So, let me get this right: The US is gonna turn down 120 Billion dollars because they don't want to show their code, to their only remaining supporter?
That's dummer than Dumbya on a bad day. Scratch that, that's the dumbest shit ever.
Strange. The standard is to be "six miles" over single mode, and "328 feet" over multimode.
I don't get it!
I mean, we KNOW all decent standards use metric measurements - and Americans are inclined to convert them to the National Stupid System, so 328 feet makes sense (100 metres) - but where does this "6 miles" business come from? It is only 9,660 metres (9.66 km).
Surely the standard will be 10,000 metres - ten kilometres, and the poster was lazy, and couldn't be bothered with the extra 0.2 of a mile?
My question is this: when the specification is clearly based on very simple numbers: 100 metres and 10,000 metres - why convert that into the Stupid System?/.ers are not so stupid as to have to be fed figures fudged for obscurity!
Surely you're not so naive as to think the USA isn't responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians (and probably millions in fact) over the last 40 years of fucked-up foreign policy while funding dictators, revolutionaries, drug lords, and private armies?
Sounds like you need a good dose of Naom Chomsky to me.
That's all wel and good - but where is my Carbon-Monofilament garotting tool?
It'll be great, I can see the adverts now:
"See! New Nanoknife will cut straight through this small meteorite, and then through this tomato! But wait, there's more! If you call in the next 15 minutes we'll also include the amazing NanoJuicer, and a second Nanoknife for free. And as a bonus for the first 100 callers today, you'll also recieve this fabulous set of nano-forks..."
I concur: I will not buy ANY mp3 player which does not have the following features:
1) Drag'n'drop mass storage, at least 50GB 2) Entirely DRM-free 3) multiple format support: mp3, divX, Xvid, MPG 4) Funky interface designed by genuine HCI-trained people. 5) replaceable battery - may be proprietary, but can be swapped by a user. 6) rechargable from any USB port without having to install anything, on any PC 7) Wifi or Bluetooth option 8) 480 x 320 display in at least 65,000 colours. 9) Additional SD Slot for up top 4GB extra memory. 10) Impact resistant metal casing, and interior components. Must survive 1.5 metre fall to concrete 11) Must survive being stood on by 100 Kilo person 12) Display must not scratch easily 13) No larger than a V3X Razr phone 14) should have FM-transmitter for use in the car.
Guess I won't be buying anything in the forseeable future then!
That's OK though, because I don't feel the need to shut the world out of my head. I don't live in a location where I feel I have to block everyone else out, and live in my own little music-filled world. I don't feel like I have to carry a little piece of my life around, and annoy others with the tinny sound from my headphones.
I actually quite like the sound of no-music sometimes. I prefer actual speakers to ear-phones or head-phones (even electrostatic "ear-speakers" - which I own, are not my preferred option). I hate the detached "I'm apart from you" look that personal stereo owners have, and I do not want to look like that.
My own personal feeling is that the proliferation of iPods et al, is symptomatic of sick cities, and a sick population, but let's not go there.
Like GINA DAMRON, the reporter who doesn't listen, and can not know the difference between a "Hyperbaric Chamber" and a [sic] Hyperbolic Chamber, which sounds oddly shaped, but unremarkable.
Good on you Gina, keep up that keen reporting.
I'm looking forward to your report on the Frictional Distillation process.
Look, ever since I began using computers, in 1979, the ability to store data has increased far faster than the data has accumulated - at least on a personal level. That trend has not stopped, and shows no sign of stopping, or even slowing down.
Ipso Facto, the solution is simply to add more storage. That way you never archive anything. True, the problem then becomes how do you keep a track of all your stored data - and this is where the technical challenge lies I believe:
"How do I find that bunch of photos I took in about 2009, in 2059?"
Even if you know on what bunch-of-disks they are stored on, you may not be able to find them without considerable effort. After all, in 2059 I may have petabytes of data stored.
I wonder if Google will be around to index it all, and keep a good track of it?
I guess half the solution would just be to have an interface in my brain to allow me to get to it faster.
The example in the post is pure "survival of the fittest" (i.e. not eaten because you can climb a tree faster.) and has nothing to do with behaviour at all.
Honestly, it's no wonder almost 40 percent of Americans do not believe in Evolution, when they are constantly presented with BAD INFORMATION.
VNRs are the very definition of "bullshit". That, and Direct-To-Consumer marketing by pharmaceutical companies ("Big Pharma") - which only the US and New Zealand allows BTW.
Please read the hilarious, fascinating and yet disturbing book "Your Call Is Important To Us: the truth about Bullshit" by Laura Penny - it is most excellent and elucidating.
And, even if you do NOT want to vote for a republicat or a democran, then for god's sake make a protest vote! Vote for the Legalise Cannabis party, or the "Compulsory serving of Aspargus at Breakfast" party, or the "I Don't Give A Flying Fuck" Party, but you must vote!
By removing your vote, you reduce the compteition for votes, and voter apathy simply encourages the fuckwads to keep on doing what they have been doing: fucking you up the ass for 6 years.
If you're too lazy to vote, and too stupid to vote AGAINST something (after all, a large percentage of votes are not votes FOR someone, but are votes for someone else to GET RID OF someone you dislike.) then you are too stupid to breathe - so stop it, right now.
I'm not positive all components are manufactured, assembled, tested or operated by the lowest bidders. Can you supply proof of your gross generalisation?
Despite the fact that I have very little faith in the electoral process in the USA, and no confidence at all in the election results - what I still retain faith in is the way that US citizens will not stand idly by, while democracy is stolen from them, whether it be by design, or by mistake (it's immaterial really, either way).
The important thing is that the US system of checks and balances permits citizens to kick up an almighty stick about the systems which count (or fail to count, or alter, even worse!) their votes.
The only question in my mind is this: can the citizens of the USA kick up a big enough stink, and fast enough, to produce a fair election in 2008. Somehow, I doubt it, sadly.
A stupid cliche is no basis for constructing machine sof any decription - let along voting maschines.
But let's understand something: the simple ideas are always the best, AND the most reliable, and the simplest, most reliable voting machine is a pen, used on a ballot paper.
Ipso Facto, a complex "voting machine" can NEVER be reliable.
I always find it strange, when people who are intimately associated with the Internet, allow the word "internet" to appear in place of "Internet".
The lowercase word is NOT "the Internet". An internet can be any two connected networks, whereas the Internet is the vast collection of networks we know and loathe.;)
This is an important distinction I believe.
Call me pedant, and mod me down if you wish - but it won't change the fact semantics matter.
I have made many many experiments with shaving over the years, and tried many many ways of removing the hair from my face. I have a very very heavy beard growth, almost up to my eye sockets, and right down into my chest hair. I had bad acne as a teenager, and adopted a foil electric shaver, a Braun thing which went fine for a few years.
It wasn't until I discovered that blade shaving was actually better for my acne than an electric shaver that I began experimenting. I will describe my shaving process, because I believe it is superior to all other methods.
Firstly, I shave in the shower, and this saves having to clean up any mess. If you have a female partner, then it;s likely she insists you spend more time cleaning up after yourself than the time you spend actually shaving.
The process is this:
1) In shower, first thing, wash face with soap and water. A face cloth helps to generate enough friction to properly clean behind ears (big place for blackheads) and alongside the nose (another blackhead area) and to ensure that eye sockets and forehead and properly cleaned.
2) Wash rest of body.
3) Wash hair.
4) Rub soap directly on face and then lather some in my hands. Rub soap into a thin lather across the face, neck and cheeks.
5) Using Gilette M3 Power, shave with AND against the grain of the hair. Clean up any remaining bristles so none can be felt with the hands against the skin. (I mean NONE!)
6) Rinse WELL. Rinse hair again.
7) Exit shower. Dry face, body and hair.
8) Dispense pure cold tap water into clean basin. Splash pure cold water on face. This closes the pores.
9) Put on Nivea face firming moisturizer, liberally, all over face, including areas not shaven.
10) Place a little aftershave in the nape of the neck - NEVER on the shaved skin.
There you go - you now have a perfect shave, and you're skin is smooth, moisturised and you feel and look great.
I have evaluated different razors very methodically, and can confidently assert the following:
Gilette M3 Power with the Green Blade is the finest razor and blade combination in the world today, bar none. However it is NOT a razor for beginners, and neither is it a razor for those with acne, or other facial blemishes, dips, or risers. The M3 Power requires quite some skill to use correctly, particularly for the first shave when the blade is brand new. (On my heavy growth, I take 10 days of shaving before I replace the blade).
For those people who are less proficient (or simply can't be bothered concentrating that hard) or those who do no thave very smooth faces, I recommend the quadruple bladed Schick Quattro, with the hair-like wires over the blade. Even when brand new, they are extremely unlikely to cut you, even with ham-fisted use on a nobbly face.
HOWEVER, the Quattro requires more strokes to remove the same amount of hair as the M3, and the cutting angles are more critical than the M3.
After 30 years of blade shaving, I can tell you that my system is perfect for ME - but it may not be perfect for YOU. What I can say is that there are several things which absolutely must be true in order to have a goo dshave, and to avoid rashes, pain, blood etc.
1) ALWAYS shave after a shower. 2) ALWAYS wash your face thoroughly BEFORE preparing to shave. 3) When the blade fills, make sure it is COMPLETELY clean and empty before starting more strokes. Wash blade in fast running water, not a basin. 4) ALWAYS rinse well after shaving. 5) ALWAYS use a moisturiser after shaving. Non fragranced is best. 6) NEVER apply aftershave or eau de toilette to shaved areas. 7) Battery operated vabrating razors are a MUST HAVE.
In summation, yep - I agree, razors are going to continue to develop, and the best razors genuinely ARE a quantuum leap ahead of el cheapo rubbish. The TCO of owning the latest and greatest razors is only marginally higher than cheap razors: you use less strokes, so the blades last longer.
Sorry, but the GUI of IE7 is like someone without any knowledge of HCI or how people use browsers or PCs in general is responsible for the disaster that is IE7.
They had a clean slate to work with, and could have produced something truly intuitive, and highly usable, but instead they produce something which is only half a step away from dogshit. Honestly, separating the functional buttons is just stupid. To me, it appears that absolutely no research was done for the GUI, and they only spent money on the back end, and the graphics.
Removing the file menu is retarded.
So, to me, it doesn't matter how good IE7 is behind the curtains, the curtains themselves suck so bad that I simply will not use it.
The sad thing is that I'm not the least surprised by this: a unique opportunity completely missed, and Internet usability has been set back by at least a couple of years.
Yes, humans may become distinct species - but I doubt very much whether it will occur as predicted. Far more likely in fact, is that at some point in the future (say 50 years) a large portion of humanity will adopt a "neo-luddite" way of life: accepting a given level of technology and staying at that level in perpetuity - while the remainder of the human race continues to adopt, use (and abuse!) technology to alter themselves and their lives as they see fit.
This will blur the line between Human and animal/machine fairly rapidly, so that what constitutes "being human" will, by necessity, become fairly ambiguous. Will humans who are 90% machine be any less human than AIs who are 10% biological? Will humans who choose to inhabit android human (or android animal) bodies be any less human for it?
The use/abuse of technology by humans will be forced upon us as the Singularity approaches, and once it arrives, it will allow humans to completely abandon biology all together. After all, biology was simply a tool of Evolution (capital "E" as opposed to human evolution - small "e") in its quest for complexity. Now that biology has produced technology, the torch of evolution will be passed to the next paradigm: technology and hardware.
This will allow the pace of evolutionary development to continue at a pace unimaginable by unenhanced human minds. I suggest that these creatures will be "human" in every sense of the word, regardless of whether they are humans moving "upwards" or AIs moving "sideways".
From that point on, it can only be a matter of centuries before technology gives way to pure energy, and godhood.
Privacy is like copyright, in that no one cares about it until they are directly affected by it.
Then (and only then) will people attempt to change the laws.
The problem with Americans today (being more concerned about the price of gas for their hummer, and who's going to win Idol on their 80" Plasma TV) is that they won't mobilise together to change the laws, because the system will be very careful not to rouse too many people into action at once. That could endanger the purposeful and planned descent into a fascist state.
So the GPS tranceivers in emergency vehicles can provide data so that alternate routes for other road users can be made to permit safer emergency travel, and less stops and inconveniences for the remainder of road users.
Eventually, when cars are automatic, such a feedback loop will be a natural part of the road navigation process. This will increase efficiency, decrease traffic congestions and decrease travel times for all concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
So, let me get this right: The US is gonna turn down 120 Billion dollars because they don't want to show their code, to their only remaining supporter?
That's dummer than Dumbya on a bad day. Scratch that, that's the dumbest shit ever.
Strange. The standard is to be "six miles" over single mode, and "328 feet" over multimode.
/.ers are not so stupid as to have to be fed figures fudged for obscurity!
I don't get it!
I mean, we KNOW all decent standards use metric measurements - and Americans are inclined to convert them to the National Stupid System, so 328 feet makes sense (100 metres) - but where does this "6 miles" business come from? It is only 9,660 metres (9.66 km).
Surely the standard will be 10,000 metres - ten kilometres, and the poster was lazy, and couldn't be bothered with the extra 0.2 of a mile?
My question is this: when the specification is clearly based on very simple numbers: 100 metres and 10,000 metres - why convert that into the Stupid System?
What do you mean "become"??? o_O
Surely you're not so naive as to think the USA isn't responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians (and probably millions in fact) over the last 40 years of fucked-up foreign policy while funding dictators, revolutionaries, drug lords, and private armies?
Sounds like you need a good dose of Naom Chomsky to me.
That's all wel and good - but where is my Carbon-Monofilament garotting tool?
It'll be great, I can see the adverts now:
"See! New Nanoknife will cut straight through this small meteorite, and then through this tomato! But wait, there's more! If you call in the next 15 minutes we'll also include the amazing NanoJuicer, and a second Nanoknife for free. And as a bonus for the first 100 callers today, you'll also recieve this fabulous set of nano-forks..."
What idiot dreamed up the name "HurriQuake"? That is amazingly poor.
How about something builders won't feel like a homosexual saying out loud? The less syllables the better.
Permafix
NailBolt
PermaNail
Relianail
SureNail
Safe-T-nail
SaferNail
SafeNails
PosiNail
FirmaNail
StrongNail
XtraNail
XtremeNails
TuffNail
OMG WTF LMAO BBQ nail
Schwarzenail
Nailinator
Securinail
SecuraNail
PermaFix
PermaHold
EQnail
S-Nails
T-Nails
There are lots more too.
I concur: I will not buy ANY mp3 player which does not have the following features:
1) Drag'n'drop mass storage, at least 50GB
2) Entirely DRM-free
3) multiple format support: mp3, divX, Xvid, MPG
4) Funky interface designed by genuine HCI-trained people.
5) replaceable battery - may be proprietary, but can be swapped by a user.
6) rechargable from any USB port without having to install anything, on any PC
7) Wifi or Bluetooth option
8) 480 x 320 display in at least 65,000 colours.
9) Additional SD Slot for up top 4GB extra memory.
10) Impact resistant metal casing, and interior components. Must survive 1.5 metre fall to concrete
11) Must survive being stood on by 100 Kilo person
12) Display must not scratch easily
13) No larger than a V3X Razr phone
14) should have FM-transmitter for use in the car.
Guess I won't be buying anything in the forseeable future then!
That's OK though, because I don't feel the need to shut the world out of my head. I don't live in a location where I feel I have to block everyone else out, and live in my own little music-filled world. I don't feel like I have to carry a little piece of my life around, and annoy others with the tinny sound from my headphones.
I actually quite like the sound of no-music sometimes. I prefer actual speakers to ear-phones or head-phones (even electrostatic "ear-speakers" - which I own, are not my preferred option). I hate the detached "I'm apart from you" look that personal stereo owners have, and I do not want to look like that.
My own personal feeling is that the proliferation of iPods et al, is symptomatic of sick cities, and a sick population, but let's not go there.
I love bylines! They're so incriminating.
Like GINA DAMRON, the reporter who doesn't listen, and can not know the difference between a "Hyperbaric Chamber" and a [sic] Hyperbolic Chamber, which sounds oddly shaped, but unremarkable.
Good on you Gina, keep up that keen reporting.
I'm looking forward to your report on the Frictional Distillation process.
This is crazy talk!
Look, ever since I began using computers, in 1979, the ability to store data has increased far faster than the data has accumulated - at least on a personal level. That trend has not stopped, and shows no sign of stopping, or even slowing down.
Ipso Facto, the solution is simply to add more storage. That way you never archive anything. True, the problem then becomes how do you keep a track of all your stored data - and this is where the technical challenge lies I believe:
"How do I find that bunch of photos I took in about 2009, in 2059?"
Even if you know on what bunch-of-disks they are stored on, you may not be able to find them without considerable effort. After all, in 2059 I may have petabytes of data stored.
I wonder if Google will be around to index it all, and keep a good track of it?
I guess half the solution would just be to have an interface in my brain to allow me to get to it faster.
The example in the post is pure "survival of the fittest" (i.e. not eaten because you can climb a tree faster.) and has nothing to do with behaviour at all.
Honestly, it's no wonder almost 40 percent of Americans do not believe in Evolution, when they are constantly presented with BAD INFORMATION.
VNRs are the very definition of "bullshit". That, and Direct-To-Consumer marketing by pharmaceutical companies ("Big Pharma") - which only the US and New Zealand allows BTW.
Please read the hilarious, fascinating and yet disturbing book "Your Call Is Important To Us: the truth about Bullshit" by Laura Penny - it is most excellent and elucidating.
I do not believe it is of sufficient size to be visible by the naked eye from low earth orbit.
Just because some fool said it is visible, doesn't make it so.
Look - it aint rocket surgery is it?
Question: will passing through van allen belts without shielding cause harm to humans?
Answer: Yes.
Next time you need a stupid answer to a stupid question, I'll provide it free!
I simply can't understand why this would be news of ANY type! I mean, come ON - if it wasn't DEAD OBVIOUS, what would be?
So, the solution is to ensure that humans travel inside a tank, which is surrounded by 50cm of water, or 30 cm of polyethylene.
BIG HAIRY DEAL!
1) Take clean water UP.
2) Bring dirty water DOWN.
3) RINSE.
4) REPEAT.
5) Profit.
If you don't vote, you're a fucking idiot.
And, even if you do NOT want to vote for a republicat or a democran, then for god's sake make a protest vote! Vote for the Legalise Cannabis party, or the "Compulsory serving of Aspargus at Breakfast" party, or the "I Don't Give A Flying Fuck" Party, but you must vote!
By removing your vote, you reduce the compteition for votes, and voter apathy simply encourages the fuckwads to keep on doing what they have been doing: fucking you up the ass for 6 years.
If you're too lazy to vote, and too stupid to vote AGAINST something (after all, a large percentage of votes are not votes FOR someone, but are votes for someone else to GET RID OF someone you dislike.) then you are too stupid to breathe - so stop it, right now.
The very player that will play the MP3 files I rip from the Zune files.
I'm not positive all components are manufactured, assembled, tested or operated by the lowest bidders. Can you supply proof of your gross generalisation?
Oh. Oops. itsajoke. Sorry.
Look. it's not rocket surgery! To suggest that we can change the climate is to say we are a Type I Civilisation - WHICH WE MOST CLEARLY ARE NOT.
Case Closed. Nothing to see here. Go back to belching out CO2 as much as you like because WE CAN'T CHANGE THE CLIMATE!
Great documentary.
Despite the fact that I have very little faith in the electoral process in the USA, and no confidence at all in the election results - what I still retain faith in is the way that US citizens will not stand idly by, while democracy is stolen from them, whether it be by design, or by mistake (it's immaterial really, either way).
The important thing is that the US system of checks and balances permits citizens to kick up an almighty stick about the systems which count (or fail to count, or alter, even worse!) their votes.
The only question in my mind is this: can the citizens of the USA kick up a big enough stink, and fast enough, to produce a fair election in 2008. Somehow, I doubt it, sadly.
NOTHING is "idiot proof".
A stupid cliche is no basis for constructing machine sof any decription - let along voting maschines.
But let's understand something: the simple ideas are always the best, AND the most reliable, and the simplest, most reliable voting machine is a pen, used on a ballot paper.
Ipso Facto, a complex "voting machine" can NEVER be reliable.
I always find it strange, when people who are intimately associated with the Internet, allow the word "internet" to appear in place of "Internet".
;)
The lowercase word is NOT "the Internet". An internet can be any two connected networks, whereas the Internet is the vast collection of networks we know and loathe.
This is an important distinction I believe.
Call me pedant, and mod me down if you wish - but it won't change the fact semantics matter.
I have made many many experiments with shaving over the years, and tried many many ways of removing the hair from my face. I have a very very heavy beard growth, almost up to my eye sockets, and right down into my chest hair. I had bad acne as a teenager, and adopted a foil electric shaver, a Braun thing which went fine for a few years.
It wasn't until I discovered that blade shaving was actually better for my acne than an electric shaver that I began experimenting. I will describe my shaving process, because I believe it is superior to all other methods.
Firstly, I shave in the shower, and this saves having to clean up any mess. If you have a female partner, then it;s likely she insists you spend more time cleaning up after yourself than the time you spend actually shaving.
The process is this:
1) In shower, first thing, wash face with soap and water. A face cloth helps to generate enough friction to properly clean behind ears (big place for blackheads) and alongside the nose (another blackhead area) and to ensure that eye sockets and forehead and properly cleaned.
2) Wash rest of body.
3) Wash hair.
4) Rub soap directly on face and then lather some in my hands. Rub soap into a thin lather across the face, neck and cheeks.
5) Using Gilette M3 Power, shave with AND against the grain of the hair. Clean up any remaining bristles so none can be felt with the hands against the skin. (I mean NONE!)
6) Rinse WELL. Rinse hair again.
7) Exit shower. Dry face, body and hair.
8) Dispense pure cold tap water into clean basin. Splash pure cold water on face. This closes the pores.
9) Put on Nivea face firming moisturizer, liberally, all over face, including areas not shaven.
10) Place a little aftershave in the nape of the neck - NEVER on the shaved skin.
There you go - you now have a perfect shave, and you're skin is smooth, moisturised and you feel and look great.
I have evaluated different razors very methodically, and can confidently assert the following:
Gilette M3 Power with the Green Blade is the finest razor and blade combination in the world today, bar none. However it is NOT a razor for beginners, and neither is it a razor for those with acne, or other facial blemishes, dips, or risers. The M3 Power requires quite some skill to use correctly, particularly for the first shave when the blade is brand new. (On my heavy growth, I take 10 days of shaving before I replace the blade).
For those people who are less proficient (or simply can't be bothered concentrating that hard) or those who do no thave very smooth faces, I recommend the quadruple bladed Schick Quattro, with the hair-like wires over the blade. Even when brand new, they are extremely unlikely to cut you, even with ham-fisted use on a nobbly face.
HOWEVER, the Quattro requires more strokes to remove the same amount of hair as the M3, and the cutting angles are more critical than the M3.
After 30 years of blade shaving, I can tell you that my system is perfect for ME - but it may not be perfect for YOU. What I can say is that there are several things which absolutely must be true in order to have a goo dshave, and to avoid rashes, pain, blood etc.
1) ALWAYS shave after a shower.
2) ALWAYS wash your face thoroughly BEFORE preparing to shave.
3) When the blade fills, make sure it is COMPLETELY clean and empty before starting more strokes. Wash blade in fast running water, not a basin.
4) ALWAYS rinse well after shaving.
5) ALWAYS use a moisturiser after shaving. Non fragranced is best.
6) NEVER apply aftershave or eau de toilette to shaved areas.
7) Battery operated vabrating razors are a MUST HAVE.
In summation, yep - I agree, razors are going to continue to develop, and the best razors genuinely ARE a quantuum leap ahead of el cheapo rubbish. The TCO of owning the latest and greatest razors is only marginally higher than cheap razors: you use less strokes, so the blades last longer.
I dispute that
Sorry, but the GUI of IE7 is like someone without any knowledge of HCI or how people use browsers or PCs in general is responsible for the disaster that is IE7.
They had a clean slate to work with, and could have produced something truly intuitive, and highly usable, but instead they produce something which is only half a step away from dogshit. Honestly, separating the functional buttons is just stupid. To me, it appears that absolutely no research was done for the GUI, and they only spent money on the back end, and the graphics.
Removing the file menu is retarded.
So, to me, it doesn't matter how good IE7 is behind the curtains, the curtains themselves suck so bad that I simply will not use it.
The sad thing is that I'm not the least surprised by this: a unique opportunity completely missed, and Internet usability has been set back by at least a couple of years.
Yes, humans may become distinct species - but I doubt very much whether it will occur as predicted. Far more likely in fact, is that at some point in the future (say 50 years) a large portion of humanity will adopt a "neo-luddite" way of life: accepting a given level of technology and staying at that level in perpetuity - while the remainder of the human race continues to adopt, use (and abuse!) technology to alter themselves and their lives as they see fit.
This will blur the line between Human and animal/machine fairly rapidly, so that what constitutes "being human" will, by necessity, become fairly ambiguous. Will humans who are 90% machine be any less human than AIs who are 10% biological? Will humans who choose to inhabit android human (or android animal) bodies be any less human for it?
The use/abuse of technology by humans will be forced upon us as the Singularity approaches, and once it arrives, it will allow humans to completely abandon biology all together. After all, biology was simply a tool of Evolution (capital "E" as opposed to human evolution - small "e") in its quest for complexity. Now that biology has produced technology, the torch of evolution will be passed to the next paradigm: technology and hardware.
This will allow the pace of evolutionary development to continue at a pace unimaginable by unenhanced human minds. I suggest that these creatures will be "human" in every sense of the word, regardless of whether they are humans moving "upwards" or AIs moving "sideways".
From that point on, it can only be a matter of centuries before technology gives way to pure energy, and godhood.
Privacy is like copyright, in that no one cares about it until they are directly affected by it.
Then (and only then) will people attempt to change the laws.
The problem with Americans today (being more concerned about the price of gas for their hummer, and who's going to win Idol on their 80" Plasma TV) is that they won't mobilise together to change the laws, because the system will be very careful not to rouse too many people into action at once. That could endanger the purposeful and planned descent into a fascist state.
See signature.
>Re:Why do we need it?
So the GPS tranceivers in emergency vehicles can provide data so that alternate routes for other road users can be made to permit safer emergency travel, and less stops and inconveniences for the remainder of road users.
Eventually, when cars are automatic, such a feedback loop will be a natural part of the road navigation process. This will increase efficiency, decrease traffic congestions and decrease travel times for all concerned.