You say that "evolution, and the universe in general, does not need morality to function," but I think this is a fundamental misinterpretation of morality. Morality is a layer that we add to our interactions to help us understand and interpret them, just like any other mental construction. If I say, "the universe doesn't need maths to function," I am saying essentially the same thing, but the stars will keep interacting with each other in ways that we describe with maths.
Just because there is no god-ordained moral order (and I personally feel that there is not), it is not an inevitable conclusion that there is no meaning to morality and ethics. However I agree that it may be an end point of moral evolution to conclude that there is nothing but insignificance and chaotic ambiguity. The problem is that we have a choice as to how we respond. Many people might respond to this scenario by saying 'well there's no point then' (hence the enduring popularity of monotheism). Others might see it as an imperative to seize the moment, to craft something worthwhile for ourselves instead of being subjected to a superior moral order not of our own making.
However, I wouldn't be surprised at all if ETs were looking at us and waiting to see if we can take the next step, or if we will tear ourselves to pieces. To continue the 'primitive civilisation' analogy, we might be no more aware of them than the inhabitants of a backward Pacific Island would be of a U2 spy plane taking pictures of them.
War has been the downfall of some of the most powerful nations on earth.
If Rome had not over reached, it might not have fallen.
If Hitler had just left Poland alone, the Third Reich might have stayed in power.
If Russia had just ignored the USA and focused on its own internal problems the soviets might have survived.
If the US had just left Iraq alone...
I must also disagree with your point about 'the most efficient killers' - in many ways we are only successful because we are smart enough morally to not kill, and indeed to stave of death at every turn because we realise the value of life.
"Morality is just something we talk about when we're not waging war" could be the most cynical thing I've ever heard. I'm betting you'll be voting for George W because he's a strong leader, then?
The arrogance of these statements is quite startling, and reflects the typically dogmatic view of the Vatican (although I guess being dogmatic is basically what they're supposed to do - Jesus says 'don't use condoms'!).
For one thing, suggesting that we might convert aliens to Christianity is pretty much akin to suggesting that less well developed parts of the world might have had a chance to convert western explorers to their local animalist or totemist belief system. To take it even further, it might be like suggesting that an advanced primate like a Gorilla would have a chance of converting a human to its belief system (presumably based around sitting in a jungle doing nothing). Any race able to contact us or travel to get here is likely to be far more ethically and morally advanced that we are - it will, after all, have survived the equivalent of a nuclear age of technology without annihilating itself, and must therefore have a high degree of moral thinking.
Well, I didn't say that if you disassembled it and broke it while you were doing so that that would be covered, only that hardware faults are still covered by the warranty if they occur independently from any disassembly. Obviously if you crack it open with a hammer Apple is not legally bound to replace the shattered case; on the other hand if there is a faulty memory module in there and you open it up, have a look, seal it again and send it to Apple, they are likely still bound to replace it if it's within the contractual or statutory warranty period.
I'm not advocating people opening up sensitive devices and tinkering around when they don't know what they're doing, I'm just pointing out that many of these 'don't touch it or your warranty's void' type provisions are actually invalid.
Ah, slashdot, where people will trade a potential lifetime of sex and companionship for a new keyboard...;)
I'm not so touchy as to break up with someone over such a trivial thing. I just used the broken keyboard to beat her for a while, then drank myself to sleep.
Is anyone aware of a repository of similar information for other (non-Apple) products? This kind of stuff is always so hard to find on the net - and not just computers, it seems to be pretty hard to find info about all kinds of electronic devices that should be reasonably easy to fix with the appropriate guidance.
Two recent examples I have had: a Panasonic VCR, for which I could not find anything at all, and the wiring in a 1990 Mitsubishi, which I did eventually locate on some acid-induced Japanese website.
My girlfriend once used my computer for an evening. The next day, when I tried to type, pressing a key would produce something like:
#$F|||||||||||#@#$SSSDGF
instead of, say 'a'. So I find my girlfriend, who has an innocent look of concern on her face, and I ask her: did you download any strange software yesterday? No. Did you scan your floppy disk? Yes, no viruses. Did anything else weird happen while you were using my computer? No, nothing weird.
Hmmm... so after tapping away in frustration and checking the cables I decide there must be something loose inside the keyboard that is producing crazy input signals every time I press a key. I decide to check it out, so I go and get the trusty phillips head and go over to my computer. I pick up the keyboard, and as I turn it on its side, liquid starts pouring out. Lots of liquid... lots and lots of liquid... in fact, an entire cup of tea pours out all over the desk.
Using my Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction, followed by an appropriately Holmesian denoument in which I made my accusations, I discovered the following. She'd knocked her tea over with her hand, and it had fallen neatly and poured directly into the keyboard body. Then, realising how terrible her crime was (it was a nice keyboard), she quietly logged off using the mouse to select Start->Shut Down->Yes, quickly packed up her stuff, and weaseled away into the night without saying a word.
Things I discovered from this incident: - keyboards are remarkably water-tight - darjeeling tea with one sugar is very bad for circuit boards and contact-based switches like the ones inside a keyboard - there is no limit to the optimism and weaseliness of people when they want to get out of trouble - it will cost you more than the price of a new Logitech keyboard if you call your partner an evil keyboard murdering wench to her face
Good old Apple... 'yes you bought it, no you can't touch/open/look at it'.
Actually, in many countries/states, you *are* allowed to open/touch your own computer. It won't necessarily void your hardware warranty - you should check up on local laws, which will most likely override any bullshit Apple feed you in their warranty 'agreement'.
For example, I know that in Australia you have a statutory warranty that will NOT be voided by opening up your computer or laptop or indeed installing new parts or removing old ones. After all, if something is kaput it is kaput whether you open your computer after it breaks or not. In fact, computer stores are not supposed to put those little 'warranty void if removed' stickers across the back of computer cases any more - it is an offence to try to deny that a statutory warranty exists.
Of course, nothing you add to your computer will be covered by the manufacturer's warranty.
First, let me say thanks for an interesting analysis, it's always good when people actually apply their brains to this type of debate rather than just yelling 'fascist!' or 'terrorist lover!'.
However, I'm not sure if I agree with your assessment that terrorism and a police state are at different ends of the same spectrum. My reasoning is that terror is terror whether perpetuated by the state or individuals; creating a police state to counter the threat to individuals from non-state terror is an essentially irrational response driven by the myth that the state is inherently trustworthy. A glance at the history books should convince us that this is not the case: far more people have died or spent their lives in fear of persecution due to state terror than have died or been oppressed due to a few extremist nutters fighting against the mainstream of society.
I would suggest that there it is the elements of civil society that are far more useful as a yardstick against which to judge the issue of terrorism and the state. This runs contrary to the 'too much freedom leads to terrorists running wild' theory: instead, it is more important that a society have extremely strong and well defined laws to control the interaction between the state and the individual, and the way the fight against terrorism occurs plays out against this backdrop.
So, for example, Russia has virtually no civil institutions or rule of law, placing it far from the centre of my ideal state. It citizens are threatened by both terrorism and the government's jackbooted (and increasingly uncontrolled) response to terror. See for example, Chechnya, the theatre siege last year, the shutdown of non-state media, and the general consensus that the KGB is basically still operating in new forms in the Kremlin.
By contrast, many European nations such as Germany, Britain and Spain have very strong rule of law and civil legal institutions. Britain has lived with the problem of terrorism for many years thanks to the northern ireland situation, likewise Spain thanks to Eta. Nonetheless, these countries retain a high level of civil liberties (although Britain is certainly wavering in this regard) whilst still having a strong domestic response to terror. Based on my watching of world news I would say there have been more successful terror investigations in the UK and Germany since September 11 than there have been in the USA.
At the moment I place the US somewhere in the middle, not as strong institutionally as Europe (especially because of the lack of true seperation of powers through the judicial appointment process and the strong ties between congress and the president, the president and the military, and the military and the military justice system), but not yet in the zone of corruption occupied by Russia and many South-East Asian nations.
So... in the context of this story, I guess I would ask the following questions: - was the investigation started through a clearly defined process? - were records made of the investigation, the reasons for the investigation, and the steps taken, and are those records public (or will they become public at some stage in the reasonably near future)? - was the kid in question informed of his rights, for example the right to not speak to the investigators if he didn't want to? - was the interview taped, videod or otherwise recorded and available to him on request? - is he able to know where and how the information relating to his request was used, stored, or communicated to other agencies? - was the process free from any element of threat or coercion (e.g. did the FBI rock up wearing dark suits, trenchcoats and overcoats and carrying weapons, or did they come dressed like normal humans and approach him in a friendly manner)?
If the answer to all of these is yes, then things are fine according to my theory. If the answer to any of them is no, there is cause for concern. I would be interested to hear any reasons why there would be any benefit in not doing any of these things in the context of terrorism.
"If you want information that could be used in an extremely bad way, be prepared to be harrassed about getting that information."
Bullshit. If information is so bad that it is likely to be used only by a terrorist, then it should (and is) subject to various secrecy provisions. At some point, however, information is just information and without any surrounding circumstances or evidence to make a request suspicious, there is no reason to investigate it.
Furthermore, as a number of people have pointed out already, it has a chilling effect on the use of Freedom of Information laws if you have the G-men knocking on your door every time you make a request. I would have thought that the recent photos coming out of Iraq would give you some idea of why the intelligence/federal law enforcement-type agencies aren't exactly trustworthy.
Also, I feel some people aroud here would do well to read up a little about Senator McCarthy and his un-American Activities hearings. You don't have to actually *do* anything to have your life ruined in the land of opportunity...
September 11 could have been prevented with the information that was available at the time, before the patriot act or any other recent erosions of civil liberties had taken place. The problem, according to most of the evidence at the inquiry and a lot of analysis and commentary, both official and unofficial, was not that the police/FBI/CIA didn't have the information, but that they were unable to put it together due to cross-institutional barriers and a general lack of cooperation and coordination.
This area really interests me, because it seems to fundamentally change the playing field regarding the use of encryption for simple privacy. Up until now, it has been a pretty safe bet that anything the Government (or Governments) wants to read, it can. Eventually most (all?) standard encryption can be broken with brute force,* and if there's one thing that governments have and like to use it's brute force.
*(yeah, yeah, your favourite open source encryption is unbreakable, I know, but come on, the government isn't going to enter any 'break this encryption' contests to show what a kewl ha>or it is and thereby advertise the fact that communications using said encryption are not actually secure, is it?)
However, with unbreakable encryption they can no longer just spend money until they are able to break it - it's actually impossible, they can't even intercept it. So it changes the situation in a quite fundamental way. Whether it's someone violating copyright between quantum encrypted locations, just talking without being eavesdropped on (you know, exercising their rights), or Osama and his friends planning the next September 11, it will be impossible to work out the contents of a communication.
I feel that over the middle-term this will lead to some or all of the following government responses: - stronger laws allowing seizure of computers (i.e. the start and end points of an encrypted communication) - even stronger laws about exporting or possibly even publishing information about this type of encryption 'in the national interest' - laws requiring the divulging of passwords to law enforcement/intelligence officers with harsh penalties for a refusal to cooperate (this is already the case in some places I believe) - possibly a lower standard of proof required before police/spies can act to exercise the above powers, in light of the difficulties they will have getting any evidence at all about encrypted communications - an increase in 'why are you using encryption, are you a terrorist/communist/thought criminal or something' type rhetoric
What do others think? Does this really change the privacy landscape over the next 10-20 years? Will governments react regressively in the ways I suggest? How should pro-privacy people respond and fight such changes?
I guess the old skim reading got a little out of hand. I saw "about 2 a.m. and daybreak local time, regardless of where you live" and assumed this referred to the US, as I was unaware that meteors are visible from all around the world at different times (see below).
Being a non-astronomer I guess I assumed that you would have to wait until the side of the earth you were on faced towards the area of space where the comet was. How does someone on the far side of the earth see the meteors? Does the fact that they are visible at or before dawn across the world imply that the comet's position is relatively static compared to the position of the sun?
This would have more validity if the people doing this wrote their own 3D engines. The current set up is more like... well, some idiots messing around in a 3D game whilst making MST3K type observations. Funny/entertaining? Possibly. Art? Unlikely.
The only act of creation involved is manipulating the art someone else has already created. If I, for example, made a glossy book full of pictures of fine paintings with witty or deep and meaningful captions, is that art? Whatever it is, that is basically all machanima is at the moment: using someone else's creation to tell a story.
Improvised theatre, incidentally, doesn't usually take the form of, for example, rearranging the lines in Hamlet and calling it your own. It doesn't rely on someone else's creation for its entire existence.
Agreed, parent of parent should be punished for calling for moderation. Moderators should mod based on content, not on instructions/requests of other posters.
This little thread seems to be an excellent example of people modding according to their likes/dislikes and not according to the quality of thought. The original post basically said 'machanima is not a genuine artform or at least has not yet produced anything significant' and for holding this view has been modded back to the stone age. The respondent, on the other hand, like machanima and as such is 'insightful.'
My 2c.
What about the 'rest of world' category?
on
The Lyrids Are Coming!
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Will these be visible from, say, Australia, where I live?
Not that I wish to invite flaming, but 'before dawn' is a highly relative concept for a site like./ which has readers all over the world. I wish posts like this would give info about other time zones/longitutes/latitudes or at least acknowledge that they are referring to US times and locations.
...but yet again, we have a./ story 'about' Macs being used for something. The story is actually about restoring old film. They are using Macs - big deal. I'm sure you could do this with Linux or even with... gasp... windows if you wanted to. Most image processing stuff is pretty low level and you can write something that rips along at a very decent pace in C/C++ on any platform.
I'm sure the pretty curves and colours and one-button mouse are really helping with the ol' digital film resolution, however.
I was wondering about the current state of emulation the other day, as I too used to download/play a lot of ROMs. I can recall using some really good emulators - Genecyst and NeoRageX spring to mind - but that was back in the days of Windows 98/ME and increased DOS compatibility.
What is the go these days? Can anyone suggest what emulators are good, stable and above all have correct timing for modern processors running under Windows XP? I tried a DOS version of MAME the other day and it seemed to be waaay to fast on an Athlon 1800+.
Ok, that's fine. But when I decide the deal is off, I want a guarantee that you will personally go through every marketing database on earth and delete my details, so I am totally free and clear.
No? Well maybe we could just REGULATE IT NOW BEFORE IT'S A FUCKING PROBLEM THEN.
Sorry, but I am sick to death of this 'well then don't use it then' argument. 'Complaining' has another name, and it's 'telling a company what the consumer wants.' In this case the geek user market wants better privacy, so why do you insist on defending Google?
This is similar in a sense to the 'if you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind having a video camera in your house/giving a DNA sample/signing this confession/having Palladium in your computer/letting the government see what you're watching on DivX' type reasoning, and with all due respect it is bunk.
The point is not that something bad is definitely going to happen as a result of Google's policy. The point is that this moves the _presumption_ from automatic assumption of privacy to an automatic assumption of non-privacy, which is a dangerous precedent, especially if this is even a small fraction as popular as the search engine itself.
This reasoning, which I have seen a number of times already in GMail discussions, also smacks of 'if you don't like it, move to Russia,' or in this case, Hotmail.
On the other hand, should the wonders of the foo sprocket and its great benefits for all mankind be kept hidden away simply because you decide not to share your invention?
On the contrary, total freedom would mean a total lack of 'safety' as I assume you mean it. Your argument is circular, anyway - I mean, you can never have 'freedom' from 'freedom', can you?
IMHO a decent bit of music has value even if a copy is given to every person on earth.
I don't understand why people are so desperate to protect the record label hegemony. People will not stop making music even if Sony-EMI-Time-Warner-Bertlemann-Whatever goes bust. Therefore, the innovation incentive for allowing copyright - an essentially man-made notion - to exist falls away and there is no reason to retain it in this particular sphere.
Nope, I'm happy that you can enjoy the design I've perfected over all these years. You're not reducing my ability to enjoy me house (unless I'm a capricious, elitist bastard who only likes things if other people don't have them), and frankly I'm flattered that you like my house so much you want to live in the exact same design.
I mean, seriously, what have I lost? Nothing.
In any case, as another poster has already pointed out, I'm basically too stunned at how cool it is that you can copy a whole house for free to care about the money.
I think you need to consider that 'scarcity' is what determines price. With instant, flawless copying, there is no scarcity. Therefore, we need to come up with a new way of distributing and, indeed, creating such things, not create silly laws to artificially recreate scarcity.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting points.
You say that "evolution, and the universe in general, does not need morality to function," but I think this is a fundamental misinterpretation of morality. Morality is a layer that we add to our interactions to help us understand and interpret them, just like any other mental construction. If I say, "the universe doesn't need maths to function," I am saying essentially the same thing, but the stars will keep interacting with each other in ways that we describe with maths.
Just because there is no god-ordained moral order (and I personally feel that there is not), it is not an inevitable conclusion that there is no meaning to morality and ethics. However I agree that it may be an end point of moral evolution to conclude that there is nothing but insignificance and chaotic ambiguity. The problem is that we have a choice as to how we respond. Many people might respond to this scenario by saying 'well there's no point then' (hence the enduring popularity of monotheism). Others might see it as an imperative to seize the moment, to craft something worthwhile for ourselves instead of being subjected to a superior moral order not of our own making.
However, I wouldn't be surprised at all if ETs were looking at us and waiting to see if we can take the next step, or if we will tear ourselves to pieces. To continue the 'primitive civilisation' analogy, we might be no more aware of them than the inhabitants of a backward Pacific Island would be of a U2 spy plane taking pictures of them.
War has been the downfall of some of the most powerful nations on earth.
If Rome had not over reached, it might not have fallen.
If Hitler had just left Poland alone, the Third Reich might have stayed in power.
If Russia had just ignored the USA and focused on its own internal problems the soviets might have survived.
If the US had just left Iraq alone...
I must also disagree with your point about 'the most efficient killers' - in many ways we are only successful because we are smart enough morally to not kill, and indeed to stave of death at every turn because we realise the value of life.
"Morality is just something we talk about when we're not waging war" could be the most cynical thing I've ever heard. I'm betting you'll be voting for George W because he's a strong leader, then?
The arrogance of these statements is quite startling, and reflects the typically dogmatic view of the Vatican (although I guess being dogmatic is basically what they're supposed to do - Jesus says 'don't use condoms'!).
For one thing, suggesting that we might convert aliens to Christianity is pretty much akin to suggesting that less well developed parts of the world might have had a chance to convert western explorers to their local animalist or totemist belief system. To take it even further, it might be like suggesting that an advanced primate like a Gorilla would have a chance of converting a human to its belief system (presumably based around sitting in a jungle doing nothing). Any race able to contact us or travel to get here is likely to be far more ethically and morally advanced that we are - it will, after all, have survived the equivalent of a nuclear age of technology without annihilating itself, and must therefore have a high degree of moral thinking.
Well, I didn't say that if you disassembled it and broke it while you were doing so that that would be covered, only that hardware faults are still covered by the warranty if they occur independently from any disassembly. Obviously if you crack it open with a hammer Apple is not legally bound to replace the shattered case; on the other hand if there is a faulty memory module in there and you open it up, have a look, seal it again and send it to Apple, they are likely still bound to replace it if it's within the contractual or statutory warranty period.
I'm not advocating people opening up sensitive devices and tinkering around when they don't know what they're doing, I'm just pointing out that many of these 'don't touch it or your warranty's void' type provisions are actually invalid.
Ah, slashdot, where people will trade a potential lifetime of sex and companionship for a new keyboard... ;)
I'm not so touchy as to break up with someone over such a trivial thing. I just used the broken keyboard to beat her for a while, then drank myself to sleep.
Is anyone aware of a repository of similar information for other (non-Apple) products? This kind of stuff is always so hard to find on the net - and not just computers, it seems to be pretty hard to find info about all kinds of electronic devices that should be reasonably easy to fix with the appropriate guidance.
Two recent examples I have had: a Panasonic VCR, for which I could not find anything at all, and the wiring in a 1990 Mitsubishi, which I did eventually locate on some acid-induced Japanese website.
My girlfriend once used my computer for an evening. The next day, when I tried to type, pressing a key would produce something like:
#$F|||||||||||#@#$SSSDGF
instead of, say 'a'. So I find my girlfriend, who has an innocent look of concern on her face, and I ask her: did you download any strange software yesterday? No. Did you scan your floppy disk? Yes, no viruses. Did anything else weird happen while you were using my computer? No, nothing weird.
Hmmm... so after tapping away in frustration and checking the cables I decide there must be something loose inside the keyboard that is producing crazy input signals every time I press a key. I decide to check it out, so I go and get the trusty phillips head and go over to my computer. I pick up the keyboard, and as I turn it on its side, liquid starts pouring out. Lots of liquid... lots and lots of liquid... in fact, an entire cup of tea pours out all over the desk.
Using my Sherlock Holmes-like powers of deduction, followed by an appropriately Holmesian denoument in which I made my accusations, I discovered the following. She'd knocked her tea over with her hand, and it had fallen neatly and poured directly into the keyboard body. Then, realising how terrible her crime was (it was a nice keyboard), she quietly logged off using the mouse to select Start->Shut Down->Yes, quickly packed up her stuff, and weaseled away into the night without saying a word.
Things I discovered from this incident:
- keyboards are remarkably water-tight
- darjeeling tea with one sugar is very bad for circuit boards and contact-based switches like the ones inside a keyboard
- there is no limit to the optimism and weaseliness of people when they want to get out of trouble
- it will cost you more than the price of a new Logitech keyboard if you call your partner an evil keyboard murdering wench to her face
Good old Apple... 'yes you bought it, no you can't touch/open/look at it'.
Actually, in many countries/states, you *are* allowed to open/touch your own computer. It won't necessarily void your hardware warranty - you should check up on local laws, which will most likely override any bullshit Apple feed you in their warranty 'agreement'.
For example, I know that in Australia you have a statutory warranty that will NOT be voided by opening up your computer or laptop or indeed installing new parts or removing old ones. After all, if something is kaput it is kaput whether you open your computer after it breaks or not. In fact, computer stores are not supposed to put those little 'warranty void if removed' stickers across the back of computer cases any more - it is an offence to try to deny that a statutory warranty exists.
Of course, nothing you add to your computer will be covered by the manufacturer's warranty.
First, let me say thanks for an interesting analysis, it's always good when people actually apply their brains to this type of debate rather than just yelling 'fascist!' or 'terrorist lover!'.
However, I'm not sure if I agree with your assessment that terrorism and a police state are at different ends of the same spectrum. My reasoning is that terror is terror whether perpetuated by the state or individuals; creating a police state to counter the threat to individuals from non-state terror is an essentially irrational response driven by the myth that the state is inherently trustworthy. A glance at the history books should convince us that this is not the case: far more people have died or spent their lives in fear of persecution due to state terror than have died or been oppressed due to a few extremist nutters fighting against the mainstream of society.
I would suggest that there it is the elements of civil society that are far more useful as a yardstick against which to judge the issue of terrorism and the state. This runs contrary to the 'too much freedom leads to terrorists running wild' theory: instead, it is more important that a society have extremely strong and well defined laws to control the interaction between the state and the individual, and the way the fight against terrorism occurs plays out against this backdrop.
So, for example, Russia has virtually no civil institutions or rule of law, placing it far from the centre of my ideal state. It citizens are threatened by both terrorism and the government's jackbooted (and increasingly uncontrolled) response to terror. See for example, Chechnya, the theatre siege last year, the shutdown of non-state media, and the general consensus that the KGB is basically still operating in new forms in the Kremlin.
By contrast, many European nations such as Germany, Britain and Spain have very strong rule of law and civil legal institutions. Britain has lived with the problem of terrorism for many years thanks to the northern ireland situation, likewise Spain thanks to Eta. Nonetheless, these countries retain a high level of civil liberties (although Britain is certainly wavering in this regard) whilst still having a strong domestic response to terror. Based on my watching of world news I would say there have been more successful terror investigations in the UK and Germany since September 11 than there have been in the USA.
At the moment I place the US somewhere in the middle, not as strong institutionally as Europe (especially because of the lack of true seperation of powers through the judicial appointment process and the strong ties between congress and the president, the president and the military, and the military and the military justice system), but not yet in the zone of corruption occupied by Russia and many South-East Asian nations.
So... in the context of this story, I guess I would ask the following questions:
- was the investigation started through a clearly defined process?
- were records made of the investigation, the reasons for the investigation, and the steps taken, and are those records public (or will they become public at some stage in the reasonably near future)?
- was the kid in question informed of his rights, for example the right to not speak to the investigators if he didn't want to?
- was the interview taped, videod or otherwise recorded and available to him on request?
- is he able to know where and how the information relating to his request was used, stored, or communicated to other agencies?
- was the process free from any element of threat or coercion (e.g. did the FBI rock up wearing dark suits, trenchcoats and overcoats and carrying weapons, or did they come dressed like normal humans and approach him in a friendly manner)?
If the answer to all of these is yes, then things are fine according to my theory. If the answer to any of them is no, there is cause for concern. I would be interested to hear any reasons why there would be any benefit in not doing any of these things in the context of terrorism.
"If you want information that could be used in an extremely bad way, be prepared to be harrassed about getting that information."
Bullshit. If information is so bad that it is likely to be used only by a terrorist, then it should (and is) subject to various secrecy provisions. At some point, however, information is just information and without any surrounding circumstances or evidence to make a request suspicious, there is no reason to investigate it.
Furthermore, as a number of people have pointed out already, it has a chilling effect on the use of Freedom of Information laws if you have the G-men knocking on your door every time you make a request. I would have thought that the recent photos coming out of Iraq would give you some idea of why the intelligence/federal law enforcement-type agencies aren't exactly trustworthy.
Also, I feel some people aroud here would do well to read up a little about Senator McCarthy and his un-American Activities hearings. You don't have to actually *do* anything to have your life ruined in the land of opportunity...
September 11 could have been prevented with the information that was available at the time, before the patriot act or any other recent erosions of civil liberties had taken place. The problem, according to most of the evidence at the inquiry and a lot of analysis and commentary, both official and unofficial, was not that the police/FBI/CIA didn't have the information, but that they were unable to put it together due to cross-institutional barriers and a general lack of cooperation and coordination.
This area really interests me, because it seems to fundamentally change the playing field regarding the use of encryption for simple privacy. Up until now, it has been a pretty safe bet that anything the Government (or Governments) wants to read, it can. Eventually most (all?) standard encryption can be broken with brute force,* and if there's one thing that governments have and like to use it's brute force.
*(yeah, yeah, your favourite open source encryption is unbreakable, I know, but come on, the government isn't going to enter any 'break this encryption' contests to show what a kewl ha>or it is and thereby advertise the fact that communications using said encryption are not actually secure, is it?)
However, with unbreakable encryption they can no longer just spend money until they are able to break it - it's actually impossible, they can't even intercept it. So it changes the situation in a quite fundamental way. Whether it's someone violating copyright between quantum encrypted locations, just talking without being eavesdropped on (you know, exercising their rights), or Osama and his friends planning the next September 11, it will be impossible to work out the contents of a communication.
I feel that over the middle-term this will lead to some or all of the following government responses:
- stronger laws allowing seizure of computers (i.e. the start and end points of an encrypted communication)
- even stronger laws about exporting or possibly even publishing information about this type of encryption 'in the national interest'
- laws requiring the divulging of passwords to law enforcement/intelligence officers with harsh penalties for a refusal to cooperate (this is already the case in some places I believe)
- possibly a lower standard of proof required before police/spies can act to exercise the above powers, in light of the difficulties they will have getting any evidence at all about encrypted communications
- an increase in 'why are you using encryption, are you a terrorist/communist/thought criminal or something' type rhetoric
What do others think? Does this really change the privacy landscape over the next 10-20 years? Will governments react regressively in the ways I suggest? How should pro-privacy people respond and fight such changes?
I guess the old skim reading got a little out of hand. I saw "about 2 a.m. and daybreak local time, regardless of where you live" and assumed this referred to the US, as I was unaware that meteors are visible from all around the world at different times (see below).
Being a non-astronomer I guess I assumed that you would have to wait until the side of the earth you were on faced towards the area of space where the comet was. How does someone on the far side of the earth see the meteors? Does the fact that they are visible at or before dawn across the world imply that the comet's position is relatively static compared to the position of the sun?
This would have more validity if the people doing this wrote their own 3D engines. The current set up is more like ... well, some idiots messing around in a 3D game whilst making MST3K type observations. Funny/entertaining? Possibly. Art? Unlikely.
The only act of creation involved is manipulating the art someone else has already created. If I, for example, made a glossy book full of pictures of fine paintings with witty or deep and meaningful captions, is that art? Whatever it is, that is basically all machanima is at the moment: using someone else's creation to tell a story.
Improvised theatre, incidentally, doesn't usually take the form of, for example, rearranging the lines in Hamlet and calling it your own. It doesn't rely on someone else's creation for its entire existence.
Agreed, parent of parent should be punished for calling for moderation. Moderators should mod based on content, not on instructions/requests of other posters.
This little thread seems to be an excellent example of people modding according to their likes/dislikes and not according to the quality of thought. The original post basically said 'machanima is not a genuine artform or at least has not yet produced anything significant' and for holding this view has been modded back to the stone age. The respondent, on the other hand, like machanima and as such is 'insightful.'
My 2c.
Will these be visible from, say, Australia, where I live?
./ which has readers all over the world. I wish posts like this would give info about other time zones/longitutes/latitudes or at least acknowledge that they are referring to US times and locations.
Not that I wish to invite flaming, but 'before dawn' is a highly relative concept for a site like
...but yet again, we have a ./ story 'about' Macs being used for something. The story is actually about restoring old film. They are using Macs - big deal. I'm sure you could do this with Linux or even with... gasp... windows if you wanted to. Most image processing stuff is pretty low level and you can write something that rips along at a very decent pace in C/C++ on any platform.
I'm sure the pretty curves and colours and one-button mouse are really helping with the ol' digital film resolution, however.
I was wondering about the current state of emulation the other day, as I too used to download/play a lot of ROMs. I can recall using some really good emulators - Genecyst and NeoRageX spring to mind - but that was back in the days of Windows 98/ME and increased DOS compatibility.
What is the go these days? Can anyone suggest what emulators are good, stable and above all have correct timing for modern processors running under Windows XP? I tried a DOS version of MAME the other day and it seemed to be waaay to fast on an Athlon 1800+.
I must play Puyo Puyo...
Ok, that's fine. But when I decide the deal is off, I want a guarantee that you will personally go through every marketing database on earth and delete my details, so I am totally free and clear.
No? Well maybe we could just REGULATE IT NOW BEFORE IT'S A FUCKING PROBLEM THEN.
Sorry, but I am sick to death of this 'well then don't use it then' argument. 'Complaining' has another name, and it's 'telling a company what the consumer wants.' In this case the geek user market wants better privacy, so why do you insist on defending Google?
This is similar in a sense to the 'if you've got nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind having a video camera in your house/giving a DNA sample/signing this confession/having Palladium in your computer/letting the government see what you're watching on DivX' type reasoning, and with all due respect it is bunk.
The point is not that something bad is definitely going to happen as a result of Google's policy. The point is that this moves the _presumption_ from automatic assumption of privacy to an automatic assumption of non-privacy, which is a dangerous precedent, especially if this is even a small fraction as popular as the search engine itself.
This reasoning, which I have seen a number of times already in GMail discussions, also smacks of 'if you don't like it, move to Russia,' or in this case, Hotmail.
On the other hand, should the wonders of the foo sprocket and its great benefits for all mankind be kept hidden away simply because you decide not to share your invention?
On the contrary, total freedom would mean a total lack of 'safety' as I assume you mean it. Your argument is circular, anyway - I mean, you can never have 'freedom' from 'freedom', can you?
Value to whom? The copyright holder?
IMHO a decent bit of music has value even if a copy is given to every person on earth.
I don't understand why people are so desperate to protect the record label hegemony. People will not stop making music even if Sony-EMI-Time-Warner-Bertlemann-Whatever goes bust. Therefore, the innovation incentive for allowing copyright - an essentially man-made notion - to exist falls away and there is no reason to retain it in this particular sphere.
Nope, I'm happy that you can enjoy the design I've perfected over all these years. You're not reducing my ability to enjoy me house (unless I'm a capricious, elitist bastard who only likes things if other people don't have them), and frankly I'm flattered that you like my house so much you want to live in the exact same design.
I mean, seriously, what have I lost? Nothing.
In any case, as another poster has already pointed out, I'm basically too stunned at how cool it is that you can copy a whole house for free to care about the money.
I think you need to consider that 'scarcity' is what determines price. With instant, flawless copying, there is no scarcity. Therefore, we need to come up with a new way of distributing and, indeed, creating such things, not create silly laws to artificially recreate scarcity.