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The best stories of the day, chosen by you.
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Rise of the Clueless (Op-Ed)
By mcgrew
Mon Jul 19th, 2004 at 09:05:23 AM EST
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In Wired's July issue, Contributing writer Cory Doctorow writes about the movie I, Robot, in a slam at the late Dr. Isaac Asimov titled Rise of the Machines.
I would rather Wired had found someone who had actually read more than two or three Asimov short stories. There is a lot in this article that is debatable but presented as concrete fact, and other "facts" which are downright false.
Full Story (155 comments, 1765 words in story)
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The Church of the Long Now (Science)
By Shimmer
Fri Jul 16th, 2004 at 01:08:17 AM EST
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July 02004
I believe that the folks over at the Long Now
project are onto something, although they don't seem to quite realize it. They
point out that civilization has a "pathologically short attention span" and are
addressing this problem by building a 10,000 year clock that "ticks once a
year, bongs once a century, and the cuckoo comes out every millennium". They
have a charming way of prepending a zero onto the date (so that 2004, for
example, becomes 02004) to emphasize this point of view.
Their goal is an admirable one - to focus humanity's attention on timescales
that extend beyond a single life, but they don't seem to have thought very
deeply about the underlying philosophy. I propose that the Long Now has
profound implications for our species - implications that range from the
mundane to the practical to the spiritual. What better way to organize and
direct such implications than to form a new religion?
All rational thinkers, hear me: Welcome to the Church of the Long Now.
Full Story (385 comments, 2935 words in story)
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Zend in the clowns? (Op-Ed)
By serious articles
Thu Jul 15th, 2004 at 06:29:33 AM EST
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PHP has gone from strength to strength over recent years.
Reputable sources have demonstrated both its phenomenal growth rate, and indicated that it is the most-used Apache module by quite some way, flooring even the twin titans of mod_perl and OpenSSL in the popularity stakes (a fact which some people seem quite keen to gloat about) [1].
Tiobe Software's "Programming Community Index" (a nominal measure of the popularity of programming languages and skillsets) ranks PHP as having climbed so far as to be tussling with Visual Basic over fourth position, only being clearly bettered by the heavyweights of C, C++ and Java. Along with Perl, Apache, GCC and the Linux kernel, it is one of the undisputed heavyweight success stories of Free / Open Source Software.
On Tuesday, PHP v.5.0 was finally unleashed upon the world. What is starkly evident is that, whilst the developers have spilled blood to facilitate backwards compatibility, enormous changes have been made, both to the language syntax and its capability. These changes have implications beyond the world of PHP itself: They are representative of a certain trend in programming languages and the advance of technology in general.
So do these changes Promote Hyper-productive Programming, or are they just Purloining Heinous Piss ? [2]
Full Story (81 comments, 8535 words in story)
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New Users Re-opened (Site News)
By rusty
Tue Jul 13th, 2004 at 01:14:07 PM EST
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Well, tmenezes stern demands in the queue cowed me.* And the general opinion, amongst both users and staff here, was that sponsorship was a stupid idea. In principle, I don't agree (though it did need some changes from the original concept), but I'm willing to go along with the tide. Hopefully I will get a chance to try out sponsorship somewhere else in the future. So new user accounts are open again, without any changes.
We've had a bit of a cooling off period, I've kicked out a pretty hefty number of idiots (who I expect to have to kick out again and again, but what the hell). There are a few more people with the powers and mandate to keep an eye on new users and nip the annoying ones in the bud. There are also a couple features coming to help the rest of you let us know who is being a jerk.
Meanwhile, those of you who've emailed me asking when you could get an account, the time is now. Enjoy.
* No, not really. Actually they would have been open before he posted that, but I had to get Voxel to fix a problem with our mail server.
Comments (402 comments)
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Homeland Security planning possible delay of elections (MLP)
By grouse
Mon Jul 12th, 2004 at 10:12:27 AM EST
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Newsweek reports:
"American counterterrorism officials, citing what they call "alarming" intelligence about a possible Qaeda strike inside the United States this fall, are reviewing a proposal that could allow for the postponement of the November presidential election in the event of such an attack...
The prospect that Al Qaeda might seek to disrupt the U.S. election was a major factor behind last week's terror warning by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge... Ridge's department last week asked the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place."
Full Story (250 comments, 749 words in story)
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Rethinking the Turing Test (Op-Ed)
By Farq Q. Fenderson
Sun Jul 11th, 2004 at 09:46:34 PM EST
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In the 1950s, Alan Turing had proposed a metric for machine intelligence. This metric is currently known as "the Turing Test" and much work in the field of Aritificial Intelligence (or AI) has been influenced by this metric. In short, Turing suggested that a machine that could behave in a manner indistinguishable from a human could be considered to be "thinking."
For many researchers, the goal is simply to pass the Turing Test.
In 1990, the first formal instantiation of the Turing Test, the Loebner Prize, was introduced. The Grand Prize, awarded to the first computer able to provide responses indistinguisable from a human, is a gold medal and $100,000 and has never been awarded. However, each year $2000 is awarded to the entry that fares the best. This is ostensibly designed to stimulate research in the area.
I propose that not only does this metric exclude much in the way of actual thought, it also fails to encourage much in the way of machine intelligence. I also propose that the Loebner Prize, for adhering to this metric, puts an incentive on an aspect of AI that does little to advance machine thought or intelligence, in practice. Thus a reconsidered and reformed version should be introduced.
Full Story (253 comments, 1865 words in story)
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