I f the IETF decides that it will implement some way of "digital wiretapping" with whatever existing/new standards, Ihighly urge every to tell the IETF to FUCK OFF.
If the IETF is such a spineless, worthless, puppet of an organization that it gives into these demands by the American government (and don't fool yourself, we all know who is really making these demands), then I think the Internet is a hell of a lot better off without it: standards or no.
Screw "OPTIONAL", these are human rights issues, not things to compromise on. Shame on the IETF for opening up for it, shame on you for suggesting it, and shame on Slashdot for putting this at the top of this discussion. For once I am not proud to be a/.er.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
No, you have got this backwards. The fear is not that that America will water down other countries regulations, but the opposite. America has some of the strictest laws in democratic when it comes to mandatory government holes in Telecom equipment.
You have been brainwashed for too long...
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
... its called "security by obscurity". Its highly regarded in the security world as a valuable way to, well, screw yourself over.
Either you trust the crypto or you don't. If you don't: don't use it. If you do, then use it, and while you at it send your worst enemy the source code to the program, a book about the crypto as a taunt, and some recommendations on good hardware. And then have fun when he realizes you chose "won't" rather "chances are".
(this is an example of very bad moderating btw...)
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Though it unlikely that games will ever be free (ala beer), since so much effort goes into them from all angles (not just code, but also art, music, design etc), but that does not necessarily preclude open source game engines.
Admittedly (and I don't mean this as a slam against you) game engines today do suffer from many of the same problems that Open Source activists attack in Operative systems and other software: bugs, instability and sometimes even bloat and vaporware.
Do you think that Open Source will play a part in the future of game development?
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
I don't agree. That prejudice is bad has been said a thousand times over. If you want an example of a society where individuals are unfairly treated because of prejudice (and it doesn't really matter whether it is based on dna, frenology, race, or sex), you don't need sci-fi, you can just look around you in the world we live today.
However, down the road of technology the really frightening thing is that there will be prejudice will be justified and correct (and it doesn't really matter whether DNA analysis, some day there will be a technology that will). From a sci-fi point of view, such a society is a much more interesting discussion.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Actually, I suspect that game engines will be moving into open developement sooner or later as well.
The problem with games is that they are so much more than they code. They need a story, lots of artwork, motion capture or video clips, music, sounds etc, all of which can usually not be produced by someone with gcc and emacs (though, maybe as the open source philosophee proliferates in non-tech society...)
Provides for some good question to put to Carmack tomorrow.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Gattaca was an interesting movie, but it missed the point in its all-American "You can do it if you only try" message. I wrote a review of it for a Swedish film site, where I compared the DNA prejudice in the movie to the Frenology (finding personal traits from the size of the brain) of the 1800s. I concluded however that the movie misses the point. The really frightening thing about DNA analysis is not that it makes prejudice based on DNA possible, prejudice is already deeply rooted in our society, but that that (unlike frenology which was just bullshit) prejudice based on genes would be right.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
I wrote the "the drug war is far from solved" rather than the "the drug problem is far from solved" intentionally. Obviously, the problem is not that there exists drugs from which the people gain pleasure, but that society thought that denial and draconian law was a solution.
I'm an anarchist at heart, but in our current society I can buy people telling me not to something for others sake ("Don't drink and drive cause you might kill someone"), but not for my own ("Don't drink and drive cause you might kill yourself", "Don't do drugs cause they are bad for you").
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
If I were paying tax money to the American government, I would be rather upset about the whole doubling of efforts here. I mean: On the one hand they have echelon, which they deny is going on, but which all know beyond reasonable doubt is there, and is monitoring our communications networks (private and state) already.
But, just to so they can keep denying Echelon, they have to invest another 39 million in a monitoring network they admit exists. I bet that money is actually going for corruption, while FIDnet will just be a public front for the already in place Echelon.
Anyways, as far as I am concerned they can go ahead and monitor all they want. The Internet is a public network, sending packets over it IS like sending postcards. However, I do want to it to be a fair playing field. That is:
Yes, mr Sam, you may go ahead and evesdrop on me as much as you want, but don't think for a fucking second that you can try to keep me from using language you can't understand when I don't want you to know what I'm saying.
Crypto IS a human right.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
I hate to put down this great man, but I think that he is feeling the natural urge to speed things up, the hope that more and more things will happen while he still has a chance to see them.
His predictions are beginning to seem childishly naive, and at odds with the world as I see it completely. Granted, I'm cynical as hell, but look around you, do you see a world heading for a utopia in 50 years? Man kind has some major issues to face, and trying to rely on the belief that working cold fusion will be developed in three years is just sad. We won't have working warm fusion in three years people.
Who predicted HIV? Who predicted the ozone layer and greenhouse effect (anyone notice how these two problems are talked about so much less today then ten years ago - it isn't because the situation is any better today)? Who predicted that man kinds exploration of space would stop after reaching the moon, and almost die completely as soon as there were no longer two superpowers playing the largest-penis game?
The drug war is far from solved. Nor are the enviromental problems. Nor is world starvation. Nor is the emergence of new viruses. Nor is the fact that the economy is completly at odds with itself (the freedom of information, vs the appropriation of information). Nor is the fact that the China that Clarke predicts will soon be the worlds largest economy doesn't respect any human rights what so ever. Nor is the fact that the western nations are turning away refugees who earn less in a year then we do in a week from our borders because "we can't afford them". Nor is the fact that weapons of mass destruction will soon be trivial for a country, or even an organisation (and soon an individual) to develope.
Come to think of it, I don't give a fuck when we land on Mars or find life on Europa...
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Yes, but IIRC (I din't bother reading the article now, seen it so many times before) Moore's law does not deal with the speed of the processor, but the density of the transistors.
Even Moore himself admits that his law can't hold forever, only he is wise enough not to put a timetable on it.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
I don't agree with the original poster (in the end Microsoft ARE judged by the quality of their products and nothing else) but that isn't really a good point in this case.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
A sub-genre that is a little over 15 years old is unlikely to be post-itself anytime soon. If anything, I would say that this is still pre-whatever the future of sci-fi is.
Anyways, the most successful Cyberpunk story of this year was definetly the Matrix, which does not fit into the definition of his post- class by a longshot. And the next cyberpunk movie is probably going to be the film version of Neuromancer (barring the Matrix sequels).
Whatever the world is tomorrow, there will obviously still be people holding down jobs, having families, watching massmarket entertainment, and who value being able to take a walk in the park over freedom of information and action. But those people are not necessarily the most interesting to read about...
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
then "Cited as computer security expert by Jane's Intelligence Review" is going right on my resume. That has got to impress some perspective employers...
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Anybody know about running Dvorak with none-American keyboard layouts? I realize that it can't really work as planned, since Dvorak is designed after the English languages use of letters, and since letters not used in English have to be moved to the side (öäå, three common letters in Swedish, are all on the right side of l and p on Swedish qwerty), but I write _mostly_ in English anyways.
All the xmodmap scripts I have seen seem to be likely to screw up non english keyboards, however. Does Dvorak dictate the position of the non alphabetic characters?
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
By 2000, a Web industry desperate to explain why they are not living up to the stock market expectations blame deep linking and agents for destroying their profits.
By 2001, software, music, publishing and entertainment makers are complaining about massive losses in profit to do online piracy. Massive lobbying for the US and EU to "do something about it".
By 2002, global trade organizations set out new laws to step up "the war on free information". Internet sites are required by law to carry back-doors for government robots, linking to a site is forbidden without expressed permission, and ISPs are required to report nodes with high traffic. Possession of pirated information (illegal data) becomes punishable by incarceration.
Also, the EU and the US legislate for mandatory content ratings on all Internet information. The first trial against a server operator is held in America, where he is sentenced to 12 years in prison. He appeals.
American President Al Gore, who's government largely bullied these laws into effect internationally, holds a press conference together with Disney, Yahoo, Bertelsman Foundation, and now media company Microsoft, who promise this is the road to a better future.
By 2003, the case of the server operator who wouldn't agree to meta-data laws reaches the American supreme court. A heavily lobbied and weak supreme court upholds his prison sentence.
With the War on Free Information going nowhere, and illegal data flying faster than ever over the broadband Internet, the American government sees the court verdict as a green light to install life imprisonment on data piracy, intellectual property violation, and system intrusion.
Slashdot closes as one of the last reader participation sites. Keeping reader comments within ratings proved impossible.
By 2004, the term "Dataglob" enters vocabulary, to denote the dynamic, distributed, roaming globs of encrypted illegal data moving around the Internet. The globs are created to escape government regulation by not depending on the physical network for their infrastructure.
The intellectual property industry releases another report showing that profits are down and piracy is up. The Globs become the scapegoats, and are outlawed. This has little effect on their popularity, since the Web is now a desolate landscape of decent sites full of dancing baloney in the tradition of Disney and Yahoo.
By 2005, the Dataglobs are drawing scientific interest since there mathematical architecture is now so intricate that they can do anything that the physical network could do before.
A study is released showing that 78% of all people in the connected world use and post illegal information on the Globs. Public belief in the governments is down to a new low.
By 2007, A Dutch proposal to review the data laws in the EU is suppressed because of trade war threats from America.
In America, statistics show that over 1.5 million people are now in prison for data-crime. Other government statistics claim that crime is up, that the economy is down, and that the world is seeing its worst depression since the 1930s. The average person is not noticing this at all, however. They have noticed that life is up, prices are down, and that the streets are safer. They now cyber and data crime is up, but for the most part they are culprits, and open source technology as well as a general growth of knowledge about such matters is keeping them very safe crackers.
By 2012, an American presidential candidate goes to election on the promise the she will ensure the total freedom of information by getting rid of all intellectual property laws. Polls show her with a stunning 93% rating when her private jet crashes, killing her and everyone on board. Officially, the black box reveals that it was a software glitch, but information is posted on the dataglobs incriminating the NSA of sabotage. An attempt to take it court fails because the data is illegally obtained.
By 2016, the largest Dataglob declares itself a sovereign state. Citizens are protected by hackers who take down the computer systems and lives of criminals. Citizens are encouraged to protest all government interaction in their lives.
Several digital currencies are started, and are a great success. The Euro and Dollar enter steep devaluation as people stop using them.
By 2020, 50% of all people now claim to be citizens of a glob rather than a country. The American government, followed by the EU, finally lends a sweeping goodbye to all laws forbidding the free flow of information. But it is to late for them, a study shows that citizens of the Dataglobs are better off, better protected, and more free than people still obeying the laws of the territorial nations.
By 2021, the EU and American government hold the first summit with representatives (in one case an intelligent agent rather than a human) of the 12 largest Dataglobs as equals on Antarctica.
The worthless paper currencies are disbanded.
By 2025, almost all the connected have given up claim to there territory, and moved online, trying to compete with Globs at their own game.
By 2030, the world is in a new golden age. With governments competing directly for them, citizens are more free then ever, the none-globbed parts of Internet are coming back alive, and science, based on the ideas of open source rather than patents and profits, is doing better than ever. People dance in the streets (which are more or less free from crime, since physical objects no longer bare much value at all) and smoke a lot of weed.
By 2032, a Muslim terrorist organization manages to produce a strain of flue carrying a retrovirus that reminds of an accelerated HIV infection. Known drugs and vaccines against HIV do not help.
By 2035, the last human dies. The computer of a 55 year old Linux user is left running by a cold fusion reactor, displaying the text "Why did we bother?" over and over again.
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
The Swedish view of domain names (by nic.se) goes something like this:
"ÖÖööö, umm, like, this Inter-net thing, ööööm ummm, like companies, öööö, extort individuals, ööööö, yeah, like, öööö, we are imcompetent bastards, öööö, we don't know shit of what we are doing,öööö, we have to work less if,öööö, we just um only let companies have, ööö, domain names."
"Anyone on for a little corruption and golf after lunch?"
(the swedish letter 'ö' is pronounced like a long 'uh' btw.)
- /. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Slashdot Mirror
I
/.er.
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
f the IETF decides that it will implement some way of "digital wiretapping" with whatever existing/new standards, I highly urge every to tell the IETF to FUCK OFF.
If the IETF is such a spineless, worthless, puppet of an organization that it gives into these demands by the American government (and don't fool yourself, we all know who is really making these demands), then I think the Internet is a hell of a lot better off without it: standards or no.
Screw "OPTIONAL", these are human rights issues, not things to compromise on. Shame on the IETF for opening up for it, shame on you for suggesting it, and shame on Slashdot for putting this at the top of this discussion. For once I am not proud to be a
-
No, you have got this backwards. The fear is not that that America will water down other countries regulations, but the opposite. America has some of the strictest laws in democratic when it comes to mandatory government holes in Telecom equipment.
You have been brainwashed for too long...
-
... its called "security by obscurity". Its highly regarded in the security world as a valuable way to, well, screw yourself over.
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Either you trust the crypto or you don't. If you don't: don't use it. If you do, then use it, and while you at it send your worst enemy the source code to the program, a book about the crypto as a taunt, and some recommendations on good hardware. And then have fun when he realizes you chose "won't" rather "chances are".
(this is an example of very bad moderating btw...)
-
Though it unlikely that games will ever be free (ala beer), since so much effort goes into them from all angles (not just code, but also art, music, design etc), but that does not necessarily preclude open source game engines.
Admittedly (and I don't mean this as a slam against you) game engines today do suffer from many of the same problems that Open Source activists attack in Operative systems and other software: bugs, instability and sometimes even bloat and vaporware.
Do you think that Open Source will play a part in the future of game development?
-
I don't agree. That prejudice is bad has been said a thousand times over. If you want an example of a society where individuals are unfairly treated because of prejudice (and it doesn't really matter whether it is based on dna, frenology, race, or sex), you don't need sci-fi, you can just look around you in the world we live today.
However, down the road of technology the really frightening thing is that there will be prejudice will be justified and correct (and it doesn't really matter whether DNA analysis, some day there will be a technology that will). From a sci-fi point of view, such a society is a much more interesting discussion.
-
If I was gonna post flamebait like that, I would log out too...
-
Actually, I suspect that game engines will be moving into open developement sooner or later as well.
The problem with games is that they are so much more than they code. They need a story, lots of artwork, motion capture or video clips, music, sounds etc, all of which can usually not be produced by someone with gcc and emacs (though, maybe as the open source philosophee proliferates in non-tech society...)
Provides for some good question to put to Carmack tomorrow.
-
Wow, I do believe we have the first evidence of Karma-jealousy. I guess it was bound to happen.
I think that Rob should put a board with the top ten Karma's. Then these issues would really heat up.
PS, I jealous of signal and root too...
-
Gattaca was an interesting movie, but it missed the point in its all-American "You can do it if you only try" message. I wrote a review of it for a Swedish film site, where I compared the DNA prejudice in the movie to the Frenology (finding personal traits from the size of the brain) of the 1800s. I concluded however that the movie misses the point. The really frightening thing about DNA analysis is not that it makes prejudice based on DNA possible, prejudice is already deeply rooted in our society, but that that (unlike frenology which was just bullshit) prejudice based on genes would be right.
-
I wrote the "the drug war is far from solved" rather than the "the drug problem is far from solved" intentionally. Obviously, the problem is not that there exists drugs from which the people gain pleasure, but that society thought that denial and draconian law was a solution.
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
I'm an anarchist at heart, but in our current society I can buy people telling me not to something for others sake ("Don't drink and drive cause you might kill someone"), but not for my own ("Don't drink and drive cause you might kill yourself", "Don't do drugs cause they are bad for you").
-
If I were paying tax money to the American government, I would be rather upset about the whole doubling of efforts here. I mean: On the one hand they have echelon, which they deny is going on, but which all know beyond reasonable doubt is there, and is monitoring our communications networks (private and state) already.
But, just to so they can keep denying Echelon, they have to invest another 39 million in a monitoring network they admit exists. I bet that money is actually going for corruption, while FIDnet will just be a public front for the already in place Echelon.
Anyways, as far as I am concerned they can go ahead and monitor all they want. The Internet is a public network, sending packets over it IS like sending postcards. However, I do want to it to be a fair playing field. That is:
Yes, mr Sam, you may go ahead and evesdrop on me as much as you want, but don't think for a fucking second that you can try to keep me from using language you can't understand when I don't want you to know what I'm saying.
Crypto IS a human right.
-
I hate to put down this great man, but I think that he is feeling the natural urge to speed things up, the hope that more and more things will happen while he still has a chance to see them.
His predictions are beginning to seem childishly naive, and at odds with the world as I see it completely. Granted, I'm cynical as hell, but look around you, do you see a world heading for a utopia in 50 years? Man kind has some major issues to face, and trying to rely on the belief that working cold fusion will be developed in three years is just sad. We won't have working warm fusion in three years people.
Who predicted HIV? Who predicted the ozone layer and greenhouse effect (anyone notice how these two problems are talked about so much less today then ten years ago - it isn't because the situation is any better today)? Who predicted that man kinds exploration of space would stop after reaching the moon, and almost die completely as soon as there were no longer two superpowers playing the largest-penis game?
The drug war is far from solved. Nor are the enviromental problems. Nor is world starvation. Nor is the emergence of new viruses. Nor is the fact that the economy is completly at odds with itself (the freedom of information, vs the appropriation of information). Nor is the fact that the China that Clarke predicts will soon be the worlds largest economy doesn't respect any human rights what so ever. Nor is the fact that the western nations are turning away refugees who earn less in a year then we do in a week from our borders because "we can't afford them". Nor is the fact that weapons of mass destruction will soon be trivial for a country, or even an organisation (and soon an individual) to develope.
Come to think of it, I don't give a fuck when we land on Mars or find life on Europa...
-
I think that definition of species is very old. Its still taught in fifth grade, but real biologists have don't use it anymore.
-
not to be picky, but isn't it spelled slashdotted? I mean, its a dotted fabric, right? :-))
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
-
Yes, but IIRC (I din't bother reading the article now, seen it so many times before) Moore's law does not deal with the speed of the processor, but the density of the transistors.
Even Moore himself admits that his law can't hold forever, only he is wise enough not to put a timetable on it.
-
Until they find an Alien that is. Look who'll be laughing then...
-
And AOL does not?
I don't agree with the original poster (in the end Microsoft ARE judged by the quality of their products and nothing else) but that isn't really a good point in this case.
-
A sub-genre that is a little over 15 years old is unlikely to be post-itself anytime soon. If anything, I would say that this is still pre-whatever the future of sci-fi is.
Anyways, the most successful Cyberpunk story of this year was definetly the Matrix, which does not fit into the definition of his post- class by a longshot. And the next cyberpunk movie is probably going to be the film version of Neuromancer (barring the Matrix sequels).
Whatever the world is tomorrow, there will obviously still be people holding down jobs, having families, watching massmarket entertainment, and who value being able to take a walk in the park over freedom of information and action. But those people are not necessarily the most interesting to read about...
-
Is it "kidding more" or "kiddinger"?
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
-
There is good reason for the expression "However dumb you are, there is always someone stupider."
:-)))
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
Is "stupider" a word?
-
Naw, I can't spell. Wouldn't want to make a false impression.
:-)
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
I bet I'm the only programmer who bugs his code cause he can't spell "while"
-
(which is unlikely),
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
then "Cited as computer security expert by Jane's Intelligence Review" is going right on my resume. That has got to impress some perspective employers...
-
Anybody know about running Dvorak with none-American keyboard layouts? I realize that it can't really work as planned, since Dvorak is designed after the English languages use of letters, and since letters not used in English have to be moved to the side (öäå, three common letters in Swedish, are all on the right side of l and p on Swedish qwerty), but I write _mostly_ in English anyways.
All the xmodmap scripts I have seen seem to be likely to screw up non english keyboards, however. Does Dvorak dictate the position of the non alphabetic characters?
-
By 2000, a Web industry desperate to explain why they are not living up to the stock market expectations blame deep linking and agents for destroying their profits.
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
By 2001, software, music, publishing and entertainment makers are complaining about massive losses in profit to do online piracy. Massive lobbying for the US and EU to "do something about it".
By 2002, global trade organizations set out new laws to step up "the war on free information". Internet sites are required by law to carry back-doors for government robots, linking to a site is forbidden without expressed permission, and ISPs are required to report nodes with high traffic. Possession of pirated information (illegal data) becomes punishable by incarceration.
Also, the EU and the US legislate for mandatory content ratings on all Internet information. The first trial against a server operator is held in America, where he is sentenced to 12 years in prison. He appeals.
American President Al Gore, who's government largely bullied these laws into effect internationally, holds a press conference together with Disney, Yahoo, Bertelsman Foundation, and now media company Microsoft, who promise this is the road to a better future.
By 2003, the case of the server operator who wouldn't agree to meta-data laws reaches the American supreme court. A heavily lobbied and weak supreme court upholds his prison sentence.
With the War on Free Information going nowhere, and illegal data flying faster than ever over the broadband Internet, the American government sees the court verdict as a green light to install life imprisonment on data piracy, intellectual property violation, and system intrusion.
Slashdot closes as one of the last reader participation sites. Keeping reader comments within ratings proved impossible.
By 2004, the term "Dataglob" enters vocabulary, to denote the dynamic, distributed, roaming globs of encrypted illegal data moving around the Internet. The globs are created to escape government regulation by not depending on the physical network for their infrastructure.
The intellectual property industry releases another report showing that profits are down and piracy is up. The Globs become the scapegoats, and are outlawed. This has little effect on their popularity, since the Web is now a desolate landscape of decent sites full of dancing baloney in the tradition of Disney and Yahoo.
By 2005, the Dataglobs are drawing scientific interest since there mathematical architecture is now so intricate that they can do anything that the physical network could do before.
A study is released showing that 78% of all people in the connected world use and post illegal information on the Globs. Public belief in the governments is down to a new low.
By 2007, A Dutch proposal to review the data laws in the EU is suppressed because of trade war threats from America.
In America, statistics show that over 1.5 million people are now in prison for data-crime. Other government statistics claim that crime is up, that the economy is down, and that the world is seeing its worst depression since the 1930s. The average person is not noticing this at all, however. They have noticed that life is up, prices are down, and that the streets are safer. They now cyber and data crime is up, but for the most part they are culprits, and open source technology as well as a general growth of knowledge about such matters is keeping them very safe crackers.
By 2012, an American presidential candidate goes to election on the promise the she will ensure the total freedom of information by getting rid of all intellectual property laws. Polls show her with a stunning 93% rating when her private jet crashes, killing her and everyone on board. Officially, the black box reveals that it was a software glitch, but information is posted on the dataglobs incriminating the NSA of sabotage. An attempt to take it court fails because the data is illegally obtained.
By 2016, the largest Dataglob declares itself a sovereign state. Citizens are protected by hackers who take down the computer systems and lives of criminals. Citizens are encouraged to protest all government interaction in their lives.
Several digital currencies are started, and are a great success. The Euro and Dollar enter steep devaluation as people stop using them.
By 2020, 50% of all people now claim to be citizens of a glob rather than a country. The American government, followed by the EU, finally lends a sweeping goodbye to all laws forbidding the free flow of information. But it is to late for them, a study shows that citizens of the Dataglobs are better off, better protected, and more free than people still obeying the laws of the territorial nations.
By 2021, the EU and American government hold the first summit with representatives (in one case an intelligent agent rather than a human) of the 12 largest Dataglobs as equals on Antarctica.
The worthless paper currencies are disbanded.
By 2025, almost all the connected have given up claim to there territory, and moved online, trying to compete with Globs at their own game.
By 2030, the world is in a new golden age. With governments competing directly for them, citizens are more free then ever, the none-globbed parts of Internet are coming back alive, and science, based on the ideas of open source rather than patents and profits, is doing better than ever. People dance in the streets (which are more or less free from crime, since physical objects no longer bare much value at all) and smoke a lot of weed.
By 2032, a Muslim terrorist organization manages to produce a strain of flue carrying a retrovirus that reminds of an accelerated HIV infection. Known drugs and vaccines against HIV do not help.
By 2035, the last human dies. The computer of a 55 year old Linux user is left running by a cold fusion reactor, displaying the text "Why did we bother?" over and over again.
-
The Swedish view of domain names (by nic.se) goes something like this:
,öööö, we have to work less if ,öööö, we just um only let companies have, ööö, domain names."
/. is like a steer's horns, a point here, a point there and a lot of bull in between.
"ÖÖööö, umm, like, this Inter-net thing, ööööm ummm, like companies, öööö, extort individuals, ööööö, yeah, like, öööö, we are imcompetent bastards, öööö, we don't know shit of what we are doing
"Anyone on for a little corruption and golf after lunch?"
(the swedish letter 'ö' is pronounced like a long 'uh' btw.)
-