know our purpose in life? Not many I would say. But we don't end up playing video games for the rest of our lives (well, not all of us do). If we don't know our purpose well enough how do we expect to give someone/something else a purpose?

I would like to know what Brahmagupta would have to say about that!

I am not comparing the joke, I am comparing a common rhetoric technique. That of including oneself in the genre on which the joke is made, so as to make the joke less offensive to that genre (and others).

This is like making a racist joke and then saying "Relax, I am of the same race..." and expecting that being of the same genre that you mocked makes it okay. Its amazing how that works.

well said sir!

Mod parent up.

I feel it mentally too but I also feel it physically. For example, when you are driving up or down the winding track of a parking garage and you are not paying your full attention, or you are too fast, you feel a certain vibration in your nerves, in your hands or legs. It's something signalling to you that you are on the wrong. I feel that even when I am driving a bit too fast, or even when I am about to take a rash action (maybe make a phone call that I shouldn't be making for example) but its a very subtle vibration and I think you need some amount of sensitivity and habit to sense it. Obviously it can be very helpful and at times avoid calamities.

It's business sonny, not personal. Kinda missed the point there didntya?

I had an Windows XP Professional and Ubuntu Desktop (dual boot) on my Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop and the hard disk started making funny sounds. Eventually it crashed.
Since the machine was old, I thought this could be normal wear and tear. I bought a second hard disk and reinstalled Ubuntu only this time (no windows). The second one started making the same sounds in about 15 days and crashed soon after.
I bought a new Thinkpad after that with Windows Vista. Then I dual boot installed Ubuntu (8.9 I think). The hard disk started making the same sound and then I started researching and learned that with the LAPTOP MODE Enabled on that particular Ubuntu release, the hard disk could crash due to excessive parking. I upgraded to the next Ubuntu release and turned off LAPTOP MODE (I think) and that fixed it.

Just to clarify, I am a Linux guy.

First I feel sorry for the parents who can't get their kids to get off the Internet and go outside.
Next, I have to say, these greedy bastards did it again. Another way to make money. Another way to get money out of those rich folks who can afford it.
Parents - put some time into your children, talk to them, get them into a traditional summer camp - that won't cost you a quarter of your child's college savings. Spend some more time with your children, invest time and emotions into them instead of wasting your dough.

Nice post. Science, logic can explain processes but not their underlying reason, w.r.t. your leaves on the road example. For example, we know that an atom has protons and neutrons and electrons that know how to revolve around the nucleus, but how did they come to be? There must be some very basic particle that comprises of everything else. Science may explain the process, the characteristics of this particle, but it hasn't yet been able to explain how they came to be. Same thing with gravitational force. Okay, it exists and Newton's law applies, but where and why did the Gravitational force come about? Same with electricity and all other processes.

The Creationists!

I agree. I personally love GAs although they leave you a bit wanting exactly because you don't know the exact nature of the solution that will turn up. That is it "feels" more like a brute force solution rather than something consciously predicted and programmed.

But surely there are nifty ways in which you can intelligently program GAs, customize your selection/rejection/scoring process based on the domain of the problem and hence contribute in the final solution.

To use the term "learned" for a consequence of evolution to what seems to me to be a Genetic Algorithm seems mis-leading. So the generation that emitted less of the blue light (hence giving less visual cues) was able to score higher, and hence the genetic algorithm favored that generation (that is what GAs do). Isn't this to be expected?