WTF pop culture do you live in?
on
Lucky Wander Boy
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· Score: 4, Insightful
"So why haven't the arcade games so formative to geek youth (okay, geek 30somethings, young in the glory days of arcade play) gotten their due from the rest of popular culture?"
Let's see...there have been pop songs about arcade games, movies based on arcade games, movies about people playing arcade games, movies about people arcade video games, television cartoons based on arcade games, and almost every household you see on tv in US of A has at least one video game system.
Yes, there is no Hollywood 'walk of fame' star for gaming, but what kind of 'due' do you expect?
I think the important question is, why does every video game on tv sound like Pac Man for the 2600?
I'm sure there are plenty of terrorists in the hills of KY and TN ( http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/496 , http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/aborti onterrorism.html ), but I doubt they're growing the wacky tabacky.
I didn't know there was NSF-REU for CS (I did two summers for Chemistry) but it's a great program and looks great on the resume.
Like most things in life, you'll get out what you put in. You're bascially a grad student for 10 weeks; your only obligation is to do whatever your prof. asks;)
Sorry, this is 100% wrong. The questions was in regards to internships.
'Don't look for a job now' is bad BAD advice. Whether you're planning on going to grad school or right into the job market, an internship is an essential (as in must have) part of any undergraduate program. If anything, you should be looking for a job AND continuing your education.
And using grad school to kill time until the economy gets better, wow, that is colossally bad advice. First, if you think it's hard finding a job as a recent graduate, wait til you try finding a job as a recent grad school drop out. Second, any grad school program that qualifies as a parking spot until you decide to do some real work is not of the quality that will enhance your C.V. (And people in the industry (any industry) know which programs have a good rep and which don't.) Third, who says the economy is going to get better? After the masters and the PhD, then what? A post-doc so you can be a Dr. making less than starting wages in fast food?
But, as with legal and relationship, if you're getting your career advice from/., even good luck won't help.
This story is obviously just a troll so/. can reach its monthly quota of Real Genius references.
My evolution is speeding as you read this.
on
Speeding up Evolution
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· Score: 2, Funny
Soon, I'll be so far ahead of the rest of humanity I'll be able to read/. stories an average of 10 to 20 minutes before the rest of you surrender-monkeys.
Yeah, I suppose I could have clicked the link. However this was a review. Posting a comment after just reading the review and not playing the actual game isn't the same as posting a comment after reading a summary of an article and not reading the actual article.
And seeing as my lame-ass comment somehow got modded up to 4, a few other folks may have made the same mis-step. It wasn't entirely clear from the review (other than the one remark I commented on) if this game had a name at all.
"Anyway, you're basically following in the footsteps of an adventurer named Falcon--yep, that's right, you're not Falcon (as the game title would have you believe)."
How does the name Sorcery lead to think of the name Falcon?
Since students often have accounts on several different university machines, I suspect the more rebellious ones will be running an assortment of proxies and redirections to get around the restrictions.
Is this still true? Back in my university days, before the web, when all we had was this thing called the internet, and we were glad to have it! each department was an IT fiefdom. It was possible to get an account on the engineering machines, and the math dept, and the chem dept...if you had classes in those departments, or at least knew a kindly prof.
However that was before they handed you an email addresses with your student ID. I did spend a year at a small private college that did issue every student an email address, and their IT resources were centrally controlled. I presumed individual departments didn't handle student accounts anymore since most students these days have addresses like @school.edu and not so much @math.school.edu.
Of course, we did have the advantage of shopping for the best accounts. IIRC, the math dept had fewer students so each account had 4 or 5 times the disk space as an engineering account.
"It's got softer music. It's nonviolent. The action figure is a traveler, not a superhero."
"We don't think that [anyone] would really be interested in playing this game."
I think the point is the vast majority of science fiction (and much of the science non-fiction) regarding AI begs the questions, what is intelligence.
The discussion has jumped ahead 5 places to, how do we escape from our mechanical overlords when we're all trapped in the matrix? Science fiction is certainly free to take certain liberties, but science fact still doesn't have a complete answer to that question. What is intelligence?
We're good at creating machines (mechanical and logical) for solving specific problems or assisting with certain tasks such as number crunching and playing chess. Is that intelligence? If we had a machine that not only could beat any human opponent, but could be proven to be invincible against humans, would that machine be intelligent? What if that's all that machine ever did, all it could ever do--play chess?
I think such machines are possible, and in fact, already exist. Machines better at certain tasks than any human ever could be. But I don't think those machines will ever have 'real AI', ever be more than the potential they held at creation. I think humans may very well cause their own extinction with their machines. I don't think our machines will ever rise up and take control of our destiny.
As for 'real AI' I doubt we'd recognize it if it jumped up and bit us on the ass.
And leads to another issue with Vinge's 'Singularity'. Vinge quotes I.J. Good: "Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the _last_ invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.... It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make." I'm trying not to be dismissive or simplistic, but to quote S. T. Potter, "horse feathers!"
This is a common idea in science fiction, and common mistake in conjectures such as Vinge's, that machines with human-like or super-human intelligence will have other human characteristics. D.A. makes such an assumption when Deep Thought realizes the ultimate answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything isn't useful without that actual question. In HHGG, the computer presumes to design a bigger, more powerful computer just as Good predicted. In reality, the computer will probably say, 'Here. This is what you asked for. It's your job to make it useful. My job is done. I'm off to sit on/. and grab FPs.'
What is it about humans that cause them to create? Why do they assume anything with human-like intelligence (whether natural or artificial) will have that same attribute? If human or super-human intelligence implies that drive to invent, does that imply those without such a drive are sub-human intelligent? Is the monk at peace with the surroundings equivalent to a moron?
I don't think Vinge coined this use of 'singularity'. He references Von Neumann and was using the term before this presentation [http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge- sing.html].
In any case, there a couple issues with his thinking. First, he discusses not only AI (artificial intelligence) but also IA (intelligence amplification) as a path to 'Singularity'. One of the examples he uses is a human with a PhD and a good computer "could probably max any written intelligence test in existence." (I presume the PhD implies the human is skilled at performing literature searches and organizing and utilizing the results of such a search, as well as a high threshold for seemingly pointless exercises such as completing intelligence test after intelligence test with a computer.)
So a properly skilled human with a good computer is more intelligent than any human. (Yes, there are a ton of assumptions in that statement. One is intelligence tests test intelligence. Another is a higher score on an intelligence test corresponds to a higher intelligence. Another is an intelligent person with a good computer is more intelligent than that person without that good computer.) So think of the most intelligent human possible today. Now give that human a good computer. There's your singularity. Somewhere in the world is the most intelligent human. If that person has access to a good computer, the singularity condition exists.
Have we entered "a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals"? Are we now at "a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules"? The conditions of 'Singularity' exist, and yet we are met, not with a big bang, but with a yawn. Yes, technology and society are changing at an ever increasing rate. But we reached a point where "the intelligence of man would be left far behind"? I say we have not. Have we invented the last invention, because machines are so smart they do the inventing for us? No, we have not.
And leads to another issue with Vinge's 'Singularity'. Vinge quotes I.J. Good: "Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the _last_ invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.... It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make." I'm trying not to be dismissive or simplistic, but to quote S. T. Potter, "horse feathers!"
A correlation between intelligence and inventiveness has been not been established. More over, a direct correlation between inventiveness and things that have nothing to do with intelligence has been established. Attributes such as imagination, perseverance, and good old fashioned hard work. Lets say this ultraintelligent machine exists. Does it have any imagination? How would it know what to invent? Why would it invent at all? Perhaps it'll just think, 'man, I am so smart' and sit on/. getting FPs.
Of course, the story that wasn't reviewed above may still be good. There's plenty of good science fiction based on bad science.
"One thing that has happened since I wrote this novel in 1994 is that a number of people have begun actively planning for the kind of transition depicted in the novel. Collectively they have coined the term Singularity for the event when a smarter-than-human AI drops an explosion of new modalities on us."
Yeah, I've never heard of that use of 'singularity' either. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
Existence of smarter-than-human AI wouldn't qualify as a singularity--it wouldn't change the fundamental laws of physics. Such AI could exist right now--it's influence just hasn't had time to spread. In contrast, existence of unlimited time travel would qualify as a singularity. Once time travel exists in one time, by its nature it exists in all times (or potentially exists until a time traveler visits that time).
A poorly written non-review of a probably poorly written book based on a poorly thought-out idea.
"Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, trap infrared radiation, warming the atmosphere. Santer and his associates believe that as the warming accelerates, the troposphere expands, just as a balloon warms and expands when it drifts from a cool room into a warmer one. Tropospheric expansion nudges the tropopause upward."
A more likely explanation, this is all a result of white people doing that "raise the roof" move.
"While this is stuff that matters, it certainly isn't news. Folks have been making the same sloppy mistakes and careless oversights since AOL was trading at $140/share. (And that's a long time ago.)"
That was not meant as a swipe at/. or OWASP. Although these issue have been around for a while, they certainly are still issues, and there are many admins who (for some reason) don't take even the most basic steps to secure thier servers.
For some of the scripting vulnerabilities, while the solutions are generally simple, they may not be obvious.
However, web sites are still open to attacks 6 months after the vendor posts the hotfix or security patch. Some people make an honest mistake; some people just aren't trying.
In other words, "See last year's list." Last year's list=="See last year's list."
While this is stuff that matters, it certainly isn't news. Folks have been making the same sloppy mistakes and careless oversights since AOL was trading at $140/share. (And that's a long time ago.)
I cringe whenever I hear someone go on about how easy ecommerce is. Yeah, easy to screw up.
You could see a fair number of unis around West in my day (89/90), and like some other forms of life, I think the unicyclist used alcohol to facilitate reproduction.
frosh: "Are you nuts?? That bike only has one wheel!" sadist: "Drink this." *hands frosh a bottle of mad dog* frosh: *slurring* "Two wheels are for wimps!"
A freshman class president I was always a great believer in HMC tradition.
Who controls the British Crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do, we do. Who keeps Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do, we do. Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do, we do. Who robs cave fish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night? We do, we do!
Slashdot Mirror
"So why haven't the arcade games so formative to geek youth (okay, geek 30somethings, young in the glory days of arcade play) gotten their due from the rest of popular culture?"
Let's see...there have been pop songs about arcade games, movies based on arcade games, movies about people playing arcade games, movies about people arcade video games, television cartoons based on arcade games, and almost every household you see on tv in US of A has at least one video game system.
Yes, there is no Hollywood 'walk of fame' star for gaming, but what kind of 'due' do you expect?
I think the important question is, why does every video game on tv sound like Pac Man for the 2600?
I'm sure there are plenty of terrorists in the hills of KY and TN ( http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/496 , http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/aborti onterrorism.html ), but I doubt they're growing the wacky tabacky.
Mod parent!
;)
I didn't know there was NSF-REU for CS (I did two summers for Chemistry) but it's a great program and looks great on the resume.
Like most things in life, you'll get out what you put in. You're bascially a grad student for 10 weeks; your only obligation is to do whatever your prof. asks
Sorry, this is 100% wrong. The questions was in regards to internships.
/., even good luck won't help.
'Don't look for a job now' is bad BAD advice. Whether you're planning on going to grad school or right into the job market, an internship is an essential (as in must have) part of any undergraduate program. If anything, you should be looking for a job AND continuing your education.
And using grad school to kill time until the economy gets better, wow, that is colossally bad advice. First, if you think it's hard finding a job as a recent graduate, wait til you try finding a job as a recent grad school drop out. Second, any grad school program that qualifies as a parking spot until you decide to do some real work is not of the quality that will enhance your C.V. (And people in the industry (any industry) know which programs have a good rep and which don't.) Third, who says the economy is going to get better? After the masters and the PhD, then what? A post-doc so you can be a Dr. making less than starting wages in fast food?
But, as with legal and relationship, if you're getting your career advice from
The nazis had pieces of flair; they made the Jews wear them.
This story is obviously just a troll so /. can reach its monthly quota of Real Genius references.
Soon, I'll be so far ahead of the rest of humanity I'll be able to read /. stories an average of 10 to 20 minutes before the rest of you surrender-monkeys.
Yeah, I suppose I could have clicked the link. However this was a review. Posting a comment after just reading the review and not playing the actual game isn't the same as posting a comment after reading a summary of an article and not reading the actual article.
:p
And seeing as my lame-ass comment somehow got modded up to 4, a few other folks may have made the same mis-step. It wasn't entirely clear from the review (other than the one remark I commented on) if this game had a name at all.
YMMV, so there.
"Anyway, you're basically following in the footsteps of an adventurer named Falcon--yep, that's right, you're not Falcon (as the game title would have you believe)."
How does the name Sorcery lead to think of the name Falcon?
However that was before they handed you an email addresses with your student ID. I did spend a year at a small private college that did issue every student an email address, and their IT resources were centrally controlled. I presumed individual departments didn't handle student accounts anymore since most students these days have addresses like @school.edu and not so much @math.school.edu.
Of course, we did have the advantage of shopping for the best accounts. IIRC, the math dept had fewer students so each account had 4 or 5 times the disk space as an engineering account.
Or the folks making these estimations never leave their ivory towers and actually BUILD anything on this scale.
The Big Dig in Boston is approaching US$15 billion in total cost, but we can build an elevator to GEO for 6 billion? I doubt it.
There's zoning and environmental regulations that need to be taken into consideration. Dealing with the unions, waste disposal, etc.
You're better off leasing.
"We don't think that [anyone] would really be interested in playing this game."
CT is making their own version of Sims Online?
I think the point is the vast majority of science fiction (and much of the science non-fiction) regarding AI begs the questions, what is intelligence.
The discussion has jumped ahead 5 places to, how do we escape from our mechanical overlords when we're all trapped in the matrix? Science fiction is certainly free to take certain liberties, but science fact still doesn't have a complete answer to that question. What is intelligence?
We're good at creating machines (mechanical and logical) for solving specific problems or assisting with certain tasks such as number crunching and playing chess. Is that intelligence? If we had a machine that not only could beat any human opponent, but could be proven to be invincible against humans, would that machine be intelligent? What if that's all that machine ever did, all it could ever do--play chess?
I think such machines are possible, and in fact, already exist. Machines better at certain tasks than any human ever could be. But I don't think those machines will ever have 'real AI', ever be more than the potential they held at creation. I think humans may very well cause their own extinction with their machines. I don't think our machines will ever rise up and take control of our destiny.
As for 'real AI' I doubt we'd recognize it if it jumped up and bit us on the ass.
This is a common idea in science fiction, and common mistake in conjectures such as Vinge's, that machines with human-like or super-human intelligence will have other human characteristics. D.A. makes such an assumption when Deep Thought realizes the ultimate answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything isn't useful without that actual question. In HHGG, the computer presumes to design a bigger, more powerful computer just as Good predicted. In reality, the computer will probably say, 'Here. This is what you asked for. It's your job to make it useful. My job is done. I'm off to sit on /. and grab FPs.'
What is it about humans that cause them to create? Why do they assume anything with human-like intelligence (whether natural or artificial) will have that same attribute? If human or super-human intelligence implies that drive to invent, does that imply those without such a drive are sub-human intelligent? Is the monk at peace with the surroundings equivalent to a moron?
Desire is the source of suffering.
I give it my worst review ever. 7 thumbs up.
I don't think Vinge coined this use of 'singularity'. He references Von Neumann and was using the term before this presentation [http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge- sing.html].
... It is more probable than not that, within the twentieth century, an ultraintelligent machine will be built and that it will be the last invention that man need make." I'm trying not to be dismissive or simplistic, but to quote S. T. Potter, "horse feathers!"
/. getting FPs.
In any case, there a couple issues with his thinking. First, he discusses not only AI (artificial intelligence) but also IA (intelligence amplification) as a path to 'Singularity'. One of the examples he uses is a human with a PhD and a good computer "could probably max any written intelligence test in existence." (I presume the PhD implies the human is skilled at performing literature searches and organizing and utilizing the results of such a search, as well as a high threshold for seemingly pointless exercises such as completing intelligence test after intelligence test with a computer.)
So a properly skilled human with a good computer is more intelligent than any human. (Yes, there are a ton of assumptions in that statement. One is intelligence tests test intelligence. Another is a higher score on an intelligence test corresponds to a higher intelligence. Another is an intelligent person with a good computer is more intelligent than that person without that good computer.) So think of the most intelligent human possible today. Now give that human a good computer. There's your singularity. Somewhere in the world is the most intelligent human. If that person has access to a good computer, the singularity condition exists.
Have we entered "a regime as radically different from our human past as we humans are from the lower animals"? Are we now at "a point where our old models must be discarded and a new reality rules"? The conditions of 'Singularity' exist, and yet we are met, not with a big bang, but with a yawn. Yes, technology and society are changing at an ever increasing rate. But we reached a point where "the intelligence of man would be left far behind"? I say we have not. Have we invented the last invention, because machines are so smart they do the inventing for us? No, we have not.
And leads to another issue with Vinge's 'Singularity'. Vinge quotes I.J. Good: "Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the _last_ invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.
A correlation between intelligence and inventiveness has been not been established. More over, a direct correlation between inventiveness and things that have nothing to do with intelligence has been established. Attributes such as imagination, perseverance, and good old fashioned hard work. Lets say this ultraintelligent machine exists. Does it have any imagination? How would it know what to invent? Why would it invent at all? Perhaps it'll just think, 'man, I am so smart' and sit on
Of course, the story that wasn't reviewed above may still be good. There's plenty of good science fiction based on bad science.
"One thing that has happened since I wrote this novel in 1994 is that a number of people have begun actively planning for the kind of transition depicted in the novel. Collectively they have coined the term Singularity for the event when a smarter-than-human AI drops an explosion of new modalities on us."
Yeah, I've never heard of that use of 'singularity' either. Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
Existence of smarter-than-human AI wouldn't qualify as a singularity--it wouldn't change the fundamental laws of physics. Such AI could exist right now--it's influence just hasn't had time to spread. In contrast, existence of unlimited time travel would qualify as a singularity. Once time travel exists in one time, by its nature it exists in all times (or potentially exists until a time traveler visits that time).
A poorly written non-review of a probably poorly written book based on a poorly thought-out idea.
How many times are you going to repost the same link to the same flawed theory?
A more likely explanation, this is all a result of white people doing that "raise the roof" move.
Caltech (A tiny little division of Harvey Mudd College)
"While this is stuff that matters, it certainly isn't news. Folks have been making the same sloppy mistakes and careless oversights since AOL was trading at $140/share. (And that's a long time ago.)"
That was not meant as a swipe at /. or OWASP. Although these issue have been around for a while, they certainly are still issues, and there are many admins who (for some reason) don't take even the most basic steps to secure thier servers.
For some of the scripting vulnerabilities, while the solutions are generally simple, they may not be obvious.
However, web sites are still open to attacks 6 months after the vendor posts the hotfix or security patch. Some people make an honest mistake; some people just aren't trying.
In other words, "See last year's list." Last year's list=="See last year's list."
While this is stuff that matters, it certainly isn't news. Folks have been making the same sloppy mistakes and careless oversights since AOL was trading at $140/share. (And that's a long time ago.)
I cringe whenever I hear someone go on about how easy ecommerce is. Yeah, easy to screw up.
"I like my web servers just like my women...insecure and full of holes waiting to be exploited." --Bill G.
You could see a fair number of unis around West in my day (89/90), and like some other forms of life, I think the unicyclist used alcohol to facilitate reproduction.
frosh: "Are you nuts?? That bike only has one wheel!"
sadist: "Drink this." *hands frosh a bottle of mad dog*
frosh: *slurring* "Two wheels are for wimps!"
A freshman class president I was always a great believer in HMC tradition.
Who controls the British Crown?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do, we do.
Who keeps Atlantis off the maps?
Who keeps the Martians under wraps?
We do, we do.
Who holds back the electric car?
Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star?
We do, we do.
Who robs cave fish of their sight?
Who rigs every Oscar night?
We do, we do!