nova

18 ms·

121.
by nova 14y ago
Funny, because Hal didn't had a bug. It did what it did interpreting the orders that humans gave it. Just unintended consequences. Which is kinda the point about AI safety. We don't really know what we want, we sure as hell don't know how t
122.
by nova 14y ago
And that's exactly the reason why intellectual "property" is actually the opposite of real property. It's a restriction on the ways you can use your things, a limitation of your freedoms. Every patent granted, one more thing you can't do e
123.
by nova 14y ago
> And yet here is Sweden implementing this practice, recognized in Europe as torture, for someone accused of copyright infringement. Certainly not a violent crime. Just think of all the money, power and influence behind intellectual pro
124.
by nova 14y ago
Intellectual property is the Inquisition of our times. Hopefully things will turn for the better and people of the future will see our outlawing of non-commercial sharing of data as one of those stupid things the troglodytes of the 21th cen
125.
by nova 14y ago
That's truly horrible. I'm glad that our civilized governments would avoid such blatant sexism and instead mandate electronic tracking for all citizens, irrespective of gender. For our protection.
126.
by nova 14y ago
Any rational number can be represented as a fraction p/q, where p and q are integers with no common factors (reduced fraction). If that fraction is representable as an exact "decimal" number in base b that means that p/q = m/b^n = m * b^(-n
127.
by nova 14y ago
Pharma and medical devices should be directly funded by the State (just the research part I mean), just as we do with military research. And the cost could be shared among the developed countries. And we could direct research towards causes
128.
by nova 14y ago
So, in really complex and advanced stuff, patents aren't worth it and companies revert to trade secrets and the take-the-secret-to-the-tomb approach, the very same thing the existence of patents is intended to avoid. And in more accessible
129.
by nova 14y ago
The world would be better with NO patents. Copyright is more than enough for software, medical research should be directly funded by the goverments (just like weapons manufacturers or big public infrastructures), and the rest just on trade
130.
by nova 14y ago
This sounds like Robert Rosen's work.
131.
by nova 14y ago
htt://www.lesswrong.com (it was better a few years ago)
132.
by nova 14y ago
undefined on an AVR or other microcontroller where sizeof(int) == sizeof(char) though. Just noting that ints are 16 bits wide in AVR-GCC, unless you use the -mint8 option which violates C standards.
133.
by nova 14y ago
Someday History will look upon us, destroying one man's life because he shared a bunch of stupid songs and will judge intellectual "property" as one of the most awful, destructive and evil bad ideas of humankind.
134.
by nova 14y ago
I only object to the privileging of "your" consciousnes. I don't know how to express it. Yes, of course when the copy is made each person-thread evolves on its own. My point is that you can't distinguish one being "the original" and the oth
135.
by nova 14y ago
I like the approach of "Practical UML Statecharts in C/C++", at least the simple one. More or less, keep the state on a function pointer, each state is represented by a function which gets incoming messages or events and returns the next st
136.
by nova 14y ago
The sensation of identity is part of your memories and goes with them when copied.
137.
by nova 14y ago
Consciousness means different things. If by consciousness you mean introspection or self-modeling or something like that then consciousness is definitely real. But it's just a property that some minds have, and that someday will probably be
138.
by nova 14y ago
Words fail me. Imagine I have a magical device with which I can "stop time", or more precisely, stop movement of all particles except mine. In the beginning I am at our right. I stop time, move leisurely to your left and resume time. What y
139.
by nova 14y ago
There is a lot of the classical discussion on personal identity here. The argument about a copy being "identical to me but it's not me" is a very natural and intuitive reaction, but it's probably wrong. A very illuminating explanation is h
140.
by nova 15y ago
We can argue all we want about whether copyright is good or not, but that is the wrong question. The right question is if (enforced) copyright is compatible with the existence of a free internet. IMHO, it is not. Current copyright law means
141.
by nova 15y ago
I like my high school math consistent with set theory. ø : empty set, 1 : {ø}, A : nonempty set, ~= : isomorph to. A^ø ~= 1, because there is only one function ø->A, the empty function. ø^A ~= ø, because there is no function with empty
142.
by nova 15y ago
but that now is far too early to start freezing people. Why, do you think there's something to lose? Our best shot at preserving the pattern of information that makes your identity as a person, or just rotting/reduced to ashes.
143.
by nova 15y ago
Let me humbly suggest this video: http://vimeo.com/17513355
144.
by nova 16y ago
Nice. Linear interpolation of C functions.
145.
by nova 16y ago
why not do exercise that makes you sweat for 20 or 30 minutes 5 days a week? Mainly because getting fat is not the only thing that happens to us when we eat thing we didn't evolve to eat.
146.
by nova 16y ago
Cane sugar is 50% fructose too. It's not much better than HFCS. Probably, the worst thing about HFCS is its cheapness, so they put it on everything.
147.
by nova 16y ago
"Good Calorie, Bad Calories" was a pivotal book for me. It freed me up. Me too. Probably the most important book I've read in my life. I lost the 12 kg I didn't need and I only regret I don't have a time machine to tell my younger self to
148.
by nova 16y ago
You need to be off grains. Permanently. Forever So what. We didn't start eating them until a few thousands years ago. The only reason to eat grains is that they are cheap. Better to save on other things. No milk forever Why? The previou
149.
by nova 16y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information-theoretic_death
150.
by nova 16y ago
Alimony too.

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