And also, "The Light of Other Days" by Arthur Clarke and Stephen Baxter. Not quite the same plot, but basically the same chronoscope. The difference is that while Asimov's short story ended implying that the impending 'opening of the past' would end civilization, TLoOD went on to see what a world utterly without privacy or secrets kept outside one's own head would be like.
Consider: a 99.999% success rate in investigating any crime. This is good when you consider just how many go unsolved and what an incentive this is to wannabe criminals. It is, however, bad when you consider how many things everyone does every day that are felonies. But it is good again when you realize that during your trial, any interested party would be able to show that the Judge, DA, or jury members are guilty of the same 'crime'. How long would the War on Drugs last if everyone could see exactly how it started? See for their own eyes the kind of people who are prolonging the wasteful fight? Governmental, religious, and corporate injustices would be visible to anyone who wanted to look. And for once, the lack of privacy applies to the rich and powerful even more than to the great unwashed. Is the ability to hold every single last person accountable for their actions worth giving up every secret you might have?
Speaking of accepting parasitic creatures into oneself, have you gotten your worms problem taken care of?
Re:When this hits the market I'll buy!
on
Solar Window Panes
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· Score: 1
Well, bear in mind, the dead dinosaurs then got pumped out of the ground and you are now being 'ass raped every month with a broken bottle and a pound of sand' by people wielding them.
It's tracking direct sunlight. Which would mean that most of the stuff that doesn't come in on that angle, i.e. sunlight bouncing off everything else you see, gets let in.
Ah, what the hell do I know? It sounds cool and we wants it.
Well, let's see, there's a name space of 1 billion numbers. This will indeed prove insufficient if its use continues for another two or three generations. But I'm curious about your claim that there are in fact people who have the same SSN. Got a link?
I can only presume that they mean a full orbit relative to any point on earth. In LEO, you do it in about 90 minutes. GEO, never, since you hover over the same spot all the time.
So the air resistance would prevent a 100 ft piece (for example) from accellerating to a speed that will cause any major damage
Except that most of the ribbon is doing its acceleration in space. 40 km of atmosphere, 50,000 km of earth-side ribbon. After a few minutes, whatever section of ribbon that is entering the atmosphere will be doing so at some truly wicked velocities. Given its highly un-aerodynamic shape, though, it'll burn up at the first wisps of air.
The SSN is a unique name. In this regard, it is perfectly adequate. No two people have the same SSN, right? Using it to identify yourself distinguishes you from all the other EZmagz's out there, and that was its original purpose. If it is used on paperwork, it should be as an addendum to the field marked "Name". Using it as a password, a code phrase that tells others that this person really is who he says he is, now _that's_ the bad idea. You don't use public information as a password, that's just stupid. Of course, the simplest solution, trusting a government to build a national database containing SSN/password pairs and thinking it'll never be broken from within or without, is just as bad. And since you'd need networked identity verifiers to be even more ubiquitous than credit card readers, there'll be a huge chain of potentially breakable links.
The solution is to impose strict limits on the scope of government. Logically, the smaller the government, the less destruction they are capable of.
Ah, but don't forget the lessons of 1917 Russia, 1924 Italy, 1933 Germany, and 1799 France. They all had weak governments which, in the blink of an eye, found themselves unable to deal with an upstart group of power-hungry individuals who went on to cause tremendous amounts of damage. You don't want your government to have so much power that it forgets its job, true, but you do want it to have enough power to do its job in the first place.
The root of the issue is that power WILL be abused.
Only by those who think they can get away with it. Let's face it, power is too tempting, and indeed, too useful to be left alone. Unaccountable power, now there's the ticket to madness and mayhem. A big corporation that has the ear of the President has tremendous power and yet cannot be held accountable for any actions taken on their advice. Small wonder we find ourselves in a 'war of liberation and self-defense' whose origins are suspiciously financial in nature.
We need to address the actual virus: big government.
Again, a big government is not inherently bad, it simply gives more opportunities to more people to acquire more power which they may abuse with impunity. Human organizations only scale so well, and very quickly reach the level of the 'faceless bureaucrat' who can ruin lives on a whim. Since I can think of no way to get have the former without ending up with the latter, "big government is bad" would be a technically true statement; it's just very important to remember why. So when your government comes along with some law that gives themselves or another group power over the citizenry, don't just reject it out of hand. You never know, it might actually be useful. Instead, grant them power only in return for additional accountability. They want control over you, demand some control over them. This sort of thinking led to the Freedom of Information Act. I think that the disclosure of campaign contribution information will do far more good than attempts to regulate them ever could.
An excellent example I came across awhile back was regarding the sale of personal information. If, say, a company wants to acquire and use information about you to make money, they should be allowed to do so. On the condition that the CEO and board of directors make the same information about themselves and their families public information, with dire consequences for trying to avoid this quid pro quo. Make them eat their own dogfood.
I mean, what's the absolute biggest complaint about the Enron fiasco? Poor government and fiscal oversight are definitely lamented, but the biggest is that the guys who looted the company got away with it scott free, Rolo Tomasi style. I'm pissed that they were able to do at all, but far moreso that when it became clear what was going on, the guys running the company weren't being held accountable for running it into the ground.
The RIAA says, "Do what we want or we'll beat you up and force you to do it anyway", and the author calls that 'carrot and stick'? I only see a big stick and a another, bigger stick.
If the RIAA was even remotely interested in using a carrot, it would say, "Keep using KaZaA and we'll sue you. Stop using KaZaA and switch to our new high-speed online distribution service and'll be able to download low-quality versions of our products for free to sample and also buy individual songs for chump change or get whole albums, complete with cover art, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and interviews with band members for a couple of dollars."
And of course, the article totally misses the point that it's not really possible to track down downloaders, only uploaders.
Strange Days totally missed out on the most technically excellent application of a mind-machine sensory interface. Computer-generated imagery that gets superimposed onto your normal vision. A Heads-Up-Display inside your head.
It might be interesting to see a city ban the use of private automobiles within its limits, or even just certain areas. Build a bunch of cheap long-term parking lots on the edges where arriving drivers are supposed to leave their cars until they're ready to leave.
So, if you were a city engineer and were told to design an urban people-movement system that would not include cars, what would you do? Roads and buses? Lots of bicycle/segway/rollerblade paths? Slidewalks? Subways and rails would be prohibitvely expensive for all but the densest areas and even then couldn't reach everywhere. So how would we do it?
Having your 5-year-old kid do it could be construed as an active attempt to avoid the responsibilities of the contract
And what of it? If ABC Software Company expects me to be legally bound to an agreement, they'd damned well better make certain that I'm the one who agreed to it. If they really want it to be binding, they'd need to have a Real Person (TM) watch me click "I Agree" or sign a real physical contract. Instead they're willing to entrust that responsibility entirely to a computer that has no idea if it is even a human being, much less the actual purchaser of the product, that is agreeing.
The general process is, yes. But the various writeups I've seen all allude to 'secret recipes' which are critical to getting the diamonds to grow right. That's the sort of thing I don't think they have (or will) patented.
There's also the fact that this is no longer a closed market. How long do you suppose the various trade secrets used for making artificial gems will remain under wraps? What happens when anyone with a few thousand dollars is able to start their own gem-minting business? Then your price war will begin in earnest.
Exactly. More students die each year in football accidents than they do in school fights, but we don't see 'zero tolerance' foolishness implemented on the field.
Yes, states do have two senators. Why, just look at South Carloina. Until recently, they had Strom Thurmond and Ernest Hollings representing them. The people could certainly be sure that their senatorial representatives were in touch with their constitutents.
Politics is that one occupation where those most capable of doing the job are the ones are the ones we should least trust to do it. As was pointed out, just look at where all these wonderfully seasoned politicians have gotten us.
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Consider: a 99.999% success rate in investigating any crime. This is good when you consider just how many go unsolved and what an incentive this is to wannabe criminals. It is, however, bad when you consider how many things everyone does every day that are felonies. But it is good again when you realize that during your trial, any interested party would be able to show that the Judge, DA, or jury members are guilty of the same 'crime'. How long would the War on Drugs last if everyone could see exactly how it started? See for their own eyes the kind of people who are prolonging the wasteful fight? Governmental, religious, and corporate injustices would be visible to anyone who wanted to look. And for once, the lack of privacy applies to the rich and powerful even more than to the great unwashed. Is the ability to hold every single last person accountable for their actions worth giving up every secret you might have?
This must be great practice for going out and igniting flame wars on alt.athiesm! You take lessons from Bevets on Fark.com or something?
Speaking of accepting parasitic creatures into oneself, have you gotten your worms problem taken care of?
Well, bear in mind, the dead dinosaurs then got pumped out of the ground and you are now being 'ass raped every month with a broken bottle and a pound of sand' by people wielding them.
Ah, what the hell do I know? It sounds cool and we wants it.
Think maybe if we bought a few SCO Linux licenses everything would turn out better, Darl? :)
Well, let's see, there's a name space of 1 billion numbers. This will indeed prove insufficient if its use continues for another two or three generations. But I'm curious about your claim that there are in fact people who have the same SSN. Got a link?
Remember, the cable is going to mass in the thousands, if not millions, of tons. That's gonna need to be one heckuva monster truck.
I can only presume that they mean a full orbit relative to any point on earth. In LEO, you do it in about 90 minutes. GEO, never, since you hover over the same spot all the time.
Except that most of the ribbon is doing its acceleration in space. 40 km of atmosphere, 50,000 km of earth-side ribbon. After a few minutes, whatever section of ribbon that is entering the atmosphere will be doing so at some truly wicked velocities. Given its highly un-aerodynamic shape, though, it'll burn up at the first wisps of air.
The SSN is a unique name. In this regard, it is perfectly adequate. No two people have the same SSN, right? Using it to identify yourself distinguishes you from all the other EZmagz's out there, and that was its original purpose. If it is used on paperwork, it should be as an addendum to the field marked "Name". Using it as a password, a code phrase that tells others that this person really is who he says he is, now _that's_ the bad idea. You don't use public information as a password, that's just stupid. Of course, the simplest solution, trusting a government to build a national database containing SSN/password pairs and thinking it'll never be broken from within or without, is just as bad. And since you'd need networked identity verifiers to be even more ubiquitous than credit card readers, there'll be a huge chain of potentially breakable links.
Ah, but don't forget the lessons of 1917 Russia, 1924 Italy, 1933 Germany, and 1799 France. They all had weak governments which, in the blink of an eye, found themselves unable to deal with an upstart group of power-hungry individuals who went on to cause tremendous amounts of damage. You don't want your government to have so much power that it forgets its job, true, but you do want it to have enough power to do its job in the first place.
The root of the issue is that power WILL be abused.
Only by those who think they can get away with it. Let's face it, power is too tempting, and indeed, too useful to be left alone. Unaccountable power, now there's the ticket to madness and mayhem. A big corporation that has the ear of the President has tremendous power and yet cannot be held accountable for any actions taken on their advice. Small wonder we find ourselves in a 'war of liberation and self-defense' whose origins are suspiciously financial in nature.
We need to address the actual virus: big government.
Again, a big government is not inherently bad, it simply gives more opportunities to more people to acquire more power which they may abuse with impunity. Human organizations only scale so well, and very quickly reach the level of the 'faceless bureaucrat' who can ruin lives on a whim. Since I can think of no way to get have the former without ending up with the latter, "big government is bad" would be a technically true statement; it's just very important to remember why. So when your government comes along with some law that gives themselves or another group power over the citizenry, don't just reject it out of hand. You never know, it might actually be useful. Instead, grant them power only in return for additional accountability. They want control over you, demand some control over them. This sort of thinking led to the Freedom of Information Act. I think that the disclosure of campaign contribution information will do far more good than attempts to regulate them ever could.
An excellent example I came across awhile back was regarding the sale of personal information. If, say, a company wants to acquire and use information about you to make money, they should be allowed to do so. On the condition that the CEO and board of directors make the same information about themselves and their families public information, with dire consequences for trying to avoid this quid pro quo. Make them eat their own dogfood.
I mean, what's the absolute biggest complaint about the Enron fiasco? Poor government and fiscal oversight are definitely lamented, but the biggest is that the guys who looted the company got away with it scott free, Rolo Tomasi style. I'm pissed that they were able to do at all, but far moreso that when it became clear what was going on, the guys running the company weren't being held accountable for running it into the ground.
If the RIAA was even remotely interested in using a carrot, it would say, "Keep using KaZaA and we'll sue you. Stop using KaZaA and switch to our new high-speed online distribution service and'll be able to download low-quality versions of our products for free to sample and also buy individual songs for chump change or get whole albums, complete with cover art, behind-the-scenes documentaries, and interviews with band members for a couple of dollars."
And of course, the article totally misses the point that it's not really possible to track down downloaders, only uploaders.
Now try to imagine the problems you'd have with 1000 cars within a 1-mile radius all blasting away with their active radar systems.
Strange Days totally missed out on the most technically excellent application of a mind-machine sensory interface. Computer-generated imagery that gets superimposed onto your normal vision. A Heads-Up-Display inside your head.
So, if you were a city engineer and were told to design an urban people-movement system that would not include cars, what would you do? Roads and buses? Lots of bicycle/segway/rollerblade paths? Slidewalks? Subways and rails would be prohibitvely expensive for all but the densest areas and even then couldn't reach everywhere. So how would we do it?
Err, 0.001% = 1 in 100,000. Out of a global population of 6 billion, that equates to sixty thousand people, not 6 million.
And what of it? If ABC Software Company expects me to be legally bound to an agreement, they'd damned well better make certain that I'm the one who agreed to it. If they really want it to be binding, they'd need to have a Real Person (TM) watch me click "I Agree" or sign a real physical contract. Instead they're willing to entrust that responsibility entirely to a computer that has no idea if it is even a human being, much less the actual purchaser of the product, that is agreeing.
The general process is, yes. But the various writeups I've seen all allude to 'secret recipes' which are critical to getting the diamonds to grow right. That's the sort of thing I don't think they have (or will) patented.
There's also the fact that this is no longer a closed market. How long do you suppose the various trade secrets used for making artificial gems will remain under wraps? What happens when anyone with a few thousand dollars is able to start their own gem-minting business? Then your price war will begin in earnest.
Exactly. More students die each year in football accidents than they do in school fights, but we don't see 'zero tolerance' foolishness implemented on the field.
Yes, states do have two senators. Why, just look at South Carloina. Until recently, they had Strom Thurmond and Ernest Hollings representing them. The people could certainly be sure that their senatorial representatives were in touch with their constitutents.
This may be true for processors and video cards, but the hard drive is the one thing I most definitely do not want to fail.
The one can easily lead to the other.
Politics is that one occupation where those most capable of doing the job are the ones are the ones we should least trust to do it. As was pointed out, just look at where all these wonderfully seasoned politicians have gotten us.