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"X-Ray Delta One, this is Mission Control. Two-Zero-Four-Niner, transmission concluded."
08:42 Aug 27 2008 Times Read: 830
I don't hate stamps. I think they can be expressive. But let's be honest here; they lose a lot when yours is one more on top of a thousand others. People put so much time into stamps that they will use over and over on all the pages they rate and that's fine, but wouldn't the best use for a stamp be to use it as punctuation to a comment you trouble yourself to leave?
At the Center, we learned something a few years ago. Because people can be so inappropriate, the former Director undertook to educate people via signage, things like: No Mattresses; Do not Leave Donations on Sidewalk; No Parking; No Sofas... You get the picture. Guess what? People got Sign burnout; they stopped even seeing them.
When I check ratings, I scan past the sea of stamps. They all begin to blend together and look the same to me...even if they're nifty, glittery, and move! I only look for written comments. I've been duped a few times there, too - looks like a genuine sentiment and then you see the same person went on a mass rating spree and simply pasted the same comment into everyone's box. But by and large, the written comment tends to make me curious about the person who wrote it. I invariably click on their avatar and check them out.
Personally, I don't really care. Again, I don't hate them; I find them boring and overdone. Comment me. Don't. But damn, it's become a robot stamp fest here.
I agree. I've always said one of the main purposes of the rating system is so people (should) have to read profiles, leave comments and get to know more people.
It would provide for more friendships and relationships being built, and the opposite effect I would assume...
Stamps lose their effectiveness... they basically say "I came, I didn't see, I rated and stamped and still have no idea who you are..."
However, I have to admit I too fall into this trap. Mainly because just as stamps have become over-done, so are most of the profiles out there. Full of the same explicit, gory, sparkling and/or less than humorous graphics. The same mundane words and lists. Rarely does someone put that much thought into what they've said about themselves, that they catch my eye and receive my comments rather than a stamp.
If people are stamping your profile without giving it a read, they're depriving themselves of something wonderful.
But you know what? Odds are, they're probably not the person you wanted to get to know anyway... pay them no regard.
I tend to give them as much notice as the stamps on my mail. As for comments, they pretty much have to mention something on my page (not that there's much there), or they mean nothing.
I couldn't agree with you more, Hun. That's prolly a big reason I don't rate/am not rating too much right now. When I do, I would much rather leave a personal or intuitive comment to the visited profile. Then again, maybe that's just how we are. ;-)
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
18:48 Aug 24 2008 Times Read: 959
This is scary as hell to me. I want to both look at it and recoil from it at the same time. I love Irony's quote as we were looking at androids that are "realistic." She said, "those eyes are fucking terrifying." Watch how these AI faces take on an emotive expression, and then immediately go to blank faces. Creeps me the hell out.
"AlterEgo facial performance software may be ready to give massive artificial intelligences what they've been lacking so far - a convincing human face."
Artificial Intelligence is far, far away from any real emotions, if they ever will have it at all.
This is just a script, a command to display a certain animation. Referencing the Title here, HAL was an extremely advanced AI with a complete lack of emotion, only true logic, as any machine would. It also had no face, only a lens.
What we have so far are not true AI's. Only a logic processing of words, cross-referenced through experience. It takes thousands upon thousands of thoroughly drilling the program with WRONG and RIGHT feedback to make it even form an intelligable sentence.
As for realistic mapping, scientists say it is our natural selection instincts that repels us from digital faces. Something about the perfection and symmetry that makes our minds scream that it is unfit to procreate with. That's the theory, atleast.
Perhaps a bit more to the point, AI would be the system which selects the appropriate words and phrases following parsing and contextual referencing of speech input, while speech synthesis handles the actual output of sounds suggestive of human speech. Neural networks currently show the best promise of true AI because the circuitry arguably more closely matches mental processes than do standard sequential processing systems.
Speech synthesis usually relies upon a data base of words for the desired language (or multiple data bases for multiple languages). The audible components of speech are broken down into phonemes -- the smallest structural units of sound from which speech is composed. Words in the data base are cross-referenced with sets of phoneme codes which, output in succession, will reproduce the specific sounds relevant to the word selected. Alternatively, sections of recorded human speech can be stored in a database and multiple clips of audio recordings cross-referenced to a data base of words or phrases, concatenated and streamed to further processing modules.
Of course the example here is neither of the above. The faces are stored as wire-frame models with key points roughly mimicking the connection points for muscles and tendons in a human face. By moving these key points and stretching the wire-frame to match, along a predetermined time-line, a fairly realistic simulation of recognizable facial expressions is achieved. Each expression can be stored as a script or coded in component modules which can be linked together in succession to form more complex expressions.
The standard "right" and "wrong" training routines, if I understand the reference correctly, is more commonly applied to speech recognition code wherein a data base is built, based upon sample speech provided by the intended user, to facilitate improved recognition of individual words despite individual pronunciation properties and anomalies. Some companies are now utilizing more sophisticated code which does not rely upon the need for training and handles a broad range of dialects with relative accuracy as their initial telephone receptionist.
Progress on such systems is slow, but still promising. The above simulation is indeed impressive, given the technology required and seems to cut to the heart of human facial recognition. The expressions appear routinely familiar and instantly linked to particular emotions and yet, the transition from one to the next exposes the pure lack of emotion behind the faces. This can easily lead to contraction of pili erector muscles at key points of the body.
And as to both of your techy points...these are AI FACES. Faces developed for the technology, not AI itself. These represent technology's attempt to humanize AI, at whatever stage it may be. Just like the clothes aren't the person, they merely dress the person in an acceptable form; so too, does this propose to "dress up" the impersonal in human clothes.
Feh. By the time an AI can conciously choose to display a certain facial expression to convey an emotion, these -current gaming level- animations will be obsolete by far anyway.
Do You even Look At Yourself? Is This Who You Want To Be?
23:36 Aug 22 2008 Times Read: 1,029
I've commented her journal before, telling her how inconsistent her entries are. These are so bad, you'll think I'm making it up.
If you tell me one entry ago that you are a bitch not worth knowing and you hope you die, then you write in the next one that nobody understands you and fucked you over on your birthday after listing the cake your boyfriend got you and the time he made to be with you, how do you expect to be perceived?
You're psycho. You're ungrateful. I feel sorry for the people around you; I really do. You don't listen. You don't value what you have. You are spoiled and believe you deserve to be treated like a princess because you...what? Breathe? In case you don't see how you come across, I'm going to show a few entries on ONE of your journal pages...it wasn't even a challenge because you are consistently inconsistent:
5 days ago – He came home from work after I confronted him. We yelled and I cut myself and showed it to him and I choked him and I hit him and I slapped him and I wanted to give him a black eye… So we yelled more and I threw things and he went to leave and I put on clothes and I grabbed my id and my bank card and I had it in my mind that I was leaving him and going to hitch hike to a place to stay or an airport and he sped off in the car and some guy I knew from my work offered for me to go to his house. And despite how bad it looked, I got into the car with this guy and we went to his house
Midnight yesterday - Having a job and a relationship, working out nice right now, and things to do away from the computer, gives me a whole new point of view. I am someone else when I am here. In some way all of us are, but I guess the relationships I have here are not real to me, at least not in the outside world.
3 hours later: We are being evicted from our apartment. We have zero money left in the bank. ***** hopes I am pregnant. I am losing touch with what is reality and what is not.
I cry much too often.
7 hours later: I feel unreal. Like the things that I do everyday, is not happening to me, or is happening slow, or happened a long time ago…
*I left out the entry where she tells that her estranged mother had a heart attack and she exploits that with her work in order to go out and have fun.
“It’s like mosquito control with nuclear weapons. The sad thing is that the cops are sitting at this corner hidden when what they ought to do is stand on the corner in plain sight and protect everybody instead of attacking the people with the least resources and the most mental and physical problems. This is Jay Leno material and another embarrassment to the city.”
It's the statistics approach which seems to appeal to most people. They're far more interested in how many people the police arrest than how many situations the police have improved or the number of people they've helped. It's sad and it's counter-productive. It used to be best to swoop in and take out the drug-house. Now it's best to sit down the street and arrest everyone as they leave with their $10 purchase.
I need birra's "Why? Why? Why?" section for this
21:42 Aug 06 2008 Times Read: 1,262
I drove into New Orleans for a meeting with Second Harvest. The Claiborne Bridge no longer shelters the homeless of our city...no more tents...no more unsightly people. Cause for celebration? I wish. Read this. Have a puke bucket handy. I want to cry and kill people.
Your tax dollars at work. At some point people who think this and so many other things will throw off the yoke of oppression and start a grass roots revolution to right waste in local, state and federal government.
Unbelievable! It costs on average, $20,000 dollars or more per year to house each inmate in a prison, not to mention the money wasted prosecuting these people. Wouldn't that money be better spemt helping these people?
$20,000 a year per prisoner is using mid-1990's numbers. Currently one prisoner in good health can cost tax payers over $30,000 a year. Aging prisoners in poor health (as you might find with many homeless) upwards of $90,000 to $140,000 per year.
I would imagine $90K could house a bunch of these folks in decent state funded housing.... or given to the right organization, help dozens get back on their feet socially and financially...
I'm sure Joli could attest to and/or correct my opinion here...
It's an endemic problem. These are the inconsistent people. This population is incredibly difficult to help. Although expensive, the thinking is likely that they'll stay put.
Housing programs have rules. Break the rules and you're out. OUT? uh oh...homeless again. That's the cycle. Everyone is frustrated, but entrapment is not the answer for addicts and the mentally ill. I think that there is a compromise...repeat vagrancy = mandated treatment in housing that is private social service NOT Government.
It must be transparent with all programs and treatment with frequent audits. From intensive treatment, residents can transition to more traditional housing with life skills education. It should be a tertiary plan, last stage being "outpatient housing" where resident must still stay connected to a case worker who helps transition them to independent living.
The more severe cases could continue to live more "inpatient" in levels 1 or 2. I am not advocating institutionalizing people in government "forget you" hospitals, but more of a community setting with constant assessment and monitoring for the possibility and goal of independent living.
The cause of this might be somewhat good for some people. The intention, however, isn't good, it's disgusting. I wouldn't expect much more from the government though.
COMMENTS
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birra
13:03 Aug 27 2008
I agree. I've always said one of the main purposes of the rating system is so people (should) have to read profiles, leave comments and get to know more people.
It would provide for more friendships and relationships being built, and the opposite effect I would assume...
Stamps lose their effectiveness... they basically say "I came, I didn't see, I rated and stamped and still have no idea who you are..."
However, I have to admit I too fall into this trap. Mainly because just as stamps have become over-done, so are most of the profiles out there. Full of the same explicit, gory, sparkling and/or less than humorous graphics. The same mundane words and lists. Rarely does someone put that much thought into what they've said about themselves, that they catch my eye and receive my comments rather than a stamp.
If people are stamping your profile without giving it a read, they're depriving themselves of something wonderful.
But you know what? Odds are, they're probably not the person you wanted to get to know anyway... pay them no regard.
DuCroix
13:50 Aug 27 2008
Very true. This is why I avoid stamping, I like leaving little comments for people that interest me when I want to learn more about them.
Beastt17
17:15 Aug 27 2008
I tend to give them as much notice as the stamps on my mail. As for comments, they pretty much have to mention something on my page (not that there's much there), or they mean nothing.
FallenPixie
17:50 Aug 27 2008
I couldn't agree with you more, Hun. That's prolly a big reason I don't rate/am not rating too much right now. When I do, I would much rather leave a personal or intuitive comment to the visited profile. Then again, maybe that's just how we are. ;-)