Or, as a third alternative, I could tell you off because you are an idiotic asshat with zero empathy. Gee, whoda thunk it - there are more than two options on how to deal with people?
Re:Evolutionary Conditions for the Emergence of Co
on
Robots Learn To Lie
·
· Score: 1
Stories like this and their reactions show me one thing: strong AI will be here long before we realize it. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.
Alright.... sounds most plausible. I've re-read the article a few times, and indeed - the more I read it, the more it does sound like a screw-up on the part of the journalist. Thanks for the input.
From what I can tell, not only are they saying that the drift term is larger than the error term, but that the drift is not solely determined by the nature of the selection pressures. In other words, drift occurs before selection can impact the random walk. Yes/No?
But that's the point of the article - most mutations seem to be beneficial, according to their sets of criteria. This is what I think is new in the article.... though I'm also suspicious that the journalist might have simply misunderstood the scientist. Wouldn't be the first time.
The way I understood the article, observed mutations tended to be favorable to begin with. In other words, instead of the mutations being random, they are more likely to be favorable than unfavorable. So there seems to be some sort of mechanism that selects beneficial mutations BEFORE procreation or death kicks in. I'm not sure though if that's simple misreporting on the part of the author of the article.... wouldn't be the first time.
Somehow, I feel that this is indeed novel: as far as I understood it, evolution was taken to be the process by which RANDOM mutations are passed on based on how they affect survival and reproduction rates.
This seems to say that the mutations aren't random, but that they are biased into a specific direction - one that is more advantageous to begin with. As an example, this would indicate that instead of there being random variations of the length of the neck of the giraffe, the mutations tend, on average, to favor a longer neck to begin with.
I'd say that's pretty new and spiffy. Did I miss something?
There's nothing factual, based solely on empirical evidence in any of these fields that conclusively proves macro-evolution.
The correct mod would be "-1, Wrong". There is no distinction between micro- and macro-evolution. The only people to make that distinction are creationists of the "Answers in Genesis" variety. The same exact mechanism responsible for micro-evolution is responsible for macro-evolution; therefore, macro-evolution is the same exact thing as micro-evolution.
Making a distinction between micro- and macro-evolution is akin to saying that you believe a car can drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but it is completely inconceivable for it to drive from Los Angeles to New York City. Not only that, but you would require to sit in the car the entire way to accept that accomplishment, in spite of the fact that the trip would take longer than your life span. In short, you're asking for an impossible and unnecessary requirement to accept successful testing, all the while you reject the basic premise to be tested out of sheer incredulity. Nice work.
Finally, I find it humorous that you have a problem with ideas that are wrong, yet apply that judgment to concepts that are strictly personal, with zero impact on anything outside of someone else's head.
Thank you. Everyday, I'm more and more astounded at how Bush and Co feel like they are above the law. It's to the point where I'd still like to impeach them all, despite all the potential damage this could do.
And just like Scooter Libby and Gonzalez, the worst that will happen to her is presidential pardon. Yes, she did that under orders, I'm convinced of that. But like a good crone, she will get a pat on the back for taking the fall. Maybe even a cushy job in a lobby agency. But I can guarantee you there will be no jail time whatsoever.
What galls me the most is that somebody will get punished - most likely the IT monkey doing the backups, perhaps even his/her manager. Everyone up from there will escape unscathed.
Yes, this is what I learned from Abu Ghraib and the water boarding scandals: Bush & Co will call down fire and brimstone on some low grunts who were operating in a designed vacuum of specific orders, but in an environment of nudges and winks that directly lead to the scandal. I am utterly convinced that every major scandal in the last 8 years - from bad information about Iraq to Abu Ghraib to torture to wire-tapping to CIA tapes to RNC emails to AG removal - was done through direct intervention from Bush, Cheney and Co. Why? After all, there is no direct evidence. To me though, the fact that the absence of evidence is patently illegal in many cases points to direct orders. Furthermore, Bush, Cheney and Co have done enough public weaseling to make me think that they are hiding something.
At this point, it doesn't even matter to me anymore whether these accusations are true. If nothing else, Bush has undermined my trust in the presidency more than any other person in the last 200 years - and that includes the communist witch hunts and Hoover's FBI activities.
I was just maintaining that the Clintonites were just as bad a gang of crooks as the Bushies.
And in the current discussion, this is a completely irrelevant opinion. Not to mention that the scale and results are vastly different. You might not have taken sides, but you are completely blind to problems of scale the impact various actions have on national security.
You're an athiest because God wants you to be an athiest.
So you believe in fate, predisposition and a clockwork universe? To me, that's a far more disturbing world than the one with the bearded old guy in the sky occasionally raining down fire and brimstone.
Why not.... for once that dada21 doesn't mention Free Markets anywhere.:)
The reality is that some (read: a lot) of people need leaders to reach their full potential. Some need leaders just to get through the day. The same goes for "rules", though I do agree that "penalties" are often not the optimal way to get someone to do (or not do) something. Furthermore, a 1-1 teacher-student relationship for basic education is inefficient and impossible. As for what basic education is, consider the ever expanding body of human knowledge: in order to function at a basic level, you need to know more than you did 200 years ago.
As for your statement that creationism and evolution both being articles of faith, or that they have no purpose for most students, I'd argue that that's complete and utter nonsense. Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution explains the why on a scientific level, while creationism explains it by assuming the bible is infallible. The purpose of both is to understand the world around you, which is critical for being an independent and powerful individual. Your argument that it is irrelevant for most students indicates that you believe that most students (and people, if you believe in life-long learning) need leaders to guide them through the world.
It seems even you understand that the powerful individual, as described in various American Myths, is the exception rather than the rule.
... during the course of the year, the second option is actually cheaper for you. I'd recommend option 2, while putting $60 a month into a special savings account that only gets touched to pay for overages.
Of course, this all depends on the exact numbers that Comcast will use. I strongly suspect that I blow past a 2Gb monthly limit in about 1 week. That's about how often I download a full game demo, ISO or movie (iTunes, for anyone wanting to accuse me of Piracy) per month. And depending on release schedules, I can easily download 10 - 20 Gb in a month.
I don't mind paying for a metered internet, I'm just not sure that Comcast's idea of what a heavy user should is one I can afford.
People rely on the "grinding" aspect because it's the easiest to develop and balance properly.
Actually, I think there's a more insidious reason people rely on the grinding aspect: it allows developers to create the strongest reward mechanism; one that leads to behavior most closely related to addiction: random rewards at random intervals. It's convenient that it is the easiest to implement, but one reason we haven't progressed past it (and, in the case of Ultima, regressed to it) is that it is the single best way to keep players coming back for more.
Sorry for digressing, but that's the one thing that bugs me about most MMOs right now: they are designed as a massive grind fest.
Then you wouldn't mind people copying your passport, your high school/college diplomas (if any), your date of birth and drivers license, your credit card numbers and bank accounts, your address and pictures of your family and pets in the nude?
Nice strawman. You're conflating privacy issues with copyright issues. The data you mention is generally kept private, out of the public eye. Personally, I actually spend money on keeping that information private.
Data like the latest American Idol hit single is made public, and people spend a lot of money to make it as public as possible.
It's a shame you don't understand the difference between those two sets of information. It makes it impossible to take your argument as anything but the snide remarks of someone who has no clue.
Two games: Virtua Fighter 5 and Psychonauts. Yes, one's 3D and the other's an XBox game, but both are solid games.
More to your point - XBox Live Arcade games are what differentiate the XBox 360 from other consoles. I've probably bought as many Arcade games as I have full games.
That's what short-range missile batteries are for. Don't kid yourself - the only reason that China hasn't invaded Taiwan yet is that Chinese officials think that assimilation can be done in a couple of decades without any missiles at all. The US can't do squat to protect Taiwan, and both sides know it.
It's not so much less precision, as it is easier to figure out which option you want. When dealing with an NPC, you essentially have the following options displayed: "Let's talk this over." "Can we do something else?" "Shoot to kill."
Very straight forward. One's the nice option, once the intermediate option and the last is the knee-deep-in-the-dead option. Considering that dialog is often quite long, this is a far better option than displaying the entire text - not to mention that the latter option requires you to read the same text twice.
Finally, there is an option for subtext, with the ability to cut any dialog piece short. It's a very slick dialog system, though I don't know why people call it revolutionary. It's dialog selection based on short-hand, rather than the full response. Not to mention that your choice rarely influences the direction of the conversation.
Here's why there's still so much "hype": it's because a lot of men actually believe that women aren't as good as men at doing whatever job it is that they're doing. And a lot of these men are working in the videogame industry. As a result, it IS a big deal if a women gets to a position of power in the videogame industry. I'd love to see the day where no one bats an eye when they see a women working as a dev, producer or other significant position. In the meantime, I have to listen to endless stories of groping, stalking, mistaken-for-booth-babe and just general disbelief that a woman could possibly do that job well.
Dude - at least read what you're quoting. "Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense -- 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders." Straight from the GPP's link. Ignorance is one thing, but wallowing in it and parroting a completely different statistic just because it fits your preconceived idea is just idiotic.
Sometimes I just wonder - is there any government law or activity that you would actually disagree with? I'm not going to tackle the root problem of your argument, as that's been done elsewhere already. Instead, I'm going to draw your attention to the distinction between legal and legitimate, specifically in the context of this:
Yes, but accessing a Web server on port 80 plugged into the public internet without any authentication methods is legal.
Who exactly decided what is legal and what is illegal? You do realize that the last few changes to copyright have law have essentially been written by Disney, which is terrified of the moment that Mickey goes into the Public Domain? Copyright laws have been exclusively changed to the benefit of corporations, not creators or the public.
At this point, it becomes useful to actually investigate what the drawbacks and advantages of current copyright law is, and what possible alternatives are. To simply sit there and argue that "It's the Law!" is simplistic to the extreme, not to mention unproductive. The primary argument for shorter copyrights and expanded fair use is that all art is a product of what's available in the Public Domain, and that as such, the public has a right to access it and use it. So far, I haven't seen anyone successfully argue against that. The argument that copyright law makes more money to individuals doesn't hold water, as a law that requires everyone to change their windows every 2 weeks is also profitable to window installers, but a drain on society as a whole.
In short, your argument that simply because a law exists it must be good and must be followed represents an awfully, incredible naive lack of understanding about where the laws came from and the money that paid for them.
For the record - I've largely stopped consuming copyrighted media because of this crap. There's money to be made off of people like me, if I'm offered what I ask for.
You don't call a 43% recidivism rate high? What would it take? 90%? I'd say a recidivism rate that's higher than the national average for the crim itself qualifies as "high". The OP didn't claim that it was the highest of all crimes, just that it was high. But don't let facts get in the way of being smug.
That's the rate for a 4 year period. It's 8.5% for a 6 year period. And according to longer-term studies, it reaches 77% over a 30 year period for a specific subset of sexual offenders (white, male, unmarried, interested in boys).
That was a pretty skillful misrepresentation of a single study there.
Slashdot Mirror
Or, as a third alternative, I could tell you off because you are an idiotic asshat with zero empathy. Gee, whoda thunk it - there are more than two options on how to deal with people?
Stories like this and their reactions show me one thing: strong AI will be here long before we realize it. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.
Alright.... sounds most plausible. I've re-read the article a few times, and indeed - the more I read it, the more it does sound like a screw-up on the part of the journalist. Thanks for the input.
From what I can tell, not only are they saying that the drift term is larger than the error term, but that the drift is not solely determined by the nature of the selection pressures. In other words, drift occurs before selection can impact the random walk. Yes/No?
But that's the point of the article - most mutations seem to be beneficial, according to their sets of criteria. This is what I think is new in the article.... though I'm also suspicious that the journalist might have simply misunderstood the scientist. Wouldn't be the first time.
The way I understood the article, observed mutations tended to be favorable to begin with. In other words, instead of the mutations being random, they are more likely to be favorable than unfavorable. So there seems to be some sort of mechanism that selects beneficial mutations BEFORE procreation or death kicks in. I'm not sure though if that's simple misreporting on the part of the author of the article.... wouldn't be the first time.
Somehow, I feel that this is indeed novel: as far as I understood it, evolution was taken to be the process by which RANDOM mutations are passed on based on how they affect survival and reproduction rates.
This seems to say that the mutations aren't random, but that they are biased into a specific direction - one that is more advantageous to begin with. As an example, this would indicate that instead of there being random variations of the length of the neck of the giraffe, the mutations tend, on average, to favor a longer neck to begin with.
I'd say that's pretty new and spiffy. Did I miss something?
The correct mod would be "-1, Wrong". There is no distinction between micro- and macro-evolution. The only people to make that distinction are creationists of the "Answers in Genesis" variety. The same exact mechanism responsible for micro-evolution is responsible for macro-evolution; therefore, macro-evolution is the same exact thing as micro-evolution.
Making a distinction between micro- and macro-evolution is akin to saying that you believe a car can drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, but it is completely inconceivable for it to drive from Los Angeles to New York City. Not only that, but you would require to sit in the car the entire way to accept that accomplishment, in spite of the fact that the trip would take longer than your life span. In short, you're asking for an impossible and unnecessary requirement to accept successful testing, all the while you reject the basic premise to be tested out of sheer incredulity. Nice work.
Finally, I find it humorous that you have a problem with ideas that are wrong, yet apply that judgment to concepts that are strictly personal, with zero impact on anything outside of someone else's head.
And just like Scooter Libby and Gonzalez, the worst that will happen to her is presidential pardon. Yes, she did that under orders, I'm convinced of that. But like a good crone, she will get a pat on the back for taking the fall. Maybe even a cushy job in a lobby agency. But I can guarantee you there will be no jail time whatsoever.
What galls me the most is that somebody will get punished - most likely the IT monkey doing the backups, perhaps even his /her manager. Everyone up from there will escape unscathed.
Yes, this is what I learned from Abu Ghraib and the water boarding scandals: Bush & Co will call down fire and brimstone on some low grunts who were operating in a designed vacuum of specific orders, but in an environment of nudges and winks that directly lead to the scandal. I am utterly convinced that every major scandal in the last 8 years - from bad information about Iraq to Abu Ghraib to torture to wire-tapping to CIA tapes to RNC emails to AG removal - was done through direct intervention from Bush, Cheney and Co. Why? After all, there is no direct evidence. To me though, the fact that the absence of evidence is patently illegal in many cases points to direct orders. Furthermore, Bush, Cheney and Co have done enough public weaseling to make me think that they are hiding something.
At this point, it doesn't even matter to me anymore whether these accusations are true. If nothing else, Bush has undermined my trust in the presidency more than any other person in the last 200 years - and that includes the communist witch hunts and Hoover's FBI activities.
So you believe in fate, predisposition and a clockwork universe? To me, that's a far more disturbing world than the one with the bearded old guy in the sky occasionally raining down fire and brimstone.
Why not.... for once that dada21 doesn't mention Free Markets anywhere. :)
The reality is that some (read: a lot) of people need leaders to reach their full potential. Some need leaders just to get through the day. The same goes for "rules", though I do agree that "penalties" are often not the optimal way to get someone to do (or not do) something. Furthermore, a 1-1 teacher-student relationship for basic education is inefficient and impossible. As for what basic education is, consider the ever expanding body of human knowledge: in order to function at a basic level, you need to know more than you did 200 years ago.
As for your statement that creationism and evolution both being articles of faith, or that they have no purpose for most students, I'd argue that that's complete and utter nonsense. Evolution is a fact. The theory of evolution explains the why on a scientific level, while creationism explains it by assuming the bible is infallible. The purpose of both is to understand the world around you, which is critical for being an independent and powerful individual. Your argument that it is irrelevant for most students indicates that you believe that most students (and people, if you believe in life-long learning) need leaders to guide them through the world.
It seems even you understand that the powerful individual, as described in various American Myths, is the exception rather than the rule.
... during the course of the year, the second option is actually cheaper for you. I'd recommend option 2, while putting $60 a month into a special savings account that only gets touched to pay for overages.
Of course, this all depends on the exact numbers that Comcast will use. I strongly suspect that I blow past a 2Gb monthly limit in about 1 week. That's about how often I download a full game demo, ISO or movie (iTunes, for anyone wanting to accuse me of Piracy) per month. And depending on release schedules, I can easily download 10 - 20 Gb in a month.
I don't mind paying for a metered internet, I'm just not sure that Comcast's idea of what a heavy user should is one I can afford.
Actually, I think there's a more insidious reason people rely on the grinding aspect: it allows developers to create the strongest reward mechanism; one that leads to behavior most closely related to addiction: random rewards at random intervals. It's convenient that it is the easiest to implement, but one reason we haven't progressed past it (and, in the case of Ultima, regressed to it) is that it is the single best way to keep players coming back for more.
Sorry for digressing, but that's the one thing that bugs me about most MMOs right now: they are designed as a massive grind fest.
Nice strawman. You're conflating privacy issues with copyright issues. The data you mention is generally kept private, out of the public eye. Personally, I actually spend money on keeping that information private.
Data like the latest American Idol hit single is made public, and people spend a lot of money to make it as public as possible.
It's a shame you don't understand the difference between those two sets of information. It makes it impossible to take your argument as anything but the snide remarks of someone who has no clue.
Two games: Virtua Fighter 5 and Psychonauts. Yes, one's 3D and the other's an XBox game, but both are solid games.
More to your point - XBox Live Arcade games are what differentiate the XBox 360 from other consoles. I've probably bought as many Arcade games as I have full games.
That's what short-range missile batteries are for. Don't kid yourself - the only reason that China hasn't invaded Taiwan yet is that Chinese officials think that assimilation can be done in a couple of decades without any missiles at all. The US can't do squat to protect Taiwan, and both sides know it.
It's not so much less precision, as it is easier to figure out which option you want. When dealing with an NPC, you essentially have the following options displayed:
"Let's talk this over."
"Can we do something else?"
"Shoot to kill."
Very straight forward. One's the nice option, once the intermediate option and the last is the knee-deep-in-the-dead option. Considering that dialog is often quite long, this is a far better option than displaying the entire text - not to mention that the latter option requires you to read the same text twice.
Finally, there is an option for subtext, with the ability to cut any dialog piece short. It's a very slick dialog system, though I don't know why people call it revolutionary. It's dialog selection based on short-hand, rather than the full response. Not to mention that your choice rarely influences the direction of the conversation.
Here's why there's still so much "hype": it's because a lot of men actually believe that women aren't as good as men at doing whatever job it is that they're doing. And a lot of these men are working in the videogame industry. As a result, it IS a big deal if a women gets to a position of power in the videogame industry. I'd love to see the day where no one bats an eye when they see a women working as a dev, producer or other significant position. In the meantime, I have to listen to endless stories of groping, stalking, mistaken-for-booth-babe and just general disbelief that a woman could possibly do that job well.
Dude - at least read what you're quoting.
"Sex offenders were less likely than non-sex offenders to be rearrested for any offense -- 43 percent of sex offenders versus 68 percent of non-sex offenders."
Straight from the GPP's link. Ignorance is one thing, but wallowing in it and parroting a completely different statistic just because it fits your preconceived idea is just idiotic.
At this point, it becomes useful to actually investigate what the drawbacks and advantages of current copyright law is, and what possible alternatives are. To simply sit there and argue that "It's the Law!" is simplistic to the extreme, not to mention unproductive. The primary argument for shorter copyrights and expanded fair use is that all art is a product of what's available in the Public Domain, and that as such, the public has a right to access it and use it. So far, I haven't seen anyone successfully argue against that. The argument that copyright law makes more money to individuals doesn't hold water, as a law that requires everyone to change their windows every 2 weeks is also profitable to window installers, but a drain on society as a whole.
In short, your argument that simply because a law exists it must be good and must be followed represents an awfully, incredible naive lack of understanding about where the laws came from and the money that paid for them.
For the record - I've largely stopped consuming copyrighted media because of this crap. There's money to be made off of people like me, if I'm offered what I ask for.
You don't call a 43% recidivism rate high? What would it take? 90%? I'd say a recidivism rate that's higher than the national average for the crim itself qualifies as "high". The OP didn't claim that it was the highest of all crimes, just that it was high. But don't let facts get in the way of being smug.
That's the rate for a 4 year period. It's 8.5% for a 6 year period. And according to longer-term studies, it reaches 77% over a 30 year period for a specific subset of sexual offenders (white, male, unmarried, interested in boys).
That was a pretty skillful misrepresentation of a single study there.