Our emotions, limbic system, and nervous system are nothing more than very low-level instruction sets to force us to behave in a certain manner in response to certain stimuli.
Out of interest, how do you know that for sure?
Just because you imagine X explains Y, doesn't mean that X is the only thing going on.
Cheesy as hell, but I think Verhoeven does it deliberately, commenting on both the movie industry and people in general taking themselves too seriously.
Likewise, there are always odd sexual references, like the Bugs who fire giant flourescent streams of jism into space.
The shower scene is an extraordinarily provocative mix of military politics, fear of intimacy, and that excruciating "take turns to introduce yourself" thing that people are forced to do by well-meaning trainers.
Verhoeven doesn't cleanly delineate his commentary like some producers but that's all part of the fun & craziness of it all.
Hillary IS going to win, purely on the basis that people will be desperate for a change. Unless Arnie is running against her. Maybe rather than excluding supporters of the opposition, he'll terminate them.
BWA HA HA HA HA. Sorry, I live in the Banana Republic of Britain and it's a relief to see we're not as badly off as you guys.
Intelligence has no specific definition. Some people might say that being able to make people laugh is a form of intelligence, for example.
IQ measures a very narrow set of skills which aren't massively useful in real life. You'll get much further in life by being influential in social situations, or by being able to make good decisions for example.
It seems that the temporary loss of IQ test skill was purely due to the questions being popped up at random intervals.
>Can somebody explain to me:
>Why extra biometric data is necessary, and
Sure. For something to be necessary, it means that life would be untenable
without it. Obviously then, such data is unnecessary.
So the question is: "Is it worth the consequences?"
It's interesting to note that only governments have tried to do this.
Banks, for example, have a huge profit motive for ensuring you own the money
you're withdrawing yet not one has ever imposed an iris or fingerprint scan
on its customers.
The police may have a need to know who I am if I'm breaking the law.
The government by comparison has no need to know who I am. Until recently,
most people would have argued that they have no business knowing who we are
- that their job is merely to serve us and do as they're told. I'm not
entirely sure how this position has reversed.
>Why so many people think extra biometric data is more abusive than
the current biometric data stored on passports?
>
>A lot of the identity card/biometrics scare I hear seems nothing more
than fear of the unfamiliar versus technology for technology's sake. This just
seems like more of the same.
I'm thankful that you're open-minded and curious enough to ask. Most
people are not.
The British scheme will also assign a public Identity number to every person,
an action which is explicitly outlawed by the German constitution. If
ID cards are to become the defacto form of identification, it won't take long
for most companies to index your information through this number. Inevitably,
the mass of data collected on us becomes linked (telephone, internet, shopping, medical)
and can be used to directly or indirectly blackmail people.
All government schemes are eventually abused. How do tyrannical dictators
gain power? Through propaganda and silencing opposition.
There is plenty more if you're interested.
For example, the British scheme is expected to cost £10+ billion
over 10 years. I hope you can think of more worthy causes for £10+
billion...
> But the reality, which I've experienced numerous times, is that you
can enter your bank's local branch, and withdraw money just by telling them
your account number (which is known and stored in probably insecure databases
by lots of organizations. LexisNexis, here we come !). This gives me the creeps.
Really? Mine needs a card, signature or other form of proof.
> For *prescription-only* drugs, which of course the pharmacist shouldn't
hand to whoever comes in. Sure, told this way, it sounds less orwellian. D'oh
!
"Sorry Mr Steinberg, you can't have your insulin because your ID check
isn't working for some reason."
> how do you check the identity of who has done what if you've no records
?
OK, give us a list now of your real name, your phone number, any file sharing
you've done, any porn sites you've accidentally visited...
Or perhaps you'd rather some people DIDN'T know what you've done.
> I've got the strange feeling you're confusing "freedom"
and "anonymity". These are two different and unrelated concepts. For
instance, if there was a law against writing under a pseudonym, it wouldn't
mean you have no freedom of speech. Just that you need to speak under your real
name. Of course, it's better when you can do it anonymously, but it's not necessarily
related.
Not necessarily related implies that they are related in some situations.
obviously, such measures will have to be accompanied by better protection of citizens against things going wrong at courts.
We have no such protection. Blunkett's 2001 Terrorist Act allowed Neo Labour to lock up 17+ immigrants without trial in Belmarsh. The 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act allows them to lock up me and you too. Were the Belmarsh detainees dangerous? No, they have not even been subject to House Arrest upon their release.
Secondly, we do not have enough police to chase up every stolen bicycle. Or even every stolen car.
Thirdly, the false positive rate of even a decent set of fingerprints is something like 1 in 10. So that means there'd still be 6 million suspects for nicking your bike.
Next time the governments gives you a vague justification for a draconian reduction in your freedom, check it out.
Did this ever get voted on in the European Parliament? AFAIK, it was forced through by the unelected Commissioners.
Secondly, the EU standard (ICAO) is only talking about a digitised photograph, whereas Neo Labour wants our fingerprints, irises and probably our DNA at some point.
You don't need studies to realise that a couple of warped kids could get together and form their own reality around "if those kids push us around any more, we'll show them". GTA, Gangsta Rap etc could well have a significant influence on that reality.
Does that mean they should be banned? Smoking and drinking kill far more people yet are still legal.
Actually, that's precisely why I don't use Opera. When I find a webpage
hard to read, it's either because of the color scheme or the text size.
Hate to say it but Opera fixes that too. Not sure about text size, you'd
have to give me an example page, but Opera has a drop down menu for each page/tab
that allows you to change the colour scheme, remove weird formatting etc.
Zoomed images are pixelated and look bad. Mozilla's Ctrl++, Ctrl+-
to change font size is the best thing I know of for making things easier to
read.
Last time I tried Firefox I wasn't impressed. Zoomed JPEGs occasionally
look pixelated above 200% zoom but that depends on how compressed they are.
Frankly, I'd much rather have it that way since 90% of websites are designed
for 1 text size and start becoming illegible if you change it.
Of course, using Moz/FF is like belonging to a frat house. Unfortunately, we don't really have that with Opera...
New Zealand is top of my list. I know they have an overzealous anti-terrorism
law but there are moves to correct it. They and you Aussies have already rejected
ID Cards.
But I am also working with No2ID in a desperate
fight to avoid losing my country to some autocrats. It's hard to research
which countries still have functioning democracies so thanks for the NH lead.
BTW, the UK government also passed a law
which grants unlimited powers for any minister (including Whips!) who verbally
declares a state of emergency/tyranny.
Opera scales both text & images (even Flash) through its unique Zoom function.
It's also the best browser out there anyway. And if you're too cheap to pay a few $$ to use the web the way you want when you've coughed up $hundreds on a monitor, quit complaining.;)
The system could work under likelihood of suspicion. You won't need to be definitively recognised, just a 10% chance of it being you could count against you for the rest of your life.
None of which would be a problem if we could trust every future government, police, Inland Revenue, MI5, foreign secret service and army of civil servants needed to maintain the Database.
Blair thinks this is necessary to prevent his mistaken invasion of Iraq causing an attack by Al Qaeda. Find out more at http://www.no2id.com/.
Blair is also trying to compulsorily fingerprint everyone and tie together ALL the computerised data held on people through a unique National Identity Number.
Oh, he's also going to track our daily movements through automatic CCTV facial recognition & the ID Card audit trail.
This law has been passed by House of Commons and is currently being debated in the House of Lords. Unless the Lords block it, I'm emigrating somewhere less Orwellian. Anyone want to swap citizenship? I'm serious...
One potential problem I think we face is that the potential aliens that
we could talk to will have a wide timeframe of technological development. Some
of them may be incredibly advanced and maybe already communicating with many
other civilizations themselves (call this time C). So the question then becomes,
why would they bother listening to us or would they even care what we are saying?
Aliens may be so advanced that they already know what we're saying. Maybe
they have a computer somewhere that sends them a report any time one of us says
something of interest to them.
The interesting thing is that either repeatedly giving someone morphine conditions the body's own endomorphine response or it conditioned an 'expectation' of pain relief, which - in itself was able to independently trigger an endomorphine release.
Either that, or it was a single blind experiment and the doctor/nurse gave it away.;)
Here in the UK, the Police are not allowed to enter your property with out your permission or a warrant.
Might be worth pointing out that the House of Commons has already voted to reverse this in the Prevention of Terrorism Bill and the House of Lords will probably allow it.
Indeed, Blair himself admitted to being a technophobe.
Did you know that the new legislation also allows police to scan the database containing all our facial recognition biometrics to correlate CCTV images?
Is Blair aware of the frightening prospect of collating ALL computerised data held on us through our Unique Identity Numbers?
Agree, you need a HUGE amount of respect for cars. Drivers often won't see you if you're tight against the kerb as they'll be looking for 1 ton cars nearer the centre of the road.
...you don't live in the UK, where we will soon have one nationwide database storing compulsory information (including a variety of biometrics) on everyone in the country.
You didn't mention the National Identity Number which can be used to index all information held about you on every database.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with all this however it doesn't answer my question.
How do you know those are the only mechanisms involved?
Our emotions, limbic system, and nervous system are nothing more than very low-level instruction sets to force us to behave in a certain manner in response to certain stimuli.
Out of interest, how do you know that for sure?
Just because you imagine X explains Y, doesn't mean that X is the only thing going on.
Dave.
Cheesy as hell, but I think Verhoeven does it deliberately, commenting on both the movie industry and people in general taking themselves too seriously.
Likewise, there are always odd sexual references, like the Bugs who fire giant flourescent streams of jism into space.
The shower scene is an extraordinarily provocative mix of military politics, fear of intimacy, and that excruciating "take turns to introduce yourself" thing that people are forced to do by well-meaning trainers.
Verhoeven doesn't cleanly delineate his commentary like some producers but that's all part of the fun & craziness of it all.
Hillary IS going to win, purely on the basis that people will be desperate for a change. Unless Arnie is running against her. Maybe rather than excluding supporters of the opposition, he'll terminate them.
BWA HA HA HA HA. Sorry, I live in the Banana Republic of Britain and it's a relief to see we're not as badly off as you guys.
Intelligence has no specific definition. Some people might say that being able to make people laugh is a form of intelligence, for example.
IQ measures a very narrow set of skills which aren't massively useful in real life. You'll get much further in life by being influential in social situations, or by being able to make good decisions for example.
It seems that the temporary loss of IQ test skill was purely due to the questions being popped up at random intervals.
> May I suggest that anyone in the UK who finds these plans... disturbing... lets someone know about it.
Additionally, sign up for No2ID's newsletter. I also suggest we vote tactically.
>Can somebody explain to me:
>Why extra biometric data is necessary, and
Sure. For something to be necessary, it means that life would be untenable without it. Obviously then, such data is unnecessary.
So the question is: "Is it worth the consequences?"
It's interesting to note that only governments have tried to do this. Banks, for example, have a huge profit motive for ensuring you own the money you're withdrawing yet not one has ever imposed an iris or fingerprint scan on its customers.
The police may have a need to know who I am if I'm breaking the law. The government by comparison has no need to know who I am. Until recently, most people would have argued that they have no business knowing who we are - that their job is merely to serve us and do as they're told. I'm not entirely sure how this position has reversed.
>Why so many people think extra biometric data is more abusive than the current biometric data stored on passports?
>
>A lot of the identity card/biometrics scare I hear seems nothing more than fear of the unfamiliar versus technology for technology's sake. This just seems like more of the same.
I'm thankful that you're open-minded and curious enough to ask. Most people are not.
The British scheme will also assign a public Identity number to every person, an action which is explicitly outlawed by the German constitution. If ID cards are to become the defacto form of identification, it won't take long for most companies to index your information through this number. Inevitably, the mass of data collected on us becomes linked (telephone, internet, shopping, medical) and can be used to directly or indirectly blackmail people.
All government schemes are eventually abused. How do tyrannical dictators gain power? Through propaganda and silencing opposition.
There is plenty more if you're interested. For example, the British scheme is expected to cost £10+ billion over 10 years. I hope you can think of more worthy causes for £10+ billion...
> remember the Madrid bombings
... weren't stopped by Spain's ID Card system.
> But the reality, which I've experienced numerous times, is that you can enter your bank's local branch, and withdraw money just by telling them your account number (which is known and stored in probably insecure databases by lots of organizations. LexisNexis, here we come !). This gives me the creeps.
Really? Mine needs a card, signature or other form of proof.
> For *prescription-only* drugs, which of course the pharmacist shouldn't hand to whoever comes in. Sure, told this way, it sounds less orwellian. D'oh !
"Sorry Mr Steinberg, you can't have your insulin because your ID check isn't working for some reason."
> how do you check the identity of who has done what if you've no records ?
OK, give us a list now of your real name, your phone number, any file sharing you've done, any porn sites you've accidentally visited...
Or perhaps you'd rather some people DIDN'T know what you've done.
> I've got the strange feeling you're confusing "freedom" and "anonymity". These are two different and unrelated concepts. For instance, if there was a law against writing under a pseudonym, it wouldn't mean you have no freedom of speech. Just that you need to speak under your real name. Of course, it's better when you can do it anonymously, but it's not necessarily related.
Not necessarily related implies that they are related in some situations.
If you have an open mind, please keep reading:
No2ID
obviously, such measures will have to be accompanied by better protection of citizens against things going wrong at courts.
We have no such protection. Blunkett's 2001 Terrorist Act allowed Neo Labour to lock up 17+ immigrants without trial in Belmarsh.
The 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act allows them to lock up me and you too.
Were the Belmarsh detainees dangerous? No, they have not even been subject to House Arrest upon their release.
Secondly, we do not have enough police to chase up every stolen bicycle. Or even every stolen car.
Thirdly, the false positive rate of even a decent set of fingerprints is something like 1 in 10. So that means there'd still be 6 million suspects for nicking your bike.
Next time the governments gives you a vague justification for a draconian reduction in your freedom, check it out.
Did this ever get voted on in the European Parliament? AFAIK, it was forced through by the unelected Commissioners.
Secondly, the EU standard (ICAO) is only talking about a digitised photograph, whereas Neo Labour wants our fingerprints, irises and probably our DNA at some point.
One has to wonder what would have happened if the British had such draconian measures in place say around the 1770s.
Don't worry. We've finally learnt from the colonies and put the first draconian law in place a few weeks ago:
Control Orders: Just exactly what can they impose?
You don't need studies to realise that a couple of warped kids could get together and form their own reality around "if those kids push us around any more, we'll show them". GTA, Gangsta Rap etc could well have a significant influence on that reality.
Does that mean they should be banned? Smoking and drinking kill far more people yet are still legal.
Actually, that's precisely why I don't use Opera. When I find a webpage hard to read, it's either because of the color scheme or the text size.
Hate to say it but Opera fixes that too. Not sure about text size, you'd have to give me an example page, but Opera has a drop down menu for each page/tab that allows you to change the colour scheme, remove weird formatting etc.
Zoomed images are pixelated and look bad. Mozilla's Ctrl++, Ctrl+- to change font size is the best thing I know of for making things easier to read.
Last time I tried Firefox I wasn't impressed. Zoomed JPEGs occasionally look pixelated above 200% zoom but that depends on how compressed they are. Frankly, I'd much rather have it that way since 90% of websites are designed for 1 text size and start becoming illegible if you change it.
Of course, using Moz/FF is like belonging to a frat house. Unfortunately, we don't really have that with Opera...
But I am also working with No2ID in a desperate fight to avoid losing my country to some autocrats. It's hard to research which countries still have functioning democracies so thanks for the NH lead.
BTW, the UK government also passed a law which grants unlimited powers for any minister (including Whips!) who verbally declares a state of emergency/tyranny.
Opera scales both text & images (even Flash) through its unique Zoom function.
;)
It's also the best browser out there anyway. And if you're too cheap to pay a few $$ to use the web the way you want when you've coughed up $hundreds on a monitor, quit complaining.
The system could work under likelihood of suspicion. You won't need to be definitively recognised, just a 10% chance of it being you could count against you for the rest of your life.
None of which would be a problem if we could trust every future government, police, Inland Revenue, MI5, foreign secret service and army of civil servants needed to maintain the Database.
Blair thinks this is necessary to prevent his mistaken invasion of Iraq causing an attack by Al Qaeda. Find out more at http://www.no2id.com/.
Blair is also trying to compulsorily fingerprint everyone and tie together ALL the computerised data held on people through a unique National Identity Number.
Oh, he's also going to track our daily movements through automatic CCTV facial recognition & the ID Card audit trail.
This law has been passed by House of Commons and is currently being debated in the House of Lords. Unless the Lords block it, I'm emigrating somewhere less Orwellian. Anyone want to swap citizenship? I'm serious...
One potential problem I think we face is that the potential aliens that we could talk to will have a wide timeframe of technological development. Some of them may be incredibly advanced and maybe already communicating with many other civilizations themselves (call this time C). So the question then becomes, why would they bother listening to us or would they even care what we are saying?
I am reminded of the Dungcam.
Aliens may be so advanced that they already know what we're saying. Maybe they have a computer somewhere that sends them a report any time one of us says something of interest to them.
Indeed.
;)
The interesting thing is that either repeatedly giving someone morphine conditions the body's own endomorphine response or it conditioned an 'expectation' of pain relief, which - in itself was able to independently trigger an endomorphine release.
Either that, or it was a single blind experiment and the doctor/nurse gave it away.
Give drug, pain fades. Give drug, pain fades. Give drug, pain fades.
By this point, the mind/body is conditioned to respond to the ritual.
In this case, an opiate-like response had been conditioned. As such, when naloxone blocked the body's natural opiates, the pain response came back.
Sure, the acting isn't awesome
Of course, that would be a break away from tradition...
Here in the UK, the Police are not allowed to enter your property with out your permission or a warrant.
r e_evil_impli.html
Might be worth pointing out that the House of Commons has already voted to reverse this in the Prevention of Terrorism Bill and the House of Lords will probably allow it.
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/2005/02/mo
Indeed, Blair himself admitted to being a technophobe.
Did you know that the new legislation also allows police to scan the database containing all our facial recognition biometrics to correlate CCTV images?
Is Blair aware of the frightening prospect of collating ALL computerised data held on us through our Unique Identity Numbers?
Find out how you can help the No2ID cause.
Agree, you need a HUGE amount of respect for cars. Drivers often won't see you if you're tight against the kerb as they'll be looking for 1 ton cars nearer the centre of the road.
...you don't live in the UK, where we will soon have one nationwide database storing compulsory information (including a variety of biometrics) on everyone in the country.
You didn't mention the National Identity Number which can be used to index all information held about you on every database.
Support No2ID. They are a great bunch.