Philadelphia Resident tries to capitalize on Occupy Wall Street through Airbnb

Apparently a Philly resident has decided to try to rent a Tent in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration through airbnb.com. I wonder how long the site will actually allow this before they pull it down?

http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/244399

Discussion about Artificial Intelligence

Alan Newsome/... computers will never be able to reason
Alan Newsome/... they can only do what they are told
Alan Newsome/... so the "reasoning" they do do will be bayesian
David Simmons/... not nec.
David Simmons/... why can't I add a random component to AI?
Alan Newsome/... you can
Alan Newsome/... but random isnt reasoning
David Simmons/... it's a combitiona
David Simmons/... combination*
David Simmons/... so you honestly think there's no way a computer can logic as well as a human
Alan Newsome/... you can teach it to "learn" but its based on selecting something from a provided list of options
Alan Newsome/... the list can only increase based on what it has built in
David Simmons/... that's not true
Alan Newsome/... and it's experiences
David Simmons/... and imagination
Alan Newsome/... computers cant imagine
David Simmons/... that's not true
Alan Newsome/... how would it imagine?
David Simmons/... somewhat random internal computations
Alan Newsome/... thats not imagination
David Simmons/... there's nothing I don't think that can't be explained
David Simmons/... what it something that exists that can't be explained or derived from something else
Alan Newsome/... god
David Simmons/... and
Alan Newsome/... and?
Alan Newsome/... lots of things can't be explained
David Simmons/... I can explain god
David Simmons/... but I'd like to hear another
Alan Newsome/... explain god?
Alan Newsome/... you cant prove/disprove he exists
David Simmons/... I could explain the arguement for why people would believe/create a god
David Simmons/... but I believe in god
Alan Newsome/... that doesnt prove that he exists or not
David Simmons/... so I'd rather argue something else
Alan Newsome/... ok
Alan Newsome/... im just saying a computer couldnt prove/disprove god
Alan Newsome/... how do you explain where dreams come from
Alan Newsome/... and how would a computer dream
David Simmons/... the same way a person does
Alan Newsome/... which is?
David Simmons/... dreams could be random firings of existing memories
David Simmons/... trying to make connections
Alan Newsome/... but they arent always
Alan Newsome/... some dreams are not related to memories at all
Alan Newsome/... some are just imaginations
David Simmons/... I don't consider dreams an imagination
David Simmons/... day dreams somewhat
David Simmons/... dreams are more of an unconcious experience
David Simmons/... do you think robots can replace manual labor jobs
Alan Newsome/... robots can replace any job where there are specific rules
Alan Newsome/... robots cannot replace creative jobs
David Simmons/... like how to design art?
Alan Newsome/... like creating art
Alan Newsome/... not how to design art because that could be based on rules
Alan Newsome/... and you could just use randomness to get "new" art
Alan Newsome/... but for something truly new and never done before, robots cannot do it
David Simmons/... yet
Alan Newsome/... roboots cannot do anything they are not programmed to do
Alan Newsome/... therefore they cannot be creative
David Simmons/... they can be programmed to learn
Alan Newsome/... yes, but they are still limited to their parameters
David Simmons/... let me put it this way
Alan Newsome/... computers just can process faster than humans
David Simmons/... can people breath under water
Alan Newsome/... no
David Simmons/... but we found a way to breath under water, right
David Simmons/... computers cannot imagine
Alan Newsome/... right
David Simmons/... but they will find a way to imagine
Alan Newsome/... yes but its not really imagining
David Simmons/... that's fine
David Simmons/... we're not really breathing under water
David Simmons/... but the effect is the same
Alan Newsome/... its just using randomness and set patterns to appear to imagine
Alan Newsome/... yes, but computers are still limited
David Simmons/... sure
David Simmons/... and so are we in the water
Alan Newsome/... exactly
Alan Newsome/... so computers cant replace us
Alan Newsome/... completely
David Simmons/... but a person in the water can still kill a fish

Do we need to be bored?

I saw this article when I was reading through my WSJ this morning: "Boredom enthusiasts Relish Pleasures of Understimulation." Basically it was more of a comedic piece in the Wall Street Journal, but I've often wondered if there is any scientific data suggesting that people in fact need down time, or even boredom to be healthy. The article mentioned something about the fact that people with high levels of boredom are more likely to die from certain conditions such as stroke or heart disease. However, I am reminded about another article I remember reading that talked about the fact that stress gets a lot of bad press as being a major killer, but some study was used that showed that in fact it wasn't necessarily the amount of stress so much as how the person handles stress in their life that was the main contributer to being a problem. In my own life I feel like being able to handle boredom, also known as being "patient", is more of a virtue. Although I can't say I'm as busy and involved as I once was in everything in life, I think that people that are passionate can always find something to do... probably like everything in life, there is a balance to be struck. Let me know your thoughts.

World's first all inclusive simulator

As far as my understanding, this is the first attempt to create a simulator to simulate everything on the planet... I often wonder about the science/math needed to perform simulations like this. From reading slashdot's analysis of this story, it mentioned "Psychohistory". Apparently this is a concept around the idea of not being able to predict every individuals reactions, but using the law of numbers to know the basic motion of society/a group of individual "random" actions. Although probably true over long periods of time, I really wonder how black swans and other theories tie into this idea.

Also, I have questions over what the purpose of this simulation actually is. To begin with, I think there is enough environmental effects seen on the earth caused by elements outside of the atmosphere to question if they would actually be able to predict anything on a large scale such as weather that they would like to know. I'm guessing they'll simulate at least our solar system in this model... but even with that, I'm still hesitant to believe there will be any real use to using this simulation for anything reasonable.

The only thing I can say really seems useful to me is the fact they're collecting all of this data around the earth real time to help create the simulation. Maybe they will be able to see correlations which we didn't recognize before... Hopefully I'll be able to do an update to this story some years in the future.

Google Releases Google Wave to public.

Drive a car with an iPhone?

Apparently a team from National Instruments integrated an iPhone into an old car and programmed it to drive the vehicle!

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/11/16/how-to-drive-a-car-with-an-iphone/

I can't see if it's controlled remotely by another phone, or if it's coordinates are just programmed into the iphone app. I'm guessing they're just programmed in. But I can't wait for the business model of remote controlled demolition derbies. It's gonna be like robot wars full scale. Maybe the army should look into an army of $300 remote controlled cars to mow down enemies in wars instead of multi-million dollar UAVs.

Chinese and International Cyberspying

In the past 1.5 years I'd say, I've seen a very large increase in the number of articles dealing with international cyberspying occurring against US companies and the government in general. Especially in the case of the Chinese, I almost see no reason for them not to engage in this kind of warfare. When we develop multi-trillion dollar technology, the Chinese and other governments would much rather spend 1billion to employ the brightest minds and break into our systems to take this information. I'm not a big conspiracy theorist....it just makes sense.

The thing that always amazes me with technology is the fact that with so many things, this included, it pays more to spend 1million a year on a very bright hacker then it does to spend 100k/yr on 50 mediocre hackers. I feel like this applies not only with hacking but with high tech finance and research as well.

I just hope that our own country realizes the implications of this turn of events and is ramping up their own team of high tech combatants. We are in the information age, and that is exactly the advantage we need to hold over the next millenium.

related article->http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125616872684400273.html