> Like anonymity, no record retention, agreement not to tap > or packet inspect ever?
Illegal. If you want them to be able to do this, lobby Congress. I am sure that organized crime will give you support for your position (which is another reason why it will never happen, btw:-). Until then, accept that any time someone in the business wants to look at your stuff, they can, whether it is because of a court order, being cooperative with law enforcement agencies, or a sysadmin wanting to monitor your unencrypted traffic to feed his delusions of godhood. They might be punished afterwards, but there is the problem of the bell that cannot be unrung.
If you want to be secure from any monitoring, there are ways, but you probably want to live a more normal life.
> don't know if this is a technological restriction of DSL
It is. They cannot block phone access via DSL, even if you ARE pinky-swearing not to use it, any more than a water company could sell deionized water and not let you drink it (deionized water is the really pure stuff used in medical and scientific testing, purer than merely distilled or double distilled). What they COULD do is sell you a cheap phone line (in terms of monthly fee for connection) with very high per-minute charges so that you would not be tempted to use it, but that would probably cause complaints from the majority of their customers, who still put phones on phone lines.
> I wonder what would happen if the public works water and sewer > companies tried to do this? Maybe have 2 year contracts and > charge by flush
Last time that I checked, the water bill was based on the amount used. Likewise, I cannot flush a river down a household sewer connection without expecting repercussions from the Municiple Sewer Authority.
> and you must pay a surcharge if you move for money they would lose?
I do not know if there is a Disconnect Fee, but there is one for connecting, and they have never waived it during a sale to promote more people connecting.
> Pay it or shit in your backyard in an outhouse?
Septic tank. It isn't an outhouse, but it might well be under your backyard (ours was, and the grass grew really high where it broke:-). Until the housing density grows too high, it works well enough.
> I view the telecom industry as no different here since the lines are tax payer owned and paid for.
I suggest that you should pick analogies which are not good counter-arguments to your thesis. Everything that you decry, utilities do, including ban attempts at competition.
> I guess maybe I thought more of the 'kids these days' going
> into school would be pretty easy to NOT believe that you could
> floor a police cruiser, hit a toll booth, and manage to land
> the car on a helicopter.
I guess that they were all fooled by watching the stunt done, in the Making Of Die Hard short that was shown right before the movie came out. In that, you saw the car hit the (specially prepared) toll booth and fly up to crash into the helicopter (held there with cables). There were no CGI stunts in the Die Hard films, and they were quite proud of it.
Of course, in the film, the helicopter was insanely low, but stupid villains are required for unprepared heroes to triumph.
> > Purely analog computers suck at exact math, too. > > Are purely analog computers good at the things that > humans are good at, aside from sucking at math?
Estimation, especially given rapid transcients or mathematical poles where calculation fails or over.
OTOH, when I last dealt with a commercial analog computer (actually the analog side of a hybrid) I was told that 1% accuracy was the equivalent of double precision on a digital CPU, and the 0.1% accuracy that they bragged of was the equivalent of triple or better. That was in 1977/78, of course, on an old hybrid to which our Explorer Troup was given access.
Also, neural networks end up simulating digitally what analog machines were doing with their continuously varying inputs. To some extent, fuzzy logic also is a digital simulation of naturally analog processes.
> Can you point me in the direction of some more resources for this?
Not really. Try basic texts on analog electrical engineering, I would guess, then go to neurology or neural net theory?
> Do you realize just how small a quantum leap is? It is the closest one can get to zero...
Except for zero. And quantum leaps (especially the first ones) are huge in their size regime.
They are not the closest one can get to zero, they are the closest Post-Classical Physics allows, which is vastly farther than what Aristotelian/Newtonian Physics would allow if it could.
> All I'm claiming is that we don't (yet) understand what kind of device the mind is.
Purely analog computers suck at exact math, too. We understand what kind of device the mind is, we just do not do much research on that kind of device, anymore. Also, the digital people (waves hand) do not like accepting that we are just getting to the level of building primitive insect brains, at best.
Mark V Bolos lacked self-awareness. This would require at least Resartus (Mk XIII, iirc) and possibly a Mk XX (which had full self-awareness and military sentiment, including gallantry).
> Bolo does not have natural enemies.
They certainly DO, or else the stories would be dead-boring.
> Bolo only takes orders from supreme command.
Or human counterpart/liasson/commander. Or local children, when combat reflexes are disengaged,
>... But Bolo unit is completely independent and can operate > on remote planets without guidance for centuries.
Not until MkXX, they couldn't. Perhaps you are thinking of that one unit of once-obsolete damaged Bolo Mk XXXVIs that the descendents of an enemy tried to convert into agricultural machinery?
> (I know I'm responding your questions with a famous fictional > AI, but I think that is how it would deal with the questions)
The ones with self-awareness were much more subtle than you are giving them credit. They did tend to have the personality of the Terminator from the second film, though, when their combat reflexes were active.
> And for the record, I NEVER buy/go anywhere/do anything based > on an ad but only on what my needs and wants really are.
That is what they have programmed you to believe.
> I actually peel all the stickers and badges off of everything > have, laptops/computers, cars, equipment, tools, etc.
And no one will recognize your car after you remove the emblems, of course (ignoring the way that promotes rust). BTW, how do you get the "Craftsman" or "Snap-Tite" off your wrench set?
Humans make tools to make tools, which can then make other tools or be used directly. I do not know of anything similar among animals, but then IANAZ (I am not a zoologist).
Do chimps make blades to better produce termite sticks?
Even less admirable traits, like drug addiction, or propensity toward genocide, have non-human parallels.
Well, genocide is perfectly understandable in Darwinian terms. Only someone deeply misanthropic would expect that it not occur among animals, although I doubt that most animals will do as thorough a job as us.
Not a quote, though, a parody. Not everybody suffers through "A Wonderful Life" every year, also, so this might be a little obscure to some (lucky bastards).
> f you don't believe me, think about how you'd value the following > if modern civilization were to collapse - potable water, food, > matches, ammunition, tobacco, liquor, coffee, paper, gold.
Ammunition can always get you gold, but gold cannot always get you ammunition! Just see The Road Warrior.
> The ease of travel has been leading to a decrease in diversity within > a species which is significantly less diverse than most other species already.
Huh? How does ease of travel REDUCE diversity? It may affect the social definition of diversity, when one small group is no longer viewed as "other" to other small groups, but it cannot affect genetic diversity. Most African villages have far more genetic diversity than the equivalent or much larger European community, and intravillage (interhut) travel has remained fairly easy for the past few eons, I imagine. Now, the village populace doesn't consider itself to be different types, but that is the lack of widespread genetic testing speaking.
> I don't personally quite buy the authors suggestion, but the trend is > away from distinctive racial groups
Unimportant. Africans may be only a few groups socially, but they are vastly more diverse genetically, which is what this article is concerned.
> > voting is supposed to be a matter of conscience in one's own locality > > With one major problem - 3rd party candidates can't get elected mostly > because everyone knows that 3rd party candidates can't get elected.
Except that the 3rd parties, and especially their candidates, are usually some variation on the Extremely Silly Party from the Monty Python sketch (and if you think that they SHOULD have won, you and your ancestors and descendents need to be banned from voting for 3 generations, either way, at least)(the Extr.Silly Party winning, that is).
Back in ye olde days, Charles Steinmetz was able to win in Schenectidy, NY (sp? GE city, anyway) for a number of years, because lots of people knew and respected him. If an immigrant Socialist hunchback with a bad German accent can win in a Republican stronghold (which it was, back then) and do so repeatedly (which he did), what is everyone else's excuse?
Anyway, the 9th Circuit is reversed so often on appeal that they should just accept the reverse of their decisions as the ruling, and stop wasting the money on actual appeals to the Supreme Court. In which case vote swapping IS illegal, and sites promoting it, just like sites promoting any other crime would be.
...everyone voted at a guaranteed same time, instead of across 4+ time
zones where the open and close times for each polling station varies.
Given that people on Guam can vote, I think that it is more like 8 or 9 timezones. The polls would have to open very early, or stay open very late, in the end timezones in order to accommedate everyone.
OTOH, if you make it on a weekend, and have severe penalties for revealing the results of any subset of voters larger than one's own household (ideally ban exit poll reporting, as well, until the polls close in the last state) it might work.
You would also have to count the absentee ballots during the blackout period, though. Are they required to be received or just postmarked by Election Day to count?
Actually, he wrote the music, to Bernie's lyrics. His own were... underwhelming, shall we say? They still ARE underwhelming, but now he has the nerve to occasionally publish them.
> > So my solution? KILL EVERYONE WITH A LOW IQ! It is the only logical answer. > > But then who would take our lunch orders, pump our gas, and deliver our > packages of electonics and porno rags?
Liberal Arts majors with high IQs? Plus, of course, those of us who needed a job during college (although I never delivered packages, personally).
The first company for which I worked had done a study on this (is connection with disk drives failing, determined to be because of the toner bits) well before I started. One of my first jobs was to move the experimental results off of DecTape and on to the more modern 8 inch floppies before the old machines went into storage.
I though that EVERYONE knew to keep the laser printers well away from anyone or anything. What next? A warning not to inhale too deeply when siphoning gasoline?
> Even the greatest Lord of Sith ever to exist > redeemed himself as he was about to die.
I think that the Emperor (Darth I-forget-now-Sidious?) was a greater Sith Lord than Vader. Vader had more raw metichlorians, but the Evil Emperor know how to use them best.
Of course, this is a bit like saying that the Black Death was a better plague than the Spanish Flu.
Slashdot Mirror
> Like anonymity, no record retention, agreement not to tap
:-). Until then, accept that any time someone in the business wants to look at your stuff, they can, whether it is because of a court order, being cooperative with law enforcement agencies, or a sysadmin wanting to monitor your unencrypted traffic to feed his delusions of godhood. They might be punished afterwards, but there is the problem of the bell that cannot be unrung.
> or packet inspect ever?
Illegal. If you want them to be able to do this, lobby Congress. I am sure that organized crime will give you support for your position (which is another reason why it will never happen, btw
If you want to be secure from any monitoring, there are ways, but you probably want to live a more normal life.
> don't know if this is a technological restriction of DSL
It is. They cannot block phone access via DSL, even if you ARE pinky-swearing not to use it, any more than a water company could sell deionized water and not let you drink it (deionized water is the really pure stuff used in medical and scientific testing, purer than merely distilled or double distilled). What they COULD do is sell you a cheap phone line (in terms of monthly fee for connection) with very high per-minute charges so that you would not be tempted to use it, but that would probably cause complaints from the majority of their customers, who still put phones on phone lines.
> I wonder what would happen if the public works water and sewer
:-). Until the housing density grows too high, it works well enough.
> companies tried to do this? Maybe have 2 year contracts and
> charge by flush
Last time that I checked, the water bill was based on the amount used. Likewise, I cannot flush a river down a household sewer connection without expecting repercussions from the Municiple Sewer Authority.
> and you must pay a surcharge if you move for money they would lose?
I do not know if there is a Disconnect Fee, but there is one for connecting, and they have never waived it during a sale to promote more people connecting.
> Pay it or shit in your backyard in an outhouse?
Septic tank. It isn't an outhouse, but it might well be under your backyard (ours was, and the grass grew really high where it broke
> I view the telecom industry as no different here since the lines are tax payer owned and paid for.
I suggest that you should pick analogies which are not good counter-arguments to your thesis. Everything that you decry, utilities do, including ban attempts at competition.
> (Yes, one can make a Michael Jackson joke without refering to pedophili- ...goddamit)
Ah, but that was your attempt at a 2nd joke. "A" joke is doable, but all MJ jokes lead inevitably to jokes refering to pedo...
> And an Austrian destitute became head of state
Yes, but his father was a government bureaucrat. Clearly, already in the governance track.
> I guess maybe I thought more of the 'kids these days' going > into school would be pretty easy to NOT believe that you could > floor a police cruiser, hit a toll booth, and manage to land > the car on a helicopter. I guess that they were all fooled by watching the stunt done, in the Making Of Die Hard short that was shown right before the movie came out. In that, you saw the car hit the (specially prepared) toll booth and fly up to crash into the helicopter (held there with cables). There were no CGI stunts in the Die Hard films, and they were quite proud of it. Of course, in the film, the helicopter was insanely low, but stupid villains are required for unprepared heroes to triumph.
> > Purely analog computers suck at exact math, too.
>
> Are purely analog computers good at the things that
> humans are good at, aside from sucking at math?
Estimation, especially given rapid transcients or mathematical poles where calculation fails or over.
OTOH, when I last dealt with a commercial analog computer (actually the analog side of a hybrid) I was told that 1% accuracy was the equivalent of double precision on a digital CPU, and the 0.1% accuracy that they bragged of was the equivalent of triple or better. That was in 1977/78, of course, on an old hybrid to which our Explorer Troup was given access.
Also, neural networks end up simulating digitally what analog machines were doing with their continuously varying inputs. To some extent, fuzzy logic also is a digital simulation of naturally analog processes.
> Can you point me in the direction of some more resources for this?
Not really. Try basic texts on analog electrical engineering, I would guess, then go to neurology or neural net theory?
> Do you realize just how small a quantum leap is? It is the closest one can get to zero...
Except for zero. And quantum leaps (especially the first ones) are huge in their size regime.
They are not the closest one can get to zero, they are the closest Post-Classical Physics allows, which is vastly farther than what Aristotelian/Newtonian Physics would allow if it could.
One currently beyond our ability to solve in the general case, but a computation just like Tic-Tac-Toe or checkers, both of which have been solved.
> All I'm claiming is that we don't (yet) understand what kind of device the mind is.
Purely analog computers suck at exact math, too. We understand what kind of device the mind is, we just do not do much research on that kind of device, anymore. Also, the digital people (waves hand) do not like accepting that we are just getting to the level of building primitive insect brains, at best.
> I am a Bolo Mark V of the line.
Mark V Bolos lacked self-awareness. This would require at least Resartus (Mk XIII, iirc) and possibly a Mk XX (which had full self-awareness and military sentiment, including gallantry).
> Bolo does not have natural enemies.
They certainly DO, or else the stories would be dead-boring.
> Bolo only takes orders from supreme command.
Or human counterpart/liasson/commander. Or local children, when combat reflexes are disengaged,
>... But Bolo unit is completely independent and can operate
> on remote planets without guidance for centuries.
Not until MkXX, they couldn't. Perhaps you are thinking of that one unit of once-obsolete damaged Bolo Mk XXXVIs that the descendents of an enemy tried to convert into agricultural machinery?
> (I know I'm responding your questions with a famous fictional
> AI, but I think that is how it would deal with the questions)
The ones with self-awareness were much more subtle than you are giving them credit. They did tend to have the personality of the Terminator from the second film, though, when their combat reflexes were active.
> Still no C99, with open admission that there are no plans to support it.
They are probably just waiting for C0x to be finalized, first (but unlike Stroustrup, are hoping that the x IS required to be in hex).
> And for the record, I NEVER buy/go anywhere/do anything based
> on an ad but only on what my needs and wants really are.
That is what they have programmed you to believe.
> I actually peel all the stickers and badges off of everything
> have, laptops/computers, cars, equipment, tools, etc.
And no one will recognize your car after you remove the emblems, of course (ignoring the way that promotes rust). BTW, how do you get the "Craftsman" or "Snap-Tite" off your wrench set?
> Hm. I wonder if anyone makes a phone case / carrier
...
> that's made with wire mesh or tinfoil to stop signal.
Reynolds Aluminum and Alcoa both make these. They are called
Aluminum foil. Just wrap the phone yourself!
Also, any all-metal lunchbox would work.
Do chimps make blades to better produce termite sticks?
Well, genocide is perfectly understandable in Darwinian terms. Only someone deeply misanthropic would expect that it not occur among animals, although I doubt that most animals will do as thorough a job as us.
Not a quote, though, a parody. Not everybody suffers through "A Wonderful Life" every year, also, so this might be a little obscure to some (lucky bastards).
> f you don't believe me, think about how you'd value the following
> if modern civilization were to collapse - potable water, food,
> matches, ammunition, tobacco, liquor, coffee, paper, gold.
Ammunition can always get you gold, but gold cannot always get you ammunition! Just see The Road Warrior.
> The ease of travel has been leading to a decrease in diversity within
> a species which is significantly less diverse than most other species already.
Huh? How does ease of travel REDUCE diversity? It may affect the social definition of diversity, when one small group is no longer viewed as "other" to other small groups, but it cannot affect genetic diversity. Most African villages have far more genetic diversity than the equivalent or much larger European community, and intravillage (interhut) travel has remained fairly easy for the past few eons, I imagine. Now, the village populace doesn't consider itself to be different types, but that is the lack of widespread genetic testing speaking.
> I don't personally quite buy the authors suggestion, but the trend is
> away from distinctive racial groups
Unimportant. Africans may be only a few groups socially, but they are vastly more diverse genetically, which is what this article is concerned.
> > voting is supposed to be a matter of conscience in one's own locality
>
> With one major problem - 3rd party candidates can't get elected mostly
> because everyone knows that 3rd party candidates can't get elected.
Except that the 3rd parties, and especially their candidates, are usually some variation on the Extremely Silly Party from the Monty Python sketch (and if you think that they SHOULD have won, you and your ancestors and descendents need to be banned from voting for 3 generations, either way, at least)(the Extr.Silly Party winning, that is).
Back in ye olde days, Charles Steinmetz was able to win in Schenectidy, NY (sp? GE city, anyway) for a number of years, because lots of people knew and respected him. If an immigrant Socialist hunchback with a bad German accent can win in a Republican stronghold (which it was, back then) and do so repeatedly (which he did), what is everyone else's excuse?
Anyway, the 9th Circuit is reversed so often on appeal that they should just accept the reverse of their decisions as the ruling, and stop wasting the money on actual appeals to the Supreme Court. In which case vote swapping IS illegal, and sites promoting it, just like sites promoting any other crime would be.
Given that people on Guam can vote, I think that it is more like 8 or 9 timezones. The polls would have to open very early, or stay open very late, in the end timezones in order to accommedate everyone.
OTOH, if you make it on a weekend, and have severe penalties for revealing the results of any subset of voters larger than one's own household (ideally ban exit poll reporting, as well, until the polls close in the last state) it might work.
You would also have to count the absentee ballots during the blackout period, though. Are they required to be received or just postmarked by Election Day to count?
> he didn't write the music - Bernie did.
... underwhelming, shall we say? They still ARE underwhelming, but now he has the nerve to occasionally publish them.
Actually, he wrote the music, to Bernie's lyrics. His own were
> > So my solution? KILL EVERYONE WITH A LOW IQ! It is the only logical answer.
>
> But then who would take our lunch orders, pump our gas, and deliver our
> packages of electonics and porno rags?
Liberal Arts majors with high IQs? Plus, of course, those of us who needed a job during college (although I never delivered packages, personally).
After all, who worries about knives when there are real weapons to fear.
The first company for which I worked had done a study on this (is connection with disk drives failing, determined to be because of the toner bits) well before I started. One of my first jobs was to move the experimental results off of DecTape and on to the more modern 8 inch floppies before the old machines went into storage. I though that EVERYONE knew to keep the laser printers well away from anyone or anything. What next? A warning not to inhale too deeply when siphoning gasoline?
> Even the greatest Lord of Sith ever to exist
> redeemed himself as he was about to die.
I think that the Emperor (Darth I-forget-now-Sidious?) was a greater Sith Lord than Vader. Vader had more raw metichlorians, but the Evil Emperor know how to use them best.
Of course, this is a bit like saying that the Black Death was a better plague than the Spanish Flu.