Huguenot

hmph

heroines This dreadful close - no repetition right?

Not a bust yet then - but I reckon it's only 1 away... :-S

Well if we revert to 'reward' rather than objective, then we increase the likelihood that an AI will 'approach' the required result rather than solve or terminate. I've been running over the concept of SD regards human behaviour, and I see a lot of that in forum debates. Many of the positions that we take are based on our private datapoints weighted by the perceived 'penalty' of getting it wrong. They infect both commitment and vehemence. Thinking that we could probably hand over most of the EDf to smart tech... ;-)

That might be a bust - is there a point for killing it?

heroize

Hmmm - I think we do. I can spot my own spelling mistake in the previous post a mile away now that I'm not editing it - but that's because I was principally in semantic mode I guess. The whole thing seems to boil down to standard deviation. Expectation is governed by previous experience, but I don't think it should get confused with hope. If we accept expectation is about convergence with experience then it should be easy to code, no? Plenty of humans make disastrous conclusions due to poor coding or early experiences - vis religious indoctrination or child abuse. Similarity with previous results is a comparable issue. Small changes in data input vs data output I don't think is a particularly human exercise, but I think that's about experience/SD too. Directionally correct seems to be a mathematical function. Recent self-taught electronic cockroaches worked out pretty quickly if they were getting further from their destination. 'Wild' changes seem about convergence again. I think broadly humans work on some sort of standard differentiation - and if too many components are out of sync, then it leads to a reassessment ('flagging') of the assumptions in the original data points until we either find one that's wrong or we accept the result and put it in the 'implausible' bag until it's reinforced by other independent observations? Isn't this then about 'weighting' output? I've seen video of worms crawling out of pork when soaked in coke. Since I've seen 'distressed' pork not generate 'worms' then I don't deny that the worms crawled out - I just weight it as 'exceptional' and consequently don't allow it undue influence when frying myself a mustard chop. The only likely AI development outcome is that an effective AI is likely to be 'in two minds' about many issues - and just as humans do it's likely to make decisions based on the balance of probability from its own experiences.

hero* *glances in mirror*

I put in ARE, but it was excluded by the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority on the grounds that it could have been used in an obscene context. Tarot is familiar with my Pakistani credentials I believe. ;-)

Gang activity

Do the children not know what their parents are up to? What is society coming to?

Ha ha, pgnf, I suspect that anyone who disagrees with you 'gets on your t**s' ;-) I should point out that if as you say there are plenty of spaces for cars within the proposed CPZ, then there will be no edge concentration, no zone creep and no impact on local traders. So you will be overjoyed to discover that you have absolutely nothing to complain about? In that case you will no doubt agree with many equable residents that it's only fair that the street residents should be free to make up their own minds?

The erudite and informed Senor Chevalier just observed "That's the problem with computers, they just process data. They're no good at sense checking." Which lead me to wonder what 'sense checking' was... I came to the conclusion that it was nothing more than comparing it to previously established and generally accepted solutions whilst checking for variance that exceeds, say +/- 10%. In that sense, for a computer to sense check you'd need to nothing else than ask it to explore a large enough database?

I just had a look at the suicide rates, and Norfolk is only 10% above the national averages - which is surprising. London is 10% lower than the national average, which tells you a lot about the extensive support network provided by the EDF.

Fromage or Frottage? Both should be pronounce to rhyme with 'midge'.

Yeah, that's agreeing with me on post rationalisation again. It like as not did stem from preoccupations with slaughter lost in the mists of time. The belief that blood spoiled meat extended far beyond Judaism and has only been questioned in the west in the last twenty years - not 2,000 years ago. I agree that it probably did get sucked into religious rituals, but it also remains a critical part of the slaughter process everywhere in the world. Cutting the throat of dead animals yields less than half that of stunned ones.

Quids has lomng contested that European integration is impossible because it's politically and socially unacceptable. He repeated the assertion in the previous post so it was worth clearing up. The lack of fiscal and monetary discipline in the weaker economies existed anyway. If countries like Greece hadn't joined the Euro they'd still have had those problems, but the lack of available credit a decade ago would have meant they'd have defaulted/devalued/implemented austerity budgets sooner rather than later. One of the benefits of devaluation over austerity is that it's less publicly visible - instead of cutting public service salaries you just cut the value of the salary. It makes imports more expensive, but consequently drives internal economy and exports. So devaluation is marginally better than austerity, but it's mainly a political veneer. Either way the Greeks would have suffered, it was just a matter of timing - which is where the biggest influence of the Euro lay.

This is not 'tedious rude posturing', if you're sick of anything it's probably your own bitterness. You're angry that your unsupported statements about what Europeans think continually turn out to be wrong. To be honest I'm rather sick of you. You accuse me of 'making things up' and when as usual I provide data to back up my arguments (which you have not), you attempt to diminish it. I was responding to your insistence that Europeans didn't want or like the Euro, that they didn't get along with each other, and they didn't want further European integration. You're simply wrong. The Euro DOES have the majority support of the majority of the electorates, as does European integration. The fact is that whilst having the Euro has its challenges, the majority of Europeans believe they're better off with it than without it. You can read back five years of my posts on the subject of Europe, the Euro and integration. My line has consistently been that it will have its challenges and drawbacks, but in the final analysis it is necessary and overwhelmingly positive. I have also always disagreed with you that Europeans don't want integration and don't want to support each other. Again I've provided data to support that view. I do not accept views that paint Greeks or Italians as feckless workshy ingrates, nor do I consider them to be any less deserving at core than any other person I don't know. I agree that the terms of some nations entry to the Euro were incorrectly set, and that this stored up problems that are correcting themselves now. I have never said anything otherwise on that subject. However, unlike those in the financial markets I don't believe that the European project is founded on financial issues alone - it never was. There is a political long term objective with European integration that far exceeds the scope of these short term problems created predominantly by a credit squeeze, not the Euro. If you choose not to see from that perspective, that's entirely your prerogative.

It's a bit odd that one of the author's key reasons for exploiting shale is 'because it annoys... the greens'. Not the kind of comment that creates much faith in his priorities. The biggest challenge with fossil fuels is that it passes the price of energy onto the next generation. If this chap makes decisions on policy based on the fleeting thrill of annoying other people I don't have much faith in his ability to consider the future. Having said that I can see that renewables are unlikely to deliver enough of our needs in the short term, and that the anti-nuclear freaks will do whatever they can to scupper that approach - so exploitation of national shale gas reserves is probably critical to medium term energy security. What I'd realy prefer would be legislation that took household expenditure away from the 'empty' value of property and financial markets, and increased the percentage going into energy. More cash in the market will drive greater investment and quicker alternatives.

Well since they'd need to refute the observation by insisting the world was created around 4,000 years ago and that 3,700 years of oral tradition left their history objectively accurate I'd love to hear a Jewish adherent arguing anything different. Anyway this thread was largely about the culinary habits rather than the philosophy, so in that area.... On the subject of pigs and the health benefits of making them not halal, the slitting of the throat was much the same thing. Exsanguination (blood letting) has always been critical part of treating meat - the blood carries a vast amount of bacteria that if left inside the carcass will spoil the meat within hours, and can cause death in humans that subsequently eat it. The most effective way of getting blood out is if the heart is still beating to pump it around and out of the system. So as with pigs, it's not mumbo jumbo.

I don't know where you can justify comments such as 'has been a disaster for us all' when it plainly hasn't. While you carry on with such ridiculous proclamations it will always be difficult to create a sensible debate with you. The rest of your accusations are inaccurate or irrelevant. It seems to be you insulting me, but I've got no idea if you're twisting arguments because I've got no idea what you're going on about. We were talking about Monti and you're talking about something else again? As for 'making stuff up', that's ironic coming from you. I always try to support my arguments with data, as I'm just about to do here. I don't think you've actaully got a clue what Europeans think about anything. I think you imagine that they're all as negative and parochial as some of your own views. Here's what Europeans currently think on the Financial crisis and Europe's role within it. They actually show an increase in faith in the European Union, and an increase in beleif in its strategic objectives. Your claim regarding the Euro not having the support of the majority of the electorates is quite simply wrong. These figures from the 2010 summary: Let's have a look at what Europeans think about fiscal integration: What you see there is an increasing faith in pan European fiscal integration, and a massive majority of Europeans who see it as a way of getting ourselves out of this crisis. Up 2% across the board in only 12 months. So can you stop calling me names yet?

I'm a bit confused HAL9000, you suggested earlier that the ban on pigs was down to cocking a snook at Roman occupiers - but now you appear to be saying that the bann on pigs was 1,500 years before that? I've been reading some interesting stuff on toilet archaeology - a more accurate way of judging diet than circumstantial evidence of pig bones. It's suggesting that although there was the odd pork enthusiast in ancient Egypt, that it's very likely that there were bans on pork there at that time.

"That hypothesis doesn't explain why almost all ancient peoples ate pork with virtually no evidence of ill effects?" Not sure what your source is for that? That's a big claim from ancient medical records. Assuming it's right, I guess that would depend upron the prognosis and the quality of those records wouldn't it? The most prevalent infection was trichinosis - from a parasitic roundworm that attacks the central nervious system. It wouldn't have left skeletal evidence, but it would have been dramatic viewing with the collapse of muscle co-ordination and easy to draw contextual conclusions that it was happening disproportionately amongst pork eaters. Your theory regarding pigs as symbols of colonial armies doesn't really explain why pork should be unpopular in many other areas of the world.

That's a stupid leader based on a fallacy. Policy strategies and white papers are invariably created by paid employees and consultants, with politicians only there to rubber stamp them for presentation. The UK is no different in this respect. David Cameron and his cabinet don't create the strategy, his staff do that and they're unelected employees or apparatchiks. David Cameron doesn't implement the strategy either, that's done by civil servants. In that sense the only thing that Monti's done is been transparent about this process. The democratic bit is in the parliamentary voting that signs off the legislation. The politics is within the horsetrading necessary to win these votes. Italy remains as democratic as it ever was, but at last it has a chance to succeed without the interference of highly factional politicans happy to destroy the country for personal gain. Whatever you think about that, it's clearly a ridiculous assertion that this is somehow an argument to stay out of Europe. If there's one thing that Murdoch papers DON'T want, it's the accountability of a democratic state. News International even operate their own secret police, and they don't like getting caught.

Is martin snorky in disguise?