Somehow I think that the whole "insurance" file had the opposite effect - that they may have nothing in it.
Seriously, if I were Assange, and had some real 'oh shit this could shake civilization!' data, I wouldn't have to do anything public about it... I'd have taken a different tack: * make sure it was distributed to compatriots, with instructions to post upon my untimely demise or imprisonment, * as a good measure, set up a couple of anonymous hosted servers scripted to screen-scrape some random-but-popular page periodically for a certain comment, then auto-post the "insurance" if that phrase (or new entry) didn't appear after two attempts. For example, have the remote hosts parse a pre-made Slashdot journal for some unassuming phrase (or even just look for a new a new post younger than x number of days). You post a new journal entry every x number of days or so, and as long as you're still breathing, no sweat. For an added double-plus happytime bonus, you can have it look for a "duress phrase", and automatically publish its contents upon seeing the phrase. * as stated elsewhere, quietly send a copy of the info to the FBI, Interpol, a few EU governments, the Russian government, etc. depending on what the data is and who it affects the most. Let them know that unless you remain happy, healthy, unimprisoned, and alive, that data will never get published.
Do that, and I'm very sure that governments everywhere would be more than happy to make sure you're still breathing, and will even make sure that you don't stray too far away from a computer.
Nikola Tesla came to mind when you said "tower" - even though his towers were trying to transmit free electricity, Heaven only knows what else he was playing with (a fire in his home/lab had destroyed a shitload of notes and ideas of things he was working on).
Maybe the era which the time-traveling chick came from doesn't need no stinkin' cell towers.:)
...or maybe she's just using something to pick out ear wax. *shrug*.
OTOH, unless we're talking about trust fund babies, who the hell would have that much wealth and yet either have the time, or would choose to spend their time on a console (instead of traveling, having strange sex in faraway countries, buying yachts, etc)? I mean, Hell, if I ever stumbled on a couple million bucks, I don;t think I'd promptly spend the rest of my life in the glow of an LCD television, no matter how many square meters the thing may be.
There was once a time when this happened naturally. I remember the old Weapons Factory mod (Quake 2) on TCA's old servers... we naturally sorted ourselves out so that the games were fair. It was a hell of a lot more fun to win that way. Sadly, the last time I saw something like that was in, well... 2001.
...what sibling said. In the past, this meant mods: * Unreal Tournament used to have mods that specifically tried (and some largely succeeded) to balance the game. One of them was the "fat boy" mod, where better players became easier targets, while players who scored lower became skinnier and harder to see, let alone hit. * Quake CTF mods like Team Fortress and Weapons Factory had classes, where unskilled players could take on classes better built for defense, while skilled players could try at the offensive classes. In either case, the game was balanced out to make things harder on the attackers, and a easier on the defenders.
Nowadays, game makers have largely abandoned this, and with consoles, one doesn't get much opportunity to make mods that address the shortcomings. Kind of sucks, really.
While not a Windows evangelist by any means, I can tell you that, while it requires a short trip to registry-land, changing a MAC addy in Windows is not really that hard to do.
You had a T3 back then!? Must be 'effing nice... (Oh, great. Now I got not-so-fond memories of gimping along on a 1200-baud modem, hooked via SLIP connection to the school's then "high-speed" fractional T-1... I'm gonna stop now before I get jealous enough to throw a pair of soggy Depends in your general direction.:/ ).
You, I believe, got ripped off. You cannot in reality own what you cannot occupy - at least when it comes to places outside the reach of law enforcement. I suspect that said law enforcement, if/when it does arrive on the Moon, will be more beholden to the government that sent them, than to some dude who decided to sell you something he couldn't possibly lay claim to, let alone hold.
If someone is smart enough, he/she can make it an independent entity. Strangely enough, a lot of the complexities were covered in Heinlein's story "The Man Who Sold The Moon".
For example, the problem of the moon being theoretically owned by all the countries it orbited directly over. This was determined by what most folks consider as universal property sovereignty rights: a country owned a wedge of Earth in the cross-sectional shape of that country, starting as a pin-point at the Earth's core, and spreading out through the surface, then onward to infinity. In the book, Harriman (the protagonist) set up dummy companies in all countries the moon passed over, then bought the "rights" to the Moon from each of those governments (for a relative pittance, since most governments in the book bet against anyone actually making it to the moon). This gave his corporation full ownership of the beastie.
Eventually, Heinlein had his guy (Harriman) fund and establish a permanent colony on the Moon, then had that colony apply for recognition by the UN as an independent nation. Once recognized, that new 'government' owned the whole damned thing as an independent entity.
The reasoning was pretty solid, since whichever country parks a self-sustaining colony on the Moon could theoretically own it out here in Real Life. Otherwise, it'd turn out like Antarctica, which is pretty worthless - nobody owns it via treaty, so nobody can do anything with it. Nice sentiment and all, but pretty worthless when it comes to the long-term prospect of accommodating an expanding human population (and/or dwindling resources).
Apps are amazingly portable. Folks who love playing Farmville or whatnot can just as easily go to the app's own website (like, say, farmville.com) and play the same game sans facebook. Wouldn't be surprised if Zynga and such didn't already have something in place to link multiple social site accounts to one particular player (say, JoePublic can link his FB, MySpace, or SonOfFacebook accounts all together).
I'm sure the guy that ran MySpace thought the same thing in 2006... though honestly I don't see Apple bothering w/ Facebook - it's not even near any of Apple's core competencies.
(I mean, hell - I think it would massively funny for Apple to buy Dell, just for the pleasure of firing Michael Dell and have of India. Or maybe wait a couple of years and buy Microsoft outright. OTOH, I doubt that either of those would serve Apple's purposes, ne?)
Because they're used to exercising petty authority, and cannot stand having their miniscule power challenged. This has been the case since humans first built cities.
Just be glad this retard doesn't have the power of life and death like his contemporaries had in ancient times. Just goes to show - the best measure of civilization is the ease with which a citizen can point and laugh at a stupid official.
Wouldn't unchecked growth create poverty, famine, disease, and other social problems?
That's one assumption, but not necessarily true. Note that most organized religion also preaches abstinence and an avoidance of casual sex - acts which are almost perfectly guaranteed to not produce a baby. Hell, even the Catholic Church preaches something called natural family planning, which (unlike the past and oft-derided 'rhythm method'), actually times things accurately around female ovulation.
That's actually easy to do nowadays - a new car no longer means a 2mpg V-8 weighing in at 2 tons of steel. If you look at Japan, you see a population that makes do with a whole hell of a lot less than the typical wealthy family in, say, Eastern Europe. The trick is to bring up the affluence by generating a demand for efficient goods.
To be fair, the radical (on either side of a debate) always have a knack for exaggeration. This shouldn't deter us from taking at least some measures towards better efficiency and at the same time expanding resources available.
Did it ever occur to you that most major religions discourage birth control (and especially abortion) because it blocks the production of life - something they esteem to hold in the highest regard? Mind you, I'm only discussing the concept, not the practitioners.
Slashdot Mirror
Somehow I think that the whole "insurance" file had the opposite effect - that they may have nothing in it.
Seriously, if I were Assange, and had some real 'oh shit this could shake civilization!' data, I wouldn't have to do anything public about it... I'd have taken a different tack:
* make sure it was distributed to compatriots, with instructions to post upon my untimely demise or imprisonment,
* as a good measure, set up a couple of anonymous hosted servers scripted to screen-scrape some random-but-popular page periodically for a certain comment, then auto-post the "insurance" if that phrase (or new entry) didn't appear after two attempts. For example, have the remote hosts parse a pre-made Slashdot journal for some unassuming phrase (or even just look for a new a new post younger than x number of days). You post a new journal entry every x number of days or so, and as long as you're still breathing, no sweat. For an added double-plus happytime bonus, you can have it look for a "duress phrase", and automatically publish its contents upon seeing the phrase.
* as stated elsewhere, quietly send a copy of the info to the FBI, Interpol, a few EU governments, the Russian government, etc. depending on what the data is and who it affects the most. Let them know that unless you remain happy, healthy, unimprisoned, and alive, that data will never get published.
Do that, and I'm very sure that governments everywhere would be more than happy to make sure you're still breathing, and will even make sure that you don't stray too far away from a computer.
I wonder what network the were using in 1928? Marconi Wireless? (snicker)
At least texting would only require one key to pound out the morse code. ;)
While silly, we can still speculate...
Nikola Tesla came to mind when you said "tower" - even though his towers were trying to transmit free electricity, Heaven only knows what else he was playing with (a fire in his home/lab had destroyed a shitload of notes and ideas of things he was working on).
Maybe the era which the time-traveling chick came from doesn't need no stinkin' cell towers. :)
Maybe it's a sat phone, like an Iridium phone?
Either way, the roaming charges have got to be a royal bitch...
Funny... :)
OTOH, unless we're talking about trust fund babies, who the hell would have that much wealth and yet either have the time, or would choose to spend their time on a console (instead of traveling, having strange sex in faraway countries, buying yachts, etc)? I mean, Hell, if I ever stumbled on a couple million bucks, I don;t think I'd promptly spend the rest of my life in the glow of an LCD television, no matter how many square meters the thing may be.
There was once a time when this happened naturally. I remember the old Weapons Factory mod (Quake 2) on TCA's old servers... we naturally sorted ourselves out so that the games were fair. It was a hell of a lot more fun to win that way. Sadly, the last time I saw something like that was in, well... 2001.
...what sibling said. In the past, this meant mods:
* Unreal Tournament used to have mods that specifically tried (and some largely succeeded) to balance the game. One of them was the "fat boy" mod, where better players became easier targets, while players who scored lower became skinnier and harder to see, let alone hit.
* Quake CTF mods like Team Fortress and Weapons Factory had classes, where unskilled players could take on classes better built for defense, while skilled players could try at the offensive classes. In either case, the game was balanced out to make things harder on the attackers, and a easier on the defenders.
Nowadays, game makers have largely abandoned this, and with consoles, one doesn't get much opportunity to make mods that address the shortcomings. Kind of sucks, really.
While not a Windows evangelist by any means, I can tell you that, while it requires a short trip to registry-land, changing a MAC addy in Windows is not really that hard to do.
Seriously. Your life sucks because a toy telephone prevented you from winning concert tickets?
Once someone figures out how to crack the ungodly DRM, sure. Then we can do it just like the old days.
You had a T3 back then!? Must be 'effing nice... (Oh, great. Now I got not-so-fond memories of gimping along on a 1200-baud modem, hooked via SLIP connection to the school's then "high-speed" fractional T-1... I'm gonna stop now before I get jealous enough to throw a pair of soggy Depends in your general direction. :/ ).
According to TFA, the insurance company that thanked him was the company covering the old guy in the truck. Even called him a "hero".
Wow - looks like someone with mod points bought some too.
You, I believe, got ripped off. You cannot in reality own what you cannot occupy - at least when it comes to places outside the reach of law enforcement. I suspect that said law enforcement, if/when it does arrive on the Moon, will be more beholden to the government that sent them, than to some dude who decided to sell you something he couldn't possibly lay claim to, let alone hold.
If someone is smart enough, he/she can make it an independent entity. Strangely enough, a lot of the complexities were covered in Heinlein's story "The Man Who Sold The Moon".
For example, the problem of the moon being theoretically owned by all the countries it orbited directly over. This was determined by what most folks consider as universal property sovereignty rights: a country owned a wedge of Earth in the cross-sectional shape of that country, starting as a pin-point at the Earth's core, and spreading out through the surface, then onward to infinity. In the book, Harriman (the protagonist) set up dummy companies in all countries the moon passed over, then bought the "rights" to the Moon from each of those governments (for a relative pittance, since most governments in the book bet against anyone actually making it to the moon). This gave his corporation full ownership of the beastie.
Eventually, Heinlein had his guy (Harriman) fund and establish a permanent colony on the Moon, then had that colony apply for recognition by the UN as an independent nation. Once recognized, that new 'government' owned the whole damned thing as an independent entity.
The reasoning was pretty solid, since whichever country parks a self-sustaining colony on the Moon could theoretically own it out here in Real Life. Otherwise, it'd turn out like Antarctica, which is pretty worthless - nobody owns it via treaty, so nobody can do anything with it. Nice sentiment and all, but pretty worthless when it comes to the long-term prospect of accommodating an expanding human population (and/or dwindling resources).
Apps are amazingly portable. Folks who love playing Farmville or whatnot can just as easily go to the app's own website (like, say, farmville.com) and play the same game sans facebook. Wouldn't be surprised if Zynga and such didn't already have something in place to link multiple social site accounts to one particular player (say, JoePublic can link his FB, MySpace, or SonOfFacebook accounts all together).
I'm sure the guy that ran MySpace thought the same thing in 2006... though honestly I don't see Apple bothering w/ Facebook - it's not even near any of Apple's core competencies.
(I mean, hell - I think it would massively funny for Apple to buy Dell, just for the pleasure of firing Michael Dell and have of India. Or maybe wait a couple of years and buy Microsoft outright. OTOH, I doubt that either of those would serve Apple's purposes, ne?)
Because they're used to exercising petty authority, and cannot stand having their miniscule power challenged. This has been the case since humans first built cities.
Just be glad this retard doesn't have the power of life and death like his contemporaries had in ancient times. Just goes to show - the best measure of civilization is the ease with which a citizen can point and laugh at a stupid official.
Wouldn't unchecked growth create poverty, famine, disease, and other social problems?
That's one assumption, but not necessarily true. Note that most organized religion also preaches abstinence and an avoidance of casual sex - acts which are almost perfectly guaranteed to not produce a baby. Hell, even the Catholic Church preaches something called natural family planning, which (unlike the past and oft-derided 'rhythm method'), actually times things accurately around female ovulation.
That's actually easy to do nowadays - a new car no longer means a 2mpg V-8 weighing in at 2 tons of steel. If you look at Japan, you see a population that makes do with a whole hell of a lot less than the typical wealthy family in, say, Eastern Europe. The trick is to bring up the affluence by generating a demand for efficient goods.
Regulate them by increasing affluence. Worked for Europe and the US (and various other first-world regions of the world...)
To be fair, the radical (on either side of a debate) always have a knack for exaggeration. This shouldn't deter us from taking at least some measures towards better efficiency and at the same time expanding resources available.
So build a bigger spout - the Solar System can support something on the order of a dozen quintillion human beings.
Dude, Idiocracy was a funny show and all, but please don't confuse correlation with causation. ;)
Did it ever occur to you that most major religions discourage birth control (and especially abortion) because it blocks the production of life - something they esteem to hold in the highest regard? Mind you, I'm only discussing the concept, not the practitioners.