Revolution is a byproduct of starvation in the midst of plenty (to put it as simply as possible). The fact is, we don't have enough Americans whose day to day lives are so miserable and insecure that revolution is a compelling alternative.
"As some have put it, new donors can be found, new voters or Congressional seats cannot be if they don't get reelected."
IOW, yet another variant of that oldest of all economic motivators: Supply and Demand.
An artificially restricted supply means there is an inordinate power tilt toward the suppliers.
I'm wondering if a partial solution might be to dilute the power of congress by increasing the number of available seats?
As to DRM, that too is about artificially restricting the supply, so that demand is forced up. As a consumer, all you can do is decide that you don't need that spaceshifted new version at all. (Too bad we can't do the same with congresscritters!)
Not only that, but in winter conditions mild enough that you CAN heat the road surface, come the first small freeze beyond what the heating system can handle, and instead of a wet surface, you've got "black ice" (for you southern natives, that's transparent ice that *looks* like naked asphalt so is usually not detected until you find yourself willy-nilly sliding across it, as it's slick as greased glass). For winter traffic, there is nothing so dangerous as black ice.
A lot of intersections already have "warning bumps" (to alter oblivious motorists that there's a light ahead). These tend to be dangerous intersections where a power failure isn't just a nuisance, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
In SoCal, it's common to have a bumpy swath of cobble-like bricks to mark the stopping point before a crosswalk (aside: this is stupid, because the bricks are VERY slippery when wet).
Point being, there are already a number of such small "thefts" committed by ordinary road features. But instead of having these structures be a total waste to the motorist's fuel tank, why not convert them into these power-ramp doodads? [optimist] At least that way we might eventually see a benefit as fewer tax dollars spent to purchase electricity. [/optimist]
It occurs to me that the ramp doesn't need to be one big lump -- many small lumps would work just as well, be less annoying to the motorist, and is probably less costly to replace if a unit croaked (and many small units would allow for a number of fails before they'd have to be replaced).
The parent does have a point, tho -- some of the energy is "stolen" from the vehicle's forward momentum, but part *is* provided by gravity. I vaguely recall there exists a formula to determine the ratio, but it's been too many decades since I last thought about physics -- anyone here remember how it goes?
How are they dealing with the point some have brought up as THE real problem with TC -- that the user does not have control over their own keys, so cannot see what the TC chip is doing?
[reads linked comment] Someone with mod points please make that comment visible!!
As it says, with disposable-priced PCs, one can foresee cybercriminals using them as one-shot getaway devices, to be disposed of after the act. And woe unto the poor sucker who acquired the tainted PC used.
I suppose one could circumvent this by having to provide proof of identity (and your security clearance??) at the time of purchase, but that means roll-your-own computers MUST go away, or the proof-of-identity system instantly falls apart.
Ah, you too have been reading Alsee's posts:) Under TC, eventually all ISP frogs will be boiled, and you'll have the choice of either staying in the TC cookpot, or becoming an internet Luddite.
Tho I'm wondering if this could be defeated, at least locally, by a middleman device, which speaks TC to the internet-connected TC-required machine, but also speaks non-TC to any other PC you care to network it to (wouldn't even need to be simultaneously, so long as it could be done).
Especially since, as your sig implies, and was said above, "truth" is all too easy to manufacture at this point, and lacking your own (private, inviolate) evidence to the contrary, who's to know what "truth" may be inflicted on you?
Not just by greedy corp interests, but by gov'ts eager to eliminate "disruptive" influences.
Also, see my post above where I equate privacy with personhood (in the sense of being an individual who has rights, rather than a nonperson who has no rights).
In light of certain other, ah, religiou$ organization$ out there, that's probably viable and doable. But I've got a better name for you: The Church of the Single Mind. And here's your first scripture: "All minds are their own self place, and so must it ever be, lest their souls be reduced to wisps on the wind."
I have a rant about childrearing which boils down to "The single most important thing you can give your children isn't love, or security, or education -- it's PRIVACY." (Before some overanxious parent jumps in, I refer to the reasonable sort, where those small personal spaces that truly matter to the kid are allowed to be their own and inviolate.) The reason being that privacy is the one thing that lets a child know he is a real person, and that he matters to the world. Given this privacy, kids remain open and trusting of proper authority (parent, gov't). Lacking this privacy, kids will sneak and hide stuff in an effort to define their own worldspace.
Consider a world in which you have no privacy at all, thus no personhood since anything that is yours can be pried into at any moment, without consulting you -- just like certain totalitarian states of recent history. Merely because jackbooted thugs didn't appear at the door doesn't mean your personhood isn't being invaded and reduced by your inability to protect it.
[puts on pro dog trainer hat] If you map the average lifespan and development of a dog to that of humans, you'll notice your 6 week old pup is about equivalent to a 3 or 4 year old child (I always tell my clients that a puppy is just like a toddler -- armed with a chainsaw!) And indeed, you should teach it simple manners -- but as with a human child, don't overdo the discipline, or you'll get rebellion later on.
By one year, a bright dog is mentally about where a bright 6 year old human is, with a similar vocabulary, and much in common in terms of what they understand. But the yearling dog's emotional reactions are more like a human teenager -- and like a human teen, this is the point where the dog is likely to rebel if its life has been excessively constrained (as distinguished from ordinary training and discipline).
By age 3, the dog is physically and emotionally mature, more or less akin to a 30 year old human, and is settled into life. And after 10 or so, it's an old dog, and most behave accordingly.
If you compress human lifespan to 10 or 12 years, the apparent precocity of the average puppy becomes not so astounding:)
The cliche you were looking for is "Too many chiefs, not enough indians".
I think you have a good point, tho -- social mechanisms break down if you don't have both leaders and followers. If you have all leaders, everyone goes their own way and there is unlikely to be any consensus or progress, but rather a constant stream of conflict so nothing gets done unless someone imposes their will on the rest. (Ie. where everyone acts like a predator, all the time. Ask anyone who's been involved in a club where everyone has an equal say, and behaves accordingly.) If you have all followers, everyone waits for someone else to tell them what to do, and again nothing gets done. (Ie. where everyone acts like a prey animal, all the time. Ask anyone who's ever been in a club where no one wants to run for office.)
Humanity evolved to a system of a few leaders and a lot of followers. Contrary to one of the other replies, this doesn't predicate a dictatorship -- provided the system can do away with leaders who get out of hand. We used to call that "revolution", but since most followers have suffered disarmament, future revolutions are unlikely, and at present we seem to be evolving toward two social subspecies -- one a predator, the other prey.
I suspect what they were really measuring was the desire to please. Most kids naturally want to please adults; it's a survival mechanism. So most of the time they'll slavishly repeat what they're shown, even if they know of better methods, just to avoid getting "in trouble" (even if that "trouble" is all in the kid's head).
I did wonder how the chimps would behave if they were shown the steps by a *boss chimp* -- would they then be more likely to "do as they're told" rather than making things easier for themselves by skipping needless steps?
[puts on pro dog trainer hat] Dogs also shortcut stuff. Dogs that are accustomed to doing their own thing will drop needless steps. But the more desire to please and/or early training they have, the more likely they are to do stuff exactly as they were shown, even when they know of an easier route.
OTOH, cats seldom do shortcuts, except by accident, but cats are much more pattern-driven than dogs.
Exactly. As a proficient Windows user (tho with long experience in DOS), I expect other desktops to have at least parallel functionality. KDE works okay for me, but in Gnome, too often I find myself thinking, "where the hell is Simple_Task_X? why doesn't NN work in some reasonably universal way?"
I don't care if it looks different or stuff is in peculiar places, I can work that out if the desktop gives me half a clue. But if it's not there at all, or is completely hidden, my reaction is "WTF? I can do this on Windows, why not on linux??"
[Hope this goes. Today's fucking-with-the-interface here on/. seems to have killed my login.]
I did the math. A non-lethal simple recessive, more or less universally carried and not selected for or against, has a 25% incidence of expression.
A trackable example is the yellow gene in Labrador Retrievers. In the 1800s, yellows were usually bucketed as an "off colour", and remained rare as a phenotype, tho the gene persisted. However once the colour gained acceptance, the percentage recorded in the registries normalized to around a quarter of the population. (And when selection FOR the colour started, soon grew to around half.)
Another trackable example is hereditary blindness in Abysinian cats, also a simple recessive gene. In the Swedish Aby population, where nearly all registered cats have been examined, the blindness rate is around 20%, which means the carrier incidence is ~90%. (Stats from a 1982 ACVO presentation.) This hadn't been naturally-selected against because most purebred cats are kept strictly indoors, cats adapt well to permanent darkness, and the defect is therefore non-obvious.
Remember that selection pressure is only against nonviables; it does nothing to select against genes that don't affect function or lifespan. If a gene is very widespread, even a lack of reproduction by homozygous-affected individuals won't reduce its incidence much.
Also, if homosexuality were a matter of "choice" or culture, it wouldn't be one of the universal human constants. The only places where there's not been a significant visible incidence are those where nonconforming individuals are killed.
I don't remember, but it was something reasonable and legit (long term study of some sort). I was initially rather surprised that the number was so high, but some years later I realise it roughly coincides with my own observations of the world.
Homosexuality seems to hover at around 20% of the population, regardless of other factors. This would be reasonably consistent with the expected expression of a widespread simple recessive gene, where there is no selection FOR that trait.
My WinXP system has been in use for almost two years, and the only reason it ever gets rebooted is when I need to mess with the hardware (one of that system's jobs is to extract data from clients' HDs -- I need to get a USB to IDE doodad!) or when I need to use the WinME side of the dual boot. It was last rebooted in mid-August.
It has never BSOD'd (which is normally a hardware or driver problem) and hasn't crashed since it was new and still settling in. Oh, and the WinME side hasn't crashed in over five YEARS.
I've got W98 and W95 systems in everyday use that are similarly well-mannered, typically run for 6-8 weeks between reboots, and crash seldom to never (and have never been reinstalled). Why? Solid hardware, regular ordinary maintenance, and not installing every piece of crapware that comes down the pipe.
Exactly. Frex, my first copy of WordPerfect was WP5.1 for DOS, as borroware of unknown origin. I got addicted to it, found uses for later editions, and over the years have bought every upgrade since (albeit mostly at OEM prices, but they still made sales to me) including some versions I don't even use, but I wanted to have a complete set. At last count I had 19 legal versions. All from one *highly satisfactory* copy of questionable provenance.
Note the critical point there: I was so happy with the, ah, "unlimited trial version" that I *WANTED* to become a customer, and get the real thing with all the trimmings -- over and over and over. None of which would have happened without borroware.
Not any more. California smog regs got changed a couple years ago, and they apply to ALL cars, regardless of age.
My 1978 truck is a fine example -- it used to always pass, being well below the max smog level. Two years ago it failed *because the standards had been changed*, and the fact that my truck was manufactured back in an era of token smog standards was no defense. It now failed the smog test, and required $500 of messing with to get it to pass.
OTOH cars less than 6 years old are no longer required to be smogged. I can hear the hand of auto dealerships in that one!!
Slashdot Mirror
Revolution is a byproduct of starvation in the midst of plenty (to put it as simply as possible). The fact is, we don't have enough Americans whose day to day lives are so miserable and insecure that revolution is a compelling alternative.
"As some have put it, new donors can be found, new voters or Congressional seats cannot be if they don't get reelected."
IOW, yet another variant of that oldest of all economic motivators: Supply and Demand.
An artificially restricted supply means there is an inordinate power tilt toward the suppliers.
I'm wondering if a partial solution might be to dilute the power of congress by increasing the number of available seats?
As to DRM, that too is about artificially restricting the supply, so that demand is forced up. As a consumer, all you can do is decide that you don't need that spaceshifted new version at all. (Too bad we can't do the same with congresscritters!)
My grandmother had a sewing machine that worked like that :)
Not only that, but in winter conditions mild enough that you CAN heat the road surface, come the first small freeze beyond what the heating system can handle, and instead of a wet surface, you've got "black ice" (for you southern natives, that's transparent ice that *looks* like naked asphalt so is usually not detected until you find yourself willy-nilly sliding across it, as it's slick as greased glass). For winter traffic, there is nothing so dangerous as black ice.
A lot of intersections already have "warning bumps" (to alter oblivious motorists that there's a light ahead). These tend to be dangerous intersections where a power failure isn't just a nuisance, it's a disaster waiting to happen.
In SoCal, it's common to have a bumpy swath of cobble-like bricks to mark the stopping point before a crosswalk (aside: this is stupid, because the bricks are VERY slippery when wet).
Point being, there are already a number of such small "thefts" committed by ordinary road features. But instead of having these structures be a total waste to the motorist's fuel tank, why not convert them into these power-ramp doodads? [optimist] At least that way we might eventually see a benefit as fewer tax dollars spent to purchase electricity. [/optimist]
It occurs to me that the ramp doesn't need to be one big lump -- many small lumps would work just as well, be less annoying to the motorist, and is probably less costly to replace if a unit croaked (and many small units would allow for a number of fails before they'd have to be replaced).
The parent does have a point, tho -- some of the energy is "stolen" from the vehicle's forward momentum, but part *is* provided by gravity. I vaguely recall there exists a formula to determine the ratio, but it's been too many decades since I last thought about physics -- anyone here remember how it goes?
The CPU ID is still there, it's just turned off by default (that was the only change the public hoorah accomplished). And AMD CPUs also have an ID number -- see this post above: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=171227&cid =14261463
How are they dealing with the point some have brought up as THE real problem with TC -- that the user does not have control over their own keys, so cannot see what the TC chip is doing?
Oh yes. You nailed that right on the head.
... a more perfect con job. Same principle, as viewed from the other end.
Remember "The Sting"?? The best way to con a con is with
Trust, or the lack of it, can work both for and against both those who trust, and those who don't.
[reads linked comment] Someone with mod points please make that comment visible!!
As it says, with disposable-priced PCs, one can foresee cybercriminals using them as one-shot getaway devices, to be disposed of after the act. And woe unto the poor sucker who acquired the tainted PC used.
I suppose one could circumvent this by having to provide proof of identity (and your security clearance??) at the time of purchase, but that means roll-your-own computers MUST go away, or the proof-of-identity system instantly falls apart.
Ah, you too have been reading Alsee's posts :) Under TC, eventually all ISP frogs will be boiled, and you'll have the choice of either staying in the TC cookpot, or becoming an internet Luddite.
Tho I'm wondering if this could be defeated, at least locally, by a middleman device, which speaks TC to the internet-connected TC-required machine, but also speaks non-TC to any other PC you care to network it to (wouldn't even need to be simultaneously, so long as it could be done).
Especially since, as your sig implies, and was said above, "truth" is all too easy to manufacture at this point, and lacking your own (private, inviolate) evidence to the contrary, who's to know what "truth" may be inflicted on you?
Not just by greedy corp interests, but by gov'ts eager to eliminate "disruptive" influences.
Also, see my post above where I equate privacy with personhood (in the sense of being an individual who has rights, rather than a nonperson who has no rights).
In light of certain other, ah, religiou$ organization$ out there, that's probably viable and doable. But I've got a better name for you: The Church of the Single Mind. And here's your first scripture: "All minds are their own self place, and so must it ever be, lest their souls be reduced to wisps on the wind."
I have a rant about childrearing which boils down to "The single most important thing you can give your children isn't love, or security, or education -- it's PRIVACY." (Before some overanxious parent jumps in, I refer to the reasonable sort, where those small personal spaces that truly matter to the kid are allowed to be their own and inviolate.) The reason being that privacy is the one thing that lets a child know he is a real person, and that he matters to the world. Given this privacy, kids remain open and trusting of proper authority (parent, gov't). Lacking this privacy, kids will sneak and hide stuff in an effort to define their own worldspace.
Consider a world in which you have no privacy at all, thus no personhood since anything that is yours can be pried into at any moment, without consulting you -- just like certain totalitarian states of recent history. Merely because jackbooted thugs didn't appear at the door doesn't mean your personhood isn't being invaded and reduced by your inability to protect it.
[puts on pro dog trainer hat] If you map the average lifespan and development of a dog to that of humans, you'll notice your 6 week old pup is about equivalent to a 3 or 4 year old child (I always tell my clients that a puppy is just like a toddler -- armed with a chainsaw!) And indeed, you should teach it simple manners -- but as with a human child, don't overdo the discipline, or you'll get rebellion later on.
:)
By one year, a bright dog is mentally about where a bright 6 year old human is, with a similar vocabulary, and much in common in terms of what they understand. But the yearling dog's emotional reactions are more like a human teenager -- and like a human teen, this is the point where the dog is likely to rebel if its life has been excessively constrained (as distinguished from ordinary training and discipline).
By age 3, the dog is physically and emotionally mature, more or less akin to a 30 year old human, and is settled into life. And after 10 or so, it's an old dog, and most behave accordingly.
If you compress human lifespan to 10 or 12 years, the apparent precocity of the average puppy becomes not so astounding
The cliche you were looking for is "Too many chiefs, not enough indians".
I think you have a good point, tho -- social mechanisms break down if you don't have both leaders and followers. If you have all leaders, everyone goes their own way and there is unlikely to be any consensus or progress, but rather a constant stream of conflict so nothing gets done unless someone imposes their will on the rest. (Ie. where everyone acts like a predator, all the time. Ask anyone who's been involved in a club where everyone has an equal say, and behaves accordingly.) If you have all followers, everyone waits for someone else to tell them what to do, and again nothing gets done. (Ie. where everyone acts like a prey animal, all the time. Ask anyone who's ever been in a club where no one wants to run for office.)
Humanity evolved to a system of a few leaders and a lot of followers. Contrary to one of the other replies, this doesn't predicate a dictatorship -- provided the system can do away with leaders who get out of hand. We used to call that "revolution", but since most followers have suffered disarmament, future revolutions are unlikely, and at present we seem to be evolving toward two social subspecies -- one a predator, the other prey.
I suspect what they were really measuring was the desire to please. Most kids naturally want to please adults; it's a survival mechanism. So most of the time they'll slavishly repeat what they're shown, even if they know of better methods, just to avoid getting "in trouble" (even if that "trouble" is all in the kid's head).
I did wonder how the chimps would behave if they were shown the steps by a *boss chimp* -- would they then be more likely to "do as they're told" rather than making things easier for themselves by skipping needless steps?
[puts on pro dog trainer hat] Dogs also shortcut stuff. Dogs that are accustomed to doing their own thing will drop needless steps. But the more desire to please and/or early training they have, the more likely they are to do stuff exactly as they were shown, even when they know of an easier route.
OTOH, cats seldom do shortcuts, except by accident, but cats are much more pattern-driven than dogs.
"ServStor" 36 GB drive! Guaranteed to die within 10 months!
Who needs a warranty?? [drops HD on the floor 5 or 6 times] There, good as new.
Exactly. As a proficient Windows user (tho with long experience in DOS), I expect other desktops to have at least parallel functionality. KDE works okay for me, but in Gnome, too often I find myself thinking, "where the hell is Simple_Task_X? why doesn't NN work in some reasonably universal way?"
/. seems to have killed my login.]
I don't care if it looks different or stuff is in peculiar places, I can work that out if the desktop gives me half a clue. But if it's not there at all, or is completely hidden, my reaction is "WTF? I can do this on Windows, why not on linux??"
[Hope this goes. Today's fucking-with-the-interface here on
Haha, didn't know that about Sydney; does that make San Francisco its, um, top city? :)
(Where I vaguely recall numbers like 40% get bandied about, tho I think that may be partly, ah, pipe dreams.)
And I think you're going into the wrong bars. Try the one whose sign features a floppy disk. P)
I did the math. A non-lethal simple recessive, more or less universally carried and not selected for or against, has a 25% incidence of expression.
A trackable example is the yellow gene in Labrador Retrievers. In the 1800s, yellows were usually bucketed as an "off colour", and remained rare as a phenotype, tho the gene persisted. However once the colour gained acceptance, the percentage recorded in the registries normalized to around a quarter of the population. (And when selection FOR the colour started, soon grew to around half.)
Another trackable example is hereditary blindness in Abysinian cats, also a simple recessive gene. In the Swedish Aby population, where nearly all registered cats have been examined, the blindness rate is around 20%, which means the carrier incidence is ~90%. (Stats from a 1982 ACVO presentation.) This hadn't been naturally-selected against because most purebred cats are kept strictly indoors, cats adapt well to permanent darkness, and the defect is therefore non-obvious.
Remember that selection pressure is only against nonviables; it does nothing to select against genes that don't affect function or lifespan. If a gene is very widespread, even a lack of reproduction by homozygous-affected individuals won't reduce its incidence much.
Also, if homosexuality were a matter of "choice" or culture, it wouldn't be one of the universal human constants. The only places where there's not been a significant visible incidence are those where nonconforming individuals are killed.
I don't remember, but it was something reasonable and legit (long term study of some sort). I was initially rather surprised that the number was so high, but some years later I realise it roughly coincides with my own observations of the world.
Homosexuality seems to hover at around 20% of the population, regardless of other factors. This would be reasonably consistent with the expected expression of a widespread simple recessive gene, where there is no selection FOR that trait.
My WinXP system has been in use for almost two years, and the only reason it ever gets rebooted is when I need to mess with the hardware (one of that system's jobs is to extract data from clients' HDs -- I need to get a USB to IDE doodad!) or when I need to use the WinME side of the dual boot. It was last rebooted in mid-August.
It has never BSOD'd (which is normally a hardware or driver problem) and hasn't crashed since it was new and still settling in. Oh, and the WinME side hasn't crashed in over five YEARS.
I've got W98 and W95 systems in everyday use that are similarly well-mannered, typically run for 6-8 weeks between reboots, and crash seldom to never (and have never been reinstalled). Why? Solid hardware, regular ordinary maintenance, and not installing every piece of crapware that comes down the pipe.
Exactly. Frex, my first copy of WordPerfect was WP5.1 for DOS, as borroware of unknown origin. I got addicted to it, found uses for later editions, and over the years have bought every upgrade since (albeit mostly at OEM prices, but they still made sales to me) including some versions I don't even use, but I wanted to have a complete set. At last count I had 19 legal versions. All from one *highly satisfactory* copy of questionable provenance.
:)
Note the critical point there: I was so happy with the, ah, "unlimited trial version" that I *WANTED* to become a customer, and get the real thing with all the trimmings -- over and over and over. None of which would have happened without borroware.
BTW that tagline of yours is old enough to vote
Not any more. California smog regs got changed a couple years ago, and they apply to ALL cars, regardless of age.
My 1978 truck is a fine example -- it used to always pass, being well below the max smog level. Two years ago it failed *because the standards had been changed*, and the fact that my truck was manufactured back in an era of token smog standards was no defense. It now failed the smog test, and required $500 of messing with to get it to pass.
OTOH cars less than 6 years old are no longer required to be smogged. I can hear the hand of auto dealerships in that one!!
Shhh! Don't you know that weird notions about basic physics are how we spot the aliens from other dimensions??