I made a contribution to an organization I like and added a note that I didn't want them to call or release my name. It was with a check and didn't include a phone number. They looked up my phone number and started calling me for donation. What I found particularly irksome is that they proceeded to sell or exchange my name and phone number to dozens of other organizations and I was getting calls every day from people begging me for money. Because of this I don't give money to many charities except when I can give cash in person. (Such as at my grocery store where you can buy bags of food to donate to the local food bank, but usually only around Thanksgiving or Christmas.)
I've been thinking about going to the Post Office and buying a money order and mailing it to the public TV station but haven't gotten around to it. When I make a modest donation to a non-profit or a charity I want the money to go to the cause, not to paying for more fundraising.
When Google first came out it was a wonder. It saved me an enormous amount of time (=money) in locating information I needed. But it rapidly deteriorated. I remember when there would be people who rejoiced that X billion new pages to their database. I found that with each massive growth of the site it became harder and harder to find the information that I wanted.
I am retired now, but at once upon a time worked develoing applications in Cold Fusion. It was often easier to location a bit of information by enterin a description of what I wanted in a search engine and finding the answer as opposed to pulling out multiple books and checking the indexes. Data when searching the term Cold Fusion clustered in three areas - the application programming language, articles about nuclear energy, and long dissertations that were basically crackpots babbling. For a while it was possible to narrow the search by doing searches of comp Usenet newsgroups, but Google killed the facility of that when they smashed their Google Newsgroups into the mix, and the New York State attorney general then killed Usenet.
But the idea of knowledge domains impicit in the Usenet heirarchy would be very valuable if it could be applied to the internet. Usenet kept control of which groups could be added to 7 of its top levels and alt was free-for-all. Instead of searching the comp.lang.coldfusion Usenet group it would be good to have a search engine at http://coldfusion.lang.comp./ [coldfusion.lang.comp] Whatever organization controled the site could determine what web sites were worthy of being included in the searchable database. All of the automated spam was a major problem on Usenet. Having control on what sites to cover would go a long way to alleviating this problem.
Of course, I have no power or influence about setting this up. All I know is that as far as I am concerned, the internet is fundamentally broken.
I've wondered for quite a while now how scientists know that light traveled at the same speed 14 billion years ago as it does now. Of course, if they decided this was a possibility it would throw a lot of calculations off.
I heard this episode. They made an interesting point during the show. One reason that the Amazon has survived is the fact that malaria and dengue fever infect people who move into these jungle areas. So the advent of GMOs to control mosquito growth may lead the the clearing of the Amazon. That won't be good.
In fact, my prediction is that the Amazon rain forest will have almost disappeared in a hundred years, largely due to this development.
You will be assimilated into the Google hive mind.
The internet is noting what happened to this woman in a bar in San Francisco when she wore Google Glass. She has called this a hate crime. As she notes the product hasn't even been released yet. But when it is released it will be irresistible.
Think of some of the possibilities. An app has been announced Where when you meet someone new in a bar you can take a photo of them and it will search a database and identify who they are. A woman could know if this person is who they say they are, if they are married or has a criminal record. Gay men could know if the guy was on the downlow and what they were packing in their pants. And you could get a review of their performance in bed from your trusted social circle. Priceless. Grindr for Glass can't be far away. And the amazing thing is that people will pay to be assimilated. A lot.
Keep in mind that this is just the start. They are already working on contact lenses that have video displays in the lens. In 50 years the technology will be light years along. Instead of having a earpiece for sound you will have implants. So while non-enhance humans are sleeping you could be learning new things. And Google could improve your mental health by assuring you that you have nothing to worry about from technology and your retirement is perfectly safe in a 401k plan invested in their company. In 50 years the non-enhanced will be at a distinct disadvantage. This woman is a visionary not a clueless Glasshole.
So the Federal Govrnment is issuing patents on drugs that have been deamed Generally Recognized as Safe for decades. These drugs have not been through clinical trials to determine if there are negative health effects. This is one more way in which the government drives up healt care costs.
Big-Pharma is freaking out because the patents on many of their cash cows are getting ready to rexpire. They already get extensions on these patents from the FDA.
Meanwhile, the drugs we really need, like new classes of anti-biotics, are being ignored. You may recall that at the start of the Gulf War Congress want the drug companies to develop drugs in case the enemy used chemical or biological weapons. Congress guaranteed that they would make a 10% ptofit on their effort. Big Pharma said no, not unless you give us 30% return, which is what they have come to expect. They only want to develop drugs for chronic conditions, not cures.
Intellectual property laws are meant to benefit the people. The monopolies that the government gives are not some god-given right but are done so because they benefit the public. I suspect if the government abolished drug patents and paid all of the costs of research the public would benefit more than the current system.
They are upset by the intrusiveness of body scanning. However, when terrorists bring down another airplane they will readily accept this type of procedure. And they will complain about how the government hasn't done enough to protect them.
... but in recent years I have decided Facebook is even more evil than Microsoft since they seem to be trying to take over the internet a push everyone out. In the Facebook world there won't be anyone else. And they make it easy to get content into their system but they make it very hard if not impossible to get content out. And they want ot make everyone in the world get a Facebook account.
So it is quite interesting to see that Microsoft has fallen so low that they must kow-tow to Facebook. But I don't like Bing. And this makes me like them even less.
But Mark Zuckerberg is even more rapacious than Bill Gates. It will be quite delicious to see his screw Microsoft the same way Microsoft has screwed so many other companies.
Well, if I recall correctly there were lots of deaths as the European's did their exploration of the "new world". However, our legal system discourages this type of risk today.
So if this is to be accomplished it won't be in the west. Perhaps Asia or the third world?
The article said they had remote controlled things on site almost immediately. I am not in the field of robotics so I don't know the difference.
About China leaping forward if they develop nuclear energy and the west doesn't. You have to understand we are a democracy and things that China allows would be impermissable here. China has made great leaps forward. But they just avoid paying the costs that are needed. Their environment has been raped (women may howl at that. Are there any reading/.?) And at some point in the future they will have to pay the costs they are skipping now. They may indeed go forward with nuclear power. And they will probably skimp on safety so it can be done cheaply. And at some point there will be an accident. There will then be a strong reaction in the country. My understanding is that Chernobyl played more than a minor part in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And thirdly, I remain unconvinced of the economic viability of nuclear power. Yes, for years I have heard about how cheap it is and how we must have power to develop our economy. And how safe it is compared to other alternatives and blah, blah, blah. What I haven't heard is how cheap nuclear power is if you take into account the unfunded liabilities involved. The US government has taken on the responsibility of dealing with the nuclear waste generated. How much does it cost to build a facility to safely store this waste and how much will it cost to maintain and staff this for thousands of years? And how much does it cost to moth=ball a nuclear site until it is no longer radioactive? I find myself wondering how affordable nuclear energy is if those costs were added to the equation. And I have never even heard this point raised when nuclear power is being debated, much less and answer the the question.
Perhaps the geniuses (genii?) at/. can enlighten me.
Thanks for this comment. I see that there are lots of critiques of the answer which are also valuable and interesting. What surprised me most is that for most/. posting all I see is a lot of jokes. Pus it probably took quite a while to formulate this response.
I used to read/. comments for the insightful responses that people made to questions and articles. But for quite a while all I see are jokes. At least for the top rated articles. Did they do something to the karma system? Perhaps stop giving karma to people who make jokes?
The internet facilitates people of like minds finding each other. This could be people working for good causes and people working for evil causes. People have found each other through networks for long periods of time. The internet just makes it easier. This can be scary. It helps domestic terrorists find each other and it helps Christians find each other.
And whether something is bad or good can be debated. I work with a long existent LGBT rights organization in developing their internet strategy. Our blog isn't one of the real popular ones that has thousands of readers a day (such as Joe My God) but the people who do read us are important people. Who then cite our views on the situation in various news articles in dead tree publishing. But our opponents, who I refer to collectively as Anti-Gay, Inc., are equally as engaged with promoting their views on the internet. But our supporters are younger while the opponents supporters are older and less savvy with technology.
This issue of enabling bad people to find each other is one of the unintended consequences of technology. Sort of like how the automobile was originally a technology to promote a cleaner enviroment.
The teabaggers are an outside group that has been swept to power by a powerful anger in the country. But they are totally ignorant of politics. The statement "It's not the lie, it's the coverup" has been widely touted in the press since the days of Watergate but that simple tenet seems to be unknown to Congressman Duffy. This is the second mention of this story I have seen in 24 hours. I am sure if they hadn't done this I wouldn't be aware of this little video clip.
It is these kinds of slipups that will doom the teabaggers to a short day in the sun.
I am trying to grasp why Google developed this. You are right in saying the reason for blocked terms is that they are trying to prevent complaints when people see sites they disapprove of. But my complaint (from the left) is that if you are going to block some search terms that are offensive, why to you allow others. For instance, if you are going to block the word 'kike' you should block the word 'fag'. [Remember: the symbol of LGBT rights is the '=' sign.]
I thought this might be a advertising thing. That as the search term changed the ads on the right column changed giving them the opportunity to display more ads. But there are no ads in the right column. So if you click on a result without pressing the enter button you will go to the web site without seeing Google advertising.
Which is more important, protecting the principle of freedom of speech or protecting the feelings of people who have had great harm done to themselves or their loved ones?
This is a key issue in many public policy debates, such as whether Muslims can build anything near the the Freedom Tower.
Slashdot Mirror
...robots and AI individuals to start paying their fair share of taxes.
I made a contribution to an organization I like and added a note that I didn't want them to call or release my name. It was with a check and didn't include a phone number. They looked up my phone number and started calling me for donation. What I found particularly irksome is that they proceeded to sell or exchange my name and phone number to dozens of other organizations and I was getting calls every day from people begging me for money. Because of this I don't give money to many charities except when I can give cash in person. (Such as at my grocery store where you can buy bags of food to donate to the local food bank, but usually only around Thanksgiving or Christmas.)
I've been thinking about going to the Post Office and buying a money order and mailing it to the public TV station but haven't gotten around to it. When I make a modest donation to a non-profit or a charity I want the money to go to the cause, not to paying for more fundraising.
And redevelop the land.
...on knowledge domains.
When Google first came out it was a wonder. It saved me an enormous amount of time (=money) in locating information I needed. But it rapidly deteriorated. I remember when there would be people who rejoiced that X billion new pages to their database. I found that with each massive growth of the site it became harder and harder to find the information that I wanted.
I am retired now, but at once upon a time worked develoing applications in Cold Fusion. It was often easier to location a bit of information by enterin a description of what I wanted in a search engine and finding the answer as opposed to pulling out multiple books and checking the indexes. Data when searching the term Cold Fusion clustered in three areas - the application programming language, articles about nuclear energy, and long dissertations that were basically crackpots babbling. For a while it was possible to narrow the search by doing searches of comp Usenet newsgroups, but Google killed the facility of that when they smashed their Google Newsgroups into the mix, and the New York State attorney general then killed Usenet.
But the idea of knowledge domains impicit in the Usenet heirarchy would be very valuable if it could be applied to the internet. Usenet kept control of which groups could be added to 7 of its top levels and alt was free-for-all. Instead of searching the comp.lang.coldfusion Usenet group it would be good to have a search engine at http://coldfusion.lang.comp./ [coldfusion.lang.comp] Whatever organization controled the site could determine what web sites were worthy of being included in the searchable database. All of the automated spam was a major problem on Usenet. Having control on what sites to cover would go a long way to alleviating this problem.
Of course, I have no power or influence about setting this up. All I know is that as far as I am concerned, the internet is fundamentally broken.
I've wondered for quite a while now how scientists know that light traveled at the same speed 14 billion years ago as it does now. Of course, if they decided this was a possibility it would throw a lot of calculations off.
... are not these super intelligent coders. They work in the accounting department. I tend to this this is all a scam to suppress worker wages.
... goat simulator.
I heard this episode. They made an interesting point during the show. One reason that the Amazon has survived is the fact that malaria and dengue fever infect people who move into these jungle areas. So the advent of GMOs to control mosquito growth may lead the the clearing of the Amazon. That won't be good.
In fact, my prediction is that the Amazon rain forest will have almost disappeared in a hundred years, largely due to this development.
.... and we have lots of H1-B workers. I've never understood why there is a critical shortage of accounting personnel.
The internet is noting what happened to this woman in a bar in San Francisco when she wore Google Glass. She has called this a hate crime. As she notes the product hasn't even been released yet. But when it is released it will be irresistible.
Think of some of the possibilities. An app has been announced Where when you meet someone new in a bar you can take a photo of them and it will search a database and identify who they are. A woman could know if this person is who they say they are, if they are married or has a criminal record. Gay men could know if the guy was on the downlow and what they were packing in their pants. And you could get a review of their performance in bed from your trusted social circle. Priceless. Grindr for Glass can't be far away. And the amazing thing is that people will pay to be assimilated. A lot.
Keep in mind that this is just the start. They are already working on contact lenses that have video displays in the lens. In 50 years the technology will be light years along. Instead of having a earpiece for sound you will have implants. So while non-enhance humans are sleeping you could be learning new things. And Google could improve your mental health by assuring you that you have nothing to worry about from technology and your retirement is perfectly safe in a 401k plan invested in their company. In 50 years the non-enhanced will be at a distinct disadvantage. This woman is a visionary not a clueless Glasshole.
So the Federal Govrnment is issuing patents on drugs that have been deamed Generally Recognized as Safe for decades. These drugs have not been through clinical trials to determine if there are negative health effects. This is one more way in which the government drives up healt care costs. Big-Pharma is freaking out because the patents on many of their cash cows are getting ready to rexpire. They already get extensions on these patents from the FDA. Meanwhile, the drugs we really need, like new classes of anti-biotics, are being ignored. You may recall that at the start of the Gulf War Congress want the drug companies to develop drugs in case the enemy used chemical or biological weapons. Congress guaranteed that they would make a 10% ptofit on their effort. Big Pharma said no, not unless you give us 30% return, which is what they have come to expect. They only want to develop drugs for chronic conditions, not cures. Intellectual property laws are meant to benefit the people. The monopolies that the government gives are not some god-given right but are done so because they benefit the public. I suspect if the government abolished drug patents and paid all of the costs of research the public would benefit more than the current system.
...ass, gas, or grass. Though perhaps they don't say that any more.
They are upset by the intrusiveness of body scanning. However, when terrorists bring down another airplane they will readily accept this type of procedure. And they will complain about how the government hasn't done enough to protect them.
... but in recent years I have decided Facebook is even more evil than Microsoft since they seem to be trying to take over the internet a push everyone out. In the Facebook world there won't be anyone else. And they make it easy to get content into their system but they make it very hard if not impossible to get content out. And they want ot make everyone in the world get a Facebook account.
So it is quite interesting to see that Microsoft has fallen so low that they must kow-tow to Facebook. But I don't like Bing. And this makes me like them even less.
But Mark Zuckerberg is even more rapacious than Bill Gates. It will be quite delicious to see his screw Microsoft the same way Microsoft has screwed so many other companies.
Well, if I recall correctly there were lots of deaths as the European's did their exploration of the "new world". However, our legal system discourages this type of risk today.
So if this is to be accomplished it won't be in the west. Perhaps Asia or the third world?
The article said they had remote controlled things on site almost immediately. I am not in the field of robotics so I don't know the difference.
About China leaping forward if they develop nuclear energy and the west doesn't. You have to understand we are a democracy and things that China allows would be impermissable here. China has made great leaps forward. But they just avoid paying the costs that are needed. Their environment has been raped (women may howl at that. Are there any reading /.?) And at some point in the future they will have to pay the costs they are skipping now. They may indeed go forward with nuclear power. And they will probably skimp on safety so it can be done cheaply. And at some point there will be an accident. There will then be a strong reaction in the country. My understanding is that Chernobyl played more than a minor part in the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And thirdly, I remain unconvinced of the economic viability of nuclear power. Yes, for years I have heard about how cheap it is and how we must have power to develop our economy. And how safe it is compared to other alternatives and blah, blah, blah. What I haven't heard is how cheap nuclear power is if you take into account the unfunded liabilities involved. The US government has taken on the responsibility of dealing with the nuclear waste generated. How much does it cost to build a facility to safely store this waste and how much will it cost to maintain and staff this for thousands of years? And how much does it cost to moth=ball a nuclear site until it is no longer radioactive? I find myself wondering how affordable nuclear energy is if those costs were added to the equation. And I have never even heard this point raised when nuclear power is being debated, much less and answer the the question.
Perhaps the geniuses (genii?) at /. can enlighten me.
Thanks for this comment. I see that there are lots of critiques of the answer which are also valuable and interesting. What surprised me most is that for most /. posting all I see is a lot of jokes. Pus it probably took quite a while to formulate this response.
I used to read /. comments for the insightful responses that people made to questions and articles. But for quite a while all I see are jokes. At least for the top rated articles. Did they do something to the karma system? Perhaps stop giving karma to people who make jokes?
The internet facilitates people of like minds finding each other. This could be people working for good causes and people working for evil causes. People have found each other through networks for long periods of time. The internet just makes it easier. This can be scary. It helps domestic terrorists find each other and it helps Christians find each other. And whether something is bad or good can be debated. I work with a long existent LGBT rights organization in developing their internet strategy. Our blog isn't one of the real popular ones that has thousands of readers a day (such as Joe My God) but the people who do read us are important people. Who then cite our views on the situation in various news articles in dead tree publishing. But our opponents, who I refer to collectively as Anti-Gay, Inc., are equally as engaged with promoting their views on the internet. But our supporters are younger while the opponents supporters are older and less savvy with technology. This issue of enabling bad people to find each other is one of the unintended consequences of technology. Sort of like how the automobile was originally a technology to promote a cleaner enviroment.
The teabaggers are an outside group that has been swept to power by a powerful anger in the country. But they are totally ignorant of politics. The statement "It's not the lie, it's the coverup" has been widely touted in the press since the days of Watergate but that simple tenet seems to be unknown to Congressman Duffy. This is the second mention of this story I have seen in 24 hours. I am sure if they hadn't done this I wouldn't be aware of this little video clip. It is these kinds of slipups that will doom the teabaggers to a short day in the sun.
I didn't think about this being April Fools Day until I browsed to /..
.... world leader in robot technology? I am surprised they don't have the tools to do this.
... gray type on a black background may actually improve what I learn? Is /. planning a change?
I am trying to grasp why Google developed this. You are right in saying the reason for blocked terms is that they are trying to prevent complaints when people see sites they disapprove of. But my complaint (from the left) is that if you are going to block some search terms that are offensive, why to you allow others. For instance, if you are going to block the word 'kike' you should block the word 'fag'. [Remember: the symbol of LGBT rights is the '=' sign.]
I thought this might be a advertising thing. That as the search term changed the ads on the right column changed giving them the opportunity to display more ads. But there are no ads in the right column. So if you click on a result without pressing the enter button you will go to the web site without seeing Google advertising.
Neither is the correct answer. Or more specifically, HTML5.
Which is more important, protecting the principle of freedom of speech or protecting the feelings of people who have had great harm done to themselves or their loved ones?
This is a key issue in many public policy debates, such as whether Muslims can build anything near the the Freedom Tower.