its impossible to estimate at least 4 of the numbers in the equation-
Fl = The fraction of hospitable planets on which life actually arises Fi = The fraction of arisen life where intelligence develops Fc = The fraction of intelligent life which develops communications technology L = The 'lifetime' of intelligent life possessing such technology
The Drake equation doesn't give us a probability of anything. It just kind of states what we would need to know before we could take a guess.
I agree that DVDs are probably eating into CD sales.I have friends that collect DVDs in the same way that they used to collect CDs. This only adds to this guys argument that its not the economy.
The guy that wrote the article thought there would be a correlation between peoples income and CD buying. Then he plotted the figures and found there wasn't.
"At that time, I had assumed that record sales moved with income; during a recession, you could expect fewer records to be sold. When I actually ran the numbers, with income as a variable, it had a very small impact. It was what is known as statistically significant but it was so small that you could ignore it."
Another experiment a few years ago produced a circuit that could recognize the difference between a 'stop' and 'go', voice commands. Adrian Thompson, who created the circuit, said- "I don't have the faintest idea how it works"
in '95 i was working on a demo of a game (robot club). The C code hadn't even been started, and there was already a review in a magazine along with feedback from the customers.
"A visiting Martian would surely conclude that the GNOME Project has served
its purpose, and that for the community to continue bifurcated development
is simply handing victory to The Beast. Enough, already. ®"
trying to stop a piece of software is ridiculous. (DMCA?) Its inevitable
that information will become easier to collect. Society is becoming more
transparent and that can be a good thing-
NASA is considering puting a centrifuge on a mars mission.
The 1998 Neurolab mission on the space shuttle had a centrifuge that produced
1G. this was basically a spinning chair.
these results suggest that astronauts exhibit appropriate perceptual and oculomotor responses to artificial gravity during short-duration missions. If these responses are maintained during exposure to artificial gravity on long-duration space flights, interplanetary missions can proceed with the expectation that the astronauts will respond normally to the gravitational fields of other planets when they are encountered.
not sure if this will help their teeth, but it does seem to indicate that
spinning the astronauts can overcome some of the problems of weightlessness
It's an old fallacy when studying the brain to attribute a specific function to a cell.
In cognitive science this is known as the "grandmother cell". i.e. one neuron is designed to fire when it sees a grandmother.
In truth one neuron is part of a network that does many things. The neurons that are involved with movement are also used to recognize, imagine or remember the same movement. There are no "grandmother" cells and there are no "mirror" cells.
Nature will use the same thing for many different purposes. This is what makes the brain so hard to understand.
I've had verizon DSL since february. It was down about 30% of the the time for 3 months. They blamed old wires! The truth is they didn't know what they were doing and their (NT?) servers were crashing all the time.
Their mail server has been playing up for weeks. sometimes it takes an hour to connect to the SMTP server. Now they are blaming spam, yeah sure.
*quantum physics is mysterious *consciousness is mysterious *therefore consciousness must rely on quantum effects
this fallacious reasoning was also used by Roger Penfield (The Emperor's New Mind)
Cognitive science has made a lot of progress on explaining consciousness. Read Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" or Steve Pinker's "How the Mind Works"
Pinker's book is great, i really recommend it. "Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennet is also a favorite of mine.
I read Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" when it first came out and found it unconvincing. I really feel he started from the position that consciousness is mysterious and therefore requires a mysterious explanation. It almost seems the book is a justification of his religious impulses.
The guy is a genius, but this book is out of his field. It reminds me of how Newton thought his greatest work was a book on theology.
Any explanation that denies consciousness is a computation is going to have to try really hard to avoid dualism. He does try hard, but that quantum physics stuff is just weird, and even if quantum effects are involved, surely they would be computing something.
Penrose is way out of his depth when he talks about consciousness. Read some Cognitive Science if you want a better discussion of this topic. Nobody in Cog Sci agrees with Penrose. This is from Steve Pinkers "How the Mind Works"-
Penrose's,mathematical argument has been dismissed as fallacious by logicians... The computational theory [of consciousness] fits so well into our understanding of the world that, in trying to overthrow it, Penrose had to reject most of contemporary neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and physics
Safety campaigners say the device, which will cost around £200 to install, would cut road deaths by up to two thirds and reduce total road accident injuries by a third.
if it does this then it is a *good thing* if it doesn't reduce deaths then its a *bad thing*
roads are absurdly dangerous. extreme measures must be taken to make them safer.
Slashdot Mirror
its impossible to estimate at least 4 of the numbers in the equation-
Fl = The fraction of hospitable planets on which life actually arises
Fi = The fraction of arisen life where intelligence develops
Fc = The fraction of intelligent life which develops communications technology
L = The 'lifetime' of intelligent life possessing such technology
The Drake equation doesn't give us a probability of anything. It just kind of states what we would need to know before we could take a guess.
I get anoyed by people talking about the probability of intelligent life on other planets. Frank Drake's 1961 equation, is the most famous example.
We have a sample group of 1 so far. You can't predict anything from a sample of 1. Its basic math.
In the Czech Republic children are given E. coli to help prevent allergies.
I agree that DVDs are probably eating into CD sales.I have friends that collect DVDs in the same way that they used to collect CDs. This only adds to this guys argument that its not the economy.
The guy that wrote the article thought there would be a correlation between peoples income and CD buying. Then he plotted the figures and found there wasn't.
read this article- File sharing: Guilty as charged?
"At that time, I had assumed that record sales moved with income; during a recession, you could expect fewer records to be sold. When I actually ran the numbers, with income as a variable, it had a very small impact. It was what is known as statistically significant but it was so small that you could ignore it."
Another
experiment a few years ago produced a circuit that could recognize the
difference between a 'stop' and 'go', voice commands. Adrian Thompson,
who created the circuit, said- "I don't have the faintest idea how it works"
in '95 i was working on a demo of a game (robot club). The C code hadn't even been started, and there was already a review in a magazine along with feedback from the customers.
the game finally came out about 2 years later
The basic question when you have a new product is-"what need is this solving?"
This was a device to enable people to see more advertising.
yes that's what i want, more advertising!
The cue-cat is my favorite useless invention of the dot.com bubble
this is from the register -
"A visiting Martian would surely conclude that the GNOME Project has served its purpose, and that for the community to continue bifurcated development is simply handing victory to The Beast. Enough, already. ®"
There are plenty of legal departments that will be telling their companies to stop using FrontPage.
This clause basically means all news web site must stop using it.
I imagine other companies with overactive legal departments like IBM will stop using it too.
trying to stop a piece of software is ridiculous. (DMCA?) Its inevitable that information will become easier to collect. Society is becoming more transparent and that can be a good thing-
read some David Brin
Salon also had this to say
NASA is considering puting a centrifuge on a mars mission.
The 1998 Neurolab mission on the space shuttle had a centrifuge that produced 1G. this was basically a spinning chair.
from the paper " Perception of tilt (somatogravic illusion) in response to sustained linear acceleration during space flight "
these results suggest that astronauts exhibit appropriate
perceptual and oculomotor responses to artificial gravity
during short-duration missions. If these responses are
maintained during exposure to artificial gravity on long-duration
space flights, interplanetary missions can proceed
with the expectation that the astronauts will respond
normally to the gravitational fields of other planets
when they are encountered.
not sure if this will help their teeth, but it does seem to indicate that spinning the astronauts can overcome some of the problems of weightlessness
is is because machines are watching us instead of a security person? are we scared of the machines?
i'm being serious here. we now have face recognition software that works and thats great, and just get used to it.
Does anyone else find it strange that newspapers are reporting non-events
Why doesn't some company put together a windows distribution with added goodies like a JVM.
It's an old fallacy when studying the brain to attribute a specific function to a cell.
In cognitive science this is known as the "grandmother cell". i.e. one neuron is designed to fire when it sees a grandmother.
In truth one neuron is part of a network that does many things. The neurons that are involved with movement are also used to recognize, imagine or remember the same movement. There are no "grandmother" cells and there are no "mirror" cells.
Nature will use the same thing for many different purposes. This is what makes the brain so hard to understand.
I've had verizon DSL since february. It was down about 30% of the the time for 3 months. They blamed old wires! The truth is they didn't know what they were doing and their (NT?) servers were crashing all the time.
Their mail server has been playing up for weeks. sometimes it takes an hour to connect to the SMTP server. Now they are blaming spam, yeah sure.
*quantum physics is mysterious
*consciousness is mysterious
*therefore consciousness must rely on quantum effects
this fallacious reasoning was also used by Roger Penfield (The Emperor's New Mind)
Cognitive science has made a lot of progress on explaining consciousness. Read Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained" or Steve Pinker's "How the Mind Works"
"Consciousness Explained" by Daniel Dennet is also a favorite of mine.
I read Penrose's "The Emperor's New Mind" when it first came out and found it unconvincing. I really feel he started from the position that consciousness is mysterious and therefore requires a mysterious explanation. It almost seems the book is a justification of his religious impulses.
The guy is a genius, but this book is out of his field. It reminds me of how Newton thought his greatest work was a book on theology.
Any explanation that denies consciousness is a computation is going to have to try really hard to avoid dualism. He does try hard, but that quantum physics stuff is just weird, and even if quantum effects are involved, surely they would be computing something.
If consciousness isn't a computation, what is it?
Penrose is way out of his depth when he talks about consciousness. Read some Cognitive Science if you want a better discussion of this topic. Nobody in Cog Sci agrees with Penrose. This is from Steve Pinkers "How the Mind Works"-
,mathematical argument has been dismissed as fallacious by logicians... The computational theory [of consciousness] fits so well into our understanding of the world that, in trying to overthrow it, Penrose had to reject most of contemporary neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and physics
Penrose's
Safety campaigners say the device, which will cost around £200 to install, would cut road deaths by up to two thirds and reduce total road accident injuries by a third.
if it does this then it is a *good thing*
if it doesn't reduce deaths then its a *bad thing*
roads are absurdly dangerous. extreme measures must be taken to make them safer.
it's under chemistry- Researchers built single-molecule motors that spin when powered by light or chemical energy (Sept. 11, vol. 156: p.165).
Traf-O-Data is the original name for microsoft! that's almost as bad as winCE