I think it was just a case of the director being provocative for the sake of being provocative. The film really had no artistic or cultural merit as far as I could tell. It was intended to shock and that's what it does. Unfortunately, that's all it does.

Yeah, I guess I should've warned people. But I sorta, kinda did. If you're in the mood to be emotionally scarred for life, that's the ticket.

By the way, according the Wikipedia page A Serbian Film actually was investigated, and hence should be on your list.

Three words: A. Serbian. Film. Seriously, someone needs to be investigated for... this.

I would include the snapped cable on the deck scene in Ghost Ship. The rest of the movie pretty much sucked, but that scene really got to me.

The first film is, in my opinion, an underrated horror masterpiece. Okay, not quite a masterpiece but still a damn good film. Yes, there are some . . . er, logical anomalies, but you overlook them because the film is so effective at the horror stuff. Not having played the game (I really don't do video games) I was…

You are absolutely correct. Maybe there really is nothing new under the sun, but if you've got enough style and intelligence and a new angle on the concept to sell to the current generation, then that's all that matters. There will always be fans of good writing and a good story.

Hmm, I first misread your line TAKE THAT BITCH! as anti-Krugman . . . as in, take that bitch and get him outta here. It needed a comma (TAKE THAT, BITCH!) or just the middle word stressed (take THAT bitch!) Or preferably both. :)

I'm not reading or watching anything Oz-ish until the Wicked movie comes out. That is all. :)

That Dos Equis guy, the Most Interesting Man in the World? Bah! He's got nothing on St. Germain. Unless . . .

Ah, so you have a vested interest in defending logic machines as AI development. I see . . . ;-) I confess that my knowledge of neural nets is very limited, and probably outdated. If you can explain (very simply) how they work independent of human input and about where we are in terms of developing neural nets, I…

This post is going to be long, so apologies to anyone who is interested in the debate but prefer it in bite-sized chunks.

I think so. :)

The reason neural networks are closer to human brains than pure logic machines is because they can, to some extent, alter their schema when they fail to recognize something according to the pattern. However, ultimately they can only do this with constant feedback from humans, so it is still very limited and in no…

First off, all I said about neural nets was that they are closer to human intelligence than any other attempted AI has been thus far. Secondly, you need to read The Improbable Machine by Jeremy Campbell—he goes into great detail about the differences between the human brain and Turing machines. Sorry, but the brain…

So when the adults in kids' lives treat them with honesty and respect, children behave better? Wow, what a surprise. Yep, that was sarcasm.

That seems reasonable to me. At the very least it can't hurt to continue exploring top-down approach—we may learn things in the process that will be useful in the bottom-up development of AI.

You forgot to mention the exploding shurikens.

Oh yes, I think we can create AI. I just think we've been going about it all wrong.

Are you being facetious? If so . . . :-p. Seriously, my best answer is, I really don't know. What I was referring to as 'top down' was the hypothesis that AI scientists have operated on from the beginning: essentially the idea that what makes us human are our higher mental capabilities, meaning our ability to…