Official Off Topic Discussion Thread #1

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Asimov's "three laws of robotics" were/are a staple in science fiction, either central to the story or at least an important background element….
What was common about all the robot stories was that the interesting parts of them revolved around the failures of the three laws to accommodate every possible situation.

One story is about a robot that is accidentally brain damaged during construction, but it is adopted as a sort of disabled baby by its childless creator, rather than destroy what is otherwise a legally dangerous machine.

Many of the stories are about robots which cannot easily be told from human beings, And how they are discovered in their ruse.
 
Hello; One of my favored "three laws" stories is a short story. Forget the title. A robot working with a human on the surface of a planet or asteroid, but I think planet. The story was about a conflict between laws. The law of self-protection vs the law to help the human. The human is working with a machime or substance and has a protective suit on. The human becomes knocked out but is not in danger of dying. The robot goes to help but the substance/machine is radiating something that will damage the robot. The robot starts running around in a circle with the human at the center. In a circle because it is a compromise between the compulsions of the two laws. To give aid to a human & self-protection. I suppose if the human somehow was in greater danger the help humans law would dominate. But as the human is not in great danger and can remain as he is then at a particular distance the self-protection kicks in.
When humans show up the robot has run a rut into the ground around the human.
 

Hello; This is something I never thought about and finding out a "truth" does not lead me to want to know more. I vaguely recall perhaps seeing Stuart Little Ads for something. Maybe a movie. Maybe I unintentionally saw a few minutes of a show before switching channels. Whatever the case I somehow thought Stuart Little was a cartoon about a mouse. Not so it seems. Now i know a "truth" and it is of no value to me.

When I go onto the internet my homepage is MSN. Lots of stuff loads on the page. The last few days there have been photos in ads for canvas image prints. Today's is an image of a lovely woman with exposed breasts. I have learned to not click on such which have sponsored in the image. So, i do not know what they are actually selling.
Guess the reason for the comments is a question. I have not seen such nudity on a log in page before. Seems new to me. There was another image a few days ago which took a while to understand. The ad mentioned something like "a square inch of skin" as i recall. The image was confusing the first few times the ad showed up as i was scrolling the page. Eventually I realized, with some disgust, the image was of a stretched-out foreskin. Is someone gaming the system or is there some new relaxation of such things afoot?
 
  • Wow
Reactions: esoxlucius
After wasting my time reading that complete twaddle I suggest you change your home page. What a load of crap!

But I'm afraid it's a sign of the times. I recently referred to an increase in absurd videos on my you tube feed.

The world is going mad.
 
This article reminded me of the recent article S skjl47 posted regarding the organ donor with rabies. This one's horrific really, makes you wonder if the initial screening of the guys sperm could have been a little more thorough.

 
This article reminded me of the recent article S skjl47 posted regarding the organ donor with rabies. This one's horrific really, makes you wonder if the initial screening of the guys sperm could have been a little more thorough.

Hello; This is truly more devastating than the organ donor with rabies. Fortunately, or unfortunately for me my windmill to tilt at was human overpopulation. My take back in the late 1960's & early 1970's was the population was going to increase exponentially. Such did happen after all it turns out my cause has been soundly lost. I remain childless. I cite this more to be clearly understood about things such as artificial insemination.

There was an experiment some decades ago using rodents. It has been repeated a number of times. Essentially a small population is confined in a large but static space. There is way more food supplies and such made available to the small population, so there is an excess. Plenty of nesting area and materials but again a static amount. I want to say it is the Calhoon experiment but have no confidence in that title.

The outcome, as expected, is the population explodes consuming the available resources. There comes a time when the static amount of food supplied is not adequate to the larger population. Nesting and territory become in high demand as the increased population overruns the static space available. Some behaviors change with such a population expansion with finite space & resources. One i seem to recall is males dropping out of the mating game with suspected reasons guess at. More same sex stuff if you will. More miscarriages if I recall or still births. competition for food & other resources. Infertility increases and such.

I do not recall if the following is a conclusion made by the researchers or my own SWAG (Scientific Wild A** Guess). Anyway, I chalked it up to population pressures being reflected in the general population. Lots of analogies to human overpopulation could possibly be drawn even if not supported substantially. Homosexuality increases in the male rodents because there are way too many of them, so lots cannot compete successfully. Maybe because of malnourishment. Maybe because nesting site are already occupied by the more dominant of the population.

Infertility may have increased because of various stresses including possibly not only lack of food for some but also a lower quality or more toxic food supply. Made toxic by the extra accumulation waste by products and such. Point being, if I recall correctly, such did happen. I read but have not confirmed that human males have lower sperm cell counts in general.

Anyway, from the point of view there are and have been too many humans on the limited planet, that these fertility endeavors do not make sense to me. But being a witness to my fellow humans I have noted an important thing. The majority of folks want their children and grandchildren to be biologically related. Even in a time of stress.

We are in a time when the average Joe & Jane need both parents to have a job to get by. That a child's birth costing a few hundred a not so long while back now can run into the several tens of thousands. Heard that from a mom on Washington Journal last week. She said her first child's birth expenses was in the hundreds. Her most recent child's birth expenses in the $30,000's.

I go on too long. Enough from me
 
MonsterFishKeepers.com