Comments for Blogging the Singularity

Comment on Intel CEO: U.S. faces looming tech decline by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:07:20 +0000

Wow! I had missed this article. It should be a “must read” for everyone concerned about our future. Pass it on!

Comment on Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:15:59 +0000

I just completed reading the Kindle edition of The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age. The price was right at $0.00. For anyone interested in this subject, I highly recommend this ebook.

Comment on Reports: Verizon, Google reach Internet traffic deal by Robert Rapplean

Robert Rapplean — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:18:41 +0000

This isn’t quite what Ayn meant. The government has been acting to prevent this type of monopoly for quite a while now. This announcement says that it will stop blocking that monopoly under certain circumstances. Ms. Rand and most strong Libertarians state that the monopoly couldn’t exist without the government’s help, and that really doesn’t apply here.

Comment on Aurora from Adaptive Path by Robert Rapplean

Robert Rapplean — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:53:41 +0000

This interface is interesting, but the value of it has to be broken down into its various elements. The bit where everything fades into the distance as it gets older is definitely valuable. We don’t make enough use of time-based sorting, and this actually meshes well with how people organize the stacks on their desks.

The bars on the side and bottom aren’t new. Their method of organization may be more beneficial, but they’re still going to run into desktop realestate issues. People will want the bars to go away when they’re not in use. Maybe all of the bars and the dial on the bottom can go away as a unit.

The interface design also doesn’t answer the basic question of how people find the programs to run them in the first place. This is a pretty basic UI requirement.

In general, though, it does look like an improvement on the typical desktop environment. I particularly like the “stack” idiom for things recently worked with.

Comment on What’s Next for E Ink by HIVE45

HIVE45 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:35:31 +0000

I think e-ink technology by itself won’t be very popular. It’s worked for the Kindle and devices specifically for reading books, but I think the holy grail would be for it to work in standard touchscreen tablets (e.g. iPad). If the tablet had the ability to switch between colour glossy screen and e-ink rough monochrome, that would be amazing.

Comment on What Will the Blowback of Future Military Technologies be for Society? by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 00:59:05 +0000

Below is a comment that I received from David Brin via Facebook -

A very interesting article and panel, about the possible privacy and liberty and existential repercussions of rapidly advancing military technologies. Alas, several of the very smart panelists miss several points.

(1) The very thing that (they fret) most threatens privacy is the same thing that can protect privacy… at least a small but sufficient amount of it. Likewise freedom. Omni-veillance is true to the spirit of the Enlightenment. Only an onmi-empowered citizenry will have a chance of protecting either.

(2) No military technology ever had side effects greater than the H-Bomb, which altered us at the very deepest psychological level. Every male of my age owes his life to Saint Bomb, because the regular schedule of human warmaking would have sent us to some horrid, all-consuming, conventional World War III, some time in the seventies or eighties.

(3) Emphasis on fantastically computerized and miniaturized AI and robotics and “telepathics” in the future will come fraught with a basic danger… that all our potential enemies are working hard to develop technologies that might universally degrade computers and radio on some future battlefield. The theory is that such a degradation will harm the most hackable and tech-dependent combatants, most of all. This is a potential failure mode similar to one that struck the laste Roman Empire. See:
http://www.sigmaforum.org/editorial01.php

I could go on and on. There are dozens of ramifications… some of which were discussed in enlightening ways by this panel… and many of which they never touched upon.

SIGMA
www.sigmaforum.org
This is a SIGMA site to provide information to Government agencies.

Comment on Paying More for Egghead Egg Donors – A Sign of Designer Babies to Come by baby2mom

baby2mom — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:50:33 +0000

Higher donations for egg donors is becoming a more popular trend. The egg donation in South Africa is fixed at a set amount regardless of the egg donor’s traits and qualifications. The amount is given as a gesture of goodwill to compensate for the egg donor participating in the process.

baby2mom Egg Donation and Surrogacy Agency
http://www.baby2mom.co.za

Comment on The Future of Magazines by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:27:20 +0000

Looks like my Amazon Kindle Christmas gift will be obsolete sooner rather than later!

Comment on Blogging the Singularity: 1.5 Million Page Views Since Inception by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:43:22 +0000

Chris -

I certainly wasn’t expecting to see us reach the feedburner milestone quite so quickly. Maybe it’s got something to do with your recent upsurge in posting. I wonder if our readers have any thoughts that they’d be willing to share as comments on this subject?

Comment on Blogging the Singularity: 1.5 Million Page Views Since Inception by Chris Williamson

Chris Williamson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:20:36 +0000

I agree Frank these are VERY exciting milestones!

Comment on Blogging the Singularity: 1.5 Million Page Views Since Inception by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:01:49 +0000

Chris -

Over 1,500,000 page views. That’s impressive!

One of our next milestones should be seeing the number of readers by feedburner reach 1000.

It’s encouraging to see that the number of individuals interested in this subject is increasing both here and elsewhere, as well it should.

Comment on Singularity Summit 2009: Just How’s This Thing Gonna Work, Anyways? by latanius

latanius — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:18:35 +0000

Cool way to destroy the world the probability of something friendly (as in FAI) emerging from that process seems to be small (morality-space is big), and if it’s more intelligent than we are… bad for us.

see this article (practically the same scenario, ending included):
http://lesswrong.com/lw/qk/that_alien_message/

Comment on Meanwhile, People Are Dying by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:23:57 +0000

Michael -

Thanks for commenting on this post.

I personally wish that more readers would leave comments for everyone to think about. It could lead to some interesting discussions and provide additional insights into some of the many issues.

Comment on George Rebane: Workers and Work - The Coming Crisis by Frank Whittemore

Frank Whittemore — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:35:35 +0000

Martae -

Thanks for commenting on this post.

I personally wish that more readers would leave comments for everyone to think about. It could lead to some interesting discussions and provide additional insights into some of the many issues.

Comment on George Rebane: Workers and Work - The Coming Crisis by martae

martae — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:41:36 +0000

I agree that there will be fewer and fewer jobs where labor can not be profitably replaced by capital, but that has always been the case.
The true reason for rising unemployment is the Federal, and to a lesser degree the state’s interference in the labor market. Many people do not seek employment, because it is more comfortable and lucrative on the government dole. A custodial parent, who has no job or assets is rewarded by government for making the child they cannot support. The noncustodial parent who does not pay child support is imprisoned, thus both parents and the child are wards of the state.
Minimum wage laws make many people unemployable. If someone is willing to work for $5 an hour, and someone is willing to hire for $5 an hour, the rest of us need to get our of their way. In particular teenagers are denied the first rung of the employment ladder, in an absurd attempt to mandate a “living wage”.
There are many people today who are unemployed due to the drug war, whether they are in prison, have been denied employment because of drug tests that have no bearing on the ability to do a job, or because they have been denied an education because of a drug conviction. Even the funds that pay the law enforcement and prison personnel who service the drug war, are wasted on these “economic, and lifestyle” criminals, while there is no shortage of real criminals murdering , raping, and stealing with impunity.
Many people who might otherwise be creating wealth are working for the government in jobs where they merely consume it. Other than people working on research in government funded laboratories, government wealth creation is nearly nonexistent.
The misguided attempts of persons like the author to redistribute wealth, will only result in wealth fleeing offshore. Why do you think this has been happening since the seventies?
The answer to our national dilemma, is what the founders of this nation instituted, and that which our current political class, with the exception of Ron Paul, are terrified of. Money consisting of precious metals, the respect for private property, the retention of wealth by those who create it, and a foreign policy of trade with all, but military alliance with none.
Yes, I know many of you think these policies unworkable. Let us for a moment pretend that they are unworkable. What, then is Switzerland’s secret? They are no longer on the gold standard, but they were the last to leave it. They are prosperous beyond the US. They have a smaller underclass. As a nation they are not in debt. They have not been at war since 1847. The Sunderland war was a civil war between the Protestant, and catholic cantons, in which fewer than 100 lost their lives. The last real war the Swiss were involved with was in 1798 when the French army occupied Switzerland.
In short, the solution of the problem is not more of the same (wealth redistribution), it is the reversal of the policies that have caused the problem.