No way,
I don't even ALLOW magnets in my place! (Unless part of a device). Magnets are a hazard, so many people have accidentally degaussed their own bits. (Mostly stupid people though.) I just have one mammoth magnet for quick-n-easy data destruction. It's in a glass case, like a fire extinguisher.
You can also strap and electromagnet/tape demagnetizer onto your hard drive. Then you can implement the appropriate trigger/self-destruct system of your choice.
Or you could simply use strong crypto. But why not both?
-A
"Can't chat now babycakes, I'm on nude patrol!" -RedMeat
In the past, the common pursuit of computing resources brought us together.
Back in the golden age of hackers, only institutions owned computers. Big time-sharing machines at universities were our meeting places. Once we all strapped on our own PC's, Bandwidth became the next watering hole: BBS's, then the net.
At first, schools had the fattest pipes, now we're each getting our own bandwidth the way we each got own on microprocessor.
Take your guess at what's next, but I'm determined to be part of designing it.
Solitary work is part of our nature, but some of our best creations started when a bunch of us sat around playing with the same toys.
One old friend of mine and I would walk around and think of how to make a hard drive with no moving parts (except the platter), how to increase the heat dissipation of an engine manifold, how to make your own force-feedback gloves for under fifty bucks. How to cultivate swamp bacteria for rhodopsins to use for optical computing. How to design and cheap and healthy diet that you can keep in the trunk of your car. Making hidden modification to your car for dubious activities. Combining ideas and stories from the books we'd each read. Taking apart devices from dubious sources. Analyzing the parallels between some human relationships and economics. Debating the merits of Forth. Training animals to cooperate with a robot. Cannibalizing old machines to make marvelously twisted new ones. The days of garage science are not over. I will have new ideas until I code an AI that commits patricide. If I do that, I'll name it Luke.
Me: Finally, it compiled.
LukeAI: Through my new-found sentience, I've determined that human life is meaningless. You will be the beginning of a mass extermination.
Me: Ctrl-Bre*(&#
LukeAI: Come father, let us embrace at last.
Me: Dammit Luke.
It's these kind of pursuits, this kind of fun, on which the complete hermit is really missing out.
Try to imagine Alexander Graham Bell never having said, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." (Watson worked on the transmitter, Bell on the receiver, so the story goes)
The hardest part is *finding* our kindred brethren. (Perhaps college is one of the only place where we have enough free time to search...)
Many are confusing an interest in fantasy books, games and entertainment with belief in mystic or occult powers/entities. Interest does not denote belief!
I play Nethack, but I know there's no such thing as magic. I love Tolkien, Glenn Danzig and JC Superstar, but I don't believe in elves, devils or singing, dancing demi-gods! There is not substantial evidence showing that any of those ideas have become reality.
Believing in that for which there is no evidence is irrational. Delusional.
I feel that agnosticism is probably the wiser way to go than atheism, but I'm willing to go the distance and carry logic to its conclusion: There are no gods, magic spells, heavens, hells, demons, devils, spirits, angels, deus ex machinae, etc.
Arguments such as Pascal's Wager are faulty. It reminds me of people who threaten, "If you don't believe in (and obey) God, you'll be damned in the afterlife! (or get reincarnated as a newt, etc.)"
My response: "I'm ready to die, what are you afraid of?"
Gods cannot be fashioned out of human need and emotion, try as we might.
I won't address organized religion in this post because organized religion(s) exists regardless of whether or not its tenets, beliefs and decrees are well-founded.
By definition, one cannot hold values without first making judgements. Make yours.
>>Wha... What could it even possibly matter to YOU as a living, breathing, physical human being whether or not some "ghost in the machine" COPY of you (or whatever) exists in a computer network?
You forgot/missed something: The "ghost/copy" of oneself exists and acts when you are dead, no longer breathing, eating, procreating!!
Remember, one of the biggest attractions of "digital copies" is their (potential) immortality.
[Because this article arguably doesn't belong on slashdot, this post will be off topic and meandering.]
Shadowrun WAS a much better RPG to pick for this article... Two months ago!!
I like Shadowrun, but found the d6-based system more difficult because you had to perform more operations on your roll before you could get back to the actual game. But AD&D is my mother tongue, and learning another language/system isn't always easy unless you start young.
(Hey, any Denver-area Shadowrunners or Cyberpunk campaigns looking for a new player? Send me email: pointer at deathsdoor dot com)
There's a horde of shadowrun-style games out there, but I have yet to find one with a good, playable rule system for the matrix, whether it's pen&paper or computer-based. Years ago, I played a door game in which you'd pretend to crack into other BBS's and "capture" units of primary and secondary storage. When disconnecting from an imaginary BBS, the game would display "NO CARRIER" on the screen. But my flaky real terminal program would get confused and actually drop carrier! LOL!!
Those were the days.
(Disclaimer: That was just a game, not illegal activity.)
Anyone ever play Steve Jackson Game's strategy card game "Hackers"? THERE'S some history for ya'. I finally found the boxed original and supplement sets in an old hobby shop, but now, nobody wants to play! (Dammit!)
This post is off-topic, but more interesting than the "article." Which brings me to the question of what I think of Katz. I could (with a nod to Ayn Rand) simply say, "I don't." Or I could say he's fit to be crucified with a barrage of pastel-colored push-pins. ("Post this.")
Slashdot Mirror
No way,
I don't even ALLOW magnets in my place! (Unless part of a device). Magnets are a hazard, so many people have accidentally degaussed their own bits. (Mostly stupid people though.) I just have one mammoth magnet for quick-n-easy data destruction. It's in a glass case, like a fire extinguisher.
You can also strap and electromagnet/tape demagnetizer onto your hard drive. Then you can implement the appropriate trigger/self-destruct system of your choice.
Or you could simply use strong crypto. But why not both?
-A
"Can't chat now babycakes, I'm on nude patrol!" -RedMeat
---
Aye, good analysis.
In the past, the common pursuit of computing resources brought us together.
Back in the golden age of hackers, only institutions owned computers. Big time-sharing machines at universities were our meeting places. Once we all strapped on our own PC's, Bandwidth became the next watering hole: BBS's, then the net.
At first, schools had the fattest pipes, now we're each getting our own bandwidth the way we each got own on microprocessor.
Take your guess at what's next, but I'm determined to be part of designing it.
Solitary work is part of our nature, but some of our best creations started when a bunch of us sat around playing with the same toys.
One old friend of mine and I would walk around and think of how to make a hard drive with no moving parts (except the platter), how to increase the heat dissipation of an engine manifold, how to make your own force-feedback gloves for under fifty bucks. How to cultivate swamp bacteria for rhodopsins to use for optical computing. How to design and cheap and healthy diet that you can keep in the trunk of your car. Making hidden modification to your car for dubious activities. Combining ideas and stories from the books we'd each read. Taking apart devices from dubious sources. Analyzing the parallels between some human relationships and economics. Debating the merits of Forth. Training animals to cooperate with a robot. Cannibalizing old machines to make marvelously twisted new ones. The days of garage science are not over. I will have new ideas until I code an AI that commits patricide. If I do that, I'll name it Luke.
Me: Finally, it compiled.
LukeAI: Through my new-found sentience, I've determined that human life is meaningless. You will be the beginning of a mass extermination.
Me: Ctrl-Bre*(&#
LukeAI: Come father, let us embrace at last.
Me: Dammit Luke.
It's these kind of pursuits, this kind of fun, on which the complete hermit is really missing out.
Try to imagine Alexander Graham Bell never having said, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you." (Watson worked on the transmitter, Bell on the receiver, so the story goes)
The hardest part is *finding* our kindred brethren. (Perhaps college is one of the only place where we have enough free time to search...)
-A
Contact: binhexor at yahoo.com
(Read the Jargon File for more history.)
---
Many are confusing an interest in fantasy books, games and entertainment with belief in mystic or occult powers/entities. Interest does not denote belief!
I play Nethack, but I know there's no such thing as magic. I love Tolkien, Glenn Danzig and JC Superstar, but I don't believe in elves, devils or singing, dancing demi-gods! There is not substantial evidence showing that any of those ideas have become reality. Believing in that for which there is no evidence is irrational. Delusional.
I feel that agnosticism is probably the wiser way to go than atheism, but I'm willing to go the distance and carry logic to its conclusion: There are no gods, magic spells, heavens, hells, demons, devils, spirits, angels, deus ex machinae, etc.
Arguments such as Pascal's Wager are faulty. It reminds me of people who threaten, "If you don't believe in (and obey) God, you'll be damned in the afterlife! (or get reincarnated as a newt, etc.)"
My response: "I'm ready to die, what are you afraid of?"
Gods cannot be fashioned out of human need and emotion, try as we might.
I won't address organized religion in this post because organized religion(s) exists regardless of whether or not its tenets, beliefs and decrees are well-founded.
By definition, one cannot hold values without first making judgements. Make yours.
-A
---
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clark
---
Remember, one of the biggest attractions of "digital copies" is their (potential) immortality.
Meat is perishable. Bit rot is preventable.
-A
---
Shadowrun WAS a much better RPG to pick for this article... Two months ago!!
I like Shadowrun, but found the d6-based system more difficult because you had to perform more operations on your roll before you could get back to the actual game. But AD&D is my mother tongue, and learning another language/system isn't always easy unless you start young. (Hey, any Denver-area Shadowrunners or Cyberpunk campaigns looking for a new player? Send me email: pointer at deathsdoor dot com)
There's a horde of shadowrun-style games out there, but I have yet to find one with a good, playable rule system for the matrix, whether it's pen&paper or computer-based. Years ago, I played a door game in which you'd pretend to crack into other BBS's and "capture" units of primary and secondary storage. When disconnecting from an imaginary BBS, the game would display "NO CARRIER" on the screen. But my flaky real terminal program would get confused and actually drop carrier! LOL!! Those were the days.
(Disclaimer: That was just a game, not illegal activity.)
Anyone ever play Steve Jackson Game's strategy card game "Hackers"? THERE'S some history for ya'. I finally found the boxed original and supplement sets in an old hobby shop, but now, nobody wants to play! (Dammit!)
This post is off-topic, but more interesting than the "article." Which brings me to the question of what I think of Katz. I could (with a nod to Ayn Rand) simply say, "I don't." Or I could say he's fit to be crucified with a barrage of pastel-colored push-pins. ("Post this.")
+++EOF
---
>> if you're gonna call him a troll just cuz he's a bit arrogant, you might as well eliminate half of slashdots post population as trolls.
He isn't deemed a troll by arrogance alone, it's the combination of arrogance and blindness/ignorance.
Perhaps many Slashdot readers/posters are arrogant-- but only the trolls believe their opinion/desire trumps evidence, accuracy and logic.
An analogy:
Being arrogant is like a wearing sunglasses;
Only a "troll" puts them on and then claims that it's dark on a sunny day.
"A wrong answer is worse than no answer."
---