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PHB means "Pointy-Haired Boss". Popularized by Dilbert.

Well to begin with you may not want in this field at all. In that case go to grad school or get a job you like right off the bat. Your first job will have a direct influence on where you go once out of school. Also, with your CS skills you may consider getting an MBA and go the management route. It's always nice to have a technically proficient PHB :)

However, if you do want to stay in the field there are many other avenues which I'm sure you haven't explored. For example, a few years back I used to really love website design. I loved designing the dBs, the HTML, the scripts, and integrating it all together. Then I got tired of it. Now I like doing embedded programming on bare metal. To me it's fun to poke around with the bits and bytes and talking to the chip directly.

I guess the point of my story is that there are many, many different avenues you can take with a CS degree. You may have an unexplored passion for programming in an area you haven't thought of. Perhaps you like numerical analysis, compiler design, unix programming, scripting, embeddded programming, etc... There are so many different areas of programming. Maybe you like cars. You could do programming for the on board computer. Of course, you would need a background in thermo, etc.. but hey its definitely an applied programming art. The most important thing is to think outside the box, or in this case PC :)

JOhn

I agree that Dell support sucks. I used to work for a large company that had one of Dell's 'preferred' support dealies... you know, where you have a shorter wait time and presumably better techs? Yeah, in theory. The reality was, I'd usually have a shorter wait time, but the people I got on the phone were so dumb, one would think they had just evolved out of living in the trees as recently as that morning. They were just as bad as the first-line Script Monkeys who do ISP support-- no capability for independent thought, just follow the script.

Needless to say, this used to drive me nuts as a very busy, seasoned support tech who couldn't just say, "Such-and-such a part is bad. As per my company's agreement with Dell, send a tech out to replace it." Oh, no, I had to sit there, wasting my valuable time, support calls piling up, going through the sacred script until this person finally agreed with my original assessment and booked a tech. After the first call went like that, subsequent calls went like this.

~Philly

How could this be, given the popularity of Dilbert?

I wish we had one!

You're a rude and arrogant idiot.
How do you know he isn't telling the truth? Goof.

One official put it this way: "A hit for one is a hit for all."

So if Dubya gets all hot in the head, the rest of the world will start building up steam. The article does go on to say that the US will have to "give it details of who had been responsible", but how much evidence they'll need we don't know. A few documents in a car pointing to Osama bin Laden, and away we go.

This cartoon on Monday seems unfortunately timely now.
StuP

The reasons included a lack of support for SMPng - including a developer fall-off ratio of 15 to 1 - a desire to finish the PowerPC/Sparc64/IA64 architectures, and a general desire to robustly test the additions. The economic downturn even makes an appearance in the announcement."

You didn't take Butterfly Effect into account.

Failing to take into acount a butterfly flapping its wings in the country called Elbonia could cause the delay of its release up to several month, even a year.

I agree.
I have the Dilbert 2001 desk calendar. Unfortunately I have already read every single one during periods of boredom, so it kind of detracts from the daily novelty of reading a new dilbert comic (which is why I subscribed to the Daily Dilbert Newsletter)

A single very well-selling and very well-liked e-"book" comes to mind.

God's Debris by Dilbert author Scott Adams has apparently sold like bread. It's the only e-book I've ever invested in, and will probably remain that way for a long time... at least until Mr. Adams writes something else that is exclusively published on the web :-).

Aside from the huge instant publicity it got by being featured on the front page of Dilbert.com, one catch is probably that it's very short, and therefore not a cumbersome read on-screen. Given the drawbacks of current e-book technology (or the means of reading them on screen), the novella format may just be the only feasible form of e-text until one of the ultrathin paper-like text presentation platforms currently in development become widely available. I know I couldn't be bothered to read anything significantly longer than G's D on my screen. Printing out a novel isn't exactly my cup of tea either :-).

Sluggy Freelance Probably the best online comic.. Read the whole archive :)
Megatokyo Rather good as well, a mix of gaming and anime
Winter A new one, started this monday, looks promising.
Exploitation Now Chicks. Violence. R-Rated stuff. Read it :)
Penny Arcade Duh.
Dilbert Classics are good too..

Media here told the public Code Red would infect all computers. They simply ignore the fact that Code Red infects only IIS 5 server.

A local lead moron - the president of Hong Kong Computer Society, a branch of British CS, told the public that in order to protect yourself from virus, we all should update the latest virus signature and do not swith on computers. I'm sure all their members would feel shame of their president's cluelessness.

Scott Adam is right, idiots, morons and clueless people are defining the reality.

Scott Adams has been busy creating Dilbert and selling out.

Oh, the OTHER Scott Adams. He has released a new game last year called Return To Pirates Island 2. You can also
play online version of his classic games.

... Alright, now what can we do with it?

While I'm sure this question has been aimed at the more creative of you by your phb's, it has an insidious quality about it in this discussion. Namely that someone is getting close to creating a really efficient highly energetic system. Great, then what do we do with it?

While I'm sure this'll risk being labeled redundant, I noticed that several posts raise the question of getting energy out of this system.

The answer, at least since Cestesibus's chronicler Hero recorded it, has been to let the system transfer energy into an expanding liquid, and use that liquid (air, steam, etc) to drive a mechanical system.

An interesting paper (warning, pdf) supporting an alternative fusion concept describes obliquely how magnetohydrodynamics may provide an inductive transfer of current from the plasma mass to the surrounding apparatus with an efficiency ranging from 70 to 95% depending on the fuel used to form the plasma mass.


Nietzsche on Diku:
sn; at god ba g
:Backstab >KILLS< god.

...I can only go by what Cafeglobe's translation says, but here's the summary:

It looks like they have a system with a 5 metre (16 ft) range. You mount a "base" unit on the ceiling, and then attach little satellite units to your computers. Communication is line of sight, and utilizes LEDs. The system can apparently find new or relocated nodes in an average of 5 seconds.

Am I the only one who sees no freaking point? Here's a comparison between this and 802.11b (aka AirPort):

Range
802.11b: 45 metres (150 ft)
Optical: 5 metres (16 ft)
Winner: 802.11b by a mile (at least, if you get a crazy antenna).

Reliability
802.11b: Bandwidth drops slightly when somebody uses the office microwave
Optical: You're booted from your Quake game every time that tall guy with big hair walks by your desk
Winner: 802.11b, by two frags

Cost
802.11b: Base station - $299. Satellite - $99.
Optical: Base station - $1190. Satellite - $400.
Winner: 802.11b, by about the cost of a new PC (and some long EtherNet cables).

Mobility
802.11b: Still works even if you run with your laptop.
Optical: Drops the connection every time your annoying office-mate bumps the cubicle wall.
Winner: 802.11b can handle any move you make.

Security
802.11b: Shitty, unless you live in a Faraday Cage.
Optical: Shitty, unless you live in a windowless hole.
Winner: Tie. Use IPSec and/or SSH, and it won't matter if you're using RFC 1149 or any other wireless network.

Bandwidth
802.11b: 11Mbps
Optical: 100 Mbps
Winner: Optical, until somebody stands in your line-of-sight.

Overall Score
802.11b, 4. Optical, 1.

In short, forget about optical unless you need 100 Mbps, can't string EtherNet cable, and don't mind if it goes down every time somebody walks by your desk. I'd say it would be good for LAN parties, except it's too expensive. I'd say it's good for trade shows and other temporary large gatherings of computers, except you just know the Microsoft guys would be throwing paper airplanes at the RedHat booth optical transmitter. I have no clue who would actually want this, other than a rich gadget freak.

If I were going to design my own optical networking gadget, it would be peer-to-peer, with each peer having multiple line-of-sight connections to neighbours. That way, if one is interrupted, packets are instantly rerouted through the other links. Unless a crowd of people is standing around your desk, you're fine. It would probably cost way too much, though. Until that gets cheaper, 100BaseT cables duct-taped to the floor, ceiling, and walls are the way to go for quick, cheap connectivity.

We have an older story about building-to-building optical networks, but I think this is first inter-office optical LAN I've seen.

First of all, I think you mean intra-office optical LAN. Second, sometimes, when you get an idea, and nobody else has done it, it means you're a genius. Sometimes, it means you're a moron.

I'll bet you could pick up some great PHB-friendly words here. Maybe Proactive Leverager of Global Synergy?

I just stumbled across this Dilbert strip which is relevent to this article. =)

------------
CitizenC

Yes, that would be Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light... Ruler of Heck.

Or so say these people...

Overclocking always reminds me of the old Dilbert strip when Dogbert runs a course for people with no common sense. Among them was Clem, the auto mechanic who thought that he got struck by lightning every time he smoked a cigar while working on car engines--and was amazed at the coincidence.

I think you're confusing his magazine cartoon submissions with his syndicate submissions. He submitted DILBERT as a one-panel gag cartoon to magazines but was rejected by all (see here), so he tried submitting it to the syndicates as a comic strip and was picked up immediately by United Media (see here). He was rejected by every syndicate but United Media (see here).

Your Pal,
Chris Crosby

I think you're confusing his magazine cartoon submissions with his syndicate submissions. He submitted DILBERT as a one-panel gag cartoon to magazines but was rejected by all (see here), so he tried submitting it to the syndicates as a comic strip and was picked up immediately by United Media (see here). He was rejected by every syndicate but United Media (see here).

Your Pal,
Chris Crosby

I think you're confusing his magazine cartoon submissions with his syndicate submissions. He submitted DILBERT as a one-panel gag cartoon to magazines but was rejected by all (see here), so he tried submitting it to the syndicates as a comic strip and was picked up immediately by United Media (see here). He was rejected by every syndicate but United Media (see here).

Your Pal,
Chris Crosby

>Anyone who thinks that a good website should depend on a plugin/javascript/animated graphics/java/images with no tags/frames/ or overdesigned pages that take forever to load on a 14.4 connection deserves the complaints from users they will get at the email address listed under 'feedback' on their page.

...assuming that they can see the "feedback" link without the required plugin =)

I agree that it is cool if a site works on Lynx, but you can't really use it to read User Friendly or Dilbert where graphics equals content.

http://mp3.com/jje

Nevertheless, it's done and over. 3 cheers to a once-great company destroyed by poor management! 3 cheers to a once-great country being destroyed by poor management!

It's all about the Karma Points, baybee...
Moderators: Read from the bottom up!

Also, watching the live connection that the FoxNews made, their lawyer does not know everything on the matter. He argued that "...only with their [Napster] software,...users can exchange files...". Yes, dear friends, they do not know about Gnutella and similar projects!.

Let's rejoice alltogether, my friends, by their lack of knowledge and general blindness...

Have you read today's Dilbert?
(That's on 20000907... try here if that's no longer the current date.

eudas

Have you read today's Dilbert?
(That's on 20000907... try here if that's no longer the current date.

eudas

heh heh, check out today's Dilbe rt.

I think the big thing that I think about here is that I just can't believe that people are smart enough to make big decisions on their own. If you think they are then you haven't checked out the Darwin Awards or even the Dilbert True Tales of Induhviduals. I think that some people are smart enough to make decisions on their own, but not most people. Probably not even me.

Kind of ruins the post I guess. This is the real link.
--

While I applaud and Mozilla effort it is a shame that the newer browsers and the old all appear to require an excessive amount of if statements for the pages to all work the same. Plaudits to Slashdot for sticking with 3.2 but many sites suffer from code like the following:

browserName = navigator.appName;
browserVer = parseInt(navigator.appVersion);
var browseR = "bad";
if (browserName == "Netscape" && browserVer >= 3)
browseR = "good";
if (browserVer >= 4)
browseR = "good";

(from Dilbert)

And the rise of WAP has increased the problems. Roll on the days of XML and XSLT and at least things will be easier to manipulate even if they are still working differently.

Standards would be a nice idea

Another thing that it doesn't seem to mention is that there is a glass ceiling. Even if a female is smart, or adept at their job, they are held to a limit. How many women CEOs do you see out there? You don't see it because the business is run off of a good ol' boys network. Either you're part of the network or you're not. Advancement isn't really based on merit. I mean how many managers have you met that know what the hell they're talking about?
if you have, please refer to Dilbert to have your brain washed.

CAD, kicked, good

IANAUKL (I am not a UK lawyer), but in the States you can be sued for pretty much anything. I could sue Taco for bad grammar, claiming that his awful prose has caused me to misunderstand technical issues that are important to my job, and hence Taco is responsible for damaging my wage earning ability.

But remember, filling a lawsuit is significantly different than bringing a succsessful lawsuit in front of a judge.

I can see three possible outcomes from this lawsuit:

1. Nike is unable to find a competent judge, and quietly gives Mr. Greg Lloyd Smith some money, just to make him go away, hence saving a lot of bother for the Nike lawyers,
2. Nike gets this in front of a competent judge as quickly as possible, and the judge just throws the whole thing out laughing,
3. Or, Nike finds a judge that willing to bitchslap Mr. Greg Lloyd Smith very, very hard, making Mr. Smith pay Nike's legal bills (at a minimum). My (limited) understanding is that it is considerably easier for judges in the UK to do this than it is in the States.

Things that will not happen include:

1. Mr. Smith will not win this lawsuit. Not one article I've read about this episode has had a single nice thing to say about Mr. Smith -- Wired magazine clearly wanted to call Mr. Smith a slimey little worm who probably engineered the hijacking himself (and Wired decided not to say that because there's no concrete evidence, and Mr. Smith is happy to sue anyone he can find). Judges and Juries don't like slimey little worms who bring frivolous lawsuits without any demonstrable damages.
2. Nike will not use this lawsuit to change intellectual property laws, or make NETSOL legally responsible for hijacking. No-one involved is going to want this to drag out for years, to eventually get a ruling in UK court that will probably be ignored by the rest of the world courts and lawmakers anyhow (regulations on e-commerce and e-property is probably an area for international treaties, akin to international intellectual property laws. This case doesn't is too bogus to influence anything, even if Nike wanted the questionable publicity of pushing it through the courts).

I suspect we won't hear about this case again. If this was happening in the States, I'd expect to see Mr. Smith's name on the front pages in a few years, when he walks into an office building somewhere and starts shoot ing people. Since its the UK, I expect he'll just become a school teacher or some other profession where he can inflict damage on people with immunity. Or, perhaps he'll just continue being a totally irresponsible and technically incompetent system administrator for his own ISP, and just continue inflicting damages on his clueless customers.

Yesterday's Dilbert Strip seems highly appropriate to this story.

See what Scott Adams has to say on this subject:

huh - you must type in really speedy. Of course it depends how you use those menus: with some jumpy dirty mouse or good mouse w/ keyboard.

For example say I want to start netscape (or new netscape window if it's already running). I press following keys: ctrl-esc (root menu) n(etscape). On the other hand to start it by typing ctrl-alt-t (for terminal window) and after that "n e t s c a p e" and pressing enter would be slower (but again for my typing speed) or even ctrl-alt-t n e t s c tab enter.

And image doesn't change even if application that I need to start is not in the root menu because I can open each one of the submenus with one keypress. For example ctrl-esc a(pplications) w(ww-browsers) l(ynx) would start lynx with with equal number of keypresses as using cli and you could do that even if you wouldn't remember program's name in the beginning (because you see possible choices in the menu in each step).

Of course if I want to do something like "replace all references to your old email user@domain1.com to user2@domain2.org in text files under your home directory" I would do it with perl from command line. But trying to explain/teach that to Average Joe would be pain in a butt and he would probably do it faster by opening one file at time and fixing it.

I'm aware that I'm not average user and that some people use more mouse in GUI but if you are going to teach average people to use CLI I would consider other choices also.

Now go spend some quality time here.
_________________________

Slashdot: Sad Sloth | Dash Lots

Two words: Fair use.

It's like suing Xerox for manufacturing photocopiers if somebody runs off a few copies of their favorite Dilbert and hands them out to coworkers.

This is infuriating, and it will be fascinating to see how (or if) it is ever resolved.

--

My company went through ISO 9000 a few years ago, and the basic idea is the same as TrustE: Say what you do, do what you say.

In my mind, it doesn't mean that the company is any better organized than others, but it means that their business process is in a book somewhere and they follow what's in the book. Reviewers don't care what the actual processes are, as long as there's enough documentation to prove that those processes are followed.

Sounds like TrustE is doing the same thing: Does this company have a privacy policy for web-based information? Do they follow it?

Of course, there's a classic Dilbert strip on this topic. The dialog goes something like:

PHB: So you don't actually care what our procedures are, so long as they're documented and followed consistently?

Customer: That's right

PHB: In that case, our documented procedure says that I'm supposed to laugh at you and double our price

TrustE sounds a little bit better than that (they do have some minimal requirements about their policies, apparently), but not much. It sounds, for instance, as though TrustE thinks that it's perfectly OK for a company to promise not to sell your personal information, then change its policy without notification and sell it if you come back to visit its site- even if you don't stay around for long enough to read the revised privacy policy.

(Based on the Dilbert Principle that the incompetent rise to the place where they can do the least damage, i.e., management.)

Noone is going to tell me what I should think about any comic, whether I like the comic or not. To me, Userfriendly, Dilbert, the Bastard Operator From Hell stories and the Computer Stupidities section of Rinkworks are sources of relief for those of us, who, from time to time, get severly frustrated by the apparent inability or unwillingness of users to understand even the most simple of instructions or concepts. I think they'd rather have that than us going postal. I did, back when I was a newbie, ages ago, though I fancy myself never having been a luser.

You're quite correct. The whole idea of using a 'version name' appended to a product name is for marketing. Marketing people hate version numbers; engineers think they're cool, but that's a Dilbert discussion.

Intel switched from generation numbering to naming once their marketing people really took over the place. AMD switched its K7 to Athlon ... although allowed it to be the K7 for a long time, and the next _generational_ chip for them will probably be code-named K8.

Ever looked at the version numbers in IE? Look at the build number. Download it today, then in three weeks. Probably a 300 build jump ... especially in companies that are big marketers, you don't really want your clients to think they have to keep upgrading until you're making money from it, so version numbers (at the build level) are irrelevant.

Just my $0.02 ...

You could learn from the best admin around, the B.O.F.H.. He always seems (Unlike some other ITs) to find the easiest way around!

The Dilbert web site seems to be down, or at least refuse to send any data.

Eek. The Dilbert in me is getting worried...
[E-speak]allows e-services to dynamically interact to discover, negotiate, broker and compose themselves to solve a business to business or business to consumer service request.

Congratulations, that tells me nothing at all about it.

But whatever it is, I guess HP supporting Open Source is a jolly good idea. Good on 'em!

So what's in it for geeks? Insiders? Why should I care for this book if it's targeted to outsiders to the hi-tech industry? (Aside as a present idea for my mother, that is?)

Additionally, what has it to say that hasn't been flogged to death by Dilbert yet?

Is this News for Nerds or News about Nerds?

Why not review a dated by classic novel on the subject, such as Douglas Coupland's Microserfs?

"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"

Good point. As Dogbert has repeatedly pointed out, one of the best ways is by writing a "get rich quick" book.

1. PHB stands for 'Pointy Haired Boss'. See Dilbert...
2. OLAP, others have already done an excellent job of describing 'On-Line Analytical Processing'. I will only point out that it is a management buzzword right now and, like most such buzzwords, it means different things to different people.

Jack

Dilbert_ writes "Since most dot com domains of the form www.[common english word].com are taken today, you could theoretically surf around using just a dictionary. Now you can search the web from a page that will will automatically generate a fresh load of links, based on a dictionnary. " For some reason this amuses me greatly.

I think your dislike for Katz has clouded your thinking. I sympathize.

I don't actually dislike Katz; I simply disagree intensely with a number of his viewpoints. For all I know, if we had a chance to sit down, crack a few beers together, and argue philosophy into the wee hours, I'd end up with a genuine affection for the man. But I'd still disagree vehemently with what he is writing here.

Of course pain is not irrelevant. When you say that pain is irrelevent but personhood is relevant, you fail to see that pain includes personhood.

You're right, I don't see that at all.

While persons experience pain, pain is not an intrinsic part of personality. Before the Fall (I write as a Christian, of course) humanity was human, and had the gift of personality, before there was pain in the world. And, we look forward to a day when this will be true again. So, while it may appear that pain and personality are linked, this is simply an accident of our local conditions in time and space.

Now, I'm not trying to promote some angists philosophy, or, for that matter, arguing that ability to sense equals personhood. What I am saying is that when Katz says "Can Androids Feel Pain" he really means "Are Androids Going To Be Persons Just Like Me And You Really Soon Now." (Note the difference of sense and feel.)

Yes, that is exactly what I understood Katz to mean. And my point is, to ask the question of pain when one really means to ask the question of personality is to misunderstand personality. The question itself is bogus -- it's simply a bad question, a philosphical equivalent of "have you stopped beating your wife?" One can't simply answer the question without dealing with the assumption behind the question first.

Person isn't very good word for the use you are putting it into. Person is rather synonymous with human and that may well lead to assumptions that aren't correct.

No, I'm not using "person" as synonymous with "human," but to mean "a being with the quality of personality." Christians understand that there are non-human persons. God is three Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit (the mystery of the Trinity), only one of whom is also human (the mystery of the Incarnation). Angels are persons too, although they are not human, but of different races from us.

In Star Trek, for example, Humans, Klingons, Vulcans, Romulans, Ferrengi, etc. are all clearly persons. Commander Data is clearly portrayed as a person as well. I don't know what word is used in Trek to distinguish between Klingons and cats ("sentient"?), but whatever that word is, is what I am talking about.

As to choice and meaning provived by modern technology. Clarke speaks about future not today.

In the past and present, we have heard these promises before. Nuclear power would soon become "too cheap to meter", the Industrial Revolution, the Nuclear Revolution, the Green Revolution, all promised and failed to deliver humanity from need and want. All have failed on that promise, and have instead helped make certain men rich beyond the dreams of Midas while "saving" so much labor that we now have an unemployment problem. Most folks who haven't hit the jackpot on these various "revolutions" have been transformed into oppressed Morlocks or effete Eloi. Meanwhile, the promised "freedom from necessity" is further away than ever. This is not a technological problem -- we could implement a society with no poverty today if we had the will and the virtue to do so. We have not done so, we are not going to do so, because greed ("Greed is good! It fuels The Economy!") is the rule.

And now, we have the hype of the Computer Revolution (under way already), the AI Revolution, and the Nanotech Revolution, bearing the same promises. I shall remain skeptical. So far, I see that we have some new robber-barons who have become richer than the old robber-barons, through control of the new resources. I don't see that I or my neighbors who require the necessity of a steady paycheck to put food on the table are closer to this mythical state of "freedom" than our ancestors 150 years ago, who could at least plant a garden and spin wool, and worried about the weather rather than the stock market.

Sure numerous men and women have contemplated the meaning before but they have more or less been part of that other 1% and have chosen to think about meaning.

I disagree. There are a lot of philosophers on the farm and the factory floor today. Certainly at least as many as among the cubicle-dwelling Eloi. I don't know what Clarke thinks we're going to be "freed" from, because history and observation show us that a life of work is not incompatible with the highest contemplation, and in fact may be a benefit to it.

Modern broad-mindedness benefits the rich; and benefits nobody else.
-- G. K. Chesterton

Hoo boy, off into the techno-spiritualism and "porn makes kids better" garbage again ...

A complete, well-structuted and footnoted criticism of everything wrong with this essay would take far more time than I dare give it this morning, but a few thoughts:

Pain is irrelevant:

That's right, the ability of an AI or a-life program to "feel" pain is irrelevant to any moral or ethical issues. It is interesting, but it is not the ethical quandry that Katz makes it out to be. Think about it for a moment -- we already share the planet with entities which are demonstrably intelligent and capable of experiencing pain. We call them "animals". They've been around for a long time, perhaps you've encountered one recently?

Now, if an AI could achieve personhood, that would be a different can of worms. But what, exactly, is personhood? That, at either an explicit or implicit level, is a crucial question in today's "culture wars." The traditional Christian answer which shaped Western culture for many centuries is that personhood is a spiritual attribute, and humans are persons because we are created in the imago dei, the Image of God, Who is Himself personal.

Therefore, (to steal a phrase from A Canticle for Leibowitz), "all that is born of woman" are persons.

The current, post-Christian viewpoint seems to be to reject any spiritual basis for personhood, and to then try to base recognition of personhood from some observed attribute, perhaps cleverness (if it's intelligent enough, it must be a person) or emotional response (if it feels pain and can articulate enough angst, it must be a person). But, the distinction between person and non-person is muddled, because (it is argued) there is no way to draw distinctions other than quantitative. So, a Darwinist would claim that humans are simply animals with opposable thumbs. Minsky, etc., claim that humans are simply carbon-based computers with a big specialized processor and complicated software.

From the Christian perspective, the issue with AIs is simple enough -- we have to determine whether an AI could ever be a person, and proceed accordingly. From that, one can proceed figuring out the ethical issues.

From the post-Christian, modern/post-Modern materialist viewpoint, there's no good way to make any distinction other than some quantitative ones, so you drop into a quagmire of muddle, providing wonderful employment opportunities for professors of ethics and for cyber-pundits.

Modern technology does not provide "choice" or "meaning":

Katz quotes Clarke:

"Perhaps 99 per cent of all the men who have ever lived have known only need; they have been driven by necessity and have not been allowed the luxury of choice," Clarke philosophizes. " In the future, this will no longer be true. It maybe the greatest virtue of the UltraIntelligent (UI) machine that it will force us to think about the purpose and meaning of human existence. It will compel us to make some far-reaching and perhaps painful decisions, just as thermonuclear weapons have made us face the realities of war and aggression, after five thousand years of pious jabber."

For argument's sake, I'll take Clarke's 99% statistic as a given. It's not clear to me that a European peasant of the Middle Ages, who had a secure landholding, the ability to live off of it, and little regulation other than some taxes, had less "choice" than today's Dilbert-ized cubicle dwellers, who don't own their own homes but merely lease them from the bank, and who are at the mercy of the next "rightsizing."

It is simply ludicrous that Clarke can believe that "the purpose of meaning of human existance" has not been thought about to this point. He seems to want to have it both ways, because what is this "pious jabber" that he so casually dismisses if not the very thing he claims has never yet existed?

As for his example of thermonuclear weapons, give me a break. If anything, thermonuclear weapons have made us less able to face "the realities of war and agression" than generations past, by making war an unimaginable catastrophe. And I truly think that those for whom war meant close combat had a better handle on war and agression than we for whom war means smart bombs and air strikes.

But there is another strong objection which I, one of the laziest of all the children of Adam, have against the Leisure State. Those who think it could be done argue that a vast machinery using electricity, water-power, petrol, and so on, might reduce the work imposed on each of us to a minimum. It might, but it would also reduce our control to a minimum. We should ourselves become parts of a machine, even if the machine only used those parts once a week. The machine would be our master, for the machine would produce our food, and most of us could have no notion of how it was really being produced.
-- G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton wrote this as a warning. It is perhaps the most frightening thing about Clarke and Katz that they seem to think this is a desirable state.