Media terrorist, eh? [...] Words have meaning. The meaning of terrorist is not "someone I don't like", despite US policy to the contrary.
Well I'd think that a propagandist fits within the definition of media terrorist. Which fits what Ravell is doing here. An interesting thought to hold in mind is that information always has two main meanings; the information itself and the information of what your interlocutor wants you to believe.
'Subversive organization' means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means
Seems quite broad, no? So many ways to define sets of people, and then say you only need 2. So basically any time you have any kind of relationship with another individual you are suspect.
two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing [...] any political subdivision [of the U.S.] by force or violence or other unlawful means
A subset of which is
indirectly advocates [or] advises the propriety of controlling or seizing or overthrowing any political subdivision of the government of the United States by other unlawful means
So basically any citizen in any relationship with another citizen cannot be safe from worry should he mention what he honestly thinks of the established order and what should be done with it. And whatever he legitimately thinks should be done, if the establishment doesn't like it he's fucked because
by other unlawful means
is a criterion that could probably jail the U.S. population ten times over - and it looks like it'll keep getting worse.
Except, no, it is not a phone, aside from a very limited subset of its functions. It is a phone-enabled internet tablet, a nearly full-fledged turing machine that you can do nearly anything you want with it, especially if you are wishing to root it. It has as much power as a 2000's 1000-1200$ desktop computer, with a capacitive touchscreen, blistering solid-state memory, many different integrated wireless communication protocols (wifi, bluetooth, cell), and who knows what else, all at your fingertips in a pocket form factor for 600 bucks.
But sure, think of it as a phone if you can't conceive better.
Good attitude, but you should take it just a bit farther. Don't want something public? Don't do it! Someone'll know eventually, and time is running out before humanity tends towards total information awareness. As a side bonus, you can feel good about yourself, because you're not worrying about someone learning something you did - you just have to cope with everything you do. Why are westerners so dissociated in what they do and what they wish to be?
Actually, Iran does not hold anti-Israeli rhetoric. Rather, just as how you don't call atheists "anti-theists", Iran simply does not recognize the existence of a State of Israel. The basics of their logic being, Israel's creation being totally illegitimate (look up the Balfour declaration, and the subsequent uprooting of Palestinians from their lands and then wrongful appropriation of these lands by Israelis), there is no reason at all to recognize that state.
>As for Cory Doctorow, I do wish that he gave me some way of giving him money for the digital copies I've gotten from him. I don't want to buy a paper version, and I don't want to donate a paper version. I just want to pay the author (and editor and all those involved) for his/their work.
This. I've encountered the same problem on Last.fm. I only pay 3$ a month for unlimited music, so I figured I might contribute something like an extra 20-30$ a month to the artists I stream most during that period.
But while most of them give their music for free on collective sites like 8bitpeoples.com, I've found no way to give targeted donations to certain artists which I enjoy most, save from following the last.fm link to "buy on itunes/amazon"... but how much will iTunes/amazon collect, and then their publishers, and then who knows what else... so so far I've avoided donating while I work out the problem. Why do artists not provide us with a way to give them straight, targeted, pure-profit donations?
I am pretty sure that even they were not really thinking about winning that big.
Actually they did, and the best in-your-face part is that Osama Ben Laden warned us explicitely in one of his tapes circa 2001. Can't be bothered to find the text (though it's everywhere), but basically he was saying Now what you're going to do is overextend yourself and fall harder than you ever had. But the elite were whipped into a rage (or more plausibly saw some profit in that manufactured war) and decided to convince the people to overextend anyways.
I've actually found a mantra which is quite useful for this exact purpose. Whenever I'm talking/thinking and I'm about to say/think "I'm right", I automatically replace it with the more elaborate construction "I dare hope that I'm right" and then mentally append a list of reasons why I think that's the case (to be revised according to further information). Helps me remain critical yet non-judgmental. YMMV, but I dare hope it works:)
Talking about this - anyone know of a good current/next-gen phone with such a forward facing camera? I was looking for an open internet tablet/smartphone, which I planned to use solely with wifi (no plan with a carrier at all). Having a camera so I can videochat in google voice (or any other videoconferencing program) would be a definite plus but I haven't seen one in any android or maemo phone...
This is the opposite of a police state, this is a free state that lets the corporations do whatever they want.
Except if the goals of these police corporations are virtually indistinguishable from the wishes of the state that lets them thrive. The resulting intimate meshing of corporations and government is then called fascism.
However, it's unclear whether you could run an emulation of a human mind on any reasonable amount of power.
There is no difference in a perfect emulation and the original. Unless the brain is actually the most efficient computing machine theoritically possible (which it is not) then we will eventually be able to beat its efficiency.
As yet, there's not the least shred of evidence that either AI or human consciousness transfer is possible.
Information theory disagrees. Any turing-complete machine can eventually run an emulation of the human mind, and with enough processing power do it at real-time or faster speeds.
But who are you to tell other people which drugs they should have a legitimate right to contain in their bodies? If it is a clear-headed decision for their own benefit, you shouldn't be allowed to deny them the right.
I, for one, do not welcome our automated tomato-growing overlords. The next step is growing humans, and harvesting them for power! Someone has to stop this!
You might have a point. But the ISPs are really exagerating. Most caps are easily met in one or two days of full download at the speed specified. It might be a viable strategy to oversell, but ISPs shouldn't be allowed to expect overselling by as much as 15-30x. They should invest in their infrastructure, not squeeze the customers dry all the while compromising the development of the same service they are trying to sell. Obviously, most ISPs have no long term view of the internet, at all.
You are trying to disrupt the discussion with your apparently fake definition. That, or you only quoted the part which suited you.
From Merriam-Websters: Censorship: 1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors ; especially : censorial control exercised repressively Censoring:
to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable
Note the usage of the word suppress. Even if they did not delete it it still constitutes censorship since they are deliberately trying to diminish the availability of the material. Also note that it isn't only Merriam-Websters that agrees with this definition.
From wikipedia: Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.
Not to mention that people sharing upwards of 2:1 ratio are very rare... Assumming an (approximate) zero sum system such as bittorent, the average user shares exactly 1 copy of the content he downloaded, not 100.
the tank has a very very tough metal wall separating the reactants (gasoline and air)
Patently false. Anyone who has ever owned a car knows that it is very common to have small fuel leaks on cars 3+ years old because the automobile makers build the tank as thin as possible to save money; rust can eat through a gas tank in a couple tough seasons (and even in a single winter if you live in a northern climate where potent salts are used to melt the ice on the roads). Also, plastic tanks are very common in cars under 20 grand; although they are impervious to rust, they are much more prone to punctures or shattering in any violent impact.
Not necessarily. The least elegant way to create strong AI is probably to brute force simulate a whole brain down to nearly every neurotransmitter molecule, something which futurists argue will be doable by supercomputers around 2020. This is a worst case solution since it would imply that the brain is not understood yet and instead of having a simpler model that can provide the same level of strong AI we just throw raw power at it. In this case, the AI would theoritically emerge out of the complexity of the system and although malicious intent wouldn't be programmed in (neither would anything else) the system might learn it by himself.
This is a solved problem. One of my friends doing a masters in microbiology is working on a functionally similar problem where a colony of yeast isolated by an osmotic membrane is used to filter certain nutrients in a liquid stream... I won't go into details but according to his explanations this seemed like the easy part, what is hard is managing to insure an environment where yeast can survive (there is a buildup of dead yeast cells that cannot go through the membrane and undermine the efficiency of the apparatus)
Slashdot Mirror
Media terrorist, eh? [...] Words have meaning. The meaning of terrorist is not "someone I don't like", despite US policy to the contrary.
Well I'd think that a propagandist fits within the definition of media terrorist. Which fits what Ravell is doing here.
An interesting thought to hold in mind is that information always has two main meanings; the information itself and the information of what your interlocutor wants you to believe.
'Subversive organization' means every corporation, society, association, camp, group, bund, political party, assembly, body or organization, composed of two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, of this State or of any political subdivision thereof by force or violence or other unlawful means
Seems quite broad, no? So many ways to define sets of people, and then say you only need 2. So basically any time you have any kind of relationship with another individual you are suspect.
two or more persons, which directly or indirectly advocates, advises, teaches or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing [...] any political subdivision [of the U.S.] by force or violence or other unlawful means
A subset of which is
indirectly advocates [or] advises the propriety of controlling or seizing or overthrowing any political subdivision of the government of the United States by other unlawful means
So basically any citizen in any relationship with another citizen cannot be safe from worry should he mention what he honestly thinks of the established order and what should be done with it. And whatever he legitimately thinks should be done, if the establishment doesn't like it he's fucked because
by other unlawful means
is a criterion that could probably jail the U.S. population ten times over - and it looks like it'll keep getting worse.
Sorry to burst your bubble but you can't transmit information faster than light.
Period*.
*: As long as current observations that the universe is causal are not falsified.
Fixed that for you.
Except, no, it is not a phone, aside from a very limited subset of its functions. It is a phone-enabled internet tablet, a nearly full-fledged turing machine that you can do nearly anything you want with it, especially if you are wishing to root it. It has as much power as a 2000's 1000-1200$ desktop computer, with a capacitive touchscreen, blistering solid-state memory, many different integrated wireless communication protocols (wifi, bluetooth, cell), and who knows what else, all at your fingertips in a pocket form factor for 600 bucks.
But sure, think of it as a phone if you can't conceive better.
Good attitude, but you should take it just a bit farther. Don't want something public? Don't do it! Someone'll know eventually, and time is running out before humanity tends towards total information awareness.
As a side bonus, you can feel good about yourself, because you're not worrying about someone learning something you did - you just have to cope with everything you do.
Why are westerners so dissociated in what they do and what they wish to be?
Actually, Iran does not hold anti-Israeli rhetoric. Rather, just as how you don't call atheists "anti-theists", Iran simply does not recognize the existence of a State of Israel. The basics of their logic being, Israel's creation being totally illegitimate (look up the Balfour declaration, and the subsequent uprooting of Palestinians from their lands and then wrongful appropriation of these lands by Israelis), there is no reason at all to recognize that state.
>As for Cory Doctorow, I do wish that he gave me some way of giving him money for the digital copies I've gotten from him. I don't want to buy a paper version, and I don't want to donate a paper version. I just want to pay the author (and editor and all those involved) for his/their work.
This. I've encountered the same problem on Last.fm. I only pay 3$ a month for unlimited music, so I figured I might contribute something like an extra 20-30$ a month to the artists I stream most during that period.
But while most of them give their music for free on collective sites like 8bitpeoples.com, I've found no way to give targeted donations to certain artists which I enjoy most, save from following the last.fm link to "buy on itunes/amazon"... but how much will iTunes/amazon collect, and then their publishers, and then who knows what else... so so far I've avoided donating while I work out the problem. Why do artists not provide us with a way to give them straight, targeted, pure-profit donations?
I am pretty sure that even they were not really thinking about winning that big.
Actually they did, and the best in-your-face part is that Osama Ben Laden warned us explicitely in one of his tapes circa 2001. Can't be bothered to find the text (though it's everywhere), but basically he was saying Now what you're going to do is overextend yourself and fall harder than you ever had. But the elite were whipped into a rage (or more plausibly saw some profit in that manufactured war) and decided to convince the people to overextend anyways.
And here we are.
I've actually found a mantra which is quite useful for this exact purpose. Whenever I'm talking/thinking and I'm about to say/think "I'm right", I automatically replace it with the more elaborate construction "I dare hope that I'm right" and then mentally append a list of reasons why I think that's the case (to be revised according to further information). :)
Helps me remain critical yet non-judgmental. YMMV, but I dare hope it works
Talking about this - anyone know of a good current/next-gen phone with such a forward facing camera? I was looking for an open internet tablet/smartphone, which I planned to use solely with wifi (no plan with a carrier at all). Having a camera so I can videochat in google voice (or any other videoconferencing program) would be a definite plus but I haven't seen one in any android or maemo phone...
Yep, but I don't think the russians had any.
Or else, they somehow feel the need to remind the U.S. that they still got them?
This is the opposite of a police state, this is a free state that lets the corporations do whatever they want.
Except if the goals of these police corporations are virtually indistinguishable from the wishes of the state that lets them thrive. The resulting intimate meshing of corporations and government is then called fascism.
Hmm... and load the really big yacht in the really big interior pool of an international cruise ship?
Not anymore.
However, it's unclear whether you could run an emulation of a human mind on any reasonable amount of power.
There is no difference in a perfect emulation and the original. Unless the brain is actually the most efficient computing machine theoritically possible (which it is not) then we will eventually be able to beat its efficiency.
As yet, there's not the least shred of evidence that either AI or human consciousness transfer is possible.
Information theory disagrees. Any turing-complete machine can eventually run an emulation of the human mind, and with enough processing power do it at real-time or faster speeds.
But who are you to tell other people which drugs they should have a legitimate right to contain in their bodies? If it is a clear-headed decision for their own benefit, you shouldn't be allowed to deny them the right.
I, for one, welcome our eternal, digitally reproduced robot overlords.
I, for one, do not welcome our automated tomato-growing overlords.
The next step is growing humans, and harvesting them for power!
Someone has to stop this!
You might have a point. But the ISPs are really exagerating.
Most caps are easily met in one or two days of full download at the speed specified.
It might be a viable strategy to oversell, but ISPs shouldn't be allowed to expect overselling by as much as 15-30x. They should invest in their infrastructure, not squeeze the customers dry all the while compromising the development of the same service they are trying to sell.
Obviously, most ISPs have no long term view of the internet, at all.
You are trying to disrupt the discussion with your apparently fake definition. That, or you only quoted the part which suited you.
From Merriam-Websters:
Censorship:
1 a: the institution, system, or practice of censoring b: the actions or practices of censors ; especially : censorial control exercised repressively
Censoring:
to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable ; also : to suppress or delete as objectionable
Note the usage of the word suppress. Even if they did not delete it it still constitutes censorship since they are deliberately trying to diminish the availability of the material.
Also note that it isn't only Merriam-Websters that agrees with this definition.
From wikipedia:
Censorship is the suppression of speech or deletion of communicative material which may be considered objectionable, harmful or sensitive, as determined by a censor.
Not to mention that people sharing upwards of 2:1 ratio are very rare... Assumming an (approximate) zero sum system such as bittorent, the average user shares exactly 1 copy of the content he downloaded, not 100.
the tank has a very very tough metal wall separating the reactants (gasoline and air)
Patently false. Anyone who has ever owned a car knows that it is very common to have small fuel leaks on cars 3+ years old because the automobile makers build the tank as thin as possible to save money; rust can eat through a gas tank in a couple tough seasons (and even in a single winter if you live in a northern climate where potent salts are used to melt the ice on the roads).
Also, plastic tanks are very common in cars under 20 grand; although they are impervious to rust, they are much more prone to punctures or shattering in any violent impact.
You should have answered in this manner...
Not necessarily. The least elegant way to create strong AI is probably to brute force simulate a whole brain down to nearly every neurotransmitter molecule, something which futurists argue will be doable by supercomputers around 2020.
This is a worst case solution since it would imply that the brain is not understood yet and instead of having a simpler model that can provide the same level of strong AI we just throw raw power at it.
In this case, the AI would theoritically emerge out of the complexity of the system and although malicious intent wouldn't be programmed in (neither would anything else) the system might learn it by himself.
This is a solved problem. One of my friends doing a masters in microbiology is working on a functionally similar problem where a colony of yeast isolated by an osmotic membrane is used to filter certain nutrients in a liquid stream... I won't go into details but according to his explanations this seemed like the easy part, what is hard is managing to insure an environment where yeast can survive (there is a buildup of dead yeast cells that cannot go through the membrane and undermine the efficiency of the apparatus)