Sometimes you need constitutional safeguards to prevent the majority from voting away their freedoms. Kind of like how it is illegal in Germany to hold referendums of government policy to a national vote or how the electoral college system was supposed to work in early America.
And then you can have the extreme possibility where a dictator actually enforces freedom, rights, and equality to an extreme, but seeing that has never happened in the history of mankind due to the bad nature of men in power... Representative republics seem to be the best answer to our political problems.
I disagree. First, I at least have never felt that creation and invention wouldn't occur without copyrights and patents, respectively. Second, however, the quantity of those acts would likely decrease sharply. So we have to decide whether unrestricted competition or some degree of monopoly granting will yield the best overall benefit. Looking only at competition or only at stimulating creation is too narrow. Both should be considered and weighed.
Back in the 1800's the USPTO would sometime revoke patents it deemed too beneficial to mankind such as the Combine Harvester which only got 5 years out its total 17 (around 1835). I wish I could find the source online but everything that I try in google gets modern patent references. (I remember watching this on the History Channel on the show Modern Marvels and nothing is mentioned aobut it on Wiki and can't seem to find any other patents that got revoked, but I think the policy back then was a bit different).
You know... I've seriously thought about this myself. I just have to figure out how to make a site that generates a lot of hits with no real income and then sell it off to the highest bidder.
What they should have done instead is come up with a very low end PC that costs $200-$300 that focuses everything it has on serving up high quality content instead.
You mean like an Xbox with media center installed on it?
The computer industry seems to have this idea that we want to combine all our gadgetry into a single box.
Hrm? I thought that single box was something we called a "computer" and I already have one.
You know... That thing I can do excel spreadsheets on, surf the web, play Half-Life, write an email, download a movie, play my Mp3s, edit a photograph, or rather do anything that I can think of the top of my head.
Sure, I could have bought a game console, dvd player, and maybe hand write my excel sheets on a peice of paper, but I don't really see the need to spend all that extra money and time on things dedicated to something I don't use all the time. Maybe I'm ADD or poor, but I've already got convergence on my desktop PC.
That about does it actually. Other causes (rape, knife fight...) are uncommon in the civilized world.
You sir, are very naive.
Or you live in Norway... Or maybe Switzerland. I hear it is nice over there.
My current city of residence has had about 200+ some murders last year and it isn't as bad as the city across the river. And yes... We had a big rape scandal about some guy who jumped a lady on the subway last summer. I'm sure much more happens and isn't reported.
Either way... I'm just glad I don't live in Detroit.
PS If you happen to live in Norway or Switzerland do you know of any non-AIDs infected girls I can marry for citizenship?
In contrast, human brain is much better at intelligence and creativity (imagination).
The problem is that intelligence is relative to the situation.
If you put a rocket scientist on a desert island with a native he might look foolish to native in simple acts of finding something to eat. And vice versa if you put the native and the scientist into the lab... Well I'm not sure what the native is going to do except enjoy the free coffee and watch the man in the magic box.
However, if you put the native and rocket scientist in a chess match (or maybe a flight simulator) against say... Big Blue or whatever the latest super computer then they are going to loose hands down.
AI is really good in very tactical situations, but fails the more strategic the scenario gets not because of intelligence, but rather man's ability to recognize patterns.
Computers have a really hard time with this because they can usually fire off one computation at a time (well unless you have multi-processors or dual cores and nifty things like that) and even though its really fast compared to the brains neuron speed, it can't compete in the trillions of simultaneous neuron reactions going on in our brain.
We simply (as of now) lack the technology to allow parallel processing at this scale. If we could, we'd have computers that kick our butt in pattern recognition (you know... like stock market speculation... business models... warfare etc...)
Secondly, imagination and creativity isn't that far from what Big Blue did to beat Gary Kasparov. A human just sees the current chess layout and sees a pattern of what might happen and see his next best move (and this might go up to tens to hundreds of moves depending on the skill of the chess player). Big blue on the other hand calculates hundreds of thousands of these moves to determine the next best move. Sure, it isn't really that efficient in recognizing the correct patterns, but it gets the job done.
Imagination is merely man's ability to dream up other scenarios and play them through his head. He might not have a perfect recreation of the scenario, but sometimes he gets onto an idea that may take off.
Depends on your definition of "good".
on
Once Upon A Game
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· Score: 2, Funny
I got more enjoyment out of FFVII than War and Peace. Actually, I can remember the plot line and recognize characters from FFVII, but I am hard pressed to remember what War and Peace was about other than it was written by a Russian guy.
How strange... I just the oddest senation of thousands of World Lit 101 teachers spinning in their graves.
The icon bounces, bounces and bounces. I know my 800Mhz iBook with 640Megs RAM isn't the latest/fastest machine, but when I boot back into Ubuntu Dapper it's MUCH faster.
It's you and anyone else who has a 800Mhz PPC. (I've got a flowerpod iMac myself and it is a dog)
If I you happen to have a Intel or a 2ghz G5 then its not as much as a problem.
Even my PPC 1.5Ghz mini isn't as bad as the earlier systems.
The Star Wars Devs (and Raph the supposed 'Genius of MMOGs'in particular) should have realized that in a genre selling 'you are the hero' that everyone wants to be the hero, aka a JEDI.
Everyone wants to kill the hero.... And take his things and send him nasty/tells saying how he 'pnwed' him and his mother. The only reason people play nice in MMOGs is because of PvP limitations.
That seems like a good idea, but you end up with a "one trick pony" that does only one thing really well.
From my understanding most supercomputers are built to do one task... Either it be fold proteins, simulate nuclear explosions, predict weather, simulate the big bang, or various other number crunching task. By the time they are done, they have to move to the next project... Mostly because of being out of date every 5 years.
grrr... trying post on slashdot and someone called me on the phone... I meant to say "yeah that is not the creation of gravity but rather more of manipulation of it".
Artificial gravity has been dangled in front of our noses for years, by alien nuts, pseudo-scientist, and garage engineers.
Hrm... I don't see what is so far fetched about "artificial gravity" or rather manipulating gravity. Centrifugal force is a good example of this... (yeah that is creation of gravity but rather more of manipulation of it).
Otherwise, as an object approaches the speed of light its mass increases therefore it should increase its gravitational pull on everything else in the universe.
The problem with this is that we lack the technology and energy to get anything other than really small particles even remotely close to the speed of light. And the gravity generated by those particles is negliable since there isn't harldy and mass to begin with.
However it looks like ESA is trying something like this...
Well, the first TV I remember as a kid had a dial that could pick up way more than that, but we could only pick up about 4 channels (7 on a good night) and everything else was static.
By the time I was in middle school my parents had cable though... So a moot point.
Slashdot Mirror
Elections does not imply democracy.
Nor does democracy imply elections.
Sometimes you need constitutional safeguards to prevent the majority from voting away their freedoms. Kind of like how it is illegal in Germany to hold referendums of government policy to a national vote or how the electoral college system was supposed to work in early America.
And then you can have the extreme possibility where a dictator actually enforces freedom, rights, and equality to an extreme, but seeing that has never happened in the history of mankind due to the bad nature of men in power... Representative republics seem to be the best answer to our political problems.
Linux + Business Suits = Success
;)
Linux + Military BDUs = World Domination
Seriously, what do you think the Military puts on their tomahawk missles these days? BDU's and combat boots beat Armani's and Italian shoes anyday.
It's hard to dispute empirical research... you dress for your audience or risk losing them.
Hrm? Ahhh... So that explains Steve Job's Gap turtle neck!
Its simply the law of the land we live in, like it or not.*
;)
*DISCLAIMER: Laws are opinion and subject to change. Usually by a judge on the 9th circuit court. See your lawyer for details.
I disagree. First, I at least have never felt that creation and invention wouldn't occur without copyrights and patents, respectively. Second, however, the quantity of those acts would likely decrease sharply. So we have to decide whether unrestricted competition or some degree of monopoly granting will yield the best overall benefit. Looking only at competition or only at stimulating creation is too narrow. Both should be considered and weighed.
Back in the 1800's the USPTO would sometime revoke patents it deemed too beneficial to mankind such as the Combine Harvester which only got 5 years out its total 17 (around 1835). I wish I could find the source online but everything that I try in google gets modern patent references. (I remember watching this on the History Channel on the show Modern Marvels and nothing is mentioned aobut it on Wiki and can't seem to find any other patents that got revoked, but I think the policy back then was a bit different).
You know... I've seriously thought about this myself. I just have to figure out how to make a site that generates a lot of hits with no real income and then sell it off to the highest bidder.
What they should have done instead is come up with a very low end PC that costs $200-$300 that focuses everything it has on serving up high quality content instead.
You mean like an Xbox with media center installed on it?
The computer industry seems to have this idea that we want to combine all our gadgetry into a single box.
Hrm? I thought that single box was something we called a "computer" and I already have one.
You know... That thing I can do excel spreadsheets on, surf the web, play Half-Life, write an email, download a movie, play my Mp3s, edit a photograph, or rather do anything that I can think of the top of my head.
Sure, I could have bought a game console, dvd player, and maybe hand write my excel sheets on a peice of paper, but I don't really see the need to spend all that extra money and time on things dedicated to something I don't use all the time. Maybe I'm ADD or poor, but I've already got convergence on my desktop PC.
That about does it actually. Other causes (rape, knife fight...) are uncommon in the civilized world.
You sir, are very naive.
Or you live in Norway... Or maybe Switzerland. I hear it is nice over there.
My current city of residence has had about 200+ some murders last year and it isn't as bad as the city across the river. And yes... We had a big rape scandal about some guy who jumped a lady on the subway last summer. I'm sure much more happens and isn't reported.
Either way... I'm just glad I don't live in Detroit.
PS If you happen to live in Norway or Switzerland do you know of any non-AIDs infected girls I can marry for citizenship?
but I'm tired of the media treating this disease like we're all living on the set of "Rent"
I'm pretty sure you mean the spoof play "Lease" on the Team America movie.
In contrast, human brain is much better at intelligence and creativity (imagination).
The problem is that intelligence is relative to the situation.
If you put a rocket scientist on a desert island with a native he might look foolish to native in simple acts of finding something to eat. And vice versa if you put the native and the scientist into the lab... Well I'm not sure what the native is going to do except enjoy the free coffee and watch the man in the magic box.
However, if you put the native and rocket scientist in a chess match (or maybe a flight simulator) against say... Big Blue or whatever the latest super computer then they are going to loose hands down.
AI is really good in very tactical situations, but fails the more strategic the scenario gets not because of intelligence, but rather man's ability to recognize patterns.
Computers have a really hard time with this because they can usually fire off one computation at a time (well unless you have multi-processors or dual cores and nifty things like that) and even though its really fast compared to the brains neuron speed, it can't compete in the trillions of simultaneous neuron reactions going on in our brain.
We simply (as of now) lack the technology to allow parallel processing at this scale. If we could, we'd have computers that kick our butt in pattern recognition (you know... like stock market speculation... business models... warfare etc...)
Secondly, imagination and creativity isn't that far from what Big Blue did to beat Gary Kasparov. A human just sees the current chess layout and sees a pattern of what might happen and see his next best move (and this might go up to tens to hundreds of moves depending on the skill of the chess player). Big blue on the other hand calculates hundreds of thousands of these moves to determine the next best move. Sure, it isn't really that efficient in recognizing the correct patterns, but it gets the job done.
Imagination is merely man's ability to dream up other scenarios and play them through his head. He might not have a perfect recreation of the scenario, but sometimes he gets onto an idea that may take off.
I got more enjoyment out of FFVII than War and Peace. Actually, I can remember the plot line and recognize characters from FFVII, but I am hard pressed to remember what War and Peace was about other than it was written by a Russian guy.
How strange... I just the oddest senation of thousands of World Lit 101 teachers spinning in their graves.
Why not just try to eat what we evolved to eat, what you in particular tolerate well, whatever makes your body run reasonably well.
And that is?
Seriously, I don't think we evolved to eat any particular type of food. I think man evolved to eat anything it could get its hands on.
Think shit ain't that bad?
Ever hear of Typhoid fever or Dysentery?
There are reasons we wipe our asses, wash our hands after going to the bathroom, and shower once a day (hopefully).
Sure, we can live our entire lives without doing any of the above, but then it might be rather short life...
I like bacon more than the next person, but I'm keen on not getting ecoli or a parasite.
Personally, I avoid eating me when I can, but when I am in the mood I tend to make sure its not too raw.
The icon bounces, bounces and bounces. I know my 800Mhz iBook with 640Megs RAM isn't the latest/fastest machine, but when I boot back into Ubuntu Dapper it's MUCH faster.
It's you and anyone else who has a 800Mhz PPC. (I've got a flowerpod iMac myself and it is a dog)
If I you happen to have a Intel or a 2ghz G5 then its not as much as a problem.
Even my PPC 1.5Ghz mini isn't as bad as the earlier systems.
Correct. But so is life... I mean if the meaning of life was a big joke, wouldn't this make sense?
Who are your customers? are they interent users?
No but their peronsal information is on the internet on public forums. Oh wait... I don't think I was supposed to disclose that.
The Star Wars Devs (and Raph the supposed 'Genius of MMOGs'in particular) should have realized that in a genre selling 'you are the hero' that everyone wants to be the hero, aka a JEDI.
/tells saying how he 'pnwed' him and his mother. The only reason people play nice in MMOGs is because of PvP limitations.
Everyone wants to kill the hero.... And take his things and send him nasty
I dunno... Ultima Online was fun or at least until they screwed it up with Trammel and all the ungodly changes. I don't know about SWG though.
Hopefully Star Trek online and Lord of the Rings online will fair better.
Hopefully Star Trek online and Lord of the Rings online won't be managed by SOE.
That seems like a good idea, but you end up with a "one trick pony" that does only one thing really well.
From my understanding most supercomputers are built to do one task... Either it be fold proteins, simulate nuclear explosions, predict weather, simulate the big bang, or various other number crunching task. By the time they are done, they have to move to the next project... Mostly because of being out of date every 5 years.
grrr... trying post on slashdot and someone called me on the phone... I meant to say "yeah that is not the creation of gravity but rather more of manipulation of it".
Artificial gravity has been dangled in front of our noses for years, by alien nuts, pseudo-scientist, and garage engineers.
Hrm... I don't see what is so far fetched about "artificial gravity" or rather manipulating gravity. Centrifugal force is a good example of this... (yeah that is creation of gravity but rather more of manipulation of it).
Otherwise, as an object approaches the speed of light its mass increases therefore it should increase its gravitational pull on everything else in the universe.
The problem with this is that we lack the technology and energy to get anything other than really small particles even remotely close to the speed of light. And the gravity generated by those particles is negliable since there isn't harldy and mass to begin with.
However it looks like ESA is trying something like this...
MacGyver, is that you?
4-7 channel TVs? Am I reading that wrong?
Well, the first TV I remember as a kid had a dial that could pick up way more than that, but we could only pick up about 4 channels (7 on a good night) and everything else was static.
By the time I was in middle school my parents had cable though... So a moot point.