I bought Darwinia for OS X via download through their site and seeing that there is not Steam on OS X...
I'm just hoping they are supporting an OS X native again because I can't dual boot with my PPC macs. But these guys have a fairly good track record for supporting Linux and OS X.
If a book or movie can "change someones life". Then it can change someones life.
You mean like the Bible, Quaran, Mein Kampf, or the Communist Manifesto caused the death of countless peoples through the ages of mankind?
Yet... I can go into Barnes and Noble and purchase them all right now. (Unless of course I live in Germany)
Any nutjob can read a few pages in a book and get motivation to go on a killing spree. Heck... I'm sure someone who had enough mental or cimrinal problems could pick up a Harry Potter and go on a killing spree in the name of Lord Voldemort.
But as a society we have what we call personal responsibility and understanding that it is not ok to go out and commit crimes against humanity because a book, song, or movie implied it.
At the same time, their argument was the game enabled the person to become a killer... So does training in the US Military or reading gun saftey or survival manuals. Yet... It doesn't make them blood thirsty killers.
Now, instead of a sillouitte, we have a highly graphic representation of what killing someone is really like. You see them moan, hold thier abdomen, and cry out in agony. If you see that in a video game continously, what happens when those with the predisposition to violence finally snap? Now, instead of feeling remorse at the first dead victim, they feel like they can keep going because their brain is used the hearing the painfull pleas of a dying person.
In the military and grognard circles this has always been debatable.
Face with the problem of soldiers not shooting each other in WWI, the German Army did come up with the sillouitte solution. However, that was not the end all solution. Before WWII training also included mock battles and moke live fire battles they get used to artillary and gun fighting.
However, it still could not simulate people screaming in pain, the smell of burnt flesh, and of course the sounds of 1,000 bombers over head or massive rocket barrages. These things were of course an issue to most green soldiers regardless of training.
It also did not take into account Shell Shock and PTS (Post-Traumatic Syndrome). I actually remember reading somewhere (can't find the link) that the US Military is creating VR simulation that try to simulate the conditions in Iraq to help veterns who suffer from PTS (even down the level of burning flesh and babies crying in background).
These simulation aren't made to turn soldiers into heartless killing machines or desensitize them but rather to help them relive the ordeal safely to give retrospect to their PTS problem. Many soldiers stated that there is no simulation in the world that will make the screaming of a dying man go away.
Wrong. They centralize a lot of products into one place so you don't need to travel to the Nabisco store and the Keebler store and the M&M Mars store and the Pepsi store and the Coke store and the Nike store and the Sony store and the Nintendo store and the Pioneer store and the... clearly this could go on for quite a while.
But that was how life was before Walmart came about except most of the mom and pop stores weren't owned by the distributor.
Personally, I avoid Wal Mart like the plague because of crappy products, poor service, and long waits in line. (On occasion I will go to pick up cheap furniture I can't get at Target)
Otherwise... I like to buy my shoes at a shoe shop... Buy my food a Whole Foods... Buy Nintendo games at locally owned game shop and so on.
Why? Becuase our local Walmarts are cesspools and I sleep better at night.
So in truth... Its better to remove the middle men who are these massive chains and put it back into the Mom and Pops are go directly to the distributors.
It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if Walmart went belly up tomorrow.
So from that perspective, robotic assists seem like the way to go. Sick, but true.
This is also why the major developers of robots are car companies. Many Americans are saying "Why would a car company spend all this money on making robots?"
The truth of it is that they are facing a labor shortage and see robotics as a better alternative to outsourcing or immigration.
As opposed to US robots which are either utilitarian or military related. (Which we have obvious political reasons that we are engaged in for which I won't go into *coughs*)
Public smoking bans have more to do with keeping cancer-causing poisons out of your body than putting morals in.
It is still morality that sees cancer-causing poisons a bad thing.
I'm sure some off the wall cult or society could see death by cancer god's gift of release from this plane of suffering.
But seriously, smoking in public places is bad, but if persons want to smoke in private situations including privatley owned bars and clubs... Then by all means they should be allowed to do so even at risk of their health.
If you don't want a health risk by going to those types of places... The simple solution is don't go to those places. Not ban it outright.
It is legislation of the morality that says living to old age (even though broken and bitter) is more important than being happy right now.
Unless of course your morality is against assisted suicide and what not... Then I can't help you.
So, you think it is ethical to tax people (take money by force) to hand it over to private entities, for political purposes, while not actually having to provide anything useful, while knowing that the results of the research will not be free (as in beer)?
Of course it will. They'll just raise prices for 'another' reason. Just like it's illegel to fire someone for being gay.
Of course the government may fine them when they notice gas prices are more in California than other states with the same average's. Of course they may pass the gass prices onto people elsewhere, which I suppose isn't California's problem.
The problem is that some - including the typically brilliant Ray Kurzweil - believe that AI is limited by computational power. I don't believe that's the case. I believe that AI is limited by a woefully primitive understanding of several components of intelligence. It is impossible to produce artistic, emotive, sentient machines by applying today's AI models to tomorrow's supercomputers.
What happens if you simply simulate all the neurons in the human mind in a computer simulation?
Unless you believe intelligence comes from a supernatural soul or spirit, we are nothing more than chemicals and fleshy grey matter.
Seeing that we live in a logical universe, (as opposed to an illogical one that does not follow a set of rules like laws of physics etc) most everything can be simulated down to nulcear explosions, weather, atomic particles, and even black holes.
That said... Given enough understanding on how neurons work with interaction with chemicals of the human body, we could simply simulate a human brain by high resolution disection of an existing one.
Of course we may have to get the mind a body so we would createa simulation for some type of body and interface we could communicate with the mind simulation.
However, simulating 100 trillion neurons is no small taks and we need a great deal of processing power to do it.
It isn't a matter of that intelligence is too hard for us to ever understand, is that our levels of processing power and understanding on neurons and the physiological nature of the human mind is not what we need to simulate a human mind.
This might be a bit on the reductionalist side of philosophy, but... Simply brute forcing AI is possible... But not feasible with what we have to work with today. (It is kind of like asking Benjamin Franklin to build an atomic bomb in his workshop)
On the other side of the AI field is the camp that says AI doesn't need more processing but better algorythms and that we don't need true intelligence to do what we need it to do.
If we created an AI to drive a taxi around town, do we need it to be able to write songs and draw paintings as well?
The future is a very long time to say never. We'll have devices in the future that will only cost $7 and have more computing power and storage than the PCs we have today.
However, we'll call them something Palms, iPods, or so other device.
Whearas our PCs will be $100-$2000 depending on what you get.
However, I would guess that in the the far future, when computers have more computational power than 1,000 brains per CPU and it can simulate reality the human mind can't tell the difference between it and reality... Then only price will decrease.
Of course by that time capitalism may have failed because there won't be a need to pay people for anything because no one has to pay robots or StrongAI to create anything of value.
These are just a few things that any human-competitive intelligence would need, but that we don't understand. Accordingly, it's completely impossible to predict when we will be able to model it, since we don't even understand it yet.
Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you their book.;)
Just because we don't understand what intelligence is, doesn't mean we can't build it.
If one had a really powerful MRI or a brain disected with very high resolution, one could simulate neurons firing just like a human
Unfortunatley this would require more computational power than we have at our disposal since the human brain has 100 trillion neurons.
So in truth if we just modeled the brain, we wouldn't really to understand how the intelligence itself works, but rather the brain that emulates intelligence.
Besides, for all we know... We might just be meat puppet computers with no free will or true intelligence. Well... Most of us.
On the other side of the StrongAI camp is the algorythm method. As they say... The Wright Brothers didn't build an airplane by copying a bird's biologically structure.
Not that I don't appreciate him NOT launching nukes against the US and vaporizing me, but I think we could easily point out dozens if not hundreds of examples of cool heads prevailing in tense situations that might have lead to Global Thermonuclear War.
Actually, he disobeyed orders (albeit standing ones and not a direct).
He was reprimanded afterwards for not following protocol.
Music today is no better nor worse than yesterday. You remember the good stuff and forget the crap, the same way I remember the good 90s music and not the crap.. That is how things work. You remember the good and discard the crap.
Every generation has had its share of good and bad music and the manufactured pop idols, but one thing is different today than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago.
Clear Channel owns all the radios and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
This means artists are chosen by the media cartels payola system rather than a voting system by the populace.
As a kid I remember every year, there would a video that would play at midnight and then it would get popular and play at 10pm and then later it would be playing nonstop at primetime for an entire month.
Now, a band is just manufactured and *BAM* they are on the prime time whether you like it or not.
Mabye all those old bands were manufactured as well, but these days it isn't even remotley democratic.
Do you remember the days when any local band had a chance of getting their demo played on the radio and then making it big?
These days there is no such thing as a local radio station. They play the same lists on the East Coast as they do the West coast. Hell many of the shows are getting the same audio stream.
So I wouldn't say the quality of music has gone down hill, but rather the industry itself and its promotions methods. RIAA and crew are no longer satisfied with taking chances with people possibly making it big. If they sign you then they force it down everyone's throats even if they aren't liked.
Which is of course why we see more one hit wonders these days of people who real job was making jingles for commercials or have a pretty face.
It isn't the internet or piracy nor iTunes killing the industry, but the industry itself.
The only way to fix it would be to break up the RIAA monopoly and force Clear Channel to sell its stations.
And how exactly to you propose to objectively measure the "level of suckage"?
Does it involve booty dancing videos or angsty emo kids screaming?
No, but seriously.
The reason music sucks today is that all stations are owned by clear channel and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
Secondly, most major stars aren't even really musicians in their own right, but rather manufactured acts.
That said... I quote wiki: "In June 2003, Jon Wiederhorn of MTV.com referred to Marilyn Manson as 'the only true artist today'."
And lastly, I have a hunch that more kids are playing video games instead of just listening to music... Or at least putting more income into said devices.
you can make as many backups as you want, and you can play on 5 computers simulataneously.
You are correct, but it makes a crappy backup.
Lossy AAC to CD audio and back to lossy MP3 is quite a degredation in sound quality.
That and you use your ID tags.
Personally, I use an iPod but I rip my CDs I purchase from the store to 256kps MP3s for quality and compatibility of all my players (Audiotron, CD mp3, and iPod and VBR is problematic on the CD and audio tron)
I'm tempted to start doing high quality MP4 because I'm an audio freak like that. Too bad iPods don't support FLAC or OGG, but I still like my nano.
Other than the (dubious) 'reason' "because I hate Microsoft!" why should anyone complain that the United States government was lifting a finger to possibly help one of its interests?
Because those interests to not coincide with the interests of the people of America.
Rather a small (albeit wealthy) interest...
Secondly, those interests might be wrong and amoral.
Thirdly, those interests may conflict with the interests of the American people.
Had the US lobbied on the behalf of the American people or a majority of her industry than I would say this is fair. When you single out a single company because they donate a great deal to the campaigns... I say its shady and unfair to everyone else in the states.
They don't care so much about the political undercurrents of the organization. They just want to do their job well.
Which is the fatal flaw of any engineer or programmer especially when their common sense tech skills could save the company (or movement) when a non-tech person gets at the helm and steers everyone into a situation that sinks them all.
To play on a Hellraiser movie quote: "You may not believe you can affect politics, but politics believes it can affect you."
If you refuse to deal with politics, it doesn't stop the political process from getting into your daily life. (Ivory towers nonwidthstanding)
I had gotten an IBM PS1 in 90 something. Played around with AOL (good lord!) and Prodigy, but my highschool friends got me hoked on BBS when I was a Freshman in Highschool.
Played LORD to death and even got in a real world fight over that game (kind of).
Then the internet came in 95/96. I thought that was awesome playing Quake I with people in sweeden and chatting with people, but I missed those old systems mostly because you knew everyone.
Even if not in persons you felt you shared a secret club or something. That sounds campy... But I kind of miss it all.
How would being able to explain what chemicals or electrical signals are moving around our heads in response to stimulus actually help to explain intelligence?
If Occam's razor is applied to this argument, the simplest explanation is that we are indeed made up of chemicals and electric signals rather something that complex in the universe we fail to understand it.
That the simplest explanation is that we have no free will or intelligence of our own violition...
Slashdot Mirror
You expect massive numbers of people to suddenly stop buying computers?
Why yes. Yes I do.
Not that it has anything to do with a nuclear war with China over the invasion of Iran...
And hopefully not just download only via steam.
I bought Darwinia for OS X via download through their site and seeing that there is not Steam on OS X...
I'm just hoping they are supporting an OS X native again because I can't dual boot with my PPC macs. But these guys have a fairly good track record for supporting Linux and OS X.
If a book or movie can "change someones life". Then it can change someones life.
You mean like the Bible, Quaran, Mein Kampf, or the Communist Manifesto caused the death of countless peoples through the ages of mankind?
Yet... I can go into Barnes and Noble and purchase them all right now. (Unless of course I live in Germany)
Any nutjob can read a few pages in a book and get motivation to go on a killing spree. Heck... I'm sure someone who had enough mental or cimrinal problems could pick up a Harry Potter and go on a killing spree in the name of Lord Voldemort.
But as a society we have what we call personal responsibility and understanding that it is not ok to go out and commit crimes against humanity because a book, song, or movie implied it.
At the same time, their argument was the game enabled the person to become a killer... So does training in the US Military or reading gun saftey or survival manuals. Yet... It doesn't make them blood thirsty killers.
Now, instead of a sillouitte, we have a highly graphic representation of what killing someone is really like. You see them moan, hold thier abdomen, and cry out in agony. If you see that in a video game continously, what happens when those with the predisposition to violence finally snap? Now, instead of feeling remorse at the first dead victim, they feel like they can keep going because their brain is used the hearing the painfull pleas of a dying person.
In the military and grognard circles this has always been debatable.
Face with the problem of soldiers not shooting each other in WWI, the German Army did come up with the sillouitte solution. However, that was not the end all solution. Before WWII training also included mock battles and moke live fire battles they get used to artillary and gun fighting.
However, it still could not simulate people screaming in pain, the smell of burnt flesh, and of course the sounds of 1,000 bombers over head or massive rocket barrages. These things were of course an issue to most green soldiers regardless of training.
It also did not take into account Shell Shock and PTS (Post-Traumatic Syndrome). I actually remember reading somewhere (can't find the link) that the US Military is creating VR simulation that try to simulate the conditions in Iraq to help veterns who suffer from PTS (even down the level of burning flesh and babies crying in background).
These simulation aren't made to turn soldiers into heartless killing machines or desensitize them but rather to help them relive the ordeal safely to give retrospect to their PTS problem. Many soldiers stated that there is no simulation in the world that will make the screaming of a dying man go away.
Wrong. They centralize a lot of products into one place so you don't need to travel to the Nabisco store and the Keebler store and the M&M Mars store and the Pepsi store and the Coke store and the Nike store and the Sony store and the Nintendo store and the Pioneer store and the... clearly this could go on for quite a while.
But that was how life was before Walmart came about except most of the mom and pop stores weren't owned by the distributor.
Personally, I avoid Wal Mart like the plague because of crappy products, poor service, and long waits in line. (On occasion I will go to pick up cheap furniture I can't get at Target)
Otherwise... I like to buy my shoes at a shoe shop... Buy my food a Whole Foods... Buy Nintendo games at locally owned game shop and so on.
Why? Becuase our local Walmarts are cesspools and I sleep better at night.
So in truth... Its better to remove the middle men who are these massive chains and put it back into the Mom and Pops are go directly to the distributors.
It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if Walmart went belly up tomorrow.
So from that perspective, robotic assists seem like the way to go. Sick, but true.
This is also why the major developers of robots are car companies. Many Americans are saying "Why would a car company spend all this money on making robots?"
The truth of it is that they are facing a labor shortage and see robotics as a better alternative to outsourcing or immigration.
As opposed to US robots which are either utilitarian or military related. (Which we have obvious political reasons that we are engaged in for which I won't go into *coughs*)
Public smoking bans have more to do with keeping cancer-causing poisons out of your body than putting morals in.
It is still morality that sees cancer-causing poisons a bad thing.
I'm sure some off the wall cult or society could see death by cancer god's gift of release from this plane of suffering.
But seriously, smoking in public places is bad, but if persons want to smoke in private situations including privatley owned bars and clubs... Then by all means they should be allowed to do so even at risk of their health.
If you don't want a health risk by going to those types of places... The simple solution is don't go to those places. Not ban it outright.
It is legislation of the morality that says living to old age (even though broken and bitter) is more important than being happy right now.
Unless of course your morality is against assisted suicide and what not... Then I can't help you.
So, you think it is ethical to tax people (take money by force) to hand it over to private entities, for political purposes, while not actually having to provide anything useful, while knowing that the results of the research will not be free (as in beer)?
Who said Haliburton was ethical?
Of course it will. They'll just raise prices for 'another' reason. Just like it's illegel to fire someone for being gay.
Of course the government may fine them when they notice gas prices are more in California than other states with the same average's. Of course they may pass the gass prices onto people elsewhere, which I suppose isn't California's problem.
The problem is that some - including the typically brilliant Ray Kurzweil - believe that AI is limited by computational power. I don't believe that's the case. I believe that AI is limited by a woefully primitive understanding of several components of intelligence. It is impossible to produce artistic, emotive, sentient machines by applying today's AI models to tomorrow's supercomputers.
What happens if you simply simulate all the neurons in the human mind in a computer simulation?
Unless you believe intelligence comes from a supernatural soul or spirit, we are nothing more than chemicals and fleshy grey matter.
Seeing that we live in a logical universe, (as opposed to an illogical one that does not follow a set of rules like laws of physics etc) most everything can be simulated down to nulcear explosions, weather, atomic particles, and even black holes.
That said... Given enough understanding on how neurons work with interaction with chemicals of the human body, we could simply simulate a human brain by high resolution disection of an existing one.
Of course we may have to get the mind a body so we would createa simulation for some type of body and interface we could communicate with the mind simulation.
However, simulating 100 trillion neurons is no small taks and we need a great deal of processing power to do it.
It isn't a matter of that intelligence is too hard for us to ever understand, is that our levels of processing power and understanding on neurons and the physiological nature of the human mind is not what we need to simulate a human mind.
This might be a bit on the reductionalist side of philosophy, but... Simply brute forcing AI is possible... But not feasible with what we have to work with today. (It is kind of like asking Benjamin Franklin to build an atomic bomb in his workshop)
On the other side of the AI field is the camp that says AI doesn't need more processing but better algorythms and that we don't need true intelligence to do what we need it to do.
If we created an AI to drive a taxi around town, do we need it to be able to write songs and draw paintings as well?
There will never be a $7 PC in the future,
The future is a very long time to say never. We'll have devices in the future that will only cost $7 and have more computing power and storage than the PCs we have today.
However, we'll call them something Palms, iPods, or so other device.
Whearas our PCs will be $100-$2000 depending on what you get.
However, I would guess that in the the far future, when computers have more computational power than 1,000 brains per CPU and it can simulate reality the human mind can't tell the difference between it and reality... Then only price will decrease.
Of course by that time capitalism may have failed because there won't be a need to pay people for anything because no one has to pay robots or StrongAI to create anything of value.
These are just a few things that any human-competitive intelligence would need, but that we don't understand. Accordingly, it's completely impossible to predict when we will be able to model it, since we don't even understand it yet.
;)
Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you their book.
Just because we don't understand what intelligence is, doesn't mean we can't build it.
If one had a really powerful MRI or a brain disected with very high resolution, one could simulate neurons firing just like a human
Unfortunatley this would require more computational power than we have at our disposal since the human brain has 100 trillion neurons.
So in truth if we just modeled the brain, we wouldn't really to understand how the intelligence itself works, but rather the brain that emulates intelligence.
Besides, for all we know... We might just be meat puppet computers with no free will or true intelligence. Well... Most of us.
On the other side of the StrongAI camp is the algorythm method. As they say... The Wright Brothers didn't build an airplane by copying a bird's biologically structure.
Not that I don't appreciate him NOT launching nukes against the US and vaporizing me, but I think we could easily point out dozens if not hundreds of examples of cool heads prevailing in tense situations that might have lead to Global Thermonuclear War.
Actually, he disobeyed orders (albeit standing ones and not a direct).
He was reprimanded afterwards for not following protocol.
Music today is no better nor worse than yesterday. You remember the good stuff and forget the crap, the same way I remember the good 90s music and not the crap.. That is how things work. You remember the good and discard the crap.
Every generation has had its share of good and bad music and the manufactured pop idols, but one thing is different today than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago.
Clear Channel owns all the radios and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
This means artists are chosen by the media cartels payola system rather than a voting system by the populace.
As a kid I remember every year, there would a video that would play at midnight and then it would get popular and play at 10pm and then later it would be playing nonstop at primetime for an entire month.
Now, a band is just manufactured and *BAM* they are on the prime time whether you like it or not.
Mabye all those old bands were manufactured as well, but these days it isn't even remotley democratic.
Do you remember the days when any local band had a chance of getting their demo played on the radio and then making it big?
These days there is no such thing as a local radio station. They play the same lists on the East Coast as they do the West coast. Hell many of the shows are getting the same audio stream.
So I wouldn't say the quality of music has gone down hill, but rather the industry itself and its promotions methods. RIAA and crew are no longer satisfied with taking chances with people possibly making it big. If they sign you then they force it down everyone's throats even if they aren't liked.
Which is of course why we see more one hit wonders these days of people who real job was making jingles for commercials or have a pretty face.
It isn't the internet or piracy nor iTunes killing the industry, but the industry itself.
The only way to fix it would be to break up the RIAA monopoly and force Clear Channel to sell its stations.
And how exactly to you propose to objectively measure the "level of suckage"?
Does it involve booty dancing videos or angsty emo kids screaming?
No, but seriously.
The reason music sucks today is that all stations are owned by clear channel and MTV doesn't play music videos anymore.
Secondly, most major stars aren't even really musicians in their own right, but rather manufactured acts.
That said... I quote wiki: "In June 2003, Jon Wiederhorn of MTV.com referred to Marilyn Manson as 'the only true artist today'."
And lastly, I have a hunch that more kids are playing video games instead of just listening to music... Or at least putting more income into said devices.
How many CDs could you buy with a PS3?
you can make as many backups as you want, and you can play on 5 computers simulataneously.
You are correct, but it makes a crappy backup.
Lossy AAC to CD audio and back to lossy MP3 is quite a degredation in sound quality.
That and you use your ID tags.
Personally, I use an iPod but I rip my CDs I purchase from the store to 256kps MP3s for quality and compatibility of all my players (Audiotron, CD mp3, and iPod and VBR is problematic on the CD and audio tron)
I'm tempted to start doing high quality MP4 because I'm an audio freak like that. Too bad iPods don't support FLAC or OGG, but I still like my nano.
Photoshop
Other than the (dubious) 'reason' "because I hate Microsoft!" why should anyone complain that the United States government was lifting a finger to possibly help one of its interests?
Because those interests to not coincide with the interests of the people of America.
Rather a small (albeit wealthy) interest...
Secondly, those interests might be wrong and amoral.
Thirdly, those interests may conflict with the interests of the American people.
Had the US lobbied on the behalf of the American people or a majority of her industry than I would say this is fair. When you single out a single company because they donate a great deal to the campaigns... I say its shady and unfair to everyone else in the states.
They don't care so much about the political undercurrents of the organization. They just want to do their job well.
Which is the fatal flaw of any engineer or programmer especially when their common sense tech skills could save the company (or movement) when a non-tech person gets at the helm and steers everyone into a situation that sinks them all.
To play on a Hellraiser movie quote: "You may not believe you can affect politics, but politics believes it can affect you."
If you refuse to deal with politics, it doesn't stop the political process from getting into your daily life. (Ivory towers nonwidthstanding)
Hate to see the short that could occur if this car was in the wrong kind of accident.
This is just like the argument that Hydrogen cars are more dangerous than gasoline cars.
If they can contain liquid with the explosive equivalent of dynamite, then I think they can contain this.
Born in 79.
I had gotten an IBM PS1 in 90 something. Played around with AOL (good lord!) and Prodigy, but my highschool friends got me hoked on BBS when I was a Freshman in Highschool.
Played LORD to death and even got in a real world fight over that game (kind of).
Then the internet came in 95/96. I thought that was awesome playing Quake I with people in sweeden and chatting with people, but I missed those old systems mostly because you knew everyone.
Even if not in persons you felt you shared a secret club or something. That sounds campy... But I kind of miss it all.
That and moderation could entail bribing Commander Taco for the room keys so you can slay a sleeping poster.
Ah... LORD was a kick ass game. I miss thee.
The joy of battling a hord of a thousand squirels.
And why is Apple so successful despite its use of DRM with iTunes?
Because iTunes is a "loss leader" for iPod sales and its caculated that most of the music that go on iPods is not purchased form iTunes.
As in... No one is going to spend $10,000 to fill a 60gb iPod with music from iTunes.
That said... iTunes does not infect, put DRM, or prevent non-DRM'ed music from going on its player.
So its invisible and most people never run into the problem unless their computer crashes.
However, when DRM is done wrong and it does DRM everything you try to put on the player... Then well... People get pissy. (especially average joe guy)
How would being able to explain what chemicals or electrical signals are moving around our heads in response to stimulus actually help to explain intelligence?
If Occam's razor is applied to this argument, the simplest explanation is that we are indeed made up of chemicals and electric signals rather something that complex in the universe we fail to understand it.
That the simplest explanation is that we have no free will or intelligence of our own violition...
Hrmm... Wait a minute!
If you happen to have Yahoo stock.
SELL NOW!