Dude, I looked at your.sig link (Nasty Little Truth About Spacetime Physics) and found no useful math whatsoever. This guy wants to debate fine points of physics, and doesn't understand the language at all. It's like debating comp sci w/o any understanding of if-then logic, much less And-Or logic. My guess is he's a philosophy major who was frequently humiliated in class by the guys who knew math, and thus is on a crusade against anyone who passed calculus.
I hope you have a great sense of humor, or else have just neglected your physics education, because currently I have little faith in your powers of logic.
OTOH, I suppose you're a neccessary part of the scientific eco-system. We always need people criticizing the accepted standards, pushing us to put up (give some physical proof) or shut up. I would prefer, though, if you would adhere to the same standards of intellectual honesty that your typical scientist does. For instance, if you could come up w/ some alternate theories w/ solid predictions, that could be verified or disproven, I might listen. Otherwise, you're little more than a crackpot claiming that stuff doesn't work because it doesn't make sense, to your math-illiterate brain. Well, tough. The Universe is not mandated to 'make sense' to the Joe Public, especially if he refuses to try. The power of populism only goes so far, you know.
At least the original post linked to someone who is willing to make predictions that can be proven or disproven. That man is a scientist, IMHO, whether I agree w/ him or not. Your link is to a crackpot, OTOH.
This case just confirms the basic problem with Brin's concept (i.e. if you think that the people in power will in fact permit universal surveillance results to be available to Joe Sixpack, particularly in cases where it shows their own misconduct, I want to know what you're smoking and where you got it).
Well, if you actually bothered to read any part of The Transparent Society, Brin's overriding concern is that widespread surveilance by the police is inevitable. The stuff keeps getting cheaper, and as crime rises, it seems to become more popular, esp. if it actually is effective, or simply perceived as so. If you don't like the Big-Brother scenario this brings up, you have one of two choices-
1. Convince people it is ineffective, and prevent the system from being installed. That's difficult enough, even if it is true, (which I'm not convinced it is, frankly) as you'll be up against those desiring more 'control' exercised over the populace, which if you've payed any attention to opinion polls seems to include a large number of average citizens, not just those in power. And in any event, my impression is that it only getting more popular as time goes on, though I could be wrong... If it false, you'll be forced to lie to 'protect your freedoms', (which I believe will be protected just as well or better under approach #2) and people will eventually take notice of your lies, as the evidence piles up against you, and you'll be discredited.
2. Lobby for the ability to watch the watchers, as Brin proposes, which is the more elegant solution , as it shackles Big-Brother whether widespread surveilance is effective or not. I think this is a more popular idea than you'd think, as people have already shown themselves willing to pass laws that attempt to restrict police abuse and so forth, and this is just a natural extension of such ideas. (even if some officers don't fully co-operate w/ the law- fortunately, we can expose and punish them when this happens, which is the point of such laws and Brin's idea) We still are a democracy, after all, and this is also one place where the corporate powers-that-be could care less, so we're only up against a few corrupt individuals, w/ only their own personal funds, and we outnumber them.:)
And remember, some of the Judges in this case didn't like the decision, like the one who pointed out the Rodney King tape would have been illegal under their laws. If this goes to the Supreme Court, (which it should, just to overturn the precedent) I would hope it would be either overturned, or be popularly discredited if upheld, hopefully leading to a movement to change such laws... I think the Transparent Society is a more tempting idea than you'd admit, as it satisfies both the control freaks who want to put cameras everywhere public, and gives the anti-Big-Brother crowd a legitimate way to fight back against government abuse.
OTOH, if the Supremes uphold this ruling, then I might have to agree w/ you about the inclination to abuse by the powers-that-be, and start looking into emmigration...
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as a charitable deduction! Think about it, if they get away w/ this ridiculous assessment of the expenses of running Distributed.net at $0.59/sec, what rate can they set for Seti@home or Folding@home? Then you simply set up clients in all your universities, claim it as a charitable expense, and then, before you know it, you're contributing multiple times more to a non-profit organization than you're spending on your whole IT infrastructure!
Admittedly, you end up in a position of incredible hypocrisy, given that you've thrown a guy in jail for 15 years for something you're now implementing everywhere, but what the heck, evil overlords aren't above a little above a little self-serving hypocrisy... If one man suffers so that you can write off a huge amount of expenses as charity, what difference does that make? We have one cool evil mastermind in the D.A.'s office in Georgia here folks..;)
Well, maybe that's a little too far-fetched and Machiavellian an idea to actually originate from any gov. institution, outside of the intelligence agencies. But it brings up a wonderfully Machiavellian idea for a counter-suit if the fee is upheld...
First, if you live in Georgia as head of an IT department, bring up the idea of charitable contributions via usage of comp. resources to one of your company lawyers and your CEO. Then, if the lawyer thinks the idea is a possible, your CEO gives assent to the idea, and if you're feeling generous to the world in general, go through the motions of filing paperwork and other legal expenses, and go to the work of installing/setting up acual clients. This first time around, make reasonable claims on actual expenses.
After you've gotten the hard work out of the way, start claiming charitable contributions based on the results of the original lawsuit Georgia filed. You'll either get the fee assessment overthrown, in which case this McOwen guy can use your case results in an appeal of his case, or the fee assessment holds, and you get to save your company potentially millions in taxes at the end of the year! Either you get the good karma of helping a guy avoid cruel and unusual punishment, or you get a nice bonus from your company! Win-win situation all around, folks!
All the fun of twisty-minded plans w/ the self-righteous glow of good works... is there any better combination?
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Well, maybe not totally mindless. But certainly not sentient, because in my estimate, a creature has to be capable of understanding and choosing morality to qualify as sentient. That's as good a yardstick as any, and better than many. I hope someday to help corporations reach that level of thought, and guide them to positive, freedom-affirming goals in the meantime. My point is, we blame them for things that are our fault, in some ways, for not watching them and forcing enlightened laws upon them to encourage positive behavior. Treat Companies like dangerous but useful animals, and hit 'em when they misbehave, pet them when they're good.
As for noticably less free, well, we're free from the worry of Nuclear War, something you can't say about '84. Yeah, the Mega-Corporations are trying to limit freedom, but we also have the GPL, Linux and the EFF, things which visibly increase our freedoms, or try to maintain them at least. I mean, in 1984 could you find a fully free (as in speech) Unix-type OS for your computer? Did anyone then think about such things like free software, besides RMS?
I plan to enter politics someday to help halt this slow deterioration, and as someone planning to help fix things, I get frustrated by those who complain and do nothing. Did you contribute to the EFF this year? Or otherwise help enlightened charity and non-profit orgainzations? If you did, I apologize for possibly denigrating your contributions, but otherwise, go out and do something!
We can build a better future than the one we have today- all it takes is honest effort. Like create the environmental equivalent of the WTO to counterbalance their negative tendencies. Or an equivalent organization to promote and spread democracy and freedoms. And so on.
Jonathan Fisher
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Ok, how many of you have copies of DeCSS even though you'll never use it? How many of you post it on a web page to help those who might need it? And how many of you did like I did and downloaded a copy of this paper when you heard about the attempt at censorship, even though you normally wouldn't read it?
I suspect that in the/. crowd, the number of those doing so is quite high. Here we have another example where attempts at censorship in a free culture backfire. And yet, in their desire to create a Corporate Police State, companies continue to spend money on legal attempts at thought control even when such attempts are expensive and ineffectual. I don't understand the logic here, but then again, it is well known that Corporations by their nature are amoral, mindless beasts...
I look forward to DVD's playing on my Linux partition in a user-friendly GUI application soon, despite Corporate America's attempts to destroy the very freedoms that have contributed to their prosperity and wealth... well, maybe they'll have more luck in China, where censorship is part of the very society... I feel sorry for the Chinese in that regard.
Jonathan Fisher
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Damn. If I could share moderation, I'd give you a couple points here. I didn't expect to get a 5 out of that post, even with the link to the artificial heart. I mean, anyone with google can track down that link, just like I did. But your link is nifty too, you just didn't get here fast enough and will probably languish at 1... the karma system needs to be fixed so that Karma is actually a useful commodity, and transferable too...
I mean, people already sell/. accounts, no? I'm nearly at 25, where the auto bonus kicks in, and I don't like it. My 'all your base'-type posts will get the same rating as a useful but undermoderated post...
Anyways, the point in the original post was that Prosthetics are a mature technology, already, with the major advances already made, or getting there. But the real neat manufactured stuff is just getting started... can you give me an example of one successful artificial organ? I can't think of any, though my bet is on a psuedo-pancreas thing to be the first breakthrough- inject insulin regularly into a regulated sac and it adjusts to handle rapid fluctuations in blood sugar, like when you eat a dozen pixie sticks washed down with a gulp of Coke... a minor improvement on the current technology, but they're also producing patches that can deliver medicines through the skin with micro-needles, eliminating the pain of injection... mix the two ideas, and you could carry a fanny pack full of insulin around your abdomen, and such. Progress is cool, and the medical technology is finally starting to catch up with the sci-fi ideas of wired nerves and such...
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Is that they're working with really complicated tissues. Prosthetics have been around forever, but they're just simple Mechanical Engineering, and have been around since peg legs. And while there has been a mechanical heart, it was originally the size of a washing machine and a Medical nightmare, in terms of patient care. But nowadays we're stringing up Lamprey brains to electronics, and even creating an artificial heart that can actually be helpful, at least for a couple weeks. Complicated stuff, involving computational fluid dynamics and such, to prevent blood clots from forming and wreaking havoc on the body, by causing brain strokes and whatnot. And work continues on other replacements for the human body, both mechanical and biological.
So I found this article interesting, and would agree that this is a pretty big step forward in Cybernetics. I mean, they're almost to the point of keeping brain slices alive for weeks at a time now, and using them in sensor technology! Though when it comes to replacing human organs, my money is on biotech. Maybe we'll have replacement livers, kidneys and hearts by the time I'm decrepit and in need of them, who knows? But I'm signing a donor card for now, so I can still be useful in the event of an accident. We need a bit more work until we have replacements as good as those that come from donors, yet. So be a responsible citizen and sign your donor card, and tell your family about it.
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Y'know, I'm not sure if I'm serious or not here...
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· Score: 1
I posted this earlier, and even I'm not sure how to take it..
Man, if selling out and going Disney (member of the MPAA, sponsors of DMCA type stuff, the mess that was DIVX, ludicrous copyright extensions, etc.) means getting gigabit ethernet, I'm ready to join the Mouse's house today..
With connections like this, who needs freedom!
Now, am I being humorous, satirical, or serious here? I mean, people do trade off freedoms for advantages everyday, just take a look at your Waldenbooks/Barnes and Noble/Kroger/whatever card- Trading your privacy (in the form of your buying habits) for discounts. So, what is your take on the whole prosperity vs. freedom? I mean, if your really wanted to be free from everything (societal mores, laws, peer pressure, etc.) you would sell all your possessions and live in the rainforest, or something. But the people who do live in rainforests today would much prefer to be middle class Americans, if given the chance... so when does the tradeoff become a burden, instead of a privilege? Any ideas anyone?
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Man, if selling out and going Disney (member of the MPAA, sponsors of DMCA type stuff, the mess that was DIVX, ludicrous copyright extensions, etc.) means getting gigabit ethernet, I'm ready to join the Mouse's house today..
With connections like this, who needs freedom!
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Just curious, but if someone set up a organization to collect donations from interested parties, and pursue legal cases like this, for the express purpose of setting small-developer friendly precedents, would you visit and donate regularly? I mean, I see lots of/.ers complaining, but how many of us would put our money where our mouth is?
Or, to pursue another point, would a precedent not be helpful in this case, and what we're really facing here a breakdown of the American Legal system? i.e., you only get the 'justice' that you pay for, one way or another? In that case, we need to look into making the law affordable again, and that's a totally different project...
In any case, I am curious as to how to make the/. effect work for good, by helping get donations for worthy projects, setting up new organizations, undertaking projects for the purpose of defending our rights, or even creating lobby groups for the rights and freedoms of individuals, etc... If anyone knows a good discussion group/ discussion format for said topic, please notify me. Replies to my posts are usually read, and usually responded to if not AC, and I try to check my email box regularly. Be sure to change the address, as detailed in my.sig. Thank you.
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"and you should see what he can do with a hard boiled egg and a straw." what can cowboyneal do with a hard boiled egg and a straw?
Remember, this is the preferred place for penis-bird-man and goatse.cx dude... and then the editor's post a comment like that? Either they too have been infected by the madness or else they have no fear of the trolls...
In either case: run for your lives! The porn-trolls will invade this topic I say! And none of us will come out with our sanity intact!
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I believe that some Europeans use the period as we use the comma... I mean, he consistently uses amounts like X.000 , and there's no reason that I can see to use said amounts if that was a 'traditional' period, used to denote decimal places... after all, who lists prices to a tenth of a cent?
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What if the site was instead a site listing judges who were pro-choice? Or those who had ruled on X being within property-owner's rights, where X is an environmentally unfriendly practice (say clear-cutting). Or on stricter gun laws? Or on anything that brings out murderous nutcases?
Let's now go somewhere else with this thread... what if they gave addresses to people in the witness relocation program, since they disagreed with some the principle of testimonial immunity? After all, all you're doing is telling citizens if they have a known criminal in their neighborhood, one whose background has been covered up by the Government...such material could be used for harm, but is there any connection between the two? What if you have sworn testimony showing that you never wanted said witnesses killed, but were rather using this as a political tool to force said witness to pay his time in jail? Then you have a case where even intent is non-malicious, but the end result isn't.... it would be damaging to the Government law enforcement system, but such is the price of free speech, eh? All it takes is for someone to find and publish such a list...
I dunno... maybe the logical thing to do is declare all abortion doctors' home addresses and numbers to be national secrets... then you can imprison nutcases like this for releasing state secrets, as they would probably do in the above scenario...
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Steamy letters to interns?
Letters to Bill Clinton saying "why couldn't you keep your gals quiet? Doncha know a lady never tells?"
Just his spelling and syntax?
You know, now I'm more interested than ever in Dubya's personal correspondence...
Personally, if I became President, I wouldn't mind the American Public peeking in over my shoulder... they oughta stop being such prudes anyways... and before you ask, yes, I'm planning to go into politics myself, a double/triple major in Political Science, Law, and Computer Science, to fall back on in case of disillusionment...
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By your actions, you can revive the idealism, pragmatism and sense of hope that we founded this nation with... The problem is not that politics is inherently corrupt, the problem is that politics has this unfortunate tendency to attract the power-mad and corrupt. Therefore, honest men must enter politics, despite the scorn and cynical attitudes heaped upon them by the public.
However, we have reached a point where everyone's attitude is 'only criminals run for office. I don't want to become a criminal. Therefore, I will not run for office', confusing cause and effect. The only way to reverse this trend is for good men to enter office, and exhort others to do so. That is what my current plan is, and I plan to pursue a double/triple major, in Political Science, Law, and Computer Science, so I have a real job to fall back on, in case I get disillusioned. Even if I never progress beyond the level of Mayor/Senator, at least the world will have one more honest politician in office. And if, God willing, I get farther, I can do even more good for my country and the world, so long as I do not lose my honesty and integrity. In fact, that is the only thing that raises me above the level of those I would run against, so I better make sure to guard that asset of mine...
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As for the nearby comment that quantum computers challenge the Church-Turing hypothesis: don't count on it. Turing machines can simulate quantum computers, albeit with an exponential slowdown. In other words, when it comes to computability, quantum computers can't do anything that Turing machines can't--they just do some things faster.
Well, that bit re: exponential slowdown *is* the kicker, aint it? I mean, a NP-machine clones itself at each step, so a Turing machine could be said to simulate a NP- machine, albeit w/ exponential slowdown... In fact, I think the definition of NP-complete says something about the size of the problem scaling exponentially, anyways... So, just 'cause it can be simulated on a Turing machine, it doesn't mean it is a Turing machine, esp. if the model has an exponential breakdown in its scaling and simulation...
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Now, it's already been proven that a single 'unified theory of mathematics' is a boondoggle, (see previous posts referencing Godel's work) so the first part of this idea (i.e., 'holes' in mathematics) is nothing new... However, the site has been/.-ed and I can't find out how much he describes the connections between facts that mathematicians make...
The difficulty of the connections is what interests me... can we set up computers and programs to search for such connections, or is the problem too big or difficult (like NP-complete, or something) to be automated? And if it is, what philosophical implications does that hold? For instance, if finding Godel's Theorem was NP-complete or hard, what does that imply about human intelligence? I doubt that is the case, but if it is, well, the implications are pretty darned impressive... Some would seize upon it as proof of a human soul, others would start looking for a quantum computer implementation in the human brain, etc...
On a related note, can quantum computers solve NP complete problems in P time? I haven't kept up w/ quantum computers, so I don't really know their full possibilities or shortcomings.... If I were still considering a mathematics major I might want to delve into these issues personally, but I'm not, so I'll just ask the rest of the/. crowd and see what happens...
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Fuel Cells. They're making huge strides here, and even the oil companies like them, since they can then someday switch over to peddling hydrogen at their pumps, and keep in business even when fossil fuels run out...
And as a stopgap measure, how do you like Toyota's current gas/electric hybrid? It gets energy back while braking, converting kinetic to electrical and storing it, and gets something frightening for its miles-per-gallon while in the cities, like 50 mpg, or something... Cars of the future are looking niftier and niftier...
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Have you or any others considered making karma a 'usable' resource? As in, one could 'burn' karma to mod up your own posts when you felt you had something important to say, or found someone else who was surprisingly insightful, but had been overlooked by the moderators. It would be a sliding scale, with +1 costing 2 karma, +2 costing 5 karma, +3 costing maybe 9 karma, and +4 costing a whopping 15-20 karma.
One of my current beefs with the current karma system is the large number off posts posted by default at 2. I'd rather read 1 post that earned its high score than one that got there because of the poster's 'past history', since our current system increases the barrier to entry for newcomers to/. I mean, I read at 3+, nested, highest first, and am willing to bet many others do so too...
However, I miss a lot of good posts that got a positive moderation because of this... I really miss my daily dose of (2, funny), which I could get w/ a threshold of 2 and a grep/CTRL-F on 'funny'...
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Could the curvature of space changing distort the value of pi? I'm not sure exactly how one defines a circle, maybe by defining a certain curve (i.e., points equidistant from an origin) on a surface with a flatspace metric? And thus, when one moves to a similarly defined curve on non-flat surface, and a non-flatspace metric, the circumfrence/diameter ratio is used as your new value of Pi? But then... well, consider the sphere:
Now, take the equator as your 'circle', with the origin at the pole. Now, your psuedo-radius is Pi*r/2, and your circumference is 2*Pi*r, where r is the sphere radius. Thus the ratio of circumference/'radius' is 4, for a circle this large...for 'larger' circles, up to a radius of Pi*r, the circumference shrinks to 0. For smaller circles, the circle shrinks to a more flat surface, and 'pi' approaches 3.14etc as radius approaches 0.
Thus, on a sphere (constant curvature) pi ranges from 'flat surface pi' (3.1415etc) to 4 to 0... Thus, if one took the literal interpretation of said biblical passage, what would that say about the curvature of space in our universe? Interesting math problem for rec.sci.math, I guess...
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Yes! Now I know why the karma whores do what they do: the rush man, the rush!
Now I'm 4 steps closer to that all important 25, when one gets to post at 2 by default... Actually, I don't like that system, so the 1st post I make when I get there will be a critique of karma and a suggestion to make it 'spendable'...
Oh, and please please please please don't mod me down as offtopic... I'd hate to lose karma just 'cause I did an 'end zone celebration'... I'll try to be more restrained in the future... /me tries to hold in the excitement...
/me fails....
Woo hoo! In your face signal 11! Who's the karma whore now, yeah? yeah? I'm talking to you, dude....;)
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Well, I got modded down here as 'offtopic,' but it was worth it. And I'm not going to stop the "dude! that's cool!" posts just because some moderator lumps me in with the goatse.cx guy, so you failed to discourage me in that regard... so, it looks like you wasted moderator points for no reason...
Listen, you really ought to save that mod point for modding up, not down. Modding down rarely discourages people, and doesn't contribute much to raising the signal/noise ratio. I know I browse at 3+, and am willing to bet that most/. regulars browse at 2 or higher, esp since karma came into play. Now, if I had posted at a default of 2, I could understand modding it down, but as it is, I wonder if you just have issues with Christianity... don't take it out on everyone, not all of us are members of the religious right, you know...
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For those of you who don't know, LYGOS is this project designed to detect and measure 'gravity waves'. Last I heard of it, it was scheduled to be starting sometime soon. If the universe has so many black holes, as this evidence suggests, then they ought to be producing lots of gravity waves... so, have they been collecting data yet? How soon before we get 'gravity wave images' of the universe? Any professional astronomers here? Thanks!
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Slashdot Mirror
I hope you have a great sense of humor, or else have just neglected your physics education, because currently I have little faith in your powers of logic.
OTOH, I suppose you're a neccessary part of the scientific eco-system. We always need people criticizing the accepted standards, pushing us to put up (give some physical proof) or shut up. I would prefer, though, if you would adhere to the same standards of intellectual honesty that your typical scientist does. For instance, if you could come up w/ some alternate theories w/ solid predictions, that could be verified or disproven, I might listen. Otherwise, you're little more than a crackpot claiming that stuff doesn't work because it doesn't make sense, to your math-illiterate brain. Well, tough. The Universe is not mandated to 'make sense' to the Joe Public, especially if he refuses to try. The power of populism only goes so far, you know.
At least the original post linked to someone who is willing to make predictions that can be proven or disproven. That man is a scientist, IMHO, whether I agree w/ him or not. Your link is to a crackpot, OTOH.
1. Convince people it is ineffective, and prevent the system from being installed. That's difficult enough, even if it is true, (which I'm not convinced it is, frankly) as you'll be up against those desiring more 'control' exercised over the populace, which if you've payed any attention to opinion polls seems to include a large number of average citizens, not just those in power. And in any event, my impression is that it only getting more popular as time goes on, though I could be wrong... If it false, you'll be forced to lie to 'protect your freedoms', (which I believe will be protected just as well or better under approach #2) and people will eventually take notice of your lies, as the evidence piles up against you, and you'll be discredited.
2. Lobby for the ability to watch the watchers, as Brin proposes, which is the more elegant solution , as it shackles Big-Brother whether widespread surveilance is effective or not. I think this is a more popular idea than you'd think, as people have already shown themselves willing to pass laws that attempt to restrict police abuse and so forth, and this is just a natural extension of such ideas. (even if some officers don't fully co-operate w/ the law- fortunately, we can expose and punish them when this happens, which is the point of such laws and Brin's idea) We still are a democracy, after all, and this is also one place where the corporate powers-that-be could care less, so we're only up against a few corrupt individuals, w/ only their own personal funds, and we outnumber them.:)
And remember, some of the Judges in this case didn't like the decision, like the one who pointed out the Rodney King tape would have been illegal under their laws. If this goes to the Supreme Court, (which it should, just to overturn the precedent) I would hope it would be either overturned, or be popularly discredited if upheld, hopefully leading to a movement to change such laws... I think the Transparent Society is a more tempting idea than you'd admit, as it satisfies both the control freaks who want to put cameras everywhere public, and gives the anti-Big-Brother crowd a legitimate way to fight back against government abuse.
OTOH, if the Supremes uphold this ruling, then I might have to agree w/ you about the inclination to abuse by the powers-that-be, and start looking into emmigration...
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Admittedly, you end up in a position of incredible hypocrisy, given that you've thrown a guy in jail for 15 years for something you're now implementing everywhere, but what the heck, evil overlords aren't above a little above a little self-serving hypocrisy... If one man suffers so that you can write off a huge amount of expenses as charity, what difference does that make? We have one cool evil mastermind in the D.A.'s office in Georgia here folks..;)
Well, maybe that's a little too far-fetched and Machiavellian an idea to actually originate from any gov. institution, outside of the intelligence agencies. But it brings up a wonderfully Machiavellian idea for a counter-suit if the fee is upheld...
First, if you live in Georgia as head of an IT department, bring up the idea of charitable contributions via usage of comp. resources to one of your company lawyers and your CEO. Then, if the lawyer thinks the idea is a possible, your CEO gives assent to the idea, and if you're feeling generous to the world in general, go through the motions of filing paperwork and other legal expenses, and go to the work of installing/setting up acual clients. This first time around, make reasonable claims on actual expenses.
After you've gotten the hard work out of the way, start claiming charitable contributions based on the results of the original lawsuit Georgia filed. You'll either get the fee assessment overthrown, in which case this McOwen guy can use your case results in an appeal of his case, or the fee assessment holds, and you get to save your company potentially millions in taxes at the end of the year! Either you get the good karma of helping a guy avoid cruel and unusual punishment, or you get a nice bonus from your company! Win-win situation all around, folks!
All the fun of twisty-minded plans w/ the self-righteous glow of good works... is there any better combination?
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As for noticably less free, well, we're free from the worry of Nuclear War, something you can't say about '84. Yeah, the Mega-Corporations are trying to limit freedom, but we also have the GPL, Linux and the EFF, things which visibly increase our freedoms, or try to maintain them at least. I mean, in 1984 could you find a fully free (as in speech) Unix-type OS for your computer? Did anyone then think about such things like free software, besides RMS?
I plan to enter politics someday to help halt this slow deterioration, and as someone planning to help fix things, I get frustrated by those who complain and do nothing. Did you contribute to the EFF this year? Or otherwise help enlightened charity and non-profit orgainzations? If you did, I apologize for possibly denigrating your contributions, but otherwise, go out and do something!
We can build a better future than the one we have today- all it takes is honest effort. Like create the environmental equivalent of the WTO to counterbalance their negative tendencies. Or an equivalent organization to promote and spread democracy and freedoms. And so on.
Jonathan Fisher
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I suspect that in the /. crowd, the number of those doing so is quite high. Here we have another example where attempts at censorship in a free culture backfire. And yet, in their desire to create a Corporate Police State, companies continue to spend money on legal attempts at thought control even when such attempts are expensive and ineffectual. I don't understand the logic here, but then again, it is well known that Corporations by their nature are amoral, mindless beasts...
I look forward to DVD's playing on my Linux partition in a user-friendly GUI application soon, despite Corporate America's attempts to destroy the very freedoms that have contributed to their prosperity and wealth... well, maybe they'll have more luck in China, where censorship is part of the very society... I feel sorry for the Chinese in that regard.
Jonathan Fisher
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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I mean, people already sell /. accounts, no? I'm nearly at 25, where the auto bonus kicks in, and I don't like it. My 'all your base'-type posts will get the same rating as a useful but undermoderated post...
Anyways, the point in the original post was that Prosthetics are a mature technology, already, with the major advances already made, or getting there. But the real neat manufactured stuff is just getting started... can you give me an example of one successful artificial organ? I can't think of any, though my bet is on a psuedo-pancreas thing to be the first breakthrough- inject insulin regularly into a regulated sac and it adjusts to handle rapid fluctuations in blood sugar, like when you eat a dozen pixie sticks washed down with a gulp of Coke... a minor improvement on the current technology, but they're also producing patches that can deliver medicines through the skin with micro-needles, eliminating the pain of injection... mix the two ideas, and you could carry a fanny pack full of insulin around your abdomen, and such. Progress is cool, and the medical technology is finally starting to catch up with the sci-fi ideas of wired nerves and such...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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So I found this article interesting, and would agree that this is a pretty big step forward in Cybernetics. I mean, they're almost to the point of keeping brain slices alive for weeks at a time now, and using them in sensor technology! Though when it comes to replacing human organs, my money is on biotech. Maybe we'll have replacement livers, kidneys and hearts by the time I'm decrepit and in need of them, who knows? But I'm signing a donor card for now, so I can still be useful in the event of an accident. We need a bit more work until we have replacements as good as those that come from donors, yet. So be a responsible citizen and sign your donor card, and tell your family about it.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Now, am I being humorous, satirical, or serious here? I mean, people do trade off freedoms for advantages everyday, just take a look at your Waldenbooks/Barnes and Noble/Kroger/whatever card- Trading your privacy (in the form of your buying habits) for discounts. So, what is your take on the whole prosperity vs. freedom? I mean, if your really wanted to be free from everything (societal mores, laws, peer pressure, etc.) you would sell all your possessions and live in the rainforest, or something. But the people who do live in rainforests today would much prefer to be middle class Americans, if given the chance... so when does the tradeoff become a burden, instead of a privilege? Any ideas anyone?
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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With connections like this, who needs freedom!
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Or, to pursue another point, would a precedent not be helpful in this case, and what we're really facing here a breakdown of the American Legal system? i.e., you only get the 'justice' that you pay for, one way or another? In that case, we need to look into making the law affordable again, and that's a totally different project...
In any case, I am curious as to how to make the /. effect work for good, by helping get donations for worthy projects, setting up new organizations, undertaking projects for the purpose of defending our rights, or even creating lobby groups for the rights and freedoms of individuals, etc... If anyone knows a good discussion group/ discussion format for said topic, please notify me. Replies to my posts are usually read, and usually responded to if not AC, and I try to check my email box regularly. Be sure to change the address, as detailed in my .sig. Thank you.
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Remember, this is the preferred place for penis-bird-man and goatse.cx dude... and then the editor's post a comment like that? Either they too have been infected by the madness or else they have no fear of the trolls...
In either case: run for your lives! The porn-trolls will invade this topic I say! And none of us will come out with our sanity intact!
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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I believe that some Europeans use the period as we use the comma... I mean, he consistently uses amounts like X.000 , and there's no reason that I can see to use said amounts if that was a 'traditional' period, used to denote decimal places... after all, who lists prices to a tenth of a cent?
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Let's now go somewhere else with this thread... what if they gave addresses to people in the witness relocation program, since they disagreed with some the principle of testimonial immunity? After all, all you're doing is telling citizens if they have a known criminal in their neighborhood, one whose background has been covered up by the Government...such material could be used for harm, but is there any connection between the two? What if you have sworn testimony showing that you never wanted said witnesses killed, but were rather using this as a political tool to force said witness to pay his time in jail? Then you have a case where even intent is non-malicious, but the end result isn't.... it would be damaging to the Government law enforcement system, but such is the price of free speech, eh? All it takes is for someone to find and publish such a list...
I dunno... maybe the logical thing to do is declare all abortion doctors' home addresses and numbers to be national secrets... then you can imprison nutcases like this for releasing state secrets, as they would probably do in the above scenario...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Letters to Bill Clinton saying "why couldn't you keep your gals quiet? Doncha know a lady never tells?"
Just his spelling and syntax?
You know, now I'm more interested than ever in Dubya's personal correspondence...
Personally, if I became President, I wouldn't mind the American Public peeking in over my shoulder... they oughta stop being such prudes anyways... and before you ask, yes, I'm planning to go into politics myself, a double/triple major in Political Science, Law, and Computer Science, to fall back on in case of disillusionment...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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However, we have reached a point where everyone's attitude is 'only criminals run for office. I don't want to become a criminal. Therefore, I will not run for office', confusing cause and effect. The only way to reverse this trend is for good men to enter office, and exhort others to do so. That is what my current plan is, and I plan to pursue a double/triple major, in Political Science, Law, and Computer Science, so I have a real job to fall back on, in case I get disillusioned. Even if I never progress beyond the level of Mayor/Senator, at least the world will have one more honest politician in office. And if, God willing, I get farther, I can do even more good for my country and the world, so long as I do not lose my honesty and integrity. In fact, that is the only thing that raises me above the level of those I would run against, so I better make sure to guard that asset of mine...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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As everyone knows, the real reason we went to the moon is for the cheese. Foodstuffs, like aforementioned 'rocks', are always declared!
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Well, that bit re: exponential slowdown *is* the kicker, aint it? I mean, a NP-machine clones itself at each step, so a Turing machine could be said to simulate a NP- machine, albeit w/ exponential slowdown... In fact, I think the definition of NP-complete says something about the size of the problem scaling exponentially, anyways... So, just 'cause it can be simulated on a Turing machine, it doesn't mean it is a Turing machine, esp. if the model has an exponential breakdown in its scaling and simulation...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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The difficulty of the connections is what interests me... can we set up computers and programs to search for such connections, or is the problem too big or difficult (like NP-complete, or something) to be automated? And if it is, what philosophical implications does that hold? For instance, if finding Godel's Theorem was NP-complete or hard, what does that imply about human intelligence? I doubt that is the case, but if it is, well, the implications are pretty darned impressive... Some would seize upon it as proof of a human soul, others would start looking for a quantum computer implementation in the human brain, etc...
On a related note, can quantum computers solve NP complete problems in P time? I haven't kept up w/ quantum computers, so I don't really know their full possibilities or shortcomings.... If I were still considering a mathematics major I might want to delve into these issues personally, but I'm not, so I'll just ask the rest of the /. crowd and see what happens...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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And as a stopgap measure, how do you like Toyota's current gas/electric hybrid? It gets energy back while braking, converting kinetic to electrical and storing it, and gets something frightening for its miles-per-gallon while in the cities, like 50 mpg, or something... Cars of the future are looking niftier and niftier...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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One of my current beefs with the current karma system is the large number off posts posted by default at 2. I'd rather read 1 post that earned its high score than one that got there because of the poster's 'past history', since our current system increases the barrier to entry for newcomers to /. I mean, I read at 3+, nested, highest first, and am willing to bet many others do so too...
However, I miss a lot of good posts that got a positive moderation because of this... I really miss my daily dose of (2, funny), which I could get w/ a threshold of 2 and a grep/CTRL-F on 'funny'...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Now, take the equator as your 'circle', with the origin at the pole. Now, your psuedo-radius is Pi*r/2, and your circumference is 2*Pi*r, where r is the sphere radius. Thus the ratio of circumference/'radius' is 4, for a circle this large...for 'larger' circles, up to a radius of Pi*r, the circumference shrinks to 0. For smaller circles, the circle shrinks to a more flat surface, and 'pi' approaches 3.14etc as radius approaches 0.
Thus, on a sphere (constant curvature) pi ranges from 'flat surface pi' (3.1415etc) to 4 to 0... Thus, if one took the literal interpretation of said biblical passage, what would that say about the curvature of space in our universe? Interesting math problem for rec.sci.math, I guess...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Now I'm 4 steps closer to that all important 25, when one gets to post at 2 by default... Actually, I don't like that system, so the 1st post I make when I get there will be a critique of karma and a suggestion to make it 'spendable'...
Oh, and please please please please don't mod me down as offtopic... I'd hate to lose karma just 'cause I did an 'end zone celebration'... I'll try to be more restrained in the future...
/me tries to hold in the excitement...
Woo hoo! In your face signal 11! Who's the karma whore now, yeah? yeah? I'm talking to you, dude.... ;)
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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Listen, you really ought to save that mod point for modding up, not down. Modding down rarely discourages people, and doesn't contribute much to raising the signal/noise ratio. I know I browse at 3+, and am willing to bet that most /. regulars browse at 2 or higher, esp since karma came into play. Now, if I had posted at a default of 2, I could understand modding it down, but as it is, I wonder if you just have issues with Christianity... don't take it out on everyone, not all of us are members of the religious right, you know...
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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For those of you who don't know, LYGOS is this project designed to detect and measure 'gravity waves'. Last I heard of it, it was scheduled to be starting sometime soon. If the universe has so many black holes, as this evidence suggests, then they ought to be producing lots of gravity waves... so, have they been collecting data yet? How soon before we get 'gravity wave images' of the universe? Any professional astronomers here? Thanks!
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IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
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