" IIRC an IBM exec in the late 60s predicted selling a couple dozen units a year, with those numbers everything is gonna be conservative."

I think he said there was only a need for about six computers worldwide. Period. Didn't see any business in it, from what I recall reading. And it was much earlier than that, before the 360 project.

I agree with all these points. +1

The Senate would never do it but I thihnk it would be good for representative democracy for the House to do it.

At what point does one "know" it's rubbish? Saying "wibble wibbke wibble" to a baby will evoke a smile if said in the right tone of voice.

If I store purchase data away in files and then have a re-order routine/program that generates replenishment orders based on purchase history, that is no more "learning" than any of this neural network stuff capturing patterns and interpreting it.

I wrote a Double Deck Pinochle program back in 1981 that is hard coded logic, no "learning". There is as much or as little AI in it as anything else "AI".

When programming applied to human like operations is stopped being called "artificial intelligence" until there is indeed self generated change in behavior based on input beyond pre-determined algorithmic control, then there will be some honesty and integrity about the programming process now called AI, and possibly with honesty and integrity may come advances.

The self-generated change in behavior would require self-determined changes in programming and data that provides for actual non-preprogrammed behavior. This is obviously extremely difficult.

I have a substantial collection of books on AI and AI history and have a lot more to read but of what I've read a lot of AI programming efforts are done by people with limited time and effort. Very unimpressive stuff from the university crowd.

Implementation wasn't sloppy. Free form keywords and bulletproof compiler testing and error handling for other specs like D specs would be a huge undertaking. Not even remotely cost effective for anyone, IBM or customers.

Flammon wrote: "The question is, where does this programming come from and how is it stored in our DNA?"

Yes, that's my overriding question. I have to think it's stored in what we think is "junk" DNA (although there is plenty of inserted genetic material that has accumulated, I understand that.)

But still, where is the programming stored for all the innate behavior of organisms? The only thing that can can hold it while being passed on is DNA, and I can't believe that enabled genes in specific kinds of cells can direct that specific and consistent behavior.

The only mechanism that I can envision is when the deep parts of the brain are being wired that aspects of junk DNA are drawn upon to guide it to embed behavior. That's about as hand wavy as it gets, but that's what I suspect.

The cold virus and most other viruses are not dependent on a protein that boosts transcriptiuon of the virus like apparently HIV is.

Otherwise you would have a universal blockage of production of any virus.

Thanks for the info, reverseengineer. I am just a layman reader of textbooks on the subject. This sounds like protein(s) that are associated with some cancers that have a mutation for overtranscribing something that helps the cancer grow.

The retrovirus sounds a little more random than I thought would be done. Wouldn't some HIV have to incorporate the retrovirus into their own RNA to produce the modified protein which would then affect further transcription? What about all the HIV in the body that doesn't incorporate the retrovirus? (Question could also apply to cancers being treated with gene therapy.)

thanks for your insights.

TFS has a quote that refers to changing an AIDS virus protein. How is that accomplished?

Thanks for any insights.

In English, America is a synonym for USA. In other languages however, especially Spanish, "America" is the word you use when talking about South + Central + North America.

Interesting. USA residents do not have one word for that in English. We can only say North and South America. And the North America includes Central America in usage.

Oh wait, we have a word. Americas I believe.

Well, to be fair, after a short google expedition, America does seems to be an accepted name for the United States of America, but it is so ONLY in the United States of America. remember, in the Americas there are about 911 Million persons, including the 315(35%) Million currently in the USA

Are there citizens of any other country in North or South America that describe themselves as living in America?

well, buddy, I'm certainly no troll. Been around almost as long as you have and have a good posting history on technical issues.

The fact that you know how small Latvia is and didn't correlate what I told you about the incredible range of IP addresses that are used to attack from there, just one frickin example btw, chosen for precisely what you were able to glean from it, tells me I have to spell things out for people at a level that is disturbing.

Perhaps you can't understand what incredibly wide range of IP adddresses are for such a small place, don't understand that that was just one small example.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I assume someone with similar longevity to me here is not a technical dummy.

And now some people that don't anyone to see what I have to say about IPV6 are modding me troll. IPV6 people have some serious issues. In my opinion their behavior of modding down opinions against them should raise questions about their agenda. And perhaps my point is striking too close to home.

This post rated troll. I've been on slashdot for 13 years and have excellent karma. What we have here are IPV6 censors, not moderators.

My post:

As always, People who don't want anyone to see what I have to say about IPV6 mod my post down to hell. My wishes are that they go there too.

Post modded redundant and overrated (and there are no positive mods to be overrated)):

When IPV6 is what we have to work with, we will be swarmed by those bastard botnets with no way to block that many IP addresses that will be used to attack.

The IPV6 crowd pooh poohs this and says blocking IP addresses is not the answer. Well not for an established users, but for registration and spam posting it is the answer. Or was.

I will get off the internet before dealing with innumerable attack vectors from our botnet friends in Russia and China. The loss of my little sites will be no big loss. But everyone remaining will be inundated, and they won't be able to deal with it either.

Imo the botnet criminals have been trying to force the use of IPV6 by getting all new ranges of IPV4 allocated as soon as possible. Certainly that's what I've seen these last few years from logging spam attack IP addresses.

Rather than IPV6 globally and IPV4 internally, I think IPV6 should be what the countries that attack us, who just happen to have very large populations, can use for themselves. Do you have any idea how many IP address ranges we are attacked from in places like Latvia? Let them do their attacking with IPV6. Good riddance.

As always, People who don't want anyone to see what I haqve to say about IPV6 mod my post down to hell. My wishes are that they go there too.

Post modded redundant and overrated (and there is no poisitive mods to be overrated)):

When IPV6 is what we have to work with, we will be swarmed by those bastard botnets with no way to block that many IP addresses that will be used to attack.

The IPV6 crowd pooh poohs this and says blocking IP addresses is not the answer. Well not for an established users, but for registration and spam posting it is the answer. Or was.

I will get off the internet before dealing with innumerable attack vectors from our botnet friends in Russia and China. The loss of my little sites will be no big loss. But everyone remaining will be inundated, and they won't be able to deal with it either.

Imo the botnet criminals have been trying to force the use of IPV6 by getting all new ranges of IPV4 allocated as soon as possible. Certainly that's what I've seen these last few years from logging spam attack IP addresses.

Rather than IPV6 globally and IPV4 internally, I think IPV6 should be what the countries that attack us, who just happen to have very large populations, can use for themselves. Do you have any idea how many IP address ranges we are attacked from in places like Latvia? Let them do their attacking with IPV6. Good riddance.

When IPV6 is what we have to work with, we will be swarmed by those bastard botnets with no way to block that many IP addresses that will be used to attack.

The IPV6 crowd pooh poohs this and says blocking IP addresses is not the answer. Well not for an established users, but for registration and spam posting it is the answer. Or was.

I will get off the internet before dealing with innumerable attack vectors from our botnet friends in Russia and China. The loss of my little sites will be no big loss. But everyone remaining will be inundated, and they won't be able to deal with it either.

Imo the botnet criminals have been trying to force the use of IPV6 by getting all new ranges of IPV4 allocated as soon as possible. Certainly that's what I've seen these last few years from logging spam attack IP addresses.

Rather than IPV6 globally and IPV4 internally, I think IPV6 should be what the countries that attack us, who just happen to have very large populations, can use for themselves. Do you have any idea how many IP address ranges we are attacked from in places like Latvia? Let them do their attacking with IPV6. Good riddance.