Solves One Problem, But Not Completely...
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Lunar Power
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· Score: 1
Its always amazed me why anyone thinks that solar cells are a "green" power. Even throwing away the super toxic manufacturing processes involved and the massive amount of mining (much more disruptive than drilling) that would be necessary for some of the elements used, there are still big problems.
Another response calculated you'd have to cover an area the size of the US on the moon to get enough power. If the solar cells were on Earth and thus losing power due to our atmosphere, the land mass needing to be covered would be much greater. Other factors like needing to be within reasonable transmission line distance from the area of usage and thus not at the equator increase the area needing to be covered even more.
Changing the reflectivity of the ground across such a large area will have a much bigger effect on climate than greenhouse gasses. A lot more power gets absorbed in the lower atmosphere and less in the upper. Actually, the more efficient we make the cells, the worse the problem gets because it becomes more concentrated. If you were to absorb say 50% of the power in an area like Arizona and move it too the North to generate heat and power cars (thus generating heat) in the Winter, you WILL get climate changes across most of the US. Arizona and areas east of it would be much cooler and the North would be warmer.
Moving the power generation to the moon at least keeps us from changing the reflectivity of a much larger area on Earth. It would also likely be cheaper because the reduction in solar cells needed would more than cancel out the extra cost of getting people and some supplies to the moon (as pointed out elsewhere, you don't take the solar cells to the moon, you just make them there).
There is a partial solution for the Earth based issue too. You could add a mirror beside each solar cell. If you figured out the original reflectivity of the land first and added enough mirrors to keep it there, you'd avoid some of the problem, but not all. Normally the power received is converted to heat right there, but this power will be shipped off. Anyway you look at it, you really lose
On the other hand, we'd be sending the amount of power (almost always heat in the end) to Earth that is normally absorbed from the sun by the continent of North America. Doesn't that have to calculate into the equation somewhere? Seems like the extra heat being sent to Earth would have to have an effect.
I'd also like to point out that if we ever "solve" our power generation problem, our usage is only going to go up. Period. For example, even environmentalists would probably like to have the power to build our homes and cities underground (I mean truly underground, not just in a trench and covered with dirt) and return the surface to being essentially a big park.
If the school hasn't done anything wrong, they've got nothing to worry about. Why would any "preparation" for an audit be required unless it is to hide criminal activity? If they have stolen software, then they should at least volunteer to fix the situation. If they can't afford the stolen property, they could offer to pay some smaller penalty while converting away from it. This would put the burden back on Microsoft. Perhaps they could work out a deal where at least Microsoft gets the tax credit for the charitable contribution they have made.
There is no RIGHT to software (or computers for that matter).
Seems like Intel really missed the boat on this one. They didn't research the school market. Most high school biology books state that a 450x microscope is advised for the labs. I was really hoping they'd come up with a 450x model. If they had, it could have succeeded. Especially if it was priced around $200 or less.
What would be really valuable is a Google style index that pretended that every page of every print version of a book was a different web page and fully indexed the content. The access would have to be a little different, but I'd love to have it.
Basically, you could enter a search phrase, get a list of books it hit with excerpts, click on one of those and get a list of print versions, choose the print version you have and be told what page the hit is on.
The design could be bolstered by allowing you to enter the particular books that you have in your library and automatically narrowing down the lists.
It could also contain online material so as to allow you to search both the Internet and book libraries at the same time.
"No. The copyright belongs to the US Government...".
But that's the people. I've known people to successfully request and receive through the Freedom of Information Act source code created with public funds when it wasn't secret.
I really suspect that the government has broken the law here...
If this source was created by Sandia Labs, isn't it the public property of the citizens of the United States of America?
And is the GPL really compatible with that?
As a citizen, I own that software or an interest in it and barring security risks can get it through the Freedom of Information Act. But non-citizens don't have that right... right?
Does the GPL limit it to usage by citizens of the USA or did they just give away public property?
I truly believe that no defensive antiviral strategy will ever be fully effective. The average cost of antiviral solutions to consumers has got to be crossing $100 a year now counting the programs that they purchase to directly fight the scourge and the increased cost of other programs needing to be written more carefully.
I crime solution that penalizes the victims is just plain wrong. The only real solution is aggressive prosecution of everyone involved in exploiting these holes and extreme penalties.
Really, this is true throughout American society, not just in computer crime. I wouldn't have to have fancy expensive locks on my doors if the ratio of solved to unsolved burglaries wasn't 1:30. Get the police off the speeding patrols and back onto the crime patrols.
We'd Be Stupid Too Depend On Space in War
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Space Wars
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The Chinese have already announced the development of very small mini-satellites that attach themselves to our satellites and can be blown up on demand. The idea is that they would launch these long before any war and have them in place just in case they needed them. They were small enough that many could be launched at once.
The concept is so simple and cheap and seemingly effective as to make it mind boggling that we would ever depend on satellites in a real war. If China wanted to retake Taiwan, all they'd have to do is put one of these on every military and civilian satellite and then push the button a few hours before their attack. We'd be so lost when all of the beepers, cell phones, TV networks, GPS units and other satellite based technologies stopped working all at once that it would probably take a couple of weeks before the majority of US citizens even knew what happened.
This could HELP Tivo if they let it
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PVR For Linux
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· Score: 1
The data feed is REALLY what makes Tivo. The fact that it records Enterprise no matter what time my local station decides to show it THIS WEEK is awesome. But I'd bet they have a lock on that data. It won't be publicly accessible no matter what.
So, what's the answer? They should write the interface for you to access their database and sale the subscription to all comers whether or not they have a Tivo PVR. I'd love to have a Linux machine on my cable feed with 4 PVR cards in it recording anything I MIGHT like and a playback machine connected via my home's 100BaseT network at each television.
The Tivo service would continue making money and I would retain the right to set my home up with the hardware system that I would prefer.
The oldest news release I see on Boeing's site on this is dated Nov. 5, 1998. It looks like this is just when it went public. At this point it was starting flight test. This would indicate years of prior work had been completed. Search for JHMCS through Google and you'll find lots of info.
I've heard rumor that development of this started in earnest after our pilots first flew exercises against German Mig 29s in the early '90s. Apparently, we had greatly underestimated the effectiveness of the system and found out the hard way.
But, to develop such a system for a fighter is much more difficult than for the Apache. If you think about it, you should realize that the issue here isn't how to accurately figure out where the head is pointing, but how to avoid giving the pilot a stiff neck or worse when pulling Gs or ejecting. Weight and the ability of the system to break away from the aircraft reliably during ejection are major issues. The fact that it has taken this long shows how much we sometimes underestimate our enemies capabilities.
No, this is eye tracking and its old news. Article must have come out due to it making it on to one more fighter. It doesn't have to be terribly accurate because all it is doing is getting the missile headed in the right direction. The missile will then lock on and chase the target itself. The big savings is in not having to point your plane to get lockon.
I've been extremely active on the Internet for over a decade, freely downloading thousands of programs without running Antivirus programs and have never gotten a virus. If I did get one, I'd just spend a day rebuilding and move on.
On the other hand, I have lost multiple MAN-MONTHS of time due to various anti-viral and other security enhancing efforts that broke machines that were my responsibility to maintain.
When you add up the cost in man-hours required to make software more secure, the cost of not having new time saving features because a vendor is delayed on a release while checking out security, the cost of running AntiVirus programs (turning off Norton Antivirus is a HUGE speed boost on running many programs with large data needs even on my 1.4GHz machin), the cost of tracing why such and such program/driver isn't running every time an antivirus program trashes an installation, the cost of doing all of those upgrades, and the cost of finding all of the new problems caused by the upgrades, etc. etc. etc.,,, you find that forced security and running of anti-viral programs has caused far more lost man-hours and $$$$$ than all of the true infections and penetrations that have occurred combined.
I see that this recommendation was written by someone in a security company...
Given the degree of missing functionality, the RAM usage comparison of 7MB to 11MB sucks. They should be down at something more like 4MBs. If they implement what's missing and don't improve their design, they'll be using a lot more RAM than MS.
Why are people always jumping on Microsoft without thinking? What has really made Microsoft successful is that they try to give every user what they want. As programmers, we tend to cringe and call this bloatware. But the mass market users simply see that they are getting the features they want without excuses like "its too dangerous".
What's this crazy notion that we've developed that as long as something isn't against the law, it's OK? Did games make these children pull the trigger? Of course not. Could violent video games have made it more thinkable or imaginable? Of course they could have.
I like my video games as much as the next person. My wife and I battle to sit and play Ghost Recon at night. But after I play a game like that, I do feel a heightened awareness of my surroundings. I do feel more reactive. And I do find it easier to imagine/contemplate violence.
A society with a very high level of comfort with and expending much energy on imagining violence and immersing themselves in fantasy violence will certainly become more violent. Which comes first is irrelevant. The two do complement and reinforce each other.
Should that make fantasy violence illegal? I personally don't think so. I don't believe in the possibility or even desirability of a "safe" society. But we should be big enough to stop shrinking from admitting that we are paying a price for our pleasure.
Our response to accusations like this shouldn't be denial, it should be something more like, "yeh, so?"
The information available from public sources is not complete. Because of this, things that aren't problems will look like problems and things that are problems won't in way too many cases. There is little way to discern what needle in the haystack is real and which axes aren't. Hindsight will always tell you, but never implies that any filtering could have shown you that some nugget was in fact a nugget beforehand. If you adjust your filter to deliver that particular nugget to you next time, it will just deliver that nugget and it still may not in this new case truly be a nugget.
This is a problem that could truly consume infinite resources and hurt more often then it helps. If you destroy 1000 lives due to false alarms and catch one, you've not done the world a favor. Safety via this type of prevention is not achievable. Its like trying to build a strategic missile defense,,, there will always be a hole for the enemy to exploit much more cheaply than you can plug it. Therefore, the enemy always wins.
How was the Soviet Union defeated? They were drawn into an arms race that their economy couldn't afford.
That is exactly what is now happening to us. We've got this crazy idea that the world can be made safe, and our enemy is using it to draw us into an arms race that our economy can't afford. Where they spend 100s of thousands of dollars to create an attack, we are spending billions to prevent another.
The solution is to realize that defense can never be the sole weapon in a war. If all you have is defense, you'll lose. We need to relearn the idea that offensive acts must be met with strong punitive judgement. Only then will we be able to get back to a society where we don't have to lock our doors. You may think that locking your door is cost effective, but in reality, the cost of locks in this country is far greater than the total cost of crime (and, yes, I'm talking literally).
Since the camera will likely have good infrared capability (too allow augmented night vision), you should be able to see right through many types of clothing, especially those no tan lines swimsuits that are made of a fabric that intentionally allows supposedly non-visible light to pass.
If you added one of the new wideband radar devices, you ought to be able to analyze their insides as well.
Or with one of the artificial nose devices being tested in labs today, you could easily pick out the most aroused person in a crowd.
Since IQ has been shown to have a strong correlation to reaction speed, this should be estimatable with video analysis without even hitting an Internet database. Analysis of the eye movements in response to external sound stimuli can reveal a lot too. Not just IQ, but interests, concerns, phobias, etc.
A computer video analysis of the jiggle combined with posture analysis should be able to determine that. Probably the brand of bra and whether its too tight or loose in many cases too. You should also be able to get a fairly comprehensive calculation of weight and body fat ratios through video analysis of a fairly long walk.
Reliable? More likely, impossible. Don't forget that you'll both have the info. Forget the online data (which could even include P2P info from previous dates). Since noone is perfect, that alone could make you never date again. Even without that, using the combination of video, sound, and probably airborne chemical sensors and real time computing technology that you both have, you'll both be able to know body weight, build, strength, stamina, shampoo, deoderant, many recently taken drugs, heartrate, breathing rate, body temperature, presence of pregnancy, presence of menses, pheromone levels, many hormone levels, and much more. But all that isn't the real problem.
Voice stress and infrared analysis combined with all that will tell with near absolute certainty whether you're telling the truth or lieing in response to any question asked. How do I look? Do you like me? Are you involved with anyone else? What are you really interested in? Forget it bud.
Its hardly worth talking about, because it is inevitable, but the connectivity to a database is not necessary for a device like this to violate your privacy. The kind of information that it will be able to glean just by observing and analyzing will do a more than adequate job of that.
A child neurologist told me a few years ago that research he had participated in showed that 95% of over 3000 known neurological disorders could be diagnosed with an analysis of facio-muscular structure. I would imagine other medical areas to be similar.
I'm sure these devices would have infrared capability. Your body temperature will be known as well as hot spots. A very strong indication of whether you're telling the truth or not will be available from this amongst other things.
They will have sound input capability that will be very sensitive. Input from multiple microphones placed around a collar and other locations on your body will be able to pick up heart beats, lung sounds and stomach sounds. No under the breath mumblings will go unheard any more. Extensive on the spot voice analysis will tell all sorts of secrets.
The camera will of course be able to catch video and the computer will be powerful enough to analyze it in real time. A fairly simple result (after 20 years of technology evolution) should be the ability to get a complete analysis of your weight, strength, body fat, and body fat distribution. The longer the observation of motion, the more extensively the 3D model of your body can be filled in. Old injuries should be obvious. Also, more emotional content should be determinable.
Artificial nose on a chip technology ought to be cheaper than your desktop mouse by then. Many doctors today are taught in med schools to identify diseases by the body odors emitted. So whether you are sick and other facts as or more private ought to be easily determinable. At the least, a full readout of the shampoo, conditioner, soap, deoderant, fabric detergent, fabric softener, perfume, cologne, feminine deoderant, etc. that you use should be easily obtainable. Many drugs produce characteristic body odor changes too (including illegal). Pregnancy and menses also produce detectable body odors.
Though some thought has been put into determining what single sensors can do, little has been put into exploring the potential of simultaneous real time analysis of a combination of full motion continuing data streams from full color (including infra) video, sound (including ultrasonic), and smell. At the least, the ability to tell even a simple lie without the listener knowing will be taken from all but the masters.
That, in fact, is where I think we will suffer the most damage. The ability to tell a lie is integral to the functioning of our social structure. If it was suddenly (over a period of say 5 years total) taken away from us, I don't believe society would have the slightest chance of adjusting in time.
We are taught that consumption of salt is bad for us due to studies that showed a relationship between consumption of salt and blood pressure long ago. In truth, consumption of salt will only cause a significant increase in blood pressure in an identifiable (though still tough to identify) 25% of American population who apparently carry a gene that causes salt sensitivity. The percentage is even lower in other populations. They weren't careful enough in the original studies to identify all of the population factors (yes probably impossible), so we've been stuck with a blanket advisory.
Another example is given in the original studies showing that PCBs are cancerous. As is true with many cancerous agents, PCBs apparently interact with a genetic flaw or vulnerability that is more dominant in some populations than others. The original studies were done with Asian (primarily Indian) populations which are not exactly a melting pot of genetic diversity. Studies after that time showing that those populations were as much as 100 times more likely than populations of European descent to develop cancer from PCB exposure have not made it through to popular understanding. The truth is, almost any hydrocarbon substance is probably cancerous to those with the right genetic flaw for the substance to interact with.
To be "scientific" a study must be able to isolate all cause and effect. In truth, very little of what we label as "scientific fact" is truly that because we understand so little of the cause and effect in massively complex systems like the human body and psychology.
Actually, that's a wonderful example of the web that must be untangled to have any understanding of this subject. It has been shown that women who are older than 40 when they bare their last child have a 3 times greater chance of living to 100. Women who have their first child before they are 30 have a lesser chance of having breast cancer. Men live longer when they are part of a family. Aged people with children actively participating in their lives also live longer.
All of this would go to indicate that having children could increase your lifespan. Perhaps then the lack of sleep is just a symptom of having children and having children is what truly increased the lifespans of those in this study.
When reviewing reviews or reports of scientific studies of late (very little review of the actual study has been accomplished here), I'm always bewildered by the number of assumptions made. In this case, the most blatant one to me is that living longer is in and of itself a desirable thing.
Life must be measured in many many more ways than numbers of years before this study could be used to make any conclusions whatsoever. The people who died younger may very well have had more enriching lives. Those who slept less and died older might have never been happy or satisfied with their life in all of that time. We just don't know from the information given.
In their persons means anything I can't see without removing your clothes. That goes pretty far today with XRays and other sensor technologies.
In their house is just that, nothing more. Anything I can't see or hear without going in. Once again, technology has rendered it virtually meaningless.
In their papers, finally, gives us a little protection. But it has to be THEIR papers, not someone elses. Records that other companies keep of your transactions are not your papers. Just a recording of what they've witnessed that they have every right to share unless limited by something other than the constitution (like specific law).
"against unreasonable searches and seizures" is pretty limited considering that after technology has so completely bypassed the above, there is little reason left to search and seize.
Certainly, none of these things prevent the gathering/recording of everything outside of these. When storage and analyzation technologies get to the point of being able to record and analyze your entire public life for information, the result will deny you the very privacy of your thoughts. We give too many clues that will eventually be within the realms of sensors to capture, capacity to record, and compute and algorhithmic power to analyze.
We badly need a constitutional amendment giving a general right to privacy unless clear reason has been given to violate that. Basically, something that prevents the gathering of enough information to allow our mind to essentially be read would be nice.
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Its always amazed me why anyone thinks that solar cells are a "green" power. Even throwing away the super toxic manufacturing processes involved and the massive amount of mining (much more disruptive than drilling) that would be necessary for some of the elements used, there are still big problems.
Another response calculated you'd have to cover an area the size of the US on the moon to get enough power. If the solar cells were on Earth and thus losing power due to our atmosphere, the land mass needing to be covered would be much greater. Other factors like needing to be within reasonable transmission line distance from the area of usage and thus not at the equator increase the area needing to be covered even more.
Changing the reflectivity of the ground across such a large area will have a much bigger effect on climate than greenhouse gasses. A lot more power gets absorbed in the lower atmosphere and less in the upper. Actually, the more efficient we make the cells, the worse the problem gets because it becomes more concentrated. If you were to absorb say 50% of the power in an area like Arizona and move it too the North to generate heat and power cars (thus generating heat) in the Winter, you WILL get climate changes across most of the US. Arizona and areas east of it would be much cooler and the North would be warmer.
Moving the power generation to the moon at least keeps us from changing the reflectivity of a much larger area on Earth. It would also likely be cheaper because the reduction in solar cells needed would more than cancel out the extra cost of getting people and some supplies to the moon (as pointed out elsewhere, you don't take the solar cells to the moon, you just make them there).
There is a partial solution for the Earth based issue too. You could add a mirror beside each solar cell. If you figured out the original reflectivity of the land first and added enough mirrors to keep it there, you'd avoid some of the problem, but not all. Normally the power received is converted to heat right there, but this power will be shipped off. Anyway you look at it, you really lose
On the other hand, we'd be sending the amount of power (almost always heat in the end) to Earth that is normally absorbed from the sun by the continent of North America. Doesn't that have to calculate into the equation somewhere? Seems like the extra heat being sent to Earth would have to have an effect.
I'd also like to point out that if we ever "solve" our power generation problem, our usage is only going to go up. Period. For example, even environmentalists would probably like to have the power to build our homes and cities underground (I mean truly underground, not just in a trench and covered with dirt) and return the surface to being essentially a big park.
If the school hasn't done anything wrong, they've got nothing to worry about. Why would any "preparation" for an audit be required unless it is to hide criminal activity? If they have stolen software, then they should at least volunteer to fix the situation. If they can't afford the stolen property, they could offer to pay some smaller penalty while converting away from it. This would put the burden back on Microsoft. Perhaps they could work out a deal where at least Microsoft gets the tax credit for the charitable contribution they have made. There is no RIGHT to software (or computers for that matter).
Seems like Intel really missed the boat on this one. They didn't research the school market. Most high school biology books state that a 450x microscope is advised for the labs. I was really hoping they'd come up with a 450x model. If they had, it could have succeeded. Especially if it was priced around $200 or less.
What would be really valuable is a Google style index that pretended that every page of every print version of a book was a different web page and fully indexed the content. The access would have to be a little different, but I'd love to have it.
Basically, you could enter a search phrase, get a list of books it hit with excerpts, click on one of those and get a list of print versions, choose the print version you have and be told what page the hit is on.
The design could be bolstered by allowing you to enter the particular books that you have in your library and automatically narrowing down the lists.
It could also contain online material so as to allow you to search both the Internet and book libraries at the same time.
"No. The copyright belongs to the US Government...". But that's the people. I've known people to successfully request and receive through the Freedom of Information Act source code created with public funds when it wasn't secret. I really suspect that the government has broken the law here...
If this source was created by Sandia Labs, isn't it the public property of the citizens of the United States of America?
And is the GPL really compatible with that?
As a citizen, I own that software or an interest in it and barring security risks can get it through the Freedom of Information Act. But non-citizens don't have that right... right?
Does the GPL limit it to usage by citizens of the USA or did they just give away public property?
I truly believe that no defensive antiviral strategy will ever be fully effective. The average cost of antiviral solutions to consumers has got to be crossing $100 a year now counting the programs that they purchase to directly fight the scourge and the increased cost of other programs needing to be written more carefully.
I crime solution that penalizes the victims is just plain wrong. The only real solution is aggressive prosecution of everyone involved in exploiting these holes and extreme penalties.
Really, this is true throughout American society, not just in computer crime. I wouldn't have to have fancy expensive locks on my doors if the ratio of solved to unsolved burglaries wasn't 1:30. Get the police off the speeding patrols and back onto the crime patrols.
The Chinese have already announced the development of very small mini-satellites that attach themselves to our satellites and can be blown up on demand. The idea is that they would launch these long before any war and have them in place just in case they needed them. They were small enough that many could be launched at once.
The concept is so simple and cheap and seemingly effective as to make it mind boggling that we would ever depend on satellites in a real war. If China wanted to retake Taiwan, all they'd have to do is put one of these on every military and civilian satellite and then push the button a few hours before their attack. We'd be so lost when all of the beepers, cell phones, TV networks, GPS units and other satellite based technologies stopped working all at once that it would probably take a couple of weeks before the majority of US citizens even knew what happened.
The data feed is REALLY what makes Tivo. The fact that it records Enterprise no matter what time my local station decides to show it THIS WEEK is awesome. But I'd bet they have a lock on that data. It won't be publicly accessible no matter what.
So, what's the answer? They should write the interface for you to access their database and sale the subscription to all comers whether or not they have a Tivo PVR. I'd love to have a Linux machine on my cable feed with 4 PVR cards in it recording anything I MIGHT like and a playback machine connected via my home's 100BaseT network at each television.
The Tivo service would continue making money and I would retain the right to set my home up with the hardware system that I would prefer.
The oldest news release I see on Boeing's site on this is dated Nov. 5, 1998. It looks like this is just when it went public. At this point it was starting flight test. This would indicate years of prior work had been completed. Search for JHMCS through Google and you'll find lots of info. I've heard rumor that development of this started in earnest after our pilots first flew exercises against German Mig 29s in the early '90s. Apparently, we had greatly underestimated the effectiveness of the system and found out the hard way. But, to develop such a system for a fighter is much more difficult than for the Apache. If you think about it, you should realize that the issue here isn't how to accurately figure out where the head is pointing, but how to avoid giving the pilot a stiff neck or worse when pulling Gs or ejecting. Weight and the ability of the system to break away from the aircraft reliably during ejection are major issues. The fact that it has taken this long shows how much we sometimes underestimate our enemies capabilities.
No, this is eye tracking and its old news. Article must have come out due to it making it on to one more fighter. It doesn't have to be terribly accurate because all it is doing is getting the missile headed in the right direction. The missile will then lock on and chase the target itself. The big savings is in not having to point your plane to get lockon.
I've been extremely active on the Internet for over a decade, freely downloading thousands of programs without running Antivirus programs and have never gotten a virus. If I did get one, I'd just spend a day rebuilding and move on.
On the other hand, I have lost multiple MAN-MONTHS of time due to various anti-viral and other security enhancing efforts that broke machines that were my responsibility to maintain.
When you add up the cost in man-hours required to make software more secure, the cost of not having new time saving features because a vendor is delayed on a release while checking out security, the cost of running AntiVirus programs (turning off Norton Antivirus is a HUGE speed boost on running many programs with large data needs even on my 1.4GHz machin), the cost of tracing why such and such program/driver isn't running every time an antivirus program trashes an installation, the cost of doing all of those upgrades, and the cost of finding all of the new problems caused by the upgrades, etc. etc. etc.,,, you find that forced security and running of anti-viral programs has caused far more lost man-hours and $$$$$ than all of the true infections and penetrations that have occurred combined.
I see that this recommendation was written by someone in a security company...
Given the degree of missing functionality, the RAM usage comparison of 7MB to 11MB sucks. They should be down at something more like 4MBs. If they implement what's missing and don't improve their design, they'll be using a lot more RAM than MS.
Why are people always jumping on Microsoft without thinking? What has really made Microsoft successful is that they try to give every user what they want. As programmers, we tend to cringe and call this bloatware. But the mass market users simply see that they are getting the features they want without excuses like "its too dangerous".
What's this crazy notion that we've developed that as long as something isn't against the law, it's OK? Did games make these children pull the trigger? Of course not. Could violent video games have made it more thinkable or imaginable? Of course they could have.
I like my video games as much as the next person. My wife and I battle to sit and play Ghost Recon at night. But after I play a game like that, I do feel a heightened awareness of my surroundings. I do feel more reactive. And I do find it easier to imagine/contemplate violence.
A society with a very high level of comfort with and expending much energy on imagining violence and immersing themselves in fantasy violence will certainly become more violent. Which comes first is irrelevant. The two do complement and reinforce each other.
Should that make fantasy violence illegal? I personally don't think so. I don't believe in the possibility or even desirability of a "safe" society. But we should be big enough to stop shrinking from admitting that we are paying a price for our pleasure.
Our response to accusations like this shouldn't be denial, it should be something more like, "yeh, so?"
The information available from public sources is not complete. Because of this, things that aren't problems will look like problems and things that are problems won't in way too many cases. There is little way to discern what needle in the haystack is real and which axes aren't. Hindsight will always tell you, but never implies that any filtering could have shown you that some nugget was in fact a nugget beforehand. If you adjust your filter to deliver that particular nugget to you next time, it will just deliver that nugget and it still may not in this new case truly be a nugget.
This is a problem that could truly consume infinite resources and hurt more often then it helps. If you destroy 1000 lives due to false alarms and catch one, you've not done the world a favor. Safety via this type of prevention is not achievable. Its like trying to build a strategic missile defense,,, there will always be a hole for the enemy to exploit much more cheaply than you can plug it. Therefore, the enemy always wins.
How was the Soviet Union defeated? They were drawn into an arms race that their economy couldn't afford.
That is exactly what is now happening to us. We've got this crazy idea that the world can be made safe, and our enemy is using it to draw us into an arms race that our economy can't afford. Where they spend 100s of thousands of dollars to create an attack, we are spending billions to prevent another.
The solution is to realize that defense can never be the sole weapon in a war. If all you have is defense, you'll lose. We need to relearn the idea that offensive acts must be met with strong punitive judgement. Only then will we be able to get back to a society where we don't have to lock our doors. You may think that locking your door is cost effective, but in reality, the cost of locks in this country is far greater than the total cost of crime (and, yes, I'm talking literally).
Since the camera will likely have good infrared capability (too allow augmented night vision), you should be able to see right through many types of clothing, especially those no tan lines swimsuits that are made of a fabric that intentionally allows supposedly non-visible light to pass. If you added one of the new wideband radar devices, you ought to be able to analyze their insides as well. Or with one of the artificial nose devices being tested in labs today, you could easily pick out the most aroused person in a crowd.
Since IQ has been shown to have a strong correlation to reaction speed, this should be estimatable with video analysis without even hitting an Internet database. Analysis of the eye movements in response to external sound stimuli can reveal a lot too. Not just IQ, but interests, concerns, phobias, etc.
A computer video analysis of the jiggle combined with posture analysis should be able to determine that. Probably the brand of bra and whether its too tight or loose in many cases too. You should also be able to get a fairly comprehensive calculation of weight and body fat ratios through video analysis of a fairly long walk.
Reliable? More likely, impossible. Don't forget that you'll both have the info. Forget the online data (which could even include P2P info from previous dates). Since noone is perfect, that alone could make you never date again. Even without that, using the combination of video, sound, and probably airborne chemical sensors and real time computing technology that you both have, you'll both be able to know body weight, build, strength, stamina, shampoo, deoderant, many recently taken drugs, heartrate, breathing rate, body temperature, presence of pregnancy, presence of menses, pheromone levels, many hormone levels, and much more. But all that isn't the real problem.
Voice stress and infrared analysis combined with all that will tell with near absolute certainty whether you're telling the truth or lieing in response to any question asked. How do I look? Do you like me? Are you involved with anyone else? What are you really interested in? Forget it bud.
Its hardly worth talking about, because it is inevitable, but the connectivity to a database is not necessary for a device like this to violate your privacy. The kind of information that it will be able to glean just by observing and analyzing will do a more than adequate job of that.
A child neurologist told me a few years ago that research he had participated in showed that 95% of over 3000 known neurological disorders could be diagnosed with an analysis of facio-muscular structure. I would imagine other medical areas to be similar.
I'm sure these devices would have infrared capability. Your body temperature will be known as well as hot spots. A very strong indication of whether you're telling the truth or not will be available from this amongst other things.
They will have sound input capability that will be very sensitive. Input from multiple microphones placed around a collar and other locations on your body will be able to pick up heart beats, lung sounds and stomach sounds. No under the breath mumblings will go unheard any more. Extensive on the spot voice analysis will tell all sorts of secrets.
The camera will of course be able to catch video and the computer will be powerful enough to analyze it in real time. A fairly simple result (after 20 years of technology evolution) should be the ability to get a complete analysis of your weight, strength, body fat, and body fat distribution. The longer the observation of motion, the more extensively the 3D model of your body can be filled in. Old injuries should be obvious. Also, more emotional content should be determinable.
Artificial nose on a chip technology ought to be cheaper than your desktop mouse by then. Many doctors today are taught in med schools to identify diseases by the body odors emitted. So whether you are sick and other facts as or more private ought to be easily determinable. At the least, a full readout of the shampoo, conditioner, soap, deoderant, fabric detergent, fabric softener, perfume, cologne, feminine deoderant, etc. that you use should be easily obtainable. Many drugs produce characteristic body odor changes too (including illegal). Pregnancy and menses also produce detectable body odors.
Though some thought has been put into determining what single sensors can do, little has been put into exploring the potential of simultaneous real time analysis of a combination of full motion continuing data streams from full color (including infra) video, sound (including ultrasonic), and smell. At the least, the ability to tell even a simple lie without the listener knowing will be taken from all but the masters.
That, in fact, is where I think we will suffer the most damage. The ability to tell a lie is integral to the functioning of our social structure. If it was suddenly (over a period of say 5 years total) taken away from us, I don't believe society would have the slightest chance of adjusting in time.
We are taught that consumption of salt is bad for us due to studies that showed a relationship between consumption of salt and blood pressure long ago. In truth, consumption of salt will only cause a significant increase in blood pressure in an identifiable (though still tough to identify) 25% of American population who apparently carry a gene that causes salt sensitivity. The percentage is even lower in other populations. They weren't careful enough in the original studies to identify all of the population factors (yes probably impossible), so we've been stuck with a blanket advisory. Another example is given in the original studies showing that PCBs are cancerous. As is true with many cancerous agents, PCBs apparently interact with a genetic flaw or vulnerability that is more dominant in some populations than others. The original studies were done with Asian (primarily Indian) populations which are not exactly a melting pot of genetic diversity. Studies after that time showing that those populations were as much as 100 times more likely than populations of European descent to develop cancer from PCB exposure have not made it through to popular understanding. The truth is, almost any hydrocarbon substance is probably cancerous to those with the right genetic flaw for the substance to interact with. To be "scientific" a study must be able to isolate all cause and effect. In truth, very little of what we label as "scientific fact" is truly that because we understand so little of the cause and effect in massively complex systems like the human body and psychology.
Actually, that's a wonderful example of the web that must be untangled to have any understanding of this subject. It has been shown that women who are older than 40 when they bare their last child have a 3 times greater chance of living to 100. Women who have their first child before they are 30 have a lesser chance of having breast cancer. Men live longer when they are part of a family. Aged people with children actively participating in their lives also live longer. All of this would go to indicate that having children could increase your lifespan. Perhaps then the lack of sleep is just a symptom of having children and having children is what truly increased the lifespans of those in this study.
When reviewing reviews or reports of scientific studies of late (very little review of the actual study has been accomplished here), I'm always bewildered by the number of assumptions made. In this case, the most blatant one to me is that living longer is in and of itself a desirable thing. Life must be measured in many many more ways than numbers of years before this study could be used to make any conclusions whatsoever. The people who died younger may very well have had more enriching lives. Those who slept less and died older might have never been happy or satisfied with their life in all of that time. We just don't know from the information given.
The word "arbitrary" is so wide open that this is nearly a neutral statement obviously meant to appease those who don't know better.
In their persons means anything I can't see without removing your clothes. That goes pretty far today with XRays and other sensor technologies. In their house is just that, nothing more. Anything I can't see or hear without going in. Once again, technology has rendered it virtually meaningless. In their papers, finally, gives us a little protection. But it has to be THEIR papers, not someone elses. Records that other companies keep of your transactions are not your papers. Just a recording of what they've witnessed that they have every right to share unless limited by something other than the constitution (like specific law). "against unreasonable searches and seizures" is pretty limited considering that after technology has so completely bypassed the above, there is little reason left to search and seize. Certainly, none of these things prevent the gathering/recording of everything outside of these. When storage and analyzation technologies get to the point of being able to record and analyze your entire public life for information, the result will deny you the very privacy of your thoughts. We give too many clues that will eventually be within the realms of sensors to capture, capacity to record, and compute and algorhithmic power to analyze. We badly need a constitutional amendment giving a general right to privacy unless clear reason has been given to violate that. Basically, something that prevents the gathering of enough information to allow our mind to essentially be read would be nice.