Reduced to it's nub, all religions are a crock of shit, and this one's merely a bit crockier than most (whattaya say we don't even get me started on the whole "holy underwear" thing, ok?). The sonofibitches steadfastly bitch and scream about us heathen dogs paying their collective delusion its "proper respect" even as they also steadfastly trample upon all other collective thought processes (a set of objects somewhat larger than mere religion, partially overlapping religion but not entirely overlapping it that we shall perhaps call "cultures" for lack of a more accurate word) that fail to achieve congruency with the particular collective delusion in question.
The business of paying heed to the congress of the United States as instructed to do so by God hisself, leads to all sorts of weirdnesses, not least amongst which would be the proposition that in some strange way, congress is telling God what's good and what's bad so that God can then relay the message to His (forget any thoughts of a female God, all you politically correct non gender biased folks, we're working with mormons here) flock of Chosen Ones that they may walk more straightforwardly upon the Righteous Path.
That this whole database deal is happening in Utah, somehow smells more than just a little connected up with the "prevailing religion" in that part of the world, to these nostrils.
I'm getting a strong feeling that (should the thing succeed to this point) immediately following receipt of telemetry that the harpoon has been fired, receipt of telemetry will cease.
Since it's Google, I guess we're all assuming it won't land us on anybody's spam lists,
Speak for yourself, pal, whilst I go about my usual business of assuming the worst, spam being so far down on my list of Bad Things, that I can hardly see it. The Government must surely be licking its chops in anticipation of getting its hands on some of this stuff one fine day when it decides it really needs it. Neither shall we discount the inevitable eventual screw ups that allow this data to be hacked, stolen, or just blundered away on the hard drives of machines that got scrapped.
but how can we be sure?
We can't.
Is there any way to back our information out of the system if we decide it's all a pointless waste of time
Well then, all I have to do is run down to Second Light to check the surf (cold and flat) and come back, and when I do a very useful bit of information falls out of the sky and into my lap.
Because it's there. Same reason people risk their lives (and often lose same) just to climb a mountain.
It's kind of like jazz, according to Louis Armstrong: "If you have to ask what it is, you'll never know."
People who take risks on these sorts of terms understand it perfectly well on a completely intuitive level. People who don't understand not only don't understand, but they oftentimes think that everybody else ought not to understand, too. Needless to say, the ones that do understand don't spend much time attempting to enlighten their brethren, they just get on with whatever business is at hand.
The hidden key to this story is actually catalysis. Methinks that sooner than you'd expect, we're going to be doing just fine throwing grass clippings, old newspapers, orange peels, and most any old kind of organic residue into the hopper and then driving off, leaving a cloud of water vapor and a stash of nicely organized chemical elements, which will also turn out to have some interesting uses.
A certain percentage of the population lies so comfortably and so easily that this sort of thing is useless for catching them in a lie. Guess which percentage of the population politicians are in?
True usability is defined(for me) as a machine that my Grandma can use
Which is what's endlessly hanging everybody up in the field of GUI design. They all want to be DIFFERENT from windows, but they fail to realize that windows isn't just decided upon by fiat, but instead is the result of endless focus groups and user surveys to determine exactly what grandma actually works most comfortably with! Microsoft has huge resources and can afford endless focus groups and user surveys to arrive at a smooth, intuitive GUI. We're not asking to emulate Microsoft, but instead emulate (or invent independently) a smooth user interface as defined by the users themselves. Which is apparently such a simple concept that nobody seems able to grok it.
I definitely feel that NASA needs some vary lofty long term goals
Nasa's original charter way back in the days of yore was definitely one of bold exploration. Somewhere along the line that vision was stomped to death by bean counters and other vermin. It's been too long that we've just sort of spun our wheels and have gone nowhere new.
Bring on the next Saturn V class of launch vehicles! I want to see those babies FLY!
I wish I had this when younger, with all the late reading at night...
Give the DNA and nano people some time, and flashlights for eyes will qualify for a big yawn. I tell ya, things are going to get weird. Really really weird.
Fortunately, I'll be dead and gone and won't have to deal with any of it.
NASA Rep: Life on Mars!! Look, pictures of plant life! We want to go there!
Representative: Here's gobs of cash!!
So alright already, will somebodyplease get off their dead ass and preload an "interesting" photo or two into the imaging software for the next lander!
You may not believe this, but I've got a copy of that very book sitting here on the desk beside the keyboard I'm bashing away on right this very second!
That book is FUNNIER THAN HELL!!!
Among other things, I'm an occasional book reviewer for Paladin Press, the folks who published Lyle's hilarious (and exceptionally well-illustated) book.
A month or two ago I submitted my review of that book to Slashdot, but it was rejected for whatever reason (I average about one in six accepted story submissions to the editors and don't question why they may have rejected a particular item. They have a job to do and it's not my job to give them any grief over them doing their job the way they see fit.) and didn't show up here.
That said, you can go here if you'd like to read that review, which showed up as one of my Ink19 Inconvenience Store columns. Can't know if you'll find it the least bit interesting or funny, but oh well. It's no longer in my hands, eh?
If you haven't read Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, I HIGHLY recommend that you do so. Great stuff!
Someone could (h|cr)ack into your computer as we speak, unless you use different publicly available computers (libraries, cybercafes etc) every time you access the Net/web that's a hell of a lot more dangerous than this little device,
Crackers are the least of my worries, unless they get hold of my identity/credit card number and take a little ride with that info. Of greater concern is the things that corporations and governments (please notice the 's' on the end of government there) might choose to do with the information, things that I can never know, nor can I predict (although, human nature being what it is, I usually do quite well when assuming the worst).
Profiling, my friend, is the Monster Under the Bed, at least as far as this little exercise in building a Brave New World is concerned.
To the extent that governments become more efficient, governments become more dangerous, (ragamuffin outfits such as obtain in the fourth world country of your choosing notwithstanding).
Not to mention that such a multi-function device as a persons personal computer will contain a lot more opportunities for flaws than such a lil thing.
Untrue. I shall not belabor the reasons as to why. This sort of thing is abundantly self-evident to those who closely examine matters such as this.
you can't expect McDonalds hiring (h|cr)ackers just to figure out that you currently are in the market for a new car.
Wanna bet? That's exactly what they'll attempt to do (and likely succeed should this little dream come true). The more information they have upon you, the better (at least from their own selfish point of view). They will neverendingly persist in gathering more and more information, the better to serve their uniformly self-interested purposes (and better serve the purposes of others who will acquire the same information, whether by purchase, theft, subpoena, or fiat).
The device itself doesn't have to contain any information about who you are
The mere pattern of my activities is more than enough to alert any agency that wishes to keep tabs on this sort of thing, should that pattern somehow run afoul of what they believe to be appropriate behaviour.
Things are already well and truly bad enough, thank you very much. I'd prefer to UNDO some of what's already been done, as opposed to add to some of the darker things that already exist.
Smile away into your Golden Dawn, it's none of my affair. At least until it starts to affect me personally. At which point I shall do my utmost to subvert and circumvent all of it, in any and every way I can think of.
what makes you think that a device finding and alerting you about good deals is evil?
It will also be fully capable of alerting (kindest thanks for the word, it's a good one) people and instrumentalities other than myself. This is a Bad Thing, and no amount of persuasion by the folks who design, build, and sell such devices will ever convince me that there will never ever be any kind of back door (nevermind wide open FRONT doors) that will permit people I don't much like from acquiring and using the information gathered about me via this sort of monitoring in ways I also don't much like.
Sure, badly implemented this thing could give out more information than you want
You may rely upon it with complete confidence to do precisely that, with or without your concurrence.
Your cellphone knows about what you've been looking at online, then when you're walking by stores it checks their websites (using bluetooth, and their bluetooth-AP) to see if there's anything there that you might be interested in.
Your cellphone maybe, but for sure as hell not mine.
In fact, I refuse to own one of the infernal things for multiple reasons, amongst which is the very thing you seem to desire.
I'm quite happy with a world wide web. A world wide noose, however, is another matter altogether.
Just came back in from watching good old lox/RP1 send that Atlas 3 three up from the Cape. Gotta love the look of that flame, especially on a cold (for Florida anyway) clear night like tonight. Been watching the stuff since the 50's and I never seem to get over it. I don't care who's paying, how they do it, or much of anything (excepting pretty please don't go launching stuff with weapons on top) else just as long as they keep doing it. Bravo Rutan and the whole crew, and every last other soul who's slogging away at it, keeping the birds flying!
Until some "benevolent dictator" comes along and FORCES ALL *nix's to look and act sufficiently similar to an end user of average or even less than average intelligence, *nix will be going more or less nowhere in the grand scheme of things.
Is this bad enough news? No.
Furthermore, until the same "benevolent dictator" FORCES ALL *nix to employ the use of focus groups, user feedback, and other methods of optimising the UI to suit the needs and wants of the AVERAGE JOE, ALL *nix will continue to suffer a host of maladies from merely looking clunky up to and including full incomprehensibility to the guy we're trying to promote this stuff to.
Apple came a gnat's whisker from pulling this double burden off, but because they run a MORE EXPENSIVE machine that is NOT COMPATABLE with the Great Shoal of Computers, they failed.
Proceed with the downmodding children, I can take the hit.
Slashdot Mirror
The business of paying heed to the congress of the United States as instructed to do so by God hisself, leads to all sorts of weirdnesses, not least amongst which would be the proposition that in some strange way, congress is telling God what's good and what's bad so that God can then relay the message to His (forget any thoughts of a female God, all you politically correct non gender biased folks, we're working with mormons here) flock of Chosen Ones that they may walk more straightforwardly upon the Righteous Path.
That this whole database deal is happening in Utah, somehow smells more than just a little connected up with the "prevailing religion" in that part of the world, to these nostrils.
I'm getting a strong feeling that (should the thing succeed to this point) immediately following receipt of telemetry that the harpoon has been fired, receipt of telemetry will cease.
My my my, but aren't the mods in a pissy mood today!
Nope.
What does it get me?
Precious little, in truth.
Since it's Google, I guess we're all assuming it won't land us on anybody's spam lists,
Speak for yourself, pal, whilst I go about my usual business of assuming the worst, spam being so far down on my list of Bad Things, that I can hardly see it. The Government must surely be licking its chops in anticipation of getting its hands on some of this stuff one fine day when it decides it really needs it. Neither shall we discount the inevitable eventual screw ups that allow this data to be hacked, stolen, or just blundered away on the hard drives of machines that got scrapped.
but how can we be sure?
We can't.
Is there any way to back our information out of the system if we decide it's all a pointless waste of time
Nope.
(or worse -- a scam)?
Or worse, something worse. Much much worse.
Well then, all I have to do is run down to Second Light to check the surf (cold and flat) and come back, and when I do a very useful bit of information falls out of the sky and into my lap.
Kindest thanks!
Wouldn't come up. No, I didn't search around, instead trusting the above address implicitly. But still ..... have we managed to slashdot eBay?
Because it's there. Same reason people risk their lives (and often lose same) just to climb a mountain.
It's kind of like jazz, according to Louis Armstrong: "If you have to ask what it is, you'll never know."
People who take risks on these sorts of terms understand it perfectly well on a completely intuitive level. People who don't understand not only don't understand, but they oftentimes think that everybody else ought not to understand, too. Needless to say, the ones that do understand don't spend much time attempting to enlighten their brethren, they just get on with whatever business is at hand.
The hidden key to this story is actually catalysis. Methinks that sooner than you'd expect, we're going to be doing just fine throwing grass clippings, old newspapers, orange peels, and most any old kind of organic residue into the hopper and then driving off, leaving a cloud of water vapor and a stash of nicely organized chemical elements, which will also turn out to have some interesting uses.
Nicely said.
A certain percentage of the population lies so comfortably and so easily that this sort of thing is useless for catching them in a lie. Guess which percentage of the population politicians are in?
Which is what's endlessly hanging everybody up in the field of GUI design. They all want to be DIFFERENT from windows, but they fail to realize that windows isn't just decided upon by fiat, but instead is the result of endless focus groups and user surveys to determine exactly what grandma actually works most comfortably with! Microsoft has huge resources and can afford endless focus groups and user surveys to arrive at a smooth, intuitive GUI. We're not asking to emulate Microsoft, but instead emulate (or invent independently) a smooth user interface as defined by the users themselves. Which is apparently such a simple concept that nobody seems able to grok it.
Now is always a bad time to do it.
Do it anyway.
Nasa's original charter way back in the days of yore was definitely one of bold exploration. Somewhere along the line that vision was stomped to death by bean counters and other vermin. It's been too long that we've just sort of spun our wheels and have gone nowhere new.
Bring on the next Saturn V class of launch vehicles! I want to see those babies FLY!
AbsoFUCKINGlutely!
Well...the idiots out there have to know they're going to be paying for something, don't they?
Give the DNA and nano people some time, and flashlights for eyes will qualify for a big yawn. I tell ya, things are going to get weird. Really really weird.
Fortunately, I'll be dead and gone and won't have to deal with any of it.
Representative: Here's gobs of cash!!
So alright already, will somebody please get off their dead ass and preload an "interesting" photo or two into the imaging software for the next lander!
Blarrrrghhhpf, splash!
That book is FUNNIER THAN HELL!!!
Among other things, I'm an occasional book reviewer for Paladin Press, the folks who published Lyle's hilarious (and exceptionally well-illustated) book.
A month or two ago I submitted my review of that book to Slashdot, but it was rejected for whatever reason (I average about one in six accepted story submissions to the editors and don't question why they may have rejected a particular item. They have a job to do and it's not my job to give them any grief over them doing their job the way they see fit.) and didn't show up here.
That said, you can go here if you'd like to read that review, which showed up as one of my Ink19 Inconvenience Store columns. Can't know if you'll find it the least bit interesting or funny, but oh well. It's no longer in my hands, eh?
If you haven't read Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, I HIGHLY recommend that you do so. Great stuff!
Hmmm, I'm not entirely sure, but it kind of looks like your brain is cross-linked. You might want to have that looked into.
You all know ... it'ss heartfelt
Yep. Definitely cross-linked.
Crackers are the least of my worries, unless they get hold of my identity/credit card number and take a little ride with that info. Of greater concern is the things that corporations and governments (please notice the 's' on the end of government there) might choose to do with the information, things that I can never know, nor can I predict (although, human nature being what it is, I usually do quite well when assuming the worst).
Profiling, my friend, is the Monster Under the Bed, at least as far as this little exercise in building a Brave New World is concerned.
To the extent that governments become more efficient, governments become more dangerous, (ragamuffin outfits such as obtain in the fourth world country of your choosing notwithstanding).
Not to mention that such a multi-function device as a persons personal computer will contain a lot more opportunities for flaws than such a lil thing.
Untrue. I shall not belabor the reasons as to why. This sort of thing is abundantly self-evident to those who closely examine matters such as this.
you can't expect McDonalds hiring (h|cr)ackers just to figure out that you currently are in the market for a new car.
Wanna bet? That's exactly what they'll attempt to do (and likely succeed should this little dream come true). The more information they have upon you, the better (at least from their own selfish point of view). They will neverendingly persist in gathering more and more information, the better to serve their uniformly self-interested purposes (and better serve the purposes of others who will acquire the same information, whether by purchase, theft, subpoena, or fiat).
The device itself doesn't have to contain any information about who you are
The mere pattern of my activities is more than enough to alert any agency that wishes to keep tabs on this sort of thing, should that pattern somehow run afoul of what they believe to be appropriate behaviour.
Things are already well and truly bad enough, thank you very much. I'd prefer to UNDO some of what's already been done, as opposed to add to some of the darker things that already exist.
Smile away into your Golden Dawn, it's none of my affair. At least until it starts to affect me personally. At which point I shall do my utmost to subvert and circumvent all of it, in any and every way I can think of.
It will also be fully capable of alerting (kindest thanks for the word, it's a good one) people and instrumentalities other than myself. This is a Bad Thing, and no amount of persuasion by the folks who design, build, and sell such devices will ever convince me that there will never ever be any kind of back door (nevermind wide open FRONT doors) that will permit people I don't much like from acquiring and using the information gathered about me via this sort of monitoring in ways I also don't much like.
Sure, badly implemented this thing could give out more information than you want
You may rely upon it with complete confidence to do precisely that, with or without your concurrence.
I want nothing of the sort.
Your cellphone knows about what you've been looking at online, then when you're walking by stores it checks their websites (using bluetooth, and their bluetooth-AP) to see if there's anything there that you might be interested in.
Your cellphone maybe, but for sure as hell not mine.
In fact, I refuse to own one of the infernal things for multiple reasons, amongst which is the very thing you seem to desire.
I'm quite happy with a world wide web. A world wide noose, however, is another matter altogether.
Just came back in from watching good old lox/RP1 send that Atlas 3 three up from the Cape. Gotta love the look of that flame, especially on a cold (for Florida anyway) clear night like tonight. Been watching the stuff since the 50's and I never seem to get over it. I don't care who's paying, how they do it, or much of anything (excepting pretty please don't go launching stuff with weapons on top) else just as long as they keep doing it. Bravo Rutan and the whole crew, and every last other soul who's slogging away at it, keeping the birds flying!
Is this bad enough news? No.
Furthermore, until the same "benevolent dictator" FORCES ALL *nix to employ the use of focus groups, user feedback, and other methods of optimising the UI to suit the needs and wants of the AVERAGE JOE, ALL *nix will continue to suffer a host of maladies from merely looking clunky up to and including full incomprehensibility to the guy we're trying to promote this stuff to.
Apple came a gnat's whisker from pulling this double burden off, but because they run a MORE EXPENSIVE machine that is NOT COMPATABLE with the Great Shoal of Computers, they failed.
Proceed with the downmodding children, I can take the hit.