That's a pretty-good description of what an *adult* brain does, but it's not a good description of intelligence - artificial or otherwise. Your adult brain learned the rules from its environment with no assumptions about what those rules were.

Try writing an algorithm that can learn to play either chess or checkers, depending on what game it sees.

Make that same algorithm be able to play asteroids, or drive a car, or OCR.

Make that same algorithm be able to recognize a tune ("row row row your boat") even if it's played in a different key, at a different speed, with variations in tempo, and even variations in key.

Any time you know beforehand what the rules are you are not simulating intelligence - you are simulating the *results* of intelligence. You are just writing down whatever it is that the intelligence in your head has decided.

The intelligence never makes it into the program - it stays in your head.

Well, let's see here.

Firstly, there's no immediate feedback on phone charges. A running faucet or light left on will get noticed and turned off - people *want* to be sensible about their expenses.

Imagine a running faucet going unnoticed for 4 weeks. Phone services are like that.

Secondly, when the user does nothing different and suddenly gets these charges, can you really blame the user?

Imagine you work adjacent to the waterfront district, the Queen Mary happens to be docked there, and your phone calls are picked up by their tower and considered an international call - you've just racked up several hundred dollars for no apparent reason. Is it the user's fault?

Thirdly, there's no safeguards or limit switches in the system. You can't say to the phone company "I want service capped at $100 per month, alert me if it goes over".

You put the phone back in the cradle and the plunger switch doesn't disengage properly, the phone is still "off hook", and you go away for the weekend. When you get back, you've had a line open for 76 hours and will be billed accordingly (depending on your service plan).

And finally, and the one that gives people a burn about these issues, there's the issue of elites and the plebes.

You see, he *only* was able to get things straightened out because an elite was kind enough to help him. When he tried to straighten it out the phone company blew him off, but when an elite got involved it was sorted out immediately.

This sort of customer service - where the customer doesn't have to fight tooth-and-nail for everyday consideration from a big company, isn't available to you and me.

It's a perk of the elites.

I've got a 'kind of bingo card that I use to keep track of languages. I place checkmarks for each language depending on how it's different from all the other languages.

Help me out. Does Haskell require or not require a block after an "if" statement? Is the block introduced by brace, bracket, "then" or something else?

Or... does it use some completely lateral way to specify an "if" statement?

I may have to update my bingo card to accommodate.

Apropos of nothing, I note that we are in a deflationary cycle right now, for the first quarter of 2015.

Surprisingly, this little tidbit made hardly a ripple in the mainstream news outlets.

So... is this the recession that causes the crash, or will that be after the next recession?

It's sad how entire families can be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs.

You're assuming nothing else will change. If this bill goes through, there will be an enormous push to make the private data public, and probably most of it will.

So... you're assuming the worst possible situation based on this change and everything else staying the same.

One might also argue that this change will encourage other changes, and the end result would be better.

I'm in favor of having information publicly available (for all departments, not just the EPA) and the argument about policy being made on secret information is compelling.

I think that's a false association. You might just as well say "well, my anti-tiger rock seems to be working".

I've already noted that it's the aircraft manufacturers who ensure safety, at great expense and effort in addition to the certification process.

Considering the expense of certification and that it's largely needless, don't you think the expense and effort should be directed towards a more useful goal? At the least, don't you think the regs should be changed to encourage safety?

And from a completely economic perspective, since the cost of compliance is so high, are useful solutions which would make us safer being ignored because the price of entry is so high? (For the longest time there were no updated Cessna designs because they couldn't afford the certifications. The older designs went for *decades* without modern updated electronics.)

I complain about the FAA because their system is worthless. You support them because their pointless system hasn't caused an accident.

Your anti-tiger rock could be put to better use.

Aircraft instrument designer here, I've got a quick question for you.

Avionics certification require a lot of paperwork and documentation as well (DO-178B), but my impression is that it's mostly "paperwork for the sake of paperwork".

The FAA makes a big deal about things which have no impact on safety, make a big deal about things that have little impact on safety (coverage analysis), and leave the device testing completely in the hands of the manufacturer.

In short, if you have a process and paper trail, you can get certification. The aircraft manufacturer is the one that actually requires safe design practices, and this is lateral to the certification process.

Is it the same in the medical world? Are the requirements mostly about paper trails and accountability, or are there some actual safety regs there? What proportion is about safety?

For example, we hear all the time how medical devices have no security, that they can be easily hacked, pacemakers can be reset in the wild by a hacker, and so on. Is device security not part of the regs?

(I complained about the lack of common-sense safety regs in the FAA, and was told that it's bureaucratic safety, not human safety. The FAA people want deniability of blame, so they worry about procedure and regulation rather than actual safety.)

I wonder how much of the effort actually goes into making a safe device. The FAA system is still stuck with 1970's guidelines for software safety, for instance, and has never updated with modern theory. (I could give you a list...)

So... how much of the medical certification process actually keeps us safe?

Bozhe moi!
This I know... from nothing.
What I'm going to do.
I think of great Lobachevsky and I get idea - haha!

(NB: Lobachevsky developed the mathematics of non-Euclidean geometry with negative curvature.)

Hail Dorothy!

The problem with this logic is that it fails the "prior probability" test.

Suppose a policeman searches and finds the suspect carrying a large amount of cash, say $4000. That's consistent with a (supposed) drug purchase, so the cash can be confiscated under asset forfeiture laws (assets used in the commission of a crime).

Suppose a policeman notes a youtube video of a chemistry experiment showing a balance scale, some beakers, and jars of chemicals. Those are consistent with "meth lab", so the policeman can search and confiscate all the equipment in the poster's house (this has happened).

The problem with each of these, and your position, is that there is significant prior probability that the behaviour in question is *not* indicative of criminal activity. You are reversing the conditional probabilities.

To put it in words, you are equating "probability of driving out-of-lane, given that he's on drugs" (quite high), with "probability that he's using drugs, given out-of-lane driving" (actually, quite low).

People temporarily drive out-of-lane a great deal to avoid animals and small obstacles, and people temporarily drive out-of-lane because they're distracted. The number of people out-of-lane because they're on drugs is vanishingly small.

Taken to extremes (and we know the police will do this), pretty-much *any* behaviour can be considered consistent with drug use.

In the case of the home lab above, it doesn't matter that the poster is missing key components, nor that he only has some of the ingredients. "Meth makers use glassware, he's got glassware, therefore he's a meth maker".

You see where this leads?

If a policeman observes a crime, take the appropriate action - that's fine. If he *observes* another crime while dealing with it, that's fine too.

But that's not a justification to rummage around in a person's rights just to see what can be pinned on the suspect.

If he doesn't observe a crime, he shouldn't go looking for one.

Try Laser Safety Goggles from eBay, about $2 each.

I've used F.Lux and it does everything it says. It's a polite program, I've got no problem with it per-se, but I removed it from my system.

For one, the sunset transition happens in a couple of seconds, and it's quite noticeable. The speed isn't a problem, nor is the "noticing", but I think a slower sunset might be more effective.

The bigger issue was "length of day". F.Lux synchronizes to the local length of day (based on your latitude and the current date), so in the winter you're still seeing short days and sunset at 5:00 PM. If you're subject to SAD, then F.Lux won't help with that.

(But, granted, it does feel good on the eyes when it kicks in.)

Part of the problem with light therapy is that it doesn't always work, or only works a little, or doesn't work for everyone. As a scientific result, this fairly shouts "not the complete explanation", so I've played around with this a bit to see what's really happening.

I'm convinced that "length of day" plays a big part in our internal clocks, and things like heavy blue video has an effect. For example, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" has a lot of blue and is shown late at night. Watch it with red sunglasses and see if you feel more tired/ready to sleep after watching.

In terms of scientific discoveries, I think there's some low-hanging fruit here. Straightforward hyotheses and studies could be done which would completely characterize the issue, and would point to simple, inexpensive, and drug-free cures to a handful of issues.

I'll just leave this here:

http://science.slashdot.org/co...