And in other news. . .
on
Congress@Work
·
· Score: 4
The US Congress is also passing another law affecting the internet and freedom, entitled 'We Have Our Yearly Operating Data About Dangerous Youngsters'. The law is designed to collect daily internet usage by minors and aggregate it to have a central computer decide (on its own) which minors are dangerous by looking at the sites they visit, and expelling them from school before they act out.
Passing through the house and Senate, 'WHOYODADY' has already been marked as an immenent success in protecting our children (at the expense of a teeny bit of freedom).
The interesting part of all this stuff is the material the controller is made of.
Some cut-off spandex from a jumpsuit, and coat button snaps sewn on backwards for the electrodes to connect to.
NASA Engineers with duct tape and a toolshed can do pretty much anything.:>
BTW, For info on the Neural Engineering project at NASA Ames who is working on this project, see The Neural Engineering group ------------------------------------------------ --
That would be damn nifty for bug-testing a zone in live play, if you're not the cheating type. Especially if it's one a person wrote is playing and winning big on. Need to see if they put in cheats that only they'd know about? Go for it!
In defense of the cheating angle, you can't honestly say that cheating isn't a problem now, what with the rocket-jumpers on half-life clearing an entire level in one jump 3 seconds into the game and getting your flag.
How about a 'deal with it' top level domain, for NON corporate entities only to use. No lawsuits for speaking your companies' name without permission, no more lawsuits for having a dissenting or negative view of the company that might hurt their bottom line. I kinda like it.
Did you notice in the article that they're citing that this law will slow innovation because people can no longer patent standards?
It seems to me that companies in court these days are using the word "Innovation" like the boy who cried wolf. If it can't be used to churn a profit, it's stifling innovation. First microsoft bashing GPL and Open Source products, now Rambus.
"Stifling Innovation" is the newest buzz-word for "We don't like it and we can't profit off it".
Interesting. I wonder what they'll do when a corporation that has a precense both in EU and another country (For example, USA) has data on a citizen. Forbid the corporation to have the data? forbid the corp to share it with itself outside the country?
Sadly, in a world of Corporations larger than most Governments (cisco, McDonalds', Toyota, Sony), this type of border-reliant protection scheme is little more than lip service.
Show me a plan that actually protects me from having data about myself misused in the name of profit, or collected by corporations and sold to my government, and you'll have me drooling. Otherwise, I call shenanigans. ------------------------------------ --------------
NASA has tons of interesting projects on the table that deal with Flight. The Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA, has an ongoing effort with airports and the FAA.
Many of their air flight related projects can be previewed at http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/ne.html
My personal favorite project is at http://ic-www.arc.nasa.gov/projects/neuro/ifc/acti ve.html ----------------------------------------- ---------
Now we can prove that hundreds of porn-site-popup windows attacking you all at once really DO cause heart attacks. ---------------------------------------- ----------
Re:Interesting slant on the article.
on
Hi-Tech Repo Man
·
· Score: 1
If you look at the bay area housing market, though, you'd find out that a Million dollar house isn't the shit.
I live in a one bedroom apartment for a cool $1250 a month, because that's what a one bedroom is worth out here. A million dollar house will get you three bedrooms and a decent yard, to own, and raise a family in. The same house in my home town would run you $240k - $400 a month LESS in mortgage than my rent.
Sure, it looks good on paper to say "This chick has a million dollar house and can't afford a car!". But the fact is, if you live in the bay area between Mountain View and San Francisco, *every* house is a million dollar one. -------------------------------------------- ------
Re:Interesting slant on the article.
on
Hi-Tech Repo Man
·
· Score: 2
True enough. But I spent 3 years working as a medic for a busy city fire department, and I took a lot of pleasure in it.
Not once, however, did I ever say "Woohoo! Another near-fatal car wreck involving three children! Today's my day to be good at giving IV's." ------------------------------------------ --------
Interesting slant on the article.
on
Hi-Tech Repo Man
·
· Score: 5
While right now the tech industry is in a slump, and I'm lucky to be one of the techs who was intelligent enough to live within my means, I still have to resent the tone of the article.
"Whenever another company announces layoffs, we get all excited". Straight from the article.
Yes, it means you get more business, Mr. Repo man, but slow down for a second and realize that the 8,000 layoffs mean two things. 1) They mean that 50 workers who lived too lavishly will pay for it. 2) They mean that the other 7,950 workers who were just trying to get by in the most expensive place on this coast to live, are now probably apartment/home-less.
The sickening read of this article basically states what a high kick this guy gets off the human misery that is a round of layoffs, just so he can make a few bucks.
The article portrays the tech workers in a very bad light by focusing on the lavish, stupid guys. But frankly, when I read the article, it puts this repo guy in a FAR worse light. ------------------------------------------ --------
On one hand, I completely agree with you. Legislation is always mis-used when it restricts choice, period.
On the other hand, though, the US Government is a very odd bird. I think that there are plenty of branches where it's very useful to be able to examine every inch of the code in products you're trusting the government's integrity to.
God knows, when we're talking US Govt, the open-source software they're using will be the ONLY thing with any integrity anyways.:>
Twins are not clones. They're not always even identical.
Twins are the result of either: a) Two eggs were released this month, and both of them are now impregnated, or b) (more rare), one egg is impregnated and then splits, resulting in identical twins. HOWEVER: From the moment they split, twins develop differently, live differently.
I support a ban on cloning for now, until the majority of the US matures enough to handle the technology they're getting themselves into.
Think we abused Napster? Just wait until the KKK can begin brewing their own perfect children. Think bad parents treat their kids poorly because they wanted an image of themselves? Just wait until they GET a perfect image of themselves and are still frustrated because the child has a mind of its own.
Think it won't happen that way? http://www.genochoice.com has it all.
The problem, of course, with launching all that into space is that it's probably mostly porn, and whoever found it would spend more time drooling over the nude pics of Natalie Portman on Slashdot than re-engineering us.
Not that it's far from the truth -- If chairs weren't in the public domain (Older than 1910), I have no doubt that the companies of today would try to license you to use their product for monthly or (slightly cheaper) yearly licenses.
I have to ask myself --- is this an example of how art imitates life?
Once again, this seems to raise the age-old issue of morales vs. freedom of speech.
In this case, the Federal Government(FBI) is attempting to push the morales of the "Common man"(tm). By making a satire site a federal crime, they're attempting to successfully criminalize freedom of speech on the 'Net.
In my not-so-humble opinion, this results directly from the always-present push by the majority to make everyone conform to various community morales, be they religious, spiritual or just plain "We hate people who would even think of hurting kittens!".
I sincerely hope that the FBI does not prosecute, and if so, I sincerely hope that the court finds the owners of bonsaikittens.com wholly innocent. To do anything but is to set a dangerous precedent -- that our rights are rights only as long as they don't offend anyone and aren't strange.
This seems to be a pattern (A good one) in the Gaming industry. Interactivity is what the newer breed of gamers want. Interactivity with humans, to be precise. So you build a game and give it away for free, then charge for access to the multiplayer servers.
I'd probably be more willing to plunk down $4 a month or so for nice, big, juicy Half-Life servers if I got the game for free and didn't have to spend $60 every time they come out with a new version or a nifty upgrade.
Personally, I don't see a reason for there to be resistance from the USA at all. There's little that someone can do with a GSO orbit satellite that one cannot do with a GPS or LEO satellite.
Beyond a macho "We're the only ones allowed to do cool stuff!" type attitude, what does anyone have to fear?
It's obvious, then, that if the government has a tight enough rein on the terrorists they're pointing out who use encryption, then obviously the government is good enough at tracking terrorists without being able to track their keys, and they simply don't need to worry about it!
Of course, the reality is that this is prime material for legislatures to begin convincing the less tech-savvy "common man" that they desperately need legislation in place to form a Key Escrow so that anyone's keys can be cracked by the government if they so desire.
Criminals, of course, simply won't obey the law. Duh.
It seems like society will never quite get over that whole part where they completely fear anything they don't understand. If you took the reaction of the campus cops (Look, something's fishy and we don't understand it, we should arrest them!) and wind the clock back 200 years, you end up with the Salem Witch trials. (Look, something's fishy and we don't understand it, we should burn them!).
The fact is, our society is reactionary. What is not understood is usually misunderstood, and panic sets in quickly. If you look back at the cycles over the years, we've always wanted something to fear on the whole, so we create it.
The only solution to the people as a whole NOT taking events they don't understand and persecuting vague demographics based on their perception begins, and ends, with mass media.
It used to be gossip, then it was the church, and now it's CNN and Time-Warner. In any case, the root cause is misinformation from "trusted" sources.
The author mentions that society couldn't function without the help of reputation; that "In the older days, we relied on gossip for the exchange of that information" and suggests that the technological private information that travels around now is an equal to that.
This is wrong in one critical way. In the olden days, gossip followed one around for a year or so. More if you were horrible, forever only if you were an infamous evil/good person.
TODAY: Every small detail of everything you've ever done, all transactions you've made - the time you wrote a mean letter to your newspaper online. All of that follows you Indefinately!.
This is the critical difference. The need to protect privacy is more than just protecting your anonymity. It's also about protecting yourself from the dumb things you did at age 17 coming back to haunt you when it's time to get credit on your car.
Sounds like this is typical of technology. The more you rely on the tech to do your job for you, the less practice you get.
A farmer, for example, who used to plow his fields by hand or with an Ox, would be much stronger through use and practice of his muscles than today's farmer, who augments most physical labor with machinery.
Apply this to technology. Let others think for you, and soon you forget how to think at all. This is a nice point to keep in mind for those people who like to think that our government should do as much for its people as possible. (hint!).
On the one hand, companies like Amazon "Need to patent their technology before some other big company patents it and sues them for using it".
On the other hand, if you use a technology and three months later Sony patents it, you should be able to prove prior art pretty damn easily. It makes me wonder if perhaps the problem isn't the US Patent Office approving stupid patents as it is *gasp* LAWYERS!!
The lawyers are in it for the money, pretty much, and any good corporate lawyer knows how to rape the legal system to get profit. Perhaps if society didn't allow this kind of hideous practice, patent lawsuits would make sense again.
Slashdot Mirror
The US Congress is also passing another law affecting the internet and freedom, entitled 'We Have Our Yearly Operating Data About Dangerous Youngsters'. The law is designed to collect daily internet usage by minors and aggregate it to have a central computer decide (on its own) which minors are dangerous by looking at the sites they visit, and expelling them from school before they act out.
:>
- --
Passing through the house and Senate, 'WHOYODADY' has already been marked as an immenent success in protecting our children (at the expense of a teeny bit of freedom).
Well, at least they're becoming less subtle.
-----------------------------------------------
Because creating a virtual directory with images from Fords' website, or cut n' pastes, could actually get you for Copyright violation.
- -----
Linking to their site violates no copyrights, as far as I am aware. The bandwidth excuse is bullshit though.
If that's a valid excuse, then companies can start suing slashdot for being linked to by us.
--------------------------------------------
The interesting part of all this stuff is the material the controller is made of.
:>
- --
Some cut-off spandex from a jumpsuit, and coat button snaps sewn on backwards for the electrodes to connect to.
NASA Engineers with duct tape and a toolshed can do pretty much anything.
BTW, For info on the Neural Engineering project at NASA Ames who is working on this project, see The Neural Engineering group
-----------------------------------------------
That would be damn nifty for bug-testing a zone in live play, if you're not the cheating type. Especially if it's one a person wrote is playing and winning big on. Need to see if they put in cheats that only they'd know about? Go for it!
- --
In defense of the cheating angle, you can't honestly say that cheating isn't a problem now, what with the rocket-jumpers on half-life clearing an entire level in one jump 3 seconds into the game and getting your flag.
-----------------------------------------------
How about a 'deal with it' top level domain, for NON corporate entities only to use. No lawsuits for speaking your companies' name without permission, no more lawsuits for having a dissenting or negative view of the company that might hurt their bottom line. I kinda like it.
- -----------------------
www.mattel.dealwithit
--------------------------
Did you notice in the article that they're citing that this law will slow innovation because people can no longer patent standards?
n ovation- ---------
It seems to me that companies in court these days are using the word "Innovation" like the boy who cried wolf. If it can't be used to churn a profit, it's stifling innovation. First microsoft bashing GPL and Open Source products, now Rambus.
"Stifling Innovation" is the newest buzz-word for "We don't like it and we can't profit off it".
Here, guys. Let me help you out.
http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=in
----------------------------------------
Interesting. I wonder what they'll do when a corporation that has a precense both in EU and another country (For example, USA) has data on a citizen. Forbid the corporation to have the data? forbid the corp to share it with itself outside the country?
- --------------
Sadly, in a world of Corporations larger than most Governments (cisco, McDonalds', Toyota, Sony), this type of border-reliant protection scheme is little more than lip service.
Show me a plan that actually protects me from having data about myself misused in the name of profit, or collected by corporations and sold to my government, and you'll have me drooling. Otherwise, I call shenanigans.
-----------------------------------
NASA has tons of interesting projects on the table that deal with Flight. The Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA, has an ongoing effort with airports and the FAA.
i ve.html- ---------
Many of their air flight related projects can be previewed at http://ic.arc.nasa.gov/ne.html
My personal favorite project is at http://ic-www.arc.nasa.gov/projects/neuro/ifc/act
----------------------------------------
Now we can prove that hundreds of porn-site-popup windows attacking you all at once really DO cause heart attacks.- ----------
---------------------------------------
If you look at the bay area housing market, though, you'd find out that a Million dollar house isn't the shit.
- ------
I live in a one bedroom apartment for a cool $1250 a month, because that's what a one bedroom is worth out here. A million dollar house will get you three bedrooms and a decent yard, to own, and raise a family in. The same house in my home town would run you $240k - $400 a month LESS in mortgage than my rent.
Sure, it looks good on paper to say "This chick has a million dollar house and can't afford a car!". But the fact is, if you live in the bay area between Mountain View and San Francisco, *every* house is a million dollar one.
-------------------------------------------
True enough. But I spent 3 years working as a medic for a busy city fire department, and I took a lot of pleasure in it.
- --------
Not once, however, did I ever say "Woohoo! Another near-fatal car wreck involving three children! Today's my day to be good at giving IV's."
-----------------------------------------
While right now the tech industry is in a slump, and I'm lucky to be one of the techs who was intelligent enough to live within my means, I still have to resent the tone of the article.
- --------
"Whenever another company announces layoffs, we get all excited". Straight from the article.
Yes, it means you get more business, Mr. Repo man, but slow down for a second and realize that the 8,000 layoffs mean two things. 1) They mean that 50 workers who lived too lavishly will pay for it. 2) They mean that the other 7,950 workers who were just trying to get by in the most expensive place on this coast to live, are now probably apartment/home-less.
The sickening read of this article basically states what a high kick this guy gets off the human misery that is a round of layoffs, just so he can make a few bucks.
The article portrays the tech workers in a very bad light by focusing on the lavish, stupid guys. But frankly, when I read the article, it puts this repo guy in a FAR worse light.
-----------------------------------------
On one hand, I completely agree with you. Legislation is always mis-used when it restricts choice, period.
:>
On the other hand, though, the US Government is a very odd bird. I think that there are plenty of branches where it's very useful to be able to examine every inch of the code in products you're trusting the government's integrity to.
God knows, when we're talking US Govt, the open-source software they're using will be the ONLY thing with any integrity anyways.
Twins are not clones. They're not always even identical.
Twins are the result of either: a) Two eggs were released this month, and both of them are now impregnated, or b) (more rare), one egg is impregnated and then splits, resulting in identical twins. HOWEVER: From the moment they split, twins develop differently, live differently.
I support a ban on cloning for now, until the majority of the US matures enough to handle the technology they're getting themselves into.
Think we abused Napster? Just wait until the KKK can begin brewing their own perfect children. Think bad parents treat their kids poorly because they wanted an image of themselves? Just wait until they GET a perfect image of themselves and are still frustrated because the child has a mind of its own.
Think it won't happen that way? http://www.genochoice.com has it all.
Cool. Sounds like a great new end-segment for 'The Man Show'. Girls on pogosprings!!
The problem, of course, with launching all that into space is that it's probably mostly porn, and whoever found it would spend more time drooling over the nude pics of Natalie Portman on Slashdot than re-engineering us.
Bloody wonderful satire.
Not that it's far from the truth -- If chairs weren't in the public domain (Older than 1910), I have no doubt that the companies of today would try to license you to use their product for monthly or (slightly cheaper) yearly licenses.
I have to ask myself --- is this an example of how art imitates life?
Once again, this seems to raise the age-old issue of morales vs. freedom of speech.
In this case, the Federal Government(FBI) is attempting to push the morales of the "Common man"(tm). By making a satire site a federal crime, they're attempting to successfully criminalize freedom of speech on the 'Net.
In my not-so-humble opinion, this results directly from the always-present push by the majority to make everyone conform to various community morales, be they religious, spiritual or just plain "We hate people who would even think of hurting kittens!".
I sincerely hope that the FBI does not prosecute, and if so, I sincerely hope that the court finds the owners of bonsaikittens.com wholly innocent. To do anything but is to set a dangerous precedent -- that our rights are rights only as long as they don't offend anyone and aren't strange.
This seems to be a pattern (A good one) in the Gaming industry. Interactivity is what the newer breed of gamers want. Interactivity with humans, to be precise. So you build a game and give it away for free, then charge for access to the multiplayer servers.
I'd probably be more willing to plunk down $4 a month or so for nice, big, juicy Half-Life servers if I got the game for free and didn't have to spend $60 every time they come out with a new version or a nifty upgrade.
Sounds cool.
Personally, I don't see a reason for there to be resistance from the USA at all. There's little that someone can do with a GSO orbit satellite that one cannot do with a GPS or LEO satellite.
Beyond a macho "We're the only ones allowed to do cool stuff!" type attitude, what does anyone have to fear?
It's obvious, then, that if the government has a tight enough rein on the terrorists they're pointing out who use encryption, then obviously the government is good enough at tracking terrorists without being able to track their keys, and they simply don't need to worry about it!
Of course, the reality is that this is prime material for legislatures to begin convincing the less tech-savvy "common man" that they desperately need legislation in place to form a Key Escrow so that anyone's keys can be cracked by the government if they so desire.
Criminals, of course, simply won't obey the law. Duh.
It seems like society will never quite get over that whole part where they completely fear anything they don't understand. If you took the reaction of the campus cops (Look, something's fishy and we don't understand it, we should arrest them!) and wind the clock back 200 years, you end up with the Salem Witch trials. (Look, something's fishy and we don't understand it, we should burn them!).
The fact is, our society is reactionary. What is not understood is usually misunderstood, and panic sets in quickly. If you look back at the cycles over the years, we've always wanted something to fear on the whole, so we create it.
Salem witch trials.
Communism (McCarthy)
Goths (Columbine)
Terrorists (Oklahoma)
Hackers! (Most recently)
The only solution to the people as a whole NOT taking events they don't understand and persecuting vague demographics based on their perception begins, and ends, with mass media.
It used to be gossip, then it was the church, and now it's CNN and Time-Warner. In any case, the root cause is misinformation from "trusted" sources.
The author mentions that society couldn't function without the help of reputation; that "In the older days, we relied on gossip for the exchange of that information" and suggests that the technological private information that travels around now is an equal to that.
This is wrong in one critical way. In the olden days, gossip followed one around for a year or so. More if you were horrible, forever only if you were an infamous evil/good person.
TODAY: Every small detail of everything you've ever done, all transactions you've made - the time you wrote a mean letter to your newspaper online. All of that follows you Indefinately!.
This is the critical difference. The need to protect privacy is more than just protecting your anonymity. It's also about protecting yourself from the dumb things you did at age 17 coming back to haunt you when it's time to get credit on your car.
Sounds like this is typical of technology. The more you rely on the tech to do your job for you, the less practice you get.
A farmer, for example, who used to plow his fields by hand or with an Ox, would be much stronger through use and practice of his muscles than today's farmer, who augments most physical labor with machinery.
Apply this to technology. Let others think for you, and soon you forget how to think at all. This is a nice point to keep in mind for those people who like to think that our government should do as much for its people as possible. (hint!).
On the one hand, companies like Amazon "Need to patent their technology before some other big company patents it and sues them for using it".
On the other hand, if you use a technology and three months later Sony patents it, you should be able to prove prior art pretty damn easily. It makes me wonder if perhaps the problem isn't the US Patent Office approving stupid patents as it is *gasp* LAWYERS!!
The lawyers are in it for the money, pretty much, and any good corporate lawyer knows how to rape the legal system to get profit. Perhaps if society didn't allow this kind of hideous practice, patent lawsuits would make sense again.