Having carelessly gone through the treasure-trove of writings by Asimov, Lem, and Strugatsky brothers in my youth, I was on a dry-spell for some time until I discovered Heinlein — whose hard anti-Socialist (and anti-Soviet in particular) stance made him a virtual unknown on the rusty side of the iron curtain, when I was growing up. But that supply drained quickly as well...
Stephenson is the only modern author so far, who, in my opinion, can match. But he can only write so much and his diversions into the "alternative history" genre are annoying.
With shortage of good science of fiction, I've found delight in re-reading the books by Mark Twain, Jack London, O'Henry, Dreiser, which I enjoyed in Russian, in their original language, now that I can read it comfortably.
How much do I read? About 2-3 hours a day — while in transit to and from work and before sleep...
But, but, but!.. We are doing such an important service to the public — our work ought to be sponsored by the monies confiscated at gun-point, otherwise there will be no free press.
much harder for ordinary Russians to access websites ISPs are instructed to block connections to by Russian regulator Roskomnadzor
Whereas the "Great Firewall of China" may be considered a tragedy, Roskomnadzor's efforts are the proverbial farce that follows: the agency has blocked itself — apparently, on more than one occasion...
They ought to be on the hook for damages to every person affected — with a meaningful minimum even for those of us, who can not demonstrate actual harm. Just because my details are now accessible to anyone anonymously.
Yes, it will bankrupt them, and that'd be a good thing. Have them go the way of Enron and Ashley Whatshername...
"Homosexual" is bad. No doubt about it. For all the denials and "pride" parades, it is not a good thing to be. Something to cope with, to learn to accept, to enjoy life despite of... No straight person would rather be homosexual, no parent would want it for his children, and no homosexual would sincerely prefer to remain that way, if it really were a choice. We are a better society for making homosexuals' lives tolerable, but there is no point pretending, the trait is somehow "irrelevant".
Google's AI may be smarter than its bigoted creators...
Seriously? Beyond unlimited? Someone at Verizon must've watched Toy Story at too low a resolution to properly grasp the mockery of the Buzz's slogan To Infinity And Beyond...
There is no right to not be annoyed. Indeed, if there was, the First Amendment would've been null and void — because people like yourself would've been able to ban any and all expression that annoys them, infuriates them, or is deemed by them to increase violence.
If I throw a drink at you to put out your cigarette
Oh, you got to be trolling, I get it. Very funny...
Your personal space is as safe as ever — it is not even being alleged, that the devices are harmful to anyone other than the actual users. And even to them, they merely "can" be harmful — not "are".
You wouldn't know nannying if it spanked you and left you without supper.
Do whatever you want at home or outside, but not next to me in a crowded building.
Nor feet away from you in the park either. On the basis of a "can" — a statement as convincing as a Geico commercial...
still not practical to use outside of a few toy examples.
Such as Global Warming[TM]?
can intelligently tackle some of the hardest problems in science, from designing new drugs to more accurately modeling the effects of climate change.
I can already see the next generation of Illiberalas taunting skeptics to "win a game of Go against this AI before questioning Climate Change". Of course, accepting the phenomenon as real will not require any such exertions...
Notably, despite claiming there are "hundreds of studies" you aren't citing any sources either...
phones are the leading cause of fatal crashes.
Even if all policemen and ambulance workers really had this impression, and even if we accepted their impression as objective truth uncolored by things like selection bias, all they can speak about is correlation — not causation.
The very title says, "nobody's counting" — how do we know, it is the smartphones, that are to blame and not any of the other things, which we aren't counting either? Like illegal immigrants driving (whether or not they do in substantial numbers is unknown), or relaxed rules for obtaining a license, or increase in speed limits, or even smart-phone use by the pedestrians (victims) themselves?
But that investment of time and personal data isn't so easy to replace...
Easy-peasy — let's pass a law mandating these data be exportable in a common format.
Of course, you could just not use any of these "assistants" if you don't want to, but then you'll miss out on yet another opportunity for forcing other people to do things the way you'd like them to be done.
Price controls are not only oppressive, they discourage competition by helping the incumbent service-providers. They can lobby for price-increases, but any newcomer would not be able to.
On the other hand, if the greedy KKKapitali$st$ do increase the price too much, the competition will appear.
Yes but #1 that is code from the part of NSA whose job it is to increase security
So sure you are... Besides, they may as well be increasing security by planting things with certain backdoors. The actual readable code may just be arcane and hard to read — but innocent. Innocent, until a specially-crafted USB-stick is plugged-in. Or a specially crafted ICMP-packet arrives — its content containing a proper key to open things up for the NSA (but not to anyone actually hostile)... Or until a binary driver for some cool gadget is loaded into kernel...
it's not like they supplied a binary blob
How do you know, when you download the latest nVidia-driver, for example, that it contains no NSA-provided code?
I'm perfectly willing to believe, the authors of the Kaspersky software and the owners of the company want to have to provide a good anti-virus and do not want to cooperate with Russia's spies. But the decision may not be up to them — Russian government has many more instruments at their disposal to convince businesses and individuals to "cooperate", than do the governments of free(er) countries.
Yes, American government has some such instruments as well — just pick, who you trust more...
Slashdot Mirror
The already recommended "Snow Crash" is quite awesome. But my new favorite is "Anathem"...
His "Seven Eves" was a disappointment, if you still have unread Asimov or Heinlein, don't bother.
Having carelessly gone through the treasure-trove of writings by Asimov, Lem, and Strugatsky brothers in my youth, I was on a dry-spell for some time until I discovered Heinlein — whose hard anti-Socialist (and anti-Soviet in particular) stance made him a virtual unknown on the rusty side of the iron curtain, when I was growing up. But that supply drained quickly as well...
Stephenson is the only modern author so far, who, in my opinion, can match. But he can only write so much and his diversions into the "alternative history" genre are annoying.
With shortage of good science of fiction, I've found delight in re-reading the books by Mark Twain, Jack London, O'Henry, Dreiser, which I enjoyed in Russian, in their original language, now that I can read it comfortably.
How much do I read? About 2-3 hours a day — while in transit to and from work and before sleep...
Damn those BSD hippies for stealing the vote from the most-qualified desktop in history!!
But, but, but!.. We are doing such an important service to the public — our work ought to be sponsored by the monies confiscated at gun-point, otherwise there will be no free press.
Whereas the "Great Firewall of China" may be considered a tragedy, Roskomnadzor's efforts are the proverbial farce that follows: the agency has blocked itself — apparently, on more than one occasion...
Whenever you make a claim like this, citing the statistics is mandatory...
Of course, it does not. And yet, alluding to racism is the reliable way to put your political opponents on defensive.
The other favorite of journalists and other demagogues is the tidbit about how the pet cause du jour "affects women and children the worst" .
So would've been Enron, if we had this ruinous (and, yes, fascist) concept back then.
I most certainly am not.
They ought to be on the hook for damages to every person affected — with a meaningful minimum even for those of us, who can not demonstrate actual harm. Just because my details are now accessible to anyone anonymously.
Yes, it will bankrupt them, and that'd be a good thing. Have them go the way of Enron and Ashley Whatshername...
Or for the "separate but equal" ones. Khm...
"Gay" — as the opposite of "sad" — is good.
"Homosexual" is bad. No doubt about it. For all the denials and "pride" parades, it is not a good thing to be. Something to cope with, to learn to accept, to enjoy life despite of... No straight person would rather be homosexual, no parent would want it for his children, and no homosexual would sincerely prefer to remain that way, if it really were a choice. We are a better society for making homosexuals' lives tolerable, but there is no point pretending, the trait is somehow "irrelevant".
Google's AI may be smarter than its bigoted creators...
Seriously? Beyond unlimited? Someone at Verizon must've watched Toy Story at too low a resolution to properly grasp the mockery of the Buzz's slogan To Infinity And Beyond...
The write-up did.
There is no right to not be annoyed. Indeed, if there was, the First Amendment would've been null and void — because people like yourself would've been able to ban any and all expression that annoys them, infuriates them, or is deemed by them to increase violence.
Oh, you got to be trolling, I get it. Very funny...
Your personal space is as safe as ever — it is not even being alleged, that the devices are harmful to anyone other than the actual users. And even to them, they merely "can" be harmful — not "are".
You wouldn't know nannying if it spanked you and left you without supper.
Nor feet away from you in the park either. On the basis of a "can" — a statement as convincing as a Geico commercial...
Down with the creators seeking to control their creations! How dare they?..
Such as Global Warming[TM]?
I can already see the next generation of Illiberalas taunting skeptics to "win a game of Go against this AI before questioning Climate Change". Of course, accepting the phenomenon as real will not require any such exertions...
Even if all policemen and ambulance workers really had this impression, and even if we accepted their impression as objective truth uncolored by things like selection bias, all they can speak about is correlation — not causation.
The very title says, "nobody's counting" — how do we know, it is the smartphones, that are to blame and not any of the other things, which we aren't counting either? Like illegal immigrants driving (whether or not they do in substantial numbers is unknown), or relaxed rules for obtaining a license, or increase in speed limits, or even smart-phone use by the pedestrians (victims) themselves?
Easy-peasy — let's pass a law mandating these data be exportable in a common format.
Of course, you could just not use any of these "assistants" if you don't want to, but then you'll miss out on yet another opportunity for forcing other people to do things the way you'd like them to be done.
The only way for anyone to get a better deal is to organize as a group.
We've known this truth for thousands of years too...
Or, maybe, free travel to Mars is another human right?
Someone put dwarfs, ring, and a hard to get to place in one sentence and all you can think of is fashion? Really?
Price controls are not only oppressive, they discourage competition by helping the incumbent service-providers. They can lobby for price-increases, but any newcomer would not be able to.
On the other hand, if the greedy KKKapitali$st$ do increase the price too much, the competition will appear.
So sure you are... Besides, they may as well be increasing security by planting things with certain backdoors. The actual readable code may just be arcane and hard to read — but innocent. Innocent, until a specially-crafted USB-stick is plugged-in. Or a specially crafted ICMP-packet arrives — its content containing a proper key to open things up for the NSA (but not to anyone actually hostile)... Or until a binary driver for some cool gadget is loaded into kernel...
How do you know, when you download the latest nVidia-driver, for example, that it contains no NSA-provided code?
How very Libertarian of you... But is that even a dichotomy, though? Linux has quite a bit of NSA-developed code...
I'm perfectly willing to believe, the authors of the Kaspersky software and the owners of the company want to have to provide a good anti-virus and do not want to cooperate with Russia's spies. But the decision may not be up to them — Russian government has many more instruments at their disposal to convince businesses and individuals to "cooperate", than do the governments of free(er) countries.
Yes, American government has some such instruments as well — just pick, who you trust more...