What all this adds up to I think is that time travel is still forbidden but observational time travel-- gathering information-- is not forbidden.
There's a science fiction story that Asimov wrote called The Dead Past ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past ) where a form of "time travel" is invented. Instead of a portal/device that sends people back in time, though, it is merely a window on the past. Only the government has them until someone figures out how to make one with "off the shelf" components. The twist is that the government was suppressing the research and for good reason. In a world where anyone can see the past, civilization would collapse. Even 1 second ago is "the past" so all passwords, combinations, etc are rendered useless. No secrets at all can be kept. In addition, people are now tempted to re-watch the best times of their lives or see loved ones who have passed away over and over and over again.
I heard a version of the grandfather paradox that 1) boils it down to just the paradox and 2) seems to be post-selection proof.
You decide to kill yourself, but decide to do it in a grand fashion. So you get a time portal and a disassembled gun. You spend the next 10 minutes assembling the gun and then turn on the time portal for your location, 5 minutes ago. You see yourself assembling the gun, aim and fire. You Five Minutes Back falls down dead with a half assembled gun... But if the gun wasn't assembled and you are dead, how could you assemble it and fire it five minutes later?
Why do I expect to see a press release from the RIAA soon saying "We told all of you that this Internet/digital music thing was bad. See? Not only is it turning our kids into dirty, stinking pirates, but it's turning them into dirty, stinking, drug-addicted pirates! The only solution is to require anyone who wants to produce any sound at all to pay us a lot of money. We'll filter out all the bad sounds (binaural beats, pirated songs and anti-RIAA speeches) and keep in the good stuff (Boy Bands, Brittney Spears and pro-RIAA speeches)."
The problem isn't that somebody knows my mother's maiden name and my SSN, the problem is that numerous financial institutions and other such entities will happily accept possession of those facts as evidence that just about anybody is actually me.
Of course, sometimes the thief doesn't know the right mother's maiden name and the financial institution still approves the new line of credit.
And then the thief changes the address immediately (before the card is even activated) and the financial institution doesn't red flag it.
And then the thief tries to get a $5,000 cash advance and the financial institution denies it but doesn't red flag the activity.
And, when the fraud is discovered (thanks only to the thieves paying to get rush-delivery of the card and financial institution sending it out before the address change went through), the financial institution refuses to give any information to the victim because the victim "might go and shoot the person and then we'd be liable." (Actual quote)
And when the police contact the financial institution, they might give them the runaround also.
Yes, this happened to me and this is why I won't do business with that financial institution *cough*Capital One*cough* ever again.
When the Internet was new, it was a series of disconnected networks. The provider with the biggest user base (America Online) took the walled garden approach. Based on a snapshot of that moment, you might think that walled gardens would be the future and people would pay for access to each garden. Instead, the free Web* took off and walled gardens fell.
Cell phones are currently in the walled garden phase of life. This doesn't mean that the future is all walled garden. Nor does it mean that walled gardens will fall like on the Web. Still, cell phones being walled garden now doesn't mean that the free Web is going to wither and die.
* Of course, it's not totally free. You need to pay your ISP and the site needs to pay their ISP. Still, going to Google.com requires no special payment.
Re:Strawman based on bastardized belief system
on
The End of Free
·
· Score: 1
In college, I took a History of Religion course. The professor started off the year telling us that we *would* be offended in the course, but it wasn't his intention to do so. He was simply going to teach us what history scholars have pieced together about religious figures' real lives. Obviously, this was going to contradict what the religious folks had learned in their churches/temples/etc.
One interesting part was the segment on Jesus. According to my professor, he actually wanted to strengthen the Judaism laws. For example, cheeseburgers aren't kosher (eating milk and meat combined is a no-no). You can't eat one but if you think about eating one you haven't broken any laws. Jesus, however, was of the opinion that merely thinking of a sinful activity should carry the same punishment as carrying out that sinful activity. The majority of rabbis at the time disagreed knowing that there was no way for people to control every thought that popped into their heads.
I find it highly ironic that his "followers," instead of forming some kind of hyper-strict sect of Judaism, ditched nearly all of the Jewish laws over the centuries.
My wife's new laptop is 64 bit Windows 7. While setting it up, I installed ImageMagick and a script that I wrote which uses ImageMagick's COM component to resize and watermark our photos. The script wouldn't run. The problem turned out to be that ImageMagick couldn't register the COM component on 64 bit Windows 7. There's no workaround that I can find so I'm forced to rewrite my script so that it doesn't use the COM component (which is much better for scripting) and instead opens a DOS box and runs a custom-formed batch file (much less elegant).
Of course, this isn't a Windows problem per se. It's likely just that something needs to be changed/updated in ImageMagick. Unfortunately, my coding skills tend more towards the Server-Side Database and HTML Generation and less towards the Image Manipulation Utility so I doubt it is anything I could fix myself. If anyone has any ideas to solve this dilemma, though, I'd be happy to hear them.
Exactly what I was thinking. I've never set up a MythTV box but it's intrigued me for a long time. If I could buy a cheap computer that would fit into my living room setup (without standing out like a sore thumb) and could be easily made to run MythTV, I'd quickly go for it.
I've looked into building MythTV setups and they always wind up costing a lot. Then again, maybe I've been choosing the wrong components. I'm open to build suggestions if anyone has some. (I don't have an HD TV, so SD equipment/outputs is fine for me.)
I know accepting help isn't a sign of weakness but perhaps the false "it's a sign of weakness" could be used as an advantage. Let's say we accept help and people start thinking "We're so weak because we couldn't do this for ourselves", perhaps that would give people and companies the incentive to invest in science, technology and local manufacturing capabilities instead of outsourcing everything to other countries.
Come to think of it, why isn't saying "We can't provide XYZ here at a cost competitive with India/China/etc" a "sign of weakness" if asking for help after a disaster is? The latter is usually something you're usually unprepared for and need help with. The former is something you should be equipped to do every day.
How can (80) he say (114) that being (105) on computers or the (110) Internet fills your head (99) with numbers (101)? After all (32), I'm online quite a lot (99) during the day (97) and night (110) and my head's (32) not filled up (98) with numbers (105). I think (116) I'd notice (101) such a (32) thing (109). It's quite (121) silly when (32) you think of it. What (115) would computers (104) be doing (105) filling our heads (110) with numbers (121) anyway (32)? It's not (109) like they try (101) to insert (116) subliminal (97) messages (108) into comments (32) that we type (97) out on online (115) forums (115) or anything (33).
I agree. There are basically three threats terrorists can't make against planes:
1) Hijacking. This is the "guys spring up with box cutters and take over" scenario. Pre-911 it meant landing in Havana, a few tense hours and then all is well. Post-911, it means the plane *will* be used as a missile killing all on board which means that passengers won't just sit quietly. Terrorists would need something better than box cutters to keep the passengers in line but pre-911 security should be capable of stopping this. ("Sorry, sir but you can't take three fully loaded automatic rifles onboard.") Add in relatively minor security enhancements like reinforced cockpit doors and a successful hijacking will be even more difficult to pull off.
2) Blowing up from within. This could be a "shoe bomber" situation but I think the more likely situation would be checked bags. IIRC, not every checked bag is examined for bombs. Terrorists could buy tickets, check their bags in and then "miss their flight." Scanning people is a visible security "enhancement" but scanning checked bags isn't as visible and so hasn't been beefed up as much. We should be devoting more resources to scanning checked bags.
3) Blowing up from outside. This would involve some kind of missile and isn't much of a threat here. I've heard that El Al actually has anti-missile defenses and it makes sense in that situation.
Of course, if a terrorist wanted to do maximum damage, he wouldn't even board a plane. He would wait for a busy day, enter a major airport and do something on or near the security line. Even if airport security was effective, they wouldn't be likely to catch him *before* he hit the security line.
To be fair, I believe these were merely security guards. Does this mean we're living in a "Security Guard State"? Sheesh.... we can't even form a Police State without mucking it up and outsourcing!
The flaw in that reasoning is that, if you are pulled over by a police officer, you aren't free to park your car, get out and walk away. The officer hasn't arrested you yet and walking about *is* an innate natural right, but yet you can't just walk (or run) away from him without him pursuing and arresting you.
While I agree, a real economic analysis won't be done. If any serious politician proposes this, his opponents will allege that he is:
1) Soft on terrorism. After all, he wants to "weaken" our security. Why does he love the terrorists and hate America?
2) Trying to place a dollar amount on human life. After all, the security saves lives so how can he say that X lives are only worth Y dollars? Is he an inhuman monster?
Yes, both arguments are completely baseless. Someone can love America, think human life can't have a dollar value affixed to it and still want to cut security measures that he sees as ineffective. However, those two above arguments will make for better political sound bites and any politician finding himself in this situation will have to fight for his political life. Therefore, politicians will just go with the flow and, at most, just tweak things as little as possible.
Unfortunately, right now, only users of DSLRs (and larger point and shoot cameras) seem to be targeted. I haven't heard of any Apple iPhone users being threatened for snapping photos. This means that the amount of people equipped to protest this is more limited. Meanwhile, the rest of the populace isn't impacted so they don't see it as a concern.
I do agree that it needs to be challenged, just that it won't be easy. (Then again, worthwhile goals are rarely easy.) The threat here is a Pastor Martin Niemöller situation. First, they come for the DSLR users. The rest of us don't protest because we don't use DSLRs. Eventually, we begin to see using a DSLR in public as something that only a select few can do and even then licenses are required or else.
Then, they come for the moderate to high end point and shoot cameras. Again, most people aren't using this so they don't care/don't fight it and eventually accept it as the norm. By the time the rules are expanded to their cameras, they'll find that the law is too entrenched to fight and you need to apply to take any photos lest you be labeled a potential terrorist.
I think most scientists would rather do real science for funding but quickly find out that the funding they obtain that way is greatly limited while the "dance in a bear suit" approach gets you a lot more funding. So they grit their teeth, do the little dance and then get back to real science until their funding runs low again.
Which makes it even more odd that the people who are detained always seem to be using DSLR cameras. If you use a cheap point and shoot camera, you're likely to be left alone but break out the DSLR with a big lens and you'll get security guards demanding that you delete the photos or face Homeland Security. Meanwhile any terrorist who actually wanted to use photos to plan his attack would likely use a cell phone camera or easily-hidden point and shoot camera. Or maybe he'll just have a notebook and pencil and sketch the train station while appearing to be taking notes. Yikes! We'd better ban paper & writing implements in public areas! Quick, before the terrorists use them to destroy us all!!!!!
But public urination is merely a nuisance. A photographer could be taking photos which might fall into the hands of terrorists. TEEEERRRRROOOORRRRRIIIISSSSSTTTTTSSSSSS!
As sad as it may be, the above is how some people really think. Anyone taking photos is potentially gathering information for bad guys. And since they might possibly be gathering information for bad guys, they need to be stopped. Information isn't free, it's dangerous and anyone collecting it (even if otherwise publicly available) is a threat to be locked up.
Also, don't pay attention to the fact that these people were likely using big DSLRs when any terrorist would likely use easier to hide point and shoots or even a camera phone. Bigger camera = more information = bigger threat, apparently.
Just to bring this back to reality a bit. Suppose you were accused of filling just one of those hard drives up with illegally obtained MP3s. You would have spent $80 for a 1.5TB hard drive which could store about 375,000 MP3s. This would (at $80,000 per infringement) result in a fine of $30 billion. For perspective, the worldwide sales of music in 2009 was just $17 billion. So for under a hundred dollars you too could face a fine almost double what the music industry brings in in an entire year!
Slashdot Mirror
There's a science fiction story that Asimov wrote called The Dead Past ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dead_Past ) where a form of "time travel" is invented. Instead of a portal/device that sends people back in time, though, it is merely a window on the past. Only the government has them until someone figures out how to make one with "off the shelf" components. The twist is that the government was suppressing the research and for good reason. In a world where anyone can see the past, civilization would collapse. Even 1 second ago is "the past" so all passwords, combinations, etc are rendered useless. No secrets at all can be kept. In addition, people are now tempted to re-watch the best times of their lives or see loved ones who have passed away over and over and over again.
I heard a version of the grandfather paradox that 1) boils it down to just the paradox and 2) seems to be post-selection proof.
You decide to kill yourself, but decide to do it in a grand fashion. So you get a time portal and a disassembled gun. You spend the next 10 minutes assembling the gun and then turn on the time portal for your location, 5 minutes ago. You see yourself assembling the gun, aim and fire. You Five Minutes Back falls down dead with a half assembled gun... But if the gun wasn't assembled and you are dead, how could you assemble it and fire it five minutes later?
I don't know. There's at least one game I know of where achievements were used to good effect. The aptly named Achievements Unlocked: http://armorgames.com/play/2893/achievement-unlocked
Of course, it's 1) a parody of achievements systems and 2) a quick game that I can finish in under 5 minutes.
Why do I expect to see a press release from the RIAA soon saying "We told all of you that this Internet/digital music thing was bad. See? Not only is it turning our kids into dirty, stinking pirates, but it's turning them into dirty, stinking, drug-addicted pirates! The only solution is to require anyone who wants to produce any sound at all to pay us a lot of money. We'll filter out all the bad sounds (binaural beats, pirated songs and anti-RIAA speeches) and keep in the good stuff (Boy Bands, Brittney Spears and pro-RIAA speeches)."
I'd like to see them try to force me to use my real name on the Internet..... Oh wait.... Curse you, Chinese Government!!!!
The real reason that the RIAA doesn't want pirates from "stealing money from artists" because *THEY* want to steal the money from the artists!
A platypus might look funny, but they make great secret agents. Just ask Dr. Doofenshmirtz.
Of course, sometimes the thief doesn't know the right mother's maiden name and the financial institution still approves the new line of credit.
And then the thief changes the address immediately (before the card is even activated) and the financial institution doesn't red flag it.
And then the thief tries to get a $5,000 cash advance and the financial institution denies it but doesn't red flag the activity.
And, when the fraud is discovered (thanks only to the thieves paying to get rush-delivery of the card and financial institution sending it out before the address change went through), the financial institution refuses to give any information to the victim because the victim "might go and shoot the person and then we'd be liable." (Actual quote)
And when the police contact the financial institution, they might give them the runaround also.
Yes, this happened to me and this is why I won't do business with that financial institution *cough*Capital One*cough* ever again.
When the Internet was new, it was a series of disconnected networks. The provider with the biggest user base (America Online) took the walled garden approach. Based on a snapshot of that moment, you might think that walled gardens would be the future and people would pay for access to each garden. Instead, the free Web* took off and walled gardens fell.
Cell phones are currently in the walled garden phase of life. This doesn't mean that the future is all walled garden. Nor does it mean that walled gardens will fall like on the Web. Still, cell phones being walled garden now doesn't mean that the free Web is going to wither and die.
* Of course, it's not totally free. You need to pay your ISP and the site needs to pay their ISP. Still, going to Google.com requires no special payment.
In college, I took a History of Religion course. The professor started off the year telling us that we *would* be offended in the course, but it wasn't his intention to do so. He was simply going to teach us what history scholars have pieced together about religious figures' real lives. Obviously, this was going to contradict what the religious folks had learned in their churches/temples/etc.
One interesting part was the segment on Jesus. According to my professor, he actually wanted to strengthen the Judaism laws. For example, cheeseburgers aren't kosher (eating milk and meat combined is a no-no). You can't eat one but if you think about eating one you haven't broken any laws. Jesus, however, was of the opinion that merely thinking of a sinful activity should carry the same punishment as carrying out that sinful activity. The majority of rabbis at the time disagreed knowing that there was no way for people to control every thought that popped into their heads.
I find it highly ironic that his "followers," instead of forming some kind of hyper-strict sect of Judaism, ditched nearly all of the Jewish laws over the centuries.
My wife's new laptop is 64 bit Windows 7. While setting it up, I installed ImageMagick and a script that I wrote which uses ImageMagick's COM component to resize and watermark our photos. The script wouldn't run. The problem turned out to be that ImageMagick couldn't register the COM component on 64 bit Windows 7. There's no workaround that I can find so I'm forced to rewrite my script so that it doesn't use the COM component (which is much better for scripting) and instead opens a DOS box and runs a custom-formed batch file (much less elegant).
Of course, this isn't a Windows problem per se. It's likely just that something needs to be changed/updated in ImageMagick. Unfortunately, my coding skills tend more towards the Server-Side Database and HTML Generation and less towards the Image Manipulation Utility so I doubt it is anything I could fix myself. If anyone has any ideas to solve this dilemma, though, I'd be happy to hear them.
Exactly what I was thinking. I've never set up a MythTV box but it's intrigued me for a long time. If I could buy a cheap computer that would fit into my living room setup (without standing out like a sore thumb) and could be easily made to run MythTV, I'd quickly go for it.
I've looked into building MythTV setups and they always wind up costing a lot. Then again, maybe I've been choosing the wrong components. I'm open to build suggestions if anyone has some. (I don't have an HD TV, so SD equipment/outputs is fine for me.)
I know accepting help isn't a sign of weakness but perhaps the false "it's a sign of weakness" could be used as an advantage. Let's say we accept help and people start thinking "We're so weak because we couldn't do this for ourselves", perhaps that would give people and companies the incentive to invest in science, technology and local manufacturing capabilities instead of outsourcing everything to other countries.
Come to think of it, why isn't saying "We can't provide XYZ here at a cost competitive with India/China/etc" a "sign of weakness" if asking for help after a disaster is? The latter is usually something you're usually unprepared for and need help with. The former is something you should be equipped to do every day.
How can (80) he say (114) that being (105) on computers or the (110) Internet fills your head (99) with numbers (101)? After all (32), I'm online quite a lot (99) during the day (97) and night (110) and my head's (32) not filled up (98) with numbers (105). I think (116) I'd notice (101) such a (32) thing (109). It's quite (121) silly when (32) you think of it. What (115) would computers (104) be doing (105) filling our heads (110) with numbers (121) anyway (32)? It's not (109) like they try (101) to insert (116) subliminal (97) messages (108) into comments (32) that we type (97) out on online (115) forums (115) or anything (33).
Hey, that's offensive to chimps!
Now, if you wanted to hire a cymbal clapping monkey toy as your security guard they're remarkably effective!
I agree. There are basically three threats terrorists can't make against planes:
1) Hijacking. This is the "guys spring up with box cutters and take over" scenario. Pre-911 it meant landing in Havana, a few tense hours and then all is well. Post-911, it means the plane *will* be used as a missile killing all on board which means that passengers won't just sit quietly. Terrorists would need something better than box cutters to keep the passengers in line but pre-911 security should be capable of stopping this. ("Sorry, sir but you can't take three fully loaded automatic rifles onboard.") Add in relatively minor security enhancements like reinforced cockpit doors and a successful hijacking will be even more difficult to pull off.
2) Blowing up from within. This could be a "shoe bomber" situation but I think the more likely situation would be checked bags. IIRC, not every checked bag is examined for bombs. Terrorists could buy tickets, check their bags in and then "miss their flight." Scanning people is a visible security "enhancement" but scanning checked bags isn't as visible and so hasn't been beefed up as much. We should be devoting more resources to scanning checked bags.
3) Blowing up from outside. This would involve some kind of missile and isn't much of a threat here. I've heard that El Al actually has anti-missile defenses and it makes sense in that situation.
Of course, if a terrorist wanted to do maximum damage, he wouldn't even board a plane. He would wait for a busy day, enter a major airport and do something on or near the security line. Even if airport security was effective, they wouldn't be likely to catch him *before* he hit the security line.
To be fair, I believe these were merely security guards. Does this mean we're living in a "Security Guard State"? Sheesh.... we can't even form a Police State without mucking it up and outsourcing!
The flaw in that reasoning is that, if you are pulled over by a police officer, you aren't free to park your car, get out and walk away. The officer hasn't arrested you yet and walking about *is* an innate natural right, but yet you can't just walk (or run) away from him without him pursuing and arresting you.
While I agree, a real economic analysis won't be done. If any serious politician proposes this, his opponents will allege that he is:
1) Soft on terrorism. After all, he wants to "weaken" our security. Why does he love the terrorists and hate America?
2) Trying to place a dollar amount on human life. After all, the security saves lives so how can he say that X lives are only worth Y dollars? Is he an inhuman monster?
Yes, both arguments are completely baseless. Someone can love America, think human life can't have a dollar value affixed to it and still want to cut security measures that he sees as ineffective. However, those two above arguments will make for better political sound bites and any politician finding himself in this situation will have to fight for his political life. Therefore, politicians will just go with the flow and, at most, just tweak things as little as possible.
Unfortunately, right now, only users of DSLRs (and larger point and shoot cameras) seem to be targeted. I haven't heard of any Apple iPhone users being threatened for snapping photos. This means that the amount of people equipped to protest this is more limited. Meanwhile, the rest of the populace isn't impacted so they don't see it as a concern.
I do agree that it needs to be challenged, just that it won't be easy. (Then again, worthwhile goals are rarely easy.) The threat here is a Pastor Martin Niemöller situation. First, they come for the DSLR users. The rest of us don't protest because we don't use DSLRs. Eventually, we begin to see using a DSLR in public as something that only a select few can do and even then licenses are required or else.
Then, they come for the moderate to high end point and shoot cameras. Again, most people aren't using this so they don't care/don't fight it and eventually accept it as the norm. By the time the rules are expanded to their cameras, they'll find that the law is too entrenched to fight and you need to apply to take any photos lest you be labeled a potential terrorist.
NASA regularly releases images whose size dwarfs 1400 x 900. For example, the full size on "A Matter Of Perspective" ( http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1695.html ) is 4,888 x 2,000.
I think most scientists would rather do real science for funding but quickly find out that the funding they obtain that way is greatly limited while the "dance in a bear suit" approach gets you a lot more funding. So they grit their teeth, do the little dance and then get back to real science until their funding runs low again.
Which makes it even more odd that the people who are detained always seem to be using DSLR cameras. If you use a cheap point and shoot camera, you're likely to be left alone but break out the DSLR with a big lens and you'll get security guards demanding that you delete the photos or face Homeland Security. Meanwhile any terrorist who actually wanted to use photos to plan his attack would likely use a cell phone camera or easily-hidden point and shoot camera. Or maybe he'll just have a notebook and pencil and sketch the train station while appearing to be taking notes. Yikes! We'd better ban paper & writing implements in public areas! Quick, before the terrorists use them to destroy us all!!!!!
But public urination is merely a nuisance. A photographer could be taking photos which might fall into the hands of terrorists. TEEEERRRRROOOORRRRRIIIISSSSSTTTTTSSSSSS!
As sad as it may be, the above is how some people really think. Anyone taking photos is potentially gathering information for bad guys. And since they might possibly be gathering information for bad guys, they need to be stopped. Information isn't free, it's dangerous and anyone collecting it (even if otherwise publicly available) is a threat to be locked up.
Also, don't pay attention to the fact that these people were likely using big DSLRs when any terrorist would likely use easier to hide point and shoots or even a camera phone. Bigger camera = more information = bigger threat, apparently.
Just to bring this back to reality a bit. Suppose you were accused of filling just one of those hard drives up with illegally obtained MP3s. You would have spent $80 for a 1.5TB hard drive which could store about 375,000 MP3s. This would (at $80,000 per infringement) result in a fine of $30 billion. For perspective, the worldwide sales of music in 2009 was just $17 billion. So for under a hundred dollars you too could face a fine almost double what the music industry brings in in an entire year!