I suppose the point is, once we discover how to travel faster than light, that system might be first on our list of places to swing by.
As for communication lag, the concept of molecular bifurcation (bifrucation?) communication (which would allow instantanious communication regardless of distance) is steadily gaining acceptance as something that might be viable in the not-so-distant future.
Why stop there? Imagine a bucket of "display paint" that you could apply to an entire room (walls and ceiling), and then connect to some kind of output device that would let you configure the output parameters.
If you had this "gray goo" and a way to give it instructions, it wouldn't even need a computer to dissasemble. It would ostensibly be able to use everything from sand to air molocules. All it would need would be matter of "some kind". Grass, dirt, hair, excrement, etc. Since we're talking about a "goo" of nanoscopic robots that would be able to rearrange matter at the atomic level, the "input" wouldn't matter all that much. Of course, it might be useful to use a smaller amount of "goo" to configure itself as new circuit pathways etc. in the existing computer.
Of course, i'm just waiting for this "grey goo" to get a glitch, converting the entire planet to more "grey goo".
It would be innacurate to describe that statement as redundant. Since microscale and nanoscale are different by a significant figure or three, they cannot be held to be equivalent. Therefore, the statement was self-contradictory rather than redundant.
In the writing style of our times, however, "microscopic" (adj.) is commonly understood in non-technical terms to mean anything that is not visible by the naked eye, and although nanoscale and microscale are not equivalent, "Nanoscopic" is not a word that has acheived the recognizability of "microscopic" at this time. Of course, the most concise ways to say the above would have been "..to make stable nanocrystals.." or "to make stable nanoscopic crystals.."
But since you obviously understood the point they were trying to make, who cares?
Quite right. In the short time i've been posting on this little BBS, it's not difficult to see which posts are based in reason, and which are in fashion.
Originally reading the article, i was blown away that they had acheived that small framerate..I remember playing DOOM on my old performa and acheiving a similar framerate, and again trying to get Q3A to run on my roommate's IMac (as i blazed happily along with my intel/geforce combo). Looking forward to today, with my 1.33 t-bird and geforce3, the graphical limitations that i struggled through "back then" seemed ludicrous. Not all that much time has passed, and we're still pretty far off from that ultimate limit of binary computing of 10^19 operations per second (for a computer weighing 1kg).
An acheivement is not always identical to the description of an acheivement. I was merely pointing out that the pictures didn't contradict the description like the parent poster asserted.
But then, he's an AC, i should really filter those out.
..Although one might argue that a law that cannot be enforced consistantly (i.e, you're only punished if you somehow "stand out" from all the other violators) needs to be refined or clarified somewhat.
What I really don't understand about all this is that the persons arrested were running a peer-to-peer filesharing service. Now, the peer-to-peer paradigm of filesharing really shouldn't be considered intrinsically illegal (the sorry case of napster comes to mind, but then so does that of gnutella). Should the maintainer of the service be punished, or the individuals using the service for illegal activity?
If someone runs someone down in a car, do we sue the person who built the road in the first place?
Who would be left to build new roads? Who would be foolish enough to build one? More importantly, who would walk down the street at all, knowing that there are no repercussions for vehicular manslaughter?
Peer to peer filesharing -can- be legal and -can- coincide with fair use provisions. When it dosent, the lazy governments just attack the target that's easiest to find, even if it's the -wrong one-, just so the recording industry can feel like all their bribe money is being put to good use.
What's next? Is someone going to be monitoring my AIM file transfers to make sure i'm not sending copyrighted material to my friends? After all, to be consistant, you would have to sue AOL for making such copyright infringement possible, right? Of course, not all companies (napster) have enough money to alter legal reality (AOL/TW)
Upon inspecting the page you refered to, it would appear that the models are not, as you said, textureless. If that page is to be beleived, they have acheived exactly what they claim to have acheived, and more power to them.
Since slashdot has now disproved the reflexive property of equality (A == A), we can now deductively proove any random assertation that pops into our minds.
It's also interesting to note that in a public school, all students are assumed to have no first amendment protection whatsoever, with the supposed intended effect of preserving order in school (although granting citizens their constitutional rights would make more sense to me in terms of preserving order..inspiring loyalty and all that). I forget the names of the plaintiff and Defendant in the case that set that precident, but it had something to do with the principal of a school "vetoing down" an article in the school newspaper (the court found that the principal did, indeed, have that right)
Since DeCSS enables users to utilize electronic media in a manner in accordance with the fair use provisions of copyright law, you can't directly blame them for colateral damage the people who misuse the program do to the media industry. It is the people who use DeCSS improperly who are breaking the law, not the people who created the tool (that has legal applications)
Regardless of your weak stomache, the fact remains that abortion is legal, wheras utilizing the raw materials left over for -valuable- scientific research is being hotly debated over.
Human conciousness can't exist without a brain or central nervous system. To imply that it does gets us into that grey area of applying relegious dogma to stop something you find distasteful. Until the CNS has been constructed in the uterus, no conciousness can exist, and therefore, prior to that point, it -remains- a "potential" human life. Now, after the CNS has been built, it's difficult to determine what point after that holds the initiation of conciousness, but the best guess I have heard is when the fetal brain is flooded with DMT, which initiates the first electrochemical impulses within the brain
Thankfully, none of this will stop the fact that although -federal- funding for this research will be limited, private institutions can do whatever they like with the building blocks of the human condition, without the public's queasyness, outmoded ethical constraints, or childish romanticism about the reproductive process to hinder the science of medicine.
This was exactly the point i thought about several minutes AFTER i posted (don't you hate it when that happens?). Of course, a common counter-argument is that it's not a "potential human life" until the sperm and egg combine, but that's a very self-serving and convenient usage of the word "potential"
What, do you think, defines a "human life"? It is our conciousness and self-awareness that seperates us from (most of) the animals, and these are only -potential- attributes until the construction of the central nervous system, and the infusion of DMT into the brain.
While you adressed my minor points, you failed to comment on any of the important ones.
>>Oh please, you do realize that people who describe organized religion in these terms are NOT doing this from neutral position.>do agree that religion has similar effect as some drugs. I don't like that term since it implies addiction and all widely known ills associated with
this disease.>>"It makes people feel better about themselves, absolves them of guilt and fear, and takes away a degree of freedom. "
One can say that about everyone. We all have our little fetishes and nightmares and all end up slaves to things that make us feel better.
Who is to say that sex addiction is more natural and "mature" than belief in supernatural being?
The difference is that former, on average, is much more beneficial to the society in large.
and what average are you taking? The reality is that ANY path through life is only measurable by the impact an individual has on the people around him (including him/herself). As I said previously, relegion -can- be beneficial, but used incorrectly or not completely understood, can lead to more harm than good. History's catalogue of atrocities done in the name of relegion (and im not singling out christianity here) is nearly infinite. It is not religion, but rather how you personally allow it to change your life that measures it's worth. Most people simply aren't smart enough to peer between the lines of their holy book (whichever it may be) and understand the underlying truth to relegion, not in a laundry list of rules and rituals, but in a simple idea that someone should live their life in kindness and humility to be rewarded (Zen, Jesus, Karma, all similar concepts in the ways that truely matter).
By this same token, ANY persuit of happiness can be positive or negative depending on the individual. Sex, Drugs, or relegion, any of which used irrisponsibly will cause harm, but can be a benefit if used responsibly.
I wasn't claiming anything, and neither was that website. You obviously didn't take the time to read or carefully consider it's contents.
I am well aware of the effect the judeo-christian tradition has had on the culture and customs in my part of the world, however, for me to be able to point out things about indoctrination (read: brain-washing), group mentality, and exclusivism (which are present to some degree in ALL organized philisophical/relegious mindsets, by the way) that are harmful to the people who have allowed someone else to "do their thinking for them".
I haven't, (nor have I ever) said that relegion is intrinsically harmful or dangerous. There are "good" and "bad" people in any relegion, i don't care if it's christianity or Wiccan. There are the churches that enhance the life of all of its members and the surrounding community, and there are also churches that play rythmic, repetative music (to induce a transe-like state in the congregation), and then show video tapes detailing how homosexuals should all be killed and driven from our country. What puts me off about organized religion is that there really isn't an easy way to tell who the nice people are, and which ones are psychos.
Marx was cuttingly accurate when he referred to relegion as the "opiate of the masses", so I don't really think you understand the quote. Saying this dosen't imply that it didn't have any effect on the way the world has developed, quite the opposite. We have everything from the inquisition to abortion clinic murders to thank for this powerful drug of relegion. A lot of good comes from it too, of course.
Either way, relegion is an "opiate" in the fact that it is dumbed down so that even the least intelligent person in the population can understand and participate in it, all they have to do is subordinate their will. It makes people feel better about themselves, absolves them of guilt and fear, and takes away a degree of freedom. Much like an opiate (i'm thinking you probably don't know that heroin, morphine, and opium are all examples of "opiates"). Marx draws the paralell between an individual using a drug, and a society that allows outdated moralism to make decisions for them, without objectively questioning the dynamic nature of Ethics, and how it might apply differently in a different time and place. Singer is another great modern philosapher to read about the objectivity of ethics (we read his book "Practical Ethics" in Philosaphy and Social Ethics).
For more information on how modern relegion uses practices similar to brain-washing to garuntee the continued support of it's members, do a websearch for an essay titled "The Battle For Your Mind" by Dick Sutphen (i think i spelled that right).
To summarize, you have made the logical fallacy of saying that one who calls christianity Evil (which I have not done, remember) contradicts knowlege that the judeo-christian tradition has had an important impact on our modern culture. This statement is flawed, since it is perfectly possible to recognize the impact christianity has had on modern culture, and -still- call it "evil". While i think that it would be somewhat of an unfair generalization (perhaps it would be more fair to say -all- organized relegions have the -potential- to be extremely harful), it is not self-contradictory.
To make matters worse, you don't really have any idea what my "heritage" is. I could be a Native American, and I could logically say that christianity IS evil, since it's responsible for spreading countless diseases to that population, along with subverting and slowly destroying the purity of the culture. I could say my heritage was that of the Moors, and call christianity evil because the inquisitian slew many of my anscestors.
Before you accuse me of a logical inconsistancy, it might be a good idea to carefully consider your point.
The usual knee-jerk conservative reaction to that would usually be "We're not talking about destroying a -life-, destroying a -potential life- is just as bad!"
Of course, we also encourage contraception, which is a very positive thing in our culture.
I found your signature interesting, it made me think of a news story I just read that was about the fact that certain sequences of DNA have been successfully copyrighted (a unique sequence found in a subject immune to HIV was one of the examples)
The last of the wild nets
on
Secure IRC?
·
· Score: 1
You know, for all of it's frustrations and hazards, i hope IRC persists in it's current form forever. It's the last real "lawless" corner of the web. I mentally relate it to the saloons of the old west, where a great story or a dangerous barfight are only moments away. Of course, it's being flooded with more and more luddites nowadays (think of the old west saloon being flooded with tourists from New York), but IRC to me represents a sort of living communal electronic nostalgia, one i'd hate to see phased out completely.
In England (At least, the part of it I was in: Weston Super-Mare), some kind of speed-detectors are linked up to cameras that take pictures of the rear portion of the car once the machine has detected that it is speeding. The photographs are then mailed to the offenders along with a fine. This techonology has been in use for quite some time, and dosen't require any "high technology" to impliment.
Well, now that they have a patent on ASP, maybe its time for me to patent my own method of selling my product. Does anyone have a patent on selling things through the postal system? No? I better register that one. Does someone have a patent on selling things door to door? I should be able to make a little money off of that. I think the coup de gras will be my groundbreaking patent protecting my innovation concerning attracting customers to my barber shops with people standing outside the shop spinning spiral umbrellas...All the other companies that sell things through the mail, spin umbrellas, or solicit door to door can work with me or against me.
I don't know whether to be amused or horrified that businesses secure unfair advantages by manipulating our backward and technology-illiterate legal infrastructure.
thats absolutely facinating. It's encouraging to see that there are people who are prepared for the "hammer to fall". Is this network of wireless LANs closed off from the "internet"? If it isn't, it probably wouldnt be too hard to close it off (i would imagine the gateways to the rest of the net arent as numerous as the repeater stations and internal servers, if they exist at all). How much bandwidth are people squeezing out of the current public wireless networks? Also, do these networks have a "real internet" webpage detailing the specs and topology?
This is good proof that no matter how hard an organized system tries, free and uncontrolled sharing of information can't be stopped completely.
the difference is that the repeater stations and servers would be owned by individuals, not corporations/governments. the (relatively) low cost of the technology enables this.
The purpose of the internet (back when it was called Arpanet) was to create an infrastructure that would allow (nearly) instantanious military communication within the country, not to create a free means of information exchange between citizens.
Interesting to note is the fact that this was how -highways- got started. Highways were originally created to allow quick tank access anywhere in the country. If you look around in the original specifications for the first highways, you'll notice that something like every few miles or so, one mile had to be completely straight, to serve as a runway for military aircraft in times of emergency. The automobile and information superhighways share a lot in common with their origins.
a corporation would find it very difficult to permeate a free, guerilla network, in my opinion. First of all, it would (or should) be completely disconnected from the actual internet (to prevent intrusion from "the man"). If a corp approached the owner of a server or repeater station to include corperate content on the free network, the rest of the network could just tune out (exclude) the offending node.
If a true "free guerilla network" became the only free information exchange (if, say, the corps and government trashed the existing net worse than it is already), it would be a fair bet that the private groups of people running it would voraciously guard its sanctity.
I don't know if L0pht Heavy Industries (now part of @Stake consulting) still maintains this project, but they used to host technical writeups of their progress on establishing a "guerilla" wireless network using radio waves. The "nodes" or transmission stations were designed to be inexpensive and expendable (in case they were siezed or destroyed by the authorities), and were able to acheive some semblance of Windows Networking at speeds comprable to (last i checked) 9600 baud modems. Its been a while since i kept up with it, but it seemed like a viable alternative if "the worst happens" to the internet. Sure, it wouldnt be fast, you wouldnt be able to play quake through it, but it would be free, unmoderated and uncensored.
Granted, implimenting this would seem a bit rash now, but its an interesting thing to be aware of, that it would work. Keep the plans in a glass case with the words "break open in case of fascism" printed on the front..
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose the point is, once we discover how to travel faster than light, that system might be first on our list of places to swing by.
As for communication lag, the concept of molecular bifurcation (bifrucation?) communication (which would allow instantanious communication regardless of distance) is steadily gaining acceptance as something that might be viable in the not-so-distant future.
Why stop there? Imagine a bucket of "display paint" that you could apply to an entire room (walls and ceiling), and then connect to some kind of output device that would let you configure the output parameters.
If you had this "gray goo" and a way to give it instructions, it wouldn't even need a computer to dissasemble. It would ostensibly be able to use everything from sand to air molocules. All it would need would be matter of "some kind". Grass, dirt, hair, excrement, etc. Since we're talking about a "goo" of nanoscopic robots that would be able to rearrange matter at the atomic level, the "input" wouldn't matter all that much. Of course, it might be useful to use a smaller amount of "goo" to configure itself as new circuit pathways etc. in the existing computer.
Of course, i'm just waiting for this "grey goo" to get a glitch, converting the entire planet to more "grey goo".
It would be innacurate to describe that statement as redundant. Since microscale and nanoscale are different by a significant figure or three, they cannot be held to be equivalent. Therefore, the statement was self-contradictory rather than redundant.
In the writing style of our times, however, "microscopic" (adj.) is commonly understood in non-technical terms to mean anything that is not visible by the naked eye, and although nanoscale and microscale are not equivalent, "Nanoscopic" is not a word that has acheived the recognizability of "microscopic" at this time. Of course, the most concise ways to say the above would have been "..to make stable nanocrystals.." or "to make stable nanoscopic crystals.."
But since you obviously understood the point they were trying to make, who cares?
Quite right. In the short time i've been posting on this little BBS, it's not difficult to see which posts are based in reason, and which are in fashion.
Originally reading the article, i was blown away that they had acheived that small framerate..I remember playing DOOM on my old performa and acheiving a similar framerate, and again trying to get Q3A to run on my roommate's IMac (as i blazed happily along with my intel/geforce combo). Looking forward to today, with my 1.33 t-bird and geforce3, the graphical limitations that i struggled through "back then" seemed ludicrous. Not all that much time has passed, and we're still pretty far off from that ultimate limit of binary computing of 10^19 operations per second (for a computer weighing 1kg).
It's only going to get better, and i can't wait.
An acheivement is not always identical to the description of an acheivement. I was merely pointing out that the pictures didn't contradict the description like the parent poster asserted.
But then, he's an AC, i should really filter those out.
..Although one might argue that a law that cannot be enforced consistantly (i.e, you're only punished if you somehow "stand out" from all the other violators) needs to be refined or clarified somewhat.
What I really don't understand about all this is that the persons arrested were running a peer-to-peer filesharing service. Now, the peer-to-peer paradigm of filesharing really shouldn't be considered intrinsically illegal (the sorry case of napster comes to mind, but then so does that of gnutella). Should the maintainer of the service be punished, or the individuals using the service for illegal activity?
If someone runs someone down in a car, do we sue the person who built the road in the first place?
Who would be left to build new roads? Who would be foolish enough to build one? More importantly, who would walk down the street at all, knowing that there are no repercussions for vehicular manslaughter?
Peer to peer filesharing -can- be legal and -can- coincide with fair use provisions. When it dosent, the lazy governments just attack the target that's easiest to find, even if it's the -wrong one-, just so the recording industry can feel like all their bribe money is being put to good use.
What's next? Is someone going to be monitoring my AIM file transfers to make sure i'm not sending copyrighted material to my friends? After all, to be consistant, you would have to sue AOL for making such copyright infringement possible, right? Of course, not all companies (napster) have enough money to alter legal reality (AOL/TW)
Upon inspecting the page you refered to, it would appear that the models are not, as you said, textureless. If that page is to be beleived, they have acheived exactly what they claim to have acheived, and more power to them.
Since slashdot has now disproved the reflexive property of equality (A == A), we can now deductively proove any random assertation that pops into our minds.
It's also interesting to note that in a public school, all students are assumed to have no first amendment protection whatsoever, with the supposed intended effect of preserving order in school (although granting citizens their constitutional rights would make more sense to me in terms of preserving order..inspiring loyalty and all that). I forget the names of the plaintiff and Defendant in the case that set that precident, but it had something to do with the principal of a school "vetoing down" an article in the school newspaper (the court found that the principal did, indeed, have that right)
Since DeCSS enables users to utilize electronic media in a manner in accordance with the fair use provisions of copyright law, you can't directly blame them for colateral damage the people who misuse the program do to the media industry. It is the people who use DeCSS improperly who are breaking the law, not the people who created the tool (that has legal applications)
Regardless of your weak stomache, the fact remains that abortion is legal, wheras utilizing the raw materials left over for -valuable- scientific research is being hotly debated over.
Human conciousness can't exist without a brain or central nervous system. To imply that it does gets us into that grey area of applying relegious dogma to stop something you find distasteful. Until the CNS has been constructed in the uterus, no conciousness can exist, and therefore, prior to that point, it -remains- a "potential" human life. Now, after the CNS has been built, it's difficult to determine what point after that holds the initiation of conciousness, but the best guess I have heard is when the fetal brain is flooded with DMT, which initiates the first electrochemical impulses within the brain
Thankfully, none of this will stop the fact that although -federal- funding for this research will be limited, private institutions can do whatever they like with the building blocks of the human condition, without the public's queasyness, outmoded ethical constraints, or childish romanticism about the reproductive process to hinder the science of medicine.
This was exactly the point i thought about several minutes AFTER i posted (don't you hate it when that happens?). Of course, a common counter-argument is that it's not a "potential human life" until the sperm and egg combine, but that's a very self-serving and convenient usage of the word "potential"
What, do you think, defines a "human life"? It is our conciousness and self-awareness that seperates us from (most of) the animals, and these are only -potential- attributes until the construction of the central nervous system, and the infusion of DMT into the brain.
While you adressed my minor points, you failed to comment on any of the important ones.
>>Oh please, you do realize that people who describe organized religion in these terms are NOT doing this from neutral position.>do agree that religion has similar effect as some drugs. I don't like that term since it implies addiction and all widely known ills associated with
this disease.>>"It makes people feel better about themselves, absolves them of guilt and fear, and takes away a degree of freedom. "
One can say that about everyone. We all have our little fetishes and nightmares and all end up slaves to things that make us feel better.
Who is to say that sex addiction is more natural and "mature" than belief in supernatural being?
The difference is that former, on average, is much more beneficial to the society in large.
and what average are you taking? The reality is that ANY path through life is only measurable by the impact an individual has on the people around him (including him/herself). As I said previously, relegion -can- be beneficial, but used incorrectly or not completely understood, can lead to more harm than good. History's catalogue of atrocities done in the name of relegion (and im not singling out christianity here) is nearly infinite. It is not religion, but rather how you personally allow it to change your life that measures it's worth. Most people simply aren't smart enough to peer between the lines of their holy book (whichever it may be) and understand the underlying truth to relegion, not in a laundry list of rules and rituals, but in a simple idea that someone should live their life in kindness and humility to be rewarded (Zen, Jesus, Karma, all similar concepts in the ways that truely matter).
By this same token, ANY persuit of happiness can be positive or negative depending on the individual. Sex, Drugs, or relegion, any of which used irrisponsibly will cause harm, but can be a benefit if used responsibly.
I wasn't claiming anything, and neither was that website. You obviously didn't take the time to read or carefully consider it's contents.
I am well aware of the effect the judeo-christian tradition has had on the culture and customs in my part of the world, however, for me to be able to point out things about indoctrination (read: brain-washing), group mentality, and exclusivism (which are present to some degree in ALL organized philisophical/relegious mindsets, by the way) that are harmful to the people who have allowed someone else to "do their thinking for them".
I haven't, (nor have I ever) said that relegion is intrinsically harmful or dangerous. There are "good" and "bad" people in any relegion, i don't care if it's christianity or Wiccan. There are the churches that enhance the life of all of its members and the surrounding community, and there are also churches that play rythmic, repetative music (to induce a transe-like state in the congregation), and then show video tapes detailing how homosexuals should all be killed and driven from our country. What puts me off about organized religion is that there really isn't an easy way to tell who the nice people are, and which ones are psychos.
Marx was cuttingly accurate when he referred to relegion as the "opiate of the masses", so I don't really think you understand the quote. Saying this dosen't imply that it didn't have any effect on the way the world has developed, quite the opposite. We have everything from the inquisition to abortion clinic murders to thank for this powerful drug of relegion. A lot of good comes from it too, of course.
Either way, relegion is an "opiate" in the fact that it is dumbed down so that even the least intelligent person in the population can understand and participate in it, all they have to do is subordinate their will. It makes people feel better about themselves, absolves them of guilt and fear, and takes away a degree of freedom. Much like an opiate (i'm thinking you probably don't know that heroin, morphine, and opium are all examples of "opiates"). Marx draws the paralell between an individual using a drug, and a society that allows outdated moralism to make decisions for them, without objectively questioning the dynamic nature of Ethics, and how it might apply differently in a different time and place. Singer is another great modern philosapher to read about the objectivity of ethics (we read his book "Practical Ethics" in Philosaphy and Social Ethics).
For more information on how modern relegion uses practices similar to brain-washing to garuntee the continued support of it's members, do a websearch for an essay titled "The Battle For Your Mind" by Dick Sutphen (i think i spelled that right).
To summarize, you have made the logical fallacy of saying that one who calls christianity Evil (which I have not done, remember) contradicts knowlege that the judeo-christian tradition has had an important impact on our modern culture. This statement is flawed, since it is perfectly possible to recognize the impact christianity has had on modern culture, and -still- call it "evil". While i think that it would be somewhat of an unfair generalization (perhaps it would be more fair to say -all- organized relegions have the -potential- to be extremely harful), it is not self-contradictory.
To make matters worse, you don't really have any idea what my "heritage" is. I could be a Native American, and I could logically say that christianity IS evil, since it's responsible for spreading countless diseases to that population, along with subverting and slowly destroying the purity of the culture. I could say my heritage was that of the Moors, and call christianity evil because the inquisitian slew many of my anscestors.
Before you accuse me of a logical inconsistancy, it might be a good idea to carefully consider your point.
The usual knee-jerk conservative reaction to that would usually be "We're not talking about destroying a -life-, destroying a -potential life- is just as bad!"
Of course, we also encourage contraception, which is a very positive thing in our culture.
Although this might appear to be flaimbait at first, go to www.christianitymeme.org and carefully consider it's contents before you decide it is.
I found your signature interesting, it made me think of a news story I just read that was about the fact that certain sequences of DNA have been successfully copyrighted (a unique sequence found in a subject immune to HIV was one of the examples)
You know, for all of it's frustrations and hazards, i hope IRC persists in it's current form forever. It's the last real "lawless" corner of the web. I mentally relate it to the saloons of the old west, where a great story or a dangerous barfight are only moments away. Of course, it's being flooded with more and more luddites nowadays (think of the old west saloon being flooded with tourists from New York), but IRC to me represents a sort of living communal electronic nostalgia, one i'd hate to see phased out completely.
In England (At least, the part of it I was in: Weston Super-Mare), some kind of speed-detectors are linked up to cameras that take pictures of the rear portion of the car once the machine has detected that it is speeding. The photographs are then mailed to the offenders along with a fine. This techonology has been in use for quite some time, and dosen't require any "high technology" to impliment.
Well, now that they have a patent on ASP, maybe its time for me to patent my own method of selling my product. Does anyone have a patent on selling things through the postal system? No? I better register that one. Does someone have a patent on selling things door to door? I should be able to make a little money off of that. I think the coup de gras will be my groundbreaking patent protecting my innovation concerning attracting customers to my barber shops with people standing outside the shop spinning spiral umbrellas...All the other companies that sell things through the mail, spin umbrellas, or solicit door to door can work with me or against me.
I don't know whether to be amused or horrified that businesses secure unfair advantages by manipulating our backward and technology-illiterate legal infrastructure.
thats absolutely facinating. It's encouraging to see that there are people who are prepared for the "hammer to fall". Is this network of wireless LANs closed off from the "internet"? If it isn't, it probably wouldnt be too hard to close it off (i would imagine the gateways to the rest of the net arent as numerous as the repeater stations and internal servers, if they exist at all). How much bandwidth are people squeezing out of the current public wireless networks? Also, do these networks have a "real internet" webpage detailing the specs and topology?
This is good proof that no matter how hard an organized system tries, free and uncontrolled sharing of information can't be stopped completely.
the difference is that the repeater stations and servers would be owned by individuals, not corporations/governments. the (relatively) low cost of the technology enables this.
The purpose of the internet (back when it was called Arpanet) was to create an infrastructure that would allow (nearly) instantanious military communication within the country, not to create a free means of information exchange between citizens.
Interesting to note is the fact that this was how -highways- got started. Highways were originally created to allow quick tank access anywhere in the country. If you look around in the original specifications for the first highways, you'll notice that something like every few miles or so, one mile had to be completely straight, to serve as a runway for military aircraft in times of emergency. The automobile and information superhighways share a lot in common with their origins.
a corporation would find it very difficult to permeate a free, guerilla network, in my opinion. First of all, it would (or should) be completely disconnected from the actual internet (to prevent intrusion from "the man"). If a corp approached the owner of a server or repeater station to include corperate content on the free network, the rest of the network could just tune out (exclude) the offending node.
If a true "free guerilla network" became the only free information exchange (if, say, the corps and government trashed the existing net worse than it is already), it would be a fair bet that the private groups of people running it would voraciously guard its sanctity.
I don't know if L0pht Heavy Industries (now part of @Stake consulting) still maintains this project, but they used to host technical writeups of their progress on establishing a "guerilla" wireless network using radio waves. The "nodes" or transmission stations were designed to be inexpensive and expendable (in case they were siezed or destroyed by the authorities), and were able to acheive some semblance of Windows Networking at speeds comprable to (last i checked) 9600 baud modems. Its been a while since i kept up with it, but it seemed like a viable alternative if "the worst happens" to the internet. Sure, it wouldnt be fast, you wouldnt be able to play quake through it, but it would be free, unmoderated and uncensored.
Granted, implimenting this would seem a bit rash now, but its an interesting thing to be aware of, that it would work. Keep the plans in a glass case with the words "break open in case of fascism" printed on the front..