Oh if we were all so enlightened...
on
Brain Privacy
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's a good attitude to say "Fuckoff" to all those who want to scan your brain/test your blood/test your urine/etc. In fact that's pretty much how I feel.
Unfortunately, there are more sheep than not in society and as long as the majority of people do not refuse the tests, those who do refuse will be branded dangerous and denied jobs/insurance/rights.
If everyone stood up for basic human rights and dignity, I wouldn't be so afraid of the future. Unfortunately, the trend looks to be exactly the opposite.
Why not disallow procreation for those who respond to the penis enlargement e-mail that I see advertised in my inbox every day?
No one respond to spam ->
Spammers do not profit ->
Spammers quit spamming
There has to be some oxidizer in a rocket. Otherwise it would be a jet and would not be able to leave the confines of the atmosphere.
The other option besides carrying an oxidizers such as oxygen is to carry a fuel that serves both as fuel and oxidizer such as peroxide (H2O2). I belive that this group was actually planning to use peroxide as a fuel, but couldn't find a source.
I neither write nor type that fast, and it's difficult to write, listen, and digest at once. With chat you would just read and save the thread if useful.
I've never taken a class over the internet, but it would be nice to have a record of a class and digest the information during class.
The race to the moon during the 60s was a task that one could throw money at.
Build a bigger enough rocket and sophicated enough guidance and control systems and you can do it.
Here there is a much smaller bottleneck. Carbon nano tubes have only been demonstrated to have a strength of 64.3 GPa. A strength of 130 GP is required for this project.
The ceiling for the temperature at which any material can superconduct has only been shown to be 23K. No matter how much effort has been put into this, we can't find any material which will superconduct at a higher temperature.
Suppose that the strength of buckeytubes is like that? Suppose that we can only raise it up to 80 GPa? Even a nationwide effort might not change that.
Having said that, I do agree that a space elevator would be a marvelous thing. It would very probably open up the who solar system to human exploration, and I think that much more research should be put into nanotechnology in order to make this possible.
Then when the materials scientists have gotten farther being able to both build stronger materials and produce more quantities, we can have a nationwide effort similar to the race to the moon.
In 1994 Leonard Adleman solved a seven node instance of the Hamilton Path problem with a DNA computer. As many of you know, this problem is NP complete. That means that only exponential time algorithms (for sequential computations) are known for it. Adleman's machine ran in linear time. RSA decryption is thought (although not proven) to be NP complete.
Since then, many NP complete problems have been solved in polynomial time. (I devised an algorithm for Set Cover.) The secret? Massive parrallelization requiring expontential space.
Basically, there are so many DNA molecules foating around in the tube and so many enzyme that if you combine them cleverly, you can create all possible answers to a problem. You can then cull out the right answers.
The expontential space is the drawback to DNA computing. There is a hard upper bound on the number of DNA molecules that can be used in a computation (for reasons I don't fully understand).
It looks as if the article refers to a universal turing machine of sorts implemented in DNA. This an improvement over the previous algorithms which were just hand crafted machines.
Aren't they actually trying to trap hackers? When I read the title, I naturally assumed that the post refered to an attempt to catch people who break into protected software.
Has that use of the term 'cracker' gone away? If so, what does 'hacker' mean now days?
The patent example is just another example of our legal system bleeding society dry. Frivilous personal injury lawsuits are another. There are others.
A general solution would be to enact a law making it easier for judges/juries to award damages to either the defendant/gavernment in the case that the plaintiff is particularly wrong to bring such a case.
For example, in this instance, if the patent holders sue for infringement and the patents are overturned, and it is additionally decided that the suit was malicious, the patent holders should be required to pay not only all court costs and legal fees, but an additional penalty.
BTW, IANAL.
Speech recognition is actually pretty good today. Similar words can be mixed up, but a good probabilistic language model can cull out most errors.
The really hard probel is natural language understanding and generation. Pro-nouns and tenses are particularly confusing, and subtle turns of phrase are often missed.
Right now, the best dialogue system is being developed at the University of Rochester Computer Science Department.
Currently, TRIPS works only on some toy domains, but it's being ported to real world problem, and yes, I think by 2012, there will be real spoken interaction with computers.
That's very nice to say, but technology marches on regardless of who discovers it. Therefore, because we are all good people here (or at least think we are), it is important to discover as much as possible before the bad people do.
I'm not saying that Truman was a saint, but I'm sure glad he had the bomb rather than Hitler.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a good attitude to say "Fuckoff" to all those who want to scan your brain/test your blood/test your urine/etc. In fact that's pretty much how I feel. Unfortunately, there are more sheep than not in society and as long as the majority of people do not refuse the tests, those who do refuse will be branded dangerous and denied jobs/insurance/rights. If everyone stood up for basic human rights and dignity, I wouldn't be so afraid of the future. Unfortunately, the trend looks to be exactly the opposite.
This is truly an excellent event. I log in to Slahdot every day only to see stories about my rights being eroded. Finally, there is some good news!
Why not disallow procreation for those who respond to the penis enlargement e-mail that I see advertised in my inbox every day? No one respond to spam -> Spammers do not profit -> Spammers quit spamming
Some one working at an ISP will leak the list and sooner or later you'll be able to download the list on Bearshare.
Aint that a bitch Mr. Attorney General.
There has to be some oxidizer in a rocket. Otherwise it would be a jet and would not be able to leave the confines of the atmosphere. The other option besides carrying an oxidizers such as oxygen is to carry a fuel that serves both as fuel and oxidizer such as peroxide (H2O2). I belive that this group was actually planning to use peroxide as a fuel, but couldn't find a source.
Actually, this weapon uses Polonium-210 which is a LOT more dangerous than depleted Uranium.
I neither write nor type that fast, and it's difficult to write, listen, and digest at once. With chat you would just read and save the thread if useful.
I've never taken a class over the internet, but it would be nice to have a record of a class and digest the information during class.
The race to the moon during the 60s was a task that one could throw money at. Build a bigger enough rocket and sophicated enough guidance and control systems and you can do it. Here there is a much smaller bottleneck. Carbon nano tubes have only been demonstrated to have a strength of 64.3 GPa. A strength of 130 GP is required for this project. The ceiling for the temperature at which any material can superconduct has only been shown to be 23K. No matter how much effort has been put into this, we can't find any material which will superconduct at a higher temperature. Suppose that the strength of buckeytubes is like that? Suppose that we can only raise it up to 80 GPa? Even a nationwide effort might not change that. Having said that, I do agree that a space elevator would be a marvelous thing. It would very probably open up the who solar system to human exploration, and I think that much more research should be put into nanotechnology in order to make this possible. Then when the materials scientists have gotten farther being able to both build stronger materials and produce more quantities, we can have a nationwide effort similar to the race to the moon.
That's right you ARE probably hurting an open relay
or possibly the spammer's ISP.
In later case, I'm completely unsympathetic. Kick the spammer out.
In the former, I'm don't feel so bad either. Administer your mail server!
Ditto in the case that the spammer hacked into a closed relay.
In 1994 Leonard Adleman solved a seven node instance of the Hamilton Path problem with a DNA computer. As many of you know, this problem is NP complete. That means that only exponential time algorithms (for sequential computations) are known for it. Adleman's machine ran in linear time. RSA decryption is thought (although not proven) to be NP complete. Since then, many NP complete problems have been solved in polynomial time. (I devised an algorithm for Set Cover.) The secret? Massive parrallelization requiring expontential space. Basically, there are so many DNA molecules foating around in the tube and so many enzyme that if you combine them cleverly, you can create all possible answers to a problem. You can then cull out the right answers. The expontential space is the drawback to DNA computing. There is a hard upper bound on the number of DNA molecules that can be used in a computation (for reasons I don't fully understand). It looks as if the article refers to a universal turing machine of sorts implemented in DNA. This an improvement over the previous algorithms which were just hand crafted machines.
This is great news! Microsoft's support of DRM will only piss people off. The end is nigh in Redmond.
Wow, to think Tipper Gore has something in common with most /.ers.
Aren't they actually trying to trap hackers? When I read the title, I naturally assumed that the post refered to an attempt to catch people who break into protected software. Has that use of the term 'cracker' gone away? If so, what does 'hacker' mean now days?
The patent example is just another example of our legal system bleeding society dry. Frivilous personal injury lawsuits are another. There are others. A general solution would be to enact a law making it easier for judges/juries to award damages to either the defendant/gavernment in the case that the plaintiff is particularly wrong to bring such a case. For example, in this instance, if the patent holders sue for infringement and the patents are overturned, and it is additionally decided that the suit was malicious, the patent holders should be required to pay not only all court costs and legal fees, but an additional penalty. BTW, IANAL.
Speech recognition is actually pretty good today. Similar words can be mixed up, but a good probabilistic language model can cull out most errors. The really hard probel is natural language understanding and generation. Pro-nouns and tenses are particularly confusing, and subtle turns of phrase are often missed. Right now, the best dialogue system is being developed at the University of Rochester Computer Science Department. Currently, TRIPS works only on some toy domains, but it's being ported to real world problem, and yes, I think by 2012, there will be real spoken interaction with computers.
Wasn't Napster going to do this afterthey settled with the Music Industry?
That's very nice to say, but technology marches on regardless of who discovers it. Therefore, because we are all good people here (or at least think we are), it is important to discover as much as possible before the bad people do.
I'm not saying that Truman was a saint, but I'm sure glad he had the bomb rather than Hitler.
I second that. Dark City is one of the prettiest movies I've ever seen.