If we are so scared of a terrorist attack that we must suspend citizen rights in order to feel safer (regardless of how much real security is actually bought at that expense) then the terrorists have ALREADY won.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." --Benjamin Franklin (disputed, possibly Richard Jackson)
I have some knowledge of quantum mechanics, and I can answer both questions with a strong "maybe".
Hold on a minute, I need to go check on my cat - its been in a box with a radioactive isotope for ages, so I need to simultaneously feed it and dig it a grave.
Well, technically my statement was correct in that the word "warrant" isn't in there... but you are right, there is a provision for oversight there. I read to about the end of page 2 and pretty much gave up, then I just ctrl-f'ed for the words I mentioned. Still, I'm not exactly thrilled at how easy this makes it seem.
I note that the description of how the system works does not have anything about "Insert Warrant Here", or "Oversight occurs here". In fact, the words "warrant" and "oversight" are conspicuous only by their absence in the article.
Hehe, true enough, I guess I should have thought of that before I posted. To be more specific, I was talking about bipedal monsters and robots. If I remember things right, the only reason dino's could be that big was due to their quadrupedal nature, and its for this same reason that there is a debate on how T-Rex's walked, and whether or not it was a scavenger because, by our understanding, it was likely too slow to catch much of anything.
I mean, who wants a slow quadrupedal robot? I want a fast humanoid one!
With normal muscle tissue, strength increases proportional to cross-sectional area, while the weight of both the muscle itself and the object being lifted increases proportional to volume * density. Thus, weight can easily outstrip the ability of a muscle to lift it. This is one of the determining factors in why we do not see giant monsters, as they would be unable to lift their own bodies.
So, were this new artificial muscle to be developed, would it be constrained by the cross-sectional area rule that normal muscles adhere to? Feasibility and practicality aside, could this be one of the major stepping stones toward having my own giant robot?
Its been said before, but I guess I'll repeat it since it hasn't yet been mentioned here: after 2 weeks of clicking "allow" for every action, its no longer a security feature for the average user.
"Ok, lets start up Excel and get to work..."
"excel.exe is trying to run, allow or deny?" "Allow"
"mssrv.exe is trying to run, allow or d..." "*heavy sigh* Allow..."
"trojan.exe is tryi..." "Allow already!"
"deleteallfiles.e...." "Dammit just let me at my spreadsheets already! ALLOW ALLOW ALLOW!"
You're forgetting that there are many means for selection within the evolutionary process. Darwin wrote an entire book on sexual selection, for example.
How many years do you think this planet has existed, by the way, and on what evidence do you base your claim that we would need many more than this number to achieve evolution on the scale we can see in the fossil record?
Symko says the devices won't create noise pollution. First, as smaller devices are developed, they will convert heat to ultrasonic frequencies people cannot hear.
So now we've turned my car into a mobile dog-whistle, causing even the well-behaved dogs to bark at me.
Ooh, on the other hand, maybe we could get the sound into the frequency range at which various crystal wine glasses shatter... I've got some asshole neighbors who could do without those particular bits of glasswear.
It's popular and trendy to hate Microsoft and Vista; heaven forbid you should think for yourselves. No, there's plenty of intelligent reasons to hate Vista too - UAC, poor security, driver incompatibilities, file-copy bullshit, file access times, and performance issues to name a few off the top of my head. If you look you're sure to find plenty more.
With new computers and top-end hardware running Vista at a crawl, I can't help but think that the 'Vista Ready!' sticker on many new machines just means it would make a really bitchin' XP box!
Bravo Dell, bravo. Now if you could make just one more leap and offer Linux, we'd be all set.
Well, I guess its a good thing that I've never paid for a MS OS, or for an MS Office product.
This post written on a PC running Windows and Office XP. How did those get there? Hold on while I go look for my, erm, install disks... and just ignore that folder named "ISO-WAREZ". *flees*
A VIP, as you put it, could probably use it to desensitize himself, but he'd have to be pretty mentally unstable to begin with to make the leap from playing a game to committing such an act in reality and not being affected by it. Most other rational people, however, never make such a jump.
Yes, all types of creatures use games to learn. However, even a wild animal knows the difference between a friendly game and an actual fight. The difference there is that their game actually practices the physical motions required in a real fight, where our games teach mouse clicks. Also, the games we play beyond our formative years quickly cease to have any educational value, and instead are just a form of entertainment. You *might* end up learning a way to respond to a violent situation from a game, but even in that possible case you won't have *actually* practiced what to do.
Maybe you're forgetting about a couple of incidents in Australia and South Korea where a lone gunman killed many, many people - in fact, the S. Korean incident had about 8 villages totally wiped out by one man. I'll leave the wiki footwork to you, but the Spree Shootings category is a good place to start.
Neither of those articles show any such link - they just show that video games improve hand-eye coordination and awareness. The hand-eye coordination helps a surgeon, but its an enhancement on the surgical skills he already possesses. Similarly, a lunatic shooter can be assisted by the side-benefits of video gaming, but he still would need to practice to become a good shot.
There is a link there due to enhanced hand-eye coordination - but surgery isn't exactly something that the untrained can do either. I'm an amateur marksman (read: I like to shoot guns at long-ranges with a scope on some weekends every couple of months). I'm also a gamer. In a game, I'm an OK sniper. In life, I'm pretty good at ranges up to 150 yards with a.22 caliber rifle. In the game, I just point, click, and score. In life, I have to lay prone, line up my cross-hairs, steady my breathing, and squeeze my trigger-hand in a practiced ritual to get anything near the target for a single shot - and that assumes that my barrel isn't too hot, that my scope doesn't need to be sighted in again, that my ammunition is consistent with my scope settings, and that there isn't too much windage to account for.
My point is, being a good shot/good surgeon requires more than just video games, it also requires a great deal of practice with your craft.
Even if we assume you are correct, correlation does not equal causation.
I don't know what crazy stuff *you* learn from CS, but the rest of us just learn how to better play the game, since we can tell games from reality. We're not learning violence, we're learning mouse clicks. We're not desensitizing ourselves, we're enjoying a rousing game and all becoming closer due to the shared collective enjoyment and camaraderie. We're killing each other's virtual avatars and forming a community at the same time.
In case anyone has missed it, Jack Thompson has already gone on the major news networks predicting that the shooter's computer will have Counterstrike installed.
How the hell does Jacko correlate the skill of properly aiming and discharging a firearm with moving a thumbstick and pressing a button on a control-pad? There is no link there!
Listen Jack, just because your addled mind cannot disassociate video games from reality doesn't mean that the rest of us can't either. For fuck sake, the bodies aren't even COLD yet, we have no idea who the shooter is, and already you're exploiting this situation to try to push your illogical and ultimatly incorrect agenda?
You are a sick, sick man Jacko. Human filth. The only person worse than you in this situation is the shooter, but at least he had the decency to get killed.
My heart goes out to the victims of this tragedy, but right now I can't help but feel only rage at the baseless lies and unabashed opportunism displayed by this man.
Slashdot Mirror
If we are so scared of a terrorist attack that we must suspend citizen rights in order to feel safer (regardless of how much real security is actually bought at that expense) then the terrorists have ALREADY won.
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." --Benjamin Franklin (disputed, possibly Richard Jackson)
I have some knowledge of quantum mechanics, and I can answer both questions with a strong "maybe".
Hold on a minute, I need to go check on my cat - its been in a box with a radioactive isotope for ages, so I need to simultaneously feed it and dig it a grave.
Well, technically my statement was correct in that the word "warrant" isn't in there... but you are right, there is a provision for oversight there. I read to about the end of page 2 and pretty much gave up, then I just ctrl-f'ed for the words I mentioned. Still, I'm not exactly thrilled at how easy this makes it seem.
I note that the description of how the system works does not have anything about "Insert Warrant Here", or "Oversight occurs here". In fact, the words "warrant" and "oversight" are conspicuous only by their absence in the article.
I have two buttons on my screen. One of these buttons will supply humorous moderations to your post. The other will release the hounds.
Plead your case.
Hehe, true enough, I guess I should have thought of that before I posted. To be more specific, I was talking about bipedal monsters and robots. If I remember things right, the only reason dino's could be that big was due to their quadrupedal nature, and its for this same reason that there is a debate on how T-Rex's walked, and whether or not it was a scavenger because, by our understanding, it was likely too slow to catch much of anything.
I mean, who wants a slow quadrupedal robot? I want a fast humanoid one!
With normal muscle tissue, strength increases proportional to cross-sectional area, while the weight of both the muscle itself and the object being lifted increases proportional to volume * density. Thus, weight can easily outstrip the ability of a muscle to lift it. This is one of the determining factors in why we do not see giant monsters, as they would be unable to lift their own bodies.
So, were this new artificial muscle to be developed, would it be constrained by the cross-sectional area rule that normal muscles adhere to? Feasibility and practicality aside, could this be one of the major stepping stones toward having my own giant robot?
You don't even need to go that far in some cases - just modify your hosts file and reroute those IP addresses to 127.0.0.1
Its been said before, but I guess I'll repeat it since it hasn't yet been mentioned here: after 2 weeks of clicking "allow" for every action, its no longer a security feature for the average user.
"Ok, lets start up Excel and get to work..."
"excel.exe is trying to run, allow or deny?" "Allow"
"mssrv.exe is trying to run, allow or d..." "*heavy sigh* Allow..."
"trojan.exe is tryi..." "Allow already!"
"deleteallfiles.e...." "Dammit just let me at my spreadsheets already! ALLOW ALLOW ALLOW!"
You're forgetting that there are many means for selection within the evolutionary process. Darwin wrote an entire book on sexual selection, for example.
How many years do you think this planet has existed, by the way, and on what evidence do you base your claim that we would need many more than this number to achieve evolution on the scale we can see in the fossil record?
I'm an identical twin, you insensitive clod!
Well, I am the older, but only by 7 minutes...
Ooh, on the other hand, maybe we could get the sound into the frequency range at which various crystal wine glasses shatter... I've got some asshole neighbors who could do without those particular bits of glasswear.
So where can I download this map? I'm certain it'll be pretty popular within the next few days, so I want my copy now...
Quick and dirty solution: Pig Latin.
It's popular and trendy to hate Microsoft and Vista; heaven forbid you should think for yourselves.
No, there's plenty of intelligent reasons to hate Vista too - UAC, poor security, driver incompatibilities, file-copy bullshit, file access times, and performance issues to name a few off the top of my head. If you look you're sure to find plenty more.
Consider the following...
Windows ME
That is all.
With new computers and top-end hardware running Vista at a crawl, I can't help but think that the 'Vista Ready!' sticker on many new machines just means it would make a really bitchin' XP box!
Bravo Dell, bravo. Now if you could make just one more leap and offer Linux, we'd be all set.
Well, I guess its a good thing that I've never paid for a MS OS, or for an MS Office product.
This post written on a PC running Windows and Office XP. How did those get there? Hold on while I go look for my, erm, install disks... and just ignore that folder named "ISO-WAREZ". *flees*
A VIP, as you put it, could probably use it to desensitize himself, but he'd have to be pretty mentally unstable to begin with to make the leap from playing a game to committing such an act in reality and not being affected by it. Most other rational people, however, never make such a jump.
Yes, all types of creatures use games to learn. However, even a wild animal knows the difference between a friendly game and an actual fight. The difference there is that their game actually practices the physical motions required in a real fight, where our games teach mouse clicks. Also, the games we play beyond our formative years quickly cease to have any educational value, and instead are just a form of entertainment. You *might* end up learning a way to respond to a violent situation from a game, but even in that possible case you won't have *actually* practiced what to do.
Maybe you're forgetting about a couple of incidents in Australia and South Korea where a lone gunman killed many, many people - in fact, the S. Korean incident had about 8 villages totally wiped out by one man. I'll leave the wiki footwork to you, but the Spree Shootings category is a good place to start.
Neither of those articles show any such link - they just show that video games improve hand-eye coordination and awareness. The hand-eye coordination helps a surgeon, but its an enhancement on the surgical skills he already possesses. Similarly, a lunatic shooter can be assisted by the side-benefits of video gaming, but he still would need to practice to become a good shot.
There is a link there due to enhanced hand-eye coordination - but surgery isn't exactly something that the untrained can do either. I'm an amateur marksman (read: I like to shoot guns at long-ranges with a scope on some weekends every couple of months). I'm also a gamer. In a game, I'm an OK sniper. In life, I'm pretty good at ranges up to 150 yards with a .22 caliber rifle. In the game, I just point, click, and score. In life, I have to lay prone, line up my cross-hairs, steady my breathing, and squeeze my trigger-hand in a practiced ritual to get anything near the target for a single shot - and that assumes that my barrel isn't too hot, that my scope doesn't need to be sighted in again, that my ammunition is consistent with my scope settings, and that there isn't too much windage to account for.
My point is, being a good shot/good surgeon requires more than just video games, it also requires a great deal of practice with your craft.
Even if we assume you are correct, correlation does not equal causation.
I don't know what crazy stuff *you* learn from CS, but the rest of us just learn how to better play the game, since we can tell games from reality. We're not learning violence, we're learning mouse clicks. We're not desensitizing ourselves, we're enjoying a rousing game and all becoming closer due to the shared collective enjoyment and camaraderie. We're killing each other's virtual avatars and forming a community at the same time.
Just saw him on CNN and Faux News doing this, the transcripts aren't out yet.
In case anyone has missed it, Jack Thompson has already gone on the major news networks predicting that the shooter's computer will have Counterstrike installed.
How the hell does Jacko correlate the skill of properly aiming and discharging a firearm with moving a thumbstick and pressing a button on a control-pad? There is no link there!
Listen Jack, just because your addled mind cannot disassociate video games from reality doesn't mean that the rest of us can't either. For fuck sake, the bodies aren't even COLD yet, we have no idea who the shooter is, and already you're exploiting this situation to try to push your illogical and ultimatly incorrect agenda?
You are a sick, sick man Jacko. Human filth. The only person worse than you in this situation is the shooter, but at least he had the decency to get killed.
My heart goes out to the victims of this tragedy, but right now I can't help but feel only rage at the baseless lies and unabashed opportunism displayed by this man.