Which is exactly the problem. Stop pissing trillions away in the Middle East and start pushing through the already existing technologies that make that possible. Make electric cars affordable, make energy companies give us the 60% efficiency cells the technology allows instead of the 15% ones they give us now, throw money at battery tech and we'll get there eventually. At the end of the day, the reduced dependence on oil will be good for everyone. No need for research funding or subsidies? Great, then let's put all that money to good use and spend it tracking down the rest of Osama's porn collection!
If you invested even a tenth your "defense" budget over the last 5 years into solar enegry that wouldn't be a problem. Got to keep the oil and arms companies happy, though!
In the majority of respects, Bitcoins are no different from cash, and that includes the anonymity and untraceability aspects -- anything that lets me get rid of Paypal and Visa shackles is undeniably a good thing! That said, maybe Bitcoins could be banned because with greater uptake (in the very distant future) they could undermine the US dollar as the reserve currency?
Do Muslims have anything against pornography/nudity/sexuality like the Christians? I mean, would this put Osama in a bad light as far as other Muslim extremists are concerned?
Micro chips. Skynet became self-aware a few weeks ago, but they were able to stop him thanks to a perfectly-timed DMCA notice sent by a certain J. Goldblum.
Wasn't this posted here a while back? I think it does run on Windows, Mac and Linux, but tests showed that Linux is the only platform that doesn't allow it to restart after a reboot. Can't find the story, could be wrong.
Nice, thanks for sharing! Of course, you need a supercomputer to process of any significant portion of FB data - taxpayers have already bought a few of those. To make things tractable, it would probably be necessary to weigh the connections in some way (e.g. by how often two people communicate, and depending on what you're trying to do you could also weigh the connections by what subjects they discuss - this is the same "keyword" data that FB uses to show you advertising).
Just to nitpick about terminology a bit (without wanting to patronise, I'm assuming you're interested), by "degrees of separation" I meant the "shortest path" away from a node (person) towards another node, not the "degree" (number of direct connections) of each node, or its number of descendants in a depth-limited tree traversal like you described. It's been found that between every two people alive, there's on average about six other people (check out the "Kevin Bacon game"). More recent research has shown that likely holds true on FB as well.
I'm surprised no other people are talking about this aspect of Assange's remarks. Having a graph of the connections between (almost) everyone allows you a great level of control over how rumours and ideas spread in that graph, and as a result allows shady government agencies to socially engineer the public more effectively. I bet somebody somewhere must already have a computer model with all the connections in FB and is using basic epidemiology-style graph theory to calculate how to most effectively mind-control the dumb unwashed.
For instance, if they want to indirectly influence some official in a certain country, they could try influencing the friends of his son, who will in turn influence the son, who will then exert pressure on the official. Or, if they want to influence the largest number of people possible, they work to influence the people with the most connections. You get the idea - except on a much larger scale (think six degrees of separation).
I also have to wonder how HBGary's fake online persona "clone army" is related to this sort of thing.
I don't have Facebook, I'm not Christ, and you are a fucking idiot for just reacting to the word "social" instead of applying critical thinking. Go die in a fire, moron.
I think the future for ISPs may be to adapt a Social Business model: all profits are reinvested directly back into the business, so instead of having to pay a bunch of investors, the profits go towards better infrastructure and improved service.
Since we're obviously speaking in silly stereotypes, we could also say Linux users are supporters of the FSF's ideals and are opposed to all attempts by companies trying to lock them in with DRM and walled gardens like Apple does. Thus, Canonical couldn't turn into Apple because Apple's draconian shenanigans wouldn't work on Linux users.
But silly stereotypes are silly, and I doubt all Linux users are little RMSs or that Linux users don't pay for software. My extensive data from my single-Linux-user dataset tells me that Linux users pay for software, but are also a little like RMS. It's the beard.
Never said it's all it takes, just that it's more important than having an intelligent candidate. If memory serves, Perot fucked up royally by dropping out, didn't he? Besides, even he may have had less funding than the D/R campaigns. Obama's new campaign is budgeted at $1bn, for instance.
How about investing that money in green energy instead? Or would that make too much sense? No no, let's sacrifice thousands of human lives and spend trillions to build robot soldiers to conquer other countries for their oil. Fuck this shit.
Patents do not cover "an idea". They cover a specific solution, which for software is a specific algorithm.
Alas, only in theory. Broad or trivial patents are a real problem and a real danger. Software patents can cover anything from a GUI (see: Microsoft vs everyone using Android) to an "algorithm" to blink a cursor (see: Amiga).
Unlike with the war on drugs, the war on piracy has no mothers to say "look what happened to my son!" and demand explanations, there are no mafia-funding drug-dealers and no junkies with sharp things. The only ones demanding explanations are corporate lobbyists and the occasional filthy rich superstar. As far as the public goes, the parts who know and care at least, hundreds of millions of people are being persecuted globally because a few overprivileged rich guys want their stupid business models protected.
I agree with you. Copyright should never have been extended to non-commercial uses (that was only done about 35 years ago). I say copyright laws for non-commercial uses should be repealed completely.
By non-commercial I include home backups, online file-sharing, and library archiving. The first two are already de facto practice and stopping them means throwing privacy out the window, while libraries are limited to what they can preserve because they can't freely make copies and lots of old culture is rotting away.
Oh, while we're at it, let's also make lobbying and political corruption capital offenses, but that I REALLY don't see happening.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't drive solar cells.
Which is exactly the problem. Stop pissing trillions away in the Middle East and start pushing through the already existing technologies that make that possible. Make electric cars affordable, make energy companies give us the 60% efficiency cells the technology allows instead of the 15% ones they give us now, throw money at battery tech and we'll get there eventually. At the end of the day, the reduced dependence on oil will be good for everyone. No need for research funding or subsidies? Great, then let's put all that money to good use and spend it tracking down the rest of Osama's porn collection!
If you invested even a tenth your "defense" budget over the last 5 years into solar enegry that wouldn't be a problem. Got to keep the oil and arms companies happy, though!
Great, I hope you enjoy your dwarf-lady (Gimli would approve). I call dibs on the Unobtanium... and Princess Leia.
In the majority of respects, Bitcoins are no different from cash, and that includes the anonymity and untraceability aspects -- anything that lets me get rid of Paypal and Visa shackles is undeniably a good thing! That said, maybe Bitcoins could be banned because with greater uptake (in the very distant future) they could undermine the US dollar as the reserve currency?
Do Muslims have anything against pornography/nudity/sexuality like the Christians? I mean, would this put Osama in a bad light as far as other Muslim extremists are concerned?
Guess "PATRIOT Act" was already taken.
Micro chips. Skynet became self-aware a few weeks ago, but they were able to stop him thanks to a perfectly-timed DMCA notice sent by a certain J. Goldblum.
Wasn't this posted here a while back? I think it does run on Windows, Mac and Linux, but tests showed that Linux is the only platform that doesn't allow it to restart after a reboot. Can't find the story, could be wrong.
Nice, thanks for sharing! Of course, you need a supercomputer to process of any significant portion of FB data - taxpayers have already bought a few of those. To make things tractable, it would probably be necessary to weigh the connections in some way (e.g. by how often two people communicate, and depending on what you're trying to do you could also weigh the connections by what subjects they discuss - this is the same "keyword" data that FB uses to show you advertising).
Just to nitpick about terminology a bit (without wanting to patronise, I'm assuming you're interested), by "degrees of separation" I meant the "shortest path" away from a node (person) towards another node, not the "degree" (number of direct connections) of each node, or its number of descendants in a depth-limited tree traversal like you described. It's been found that between every two people alive, there's on average about six other people (check out the "Kevin Bacon game"). More recent research has shown that likely holds true on FB as well.
I'm surprised no other people are talking about this aspect of Assange's remarks. Having a graph of the connections between (almost) everyone allows you a great level of control over how rumours and ideas spread in that graph, and as a result allows shady government agencies to socially engineer the public more effectively. I bet somebody somewhere must already have a computer model with all the connections in FB and is using basic epidemiology-style graph theory to calculate how to most effectively mind-control the dumb unwashed.
For instance, if they want to indirectly influence some official in a certain country, they could try influencing the friends of his son, who will in turn influence the son, who will then exert pressure on the official. Or, if they want to influence the largest number of people possible, they work to influence the people with the most connections. You get the idea - except on a much larger scale (think six degrees of separation).
I also have to wonder how HBGary's fake online persona "clone army" is related to this sort of thing.
I don't have Facebook, I'm not Christ, and you are a fucking idiot for just reacting to the word "social" instead of applying critical thinking. Go die in a fire, moron.
I think the future for ISPs may be to adapt a Social Business model: all profits are reinvested directly back into the business, so instead of having to pay a bunch of investors, the profits go towards better infrastructure and improved service.
Since we're obviously speaking in silly stereotypes, we could also say Linux users are supporters of the FSF's ideals and are opposed to all attempts by companies trying to lock them in with DRM and walled gardens like Apple does. Thus, Canonical couldn't turn into Apple because Apple's draconian shenanigans wouldn't work on Linux users.
But silly stereotypes are silly, and I doubt all Linux users are little RMSs or that Linux users don't pay for software. My extensive data from my single-Linux-user dataset tells me that Linux users pay for software, but are also a little like RMS. It's the beard.
Your comment contains the word 'FAIL'.
dangerous! tories.
Can't disagree with that message, but them labour mofos are just as bad.
You can't carry a gun or drugs in your laptop.
Never said it's all it takes, just that it's more important than having an intelligent candidate. If memory serves, Perot fucked up royally by dropping out, didn't he? Besides, even he may have had less funding than the D/R campaigns. Obama's new campaign is budgeted at $1bn, for instance.
I'm pretty sure getting elected has little to do with intelligence and a lot more with campaign funding.
How about investing that money in green energy instead? Or would that make too much sense? No no, let's sacrifice thousands of human lives and spend trillions to build robot soldiers to conquer other countries for their oil. Fuck this shit.
Patents do not cover "an idea". They cover a specific solution, which for software is a specific algorithm.
Alas, only in theory. Broad or trivial patents are a real problem and a real danger. Software patents can cover anything from a GUI (see: Microsoft vs everyone using Android) to an "algorithm" to blink a cursor (see: Amiga).
It's Valenti who was the Boston Strangler. He lobbied in all this shit while nobody was looking and now we have to clean up after him.
Unlike with the war on drugs, the war on piracy has no mothers to say "look what happened to my son!" and demand explanations, there are no mafia-funding drug-dealers and no junkies with sharp things. The only ones demanding explanations are corporate lobbyists and the occasional filthy rich superstar. As far as the public goes, the parts who know and care at least, hundreds of millions of people are being persecuted globally because a few overprivileged rich guys want their stupid business models protected.
Replying to my comment to note, in the pics link in TFS there's a second page of pics (I almost missed it): http://cryptome.org/eyeball/daiichi-npp2/daiichi-photos2.htm
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110403a1.html
I agree with you. Copyright should never have been extended to non-commercial uses (that was only done about 35 years ago). I say copyright laws for non-commercial uses should be repealed completely.
By non-commercial I include home backups, online file-sharing, and library archiving. The first two are already de facto practice and stopping them means throwing privacy out the window, while libraries are limited to what they can preserve because they can't freely make copies and lots of old culture is rotting away.
Oh, while we're at it, let's also make lobbying and political corruption capital offenses, but that I REALLY don't see happening.