Posts
Comments
If your true goal is "everyone lives", then 50% blue cutoff is waaay more achievable than 100% red one.
Google have processing power backed by trained engineers, which might be important too. Google can do things like "Folding@home" on their own.
And then there's three guys spending over 500 hours to recreate the first two minutes and twenty seconds of Super Mario Land using more than 18 million Minecraft blocks.
I suspect it can be done programmatically, by wiring MC server to emulator, in less than 50 hours.
Pfft. Even magenta doesn't fit in the light spectrum. Are you terrified yet? :)
No, I'm not talking about the basis to criticize technology, but more about of actual target of criticism. Disclaimer: there sure are technologies that can do more harm than good. Here I will concentrate on communications, as you picked it as being one of the top problematic technologies.
For me, it all boils down to constructive side of criticism: should we change the technologies of the way we use them? Because I think in first case, new technologies will be used with the same drawbacks for humans as old ones. In the second case, successful usage patterns can be applied to new technologies as well.
For example, rather than limit the usage of communication technologies or change the comm technology itself, maybe we should focus on how the people use them. Make television more social. Or make going out with other people more easy and fun. Promote social interaction and activities using existing technologies, not relying on some magic future technology that will solve the existing problems. I think building the solution around existing technologies is a faster way than waiting for new ones.
Surely, there are technology side and social/culture side of the problem. But we cannot change any of these fast. We can only expand one to help the other. For example, on one programming site, around two years after its creation, people started to organize meetups in local places, much like LW meetups. Then, year later, other group on the site organized soccer games between different site users. The people liked it. And it doesn't take much time because they were building around existing stuff.
Also, sorry for my english. It's not my main language.
Sorry, but isn't this the criticism of inappropriate use of technologies rather than technologies itself?
It will not return any specific person even if you speak Google: a person -"Genghis Khan"
Calculated from gravitational force.
I think vegetarian-carnivore metaphor here doesn't help at all :)
I mean it could not be visible from a game log (for complex games). We will see the combination of pieces when game ends (ending condition), but it can be not enough.
Well, even if we have conditions to end game we still don't know if player's goal is to end the game (poker) or to avoid ending it for as long as possible (Jenga). We can try to deduce it empirically (if it's possible to end game on first turn effortlesly, then goal is to keep going), but I'm not sure if it applies to all games.
I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility... for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now - you're selling it.
Dr. Ian Malcolm, "Jurassic Park"
It's simple. I'll show on one example.
I was interested in Sphinx search server, so I've decided to do its protocol implementation in javascript (for node.js).
I've created project on github and got remote URL. Then I've created folder on local disk and started coding. Reverse-enginereed PHP Sphinx connector, written some JS code, commited it to local Git repo. Next step: add remote URL to git repo. After this I can push my changes to Github with "git push remote master", where "master" is the branch name. And voila, project is on the Github.
Then I write some more code and get first working prototype. I announced it in node.js Google group to attract another developers to project. They watch, comment on commits (not often) and send pull requests for code via Github (more often). Then I decide if I need the patch and apply / modify+apply / decline patch. Someone can fork my project if they feel I won't add some feature they need or I'm too lazy updating the code.
Basically, that's it.
Ha, I've written delaying proxy for this just like in xkcd.
1, 2, 3 - You can get into opensource social coding like Github or Bitbucket. This will improve your coding skills and make you some coder friends to help with tough questions (worked for me). Time constraint is harder to deal with.
Hm, I don't want to distract even more people from their duties, but this may work. I'll see what I can do.
Still, more ideas are welcome.
I want to lower my "off-topic" Internet usage when I'm on work.
What do I have now:
- No penalties for surfing Reddit if the work is done on time
- RescueTime for counting hours I spend on work and hours I spend on various lolcats (right now my efficiency is 0.5, which mean ~ 1 hour of reddit per 1.6 hours of work)
Why I want to do that? To have more time for my own projects and work.
What's keeping me from doing that:
- I'm afraid to burn out doing only the programming-related stuff.
- Some sites are just addictive (yes, Reddit, I'm looking at you).
- I'm slightly tired from two years long project (I'm going to vacation in less than 1 month).
Sadly, the site seems to be down.
In case of C64 emulator, the game is represented, your experience is reproduced. As for second, I think it's purely subjectional as it depends on what level of output you expect from simulation. For gamer the emulator game can be "reproduction", for engineer that seek some details on inner workings of Commodore it can be just an approximation of "real thing" and of no use for him.
Okay, here's my answers. Please take note that full answers will be too big, so expect some vagueness:
1) B 3) Big topic For me, It can use result of "computation". 4) Invoking memory or associations? Mostly no. 5) Hard to say yet. I'll take a guess that it's mostly functions, with maybe some parts where steps really matter. 6) I think it's possible. 7) I guess so. 8) They have something in common, but I think it depends on your definition of "conscious". They are most certainly not self-conscious, though.
Maybe the most productive variant is just to ignore the offender/offence?
On a slightly unrelated note, one psychologist I know has demonstrated me that sometimes it's more useful to agree with offence on the spot, whatever it is, and just continue with conversation. So I think in some situations this too may be a viable option.
Okay, I had pondered this question for some time and the preliminary conclusions are strange. Either "existance" is physically meaningless or it should be split to at least three terms with slightly different meanings. Or "existance" is purely subjective things and we can't meaningfully argue about "existance" of things that are causally disconnected from us.
Oh, I got what you mean by "Tegmark IV" here from your another answer. Then it's more complicated and depends on our definition of "existance" (there can be many, I presume).
I think gravity is "real" for any bodies that it affects. For the person running the simulator it's "real" too, but in some other sense — it's not affecting the person physically but it produces some information for him that wouldn't be there without the simulator (so we cannot say they're entirely causally disconnected). All this requires further thinking :)
Also, english is not my main language so there can be some misunderstanding on my part :)
I don't get the question, frankly. Simulation, in my opinion, is not a single formula but the means of knowing the state of system at particular time. In this case, we need an "apparatus", even if it's only a piece of paper, crayon and our own brain. It will be a very simple simulator, yes.
From inside the simulation, the simulation "reasoning" about phenomenon cannot be distincted from actually causing this phenomenon. From my point of view, gravity inside two-body simulator is real for all bodies inside the simulator.
If you separate "reasoning" from "happening" only because you are able to tell one from another from your point of view, why don't we say that all working of our world can be "reasoning" instead of real phenomena if there are entities that can separate its "simulated working" from their "real" universe?
Thanks for these links (also, fellow DF player here :)).
Well, he will be intruder (in my opinion). Like, "unwanted child" kind of indtruder. It consumes your time, money, and you can't just throw it away.
There's one more aspect to that. You are "morally ok" to turn off only your own computer. Messing with other people stuff is "morally bad". And I don't think you can "own" self-aware machine more that you can "own" a human being.
I just made my first donation yesterday. Talk about timing :)