Hawk’s Babble-Log

My primary Western Digital hard drive in my game machine failed recently. After the re-install, I tried PowerDVD again (without the net update) and it worked! It worked so well I watched Speed Racer right then and there. With the new install, the Blu-Ray burner, and my new 24″ beautiful crystal clear monitor with 5.1 surround headphones, I now have a fully capable entertainment system! So now it’s my game machine / entertainment system.

In my previous post about how PowerDVD sucked ass, I must have been running into a problem with the hard drive, or data corruption, or something, because after the complete re-install, everything works fine. Note that I have NOT run the net updater, but probably will at some point. Then again, maybe not. Why mess with a working installation?

Sorry PowerDVD, I must eat my words, eat crow, and apologize. It looks like your software works just fine after all!

I can watch a sci-fi movie like Terminator where Skynet becomes “self-aware” and intelligent and then proceeds to attempt to destroy all humanity. I can watch it and enjoy the movie because I can enter their “universe”, just as I can enter the Batman “universe” where explosive grappling hooks can fly across a distance, embed themselves into a concrete wall, support 200+ lbs (riiiight). I can dive into the universe and have fun.

But a computer system, no matter how advanced, will never become intelligent. Two basic reasons for this:

1) humans work with concepts, machines work with zeros and ones (only).

2) humans think in gradients, computers “think” in absolutes: true/false, on/off, yes/no, one/zero.

With a computer, you have a finite storage capacity. It can only hold so much data, and no more. Additionally, that storage capacity is decided upon by the designers. With a human, there are no known limits.

With a computer, their basic datum is one of two things: on/off, true/false, yes/no, one/zero. There is no gradient between the two data. With humans, there is (almost) nothing but gradients. How full is the glass? Is it absolutely full? Exactly 90% full? There are gradients and everything is relative. Not so with a computer.

Additionally, a computer cannot be programmed to “care”. Why does Skynet attack? Why not just continue running things as it was programmed to do? Because the writer (a human) decided that it should (to have a story). But Skynet, even if intelligent, wouldn’t care one way or the other. Human’s want to survive, they have a built-in urge to survive and continue. Computers don’t have this “want” or “urge”; they just don’t care and cannot be made to care.

So rest easy, computers will never take over the world.

This video is excellent at explaining the myth of gun control:

Major points here:

• gun control increases crime.
• gun control does not affect criminals.
• guns in homes means less home invasions.
• guns in schools means less school violence.
• being able to have a gun is one of the basics in a free society.

I originally found this here on this page: http://www.ignatius-piazza-front-sight.com/2010/03/11/ignatius-piazza-this-will-drive-the-anti-gunners-crazy/