I remembered the Bladerunner/DADOES title issue about fifteen seconds after I hit "SUBMIT" (Can you say "DOH!" boys and girls? I knew you could!). I figured someone would catch it - I was just hoping to not get flamed.
Actually, I wondered this when I went to the Pegasus link. Then, I flipped a coin and it came up B-52. If it had landed the other way, I'm sure the topic still would've come up.
No need to apologize - you made some very good points. I agree with you about the use of propoganda to "amp up" soldiers, especially green ones out of high school (although you have to wonder if the Internet and other information sources might be making them less green than they used to be).
(Slightly off topic, but...) On the propoganda bit, have you ever read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman? It's a very transparent Vietnam analogy, but very, very good. At one point, the main character is subjected to subliminal conditioning/propoganda. As he's going into combat, he's subjected to these horrible images of the aliens eating babies and raping women and, even though logically he knows this is B.S. (our flesh is poison to them and why would they think our women were attractive?), he still believes it totally on an emotional level. A really disturbing idea, but it really gave me an appreciation as to how propoganda works (even though Haldeman wrapped it up in SF window dressing).
I'm wondering what it will take to beat Magic Lantern (at least, v1.0). Obviously, any criminal with the money to hire good IT will put preventative measures in place. The usual anti-virus precautions, preferably done manually or Open Source in case the FBI leans on Norton, McAfee and the rest to put blind spots in their software.
I'm also wondering if you could rename/recompile PGP or other encryption software so that Magic Lantern won't trigger when it's activated. Also, entering a key without the keyboard (mouse clicks, off a.TXT file on a floppy, whatever...) would make keyboard logging useless.
Ironically, he never saw combat. He picked the Coastal Artillery for his specialty, never guessing that a little thing called an aircraft carrier would make big cannons on the beach obsolete. 'Spent the war in the Staes, itching for an invasion. Afterwards, he worked with a group that organized civilian governments to replace the ones the Nazis had left in Europe in all the towns. Briefly, he was also basically the postmaster for all of Europe (until the civilian postal services got rebuilt). Good administrator, but he always felt that it was the lack of combat duty that doomed him to colonel instead of the general's stars he felt he deserved.
Unfortunately, he had more than enough rage to go around. He just vented it at family instead of the Enemy.
(Caveat: This is a repost of something buried in a deper thread. If reposts offend you, please skip this...)
My cubemate got me a 2002 Easy Origami Daily Boxed Calendar. It's printed on origami paper and every day gives you a different origami to fold (you're supposed to use yesteray's paper to fold today's project, but I might just buy a separate supply of paper - not sure yet). It gives you exactly what you want from a daily calendar - a minute of fun to kick start your morning without derailing the rest of the day.
Only problem I had was that I folded the thank you note in the "baby in a cradle" pattern to commemerate my "new time wasting project" (the origami). She mistook it and thought my wife and I were expecting...
BTW - I'm not Stan. Is that a Laurel & Hardy line or some other movie I've missed?
Global Village Returns...
on
Message from Kabul
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It was in the 70's that the term "Global Village" was coined, refering mostly to satelite news media and its ilk. Today's technologies make it cheap and simple enough for everyone to develop their own content without having to pay for a whole bureau for Reuters or BBC in every hamlet. Not only do we see this information revolution fueling the Tienamen Sqaure revolt with FAX machines, but also driving police reform in the States with camcorders showing Rodney King's beating.
I'd never really thought of it before seeing this post, but the one common factor you always hear small town residents use to describe their lives is "Everyone Knows Everyone." I'm probably being a pollyana here, but I believe that the "Global Village" is doing the same thing, helping people throughout the world understand (and hopefully get along) with each other.
I had a grandfather who went to West Point and served with distinction in the U.S. Army in WWII. A good, honorable man in many ways, but also a bigot down to his bones. I can't help but wonder what sort of man he'dve been if he could've clicked on a website growing up and learned how people live in Saudi Arabia or Tokyo or even just the "wrong side of the tracks" in his hometown.
My cubemate got me a 2002 Easy Origami Daily Boxed Calendar. It's printed on origami paper and every day gives you a different origami to fold (you're supposed to use yesteray's paper to fold today's project, but I might just buy a separate supply of paper - not sure yet). It gives you exactly what you want from a daily calendar - a minute of fun to kick start your morning without derailing the rest of the day.
Only problem I had was that I folded the thank you note in the "baby in a cradle" pattern to commemerate my "new time wasting project" (the origami). She mistook it and thought my wife and I were expecting...
I, for one, could never eat a plate of tribbles. After all, by the time you finished half the plate the ones still ther would've bred and filled it back up!!
I won't name my company (you'll have to go to my site for that), but I'm stuck in a very weird industry: In Flight Entertainment. Our customers (airlines) expect our products to perform to the level of reliability that they are used to in the cockpit (99.99% seat availability - a simple stuck cord retractor on a game controller will mark the seat as dead), but they aren't willing to pay the price for mil-spec level engineering ($20K for a single barometer guage in a cockpit is acceptable, but $5Kx400 seats is not). When we try to explain that it can't be done, they just keep pointing out how cheap a VCR/DVD/whatever consumer product is. We never even get to discuss consumer products' EMI risks (the attendant asks you to kill your cellphone on a flight not because it will crash the plane but because no one's spent the $2-4M for each product to prove it won't) or weight or power, because our chief competitor is a subsidiary of a Japanese conglomerate. For more than a decade they've sold their product at a loss to drive us under and dominate the industry (to be fair, same as we'd try if we had deep enough pockets). But we're like a cockroach, hanging on by sheer force of will... and the occasional stellar product (hey, I've got some pride left).
The thing is, I hear similar tales from friends in other companies in this industry and in other industries. The common factors are these:
The customer demands quality, but is willing to sacrifice it for price.
The supplier is unwilling to stand up and tell the customer the hard facts (here, out of fear of a competitor but also on the mistaken belief that we'll make it up on the maintainance contracts).
The customer doesn't have a lot of insight into what's "under the hood," allowing the supplier to provide flash over substance.
IMHO, it is the industry that allows this kind of behavior. In a military shop, we'dve been eliminated years ago. In a consumer shop, the occasional hiccup isn't noticed. And, just like an abusive/codependant relationship, as long as the same destructive factors remain in place, the same results will occur.
You just sent me to a very scary mental place... I think I'll go underneath my desak and cry for a while.
Legacy Savior? A culture fix would be better...
on
C with Safety - Cyclone
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
In my shop, we do everything on a shoestring, kludging together tons of C legacy code from multiple generations of our products. We take an application that ran on a homebrewed executive and stick it on an RTOS, spoofing it so it doesn't know the difference. We grab code written on an 8 bit microcontroller and port it to our 32 bit x86 with minimal testing. Given all this, my first thought at reading the article was to raise three cheers. The idea of making a system already written a lot safer... I can hardly find the words.
Then I got chewing on it and realized something: when I came on board and suggested running lint on our code, I was shot down by both the rank & file and by management (who each blamed the other). When I suggested a concerted effort to rewrite our code to eliminate or justify (in comments) every warning our compiler spewed on a build, I got a similar reaction.
Don't get me wrong. I think cyclone still sounds great, especially the pattern matching and polymorphism indicated on its home site. If it can gain some momentum, it stands to have a real place (niche?) in dealing with legacy systems. For my shop, though, I fear much of the value would be wasted. Until we change our motto from "There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over" we're going to continue repeating our mistakes.
For other reasons (see my other, inept post) death row might not be the best place to get your "volunteers". But once you get a self sufficient colony going and you need a few thousand bodies, credit cheats or other nonviolent criminals might be good candidates. Also, an oppressive/callous government might also consider lightening the welfare rolls with forced immigration (although the motivation would have to be political, not economic - the cost of shipping the poor soul would easilly outweigh the their lifetime cost on the dole).
Of course, the English did this with Australia, which is ironic. I mean, they shipped away all these criminals whose descendants wound up living on an entire continent surrounded with incredible natural beauty, massive resources, and much better weather. I guess punishment is in the eye of the beholder...
Hmmmm... It'd be dang tough to find someone on death row who would meet even the basic requirements (mental stability, health [free of HIV], basic mental appitude). and all that is without bringing up the whole trustworthiness issue.
On the other hand, I know a few guys who'd be willing to kill for the honor. If your proposal went through, they could literally do that, wind up on death row, and get their Mars shot.
Since they'd get to pick who they get to do in, they'd probably see it as a win/win situation. (*GRIN*)
trustworthy/mentally sound enough to trust on
this mission
Most of the other postings make good, solid points on the economics of these things. Specifically, that any material you find in space just isn't valuble enough to transport the equipment "up the well" to orbit.
But, what about self sufficiency for a space colony? Robinson's Mars series points out how any colony that becomes self sufficient is destained to become its own nation (think of the U.S. colonies in 1776). Extraterretial mining technology would be the first step in that direction.
Most SF on the topic (including Robison) focuses on a revolution scenario, with Earth trying to maintain its grip on the colony in question. On the other hand, skeptics of human space colonization say colonies will never happen beacause they cost too much and will drain resources from Mother Earth over the long term.
What if they're both wrong? Would Earth be willing to front a large, but finite, amount of cash to set up a colony with the understanding that it would one day become an independant political entity and not an ongoing drain on resources? Would immigrants be more willing to join up, and front some of their own capital, with this promise of independance when "the mortgage is paid off"?
The real vaule of this in the next century is probably its use in space colonies or probes themselves (e.g. powerstats or those giant mirrors for making crops grow in Siberia). Except for perhaps dropping an asteroid loaded with platnium into tje Mojave, you're dead on for the expenses.
Trying to remember all of Diamond Age's features, but Sarah Zettel's Fool's War had a similar paper replacement technology ("films"). Her's had embedded sensors to read data written via a stylus, automatic connection to the local (spaceport) LAN, and a security lock that turned a stack of films into a rigid, inert chunk of plastic that couldn't be read.
The bit I liked best was a stylus that you could highlight a chunk of text into, carry around in your pocket, and paste into another film or workstation. After reading that chapter, I caught myself trying to do that with my Palm and PC!
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for not toasting me, Cleaner.
Nice catch, anyway.
Now, that's what I want under the tree this Christmas!!
(Slightly off topic, but...) On the propoganda bit, have you ever read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman? It's a very transparent Vietnam analogy, but very, very good. At one point, the main character is subjected to subliminal conditioning/propoganda. As he's going into combat, he's subjected to these horrible images of the aliens eating babies and raping women and, even though logically he knows this is B.S. (our flesh is poison to them and why would they think our women were attractive?), he still believes it totally on an emotional level. A really disturbing idea, but it really gave me an appreciation as to how propoganda works (even though Haldeman wrapped it up in SF window dressing).
We've got Norton on my wife's NT box, but I can't remember if they have their own anti-virus or bundle McAfee.
I'm also wondering if you could rename/recompile PGP or other encryption software so that Magic Lantern won't trigger when it's activated. Also, entering a key without the keyboard (mouse clicks, off a .TXT file on a floppy, whatever...) would make keyboard logging useless.
Other ideas?
Ironically, he never saw combat. He picked the Coastal Artillery for his specialty, never guessing that a little thing called an aircraft carrier would make big cannons on the beach obsolete. 'Spent the war in the Staes, itching for an invasion. Afterwards, he worked with a group that organized civilian governments to replace the ones the Nazis had left in Europe in all the towns. Briefly, he was also basically the postmaster for all of Europe (until the civilian postal services got rebuilt). Good administrator, but he always felt that it was the lack of combat duty that doomed him to colonel instead of the general's stars he felt he deserved.
Unfortunately, he had more than enough rage to go around. He just vented it at family instead of the Enemy.
Just promise to call me in the morning, OK?
Take a look at CmderTaco and you will see a lot of -1's. He aint the real CmdrTaco, just an AC with an account.
Take a look at CmderTaco and you will see a lot of -1's. He aint the real CmdrTaco, just an AC with an account.
My cubemate got me a 2002 Easy Origami Daily Boxed Calendar. It's printed on origami paper and every day gives you a different origami to fold (you're supposed to use yesteray's paper to fold today's project, but I might just buy a separate supply of paper - not sure yet). It gives you exactly what you want from a daily calendar - a minute of fun to kick start your morning without derailing the rest of the day.
Only problem I had was that I folded the thank you note in the "baby in a cradle" pattern to commemerate my "new time wasting project" (the origami). She mistook it and thought my wife and I were expecting...
Just trying to dodge the inevitable flames...
BTW - I'm not Stan. Is that a Laurel & Hardy line or some other movie I've missed?
I'd never really thought of it before seeing this post, but the one common factor you always hear small town residents use to describe their lives is "Everyone Knows Everyone." I'm probably being a pollyana here, but I believe that the "Global Village" is doing the same thing, helping people throughout the world understand (and hopefully get along) with each other.
I had a grandfather who went to West Point and served with distinction in the U.S. Army in WWII. A good, honorable man in many ways, but also a bigot down to his bones. I can't help but wonder what sort of man he'dve been if he could've clicked on a website growing up and learned how people live in Saudi Arabia or Tokyo or even just the "wrong side of the tracks" in his hometown.
or sister.
Only problem I had was that I folded the thank you note in the "baby in a cradle" pattern to commemerate my "new time wasting project" (the origami). She mistook it and thought my wife and I were expecting...
I don't know. I wouldn't put anything past those little critters!!
I, for one, could never eat a plate of tribbles. After all, by the time you finished half the plate the ones still ther would've bred and filled it back up!!
I won't name my company (you'll have to go to my site for that), but I'm stuck in a very weird industry: In Flight Entertainment. Our customers (airlines) expect our products to perform to the level of reliability that they are used to in the cockpit (99.99% seat availability - a simple stuck cord retractor on a game controller will mark the seat as dead), but they aren't willing to pay the price for mil-spec level engineering ($20K for a single barometer guage in a cockpit is acceptable, but $5Kx400 seats is not). When we try to explain that it can't be done, they just keep pointing out how cheap a VCR/DVD/whatever consumer product is. We never even get to discuss consumer products' EMI risks (the attendant asks you to kill your cellphone on a flight not because it will crash the plane but because no one's spent the $2-4M for each product to prove it won't) or weight or power, because our chief competitor is a subsidiary of a Japanese conglomerate. For more than a decade they've sold their product at a loss to drive us under and dominate the industry (to be fair, same as we'd try if we had deep enough pockets). But we're like a cockroach, hanging on by sheer force of will... and the occasional stellar product (hey, I've got some pride left).
The thing is, I hear similar tales from friends in other companies in this industry and in other industries. The common factors are these:
- The customer demands quality, but is willing to sacrifice it for price.
- The supplier is unwilling to stand up and tell the customer the hard facts (here, out of fear of a competitor but also on the mistaken belief that we'll make it up on the maintainance contracts).
- The customer doesn't have a lot of insight into what's "under the hood," allowing the supplier to provide flash over substance.
IMHO, it is the industry that allows this kind of behavior. In a military shop, we'dve been eliminated years ago. In a consumer shop, the occasional hiccup isn't noticed. And, just like an abusive/codependant relationship, as long as the same destructive factors remain in place, the same results will occur.You just sent me to a very scary mental place... I think I'll go underneath my desak and cry for a while.
Then I got chewing on it and realized something: when I came on board and suggested running lint on our code, I was shot down by both the rank & file and by management (who each blamed the other). When I suggested a concerted effort to rewrite our code to eliminate or justify (in comments) every warning our compiler spewed on a build, I got a similar reaction.
Don't get me wrong. I think cyclone still sounds great, especially the pattern matching and polymorphism indicated on its home site. If it can gain some momentum, it stands to have a real place (niche?) in dealing with legacy systems. For my shop, though, I fear much of the value would be wasted. Until we change our motto from "There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over" we're going to continue repeating our mistakes.
Of course, the English did this with Australia, which is ironic. I mean, they shipped away all these criminals whose descendants wound up living on an entire continent surrounded with incredible natural beauty, massive resources, and much better weather. I guess punishment is in the eye of the beholder...
On the other hand, I know a few guys who'd be willing to kill for the honor. If your proposal went through, they could literally do that, wind up on death row, and get their Mars shot.
Since they'd get to pick who they get to do in, they'd probably see it as a win/win situation. (*GRIN*) trustworthy/mentally sound enough to trust on this mission
But, what about self sufficiency for a space colony? Robinson's Mars series points out how any colony that becomes self sufficient is destained to become its own nation (think of the U.S. colonies in 1776). Extraterretial mining technology would be the first step in that direction.
Most SF on the topic (including Robison) focuses on a revolution scenario, with Earth trying to maintain its grip on the colony in question. On the other hand, skeptics of human space colonization say colonies will never happen beacause they cost too much and will drain resources from Mother Earth over the long term.
What if they're both wrong? Would Earth be willing to front a large, but finite, amount of cash to set up a colony with the understanding that it would one day become an independant political entity and not an ongoing drain on resources? Would immigrants be more willing to join up, and front some of their own capital, with this promise of independance when "the mortgage is paid off"?
The real vaule of this in the next century is probably its use in space colonies or probes themselves (e.g. powerstats or those giant mirrors for making crops grow in Siberia). Except for perhaps dropping an asteroid loaded with platnium into tje Mojave, you're dead on for the expenses.
The bit I liked best was a stylus that you could highlight a chunk of text into, carry around in your pocket, and paste into another film or workstation. After reading that chapter, I caught myself trying to do that with my Palm and PC!