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I Have (probably) Been Trolled, but...

Centralization empowers an elite core, while decentralization empowers everybody (not just the "terrorists"), so it's only natural that the elite will fight to keep their command & control hierachies in place by trying to stifle democratizing technology like OSS, wireless mesh networking, P2P, and other emergent, self-organizing smart-mob networks. (Do I win buzzword bingo? :)

Also, being centralized makes you extremely vulnerable to attack, because the targets are juicy and obvious. A real patriot is for decentralization, because Divided We Stand (written the day after 9-11-2001).

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PEOPLE, generally, don't want to play games on PC when they could rather do it on a console. PC gaming has for years been doing a great job committing suicide all by itself. Only the most casual games (Zoo Tycoon, Sims) or the most hardcore games (UT2K3, etc.) have any place right now, and even that is disappearing. MS' 'help' isn't needed.

Really?

I wasn't aware that any console had an input interface as well-suited for FPS games as a keyboard/mouse, or that they could make my television set deliver the 100 fps required for real-time gaming. At a decent (>1280x1024) resolution.

Where are these magical consoles?

You haven't played any PC games recently, have you?

The only reason MS is putting effort into the PC for gaming is as a test bed for the next generation XBox (think of it as a hardware implementation of DX9). You can bet that their PC efforts will be refined in the XBox version, then phased out on the PC.

And iD is being harassed to sit on the PC version of DooM 3.
And yes, Bungie did have a release date for PC/Mac Halo shortly after when they were bought out.

imagine the ultimate cellphone - one that charges the battery every time it rings/vibrates, hence promising extended talktimes, and giving operators all the more reasons to get their customers to use their devices.

There is possibility of an "independent" iPod update, which would add OGG support. This Wired article discusses a version of uClinux which runs Mad (a media player for Linux which is able to play OGG files).

Incidentally, I think understating the importance of open standards when it comes to something as ubiquitous as digital music, is a mistake.

Look, Napster didn't do much that Hotline didn't already do.

It added two things.
1. A single worldwide tracker instead of having to know an entry point. This meant that everyone saw everything. This had its good and its bad.
2. It made everyone's machines look like a single machine. On Hotline, once you found the stuff you wanted, you still had to connect to the server which had it.

See article on what was going on in 1998.

Wired article on Hotline

Nah, look at the Civil War inside Sony
I for one, wouldnt want Apple to go through that

Where are the alternate stylesheets? Larger text options for hard of vision? Higher contrast?
Also none of the entries make use of site navigation links?
Load up wired.com in a new version of Mozilla.. that's how new standards compliant web technology should be done.

Anyone have any idea how many of these backlogged patents are stupid attempts to cash-in on common ideas?

Like this patent on linking...

or this patent on floating banners...

For old timers (and emulator users I guess) - don't forget Firebird software from BT in the 80s - and they're also a dinosaur of a company :))

...and it's not like they don't try - remember their claims over hyperlink technology? here and here . (thanks google for a big 2 links)

(yes, I'm joking)

This kind of petty (it's just a name), inmature (flooding people's e-mail), public arguing is one of the reasons Linux isn't getting the acceptance it should.

Perhaps you are referring to the buy off and other techniques some companies use for manipulating the world to their will.

I'm not saying they have not right to do this, but your argument here is flawed.

The FTC has become a joke lately. Even Congress thinks so (on the issue of privacy).

From credit to business mergers to privacy, and, yes, spam, the FTC seems to always screw up something. (While the companies were busy forgetting due diligence, you can bet the FTC was, too...)

They'll likely compile a list of all the email addresses that were spammed to and make them available to spammers.

Now that's my government working for me!

justen

Interestingly, I wonder exactly who the U.S. has employed in its counterterrorist operations.

They probably outsource it just like corporations do.

is the strength of social networks and the ease with which people cope with situations.
Sorry for the self-serving perspective...I was in Mali (mostly the Bamako region) last year for the fieldwork part of my dissertation research (which has little to do with computers). As I had brought my iBook and went to an Internet café every day, computing and communication came up often in informal conversations. My personal feeling is that the well-known "leapfrog effect" could work there if the technology is integrated in the wider culture.
The article (correctly) points out the importance of "phone booths" in the region. Having spent numerous hours sipping tea and chatting at a local phone booth, I can see how it fits in a broader plan for Internet access. Add to it the amazing entrepreneurship of young Africans, the existing social networks linking Africans everywhere, and the low cost of online communication as opposed to road transportation, you have a winning proposition, in the long term.
Not exactly sure how it'll work in practice, but my bet is that it'll come from local initiatives more than from government plans.

> if you believe Scott McNealy, gray goo

Actually, IIRC, it was Bill Joy who said that.

Google is exploding that strategy by taking advantage of the basic strength of the Internet: the ability to go instantly from one place to any other at no cost beyond the basic connection.

Well, at no cost besides yer personal info, like your income +/-5K, age, gender, zip code, job title, and an offer to get spam from yesmail. Imagine if every new site you browsed to ask for this -- yikes!

This is a dramatic result of the purest censorship. The majority of the millions of people who connect to the internet are forbiden to serve by their stupid ISP. Even the IP4 space has room for 16 million. With IP6 there is no reason anyone whould ever be given a dynamic IP number again. The real censorship is one of deciding who can serve.

This primary censorship makes other kinds of censorship trivial. If you don't like someone's opinion, you can shut them down. A good example of this is Al Jazeera. This would be impossible to do if anyone and everyone could mirror content or simply have their own say with their own computers.

Related Article: Back in January 2003, Wired ran an article entitled "Google vs. Evil", with much focus on Google's potential for censorship and related matters.

Google vs. Evil [Wired Archive]

And here's the intro:

The world's biggest, best-loved search engine owes its success to supreme technology and a simple rule: Don't be evil. Now the geek icon is finding that moral compromise is just the cost of doing big business.

They even mention Slashdot:
...the reaction from the Slashdot crowd and most other forums was predictably vociferous...

I almost never agree with Alan Dershowitz, but he was right when he pointed out recently, "You have a right to privacy. You have NO right to anonymity."

Free speech is meaningless without anonymity.

This helps explain how dreck like Kangaroo Jack makes it to theaters.

Er, no it doesn't.

But since the linked article had eye candy, you get a pass.

It certainly does explain how Kangaroo Jack makes it to theaters.

On the second page:

"Likewise, maybe as a favor to an agent, I could post something like, 'I love this, my boss loves it.' That will create buzz, and quite possibly people will start bidding preemptively because they're afraid of losing the project."

Movie titles flash before my eyes: Bubble Boy. Kangaroo Jack. Dude, Where's My Car?

There is so much conflict of interest inside Sony right now... and its really held back Sony's electronics division, specifically its walkman/mp3 players which are all crippled by copyright protection mechanisms.

Does Apple really want to get itself in the same situation? I feel that Apple's relative unemcubrance is what allow it to dethrown Sony as the maker of the coolest portable music device you can buy.

Here is an article linked to by a recent Slashdot story: Intel Programmer detained. This is only one example of many. And I'm more concerned about the ones I don't know about.

The Patriot Act makes it much easier for anyone (including American citizens) to be detained without any real evidence against them, and then to be denied due process rights by exploiting legal loop holes.

So we're not a police state yet, but we appear to be well on our way.

I remember the same video - it was around 1989 or so. There was one guy sitting on a park bench with a newspaper, he pressed it to the flat screen it then OCRed it and began to help him to learn to read it, prompting him as he read it out aloud.

Sculley believed passionately about this. There is a paper he wrote about the Knowledge Navigator here

So the Knowledge Navigator was a real mix of technologies. But ultimately such video productions and thought experiments were all about developing the Apple brand. I saw the video at an Apple tech show in Auckland NZ and that was preaching to the converted - but Sculley saw this brand development as crucial. Wired has a great article about Apple the brand. Sculley developed Apple into one of the most recognised brands in the world.... and Apple are still living on his legacy.

But Sculley also viewed the idea of this sort of technology, and especially Newton, as the future. I recall that he went on after leaving Apple to work with a company developing a wireless device for the Newton. He is still a believer in this vision - this article from 2000 suggests a merger with 3Com - Palm and Apple = Newton redux = iPalm?

Check out the wired article about the sfx in matrix2. Very interesting stuff.

To summarize: wow.

Perhaps you should have looked at the second page of the article. It briefly mentions the trial of a vaccine against amyloid. Unfortunately some people died, but the treatment may still be helping the other recipients in the study. Your characterization of a vaccine is incomplete. They also work against bacteria (Anthrax, Botulism, Cholera, Tetanus, etc.) and have been employed against cancer (with limited results to date). Antisera are commonly used against toxins from Black Widows, snakes, etc.. And work continues on vaccines against some of the eukaryotic diseases like malaria. Vaccines have a great medical potential that has only been partially realized.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/matrix2.h tml

Not sure if this has already appeared on /., but check out Wired Magazine's cover story on the making of Reloaded. A few spoilers, plus some really cool info on some new movie-making techniques being used:

http://www.wired.com/wired/

Excerpt:

"If the dojo fight in The Matrix was a kung fu sonata, the Burly Brawl is a symphony. Neo tears the sign from the ground and wields it as a kendo sword, vaulting pole, and battering ram. A woman walking by can't believe what she's seeing; suddenly her body is hijacked, she drops her grocery bag, and another Smith charges into the fray. Whole battalions of Smiths arrive, mount assaults, attack in waves, scatter, regroup, and head back for more. (At ESC, one massive pile-on was dubbed the "Did someone drop a quarter?" shot.) In the thick of it, Neo is dancing, chucking black-tied bodies skyward, pivoting around the signpost, and using shoulders as stepping-stones over the raging river of whup-ass.

Fans will wear out their remotes replaying the scene on DVD, but what they won't see, even riding the Pause button, is a transition that happens early on. When Neo and Agent Smith walk into the courtyard, they are the real Reeves and Weaving. But by the time the melee is in full effect, everyone and everything on the screen is computer-generated - including the perspective of the camera itself, steering at 2,000 miles per hour and screaming through arcs that would tear any physical camera apart.

This is virtual cinematography, but the most impressive thing about the Burly Brawl is that it doesn't look virtual at all. The digital faces of Reeves and Weaving could get past a flank of security guards, and the buildings surrounding the courtyard look dreary and lived-in - the grimy, unmistakable patina of the real."

"Wow, grandpa, you're ripped. Look at that vein in your pectoral muscle.... wait, that's not a vein! Gross!"

I hope they perfect the anti-amyloid vaccines.

"I thought this was pretty much debunked a couple years ago?"

The article you reference talks about a particular scammer .... i mean entrepreneur... and his particular invention which would have brought endless bandwidth at light speed to power lines. The physics seemed a little screwy on that "invention", but this is just old fashioned sending a signal down a wire. So nothing new here in physics circles.

This has more to do with business and legal issues than new technology. Just happens that power companies already have big cables running to every home (right of way) and they are just trying to figure out an economical way to use them for telecom. Just as the cable companies did. Except the electrical distribution grid is not as easy to convert as the cable networks were.

Sorry, try again. It was often copyright infringment, but it was legal too. Read the AC reply- it's correct. Here's some background:
A paper summarizing a few of the court judgements finding that reverse engineering is a "fair use" which copyright holders have no authority to forbid. There was a more recent judgement too.

The court has ruled against decrypting copyrighted material in order to accomplish reverse engineering.

Yes they have, and that is bad.

The particular court ruling in this article isn't especially applicable (since the judge was simply deciding a particular case was outside his authority).

However, the general character of the DMCA, and the rulings that have followed it, is strongly against reverse engineering!

US citizens were allowed to reproduce copyrighted works when it's necessary or very helpful to use the work in the normally legal way. For example, you can copy software from a CD to your computer's internal memory. This is technically "duplication of a copyrighted work", and is in violation of copyright laws, but we've been given an exception in this area.

However, the DMCA is undoing that. Reverse engineering was also a legal activity, and you could violate copyright in pursuit of it. The Sony vs Connectix case shows this very clearly. Connectix was accused of breaking copyright when the loaded Playstation code into alternative hardware to study what it does. But because they weren't distributing it, or using the work more than once at a time, the case was thrown out, as their right to reverse-engineer was stronger than Sony's right to a strict application of copyright. It was a fair-use!

However, today, if Sony had placed a "circumvention prevention device" on their code, that reverse-engineering would be illegal.

Our right to reverse engineer has been greatly reduced, along with all fair-use rights, which can now be selectively removed by publishers.

there is a group calling the US a police state.

Only because it's true.

First of all, we do not put soldiers in our civilian population, we put them other people's civilian population.

Like the National Guardsmen who point assault rifles at innocent people who can't stand on one leg because they're recovering from an injury?

Perhaps if other countries would simply rise up and kill their own butcherous leaders, we wouldnt have to.

The thing is that even if they don't rise up, you still don't have to. You only do it because you want to. (The sanctions were working - which is why Bush invaded - he was afraid that they were going to lose the opportunity to invade.)

America, we tolorate the worse scum in the name of free speech.

Yeah, as long as nobody says the word "terrorist" at an airport.

In America, there must 'probable cause' not just 'reasonable suspician' like most of Europe, before a search warrant can be execused.

Explain how the two are different, and then explain to why it matters, when a police officer can ignore the requirement of a warrant if he has 'reasonable suspicion'.

In the US, it is ILLEGAL to put the military on the boarders, or to act as police except in emergencies (airports after 9-11 for instance). Not so in most other places.

Please list those "most other places", and list the legal statutes that give them that right.

So like the US or not, to call it a police state is as stupid

Like it or not, there's more to having a police state than the things you list.. like, maybe, star chamber trials, innocent people

I met someone from the US a few weeks ago.. he was visiting one of our malls... he was amazed that he wasn't treated like a criminal simply for wanting to see a tourist attraction. (ie: there are no metal detectors in the entrances, and he wasn't searched before being allowed entrance.)

Maybe you should take a trip to another country, before spouting your "national pride - no matter what" attitude.

there is a group calling the US a police state.

Only because it's true.

First of all, we do not put soldiers in our civilian population, we put them other people's civilian population.

Like the National Guardsmen who point assault rifles at innocent people who can't stand on one leg because they're recovering from an injury?

Perhaps if other countries would simply rise up and kill their own butcherous leaders, we wouldnt have to.

The thing is that even if they don't rise up, you still don't have to. You only do it because you want to. (The sanctions were working - which is why Bush invaded - he was afraid that they were going to lose the opportunity to invade.)

America, we tolorate the worse scum in the name of free speech.

Yeah, as long as nobody says the word "terrorist" at an airport.

In America, there must 'probable cause' not just 'reasonable suspician' like most of Europe, before a search warrant can be execused.

Explain how the two are different, and then explain to why it matters, when a police officer can ignore the requirement of a warrant if he has 'reasonable suspicion'.

In the US, it is ILLEGAL to put the military on the boarders, or to act as police except in emergencies (airports after 9-11 for instance). Not so in most other places.

Please list those "most other places", and list the legal statutes that give them that right.

So like the US or not, to call it a police state is as stupid

Like it or not, there's more to having a police state than the things you list.. like, maybe, star chamber trials, innocent people

I met someone from the US a few weeks ago.. he was visiting one of our malls... he was amazed that he wasn't treated like a criminal simply for wanting to see a tourist attraction. (ie: there are no metal detectors in the entrances, and he wasn't searched before being allowed entrance.)

Maybe you should take a trip to another country, before spouting your "national pride - no matter what" attitude.

Thanks for the link to the main wired page. I was wondering what this Wired thing was.

Here's a quote from a wired article

Benetton, which makes casual clothes and sportswear for men, women and children, said it would weave the technology into the collar tags of clothes that cost at least $15 to keep track of them as they ship. ...

... The tagging system may also save the company money by reducing theft. The RFID tags can be programmed to set off an alarm if someone leaves a store without paying for an item.

So, a globally unique ID sewn into your clothing; readable wherever you go with the proper equipment. What's not to like? It means institutions that choose to can automatically and cheaply start assembling a history of which RFID tags go where, and when. Still not scared? Next step: when the cops come to pick you up as a "material witness" they can easily scan your clothing and compare it to the RFID histories. Is everyone going to feel just as free to worship unpopular religions and excercise their legal right to dissent against the powers-that-be if such technology becomes widespread?

Now do you start to see a chilling effect? Part of the danger comes from the globally unique ID; the rest comes from the ease of assembling RFID time&place databases. It could be the thin edge of the wedge of a major loss of privacy.

If you're checking books on crypto from the library, you're obviously a terrorist and a danger to the status quo!

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals let the The Nuremburg Files website stay online, which depicts pictures of aborted fetuses and had a "hit list" of abortion doctors. Even though at least one doctor on the list had been murdered, and his name was crossed out on the list, the Court still saw that this was free speech. If that could stand, surely this website is well within the bounds of the law

A lot of ethics questions can be generated from the topic it discusses.

"The founder of Seattle-based Highlift Systems, Edwards proposes a carbon-nanotube space elevator: a ribbon 62,000 miles long, 3 feet wide, and thinner than the paper your thumb is pressed against right now. The elevator would stretch high into the heavens, allowing easy transport from Earth, launching spacecraft, new industries, even tourists - at a fraction of today's costs. And he says he can be well under way in a decade, ushering in a new era of space exploitation"

First, here's an article by Bill Joy in Wired that may serve as a good starting point.

I've since condensed the argument like this. There are three general inputs into the future: science and technology, education and the spread of information, and war and violence. If we increase the first at the rate we're going, it will be totally catastrophic, since the destructive capability of technology has always outpaced the defensive capabilities (bullets before kevlar). Imagine the collusion of nanotech, biotech (esp. genetics), microprocessing, networking, robotics, organic computing, artificial intelligence, self-replication, etc.

You can try to control the spread of science and technology, but to do this you will also have to control/regulate the spread of information and education so that certain information is only available to a few "trusted" sources. If you start to restrict education to certain classes of people, this will likely inflame racism, and will also limit peoples' sense of opportunity and thier ability to participate in something productive to keep them out of trouble.

Another possibility is hoping that increasing the education in certain disciplines (such as ethics) will reduce the amount of violence. One problem with this, is that ethics cannot really be a specialized field, as otherwise people will still pursue technology and leave the question of its use up to those "qualified" to determine it.

If you ask my opinion, the most realistic solution is to reduce the amount of violence in the world. This is what Dr. MLK meant by choosing not between violence and non-violence, but between non-violence and non-existence. Simply put, if all people of the world do not start to get along better at an exponential rate, we will destroy ourselves. We've already destroyed and polluted a bunch of the ecosystem, and the rate of its destruction will eventually catch up to us. This is only to say that violence is not just physical against one another, but a general state of mind.

I just think that the whole paradigm of world society needs to change in light of this. We should look at it as if a gigantic meteor is going to crash into the earth in about 75 years. We can see it with the telescope, and we know for certain that it will destroy the earth unless we make a drastic change. The one difference is that with the "meteor" we're looking at, the solution is not just to blow the thing up (war) or ignore it (prison), which is our dual solution to everything at the moment. The problem is one of the spirit and of numerous forms of mental slavery that cripple us.

As Bob Marley said, we must emancipate our selves (not everyone else) from mental slavery, as none but ourselves can free our minds. Even though I'm optimistic, it currently looks as if patriotism, a form of racism, has embedded itself strongly into the minds of many. We should start to recognize our own shortcomings in others, and thereby choose to overcome racism, chauvinism, nationalism, patriotism, classism, tribalism, and the many other isms making the meteor bigger and bigger each day.

Go read Bill Joy's article, "Why the future doesn't need us." Possibly the best discussion I've seen on the dangers of future (and present!) technology. Some points he brings up or alludes to:

- Should we, as a society, curtail research on particular branches of science? Human cloning is the obvious one, but researching superbugs and genetically hand-made viruses might have enormous benefits--at a cost of extreme risk.

- Where do we draw the line between human and (for lack of a better word) robot? Nanotech, implants, and genetic mods are all coming to meet at a common point, and that point is SOON!

Some other interesting technological dillemas come to mind. Should we sell or aid the development of technology to 'enemy' nations? How do we define enemies for this purpose? I happen to work for a company that's substantially responsible for getting much of the US military aircraft into the air--am I partly responsible for the use those aircraft are put to? The same question could be (and has been) asked of the Canadian CANDU nuclear reactors--safe, cheap, efficient, reliable, and the easiest way to produce weapons-grade material.

This last one is actually a dillema as old as the hills--dealing with the enemy--but technology is becoming an important factor because it's drawing the world together. (Not to mention the HUGE role technology plays in any conflict these days)

Other issues: Technology eats power, consumes resources, produces waste--do we have a moral responsiblilty to drive as much technological innovation as possible towards cleaning up some of our messes?

The media is now able to modify live broadcasts--how do we control that behaviour? Pasting over footage of billboards with the station's advertising is pretty reprehensible, but what about when they start adding nonexistent people to war scenes?

But the real question may boil down to this simple one: How does technology actually change any of our present moral or ethical states? Does technology actually change our ethics, and should it?

The Department of Justice has required a federal court to seal Hawash's case. He has only limited access to his family and lawyer.

Privacy is both dead and impossible in the modern world of surveillance and massive data storage and processing.

Roll on the transparent society, where we can watch the government back!

Previous examples have been funnier:

• more evil than satan himself
• dumb motherfucker

a couple years ago, I think it was right after the election, if you typed 'dumb motherfucker' into Google it brought up a link to the bush jr. official store. You can see one of the original stories about it in this wired article.

I think they actually threatened to sue Google over it- Google had to force the removal of it from their system. It was very funny!!

One at TechTV and another link for some low cost MoBo/Box/Power setups

I found both of these from slashdot...

Yeah, good point. There have been quite a few articles about this. Here is one from Wired (which wasn't the actual one I was thinking of). (Wired.com seems to be down so here is a google cache.)

hardly beige

Wired Magazine had an interesting article on one such "contractor" that the CIA uses recently:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.02/gunhire.h tml

We've already got these.

I don't understand why it is that when a company enters into a work contract they are not held to the same standards of the employer.