Yes. But it will be back. Just like his attempt on taking office to put tolls on the East River bridges (the only links from Manhattan/Queens) that would have made his budget look better, but would have split the City (except if you're rich, in which case the tolls are still an inconvenience on an already dramatically inconvenient congestion path).
I notice that Bloomberg has not bothered trying to restore the commuter tax that his Republican predecessor Giuliani dropped, which used to pay for the City services that commuting suburbanites consume, but which they don't even pay for in the lower tax suburbs in which they sleep, though they use the City to make their money (which they spend at home in the suburbs).
Bloomberg has to be able to claim that he's good at balancing NYC's budget, as he runs for president and just fights his battles as a relatively popular mayor. These cameras are a way to create revenue from parking and other tickets. It'll be back.
My aim is not a "completely open society". My aim is a very clear, even obvious and perfectly well established, distinction between public and private, between publicity and privacy. And I am for the maximum individual privacy, with the maximum protection from invasion. By private people, by corporations, by governments, by nature, by anyone.
But I am for a the maximum openness in the public sector. Which also accommodates some rare, yet real, needs for immediate secrecy. But any secrecy, however fleeting, must be met with the maximum affordable (in money and management complexity) public oversight. The US already has a lot of processes that oversee properly practically everything we do. The US practically invented the public/private boundary, and government's (the public's) obligations to protect that boundary, and what lies on either side of it.
Blind spots should be blind only rarely, and never to everyone. There should always be competing powers overseeing each other, checking and balancing each other's power to abuse that info.
This is the way the US has always operated, except when it's violated its own laws and traditions. I am just specifying how a legitimate American government would operate these cameras.
The London system is the direct source of the system that NYC mayor Bloomberg is trying to install in Manhattan. He says it's for "counter terrorism", though he'll probably morph that excuse into "traffic congestion". And then he'll use the (public spying) info for whatever he wants. Like helping his run for president, by watching which "known whorehouses" his political and economic opponents frequent when they're telling their wives they're "working late again".
These cameras point at public places. Their data is public info. Their use, and abuse, needs to be overseen by representatives of the public. Probably on a time delay to give real police business the advantage for which they're installed. Probably with a process to allow total redaction to protect legitimately sensitive info, even though it was recorded in public, like for example which places are covered (and therefore which places have a blind eye). But without public oversight, they're just Big Brother's public eyeball.
The 3rd largest (by area) country in the world, the US is 9,629,091Km^2 (not including marine territorial waters, of which the US has vast amounts). 34,000Km^2 is only 0.35% of the US territory.
So "only 34,000 square kilometers of algae needed to do this" is an entirely unironic, nonsarcastic statement.
A worthwhile sarcastic statement would be something like "gee, only a century of internal combustion engines, and mere years from the brink of irreparable environmental collapse, before we thought to do this".
The NYC Council works like most Legislative branches in the US, but a little crippled, so that the mayor can run the City themself if they are completely opposed to the City Council, its legislature. However, the Legislature does ordinarily control the budget, and pass the laws that implement NYC government. A mayor exercising their theoretical monopoly power would cause the City population, media and much of its business community to revolt, and there are still Council legal resorts to replace a rogue mayor. In practice, the balance of power means the mayor is in charge, and a lot of necessary (to keeping the peace) bureaucracy is run in the Council to administer the government.
The Technology in Government Committee has jurisdiction over all "technology" issues in the City government. Which includes oversight of the City IT department, which serves the $50 BILLION (yes, BILLION) annual City budget. Any law being passed that has a technology policy in it has to pass the Tech committee first. And the committee holds public policy hearings all the time on popular and important issues. Mostly promotion, but sometimes actual control, when there is pressure for a solution to a well-known problem that is not yet a crisis (crisis is the mayor's traditional department).
It's all a lot more complex than that in effect, partly because the City government is so big, and the Council relatively small ($50 MILLION - yes, million, 0.1% of the overall budget to oversee the rest) and relatively diluted into 52 councilmembers representing about 8+ million cantankerous NY'ers.
In effect the Tech committee picks battles that aren't being fought (yet) by competing interests (business, ignorant masses, the mayor, other governments, nature), and stakes out policies that the government will follow. When it's not a pressing issue, but one on the horizon, it will be taken seriously, but serious opponents are usually too busy exploiting something more immediate to fight about it. If the policy is "good", ie. workable by the government, consistent, popular enough not to generate a media war, and offers returns to enough of the stakeholders who will eventually find time to concentrate on their own interests in the policy implementation, it usually survives to be implemented when the situation the policy addresses finally arrives. Then it's horsetrading to leverage actual power to ensure power interests actually follow the existing policy. A combination of laziness by politicians who prefer an existing policy that still "works", and a media network that likes to continue reporting a developing policy rather than a sudden switch that rips people off, is part of the machine that makes NYC work.
Yeah, it's complicated. Amidst all that, I advise that committee on technology matters. I'm the only person "inside" the Council who's really an expert technologist, rather than a lawyer, politician, bureaucrat, researcher, staffer, whatever. I've educated the committee staff to operate on their own, with their own researching and bullshit detection skills. But I answer questions, help them plan some hearings, and generally chat with them on ongoing tech issues to keep them "modern".
I'll keep you email address. At the very least, I might ask you to recommend people to invite to a hearing, or just to consult in email/phone to inform a hearing or just an overall policy. We've mainly focused on comms tech, but energy will be even more important, especially since ConEd, the power corp, has demonstrated that Summer blackouts are SOP. And since Mayor Bloomberg, the finance media tycoon, is running for president during an epochal oil war.
It's very cold in space. And the operative word is skin "tight". We can put a woman on the moon, and we can bring back the corset. The helmets will still enclose the entire head.
If the suit is skintight, then we should see a lot more of the Female Astronaut Program. All of it!
Of course, this development will open the way for space fashion. Designers will now be able to dress up the outside of astronauts, without it looking like a 1950s monster movie. Superfluous garments that don't constrain us will now be possible, and we'll start competing with them out on the space cameras.
It'll finally look a lot more like the SF movies that have inspired most of us to care about humans in space. Now all we'll need is those neat little hoops at the ends of their arms and legs. And a talking robot.
The best counter to fear is humor. Because humor is unexpectedly fast learning, the proper injection of info into the fear cycle can destroy it. And a humorous attitude can be proof against hte whole cycle ever taking root.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Thank you for all the excellent advice and insights.
I'm the tech advisor to the NYC Council (City legislature) Tech committee. We have a demo generator project in the East River that I'm looking into for pointers on this research. I might even try to get the City to hold a public hearing into the project and the tech. We raise public awareness, promote good projects, connect resources to each other, and use our budget, policy and "collegial influence" to make sure these projects are run right. Both for NYC, and inevitably as a model for the rest of the country, and the world.
Would you be interested in testifying or advising the Council on the matter? Either in person or in writing. Thanks for any help, including the insights so far.
I wonder how the average profitability of actual patents would rise if the patent rolls were purged of all those that are created and maintained for solely "defensive" registration.
Patents that are never used to stop an infringer, but rather to protect the registrant's use of the invention. If those patents were instead published into the public domain, they would have exactly the same defensive value. But publishing them into the public domain would cost very little compared to patenting them.
The rest of the patents would have their costs deducted from their greater value in stopping infringement. Those might actually look profitable.
While that analysis might not seem good for the invention industry choked by patents, it could actually turn patenting into a much rarer case. If most patents are in fact used solely to protect an invention from being stopped on "infringement" grounds, then most inventions would just be in the public domain, not patented.
Then the rest of the patents, and their system, could actually be reformed as a much smaller process. Make them expire once 10x their investment cost (stated at registration) is recouped, or after 5-15 years (depending on the invention). Require working models of all patents again, and prohibit patenting anything but a photo/electro/mechanical device. Software and math can be only copyrighted, business processes have no protection whatsoever. If there are so many fewer patents, stopping some of their types that are unworkable will be more manageable.
Then the rest that are left can actually be patented for the promotion of science and the useful arts.
That optimal copyright period of 14 years is nearly exactly the minimum length of a human generation. The last generation's pop content is the next generation's folklore. By the time the next generation has it, more of its value has been produced by its consumers, repeating and referring to it, than by its producers.
I note that the original US copyright period was 17 years. That period was also consistent with a human generation in the late 1700s, when the American government recognized marriage at about age 16, and the first birth of the next generation about a year later. After a couple of centuries, marriage is not as firmly recognized as the limit to human reproduction, so the biological minimum is more the controlling period.
How about some US Conservative politicians, who publicly worship the wisdom of the founders, rewriting US copyright law according to some "originalist" principles, instead of just whatever today's lobbyist writes them in the envelope with the unmarked dollars?
Thanks very much for the detailed and constructive criticism.
While I wait for fuelcell tech to become longer lived and cheaper, I've also gotten the crazy idea to cut out the middleman entirely. I'm trying to brainstorm a nanoscale chemical factory that transduces the water's kinetic energy (more) efficiently into usable energy. My idea is to reengineer chlorophyll to absorb light (at typical 90% efficient photosynthesis) in the spectral band most efficiently produceable by a turbine driving an (O)LED. And to capture the "charged" H2 in ethanol or longer chains for consumption by a fuelcell. So I'd engineer cyanobacteria (or similar) in a microfluidics system.
Another idea is to use a photonic crystal to store the (O)LED output directly, but no one seems to know how to do that yet.
NYC electricity costs as much as about $0.06:KWh (in the Summer, down to $0.055 the other 9 months). If I can buy a 75-100KW marine turbine (and storage/interconnect) for under $300K, and spend under $100K on maintenance over 10 years, then it's cheaper than commercial power. So I can sell the extra power to 20-50 of my neighbors, or perhaps (depending on the law) just back to the grid. No more dependence on the power corp, and zeroing my Greenhouse emissions.
Blah, blah, blah. How come there's "little chance" that Rove will get that info? There is near certainty. Your baseless reassurance is spit in the wind of corruption you fake Conservatives have sown, reaping the whirlwind of ruin while you chant "nothing to see here, move along".
You fake Conservatives are so predictable. Say something that rips off your mask, and all you've got is empty denial. Then change the subject, this time some bullshit about "liberals".
We're talking about Rove, and his office's access to the illegal NSA wiretapping. How about an answer, or just admitting that Rove is getting the data?
You're full of shit. I'll meet you in Madison Square, at the corner of 23rd St and 5th Avenue, any time in the next two weeks. When, lying stupid bitch? I can't wait to kick the living, lying fuck out of your worthless corpse.
How incompetent is Rove? He got Bush, a ridiculous choice for president, "elected" twice, or close enough to steal it. Rove is smart. But not quite smart enough to fool all of the people all of the time. If Rove weren't so smart, Democrats would not only have won the 2006 election by a lot more than 11.6% nationally, but would have retaken Congress at latest in 2002.
But what makes you think he's not getting for political blackmail all the NSA wiretapping that was unnecessary to avoid the FISA court to get, that they're defending with all kinds of criminal and contemptuous acts?
Thanks. When the fascists are intimidating us with universal surveillance while we're talking about impeaching them to get our country back, every person who steps forward publicly represents many who stay silent, but form the majority.
Thanks for the strawman dump. If you can hear me through the tinfoil you've stuffed up your ass, you should try reading my post again.
All I said was that Rove is getting the illegal NSA wiretaps. Can you give me a reason to believe he's not? Because the list of reasons why he would is written in every headline and on every TV news crawl all day long these days.
You coincidence theorists are a really creepy, angry subspecies of the Republican denial breed.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. But it will be back. Just like his attempt on taking office to put tolls on the East River bridges (the only links from Manhattan/Queens) that would have made his budget look better, but would have split the City (except if you're rich, in which case the tolls are still an inconvenience on an already dramatically inconvenient congestion path).
I notice that Bloomberg has not bothered trying to restore the commuter tax that his Republican predecessor Giuliani dropped, which used to pay for the City services that commuting suburbanites consume, but which they don't even pay for in the lower tax suburbs in which they sleep, though they use the City to make their money (which they spend at home in the suburbs).
Bloomberg has to be able to claim that he's good at balancing NYC's budget, as he runs for president and just fights his battles as a relatively popular mayor. These cameras are a way to create revenue from parking and other tickets. It'll be back.
My aim is not a "completely open society". My aim is a very clear, even obvious and perfectly well established, distinction between public and private, between publicity and privacy. And I am for the maximum individual privacy, with the maximum protection from invasion. By private people, by corporations, by governments, by nature, by anyone.
But I am for a the maximum openness in the public sector. Which also accommodates some rare, yet real, needs for immediate secrecy. But any secrecy, however fleeting, must be met with the maximum affordable (in money and management complexity) public oversight. The US already has a lot of processes that oversee properly practically everything we do. The US practically invented the public/private boundary, and government's (the public's) obligations to protect that boundary, and what lies on either side of it.
Blind spots should be blind only rarely, and never to everyone. There should always be competing powers overseeing each other, checking and balancing each other's power to abuse that info.
This is the way the US has always operated, except when it's violated its own laws and traditions. I am just specifying how a legitimate American government would operate these cameras.
Fuck you, you fucking Anonymous exhibitionist Coward.
I explained in my post the exact way that public photos of public places can be spying. But you're too fucking stupid to read.
The data is public info, as I said, but how does the public get it? No one knows, so no one will be able to , you fucking piece of stupid shit.
The only dumb I am is to dignify some stupid AC bullshit by responding to it. But why not? This is a public post, so anyone can read it.
The London system is the direct source of the system that NYC mayor Bloomberg is trying to install in Manhattan. He says it's for "counter terrorism", though he'll probably morph that excuse into "traffic congestion". And then he'll use the (public spying) info for whatever he wants. Like helping his run for president, by watching which "known whorehouses" his political and economic opponents frequent when they're telling their wives they're "working late again".
These cameras point at public places. Their data is public info. Their use, and abuse, needs to be overseen by representatives of the public. Probably on a time delay to give real police business the advantage for which they're installed. Probably with a process to allow total redaction to protect legitimately sensitive info, even though it was recorded in public, like for example which places are covered (and therefore which places have a blind eye). But without public oversight, they're just Big Brother's public eyeball.
The 3rd largest (by area) country in the world, the US is 9,629,091Km^2 (not including marine territorial waters, of which the US has vast amounts). 34,000Km^2 is only 0.35% of the US territory.
So "only 34,000 square kilometers of algae needed to do this" is an entirely unironic, nonsarcastic statement.
A worthwhile sarcastic statement would be something like "gee, only a century of internal combustion engines, and mere years from the brink of irreparable environmental collapse, before we thought to do this".
So now can my graphics coprocessor render moebius strips on demand?
When they get a bionic arm together, we'll have one of these installed for skiboxing.
No, we won't, that's a stupid SF gag.
Yes we will.
Look, I'm running the arms, you've got the legs.
But that was when it was 2 limbs each...
The FAP being a "fitting" acronym might be a pun, but how is the acronym itself?
The NYC Council works like most Legislative branches in the US, but a little crippled, so that the mayor can run the City themself if they are completely opposed to the City Council, its legislature. However, the Legislature does ordinarily control the budget, and pass the laws that implement NYC government. A mayor exercising their theoretical monopoly power would cause the City population, media and much of its business community to revolt, and there are still Council legal resorts to replace a rogue mayor. In practice, the balance of power means the mayor is in charge, and a lot of necessary (to keeping the peace) bureaucracy is run in the Council to administer the government.
The Technology in Government Committee has jurisdiction over all "technology" issues in the City government. Which includes oversight of the City IT department, which serves the $50 BILLION (yes, BILLION) annual City budget. Any law being passed that has a technology policy in it has to pass the Tech committee first. And the committee holds public policy hearings all the time on popular and important issues. Mostly promotion, but sometimes actual control, when there is pressure for a solution to a well-known problem that is not yet a crisis (crisis is the mayor's traditional department).
It's all a lot more complex than that in effect, partly because the City government is so big, and the Council relatively small ($50 MILLION - yes, million, 0.1% of the overall budget to oversee the rest) and relatively diluted into 52 councilmembers representing about 8+ million cantankerous NY'ers.
In effect the Tech committee picks battles that aren't being fought (yet) by competing interests (business, ignorant masses, the mayor, other governments, nature), and stakes out policies that the government will follow. When it's not a pressing issue, but one on the horizon, it will be taken seriously, but serious opponents are usually too busy exploiting something more immediate to fight about it. If the policy is "good", ie. workable by the government, consistent, popular enough not to generate a media war, and offers returns to enough of the stakeholders who will eventually find time to concentrate on their own interests in the policy implementation, it usually survives to be implemented when the situation the policy addresses finally arrives. Then it's horsetrading to leverage actual power to ensure power interests actually follow the existing policy. A combination of laziness by politicians who prefer an existing policy that still "works", and a media network that likes to continue reporting a developing policy rather than a sudden switch that rips people off, is part of the machine that makes NYC work.
Yeah, it's complicated. Amidst all that, I advise that committee on technology matters. I'm the only person "inside" the Council who's really an expert technologist, rather than a lawyer, politician, bureaucrat, researcher, staffer, whatever. I've educated the committee staff to operate on their own, with their own researching and bullshit detection skills. But I answer questions, help them plan some hearings, and generally chat with them on ongoing tech issues to keep them "modern".
I'll keep you email address. At the very least, I might ask you to recommend people to invite to a hearing, or just to consult in email/phone to inform a hearing or just an overall policy. We've mainly focused on comms tech, but energy will be even more important, especially since ConEd, the power corp, has demonstrated that Summer blackouts are SOP. And since Mayor Bloomberg, the finance media tycoon, is running for president during an epochal oil war.
It's very cold in space. And the operative word is skin "tight". We can put a woman on the moon, and we can bring back the corset. The helmets will still enclose the entire head.
Don't blame me. Those are NASA prototypes. Not ready for prime time, but better than burning up in reentry.
If the suit is skintight, then we should see a lot more of the Female Astronaut Program. All of it!
Of course, this development will open the way for space fashion. Designers will now be able to dress up the outside of astronauts, without it looking like a 1950s monster movie. Superfluous garments that don't constrain us will now be possible, and we'll start competing with them out on the space cameras.
It'll finally look a lot more like the SF movies that have inspired most of us to care about humans in space. Now all we'll need is those neat little hoops at the ends of their arms and legs. And a talking robot.
The best counter to fear is humor. Because humor is unexpectedly fast learning, the proper injection of info into the fear cycle can destroy it. And a humorous attitude can be proof against hte whole cycle ever taking root.
Frank Herbert's Litany Against Fear works, but best on those people already conditioned by prana-bindu training:
Thank you for all the excellent advice and insights.
I'm the tech advisor to the NYC Council (City legislature) Tech committee. We have a demo generator project in the East River that I'm looking into for pointers on this research. I might even try to get the City to hold a public hearing into the project and the tech. We raise public awareness, promote good projects, connect resources to each other, and use our budget, policy and "collegial influence" to make sure these projects are run right. Both for NYC, and inevitably as a model for the rest of the country, and the world.
Would you be interested in testifying or advising the Council on the matter? Either in person or in writing. Thanks for any help, including the insights so far.
I wonder how the average profitability of actual patents would rise if the patent rolls were purged of all those that are created and maintained for solely "defensive" registration.
Patents that are never used to stop an infringer, but rather to protect the registrant's use of the invention. If those patents were instead published into the public domain, they would have exactly the same defensive value. But publishing them into the public domain would cost very little compared to patenting them.
The rest of the patents would have their costs deducted from their greater value in stopping infringement. Those might actually look profitable.
While that analysis might not seem good for the invention industry choked by patents, it could actually turn patenting into a much rarer case. If most patents are in fact used solely to protect an invention from being stopped on "infringement" grounds, then most inventions would just be in the public domain, not patented.
Then the rest of the patents, and their system, could actually be reformed as a much smaller process. Make them expire once 10x their investment cost (stated at registration) is recouped, or after 5-15 years (depending on the invention). Require working models of all patents again, and prohibit patenting anything but a photo/electro/mechanical device. Software and math can be only copyrighted, business processes have no protection whatsoever. If there are so many fewer patents, stopping some of their types that are unworkable will be more manageable.
Then the rest that are left can actually be patented for the promotion of science and the useful arts.
That optimal copyright period of 14 years is nearly exactly the minimum length of a human generation. The last generation's pop content is the next generation's folklore. By the time the next generation has it, more of its value has been produced by its consumers, repeating and referring to it, than by its producers.
I note that the original US copyright period was 17 years. That period was also consistent with a human generation in the late 1700s, when the American government recognized marriage at about age 16, and the first birth of the next generation about a year later. After a couple of centuries, marriage is not as firmly recognized as the limit to human reproduction, so the biological minimum is more the controlling period.
How about some US Conservative politicians, who publicly worship the wisdom of the founders, rewriting US copyright law according to some "originalist" principles, instead of just whatever today's lobbyist writes them in the envelope with the unmarked dollars?
Every one of my cells' nuclear membranes and cell membranes would scream YES!!!, if they weren't so busy keeping to themselves.
Thanks very much for the detailed and constructive criticism.
While I wait for fuelcell tech to become longer lived and cheaper, I've also gotten the crazy idea to cut out the middleman entirely. I'm trying to brainstorm a nanoscale chemical factory that transduces the water's kinetic energy (more) efficiently into usable energy. My idea is to reengineer chlorophyll to absorb light (at typical 90% efficient photosynthesis) in the spectral band most efficiently produceable by a turbine driving an (O)LED. And to capture the "charged" H2 in ethanol or longer chains for consumption by a fuelcell. So I'd engineer cyanobacteria (or similar) in a microfluidics system.
Another idea is to use a photonic crystal to store the (O)LED output directly, but no one seems to know how to do that yet.
NYC electricity costs as much as about $0.06:KWh (in the Summer, down to $0.055 the other 9 months). If I can buy a 75-100KW marine turbine (and storage/interconnect) for under $300K, and spend under $100K on maintenance over 10 years, then it's cheaper than commercial power. So I can sell the extra power to 20-50 of my neighbors, or perhaps (depending on the law) just back to the grid. No more dependence on the power corp, and zeroing my Greenhouse emissions.
Blah, blah, blah. How come there's "little chance" that Rove will get that info? There is near certainty. Your baseless reassurance is spit in the wind of corruption you fake Conservatives have sown, reaping the whirlwind of ruin while you chant "nothing to see here, move along".
You fake Conservatives are so predictable. Say something that rips off your mask, and all you've got is empty denial. Then change the subject, this time some bullshit about "liberals".
We're talking about Rove, and his office's access to the illegal NSA wiretapping. How about an answer, or just admitting that Rove is getting the data?
I won't hold my breath. But I wish you would.
You're full of shit. I'll meet you in Madison Square, at the corner of 23rd St and 5th Avenue, any time in the next two weeks. When, lying stupid bitch? I can't wait to kick the living, lying fuck out of your worthless corpse.
How incompetent is Rove? He got Bush, a ridiculous choice for president, "elected" twice, or close enough to steal it. Rove is smart. But not quite smart enough to fool all of the people all of the time. If Rove weren't so smart, Democrats would not only have won the 2006 election by a lot more than 11.6% nationally, but would have retaken Congress at latest in 2002.
But what makes you think he's not getting for political blackmail all the NSA wiretapping that was unnecessary to avoid the FISA court to get, that they're defending with all kinds of criminal and contemptuous acts?
Thanks. When the fascists are intimidating us with universal surveillance while we're talking about impeaching them to get our country back, every person who steps forward publicly represents many who stay silent, but form the majority.
Thanks for the strawman dump. If you can hear me through the tinfoil you've stuffed up your ass, you should try reading my post again.
All I said was that Rove is getting the illegal NSA wiretaps. Can you give me a reason to believe he's not? Because the list of reasons why he would is written in every headline and on every TV news crawl all day long these days.
You coincidence theorists are a really creepy, angry subspecies of the Republican denial breed.
Upthread I said
A PSP with a 10GB miniBlu-Ray drive would be good, if the PS3 could play those discs, too.
Except that Sony launched the PS3 with Linux support (YDL), so you're just wrong.
That's enough free clues for you. See ya on the Xbox. Don't hold your breath.