Comments by Sciros

301. Math Skills Suffer in U.S., Study Finds

Comment #263277 by Sciros on October 10, 2008 at 1:16 pm

Strippers and escorts. They're really good at making sure you don't cheat them out of their $ though.

Comment #263276 by Sciros on October 10, 2008 at 1:12 pm

Considering Islam is quite seriously anti-non-Islam, I have to disagree.

Comment #262821 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Meh, there's no much inherently good about being democratically elected per se. Bush was democratically elected here, but most people don't want him in office and never did (voter turnout...). Plus, what if the guy elected becomes a total prick? Then he's gotta go. Also, one can "democratically elect" to put a theocracy in place. The democratic process is meant to put power in the people, but if they don't exercise it, or they give it up, it's somewhat meaningless. I'm just saying this to point out that it's not immediately clear which is the "better side" -- the revolutionaries or the democratically elected government. I know nothing about El Salvador except that they apparently have cheap bananas.

Also, cheap bananas are vital to our economy. If not for cheap bananas we wouldn't be able to hire Donkey Kong as a mercenary to help hunt down Osama Bin Laden.

304. Heavy Metal-Eating 'Superworms' Unearthed in U.K.

Comment #262814 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 1:41 pm

We need to engineer a worm that eats nuclear waste and poops out money.

I mean.. uh.. God needs to intelligently design one.

305. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #262813 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 1:40 pm

We get a LOT of oil from Venezuela. Whatever they do that helps us get it cheaper is A-OK, I'd guess. Maybe that's a part of the reason... (I haven't thought about this even a little bit).

306. Heavy Metal-Eating 'Superworms' Unearthed in U.K.

Comment #262805 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 1:18 pm

It seems God has created some superworms to deal with contaminated ecosystems. Truly, he is great.

307. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #262788 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 12:33 pm

When a thread turns into an argument over spelling (is there a "law" analogous to Godwin's that applies here?), I think it's time for that thread to die.

Reading about Chavez, OK. Reading about Ayers and terrorism, OK. Whatever. It's "off topic" but it's informative. Pissing contests about spelling and grammar? What a waste of everyone's time!

And isn't it also possible the Venezuelan Jews are scared to speak out against Chavez directly? That seems pretty logical to me.

Likewise. If one is going to be so speculative in defending Chavez, one needs to look at the situation from more than one angle. Openly criticizing your own government is dangerous in many countries.

308. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #262774 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 12:11 pm

That is obviously a culturally conditioned response on your part. In Indonesia if you say those who have too much money they would probably think of the Chinese instead of the Jews.

Is Chavez the leader of Indonesia? I wonder who Venezuelans are supposed to think of...

Sorry Bonzai but even if you're just arguing on principle you have to admit your case for Chavez not being anti-Semitic is pretty weak. The quote bandied about about the "few minorities" is ambiguous, but given what appears to get posted in the government-owned press, the rise in anti-Semitism in Venezuela in general, and given what Chavez has said in his comparison of Israel to the Nazis, and his courting of Islamic leaders... it's just not very far-fetched to conclude he's anti-Semitic.

The USSR had a lot of anti-Semitic policy but it's not that easy to pull up "the quote that proves it all!" from a President.

309. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #262702 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 9:41 am

I do know for sure that some media outlets which report the story is less than honest or competent

Well, now we know that Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting is one of those as well ^_^

Or maybe there's just a lot of idiots working in journalism regardless of the outlet.

310. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #262699 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 9:28 am

WHOA hold on there is some really shitty reading ability demonstrated in some quoted "reputable sources" here.

...a few minorities--the descendants of those who crucified Christ, the descendants of those who expelled Bolivar from here and also those who in a certain way crucified him in Santa Marta, there in Colombia...

Ok so we have that, and then we have this fantastic interpretation:

Chavez clearly suggested that "the descendants of those who crucified Christ" are the same people as "the descendants of those who expelled Bolivar from here."

Say what? Since when is the enumeration of "a few" actually referring to just one? It may in this case, but judging from the wording that's not too likely.

If this isn't deliberate misreading then at the very least it's disingenuous in that it refers to an ambiguous sentence as if it's very clearly saying something it probably isn't.

In this case it's also somewhat important, seeing as it's presented as the "biggest problem with depicting Chavez's speech as an anti-Semitic attack."

And this is just laughable.

As Waskow further pointed out, in the Gospel accounts, "it was the Roman Empire, and Roman soldiers, who crucified Jesus."

So since saying Jews did it is a lie, and Chavez is a First Class Unlimited Goddess (Mitchell, get the reference I'm throwing in here?), and therefore can't tell a lie, he should get the benefit of the doubt. What a joke.

In short, Bonzai bro you got f00led.

311. 'Intelligent' computers put to the test

Comment #262697 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 9:20 am

AI is increasingly using machine learning techniques.

They create a good baseline, but any improvements over that baseline's performance tend to be a bunch of "what to do" code.

312. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #262691 by Sciros on October 9, 2008 at 8:56 am

keith:

and have a tiny penis.

Not to worry. You're in Japan. Not having a lesson plan is the only nightmare that can become reality there.

313. 'Intelligent' computers put to the test

Comment #262467 by Sciros on October 8, 2008 at 3:10 pm

The chain can be terminated when the number of possibilities becomes large. WoW may be likely, but there are lots of other possibilities of similar probability. The previous links in the chain didn't have so many degrees of freedom.

I'm not presenting "unsolvable" problems, of course. But even the suggested rule of "when the number of equally likely possibilities becomes large" isn't very robust. "Guess what my favorite car is?" has to be handled differently.

Also, "why something took a while to write" has probably as many possible reasons as "why someone didn't get enough sleep," given no other information.

You can go with a rule that mimics what most people would say when they have many specific choices -- choose a general one: "Why?", "What?" etc. But that's not always going to work.

I'm just trying to demonstrate the scope of the problem. It's immense. There's a lot taken for granted in human conversation that has to be explicitly modeled in a program.

314. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #262462 by Sciros on October 8, 2008 at 3:04 pm

Some days I don't know where to store the piles of irony.

Don't store them in a bank!! Keep them under your mattress until this whole economic crisis blows over.

315. 'Intelligent' computers put to the test

Comment #262455 by Sciros on October 8, 2008 at 2:44 pm

A human that other machines think is a machine?

316. 'Intelligent' computers put to the test

Comment #262451 by Sciros on October 8, 2008 at 2:35 pm

clodhopper, I see you did get the point ^_^

(It took a while -- 10 min or so -- because I was multitasking.)

What's interesting is the set of questions you came up with. They are all based on a lot of "world knowledge," and perhaps a good bit of inference themselves. And then another billion-dollar question: which question do you ask first? "Why?" or "Are you tired?" or "Did it take a long time to think of what to write?" or another question altogether such as "How long is 'a while'?"

I don't know if "inference" is exponential, but inconclusive deductions can lead to an exponentially increasing number of potential responses and conclusions.

Given: it took a while to write a post. "Why?" Maybe fatigue. "Why fatigued?" Maybe didn't get much sleep. "Why not much sleep?"

And then you have to weigh how good your inference "engine" is vs. your conversation partner's. You can't just decide that that "inference chain" (I just made that term up) is the most likely and blurt out something like "Why did you stay up all night playing World of Warcraft?" You'll end up with:

person 1> This took a while to write.
person 2> Why did you stay up all night playing World of Warcraft?
person 1> ...

That's going to take some heavy-duty inference on person 1's part to understand.

317. 'Intelligent' computers put to the test

Comment #262430 by Sciros on October 8, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Re: an earlier post... (this took a while to write)
You're talking about inference. Inference to some extent can be modeled, but in a very limited form.

Think about how a person converses. You have your set of "world knowledge" that you begin with prior to a conversation. You also have ways of parsing and semantically understanding what you're told, and you have a [large] set of inference rules to work with in order to use what information you possess to create more information. Then, every time you are told something, you link the information you've gained from the conversation with your "world knowledge" in order to automatically generate addional information. This information may be a description of who you're talking to, a general fact, an opinion that someone holds, anything at all. What you can "generate" (i.e. conclude) is limited BY your "world knowledge" and what you've learned in this conversation so far, as well as how well you can understand new information, and how well your inference rules help you generate that new information.

Well, I basically just described a person as if it were a machine. But I did that to make a point -- you can model a lot of the "intelligence" that goes into conducting a conversation in a fairly coherent way. The problem is you can only do it well in very coarse-grained terms. Developing a robust, efficient, powerful inference program -- that's beyond difficult. I'm not even sure where all of the limitations are, to be honest. I know what some of them are, and they're nontrivial. The sheer amount of "rules" that have to drive an inference engine is staggering.

For example:
You are in Tokyo. A person is standing opposite you. The person says "I just got here from Madrid." What CAN you gather from this?

The person is in Tokyo.
The person wasn't in Tokyo earlier.
The person was in Madrid earlier.
The person came from overseas.
The person came most likely by airplane.
The person is likely tired.
The person may next go to a hotel.
The person may next go to his home in Japan.
(A million other "mays" that are less likely.)

This information is all based on "world knowledge" you already possess (Madrid is separated from Tokyo by water, and by a large distance. That distance is usually covered by airplane. People who travel by airplane are often tired when they arrive, especially if the trip was long. If a person arrives at a place where he/she lives, he/she is likely to go home upon arriving. If a person arrives at a place that is foreign to them, he/she is likely to go to a hotel upon arriving. Et cetera.). You used inference to draw all of the conclusions based on this world knowledge and what the person told you. You can then further use inference to decide what questions you should ask in order to get more information. This is HIGHLY non-trivial to program because of how much information there is to work with (to say nothing of the complexities involved in dealing with the information, as it is communicated via natural language).

What's higher priority to ask? Well, that's another thing to model and that's nontrivial as well.

I don't think there's anything physically impossible in theory here, mind you. But the same way that traveling to a distant star requires so much energy as to defy conventional wisdom, being able to fully duplicate the kind of inference and other intelligence humans possess requires so much information and complex processing (which all needs to be programmed by humans) as to defy conventional wisdom.

The Turing Test is an interesting exercise, but all it serves to do is ask "what is 'close enough'?" I'm amused by how many people think that the Turing Test proves anything besides that a particular human was fooled into thinking he was talking with another human when it was a machine. It is not an objective measure of anything at all, and doesn't even suggest a "general level of competent mimicry," or whatever it effectively would suggest if there were some standard of defined "intelligence" the examiner needed to possess and be able to test for.

318. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261874 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 2:50 pm

Enjoy your rotting corpses Sciros.

Oh, I intend to! Muahahahahah! Wait what is this referring to?

319. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261805 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 12:08 pm

Natural selection isn't the only mechanism driving evolution. Or are people with straight black hair better suited for the "Asian environment"?

320. Mysterious New 'Dark Flow' Discovered in Space

Comment #261790 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 11:29 am

Your computer broke down and the library was closed?

HAHAHAHA that's good. I laughed a good while at this, good stuff.

321. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261783 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 11:20 am

Corvettes suck wind... :-)

They do they do! But that's by design, so the engine stays nice and cool at 200 mph.

and Batman is weird.

An orphan billionaire who beats up thugs at 4am and hangs out with Superman and gang on occasion while dressed up as a giant bat? Come on man that's totally normal!

322. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261776 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 11:00 am

to the polls, yah?

"Intellectual capacity" is really hard to measure in the first place, and taking into account socioeconomic factors is nontrivial to say the least. Trying to claim any intelligence corresponds to race alone is pretty ridiculous.

323. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261775 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 10:58 am

With Teratornis, mention peak oil.
With Al, mention Chomsky.
With Fanusi, mention Islam!
With Mitchell, mention manga/anime.
With me, mention, um, Batman or Corvettes or something.

It's like saying Beetlejuice 3 times.

324. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261770 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 10:51 am

Because honey owns. It's a natural antiseptic, never goes bad, and is exceptionally healthy. I bet WAY MORE insects die from pest control (even non-chemical) used to grow produce than from harvesting honey nowadays, especially if you know who you're getting your honey from.

I can understand certain diets from a health-minded perspective. But the bleeding-heart nonsense is just that.

325. Big Bang or Big Bounce?: New Theory on the Universe's Birth

Comment #261769 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 10:48 am

But, still, where did all this matter came from? How we came to be? How did it all begin?

Whoa the English got worse, too!

326. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261734 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 9:29 am

Yeah for now I've just been making jokes but for real this article is the biggest joke on this thread. Is this guy for real with his explanations of "not as many older fathers as before"? Get a clue d00d life expectancy wasn't exactly 120 a century ago, let alone before then. Blah he even says that when he mentions 1/2 of children would die before the age of 20. Noobery.

327. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261697 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 8:28 am

Honey is an animal product since bees are animals. Therefore it is not cardboard.

328. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over

Comment #261670 by Sciros on October 7, 2008 at 7:50 am

There's still genetic drift... we're getting taller. Our eyes are probably getting worse on average, too, since with glasses/contacts no-one cares anymore.

Who knows what our ancestors will be like when they are living as Alpha Centaurians or Vegans?

Our descendants, you mean :-P And I'll tell you what vegans are like right now -- they eat 100% cardboard every day and think they're awesome. If I could feel awesome by eating cardboard I'd feel sorry for myself.

329. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261194 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Well, I've forgotten too many details and didn't delve deep enough into them to say how little or how much responsibility fell on the legislative/executive branches for *causing* the crisis... but I do wish it had been averted before it got this bad. Meh.

I was gonna post informative stuff here about it all but now I've lost the interest, haha. Must just be one of those days. That ever happen to you? You type up a long response with insight and everything, and then think "man what a huge waste of time, forget it" and delete the whole thing altogether? Anyway I'm not convinced it was "Republicans" to blame in the sense that Democrats would've somehow avoided the crisis had, say, Gore or Kerry or both been in office. The administration made some costly mistakes, no doubt.

330. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261187 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 2:07 pm

Al, indeed. They might see the stink bomb as a preemptive strike.

331. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261181 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 2:03 pm

OMFG why are we talking about experience?? I rather get a smart person without any experience than a lunatic who's already held executive office a while. Lunacy < inexperience.

Invisible Talker, the Dems are to blame as well. This isn't something we should blame squarely on the Republicans. We've had a Dem congress for a little while now, and even with this bailout it was hardly Dems vs Republicans (a lot of Dems voted against!).

332. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261169 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 1:55 pm

Though I don't think anyone places as far back as Homo Erectus.

There's some interesting info here:
http://www.pajamacore.org/writings/origins.php
I'm not sure they explain that H. erectus didn't have any spoken language. More like, it didn't have what we'd consider articulate language. More than anything, an anatomical deficiency it seems. So... maybe language did start to originate then?

333. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261151 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 1:40 pm

For the record, Palin is nightmarish but Obama is bad too. I don't think anyone here expects him to be the next Abraham Lincoln or Thomas Jefferson. So let's not assume that people who are attacking Palin and choosing to vote for Obama/Biden on the basis of them being "not as bad as McCain/Palin" are arguing that Obama/Biden are t3h p4wnz0r and are actually any good. (Well, I've been pretty happy with Biden to be honest... but my standards for people running for office are rock-bottom low.)

In other words, DB you don't need to talk about how we all think Obama is infallible. That's not the case.

If a third party could submit a chimp with a batman mask as a viable candidate with one of those $30 starbucks coffee thermoses as his running mate, I would have to think long and hard about my choice.

334. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261144 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 1:29 pm

Hey Goldy, thanks for the reply. I just looked up a bit of info on the subject myself... the H. erectus spinal cord idea was mentioned there, as well. It seems maybe there wasn't enough material for fully articulated speech due to reduced muscle control, something like that. Seems really speculative, though.

335. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261137 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 1:22 pm

Well where his 'philosophers' go wrong is that they seem to think that language is something that evolved in one step with a complete vocabulary and gramatical structure, and that it is something that is innate and hardwired into our DNA.

Hmm that's not really what I was getting at. Of course it was a gradual process, but I was wondering if there was a connection there like I thought there was...

336. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261130 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 1:11 pm

Didn't language evolve around the same time that man started *hunting* meat, and around that same time the brain got larger? (or certain parts of it?)

I know just enough about human evolution to be able to drive an automobile competently, so please correct me if I'm wrong ^_^

337. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261106 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 12:35 pm

5 different colleges in 6 years, to graduate with 1 major -- journalism. Not so impressive, to say the least.

338. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261102 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 12:30 pm

philosophers have pointed out that it is hard to imagine

Well damn, if philosophers find something hard to imagine, then IT IS WRONG!! I agree, we should only put into science books what philosophers find easy to imagine. That is the new standard. Easy to imagine. By philosophers.

events and experiences within oour world which are hard to explain

Easy to explain [to a moron like this author]. That's another good standard. If he can't figure it out, then IT IS WRONG!!

339. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261080 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 12:07 pm

ignore the success of Finland's public education system.

Is Richard Dawkins from Finland??

I think I've made my point!

340. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261060 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 11:25 am

Holy holes, Batman!

I have a .wav on my computer of Burt Ward (as Robin) saying "Holy hole in a doughtnut!"

341. When Atheists Attack

Comment #261058 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 11:22 am

Hahah Peace I know, I was just joking around because I found the sentence could be read more than one way, especially out of context.

342. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261054 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 11:19 am

It would be irritating for a biologist if I were to try to write a book about science in which I displayed my ignorance of the meaning of multicellularity, or the behaviour of chromosomes.

So instead I'll crap out a rubbish article where I display my ignorance of that and a great many other things! Winnar!

343. Dawkins: a theologian's perspective

Comment #261048 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 11:16 am

Soviet Russia

Hello again Stalin. You do like popping up in christian bullshit, don't you?

In Soviet Russia, you bite flea!!

344. When Atheists Attack

Comment #261040 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 11:10 am

Its not like, unless you tell them, gay people will just start fucking on your living room floor.

So if I tell them to, they will?

345. Strippers, armadillos inspire Ig Nobel winners

Comment #261017 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 10:27 am

Well, I do think the people that don't know anything about art can be quite annoying when they pass judgment on it, but not nearly as annoying as those that do claim to know something. They're easily far more intolerable, hahah. It's like with movies -- everybody's a critic, but the ones who get paid for it are the worst!

346. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #261006 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 10:04 am

severalspeciesof, I find it a worthwhile discussion at any rate. The thing is, DP does point out some problems with public schooling in the US (there are many, to be sure), and many of those problems can be addressed reasonably. So... WE can definitely go somewhere good with this discussion.

Now, if the argument is just "private sector does things better," then I'm not sure schools are a good example of that. There are some public grade school systems (Upper Arlington, OH, where I attended) and some public universities (Berkeley, etc.) that outdo almost all private education. The reason is probably that the public education system doesn't inevitably lead to problems, so when it doesn't it can work quite well.

Actually, just had a eureka moment...

I'm willing to bet it's a question of how much funding school districts get, more than anything else. Upper Arlington, OH, is RICH (we weren't but generally it's a very rich part of town) and the schools get so much money they don't know what to do with it. Literally. They had so much they built a water park behind one of the schools. It's shameful. But hey the schools are really good.

Poor school districts don't do nearly as well. So, even though it's "public" schooling, how high the taxes in the district are, how eager people are to vote for levys for school funds, etc., plays a huge role.

347. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #260994 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 9:33 am

There are definitely ways to improve public schooling. It's because it's not the best in a lot of places that private education does do so well (private grade schools in particular would disappear if public ones were as good in many areas).

348. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #260985 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 9:18 am

Yeah those are terrible. There's a lot of bad names in pro sports as well. NBA has the NY Knicks, which has a good sound to it but for real they're the "Knickerbockers" which is freaking terrible. As for mascots, forget it. The Cleveland Cavaliers' mascot is a DOG, and the Phoenix Suns have a GORILLA. What the heck? A knight and a dude in a big sun costume like in Semi-Pro, that would make sense. A dog and a gorilla? No way.

349. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #260982 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 9:06 am

LOL yah Golden Bears. My high school's team was the Golden Bears. It's a popular name for some reason. Sounds stupid IMO, but hey Buckeyes isn't exactly intimidating either.

350. Palin: average isn't good enough

Comment #260977 by Sciros on October 6, 2008 at 8:59 am

Quetz, they're names of college football teams. MSU has Spartans, Univ of Michigan has Wolverines, OSU has Buckeyes.