ksmiley

Here's a criticism of the Singularity I've seen a couple times that originates from the web comic, Pictures For Sad Children.

"There's a special kind of nerd though who thinks computers will overtake mankind in thirty years, changing humanity in ways incomprehensible to us now. Ignoring the third of the world without electricity. So the singularity is the nerd way of saying, "in the future, being rich and white will be even more awesome". It's flying car bullshit: surely the world will conform to our speculative fiction. Surely we're the ones who will get to live in the future. It gives spiritual significance to technology developed primarily for entertainment or warfare, and gives nerds something to obsess over that isn't the crushing vacuousness of their lives."

Although in my mind that's more of a criticism of the adulation of the Singularity by its adherents than of the actual Singularity itself.

That explains it. I was confused when I read "Destruction of the Ring" a third of the way through, and "Fellowship begins Quest" at the very end.

I wonder whether the developers _could_ have put them in chronological order, ex. 12/13/3019 appearing before 03/18/3021; or if the format requires the ordering it has now.

How much you need to reduce costs, in order to double your profit, is dependent upon your current costs and revenue. So you don't necessarily need to eliminate all costs to double profit.

Suppose you purchase widgets from a manufacturer for 100$ and sell them for 101$. In that case, 101$(revenue per widget) - 100$(cost per widget) = 1$(profit per widget). Suppose you then change manufacturers and reduce your cost per widget to 99$. You now make 2$ profit per widget. By reducing costs by 1%, you doubled your profits. Much easier than doubling your sales.

Nice insight on the sales approach. Is there any particular reason that this technique doesn't work outside of Japan? American construction companies might not care about a wreath, but surely drinking and promises of additional profits would be universally effective.

The simplest possible "mechanical cell" would be a self-contained machine that can reproduce itself given only raw materials and energy. This could theoretically take place on the molecular scale; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_goo.

I agree that both of the statements you gave are not productive. "Interstellar travel isn't possible" rejects all theories past and future without considering their individual merits, which is awfully arrogant. "We have enough problems down here on Earth" is short-sighted, in terms of a geological timescale. In a billion years, our most pressing problem on Earth will be that the expanding Sun will kill all terrestrial life. Hopefully some forward-thinking individuals will have worked out space travel by then.

I only read the abstract, but I don't think the article is nearly as prohibitive as your statements. It says that diverting the radioactive hydrogen is a "daunting problem" i.e. hard but not impossible. Even if Near-C space travel _is_ invariably fatal, that's not so broad as "interstellar travel isn't possible". There's still wormholes and hyperspace and whatever exotic ideas we might come up with in the future.

Perhaps they performed spectroscopy on the star, found a lot of carbon, and reasoned that the star's planet would also be carbon-heavy.

Social - adj. 1. Of or relating to society. 2. (internet) Relating to social media or social networks.

Hack - noun. 1. Use of a resource for something other than its intended purpose. 2. An appropriate application of ingenuity.

Social hack - noun. 1. A hack whose underlying resource or intended purpose is social in nature.

The parent poster's hack is doubly social. First, the underlying medium is a social network. Second, the purpose is to reveal hidden information during socializing.

I didn't read the article, but I imagine the parent poster's logic is like this: if your Paypal account is suspended, you must have done something to violate the terms of service. If you violate the terms of service, you must be a hacker. If you are a hacker, you are at risk for federal criminal charges. Therefore, if your Paypal account is suspended, you are at risk for federal criminal charges.

You can eliminate some of the uncertainty by googling the product name and see if there are any complaints of the "Everyone has seen this issue" variety. Of course, even a product with 100% consumer satisfaction can have "No one has ever seen this before" issues.

Can you elaborate on which societal norms you feel have changed for the worse? And can you explain your criteria for eras of societal decline?

Aside: speaking metaphorically for the moment, you could characterize the early history of the United States as: young upstarts (puritans) disagree with the social norms of their forebears (the Church of England), run away from home (colonization of America), and misbehave often in violent ways (the American Revolution). The English may have regarded that time period as a societal decline, even as Franklin was writing his 13 virtues!

Couldn't it be that history books give a sanitized view of society, and gloss over relatively minor issues such as disobedient youths? The books might say, "young people were expected to be x, y, and z", and tactfully omit, "but they were frequently a, b, and c despite our best efforts". As an alternative viewpoint, look at works of fiction from the time, which are willing to be more gritty. For example, Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were disobedient in spite of societal pressure. (disclaimer: I have not read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, But I did see a retelling of it on "The Simpsons" ten years ago)

Also, the following is commonly attributed to Socrates: "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise". If this is to be believed, rude kids with attitude have been a constant for at least the last 2400 years.

I can't replicate it, but I encountered a weird bug. I entered "Star Trek" and hit Enter. The suggested items list appeared and I clicked on "Star Trek". Page titles appeared as normal, but everything appeared twice, like so:

  Star Trek
  Star Trek
  Cinema of the United States
  Film
  Cinema of the United States
  Recording
  Data
  Level of measurement
  Film
  ...etc until the last page title, "Reality"

Seems like two processes were running in parallel and outputting to the same stream.

Pardon my ignorance, but why wouldn't this work?

Suppose you were red-green colorblind, and there was an apple tree with green "Granny Smith" apples outside your window. You can't tell if the leaves on the tree are red or green, but using common sense, you guess that they are green, and color them with the green pencil. You can't tell if the apples are red or green, but using common sense, you guess that they are red, and color them with the red pencil. "Ah ha", says your friend, "you colored the apples with red when they are actually green. You must be red-green colorblind"