Americans beat themselves up over what they did (and are doing) to the Indians, ex-Africans and myriad others, but really the Americans were just the apprentices... they learned from the masters of ethnic and class abuse: those Anglo-Saxon Tory wankers with their Colonial Empire.
... I want big $$$ compensation for what the Tories did to my Colonial ancestors! Cold hard cash in 100 Euro bills would be nice, but I'll settle for Paypal and lose that 2.9 percent if that's how it has to happen.
... is a complete absence of it. This is one more reason to remain a loner when it comes to gaming, and shun online multiplayer in favor of lan party or "skirmish" gaming only.
What's up with Michael Geist's site? The message in the title appears whenever I try to visit either the direct link or even his root domain. Has Geist been silenced? Is there a conspiracy afoot here? *Doffs tinfoil hat*
I don't think I was doing a very good job explaining my concern. I think a review of the moral of the story in the movie Minority Report is close to what concerns me about this trend to preemptively criminalize non-criminal behaviors. Even intoxication while driving should not, by itself, be a criminal offense, if no true criminal act has yet taken place, and yet it is. The state I call home even criminalizes bicycling without a helmet.
Whoever it was that penned Minority Report certainly saw all this coming.
If it doesn't criminalize texting, as you say, then why is texting even specifically mentioned in the legislation at all? Reckless enadangerment and manslaughter are already criminal offenses.
I should say, though, that I do like what Utah has done by clearly stating that there are other distractive driving behaviors which should be considered no less (or more) causal of recklessness than intoxication. Where I part ways with it is when they start trying to criminalize those behaviors in the same way that intoxication already is; even driving while intoxicated should not be judged criminal: it's the POSSIBLE consequence of that behavior that might be judged criminal, not the drinking itself.
I don't believe the Flynn Effect is anything to write home about; it's an observation of increases in numeric scores on so-called IQ tests, which really don't test raw reasoning ability very effectively. If the brain is visualized as a collection of muscles, IQ tests tend to exercise ALL those muscles at once, when what we really wish to do is exercise and observe just one or a few muscles. We don't yet have a "standardized" IQ test that can measure problem-solving ability alone, as one might try to isolate just one muscle group when doing weightlifting.
My empirical observations lead me to conclude that the average neurotypical human is not able - or willing - to analyze complex systems. They can only handle the most straightforward and obvious problem-solving tasks, which ongoing research is beginning to demonstrate is not so far in advance of our primate cousins as some have wanted to believe. I doubt there has been any real advancement in problem-solving ability; what the Flynn Effect describes, in my opinion, is a fleeting benefit in other brain functions provided by cultural and sociological advancements. Even that is not "genetic" and being carried forward, rather it dies with each individual. Isolating a child from that culture quickly reduces him once again to little better than his primate cousins.
It's not obvious how we can go about prescriptively improving reasoning and critical thinking through some eugenic approach. However, the persistence of groups of traits like High Functioning Autism do hint that Mother Nature doesn't completely discount the value of advanced reasoning ability. Clearly there is still a selective battle being waged, but I don't see the marked genetic progress that the Flynn Effect claims.
We need a collective repository of knowledge that is available from birth and available instantaneously and constantly. That would be the "good" part of the Borg Collective without the scary ominous mind-control loss-of-self part. While that may not improve actual reasoning ability, each person having immediate access to all human knowledge might at least give the appearance of improvement. Who knows, maybe it would have a lasting synergistic effect?
The Internet isn't Good Enough! There had certainly better be something better!
There should be nothing illegal about any form or expression of multitasking. It should only be illegal when you're BAD at it.
This progression toward presumptive justice is what the movie Minority Report was trying to advise against. For decades now we have been progressively criminalizing behaviors which are themselves not criminal, merely because they MIGHT lead to a criminal or anti-social act. We have and already had laws criminalizing the actual bad acts.
This progression needs to stop. Thomas Jefferson would be having a jurisprudential nervous breakdown if he were resurrected today.
I know overpopulation plays a small role; how to prevent that is another conversation we could have (but not now). Actually the logarithmic (geometric?) progression of human knowledge and limits of human neurology have even more to do with it, though I don't dream of an Amish or Luddite planet. Humanity needs a collective mind/memory, like - dare I suggest it? - the Borg. The need for specialization is caused by the inability of humans to retain more than a fraction of the detailed knowledge we've cumulatively learned. Having an augmented collective mind/memory of a sort could eliminate that barrier.
There is only so much effective storage space in the human mind, and choices have to be made how to utilize it. I suggest that there are two types of utilization, and we already have terms to describe them. There are two types of "experts": those who rely on detailed memory to do one thing exceptionally fast and well, and those who use their memory to store a broad overview of many things and then employ black-box analysis and reasoning to do those many things reasonably fast and well. The former is a specialist, and the latter is a jack-of-all-trades. The specialist is often useless when he's "out of his element", whereas the JOAT is effective in any situation, given a bit more time. At one time in the distant past the two types were often indistinguishable, because the sum of knowledge has not yet progressed to a point where a single human mind couldn't contain it.
What we've witnessed is a progression from a world of JOATS to a world of specialists (at least in First World nations). Artificially augmented memory might allow people to once again be both specialists and jacks-of-all-trades at the same time.
... if it's taken them THIS long to notice the inexorable descent from qualitative focus to a quantitative one. It's only been progressing for over a century, after all. That descent is one of the primary things that has made my life hell, because I will not and cannot make that descent. I'm not "wired" for it like all the neurotypical types. I'm not alone in that inability and refusal; when can we emigrate to another planet and create a culture of craftsmen? This culture of suits and middlemen is killing me!
If one doesn't need the laptop on the plane but rather only at the destination, why not remove the drive and ship it separately via a less nosy commercial service like UPS or Fedex to the destination? That way the nosy customs officials have nothing at all to look at and no reason to hold the device at all. When one arrives at the destination, simply reinstall the drive and get to work. The process can be repeated when it's time to return.
Whether actually practical or not, my suggestion points out how moronic and ill-considered are the current policies, which treat a device and information it might contain differently merely because it's in the company of a human passenger. Unless an X-ray scan reveals the laptop isn't really a laptop, leave it the fuck alone!
Unless this denial is automatic and without recourse, having no allowance for human review or appeal, then the only problem I see here is yet another Slashdot article exaggerating the facts for the sake of copy.
Let's start by creating true network neutrality: get the ownership of the wires into public hands. Buy the telcos and backboners out, paid for with tax increases if necessary. Once We The People own the wires, then we can have real conversations about fixing things.
"Mind you, this is with OpenGL composting enabled, under Kubuntu."
You mean with Linux and OpenGL my laptop can actually compost stuff? Cool! Where exactly do I shove in the scraps from my in-flight meal to get it started?
Just when I thought that perhaps this enormous rift in the fabric of space-time might actually seal itself and save us all from Darl McDoom, along comes an ambulance full of judges with jaws of life to tear the scar open again? What the hell Dark-Kirk parallel universe have I been sucked into here?
We will never have actual network neutrality so long as the physical medium - the wires - is privately owned. Is that so hard for politicians to comprehend, or do they already and are just too afraid to talk about and deal with it (or paid off to keep their mouths shut)? Certainly the CEOs of the corporations involved know this full well, and they intend to keep the control we've allowed them. That control is their money-maker.
... they are VERY smart: they eliminate the human resource - parking meter collection people - that would otherwise cut deeply into their profits. You're actually paying in aggravation and wasted time so that Morgan Stanley can achieve a better ROI.
I read about this same tactic being used in another region some years ago. IIRC it involved the efforts of a small group to publish regional transit routes online as a convenience, but the local transit authority freaked out and shut it down.
Perhaps they plan to build carriers with larger reactors that have greater output than the needs of the ship itself, so that the excess output can be used to power a small on-board jet fuel production plant? In that scenario, who cares if the energy required outweighs the work done by the resulting fuel?
Do you think people making $1000 transactions are any happier with losing $30, given how little Paypal is actually doing? I'd be royally pissed. Does Paypal process more $1000 payments than $5 ones?
Slashdot Mirror
Americans beat themselves up over what they did (and are doing) to the Indians, ex-Africans and myriad others, but really the Americans were just the apprentices... they learned from the masters of ethnic and class abuse: those Anglo-Saxon Tory wankers with their Colonial Empire.
*ducks*
Now where's my gold-bullion trainload of apology?
*runs*
... I want big $$$ compensation for what the Tories did to my Colonial ancestors! Cold hard cash in 100 Euro bills would be nice, but I'll settle for Paypal and lose that 2.9 percent if that's how it has to happen.
... is a complete absence of it. This is one more reason to remain a loner when it comes to gaming, and shun online multiplayer in favor of lan party or "skirmish" gaming only.
What's up with Michael Geist's site? The message in the title appears whenever I try to visit either the direct link or even his root domain. Has Geist been silenced? Is there a conspiracy afoot here? *Doffs tinfoil hat*
I don't think I was doing a very good job explaining my concern. I think a review of the moral of the story in the movie Minority Report is close to what concerns me about this trend to preemptively criminalize non-criminal behaviors. Even intoxication while driving should not, by itself, be a criminal offense, if no true criminal act has yet taken place, and yet it is. The state I call home even criminalizes bicycling without a helmet.
Whoever it was that penned Minority Report certainly saw all this coming.
If it doesn't criminalize texting, as you say, then why is texting even specifically mentioned in the legislation at all? Reckless enadangerment and manslaughter are already criminal offenses.
I should say, though, that I do like what Utah has done by clearly stating that there are other distractive driving behaviors which should be considered no less (or more) causal of recklessness than intoxication. Where I part ways with it is when they start trying to criminalize those behaviors in the same way that intoxication already is; even driving while intoxicated should not be judged criminal: it's the POSSIBLE consequence of that behavior that might be judged criminal, not the drinking itself.
I don't believe the Flynn Effect is anything to write home about; it's an observation of increases in numeric scores on so-called IQ tests, which really don't test raw reasoning ability very effectively. If the brain is visualized as a collection of muscles, IQ tests tend to exercise ALL those muscles at once, when what we really wish to do is exercise and observe just one or a few muscles. We don't yet have a "standardized" IQ test that can measure problem-solving ability alone, as one might try to isolate just one muscle group when doing weightlifting.
My empirical observations lead me to conclude that the average neurotypical human is not able - or willing - to analyze complex systems. They can only handle the most straightforward and obvious problem-solving tasks, which ongoing research is beginning to demonstrate is not so far in advance of our primate cousins as some have wanted to believe. I doubt there has been any real advancement in problem-solving ability; what the Flynn Effect describes, in my opinion, is a fleeting benefit in other brain functions provided by cultural and sociological advancements. Even that is not "genetic" and being carried forward, rather it dies with each individual. Isolating a child from that culture quickly reduces him once again to little better than his primate cousins.
It's not obvious how we can go about prescriptively improving reasoning and critical thinking through some eugenic approach. However, the persistence of groups of traits like High Functioning Autism do hint that Mother Nature doesn't completely discount the value of advanced reasoning ability. Clearly there is still a selective battle being waged, but I don't see the marked genetic progress that the Flynn Effect claims.
We need a collective repository of knowledge that is available from birth and available instantaneously and constantly. That would be the "good" part of the Borg Collective without the scary ominous mind-control loss-of-self part. While that may not improve actual reasoning ability, each person having immediate access to all human knowledge might at least give the appearance of improvement. Who knows, maybe it would have a lasting synergistic effect?
The Internet isn't Good Enough! There had certainly better be something better!
There should be nothing illegal about any form or expression of multitasking. It should only be illegal when you're BAD at it.
This progression toward presumptive justice is what the movie Minority Report was trying to advise against. For decades now we have been progressively criminalizing behaviors which are themselves not criminal, merely because they MIGHT lead to a criminal or anti-social act. We have and already had laws criminalizing the actual bad acts.
This progression needs to stop. Thomas Jefferson would be having a jurisprudential nervous breakdown if he were resurrected today.
I know overpopulation plays a small role; how to prevent that is another conversation we could have (but not now). Actually the logarithmic (geometric?) progression of human knowledge and limits of human neurology have even more to do with it, though I don't dream of an Amish or Luddite planet. Humanity needs a collective mind/memory, like - dare I suggest it? - the Borg. The need for specialization is caused by the inability of humans to retain more than a fraction of the detailed knowledge we've cumulatively learned. Having an augmented collective mind/memory of a sort could eliminate that barrier.
There is only so much effective storage space in the human mind, and choices have to be made how to utilize it. I suggest that there are two types of utilization, and we already have terms to describe them. There are two types of "experts": those who rely on detailed memory to do one thing exceptionally fast and well, and those who use their memory to store a broad overview of many things and then employ black-box analysis and reasoning to do those many things reasonably fast and well. The former is a specialist, and the latter is a jack-of-all-trades. The specialist is often useless when he's "out of his element", whereas the JOAT is effective in any situation, given a bit more time. At one time in the distant past the two types were often indistinguishable, because the sum of knowledge has not yet progressed to a point where a single human mind couldn't contain it.
What we've witnessed is a progression from a world of JOATS to a world of specialists (at least in First World nations). Artificially augmented memory might allow people to once again be both specialists and jacks-of-all-trades at the same time.
I do believe he did, at that....
Uhhh... what?
... if it's taken them THIS long to notice the inexorable descent from qualitative focus to a quantitative one. It's only been progressing for over a century, after all. That descent is one of the primary things that has made my life hell, because I will not and cannot make that descent. I'm not "wired" for it like all the neurotypical types. I'm not alone in that inability and refusal; when can we emigrate to another planet and create a culture of craftsmen? This culture of suits and middlemen is killing me!
Way to go with that prescient observation, Wired.
Huh? There's no fewer than five: photos 30 through 34.
If one doesn't need the laptop on the plane but rather only at the destination, why not remove the drive and ship it separately via a less nosy commercial service like UPS or Fedex to the destination? That way the nosy customs officials have nothing at all to look at and no reason to hold the device at all. When one arrives at the destination, simply reinstall the drive and get to work. The process can be repeated when it's time to return.
Whether actually practical or not, my suggestion points out how moronic and ill-considered are the current policies, which treat a device and information it might contain differently merely because it's in the company of a human passenger. Unless an X-ray scan reveals the laptop isn't really a laptop, leave it the fuck alone!
Unless this denial is automatic and without recourse, having no allowance for human review or appeal, then the only problem I see here is yet another Slashdot article exaggerating the facts for the sake of copy.
Let's start by creating true network neutrality: get the ownership of the wires into public hands. Buy the telcos and backboners out, paid for with tax increases if necessary. Once We The People own the wires, then we can have real conversations about fixing things.
You mean with Linux and OpenGL my laptop can actually compost stuff? Cool! Where exactly do I shove in the scraps from my in-flight meal to get it started?
Just when I thought that perhaps this enormous rift in the fabric of space-time might actually seal itself and save us all from Darl McDoom, along comes an ambulance full of judges with jaws of life to tear the scar open again? What the hell Dark-Kirk parallel universe have I been sucked into here?
We will never have actual network neutrality so long as the physical medium - the wires - is privately owned. Is that so hard for politicians to comprehend, or do they already and are just too afraid to talk about and deal with it (or paid off to keep their mouths shut)? Certainly the CEOs of the corporations involved know this full well, and they intend to keep the control we've allowed them. That control is their money-maker.
... they are VERY smart: they eliminate the human resource - parking meter collection people - that would otherwise cut deeply into their profits. You're actually paying in aggravation and wasted time so that Morgan Stanley can achieve a better ROI.
I read about this same tactic being used in another region some years ago. IIRC it involved the efforts of a small group to publish regional transit routes online as a convenience, but the local transit authority freaked out and shut it down.
I kinda figured that was the real goal of this project, not home port generation but rather "fuel on the go".
Perhaps they plan to build carriers with larger reactors that have greater output than the needs of the ship itself, so that the excess output can be used to power a small on-board jet fuel production plant? In that scenario, who cares if the energy required outweighs the work done by the resulting fuel?
Do you think people making $1000 transactions are any happier with losing $30, given how little Paypal is actually doing? I'd be royally pissed. Does Paypal process more $1000 payments than $5 ones?
I'm a red dwarf, you insensitive clod!