Well I'd rather the ethical people who are worrying about these issues were teaching robotics than the non-ethical ones. It's not like him resigning his post would end robot development or even hinder it in any serious way.
If you find the weakness to kill one robot it will work on everyone of them.
What use is a robot if you shoot one in the camera with a paintball ?
What use is a human soldier if you shoot him in the eyes with a paintball? We already know the weaknesses of human soldiers, it doesn't make fighting them a lot easier though, you have to assume they'll be fighting back for one.
And how can a fully autonomous killing machine discriminate between soldiers and civilians.
This is, as always, the sticking point. You'd need some pretty damn good pattern recognition software, maybe combined with hardware to make the job easier (some kind of x-ray or ultrasound to show up weaponry?), of course that'll never account for the guy with the sledgehammer who calmly walks up to your bot and smashes it's robotic brains out. On the plus side, robots can withstand some initial damage while they do their threat assesments (if someone just shot you, they're probably a threat) and still be in a fit condition to respond. On the down side, the enemy will soon learn to adapt and fight back in unexpected ways, and this is where robots will really struggle to respond.
I have actually worked on a military robot for intended deployment in Iraq, and our military officer explained that when you are in a place like Iraq, you don't know who the enemy is and who the civilians are, because even if you see a 5yr old girl with her innocent looking grandmother and you ignore or help them, they are just as likely to try to secretly attack you as someone dressed in military uniform. So the US military in Iraq has to basically assume everyone that isn't a US soldier might be the enemy and therefore they can convince themselves that the ethical thing to do is kill anyone they see that they aren't completely sure is on their side.
True, and if you were a soldier in the field and someone acted oddly (and let's face it, the cultures are so different, pretty much anything could be construed as odd) and have a split second to decide whether to fire in self defence or hold off, it means the difference between life and death every single time (for you or for them). At least with robots you only have a financial cost if you err on the side of restraint and get it wrong - of course that cost is likely to be not insignificant, someone is then going to weigh up the cost of a human life versus losing a piece of kit (and once the kit is cheap enough that everyone can field it, you're back to square 1 anyway).
Actually, I'm thinking of this more in terms of a private dystopia. In other words, imagine the nation states collapse and you have some multibilionare guy controlling an army of droids. Even if he is "well intentioned" as is Bill Gates, what is to keep him from deciding that feeding millions of fat lazy over-paid American programmers to starving African children isn't the "moral" thing to do?
Okay, suddenly "embrace, extend, extinguish" seems even more sinister. I'm not sure whether this is the point to make some jibe about not having to worry as they'll be running Windows and will randomly crash or whether I should just give up and welcome our new robotic overlords.
It's not technically a vital organ, although it might seem that way!
Additionally, evolution is not intelligent design - it "chooses" through natural selection whatever works at any given time, it's likely this mutation was more likely to occur than some kind of internal mixture of chemicals which would achieve the same thing, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best or most elegant solution, but it obviously worked well enough to catch on.
The logic of this seems strange to me - surely plastic surgery will give rise to more mutations if it is widely undertake, since previously "attractive" women would be more likely to mate and this would lead down an evolutionary cul-de-sac, while if anyone can look attractive it will allow people with genetically unattractive mutations a better chance to pass them on. Maybe he meant it would have the appearance of the end of evolution if everyone modifies their bodies to look the same, but the starting points (i.e. their actual genetic makeup before someone takes a knife to it) should become more varied?
Also, if you have a car that you drive across the country once a year, and a second car that you also drive across the country once a year, but additionally drive around the block weekly as well, which car gets driven more often?
It's probably acceptable to have no knowledge of the geography of a country right up to the point where you use it as a term of reference in an article/summary to an article. At that point it might be worth them, y'know, checking some facts (I know, I know, I must be new here).
This is always the issue when you use subjective data in a mathematical analysis - he can only ever base that data on his personal observations, and unless he's personally spent time - and I say spent time with rather than looked at and given an arbitrary score to because he doesn't quantify what is "attractive", in some women they might light up when they smile or laugh, in others it might be intelligence or a dry sense of humour, not just looks alone - with every single woman in London (or at least a statistically large and diverse enough subset to give a meaningful result), his data is fundamentally flawed.
Well look at it this way, instead of sitcking a lame page on the internet, he did something which, admittedly, was probably very tongue in cheek and is of course absolute mathematical nonsense, but it's earned him a lot of attention and made him stand out from the herd, and I'm sure he'll have had lots of offers from women who want to prove him wrong. Since he's already added some filters in the form of his "criteria", he's also likely to have a much better hit rate than if he'd just solicited all random female interest. It's not getting out there but it's definitely a smart way to meet as many women as possible for little actual effort!
Especially when you're posting to a forum where words can easily be taken out of context or a non-existing subtext inferred, sometimes it pays to clarify your exact stance.
Well, technically I met one but she had a drinking problem (consuming a half dozen Everclear jello shots plus a lot of other drinks didn't even phase her...).
Not seeing the problem, sounds like she was actually quite proficient at drinking...
It's unreasonable when you consider that, unless he lives in the exact centre of the city, he's potentially ruling out women who are living closer to him than some women living in the city (assuming travel is his issue). If he lives on the outskirts this will be even more pronounced. It would be more reasonable to use a radius based on his location (and even that doesn't account for the fact that, if he lives on the east of the city, it might be easier to drive 20 miles out of the city to meet someone than it would be to drive only 10 miles across the city, but that might require some actual work figuring out the numbers instead of just googling the city population.
Yes, I found this massively disappointing, especially since I'd invested so much time and effort levelling my character that I'd killed it before the "Angel" had even finished telling me how much of a challenge it was going to be to beat. Then I went to make a sandwich while the credits were rolling, and when I came back the game was still going and it basically ends with you muling the key across a couple of maps so someone can reward you some cash (which you don't even need at that point as you're selling guns for $20k), not even a cool artifact to use on the second playthrough! On a side note I found the ending to the Dr Ned DLC much better, still too short but at least it was amusing.
It's been over a year since I did this but I thought there was a "if you go beyond this point there's no going back" type warning, which generally indicates EndGame ahead? In any case, this is why lots of save points are your friend, I've been stung by this one too many times in the past!
It's not necessarily the DLC with Dragon Age that's the problem, I could have lived without that, but the only way to get a "stash" for your equipment is to buy that same piece of DLC. Otherwise you're severely hampered when you're carrying everything you own in game and can't pick up new stuff to sell, in that case you have little choice if you want to get the most from the game.
Same thing with Borderlands, you have to buy the DLC if you want to have any extra stash space (and even then they've limited it when it would be fairly trivial to give you almost unlimited space, presumably so they can sell you extra storage at a later date). In cases like this you either suffer diminished enjoyment of the game or you pay up to get the most out of it - it's either waste £40 or spend ~£5 extra. Of course, it might make you think twice about buying sequels to those games in the future, but I don't think it's always entirely fair to blame the gamer for the initial DLC purchase.
You probably already know, but there's a project to try and restore the missing segments of KOTOR2. I didn't play it so I don't know how bad it was or how good the restoration project is but it might help give you some sense of closure:)
It's a good move by Google and what they should have done from the outset (in fact, playing along for even this long has tarnished their reputation in some eyes), but I can't help thinking it's pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Another web search provider will instantly fill any gap - and by all accounts there's not going to be that big a gap as Google isn't as ingrained in the Chinese psyche as it is in the Western world's - and really this won't hurt the Chinese government at all. It's more likely to make Google look vulnerable, up until now they've looked pretty unstoppable, which is why it's better for them to say we're pulling out on ethical grounds rather than on fiscal grounds, but I don't think anyone's going to be fooled by that (just ask yourself if they'd be doing this if it was their most profitable market).
Obviously the downside to that is that, if you've invested money in producing the game and then you're hit with a cease and desist before you've sold anything, you'll be out of pocket for the development costs.
Regardless of whether it's reasonable to judge someone based on their email address, if this thread shows one thing it's that people do judge others based on something so arbitrary. That being the case, while ever there's a risk of not getting a contract/job role because you stubbornly hang onto an address people mock, then the answer to the thread's question "Does a lame e-mail address really matter" must be "yes". And there's nothing stopping you from keeping the old address around (even if it's temporary while you migrate everyone you know to the knew address).
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Well I'd rather the ethical people who are worrying about these issues were teaching robotics than the non-ethical ones. It's not like him resigning his post would end robot development or even hinder it in any serious way.
If you find the weakness to kill one robot it will work on everyone of them.
What use is a robot if you shoot one in the camera with a paintball ?
What use is a human soldier if you shoot him in the eyes with a paintball? We already know the weaknesses of human soldiers, it doesn't make fighting them a lot easier though, you have to assume they'll be fighting back for one.
And how can a fully autonomous killing machine discriminate between soldiers and civilians.
This is, as always, the sticking point. You'd need some pretty damn good pattern recognition software, maybe combined with hardware to make the job easier (some kind of x-ray or ultrasound to show up weaponry?), of course that'll never account for the guy with the sledgehammer who calmly walks up to your bot and smashes it's robotic brains out. On the plus side, robots can withstand some initial damage while they do their threat assesments (if someone just shot you, they're probably a threat) and still be in a fit condition to respond. On the down side, the enemy will soon learn to adapt and fight back in unexpected ways, and this is where robots will really struggle to respond.
I have actually worked on a military robot for intended deployment in Iraq, and our military officer explained that when you are in a place like Iraq, you don't know who the enemy is and who the civilians are, because even if you see a 5yr old girl with her innocent looking grandmother and you ignore or help them, they are just as likely to try to secretly attack you as someone dressed in military uniform. So the US military in Iraq has to basically assume everyone that isn't a US soldier might be the enemy and therefore they can convince themselves that the ethical thing to do is kill anyone they see that they aren't completely sure is on their side.
True, and if you were a soldier in the field and someone acted oddly (and let's face it, the cultures are so different, pretty much anything could be construed as odd) and have a split second to decide whether to fire in self defence or hold off, it means the difference between life and death every single time (for you or for them). At least with robots you only have a financial cost if you err on the side of restraint and get it wrong - of course that cost is likely to be not insignificant, someone is then going to weigh up the cost of a human life versus losing a piece of kit (and once the kit is cheap enough that everyone can field it, you're back to square 1 anyway).
Actually, I'm thinking of this more in terms of a private dystopia. In other words, imagine the nation states collapse and you have some multibilionare guy controlling an army of droids. Even if he is "well intentioned" as is Bill Gates, what is to keep him from deciding that feeding millions of fat lazy over-paid American programmers to starving African children isn't the "moral" thing to do?
Okay, suddenly "embrace, extend, extinguish" seems even more sinister. I'm not sure whether this is the point to make some jibe about not having to worry as they'll be running Windows and will randomly crash or whether I should just give up and welcome our new robotic overlords.
It's not technically a vital organ, although it might seem that way!
Additionally, evolution is not intelligent design - it "chooses" through natural selection whatever works at any given time, it's likely this mutation was more likely to occur than some kind of internal mixture of chemicals which would achieve the same thing, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best or most elegant solution, but it obviously worked well enough to catch on.
The logic of this seems strange to me - surely plastic surgery will give rise to more mutations if it is widely undertake, since previously "attractive" women would be more likely to mate and this would lead down an evolutionary cul-de-sac, while if anyone can look attractive it will allow people with genetically unattractive mutations a better chance to pass them on. Maybe he meant it would have the appearance of the end of evolution if everyone modifies their bodies to look the same, but the starting points (i.e. their actual genetic makeup before someone takes a knife to it) should become more varied?
Also, if you have a car that you drive across the country once a year, and a second car that you also drive across the country once a year, but additionally drive around the block weekly as well, which car gets driven more often?
FTFY! (seriously, remember your audience) :)
Is 20 in a million some space scientist term for 1 in 50,000? Sounds more like marketing to me, "Sure baby, you're my one of 20 in a million!".
It's probably acceptable to have no knowledge of the geography of a country right up to the point where you use it as a term of reference in an article/summary to an article. At that point it might be worth them, y'know, checking some facts (I know, I know, I must be new here).
This is always the issue when you use subjective data in a mathematical analysis - he can only ever base that data on his personal observations, and unless he's personally spent time - and I say spent time with rather than looked at and given an arbitrary score to because he doesn't quantify what is "attractive", in some women they might light up when they smile or laugh, in others it might be intelligence or a dry sense of humour, not just looks alone - with every single woman in London (or at least a statistically large and diverse enough subset to give a meaningful result), his data is fundamentally flawed.
Well look at it this way, instead of sitcking a lame page on the internet, he did something which, admittedly, was probably very tongue in cheek and is of course absolute mathematical nonsense, but it's earned him a lot of attention and made him stand out from the herd, and I'm sure he'll have had lots of offers from women who want to prove him wrong. Since he's already added some filters in the form of his "criteria", he's also likely to have a much better hit rate than if he'd just solicited all random female interest. It's not getting out there but it's definitely a smart way to meet as many women as possible for little actual effort!
Especially when you're posting to a forum where words can easily be taken out of context or a non-existing subtext inferred, sometimes it pays to clarify your exact stance.
Well, technically I met one but she had a drinking problem (consuming a half dozen Everclear jello shots plus a lot of other drinks didn't even phase her...).
Not seeing the problem, sounds like she was actually quite proficient at drinking...
It's unreasonable when you consider that, unless he lives in the exact centre of the city, he's potentially ruling out women who are living closer to him than some women living in the city (assuming travel is his issue). If he lives on the outskirts this will be even more pronounced. It would be more reasonable to use a radius based on his location (and even that doesn't account for the fact that, if he lives on the east of the city, it might be easier to drive 20 miles out of the city to meet someone than it would be to drive only 10 miles across the city, but that might require some actual work figuring out the numbers instead of just googling the city population.
*Possible Borderlands Spolier*
Yes, I found this massively disappointing, especially since I'd invested so much time and effort levelling my character that I'd killed it before the "Angel" had even finished telling me how much of a challenge it was going to be to beat. Then I went to make a sandwich while the credits were rolling, and when I came back the game was still going and it basically ends with you muling the key across a couple of maps so someone can reward you some cash (which you don't even need at that point as you're selling guns for $20k), not even a cool artifact to use on the second playthrough! On a side note I found the ending to the Dr Ned DLC much better, still too short but at least it was amusing.
Oh don't worry, they're doing a lot more than just implying a Deadpool movie.
It's been over a year since I did this but I thought there was a "if you go beyond this point there's no going back" type warning, which generally indicates EndGame ahead? In any case, this is why lots of save points are your friend, I've been stung by this one too many times in the past!
It's not necessarily the DLC with Dragon Age that's the problem, I could have lived without that, but the only way to get a "stash" for your equipment is to buy that same piece of DLC. Otherwise you're severely hampered when you're carrying everything you own in game and can't pick up new stuff to sell, in that case you have little choice if you want to get the most from the game.
Same thing with Borderlands, you have to buy the DLC if you want to have any extra stash space (and even then they've limited it when it would be fairly trivial to give you almost unlimited space, presumably so they can sell you extra storage at a later date). In cases like this you either suffer diminished enjoyment of the game or you pay up to get the most out of it - it's either waste £40 or spend ~£5 extra. Of course, it might make you think twice about buying sequels to those games in the future, but I don't think it's always entirely fair to blame the gamer for the initial DLC purchase.
You probably already know, but there's a project to try and restore the missing segments of KOTOR2. I didn't play it so I don't know how bad it was or how good the restoration project is but it might help give you some sense of closure :)
It's a good move by Google and what they should have done from the outset (in fact, playing along for even this long has tarnished their reputation in some eyes), but I can't help thinking it's pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Another web search provider will instantly fill any gap - and by all accounts there's not going to be that big a gap as Google isn't as ingrained in the Chinese psyche as it is in the Western world's - and really this won't hurt the Chinese government at all. It's more likely to make Google look vulnerable, up until now they've looked pretty unstoppable, which is why it's better for them to say we're pulling out on ethical grounds rather than on fiscal grounds, but I don't think anyone's going to be fooled by that (just ask yourself if they'd be doing this if it was their most profitable market).
He will, so long as his phone's not forked.
Of course it does, only now it's done by end users and we pay for the privilege :)
Obviously the downside to that is that, if you've invested money in producing the game and then you're hit with a cease and desist before you've sold anything, you'll be out of pocket for the development costs.
I remember that. It was just before September, right? :)
Regardless of whether it's reasonable to judge someone based on their email address, if this thread shows one thing it's that people do judge others based on something so arbitrary. That being the case, while ever there's a risk of not getting a contract/job role because you stubbornly hang onto an address people mock, then the answer to the thread's question "Does a lame e-mail address really matter" must be "yes". And there's nothing stopping you from keeping the old address around (even if it's temporary while you migrate everyone you know to the knew address).