It seems that the issue here is not so much who "owns" the olympics, or who holds rights to report on them. Instead, this seems to be more of an issue of personal freedom. Who "owns" a persons experience and their rights to talk about it. Outside of security-related issues, attempts to restrain a person from talking about their experience of a clearly public event is absurd.
It seems that lots of folks are frightened and even offended by the idea of a technology so advanced that it might allow for significant advancements in health and medical research. It's really the same old concern played out on a different topic.. "This new technology is so powerful...A truly evil dude could wreak havoc on humanity."
This sort of unwarranted fear of technology has resulted in Big Brother type intrusions into our lives. Just look at Carnivore. "If PC's fall into the wrong hands, some truly evil dude could destroy the world with one." Well... so far, we're all still around. Here, most of us are concerned as ever that we maintain free usage of our machines and freedom to mess with all sorts of techie stuff.
Like they say, knowledge is inherently neither good nor bad. It's the use of technology that defines its nature.
Should we look forward to PDA's running high-end intel processors?
I can just see the day... managing my contacts and schedule on a P-IV powered Palm. I can carry the 60-pound refrigeration unit in a backpack as I go about my routine...
I wonder what "quirks" the astronauts have run into while surfing the big porn sites... I imagine zero-g could present some major problems in that department.
I think an interesting part about this "letter" from 2020 is that all technology mentioned sounds to be on the same level as what we have today. To me, this is the most poignant part of the Winopoly/RIAA/MPAA trend toward litigation. A new technology emerges and it gets its ass sued off.
Given the tendency of big business to sue, I'm amazed we've gotten this far.
I think the fact that we must acknowledge is that the way humans perceive the world and process information is really a type of real-time modeling of the data we gather through perception. If you consider both the vast amount of information gained through perception and the truly continuous nature of nature, the use of some model is really the best the human brain can do. It is a necessary tool for making discrete and comprehensible what is in reality continuous and loaded with irrational and stochastic processes.
Now, supermodels... that's an entirely different topic...
I buy that; of course the revival of extinct species seems to push against the mechanism of natural selection. However, another key piece of this evolutionary mechanism is its reliance on random pairings of different sexual organisms and the rare adaptive mutation.
If we let the gene splicers do their work (perhaps breeding elephants and pigs --be sure to get 'em both nice and drunk first) they can simply create all sorts of "good idea" matches, set them loose, and let natural selection cut out the fat. Not second-guessing evolution, just giving it a good wiggle and a shove.
If you look at research on the prevalence of psychological disorders over the past, say, 20 or 30 years the first thing you'll notice is that there isn't so much out there until very recently.
The fact is that the accurate measurement of this information is only now becoming possible and it's entirely possible that this estimate, around 22%, may be undershooting the true prevalence of mental illness in its myriad forms today.
Really, if you look at the little data that was available on this 30 years ago (before Prozac or any major psychoactive drugs --besides antipsychotic medications --hit the market) you'll find that most researchers were estimating.. guess what? Around 20% lifetime prevalence of mental disorders.
This article and the Surgeon General's announcement is nothing at all new. And here on/. all it seems to have done is provoke flamebait from those who have little knowledge of the subject.
Looking at this article, the author apparently builds his argument on research that has found a link between violent behavior in children and violent tv viewing habits. What is not mentioned in this causal interpretation, which is sketchy at best, is that rather than being the source of violent behavior, individuals who are more likely to act out violently are more attracted to violent tv material. I would guess they'd be more attracted to violent video games as well.
Of course, this is not to say that us normal folks shouldn't enjoy a game of Quake 3, but this guy seems to have gotten his facts backward (among other things).
Slashdot Mirror
It seems that the issue here is not so much who "owns" the olympics, or who holds rights to report on them. Instead, this seems to be more of an issue of personal freedom. Who "owns" a persons experience and their rights to talk about it. Outside of security-related issues, attempts to restrain a person from talking about their experience of a clearly public event is absurd.
It seems that lots of folks are frightened and even offended by the idea of a technology so advanced that it might allow for significant advancements in health and medical research. It's really the same old concern played out on a different topic.. "This new technology is so powerful...A truly evil dude could wreak havoc on humanity."
This sort of unwarranted fear of technology has resulted in Big Brother type intrusions into our lives. Just look at Carnivore. "If PC's fall into the wrong hands, some truly evil dude could destroy the world with one." Well... so far, we're all still around. Here, most of us are concerned as ever that we maintain free usage of our machines and freedom to mess with all sorts of techie stuff.
Like they say, knowledge is inherently neither good nor bad. It's the use of technology that defines its nature.
So where do PDA's fit on Intel's market roadmap?
Should we look forward to PDA's running high-end intel processors?
I can just see the day... managing my contacts and schedule on a P-IV powered Palm. I can carry the 60-pound refrigeration unit in a backpack as I go about my routine...
I wonder what "quirks" the astronauts have run into while surfing the big porn sites... I imagine zero-g could present some major problems in that department.
Intel: The World's Biggest Overclocker
I think this is a bit more subversive than run-of-the-mill patent abuse.
Just watch out... next time you visit the apple web site: one wrong click and you've bought yourself a new cube!
I think an interesting part about this "letter" from 2020 is that all technology mentioned sounds to be on the same level as what we have today. To me, this is the most poignant part of the Winopoly/RIAA/MPAA trend toward litigation. A new technology emerges and it gets its ass sued off.
Given the tendency of big business to sue, I'm amazed we've gotten this far.
I think the fact that we must acknowledge is that the way humans perceive the world and process information is really a type of real-time modeling of the data we gather through perception. If you consider both the vast amount of information gained through perception and the truly continuous nature of nature, the use of some model is really the best the human brain can do. It is a necessary tool for making discrete and comprehensible what is in reality continuous and loaded with irrational and stochastic processes.
Now, supermodels... that's an entirely different topic...
If we let the gene splicers do their work (perhaps breeding elephants and pigs --be sure to get 'em both nice and drunk first) they can simply create all sorts of "good idea" matches, set them loose, and let natural selection cut out the fat. Not second-guessing evolution, just giving it a good wiggle and a shove.
The fact is that the accurate measurement of this information is only now becoming possible and it's entirely possible that this estimate, around 22%, may be undershooting the true prevalence of mental illness in its myriad forms today.
Really, if you look at the little data that was available on this 30 years ago (before Prozac or any major psychoactive drugs --besides antipsychotic medications --hit the market) you'll find that most researchers were estimating.. guess what? Around 20% lifetime prevalence of mental disorders.
This article and the Surgeon General's announcement is nothing at all new. And here on /. all it seems to have done is provoke flamebait from those who have little knowledge of the subject.
Of course, this is not to say that us normal folks shouldn't enjoy a game of Quake 3, but this guy seems to have gotten his facts backward (among other things).