I'm a little concerned that initially I had this same thought.
Then I began thinking about putting a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters and asking them some monkeys-flying-out-of-butts question to see how long it would take them to come up with an answer (or some Shakespearean deriviative) but I gave up after the imagery got to me.
A great old sci-fi story by Margaret St. Clair
"Prott" is a "boring" alien race, who did nothing but bore humans. They looked like gigantic space-going fried eggs. The story begins with a Prott discovering a human in a spaceship; the Prott enthusiastically begins telling the human about "--ing the --." However, the man can't make out what the noun and verb in the telepathically transmitted phrase mean, so the Prott explains some more... and more... and brings equally enthusiastic friends who want to do nothing but talk about "--ing the --" ad infinitum. Reminds me of Twitter.
Because it is a cop-out. The problem is crappy schools. Since nobody wants to admit the schools CAN'T be fixed they whine and try to solve these ridiculous problems with "technology". Just like giving every kid a computer in school will "educate" them.
1. Take her to the doctor and have an implant embedded in her skull.
2. Go whining to the school board & city council that they should raise taxes to fund a monitoring system for the entire city so youy cna keep track of your precious.
How about letting the crap... I mean content... no, I guess I do mean crap stand on its own feet? If it is worth paying for someone will pay for it. While I support the idea of journalistic integrity (whatever that is) it is long gone in this country. Hunter S. Thompson had it right in "Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail" when he said - paraphrasing - that the only objective reporting is the traffic camera on a street corner. In other words, the newspaper/TV/whatever journalism business, yes BUSINESS, got itself into this mess. Screw 'em. I'd trust a pamphleteer over any of the sacred cow rags that are mentioned in the TFA.
One idea, based on what I have seen work abroad, is to mandate, for a limited time, a fee of $1 on all Internet connections. You could then use that monthly credit to subscribe to whatever content you chose. That would inject millions in the content economy. If what you want is free music, use your credit for that. If you want to read the New York Times, fine.
After a few years, phase out the fee (hum...). By then, people should have gotten used to it and you get a smooth transition to people using micro-payments for content. Any better ideas?
--
FairSoftware.net -- fair jobs for iPhone developers and graphic designers
www.sugarcrm.com or sugarforge.org - They offer commercial and free open source versions and there are a number of free & pay plugins. Works well on your server or theirs.
This reminds me of a scifi story i read probably 35 years ago about a library that had one file drawer filled with all of civilization's information/knowledge. Someone came up with the idea that it needed to be indexed hence another file drawer came into being holding the index. Then a cross index created a need for another drawer and on and on until the world ran out of room. They kept shrinking the size of the drawers until they became "subatomic" in size. They had to hold all the "drawers" on a separate planet until finally, amongst all the billions of index drawers, which if I recall correctly were stored on particles called "nudged quanta" they lost the one drawer that held the original information.
I'd love to know who wrote that story so I can read it again!
I'd suggest reading Mark Helprin's "Digital Barbarism" for much more on this topic (as an aside from the main thrust supporting copyright).
It amazes me how the Internet has lowered the bar.
Hell, when my daughter was three years old she used to cite herself as an authority: "Daddy, according to me..."
Funny you should mention Stewart. We saw him perform recently and he had a good talk about how the world will end.
He said that the end won't happen due to war or something liek a natural disaster. "The last thing we'll hear is some scientist saying "It works!"
Slashdot Mirror
That's a great story. Thanks for that.
...that we can ill-afford. I have a much better idea. Why not simply jail everyone from the get-go to save everyone time?
Kinda like the way Microsoft changed the fileformat in MS Office? I would think that vetting of any product would take a certain amount of "faith"!
members of Congress can wait that long to get one.
confidentially? Doesn't anybody proofread this stuff or do we just accept the INS (Idiocracy News Service)?
Red Rose! Remember this commercial with the Marquis Chimps? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXEQhsZrkM8
Is this review here?! The book was released 3 years ago!
am I the only one who thinks we should blow everything up *here* before we start blowing everything up elsewhere?
I'm a little concerned that initially I had this same thought. Then I began thinking about putting a million monkeys in front of a million typewriters and asking them some monkeys-flying-out-of-butts question to see how long it would take them to come up with an answer (or some Shakespearean deriviative) but I gave up after the imagery got to me.
A great old sci-fi story by Margaret St. Clair "Prott" is a "boring" alien race, who did nothing but bore humans. They looked like gigantic space-going fried eggs. The story begins with a Prott discovering a human in a spaceship; the Prott enthusiastically begins telling the human about "--ing the --." However, the man can't make out what the noun and verb in the telepathically transmitted phrase mean, so the Prott explains some more... and more... and brings equally enthusiastic friends who want to do nothing but talk about "--ing the --" ad infinitum. Reminds me of Twitter.
Or the last thing we all hear: "It works!"
a similar observation could be made about Congress.
Because it is a cop-out. The problem is crappy schools. Since nobody wants to admit the schools CAN'T be fixed they whine and try to solve these ridiculous problems with "technology". Just like giving every kid a computer in school will "educate" them.
1. Take her to the doctor and have an implant embedded in her skull. 2. Go whining to the school board & city council that they should raise taxes to fund a monitoring system for the entire city so youy cna keep track of your precious.
One idea, based on what I have seen work abroad, is to mandate, for a limited time, a fee of $1 on all Internet connections. You could then use that monthly credit to subscribe to whatever content you chose. That would inject millions in the content economy. If what you want is free music, use your credit for that. If you want to read the New York Times, fine.
After a few years, phase out the fee (hum...). By then, people should have gotten used to it and you get a smooth transition to people using micro-payments for content. Any better ideas?
-- FairSoftware.net -- fair jobs for iPhone developers and graphic designers
www.sugarcrm.com or sugarforge.org - They offer commercial and free open source versions and there are a number of free & pay plugins. Works well on your server or theirs.
we need competition with Plan 9 for Outer space.
I agree. Just to mimic the MS OS-Crashing features would require a chip 6" by 6".
Cool. And here it is, still a good read: http://home.comcast.net/~bcleere/texts/draper.html
This reminds me of a scifi story i read probably 35 years ago about a library that had one file drawer filled with all of civilization's information/knowledge. Someone came up with the idea that it needed to be indexed hence another file drawer came into being holding the index. Then a cross index created a need for another drawer and on and on until the world ran out of room. They kept shrinking the size of the drawers until they became "subatomic" in size. They had to hold all the "drawers" on a separate planet until finally, amongst all the billions of index drawers, which if I recall correctly were stored on particles called "nudged quanta" they lost the one drawer that held the original information. I'd love to know who wrote that story so I can read it again!
yes.
Hah! Since he dares question the powers-that-be: Next in News: Bruce Schneier to be tried by Cybersecurity Tribunal.
I'd suggest reading Mark Helprin's "Digital Barbarism" for much more on this topic (as an aside from the main thrust supporting copyright). It amazes me how the Internet has lowered the bar. Hell, when my daughter was three years old she used to cite herself as an authority: "Daddy, according to me..."
Funny you should mention Stewart. We saw him perform recently and he had a good talk about how the world will end. He said that the end won't happen due to war or something liek a natural disaster. "The last thing we'll hear is some scientist saying "It works!"
Like when they explode?