I feel like we've barely grazed the surface of the potential of crowd funding. I mean, in a real sense here we, as society, are funding self-education - we are funding the education of our own society. That's cool.

They must know they will be found out - especially the more sensational the finding. After all, science is not like philosophy. Science is meant to be used, and for something to be used it has to work. People will try to use it and it wont work and they will immediately know that there has been a falsification. I mean, it's not like this kind of stuff is up to interpretation or anything - there is a method and a result. If there is no result then the method is in error. What are they thinking?

http://uptownmagazine.com/2014... Be careful who you kick and where you kick them. This guy might actually figure out fusion energy - eh? This dude is why we have welfare. When you mine for gold there is mostly dirt...but there's gold too. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. And a penny saved is a penny earned. And make yourself a bowl of soup and wrap a hot towel around your head. And don't stay out too late! Ah, whatever.

I understand that some trolling is bullying: that's when it becomes griefing - but most trolling is just sarcastic fun. I have, on many occasions, made joking jest and played the role (with dripping socratic irony) of the troll to the great delight of myself and others.

If somebody is truly upset, however, I would not, could not, continue to deride them. So that's where the fine line may be drawn.

Those that would are to be called griefers, not trolls.

Griefers are trolls intending harm. Trolls in my opinion and in my definition are merely out for Natalie Portman's hot grits - whatever those may be.

When you are depressed you are supposed to have lower mental activity, and yet some of the most brilliant people have been known to be clinically depressed [citation not needed]. So then, if depression sometimes comes with brilliance, what gives?

And does this mean that for some people of this class antidepressants (chemical and psychological) have the effect of actually dulling insight and brilliance?

Be depressed, be brilliant: Be happy, be dumb.

Life is such a bitch.

I'm such a huge space nut but I seriously can't see how sending people to their probable deaths offers a scientific or societal benefit.

Are they better than robots? No.

Change "reasonable chance of survival" into "very likely chance of survival" and I would change my mind, but "reasonable chance of survival" in NASA and space exploration terms means something like a 1/1000 chance of death (just pulling a number out of the air).

If you want something organic up there quick then send a monkey. Then, after the monkey has not died a horrible death, send a person.

I want to live in space. I want space colonies. But I don't want space exploration and colonies to be built on the graves of those who came before us.

I just don't see the benefit. Furthermore I feel that suicidal space exploration has a very dark economic shadow to it.

send more and better robots. That way we don't kill heroes and we also get advances in robotics.

I can't believe I'm even saying this, but it's how I feel.

Well, when you put it like that! ;) - I strongly support not murdering people. I equally strongly support not being murdered. There must be a way to have both.

No, certainly I'm not saying that. I'm just being snarky due to both a lack of sleep and overabundance of caffeine ;)

I just see the military as the muscle and the markets as the fat of a country (Farms are the skeleton and the people the organs - what a weird analogy), and if we are going to divert resources for an effort, I would rather burn fat than muscle (though muscle before organs and organs before the skeleton - yeah, definitely a weird analogy).

I'm confident, in agreement to another comment, that even a 10% or 20% slash of the US military would offer no real danger to the sovereignty of the united states (we still maintain a standing militia of the people anyway, after all and yeah, NATO and the overwhelming ratio of "good guy"/"bad guy" countries.), and in spite of my deepest appreciation and respect for the US military, conflict in all it's forms is something that most certainly must be reduced - and the reduction of which is a sure indicator of the progress of a world.

Also expansion and exploration is a sure indicator of the progress of a world.

So naturally I agree that taking money from where it is being wasted and putting it in more important places is good. I only take offense at the idea that the military is considered the most likely entity from where to take that money when there are OBVIOUSLY much more wasteful entities that should be done away with first. I leave it as an exercise to you, dear replyee and/or reader, to enumerate what those more wasteful entities be.

time for more caffeine.

Evolution saith: you are where you are.

Your environment shapes your evolution. Humans have the ability to live in more environments than any other complex lifeform - and some environments that even the simple lifeforms can't live in (virtual worlds for example). If you live subterranean, you become subterranean.

Maybe that's ok: whatever works is another of evolution's favorite sayings. After all, subterranean life has some real advantages: the naked mole rat doesn't get cancer and lives for a very long time, but they are blind because they don't need eyes any more. I want to keep my eyes. I like looking at the stars.

Now, having said all that, the obvious irony is that if we do go-a-exploring in space and want to build bases on the actual surface of rocky harsh planets, well, the best way to do it is to make them subterranean!

Maybe the solution is to try to be as many animals as we can an to try to live in as many environments as we can. Maybe that will cause evolutionary forces to bestow on us the greatest and largest variation of shapes.

Maybe.

We have limited resources to throw at space because we have limited resources down here - but I know a place with ~limitless resources and it's called space. True, it's full of mostly nothing, but where there is something there tends to be a whooooooole lot of something.

What's on the moon anyhow? Rocks? Are you sure that's all? We can't really be sure unless we look.

By slashing the US military budget like that we could quickly and easily build a moon base which along with our country would quickly and easily be taken over by another country's military.

;) oh I kid.

But honestly, what do you think would happen if the US military were suddenly defunded? Do you think the other countries would be like - good for them! We don't need militaries any more any how and certainly not a single one of us big countries with our current militaries would ever dream of using our forces again the US, even as defenseless as they are right now with all their resources and food and two coastlines and pop music...

All snarkiness aside, I agree with your sentiment and wish we had interplanetary spacecraft and bases on more than one moon :( - almost even at the risk of the US's national security...almost.

And I almost actually believe that even if the US military were to shrink hugely that we would not be attacked, because I don't think the average citizen in a non-us western country would want to attack/invade another civilized country. No, not the people, but the governments of those countries (governments are things which function almost like independent living entities themselves seemingly making their own decisions) are what there is to be concerned about.

Yes, civilized countries maintaining huge military powers is just the way it is right now. In the future when countries don't have militaries anymore I'm sure we will look back on our time the same way we look at the american old west: we will understand that the environment of the time required that everyone carry a pistol, and that the harshness of the climate (ecological, financial and social) resulted in far more altercations than would seem reasonable - but they will understand.

And they will probably make a ton of movies about our time too.

And they will probably watch them on their fancy-dancy moon bases.

whatever. good for them.

;)

I'm fairly certain that in asking this question that I'm just being a biased Californian-based US citizen, but aside from being better able to allow internet users to hide from spies, what other benefit will this action bestow? And actually will this actually allow internet users to better hide from spies? I thought the US is doing an alright job, except for the peeping that is - they should have done a better job at that... Anyhow, now to read the friendly article.

Most digital paintings today have more subtlety, detail, accuracy, imagination, symbology and depth than the paintings of the great maestros of old - and there are exponentially larger numbers of them being churned out.

But something about the originals makes them "better".

I think it has something to do with simply being at the right place at the right time - like the beatles. The beatles didn't really make the era, the era made the beatles.

If you don't think that the cultural climate has more to do with the art that is created than the artists that create it just think of the parallel with this old question - if you had been born in china 1000 years ago, would you have been a christian?

Of course not.

If the beatles were born today, would they be world famous?

Of course not.

It's the climate - the fact that the beatles/zeppelin/whoever were able to be moved/inspired by the culture of the time to create what they did. And it has something to do with the technology of the time as well.

If you want to hear something that should blow your musical (artistic) appreciation gene out of the water then just listen to/watch Diego Stocco's Experibass video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

He's caught in the culture of our time. He would not have been who he is even 20 years ago. He and his music are creations (indirectly, but definitely) of a culture of hackers and makers, just as the classic rockers and their rock were the creations of a culture of exploration and discovery.

Nowadays...well, the culture is not exploration and discovery, but exploitation and refinement....but I wonder if I sense a subtle change in the winds?....

To get someone to do something, it must be all three of these things:

1) Simple
2) Engaging
3) Rewarding

I came up with this recently when I was trying to define why some games make you want to play them more than others and I realized that it might apply to just about any activity that people engage in. Do this to housework/chores and voila! People will do it. The challenge is how to do this to chores and such. If I could just find a way to make making things this way also be this way...moving on...

Now, I'm not saying people will not do things that are not all three of those, but I'm saying that people will do things that are all three of those. Maybe I have defined an activity which elicits a very basic type of "flow".

I now welcome the critical crucible of slashdot with open arms (and fireproof pants).

It depends on how much you care about the future, and how far into the future you care to care.

If you care only about tomorrow and don't care that much about what happens tomorrow, then you should not care in the least.

If you care about the next 10 years, and care a good amount about it, then you should care a bit because AI research is information science research, and humans are information animals and tool animals and thus information tools are very important and AI is a very powerful information tool - even if mostly theoretical at this point.

If you care about the next century, and you care a lot about it, then you should care a lot - because this next 100 years will be the first century of a real-time information web splayed over the planet between the little human individuals scurrying about on the surface, and the wealth of information stored and transmitted (which might be the same thing!) will continue to grow - and to make use of that gargantuan information store, we need information processing capabilities beyond anything we have today, and certainly beyond the capability of unaided, or non-computationally aided, human minds.

If you care about the next millennium and beyond, then you should find my ideas interesting and subscribe to my newsletter because I want us to be around for the long haul because I like people and I think we are neat and I think the universe, being rather impartial, could do with a bit more intelligence. Brains, after all, are the best way I know of for the universe to appreciate itself and so I think we should appreciate the inevitability that to appreciate larger things, we need larger brains.