And just to clarify, when the parent said "gold standard", he was meaning to say that Israeli security is very good; he was not referring to the monetary policy. I just wanted to avoid confusion there.
Diamonds cost thousands of dollars per carat because they are so rare. What do you think is going to happen to the price of diamonds once a laboratory finds a cheap method to synthsize them and the rare stone's rarity goes through the floor?
Yep: De Beers will launch a successful campaign to get people not to buy the new ones:-)
It seems to me that you're only saying that evil as an all-purpose imputed personality trait, or evil being construed as "non-God-approved" are religious. In those senses, I would agree with you. However, as most people use the term, it is simply interchangable with "immoral". For example, most/.ers would have no problem saying that for Verizon to lock out mp3 functionality from their cell phones is "evil", and tagging an article about that as such. That does not have any religious predicate; it is simply saying Verizon acts immorally when doing something like that.
Er, if Sprint allows email customer service, they do a great job hiding it. When I looked for customer service on the site, it only showed a number to call, and logging into my account and using the features there just led to a long chain of being logged out.
While it's great to be able to reach a human, sometimes you have a simple question, or a complicated one with a simple solution, such that email is a lot more time efficient. I've had a problem with Sprint billing and their customer service part of the site doesn't give an email, so I have to call in and be put on hold for 30 minutes, authenticate myself, and get shuffled around through several departments, just to be able to communicate the existence of a problem. On the other hand, with Vanguard (investments) you can both call and email, and this has saved me a lot of time, for example, when I have a question that doesn't need to be answered immediately. I just send it, and pick up the answer at my convenience. (Thought it's not "email" per se, but a messaging form after you log in.)
Actually, that reminds me of the time I was in a barber shop and opened a hunting magazine and saw an ad for an ISP. The message? "Use our ISP because unlike the other ones -- and you know who we're talking about -- we won't spend money on politicians trying to take away your hunting and fishing rights." (I think it also hinted at pro-gay support too.)
Yeah, darn all those ISPs that want to take away your hunting and fishing rights! Coded reference to AOL maybe?
No, not really. You've got to expect to lose machines; failure happens. Could have been a motherboard or a power supply.
Yeah, then I could go to the local store, buy a part, replace it, and move on with my life, like I've done before (a power supply did in fact go out on me before).
I'd still expect you to be able to boot from CD though. You try knoppix? You should be able to boot to knoppix, then mount the/boot partition and have your way with grub.
Hey! Capital idea! I'd download it on that computer I can't use and burn it on the CD drive I don't have access to!
How in the holy hell does a desktop take down the whole system? I can't even conceive of a situation where that could be the case on anything other than a network designed by chimps
Heh, I think you're starting to get the sensation I had when one tiny error in GRUB locked me out of my computer entirely, to the point where even having the Ubuntu Install CD couldn't gain me any access to any OS whatsoever.
Geez, what kind of chimp would allow such a damaging failure to occur along such a vital path, right?
If you look at my journal, you'll see that I like the idea of pricing road usage when it occurs at a rush hour, although every toll I've seen is far below what you would need to clear congestion. But, perhaps out of cluelessness, I don't understand why it necessitates invasion of privacy. Why can't they make a tag you can buy (with cash) that doesn't store user information at all? That is, the tag simply verifies that "someone" has paid, and that the tag type matches the vehicle type (so e.g. you can't buy a compact car tag and use it on a big truck). Then they'd only have to check cars that don't have a tag.
RTFA. It says that Deep Blue couldn't search everything either, and had to use heuristics to cut off unfruitful branches, and then argued that this is exactly what Kasparov does. To the extent that he's just applying heuristics gathered from experience to cut off unfruitful searches, he doesn't have intelligence either.
People seem to be very sensitive about computers doing things they think only humans should be able to do.
True, but I think that's just a special case of the general rule that, "People don't like when their expertise is systematized so that others can easily gain it." (Probably a better way to say that.)
I thought I'd save y'all some time and some page views. The following summarizes everything you will take away from the article:
"10 years ago Kasparov was beaten by a computer. The computer used a brute force searching method that pruned a lot of move trees. How do you know Kasparov's brain didn't do the same thing? The only clear difference is that humans can be intimidated, but that's not to humans' credit. Oh, and Fisher Random chess is designed to force more computational power to be used during the game rather than before."
What I meant was, I thought sex was a lot less taboo in the Netherlands, and that kind of review (while perhaps not what they were looking for) wouldn't be viewed as something that needed to be taken down, at least not with any urgency.
You got modded Funny, undeservedly so. That's a good question, and (with Sargeant Pepper above) I agree: how reliable are these surveys? Who actually answers them anymore? Not younger people, who have an unlisted cell phone for VoIP. (Thanks, earlier telecom/telemarketing practices!) Not people with a life, who view it as a mark of shame to be suckered into taking a survey. Not people an office number you random-dialed, who will leap on any excuse not to talk. ("Oh, sorry, can't do that on company time" *reload Slashdot*) So who's left? A REALLY ****in' skewed sample!
Yes and no. It's claptrap that this deficiency makes computers *useless*, but it's not claptrap in recognizing the relative importance of being able to ask questions. Computers support the question asker, but do not themselves pose the questions. "Garbage in, garbage out." "Garbage question in, garbage usefulness out."
Huh? You're not allowed to say that kind of thing on Slashdot....Just so you know, I don't honor the "$1000 to anyone who I put on my friends list" policy anymore.
I didn't imply that you said torturing people was justified. That's a real strawman.
Good, then you're starting to understand what it's like to respond to your posts. I think that's good for your personal growth and understanding of others.
Why even point out the blazingly obvious like that?
Well, apparently the OP thought it was extraordinary enough to point out.
Even more, I think it's important to realize that CIA agents (among others) are more similar to you and I than some of us might expect, and can thus be made to realize the wrongness of what they're doing.
Slashdot Mirror
And just to clarify, when the parent said "gold standard", he was meaning to say that Israeli security is very good; he was not referring to the monetary policy. I just wanted to avoid confusion there.
Diamonds cost thousands of dollars per carat because they are so rare. What do you think is going to happen to the price of diamonds once a laboratory finds a cheap method to synthsize them and the rare stone's rarity goes through the floor?
:-)
Yep: De Beers will launch a successful campaign to get people not to buy the new ones
It seems to me that you're only saying that evil as an all-purpose imputed personality trait, or evil being construed as "non-God-approved" are religious. In those senses, I would agree with you. However, as most people use the term, it is simply interchangable with "immoral". For example, most /.ers would have no problem saying that for Verizon to lock out mp3 functionality from their cell phones is "evil", and tagging an article about that as such. That does not have any religious predicate; it is simply saying Verizon acts immorally when doing something like that.
If you need me to stop renting out your old bedroom because you lost your job again, press 4 ;-)
Er, if Sprint allows email customer service, they do a great job hiding it. When I looked for customer service on the site, it only showed a number to call, and logging into my account and using the features there just led to a long chain of being logged out.
While it's great to be able to reach a human, sometimes you have a simple question, or a complicated one with a simple solution, such that email is a lot more time efficient. I've had a problem with Sprint billing and their customer service part of the site doesn't give an email, so I have to call in and be put on hold for 30 minutes, authenticate myself, and get shuffled around through several departments, just to be able to communicate the existence of a problem. On the other hand, with Vanguard (investments) you can both call and email, and this has saved me a lot of time, for example, when I have a question that doesn't need to be answered immediately. I just send it, and pick up the answer at my convenience. (Thought it's not "email" per se, but a messaging form after you log in.)
Actually, that reminds me of the time I was in a barber shop and opened a hunting magazine and saw an ad for an ISP. The message? "Use our ISP because unlike the other ones -- and you know who we're talking about -- we won't spend money on politicians trying to take away your hunting and fishing rights." (I think it also hinted at pro-gay support too.)
Yeah, darn all those ISPs that want to take away your hunting and fishing rights! Coded reference to AOL maybe?
No, not really. You've got to expect to lose machines; failure happens. Could have been a motherboard or a power supply.
/boot partition and have your way with grub.
Yeah, then I could go to the local store, buy a part, replace it, and move on with my life, like I've done before (a power supply did in fact go out on me before).
I'd still expect you to be able to boot from CD though. You try knoppix? You should be able to boot to knoppix, then mount the
Hey! Capital idea! I'd download it on that computer I can't use and burn it on the CD drive I don't have access to!
How in the holy hell does a desktop take down the whole system? I can't even conceive of a situation where that could be the case on anything other than a network designed by chimps
Heh, I think you're starting to get the sensation I had when one tiny error in GRUB locked me out of my computer entirely, to the point where even having the Ubuntu Install CD couldn't gain me any access to any OS whatsoever.
Geez, what kind of chimp would allow such a damaging failure to occur along such a vital path, right?
It's hard to be someone when they can anticipate every move you are going to make.
;-)
Actually, I think being someone is the *only* way to anticipate every move they'll make.
I'd say it's important if "computer beats human" was really "computer-assisted human beats human". The latter is kind of trivial.
If you look at my journal, you'll see that I like the idea of pricing road usage when it occurs at a rush hour, although every toll I've seen is far below what you would need to clear congestion. But, perhaps out of cluelessness, I don't understand why it necessitates invasion of privacy. Why can't they make a tag you can buy (with cash) that doesn't store user information at all? That is, the tag simply verifies that "someone" has paid, and that the tag type matches the vehicle type (so e.g. you can't buy a compact car tag and use it on a big truck). Then they'd only have to check cars that don't have a tag.
What am I missing?
RTFA. It says that Deep Blue couldn't search everything either, and had to use heuristics to cut off unfruitful branches, and then argued that this is exactly what Kasparov does. To the extent that he's just applying heuristics gathered from experience to cut off unfruitful searches, he doesn't have intelligence either.
People seem to be very sensitive about computers doing things they think only humans should be able to do.
True, but I think that's just a special case of the general rule that, "People don't like when their expertise is systematized so that others can easily gain it." (Probably a better way to say that.)
I thought I'd save y'all some time and some page views. The following summarizes everything you will take away from the article:
"10 years ago Kasparov was beaten by a computer. The computer used a brute force searching method that pruned a lot of move trees. How do you know Kasparov's brain didn't do the same thing? The only clear difference is that humans can be intimidated, but that's not to humans' credit. Oh, and Fisher Random chess is designed to force more computational power to be used during the game rather than before."
I don't know ... what's the purpose of claiming that .02 dollars is the same as .02 cents?
What I meant was, I thought sex was a lot less taboo in the Netherlands, and that kind of review (while perhaps not what they were looking for) wouldn't be viewed as something that needed to be taken down, at least not with any urgency.
And why would they feel bad about that review showing up for a Dutch place? ;-)
You got modded Funny, undeservedly so. That's a good question, and (with Sargeant Pepper above) I agree: how reliable are these surveys? Who actually answers them anymore? Not younger people, who have an unlisted cell phone for VoIP. (Thanks, earlier telecom/telemarketing practices!) Not people with a life, who view it as a mark of shame to be suckered into taking a survey. Not people an office number you random-dialed, who will leap on any excuse not to talk. ("Oh, sorry, can't do that on company time" *reload Slashdot*) So who's left? A REALLY ****in' skewed sample!
Yes and no. It's claptrap that this deficiency makes computers *useless*, but it's not claptrap in recognizing the relative importance of being able to ask questions. Computers support the question asker, but do not themselves pose the questions. "Garbage in, garbage out." "Garbage question in, garbage usefulness out."
Huh? You're not allowed to say that kind of thing on Slashdot. ...Just so you know, I don't honor the "$1000 to anyone who I put on my friends list" policy anymore.
Okay, but I think it would be more precise to say that the *why* was your desire to grandstand, and the other stuff was your *rationalization*. ;-)
I didn't imply that you said torturing people was justified. That's a real strawman.
Good, then you're starting to understand what it's like to respond to your posts. I think that's good for your personal growth and understanding of others.
Why even point out the blazingly obvious like that?
Well, apparently the OP thought it was extraordinary enough to point out.
Even more, I think it's important to realize that CIA agents (among others) are more similar to you and I than some of us might expect, and can thus be made to realize the wrongness of what they're doing.
That's a strawman. And very insulting. I didn't say torturing people was justified. [/how you respond to my posts]
I'm just saying, don't be surprised if the same guy who tries to manipulate the public's understanding, also likes Buffy.