How is this different than if Russia set up a set of historical preservation sites of the nuclear facilities leading to its first nuclear bomb? Or China?
You may not have approved, but it IS history.
Else, you might as well be saying to demolish anything that reminds you of something negative.
Perhaps you'd like to see the Peenemunde Historical Technical Museum in Germany razed and forgotten?
How is your position any different than others who have tried to erase "inconvenient" histories?
In the words of Will Rogers: "Things ain't what they used to be and probably never was"
History gets re-evaluated to match political doctrine all the time. North Korea just announced that they'd found a unicorn's lair, thus validating their assertion that the capital of an ancient kingdom was Pyongyang rather than some other possibilities.
You've defined your reality, and I doubt that anything could sway you, but it's unlikely that the Japanese leaders who had the ability to deliver on a peace proposal were the ones making backdoor overtures.
This is a bit like the conspiracy theories arguing that the invasion of Europe on D Day wasn't needed due to Rudolf Hess's alleged peace mission to England. Even if it did have the ok of the leader who could make such a deal (Hitler in this example), it ignores the truth that in war, longshot parallel diplomatic avenues are pursued, many of them not even seriously intended to succeed.
But, what the hey, it's great for justifying your own feelings. As most such theories are.
This is all pretty standard and well known. It still takes hot cells and an operating reactor to do.
And, there is nothing in it that can't be done right now regardless if there are thorium fueled reactors or not. The irradiation of the thorium can be done in existing research reactors. Thorium metal is available (it's used to increase emission in electrical filaments and in the mantles of camping lanterns).
"you do realize that Slashdot is made up of numerous contributors"
Well, yes, I have noticed that.:)
Slashdot is composed of humans (well, for those of us that aren't really clever AI projects).
One of the things humans often do is refer to the opinions of entire groups as a simplification. I bet that there are groups you disagree with that you'd be quite willing to lump into an average (biased or not) of "They think..." or "They say...".
It's a form of mildly sloppy thinking and speaking that is quite common (and that I fully realize that I'm doing in referring to "Slashdot opinion" and criticizing it). But, writing or talking becomes pretty stilted without that sort of shortcut.
Demanding that someone not use the normal ways of speaking about groups as entities is usually the sign of being in a law or logic class, being done to try to gain an advantage in the argument or being a touch autistic.
It's not even just this issue that I'm referring to. It's just an example of the way many online groups react to a comment by a person, group or entity that is viewed with skepticism. Regardless of what's said it'll get a lot of derision just because they were the ones to say it.
"Those dirty $outgroup said they liked pictures of cute kittens. Those bastards. They just did it to fullfill some perverted goal."
If you don't approve of Slashdot being used as an example, I'm sure you can come up with ones you like better (every online forum with a viewpoint does it at least a little). Maybe you could even find examples written by that jerk Hartree.;)
Oh, you can relax. PBS Newshour is blogging that this is all a big fear mongering campaign supported by massive corporations google, shadowy "internet activists" and special interests.
The truth is likely somewhere in between. The ITU really wants influence and a slice of the bureaucratic power (and budget) that would come from an increased role in the net.
They've consistently come across as ham handed, at best, in the lead up to this, and have done little to show that they are interested in an open net (or open proceedings).
They've also managed to get a surprisingly wide set of disparate groups saying that they are precisely the wrong body to receive increased control of the net.
Two days ago, a submission points out differences in the words and actions of the ITU and its Secretary General (including a plan to try to undercut any opposition via flooding social media) and most who reply are quite skeptical of the ITU.
Today, the House votes unanimously to say largely the same thing as the EU. The reaction on slashdot? Outrage at the horrible undercutting of freedom, the ITU and the UN in particular.
Truly who says something counts far more here than what is said.
That's the whole point. I pointed out in a talk once that the unencrypted email we used (this was in the 90s) was like sending everything written on a postcard. Encrypted email, was more like sending it in an envelope (yes I know an envelope or insecure encryption can be bypassed easily but it stops casual inspection).
We'd think someone a bit odd if they insisted that all mail to and from them, even love letters, bills, and financial statements had to be sent as postcards rather than in an envelope.
And yet, many at the time thought it odd that anyone would go to the trouble of encrypting email unless they had some deep dark secret to hide.
The history of email was such that we trained ourselves to not use the equivalent of envelopes.
Because of that, encrypting common messages that aren't among accepted sensitive categories seems odd. In truth, it would be better to have encryption be by default and unencrypted be the oddity. That way truly sensitive information wouldn't be flagged as interesting because they were encrypted.
This whole submission is an exercise in bipartisanship. We have a story of politicians from both sides being silly.
We also have slashdotters from both sides assuring us that the politician from the party they don't like is a complete insane moron and that the one from the party they like is just occasionally wrong and shouldn't be written off as a fool.
"'Nothing can stop the freedom of expression in the world today, and nothing in this conference will be about it,"
Well, if it's not possible to stop the freedom of expression in the world, then nothing enacted or done by a government or international body can do that.
Therefore, the great firewall of China, the network shutdowns in Egypt, Syria, etc by definition didn't stop the freedom of expression. Because, that would be impossible.
Thus nothing that we could consider can stop freedom of expression. So we are free to do anything we want, since going by what the Secretary General said, it can't stop freedom of expression. Q.E.D.
Move along, nothing here to see. These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Think it won't be interpreted that way by some? Just wait until any of various repressive countries use this to justify saying "The Secretary General says our restrictions don't stop freedom of expression."
At best, Ban Ki Moon should be a little more careful about how he phrases things. Surprising, for someone who is as experienced a diplomat as he is.
This pretty much shows that NYC Environmental Protection doesn't know what the hell it's talking about. The solvent used in dry cleaning is perchoroethylene.
Perchlorate and perchloroethylene are not even remotely the same thing. You'd think they'd be able to notice such a glaring error.
"are generally older people, who don't understand much technology at all"
Thus, since you seem to say older people do not understand much technology at all, they couldn't have built the technology that led directly to what we have now.
So, light emitting diodes and such are all just figments of Nick Holonyak's imagination since an old person like him couldn't have understood them, and he's fooled us into thinking they glow for all these years.
Thanks for clearing that up, youngling. I think you need to change it to say that certain careers like politician are less likely to have technically knowledgeable types rather than just saying the old are technical know nothings.
And not long after you do that, you stop worrying about the bacteria, and try to explain to the nice officer that, yes, doing donuts around the (thankfully) empty school playground in the cement truck you somehow acquired during the evening really was a sensible idea.
"but also provide a tool for quieting partisan blowhards who think the opposing party's candidate is going to drag the country to hell"
My bet: I'll go three to two that the writer of this submission is a partisan blowhard who thought the opposing party's candidate was going to drag the country to hell.
The campus has plenty of bandwidth, but the server it's on is one poor little box over in the nuclear physics lab. I'm just across campus and can't even get to the main nuclear physics site.
"I prefer Asimov, who kept his senses and his fundamental decency."
While he was groping women at scifi cons? Go google "asimov sexual harrassment".
Get a grip. Asimov gets my vote for the king of scifi writers and a man who did wonderful things in entertainment and popularizing science, but he was human with good points and bad. All scifi writers are human beings with good points and bad. And a lot of them have some pretty far out political leanings both left and right.
I was already highly interested in science, but Engines focused my attention on the idea of manipulating matter at nanometer scales. It led me to change my major to physics from aero/astro engineering.
It doesn't matter if it's a valid basis for morality. The question was if it had an impact and it's had a major one on you as seen in the very phrasing of what you said. The FSM is a riposte to it. "fuck god" is said as an example of a disagreement with it. It's embedded in many of the very idioms of the language you happen to use (obviously it would be different if you spoke Chinese rather than English).
No matter whether it is a valid basis or not, it's been used to define much of culture in many countries and the ideas in it shaped history. Sometimes it did so in pretty bad ways, such as the Crusades. Sometimes it led to better things.
You could say the same about the Koran for those in Islamic countries. Regardless of whether someone had read it or agreed with it, it had tremendous impact on the society around them.
Slashdot Mirror
How is this different than if Russia set up a set of historical preservation sites of the nuclear facilities leading to its first nuclear bomb? Or China?
You may not have approved, but it IS history.
Else, you might as well be saying to demolish anything that reminds you of something negative.
Perhaps you'd like to see the Peenemunde Historical Technical Museum in Germany razed and forgotten?
How is your position any different than others who have tried to erase "inconvenient" histories?
"History has been updated"
In the words of Will Rogers: "Things ain't what they used to be and probably never was"
History gets re-evaluated to match political doctrine all the time. North Korea just announced that they'd found a unicorn's lair, thus validating their assertion that the capital of an ancient kingdom was Pyongyang rather than some other possibilities.
You've defined your reality, and I doubt that anything could sway you, but it's unlikely that the Japanese leaders who had the ability to deliver on a peace proposal were the ones making backdoor overtures.
This is a bit like the conspiracy theories arguing that the invasion of Europe on D Day wasn't needed due to Rudolf Hess's alleged peace mission to England. Even if it did have the ok of the leader who could make such a deal (Hitler in this example), it ignores the truth that in war, longshot parallel diplomatic avenues are pursued, many of them not even seriously intended to succeed.
But, what the hey, it's great for justifying your own feelings. As most such theories are.
This is all pretty standard and well known. It still takes hot cells and an operating reactor to do.
And, there is nothing in it that can't be done right now regardless if there are thorium fueled reactors or not. The irradiation of the thorium can be done in existing research reactors. Thorium metal is available (it's used to increase emission in electrical filaments and in the mantles of camping lanterns).
This seems mostly to be FUD.
Oh, but wait till it hits the anime cons.
Hoards of catgirl cosplayers now with animated catseye contacts.
"you do realize that Slashdot is made up of numerous contributors"
Well, yes, I have noticed that. :)
Slashdot is composed of humans (well, for those of us that aren't really clever AI projects).
One of the things humans often do is refer to the opinions of entire groups as a simplification. I bet that there are groups you disagree with that you'd be quite willing to lump into an average (biased or not) of "They think..." or "They say...".
It's a form of mildly sloppy thinking and speaking that is quite common (and that I fully realize that I'm doing in referring to "Slashdot opinion" and criticizing it). But, writing or talking becomes pretty stilted without that sort of shortcut.
Demanding that someone not use the normal ways of speaking about groups as entities is usually the sign of being in a law or logic class, being done to try to gain an advantage in the argument or being a touch autistic.
It's not even just this issue that I'm referring to. It's just an example of the way many online groups react to a comment by a person, group or entity that is viewed with skepticism. Regardless of what's said it'll get a lot of derision just because they were the ones to say it.
"Those dirty $outgroup said they liked pictures of cute kittens. Those bastards. They just did it to fullfill some perverted goal."
If you don't approve of Slashdot being used as an example, I'm sure you can come up with ones you like better (every online forum with a viewpoint does it at least a little). Maybe you could even find examples written by that jerk Hartree.;)
Oh, you can relax. PBS Newshour is blogging that this is all a big fear mongering campaign supported by massive corporations google, shadowy "internet activists" and special interests.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/12/the-future-of-internet-governance.html
The truth is likely somewhere in between. The ITU really wants influence and a slice of the bureaucratic power (and budget) that would come from an increased role in the net.
They've consistently come across as ham handed, at best, in the lead up to this, and have done little to show that they are interested in an open net (or open proceedings).
They've also managed to get a surprisingly wide set of disparate groups saying that they are precisely the wrong body to receive increased control of the net.
Nov. 23, Slashdot largely approves when the EU makes a similar statement opposing ITU control.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/11/23/0122212/eu-passes-resolution-against-itu-asserting-control-over-internet
Two days ago, a submission points out differences in the words and actions of the ITU and its Secretary General (including a plan to try to undercut any opposition via flooding social media) and most who reply are quite skeptical of the ITU.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/12/03/2120250/internet-freedom-wont-be-controlled-says-un-telcom-chief
Today, the House votes unanimously to say largely the same thing as the EU. The reaction on slashdot? Outrage at the horrible undercutting of freedom, the ITU and the UN in particular.
Truly who says something counts far more here than what is said.
This is hysterical.
That's the whole point. I pointed out in a talk once that the unencrypted email we used (this was in the 90s) was like sending everything written on a postcard. Encrypted email, was more like sending it in an envelope (yes I know an envelope or insecure encryption can be bypassed easily but it stops casual inspection).
We'd think someone a bit odd if they insisted that all mail to and from them, even love letters, bills, and financial statements had to be sent as postcards rather than in an envelope.
And yet, many at the time thought it odd that anyone would go to the trouble of encrypting email unless they had some deep dark secret to hide.
The history of email was such that we trained ourselves to not use the equivalent of envelopes.
Because of that, encrypting common messages that aren't among accepted sensitive categories seems odd. In truth, it would be better to have encryption be by default and unencrypted be the oddity. That way truly sensitive information wouldn't be flagged as interesting because they were encrypted.
If they use obvious encryption, they will flag themselves to be investigated by other means.
This whole submission is an exercise in bipartisanship. We have a story of politicians from both sides being silly.
We also have slashdotters from both sides assuring us that the politician from the party they don't like is a complete insane moron and that the one from the party they like is just occasionally wrong and shouldn't be written off as a fool.
There seems to be symmetry here.
This wasn't Ban Ki Moon that said that, it was the ITU Secretary General Hamadoun Toure.
That's what I got for posting while running a fever.
"'Nothing can stop the freedom of expression in the world today, and nothing in this conference will be about it,"
Well, if it's not possible to stop the freedom of expression in the world, then nothing enacted or done by a government or international body can do that.
Therefore, the great firewall of China, the network shutdowns in Egypt, Syria, etc by definition didn't stop the freedom of expression. Because, that would be impossible.
Thus nothing that we could consider can stop freedom of expression. So we are free to do anything we want, since going by what the Secretary General said, it can't stop freedom of expression. Q.E.D.
Move along, nothing here to see. These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Think it won't be interpreted that way by some? Just wait until any of various repressive countries use this to justify saying "The Secretary General says our restrictions don't stop freedom of expression."
At best, Ban Ki Moon should be a little more careful about how he phrases things. Surprising, for someone who is as experienced a diplomat as he is.
This pretty much shows that NYC Environmental Protection doesn't know what the hell it's talking about. The solvent used in dry cleaning is perchoroethylene.
Perchlorate and perchloroethylene are not even remotely the same thing. You'd think they'd be able to notice such a glaring error.
Then again, maybe that's hoping too much.
"are generally older people, who don't understand much technology at all"
Thus, since you seem to say older people do not understand much technology at all, they couldn't have built the technology that led directly to what we have now.
So, light emitting diodes and such are all just figments of Nick Holonyak's imagination since an old person like him couldn't have understood them, and he's fooled us into thinking they glow for all these years.
Thanks for clearing that up, youngling. I think you need to change it to say that certain careers like politician are less likely to have technically knowledgeable types rather than just saying the old are technical know nothings.
"If you want more, you have to distill."
And not long after you do that, you stop worrying about the bacteria, and try to explain to the nice officer that, yes, doing donuts around the (thankfully) empty school playground in the cement truck you somehow acquired during the evening really was a sensible idea.
"Alas, we seem to be mostly engaged in trying to out-stupid it."
Add to that large numbers of groups each saying "You must implement only our plan for the future or disaster will occur".
However the plans seem to be different for every such group.
"Bah. Real enthusiasts use discrete transistors."
Bah. Vacuum tubes and pulse transformers are where it's at, daddyo. Everything else is just for posers.
"but also provide a tool for quieting partisan blowhards who think the opposing party's candidate is going to drag the country to hell"
My bet: I'll go three to two that the writer of this submission is a partisan blowhard who thought the opposing party's candidate was going to drag the country to hell.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the obvious truth that the earthquake was caused by the HAARP project.
It's all a plot to disrupt the huge tourist industry based on the hot springs.
I'm very glad I don't have to write that interface spec...
I guess that thorium being in lantern mantles also wasn't techie enough for them.
I also wouldn't have called uranium "highly" radioactive.
The campus has plenty of bandwidth, but the server it's on is one poor little box over in the nuclear physics lab. I'm just across campus and can't even get to the main nuclear physics site.
"I prefer Asimov, who kept his senses and his fundamental decency."
While he was groping women at scifi cons? Go google "asimov sexual harrassment".
Get a grip. Asimov gets my vote for the king of scifi writers and a man who did wonderful things in entertainment and popularizing science, but he was human with good points and bad. All scifi writers are human beings with good points and bad. And a lot of them have some pretty far out political leanings both left and right.
Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler.
I was already highly interested in science, but Engines focused my attention on the idea of manipulating matter at nanometer scales. It led me to change my major to physics from aero/astro engineering.
It doesn't matter if it's a valid basis for morality. The question was if it had an impact and it's had a major one on you as seen in the very phrasing of what you said. The FSM is a riposte to it. "fuck god" is said as an example of a disagreement with it. It's embedded in many of the very idioms of the language you happen to use (obviously it would be different if you spoke Chinese rather than English).
No matter whether it is a valid basis or not, it's been used to define much of culture in many countries and the ideas in it shaped history. Sometimes it did so in pretty bad ways, such as the Crusades. Sometimes it led to better things.
You could say the same about the Koran for those in Islamic countries. Regardless of whether someone had read it or agreed with it, it had tremendous impact on the society around them.