A situation with some similarities is that of the tiny Pacific island of Nauru. The Xmas edition of the Economist had an excellent overview of the islanders' struggle to change their economy from being resource based.
Nauru's economy was (and still is heavily) reliant on the rich phosphate deposits on the island. (phosphate is a sought-after fertilizer ingredient) For a short period of time in the 1970's, Nauruans were among the richest people on earth, on a per capita basis (some of you may remember this fact from editions of the Guinness Book of World Records from around that time).
Alas, since then, out of control government spending combined with sharp declines in the price of phosphate, along with a two-thirds fall in phosphate production, have basically crippled Nauruan finances. Nauruans are now poverty-stricken, unhealthy and oppressed by international trade sanctions.
The main source of revenues is now off-shore banking (that is to say, money laundering, with specific mention of funds from the Russian mafia), and selling dubious citizenships. Other schemes include diplomatically recognizing Taiwan, hiring out itself as a detention camp for would-be australian immigrants, and ill-thought out real estate investments.
It would be interesting to draw up a list of pestilential vermin (i.e. roaches, fungi, moulds, dandylions, various beetles, etc) that are impossible to eliminate here on earth and analyze how they might do in the harsher clime of mars.
anime rejiggered for a western audience
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NY Times on Anime
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Although purists cast disdain upon the 'disposable' series *Sailor Moon*, I am nevertheless a fan and found it actually quite fascinating to see how the show had been edited to be suitable for the Western teenybopper demographic.
There's a lot of latent sexual subtext (homoerotic or otherwise) which is glossed over in the NA dubbing. For example one of the villains, Zoesite (sic), who is actually an effeminate male in the Japanese version, is presented (and dubbed correspondingly) as a female, in the NA dubbing. Similarly, when in civilian clothes, Sailor Uranus seems to be an effeminate man in love with Sailor Neptune. In costume she's female. The ambiguity isn't really dealt with.
As well, there are occasional violent scenes which are cut out or slightly abbreviated. Presumably this is not judged suitable for the desired NA demographic.
But you can still catch the odd scene or bit of dialog that's left in where you say to yourself, "what?!" That is, the sexuality of the characters is somewhat ambiguous.
While I'm on the topic of ambiguous sexuality in anime, this site has some brief overviews of homosexuality and transgenderism (don't know if that's a word, but you know what I mean) in anime.
This article at Wired a few months back is an intriguing read on the recent history of attempts to improve chess progams and their performance versus notable humans (such as Gary Kasparov and V Kramnik).
Particularly notable (if you are a Kasparov fan) is the description of how Kasparov was, from a certain perspective, manipulated into a match setup which he could not win (wrt the Deep Blue match a few years back).
For example, he never got to view any of Deep Blue's previous games -- whereas in a human match, any world class grandmaster would certainly have studied his opponents games before hand as preparation.
Secondly, Kasparov didn't actually play the same program through the whole match -- the program was tweaked as the match went along.
This subject is quite fascinating in that some people have historically treated the 'can a computer play better than a human' question as sort of a low-level Turing test milestone.
Well, among other people, Dr. J. Presper Eckert and Dr. John W. Mauchly. aka the inventors of the ENIAC and the UNIVAC, the first commercially available computer. 1952 was the year the UNIVAC became famous for the publicity stunt of correctly predicting the Eisenhower-Stevenson presidential election that year.
About a year later, IBM entered the fray with the 701 EDPM. (which was, incidentally, incompatible with IBM's punch card processing equipment -- an early version of changing media (like floppies to CD)). Of course I think only about 20 were ever sold.
So there *were* programmers out there, just not a heck of a lot of 'em...
I already *am* working for the government --whether I like it or not. Every year, until around May or so. That's when I celebrate Tax Freedom Day: the day I've finished working to pay off the total tax bill imposed by the various levels of government.
(yeah, I know this is a link to last year's event; also the date varies by state)
Unfortunately, some retailers will simply respond by changing their return policy in general. In fact, this behavior is interpreted as you taking the CDs home, burning them, and then returning them. (I trust that's not what you're advocating by 'screw the man'?)
For example, HMV no longer takes back unopened CDs.
You can see the change in attitude about the policy in this interview with their president, printed just a couple weeks before they modified the policy. That is, you can tell how they are rationalizing that permitting opened CDs to be returned is no longer effective for their business practice.
So I disagree with this approach, as it basically only winds up screwing people who legitimately want to return their cds. (by legitimate, I mean within the original intent of the return policy to maximize customer satisfaction)
"The energy you get from the anti-particle particle annihilation is about ten billion times that of chemical combustion," Schmidt said.
You definitely wouldn't like to see a terrorist organization get control of this stuff. With a kilo of anti-matter, you might take out NYC, never mind the WTC. Of course I'm sure the explosive applications (as this technology developed) would be thoroughly explored by the major military powers long before it could trickle down to that level. So before anti-matter could be used on a widespread basis, we will need to develop methods of ensuring that uncontrolled explosions can't occur by chance or by design.
Side note: one of the more offbeat theories about the Tunguska explosion was that it was a chunk of antimatter, not an asteroid.
Side note 2: It was in 1928 that British mathematician and physicist Paul Dirac suggested the existence of antimatter.
A real world historical example of a cost benefit analysis (with respect to saving human lives) undertaken by a major corporation is the well known case of the Ford Pinto.
In 1971 dollars, the cost of a human life (or the "Societal Cost Components for a Fatality" was worked out to be $200,000. Unfortunately for Ford Pinto drivers, the cost for retooling the manufacturing facilities for the Pinto was calculated to be higher than the above cost multiplied by the number of estimated fatalities.
A somewhat biased (but nevertheless engaging) account and analysis of what went on is given here.
So it would be interesting if someone were to do a similar economic analysis of the situation given in this topic, namely the cost of these electron beam scanners versus the 'saved' cost of estimated number of people's lives saved.
These are two different questions. The 'value of a human life' is something intangible.
The price, or dollar cost of saving a human life, on the other hand, is generally accepted to average between $3 million to $7 million USD, according to studies on how much people pay for safety devices, and how much income they are willing to sacrifice by taking safer jobs, and insurance costs.
That is to say, statistically speaking, in the marketplace, a TOTAL cost of up to $3 million to $7 million to save a life is generally acceptable (the cost to a single individual might be a fraction of a cent or two; it's spread out over everybody). That's the marginal value of saving a human life.
What's interesting is the idea that many government regulations impose a far greater cost per life saved than this marginal value. For example, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on benzene storage are estimated to cost $260 million per life saved. So it can be argued that actually, these regulations are (from the economic perspective) actually costing more lives than they are saving, through the reduction of wealth and the consequent loss of life expectancy.
Here's a succinct article on this subject. Please note that this analysis is purely from an economist's viewpoint, and not from any moral or ethical stance.
Using deep-sea subduction zones to dispose of waste is an interesting idea that has been kicking around for awhile.
However, there are a few concerns, some political, some practical which have not been sufficiently dealt with (yet), for use of this method to be deemed acceptable.
It goes against the grain of current 'waste disposal' thought. In the past, the model used to be "dilute and disperse". Then, as we realized some pollutants remain toxic even in low low exposure rates, the model changed to "concentrate and contain". You can see this mindset in our acceptance of smokestacks: they used to be a sign of progress, now they're not welcome in your neighbourhood. So, simply dumping nuclear waste into a subduction zone gives the shivers to anyone raised in this mindset, even if logically you can show that the subduction zone does in fact carry material only downward -- you can't guarantee the waste isn't going to wind up someplace where it can do harm. Models can only show you what should happen; the real world often decides to disagree. So it's a tough approach to sell.
The key thing is, once the waste is down there, you no longer have control. Who knows what might happen to it. Once waste is placed at the subduction zone, human intervention will be extremely difficult, whether by submersible or robot remote.
If a waste container breaks open down there (and don't think you can economically design one that won't -- the forces down there are spectacular), there's not much you can do except cover it with dirt or other materials. "Oh, it's just one broken waste cannister at the bottom of the entire ocean" -- see how well that goes over with Greenpeace.
The other main practical consideration is actually getting the waste containers to go into the subduction zones. Most subduction zones have thick sedimentation layers over
their sea floor opening. We're talking about tectonic processes here, not vacuum cleaners. That is, any container you put there is just going to sit at the bottom for a long long time without actually going anywhere.
"Guess what. NBC aired the 4th episode as the pilot! People were lost and wondering what the hell was going on..."
A very similar thing happened with Gilligan's Island. The first episode ("Two on a Raft") was actually a pastiche of several shows, and included only a chunk of the actual pilot show that was shot. Sherwood Schwartz maintained that the first episode was meant to be the 2nd, and had enormous fights with CBS over this prior to the initial airing. And in fact, you don't see the bulk of the pilot show until episode 12 (the Christmas episode "Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk"). (it's the part where they are remembering how grateful they weren't all killed in the wreck). The result is that episode 1 is pretty awful and strained, even for Gilligan's Island.
Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your critical opinion of the show), Gilligan's Island had a very catchy expository theme song/explanatory opening credit sequence. Ah, whatever happened to sing-along theme songs... The other major point was that it never dropped out of the Top 40 shows.
You're forgetting that these are people in government here. Rule #1 in bureaucracy decision-making: CYA. Cover Your Ass.
As a side note, it is interesting to see that hardly anyone is complaining about how Compaq is being considered as the hardware vendor. There are a couple of posts suggesting Macs be chosen but in that case the differentiating factor is really the OS again.
Side note #2, this reminds me of a very similar project that was undertaken in France, about 20 years ago. I believe it was the 'Minitel' service. It involved the free distribution of about a million 'kiosques' in Paris. They were basically funky little TTY terminals that connected to 'Videotex' computerised French phone directories. A short history of the project is given here. The service is still going, in fact (see www.minitel.fr). The history is interesting in terms of the interaction between French 'dirigisme' and the encroachment of the Net.
Oliver Sacks' "An Anthropologist on Mars" contains a (somewhat sad) case study of a patient who had been essentially blind since early childhood, and who had been diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa.
As it turns out the patient really just had severe cataracts, which were then surgically removed. Bingo, the guy could 'see'!
But he had enormous problems adapting to the new inputs his brain was receiving. He wasn't able to interpret depth very well; moving objects terrified him because he couldn't tell how far away they were. In his life he had adapted completely to being blind, and the operation turned out to be something of a mixed blessing.
As a side note, the book also contains the fascinating story of Temple Grandin, the autistic professor who has huge difficulties with human social interactions but who has made a career out of designing super efficient slaughtering houses that don't panic animals during the process leading up to their deaths.
hmm. I don't think the resources are 'unimaginable', just ridiculously, ridiculously big. A (really) rough back of the envelope type of calculation on what storage resources might be required:
- Let's say a DVD holds 8 hours of acceptable quality video.
- this translates to 15.9 gigs I think? (someone please correct me on the specs if incorrect, I don't even own a DVD player)(what the heck, it'll only be an order of magnitude error or so)
- TV is what, 75 years old?
- Assume there have been 1000 channels in the history of tv, even though there are doubtless more now, but obviously less in 1950.
So 3 DVDs or 48gigs = 1 day of storage for 1 channel.
(I think. Ahem. Please correct any gross errors in translation/calculation. Don't ask me to land the Mars Observer.)
For comparison, George Gilder notes that a study showed that the total traffic for the Net was about 1 petabyte a month. (I know, the real figure for comparison would be, 'how many terabytes does the Net contain?' I don't have time for that search! Anyone?)
Terabyte servers are in use now; it's within the realm of possibility to imagine a million of them. Chuck in the hard drive equivalent of Moore's Law, a breakthrough in holographic techniques, ("Windows 2010 requires a minimum of 1 terabyte of hard disk space...") and hey, you could maybe make some half-assed attempts at this 10 years down the road.
Of course that's just the storage calculation. I've ignored the gross problems of:
-digitizing all the historical stuff on tape
-indexing it all with at least an IMDB-style header of metadata. Full text search would be nice too:-) (hey, a bonus from closed captioning)
-providing adequate last-mile bandwidth so that 200 million americans can surf different tv programs simultaneously (trust George Gilder!)
-the IP issues: how hollywood, the courts, and popular sentiment will interact to drive this thing forward.
Re:another phil dick movie
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Review: Impostor
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· Score: 2, Interesting
As a Philip K. Dick fan, I'm disappointed that *Impostor* has turned out to be such dreck. I secretly cheer for PKD-inspired projects.
I'm not too chuffed about Spielberg's involvement with the upcoming *Minority Report* either, given the letdown of the PKD-flavoured *AI* (yes I know it was based on an B Aldiss story, but it definitely had a lot of Dickian themes -- the robot boy who wants to be real, the broken 'bots that struggle on hopelessly even when they know it's futile, etc.). Still, there's hope. At least you know there's going to be decent money available for CGI effects.:-)
As far as Phil Dick films go, I'd rate them in order of viewing enjoyment as follows (most enjoyed at top):
1. Blade Runner - what great set design!
2. Total Recall - i remember thinking, hey, was that the same actress from Action Jackson?
3. Screamers - a 'go in with low expectations, and it'll be acceptable' affair
4. *existenZ* - cheesy CanCon fluff; Cronenberg has the talent and history to do this sort of thing a LOT better (if I'm not mistaken Cronenberg actually wrote one of the first, rejected drafts for Total Recall)
5. Confessions of a Crap Artist - hey, I live in Canada, there's nowt much tae do some winter evenings...
I haven't seen *Put It In Gere*, and probably won't. (imagine that, an adult film inspired by PKD -- how's *that* for a dick joke?)
Other movies I'd claim were thematically PKD influenced include:
*Truman Show* - is it just me, or did they completely rip off the plot for this flick from *Time Out of Joint*? Truman = Ragle Gumm!),
*the Matrix* - obviously lots of fun, looking forward to the sequel.
There was an interesting article by Tad Friend in the Nov 19 2001 issue of The New Yorker (alas, no link as they don't seem to have a real online archive) about the conflict between the major TV networks' Standards and Practices departments and their creative departments. Lots of amusing anecdotes about past tussles.
i.e.
- the story of how after a year of negotiation after NYPD Blue's debut in 1993, Steven Bochco was able to persuade ABC to use exactly 37 vulgarities per episode, as long as he did not stray from an agreed on glossary of words. He could show breasts from the side (no nipples), and dorsal but not frontal nudity. He could suggest, but never show intercourse. 57 affiliates refused to air the first episode, and ABC couldn't charge its full ad rate on the show for years.
- In 1959 on CBS's "Playhouse 90", when 'Judgment at Nuremberg' was presented by the American Gas Association, they cut the word 'gas' from the script. So millions of Jews died in "...chambers."
- Aaron Sorkin (resp. for 'The West Wing') relates how "Standards and Practices made it very clear that I will be able to say 'motherfucker' on the air before I can take the Lord's name in vain. They fear that religious groups will aggressively boycott our show." The article goes on to detail how "in one episode last year, President Bartlet exploded about being bested by a 'damn street gang.' "It didn't ring true," Sorkin said. "I originally wrote 'goddamn street gang.' In the movies, it would have been 'fucking street gang.'""
A funny article. The issue also has a decent historical overview of the roots of Islamic conflict with the West. Your local library should have a copy...
SPAM is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods corporation. SPAM Luncheon Meat, that is.
since i'm off topic anyway, it is rather ironic to read Hormel Foods' position statement on the practice of spamming.
Re:It's all about the Benjamins $$$
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Monsanto and PCBs
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· Score: 1
Complaining about evil corporate behavior accomplishes nothing. You need to take the capitalist approach, in a capitalist environment:
The free market works a lot like democracy. Except you get to buy the votes. They're called 'shares'. It's the inverted Victor Kiam model: "I hated the product so much I bought the company".
Shareholder activism isn't just for gadflies with time on their hands. Moral suasion, when applied with enough hard assets, can be extremely influential in deciding what happens to a company, even if management is headed in another direction. For example, look at the havoc Walter Hewitt has wreaked on Carly Fiorina's attempt to merge HP and Compaq.
I will concede that sometimes the opposite approach is taken: shareholders vocally sell their shares to express their indignation with a company's actions. For example CalPERS (the $170bn-asset pension fund for California public employees) and TIAA-CREF (a monster teachers pension fund) getting out of Talisman Energy in response to its contributions to the dictatorship in Sudan and the usual human rights atrocities being committed there...
But the point derived is still the same: as an owner, and not some whinger on the sideline, you get the right to express yourself on the subject. Instead of just complaining about it on a bulleting board.
The other time-honored approach is to boycott the purchase of products from that company. Though it doesn't seem to work that well sometimes (witness the slashdot refrain: "I'd never use MS", and then look at MS's ever burgeoning billions of dollars revenues.)...
On average, most people watch about 20 hours a week. (see here for a somewhat over the top interpretation about the effect on kids) That's a part time job. Think about the cost of the intellectual capital involved here when you multiply 20 hours a week times everyone who has a television.
Granted, there exists a healthy amount of interesting, educational, and entertaining programming. And the Net hasn't entirely replaced CNN yet as the chief means of disseminating American propaganda to the masses during times of crisis or hysteria.
But let's face it, for every hour of really enlightening TV you saw, you also sat there flipping around for at least two hours of Who Wants to be a Millionaire or some other crap. Not to mention 48 minutes of ads.
Wouldn't you rather spend all that time... doing stuff? Like: hanging out with friends, reading, coding, skateboarding, writing, having sex, listening to music, designing cool buildings, reading/., rock climbing, eating, or even -- gasp, working?
Slashdot Mirror
A situation with some similarities is that of the tiny Pacific island of Nauru. The Xmas edition of the Economist had an excellent overview of the islanders' struggle to change their economy from being resource based.
Nauru's economy was (and still is heavily) reliant on the rich phosphate deposits on the island. (phosphate is a sought-after fertilizer ingredient) For a short period of time in the 1970's, Nauruans were among the richest people on earth, on a per capita basis (some of you may remember this fact from editions of the Guinness Book of World Records from around that time).
Alas, since then, out of control government spending combined with sharp declines in the price of phosphate, along with a two-thirds fall in phosphate production, have basically crippled Nauruan finances. Nauruans are now poverty-stricken, unhealthy and oppressed by international trade sanctions.
The main source of revenues is now off-shore banking (that is to say, money laundering, with specific mention of funds from the Russian mafia), and selling dubious citizenships. Other schemes include diplomatically recognizing Taiwan, hiring out itself as a detention camp for would-be australian immigrants, and ill-thought out real estate investments.
I wonder how cockroaches would fare.
It would be interesting to draw up a list of pestilential vermin (i.e. roaches, fungi, moulds, dandylions, various beetles, etc) that are impossible to eliminate here on earth and analyze how they might do in the harsher clime of mars.
Although purists cast disdain upon the 'disposable' series *Sailor Moon*, I am nevertheless a fan and found it actually quite fascinating to see how the show had been edited to be suitable for the Western teenybopper demographic.
There's a lot of latent sexual subtext (homoerotic or otherwise) which is glossed over in the NA dubbing. For example one of the villains, Zoesite (sic), who is actually an effeminate male in the Japanese version, is presented (and dubbed correspondingly) as a female, in the NA dubbing. Similarly, when in civilian clothes, Sailor Uranus seems to be an effeminate man in love with Sailor Neptune. In costume she's female. The ambiguity isn't really dealt with.
As well, there are occasional violent scenes which are cut out or slightly abbreviated. Presumably this is not judged suitable for the desired NA demographic.
But you can still catch the odd scene or bit of dialog that's left in where you say to yourself, "what?!" That is, the sexuality of the characters is somewhat ambiguous.
While I'm on the topic of ambiguous sexuality in anime, this site has some brief overviews of homosexuality and transgenderism (don't know if that's a word, but you know what I mean) in anime.
This article at Wired a few months back is an intriguing read on the recent history of attempts to improve chess progams and their performance versus notable humans (such as Gary Kasparov and V Kramnik).
Particularly notable (if you are a Kasparov fan) is the description of how Kasparov was, from a certain perspective, manipulated into a match setup which he could not win (wrt the Deep Blue match a few years back).
For example, he never got to view any of Deep Blue's previous games -- whereas in a human match, any world class grandmaster would certainly have studied his opponents games before hand as preparation.
Secondly, Kasparov didn't actually play the same program through the whole match -- the program was tweaked as the match went along.
This subject is quite fascinating in that some people have historically treated the 'can a computer play better than a human' question as sort of a low-level Turing test milestone.
Who had a job programming 50 years ago?
Well, among other people, Dr. J. Presper Eckert and Dr. John W. Mauchly. aka the inventors of the ENIAC and the UNIVAC, the first commercially available computer. 1952 was the year the UNIVAC became famous for the publicity stunt of correctly predicting the Eisenhower-Stevenson presidential election that year.
About a year later, IBM entered the fray with the 701 EDPM. (which was, incidentally, incompatible with IBM's punch card processing equipment -- an early version of changing media (like floppies to CD)). Of course I think only about 20 were ever sold.
So there *were* programmers out there, just not a heck of a lot of 'em...
I already *am* working for the government --whether I like it or not. Every year, until around May or so. That's when I celebrate Tax Freedom Day: the day I've finished working to pay off the total tax bill imposed by the various levels of government.
(yeah, I know this is a link to last year's event; also the date varies by state)
Unfortunately, some retailers will simply respond by changing their return policy in general. In fact, this behavior is interpreted as you taking the CDs home, burning them, and then returning them. (I trust that's not what you're advocating by 'screw the man'?)
For example, HMV no longer takes back unopened CDs.
You can see the change in attitude about the policy in this interview with their president, printed just a couple weeks before they modified the policy. That is, you can tell how they are rationalizing that permitting opened CDs to be returned is no longer effective for their business practice.
So I disagree with this approach, as it basically only winds up screwing people who legitimately want to return their cds. (by legitimate, I mean within the original intent of the return policy to maximize customer satisfaction)
It was only too late that they understood the gravity of the situation...
But once they did understand, it weighed heavily on their minds.
It was not a superposition to be in.
"The energy you get from the anti-particle particle annihilation is about ten billion times that of chemical combustion," Schmidt said.
You definitely wouldn't like to see a terrorist organization get control of this stuff. With a kilo of anti-matter, you might take out NYC, never mind the WTC. Of course I'm sure the explosive applications (as this technology developed) would be thoroughly explored by the major military powers long before it could trickle down to that level. So before anti-matter could be used on a widespread basis, we will need to develop methods of ensuring that uncontrolled explosions can't occur by chance or by design.
Side note: one of the more offbeat theories about the Tunguska explosion was that it was a chunk of antimatter, not an asteroid.
Side note 2: It was in 1928 that British mathematician and physicist Paul Dirac suggested the existence of antimatter.
A real world historical example of a cost benefit analysis (with respect to saving human lives) undertaken by a major corporation is the well known case of the Ford Pinto.
In 1971 dollars, the cost of a human life (or the "Societal Cost Components for a Fatality" was worked out to be $200,000. Unfortunately for Ford Pinto drivers, the cost for retooling the manufacturing facilities for the Pinto was calculated to be higher than the above cost multiplied by the number of estimated fatalities.
A somewhat biased (but nevertheless engaging) account and analysis of what went on is given here.
So it would be interesting if someone were to do a similar economic analysis of the situation given in this topic, namely the cost of these electron beam scanners versus the 'saved' cost of estimated number of people's lives saved.
These are two different questions. The 'value of a human life' is something intangible.
The price, or dollar cost of saving a human life, on the other hand, is generally accepted to average between $3 million to $7 million USD, according to studies on how much people pay for safety devices, and how much income they are willing to sacrifice by taking safer jobs, and insurance costs.
That is to say, statistically speaking, in the marketplace, a TOTAL cost of up to $3 million to $7 million to save a life is generally acceptable (the cost to a single individual might be a fraction of a cent or two; it's spread out over everybody). That's the marginal value of saving a human life.
What's interesting is the idea that many government regulations impose a far greater cost per life saved than this marginal value. For example, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on benzene storage are estimated to cost $260 million per life saved. So it can be argued that actually, these regulations are (from the economic perspective) actually costing more lives than they are saving, through the reduction of wealth and the consequent loss of life expectancy.
Here's a succinct article on this subject. Please note that this analysis is purely from an economist's viewpoint, and not from any moral or ethical stance.
Using deep-sea subduction zones to dispose of waste is an interesting idea that has been kicking around for awhile.
However, there are a few concerns, some political, some practical which have not been sufficiently dealt with (yet), for use of this method to be deemed acceptable.
It goes against the grain of current 'waste disposal' thought. In the past, the model used to be "dilute and disperse". Then, as we realized some pollutants remain toxic even in low low exposure rates, the model changed to "concentrate and contain". You can see this mindset in our acceptance of smokestacks: they used to be a sign of progress, now they're not welcome in your neighbourhood. So, simply dumping nuclear waste into a subduction zone gives the shivers to anyone raised in this mindset, even if logically you can show that the subduction zone does in fact carry material only downward -- you can't guarantee the waste isn't going to wind up someplace where it can do harm. Models can only show you what should happen; the real world often decides to disagree. So it's a tough approach to sell.
The key thing is, once the waste is down there, you no longer have control. Who knows what might happen to it. Once waste is placed at the subduction zone, human intervention will be extremely difficult, whether by submersible or robot remote.
If a waste container breaks open down there (and don't think you can economically design one that won't -- the forces down there are spectacular), there's not much you can do except cover it with dirt or other materials. "Oh, it's just one broken waste cannister at the bottom of the entire ocean" -- see how well that goes over with Greenpeace.
The other main practical consideration is actually getting the waste containers to go into the subduction zones. Most subduction zones have thick sedimentation layers over
their sea floor opening. We're talking about tectonic processes here, not vacuum cleaners. That is, any container you put there is just going to sit at the bottom for a long long time without actually going anywhere.
"Guess what. NBC aired the 4th episode as the pilot! People were lost and wondering what the hell was going on..."
A very similar thing happened with Gilligan's Island. The first episode ("Two on a Raft") was actually a pastiche of several shows, and included only a chunk of the actual pilot show that was shot. Sherwood Schwartz maintained that the first episode was meant to be the 2nd, and had enormous fights with CBS over this prior to the initial airing. And in fact, you don't see the bulk of the pilot show until episode 12 (the Christmas episode "Birds Gotta Fly, Fish Gotta Talk"). (it's the part where they are remembering how grateful they weren't all killed in the wreck). The result is that episode 1 is pretty awful and strained, even for Gilligan's Island.
Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your critical opinion of the show), Gilligan's Island had a very catchy expository theme song/explanatory opening credit sequence. Ah, whatever happened to sing-along theme songs... The other major point was that it never dropped out of the Top 40 shows.
Windows = vendor to blame if stuff goes wrong.
You're forgetting that these are people in government here. Rule #1 in bureaucracy decision-making: CYA. Cover Your Ass.
As a side note, it is interesting to see that hardly anyone is complaining about how Compaq is being considered as the hardware vendor. There are a couple of posts suggesting Macs be chosen but in that case the differentiating factor is really the OS again.
Side note #2, this reminds me of a very similar project that was undertaken in France, about 20 years ago. I believe it was the 'Minitel' service. It involved the free distribution of about a million 'kiosques' in Paris. They were basically funky little TTY terminals that connected to 'Videotex' computerised French phone directories. A short history of the project is given here. The service is still going, in fact (see www.minitel.fr). The history is interesting in terms of the interaction between French 'dirigisme' and the encroachment of the Net.
Personally I prefer the 'Cover head with large towel" approach.
Oh yeah -- and don't panic.
Oliver Sacks' "An Anthropologist on Mars" contains a (somewhat sad) case study of a patient who had been essentially blind since early childhood, and who had been diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa.
As it turns out the patient really just had severe cataracts, which were then surgically removed. Bingo, the guy could 'see'!
But he had enormous problems adapting to the new inputs his brain was receiving. He wasn't able to interpret depth very well; moving objects terrified him because he couldn't tell how far away they were. In his life he had adapted completely to being blind, and the operation turned out to be something of a mixed blessing.
Here's an excerpt.
As a side note, the book also contains the fascinating story of Temple Grandin, the autistic professor who has huge difficulties with human social interactions but who has made a career out of designing super efficient slaughtering houses that don't panic animals during the process leading up to their deaths.
hmm. I don't think the resources are 'unimaginable', just ridiculously, ridiculously big. A (really) rough back of the envelope type of calculation on what storage resources might be required:
:-) (hey, a bonus from closed captioning)
- Let's say a DVD holds 8 hours of acceptable quality video.
- this translates to 15.9 gigs I think? (someone please correct me on the specs if incorrect, I don't even own a DVD player)(what the heck, it'll only be an order of magnitude error or so)
- TV is what, 75 years old?
- Assume there have been 1000 channels in the history of tv, even though there are doubtless more now, but obviously less in 1950.
So 3 DVDs or 48gigs = 1 day of storage for 1 channel.
48gigs* 365 * 75 * 1000
= (hmm, where's that calculator)
1,314,000,000 gigs
=1314000 terabytes
=1314 petabytes
=1.3 exabytes
(I think. Ahem. Please correct any gross errors in translation/calculation. Don't ask me to land the Mars Observer.)
For comparison, George Gilder notes that a study showed that the total traffic for the Net was about 1 petabyte a month. (I know, the real figure for comparison would be, 'how many terabytes does the Net contain?' I don't have time for that search! Anyone?)
Terabyte servers are in use now; it's within the realm of possibility to imagine a million of them. Chuck in the hard drive equivalent of Moore's Law, a breakthrough in holographic techniques, ("Windows 2010 requires a minimum of 1 terabyte of hard disk space...") and hey, you could maybe make some half-assed attempts at this 10 years down the road.
Of course that's just the storage calculation. I've ignored the gross problems of:
-digitizing all the historical stuff on tape
-indexing it all with at least an IMDB-style header of metadata. Full text search would be nice too
-providing adequate last-mile bandwidth so that 200 million americans can surf different tv programs simultaneously (trust George Gilder!)
-the IP issues: how hollywood, the courts, and popular sentiment will interact to drive this thing forward.
As a Philip K. Dick fan, I'm disappointed that *Impostor* has turned out to be such dreck. I secretly cheer for PKD-inspired projects.
:-)
I'm not too chuffed about Spielberg's involvement with the upcoming *Minority Report* either, given the letdown of the PKD-flavoured *AI* (yes I know it was based on an B Aldiss story, but it definitely had a lot of Dickian themes -- the robot boy who wants to be real, the broken 'bots that struggle on hopelessly even when they know it's futile, etc.). Still, there's hope. At least you know there's going to be decent money available for CGI effects.
As far as Phil Dick films go, I'd rate them in order of viewing enjoyment as follows (most enjoyed at top):
1. Blade Runner - what great set design!
2. Total Recall - i remember thinking, hey, was that the same actress from Action Jackson?
3. Screamers - a 'go in with low expectations, and it'll be acceptable' affair
4. *existenZ* - cheesy CanCon fluff; Cronenberg has the talent and history to do this sort of thing a LOT better (if I'm not mistaken Cronenberg actually wrote one of the first, rejected drafts for Total Recall)
5. Confessions of a Crap Artist - hey, I live in Canada, there's nowt much tae do some winter evenings...
I haven't seen *Put It In Gere*, and probably won't. (imagine that, an adult film inspired by PKD -- how's *that* for a dick joke?)
Other movies I'd claim were thematically PKD influenced include:
*Truman Show* - is it just me, or did they completely rip off the plot for this flick from *Time Out of Joint*? Truman = Ragle Gumm!),
*the Matrix* - obviously lots of fun, looking forward to the sequel.
Any other candidates?
There was an interesting article by Tad Friend in the Nov 19 2001 issue of The New Yorker (alas, no link as they don't seem to have a real online archive) about the conflict between the major TV networks' Standards and Practices departments and their creative departments. Lots of amusing anecdotes about past tussles.
i.e.
- the story of how after a year of negotiation after NYPD Blue's debut in 1993, Steven Bochco was able to persuade ABC to use exactly 37 vulgarities per episode, as long as he did not stray from an agreed on glossary of words. He could show breasts from the side (no nipples), and dorsal but not frontal nudity. He could suggest, but never show intercourse. 57 affiliates refused to air the first episode, and ABC couldn't charge its full ad rate on the show for years.
- In 1959 on CBS's "Playhouse 90", when 'Judgment at Nuremberg' was presented by the American Gas Association, they cut the word 'gas' from the script. So millions of Jews died in "...chambers."
- Aaron Sorkin (resp. for 'The West Wing') relates how "Standards and Practices made it very clear that I will be able to say 'motherfucker' on the air before I can take the Lord's name in vain. They fear that religious groups will aggressively boycott our show." The article goes on to detail how "in one episode last year, President Bartlet exploded about being bested by a 'damn street gang.' "It didn't ring true," Sorkin said. "I originally wrote 'goddamn street gang.' In the movies, it would have been 'fucking street gang.'""
A funny article. The issue also has a decent historical overview of the roots of Islamic conflict with the West. Your local library should have a copy...
SPAM is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods corporation. SPAM Luncheon Meat, that is.
since i'm off topic anyway, it is rather ironic to read Hormel Foods' position statement on the practice of spamming.
Complaining about evil corporate behavior accomplishes nothing. You need to take the capitalist approach, in a capitalist environment:
The free market works a lot like democracy. Except you get to buy the votes. They're called 'shares'. It's the inverted Victor Kiam model: "I hated the product so much I bought the company".
Shareholder activism isn't just for gadflies with time on their hands. Moral suasion, when applied with enough hard assets, can be extremely influential in deciding what happens to a company, even if management is headed in another direction. For example, look at the havoc Walter Hewitt has wreaked on Carly Fiorina's attempt to merge HP and Compaq.
I will concede that sometimes the opposite approach is taken: shareholders vocally sell their shares to express their indignation with a company's actions. For example CalPERS (the $170bn-asset pension fund for California public employees) and TIAA-CREF (a monster teachers pension fund) getting out of Talisman Energy in response to its contributions to the dictatorship in Sudan and the usual human rights atrocities being committed there...
But the point derived is still the same: as an owner, and not some whinger on the sideline, you get the right to express yourself on the subject. Instead of just complaining about it on a bulleting board.
The other time-honored approach is to boycott the purchase of products from that company. Though it doesn't seem to work that well sometimes (witness the slashdot refrain: "I'd never use MS", and then look at MS's ever burgeoning billions of dollars revenues.)...
The choice should be no television, period.
... doing stuff? Like: hanging out with friends, reading, coding, skateboarding, writing, having sex, listening to music, designing cool buildings, reading /., rock climbing, eating, or even -- gasp, working?
On average, most people watch about 20 hours a week. (see here for a somewhat over the top interpretation about the effect on kids) That's a part time job. Think about the cost of the intellectual capital involved here when you multiply 20 hours a week times everyone who has a television.
Granted, there exists a healthy amount of interesting, educational, and entertaining programming. And the Net hasn't entirely replaced CNN yet as the chief means of disseminating American propaganda to the masses during times of crisis or hysteria.
But let's face it, for every hour of really enlightening TV you saw, you also sat there flipping around for at least two hours of Who Wants to be a Millionaire or some other crap. Not to mention 48 minutes of ads.
Wouldn't you rather spend all that time
Real life: it's better than HDTV.