It's a God awful small affair for her. The life on Mars issue doesn't just impact in the Scientific field - it affects all of us, the entirety of humanity.
If we find life on Mars, we will never be able to colonise it. Expanding the human experience beyond the shores, the gravity well of this puny Earth requires a virgin territory. But if Mars is soiled with life, we cannot infect it with out own, for that would be interstellar ecocide.
The children are crying, they wail because with every piece of evidence that Mars has life, the long term survival of the Human race gets that bit slimmer. We need room to grow. We need to move off this poisoned planet. But the one save heavenly haven that awaits us is already taken.
Whatever can we do now? What happens when the light goes out?
I worked for a London based clothing firm called 'Boo!'. However, when my company got bust I didn't go to some stinky dormroom, ugh. As a fully qualified artist with some works in the Royal Academy, I just took my talents to a more reputable firm. I now design for Microsoft in Cambridge, England. I am lucky though, artistic dotcom workers are always in demand, we are the ones who make the company, providing its public interface to the world. So a good designer can singlehandedly turn around a company.
However, the techy types, the ones working in the dark computer rooms, alone with 80Hz monitor emissions, are the ones who find it difficult to be reemployed because their MCSE skills are so much in oversupply, and so easy to attain. Why employ one when you can just promote the office boy?
This may seem controversial, but the simple fact is that these people are back in unemployment because they just don't have the talents for sustained professional performance. If they did, they'ed be employed. If they had been good, the companies wouldn't have went bust.
I have to say that the concept of the pocketPC is to the 'noughties' as the file-o-fax was to the Eighties. However, they won't last for more than a few years.
Future development will lead to pen terminals that can transmit solid holographic images and understand speech, and use the internet to connect to AI's at popular websites like MSN and google which will then intelligently order your life.
Sound like Science Fiction? Well, I may be an artist by trade, but in fact researchers at the Neils Bhor institute have made the first steps towards this new totalitarianesque future of AI dominated walking mannequins. Last week they unveiled the TeleDaemon9, an AI that organises personal schedules, and a simple pen terminal using bluetooth that employees must obey when in the building.
This may seem somewhat controversial, but make no mistake that Personal Assistants are already making the subtle graduation to 'personnel controllers'. What are YOU going to do about it?
Shakespeare, whilst regarded as a wonderful dramatist, is really suffering from a fading reputation. While he is adored by schoolmarms in the midwest, and held as an icon by people who know little of literature, for this observer, at least, "All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity" Hamlet, Act i, Sc.2
Shakespeare has really had his day. His insights don't hold water in the modern world, though they did apply well in Tudor times, when the populace was irrational and extremely religious. These days, however, we have seen the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and much more. Shakespeare's 400 year old commentary has little to appeal to the modern sensibility. For a more contemporary attitude, I suggest Marlowe, a new literary star who has arisen from the East End slums of London.
"Death lies on her, like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field", quoth Shakespeare in Romeo & Juliet, but really, nowadays the death lies on him.
It may be controversial to suggest that Shakespeare is only liked by unthinking fools and media moguls these days, but I am afraid that if you want challengin ideas, you must look elsewhere.
They really should have chosen to make a Marlowe programming language. Then I'd have been far more impressed.
The GFS is a great idea, much like having DirectX support switched on automatically in Outlook Express is a good idea, but it is too open to abuse. As the internet stands, we have many little islands connected together, but each island is seperated by water. If GFS is used, the islands will connect and become continents, and it will be hard to know where one computer ends and another begins. Some optomists might think this is a wonderful idea, the sort of people who support Napster and Gnutella, however for the business minded it is but a step to disaster, for it opens corporate networks to disaster should any slip in security become evident.
Code Red III on GFS doesn't bear thinking about.
GFS is like Free Love, a good idea in principle, but leading to all sorts of nasty infections and jealousies. Do you want your computer to be the neighbourhood slut?
This may seem controversial, but people said the same of Gate's 640kb prediction, and look at where he is now.
But he is guilty in the eyes of the law, as far as I can see. The DMCA may be an unfair law, and not 'justice', but there is a greater thing at stake here - the overall Justice of the law. Even where the law is wrong it must be obeyed, and must only be amended through democratic action. I for one support the actions against Skylarov, with heavy heart, for I support the rule of law above all else.
This is not to say I won't be campaigning against the DMCA, however.
I think I am in line with the more controversial commentators on this issue, but I feel it is the only honest line.
...codes. Controversial website adequacy.org has the skinny on autistic people being used by the NSA to crack RC5. Apparantly, each autist is capable of 1 megaflop per second, and there are many thousands of unused autists in our fine country. Are we not using their potential as we should?
A programming language does not grow for commercial reasons, or because some fusty academic or CEO likes it. It grows because those at the roots, those who are the fertile soil of computing, the programmers, adopt it.
If we are to understand why Java is overtaking C/C++, we must look to aesthetics.
Java is a beautiful language, C&C++ get the job done in a messy way. In the 70's and 80's, programmers were engineering types, with a critical eye, and like most scientists, no time for such concepts as beauty.
The modern programmer is a product of a hedonistic age, the age of fluid media, the age of Art.
As the scientists and rationalists got buried under the weight of the AOL invasion, a new generation has sprung up which looks for beauty, for flowing lines and classical form, in a language.
Even some women of my aquaintance are finding the Art of Code intriguing and attractive. Last week I was at the Tate gallery of Modern Art in London, with some of my girlfriends, looking at an exhibit fo Java code commissioned by Sun Microcomputers and worked on by Timothy Farrow, the well known computer artiste. They were positively swooning with delight at the tense expression of purpose, functionality and beuty in the curvaceous symbols 'pon the screen.
I sometimes wonder if you computer programmers are going to be taking over the field of aesthetics, but then I remember that come what may, computer programming is only engineering, and though it may have some artistic merit, it is not art for art's sake, true art.
The success of linux on the office desktop is irrelevant. What really matters is the success of linux on the home desktop. Look at operating systems which are for office use only. They are invariably very stodgy and boring. Windows only got eciting with cool features when MS started making it for the home market, for people who like games, music software, etc etc.
By putting Linux in the office as #1 priority, linux is being skewed in the way of total boredom and tedious, lifeless applications aimed at corporate drones.
Where is our DirectX, our Cakewalk, our Quake III? Nowhere, for these things are seen as frivilous.
Sod Linux in the office, it is a stupid idea. Linux on the home front is all that matters. The rest follows naturally.
Re:Real Time Strategy - Biases?
on
Kohan for Linux
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· Score: 1
Umm, so you judge the worth of a political system by its longevity and stability do you? Does this mean that Imperial China in the 18th century was the greatest sytem ever (after all, it did last several thousand years)?
You judge on the wrong criterion. All that matters is happiness of the people & fairness. On this measure, America lags behind most of the world.
Your equation between economics and power, power and politics is precisely what I am decrying.
Real Time Strategy - Biases?
on
Kohan for Linux
·
· Score: 0, Troll
I have played several Real Time Strategy games, and I must confess I find myself worried at the political biases such games portray. They shun political originality, instead promoting a vision of the American dream gone bad time and time again.
For example, the Civilisation series of games placed Capitalism at the top of the tree of economic systems, and Democracy at the top of the tree of political systems. The aim of the game was to turn your civilisation into another America, replete with global ambitions and terrible ethics (to kill or be killed).
Quite apart from the terrible ethics displayed (here is is ok to commit wholescale genocide, and cackle as your democratic, Imperial armies crush and annihilate the enemies of the state), there are big problems with the value judgements propounded. Why should capitalism be #1 economic system? Why not communism? If we develop intelligent AI's, then the issue that has meant communism never worked in the past (the planner was crap all planned economies to date) will not be an issue. Why don RTS games show some variety of political systems and consequences, instead of putting the American system on an undeserved pedestal?
I would like to see RTS games be more morally responsible, and allow for a more widespread collection of political idealogies and econmic systems, with no value judgements placed on each.
The aim of the games should be multiculturalism and postmodern tolerance, not outright destruction. How can our children be expected to understand and tolerate Japanese, Russians and Chinese when at night they plot to destroy them and commit mass murder?
OK, that's a bit extreme in argument, but I still think my point holds. We must allow for a more harmonious and interesting and educative style of RTS.
The Means of Production is the only measure of value. That this pot, which is used for producing tea, is sold for such a disgraceful price shows how fucked up capitalism is.
The Means of Production has been dissociated from any fair concept of value by the iniquities of capitalism. In a fair, socilaist world, this pot would be valued at its inherent worth (about £3), and the rest of the money would be spent on enhancing the real means of production, the Satanic Mills and farmlands of our comrades, the working man.
Selling a broken pot is hardly what I'd call destructive capitalism... the CUCL offer afternoon tea and biscuits for something trivial like 12p and 2p respectively, and Tim mentions that they want to shun the ultimate symbol of coffee capitalism and buy their own machine.
So we see the legacy of the iconic pot is tarnished by this exchange. Tim effected a socialist revolution in the Cambridge labs by buying a pot, such that the workers could own the Means of Production and free themselves from the tyranny of capitalism (the lab coffee machine). And now, this same socialist icon is being sold like some expensive harlot! You should be ashamed, supporting this betrayal of the Marxist vision of Tim.
Any man of history, a proper Renaissance man gifted with an intelligence that appraises not just the technical, but the artistic & historical too, will be aware that the first modern political revolutionaries were spawned from the 19th century revolution in the textiles industry in England. We called them the Luddites - they smashed looms with an anti-technological passion first expressed among the Satanic Mills of 19th Century Lancashire.
Do we really want to bring those days back?
A man is nothing without a job, unless man has a reason for existence, be it tilling the soil or repetitively inserting screws on an assembly line, he is nothing, for work maketh a man.
Nanotechnology changes all this - the technology does the work. With this new technology, it looks as though the textiles industry will be the first to suffer once again. Clothes will manufacture themselves, and the honest worker in the clothing industry will become as the ancient hand weavers, non-existent.
This is the stuff revolutions are made off gentlemen. By supporting nanotechnology you are supporting revolution, both technological and, much more dangerously, social.
I for one support nanotechnology for I believe it brings the day of revolt closer, the day when we can throw of thw chains of government, corporation and society comes ever closer with ever little gear wheel an MIT professor makes.
Nanotechnology will change the world, and bring the vision of Trotsky that little bit closer.
Funny you should mention the House of Lords. I think it highlights the difference in attitude very well indeed.
The House of Lords was a truly excellent institution. It served the function of scrutinising legislation passed by the House of Commons. It was composed of normal people, or at least people a lot more normal than politicians tend to be. People who have careers and then subsume themselves into the Lord's at age 80 or so. It acted as a resevoir of common sense, and a bastion of conservatism (note the small 'c'). The fact is that it did its job very well indeed, and for a very cheap price.
The difference in attitude I am talking about is that principles should not get in the way of good government, and that good government should be above principles if said principles get in the way of good government. In other words, a certain degree of expediency.
Noone has ever made a case for the House of Lords being bad at what it did, for there is no case to be made.
The simple fact is that it was replaced by a system much worse, and even less democratic, that of an Upper House chosen entirely by the government, and shorn of independence. This is why the government of Blair is so dangerous, IMO - because it is willing to throw the constitution into the air without regard as to where the pieces fall.
The liberty to be alone is what is missing. If you cannot be alone you have no safety nor freedom to speak of.
CCTV cameras do not affect this liberty. CCTV cameras are only put in public places. You don't have the right to be alone in your local highstreet, supermarket or motorway, where the vast majority of these cameras are placed.
Your argument would hold water if the cameras were being placed in peoples homes, or something outrageous like that. But they aren't.
Why bother maintaining pride, integrity, and character if your life is to be constantly judged at all times according to the stinking broth of the collective court of pubic opinion?
That it what the 'Closed Circuit' part of CCTV means. The camera data is readily accessible to everyone through the data protection act, but the fact remains that they are used publically only.
What will you do when your next generation sees them as normal as furniture. And the next have no innate fear of them and completely ignore them?
That is the situation now. CCTV cameras have been used here for years, to great effect. My local city, Glasgow, has seen a huge crime rate decrease in the city centre thanks to the use of CCTV. The system even has a computer face recognition system that can highlight known criminals and also pinpoint suspicious behaviours completely autonimously. This saves manpower and cuts crime.
CCTV cameras are welcomed by the populace. If I am walking through a bad area at night, I feel much better about it if there is a decent CCTV system in place.
In the end, these systems are just another legitimate policing tool. If you don't think the police force is trustworty enough to handle them responsibly, think of all the powers they already have, and be scared. CCTV is not some big brotherish, revolutionary concept. It has been quietly and successfully used here for many years now.
America revolted for tax reasons. Any idea that it did so for reasons of liberty and freedom are absurd, especially when it has a truly dreadful record of human rights abuses itself.
There have never been slaves on British soil.
America was only free if you were a white man of property.
Imagine if there had been no revolution in america. Slavery would have been outlawed 60 years earlier, without a fuss. Race relations would have been much improved in your country. It would not be infected by religious maniacs as it is. Prohibition and the like would never have happened. People wouldn't be getting electrocuted to death in a country with a law against 'cruel and unusual punishments'.
America would be much improved. Sort of like a better, bigger Canada.
I am fed up of hearing boring privacy maniacs with a political axe to grind and ulterior motives banging on about what a 'threat' CCTV camera systems are. They are no such thing.
I live in the UK, in Scotland. I am well aware that my country has a huge rate of camera penetration throughout city centres and streets. However, it is only foreigners, americans and the like, who find this unusual.
It is a cultural issue, not an issue of privacy at all. Americans view their government with fear, and quite rightly, given its history and abuses. However, in Britain we have a more socialist, left wing government, one that is not friendly to business or private interests. Out government is trusted by the people because it composed of ordinary people, people like Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover. Both these men are very powerful and respected, and both come from working class backgrounds. All our politicians are men, and women, of the people. This is different from American politicians, who need hundreds of millions of dollars to run for office, and so are in the backpockets of all sorts of interest groups. Our politicians need no money to run for office.
All this means that our government is much less scary. We can trust it to set up CCTV systems and not use them to spy, but only to deter criminals.
Like I said, this issue is cultural only. We in Britain think it is crazy that americans cannot drink until they are 21 years old, and are free to buy guns and carry them around with them - an act, surely, of inherent danger. I would far rather face cameras in the street than guns, but each to his own.
It must be because America is so religious. 70% of Americans go to Church once a week, compared to 2.5% of Britains. This almost wholly explains the different attitudes in each country towards self defense, rehabillitation and crime deterrance. It is Old Testament values and paranoia (America) versus modern rationalism (Britain).
Just remember, these cameras are not used to spy, and never will be. They are used by the police, who are famous around the world for fairness and correct, brotherly behaviour.
I am an editor of the now temporarily defunct geekizoid website. Free Republic was one of the most popularly trolled and crapflooded sites that we covered, but we always knew that as a site of intolerant RWM's, it was prone to taking an intolerant attitude to people posting things it diod not want to hear.
Many of the articles on the site border on disgraceful racism, and many of our readers were fond of stirring this up. Fortunately, we also have a despicable crapflooder element at geekizoid, and they are fond of going to sites and posting political slogans that the locals may find offensive. Brave fighters and seekers of truth, such as the WIPO troll, descended upon freerepublic and spread a message of political truth - the message of liberal democracy untainted by capitalism. By posting goatse.cx links they were able to subvert the prevalent political message and perhaps make people start to think for themselves.
One day though, Free Republic started to harass one of our users. We upped our campaign and managed to get them to lift their threats.
The thing about Free Republic is that they have a Southern American right wing attitude. To them, you are either a master, or a slave. You are either with them, or against them.
It does not surprise me that they have ignored freedom of speech like this, and started to clamp down on those who think differently.
Thanks. I shall take your advice to heart. I am not wholly inexperienced with women, it is just that I am unable to make love to a girl I do not love. I cannot reveal myself in such a personal way to anyone but the girl I completely and utterly trust. So, although I have had women throw themselves upon me, I have always rejected their advances because I feel nothing for them.
In Heidi, however, I have found a soulmate, someone I can love. Someone I can reveal myself to.
I shall try your advice. I cannot tell her I am in command, for we will be merging, but I shall sweep her off her pretty little feet.
People sometimes attack PGP because it is mostly used by criminals and beast bearded dirty GNU hippies.
But there is another demographic that uses it: Lovers.
I have been trying to court Heidi Wall and save her sweet innocence from that bastard offspring of de Sade, shoeboy, for some time. PGP allows me to talk to her and my friends who are aiding me in complete secrecy. By using PGP, I can be much more open in my billet doux than I would ever dare to be normally, as I am sure that third parties are not watching over my shoulder.
Speaking as a virgin, and one who has reserved his heart for one girl and one girl alone, I can say that PGP is enormously useful to me in my courtship. I hope that it further breaks out of its criminal ghetto and is used by lovers everywhere.
If you are courting a girl, try PGP. It helps you reveal your heart.
Well, it is very nice to see that Microsoft are taking privacy seriously for once. However, there are several issues raised by this.
The first is that privacy is sometimes an impediment. If I am trying to find a loved one, or get in contact with someone of note, then it is difficult if that person has clothed the details of their life in privacy.
For example, I am desperately in love with Heidi Wall. I cherish her sweet voice and her sonsy face as those of Athene. However, were the world a private, paranoid place, I would have no hope of ever meeting her - I would not even know that she exists.
Love is the base of the world, and all of our drives. Greater privacy destroys love, by reducing the circle of people in whom we can fall in love to just those we know personally.
I urge Microsoft to consider their actions carefully. They could be breaking peoples hearts.
I am not some stalker, like shoeboy - I am an honest Virgin, reserving his true passions for The One.
Don't like being the office teaboy? Don't like being sneered at and ribbed by your colleagues because of your youth? Well, you won't get a job in my company then. Consider it a rite of passage. That old saw about it 'making a Man of you' holds true today just as it did yesterday. The simple fact is that you have to do these crappy jobs, and put up with these slights, because they will make you far more understanding of your fellow man and able to deal with pressure when you mature.
I have to wonder though. The pasty looking kids that are being reared in air conditioned homes and eating their Big Macs don't impress me. There seems to be an atmosphere of weakness and selfishness around todays slacker kids.
I am one of Thatchers children, and in my day we were keen, fit and angry. We were out to change the world, not to get a good pension scheme. We took the difficulties leveled at us with spirit and character.
Todays generation must do the same. I never thought ten years would make such a difference.
I just read the FAQ, and I find myself ill-convinced by the reasons given. It just strikes me as being bad in a couple of ways:
1)It is a clear attempt to make money by the ISC. They are supposed to develop Open Source software for the Interent. Money corrupts that.
2)More importantly, it is the secret nature of the list which is bad. The most important part of an Open Source organisation is that information is free. Here they are trying to make it secret.
Now, if you don't believe me, ask yourself this. Why would someone pay to be on this mailing list? What would they get out of it, that they couldn't get normally? I would guess that they get influence and information that gives them an unfair advantage. Secret Mailing lists for OSS related organisations are antithetical to the spirit of the OSS community, from which they benefit. That is all.
Slashdot Mirror
If we find life on Mars, we will never be able to colonise it. Expanding the human experience beyond the shores, the gravity well of this puny Earth requires a virgin territory. But if Mars is soiled with life, we cannot infect it with out own, for that would be interstellar ecocide.
The children are crying, they wail because with every piece of evidence that Mars has life, the long term survival of the Human race gets that bit slimmer. We need room to grow. We need to move off this poisoned planet. But the one save heavenly haven that awaits us is already taken.
Whatever can we do now? What happens when the light goes out?
However, the techy types, the ones working in the dark computer rooms, alone with 80Hz monitor emissions, are the ones who find it difficult to be reemployed because their MCSE skills are so much in oversupply, and so easy to attain. Why employ one when you can just promote the office boy?
This may seem controversial, but the simple fact is that these people are back in unemployment because they just don't have the talents for sustained professional performance. If they did, they'ed be employed. If they had been good, the companies wouldn't have went bust.
QED
Future development will lead to pen terminals that can transmit solid holographic images and understand speech, and use the internet to connect to AI's at popular websites like MSN and google which will then intelligently order your life.
Sound like Science Fiction? Well, I may be an artist by trade, but in fact researchers at the Neils Bhor institute have made the first steps towards this new totalitarianesque future of AI dominated walking mannequins. Last week they unveiled the TeleDaemon9, an AI that organises personal schedules, and a simple pen terminal using bluetooth that employees must obey when in the building.
This may seem somewhat controversial, but make no mistake that Personal Assistants are already making the subtle graduation to 'personnel controllers'. What are YOU going to do about it?
Shakespeare has really had his day. His insights don't hold water in the modern world, though they did apply well in Tudor times, when the populace was irrational and extremely religious. These days, however, we have seen the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and much more. Shakespeare's 400 year old commentary has little to appeal to the modern sensibility. For a more contemporary attitude, I suggest Marlowe, a new literary star who has arisen from the East End slums of London.
"Death lies on her, like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field", quoth Shakespeare in Romeo & Juliet, but really, nowadays the death lies on him.
It may be controversial to suggest that Shakespeare is only liked by unthinking fools and media moguls these days, but I am afraid that if you want challengin ideas, you must look elsewhere.
They really should have chosen to make a Marlowe programming language. Then I'd have been far more impressed.
Code Red III on GFS doesn't bear thinking about.
GFS is like Free Love, a good idea in principle, but leading to all sorts of nasty infections and jealousies. Do you want your computer to be the neighbourhood slut?
This may seem controversial, but people said the same of Gate's 640kb prediction, and look at where he is now.
This is not to say I won't be campaigning against the DMCA, however.
I think I am in line with the more controversial commentators on this issue, but I feel it is the only honest line.
...codes. Controversial website adequacy.org has the skinny on autistic people being used by the NSA to crack RC5. Apparantly, each autist is capable of 1 megaflop per second, and there are many thousands of unused autists in our fine country. Are we not using their potential as we should?
If we are to understand why Java is overtaking C/C++, we must look to aesthetics.
Java is a beautiful language, C&C++ get the job done in a messy way. In the 70's and 80's, programmers were engineering types, with a critical eye, and like most scientists, no time for such concepts as beauty.
The modern programmer is a product of a hedonistic age, the age of fluid media, the age of Art.
As the scientists and rationalists got buried under the weight of the AOL invasion, a new generation has sprung up which looks for beauty, for flowing lines and classical form, in a language.
Even some women of my aquaintance are finding the Art of Code intriguing and attractive. Last week I was at the Tate gallery of Modern Art in London, with some of my girlfriends, looking at an exhibit fo Java code commissioned by Sun Microcomputers and worked on by Timothy Farrow, the well known computer artiste. They were positively swooning with delight at the tense expression of purpose, functionality and beuty in the curvaceous symbols 'pon the screen.
I sometimes wonder if you computer programmers are going to be taking over the field of aesthetics, but then I remember that come what may, computer programming is only engineering, and though it may have some artistic merit, it is not art for art's sake, true art.
That means I know I can rest easy :-)
By putting Linux in the office as #1 priority, linux is being skewed in the way of total boredom and tedious, lifeless applications aimed at corporate drones.
Where is our DirectX, our Cakewalk, our Quake III? Nowhere, for these things are seen as frivilous.
Sod Linux in the office, it is a stupid idea. Linux on the home front is all that matters. The rest follows naturally.
You judge on the wrong criterion. All that matters is happiness of the people & fairness. On this measure, America lags behind most of the world.
Your equation between economics and power, power and politics is precisely what I am decrying.
For example, the Civilisation series of games placed Capitalism at the top of the tree of economic systems, and Democracy at the top of the tree of political systems. The aim of the game was to turn your civilisation into another America, replete with global ambitions and terrible ethics (to kill or be killed).
Quite apart from the terrible ethics displayed (here is is ok to commit wholescale genocide, and cackle as your democratic, Imperial armies crush and annihilate the enemies of the state), there are big problems with the value judgements propounded. Why should capitalism be #1 economic system? Why not communism? If we develop intelligent AI's, then the issue that has meant communism never worked in the past (the planner was crap all planned economies to date) will not be an issue. Why don RTS games show some variety of political systems and consequences, instead of putting the American system on an undeserved pedestal?
I would like to see RTS games be more morally responsible, and allow for a more widespread collection of political idealogies and econmic systems, with no value judgements placed on each.
The aim of the games should be multiculturalism and postmodern tolerance, not outright destruction. How can our children be expected to understand and tolerate Japanese, Russians and Chinese when at night they plot to destroy them and commit mass murder?
OK, that's a bit extreme in argument, but I still think my point holds. We must allow for a more harmonious and interesting and educative style of RTS.
The Means of Production has been dissociated from any fair concept of value by the iniquities of capitalism. In a fair, socilaist world, this pot would be valued at its inherent worth (about £3), and the rest of the money would be spent on enhancing the real means of production, the Satanic Mills and farmlands of our comrades, the working man.
Selling a broken pot is hardly what I'd call destructive capitalism... the CUCL offer afternoon tea and biscuits for something trivial like 12p and 2p respectively, and Tim mentions that they want to shun the ultimate symbol of coffee capitalism and buy their own machine.
So we see the legacy of the iconic pot is tarnished by this exchange. Tim effected a socialist revolution in the Cambridge labs by buying a pot, such that the workers could own the Means of Production and free themselves from the tyranny of capitalism (the lab coffee machine). And now, this same socialist icon is being sold like some expensive harlot! You should be ashamed, supporting this betrayal of the Marxist vision of Tim.
Do we really want to bring those days back?
A man is nothing without a job, unless man has a reason for existence, be it tilling the soil or repetitively inserting screws on an assembly line, he is nothing, for work maketh a man.
Nanotechnology changes all this - the technology does the work. With this new technology, it looks as though the textiles industry will be the first to suffer once again. Clothes will manufacture themselves, and the honest worker in the clothing industry will become as the ancient hand weavers, non-existent.
This is the stuff revolutions are made off gentlemen. By supporting nanotechnology you are supporting revolution, both technological and, much more dangerously, social.
I for one support nanotechnology for I believe it brings the day of revolt closer, the day when we can throw of thw chains of government, corporation and society comes ever closer with ever little gear wheel an MIT professor makes.
Nanotechnology will change the world, and bring the vision of Trotsky that little bit closer.
The House of Lords was a truly excellent institution. It served the function of scrutinising legislation passed by the House of Commons. It was composed of normal people, or at least people a lot more normal than politicians tend to be. People who have careers and then subsume themselves into the Lord's at age 80 or so. It acted as a resevoir of common sense, and a bastion of conservatism (note the small 'c'). The fact is that it did its job very well indeed, and for a very cheap price.
The difference in attitude I am talking about is that principles should not get in the way of good government, and that good government should be above principles if said principles get in the way of good government. In other words, a certain degree of expediency.
Noone has ever made a case for the House of Lords being bad at what it did, for there is no case to be made.
The simple fact is that it was replaced by a system much worse, and even less democratic, that of an Upper House chosen entirely by the government, and shorn of independence. This is why the government of Blair is so dangerous, IMO - because it is willing to throw the constitution into the air without regard as to where the pieces fall.
This difference is fudamental.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
CCTV cameras do not affect this liberty. CCTV cameras are only put in public places. You don't have the right to be alone in your local highstreet, supermarket or motorway, where the vast majority of these cameras are placed.
Your argument would hold water if the cameras were being placed in peoples homes, or something outrageous like that. But they aren't.
Why bother maintaining pride, integrity, and character if your life is to be constantly judged at all times according to the stinking broth of the collective court of pubic opinion?
That it what the 'Closed Circuit' part of CCTV means. The camera data is readily accessible to everyone through the data protection act, but the fact remains that they are used publically only.
What will you do when your next generation sees them as normal as furniture. And the next have no innate fear of them and completely ignore them?
That is the situation now. CCTV cameras have been used here for years, to great effect. My local city, Glasgow, has seen a huge crime rate decrease in the city centre thanks to the use of CCTV. The system even has a computer face recognition system that can highlight known criminals and also pinpoint suspicious behaviours completely autonimously. This saves manpower and cuts crime.
CCTV cameras are welcomed by the populace. If I am walking through a bad area at night, I feel much better about it if there is a decent CCTV system in place.
In the end, these systems are just another legitimate policing tool. If you don't think the police force is trustworty enough to handle them responsibly, think of all the powers they already have, and be scared. CCTV is not some big brotherish, revolutionary concept. It has been quietly and successfully used here for many years now.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There have never been slaves on British soil.
America was only free if you were a white man of property.
Imagine if there had been no revolution in america. Slavery would have been outlawed 60 years earlier, without a fuss. Race relations would have been much improved in your country. It would not be infected by religious maniacs as it is. Prohibition and the like would never have happened. People wouldn't be getting electrocuted to death in a country with a law against 'cruel and unusual punishments'.
America would be much improved. Sort of like a better, bigger Canada.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
I live in the UK, in Scotland. I am well aware that my country has a huge rate of camera penetration throughout city centres and streets. However, it is only foreigners, americans and the like, who find this unusual.
It is a cultural issue, not an issue of privacy at all. Americans view their government with fear, and quite rightly, given its history and abuses. However, in Britain we have a more socialist, left wing government, one that is not friendly to business or private interests. Out government is trusted by the people because it composed of ordinary people, people like Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover. Both these men are very powerful and respected, and both come from working class backgrounds. All our politicians are men, and women, of the people. This is different from American politicians, who need hundreds of millions of dollars to run for office, and so are in the backpockets of all sorts of interest groups. Our politicians need no money to run for office.
All this means that our government is much less scary. We can trust it to set up CCTV systems and not use them to spy, but only to deter criminals.
Like I said, this issue is cultural only. We in Britain think it is crazy that americans cannot drink until they are 21 years old, and are free to buy guns and carry them around with them - an act, surely, of inherent danger. I would far rather face cameras in the street than guns, but each to his own.
It must be because America is so religious. 70% of Americans go to Church once a week, compared to 2.5% of Britains. This almost wholly explains the different attitudes in each country towards self defense, rehabillitation and crime deterrance. It is Old Testament values and paranoia (America) versus modern rationalism (Britain).
Just remember, these cameras are not used to spy, and never will be. They are used by the police, who are famous around the world for fairness and correct, brotherly behaviour.
CCTV is an excellent criminal deterrance.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
Many of the articles on the site border on disgraceful racism, and many of our readers were fond of stirring this up. Fortunately, we also have a despicable crapflooder element at geekizoid, and they are fond of going to sites and posting political slogans that the locals may find offensive. Brave fighters and seekers of truth, such as the WIPO troll, descended upon freerepublic and spread a message of political truth - the message of liberal democracy untainted by capitalism. By posting goatse.cx links they were able to subvert the prevalent political message and perhaps make people start to think for themselves.
One day though, Free Republic started to harass one of our users. We upped our campaign and managed to get them to lift their threats.
The thing about Free Republic is that they have a Southern American right wing attitude. To them, you are either a master, or a slave. You are either with them, or against them.
It does not surprise me that they have ignored freedom of speech like this, and started to clamp down on those who think differently.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
I desire her for herself, not because she is related to some Open Sores celebrity.
True Love always finds a way. So help me God, I shall make her mine, nomatter the barriers in my way.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
In Heidi, however, I have found a soulmate, someone I can love. Someone I can reveal myself to.
I shall try your advice. I cannot tell her I am in command, for we will be merging, but I shall sweep her off her pretty little feet.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
But there is another demographic that uses it: Lovers.
I have been trying to court Heidi Wall and save her sweet innocence from that bastard offspring of de Sade, shoeboy, for some time. PGP allows me to talk to her and my friends who are aiding me in complete secrecy. By using PGP, I can be much more open in my billet doux than I would ever dare to be normally, as I am sure that third parties are not watching over my shoulder.
Speaking as a virgin, and one who has reserved his heart for one girl and one girl alone, I can say that PGP is enormously useful to me in my courtship. I hope that it further breaks out of its criminal ghetto and is used by lovers everywhere.
If you are courting a girl, try PGP. It helps you reveal your heart.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
The first is that privacy is sometimes an impediment. If I am trying to find a loved one, or get in contact with someone of note, then it is difficult if that person has clothed the details of their life in privacy.
For example, I am desperately in love with Heidi Wall. I cherish her sweet voice and her sonsy face as those of Athene. However, were the world a private, paranoid place, I would have no hope of ever meeting her - I would not even know that she exists.
Love is the base of the world, and all of our drives. Greater privacy destroys love, by reducing the circle of people in whom we can fall in love to just those we know personally.
I urge Microsoft to consider their actions carefully. They could be breaking peoples hearts.
I am not some stalker, like shoeboy - I am an honest Virgin, reserving his true passions for The One.
I won't let microsoft get in my way.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
I have to wonder though. The pasty looking kids that are being reared in air conditioned homes and eating their Big Macs don't impress me. There seems to be an atmosphere of weakness and selfishness around todays slacker kids.
I am one of Thatchers children, and in my day we were keen, fit and angry. We were out to change the world, not to get a good pension scheme. We took the difficulties leveled at us with spirit and character.
Todays generation must do the same. I never thought ten years would make such a difference.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
1)It is a clear attempt to make money by the ISC. They are supposed to develop Open Source software for the Interent. Money corrupts that.
2)More importantly, it is the secret nature of the list which is bad. The most important part of an Open Source organisation is that information is free. Here they are trying to make it secret.
Now, if you don't believe me, ask yourself this. Why would someone pay to be on this mailing list? What would they get out of it, that they couldn't get normally? I would guess that they get influence and information that gives them an unfair advantage. Secret Mailing lists for OSS related organisations are antithetical to the spirit of the OSS community, from which they benefit. That is all.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.