. People will not be able or willing to afford even to buy a book online because of crippling proprietary formats and greedy prices
The horror of reading letters printed in black ink on white(ish) paper! I want freedom of choice! Red hieroglyphs on black papyrus rolls! Oh well, at least I have Project Gutenberg and other such pages providing me with good reading in the non-proprietary pure text format for free - and I can read them on my laptop in any color I like ^_^
You are partly right, though - most scientific and philosophy books are too darn expensive for me to buy.
The article says nothing about using your smartphone to move your mp3's around (CNet doesn't mention mp3's at all). It says something about letting your smartphone communicate with your computer (or DVD-player, toaster, whatever). Maybe you can record your phonecalls and easily transfer them to the computer this way?
No, I didn't forget the other half of the story, I just didn't find it necessary to include - everybody knows it anyway. I don't think I would have handled that situation any better, and neither would have you, I guess. This kind of things can happen to anyone, even to professionals.
Knowing what both you and I know about US troops and the training they go through, no intelligent person would believe they would shoot at an unarmed crowd without force being necessary.
I agree with you in principle, but in some situations, when under a lot of stress, it does happen that people misjudge the situation and use force even if it's not necessary - there was an incident where US troops killed a carful of people who they thought were suicide terrorists. But anyone can lose control in such a situation, they don't have to be American or British for this.
Uruk was the first major city in Sumer and the home of the legendary hero Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh built the city walls and the Eanna temple complex (dedicated to Ishtar, the goddess of love). There was a ziggurat in the temple complex - I wonder if the name Uruklink has anything to do with this, as the ziggurat was considered a link between Heaven and Earth.
Anyone who is running/wants to run a country is in for whatever helps them get more votes. Gerhard Schroder was completely anti-war and anti-USA until he got elected. After that, he cooled off. One of the government parties in Estonia (where I live) was popular because they were new and they promised zero-tolerance for crimes - until one the minister of justice was caught speeding. And so on. Everyone promises whatever will get them to the power, there is no such things as traditional liberals or conservatives or socialists or whatever these days.
The problem with all the "big brother watches everyone" theories is, that this kind of system isn't efficient. Even if the "sheep" themselves pay for the bricks, it would still cost a lot of money and time to gather and analyse all this information - but the US federal agencies are already having trouble with information overload. It's not as if the Al Quaeda were not monitored before 11.09.2001, but the information was overlooked. They can tap you now, too, if they need to. No reason to panic.
While you think having bricks with humidity sensors would help you find a leak in a wall, just find the first brick that reported wetness, they wouldn't work in the rain.
Have you ever seen a brick house being built? Not all bricks are on the outside, some never get wet unless there's a leak somewhere
What's a brick going to tell you during a California earthquake? "Dude... I'm feeling shaky."
I guess by knowing which bricks are under the most stress or which ones break first in case of earthquake, you can find the weak spots in buildings and build better houses in the future (they already do this in small scale, at least with scyscrapers, but a model is always a model...).
This was about the second thought that popped into my mind when reading the article. And then I laughed and cast it aside as ridiculous and pointless - there are far easier ways of monitoring someone. But some people have actually already posted such comments below. Am I a sheep now?
If they were really smart bricks, they would escape from the construction site before getting laid in the wall. But I guess you should still stop using this expression, as you're probably overusing it anyway.
Nice arguing, sir. The parent poster used the old technique of dropping unconnected facts (which, incidentally was exactly what he was fighting against - fight fire with fire!), whereas you used the (even older?) rhetoric technique of showing how stupid the other guy is - and if he's stupid, how can he be right? Aside that the parent is stupid, you say nothing. As far as I'm concerned, you both are equally wrong. Not that I am any better than you two - I say that someone's wrong, but won't bother to say anything with a positive meaning. Oh well, everyone should just figure this question out themselves anyway, not rely on what someone on/. says...
Where the hell is this technology? 56 years is a hell of a long time. We've gone from vaccuum-tube ENIAC that fills a room to a 2.6 gigahertz PC that sits in your lap.
your 2.6 GHz CPU is full of tiny transistors. There are people who say that transistors are actually alien technology...
Which of the following two would look better in a movie?
1) hero-hacker uses something elegant (but completely cryptic to an average viewer) to block off the DDoS attack on him in a few moments (and says 'phew')
2) hero-hacker disables all attackers one by one (while conveniently allowing the director to show one disappointed face after another)
I think the first one could be compared with a carpet bombing (or hunting rabbits with nukes...), the other would be the equivalent of picking off the enemies one by one (which they always do in the movies...). Which one would Hollywood choose?
I started to wonder one day, why do they only call movies with lots of violence and killing action-movies? I mean, there are many, many more activities other than killing people. Why don't they call movies about lawyers working on a difficult case or movies about philosophers trying to prove other philosophers that everyone else but the prover is wrong action movies (that'd be freaky...)? Maybe in the near future, books and movies about hacking will also be labeled 'action'.
Imagine a white-hat hacker and a 'black-hat hacker sitting at keyboards frantically typing code (and commenting it, so that normal people could understand what they're doing). When the good guy is trying hard to hack the bad guy's server (to stop the black-hat from doing whatever bad things he's planning), the bad guy commands his hordes of script kiddies to attack and DDoS the good guy - who then proceeds to wipe out these legions (variant: uses something clever to block them off - but this isn't nearly as sexy). At the most crucial moment, the good guy's computer crashes, fortunately he manages to boot the system up in time (while the bad guy is being overconfident and ROTFLMAO-s on the floor) to save the day. Hooray, everybody's happy (except the bad guy) and the good guy gets the girl.
1) Naah... the North Koreans will all have died of hunger by then. 2) Or they will have been liberated and won't complain. 3) Or they'll just use it as a cover-up for their own nuclear program. 4) Or they will just "strike back" without bothering with diplomacy. 5)...
Life on Earth has survived disasters far worse than having some nuclear waste dropped on it, why should life on Europa die because of it? Yes, there is a chance that there's so little living matter that it will all be hit and killed by the dumped waste, but that's fantasizing even compared to the possibility that there is any life at all. IF there is life on these moons, the nuclear waste will more likely just mutate it - should we worry about this instead?
Slashdot Mirror
But there is only one slashdot.org and there are many, many John Smiths in New York...
The horror of reading letters printed in black ink on white(ish) paper! I want freedom of choice! Red hieroglyphs on black papyrus rolls! Oh well, at least I have Project Gutenberg and other such pages providing me with good reading in the non-proprietary pure text format for free - and I can read them on my laptop in any color I like ^_^
You are partly right, though - most scientific and philosophy books are too darn expensive for me to buy.
The article says nothing about using your smartphone to move your mp3's around (CNet doesn't mention mp3's at all). It says something about letting your smartphone communicate with your computer (or DVD-player, toaster, whatever). Maybe you can record your phonecalls and easily transfer them to the computer this way?
If you know that something is true (let's say, "Bill Gates wants to rule the world"), then everything is a proof.
Most things I know about ancient Babylonian culture I learned from Viktor Pelevin's "Generation P", so I'm better than you =^_^=
No, I didn't forget the other half of the story, I just didn't find it necessary to include - everybody knows it anyway. I don't think I would have handled that situation any better, and neither would have you, I guess. This kind of things can happen to anyone, even to professionals.
I agree with you in principle, but in some situations, when under a lot of stress, it does happen that people misjudge the situation and use force even if it's not necessary - there was an incident where US troops killed a carful of people who they thought were suicide terrorists. But anyone can lose control in such a situation, they don't have to be American or British for this.
A better example about irony, from the present: People's Republic of China.
Well, the "free" Iraq administration can always do the same thing the Chinese did and censor the net. Allah/Google akbar...
Uruk was the first major city in Sumer and the home of the legendary hero Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh built the city walls and the Eanna temple complex (dedicated to Ishtar, the goddess of love). There was a ziggurat in the temple complex - I wonder if the name Uruklink has anything to do with this, as the ziggurat was considered a link between Heaven and Earth.
Yes, but they are MUCH easier to get rid of than moles.
It makes one wonder, what do they mistake these windmills for in this case?
Anyone who is running/wants to run a country is in for whatever helps them get more votes. Gerhard Schroder was completely anti-war and anti-USA until he got elected. After that, he cooled off. One of the government parties in Estonia (where I live) was popular because they were new and they promised zero-tolerance for crimes - until one the minister of justice was caught speeding. And so on. Everyone promises whatever will get them to the power, there is no such things as traditional liberals or conservatives or socialists or whatever these days.
I certainly could use a windmill in/near my backyard - it would drive all those bloody moles away.
The problem with all the "big brother watches everyone" theories is, that this kind of system isn't efficient. Even if the "sheep" themselves pay for the bricks, it would still cost a lot of money and time to gather and analyse all this information - but the US federal agencies are already having trouble with information overload. It's not as if the Al Quaeda were not monitored before 11.09.2001, but the information was overlooked. They can tap you now, too, if they need to. No reason to panic.
Have you ever seen a brick house being built? Not all bricks are on the outside, some never get wet unless there's a leak somewhere
What's a brick going to tell you during a California earthquake? "Dude ... I'm feeling shaky."
I guess by knowing which bricks are under the most stress or which ones break first in case of earthquake, you can find the weak spots in buildings and build better houses in the future (they already do this in small scale, at least with scyscrapers, but a model is always a model...).
This was about the second thought that popped into my mind when reading the article. And then I laughed and cast it aside as ridiculous and pointless - there are far easier ways of monitoring someone. But some people have actually already posted such comments below. Am I a sheep now?
If they were really smart bricks, they would escape from the construction site before getting laid in the wall. But I guess you should still stop using this expression, as you're probably overusing it anyway.
Nice arguing, sir. The parent poster used the old technique of dropping unconnected facts (which, incidentally was exactly what he was fighting against - fight fire with fire!), whereas you used the (even older?) rhetoric technique of showing how stupid the other guy is - and if he's stupid, how can he be right? Aside that the parent is stupid, you say nothing. As far as I'm concerned, you both are equally wrong. Not that I am any better than you two - I say that someone's wrong, but won't bother to say anything with a positive meaning. Oh well, everyone should just figure this question out themselves anyway, not rely on what someone on /. says...
your 2.6 GHz CPU is full of tiny transistors. There are people who say that transistors are actually alien technology...
Which of the following two would look better in a movie?
1) hero-hacker uses something elegant (but completely cryptic to an average viewer) to block off the DDoS attack on him in a few moments (and says 'phew')
2) hero-hacker disables all attackers one by one (while conveniently allowing the director to show one disappointed face after another)
I think the first one could be compared with a carpet bombing (or hunting rabbits with nukes...), the other would be the equivalent of picking off the enemies one by one (which they always do in the movies...). Which one would Hollywood choose?
Imagine a white-hat hacker and a 'black-hat hacker sitting at keyboards frantically typing code (and commenting it, so that normal people could understand what they're doing). When the good guy is trying hard to hack the bad guy's server (to stop the black-hat from doing whatever bad things he's planning), the bad guy commands his hordes of script kiddies to attack and DDoS the good guy - who then proceeds to wipe out these legions (variant: uses something clever to block them off - but this isn't nearly as sexy). At the most crucial moment, the good guy's computer crashes, fortunately he manages to boot the system up in time (while the bad guy is being overconfident and ROTFLMAO-s on the floor) to save the day. Hooray, everybody's happy (except the bad guy) and the good guy gets the girl.
You have three heads??? A sinking ship is the last thing you should worry about...
1) Naah... the North Koreans will all have died of hunger by then. ...
2) Or they will have been liberated and won't complain.
3) Or they'll just use it as a cover-up for their own nuclear program.
4) Or they will just "strike back" without bothering with diplomacy.
5)
Life on Earth has survived disasters far worse than having some nuclear waste dropped on it, why should life on Europa die because of it? Yes, there is a chance that there's so little living matter that it will all be hit and killed by the dumped waste, but that's fantasizing even compared to the possibility that there is any life at all. IF there is life on these moons, the nuclear waste will more likely just mutate it - should we worry about this instead?