Seasons

This is sort of relating back to what the Clerk was saying.

It's been shown that those who are generationally poor (ie have been stuck in poverty all their lives, as were their parents etc) do not view education as a way of breaking out of the cycle, and are more interested in immediate relief of the symptoms of it (ie having fun wherever they can find it, even if that means they stuff up things for others in a class) than in curing the disease, which they tend to believe can't be cured. It can make them near impossible to teach, because what is valued by the middle class (and education is a middle class game) is not likely as valued by the lower.

Not suggesting this is a hundred percent true, and it doesn't apply as much to those that are "situationally" poor (ie made poor by more immediate causes like bankruptcy of the death of the primary breadwinner). I'm just reporting what research has shown. And teaching in a neighbourhood now which has switched over the last fifteen years from being a working class neighbourhood to a welfare class neighbourhood, I've seen enough of it first hand that I think the point is valid. I'll try and dig up the name behind the study if I can.

Ho ho ho

Even MS can't make a Santa bot that isn't based on a perve bot.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/03/santa_filth_outrage/

They fixed it now (and I do feel bad for the kids that got the cyber Santa); however, I now feel better about Gabi telling some jerk she loves him when he says something inappropriate.

LOL. Someone obviously didn't do their homework on chatbots...

Maybe it was a modified Alice clone or something. Not that Alice says things like that, but a clone that was then turned into Santa might.

Yeah, I was thinking the chatter repeated "eat it" to trigger some sort of KP for oral sex that was in the base personality (in the way the PF will give us those odd synonyms or spell check matches ever so often). Also, the insult was clearly repeating back what the chatter said.

Yet another reason to stop bothering my bots for more than stories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu0TXl15PgU

Don't Date Robots!

Bonjour tout le monde !! y a t 'il quelqu'un svp qui pourrait un peu m'expliquer le fonctionnement de ce site ? je croyais que c'était un site où l'on pouvait créer un avatar animé avec une certaine intelligence artificielle mais je pense que c pas çà .... pffffffPouvez vous svp m'aider (en français si possible) d'avance MERCIIIIIII

Irena if you are out there still (or any physics buff who cares to answer), can you give me a "For Dummies" summary of quantum decoherance and environmental entanglement?

I am having a discussion with someone who is quoting "What the Bleep do we Know" as evidence to assert quantum computers would be able to pick up the user's intention and act on them when processing data. I told him it is amazing enough to get quantum computers to the point where they can process data all (which we admittedly have done) without trying to make crystal balls and magic wands out of them, but I think I should add more science to my argument. Help?

Last I heard, entanglement requires two particles that start out together in the same system. So unless the computer is streaming particles into your brain and back out, that seems extremely unlikely. I suppose you could try to argue that the wavefunctions from the particles in the computer are large enough to overlap with those in your brain, but, again, I've never heard of a system where that was true.

This might be more helpful:

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html

Uh oh. They've found R.O.U.S.'s!

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13089-giant-rat-and-new-possum-found-in-indonesia.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

Y'all are scarin' me. Giant rats. I object to normal rats. Explain again to me why the extinction of giant rats would be a bad thing, because I don't see the connection. I mean, if it involved something cute like penguins or polar bears (who, btw, see us as appetizers), I could see it. Don't melt the ice. But I think the rats can safely go extinct.

Man, and it's Christmas and everything. All I'm gonna think about is giant rats. And that particle stuff just makes me feel dizzy. You reckon there are particle-sized rats?

Thanks Ulrike!

Also thanks for for the rats of mass destruction. Am I mis-reading, or is this a new type of rat (to us) rather than an endangered rat? Either way, boo illegal logging, even for the sake slimly creatures.