You don't need a definition of intelligence to build a 1:1 model of a brain and then study it. Defining intelligence belongs in the domain of philosophers.

And I suspect that going through the process of doing this will shed more light on what "intelligence" actually is (if it is just one thing) than a bunch of people sitting around lobbing contractidictory definitions at each other.

plants "breath" co2 so I dont see how more co2 will harm plants.

Well, you breath oxygen, so breathing 100% pure oxygen is no problem, right? Well, actually, it is a problem if you breathe it for any prolonged period of time. Read up on hyperoxia.

It just doesn't follow that because plants need CO2 that more CO2 is better for plants... or at least the plants you want growing.

Well, you know... you meet a girl on OKCupid and invite her to dinner. You're running late because you're cycling home from the grocery store and got a flat tire, so you try serving her one of the near-to-expiration MREs (you know, you need to cycle them, first-in, first-out) and the next thing you know, she gets this phone call and it's some kind of emergency... her aunt fell down a well, and she has to leave before she's even eaten. I try to call later to see what's happened but the phone's disconnected. I figure she must have dropped her phone into the well and it got ruined so she canceled the account.

So you know, it's cool... I get to eat two MREs and get both the Tootsie Rolls AND the M&Ms. I just wish someone would cover all those wells these's girls' aunts keep falling into. It's a real safety hazzard out there!

You're right... I'm lucky that I live in a city that is, at least by American standards, bike-friendly. And the weather in winter is rainy but doesn't often get below freezing. I did my first through-the-winter bike-commuting this year and it was kind of fun, even if it was cold and wet.

But indeed most US cities seem to be made by the cars, and for the cars, and there are some drivers who have an irational rage about cyclists.

I'm sure it benefits the store to provide me whatever is oldest and/or least desired.

Well, that's only true if they don't want to keep their customers. Why would anyone keep getting delivery of produce and meats if they got lower-quality that way? It's like with game theory... optimal game playing different when you play one round vs many rounds.

I had food delivered one summer and I don't recall ever getting anything I thought was sub-standard.

I use 2 panniers on my bike (on a rack) and top out at 60 pounds of groceries. But I was breaking spokes until I had new heavier duty wheels built (though I'm a heavy guy at 275 pounds). It also makes the bike a bit squirrely. It can be done, though, and it's not too bad.

But works better is to just make a couple of trips and not carry as much. I just planned my grocery trips around other trips I was making.

I've been bike-commuting for a year now but I still drive. However last August I loaned my car to a friend and was strictly bike. It's intersting... I was much calmer. I find that driving, even short distances, gets me worked up having to deal with other drivers. Even though I'm biking in traffic, it's a completely different experience and not nearly as stress-inducing.

It actually is fun riding my bike around, even to get groceries. I use panniers and I typically get a weeks worth in that. Maybe I need two trips... and I do it coming home from work, so it's not that big of a deal.

But do you even think about what you're saying with the CO2? As a cyclist, sure, I emit some CO2, but it was from food I ate that probably took CO2 from the atmosphere within the last year - it's a short cycle and when factored over a year, nearly nets out. When I drive, my car is taking CO2 that was taken from the atmosphere millions of years and puts it back in the atmosphere.

And further on efficiency, if your huge fridge is stuffed with a months worth of food, then it's burning a lot more energy to keep it all cold. With a week's worth, one can have a smaller and more efficient fridge.

And inefficient lifestyle? Well, sure I spend a little more time bike-commuting. But I'm healthier for it by far. After a year of this, my blood pressure is down, my cholesterol is down, and my resting pulse rate is about 10 bpm slower. This is way better for me than spending money and extra going to the gym to try and be healthy. Plus, traffic is much less stressful and I'm generally more awake and more energized during the day - and I spend much less time trying to find parking at work since I ride right to my office door.

And you know, I can bike-commute and still keep food stores for emergencies. I'm not too worried about a blizzard... my house has a wood fireplace and I have a couple cases of MREs and a week's worth of dried foods, and several gallons of stored water.

Really, being a cyclist and bike-commuter is not nearly as bleak as you make it out to be.

That sounds like a much bigger problem with American drivers than with cyclists.

What kind of person feels obligated to harass someone else because they don't agree with the way they choose to get around or live their lives?

It really comes down to how our communities are designed. The US has worked really hard to build communities that are difficult to live your life without a car. As an example, the nearest grocery to me is 4 miles away, the nearest clothes cleaner is 2 miles in the other direction. The nearest gas station, however is only .75 miles.

As a contrast, I spent a couple months in a smaller town in Holland. I walked to work (2 miles) and all the grocery stores (and other stores too) were on the way and a short work from my hotel. I generally stopped every few days to pick up whatever I needed (note, the fridge was small... like dorm fridges in the US, as were fridges as friends' houses). If I'd had a bike it would have been an even easier time. But they just set things up in their communities so that it's easier to do day-by-day shopping and harder to buy an SUV full of perishiables to fill a giant fridge.

I now bike-commute here back in the US, and while it's definitely not as convenient as driving but it's been good for my health and I find I buy a lot less stuff that ends up being thrown out anyway.

Sure, I missed having grocery stores open at 3:00am, but if I'm given the chance, I'd definitely go back for a longer stint. It's a more relaxing lifestyle, even while I still worked hard.

Except that what they charge for the phone is not close to what it actually costs. I can go straight to Google and get a Nexus 4 for $299. T-Mobiles, "full price at checkout" is $408.

Slashdot is bad when it comes to acronyms and assuming everone speaks the same language (figuratively and literally).

In this case, EMT is Emergency Medical Technician. They're often the people who arrive in ambulances. The old US TV show, Emergency! is centered around EMTs, about the same time that EMTs first started to exist in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_medical_technician

It's not that touch-screens are inefficient, because for many uses, they're fine. Look at microwave ovens. We've had them for what, about 30 years now, and nearly all of them are controlled by what amounts to a touch-screen (using a liberal definition).

For doing what many people use "computers" for, a touch-screen is fine... browsing the web, watching videos, typing short messages... essentially consuming media. When you're on a train or bus and want to consume your media and send some text messages, or even write brief emails, the touch-screen is pretty nice because you can hold it one hand and "type" with the other. Using a laptop in these situtuations is not ideal, especially if you have to stand.

Now for doing actual "work" you typically do need a decent physical keyboard. I have Octave on my Nexus 7, but that's more of a neato-thing... I don't like using it for real analysis. And things like TeX and any programming, where you're always using non "writing" characters, it's a pain to use a touch-keyboard (though, if you're on Andriod, I recommend "Hacker's Keyboard"). And it is lame to sit in a meeting and watch someone clumsily type an email or notes on their i-pad.

However, I am seeing decent end-user professional uses of tablets. They don't have to process GBs of data if you've set up the right back-end setups. There are nice visualization tools that work on a tablet and connect to backend systems where the processing is done. And in our case, the data is in TBs and PBs, so even powerful desktop systems aren't sufficient for analyzing and visualizing the data. In this use, the tablets are like terminals or x-terminals... they provide a window and access to the major system that's actually doing all the work and processing.

In my home, my Nexus tablet is one of my most physically used computers. But I also have a couple headless computers where I do "real processing", etc., and for my "real work", I have a nice decent laptop (i7) plugged into a 27" monitor and with a real keyboard.

It's really just a matter of the right tools for the job. For browsing the web, reading books, flipping through PowerPoint slides, monitoring emails, watching videos, and listening to audiobooks (actually my biggest use of my tablet), a tablet is a pretty good device for the job.

And for a lot of people a tablet is all they need. But obviously, for people like you and me, it's not the prime tool we need for our work.

Nowadays everybody, i mean EVERYBODY has a pc, even the village idiot and 98 year old grandmas. All they do is check facebook, google maps, and send some email.

What a lot of these people have is a new smart phone or tablet. You no longer need a PC to do most of things that average people use a computer for.

A good example is one of my good friends - we both bought the same model of laptop 6 years ago. For me, it's now one of 5 computers I regularly use at my house. But with her, she asked me a year ago if there was anything I could do to make her computer run faster. Then she got an android phone with a 4" screen and now she never turns that computer on anymore. The smart phone does pretty much everything she needs to use a computer for.

For most people, the whole idea of having to go a specific location in your house to do "computing" is archaic. That's probably the main reason PC sales are down... but Windows 8 doesn't help.

"The Information" by James Gleick has a chapter that talks about Wikipedia, including some of its history. The book itself is actually quite good.

I don't know what to say about Jimmy Wales being qualified to start Wikipedia except that sometimes what's needed to lead such an effort isn't necessarily a specific expertise, but rather charisma and the ability to influence others... and a vision. He doesn't need to be an expert in thermodynamics - he just has to be influential enough to get people who are to contribute to his project.

The vast majority of papers suffer from a weakness I call, "lack of robustness."

That sounds something like what Richard Feynman called "Cargo Cult Science". Researchers go through the motions and make sure to include p-values and other statistics to make it look like they've done real science. They might even think they have.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult_science