The exact reason Godwin's Brainfart exists is because Leftists cannot admit Nazis are socialist Leftists. It upsets their silly little equations, "Left is good and Right is bad." The fact that Nazis are Left and Nazis are bad is beyond their Big Lie Weltanschaung.
Okay - I used the taboo word (it was a mistake) to describe a hypothetical group to the right of the republican party in the US, on the much-used one-dimensional political spectrum.
How would you describe, or what would you call such a group, toddhisattva?
Um... yeah. That was what I was trying to say (plus a bit about some other repercussions).
Reading your comment - I have been assuming that a multi-party system (multi meaning 3+, obviously) is preferrable to a two-party system, not least because the two-party system is in more ways than the superficial numbers rather close to a one-party system. Just an academic question: what advantages might a two-party system have over a multi-party system?
theduck - thank you for the informed response. What I wonder is what proportion of US citizens realises that for instance the system of elections can be changed even if the current system is "writ in stone" in the constitution. All it needs is a new constitution.
Point of education for you: Nazis were not right-wing... the name of the party (translated from German obviously), which was originally NDSAP, is "National Socialist Democratic Worker's Party". That word "socialist" and the phrase "worker's party" are big clues - the Nazis were hard-core leftists; they took over many companies and tightly regulated everything. That is not the right-wing philosophy of laissez-faire and caveat emptor. This is a very commonly made error, possibly because the leftist media would prefer to put known bad guys in the other column.
I assume that your "NDSAP" is a typo - it was actually "NSDAP", standing for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which translates to National Socialist German Workers Party (the word "democratic" does not appear). They were a totalitarian regime, i.e. a dictatorship / oligarchy, in which many free-wheeling capitalists got very rich, and in which the workers were as fucked as in any other system other than perhaps China (where they are fucked for other reasons).
I am aware that the word "socialist" is part of the acronym "NSDAP" - put please don't be bamboozled into believing that that is what they actually were. As you might have gathered from my post, I was expressedly writing about the one-dimensional political spectrum on which, alas, nazis figure on the right-handed edge. If you want to talk / learn about multi-dimensional models (e.g. socal-economic split), please log in and we can continue from there.
I shall now stop feeding the troll (after having invoked Godwin. Sigh).
Currently, power is shared between Republicans and Democrats. Neither would be happy if the system would allow more than 2 parties to exist, so neither will ever agree to a substantial reform.
Yup. That is what I was missing in the article, too. Obvious, really: voting theorists deal with the theory of voting, not with the mechanics of change, and the question of what is politically doable. Point being, not only the incumbents, but also the lower echelons grew up with the current system, and they know how to play it - play being exactly the right word. I expect few professional politicians would want to change the system, because the change would cause uncertainty - they would rather be big underdogs in the current system, than risk even the very small danger of becoming bit players in a new one.
A thought on this issue: as you say, neither the Dems nor the Reps would like to see the rise of smaller parties, because this would erode their influence (power base), and they would even (gasp) co-operate to keep the system just the way it is. However, if a party smaller party does grow big enough to be an "annoyance" to the established ones, the one more hurt by the smaller party will bring the issues in this article up - hence this discussion.
For instance: the Dems would be prepared to give the greens say 10 seats in the senate, if the Dems in turn get the presidency - quite a likely situation if the voting procedures are changed as described.
The point to which I have been coming all the while is this: in a one-dimensional political spectrum, the "right" is stereotypically more disciplined than the "left", i.e., they have a stronger belief in law & order, hierarchical systems etc. This means that if there is a small rightist party (e.g. a bunch of neo-nazis by anything but name) in a situation similar to the one in Florida during the last presidential election, their adherents will be more likely to follow the "orders" of the party leadership to vote for Bush rather than their own candidate (because Bush is better than Gore, and their own candidate doesn't have a real chance to win) than their "leftist" counterparts.
This means in turn that the results of the plurality vote in the US is not only the two-party system that we observe, but also a slight shift to the right.
In closing I must say that in my opinion, replacing the plurality vote would be the single biggest step the US could undertake to enhance its political image, pretty much everywhere else in the world.
OK, so I'm not acquainted with the "Dead" trilogy either, but there are plentifulreviewsout there. And it seems that this oevre is missing the salient point as well.
Regular computer viri have been known to infect a system and turn it into a "zombie", at the beck and call of some originator. A regular zombie or vampire movie may describe a similar behaviour: people are "infected" or killed (computer: DOSed); if they are infected they go on to infect and kill in turn. So far, so good. Now, the computer virus described in this article goes a step further: it attempts to infect a system. If it is successful, the system is turned into a "zombie". If it is _not_ successful, it keeps the particular system it was unable to affect in mind, and flags it as a top-level target for dossing, putting it above all other DOS targets in importance (to the degree of ignoring all other targets).
So: this virus attacks primarily or exclusively targets it was unable to infect.
What zombie or vampire movie or book describes a similar behaviour? Any?
Hint: standard-issue zombie movie, with the additions: - not all live persons can be turned into zombies. Some are immune. - if a person cannot be turned into a zombie, the attacking zombie, and all zombies with which the attacker is in contact, do their best to kill the immune person. This may happen with a time-lapse: the attcking zombie keeps a mental list of all immune persons, and shares this list with its compadres, staging a larger attack specifically on the immune persons at a later time.
This does not ring a bell, for me at least. Anyone?
Hmmm... I just read a review of I am Legend, and it seems to me that the twist is missing: Robert Neville could become a vampire any time he wanted (if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em style). What I have to admire about this virus is that it doesn't just try to infect willy-nilly, but it DOS-es specifically those boxen that are immune to it (sort of join-or-die style, no neutrality allowed; rather than the usual join-us-join-us-join-us... and it you can't because you're immune, uh well OK bummer).
But yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of talent out there, just none that I could quote.
From the description, which seems very clear, I like the image the thought of "reverse-mapping" it back into meatspace evokes:
There's a (biological) virus to which humans are either immune, or not - just like any other virus. The people who catch it, however, are turned into attack zombies primed to attack specifically the immune humans.
... yup, this dude's got all bases covered. Kenny's gonna die. (Sounds like a King novel. But mebbe a short one)
Just a though, by-the-by: someone once gave me a alternative viewpoint on this "suit" issue:
a common way of regarding the dreaded pinstripe is to consider it restricting, regimental, uncomfortable, conformist to the degree of being reactionary, ugly, that the tie is a tourniquet on the neck allowing less blood to reach the brain, that it makes corporate drones out of human beings, et cetera et cetera.
An alternative is to say that it's democratic... Ask yourself what a non-suit-wearer is communicating by wearing the jeans & tee-shirt, if it could be formulated in words. It might be something along the lines of "I don't need to do that shit. Why? Because I'm good. And because I'm good, I can afford to wear whatever I find comfortable." If this is anything close to the truth, it is an affront. It's saying "me: cool - no suit. You: uncool - suit".
One nice thing about suits is that they make everyone appear the same. As it is, in the world of suits, there is no immediate cue as to the status of anyone walking about in a business building (hence the Japanese culture of handing over business cards immediately upon meeting someone: there is less of a democratic tradition in Japan, so they have to use some other cue to check how low to bow (as it were)). And this I find pretty cool. Even if it is complete bullshit, at lease there is a token regard for the sentiment that everyone in a certain group (i.e. a company) is, on some level, equal: equally valuable, equally respectable, equally responsible.
Anyway. I'm just saying that it ain't necessarily all bad. And yes, I do own suits, and I wear one about once every two weeks when visiting clients, mainly because I don't want to rub it in that yes, actually I can wear whatever I want, and they can't.
And since karma is there to burn, an anecdote: A co-worker and BMW-driver told me about a breakdown he experienced on the highway in Italy. He calls the "BMW tech support", and what does he get? Two mechanics, arriving in a nice but not opulent beemer, dressed in very professional dark business suits & ties covered by gleaming white overalls. History relates that they did not only look sharper that *any* traveller on some god-forsaked dusty Italian highway has the right to, but the fixed the problem, too.
[...] Mars probe that crashed because of mismatched units. And that was just poor communication among the software guys.
So if it's not a bug, it must be a feature:) ? If you had been responsible for that piece of software, would you have sat together with the NASA guys after the analysis, and claimed it wasn't a bug? Errr....
Have an article on the guys who write the stuff. They're damn good, but they say themselves their programs contain errors: "the last three versions of the program [...] had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors." Apparently never caused a problem, but not bug-free.
Then there was the Canadarm2 issue. Or wasn't that a bug either:) ?
Almost needless to say: the primary value-add that record labels give musicians is the hype. Where else can you sign a piece of paper, and a couple of weeks later get worldwide airplay, and see your CD in the racks in thousands, if not tens of thousands of record stored worldwide? You get to make videos as well (OK, so it's all on credit) if they like you well enough, you get to be on emteevee, do interviews, and so on.
So for a musician, the choice is between: 1) more than 50% of the profits stemming from possible regional fame, most likely resulting in poverty, and very very slim chance of "making it big", and 2) probable personal bankruptcy, but possible stardom, and the faint possibility of 0.1% of very very big profits - enough to make you rich rich rich. And - at least people get to *hear* you (even if it is stuffed down their throats thanks to clearChannel et al).
Personally, I would think it's all too easy to convince yourself that the chance of making it big *without* the monopoly boys is just too small - that "getting serious" means "signing with a big label".
1) Goto Google. 2) Click on "Preferences". 3) Edit the URL in the address bar to read "[...].com[...]" (instead of "[...].ca[...]"). This should not cause a redirect. 4) Click the "Save Preferences" button. You get the "Changes Saved" JavaScript popup.
Any subsequent access to google.com should no longer cause a redirect. If you track the cookies, BTW, you should see a brand-new one created by points 1-4 above, which overrides any existing one you have.
From the Salon acticle, Nissan-the-man's POV on the advertising:
"In 1999 we had 23 advertisers on our site," he continues. "Three of them were auto-related companies. [Nissan Motors] is claiming they were automotive companies. But none of them were selling or were in the business of selling cars or car accessories."
Dunno it it's true, of course, but that's what the judiciary is for.
:) Actually, I think brits would compromise on "tepid" as far as showers go. I reminds be of the heinous trick employed by some hotel owners: there's plenty of hot water, just loads... it's the cold water that's regulated down to a drip. Makes you feel like filling the bath with scalding water, then going down to the pub while it cools down enough not to denaturate your eyeballs.
But in Cambridge I became so frustrated with British water taps and switches and door handles - those awful sideways handles on many British doors that catch your sleeves
Everything else aside, including the silly taps often found in the UK: round door handles....
I figure that any way to implement a user interface requires thought, many many decisions, and yes, chucking a lot of stuff out. In the end there is one, maybe two ways to do something, which should be "intuitive", based upon what the designer figures the user's background is. However, this also implies that there are tons of ways the user can't do something (obviously), and (not so obviously) a bunch of stuff which can't be done at all - or rather, combinations of things. But now to the case in point:
In the UK (and most of Europe), I simply can't "slide" by a door without running the risk of getting my sleeve caught. This is quite true. People get by this "bug" by habitually opening the door just a little bit further than absolutely necessary. In the US, however... (this is where I start telling a story) I'm sitting in the dining room and realize that there's nothing to drink on the table. I improvise a poll as to what Anne, Bob, and Carla want to drink, go into the kitchen, and fill four glasses with beverages-of-choice. I grab the glasses (two in each hand - assume that the glasses are well-designed enough to allow this mode of interaction - perhaps they even have handles), turn around, and am confronted with a closed kitchen door - either because a draught slammed it, or it's spring-loaded (to avoid having kitchen smells wafting throughout the house). I extend my hand, already containing two glasses, toward the handle, and... aaaaargh! Elbows, man, these yanks need some fusking door handles that can be operated with an elbow!
[end rant] - 'course, this would never happen to a USian, because they would unconsciously take it into account before even grabbing the glasses.
sigh. (Same rant goes for separate "cold" and "hot" faucets in the UK. Anyone want to suggest implementing a separate "warm" facet between the two?:)
(Karma is here to be used). More on-topic: one thing I was missing in this interview was the fact ("postulate"?) that in any user-interaction-system, the human is by far the most flexible, adaptable element. History is littered with atrocious design decisions, which don't even make it into the consciousness of user's minds anymore, because the users have learned to use them, and have got completely used to them. For instance:
Does anyone else remember the first couple of minutes of using a steering wheel in a car, after several years of riding a bicycle? I, for one, remember steering a bicycle to be intuitive, but having to consciously learn how far to turn the wheel of a car in order to make it turn at the desired raduius
Computer mouse, as discussed further up in the thread. Here, just watch an uninitiated user, the first time they use it. It's only simple once you've got used to it
Rotary phones. These have been superceded by touch-tones, and it was a mechanically elegant design at the time they were invented - but the UI still sucks
Basically anything you had to learn how to use, rather than: if you know what it can do, it is obvious how to make it do it. Old MS interfaces, rather a lot of today's open source interfaces, some old tape decks (hold down "record" and "play" at the same time to make it record), keyboards (who wouldn't prefer a really good voice interface?), and so on...
My point is merely that considering the above, I have as much appreciation for good UI design as the next person, but that humans were practically "built" to be able to handle a wide range of "UIs", and if what a device does sucks, then no amount of UI-candy with "un-suck" it. A bit like music: I'm happy to allow other people to make it, I appreciate it immensly, but it the artist has nothing to say, then no good voice, good producer, or ultimate fidelity will make up for that.
OK, considering the points you bring up, and which I neglected, I wonder how good DNS would do for MP3s. That might actually be a good way of illustrating how fragile DNA is: encode sound on DNA; expose it to non-fatal radiation; listen. As for storage: yes, another aspect I neglected. Maybe keep in in an engineered bacterium... (hahhh... I love how easy that is to say). Which would put a spin on today's handshake story. " *zzzp*... there's my email addy, and as an added bonus, I didn't wash my hands, so you get my MP3s as well. DonotinhaleDonotallowcontactwitheyesIfyoudowashout withcopiousamountsofwaterLegaldisclaimer..."
Oh yes: a reason to post a response, Rich0. One thing I sporadically wonder about is the "dormant" or "trash" DNA. Sometimes it seems to me a bit like analysing a machine, say a car, and coming to the conclusion that actually, it's only the engine, drive train, wheels, steering system and breaks, plus the seats that ever get used. So: we cut out the "superfluous" parts, and... *crunch*. How close might this analogy be to cells?
This website [ornl.gov] says that we have about 3 billion base pairs, 30 thousand of which are genes (the rest is the mysterious "junk dna"). There are 4 base pairs, therefore each base pair is 2 bits of data. That's about 7.5kb for all the genes, and 715MB for every base pair - which after compression should fit comfortably on a standard CD.
Thanks for doing the calculation. Kind of magical in several ways: - Even including the junk - not very much by today's information-processing standards. Given some outrageous tech, it would be possible to re-create "a" human race with ten or twenty CDs. - Talking about outrageous tech: a CD full of information squashed together in a space it takes an electron microscope even to see. We have some catching up to do:) (I dunno... something like "I keep my MP3 collection in suspension in this [squints] drop of water")
My favorite examples of this sort of thinking are a matchbox manufacturer who cut costs spectacularly by putting a striking surface on only one side of the box (when there had been two previously), and British Airlines saving thousands by way of halving the number of olives in their Martinis.
... or Subaru saving tens of thousands by not quite topping up the engine oil in new cars by 1/2 litre.
I'm quite glad *such* things can't be patented, at least: cutting costs by cutting corners. Great business idea, but the innovative thing about them is that they wouldn't occur to a product designer simply trying to make a good and usable product, because they don't make design sense. Hooray for "good value", but I wouldn't call it revolutionary.
As for this case: non-obvious *to whom* is always a question. Another important question is how hard something is. Examples:
A McPhearson shock absorber: ingenious (IMHO), hard to get right, needed a lot of R&D
Any rocket engine or similar: check out things like SCRAM jets. No moving parts (apart from the fuel pump), but engineering magic nonetheless. Needs a lot of R&D
... and so on
Compare stuff like this with web auctions, and they fade into "oh, like taking part in an auction over the phone, yea?"... to which the answer is "uh, yes". And when you take part in an auction by phone, you can, for instance, tell your (human) agent to increment your bid in small steps, to win, up to a certain limit. Or only to bid during the last 30 seconds. And so on, ad absurdum.
Naturally, you can equally tell any hypothetical computer agent the same thing, if the agent is programmed to accept such commands.
Maybe the last bit is only obvious to typical/.ers, i.e. techies, but my point is that there is no research, there is no development, there is hardly even any inspiration: in the example above, imagine some dude taking part in an auction by phone 50 years ago. Any "innovation" claimed by an "inventor" of web auctions could be, would be, and has been "researched" and "developped" by the dude 50 years ago while he was talking on the phone. And by all the other dudes & dudettes, thousands of times over - and yet it is patentable. *That* is what bugs me.
If and when you happen to re-invent something (as in the case of the original article, as far as I understand) that has already been patented by someone else, there is no "onus of proof", neither on yourself, nor on the patenter. Even if you *did* invent whatever it is from base up, it's already patented, and you must enter negotiations for a license to use it, the cost of which may by prohibitive to your undertaking. Fine, in that case you're just SOL; better luck next time. The fact that the patenter may not be using the patent (i.e. producing something based thereupon) is just secondary bummer.
But where it gets really buggy is when you, as an inventor, are severly encumbered by a minefield of trivialities. "Hey, we could do auctions over SMS" ("short message system" - big in Yurp, not so much in the US)... uh-oh... has it been "patented" yet?
Anyway - I'm in rant mode. To the last I can only paraphrase The Matrix: "There is nothing to patent."
Yes - that's why the simile "a hole in a hole within a hole" is sometimes used to describe matter. That doesn't, however, change our perception (well, mine... not sure about yourself:) that a brick wall is hard.
[...] stone and sand become just as lively and complex as any other organism [...]
Lively and complex: yes. Exhibiting something which might be recognised as "intent" or "will" or "emotion" or what-have-you by us wormbabies: no.
[...] if we're stuck with logic alone, that limits our reality [...]
Yeeees. What alternatives have you to offer? Anything you can communicate? Anything structured? "Things are things", "Time is time" et cetera ad absurdum (which wouldn't take a whole lot of time), I agree. But unless somebody decides to come back down from the smokey mount and give us logicians a hand, I for one will stick with attempting to build a better satellite or whatever.
Human perception is indeed fantastically narrow - but recognising the fact that this is so does not change the fact.
</superfluous reply to what I have come to the conclusion is a happyTroll[TM]>
Law 3) Require DRM hardware to ONLY run DRM-compliant software (not too hard to imagine).
Hear hear. Thats the exact argument against all those (astroturfers?) who say "Well you can always opt out...". *Now* you can, sure - but later on... ?
I can already see the special permit required for a non-digital-restrictions-management piece of hardware. A bit like a concealed firearms license, but waaaay more expensive & restrictive. Come to mention it... I can imagine a future where a new "land of the free" is founded, where its not the freedom of expression, right to bear arms etc. (which go without saying, more or less - there has been progress in the last centuries), but the freedom of information is the main point. And I can already hear (woo, Im getting prophetic here) Big Business saying "itll never work, no-one would invest, bla bla". Then the new guys beat the socks off the US economically, because hey - one of the new guys came up with a truly innovative and exciting use for a computer. And s/he was able to implement it.
Slashdot Mirror
- The exact reason Godwin's Brainfart exists is because Leftists cannot admit Nazis are socialist Leftists. It upsets their silly little equations, "Left is good and Right is bad." The fact that Nazis are Left and Nazis are bad is beyond their Big Lie Weltanschaung.
Okay - I used the taboo word (it was a mistake) to describe a hypothetical group to the right of the republican party in the US, on the much-used one-dimensional political spectrum.How would you describe, or what would you call such a group, toddhisattva?
Um ... yeah. That was what I was trying to say (plus a bit about some other repercussions).
Reading your comment - I have been assuming that a multi-party system (multi meaning 3+, obviously) is preferrable to a two-party system, not least because the two-party system is in more ways than the superficial numbers rather close to a one-party system.
Just an academic question: what advantages might a two-party system have over a multi-party system?
theduck - thank you for the informed response.
What I wonder is what proportion of US citizens realises that for instance the system of elections can be changed even if the current system is "writ in stone" in the constitution. All it needs is a new constitution.
- Point of education for you: Nazis were not right-wing... the name of the party (translated from German obviously), which was originally NDSAP, is "National Socialist Democratic Worker's Party". That word "socialist" and the phrase "worker's party" are big clues - the Nazis were hard-core leftists; they took over many companies and tightly regulated everything. That is not the right-wing philosophy of laissez-faire and caveat emptor.
I assume that your "NDSAP" is a typo - it was actually "NSDAP", standing for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which translates to National Socialist German Workers Party (the word "democratic" does not appear).This is a very commonly made error, possibly because the leftist media would prefer to put known bad guys in the other column.
They were a totalitarian regime, i.e. a dictatorship / oligarchy, in which many free-wheeling capitalists got very rich, and in which the workers were as fucked as in any other system other than perhaps China (where they are fucked for other reasons).
I am aware that the word "socialist" is part of the acronym "NSDAP" - put please don't be bamboozled into believing that that is what they actually were. As you might have gathered from my post, I was expressedly writing about the one-dimensional political spectrum on which, alas, nazis figure on the right-handed edge. If you want to talk / learn about multi-dimensional models (e.g. socal-economic split), please log in and we can continue from there.
I shall now stop feeding the troll (after having invoked Godwin. Sigh).
- Currently, power is shared between Republicans and Democrats.
Yup. That is what I was missing in the article, too. Obvious, really: voting theorists deal with the theory of voting, not with the mechanics of change, and the question of what is politically doable.Neither would be happy if the system would allow more than 2 parties to exist, so neither will ever agree to a substantial reform.
Point being, not only the incumbents, but also the lower echelons grew up with the current system, and they know how to play it - play being exactly the right word. I expect few professional politicians would want to change the system, because the change would cause uncertainty - they would rather be big underdogs in the current system, than risk even the very small danger of becoming bit players in a new one.
A thought on this issue: as you say, neither the Dems nor the Reps would like to see the rise of smaller parties, because this would erode their influence (power base), and they would even (gasp) co-operate to keep the system just the way it is. However, if a party smaller party does grow big enough to be an "annoyance" to the established ones, the one more hurt by the smaller party will bring the issues in this article up - hence this discussion.
For instance: the Dems would be prepared to give the greens say 10 seats in the senate, if the Dems in turn get the presidency - quite a likely situation if the voting procedures are changed as described.
The point to which I have been coming all the while is this: in a one-dimensional political spectrum, the "right" is stereotypically more disciplined than the "left", i.e., they have a stronger belief in law & order, hierarchical systems etc. This means that if there is a small rightist party (e.g. a bunch of neo-nazis by anything but name) in a situation similar to the one in Florida during the last presidential election, their adherents will be more likely to follow the "orders" of the party leadership to vote for Bush rather than their own candidate (because Bush is better than Gore, and their own candidate doesn't have a real chance to win) than their "leftist" counterparts.
This means in turn that the results of the plurality vote in the US is not only the two-party system that we observe, but also a slight shift to the right.
In closing I must say that in my opinion, replacing the plurality vote would be the single biggest step the US could undertake to enhance its political image, pretty much everywhere else in the world.
USD 3076.92 per person? Isn't that a bit ... steep?
Make it a round thousand, I say.
</cynic>
OK, so I'm not acquainted with the "Dead" trilogy either, but there are plentiful reviews out there. And it seems that this oevre is missing the salient point as well.
Regular computer viri have been known to infect a system and turn it into a "zombie", at the beck and call of some originator. A regular zombie or vampire movie may describe a similar behaviour: people are "infected" or killed (computer: DOSed); if they are infected they go on to infect and kill in turn.
So far, so good. Now, the computer virus described in this article goes a step further: it attempts to infect a system. If it is successful, the system is turned into a "zombie". If it is _not_ successful, it keeps the particular system it was unable to affect in mind, and flags it as a top-level target for dossing, putting it above all other DOS targets in importance (to the degree of ignoring all other targets).
So: this virus attacks primarily or exclusively targets it was unable to infect.
What zombie or vampire movie or book describes a similar behaviour? Any?
Hint: standard-issue zombie movie, with the additions:
- not all live persons can be turned into zombies. Some are immune.
- if a person cannot be turned into a zombie, the attacking zombie, and all zombies with which the attacker is in contact, do their best to kill the immune person. This may happen with a time-lapse: the attcking zombie keeps a mental list of all immune persons, and shares this list with its compadres, staging a larger attack specifically on the immune persons at a later time.
This does not ring a bell, for me at least. Anyone?
Hmmm ... I just read a review of I am Legend, and it seems to me that the twist is missing: Robert Neville could become a vampire any time he wanted (if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em style). What I have to admire about this virus is that it doesn't just try to infect willy-nilly, but it DOS-es specifically those boxen that are immune to it (sort of join-or-die style, no neutrality allowed; rather than the usual join-us-join-us-join-us ... and it you can't because you're immune, uh well OK bummer).
But yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of talent out there, just none that I could quote.
From the description, which seems very clear, I like the image the thought of "reverse-mapping" it back into meatspace evokes:
There's a (biological) virus to which humans are either immune, or not - just like any other virus.
The people who catch it, however, are turned into attack zombies primed to attack specifically the immune humans.
... yup, this dude's got all bases covered. Kenny's gonna die. (Sounds like a King novel. But mebbe a short one)
Just a though, by-the-by: someone once gave me a alternative viewpoint on this "suit" issue:
a common way of regarding the dreaded pinstripe is to consider it restricting, regimental, uncomfortable, conformist to the degree of being reactionary, ugly, that the tie is a tourniquet on the neck allowing less blood to reach the brain, that it makes corporate drones out of human beings, et cetera et cetera.
An alternative is to say that it's democratic... Ask yourself what a non-suit-wearer is communicating by wearing the jeans & tee-shirt, if it could be formulated in words. It might be something along the lines of "I don't need to do that shit. Why? Because I'm good. And because I'm good, I can afford to wear whatever I find comfortable."
If this is anything close to the truth, it is an affront. It's saying "me: cool - no suit. You: uncool - suit".
One nice thing about suits is that they make everyone appear the same. As it is, in the world of suits, there is no immediate cue as to the status of anyone walking about in a business building (hence the Japanese culture of handing over business cards immediately upon meeting someone: there is less of a democratic tradition in Japan, so they have to use some other cue to check how low to bow (as it were)).
And this I find pretty cool. Even if it is complete bullshit, at lease there is a token regard for the sentiment that everyone in a certain group (i.e. a company) is, on some level, equal: equally valuable, equally respectable, equally responsible.
Anyway. I'm just saying that it ain't necessarily all bad. And yes, I do own suits, and I wear one about once every two weeks when visiting clients, mainly because I don't want to rub it in that yes, actually I can wear whatever I want, and they can't.
And since karma is there to burn, an anecdote: A co-worker and BMW-driver told me about a breakdown he experienced on the highway in Italy. He calls the "BMW tech support", and what does he get?
Two mechanics, arriving in a nice but not opulent beemer, dressed in very professional dark business suits & ties covered by gleaming white overalls.
History relates that they did not only look sharper that *any* traveller on some god-forsaked dusty Italian highway has the right to, but the fixed the problem, too.
- [...] Mars probe that crashed because of mismatched units. And that was just poor communication among the software guys.
So if it's not a bug, it must be a featureHave an article on the guys who write the stuff. They're damn good, but they say themselves their programs contain errors: "the last three versions of the program [...] had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors." Apparently never caused a problem, but not bug-free.
Then there was the Canadarm2 issue. Or wasn't that a bug either
YMDV ;)
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Ah, well.
Almost needless to say: the primary value-add that record labels give musicians is the hype. Where else can you sign a piece of paper, and a couple of weeks later get worldwide airplay, and see your CD in the racks in thousands, if not tens of thousands of record stored worldwide? You get to make videos as well (OK, so it's all on credit) if they like you well enough, you get to be on emteevee, do interviews, and so on.
So for a musician, the choice is between:
1) more than 50% of the profits stemming from possible regional fame, most likely resulting in poverty, and very very slim chance of "making it big", and
2) probable personal bankruptcy, but possible stardom, and the faint possibility of 0.1% of very very big profits - enough to make you rich rich rich. And - at least people get to *hear* you (even if it is stuffed down their throats thanks to clearChannel et al).
Personally, I would think it's all too easy to convince yourself that the chance of making it big *without* the monopoly boys is just too small - that "getting serious" means "signing with a big label".
YMMV, but try this:
1) Goto Google.
2) Click on "Preferences".
3) Edit the URL in the address bar to read "[...].com[...]" (instead of "[...].ca[...]"). This should not cause a redirect.
4) Click the "Save Preferences" button. You get the "Changes Saved" JavaScript popup.
Any subsequent access to google.com should no longer cause a redirect. If you track the cookies, BTW, you should see a brand-new one created by points 1-4 above, which overrides any existing one you have.
From the Salon acticle, Nissan-the-man's POV on the advertising:
"In 1999 we had 23 advertisers on our site," he continues. "Three of them were auto-related companies. [Nissan Motors] is claiming they were automotive companies. But none of them were selling or were in the business of selling cars or car accessories."
Dunno it it's true, of course, but that's what the judiciary is for.
[Blinks] Hey, yeah ...
... it's the cold water that's regulated down to a drip. Makes you feel like filling the bath with scalding water, then going down to the pub while it cools down enough not to denaturate your eyeballs.
:) Actually, I think brits would compromise on "tepid" as far as showers go. I reminds be of the heinous trick employed by some hotel owners: there's plenty of hot water, just loads
- But in Cambridge I became so frustrated with British water taps and switches and door handles - those awful sideways handles on many British doors that catch your sleeves
Everything else aside, including the silly taps often found in the UK: round door handlesI figure that any way to implement a user interface requires thought, many many decisions, and yes, chucking a lot of stuff out. In the end there is one, maybe two ways to do something, which should be "intuitive", based upon what the designer figures the user's background is. However, this also implies that there are tons of ways the user can't do something (obviously), and (not so obviously) a bunch of stuff which can't be done at all - or rather, combinations of things.
But now to the case in point:
In the UK (and most of Europe), I simply can't "slide" by a door without running the risk of getting my sleeve caught. This is quite true. People get by this "bug" by habitually opening the door just a little bit further than absolutely necessary.
In the US, however
[end rant] - 'course, this would never happen to a USian, because they would unconsciously take it into account before even grabbing the glasses.
sigh. (Same rant goes for separate "cold" and "hot" faucets in the UK. Anyone want to suggest implementing a separate "warm" facet between the two?
(Karma is here to be used). More on-topic: one thing I was missing in this interview was the fact ("postulate"?) that in any user-interaction-system, the human is by far the most flexible, adaptable element. History is littered with atrocious design decisions, which don't even make it into the consciousness of user's minds anymore, because the users have learned to use them, and have got completely used to them. For instance:
- Does anyone else remember the first couple of minutes of using a steering wheel in a car, after several years of riding a bicycle? I, for one, remember steering a bicycle to be intuitive, but having to consciously learn how far to turn the wheel of a car in order to make it turn at the desired raduius
- Computer mouse, as discussed further up in the thread. Here, just watch an uninitiated user, the first time they use it. It's only simple once you've got used to it
- Rotary phones. These have been superceded by touch-tones, and it was a mechanically elegant design at the time they were invented - but the UI still sucks
- Basically anything you had to learn how to use, rather than: if you know what it can do, it is obvious how to make it do it. Old MS interfaces, rather a lot of today's open source interfaces, some old tape decks (hold down "record" and "play" at the same time to make it record), keyboards (who wouldn't prefer a really good voice interface?), and so on
...
My point is merely that considering the above, I have as much appreciation for good UI design as the next person, but that humans were practically "built" to be able to handle a wide range of "UIs", and if what a device does sucks, then no amount of UI-candy with "un-suck" it. A bit like music: I'm happy to allow other people to make it, I appreciate it immensly, but it the artist has nothing to say, then no good voice, good producer, or ultimate fidelity will make up for that.Yes, but *besides* that ... :)
... (hahhh ... I love how easy that is to say). Which would put a spin on today's handshake story. " *zzzp* ... there's my email addy, and as an added bonus, I didn't wash my hands, so you get my MP3s as well. DonotinhaleDonotallowcontactwitheyesIfyoudowashout withcopiousamountsofwaterLegaldisclaimer..."
... *crunch*. How close might this analogy be to cells?
OK, considering the points you bring up, and which I neglected, I wonder how good DNS would do for MP3s. That might actually be a good way of illustrating how fragile DNA is: encode sound on DNA; expose it to non-fatal radiation; listen.
As for storage: yes, another aspect I neglected. Maybe keep in in an engineered bacterium
Oh yes: a reason to post a response, Rich0. One thing I sporadically wonder about is the "dormant" or "trash" DNA. Sometimes it seems to me a bit like analysing a machine, say a car, and coming to the conclusion that actually, it's only the engine, drive train, wheels, steering system and breaks, plus the seats that ever get used. So: we cut out the "superfluous" parts, and
- This website [ornl.gov] says that we have about 3 billion base pairs, 30 thousand of which are genes (the rest is the mysterious "junk dna"). There are 4 base pairs, therefore each base pair is 2 bits of data. That's about 7.5kb for all the genes, and 715MB for every base pair - which after compression should fit comfortably on a standard CD.
Thanks for doing the calculation. Kind of magical in several ways:- Even including the junk - not very much by today's information-processing standards. Given some outrageous tech, it would be possible to re-create "a" human race with ten or twenty CDs.
- Talking about outrageous tech: a CD full of information squashed together in a space it takes an electron microscope even to see. We have some catching up to do
- My favorite examples of this sort of thinking are a matchbox manufacturer who cut costs spectacularly by putting a striking surface on only one side of the box (when there had been two previously), and British Airlines saving thousands by way of halving the number of olives in their Martinis.
... or Subaru saving tens of thousands by not quite topping up the engine oil in new cars by 1/2 litre.I'm quite glad *such* things can't be patented, at least: cutting costs by cutting corners. Great business idea, but the innovative thing about them is that they wouldn't occur to a product designer simply trying to make a good and usable product, because they don't make design sense. Hooray for "good value", but I wouldn't call it revolutionary.
As for this case: non-obvious *to whom* is always a question. Another important question is how hard something is. Examples:
- A McPhearson shock absorber: ingenious (IMHO), hard to get right, needed a lot of R&D
- Any rocket engine or similar: check out things like SCRAM jets. No moving parts (apart from the fuel pump), but engineering magic nonetheless. Needs a lot of R&D
- ... and so on
Compare stuff like this with web auctions, and they fade into "oh, like taking part in an auction over the phone, yea?"Naturally, you can equally tell any hypothetical computer agent the same thing, if the agent is programmed to accept such commands.
Maybe the last bit is only obvious to typical
If and when you happen to re-invent something (as in the case of the original article, as far as I understand) that has already been patented by someone else, there is no "onus of proof", neither on yourself, nor on the patenter. Even if you *did* invent whatever it is from base up, it's already patented, and you must enter negotiations for a license to use it, the cost of which may by prohibitive to your undertaking.
Fine, in that case you're just SOL; better luck next time. The fact that the patenter may not be using the patent (i.e. producing something based thereupon) is just secondary bummer.
But where it gets really buggy is when you, as an inventor, are severly encumbered by a minefield of trivialities. "Hey, we could do auctions over SMS" ("short message system" - big in Yurp, not so much in the US)
Anyway - I'm in rant mode. To the last I can only paraphrase The Matrix: "There is nothing to patent."
From the article:
Okay, here we go again. I think I just found another good "dream thought" - blue LED!
This is either quite brilliantly subtle satire, or the most pathetic article I have ever seen linked from
... ah, well
As far as I can tell, this is a veeeery broad interpretation of the most awfully-named act ever.
I have a more deserving focus though: anyone else notice how on the FARC page they give their email address as tematicosfarcep@hotmail.com ?
Now *that* is providing communications.
What are you on? I want some.
... not sure about yourself :) that a brick wall is hard.
[...] all matter is 99,99999...% empty [...]
Yes - that's why the simile "a hole in a hole within a hole" is sometimes used to describe matter. That doesn't, however, change our perception (well, mine
[...] stone and sand become just as lively and complex as any other organism [...]
Lively and complex: yes. Exhibiting something which might be recognised as "intent" or "will" or "emotion" or what-have-you by us wormbabies: no.
[...] if we're stuck with logic alone, that limits our reality [...]
Yeeees. What alternatives have you to offer? Anything you can communicate? Anything structured? "Things are things", "Time is time" et cetera ad absurdum (which wouldn't take a whole lot of time), I agree. But unless somebody decides to come back down from the smokey mount and give us logicians a hand, I for one will stick with attempting to build a better satellite or whatever.
Human perception is indeed fantastically narrow - but recognising the fact that this is so does not change the fact.
</superfluous reply to what I have come to the conclusion is a happyTroll[TM]>
On what land, exactly?
Ha!
... aye, there's the rub
Law 3) Require DRM hardware to ONLY run DRM-compliant software (not too hard to imagine).
...". ... ?
... I can imagine a future where a new "land of the free" is founded, where its not the freedom of expression, right to bear arms etc. (which go without saying, more or less - there has been progress in the last centuries), but the freedom of information is the main point. And I can already hear (woo, Im getting prophetic here) Big Business saying "itll never work, no-one would invest, bla bla". Then the new guys beat the socks off the US economically, because hey - one of the new guys came up with a truly innovative and exciting use for a computer. And s/he was able to implement it.
Hear hear. Thats the exact argument against all those (astroturfers?) who say "Well you can always opt out
*Now* you can, sure - but later on
I can already see the special permit required for a non-digital-restrictions-management piece of hardware. A bit like a concealed firearms license, but waaaay more expensive & restrictive.
Come to mention it