Hm. both of these sound like America actually. Brainwashing the populace with biased media, and threatening the populace with the idea of terrorism in order to stay in war (and then extract money).

Except it would make sense for us to "destroy" ours before we enforce our own hypocritical policies.

If it was simply something we "did" in the past, then it's one thing, but our foreign policy requires us to basically tell everyone else what to do because somehow we're better then them.

i c what you did thar.

Instead of responding to the positive things I said about google and negative things I said about microsoft, which clearly stated why I appreciate google over microsoft, you decided to call me ignorant.

I respect your urge to change the culture of slashdot, and encourage people to become more open minded, but insulting them is a terrible way to do it. If you decide to actually respond to what I said, I'd welcome that. As it is all I can do is shake my head and wonder what you're doing here.

Honestly, I think that my post wasn't so much "google fanboism" as much as "good software fanboism" Which I'm not embarrassed to be a part of. Any company (even if it's microsoft) that promotes good software, I'm willing to "be a part of" where "being a part of" simply means participating in their products.

When Microsoft makes a product, and prices it low enough or hands it out for free, then I'll buy it. As it stands, they won't. Everything they either price too high (Office) or don't put enough work into it (Vista). So I won't back Microsoft.

• is reasonably priced
• is clean
• is easy to use
• has a good interface
• is fast
• doesn't crash constantly

And this is amplified by Google's stance on Open Source (in comparison to Microsoft), which as you can imagine is a reasonably persuasive stance in this crowd.

The only good argument I've heard against google is people being worried about all their data being off site: ie, it's available to someone else, and possibly unavailable to you.

In summary: Have you even used Google Chrome? It's amazing!

Except, wouldn't you agree that the same thing could be done by simply maneuvering a robotic arm to drop someone down a large shaft?

In order for a computer to decide that humanity is worth killing, and for it to go out of it's way to kill us it would have to be programmed that way, or very complicated.

Failed Physicist did point out though, that if we basically simulate the whole brain, then we may "create" malicious intent accidentally. So I'd buy that.

See, what people fail to see is this requires not only Strong AI but also a programmed Malicious intent.

People keep assuming that if we build a robot that can emulate some of our thought, it will emulate our motives also

Since we program it, it will only emulate the motives we give it. Emulating motives that are abstract enough to eventually lead back to our demise are quite complex

so because they are intolerant that gives everyone else the right to be intolerant too?

I'm not arguing their worth as much as pointing out hypocrisy.

And I have no problem with that. But I do have a problem with you shoving it down my throat, as most people here want to do.

Just as you have a problem with me swearing you'll go to hell if you don't join me.

Yeah, everyone here, it seems, really has something against being accepting people's differences.

Maybe that's where the whole idea of beating people's operating systems over each other comes in...

I guess they have every right to feel this way with all the world problems directly connected to Religions.

Honestly it's my opinion that it's not a connection between religion and terrorism, it's a connection between education and terrorism.
And before you say: "But there's a connection between religion and education" I think it's inappropriate to call all "religious nut-jobs" uneducated. While I may be a "religious nut-job" I feel like I've chosen my religion not because I don't know any better, but because I believe.

Let me be the first in this group to quote Shepard Book:

"I don't care what you believe in, just believe in it."

Is "tolerance" so hard? You must be taking a lesson from those fundamentalists that like to beat you over the head with their book. I guess beating them back makes you feel better.

In Electronics, I was greatly inspired when I created an autonomous Remote Control car.
It was mostly fun because it went really fast.
I'm sure that Electronics projects require more then just simple training, but destruction isn't the only fun project.

In general, with the projects suggested so far I could see them not quite fiting what PShardlow is looking for:

things that are relevant to today's physics problems but could feasibly be completed by a pair of first-year undergraduates in 72 man hours.

The easy solution for interesting is always Classical Physics, but for something more "relevant" lasers might be fun...
The main thing that turned me away from projects were the long write ups, the sitting and waiting for data, experiments that take longer to set up then run. It might just be me, but I feel like if you avoid these, and let them choose a topic, then they might enjoy it more.