Much as I like the romantic idea of being an underground data-trader, covertly threading my way through government blocks an thwarting investigations to bring forbidden cargo to those with the bitcoin to pay, there is a vital flaw in that vision of the future: It depends on the censorship efforts being half-way effective. Trying to stop the spread of information today is like trying to order back the tide.
If you're looking for famous examples of losing faith in money, there was a period in Germany where exactly that happened. And more recently, Zimbabwe. Both times involved people needing wheelbarrows full of money to buy groceries.
It's relative. America is a lot more free than many countries, arguably less free than a few others, and certainly falls short of the (unattainable) ideal many citizens believe it to be.
One solution is technological. You can't educate users, but you can configure the technology to improve the 'idiot mode' security. SSL is a good example: The end user can get most of the benefits without even knowing what SSL is or having any understanding at all of cryptography.
Building on top of landfills isn't uncommon, really. They don't provide a stable enough foundation for high-rise buildings, but are often covered over and converted to parkland.
When I was in university there was a mysterious forest of iron taking up part of the site. A field of concrete blocks, with rebar poking out the top. A strange sculpture perhaps, or the remnants of some abandoned construction left to rust.
Towards the end of my time there I did learn the purpose: It was part of a study on concrete aging. Every couple of months someone would visit to forklift a few blocks off for testing to destruction.
Initial cost is a large part of the problem. Electric cars are still a lot more expensive than IC cars.
Also, even people who mostly commute do like the option of occasional longer trips. Especially in the US, where the car is as much a symbol of personal freedom and independence as it is a practical means of transportation.
Some commenters above criticised the study for a biased source (An anti-environmentalism political pressure group was involved) and lack of quantitative evaluation. I don't know if these criticisms are valid, I've not the time to research the issue in depth.
Not really. But that wouldn't stop DNS amplification attacks. Just make it harder to avoid tracing - and any half-competent attacker is going to be using compromised hosts as the launching point anyway.
How do we know it was a museum that produced the effect, and not field trips in general?
Could be the Hawthorne effect: The students who believe the school cares enough to send them on an 'intellectual' field trip will study harder. Those who believe the school views them as battery hens won't bother.
There's also c) those concerned about penny-pinching insurance companies and/or family members wanting to hurry up someone who is still in only slight suffering but will cost a fortune to keep treating.
A lot of those are just a)s looking for an excuse, though. You can tell by asking them what safeguards (board of independent doctors, advance directive, etc) they would consider appropriate. The true c)s are at least willing to consider that it could be regulated properly, while the a)s posing as c)s will instead start talking about the sacredness of life and desperately try to suggest any assisted suicide however small will start a slippery slope and eventually lead to us throwing our elderly people off a cliff.
R, D... they've agreed on a few 'circus issues' to differ over to entertain the masses, but on almost all concerns of real importance (aside from healthcare) they act in concert.
Retroshare. It's an IM program, with a few other nice features too - file sharing/transfer, distributed forums, mail. IM-security wise its capabilities are similar to OTR: Hides content, but not metadata. It does have a few other advantages: - File browsing and searching, not just sending. Good for sharing document collections. Also makes it favored by paranoid pirates. - Fully decentralised. There's no central authority to collect metadata from, so the listeners would have to resort to taps and analysis, a significantly more difficult task than just sending Microsoft or AOL a polite request. - Block resistant. The traffic is all TLS, and looks just like any other TLS traffic, making it difficult to firewall without blocking other things too. Good for annoying repressive governments.
I'm not affiliated with the project in any way, I just use it and think it's cool.
The plant in Japan was an obsolete design, hit by a tsunami rather larger than any planned for, and experiencing by sheer bad luck multiple redundent system failures.
And it *still* couldn't do worse than leak a tiny bit of radiation. Fatalities: Zero. It's not even leaving a not 'no entry' zone. At worst, no fishing in the area for a while. It's a non-disaster.
Or the Bushes. A president, one of his sons president, another son governor of a state. You don't get that kind of occurrence by chance alone. You get it by social capital: Passing advice, endorsements and connections down the family line.
It wasn't even about that. The Tea Party was a protest against British protectionism - passing tax laws which heavily favored the politically well-connected East India Company and unfairly penalized independent traders. It wasn't just that they were being taxed without representation that got the people upset - it was more that the specific tax was clearly intended to surpress the economy of the new world and funnel money to the East India Company instead.
That tea that was famously dumped into the harbor? Straight off an East India Company ship. A well-organised mob stormed the ship and destroyed the cargo.
Slashdot Mirror
I see potential for ultra-efficient solar hot water.
Much as I like the romantic idea of being an underground data-trader, covertly threading my way through government blocks an thwarting investigations to bring forbidden cargo to those with the bitcoin to pay, there is a vital flaw in that vision of the future: It depends on the censorship efforts being half-way effective. Trying to stop the spread of information today is like trying to order back the tide.
If you're looking for famous examples of losing faith in money, there was a period in Germany where exactly that happened. And more recently, Zimbabwe. Both times involved people needing wheelbarrows full of money to buy groceries.
It's relative. America is a lot more free than many countries, arguably less free than a few others, and certainly falls short of the (unattainable) ideal many citizens believe it to be.
One solution is technological. You can't educate users, but you can configure the technology to improve the 'idiot mode' security. SSL is a good example: The end user can get most of the benefits without even knowing what SSL is or having any understanding at all of cryptography.
Because you'd need a micrometer to try to measure how thick those disposable bags are. The volume of plastic used is tiny.
Building on top of landfills isn't uncommon, really. They don't provide a stable enough foundation for high-rise buildings, but are often covered over and converted to parkland.
When I was in university there was a mysterious forest of iron taking up part of the site. A field of concrete blocks, with rebar poking out the top. A strange sculpture perhaps, or the remnants of some abandoned construction left to rust.
Towards the end of my time there I did learn the purpose: It was part of a study on concrete aging. Every couple of months someone would visit to forklift a few blocks off for testing to destruction.
Initial cost is a large part of the problem. Electric cars are still a lot more expensive than IC cars.
Also, even people who mostly commute do like the option of occasional longer trips. Especially in the US, where the car is as much a symbol of personal freedom and independence as it is a practical means of transportation.
Zoning, like many things in law, is a fundamentally sound idea but also one that can be easily exploited and abused by the politically well-connected.
Most of it. Fruits and vegetables aren't.
Some commenters above criticised the study for a biased source (An anti-environmentalism political pressure group was involved) and lack of quantitative evaluation. I don't know if these criticisms are valid, I've not the time to research the issue in depth.
All the ones I've used supply the chips in paper.
The old newspaper wrapping is long gone, though - now they use properly-made and -approved food-grade chip-wrapping paper.
Not really. But that wouldn't stop DNS amplification attacks. Just make it harder to avoid tracing - and any half-competent attacker is going to be using compromised hosts as the launching point anyway.
How do we know it was a museum that produced the effect, and not field trips in general?
Could be the Hawthorne effect: The students who believe the school cares enough to send them on an 'intellectual' field trip will study harder. Those who believe the school views them as battery hens won't bother.
There's also c) those concerned about penny-pinching insurance companies and/or family members wanting to hurry up someone who is still in only slight suffering but will cost a fortune to keep treating.
A lot of those are just a)s looking for an excuse, though. You can tell by asking them what safeguards (board of independent doctors, advance directive, etc) they would consider appropriate. The true c)s are at least willing to consider that it could be regulated properly, while the a)s posing as c)s will instead start talking about the sacredness of life and desperately try to suggest any assisted suicide however small will start a slippery slope and eventually lead to us throwing our elderly people off a cliff.
For one thing, he doesn't deserve that much attention.
R, D... they've agreed on a few 'circus issues' to differ over to entertain the masses, but on almost all concerns of real importance (aside from healthcare) they act in concert.
Retroshare. It's an IM program, with a few other nice features too - file sharing/transfer, distributed forums, mail. IM-security wise its capabilities are similar to OTR: Hides content, but not metadata. It does have a few other advantages:
- File browsing and searching, not just sending. Good for sharing document collections. Also makes it favored by paranoid pirates.
- Fully decentralised. There's no central authority to collect metadata from, so the listeners would have to resort to taps and analysis, a significantly more difficult task than just sending Microsoft or AOL a polite request.
- Block resistant. The traffic is all TLS, and looks just like any other TLS traffic, making it difficult to firewall without blocking other things too. Good for annoying repressive governments.
I'm not affiliated with the project in any way, I just use it and think it's cool.
Pamphlets. Lots of pamphlets, many of them published anonymously.
The ability to focus a beam depends upon frequency and antenna size. You simply can't focus a radio signal to within one degree. Not even microwave.
Light you can do. LASER!
Even if you could get that level of precision, you'd never keep it pointed at a stationary target on the ground from an airborne drone.
Tesla was doing wireless energy over long-distances. The problem, for him as now, is that the process is horrendously inefficient.
The plant in Japan was an obsolete design, hit by a tsunami rather larger than any planned for, and experiencing by sheer bad luck multiple redundent system failures.
And it *still* couldn't do worse than leak a tiny bit of radiation. Fatalities: Zero. It's not even leaving a not 'no entry' zone. At worst, no fishing in the area for a while. It's a non-disaster.
But... nuclear, scary!
Or the Bushes. A president, one of his sons president, another son governor of a state. You don't get that kind of occurrence by chance alone. You get it by social capital: Passing advice, endorsements and connections down the family line.
Plutocracy by proxy.
It wasn't even about that. The Tea Party was a protest against British protectionism - passing tax laws which heavily favored the politically well-connected East India Company and unfairly penalized independent traders. It wasn't just that they were being taxed without representation that got the people upset - it was more that the specific tax was clearly intended to surpress the economy of the new world and funnel money to the East India Company instead.
That tea that was famously dumped into the harbor? Straight off an East India Company ship. A well-organised mob stormed the ship and destroyed the cargo.