Posts by fodeja

19

What I am Reading, What I am Listening To

by mikepence in

jw
friends

in the interest of getting an idea of what interests people here, use this thread to post what you are into right now.. i am reading.... susan sontag's "in america" ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0374175403/mikepence-20) what an incredible author.

this book won the national book award.

see the reviews on amazon.

fodeja

I guess I'll have to restrict myself to English language and leave out the stuff I read for work...anyway, I've started with

E. S. Herman and N. Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.

just a couple of days ago. I've always been fascinated by the role of mass media in today's society, so it's about time that I'll read what some experts have to say. So far, it looks like a very comprehensive, thorough, and well-defended analysis (which is probably why Chomsky is so hated by some conservative types - he's not your average hemp-shirt wearing hippie, but an intellectual in the good sense of the word).

Also, I'm leafing through

Paul Watzlawick. How Real is Real? Confusion, Disinformation, Communication

again, as so often before. I've always enjoyed this book, and highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in the role of communication (or lack thereof) in our lives. Watzlawick's writing style is absolutely refreshing.

Music: Neil Young, Weld. Loud. What a shame the guy hasn't brought out anything remarkable in the past couple of years ("Silver and Gold"? Yawn! "Let's Roll"? Urgh!). Apparently it's better to fade away after all...

f.

25

Weight

by gilwarrior in

well today i went to my trainer and i weighed myself.

i weigh a disgusting 258 pounds!

i new record for me.

fodeja

stop eating all simple carbs

Go easy on the fruit!!

eat some barley

high glycemic carbs are the problem

take a multivitamin tablet and a calcium every day

chromium

the only thing that's missing is the complex carbohydrates

Wow! But, just a question: if there really are such simple, definite, proven theories on overweight and such simple, definite, proven ways to get rid of excessive fat, why do people still have overweight problems?

I guess the best advice is to really see a doctor, and maintain a healthy distrust of pop-science "nutrition research".

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95

Please form a judicial committee...

by SexyTeen in

jw
friends

seeing that most of those on this forum love to judge others (although the complaint is that jws do the same thing), i am willing to go through a judicial committee.. if you see fit not to forgive, please disfellowship me and shun me.

fodeja

If you see fit not to forgive, please disfellowship me and shun me.

Bah, disfellowshipping, shunning, we're above that.

I say we dunk you in milk chocolate, roll you in cornflakes and then toss your sorry butt into a cage full of WOL/GreatCrowd moderators who've been fed only zero-fat yoghurt and diet Pepsi for two weeks.

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13

Florida town casts out Satan

by fodeja in

jw
friends

so that's florida for you then.. .

inglis mayor carolyn risher said september 11 terror attacks inspired her to compose a proclamation banning satan from her town.

inglis, florida (cnn) -- if he's thinking of visiting florida's west coast, satan might want to steer clear of inglis.. the mayor of this small fishing village in florida has declared the prince of darkness persona non grata -- in essence, telling him to go to the devil.. "satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of inglis," mayor carolyn risher says in a proclamation, which was issued on official town stationery.. risher said the events of september 11 inspired her to pursue the proclamation, which the town commission supports.. "it gave me the inspiration that these people need to be ready if something like this was to happen to the town of inglis.

fodeja

Be sure to watch the video, too! And you guys wonder why some people think 'merkins are crazy!

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13

Florida town casts out Satan

by fodeja in

jw
friends

so that's florida for you then.. .

inglis mayor carolyn risher said september 11 terror attacks inspired her to compose a proclamation banning satan from her town.

inglis, florida (cnn) -- if he's thinking of visiting florida's west coast, satan might want to steer clear of inglis.. the mayor of this small fishing village in florida has declared the prince of darkness persona non grata -- in essence, telling him to go to the devil.. "satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of inglis," mayor carolyn risher says in a proclamation, which was issued on official town stationery.. risher said the events of september 11 inspired her to pursue the proclamation, which the town commission supports.. "it gave me the inspiration that these people need to be ready if something like this was to happen to the town of inglis.

fodeja

So that's Florida for you then.

Inglis Mayor Carolyn Risher said September 11 terror attacks inspired her to compose a proclamation banning Satan from her town.
INGLIS, Florida (CNN) -- If he's thinking of visiting Florida's west coast, Satan might want to steer clear of Inglis.
The mayor of this small fishing village in Florida has declared the Prince of Darkness persona non grata -- in essence, telling him to go to the devil.
"Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis," Mayor Carolyn Risher says in a proclamation, which was issued on official town stationery.
Risher said the events of September 11 inspired her to pursue the proclamation, which the Town Commission supports.
"It gave me the inspiration that these people need to be ready if something like this was to happen to the town of Inglis. We need to be ready to meet our maker," she said Tuesday on CNN's "American Morning."
She said there are people in Inglis who needed to repent.
"If our churches band together and pray, our nation and our town can be a godly nation and a godly town," she said. ...

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/01/29/town.satan/index.html

16

The Pope...

by Abaddon in

jw
friends

... well, in addition to condoms being bad, now the pope says lawyers who work on divorce cases are doing something bad.. poor old guy; he should retire, but he really believes and will likely die in harness or become so decrepit that he is no longer capable and will be replaced.. however, at least jw's don't corner the market in saying stupid things!.

.

people living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...

fodeja

I agree that the Pope is a bit of a questionable figure, but compared with most of his predecessors, he's a good man. I don't think he really has much influence anymore, though.

And at least the Catholic church does a lot to help poor countries and people, they have hospitals and charities...

This is the one thing I find praiseworthy enough to ignore the bizarre things in today's Catholic Church. In predominantly Catholic countries, the church is doing a HUGE lot of work for less fortunate human beings, regardless of their religious convictions.

The JWs as an organisation, of course, don't lift a fscking finger. So, give me a senile man with a funny hat and weird ideas of morality any day, if the alternative is a group of apocalyptic nuts whose ideas of "charity" can be summed up with the words "Watchtower" and "Awake!".

f.

26

Why I think the Borg will have another enemy soon.

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

there is that old story i'm reminded of sometimes about the world being full of three types of people.

the people who make things happen, the people who watch things happen, and the people who have no idea of what is going on.

i thought you might want to at least be in the second catagory so i wanted to share something i found interesting with you.. i have two short poems and a short story for you to read below, and if you care to read these you might find something quite remarkable about them.. long years have passed.

fodeja

Mindchild,

I tend to agree with Jan that "intelligence" or "wisdom" (and "life") are things we keep talking about all the time, but we can't quite make up our minds what they really are.

If anyone's interested, check out the titles "The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence" and "The Philosophy of Artificial Life", both edited by Margaret A. Boden, published by Oxford University Press. There you can read the opinions of all the great names in AI and A-Life. Most of them are pretty unsure about these basic concepts (and even if they aren't, their hypotheses are quite easy to attack).

There is an old rule of thumb about what intelligence is. If a man is standing on a railroad track and sees a train rushing towards him, this is information or knowledge. Intelligence is using knowledge to recognize the consequences of what will happen if the train hits him. Wisdom is getting off the tracks.

What if a bird is sitting on the railroad tracks?

f.

(edited spelling)

26

Why I think the Borg will have another enemy soon.

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

there is that old story i'm reminded of sometimes about the world being full of three types of people.

the people who make things happen, the people who watch things happen, and the people who have no idea of what is going on.

i thought you might want to at least be in the second catagory so i wanted to share something i found interesting with you.. i have two short poems and a short story for you to read below, and if you care to read these you might find something quite remarkable about them.. long years have passed.

fodeja

I don't know how much you have been keeping up with A.I. but it is a whole different ball game these days and the paradigm has changed dramatically in the way to go about making intelligent machines. There is NO programing now. Neural nets learn to see for themselves by interaction with the real world

Nonsense. Neural networks have become slightly more complex, but they're still programmed. They don't "learn to see by themselves", they're trained for pattern recognition in a way that could be called artificial selection, or breeding. Same with GAs.

What's changed - although that's been happening quite a while ago - is the "paradigm" (gosh, I hate this word) of central control, i.e. most current AI/A-Life research is based on systems of more or less weakly coupled, relatively simple components. Since the resulting behaviour is often unpredictable (at least practically unpredictable), this is sometimes called "emergent computing". Another buzzword, some very interesting and useful results, but no great breakthroughs in sight so far. Anyone remember the "fuzzy computing" hype?

f.

26

Why I think the Borg will have another enemy soon.

by Mindchild in

jw
friends

there is that old story i'm reminded of sometimes about the world being full of three types of people.

the people who make things happen, the people who watch things happen, and the people who have no idea of what is going on.

i thought you might want to at least be in the second catagory so i wanted to share something i found interesting with you.. i have two short poems and a short story for you to read below, and if you care to read these you might find something quite remarkable about them.. long years have passed.

fodeja

No, Mindchild, these are just smart ALGORITHMS, not smart machines.

Correct. AI has found its niches, but nowadays it's still far from creating anything that would be called "intelligence".

GAs (which, by the way, aren't particularly new - John Holland came up with this stuff in the 1970/80s) have their uses, especially for optimisation problems. This, however:

...taught themselves how to read, understand the context, and write about what they learned.

is quite a sensationalistic claim. "Understanding" the context, as in understanding the way we attribute to a human, is currently out of the question. There are very, very few advocates of strong AI left in the field, and they don't deliver a lot of promising results.

Anyone remember ELIZA? This was one of the first programs to simulate something like intelligence, and it even fooled some intelligent people. Yet, it was an incredibly crude, rule-based piece of software.

Thus, by 2020, we will have personal companions that can read an entire encyclopedia in a few seconds, that will never forget anything, and that will surely remind us of when our perceptions of reality (i.e. belief systems) don’t match the consensual world. In short, it will tell us (if we ask) that the Borg is full of it and it will offer proof for why this is the case. These computers will seldom make mistakes.

I remember quite clearly that unbeatable chess computers and human-level translation engines were predicted for the 1970s. We may be approaching the chess computers, but even state-of-the-art automated translation is still quite crappy, which goes to show what the level of "understanding" language is today.

I'm not saying that this cannot happen, but I'm saying that the stuff that's printed in popular magazines is quite far away from current research. Throwing more raw computing power at a problem doesn't magically generate the problem-solving capacities humans have.

f.

88

How do you know if you're going to heaven?

by Christiangal in

the only way to go to heaven is believing that jesus christ is god's son, and that he was sent here to earth to die on the cross for our sins.

if you confess him as lord and savior, then and only then, will you be certain that you are going to heaven.

fodeja

And what is Hell? I dont believe in a literal, burning hell.

Three words: District, Convention, Summer.

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