Tag Archives: rambling
Free stuff in your local church!
No, really! Go and get it, don’t believe anyone trying to stop you…!
(Bruce Schneier reported this cool story.)
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JACKSONVILLE, Ore. — A pair of hoax ads on Craigslist cost an Oregon man much of what he owned. …find more of “Free stuff in your local church!” inside
Ladies and gents, please welcome psionics!
Slashdot reports that “OCZ Technology is putting their neural impulse actuator (NIA) into 
mass production for shipping next week. The device, aimed at gamers, works by reading bioptentials. ‘These include activities of the brain, the autonomous nervous system and muscles — all of which are captured using embrace sensors located on the NIA’s headband, amplified and sent to the PC via USB 2.0.’ Users of the NIA will be able to control their in-game movements using only the power of mind. The device is priced at around $600USD.” (Overclock3D reports a price of $300.)
Wicked! I can’t wait to try this baby out. :-) Also, the number and coolness factor of applications I see of this technology as it matures, is uncanny… And wait till teh_pwnerer gets his hands on this! “liek i can pwn n00bz with me brain now lol!!!11 gg kthx”
Why do we– WHAT?!
LONDON (AP) — University of Oxford researchers will spend nearly $4 million to study why mankind embraces God. The grant to the Ian Ramsey Center for Science and Religion will bring anthropologists, theologians, philosophers and other academics together for three years to study whether belief in a divine being is a basic part of mankind’s makeup.
“There are a lot of issues. What is it that is innate in human nature to believe in God, whether it is gods or something superhuman or supernatural?” said Roger Trigg, acting director of the center.
He said anthropological and philosophical research suggests that faith in God is a universal human impulse found in most cultures around the world, even though it has been waning in Britain and western Europe.
“One implication that comes from this is that religion is the default position, and atheism is perhaps more in need of explanation,” he said.
Capital! :-D This research is probably going to be more entertaining than your average blockbuster movie… Also, Roger Trigg’s skill of drawing implications is impeccable. Presumably, the researchers will follow his lead, and I will have no other choice than to congratulate the John Templeton Foundation for $4 mil well spent!
And the new US president is…
Most people won’t know the winner of US presidential elections until later this year. Initially, I thought that the next president will be decided by who can profit most from the insanely insecure voting machines…
Now, however, I have changed my mind and realised that security vulnerabilities are not as important anymore, as the most important and decisive factor of them all has decided to reveal himself and swing his weight behind Mike Huckabee! He would probably become the president himself, if only it wasn’t so boring. Who needs the nuclear briefcase anyway, when a roundhouse kick right to the face can solve any and all problems?
Ladies and gentlemen, please bow low for Chuck Norris and his will of steel! :-)
VR or non-VR, that is the question
Brian Whitworth’s latest scientific masturbation argues, that it is perfectly reasonable to conjecture that “the world is an information simulation running on a three-dimensional space-time screen”. Amongst his arguments, that are quite interesting at the first glance at least, is that the existence of quantum phenomena could be due to the underlying digital nature of the simulation. He also claims that his VR hypothesis can explain relativity, the big bang and more.
That alone would not be anything extraordinary, we have seen it many times before. However, he argues that it should be possible to perform experiments to prove the hypothesis, which is rather interesting. The reasoning is that if reality was to do something that information processing cannot, then it cannot be virtual…
Not only he fails to suggest what that imaginary thing would be, but my question is, how do we find out, what information processing in a universe that may be significantly different from ours can, or cannot do? And what if the simulation module would cheat on us, and deliberately fake the experiment results? ;-)
Also, this concept reminds me of religion, in sense that there are several phenomena that we cannot explain, so we suggest that they are the work of God, (or the VR almighty, makes no difference to me.) My argument is that this world is quite dull to be a VR simulation. There are way too many boring limits. Then again, it could be some early development version… ;-)
If nothing else, by pondering this alone, I have brought the creator’s attention to myself, so
should I disappear, or mysteriously change my mind, we will know something’s awry here. Then again, we will not, because the simulation system will clear its tracks. Darn, we are doomed to live in the Matrix! And my superpowers are long overdue…