Person A: US is too busy being the world leader in other areas. Person B: Like what? Person A: Healthcare Person B: No.. costs twice as much as other countries and not twice as good. Person A: Educatian Person B: You have to be kidding! Person A: Transport Person B: You've never been to Europe have you... then again, have you ever travelled at all? Person A: What's Europe? Person B: Ok, pick another Person A: Space Person B: Well ok.. but is that really worth it? Person A: Military Person B: Somebody shoot me... * BANG *
What can we see through the hole anyway, is it a bubbling brook, or... is it a bit torrent or a stream of anonymouse proxies, with mountains of compromised data as a hazy backdrop. You can hear the roar of CPU fans as they go into overdrive, rustling paper as it flies off the desk. And as the user sits with his beloved before the radiating warmth of an overloaded PC, their eyes make contact and the Valentine rose in the grip of his teeth matches the redness of his embarrassed face.
And then she realized he was lying when he said his name was Linus.
It is arguably the case, that pr0n damages relationships (since it tends to portray improbable and fantastic situations, depicting both men and women as sexual beings in an exaggerated or at least distorted manner, and potentially discourages people from solving their problems by using their brains, and probably tempts people to go outside the bounds of their relationships in the search for sexual satisfaction, which is a proven cause of relationship breakdown). We also know what sexual portrayals (porn or whatever) do to people's spending habits - the pressure to perform sexually is one of the most potent and pervasive of the human traits utilized in advertising. Television itself does much of this without any pr0n.
Banning porn on the other hand is plain stupid, and merely increases its attractiveness, like banning alcohol or anything else. The best way to tackle porn is to make it totally free, thereby crippling the business model for the industry. Same approach would work to fix the moguls in the music industry - force people to make money from performance, and not publication of their music. So what if nobody would publish anymore for money!
I'm looking forward to all that Norwegian p0rn that's going to be published at Lego/Duplo blocky resolution! Oh wait, that's just Microsoft and their DRM!
I don't care what race she is! Latina, asian, pacific, white, black, orange, purple.. hey even alien, as long as she's pretty and carries a kickass weapon and stuff.
Very true. Closed source as you put it, led to the problems of Vioxx (Rofecoxib) and Celebrex (Celecoxib) cover ups with regards to heart attack risk, in the sense that the drug companies were not forthcoming on research which showed negative outcomes and only sold the good news to the FDA (although this is now a prohibited practice). This is not going to happen very often any more, since the payouts from lost lawsuits far outweigh the profits.
Placing the genetic information into the open arena may result in more research on diabetes, but I am fairly sure the move is designed to play into the drug company's hands, since they undoubtedly have withheld other information which may prove to be valuable, or is already the basis of research which the company believes will score them a marketable drug. In a sense, other researchers can do the expensive research while the drug company sits back and incorporates the results of other people's work into its own findings.
Now to speculate a bit more, it may well be that the drug company can't really do any broader research without having this information leaked (ie: they need to provide this data to labs around the world, which means too many people will know and it's too easy to let the cat out of the bag). Therefore it is easier to publish the information and look good at the same time. The only way to avoid leaked information is to run the company's operations from one or two very large research facilities, which probably limits their potential employee base and leads to intellectual incest (a bit like Redmond!).
Maybe drug companies are coming to realize that centralized, monolithic R&D is not the cheapest way to get the work done, and that much of their research can be done more cheaply in smaller, possibly independent outfits whose incentive is to obtain a small royalty for the research they can then sell to the drug companies.
.. or a nude bomb if the attacker is spreading porn, or a great big armoured bulldozer to dig up a worm attack, or a bunch of soldiers with spears and shiny metal shields and stuff if it's a Trojan, or a firetruck if the enemy runs a firewall...
Depending on the location of the computers, it might be a carpet bomb, or a bunker buster if it's a teenager's PC in a basement somewhere, or if they run on expensive computers running *nix, a cluster bomb, or if it's a server farm, they might use napalm with agent orange...
Next State of the Union Address - "Mah nayum is Obama, and ayuma gowna gecha Osama! Ayuma gowna find ya, poach ya, smoke ya outta your hole!"
Watching the news will suddenly become so confusing. I think they'll have to find a replacement for Osama if he gets elected, otherwise they might accidentally catch the right guy.
I recently had to replace one of those 90 watt power supplies for my Inspiron 9300 because the 19V DC cable lining dried up, cracked and eventually there was arcing and short circuiting of the power supply. It also ran very hot and needed always to be ventilated otherwise it was too hot to touch. I've had it replaced, but I was very aware of the fire risk, especially leaving the laptop plugged in overnight for a recharge.
In addition, there have been reports of current leaks from the Dell Inspiron 17 inch casing - I have noticed this myself when using an external hard drive which is earthed - touching it and having the laptop on my lap when wearing shorts results in shocks on my knees.... of course I'm sure many people don't mind that - depends what you're into! But I read somewhere the voltage of the leak was as high as 30-60V DC.
Though I love my PC - I won't buy another Dell - I think they are cutting too many corners.
Either way, one thing can be noticed from all of these free speech issues. When it comes to those with power, they love to be seen as champions of the people and praised for their activities, as long as you don't threaten their business model, their ego, their religion or their masters:
All speech is free, but some speech is more free than other speech.
Maybe, if by "democracy" you mean "power to the people", and not just a representative voting system. The term American democracy is pretty much an oxymoron now.
The worry is not that there is a Chinese government doing this, since our own governments are doing this to us - perhaps not as overtly. The worry is the database itself, what a powerful tool it is, and how effective it could be in stopping organised dissent by removing anonymity.
It really is an extension to pre-existing centralized telephone exchange records which have existed for a long time. These are analysed to form social networks which can be used for all sorts of frightening big brother things.
So what if it's the Chinese government? It is just as worrying that the UK and USA have the same thing. It only takes a few months for a democracy to turn into a dictatorship in the event of a big war.
Although historically medical advances were military in origin (major surgery mostly), the major diseases that confront wealthy societies have very little to do with combat. Take cancer or heart disease or diabetes as examples (although depleted uranium may be a way to generate cases) - we don't have any shortage of people with these complaints. Civilian society is driving medicine forward in these fields. What is more, vaccination against common fatal infections was arguably the greatest medical advance of the 20th century, and this did not come about because of the army.
Just to give credence to your point:)
A viable business model for the solar energy solution might be for new houses to be built with high efficiency solar arrays on rooves, using the energy for household purposes and selling excess energy. Therefore a return on investment could be expected. Excess daytime energy can be stored for night-time use, though this is fairly inefficient (the most efficient method is pumping water uphill to a dam).
In places like Australia this is quite achievable, as governments have been fairly forthcoming at times with giving grants and subsidies to people taking up environmental initiatives, and on the other hand issuing strict regulations for energy saving methods of house design.
With the prices of electricity which exist in Australia, for example, it's actually a very achievable aim - with a $10,000AUD outlay for a regular household solar array, recouping the investment occurs in about 10 years.
I don't think having solar farms is the only solution - only the big business solution.
Slashdot Mirror
Travel, and you will see.
Person A: US is too busy being the world leader in other areas.
Person B: Like what?
Person A: Healthcare
Person B: No.. costs twice as much as other countries and not twice as good.
Person A: Educatian
Person B: You have to be kidding!
Person A: Transport
Person B: You've never been to Europe have you... then again, have you ever travelled at all?
Person A: What's Europe?
Person B: Ok, pick another
Person A: Space
Person B: Well ok.. but is that really worth it?
Person A: Military
Person B: Somebody shoot me...
* BANG *
Probably because those wimpy volunteers demanded an anaesthetic from a trained specialist.. the nerve! (so to speak)
What can we see through the hole anyway, is it a bubbling brook, or ... is it a bit torrent or a stream of anonymouse proxies, with mountains of compromised data as a hazy backdrop. You can hear the roar of CPU fans as they go into overdrive, rustling paper as it flies off the desk. And as the user sits with his beloved before the radiating warmth of an overloaded PC, their eyes make contact and the Valentine rose in the grip of his teeth matches the redness of his embarrassed face.
And then she realized he was lying when he said his name was Linus.
What's really hilarious about all this is that so many people don't find it hilarious!
Even better.. "do you care about sex in games?"
that would strike a chord, I am sure!
It is arguably the case, that pr0n damages relationships (since it tends to portray improbable and fantastic situations, depicting both men and women as sexual beings in an exaggerated or at least distorted manner, and potentially discourages people from solving their problems by using their brains, and probably tempts people to go outside the bounds of their relationships in the search for sexual satisfaction, which is a proven cause of relationship breakdown). We also know what sexual portrayals (porn or whatever) do to people's spending habits - the pressure to perform sexually is one of the most potent and pervasive of the human traits utilized in advertising. Television itself does much of this without any pr0n.
Banning porn on the other hand is plain stupid, and merely increases its attractiveness, like banning alcohol or anything else. The best way to tackle porn is to make it totally free, thereby crippling the business model for the industry. Same approach would work to fix the moguls in the music industry - force people to make money from performance, and not publication of their music. So what if nobody would publish anymore for money!
I'm looking forward to all that Norwegian p0rn that's going to be published at Lego/Duplo blocky resolution! Oh wait, that's just Microsoft and their DRM!
I don't care what race she is! Latina, asian, pacific, white, black, orange, purple.. hey even alien, as long as she's pretty and carries a kickass weapon and stuff.
Wow, kinky! A bendy phone that runs on a syb.. oh, a symbian! nevermind!
Very true. Closed source as you put it, led to the problems of Vioxx (Rofecoxib) and Celebrex (Celecoxib) cover ups with regards to heart attack risk, in the sense that the drug companies were not forthcoming on research which showed negative outcomes and only sold the good news to the FDA (although this is now a prohibited practice). This is not going to happen very often any more, since the payouts from lost lawsuits far outweigh the profits.
Placing the genetic information into the open arena may result in more research on diabetes, but I am fairly sure the move is designed to play into the drug company's hands, since they undoubtedly have withheld other information which may prove to be valuable, or is already the basis of research which the company believes will score them a marketable drug. In a sense, other researchers can do the expensive research while the drug company sits back and incorporates the results of other people's work into its own findings.
Now to speculate a bit more, it may well be that the drug company can't really do any broader research without having this information leaked (ie: they need to provide this data to labs around the world, which means too many people will know and it's too easy to let the cat out of the bag). Therefore it is easier to publish the information and look good at the same time. The only way to avoid leaked information is to run the company's operations from one or two very large research facilities, which probably limits their potential employee base and leads to intellectual incest (a bit like Redmond!).
Maybe drug companies are coming to realize that centralized, monolithic R&D is not the cheapest way to get the work done, and that much of their research can be done more cheaply in smaller, possibly independent outfits whose incentive is to obtain a small royalty for the research they can then sell to the drug companies.
.. or a nude bomb if the attacker is spreading porn, or a great big armoured bulldozer to dig up a worm attack, or a bunch of soldiers with spears and shiny metal shields and stuff if it's a Trojan, or a firetruck if the enemy runs a firewall...
Depending on the location of the computers, it might be a carpet bomb, or a bunker buster if it's a teenager's PC in a basement somewhere, or if they run on expensive computers running *nix, a cluster bomb, or if it's a server farm, they might use napalm with agent orange...
Oh.. bummer!
Next State of the Union Address - "Mah nayum is Obama, and ayuma gowna gecha Osama! Ayuma gowna find ya, poach ya, smoke ya outta your hole!"
Watching the news will suddenly become so confusing. I think they'll have to find a replacement for Osama if he gets elected, otherwise they might accidentally catch the right guy.
I recently had to replace one of those 90 watt power supplies for my Inspiron 9300 because the 19V DC cable lining dried up, cracked and eventually there was arcing and short circuiting of the power supply. It also ran very hot and needed always to be ventilated otherwise it was too hot to touch. I've had it replaced, but I was very aware of the fire risk, especially leaving the laptop plugged in overnight for a recharge.
In addition, there have been reports of current leaks from the Dell Inspiron 17 inch casing - I have noticed this myself when using an external hard drive which is earthed - touching it and having the laptop on my lap when wearing shorts results in shocks on my knees. ... of course I'm sure many people don't mind that - depends what you're into! But I read somewhere the voltage of the leak was as high as 30-60V DC.
Though I love my PC - I won't buy another Dell - I think they are cutting too many corners.
Either way, one thing can be noticed from all of these free speech issues. When it comes to those with power, they love to be seen as champions of the people and praised for their activities, as long as you don't threaten their business model, their ego, their religion or their masters: All speech is free, but some speech is more free than other speech.
And by "fraud", they mean "democracy".
Maybe, if by "democracy" you mean "power to the people", and not just a representative voting system. The term American democracy is pretty much an oxymoron now.
The worry is not that there is a Chinese government doing this, since our own governments are doing this to us - perhaps not as overtly. The worry is the database itself, what a powerful tool it is, and how effective it could be in stopping organised dissent by removing anonymity.
It really is an extension to pre-existing centralized telephone exchange records which have existed for a long time. These are analysed to form social networks which can be used for all sorts of frightening big brother things.
So what if it's the Chinese government? It is just as worrying that the UK and USA have the same thing. It only takes a few months for a democracy to turn into a dictatorship in the event of a big war.
Although historically medical advances were military in origin (major surgery mostly), the major diseases that confront wealthy societies have very little to do with combat. Take cancer or heart disease or diabetes as examples (although depleted uranium may be a way to generate cases) - we don't have any shortage of people with these complaints. Civilian society is driving medicine forward in these fields. What is more, vaccination against common fatal infections was arguably the greatest medical advance of the 20th century, and this did not come about because of the army. Just to give credence to your point :)
A viable business model for the solar energy solution might be for new houses to be built with high efficiency solar arrays on rooves, using the energy for household purposes and selling excess energy. Therefore a return on investment could be expected. Excess daytime energy can be stored for night-time use, though this is fairly inefficient (the most efficient method is pumping water uphill to a dam). In places like Australia this is quite achievable, as governments have been fairly forthcoming at times with giving grants and subsidies to people taking up environmental initiatives, and on the other hand issuing strict regulations for energy saving methods of house design. With the prices of electricity which exist in Australia, for example, it's actually a very achievable aim - with a $10,000AUD outlay for a regular household solar array, recouping the investment occurs in about 10 years. I don't think having solar farms is the only solution - only the big business solution.