This is like "nine out of ten doctors recommend..." which usually means nine out of THESE SPECIFIC ten doctors recommend...
Sure there are some out there who might say that in their opinion, PDAs are making people dumber. That doesn't make them right. These are just unfounded scare tactics.
OK first of all, there's a huge difference between what NASA does research on, and what the FAA approves. The FAA is a very conservative, safety-oriented organisation, and avoids change as much as possible. If this thing was put into fighter production tomorrow, it would be a decade before civil planes saw such a device.
Secondly, let's look at what this is: a fundamentally new way of controlling a plane with the same old movements. It's exciting and innovative, but effectively the pilot is still flying in the same manner as he did before, although without a joystick in his hand. Fly-by-wire systems and positional sensors offer the same capability.
Ultimately though, this is the thin edge of the wedge. Make no mistake--this will lead to entirely new ways of interfacing with machines of all types, and may be the start of true virtual reality. (like the transistor was the start of the modern portable computer) This isn't a device - it's a technology.
It's not the language to blame. HOWEVER, some languages are more susceptible to weaknesses than others. It's (vaguely) like a gun without a safety: Still not dangerous when locked in a cupboard, but much easier to accidentally pull the trigger if you're being ever so slightly careless with it.
Fascinating argument. There's one thing that I might question, though. "...authors who, given some choice..."
Speaking from the sidelines of the musician community, I don't see a lot of choice either there or in the publishing industry. If you want to make a good living and reach a wide audience, you deal with the publishers and accept their lobotomy licenses. If you want to retain reasonable control over your material and distribute it how YOU want it done, then you self-publish and maybe sell enough to cover your costs.
I'd be very interested to hear how your book is doing in a year. I suspect that if it's good,
you might have covered costs by then. No more. I'd love to be wrong about this, mind you. I think that the world is just now starting to develop cheap and efficient self-distribution channels for independents like yourself which will create the choices we want to see. Really, that's what scares the Big Media Companies(tm) the most. The spectre of most musicians and writers being able to live comfortably off of self-published material, that doesn't involve them!
First of all, kudos to Intel for this. Nice modification to their product.
However, the writing in this story hit a new low, even for C|Net. It seems as though the reporter couldn't justify transcribing the entire press release, so he added a few sentences of his own. Aside from that, it was pure and utter pro-Intel, end of Transmeta, drivel.
C|Net has never had great reporting, but this _stunk_.
Hmmm. I understand the argument, but I'm not always convinced that it's true.
Has the threat of nuclear war really limited the extent of actual war? The only way we can say for sure is if we can develop a time machine, and try it again. Postulation about the last 50 years is just that--postulating.
Also, assuming it's true that peace can be enforced via superior firepower, is it the ONLY way? Wouldn't it be better to look for ways of achieving peace that didn't involve big sticks?
2.2.18 rocks? Super! Stick with it! There's no penalty for those who don't upgrade.
I had to go to 2.4 because I need iptables. Aside from my packet filter machine, I'll probably stick with 2.2.18, just because I've got it finely tweaked and everything works perfectly.
"I hate to use the word 'paradigm,' but mind-set changes are happening here," added Maj. George Vogen, who helped run the game. "This is the next step in seeing the growth of space into its own right."
So now growth in any field is measured by how much it can be militarised? *sigh*
I understand that this guy IS a Major, and this comment WAS in the context of wargames, but I still think that the mindset holds true in a much wider realm, and that's a bad think in my mind.
Agreed, but then I'm not in the US either. I find it curious to see that every followup so far is (a) from the US, and and (b) in favour of military escalation.
"But what about the rogue countries?" This isn't a small rogue country we're talking about--it's the fourth vs. the third largest country in the world. In other words, BIG war.
"Peace will never happen." I'm afraid I tend to agree with this, but proactive escalation can't be the answer!
Even those who don't exactly agree with it say, "The US should only get involved where their interests are at stake." Like Cuba? Like Iraq? The US (or anyone) bombing countries into the ground over their own oil or political issues is fairly reprehensible.
You mean to tell me they're not really going to make every one of the defendants write out ":-( is a registered trademark of Despair, Inc." a thousand times by hand?
Poop. I would have liked to see that.
I have to confess that I was a _tiny_ bit suspicious when I read, "Whether you are a 4th grade nothing using your momma's AOL account, or you are Time Magazine's "Man of the Year", we are going to hunt you down, and when we do, we're really going to give you something to:-(® about."
Ah well. I'll have to get my amusement elsewhere I guess.
Since these are standards we're talking about, they are facts by virtue of a formalised agreement in an international group of peers in their fields of study.
Countries get together and form an organisation which is assigned the authority for naming and measurement standards within a given field. By creating a formalised common language, they facilitate the unambiguous flow of information.
Using a completely different system causes a lot of problems, and isn't viable. Tweaking the system arbitrarily is nothing more than an ego-trip; a way of saying, "I'm important enough to follow my OWN rules!" while doing nothing of the sort. Or alternatively, it could be plain ignorance.
I mean, who are these losers? How many AUs is Neil Tyson's head up his ass?
OK, so I'm not being polite. I'm sick and fucking tired of people (especially educators and scientists) who should know better declaring whatever they damned well feel like, regardless of the facts.
Here then are some facts that deserve to be spread and repeated, until they replace the incorrect versions.
FACT: Pluto is a planet. The INTERNATIONAL Astronomical Union (not some fucking museum in the US) says so.
FACT: The 13th element on the periodic table is aluminium, not aluminum. IUPAC has confirmed it time and time again, regardless of what the bloody ACS says.
FACT: A meter is a device. A metre is a unit of measure.
Damn straight! Transformers were the 'end of the end' for Saturday morning cartoons, and the toys were just as bloody awful as the show. I'm reserving a special place in hell for the marketeers who came up with this mindless, unentertaining crap.
What I find most interesting is the age-related aspects of it all. The cartoons I remeber fondly were from a few years earlier, when the _average_ age of/.ers was about 1 year old. As I grew older, the cartoons got crappier. Then about five years ago, they got better again! There are some BRILLIANT cartoons on TV right now, which are being created by my microgeneration--the ones who remember what cartoons were like _before_ transformers.
"The bad response, which seem to predominate, is to scream and rant and rage, steroetype and insult your opposition and ignore any chance there could be real concern in there."
But it's so much EASIER! Also usually more fun. In fact, ranting and stereotyping has got absolutely everything going for it, except for the minor problem that it doesn't get anything done.
I've said before that librarians have generally done a fine job of selecting what they do and don't want in their libraries over the centuries. Why don't we work at developing generic tools which can be set as appropriate by the librarians, if they so desire? I'm not normally an open source zealot, but this is one case where it's absolutely essential that the code be open for review, and you can bet that FCC censorware (along with it's stupid rules) won't be.
Disclaimer: I'm not a citizen or resident of the USA.
You make a good point, and I partly agree with it. Two objections though:
1) This is all about public schools ***and*** libraries. NOT public schools' libraries. I'm much more worried about censoring public libraries.
2) The federal government shouldn't be bothering with this, except to limit what grounds libraries _can't_ censor on.
I don't see a problem with libraries--and definitely school libraries--deciding not to pick some stuff up, but the government shouldn't be the ones to tell them what to carry or not.
You know, I'm not so convinced that this is true anymore. Here's my rationale.
Eventually people will do _everything_, both good and bad, with science and knowledge. Anything that's phsically possible will be realised eventually.
Given that premise, I see the potential for knowledge and/or discoveries that have MUCH more severe negative consequences than positive. Maybe they have no positive consequences at all. Those negative consequences will still be exploited. Is knowledge still neutral?
Ah, now THAT's the sort of thing I was hoping to hear! ZPG is a possible option. So is mandatory death at a certain age. Can you just imagine it? "Happy 140th! *BLAM!!!*"
OK, that was a little sick.:-)
But you're looking at the options, instead of screaming "neophobe!" at anyone who doesn't blindly embrace new technology. It's heartening.
"(Hmm... How does one pursue this without horribly abusing the first person singular subjective pronoun? This is a sign that this would be a Very Big Development - the structure of our language can't handle it.)"
<p>Oh that's easy, as anyone in the British Commonwealth will tell you. Use the Royal We.
:-)
Um, maybe I wasn't too clear. I wasn't saying that it would (or should, or whatever) necessarily be available in the third world. I meant to say that in the first world, there's no presuming that an increase in lifespan would necessarily be followed in a decrease in birth rate. That's all.
Right. Birth rate goes down as standards of living, health, and education increase. (Although there's usually a lag of many years between the two.) That's the thing we've seen time and time again as third world nations develop and move towards first world status.
That doesn't have any bearing on what would happen when a greatly increased lifespan gets introduced into a society that's already got low mortality, low birth rate, and high standard of living. It's never been done, we have no experience with it, and any predictions are bound to be complete guesses.
It took a few minutes to bite back the truly nasty replies forming in my head. Instead, I'll just ask this: WHY does anyone who commits the heresy of questioning powerful and double-edged technology get branded a "neophobe?" Are you incapable of looking beyond the end of your nose, or are you just too excited by this week's nifty discovery?
WHY would living forever be great? Where does your idea of our destiny come from?
Technology _will_ advance, whether we like it or not. Trying to avoid it seems pointless, and that's certainly not my goal here. However, ageless humans would (will?) have vast and profound consequences on the entire race. Let's try to sort out those consequences now, before we end up saying, "oh shit, why didn't we do this 50 years ago, before it was too late?"
Slashdot Mirror
This is like "nine out of ten doctors recommend..." which usually means nine out of THESE SPECIFIC ten doctors recommend...
Sure there are some out there who might say that in their opinion, PDAs are making people dumber. That doesn't make them right. These are just unfounded scare tactics.
Thank you! That's the clearest and most understandable definition I've heard so far.
OK first of all, there's a huge difference between what NASA does research on, and what the FAA approves. The FAA is a very conservative, safety-oriented organisation, and avoids change as much as possible. If this thing was put into fighter production tomorrow, it would be a decade before civil planes saw such a device.
Secondly, let's look at what this is: a fundamentally new way of controlling a plane with the same old movements. It's exciting and innovative, but effectively the pilot is still flying in the same manner as he did before, although without a joystick in his hand. Fly-by-wire systems and positional sensors offer the same capability.
Ultimately though, this is the thin edge of the wedge. Make no mistake--this will lead to entirely new ways of interfacing with machines of all types, and may be the start of true virtual reality. (like the transistor was the start of the modern portable computer) This isn't a device - it's a technology.
It's not the language to blame. HOWEVER, some languages are more susceptible to weaknesses than others. It's (vaguely) like a gun without a safety: Still not dangerous when locked in a cupboard, but much easier to accidentally pull the trigger if you're being ever so slightly careless with it.
Fascinating argument. There's one thing that I might question, though. "...authors who, given some choice... "
Speaking from the sidelines of the musician community, I don't see a lot of choice either there or in the publishing industry. If you want to make a good living and reach a wide audience, you deal with the publishers and accept their lobotomy licenses. If you want to retain reasonable control over your material and distribute it how YOU want it done, then you self-publish and maybe sell enough to cover your costs.
I'd be very interested to hear how your book is doing in a year. I suspect that if it's good, you might have covered costs by then. No more. I'd love to be wrong about this, mind you. I think that the world is just now starting to develop cheap and efficient self-distribution channels for independents like yourself which will create the choices we want to see. Really, that's what scares the Big Media Companies(tm) the most. The spectre of most musicians and writers being able to live comfortably off of self-published material, that doesn't involve them!
First of all, kudos to Intel for this. Nice modification to their product.
However, the writing in this story hit a new low, even for C|Net. It seems as though the reporter couldn't justify transcribing the entire press release, so he added a few sentences of his own. Aside from that, it was pure and utter pro-Intel, end of Transmeta, drivel.
C|Net has never had great reporting, but this _stunk_.
Hmmm. I understand the argument, but I'm not always convinced that it's true.
Has the threat of nuclear war really limited the extent of actual war? The only way we can say for sure is if we can develop a time machine, and try it again. Postulation about the last 50 years is just that--postulating.
Also, assuming it's true that peace can be enforced via superior firepower, is it the ONLY way? Wouldn't it be better to look for ways of achieving peace that didn't involve big sticks?
Yeah--someone who, through his research, effectively proved that God DOES play dice with the universe!
Let's not forget that this comment was a refutation of his own conclusions.
2.2.18 rocks? Super! Stick with it! There's no penalty for those who don't upgrade.
I had to go to 2.4 because I need iptables. Aside from my packet filter machine, I'll probably stick with 2.2.18, just because I've got it finely tweaked and everything works perfectly.
So here's to no "upgrade now!" thumbscrews!
"I hate to use the word 'paradigm,' but mind-set changes are happening here," added Maj. George Vogen, who helped run the game. "This is the next step in seeing the growth of space into its own right."
So now growth in any field is measured by how much it can be militarised? *sigh*
I understand that this guy IS a Major, and this comment WAS in the context of wargames, but I still think that the mindset holds true in a much wider realm, and that's a bad think in my mind.
Agreed, but then I'm not in the US either. I find it curious to see that every followup so far is (a) from the US, and and (b) in favour of military escalation.
"But what about the rogue countries?" This isn't a small rogue country we're talking about--it's the fourth vs. the third largest country in the world. In other words, BIG war.
"Peace will never happen." I'm afraid I tend to agree with this, but proactive escalation can't be the answer!
Even those who don't exactly agree with it say, "The US should only get involved where their interests are at stake." Like Cuba? Like Iraq? The US (or anyone) bombing countries into the ground over their own oil or political issues is fairly reprehensible.
But then again, they voted for Bush jr.
You mean to tell me they're not really going to make every one of the defendants write out ":-( is a registered trademark of Despair, Inc." a thousand times by hand?
:-(® about."
Poop. I would have liked to see that.
I have to confess that I was a _tiny_ bit suspicious when I read, "Whether you are a 4th grade nothing using your momma's AOL account, or you are Time Magazine's "Man of the Year", we are going to hunt you down, and when we do, we're really going to give you something to
Ah well. I'll have to get my amusement elsewhere I guess.
Since these are standards we're talking about, they are facts by virtue of a formalised agreement in an international group of peers in their fields of study.
Countries get together and form an organisation which is assigned the authority for naming and measurement standards within a given field. By creating a formalised common language, they facilitate the unambiguous flow of information.
Using a completely different system causes a lot of problems, and isn't viable. Tweaking the system arbitrarily is nothing more than an ego-trip; a way of saying, "I'm important enough to follow my OWN rules!" while doing nothing of the sort. Or alternatively, it could be plain ignorance.
I mean, who are these losers? How many AUs is Neil Tyson's head up his ass?
OK, so I'm not being polite. I'm sick and fucking tired of people (especially educators and scientists) who should know better declaring whatever they damned well feel like, regardless of the facts.
Here then are some facts that deserve to be spread and repeated, until they replace the incorrect versions.
FACT: Pluto is a planet. The INTERNATIONAL Astronomical Union (not some fucking museum in the US) says so.
FACT: The 13th element on the periodic table is aluminium, not aluminum. IUPAC has confirmed it time and time again, regardless of what the bloody ACS says.
FACT: A meter is a device. A metre is a unit of measure.
And so on.
*grumblefuck*
Damn straight! Transformers were the 'end of the end' for Saturday morning cartoons, and the toys were just as bloody awful as the show. I'm reserving a special place in hell for the marketeers who came up with this mindless, unentertaining crap.
/.ers was about 1 year old. As I grew older, the cartoons got crappier. Then about five years ago, they got better again! There are some BRILLIANT cartoons on TV right now, which are being created by my microgeneration--the ones who remember what cartoons were like _before_ transformers.
What I find most interesting is the age-related aspects of it all. The cartoons I remeber fondly were from a few years earlier, when the _average_ age of
"The bad response, which seem to predominate, is to scream and rant and rage, steroetype and insult your opposition and ignore any chance there could be real concern in there."
But it's so much EASIER! Also usually more fun. In fact, ranting and stereotyping has got absolutely everything going for it, except for the minor problem that it doesn't get anything done.
I'm just waiting for Amazon to announce the same thing.
"Now that's a joke, son!"
...but mandatory legislated filtering is!
I've said before that librarians have generally done a fine job of selecting what they do and don't want in their libraries over the centuries. Why don't we work at developing generic tools which can be set as appropriate by the librarians, if they so desire? I'm not normally an open source zealot, but this is one case where it's absolutely essential that the code be open for review, and you can bet that FCC censorware (along with it's stupid rules) won't be.
Disclaimer: I'm not a citizen or resident of the USA.
You make a good point, and I partly agree with it. Two objections though:
1) This is all about public schools ***and*** libraries. NOT public schools' libraries. I'm much more worried about censoring public libraries.
2) The federal government shouldn't be bothering with this, except to limit what grounds libraries _can't_ censor on.
I don't see a problem with libraries--and definitely school libraries--deciding not to pick some stuff up, but the government shouldn't be the ones to tell them what to carry or not.
You know, I'm not so convinced that this is true anymore. Here's my rationale.
Eventually people will do _everything_, both good and bad, with science and knowledge. Anything that's phsically possible will be realised eventually.
Given that premise, I see the potential for knowledge and/or discoveries that have MUCH more severe negative consequences than positive. Maybe they have no positive consequences at all. Those negative consequences will still be exploited. Is knowledge still neutral?
Ah, now THAT's the sort of thing I was hoping to hear! ZPG is a possible option. So is mandatory death at a certain age. Can you just imagine it? "Happy 140th! *BLAM!!!*"
:-)
OK, that was a little sick.
But you're looking at the options, instead of screaming "neophobe!" at anyone who doesn't blindly embrace new technology. It's heartening.
"(Hmm... How does one pursue this without horribly abusing the first person singular subjective pronoun? This is a sign that this would be a Very Big Development - the structure of our language can't handle it.)"
<p>Oh that's easy, as anyone in the British Commonwealth will tell you. Use the Royal We.
:-)
Um, maybe I wasn't too clear. I wasn't saying that it would (or should, or whatever) necessarily be available in the third world. I meant to say that in the first world, there's no presuming that an increase in lifespan would necessarily be followed in a decrease in birth rate. That's all.
Right. Birth rate goes down as standards of living, health, and education increase. (Although there's usually a lag of many years between the two.) That's the thing we've seen time and time again as third world nations develop and move towards first world status.
That doesn't have any bearing on what would happen when a greatly increased lifespan gets introduced into a society that's already got low mortality, low birth rate, and high standard of living. It's never been done, we have no experience with it, and any predictions are bound to be complete guesses.
It took a few minutes to bite back the truly nasty replies forming in my head. Instead, I'll just ask this: WHY does anyone who commits the heresy of questioning powerful and double-edged technology get branded a "neophobe?" Are you incapable of looking beyond the end of your nose, or are you just too excited by this week's nifty discovery?
WHY would living forever be great? Where does your idea of our destiny come from?
Technology _will_ advance, whether we like it or not. Trying to avoid it seems pointless, and that's certainly not my goal here. However, ageless humans would (will?) have vast and profound consequences on the entire race. Let's try to sort out those consequences now, before we end up saying, "oh shit, why didn't we do this 50 years ago, before it was too late?"