Clicking to your Web site gives me a DNS error, so I can only post here and hope you see this and reply. (Remember to thwart the spamblock...)
I don't have significant amounts of money myself (and no one who does would be willing to just give it to you - yet), but I may be able to help you acquire what you need. I would like to see your dream become reality, for it is part of my dream too.
And thereafter with bioengineered nerves, trying to emulate Moore's Law? Or perhaps just speed up the chips and let the nerve connections alone...
Though, I wonder...what if one were to use this to replace natural neurons, one by one, and only speed up the neurons that had been replaced (and only when a large group of connected neurons, like the part of the brain that processes symbols, has been replaced)?
Nice theory. It doesn't pan out in practice. If the USA were to completely disarm itself, and enforcably commit to staying disarmed (that is, it couldn't re-arm), the length of time that the USA could stay out of war would be about the length of time that the USA's various enemies would need to ship whatever militaries they have to North American coasts. (Canada and Mexico might not fare too well either: while the armies are there, why not pick on close allies as well?)
Even those countries not opposed to the USA's existence would have reason to keep their militaries, if only to ward off their own enemies. (Israel, for example.)
You could almost bill that as a shop class, you know. Practical Scrounging 101...though you'd need a better title. One possible rough syllabus:
Computer internals - learn the basics of how computers really work (no programming; that's a class in its own), standard electrical safety (ground oneself, and why one turns a computer off before servicing - more on the computer's weaknesses than the human's, in case any "I can take anything" jocks take the class), first lab is having the students install a store-bought sound card onto a basic system (though this may run into resource problems: either have students take turn in lab, refreshing the system to non-sound-card between turns, or have a bunch of systems with sound cards de-installed).
Economics of computer acquisition - Moore's Law, environmental consequences of throwing away computer gear, and other factors leading to acquisition of useless caches of technoscrap. Basics of how to recognize and evaluate cast away pieces of equipment.
Realities of computer acquisition - compare newsprint ads (including magazines), 'Net ads (including eBay), and donations (guest speaker from some charity on how effective/ineffective asking for donations usually is). Overview of dumpster diving, and its usual problems.
Final lab - "special treat" for the students: field trip to a local company, where a Junkyard Wars style loot of a prepared dumpster awaits. Challenge is to build a working computer, OS and everything, in a set time period using only equipment found in the dumpster and supplied (supplied stuff includes software, tools, screws, et cetera). Make sure to get advance approval from whoever you're raiding the dumpster of - and, of course, make sure there's enough actual working parts for each team altogether. If you're not sure how long to allocate, build a computer from the same parts yourself and see how long it takes, then allocate some extra time since the students are still learning from you (and they won't know in advance what components are available, et cetera). There will be one "winner", but anyone who can assemble a working system within a reasonable time limit should pass. Built computers go to the school's computer lab (students built it, so students can keep it running for other students), or to the students themselves if your school already has enough.
No...there is definitely water ice on Mars (check the polar ice caps). There may be ice on the Moon; the last probe to check came up about as inconclusive as whether there was life in that Martian meteorite.
But there is oxygen on the Moon, and hydrogen from the solar wind if nothing else. Add in electricity (solar panels - at the poles, where they could always be in sun - anyone?), and...
And I wouldn't put it past MS to make a special "ultra-enterprise for non-profits" edition that never actually seems to sell, possibly due to its being 1000 times market value of equivalent editions (except maybe the icons got changed a bit), but it makes a good tax writeoff.
Umm...if the guy is totally not guilty and can prove it easily, to the point where the FBI knows or should know that this person is no criminal (at least, no way could they get a jury conviction), isn't prosecution beyond that point grounds for countersuit for harassment or something, in which he could recover (at least) any and all legal fees?
You mean just the code base, right? As in, I won't have to go to http://www.banjo.org/ from now on, and explain to my semi-geek friends who have heard of Slashdot but never kept up with it that I haven't changed to a redneck just because I now visit Banjo as often as I used to visit Slashdot, right?
...and all for naught if "standard procedures" become so ingrained (perhaps even burned into the ROMs) that exceptions can't be made. Which happens a lot in government agencies - like, say, the judiciary.
One can copyright the presentation of a compilation of facts, even if not the facts themselves. Someone has to be the official sayer of "X won by #### votes", et cetera, and the state owns those words since it paid for them (whether or not it knew the content in advance). Likewise, the election ballots themselves are copyrighted.
Now, this does get tricky since the thing one wishes to change - the election results, prior to publication - are merely a compilation of facts, not a published work. But watch for some corporation to put in a "pay per view" system of this data (which may stay in place even though the data is supposed to be public domain, up to a point: "reasonable access fees" are allowed, which some judge may well believe to be nonzero even for electronic media where it can be proven that the per-access costs are way less than a penny each). Then the DMCA becomes an issue.
So, if the judiciary were to file a lawsuit against workplace monitoring, would any judge in the USA be able to oversee the case as, well, an impartial judge? What if it got appealed to the Supreme Court, yet all nine sitting judges there were part of the plaintiffs?
Actually, thinking about it for a bit, I'm pretty sure what the practical result would be, regardless of what the law (currently) says: Court of Public Opinion.;)
I doubt many people will read this note (posted this late since I'm just now catching up on reading stories), but for the record...
The moral disconnect is already present. As it is, people already lack ability to reason why a law is there, and thus to voluntarily obey the law, at least relative to the idealized past (though there is some evidence that said moral reasoning never was all that widespread). Furthermore, there are honest disagreements about certain laws - for instance, IP rights are basically limited to one's ability to enforce said rights (through any means, including raiding businesses that are using pirated software).
Given that, getting everyone to voluntarily obey the law does not seem to be feasable in all, or even most, cases. But where and when one can come up with a technological solution, that may be feasable for all users...
Now, if there were no other options around, or the book renters decided to destroy all other ways of reading, that would be a baaaaaaadddd thing
"When", not "if". And they'll destroy it just as soon as they can get renting to be popular. That's not just a conspiracy theory; it's logical prediction since that action is more profitable, and they have shown themselves to be motivated primarily by profit.
As has been noted, solar cells become a lot more economical. Similar logic applies to wind, wave, and hydroelectric power. It also becomes a lot more economical to dig for power, and extract it more completely - say, from oil and natural gas pockets (no more "flares" wasting some of the gas you dig up), or drill your own geothermal well. And that's not even considering what happens when you get nano into space, where it can manufacture solar cells (Dyson sphere, anyone?) or rockets to hunt down and bring back comets and asteroids (though presumably ones which contain more power than the rockets use). And then there's other planets (a heat engine between Venus's atmosphere and the cold void of space, for instance).
BTW, this also removes land as a scarce resource. Physical proximity to pre-existing populations remains a problem, though, but it is reduced in scope.
Intellect...yeah, I'd have to agree nano doesn't give us a major supply of that. It may allow us to make better use of what little we have, but that's about it.
Maybe you and I could cooperate, but how about grumpy Mr. X who thinks our very existence, and especially the fact that we discuss ideas he disagrees with, is proof that we are minions of [insert evil religious entity here] and thus must be destroyed? Or how about the hypocrit who believes that any new technology must be bad (usually "because it disrupts the (natural, or business, or political) environment"), to the extent that its developers must be harassed mercilessly and/or assassinated, but freely uses existing technologies (including the new one, once it gets deployed)? Et cetera.
Against such threats, laws are of limited use (zero, in many cases). I'll take my own shield of nanites designed to intercept and destroy gray goo nanites instead, thank you very much.
Well...to get around problem 3, you'd probably need to enclose them in some kind of ablative heat shield, or maybe just pack a bunch of them together so at least the center cows reach the ground.
For problems 1 and 2, sure, you've got a roughly 160-fold (sqrt(19) =~ sqrt(16) = 4, 30 * 4 = 160) reduction in energy per unit mass (not counting the ablation), but remember that the point of this is to have cheap warheads. I'm not sure of the exact figures, but I suspect a well-engineered depleted uranium kinetic kill missile costs (per unit mass) well over 160 times your typical bovine. (Less, actually, if you use the bovines being slaughtered for mad cow disease: you could probably get a discount to take them out of Earth's biosphere long enough for them to become noninfectious.)
The main issue here is actually dollars per unit energy on target. Granted, the increased mass will also mean increased launch costs, so the further study might do well to include a comprehensive economic analysis. (Effectiveness of the munitions, aside from energy on target, is probably very similar: these would presumably be used on hardened targets with little ability to dodge, though the cows might be less accurate due to inability to correct for atmospheric irregularities, unless equipped with a guidance and targetting mechanism, which raises the price per munition.)
This looks like it would be ripe for the following scam:
Programmer nominates friends as bond judges, perhaps with explicit or implicit promise of a cut of the take.
Programmer cranks out a half-baked implementation of the idea, and asks the bond judges to approve it.
Bond judges comply, even though the product falls far short (in most users' eyes) of the promises.
Bond judges either cash in bonds they have bought, or get money from the programmer (who has also cashed in).
If anyone complains, bond judges have a detailed justification of their saying "yes", sufficient to convince any judge of law that the complaint may be just an honest difference of opinion between professionals, and thus not legally actionable as fraud.
And the sad thing is, this doesn't even have to be a scam. The bond judges and programmer could honestly believe they're legit. (In which case, bribing the bond judges becomes optional.) Or the bond judges could flash all kinds of credentials but be unable to honestly judge software. (Which might be solved by having reputable bond judges who are known for only approving good systems, but how does one avoid having this problem discredit the whole system until reputations can be built up?)
Clue: the astronauts are already so busy doing chores that they don't have enough time to do useful work. That's what the whole debate about 3 people or 6-7 people is all about: the station needs 3-man maintenance (maybe 2.5); the remainder, if there were more, would be able to get good experiments done.
Slashdot Mirror
Clicking to your Web site gives me a DNS error, so I can only post here and hope you see this and reply. (Remember to thwart the spamblock...)
I don't have significant amounts of money myself (and no one who does would be willing to just give it to you - yet), but I may be able to help you acquire what you need. I would like to see your dream become reality, for it is part of my dream too.
And thereafter with bioengineered nerves, trying to emulate Moore's Law? Or perhaps just speed up the chips and let the nerve connections alone...
Though, I wonder...what if one were to use this to replace natural neurons, one by one, and only speed up the neurons that had been replaced (and only when a large group of connected neurons, like the part of the brain that processes symbols, has been replaced)?
Pretty easy to get, when it's posted in the "dept" of the article itself...
Nice theory. It doesn't pan out in practice. If the USA were to completely disarm itself, and enforcably commit to staying disarmed (that is, it couldn't re-arm), the length of time that the USA could stay out of war would be about the length of time that the USA's various enemies would need to ship whatever militaries they have to North American coasts. (Canada and Mexico might not fare too well either: while the armies are there, why not pick on close allies as well?)
Even those countries not opposed to the USA's existence would have reason to keep their militaries, if only to ward off their own enemies. (Israel, for example.)
No...there is definitely water ice on Mars (check the polar ice caps). There may be ice on the Moon; the last probe to check came up about as inconclusive as whether there was life in that Martian meteorite.
But there is oxygen on the Moon, and hydrogen from the solar wind if nothing else. Add in electricity (solar panels - at the poles, where they could always be in sun - anyone?), and...
And I wouldn't put it past MS to make a special "ultra-enterprise for non-profits" edition that never actually seems to sell, possibly due to its being 1000 times market value of equivalent editions (except maybe the icons got changed a bit), but it makes a good tax writeoff.
Umm...if the guy is totally not guilty and can prove it easily, to the point where the FBI knows or should know that this person is no criminal (at least, no way could they get a jury conviction), isn't prosecution beyond that point grounds for countersuit for harassment or something, in which he could recover (at least) any and all legal fees?
Yeah, I did - but I didn't think to link it, and then there's always concern for the goatse-afraid. ;)
You mean just the code base, right? As in, I won't have to go to http://www.banjo.org/ from now on, and explain to my semi-geek friends who have heard of Slashdot but never kept up with it that I haven't changed to a redneck just because I now visit Banjo as often as I used to visit Slashdot, right?
And has 10 replies (not counting second-level ones like this reply).
Yet another example of, "The difference between theory and practice is that there is no difference, in theory."
...and all for naught if "standard procedures" become so ingrained (perhaps even burned into the ROMs) that exceptions can't be made. Which happens a lot in government agencies - like, say, the judiciary.
Encryption over the 'Net won't stop, say, keyboard monitoring, which this could be expanded to.
One can copyright the presentation of a compilation of facts, even if not the facts themselves. Someone has to be the official sayer of "X won by #### votes", et cetera, and the state owns those words since it paid for them (whether or not it knew the content in advance). Likewise, the election ballots themselves are copyrighted.
Now, this does get tricky since the thing one wishes to change - the election results, prior to publication - are merely a compilation of facts, not a published work. But watch for some corporation to put in a "pay per view" system of this data (which may stay in place even though the data is supposed to be public domain, up to a point: "reasonable access fees" are allowed, which some judge may well believe to be nonzero even for electronic media where it can be proven that the per-access costs are way less than a penny each). Then the DMCA becomes an issue.
So, if the judiciary were to file a lawsuit against workplace monitoring, would any judge in the USA be able to oversee the case as, well, an impartial judge? What if it got appealed to the Supreme Court, yet all nine sitting judges there were part of the plaintiffs?
;)
Actually, thinking about it for a bit, I'm pretty sure what the practical result would be, regardless of what the law (currently) says: Court of Public Opinion.
12mg of caffeine in 1l of urine
That's a typo, right? If a drug tester gave me those results, among my first reactions would be to wonder if the drug tester was on drugs...
I doubt many people will read this note (posted this late since I'm just now catching up on reading stories), but for the record...
The moral disconnect is already present. As it is, people already lack ability to reason why a law is there, and thus to voluntarily obey the law, at least relative to the idealized past (though there is some evidence that said moral reasoning never was all that widespread). Furthermore, there are honest disagreements about certain laws - for instance, IP rights are basically limited to one's ability to enforce said rights (through any means, including raiding businesses that are using pirated software).
Given that, getting everyone to voluntarily obey the law does not seem to be feasable in all, or even most, cases. But where and when one can come up with a technological solution, that may be feasable for all users...
I've got a syncing feeling about this.
Now, if there were no other options around, or the book renters decided to destroy all other ways of reading, that would be a baaaaaaadddd thing
"When", not "if". And they'll destroy it just as soon as they can get renting to be popular. That's not just a conspiracy theory; it's logical prediction since that action is more profitable, and they have shown themselves to be motivated primarily by profit.
As has been noted, solar cells become a lot more economical. Similar logic applies to wind, wave, and hydroelectric power. It also becomes a lot more economical to dig for power, and extract it more completely - say, from oil and natural gas pockets (no more "flares" wasting some of the gas you dig up), or drill your own geothermal well. And that's not even considering what happens when you get nano into space, where it can manufacture solar cells (Dyson sphere, anyone?) or rockets to hunt down and bring back comets and asteroids (though presumably ones which contain more power than the rockets use). And then there's other planets (a heat engine between Venus's atmosphere and the cold void of space, for instance).
BTW, this also removes land as a scarce resource. Physical proximity to pre-existing populations remains a problem, though, but it is reduced in scope.
Intellect...yeah, I'd have to agree nano doesn't give us a major supply of that. It may allow us to make better use of what little we have, but that's about it.
Maybe you and I could cooperate, but how about grumpy Mr. X who thinks our very existence, and especially the fact that we discuss ideas he disagrees with, is proof that we are minions of [insert evil religious entity here] and thus must be destroyed? Or how about the hypocrit who believes that any new technology must be bad (usually "because it disrupts the (natural, or business, or political) environment"), to the extent that its developers must be harassed mercilessly and/or assassinated, but freely uses existing technologies (including the new one, once it gets deployed)? Et cetera.
Against such threats, laws are of limited use (zero, in many cases). I'll take my own shield of nanites designed to intercept and destroy gray goo nanites instead, thank you very much.
Well...to get around problem 3, you'd probably need to enclose them in some kind of ablative heat shield, or maybe just pack a bunch of them together so at least the center cows reach the ground.
For problems 1 and 2, sure, you've got a roughly 160-fold (sqrt(19) =~ sqrt(16) = 4, 30 * 4 = 160) reduction in energy per unit mass (not counting the ablation), but remember that the point of this is to have cheap warheads. I'm not sure of the exact figures, but I suspect a well-engineered depleted uranium kinetic kill missile costs (per unit mass) well over 160 times your typical bovine. (Less, actually, if you use the bovines being slaughtered for mad cow disease: you could probably get a discount to take them out of Earth's biosphere long enough for them to become noninfectious.)
The main issue here is actually dollars per unit energy on target. Granted, the increased mass will also mean increased launch costs, so the further study might do well to include a comprehensive economic analysis. (Effectiveness of the munitions, aside from energy on target, is probably very similar: these would presumably be used on hardened targets with little ability to dodge, though the cows might be less accurate due to inability to correct for atmospheric irregularities, unless equipped with a guidance and targetting mechanism, which raises the price per munition.)
- Programmer nominates friends as bond judges, perhaps with explicit or implicit promise of a cut of the take.
- Programmer cranks out a half-baked implementation of the idea, and asks the bond judges to approve it.
- Bond judges comply, even though the product falls far short (in most users' eyes) of the promises.
- Bond judges either cash in bonds they have bought, or get money from the programmer (who has also cashed in).
- If anyone complains, bond judges have a detailed justification of their saying "yes", sufficient to convince any judge of law that the complaint may be just an honest difference of opinion between professionals, and thus not legally actionable as fraud.
And the sad thing is, this doesn't even have to be a scam. The bond judges and programmer could honestly believe they're legit. (In which case, bribing the bond judges becomes optional.) Or the bond judges could flash all kinds of credentials but be unable to honestly judge software. (Which might be solved by having reputable bond judges who are known for only approving good systems, but how does one avoid having this problem discredit the whole system until reputations can be built up?)Clue: the astronauts are already so busy doing chores that they don't have enough time to do useful work. That's what the whole debate about 3 people or 6-7 people is all about: the station needs 3-man maintenance (maybe 2.5); the remainder, if there were more, would be able to get good experiments done.