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Greg Williams

How Computerized Tutors Are Learning to Teach Humans - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    The machines are taking over
Andrew DeWitt

Earth Station Nine - 0 views

  • The US exhibit included the: McCormack Reaper, Colt Revolver, a 16,400 lb hunk of zinc, unpickable locks, a model of Niagara Falls and a piano that could be played by 4 people at the same time.
  • The Egyptian Court featured the hieroglyphic "Rosetta Stone"
  • Items on display included: the Jacquard loom, an envelope machine that could handle 60 pieces a minute, Lucifer matches, tools, steam engines, kitchen appliances, steel-making displays, powdered graphite in the form of yellow pencils, McCormack Reaper, Bowie knives, Swiss watches, a stuffed elephant, 40 foot scale model of the London docks with 1600 miniature ships, a knife with 1851 blades, prototype submarine, farm equipment, electric clocks, washing machine, false teeth, artificial limbs, chewing tobacco, centrifugal pump, Jacquard lace machine, steam-press, camerae-obscurae, Caloric Engine, Colt's Pistols, Prouty and Mears' Plows, American Bridges, household furniture made of coal, rhubarb champagne, artificial arms and legs, two chairs designed by Mr. Carl Leistler, centrifugal impellers (pumps). 
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    List of facts about the 1851 Crystal Palace
Shaun Frenza

Communist Manifesto (Chapter 1) - 1 views

  • holy alliance to exorcise
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Religious diction
  • All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Man is responsible for technology which is responsible for a fast paced world, which they don't like
  • It compels all nations, on pain of extinction,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Japan
    • Shaun Frenza
       
      Seems a little singular - is there a specific reason why you only say "Japan"
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Capitalism has taken over the world, and those that were slow to buy into the idealology are being left in the dust, and dependant on others, which they don't like.
  • Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Communists retaliate by not producing enough goods.
  • He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Paints these people as the suffers, clearly appealing to them to call for "equality"
  • Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      In Communism all become slaves of the state and the state leaders, how is that better?
    • Shaun Frenza
       
      Or they become the machine - They are not the slave, they are the mechanizm together... at least that is what they tell themselves.
  • All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Conflicts with the MIT lesson, except for those that have to work. (in regard to females working) again an appeal to the working class people, who are the masses to revolt. This works less well in America because of the American dream and the possibility for change fostered by it.
  • At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984, they hope lies in the masses of uncontrolled people
  • Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The working class fights back
  • so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      they aren't alone in their cause
  • The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations;
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The shear fact of having money and therefore time to spend with children brings these differences.
  • The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority.
  • Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Doesn't believe capitalism can survive.
    • Rhett Ferrin
       
      Wait, all these sound like good things. Is he saying its bad to have Toyotas? Is it bad to have bannanas in December?
  • rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life.
    • Rhett Ferrin
       
      Can someone help me out here? Is he being sarcastic? He says capitalizm is bad then says that the bourgeoisie 'rescued' people from the 'idiocy of rural life' Thomas Jefferson thought the rural life was the ideal and to be sought after. I can't tell if Marx is for or against it.
  • By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour
  • By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.
  • immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation
    • Shaun Frenza
       
      Notice how we are in the same situation now as were were then - the facilitation of communication with the internet and how it shapes the world to become more homogenous.
Gideon Burton

Alan Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" - 0 views

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    Seminal article by early computing pioneer Alan Turing on the nature of computing and machine intelligence.
Gideon Burton

Pong (1972, Atari) - YouTube - 1 views

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    Pong was both a console game for the home Atari system, as well as an arcade, stand-alone machine.
torn halves

Ken Robinson, the Element & the Iron Cage - 0 views

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    Reading Ken Robinson's The Element and Finding Your Element from the viewpoint of Max Weber's Iron Cage. Welcome to the Machine!
Daniel Zappala

A Logic Named Joe - 1 views

  • Say you punch "Station SNAFU" on your logic. Relays in the tank take over an' whatever vision-program SNAFU is telecastin' comes on your logic's screen. Or you punch "Sally Hancock's Phone" an' the screen blinks an' sputters an' you're hooked up with the logic in her house an' if somebody answers you got a vision-phone connection. But besides that, if you punch for the weather forecast or who won today's race at Hialeah or who was mistress of the White House durin' Garfield's administration or what is PDQ and R sellin' for today, that comes on the screen too.
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      Joe is Google
  • it made Joe a individual
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      Joe has machine intelligence.
  • But I think he went kinda remote-control exploring in the tank.
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      Joe is using data mining.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • An' logics can do a Iotta things that ain't been found out yet.
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      In science fiction, machine intelligence launches us into the unknown -- computers might be able to do things that we can't conceive of ourselves!
  • In theory, a censor block is gonna come on an' the screen will say severely, "Public Policy Forbids This Service."
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      Joe disables content filtering services.
  • The screen says, "Service question: What is your name?" She is kinda puzzled, but she punches it. The screen sputters an' then says: "Secretarial Service Demonstration! You—" It reels off her name, address, age, sex, coloring, the amounts of all her charge accounts in all the stores, my name as her husband, how much I get a week, the fact that I've been pinched three times—twice was traffic stuff, and once for a argument I got in with a guy—and the interestin' item that once when she was mad with me she left me for three weeks an' had her address changed to her folks' home. Then it says, brisk: "Logics Service will hereafter keep your personal accounts, take messages, and locate persons you may wish to get in touch with. This demonstration is to introduce the service."
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      More echoes of Google -- privacy vs convenience
  • Then I sweat!
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      Social networking makes it easier to be unfaithful, causes tension in marriages.
  • Logics are civilization! If we shut off logics, we go back to a kind of civilization we have forgotten how to run!
  • That couldn't be allowed out general, of course. You gotta make room for kids to grow up. But it's a pretty good world, now Joe's turned off. Maybe I'll turn him on long enough to learn how to stay in it. But on the other hand, maybe—
    • Daniel Zappala
       
      Technology introduces new moral questions
David Potter

BYU professor's website explaining the turing machine - 0 views

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    The website includes of model you can program of the Turing machine
Erin Hamson

Modern History Sourcebook: Adam Smith: The Wealth of Nations, 1776 (Epitome) - 0 views

    • Erin Hamson
       
      The process of specialization was later perfected by Henry Ford, in making cheap, durable cars.
  • This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labor, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labor, and enable one man to do the work of many....
  • Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater art of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      This is the basis of the Market Economy or Capitalism, exchange based in self-interest that benefits all.
  • ...38 more annotations...
  • In order to avoid the inconvenience of such situations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labor, must naturally have endeavored to manage his affairs in such a manner as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for their produce....It is in this manner that money has become in all civilized nations the universal instrument of commerce, by the intervention of which goods of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged for one another....
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The role/development of money. The problem with money is that it has to be regulated and who regulates it? If we let the governement regulate it, it might become manipulated...
  • The value of any commodity,
  • is equal to the quantity of labor which it enables him to purchase or command
  • Labor, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities....
  • The real price of everything
  • is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Note the difference between the value and the price. The price changes most significantly in relation to how much the consumer wants the product, as opposed to how much time it took the maker to make it.
  • which resolves itself into labor
  • resolves itself into rent
  • resolves itself into profit
  • ordinary or average rate both of wages and profit
  • partly by the general circumstances of the society,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      A man cannot charge above that which can be paid him or he will lose business.
  • partly by the particular nature of each employment
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Some labor is simply worth more
  • ordinary or average rate of rent
  • partly by the general circumstances of the society or neighborhood in which the land is situated,
  • partly by the natural or improved fertility of the land
  • When the price of any commodity is neither more nor less than what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land, the wages of the labor, and the profits of the stock employed in raising, preparing, and bringing it to market, according to their natural rates, the commodity is then sold for what may be called its natural price.
  • The actual price at which any commodity is commonly sold is called its market price
  • he market price of every particular commodity is regulated by the proportion between the quantity which is actually brought to market, and the demand of those who are willing to pay the natural price of the commodity, or the whole value of the rent, labor, and profit, which must be paid in order to bring it thither.
  • A competition will immediately begin among them, and the market price will rise more or less above the natural price, according as either the greatness of the deficiency, or the wealth and wanton luxury of the competitors, happen to animate more or less the eagerness of the competition.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      The results of scarcity *footballs*
  • quantity brought to market exceeds the effectual demand
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Surplus
    • Erin Hamson
       
      ,effect of
  • A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufactures.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      See above
  • When by an increase in the effectual demand, the market price of some particular commodity happens to rise a good deal above the natural price, those who employ their stocks in supplying that market are generally careful to conceal this change
    • Erin Hamson
       
      A monopoly
  • The exclusive privileges of corporations, statutes of apprenticeship, and all those laws which restrain, in particular employments, the competition to a smaller number than might otherwise go into them, have the same tendency, though in a less degree. They are a sort of enlarged monopolies,
    • Erin Hamson
       
      See above
  • THE produce of labor constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labor.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      You get what you make
  • Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen; who sometimes too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of their labor.....
  • Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labor even below this rate
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Two combinations to react to one another. Like the checks and balances found in gov.
  • The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the increase of national wealth....
  • It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged
    • Erin Hamson
       
      equality in the pursuit of happiness
  • First, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them; Second, by increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be; and, Third, by obstructing the free circulation of labor and stock, both from employment to employment and from place to place.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      Problems of Mercantilism
  • First,
  • by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter into them
  • and to hinder him from employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper without injury to his neighbor is a plain violation of this most sacred property.
  • An exclusive corporation necessarily weakens the force of this discipline.
    • Erin Hamson
       
      the gov is not needed for regulation
  • Second,
  • by increasing the competition in some employments beyond what it naturally would be
    • Erin Hamson
       
      pursuit of happiness
  • by obstructing the free circulation of labor and stock both from employment to employment, and from place to place,
  • Third,
  •  
    Thanks for the annotations and the comments.
Andrew DeWitt

Learning in the Light of Faith - 0 views

  • When I was just out of graduate school, I attended my first meeting of the American Physical Society in New York City. A highlight was a special event arranged by the conference organizers: the great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov had been invited to speak to us.
  • Hour after hour he wrote down the stories he found in books in the university library about people protesting the invention of things like machines to spin thread and to weave cloth, steam-powered trains, automobiles, airplanes, etc. All of these advances were perceived by the general public either to be physically dangerous or to be a threat to the livelihoods of workers in trades that were about to be destroyed by these advances.
  • when he started to write science fiction, he remembered all of this work he had done. So while his fellow writers were all rhapsodizing about the thrill of rockets and space travel (long before such things were possible), he wrote a story about how the local populace showed up at the launch site with torches and pitchforks in opposition to space travel. Years later, when rockets and travel outside of the earth’s atmosphere became possible, there were protests, and many of Mr. Asimov’s colleagues were astounded that he had predicted so far in advance that this would occur.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “Why,” Mr. Asimov then asked us, “among all of these talented and visionary writers, was I the only one who was able to predict that this resistance to change would occur?” He let us think about the question for an uncomfortably silent minute, then leaned into the microphone and said in an intense voice that I still vividly remember: “It’s because people are stupid!”
  • The lesson I take from my memory of this experience is that the proper attitude to have when confronted with the vast complexity both of the universe and of the ideas and activities of the people who live on this small planet orbiting an ordinary star far away from the center of things in our galaxy is profound humility.
    • Andrew DeWitt
       
      This is how we ought to deal with future shock: "humility"
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    Great Devotional Talk by Ross Spencer.  Includes a great reference to "Future Shock".
James Wilcox

Alan Turing: a short biography - 5 - 0 views

  • Turing was captivated by the potential of the computer he had conceived. Although his 1936 work had shown the absolute limitations of the computable, he had become fascinated by what Turing machines could do, rather than by what they could not. He had long abandoned his youthful expectations of finding free will or free spirits through quantum mechanics. His later thought was strongly determinist and atheistic in character. And by the end of the Second World War he had turned against the tentative idea that there were steps of 'intuition' in human thought corresponding to uncomputable operations. Instead, he held that the computer would offer unlimited scope for practical progress towards embodying intelligence in an artificial form.
David Potter

Turing Machine Simulator - 0 views

shared by David Potter on 19 Nov 10 - Cached
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