TED Community » Timothy Shreffler

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• A reply on Talk: Malte Spitz: Your phone company is watching

  Jul 24 2012: Information = Power and Power in today's world is controlled by the corrupt typically. I would say this isn't a good thing but unless humanity is willing to be inconvenienced I think we are out of luck. Surveillance doesn't just stop at your mobile phone your privacy is gone unless your in the middle of wilderness with nothing but a pocket knife :-)
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  A comment on Conversation: Negative campaigning hurts Humanity: No one disagrees? Then why are people voting?

  Feb 2 2012: I feel like this goes back to a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. basically humanity has a choice... We can choose to live a moral good life which very well may not lead to money or fame. We have to see the beauty in each moment as a humble person. The other side of the coin I feel is better explained by Martin while it is a little out of context I think violence and hate are the fabric of mudslinging...
  
  "Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

• A reply on Conversation: We capture a diverse set of energy very efficiently and find a way to transfer it into a system with a large storage capacity.

  Feb 2 2012: Doug thanks for the thoughts always nice to hear good information. So to add to your suggestion of making a TV more efficient in the first place that makes sense. Maybe my idea is one of those ways we could lower the bottom line. Like taking a 50w television that engineered better could be 30w and then adding in a thermal energy recycling technology could lower it to 25w assuming we could make the technology cost effective.
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  A reply on Conversation: We should create adaptive systems to support humanity in it's goals.

  Jan 27 2012: That's a good enough answer for me, I can accept the fact that human beings will forever be smarter then computers. LOL actually I'd prefer it to be that way as I am a human :-)

• A reply on Conversation: Does your pet dog or cat know when you are coming home?

  Jan 27 2012: hahahahah I like that....
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  A comment on Conversation: Does your pet dog or cat know when you are coming home?

  Jan 27 2012: Colleen,
  
  I believe this to be true.... It seems to me dog understands the most basic of questions. What is the meaning of life? The ultimate answer being love. Dog doesn't worry about anything and everything, dog is not materialistic or corrupt. They simple love us and we love them, imagine if humanity could learn to do that with one and other... Our potential would be limitless, and dog would laugh at us and say you finally get it, well it's about damn time.
  
  :-) T.J.

• A reply on Conversation: We should create adaptive systems to support humanity in it's goals.

  Jan 27 2012: Ok trying to wrap my head around this while working at my job hahaha... If we created this loop which essentially would always have the same outcome. What if we put in a always changing variable? so the outcome was never the same... granted this won't be the best outcome... But if we then set up a purpose for it we can take the outcome which is never the same and use some if and then statements to direct it. Essentially like learning we would have to work through each (always changing variable) at a time. Record that choice in a database and have it pull from there like past experiences. I suppose the harder part would be teaching it how to relate things to one and other... I feel like this is possible hahaha I just don't know how. The good thing is you never know what will happen, our conversation here on TED could lead to something amazing.

• A comment on Conversation: We should create adaptive systems to support humanity in it's goals.

  Jan 27 2012: If we could write choice as a variable I wonder how that would be done... It seems if and then are not enough :-) or maybe right why as a variable? Curious are all variables constant? Could we have a variable that never stays the same in the equation therefore always creating a new answer? Maybe call it the change variable... I'm sure everyone that writes programs has thought of this already LOL
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  A reply on Conversation: Does your pet dog or cat know when you are coming home?

  Jan 27 2012: Would it surprise you if dogs were smarter than humans in certain ways? I mean they do love unconditionally which is already a step past us in the evolutionary chain in my opinion... One thing is for certain we can learn from everything in this world including dogs. Maybe they will teach us telepathy in the future :-) YEEEEAAAA! I'll have to watch the full video tonight after work, thanks for this!
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  A reply on Conversation: We should create adaptive systems to support humanity in it's goals.

  Jan 27 2012: Thanks for chiming in man... Two thoughts come from your answer. The first being maybe it's a better idea for us not to have a self-sufficient program as I saw what happened in iRobot LOL. The second would be more of a question as you certainly know more about this then I do. If we wrote enough if and then would we eventually make a loop? Much like if you click the first link in a Wikipedia article over and over again eventually you will end up at Philosophy no matter what the subject of origin is. If we have a basis a foundation the possibility of the computer not solving the problem the first time around is possible but if it loops we get a second chance. The next question being would the computer come to the same conclusion over and over again? Maybe we should test it, see how it works, and then see if we could find out where the disconnect is? What do you think?