Unless we get some serious leaps forward in AI, I think our best scenario for combat robots is, coincidentally, the best scenario for combat troops: every person you see is known to be hostile and collateral damage is not an issue. IIRC, there are already sentry guns with this form of AI guarding the Korean DMZ. And, if somebody wanted to deploy such technology further, I can think of a very effective way to demonstrate their effectiveness when showing them off to military leaders.
Smashing is effective and very simple. I work in areas where, if a CD needs to be destroyed, it is degaussed, crushed, and incinerated. At first, it seemed ludicrous to degauss a CD. But they use the same procedure for everything and it's (usually) very effective. Got data to be destroyed? Toss it in a burn box and it's toast. Really toast. Very effective, very easy, and basically no thought or instruction. Better for data to be accidentally destroyed than accidentally saved in some arenas.
There are many such groups across the country - Most of whom seem to be uninformed and alarmist folks that are frightened of the nuclear boogey-man and want to stop anything that may have been in contact with a stray neutron. There's a group largely centered in Santa Fe, NM that goes around Los Alamos taking counts on plants and such and then posting pictures of background radiation rates on their web-site to incite fear. Admittedly, some dirt piles are hotter than others - Just like everywhere else in the world - But not terribly frightening. One ironic point is that the background radiation is actually higher in Santa Fe due in large part to the difference in ground-matter. It's actually gone far enough that the legal maximum rad limit for re-processed water in Santa Fe is below Santa Fe's normal background level.
Los Alamos locals for the most part regard the group as a sad joke.
That reminds me of what I read about this Russian company that distributed DRM-free MP3 music (allofmp3.com? Not sure what the name was).
Apparently, the US government leaned on the Russian government and asked them to crack down on the company before Russia'd get much further in trade negotiations. While that's true, it took very little time for allofmp3.com to change its name to mp3fiesta.com, which is up and running today under the same business model within the bounds Russian law (just like allofmp3.com was.) [Please forgive if I botched the link, but there's no way I'm verifying that from work.]
I couldn't agree more. My only real exposure to Europe is several visits to Vienna to visit family, but I was amazed at the difference that severe fuel taxation made in the city infrastructure. They tax the hell outta gas and it makes for good public transit and logically located homes & businesses. A vast difference from what I see in the US. I submitted this article for a couple of reasons: * Oil is going to run out (or at least is going to become very expensive) * Americans must either drive or make a dramatic social/economic shift (good luck) * An oil alternative is not going to come from a single source (i.e. corn) * This seems to break organic material into a substance that, at best, fuels our cars. At a minimum, gets us drunk. And at worst, does both.
it seems to indicate your willingness to accept law enforcement as copyright cops I certainly did not mean to come across that way. I in no way support the cops seizing and searching these devices. However, I was responding to:
I doubt any PDA's actually contain any data that could lead to convictions in the first place. I believe that all four of these examples could indeed lead to a conviction.
DRM: Even though it's a civil matter and none of the cops' business, if the plaintiff were somehow able to prove that you had illegally obtained files, it would certainly help their case against you. And, although legal copies of copywritten material can sometimes be made, some illegal copies have watermarking embedded that clearly shows that they've been pirated. Of course, they would likely need some way to prove that the infringing files were on the device other than sending cops after it. In fairness, IANAL and do not know if "conviction" is an appropriate term for losing a civil suit in which you've broken the law.
Kiddie porn: Illegal to possess under any circumstances. Unfortunately, this could certainly be used by bad cops or just somebody who doesn't like you to get you into trouble. If you could somehow prove that somebody else put it there and that you were unaware of it, I cannot imagine that you would be prosecuted, but you would still be in violation of the law and could be prosecuted/convicted.
An e-mail that says...: Certainly enough to send cops to go search the place described as the location of the body (assuming public land.) If the body is indeed found there, then it's probably enough to get a warrant to look under your bed. If a rifle with matching ballistics is found there, then it could certainly lead to a conviction.
Not trying to be contrary, just providing examples of data that could lead to a conviction.
I doubt any PDA's actually contain any data that could lead to convictions in the first place. * Illegally obtained MP3s * Illegally obtained movies * Illegal pornography * An e-mail that says, "Hey Bob. You know that person they're looking for? I shot him with the 22 rifle under my bed and here's where they should be looking if they want to find the body..." * etc.
In the US, 'math' is traditionally singular and is roughly synonymous with "The science or application of mathematics." In the UK, 'maths' is traditionally plural and is short for 'mathematics'.
Agreed. I'm not sure who this cache of pictures appeals to. If you're looking for porn, go download some porn. If you're looking for a bunch of stranger's vacation pictures, snapshots of their pets in cute poses, and cell-phone-cam pics of them making funny faces, then you're just weird.
Sorry if this seems like a trolling effort, but I have to ask. If saving 100 million people a year is such a sin, are you suggesting that killing an additional 100 million/year would be doing them a service? After all, that would leave more resources to spread around...
That would be nice, but is prohibitive for many companies. My company, for example, does not allow e-mail outside the firewall unencrypted. On this side, we have Lotus Notes which approaches zero usability as e-mail etiquette drops. We have periodic training for users mostly scheduled by how ugly things have gotten. Some employees, of course, never learn when it is or is not appropriate to use the "Reply to All" button, but there's no action taken on the corporate scale. The only way to handle it is to send them to/dev/null and force them to pick up a phone to follow up on anything that was actually important.
Thank you for that - The BoingBoing article left me completely unimpressed. For those who don't want to RTFA, don't bother. Everything pertinent is contained in the summary. Not enough to be at all persuasive, IMHO - One woman's claims that FBI agents were documenting their activities while stealing nuclear weapons secrets and selling them to baddies and a newspaper that claims to have evidence that a document (contents unknown) is missing. Not enough to persuade me.
However, the timesonline article posted by parent gives a lot more detail and is a little more persuasive in lending credence to her claims. It references a lot of anonymous and questionable sources, but at least it references something. Even questionable details, again IMHO, are preferable to getting overly excited based on something so thin.
No, this falls far short of justice. Justice would have been posting a bunch of copywritten songs and announcing to the world where to find them. Even better: * Record an original piece * Post it * Sue the RIAA for hosting it
I believe that the "million-million" definition has been deprecated and the wayward "billion" word replaced by "bazillion" ("Trillion" is used exclusively when discussing the US national debt.) Billion is now exclusively "thousand-million".
No - It can't decode what's coming in off of my satellite either, but that doesn't matter. The computer has an IR flasher that tunes the satellite receiver (or cable box or whatever as long as it has an IR receiver), whose output goes into the tuner card. It does, however, require using a remote that the computer can receive from. Since that remote is RF rather than IR, I consider it a marked improvement.
No, not a scrolling marquee. Imagine a graphic in the lower-right section of your FOV. If your eye stays still, so does it. If you shift your eye to the lower-right, the graphic would scroll to the center of the display. It could be made to appear as if you were looking around a full static display.
You just need a better DVR. For a couple of hundred bucks + a couple of hours of effort, I revamped an old PC into a DVR with BeyondTV (I know - MythTV is free and you don't need Windows, but that's the way I went.) No subscription fees and HD if your tuner card supports it. And, if I want to burn something, I throw a blank DVD-R into the DVD drive and burn.
Using the body for a return path would make for a highly resistive path to ground and likely a very inefficient circuit. Of course, you can cut the resistance considerably if you're willing to impale yourself with a return probe.
Here's an experiment: 1) Squeeze one of the probes on an ohmmeter between the thumb and fore-finger of one of your hands. 2) Press the other probe against your eye and note the resistance. 3) Now, take the probe you're holding in your hand and jab it into a random location on your body. Note the new resistance. 4) Get back on/. and share your results. Be sure to note both resistances, body part chosen, and approximate depth of penetration.
As Tango42 pointed out above, the cat and mouse issue could be easily resolved by scrolling data based on eye movement. Seems like a great solution to me - Data available peripherally to be accessed through eye movement and an unimpeded center for a clear FOV.
...your chosen religion of atheism... I feel the need to correct this any time I see it. Atheism is not a religion. Neither are monotheism or polytheism. They are beliefs about how many gods are out there. Multiple religions exist that hold each of those beliefs.
I'm always willing to admit ignorance when appropriate. The only insight I have into the generation of this legal document is from TFA and the history of actions from the MPAA. Apart from that, I know nothing. But, based on what I know, it seems like reasonable speculation. Do you have further information? Do you happen to be a Swedish lawyer?
...who has time to write that many pages? This is nothing but ignorant speculation on my part, but I'm guessing that it's a large team of American and Swedish lawyers under the employ of the MPAA who wrote most of this up and delivered it wrapped it up for the Swedish prosecutors.
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Smashing is effective and very simple. I work in areas where, if a CD needs to be destroyed, it is degaussed, crushed, and incinerated. At first, it seemed ludicrous to degauss a CD. But they use the same procedure for everything and it's (usually) very effective. Got data to be destroyed? Toss it in a burn box and it's toast. Really toast. Very effective, very easy, and basically no thought or instruction. Better for data to be accidentally destroyed than accidentally saved in some arenas.
There are many such groups across the country - Most of whom seem to be uninformed and alarmist folks that are frightened of the nuclear boogey-man and want to stop anything that may have been in contact with a stray neutron. There's a group largely centered in Santa Fe, NM that goes around Los Alamos taking counts on plants and such and then posting pictures of background radiation rates on their web-site to incite fear. Admittedly, some dirt piles are hotter than others - Just like everywhere else in the world - But not terribly frightening. One ironic point is that the background radiation is actually higher in Santa Fe due in large part to the difference in ground-matter. It's actually gone far enough that the legal maximum rad limit for re-processed water in Santa Fe is below Santa Fe's normal background level.
Los Alamos locals for the most part regard the group as a sad joke.
Apparently, the US government leaned on the Russian government and asked them to crack down on the company before Russia'd get much further in trade negotiations. While that's true, it took very little time for allofmp3.com to change its name to mp3fiesta.com, which is up and running today under the same business model within the bounds Russian law (just like allofmp3.com was.) [Please forgive if I botched the link, but there's no way I'm verifying that from work.]
For better or worse, you can't stop the signal.
I couldn't agree more. My only real exposure to Europe is several visits to Vienna to visit family, but I was amazed at the difference that severe fuel taxation made in the city infrastructure. They tax the hell outta gas and it makes for good public transit and logically located homes & businesses. A vast difference from what I see in the US. I submitted this article for a couple of reasons:
* Oil is going to run out (or at least is going to become very expensive)
* Americans must either drive or make a dramatic social/economic shift (good luck)
* An oil alternative is not going to come from a single source (i.e. corn)
* This seems to break organic material into a substance that, at best, fuels our cars. At a minimum, gets us drunk. And at worst, does both.
DRM: Even though it's a civil matter and none of the cops' business, if the plaintiff were somehow able to prove that you had illegally obtained files, it would certainly help their case against you. And, although legal copies of copywritten material can sometimes be made, some illegal copies have watermarking embedded that clearly shows that they've been pirated. Of course, they would likely need some way to prove that the infringing files were on the device other than sending cops after it. In fairness, IANAL and do not know if "conviction" is an appropriate term for losing a civil suit in which you've broken the law.
Kiddie porn: Illegal to possess under any circumstances. Unfortunately, this could certainly be used by bad cops or just somebody who doesn't like you to get you into trouble. If you could somehow prove that somebody else put it there and that you were unaware of it, I cannot imagine that you would be prosecuted, but you would still be in violation of the law and could be prosecuted/convicted.
An e-mail that says...: Certainly enough to send cops to go search the place described as the location of the body (assuming public land.) If the body is indeed found there, then it's probably enough to get a warrant to look under your bed. If a rifle with matching ballistics is found there, then it could certainly lead to a conviction.
Not trying to be contrary, just providing examples of data that could lead to a conviction.
* Illegally obtained movies
* Illegal pornography
* An e-mail that says, "Hey Bob. You know that person they're looking for? I shot him with the 22 rifle under my bed and here's where they should be looking if they want to find the body..."
* etc.
In the US, 'math' is traditionally singular and is roughly synonymous with "The science or application of mathematics."
In the UK, 'maths' is traditionally plural and is short for 'mathematics'.
Agreed. I'm not sure who this cache of pictures appeals to. If you're looking for porn, go download some porn. If you're looking for a bunch of stranger's vacation pictures, snapshots of their pets in cute poses, and cell-phone-cam pics of them making funny faces, then you're just weird.
Sorry if this seems like a trolling effort, but I have to ask. If saving 100 million people a year is such a sin, are you suggesting that killing an additional 100 million/year would be doing them a service? After all, that would leave more resources to spread around...
If I could get people to start calling me Iron-gnick, I would.
... does not allow internal or stored e-mail outside the firewall unencrypted ...
That would be nice, but is prohibitive for many companies. My company, for example, does not allow e-mail outside the firewall unencrypted. On this side, we have Lotus Notes which approaches zero usability as e-mail etiquette drops. We have periodic training for users mostly scheduled by how ugly things have gotten. Some employees, of course, never learn when it is or is not appropriate to use the "Reply to All" button, but there's no action taken on the corporate scale. The only way to handle it is to send them to /dev/null and force them to pick up a phone to follow up on anything that was actually important.
Thank you for that - The BoingBoing article left me completely unimpressed. For those who don't want to RTFA, don't bother. Everything pertinent is contained in the summary. Not enough to be at all persuasive, IMHO - One woman's claims that FBI agents were documenting their activities while stealing nuclear weapons secrets and selling them to baddies and a newspaper that claims to have evidence that a document (contents unknown) is missing. Not enough to persuade me.
However, the timesonline article posted by parent gives a lot more detail and is a little more persuasive in lending credence to her claims. It references a lot of anonymous and questionable sources, but at least it references something. Even questionable details, again IMHO, are preferable to getting overly excited based on something so thin.
No, this falls far short of justice. Justice would have been posting a bunch of copywritten songs and announcing to the world where to find them. Even better:
* Record an original piece
* Post it
* Sue the RIAA for hosting it
Just blanking a site is lazy.
I believe that the "million-million" definition has been deprecated and the wayward "billion" word replaced by "bazillion" ("Trillion" is used exclusively when discussing the US national debt.) Billion is now exclusively "thousand-million".
No - It can't decode what's coming in off of my satellite either, but that doesn't matter. The computer has an IR flasher that tunes the satellite receiver (or cable box or whatever as long as it has an IR receiver), whose output goes into the tuner card. It does, however, require using a remote that the computer can receive from. Since that remote is RF rather than IR, I consider it a marked improvement.
No, not a scrolling marquee. Imagine a graphic in the lower-right section of your FOV. If your eye stays still, so does it. If you shift your eye to the lower-right, the graphic would scroll to the center of the display. It could be made to appear as if you were looking around a full static display.
You just need a better DVR. For a couple of hundred bucks + a couple of hours of effort, I revamped an old PC into a DVR with BeyondTV (I know - MythTV is free and you don't need Windows, but that's the way I went.) No subscription fees and HD if your tuner card supports it. And, if I want to burn something, I throw a blank DVD-R into the DVD drive and burn.
Using the body for a return path would make for a highly resistive path to ground and likely a very inefficient circuit. Of course, you can cut the resistance considerably if you're willing to impale yourself with a return probe.
/. and share your results. Be sure to note both resistances, body part chosen, and approximate depth of penetration.
Here's an experiment:
1) Squeeze one of the probes on an ohmmeter between the thumb and fore-finger of one of your hands.
2) Press the other probe against your eye and note the resistance.
3) Now, take the probe you're holding in your hand and jab it into a random location on your body. Note the new resistance.
4) Get back on
As Tango42 pointed out above, the cat and mouse issue could be easily resolved by scrolling data based on eye movement. Seems like a great solution to me - Data available peripherally to be accessed through eye movement and an unimpeded center for a clear FOV.
...a nasty, cardboard-flavored version of a cow. Think smaller... More legs...
...your chosen religion of atheism... I feel the need to correct this any time I see it. Atheism is not a religion. Neither are monotheism or polytheism. They are beliefs about how many gods are out there. Multiple religions exist that hold each of those beliefs.I'm always willing to admit ignorance when appropriate. The only insight I have into the generation of this legal document is from TFA and the history of actions from the MPAA. Apart from that, I know nothing. But, based on what I know, it seems like reasonable speculation. Do you have further information? Do you happen to be a Swedish lawyer?
...who has time to write that many pages? This is nothing but ignorant speculation on my part, but I'm guessing that it's a large team of American and Swedish lawyers under the employ of the MPAA who wrote most of this up and delivered it wrapped it up for the Swedish prosecutors.