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Domain: wired.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to wired.com.
Comments · 12,699
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Mother Earth, Mother Board - Neal Stephenson
An interesting article regarding the technology, business, and history behind laying of transcontinental cables is Mother Earth Mother Board, by Neal Stephenson. The tagline is "The hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth."
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Guarantee they didnt make money like these kids
Hacking Las Vegas A group of mathematicians from MIT jacked millions out of Vegas... Good article.
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Re:How about those "tele-zapper" things?
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Laser of Lead
Here is another laser for you, the lead type. It's so simple you want to cry. Some of the articles I've seen are not accurate, but the pictures are very impressive. The current prototype has 36 barrels, no moving parts and fires 45,000 rounds per minute. The million rounds per minute gun has 200+ barrels
1 milliion rounds a minute -
Re:OpenBSD is crap, heres why - vermillionPretty poor trolling, if you ask me. Funny that the code stolen by FreeBS as it tries to be remotely secure is much greater than the flow in the other direction.
At least they didn't get r00ted this summer
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Not New News
This bill is not new news (see Wired article) and was introduced so late in the session of the 107th Congressthat it has no chance of passing (introduced on Oct 10 with only 6 working days left). Basically, it is a feel good measure for chest-thumping politicians with no real expectation of the bills passage. Neither Kyl or Wyden are up for re-election this year but opposing "repressive regimes" and supporting the "free world" always makes good sound bites.
If you based "repressive" on the laws passed, we would qualify... CIPA (Child Internet Protection Act - 106th H.R.4577 - law 106-554), COPA (Child Online Protection Act - 105th H.R.4328 - law 105-277), CPPA (The Child Pornography Protection Act - 104th H.R.3610 - law 104-208), CDA (Communications Decency Act - 104th S.652 - law 104-104), USA PATRIOT (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism - 107th H.R.3162 - law 107-056),
You can go look at the Center for Democracy and Technology legislative reports and the Electronic Frontier Foundation Action Center and the proliferation of groups like the Center for Digital Democracy, Digital Speech Project, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse to understand that these are not isolated examples.
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Re:Heh
not so crazy. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/eword.htm
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What!? Some people are not entirely miserable?!Well, who fell asleep at that switch! We should ship him/her to the South to be put down like the dogs they are! (And make up for all the lost 'misery revenue').
Seriously. . . I've read today more childish arguments from people who are basically saying, "Well, if I have to pay tax, then so should everybody!" --Which stems in part from the barely legitimate fear of losing the precarious toe-hold on their own income through a Bricks & Mortar business, which won't happen unless they are nincompoops who don't know how to run a business in the first place, (Why not set up your own internet order department and get one of your clerks to manage it? DUH!), and from a rabid sense of unfairness which has precisely nothing to do with what is good for the nation and everything about, "MOMMM! BILLY GOT MORE ICE CREAM THAN ME!!!"
As for more new & wonderful taxes. .
Bullshit. Greed and nothing else. For one thing, the economy is mostly a make-believe game anyway, and for another, if you want to live in the 'good little consumer' head-space and play the make-believe 3rd edition rules to the letter, well then if the government would just, say, tax Microsoft properly, punish corporate criminals, (like Bush), and stop plans to drop a billion dollars worth of bombs on Iraq every week, then MAYBE we could dispense with all this other nonsense.
Internet Tax? Fuck off. When the net is taxed, it'll also be so tightly controled that a pipsqueek like me won't be able to speak his mind. And wouldn't that just make for a bad day?
-Fantastic Lad
P.S. Is it just me, or has Slashdot been particularly 'careful' these days to steer clear of political and social topics which actually 'matter'? I've asked it before and been modded to shit for it, but I'll keep on asking until my Karma is dead and gone. . . "Who is whispering into the ears of the Slashdot Editorial staff these days?" I notice the story about the story about implantable microchips broke several days ago and hasn't shown up here. . . Hmm. -
Re:how much is $600CDN? 50 bucks in real money?I know this is off-topic, and I'll probably go to karma hell again, but there was a truly interesting story in Wired Magazine a couple months back about E-Gold
It seems that more than a few people are concerned about the lack of a physical backing for currency, and are choosing to do something about it. It actually sounds like a good idea to me. Even if some of the people who are backing the idea seem a bit shady.
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Those Tau'Ra and their guns!
WHY, wouldn't the Federation start making projectile weapons for fighting the Borg? Dumbasses...
Coming back to topic (*cough*), this is just what happened in Stargate SG-1 with regards to the Asgard - a highly evolved extragalactic civilization - and the Replicators - just like it sounds, a bunch of erector-set robots that simply kept "eating" the Asgard's technology and reproducing themselves. (Where is Bill Joy when you need him?) The replicators were (for some twisted logic reason) "immune" to the Asgard's energy weapons and other defenses, but sure blowed apart pretty when hit with SG-1's MP-5s and P90s!
All that being said, Stargate sucks without Daniel Jackson. We used to play a drinking game where we'd watch Stargate and drink whenever we'd hear Teal'c refer to him as Danieljackson (as though it were one word). Now we're just sober, and what fun is that? -
Re:The borg at work (NO!)
- Since Thomson/RCA (NOT Microsoft - they just provide the $$ and advertising) is actually the one that designed and manufactures the XBox, this is perfectly fine IMHO.
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A perfect example...
...would be Java which was developed by admitted pedophile Patrick Naughton to search the web for pictures of naked little girls.
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Re:government power is out of controlYep. Reduce politicians' power to control the marketplace through legislation, and you reduce the incentive for corporations to try to influence that legislation. In fact, Microsoft's DC lobbying efforts were virtually nonexistant prior to the big antitrust case which caught them off guard:
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Re:government power is out of controlYep. Reduce politicians' power to control the marketplace through legislation, and you reduce the incentive for corporations to try to influence that legislation. In fact, Microsoft's DC lobbying efforts were virtually nonexistant prior to the big antitrust case which caught them off guard:
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Re:government power is out of controlYep. Reduce politicians' power to control the marketplace through legislation, and you reduce the incentive for corporations to try to influence that legislation. In fact, Microsoft's DC lobbying efforts were virtually nonexistant prior to the big antitrust case which caught them off guard:
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Re:government power is out of controlYep. Reduce politicians' power to control the marketplace through legislation, and you reduce the incentive for corporations to try to influence that legislation. In fact, Microsoft's DC lobbying efforts were virtually nonexistant prior to the big antitrust case which caught them off guard:
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Re:What does music look like
It looks like Richard James
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LOL mod parent up funny
And it's got a ring of truth.
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Re:Weather simulations?
I believe that IBM using their Blue Gene to do computational gene folding simulations. It appears that they have a vested interest in biology. Some older articles explains IBM's initiative.
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Re:Yeah but at least tux is coolRipping off other's clever ideas is what MicroSoft is all about. Hence their "switch" ad written by a golem.
I'm sure MS was trying to leach off the success the Apple stickers had for so many years.
Microsoft reminds me of this bitch I used to work with. She would never bring any ideas to the initial design reviews. She would just sit there and berate everyone's work. And then in the follow-up review she would unleash all her work on us, which was usually just a rehashing of all the ideas the rest of us turned in during the previous review with a few superficial changes (like the buttons would now have rounded corners). Lame ass.
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Ellen Feiss
Imagine if Apple did the same thing, letting these kind of living forms crawling around screaming! Buz.
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We support unsolicited mail
At around the same time, possibly the same press conference, this Associated Press article at Wired has the following from Jerry Cerasale, DMA's vice president for government affairs:
"Cerasale said the DMA supports unsolicited e-mail marketing as long as it targets a certain demographic or interest group -- say, 25- to 35-year-olds or homeowners -- and isn't merely sent to every e-mail address one can gather."
and
"We need to give the consumer the means to TRY and stop it.
Try to stop the unsolicited mail? How bizzare! -
We support unsolicited mail
At around the same time, possibly the same press conference, this Associated Press article at Wired has the following from Jerry Cerasale, DMA's vice president for government affairs:
"Cerasale said the DMA supports unsolicited e-mail marketing as long as it targets a certain demographic or interest group -- say, 25- to 35-year-olds or homeowners -- and isn't merely sent to every e-mail address one can gather."
and
"We need to give the consumer the means to TRY and stop it.
Try to stop the unsolicited mail? How bizzare! -
Wired interview with Google on their policy
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Don't let Bin Laden read this...
As I recall, the FBI had evidence that Bin Laden was using steganography to conceal messages in photos...
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here's telling
read this old (april 2001) wired article on anoto.
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Re:An old wired article?
I remembered that one too. It's from April '01 and it provides more insight into how the paper is the real product.
Here is the article -
Saw this one coming...
I did some work for Siruis Satellite Radio a few years back, and I can tell you that I knew as soon as I stepped in their corporate Midtown New York office, with Herman-Miller chairs and glass-and-metal desks, that they were the pentultimate dot.com company just ripe to go bust. I mean, they went a few steps further than making a wesbite and selling stuff on it -- they sent satellites into orbit and built a control-station on the first floor of their offices! The article points out that terrestrial stations will be broadcasting digital signals, but even without this satellite-killer, I often wondered who exactly would pay $10/mo to listen to radio in their cars? They can already do that for free.
I tried posting a similar (and better story, not just a stock report) a while back and Slashdot passed. This article has more detail on why Sirius is doing so bad. -
Re:Is each page in the pad unique? Each notebook?
is every page in the special notebook unique? And is each NOTEBOOK unique?
Yes. Here's a Wired story about the guys who invented the paper.
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The Paper is the screen
Wired Magazine article from last year regarding digital paper
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Why not just read the article?
It looks like people move hundreds of miles to Dongguan to work in factories because the wages there are better than they can get at home. That's not slavery; that is, in fact, freedom. Didn't you notice that when you read the article?
Let's see, if I can n dollars at this job writing C code, and I can get ( n * 1.1 ) dollars at that job writing C code, and I get to choose which job I take... That makes me a slave, too!
The wages look horribly low to you, but they're not spending them in an inflation zone like Manhattan or Tokyo. They're spending them in Dongguan, where things are cheaper.
It's relatively cheap to produce milk out in the boondocks where there's a lot of cheap land to graze cows on, but it would be very expensive to produce milk in, for example, downtown Boston. Should we price milk as if it were produced in Boston? Why? It's not costing the farmer that much to produce. If food and rent in Dongguan are so cheap that you can live on $0.21/hour, then $0.21/hour is enough to live on in Dongguan. If you work in a Burger King in Manhattan, they'll pay you more than you'll get paid at a Burger King in Holland, Michigan. That's because in Manhattan, a dollar is worth less than it is in rural Michigan. The Burger King in rural Michigan will also sell you the same hamburger for less money. That's because in rural Michigan, a dollar is worth more than it is in rural Manhattan.
The value of a dollar is people will give you in exchange for it, and that value varies from place to place.
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Anyone remember Fluffy Bunny?
I don't know, this reminds me of an article I read about a group called Fluffy Bunny.
Obligatory link: Fluffy Bunny No Longer Energized -
Re:Disgrace!
Don't bash flash so fast... it's accessible! sort of.
Some guy invented a 'closed-captioning' actionscript for Flash MX that parses an XML file, which tells the Flash movie when to display which caption. "The advantage of the tool is that it not only saves time, it also allows captioning to be done by someone other than the original Flash developer..."
Also, try Macromedia's page on Flash MX Accessibility. -
Ummm, actually...You don't think the military puts any critical systems on the Internet, do you?
Actually, it appears that they do. Check this out.
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Re:Disgrace!Flash was opened 4 years ago: according to Wired The spec can be read here and the open source project is at http://www.openswf.org
Open doesn't mean good, mind you, but it's unfair to say it's not an open and published standard when it is.
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Direct linkFor those who are just interested in the hot geek:
I can't see what the fuss is about myself....
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Yes.
All MS bashing aside I find it very odd that people, with all their supposed privacy concerns, would even consider a company such as Microsoft or any other software vendor for that matter, trusted enough to hold a lot of personal information.
I understand the appeal of having an account that floats to any terminal that you log into - but having someone else in charge of that makes me nervous.
I mean - think of credit companies on steriods here.
For example - having a bank have some ability to control your money is one thing - but here you would have an account that could have much more information that you "own" but dont have full control over.
In your profile in the next 5 years will be such info as:
bank info
documents, both personal and professional that are kept or written by you
habits file, browsing, shopping, reading, viewing etc.
personal machine preferences
owned/installed programs you use regularly.
plus more
Now I cant understand why I would want to give anyone control over any aspect of this. Banking is a necesity in todays world - but that's as far as it should go. I dont wnat my bank to handle any information other than exactly how much money is in my account and when I access it. I wouldnt trust them with my personal documents etc... so why would I trust MS.
One argument against this could be the handling of hotmail accounts.
If you think MS is responsible enough with all you info then you have never been one of hundreds of thousands of whom who had their hotmail accounts "misplaced" with not so much as a sorry. (cant find a very good article on it - but I remember it when it happened)
What about how hotmail handles information as simple as your email address - and how much spam you get. What levels of access will "affiliates" and "advertising partners" have to all the info in your
There is already a proven track record to show why you would not want this info placed outside your control. -
Must ... fight ... urge ...
(oh well. i couldn't hold it back.)
Thats like filing a suit against Ford for not making their cars drivable for the blind.....
uhhh... no. It's not anything like it. (well, except for the fact that it has to do with people with disabilities.) Being blind, there currently is no safe way for you to drive a car. (with the exceptions noted in articles such as this) BUT blind people can still read braille with their fingers, no? They can still hear with their ears, no? Why is it dumb for blind people to try to get cmpanies to make their information accessible to them? -
Re:This makes no sense,
Wired had a good explanation on the problems inherent in predicting folding. IBM is building a big grid supercomputer to do this.
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Re:Protection.
- keep the GPS birds flying
I recently found out that the GPS satellites are actually owned by the US and this was causing concern among even the European "allies". It looks like they are planning on putting up their own GPS satellites. Check out this Wired article. -
Interesting Wired Article
Wired has an article on Patents and IP today at;
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55831,00
One of the more interesting quotes
"Abraham Lincoln said that patents added the "fuel of interest to the fire of genius," by promoting the creation of new and useful inventions.
He didn't say that patent laws, or by extension intellectual property laws in general, were created to be cash cows solely for the gain of those with sufficient resources to play the system and intimidate any challengers into inaction." -
Like Kevin Warwick?Wired Magazine did a story on Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics. In 1998 he successfully implanted a chip into his arm that had a radio transmitter, allowing him to open doors and be tracked throughout his lab.
In 2000, he announced his plan to wire electrodes into his median nerve. This would have two purposes, he could "record" the nerve signal when he moved his hand, as well as attempt to "play back" the impulse and make his hand move on its own.
He hasn't done it yet, his FAQ lists it as scheduled for September.
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Chicken before the egg?
Kurzweil argues that strong AI will preceed the ability to download minds, which does not seem logical. It has been reasoned (by Pinker and others) that AI will be developed by reverse-engineering the brain, and artifically replicating its processes. The evolution of strong AI is thus dependent on technology to copy, and trace the functions of the human mind.
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Oh, and one more thing:
"Asperger
All my above yap about genes left out a very important point: "Unnatural" selection can turn very, very ugly. Given that we're never as wise as we think we are, that's inevitable. I'm not saying that anybody who discusses human genetics is a Nazi; far from it. What I'm saying is that everybody who ever tried to "clean up the gene pool" by force just happened to do enomous evil and little or no good. I'm saying that the road to Hell is as well-paved with good genetic intentions as any others. Call it a "high correlation".
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Re:links to geekdom?
Although modded funny, i think there is a lot of truth in your statement that geeks have a mild form of autism. Its called Asperger's Syndrome, which is probably what a large part of this audience suffers from.
Read the previous discussion on Slashdot for more information. The Wired article it mentions actually opened my eyes a lot on my own situation.
I am not completely sure but i believe there is even some proof of a weak genetic link between autism and asperger. -
Asperger's Syndrome
Wired had a great article on this phenomenon, including the high incidence of Asperger's Syndrome in Silicon Valley. Asperger's Syndrome is sort of a high-functioning kind of autism which I imagine many
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Wired Article...
This was an interesting article in wired a while ago.
Asperger's Syndrome is considered very high functioning Autism. Where the person still has some signs of autism, but isn't as extreme as most cases.
There is a wonder in the psych community about whether or not technically inclination and/or mathematically inclination has any correlation to autism. If so, it gives an interesting window into autism.
Wired refers to Asperger's as the "Geek Syndrome." It discusses this boom of autism in California.
Here's the link to the Wired Article (The Geek Syndrome). -
OT: Microsoft continues to be evil
Did ya see the story about microsoft on Wired. What a nasty place.
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Not so new...
You should take a look at this article. Students at Dartmouth College have been using / developing wi-fi tracking systems for a while now. A nice way to track down your buddies at the campus.
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filling your needs....
That's ok, we're working on rushing the Barbie pill through FDA approval. We should have it to market in three years.
Prof. Pointexter J. Chemist
Dupont "Better living through chemistry"
