the borg are a badly thought out sci-fi plot device, nothing more.
If a group of people got together and made it possible to experience everything everyone in the group heard/thought/felt, they would be a democracy where the majority always rules. your views and values would not change, they would be shared throughout the group. If a group of humans formed a borg collective they would maintain their humanity, and probably even hold each other to a higher standard through peer pressure.
Star trek Borg are not a collective, they are a subservient dictatorship.
Violating someones right to choose and taking away their freedom is without any doubt valid cause for retaliation. To re-assert that freedom lethal force may be necessary. All throughout history force has been used to earn back freedom.
When an attacker uses force against another human, that victim has every right to use force to defend themselves.
Create a billboard that wants to be looked at.. Start the billboard out with totally random graphics, and then, do the genetic algorithm thing and produce 10 or 20 variants, and see which one gets the most looks, then take it mutate it and repeat.
eventually you will create what could be considered the best possible public work of art which is enjoyed by the most number of people.
Take the multitouch idea and make it an input device, just leave the computer monitor alone. There is no reason we have to overlap the 2.
Just put the multi-touch device down with the keyboard.
You could handle positioning with virtual hands (maybe 1 mouse pointer per fingertip, with transparency dependent on distance from surface) so as your hands hover over the multi-touch, you can see where on the screen they are going to touch.
I've purchased a business account guaranteeing 3Mbps Down, 1Mbps Up. And I get those speeds easily, all the time. Often, i'll even go over that. But when i've wanted to use the bandwidth, that base amount 3/1 is ALWAYS available.
>You make the mistake of thinking that by "disproving" some bit of dogma or scripture that you disprove "certain religions".
He makes no mistake, disproving one thing _is_ enough, to disprove the whole religion.
I'm biased to a christian education, so i'm not speaking for all religions, only christianity.
Christianity claims the bible is Infallible:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness - 2 timothy 3:16
No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. - 2 Peter 1:21
Yet, the bible if full of prophesies that didn't come true. So God messed up, or he intentionally misinformed us.
So if God inspired All Scripture, and we can find faults in scripture, then we can find fault in God, and if we can find fault in God, then he's not what he claims to be, thus we basically disprove the whole religion.
(i never throught i'd post a religion view on slashdot and have a chance of not getting modded flame-bait )
Microsoft has the Xbox Live thing of course, which is already a single sign-on account for all microsoft services. (MSN, msdn, hotmail, xbox)
Then you got OpenID which EVERONE is starting to support.
And finally, its just the simplicity of it. for a sony developer to associate my OpenID, and my Windows Live ID with their PS3 signon system just means storing 2 primary keys and using the OpenId/Live API to access my shared data. The cost of this is minimal and benefit is access to user data. If sony implemented this they would get access to all my shared data, games preferences, demographics, friends lists.
Hmm, everything so dark you double check that your monitor is still on, scary? I don't think so.
Wandering alone through halls bored for 5 minutes, then finally encountering 1 or 2 creatures, scary? I don't think so.
spending $60 expecting a game similar to DOOM, with rooms full of hundreds of Imps, and instead getting a fancy graphics engine and sad little 1 on 1 battles... disappointing.
>why would I want to trust Microsoft, or anyone, with all my files?
omg, like seriously, paranoia isnt cool, its sad.
normal people (the target market) dont give a shit about security or privacy, they want an appliance that turns on and 'Just Works'.
If a 'normal person' could pay 10 bux a month for a dumb terminal appliance, they would be happy! No Viruses, No Adware, No tech support, no patches or windows updates, no installing software.
Almost everything already IS web based. Photos: done. (Flicker or Facebook). Videos: done. (youtube and others) Email: done. (gmail, hotmail, yahoo) Instant Messaging: done (Meebo and others) Web Browsing: done
Gaming can be moved to a console. I'm very happy with the Xbox360.
EVERYONE always talks about office suites.. but seriously, its probably been years since i've written a document in Word.
Even your taxes can already be done online.
>when my unreliable comcast cable modem drops offline I guess that means a worthless terminal till it comes back up
How is that different from now? without an internet connection my home PC is basically useless now.
What are these magical special documents and files you have that are so freaking private???
(this message is directed at EVERYONE who is freaking about about online storage, not just parent)
So, what if I have good genes.... and you have bad? If we are willing to open up the can of worms of risk assignment, then why should we ignore science and not surcharge those people who have doomed genetics?
Thats easy, CHOICE. When you judge someone on something they cant change, (race, gender) that's discrimination.
Now, if facebook was adopted for popularity, and not as a tool, then you are completely correct.
I think your right that alot of people signed up for facebook to fit in and be popular, I also think that you could be right that the next generation will jump into the next big thing and ignore facebook.
On the other hand, I still think facebook has a large enough userbase that when the new 'cool thing' shows up, lots of people will keep facebook and continue using it for a long time. (internet prediction: 4 years before the attrition starts)
a social networking site must be constantly fed new blood, or it dies.
No, (then yes). That critical mass of connections exists, and the tool is still quite useful without more users joining. Of course, if the next generation of people start using some new tool then eventually you'll have to start building your social connections on the new system, and eventually everyone just jumps ship and migrates to the new system.
So, yeah, i see your point, and i guess i agree.
I just always saw facebook as a tool, so i never considered the consequences of the social "Cool" aspect of it.
I don't think Facebook will be leaving any time soon.
The amount of data stored per user in facebook is very high.
Its the best contact management tool i've ever used, and that core functionality isn't going anywhere.
Sure many of those Apps are annoying but they are also optional. and some Apps are downright helpful. I personally use the iRead App to record my book collection and what i'm reading. IRL (in real life), I would have never told my cousin that "oh yeah, by the way, i havent phone you in 2 years, but guess what, iRead just told me were reading the same books, what did you think of XY? ". That app just helped me connect with someone in a meaningful way, and thats Cool! Another App i use is the Movie one, same thing, i record which movies i watch and give them ratings. Then 2 weekends ago I wanted to do a Star Wars Marathon and watch all 6 movies. Because most of my friends on facebook also use the movie app, I knew easily who would be interested, and invited some people I otherwise wouldn't have thought of.
So viewing Facebook as a basic contact management system, These extenal Apps can really add value. And with the investment of time i've put into building that social network, I cant see myself switching to a different contact management tool for a very very long time.
I buy my DVD and then download the ISO so its in my media center.
I buy my CD/ITunes Songs, and then download the mp3's.
I buy my Software, and have the cracks downloaded before the software is finished installing. (C&C: Red Alert, Age of Mythology, GTA:VC, etc) (Usually they are just NO-CD Cracks.)
DRM is just so totally useless. Honest people are gonna keep paying for their media, and dishonest people are gonna keep finding ways to pirate their content. The only thing DRM does is punish the honest people.
What annoys me the most, almost every single thing listed here is already considered copyright infringement.
If politicians really represented 'We The People' we would have new Fair-Use Laws, instead we got this DMCA shit, and now canada's about to take the dive into that cesspool.
Pretty obviously the problem is sometimes you need to get calls from unexpected sources. The ONLY Exception, is the government.
Caller ID info can be forged, and i think that is the bigger hindrance to the buddy list idea.
I am too amicable to outright disagree with you, but for me, people only call me after I GIVE THEM my phone number, and that makes them an expected call. I know for me personally, a telephone/email/snail-mailbox white-list would be a welcome change. (assuming the gov't exception)
I don't understand why telephone and email providers dont adopt the instant messenger system of buddy lists.
Its effectively a white-list solution, but everyone understands it and it already works on MSN/Yahoo/Facebook. Extending it to email and VOIP would be very easy.
> It tells me that the Taliban is back to being powerful enough to make demands of companies
I just have to disagree.
It take 2 or 3 taliban guys to "go have talks" with the cell phone companies. and it take 2 or 3 taliban guys to build a bomb, and start knocking down cell towers.
So all this proves is they are getting tracked, they dont know how, and 2 or 3 guys are desperately grasping at straws.
Slashdot Mirror
the borg are a badly thought out sci-fi plot device, nothing more.
If a group of people got together and made it possible to experience everything everyone in the group heard/thought/felt, they would be a democracy where the majority always rules. your views and values would not change, they would be shared throughout the group. If a group of humans formed a borg collective they would maintain their humanity, and probably even hold each other to a higher standard through peer pressure.
Star trek Borg are not a collective, they are a subservient dictatorship.
Yeah, star trek is all sociology, not technology.
Their complete lack of technological usage and development frustrated me until i realized this.
Violating someones right to choose and taking away their freedom is without any doubt valid cause for retaliation. To re-assert that freedom lethal force may be necessary. All throughout history force has been used to earn back freedom.
When an attacker uses force against another human, that victim has every right to use force to defend themselves.
Film that ended in mid sentence: Rules of Attraction
Create a billboard that wants to be looked at.. Start the billboard out with totally random graphics, and then, do the genetic algorithm thing and produce 10 or 20 variants, and see which one gets the most looks, then take it mutate it and repeat.
eventually you will create what could be considered the best possible public work of art which is enjoyed by the most number of people.
I would very much like to see what it produces.
Take the multitouch idea and make it an input device, just leave the computer monitor alone. There is no reason we have to overlap the 2.
Just put the multi-touch device down with the keyboard.
You could handle positioning with virtual hands (maybe 1 mouse pointer per fingertip, with transparency dependent on distance from surface) so as your hands hover over the multi-touch, you can see where on the screen they are going to touch.
I've purchased a business account guaranteeing 3Mbps Down, 1Mbps Up. And I get those speeds easily, all the time. Often, i'll even go over that. But when i've wanted to use the bandwidth, that base amount 3/1 is ALWAYS available.
If you sold me 10Mbps download and can't provide it regardless of protocol, you have committed fraud ...
Thankyou!!! That is exactly it.
Unfortunately, their are prophecies are about the outcomes of specific military battles, outcomes that didnt come true.
>You make the mistake of thinking that by "disproving" some bit of dogma or scripture that you disprove "certain religions".
He makes no mistake, disproving one thing _is_ enough, to disprove the whole religion.
I'm biased to a christian education, so i'm not speaking for all religions, only christianity.
Christianity claims the bible is Infallible:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness - 2 timothy 3:16
No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. - 2 Peter 1:21
Yet, the bible if full of prophesies that didn't come true. So God messed up, or he intentionally misinformed us.
So if God inspired All Scripture, and we can find faults in scripture, then we can find fault in God, and if we can find fault in God, then he's not what he claims to be, thus we basically disprove the whole religion.
(i never throught i'd post a religion view on slashdot and have a chance of not getting modded flame-bait )
I think a single Online ID is likely.
Microsoft has the Xbox Live thing of course, which is already a single sign-on account for all microsoft services. (MSN, msdn, hotmail, xbox)
Then you got OpenID which EVERONE is starting to support.
And finally, its just the simplicity of it. for a sony developer to associate my OpenID, and my Windows Live ID with their PS3 signon system just means storing 2 primary keys and using the OpenId/Live API to access my shared data. The cost of this is minimal and benefit is access to user data. If sony implemented this they would get access to all my shared data, games preferences, demographics, friends lists.
So I think it WILL happen.
With all those cameras, face tracking isnt much further behind.
I totally agree About Disk1,2,3,...,100.
I'd totally buy myself a set of them. These ones for starters:
1)Math
2)Physics
3)Chemistry
4)Biology
5)Electronics
6)Astronomy
Hmm, everything so dark you double check that your monitor is still on, scary?
I don't think so.
Wandering alone through halls bored for 5 minutes, then finally encountering 1 or 2 creatures, scary?
I don't think so.
spending $60 expecting a game similar to DOOM, with rooms full of hundreds of Imps, and instead getting a fancy graphics engine and sad little 1 on 1 battles... disappointing.
With things like Foxmarks, even the browser itself is semi-web based already.
>why would I want to trust Microsoft, or anyone, with all my files?
omg, like seriously, paranoia isnt cool, its sad.
normal people (the target market) dont give a shit about security or privacy, they want an appliance that turns on and 'Just Works'.
If a 'normal person' could pay 10 bux a month for a dumb terminal appliance, they would be happy! No Viruses, No Adware, No tech support, no patches or windows updates, no installing software.
Almost everything already IS web based.
Photos: done. (Flicker or Facebook).
Videos: done. (youtube and others)
Email: done. (gmail, hotmail, yahoo)
Instant Messaging: done (Meebo and others)
Web Browsing: done
Gaming can be moved to a console. I'm very happy with the Xbox360.
EVERYONE always talks about office suites.. but seriously, its probably been years since i've written a document in Word.
Even your taxes can already be done online.
>when my unreliable comcast cable modem drops offline I guess that means a worthless terminal till it comes back up
How is that different from now? without an internet connection my home PC is basically useless now.
What are these magical special documents and files you have that are so freaking private???
(this message is directed at EVERYONE who is freaking about about online storage, not just parent)
Kyle
So, what if I have good genes.... and you have bad? If we are willing to open up the can of worms of risk assignment, then why should we ignore science and not surcharge those people who have doomed genetics?
Thats easy, CHOICE. When you judge someone on something they cant change, (race, gender) that's discrimination.
your generation bought into facebook
To qualify/clarify this, I'm 26.Now, if facebook was adopted for popularity, and not as a tool, then you are completely correct.
I think your right that alot of people signed up for facebook to fit in and be popular, I also think that you could be right that the next generation will jump into the next big thing and ignore facebook.
On the other hand, I still think facebook has a large enough userbase that when the new 'cool thing' shows up, lots of people will keep facebook and continue using it for a long time. (internet prediction: 4 years before the attrition starts)
a social networking site must be constantly fed new blood, or it dies.
No, (then yes). That critical mass of connections exists, and the tool is still quite useful without more users joining. Of course, if the next generation of people start using some new tool then eventually you'll have to start building your social connections on the new system, and eventually everyone just jumps ship and migrates to the new system.So, yeah, i see your point, and i guess i agree.
I just always saw facebook as a tool, so i never considered the consequences of the social "Cool" aspect of it.
I don't think Facebook will be leaving any time soon.
The amount of data stored per user in facebook is very high.
Its the best contact management tool i've ever used, and that core functionality isn't going anywhere.
Sure many of those Apps are annoying but they are also optional. and some Apps are downright helpful. I personally use the iRead App to record my book collection and what i'm reading. IRL (in real life), I would have never told my cousin that "oh yeah, by the way, i havent phone you in 2 years, but guess what, iRead just told me were reading the same books, what did you think of XY? ". That app just helped me connect with someone in a meaningful way, and thats Cool! Another App i use is the Movie one, same thing, i record which movies i watch and give them ratings. Then 2 weekends ago I wanted to do a Star Wars Marathon and watch all 6 movies. Because most of my friends on facebook also use the movie app, I knew easily who would be interested, and invited some people I otherwise wouldn't have thought of.
So viewing Facebook as a basic contact management system, These extenal Apps can really add value. And with the investment of time i've put into building that social network, I cant see myself switching to a different contact management tool for a very very long time.
Kyle
As per this post: http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=586771&cid=23830359 1. Buy software.
2. Install software.
3. Get frustrated.
4. Crack software. I already skip step 2 and 3. The temptation to skip step 1 is always there.
I'm definitely in the Step1-Step4 camp.
I buy my DVD and then download the ISO so its in my media center.
I buy my CD/ITunes Songs, and then download the mp3's.
I buy my Software, and have the cracks downloaded before the software is finished installing. (C&C: Red Alert, Age of Mythology, GTA:VC, etc) (Usually they are just NO-CD Cracks.)
DRM is just so totally useless. Honest people are gonna keep paying for their media, and dishonest people are gonna keep finding ways to pirate their content. The only thing DRM does is punish the honest people.
What annoys me the most, almost every single thing listed here is already considered copyright infringement.
If politicians really represented 'We The People' we would have new Fair-Use Laws, instead we got this DMCA shit, and now canada's about to take the dive into that cesspool.
Caller ID info can be forged, and i think that is the bigger hindrance to the buddy list idea.
I am too amicable to outright disagree with you, but for me, people only call me after I GIVE THEM my phone number, and that makes them an expected call. I know for me personally, a telephone/email/snail-mailbox white-list would be a welcome change. (assuming the gov't exception)
Kyle
I don't understand why telephone and email providers dont adopt the instant messenger system of buddy lists.
Its effectively a white-list solution, but everyone understands it and it already works on MSN/Yahoo/Facebook. Extending it to email and VOIP would be very easy.
Kyle
hahaha.
For those not getting this joke, its in reference to an article on The Daily WTF:
The Sage - http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Sage.aspx
> It tells me that the Taliban is back to being powerful enough to make demands of companies
I just have to disagree.
It take 2 or 3 taliban guys to "go have talks" with the cell phone companies.
and it take 2 or 3 taliban guys to build a bomb, and start knocking down cell towers.
So all this proves is they are getting tracked, they dont know how, and 2 or 3 guys are desperately grasping at straws.