Scientists Achieve Mental Body-Swapping 297
SpaceAdmiral notes the news that scientists have succeeded in convincing experiment subjects that a mannequin's body is their own, and even feeling at home in the body of someone of the opposite sex. The effect could prove useful in virtual reality applications and in robot technology. Here's the paper on PLoS ONE.
Ghost in the Shell (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:5, Funny)
/cry
Please don't introduce thoughts like this into my brain when talking about hot female characters... I'll never be able to look at her the same way again!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Shagadelic baby! Pretty kinky!
Don't hurt me now... Meeewoww!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
She repeatedly mentions she has no interest in a male body (generally when talking to Batou), we also get a couple flashbacks to various points in her past where she is still in a female cyber body.
Don't worry, your fapping is perfectly safe from your homophobic fears :)
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, your fapping is perfectly safe from your homophobic fears :)
I'm guessing you were joking, since I certainly have been joking about this, but I do feel the need to point something out seriously. Not being comfortable with someone you were attracted to turning out to be male isn't homophobia in the least. Homophobia is having negative reactions towards other people who are gay. Not being comfortable with gayness for yourself, though, is perfectly acceptable. Why choose such a negative-laced word?
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:4, Insightful)
the term you are thinking of is 'internalized homophobia', and it too is incorrect in this case. Internalized homophobia would be if you felt bad about your attraction BECAUSE it was same-sex, male to female attraction, regardless of the bits involved, is heterosexual by its very nature and would therefor not fall under homophobia, internalized or otherwise.
being uncomfortable/hostile/bad reaction of your choice about someone being a different gender or sex then you expected would be transphobia.
the more you know (insert shooting_star.gif here)
but I would dispute the "perfectly acceptable" part of your point too... many people commit suicide every year because they are unable to accept their sexuality, many more are assaulted, raped or murdered by others who lash out because of their internalized homophobia. Call me a leftist nutter, but anything that gets thousands of people killed yearly is not something I would tag as "perfectly acceptable".
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:5, Insightful)
but I would dispute the "perfectly acceptable" part of your point too... many people commit suicide every year because they are unable to accept their sexuality, many more are assaulted, raped or murdered by others who lash out because of their internalized homophobia. Call me a leftist nutter, but anything that gets thousands of people killed yearly is not something I would tag as "perfectly acceptable".
I won't call you a leftist nutter, but I will call you wrong. There are many things in our world which are "perfectly acceptable", but get people killed because people misuse them or react badly to them. I'm sure more than one person has committed suicide because of their unrequited love for someone, but that doesn't make being in love unacceptable, nor does it make non-reciprocity of love unacceptable. It just means that it's unfortunate that someone couldn't cope with something adequately, and made a bad choice about how to resolve the issue.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
I'd venture that being uncomfortable with your own homosexuality shouldn't be acceptable, either. Getting *way* off-topic here (and Mods, feel free to mod me down), but I think the world would be a much healthier place if people could just get past all the idiotic programming society puts in place. There's no earthly reason for people to feel discomfort with who they are, and yet that's exactly why issues like transgenderism have such a high suicide rate. Embrace who you are, and be comfortable with it. Be
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
If you're uncomfortable with gayness, I would submit that you aren't actually gay. [...] it would be ludicrous to expect a straight person to be comfortable with the idea of themselves doing gay things, just as it would be ludicrous to expect a gay person to be comfortable with the idea of themselves doing straight things.
True and true. Too often people get accused of "homophobia" when they're just expressing the fact that they aren't gay and no, they don't want that creepy guy hitting on them any more than a woman would want a creepy straight guy hitting on her.
I'm occasionally ok with giving other guys hugs – as long as it doesn't seem gay (there are a few people I can think of who this applies to). If it does seem gay to hug someone, then I won't hug them, because I'm not gay. IMHO this isn't any different than a gi
Re: (Score:2)
Don't worry, your fapping is perfectly safe from your homophobic fears :)
Good, I as worried for a moment.
Re: (Score:2)
That's Stand Alone Complex, though. The earlier movies and the magna are all different universes that can and do contridict each other.
Re: (Score:2)
That's Stand Alone Complex, though. The earlier movies and the magna are all different universes that can and do contridict each other.
They don't contradict. It's all a vast connection of flashbacks and dream sequences that only seem to contradict each other. Layers apon layers.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I believe Shirow has categorically stated that Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell: Innocence are operating in a completely different timeline to the events in Stand Alone Complex.
Quite appropriately for a discussion on GitS, CAPTCHA is "identify".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ghost in the Shell is trash.
The first one is your typical hyper-complicated (to make it seem intelligent when it is in fact simply ridiculous) anime with ridiculous robots and sexy female combatants.
It's great for action and style, but terrible for sci-fi. Anyone who says it's deep or has any meaning is either delusional, or has never seen any sci-fi ever.
Everything after (Innocence, Stand Alone Complex, whatever else they crank out) is utter trash, on the level of SAW sequels.
Sorry.
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:4, Funny)
You *could* just admit you didn't understand it rather than whining about it.
Re: (Score:2)
I do understand it.
The problem is that it makes no sense, and in general, is bad science fiction.
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:5, Funny)
I do understand it.
The problem is that it makes no sense,
Lol.
Do you have that on a T-shirt?
You could make a fortune selling them if you got Paris Hilton to model one.
Re: (Score:2)
Or, they have, and have realized that far, far better than "real" sci fi are
Re: (Score:2)
If that's your goal, what makes GitS better than any other anime featuring ridiculous robots and female combatants? (Which by my estimates is at least 30% of all anime.)
If you want sci-fi, don't watch GitS.
If you want action / generic anime stuff pretending to be deep, go for GitS.
Re: (Score:2)
Hyper-complicated? Trash? (Score:2)
Well... yes. If you were expecting a quick action fix.
GITS and Masamune Shirow's manga in general need to be watched/read with some concentration.
Add to that Mamoru Oshii's direction who almost always goes of to a deep end of the psychology pool and it may seem unnecessarily complicated.
As for trash..
Try reading some of Shirow's manga. He would really get into particulars with every single little thing in his universe.
That is, before he figured out he can live off the royalties and churning out a borderline
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone who says it's deep or has any meaning is either delusional, or has never seen any sci-fi ever.
Sorry. Sci-Fi is not limited to ponderous, arrogant prattling by over-educated shut-ins. It also includes flash, style, and simple characterization.
GitS is as deep as anything in its media could possibly be. "A person who is not sure if she is a person but is becomes indisinguishable from another person who is not a person but wants to be."
Hard to think of a deeper plot. If you can point to one, go ahead.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. GitS does the classic ghost in the machine idea, and it does it completely wrong. It tries to delve into identity, self awareness, etc. as well, but pales in comparison to any serious attempts (such as DADoES?, and of course Blade Runner).
Like a typical "sci-fi" anime, it over explains to cover up the ridiculousness. It's not on the level of NGE's retardedness, but it smacks of the classic piled higher and deeper strategy.
Re: (Score:2)
It tries to delve into identity, self awareness, etc. as well, but pales in comparison to any serious attempts (such as DADoES?, and of course Blade Runner).
And, of course, if it's been done once it can't be done again. It reminds me of a local restaurant owner. He's always talking about how various aspects of modern culture are pale comparisons to when the Greeks did it first (although he is right that the mall booth gyros hold nothing on what he makes).
Re:Ghost in the Shell (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem I have is that GitS does it poorly, and a lot of people see GitS without/before seeing Bladerunner/reading DADoES?. They then proclaim it to be the best, and think everything stole from it.
I don't agree that GitS is poorly done. But I do agree that folks need some perspective before they toss around terms like "steal." Not only should they have a better idea of history, but they should readdress the concept of inspiration and the very nature of story telling. On top of that, while I agree there's similarities in the two works (if you count DADoES and Bladerunner as the same), I find that they attack the theme from fairly different directions.
But GitS fans tend to have some serious blinders on, and, as evidenced by some of the replies to my post, are extremely defensive of the movie/movies/series/manga/etc.
It might have something to do with the inflammatory nature of your post. :) Using terms like "trash" and other subjective declarations are likely to invoke similarly emotional responses - whether the fan base is overly defensive or not.
Re: (Score:2)
I forgot to mention:
I just got a PS3, (40 GB MGS4 bundle).
The type of crap I'm talking about is abundant in the MGS series. MGS got a little ridiculous in terms of the story.
MGS 2 and 3 were completely ludicrous. .)
(Obligatory http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/11/30/ [penny-arcade.com]
I did my best to avoid any spoilers for MGS 4, but let's just say I'm not exactly expecting it to excel story-wise.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It can also be argued that DNA is nothing more than a program designed to preserve itself. Life has become more complex in the overwhelming sea of information and life, when organized into species, relies upon genes to be its memory system, so man is an individual only because of his intangible memoryâ¦and yet memory cannot be defined, but it defines mankind. The advent of computers and the subsequent accumulation of incalculable data has given rise to a new system of memory and thought parallel to your own. Humanity has underestimated to the consequences of computerization⦠And can you offer me proof of your existence? How can you, when neither modern science nor philosophy can explain what life is. Time has been on my side...but by acquiring a body I am now subject to possibility of dying.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
At the same time, it makes me wonder even more if the Major's original organic body may in fact have been male, with little to no adaptation discomfort after the procedure...
If you read the original manga and got the pages to fill in the abridged portions from the English version, then you wouldn't wonder about it. The Major was originally female.
It's one of many themes about what defines our humanity amidst the cybernetic changes that the manga successfully explores (albeit circuitously in many cases) where all of the animated versions failed miserably (as in the original manga is not "hyper-complicated trash").
The specific sequence for this is one in which the Major is en
Re: (Score:2)
In the TV series, she gets her first body at the hospital as a child after a plane crash. Swapping her cyborg body gender in that situation seems unlikely.
Ever read "Pretty Face"?
...Yeah, it's pretty unlikely. But your post reminded me of Pretty Face. :D
Quite a letdown... (Score:5, Interesting)
After reading the article they were just simultaneously poking people with sticks...
perhaps now that you have that insight you can "mentally swap" the disappointment I'm feeling.
Re:Quite a letdown... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, good news! You've succeeded!
Re:Quite a letdown... (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, good news! You've succeeded!
I think we're on to something!
Tomorrow's headline:
Article misrepresenting "mental body swapping" leads to mental body swapping!
Re:Quite a letdown... (Score:5, Funny)
After reading the article they were just simultaneously poking people with sticks...
One experiment involved using the researchers themselves. Another experiment used mannequins found in the dumpster behind a department store. They also mention using chairs and blocks of wood as test equipment. Is it just me, or does it sound like scientific research in Sweden is ridiculously underfunded?
Re: (Score:2)
Wast not, want not. The effort of getting funding for a mannequins and other stuff even if it was simple is probably still more effort then just taking one out of the dumpster. Besides they can use the money for things they really need.
Re: (Score:2)
also mention using chairs and blocks of wood as test equipment. Is it just me, or does it sound like scientific research in Sweden is ridiculously underfunded?
Ikea is Swedish, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Somebody should mod you insightful, even though you didn't intend that.
It is pretty common for researchers to be this resourceful and scavenge test objects, lab equipment and sometimes research subjects in this way.
First of all, the research budgets are tight and it is unbelievably difficult to get funding for anything not having a marketable product on the table already. The idea that research needs to be done *before* you can have an (ideally patentable) product is often lost to the bean counters.
Second,
Re:Quite a liedown...? (Score:2)
and even feeling at home in the body of someone of the opposite sex.
After reading the article they were just simultaneously poking people with sticks...
Hmmm . . . I think there might be joke in there somewhere, but I seem to be a little slow tonight.
Or maybe I'm just not knowledgeable about the latest Fetish du Jour . . .
Re:Quite a letdown... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you've ever done an experiment like this (there are smaller scale versions), they are very weird. I can't imagine a full body experience.
Example:
The one I have done involves sitting behind someone, eyes closed, and having your nose stroked (by a third party) while you stroke someone else's nose in front of you. After a few seconds, your brain "clicks" and you feel like you have an incredibly long nose. This is because of the feedback loop where your brain feels something on your nose and your finger simultaneously, and your mental body image just changes instantly.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
After a few seconds, your brain "clicks" and you feel like you have an incredibly long nose.
Just imagine the profitability of the pr0n applications of this technology!
Re:Quite a letdown... (Score:5, Funny)
You just gave "Reach Around" a whole new meaning in my mental dictionary.
Thanks!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The one I have done involves sitting behind someone, eyes closed, and having your nose stroked (by a third party) while you stroke someone else's nose in front of you. After a few seconds, your brain "clicks" and you feel like you have an incredibly long nose. This is because of the feedback loop where your brain feels something on your nose and your finger simultaneously, and your mental body image just changes instantly.
Are you sure it was a nose you were stroking?
Re:Quite a letdown... (Score:5, Funny)
The one I have done involves sitting behind someone, eyes closed, and having your nose stroked (by a third party) while you stroke someone else's nose in front of you. After a few seconds, your brain "clicks" and you feel like you have an incredibly long nose.
Now I know what to do to feel like I have an incredibly long penis. But I'm not quite sure if it's worth it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've had my mind think an entire building was part of my body.
The setup was that I took a nap in an awkward position so that when I woke up and looked "down" towards where I expected my body to be, I instead saw a beam that was part of the architecture. For a fraction of a second I had the sensation that that beam was part of my body.
It was the briefest second, but it was one of the strangest things I've ever felt.
Re: (Score:2)
Amazing waste of time and money (Score:5, Funny)
So I'm gay, get over it.
Simulation (Score:4, Interesting)
First Person Shooter (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope, but it did occur to me that they've essentially reproduced the First Person Shooter -- what dedicated player hasn't "ducked" away from incoming fire, or tried to peer around the corner of the monitor when trying to see around a corner?? Same behaviour, really -- putting yourself in the place of your onscreen avatar's viewpoint to the point that you lose track of which body you actually inhabit, and react as if the avatar is real and YOU.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Same behaviour, really -- putting yourself in the place of your onscreen avatar's viewpoint to the point that you lose track of which body you actually inhabit, and react as if the avatar is real and YOU.
In soviet russia, avatar in first person shooter IS YOU!
Sorry, that was mostly uncalled for.
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly like TV (Score:5, Interesting)
I just glanced through the study's report, and will read in detail later (it's rather long). There was an episode of The Prisoner [wikipedia.org] where a scientist had a gizmo with funny metal hats that transferred consciousness [wikipedia.org] to another person.
This is nothing like that.
There was another episode that was like that. In The Schizoid Man [wikipedia.org], as Wikipedia puts it, "Number Two replaces Number Six with a duplicate to weaken the real Six's sense of identity." Not exactly like this study, but closer.
In this real-world study, one of the tests was that the subject is stimulated exactly like the "double"; the subject's abdomen is tickled exactly like the other person's body. I suspect that hypnosis plays a part in it, even if the researchers weren't aware they were hypnotizing the subject.
You can hypnotize someone by (IIRC) having them lay on their backs with their eyes closed, and lightly touch their forehead. Ask "do you feel that?" Do this three or four times and without touching their forehead, if you ask if you did they will still say "yes".
"There are four lights!" -Captain Picard
Re:Not exactly like TV (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm suprised this is news. Wasn't there just recently an article about the set of nerves that fire the same when seeing someone else perform an action as doing it yourself?
Heck, I imagine anyone who has worked with waldos/tele-operated robotics has felt a sense of transference to the mechanical portion. After using a waldo for several hours a day for a few weeks, I swear I developed a sense of touch in a device with no force feedback, but it was most likely just my sympathetic reaction to seeing the waldo come into contact.
Sensationalism at its best. (Score:2)
Talk about sensational headlines. The headline builds up considerable excitement then the very first line of the article squashes it completely.
I don't think it's a surprise that a person can be convinced to believe pretty much anything. I have a hard time believing how this research actually reveals any new insight.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Its actually important research where cognitive science is involved -- the precise mechanism that translates from a set of impulses entering the brain to the sense of self and awareness of both position and body isn't well understood.
We know, sure, that the world we live in is a mental projection that our brains assemble from a lot of, frankly, very coarse and non-specific input. We mentally fill in a lot of details. Figuring out how much you have to simulate to cause perception to switch is important, as i
Re: (Score:2)
Malkovich (Score:5, Insightful)
Do the test patients inexplicably end up at the New Jersey turnpike once the experiment has concluded?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I don't know about any test, but I've ended inexplicably on the NJ turnpike more than once.
But that was when I lived in NJ, so it's not as farfetched as it might at first sound.
Cyborg (Score:2)
Now that these scientists resolved the question of adaptability of the human psyche. Some must work on preserving the brain functionality over time and some other must work to develop the perfect cyborg container for it !!!!
Finally i will be Immortal !
Re: (Score:2)
some other must work to develop the perfect cyborg container for it !!!!
You don't have to replace the whole body, just the nonfunctional parts. There are already lots of cyborgs. My CrystaLens implant makes me a cyborg (I went from 20/400 vision to better than 20/20 in the eye with the implant), anybody with a pacemaker or an artificial hip or other joint is a cyborg.
They're not likely to come up with replacements for most organs any time soon. So you're going to need your complete head and most of your gut
Perspective swapping, not mind swapping. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an important distinction here - this is not mind copying, it's just perspective swapping. Mind copying would be if you were able to copy the bits of one mind in one bit of hardware (example: brain) to another bit of hardware (example: computer disk), then be able to have the mind run somewhere else. What we have here is perceptive swapping, where you just overlay a new perspective in place of a brain's inputs/outputs, giving the limited sensory perception of acting in another place to that brain's mind.
It's cool that we're making new ways for people to get new perspectives, but this ain't mind swapping by a long shot.
Ryan Fenton
Re: (Score:2)
Mind copying would be if you were able to copy the bits of one mind in one bit of hardware (example: brain) to another bit of hardware (example: computer disk), then be able to have the mind run somewhere else.
I'm sorry, I don't quite get that analogy. Can you phrase it in terms of automobiles?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, if both parties change perspectives and are able to control the other body's action, wouldn't it be effectively the same as mind swapping? So, we have half the equation, we just need remote control now.
Aperture Science (Score:5, Funny)
No hope for test subjects who over-identify with Weighted Companion Cube.
Re: (Score:2)
No hope for test subjects who over-identify with Weighted Companion Cube.
I apparently incinerated mine with the least hesitation ever recorded!
Re: (Score:2)
So, no one thought they were Chairface Chipendale? Disappointing, I was looking forward to seeing "CHA" on the Moon, eventually...
Over-reaching headline (Score:5, Funny)
"Scientist successfully places human brain in Ape"
"Safe and inexpensive teleportation now available"
Soul migration? Nah.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The researchers created the illusion of body-swapping by touching the stomach of both the mannequin and the volunteer with sticks
What would have been far more interesting is if they achieved the same sensation without poking the participant as well. But even then, that could be be achieved with hypnosis anyway (?)
Its called empathy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing mythical, mysterious or mind blowing about it.
The humans in the test are simply percepting something they see done to another as done to themselves.
Its not even psychological - its neurological.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#The_development_of_empathy [wikipedia.org]
That is also why "it did not work when a non-humanoid object -- such as a chair or large block -- was used."
You can't empathize with a block of wood.
Unless it is in a form of a Weighted Companion Cube.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing mysterious about it eh? Have everything about empathy already figured out do we? Even if we knew about this before, it's still a fairly strange application of a strange phenomena, in my book.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing mysterious about the effects of the so called "Mental Body-Swapping".
As for empathy... see the Wikipedia link above.
There are a shitload of theories, research and results about it.
And "unknown" [merriam-webster.com] and "mysterious" [merriam-webster.com] don't mean exactly the same thing.
The Girl Who Was Plugged In (Score:2)
Genius short story by James Tiptree Jr(who just had to be a male)
This is a Tiptree thread troll.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue22/tiptree.html [scifi.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Yes that was the reference. Silverberg published an article on how Tiptree had to be male. ... doh! Which didn't make sense to this pre teen sci fi fan at the time as Forever on a Hudson Bay Blanket and Girl ... Plugged In both seemed ... uh .. female. Now that I know significantly less about women I wonder what I would think.
Been there (Score:2)
I've been achieving the same via PornoTube for quite some time now.
Implications for pornography and prostitution (Score:2, Funny)
The mind is funky! (Score:4, Interesting)
The mind can easily be tricked.
Phantom limb syndrome is a common problem for amputees, where pain or discomfort is felt in the limb that no longer exists.
One of the treatments for phantom limb syndrome involves using a mirror to make reflect you existing limb in such a way that it looks like you have both limbs. The person then performs certain actions such that it appears that the limb is restored and operating. Though one of the limbs doesn't exist, your brain is still wired as if it can move the limb. Once you actually view the missing limb performing these actions, the pain goes away.
Seems to me that this experiment isn't much different than replacing a phantom limb with a mirror.
really not very new... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have beside me a book entitled Phantoms in the Brain [amazon.co.uk] (VS Ramachandran, foreword Oliver Sachs) first published in 1998, which suggests you should "have your friend stroke identical locations on both your hand and the dummy hand synchronously while you look at the dummy. Within seconds you will experience the stroking sensations as arising from the dummy hand". It goes on to describe how you can also experience touch sensations as arising from tables and chairs.
Incidentally I'd recommend this book for anybody interested in perception; it's a readable introduction into the very strange perceptual phenomena that can be encountered by people with rare forms of brain damage, some of which give valuable insights into the way the mind works.
dupe, dupe, dupe -- in all senses of the word (Score:3, Informative)
A Minor Step Sideways (Score:3, Interesting)
The same things have been done with mirrors, the subjects' hands and the experimenter assistant's hands. It's so simple and common that it's been used to demonstrate cognitive mapping in undergrad classes. I did so 10 years ago.
The only new item in TFA is use of video cameras placed at eye locations and equivalent ocular presentation. In TFA they manage to do the same as has been done before, except they use a lot more of very expensive equipment. Science marches on, though not necessarily forward.
Re:I thought I saw this already (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder how this would work on placing people into dummies with an amputated limb and placing amputated individuals into dummies with all their limbs.
Maybe there could be some theraputic value to this mental trickery.
Re: (Score:2)
Once we get humaniform robots perfected, this could be a great boon to the disabled. Imagine being a quadraplegic, using a robot body you control with your brain to play baseball from the comfort of your basement.
Of course, before robotics gets good enough for that, we'll have exoskeletons that the disabled can wear that will negate the need for a full robot. The world is already full of cyborgs (I'm one, so's Dick Cheney, so's your grandma if she has an artificial hip).
What the heck happened to meta-moderation? (Score:5, Insightful)
As reported [slashdot.org], there have been a lot of bad moderations recently. It seems this is due to CmdrTaco and chums turning meta-moderation into a weird Digg clone.
Please CmdrTaco, just bring the old meta-moderation system back. It worked, very well, by allowing people to vote on whether a moderation was fair. The new system simply asks the user to Agree/Disagree with a post (don't fool yourselves into thinking it will be used in any other way), ergo it cannot perform the job of meta-moderation.
Brought to you by the: Discussions About Slashdot Itself are not Off-Topic, Troll, Flamebait or Redundant Dept.
Re:What the heck happened to meta-moderation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, head honchos of Slashdot, revert to the old style metamods and user pages or at least allow us the option to control what cruft is grafted to our user page. Slashdot would lose a lot of cred if it degenerated into digg.
Re:What the heck happened to meta-moderation? (Score:4, Informative)
I wasn't meta-moderating quite that frequently, but I did try to make time to do it at least once a week. Since the new system was put in place I hardly bother any more.
As far as the moderation system, I abandoned that a couple of years ago. There is so much abuse that goes unchecked that I just browse at -1 and skip past the comments that I think are trolls or flame bait or whatever. I've also unchecked the "willing to moderate" box in my preferences, although that has more to do with just not having the time most days to skim the summaries and comments, let alone read the articles and make an honest attempt to do a good job of moderating.
The user page changes are just bizarre, and the page is different every time I visit it (which isn't very often lately). They seem to be trying to get to the point where your comments appear with the summary of the article they were attached to (leading to the 'bloat' you noted). The last time I visited there were summaries from article that I never commented on, so they had no relevance to me. They seem to be still developing this new user page, but rather than wait until it is finished, they have essentially made us all beta testers.
Why am I given the choice to rate my own comments '+' or '-'? Am I really going to rate my own comment '-'? Also, the style sheet seems to be messed up, at least in Firefox. Rather than the white text on a green background they were using when they first made the change (ala Idle), it is now white text on a two-tone background that fades from grey to white, making the text unreadable. In IE, it's white text on a green background. I don't know, maybe I've done something to Firefox, but it wasn't like this the other day.
Maybe I'm just resistant to change, but I can't see anything positive about these changes.
Re:What the heck happened to meta-moderation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Dear Developers (Score:5, Insightful)
I strongly get the feeling that the Slashdot and/or Slashcode developers are succumbing to feature creep, and adding things to the system just for the sake of adding them, even when the system works fine. This seems to have started after the CSS redesign.
Slashdot isn't perfect. However, it's a damn sight better than a lot of other discussion sites out there, especially the moderation system.
Please don't fuck with it when it's not broken. There are things in it that are obviously broken, such as the fact that Funny mods don't grant karma. However, fundamentally changing a system that previously worked fine is, well, stupid.
Someone in the development chain seems to have the notion that metamoderation was too hard. It wasn't. The reason for this is that the people doing metamod are already committed to making Slashdot better. They will deal with the compexities involved because due the system's limits on who can access mod / metamod, they're already used to them.
Making it "easier" by removing features simply doesn't make sense.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I suppose out of body experiences are sort of like brain malfunctions. Perhaps fun if you experience one in the right state of mind (like really good weed). This might make an awesome VR game. Just 'a thought.'
=Smidge=
To be honest, I'd rather actually consume some really good weed than simulate it.
Re: (Score:2)
To be honest, I'd rather actually consume some really good weed than simulate it.
You can somewhat simulate weed with binaural beats [i-doser.com], but it's nowhere near as good as the real thing. That will get you feeling somewhat high.
Re: (Score:2)
I was going to say that too. Then I remembered this isn't digg.
Re: (Score:2)
Related to this and the story, when I see someone of the opposite sex being sexually stimulated, I too tend to orgasm. It's amazing!
I Will Fear No Evil (Score:4, Informative)
I've corrected the subject line of this post to the Heinlein reference [wikipedia.org] you were looking for (instead of just modding you down, which would have been rude).
Re:We're Almost There! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a good question.
I suspect that if it can be done for one's sex, it can be done for one's "species".