We could have been doing THAT for the past 30 years or so using tele-operated robots. By now we'd have a substantial robotic base, likely mining lunar water to make rocket fuel and lunar soil to make fuel tanks. But all that would've done is cut the cost of space missions about in half, while greatly advancing the state of robotics.
I think it really needs a roll-bar or cage to protect the lunar worker. Our terrestrial intuitions about what looks stable may not be accurate for the mooon.
Oh please. Competition between AMD and Intel is good and necessary, but competition between OLPC and Intel's Classmate is bad and Intel is evil for trying to promote its product?
In the example used, of publishing a splicing of action scenes from four movies, the editor's contribution is essentially an edit list.
Once we get most music and film online, one could reasonably publish an edit list, with links to the original content. Anyone else could use an auto-compilation tool that does that same splicing, direct from any legal copy of the original content - either copies you have, or copies of just the chunks used, pulled off the internet and paid for according to some established scheme.
No need for a secure micro-payment scheme - just a secure micro-accounting scheme, meaning you don't try to pay pennies from billions of uses to millions of creators - you just track charges for each user and count up amounts owed creators. Audit it to keep it correct and honest, but mostly just rely on the fact that it appears to be working well, and don't fret much if it is missing a penny here or there.
More permanent compilations could be recorded together as if it were original video (e.g. where the edits are too elaborate to handle in realtime), with their charges calculated once, and all payments into the account for the edited content would be split between the editor and the creators.
Absolutely - and here, take this copy of the next, as-yet un-released Harry Potter movie. I'm not making any money by giving it to you, so surely the producers have no reason to object?
It's possible that they've thought of the issue of focusing the image.
One possibility would be that the display would use tiny lasers, to project very narrow beams of light at just a small group of receptors on the retina.
Different eye shapes/sizes would seem to make that difficult, but there's probably some way to do it, even if it means having to have "prescription" displays that match your eyes.
A "direct unanimocracy" couldn't work - but a "Unanimocratic Republic" COULD work. The key is to create hierarchies that end (for a particular level of government) at a council of about 5 representatives, who would be required to achieve unanimity on all matters to create laws binding on that level of government, and to elect those represenatitives through unanimous processes all the way down the hierarchy.
At the level of individuals, you would assign your vote to a first level representative. There would still need to be geographically based governments - city, state, nation, world - and most people would not want their city to control their vote for the higher levels. So each individual could allocate their vote to a representative for each level of government.
So a group of people would get together and choose a representative to wield their votes. Or you could choose a representative who others have unanimously selected, and give that person your vote. At any time you could switch your vote to a different representative, which would affect all future votes by those representative. Or if you've got the time and inclination, you could simply represent yourself - declaring yourself a first level representative with 1 vote.
The first level representatives would get together and choose second level representatives - again, with groups of first levels unanimously choosing a second level representative - except that each second level representative would be required to represent some minimum number of votes. As with individuals, any level representative could shift their vote to a different higher level representative - and if that means a 3rd level representative falls below the required number of votes, he loses the right to vote until he can convince some 1st level representatives to shift their votes to him, or until the 1st level representatives get fed up and all switch their votes to someone else.
Second level represenatives would again have one vote, and could freely group with other second level reps to choose a 3rd level rep - or if they can't agree with anyone else, they could declare themself a 3rd level representative with one vote. Third level representatives would again need to group together to give a 4th level representative some minimum number of votes.
This alternating clustering of votes allows lower level representatives to be responsible to their constituents, without making a full-time job of it - since all positions will be un-paid unless their constituents decide (unanimously) to pay them something.
And so on, until eventually culminating at a council of 5 for a geographic area, who could pass laws for that area.
>>Pare said. "Again, this is a serious offense... I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."
>Why is it that airports have special significance?"
Maybe because of all those signs posted around the airport warning you not to even joke about having a bomb or weapon?
She may have been totally innocent - though the playdoh makes me suspicious that she was trying to tempt someone into thinking it was a bomb. Either way, it was pretty stupid of her to combine (a) electronics (b) hidden things inside her clothing (c) playdoh (d) airport security. Talk about an explosive mix...
I took a magnifying glass and looked at the display, and after a careful and thorough examination I came to this horrifying conclusion:
THERE WERE ONLY FOUR COLORS ON THE DISPLAY - AND THAT'S BEING GENEROUS AND COUNTING BLACK AS A COLOR!
There were only Red, Green and Blue colored pixels, and a more or less "black" color between the pixels. *ALL* the other apparent "colors" were generated by cleverly varying the intensity of the color pixels and dithering groups of at least four pixels!
Shame on you Apple!
*** Next up on my investigative quest: Just how many flavors ARE there, really? Watch for my scathing condemnation of FDA tolerance of food manufacturer claims for "flavors" like "Strawberry", "Apple" and even "Hey these don't taste like Apples!" Inquiring tongues want to know!
While the money wouldn't generally taken out - though I'm sure some would attempt that - it WOULD be spent to gain real-world benefits - discounts from other tax cheats.
Yes, in-game inflation is a risk - but so long as you spent your "gold" fast enough, inflation losses would be small compared to the cost of taxes. And smart tax cheaters would hedge against inflation by buying in-game commodities that are likely to hold value better than "gold".
Yeah, eventually someone will be left holding worthless "fools gold" when the game shuts down - but chances are that'll be foreseen by smart traders about a year ahead of time, allowing them to bail out in time. Anyone using this scam to cheat on taxes will likely also believe they are smart enough to not be caught by that terminal inflation.
If the government decided and declared, once and for all, that it would not tax in-game virtual transactions, people could start using MMORPGs to hide real-world profits.
One might sell a million dollar house for $900K and $100K of in-game gold, where that $100K is the amount one would have otherwise taken as real-world profit. So no real-world taxes (or maybe even a loss), and one has in-game assets that can be used to pay other tax-cheats. Few of these tax cheats would take their real-world money out of the game - since they'd then have to pay taxes - but so long as there's a stable rate of exchange, and they can exchange in-game money for heavy real-world discounts on real goods, they don't care.
And of course, since the game isn't a bank, it doesn't have the reporting requirements that banks have, meaning that it'd quickly become the favored medium for black market transactions - financing drugs and terrorism and worse.
Which explains why we will keep getting these scare stories - the government wants to keep the whole mess from ever developing, so they don't have to actually engage in the messy practice of deciding how to tax virtual profits. But eventually - probably due to movement of drug money via MMORPGs - they will have to figure out a policy.
Probably it'll be fairly reasonable - most ordinary players won't ever be bothered. MMORPG companies will be required to report any people trading "gold" worth over some black-market amount, and some subset of those people will eventually find themselves being audited, and the dollar value of any real-world benefits gained in exchange for game gold will be taxed and fines assessed.
Looks to me like it's two stars that slammed into each other, creating a double splash, which we just happen to be seeing from the side - so an hourglass shape if viewed in 3D.
Seems like there's a market for a modular rapid prototyping kit, that gets past a few of the Lego limitations.
You'd want it to be stronger - with modular connections that lock together rather than relying on friction joints at any point in the structure.
You'd want more flexibility of orientation - e.g. parts that can be connected at any planar-rotated angle with respect to each other, and then locked at that angle.
You might prefer to give up the ability to completely re-use parts, in exchange for being able to easily cut parts of the precise length needed, from longer stock - no need to fit your design to the limited lengths available, also reducing the number of fewer component types you need to keep on hand, and eliminating the problem of needing "just one more part".
The next big hit MMO game will be designed from scratch to be a competitive sport, where skill will lie in knowing your opponent, guessing what their equipment load-out will be, using your load-out in the most effective manner, etc. While everyone can play, most will spend 60% of their time watching bouts between others, to learn tricks, learn future opponent's moves. There'll be pay-sites dedicated to dishing up details of each player's favorite tactics, weaknesses, etc - so people will pay to see opponents info, and their own info so they can work on avoiding weaknesses. The Pro's will have support teams to do their research for them and help design their load-out for a game.
Slashdot Mirror
Or they could just say something like 'Two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down. What is it?'.
Anything that sucks too much time for too little value will fail.
Well DUH!
We could have been doing THAT for the past 30 years or so using tele-operated robots. By now we'd have a substantial robotic base, likely mining lunar water to make rocket fuel and lunar soil to make fuel tanks. But all that would've done is cut the cost of space missions about in half, while greatly advancing the state of robotics.
Who'd want any of that?!
I think it really needs a roll-bar or cage to protect the lunar worker. Our terrestrial intuitions about what looks stable may not be accurate for the mooon.
Let's test the honesty of the 95 years "for the artists" claim:
Ammend the proposal so that - no matter what - full possession of copyright returns to the artist at 50 years (the current term, I believe).
Oh please. Competition between AMD and Intel is good and necessary, but competition between OLPC and Intel's Classmate is bad and Intel is evil for trying to promote its product?
In the example used, of publishing a splicing of action scenes from four movies, the editor's contribution is essentially an edit list.
Once we get most music and film online, one could reasonably publish an edit list, with links to the original content. Anyone else could use an auto-compilation tool that does that same splicing, direct from any legal copy of the original content - either copies you have, or copies of just the chunks used, pulled off the internet and paid for according to some established scheme.
No need for a secure micro-payment scheme - just a secure micro-accounting scheme, meaning you don't try to pay pennies from billions of uses to millions of creators - you just track charges for each user and count up amounts owed creators. Audit it to keep it correct and honest, but mostly just rely on the fact that it appears to be working well, and don't fret much if it is missing a penny here or there.
More permanent compilations could be recorded together as if it were original video (e.g. where the edits are too elaborate to handle in realtime), with their charges calculated once, and all payments into the account for the edited content would be split between the editor and the creators.
Absolutely - and here, take this copy of the next, as-yet un-released Harry Potter movie. I'm not making any money by giving it to you, so surely the producers have no reason to object?
It's possible that they've thought of the issue of focusing the image.
One possibility would be that the display would use tiny lasers, to project very narrow beams of light at just a small group of receptors on the retina.
Different eye shapes/sizes would seem to make that difficult, but there's probably some way to do it, even if it means having to have "prescription" displays that match your eyes.
From the article: "There hasn't been a new crime invented in millennia."
Cloning of stem cells for research?
A "direct unanimocracy" couldn't work - but a "Unanimocratic Republic" COULD work. The key is to create hierarchies that end (for a particular level of government) at a council of about 5 representatives, who would be required to achieve unanimity on all matters to create laws binding on that level of government, and to elect those represenatitives through unanimous processes all the way down the hierarchy.
At the level of individuals, you would assign your vote to a first level representative. There would still need to be geographically based governments - city, state, nation, world - and most people would not want their city to control their vote for the higher levels. So each individual could allocate their vote to a representative for each level of government.
So a group of people would get together and choose a representative to wield their votes. Or you could choose a representative who others have unanimously selected, and give that person your vote. At any time you could switch your vote to a different representative, which would affect all future votes by those representative. Or if you've got the time and inclination, you could simply represent yourself - declaring yourself a first level representative with 1 vote.
The first level representatives would get together and choose second level representatives - again, with groups of first levels unanimously choosing a second level representative - except that each second level representative would be required to represent some minimum number of votes. As with individuals, any level representative could shift their vote to a different higher level representative - and if that means a 3rd level representative falls below the required number of votes, he loses the right to vote until he can convince some 1st level representatives to shift their votes to him, or until the 1st level representatives get fed up and all switch their votes to someone else.
Second level represenatives would again have one vote, and could freely group with other second level reps to choose a 3rd level rep - or if they can't agree with anyone else, they could declare themself a 3rd level representative with one vote. Third level representatives would again need to group together to give a 4th level representative some minimum number of votes.
This alternating clustering of votes allows lower level representatives to be responsible to their constituents, without making a full-time job of it - since all positions will be un-paid unless their constituents decide (unanimously) to pay them something.
And so on, until eventually culminating at a council of 5 for a geographic area, who could pass laws for that area.
>>Pare said. "Again, this is a serious offense ... I'm shocked and appalled that somebody would wear this type of device to an airport."
>Why is it that airports have special significance?"
Maybe because of all those signs posted around the airport warning you not to even joke about having a bomb or weapon?
She may have been totally innocent - though the playdoh makes me suspicious that she was trying to tempt someone into thinking it was a bomb. Either way, it was pretty stupid of her to combine (a) electronics (b) hidden things inside her clothing (c) playdoh (d) airport security. Talk about an explosive mix...
That's so obvious I've been wondering for years why anyone thought there was a paradox.
I took a magnifying glass and looked at the display, and after a careful and thorough examination I came to this horrifying conclusion:
THERE WERE ONLY FOUR COLORS ON THE DISPLAY - AND THAT'S BEING GENEROUS AND COUNTING BLACK AS A COLOR!
There were only Red, Green and Blue colored pixels, and a more or less "black" color between the pixels. *ALL* the other apparent "colors" were generated by cleverly varying the intensity of the color pixels and dithering groups of at least four pixels!
Shame on you Apple!
*** Next up on my investigative quest: Just how many flavors ARE there, really? Watch for my scathing condemnation of FDA tolerance of food manufacturer claims for "flavors" like "Strawberry", "Apple" and even "Hey these don't taste like Apples!" Inquiring tongues want to know!
Strong suggestion: Go find and read
"How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World", by the late great Harry Browne.
Or at least check out the excerpts on Amazon.
He answered the question which you really need to ask - "How can I be free to live as I see fit, when so many others seem to want to control me?"
You seem to have missed what I was saying.
While the money wouldn't generally taken out - though I'm sure some would attempt that - it WOULD be spent to gain real-world benefits - discounts from other tax cheats.
Yes, in-game inflation is a risk - but so long as you spent your "gold" fast enough, inflation losses would be small compared to the cost of taxes. And smart tax cheaters would hedge against inflation by buying in-game commodities that are likely to hold value better than "gold".
Yeah, eventually someone will be left holding worthless "fools gold" when the game shuts down - but chances are that'll be foreseen by smart traders about a year ahead of time, allowing them to bail out in time. Anyone using this scam to cheat on taxes will likely also believe they are smart enough to not be caught by that terminal inflation.
If the government decided and declared, once and for all, that it would not tax in-game virtual transactions, people could start using MMORPGs to hide real-world profits.
One might sell a million dollar house for $900K and $100K of in-game gold, where that $100K is the amount one would have otherwise taken as real-world profit. So no real-world taxes (or maybe even a loss), and one has in-game assets that can be used to pay other tax-cheats. Few of these tax cheats would take their real-world money out of the game - since they'd then have to pay taxes - but so long as there's a stable rate of exchange, and they can exchange in-game money for heavy real-world discounts on real goods, they don't care.
And of course, since the game isn't a bank, it doesn't have the reporting requirements that banks have, meaning that it'd quickly become the favored medium for black market transactions - financing drugs and terrorism and worse.
Which explains why we will keep getting these scare stories - the government wants to keep the whole mess from ever developing, so they don't have to actually engage in the messy practice of deciding how to tax virtual profits. But eventually - probably due to movement of drug money via MMORPGs - they will have to figure out a policy.
Probably it'll be fairly reasonable - most ordinary players won't ever be bothered. MMORPG companies will be required to report any people trading "gold" worth over some black-market amount, and some subset of those people will eventually find themselves being audited, and the dollar value of any real-world benefits gained in exchange for game gold will be taxed and fines assessed.
Back to focusing on trivial things, while important problems go un-addressed.
Looks to me like it's two stars that slammed into each other, creating a double splash, which we just happen to be seeing from the side - so an hourglass shape if viewed in 3D.
Seems like there's a market for a modular rapid prototyping kit, that gets past a few of the Lego limitations.
You'd want it to be stronger - with modular connections that lock together rather than relying on friction joints at any point in the structure.
You'd want more flexibility of orientation - e.g. parts that can be connected at any planar-rotated angle with respect to each other, and then locked at that angle.
You might prefer to give up the ability to completely re-use parts, in exchange for being able to easily cut parts of the precise length needed, from longer stock - no need to fit your design to the limited lengths available, also reducing the number of fewer component types you need to keep on hand, and eliminating the problem of needing "just one more part".
What else?
Diamond Age, where humans act as speech interface (and actors) in computer games for the wealthy.
The next big hit MMO game will be designed from scratch to be a competitive sport, where skill will lie in knowing your opponent, guessing what their equipment load-out will be, using your load-out in the most effective manner, etc. While everyone can play, most will spend 60% of their time watching bouts between others, to learn tricks, learn future opponent's moves. There'll be pay-sites dedicated to dishing up details of each player's favorite tactics, weaknesses, etc - so people will pay to see opponents info, and their own info so they can work on avoiding weaknesses. The Pro's will have support teams to do their research for them and help design their load-out for a game.
R0 - R15, xmm0 - xmm15 Yep, that's 16 registers!
(FP stack doesn't count, MMX is dead)
The real issue with this will come when there's a big scandal about terrorists (or drug smugglers) using a game to transfer large sums of money.