but seriously, any kind of system that 'unevenly' applies security screening actually opens a door for terrorists
I'd like you to tell that to El Al security and then report back to the crowd what they say and do to you - as much as we all hate to say it (and the constitution bans it) properly-done racial profiling works. El Al is everyone's favourite case study bacsue they're so hard-core about it.
Who are their average terrorist threats (and this is Israel - terrorists all around the neighborhood)? Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
Who do these groups employ for the most part (by virtue of their ideology and appeal)? Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
So who does El Al most heavily scrutenize? Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
Does this miss all the John Walker Lindhs out there? Not the way they do it, with their full-out systems integration between the security services and airline computers. If you've been to one of the countries that is generally on the enemies list, then you get interrogated more than usual. JWL was in Pakistan for awhile, so he would have been flagged for the list.
So can and will this system happen over here? No bloody way. Dosen't work on physical, temporal, economical, and political grounds. On a more basic level, Israel's got 60 million people and one airline, the States has 250 million and say 20 airlines that fly into it, under various flags. So that total level of security won't work here (ask anyone who has flown El Al and they'll know what I mean), but it can, and the government may try; this massive integration could be the start of the dreaded Big Brother, or at a lower level, the Man may simply record everywhere you travel (which brings up an interesting point - if terrorists are trying to destroy the American way of life, then haven't they already won if such an anti-American-ideals system comes into effect? And if we don't implement it, then they win by physically blowing everything up...)
Here at McGill in Montreal, we've got the beginings os this type of system set up - cool.mcgill.ca has about six courses on-line now. Each lecture is composed of all the slides used in the actual lecture, plus the voice track of the lecturer synch'ed to the slides. Useful when you're too hung over to go to Friday morning Chemistry
Several cities I know that have somthing like that: - London UK: At every tubs stop and about half the bus stops there's a sign saying when the next bus/train will get there. I'm not sure how the bus one works (maybe just pulling it off a schedule, as it's never very accurate) but the train one is generally bang-on
- Montpellier FRA: Brand-spanking new LRT with fancy displays at each stop giving exact times
- Kyoto JPA: At every bus stop is an odd sign with the name of your stop and the three preceding stops. When the bus reaches any of the three stop sbefore yours, that light goes out. Maybe radion transmitters at each stop?
No Logo, by Naiomi Klein. All about modern multinationals, monopolies, anti-Capitalism, swearshops, and the marketing concept of the Logo; plus, she's good homegrown Canadian talent
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by JRR Tolkien. It may be considered SF, but it's popular/mainstream SF that everybody can read
The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy. One of my favouirite books, beats the piss about of the movie and makes a seven-hour flight just fly by
For what's on the market now, definatley go for the Palm V. I've had mine for about three years and have had no problems with the thing. Now if I could just get it to Bluetooth-talk with my mobile and my headset then I'd be set until somthing revolutionary comes out
I want a PDA so well integrated into what I normally wear that I won't notice that I'm wearing it until I need to use it. I want:
An MEMD direct-to-retina interface built in to my glasses
A small processor unit that I can clip anywhere you'd put a gun holster that I never have to directly touch
A small speaker intergrated into said glasses and a mic built into my watch/neck chain/whatever
A text interface where I can make my right hand as if I'm holding a pen and "write" on my left open palm as input
Retina-tracking with said glasses to control the functions of the thing (you can get it for a videocamera, why not a PDA?)
A built-in GSM/GPRS/CDMA phone
Wi-Fi
All of the above wirelessly linked
So basically I want a wearable computer. All of the above are currently available in some for or another (excpet maybe the input), so all we need to do is drop the price from fourty grand downwards...
This idea of using piezoelectrics to dampen vibrations in sporting goods is nothing new - K2 has been making skis and more recently, snowboards with a similar system, both made by ACX back in since 1996/1997. From what I've garnered from the reviews and seeing the things in the shop, there was one credit-card seized piezo per ski, just in front of the binding, with a little red LED that was used to dissipate the energy generated from the vibrations. I've never actually skiied on a pair of these, but I'm told by a friend of mine who owned a pair of Fours (the first-generation Piezo ski) that they were wicked, and that the system really worked - especially on granular snow and ice.
Anyone lucky enough to own a pair of these, or are/. and skiing mutually exclusive?
First-Hand View
on
Project Eden
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I was down in Cornwall about nine months ago (last September) and spent a day at Eden. It was cool then, and the longer one waits before going the better it will seem - I suspect that it will reach it's highlight (and design parameters) in about five years or so, maybe more for the Mediteranian biome. Even then it was a fairly spectactular entrance, but once all the site had matured it will be quite a sight coming over the hill and droping down into the complex (it's in an empty old quarry so it's fairly far down).
As for the biomes themselves, I much preferred the Tropical (left-side) one. Not only was it significantly more mature, but it was also better landscaped and had more interesting (to me) and exotic plants in it, along with a huge waterfall and stream down the middle of it. You could see lillies that looked like frying pans, manilla trees (and you thought manilla envelopes were made of normal paper), and little mini-pinapples growing. And aside from a design-your-own-banana exhibit that didn't really work, they didn't chintz it up like you'd expect. The climate inside was also amazing; it was cold outside, and within ten minutes inside and starting to walk up to the top of the waterfall I was down to a t-shirt and had rolled up my pants.
The Mediteranien (smaller right-hand) biome was kinda weak and undeveloped, but as guess that's to be as expected, especially comparing it against the tropical one. For it's benefit, it did accurately reproduce a Med feeling (even down to the hordes of loud Brits), but things just don't grow as fast there as they do in the other biome. Give it a few years and it'll rock though.
Is this place cool? Hells yeah. Is this the eighth wonder of the world? No. Will it be in five years? No doubt.
the Intercontinental on Macquarie St. in Sydney (about twelve bucks australian a day)
the Hotel Royal Dorint Am Gendarmarket, in Berlin (they also have non-plugin via an in-room keyboard and the TV)
In addition, there are about fifty proper free Internet terminals scattered around Sydney Kingsford-Smith airport running IE on Windows, and a few non-free ones in the Cairns airport running IE on X.
I went down to Cornwall in September and spent a day at the Eden Project - let me tell you, it's one hell of a place and a hell of a design. It's essentially two big domes in the bottom of an old Quarray with the walls made out of adjustable air pockets made of clear plastic. It's also not what you'd really call 'sealed' in the sense of Biosphere2 - if you look up to the top of the domes, there are some huge heating and cooling systems in there, and a fairly advanced system of windows that open and shut depending on conditions and (I assume) visitors.
As for the biospheres themselves, one is a Tropical biome, and the other was Mediteranien (I think that's what they called it); the Tropical one is the big dome on the left, and the Med is the smaller one on the right. Of the two, the tropical one is better (as of now). It takes about half an hour to walk through the thing, and (especially the higher up you go in the dome) it gets bloody hot and humid in there. I went on a September day where I was wearing pants and a fleece outside, and within about ten minutes of beingin the Tropical dome I had ditched the fleece and rolled my pants into shorts. Its got all sorts of funky plants in there (including baby pineapples growing, bananas, and these odd frying-pan water lillies), a big waterfall that runs into a stream, to both add make it look pretty and keep the humidity up. What was really nice was that they didn't chintz the place up like many museums do - there were a few things like that, but for the most part they let the plants speak for themselves, and the small signs explain them - you can see a manilla plant that the paper for manila envelopes comes from.
The Med biome, on the other hand, kinda sucks. It's not really hot enoungh in there, and as Med climate plants don't grow as fast as Tropical ones, it seems a bit sparse in places - but they do a very nice job of decorating that half of the place.
The thing that needs to be remembered about the Eden Project is that the thing is really new. It's been open for about eight-to-ten months, and needs more time to grow. All the trees planted outside arn't ready, and the biomes need more time to grow and flourish. And they need to get anew supplier of Ice Cream in the Cafe. Having said that, Eden was a very pleasant weekend out. The train was like four hours or so from London, so you could do it in a day if you're hardcore. I personally went down for the weekend, doing Eden on one day and the Lost Gardens of Heligan (another gardening project) the other day. The place is cool now, and will be amazing in a few years. And it looks bloody cool when you arrive by car, coming around the corner and you just see these domes down there - and you just know it's gonna be in a James Bond movie sometime:P I highly recomend the place if you're in London and have time to get down to Cornwall.
While I agree with you (or rather, with some of the aspects you mentioned), I think you're missing my point. I have no interest in a Card that I will have to swipe and say "I hate Arabs!" to buy some bread. My opinions are my own (the above is not, by the way), and the Government should not interact with them. What I wouldn't mind is a card that I swipe (at certain places whose practices are heavily regulated) that says I am who I say I am. This is one of the few instances where hardcore Governmental regualtion would be agood thing.
You may not have concidered it, but National ID Cards exist already in the US: they're called Passports. Granted, you don't actually need one (if you plan on staying within the borders of the States for all your life), but they exist, and nine percent of the Citizens of your country have them (at my last check). What is it? It's a glorified card that you swipe when you wanna fly internationally, that pulls up your picture, if you're a legal Citizen, and if you have any deportable offenses (as far as I know that's what's on your record). This is a perfect model: you show your ID in return for somthing you hold scared (for me, the right to International Travel), and in return, they let you on the plane. You don't show your passport to buy bread. You don't show it to use your bank (well, you can if you wanna open an account). And what's in your INS record isn't shared by to everyone else - and if it is, it shouldn't be. I urge you to read this post by a French person, further explaining (and providing an example) of a well-regulated National ID Scheme. It's lightweight, it's only accessible by people with good reason, and it's not shared.
I may not totally beleive in the Government, but I trust them to this small degree. I'm (at least culturally) European, and while the merits of our political systems and layouts are another debate, maybe this explains why I'm not as wary of this as you are. I've seen them and experianced them, and they're not all that bad. Put a little faith in your Government (if you don't trust it, stage a revolution, get a new one, and write a new Constitution that fits with modern situations) and you'd be surprised at the returns. Eternal Vigilance may be the Price of Freedom, but there's a difference between Vigilance and Paranoia. If you never trust the Govenment, then how can they do anything to prove that they're not evil? Be Vigilant, get a new leader that's not a raving lunatic, and give them a chance.
As an aside, I wonder what you mean when you say that I shoud "work for long enough to get a solid feel for all the available information" and "get down to doing some critical research." I have, my conclusions are just different from yours; it's a free counrty,our difference of opinion is one of the greatest things about modern democracies. However, I would also suggest you do the same things you suggested I do above, but go broader. The US isn't the only source of credible information. Go see what's been done in other parts of the world, and how they all turned out. And just because your current Government isn't great (my opinion), don't let that make you beleive that all government is the same.
In France, you could say "I don't want you walking on my lawn without getting a retinal scan," but you're not allowed to say "I don't want you on my lawn because you won't show me your National ID." The key to having a National ID that's safe (as mentioned above) is to tightly legislate who can demand your National ID. Much like now it's illegal in the States to say "you can't come in because you're Black," it should be equally illegal to make presentation of National IDs mandatory for somthign like this.
Drivers' Licences and Prove It! cards exist for saying that you're 21, Social Security cards exist to show that you're registered to work, Credit Bureaus exist to see if you're worth lending money to. National IDs should exist to show the Government who you are when they have a justified reason to know, not to let you into a bar or rent a mini-van.
I beleive in Civil Liberties and all, but is a national ID card that bad? Before you mark this as 'Flamebait,' consider much of Europe (France and Switzerland spring to mind). Every French and Swiss person legally has to have a national ID card and carry it with them at all times, on pain of arrest. They're a little larger than a credit card, and have a strip along the bottom that you could pass through a passport reader (somthing like << ;), so if it wanted the Man could bring up your entire immigration record in one go. That's the theory: in practice, no one carries them or is ever asked for them, and if you are, you can just say "I forgot." Many of my French friends have never been asked for them in their lives, even when arrested. All they use them for is to travel within Europe without carrying their passports (yes, they can even fly with them on intra-Europeen flights).
The point is, just because they have a possibility to be used for evil, dosen't mean they will be. Look at Napster: it (in itself) is not illegal, it just has the possibility of being used for illegal purposes, yet we support it. Now switch the word "illegal" with "bad" and the word "Napster" with the phrase "National ID Card" and instantly our opinion chanages. Well-legislated IDs can be useful, and besides, most of you already have one; it's called a Passport (and if you don't have one you should). They can be well used in such things are preventing identity theft, reducing fraud, and miinimizing travel pains. The key to them is well-written and concrete legislation, crafted without the input of lobby groups or vested interests. In France, no bartender can ask for your National ID card, nor can an insurer, a municipal police officier, or a private company. In fact, I htink it may be a constitutional right that only the Feds can (not sure about that). Do they have a problem with it? No, because only (theoretically) responsible people have access to the card. Legislate well, and National IDs (be them in Driver's Licence form or whatnot) can be a Good Thing(tm).
I've seen all the pictures of this new 'beautiful' iMac (ball and screen), but this begs the question of how anyone is gonna type on this thing without killing the design. Where are the keyboard and mouse (and their cables) gonnna fit?
If you're gonna make somthing this singular and monolithic, then it needs either a touchscreen or a built-in (and default selected) wireless keyboard and mouse.
My father worked for several years in a position where he was required to be in Germmany four days a week (we are resident in the UK). He would have to fly out at the begining of the week and come back home at the end - about an hour-and-a-half flight either way. So what did he get for doing that for two and a half years straght? First off, he got to keep any and all Frequent Flyer miles he accumulated. That means that he's now in the top Star Alliance category and has a huge number of both miles and upgrade certificates. This makes it much easier for us (as a family) to go on holiday when he's got time off.
Secondly, he gets a good deal of flexibility in terms of what he flies. Solong as he gets there for a meeting at a certain time on Monday, the company dosen't care what airline he flies. Sometime he picks the flight for the convenience, somtimes for the miles, sometimes because he missed both flights listed above. He also (contractually) gets a certain amnount of flexibility in his travelling. For example, every once-in-a-while he can call in and say he dosne't wanna fly on Monday (if we have an event or somhthing) so they let him go out on Tuesday. The most important bit, however, is having a comfortable place to be when you're away. I'm not sure if this applies to you (as I do't know if you're going to the same place or different ones) but he (and the other people that did the Germany-London routine) made the company lease an apartement for them. It was a nice apartement with lotsa restaurants around it and an individual bedroom for each person that did the routine. This way, he had to carry no baggage between the UK and Germany. It also let them all have the impression of going "home," despite the fact that this home was a different home. He (and everyone else) left several sets of clothes and suits in the apartement, and had a laundry service come each week.
In effect, he turned a weekly travel into an hour-and-a-half bus ride to another apartement. Oh, and the Company paid for all phone calls from the apartment and his cellphone bill (which was tri-band GSM so we could call him anywhere). I'm not sure how applicable this is for you (again, I'm not sure your situation) but this worked for him.
First off, let me express all my sympathies to everyone who had a loved one in or around the WTC (or Pentagon) areas today; I hope to God they're all right. I have some friends who work in NYC who I haven't yet been able to get through to - they recently moved farther North, but I'll feel a lot better when I hear their voices.
When I first turned on CNN this afternoon (after coming home from the Science Museme as a result of being told about the disaster) my instinctive reaction was to call up the Air Force and carpet-bomb Kabul and most of Libya. I now realize that this is the last thing we should do. Yes, vengence must be had, but not now. Now is the time to plan and to calm everyone down.
I remind the crowd of what happened after the Reischtag fire leading up to World War II. Now, I'm not saying that Bush planned this or will turn the country into a dictatorship, but now not the time to rattle up the emotions of a scarred people. We must remember the lessons of history (and simple common sense): sleep on it. Wait a week or so, find out who did this (or narrow the list down a bit), THEN bomb the shit out of them. It's not the best response, but (as I see it) it's the only thing that will placate the American people.
In the mean time, they should use the huge tide of World opinion that is with them now for some good. Redouble their efforts to find Osama (or whoever's responsible), and then knock him off. A parable for caution: the recent Air Transat thing. At first we all though the pilots were heros for saving the plane (and they still are, to a certain extent). Only after careful examination did we see how bad they (and the company) screwed up keeping the plane safe.
To wit: wait a while, recover, then bomb the shit out of them.
I was just on Sen. Fritz's webpage about to write him a nice letter about why I think legislation is crappy, but my mind drew a blank for actual, logical reasons. Don't get me wrong, I'm against the thing on the same grounds that the DMCA is wrong and the like, but what's an argument that someone like him (or anyone outside of the computer-savvy online world) would understand - without busting out the OSS argument as the first shot (since that would instantly brand you a communist hippie in his eyes)?
The "I want to copy my CDs so I can listen to them in the car" argument wouldnt really work because he could then say that you're pirating music by doing that, since your're making a copy of what you bought (regardless of the cause). What we really need is some kind of similie to what this law would do that normal people would understand. How about comparing it to guns that only allow you to use one brand of ammunition in them, and not allowing you to use a box of ammo for gun #1 in gun #2. We need somthing simple like that to gel the law into its simplest form, so that it's easily countered.
Also the point that it makes it illegal to import any computers that don't have this system built-in; this is arguable for the major costs it would cause to PC manufactureres in Asia, having to make one spec for US consumption and one foe everywhere else. And how would you stop me buying one from a guy in Canada off eBay?
As the subject says, storylines are for the weak - they try and make up for shoddy "gameplay." Notice I put "gameplay" in quotes, because I can't really define it and because that one word is a congolmeration of things: graphics, sound, interface, and the like - but not plot. Take some of the most classic and loved games: Tetris, Quake, Windows Solitaire. They don't have plots or really fancy graphics (well, Quake did, but that was not the attractant). what made them good was their missions.
In Tetris you have to get a bunch of odd shapes into lines. No reason, you just do, and have a huge amount of fun in the process (and get really addicted). Quake? Sure, there's a story, but no one cares about it. The game is fundamenatlly Bowing Shit Up in new and creative ways. Solitaire? You try and win - that's it.
Being a Windows user, I've recently fallen in love with Minesweeper. It has no graphics, sound, FMV, or plot - you simply try and win. I can play Starcarft for maybe an hour and get sick of it; I can play Minesweeper until my eyes hurt from the small squares.
As I see it, that's the key to making a good game. You don't need a plot or a reason for doing somthing, you just make the goal winning. In all three of the games I mentioned above (and racing games like GT3) the M.O. is essentially the same. You turn the game on, and then you figure out how to win (keeping whatever parameteres the game designer has set for you in mind).
When you put a plot in a game you cover over the primary reason to play: to win. These are the true classic games - ones where the only thing that starts you into the game is the desire to conquor, and to do so you must perform a creative series of acrobatics are proscribed by the game designer. As I said earlier, storylines are for the weak...
I'm a Windows user - the folks use the machine, I like games and Word, etc... for reasons - and I see no point in shelling out all this cash for XP. Even if my machine could support it (which it can't), I see nothing really groundbreakingly "new" or "special" in XP. For my money and computational power, Windows98 is the pinnacle of OSes that Microsoft has put out. The only reason I'm not saying 95 is because I like my USB. 95/98 wasn't that bad a Windows release; not too sugar-coated and it did what I needed it to do; nothing more, nothing less, and it allowed me to tweak as I pleased.
I'm not sure that mandating owning a domain name is such a bad idea. Sure, it may create a small conflict of interest, but on balence in means that ICANN will be only full of people with a vested interest, thus full of people who (have to) care. Making judgements from the outside based on what we (who don't own a domain) see as The Right Thing is one thing, but making a descision where we have somthing at stake is another.
Think of this as being comprable to voting for your President/Prime Minister/Head of Government; if I wat to have a voice in who the head of the UK government is, I have to be a British citizen (or for some odd reason, a Commonwealth citizen resident in the UK). Think of how screwed up global political systems would be if anyone could vote for any head of government. I interact with the UK (through the world economy and by breathing the same air as they do) in much the same way I interact with the internet - so why is it that anyone (including those who arn't "citizens of the internet" - not owning a domain) can elect people to its highest office? I can't vote for US President, so why should those not invloved be able to vot for mine.
The long and the short of it is that most people who really care and are informed enough to make a competent descision do already own domains - thus they have a vested interest in making sure the system dosen't go to hell. Much like citizens of a given county have a vested interest in the political stability and competency of their leadership.
This isn't a flame, and for the record I own a domain.
I remember a year or so back there was the whole furor over the Third Voice system (don't even know if it still exists), where you could download a plugin to you rbrowser and then place "virtual post-it notes" all over people's web sites, viewable only if you had the software. Back then MS (and big business in general) was against it because they said that it was like graffiti and that they wanted to control what was on their pages - the didn't want competitors advertising on them.
And now we're back to the same situation - a service that lets its users get information from a page that the author didn't put there or authorize. But now because it's Microsoft and a feature-not-a-bug, it's all good and we can support it. How fickle the PTBs at Microsoft are...
I remember reading about somthing like this that the Chinese used with submarines against the early ultra-quiet American ones (the boomers - Ohio class maybe?). Basically, the US ones were like holes in the water they were so quiet. So the Chinese looked for places where it was too quiet, and bang - there was a sub. Essentially the same thing as above. It worked with subs, so why not with planes?
Clearly the safest thing here would be to put it all on a piece of paper and lock it in a fire safe - but that has issues in itself (about who can see what password, what is you leave the paper out in the open, etc), so here's my multi-pronged plan.
This may cost more than some other ones, but I see it as secure and (relatively) practical.
Go out to Business Despot and buy a zip drive, a cheap monitor, and a fire safe. Go to you local used computer shop (I'd go to Tottenham Court Road here in London) and buy a basic (like P133) spec computer, whith like 128 megs of RAM. Set up the machine with a root password that you tell the hardware guys, but keep all the passowrds on the Zip disk (PGP'ed if you want, but kept in the fire safe). Use all that RAM you've got to create a 64 meg RAM disk, and set all the temp dorectories to exist on the RAM disk. That way, the hardware guys can do what they want, but only you guys have the code to the safe (with the Zip of passwords in it). Needless to say this machine would be sepaerated from the network by the old two-inches-of-concrete trick (AKA put in a spare closet).
If you'e really paranoid, you could load the entire system into another RAM disk, booting the machine off a LAN (which would be made up of the password computer and another whose only purpose is to be booted and insatlled off of and would remain locked in a box).
If you wanna go one step farther, link the safe with the Zip disk in it to a mechanical device that dials your cell phone number if the Zip disk is out of the safe for too long and tells you the ID code the guy that opened the safe used (which he would have had to punch in as well as the safe code). And you could have that link to the combonation used to open the door to the room, ad infinium...fun with security - when you realize the only "secure" way to keep the passwords is to make them somthing simple and unguessable like " " or "foo."
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I'd like you to tell that to El Al security and then report back to the crowd what they say and do to you - as much as we all hate to say it (and the constitution bans it) properly-done racial profiling works. El Al is everyone's favourite case study bacsue they're so hard-core about it.
- Who are their average terrorist threats (and this is Israel - terrorists all around the neighborhood)?
- Who do these groups employ for the most part (by virtue of their ideology and appeal)?
-
So who does El Al most heavily scrutenize?
Does this miss all the John Walker Lindhs out there? Not the way they do it, with their full-out systems integration between the security services and airline computers. If you've been to one of the countries that is generally on the enemies list, then you get interrogated more than usual. JWL was in Pakistan for awhile, so he would have been flagged for the list.Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
Arabs in general, specifically Palestinians, Lebanese, and Syrians.
So can and will this system happen over here? No bloody way. Dosen't work on physical, temporal, economical, and political grounds. On a more basic level, Israel's got 60 million people and one airline, the States has 250 million and say 20 airlines that fly into it, under various flags. So that total level of security won't work here (ask anyone who has flown El Al and they'll know what I mean), but it can, and the government may try; this massive integration could be the start of the dreaded Big Brother, or at a lower level, the Man may simply record everywhere you travel (which brings up an interesting point - if terrorists are trying to destroy the American way of life, then haven't they already won if such an anti-American-ideals system comes into effect? And if we don't implement it, then they win by physically blowing everything up...)
Here at McGill in Montreal, we've got the beginings os this type of system set up - cool.mcgill.ca has about six courses on-line now. Each lecture is composed of all the slides used in the actual lecture, plus the voice track of the lecturer synch'ed to the slides. Useful when you're too hung over to go to Friday morning Chemistry
Several cities I know that have somthing like that:
- London UK: At every tubs stop and about half the bus stops there's a sign saying when the next bus/train will get there. I'm not sure how the bus one works (maybe just pulling it off a schedule, as it's never very accurate) but the train one is generally bang-on
- Montpellier FRA: Brand-spanking new LRT with fancy displays at each stop giving exact times
- Kyoto JPA: At every bus stop is an odd sign with the name of your stop and the three preceding stops. When the bus reaches any of the three stop sbefore yours, that light goes out. Maybe radion transmitters at each stop?
For what's on the market now, definatley go for the Palm V. I've had mine for about three years and have had no problems with the thing. Now if I could just get it to Bluetooth-talk with my mobile and my headset then I'd be set until somthing revolutionary comes out
An MEMD direct-to-retina interface built in to my glasses
A small processor unit that I can clip anywhere you'd put a gun holster that I never have to directly touch
A small speaker intergrated into said glasses and a mic built into my watch/neck chain/whatever
A text interface where I can make my right hand as if I'm holding a pen and "write" on my left open palm as input
Retina-tracking with said glasses to control the functions of the thing (you can get it for a videocamera, why not a PDA?)
A built-in GSM/GPRS/CDMA phone
Wi-Fi
All of the above wirelessly linked
So basically I want a wearable computer. All of the above are currently available in some for or another (excpet maybe the input), so all we need to do is drop the price from fourty grand downwards...
Anyone lucky enough to own a pair of these, or are /. and skiing mutually exclusive?
woo - fp
As for the biomes themselves, I much preferred the Tropical (left-side) one. Not only was it significantly more mature, but it was also better landscaped and had more interesting (to me) and exotic plants in it, along with a huge waterfall and stream down the middle of it. You could see lillies that looked like frying pans, manilla trees (and you thought manilla envelopes were made of normal paper), and little mini-pinapples growing. And aside from a design-your-own-banana exhibit that didn't really work, they didn't chintz it up like you'd expect. The climate inside was also amazing; it was cold outside, and within ten minutes inside and starting to walk up to the top of the waterfall I was down to a t-shirt and had rolled up my pants.
The Mediteranien (smaller right-hand) biome was kinda weak and undeveloped, but as guess that's to be as expected, especially comparing it against the tropical one. For it's benefit, it did accurately reproduce a Med feeling (even down to the hordes of loud Brits), but things just don't grow as fast there as they do in the other biome. Give it a few years and it'll rock though.
Is this place cool? Hells yeah. Is this the eighth wonder of the world? No. Will it be in five years? No doubt.
the Akasaka Prince in Akasaka-Mitsuke, Tokyo
the Intercontinental on Macquarie St. in Sydney (about twelve bucks australian a day)
the Hotel Royal Dorint Am Gendarmarket, in Berlin (they also have non-plugin via an in-room keyboard and the TV)
In addition, there are about fifty proper free Internet terminals scattered around Sydney Kingsford-Smith airport running IE on Windows, and a few non-free ones in the Cairns airport running IE on X.
This was done two or three years ago (if my memory serves me right) by the Antarcti.ca guys. It was hard to use then and still is.
As for the biospheres themselves, one is a Tropical biome, and the other was Mediteranien (I think that's what they called it); the Tropical one is the big dome on the left, and the Med is the smaller one on the right. Of the two, the tropical one is better (as of now). It takes about half an hour to walk through the thing, and (especially the higher up you go in the dome) it gets bloody hot and humid in there. I went on a September day where I was wearing pants and a fleece outside, and within about ten minutes of beingin the Tropical dome I had ditched the fleece and rolled my pants into shorts. Its got all sorts of funky plants in there (including baby pineapples growing, bananas, and these odd frying-pan water lillies), a big waterfall that runs into a stream, to both add make it look pretty and keep the humidity up. What was really nice was that they didn't chintz the place up like many museums do - there were a few things like that, but for the most part they let the plants speak for themselves, and the small signs explain them - you can see a manilla plant that the paper for manila envelopes comes from.
The Med biome, on the other hand, kinda sucks. It's not really hot enoungh in there, and as Med climate plants don't grow as fast as Tropical ones, it seems a bit sparse in places - but they do a very nice job of decorating that half of the place.
The thing that needs to be remembered about the Eden Project is that the thing is really new. It's been open for about eight-to-ten months, and needs more time to grow. All the trees planted outside arn't ready, and the biomes need more time to grow and flourish. And they need to get anew supplier of Ice Cream in the Cafe. Having said that, Eden was a very pleasant weekend out. The train was like four hours or so from London, so you could do it in a day if you're hardcore. I personally went down for the weekend, doing Eden on one day and the Lost Gardens of Heligan (another gardening project) the other day. The place is cool now, and will be amazing in a few years. And it looks bloody cool when you arrive by car, coming around the corner and you just see these domes down there - and you just know it's gonna be in a James Bond movie sometime :P I highly recomend the place if you're in London and have time to get down to Cornwall.
While I agree with you (or rather, with some of the aspects you mentioned), I think you're missing my point. I have no interest in a Card that I will have to swipe and say "I hate Arabs!" to buy some bread. My opinions are my own (the above is not, by the way), and the Government should not interact with them. What I wouldn't mind is a card that I swipe (at certain places whose practices are heavily regulated) that says I am who I say I am. This is one of the few instances where hardcore Governmental regualtion would be agood thing.
You may not have concidered it, but National ID Cards exist already in the US: they're called Passports. Granted, you don't actually need one (if you plan on staying within the borders of the States for all your life), but they exist, and nine percent of the Citizens of your country have them (at my last check). What is it? It's a glorified card that you swipe when you wanna fly internationally, that pulls up your picture, if you're a legal Citizen, and if you have any deportable offenses (as far as I know that's what's on your record). This is a perfect model: you show your ID in return for somthing you hold scared (for me, the right to International Travel), and in return, they let you on the plane. You don't show your passport to buy bread. You don't show it to use your bank (well, you can if you wanna open an account). And what's in your INS record isn't shared by to everyone else - and if it is, it shouldn't be. I urge you to read this post by a French person, further explaining (and providing an example) of a well-regulated National ID Scheme. It's lightweight, it's only accessible by people with good reason, and it's not shared.
I may not totally beleive in the Government, but I trust them to this small degree. I'm (at least culturally) European, and while the merits of our political systems and layouts are another debate, maybe this explains why I'm not as wary of this as you are. I've seen them and experianced them, and they're not all that bad. Put a little faith in your Government (if you don't trust it, stage a revolution, get a new one, and write a new Constitution that fits with modern situations) and you'd be surprised at the returns. Eternal Vigilance may be the Price of Freedom, but there's a difference between Vigilance and Paranoia. If you never trust the Govenment, then how can they do anything to prove that they're not evil? Be Vigilant, get a new leader that's not a raving lunatic, and give them a chance.
As an aside, I wonder what you mean when you say that I shoud "work for long enough to get a solid feel for all the available information" and "get down to doing some critical research." I have, my conclusions are just different from yours; it's a free counrty,our difference of opinion is one of the greatest things about modern democracies. However, I would also suggest you do the same things you suggested I do above, but go broader. The US isn't the only source of credible information. Go see what's been done in other parts of the world, and how they all turned out. And just because your current Government isn't great (my opinion), don't let that make you beleive that all government is the same.
In France, you could say "I don't want you walking on my lawn without getting a retinal scan," but you're not allowed to say "I don't want you on my lawn because you won't show me your National ID." The key to having a National ID that's safe (as mentioned above) is to tightly legislate who can demand your National ID. Much like now it's illegal in the States to say "you can't come in because you're Black," it should be equally illegal to make presentation of National IDs mandatory for somthign like this.
Drivers' Licences and Prove It! cards exist for saying that you're 21, Social Security cards exist to show that you're registered to work, Credit Bureaus exist to see if you're worth lending money to. National IDs should exist to show the Government who you are when they have a justified reason to know, not to let you into a bar or rent a mini-van.
I beleive in Civil Liberties and all, but is a national ID card that bad? Before you mark this as 'Flamebait,' consider much of Europe (France and Switzerland spring to mind). Every French and Swiss person legally has to have a national ID card and carry it with them at all times, on pain of arrest. They're a little larger than a credit card, and have a strip along the bottom that you could pass through a passport reader (somthing like <<;), so if it wanted the Man could bring up your entire immigration record in one go. That's the theory: in practice, no one carries them or is ever asked for them, and if you are, you can just say "I forgot." Many of my French friends have never been asked for them in their lives, even when arrested. All they use them for is to travel within Europe without carrying their passports (yes, they can even fly with them on intra-Europeen flights).
The point is, just because they have a possibility to be used for evil, dosen't mean they will be. Look at Napster: it (in itself) is not illegal, it just has the possibility of being used for illegal purposes, yet we support it. Now switch the word "illegal" with "bad" and the word "Napster" with the phrase "National ID Card" and instantly our opinion chanages. Well-legislated IDs can be useful, and besides, most of you already have one; it's called a Passport (and if you don't have one you should). They can be well used in such things are preventing identity theft, reducing fraud, and miinimizing travel pains. The key to them is well-written and concrete legislation, crafted without the input of lobby groups or vested interests. In France, no bartender can ask for your National ID card, nor can an insurer, a municipal police officier, or a private company. In fact, I htink it may be a constitutional right that only the Feds can (not sure about that). Do they have a problem with it? No, because only (theoretically) responsible people have access to the card. Legislate well, and National IDs (be them in Driver's Licence form or whatnot) can be a Good Thing(tm).
If you're gonna make somthing this singular and monolithic, then it needs either a touchscreen or a built-in (and default selected) wireless keyboard and mouse.
Secondly, he gets a good deal of flexibility in terms of what he flies. Solong as he gets there for a meeting at a certain time on Monday, the company dosen't care what airline he flies. Sometime he picks the flight for the convenience, somtimes for the miles, sometimes because he missed both flights listed above. He also (contractually) gets a certain amnount of flexibility in his travelling. For example, every once-in-a-while he can call in and say he dosne't wanna fly on Monday (if we have an event or somhthing) so they let him go out on Tuesday. The most important bit, however, is having a comfortable place to be when you're away. I'm not sure if this applies to you (as I do't know if you're going to the same place or different ones) but he (and the other people that did the Germany-London routine) made the company lease an apartement for them. It was a nice apartement with lotsa restaurants around it and an individual bedroom for each person that did the routine. This way, he had to carry no baggage between the UK and Germany. It also let them all have the impression of going "home," despite the fact that this home was a different home. He (and everyone else) left several sets of clothes and suits in the apartement, and had a laundry service come each week.
In effect, he turned a weekly travel into an hour-and-a-half bus ride to another apartement. Oh, and the Company paid for all phone calls from the apartment and his cellphone bill (which was tri-band GSM so we could call him anywhere). I'm not sure how applicable this is for you (again, I'm not sure your situation) but this worked for him.
When I first turned on CNN this afternoon (after coming home from the Science Museme as a result of being told about the disaster) my instinctive reaction was to call up the Air Force and carpet-bomb Kabul and most of Libya. I now realize that this is the last thing we should do. Yes, vengence must be had, but not now. Now is the time to plan and to calm everyone down.
I remind the crowd of what happened after the Reischtag fire leading up to World War II. Now, I'm not saying that Bush planned this or will turn the country into a dictatorship, but now not the time to rattle up the emotions of a scarred people. We must remember the lessons of history (and simple common sense): sleep on it. Wait a week or so, find out who did this (or narrow the list down a bit), THEN bomb the shit out of them. It's not the best response, but (as I see it) it's the only thing that will placate the American people.
In the mean time, they should use the huge tide of World opinion that is with them now for some good. Redouble their efforts to find Osama (or whoever's responsible), and then knock him off. A parable for caution: the recent Air Transat thing. At first we all though the pilots were heros for saving the plane (and they still are, to a certain extent). Only after careful examination did we see how bad they (and the company) screwed up keeping the plane safe.
To wit: wait a while, recover, then bomb the shit out of them.
The "I want to copy my CDs so I can listen to them in the car" argument wouldnt really work because he could then say that you're pirating music by doing that, since your're making a copy of what you bought (regardless of the cause). What we really need is some kind of similie to what this law would do that normal people would understand. How about comparing it to guns that only allow you to use one brand of ammunition in them, and not allowing you to use a box of ammo for gun #1 in gun #2. We need somthing simple like that to gel the law into its simplest form, so that it's easily countered.
Also the point that it makes it illegal to import any computers that don't have this system built-in; this is arguable for the major costs it would cause to PC manufactureres in Asia, having to make one spec for US consumption and one foe everywhere else. And how would you stop me buying one from a guy in Canada off eBay?
In Tetris you have to get a bunch of odd shapes into lines. No reason, you just do, and have a huge amount of fun in the process (and get really addicted). Quake? Sure, there's a story, but no one cares about it. The game is fundamenatlly Bowing Shit Up in new and creative ways. Solitaire? You try and win - that's it.
Being a Windows user, I've recently fallen in love with Minesweeper. It has no graphics, sound, FMV, or plot - you simply try and win. I can play Starcarft for maybe an hour and get sick of it; I can play Minesweeper until my eyes hurt from the small squares.
As I see it, that's the key to making a good game. You don't need a plot or a reason for doing somthing, you just make the goal winning. In all three of the games I mentioned above (and racing games like GT3) the M.O. is essentially the same. You turn the game on, and then you figure out how to win (keeping whatever parameteres the game designer has set for you in mind).
When you put a plot in a game you cover over the primary reason to play: to win. These are the true classic games - ones where the only thing that starts you into the game is the desire to conquor, and to do so you must perform a creative series of acrobatics are proscribed by the game designer. As I said earlier, storylines are for the weak...
I'm a Windows user - the folks use the machine, I like games and Word, etc... for reasons - and I see no point in shelling out all this cash for XP. Even if my machine could support it (which it can't), I see nothing really groundbreakingly "new" or "special" in XP. For my money and computational power, Windows98 is the pinnacle of OSes that Microsoft has put out. The only reason I'm not saying 95 is because I like my USB. 95/98 wasn't that bad a Windows release; not too sugar-coated and it did what I needed it to do; nothing more, nothing less, and it allowed me to tweak as I pleased.
Think of this as being comprable to voting for your President/Prime Minister/Head of Government; if I wat to have a voice in who the head of the UK government is, I have to be a British citizen (or for some odd reason, a Commonwealth citizen resident in the UK). Think of how screwed up global political systems would be if anyone could vote for any head of government. I interact with the UK (through the world economy and by breathing the same air as they do) in much the same way I interact with the internet - so why is it that anyone (including those who arn't "citizens of the internet" - not owning a domain) can elect people to its highest office? I can't vote for US President, so why should those not invloved be able to vot for mine.
The long and the short of it is that most people who really care and are informed enough to make a competent descision do already own domains - thus they have a vested interest in making sure the system dosen't go to hell. Much like citizens of a given county have a vested interest in the political stability and competency of their leadership.
This isn't a flame, and for the record I own a domain.
And now we're back to the same situation - a service that lets its users get information from a page that the author didn't put there or authorize. But now because it's Microsoft and a feature-not-a-bug, it's all good and we can support it. How fickle the PTBs at Microsoft are...
I remember reading about somthing like this that the Chinese used with submarines against the early ultra-quiet American ones (the boomers - Ohio class maybe?). Basically, the US ones were like holes in the water they were so quiet. So the Chinese looked for places where it was too quiet, and bang - there was a sub. Essentially the same thing as above. It worked with subs, so why not with planes?
This may cost more than some other ones, but I see it as secure and (relatively) practical. Go out to Business Despot and buy a zip drive, a cheap monitor, and a fire safe. Go to you local used computer shop (I'd go to Tottenham Court Road here in London) and buy a basic (like P133) spec computer, whith like 128 megs of RAM. Set up the machine with a root password that you tell the hardware guys, but keep all the passowrds on the Zip disk (PGP'ed if you want, but kept in the fire safe). Use all that RAM you've got to create a 64 meg RAM disk, and set all the temp dorectories to exist on the RAM disk. That way, the hardware guys can do what they want, but only you guys have the code to the safe (with the Zip of passwords in it). Needless to say this machine would be sepaerated from the network by the old two-inches-of-concrete trick (AKA put in a spare closet).
If you'e really paranoid, you could load the entire system into another RAM disk, booting the machine off a LAN (which would be made up of the password computer and another whose only purpose is to be booted and insatlled off of and would remain locked in a box).
If you wanna go one step farther, link the safe with the Zip disk in it to a mechanical device that dials your cell phone number if the Zip disk is out of the safe for too long and tells you the ID code the guy that opened the safe used (which he would have had to punch in as well as the safe code). And you could have that link to the combonation used to open the door to the room, ad infinium...fun with security - when you realize the only "secure" way to keep the passwords is to make them somthing simple and unguessable like " " or "foo."