I bet the future technology will look more "biological" anyway -in saying that i do not mean that it will directly be based or even look like on organisms we know. I kind of dislike the idea of basing it directly on existing organisms, since we wouldnt really know how it works. Also the idea is that: To fix something complicated makes it more complicated, to fix something simple makes it simpler. (not for all cases of course) Also, i wonder if future technology will also feature cancers and virus-like problems, but i do not think so because those are probably products of co-evolution (like) processes and byproducts of the crappy "evolution design technique". (hmm, nano-bots, could be a bit virus-like, could be designed for warfare:/, guess it is a known idea -greygoo) As someone else replied however, making satelites "more biological" is currently hardly a practical engineering solution, guess they would look into airflow issues (also)behind hatches and such. I dont think these "growths" and water condensations will do much damage in a hurry, as long as you build stuff redundantly.
When you can predict next month's weather with scientific accuracy then and only then will you be allowed to predict what it will be like in a 100 or 1000 years. The argument does not make sense, there are lots of things you cannot predict a lot of things about, but you can determine what happens at large. Seems to me that one can only be a skeptic by taking down the actual theory, the problem of that is that by far, most people are unable to form a decent opinion.
I agree, that discussion has been diseased though. Both by overzealous eco-groups as industry, and probably over-hyping reports.
No matter how much carbon dioxide an internal combustion engine emits, the fuel consumption will still be carbon-neutral if it's running on biofuels. Yes, and remember, biofuels are like a double-edged knife; on the one hand, they are carbondioxide-neutral, on the other hand, they help starve those other potential carbondioxide poluters.
On a positive note, pwning cheaters is very satisfying. (if you know they cheat)
Unlike MMORGs which are controlled almost entirely by server side user agents, first person shooters very vulnerable to cheating. Why not control first-person shooters server-side too? Sounds like a question of: -not sending information the player could not know -not allowing the player to determine any physics, except the user inputs. I do not know what this means for quality of play on an bad/less then good connections though. (btw i hate how some first-person shooters dont have a maximum rotation rate of vision, it is silly)
Copyright does the same. Many famous song writers got burned by some obscure copyright holder to a similar tune. The second guy who comes up with the same mely, quite independently from the first is SOL. Screw that. Unacceptable. Please don't try to tell me the same thing doesn't happen in software, or anywhere else affected by these insane laws. I think you are worried about the "equality operator" of two works in copyright, i worry about it too, however i do believe that copyright is usefull. Like your (probably simple melody)copywriting a short bit of code would be useless, since short code has a good chance of being written by another seperately, with the same outcome, beside commenting, whitespace, naming which could all be claimed as "cover" to hide the copying. Indeed, anything short/simple, things can easily look alike when thought up seperately. Maybe if coders were perfect, even long sections of code could get uncopyrightable because the logic would guide them that way. However, I believe that practice, things are longer/more-complex, and paralel development of the same(using equality operator) thing is often unlikely enough to allow copyright to exist for purposes of allowing people to make a living and get attribution for their works. (geniouses making perfect works are also scarse) However, I am against software patents (and unsure of patents in general), and would not want to have copyright evolve into that. But this is just a question of making sure the "equality operator" does not return True too quickly. However, our culture has a sense of when a work is probably stolen, so i guess that should be used, with regard that false positives should be avoided. (In doubt, operator says no)
A lot of people seem to think it is harmful to your career to ally oneself with the technology that is still the overwhelming leader in the market. Personally I don't understand that. Perhaps they are measuring the succes of their career not (only) by salary, but also in usefullness to other people? If a technology not GPL-ed/forkable, a person might think it is not usefull enough to others, because others would have to pay to make use of it. Perhaps they even think of it as destructive, if it is damaging free software. I think ideological people just want GPL-ed software to work, and jump to any story that says so. That is a lot of emphasis on those stories, but does not mean that most of those people themselves actually think that use of the software will explode this year. "It's kind of like being the the transportation industry, and choosing to specialize in bicycles...economically, it is not a very good plan." Pretty sure bicycles are here to stay.
So basically, you chose your own welfare over that of others. Even if it luxery welfare. (How The Fuck is a hummer usefull for you, over more efficient cars? I hope it is not status..) I use, and am all for and use GPL-ed/forkable software, and will also be for anything else that is forkable. I sure as hell am planning to work for things usefull, and seek others that do too. Things developed in a way many people can freely use is and will be a great good for humanity. I believe we should not be all-selfish, for i believe that other people have feelings too. There is a reason the more colaborative beings have taken over the world. (Multicelular life, ants, humans) After all, it is not money that puts food on the table, it is manipulation of the world, in a way, it is idealism. Folowing the money is not nessesarally for the good of things, it is just manipulating the returns, of what everyone produces. To many people justify their actions saying "the market" will automagically do the right thing. There is no system that can regulate society, we will have to think and act morally ourselves.
Doh, there are little things that i would dislike more than the spending on those activities; to name some i wish they would spend a $TRILLION more on: -Spaggetti bridges, although oranges are ok too. (but those are hard) -Comparing apples and pears -Dancing monkeys -Non-dancing monkeys -Both dancing and non-dancing quantum monkeys -Velociraptor survival techniques -CowboyNeal hats
"Or... competition to make and test better ICBMs while masking it as peaceful research?" Cmon, they have those for a long time by now. That is way easier then going to the moon and such. Also, in that case, nuclear subs may be more interesting.
Sure, these things have plenty of militairy spin-off, and the Chinese government should not really be trusted too much. However we should avoid (any kind of) undue hostility, I do think the Chinese government tries to do what is best for the countries' people as much the US government does. It is just that the views of the Chinese authority (and undoubtedly, parts of its people) on things like free speech are disagreeable. There are plenty of things disagreeable in many western countries aswell, like corporate influence on government. I feel like people focus too much on other countries as something to compete with. (while perhaps they should look at wealth distribution in their own country) People in China (and many more countries) deserve more of the wealth existing the world, and it is a good thing it is starting to go there. (probably mostly because more is being produced, rather then diversion of resources) I think they have the right to develop themselves technologically.
Scientist have also wondered about the "arrow of time" (can google for more) being determined by wether entropy naturally increases or decreases. This is because it is paradoxial that the evolution of many systems can also be time-reversed, while still, apparently entropy always increases.
Entropy is a bit overrated, i believe it is defined as the number of possibilities, while only one possibility is actually reality. (which needend be the likely entropy-decreasing one) Also, the theory around it is based on equilibria,(or local equilibria) and should not be applied to things that are not. (like the universe)
Is this really an advocacy of Libertarianism on itself, or is it a rant on a bunch of laws that suck? Trying to get rid of stupid laws that meddle with personal freedom with little gain is different then wanting less tax, base welfare on charity, etc.
(btw I dont think welfare based on charity will work this comment is why)
Also i dont agree on all your points, smoking is annoying for other people, driving at 100Mph is inefficient. (most efficient speed is about 80km/h)
Bicycle helmets are not really needed, at least in the Netherlands, bicicling is -very- common, and no-one has helmets. The terrain is very flat in the Netherlands though, and car drivers are used to bicyclists, which Americans are probably not. The fact that people sue quicker in America then the Dutch may also change things a bit.
Who is to say that the state of human minds cannot be copied? If they could be, surely ethics would still apply. "What you are talking about is not exactly a simulation, once you can have a robot, which really FEELS things, like fear etc., it is no longer a robot anyway, then the ethics would apply." Well, the definition according to wikipedia is "A Robot is a mechanical or virtual, artificial agent." Which does not specify how the agents behavior is specified, i think this is the commonly used definition. Assuming there is nothing magical about humans, robots, by this definition can have the same sapience humans have. I think your missing the point of the word simulation, a simulation mimics the real thing. Often it uses approximations, but if the simulation is good enough, phenomena on the simulation side and the real side match to a good extend. If sapience exists in reality, it is very reasonable to assume that it can be made to exist in the simulations. (but these simulations could turn out not to be possible in our current "Turing computers", ofcourse.) There is no difference between simulating sapience/inteligence/feeling sucessfully and having it. One simple argument is that you can can give the simulation input and output from the real world. And it does not matter how this "simulation" is acheved.
I thought it was established already that we are machines just as much as the robots are -we "simulate" emotions and self-awareness as much as robots do. Regarding this most important fact is: we dont have a good definition to what person-ness is. Which gives the problem of giving animate objects (like rocks, dogs, cats, homo-sapients) rights they deserve, we also dont even know their needs.
It is this or the assumption that humans are somehow magically different. (with the magic word in this case alive, by which you mean?)
"I don't hear a big cry to make sure that gorillas and dolphins are provided with `human' rights." Well, i did, see dozens of animal-rights-groups advertisements. (they only succeed in anoying) I think people do care about it but 1) not as much and 2) animal rights being violated are easier to hide. (they dont talk..) It is too bad not everyone thinks about ethics themselves and uses it, I guess it is because we have other things to do, our own problems, and it is hard to see what can be done. I myself do not do it as much as i should.
Well, you did say: "Emotion could be seen as inherent in sentience." Which does not at all sound as a unreasonable statement to me. However, you hardly substanciated it yourself. No wonder, since this subject is way beyond a single slashdot post. (how do you define emotion/sentience anyway) Also, it is unsure how close current AI is to AI that would be sentient or has feelings/emotions, so it is also unsure how much your experience in making AI says about this.
We know it is not a 1/r^2 force phenomenom. We call it general relativity. In general relativity gravity isnt even a force as things just move along geodesics in spacetime. Geodesics are "straight lines" in curved spacetime, but mind you, these are actually have longest "length" with the metric. I think the model they use to calculate trajectories is probably one of the approximations between newtonian and relativistic physics. One of the first proofs was the orbit of Mercury, so it is very onlikely that they didnt look at general relativity. Can also hardly imagine that they would fail look at things like expansion of universe/dark matter density, before spending a _lot_ of time to figure out data on some ancient tapes. (also, i dont know what the uncertainties in the motion of these things are, relative to how much the movement is off) Btw i thought that the Kuiper-belts location was caused by the expansion of the universe making orbits at larger distances impossible? (everything just flying off that is further away) If i get time ill try see if i am right about that.
I agree, "Open source" is to vague a term. Its better to refer to your licencing, if one says it has the GPL-licence, it is for instance perfectly clear. (for less well-known licences, some short description is a good idea) Another thing that people seem to associate with "Open source" is that the community developing it is open to people joining/contributing. Maybe they should call that "Open development" instead. (as suggested in article, hadnt read that part yet:) )
Oops: Water has capacity of 4184 J/K kg, also, maybe 10% is a better estimate for mirror efficientcy.
Lets say the laser spot is 10cm across, and there is a 1 cm layer of water behind the mirror to cool it. This is 10*10*1=100 cm^3=0.1 liter of water, about 0.1 kg, so the water will only be heated at a rate of about 20 K/s. So it will take at least 5 seconds to get it to boil. And ofcourse you can circulate the water, with a minimum speed of only 10cm/5s=2 cm/s.
So they could definitely make mirrors to withstand the laser. In most instances it isnt practical though, the lasers are the last thing on their mind, other weapons like rockets and machineguns are way more effective.
An exception maybe is the use of lasers in defence against rockets, since the beam moves at the speed of light, it is possibly a lot cheaper and effective to use lasers rather then other rockets/rapid fire against them. (but this shows that a reflective coating for rockets can help protect them)
Pretty sure this thing is vaporware, GE trying to spin. the article says absolutely nothing about how it would work. I think it may be impossible to do what you say: Clausius' postulate says that it is impossible to transport heat from one reservoir to another without any other effect. If there was some glass or material that could select frequencies as you suggested, one could violate this law simply with two foton-gasses seperated by this glass.
(btw i think that postulate is true, unless you are somehow able to meddle with the microscopic details, Maxwels-demon-style, which may or may not be possible in this universe)
Eh, didnt really think about wether it was possible. Should have been a funny moderation. (what follows is blah blah) Hmm, if they have a mirror with inefficientcy of 3%, 3kW get through, which can heat a liter of water from 30 to 100 in 2.3 seconds. The amount of water required for cooling is reasonable. Dont think it as practical though, since you dont know where the laser will hit, and the area the laser shines on is small. (limits on cooling small area)
Slashdot Mirror
I bet the future technology will look more "biological" anyway -in saying that i do not mean that it will directly be based or even look like on organisms we know. I kind of dislike the idea of basing it directly on existing organisms, since we wouldnt really know how it works. Also the idea is that: To fix something complicated makes it more complicated, to fix something simple makes it simpler. (not for all cases of course) Also, i wonder if future technology will also feature cancers and virus-like problems, but i do not think so because those are probably products of co-evolution (like) processes and byproducts of the crappy "evolution design technique". (hmm, nano-bots, could be a bit virus-like, could be designed for warfare :/, guess it is a known idea -greygoo)
As someone else replied however, making satelites "more biological" is currently hardly a practical engineering solution, guess they would look into airflow issues (also)behind hatches and such. I dont think these "growths" and water condensations will do much damage in a hurry, as long as you build stuff redundantly.
Ok my reply wasnt very well though out. Guess i am a bit cynical sometimes :/
-not sending information the player could not know
-not allowing the player to determine any physics, except the user inputs.
I do not know what this means for quality of play on an bad/less then good connections though. (btw i hate how some first-person shooters dont have a maximum rotation rate of vision, it is silly)
However, I believe that practice, things are longer/more-complex, and paralel development of the same(using equality operator) thing is often unlikely enough to allow copyright to exist for purposes of allowing people to make a living and get attribution for their works. (geniouses making perfect works are also scarse) However, I am against software patents (and unsure of patents in general), and would not want to have copyright evolve into that. But this is just a question of making sure the "equality operator" does not return True too quickly. However, our culture has a sense of when a work is probably stolen, so i guess that should be used, with regard that false positives should be avoided. (In doubt, operator says no)
I am suprised that people are suprised..
I think ideological people just want GPL-ed software to work, and jump to any story that says so. That is a lot of emphasis on those stories, but does not mean that most of those people themselves actually think that use of the software will explode this year.
"It's kind of like being the the transportation industry, and choosing to specialize in bicycles...economically, it is not a very good plan."
Pretty sure bicycles are here to stay.
So basically, you chose your own welfare over that of others. Even if it luxery welfare. (How The Fuck is a hummer usefull for you, over more efficient cars? I hope it is not status..)
I use, and am all for and use GPL-ed/forkable software, and will also be for anything else that is forkable. I sure as hell am planning to work for things usefull, and seek others that do too. Things developed in a way many people can freely use is and will be a great good for humanity. I believe we should not be all-selfish, for i believe that other people have feelings too. There is a reason the more colaborative beings have taken over the world. (Multicelular life, ants, humans) After all, it is not money that puts food on the table, it is manipulation of the world, in a way, it is idealism. Folowing the money is not nessesarally for the good of things, it is just manipulating the returns, of what everyone produces. To many people justify their actions saying "the market" will automagically do the right thing. There is no system that can regulate society, we will have to think and act morally ourselves.
Doh, there are little things that i would dislike more than the spending on those activities; to name some i wish they would spend a $TRILLION more on:
-Spaggetti bridges, although oranges are ok too. (but those are hard)
-Comparing apples and pears
-Dancing monkeys
-Non-dancing monkeys
-Both dancing and non-dancing quantum monkeys
-Velociraptor survival techniques
-CowboyNeal hats
"Or ... competition to make and test better ICBMs while masking it as peaceful research?"
Cmon, they have those for a long time by now. That is way easier then going to the moon and such. Also, in that case, nuclear subs may be more interesting.
Sure, these things have plenty of militairy spin-off, and the Chinese government should not really be trusted too much. However we should avoid (any kind of) undue hostility, I do think the Chinese government tries to do what is best for the countries' people as much the US government does. It is just that the views of the Chinese authority (and undoubtedly, parts of its people) on things like free speech are disagreeable. There are plenty of things disagreeable in many western countries aswell, like corporate influence on government.
I feel like people focus too much on other countries as something to compete with. (while perhaps they should look at wealth distribution in their own country) People in China (and many more countries) deserve more of the wealth existing the world, and it is a good thing it is starting to go there. (probably mostly because more is being produced, rather then diversion of resources) I think they have the right to develop themselves technologically.
Scientist have also wondered about the "arrow of time" (can google for more) being determined by wether entropy naturally increases or decreases. This is because it is paradoxial that the evolution of many systems can also be time-reversed, while still, apparently entropy always increases. Entropy is a bit overrated, i believe it is defined as the number of possibilities, while only one possibility is actually reality. (which needend be the likely entropy-decreasing one) Also, the theory around it is based on equilibria,(or local equilibria) and should not be applied to things that are not. (like the universe)
Four time
o
u
r
t
i
m
e
the robots will rise.
Is this really an advocacy of Libertarianism on itself, or is it a rant on a bunch of laws that suck? Trying to get rid of stupid laws that meddle with personal freedom with little gain is different then wanting less tax, base welfare on charity, etc. (btw I dont think welfare based on charity will work this comment is why) Also i dont agree on all your points, smoking is annoying for other people, driving at 100Mph is inefficient. (most efficient speed is about 80km/h) Bicycle helmets are not really needed, at least in the Netherlands, bicicling is -very- common, and no-one has helmets. The terrain is very flat in the Netherlands though, and car drivers are used to bicyclists, which Americans are probably not. The fact that people sue quicker in America then the Dutch may also change things a bit.
Who is to say that the state of human minds cannot be copied? If they could be, surely ethics would still apply.
"What you are talking about is not exactly a simulation, once you can have a robot, which really FEELS things, like fear etc., it is no longer a robot anyway, then the ethics would apply."
Well, the definition according to wikipedia is "A Robot is a mechanical or virtual, artificial agent." Which does not specify how the agents behavior is specified, i think this is the commonly used definition. Assuming there is nothing magical about humans, robots, by this definition can have the same sapience humans have.
I think your missing the point of the word simulation, a simulation mimics the real thing. Often it uses approximations, but if the simulation is good enough, phenomena on the simulation side and the real side match to a good extend. If sapience exists in reality, it is very reasonable to assume that it can be made to exist in the simulations. (but these simulations could turn out not to be possible in our current "Turing computers", ofcourse.)
There is no difference between simulating sapience/inteligence/feeling sucessfully and having it. One simple argument is that you can can give the simulation input and output from the real world. And it does not matter how this "simulation" is acheved.
I thought it was established already that we are machines just as much as the robots are -we "simulate" emotions and self-awareness as much as robots do. Regarding this most important fact is: we dont have a good definition to what person-ness is. Which gives the problem of giving animate objects (like rocks, dogs, cats, homo-sapients) rights they deserve, we also dont even know their needs. It is this or the assumption that humans are somehow magically different. (with the magic word in this case alive, by which you mean?)
"I don't hear a big cry to make sure that gorillas and dolphins are provided with `human' rights."
Well, i did, see dozens of animal-rights-groups advertisements. (they only succeed in anoying) I think people do care about it but 1) not as much and 2) animal rights being violated are easier to hide. (they dont talk..)
It is too bad not everyone thinks about ethics themselves and uses it, I guess it is because we have other things to do, our own problems, and it is hard to see what can be done. I myself do not do it as much as i should.
Well, you did say: "Emotion could be seen as inherent in sentience." Which does not at all sound as a unreasonable statement to me. However, you hardly substanciated it yourself. No wonder, since this subject is way beyond a single slashdot post. (how do you define emotion/sentience anyway) Also, it is unsure how close current AI is to AI that would be sentient or has feelings/emotions, so it is also unsure how much your experience in making AI says about this.
We know it is not a 1/r^2 force phenomenom. We call it general relativity. In general relativity gravity isnt even a force as things just move along geodesics in spacetime. Geodesics are "straight lines" in curved spacetime, but mind you, these are actually have longest "length" with the metric. I think the model they use to calculate trajectories is probably one of the approximations between newtonian and relativistic physics.
One of the first proofs was the orbit of Mercury, so it is very onlikely that they didnt look at general relativity. Can also hardly imagine that they would fail look at things like expansion of universe/dark matter density, before spending a _lot_ of time to figure out data on some ancient tapes. (also, i dont know what the uncertainties in the motion of these things are, relative to how much the movement is off)
Btw i thought that the Kuiper-belts location was caused by the expansion of the universe making orbits at larger distances impossible? (everything just flying off that is further away) If i get time ill try see if i am right about that.
I agree, "Open source" is to vague a term. Its better to refer to your licencing, if one says it has the GPL-licence, it is for instance perfectly clear. (for less well-known licences, some short description is a good idea) Another thing that people seem to associate with "Open source" is that the community developing it is open to people joining/contributing. Maybe they should call that "Open development" instead. (as suggested in article, hadnt read that part yet :) )
dont think that is true: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=224006&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=18165322#181811 62
Things just dont heat up quickly enough.
Oops: Water has capacity of 4184 J/K kg, also, maybe 10% is a better estimate for mirror efficientcy. Lets say the laser spot is 10cm across, and there is a 1 cm layer of water behind the mirror to cool it. This is 10*10*1=100 cm^3=0.1 liter of water, about 0.1 kg, so the water will only be heated at a rate of about 20 K/s. So it will take at least 5 seconds to get it to boil. And ofcourse you can circulate the water, with a minimum speed of only 10cm/5s=2 cm/s. So they could definitely make mirrors to withstand the laser. In most instances it isnt practical though, the lasers are the last thing on their mind, other weapons like rockets and machineguns are way more effective. An exception maybe is the use of lasers in defence against rockets, since the beam moves at the speed of light, it is possibly a lot cheaper and effective to use lasers rather then other rockets /rapid fire against them. (but this shows that a reflective coating for rockets can help protect them)
Pretty sure this thing is vaporware, GE trying to spin. the article says absolutely nothing about how it would work. I think it may be impossible to do what you say: Clausius' postulate says that it is impossible to transport heat from one reservoir to another without any other effect. If there was some glass or material that could select frequencies as you suggested, one could violate this law simply with two foton-gasses seperated by this glass. (btw i think that postulate is true, unless you are somehow able to meddle with the microscopic details, Maxwels-demon-style, which may or may not be possible in this universe)
Eh, didnt really think about wether it was possible. Should have been a funny moderation.
(what follows is blah blah)
Hmm, if they have a mirror with inefficientcy of 3%, 3kW get through, which can heat a liter of water from 30 to 100 in 2.3 seconds. The amount of water required for cooling is reasonable. Dont think it as practical though, since you dont know where the laser will hit, and the area the laser shines on is small. (limits on cooling small area)