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There is a third and more likely explanation. They are using this fake "war on terror" as an excuse to create a surveillance state for the sole purpose of controlling everyone, and destroying anyone who gets in their way. Period. It has nothing to do with stopping terrorism or crime, quite the opposite - it is designed so that they have the monopoloy on both.

Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.

Yes, I have read this book. And one of the most important points it made, is transparency only works if it is both ways. What we are seeing instead is an increasing consolidation and centralization of one-way transparency. Where they get to watch more and more of us, while they themselves remain cloaked in secrecy for so-called national security reasons.

There is hope though, some brave souls have set up this - Poindexter Awareness Office.

Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.

I think you make a good point, but during the same time period we had scores of fantastic visionary utopian fiction. We got Star Wars and Star Trek during the height of the cold war. We also gots lots of very interesting sci-fi coming out both in print and in movies during that time. But you have me thinking too about what people tend to gravitate towards depending on the current political-social climate. With are rapid slide into opressive facism, I'm curious what type of games and movies will come out in the next couple of years. Speilbergs 'Minority Report' is a perfect response to the current trends such Poindexter's TIA.

Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.

Fantastic post Proc6, and thanks for the compliments. I went to Langstons Ants, and I can assume and hope this is the same Langston who attended my Alma Mater (U of Az) and is the pioneer of Artificial Life?

I discovered Chris Langston back in 1987, when he gave a talk at UofA about his work and his new book Artificial Life (of which there are several volumes now). A few weeks after his talk, I had this huge intuite leap, and started to develop an entirely new Game Engine for Adventure games. The idea, is that there would be a large number of n-variables - people, chain-of-events, scenarios, etc. That way as you played the game it would through various degrees of strength effect the rest of the world in obvious and very subtle ways. Like cause and effect, the rest of the game world would could continue to morph and change on one side while you were playing on the other. Then about 18 months later, the original SIMS game came out, and they beat me to the punch. Oh well.

My original idea for this game, and I would still like to see something like it develop an adventure game where you started out a someone in 1987 earth (now 2003), and your goal was to reach the center of the galaxy. That means that you had to live long enough to make it there, or discover some kind of FTL drive sooner than that. So in the game you would a nearly unlimted number of ways to make it there - make millions so you could have yourslef cryonically frozen, or afford the best longevity medicine, invest in the right technologies such as nanotechnology, allie yourslef with the right syndicates so that you were on the winning side, etc, etc. Anyway, it was a great idea back in 1987, and I would love to see something even remotely close to it now.

I will re-iterate:

The state of gaming today is totally pathetic.

Planet P Blog - Liberty with Technology.

People might counter and say what about Myst, or SIMS, or the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. Well Myst is an exception, but whatever happened to the old-fashioned adventure games? Even the Star Trek and Star Wars gaming franchises have succumbed to the Doominization of gaming. So now you can be a starfleet office whose primary duty is to kill as many bad evil aliens as possible! Whoopee! Or be some variation of a Jedi whose primary mission is to kill as many bad guys as possible. And sure enough all of these killing sprees take place in dark, dank, and depressing settings.

Ok, so what I am proposing?

Bring back the adventure games!!! We have all of the hardware and software algorithms now to make adventure games light-years beyond what was available with Ultima 7 or Zork, etc. Not only could we have far-out sci-fi, fantasy adventure worlds, but also we could explore these worlds in first person 3-D now. We could even throw in some real-time shoot-em-ups to spice it up. Why can't we have a game that combines the best of the spirit of true adventure games with the best of the shoot-em-ups?

Imagine a game, where there are hundreds of planets to explore. All of these planets are unique and compelling. Some of these worlds would have alien civilizations or spaceports and colonists, others would be hostile to life. On each of these worlds, lies mysteries waiting to be explored - pieces of a large puzzle that need to be solved. Perhaps we could just explore these worlds as part of a larger strategy of building our characters like we would in traditional RPG. And of all of this exploring could take place in full-immersion real-time 3D. And why oh why, can't we have worlds that are both compelling and beautiful and inspiring to look at?

Has anyone else noticed? Perhaps this is why I have not bought a single PC game in at least three years now.

Planet P Blog - Librety with Technology.

I know, I know. Shameless plug. But my weblog covers many issues of interest to slashdot readers that are mentioned in this thread, with a somewhat anarchistic-democratic bent. I cover wi-fi, gnu radio, p2p everything, decentralization, space migration, etc. If you're interested, check it out:

Planet P Blog - Personal Liberty with Technology.

Well, this is all impecable physics I must say. As a physicist myself I am impressed with your working knowledge of electromagnetics. But you are still missing one very important part of the equation - computation. With sufficient speedy processors, all of this so-called interference gets process from very low signal/noise ratio to very high signal/noise ratio. With sufficiently advanced speed and algrothimic elegance, the sky IS the limit to the number of channels that can exist on any single frequency.

Planet P Blog - Personal Liberty with Technology.

Dbrower - you are absolutely rigght. All of this stuff about interference is pure BS. Software Defined Radio combined with Open Spectrum renders interference problems obsolete. Ironically, it was the military who invented software defined radio in the first place!

I would say this has more to do with either pure ignorance on the part of the DOD, or an excuse to squash this liberating technology.

Planet P Weblog - Personal Liberty with Technology.

Hi Howard,

I'll use this oppurtunity to tell you I thoroughly enjoyed your book. So much so, that I was inspired to create my own blog devoted to the issues surrounding it.

Planet P Weblog

Reeds Law is very true. All networks are proof of this. A single phone line was absolutely worthless, but as thousands and then millions of phone lines were added to the network, each individual phone line become that much more valuable. The same holds true of for fax machines, internet connections and smart mobs.

Planet P Weblog - Liberty with Technology.

Because its not owned by anyone! Its not propietary. What we don't need is another carrier. Its time we move beyond centralized distribution. Its time we adopted decentralized wi-fi, becuause it empowers anyone with a connection to become a node in the network. See Mesh Networks to see how this is possible.

Its time for a communications revolution that has an infrastructure that is built from the bottom-up from individual users. Its time to have a network that is now owned by anyone, but available FREE to everyone.

Richochet does none of these things.

Planet P Weblog - Liberty with Technology.

Ah, but there is one very important point you are missing, well actually two points:

Point 1: This re-establishes the freedom of choice about where people get their news and stay informed about their world. No longer will peole be beholden to the large corporate monied interests.

Point 2: Although it is true, that most of the alternative news sources lack credibility, isn't that the whole point of a free press? Like any darwinian game, the more credible sources will eventually establish themseleves as such through the decntralized and emerging reputations systems of the net. That is real democracy. Again, news filtered through reputation not who has the most money to throw at it.

Planet P - Liberty with Technology.

My hope is that the adoption of wi-fi happens quick enough that attempts to outlawing it as a terrorist threat are thwarted by wide-spread common sense.

Planet P - Liberation with Technology.

Very funny. Of course, I always referred to 'journal' as 'thread'.

BTW, very good rant up there - best I've read on Slashdot.

Oh, and here is my Journal.

As someone who worked for AT&T Wireless for years, I can tell you they are quickly running our of money. The centralized "cellular" paradigm is quickly running our of steam. It is simply not economically scalable to compete with very high speed ad-hoc "bottom up", software definted radio mesh networks that are the wave of the future. My opinion, is not only will telcos fail, but lets help them fail as fast as possible to make room for innovation by opening up more parts of the spectrum.

As for Microsft's involvement, who cares? I can't see them either dominating this space like they managed to do with the desktop. Interoperability will be the key, just like on the net today. Linux alread has a foot hold in this market.

Planet P - Liberation With Technology.

Before we jump onto some kind of legislative solution, I think all efforts of everyone in a position to make a difference (and that is everyone) should spread the word about meshnetworks.

Assuming we can de-regulate sufficient spectrum, wireless ad-hoc networks will completely solve the problem of network vunerability, centralization and commercialization. Meshnetworks have the potention to dentralize benadwith distribution in the same p2p decentralized content distribution.

Planet P - Liberation with Technology.

Hey man, I agree with you about all of this, and there have been days recently with all of the malarky passing into law where I almost felt the urge to chuck it all - and live like it was 1975 - paper and all. But by the time they manage to get this huge bureacratic behometh to do this type of dirty work we could very likely see a massive decentralized ad-hoc and an emerging phenomona called Smart Mobs and anonymous surfing provided by Hacktivismo, censorship-free and anonymous information via Freenet, open spectrum and finally perhaps anonymous digital cash from Yodel Bank.

Planet P - Liberation With Technology.

The main reason I agree with the report, is that the alternative (such as Bill Joys) would be a totaltarian police state with omni-surveillance everywhere to prevent rouge nanotech development.
And since that would be virtually impossible, this would mean that only outlaws would develop nanotech, and rather than stop it we get mostly malign nanotechnologies. The better alternative is to keep it entirely Open Source, which ensures quality control, transparency, accountability, and safety.

Planet P - Liberation With Technology.

The possible flaw is that by the time they get the technology necessary to live in space sustainably long-term, mature nanotechnology will be available. So at best, they will have a few short years in which to get ahead start. But more importantly, the speed in which they will be able to travel will more than likely be substantially less than c. And once the singularity happens all bets are off, but chances are nanobot probes will be heading off in all directions at close to the speed of light, which means their ship will more than likely get infected, unless this singularity is benign. But if it is Benign, then there is no reason for their escape in the first place. I do wish them the best of luck.

Planet P - Liberation with Technology.

As time goes on, a matter of 2 or 3 years at most, high-speed internet access will be avaialble to even remote rural users using a combination of solar powered high-gain Wi-Fi and mesh-networks. With the recent release of 802.11g gear from Linksys, and a massive and immeninent proliferation of wi-fi built-in chips, its only a matter of time. Certainly before you die.

Planet P - Liberation Through Technology.

Uhm, smaller debris that follows an asteroid? You must be thinking of the Bruce Willis movies. First of all the odds are highly in favor of asteroid being in the 1-2 mile diameter or less. Secondly, any debris following such an asteroid would be so small that it would be of no danger at all, and finally the acceleration of the asteroid from the nuclear rocket would be so gradual relatively speaking that any debris would pick up the ride from its meager gravitational force.

Planet P - Liberation Through Tehnology.

Uh Dude, I am NOT talking about nuclear bombs! Thats an entirely differnt thing. Nuclear Rockets are controlled reactions - where the thrust is highly focused and controlled. The exact opposite of a nuclear blast. A nuclear blast would obliterate the asteroid, a nuclear rocket would keep it entact and gently alter its trajectory.

Planet P - Liberationg Through Technology.

The Solution to preventing an asteroidal impact, assuming time is scarce, is a nuclear rocket. The technology for this was already developed way back in the 1960's, and was shut down for obvious reasons. If an asteroid was going to hit us in less than a year without any prior warning, a massive campaign could get a nuclear rocket launched and into space within 6 months. I haven't done the precise astrodynamic calculations, but the factors are - mass of asteroid, time to left to impact, and specific impulse of nuclear rocket. The higher the specific impulse the less time or large the asteroid can be.

Keep in mind that even if the asteroid was only a month away from impact and it was heading our way at 7 miles per second, that means that the asteroid would be 18.1 Millions miles away, which means that the angle of its trajectory would only have to be diverted by less than 1/1000th of a degree. A moderately size nuclear rocket could easily divert an asteroid of 1-2 miles in diameter in plenty of time to divert the disaster.

Planet P - Liberation Through Technology.

This could be a change for file-sharing developers to enhance existing p2p networks, by not only integrating p2p radio, but also links to these bands websites. The end result would be a p2p file sharing network, decentralized streaming radio, and a fully integrated system for people to pay, read "tip" the artists they enjoy listening too.

Planet P - Liberation through technology.

Increasing wi-fi range of this magnitude changes everything. It now makes wi-fi directly competitive with existing "auctioned" spectrum, and enables the creatipm of a bottom-up, P2P, ad-hoc wirless mesh-network that requires no centralized server, provider or carrier. The combination of long-range wi-fi and mesh-network software is totally disruptive to the entire communications economy. I personally see this as a very good thing, as it means that promise of the "internet" of decentralized and anonymous communications is finally dawning.

Planet P Weblog

http://planetp.cc/

Increasing wi-fi range of this magnitude changes everything. It now makes wi-fi directly competitive with existing "auctioned" spectrum, and enables the creatipm of a bottom-up, P2P, ad-hoc wirless mesh-network that requires no centralized server, provider or carrier. The combination of long-range wi-fi and mesh-network software is totally disruptive to the entire communications economy. I personally see this as a very good thing, as it means that promise of the "internet" of decentralized and anonymous communications is finally dawning.

Planet P Weblog

http://planetp.cc/