How would I feel if this happened to me? Just fine, thanks.
In fact, I'd consider it a free and useful service (bear with me) to roughly measure the winds of hate against my 'evil' corporation. Usually you have to pay someone to gauge public opinion for you, but here you can simply measure the change in day-today hits from pissed off people who ended up visiting an 'anti-something' site that led them to you.
Also -- and I don't know why this point hasn't been touched on much -- I would check the HTTP_REFERER sent by (most) browsers, and redirect to a propaganda page of my own that tried to change opinions. I just checked and apparently Ford isn't even smart enough to implement this; all their money goes to lawyers I guess.
Even if Chinese did become the predominate online language in a decade, so what?
It's a virtual certainty that before 2010 most operating systems -- including the one in your "phone" -- will have a language translation module built-in, enabling anyone to communicate with anyone else in their native spoken and written language (if for no other reason, it's good for business).
"Universal Translators" are hardly science fiction...
Really? I seem to be able to access my CDRs randomly. I think you're confusing rewriteable volatile memory with random access media which can also only be written once sometimes... wait... let me re-read that. Heh, almost confused myself.
Yeah, I can't wait for environment-based RSD overlay myself, but RAM doesn't need to be a major limitation; after all, in 10 years you should be able to wirelessly tap into such a database from anywhere, and you would only need buffer your immediate surroundings- more efficient than a static database of your entire city.
I can imagine a few killer apps:
The ability to block out annoying ads in real life (woohoo!)
A helper app for those with trouble mentally undressing people for business (giving speeches) and pleasure.:)
Never-Forget-A-Name-Again Tags(TM)
GPS + ObjectRecognition based info overlay (for when there is no map, or preexisting tags)
Oh yeah... can't forget about full FOV, stereoscopic media & gaming -- like a personal IMAX theater.
Ten years is a little on the pessimistic side though...
Don't brag about mind-blowing teenage sex from halcyon days gone by--that's just fucking depressing. Your review would be just as awesome without using the better-than-sex cliche as analogy.
Take two small steps down from your witty high horse--a line was crossed, and it got slightly annoying.
There's a very big difference between a basic User Interface (pedal/dash functional layout) and the overall Look-and-Feel of that interface (e.g. a kit car that mirrored Ferrari's style).
Here's a few more examples of equally obvious user interfaces that no patent office (doing its job) would even consider, assuming they were invented today:
a doorknob (method for opening a door).
a coffecup handle (method for holding a cup).
a numeric keypad (method for numeric input).
a steering wheel (method for turning a vehicle).
a glove (method for interfacing a human hand with a warm environment).
a CLI UI (method for interfacing your computer in the 4th most obvious manner--text)
a WIMP GUI (method for interfacing your computer in the 3rd most obvious and intuitively visual manner--graphical metaphors).
a Natural Language UI (method for using a computer in the 2nd most obvious manner).
an AI agent implant... (got carried away with this list:)
Patentable ideas are supposed to be non-obvious and they're supposed to be REALLY SPECIFIC (unlike Amazon's lucky one-click UI patent) so that better mousetraps can be built based on that idea.
--
Re:How do you tell what is and isn't spam?
on
Crazy Stats on Spam
·
· Score: 2
My favorite is how they all have 'Send me more information' checkbox already selected for you...
They aren't ALL slimebags; just most of them. In fact, those few who don't default the SPAM checkbox to ON get *LOTS* of respect from me, and because of their (relative) honesty, I often opt-in(!) because they've earned an ounce of my trust.
Two examples that jump out at me would be Winamp, with it's "don't bug me ever again" button, and 800.com, where they're very upfront about it being your choice to opt-in to recieve 800.com and/or 3rd party "special offers".
Too bad more companies don't follow this opt-in example. Apparently fucking people over (exageration? nah) is more profitable short-term.
There is NO hoster who can give us a deal under $1500/ month for this amount of bandwidth.
$3/GB? You can do better than that, as long as you aren't afraid of hosting with some porno outfit--they're used to dealing in volume...
--
Will you distribute my bandwidth?
on
Adcritic Shuts Down
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
we became so popular so fast that we couldn't stay afloat!
Too bad. Another victim of their own success; trampled to death by an insane bandwidth bill (judging from their content).
You know what would keep guys like these afloat? When somebody finally comes up with a viable P2P system that acts as a basic "userland akamai" for 'non-profit' fansites. As the audience size grows, the members continue to support the whole (well, at least when it comes to large, static pieces of content), instead of the site being crushed under the weight of its popularity.
MicroVision has the right idea in advancing the state of the [commercial] art in retinal scanning displays.
CAVE, while a nice hack, is really a big waste of time, space, and money, when compared to the immersive advantages that RSD displays will bring to the mainstream in a few more years.
I don't mean to knock the guys who work on CAVE... it's awesome considering current limitations...
Yep: "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." -- Einstein.
Personally, I would be happy if no one stepped on Tolkien's shoulders (who himself is standing on a mountain) because I can't stand the "elves, dwarves, wizards, and magic, oh my!" fantasy crap... but that's just me.
Also, New York Racing [ferrago.co.uk] came out, its about the movie the 5th element, but a race game with floating cars.
So I read the short review of the game you linked to at ferrago.
In that tiny review I counted three mentions of Luc Besson's vision of the 5th Element's future metropolis, but nothing of Eric Hanson, the lead artist who brought that vague vision to life.
Sure, directors play an important role, but too often are the real artists forgotten.
Even though the actual AI developed (and GP evolved) systems, and the AI itself, would grow too complex for any human to understand, that doesn't mean that the slave-owner/author wouldn't still want the "neuralnet source" (or whatever) to be made available free (as in speech & beer).
e.g. The Open Learned Common Knowledge Base vs. Microsoft StreetSmart(TM). With MS, if they still existed, they would want to hold you hostage with a subscription to a proprietary central AI slavefarm, while the "OSS community" would network their cheap "brains" to greater effect for the common good.
OTOH, even if nanotech is avaliable to build a replicator, if replicators are scarce it won't do any good on reducing scarcity of other goods.
And why would replicators be scarce? Conspiracy? Even in the face of some unlikely(?) totalitarian world government, enforcing such an artificial scarcity for any length of time would be almost impossible.
The demand for such a device would be too much to suppress. All it would take is ONE freedom-loving scientist in a lab to reinvent the "top secret nano-bootstrap process" and the genie is out of the bottle for good (although at this point EVERYTHING should be saturated with a "active-nano-shield" security layer, so the "terrorists" wouldn't have any luck recreating the grey-goo scenario).
...is greed a primary human motive?
Thinking in evolutionary terms, yes, it's advantageous to survival. The world doesn't owe you anything... you have to take what you want.
The army of people (slaves ?)
needed to built the material IS the problem. Capitalism is built
around this.
1) We build ROBOTS and call them Morlocks
2) We give them AI brains (so they can produce movies and review them for us too).
3) We become the dependant Eloi and the Morlock's come to eat us before we can go back in time to fix things!!!!
Ahh! Too scary! Humans should stay the slaves of Da Man.:)
Unless/until somebody invents a general purpose things builder (like you give it blueprints and the machine creates whatever it is out of dirt) a true information society is not be possible
What you say is absolutely true. One of my favorite quotes goes: "What the computer revolution did for manipulating data, the nanotechnology revolution will do for manipulating matter, juggling atoms like bits." -- Ralph Merkle
Right now, we're necessarily stuck between these complementary revolutions (by quite a few decades--seems to be the natural order of things), and most of our (IP greed) problems stem from the this.
We have general purpose computers, but no general purpose "replicators" yet. And so, since food, and other goods/services, are still physically scarce, some people will want... no, need... to make information artificially scarce in order to inflate its value enough to exchange it for food.
But once the necessities of life are essentially free, society can at long last end the rat-race and live in a stress-free gift economy (99.5%); a life based on fulfillment, rather than mundane survival. Oh, and just because capitalism isn't a driving force anymore, it doesn't erase the human COMPETITIVE forces at work; progress will still continue without the fear of starving.
(the other 0.5% is the amount of capitalism we would still need. You know... a form of "privelage currency" that you can strive for in order to trade for physically scarce things like prime Earth real-estate on the beach, or to meet a physically scarce celebrity, or to grease that NWO politician, or what have you.)
Maintenance costs? I mean, you don't just whack a great big building in the middle of nowhere and expect it to just work for the rest of its life, do you?
From the article: "The Manzanares plant ran for seven years, with minimal tuning and maintenance, delivering electricity both night and day" -- and that was from a 20 year old prototype. I'd expect the aussies to do much better with current tech, despite the increased scale.
Effect on the surrounding area? A one kilometer tower is going to cast a pretty damn big shadow.
Does a bear shit in the woods? If a tower casts a shadow in the middle of the outback, and no one is around to see it, does it really cast a shadow?:)
Population density in rural Victoria is what?.0001/km? And I don't think the kangaroos are going to complain. (I wonder how fast the shadow of the top of the tower would be moving along the ground? Could make a game of it.)
Expected average output? 200 MW peak output is what the article says... that's not the same as 200 MW average.
True. Also, these ugly "solar chimneys" aren't very efficient in terms of land area wasted per MW, when compared to every method of power generation. But then again, the aussies don't exactly have a better use for the land (aboriginals be damned).
Hmm. Come to think of it, Eco-terrorists might eventually have a field day if too many of these were built.
One silver lining, though, would be that at least we'd gain some experience building really tall towers, so that when we are finally able to manufacture ultrastrong carbon-based materials in a few years (like diamondoid), we'll have a headstart on building the "space elevators" we'll need to make solar power satellites, and spacedev in general, cost effective.
If you don't agree with their terms, just don't use their sites. Fair enough?
At what point did I agree to allow some website to subject me to forced advertising? No, I don't recall signing any legally binding contract (or even seeing a weak click-thru agreement), and fair-use allows me to alter the content now residing on MY computer in any way I choose.
Maybe the terms you were thinking of were along the lines an implicit socio-economic contract? Well, I only make that contract with sites I approve of.
btw, I *do* happen to support a *few* sites I frequent with paypal donations (as benefactor), and *don't* filter the ads of sites with unobtrusive ads and business practices, like/. and google, and... that's about it.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why violience is more socially acceptable than porn (the world over, but especially in the puritanical US).
BOTH serve to ensure our survival: Violence "prepares" our warriors, and Sex propogates the genes of the warriors who survived. BOTH are pleasurable, but the former in groups, and the latter privately (for reasons of feared inadequacy and religious indoctrination).
Anyway, the "scientific" reason why porn takes a backseat to violence is because of "Bigger Dick Theory (BDT)." It states that porn embarrasses chicks and pencil dicks, but that violience (and cars!) increases dick length (gun!).:-)
Because unlike TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, and the rest, we are NOT a captive audience anymore. It's a two-way communication medium, like the telephone, that doesn't respond well to constant in-your-face sales pitches; and with software, those of us who have a particularly strong aversion to annoying influence peddlers (aka: advertisers), can simply opt-out of the noise, saving the site wasted ad bandwidth ($), and us wasted aggravation (!).
Not that I like ads, but I understand sites need to have a way to survive.
Thanks for volunteering your mind for product branding! As long as there's enough people like you (and there are) who don't mind being pawns in a massive mental engineering game, there's still hope! Into your willing consumer brains will be planted DESIRE; that desire will thusly translate into an eventual SALE; that sale -- which includes covering the hidden cost of your own manipulation -- will thusly keep the affiliate site, WWW.THE-NET-WAS-SUPPOSED-TO-BE-A-GOLDMINE.COM, afloat with a cut of the profit (simplified 10X).:-)
Me on the the hand...If I want something, I'll go looking for it, and not the other way around. Ads are a relatively recent invention anyway, and they just aren't for everyone. So should I be kicked off the net because I'm a "bad consumer?" and who are these Jones' I'm supposed to keep up with?:)
Oh, I also make extensive use of an "un-american" tool called pricegrabber to shave off even more of those high reseller profit margins.
The sheer fact that these games mirror our own society (with greed, deceipt, etc.) is truly a great technical feat!
A great technical feat?
The game simply provides a virtual environment and some basic rules; it's the human element that gives birth to the fascinating emergent behavior of the system.
One thing that doesn't mirror very well, though, is cheating. Cheaters can break the fundamental rules of the game, but there can never be a real Superman (physics cheater) in reality.:)
Asked if he was aware of the weblog backlash, he answered: "What we are aware of is that individuals and others link to our site without an agreement, and we have a Web policy clearly outlined."
These clowns' rectums are two sizes too small -- even as far as slimy-green lawyers go.
Slashdot Mirror
How would I feel if this happened to me? Just fine, thanks.
In fact, I'd consider it a free and useful service (bear with me) to roughly measure the winds of hate against my 'evil' corporation. Usually you have to pay someone to gauge public opinion for you, but here you can simply measure the change in day-today hits from pissed off people who ended up visiting an 'anti-something' site that led them to you.
Also -- and I don't know why this point hasn't been touched on much -- I would check the HTTP_REFERER sent by (most) browsers, and redirect to a propaganda page of my own that tried to change opinions. I just checked and apparently Ford isn't even smart enough to implement this; all their money goes to lawyers I guess.
</Devil's Advocate>
--
It's a virtual certainty that before 2010 most operating systems -- including the one in your "phone" -- will have a language translation module built-in, enabling anyone to communicate with anyone else in their native spoken and written language (if for no other reason, it's good for business).
"Universal Translators" are hardly science fiction...
--
Really? I seem to be able to access my CDRs randomly. I think you're confusing rewriteable volatile memory with random access media which can also only be written once sometimes... wait... let me re-read that. Heh, almost confused myself.
--
Yeah, I can't wait for environment-based RSD overlay myself, but RAM doesn't need to be a major limitation; after all, in 10 years you should be able to wirelessly tap into such a database from anywhere, and you would only need buffer your immediate surroundings- more efficient than a static database of your entire city.
I can imagine a few killer apps:
- The ability to block out annoying ads in real life (woohoo!)
- A helper app for those with trouble mentally undressing people for business (giving speeches) and pleasure.
:)
- Never-Forget-A-Name-Again Tags(TM)
- GPS + ObjectRecognition based info overlay (for when there is no map, or preexisting tags)
- Oh yeah... can't forget about full FOV, stereoscopic media & gaming -- like a personal IMAX theater.
Ten years is a little on the pessimistic side though...--
I only have two things to critisize:
Other than that... nice work.
--
Here's a few more examples of equally obvious user interfaces that no patent office (doing its job) would even consider, assuming they were invented today:
Patentable ideas are supposed to be non-obvious and they're supposed to be REALLY SPECIFIC (unlike Amazon's lucky one-click UI patent) so that better mousetraps can be built based on that idea.
--
They aren't ALL slimebags; just most of them. In fact, those few who don't default the SPAM checkbox to ON get *LOTS* of respect from me, and because of their (relative) honesty, I often opt-in(!) because they've earned an ounce of my trust.
Two examples that jump out at me would be Winamp, with it's "don't bug me ever again" button, and 800.com, where they're very upfront about it being your choice to opt-in to recieve 800.com and/or 3rd party "special offers".
Too bad more companies don't follow this opt-in example. Apparently fucking people over (exageration? nah) is more profitable short-term.
--
$3/GB? You can do better than that, as long as you aren't afraid of hosting with some porno outfit--they're used to dealing in volume...
--
Too bad. Another victim of their own success; trampled to death by an insane bandwidth bill (judging from their content).
You know what would keep guys like these afloat? When somebody finally comes up with a viable P2P system that acts as a basic "userland akamai" for 'non-profit' fansites. As the audience size grows, the members continue to support the whole (well, at least when it comes to large, static pieces of content), instead of the site being crushed under the weight of its popularity.
Fat chance?
--
CAVE, while a nice hack, is really a big waste of time, space, and money, when compared to the immersive advantages that RSD displays will bring to the mainstream in a few more years.
I don't mean to knock the guys who work on CAVE... it's awesome considering current limitations...
--
Personally, I would be happy if no one stepped on Tolkien's shoulders (who himself is standing on a mountain) because I can't stand the "elves, dwarves, wizards, and magic, oh my!" fantasy crap... but that's just me.
--
So I read the short review of the game you linked to at ferrago.
In that tiny review I counted three mentions of Luc Besson's vision of the 5th Element's future metropolis, but nothing of Eric Hanson, the lead artist who brought that vague vision to life.
Sure, directors play an important role, but too often are the real artists forgotten.
--
Even though the actual AI developed (and GP evolved) systems, and the AI itself, would grow too complex for any human to understand, that doesn't mean that the slave-owner/author wouldn't still want the "neuralnet source" (or whatever) to be made available free (as in speech & beer).
e.g. The Open Learned Common Knowledge Base vs. Microsoft StreetSmart(TM). With MS, if they still existed, they would want to hold you hostage with a subscription to a proprietary central AI slavefarm, while the "OSS community" would network their cheap "brains" to greater effect for the common good.
But seriously, solar energy is SO abundant, it's like water in terms of value. Lots of other stars too...
And why would replicators be scarce? Conspiracy? Even in the face of some unlikely(?) totalitarian world government, enforcing such an artificial scarcity for any length of time would be almost impossible.
The demand for such a device would be too much to suppress. All it would take is ONE freedom-loving scientist in a lab to reinvent the "top secret nano-bootstrap process" and the genie is out of the bottle for good (although at this point EVERYTHING should be saturated with a "active-nano-shield" security layer, so the "terrorists" wouldn't have any luck recreating the grey-goo scenario).
Thinking in evolutionary terms, yes, it's advantageous to survival. The world doesn't owe you anything... you have to take what you want.
if it is, can it be controlled?
These guys think so...
--
1) We build ROBOTS and call them Morlocks
2) We give them AI brains (so they can produce movies and review them for us too).
3) We become the dependant Eloi and the Morlock's come to eat us before we can go back in time to fix things!!!!
Ahh! Too scary! Humans should stay the slaves of Da Man. :)
--
What you say is absolutely true. One of my favorite quotes goes: "What the computer revolution did for manipulating data, the nanotechnology revolution will do for manipulating matter, juggling atoms like bits." -- Ralph Merkle
Right now, we're necessarily stuck between these complementary revolutions (by quite a few decades--seems to be the natural order of things), and most of our (IP greed) problems stem from the this.
We have general purpose computers, but no general purpose "replicators" yet. And so, since food, and other goods/services, are still physically scarce, some people will want... no, need... to make information artificially scarce in order to inflate its value enough to exchange it for food.
But once the necessities of life are essentially free, society can at long last end the rat-race and live in a stress-free gift economy (99.5%); a life based on fulfillment, rather than mundane survival. Oh, and just because capitalism isn't a driving force anymore, it doesn't erase the human COMPETITIVE forces at work; progress will still continue without the fear of starving.
(the other 0.5% is the amount of capitalism we would still need. You know... a form of "privelage currency" that you can strive for in order to trade for physically scarce things like prime Earth real-estate on the beach, or to meet a physically scarce celebrity, or to grease that NWO politician, or what have you.)
--
From the article: "The Manzanares plant ran for seven years, with minimal tuning and maintenance, delivering electricity both night and day" -- and that was from a 20 year old prototype. I'd expect the aussies to do much better with current tech, despite the increased scale.
Effect on the surrounding area? A one kilometer tower is going to cast a pretty damn big shadow.
Does a bear shit in the woods? If a tower casts a shadow in the middle of the outback, and no one is around to see it, does it really cast a shadow? :)
Population density in rural Victoria is what? .0001/km? And I don't think the kangaroos are going to complain. (I wonder how fast the shadow of the top of the tower would be moving along the ground? Could make a game of it.)
Expected average output? 200 MW peak output is what the article says... that's not the same as 200 MW average.
True. Also, these ugly "solar chimneys" aren't very efficient in terms of land area wasted per MW, when compared to every method of power generation. But then again, the aussies don't exactly have a better use for the land (aboriginals be damned).
Hmm. Come to think of it, Eco-terrorists might eventually have a field day if too many of these were built.
One silver lining, though, would be that at least we'd gain some experience building really tall towers, so that when we are finally able to manufacture ultrastrong carbon-based materials in a few years (like diamondoid), we'll have a headstart on building the "space elevators" we'll need to make solar power satellites, and spacedev in general, cost effective.
--
*NUKED*
At what point did I agree to allow some website to subject me to forced advertising? No, I don't recall signing any legally binding contract (or even seeing a weak click-thru agreement), and fair-use allows me to alter the content now residing on MY computer in any way I choose.
Maybe the terms you were thinking of were along the lines an implicit socio-economic contract? Well, I only make that contract with sites I approve of.
btw, I *do* happen to support a *few* sites I frequent with paypal donations (as benefactor), and *don't* filter the ads of sites with unobtrusive ads and business practices, like /. and google, and... that's about it.
BOTH serve to ensure our survival: Violence "prepares" our warriors, and Sex propogates the genes of the warriors who survived. BOTH are pleasurable, but the former in groups, and the latter privately (for reasons of feared inadequacy and religious indoctrination).
Anyway, the "scientific" reason why porn takes a backseat to violence is because of "Bigger Dick Theory (BDT)." It states that porn embarrasses chicks and pencil dicks, but that violience (and cars!) increases dick length (gun!). :-)
Because unlike TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, and the rest, we are NOT a captive audience anymore. It's a two-way communication medium, like the telephone, that doesn't respond well to constant in-your-face sales pitches; and with software, those of us who have a particularly strong aversion to annoying influence peddlers (aka: advertisers), can simply opt-out of the noise, saving the site wasted ad bandwidth ($), and us wasted aggravation (!).
Not that I like ads, but I understand sites need to have a way to survive.
Thanks for volunteering your mind for product branding! As long as there's enough people like you (and there are) who don't mind being pawns in a massive mental engineering game, there's still hope! Into your willing consumer brains will be planted DESIRE; that desire will thusly translate into an eventual SALE; that sale -- which includes covering the hidden cost of your own manipulation -- will thusly keep the affiliate site, WWW.THE-NET-WAS-SUPPOSED-TO-BE-A-GOLDMINE.COM, afloat with a cut of the profit (simplified 10X). :-)
Me on the the hand...If I want something, I'll go looking for it, and not the other way around. Ads are a relatively recent invention anyway, and they just aren't for everyone. So should I be kicked off the net because I'm a "bad consumer?" and who are these Jones' I'm supposed to keep up with? :)
Oh, I also make extensive use of an "un-american" tool called pricegrabber to shave off even more of those high reseller profit margins.
--
A great technical feat?
The game simply provides a virtual environment and some basic rules; it's the human element that gives birth to the fascinating emergent behavior of the system.
One thing that doesn't mirror very well, though, is cheating. Cheaters can break the fundamental rules of the game, but there can never be a real Superman (physics cheater) in reality. :)
--
These clowns' rectums are two sizes too small -- even as far as slimy-green lawyers go.
WARNING: Bored Lawyers on Premises!
--