A civilization is only technologically advanced enough to broadcast inefficient radio waves for a VERY short window of evolutionary time, and we've also only been listening for a VERY short window of time as well. At the end of that window (which we ourselves are approaching), we either destroy ourselves, or we reach the Singularity and our external communications become intelligently energy efficient and hence indisguishable from background noise.
On the cosmic scale, the type of civilizations SETI is searching for only exist for a blink of an eye, and we just haven't been listening long enough.
* Savings per day with caching the CSS files: ~14 GB bandwidth
Sure, that's a lot of bandwidth, but not in dollar terms.
Large sites pay less than a dollar per gigabyte xfer'd. So,/. would save less than 5 grand per year. That's a lot of money to me and you, but maybe not to the guy(s) who don't want to overhaul a big site that's "not broken".
I've been "coding" to XHTML transitional for a few years now, and have noticed recently that a lot of the sites being created or redesigned now are also opting for it rather than the old HTML401.
There's really not much to it:
All tags are lowercase, which is easier to type anyway
All attributes have to be "quoted" for sanity
All tags have to be terminated, like this lists </li> which makes the browsers job of rendering much easier since it doesn't have to play the guessing game. This is especially handy on lowend devices like PDAs.
All the old bandwidth-wasting presentation elements (like <FONT>) are now CSS presentation ATTRIBUTES of any element by using id= class= and style=
Firefox's WebDeveloper extension makes XHTML/CSS validation (among other funcs) so easy that there's no excuse to be lazy about it.
There's a crossover point for each kind of job where robotic labor outperforms human labor in terms of efficiency and cost. Soon to be out of the job are millions of burger flippers, truckers, pilots, and others, who suddenly find themselves technologically unemployed (and waiting for the economy to suddenly 'create' millions of new jobs that can be better filled by humans - yeah right).
Is it even possible to live free and untracked anymore?
It's getting harder every day. Eventually, not even a remote cabin in Montana will be refuge - not once "smart dust" gets cheap enough to deploy everywhere.
I'm considering going to cash for most everything. Has anyone experimented with that lately, and what difficulties did you face?
I've been cash-mostly for years, only using a CC for online and big purchases. If you buy from the right stores you can sometimes even get a "cash discount" because the merchant doesn't have to pay the fees for the privilege of accepting Visa/MC. Another major benefit of going cash-only is that it's that much harder to join the consumer debt culture paying ~18% out-their-asses to live above their means. About the only downside is that you've got to visit the ATM a little more often if you don't want to keep a stash in the safe at home.
(cash is king... at least until cash gets RFID'd, and then I'll zap the RFID... and then my cash becomes anonymous "terrorist" currency... and then I get to go to jail for buying and selling without the permission of the state.)
</tinfoil-hat>
--
Could be a sport, up until IA
on
Is Math A Sport?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Sure, math could be considered a 'sport', but only up until we have the technology to augment our intelligence to make math, and other fuzzier modes of thought, trivial. Our brains really aren't optimized for that kind of thing, unless you happen to be autistic.
Even if there were a "natural brain" competition class, it would be more like the Special Olympics once most everyone else was augmented. I'd be thinking, "Look at those pathetic meat-brains! They can't even do simple calculus in under 1 millisecond like the X30-implant can! Haha. Amusing luddites."
(the steroid analogy doesn't really apply here because most people aren't on them themselves, but when athletes *DO* use stealthy enhancement drugs, and the latest in training/materials, it makes for a more interesting spectacle despite the 'cheating' hypocrisy. If most people were also physically improved cyborgs, that attitude would change, and it would the 'aided-human' class that got the spotlight.)
it enfuriates me to no end when I'm out and I see a preppy thug trying to act tough.
Why should that be enfuriating?
I see the same thug and metrosexual posers (in NYC and Queens) but they don't anger or intimidate me. I understand that people -- especially kids -- want to belong, and that that's the culture of cool they've subscribed to. It is sad that most of time they've been manipulated into buying into a co-opted culture of cool, but that's another story...
Me? I'll continue to commit social suicide by wearing years old no-logo clothing, listening to my "nobody" indie music, and remaining (*gasp*) humble and (*gasp*) anti-materialist.
Kids accustomed to violence make for better warriors/soldiers.
Kids accustomed to a sexually open society are dirty filthy heathens who will burn in hell for all eternity!:) Also, sex embarrasses bitter old farts, while violence is more 'manly' and acceptable.
You can wait for the atom duplicator and give away your sweat and toil, if you feel it's right.
That would be an atom assembler, and not atom duplicator; can't create something out of nothing. Molecular manufacturing doesn't transform energy into matter like those far-out StarTrek replicators do, it much more "simply" assembles abundant component molecules into larger objects - like how nature grows a potato.
In the meantime, I'll do what I must
I didn't suggest otherwise. Right now there a lot of people who still trade artificial scarcity for real scarcity. That will change.
Whatever helps you sleep at night, but the exponential rate of technological progress would indicate otherwise. Our control over matter is getting increasingly finer-grained, and that control will be complete within a few more decades (that is, if we even survive the increasing mismatch between the promise/danger of our tech and our primitive evolutionary psychology).
--
Re:Sorry. No way.
on
TMBG on DRM
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I personally wouldn't have a problem with someone coming into my house and copying everything in it.
Let me guess... You are either a kid, or a wage slave. You *might* be in college. You've never produced your own intellectual property, and you've certainly never tried to make a living at it.
Let me guess... you didn't think the parent posters analogy through.
Do realize that when you have a device that can make atom-for-atom copies of ANYTHING -- including food, clothing, diamond, cars, etc -- that "making a living" suddenly gets a LOT easier and cheaper? No need for artificial scarcity. Open source applies to real-world objects too.
If this kind of world of abundance (digital AND material), the only reason you could have to care if somebody copies your product design, is if you're a greedy control-freak bastard who's still in love with the structure of the old socio-economic hierarchy.
--
Re:Concerts.
on
TMBG on DRM
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
> How would you eat then?
Concerts. It's how artists make their real money anyway....
But that's actual hard work! Artists would be forced to keep on working, like a plumber or a programmer, in order to continue earning a living. That's just absurd!
Artists (read: LABELS) should naturally have the Right To Profit(TM) from artificially scarce old "intellectual property" for life+(next_copyright_extension) years.
"I'm going to kill Bush if he conspires to create the event that indefinitely suspends the election. Anthrax in voting booths in democratic districts! Heil, Fatherland^W Homeland security!"
I'll let you know if I see any black vans or MIBS over the next few days...:)
The best way to approximate that figure would be to take a good look at the most popular BitTorrent site -- SuprNova.org -- and count it up over a few days.
From what I've seen, I'd say it's about 99.9% infringing content, and 0.1% non-infringing, whether you go by instance or byte-count. Even when you factor in the other "legit" BitTorrent sites, like scarywater's anime, the overall ratio probably won't change much.
The amount of GPL'd and other open content is increasing, though. Slowly.
Despite recent good news on employment growth, the current economic recovery, now approaching its third year, remains the most unbalanced on record in respect to the distribution of income gains between corporate profits and labor compensation. Essentially, rapid gains in productivity have been translating into higher corporate profits without increasing the wage and salary income of American workers.
or:
In the new millennium, as the use of intelligent computers increase, jobs will vanish, with several million expected to disappear over the next five to seven years, Cohen said. While less labor to do more work is great for business, there will be an impact on society as people find decent paying jobs harder to find.
The Progney folks are sitting on a giant pipe. I doubt you'll be able to floor them.
Even so, BitTorrent is ideal in these situations. If I'm going to be downloading, I *want* to be using my unused upload bandwidth to be giving back too, instead of just taking somebody's expensive giant pipe for granted. And money not spent on that central giant pipe can be put to better use elsewhere.
Microsoft says to BSD: "Hey, thanks for the freebie! It's mine now! Time to extend and extinguish."
Microsoft says to GPL: "Share and share alike? wtf?! If I can't just buy you out, I should at least have the right to enclose the commons for my personal gain!"
and feeding themselves how?... Self sufficiency means you can support yourself.
I don't think you understand the implications of molecular nanotechnology. One of the most obvious is a return to self-sufficiency -- no longer would bulk-tech industry be needed to rape and pollute the environment for convenient resources that then get inefficiently shaped (top-down) into products and distributed at high energy cost around the globe just to get into your grubby hands and thrown out when it breaks.
The new method is bottom-up and 100% sustainable. Resources are handled on a molecular level and so they don't get "used up" and thrown in landfill. You can manufacture your own FOOD locally (and anything else given the necessary component molecules) without the aid of industry or natures garden.
So let's review (sorry to sound condescending): 100% recyclable atomic matter + 100% free solar energy + 100% open source product designs + molecular manufacturing technology == what? If you wanted to, you could live in your own self-contained sphere as long you had a store of matter, solar input, heat/entropy output,... and a wireless network connection to sourceforge.net:)
MAKE YOUR OWN? Why you dirty pinko commie! How dare you deprive this glorious capitalistic company the RIGHT TO PROFIT! Won't somebody please think of the GDP?! Go break some windows today!
Slashdot Mirror
On the cosmic scale, the type of civilizations SETI is searching for only exist for a blink of an eye, and we just haven't been listening long enough.
--
Sure, that's a lot of bandwidth, but not in dollar terms.
Large sites pay less than a dollar per gigabyte xfer'd. So, /. would save less than 5 grand per year. That's a lot of money to me and you, but maybe not to the guy(s) who don't want to overhaul a big site that's "not broken".
--
There's really not much to it:
Firefox's WebDeveloper extension makes XHTML/CSS validation (among other funcs) so easy that there's no excuse to be lazy about it.
--
It's your assumption that's wrong.
Anarchy != disorder (entropy).
Order doesn't necessarily require centralized C&C -- it can also happen bottom-up in an emergent fashion. Witness evolution, or an ant colony.
--
This automation trend will continue to accelerate, but what *could* be a paradise is increasingly looking like a corporate dystopia because the productivity gains, even today, are being hoarded by the wealthy few at the highest rate in history.
When welfare/livingwage is still a dirty word, stuff like this isn't funny: "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script."
--
It's getting harder every day. Eventually, not even a remote cabin in Montana will be refuge - not once "smart dust" gets cheap enough to deploy everywhere.
I'm considering going to cash for most everything. Has anyone experimented with that lately, and what difficulties did you face?
I've been cash-mostly for years, only using a CC for online and big purchases. If you buy from the right stores you can sometimes even get a "cash discount" because the merchant doesn't have to pay the fees for the privilege of accepting Visa/MC. Another major benefit of going cash-only is that it's that much harder to join the consumer debt culture paying ~18% out-their-asses to live above their means. About the only downside is that you've got to visit the ATM a little more often if you don't want to keep a stash in the safe at home.
(cash is king... at least until cash gets RFID'd, and then I'll zap the RFID... and then my cash becomes anonymous "terrorist" currency... and then I get to go to jail for buying and selling without the permission of the state.)
</tinfoil-hat>
--
Even if there were a "natural brain" competition class, it would be more like the Special Olympics once most everyone else was augmented. I'd be thinking, "Look at those pathetic meat-brains! They can't even do simple calculus in under 1 millisecond like the X30-implant can! Haha. Amusing luddites."
(the steroid analogy doesn't really apply here because most people aren't on them themselves, but when athletes *DO* use stealthy enhancement drugs, and the latest in training/materials, it makes for a more interesting spectacle despite the 'cheating' hypocrisy. If most people were also physically improved cyborgs, that attitude would change, and it would the 'aided-human' class that got the spotlight.)
--
Why should that be enfuriating?
I see the same thug and metrosexual posers (in NYC and Queens) but they don't anger or intimidate me. I understand that people -- especially kids -- want to belong, and that that's the culture of cool they've subscribed to. It is sad that most of time they've been manipulated into buying into a co-opted culture of cool, but that's another story...
Me? I'll continue to commit social suicide by wearing years old no-logo clothing, listening to my "nobody" indie music, and remaining (*gasp*) humble and (*gasp*) anti-materialist.
--
--
Kids accustomed to a sexually open society are dirty filthy heathens who will burn in hell for all eternity! :) Also, sex embarrasses bitter old farts, while violence is more 'manly' and acceptable.
That's my take anyway.
--
Dead child VS temporarily semen stained child. Tough one. NOT. You are a fucking retard!
(UIHBT)
--
That would be an atom assembler, and not atom duplicator; can't create something out of nothing. Molecular manufacturing doesn't transform energy into matter like those far-out StarTrek replicators do, it much more "simply" assembles abundant component molecules into larger objects - like how nature grows a potato.
In the meantime, I'll do what I must
I didn't suggest otherwise. Right now there a lot of people who still trade artificial scarcity for real scarcity. That will change.
--
Whatever helps you sleep at night, but the exponential rate of technological progress would indicate otherwise. Our control over matter is getting increasingly finer-grained, and that control will be complete within a few more decades (that is, if we even survive the increasing mismatch between the promise/danger of our tech and our primitive evolutionary psychology).
--
Let me guess... you didn't think the parent posters analogy through.
Do realize that when you have a device that can make atom-for-atom copies of ANYTHING -- including food, clothing, diamond, cars, etc -- that "making a living" suddenly gets a LOT easier and cheaper? No need for artificial scarcity. Open source applies to real-world objects too.
If this kind of world of abundance (digital AND material), the only reason you could have to care if somebody copies your product design, is if you're a greedy control-freak bastard who's still in love with the structure of the old socio-economic hierarchy.
--
But that's actual hard work! Artists would be forced to keep on working, like a plumber or a programmer, in order to continue earning a living. That's just absurd!
Artists (read: LABELS) should naturally have the Right To Profit(TM) from artificially scarce old "intellectual property" for life+(next_copyright_extension) years.
--
Yeah, almost impossible. But be sure to read the DRM roadmap so you know what tactics to expect to see being used: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle.
--
"I'm going to kill Bush if he conspires to create the event that indefinitely suspends the election. Anthrax in voting booths in democratic districts! Heil, Fatherland^W Homeland security!"
I'll let you know if I see any black vans or MIBS over the next few days... :)
--
From what I've seen, I'd say it's about 99.9% infringing content, and 0.1% non-infringing, whether you go by instance or byte-count. Even when you factor in the other "legit" BitTorrent sites, like scarywater's anime, the overall ratio probably won't change much.
The amount of GPL'd and other open content is increasing, though. Slowly.
--
or:
Apathy&Denial's my middle name.
--
Even so, BitTorrent is ideal in these situations. If I'm going to be downloading, I *want* to be using my unused upload bandwidth to be giving back too, instead of just taking somebody's expensive giant pipe for granted. And money not spent on that central giant pipe can be put to better use elsewhere.
--
Microsoft says to GPL: "Share and share alike? wtf?! If I can't just buy you out, I should at least have the right to enclose the commons for my personal gain!"
--
--
--
I don't think you understand the implications of molecular nanotechnology. One of the most obvious is a return to self-sufficiency -- no longer would bulk-tech industry be needed to rape and pollute the environment for convenient resources that then get inefficiently shaped (top-down) into products and distributed at high energy cost around the globe just to get into your grubby hands and thrown out when it breaks.
The new method is bottom-up and 100% sustainable. Resources are handled on a molecular level and so they don't get "used up" and thrown in landfill. You can manufacture your own FOOD locally (and anything else given the necessary component molecules) without the aid of industry or natures garden.
So let's review (sorry to sound condescending): 100% recyclable atomic matter + 100% free solar energy + 100% open source product designs + molecular manufacturing technology == what? If you wanted to, you could live in your own self-contained sphere as long you had a store of matter, solar input, heat/entropy output, ... and a wireless network connection to sourceforge.net :)
--