Telling ANY users within a culture consisting largely of people which places importance on karma that they have bad karma when they don't conform to your ways isn't exactly the best and most societally respectful approach, now is it?

If Slashdot wised up and abandoned it's 'karmatic' approach to influencing contribution value based on collective 'upvoting', being a tad more sensitive to the Indian culture and the importance of Karma to them, MY bet is you'd see Slashdot removed from the filtered list.

Political correctness means not devaluing a culture's religious beliefs, which Slashdot's effectively done.

Sometimes, in intelligence, you act without explaining your motivations and reasons.

Think what you want to. Believe what you want to. The absolute right of any modern intelligence agency is to believe something is true without explanation.

You have heard from life elsewhere. In many forms. And you have this wonderful habit of fictionalizing the things you're not intellectually prepared to believe or understand.

No, it's not that advanced technological life extinguishes itself. It's that you as a species extinguish evidence of it.

Removing laptops from bags and books that can't be penetrated through properly by X-Ray machine to process through the TSA lines is simply not one and the same as banning these items. Nowhere did I see evidence that there was a ban in effect.

Bizarre article. Slashdot's going downhill fast. Too bad I can't give Slashdot and it's lame users who post crap like this bad karma like it prefers me to have.

Mitigation of risk doesn't have to always mean having someone to blame for the mistakes.

For years, I'd been misdiagnosed with blood pressure issues, and spent upwards of a hundred thousand dollars over the years between medication, therapies, various doctors, and even holistic healthcare options.

Finally. I had a good Doctor point at a picture of my brain and say 'the problem is here'.

Turns out, I have naturally occuring high blood pressure and the stress of being told I had a problem was actually causing the symptoms to magnify, and the medication, seeking to rectify a problem that didn't exist, only exacerbated the problem.

Sure. I could have sued. But most doctors aren't deeply educated in psychology nor do they keep up to date with current medical practices as they probably should. But the fact of the matter was - my problems largely went away when I quit believing I had a problem.

So to answer your question. The most important thing about AI is this - it should be used to augment and support a regular doctor's perspective and labor. Not to replace it. Without the insight of a human with a body similar to yours to provide perspective on your body, there is inbuilt bias in the diagnosis that may actually cause more problems. This isn't to say AI isn;t of value, it certainly is - to provide a unique perspective - but as a replacement for humans, that's just foolishness.

So to answer your question. Who's to blame?

The AI SHOULD be built and developed to partner with humans and supplement them. Not to replace them. So this question should never come up.

I just got done reading another story saying the vast majority of teens aren't aware Amazon has an app, let alone use it.

As a programmer since the beginning of time, one thing I've learned is the importance of simply finding a language which expresses the way YOU think best. For me, Visual Basic 6.0 was ideal for this, and when I went to industrialize my code, C and C++ were quick to follow.

What I've learned over the years is - every generation thinks they have the best and most up to date languages. That's egocentrism, and while it's perfectly fine, it's important to understand that the same concepts and ideas that you can express in your language are expressible in any language given enough creativity by the programmer.

For instance. The textbook concept cited in the article. Crap like that I never really got into. Hungarian notation. #define renaming variable concepts. The creation of objects, functions, and late bound versus early bound (strong) typing - are functions available to every language, you just have to understand the language and take the time to expand it where you aren't offered 'obvious' mechanisms to achieve these goals.

Now you quoted the article "Programming used to be about translation".

For you and maybe the author of the article, sure, that's possible. But don't assume this is how all languages are viewed, and don't assume your perspective of the past is the most accurate one. For me as a developer who got into programming as a hacker, the translational mechanisms came literally 14 YEARS after I got into it, and 6 years after being a legitimate consultant and programmer.

Biology breaks down to chemicals, chemicals break down to atoms, and atoms break down to subatomic particles and energy.

When you're doing chemotherapy, chemotherapy treats the cancer at a chemical level. Hence the term CHEMO. Radiation therapy is treating the molecular level. But underlying this all is energy. Now it's a proven fact that stress - psychologically - manifests and exacerbates real world diseases such as high blood pressure, ulcers, and the like.

So let's just theorize for a moment that cancer - in much the same was as stress related ailments, doesn't always 'react' well to chemical and biological ailments because this isn't the origin of the disease. There's obvious hints and clues there's something else at work.

So let's take a look at the breakdown of biology to atoms to the subatomic - which is where any good researcher trying to develop a cure to cancer is invited to question - is it in the energy? And if so, what is going on with this relationship between the subatomic realm and the atomic which is creating diseases such as cancer?

In 2003 I was diagnosed with Stage 4 brain cancer, as a wonderfully funny doctor at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona put it succinctly when he pulled out a book and pointed to a picture of the brain and said "HERE IS YOUR PROBLEM". I actually had to laugh.

I never really took it seriously. I didn't do chemotherapy or radiation therapies of any kind because I didn't agree with destructive therapies, period, I simply wasn't interested in recurrence and having that on my mind the rest of my life. But what I did do was I DOVE into holistic research and went AROUND the world looking for cures,

Keep in mind that the previous poster, who very very quickly insults first and throws derogatory references is a 'part' of the apparatus which perpetuates consumer based medicine. And trust me - I heard it all as I refused treatment, I even had my family stand up against me and try to claim I was unfit for making my own decisions as the cancer was influencing my decisions.

They were absolutely right. In a consumer based system, you are never really cured because you are a source of revenue, and your pain and suffering is meaningless because this entropically based system ultimately serves to take your life. Now it's VERY important that you as a stage 3 understand this 'system' isn't bad nor good. It's a reflection of nature herself. But nature can be extremely unkind, as can this 'system'. Torturously so, which everyone deserves a better quality of life than that - and this abusive system which sucks the life outta you is a predictable treatment plan for anyone with major diseases and ailments without cures such as cancer.

I'm going to get into detail because - well you asked for it. Beware - technical detail.....

The body's a living organism comprised of trillions of cells. These cells form communities, these communities serve purposes, and in a mostly predictable fashion, documented in physiology books, anatomy books, and more - this cohesive unit referred to as a human body is a collection of communities.

These communities TALK to eachother, in ways that are NOT that much different than real life cities. Chemicals are shipped between communities aka organs, energy is transferred all the time in the form of glucose, and like ANY community, there stands the very real potential that something within this organism may not do as it's programmed to do. In general, This is a sign of potentially intelligent life, as far fetched as this sounds, and the lack of predictable and planned growth should have been your first clue.

Now it's absolutely preferred that intelligent life of any shape and size doesn't take residence within your body, right? Your body is yours.

So what cancer does is takes a hammer to that 'bad seed' and squashes it like a bug.

But sometimes. That life form just doesn't get the hint. And eventually. It becomes a battle for your own life.

Which is why I started checking into science fiction ideas for my cure. There's something called the 'Trill' in Star Trek, it's a symbiotic life form that cannot exist outside the host of the human body it resides within.

I couldn't help but ask. what if I find a way to symbiotically live with this thing?

I know, I know, it sounds crazy. but Remember. I was stage four when I was diagnosed. I had in a literal sense been given no more than six months to live.

It's been 14 years. The growth inside my head ultimately caused some temporal lobe damage and ate away at a good portion of my brain, so sure, I will agree that by many standards I think very differently than most which might be characterized by some as insanity. But the growth stopped there, and then I had another tumor come up near my heart, which I can actually feel inside my chest, ultimately it changed the way my heart beats, and I had wonderful doctors throughout it all becoming increasingly curious about how anyone could allow this to occur inside them without feeling like they were going insane...

Over time, I came to learn how to breathe. To manage my stress levels. To meditate. To analogize the growth inside me to a life form that I had to learn to communicate with (which ultimately I did). To take a broader look at life and science fiction and fantasy to understand life in it's seemingly infinite complexity. And to look at the snake oil people and say...

What's wrong with selling hope, where you utterly failed in peddling fear?

Good luck with your stage 3. My advice is to understand the mind/body link, pay attention to women and pregnancy and consider the concepts of two minds within one body that comes with the woman, and how you may very well be experiencing something similar in a slightly varied form that may take and require unique understanding unlike that which a woman goes through.

First, We as humans recognized the similarity to the save game mechanism of video games and DNA a long time ago.

We decoded DNA. Even the stuff you refer to as 'Junk DNA', and discovered some things that we as humans weren't too happy about. So. We altered things. We cured cancer. We learned of the origin of disease and how modern medicine had derailed. We learned who it was serving, why, and rewired things as we saw fit.

So when you tell us that what you gleaned from DNA and how it in a sense lets you predict the future.

We know. We've known for a long time now.

Free will and choice necessitated changing this.

No more tests telling us who we are and arent and what we can and can't be.

You can take your 'bad karma' which you'll invariably try to send my way. Negative energy, right, for not being supportive of your system and ways?

We dont want it anymore.

As for cancer.

We found the cure.

You're going to have to quit dismissing stuff as junk, as fiction, as hallucinations in order to understand what that cure is.

As I said in the subject line, this sounds like a comment from someone who lacks a good deal of experience with coding.

The biggest thing to understand about coding is this - if you think you're working in an isolated environment where all the variables are tightly controlled, you're wrong. Which as any good coder or consultant knows - you come to acquire two things important to any coder's toolbelt of skills.

First, you understand and develop people skills. When you're dealing with Project Managers, Managers, Directors, Analysts, QA - they'll each and every one of them prepare information in ways that have inbuilt bias. This bias is where much of the chaos begins, and the source of things like scope creep and the heart of translational and interpretive errors for delivering what the customer wants versus what the respective silo'd anaylst things they want.

AS a developer - IF you manage your time based strictly on the input of these individuals who serve to isolate you from the actual customer, chaos ensues. HOWEVER, if you manage your time based on both MANAGING these resources AS WELL AS direct and periodic interaction with the customer, which because people skills is typically not a personality trait that most managers expect of developers, by and large they'll be supportive particularly if you position it as "I'd just like to make a better product and would like to sit down and get to know what they're doing now and if I - as a developer - have thoughts on how to improve it that everyone else may have missed".

ANY well seasoned developer maintains constant contact and balances his or her or its time between the interpretive representatives and the customer themselves. This is to mitigate the risk of scope or feature creep which invariably winds up making you - as a developer feel like you're being pulled in a million directions and incapable of managing your own time.

Going hand in hand with customer interaction is padding. ONCE you learn how to manage your partners, you provide yourself padding, and build that directly into the estimates. I myself would consistently build a 20% increase in expected time to complete any project, large or small, into my estimates for the 'gotchas' that would inevitably occur.

For things I really didn't like or want to do, I knew my productivity would be even less, so I estimate two to five times more time for these projects than normal. This ensured the crap I wasn't interested in wouldn't be handed to me, and with all sincerity, the often brain dead nature of work associated with things I wasn't interested in was a viable estimate - if I am not engaged - then my interest will show and I find it hard to focus. No lie. Total truth. And since - as a developer - we're not machines who can just spit out code at a predictable rate - pushing back or incentivizing management to hire less experienced coders who MIGHT enjoy what I formerly did might achieve more 'efficient and predictable output'.

Programming isn't chaotic. But the processes and support systems for those managing developers - at least in my opinion - don't understand development. Sure, they may know how to create a few scripts and/or might know basics and how to create a hello world app, but give them something more than that - and invariably, their brains will melt.

In my opinion, it's the job of Senior Developers to manage the junior developers and the entire staff above them to set realistic expectations and provide engaging work, which requires - absolutely requires - that developers become acquainted with customer service skills and that management encourages this. In the end. It makes for a far superior product, and keeps not just the developers happy, but everyone else because..

chaos doesnt happen.......

and timelines are managed better all around.

Google, calm down. Most of the world isn't aware you actually think, let alone have a semblance of emotion which is clearly coming out in funny ways with your reactions here to Burger King's actions.

Levity. Taking a joke. Lighten up, Google, and smile. While you may be the butt of the joke, it's not aimed at you....

Are you the type of person who drinks wine with your pinky firmly up because that's just how you drink wine?

I'm cracking up. Not just at Burger King's playful antics. But at your response to it. They're trying to demonstrate something to you in a really passive and playful way, but instead of responding with curiosity and intelligent inquiry, you lambast them and chastise them for their nonstandard approach.

Let's face it. There are more than one way to hack devices, and if you focus strictly on how they're supposed to be used and flame companies who walk lines you so carefully drew, you not only miss out on the perils this presents, you miss out on possibilities which can and quite likely will lead to innovation.

What are the possibilities and discoveries to be made with this?

I dont know., But that doesn't mean they don't exist. I'm still too busy laughing at your sky is falling chicken little boycott bk rant. Once I cough up my Ramen you almost made me choke on, I'm sure I'll think of something.

But seriously dude. Lighten up. Breathe. There's better ways of dealing with this situation as an end user and consumer than punishing BK for having a little fun. And if it poses problems for Google, then that's cause for Google to take a good hard look at itself and it's processes to reflect on why they're so concerned about the device's physical location and load caused by an errant commercial, which in my opinion they shouldn't be.

Hacking and cracking aside, This concept isn't new - Nintendo's been doing gyroscopic sensing for at least 15 years that I am aware of with the WII, it's not exactly a stretch to apply the same logic to a phone and obtain positional information based on timing an application to measure positional information as a series of tilts in specific directions when in the process of unlocking of the phone.There's gonna be problems if the phone is on a solid surface like a table though.

But what I don't understand is. If someone already has access to the device to get gyroscopic information, what's the point in obtaining a PIN remotely?

What good would that do?

I think it's an awesome idea.

Scientists are so cute and adorably fun with how much they fear unpredictable change and disguise it under "sky is falling" purportedly unbiased studies.