While you meant to be funny (and it is) , you did touch upon a valid point. This is a little offtopic.. but anyways.. Having eyes on the back of the head would have been a very simple way of saving you life.. if you were living the forest i.e.
For most of the cattle/deer etc, it doesnt really matter since they have around 270 degree vision due to bulging and diametric eyes (along with the fact that they graze in groups).
But for many of the other creatures, for ex primates/birds etc, their eyes dont have the whole range of view which would save them from an ambush predator.
Cant guess why this did not come as an evolutionary advantage though ? Just one light sensing organ in the back of the head would have saved quite a bit of lives indeed.
Is the amount of energy used cos of that, that big?
Pretentiousness comes packaged with geeks, me thinks We cant concentrate cos geek brain is heavily focused while multitasking day . Absolute BS.
In that case, these basket ball players (sic) should be able to concentrate fully on board meetings...
It is just that people are too lazy, other than in thier own domain. For a person, his career yields his food. So if he is a BB player, he wouldnt concentrate on anything else, i.e. all. Similarly if the board meeting was about a life and death decision for the geeks, he also would be really awake. No big deal.
Now on the pretentiousness -
This article, and most of the comments smacks of downgrading people who does a lot of physical activity (at least quite a bit), even though the doctor is asking us to do the same...
why does geeks* think of themselves as being above and over most of the people? They are not.. They are just another set of average guys doing their job i.e. all. After all, these are no scientists, working for the upliftment of mankind.
I have not read the actual paper, but from the article, I am not very sure whether this can be considered as group decisions.
Cant it be considered this way? The cockroaches want to be together - being social insects. But they cant be together when there is not enough space. So when the space is getting less and less, they move to the next shelter. Now individual roaches move out, and some of the roaches in the first shelter move out just cheking the other areas (exploration being one of the primary tenets of survival). If they see that other shelter has enough roaches, but there is enough space, then they join that area. Now since both the shelters have enough roaches and enough space too, roaches dont go to the third area.
*My problem with the group decision idea is in believing that roaches can count.
Now I would be the one with pie in the face, if the roaches had discussions (sic) and then went to each of the shelters, than going to the shelters first and then discussing (sic).
The study is deemed to have *no* point at all, SINCE the result came as negative. Correct, since this might not change any one who actually believes in praying for a relative.
But suppose the result was positive, that the study proved (under rigorous scietific scrutiny) that the prayers had effect?
In that case, quite a bit of people (who doesnt pray now for the ill) would have changed. Not that all atheists will start beleiveing in God or anything, but at least some will start praying for the relatives etc..
So, I guess you cant say that this study has *no* point at all.
Is it? I dont think so. While I was just a newbie in the tech world, I made a promise to myself that I will give 20 % of my salary to charity. Well, I did too, for around 2 years.
After that my salary increased, and I started finding it extremely diffiicult to give the 20 % of THAT salary away.. The amount increased, you see..
And at that time I wasnt having any other obligations also. After 1 more year, with an even more increase in salary, I stopped, completely.
Because, when you get good money, you tend to be more selfish.
I dropped out of school, quit the job, divorced my spouse, disowned my children, upgraded my PC, and cleared out the schedules AND THE WHOLE THING WAS A &(*&(*% APRIL FOOL'S JOKE.
Good thing I didnt cancel my gym membership.
The priorities are different, but not wrong. There is a lot of He 3 in the moon, of which say a truckload can produce electricity for the whole of America for 1 full year.*
How do we get it? By mining. How do we mine it? By having a moon base. How do we transfer it here? By shuttles. Simple.
And if NASA can bring back that much He3, then I guess funding for NASA is going to be much much higher for future missions.
*Considering that fusion is going to be a reality in 10 years, of course.
For one thing they are just using the data to create random numbers.. i.e. all.
Logic being that, any random number we create is *not* random. i.e all. And most (all??) encryption (RSA onwards) is based on random numbers.
Even if there is only one quasar the freq of the signal at any time would be very random indeed. Even if it is as created using known scientific functions, chaos theory predict that we wont be able to regenerate the same any time soon.
For that matter, they could even use any of the natural process to generate random numbers - Amp of any specfic freq from our dear sun, to , say the power of wind blowing outside itself, would make a good random number
Why would they hunt us? What is the issue with the m/c becoming self-aware?
For humans, it is essential to fight with others (human or otherwise) to have enough space for survival. So, this is implanted in our genes, that we fight.. or hunt or whatever.
But in robots, unless we specifically code to attack humans, they do *not* have any reason to do that. It is not in their genes*, anyhow.
Even replicating - even that is not in their genes.. So there is no isse of them becoming self-aware.
Shouldnt we be all seeing fully functional independent robots by now? The robotics is taking a long time to mature. *very very* long time I believe the problem is that only small set of individual professors and small group of students cannot achieve huge breakthroughs in engineering.
Creating an Atom Bomb was just engineering (since sustained reaction was experimentally proved in 1933 itself). But how many people could do it? It took a huge set of scientists (*read - not engineers) and a huge set of engineers working together to achieve it. And they did it in what 3 years ??
Similarly one big government funded project, and we can see real robots around. Otherwise, in 50 years from now, we would still have similar news coming out.
Slashdot Mirror
While you meant to be funny (and it is) , you did touch upon a valid point. ..
This is a little offtopic.. but anyways
Having eyes on the back of the head would have been a very simple way of saving you life.. if you were living the forest i.e.
For most of the cattle/deer etc, it doesnt really matter since they have around 270 degree vision due to bulging and diametric eyes (along with the fact that they graze in groups).
But for many of the other creatures, for ex primates/birds etc, their eyes dont have the whole range of view which would save them from an ambush predator.
Cant guess why this did not come as an evolutionary advantage though ? Just one light sensing organ in the back of the head would have saved quite a bit of lives indeed.
Is the amount of energy used cos of that, that big?
Bye Karma Bye
Pretentiousness comes packaged with geeks, me thinks
We cant concentrate cos geek brain is heavily focused while multitasking day .
Absolute BS.
In that case, these basket ball players (sic) should be able to concentrate fully on board meetings...
It is just that people are too lazy, other than in thier own domain.
For a person, his career yields his food. So if he is a BB player, he wouldnt concentrate on anything else, i.e. all.
Similarly if the board meeting was about a life and death decision for the geeks, he also would be really awake. No big deal.
Now on the pretentiousness -
This article, and most of the comments smacks of downgrading people who does a lot of physical activity (at least quite a bit), even though the doctor is asking us to do the same...
why does geeks* think of themselves as being above and over most of the people?
They are not.. They are just another set of average guys doing their job i.e. all.
After all, these are no scientists, working for the upliftment of mankind.
I have not read the actual paper, but from the article, I am not very sure whether this can be considered as group decisions.
Cant it be considered this way?
The cockroaches want to be together - being social insects. But they cant be together when there is not enough space. So when the space is getting less and less, they move to the next shelter.
Now individual roaches move out, and some of the roaches in the first shelter move out just cheking the other areas (exploration being one of the primary tenets of survival).
If they see that other shelter has enough roaches, but there is enough space, then they join that area.
Now since both the shelters have enough roaches and enough space too, roaches dont go to the third area.
*My problem with the group decision idea is in believing that roaches can count.
Now I would be the one with pie in the face, if the roaches had discussions (sic) and then went to each of the shelters, than going to the shelters first and then discussing (sic).
A very worrying thought .. if you ask me..
But good thing is, it will accessible for a select few only
So no danger for mankind.
We need new ideas, for that we have to have as add and purge mechanism.
When the purge stopps, constipation will encompass society
And it is never a good thing.
I do understand.
I just mentioned this as a reason why the parent was considering this as having
no point.
The study is deemed to have *no* point at all, SINCE the result came as negative.
..
Correct, since this might not change any one who actually believes in praying for a relative.
But suppose the result was positive, that the study proved (under rigorous scietific scrutiny) that the prayers had effect?
In that case, quite a bit of people (who doesnt pray now for the ill) would have changed. Not that all atheists will start beleiveing in God or anything, but at least some will start praying for the relatives etc
So, I guess you cant say that this study has *no* point at all.
Is it?
I dont think so.
While I was just a newbie in the tech world, I made a promise to myself that I will give 20 % of my salary to charity.
Well, I did too, for around 2 years.
After that my salary increased, and I started finding it extremely diffiicult to give the 20 % of THAT salary away.. The amount increased, you see..
And at that time I wasnt having any other obligations also.
After 1 more year, with an even more increase in salary, I stopped, completely.
Because, when you get good money, you tend to be more selfish.
I *am* weak.
Yep. But think about AT&T ..
If any company had anything resembling world domination, it was them.
The irony is that at that time Govt. broke the company up to 7 segments, and now they are trying to survive by merging.
Fall from grace, indeed.
I dropped out of school, quit the job, divorced my spouse, disowned my children, upgraded my PC, and cleared out the schedules AND THE WHOLE THING WAS A &(*&(*% APRIL FOOL'S JOKE.
Good thing I didnt cancel my gym membership.
I disagree.
The priorities are different, but not wrong.
There is a lot of He 3 in the moon, of which say a truckload can produce electricity for the whole of America for 1 full year.*
How do we get it? By mining.
How do we mine it? By having a moon base.
How do we transfer it here? By shuttles.
Simple.
And if NASA can bring back that much He3, then I guess funding for NASA is going to be much much higher for future missions.
*Considering that fusion is going to be a reality in 10 years, of course.
For one thing they are just using the data to create random numbers .. i.e. all.
Logic being that, any random number we create is *not* random. i.e all.
And most (all??) encryption (RSA onwards) is based on random numbers.
Even if there is only one quasar the freq of the signal at any time would be very random indeed. Even if it is as created using known scientific functions, chaos theory predict that we wont be able to regenerate the same any time soon.
For that matter, they could even use any of the natural process to generate random numbers -
Amp of any specfic freq from our dear sun, to , say the power of wind blowing outside itself, would make a good random number
They just chose an exotic one. i.e. all
Why would they hunt us?
What is the issue with the m/c becoming self-aware?
For humans, it is essential to fight with others (human or otherwise) to have enough space for survival.
So, this is implanted in our genes, that we fight.. or hunt or whatever.
But in robots, unless we specifically code to attack humans, they do *not* have any reason to do that. It is not in their genes*, anyhow.
Even replicating - even that is not in their genes..
So there is no isse of them becoming self-aware.
We shouldnt try to see in them, an image of us.
Shouldnt we be all seeing fully functional independent robots by now?
The robotics is taking a long time to mature.
*very very* long time
I believe the problem is that only small set of individual professors and small group of students cannot achieve huge breakthroughs in engineering.
Creating an Atom Bomb was just engineering (since sustained reaction was experimentally proved in 1933 itself).
But how many people could do it?
It took a huge set of scientists (*read - not engineers) and a huge set of engineers working together to achieve it.
And they did it in what 3 years ??
Similarly one big government funded project, and we can see real robots around.
Otherwise, in 50 years from now, we would still have similar news coming out.