Rocky

Can we reverse-engineer the brain, or will machines be able to develop a strong consciousness that’s completely different? Some think we’ll NEVER be able make a mind. There’s something innate in being human that leaves us impossible to replicate.

http://arttechlaw.com/the-singularity-is-near-will...

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/511421/the-br...

And if we did make a brain, and they woke up SkyNet-style, should the machines have legal personhood rights? AIs are starting to manage a bunch of stuff anyways, and corporations already are people.

http://arttechlaw.com/what-kinds-of-legal-people-a...

http://arttechlaw.com/robots-are-people-too-lets-s...

Anyways - I'm voting on Google X Labs for the "most likely to reach the singularity". What do you guys think?

What’s going to happen with the US Postal Service? It’s been bleeding money and stores are closing, and people are just using email and shipping companies now.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2011/12/06...

I mean, maybe they can get into delivery like the UPS has done with Amazon, but they aren’t doing to well at it atm.

And why didn’t they change all this during the 90s? It’s not like we’re stuck in stage coach days, though it seems like with government agencies creativity is not something that’s generally encouraged.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1780716/can-technology-...

The Boston Post said that MIT Prof Shiva Ayyadurai, the guy who invented email, is going to “save” the USPS.

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2012/05/shiva-ayyadu...

http://www.ibtimes.com/e-mail-inventor-use-technol...

Is it even going to be around in 10 years, or is it doomed to just bleed taxpayer money until people riot them closed?

Noam Chomsky seems to pride himself on being a very controversial figure. Sometimes he just seems to be embrace controversy, though.

Anyways, he said that a word is the same whether it’s uppercase or lowercase (any case).

Who Invented Email? Just Ask… Noam Chomsky

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/06/noam-...

Is that always true? It seems to me that some words start out uppercase, like RADAR or EMAIL, because, well, RADAR was an acronym, and EMAIL started out written in FORTRAN which only had capital letters. Then they became lowercase over time as they’re genericized.

Is Chomsky just being controversial again, or do you think it does/should make a difference? EMAIL, email, Email, E-mail… - when it turns up in the dictionary?

Statements from Noam Chomsky - http://www.inventorofemail.com/noam-chomsky-on-inv...

Noam Chomsky Weighs in on Ayyadurai’s email invention claim http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/13/3082157/noam-cho...

‘Inventor of Email’ Gets Support of Noam Chomsky

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/12/167227/inv...

Noam’s email tale

http://upstart.bizjournals.com/news/wire/2012/06/1...