Well, that's complete BS however they label it. The $250 million or so that they gave out this year came out of the federal coffers. This money could have been spent by reducing everyone's (including my) taxes by a dollar. So it cost me a dollar, either in what I payed, or in what services I didn't get.
Assuming the cost of the federal government is determined (rather than, "we'll spend everything we can get"), then the taxes need to be set so that the sum of the money brought in, excluding the presidental campaign fund, is equal to this amount. That means if everyone is saying "use my money to do this", then the taxes need to be set slightly higher.
Money is fungible, so the idea of "my money" and "someone else's money" has no meaning once it gets to the IRS. All the checkbox does is determine what the funding level will be. That amount is then funded from the money that the government takes in.
What? I should hope that this joke gets 5% so that next election my money will be paying for this fascist to go around campaigning? I should vote for someone who complains about being left out of the debates, then not showing up for judicial watch's debate because Gore won't be there? I should vote for someone who's supporters post signs talking about Bush's support of the death penalty, but seem to forget that Gore is just as much in favor of frying criminals.
There's nothing "quasi-socialist" about progressive taxation. He's a socialist, no quasi about it. I hope all his policies get enacted, then he gets hit by a propane powered bus while driving a 1000lb econo box and dies because all the hospitals are run by the same people as the post office and the DMV.
Nader is not automatically preferable to the other two. My order of preference is Browne, Bush, Hagelin, Gore, Buchanan, Philips, McReynolds, Nader, but I'm pretty indifferent between Gore and Buchanan, or between McReynolds and Nader. If Nader got elected, I'd start brushing up my spanish and figure out what agency you bribe for a work permit in mexico.
I'm male, but I'm young, and I have pretty good eyesight. My monitor is set to 70hz right now, and it looks like a strobe on the edges. Whereever I'm looking looks fine, but at the top of the screen (if I looking at the bottom) it's flickering.
It drives me insane. I just got a new monitor that will do 87hz at acceptable resolution, but I haven't gotten around to adjusting it yet (linux).
But there's a big difference between refresh rate and frames per second. I'm guessing if you got tricky enough with simulating motion blur, you could drop the frame rate down to around 20-30fps (film is 18-24) and still get acceptable quality.
Fortunately in California this election I can actually vote for a major party candidate I like: Tom Campbell. He's the republican candidate for senate, but he's a fairly strict consitutionalist, and has the distinct advantage of actually having a chance at winning.
When someone's platform is "the war on drugs has failed", does it really matter whether they call themselves a libertarian?
So I'll be voting for him, otherwise straight libertarian.
CRC didn't walk up to the web host and say, "you're hosting illegal content". They walked up to the American company whose site it was and said, "you're distributing illegal content".
It doesn't matter whether it's hosted in your office, or in the Cayman Islands. The lawyers aren't going to try to physically shut down your server. The lawyers are not usually even going to call your hosting company. They're going to send you a cease and desist, and your corporate lawyers will say "better listen to them".
Besides that, this isn't some great moral crusade. This is a published book that the author wanted to distribute online, probably (I'm assuming) in violation of his contract with the publisher.
A measure to require an option of None of the Above was on the ballot in the primaries in California. It's lost overwhelmingly. Maybe if all these people who claim to not have any good options would show up to a fucking election we'd be able to make things better. Maybe they'd have better choices if they voted in the primaries.
Failing to vote because it doesn't have any effect is rational. I wouldn't vote if politics wasn't my hobby (I hang out with both the libertarians and the republicans on campus).
Failing to vote as a political statement is idiotic. All politicians see is the results of the election. You don't vote, you don't matter. "Oh, we can make our disagreement known in other ways" say the non voters. No, you can't. Honestly, no one pays attention to those who don't vote.
Saying, "I don't vote because there aren't any good options" is bullshit. You aren't voting because you don't want to take the time to figure out how you should vote, and go to the ballot box and vote that way. It's a defensible position, but defend that position, not this bullshit "I'm making a statement by not voting" position. You aren't. Qui tacit consentit.
Why do all these AI researchers keep wasting their time on toy projects like games and driving cars? Do people no like playing the games or driving the cars themselves? What we need are computers that can handle the dangerous or undesirable jobs that people would rather not do, like policing high crime areas. Or dull stuff that isn't worth paying a full time employee for, like a night watchman. Just think how much safer we would all be if every business had a heavily armed security droid at the door.
Regarding Gore being his own man, may I mention the trial lawyers? This is the biggest lobby for the democrats. They have given Gore ten times as much as tobacco has given Bush.
The NRA I like. If you don't like the second amendment, that's fine. I would oppose your efforts to repeal it, but I would respect your honesty. Don't try to work around it.
I don't see how Bush has any more ties to religious groups than Gore. I mean, what's the democrats stance? Evil movie producers clean up your act, or we'll do it for you?
In a recent case (last session), the supreme court ruled that the federal government did not have jurisdiction for rape cases. I think the law was called something like the violence against women act, which (among other stuff) allowed rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court, even if they had lost in state court.
The government defended the law saying that rape might have a detrimental effect on interestate commerce (which they are allowed to regulate). The supreme court quite reasonably rejected this argument.
The scary part? The decision was 5-4. Yep, that's right: 4 of the justices believe that the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government jurisdiction over rape.
If Gore (or Nader if you want to go there) appoints the next justice, you can kiss the idea of limited government goodbye. If rape falls under the interstate commerce clause, then a government monopoly on health care could be made to fall under one of those clauses dealing with the militia, or maybe make it an agency of the post office.
Bush says he'll appoint strict contructionists. To me, being politics, this means, "no more liberal in their interpretations than the current court". (liberal = willing to let it slide, not "democrat"). This at least means that if they hear a case on something like states rights (medical marijuana, anyone?), then they would at least have a chance. I don't see that under people Gore would appoint.
Under Buchanan, god knows who he'd appoint. So I guess it's fortunate he has a direct line to god to ask about that.
Under Browne, it wouldn't be an issue, because most of the federal government would be dismantled by executive order in the first two weeks.
Intelligence isn't a necessary quality for a poliitician. Most of what I've read says that Washington wasn't just not a genius, but was in fact downright dim. But he was an excellent leader.
After I became a rabid libertarian, I started studying economics so that I could tell whether the libertarians were right.
I concluded that libertarians have a better grasp of economics than the other parties, but most libertarians still miss important issues.
Inheritance is a problem. Capitalism works because it tends to concentrate money and power in the hands of those who know what to do with it (make more money and power). There is no good reason to think their children will be any good at managing that money.
In my extremely arrogant opinion, idiots who throw around terms like "constitutional right" when it isn't a right guaranteed in the constitution should be packed off to China, Cuba, or some other well intentioned utopia.
What "constitutional right to expect that their child won't be exposed to inappropriate material at school or the library"? What country's constitution are we talking about? The U.S. constitution doesn't contain either of the words "school" or "library".
If you want to say how things should be, feel free. If you want to make up parts of the constitution that aren't there, expect to be made fun of.
The cypherpunks sites always redirect to an ssl server. Gossip, bomb recipies, orders -- encrypt it all. Consider the cost ratio for processing power vs. bandwidth. Encrypting your traffic isn't going to make a dent in the costs of serving.
I'm always curious whether anyone actually reads the constitution. I think I'll just break down and memorize it one of these days so that I can correct people without having to go look up a quote.
The constitution makes no reference to obviousness. It uses neither the word "patent" nor "copyright". It makes no reference to "invention". In fact, allowing patents on scientific discoveries would definitely be in accord with the constitution (but let's hope congress isn't completely bought and paid for).
Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 8: Congress shall have the power "[t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
The constitution is imprecise. The constitution is short and to the point. This is good, because you don't have to be a lawyer to understand the constitution. It also means that you aren't going sue someone for anything under the law as specified in the constitution -- congress makes the laws that are followed to the letter; the constitution says what they are in charge of.
And to think, people are allowed to vote without ever having read the constitution...
Oh, yes, "world" heritage site makes a *lot* more sense. Ooh, you could get "worldwide" support. Hello, it isn't on this planet. It's not a "world" heritage site any more than it is national.
The main reason I want to move to Mars is because it's the only place left where the UN doesn't claim jurisdiction. Please, let's try to keep it that way.
Yes, my decision in this case might conceivably affect my son
Any of my decisions might have an impact on the lives of 300 million people
That includes my son
When you look at it from "might you have a personal interest in this case", you say, Yeah, of course he does. But then you realize that this is probably the case for every case the court hears. That's just part of being one of the most powerful people in the world.
As part of drug inquisition, the judges have stripped a gymnast of her gold medal for taking pseudo-ephedrine for a cold. Pseudo-ephedrine, of course, is the safe synthetic drug developed as a replacement for ephedrine which is a stimulant and not good for you.
If you buy a cold medicine that is marked "non-drowsy", it's probably pseudoephedrine. What's next? Ban Tylenol?
I sure am glad there's sufficient numbers of fanatics out there making the world safe for busy bodies.
While I'm reading all these comments about "oh, the poor H1-B workers are mistreated", I'm reminded of all the american manufacturing workers who speak out so loudly against the "third world sweatshops" asking everyone to boycott their competitors.
At least you could be honest and admit that the reason you want the H1-B workers to get better benefits (or, better yet, not be let in at all), is so that you have a better job market.
Oh, oh, me please! I want to sell my soul to the government for a few perks. Please! I'll even pretend I don't notice when you screw me over in some other way next year.
I'm guessing most of the slashdot readers are fairly tolerant people with liberal outlooks. Very few people would be in favor of state run racial discrimination, or inequal treatment for men and women, or any other system that divides people up into groups. So why then am I seeing so many people saying "H1-B workers are taking our jobs"?
Yes, more immigrants means more workers means slightly lower pay. I'll tell you something else, though -- I'd be in much greater demand if, for example, the government were to deport all non-citizens, or everyone whose ancestors aren't from Europe. But I don't sit here saying "throw the foreigners out", because I'm not into asking people to do things for me at gunpoint that I can't do for myself without force.
If we accept the notion that being born with a different color skin, or being born a certain sex, or being born into a family with a certain religion shouldn't affect your legal standing with respect to what you are allowed to do, why do we still cling to the antiquated idea that where on the planet you happen to be born should?
Personally, I don't like temporary work permits like H1-B, because it's such a waste to have people set up a life here, work for a while, then go back. I'd much prefer outright open immigration -- "Come on down, you're the next contestent on the American Dream". That's part of why I vote for the only US political party that isn't xenophobic.
If you're one of those that would be displaced by more immigrants, tough. The same argument that says we shouldn't bother to build labor intensive consumer goods in the United States (comparative advantage) says that we shouldn't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for tech workers when there's millions better qualified who will work cheaper.
This isn't a real issue. The effect on the economy is not even a question: completely free immigration helps the economy, no matter what other countries do. The only issue is whether special interest groups (like "current US permanent residents") can muddy the waters and make people think that this hurts the economy. It helps the US economy, it helps the world economy, and it helps the immigrants. The only people it doesn't help are those who lose their jobs because they wanted more money than they are worth. Extremely simple.
Saying 19" at 30" away sounds a lot more impressive than the equivalent "crappy 14" that will only do 800x600 at 22" away". Maybe they should have gone with claiming a 60" monitor just under 8 feet away.
1. A neural network is not a turing machine. A neural network probably does not suffer from the halting problem.
2. Just because a neural network is run on a general purpose computer does not mean that it has the same qualities as the general purpose computer. There may be problems on which the computer would not halt, but simulating the neural network need not be one of them.
3. The halting problem doesn't have jack shit to do with artificial intelligence anyway. What's the problem? "We can't built something that's omniscient?" We're trying to build the equivalent of a human, and humans aren't omniscient. Similarly, Godel's theorems have nothing to do with AI either.
4. You can't "rip the network apart to figure out how it came to that conclusion". That's the whole point. If we could do that sort of thing, we could give up on all the AI research and just start building really fine-grain nMRI machines. But we can't, so we guess and check.
Regaring "it's a database, it's not intelligence", how do you know? What, you dream it? Divine revelation? Read it in a popular science book? "This blob of reddish gray stuff, it's just biological matter, operating according to the laws of physics, there's no intelligence."
I know most of the garbage won't make it in, but it's really frustrating when you're entering stuff. Just a single checkbox for "this person is clearly brain dead" would be good so that the really stupid shit can be filtered more quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, that's complete BS however they label it. The $250 million or so that they gave out this year came out of the federal coffers. This money could have been spent by reducing everyone's (including my) taxes by a dollar. So it cost me a dollar, either in what I payed, or in what services I didn't get.
Assuming the cost of the federal government is determined (rather than, "we'll spend everything we can get"), then the taxes need to be set so that the sum of the money brought in, excluding the presidental campaign fund, is equal to this amount. That means if everyone is saying "use my money to do this", then the taxes need to be set slightly higher.
Money is fungible, so the idea of "my money" and "someone else's money" has no meaning once it gets to the IRS. All the checkbox does is determine what the funding level will be. That amount is then funded from the money that the government takes in.
What? I should hope that this joke gets 5% so that next election my money will be paying for this fascist to go around campaigning? I should vote for someone who complains about being left out of the debates, then not showing up for judicial watch's debate because Gore won't be there? I should vote for someone who's supporters post signs talking about Bush's support of the death penalty, but seem to forget that Gore is just as much in favor of frying criminals.
There's nothing "quasi-socialist" about progressive taxation. He's a socialist, no quasi about it. I hope all his policies get enacted, then he gets hit by a propane powered bus while driving a 1000lb econo box and dies because all the hospitals are run by the same people as the post office and the DMV.
Nader is not automatically preferable to the other two. My order of preference is Browne, Bush, Hagelin, Gore, Buchanan, Philips, McReynolds, Nader, but I'm pretty indifferent between Gore and Buchanan, or between McReynolds and Nader. If Nader got elected, I'd start brushing up my spanish and figure out what agency you bribe for a work permit in mexico.
I'm male, but I'm young, and I have pretty good eyesight. My monitor is set to 70hz right now, and it looks like a strobe on the edges. Whereever I'm looking looks fine, but at the top of the screen (if I looking at the bottom) it's flickering.
It drives me insane. I just got a new monitor that will do 87hz at acceptable resolution, but I haven't gotten around to adjusting it yet (linux).
But there's a big difference between refresh rate and frames per second. I'm guessing if you got tricky enough with simulating motion blur, you could drop the frame rate down to around 20-30fps (film is 18-24) and still get acceptable quality.
Fortunately in California this election I can actually vote for a major party candidate I like: Tom Campbell. He's the republican candidate for senate, but he's a fairly strict consitutionalist, and has the distinct advantage of actually having a chance at winning.
When someone's platform is "the war on drugs has failed", does it really matter whether they call themselves a libertarian?
So I'll be voting for him, otherwise straight libertarian.
Is this in fact the case? I thought they would be counted, but not have any effect on the election. Am I wrong?
CRC didn't walk up to the web host and say, "you're hosting illegal content". They walked up to the American company whose site it was and said, "you're distributing illegal content".
It doesn't matter whether it's hosted in your office, or in the Cayman Islands. The lawyers aren't going to try to physically shut down your server. The lawyers are not usually even going to call your hosting company. They're going to send you a cease and desist, and your corporate lawyers will say "better listen to them".
Besides that, this isn't some great moral crusade. This is a published book that the author wanted to distribute online, probably (I'm assuming) in violation of his contract with the publisher.
A measure to require an option of None of the Above was on the ballot in the primaries in California. It's lost overwhelmingly. Maybe if all these people who claim to not have any good options would show up to a fucking election we'd be able to make things better. Maybe they'd have better choices if they voted in the primaries.
Failing to vote because it doesn't have any effect is rational. I wouldn't vote if politics wasn't my hobby (I hang out with both the libertarians and the republicans on campus).
Failing to vote as a political statement is idiotic. All politicians see is the results of the election. You don't vote, you don't matter. "Oh, we can make our disagreement known in other ways" say the non voters. No, you can't. Honestly, no one pays attention to those who don't vote.
Saying, "I don't vote because there aren't any good options" is bullshit. You aren't voting because you don't want to take the time to figure out how you should vote, and go to the ballot box and vote that way. It's a defensible position, but defend that position, not this bullshit "I'm making a statement by not voting" position. You aren't. Qui tacit consentit.
It doesn't take much knowledge to set up an insecure Linux box that will bring down the rest of the network.
It takes significantly more knowledge to set up a secure Linux box.
Why do all these AI researchers keep wasting their time on toy projects like games and driving cars? Do people no like playing the games or driving the cars themselves? What we need are computers that can handle the dangerous or undesirable jobs that people would rather not do, like policing high crime areas. Or dull stuff that isn't worth paying a full time employee for, like a night watchman. Just think how much safer we would all be if every business had a heavily armed security droid at the door.
This is exactly why I couldn't finish Robinson's Mars series. The religious environmentalism disgusted me.
Regarding Gore being his own man, may I mention the trial lawyers? This is the biggest lobby for the democrats. They have given Gore ten times as much as tobacco has given Bush.
The NRA I like. If you don't like the second amendment, that's fine. I would oppose your efforts to repeal it, but I would respect your honesty. Don't try to work around it.
I don't see how Bush has any more ties to religious groups than Gore. I mean, what's the democrats stance? Evil movie producers clean up your act, or we'll do it for you?
In a recent case (last session), the supreme court ruled that the federal government did not have jurisdiction for rape cases. I think the law was called something like the violence against women act, which (among other stuff) allowed rape victims to sue their attackers in federal court, even if they had lost in state court.
The government defended the law saying that rape might have a detrimental effect on interestate commerce (which they are allowed to regulate). The supreme court quite reasonably rejected this argument.
The scary part? The decision was 5-4. Yep, that's right: 4 of the justices believe that the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government jurisdiction over rape.
If Gore (or Nader if you want to go there) appoints the next justice, you can kiss the idea of limited government goodbye. If rape falls under the interstate commerce clause, then a government monopoly on health care could be made to fall under one of those clauses dealing with the militia, or maybe make it an agency of the post office.
Bush says he'll appoint strict contructionists. To me, being politics, this means, "no more liberal in their interpretations than the current court". (liberal = willing to let it slide, not "democrat"). This at least means that if they hear a case on something like states rights (medical marijuana, anyone?), then they would at least have a chance. I don't see that under people Gore would appoint.
Under Buchanan, god knows who he'd appoint. So I guess it's fortunate he has a direct line to god to ask about that.
Under Browne, it wouldn't be an issue, because most of the federal government would be dismantled by executive order in the first two weeks.
Intelligence isn't a necessary quality for a poliitician. Most of what I've read says that Washington wasn't just not a genius, but was in fact downright dim. But he was an excellent leader.
After I became a rabid libertarian, I started studying economics so that I could tell whether the libertarians were right.
I concluded that libertarians have a better grasp of economics than the other parties, but most libertarians still miss important issues.
Inheritance is a problem. Capitalism works because it tends to concentrate money and power in the hands of those who know what to do with it (make more money and power). There is no good reason to think their children will be any good at managing that money.
In my extremely arrogant opinion, idiots who throw around terms like "constitutional right" when it isn't a right guaranteed in the constitution should be packed off to China, Cuba, or some other well intentioned utopia.
What "constitutional right to expect that their child won't be exposed to inappropriate material at school or the library"? What country's constitution are we talking about? The U.S. constitution doesn't contain either of the words "school" or "library".
If you want to say how things should be, feel free. If you want to make up parts of the constitution that aren't there, expect to be made fun of.
The cypherpunks sites always redirect to an ssl server. Gossip, bomb recipies, orders -- encrypt it all. Consider the cost ratio for processing power vs. bandwidth. Encrypting your traffic isn't going to make a dent in the costs of serving.
I'm always curious whether anyone actually reads the constitution. I think I'll just break down and memorize it one of these days so that I can correct people without having to go look up a quote.
The constitution makes no reference to obviousness. It uses neither the word "patent" nor "copyright". It makes no reference to "invention". In fact, allowing patents on scientific discoveries would definitely be in accord with the constitution (but let's hope congress isn't completely bought and paid for).
Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 8: Congress shall have the power "[t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
The constitution is imprecise. The constitution is short and to the point. This is good, because you don't have to be a lawyer to understand the constitution. It also means that you aren't going sue someone for anything under the law as specified in the constitution -- congress makes the laws that are followed to the letter; the constitution says what they are in charge of.
And to think, people are allowed to vote without ever having read the constitution...
Oh, yes, "world" heritage site makes a *lot* more sense. Ooh, you could get "worldwide" support. Hello, it isn't on this planet. It's not a "world" heritage site any more than it is national.
The main reason I want to move to Mars is because it's the only place left where the UN doesn't claim jurisdiction. Please, let's try to keep it that way.
- Yes, my decision in this case might conceivably affect my son
- Any of my decisions might have an impact on the lives of 300 million people
- That includes my son
When you look at it from "might you have a personal interest in this case", you say, Yeah, of course he does. But then you realize that this is probably the case for every case the court hears. That's just part of being one of the most powerful people in the world.As part of drug inquisition, the judges have stripped a gymnast of her gold medal for taking pseudo-ephedrine for a cold. Pseudo-ephedrine, of course, is the safe synthetic drug developed as a replacement for ephedrine which is a stimulant and not good for you.
If you buy a cold medicine that is marked "non-drowsy", it's probably pseudoephedrine. What's next? Ban Tylenol?
I sure am glad there's sufficient numbers of fanatics out there making the world safe for busy bodies.
While I'm reading all these comments about "oh, the poor H1-B workers are mistreated", I'm reminded of all the american manufacturing workers who speak out so loudly against the "third world sweatshops" asking everyone to boycott their competitors.
At least you could be honest and admit that the reason you want the H1-B workers to get better benefits (or, better yet, not be let in at all), is so that you have a better job market.
Oh, oh, me please! I want to sell my soul to the government for a few perks. Please! I'll even pretend I don't notice when you screw me over in some other way next year.
I'm guessing most of the slashdot readers are fairly tolerant people with liberal outlooks. Very few people would be in favor of state run racial discrimination, or inequal treatment for men and women, or any other system that divides people up into groups. So why then am I seeing so many people saying "H1-B workers are taking our jobs"?
Yes, more immigrants means more workers means slightly lower pay. I'll tell you something else, though -- I'd be in much greater demand if, for example, the government were to deport all non-citizens, or everyone whose ancestors aren't from Europe. But I don't sit here saying "throw the foreigners out", because I'm not into asking people to do things for me at gunpoint that I can't do for myself without force.
If we accept the notion that being born with a different color skin, or being born a certain sex, or being born into a family with a certain religion shouldn't affect your legal standing with respect to what you are allowed to do, why do we still cling to the antiquated idea that where on the planet you happen to be born should?
Personally, I don't like temporary work permits like H1-B, because it's such a waste to have people set up a life here, work for a while, then go back. I'd much prefer outright open immigration -- "Come on down, you're the next contestent on the American Dream". That's part of why I vote for the only US political party that isn't xenophobic.
If you're one of those that would be displaced by more immigrants, tough. The same argument that says we shouldn't bother to build labor intensive consumer goods in the United States (comparative advantage) says that we shouldn't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for tech workers when there's millions better qualified who will work cheaper.
This isn't a real issue. The effect on the economy is not even a question: completely free immigration helps the economy, no matter what other countries do. The only issue is whether special interest groups (like "current US permanent residents") can muddy the waters and make people think that this hurts the economy. It helps the US economy, it helps the world economy, and it helps the immigrants. The only people it doesn't help are those who lose their jobs because they wanted more money than they are worth. Extremely simple.
Saying 19" at 30" away sounds a lot more impressive than the equivalent "crappy 14" that will only do 800x600 at 22" away". Maybe they should have gone with claiming a 60" monitor just under 8 feet away.
1. A neural network is not a turing machine. A neural network probably does not suffer from the halting problem.
2. Just because a neural network is run on a general purpose computer does not mean that it has the same qualities as the general purpose computer. There may be problems on which the computer would not halt, but simulating the neural network need not be one of them.
3. The halting problem doesn't have jack shit to do with artificial intelligence anyway. What's the problem? "We can't built something that's omniscient?" We're trying to build the equivalent of a human, and humans aren't omniscient. Similarly, Godel's theorems have nothing to do with AI either.
4. You can't "rip the network apart to figure out how it came to that conclusion". That's the whole point. If we could do that sort of thing, we could give up on all the AI research and just start building really fine-grain nMRI machines. But we can't, so we guess and check.
Regaring "it's a database, it's not intelligence", how do you know? What, you dream it? Divine revelation? Read it in a popular science book? "This blob of reddish gray stuff, it's just biological matter, operating according to the laws of physics, there's no intelligence."
I know most of the garbage won't make it in, but it's really frustrating when you're entering stuff. Just a single checkbox for "this person is clearly brain dead" would be good so that the really stupid shit can be filtered more quickly.