Re:The lack of tech understanding in popular cultu
on
Daemon
·
· Score: 1
> it would probably have pissed off Ludlum fans to see a technically sloppy adaptation of his book.
As opposed to a technically accurate, total ignoring of the plot and characters of his book, like the Matt Damon movie was? The only thing that they kept were some names, that she was French-Canadian, and that he had amnesia.
BTW, I only suppose that it was technically accurate. I expect that an ex-SEAL friend of mine would find the combat as awful as we do using Visual Basic to make a GUI of something better handled via command line and piping long-existing tools.
If you want to see the book, watch the Richard Chamberlain TV movie version. Except that isn't politically correct, because the US government isn't being gratuitously evil for trying to hunt down Carlos The Jackal, or even by the means chosen.
And yes, I was pissed off enough to skip any other Bourne work that Damon ever does, even The Bourne Shell.
> Everyday I see Congressmen using cellphones; if those > can be secure enough to carry day-to-day government > business, why not other wireless devices?
Because Congresscritters have the memory of mayflies? They are NOT secure, as anyone who was awake during the incident where some Democrat couple produced a recording of a conversation between Speaker Newt Gingerich and his legal advisors could tell you. Even if the phones that they were issued had claimed end-to-end encryption, unless produced by someone who had no reason to ever want to monitor or intercept the communications, which is a tad unlikely.
Of course, Congress also has no day-to-day government business, as that is the executive branch's purpose; Congress exists to plot the long range course by the Federal budget, and by banning certain directions by making them illegal. As such, the actions of its members need not be secret, or secure for denial-of-service or monitoring, merely secure against fake messages from a third party. The Armed Services and Intelligence committees of each House would be the exception.
Of course, were I in the Secret Service, I would also wonder about the advisability of a radio beacon constantly identifying POTUS' location, as well. If I had some way to ensure that it did NOT connect when someone didn't explicitly ask it to, that might be a step towards reducing this worry, at least
Promise? Another reason to promote wind farms. Seagull populations are unnaturally high in the area, due to commercial fishing. And they are as annoying as pigeons.
> 1300 raptors are killed annually
How many die from the effects of coal-fired plant exhausts?
> Not saying Microsoft doesn't kill people, albeit not on purpose
There are warships based around Windows CE. The question is, in those situations, is MS killing the targets, or the ship's crew, with more effectiveness.
Galileo mapped the Moon as a consequence of using his telescope.
Harriot mapped the Moon as a consequence of having good eyesight and patience.
Using Galileo's method, anyone could repeat the process, especially with a better telescope, and get the same or better results. Using Harriot's method, anyone could repeat the experiment, probably producing worse results (God knows, I would) because their eyesight was normal or worse, while his was probably excellent, and they didn't have as long to waste on the process.
Comparing the two is like saying that X didn't take 1.5 volumes to get to the point of proving 1+1=2, as did Whitehead and Russell, and so X should be better known. The fact that the lemma proving 1+1=2 was put in as a bit of a joke is thus completely skipped, as is Galileo mapping the Moon because he had to start somewhere. His goal was to start using the telescope for astro-studies (astronomy and astrology being one thing, at that time).
> It works because the workers get the money > (they increase coffee consumption as you say, and that's > exactly what increases GDP the most..)
No, increased coffee production increases the economy the least. Increased buying from local producers (say, for milk) improves the economy; increased imports improves the economy in the source country at the expense of the importing country, because any economic multiplier effect occurs there and not here.
> and the industry gets better infrastuctures so that they can reduce costs and compete better.
Taxpaying (i.e., local) industry gets the better infrastructure, not everyone else in the world (and only if the infrastructure is useful; bridges to nowhere do not help at any time, unless "nowhere" is suddenly exploitable when it had not been before, and has resources to exploit).
NASA paying for the Apollo program improved the American economy, but NASA paying Australia to support the Deep Space Network only helped the US economy to the extent that it was cheaper to rent their help than to do it ourselves (perhaps a carrier-based radio dish, or something), and only after the multiplier effect of paying an American company to do those modifications was taken into effect.
Perhaps the USA paying for FOSS software will improve the entire world economy, but unless it can be confined to the USA it will not improve the USA economy, which is the US Government's job in a recession, not helping the other 94% of the world's populace, as well. If the FOSS support is restricted to US residents, it may be politically feasible, but otherwise it is nonsense politically as well as economically.
> The only problem is that these politicians somehow either > don't understand or are exempt from these procedures.
No, the problem is that their staff makes the arrangements weeks or months in advance. Therefore, registering 72 hours in advance seems trivial, since they might have done so 72 days in advance, and they aren't doing it, their staff is. Two layers of isolation.
> I've never seen a bat hover, and I don't think I've ever seen a bat fly in a straight line.
Because moths do not fly in a straight line, especially when chased by hungry bats. OTOH, how much deftness does it take to sneak up on a flower, especially given that it NEEDS the hummingbird to fertilize the flowers?
Take a look at bat wing design. Pterosaurs and birds each use(d) just one finger for the wing, and let the others atrophy, while bats seem to use several of theirs in the wing, making it much more complex, therefore nimble.
> I agree. I've just never heard of Government as a solution for inefficiency and waste.....
In their role as sponsor of the National Bureau of Weights And Measures, which became the National Bureau of Standards, which became the National Institute of Standards and Technology, it is. This level of government just goes on below the average person's notice, since it is seldom a matter of partisan bickering.
Alternatively, you can look at it as payment "in kind" (see here, though admittedly it's very short) rather than in cash, which (if memory serves) isn't considered taxable because there's no exchange of money (either real stuff, or bits over a wire as in electronic funds transfers).
Keep in mind with that last that I am not a tax professional, nor do I even work at H&R Blockhead.
It shows. Barter is in-kind payment, and it is quite taxable, in standard currency, based on the monetary value of what the taxpayer receives. Otherwise, you could be paid in gold bullion, barrels of oil, or fine art without owing any taxes. Barterers tend to keep lousy records, though, so it is difficult to go after small amounts, just like with unreported tips, proceeds from illegal business transactions (not reporting his bootlegging profits is how they sent Al Capone to jail, after all), etc.
And *I* an not a tax professional, either.
> Flooding wetlands, as dams inevitably do, removes important carbon sinks
Wetlands are also heavy sources of methane, even as they remove CO2. Since methane is a far more effective greenhouse gas than CO2, this is an improvement. The goal to "Carbon Neutrality" is, after all, to affect the Greenhouse Effect, not just reduce carbon; magically converting it all to a giant diamond lens located at the Earth-Sun Lagrangian Point and focusing the light that would have missed the Earth back on the Earth would NOT be a positive.
Of course, they were right. Prince Henry had the better idea of how to get to the Orient. The Spanish had to sail around those big continent-thingies in the middle, that Columbus didn't think of because he blew his calculations of the Earth's diameter. Our math is better than his.
> Does somebody more eco-wise want to set me straight and > explain why an e-reader is so much "greener" than dead trees?
The paper-making process is very non-green. Really, it should be called the waste-making process, with paper as a minor byproduct. OTOH, I doubt that most e-readers are all that perfect in their manufacturing processes, either.
Of course, the high-quality magazine paper (like DDJ is printed upon) is ecologically worse than book paper, or pulp (ala WWII SF mags), too. The high clay content make it much harder to recycle higher-quality (printing) magazines.
Still, claiming eco-friendliness for either is rather silly. When e-readers can last a century, like at least SOME magazine copies have, they might have a point, unless the owner only uses them for a few things, in which case "dead trees" wins. Unless e-readers include magically recycling old units, rather than letting owners just bury it in the trash, they will have the problem of old units piling up, Wall-E style.
So if you have had laser surgery correction, you will end up using glasses anyway, and they will have to be more powerful than the ones you would have needed had you not had the surgery.
No, they will not, because you are starting from 20/20 or better (my mother is 20/15 in her best eye, after cataract surgery that included what Lasik does), and presbyopathy doesn't "correct" nearsightedness that much, in reality. Of course, if your eyes are good enough, your prediction would be true, but people like that don't need, or barely need, glasses, anyway. Those of us in the coke-bottle-thick range of correction don't care about them. They can avoid the surgery all that they want, while the ex-nearsighted Lasik-corrected-to-20/10 fighter pilots do barrel rolls above their heads.
> These have been working of submarines and aircraft carriers for decades.
Incorrect. The pressurized water reactors that were used in subs and ships were adapted to produce the big 1000 MW reactors that scare the antinuclear types that we all know. This design (TRIGA) preceded PWRs by decades, and was designed for college research departments to "play" with safely. It hasn't had the reactor-years of PWRs because it isn't as suitable for commercial use when joining the grid.
> why bring back the risk of meltdown/contamination.
No risk with this (TRIGA reactors, for those who didn't RTFA), unless a solar array is used to focus the Sun enough to melt it (and it is intended to be buried, so Dr. Evil's beam will have to melt the overburden, first.
> Just instead of a power cell you have a house covered with solar panels or a wind generator.
Or rather a few square miles of panels, or a major wind generation installation (and not everywhere is Kill Devil Hills - winds stop blowing quite frequently, in most places).
> Yes this wont' work everywhere but it is viable in > many high demand locations ergo Southern California.
First, ergo means therefore. You probably wanted "e.g." (Latin for "frex").
Second, this is not planned for Southern Cal, but Northern Can., or other areas too far from the grid to run a high tension line there.
> The ramifications of using a fake SSL cert vs forging a fake passport are vastly different.
Correct. A fake SSL cert would be, if the government controlled it, the equivalent of forging their currency. Everyone knows how nicely governments treat counterfeiters.
am i correct in thinking, since walt disney died in 1966, according to current EU law, the images of characters such as micky mouse and donald duck will enter the public domain in december of 2036 in the EU (70 years after death) and 2026 in the USA (95 years after initial copyright)?
Only if all of Disney's lawyers and lobbyists die of mysterious causes between now and then. Otherwise, expect that laws to change, again, before 2026.
> (Oh, and a great example of long copyright encouraging dead artists to keep producing yes?)
Long copyrights encourage OTHER artists, not the dead ones, just as any copyright, and especially long a one, encourages one-hit wonders like J.D.Salinger or Margaret Mitchell. Whether it encourages enough to warrant the loss to the public in the medium term (period between the end of the copyright under frex 1890 statutes and under today's) is another question.
Don't make easily knocked over strawman arguments like above, or you just encourage the people who really care to lump you in with the people who complain because they cannot make copies of the latest Metallica CD for all their friends, neighbors, and anyone linked by 6 levels of acquaintance, because of the "wild" idea that such copies would cut into album sales.
> But, also, I wonder wether the feds can say we allow the university TRUE LIMITED TIMES with these.
Patents are still for limited periods; I think to 17 years plus one renewal period of another 17. Be glad that Edison was never in Congress, unlike Sonny Bono (not that Edison would have ever run, but he might have in an alternate universe that we were discussing).
Right, and before Bayh-Dole, that wasn't the case - the funding federal agency would own the patent, and could license it to people.
Are you quite certain of that? As I recall, before Bayh-Dole, federally funded research was legally in the public domain, and thus unpatentable. Ashton-Tate dried up and blew away after the courts decided that their DBase III and DBase IV products were substantially based on Vulcan, a database program developed by NASA and, thus, in the public domain, not patentable or copyrighted.
Also, Bayh-Dole includes march-in provisions for the government, so that in theory an agency could license the patent to someone else without the university's permission, but I don't believe the march-in provisions have ever actually been used.
Not for anything that you would have heard about. This would be for things like the original patent for spread-spectrum message transmission, where the research vanishes into the national security community for a decade or three, while the government uses it against its rivals, or doesn't, as in a new method of weaponizing anthrax.
> It's good entertainment, but there is no science in it, is it?
As opposed to the pedantically accurate science in the Star Wars franchise?
Barring a few things done by George Pal in the 1950s, movie and TV SciFi seldom has much science in it.
Plus, time travel is Science Fiction, unless done by females who fall in love with medieval warriors with bare chests and mighty thews (or whatever else are cliches in the genre of light-core written porn called Romance Novels), despite being technically fantasy (since it seems to be impossible, except at the quantum level, where it is required).
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> it would probably have pissed off Ludlum fans to see a technically sloppy adaptation of his book.
As opposed to a technically accurate, total ignoring of the plot and characters of his book, like the Matt Damon movie was? The only thing that they kept were some names, that she was French-Canadian, and that he had amnesia.
BTW, I only suppose that it was technically accurate. I expect that an ex-SEAL friend of mine would find the combat as awful as we do using Visual Basic to make a GUI of something better handled via command line and piping long-existing tools.
If you want to see the book, watch the Richard Chamberlain TV movie version. Except that isn't politically correct, because the US government isn't being gratuitously evil for trying to hunt down Carlos The Jackal, or even by the means chosen.
And yes, I was pissed off enough to skip any other Bourne work that Damon ever does, even The Bourne Shell.
> Everyday I see Congressmen using cellphones; if those
> can be secure enough to carry day-to-day government
> business, why not other wireless devices?
Because Congresscritters have the memory of mayflies? They are NOT secure, as anyone who was awake during the incident where some Democrat couple produced a recording of a conversation between Speaker Newt Gingerich and his legal advisors could tell you. Even if the phones that they were issued had claimed end-to-end encryption, unless produced by someone who had no reason to ever want to monitor or intercept the communications, which is a tad unlikely.
Of course, Congress also has no day-to-day government business, as that is the executive branch's purpose; Congress exists to plot the long range course by the Federal budget, and by banning certain directions by making them illegal. As such, the actions of its members need not be secret, or secure for denial-of-service or monitoring, merely secure against fake messages from a third party. The Armed Services and Intelligence committees of each House would be the exception.
Of course, were I in the Secret Service, I would also wonder about the advisability of a radio beacon constantly identifying POTUS' location, as well. If I had some way to ensure that it did NOT connect when someone didn't explicitly ask it to, that might be a step towards reducing this worry, at least
> seagull populations decrease
Promise? Another reason to promote wind farms. Seagull populations are unnaturally high in the area, due to commercial fishing. And they are as annoying as pigeons.
> 1300 raptors are killed annually
How many die from the effects of coal-fired plant exhausts?
> Not saying Microsoft doesn't kill people, albeit not on purpose
There are warships based around Windows CE. The question is, in those situations, is MS killing the targets, or the ship's crew, with more effectiveness.
Galileo mapped the Moon as a consequence of using his telescope.
Harriot mapped the Moon as a consequence of having good eyesight and patience.
Using Galileo's method, anyone could repeat the process, especially with a better telescope, and get the same or better results. Using Harriot's method, anyone could repeat the experiment, probably producing worse results (God knows, I would) because their eyesight was normal or worse, while his was probably excellent, and they didn't have as long to waste on the process.
Comparing the two is like saying that X didn't take 1.5 volumes to get to the point of proving 1+1=2, as did Whitehead and Russell, and so X should be better known. The fact that the lemma proving 1+1=2 was put in as a bit of a joke is thus completely skipped, as is Galileo mapping the Moon because he had to start somewhere. His goal was to start using the telescope for astro-studies (astronomy and astrology being one thing, at that time).
> It works because the workers get the money
> (they increase coffee consumption as you say, and that's
> exactly what increases GDP the most..)
No, increased coffee production increases the economy the least. Increased buying from local producers (say, for milk) improves the economy; increased imports improves the economy in the source country at the expense of the importing country, because any economic multiplier effect occurs there and not here.
> and the industry gets better infrastuctures so that they can reduce costs and compete better.
Taxpaying (i.e., local) industry gets the better infrastructure, not everyone else in the world (and only if the infrastructure is useful; bridges to nowhere do not help at any time, unless "nowhere" is suddenly exploitable when it had not been before, and has resources to exploit).
NASA paying for the Apollo program improved the American economy, but NASA paying Australia to support the Deep Space Network only helped the US economy to the extent that it was cheaper to rent their help than to do it ourselves (perhaps a carrier-based radio dish, or something), and only after the multiplier effect of paying an American company to do those modifications was taken into effect.
Perhaps the USA paying for FOSS software will improve the entire world economy, but unless it can be confined to the USA it will not improve the USA economy, which is the US Government's job in a recession, not helping the other 94% of the world's populace, as well. If the FOSS support is restricted to US residents, it may be politically feasible, but otherwise it is nonsense politically as well as economically.
> The only problem is that these politicians somehow either
> don't understand or are exempt from these procedures.
No, the problem is that their staff makes the arrangements weeks or months in advance. Therefore, registering 72 hours in advance seems trivial, since they might have done so 72 days in advance, and they aren't doing it, their staff is. Two layers of isolation.
> I've never seen a bat hover, and I don't think I've ever seen a bat fly in a straight line.
Because moths do not fly in a straight line, especially when chased by hungry bats. OTOH, how much deftness does it take to sneak up on a flower, especially given that it NEEDS the hummingbird to fertilize the flowers?
Take a look at bat wing design. Pterosaurs and birds each use(d) just one finger for the wing, and let the others atrophy, while bats seem to use several of theirs in the wing, making it much more complex, therefore nimble.
> I agree. I've just never heard of Government as a solution for inefficiency and waste.....
In their role as sponsor of the National Bureau of Weights And Measures, which became the National Bureau of Standards, which became the National Institute of Standards and Technology, it is. This level of government just goes on below the average person's notice, since it is seldom a matter of partisan bickering.
It shows. Barter is in-kind payment, and it is quite taxable, in standard currency, based on the monetary value of what the taxpayer receives. Otherwise, you could be paid in gold bullion, barrels of oil, or fine art without owing any taxes. Barterers tend to keep lousy records, though, so it is difficult to go after small amounts, just like with unreported tips, proceeds from illegal business transactions (not reporting his bootlegging profits is how they sent Al Capone to jail, after all), etc. And *I* an not a tax professional, either.
> but it's possible that this depression will result in the end of the Federal Reserve and the IRS, both.
Because the last one worked so well at that?
> Flooding wetlands, as dams inevitably do, removes important carbon sinks
Wetlands are also heavy sources of methane, even as they remove CO2. Since methane is a far more effective greenhouse gas than CO2, this is an improvement. The goal to "Carbon Neutrality" is, after all, to affect the Greenhouse Effect, not just reduce carbon; magically converting it all to a giant diamond lens located at the Earth-Sun Lagrangian Point and focusing the light that would have missed the Earth back on the Earth would NOT be a positive.
> have they found the secret moon base that ppl claim we have? :)
That was the Nazis that you are thinking of (unless your "we" *is* the National Socialist German Workers' party, of course).
Or SHADO, I suppose.
Of course, they were right. Prince Henry had the better idea of how to get to the Orient. The Spanish had to sail around those big continent-thingies in the middle, that Columbus didn't think of because he blew his calculations of the Earth's diameter. Our math is better than his.
> Does somebody more eco-wise want to set me straight and
> explain why an e-reader is so much "greener" than dead trees?
The paper-making process is very non-green. Really, it should be called the waste-making process, with paper as a minor byproduct. OTOH, I doubt that most e-readers are all that perfect in their manufacturing processes, either.
Of course, the high-quality magazine paper (like DDJ is printed upon) is ecologically worse than book paper, or pulp (ala WWII SF mags), too. The high clay content make it much harder to recycle higher-quality (printing) magazines.
Still, claiming eco-friendliness for either is rather silly. When e-readers can last a century, like at least SOME magazine copies have, they might have a point, unless the owner only uses them for a few things, in which case "dead trees" wins. Unless e-readers include magically recycling old units, rather than letting owners just bury it in the trash, they will have the problem of old units piling up, Wall-E style.
No, they will not, because you are starting from 20/20 or better (my mother is 20/15 in her best eye, after cataract surgery that included what Lasik does), and presbyopathy doesn't "correct" nearsightedness that much, in reality. Of course, if your eyes are good enough, your prediction would be true, but people like that don't need, or barely need, glasses, anyway. Those of us in the coke-bottle-thick range of correction don't care about them. They can avoid the surgery all that they want, while the ex-nearsighted Lasik-corrected-to-20/10 fighter pilots do barrel rolls above their heads.
> These have been working of submarines and aircraft carriers for decades.
Incorrect. The pressurized water reactors that were used in subs and ships were adapted to produce the big 1000 MW reactors that scare the antinuclear types that we all know. This design (TRIGA) preceded PWRs by decades, and was designed for college research departments to "play" with safely. It hasn't had the reactor-years of PWRs because it isn't as suitable for commercial use when joining the grid.
> why bring back the risk of meltdown/contamination.
No risk with this (TRIGA reactors, for those who didn't RTFA), unless a solar array is used to focus the Sun enough to melt it (and it is intended to be buried, so Dr. Evil's beam will have to melt the overburden, first.
> Just instead of a power cell you have a house covered with solar panels or a wind generator.
Or rather a few square miles of panels, or a major wind generation installation (and not everywhere is Kill Devil Hills - winds stop blowing quite frequently, in most places).
> Yes this wont' work everywhere but it is viable in
> many high demand locations ergo Southern California.
First, ergo means therefore. You probably wanted "e.g." (Latin for "frex").
Second, this is not planned for Southern Cal, but Northern Can., or other areas too far from the grid to run a high tension line there.
> The ramifications of using a fake SSL cert vs forging a fake passport are vastly different.
Correct. A fake SSL cert would be, if the government controlled it, the equivalent of forging their currency. Everyone knows how nicely governments treat counterfeiters.
Only if all of Disney's lawyers and lobbyists die of mysterious causes between now and then. Otherwise, expect that laws to change, again, before 2026.
> (Oh, and a great example of long copyright encouraging dead artists to keep producing yes?)
Long copyrights encourage OTHER artists, not the dead ones, just as any copyright, and especially long a one, encourages one-hit wonders like J.D.Salinger or Margaret Mitchell. Whether it encourages enough to warrant the loss to the public in the medium term (period between the end of the copyright under frex 1890 statutes and under today's) is another question.
Don't make easily knocked over strawman arguments like above, or you just encourage the people who really care to lump you in with the people who complain because they cannot make copies of the latest Metallica CD for all their friends, neighbors, and anyone linked by 6 levels of acquaintance, because of the "wild" idea that such copies would cut into album sales.
> But, also, I wonder wether the feds can say we allow the university TRUE LIMITED TIMES with these.
Patents are still for limited periods; I think to 17 years plus one renewal period of another 17. Be glad that Edison was never in Congress, unlike Sonny Bono (not that Edison would have ever run, but he might have in an alternate universe that we were discussing).
Are you quite certain of that? As I recall, before Bayh-Dole, federally funded research was legally in the public domain, and thus unpatentable. Ashton-Tate dried up and blew away after the courts decided that their DBase III and DBase IV products were substantially based on Vulcan, a database program developed by NASA and, thus, in the public domain, not patentable or copyrighted.
Not for anything that you would have heard about. This would be for things like the original patent for spread-spectrum message transmission, where the research vanishes into the national security community for a decade or three, while the government uses it against its rivals, or doesn't, as in a new method of weaponizing anthrax.
Ah, you just wanted an excuse for a FIRST post message, didn't you?
> It's good entertainment, but there is no science in it, is it?
As opposed to the pedantically accurate science in the Star Wars franchise?
Barring a few things done by George Pal in the 1950s, movie and TV SciFi seldom has much science in it.
Plus, time travel is Science Fiction, unless done by females who fall in love with medieval warriors with bare chests and mighty thews (or whatever else are cliches in the genre of light-core written porn called Romance Novels), despite being technically fantasy (since it seems to be impossible, except at the quantum level, where it is required).