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the resulting images look like a still frame, but are composited from a time lapse, and are MUCH more sophisticated than you seem to realize.

Much sophisticate. So video artifact. Wow!

Why do people on Slashdot persist in dismissing things they don't really understand?

I don't know. Why don't you tell me. Anyone experienced with real time graphics and video will have not just a 1D concept of frame composition weirds, but 2D or even 3D "time hacking" if that's what you want to call it. If the artifact / video error is affected by some other object's properties (say, forgetting to pop a matrix stack, or clear a stencil, etc), or somehow leads to negative elapsed frame time for the physics equation (even in spatially localized areas) then you can even have 4D or more imaging effects.

I wouldn't consider this hacking time at all, it doesn't even leverage the properties of time aside from the fact it advances. Here's something closer to what I'd call hacking time based on its relatively constant rate of advancement.

http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html

We're in the very early stages, but it's already happening.

http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html

Of the last twenty TED talks, this one has the most views by nearly a two to one margin over the runner up:

David Steindl-Rast: Want to be happy? Be grateful

I personally found it upbeat yet vacuous. He doesn't specify whether in the topology of his gratitude vector space, there's a primary node where all the gratitude goes in, and no gratitude comes out (presumably due to Hawking radiation, all that gratitude is re-emitted from the fearful symmetry as cosmic love). Asimov, of course, never held the majority standard for spiritual malaise.

I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist, Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an A.H.A. memorial service for my predecessor I said, âoeIsaac is up in Heaven now.â That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles. Mirth! Several minutes had to pass before something resembling solemnity could be restored.

And yet ... the majority of the world's population continues to itch for any hint of a master honour roll for special snowflakes, no matter how shallowly disguised.

China did it. But yeah, it's really not a problem for first-worlders. Asimov didn't see that coming.

Brave New World was published in 1931. Asimov would have been thoroughly familiar with it. Nineteen Eighty-Four is not the only game in town concerning the control of the masses. First, we have all the drugs. Second, we do have laws forcing parents to turn their children over to the puppy mill of public education which--along with mass culture--promptly fills their heads full of all kinds of garbage, that only the most strenuous parental exertion can hope to mitigate.

So you can have a large family, but at some deep level, it's not entirely yours.

It amazes me the number of people attracted to the purity cult concerning the foods they eat (local/non-GMO/vegetarian/unprocessed), who barely blink over the obnoxiousness of the vast majority of the thousands of media impressions we soak in each day, the end result of which is that a billion people cared about two seconds of Janet Jackson's nipple.

We live in a society where it's a permanent, relentless battle to resist the frivolous.

We have this notion of "parental controls". We can keep our children ignorant of how sex functions in the real world (as opposed to the retail world), though this electronic chastity belt is ultimately futile if your child has half a brain. We can pretend we're filtering out violence. Yet most violence is social, and you can really only filter graphic depictions (unless sex is also involved, in which case social aggression is also considered graphic).

What you really want to filter out is not sex or violence, but stupidity, and for this the "parental control" widget has no back-lit chicklet engraved with an undiscoverable hieroglyphic rune. In 90% of MSM political coverage, they're not even trying, to put it kindly.

It was Asimov who postulated the discipline of psychohistory, in which the vacuous can be distinguished from the salient by the vigorous cranking of some vast algorithmic matrix. We've become very, very good at the vigorous cranking of vast algorithmic matrices, yet I have no channel where political figures never intrude on my consciousness unless in the act of making a substantive statement. I don't even want the operatic comedy of "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job!" Whatever.

Wake me up when it reaches the level of 'Heck of a job, Brownie' calls Bush inattentive 'fratboy'.

That could be riddled with a hundred falsehoods, disto

Yeah, it's cherry picking to use the 1990 report, but when you use the 2001 report you'll just say that the models are not made for the "short term". When the "long term" is finally the present, you just revert to saying it's "cherry picking" or "the science is MUCH BETTER today" (but of course not verifiable because they are not made for "the short term").

Add to this expressions like "extreme weather events" that some climate shill found either in a fortune cookie or a horoscope.

All of this is the fallout from Al Gore's Orwellian "Campaign of Mass Persuation" that he launched publicly in 2006.

"Help with the mass persuasion campaign that will start this spring. We have to change the minds of the American people. Because presently the politicians do not have permission to do what needs to be done. And in our modern country, the role of logic and reason no longer includes mediating between wealth and power the way it once did. It's now repetition of short, hot-button, 30-second, 28-second television ads. We have to buy a lot of those ads. Let's rebrand global warming, as many of you have suggested. I like "climate crisis" instead of "climate collapse," but again, those of you who are good at branding, I need your help on this."

And what they came up with was "climate change" and "extreme weather events". Elusive words that any quack or astrologist would use to make what he says compelling and non-committal at the same time.

I think this is relevant: How Amy Webb hacked online dating:

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_webb_how_i_hacked_online_dating.html

Lansdorp himself is a successful entrepreneur, here is a ted talk about his last company. He sold his stake and has been using the profit he made there to get Mars One off the ground for the past 3 years.

Among the people supporting them are:
  - Gerard ‘t Hooft, Nobel Prize winning Theoretical Physicist
  - Dr. Robert Zubrin, President of the Mars Society
  - Terry Gamber, worked on the lander designs for the Viking mission
  - A very large number of experienced people (see their website Advisers, ambassadors)

They don't plan to develop much of the technology themselves, they're planning to buy it from other companies mostly such as SpaceX. Most of this technology exists already. They have written statements of the companies that they are willing and able to supply these things.

List of the technology they want to use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_One#Technology

The total cost is estimated at $6 billion. Technology has come a long way, this combined with the privatization of space has caused costs to drop significantly. The falcon heavy for example costs only $77-135M to launch (2013).

They plan to get this through sponsorship deals. They're going to broadcast the entire thing on TV. Which makes sense, the olympics receives 6 billion dollars for 1 billion viewers. The moonlanding in 1969 had 500 million viewers. The population of the earth was only 3,5 billion back then and people weren't as well connected as they are now. So imagine how many viewers a colony on Mars would get?

No one says it's guaranteed that they will succeed, but i think they should try, and we should support it.

More information can be found on their website and IndieGoGo campaign:
http://www.mars-one.com/
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mars-one-first-private-mars-mission-in-2018

The campaign is just to help pay for the Lockheed Martin study and to convince sponsors there is enough interest. I have donated myself, and advise people who think space exploration is important to do the same. It's risky, but it's high impact.

This is a world wide problem, utilities are running scared and the politicians in their pocket are following their pied piper. Keep pressing on for being able to create your own power. If the utilities won't let you plug in. Screw em and invest in battery back up, companies are already scrambling to make affordable, benign battery power http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway_the_missing_link_to_renewable_energy.html the sooner you let the power utilities depending on power drawn from old fermented dinosaurs or power created with other environmental deadly pollutants as a result like nuclear die the better. Keep adapting alternate power generation technology, not only will you be free from the utilities and save a lot of money freeing up your personal resources. Unfortunately governments all over the world are in cahoots with the utilities so do not expect any help from them. This is a battle you as an individual will have to take upon yourself to win. Educate yourself in how you can save, personally I have been able to cut my electricity consumption 22% by doing simple things like cutting off vampire loads, remembering to turn off lights when not around etc. without in any way having less comfort at home or making "sacrifice" and I have not even yet started investing in energy harvesting nor A+ or better household things like dishwasher, fridge/freezer, washing machine etc. stopped using the dryer in the previous billing cycle, that saved a bundle as well but is not counted in this round, but energy harvesting and buying less power consuming equipment is next on the list. I wish all of you the best of luck in the search for cheaper and cleaner energy free from the power monopolies of the utilities. Don't buy into the lie that you are using the utilities as a backup battery, they are benefiting from your production, they are actually able to use less energy to produce load for the grid etc. and actually able to earn money from your production to anyone claiming something else I will in the holiday spirit offer a "bah humbug", and if they won't let you plug in, find alternate ways to store and utilize your energy. Don't let the utilities win. Let them go the way of the dinosaurs, you do not need them. Learn and live free!

You mean playing 'God of the Internet' is hard to do? Imagine that.

I've said it since the Snowden leaks first came out, there isn't a way to process all of the data that is generated on the internet. And I feel that this whole bullshit concept about the NSA collecting all of the information on the internet is another way to dowse for illegal activity (dowsing as explained here) Meaning that as long as people believe 'it has the power to do such' (because it was fucking expensive to build that Utah data center), that's all that's required to get others to follow along with rulings based on secret evidence that's all redacted.

I stand by my belief that the NSA, no, humanity itself, is not capable of playing God to itself, in any way - other than self-regulation (that means a person regulating him or herself and not as a country regulating itself). This fear-mongering way of regulation is outgrown by our own understanding of ourselves.

I can almost guarantee that if they are that good, they did like it at one point when they were younger..

That's definitely a hypothesis worth considering.

Another hypothesis, which is also worth considering, they enjoy their jobs in the Mike Rowe way (good movie, but the transcript is there, specifically search for the part where he talks about roadkill picker-uppers and the point that follows). Essentially, you get the joy from being productive, not from "following your passion." Applied to programming, it just means these are people who do their job, and get better at it, because they enjoy doing things, nothing programming specific.

I can not really think of any industry that simply resigns when it becomes difficult and just blame it on users not being smart enough. if car manufacturers could get away with that, imagine the roads...

I wish car manufacturers could do that! Tens of thousands of people in the US die because of cars every year. As I get older, I'm increasingly amazed that we consider high-speed operation of multi-ton machinery to be normal for people of all ages (above 16 years) and ability. Driverless cars can't come soon enough. Imagine the roads...

You can't avoid it playing that game. Uneven distribution of wealth creates assholes. And when money plays with politics, all derives to get even more rigged. If the people that make the rules is outside the economy and its influence, you would have a chance, but when both combines you have big assholes with big power that couldn't care less about people, unless is for ways to make more power and more money. NSA is a symptom of a bigger problem.

"If the concept of killer robots is immoral"is perhaps what the author meant?

More on the subject http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_suarez_the_kill_decision_shouldn_t_belong_to_a_robot.html

Jack Horner did a great TED Talk about this very issue as it applies to paleontology.

See also https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html . Watching that video will be one of the best 20 minutes you've ever spent.

The Hour of Code was teaching the outdated, sequential type of programming

Sequential code may be inadequate for advanced programming, but it certainly isn't "outdated". As a professional programmer, 90% of my code is purely sequential. Even parallel code has sequential blocks, and parallel programming skills can only be built on a solid foundation of basic understanding of sequential processing. Arithmetic skills are not enough to do calculus, but that doesn't mean arithmetic is "outdated".

But arithmetic is outdated. Computers are just way better at arithmetic, and very few people do arithmetic manually in their jobs. Kids get entirely the wrong idea about math, spending all that time on brittle algorithms, and you get the wrong idea about sequential programming due to the abundance of undefined behaviors. The trouble is that we don't have a consistent way to teach something better.

Just like I had to partially unlearn the least-significant-digit-first arithmetic to learn everyday, useful arithmetic, I also had to unlearn BASIC's strictly sequential programming to learn modern, functional programming. Everybody who works with new ideas is familiar with how long they can take to become common. I, for one, am curious about what would happen if kids were taught category theory and explicit control of side effects from the beginning, instead of being introduced to it much later as a bizarre branch of higher math.

That computers emulate sequential operation with barriers, careful analysis of memory dependencies, and a single program counter (or is Intel up to 30 program counters now?) is just an implementation detail. The computer science doesn't depend on having an exact sequence, and some asynchronous computers or flow-based computers might not need the program counter. I'm not sure how to build it, but it feels like it should be possible. Multithreading sequential programs is turning out to be a bust. Except for embarrassingly parallel problems, very few people can reason about them effectively. We need people to discover and learn new ways of handling concurrency.

I trust you start to see the problem of exponential growth. I don't think 50 years of sustained growth at 3% while places like Africa or India "catch up" with the profligate west is unreasonable (even if the west cuts back). Taken to an absurd extreme; [â¦] total mass under storage will be ~203 million ton (~575 million cu. ft, or 30000 hot American football fields).

Thanks for the excellent breakout. Okay, hrrrmph. Perhaps my 'no growth' napkin math was an attempt to illustrate in simple snapshot-fashion what the geographical waste-footprint of this technology would be, in a way that could be grasped easily and took a minimum of work.

Or was my failure to to factor exponential growth due to laziness? I'd rather take the short answer and say yes, rather than muse on which exponents to use. Start with people. Which projected population curve should I use: the red 'rabbits-R-us' or the green 'UN releases contraceptives into water supply' curve? For the US population growth has been 0.75%, fertility rate of 1.88 children per woman, less than the 2.1 'replacement rate'. As a clumsy social commentator I have to conclude that choice has something to do with it. I cannot really suggest that there could be a natural plateau to population growth rate where your average woman wants a reasonable number of children without running afoul of Catholic seed bank or some future Pol Pot's depopulation agenda.

What about energy use? Should I take the position that the developing world has no right to a level of energy use equal to the most use-heavy? Could there be some future plateau to worldwide per-capita energy use once (reasonable) conservation measures are in place AND Africa is completely wired for electricity as is North America? Perhaps!

All in all 30,000 football fields for a World -- with a continuous removal of decayed safe-matter from the bottom of the stack, doesn't faze me on a planet of some 50 million square land-miles. That's probably all the football fields in the United States. Oh well, there's always baseball.

I'm not trying to straw-man you here, the use of exponents, some times taken from thin air for planning purposes has always been wise for planning. My assertiveness arises from the same utopian dream as the people who would sincerely wish Africa would and could do it all with windmills and solar farms. But it won't work for us, and would never work for them. My utopian dream is to see Africa covered with grids and base load energy production to US levels. Because that is what they want, and I am morally obligated to want it on their behalf. Because most women in the world today still wash clothes by hand.

If you think atheists drive evangelical conservatives nuts, you ain't seen nothing yet.

The bible-belters have been so into denying gays & lesbians their rights they've been completely overlooking these people.

It's time for some perspective, with a side of crow.

Watch this:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sally_kohn_let_s_try_emotional_correctness.html

Then think about this from the point of view of evangelical Christians. Do you think this action will do anything to change anyones mind? This plays right into what you would consider the Evangelical Christians paranoid delusion. They truly think there is a Satan, and that Satan has tricked the majority of people into denying God. And now, the Church of Satan is attacking them on an issue we'd really like them to change their mind about. This might force some bullshit legal decision that will force the monuments down, but the one thing it will not do is change anyones mind or make the kind of social progress we really need. Would Gandhi have done this? Martin Luther King?

And regardless, how idiotic is it to grade someone based on the number of pages of their notes anyway?

It's unbelievably idiotic and absurd... until you consider human nature.

The people above you are incompetent (cf. "Peter Principle") and will latch onto anything that they can use to judge you to avoid appearing as the incompetents that they are. Even when it makes no sense from an analytical point of view. We humans seem to be hardwired to avoid (being perceived to be, or actually) being wrong. (The book's also pretty good!)

Anyway, hope it wasn't too traumatic :).

your definition of oligarchy is quite arbitrary

I concede this: I intended this word as colorful metaphor rather than a precise descriptor. Perhaps you would be more comfortable with s/oligarchy/cabal/g. Obviously corporate executives do not have -archy level governmental power over citizens.

Yet.

How do you measure productivity?

I tracked it down; yes this graphic uses GDP to measure productivity.

There is this silly notion that public sector consumption should actually be counted as production. Since there is no objective way to measure public sector "productivity" (since it is not part of a market),

I don't follow. Does not the private sector produce goods and services for the public sector to consume? Granted: there is a problem with no-bid contracts and inflationary billing to the government. Granted: the public sector is anchored to political power instead of floating on the economic sea as the private sector does. But the public sector participates in many markets.

Yes, the government distorts markets. Ideally it does so in such a way as to enforce an accounting for externalities like pollution with impacts that would otherwise be ignored or at best delayed until after their deleterious effects have already caused harm, or to ensure equal opportunity through such actions as trust-busting. I don't know a better way to accomplish these important goals other than government. Free markets don't do it: monopoly is a natural tendency of an unregulated market. Free markets don't account for the commons until they are already tragic.

also it is quite common for the public sector to be horribly inefficient with its "funds".

Also granted. This is an interesting approach to that issue.

The next top markets are real estate (13% [of GDP]),

Surely new construction and remodelling (5% of GDP) count as productivity? I'm not so sure about rental income and particularly 'imputed' rental income...

the financial/insurance industries (8%), and health care (8%).

and I'm a little squigged by these, too. It seems that "Gross Domestic Product" doesn't measure 'what we produce' so much as 'how much money we move', which is perhaps not as useful for comparative analysis of income level over time, but IMO is still an extremely important metric. Currency is the blood of the economy; the economy is healthy when currency moves and circulates, regardless of who moves it. The more hands it passes through the better. The economy is unhealthy when the flow of currency is dammed or forced to recirculate in small segments.

I believe that raising the average wage will have a better impact on the economy as a whole than raising executive compensation.

Please please watch this video if you haven't. The most evocative part IMO, paraphrased: "I make 50 times as much as [laborer X] but I don't buy 50 pairs of pants, 50 cars, 50 meals for each one he buys."

You may believe that income inequality is a social ill, but forcing its removal only serves to destroy the coordination required for a properly function market, thus lowering everyone's standard of living.

I don't necessarily agree that limiting the income ratio by law is the right approach. I do believe that it is an important metric for determining how fair, free, and just our economy actually is.

What I propose is removing barriers to entry and other mechanisms of the state that cripple competition in the market, thus reducing productivity and everyone's standard of living.

I a

While still appalled, I'm just no longer surprised. A cable lobbyist passes through the revolving door, Obama/ does his usual PR game (in addition to the usual industry bought PR), the corporate media barely makes a peep about it (or presents a misleading view of it) despite the blatant conflict of interest and despite reputable public interest advocates sounding the alarm, and then the ex-lobbyist advocates for anti-competitive practices that will hurt the vast majority of Americans and further enrich the plutocrats he formerly worked on the behalf of (just like the public interest advocates said he would). And just watch this guy's compensation skyrocket when he transitions back through the revolving door into private industry--he will be rewarded well.

And it's the same story over and over again. The US continues to degenerate into a plutocracy as a result of rampant corruption (*legal* corruption, but still a corruption of the intent of the system itself--the intent being to serve the public good). More and more Americans seem to be arriving at this conclusion, but the vast majority still gets its "news" from the corporate media and is thus completely uninformed and misled. The corporate media is quite happy with this situation due to the vast monies being spent on political advertising, and candidates that actually have the public interest in mind do not even end up on the radar because getting coverage means competing with the wealthy-donor funded candidates (in other words, it's too expensive, e.g. a senate seat is usually around $4 million).

So I'm probably just about as apathetic as any other American, but here's at least a start on a solution: the problem itself, a solution in the works, an online movement to accompany that solution, another related movement, and a motivational speech for these movements.

I'll refer you to James Flynn explain it: http://www.ted.com/talks/james_flynn_why_our_iq_levels_are_higher_than_our_grandparents.html

The solitary confinement scene in the movie "The Hurricane" gives a pretty good rendition of what it is like to go "stir crazy". If you want to try it out yourself just stay awake for 2-3 days. Weird sensation, you know the sound or vision is not real but it just won't go away, the visual ones are usually a real object that looks and "acts" like something else, usually something bizarre or impossible. Most of mine have been more comical than horrific, some can be downright helpful such as the "angels" who flew along either side of the wife's car, tapped on the window, and gently reminded her to open her eyes when she was nodding off at the wheel.

Hallucinations are normal, some have more than others. Probably the worst thing you can do is treat them as an illness (or demon).

He's found so may uses for mushrooms of all varieties that I'm sure if he had a chance to get some samples of what he needed to break down, he could find a much better way than this article explains. See his Ted talk.

Being more efficient, it allows to feed more people with the same land. Alternatively, one could feed the same number of people with less land.

That sounds nice, but it's nonsense. Feeding people with plant crops requires good soil, climate, and irrigation, not to mention considerably more human labor. The majority of the world's land used for agriculture is only suited to grazing -- that is to say, the only way to get food from this land is with animals.

Grazing also uses less fossil fuel than row crops, and keeps the carbon cycle close to the land. Also, moving x number of calories from farm to city is accomplished in fewer truck loads with the more nutrionally-dense meat.

Sorry, but facts kinda get in the way of the vegetarian propaganda.

http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html

I am a teacher and that's exactly what I have been thinking for many years. One of the things that changed my opinion was Daphne Koller's TED talk

In the academic world it is perfectly acceptable to use carefully selected or crafted inputs (facial images in this case) to develop and evaluate your algorithms. You may have separate date sets for development and evaluation, however careful selection or crafting is OK to simplify the project and avoid issues/variables outside of the project's scope.

As a CompSci academic, I am consistently shocked by the fact that we don't really consider the ethics our research. Some of the research, like the folks that are still interested in Chess playing algorithms, is pretty benign. Other research, like facial recognition, data mining, etc.... not so much. Case and point, there's a great Ted Talk by a researcher from Carnegie Mellon in which he demos an iPhone app (paired with some server-side software) his team wrote for using facial recognition to predict social security numbers in seconds. For those with experience on the academic side, how often have you or your colleagues stopped to consider that your research may be used unethically? Unless you're working in security, I suspect that it's probably infrequently despite the fact that advances in just about every major CS research area could be misused.

To be fair, I don't really know what to do about this problem. Someone is going to do the research. If it isn't me, or you, it'll be someone working in a government research facility... perhaps working for a government that isn't so friendly. All I suppose I'm really saying is that we really need to start thinking about the fact that there's a digital arms race going on... and we're the ones making the weapons.

It'd be nice if we could have advice from some of the researchers from the dawn of the last arms race, like Oppenheimer. This time, the race isn't about becoming omnipotent, it's about becoming omniscient.

a dislike of unfairness is innate to a large degree

capuchin monkeys have it too.

First of all, it is important to get along with your coworkers.

Beyond that, though, maybe your boss needs to watch this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html

This article only goes to prove that large inequalities in wealth don't lead to anything good. The Arab market is chasing the ultra-rich, because that's where the money is at. If money were distributed more equitably, the car manufacturers would work on things that actually move humanity forward (like producing better technology). This kind of opulence just goes to show that when the market is twisted to chase after the ultra-rich (because large wealth inequalities exist), it goes to nothing good - just diamonds and opulence and conspicuous consumption designed to let princes show off how big their "dick" is. (Yeah, I can already hear the Republicans saying that mining diamonds produces jobs - but they are worthless, non-helping-humanity-move-forward kind of jobs. We are rich not because of the amount of rocks we dig out of the ground, but we are rich because of our technology.)

It sounds to me like liberal policies designed to reduce wealth inequalities are the only thing that will move humanity forward.

On a related note:
TED Talk on Income Inequality by Nick Hanauer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIhOXCgSunc
TED Talk: Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

You're forgetting that governments use fake technology all the time, just to get in the front door. If they suspect that you're doing something that they classify as wrong, then they can simply tell a judge that "...$Technology told us that these people are doing bad stuff, we need a warrant..." Don't believe that this is true? See here

You don't really think that any judge is going to take the time to look over the evidence before signing a warrant, do you?

Oops... I guess that'll learn me for not previewing : Watch this TED talk... these kids teach themselves english, how to use a computer, how to use the Internet etc... all because they were given access to a computer literally in a hole in the wall.

I think this "angry mob" is just a angry man.

Yes, because as anyone who's familiar with Lessig's work knows, he's *so* hot-headed, overly emotional, and generally unreasonable. Watch the 'angry man' rave!

/sarcasm

"Highly misleading. Rates on the "super wealthy" are far from historically low. The only people currently benefiting from historically low taxes are the poor. Taxes on everybody else are around "average" historical values: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/tax-facts-lowest-rates-in-30-years/ (and that article was before the December tax hike)"

You have cherry picked your timeline there my friend. I know for a fact, that corporate taxes were much higher in the 50s and this site agrees with me http://personal.psu.edu/sjh11/TCTaxBits/OtherTaxBits/TaxRates.shtml (to the tune of 90% corporate taxes, in what some white people call the golden age of american life). Taxing the rich, but especially corporations, is the way forward. Fix the loopholes in corporate tax, and make companies pay their fair share. We need to get out from under the market society, where wealth can buy anything and there is rampant inequality. (see http://blog.ted.com/2013/06/14/the-real-price-of-market-values-michael-sandel-at-tedglobal-2013/ for a newish highly topical ted talk about it)

Certain things like healthcare are a human right in most developed countries. As i understand it, the better solution of single payer healthcare was already shot down by american republicans, and obama and his right wing democrats. So this ACA is the best that the obstructionist republicans and not really leftist democrats could do to please their corporate masters.

Another good reason to up corporate taxes, take control away from the lobbyist's and corporate interests in washington. Hopefully you can agree that money should absolutely not be a part of political campaigns.

There's another one you should see, too. Too much choice, and no easy way to differentiate the choices is a maddening experience.

For example, one of the problems I discovered when recently attempting to set up my first Android device as a car stereo without a data connection is that while there are lots of options for media players on Android, there is not a good way to compare them side-by-side, leaving the burden on the potential user to research every single option in-depth before figuring out which option they like. And I wasn't even sure I'd found all the appropriate apps because they all have different ways of describing themselves; for a search company, Google apparently can't get a "music player" search on their own store right. I ended up having to search a bunch of "top 5 Android media player" articles just to feel like I had a good mix of candidates.

When I am leaving the Play Store to do basic research on my apps (which I eventually made a purchase on), Google has done something wrong. We can argue exactly how a store should be laid out ad infinitum but something as simple as a user tag search could be of immense help to people jumping into a relatively mature ecosystem for the first time.

London smog was cleared up by making everyone burn cleaner. Even in the incredibly corrupt and privileged Victorian and post-Victtorian era. Then they started cleaning up the Thames.

Biogas and alcohol do not have to be big, centralized, or made out of food corn, raised on prime quality land.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blume+"alcohol+can+be+a+gas"
http://www.ted.com/talks/amory_lovins_on_winning_the_oil_endgame.html
And "rocket" stoves, biogas in India (and elsewhere), etc.

"Why a Part of The Solution Isn't The Whole Solution". Wow!

2. You can't "inject" an idea into a human, the best you can do is present an idea and it's up to them to accept, reject, or ignore it.

Ma'am, I suggest you go watch
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_loftus_the_fiction_of_memory.html
where it is shown that it is indeed possible to "inject" ideas into humans.

What I agree with

1. 1) Need a new voting system -- Agree completely there isn't a single best (comparision here). Don't have the background to have a strong preference.

What I disagree with

1. 2) Limited campaigning time -- I like that it forces them to not flip flop (it would be too obvious) but I suspect voters would have very shallow information on candidates.http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/11/0043200/cpj-report-the-obama-administration-and-press-freedoms#

1. 3) No political advertising, or [with conditions] -- I like Laurence Lessig's idea and haven't heard a better one.

1. 4) No political parties -- I actually like this but I don't see how it can be enforced, I think this will happen informally if outlawed.

1. 5) Single public forum for candidates -- I dislike centralizing control of where candidates are presented, too vulnerable to corruption.

1. 7) State pooled representatives for congress. -- Concerned the representative will be ineffective if they come from an area with very different problems.

Neutral

1. 6) No primaries --- I'm not sure how this would be enforced, or if it would really be beneficial, but I'm not sure it wouldn't either. More info please.

What I suggest

1. 1) Voting system is a major but not sole part of the solution. -- Corruption and human errors have affected other areas as well. Media has massive biases, both major parties have die-hard supporters, civic engagement isn't part of our culture (beyond voting). We need a whole new voting ecosystem. I don't know how you would accomplish this, it will take many people many decades to change things. I do think the approach of identifying and targeting structural failings (like voting system) rather than individuals is the right approach.

1. 2) Change should happen SLOWLY. -- Quick fixes never work this will be no different. Contrast Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years to any Learn X language in Y days material.

1. 3) Strategy 'war of attrition' -- I think attempting to change federal politics directly is a strategic mistake, in order for any structural change to get support you would need many people familiar with it and have proven success. People are justifiably suspicious of any change to the government, bills will be watered down, movements will be co-opted (Tea party). Trying these changes in small towns and cities first before moving to state and federal allows you not only to target areas with more receptive citizenry, and reduce costs, but reduces backlash you might expect from entrenched players on the national level. (Koch brothers care who gets elected president but have no idea who is running in SmallTown Iowa)

1. 4) Game Theory 'Watch your step' -- I suspect this comes up a lot in poly sci already and I think would give insights on unexpected effects of any proposed changes Yale released a course to youtube, enjoyable instructor. (Obviously a lecture series isn't enough just trying to spread information)

1. 5) Corporations are not democracies. This is a sore area, especially in America, but one I feel is important. The power structure varies from public firms to single owner firms to small groups of investors to significantly employee owned (Boeing or Mondragon) and others your might imagine. Each is simply a different way of running an organization with its own merits and flaws. The fact that we tend more towards top down management and industries with a few major

Watch the TED video if you haven't already. It's good.
Interesting title they gave the page, even though what frinsore said is correct.
http://www.ted.com/talks/ramesh_raskar_a_camera_that_takes_one_trillion_frames_per_second.html

There has been similar experiments in some tough neighborhoods in France. Some security providers such as GPIS are hired to patrol and prevent violence. They don't carry guns, but I'm not sure about nightsticks.

I'm curious to see how well it's been working.

Here's a translated article on the topic.

Also, there is an interesting TED talk by Gary Slutkin which talks about experiments in solving violence problems with peaceful interventions (interrupters, mediators). If it works, this could be a valuable effort to crowdsource for some neighborhoods.

Well its not the intended part solution, but what is wrong with a decreasing GDP, far too often get caught up in optimizing a metric as opposed real goal.

Isn't the real goal that we more people live happier longer lives? not that we have a few people at the top being ultra rich, while every body else struggles to survive.

In fact it seems that GDP has very little bearing on quality of life measures, equality does, it even improves those measures for the rich.
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

We have reached the level that GDP, that we can produce enough for everyone to survive comfortably, and it no longer needs to be our main goal to endlessly increase production of goods we don't need.

It seems strange that when things can be made more efficiently we get more people in poverty, shouldn't everybody be better of? If the current system cannot distribute resources, then the system needs to change.

I am not suggesting communism, I think effort, skill, risk, needs to be rewarded but there must be a limit, and fairness to this reward.

> But whether it increases sales is irrelevant.

Sticking your head in the sand over facts is not "irrelevant." There are 5 categories of fans:

1) Will pay for it, will never pirate it
2) Will pay for it, but might ALSO pirate it so they don't have to transcode it
3) Might pay for it, might pirate it
4) Will never pay for it, and pirate it
5) Will never pay for it, and go without

The goal is to _understand_ how those in (3) move to the other categories.

In this day and age consumers are EXTREMELY sensitive to pricing. I don't need to remind you that Valve saw over 2000% (yes, 2000%) increase in Steam sales when they lowered the prices of L4D.

However even if the the product is FREE it doesn't mean people want it such as group (1). Conversely, there ARE some countries where downloading isn't a crime, so stop with your rhetoric that piracy == stealing.

At the end of the day its all bits. Claiming pseudo-ownership over a certain order/representation of them is insane but it is the current system we have, for better, or worse.

Understanding the value of something AND its relationship to money is extremely important as we move towards free energy.

Also see this excellent related TED talk
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html

98% of the ones that actually voted (in countries where the vote is obligatory the government is choosen by everyone, not the specially motivated, paid to go to vote or partial by definition). And the electoral process have some flaws, only Lesters can say for who you can vote, in (most?) places you can't vote for no candidate, and of course, the opponent did a bad enough campaign to make sure that the people voted for Obama if were for make sure that he wasnt elected, and as the only way to get even noticed that you exist is a expensive, big corporations funded, and totally legal campaign, no matter who you choose, the same real rulers are elected each time.

There's an excellent TED talk on what it means to be introverted and society's lack of understanding on the topic. For anyone who's introverted, interacts with introverted people or generally doesn't understand introversion, it's a good use of 20 minutes.

Maybe this TED talk of James Flynn about why we could have higher IQ than our grandparents is relevant. What about the financial decisions of those old people when they were young?

If the twits were ever respected you won't have the NSA on your back. No matter what (normal) people said, they do what they (or the 0.1%, or the Lesters) want.

Every time I read an RMS opinion, it seems to start at a good position and consistently attempts to be more and more idealistic to the point that he seems to be arguing a strawman.

RMS definitely is radical, but I've never known him to use strawman arguments.

I know he defines Malware differently from the common way (he considers DRM as malware, for example),

I guess he's also talking about backdoors for law enforcement (aka "legal interception") and other purposes.

but democratic values are less likely to be transmitted if I use Office? Proprietary developers want to punish students? I guess he means the corporations

His explanation indicates why he does mean proprietary developers rather than just corporations: e.g. in the US definition of core democratic values, there are aspects like personal freedom (e.g., modifying software) and the common good (e.g., sharing things with others). Note that he's not arguing here that it should be illegal for others to write proprietary software, i.e., he's not arguing to impinge on other people's liberty.

- and again, they don't generally give their source for modification, so they might be preventing students from modifying other people's work. Is that punishing them?

It limits the possibilities for expressing their creativity. Schools should be places where encouraging creativity is one of the highest valued goals. I know that is generally not the case right now (amazing video, btw), but this is a (small) way in which the situation can be improved.

I won't even claim to understand what the social mission of schools are supposed to be - prepare students for functioning in society?

I'm obviously not RMS, but I'd argue they should be prepared for functioning in society, for critically thinking about that same society (and anything else), and for contributing to a society that they consider to be better than what it is today.

Prepare them for jobs? Prepare them for college? Prepare them to develop free software?

I'd say: prepare them to become the best they can be. That can include a particular kind of job, being an artist, college (about which you can have very similar discussions as about school), developing free software or any combination of the above and many more things.

Prepare them for ignoring copyrights?

Now that last part is a great a strawman on your part: encouraging students to use Free Software, which they can share and modify freely according to the copyright license terms of that same software, is by no means the same as preparing them for ignoring copyright. It mainly teaches them that there are also alternatives to software whose business model depends on artificial scarcity. They will get to know MS Office and other popular products anyway, and if you can work with OpenOffice or LibreOffice, the jump isn't that great in any case. Maybe one of the primary things schools should teach are transferable skills (of which creative thinking is probably the "übervariant").

Obligatory: you don't know shit about the decision-making process of addicts. These aren't idiots fouling the gene pool. You're no smarter. Ignorant judgmental creeps like you should be culled from the gene pool -- we'd all be in a better if trivial levels of compassion were among "common sense".

Treat addiction like the disease it is, and it goes away. Encouraging addicts to off themselves only puts money into the pockets of the crooked assholes who peddle these drugs, exacerbating the problem. This drains the resources of the host society, reduces the available talent pool for the arts and sciences, and guess who can't afford birth control: addicts.

Self-righteous assholes like you are what got us to this place to begin with. May your ignorant worldview fuck off and die.

Not all data follows the same path, did they have a shorter route so their trade arrived on the floor before the announcement arrived (in which case they traded locally illegally). I CANNOT WAIT to read transcripts of lawyers trying to explain, to a lay jury, simultaneity and event sequencing using Einstein-Minkowsky diagrams. See also this most excellent TED talk, How Algorithms Shape Our World explaining why some peoples data paths are better than others.

By novelist Daniel Suarez:
The kill decision shouldn't belong to a robot