I'm now 21 myself. Even now I often get snuffed by a lot of jobs and such because of my age.
Tell me about it. You think it's bad now... try being in your mid-thirties or older. The assumption seems to be that technology is a young man's game. If you're not young (and esp. if you're not a man) it's assumed that you don't know anything. On a good day it's assumed that you know some things but everything you know is obsolete or will be by next week.
This is just more government supported discrimination.
Here's where I disagree with you. In the workplace anyway, the government does what it can to prevent age (and other kinds of) discrimination. There are laws about that kind of thing. But they're almost impossible to enforce. Esp. if the one being overlooked for a job or promotion isn't in a recognized "protected" class of people.
News flash - discrimination isn't just something that happens to racial minorities, women, gays, and people in wheelchairs. They get their share and then some, but no one is immune. If the government is going to go to all the trouble of having anti-discrimination laws, they should apply them to everybody.
...if people are spoonfed knowledge early, they'll always expect it.
There's a big difference between educating someone and spoonfeeding them. Proper education ignites in the student a love of learning and a desire to learn more. Sure, the earliest steps are going to resemble spoonfeeding. That's only to make the inevitable missteps less painful. As the student begins to succeed, there is less need for spoonfeeding.
They won't gain critical thinking skills or the ability to learn the solution to their problems on their own.
Sure they will. Just not the first time. Very few take to computers like a duck to water. Most people (I'd guess even most slashdotters) need(ed) someone to show them a few basics early on. The critical thinking skills and the tenacity to struggle through when problems seem impossible come later.
The hairier the problem, the more satisfying it is to solve.
"Access to computers should be unlimited and total."
I always thought that was something of a dychotomy. On one side, the hacker mindset is that all computer systems should be wide open. On the other hand, the hacker mistrusts organizations and governments.
That part of the hacker ethic is certainly showing its age today. In the early days there was less need for mistrust. Governments and organizations were, in those days, largely ignorant of hackers. Security on computer systems was less of a concern when the only ones who might be interested in the systems, how they worked, and what was stored on them were other hackers.
The ignorance worked both ways though - as the book indicates, the hacker pioneers themselves, immersed as they were in the deep structures of their beloved systems, were often ignorant of the interest that governments and organizations might indeed have. It just never occurred to most of them that security might be an issue. At least at first.
And so, the hacker maxim has to be revised: I think it should read, "the level of information you are allowed to get is proportional to the skill you display".
Maybe. In a way that's always been the case. When the skills in question are those used in gaining access to information, the level of information you are allowed to get is indeed proportional to the skill you display.
Sure, there are ignorant lusers with alarmingly high levels of access to information. But whose fault is that? They wouldn't have that kind of access if someone (someone who knows their sh1t) didn't give it to them. When ignorant people are granted access to computer systems there are two options. The easy one is to just give it to them without explaination and let them muddle through. This is a bad move in the short term, as they're still ignorant and now they have the power to damage things. The better way is to educate them. It's not as easy in the short term, but it pays off over time.
If you like Steven Levy's writing in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, you might check out his Artificial Life as well. It's very different, but still quite good. And it's got pictures! Maybe we can get a book review of it here someday (hint-hint!).
obviously you dont know how elections work. Its the electoral college that matters.
Actually I do know about the electoral college. I didn't say that elections are perfect - I just said they work. They do. I personally think they'd work a lot better without the electoral college, but that doesn't invalidate them. Compared to the other methods of overthrowing governments, democratic elections (even with the electoral college) are far better for all concerned.
Lots of college kids have these ideas. Lots of college kids talk about these ideas. They are discussed so often and openly that they have almost become part of the establishment - a rite of passage for white yuppie larva passing through on their way to productive careers as Cogs in the Machine.
Exactly. And isn't that what rites of passage are for? Young people need to believe that they are important, that they are a threat to The Establishment, and that The Establishment is a threat to them. If young people didn't have these delusions of subversive grandeur, they'd become so overwhelmed by the pointlessness of it all that they'd just shut down and never become productive little Cogs. Cogs need to fantasize that one day they'll rise up and overthrow the Machine. It's what keeps them going day after day.
It happens on the right as well as the left. While one side crusades against capitalist exploitation, greed, and The Patriarchy, the other battles moral relativism, secular humanism and Political Correctness.
And BTW we are, every one of us, beautiful unique snowflakes. And although every snowflake is be beautiful and unique by itself, it looks like every other snowflake and it's a big nuisance to boot when there's countless billions of them on the sidewalk and you have to shovel them.
We've got a beautiful, unique snowflake's chance in hell of overthrowing the government... unless we work within the system. Play by the system's rules, and use those rules against it. In the U.S., the government is designed to be overthrown every few years. It's called an election, and it works.
Aside: when they set up the FOIA over the web, I actually sent in a request to the CIA to pull references to my name. After several pieces of correspondence taped shut with duct tape, they formally declared they did not know who the hell I was and would I please stop sending them letters?
Introducing an element that was once part of [an ecosystem], but is no longer is does just as much harm to an ecosystem as introducing a specimen that has never been there at all.
That's speculation. The former has never been done before. The latter has been done many times (sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently; sometimes by humans, sometimes by wind, ocean currents, etc.) with varying results. Speculation is a good thing - we ought to consider all the possibilities before reintroducing an extinct species - but it's still speculation. It is by no means certain that it will be disasterous, as the introduction on non-native species has frequently been.
If we re-introduce Wooly Mammoths into nature, we don't know how well they will adapt, and we don't know how well nature will adapt around them.
True, but consider. Mammoths are much like present-day elephants. Megafauna. Long-lived. Few predators. Slow maturation. Slow reproduction. What population biologists would call K-strategists. Introduced species that become a problem for native ones are almost invariably r-strategists (A notable exception being the most invasive species of all - humans). R-strategists are typically small creatures. Short-lived. Normally subject to intense predation in their native environment. Rapid maturation. Very rapid reproduction. These things combine to give introduced species an edge in their new, predator-free environments. They're not likely to be a problem in the case of wooly mammoths.
Cloned wooly mammoths would probably not be released into the wild right away, but kept in zoos, or penned up on research farms for study. Given their slow rate of reproduction, it'd be a very long time before there were enough of them to have much of an impact on their environment.
One more thing - wooly mammoths have probably been extinct for only a few thousand years. As no other creature has appeared to fill the niche previously occupied by the mammoths in that short time, I suspect their reintroduction to Siberia would have little negative impact, assuming they ever were released (or escaped) into the wild.
Why on earth would the release the crypto to be freely available? Why? They would not be able to read our emails, our files, or whatever anymore.
But they (supposedly) can't do that now. 'mericans are allowed strong encryption; it's the export of it (from the U.S.)to other countries that's verboten. But other countries have clever people too. And they can come up with their own versions of stong encryption, resistant to U.S. codecracking.
Alternately, someone in the U.S., in violation of the law, can export strong encyption. The law doesn't stop the export of strong encryption - it just criminalizes it. Once the law is broken and strong encryption gets outside the U.S. borders (what borders? this is the 'net!) all bets are off. The law, at this point, only penalizes the law-abiding citizen.
In answer to the question of why "they" would allow the export of strong encryption... they'd allow it because "they" have already lost, and they know it. Legalizing it would allow the law-abiding to have what the criminals already have.
If I remember correctly, this book coined the term "avatar" as used in a virtual world.
The word Avatar is a lot older than that. It somes from, IIRC, Sanskrit, and was the term used for the bodies that the gods used when they wanted to walk around and interact with mere mortals.
Even within VR, the word avatar is older than Snow Crash. It was in use in MUDs long before.
What about the mythology?
on
Snow Crash
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· Score: 2
This was a decent review, but it didn't mention one of the (to me) most powerful points of the book - the ties to mythology.
All the Sumerian mythology and pre-Biblical Jewish cult stuff, concisely explained by The Librarian, was a true delight. It was one of the things that set this book apart from merely adequate-and-entertaining cyberpunk (or post-cyberpunk if you prefer.) I mean, sure the descriptions of the virtual world and the near future's techno-toys are right on the mark, but any good cyberpunk tale can do that. This one does more. It makes the reader think. A lot.
There's a bit of that in Cryptonomicon too, though there it's primarily Greek, rather than Sumerian mythology that's discussed. Also, in Cyrptonomicon it was more of an aside, while in Snow Crash it's a vital part of the story, linked in with the viral mind-killer of the title and L. Bob Rife's quest for World Domination.
I liken Open Analysis to Open Source, with Open Analysis the ideas are all there for free on Slashdot, just like with Open Source the source is all out there on ftp servers - for all to read and examine. But, there's a premium service where we edit it and digest it into a form that you'll be more likely to be able to use. This is what the various Linux distribution projects do for Linux, put it into a form that people are more likely to be able to use.
Whoa! Good analogy! But no one distribution is going to please all of the people all of the time.
Yeah, right... And the best technology is always adopted by the market.
Ouch. I guess I asked for that. Maybe what we need isn't an editorial board but a nice translucent plastic case, and snazzy designer colors!
If there was some way we could get the Best of Slashdot before a larger audience, we might all benefit.
Yeah, but who gets to decide what is the Best of Slashdot? Hint - use the analogy, Luke! It's the same person who gets to decide which is the Best Distribution.
Do you really think that we are some kind of "information security resource"? or "hacker culture outlet"? No. We're entertainment. We use the web as a form of free speech to do whatever the hell we want in an effort to entertain the people that watch us.
Golly! Substitute the word "television" where the above sentence has "the web", and that's pretty much what MTV does. Not reporting the news, not presenting facts, just entertaining the gullible masses. If the truth about hackers isn't flashy enough (it isn't), we'll make something up. Or find someone who at least looks like the youthful telegenic hacker image we want to present.
Only MTV gets pilloried for their efforts, while shamrock expects... I don't know what shamrock expects. Sympathy? Kudos? Yeah, I suppose he pulled a prank on MTV. But MTV pulled a prank on him (and all the boring code-crunching not-so-telegenic hackers out there) first. MTV wanted something flashier than 2600 and HNN had to offer. So what does shamrock do? Shows them what they want to see, even though it's a hoax.
Would it have been more responsible to tell them "Sorry, that's as flashy as it gets. If you don't like it well... it's a hacker thing. You wouldn't understand."? Probably. Would it have been as much fun as hoaxing them? No.
I have been thinking about how a group of people (such as the SlashDot readership) could collectively write a document which could be considered to be from the group as a whole...
Slashdot is not monolithic - why should it speak with one voice? We're a diverse bunch, and I really doubt that any one document could be agreed upon by the entire Slashdot readership. Unless maybe it were a self-referential bit of fluff like "We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all Slashdot readers read Slashdot." Even then, there's probably a few troublemakers who'd dissent. "No! I never read Slashdot!"
I don't want the majority of Slashdot readers, or posters, to collectively author a document on behalf of all Slashdotters. Even if they had really high karma/moderation totals. Because I'm a Slashdotter, and I might disagree! And even if I agreed, there's the principle of the thing. What about the poor Anonymous Coward whose views are not represented in the Slashdot Constitution because the majority voted him/her down?
This ought to be standard procedure, not a bold move
Lots of standard procedures started out as bold moves. The bold moves that worked became SOP's.
Traditional media were a one-to-many phenomenon. One (or a few) individuals with power and resources preached (their) gospel to the multitudes. Gutenberg's invention democratized the procedure a bit, but it was still rather expensive for Joe Average to publish his opinions far and wide. Soapbox speechifying and BBS ranting took the democratization even farther, but the small audiences they reached kept them below the radar of the bigger media outlets. The internet is (except in the Third World) as democratic as the soapbox, and too big to ignore. The big media outlets have to make some bold moves, or they're going to go the way of the dinosaurs.
Almost all reporters see themselves as change agents...
And that's a bad thing?
They're not interested in truth, they become journalists to change and improve the world.
Why not have it both ways? Seems to me the ideal journalist (the ideal anything, for that matter) is interested in the truth and in changing and improving the world.
Slashdot, for example, sees all its readers as potential contributors and critics, radically broadening its corps of information suppliers.
Yup. And I, for one, like it just fine that way. But there are those who (perish the thought!) want to be paid for their ideas and insights, their contributions and criticisms. Even if they're really just opinions, albeit well thought-out and carefully worded ones.
One reason the (boo! hiss!) "traditional media" have been so slow to take advantage of the freedom and interactivity that the internet offers, is that so much of the stuff on the 'net is free. Journalists and writers - probably even Katz himself - are accustomed to getting paid for writing stuff, while online rant-meisters happily expound for free. It's a sobering thought, that someone might be doing your job - that job that pays your bills - better than you and cheaper too. For free, even.
Programmers have been aware of this for a rather long time now. Some of the best software out there is free. And it has not meant the end of the world for well-paid programmers. Journalists might come to realize the same thing can happen to them. Free journalism does not mean that journalists will all go begging. Only the bad ones!
JordanH wrote:
Maybe the Editorial Board is unnecessary, I don't know. Without some editing, I doubt it [Slashdot] would ever be taken seriously in the industry.
Don't we already have an editorial board? I thought they were called moderators.
Perhaps the final product would go through a final Slashdot Community review so as to be a check on the Editorial Board...
That's what meta-moderators are for, right?
Whether Slashdot is taken seriously in "the Industry" will depend largely on whether the ideas and opinions presented on Slashdot are well thought-out and relevant. Not on whether there's an editorial board or peer review.
That's my Humble Opinion, and I'm not being paid for it.
...Science Jounals have worked like this for a long time.
Well, sort of. Peer review is exactly that. Review of ones ideas by (presumably) one's peers. Other recognized experts. I don't know 'bout the rest of you, but I've never been asked to peer-review anything. I'm no expert (probably), my expertise goes unrecognized (definitely), or both.
Slashdot and other wide-open interactive media don't depend solely on recognized experts. Anyone who feels like it can rant on and on. Non-experts, experts who haven't been recognized as such, and just plain hotheads with nothing relevant to say can all get an audience.
Some them deserve to be heard. Non-experts frequently have valid concerns that need to be addressed. Even when they don't, forums like this one allow the real experts to correct the mistakes and address the concerns of the misinformed. What peer-reviewed academic journal allows for that? As for the hotheads, they can get moderated into near-invisibility without being deprived of their right to express themselves. What could be better?
There is so much great potential for this technology that it seems obvious to me that I am doing the right thing by working on it.
Bravo! I'm sure you are doing the right thing by working on it. Y'see, despite my occasional misgivings, I too think that a lot of good comes from inventions like this one.
It isn't that I don't spend time thinking about these issues, it's that I've spent so much time thinking about them that the conclusion seems clear.
That's a relief. Y'see, that point was not made on the web site. If anything, it seemed to imply that people who spend time thinking about these issues are luddite worry-warts who need to lighten up and "deal with it".
There are so many people working so hard to make this planet work, and so few people who are actually doing things because they are evil/ignorant/arrogant, why not go with the statistics and assume that there are some good people working on this project, and that they spend a *lot* of time thinking about the implications of what they are doing, and that they try to make the right decisions.
You make some good points. Please understand I do not think that the people working on this project are doing it for evil purposes. I was led to believe that they might be doing it without considering that their invention might be used for evil purposes, but the previous post has made it clear that y'all have indeed thought a lot about it. That's good.
As for "going with the statistics", I'm with you there too. There are unintended consequences from nearly every new technology. That does not mean there should be an end to new technology. Far from it. I applaud innovation! Go for it! Innovate! Be creative! But please go into it with eyes open. Be prepared for unintended consequences. Look ahead and try to anticipate them. And please, don't dismiss the naysayers out of hand. Go with the statistics! Just as you inventors are primarily a decent bunch, so are the skeptics. We mean well, just as you do.
Did it seem to anyone else that the authors were just a little filp about the possible "dark side" applications of their invention? I know it's disheartening to think that one's labor of love might be used for evil as well as good, but they dismissed the idea out of hand, rather than considering (or better yet, attempting to debunk) the notion of smart dust as a tool of Big Brother.
To the point of implying that anyone who dwells on that issue is not "dealing with it".
Yes, personal privacy is getting harder and harder to come by. Yes, you can hype Smart Dust as being great for big brother (thank you, New Scientist). Yawn. Every technology has a dark side - deal with it.
Might I kindly suggest that the authors/inventors do the same. Deal with it. Preferably by considering, and doing something to minimize, the "dark side" uses to which their invention could be put.
One complaint I have with the article (no, not the overall point; I largely agree with that) is the way it seems to link unrelated or superficially-related events as if there were a kind of cause-and-effect relationship between them. Yeah, sure, Richard Daley did dishonorable, even illegal things. But that has no bearing on whether the things his son William M. are dishonorable or illegal. It sounds to me like William M. Daley is indeed doing dishonorable, possibly illegal things. They'd be dishonorable and possibly illegal even if daddy had been a saint. So why bring up "the sins of the father?" It only makes an otherwise good argument look bad.
Is breaking into my computer bad or not? Is breaking into my computer illegal or not?
Whether those things are bad or not isn't really the point. The point is that if it's bad for you or me or "evil hackers" to do, then it's also bad for our democratically-elected government to do. If it's illegal for one, it's illegal for the other. Or should be. The fact that it isn't - that there are separate rules in play for governments and wealthy corporate interests - is what this article is illuminating. And it needs to be illuminated. The DOJ is doing its best to keep that information from becoming widely known.
Should children be encouraged to respect my privacy, my property and the law, or not?
That one's easy - of course they should. As should the government. The latter has a less-than-stellar record in that department tho'. The law should be respected, at least in as far as the law is fair and just, and fairly and justly enforced. Where the law is unfair and unjust, it deserves no respect, from children or anyone else.
Proteins have always struck me (who've never taken an organic chem class) as programs, hardware and software in one...
I think they're more hardware than software. Some proteins are enzymes, functioning in the regulation of vital chemical processes, others are structural, and that, to me, makes them more analogous to hardware.
Hope this helps.
If they must be software, I think proteins would be object code, while the genetic material (DNA for most of us) would be analogous to source code. Maybe all those introns (DNA segments that are copied in replication but never expressed) are comments, formatting, etc!
Then again, maybe it's all object code, with introns as the logic of the program, while extrons are the data. By this analogy, the extrons are the DNA code that gets transcribed (expressed) into proteins, while the introns dictate under what conditions to transcribe them. Loops and comparisons and subroutines, oh my!
...possibly optical in nature...
I'd guess tactile, rather than optical. For one, unless one is working at extremely high (and thus damaging/dangerous to fragile DNA) frequencies, electromagnetic radiation (light) is inadequate to resolve the minute details of proteins. They're just too small. That's why electron microscopes and x-ray crystallography and the like are required instead of just visible-light microscopes.
Proteins interact with each other based on their shapes, and the attracting or repelling forces of their constituent parts. When they bind to each other, it works much like a lock and key (when they briefly mesh to facilitate some reaction, then break apart) or interlocking puzzle pieces (when they bind more permanently). Much more of a tactile than an optical event.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm now 21 myself. Even now I often get snuffed by a lot of jobs and such because of my age.
Tell me about it. You think it's bad now... try being in your mid-thirties or older. The assumption seems to be that technology is a young man's game. If you're not young (and esp. if you're not a man) it's assumed that you don't know anything. On a good day it's assumed that you know some things but everything you know is obsolete or will be by next week.
This is just more government supported discrimination.
Here's where I disagree with you. In the workplace anyway, the government does what it can to prevent age (and other kinds of) discrimination. There are laws about that kind of thing. But they're almost impossible to enforce. Esp. if the one being overlooked for a job or promotion isn't in a recognized "protected" class of people.
News flash - discrimination isn't just something that happens to racial minorities, women, gays, and people in wheelchairs. They get their share and then some, but no one is immune. If the government is going to go to all the trouble of having anti-discrimination laws, they should apply them to everybody.
...if people are spoonfed knowledge early, they'll always expect it.
There's a big difference between educating someone and spoonfeeding them. Proper education ignites in the student a love of learning and a desire to learn more. Sure, the earliest steps are going to resemble spoonfeeding. That's only to make the inevitable missteps less painful. As the student begins to succeed, there is less need for spoonfeeding.
They won't gain critical thinking skills or the ability to learn the solution to their problems on their own.
Sure they will. Just not the first time. Very few take to computers like a duck to water. Most people (I'd guess even most slashdotters) need(ed) someone to show them a few basics early on. The critical thinking skills and the tenacity to struggle through when problems seem impossible come later.
The hairier the problem, the more satisfying it is to solve.
"Access to computers should be unlimited and total."
I always thought that was something of a dychotomy. On one side, the hacker mindset is that all computer systems should be wide open. On the other hand, the hacker mistrusts organizations and governments.
That part of the hacker ethic is certainly showing its age today. In the early days there was less need for mistrust. Governments and organizations were, in those days, largely ignorant of hackers. Security on computer systems was less of a concern when the only ones who might be interested in the systems, how they worked, and what was stored on them were other hackers.
The ignorance worked both ways though - as the book indicates, the hacker pioneers themselves, immersed as they were in the deep structures of their beloved systems, were often ignorant of the interest that governments and organizations might indeed have. It just never occurred to most of them that security might be an issue. At least at first.
And so, the hacker maxim has to be revised: I think it should read, "the level of information you are allowed to get is proportional to the skill you display".
Maybe. In a way that's always been the case. When the skills in question are those used in gaining access to information, the level of information you are allowed to get is indeed proportional to the skill you display.
Sure, there are ignorant lusers with alarmingly high levels of access to information. But whose fault is that? They wouldn't have that kind of access if someone (someone who knows their sh1t) didn't give it to them. When ignorant people are granted access to computer systems there are two options. The easy one is to just give it to them without explaination and let them muddle through. This is a bad move in the short term, as they're still ignorant and now they have the power to damage things. The better way is to educate them. It's not as easy in the short term, but it pays off over time.
If you like Steven Levy's writing in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, you might check out his Artificial Life as well. It's very different, but still quite good. And it's got pictures! Maybe we can get a book review of it here someday (hint-hint!).
obviously you dont know how elections work. Its the electoral college that matters.
Actually I do know about the electoral college. I didn't say that elections are perfect - I just said they work. They do. I personally think they'd work a lot better without the electoral college, but that doesn't invalidate them. Compared to the other methods of overthrowing governments, democratic elections (even with the electoral college) are far better for all concerned.
Lots of college kids have these ideas. Lots of college kids talk about these ideas. They are discussed so often and openly that they have almost become part of the establishment - a rite of passage for white yuppie larva passing through on their way to productive careers as Cogs in the Machine.
Exactly. And isn't that what rites of passage are for? Young people need to believe that they are important, that they are a threat to The Establishment, and that The Establishment is a threat to them. If young people didn't have these delusions of subversive grandeur, they'd become so overwhelmed by the pointlessness of it all that they'd just shut down and never become productive little Cogs. Cogs need to fantasize that one day they'll rise up and overthrow the Machine. It's what keeps them going day after day.
It happens on the right as well as the left. While one side crusades against capitalist exploitation, greed, and The Patriarchy, the other battles moral relativism, secular humanism and Political Correctness.
And BTW we are, every one of us, beautiful unique snowflakes. And although every snowflake is be beautiful and unique by itself, it looks like every other snowflake and it's a big nuisance to boot when there's countless billions of them on the sidewalk and you have to shovel them.
We've got a beautiful, unique snowflake's chance in hell of overthrowing the government... unless we work within the system. Play by the system's rules, and use those rules against it. In the U.S., the government is designed to be overthrown every few years. It's called an election, and it works.
Aside: when they set up the FOIA over the web, I actually sent in a request to the CIA to pull references to my name. After several pieces of correspondence taped shut with duct tape, they formally declared they did not know who the hell I was and would I please stop sending them letters?
:-)
Sure. That's what they told you.
Introducing an element that was once part of [an ecosystem], but is no longer is does just as much harm to an ecosystem as introducing a specimen that has never been there at all.
That's speculation. The former has never been done before. The latter has been done many times (sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently; sometimes by humans, sometimes by wind, ocean currents, etc.) with varying results.
Speculation is a good thing - we ought to consider all the possibilities before reintroducing an extinct species - but it's still speculation. It is by no means certain that it will be disasterous, as the introduction on non-native species has frequently been.
If we re-introduce Wooly Mammoths into nature, we don't know how well they will adapt, and we don't know how well nature will adapt around them.
True, but consider. Mammoths are much like present-day elephants. Megafauna. Long-lived. Few predators. Slow maturation. Slow reproduction. What population biologists would call K-strategists. Introduced species that become a problem for native ones are almost invariably r-strategists (A notable exception being the most invasive species of all - humans). R-strategists are typically small creatures. Short-lived. Normally subject to intense predation in their native environment. Rapid maturation. Very rapid reproduction. These things combine to give introduced species an edge in their new, predator-free environments. They're not likely to be a problem in the case of wooly mammoths.
Cloned wooly mammoths would probably not be released into the wild right away, but kept in zoos, or penned up on research farms for study. Given their slow rate of reproduction, it'd be a very long time before there were enough of them to have much of an impact on their environment.
One more thing - wooly mammoths have probably been extinct for only a few thousand years. As no other creature has appeared to fill the niche previously occupied by the mammoths in that short time, I suspect their reintroduction to Siberia would have little negative impact, assuming they ever were released (or escaped) into the wild.
...seems that they're raisin' iguana like livestock in central america now.
What's this "now" sh1t? They've been doin' that for hundreds if not thousands of years!
Why on earth would the release the crypto to be freely available? Why? They would not be able to read our emails, our files, or whatever anymore.
But they (supposedly) can't do that now. 'mericans are allowed strong encryption; it's the export of it (from the U.S.)to other countries that's verboten. But other countries have clever people too. And they can come up with their own versions of stong encryption, resistant to U.S. codecracking.
Alternately, someone in the U.S., in violation of the law, can export strong encyption. The law doesn't stop the export of strong encryption - it just criminalizes it. Once the law is broken and strong encryption gets outside the U.S. borders (what borders? this is the 'net!) all bets are off. The law, at this point, only penalizes the law-abiding citizen.
In answer to the question of why "they" would allow the export of strong encryption... they'd allow it because "they" have already lost, and they know it. Legalizing it would allow the law-abiding to have what the criminals already have.
If I remember correctly, this book coined the term "avatar" as used in a virtual world.
The word Avatar is a lot older than that. It somes from, IIRC, Sanskrit, and was the term used for the bodies that the gods used when they wanted to walk around and interact with mere mortals.
Even within VR, the word avatar is older than Snow Crash. It was in use in MUDs long before.
This was a decent review, but it didn't mention one of the (to me) most powerful points of the book - the ties to mythology.
All the Sumerian mythology and pre-Biblical Jewish cult stuff, concisely explained by The Librarian, was a true delight. It was one of the things that set this book apart from merely adequate-and-entertaining cyberpunk (or post-cyberpunk if you prefer.) I mean, sure the descriptions of the virtual world and the near future's techno-toys are right on the mark, but any good cyberpunk tale can do that. This one does more. It makes the reader think. A lot.
There's a bit of that in Cryptonomicon too, though there it's primarily Greek, rather than Sumerian mythology that's discussed. Also, in Cyrptonomicon it was more of an aside, while in Snow Crash it's a vital part of the story, linked in with the viral mind-killer of the title and L. Bob Rife's quest for World Domination.
I liken Open Analysis to Open Source, with Open Analysis the ideas are all there for free on Slashdot, just like with Open Source the source is all out there on ftp servers - for all to read and examine. But, there's a premium service where we edit it and digest it into a form that you'll be more likely to be able to use. This is what the various Linux distribution projects do for Linux, put it into a form that people are more likely to be able to use.
Whoa! Good analogy! But no one distribution is going to please all of the people all of the time.
Yeah, right... And the best technology is always adopted by the market.
Ouch. I guess I asked for that. Maybe what we need isn't an editorial board but a nice translucent plastic case, and snazzy designer colors!
If there was some way we could get the Best of Slashdot before a larger audience, we might all benefit.
Yeah, but who gets to decide what is the Best of Slashdot? Hint - use the analogy, Luke! It's the same person who gets to decide which is the Best Distribution.
shamrock wrote:
Do you really think that we are some kind of "information security resource"? or "hacker culture outlet"? No. We're entertainment. We use the web as a form of free speech to do whatever the hell we want in an effort to entertain the people that watch us.
Golly! Substitute the word "television" where the above sentence has "the web", and that's pretty much what MTV does. Not reporting the news, not presenting facts, just entertaining the gullible masses. If the truth about hackers isn't flashy enough (it isn't), we'll make something up. Or find someone who at least looks like the youthful telegenic hacker image we want to present.
Only MTV gets pilloried for their efforts, while shamrock expects... I don't know what shamrock expects. Sympathy? Kudos? Yeah, I suppose he pulled a prank on MTV. But MTV pulled a prank on him (and all the boring code-crunching not-so-telegenic hackers out there) first. MTV wanted something flashier than 2600 and HNN had to offer. So what does shamrock do? Shows them what they want to see, even though it's a hoax.
Would it have been more responsible to tell them "Sorry, that's as flashy as it gets. If you don't like it well... it's a hacker thing. You wouldn't understand."? Probably. Would it have been as much fun as hoaxing them? No.
I have been thinking about how a group of people (such as the SlashDot readership) could collectively write a document which could be considered to be from the group as a whole...
Slashdot is not monolithic - why should it speak with one voice? We're a diverse bunch, and I really doubt that any one document could be agreed upon by the entire Slashdot readership. Unless maybe it were a self-referential bit of fluff like "We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all Slashdot readers read Slashdot." Even then, there's probably a few troublemakers who'd dissent. "No! I never read Slashdot!"
I don't want the majority of Slashdot readers, or posters, to collectively author a document on behalf of all Slashdotters. Even if they had really high karma/moderation totals. Because I'm a Slashdotter, and I might disagree! And even if I agreed, there's the principle of the thing. What about the poor Anonymous Coward whose views are not represented in the Slashdot Constitution because the majority voted him/her down?
This ought to be standard procedure, not a bold move
Lots of standard procedures started out as bold moves. The bold moves that worked became SOP's.
Traditional media were a one-to-many phenomenon. One (or a few) individuals with power and resources preached (their) gospel to the multitudes. Gutenberg's invention democratized the procedure a bit, but it was still rather expensive for Joe Average to publish his opinions far and wide. Soapbox speechifying and BBS ranting took the democratization even farther, but the small audiences they reached kept them below the radar of the bigger media outlets. The internet is (except in the Third World) as democratic as the soapbox, and too big to ignore. The big media outlets have to make some bold moves, or they're going to go the way of the dinosaurs.
Almost all reporters see themselves as change agents...
And that's a bad thing?
They're not interested in truth, they become journalists to change and improve the world.
Why not have it both ways? Seems to me the ideal journalist (the ideal anything, for that matter) is interested in the truth and in changing and improving the world.
Katz wrote:
Slashdot, for example, sees all its readers as potential contributors and critics, radically broadening its corps of information suppliers.
Yup. And I, for one, like it just fine that way. But there are those who (perish the thought!) want to be paid for their ideas and insights, their contributions and criticisms. Even if they're really just opinions, albeit well thought-out and carefully worded ones.
One reason the (boo! hiss!) "traditional media" have been so slow to take advantage of the freedom and interactivity that the internet offers, is that so much of the stuff on the 'net is free. Journalists and writers - probably even Katz himself - are accustomed to getting paid for writing stuff, while online rant-meisters happily expound for free. It's a sobering thought, that someone might be doing your job - that job that pays your bills - better than you and cheaper too. For free, even.
Programmers have been aware of this for a rather long time now. Some of the best software out there is free. And it has not meant the end of the world for well-paid programmers. Journalists might come to realize the same thing can happen to them. Free journalism does not mean that journalists will all go begging. Only the bad ones!
JordanH wrote:
Maybe the Editorial Board is unnecessary, I don't know. Without some editing, I doubt it [Slashdot] would ever be taken seriously in the industry.
Don't we already have an editorial board? I thought they were called moderators.
Perhaps the final product would go through a final Slashdot Community review so as to be a check on the Editorial Board...
That's what meta-moderators are for, right?
Whether Slashdot is taken seriously in "the Industry" will depend largely on whether the ideas and opinions presented on Slashdot are well thought-out and relevant. Not on whether there's an editorial board or peer review.
That's my Humble Opinion, and I'm not being paid for it.
...Science Jounals have worked like this for a long time.
Well, sort of. Peer review is exactly that. Review of ones ideas by (presumably) one's peers. Other recognized experts. I don't know 'bout the rest of you, but I've never been asked to peer-review anything. I'm no expert (probably), my expertise goes unrecognized (definitely), or both.
Slashdot and other wide-open interactive media don't depend solely on recognized experts. Anyone who feels like it can rant on and on. Non-experts, experts who haven't been recognized as such, and just plain hotheads with nothing relevant to say can all get an audience.
Some them deserve to be heard. Non-experts frequently have valid concerns that need to be addressed. Even when they don't, forums like this one allow the real experts to correct the mistakes and address the concerns of the misinformed. What peer-reviewed academic journal allows for that? As for the hotheads, they can get moderated into near-invisibility without being deprived of their right to express themselves. What could be better?
Bravo! I'm sure you are doing the right thing by working on it. Y'see, despite my occasional misgivings, I too think that a lot of good comes from inventions like this one.
It isn't that I don't spend time thinking about these issues, it's that I've spent so much time thinking about them that the conclusion seems clear.
That's a relief. Y'see, that point was not made on the web site. If anything, it seemed to imply that people who spend time thinking about these issues are luddite worry-warts who need to lighten up and "deal with it".
There are so many people working so hard to make this planet work, and so few people who are actually doing things because they are evil/ignorant/arrogant, why not go with the statistics and assume that there are some good people working on this project, and that they spend a *lot* of time thinking about the implications of what they are doing, and that they try to make the right decisions.
You make some good points. Please understand I do not think that the people working on this project are doing it for evil purposes. I was led to believe that they might be doing it without considering that their invention might be used for evil purposes, but the previous post has made it clear that y'all have indeed thought a lot about it. That's good.
As for "going with the statistics", I'm with you there too. There are unintended consequences from nearly every new technology. That does not mean there should be an end to new technology. Far from it. I applaud innovation! Go for it! Innovate! Be creative! But please go into it with eyes open. Be prepared for unintended consequences. Look ahead and try to anticipate them. And please, don't dismiss the naysayers out of hand. Go with the statistics! Just as you inventors are primarily a decent bunch, so are the skeptics. We mean well, just as you do.
"Down among the dancing quanta
Everything exists at once"
(from Transverse City)
Did it seem to anyone else that the authors were just a little filp about the possible "dark side" applications of their invention? I know it's disheartening to think that one's labor of love might be used for evil as well as good, but they dismissed the idea out of hand, rather than considering (or better yet, attempting to debunk) the notion of smart dust as a tool of Big Brother.
To the point of implying that anyone who dwells on that issue is not "dealing with it".
Yes, personal privacy is getting harder and harder to come by. Yes, you can hype Smart Dust as being great for big brother (thank you, New Scientist). Yawn. Every technology has a dark side - deal with it.
Might I kindly suggest that the authors/inventors do the same. Deal with it. Preferably by considering, and doing something to minimize, the "dark side" uses to which their invention could be put.
One complaint I have with the article (no, not the overall point; I largely agree with that) is the way it seems to link unrelated or superficially-related events as if there were a kind of cause-and-effect relationship between them. Yeah, sure, Richard Daley did dishonorable, even illegal things. But that has no bearing on whether the things his son William M. are dishonorable or illegal. It sounds to me like William M. Daley is indeed doing dishonorable, possibly illegal things. They'd be dishonorable and possibly illegal even if daddy had been a saint. So why bring up "the sins of the father?" It only makes an otherwise good argument look bad.
...is good for the gander.
Is breaking into my computer bad or not?
Is breaking into my computer illegal or not?
Whether those things are bad or not isn't really the point. The point is that if it's bad for you or me or "evil hackers" to do, then it's also bad for our democratically-elected government to do. If it's illegal for one, it's illegal for the other. Or should be. The fact that it isn't - that there are separate rules in play for governments and wealthy corporate interests - is what this article is illuminating. And it needs to be illuminated. The DOJ is doing its best to keep that information from becoming widely known.
Should children be encouraged to respect my privacy, my property and the law, or not?
That one's easy - of course they should. As should the government. The latter has a less-than-stellar record in that department tho'. The law should be respected, at least in as far as the law is fair and just, and fairly and justly enforced. Where the law is unfair and unjust, it deserves no respect, from children or anyone else.
Proteins have always struck me (who've never taken an organic chem class) as programs, hardware and software in one...
...possibly optical in nature...
I think they're more hardware than software. Some proteins are enzymes, functioning in the regulation of vital chemical processes, others are structural, and that, to me, makes them more analogous to hardware.
Hope this helps.
If they must be software, I think proteins would be object code, while the genetic material (DNA for most of us) would be analogous to source code. Maybe all those introns (DNA segments that are copied in replication but never expressed) are comments, formatting, etc!
Then again, maybe it's all object code, with introns as the logic of the program, while extrons are the data. By this analogy, the extrons are the DNA code that gets transcribed (expressed) into proteins, while the introns dictate under what conditions to transcribe them. Loops and comparisons and subroutines, oh my!
I'd guess tactile, rather than optical. For one, unless one is working at extremely high (and thus damaging/dangerous to fragile DNA) frequencies, electromagnetic radiation (light) is inadequate to resolve the minute details of proteins. They're just too small. That's why electron microscopes and x-ray crystallography and the like are required instead of just visible-light microscopes.
Proteins interact with each other based on their shapes, and the attracting or repelling forces of their constituent parts. When they bind to each other, it works much like a lock and key (when they briefly mesh to facilitate some reaction, then break apart) or interlocking puzzle pieces (when they bind more permanently). Much more of a tactile than an optical event.