omgam

A useful analogy for understanding meatspace ecosystems. Software is a bit like pond scum.

One example might be that spirits are said to be bound by arbitrary functions (bizarre ritual ingredients being a famous example). That they respond to and recognize cues.

Another aspect of spirit lore is that the more central or higher in the hierarchy, the less different "pointers" or cues may be required for evocation, and stronger expression of those fewer cues may result. The lower/more numerous spirits might require more specificity or larger seed.

Transformations at a minimum: by inducing a receptive trance state, then by self-suggestion.

Collaborative general purpose editors nowadays show one user's text selection to other users, so this is straightforward to implement.

It's been applied to surgery with 90-99% reductions in line infection rates. Head nurse calls the surgeon out on checklist violations.

Trading with my own robots and by hand.

I found that automated triangular (and 4, 5...) arbitrage was possible in the past, mainly due to fee-raking exchanges providing superfluous instruments. Opportunities were usually small, counterparty risk and fees usually large.

There also seemed to usually be someone else's bots doing the same thing, although occasionally decent sized trades appeared in slow/extraneous markets. Exploiting these mechanically eventually results in humans looking for the source of the arbitrage, and even if there aren't competing bots running it won't last long.

Arbitrage based on first-moving markets and slower moving markets was pretty common, and some people seemed to have automated it.

And of course the market making robots run by the exchanges are the most fun to watch. Lots of times they trigger the crossover bot traders' algorithms on purpose.

This is basically how many closed source Bitcoin trading robots operate. They create giant waves of predictable trades because naive operators leave the default parameters for trading signals. Other traders just get in (and out) right before the robots.

Or, the makers of Pokemon Go were installing a system to easily obtain video footage of any urban location (less easily, other areas).

If the Fenn-treasure-seeker ground penetrating radar drone teams do materialize, they will almost certainly locate archeological sites, which is pretty cool. The algorithms ought to also pick up petroglyphs while searching for blazes.

Any central public library is fully stocked on Asimov.

Sometimes because they are intentionally gatekeeping, as in Half Past Human's conversational delta analysis reports.

As a layman, I'm not clear on why we don't treat such sites like alien worlds and come prepared with environmental suits for the jungle, special habitats and vehicles, etc.

The article says the explorers don't believe it's practical to make the journey - but aren't they operating from a paradigm which is on a continuum from weekend camping trips? It seems past time to treat Earth's inhospitable zones with an eye towards the difficulties and solutions of space exploration.

This is fascinating because it probably dates back to the times of medicinal uses of such.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gruesome-history-o...