Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Yes, it does serve a purpose (Score 1) 645

If not for videos and broadcasting, perhaps the events depicted would be happening in our communities, at home, for everyone to see. Who knows. But this group wants us to know that they hate us and want to kill us. So its probably good that people are at least aware of their messages. And i think such standards would apply to other graphic videos used in journalism. If the video pertains to something that affects the populace at large then it serves a purpose.

Comment "Hard-coded" terminology misleading (Score 1) 758

It doesn't seem to follow that the political leanings of an individual are "hard-coded" from the premises of the research (low-level cognitive processes are correlated with political leanings, low-level cognitive processes are influenced by genetics). The article and discussion are treating the issue like your involuntary cognitive tendency determines your outlook. It seems equally likely that your cognitive tendencies (I'm referring to the amygdala/right-wing vs. insula/left-wing) are the result of environmental influences. Your cognitive tendencies could be shaped by the environment and then they result in the observable behavior of political associations. Genetic influence should be viewed in terms of predispositions towards behaviors and attitudes, rather than a wholly deterministic force. Thus the term "hard-coded" doesn't seem accurate because while a genetic predisposition may exist you can't rule out the effect of environment.

Comment Re:I Don't Know What You're Talking About (Score 1) 411

The submitter is used to (what I learned to call) RCA jacks in stereo. These I guess are two jacks looking like this. I believe what the submitter needs is only one of these adapters that will run you a few bucks at your local store (unless you're finicky about quality which I'm guessing he's not if he's doing this on that old of a computer).

That's the answer. I wonder why RCA is leaving us though?

Comment Re:YAY! More Prognostication! (Score 1) 213

There was a time, in my lifetime (and I'm not that old) when a company, let's say an electronics manufacturing company, could sell some stock and use the proceeds to fund the building of a new plant, the purchase of new equipment, the hiring of new employees. The family that owns the company sees their success in terms of this growing and profitable concern. A "healthy" profit on investment for such a company could be as little as 8 percent (and this was a time when you could get 5 percent for a savings account). The people who work for this company like it so much, have done so well as employees, that entire extended families go to work for the company, generation after generation. I watched this entire cycle occur right here in my home town to a company that made industrial lighting (like the kind you'd see at a major league ballpark during a night game). Now, the company is gone. Swallowed by a company that was swallowed by a company that was swallowed by a foreign company that lost contracts to a company in Europe. There's a trail of human loss all along the way.

Touching story, but mean corporations aren't really a product of 21st century evilness. This same cycle has been happening since the early 1900's (remember U.S. Steel, Standard Oil, ring any bells?). These maniac monopolists were the worst of the worst in terms of corporate oppression and exploitation of the free-market economy. However abhorrent you find modern companies to be, it's not new. There have always been flaws in the system.

Comment Re:Human arrogance knows no bounds. (Score 1) 502

We humans started out thinking that we were the God-chosen species... or even race. The only one with intelligence. The only one with a "soul" (an imaginary concept anyway). On a planet at the center of the universe. And gradually, all those things fell apart. We're not special. We'r also only machines.

I say, I'm pretty damn proud that we humans have come to the level, where we nearly create our own forms life. And if that life is successful, then so are we. Just like a master is proud of his student, when the student defeats him for the first time.

Are you assuming that our machine creations have bested us? At anything? They only exist to serve us because we will them to. I'm missing how that makes us machine-like in any way whatsoever. Of course you can compare humans to machines in some ways, but that's because we invented them to help us.

Comment The machine can do it because we allow it to. (Score 4, Interesting) 502

The machine extrapolates based upon certain rules or constraints the programmer has programmed the machine to abide by. The machine knows that note X is pleasing to the ear after note Y, or note Z will cause a cacophony. But keep in mind the machine only knows this because we allow it to. And while the machine may compose music abiding by whatever constraints we give to it, it will never be able to develop or experiment with music. The machine can create Mozart-like pieces because the fundamental ways in which Mozart changed music are well-documented and have influenced popular music ever since, thus factoring into however we program the machine. Even so, the machine won't be able to tread where humans haven't, since it only knows the rules we give it. Music will always be furthered by us based on social, cultural, or regional influences.

Anyone else feel me on this one? Or am I misguided?

Slashdot Top Deals

The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. -- Edsger Dijkstra

Working...