he really didn't invent much. what he did was market, mass produce and popularize a lot early electrical inventions. and made a lot of money too. claiming that he was the man who invented all of this stuff is just part of the marketing campaign. rather than an anonymous guy in his lab, or some other guy whom he ripped off, or some other guy who discovered something as a curiousity, but never followed up, and was forgotten, or alexander graham bell, or nikolai tesla
and i'm not really denigrating edison. i am in fact saying that the cult of whomever invents something is overhyped. a lot of what is important in this world is producing the thing, popularizing it, putting it in the hands of consumers, not just dreaming the damn thing up. that's actually pretty easy. the light bulb was invented individually by half a dozen different guys in the 19th century. but the lion's share of the credit goes to edison. why? because he actually followed up and put the dang thing in the hand's of consumers. and that matters. some may think it is unfair, but who said life was fair? go study the farnsworth and rca and the invention of the television if you want a lesson on invetion and fairness and reality
i had a 32M rio pmp300 MP3 player in 1998, many years before an iPod was a twinkle in steve job's eye. but the mass of western industrial consumers didn't take portable mp3 players that seriously until steve jobs gave them something gleaming and sexy. such is the way of the world
there is more to progress than just invention. there is also streamlining for mass production, financing, distributing, marketing, etc. and those jobs (no pun intended) are not as sexy, but they oftentimes decide the tempo of progress more than some lonely guy tinkering somewhere. and, perhaps even more importantly, they decide immortality: whose name gets stuck in the history books next to an invention. and they also decide who gets the billions in riches from that invention too
believe me, in 2108, when someone wikiyahoogoogle's "mp3 player" on their visor computer, they won't see a rio pmp300. they will see steve job's cryogenically frozen head with a perfect gleaming iPodWhite(tm) smile
north korea and iran have discovered the value of deterrence
of course, china might pull a kennedy. that is, kennedy said there would be war if the russians put nukes on cuba, so the russians backed down. and the us should most definitely back down if china threatens war over nukes in taiwan
but after china's recent actions in tibet, i'm not interested in seeing them in taiwan anytime soon
at the very least, this "mistake" of nuclear missile parts sends the grumpy old technocrats in beijing a message, and if i could articulate my own message to the old a**holes, it is this:
1. i respect the people of china, and i respect the will of the people of china 2. you are not elected by the people of china, therefore, you do not represent the will of the people of china 3. therefore, in the name of respecting the people of china, i do not respect the chinese government, because the chinese governmental class represses the chinese (and tibetan) people with impunity. nice class system for a "communist" country there
the value of democracy, above all else, is that it means there is parity between the will of the people and the will of the government. of course this parity is only approximate, it always is, and always can forever more be only approximate, but at least the government resembles the will of the people in a democracy. in a nondemocracy, over time, the will of the people and the will of the government drift away from each other. what was once a valid noble revolution of the people devolves into just another class system that needs to be overthrown. let this be a lesson to all nondemocratic countries in the world. your days are numbered. not because of anything the usa or any other western democracy does. but simply because of the inherent flaw in nondemocratic systems that, over time, your interests tend to resemble less and less of the will of the people you rule, until there is only antagonism between the people and the government left. and that situation never lasts long. learn this simple truth, russia. learn this simple truth, china. you are doomed to repeat your revolutinoary upheavels of a century ago if you do not respect your own people via democracy
"State DMV databases are not currently universally linked together"
it's pretty amazing how you show colossal distrust of what the government does in one comment ("FASCISM IS COMING DUDE, FER SURE!"), and the next moment you make a comment of colossal naivete of what the government does
the dmv info is not in a universal database on the federal level? (choke, snicker)
uh huh;-P
as for condescension, yes: i am an ass, and yes: i am being condescending to you. you're naive. shade that meaning with idealistic if you want to be positive, or ignorant if you want to be negative. but either way, your passion is not wedded with much intelligence. a shame
"There is only nothing you can do about it when it has happened - if we are still at the will happen stage then there is still something that can be done to try and stop it! "
drivers license
social security number
passport
done deal, already happened
why don't some people understand the obvious: real id is not a change of status quo, it is merely a continuation of the status quo under a new name
it's the difference between arguing over whether or not there is a gun pointed at your head (valid fight) and arguing over the color of the gun pointed at your head (absurd fight)
battle hymn of the republic, comment spoken with a forceful tremulous voice, as the marching men's humming grow louder and louder...
zzz
dude: everything about real id is already in existence
it's a pointless technicality. you honestly think you are actually making a difference fighting a nonchange. you're not fighting over whether or not a gun is pointed at your head. you're fighting over what color the gun is that is already pointed at your head. an absurdity
get over yourself. or rather, you go on with your bad self if it makes you feel any better. but don't fool yourself into thinking you are actually making a difference with this particular struggle
i actually applaud your idealism about for fighting for privacy. but could you do me a small favor? could you marry your passion with a little intelligence? could you take all of that earnestness and put it into a struggle that actually makes a difference? real id ain't it. sorry kid
1. "stare at the screen forever! get your myopia on mytopia"
2. "mytopia: you would think it's an amalgam of 'my utopia'. it's actually an amalgam of 'my dystopia'. sorry for your forthcoming displeasure"
3. "welcome to mytopia. if you are looking for the hallucinogenic substance exchange 'mycopia,' you are on the wrong site, click here"
4. "welcome to mytopiary.com, the site for lovers of small shrubs and all things related to small shrub erotica! the mytopia website burned through all of its funds on a shameless ad plug on slashdot, and went bankrupt, and we bought their domain for $29.94"
i look forward to you using that line when you that the gw bush government is creating false fear and panic about terrorist threats to justify taking away our privacy rights
you don't have to accept false complacency, you don't have to accept false alarmism. but you can't claim one is the status quo the same time you claim the other is the status quo and still retain a grtasp on intellectual coherency or honesty
you apparently have the fatalist view that abuse will happen, nothing you can do about it
ok
i happen to have the fatalist view that centralization of the data will happen, nothing you can do about it
catch me now?
you seem to think i am bizarre for making light of almost certain abuse
i happen to think you are bizarre for thinking it is useful to fight almost certain centralization
with the same cynical fatalistic acceptance about abuse you show to me, i am here to tell you everything is already centralized, your fight is a joke, it's already over
but if you like empty useless symbolism, keep up the brave struggle
Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada, the son of Shirley, an artist and nurse, and Phillip Cameron, an electrical engineer.[2] He grew up in Chippawa, Ontario and graduated from Stamford Collegiate in Niagara falls , and in 1971 his family moved to Brea, California. There he studied physics and English at California State University, Fullerton, but his passion for filmmaking would draw him to the film archive of UCLA at every opportunity. After dropping out of university, he spent time writing while working several jobs, including truck driving[3]. After seeing the film Star Wars, Cameron quit his job as a truck driver to enter the film industry.[4] During this time, he made a short twelve minute science fiction film with his friends entitled Xenogenesis.
can i get an amen from those reading this comment who think that groundbreaking films like terminator, aliens, terminator ii, titantic, abyss, etc., would be totally different and totally worse if not made by a man with a solid physics/ engineering background?
is terminator ii possible without someone with an awareness of shape memory alloys?
#1. there is nothing in a hypothetical central database that does already exist in an acutal central database today
#2. no one actually lives their lives successfully with the chicken little "the sky is falling!" attitude of ANY DAY NOW WE WILL HAVE HITLER. of course it's possible the usa can lose its democracy and become an authoritarian state someday. howabout we worry about that after we go another inch down that mile required to get to that reality? yes, i can hear your reply already "WE'RE ALREADY ALMOST THERE! WE'RE ON AN USNTOPPABLE SLIPPERY SLOPE!"
zzz
there is such a thing as false complacency
there's also false alarmism
you are very solidly in the false alarmism territory
which is ironic, because you don't successfully fight government initiatives you say are founded on fear and hysteria with fear and hysteria of your own
however, i'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop
nuclear terrorism is the Real Deal. and what i mean by that is, sure, you can topple some towers in new york city, kill thousands of people, life goes on, real estate prices in manhattan actually increase
but if you create a chernobyl style green zone permanently off limits to human habitation out of a previously densely populated area, then you're really onto something in terms of bang for your buck
in other words, i'm not too concerned about explosion attacks, chemical attacks, even biological attacks. a few months later, everything is washed up. but nuclear attacks bear a mark of permanence on the order of thousands of years
so our vigilance against them seem most vital too me
were originally intended to foster progress, cultural riches, innovation
and now they are used as perverse tools to squash progress, stifle innovation, and make us culturally impoverished
not that any of this means there will be a social revolution, but i see the real possibility of a legal revolution. that is, the public simply ignoring the bullshit intellectual property lawyers invent in order to justify their existence
dear intellectual property lawyers: you suck. your entire field is becoming a farce. you write and interpret and enforce law that does not serve society, it only serves your field. i propose a mutiny and jettison of the whole lot of you useless parasites
if they pass a law that is anathema to only a loud shrill fringe, say those who don't believe in abortions, or those who don't believe in income tax, then bombing then is inappropriate
if they pass a law which wholeheartedly and majorly impoverishes a majority of the american people, then yes, bomb them
however, we are a democracy, and one of the wonderful things about a democracy is that it is responsive to the people's wishes. in other words, in a healthy democracy, it will never come to bombing our own government, since our government is always a pretty good approximation of our wishes. all you have to do is vote the senators out, not actually kill them. in a healthy democracy, the wishes of the people get reflected in the makeup of the government, in a close enough approximation
however if our government mutated into a sham democracy, such as what you have in russia or iran, or an autocracy like china or north korea or zimbabwe or burma, then bombing the government is very much an option on the table, since the average citizen there has his wishes usurped by the agenda of a special clique or class of people who is not beholden to the will of the people in that country
Slashdot Mirror
he really didn't invent much. what he did was market, mass produce and popularize a lot early electrical inventions. and made a lot of money too. claiming that he was the man who invented all of this stuff is just part of the marketing campaign. rather than an anonymous guy in his lab, or some other guy whom he ripped off, or some other guy who discovered something as a curiousity, but never followed up, and was forgotten, or alexander graham bell, or nikolai tesla
and i'm not really denigrating edison. i am in fact saying that the cult of whomever invents something is overhyped. a lot of what is important in this world is producing the thing, popularizing it, putting it in the hands of consumers, not just dreaming the damn thing up. that's actually pretty easy. the light bulb was invented individually by half a dozen different guys in the 19th century. but the lion's share of the credit goes to edison. why? because he actually followed up and put the dang thing in the hand's of consumers. and that matters. some may think it is unfair, but who said life was fair? go study the farnsworth and rca and the invention of the television if you want a lesson on invetion and fairness and reality
i had a 32M rio pmp300 MP3 player in 1998, many years before an iPod was a twinkle in steve job's eye. but the mass of western industrial consumers didn't take portable mp3 players that seriously until steve jobs gave them something gleaming and sexy. such is the way of the world
there is more to progress than just invention. there is also streamlining for mass production, financing, distributing, marketing, etc. and those jobs (no pun intended) are not as sexy, but they oftentimes decide the tempo of progress more than some lonely guy tinkering somewhere. and, perhaps even more importantly, they decide immortality: whose name gets stuck in the history books next to an invention. and they also decide who gets the billions in riches from that invention too
believe me, in 2108, when someone wikiyahoogoogle's "mp3 player" on their visor computer, they won't see a rio pmp300. they will see steve job's cryogenically frozen head with a perfect gleaming iPodWhite(tm) smile
north korea and iran have discovered the value of deterrence
of course, china might pull a kennedy. that is, kennedy said there would be war if the russians put nukes on cuba, so the russians backed down. and the us should most definitely back down if china threatens war over nukes in taiwan
but after china's recent actions in tibet, i'm not interested in seeing them in taiwan anytime soon
at the very least, this "mistake" of nuclear missile parts sends the grumpy old technocrats in beijing a message, and if i could articulate my own message to the old a**holes, it is this:
1. i respect the people of china, and i respect the will of the people of china
2. you are not elected by the people of china, therefore, you do not represent the will of the people of china
3. therefore, in the name of respecting the people of china, i do not respect the chinese government, because the chinese governmental class represses the chinese (and tibetan) people with impunity. nice class system for a "communist" country there
the value of democracy, above all else, is that it means there is parity between the will of the people and the will of the government. of course this parity is only approximate, it always is, and always can forever more be only approximate, but at least the government resembles the will of the people in a democracy. in a nondemocracy, over time, the will of the people and the will of the government drift away from each other. what was once a valid noble revolution of the people devolves into just another class system that needs to be overthrown. let this be a lesson to all nondemocratic countries in the world. your days are numbered. not because of anything the usa or any other western democracy does. but simply because of the inherent flaw in nondemocratic systems that, over time, your interests tend to resemble less and less of the will of the people you rule, until there is only antagonism between the people and the government left. and that situation never lasts long. learn this simple truth, russia. learn this simple truth, china. you are doomed to repeat your revolutinoary upheavels of a century ago if you do not respect your own people via democracy
democracy in china in our lifetimes!
i couldn't have said it better myself
what's the point?
anyone who disagrees with me I will sue until their knees are bloody stumps
do I hear any objections to the price of $15.99/CD now?
didn't think so
see? who needs reality when you have legions of attack dog lawyers? silly consumers
clarke is well known venerable saint in astronomical and science circles
if you wanted to call it the eliot spitzer event, or the march madness event, you might have some trouble convincing
"State DMV databases are not currently universally linked together"
;-P
it's pretty amazing how you show colossal distrust of what the government does in one comment ("FASCISM IS COMING DUDE, FER SURE!"), and the next moment you make a comment of colossal naivete of what the government does
the dmv info is not in a universal database on the federal level? (choke, snicker)
uh huh
as for condescension, yes: i am an ass, and yes: i am being condescending to you. you're naive. shade that meaning with idealistic if you want to be positive, or ignorant if you want to be negative. but either way, your passion is not wedded with much intelligence. a shame
THAT i understood ;-)
:-P
now i only have have 36 more questions before i completely understand the story summary...
superdense
that's how i feel after reading that summary
1.58 bits?
wtf?
"There is only nothing you can do about it when it has happened - if we are still at the will happen stage then there is still something that can be done to try and stop it! "
drivers license
social security number
passport
done deal, already happened
why don't some people understand the obvious: real id is not a change of status quo, it is merely a continuation of the status quo under a new name
it's the difference between arguing over whether or not there is a gun pointed at your head (valid fight) and arguing over the color of the gun pointed at your head (absurd fight)
it HAS HAPPENED ALREADY
battle hymn of the republic, comment spoken with a forceful tremulous voice, as the marching men's humming grow louder and louder...
zzz
dude: everything about real id is already in existence
it's a pointless technicality. you honestly think you are actually making a difference fighting a nonchange. you're not fighting over whether or not a gun is pointed at your head. you're fighting over what color the gun is that is already pointed at your head. an absurdity
get over yourself. or rather, you go on with your bad self if it makes you feel any better. but don't fool yourself into thinking you are actually making a difference with this particular struggle
i actually applaud your idealism about for fighting for privacy. but could you do me a small favor? could you marry your passion with a little intelligence? could you take all of that earnestness and put it into a struggle that actually makes a difference? real id ain't it. sorry kid
here's my free ad campaign slogans for you:
1. "stare at the screen forever! get your myopia on mytopia"
2. "mytopia: you would think it's an amalgam of 'my utopia'. it's actually an amalgam of 'my dystopia'. sorry for your forthcoming displeasure"
3. "welcome to mytopia. if you are looking for the hallucinogenic substance exchange 'mycopia,' you are on the wrong site, click here"
4. "welcome to mytopiary.com, the site for lovers of small shrubs and all things related to small shrub erotica! the mytopia website burned through all of its funds on a shameless ad plug on slashdot, and went bankrupt, and we bought their domain for $29.94"
drivers license
passport
social security nubmer
done deal
your fighting a war that was lost long ago
furthermore
"there is such a thing as false complacency"
-And we live in it today.-
i look forward to you using that line when you that the gw bush government is creating false fear and panic about terrorist threats to justify taking away our privacy rights
you don't have to accept false complacency, you don't have to accept false alarmism. but you can't claim one is the status quo the same time you claim the other is the status quo and still retain a grtasp on intellectual coherency or honesty
you apparently have the fatalist view that abuse will happen, nothing you can do about it
ok
i happen to have the fatalist view that centralization of the data will happen, nothing you can do about it
catch me now?
you seem to think i am bizarre for making light of almost certain abuse
i happen to think you are bizarre for thinking it is useful to fight almost certain centralization
with the same cynical fatalistic acceptance about abuse you show to me, i am here to tell you everything is already centralized, your fight is a joke, it's already over
but if you like empty useless symbolism, keep up the brave struggle
(rolls eyes)
i got slapped with the troll mod
it was meant to be a harmless joke, you seem to take it as such
but apparently amongst the mild mannered slashdotters resides a militant fundamentalist hitchcock fan with modpoints to burn
who would have known?
(snicker)
you can, like, freeze them and blow them up and they remerge! ;-)
can i get an amen from those reading this comment who think that groundbreaking films like terminator, aliens, terminator ii, titantic, abyss, etc., would be totally different and totally worse if not made by a man with a solid physics/ engineering background?
is terminator ii possible without someone with an awareness of shape memory alloys?
#1. there is nothing in a hypothetical central database that does already exist in an acutal central database today
#2. no one actually lives their lives successfully with the chicken little "the sky is falling!" attitude of ANY DAY NOW WE WILL HAVE HITLER. of course it's possible the usa can lose its democracy and become an authoritarian state someday. howabout we worry about that after we go another inch down that mile required to get to that reality? yes, i can hear your reply already "WE'RE ALREADY ALMOST THERE! WE'RE ON AN USNTOPPABLE SLIPPERY SLOPE!"
zzz
there is such a thing as false complacency
there's also false alarmism
you are very solidly in the false alarmism territory
which is ironic, because you don't successfully fight government initiatives you say are founded on fear and hysteria with fear and hysteria of your own
bureaucratic jujitsu. using the redundancy in the system against itself ;-)
however, i'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop
nuclear terrorism is the Real Deal. and what i mean by that is, sure, you can topple some towers in new york city, kill thousands of people, life goes on, real estate prices in manhattan actually increase
but if you create a chernobyl style green zone permanently off limits to human habitation out of a previously densely populated area, then you're really onto something in terms of bang for your buck
in other words, i'm not too concerned about explosion attacks, chemical attacks, even biological attacks. a few months later, everything is washed up. but nuclear attacks bear a mark of permanence on the order of thousands of years
so our vigilance against them seem most vital too me
were originally intended to foster progress, cultural riches, innovation
and now they are used as perverse tools to squash progress, stifle innovation, and make us culturally impoverished
not that any of this means there will be a social revolution, but i see the real possibility of a legal revolution. that is, the public simply ignoring the bullshit intellectual property lawyers invent in order to justify their existence
dear intellectual property lawyers: you suck. your entire field is becoming a farce. you write and interpret and enforce law that does not serve society, it only serves your field. i propose a mutiny and jettison of the whole lot of you useless parasites
if they pass a law that is anathema to only a loud shrill fringe, say those who don't believe in abortions, or those who don't believe in income tax, then bombing then is inappropriate
if they pass a law which wholeheartedly and majorly impoverishes a majority of the american people, then yes, bomb them
however, we are a democracy, and one of the wonderful things about a democracy is that it is responsive to the people's wishes. in other words, in a healthy democracy, it will never come to bombing our own government, since our government is always a pretty good approximation of our wishes. all you have to do is vote the senators out, not actually kill them. in a healthy democracy, the wishes of the people get reflected in the makeup of the government, in a close enough approximation
however if our government mutated into a sham democracy, such as what you have in russia or iran, or an autocracy like china or north korea or zimbabwe or burma, then bombing the government is very much an option on the table, since the average citizen there has his wishes usurped by the agenda of a special clique or class of people who is not beholden to the will of the people in that country
a sampling here and there are investigated
a**holes sends 3 shipping containers, odds are at least 2 make it to destination
exactly what the problem with real id is?
we already have driver's licenses
i don't understand the rabid opposition to it
to me it seems a sort of so what