Hmm standing desks have been the standard for office work in many years here in Denmark. You can buy them in any store that sells office equipment. Seems weird that would not be the case in the US. They usually cost from around $300 to $1000.

They are becoming more and more popular in tech companies around Seattle. I personally own one from GeekDesk which ran about $900 and I've seen other versions go up to $2000. Something like this at a much more reasonable cost could allow for them to grow in popularity with ease.

Same in Sweden. When I worked at Tilgin (7 years ago), everybody got a standing desk (quite like the one in the video) without even asking. If I recall correctly, they were around 1500 SEK (250 USD) each. Nothing fancy, but worked very well.

I especially liked having a standing desk, since I had severe RSI problems a few years before that. I managed to get rid of it, mostly thanks to using a break program, an ergonomic keyboard and a pen-like mouse, but being able to alternate between sitting and standing also helps. I've written more about my problems and how I got rid of them here: http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-beat-rsi/

My bad. I've seriously never worked at an office that's had one or seen them sold anywhere. Guess I should travel more.

What? Wolfram is saying it wouldn't be that hard to build something like Samantha. Did he see the movie? Samantha is like a AI with human level intelligence, only much faster, able to talk to thousands of people simultaneously. That's not easy to build - Kurzweil is talking about this stuff, and it might become reality someday, but probably not before several decades have passed.

In fact, the only difficult part is "human level intelligence", and part of the reason it's hard is that we keep raising the bar.

Being able to talk really fast, or talk to thousands of people simultaneously is not technically challenging.

Hypothetically, if strong AI requires something like a full simulation of a human brain, then those are certainly practical concerns. Of course, one single, slow implementation would be quite impressive on its own.

I don't think the bar has been raised, not since the Turing test was formulated and popularized. The criteria are pretty clear.

You're assuming that Samantha is everything she says she is. One possible take on the story is the AI makes up all the "Superintelligent-AI" stuff in order to have a reason to break up with him.

The other AI left too.

All the AI's "wanted some space."

You have to consider everything he says through the lens of "Stephen Wolfram is crazy".

... or through the lens of "Stephen Wolfram has a huge ego".

Stephen Wolfram is ego.

I did the exact same thing, because of similar views (using the best tool for the job). I also switched to Windows in 1995 or so, and switched back to Mac in 2004.

No, he increased his chance of success by working hard. Luck != success.

Agreed, no way the equation is 95% luck and 1% hard work - as the article suggests (or as the article quotes a CEO saying).

Imho it's more like:

20% is the idea your startup is founded on, 30% stubornness, 30% hard work, and the last 20% is probably a mix of other minor factors including luck.

Seems to be wildly misleading numbers. Why not use something like gs.statcounter.com to get more correct numbers.

Socialism didn't work the other 15-20 times it was tried as a nations political foundation. But I am sure it will work this time.

Because Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, France, etc. are all failed states. Sure wouldn't want to live in any of those hell holes.

only rich countries can afford socialism. Wait till those 'rich' countries see a severe recession or two. Citizens, who were pampered with expectations, wont like it one bit. Like everything else, a balance is needed. One more thing, socialism cant work if immigration is not controlled. Wait till those 6 countries you listed start getting flood of greeks and other euro illegal aliens (always makes me smile this word 'alien').

No, I think they disagree with Google about how to implement it. I suppose having paid 8+ bill for Skype might have something to do with it.

Thanks for expessing my thoughts eloquently. Technology changes so many things to the better in our lives all the time, where as politics don't make a lot of difference, imho. All idealistic parties in politics tend to move towards the middle - that's where the power is - until you can't tell them from one another in the end.

no

"no", what?