Gobitron's comments

I'd be interested in a longer blog post on your observations, particularly the one about rhythm.

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No, I'm not one of those people. And I agree with basically everything you've said here (except for the part about the possibilities of AI and the limitations of mystery - but we've covered that!). I find the closed-mindedness of many people so disappointing. I think asking these questions is so important. I also find others' experiences with religion fascinating. Thank you for sharing. My experience was extremely different - and the community I was (and am) part of doesn't strike me as closed-minded. As you note, there are many religious people who don't see a conflict between science and religion. I count myself as one of them.

Can you provide an example of an alternative that would be more efficient? And are you talking about communication over something other than HTTP?

I don't know tluyben, we've been having this conversation now for....24 hours or so. I think 2s is a bit of a low estimate ;)

Seriously though, I don't think the Conversation needs to end there (conversation with a capital C - ours can end whenever we want). I do indeed believe in 'mystery above all'. I actually think that's a lovely way of putting it. Because mysteries are just unknowns, and without unknowns, what happens to scientific exploration? Do we just assume we know everything? And then the exploration stops. I'll be more explicit than that as well - I believe in God, and I am somewhat religious. I don't think that cancels me out of any interesting conversations.

I think you're making an assumption when you say that if you hold scientific definitions true then there is no reason why it won't be reached. Science says nothing about the future certainty. It is composed of models whose intent is to reflect reality, testable hypotheses to build and refine those models, and the results of the tests of those hypotheses to validate or disprove the hypotheses. We have no model (other than some vague calculations of processing power of the brain), no testable hypotheses and no results for these projections. It's not science.

But I would say I've proven you wrong that this isn't a good conversation!

I guess that if you're religious, then yeah, almost by definition, you would be skeptical of assertions like these. Although to the parent comments point, I'm not defensive at all about looking into AI. I find it fascinating and exciting and though I'm not trained in it, I read as much as I can about it and don't want to stop any research or questions into it at all.

But hubris - yes it is hubris. Because there is no scientific basis for the assertion that we will cross that chasm into 'true' AI, and thus it's based just as much on faith as any religious belief. And it's hubris because they claim a scientific basis where there is none.

When there is a scientific basis or proof that we've reached (or will reach) this 'singularity', you won't see me complaining. I'm not anti-science. I just don't think it's ever going to happen.

On a semi-related note, doesn't anyone find it kind of odd that Ray Kurzweil's calculations for when the singularity will occur happen to be just about the time his natural life will end (statistically speaking)? These projections are all driven by ego and faith, very little by science...

It's totally fair for one to start with that assumption, and stick with it until proven otherwise. But it's just as fair for me to be skeptical of the analogy. Before the concept of computers existed, people (very smart people) thought the complex organisms worked just like mechanical machines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_philosophy), and I'm sure there were - and are - many similarities and likenesses to be drawn. However that analogy wasn't correct as we now know. So we're on to the current thinking. Fair enough.

I also think it's a jump to go from "if brain isn't a computer - then magical". There's a lot of room in between. And there are plenty of reasons to think that what goes on inside the brain cannot be mimicked by a computer or algorithms as we currently know them. We don't even know what consciousness is! We should at least admit as much...

I'm extremely skeptical of this, even though I spend a good deal of my time trying to automate machine 2 machine communication (which gets me thinking about this a lot). I also think that there's a good amount of hubris in these scientists believing that the brain is something that can be emulated by computing power of any kind...are we sure it's an apt analogy (brain as computer)?

Slightly off-topic - any recommendations on the best javascript/node JSON Schema library?

Yeah, agreed on the car thing. Last year I bought a used '09 Accord V6 fully loaded for $17.5k with great maintenance records and low miles. My other car is an '08 Outback, which I bought in '09 for $18k and it had extremely low miles.

You DO NOT need to spend over $20k to get a great, reliable used car. I am guessing your standards for fun to drive might be different than mine, but an Accord V6 has plenty of power and you just never have to worry about maintenance.

I agree. It seems to me that we're dealing something whose potential we don't yet fully understand. It might very well fail, but a declaration by the IRS changes nothing except the behavior of speculators.

If all Bitcoin is good for is a way to replace Visa/MC then there is nothing all that fundamentally different about it. Dwolla and/or others will take care of that.

It is clear that it will take time for the really interesting uses of Bitcoin to emerge (if it survives). Until then, it doesn't matter what anyone declares about it.

It won't. We have many decades of evidence that 'back-to-basics' will never be more than a niche movement. The world is very large, and Google, Apple and co, are much more vested in the folks coming 'up' (3rd world developing) than in the tiny minority of people who can even afford to think about back to basics.

Not bad, but you gave me the wrong Facebook profile (I have a common name) and the Twitter one, while one that I manage, was not my main Twitter account.

Look, this isn't the right forum and I'm not the right person to engage in this. Though I appreciate that your are engaging in a civil manner, I don't think you're being honest with yourself here either, and I recommend you take a deep look at the precise words of your post to understand why.

You are very clearly being anti-semitic. I don't have the power to downvote, but comments like this should always be repudiated. Putting the word "community" in quotes, talking about "rich Jews" as the only victims of the Holocaust, and strongly implying that Jews control the media narrative because of some unified global economic power make you an anti-semite of the worst kind. You can't just say "not trying to be anti-semitic" and think that gives you a pass. You are anti-semitic based on what you are saying. Everything you are saying is unfounded and based on bigoted tropes that have been around for centuries. Own what you say and what you explicitly imply, and defend it if you think it's true.

You are the worst kind of coward.

The Theory of Evolution does not say this. In fact, the Theory is predicated on the existence of randomness and adaptation. What you're suggesting is that every behavior has a reason for existence, which is almost the opposite of the Theory of Evolution.

Based on the comments here, a key point of the article was missed. The quality of movies right now is crappy because it is being entirely driven by the international market, where they base things entirely on historical returns of specific actors and/or narrow genres. This shift to focus on international is due to the the loss of the DVD market. It's a lesson in how changing economics can impact the core quality of a product, not just "we're getting disrupted - damn the technology".

This is not right. You're right in that many cases a woman can choose to not have the child with or without consent of the father, but she is then faced with the real consequences of having to have an abortion, whether emotional, physical, or other. Every woman will deal with an abortion differently, and I'm not arguing that all women feel consequences, but certainly there is a burden there that must be dealt with. A man would not have to deal with these consequences - he could just literally walk away. To me, this is a significant moral hazard.

Sorry, but that statement about Greenwald is basically true. People are multi-faceted, and Greenwald is by no means perfect. IMHO, he says a lot of extremely stupid, barely defensible things. It doesn't take away from the work he's done exposing the NSA spying. But his success there doesn't make him a saint either.

Much of the conversation here centers around the value of reporting to Facebook vs. selling to black hat. This is the wrong paradigm to view this issue through.

Taking the view that selling to blackhats is ALWAYS wrong, it may still make sense for Facebook to pay significantly more to find vulnerabilities in their system. A less vulnerable system is one with a competitive advantage, and I think Facebook is missing an opportunity to tout their security credentials.

Let's take a back of the envelope calculation. Say instead of $4,500, they paid each of the 66 people who submitted a vulnerability $50,000. And since we're not halfway through 2013 yet, let's assume that in total 150 people will submit valid security holes to FB this year. That's $7.5 million dollars paid out.

Now, once word of a $50k payout gets out, say 10x the number of people try to find vulnerabilities, and the success rate increases linearly. So Facebook pays $75 million a year.

What are the benefits of this program? I'd say you get a few major benefits vs. the current situation: 1. You will definitely convert some blackhats away from exploiting FB data in exchange for $50k legally obtained 2. You convert a lot of people currently looking for security exploits in Google, Amazon, etc... to searching for FB vulnerabilities. 3. As a result you have a much more secure platform. 4. You can leverage these payments through media and PR to legitimately show that you care about security. 5. You combat competitors by touting a more secure platform.

$75 million is not small change when you look at FB's operating income, but it's not going to break the bank either.

The point is that it may well be a rational decision on FB's part to offer significantly more and it has nothing to do with the black hat market value of the exploit.