From: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org (eda-thoughts-digest) To: eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Subject: eda-thoughts-digest V1 #153 Reply-To: eda-thoughts@smoe.org Sender: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-eda-thoughts-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk eda-thoughts-digest Tuesday, August 25 1998 Volume 01 : Number 153 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: ET: prizes for pythons [Angeljlb96@aol.com] ET: Re: observation ["Kevin Pease" ] ET: Re: prizes for pythons ["Kevin Pease" ] Re: ET: Re: haiku/80s ["Kevin Pease" ] Re: ET: Re: observation [Seth Fulmer ] Re: ET: SAM IS BAAA-AAACK!!!!!!!!! ["Kevin Pease" ] Re: ET: Re: eda-thoughts-digest V1 #130 ["Kevin Pease" > hehehe...well...ummm...nevermind...nope, not gonna go there... can I just get a lollipop or something? Jamie ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:01:52 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: ET: Re: observation >> kara garbe writes: >is it just me, or is there a lot less poetry posted now that we >have this huge discussion going? and are fewer people contributing >to the discussion? is there a point where we should take things to >personal email? Yes, yes, and yes. I understand what you're saying, and seeing as Seth and I are the major players, I think we can just as easily take this to email if we're going to continue it. Seth, okay with you? Anybody else crazy enough to want to be privy to the private-email discussion, just say so... we can add you to the CC: list. :) Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "I feel like a quote out of context, withholding the rest, So I can be for you what you want to see; I got the gestures, sounds, I got the timing down, It's uncanny, yeah you'd think it was me; Do you think I should take a class to lose my southern accent? Did I make me up, or make a face 'til it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself..." -----(Ben Folds Five)----- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:41:42 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: ET: Re: prizes for pythons >> Ben writes: >You guys are fighting over the prize, but I never even told you what it was. I >guess that's cause I haven't decided yet. Why don't YOU tell me what you want, >and I'll see what i can do (I think that is a dangerous request.) Nah, I already told Jamie she could have the prize. I am, after all, a "sensitive male"(tm). :) Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "Try as I may, I could never explain, What I hear when you don't say a thing..." ---(Alison Krauss)--- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:44:12 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: Re: ET: Re: haiku/80s >>> Jamie writes: >>After all, as we all know, my motto is "Anything to make Jamie >>happy." :) >It's a way of life...now run along dear =) Fetch that movie...and you'd >better love it =) I may actually check it out tonight, if I can ever get out of this place. :) I'll let you know what I think of it... what happens if I don't love it, though? Do I get excommunicated, or put in the stocks, or what? :) Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "Try as I may, I could never explain, What I hear when you don't say a thing..." ---(Alison Krauss)--- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:51:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Seth Fulmer Subject: Re: ET: Re: observation On Tue, 25 Aug 1998, Kevin Pease wrote: > Yes, yes, and yes. I understand what you're saying, and seeing as Seth > and I are the major players, I think we can just as easily take this to > email if we're going to continue it. Seth, okay with you? That's perfectly fine with me, as I decided to send the last post directly to you and skipped the list. I can just see the emails in another month will be triple digits :) LOL! > Anybody else crazy enough to want to be privy to the private-email > discussion, just say so... we can add you to the CC: list. :) Yeah, just let one of us know and we can get you up to date and add you to the "Kevin-Seth" email list :P Seth D. Fulmer mailto:kaosking@voicenet.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 16:50:55 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: Re: ET: SAM IS BAAA-AAACK!!!!!!!!! >> Seth Fulmer writes: >"I am 32 flavors and then some" - Alana Davis Hey, Seth, (and anybody else... in case you're interested... :) you should check out the original version of that song, by Ani DiFranco... I think it kicks a lot of butt over Alana's remake. (Just my opinion, mind you, I'm sure that Ms. Davis is a quite capable and accomplished musician... I just like the original version better. :) Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "Try as I may, I could never explain, What I hear when you don't say a thing..." ---(Alison Krauss)--- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 17:00:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Seth Fulmer Subject: ET: My final word(to the list in general) about the discussion Ok, everyone, Those who have been keeping up with the discussion, please remember that what I've been saying has been my internal self(more of my soul than my outward behavior). I keep a lot from people because I don't want to be scared. I prefer that people know the "me" that I show because that's the better parts of me from my personality. If you want to get to know "the real me"(c), my poetry states the real me as well as what I would want my perfect everything to be. My novels state that as well(I have 1 and I'm working on my 2nd one). In that world(my poetry and novels), I have free reign over anything. You could also talk to me one to one but please don't judge me as a bystander to a discussion. Thank you very much and Have a Great Day!! I hope I haven't offended anybody the past couple weeks. :) Seth D. Fulmer mailto:kaosking@voicenet.com "I am 32 flavors and then some" - Alana Davis ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 17:06:56 -0400 (EDT) From: Seth Fulmer Subject: ET: A poem! (gasp!!) :=) All through the night How quickly she runs; a child who's parents are deeply at rest. She runs through the bushes her dress cut to shreds. but at least it hasn't cut her pride underneath. The scars from her mother The yuckiness from her father The burn marks from cigarettes placed by her brother. Her pride still in tact, what little she has left. She's already begun to heal her multitude of injuries. The child quite hurt, tired, and dirty stopped by a stream for a bath and some shelter. The bath was quite refreshing but now quite exposed the young little naked girl chose a big tree to lay under She woke to the touch of a kitten so dear who'd have thought it was that of the mountain lion king. She continued on her way through the woods large as life If you see a little shy girl Be so kind; she's a gem. "Jewel of the Nile" by Seth D. Fulmer 8-24-98 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 14:41:29 -0400 From: "Kevin Pease" Subject: Re: ET: Re: eda-thoughts-digest V1 #130 >> Seth D. Fulmer writes: >Well, I used to be the type of person that if you told me "Good Job >Seth"...I hated it because it actually prevented me from doing the real >good job again. I told my parents and grandparents not to tell me that >crap any more. Now, I'd give anything to get that from someone(even myself). So why not tell yourself that, then? It's very simple. You set your goals, and you congratulate yourself for what you did accomplish towards them, not beat yourself up over that last half-inch you missed. >Well, that's a psychological tactic for training someone to do something(or >changing behavior). You use positive reinforcement for behavior that even >remotely resembles the desired behavior. [...] >It works great on humans too and it's >somewhat what behavioral therapists do for patients. If somebody tried treating me like they were training a dog, I'd punch them in the mouth, straight away. I have a sneaking suspicion this method either only works with really *stupid* people, or it's not as widespread & effective as you think. >You are soooo very correct. They can't feel emotions...but neither can >humans. But that's where you're wrong. Humans do "feel" emotions. There are plenty of responses that come along with different feelings... yes, in their most basic state, many feelings can be traced to neurochemical pathways. What causes them to be initiated in some instances, and not in others though? Why do we feel them so forcefully, and if they're "just" chemical reactions in our body, why do we assign any more importance to them than the feeling of being hungry, or the feeling of an itch on our elbow? I know that what's going on in my body is a chemical reaction a lot of the time, but that doesn't change the fact that I feel what's going on, and that it affects me in a very real way. >Emotions are in the very basic neurochemical state chemical >reactions that are based on the exchange of RNA sequences. Oh, please explain this one more. I'd love to hear it. But remember, you will be graded... as a Biotechnology major, I took Biochemistry, Physiology, Neurobiology, all that stuff... please make it accurate. :) Where does the RNA come in? >As I had started to do with myself, you can make the computer produce the >output of emotions. Yes, you can simulate emotions by making the computer respond to certain stimuli in certain ways... if somebody comes up and is friendly, act friendly in return. But that computer is being TOLD how to act, and only initiates those functions in response to an external stimulus & a set of instructions it's been provided by someone else. Who tells me who I like, and who I don't like? Nobody. Who tells me who I love? Nobody. I am "feeling" these emotions as a result of interactions between me and the other person... not because I've been told to by somebody, and not because I've responded to the stimulus of that person being friendly with a hard-coded response. I've had people come up to me and act friendly, and I still don't like them. I've had people come up to me and act like jerks the first time I meet them, and I still wind up being friends with them. You can't quantify those things, and any attempt to code them into a computer will either fail miserably or wind up being a pale, pale imitation of human emotion. >For example...If someone introduces themself to you, the common >human reaction is to introduce yourself to them out of an instinctive need >for human companionship. Soon, after a few other actions, the emotion of >friendship occurs. After a while of friendship and that you have >accumulated a lot of data on a person, the emotion of love occurs if the >data proves valuable according to your system of values. This really disturbs me, that you feel that your own emotions can be boiled down to little 5-step recipes. It's not that simple, Seth. It really isn't. >You can reproduce >behavior in a computer as well...if you can create behavior spontaneously, >you can create behavior based on previous stimuli :) Computers can only create behavior based on previous stimuli and instructions. They can "learn" to do new things, but they can only learn to do new things based on a set of instructions & previous stimuli they're given. Since you can't possibly hard-wire every possible response to every possible situation into a computer, any attempt to give them a human-ish emotional state will fail, or wind up being a weak imitation of the real thing. Sure, computers are great at crunching numbers... but show me a computer that will actually *understand* a joke, or a computer that can form an attachment to it's user that will last after it's been powered down. You can't, and you never will be able to. Computers are machines - they are not autonomous, feeling, thinking, reasoning beings. Anything they do that appears that way is as the direct result of their software and hardware being designed to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways. That's it. >The program that it would have would be only how to learn, how to collect >data, how to evaluate that data based on a system of values, and how to >"feel" about that data. Anything with a static set of values isn't feeling, it's merely responding to stimuli. >What do parents do to their kids but teach them a >system of values. The programmer would create in the robot/computer a >system of values and like a human, it could change them based on other >stimuli :) And how long do those value systems last? My parents taught me a lot of things that I no longer believe. That's the difference - my value system is dynamic, and changes over time as I learn, feel, and go about my days. I change that value system on my own, because I decide that my old value system isn't quite right. Nobody had to hardwire me to do this to myself, I just do it. Computers are tools. Humans are autonomous beings. There's a world of difference. >Ok, in this case, those low level operations are a necessity for the larger >operation to take place. The operation of walking can't take place without >the knee muscles moving in the correct directions the proper distances. >However the goal is the process of walking which takes multiple steps...To >give praise to any one step is to demean the other steps so you give no >praise to any of the steps. That's where you're wrong. To praise the first step is to praise the first step, period. You're not making every other step worthless, you're merely encouraging the person to continue taking steps when you react positively to the first step. >But I don't learn from my mistakes. I am an incredibly stubborn person and >if I'm given a chance to redo an experience I messed up, I'll deliberately >retrace my actions so that I mess up again. My parents always made me redo >my things if I messed up...and I'd deliberately mess up over and over. Once again, this is your deal. If you don't choose to learn from your mistakes, then you're not only missing out on a lot of chances for self-improvement, you're also acting like a complete dolt. This is what makes humans better than machines, Seth... we have the ability to analyze past mistakes (without any previous "error correction programming") and learn from them, and better ourselves as a result of those mistakes. If you don't take the opportunity, then you're wasting a lot of time, and you're acting no better than a machine - a machine will keep on running until it breaks, regardless of what happens to it. If you tear the wheels off of a car, that engine still keeps on trying to turn the wheels around and go forward... refusing to learn from your own mistakes is like that car without wheels... the engine keeps on revving up, and the axle's turning, but the car's not going to go anywhere. >Their goal was to make me learn from my mistakes but I was determined to >never learn from my mistakes so I resisted the intake of knowledge and just >had fun redoing the events over and over wrongly. If I stand up only to be >tripped again, I will continue to stand up and trip over and over until I >either stop tripping or I can't stand up anymore. Why are you determined to not learn from your mistakes? Is it that you can't admit you've made mistakes, or that you feel you don't need to learn from your mistakes? >But in my eyes, every situation is different. Deja vu has never happened >to me even though I've encountered the same event several times already. >It's all a different event. So, even if I see a mistake I did now, when I >go through Graduate school for Computer Science there's no way I'll be able >to correct it because I'll never be a freshman undergraduate student >majoring in Computer Science ever again...nor will I be a sophomore ever >again either. :) No, but if failure to study for tests caused you to get bad grades, if & when you go to graduate school, and IF you've learned from your mistakes, and IF you want to do better, you will realize that if you study harder, your grades may be better. Failure to recognize a cause-and-effect relationship isn't the same thing as deja-vu, Seth. >I consider college a time for social expansion. I could easily have gone >to college as a commuter, or not even gone to college at all and gotten a >job just as easily in my field. (Not necessarily, and certainly not as high-paying... that degree means a lot when you're applying to companies.) >I haven't learned a thing yet in >college that I haven't already known from books I've read in my field. Then I respectfully submit that you haven't been trying hard enough to learn. And don't forget, there's more to learn about in this world than Computer Science... >So, because the goal with college is to learn something, and I didn't learn >squat yet, I consider college to be a waste of $85 grand of my life earnings. Then why continue? If you're so sure of your knowledge, and think it's a complete waste, and the only thing you're getting out of it is social interaction... what's the point in spending $85,000? Social interaction & friendships can be built anywhere... why stay where you're spending 85,000 a year to do so? >However I don't do things a next time. Once I do things once I consider >the experience done and over with. The one weekend I was home I started to >get depressed because my friend Andy always tells me stories about how he >gets all these women to sleep with him and I'm thinking that if I did have >sex with someone, that one experience would be sufficient and I would no >longer have any desire to do it again, even with a different woman. What a boring, depressing, sterile existence that would be. There's more to sex (or at least, there *should* be more to sex) than just "getting it on" and having done with it. There's more to love & sex than "getting all these women to sleep with you". Someday, I hope, you'll understand that. >When I took my SAT's, for one thing they have no value to me because the >scores are extremely culture oriented. If you're a "city slicker" you're >going to get a different score than someone who's from the country, and age >and gender also plays a part. My only reason for taking the test was to >get into colleges. Um. Seth, that's the only reason ANYBODY takes those tests. The point was, when you take a test like that for the second time, it's possible, and altogether probable, that you're going to do better. To write it off, and assume you'll do "just as bad" the second time is a ridiculous cop out, and shows a tremendous fear of failure. >Actually, the first time I studied my butt off....The 2nd time I studied >for like 5 minutes and because I practice it every day by looking into >people's personalities and I took it the term before I thought I knew it >but the prof had a different style of test this time. You took Psych 101, and assumed you were capable of analyzing peoples' personalities? Psych 101 is an introductory course, I'm assuming? :) >So, I guess I should have studied more this time and I would have gotten >an A. There you go, now you might actually be ready to learn from a mistake! (Of course, it is just possible that you're not good at psychology... it happens, we all have our limitations... I'm not all that great at math, and I absolutely hated fields & magnetism in physics... they just weren't my subjects.) >For the most part, if I have to put any effort into a school subject, it's >too much effort. All of my programming courses I can and have breezed >through without so much as a tear in the process. My math on the other >hand and sciences I have had to put more effort into it. High School I >could breeze through any subject without trying. A lot of people were like that in high school, Seth... college is a little more difficult, and people have to learn from the mistakes they make that first semester or two. I hit college, thought it would be a breeze, because my first semester was mostly review-type stuff, stuff I already knew... then I hit my second semester, and assumed it would still be a breeze, and nearly failed half my classes. So overnight, I had to develop study habits. I learned from my mistake... everybody has to at some point. >Right...so you make it interpret them so that it shows the customer what >the customer wants to see...If the # in the file is 84 and the correct >answer is 37, then the program should show 37....basically what a >politician does to get elected...tells the people what they want to hear. If you go into industry with that attitude, you're going to get fired pretty quick. Trust me as somebody who's been working in this industry for a year now, and who's seen the software development cycle actually run in the industry... When the customer says, "This is what the program needs to do," then you make the program do it. It's as simple as that. Like I said, bad data = useless programs. If the data is recorded & stored improperly, the program is useless for its intended purpose. If you write useless programs then you will be useless to your company. If you're useless to your company, they fire you. Simple cause and effect relationships here. >It was created using a DOS interface and Assembly graphics routines. If I >was doing it in Visual C++, Visual Basic, or Borland C++ Builder, I could >probably do it in no more than an hour :) And it still wouldnt' have been any more than a pretty, graphical piece of useless code. To write meaningful, useful code of any sort, the development cycle is measured in months and financial quarters, not hours. Believe it or not, it doesn't matter to me... you'll be forced to work that way when you get out into industry, and you'll realize exactly how much "behind the scenes" action there is with any useful program. >My project for my last coop was to take a program from dBase 3.3(DOS) and >create a program to do the same thing in Visual dBase 5.5. It took me 3 >months to do it, but only because I had to learn dBase/Visual dBase(it has >OOP) to do it, and read the other guy's code as well which had no comments. >It took me yet another month to perfect it with the manager that was going >to use it. Porting code is not the same thing as designing, writing, testing, and revising code from the ground up. Porting any moderate-to-large sized program will still require months of testing, coding, revisions, and enhancements. I could port code from one development environment to another pretty easily, too... if I'm given a working copy of the old software, the code (commented or not), and time to work on it, I can come up with a new system in a few months, too. But like I said, porting code is remarkably different from developing software from the ground up. You will learn this, Seth, trust me. I know you don't want to believe me, because I don't have a CS degree... but I do have a three years as a CS major, a CS minor on my degree, and over a year of experience working in the industry. I *do* know what I'm talking about here, as horrible as that may be for you to have to admit. >If we were to create a robot that looked, and sounded like a human then we >might be able to get away with letting a robot run the government. It >might be quite easy to do it because the American people are so easily >fooled :) No, we wouldn't be able to do that. Because who tells the robot what to do? Other humans. They'd be ruling by proxy, but still ruling. The robot is incapable of making autonomous decisions. Kevin - ---------- Kevin Pease kbpease@boston.crosswinds.net (ICQ UIN: 3106063) (AOL Instant Messenger: kbpease) http://www.crosswinds.net/boston/~kbpease "Try as I may, I could never explain, What I hear when you don't say a thing..." ---(Alison Krauss)--- ------------------------------ End of eda-thoughts-digest V1 #153 **********************************