Craiggybear

Sigh. Define "smart people".

A lot of people I've seen described as smart are either a) actually good at making money (not necessarily legally) or b) good at manipulating people to get what they want. I describe this as cunning, rather than smart. Although they may be smart, too -- but that's quite rare in my experience.

But, yes, smart people tend not take anything at face value or believe everything they are told by the media.

Going to institutions like Harvard is not in itself a measure of smart, necessarily. All it usually represents is a disposable income.

I do use DDG and I like it. Oddly, and unlike most of the comments thus far, it does seem to actually find results which I'm actually more interested in than either Google or Bing (although DDG uses both). I do use them too.

Aaaahhhhh ... rails developers. I take your point.

As to CHAR vs VARCHAR -- well, is it fixed length or constantly changing? The clue is in the name. And CHAR is usually up to 50% faster on overhead and VARCHAR uses padding which can be a huge waste of space. They should just know this.

Then, SQL Joins are plain English and should be easily visualised in the abstract (it does help if you can see the data in front of you though, I can't deny).

Date vs Time is something I am finding confuses lots of people. Precision as well.

Repair Permissions -- seldom does anything.

http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/repair_permissions_voodoo

Seriously. Data types -- surely anyone who has used any SQL database knows their internal data types? Although, true, I have seen a few odd table schemas in my time. Mainly in SQL Server databases it has to be said.

Interesting. I am using OS X 10.5.8 with only 2G memory and when programming with Python, PHP, gcc and Apache this is actually OK. Not brilliant, but not slow either. The machine tends to be on all day. I have noticed that Linux does seem to page more than it used to in recent years, this varies with the kernel. There is more Linux disk activity these days than in previous versions, regardless of what swappiness I tell it to use.

I use nano or vim as my editor mainly. The setup I use on Linux is much the same. I don't notice much of a difference in terms of performance between OS X or Linux for the text-based and command-line related stuff that I do. I could sit down and be happy in either OS X or Linux and it wouldn't matter to me which one I'm using. I also use mutt for my email and cmus for playing music in both environments so I am seldom out of the command line for anything.

Although I do find apt-get much more efficient and I can get packages faster and with less fuss with Linux.

I do also use brew on OS X.

As far as I'm concerned, for what I do, there isn't a lot of difference ... I hardly ever use XCode, though.

Yes, I knew about that. It is cheaper and more productive (almost certainly for their needs) to just keep doing this.

$700,000 a year that would otherwise be spent on mainframe upkeep buys a lot of hardware.

"Mainframe computing is not the same in comparison of clock cycles."

That's the thing everyone has forgotten.

Well, they could just build supercomputers from off-the-shelf parts and Linux. Like everyone else seems to be doing these days.

Mainframes have magnificent reliability, uptime and throughput, though, and I'm not sure how a commodity stack compares to that. Modern, cheap hardware is pretty reliable, though. The LHC uses a lot of it in huge Linux farms with MySQL (amongst other things) for data storage.

Honesty is seen as a liability in modern life. We never see it from politicians, bankers or public figures and people lie constantly about their CVs, jobs, income and so forth.

Why even bother asking if someone's ever done drugs? The chances are they will not be telling the truth anyhow, so you may as well rely on gut instinct and make the assumption everyone is lying all the time.

Sadly, today in every walk of life, its just a matter of making the "right" noises at the appropriate time to the right people. And that's not good. For anyone.

Tell the truth, shame the devil, take the consequences, one time. It often works out better than you might think.

No, whales are intelligent alright. There's no doubt about that. Bats almost certainly are as well. At least I believe they are self-aware and have an inner life as an individual as well as being part of a group.

I also am a great believer in things being more than just the sum of their parts -- or at least to have that potential. I just don't believe there are any sentient machines. Yet. And I'm not going to waste my time anthropomorphising them.

Because that's not going to make them happen any sooner.

It would be great if it were possible ... I have reasons for not wanting OS X 10.6 or upwards.

Won't run on OS X 10.5.8.

Pity. Just what I was looking for.

Bill by the day. Makes no difference. My rates don't vary. A day of my time (7.5 hrs) no matter what I do always costs the client the same.

It does indeed apply to humans. If you could be bothered to read the rest of this thread you'd see that this is precisely the point I am trying to make.

Humans are machines. But we (and other living things) appear to exhibit defined properties that are not present in complex digital machines. It also seems that what we refer to as self-awareness is an emergent property that living things have, although in theory, not specifically limited to living things.

That set of properties is what is formally defined as having a mind. Whatever that means, and I agree its far from clear what that is.

But -- and its a big but -- digital processes don't seem to be able to mimic or model it (that could be our shortcoming -- the models are not any good) and it isn't just a matter of more memory/processing power/a big enough look-up table. These are not the problem nor the answer. It isn't just a CompSci issue. If it were just that, we would have it licked by now and we would all have interchangeable minds that we could simply reprogram and upload with new sets of skills and belief systems (yes, Robots would definitely need them too, by the way).

We have a long way to go and for a while now we've been heading down the wrong road. But don't take my word for it.

"with a large enough lookup table you could simulate every action an individual could take"

Oh dear. That's Artificial Intelligence Day 1. It also doesn't work. That isn't an AI. There's also the slight dual problems of Nyquist and Shannon limits which dictate why this can't physically work in a digital system. But never mind. You seem to know that it is possible and it that's how to do it. No amount of prior research since 1948 onwards will be of any use to you.

You already have the answer. Its all just a matter of brute-force computing power and nothing else. Its that unsubtle, is it? Geee -- what a waste of time! All these years and it was just a matter of a big enough look up table. What a fool everyone has been not to just realise that!

So c'mon then, where is your fully functional robotic AI? Keeping it a secret isn't fair to the rest of us.

Did you consider any of these:

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=artificial+intelligenc...

And this one's a doozy: http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=0&...

And they're just scratching the surface of a very deep field of research.

It used to be the job of a Systems Analyst to come up with the algorithm and the programmer to implement it without deviation.

That job no longer exists and programmers make up their own algorithms, which are perhaps less than robust. Not all programmers are good at algorithms. Its a different skill.

"True autonomy is going to require the answering of plenty of technical and ethical questions."

Precisely my point. Thanks. We all know flight autonomy is already here. Has been for ages.

The aerial refuelling is a neat trick which I'm not convinced will be able to be taken for granted yet -- I can see this won't become fully autonomous for a while. That procedure would have to be completely predictable and reliable -- at least as reliable as a human-managed manoeuvre and that isn't without risk.

No, I'd settle for an AI that exhibited even the self-determination and learning ability of a common ant or honey bee. Especially if all you are going to do with it is stick it in a missile and blow people up. We have nothing like this, nothing.

I know because I associate with cyberneticists, software engineers and biologists who have made this their life's work and who are engaged on this day in, day out.

Truly independent strong AI's are a pipe dream. At least for now. And merely throwing money at the problem won't by itself solve that. Digital computers as we know them and by themselves will not give us what we want. And why it is IMPERATIVE that AIs must be Asimov machines or at least can recognise friend or foe ... or else we are all in big trouble. The facts are we have nothing like this, nor does it seem anything too promising in that direction. Even humans aren't all that good at it if the stories of "friendly fire" are anything to go by. But I suppose you are saying "collateral damage" is a worthwhile price to pay for trying to develop AI's? Try explaining that on the six-o'clock news when a "safe" prototype AI drone malfunctions in a city full of your own people. Or even in a battlefield scenario.

I suggest you read the work of people like Blay Whitby and Kyran Dale (University of Sussex School of Cognitive and computing Sciences) for some practical background.

I can see you don't have any background on this otherwise you would already know the answers. This has been well researched by biologists, linguists and cyberneticians for well over half a century both at the academic and applied level.

"Intelligence" is neither digital or analogue (or maybe its a quantum artifact) -- we don't have a clue what it is. That's the point. It appears to be an emergent property of organic systems that must evolve over the development of that system but we still can't prove that we are intelligent or self-aware. But we can be certain it doesn't appear in purely deterministic machines who's every parameter can be assessed at the fine grain level.

Did it? That's what they would like to believe.

Anyhow, that's an expert system, not really an AI.

Any aircraft can fly itself. Automation in flight systems is not new nor does it even require a computer. Negative feedback systems in both machines and in biology can do it very well -- in insects and birds it happens beautifully.

Early autopilots were analogue and worked remarkably well. Drones can keep flying and gliding without help (as long as they have power and fuel) -- of course they can. Its a classic and ancient application. But right now that makes them one step above a paper dart -- all be it with weaponry and reconnaissance. And that don't work without human intervention.

They are merely a remote extension of their human pilot's hand. Thankfully, because no one wants an autonomous drone going off on its own to "discover itself".

AI research has been going now for 60 years and we have pitifully little (apart from a few expert systems) to show for it. It is on-going and billions are still being spent on it but its a barren dry field. The most important thing it has given us is the realisation that intelligent behaviour and sense of self is remarkably complex and digital machines can't replicate it. Mimic, to a limited extent, but not actually show aware, self-seeking behaviour.

Another sixty years won't change that.

That's why all the smart money is in biotech -- because that might show more promise. A computer with a synthetic mind made out of living neurons might be more promising.

Yes, indeed cruise missiles are robots (they have a sophisticated automated guidance and auto pilot for a start).

My understanding is that most drones are remotely controlled by human pilots/personnel. I saw a documentary about this and they seemed pretty dumb compared with military tech from the 80s such as cruise missiles.

I'm sure that they are working on AI controlled drones but I'm pretty sure none of them are autonomous yet. They would have to be Asimov machines to some extent to prevent them from doing bad stuff to allies and friends or even their owners.

No robot AI combo to my knowledge is yet safe or reliable enough to be deployed on their own unsupervised. If they think that they are then, boy, are they going to get their asses kicked sooner or later when they inevitably malfunction.

It isn"t robotic warfare unless they are totally autonomous and goal seeking. These are not AI's - strong or otherwise.

"Um, Grindr is for casual homosexual encounters"

... which can turn into incredibly helpful proper friendships, especially in new cities.

Have to agree -- the only one I can think of (not used by myself) is Grindr -- and that has a narrow, specific audience.

The rest can't beat actually going out and meeting people. Easier than many might imagine.

I've been looking forward to this excitedly for some time now. But now, maybe, I'm not so sure.

The resistor provides loading for the detector. The crystal earpiece has such a high internal impedance that it is more a capacitive than a resistive load.

The high value resistor in parallel with the earpiece provides a working load for the circuit. Without it the audio signal is largely being shunted by the large internal capacitance of the crystal earpiece.

The resistor is not required if using a high impedance moving coil or moving iron earpiece such as that from an old telephone.

Trust me, if using a crystal earpiece the resistor makes a big difference.

I too have friends in this category. I know really tall guys who are solid muscle and weigh a LOT. They're not fat at all but they are approaching the weight of two average people, easy.

What really astounds me, though, are skinny girls going away for three days but check-in TONS of luggage. It also is invariably over the weight limit and they end up paying excess.

Guys, on the other hand, take a tiny little rucksack on as hand luggage containing a clean shirt, a clean pair of kecks and their toothbrush for the same trip. It also means NO WAITING for luggage at the other end.