Note that mankind cannot make Von Neumann probes. We're still having troubles landing serious equipment on the moon (see recent crash), let alone create a probe that would be able to harvest raw materials for making a duplicate probe, refining those to the ingredients needed, converting those to probe building blocks, assemble the new probe, provide it with propellant, program it, and launch it.
So I'm not sure why you'd think that a civilisation comparable to humans would be able to.
Also:
if you can build Von Neumann probes, you can construct a Dyson swarm. You just instruct the probes to create the components of the swarm from the raw materials in your star system. But that would massively boost a civilisation's energy budget. Therefore, it's quite likely that any civilisation capable of building Von Neumann probes will have built a Dyson swarm.
So, secondly, it's about as paradoxical as the lack of detected Dyson swarms.
I have no experience with sensitivity readers. I also have no problems with checking texts prior to publication to look for parts that are offensive to (minority/disadvantaged) groups. That doesn't mean the text shouldn't offend any individual - nor even that it shouldn't offend groups.
It does ensure that if you're being rude to some group in your text, you're doing that on purpose.
> Absolutely. Because if we don't draw line there, we'll see no end to history (and art is part of history) being rewritten and modified for increasingly inane reasons.
While I am sympathetic to this argument, the article also mentions updates to stories by Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl. I see those updates as something that right holders do to sell more copies of well-known works to modern audiences. For me, that's their prerogative: their rights, they(1)'re welcome to try and make money off of it.
In other words: do not commit censorship of existing works, but allow updates by anyone (modulo copyright(1)).
(1) who should have exclusive rights (and when) for commercialising works is another question.
> If a touch screen interface were properly designed...
Huh? They cannot be. You cannot get the same level of tactile feedback from a touchscreen as from a properly designed knob.
> For me, when things get dangerous, its when pressing the button (physical or touch) doesn't do what its suppose to do.
I have experienced that regularly in cars. When you have clear, unambiguous feedback that you gave the input exactly how you're supposed to, it's a minor annoyance; you instantly know that the UI failed to pick up on your input. Redo and if failure is consistent, have it repaired.
When you have to start debugging whether it's your input method or the UI having an off day, while driving, that's when things get dangerous to me.
No, it's the most important aspect for any new Google product announcement. It's not up to commenters to behave better, it is up to Google.
The comments cannot be considered garbage, since they ask the most pertinent question: why is this announcement worth talking about?
And yes, Google created this situation itself. And now it has to justify each new product's life span. Because we don't trust that at all. Unlike startups, Google can easily afford to run a product at a loss for years.
Yet we trust them less than startups with only a few months of runway.
I was quite shocked to learn that when US cable tv was a new thing, one of its advertising thrusts was that there were no ads.
Not being in the US, I don't know what the situation is precisely. But I do know that a "1 hour" tv show is over after 42 minutes... apparently, cable went from almost no ads to 1/3rd ads.
I moderate my long-term expectations for streaming accordingly.
I would recommend "The Number Devil" [1] for children (from 11 on) and adults alike.
It's a zany story, but in that respect it provides a refreshing intro into some math concepts.
In that vein, I also recommend "mathematical mindsets" [2]. A colleague developed a course inspired by this book. Though I only witnessed a tidbit, it radiated with the "new perspective/ new insights / gained understanding" that you'd get from the Feynman lectures.
Sidenote: neither is "now you know how all of maths work", but neither is Feynman thaf (foot physics). More importantly, all of them help you gain a new perspective on things.
> I pretty much only use Facebook. After the timer is up that’s it for the day.
Any reasonable definition of social media would include any site whose main content is user-contributed, and allows users to comment and vote on content and comments. For example: reddit, youtube, imgur, .....HN.
You may be consuming a lot more social media than you thought.
Papers, please, and that dragon, cancer are both types of games that did not exist before.
Probably there's a few more indie games that I am not aware of.
If you want to stick to mainstream games only, even then there is real innovation. E.g. calling Super Mario Odyssee a rehashing of Mario Galaxy does it a misservice (in my view).
So I'm not sure why you'd think that a civilisation comparable to humans would be able to.
Also: if you can build Von Neumann probes, you can construct a Dyson swarm. You just instruct the probes to create the components of the swarm from the raw materials in your star system. But that would massively boost a civilisation's energy budget. Therefore, it's quite likely that any civilisation capable of building Von Neumann probes will have built a Dyson swarm.
So, secondly, it's about as paradoxical as the lack of detected Dyson swarms.