Of course I am not advocating the building of a road if land for it is not available. But the definition of "available" is controversial. A road map exagerates the amount of area taken up by roads because roads are shown wider than they are. A motorway is not half a mile wide! Looking at the UK from the air shows that very little area is taken up by roads.
Neither am I advocating abolishing all planning regulations or public involvement. There is a powerful anti-roads lobby which has hijacked the argument.
Certainly should you get there quicker then congestion must have been reduced. So your definition of congestion must be different from mine.
Forcing people onto public transport by choking off private transport (the closing of roads, not building needed roads) is not what you suggest but what is being done. I am with you: a balance is required.
And technology does not obviate the need for new roads.
Fashionable for a while here in the UK was the notion that new roads created extra congestion. The way to remove traffic jams, it was said, was to have fewer roads. Obviously, if you have no roads you have no traffic. Which some people think is a good thing! And building a road might increase total traffic because particular journeys might become more attractive (recreational journeys) or more commercially viable (trade, deliveries etc).
Economics is the study of satisfying endless wants from limited resources. "Satisfying" does not mean artificially limiting the resources. So the movement to limit road building is anti-economics.
Unlike some others (here in the UK at least) I am in favour of recreational and commercial traffic. Technology can increase the efficiency of road usage. But it cannot compensate completely for the lack of a road or adequate road capacity.
I never said several of the things you say I said. And you cannot make something true just by repeating it over and over.
I am not OK with other abuses of power. But I am less worried about phones and credit cards than about RFIDs. You can turn your phone off. You can choose not to have a phone. You can choose not to pay by credit card. You can choose not to have a credit card.
These RFIDs, at under a penny each, are likely to end up in everything. In other comments in this topic you will have read about the tracking of individual bank notes already being prepared for.
The ability to be anonymous threatens to be lost. There will be RFID readers everywhere. You overestimate the cost - I bet they'll be in every doorway, in every cash register and vending machine, in every public transport vehicle, in every, well, you name it.
I cannot see why you think the meaning of the "simple numbers" will not be determinable. Maybe not all the databases will be public but only the most naive could assume that those with the ability and authority might not abuse their power to issue just the type of SQL query of which I gave an example.
I think you misunderstand human nature: We all know of company sysadmins read the confidential e-mail. I know someone who would tell me your credit history. The technically capable will spy on their neighbours by telnetting from home - no need to rent a room across the street from the hotel anymore. Surveillance becomes cheap. So, _not_, as you claim, "the same potential for abuse" but a much greater potential.
Ironically the short range of the devices coupled with the ubiquity of the readers simply locates you more precisely.
You think, I can see, that I am against RFIDs per se. No, I think that appropriate privacy safeguards need to be designed into the systems up front. You think the safeguards will just happen without agitating for them. I don't. The reason we have rights and freedoms is because they are vociferously defended. They don't just happen.
Court order. FBI. CIA. Homeland security. Or just the nosy neighbour who works for same. This discussion is resolving to a well rehearsed one and each of us knows where the other is coming from. You think if I am innocent I have nothing to worry about. I think all of us have something to hide. Or, if not, deserve our privacy. You think I am paranoid and am spreading FUD. I think you are naive and innocent (other sense).
Everything is starting to become connected. It is a difficult exercise to scan all the cameras, even using image recognition cameras. But even I can write the query:
select * from locationlog loc1, locationlog loc2 where loc1.time = loc2.time and loc1.place = loc2.place and loc1.rfid = loc2.rfid
I tried to use LRP a while back and found it difficult to get working. That could have been the hardware or it could have been me. But FreeSCO http://www.freesco.org (nothing to do with SCO - it's a contraction of Free Cisco, I think) works out of the box, so to speak. It benefitted from LRP and other independent work but it is Linux, it's simple, and it is supported.
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Of course I am not advocating the building of a road if land for it is not available. But the definition of "available" is controversial. A road map exagerates the amount of area taken up by roads because roads are shown wider than they are. A motorway is not half a mile wide! Looking at the UK from the air shows that very little area is taken up by roads.
Neither am I advocating abolishing all planning regulations or public involvement. There is a powerful anti-roads lobby which has hijacked the argument.
Certainly should you get there quicker then congestion must have been reduced. So your definition of congestion must be different from mine.
Forcing people onto public transport by choking off private transport (the closing of roads, not building needed roads) is not what you suggest but what is being done. I am with you: a balance is required.
And technology does not obviate the need for new roads.
Fashionable for a while here in the UK was the notion that new roads created extra congestion. The way to remove traffic jams, it was said, was to have fewer roads. Obviously, if you have no roads you have no traffic. Which some people think is a good thing! And building a road might increase total traffic because particular journeys might become more attractive (recreational journeys) or more commercially viable (trade, deliveries etc).
Economics is the study of satisfying endless wants from limited resources. "Satisfying" does not mean artificially limiting the resources. So the movement to limit road building is anti-economics.
Unlike some others (here in the UK at least) I am in favour of recreational and commercial traffic. Technology can increase the efficiency of road usage. But it cannot compensate completely for the lack of a road or adequate road capacity.
I never said several of the things you say I said. And you cannot make something true just by repeating it over and over.
I am not OK with other abuses of power. But I am less worried about phones and credit cards than about RFIDs. You can turn your phone off. You can choose not to have a phone. You can choose not to pay by credit card. You can choose not to have a credit card.
These RFIDs, at under a penny each, are likely to end up in everything. In other comments in this topic you will have read about the tracking of individual bank notes already being prepared for.
The ability to be anonymous threatens to be lost. There will be RFID readers everywhere. You overestimate the cost - I bet they'll be in every doorway, in every cash register and vending machine, in every public transport vehicle, in every, well, you name it.
I cannot see why you think the meaning of the "simple numbers" will not be determinable. Maybe not all the databases will be public but only the most naive could assume that those with the ability and authority might not abuse their power to issue just the type of SQL query of which I gave an example.
I think you misunderstand human nature: We all know of company sysadmins read the confidential e-mail. I know someone who would tell me your credit history. The technically capable will spy on their neighbours by telnetting from home - no need to rent a room across the street from the hotel anymore. Surveillance becomes cheap. So, _not_, as you claim, "the same potential for abuse" but a much greater potential.
Ironically the short range of the devices coupled with the ubiquity of the readers simply locates you more precisely.
You think, I can see, that I am against RFIDs per se. No, I think that appropriate privacy safeguards need to be designed into the systems up front. You think the safeguards will just happen without agitating for them. I don't. The reason we have rights and freedoms is because they are vociferously defended. They don't just happen.
Court order. FBI. CIA. Homeland security. Or just the nosy neighbour who works for same. This discussion is resolving to a well rehearsed one and each of us knows where the other is coming from. You think if I am innocent I have nothing to worry about. I think all of us have something to hide. Or, if not, deserve our privacy. You think I am paranoid and am spreading FUD. I think you are naive and innocent (other sense).
The underpants of this person and the panties of that person were in the same hotel room for an hour.
I tried to use LRP a while back and found it difficult to get working. That could have been the hardware or it could have been me. But FreeSCO http://www.freesco.org (nothing to do with SCO - it's a contraction of Free Cisco, I think) works out of the box, so to speak. It benefitted from LRP and other independent work but it is Linux, it's simple, and it is supported.
"I don't understand," says Ira Tional, promotional manager of the PI channel. "I thought everyone loved pi, and they could now get it 24-7!"
Wrong! You can now get it 22/7, approximately.
What a wonderfully useful toy! A toy in the best sense. Fun, fun, fun!