codeshaman

Very interesting !

I guess it's possible to use a MIDI synthesizer instead of the physical piano to achieve the same result ?

All that's needed is the conversion from the voice spectrum to notes/chords...

The added advantage is that it would be possible to use the pitch wheel to achieve intermediate notes for higher fidelity..

The output can then be processed again and it's pitch changed and so we can create music from synthesized speech. Does this make any sense :) ?

Well, then I guess it's not a law, is it ? If we called Moore's "observation", then it wouldn't feel so tragic?..

#51-#54 have practically the same combination of colors on the flags...

disparaging everything other people enjoy

I think you're always overgeneralizing everything...

These young people are addicted to their phones and snapchat.

Later on in life, when they 'grow out' of snapchat, they will replace the addiction with something else - some other app, but also food, drugs or sex.

Whatever thing they will find interesting, they will pursue it with the same pattern that they learn with these apps / games.

This future generation will have to find a way to live with all this addictive technology and survive in the real world.

Might well be that Snapchat (and others) will be looked at as we're now looking at cigarettes.

True, mad love is a beautiful experience, maybe the most powerful and satisfying thing that can happen to you.

I have been lucky to have experienced it once and now, 8 years later we still have it in us.

Of course it doesn't manifest in endless nights of looking into each other's eyes, but we still cherish that period as a gift from God himself.

Yes it does resemble an addiction, although maybe it's worth reversing the terms - addiction is actually like "true" love.

Everything in our lives just clicked - we'd just moved to the beautiful city of Barcelona, it was spring time and flowers were in bloom, we had money, more than we could spend and we traveled around and experienced each other through Europe - Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Brussels, Stockholm, Athens, Vienna, ...

Every week in a different city, weather was always great, the food and wine were fantastic - but all that beauty around us was pale in comparison to the look in her eyes.

That look - when this beautiful girl looks at you like you are everything for her and you feel like she's everything for you - like you are the perfect drugs for each other - that is a powerful and fulfilling experience.

That's what it feels like to be blessed.

Our daughter is the result of that love and we often joke that our love was actually the effect of her coming into this world.

Drugs don't really come close to the powerful emotions that we can generate naturally when we are in love - I can only compare it to an MDMA trip that lasts for months...

That love has carried us through the difficult moments of having a child and careers in our modern, artificial society and we would have been separated many times had it not been for those memories.

- Hey John, wtf ? Why are the lights out all over the country ?

- No idea, the president's database server is down...

- And where are the autonomous tanks flying to ?

- Access denied...

- Oh crap, not again..

It may also decide that it's necessary to reduce the population by implementing social purging, starting with the people who disagree with this decision.

Purge everyone who doesn't agree with the purge. 150 milliseconds later, law-enforcement drones and robots start executing.

Nuclear apocalypse ?

Good! There's too many of us already.

6.8 billion phones today means 6.8 billion pieces of high tech garbage a couple of years later, leaking all kinds of toxic shit into the water, plus 6.8 billion new devices manufactured while digging up all kinds of precious materials out of the ground and using oil to transport them all over the world, then burning coal, heating oil and natural gas to melt and glue shit together, and then burn more oil to transport the finished devices to customers all over the world.

That helps climate change, which leads to droughts in places like Brazil, determining people to use bathtubs to catch every drop of rain, were mosquitos breed and then fly around spreading Zika.

More phones and more porn, that's what's needed for a happy future.

/sarcasm

Maybe the depth of knowledge in the AI field wasn't the only reason why he was chosen ?

I know I'm not alone thinking that psychedelics might just be the solution (or key to finding solutions) to a lot of humanity's issues, including climate change, fundamentalism, war..

And it's easy to understand why - because most of humanity's issues are consequences of the spiritual health of every individual living on the planet. If the group, as a whole, is spiritually and morally lost or deceived, things like wars, dictatorships or disregard for nature can and do take place.

If psychedelics can heal individuals, then we can eventually heal the whole of society, which is the proverbial moving on to the next level of global consciousness.

Without any kind of real data, instinctively I feel like the world is going through an explosion of psychedelic use, partly due to music festivals, partly due to dark markets and partly due to the good press and incredible amounts of information available online.

Another interesting aspect is that the users who experienced a powerful personal transformation often feel the need to spread the word and rightfully come to treat them as sacraments.

So I think more and more people will use them, which will hopefully lead us to a peaceful, healthy future.

AI, VR, Robots, Space exploration and Psychedelics .. Interesting times indeed.

Of course it makes no sense - it's a paradox ! But that argument is always a nice touch (and a down vote magnet) - it pisses people off because it makes them feel guilty for reasons that are beyond their control.

But you can think deeper than "earn" and "afford". You don't have to, but it won't hurt if you started looking beyond the linguistic abstractions so conveniently given to us by the media and corporations.

Look up the documentary "Darwin's nightmare", watch it and then look up the Apple iWatch launch event with Christy Turlington and a video of her wearing the iWatch in Tanzania.

Why do you think I don't accept other people. By all means, be and do what your heart desires.

I just think it's unwise to throw $600+ on a piece of experimental tech which is cumbersome to use and makes you look like a "me too" teenager.

That, when more than half the people on Earth earn less than that in a year ...

I'm totally indifferent to the Apple watch and what it has to offer. I don't need it and I don't want it, even if they gave it away for free.

When I see people wearing an iWatch - here in Spain it's usually the tourists and some local "uber-geeks" - I can't help but feel sorry for them, because they've paid so much money to unnecessarily complicate their lives and now everyone has to see that.

Lost souls, seeking to be different by thinking different, except of course everybody does that and now different means not thinking differently... Or something like that.

Maybe in the future the smart watch will be a practical and useful thing. Right now the iWatch seems like a terrible watch and nothing more.

/rant.

That.

We still don't know what long-term exposure to highly condensed, highly customized information does to our brains and social systems as a whole.

For example, there are signs that social network users are actually unhappy - in other words - are experiencing all kinds of mental health issues.

It is well known that programmers experience "burn outs", which, from personal experience, is a terrible and debilitating state sometimes even leading to suicide.

There is addiction to gaming, chat, porn, social networks.

Mobile phones have exposed everyone to the infinite stream of information/communication and I think this will lead to many more mental health issues.

I think we are not yet prepared for the kind of impact that current and future tech will have on our minds, so this would be a worthy field to invest in now.

All that you said is true.

But that which you control, controls you back with equal force.

While it is assumed that the state of the stock market reflects outside reality, it is in fact both ways - the state of the stock market affects and changes outside reality. And now it's a feedback loop, which involves software on one side and humans and "natural resources" on the other.

So now the married couple's daughter future is dependent on the outcome of this "game of trades" that HFT algorithms play day and night. And the people who write those algorithms do so to satisfy themselves, they don't know or care about the married couple.

Just like Google Maps - when there are few drivers using it, it's a handy little helper, if everyone uses Google Maps, it now defines the traffic pattern.

"... millions of trades a day".

What is that ? How can that be the reflection of what's going on in the 'real' economy ?

I interviewed at an HFT firm once and they were doing kernel-bypass networking, latency measured in nanoseconds and all kinds of really low level systems programming tasks.

Interesting technical challenges. Except... what does that have to do with the economy ? Why is it that I can make money if my algo runs a microsecond faster than yours ?

Why is that time delta measured in money ? I know there's the very rational technical explanation of how the first to react executes the trade, but just step back and look at the bigger picture here - what the fuck are you guys really doing ?

Are the people writing these algorithms even remotely thinking that the trades can ruin or starve millions ?

Are you even considering that these high frequency "trading" systems have an actual impact on the planet, the air, the water, etc ?

Of course no. They don't give a fuck. In fact, you can only survive in this industry by not giving a single fuck. Otherwise you have to look at yourself and realize what a parasite you really are.

The stock market made sense when securities actually reflected the "real world" performance of companies.

Now it's all reversed - price determines company performance - it's like all companies work for the stock market itself.

I don't like these guys. A bunch of crooks and gamblers who have no idea what they are doing, while everyone thinks they do.

That's why the prognosis for the world economy is pretty bleak - because the insanity is institutionalized already and we have no idea how to stop it.

One added word entirely changes the rationale of "life is short" for me.

"This", meaning "current".

Add the belief that there is another (form of) life after this one and suddenly the equation changes:

This life is short. But then there's another one coming.

The scientists in us agree - of course there is no evidence of life after this one, despite the messages transmitted to us from our ancestors - in the form of stories, traditions, superstitions, beliefs, religions. Depending on who you ask - we either go to a place were we stay forever (heaven/hell/spirit world) or we come back to life as another being or life form.

But the body dies and rots away !

Technically the body has died many times during it's lifetime - cells die and others are created - or rather - create themselves according to the instructions in the DNA.

The DNA is the one that moves forward through time, all the other pieces of our bodies rot away. But not the whole of it, just 50%. Half the DNA vanishes into void.

But "I" will no longer "exist" !

That's a belief. And also quite vague, because - who/what is this "I" ? Is it my body, is it my brain, is it something which lives inside the body/brain, is it all imaginary ?

Well, think about anyone - someone who's not near you right now - who is he/she ?

Right now, he/she is a thought.

Isn't everyone, dead or alive, just that - a thought ? Isn't "I" a thought then ?

If so, what is life then ? A story ?

Your story.

"Remember that man lives only in the present, in this fleeting instant; all the rest of his life is either past and gone, or not yet revealed. Short, therefore, is man's life, and narrow is the corner of the earth wherein he dwells." - Marcus Aurelius

I know about it, but I've also seen somewhere that they kind of distanced themselves from the "dark market" idea when they got funded by Union Square Ventures and Andreesseen Horowitz among others.

It might be the solution, I haven't checked it out yet.

Yeah, I guess, like all "countercultural" revolutions, the dark markets ran out of steam a bit. So did Bitcoin.

But the paradigm has shifted. Dark markets are possible.

We now know a lot about the risks/benefits of such marketplaces.

What's missing is a solid technological implementation of a distributed, peer-to-peer, trust-less marketplace. It's possible to do it, it's just not that easy.

An even better alternative would be total drug legalization.

Personally, I think that drugs are good for society more than they are bad and most of the "negative" effects of drugs comes from the prohibition itself.

Full legalization would create a true marketplace and the "bad" drugs would be slowly rejected by the market. It would also allow us to openly and professionally deal with the consequences of drug abuse, addiction, etc..

Countries like Portugal have done that (to a more or less acceptable extent) and the results are remarkable.

Combine legal drugs with modern e-commerce technologies + reputation systems and we've practically "solved" the drug problem. Welcome to the Brave New world ;).

I did it 10 years ago. I left on day 7. Overall, I'd say the experience was very interesting and unique.

When I managed to sit in the same position for an hour - I was ecstatic. I was also sweating profoundly and the pain was unbearable, yet I managed to just examine it, feel it, accept it.

I also remember having nightmares involving the meditation center - I clearly remember dreaming that building burning with huge flames and I was happy about it. It was a very vivid, colorful dream. My mind wanted to escape.

But then the most difficult part came. My wife was also in the group and we started being sexually attracted to each other starting with day 5 or so. The inability to speak and even look at each other added to the sparks of desire that have been growing for 5 days of meditation, silence and abstinence.

By day 7 the attraction became electric - just a glimpse of her eyes revealed that she was feeling the same way - we were both fighting the sexual force ... Dreams became sexual...

We both fought the desire, but eventually we lost the battle - we ran away and had sex.

Although nobody has seen us, we felt like we cheated and we couldn't continue the course.

So we told the teacher that we can't stay anymore and she mentioned that usually they try to avoid married couples in the same course because of the sexual thing.

Another reason for bailing on day 7 was the feeling that I was being brainwashed into accepting this new religion/sect/whatever. The helpers definitely behaved very cultish and I didn't want to become like them - I had a startup to run. So my mind had this powerful argument - "we're being brainwashed, we have to escape".

Anyway, overall it was interesting, even though I haven't achieved whatever I had to achieve on day 10, I think I learned a great deal of lessons about myself, about weakness, desire, love, etc.

If you have 10 days, go do it.

I bet this art is not dying, but actually flourishing like never before.

The sheer amount of information in the form of websites, books, videos and so on should be a pointer. I mean just google "mental math tricks"..

It's true that we can offload complicated brain tasks like number crunching to computers, but people do a lot of hard things also because the process gives them satisfaction. They climb mountains and walk thousands of miles not because they want to get somewhere, but because it's exciting and hard.

For this reason, I think people will continue to study and invent new mental math tricks...

More people, more free time, almost infinite info available... No, this art isn't going anywhere ;)

The system (capitalist or communist) determines to a great extent all kinds of curious behavior in people.

Like reporting numbers.

In communism, people are incentivized to inflate the positive numbers and deflate the negative numbers, because the primary goal is to maintain a good and submissive relationship with the higher-up party chief. The higher-up has the same incentive before his higher-up.

If you fall from grace with your higher-up (by not being able to achieve the numbers planned by the party), then your career is over (and possibly that of your family and business partners too). So you have to give him those numbers. If you do, he will take care of you and with time, you will grow.

Then there's another property of communism: people steal.

Not only you have to report higher productivity than the set goal, you also have to cover up for all the stealing that took place below you and the "favors" you make to the higher-ups.

Of course this is illegal, but when people start doing this, they become partners in crime and now it's about life an death. Falling from grace can actually mean doing hard time in jail or even getting the capital punishment.

This system works well when the economy grows - the pressure to perform beyond expectations is increased with each layer of bureaucracy and is more than just about "job security" - it's about survival - so people have to produce those numbers.. even if it means lying.

Of course the hard work is done by the same oppressed "working class" that the system was supposed to help in the first place.

Now, I have no idea what's going on in China and if these properties apply to their particular flavor of communism, but I suspect they do, because this is how human beings have to behave in that game to win.

And that means that the numbers reported by the government are probably off by quite a bit and it's possible that even they have no idea what the real situation is.

I wonder how many years until software production will reach the level of maturity where we don’t just fix bugs but,

If Google tried to figure out why the hard drives fail in every server, how many years before we could type McLaren in the search box ?

Instead they embraced a different truth - things fail, so we'll build our systems to handle that.

And I think this is the reason why we can get away with bugs in software - because we can isolate and prepare for components failure or imperfections.

So instead of trying to absolutely NOT introduce any bugs, we can instead focus on making our systems fault-tolerant and introspective and handle all errors in a graceful way.

The billions we waste on these products, assisted by the poorly regulated but rich and powerful vitamin industry should be spent on proper healthcare – and people should be educated to go in the sunshine and eat a diverse range of real food instead.

There are so many question marks in this advice..

What exactly is "proper" healthcare ?

In nutrition, the scientific approach is quite problematic I notice.. This very article is an example of how science changes it's course dramatically every decade or so. The scientist now thinks that his favorite vitamin is not so good after all !

What about the damage done to the body after years of following the scientific advice given 10 years ago ?

Then there is the "real" part of the "real food" in our high tech society... The rabbit hole goes pretty deep in the food industry and very few people actually want to know how their food is produced. Really, isn't it better to just not know what's in that sausage ? It makes us sad when we think about these things..

And finally, what he really suggests is not to worry about vitamin D after all ..

Just live a good life and nutrition will come after it... Or is it the other way around ...

Here they are, McLaren start-up sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGV9Qu6-7Oc

I see one of the requirements is a Windows computer...

So for a Mac user like myself, that $599 would include a good $1k+ for a Windows PC ?

Nevertheless I'm very excited about this tech, although I will not jump into it just yet.

Great words.

But I think it's already too late. The genie is out of the bottle and it's already doing it's darker things in many parts of the world.

One of the great things about technology, is that it knows no boundaries. But that is also it's biggest danger. Because powerful technology in the hands of weak people can lead to disaster.

Intelligence is the ability to create something from nothing, while Wisdom is the ability to choose (wisely) how to apply intelligence to reality - what to create and what not to create. If intelligence is the engine, then wisdom is the driver.

We have trained lots of engines but very few drivers. And that is what worries me most..

Imagine if Stasi had unrestricted access to the databases of Facebook or Google.. What state could they have built !

Oh no, those days are over - people have learned their lessons and it can't happen again!

If you didn't smell the sarcasm in the previous sentence, then you've got to do some living in other countries.

Because not only history can repeat itself, it already is repeating itself in many parts of the world, but now with these powerful data storage and data mining tools that we, the idealists, have so passionately crafted (and open sourced) in order to create a "better" world.

Cross-reference Facebook friends, search engine queries, music, movies and porn habits of individuals and you've got nice buckets were you can place people.

What you do with the buckets of people ( who succeeds and who fails in society, who gets promoted, hired or published, who gets to travel abroad and even who lives and who dies) depends on the current ideological or political requirements.

The point I'm trying to make is that in the future you won't need informants -- most information about us is out there somewhere - and theoretically it can outlive us or survive enough to feed the decision tools of some crazy future regimes or social experiments run by "rogue" AI.

If this happens, then the future will be a very strange and dark place.