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THE SINGULARITY

Throughout history, we championed the content creator. Only a tiny fraction of the population could write or understood math or science. Only a tiny fraction could dedicate themselves to the arts.

Most individuals' time was consumed by being agrarian generalists: they owned a farm, and they were constantly occupied by all the repairs and maintenance of their property. It wasn't a job, it was a way of life. But now, more and more, our economy makes us all incredible specialists. We're confined not only to a literal cubicle, but to a cubicle of tasks, often only seeing one tiny part of our contribution to social welfare. But as a result, we end up with leisure time. (Cf. Judge Skelly Wright's opinion in Javins v. First National Realty Corporation). While those reading /. while at work might quibble, the fact is that we all now have meaningful leisure time in some sense, we're not dedicated 100% to our livelihood.

In addition, current technology is allowing us to collaborate and share information as a global community like it never has before.

What does all this mean? For one, it means that techies can have bands, and even get national coverage, without giving up their day jobs. In fact, if MySpace is any evidence, anyone can have a band... and a lot of us already do. Also, given that 80,000 blogs are created each day (though 40,000 are probably also abandoned each day), huge throngs of people have something to say and are able to say it to huge, unrelated throngs of people.

The singularity is similar to the way other areas of economics have evolved. It used to be that 90% of the population made 100% of the food, and now only 10% of the population provides 100% of the food. It's the opposite for art and science (naturally, as we're freed from producing necessities, we can devote more time to producing luxuries, improving general quality of life, and solving more complex problems). Traditionally, 1% of the population made all the cultural content. The singularity? Soon, 99% of the population will be making 100% of the content.

For the first time in history, we are the captains not only of our personal destiny, but of our cultural destiny. However, as cultural creativity becomes so democratized, our contribution will become less and less controlling. Like Warhol said, it's not that we're all going to be famous, it's that we each only get 15 minutes.

THE DOWNSIDE OF A CULTURE OF CREATIVES, AND A SILVER LINING FOR SEARCH

A professor once said to me, "No one cares how much you know anymore, that's why we have the Internet. The important thing is creating new ideas." The formidible aspect of the new society of cultural creatives is that soon, no one will really need you to create ideas anymore either. Your drop in the cultural bucket is less and less meaningful every day. Content is easier and easier to make and share, and everyone wants to play, so as a corrolary, it will become harder and harder to find compensation as a cultural creative.

So what's the new valuable thing, in this storm of data/content? Maybe not making worthwhile contributions to the arts, science, knowledge, (which is important, but self sustaining). However, finding the worthwhile signal amidst all cultural noise is becoming more and more valuable. Someone needs to be a sieve for all the content being thrown around right now. Technologies of search and sort are the ways to do it. Google is not prospering because it learned something about advertising. Google is prospering because it precociously encapsulates the spirit of the dawning age, while most of us are still trying to figure out just what the hell I'm talking about.

In fact, here's my old email. And the old article, on Slashdot: Professor, I wondered if you might find this article really interesting...scientists got 25,000 disembodied rat neurons to create a neural network which was trained to fly a plane in a flight simulator. It's kinda creepy, actually. Here's the link (the first one to a brief version of the article and a discussion of it, the other is the full article): http://science.slashdot.org/science/04/10/24/00242 41.shtml?tid=191&tid=1 26&tid=14 http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,65438,00. html

You're completely correct with respect to the fact that there's basically no limit to the supply of digital music. It's infinitely reproducible so that's not the issue. What the author is clearly using in place of a limited supply of music is a limited supply of time and bandwidth, and the fact that you have to download your digital music at some point during the day.

For example, perhaps the folks at iTunes have discovered that for even the most popular of songs, there are never more than 100 persons downloading that song at any given point during the day. So they base the price of the song on the current number of contiguous downloads. If forty-nine other people are currently downloading the song that you've got to have right now, the song will cost you $0.50. But if you can wait a half hour, maybe it only costs $0.35. The media companies could also use some form of moving average I suppose.

But for the most part, I think the author of the article is just making things far more complex than they need to be. Introducing the complexities of a market system to price the songs will only drive up the cost of supplying the songs.

Futhermore, what's questionable after the recent "black friday" sales is whether actual CD's are even ligitimately priced at $10+. Many stores were offering CD's in the $5 neighborhood. We're all aware of the low cost of physically producing a CD, the expensive part is supposedly the marketing and the fact that many CD's fail to pay for themselves due to insufficient sales. But music downloads are even cheaper still, having neither the cost of physical production nor additional marketing costs.

In many respects music downloads could be considered a revenue generating, rather than revenue sapping, form of marketing. Especially considering the ways online recommendations can fuel the demand for similar but lesser-known products. I really think that the most popular songs should be priced at 50 cents or less to get consumers eyes to the website reading the recommendations and fueling additional purchases. And given how low of a price that is, I really see little need to price less popular music at a lower price.

Wired just put out an interesting article in the last issue on how bands who are using myspace as a principal means of publicity are doing pretty well. Even without a major label record contract. Many bands choose to post a couple songs for free, then link to where you can purchase the full album. And all the proceeds go to them. Funny thing is, an increasing source of income is band schwag and concert paraphenalia. I bet in a couple more years as online distribution matures, more and more bands will hit it big without major label support.

A Florida company, ICM Registry, proposed .xxx as a mechanism for the $12 billion online porn industry to clean up its act. All sites using .xxx would be required to follow yet-to-be-written "best practices" guidelines, such as prohibitions against trickery through spamming and malicious scripts. Use of .xxx would be voluntary, however.

I read elsewhere (wired maybe- check the last sentence of the article linked) that Sony was doing this but they were renting the walls. Personally, I thought it was clever but could see how it could backfire.

Not the rights of the owners of the property they are vandalising, not the rights of the owners of the computers they rootkitted, and not their customers. They just don't care.

Not to rain on your hate parade, but Sony did, according to Wired, pay the owners of the buildings that were sprayed for temporary advertising time, the same way that the building owner would be paid had a Sony PSP ad poster plastered on their wall. The article doesn't say that Sony was going to take care of removal, but I think that can be assumed.

So, looks like Sony, unlike MS and IBM, isn't really breaking any laws here, since they received permission beforehand. This wasn't vandalism, this was an attempt at making it look like there was an authentic love for their product.

Wonder if Sony will pay to clean up all the ad-jamming attempts as well?

I don't know how each and every municipality handles car registration and plating. But, where I live, if you paint your car a different color than what is on the registration, you must update the registration or face fines/impoundment. If the cop looks up your plates, and it says red, but he sees blue... he's going to pull you over. This will keep happening until you A) lose your car, or B) a court decides in your favor that you somehow have the legal right to have "mood paint". I highly doubt B will happen. I've seen enough problems with friends back in high school trying to defend window tint (only to be forced by a cop to rip it out right there on the spot).

Courts rarely seem favor the car modifier when arguments of public safety and the needs of law enforcement to do their jobs are in question. Accommodating the driver's taste in paint is not on the court's priority list. Accurate registrations for law enforcement would outweigh taste. You're about as likely to convince a judge you can legally use Spray-On Mud ( http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,67794,00 .html ) around/near your license plate or windows.

We most certainly do have to consider the potential negative impact of nanotechnology. If you don't believe Lead Butthead, maybe you'll listen to Bill Joy, author of BSD and co-founder of Sun Microsystems. In 2000, he published a fascinating article on the potential dangers of 21st century technology, nanotechnology included.

A Florida company, ICM Registry, proposed .xxx as a mechanism for the $12 billion online porn industry to clean up its act. All sites using .xxx would be required to follow yet-to-be-written "best practices" guidelines, such as prohibitions against trickery through spamming and malicious scripts.

Use of .xxx would be voluntary, however.

Digg The Slashdot Killer

Digg Might Just Bury Slashdot

Slashdot, Digg.com, and the True Meaning of Design

My Slashdot Replacement

Goodbye, Slashdot, Hello Digg

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detail s?&range=1y&size= large&compare_sites=slashdot.org&y=t&url=digg.com

How Digg Uncovers The News

Why Slashdot Will Die

See what others are saying...

Digg is actually better. Slashdot is old and ugly. Its content is decided by editors, the layout looks like it was made in windows95's heyday and its a dinosaur. Digg on the other hand is new and "growing", they use a flashier, better looking layout, yet the site is still simpler then Slashdot. The content is decided by the submitters and you can get that content via audio and video podcasts.

I never could stand slashdot. The layout and just overall feel of that site was/is bad.

I don't like slashdot's layout. It's ugly and cluttered. The colors make me wanna puke.

Slashdot users agree that Digg.com's entries are a lot more current that the ones posted at Slashdot.

99% of slashdot users have self-diagnosed themselves as suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. Most slashdot users consider themselves "smart" when in fact they are simply of average intelligence, but have more free time and a higher sense of ego. This can be seen in the forums where spelling and usage errors are prevalent in condescending, arrogant rants, identified by containing the phrase "people are stupid" at some point in the post.

I prefer Digg for my tech news and I've found some really nice sites that way.

I prefer Digg. I used to check /. but I didn't like it as much

I like Digg better anyway, much more and more interesting news.

What I can't stand, even less that the site and the proseltyzing editors, are Slashdot's users- overweight, effeminate cubicle shit. At least I don't have to wear a goatee and suck linux dick to participate on Digg I cant stand Slashdot, I will only Read it when its linked from somewhere else

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I'll raise (or should that be 'lower') you four-and-a-half years. Introducing Touchy-Feely Tech.

The music industry has been lapped, lassoed and tattoed by the internet. Payola and other barriers to entry for new bands are rapidly crumbling as listeners of CDs and radio shift to online music. Traditional business deals for bands have almost always left the musicians screwed without a kiss. Tours and T-shirts have been the major income streams for most successful groups.

Now social networks are superceding the music and broadcasting corporations for publicity and distribution. Bands need to be heard before they can be paid. And they need to perform to build a fan base.

Get the clues from Wired:

The Hit Factory Who needs major labels, marketing, or airplay? A social networking site is getting more hits than Google -- and turning invisible bands into mini entertainment networks. How MySpace became the MTV for the Net generation.

By Jeff Howe

The members of Hawthorne Heights have no business being rock stars. They play a strain of punk that has consigned innumerable bands to the obscurity of dive bars and pirate radio. For the past three decades, a devotion to this stripped-down, anticommercial music has meant never quitting your day job.

And yet here they are on a dusty summer day in Pomona, California, playing for thousands of adoring fans. Hawthorne Heights is a big draw at this year's Warped Tour, a movable punk feast featuring more than 300 bands on 48 North American stops. The kids in the audience - a multiracial mix of teens from across Southern California - appear transported, pushing toward the front of the stage where slam dancers crash against each other like pinballs. Those in the front rows chant the lyrics with red-faced intensity. They've memorized the entire set.

Hawthorne Heights is touring the country in a plush bus. The quintet's debut album, The Silence in Black and White, has sold more than 500,000 copies since its release last year, and the group has appeared on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and been on MTV's TRL. The five young men from Dayton, Ohio, are living the rock-and-roll dream - but they took a highly unconventional path to get there. The band achieved its popularity without any real radio or TV airplay, a feat unheard-of a few years ago. They aren't signed to a major label, and they don't want to be. They don't need industrial-strength marketing campaigns or heavy rotation.

What they have is MySpace, a community Web site that converts electronic word of mouth into the hottest marketing strategy since the advent of MTV. Massively popular, MySpace is nominally a social networking site like Friendster, but nearly 400,000 of the site's roughly 30 million user pages belong to bands. The rest belong mostly to teens and twentysomethings who attend the groups' shows, download their songs, read their blogs, send them fan mail, and enthusiastically spread the word...MORE

The music industry has been lapped, lassoed and tattoed by the internet. Payola and other barriers to entry for new bands are rapidly crumbling as listeners of CDs and radio shift to online music. Traditional business deals for bands have almost always left the musicians screwed without a kiss. Tours and T-shirts have been the major income streams for most successful groups.

Now social networks are superceding the music and broadcasting corporations for publicity and distribution. Bands need to be heard before they can be paid. And they need to perform to build a fan base.

Get the clues from Wired:

The Hit Factory Who needs major labels, marketing, or airplay? A social networking site is getting more hits than Google -- and turning invisible bands into mini entertainment networks. How MySpace became the MTV for the Net generation.

By Jeff Howe

The members of Hawthorne Heights have no business being rock stars. They play a strain of punk that has consigned innumerable bands to the obscurity of dive bars and pirate radio. For the past three decades, a devotion to this stripped-down, anticommercial music has meant never quitting your day job.

And yet here they are on a dusty summer day in Pomona, California, playing for thousands of adoring fans. Hawthorne Heights is a big draw at this year's Warped Tour, a movable punk feast featuring more than 300 bands on 48 North American stops. The kids in the audience - a multiracial mix of teens from across Southern California - appear transported, pushing toward the front of the stage where slam dancers crash against each other like pinballs. Those in the front rows chant the lyrics with red-faced intensity. They've memorized the entire set.

Hawthorne Heights is touring the country in a plush bus. The quintet's debut album, The Silence in Black and White, has sold more than 500,000 copies since its release last year, and the group has appeared on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and been on MTV's TRL. The five young men from Dayton, Ohio, are living the rock-and-roll dream - but they took a highly unconventional path to get there. The band achieved its popularity without any real radio or TV airplay, a feat unheard-of a few years ago. They aren't signed to a major label, and they don't want to be. They don't need industrial-strength marketing campaigns or heavy rotation.

What they have is MySpace, a community Web site that converts electronic word of mouth into the hottest marketing strategy since the advent of MTV. Massively popular, MySpace is nominally a social networking site like Friendster, but nearly 400,000 of the site's roughly 30 million user pages belong to bands. The rest belong mostly to teens and twentysomethings who attend the groups' shows, download their songs, read their blogs, send them fan mail, and enthusiastically spread the word...MORE

The music industry has been lapped, lassoed and tattoed by the internet. Payola and other barriers to entry for new bands are rapidly crumbling as listeners of CDs and radio shift to online music. Traditional business deals for bands have almost always left the musicians screwed without a kiss. Tours and T-shirts have been the major income streams for most successful groups.

Now social networks are superceding the music and broadcasting corporations for publicity and distribution. Bands need to be heard before they can be paid. And they need to perform to build a fan base.

Get the clues from Wired:

The Hit Factory Who needs major labels, marketing, or airplay? A social networking site is getting more hits than Google -- and turning invisible bands into mini entertainment networks. How MySpace became the MTV for the Net generation.

By Jeff Howe

The members of Hawthorne Heights have no business being rock stars. They play a strain of punk that has consigned innumerable bands to the obscurity of dive bars and pirate radio. For the past three decades, a devotion to this stripped-down, anticommercial music has meant never quitting your day job.

And yet here they are on a dusty summer day in Pomona, California, playing for thousands of adoring fans. Hawthorne Heights is a big draw at this year's Warped Tour, a movable punk feast featuring more than 300 bands on 48 North American stops. The kids in the audience - a multiracial mix of teens from across Southern California - appear transported, pushing toward the front of the stage where slam dancers crash against each other like pinballs. Those in the front rows chant the lyrics with red-faced intensity. They've memorized the entire set.

Hawthorne Heights is touring the country in a plush bus. The quintet's debut album, The Silence in Black and White, has sold more than 500,000 copies since its release last year, and the group has appeared on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live and been on MTV's TRL. The five young men from Dayton, Ohio, are living the rock-and-roll dream - but they took a highly unconventional path to get there. The band achieved its popularity without any real radio or TV airplay, a feat unheard-of a few years ago. They aren't signed to a major label, and they don't want to be. They don't need industrial-strength marketing campaigns or heavy rotation.

What they have is MySpace, a community Web site that converts electronic word of mouth into the hottest marketing strategy since the advent of MTV. Massively popular, MySpace is nominally a social networking site like Friendster, but nearly 400,000 of the site's roughly 30 million user pages belong to bands. The rest belong mostly to teens and twentysomethings who attend the groups' shows, download their songs, read their blogs, send them fan mail, and enthusiastically spread the word...MORE

As an aside, Annalee Newitz first came to my attention in the entertainment paper Metro distributed here in the South Bay area. I'm not sure if she's syndicated, but I like to think of her as a local. She's pretty sharp.

Contributing editor Annalee Newitz (brainsploitation@yahoo.com) wrote about the female orgasm in issue 13.07.

I firmly believe that the rise we are currently seeing is indeed the start of an accelerating trend. One that human activity has very little impact on, or if any, has been slowing the rise thus far by emitting clouds of smoke thus keeping temperatures artificially low. Now that we are cleaning up our soot emissions the CO2, and natural process that drive the climate, are regaining their direction. As you noted, we are woefully unprepared for such an event. I would say that we desperately need to start preparing, clearing the low lying areas, etc., but I'm realist enough to know that there is no feasable way to get the huge fraction of the human race that lives on coast lines to change their residence prior to a devastating catastrophy.

As to your comments about peak oil, read the literature more closely and in depth. Yes, oil execs and employees have started falling all over themselves to validate peak oil theories, but apparently, only because they suddenly realized that the peak oil nuts were their best friends. If the oil monopoly (removing Hussein took out the major producer who was not part of the Saudi, Kuwait, Exxon, Shell, Chevron cartel. Russia was broken up to let the cartel take over production there, next in line is Chavez in Venzuela) can convince the world that we have reached peak oil production then they have an indisputable excuse for maintaining higher prices and vastly higher profits. The peak oil advocates love to point out that oil production is down worldwide in recent years. but isn't it interesting that in fact it is down by almost the same percentage at every cartel field world wide. These fields are not connected and shouldn't be suddenly linked in their very close decreases in output capacity. Especially since peak oil states that we can not increase production, not that it will decrease and everyone, including the peak oil fanatics, is very quick to reassure their investors that they have plenty of in ground reserves for X number of years. I propose that this is evidence of global collaboration to set and maintain a specific level of output, regardless of the capacity that could be acheived if it were maximized. In fact, if you research the geophysical scientific papers on new sources and increasing recovery from old sources or souces that were previously inaccessible, you find that not only is there more oil available and accesible today than there ever has been before, but there is far more oil than than we have ever used combined. I would post links to these, but strangely all of the pages I had bookmarked over the last 10 years have disappeared or been replaced by peak oil pages. However, you can find some clue in the investment brochures and independent scientific reports. Now undoubtably these new sources and recovery techniques will cost more, so we have seen the last of cheap oil, monopoly or not.

I became interested in the science and economics of this because of my family's oil wells in west Oklahoma. In the late 60's and early 70's, during U.S. peak production, our 16 wells were producing approx. $200,000 in royalties per month. By the late 80's they were producing about $13,000 per quarter. Basically the oil company explained that, at that time, it cost $32 per barrel to produce from Oklahoma wells, and $6 per barrel to import from the middle east. So all of the wells were placed in maintenance mode, which is basically just enough pumped to lubricate the mechanicals, and at that rate the holding tanks were only emptied once per quarter, instead of weekly or twice weekly. When my mom sold th

This guy.

Just like the kid in the window watching you with your girl, and suggesting his favorite brand of condoms, isn't a peeping tom.

Don't think of it as wasting your time and destroying the scenic view. Think of it as helpful messages to alert you of products and offers you may be interested in.

Maybe we should paint out the cliff sides in Yosemite National Park with ads for your favorite laxative.

As noted at the end of the story: Contributing editor Annalee Newitz wrote about the female orgasm in issue 13.07.

This is an example of something useful. Not an Ad-Geek's passion for my cookie folder. Pervert.

But due to the long tail effect, the popularity might bubble up for years, or decades. Personally, I think copyright should survive for the lifetime of the creator(s), and once he/she/they die, the works enter the public domain. If I author a song, book, poem, etc., I believe I should own the rights to it. But why should those rights survive my death?

One could argue the same thing for physical property...

My girlfriend is currently in medical school, and mentioned having been told that surgeons who play video games, especially just prior to surgery, actually make fewer mistakes during operations.

Wired had a story which provides some information about it.

Indeed, some of the solutions to water and food supply have come from locals implementing low-tech solutions.

The designs or sources for these solutions are being disseminated on the web via the usual aid channels (I.e. a charity/UN worker reads the info, then goes out to places to tell them how to do it.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.04/lowtech.h tml
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2005-03/200 5-03-22-voa12.cfm

Access to these laptops at a family/village level will give these communities direct access to low tech designs, as well as medical/logistical resources.

PORNOGRAPHY
Psychiatrist labels porn nation's most addictive substance
University of Pennsylvania psychiatrist Dr. Mary Anne Layden told a Senate committee that pornography should be classified as an addictive drug due to its destructive nature.

"It [pornography] is more toxic the more you consume, the harder the variety you consume, and the younger and more vulnerable the consumer," Layden said.

She explained how pornography damages a person's beliefs and behavior. Belief damage includes the adverse effect of normal "attitudes about what constitutes healthy sexual and emotional relationships."

As far as behavioral damage, pornography can cause tendencies toward psychologically unhealthy actions, socially inappropriate actions and even illegal actions.

In addition, research reveals "that 40% of sex addicts will lose their spouses, 58% will suffer severe financial losses, and 27% to 40% will lose their jobs or their professions."

Layden considers pornography the most dangerous addictive substance available in America and is urging Congress to investigate the harm it causes.

AgapePress, 12/1/04

Digg The Slashdot Killer

Digg Might Just Bury Slashdot

Slashdot, Digg.com, and the True Meaning of Design

My Slashdot Replacement

Goodbye, Slashdot, Hello Digg

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_detail s?&range=1y&size= large&compare_sites=slashdot.org&y=t&url=digg.com

How Digg Uncovers The News

Why Slashdot Will Die

See what others are saying...

Digg is actually better. Slashdot is old and ugly. Its content is decided by editors, the layout looks like it was made in windows95's heyday and its a dinosaur. Digg on the other hand is new and "growing", they use a flashier, better looking layout, yet the site is still simpler then Slashdot. The content is decided by the submitters and you can get that content via audio and video podcasts.

I never could stand slashdot. The layout and just overall feel of that site was/is bad.

I don't like slashdot's layout. It's ugly and cluttered. The colors make me wanna puke.

Slashdot users agree that Digg.com's entries are a lot more current that the ones posted at Slashdot.

99% of slashdot users have self-diagnosed themselves as suffering from Asperger's Syndrome. Most slashdot users consider themselves "smart" when in fact they are simply of average intelligence, but have more free time and a higher sense of ego. This can be seen in the forums where spelling and usage errors are prevalent in condescending, arrogant rants, identified by containing the phrase "people are stupid" at some point in the post.

I prefer Digg for my tech news and I've found some really nice sites that way.

I prefer Digg. I used to check /. but I didn't like it as much

I like Digg better anyway, much more and more interesting news.

I cant stand Slashdot, I will only Read it when its linked from somewhere else

Learn More

I read this with an arched eyebrow as /. (and much of the web-based/blog journalism) is one thing above all else: not a content provider. In fact they can be considered content-parasitic as /. makes advertising dollars over people reading content from somewhere else and comments provided for free by unpaid users. If one were to work in the hyperlinking of mainstream media providers by blogs or aggregators like /. we'd probably get a different picture: MSM readership has probably grown but has now been forced into a long-tail economy. Of course the problem is that they are shouldering the bulk of the cost (i.e. the actual reporting and maintenance of foreign bureaus) while sites like /. pay only for basic bandwidth and site-costs and use their content for free.

In the old 80/20 economy newspapers could offset this by having control of the market: to get any news, consumers had to pay for all of the news they deemed to print. Now users are just as able to find their news elsewhere, specialized down to just what they're looking for (the sport's score, the stock-tip, the local police blotter).

And the long-tail doesn't meant he death of the newspaper either, it just means a change in scope. A short, intelligent article on the East Flagstaff Chronicle might get linked up by thousands of blogs and register hundreds of thousand hits from an international audience that might have never read the paper (and probably won't ever again). Smart advertising (Google Ads, Slashvertisements) could customize to the suddenly exponentially larger (and divergent) readership. Local content and editorial that is easily aggregatable and paid via micropayment (or by targetted advertisement) would satisfy the consistent local demand and the papers would thrive (i.e. I'm not going to read the Baltimore Sun for analysis of my Cleveland Browns). This is how the wire services have always been (the only difference being that the papers would no longer be middlemen between wire reports and the readers).

There will always be a demand for international news/editorial and the well-worn names (NYT, WaPo, WSJ) can provide a similar service for news of national and international content. And as much as we like to think our opinions are ours alone, most of them are driven by these very MSM sources we read. Remove that and the content quality of these blog/web communities would drop off savagely from its already debateable level of quality. The only lethal fallacy would be to assume things have never changed, that they can still charge for the whole cow when we just want the milk.

There may be some people who want to get rid of searches and security altogether, but it's the ID requirement that is really onerous. If you allow the airlines to search your bags, you walk through a metal detector, you even allow them to search your person, then why the hell do they need to see a photo ID as well? Does a lack of ID suddenly make a person dangerous?

I'm happy to go through even a pastiche of a security check that will weed out the stupidest criminals.

I guess that's where we're different. I don't like to submit to false authority. I suppose you would also be happy to have your house or car searched without a warrant, and would gladly spread your cheeks for a cavity search. I actually appreciate the constitutional prohibition on unlawful search and seizure (what's left of it, after the Reagan regime). Civil liberties don't protect themselves--but I must be old-fashioned for caring about an antiquated document like the Bill of Rights. And no, Big Brother doesn't have mind-reading satellites, but that's on their wish list, now that they have Eschelon, the PATRIOT Act, and the ability to jail citizens indefinitely without trial.

Let's be clear. Without a government-issued ID there is no actual prohibition on TRAVEL. There is, however, the ability for COMMERCIAL, PRIVATE transport companies (be they bus, train, plane, ferry, whatever) to REFUSE SERVICE to people failing to present such an ID.

Let's be clear. You are obviously misinformed, unaware of the fact that the government is requiring airlines to ask for ID, citing a secret law that does not exist on the books. How would you like to be convicted of violating a law that you aren't allowed to read, and just take the police's word it exists? How could a lawyer possibly defend a client against such a law? That sounds pretty close to a definition of "police state," or at least some nightmarish Kafka story.

I hate sloppy language, especially when it's used by chicken-littles to suggest we're moving toward a police state...like the hypocrites at Cryptome.

You hate sloppy language? Here's something that should be straight-forward for you: we're moving toward a police state. That's not a suggestion, but a fact. If you can't see that, you're more oblivious than the "stupidest criminals" you mentioned. Start paying attention.

I don't fault Diebold for being reluctant to move forward given the language of the statute.

It seems to be clear that the intent was to have the actual source code and not just a copy of the software. Also, it isn't at all clear if that means the underlying platform or just the voting application on top of it, but why take a chance. And really, what would be the point of having access to half of the software stack?

Either the state of North Carolina really doesn't want a windows based voting solution or they are accidentally sending the message that "no closed source solutions need apply".

In either case poor, misunderstood Diebold may have to take their ball and go home. I think we can all agree that given their track record, this is a good thing.

I, for one, incoming our new ultra-manouverable unstoppable russian missile overlords!

"Russia tests Topol-M missile to subdue USA's $50-billion air defense. The unpredictable flight trajectory of the Russian missile makes it immune to destruction. 11/02/2005"

Bye, bye Linux! Welcome Lenin!

See:
http://wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,62350,00.h tml?tw=wn_tophead_7

...a miraculous new optical technology that was announced five years ago. I know it works on different principles, but this is at best a x2 improvement on it, and the story of the FMD-ROM just shows how easily great technology can turn to vaporware if it's not picked up by the big companies and consortia, or it rears its head too far ahead of its time. Hopefully this will do better, but you can see why I'm not dancing in the streets.

Your reply was filled with so many misunderstandings of what I typed that I don't know where to begin. Let's just stick to your talking points.

a) Porn is addictive. Show me a valid study to that effect. I have seen anecdotal evidence trotted out time and time again but that no more proves the addictiveness of porn than does the anecdotes about exploding toilets prove the life-threatening nature of chili.

That is just silly. People reporting of porn addiction shouldn't be dismissed the same as Bigfoot sighters or alien abductees. Here are a few links for you:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/443437.asp?cp1=1 2000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_addiction Wiki controversy, but with links
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65772, 00.html (With dissenting opinions) 2004
http://cbs4boston.com/seenon/local_story_322191259 .html (From "liberal" Boston) Nov. 2005
http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_103 07.shtml Nov. 2005
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1568380550/104-28 35526-9122335?v=glance&n=283155&v=glance
http://www.sarr.org/
http://www.sexaa.org/

I would also point out that your assertion about educational phamplets: "Educational pamphlets don't help heroin addicts and they won't help porn addicts either." is way off. Yes some hardcore addicts ignore all else but that doesn't mean that all do. The ex heroin addicts that I have known are, in large part, walking educational phamplets themselves, and ten minutes discussion with one of them did more to illuminate the problems with heroin than any drug-free education I got as a child.

None of the drug addicts I have known have been reached by pamphlets. You only make my point by showing how much more effective talking to actual addicts is as opposed to drug-free pamphlets and D.A.R.E. t-shirts. Extend the same respect to "anecdotal" victims of porn addiction.

b) Kids today are experimenting with kinkier stuff Again, show me proof not anecdotes. While I will grant you that people seem more comfortable talking about kinkier stuff on TV than they were 50 years ago that proves nothing about what is actually happening.

More people are comfortable talking about kinkier stuff but not because they are doing it? The papers are filled with high schoolers having oral sex on school grounds all across the country. That didn't happen so often ten years ago. I certainly never read about it. http://news.google.com/news?client=safari&rls=en&i e=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&tab=wn&q=bus+oral+sex&sa=N&start= 10 We're also having a rash of female teachers across the country having sex with young boys, also something that didn't happen often 10 years ago. A study on teenagers and sex was just released this Fall: http://thesplinteredmind.blogspot.com/2005/10/teen -depression-sex-drugs-and-shockin.html

c) The industry is getting more hardcore Again give me some average data. The last time I glanced at a Playboy (for the articles) was last week and the model in there was...Marylin Monroe. Playboy was celebrating the oldies not the awful hardcore days of

From the Wired article explaining why Google News will remain in beta and not be ad-based, it's quite ironic that they scrape many news pages in a single location and then go out of their way to send a cease-and-desist letter to Julian Bond, a British programmer who had created customized RSS feeds from Google News.

Ironically, the letter informed Bond that Google does not permit "webmasters to display Google News headlines on their sites."

For shame, Google - it would be nice if you would in fact "do no evil" rather than simply say it.

Maybe it helps them avoid lawsuits?

Well sometimes it is so they don't get sued. Google News has been in beta for 4 years, and the consensus is that it will stay that way for years to come.

From this article:
"The reason: The minute Google News runs paid advertising of any sort it could face a torrent of cease-and-desist letters from the legal departments of newspapers, which would argue that "fair use" doesn't cover lifting headlines and lead paragraphs verbatim from their articles. Other publishers might simply block users originating from Google News, effectively snuffing it out. "

I remember reading an article on Wired a long time ago about why Google News will forever be beta: it's all about money and copyrights. As long as it is beta, Google can claim it makes no profit from Google News. As soon as it gets "released," though, every newspaper with a lawyer will try to shut it down.

Problem is, few sites take advantage of kids.us; nearly all kid sites are NOT in kids.us. One problem may be that it appears there's a single monopolist in control of the domain registration; that means higher domain prices, and more importantly, any kid site in kids.us would put their entire business under the control of that monopolist. There may be other problems, too.

Which is too bad. I think the basic idea of kids.us is actually sound. We need to find a way to eliminate risks to the organizations signing up to kids.us, and and then encourage them to use it. If there were a "safe for the kids" area on the Internet, perhaps some of the other concerns would be reduced.

soldiers wearing this matirial with some fine tuning it could turn into a "cloak of invisibility".

Scroll down toward the end of this article to see an image of this invisibility clocking. This technology seems to use a flexible LCD too so maybe they could benefit from Samsung's work. There are still plenty of bugs to be worked out, however. For example, it is difficult to reproduce the brightness of sunlight on an LCD screen.

A little while ago Wired had a story on a similar topic, in which a strain of mice was discovered which was able to regrow organs. From the Wired article (which has some neat pictures of regenerating mouse ears):

Mice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander, and even regrow vital organs.

Researchers systematically amputated digits and damaged various organs of the mice, including the heart, liver and brain, most of which grew back.

The results stunned scientists because if such regeneration is possible in this mammal, it might also be possible in humans.

The researchers also made a remarkable second discovery: When cells from the regenerative mice were injected into normal mice, the normal mice adopted the ability to regenerate. And when the special mice bred with normal mice, their offspring inherited souped-up regeneration capabilities. ...

Heber-Katz discovered the strain in 1998 accidentally while working with mice specially bred for studying autoimmune diseases.

She had pierced holes in the ears of the genetically altered mice to distinguish them from a control group, but they healed quickly with no scarring.

She and her colleagues wanted to find out what other parts of this strain of mice would grow back, so they snipped off the tip of a tail, severed a spinal cord, injured the optic nerve and damaged various internal organs. ...

The mice seem to exhibit regenerative capabilities similar to that of human fetuses in the first trimester, said Dr. Stephen Badylak, a surgery research professor and director of the Center for Pre-Clinical Tissue Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh's McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

"It offers us insight into a more fetal-like healing response, where scar tissue is minimal and regeneration is abundant," Badylak said. "It's a great model to examine healing mechanisms and use that information to see if we can stimulate the same thing to happen in people."

Heber-Katz said she will soon publish her results on digit regrowth in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Electricity storage for vehicles is a bit of a problem, unfortunately. I haven't got any links declaring that one solved. ;)

Back in the main section of the building, past a clean room where flywheels are assembled, Bitterly pauses by a workbench and shows me some component parts. The motor-generator is small enough to fit inside a coffee mug, yet he says it can put out 20 horsepower at 600 volts. "We can overload it to 50 horsepower for a minute," he says, weighing it in the palm of his hand. "Imagine four of these in a standard car. It would scream the tires off."

Maybe you should look at

http://news.com.com/Subscription+boom+boosts+Red+H at+profit,+revenue/2100-7344_3-5178057.html
http://www.signal42.com/soaring_linux_sales_double _red_hat_profit_for_bcg.aspx
http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,623 69,00.html

then. Apparently some people are making money from it.

Although Wincraft credits the P2P promotion for helping to increase sales of Winwood's album, it certainly hasn't vaulted the release to the top of the charts. But for indie artists, every bit of publicity counts.

Lecture over. Comments welcome, thanks for listening :=)

A lot of work on Babble was done by Appled Minds for Herman Miller. Here's a Wired article that describes the project:

http://wired.com/news/20050621_appliedminds.html?t w=wn_tophead_1

Here's Herman Miller's press release for the device:

http://www.hermanmiller.com/CDA/SSA/News/Story/0,1 585,a9-c407-n350,00.html

--Pat

Why doesnt the open source community make our own

Most other countries have gone down the FOSS path, and that software and experience is available to the US if it chooses.

http://www.wired.com/news/ebiz/0,1272,61045,00.htm l
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/23/open_sourc e_voting_software/

Whatever the reason the US decided not to use FOSS voting, it had nothing to do with any difficulty in opting for an open solution, and it certainly has nothing to do with the cost.

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It's not about hotels, it's about houses. (Geez, sounds like Monopoly here.)

TiVo has access to a lot of user preferences information. Companies like Nielsen and Arbitron have made large businesses out of tracking consumer behavior, but TiVo's use of technology would make it much more accurate.

The problem is, the content providers only want accuracy if it benefits them. The old "journal" system for radio and TV habits reflected what the user liked but not what they necessarily watched. There was quite an uproar when Nielsen switched to an electronic system, precisely because it indicated a drop in viewership.

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Sounds like you have dealt with the prison inmates working for $130 a month in a call center. We're already insourcing that way but companies wouldn't advertise it.

Until I saw a series of controlled laboratory tests and their results, I'll remain a bit skeptical. DNA isn't your garden-variety chemical and processing it is so tedious precisely because of that fact. Speed in testing DNA may be desireable (look at the trouble they have to go through identifying Katrina or 9/11 victims), but accuracy is more important. It has to be consistant to be regarded seriously as a security device.

What's more, so they have my DNA and know who I am. How? That data will have to be stored somewhere. An RFID chip in my passport? A government-run DNA database? Better yet, so what? Assuming I haven't faked the RFID chip or hacked the DNA DB, who's to say I'm not a terrorist? Maybe I don't have a criminal record and maybe I'm not Muslim (remember such golden oldies as the Bader-Meinhof?). Speedy DNA processing isn't going to solve the fundamental security problem, which is how do we read your mind.

Thanks for dropping that knowledge. Thought you or others might like to read about the Thirty-Meter Telescope(TMT). "What makes the TMT so unique is its diameter -- or aperture -- and the light-grabbing dimensions of its primary mirror, which will produce images 10 to 100 times the clarity of the Hubble telescope." http://www.wired.com/news/space/0,2697,69578,00.ht ml?tw=rss.TEK