Totally random thoughts

[B4UTRUST]

A reminder; Monday is bring your Velociraptor to work day! Show your favorite pet some love by bringing them with you to your job.

[B4UTRUST]

Someone needs to invent a phone or phone application that makes your ringtone selection situational sensative with three settings. Appropriate, Mildly Inappropriate, and Completely Inappropriate. Just because I think having your phone intelligently change your ringtone based on contextual audio clues around you would be great. Who doesn't want their cell phone going off in the middle of a wedding by playing Billy Idol's White Wedding? Or 'Take This Job and Shove It' during a staff meeting? Someone could market it as a service. The phone would pick up where you're at based on surrounding noise and conversation go online compare it to a database of music identified as related to the surroundings and download and apply the new ringtone. There are just so many horrible and funny uses for this.

[LadyTevar]

Her: I just got my daughter's certificate, and I have a few questions on it
Me, thinking this was going to be the typical call: Of course ma'am. What's the questions?
Her: On this cause of death... what does 'Presumed" mean?
Me, blinking in surprised: It means 'to the best of their knowledge'
Her, rambling on more about things on the certificate, which I find out quickly was an Medical Examiner's Case: But why are they saying she died of Organ Failure! It was the brain swelling that killed her!
Me, in territory I don't have answers for: You'd have to ask the ME about that, ma'am.
Her, rambling more about the cause of death as listed, and getting more upset/whiny about it: But she was ok until the brain swelling hit her breathing and heart center!
Me, referring her five times to the ME: I'm sorry ma'am, we can only put on there what the ME tells us.
Her: Well, I don't know why they put Cocaine on here -- my daughter only tried it once, two days before she died!
Me:
Her: And this Percocet? Her doctor gave her that for pain!
Me, managing to keep voice calm and not strangled from suppressed laughter: Let me get you the ME's number, ma'am....

Somehow I managed to hang up before I lost it :ROLF:

[Mayabird]

Holy crap, I just realized that nerdrapture Singularity worshippers true believers wankers are literally waiting for a Deus ex Machina. Literally.

I will have to use this a lot.

[Batman]

Why do ALL the Stormtroopers in ANH have their E-11 holsters on the LEFT? They're NOT all left-handed (at least they don't all have the pistol grip of their E-11 in the left hand) and that seems like something that could easily be adapted.
Also, since it's been too freaking long since I fired a rifle WOULD left or right handedness figure into which hand is at the pistol grip?

[B4UTRUST]

Holy crap, I just realized that nerdrapture Singularity worshippers true believers wankers are literally waiting for a Deus ex Machina. Literally.

I will have to use this a lot.

Now are you lumping all Transhumanists into the Wanker category for looking forward to Singularity? Because I don't think I'm a wanker... :sad:

[Mayabird]

Depends. Are you sitting around assuming that all the problems in the world will be magically solved the moment we have an AI because the AI will magically make itself God through SCIENCE then we'll instantly get technomagic that'll make us all instantly immortal and then the AI god will hack reality to fix everything? Because those people are wankers.

That being said, since I'm hoping you're not a wanker...is the 'Singularity' supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? Because a lot of the stuff I've heard these people say will happen doesn't sound good at all.

[frigidmagi]

Honestly I have my doubts about the Singularity but hey far be it from me to speak ill of another religion's rapture.

Also Maya the way I heard it, the Singularity means we all become AIs... Cyborgs... Thingies...

It's a thing.

[Destructionator XV]

A lot of people seem to think improved thought capability (which I'd say an AI almost certainly would have) magically leads to improvements in the real world.

This neglects the need to test those ideas (in the case of science) or to actually convince people to play along (in the case of politics)... that's the hard part. Humanity has a lot of brain power as it is, but there's only so much funding available for experiments, and we all know how much of a pain in the ass it is to convince people to agree in politics.

[Mayabird]

So...do other people here have crazy dreams but are too embarrassed to mention them, or is it really just me and occasionally Adam who have and remember our dreams? (Steve, I already know that you can't remember any.) I know we're not a very big or active board but it seems a little odd, seeing only my wacky "here was last night's plot" posts over and over.

[Soontir948]

Sorry, dreams are forgettable for me. It'd have to be ultra-superduper weird for me to remember.

[Batman]

As I said in the thread, I have weird dreams all the time. Problem is by the time I am coherent enough to type leave alone have fired up the PC I usually barely remember them, and I don't want to clutter up the thread with stuff like 'I had a weird dream last night. I was in a building that was all shaky and eventually fell apart, but I survived.Um-that's all I remember.' or 'I dreamt last night my sense of balance was all gone and I kept falling down. I think'.

[B4UTRUST]

That being said, since I'm hoping you're not a wanker...is the 'Singularity' supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? Because a lot of the stuff I've heard these people say will happen doesn't sound good at all.

No, I have no delusions that as soon as the first AI comes on-line and achieves sentience that we're all going to magically have our Deus Ex Machina. I'm more of the school that I believe that once we have have the capability to achieve true artificial intelligence that our ability to affect our world and ultimately ourselves will be greatly enhanced and we will, in time, gain a lot of things we only deem as science fiction now. But that's the way that any science is, really.

Destructionator is essentially correct, however. The Singularity is really little more than a theoretical tipping point where technology goes on a landslide acceleration. The idea is that once we have achieved the level where a true AI is possible that we could develop a machine that is at the same time smarter and more inventive than we are, which would allow it, in turn, to calculate and figure out how to create an even smarter, better, faster, smaller whatever and so on and so forth.

As with anything though, there's multiple schools of thought on it from those 'in the know' that say it won't happen, some saying it can't happen, others saying it can't happen until we've developed a greater mastery and understanding of nanotechnology and some who say that nanotech mastery won't be done until post singularity. Then you have the groups who believe it will happen and fear it, pointing our possibilities and probabilities and pop culture references such as The Terminator or any other computer-gone-insane movie/show/book/etc. You've got the ones who, as Maya points out, are the wackjobs that worship the idea of Singularity like a cult or a religion and that their Deus Ex Machina Messiah will turn us all into perfection and we will live in perfect harmony with our new machine gods. You've also go a few of us who are hopeful and looking forward to it without being "zOMG the computers are going to save us all from ourselves!!!1!!one!!!""

Personally, I look forward to it as a possibility that I would love to see. I do believe that if the Singularity is truly achieved that the advancements we can make towards the betterment of ourselves, our world, what have you, would be unbelievable and amazing, given time and energy. I do believe we would get to the point where we could, through use of new forms of medicine and technology be able to repair and replace parts of ourselves that need it. I think that once we have something there that is smarter than we are, capable of seeing past our mental shortcomings that our advancements will be immense.

And no, Frigid, the Singularity is not all about everyone uploading into the Matrix. But hell, it may happen for all I know. That's part of the Singularity in essence. The advancement of technology or the ability to advance technology at a rate where it would become unpredictable as to what we could do. If we had the ability to use nanotech to fix a broken spinal cord and let someone walk again or create a functioning eye or arm or leg that is as good or better than the original flesh and bone and directly controlled by the brain like the original would have been, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility to think we could map the brain to a degree that would allow someone to create some form of digital copy of themselves. But that's not the end all be all goal for it as far as I and most are concerned. Of course, that being said, if someone tells me they can hardwire a jack into my brain to let me directly interface with technology, I'd be the first to sign up.

But don't listen to all the Kool-Aid drinkers of the Singularity. It won't be a great rapture where we're all suddenly given immortal form and unlimited access to the entirety of all knowledge in the universe. We won't overnight become The Culture or all start running around with guns in our eyes and razor wire in our fingers. But one day it's quite possible we'll have people programming apps for nanites in our bodies the same way we program apps for our cellphones. One day we just may be able to give sight to the blind, let the crippled walk and cure the faulty wiring in the brain that leads to all sorts of bad things thanks to some genius computer being able to properly analyze and map the human body at a level we never could.

*shrugs* But this is just my view of it and as with a lot of religious and quasi-religious things not everyone looks at it in the same way. Me, I look forward to it and do believe it will come. It may not come in my lifetime, but our rate of advancement now shows we're going in that direction.

[frigidmagi]

I didn't say anything about the Matrix, I said from what I understand, we all become AI's/Cyborg/Whateveryoucallit. No Matrix needed. Hell simple database implants would make us fairly close to AI in that most of our intelligence would be artificially produced at that point.

[Dark Silver]

I rarely recall my dreams - though this is a relatively recent phenomenon. I used to be able to recall my dreams rather vividly when I was younger..up until about...3 or 4 years ago...

I mark it that either my dreams are just become that dull (and by extension, I've become that full), or that I've slipped into a different variation of R.E.M. sleep than I used to enter before...

Or that my mind is slowly going...

[Soontir948]

Topic: Borrowing DVDs from the library.

I should have taken it as a warning when the DVD cases were fucked up so bad, that the DVDs themselves would be as well. Stupid unplayable movies.

[Hadrianvs]

Relating to earlier discussion. If we go by geological time scales we are already in a technological singularity, and have been since the end of the Dark Ages. To the Earth a millenium is but the blink of an eye.

[Soontir948]

I have in front of me a can of sliced peaches. It is labeled with "No Sugar Added" to the syrup but at the bottom it is also branded "Sweetened with Splenda". Uh, what? And yuck!

If they hadn't bothered with the Splenda it probably would have tasted fine. Instead, there's this aftertaste to it.

[Soontir948]

The disconnect of some people is just astonishing. I read a comment this morning for an article on tax cuts which still has me livid. Paraphrasing it went something like this: "Why should the rich be taxed any more than the poor? The poor needs to pay taxes!"



Seriously? They're fucking POOR!
:gibblets:
________________________
Edit: Now for a random thought that just popped up.

It's ironic how the prison guard played by Clancy Brown in Shawshank Redemption complains about an inheritance or winnings (whatever it was) being taxed by the government when he is being paid by said government to work for them.

[Soontir948]

For some reason I am remunerating past arguments about changes to things like policies/mindsets/procedures. The gist is, I find it sometimes when an argument for improvements to something come up, there are people who trot out how it can't be done because of the current model's inefficiencies.

...But it's those inefficiencies that the changes are suppose to address.

One example was the TSA and its current security practice. I thought Israel has a good security model for their airports and that we should adopt it. (By the way, if someone can actually tell me why USA can't scale it up, please let me know the reasons other than, it just is.) A reply I received basically said, the TSA are currently ill-trained and the hiring process is messed up. Well, wouldn't the change in the security model require better/new hiring and training regimes along with it?

[Mayabird]

Does this happen to anyone else?

There are times when I need to stuff a bunch of envelopes, or put rubber bands on a bunch of things, you know the type of work. For those things I just grab a handful of paper clips or wad of plastic baggies or stack of fliers or whatever it is that's needed. And very often when I do I end up grabbing the exact number I need.

This has gone on for years. I'd like to be able to say, "well, I'm just so familiar with the thickness of the papers/size of the packets/whatever that I can kinda guess how many there are and do that automatically." Except no, this will happen for completely new items and for things that vary greatly in size. Sometimes I do this multiple times per day. And those times that I am off? It's actually rare that I am close but not quite there, like I have one extra or need to get two more. I'm either way off or on the dot. That's why I feel like I just can't attribute this to selective bias.

[Destructionator XV]

I'm sometimes on, but more often just a little off based on guessing size.

Interestingly, for something very small, I tend to be WAY off. For example, a few days ago I wanted to grab 20 ball bearings, but actually grabbed well over 100! It just didn't seem big enough to be 20,,,

But bigger things like paper clips are fairly easy to grab. Still, I'm rarely on the dot.

[Mayabird]

The thing is, it's never when I'm intentionally trying to do it. I've tested it multiple times, trying to guess the exact amount to pull, and I'm always wrong. Usually I'm off by a significant degree. If I'm not paying any attention, though, I'll sometimes do this. It's always by accident.

[Soontir948]

Somehow this escaped me since November so it's not really enlightening but I do like the fact that if there are any legislation in the house that needs a 2/3 majority, Democrats can still stop it if needed. 2/3 majority makes 290 out of 435 members needed to vote yea but there are only 242 Republicans.

[LadyTevar]

I go lie down because I felt like I was tired. Cuddling with a sleeping Martin, I can't keep my eyes shut, nor will my brain shut down.

I get up, and I wash the dishes as my brain was shouting they'd not been done in a week, and I made mac-n-cheese-n-weiners because my brain said I should make some.


Now, the dishes done, the food devoured faster than I thought I could eat because I didn't really think I was hungry, and I'm AWAKE