C'mon, did you really think the evolution of A/V media and equipment had finally come to a permanent conclusion with whatever you got at BestBuy last Black Friday? If the technology is any good, cost and adoption are just matters of time; right at first it will cost a fair bit extra, eventually it will be standard on low-end hardware. Just like color, just like stereo, just like digital tuners...
Even if the Singularity did happen, who's to say a pain-free energy source actually exists? What if the new super computer brain comes back with, "nuclear fission is your best bet"? Or, "a lot of problems would be solved within 100 years if you just quit making babies"?
What happens when the system is compromised and someone else can identify as me?
Meaning, they change their face and fingerprints so they can go around committing crimes while masquerading as you? Not easy, and I don't see how this database makes it much easier; a photo and fingerprint are pretty easy to obtain if you are targeting an individual anyways.
And, by the way, the U.S. was not actively involved in the war in Europe at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, although it was supplying weapons and materials to Great Britain to help them in their fight against Germany.
As for your assessment of Japan's "strategic blunder," I am not so sure, simply because I think the US would have entered the war anyways. It would have been more sporting to at least declare war on us first, although the US doesn't do that anymore either.
OK, let's look at the recent case of Nidal Hasan: sigint detects his communications with somebody considered an extremist, law enforcement detects some troubling internet postings maybe attributable to him, other officers report him having potential problems, his case is looked into very carefully by the right people, but they decide not to act and disaster ensues. What went wrong here?
I would argue, probably nothing. In hindsight, it is always easy to second-guess why the system "didn't work," but in fact, all these same clues occur in thousands of other cases where nothing ever comes of it. So, much of this disappointment comes from people unconsciously (and always in retrospect) hold systems up to an impossible standard - not only where an infinite number of KGB agents have an infinite amount of time to track everybody, not only where a super-intelligent AI acts in the most rational possible manner, but beyond that, demanding prediction of the future given some information which is relevant, but nevertheless insufficient.
What, you thought there was some clearly delineated boundary between the public's right to know and individual privacy? Information wants to be free, even if it's about you.
Imagine if they had to argue that they should only be paying pennies per song in civil awards. When the Canadian DCMA comes along and they start pursuing file sharers, the precedent is already there that each song is only worth, say, $1 per infraction.
That's all assuming the equivalence between CRIA pirating and individuals doing it. I'm sure CRIA will argue it's not the same; they'll have some legal argument that they are "special" and simply a little slow working through their royalty backlog rather than being pirates, etc etc.
What makes it sinister isn't so much what it says, but that it's supposed to be secret in the first place, and the takedown notice now that it has been divulged. I prefer to know what my rights are in the first place, thankyouverymuch. There's this idea that we can't let people know the rules of the game, since bad guys would then exploit them. Admittedly there is some truth to this; look at how corporations freeload by playing games with the tax codes. But what is the alternative? A lawless state where everybody lives with the vague threat of "stay in line or something bad might happen."
I ranted on comp.os.linux.advocacy about all that for years, but but now I have realized that most people simply prefer the elegance and predictability of a walled garden to chaotic freedom. This explains everything from why mp3 players never became a mainstream phenomenon until the iPod came along, to why there are no direct democracies. Life is too short for individuals to make decisions on every little thing so they need integrated "solutions" that offer some level of control.
But geeks also build new cool applications never before thought possible, that become next year's must-haves.... Palm and the PC as well, if you want to go back in history.
But look at the Palm, which is dying. Look at the PC, where Linux adoption to the desktop hovers for a decade at a few percent. There is no control-freak network provider to blame there. Why doesn't open source take over then?
Translates to: Screw the authors & screw the customers.
Are you so sure? Alienating customers won't help publishers any, since they're where the money comes from. I'm sure the prevailing slashdot assumption will be that publishers somehow fail to realize this, but I doubt that. The fact is, both parties in any business transaction are participating for their own benefit; that doesn't preclude rational self interest, i.e. providing value, too.
So here is why this might work: Skiff eliminates a middleman, namely Amazon. Thus consumers could end up paying less, while publishers (and even writers) get more. You can go on all you like about how evil and stupid publishers are, but they're already part of the process; the only difference is, no Amazon. What if Skiff ends up a lot like Kindle, but with a lower price for professionally written and edited content?
if you divide the population of the planet into families of 4, and gave each family a house with a yard (suburbanite america style) that we would all fit into a city the size of Texas
That statistic is absurd. The planet will run short of food, water, and clean air - not to mention unspoiled wildlands - far before we physically run out of places to stack bodies. For every single one of us in the US there is an average of 7.5 acres of farmland somewhere. That's just farmland, not grazing land, not aquifer/reservoir, not trees to make wood and paper and oxygen, not mines for ore, not landfill for the trash. What is the big drive to pack as many apes on the planet as possible? I don't get it.
I'm saying buy a b&w laser printer and outsource your color prints to wallyworld.or snapfish
I don't print many photos anymore (they look better onscreen) but my wife printed some for the wall today and I was amazed how cheap it has become. At Costco it's only 13 cents for a 4x6 and $1.49 for an 8x12. I grieve for all the money I wasted buying photo paper and ink back when, and more than that, the hassle and waste.
The video is working just fine for me. Besides, there really isn't a "legitimate" audience for this; you can't do any brain science by watching the video, its value is purely as a curiosity whether you're a brain surgeon.
Correct, watching the slicing is not really the point of this. What they do is make a bunch of very thin slices, scan them, then make a 3d computer image which can be viewed in cross section from any angle, or you can use algorithms to isolate given structures in the brain, estimate their volume, etc etc.
"Who started it" is a nonsense question, each side will always say they're just responding to the other. Always.
Iraq: "We were just responding to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait 10 years ago."
Afghanistan: "We were just responding to their support for 9/11
9/11: "We were just responding to western imperialism and the occupation of our lands"
Pearl Harbor: "We were just responding to the US blockade of the Sea of Japan"
So the closest you can get is, who was quicker to escalate conflict by responding to an offense disproportionately. But of course, every nation on earth feels that since it is in the right, it should respond to a blow by punching back 10 times harder.
Since this is an energy-saving technology, surely it has some fatal yet under-appreciated drawback that fully justifies my foregone decision never to change my habits or lifestyle for any reason and makes fools of the "greenies" in my own mind!
You know, like how Hummers are actually more eco-friendly than the Prius, and how windmills screw with feng shui. I've always found an excuse to view all environmentalism as self-defeating before, don't let me down this time slashdot!
Each American produces over 4 times the CO2 emissions of each Chinese person. (Directly comparing Nations of vastly different populations is absurd; by that standard Jamaica could argue our total emissions should equal theirs).
Slashdot Mirror
C'mon, did you really think the evolution of A/V media and equipment had finally come to a permanent conclusion with whatever you got at BestBuy last Black Friday? If the technology is any good, cost and adoption are just matters of time; right at first it will cost a fair bit extra, eventually it will be standard on low-end hardware. Just like color, just like stereo, just like digital tuners...
How do you feel about stereo sound? Stereo vision is just the same issue, except with more to gain since eyes are much higher bandwidth than ears.
Even if the Singularity did happen, who's to say a pain-free energy source actually exists? What if the new super computer brain comes back with, "nuclear fission is your best bet"? Or, "a lot of problems would be solved within 100 years if you just quit making babies"?
I'm sure you're right, but I'll bet the main commercial application will be found in super-meaty chickens and cows.
Well, this is one of those situations where (claimed) good intentions don't count for much :)
Meaning, they change their face and fingerprints so they can go around committing crimes while masquerading as you? Not easy, and I don't see how this database makes it much easier; a photo and fingerprint are pretty easy to obtain if you are targeting an individual anyways.
Well, that's mostly true.
As for your assessment of Japan's "strategic blunder," I am not so sure, simply because I think the US would have entered the war anyways. It would have been more sporting to at least declare war on us first, although the US doesn't do that anymore either.
I would argue, probably nothing. In hindsight, it is always easy to second-guess why the system "didn't work," but in fact, all these same clues occur in thousands of other cases where nothing ever comes of it. So, much of this disappointment comes from people unconsciously (and always in retrospect) hold systems up to an impossible standard - not only where an infinite number of KGB agents have an infinite amount of time to track everybody, not only where a super-intelligent AI acts in the most rational possible manner, but beyond that, demanding prediction of the future given some information which is relevant, but nevertheless insufficient.
What, you thought there was some clearly delineated boundary between the public's right to know and individual privacy? Information wants to be free, even if it's about you.
Identification isn't the same thing as a password; not being able to make up new identities willy-nilly is the whole point.
Oh, wait, that's New Testament anyways, isn't it? Nevermind...
Netbooks are nothing but the lowest end of laptops. Feel free to disagree, but please provide a link to a high-end "netbook" with it.
That's all assuming the equivalence between CRIA pirating and individuals doing it. I'm sure CRIA will argue it's not the same; they'll have some legal argument that they are "special" and simply a little slow working through their royalty backlog rather than being pirates, etc etc.
What makes it sinister isn't so much what it says, but that it's supposed to be secret in the first place, and the takedown notice now that it has been divulged. I prefer to know what my rights are in the first place, thankyouverymuch. There's this idea that we can't let people know the rules of the game, since bad guys would then exploit them. Admittedly there is some truth to this; look at how corporations freeload by playing games with the tax codes. But what is the alternative? A lawless state where everybody lives with the vague threat of "stay in line or something bad might happen."
I ranted on comp.os.linux.advocacy about all that for years, but but now I have realized that most people simply prefer the elegance and predictability of a walled garden to chaotic freedom. This explains everything from why mp3 players never became a mainstream phenomenon until the iPod came along, to why there are no direct democracies. Life is too short for individuals to make decisions on every little thing so they need integrated "solutions" that offer some level of control.
But look at the Palm, which is dying. Look at the PC, where Linux adoption to the desktop hovers for a decade at a few percent. There is no control-freak network provider to blame there. Why doesn't open source take over then?
Are you so sure? Alienating customers won't help publishers any, since they're where the money comes from. I'm sure the prevailing slashdot assumption will be that publishers somehow fail to realize this, but I doubt that. The fact is, both parties in any business transaction are participating for their own benefit; that doesn't preclude rational self interest, i.e. providing value, too.
So here is why this might work: Skiff eliminates a middleman, namely Amazon. Thus consumers could end up paying less, while publishers (and even writers) get more. You can go on all you like about how evil and stupid publishers are, but they're already part of the process; the only difference is, no Amazon. What if Skiff ends up a lot like Kindle, but with a lower price for professionally written and edited content?
That statistic is absurd. The planet will run short of food, water, and clean air - not to mention unspoiled wildlands - far before we physically run out of places to stack bodies. For every single one of us in the US there is an average of 7.5 acres of farmland somewhere. That's just farmland, not grazing land, not aquifer/reservoir, not trees to make wood and paper and oxygen, not mines for ore, not landfill for the trash. What is the big drive to pack as many apes on the planet as possible? I don't get it.
I don't print many photos anymore (they look better onscreen) but my wife printed some for the wall today and I was amazed how cheap it has become. At Costco it's only 13 cents for a 4x6 and $1.49 for an 8x12. I grieve for all the money I wasted buying photo paper and ink back when, and more than that, the hassle and waste.
The video is working just fine for me. Besides, there really isn't a "legitimate" audience for this; you can't do any brain science by watching the video, its value is purely as a curiosity whether you're a brain surgeon.
Correct, watching the slicing is not really the point of this. What they do is make a bunch of very thin slices, scan them, then make a 3d computer image which can be viewed in cross section from any angle, or you can use algorithms to isolate given structures in the brain, estimate their volume, etc etc.
Iraq: "We were just responding to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait 10 years ago."
Afghanistan: "We were just responding to their support for 9/11
9/11: "We were just responding to western imperialism and the occupation of our lands" Pearl Harbor: "We were just responding to the US blockade of the Sea of Japan"
So the closest you can get is, who was quicker to escalate conflict by responding to an offense disproportionately. But of course, every nation on earth feels that since it is in the right, it should respond to a blow by punching back 10 times harder.
Actually brand-name CFL's delivered to your door are a little over $1 each.
Since this is an energy-saving technology, surely it has some fatal yet under-appreciated drawback that fully justifies my foregone decision never to change my habits or lifestyle for any reason and makes fools of the "greenies" in my own mind! You know, like how Hummers are actually more eco-friendly than the Prius, and how windmills screw with feng shui. I've always found an excuse to view all environmentalism as self-defeating before, don't let me down this time slashdot!
Each American produces over 4 times the CO2 emissions of each Chinese person. (Directly comparing Nations of vastly different populations is absurd; by that standard Jamaica could argue our total emissions should equal theirs).