When contemplating phenomena in this universe, I find that in a small number of situations, a rudimentary understanding can be more readily had by a humble and feeble intellect such as mine if I simply drop the speed of light squared from the equation. C squared is where things get strange. Consider the following: A star 100 million light years away ignites. From out relative position and motion, we measure the light as traveling at ~186,300 miles per second over a distance of 100 million light years. As far as we are concerned, it took a long time to get here. Now for the tricky part. As everyone here I am sure knows, time slows down the closer you get to the speed of light, coming to a standstill once the cosmic speed limit is reached. As a consequence, as soon as the light from that star was generated, it was instantly already here. From our perspective, it took 100 million light years to get here. For the perspective of the light itself (so to speak), the transit time was 0. Apply that to light that is older than the Earth and it becomes a real mind-fuck. In fact, kick back and expand on that concept in many different ways. At least this is according to Dr. Tyson. Despite the complexities, E = MC squared is elegant mathematical poetry.

The only thing worse than beta is Bennett Haselton. How does this crap keep making it's way to the front page?

Okay, so other people have done a pretty good job pointing out the at the summary and the article don't understand what the singularity is by definition and that it does not require AI, etc...

But I would like to point out that machine intelligence is absolutely possible, all we have to do is fully merge with the machines.

Unfortunately I have to leave, give me a few hours and I will come back with examples.

My girlfriend and I spend a lot of our TV time (Roku) watching science and technology related programming. It's difficult to watch anything from as recent as 2011 or prior. It is difficult because I can frequently point out how wrong or at best incomplete many things are compared to the understandings and accomplishments of very near recent. This goes for both science and technology. A lot of highly-beneficial technologies never make it out of the lab because they are so quickly replaced, many technologies cannot keep up with themselves. That, and any one of many recent single astronomical discoveries can render an hour of programming from just a few years ago obsolete. Unless of course a documentary is historical in nature, which is always fun.

On that note, as a nerd who is highly entrenched in following science and technology on a daily basis, I have spent the last few years humbly in awe at the exponential rate of technological innovation. There is so much going on right now it's mind boggling. 2064? At this point I call that selling the human race short. There are so many factors to consider. For example, I see the currently embryonic maker\bio-hacking\grinder movements becoming a driving force behind advancements that will bring a lot of amazing things into our lives as those movements grown and more advanced tools slowly become available to them. The world of 2064 will more likely be the world of 2040. The only real enemy to all of this is the course of international politics.

That's not a camera. It's radar\lidar.

It's not horrible, it's............ misunderstood. : P

Seriously though, I could write several thousand words on why I love Enlightenment. I've been using Linux since 1996 and right now I am running the Bodhi beta and it's the best experience I've ever had with a DE. Keep in mind, development stalled for over a decade and only recently restarted. Enlightenment is now being developed at breakneck pace and they have some really cool stuff going on. Although I personally can't imagine going with anything less, at the end of the day I advise most people to use something else like.... elementary OS. The fact is Enlightenment is simply to complicated for most people to bother with the learning curve.

I've been following the Enlightenment project since its inception. A few months ago I had to hop on their mailing list and ask a question for the first time. Rasterman replied, which itself seemed an honor. Doubly so that he kinda called me an idiot in that round about way he does. It was a good day.

I think it's safe to say that the upcoming VR offerings will find success and that the technology is here to stay. This looks like a perfect application for the OLED technology we have seen demoed by Samsung. I would much rather have a single flexible screen that wrapped completely around my field of view completely. I imagine it would also cut down on the bulk substantially while also offering the ability to provide long battery life units.

For quite awhile now, Microsoft has had programs that pay people to use Bing. This even true in the United States. It's a rather sad and pathetic move. Kind of like saying, "Our search in engine is so substandard compared to the competition we have to pay people to use it." Past all that, can anyone tell me if this practice is in any way anti-competitive or legally questionable? Or is it like swiping a CVS card.

I would believe that neither company employs a substantial amount of African Americans. Why? Neither company has vast, low wage customer service call centers. Hence the reluctance to release numbers. If you don't have much experience working in customer service call centers, your first instinct is going to be to mod me down (understandably). If you do have a fair amount of experience working in low-wage CS call centers, you completely understand what I am talking about. I myself (unfortunately) do have quite a lot of experience working in customer service call centers, and have often been one of very few white people in a sea of African Americans as well as a lot women. The truth is, most large tech related companies hire some of amount of minorities and women. But when you look at the whole of the company, you quickly realize that minorities are routinely hired into marginalized positions, even when they are highly qualified sometimes even with a college degree. It's exclusive, but if you have seen it, you get what I mean.

Where did all the stuff come from ?

E = M C2

That's about all there is to it.

Perhaps it was an engineering effort.

I am wondering as we get to what is being promised as the biggest story of the Snowden documents, what the final scoop will be.

Regardless of what the content of that document will be, by the time it's all said and done, the sum total will probably be something like, "99% of the entire human race is a slave species."

I suspect a mind like his is going to inspire a lot of young minds. It's also pretty obvious that he could choose from any of a number of lucrative career paths. A truly noble and heroic human. Too bad we can't print life sized fully working copies of him. Every middle school should have at least one.