, and can't be troubled to click the link:
Most oil sales throughout the world are denominated in United States dollars (USD). According to proponents of the petrodollar warfare hypothesis, because most countries rely on oil imports, they are forced to maintain large stockpiles of dollars in order to continue imports. This creates a consistent demand for USDs and puts upward pressure on the USD's value, regardless of economic conditions in the United States. This in turn allegedly allows the US government to gain revenues through seignorage and by issuing bonds at lower interest rates than they otherwise would be able to. As a result the U.S. government can run higher budget deficits at a more sustainable level than can most other countries.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you suggesting that GP is a hermaphrodite?
You obviously have children.
Please take my advice: don't.
I'm of the opinion that a death is a terrible thing to waste.
There's so many great things that could be done, that ought to be done, but will ultimately go undone for only one reason: fear of death.
So many crimes go unpunished that vigilante justice would shore up. That doesn't happen though, because it's a suicide mission. In today's society, you can't well expect to murder a high profile target and get away with it. It may be possible, but it's a long shot. It's simply too risky for any sane person to even attempt. Of course, we could talk about whether vigilante justice is compatible with sanity, but let's assume it is for the purpose of this discussion.
That's why I'm upset by the wasted suicides we hear about every day. These people, caught up in the misery of their own lives, kill themselves in an ultimately selfish act. They fail to consider the impact of their choice on those who care about them. But they also fail to consider that they're wasting a truly rare opportunity. A person with nothing left to lose is a most frightening force, and so often it gets squandered on nothing. Nothing at all.
Imagine if all of these suicidal people could be harnessed as a force for good. If we taught people that suicide could instead be a noble, selfless act. That in taking one's own life, one could also make the world a better place for those of us left behind. Imagine if this girl had, prior to her demise, went and killed someone deserving of death. Now imagine that on average every 14 seconds (that's how many suicides there are in the US alone), some suicidal person takes some living scum with them on their journey to death. The impact would be immediate and tangible.
Of course, this could be generalized to support any ideology. Upset about the increasing disparity in wealth distribution? Go kill a billionaire. Unhappy with organized religion? Go kill some mouthpiece of God. Political concerns? Take out an elected official you disagree with. If you're already set on killing yourself, these otherwise-impossible courses of action seem viable. Now it's not just a potential force for good, it's a potential force for anything.
I'm amazed that this doesn't happen more often, frankly. How myopic must suicidal persons be that this is so rare? To me, this is indicative of total self-centeredness being nearly universal among those who actually commit suicide. It seems self-evident that these people are not capable of stopping to think about the impact of their actions on anyone but themselves. It's too bad, really. They're squandering something that most of us will never enjoy.
Goodbye, surveillance state.
And hello ruin!
After a life of wading through knee-deep shit, riddled with ulcers induced by a corn diet so bad that antibiotics are required to keep them alive, don't you suspect that they perhaps might welcome death?
You must have great faith in your government if you refuse to enable yourself to leave your country.
Could you recommend a pair of headphones that someone who would best be described as an anti-audiophile would be able to enjoy dubstep soundtracks with? I used to have an old (early 90s?) over-the-ear Sony set that got me hooked on over-the-ear headphones, but those are long gone. I was thinking about getting something along those lines but with better low end, but I really haven't been keeping up with audio tech. I refuse to pay for branding (I didn't pay for the Sony ones!), so the Beats stuff was never under consideration. I don't necessarily need to rattle my brain apart, and I'd very much prefer to keep it under/around $200 per pair if possible. I mean, I don't want to spend more on two pairs of headphones than I would on a decent amp and set of subwoofers.
Not asking you to shop around for me, but simply offer a suggestion if you've got anything off the top of your head.
$250 for a headset is nothing, really. A good pair of headphones can easily run you $500 (that's considered mid-tier).
A good volume knob can easily run you $485.
If you spend $500 on a pair of headphones and you aren't a professional musician (or someone else that works with audio in a professional capacity), you're about as smart as the guy that buys that volume knob.
"AR-15" refers to the civilian version of the M16, which is necessarily a "civilian AR-15". That the AR-15 can be used in a non-civilian capacity doesn't change the fact that it's the civilian version of the M16. There is no such thing as a "non-civilian AR-15", since the very reason it's an AR-15 and not an M16 is the fact that it's a civilian firearm.
"Colt then started selling the semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle as the Colt AR-15 for civilian sales in 1963 and the term has been used to refer to semiautomatic-only versions of the rifle since then." -- Wikipedia
Reference: Blue Book Publications – COLT'S MANUFACTURING COMPANY, LLC AR-15, Pre-Ban, 1963–1989 Mfg. w/Green Label Box
If you're talking about other AR-15-style rifles, that's fine. However, "AR-15" is a trademark registered to Colt, and the only actual AR-15 that has a select fire switch is the one that predates Colt's purchase of the design from ArmaLite. So yes, ArmaLite did build a non-civilian AR-15... in the 50s.
Note, even all civilian variants of the AR-15 are semi-automatic, as per this list. None of the select-fire models are called an "AR-15" (M16, M4, etc.)
Also, yes, the M- is a US military designation. That's because ArmaLite (and then Colt) were producing this firearm for the US military. Note also that the SA-80, FN FAL, etc., are not AR-15 variants and have nothing to do with my complaint.
AR-15 assault rifle.
AR-15 is semi-automatic, so by definition it is not an assault rifle.
M-16, the military variant, has the select fire feature. M-16 is an assault rifle.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled gun bickering.
Worst. Response. Ever.
Windows 3.1 had a terminal window and console.
Why would you want the end product to be capable of learning? It'd just be a support nightmare when they learn incorrectly.
Artificial neural networks have been found to be useful for voice recognition, for example. While it is possible to train one single ANN to recognize words from a given language, better recognition accuracy can be realized by training the system to be tailored to individual speakers. That, however, requires the ANN to continue learning after it has left the supercomputer and been shipped to end users. This would not be possible if this component doesn't support backpropagation.
That being said, I'm sure there are uses for neural nets that can no longer learn. However, that limits the demand for this product to a small subset of the neural network market.
Way to ruin the thread of thread ruination.
Me too!
Sure, that works. Unless, of course, you want the mass-produced devices to be capable of learning. I thought that was the whole point.
The feed-forward computations are already sufficiently quick, and the benefit of implementing that part in hardware is lost on me. Especially as a discrete component.
This seems rather interesting. I've dabbled in artificial neural networks out of curiosity. This seems like it could be really useful.
Neural nets are fast. Training them can be very slow, though. Backpropagation for multilayer perceptron nets is more computationally costly than simple feed-forward usage, and training a net can take many, many iterations if the training data set is large. Neural nets implemented in hardware could make this process much faster.
Of course, TFA doesn't have much detail. Are these chips going to be capable of "learning" like this? Or will you have to pre-load them with the appropriate matrix of interconnection-weights and only run them in feed-forward mode? If they can't actually do learning, I'd imagine the utility of such a device will be very limited.
Me too!
You know, I must've missed that.
I have no recollection of people complaining that Senator Obama would end up being a conservative right wing leader hell bent on attacking our civil liberties at home while exporting undeclared warfare worldwide.
I do remember plenty of idiots rambling about how he is a foreign born Muslim communist. None of those claims panned out, however.
So yes, Obama supporters were misled. They were perhaps naive to think that a candidate supported by one of the two established parties could possibly be a departure from business as usual. However wrong Obama supporters were in their opinion of Obama, the detractors were doubly wrong. None of you asshats was claiming that Obama was a closet conservative, so don't try to spin it like that's what you were saying all along.
Wish I had mod points.
Since we're being pedantic, what does temperature have to do with anything? Wouldn't superconductors of any temperature store electricity just as well?
Have you not noticed the steady decline in quality at the Economist?
I used to be a huge fan of the Economist. However, I won't be renewing my subscription this time around.
The Economist's "outsider perspective" on America has become anything but.
What you're saying is that cloud services are not fungible.
That's the first thing that came to mind when I RTFS. This is just stupid.
I know wikipedia makes a lousy citation, but you can go from there.
In case you don't understand why this would make sense, and can't be troubled to click the link:
Most oil sales throughout the world are denominated in United States dollars (USD). According to proponents of the petrodollar warfare hypothesis, because most countries rely on oil imports, they are forced to maintain large stockpiles of dollars in order to continue imports. This creates a consistent demand for USDs and puts upward pressure on the USD's value, regardless of economic conditions in the United States. This in turn allegedly allows the US government to gain revenues through seignorage and by issuing bonds at lower interest rates than they otherwise would be able to. As a result the U.S. government can run higher budget deficits at a more sustainable level than can most other countries.
-- Wikipedia
It can't be an ARTICLE from El Reg if the capitalization of the HEADLINE isn't retarded and is missing any reference to BOFFINS.
Ol' Dirty Bastard's son is your mechanic?