That's the difficult issue with sentience. What is this ability to experience, as opposed to just mechanistically reacting by processing inputs and outputs?
I'd say there really is no difference. Consciousness, as far as we can tell is basically just a side effect of the processing that's going on. It may be possible to construct something that doesn't have this side effect (the "sleepwalking robot" from your example); but whether it is or isn't, it seems that at least the way WE'VE evolved, this side effect happens.
While we can't say with any certainty which other animals (if any) experience consciousness (and to what degree - it may well be that different levels of sophistication have different levels of consciousness), it seems at least fairly likely that it's a common trait we share with most animals that have relatively advanced brains (I personally doubt for example that coral has consciousness; and the same goes for the vast majority of insects; but I wouldn't entertain serious doubts that a cat, dog, sheep or cow is conscious). Of course, all that is just my own thoughts on the matter, since as I said, we can't say with any certainty one way or another.
I did have one interesting conversation with an intelligent spiritualist/Christian (I'm an argumentative atheist) about consciousness. He put forth the idea that a unique self-identifying consciousness ("the soul" in his words) must be immortal if existence and time are infinite. Eventually, given infinite time (and the assumption of quantum fluctuations in "nothing" (or other causes) creating a new big-bang after the eventual heat death of our universe) an organised structure of "something" (be it a brain or even plasma flows in the body of star) must eventually replicate the same patterns so as to be the same "soul". It would even eventually have to come about that it would "remember" any and all previous lives that it had. His argument was that this is how God intends to bring us all to heaven (and added the argument that his faith points towards us all going to heaven at the same time - not in fact immediately after we die). While I find the religious aspects somewhat superfluous; I can't actually deny his conclusion if his assumptions (infinite existence/infinite time) are correct. I'm definitely not as certain of his assumptions as he is though. I can fully accept the idea of a universe that does indeed stop one day and never continue, in which case the chances of the same patterns forming somewhere/sometime are extremely remote. I'm definitely not expecting to "wake up again" after I die (but would be pleasantly surprised if I did!)
When he was talking, I did consider arguing the line that it wouldn't be the same "consciousness" in reality if it was a new formation of patterns - the same way that I was always a little uneasy about the idea of Star-Trek style transporters essentially creating a clone and destroying the original. However as he was talking it did occur to me that since I can't even prove that I (and the rest of the universe) wasn't brought in to existence last Tuesday with all memories intact, it's kind of a moot point. To consider it a different consciousness, I'd have to then start fearing going to sleep (or any other break in waking consciousness) as I'd "die" and be replaced by my own "clone" (not physical, but conscious) when I reawoke. And that would just be stupid. While I might not necessarily agree with him, he did give me a lot of interesting things to consider.
I'd imagine that from the point of view of any die-hard extremist atheist, it becomes really really hard to make fun of religious nuts if your beloved science isn't even based on the assumption of the existance of an objective reality.
Not really - I make fun of religious nuts constantly, and have no problem with the possibility that objective reality - if it exists at all - is unknowable.
I used to have a problem with it in my early teens, but after significant years of mellowing (and significant amounts of LSD in those years...) it really doesn't bother me at all. I actually find some aspects of the philosophical angles to it quite beautiful, and others absolutely boring.
Why? Are these large corps planning to modify the software and distribute those modifications as closed source?
As a developer at a large corp, I do find it frustrating when I'm working on an app; find that someone has already implemented a particular routine/method/whatever that I'd like to use, but has made it GPL. It'll form less than 2% of my app, but could save me 5 to 10% of the coding time if it's a particularly thorny problem.
When the licence is LGPL or similar, I use the code in a self contained library, heap praise upon the developer(s), make sure the source is available as it should be, and release the rest of my app closed source as is required by my employer. When it's GPL however, I don't touch it at all because doing so will make us in violation of the licence when we release the app closed source (and there's no way my employer will release the whole app under the GPL).
Many people don't seem to consider this case - they think only in terms of making modifications to existing complete software packages (and in this case, I would be strongly against someone wanting to close source an already open product). The far more common scenario as far as I can tell is my own, where all I want is a tiny bit of code to make my life easier (and will happily comply with the licensing on that bit of code and ONLY that bit of code) without it forcing my hand for the rest of my code.
Isn't that somewhat the expected process of evolution in general? Genetic mistake happens; proves to actually be useful to reproduction/beating the competition (as opposed to the vast majority that are either useless or detrimental); and then due to being in the most successful breeders, becomes "standard".
The clock that is off by 5 minutes is wrong all day, every day.
Very true, but it's significantly more useful than the stopped clock, despite the latter being right twice a day...
And for those who can't read subtext (not implying parent poster): I'd rather have a politician that gives me a close approximation of what I want all of the time, than one who gives me exactly what I want only on rare occasions while doing the opposite of what I want the rest of the time.
Really? As far as I'm aware, in the time and place he was doing so, manufacture and sale of the devices was perfectly legal. Using them wasn't of course; but that's another story.
I freely accept I could be wrong though, so if someone can prove the above statement wrong, please enlighten me.
So, according to TFA, NDA'ing your employees is fine, because you're offering them some kind of compensation. But asking a guy you called up to have some coffee and toss around an idea to sign... not legit.
There's a third scenario that I haven't seen mentioned yet and I definitely consider a legit NDA situation - "working with someone else's tech for your own benefit". This sort of NDA is the type you sign to get access to a device SDK for example. Sure, it benefits the device manufacturer a bit to have your software running on/with it, but it probably benefits you more.
I am however honestly curious how others here feel about this kind of NDA.
Yep, ask a tobacco smoker and he will tell you that tobacco isn't addictive at all and he can stop at any time. News at 11.
As a tobacco smoker and LSD user; I can tell you that tobacco is insanely addictive and hard to quit, whereas LSD is something I enjoy from time to time when the circumstances are right (anywhere between 2 and 6 times per year these days) but if I were to never take it again, I'd not feel the slightest "craving" as I do with tobacco (I'd probably miss it a bit, but no differently than I miss good friends who move away).
Tobacco - extremely addictive. LSD - not at all.
Wikipedia backs me up stating it is non-addictive. It also points out the very low harm/risk factor involved in use (also in stark contrast to tobacco, which is very harmful and will probably be the cause of my death).
Even so, to be profitable, you'd have to deal in a fair amount of volume, and patterns will emerge: your packages will probably have a certain look to them that postal workers in that city can be trained to watch for, so at least the supply of the drugs can be disrupted, and with enough agents watching mailboxes, the suspects nabbed.
Depends what the product is. I semi-regularly purchase LSD through Silk Road, and the suppliers usually send in a "business envelope" or occasionally one of those ubiquitous padded bags that small electronic parts come in. I don't see any way that they'd be able to distinguish it from the hundreds of thousands of legitimate business envelopes and padded bags.
Of course, LSD on blotter is pretty easy to put anywhere (I even had it delivered once inside a musical christmas card - that was quite clever); other products may be more difficult to effectively package, but I'm sure it's something the suppliers are well aware of.
On the one hand, I have long suffered from depression that resists all treatment. Some days, it is literally a fight to want to live just for that day, and the only thing that keeps me from suicide is the knowledge that my friends (the few I have) and family (who have mostly rejected me altogether at this point) would blame themselves. I don't think many people understand just how devastating Depression can be -- it can literally take away everything you value in life. The worst part is the blame: the attitude that, if you just "wanted" to be different, you would be. If this treatment could actually cure my depression, I would have to "go for it".
Have you tried recreational drug use? Specifically, hallucinogens? From my understanding of TFA, it sounds not dissimilar to the effects of low dose LSD, mescaline or psilocybin. I've also heard positive things about higher dose LSD use for depression, but that may require a bit more guidance and direction along with it.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, and I am a relatively outspoken advocate of LSD and therefore can be considered to be strongly biased. However I hope that doesn't deter you from independent investigation of my suggestion.
But is there any assumption made about kids' belief? For example, it's possible that every baptized child is a member until he is an adult.
Indeed. My wife is "christian" in that she's a member of the church and loosely/vaguely believes in the idea of a god (although pretty far from that which is described in the christian bible). I'm an atheist (a relatively vocal one at times) and tolerate her beliefs because I love her, but do try to gently persuade where I can.
Our first child (daughter) was born just over one year ago and my wife is now talking about getting her baptised in the church. While I have concerns and reservations about this, I'm going to allow it to happen - primarily, my decision is because from my point of view, it's just a meaningless tradition that will have no real influence on her life. When she's older and the topic of religion comes up, I'll of course very plainly state my views.
However, I'm quite certain that she'll be counted as "Christian" by statistics until such time as she formally "leaves" the church.
If you're telling me you've never used expletives on a balky computer or other bit of ill behaved hardware/software, I'll call you a liar straight to your face.
Then you should call me a liar straight to mine.
However, I think it really depends on your level of familiarity and comfort with things. In my experience, people who don't know how their computer works are more likely to personify it and therefore get emotional towards it. Even very technical people that aren't programmers seem to be liable to do this towards software that behaves in unexpected ways - attributing personality or otherwise towards it. The same can also be said of other fields - I find that "gear-head" friends of mine are less likely to swear at their cars than non-gear-heads (despite an overall higher percentage of swearing in general; also note: "Ah fuck, that belt isn't tightened properly" does not constitute swearing at the car; whereas "start you piece of shit" does).
"I've always considered myself very poor at self-deception"
So you think!
Indeed - I was mindful in my post not to say that I "am" worse at self-deception, merely that I consider myself so. It could be that I am actually very good at deceiving myself and have done so in such a way that I think I'm not. However based on my observations of others, I don't think that's the case - I just can't prove it to myself one way or the other definitively (I also can't really prove the existence of anything, but that's not really a very sensible way to live; so I tend to ignore those sorts of details until they become relevant)
They have some interesting ideas for looking at the role of self deception in how we reason that hopefully will lead to some quite interesting work.
I'd dearly love to read about that. I've always considered myself very poor at self-deception (however, I also personally feel it is a strength).
I find most other people seem to be able to say things like, "I believe in God" and when you dig a little deeper it ends up being, "I believe in God because it'd really be horrible if there wasn't one". I agree that it'd be much nicer if there was an all powerful all loving deity; but no matter how much I am sure I'd be happier to believe it, I simply don't in the same way that I don't believe I have an unknown rich relative who is going to leave me their fortune when they die.
Sorry for using religion as the example - I know it will annoy some people, but it was the first thing that sprang to mind. There are many other examples of self-deception such as habitual rituals (where people feel uncomfortable when they don't perform them); the placebo effect; psychological addiction; and so on, but they're not as clear or obvious as the big ones like religion.
Suffice to say, I am at times envious of those who can perform self-deception better than I can; but at the same time, I also feel I wouldn't be the person I am if I could do it better, and that change would probably be overall negative (not that I'd know though, so it kind of makes it irrelevant... but that train of thought is getting in to philosophy which is a whole other topic)
I'd say you're (both you and the parent to your post) looking at it all wrong.
It's not necessary to deal with trying to authenticate email, since that's entirely too tricky for the masses unless you've got control over their mail client (which in the case of the schools/parents, you don't). Instead, how about sending them an email with a link to a secure website? Each parent has their own login and can read messages/information/whatever there. My bank doesn't send me emails with confidential data, they send me an email saying "login to our website to get this" - the school could just do the same. The parents will already be used to this from their banks or similar (or hell, even facebook)
I would love to take acid again, but I have no idea where to get it. Guess I can go find some hippies somewhere...
I had very good buying experiences with Silk Road. Way easier than any other method of purchase.
If you don't know Silk Road, go read the wikipedia entry, then get tor (if you don't already have it) and follow the instructions.
It feels a little "dodgy" the first time, potentially throwing your money away and hoping something arrives in the post, but I haven't been ripped off yet - the sellers value their high reputation there.
For reference, I'm a long time LSD user; and as anyone looking at my posting history can see, I'm not shy about saying so, nor about strongly advocating the use of it for betterment of one's life (preferably in controlled environments with an experienced user for the first trip)
Having been a child from a drug user I can only ask you to please don't do that to anybody, do whatever you want to yourself, but at least don't make it a cycle.
I had to deal with nighmares and a lot of personal issues just because of my parent drug usage, and I love my parent very much, but it was not funny to be subject to the kind of things I lived because of that.
This is the problem with the "war on drugs" - it makes people think all illegal drugs are the equivalent of each other.
I'm very sorry for you AC that you grew up in an environment that was bad for you; however I'm pretty certain the drug or drugs your parent used was not LSD, otherwise your story just doesn't make sense. There's a lot of substances out there that if I were to take them, it'd be negative for my daughter. Both legal and illegal substances - crystal meth, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, antidepressants or other mood altering "medication"; and many more. However there's also substances that are not going to cause problems - LSD is one of them. It doesn't make me irresponsible or irrational; it doesn't impair my ability to reason; it doesn't leave me incapable of functioning properly the next day; it doesn't cost significant amounts of money (actually, I spend more on cigarettes per month than I do on LSD per year - one of the reasons I really want to quit smoking); it doesn't cause mood swings... there just really isn't any way that my use of it can cause a problem for my daughter.
The only way LSD could have any influence on her whatsoever is if she were to get her hands on some and take it herself. This is something I of course make sure can never happen by never having any in the house.
As I've made clear, I take it approximately 2 to 3 times a year and do not take it where she can see. I see no difference from her point of view between this and when I go away for a day for any other reason, other than that when I come back from an LSD trip, I'm in a better mood than when I come back from a stressful business trip.
Because she's too young to make rational decisions about powerful psychotropic substances. The same reason I drive a car myself, but wouldn't let my daughter behind the wheel for the next 15 years.
Honestly, when she's old enough (probably somewhere between 16 and 25 - depending on how emotionally and mentally mature she is), I'll happily introduce her to it.
As much as I would like to think that you can "discover" something good by using LSD, dont you have the risk of starting to believe something stupid or plain crazy ? Like "using LSD is good thing"
Basically no. LSD doesn't make you "believe" anything. It gives you a different perspective on your own views of the world and you take what you want/can from that. Some people take nothing from it and just view the trip as "a good time" (or a bad time), others take a lot from it. I can't and don't say that everyone who takes it and changes their worldview changes it for the better, but self-analysis and consideration of one's own worldview is sorely lacking in today's society, so I'd make a fair bet that the opportunity to at least examine one's own thoughts is overall more positive than negative.
Smoking is in no way physical addiction (unless your body pressure, breathing or anything else changes).
I've withdrawn from smoking for couple of years, and it's psychological, as you generally don't need to smoke, but you just want as you're used to it and have nothing better to do. So, generally it's just a habit.
Not true unfortunately - see my reply to Mr Whirly's reply to you.
Good on you for quitting so easily. I know of quite a few people who managed it pretty easily and I'm envious of them. I also know others who are in the same boat as me and having a really hard time every attempt. I assume it's got something to do with the physiology of the individual and how well/quickly they can recover their natural dopamine regulation.
The same could happen to LSD, but you don't take it every hour, so most unlikely.
While a psychological addiction to LSD is theoretically possible, it'd be pretty hard to establish. A typical trip lasts between 8 and 12 hours after which you would need a significantly higher dose to have any effect for at least half a week (fast and high tolerance). Beyond that, most people that take it somewhat regularly - myself included (2 to 3 times a year) - find that one trip gives enough to think about for at least several weeks afterwards and don't have a strong compulsion to "relive" the trip any time soon.
As for heroin - the addiction is really physical, as you feel Your bones breaking.
Nicotine does have a very short physical withdrawal, but you are correct that it is the psychological habit that is the harder one to break. After the first couple days of quitting smoking, all the nicotine is out of your system so the rest is all in your head.
Unfortunately, that's not entirely true despite being very commonly stated (even in a lot of "medical" literature). Once the nicotine is out of your system, there are still physical symptoms as nicotine causes changes to your dopamine levels. Until your body/brain learns to regulate your levels without the use of nicotine, you continue to experience physical symptoms. Just how long this is depends on your own physiology, your diet, and so on; but it's not uncommon to have dopamine problems up to 3 months after smoking cessation.
You deserve the father of the year award for taking LSD
Being AC, you're probably never going to come back and check for this reply, which is a shame.
LSD is non-harmful and non-addictive, I really only take it around 2 to 3 times a year, and I'd never be in a horribly altered state in the presence of my daughter (on LSD unlike other substances, the presence of mind to make sensible decisions isn't diminished). I'd contend it's significantly less bad that I do that than the large number of men that quite legally get drunk and do stupid stuff in the presence of their children.
The AC that replied is quite right. My first ever cigarette tasted absolutely ghastly; caused a coughing fit since my lungs weren't used to it and gave me a nasty headspin that made me feel like I needed to sit down or throw up.
Why exactly after that I had a second is somewhat of a mystery even to me, but I was young and I can only put it down to peer pressure.
It was at least a couple of weeks before I really got comfortable with smoking and probably even did enjoy it for awhile - but only the social aspects of it - never any positive feeling from the nicotine itself (beyond "removing bad feelings"). Now, 17 years later, I very much regret it.
Yep. Methadone has all the addictive qualities without all the pleasing euphoria.
So people are getting addicted to something with no pleasant qualities? Please explain your logic.
While the GP may possibly be wrong about the lack of "pleasing euphoria", it's very easy to be addicted to something with no pleasant qualities. People who have never been addicted to anything are usually unaware of the difference between a psychological addiction and a physical addiction.
I'm a smoker, and I don't really enjoy it at all anymore. My lungs hurt if I smoke too much (which I definitely do on occasion); I cough up goo most mornings; I could really do with the extra cash from quitting; and I'm a father and hate the idea of my little girl growing up seeing me with a cigarette in my mouth. BUT, I still haven't quit despite several attempts. The reason for this is that the withdrawals are so extremely unpleasant that in a moment of weakness, I end up smoking again.
On the other side of the coin, I really enjoy taking LSD on occasion. It's fun, it's stress relieving, it's cheaper (and less harmful) than a night out with alcohol; and I would even say that I'm better at my job because of it (I'm a software developer and have definitely had moments of "insight" while tripping). All of that said, I could never take it again and it'd be no problem at all. LSD is not physically addictive (it could in theory be psychologically addictive, as with anything enjoyable (think "chocoholics"); however due to the fact that it's a pretty intense experience, taking it too often would remove the fun for me at least).
It's basically very easy to be addicted to something with no pleasant qualities; and also (as should be obvious) to not be addicted to something that brings a lot of pleasure.
The "location" isn't really identified since these devices have no way of knowing their location
They often have an IP address and that can usually be traced to an approximate location.
While that's true, I fail to see how it'd get encoded in to the microdots. Do you think the device would regularly query some system online (or contain a reasonably large database and still have to make a query for external IP address) to figure out approximate location and then alter the microdots accordingly?
As per another post of mine, you give the firmware devs way too much credit... It's also worth keeping in mind that we as a company don't benefit from this, so it's very likely it's implemented in the "simplest" possible way (least number of man-hours development) to appease the govt request and no more.
It must take some serious conspiracy theorist to believe that publicly publishing an accurate description of a printer's command language puts you somehow at a disadvantage.
As I said in my post, it would likely be open if not for the fact that we have somewhere to put it that happens to be "somewhat" closed (come on, free upon signing a simple NDA is pretty damn open compared to a lot of things out there).
Because, you know, your geeky users who may dare to develop products that talk to your printer directly are teh worst hackers and all.
I'd be VERY happy for those geeky users to sign up to our developer support portal. I strongly and actively encourage them to do so.
Here's my take: there was a time about a decade and a half ago where I had to develop a self contained product that, for sake of being simple to use, had to talk directly to a printer. That product ended selling with a particular brand of printer, and the choice was made solely on the available level of documentation: otherwise, even if the printer would be cheaper to buy or to own, it'd still be a pipe dream. Someone somewhere got a couple thousand sold printers because of it -- all on documentation, nothing else.
And I do think it's a real shame that we don't have it open for this kind of reason. Not my choice, and I'm not defending it, but it's NOT as big a deal as you seem to want to make of it. You want the specs? Sign a simple bit of paper that says you won't tell anyone else, and we'll give them to you to use in your own products. We'll even give you sample code for other functions to communicate with the devices that you can use in your own products with no royalties or charges of any kind.
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That's the difficult issue with sentience. What is this ability to experience, as opposed to just mechanistically reacting by processing inputs and outputs?
I'd say there really is no difference. Consciousness, as far as we can tell is basically just a side effect of the processing that's going on. It may be possible to construct something that doesn't have this side effect (the "sleepwalking robot" from your example); but whether it is or isn't, it seems that at least the way WE'VE evolved, this side effect happens.
While we can't say with any certainty which other animals (if any) experience consciousness (and to what degree - it may well be that different levels of sophistication have different levels of consciousness), it seems at least fairly likely that it's a common trait we share with most animals that have relatively advanced brains (I personally doubt for example that coral has consciousness; and the same goes for the vast majority of insects; but I wouldn't entertain serious doubts that a cat, dog, sheep or cow is conscious). Of course, all that is just my own thoughts on the matter, since as I said, we can't say with any certainty one way or another.
I did have one interesting conversation with an intelligent spiritualist/Christian (I'm an argumentative atheist) about consciousness. He put forth the idea that a unique self-identifying consciousness ("the soul" in his words) must be immortal if existence and time are infinite. Eventually, given infinite time (and the assumption of quantum fluctuations in "nothing" (or other causes) creating a new big-bang after the eventual heat death of our universe) an organised structure of "something" (be it a brain or even plasma flows in the body of star) must eventually replicate the same patterns so as to be the same "soul". It would even eventually have to come about that it would "remember" any and all previous lives that it had. His argument was that this is how God intends to bring us all to heaven (and added the argument that his faith points towards us all going to heaven at the same time - not in fact immediately after we die).
While I find the religious aspects somewhat superfluous; I can't actually deny his conclusion if his assumptions (infinite existence/infinite time) are correct. I'm definitely not as certain of his assumptions as he is though. I can fully accept the idea of a universe that does indeed stop one day and never continue, in which case the chances of the same patterns forming somewhere/sometime are extremely remote. I'm definitely not expecting to "wake up again" after I die (but would be pleasantly surprised if I did!)
When he was talking, I did consider arguing the line that it wouldn't be the same "consciousness" in reality if it was a new formation of patterns - the same way that I was always a little uneasy about the idea of Star-Trek style transporters essentially creating a clone and destroying the original. However as he was talking it did occur to me that since I can't even prove that I (and the rest of the universe) wasn't brought in to existence last Tuesday with all memories intact, it's kind of a moot point. To consider it a different consciousness, I'd have to then start fearing going to sleep (or any other break in waking consciousness) as I'd "die" and be replaced by my own "clone" (not physical, but conscious) when I reawoke. And that would just be stupid.
While I might not necessarily agree with him, he did give me a lot of interesting things to consider.
I'd imagine that from the point of view of any die-hard extremist atheist, it becomes really really hard to make fun of religious nuts if your beloved science isn't even based on the assumption of the existance of an objective reality.
Not really - I make fun of religious nuts constantly, and have no problem with the possibility that objective reality - if it exists at all - is unknowable.
I used to have a problem with it in my early teens, but after significant years of mellowing (and significant amounts of LSD in those years...) it really doesn't bother me at all. I actually find some aspects of the philosophical angles to it quite beautiful, and others absolutely boring.
Why? Are these large corps planning to modify the software and distribute those modifications as closed source?
As a developer at a large corp, I do find it frustrating when I'm working on an app; find that someone has already implemented a particular routine/method/whatever that I'd like to use, but has made it GPL. It'll form less than 2% of my app, but could save me 5 to 10% of the coding time if it's a particularly thorny problem.
When the licence is LGPL or similar, I use the code in a self contained library, heap praise upon the developer(s), make sure the source is available as it should be, and release the rest of my app closed source as is required by my employer. When it's GPL however, I don't touch it at all because doing so will make us in violation of the licence when we release the app closed source (and there's no way my employer will release the whole app under the GPL).
Many people don't seem to consider this case - they think only in terms of making modifications to existing complete software packages (and in this case, I would be strongly against someone wanting to close source an already open product). The far more common scenario as far as I can tell is my own, where all I want is a tiny bit of code to make my life easier (and will happily comply with the licensing on that bit of code and ONLY that bit of code) without it forcing my hand for the rest of my code.
Isn't that somewhat the expected process of evolution in general? Genetic mistake happens; proves to actually be useful to reproduction/beating the competition (as opposed to the vast majority that are either useless or detrimental); and then due to being in the most successful breeders, becomes "standard".
The clock that is off by 5 minutes is wrong all day, every day.
Very true, but it's significantly more useful than the stopped clock, despite the latter being right twice a day...
And for those who can't read subtext (not implying parent poster): I'd rather have a politician that gives me a close approximation of what I want all of the time, than one who gives me exactly what I want only on rare occasions while doing the opposite of what I want the rest of the time.
and in his youth he sold blue boxes (illegal).
Really? As far as I'm aware, in the time and place he was doing so, manufacture and sale of the devices was perfectly legal. Using them wasn't of course; but that's another story.
I freely accept I could be wrong though, so if someone can prove the above statement wrong, please enlighten me.
So, according to TFA, NDA'ing your employees is fine, because you're offering them some kind of compensation. But asking a guy you called up to have some coffee and toss around an idea to sign... not legit.
There's a third scenario that I haven't seen mentioned yet and I definitely consider a legit NDA situation - "working with someone else's tech for your own benefit".
This sort of NDA is the type you sign to get access to a device SDK for example. Sure, it benefits the device manufacturer a bit to have your software running on/with it, but it probably benefits you more.
I am however honestly curious how others here feel about this kind of NDA.
Yep, ask a tobacco smoker and he will tell you that tobacco isn't addictive at all and he can stop at any time. News at 11.
As a tobacco smoker and LSD user; I can tell you that tobacco is insanely addictive and hard to quit, whereas LSD is something I enjoy from time to time when the circumstances are right (anywhere between 2 and 6 times per year these days) but if I were to never take it again, I'd not feel the slightest "craving" as I do with tobacco (I'd probably miss it a bit, but no differently than I miss good friends who move away).
Tobacco - extremely addictive. LSD - not at all.
Wikipedia backs me up stating it is non-addictive. It also points out the very low harm/risk factor involved in use (also in stark contrast to tobacco, which is very harmful and will probably be the cause of my death).
Even so, to be profitable, you'd have to deal in a fair amount of volume, and patterns will emerge: your packages will probably have a certain look to them that postal workers in that city can be trained to watch for, so at least the supply of the drugs can be disrupted, and with enough agents watching mailboxes, the suspects nabbed.
Depends what the product is. I semi-regularly purchase LSD through Silk Road, and the suppliers usually send in a "business envelope" or occasionally one of those ubiquitous padded bags that small electronic parts come in. I don't see any way that they'd be able to distinguish it from the hundreds of thousands of legitimate business envelopes and padded bags.
Of course, LSD on blotter is pretty easy to put anywhere (I even had it delivered once inside a musical christmas card - that was quite clever); other products may be more difficult to effectively package, but I'm sure it's something the suppliers are well aware of.
On the one hand, I have long suffered from depression that resists all treatment. Some days, it is literally a fight to want to live just for that day, and the only thing that keeps me from suicide is the knowledge that my friends (the few I have) and family (who have mostly rejected me altogether at this point) would blame themselves. I don't think many people understand just how devastating Depression can be -- it can literally take away everything you value in life. The worst part is the blame: the attitude that, if you just "wanted" to be different, you would be. If this treatment could actually cure my depression, I would have to "go for it".
Have you tried recreational drug use? Specifically, hallucinogens? From my understanding of TFA, it sounds not dissimilar to the effects of low dose LSD, mescaline or psilocybin.
I've also heard positive things about higher dose LSD use for depression, but that may require a bit more guidance and direction along with it.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, and I am a relatively outspoken advocate of LSD and therefore can be considered to be strongly biased. However I hope that doesn't deter you from independent investigation of my suggestion.
But is there any assumption made about kids' belief? For example, it's possible that every baptized child is a member until he is an adult.
Indeed. My wife is "christian" in that she's a member of the church and loosely/vaguely believes in the idea of a god (although pretty far from that which is described in the christian bible). I'm an atheist (a relatively vocal one at times) and tolerate her beliefs because I love her, but do try to gently persuade where I can.
Our first child (daughter) was born just over one year ago and my wife is now talking about getting her baptised in the church. While I have concerns and reservations about this, I'm going to allow it to happen - primarily, my decision is because from my point of view, it's just a meaningless tradition that will have no real influence on her life. When she's older and the topic of religion comes up, I'll of course very plainly state my views.
However, I'm quite certain that she'll be counted as "Christian" by statistics until such time as she formally "leaves" the church.
If you're telling me you've never used expletives on a balky computer or other bit of ill behaved hardware/software, I'll call you a liar straight to your face.
Then you should call me a liar straight to mine.
However, I think it really depends on your level of familiarity and comfort with things. In my experience, people who don't know how their computer works are more likely to personify it and therefore get emotional towards it. Even very technical people that aren't programmers seem to be liable to do this towards software that behaves in unexpected ways - attributing personality or otherwise towards it.
The same can also be said of other fields - I find that "gear-head" friends of mine are less likely to swear at their cars than non-gear-heads (despite an overall higher percentage of swearing in general; also note: "Ah fuck, that belt isn't tightened properly" does not constitute swearing at the car; whereas "start you piece of shit" does).
"I've always considered myself very poor at self-deception"
So you think!
Indeed - I was mindful in my post not to say that I "am" worse at self-deception, merely that I consider myself so. It could be that I am actually very good at deceiving myself and have done so in such a way that I think I'm not. However based on my observations of others, I don't think that's the case - I just can't prove it to myself one way or the other definitively (I also can't really prove the existence of anything, but that's not really a very sensible way to live; so I tend to ignore those sorts of details until they become relevant)
They have some interesting ideas for looking at the role of self deception in how we reason that hopefully will lead to some quite interesting work.
I'd dearly love to read about that. I've always considered myself very poor at self-deception (however, I also personally feel it is a strength).
I find most other people seem to be able to say things like, "I believe in God" and when you dig a little deeper it ends up being, "I believe in God because it'd really be horrible if there wasn't one". I agree that it'd be much nicer if there was an all powerful all loving deity; but no matter how much I am sure I'd be happier to believe it, I simply don't in the same way that I don't believe I have an unknown rich relative who is going to leave me their fortune when they die.
Sorry for using religion as the example - I know it will annoy some people, but it was the first thing that sprang to mind. There are many other examples of self-deception such as habitual rituals (where people feel uncomfortable when they don't perform them); the placebo effect; psychological addiction; and so on, but they're not as clear or obvious as the big ones like religion.
Suffice to say, I am at times envious of those who can perform self-deception better than I can; but at the same time, I also feel I wouldn't be the person I am if I could do it better, and that change would probably be overall negative (not that I'd know though, so it kind of makes it irrelevant... but that train of thought is getting in to philosophy which is a whole other topic)
I'd say you're (both you and the parent to your post) looking at it all wrong.
It's not necessary to deal with trying to authenticate email, since that's entirely too tricky for the masses unless you've got control over their mail client (which in the case of the schools/parents, you don't). Instead, how about sending them an email with a link to a secure website? Each parent has their own login and can read messages/information/whatever there. My bank doesn't send me emails with confidential data, they send me an email saying "login to our website to get this" - the school could just do the same. The parents will already be used to this from their banks or similar (or hell, even facebook)
I would love to take acid again, but I have no idea where to get it. Guess I can go find some hippies somewhere...
I had very good buying experiences with Silk Road. Way easier than any other method of purchase.
If you don't know Silk Road, go read the wikipedia entry, then get tor (if you don't already have it) and follow the instructions.
It feels a little "dodgy" the first time, potentially throwing your money away and hoping something arrives in the post, but I haven't been ripped off yet - the sellers value their high reputation there.
For reference, I'm a long time LSD user; and as anyone looking at my posting history can see, I'm not shy about saying so, nor about strongly advocating the use of it for betterment of one's life (preferably in controlled environments with an experienced user for the first trip)
Having been a child from a drug user I can only ask you to please don't do that to anybody, do whatever you want to yourself, but at least don't make it a cycle.
I had to deal with nighmares and a lot of personal issues just because of my parent drug usage, and I love my parent very much, but it was not funny to be subject to the kind of things I lived because of that.
This is the problem with the "war on drugs" - it makes people think all illegal drugs are the equivalent of each other.
I'm very sorry for you AC that you grew up in an environment that was bad for you; however I'm pretty certain the drug or drugs your parent used was not LSD, otherwise your story just doesn't make sense. There's a lot of substances out there that if I were to take them, it'd be negative for my daughter. Both legal and illegal substances - crystal meth, heroin, cocaine, alcohol, antidepressants or other mood altering "medication"; and many more. However there's also substances that are not going to cause problems - LSD is one of them. It doesn't make me irresponsible or irrational; it doesn't impair my ability to reason; it doesn't leave me incapable of functioning properly the next day; it doesn't cost significant amounts of money (actually, I spend more on cigarettes per month than I do on LSD per year - one of the reasons I really want to quit smoking); it doesn't cause mood swings... there just really isn't any way that my use of it can cause a problem for my daughter.
The only way LSD could have any influence on her whatsoever is if she were to get her hands on some and take it herself. This is something I of course make sure can never happen by never having any in the house.
As I've made clear, I take it approximately 2 to 3 times a year and do not take it where she can see. I see no difference from her point of view between this and when I go away for a day for any other reason, other than that when I come back from an LSD trip, I'm in a better mood than when I come back from a stressful business trip.
Does it makes you a better person?
I believe yes.
If so, how come you protect your child from it?
Because she's too young to make rational decisions about powerful psychotropic substances. The same reason I drive a car myself, but wouldn't let my daughter behind the wheel for the next 15 years.
Honestly, when she's old enough (probably somewhere between 16 and 25 - depending on how emotionally and mentally mature she is), I'll happily introduce her to it.
As much as I would like to think that you can "discover" something good by using LSD, dont you have the risk of starting to believe something stupid or plain crazy ? Like "using LSD is good thing"
Basically no. LSD doesn't make you "believe" anything. It gives you a different perspective on your own views of the world and you take what you want/can from that. Some people take nothing from it and just view the trip as "a good time" (or a bad time), others take a lot from it. I can't and don't say that everyone who takes it and changes their worldview changes it for the better, but self-analysis and consideration of one's own worldview is sorely lacking in today's society, so I'd make a fair bet that the opportunity to at least examine one's own thoughts is overall more positive than negative.
Smoking is in no way physical addiction (unless your body pressure, breathing or anything else changes).
I've withdrawn from smoking for couple of years, and it's psychological, as you generally don't need to smoke, but you just want as you're used to it and have nothing better to do. So, generally it's just a habit.
Not true unfortunately - see my reply to Mr Whirly's reply to you.
Good on you for quitting so easily. I know of quite a few people who managed it pretty easily and I'm envious of them. I also know others who are in the same boat as me and having a really hard time every attempt. I assume it's got something to do with the physiology of the individual and how well/quickly they can recover their natural dopamine regulation.
The same could happen to LSD, but you don't take it every hour, so most unlikely.
While a psychological addiction to LSD is theoretically possible, it'd be pretty hard to establish. A typical trip lasts between 8 and 12 hours after which you would need a significantly higher dose to have any effect for at least half a week (fast and high tolerance). Beyond that, most people that take it somewhat regularly - myself included (2 to 3 times a year) - find that one trip gives enough to think about for at least several weeks afterwards and don't have a strong compulsion to "relive" the trip any time soon.
As for heroin - the addiction is really physical, as you feel Your bones breaking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Drug_danger_and_dependence.svg
Yeh, Heroin is nasty stuff. But look where Nicotine is on that chart compared to so many other substances (and LSD especially).
Nicotine does have a very short physical withdrawal, but you are correct that it is the psychological habit that is the harder one to break. After the first couple days of quitting smoking, all the nicotine is out of your system so the rest is all in your head.
Unfortunately, that's not entirely true despite being very commonly stated (even in a lot of "medical" literature). Once the nicotine is out of your system, there are still physical symptoms as nicotine causes changes to your dopamine levels. Until your body/brain learns to regulate your levels without the use of nicotine, you continue to experience physical symptoms. Just how long this is depends on your own physiology, your diet, and so on; but it's not uncommon to have dopamine problems up to 3 months after smoking cessation.
You deserve the father of the year award for taking LSD
Being AC, you're probably never going to come back and check for this reply, which is a shame.
LSD is non-harmful and non-addictive, I really only take it around 2 to 3 times a year, and I'd never be in a horribly altered state in the presence of my daughter (on LSD unlike other substances, the presence of mind to make sensible decisions isn't diminished). I'd contend it's significantly less bad that I do that than the large number of men that quite legally get drunk and do stupid stuff in the presence of their children.
The AC that replied is quite right. My first ever cigarette tasted absolutely ghastly; caused a coughing fit since my lungs weren't used to it and gave me a nasty headspin that made me feel like I needed to sit down or throw up.
Why exactly after that I had a second is somewhat of a mystery even to me, but I was young and I can only put it down to peer pressure.
It was at least a couple of weeks before I really got comfortable with smoking and probably even did enjoy it for awhile - but only the social aspects of it - never any positive feeling from the nicotine itself (beyond "removing bad feelings"). Now, 17 years later, I very much regret it.
Yep. Methadone has all the addictive qualities without all the pleasing euphoria.
So people are getting addicted to something with no pleasant qualities? Please explain your logic.
While the GP may possibly be wrong about the lack of "pleasing euphoria", it's very easy to be addicted to something with no pleasant qualities. People who have never been addicted to anything are usually unaware of the difference between a psychological addiction and a physical addiction.
I'm a smoker, and I don't really enjoy it at all anymore. My lungs hurt if I smoke too much (which I definitely do on occasion); I cough up goo most mornings; I could really do with the extra cash from quitting; and I'm a father and hate the idea of my little girl growing up seeing me with a cigarette in my mouth. BUT, I still haven't quit despite several attempts. The reason for this is that the withdrawals are so extremely unpleasant that in a moment of weakness, I end up smoking again.
On the other side of the coin, I really enjoy taking LSD on occasion. It's fun, it's stress relieving, it's cheaper (and less harmful) than a night out with alcohol; and I would even say that I'm better at my job because of it (I'm a software developer and have definitely had moments of "insight" while tripping). All of that said, I could never take it again and it'd be no problem at all. LSD is not physically addictive (it could in theory be psychologically addictive, as with anything enjoyable (think "chocoholics"); however due to the fact that it's a pretty intense experience, taking it too often would remove the fun for me at least).
It's basically very easy to be addicted to something with no pleasant qualities; and also (as should be obvious) to not be addicted to something that brings a lot of pleasure.
The "location" isn't really identified since these devices have no way of knowing their location
They often have an IP address and that can usually be traced to an approximate location.
While that's true, I fail to see how it'd get encoded in to the microdots. Do you think the device would regularly query some system online (or contain a reasonably large database and still have to make a query for external IP address) to figure out approximate location and then alter the microdots accordingly?
As per another post of mine, you give the firmware devs way too much credit... It's also worth keeping in mind that we as a company don't benefit from this, so it's very likely it's implemented in the "simplest" possible way (least number of man-hours development) to appease the govt request and no more.
It must take some serious conspiracy theorist to believe that publicly publishing an accurate description of a printer's command language puts you somehow at a disadvantage.
As I said in my post, it would likely be open if not for the fact that we have somewhere to put it that happens to be "somewhat" closed (come on, free upon signing a simple NDA is pretty damn open compared to a lot of things out there).
Because, you know, your geeky users who may dare to develop products that talk to your printer directly are teh worst hackers and all.
I'd be VERY happy for those geeky users to sign up to our developer support portal. I strongly and actively encourage them to do so.
Here's my take: there was a time about a decade and a half ago where I had to develop a self contained product that, for sake of being simple to use, had to talk directly to a printer. That product ended selling with a particular brand of printer, and the choice was made solely on the available level of documentation: otherwise, even if the printer would be cheaper to buy or to own, it'd still be a pipe dream. Someone somewhere got a couple thousand sold printers because of it -- all on documentation, nothing else.
And I do think it's a real shame that we don't have it open for this kind of reason. Not my choice, and I'm not defending it, but it's NOT as big a deal as you seem to want to make of it. You want the specs? Sign a simple bit of paper that says you won't tell anyone else, and we'll give them to you to use in your own products. We'll even give you sample code for other functions to communicate with the devices that you can use in your own products with no royalties or charges of any kind.