Judicial process, especially the verdict, is supposed to be an entirely objective process based on the laws and regulations that already exist. However, we all know that we humans are incapable of maintaining a completely objective paradigm devoid of judgement based on emotion and consisting of judgement based purely on logic and facts towards anything (unless we're talking about a psychopath!). This results in all the judicial verdicts being decided based on baised emotions than on logic and facts. And this, I say, is a disaster! (Do not even get me started on the jury based judicial process and the way it is manhandled by lawyers and thugs. But then, I digress.)
So what we need is something totally devoid of emotions to make judicial decisions using facts and logic alone. What better candidate for this than the totally advanced AI systems that are plausible in today's technological age. All one needs is a central repository of all the laws and regulations that exist for the AI to reference. Then, any case could be presented (in the usual form of evidence,accusations,defense etc.) to the AI in the form of which laws are being violated or under which law does the current case/crime fall. Match the inputs with laws and viola...decision!
Of course, this should act as a filter or as an additional layer before the case being presented to judges and jury. So in a way the judicial AI could offer suggestions/relevant facts/related law codes etc. in the actual process. In fact, one problem which the judges, lawyers and jury often face is the inability to memorize all the existing laws, rules, regulation, rights, duties etc. So their ability to process the information is limited. An AI on the other hand can store infinite amount of data and thus make use of EVERYTHING that is relevant to the judicial process, thus ensuring completeness as well as objectivity.
But I don't know if constructing the said AI will be as easy as envisioned here. Limits will have to be pushed.
RANDOM RAMBLINGS [ran-duhm ram-blings] n. 1 straying from one subject to another in a random, haphazard and aimless manner. 2 the most random blog on the internet.
Add an extra layer to the Judicial process that uses AI instead of judge/jury
Vicarious Immortality 2.0, thanks to the internet.
Most of us fear death. The reasons vary from fear of pain, fear of unfinished business or just plain instinctive need for self-preservation. While many of us merely wish to survive without any hassles and die peacefully when the time comes, there is an increasingly large number of humans who want to leave some kind of mark before dying. Some way by which they can be remembered by the world. Or some way to keep affecting the world in their absence.
The traditional way of doing this is rather painstaking and requires lot of effort. The most widely used and perhaps requiring immense amount of investment (time & money) is children. People believe in transferring knowledge through offsprings who then go on ahead to do the same. What we know today is essentially the result of the contributions of numerous generations. In a way we all have already achieved vicarious immortality. However, most of it is limited to offsprings. Other modes through which some have achieved immortality is through books, art etc. Although they are easy to destroy and hard to expose to a larger population with small amount of effort. But now there is a new means at our disposal to achieve immortality within minutes - The Internet.
Any content I create on the internet is almost indestructible and easily accessible to a huge number of people. One can easily achieve vicarious immortality with the help of a few blog posts. I mean, who knows when someone will read some of my blog posts or use an open source software that I contributed to. It can continue to affect the world for many years after my death.
Although this does put me under pressure. When I have such an awesome tool at my disposal it will be an utter waste for me to waste even a second or an idea by not working toward creating something that could help me achieve VI2.0. I am constantly haunted by the possibility of ignoring some idea that I can easily propagate into the future due to a small oversight.
For some people the internet also means that a record of their lives in the form of facebook, twitter and blog posts will continue to exist for future generations to peek into and learn. To be able to share one's life so easily with others now and in the future brings an innate sense of peace and company.
How to install/open Skyrim Creation Kit
The location is irritatingly hidden and there are no clear instruction on Steam or Bethesda Blog on how to Open it, so here they are:
1. Open Steam
2. Sign In
3. Go to View->Tools
4. From the long list of tools displayed right click Creation Kit and click Install.
5. Done
Skyrim: All the different classes/styles possible
I am currently level 39 in Skyrim. Not to mention I have barely made a dent in the game. I have only finished the Companions, Thieves Guild, Half of Dark Brotherhood, 3 Daedric quests and about 70 Miscellaneous quests and 50 Side Quests. But I am sure this is only like 20% of the entire game.
So I have come up with these different styles one can play with in Skyrim, switching from one style to another at any point of the game, which is essentially the beauty of Skyrim:
1. Sneak Assassin: dual-wield daggers and light armor (most powerful).
2. Sneak Archer : Bow and light armor.
3. Sneak Assassin-Mage :dagger in one hand and spell in the other with light armor.
4. Sneak warrior :sword and shield with heavy armor (not effective beyond level 10)
5. Standard Mage :staff+spell or dual-wield spells. (Very much fun)
6. BattleMage :sword in one hand and staff or spell(Destruction) in the other hand. (Difficult)
7. Power-Warrior :a two handed weapon in heavy armor. (Very Powerful)
8. Standard-Warrior :a one-handed weapon and shield with heavy armor. (Fun and powerful)
9. Endurance-Warrior :any weapon combined with focus on Restoration tree
10. Endurance-Archer: Bow and arrow combined with focus on Restoration tree
11. Archer-Conjurer: Bow and arrow with focus on Conjuration Tree
So there. I am sure I will discover many more combinations as I progress further into the game. I played as an Assassin till level 30. After my sneak reached 100 I have now switched over to a Mage. After about level 45-48 I will switch over to a warrior!
Skyrim: Sneak-Final Impressions
I have been playing Skyrim mostly stealth way till now. I have finished the Companions, Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood missions/story using stealth alone. My stealth is at 92 currently so I have had enough experience of it by now and I would like to share it.
The stealth in Skyrim is just phenomenal. It is the greatest change that they have made to Oblivion and incorporated in Skyrim. A sufficiently high sneak skill allows me to infiltrate more effectively which in turn allows me to kill more effectively which in turn increases my sneak even more. So once the stealth ball gets rolling there is no stopping it! However, at this point I get a 30x damage multiplier for a successful sneak attack with daggers. Which means that there is NOTHING in the game that I cannot kill in one shot. So it has been happening so that I have been killing bosses in one shot and thus not even beginning the fights that were meant to be difficult and last, let alone fight them. In other words, sneak attacks need to be nerfed in Skyrim :D. From this point on I am going to play as a mage, the beauty of Skyrim - play as whatever you want to without any restrictions and you can keep switching! So well, I will most probably start College of Winterhold quests and will use only magic.
Then after that I will finally go back to the good ol' warrior with a sword and a shield or maybe a 2 handed greatsword! And then, who knows, back to stealth again if the enemies get challenging enough!
Skyrim: How to score stealth kills
I have been trying to figure this one out since the moment I installed Skyrim. This was, in fact, one of the most awaited features of the game. However, nowhere is it specified as to how to score the stealth kill (the one where an animation of the character slitting the enemy's throat is displayed). I finally figured out what is needed to score it most of the time:
First of all a somewhat high sneak skill level is recommended. Now, I usually start sneak up on the enemy who is facing the other way. While approaching the enemy, when the distance between the enemy and me is about 2-3 steps more I left click WHILE moving towards the enemy. I have observed that using a power attack usually results in a failed attempt. I just tried this on a fort where there were three bandits and it worked on all of them. However, please note that my sneak level is about 65. On top of that I also have the Assassin's Blade perk along with some items which enhance sneak attack damages. So I usually get a 30x sneak attack damage multiplier(that's right :D). So it might also be possible that the sneak attack works only when the hit is a one shot kill but if that is the case then I don't really see the point in adding the feature. Also, please note that stealth kills usually work only on humans...I think :S
[Edit]: Here is a link to a video I made getting stealth kills. Bear with the low resolution and lag :S
Skyrim Stealth Kills Video
Skyrim: How to cure Lycanthropy/Blood of the Beast/Werewolf
Spoiler Alert!!!
The first time I saw the beast form I was very impressed. However, that was shortlived because I expected the werewolf form to be considerably more powerful either in terms of damage or hitpoints. But I was disappointed. On top of that, it prevents you from gaining sleeping bonuses. So all I could think of was how to get rid of it.
It's simple but involves doing an optional quest.
There is a quest called Blood Of Honor which Kodlak gives wherein I was supposed to kill some Glenmoril witches - a powerful version of hagravens basically. It involves an optional quest wherein you can kill all the witches in the cave. This is important because if you collect only one head then that gets consumed in curing Kodlak. However, if you collect more than one head then the extra head can be used to cure yourself.
