It might be god from our perspective, but it might be a let down of a god in other ways. Consider this scenario.

300 years in the future we discover some way to simulate an entire universe easily within a computer. So we create one and let it run for billions of years inside the simulation till intelligent sentient life emerges. This life makes great strides, it goes to space, it advances, until one day we look in and decide to "pull one of the beings out." We pull the "mind of the being" out of the simulation and put it in a robotic body. Maybe at first its amazed at everything, we show it the world it lived in and the things we can do to the simulation; and for a short while it calls us god. But eventually the being realizes there are still things about this "outside" world we don't understand, and suddenly it comes to the realization that if I'm from a simulation what if they are too? Are they really god? Is the being on the outside of this outside god? It could be simulations inside simulations to infinity so long as the simulation (B) inside a simulation (A) can be done within the limits of sim A. We know nothing of the physical limitations of the simulation outside the one we are in.

The point is that we can never be sure the being we are talking to is actually "god" in the sense that we tend to think about it in religion and language.

This study is interesting, but I'm way more interested in the affect of conditioning and body temp regulation. I grew up in the US and all of houses/apartments always had good temperature control as well as ceiling fans in rooms. I got use to living in places where if the temperature was above say 70F, there was a fan running, the air in a room was circulating.

When I studied abroad in Japan and then moved there I discovered this wasn't the case and constructed a theory that early life conditions on body temp are 'imprinted' in a way. Japanese tend to let rooms run very hot. In the Summer/Winter rooms and trains are kept at about 28C maybe 30C (possibly higher in the winter), and I always found these miserable and always resulted in me sweating. I always noticed though that most other (Japanese) people never had this problem though, even in a room thats almost as hot as a mid-summer day in the winter, people would have 2-3 layers of clothes on and would be fine. I knew I wasn't alone either because in talking to other westerners living in Japan I learned that many of them had the same issue too. The only reason I've been able to come up with was that it had to do with how they were raised early on and the kind of temp. environment they are use to living in.

So I'd be curious to see if these physical effects in the study aren't something that isn't tuned by early conditioning.

I've participated in some TCS experiments back in college. Unless they discover some new way to do TCS there is no way anyone is ever going to find the technology usable in an entertainment environment. Remember that in order to cause the neurons to discharge magnetically you have to send a strong enough magnetic field through the skull and through a certain amount of liquid. In addition, the field has to be changed constantly as well.

For anyone that has never done TCS, what this effectively results in are constant static discharges on your scalp and this happens at a fairly rapid frequency. Plus, depending on the location of the magnets, the magnets might also be causing muscle neurons to discharge as well, so your face will be constantly twitching. All of this leads to a fairly tiring experience.

do research.

Pondering on singularity AI's, I always thought the biggest hurdle to a full range AI that can advance science faster than we can conceive of it, was the physical limitation. Some research can be pondered on but a lot of research and advances needs to be done in the real world. What good is an AI that can't test out if its theory on a 30% stronger steel that's 50% lighter, is possible?

If you lived in Japan like I have, then you should know the answer to this.

1. Japan values customer service. Having a face be there to control the train or open/close the doors makes the service "friendlier." Also, if they removed the staff and made it automatic the old people would complain.

2. "Its how its always been done so why should we change."

Suits are uncomfortable to wear, you can't ride with a bicycle to work wearing a suit,

It's clear you've never been to Japan. Dudes ride to work on bikes in suits all the time. Of course, they aren't expensive tailored suits.

I also get asked an awful lot (by the younger years) how I type so fast and how they can "learn" to type that fast. Type. For years. Bang, you've learned. This is no shortcut, there is little technique, no amount of learning the home keys will help you type fast. You just have to type, lots, all the time.

While this very true; it helps to also give them a place that requires speed to push them to type fast. I've always told people that asked "how do you type so fast?" that I learned to type really quickly by growing up in IRC chat rooms with lots of people and multiple conversations going on at once. You had to learn to type fast to keep up with what was going on.

Same for coding. You can learn some theory. But to learn to code, you have to code. And with kids it's really easy - pick a game, program it.

The only problem I've ever had with using "games" as a way to learn to code is that the final product may not match expectations. To put it another way. I love programming because it gives me a means to solve problems. Sometimes the problems are concrete as "I need a piece of software on my desktop to tell me when I'm getting a phone call on my phone." That problem is focused, the solution is focused too. If your phone rings and you get a notification on your computer, you know you solved the problem.

Games rarely offer up focused problems and solutions, especially for beginning programmers. A lot of game ideas are nothing more than "I want to make an RPG where I fight zombies." The solution would deceptively be to have a few characters in a bland world and some monsters labeled zombies, but game dev is never that simple and the problem space "grows." It goes from "rpg zombie game" to "rpg zombie hunting game where I must build a cure, save cities, and all while I'm working within this cool battle system." Games could be a great route to code but the path between problem definition and solution is huge compared to more simple stuff.

AKA the device from Snow Crash.

By the end of this century most of the human race will have become cyborgs. The allure will be immortality.

I don't know about anyone else but immortality through machines is my life long goal. I think we'll probably accomplish it around 2060-2070 though.

I read Code Complete cover to cover after having been a hobbiest programmer for 5-7 years. Some of the many mistakes I'd made over time were mentioned and left me nodding my head in acknowledgement and gave me the ground to realize that probably a lot of the other wisdom distilled in the pages was worth heeding as well. Code Complete made me realize how bad my coding practices were. Its a book I recommend to everyone now.

And this is the kind of stuff that many of us fear when the US gives up ICANN/the internet. First its porn, then what next?

I wish the general public would learn that global warming isn't just about the temperature getting warmer as time goes on, such that "Winter will become a perpetual Fall season." Its about the increase of energy in the entire system which we call "global weather." This leads to more extreme and bizarre weather conditions.

This will get little coverage in news outlets around the world, but its worth spreading and this article is as good as any to mention it. The Japanese Lower House, in the Diet, passed a bill which set up a National Secrets law. Essentially it is an anti-whistleblower law. It has many of the usual sections present in other countries save for one. The bill sets forth that all information dealing with "nuclear energy" will be considered a national secret and releasing any information without the oversight of the government will basically be illegal.

This means that if something bad is happening at the Fukushima plant, then we have to rely on someone doing the moral thing and telling the world and then going to jail.

The bill still has to go through the Upper House but it's likely to pass without much opposition even though the media and the public have been strongly opposed to it. It seems very likely that the bill is there to cover up any bad information that might tarnish Japan or TEPCO's image.

Japan state secrets bill on track to become law despite protests

How is "drive itself" not an option?!

I think you missed the point, and probably because the OP didn't carry the results of the 'experiment' out to its conclusions. The OP was suggesting that we use games to make concepts in quantum mechanics more intuitive to KIDS. I've always wondered if we can bring the concepts and teaching of harder concepts, to kids at younger ages, if this won't spur more quicker advances because less time is spent in the more valuable years simply trying to grasp current ideas. For example, there was probably a period where basic algebra was considered a "college subject" and not fit for teaching to anyone under the age of 18, yet in most places, the concepts are now taught in high school and sometimes even earlier. Calculus is now becoming a normal high school subject. If we can get these ideas into kids' minds at earlier ages, then later on expanding on the concepts won't be as time consuming and we can move past this period quicker and into more theoretical realms. My brother who is also a physicist often wonders if we could make Lie Algebra regular 12th grade curriculum, what that might do to the advances in math and physics.