I'll admit, right up front, that I didn't waste my time reading the article.
But, having said that, I think I'm on pretty stable ground when I say that a dominant system of laws, taxes, and accountability like the Federal Government, hates competition. It has the ways and means to obstruct, and flat-out put-down any social movement, regardless of the constitution. The Federal Government is the single most powerful organization within the CONUS, with the ways and means to influence legislation, and commerce with any domestic or international business. It controls aspects of the transportation infrastructure that are nightmarishly indentured by laws and regs that span the CONUS, and given even the slightest whiff of sucession from any of the laws and policies that empower it, we can expect a swift and immediate response (California is probably the most independent state in the CONUS, and they're walking on a knife's edge).
Anything short of a technology or an event which completely renders such an organziation impotent and the result will always be the same...the dissolution of the new order, and the replacement and reinforcement of the pre-existing order.
In this way, the FedGov is like water being balanced between all the sinks, completely submerging the states. Any state that tries to rise above it will face a tsunami...people are weak, and softer than ever these days, and the technologies and methods of coercion are more sophisticated now than they have ever been.
We are a society of shoppers. We are no longer the farmers and the soldiers we once were...our hands are soft and our backs are weak. Maybe being brutalized by the iron-glove of the fedgov may turn all of that around. Society is starting to demand common-sense laws about some controlled substances that have existed in the underground--by proxy in the homes of the citizens, seeing constant use without all of the horror promised by the we-know-better-than-you government--but are seeing more and more demand in public...it may be a representational democracy, but even public figures have to occasionally listen to their voters. It's probably the most satisfying aspect of the democratic experiment, but everyone should enjoy seeing politicians squirm as they earn their money.
In the end, we all want our sitcoms, our nice roads, EMT service, and hospitals...and compliance pays more than grass-roots optimism and bartering ever have, or possibly will. In physics, there is a conservation of energy. In society, the same thing applies, but instead of energy it's comfort. As long as people are comfortable nothing is going to change.
You're correct. Freedom isn't free. It's paid for with vigilance by members of the citizenry who are willing to reproach the zealots who have been placed in positions of authority, and are possibly abusing such authority.
Democracy, even the representational democracy of the United States, is only an experiment. Government as usual in most of the world is not as slow, cumbersome, or as checked. That is the beauty of this democratic experiment.
So when a zealot starts pushing laws (Ashcroft is the only attorney general--to date--who is so ashamed of breasts that he had the statue of Lady Justice draped because of her secondary sexual characteristcs) and starts proposing the slippery-slope of using the military for civil police action, or the scanning and logging and 3rd. party databasing of digital citizen information while telling us that it's for our own good then everyone under such a government has a right to be concerned.
The ACLU recieves a great deal of bad press from members of the entertainment industry (News Corporations affiliated with even bigger corporations who often seek to marginalize any opponents to legislation which benefits the parent companies of said corporations) masquarading as reporters and editors. They're often paid to perform a hack-job on the issues. What matters is that the ACLU lawyers involved are often broaching a case which may seem very unpopular, while at the same time seeking to overturn or have amended the technical flaws behind legislation which is sometimes passed with such carelessness and behind schedule that legislators have no time to fix it...then such repair falls to the courts and groups like the ACLU. Remember, laws in this country are passed for mostly the wrong reasons--money, or turning the high-tech ratchet of mind and movement control a notch or two tighter.
As consumers of the media, we only see what the big players want us to see. The ACLU is an easy target for the WhiteHouse press to use in order to build concensus, incite the patriotic, and then using sound-bytes like a preacher on crack; willing the soldiers of gawd onto glory, completely obscures the real issues that will matter once the crisis is behind us.
I've heard smarter people than me remark, "Trouble at home, make trouble abroad." It's supposed to be a Machivelli quote that should have us all understanding the current state of things. If you're not worried, then you don't understand what is happening.
Well, the ugly userspace stick doesn't have far to go as it dances between blackbox,Windowmaker,openwindows--actually the list is actually quite extensive and seems to include just about everything out there depending on whatever needs to be done.
I'm to the point where I just want to sit back in a recumbent chair, jacked-in to a sensorium based digital paradigm where I work with a team of similarly wired people helping build applications by assembling something...I shouldn't see any goddam code, or touch a mouse in that world. I should be toenailing studs, or pouring concrete, or running wires, or dry-humping a light-socket for all it's worth...and my actions should be getting translated into whatever the hell my corporate masters need done. So I'm knocking around with some chaps, socializing, doing something real, and the OS doesn't mean a thing. The corporate branding could be in the ads played on the radio we're all listening to for all I care.
As humans, we have a very physical way of doing things, and to sit all day moving a pointer and clicking on crap and typing is about as unnatural as things get. When we can translate building digital applications into a more physical paradigm, like building physical structures, then we will be at the brink of something wonderful. And since each of us are infinitely smarter than any application out there, we shouldn't waste our time trying to get AI's to stitch it all together for us...we need to hack the wetware...we need to understand meatspace better. Gui's are worthless unless you're making money locking people into them. Hopefully I'm not the only monkey in the room imagining this stuff.
True to form, like failing governments all over the planet, when it's hard being a monopoly (government hates competition and illegal practicies when they're not the ones behind such actions), nothing works better than re-issuing currency and changing exchange rates, disenfranchising people who have large amounts of the older currency. Sometimes making the private holding of such currency illegal in order to encourage the quick and equitable change. Retailers will be asking for lube and a laywer...
then don't waste any time patenting any stupid encryption algorithms. If anything, the world has shown us that short of quantum encryption anyone with much faith in using digital encryption as a gold-mine is pushing a rope. Sure, SSH is better than telnet, but when a government wants to know what you're up to they're going to knock down your door, break your shit, rob you, and humiliate your ass. Period.
Same goes for trying to sell ideas involving security. If you're not setup to be The Man then you're going to be his bitch in either trying to get the money to patent your wonder-encryption, or later when the lawyers working for some company with deep pockets have their turn.
Your best bet is to patent and make dual-purpose solid-state body-insertable USB data drives in an array of exciting public-domain shapes, with a swath of vibrant colors which could both hold personal information and using the USB bus for power (the best use for USB) give other less useful devices serious competition. Hey, it's the USB drive that drives you wild!!!
This holiday, be sure to get them the 128mb, variable speed with USB 2, great for those LAN parties...get a hub and invite some friends over and enjoy the BI-directional transfer possibilities.
Of course, someone will come out with a BlueTooth version of the same thing in the next quarter, but due to poor drivers, limited battery life, and interference from anything and everything you'd still stand to make serious bucks.
Maybe we should rank this offering with glass-beads, cotton blankets, and smallpox...they were given freely to the native americans in order to initiate trade, and that last one was just an added bonus for the manifest destiny zealots.
The idea behind giving away a such a controlling OS isn't to lower the cost of anything, it's simply an easy move to infect the cash-strapped with a way to easily perform a "mind and movement" control endgame manuver around free operating systems. It's a noose. A digital chasity belt to keep us in line--keep us from ripping, mixing, and burning.
Maybe they think if they can fit the young with this prophylatic DRM measure, they won't have such a hard time later when they really start tightening the screws and throwing away the keys.
I have seen the graphics sported by all the major systems. Personally, I acknowledge an improvement in the graphics of the Xbox...anybody who has played computer games for 20 years knows that M$ and Nvidia (poor bastards are hurtin after dealing with the 800lb gorilla--surprise!) did a good job with the visuals. But for the life of me I cannot see the merit in what they are doing. As a consumer, I appreciate the spirit, the drive, and the excellence of what Sony and Nintendo have accomplished over the years. They have given development houses the tools to make money, and competetive licensing which has a much different character than simply buying a company. I'm probably so wrong it hurts, but I don't percieve Nintento and Sony in the market to own companies, they are more interested in the technology and licensing. These are the things that drive the industry--not being Daddy Warbucks and just buying development companies. I applauded when I read how dismal the X-box sales in Japan were. If the Japaese hardware and software developers felt threatened and this trickled through the gamer culture there then they understand the complete lack of merit, the "just because you can doesn't mean you have to" effort that M$ is pushing their gaming system through the market with. There are probably more sophisticated opinions, for and against what I'm trying to broach here. Perhaps in a few years, when the XBoxen won't work until it calls home to verify it's firmware and software against a checksum list and charge your account for your license renewal, or download that new license for the game you just bought I'll be laughing (just like I do at people who upgrade their hardware and have to call their corporate masters for a new set of keys to the OS), and unlike people who percive themselves as intelligent bleeding-edge gamers, I will be happy with the hundreds of games that will probably take more than my remaining lifetime to just get through. Thanks to Sony, Nintendo, and an army of game-developers, I don't see any shortage of games I'll be able to pick up used and cheap in the years to come. Maybe what we need to really do is counsel the early adopters (a euphemism that would have made P.T.Barnum laugh so hard he's pass a golf-ball sized kidney stone without realizing it) about how the spirit and the intention of even the best, proprietary, corporate razors can leave you burnt. Screw it.. I know this post is ass, but I'm at the end of a 24hr day. Have lotsa fun!
Bullshit, like the hack attempts of people in the entertainment industry to "innovate", is a staple of..."industry". When you're producing bullshit, you make it with the same tired ingredients...passed through at least one stomach(producer), brought back around and chewed to make sure anything that isn't palatable(unmarketable or just too odd) is thoroughly reduced (adjusted to the target culture) or removed (if you can't use it to sell commercials, it's worthless unless a cable network can pick it up--freaky ass LEXX qualifies) before the basic product is passed through several other organs(sales..sales...sales...actual production) before being extruded for all to enjoy (season premeire)...and barring any physical defect in the production(lack of product placement/tie-in's, bad-actortaste), it will be a product that may at first surprise those who were expecting it(the audience knew all about it weeks ahead of time--thank you sales!), but ultimately, it's just bullshit.(Pulled from the air because it may have lacked a feel-good, faith affirming, titillating, culture reflective message). Bullshit, in all it's forms, is a ubiquitous quantity, of dubious quality.
The truism of the critic is all too easy to understand, but it makes whining about the obvious no easier to bear. Thank you, oh missive AC, thank you.
From the quality and quantity of the comments in this thread, I can tell most people who have read it and replied are not cyclists. Probably drive SUV's too.:-D
I'm going to roll a reply to a previous comment about someone being afraid to ride. What anyone who commutes by bicycle has to do is simply understand natural law...not the crap that "the man" has beat us over the head with, or the things we've learned from Warner Bros. cartoons. Natural law implies that when a 1/4 hp., sub 300lb. vehicle is occupying the desired space of a semi-hairless primate(bored, anxious, distracted) behind the wheel of a 2+ton moving block of metal and plastic that the union of these two systems will result in some really nifty physics...often to the physical detriment of the previous occupant, and the slightly higher premiums of the second. Simply put, always consider yourself invisble to the vehicles unless you make eye-contact and recieve non-verbal acknowledgement from the motorist. Having done that, the cyclist has only to understand natural law and human stupidity to enjoy their commute.
And with that out of the way, onto the good stuff.
I have been commuting by bicycle since 1988, and I only have a car because my kids are still too young and stupid and my wife has a bad knee, otherwise the whole whining lot of them would be on bikes (everyone in the family has a bike).
Bravo to you sir for giving your previous nag a new home. My recommendation is a multi-vectored approach to getting a good bicycle. You have to consider the bike shops in your area, and look for a franchise, like Cycle Spectrum (but not necessarily them, because other bike-shop franchises exist, I just don't remember them now). There's a good chance that both regular shops and esp. franchises have what they consider a less stylish, less trendy bikes taking up space they would rather fill with faux shocks and bad alloys and other candy to attract the unwary. These bikes are usually going for about $300, which in sales terms is an impulse purchase for someone who wants something useful.If you can find a simple hybrid--a style that no longer sells like hotcakes--make sure it's nothing hard to maintain like shocks. Look for grip-shift,with quick-release hubs front and rear, and get yourself a blackburn mtn rack. Most of the time a shop-keeper will feel your love for the bike and in a synergistic desire to sweeten the deal will almost impulsively add it as a perk. That rack will hold two good u-locks (that's one of the best kept secrets in the business--enjoy), which are invaluable if you have to tether the beastie outside the workplace. However, if you really love your horse, you'll whine-bitch-plead and maybe even argue intelligently to bring it into the building with you. If you love it, bring it inside.
If your commute takes you through suburban areas filled with bored kids or goatheads, you need to invest in a bit of SLIME. It's green, it costs a bit, but unlike the wannabe competitors products(cough-mucous-cough), slime will not let you down unless the laws of physics require it to. You also need high thread-count nylon tires. Slicks or invert treads have less rubber and are reinforced with a lot of nylon threads. When shopping for tires, take one down and open it up and see how dense the threads are. You should also invest in 4.5mil thick thorn-proof tubes. Schwinn, and Bontrager and some other companies import and repackage/resell these. Combined with the slime and good tires there's a chance you will only have to walk a little before reinflating the tire. I've often pulled some really evil stuff (nails, glass, industrial staples, plant thorns) out, spun the wheel for a minute and still had enough pressure to make it home.
Another point to consider when buying a good bike is not so much the up-front cost of the bike (top-ramen is your friend), but the kind of service and warranty a shop will provide you. For a franchise, sometimes this is free tune-ups and labor for the life of the beastie. Granted, the shop you bought the bike from will change hands like a 30yr mortgage, you'll still have your bike taken care of. Usually what happens with the cheap kit is that within a week after you've purchased it, everyting flexes and stretches a bit...it's supposed to. However, Walmart, or whatever-mart isn't responsible for those changes. A bike shop is.
Another thing to consider is the way you approach the gearing. The more you move through your gears, the faster you wear your drive train. There's a simple way to look at wear-and-tear here: If you like to pedal like mad (and think you're a porsche) and go through your gears, making more than three or four gear changes until you're cruising, then don't expect to stay in tune. You're much better off being in the biggest chainring (front gear) during the warm months, and at least starting off in the middle chainring when it's colder, and then figuring out the best place to start with the cog. YMMV depending on the commute. I have my bike tuned only once every few years...I've had it five years and I put over 4500+ miles are year on it just commuting year round. I start out in 17th gear and go up to 19th, only to the highest gears two gears when I'm spinning fast to get in to work because I'm late (or because I'm chasing a pack of spandex goddesses for a quick double-wammy: endorphins and a pheromone fix-heheheh)
I wish you happy hunting--don't buy at the first shop you go into! (been there, done that)p
Respectfully, the analogy to comics doesn't really broach the true nature of the problem. Comics can do about anything, and are really quite inventive. Television shows, at over $1million a hour have to be a known quantity/quality.
As consumers of entertainment, we're like so many other people who have had macaroni-and-cheese. Sure, it's almost always the same, but then we could add meat, or maybe some veggie, or change the shape of the pasta...it's still Mac-and-cheese, and it's a staple.
If a writer develops something so completely new, it would be out of wack with established mythologies, motivations and have complex characters which require the viewer to be intimate with details that can only exist outside the plot and we shouldn't be surprised if 90% of the audience is going to be unmoved. Even the greek playwrights wrestled with the problem of innovation/alienation and resigning themselves to telling the same tired story again and again...because it's what the people want. If anybody wants to point a finger, the need to go to the mirror. We have a problem, and like most of them, it's us.:-)
It's not a problem with writers, or producers. They're successful if they make a good show of any genre. It's the audience that's lacking here, and like death, taxes, and teens having babies the problem is human nature...and it's just one of the salient points on which the species sucks. If we were smart, we'd be trying to have AI's invent entire fantasy worlds and giving them only the more basic rules have them create media. Of course, that's a bit too much like next-century and if it did work, the complainers in meat-space would probably kill it.
If the person who somehow got this whining on the front of slashdot would just sit down and try writing/publishing something that doesn't fit into the same tired categories, I'm sure they would have a much better understanding of the problem--rather than just come off as a complainer.
In a future coming soon, printed in the "Happy-Fun-Joy-Citizens Entertainment Guide" we'll probably see something like this...
(MSN) GovHunter (CC)--Law 1:00 344654993213
(2032)[TV-G]A double-plus-happy episode of this great-plus-happy series the gripping moments when the last less-happy U.S. citizen was run to ground. Includes footage of the happy-joy-embracing, and happy-confession interviews after the re-education and valuation of the person know only as "less-happiest-man". Contains scenes of happy-joy-correction and re-direction/re-education.
What the citizenry of the United States and the world are going to recieve in the times to come will be a realization that not everything in the world is new when it comes to goals of the greedy and the desire for a risk-free world when government is granted carte-blanc authority to seek it...the idea of marking citizens is so old and so reviled that the cuniform tablets and clay pellets which describe the outrage and abuse have yet to be descovered and properly deciphered...the only active record is in that heniously mis-used book of stories that was once called the Vulgate...basically called it the mark of the beast or something really catchy. In any case, we should all look forward to being citizens of the coming all knowing, all oppressing group of politicians and merchants who will giddly be aware of the daily average of double-ply sheets you press against your nethers and whether or not you're a frontwiper, a backwiper, or a bideist!
WARNING: Reading the rest of this message is inflamatory, and contraindicated where a lack of education and the in-ability to grasp abstract concepts involving self-dissassociation and viewpoint expression without personalization may produce strong personal actions (flamming) from consumption of the memes within. If this is the case, then there's no reason for you not to go elsewhere. In short, I'm sharing. Have lotsa fun or click "next message".
Today I had the joy of dealing with a check-out clerk at Toys R Us. They wanted my phone number because I was paying with cash--an archaic "loose cannon" of consumerism.
I'm the kind of creepy evil bastard that makes women nervous, and children cling to their mommies;and as such I glared at the clerkdroid from beneath hooded brows(much more acceptable than using his head as a redecorating tool) and asked if it was necessary in order to make a purchase. They said "no", and had that Call Security! look. Hey, I can see Radio Shack keeping a record (probably at the insistence of the government and for convienience when the law comes asking about switches, transmitters, etc)..for all the McGuyver's out there, the Shack is like a candy shop for mayhem, but Toys R Us...shessh. If I had the time to convert (gaming consoles, insertable anthropomorphic toys, and buttloads of chinese plastic) things into weapons of mass destruction I'd probably shop elsewhere--the Defense Department.
I'm just about to the point where everytime someone who doesn't need my information starts asking for it I'm going to shift into full-on asshole mode and start sounding off with clever stuff, like:
No! I'm not giving you my phone number! I'm married and you're not pretty enough to make me cheat on my spouse!!
My what! Hey, you don't work for the government do you!?
So what are you going to do with my phone number? What purpose does it serve for you to get my phone number just because I bought something?(Be sure to interrupt the clerk with LIAR! every two seconds and then storm out--99.9% of the time, they are lying to your face or simply just don't know)
My phone number? Hey this isn't (your phone service provider's name here), what does my phone number have to do with the fact I'm buying a pack of GUM!! It's not actually PLASTIC EXPLOSIVES--IS IT?!
...and the best one of all...
Give them the phone number of the office "bitch" of the same gender as yourself, and be sure to automatically nod if they mention a name to try and confirm it for their records. For added effect, tell the clerk they have a nice ass and if you're the only one at the counter, quietly ask if they're doing anything on saturday night. And remember, if they ask for ID, just tell them you rode the bus.
I look forward to the day when people will start jamming on merchants who can't function without harvesting the customerbase for data-mining, aggregate info peddling, and affiliate deep-tounge kissing across the backend in some bid for the orgiastic-synergistic-ogopolistic golden ring that will somehow give them the gawd's eye view of the feeding-frenzy, button-pushing results of marketing and distribution that may someday grant them the winning formulary of sales on the scale that Disney has somehow mastered for delivering nearly worthless media.
Better yet, when I'm collecting whatever I'll end up getting for retirement, I'm going to be one evil, mean, and nasty bastard...I'll have the time and the will to picket stores that practice this crap, sit in on juries, and vote...at least until I die from something like diabetes, alzhimers, or cancer. Until that happens, I'll relish the looks of concern, terror, and outrage from so-called public-servants and the merchant-enforcement goons (police). Hell, I might even come to enjoy the sensation of tear-gas...can't smell much now, and it'll really pay off when they start screwing with the crowd--a whole crowd of angry cat-food eating bastards like myself (prescription drugs necessary to sustain life don't leave much room for real-food and when you can't smell, the taste of most things isn't too bad). The way I see it, there's going to be more old pissed off bastards in 15 to 30 years than there has ever been before, so they better get their priorites eet (stuff like mandatory death sentences for picketing, inciting people to action, and free-speech; esp. in the public interest!)soon, and remember the German occupation of France--all the information was already there for the occupation forces of Germany to easily and effectively disarm and contain the citizens. What a great time-saver that was!
Whew!...where the hell did that all come from...and did someone spike my corporate swill of choice of the moment(diet 12939 is only $.28 a litre right now--we got a great big cola-war, keeping me up through the night...yeah! caffiene's got me running to the lou all the time tonite--cola war...).
I look forward to the day when people are going to remember the kind of freedom we have with VCR's, and analog-broadcast tv and radio, and mutter something to the effect that,
"..you know, that unibomber guy may have been a bit wacked-out, but that bastard knew what he was talking about when he said that technology is reaching too far into our lives and is going to be used to enslave us..."
Soon, not today, or even next year, but soon, communites are going to form. Close-knit, the kind of community where people operate using a cell-based contact scheme. Files will move through these cells, untraceable. All sorts of programming, news, movies, songs, information. It will still flow, but the people doing it are going to be silent heroes of a freedom that is known in other parts of the world, like the Russian Replublics, Cambodia, China, and other areas where government has grown so draconian that arbitrary arrests and torture are as common as breathing.
We've already repealed enough freedoms to make it completely possible for anybody to be picked up, labeled "enemy combatant" and quietly sequestered for an arbitrary length of time until fear and intimidation can run their course.
In the new age of DRM, that's going to be drilled into our children, there will be no fair use. Anything we don't make ourselves is going to me immutable and untransferable. To play a song on two different formats we'll have to purchase a copy in each format, and any technology that sidesteps that profit chain will be the kind of thing that will land Joe-homeowner in the same cell as the thug that's serving life for things that are really wrong, and not just wrong because a bunch of white-haired fat-cats that play the politico-game shake their corpulent fingers at the public and chastise us for having a brain.
I will probably be behind the wheel of a lorry at the ripe age of sixty peforming or helping in the on-the-fly digital hijacking/reprogramming of tuners to alter DRM lockout and re-empower the citenzry--drive-by reprogramming. Might even leave a little calling card, like a graphic or something to let joe-homeowner know that they've been unshackled. Failing that, I'll probably just kick it up a notch and start performing/organizing PETA-Style data-center raids where we'd free users from databases where they had been improperly captured and enslaved. That would be some exciting shit.
I think the worst thing that's taking place today in the technology societies is that a culture of submission to corporate interests is finally coming to fruition...all that public education is going to start paying off big for businesses that can afford to buy laws for the consumers who will happily roll over...taking it and liking it. And what's even more frustrating is that as citizens we are powerless by proxy. I don't hear anything about protests, organized or otherwise, working against the erosion of our rights...even the sham they are today would be preferable to a complete amputation.
Do you ever feel like you are walking in similar shoes to someone like Edison, when he was trying to create an incandescent bulb and ended up trying everything before figuring out a carbon filament would do it?
Apologies if this one has been asked before and I missed it.
We shouldn't be surprised by this in any way. After all the rest of the governments in the world pretty much play mock-up games with concepts like "Democracy". Even democratic countries like the US lock out the commons through "representative democracy" whereby professional politicans can play games with corporate interests for fun and profit at the expense of the people (Enron, WorldCom, every one...all we are saying, is give us a hamsterdance at the taxpayers expense). So, when something international like ICANN is playing by the rules of the international community, we should look at this as a preview to anything resembling a world-government...and by no means do they think our democracy is anything more than an idealists corporate playground. The bottom line here is that the "old world" plays politics much differently than we do in the states. They don't have the incentive, desire, or need to change their game. That's why we don't always try to win political battles with other countries, we simply subvert their youth and sell things to them, we co-opt their cultural mindshare. Eventually we'll win, and repealing the laws and decisions of several generations of assholes is going to be tough, but hey, that's why we rock--they're going to pay us to do it.
I think George Orwell understood politics better than most. He understood the use of boots and faces.
Rats are very cool, highly intelligent, and sociable with a well documented lifecycle. Probably more sane than the cat that literally "moved in" and has been teaching my kids how not to handle him (scratches, scratches all over them--ahahahah! They deserve each and every scar.)
It would be a real boon to pet rats if veterinary science would recieve the fruits of stem-cell research before it ever goes to all these whiny human types with social-darwinism and images of vat-grown juggernauts busting out of their fearful minds. The genie is out of the bottle, so get past the clone-armies, and rich cloning themselves. If it can happen, chances are it's being done right now. The world won't go away. Really really.
I wish the "bugs" or "buggers" would quit screwing around with practice shots and score a hit. We need something to thin the herd anyway, and if we're lucky the survivors won't have to deal with the same limiting mindset that's hamstrung the current emerging technological society. Until humanity as a species bootstraps itself to the point of interplanetary civilization and somehow unfetters itself from all the theological/governmental/societal bs, it's not worth saving. Somehow I don't think the cockroaches are going to have the same problems we've had trying to colonize other worlds--unless of course they all roll over as a species and let the clerics tell them what to do...
Why did this story make the grade?
on
DRM Helmet
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· Score: 1
I don't know who this guy is. Maybe he's someone who once infected us with a meme at some time, but this idea of a DRM helment is spork. Comparing something like a helments to say, an implant (I've written about this before) is like comparing a stereoscope to an IMAX movie. Here's the deal, we've already started seeing people/families get chipped. Pretty soon it's going to become a status thing. After that, people will fall over themselves to get "chipped" so they can enjoy media in ways previously impossible. And then like a heroin pusher who's been giving away samples, the controlling entity behind all this is going to start limiting things. Now there's always going to be the "asshole" contingent that's not happy with the state of things, and sure they won't mind screwing around with the implants, but Joe Public isn't going to screw with the hardware--especially once it's in their thick skull, so imagine if the DRM safties included nifty stuff like a customized form of Turret's syndrome so once things have been tampered with it has you blurting out stuff like "I'm a Pirate please turn me in!" or better yet "RAPE!". At which point all the other good citizens will happily comply or see you're turned over to the authorites. And if you think people are going to be afraid of this, don't waste your imagination. People are cattle. We can't wait to be milked by gov (many levels), culture (oh yeah), and whatever passes as percieved need (drugs, games, etc.). The trade off's involved with this kind of techology are staggering, but then so is the potential...we have an incredible set of wetware, despite all the shunts(religion), and engineering mods(socialization at many levels). So, whomever this chap is...take more drugs (caffiene, sugar, sex...whatever) and shift those filters, because a helmet that acts like a DRM condom...nah, people aren't going to for that, we like unprotected commercialism (with a hint of artifical everything). Cheers!
Actually, it goes something like this...if you have enough $$$ in the US, then you can enjoy such elite privledges as free-speech, a vaction once a year, and maybe even pay off your own home before you die. However, if you're one of the working-poor, doing a "hand-to-mouth" monthly shuffle and clinging to a lower-middle-class life with the wife and kids then activism is a fantasy.
Refugees exist because smart people know when to get the hell out of the way. You don't call a smart pesant a coward because they managed to get out while the rest of the village has been neatly killed and buried. You call them smart. Smart AND lucky.
If anybody has been following the technological antics of the fascist police departments around the fundamentalist United States of America they would find that local stealthy police are using technology as a ratchet to clamp down ever-tighter on what citizenry are doing online, esp. with regards to adult or pornographic activities.
The more legally binding information that we contribute, and that is shared between Government entities, the more secure the technology is going to have to be. The big problem here is that if one monkey can make it, there's a thousand monkeys waiting to break it.
Using technology that facilitates rapid information access means that it's much harder to control access to that information once it's made available. Security starts with physical security, and as an army of exploit monkeys can probably attest to...Government security on databases flat out stinks.
Sometimes technology creates more problems than it solves. There's a security in descrete physical objects. There is no such security for packets and protocols across the internet. Wrap it in anything you like, and if someone wants it, they can easily snapshot it for dissection at their convienience...most hacks of any significance occur by means of insider information or by the actions of people working for companies. The monkey-boy factor isn't going away any time soon. Even in the more restrictive governments and industry there are always the few who will ply their position with interested parties outside the workplace for gratis.
This whole fiasco about needing "national ID's" is nothing more than alarmists and apologists trying to make up for the fact that the institutions that were in place simply failed...and there's nothing a national ID card would have prevented. There's more dammage done by complacency than anyone would have the stomach or years to document and distribute. A "national" ID system will just make it easier to ride-herd on the tax-paying cattle. It won't stop the poachers, it won't stop the mules with condoms of heroin in their bodies, it won't stop people with C-4 in their underwear. In short, it's just another turn of the ratchet on the citizenry...as if we need an even more efficient boot stepping on our faces.
If our government needs better "Hollerith" machines in order to fleece us, so be it. The bills will be passed by the ranch-hands in some eleventh-hour joy-fest, complete with the obligatory sacrifice of whatever rights are required in order to make government and business happy.
The government doesn't like competition. Microsoft doesn't like competition either. So nobody here should be too surprised if Microsoft doesn't want to start courting the government (multiple levels of courtship all over the damn place) in order to co-opt itself into the kind of resource monopoly position that keeps both Microsoft and the government happy...you know, the kind of relationship that other monopolies share with government...like Electricity and Water, and Natural-Gas companies. Once that happens, then competition for Microsoft dissapears on many levels, and a mutual interest is served.
If you can't beat something using the law, then it's necessary to become the law. If you need an example of this, just look to the Council of Nicea, where the Roman Catholoic franchise and mythology were formalized in order to keep the people happy and keep the government stable. What we should be worried about is a repeat of that precedent, where open-source becomes criminal, where file-sharing is persecuted the same way drugs are, and where everyone pays a M$ tax and upgrades their hardware and software on demand by government edict or faces criminal charges.
That's ok, for some people it's only about 7000 years old and flat too.
In some ways I'm pretty happy that we don't have a _real_ space program...you know, one where control is less important and exploration, innovation, and business share top billing. This way, if we do get smacked by a really fast ultra-low albedo reset button we can all enjoy reincarnation without worrying about pesticides and being stepped on by noisy bi-peds, or having our appendages plucked off by snot-nosed killers-in-training.
Anyone who does the math, and who understands the potential for long-term use (and abuse) of this database may come to realize what a gold-mine this could be for the FBI, Pinkerton, or even your future employer. Once again, this is the kind of crap that has me considering home-schooling (but then my kids would confuse and complicate things like employer job searches and background checks).
What a nice wrinkle in the permanent record structure our kids are going to be hung out to dry on.
Someday a bunch of pissed off people with dynamite and magnetic bulk-erasers are going to pry open the doors on compaines that do this kind of shit and beast-fsck them into oblivion.
Personally, if I didn't want to do the work I would just play video games, write programs, and make lame-ass excuses, and then ace all the exams and skate with a B or even a C. It wasn't until I got into college, and was paying for my education, that I wrote a research paper. Up until that point, there wasn't any real reason to put out the effort...almost all k-12 assignments are worthless exercies in conformity and control...well, worthless unless you consider your own enslavement a high-value high-priority.
And for all you assholes with your knee-jerk retorts about quality of education, public k-12 education doesn't mean dick. It's where you go, who and what your parents are, who they know and blow--and that's all part of social class.
Of course there's excellence within the paid-for education, and that's a couple of worlds removed from public k-12 where schools that profile and farm information for money are going to be the bread and butter of companies that trade on mistrust and teacher incomptetence.
And remember, often "Those who teach, can't". There is a great deal to be said about teachers who build character by catching young idiots in the act. Of course, this would require someone who knows how to teach about something real, like life. That kind of teacher is rare, and they're the ones that make all the difference. Note: Idiots are the ones that should be caught. Force everyone to honesty and there will be less art. Think about it, you'll get it eventually.
Here's a clue to everyone who doesn't understand the nature of power. There is no conspiracy to subvert laws. The laws are there to protect the powerful and the monied. As long as the laws do that, they are "good laws". The moment something happens which prevents the powerful from getting their money, something legal has to be done, and there are armies of greedy short-sighted fools willing to step in and help to right any injustice against the monied and the powerful. And if the reality doesn't mate up with the injustice, there are small armies of people willing to step in and paint any picture they're paid to. Yes, it happens everywhere, regardless of the legal system, laws of the land, etc..etc...
Regardless of what anyone says, might makes right, and that's a natural law. Natural laws don't obey false frameworks, like the Constitution; no matter how nicely written and fawned over. And at the end of the day, only the mighty win. So for all our whining about politics (which is just like watching football unless you are a politician) unless people are willing to somehow rework human nature, nobody here is going to change anything involving the political process.
And on the issue of hardware-based encryption...if one monkey invents it, another one will figure out how to circumvent it. Hardware solutions only work if they explode when you do anything other than use the unit as intended, and we know that's not going to happen.
The bottom line to all this is that unless every media capable device on the planet is suddenly rounded up and melted down, people are still going to be downloading illegal movies and music forever. It's no more stoppable than a sound, or a thought. Unless the government starts a massive campgain of implanting nerual shunts in our optic, and retinal nerves which respond only to frequencies emitted by perfectly decoded signals from audio and video media that enable us to enjoy the product (Get a free player and free implants for the whole family! Limited time offer!!), nothing they do is going to make a difference--other than make the prison budgets bigger and create an even more elite criminal class.
Regardless of how sick, and venal the slime we elect, they are still above the recrimination of the commoner. Anyone recommending that we grease bought-and-paid-for politicians in order to prevent them from sacrificing our rights on the periphery of a document which is invalidated so often in the course of everyday events that it's a mockery, is simply asking to be sodomized by the very laws which allow them to suggest it.
Here's a clue to everyone who doesn't understand the nature of power. There is no conspiracy to subvert laws. The laws are there to protect the powerful and the monied. As long as the laws do that, they are "good laws". The moment something happens which prevents the powerful from getting their money, something legal has to be done, and there are armies of greedy short-sighted fools willing to step in and help to right any injustice against the monied and the powerful. And if the reality doesn't mate up with the injustice, there are small armies of people willing to step in and paint any picture they're paid to. Yes, it happens everywhere, regardless of the legal system, laws of the land, etc..etc...
Regardless of what anyone says, might makes right, and that's a natural law. Natural laws don't obey false frameworks, like the Constitution; no matter how nicely written and fawned over. And at the end of the day, only the mighty win--everything else is a compromise in the favor of the mighty. So for all our whining about politics (which is just like watching football and bitching about an outcome) unless people are willing to somehow rework human nature, nobody here is going to change anything involving the political process.
And on the issue of hardware-based encryption...if one monkey invents it, another one will figure out how to circumvent it. Hardware solutions only work if they explode when you do anything other than use the unit as intended, and we know that's not going to happen.
The bottom line to all this is that unless every media capable device on the planet is suddenly rounded up and melted down, people are still going to be downloading illegal movies and music forever. It's no more stoppable than a sound, or a thought. Unless the government starts a massive campgain of implanting nerual shunts in our optic and retinal nerves which respond only to frequencies emitted by a perfectly decoded signals from audio and video media that enable us to enjoy the product (Get a free player and free implants for the whole family! Limited time offer!!), nothing they do is going to make a difference--other than make the prison budgets bigger and create an even more elite criminal class.
You have a great idea here. I stopped playing Starcraft/Broodwar against anonymous vermin a long time ago because some d00d thought that after we had destroyed the enemy that I was the enemy. I beat his ass so bad he dropped, but it still didn't do much for the feeling that this punk thought he could beat my ass after being my _buddy_. That crap does not fly in my book, so I only play with honorable people. The same stuff happened to my wife, and she found the whole online sc/bw scene repugnant and hasn't bothered going back.
In general, there's a whole asshole brigade of young online gamers who don't feel their online actions matter. That is a bad attitude, and a terrible way to conduct oneself.
The merit of a such a system lies in how identities are tied to a CD-Key. So if someone is an asshole, their bad karma is going to tail them unless they pay Blizzard and their Vivendi handlers for another chance at redemption. Sure there should be some kind of amnesty plan, but the whole system is going to require some kind of lock-step policing; a policy which would automatically invalidate bogus ratings. So that at the end of the game, when you're looking at the "Save Replay", or "Exit" options, there would be another, "Rate Players", which would bring up an interface that would include all of the MEAT players you just threw down with, some simple radio buttons for each (rate the behavior of your friends/opponents --based on the Alliance status when the game concluded) with 1 to 5 (1 being fscking sphincter to 5 being excellent), and a 255 character "comment" field, suitable for nice words like, "turncoat,cheating, bastard".
In the end, with a free service, and a very non-free implementation cost, to Blizzard, the ends are probably not worth the cost to implement. This is to be expected, and maybe there's a niche here for a 3rd. party to step in and provide a most excellent service which arbitrates the honor of people who would feel better about getting into a game with someone who is really interested in a "3 vs. 3 CPU!!!" instead of "1 vs. 2 vs. 3 CPU!!!", or the ever popular variant "2 cheaters vs. 1 pigeon", or the "Newbie!" games.
Hey, where's a venture capitalist when you need them!!!?
Slashdot Mirror
But, having said that, I think I'm on pretty stable ground when I say that a dominant system of laws, taxes, and accountability like the Federal Government, hates competition. It has the ways and means to obstruct, and flat-out put-down any social movement, regardless of the constitution. The Federal Government is the single most powerful organization within the CONUS, with the ways and means to influence legislation, and commerce with any domestic or international business. It controls aspects of the transportation infrastructure that are nightmarishly indentured by laws and regs that span the CONUS, and given even the slightest whiff of sucession from any of the laws and policies that empower it, we can expect a swift and immediate response (California is probably the most independent state in the CONUS, and they're walking on a knife's edge).
Anything short of a technology or an event which completely renders such an organziation impotent and the result will always be the same...the dissolution of the new order, and the replacement and reinforcement of the pre-existing order. In this way, the FedGov is like water being balanced between all the sinks, completely submerging the states. Any state that tries to rise above it will face a tsunami...people are weak, and softer than ever these days, and the technologies and methods of coercion are more sophisticated now than they have ever been.
We are a society of shoppers. We are no longer the farmers and the soldiers we once were...our hands are soft and our backs are weak. Maybe being brutalized by the iron-glove of the fedgov may turn all of that around. Society is starting to demand common-sense laws about some controlled substances that have existed in the underground--by proxy in the homes of the citizens, seeing constant use without all of the horror promised by the we-know-better-than-you government--but are seeing more and more demand in public...it may be a representational democracy, but even public figures have to occasionally listen to their voters. It's probably the most satisfying aspect of the democratic experiment, but everyone should enjoy seeing politicians squirm as they earn their money.
In the end, we all want our sitcoms, our nice roads, EMT service, and hospitals...and compliance pays more than grass-roots optimism and bartering ever have, or possibly will. In physics, there is a conservation of energy. In society, the same thing applies, but instead of energy it's comfort. As long as people are comfortable nothing is going to change.
Democracy, even the representational democracy of the United States, is only an experiment. Government as usual in most of the world is not as slow, cumbersome, or as checked. That is the beauty of this democratic experiment.
So when a zealot starts pushing laws (Ashcroft is the only attorney general--to date--who is so ashamed of breasts that he had the statue of Lady Justice draped because of her secondary sexual characteristcs) and starts proposing the slippery-slope of using the military for civil police action, or the scanning and logging and 3rd. party databasing of digital citizen information while telling us that it's for our own good then everyone under such a government has a right to be concerned.
The ACLU recieves a great deal of bad press from members of the entertainment industry (News Corporations affiliated with even bigger corporations who often seek to marginalize any opponents to legislation which benefits the parent companies of said corporations) masquarading as reporters and editors. They're often paid to perform a hack-job on the issues. What matters is that the ACLU lawyers involved are often broaching a case which may seem very unpopular, while at the same time seeking to overturn or have amended the technical flaws behind legislation which is sometimes passed with such carelessness and behind schedule that legislators have no time to fix it...then such repair falls to the courts and groups like the ACLU. Remember, laws in this country are passed for mostly the wrong reasons--money, or turning the high-tech ratchet of mind and movement control a notch or two tighter.
As consumers of the media, we only see what the big players want us to see. The ACLU is an easy target for the WhiteHouse press to use in order to build concensus, incite the patriotic, and then using sound-bytes like a preacher on crack; willing the soldiers of gawd onto glory, completely obscures the real issues that will matter once the crisis is behind us.
I've heard smarter people than me remark, "Trouble at home, make trouble abroad." It's supposed to be a Machivelli quote that should have us all understanding the current state of things. If you're not worried, then you don't understand what is happening.
Are you talking about this?
http://www.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de/vrml/dune/docs /developer_docs/dune_developer.html
Well, the ugly userspace stick doesn't have far to go as it dances between blackbox,Windowmaker,openwindows--actually the list is actually quite extensive and seems to include just about everything out there depending on whatever needs to be done.
I'm to the point where I just want to sit back in a recumbent chair, jacked-in to a sensorium based digital paradigm where I work with a team of similarly wired people helping build applications by assembling something...I shouldn't see any goddam code, or touch a mouse in that world. I should be toenailing studs, or pouring concrete, or running wires, or dry-humping a light-socket for all it's worth...and my actions should be getting translated into whatever the hell my corporate masters need done. So I'm knocking around with some chaps, socializing, doing something real, and the OS doesn't mean a thing. The corporate branding could be in the ads played on the radio we're all listening to for all I care.
As humans, we have a very physical way of doing things, and to sit all day moving a pointer and clicking on crap and typing is about as unnatural as things get. When we can translate building digital applications into a more physical paradigm, like building physical structures, then we will be at the brink of something wonderful. And since each of us are infinitely smarter than any application out there, we shouldn't waste our time trying to get AI's to stitch it all together for us...we need to hack the wetware...we need to understand meatspace better. Gui's are worthless unless you're making money locking people into them. Hopefully I'm not the only monkey in the room imagining this stuff.
Cheers.
True to form, like failing governments all over the planet, when it's hard being a monopoly (government hates competition and illegal practicies when they're not the ones behind such actions), nothing works better than re-issuing currency and changing exchange rates, disenfranchising people who have large amounts of the older currency. Sometimes making the private holding of such currency illegal in order to encourage the quick and equitable change. Retailers will be asking for lube and a laywer...
Same goes for trying to sell ideas involving security. If you're not setup to be The Man then you're going to be his bitch in either trying to get the money to patent your wonder-encryption, or later when the lawyers working for some company with deep pockets have their turn.
Your best bet is to patent and make dual-purpose solid-state body-insertable USB data drives in an array of exciting public-domain shapes, with a swath of vibrant colors which could both hold personal information and using the USB bus for power (the best use for USB) give other less useful devices serious competition. Hey, it's the USB drive that drives you wild!!!
Of course, someone will come out with a BlueTooth version of the same thing in the next quarter, but due to poor drivers, limited battery life, and interference from anything and everything you'd still stand to make serious bucks.The idea behind giving away a such a controlling OS isn't to lower the cost of anything, it's simply an easy move to infect the cash-strapped with a way to easily perform a "mind and movement" control endgame manuver around free operating systems. It's a noose. A digital chasity belt to keep us in line--keep us from ripping, mixing, and burning.
Maybe they think if they can fit the young with this prophylatic DRM measure, they won't have such a hard time later when they really start tightening the screws and throwing away the keys.
I have seen the graphics sported by all the major systems. Personally, I acknowledge an improvement in the graphics of the Xbox...anybody who has played computer games for 20 years knows that M$ and Nvidia (poor bastards are hurtin after dealing with the 800lb gorilla--surprise!) did a good job with the visuals. But for the life of me I cannot see the merit in what they are doing. As a consumer, I appreciate the spirit, the drive, and the excellence of what Sony and Nintendo have accomplished over the years. They have given development houses the tools to make money, and competetive licensing which has a much different character than simply buying a company. I'm probably so wrong it hurts, but I don't percieve Nintento and Sony in the market to own companies, they are more interested in the technology and licensing. These are the things that drive the industry--not being Daddy Warbucks and just buying development companies. I applauded when I read how dismal the X-box sales in Japan were. If the Japaese hardware and software developers felt threatened and this trickled through the gamer culture there then they understand the complete lack of merit, the "just because you can doesn't mean you have to" effort that M$ is pushing their gaming system through the market with. There are probably more sophisticated opinions, for and against what I'm trying to broach here. Perhaps in a few years, when the XBoxen won't work until it calls home to verify it's firmware and software against a checksum list and charge your account for your license renewal, or download that new license for the game you just bought I'll be laughing (just like I do at people who upgrade their hardware and have to call their corporate masters for a new set of keys to the OS), and unlike people who percive themselves as intelligent bleeding-edge gamers, I will be happy with the hundreds of games that will probably take more than my remaining lifetime to just get through. Thanks to Sony, Nintendo, and an army of game-developers, I don't see any shortage of games I'll be able to pick up used and cheap in the years to come. Maybe what we need to really do is counsel the early adopters (a euphemism that would have made P.T.Barnum laugh so hard he's pass a golf-ball sized kidney stone without realizing it) about how the spirit and the intention of even the best, proprietary, corporate razors can leave you burnt.
Screw it.. I know this post is ass, but I'm at the end of a 24hr day. Have lotsa fun!
The truism of the critic is all too easy to understand, but it makes whining about the obvious no easier to bear. Thank you, oh missive AC, thank you.
I'm going to roll a reply to a previous comment about someone being afraid to ride. What anyone who commutes by bicycle has to do is simply understand natural law...not the crap that "the man" has beat us over the head with, or the things we've learned from Warner Bros. cartoons. Natural law implies that when a 1/4 hp., sub 300lb. vehicle is occupying the desired space of a semi-hairless primate(bored, anxious, distracted) behind the wheel of a 2+ton moving block of metal and plastic that the union of these two systems will result in some really nifty physics...often to the physical detriment of the previous occupant, and the slightly higher premiums of the second. Simply put, always consider yourself invisble to the vehicles unless you make eye-contact and recieve non-verbal acknowledgement from the motorist. Having done that, the cyclist has only to understand natural law and human stupidity to enjoy their commute.
And with that out of the way, onto the good stuff.
I have been commuting by bicycle since 1988, and I only have a car because my kids are still too young and stupid and my wife has a bad knee, otherwise the whole whining lot of them would be on bikes (everyone in the family has a bike).
Bravo to you sir for giving your previous nag a new home. My recommendation is a multi-vectored approach to getting a good bicycle. You have to consider the bike shops in your area, and look for a franchise, like Cycle Spectrum (but not necessarily them, because other bike-shop franchises exist, I just don't remember them now). There's a good chance that both regular shops and esp. franchises have what they consider a less stylish, less trendy bikes taking up space they would rather fill with faux shocks and bad alloys and other candy to attract the unwary. These bikes are usually going for about $300, which in sales terms is an impulse purchase for someone who wants something useful.If you can find a simple hybrid--a style that no longer sells like hotcakes--make sure it's nothing hard to maintain like shocks. Look for grip-shift,with quick-release hubs front and rear, and get yourself a blackburn mtn rack. Most of the time a shop-keeper will feel your love for the bike and in a synergistic desire to sweeten the deal will almost impulsively add it as a perk. That rack will hold two good u-locks (that's one of the best kept secrets in the business--enjoy), which are invaluable if you have to tether the beastie outside the workplace. However, if you really love your horse, you'll whine-bitch-plead and maybe even argue intelligently to bring it into the building with you. If you love it, bring it inside.
If your commute takes you through suburban areas filled with bored kids or goatheads, you need to invest in a bit of SLIME. It's green, it costs a bit, but unlike the wannabe competitors products(cough-mucous-cough), slime will not let you down unless the laws of physics require it to. You also need high thread-count nylon tires. Slicks or invert treads have less rubber and are reinforced with a lot of nylon threads. When shopping for tires, take one down and open it up and see how dense the threads are. You should also invest in 4.5mil thick thorn-proof tubes. Schwinn, and Bontrager and some other companies import and repackage/resell these. Combined with the slime and good tires there's a chance you will only have to walk a little before reinflating the tire. I've often pulled some really evil stuff (nails, glass, industrial staples, plant thorns) out, spun the wheel for a minute and still had enough pressure to make it home.
Another point to consider when buying a good bike is not so much the up-front cost of the bike (top-ramen is your friend), but the kind of service and warranty a shop will provide you. For a franchise, sometimes this is free tune-ups and labor for the life of the beastie. Granted, the shop you bought the bike from will change hands like a 30yr mortgage, you'll still have your bike taken care of. Usually what happens with the cheap kit is that within a week after you've purchased it, everyting flexes and stretches a bit...it's supposed to. However, Walmart, or whatever-mart isn't responsible for those changes. A bike shop is.
Another thing to consider is the way you approach the gearing. The more you move through your gears, the faster you wear your drive train. There's a simple way to look at wear-and-tear here: If you like to pedal like mad (and think you're a porsche) and go through your gears, making more than three or four gear changes until you're cruising, then don't expect to stay in tune. You're much better off being in the biggest chainring (front gear) during the warm months, and at least starting off in the middle chainring when it's colder, and then figuring out the best place to start with the cog. YMMV depending on the commute. I have my bike tuned only once every few years...I've had it five years and I put over 4500+ miles are year on it just commuting year round. I start out in 17th gear and go up to 19th, only to the highest gears two gears when I'm spinning fast to get in to work because I'm late (or because I'm chasing a pack of spandex goddesses for a quick double-wammy: endorphins and a pheromone fix-heheheh)
I wish you happy hunting--don't buy at the first shop you go into! (been there, done that)p
As consumers of entertainment, we're like so many other people who have had macaroni-and-cheese. Sure, it's almost always the same, but then we could add meat, or maybe some veggie, or change the shape of the pasta...it's still Mac-and-cheese, and it's a staple.
If a writer develops something so completely new, it would be out of wack with established mythologies, motivations and have complex characters which require the viewer to be intimate with details that can only exist outside the plot and we shouldn't be surprised if 90% of the audience is going to be unmoved. Even the greek playwrights wrestled with the problem of innovation/alienation and resigning themselves to telling the same tired story again and again...because it's what the people want. If anybody wants to point a finger, the need to go to the mirror. We have a problem, and like most of them, it's us. :-)
It's not a problem with writers, or producers. They're successful if they make a good show of any genre. It's the audience that's lacking here, and like death, taxes, and teens having babies the problem is human nature...and it's just one of the salient points on which the species sucks. If we were smart, we'd be trying to have AI's invent entire fantasy worlds and giving them only the more basic rules have them create media. Of course, that's a bit too much like next-century and if it did work, the complainers in meat-space would probably kill it.
If the person who somehow got this whining on the front of slashdot would just sit down and try writing/publishing something that doesn't fit into the same tired categories, I'm sure they would have a much better understanding of the problem--rather than just come off as a complainer.
Does this whole KDE and GNOME thing remind anyone else of the Rush Song, with Red Hat weilding the proverbial "hatchet, axe, and saw"?
WARNING: Reading the rest of this message is inflamatory, and contraindicated where a lack of education and the in-ability to grasp abstract concepts involving self-dissassociation and viewpoint expression without personalization may produce strong personal actions (flamming) from consumption of the memes within. If this is the case, then there's no reason for you not to go elsewhere. In short, I'm sharing. Have lotsa fun or click "next message".
Today I had the joy of dealing with a check-out clerk at Toys R Us. They wanted my phone number because I was paying with cash--an archaic "loose cannon" of consumerism.
I'm the kind of creepy evil bastard that makes women nervous, and children cling to their mommies ;and as such I glared at the clerkdroid from beneath hooded brows(much more acceptable than using his head as a redecorating tool) and asked if it was necessary in order to make a purchase. They said "no", and had that Call Security! look. Hey, I can see Radio Shack keeping a record (probably at the insistence of the government and for convienience when the law comes asking about switches, transmitters, etc)..for all the McGuyver's out there, the Shack is like a candy shop for mayhem, but Toys R Us...shessh. If I had the time to convert (gaming consoles, insertable anthropomorphic toys, and buttloads of chinese plastic) things into weapons of mass destruction I'd probably shop elsewhere--the Defense Department.
I'm just about to the point where everytime someone who doesn't need my information starts asking for it I'm going to shift into full-on asshole mode and start sounding off with clever stuff, like:
I look forward to the day when people will start jamming on merchants who can't function without harvesting the customerbase for data-mining, aggregate info peddling, and affiliate deep-tounge kissing across the backend in some bid for the orgiastic-synergistic-ogopolistic golden ring that will somehow give them the gawd's eye view of the feeding-frenzy, button-pushing results of marketing and distribution that may someday grant them the winning formulary of sales on the scale that Disney has somehow mastered for delivering nearly worthless media.Better yet, when I'm collecting whatever I'll end up getting for retirement, I'm going to be one evil, mean, and nasty bastard...I'll have the time and the will to picket stores that practice this crap, sit in on juries, and vote...at least until I die from something like diabetes, alzhimers, or cancer. Until that happens, I'll relish the looks of concern, terror, and outrage from so-called public-servants and the merchant-enforcement goons (police). Hell, I might even come to enjoy the sensation of tear-gas...can't smell much now, and it'll really pay off when they start screwing with the crowd--a whole crowd of angry cat-food eating bastards like myself (prescription drugs necessary to sustain life don't leave much room for real-food and when you can't smell, the taste of most things isn't too bad). The way I see it, there's going to be more old pissed off bastards in 15 to 30 years than there has ever been before, so they better get their priorites eet (stuff like mandatory death sentences for picketing, inciting people to action, and free-speech; esp. in the public interest!)soon, and remember the German occupation of France--all the information was already there for the occupation forces of Germany to easily and effectively disarm and contain the citizens. What a great time-saver that was!
Whew!...where the hell did that all come from...and did someone spike my corporate swill of choice of the moment(diet 12939 is only $.28 a litre right now--we got a great big cola-war, keeping me up through the night...yeah! caffiene's got me running to the lou all the time tonite--cola war...).
We've already repealed enough freedoms to make it completely possible for anybody to be picked up, labeled "enemy combatant" and quietly sequestered for an arbitrary length of time until fear and intimidation can run their course.
In the new age of DRM, that's going to be drilled into our children, there will be no fair use. Anything we don't make ourselves is going to me immutable and untransferable. To play a song on two different formats we'll have to purchase a copy in each format, and any technology that sidesteps that profit chain will be the kind of thing that will land Joe-homeowner in the same cell as the thug that's serving life for things that are really wrong, and not just wrong because a bunch of white-haired fat-cats that play the politico-game shake their corpulent fingers at the public and chastise us for having a brain.
I will probably be behind the wheel of a lorry at the ripe age of sixty peforming or helping in the on-the-fly digital hijacking/reprogramming of tuners to alter DRM lockout and re-empower the citenzry--drive-by reprogramming. Might even leave a little calling card, like a graphic or something to let joe-homeowner know that they've been unshackled. Failing that, I'll probably just kick it up a notch and start performing/organizing PETA-Style data-center raids where we'd free users from databases where they had been improperly captured and enslaved. That would be some exciting shit.
I think the worst thing that's taking place today in the technology societies is that a culture of submission to corporate interests is finally coming to fruition...all that public education is going to start paying off big for businesses that can afford to buy laws for the consumers who will happily roll over...taking it and liking it. And what's even more frustrating is that as citizens we are powerless by proxy. I don't hear anything about protests, organized or otherwise, working against the erosion of our rights...even the sham they are today would be preferable to a complete amputation.
Do you ever feel like you are walking in similar shoes to someone like Edison, when he was trying to create an incandescent bulb and ended up trying everything before figuring out a carbon filament would do it?
Apologies if this one has been asked before and I missed it.
After all the rest of the governments in the world pretty much play mock-up games with concepts like "Democracy". Even democratic countries like the US lock out the commons through "representative democracy" whereby professional politicans can play games with corporate interests for fun and profit at the expense of the people (Enron, WorldCom, every one...all we are saying, is give us a hamsterdance at the taxpayers expense).
So, when something international like ICANN is playing by the rules of the international community, we should look at this as a preview to anything resembling a world-government...and by no means do they think our democracy is anything more than an idealists corporate playground.
The bottom line here is that the "old world" plays politics much differently than we do in the states. They don't have the incentive, desire, or need to change their game. That's why we don't always try to win political battles with other countries, we simply subvert their youth and sell things to them, we co-opt their cultural mindshare. Eventually we'll win, and repealing the laws and decisions of several generations of assholes is going to be tough, but hey, that's why we rock--they're going to pay us to do it.
I think George Orwell understood politics better than most. He understood the use of boots and faces.
- My unsympathetic wifette
- my evil kids
- homicidal housecat
- Mycoplasm/medical complications/high turn-over rate
Rats are very cool, highly intelligent, and sociable with a well documented lifecycle. Probably more sane than the cat that literally "moved in" and has been teaching my kids how not to handle him (scratches, scratches all over them--ahahahah! They deserve each and every scar.)It would be a real boon to pet rats if veterinary science would recieve the fruits of stem-cell research before it ever goes to all these whiny human types with social-darwinism and images of vat-grown juggernauts busting out of their fearful minds. The genie is out of the bottle, so get past the clone-armies, and rich cloning themselves. If it can happen, chances are it's being done right now. The world won't go away. Really really.
Remember, it wasn't the rats, it was the fleas...
I wish the "bugs" or "buggers" would quit screwing around with practice shots and score a hit. We need something to thin the herd anyway, and if we're lucky the survivors won't have to deal with the same limiting mindset that's hamstrung the current emerging technological society. Until humanity as a species bootstraps itself to the point of interplanetary civilization and somehow unfetters itself from all the theological/governmental/societal bs, it's not worth saving. Somehow I don't think the cockroaches are going to have the same problems we've had trying to colonize other worlds--unless of course they all roll over as a species and let the clerics tell them what to do...
I don't know who this guy is. Maybe he's someone who once infected us with a meme at some time, but this idea of a DRM helment is spork. /families get chipped. Pretty soon it's going to become a status thing. After that, people will fall over themselves to get "chipped" so they can enjoy media in ways previously impossible. And then like a heroin pusher who's been giving away samples, the controlling entity behind all this is going to start limiting things. Now there's always going to be the "asshole" contingent that's not happy with the state of things, and sure they won't mind screwing around with the implants, but Joe Public isn't going to screw with the hardware--especially once it's in their thick skull, so imagine if the DRM safties included nifty stuff like a customized form of Turret's syndrome so once things have been tampered with it has you blurting out stuff like "I'm a Pirate please turn me in!" or better yet "RAPE!". At which point all the other good citizens will happily comply or see you're turned over to the authorites.
Comparing something like a helments to say, an implant (I've written about this before) is like comparing a stereoscope to an IMAX movie.
Here's the deal, we've already started seeing people
And if you think people are going to be afraid of this, don't waste your imagination. People are cattle. We can't wait to be milked by gov (many levels), culture (oh yeah), and whatever passes as percieved need (drugs, games, etc.).
The trade off's involved with this kind of techology are staggering, but then so is the potential...we have an incredible set of wetware, despite all the shunts(religion), and engineering mods(socialization at many levels).
So, whomever this chap is...take more drugs (caffiene, sugar, sex...whatever) and shift those filters, because a helmet that acts like a DRM condom...nah, people aren't going to for that, we like unprotected commercialism (with a hint of artifical everything).
Cheers!
Refugees exist because smart people know when to get the hell out of the way. You don't call a smart pesant a coward because they managed to get out while the rest of the village has been neatly killed and buried. You call them smart. Smart AND lucky.
The more legally binding information that we contribute, and that is shared between Government entities, the more secure the technology is going to have to be. The big problem here is that if one monkey can make it, there's a thousand monkeys waiting to break it.
Using technology that facilitates rapid information access means that it's much harder to control access to that information once it's made available. Security starts with physical security, and as an army of exploit monkeys can probably attest to...Government security on databases flat out stinks.
Sometimes technology creates more problems than it solves. There's a security in descrete physical objects. There is no such security for packets and protocols across the internet. Wrap it in anything you like, and if someone wants it, they can easily snapshot it for dissection at their convienience...most hacks of any significance occur by means of insider information or by the actions of people working for companies. The monkey-boy factor isn't going away any time soon. Even in the more restrictive governments and industry there are always the few who will ply their position with interested parties outside the workplace for gratis.
This whole fiasco about needing "national ID's" is nothing more than alarmists and apologists trying to make up for the fact that the institutions that were in place simply failed...and there's nothing a national ID card would have prevented. There's more dammage done by complacency than anyone would have the stomach or years to document and distribute. A "national" ID system will just make it easier to ride-herd on the tax-paying cattle. It won't stop the poachers, it won't stop the mules with condoms of heroin in their bodies, it won't stop people with C-4 in their underwear. In short, it's just another turn of the ratchet on the citizenry...as if we need an even more efficient boot stepping on our faces.
If our government needs better "Hollerith" machines in order to fleece us, so be it. The bills will be passed by the ranch-hands in some eleventh-hour joy-fest, complete with the obligatory sacrifice of whatever rights are required in order to make government and business happy.
The government doesn't like competition. Microsoft doesn't like competition either. So nobody here should be too surprised if Microsoft doesn't want to start courting the government (multiple levels of courtship all over the damn place) in order to co-opt itself into the kind of resource monopoly position that keeps both Microsoft and the government happy...you know, the kind of relationship that other monopolies share with government...like Electricity and Water, and Natural-Gas companies. Once that happens, then competition for Microsoft dissapears on many levels, and a mutual interest is served.
If you can't beat something using the law, then it's necessary to become the law. If you need an example of this, just look to the Council of Nicea, where the Roman Catholoic franchise and mythology were formalized in order to keep the people happy and keep the government stable. What we should be worried about is a repeat of that precedent, where open-source becomes criminal, where file-sharing is persecuted the same way drugs are, and where everyone pays a M$ tax and upgrades their hardware and software on demand by government edict or faces criminal charges.
In some ways I'm pretty happy that we don't have a _real_ space program...you know, one where control is less important and exploration, innovation, and business share top billing. This way, if we do get smacked by a really fast ultra-low albedo reset button we can all enjoy reincarnation without worrying about pesticides and being stepped on by noisy bi-peds, or having our appendages plucked off by snot-nosed killers-in-training.
What a nice wrinkle in the permanent record structure our kids are going to be hung out to dry on.
Someday a bunch of pissed off people with dynamite and magnetic bulk-erasers are going to pry open the doors on compaines that do this kind of shit and beast-fsck them into oblivion.
Personally, if I didn't want to do the work I would just play video games, write programs, and make lame-ass excuses, and then ace all the exams and skate with a B or even a C. It wasn't until I got into college, and was paying for my education, that I wrote a research paper. Up until that point, there wasn't any real reason to put out the effort...almost all k-12 assignments are worthless exercies in conformity and control...well, worthless unless you consider your own enslavement a high-value high-priority.
And for all you assholes with your knee-jerk retorts about quality of education, public k-12 education doesn't mean dick. It's where you go, who and what your parents are, who they know and blow--and that's all part of social class.
Of course there's excellence within the paid-for education, and that's a couple of worlds removed from public k-12 where schools that profile and farm information for money are going to be the bread and butter of companies that trade on mistrust and teacher incomptetence.
And remember, often "Those who teach, can't". There is a great deal to be said about teachers who build character by catching young idiots in the act. Of course, this would require someone who knows how to teach about something real, like life. That kind of teacher is rare, and they're the ones that make all the difference. Note: Idiots are the ones that should be caught. Force everyone to honesty and there will be less art. Think about it, you'll get it eventually.
Here's a clue to everyone who doesn't understand the nature of power. There is no conspiracy to subvert laws. The laws are there to protect the powerful and the monied. As long as the laws do that, they are "good laws". The moment something happens which prevents the powerful from getting their money, something legal has to be done, and there are armies of greedy short-sighted fools willing to step in and help to right any injustice against the monied and the powerful. And if the reality doesn't mate up with the injustice, there are small armies of people willing to step in and paint any picture they're paid to. Yes, it happens everywhere, regardless of the legal system, laws of the land, etc..etc...
Regardless of what anyone says, might makes right, and that's a natural law. Natural laws don't obey false frameworks, like the Constitution; no matter how nicely written and fawned over. And at the end of the day, only the mighty win. So for all our whining about politics (which is just like watching football unless you are a politician) unless people are willing to somehow rework human nature, nobody here is going to change anything involving the political process.
And on the issue of hardware-based encryption...if one monkey invents it, another one will figure out how to circumvent it. Hardware solutions only work if they explode when you do anything other than use the unit as intended, and we know that's not going to happen.
The bottom line to all this is that unless every media capable device on the planet is suddenly rounded up and melted down, people are still going to be downloading illegal movies and music forever. It's no more stoppable than a sound, or a thought. Unless the government starts a massive campgain of implanting nerual shunts in our optic, and retinal nerves which respond only to frequencies emitted by perfectly decoded signals from audio and video media that enable us to enjoy the product (Get a free player and free implants for the whole family! Limited time offer!!), nothing they do is going to make a difference--other than make the prison budgets bigger and create an even more elite criminal class.
Here's a clue to everyone who doesn't understand the nature of power. There is no conspiracy to subvert laws. The laws are there to protect the powerful and the monied. As long as the laws do that, they are "good laws". The moment something happens which prevents the powerful from getting their money, something legal has to be done, and there are armies of greedy short-sighted fools willing to step in and help to right any injustice against the monied and the powerful. And if the reality doesn't mate up with the injustice, there are small armies of people willing to step in and paint any picture they're paid to. Yes, it happens everywhere, regardless of the legal system, laws of the land, etc..etc...
Regardless of what anyone says, might makes right, and that's a natural law. Natural laws don't obey false frameworks, like the Constitution; no matter how nicely written and fawned over. And at the end of the day, only the mighty win--everything else is a compromise in the favor of the mighty. So for all our whining about politics (which is just like watching football and bitching about an outcome) unless people are willing to somehow rework human nature, nobody here is going to change anything involving the political process.
And on the issue of hardware-based encryption...if one monkey invents it, another one will figure out how to circumvent it. Hardware solutions only work if they explode when you do anything other than use the unit as intended, and we know that's not going to happen.
The bottom line to all this is that unless every media capable device on the planet is suddenly rounded up and melted down, people are still going to be downloading illegal movies and music forever. It's no more stoppable than a sound, or a thought. Unless the government starts a massive campgain of implanting nerual shunts in our optic and retinal nerves which respond only to frequencies emitted by a perfectly decoded signals from audio and video media that enable us to enjoy the product (Get a free player and free implants for the whole family! Limited time offer!!), nothing they do is going to make a difference--other than make the prison budgets bigger and create an even more elite criminal class.
In general, there's a whole asshole brigade of young online gamers who don't feel their online actions matter. That is a bad attitude, and a terrible way to conduct oneself.
The merit of a such a system lies in how identities are tied to a CD-Key. So if someone is an asshole, their bad karma is going to tail them unless they pay Blizzard and their Vivendi handlers for another chance at redemption. Sure there should be some kind of amnesty plan, but the whole system is going to require some kind of lock-step policing; a policy which would automatically invalidate bogus ratings. So that at the end of the game, when you're looking at the "Save Replay", or "Exit" options, there would be another, "Rate Players", which would bring up an interface that would include all of the MEAT players you just threw down with, some simple radio buttons for each (rate the behavior of your friends/opponents --based on the Alliance status when the game concluded) with 1 to 5 (1 being fscking sphincter to 5 being excellent), and a 255 character "comment" field, suitable for nice words like, "turncoat,cheating, bastard".
In the end, with a free service, and a very non-free implementation cost, to Blizzard, the ends are probably not worth the cost to implement. This is to be expected, and maybe there's a niche here for a 3rd. party to step in and provide a most excellent service which arbitrates the honor of people who would feel better about getting into a game with someone who is really interested in a "3 vs. 3 CPU!!!" instead of "1 vs. 2 vs. 3 CPU!!!", or the ever popular variant "2 cheaters vs. 1 pigeon", or the "Newbie!" games.
Hey, where's a venture capitalist when you need them!!!?