You're right, but personally I'm switching anyways. I'd been meaning to get rid of my FB account anyways - the only reason I still have it is that some people absolutely refuse to communicate by other methods. But part of getting people to finally switch is letting them know that you (by which I mean anyone, obviously) can't be contacted through facebook. I'm also sick that I'm promoting the continued use of their system by creating content for them. Every thing I post that gets a few likes is basically encouraging people to keep using facebook. Stop doing it.
My understanding is that a major component of the absurd healthcare costs here are due to liability issues, so doctors and hospitals run dozens of tests with no regard for the cost vs. benefits of doing so. Because they don't want to get sued into oblivion for failing to run those tests. It's a protection against medical malpractice suits. If that's true, then tort reform is at least part of the solution towards lowering healthcare costs in the US. Unfortunately the left always sees any talk of that as some Republican conspiracy to eliminate people's right to sue greedy corporations, and think everything can be solved by just raising and raising taxes, so I doubt that'll be happening anytime soon. And if it does it'll likely be some watered down version like the recent healthcare reform act was (referring to Obamacare).
FYI: I'm neither liberal nor conservative, so don't write this comment off as right-wing propaganda.
But will that message be even remotely effective? Because if not, it's just a waste of money. Obviously I don't know for sure and haven't done an analysis, and am giving them a huge benefit of the doubt by assuming it even might be. My experience is that most people have great difficulty altering daily behavior habits, assuming they even care enough to try, because of abstract risks to themselves (fines) or others (wrecks). Even if they did, it's hard to imagine 32 cars doing this would really send that message effectively.
Clearly I think it's bullshit, but posted wondering if someone might have some solid numbers on it (unlikely).
I don't suppose there's any chance that the cost of the police buying this with taxpayer money will be made up with reduced collisions, accidents, injuries/fatalities, etc.? My knee-jerk reaction would be that it will not, and they're probably just using it as an excuse to get some new fancy cars. 32 new cars pulling people over at times a regular police cruiser would not, just for texting while driving, doesn't seem like it's going to make huge changes in driver behavior... or any changes at all.
If your first thought is "holy crap the government asked for this data from a private company, that's terrible!?!!!" maybe it should actually be "holy crap why does a private company have this in the first place?"
It's bad that corporations can do it; it's even worse when government does it. Corporations don't pass laws (well, not directly at least, cynicism aside), they don't have 50% of the world's military force at their command, etc. The danger of abuse by government is far greater than the danger from abuse by Google and Facebook. So far, at least.
I lack confidence in my ability to start an actual protest by just going out and sticking up signs on a street corner. Also, I'm more of the mind to develop technology and acquire wealth and resources so that I can one day actually have influence in the world, which does honestly seem more effectual than protesting. I made the comment because, as someone else noted about this stuff already, there are violent protests going on in Turkey (and other parts of the world) right now over far less egregious abuses of power than what our government is doing.
Actually, failure to vote for third parties is the primary reason they're able to get away with stuff like this. The whole "wasted vote" thing is probably the most damaging logical fallacy being used in politics right now. Don't get me wrong, it's unlikely a third party will ever win a presidential election, but that's not the point. When politicians are losing enough votes to them that they risk losing to their opponents, they're forced to change their platforms. You can see this happening already with the Republican's reconsideration of immigration reform. They know the tide is against them and they'll have to make policy changes they haven't wanted to in the past. Aside from that, only about half of the population actually votes. There are literally twice as many people who aren't even going to the polls than there are supporting Democrats or Republicans for any reason. If the left was losing 10% of their voting base to the Greens and the right was losing 10% of theirs to the Libertarians (or whatever other party you may like), you can bet they'd be picking up pieces of those platforms in order to continue out-competing third parties.
tl;dr: Voting for the proverbial "lesser of two evils" is the mandate we give them to get away with all this crap. Neither side is less evil than the other anymore.
It's pretty amazing, and here's hoping the sacrifice isn't completely wasted. The fact that this stuff hasn't led to protesting in the streets really reflects just how complacent the US population is. Or how afraid of the government we really are, knowing just how well equipped and militarized the government has become thanks to 60+ years of growth in the military-industrial complex. I for one am ashamed I voted for Obama in 2008, and I hope there's a clean sweep of every Congressperson who didn't specifically oppose this type of stuff during the next elections. If that doesn't happen, I think the government will just treat it as a mandate to continue expanding their global power ever faster. Something needs to happen while people's attention is still focused on it.
It'd be nice if the public vitriol towards the current administration also helped Manning avoid further abuse, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm not sure about that. Whales, dolphins and great apes could probably give the "most retarded and genetically impoverished" a run for their money, along with possibly other animals.
Imo, there's a big difference between having an ethical responsibility to try to avoid collateral damage when whistleblowing, and having the judicial system destroy your entire life with charges punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty for the simple act of whistleblowing itself. Plus, iirc, Wikileaks actually gave the Pentagon the chance to help redact the documents before releasing them, but for obvious reasons they wanted no part in facilitating a leak. I just bring it up because that perceived irresponsibility is on the part of the Pentagon as much as Bradley Manning, imo.
My comment was meant to debunk the one I replied to about how whistleblowing shouldn't be protected unless it occurs through government-approved channels. It may or may not have been an irresponsible way to leak the information, but he's being charged for leaking the information whatsoever, not for failing to properly redact them and reduce collateral damage.
The idea of "approved whistleblower channels" kind of negates the idea of whistleblowing. The mainstream media was complicit in the propaganda run-up to the Iraq war, which of course doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't be trusted to expose important information in the leaked documents, but it shows a conflict of interest between the powers that be and the entire goal of whistleblowing. If you can't release documents to the public, but only to approved whistleblower channels who can then decide unilaterally whether the rest of us should be informed, it isn't whistleblowing.
That's great news, but there were a number of other difficulties with the Alcubierre drive, iirc. I don't see how this gets around any of those, like the spacetime "bubble" becoming filled with lethal radiation or the inability to create a bubble with a pre-existing non-superluminal mass inside it.
Wow, for a minute there you had me worried I'd been had yet again by another politician. But actually everything you cite says that he wants to leave it up to the states (including the Defense of Marriage Act, which simply gave states the right to not recognize gay marriage). He legitimately supports states rights to do whatever they want, which is also why he voted against the civil rights act. No, I don't think that it's just his way of trying to push immoral things past people, more that he believes people should be able to make good or stupid decisions for themselves (and as a state). Sure, that might mean Mississippi would pass some shitty laws, but it also means the rest of the country wouldn't have to live under those same shitty laws. As we have it now the entire country is fighting tooth and nail for the right to tell everyone else what to do. There's always some bad that comes with the good, but if the federal government would get out of the fucking way it at least wouldn't keep the more intelligent states from enacting sane laws.
Face it, on this issue it isn't about using state's rights to oppress people (he did VOTE AGAINST DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL after all - do you think that was an accident?). Either you think everyone in the country should fight for what the federal government gets to force on everyone else, or else you'd rather just leave it to smaller groups to make good and bad decisions for themselves. Personally I'd choose the later, as I think eventually states would come around and allow things like gay marriage and abortion. Otherwise you're basically just supporting the government's right to tyranny, under the idea that "they will know what's best."
No, that's more BS media propaganda. Ron Paul voted against Don't Ask, Don't Tell and has said he's in favor of allowing gay marriage at a federal level. He's personally against it just like he's also personally against abortion, but he's consistent in sticking to his beliefs that people (and states) should have the right to decide for themselves. So don't listen to these people who go on about how he's some racist homophobe who wants to pass laws limiting civil liberties. That's a bunch of BS, the guy supports equal treatment for everyone, gay, straight, man, woman, pro-life, pro-choice, whatever. For future reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul
As to the first one, build the machine to randomize the order of the paper ballots. As to the second one, the only reason (I think) to have a paper ballot is in case there is a recount. If the vote comes down 70/30%, the odds that the so many have been miscounted out of a population of hundreds of millions is pretty low. If it ends up like Florida in 2000, or if there are later suspicions/accusations/whatever about the voting machines, then you do a careful manual recount of the paper ballots. I'm by no means an expert on this, I'm just regurgitating what guys like Schneier have come up with.
"Computer security experts are unanimous on what to do. (Some voting experts disagree, but I think we’re all much better off listening to the computer security experts. The problems here are with the computer, not with the fact that the computer is being used in a voting application.) And they have two recommendations:
DRE machines must have a voter-verifiable paper audit trails (sometimes called a voter-verified paper ballot). This is a paper ballot printed out by the voting machine, which the voter is allowed to look at and verify. He doesn’t take it home with him. Either he looks at it on the machine behind a glass screen, or he takes the paper and puts it into a ballot box. The point of this is twofold. One, it allows the voter to confirm that his vote was recorded in the manner he intended. And two, it provides the mechanism for a recount if there are problems with the machine.
Software used on DRE machines must be open to public scrutiny. This also has two functions. One, it allows any interested party to examine the software and find bugs, which can then be corrected. This public analysis improves security. And two, it increases public confidence in the voting process. If the software is public, no one can insinuate that the voting system has unfairness built into the code. (Companies that make these machines regularly argue that they need to keep their software secret for security reasons. Don’t believe them. In this instance, secrecy has nothing to do with security.)
Computerized systems with these characteristics won’t be perfect -- no piece of software is -- but they’ll be much better than what we have now. We need to start treating voting software like we treat any other high-reliability system. The auditing that is conducted on slot machine software in the U.S. is significantly more meticulous than what is done to voting software. The development process for mission-critical airplane software makes voting software look like a slapdash affair. If we care about the integrity of our elections, this has to change."
I'd forgotten about it until now, but about five years ago I was working at a gas station here in the US (Mapco, if you're curious). They had one of those cameras inside, making sure we weren't stealing. One day someone calls the phone and says he's watching us, and starts asking us what we're doing and generally trying to intimidate us with this idea that he's going to be monitoring us full-time. The manager got real upset about it, called the higher ups and I'm not sure whatever happened, but he said that it wouldn't be a problem anymore. I kept working that job for another year or so after that, was plenty lazy and ate food on the job (was the solo employee most of the time), goofed off, even left early a few times, and never heard anything about it, so I assume that they really did get rid of that guy, whoever he was.
Seems screwed up now, but at the time I didn't think much about it, just that the security guy who called was an asshole. What's bad now is that it's becoming normalized, to where you can be spied on all the time and no one says anything about it. I suppose privacy will go away completely in the end, it's only inevitable, but it needs to go away for everyone at once, not be used so the government can have Total Information Awareness while protecting every single thing it does as a "state secret."
I more or less agree, but still, it doesn't hurt to go actually make a reasonable plea on the site, as they're asking you to. This is one form of resistance against such things, just because it's not nearly enough by itself is no reason to acquiesce to the establishment. Congress and corporate america are genuinely completely out of touch with the realities of the 21st century, so it'd do more good to bitch about it there, not here. The Ron Paul people actually got involved in the Republican party this election cycle (not to glorify the tea-partiers), infiltrated the nominating and committee process and such, which is what the rest of us should have been doing with the entire government instead of bitching about not having any choices in the Obamney election. MoveOn.org is sort of trying this now with their Candidate Project deal. Why not use it as a chance to continue mounting actual resistance to the SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/etc. agenda, instead of just declaring it hopeless prematurely. The population of the internet is huge and has the potential to exert a lot more economic influence on the government's agenda than special interests like the MPAA do, people just haven't woken up and realized that yet.
I don't see anything actually new here. Technically the US gov already has the right to refuse entry to people who have renounced US citizenship, they just haven't been enforcing it. And they can already tax assets over $2 million as if they were sold immediately prior to renunciation of citizenship, and can continue taxing you for up to 10 years after renunciation (see HEART Act). This place turns into the Soviet Union a bit more and more every day.
Oh seriously, those people? They're always pushing panspermia stuff. Like that whole "discovery of microscopic alien life" thing last March. From what I remember of that whole thing, the journal itself isn't to be taken seriously. Their research on the meteorites might be good, but the fact it appeared in JoC doesn't make me hopeful.
That isn't the optimal strategy, better ones have been found. I can't remember the title, but I remember reading a book on genetic algorithms which mentioned a competition in which professors were invited to submit Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma algorithms. Many were submitted, included the "tit for tat" strategy you refer to. IIRC the genetic algorithm killed them all and eventually found a unique strategy better than all the submitted algorithm's strategies, including the mirror/tit-for-tat one. On that note, I haven't read the paper yet but this hardly seems that exciting. They basically built a genetic algorithm to experiment with possible neural networks until it evolved a population optimized for well-known and well-studied games. Unless there's more to it than that, this seems like something already accomplished years ago. Cool, but hardly cutting-edge.
Slashdot Mirror
Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQSRPMFDTSs
You're right, but personally I'm switching anyways. I'd been meaning to get rid of my FB account anyways - the only reason I still have it is that some people absolutely refuse to communicate by other methods. But part of getting people to finally switch is letting them know that you (by which I mean anyone, obviously) can't be contacted through facebook. I'm also sick that I'm promoting the continued use of their system by creating content for them. Every thing I post that gets a few likes is basically encouraging people to keep using facebook. Stop doing it.
My understanding is that a major component of the absurd healthcare costs here are due to liability issues, so doctors and hospitals run dozens of tests with no regard for the cost vs. benefits of doing so. Because they don't want to get sued into oblivion for failing to run those tests. It's a protection against medical malpractice suits. If that's true, then tort reform is at least part of the solution towards lowering healthcare costs in the US. Unfortunately the left always sees any talk of that as some Republican conspiracy to eliminate people's right to sue greedy corporations, and think everything can be solved by just raising and raising taxes, so I doubt that'll be happening anytime soon. And if it does it'll likely be some watered down version like the recent healthcare reform act was (referring to Obamacare).
FYI: I'm neither liberal nor conservative, so don't write this comment off as right-wing propaganda.
But will that message be even remotely effective? Because if not, it's just a waste of money. Obviously I don't know for sure and haven't done an analysis, and am giving them a huge benefit of the doubt by assuming it even might be. My experience is that most people have great difficulty altering daily behavior habits, assuming they even care enough to try, because of abstract risks to themselves (fines) or others (wrecks). Even if they did, it's hard to imagine 32 cars doing this would really send that message effectively.
Clearly I think it's bullshit, but posted wondering if someone might have some solid numbers on it (unlikely).
I don't suppose there's any chance that the cost of the police buying this with taxpayer money will be made up with reduced collisions, accidents, injuries/fatalities, etc.? My knee-jerk reaction would be that it will not, and they're probably just using it as an excuse to get some new fancy cars. 32 new cars pulling people over at times a regular police cruiser would not, just for texting while driving, doesn't seem like it's going to make huge changes in driver behavior... or any changes at all.
I've been barking up that tree for years.
Due to funding issues, critical thinking has been cut from the curriculum.
If your first thought is "holy crap the government asked for this data from a private company, that's terrible!?!!!" maybe it should actually be "holy crap why does a private company have this in the first place?"
It's bad that corporations can do it; it's even worse when government does it. Corporations don't pass laws (well, not directly at least, cynicism aside), they don't have 50% of the world's military force at their command, etc. The danger of abuse by government is far greater than the danger from abuse by Google and Facebook. So far, at least.
I lack confidence in my ability to start an actual protest by just going out and sticking up signs on a street corner. Also, I'm more of the mind to develop technology and acquire wealth and resources so that I can one day actually have influence in the world, which does honestly seem more effectual than protesting. I made the comment because, as someone else noted about this stuff already, there are violent protests going on in Turkey (and other parts of the world) right now over far less egregious abuses of power than what our government is doing.
Actually, failure to vote for third parties is the primary reason they're able to get away with stuff like this. The whole "wasted vote" thing is probably the most damaging logical fallacy being used in politics right now. Don't get me wrong, it's unlikely a third party will ever win a presidential election, but that's not the point. When politicians are losing enough votes to them that they risk losing to their opponents, they're forced to change their platforms. You can see this happening already with the Republican's reconsideration of immigration reform. They know the tide is against them and they'll have to make policy changes they haven't wanted to in the past. Aside from that, only about half of the population actually votes. There are literally twice as many people who aren't even going to the polls than there are supporting Democrats or Republicans for any reason. If the left was losing 10% of their voting base to the Greens and the right was losing 10% of theirs to the Libertarians (or whatever other party you may like), you can bet they'd be picking up pieces of those platforms in order to continue out-competing third parties.
tl;dr: Voting for the proverbial "lesser of two evils" is the mandate we give them to get away with all this crap. Neither side is less evil than the other anymore.
It's pretty amazing, and here's hoping the sacrifice isn't completely wasted. The fact that this stuff hasn't led to protesting in the streets really reflects just how complacent the US population is. Or how afraid of the government we really are, knowing just how well equipped and militarized the government has become thanks to 60+ years of growth in the military-industrial complex. I for one am ashamed I voted for Obama in 2008, and I hope there's a clean sweep of every Congressperson who didn't specifically oppose this type of stuff during the next elections. If that doesn't happen, I think the government will just treat it as a mandate to continue expanding their global power ever faster. Something needs to happen while people's attention is still focused on it.
It'd be nice if the public vitriol towards the current administration also helped Manning avoid further abuse, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm not sure about that. Whales, dolphins and great apes could probably give the "most retarded and genetically impoverished" a run for their money, along with possibly other animals.
Imo, there's a big difference between having an ethical responsibility to try to avoid collateral damage when whistleblowing, and having the judicial system destroy your entire life with charges punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty for the simple act of whistleblowing itself. Plus, iirc, Wikileaks actually gave the Pentagon the chance to help redact the documents before releasing them, but for obvious reasons they wanted no part in facilitating a leak. I just bring it up because that perceived irresponsibility is on the part of the Pentagon as much as Bradley Manning, imo. My comment was meant to debunk the one I replied to about how whistleblowing shouldn't be protected unless it occurs through government-approved channels. It may or may not have been an irresponsible way to leak the information, but he's being charged for leaking the information whatsoever, not for failing to properly redact them and reduce collateral damage.
The idea of "approved whistleblower channels" kind of negates the idea of whistleblowing. The mainstream media was complicit in the propaganda run-up to the Iraq war, which of course doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't be trusted to expose important information in the leaked documents, but it shows a conflict of interest between the powers that be and the entire goal of whistleblowing. If you can't release documents to the public, but only to approved whistleblower channels who can then decide unilaterally whether the rest of us should be informed, it isn't whistleblowing.
That's great news, but there were a number of other difficulties with the Alcubierre drive, iirc. I don't see how this gets around any of those, like the spacetime "bubble" becoming filled with lethal radiation or the inability to create a bubble with a pre-existing non-superluminal mass inside it.
Wow, for a minute there you had me worried I'd been had yet again by another politician. But actually everything you cite says that he wants to leave it up to the states (including the Defense of Marriage Act, which simply gave states the right to not recognize gay marriage). He legitimately supports states rights to do whatever they want, which is also why he voted against the civil rights act. No, I don't think that it's just his way of trying to push immoral things past people, more that he believes people should be able to make good or stupid decisions for themselves (and as a state). Sure, that might mean Mississippi would pass some shitty laws, but it also means the rest of the country wouldn't have to live under those same shitty laws. As we have it now the entire country is fighting tooth and nail for the right to tell everyone else what to do. There's always some bad that comes with the good, but if the federal government would get out of the fucking way it at least wouldn't keep the more intelligent states from enacting sane laws.
Face it, on this issue it isn't about using state's rights to oppress people (he did VOTE AGAINST DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL after all - do you think that was an accident?). Either you think everyone in the country should fight for what the federal government gets to force on everyone else, or else you'd rather just leave it to smaller groups to make good and bad decisions for themselves. Personally I'd choose the later, as I think eventually states would come around and allow things like gay marriage and abortion. Otherwise you're basically just supporting the government's right to tyranny, under the idea that "they will know what's best."
This is true. For one reason or another (and I'm not sure what it was), he was Not Present at the SOPA vote.
No, that's more BS media propaganda. Ron Paul voted against Don't Ask, Don't Tell and has said he's in favor of allowing gay marriage at a federal level. He's personally against it just like he's also personally against abortion, but he's consistent in sticking to his beliefs that people (and states) should have the right to decide for themselves. So don't listen to these people who go on about how he's some racist homophobe who wants to pass laws limiting civil liberties. That's a bunch of BS, the guy supports equal treatment for everyone, gay, straight, man, woman, pro-life, pro-choice, whatever. For future reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul
As to the first one, build the machine to randomize the order of the paper ballots. As to the second one, the only reason (I think) to have a paper ballot is in case there is a recount. If the vote comes down 70/30%, the odds that the so many have been miscounted out of a population of hundreds of millions is pretty low. If it ends up like Florida in 2000, or if there are later suspicions/accusations/whatever about the voting machines, then you do a careful manual recount of the paper ballots. I'm by no means an expert on this, I'm just regurgitating what guys like Schneier have come up with.
Here's what Schneier said about it in 2004:
"Computer security experts are unanimous on what to do. (Some voting experts disagree, but I think we’re all much better off listening to the computer security experts. The problems here are with the computer, not with the fact that the computer is being used in a voting application.) And they have two recommendations:
DRE machines must have a voter-verifiable paper audit trails (sometimes called a voter-verified paper ballot). This is a paper ballot printed out by the voting machine, which the voter is allowed to look at and verify. He doesn’t take it home with him. Either he looks at it on the machine behind a glass screen, or he takes the paper and puts it into a ballot box. The point of this is twofold. One, it allows the voter to confirm that his vote was recorded in the manner he intended. And two, it provides the mechanism for a recount if there are problems with the machine.
Software used on DRE machines must be open to public scrutiny. This also has two functions. One, it allows any interested party to examine the software and find bugs, which can then be corrected. This public analysis improves security. And two, it increases public confidence in the voting process. If the software is public, no one can insinuate that the voting system has unfairness built into the code. (Companies that make these machines regularly argue that they need to keep their software secret for security reasons. Don’t believe them. In this instance, secrecy has nothing to do with security.)
Computerized systems with these characteristics won’t be perfect -- no piece of software is -- but they’ll be much better than what we have now. We need to start treating voting software like we treat any other high-reliability system. The auditing that is conducted on slot machine software in the U.S. is significantly more meticulous than what is done to voting software. The development process for mission-critical airplane software makes voting software look like a slapdash affair. If we care about the integrity of our elections, this has to change."
Source.
I'd forgotten about it until now, but about five years ago I was working at a gas station here in the US (Mapco, if you're curious). They had one of those cameras inside, making sure we weren't stealing. One day someone calls the phone and says he's watching us, and starts asking us what we're doing and generally trying to intimidate us with this idea that he's going to be monitoring us full-time. The manager got real upset about it, called the higher ups and I'm not sure whatever happened, but he said that it wouldn't be a problem anymore. I kept working that job for another year or so after that, was plenty lazy and ate food on the job (was the solo employee most of the time), goofed off, even left early a few times, and never heard anything about it, so I assume that they really did get rid of that guy, whoever he was.
Seems screwed up now, but at the time I didn't think much about it, just that the security guy who called was an asshole. What's bad now is that it's becoming normalized, to where you can be spied on all the time and no one says anything about it. I suppose privacy will go away completely in the end, it's only inevitable, but it needs to go away for everyone at once, not be used so the government can have Total Information Awareness while protecting every single thing it does as a "state secret."
I more or less agree, but still, it doesn't hurt to go actually make a reasonable plea on the site, as they're asking you to. This is one form of resistance against such things, just because it's not nearly enough by itself is no reason to acquiesce to the establishment. Congress and corporate america are genuinely completely out of touch with the realities of the 21st century, so it'd do more good to bitch about it there, not here. The Ron Paul people actually got involved in the Republican party this election cycle (not to glorify the tea-partiers), infiltrated the nominating and committee process and such, which is what the rest of us should have been doing with the entire government instead of bitching about not having any choices in the Obamney election. MoveOn.org is sort of trying this now with their Candidate Project deal. Why not use it as a chance to continue mounting actual resistance to the SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/etc. agenda, instead of just declaring it hopeless prematurely. The population of the internet is huge and has the potential to exert a lot more economic influence on the government's agenda than special interests like the MPAA do, people just haven't woken up and realized that yet.
I don't see anything actually new here. Technically the US gov already has the right to refuse entry to people who have renounced US citizenship, they just haven't been enforcing it. And they can already tax assets over $2 million as if they were sold immediately prior to renunciation of citizenship, and can continue taxing you for up to 10 years after renunciation (see HEART Act). This place turns into the Soviet Union a bit more and more every day.
It's all so obvious now.
Oh seriously, those people? They're always pushing panspermia stuff. Like that whole "discovery of microscopic alien life" thing last March. From what I remember of that whole thing, the journal itself isn't to be taken seriously. Their research on the meteorites might be good, but the fact it appeared in JoC doesn't make me hopeful.
That isn't the optimal strategy, better ones have been found. I can't remember the title, but I remember reading a book on genetic algorithms which mentioned a competition in which professors were invited to submit Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma algorithms. Many were submitted, included the "tit for tat" strategy you refer to. IIRC the genetic algorithm killed them all and eventually found a unique strategy better than all the submitted algorithm's strategies, including the mirror/tit-for-tat one. On that note, I haven't read the paper yet but this hardly seems that exciting. They basically built a genetic algorithm to experiment with possible neural networks until it evolved a population optimized for well-known and well-studied games. Unless there's more to it than that, this seems like something already accomplished years ago. Cool, but hardly cutting-edge.