...I support the separation of church and state, but I do not believe our Founders intended for the State to discriminate against the church and banish faith from the public square. Our Nation was based on founding principles; the decisions I make as a leader are sbased on these principles and not my personal faith. Marriage, for example, has been the foundation of our society and of societies and cultures throughout history -- and it has always been defined as the union between a man and a woman. I believe that the future of marriage in America should be decided through the democratic process, rather than by the court orders of a few.
Going from human to silicon
on
Ask Neal Stephenson
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Dear Neal,
If given the chance in the future, would you go from being a 100% biological human to a cyborg? If the technology was available would you consider transforming yourself into a fully non-biological entity?
Also, do you think that going from human to non-biological entity would be like going from an LP to a compact disc in the sense that just the platter and fidelity would change and not the tune, or would a person's humanity be replaced with something entirely different?
Thanks,
macshune
These houses totally look cool and the design is awesome, but they use exotic materials that are probably only produced in huge quantities when large institutions have the money to get someone to cook up a batch. Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (more commonly, just Carbon Fiber)? Can't buy that at Home Depot, last time I checked:)
It's a great exercise and it's exciting to the see the future take shape (literally!), but until regular folks can buy up some of this stuff to build homes out of, that's all it's gonna be.
You are totally right; this is a civil matter and when corporations get Uncle Sam or Padre Benito to watch the fort, bad things happen.
Like fascism.
When brings me to the most salient point of this document about fascism in World War II and what it consisted of, in so far as this dicussion is concerned:
"9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of "have-not" citizens."
Check earlier in the day and you'll find this lovely quote explaining everything, "...pentabytes are the new, arbitrary metric of the evil, satanic file-sharing people."
To be a little more technical, I think it's somewhere between a crap byte and a fuck byte, 500-1000 shit bytes, IIRC.
Although the article mentions TiVo merging up with a "cash-flow positive company," I think the answer is simpler in that TiVo can just license its highly visible brand to a major cable company and sell branded set-top boxes. TiVo dropped the ball once, but I'm sure it's still up for grabs. TiVo is much more recognizable (e.g. a brand) than General Whatever's generic DCT-XXXX, et al and would help protect against TiVo's waning marketshare in the time-shifted set-top box world.
Props to the writer of the article, also, for mentioning all those wonderful technical possibilites. If only half of those were to come true (and only if I actually watched TV:)!!!
That probably was PCP, aka Angel Dust. I've heard all sorts of semi-apocryphal stories about folks on that drug. Like the one where the guy jumps out of a window and impales himself on a picket fence, only to peel himself off and do it several more times. crazy stuff.
Your argument sounds pretty good but i think it suffers from false analogy. the big difference between the poor countries making our stuff and early 20th century america with the child labor and everything was that the capital for that child labor came from the u.s. and stayed in the u.s. the companies that had the child labor had nowhere to run to so they had to submit to the legislation banning such abhorrent activity.
what i'm getting at is that as soon as some country tries to improve their lot by inacting legislation to raise the standard of living, u.s. companies will pack up and go elsewhere. they couldn't do that at the beginning of the last century.
simply put, a firm's goal is to maximize its profit and when there are cheaper, readily available sources of production out there, it'll take 'em. the firm has to, or its competition will.
i don't really know what the solutions are, but if prices are still going up for the products i purchase and jobs are being lost, it doesn't sound very fair to me as a buyer of products.
"They also say that current cheap broadband products will more than likely not be viable in five years time. They plan to start rolling out in 2006, and cover the vast majority of customers by 2009."
So they are gonna hook customers up right before the prices go up? I thought prices would go down as time marches on? What about all that "dark fiber"?
I've read that Turing picked a poison apple to end his life because it symbolized eating the apple from the tree of knowledge that Adam & Eve were forbidden from doing (and subsequently died from) in the christian (& jewish?) bible. Anyone else hear this before?
I've seen many businesses that still run NT4 and I even know a few folks that still use 3.1, but the latter is the exception, rather than the rule. It's pretty expensive to upgrade software, not just in the cost of the product itself, but in lost productivity and people-hours needed to perform the upgrade. when you have a large organization these costs can be prohibitive and procrastination seems very attractive. of course, any other slashdotter probably could tell you the same thing...
This is a little bit off-topic, but one reason why young folks buy Kia's and Hyundais is because of the extra-long warranty period, 10 years, I think. A quote from the article helps me to realize that Kia's warranty is probably fraught with small-print and legalese that helps them to cover their butts with their decade-long warranty.
"Instead of explaining anything to me they just pull out a warranty sheet with a highlighted portion indicating that they don't cover Check Engine light problems."
They don't cover check engine light problems? I can see, on one hand, why they wouldn't do this (money-wise), but on the other, it's not very nice to offer someone what is evidentally perceived to be a blanket warranty for the whole car and then charge for small repairs. I think that Kia and other similar, low-cost automakers should be more forthcoming in their commercials about their warranties.
This suckers sound pretty big. Is it possible that they'll be subsidized by giant ads placed on the blimps? Will the sun be blocked out by the tri-color Pepsi logo?
That they'll change all the signs to the Mojave Airport to the Mojave Spaceport? That would be really cool and I bet those signs 'll disappear every week or so:)
Slashdot Mirror
Bush made a typo:
...I support the separation of church and state, but I do not believe our Founders intended for the State to discriminate against the church and banish faith from the public square. Our Nation was based on founding principles; the decisions I make as a leader are sbased on these principles and not my personal faith. Marriage, for example, has been the foundation of our society and of societies and cultures throughout history -- and it has always been defined as the union between a man and a woman. I believe that the future of marriage in America should be decided through the democratic process, rather than by the court orders of a few.
President George Bush Responds:
Dear Neal, If given the chance in the future, would you go from being a 100% biological human to a cyborg? If the technology was available would you consider transforming yourself into a fully non-biological entity?
Also, do you think that going from human to non-biological entity would be like going from an LP to a compact disc in the sense that just the platter and fidelity would change and not the tune, or would a person's humanity be replaced with something entirely different? Thanks,
macshune
Here are some of the full-size samples available on the site:
Sample 1
Sample 2
The rest of samples can be found here. I don't want to slashdot poor dpreview. I'm sure as progress marches on, their bandwidth prices skyrocket.
and yes, for the record, i purposefully misspelled 'misspelling'. i think it's cooler that way...
does a mispelling of "cognoscente" mean that you're also a member of the techno-illiterati?:)
These houses totally look cool and the design is awesome, but they use exotic materials that are probably only produced in huge quantities when large institutions have the money to get someone to cook up a batch. Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (more commonly, just Carbon Fiber)? Can't buy that at Home Depot, last time I checked:)
It's a great exercise and it's exciting to the see the future take shape (literally!), but until regular folks can buy up some of this stuff to build homes out of, that's all it's gonna be.
Odds that by 2010, the world has sent the following message to Microsoft, "u r pwned by linux sux0r": 1:1
You are totally right; this is a civil matter and when corporations get Uncle Sam or Padre Benito to watch the fort, bad things happen.
Like fascism.
When brings me to the most salient point of this document about fascism in World War II and what it consisted of, in so far as this dicussion is concerned:
"9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of "have-not" citizens."
Check earlier in the day and you'll find this lovely quote explaining everything, "...pentabytes are the new, arbitrary metric of the evil, satanic file-sharing people."
To be a little more technical, I think it's somewhere between a crap byte and a fuck byte, 500-1000 shit bytes, IIRC.
>They should just give Lucas a money printer and save some time!
Parent can see things before they happen. He can help you. Mod him up!
Although the article mentions TiVo merging up with a "cash-flow positive company," I think the answer is simpler in that TiVo can just license its highly visible brand to a major cable company and sell branded set-top boxes. TiVo dropped the ball once, but I'm sure it's still up for grabs. TiVo is much more recognizable (e.g. a brand) than General Whatever's generic DCT-XXXX, et al and would help protect against TiVo's waning marketshare in the time-shifted set-top box world.
Props to the writer of the article, also, for mentioning all those wonderful technical possibilites. If only half of those were to come true (and only if I actually watched TV:)!!!
That probably was PCP, aka Angel Dust. I've heard all sorts of semi-apocryphal stories about folks on that drug. Like the one where the guy jumps out of a window and impales himself on a picket fence, only to peel himself off and do it several more times. crazy stuff.
Future conversation between two illustrious academics:
"Could you send over that citation for that lagomorph genome paper?"
"Sure thing. I'll send some Steely Dan too, it helps me when I read papers about the lagomorph genome."
"31337, thx."
Your argument sounds pretty good but i think it suffers from false analogy. the big difference between the poor countries making our stuff and early 20th century america with the child labor and everything was that the capital for that child labor came from the u.s. and stayed in the u.s. the companies that had the child labor had nowhere to run to so they had to submit to the legislation banning such abhorrent activity.
what i'm getting at is that as soon as some country tries to improve their lot by inacting legislation to raise the standard of living, u.s. companies will pack up and go elsewhere. they couldn't do that at the beginning of the last century.
simply put, a firm's goal is to maximize its profit and when there are cheaper, readily available sources of production out there, it'll take 'em. the firm has to, or its competition will.
i don't really know what the solutions are, but if prices are still going up for the products i purchase and jobs are being lost, it doesn't sound very fair to me as a buyer of products.
"They also say that current cheap broadband products will more than likely not be viable in five years time. They plan to start rolling out in 2006, and cover the vast majority of customers by 2009."
So they are gonna hook customers up right before the prices go up? I thought prices would go down as time marches on? What about all that "dark fiber"?
I've read that Turing picked a poison apple to end his life because it symbolized eating the apple from the tree of knowledge that Adam & Eve were forbidden from doing (and subsequently died from) in the christian (& jewish?) bible. Anyone else hear this before?
I've seen many businesses that still run NT4 and I even know a few folks that still use 3.1, but the latter is the exception, rather than the rule. It's pretty expensive to upgrade software, not just in the cost of the product itself, but in lost productivity and people-hours needed to perform the upgrade. when you have a large organization these costs can be prohibitive and procrastination seems very attractive. of course, any other slashdotter probably could tell you the same thing...
This is a little bit off-topic, but one reason why young folks buy Kia's and Hyundais is because of the extra-long warranty period, 10 years, I think. A quote from the article helps me to realize that Kia's warranty is probably fraught with small-print and legalese that helps them to cover their butts with their decade-long warranty.
"Instead of explaining anything to me they just pull out a warranty sheet with a highlighted portion indicating that they don't cover Check Engine light problems."
They don't cover check engine light problems? I can see, on one hand, why they wouldn't do this (money-wise), but on the other, it's not very nice to offer someone what is evidentally perceived to be a blanket warranty for the whole car and then charge for small repairs. I think that Kia and other similar, low-cost automakers should be more forthcoming in their commercials about their warranties.
STILL no flying cars...:(
Anyone taking bets on how long until the pr0n industry uses this to measure the expansion of people's naughty bits?
Good call! That was my intention:)
But I can show you my 0-face!
:-()
This suckers sound pretty big. Is it possible that they'll be subsidized by giant ads placed on the blimps? Will the sun be blocked out by the tri-color Pepsi logo?
That they'll change all the signs to the Mojave Airport to the Mojave Spaceport? That would be really cool and I bet those signs 'll disappear every week or so:)
I found this link to a good def. of confusopolies. Can't seem to track down the actual comic, though, unless I buy the book.