I'm working on a script for a youtube video essay on this subject, or on the subject of what will happen when we really have to deal with actually intelligent machines, something we're really not even slightly close to now, and in reality may never reach. It's an interesting subject though, lots of ...

Until AI can experience sensations (have feelings), it must remain a tool to serve us, not the other way around. If AI is ever able to feel in the same way we do, then we must consider whether it is 'alive' and deserving of civil rights under law. I think we are a long way from that sort of sentien...

I've been testing both ChatGPT and Bard on various tasks, writing, programming and some other things. Also various AI image creation ones. Yes they work. If you want a basic image or something for an ad campaign you don't have to pay royalties for? Ideal. If you want something that'll stop people in...

How likely is it, given the poor quality of the rest of their military equipment, that Russia has maintained their nuclear arsenal sufficiently that is still in good enough condition to be used in an offensive capacity anyway? I have serious doubts in this regard. Not that they exist, but that they'...

When will this thread I created die?
I feel like Dr Frankenstein every time I come back here. I created something that will haunt me for years.

Without the chasing me to the arctic regions aspect and family murder bit, obviously.....

I have one, because I'm disabled. It's pretty good, and I used to make use of it a lot. It helped me a great deal initially, but as my condition has deteriorated I've not used it as much. This probably isn't a good thing, I almost certainly should, but standing for any period of time longer than a c...

I don't think I've ever approached minimum wage in my life, unless you count the couple of years in the eighties when I was placed on paid government training courses for £100 a month. Those were to suppose to give you useful skills, in carpentry, painting and metalworking. Nothing I wanted, they ha...

I did try writing one of my more interesting controlled dreams (also SF inspired) as a book, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't capture it in words, since it turned out that what appeared to be entertaining in dream form made no sense when I wrote it down. Dreams don't need a back story. Book...

With Lucid Dreaming you can alter or outright exit the 'story' being played out in your dream. I can do it. When I was younger I used to have dreams with lots of derelict huge buildings in them, but they were rarely anything but background, never in the nights actual dream, so occasionally I'd pop o...

1) Are they decent build quality? Rarely 2) Can you replace the battery, as none will last forever? Almost certainly not 3) How realistic is the quoted battery life? Likely pretty close, since you can't run anything much on them 4) Better than a tablet/laptop or not? This entirely depends on what yo...

Success can be lots of things, not just one, even for a single person. Having some students enjoy my modules is a success. Writing, or rather re-writing a decent part of whatever book I'm writing is a success. But also walking ten feet using only my crutch without having to lean on anything for supp...

Rome did, Ancient Greece did, Most of, if not all of the European nations did until it was abolished, and the US technically still has it, if you include the forced labour of their imprisoned population. They just use lots of different legal rewording to avoid it being called that. I'm not aware of ...

Muslims often change Bible to Koran. I don't know what they do about the word "God". it's the same god, except they reject the whole pantheistic approach the christians have going on, so for them it's the 'one true god Allah'. Mind you, even the Catholics got a bit uncertain about the extent to whi...

There is an issue of illegal or stolen goods being sold on Ebay, but I have no clue if this is something that can be addressed. I suspect most of that has moved to Facebook now, but I don't actually know. i buy within a fairly limited range of goods, most of which aren't of interest to the general p...

Due to things like this I've tended for the most part to return to the same buyers for major purchases, like large format lenses. For those I've only used one seller in Japan, who I found by chance first time round, and the lens they sent me, a 150mm Nikkor, was so great I've bought my other three f...

There's a video now? Nice. I only ever knew about it from the paper I read, and i only read that due to my panic studying before I started my degree.

I've got some things I can sell now, but I don't know how I would.
Ebay keeps offering me low sellers fees, and I could make use of them, but it seems like a lot of things could go wrong, so I've not bothered as yet.

I read a paper some time back that said most of the world is essentially owned by one colony of black ants. they spread widely and this why that particular species don't attack each other, they're all related. they can be found on almost all continents now. I don't know all the details because it's ...

He was simply too irritating and constantly insulted other forum members. Even if he were allowed back I don't know that this behaviour would change.

I own a mirrorless digital camera, but I refuse to use it for anything but video or digitising my negatives. Digital photographs just don't seem to have any character to me. I like grain, and I prefer to have to spend ages selecting my shot rather than shooting dozens of images and hoping one works....