After fingerprint identification, the car's computer tunes the radio to your favourite stations, the mirrors swivel according to your established preferences, and the driver's seat sculpts itself to your bottom.
Here is where his argument falls down. What is the down side of personalization? AFAIK, there is none. Sure it's ingenious -- it's also tremendously useful.
Alvin Toffler pointed out in Future Shock (1970) that computer-aided personalization would eventually become ubiquitous. He was right. People *want* things that are customized to their personal preferences and, er, sizes.
Here are some ways computers have aided personalization: Firefly (Patti Maes, MIT). Bayesian spam filters (many personal computers). Levi's pants (Levis.com). Design your own car (any automaker's site). Customizable news feeds. Even Slashdot itself. ( You... probably would be more interested in the Preferences links you see up top there, where you can customize Slashdot...)
I also agree with the posters who pointed out that some innovations have applications undreamed of by their inventors. The Mayans discovered the wheel -- they used in their childrens' toys, and *nowhere else*.
How about using ambient light? Obviously, if outside in full sunlight, using photonic energy is not a problem, but even under inside conditions or underwater it seems that there is enough light from fluorescent, ambient and reflective sources to keep a nanobot active.
Of course, this is not feasible for nanobots working in complete darkness, such as processing oil or sludge, or laboring underground. Maybe those could operate using hydrogen / sulfur pathways.
...a future iteration of the system might include facial recognition and other features that could track ordinary people.
I think that everyone knows that the terrorists really hate our democratic system of government. Thus it is logical to presume that they will soon be targeting our public officials. What we really need, then, is one of these webcams in every public official's office!
Because of the peculiar effects of hell-riding, movies from these books simply could not be made with traditional techniques and would benefit from the new technologies.
(For those who don't know 'hell-riding': as a man is riding a horse [galloping], he is also seamlessly changing the landscape around him using his abilities. The landscape changes, the weather changes, the flora and fauna change, etc.]
After reading the Bettelli paper, it appears that, just like on the early computers, you have to first build the computer out of the quantum objects (initialization) before you can use it. (Initialization is analogous to setting up the connections between the plug-boards.) Then you use it to solve your problem (evolution) [in today's terms, imagine a Transmeta box modifying itself as the solution to the problem progresses], then you have to interpret the results (finalization). (like reading off the mercury cylinders in the days of yore -- only here, of course, each cylinder vanishes into oblivion as you 'read' it).
And to the poster who suggested a LISP-type language: no way. Too procedural. A parallel PROLOG is probably closer; you set up some initial conditions (both in terms of data and quantum 'procedures': i.e. the quantum objects), but since the solution is all simultaneous, you don't have to worry about back-tracking.
If they're networked together within a field of debris, would that mean you'd have a Beowulf cluster of them? Would that find people faster?
Good point. It should be easy enough to triangulate (well, since it's a three dimensional pile, I suppose you'd need *4* baseballs, so 'quadrangulate') the location of victims by simultaneously analyzing the relative volume of sounds picked up by the baseballs.
May I also suggest enclosing some of these baseballs in a tetrahedron framework (probably made of some non-conductive wire, i.e. not copper). This will mean that baseballs enclosed in this sort of framework that are tossed in at the top of a heap of rubble do not go all the way down, but stop on any relatively level surface that they encounter. Then you would have round baseballs near the bottom of the pile, and tetrahedral baseballs further up, thus enabling a better "3-D" acoustic view.
Also, why not use golf balls too? They are even smaller (so that they could go through smaller cracks) and are also resistant to damage from smashing into things.
Re:What they REALLY want...honest employees
on
NYT on RFID Tags
·
· Score: 1
...is to reduce their loss to shop-lifters.
Since retail outlets lose at least as much to "five-fingered discounting" employees as they do to shoplifting, I presume that the stores are setting up RFID-detection systems at the employee entrance / exits as well.
"Psychological research has shown that a woman's
attractiveness directly relates to her femininity and so we can also use this reading as a measure of a woman's attractiveness to men."
Interestingly, the most "feminine" looking humans are -- babies! Big eyes, small chins, etc. I can't wait until someone comes in wearing an ET mask. It'd probably test off the scale. 8^D
Capitalism allows for many freedoms of choice in selecting goods and services, while communism/socialism does not as you must get all your goods and services from only 1 source. (the government). No choice.
... governance does not as you must get all your 'goods and services' from only 1 source. (the government). No choice.
Monostatism -- the idea that a person can only be governed by one form of governance -- is a high-ranking, yet fairly unexamined, theory of social control. Let's look at it.
Perhaps this is because governance is -- until now -- geographically based -- you can only be in one place at a time, and hence only have one government. For those who would argue that you are simultaneously subject to both state and federal government -- it's the same centralized, heirarchal "democratic republic" system, isn't it? (assuming location == USA, but also applicable to other DR systems as well.)
You might argue that you could vote with your feet and change your location. But no matter where you go, you are subject to *one* governmental system. You can't find a place where you can *choose* from an array of governmental systems (unless you go to a place where there is *no law at all*, which tends to default to the "law of the jungle" -- again, only one system -- and not a very nice one at that.
If we could decouple governance from geography, and choose our system of governance, we might have competing systems, but each system would be *better* than what we have, because they would be competing for our 'consumption'.
In a sense, that is what we already have [here] in the area of religion: free choice and competing ideologies. And it works: in places where there is only one religious choice, people who choose otherwise are persecuted for not conforming to the primary religious norm.
After all, 'monotheism', while high-ranking, is not the only choice: multitheism [e.g. Hinduism], pantheism [e.g. paganism] and a[nti]theism [e.g. atheism or Buddhism or materialism or humanism] also have their adherents.
Analogically, only two forms of "anti-monostatism" come to mind: "libertarianism" and "anarchy". Even those terms can only be defined relative to *some* form of statism and one merely argues for limited monostatism. "Multistatism" and "panstatism" don't seem to have any other words to describe them.
Since "governance" is just as arbitrary a social construct as "religion", how do we get from "here" to "there"? Is it possible? Is it time for monostatism to go into the dustbin of history as the only form of governance possible?
Why release gases when we could engineer small micro-devices -- floated aloft by tiny helium balloons -- that would, using catalysts and solar energy while floating about in the upper atmosphere, grab CO2 or CH4 [methane] molecules, collect the carbon (coiling it into a chain of carbon) and split off and release the O2 or H2. Eventually, the devices, weighted down with carbon, would sink into the lower atmosphere where, using RFID technology, they would be collected at various points, cleaned and relaunched until the levels of CO2 and CH4 had sufficiently declined. The pure carbon could be reused in industry.
Problem: if too small, they may be mistaken for food by birds as they drift down.
Don't forget chemicals, drugs and composites. There are all sorts of rare chemical structures that are "hard to assemble" (in the sense of requiring a tedious and/or expensive process to create) that would be much easier to make if we could just slap together some atoms using an electrical field.
And I can't wait until we can manipulate atomic strucutres using the strong and weak forces directly, instead of these large, clumsy electrical fields. Geez, it's like doing brain surgery wearing oven mitts.
Only Congress may make laws. Congress may make no law "...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...". Seemingly, a regulation that requires a government-approved content control device would fall under one of these clauses.
So...if the FCC is a branch of the Executive, charged with executing the laws, it isn't allowed to make laws -- regulations that incur penalties if broken -- especially laws that Congress itself is not permitted to make.
Maybe we should require anyone who wants to serve in government to pass a test on the comprehension and use of the Constitution. We'd have a smaller government in no time =8^D
For example, would it be "research" if I published a book with a chapter of your book in it?
As long as you didn't distribute it. 8^D
I see your point, however: a chapter of the book is not the whole book. However, it is still a coherent chapter, and thus a substantial portion of the book itself. The answer swings upon the thorny issue of what constitutes "Fair Use": some people might argue that my use of a single Bradbury sentence in a World-Wide Web forum constitutes "a distribution of a full and complete copy of a copyrighted item" (although obviously *I* don't, and don't believe that he would either! I used the quote because I found an ironic depth in quoting from a book that explores the concept of the abolition of reading for the good of society. I hope that the quote leads to more exposure of the book itself -- and thus more reading!)
Some courts have held that deriving some benefit from a distribution of copyrighted material constitutes an infringement of copyright (witness Negativeland's problems with U2), but even when there is no *direct* benefit, it has been held there is a unlawful taking (some college professors have been found guilty of copyright violation for something similar to what you mentioned in your post: compiling a collection of chapters from books for use in their classes.)
I was merely trying to establish that there is a "class of work" (i.e. Research) for which people *ought not be punished* under the DMCA.
Another example: let's say that you reverse-engineered MicroSoft Excel for the mere purpose of seeing how it worked, with no intention of then creating and selling something similar to it. Under the DMCA as it now stands, that constitutes an offense: reverse engineering of a copyrighted item with the intention of circumventing the display protocol (i.e. the closed-source software) is forbidden. My rationale is "That's just research!" since you don't have the intention of then distributing what you have learned. The DMCA does not make that distinction about intention. (Intention is important in law because it enables a jury to tell the difference between manslaughter -- killing a person by accident -- and murder -- killing a person deliberately.) The DMCA baldly treats all circumvention as unlawful; that difference, to my mind is unconstitutional , since it appears to limit the 'progress of science and useful arts', for which very purpose the doctrine of copyright was established!
I hope that my further exposition increased your understanding: "Enlightenment rushes in where ignorance fears to tread."
...the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention.
1) Copyrighted works exist. 2) Technological measures that control access to copyrighted works exist. 3) Circumvention of those technological measures exist. 4) Prohibitions against those circumventions exist. 5) Certain classes of works that are exempt from those prohibitions may exist.
Thus I contend that any class of work that constitutes Research should be considered a class of work that should be considered an exemption to the DMCA. I further define Research as that class of work used to comprehend or understand a copyrighted item without the intention of distributing a full and complete copy of the copyrighted item.
Me too... Water Joe! That's right: water plus caffeine minus sugar!
Here at the UnivMich, you can get it at the party store just north of Williams and State, the Main St. party store downtown (kitty corner NW of the Courthouse) and Meijer's (but not Krogers...) in both 16- & 32-oz. sizes.
The power of caffeine without the spike/crash of sugar!
2.Run it through a one of those text to speech processors. (Granted, we need a more emotive TSP app. Perhaps use html tags to denote emphasis?)
3)Compress as an MP3.
4)Encode with a private/public key.
5)Put it out there with a teaser chapter and a website to buy the private key -- cheap.
Advantages: Use ears instead of eyes. "Readable" using any MP3 player. Encryption solves piracy problem. Cheap for user -- lucrative for author. Don't need middleman.
...what percentage of chimps would have had to be killed off in order to leave survivors with such a depleted gene pool, but it would have to be high -- possibly as much as 90 percent or more.If the theory of an ancient chimp epidemic would hold true for humans, he said, "the implications are pretty scary."
About 100,000 years ago, there was a population bottleneck in humans. We got down to about 10,000 individuals, and we are all descended from these people, which accounts for the *lack* of genetic diversity among modern humans.
The cause of this bottleneck *could very well have been* a virus which rampaged through the population at that time. It needn't have been HIV, though -- more likely some airborne virus like influenza.
Perhaps one of the sub-goals of the human genome project could be to search for those parts of the genome that are conserved across all humans, just like in these chimps. This might give us clues to what caused the original bottleneck. It might also serve as a warning as to where our monoculture is most vulnerable to being hit in the future.
For further interesting reading, Google "Seven Daughters of Eve" or just go to here.
"In The Seven Daughters of Eve, he gives us a firsthand account of his research into a remarkable gene, which passes undiluted from generation to generation through the maternal line."
In all fairness, in moderation, soya is probably as harmless as any other common foodstuff.
Of course you are overlooking the minor point that the majority of soy grown in the United States these days is *genetically modified* with unknown consequences.
...the concentric circles. Most asteroids, because of their angle of impact, leave an elliptical footprint, with a bit of a "splash" [ejecta], sometimes forming a hill or mountain beyond the impact point. Concentric circles seem to indicate a "straight-in" impact, which leads to the idea that the object was going pretty darned fast (not slowed down much by atmosphere) *and* at just the right angle to compensate for the rotational speed of the Earth.
Concentric circles would be more common on worlds with little atmosphere to slow the object. Since we know that Earth at that time had a (relatively) thick atmosphere, it just makes the puzzle all the more interesting.
What would be interesting to find out is the metal composition at the center of the impact site -- that could tell us a great deal about what hit. Probably iron, but it *could* be something as heavy as uranium.
Slashdot Mirror
It *could* still be an analog computer, you know. Not all computers are digital.
Here is where his argument falls down. What is the down side of personalization? AFAIK, there is none. Sure it's ingenious -- it's also tremendously useful.
Alvin Toffler pointed out in Future Shock (1970) that computer-aided personalization would eventually become ubiquitous. He was right. People *want* things that are customized to their personal preferences and, er, sizes.
Here are some ways computers have aided personalization: Firefly (Patti Maes, MIT). Bayesian spam filters (many personal computers). Levi's pants (Levis.com). Design your own car (any automaker's site). Customizable news feeds. Even Slashdot itself. ( You ... probably would be more interested in the Preferences links you see up top there, where you can customize Slashdot...)
I also agree with the posters who pointed out that some innovations have applications undreamed of by their inventors. The Mayans discovered the wheel -- they used in their childrens' toys, and *nowhere else*.
Of course, this is not feasible for nanobots working in complete darkness, such as processing oil or sludge, or laboring underground. Maybe those could operate using hydrogen / sulfur pathways.
This gives a whole new meaning to, "Ah,so, grasshopper -- you wish to be enlightened..."
I think that everyone knows that the terrorists really hate our democratic system of government. Thus it is logical to presume that they will soon be targeting our public officials. What we really need, then, is one of these webcams in every public official's office!
(For those who don't know 'hell-riding': as a man is riding a horse [galloping], he is also seamlessly changing the landscape around him using his abilities. The landscape changes, the weather changes, the flora and fauna change, etc.]
And to the poster who suggested a LISP-type language: no way. Too procedural. A parallel PROLOG is probably closer; you set up some initial conditions (both in terms of data and quantum 'procedures': i.e. the quantum objects), but since the solution is all simultaneous, you don't have to worry about back-tracking.
You forgot Googlegoggled. As in
"I have to look through how many hundred thousand pages to find what I'm looking for?!? I'm Googlegoggled!!!"
Googlegoggled -- despairingly stunned at the amount of work that lies ahead of oneself, especially when that amount of work appears unexpectedly.
"Just thinking of writing that thesis googlegoggles me!"
"There I was down to +10 health, when I rounded the corner and was googlegoggled by the number of monsters between me and the exit!"
"We were at 90%, thinking we could deliver with only 10-hour days the rest of the month, when the client googlegoggled us by changing the specs!"
(See how useful it is? 8^D )
http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=lo cal&PAGE=First
This link will take you directly to the basic search function of the Library of Congress catalog, where you can easily enter the ISBN.
[Note: that's DB=local not lo cal.]
Good point. It should be easy enough to triangulate (well, since it's a three dimensional pile, I suppose you'd need *4* baseballs, so 'quadrangulate') the location of victims by simultaneously analyzing the relative volume of sounds picked up by the baseballs.
May I also suggest enclosing some of these baseballs in a tetrahedron framework (probably made of some non-conductive wire, i.e. not copper). This will mean that baseballs enclosed in this sort of framework that are tossed in at the top of a heap of rubble do not go all the way down, but stop on any relatively level surface that they encounter. Then you would have round baseballs near the bottom of the pile, and tetrahedral baseballs further up, thus enabling a better "3-D" acoustic view.
Also, why not use golf balls too? They are even smaller (so that they could go through smaller cracks) and are also resistant to damage from smashing into things.
Since retail outlets lose at least as much to "five-fingered discounting" employees as they do to shoplifting, I presume that the stores are setting up RFID-detection systems at the employee entrance / exits as well.
Interestingly, the most "feminine" looking humans are -- babies! Big eyes, small chins, etc. I can't wait until someone comes in wearing an ET mask. It'd probably test off the scale. 8^D
Monostatism -- the idea that a person can only be governed by one form of governance -- is a high-ranking, yet fairly unexamined, theory of social control. Let's look at it.
Perhaps this is because governance is -- until now -- geographically based -- you can only be in one place at a time, and hence only have one government. For those who would argue that you are simultaneously subject to both state and federal government -- it's the same centralized, heirarchal "democratic republic" system, isn't it? (assuming location == USA, but also applicable to other DR systems as well.)
You might argue that you could vote with your feet and change your location. But no matter where you go, you are subject to *one* governmental system. You can't find a place where you can *choose* from an array of governmental systems (unless you go to a place where there is *no law at all*, which tends to default to the "law of the jungle" -- again, only one system -- and not a very nice one at that.
If we could decouple governance from geography, and choose our system of governance, we might have competing systems, but each system would be *better* than what we have, because they would be competing for our 'consumption'.
In a sense, that is what we already have [here] in the area of religion: free choice and competing ideologies. And it works: in places where there is only one religious choice, people who choose otherwise are persecuted for not conforming to the primary religious norm.
After all, 'monotheism', while high-ranking, is not the only choice: multitheism [e.g. Hinduism], pantheism [e.g. paganism] and a[nti]theism [e.g. atheism or Buddhism or materialism or humanism] also have their adherents.
Analogically, only two forms of "anti-monostatism" come to mind: "libertarianism" and "anarchy". Even those terms can only be defined relative to *some* form of statism and one merely argues for limited monostatism. "Multistatism" and "panstatism" don't seem to have any other words to describe them.
Since "governance" is just as arbitrary a social construct as "religion", how do we get from "here" to "there"? Is it possible? Is it time for monostatism to go into the dustbin of history as the only form of governance possible?
Problem: if too small, they may be mistaken for food by birds as they drift down.
And I can't wait until we can manipulate atomic strucutres using the strong and weak forces directly, instead of these large, clumsy electrical fields. Geez, it's like doing brain surgery wearing oven mitts.
So...if the FCC is a branch of the Executive, charged with executing the laws, it isn't allowed to make laws -- regulations that incur penalties if broken -- especially laws that Congress itself is not permitted to make.
Maybe we should require anyone who wants to serve in government to pass a test on the comprehension and use of the Constitution. We'd have a smaller government in no time =8^D
For example, would it be "research" if I published a book with a chapter of your book in it?
As long as you didn't distribute it. 8^D
I see your point, however: a chapter of the book is not the whole book. However, it is still a coherent chapter, and thus a substantial portion of the book itself. The answer swings upon the thorny issue of what constitutes "Fair Use": some people might argue that my use of a single Bradbury sentence in a World-Wide Web forum constitutes "a distribution of a full and complete copy of a copyrighted item" (although obviously *I* don't, and don't believe that he would either! I used the quote because I found an ironic depth in quoting from a book that explores the concept of the abolition of reading for the good of society. I hope that the quote leads to more exposure of the book itself -- and thus more reading!)
Some courts have held that deriving some benefit from a distribution of copyrighted material constitutes an infringement of copyright (witness Negativeland's problems with U2), but even when there is no *direct* benefit, it has been held there is a unlawful taking (some college professors have been found guilty of copyright violation for something similar to what you mentioned in your post: compiling a collection of chapters from books for use in their classes.)
I was merely trying to establish that there is a "class of work" (i.e. Research) for which people *ought not be punished* under the DMCA.
Another example: let's say that you reverse-engineered MicroSoft Excel for the mere purpose of seeing how it worked, with no intention of then creating and selling something similar to it. Under the DMCA as it now stands, that constitutes an offense: reverse engineering of a copyrighted item with the intention of circumventing the display protocol (i.e. the closed-source software) is forbidden. My rationale is "That's just research!" since you don't have the intention of then distributing what you have learned. The DMCA does not make that distinction about intention. (Intention is important in law because it enables a jury to tell the difference between manslaughter -- killing a person by accident -- and murder -- killing a person deliberately.) The DMCA baldly treats all circumvention as unlawful; that difference, to my mind is unconstitutional , since it appears to limit the 'progress of science and useful arts', for which very purpose the doctrine of copyright was established!
I hope that my further exposition increased your understanding: "Enlightenment rushes in where ignorance fears to tread."
1) Copyrighted works exist. 2) Technological measures that control access to copyrighted works exist. 3) Circumvention of those technological measures exist. 4) Prohibitions against those circumventions exist. 5) Certain classes of works that are exempt from those prohibitions may exist.
1) Manuscripts. 2) Books. 3) Photocopiers. 4) "Fair use". 5) Research.
Thus I contend that any class of work that constitutes Research should be considered a class of work that should be considered an exemption to the DMCA. I further define Research as that class of work used to comprehend or understand a copyrighted item without the intention of distributing a full and complete copy of the copyrighted item.
See a nice example below. Understand?
Me too ... Water Joe! That's right: water plus caffeine minus sugar!
Here at the UnivMich, you can get it at the party store just north of Williams and State, the Main St. party store downtown (kitty corner NW of the Courthouse) and Meijer's (but not Krogers...) in both 16- & 32-oz. sizes.
The power of caffeine without the spike/crash of sugar!
1)Take a book.
2.Run it through a one of those text to speech processors. (Granted, we need a more emotive TSP app. Perhaps use html tags to denote emphasis?)
3)Compress as an MP3.
4)Encode with a private/public key.
5)Put it out there with a teaser chapter and a website to buy the private key -- cheap.
Advantages: Use ears instead of eyes. "Readable" using any MP3 player. Encryption solves piracy problem. Cheap for user -- lucrative for author. Don't need middleman.
What do /.ers think of this?
About 100,000 years ago, there was a population bottleneck in humans. We got down to about 10,000 individuals, and we are all descended from these people, which accounts for the *lack* of genetic diversity among modern humans.
The cause of this bottleneck *could very well have been* a virus which rampaged through the population at that time. It needn't have been HIV, though -- more likely some airborne virus like influenza.
Perhaps one of the sub-goals of the human genome project could be to search for those parts of the genome that are conserved across all humans, just like in these chimps. This might give us clues to what caused the original bottleneck. It might also serve as a warning as to where our monoculture is most vulnerable to being hit in the future.
For further interesting reading, Google "Seven Daughters of Eve" or just go to here.
"In The Seven Daughters of Eve, he gives us a firsthand account of his research into a remarkable gene, which passes undiluted from generation to generation through the maternal line."
Of course you are overlooking the minor point that the majority of soy grown in the United States these days is *genetically modified* with unknown consequences.
Why not just harvest all the (invasive species) kudzu (which also grows like crazy) and decompose *that*? Two birds with one stone.
Concentric circles would be more common on worlds with little atmosphere to slow the object. Since we know that Earth at that time had a (relatively) thick atmosphere, it just makes the puzzle all the more interesting. What would be interesting to find out is the metal composition at the center of the impact site -- that could tell us a great deal about what hit. Probably iron, but it *could* be something as heavy as uranium.