You mean, like Slashdot?

Like, automatically refreshing every x minutes, jumping the page even while I'm in the middle of reading it?

Or refusing to let us link to a specific comment? (Pick any comment and try to come up with a link you can send to someone.)

Or like adding new styles and layouts that, at each iteration, reduce the information a visitor sees per page? (Reading Slashdot through an ever-dwindling portal - sort of like reading a newspaper through a straw.)

I'd mention "friends, foes, freaks, and journals, but there may be a compelling need to "unfriend" someone. I wonder how many millions of Skashdot accounts there are, and the number who actually write in their journals. You can't delete your account, because theres no need to (of course!).

Useability experts exist for a reason. Software experts don't seem to realize that other experts exist and that good systems have multiple facets of "good". Instead, it's "good software is all you need, and the more features the better."

(Tooltip: "Documentation is boring! I'll just pit up a wiki and let the users fill in pages for me.")

Jeff Hawkins pointed out that the game "twenty questions" is popular and significant. In twenty yes/no questions you can identify one million objects or concepts (2^20 = 1024*1024).

He conjectured that the reason the game isn't "twenty five questions" or any other number is that the data capacity of the human brain is about this much. By the anthropic principle, we use twenty questions because a game with any other number would be too easy or hard.

(Perhaps the game is interesting because our brains hold 2 million concepts, giving the game a 50% chance of success. While arguable, this is still predicts a range of "about a million" concepts for the fully loaded brain.)

This number (and the conjecture) has stuck with me. The idea that you can build a culturally literate mind - with the ability to understand a political speech, read a newspaper article, apply for a job - would take an understanding of only about a million concepts.

First of all, no one knows how neurons are linked together in the brain(*).

Second of all, as far as anyone can tell, the cerebral cortex is a repeated pattern of small structures ("Cortical Columns") which are, again - as far as anyone can tell, wired identically.

There's some variation: The afferent and efferent layers have thicker neuronal sections which correspond to "amplifiers" needed to send and receive signals to the rest of the body, the pre-frontal cortex is an endpoint layer, and there's lots of organelles with connections from place to place...

But so far as anyone can tell, the seat of intelligence (cerebral cortex) is just a repeating pattern of sub-processors, functioning in a way that we haven't been able to yet fully understand.

(*) To the level of detail needed to link simulated neurons together as a program.

I hope he wins. Having an independent source of income will remove a lot of stress from his life.

Prof. Farnsworth: "... that may well win me the Nobel Prize!"
Leela: "In what field?"
Prof. Farnsworth"I don't care! They all pay the same!"

"First secure an independent income, then practice virtue."

      -- Old Greek Proverb

Someone said "hey, what happens when I push this button"?

You are confusing features with capabilities. The problem with features is mostly about complexity and interface.

A non-smart phone had many features, but was complex to use. You had to memorize which keys enabled which feature, and the unit was stuffed with things that the programmers felt were easy-to-program such as a calculator, timer, and texting.

In contrast, an iPhone has two or three orders of magnitude *more* features than a typical non-smart phone, but presents these with a much-simplified interface. For example, Icons are visually mnemonic to their function, and navigating the virtual display space (paging through lists of applications) is intuitive.

That the new hardware has better capabilities than Google glass means that people have an incentive to purchase the new hardware. It says nothing about the feature-set or complexity of the unit.

Oh, the data!

Here's the roll-call vote for the Patriot act.

tl;dr: Democrats: 145 yea, 62 Nay (with 4 abstentions).

I've been thinking of changing my party affiliation recently (and no, not making this up).

Which party do you recommend? I'd like to see if your party votes in the interests of the republic. Do you know any accomplishments that you think are noteworthy? Excluding health care, since everyone already knows about that.

Even attempted accomplishments would be a good indicator of intent, even if they came to naught. I want to throw my weight and online debating skills behind an organization I can believe in.

Who can you recommend?