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I know there's a large contingent out there that believes the white male is an "oppressed" group in America due to affirmative action, Title IX, or other assorted anti-harassment and anti-discrimination laws or rules. I'm sure the strain must be unbearable...

I'm so sick of this "You are a white male, therefore you are not allowed to criticize me" defense. Irish people were enslaved, too.

I can just as well say to a person descended from slaves that, "Oh, man, you don't understand the American Revolution because your people were not fighting for their freedom then!"

It was thanks to a copy of an early LSL game that I learned the following valuable infromation: 1) The names of all the beatles. 2) What prophylactic ment, and where to get one. 3) That 2 was important if you were going to hire a hooker At 14 I found the first bit of information much more useful then the second, and I have not yet had occasion to use data point three, but it just goes to show Steven Johnson is right, you can learn things from video games http://www.penguinputnam.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0 ,,0_1573223077,00.html

Around the year 1000 for example, it was much warmer than today. There's a reason why "Greenland" is called that: it had thawed and the Vikings could colonize and farm it.

Then it cooled off some time later, and the colony was all but abandoned.

Its as if they were writing about "the future of Open Source" by quoting Stallmam, one recently-famous open source developer, and the Halloween documents. And entirely failed to interview or even mention the existance of Torvalds, Wall, Allman, Eric Raymond, or O'Reilly (website, books and conferences).

Penguin knows this.

The practical problem is that copyright law is enforced by the victim taking the violator to court. They are using harassment, itself probably a crime, to intimidate a person without deep pockets. It's like trespassing or squatting, if someone uses your property long enough, it becomes their property. They have done the equivalent of publishing a map misidentifying her property as a publicly accessable racetrack. When people get there, they might notice that it isn't, but not until they have driven all over her pansies ruined her lawn.

I propose we do our due diligance and visit their websites, see what they have to say about it. Visit all their sites as many times as necessary to make sure they know we've done our homework. Here's a few:

Penguin Group USA

Penguin Group

Penguin UK Readers Group

If you find any nice high res images, recommend them in your reply.

Katie is in Europe, so is Penguin. It is in other places, too, but this is probably of interest. Notice in particular that in Europe, Big Guys aren't allowed to use trademark law to intimidate Little Guys. Other forms of harassment are probably illegal, too. and 3 lefts never make a right.

A few hours after this story hit the front page at /. Katie Jones reports that Penguin publishing has decided to retitle the book!

4 years too late, but better than never. Perhaps their lawyers and marketing people finally got a love tap from the ol' clue stick?

I like to think the /. crowd helped bring this about.

The press release is at http://www.penguinputnam.com/static/packages/us/ab out/press/press76.pdf.

Not sure if this whois link will work or not, but agirlslifeonline.com was just registered yesterday to Katie Tarbox. Probably a smart idea.

Read the pdf at Penguin's Site. They are changing the name of the book to "A Girl's Life Online" or some such smack.

Plume Re-titles Book by Katie Tarbox A Girl's Life Online (PDF)

(text reproduced below)

In an effort to avoid an association between the book originally titled Katie.com and
the website Katie.com, Plume and the author decide to make this title change.

New York, New York, August 6, 2004 ... In 2000, Dutton published a hardcover book
called Katie.com by Katie Tarbox, an eye-opening account of one teenager's descent into
the seductive world of the Internet. After the book was released into the market, it was
brought to Dutton's attention that a website of the same name existed on the Internet.
The fact that the book, Katie.com, and the website shared the same name was purely
coincidental. In an effort to avoid any association between the book and the site, when
Plume issued the book in trade paperback in 2001, it printed on the copyright page that
the author of Katie.com and events described in the book have no connection whatsoever
with the website domain owner Katie Jones or her e-mail address.

Trena Keating, Editor-in-chief of Plume, said, "We have made every effort to clarify the
fact that Plume's book, Katie.com, and the website, Katie.com, are not in any way
associated with one another. In addition, it was erroneously reported recently that Plume
had asked its attorney to attempt to buy the web site Katie.com from domain owner Katie
Jones. This is absolutely not true. Ms. Jones confirms this point in a message currently
posted on her web site.

"We are not working in association with author Katie Tarbox or any other individual in
an attempt to assume ownership of the domain name address www.katie.com. Of course,
the personal views of the author are hers and do not represent Plume in any way.
"Going forward, Plume and the author have decided to re-title this book A Girl's Life
Online. This is an important book about predatory pedophiles on the Internet and how
we can protect our children. We changed the title to keep focus on this issue. The newly
titled book will be released next month. We have always taken this situation very
seriously. And we hope that by making this title change, it will demonstrate just how
dedicated Plume is to clarifying this matter."

Okay, then. To start with:
http://us.penguingroup.com/Book/BookFrame/0,,,00.h tml?id=0452282535 or better yet, use the Search function on that site http://us.penguingroup.com/Search/QuickSearchFrame ?id=katie%21com Penguin UK (returns a "Sorry...")
Penguin Putnam (USA) search...
http://www.aftab.com
http://ParryAftab.blogspot.com/;
http://www.KatieT.com noting the various translations of the book that have all used the same (incorrect) URL/name;
http://www.KatiesPlace.org/pages/1/index.htm;
http://www.wiredsafety.org/

Unfortunately, probably not.

The author may be a decent person, but it won't make any difference. Penguin has all the rights to the book, and the author has only the right to do whatever they tell her to, if she wants to see a penny of royalties. Any action she can take can only hurt her; she has no leverage over her publisher.

Letters to the author may convince her that she doesn't want to write another book for Penguin, ever again, but unless she falls for another stranger in another chatroom, there probably won't be another book, anyway. Don't harrass the poor little fool.

Instead, why not contact some of Penguin's other authors, who might just have another profitable best seller in them? Try, for example, Clive Cussler, who's name shows up on Penguin's website. I can't find contact info for him, but NUMA, which he founded and is still involved with, can no doubt forward your email.

National Underwater and Marine Agency
c/o Pitch Productions
859 Hollywood Way #212
Burbank, California 91505
Tel/Fax: (818) 559-3278
pr@numa.net
doodlebug@numa.net

FYI Your PC will be 9 Billion times faster than today.

I see that Intel finally got around to reading The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray KurzweilChapter 1, (published in 2000, I might add)

"So Where Does That Leave Moore's Law?

Well, it still leaves it dead by the year 2020. Moore's Law came along in 1958 just when it was needed and will have done its sixty years of service by 2018, a rather long period of time for a paradigm nowadays. Unlike Moore's Law, however, the Law of Accelerating Returns is not a temporary methodology. It is a basic attribute of the nature of time and chaos -- a sublaw of the Law of Time and Chaos -- and describes a wide range of apparently divergent phenomena and trends. In accordance with the Law of Accelerating Returns, another computational technology will pick up where Moore's Law will have left off, without missing a beat"

Down to the exact date! Well, at least they caught on before it was too late ;)

I see that Intel finally got around to reading The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray KurzweilChapter 1, (published in 2000, I might add)

"So Where Does That Leave Moore's Law?

Well, it still leaves it dead by the year 2020. Moore's Law came along in 1958 just when it was needed and will have done its sixty years of service by 2018, a rather long period of time for a paradigm nowadays. Unlike Moore's Law, however, the Law of Accelerating Returns is not a temporary methodology. It is a basic attribute of the nature of time and chaos -- a sublaw of the Law of Time and Chaos -- and describes a wide range of apparently divergent phenomena and trends. In accordance with the Law of Accelerating Returns, another computational technology will pick up where Moore's Law will have left off, without missing a beat"

Down to the exact date! Well, at least they caught on before it was too late ;)

Hehe, he's in playboy!

Daniel Lyons is a journalist who has worked for various newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Herald and Forbes. The short story on which Daniel Lyons based Dog Days won the Playboy College fiction award, and he was short-listed for Granta's "Best of the Young American Novelists" competition. He lives in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Can't wait to read Quickselver, though. I'll even spring for the hardcover to go next to my Cryptonomicon.

-- ac at work

It was inspired by Ray Kurzweil's In the Age of Spiritual Machines.

A great album, one of my favorites. Now if they'd just play in Michigan more so I didn't have to go to !$^@!$!@#$ Ohio to see them.

from the back of the penguin classics edition of 1984:

"Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is more timely that ever. 1984 presents a "negative utopia," that is at once a startling and haunting vision of the world-"

from:
http://www.penguinputnam.com/Book/BookFrame/0,1007 ,,00.html?id=0452262933

So the word negative utopia? See the lack of the term dystopia? Common vernacular has changed the meaning of dystopia, but that's just because ignorant fools speak before they research, and propagate mis-usage of terms and concepts.

from the back of the penguin classics edition of 1984:

"Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is more timely that ever. 1984 presents a "negative utopia," that is at once a startling and haunting vision of the world-"

from:
http://www.penguinputnam.com/Book/BookFrame/0,1007 ,,00.html?id=0452262933

So the word negative utopia? See the lack of the term dystopia? Common vernacular has changed the meaning of dystopia, but that's just because ignorant fools speak before they research, and propagate mis-usage of terms and concepts.

from the back of the penguin classics edition of 1984:

"Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is more timely that ever. 1984 presents a "negative utopia," that is at once a startling and haunting vision of the world-"

from:
http://www.penguinputnam.com/Book/BookFrame/0,1007 ,,00.html?id=0452262933

So the word negative utopia? See the lack of the term dystopia? Common vernacular has changed the meaning of dystopia, but that's just because ignorant fools speak before they research, and propagate mis-usage of terms and concepts.

Since Penguin's homepage is several clicks away from the actual signing schedule page, try this: Gibson Rocks Come on, submitters, you can do better than that.

d: EXCELLENT Then he'll make more money doing it on paper and good luck to him!

My brother (27, I'm 24) got me this book for my last birthday after listening to me whine about the same problems over and over. It's The 48 Laws of Power - beautifully written and a bit like an O'Reilly book for politics (hmm... there's an idea - "Politics in a Nutshell" :)

It seems to come down to this. You're almost certainly more up to date with technology, but you have to kiss ass, like it or not. A good starting point for me is to always make it a multiple choice, where one answer was blatantly cheaper, quicker, and more fun for me.

Also, same as /. forces us to preview these posts, repeat in your head the thing you are about to say, just in case ;)

Good luck!

If you haven't already, let me highly recommend reading the book The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. It's got some amazing insights about the next 100 years, as well as a fairly in-depth discussion of neural networks and algorithms for them. It also covers other methods for creating "intelligent" machines such as recursion (used in chess-playing).

Here's the Web site for the book, and also Ray Kurzweil's site.

Sure, quantum computing can factor enormous numbers really fast, but its been pointed out a number of times that as Quantum Computing Taketh Away, it also Giveth:

Encryption Destroyed and Resurrected

As mentioned above, the classic problem that a quantum computer is ideally suited for is cracking encryption codes, which relies on factoring large numbers. The strength of an encryption code is measured by the number of bits that needs to be factored. For example, it is illegal in the United States to export encryption technology using more than 40 bits (56 bits if you give a key to law-enforcement authorities). A 40-bit encryption method is not very secure. In September 1997, Ian Goldberg, a University of California at Berkeley graduate student, was able to crack a 40-bit code in three and a half hours using a network of 250 small computers.15 A 56-bit code is a bit better (16 bits better, actually). Ten months later, John Gilmore, a computer privacy activist, and Paul Kocher, an encryption expert, were able to break the 56-bit code in 56 hours using a specially designed computer that cost them $250,000 to build. But a quantum computer can easily factor any sized number (within its capacity). Quantum computing technology would essentially destroy digital encryption.

But as technology takes away, it also gives. A related quantum effect can provide a new method of encryption that can never be broken. Again, keep in mind that, in view of the Law of Accelerating Returns, "never" is not as long as it used to be.

This effect is called quantum entanglement. Einstein, who was not a fan of quantum mechanics, had a different name for it, calling it "spooky action at a distance." The phenomenon was recently demonstrated by Dr. Nicolas Gisin of the University of Geneva in a recent experiment across the city of Geneva.16 Dr. Gisin sent twin photons in opposite directions through optical fibers. Once the photons were about seven miles apart, they each encountered a glass plate from which they could either bounce off or pass through. Thus, they were each forced to make a decision to choose among two equally probable pathways. Since there was no possible communication link between the two photons, classical physics would predict that their decisions would be independent. But they both made the same decision. And they did so at the same instant in time, so even if there were an unknown communication path between them, there was not enough time for a message to travel from one photon to the other at the speed of light. The two particles were quantum entangled and communicated instantly with each other regardless of their separation. The effect was reliably repeated over many such photon pairs.

The apparent communication between the two photons takes place at a speed far greater than the speed of light. In theory, the speed is infinite in that the decoherence of the two photon travel decisions, according to quantum theory, takes place at exactly the same instant. Dr. Gisin's experiment was sufficiently sensitive to demonstrate the communication was at least ten thousand times faster than the speed of light.

So, does this violate Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, which postulates the speed of light as the fastest speed at which we can transmit information? The answer is no -- there is no information being communicated by the entangled photons. The decision of the photons is random -- a profound quantum randomness -- and randomness is precisely not information. Both the sender and the receiver of the message simultaneously access the identical random decisions of the entangled photons, which are used to encode and decode, respectively, the message. So we are communicating randomness -- not information -- at speeds far greater than the speed of light. The only way we could convert the random decisions of the photons into information is if we edited the random sequence of photon decisions. But editing this random sequence would require observing the photon decisions, which in turn would cause quantum decoherence, which would destroy the quantum entanglement. So Einstein's theory is preserved.

Even though we cannot instantly transmit information using quantum entanglement, transmitting randomness is still very useful. It allows us to resurrect the process of encryption that quantum computing would destroy. If the sender and receiver of a message are at the two ends of an optical fiber, they can use the precisely matched random decisions of a stream of quantum entangled photons to respectively encode and decode a message. Since the encryption is fundamentally random and nonrepeating, it cannot be broken. Eavesdropping would also be impossible, as this would cause quantum decoherence that could be detected at both ends. So privacy is preserved.

Note that in quantum encryption, we are transmitting the code instantly. The actual message will arrive much more slowly -- at only the speed of light.

-Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines, pg. 115

Unless one (or more) of the other things happens first, I believe #16 ("Robots take over") will definitely occur. And I'm firmly on the side of "next stage in evolution" rather than "end of humanity."

Ray Kurzweil has written a book called The Age of Spiritual Machines. In it, he basically predicts that human kind will be supplanted by its own creations. This will not be a takeover of the kind depicted in Terminator or The Matrix, but a slow merging of the two "species" and an eventual complete transformation of the very definition of "human" and "life."

This is happening already. Consider the term "brain-dead." When it was still novel, people distinguished "brain-dead" from "dead," but I'm pretty sure there are many people now who basically equate the two (maybe not doctors, for whom it's probably a clinical term). At one time, a beating heart indicated life, and a lack thereof, death. Now, the death of the brain is the "real" death. This is a subtle modern shift in what it means to be "alive." I suspect that as the function of parts of the brain get figured out by scientists, a new term-- "mind-death"-- will appear.

I don't know if I agree with all of Kurzweil's reasoning, but I fully believe in the conclusion. In fact, I cannot see how it could possibly end otherwise. However, I don't see it as a hostile takeover, but an enhancement of everything that makes us who we are: an expanding of our abilities. It won't limit us, or de-humanize us, or destroy any part of us--it will allow us to be what we want to be, more than ever before.

Okay, I sound like I'm evangelizing now, and I'm drifting off-topic. I recommend the book. It's got some very interesting ideas.

But this omits the other forecast that by 2050 we'll be able to make an electronic recording of human brains. So by 2100 we'll be in machines also, so one way or another there will be machines with intelligence. And Trolls will be able to run at electronic speed...

Where did this idea come from precisely? Maybe i don't read to same books, see the same movies, etc. but I've never seen computer porteyed as all knowing and/or all powerful.

Read some stuff from Ray Kurzweil. The Age of Spiritual Machines might be best. And understand that he's considered a serious author; not just some blabbering idiot. Among others, he's credited with inventing OCR and pioneered text-to-speech synthesizers.

Or, read Bill Joy's essay in Wired on the soon-to-arrive almighty robots.

Anyway, I see the All Tomorrow's Parties too has a home page.

In the newsgroup alt.cyberpunk there was a reference to an early script which was rather different from the book. Incidentally, the new book has been discussed at some length there already, you may wish to pop in to have look.

Well, you have to wade through the MacroMedia Flash presentation that they finally put up (a little after the fact for some dates). It resides at PenguinPutnam.

I'll save you the trouble:

Date - City - Location

Oct. 17 - San Francisco, CA - SF Book Festival

Oct. 22 - Washinton, DC - Smithsonian Institute

Oct. 25 - New York City - Barnes&Noble@Union Square

Oct. 26 - Denver, CO - Tattered Cover / Denver Press Club Luncheon

Oct. 28 - San Francisco, CA - Booksmith

Oct. 29 - San Francisco, CA - Stacey's / Cody's

Oct. 30 - Los Angeles, CA - Skylight Books

Nov. 01 - Santa Monica, CA - Borders

Nov. 03 - Portland, OR - Powell's

Nov. 04 - Seattle, WA - Elliot Bay

Nov. 05 - Seattle, WA - University Bookstore