I always thought it would have been easier if the manufacturers had simply made them visibly different. Give them some sort of minor deformity, like one of the rubber-forehead aliens of star trek.
Perhaps just mandate disclosure of major financial supporters? Speak all you want, but be required to have 'this campaign funded by' in small print at the bottom of the advert.
One of those far-away dead frozen rocks is headed this way. It may hit next week, it may hit ten million years from now, but it is coming. This is inevitable. It's already out their, silently spinning as the tug of interacting gravity wells gently nudges it towards ours.
We really need to get off of this planet before it hits. We could survive something like the KT impact with just a tad under seven billion deaths and five hundred years or so to rebuild in the hellish wasteland, but there are bigger rocks than that waiting to fall.
"You get in your car and check your sticker. Your local road was built by Freetrans, your state's #1 private road construction company. Fortunately your toll sticker is good for another two weeks before you need to pay another $300 for the monthly renewal. Sure, it's a steep price, but you only have one road to your driveway - so whatever Freetrans wants, you have to pay. There used to be a bus service, but Freetrans declined their license years ago - individual car tolls are just more lucrative."
"Ultimately you still need to get the encryption information across securely"
This is provably impossible with an active MITM attacker (Though a solution to passive listeners does exist and is in common use). If it could be done, we wouldn't be messing around with complicated certificate signing systems.
They seem to have a very low tolerance of tyranny. Valid reasons for rebellion appear to include 'The gubmint is trying to feed my children salad,' 'The gubmint isn't thanking Jebus at council meeting any more' and, most terrible of all, 'The Gubmint says gay people can marry now.'
Which is something of a problem, since the internet is so full of 'patriots' declaring it is their duty (often god-given duty) to rebel against the tyranny of the government. And very nearly all of them are just spouting hot air.
The only issue that involves bitcoin specifically is enforcement. If he hadn't been so public, the crime could have gone unnoticed - there are no reporting requirements. If you move more than $10,000 or so in a conventional bank, it'll set off alarms and someone will come to see what is going on.
Removing regulation can work if everyone plays fair. But that isn't the case.
For a good example, many years ago the UK went through the 'Bread Wars.' Supermarkets aggressively priced bread low to lure in customers, because every family buys a weekly loaf. The market worked nicely: Prices were driven down as each supermarket tried to go lower than their competitors. Then it went wrong - they started selling bread at a loss, making up the money on other things people purchased while buying it. Supermarkets could afford to throw money away on promotional bread, but it seriously hurt smaller retailers.
In your case, those mom and pop stores are going to have a very hard time even without regulations in their way. They couldn't hope to compete with a big chain store on price - not only does the chain have economy of scale, but they have the buying power to negotiate lower prices from wholesalers. Nor can they achieve the convenience of scale, the diversity of products in one store that lets a person do their entire weekly shop in one trip. Plus Walmart could use dirty tricks - if a local competitor becomes a serious threat, they could massively lower prices to the point they are losing money in that area - hurting themselves, but driving the competitor to bankruptcy. Or they can enter into exclusive agreements with wholesalers so the mom-and-pop store can't get stock.
The way to do it would be to manufacture tacky Christmas window decorations with a cheerful santa figure in red and white LEDs - and NIR super-brights in between them. Then sell them cheap.
More likely: "Hey, manufacturer! Spike in consumption of chocolate icecream simutainous with mustard detected. Suggest switching advertising focus to baby clothes and formula milk."
The doomsayers were right. A great deal of effort went into patching and testing all critical systems before the year ticked over. There was no disaster because systematic action to avert it was taken well in advance.
Nice idea, but I think it may backfire. Your IR-window is going to be shining bright for blocks around, which effectively flags you as someone trying to hide and thus potentially Up To No Good. You'd just single yourself out for the special spying attention.
I had the same idea, except mine involved piggybacking on the sat TV system - putting a drive in the decoders, which have ethernet ports anyway. I envisioned it as a way to distribute things like software updates - a protocol by which updaters may query other devices on the LAN for files of a specified hash, and if the sat decoder managed to grab it then it'll serve the file up. But I am not rich, nor have I any business skill, so my idea remains no more than a comment on slashdot.
I keep pushing until I understand why my suggestion is silly. I'm starting to get a better idea of that now.
My current conclusion is that communicating with the ISS without Russian cooperation, through ground stations in long-term friendly countries and DRSS relays, is possible - but it would mean periods of reduced-bandwidth higher-latency communication while in those parts of the orbit only DRSS can reach (It already communicates via that at times, so must have the hardware and antennas at both ends). I'd class that as less than ideal, but viable, in the event that relations with Russia continue to deteriorate to the point where they can no longer be depended upon for ISS support.
If I am wrong, then I am wrong. I am no expert in this matter: I simply googled a little and learned that the ISS has many communications links, of which several run via satellite. Perhaps though, rather than smugly insulting my intelligence, you would like to contribute a more detailed explanation of why I am wrong?
The only obvious error I see on my part is in overestimating the height of the ISS, which would on closer examination pose more of an issue for the inclined orbit. But this doesn't explain why it can't use sat comms at those times. The bandwidth may be less, but TDRSS relays orbit a lot higher - up in geosync, so nicely continuous base station contact, and between them the they have line of sight to everything in orbit beneath at all times.
Slashdot Mirror
I always thought it would have been easier if the manufacturers had simply made them visibly different. Give them some sort of minor deformity, like one of the rubber-forehead aliens of star trek.
"Incoming nuclear attack est. 20min."
Your phone would be accidentially damaged while you were resisting arrest.
Perhaps just mandate disclosure of major financial supporters? Speak all you want, but be required to have 'this campaign funded by' in small print at the bottom of the advert.
One of those far-away dead frozen rocks is headed this way. It may hit next week, it may hit ten million years from now, but it is coming. This is inevitable. It's already out their, silently spinning as the tug of interacting gravity wells gently nudges it towards ours.
We really need to get off of this planet before it hits. We could survive something like the KT impact with just a tad under seven billion deaths and five hundred years or so to rebuild in the hellish wasteland, but there are bigger rocks than that waiting to fall.
"You get in your car and check your sticker. Your local road was built by Freetrans, your state's #1 private road construction company. Fortunately your toll sticker is good for another two weeks before you need to pay another $300 for the monthly renewal. Sure, it's a steep price, but you only have one road to your driveway - so whatever Freetrans wants, you have to pay. There used to be a bus service, but Freetrans declined their license years ago - individual car tolls are just more lucrative."
"Ultimately you still need to get the encryption information across securely"
This is provably impossible with an active MITM attacker (Though a solution to passive listeners does exist and is in common use). If it could be done, we wouldn't be messing around with complicated certificate signing systems.
How many were there previously that actually stayed secret? We only know about this because a hint of news escaped to the press.
But is is Jackson's real hair?
They seem to have a very low tolerance of tyranny. Valid reasons for rebellion appear to include 'The gubmint is trying to feed my children salad,' 'The gubmint isn't thanking Jebus at council meeting any more' and, most terrible of all, 'The Gubmint says gay people can marry now.'
Which is something of a problem, since the internet is so full of 'patriots' declaring it is their duty (often god-given duty) to rebel against the tyranny of the government. And very nearly all of them are just spouting hot air.
The only issue that involves bitcoin specifically is enforcement. If he hadn't been so public, the crime could have gone unnoticed - there are no reporting requirements. If you move more than $10,000 or so in a conventional bank, it'll set off alarms and someone will come to see what is going on.
It also has one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the world. Turns out that police are there for more than just eating donuts.
Because they would have been identified eventually, anyway.
Removing regulation can work if everyone plays fair. But that isn't the case.
For a good example, many years ago the UK went through the 'Bread Wars.' Supermarkets aggressively priced bread low to lure in customers, because every family buys a weekly loaf. The market worked nicely: Prices were driven down as each supermarket tried to go lower than their competitors. Then it went wrong - they started selling bread at a loss, making up the money on other things people purchased while buying it. Supermarkets could afford to throw money away on promotional bread, but it seriously hurt smaller retailers.
Here's a BBC article from the time: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/bus...
In your case, those mom and pop stores are going to have a very hard time even without regulations in their way. They couldn't hope to compete with a big chain store on price - not only does the chain have economy of scale, but they have the buying power to negotiate lower prices from wholesalers. Nor can they achieve the convenience of scale, the diversity of products in one store that lets a person do their entire weekly shop in one trip. Plus Walmart could use dirty tricks - if a local competitor becomes a serious threat, they could massively lower prices to the point they are losing money in that area - hurting themselves, but driving the competitor to bankruptcy. Or they can enter into exclusive agreements with wholesalers so the mom-and-pop store can't get stock.
The way to do it would be to manufacture tacky Christmas window decorations with a cheerful santa figure in red and white LEDs - and NIR super-brights in between them. Then sell them cheap.
More likely:
"Hey, manufacturer! Spike in consumption of chocolate icecream simutainous with mustard detected. Suggest switching advertising focus to baby clothes and formula milk."
But think of the potential for abusing car-to-car networking.
"I'm late for work!"
*hackhackhack*
"Now I'm a fire engine! Move aside, everyone! Let the emergency vehicle through."
The doomsayers were right. A great deal of effort went into patching and testing all critical systems before the year ticked over. There was no disaster because systematic action to avert it was taken well in advance.
Nice idea, but I think it may backfire. Your IR-window is going to be shining bright for blocks around, which effectively flags you as someone trying to hide and thus potentially Up To No Good. You'd just single yourself out for the special spying attention.
With synth technology these days? You don't need a real orchestra any more.
Ion thruster. Might take a year to get them into place, but a lot cheaper than chemical rockets from ground each time.
I had the same idea, except mine involved piggybacking on the sat TV system - putting a drive in the decoders, which have ethernet ports anyway. I envisioned it as a way to distribute things like software updates - a protocol by which updaters may query other devices on the LAN for files of a specified hash, and if the sat decoder managed to grab it then it'll serve the file up. But I am not rich, nor have I any business skill, so my idea remains no more than a comment on slashdot.
I keep pushing until I understand why my suggestion is silly. I'm starting to get a better idea of that now.
My current conclusion is that communicating with the ISS without Russian cooperation, through ground stations in long-term friendly countries and DRSS relays, is possible - but it would mean periods of reduced-bandwidth higher-latency communication while in those parts of the orbit only DRSS can reach (It already communicates via that at times, so must have the hardware and antennas at both ends). I'd class that as less than ideal, but viable, in the event that relations with Russia continue to deteriorate to the point where they can no longer be depended upon for ISS support.
If I am wrong, then I am wrong. I am no expert in this matter: I simply googled a little and learned that the ISS has many communications links, of which several run via satellite. Perhaps though, rather than smugly insulting my intelligence, you would like to contribute a more detailed explanation of why I am wrong?
The only obvious error I see on my part is in overestimating the height of the ISS, which would on closer examination pose more of an issue for the inclined orbit. But this doesn't explain why it can't use sat comms at those times. The bandwidth may be less, but TDRSS relays orbit a lot higher - up in geosync, so nicely continuous base station contact, and between them the they have line of sight to everything in orbit beneath at all times.