With the so-called "Brain Drain" increasing in effect over the past few years (up about 500% in the last couple of years), it would seem that making it easier to get a Work Visa is a good thing for U.S.-based companies. Not every Canadian I know is that patriotic when it comes to turning down a 50% raise (conservative estimate) to work South of the Border, but the hoops that you have to go through are always a big item in the "Con" list.
I don't know how I feel about this, actually. I heard one IT CXO-type say that the yearly output of Canadian IT grads would fit nicely into the empty positions in the U.S., so that kinda puts it into perspective. As good as some places are to live and work in Canada, the lure of big money and opportunity are pulling us (along with the rest of the world) into the gaping maw of the American high tech industries.
Unless things change to favour people staying here, I think the future looks alot like the post-Avro Arrow period. *sigh*
Ok, not everyone can be online. Free-access community projects aside, it must be admitted that the IT industry doesn't want to sell stuff cheap. I just think of all that 80x86 hardware out there and it makes me wonder at a system that says they isn't worth fixing.
But the stuff is getting cheaper, and -- Open Source willing-- there Internet will bring F/free things to the poorest of the poor. The thing is, they need to understand why they want to use it. I don't think that everyone is destined to be an Industry Professional, but there are FOR SURE some cool and deadly programming minds wasting away in the mud of some third-world slum. If we could only get to them in time...
I think the key to refuting this guy's argument lies in asking not WHETHER the reality of Virtual Communities measures up to all the gushy hype pushed by Utopians and the Marketing Department, but how much further it takes us in terms of sharing knowledge and culture.
Any community I have ever considered myself a part of (and I have moved around a lot in my life, so I may be atypical) has generally formed around my taking on some corporate role (student, infanteer, DJ, writer, geek). By "fitting in", I had access to the modes of communication allowed in that sphere... the artificial protocols of culture. The customs. The lingo.
It was never a matter for me of how often or in what way I communicated with the community, it was what I learned in the process. Technical manuals and poetry taught me as much as hanging out with people, the difference being the mediation of experience between me and the people who created the book.
The mind in void isn't necessarily going to get rich or fall in love, but the dis-location of identity from the material world does present some irresistable Truths... the Hands on Impertive and certain "self-management"/anti-bureaucratic koans come to mind.
Nobody who has ever felt the rush of flaming a loser back in BBS days, or watched the Web grow with the Great Sucking Sound of the late 90s will need to be convinced of the democratic value of technology. We're just worried that a lot of anti-democratic decisions are going to be made with all the profits. In our system, $1 = 1 vote, so making a bunch of people rich is good, it's just better that the bell curve spreads out quickly.
The people who really get the concept behind the weak moniker of "Virtual Community" understand its about sharing and making things better.
The techno-lust, elitist tendencies, and big egos of the new Elite represent the worst of the last century. The "us vs. them" stance in this domain is not innovative at all. But at least there will be a larger Who's Who for the new ruling class, and more voices can hardly be worse than less.
"The majority government under Brian Mulroney (arguably the most corrupt/criminal PM in Canadian history)"
So go ahead an argue, then. Let's hear your proof. Back up that claim. I'd like to see it.
Or maybe you read that in the news somewhere, because, brother, I *know* you don't know what the hell you are talking about. I spent seven years in Ottawa, and I've seen a lot of stupid, slimy, and vain people in politics (and believe it or not, I've seen more than a few good people, too... from all parties), but mostly I saw a lot of hatred for a PM that did what he said he was going to do, and then got treated like he had lied to everyone.
Compare that to the present administration, which tries to do as little as possible, while coasting on the initiatives put in place by the Mulroney government.
Here, again, the rebels of cyberspace show that they still can't drag their minds out of the "America is the Universe" mindset. Sure, the rising power of the Knowledge Class around the world means that the Hacker Ethic is slowly penetrating global society, but it is hardly the end of politics just because Americans don't care enough to watch TV campaigns and vote.
There is a comfortable life available for any geek who knows how to join (or become) a profitable corporation, but that doesn't mean that the rest of humanity is similarly complacent about their future. Where there is hope for change, the political system functions pretty well. Unfortunately, the rules of the global economy seem to be beyond the comprehension of the institutions that claim them as their domain.
Forget about the Emperor having no clothes, because he also doesn't have a clue.
The ruling "elite" is merely moving to the corporate sphere, and away from their classical home in the political one. The process is nearing completion.
Face it: most people already know their vote doesn't matter. Ratification of the work of elites once every X years is hardly democracy. The political class is losing its respectability (ever since the 60s) and the bright lights of tomorrow will be hard pressed to find a convincing reason to give up a profitable career in the private sector for the dubious rewards of "public service".
Until there is a merging of the political, social, and economic roles (I'm too chicken to add spiritual to that list...) and people actually feel they are rewarded in several ways for their involvement in the tedious process of policy making, nobody will want to commit their time, effort, and intelligence to the process.
But once everyone who cares to be involved CAN BE, we can finally approach policy rationally. How about this for a revolutionary concept: Everyone affected by a decision should be involved in making it. Corporations. Religious groups. Grandmothers. Teens. Any group or individual could represent their views, and the new task of the "elite" would be in moderating this process, not suppressing it.
Although I am not hopeful that we will see "the death of politics" any time soon, I would hope that democracies around the world will begin to elect "radical" elements of their societies to help begin the process of deconstructing our institutions and creating new ones based on the Hands on Imperitive. Once people feel their opinions matter, and that the experts won't tell them to shut up, they can turn their intellect away from the distractions (sports, fashion, etc.) and reclaim the power that was taken away by the culture of "Administration" and the organs that support it (Media, Universities, Security).
So let's forget about how much we all hate the arrogance and fatuity of the ruling classes (whatever their political stripe may be), and focus on raising the noise level worldwide so that the "signal" of idealist rhetoric in every society is drowned by the voices of people who speak plainly and mean what they say.
Has anybody ever heard of projection system that played film back at anything other than 24fps? I know old 8mm and Super 8 were slower (16fps?), but are there/have there been attempts at pushing it up past 30 or higher? I know there's no reason why you couldn't do this, but the payoff might be pretty weak compared to the extra headache and expense of higher film and maintenance costs.
Interesting info. Thanks for the response. I guess I was on crack with the 25-30% guesstimate. (but I *did* say PRODUCTION costs, not total budget... so maybe only a factor of 2 or 3 off instead of 10?:)
I don't have anything against digital, either. But film is going to be a better choice for resolution reasons for a while. I imagine movies made with "old-fashioned" film technology will be pretty rare in 10 years time. I'm sure some people would say that you can't notice the difference between the resolution between the two formats now (well, Lucas *did* say that they were nearly identical, didn't he?), but I'm sure there's enough people out there who care enough to look. Just like audiophiles who bitch about the quality of CDs vs. the "warmth" of vinyl.
Does anybody out there know enough about big-budget Hollywood to be able to accurately say how much money Lucas is saving by going digital? I'm guessing you could shave 25-30% off the cost of production, and probably speed up post too.
Plus: maybe using digital makes "film"makers more willing to take directorial risks, since you don't have to worry about the cost of cameras and film/tape. One question, though: will there be a digital equivalent to the Super-high speed cameras they use for extreme slow motion shots? I mean, how fast can you make shutter on a digital camera?
My dear old mum is a member of the Vancouver Public Library Board of Directors, and they are dealing with this issue as an on-going stuggle between liberation and control. They really want to use technology to help people learn and find information.
The real world does creep into these Ivory Tower ideals, and there is a valid argument for restricting access to portions of the Web that don't exactly qualify as "enlightening". Of course, if you are a student researching the history of porn then you might have a legitimate claim that such a restriction interferes with your right to producing the best work you can, so where and how do you draw the line?
Do you have people walking around, peeking over shoulders or flipping between monitor-feeds? Do you make people sign waivers to protect the Library from being sued by an angry parent or innocent-bystander who sees something that offends them? Do you install technology that blocks/allows sites based on some proprietary technology?
What kind of information can I pass on to my mother and her colleagues, so that they can make the best, most informed decision possible? What resources are out there that outline successful (and disastrous) solutions to similar problems in the public domain?
I'm sure there are plenty of libraries in the world who would LOVE to be altruisticly giving access to the public, if they could do it the "right" way.
The real question is this: what do people like so much that they would be HAPPY to give you free access to their cycles?
I'd say something that entertained them, or made them feel like they were helping change things for the better (hopefully both).
Having said this, it would appear to me that a few obvious uses of this technology would be in online gaming. You could have distributed updating & rendering of a complex vector+bitmap environment, or maybe running game AI routines that required a lot of brute-force. You might, for example have a distributed Deep Blue that could kick some Russian Grandmaster's ass like he was some moron from shop class.
You could also use distribution of work as an Anarchist's dream: thousands of computers around the world working to stick it to The Man (whoever that might be). I can't think of any applications off the top of my head, but I would LOVE to know that my screen-saver was amplifying the voice of the Fringe.
As a last example, there might be some Health-related tasks that people could help with. Imagine an Open Source bio-tech effort that hurt the Pharma giants they way it hurts the Software giants. This protein-folding thing is only the beginning: modeling molecular interactions to screen candidates for a new cancer drug might make people feel they were "helping". Wouldn't it give YOU a warm, fuzzy glow?
Since when do Geeks feel that a tool used to connect to knowledge and information in the wider world equals mind control? If you don't respect yourself to be able to say "No" to people, including friends, family, and (ohmigawd!) employers, then don't blame them or the technology.
Besides, once we have a universal WAP/Whatever service, and we have this stuff in the hands of street punks, we'll have an even healthier anarchy. And if you can't take the heat... just go offline or lurk. It's called e-mail.
Or are you saying you don't want to check your e-mail, either? I'd *like* to be able to check my e-mail and chat 24/7 with a cute little mobile device. Give me this "hive mind" and I'll never stop working it. I'm hungry for it.
Take a Windows 2000 server, link it up by some radio connection, and place it near the event horizon of a black hole.
The effect of time dialation would decrease the MTBF dramatically, with only a minor change in processing speed (slow down a Windoze server by a factor of 1E9 and I doubt anyone would notice).
[Unfortunately, there would still need to be a sysAdmin sleeping next to the server to handle the occaisional (every 10,000 years) crash, but then again, that's probably the best use of someone with an MCSE anyway.]
This dramatic improvement in reliability could be a "hole" new marketing angle for MS. Maybe we could put the entire.NET infrastructure INSIDE a black hole to make the Internet REALLY safe...
In East Vancouver, there is an old house that is pretty Geek. It is the home for the eastvan.bc.ca server. It has a variety of computer and audio hardware (much hardcore noise is made in this house), and a constantly changing roster of geeks. The flavours vary from Art-Grrl to Mr.SysAdmin to Herr Director of Code Development, and there are a few cats, too.
If you want to create such a place for yourself, you must find a large house in a (marginally) "bad part of town", fill it with wires (and argue about whose ethernet cable that is when the newtork won't reach the G3 laptop in your bedroom) and don't clean it regularly so that the girls end up doing most of the work.
Throw in random pieces of ancient gear (a Korg Poly-6 is currently being repaired and retro-fitted) and lots of ratty furniture... and Voila! You have your tech paradise.
All you need to add then is a continuous stream of geeks and semi-geeks visiting all levels of this house, and a big-assed lock on the front door.
Oh, and you have to figure out who "gets" to live in the basement...
Somebody remind me what we're so proud about in the IT biz? And what's all this nonsense about "freedom to innovate" that gets thrown around when the Big Companies try to defend their property-mad strategies?
It is a sad commentary on the industry that the company (Xerox) that supported many firsts in computer technology was blind to the importance of "computing for the poeple" and left it to others to rip off their innovations (Apple, IBM, Microsoft) more than ten years later.
A free market and copyright protection does NOTHING to advance the field. 100 companies reinventing the wheel does not make any sense, especially if you have a perfectly good one lying around in the public domain. But the "not invented here" mentality leads to the a)destruction of competing visions or b)the stagnation of a promising development if it does not fit into the parent company's market "vision".
Lots of money made, and the only innovations are being made by people writing viruses. I thought this technology was supposed to empower ordinary people, not prop up a technocratic elite and raise Electronic Warfare to a whole new level.
We should just hang ourselves with our mice... does anybody know the load bearing properties of USB cord?
To deny the "reality" of anything that lies outside of easy detection by your senses or technology is as blind as the blanket acceptance of any other dogma. You just don't want to think too hard, do you?
Philosophers (both ancient and modern) have discovered many important principals that point to a deeper, less obvious basis of "reality". The ancient traditions of the East speak of equality between dreams and reality, something that we are beginning to require to flesh out the world view of Western physics and psychology.
I bet you even think "time" is real, but that hallucinations aren't.
Having spent seven years in the Occult capitol of Canada (ie: Victoria, British Columbia), and having dated a couple of Wiccans, I think the connection between the two is obvious.
I would say, however, that someone who is sensitive, feels rejected by/rejects society, and seeks a feeling of power and control will most likely end up in one or both of these cultures. People find well-being and belonging in mysticism. If they don't find that in the mainstream, they will seek out more obscure ways to connect to their world.
The "I'm a tormented Goth with long hair and a trench-coat" & "I'm an ecstatic Wiccan with long hair and flowing robes" sets do tend to get along well. Also, Wiccans are always talking about "The Goddess" and faeries and spells and shit, and hackers are always talking about Root and Daemons and scripts and shit.
I was once told by a respectable physicist that the Big Bang may have been caused by a "fluctuation in the Higgs potential". I took this to mean that "before" the universe/big bang (i know, i know) there was some "change" that allowed the universe to expand out of some other non-space-time medium.
How does the Higgs boson relate to this field-potential? Do Higgs bosons/fields in our universe change their characteristic qualities over time?
Is this related to the recent discovery that there seems to be an EXPANSIONARY force in the universe (meaning that my favourite theory of Big-bang, Big-crunch is no longer viable)?
And yeah, how does Superstrings/branes theories fit these "particles" into their paradigm?
Nation-states are on the decline, and most people won't see it, won't accept it, and will fight frantically to put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Forget it. The world does not follow some simplistic, Newtonian physics... this is a dynamic, chaotic system that feeds back on itself. There are areas of ever-widening anarchy in the global culture, with few common values to glue society together in the aftermath of national dissolution.
The one motivation that most people share is greed. Followed by paranoia and pleasure. You will find people gathering together around these "values". You already do: multinational corporations, UFO/conspiracy groups, and rave culture. I find it interesting that drugs are a common denominator for all three of these... drugs to sell, to control, and to enjoy. Perhaps we can learn to apply digital technology to these same arenas more effectively... if you can, you won't be poor!
So in the end, nationality will mean little, if anything, to the generation who will be born under the flag of a disunited globe.
The West thought it won the Cold War, because they survived while the Soviet Union descended into an anarchy of crime, corruption, and weak democracy. The joke is on them: they will be next.
-----------------------------------------------
Pick your brand carefully. The jihad between Coke and Pepsi is only beginning.
Just a few things to ponder, and all based on my personal opinions, not facts:
Nation-states are less and less able to maintain a meme-dominance in the minds of their citizenry. People are becoming more concerned about their social/economic lives and their environment/world than they are about notions like "patriotism". When your friends and co-workers are bright people from Canada, France, China, and Brazil, nationalistic diatribes sound more and more hollow. The propaganda only works on people who don't know anything about the subject.
Large corporations WILL be the next "government", taking over the Social Contract from your Country and giving you Bonus Air Miles and letting you vote your money...
There will be a rise of the city-state, which will have to take over from the weaking national power structures. All the services we normally associate with Federal government (taxes, security, diplomacy) will degrade at that level (as talented people leave for MUCH more rewarding work in the private sector). This will leave a service vacuum at the real-world level, opening up competition for people's loyalties and "tax" dollars.
Where you live will still matter, but only what city you live in. It's that way right now, but more subtle. Local services will still be provided, but there will also be an entire universe of non-local services available.
If you are altruistic, you will be able to work with people from around the world with the same values, fighting whatever foes you can commonly identify. If you are a greedy, unethical bastard, the same applies. Corporations already have extensive mercenary armies, paying soldiers, lawyers, and hackers to do their bidding.
Small countries cater to the ultra-rich, and this will become even more important as nation-states seek (under populist regimes)to gather up the resources of the "rich" through taxes. These well-intentioned efforts will drive the mobile rich and their easily-transported wealth to protective enclaves: offshore or in orbit, where "you can't touch it."
Whether you speak of Microsoft or the Hell's Angels, the struggle of corporate vs. state interests has always been an issue. In both cases, choosing the "bad guys" is a pretty safe bet. Corporations will act how they please, and barring a global, United-Nations-esque intiative to make coporations accountable worldwide through some sort of mandatory "covenant", they will get away with it, since there are plenty of places to hide. Playing one nation against another is easy and fun. Politicians and bureacrats have no interest in the global "good", so their self-interest makes them easily manipulated.
Unless nation-states and their armies/lawyers/hackers can take corporate assets offline by lasing satellites, freezing bank accounts, and cracking information systems, this Wild West/Robber Baron scenario will continue pretty much as it has for the last century, accelerated by technology.
So where does that leave us? If you are smart, talented, and curious, with no criminal record and a good market value (not to mention an entrepreneurial motivation), then you will be a winner. If you are a complacent, patriotic, union-loving worker, then you will be the loser. Harsh as that may seem, that is the new Darwinism.
And it aint about being rich. It's about being powerful, and power doesn't come from the barrel of a gun, but from the Machievellian wisdom that guides the hand that holds it.
I had a prof who once talked about MULTICS, and mentioned that it had some interesting security features, including (and I'm reaching into the fog of memory here) something to do with grading the possible transmission of information in such subtle ways as someone replying to an email or not replying to an email (ie: regardless of the content of the message, this accounts for one bit of unpredictable information).
It was also asserted by said prof that MULTICS was shelved so that it wouldn't compete with a proprietary OS by the same company.
If you don't mind a 100 year old city that is kind of a mix between Hong Kong and Seattle, with a 'small town' complex and a few bigger tech companies (MDA, Ballard, Motorola, Sierra), then give Vancouver a look.
Geeks are not only welcome here, they are taking over the East Side. The true hardcore live in the neighbourhoods that aren't quite so wholesome, and play in their basements with MIDI gear and Linux. Americans and other foreign nationals are welcomed as long as they have skillz. People from Toronto are tolerated.
If you want a little taste of the East Van lifestyle, check out eastvan.bc.ca where cracked-out sysadmins and naughty programmers post their daily gems in this Slashdot interface ripoff.
I hear Australia is good too, but I'd rather kick it here for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
With the so-called "Brain Drain" increasing in effect over the past few years (up about 500% in the last couple of years), it would seem that making it easier to get a Work Visa is a good thing for U.S.-based companies. Not every Canadian I know is that patriotic when it comes to turning down a 50% raise (conservative estimate) to work South of the Border, but the hoops that you have to go through are always a big item in the "Con" list.
I don't know how I feel about this, actually. I heard one IT CXO-type say that the yearly output of Canadian IT grads would fit nicely into the empty positions in the U.S., so that kinda puts it into perspective. As good as some places are to live and work in Canada, the lure of big money and opportunity are pulling us (along with the rest of the world) into the gaping maw of the American high tech industries.
Unless things change to favour people staying here, I think the future looks alot like the post-Avro Arrow period. *sigh*
Ok, not everyone can be online. Free-access community projects aside, it must be admitted that the IT industry doesn't want to sell stuff cheap. I just think of all that 80x86 hardware out there and it makes me wonder at a system that says they isn't worth fixing.
But the stuff is getting cheaper, and -- Open Source willing-- there Internet will bring F/free things to the poorest of the poor. The thing is, they need to understand why they want to use it. I don't think that everyone is destined to be an Industry Professional, but there are FOR SURE some cool and deadly programming minds wasting away in the mud of some third-world slum. If we could only get to them in time...
I think the key to refuting this guy's argument lies in asking not WHETHER the reality of Virtual Communities measures up to all the gushy hype pushed by Utopians and the Marketing Department, but how much further it takes us in terms of sharing knowledge and culture.
Any community I have ever considered myself a part of (and I have moved around a lot in my life, so I may be atypical) has generally formed around my taking on some corporate role (student, infanteer, DJ, writer, geek). By "fitting in", I had access to the modes of communication allowed in that sphere... the artificial protocols of culture. The customs. The lingo.
It was never a matter for me of how often or in what way I communicated with the community, it was what I learned in the process. Technical manuals and poetry taught me as much as hanging out with people, the difference being the mediation of experience between me and the people who created the book.
The mind in void isn't necessarily going to get rich or fall in love, but the dis-location of identity from the material world does present some irresistable Truths... the Hands on Impertive and certain "self-management"/anti-bureaucratic koans come to mind.
Nobody who has ever felt the rush of flaming a loser back in BBS days, or watched the Web grow with the Great Sucking Sound of the late 90s will need to be convinced of the democratic value of technology. We're just worried that a lot of anti-democratic decisions are going to be made with all the profits. In our system, $1 = 1 vote, so making a bunch of people rich is good, it's just better that the bell curve spreads out quickly.
The people who really get the concept behind the weak moniker of "Virtual Community" understand its about sharing and making things better.
The techno-lust, elitist tendencies, and big egos of the new Elite represent the worst of the last century. The "us vs. them" stance in this domain is not innovative at all. But at least there will be a larger Who's Who for the new ruling class, and more voices can hardly be worse than less.
"The majority government under Brian Mulroney (arguably the most corrupt/criminal PM in Canadian history)"
So go ahead an argue, then. Let's hear your proof. Back up that claim. I'd like to see it.
Or maybe you read that in the news somewhere, because, brother, I *know* you don't know what the hell you are talking about. I spent seven years in Ottawa, and I've seen a lot of stupid, slimy, and vain people in politics (and believe it or not, I've seen more than a few good people, too... from all parties), but mostly I saw a lot of hatred for a PM that did what he said he was going to do, and then got treated like he had lied to everyone.
Compare that to the present administration, which tries to do as little as possible, while coasting on the initiatives put in place by the Mulroney government.
Here, again, the rebels of cyberspace show that they still can't drag their minds out of the "America is the Universe" mindset. Sure, the rising power of the Knowledge Class around the world means that the Hacker Ethic is slowly penetrating global society, but it is hardly the end of politics just because Americans don't care enough to watch TV campaigns and vote.
There is a comfortable life available for any geek who knows how to join (or become) a profitable corporation, but that doesn't mean that the rest of humanity is similarly complacent about their future. Where there is hope for change, the political system functions pretty well. Unfortunately, the rules of the global economy seem to be beyond the comprehension of the institutions that claim them as their domain.
Forget about the Emperor having no clothes, because he also doesn't have a clue.
The ruling "elite" is merely moving to the corporate sphere, and away from their classical home in the political one. The process is nearing completion.
Face it: most people already know their vote doesn't matter. Ratification of the work of elites once every X years is hardly democracy. The political class is losing its respectability (ever since the 60s) and the bright lights of tomorrow will be hard pressed to find a convincing reason to give up a profitable career in the private sector for the dubious rewards of "public service".
Until there is a merging of the political, social, and economic roles (I'm too chicken to add spiritual to that list...) and people actually feel they are rewarded in several ways for their involvement in the tedious process of policy making, nobody will want to commit their time, effort, and intelligence to the process.
But once everyone who cares to be involved CAN BE, we can finally approach policy rationally. How about this for a revolutionary concept: Everyone affected by a decision should be involved in making it. Corporations. Religious groups. Grandmothers. Teens. Any group or individual could represent their views, and the new task of the "elite" would be in moderating this process, not suppressing it.
Although I am not hopeful that we will see "the death of politics" any time soon, I would hope that democracies around the world will begin to elect "radical" elements of their societies to help begin the process of deconstructing our institutions and creating new ones based on the Hands on Imperitive. Once people feel their opinions matter, and that the experts won't tell them to shut up, they can turn their intellect away from the distractions (sports, fashion, etc.) and reclaim the power that was taken away by the culture of "Administration" and the organs that support it (Media, Universities, Security).
So let's forget about how much we all hate the arrogance and fatuity of the ruling classes (whatever their political stripe may be), and focus on raising the noise level worldwide so that the "signal" of idealist rhetoric in every society is drowned by the voices of people who speak plainly and mean what they say.
The rabble must be heard.
Has anybody ever heard of projection system that played film back at anything other than 24fps? I know old 8mm and Super 8 were slower (16fps?), but are there/have there been attempts at pushing it up past 30 or higher? I know there's no reason why you couldn't do this, but the payoff might be pretty weak compared to the extra headache and expense of higher film and maintenance costs.
Interesting info. Thanks for the response. I guess I was on crack with the 25-30% guesstimate. (but I *did* say PRODUCTION costs, not total budget... so maybe only a factor of 2 or 3 off instead of 10? :)
I don't have anything against digital, either. But film is going to be a better choice for resolution reasons for a while. I imagine movies made with "old-fashioned" film technology will be pretty rare in 10 years time. I'm sure some people would say that you can't notice the difference between the resolution between the two formats now (well, Lucas *did* say that they were nearly identical, didn't he?), but I'm sure there's enough people out there who care enough to look. Just like audiophiles who bitch about the quality of CDs vs. the "warmth" of vinyl.
Does anybody out there know enough about big-budget Hollywood to be able to accurately say how much money Lucas is saving by going digital? I'm guessing you could shave 25-30% off the cost of production, and probably speed up post too.
Plus: maybe using digital makes "film"makers more willing to take directorial risks, since you don't have to worry about the cost of cameras and film/tape. One question, though: will there be a digital equivalent to the Super-high speed cameras they use for extreme slow motion shots? I mean, how fast can you make shutter on a digital camera?
My dear old mum is a member of the Vancouver Public Library Board of Directors, and they are dealing with this issue as an on-going stuggle between liberation and control. They really want to use technology to help people learn and find information.
The real world does creep into these Ivory Tower ideals, and there is a valid argument for restricting access to portions of the Web that don't exactly qualify as "enlightening". Of course, if you are a student researching the history of porn then you might have a legitimate claim that such a restriction interferes with your right to producing the best work you can, so where and how do you draw the line?
Do you have people walking around, peeking over shoulders or flipping between monitor-feeds? Do you make people sign waivers to protect the Library from being sued by an angry parent or innocent-bystander who sees something that offends them? Do you install technology that blocks/allows sites based on some proprietary technology?
What kind of information can I pass on to my mother and her colleagues, so that they can make the best, most informed decision possible? What resources are out there that outline successful (and disastrous) solutions to similar problems in the public domain?
I'm sure there are plenty of libraries in the world who would LOVE to be altruisticly giving access to the public, if they could do it the "right" way.
The real question is this: what do people like so much that they would be HAPPY to give you free access to their cycles?
I'd say something that entertained them, or made them feel like they were helping change things for the better (hopefully both).
Having said this, it would appear to me that a few obvious uses of this technology would be in online gaming. You could have distributed updating & rendering of a complex vector+bitmap environment, or maybe running game AI routines that required a lot of brute-force. You might, for example have a distributed Deep Blue that could kick some Russian Grandmaster's ass like he was some moron from shop class.
You could also use distribution of work as an Anarchist's dream: thousands of computers around the world working to stick it to The Man (whoever that might be). I can't think of any applications off the top of my head, but I would LOVE to know that my screen-saver was amplifying the voice of the Fringe.
As a last example, there might be some Health-related tasks that people could help with. Imagine an Open Source bio-tech effort that hurt the Pharma giants they way it hurts the Software giants. This protein-folding thing is only the beginning: modeling molecular interactions to screen candidates for a new cancer drug might make people feel they were "helping". Wouldn't it give YOU a warm, fuzzy glow?
Anything I've missed?
Since when do Geeks feel that a tool used to connect to knowledge and information in the wider world equals mind control? If you don't respect yourself to be able to say "No" to people, including friends, family, and (ohmigawd!) employers, then don't blame them or the technology.
Besides, once we have a universal WAP/Whatever service, and we have this stuff in the hands of street punks, we'll have an even healthier anarchy. And if you can't take the heat... just go offline or lurk. It's called e-mail.
Or are you saying you don't want to check your e-mail, either? I'd *like* to be able to check my e-mail and chat 24/7 with a cute little mobile device. Give me this "hive mind" and I'll never stop working it. I'm hungry for it.
I just thought of a cool experiment.
.NET infrastructure INSIDE a black hole to make the Internet REALLY safe...
Take a Windows 2000 server, link it up by some radio connection, and place it near the event horizon of a black hole.
The effect of time dialation would decrease the MTBF dramatically, with only a minor change in processing speed (slow down a Windoze server by a factor of 1E9 and I doubt anyone would notice).
[Unfortunately, there would still need to be a sysAdmin sleeping next to the server to handle the occaisional (every 10,000 years) crash, but then again, that's probably the best use of someone with an MCSE anyway.]
This dramatic improvement in reliability could be a "hole" new marketing angle for MS. Maybe we could put the entire
In East Vancouver, there is an old house that is pretty Geek. It is the home for the eastvan.bc.ca server. It has a variety of computer and audio hardware (much hardcore noise is made in this house), and a constantly changing roster of geeks. The flavours vary from Art-Grrl to Mr.SysAdmin to Herr Director of Code Development, and there are a few cats, too.
If you want to create such a place for yourself, you must find a large house in a (marginally) "bad part of town", fill it with wires (and argue about whose ethernet cable that is when the newtork won't reach the G3 laptop in your bedroom) and don't clean it regularly so that the girls end up doing most of the work.
Throw in random pieces of ancient gear (a Korg Poly-6 is currently being repaired and retro-fitted) and lots of ratty furniture... and Voila! You have your tech paradise.
All you need to add then is a continuous stream of geeks and semi-geeks visiting all levels of this house, and a big-assed lock on the front door.
Oh, and you have to figure out who "gets" to live in the basement...
Somebody remind me what we're so proud about in the IT biz? And what's all this nonsense about "freedom to innovate" that gets thrown around when the Big Companies try to defend their property-mad strategies?
It is a sad commentary on the industry that the company (Xerox) that supported many firsts in computer technology was blind to the importance of "computing for the poeple" and left it to others to rip off their innovations (Apple, IBM, Microsoft) more than ten years later.
A free market and copyright protection does NOTHING to advance the field. 100 companies reinventing the wheel does not make any sense, especially if you have a perfectly good one lying around in the public domain. But the "not invented here" mentality leads to the a)destruction of competing visions or b)the stagnation of a promising development if it does not fit into the parent company's market "vision".
Lots of money made, and the only innovations are being made by people writing viruses. I thought this technology was supposed to empower ordinary people, not prop up a technocratic elite and raise Electronic Warfare to a whole new level.
We should just hang ourselves with our mice... does anybody know the load bearing properties of USB cord?
To deny the "reality" of anything that lies outside of easy detection by your senses or technology is as blind as the blanket acceptance of any other dogma. You just don't want to think too hard, do you?
Philosophers (both ancient and modern) have discovered many important principals that point to a deeper, less obvious basis of "reality". The ancient traditions of the East speak of equality between dreams and reality, something that we are beginning to require to flesh out the world view of Western physics and psychology.
I bet you even think "time" is real, but that hallucinations aren't.
Having spent seven years in the Occult capitol of Canada (ie: Victoria, British Columbia), and having dated a couple of Wiccans, I think the connection between the two is obvious.
I would say, however, that someone who is sensitive, feels rejected by/rejects society, and seeks a feeling of power and control will most likely end up in one or both of these cultures. People find well-being and belonging in mysticism. If they don't find that in the mainstream, they will seek out more obscure ways to connect to their world.
The "I'm a tormented Goth with long hair and a trench-coat" & "I'm an ecstatic Wiccan with long hair and flowing robes" sets do tend to get along well. Also, Wiccans are always talking about "The Goddess" and faeries and spells and shit, and hackers are always talking about Root and Daemons and scripts and shit.
I won't even go into similarities in hygiene...
I was once told by a respectable physicist that the Big Bang may have been caused by a "fluctuation in the Higgs potential". I took this to mean that "before" the universe/big bang (i know, i know) there was some "change" that allowed the universe to expand out of some other non-space-time medium.
How does the Higgs boson relate to this field-potential? Do Higgs bosons/fields in our universe change their characteristic qualities over time?
Is this related to the recent discovery that there seems to be an EXPANSIONARY force in the universe (meaning that my favourite theory of Big-bang, Big-crunch is no longer viable)?
And yeah, how does Superstrings/branes theories fit these "particles" into their paradigm?
If anybody knows, I'd be surprised. Just asking.
Nation-states are on the decline, and most people won't see it, won't accept it, and will fight frantically to put Humpty Dumpty together again.
Forget it. The world does not follow some simplistic, Newtonian physics... this is a dynamic, chaotic system that feeds back on itself. There are areas of ever-widening anarchy in the global culture, with few common values to glue society together in the aftermath of national dissolution.
The one motivation that most people share is greed. Followed by paranoia and pleasure. You will find people gathering together around these "values". You already do: multinational corporations, UFO/conspiracy groups, and rave culture. I find it interesting that drugs are a common denominator for all three of these... drugs to sell, to control, and to enjoy. Perhaps we can learn to apply digital technology to these same arenas more effectively... if you can, you won't be poor!
So in the end, nationality will mean little, if anything, to the generation who will be born under the flag of a disunited globe.
The West thought it won the Cold War, because they survived while the Soviet Union descended into an anarchy of crime, corruption, and weak democracy. The joke is on them: they will be next.
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Pick your brand carefully. The jihad between Coke and Pepsi is only beginning.
Just a few things to ponder, and all based on my personal opinions, not facts:
Nation-states are less and less able to maintain a meme-dominance in the minds of their citizenry. People are becoming more concerned about their social/economic lives and their environment/world than they are about notions like "patriotism". When your friends and co-workers are bright people from Canada, France, China, and Brazil, nationalistic diatribes sound more and more hollow. The propaganda only works on people who don't know anything about the subject.
Large corporations WILL be the next "government", taking over the Social Contract from your Country and giving you Bonus Air Miles and letting you vote your money...
There will be a rise of the city-state, which will have to take over from the weaking national power structures. All the services we normally associate with Federal government (taxes, security, diplomacy) will degrade at that level (as talented people leave for MUCH more rewarding work in the private sector). This will leave a service vacuum at the real-world level, opening up competition for people's loyalties and "tax" dollars.
Where you live will still matter, but only what city you live in. It's that way right now, but more subtle. Local services will still be provided, but there will also be an entire universe of non-local services available.
If you are altruistic, you will be able to work with people from around the world with the same values, fighting whatever foes you can commonly identify. If you are a greedy, unethical bastard, the same applies. Corporations already have extensive mercenary armies, paying soldiers, lawyers, and hackers to do their bidding.
Small countries cater to the ultra-rich, and this will become even more important as nation-states seek (under populist regimes)to gather up the resources of the "rich" through taxes. These well-intentioned efforts will drive the mobile rich and their easily-transported wealth to protective enclaves: offshore or in orbit, where "you can't touch it."
Whether you speak of Microsoft or the Hell's Angels, the struggle of corporate vs. state interests has always been an issue. In both cases, choosing the "bad guys" is a pretty safe bet. Corporations will act how they please, and barring a global, United-Nations-esque intiative to make coporations accountable worldwide through some sort of mandatory "covenant", they will get away with it, since there are plenty of places to hide. Playing one nation against another is easy and fun. Politicians and bureacrats have no interest in the global "good", so their self-interest makes them easily manipulated.
Unless nation-states and their armies/lawyers/hackers can take corporate assets offline by lasing satellites, freezing bank accounts, and cracking information systems, this Wild West/Robber Baron scenario will continue pretty much as it has for the last century, accelerated by technology.
So where does that leave us? If you are smart, talented, and curious, with no criminal record and a good market value (not to mention an entrepreneurial motivation), then you will be a winner. If you are a complacent, patriotic, union-loving worker, then you will be the loser. Harsh as that may seem, that is the new Darwinism.
And it aint about being rich. It's about being powerful, and power doesn't come from the barrel of a gun, but from the Machievellian wisdom that guides the hand that holds it.
-thex23
I had a prof who once talked about MULTICS, and mentioned that it had some interesting security features, including (and I'm reaching into the fog of memory here) something to do with grading the possible transmission of information in such subtle ways as someone replying to an email or not replying to an email (ie: regardless of the content of the message, this accounts for one bit of unpredictable information).
It was also asserted by said prof that MULTICS was shelved so that it wouldn't compete with a proprietary OS by the same company.
Can anybody shed light on these statements?
If you don't mind a 100 year old city that is kind of a mix between Hong Kong and Seattle, with a 'small town' complex and a few bigger tech companies (MDA, Ballard, Motorola, Sierra), then give Vancouver a look.
Geeks are not only welcome here, they are taking over the East Side. The true hardcore live in the neighbourhoods that aren't quite so wholesome, and play in their basements with MIDI gear and Linux. Americans and other foreign nationals are welcomed as long as they have skillz. People from Toronto are tolerated.
If you want a little taste of the East Van lifestyle, check out eastvan.bc.ca where cracked-out sysadmins and naughty programmers post their daily gems in this Slashdot interface ripoff.
I hear Australia is good too, but I'd rather kick it here for a while.
Happy Canada Day!