Ummm... not quite. Assuming you did coat the globe in these things (including the oceans, which you'd have to do if you want to cut out the telcos completely) you'd have really really shitty throughput (at least over long distances). Not that I said throughput and not bandwidth.
For long haul signal tranfer the best available technology is [DWDM] fiber (which there happens to be a bit of a surplus of it, at the moment). I suppose satellites could cut in on some of this action. As of now, all non-local backbone traffic (including voice, IP, etc.) is carried over fiber. This probably won't change anytime soon (if ever). Radio is nice, but it's short range. Microwave is really only good for point-to-point. High-energy (x-ray, gamma-ray) is exactly that, high-energy (read: expensive/unrealistic). The really low frequencies suffer from lots of interference. The only thing that may ever beat optical is some kind of quantum entanglement based system (such a thing may not even be "mathematically possible", and even if it is, it's probably unworkable for use by the masses).
This is one of the things about all this wireless networking that kind of bothered me. Aside from the issue of interference, when you have a huge number of users, you end up with a lot of "routers" in ad-hoc networks. This can become extremely cumbersome. I'd guess that data transfer rates drop at least linearly with distance from "static" (non-ad-hoc) routing nodes.
At best, I can see wireless technologies handling last-mile links. But, as the user load increases, these last-mile networks will need some good regimentation (to allow for optimized routing, like cellular BSC layouts). From what I know of 802.11 (and the competitors), it's really only good for ad-hoc networking.
Lots of software has security holes. Games are no different... the difference with games is that they are not targets. It's interesting that this one was spotted, but it's no real surprise.
The poster mentions Slammer. The difference between Slammer and this is that Slammer affected "mission critical" systems, and there are pretty easily demonstratable monetary losses attributed to that worm.
In the case of Unreal, there are not many (if any) businesses (or lives) depending on this software. Hypothetically, someone who hosts games for a fee would get some complaints from customers. But really, a lot of the people affected would be "home users". And, let's face it, home users (including those running Linux) are really vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. This is just a drop in the bucket...
Of course, it'd still suck to get fucked over by this security flaw (just like all the others).
I'm far from being "an open source zealot" (I'm using Win2k as I type this) and I do see some merits to EULAs (especially when considered from the side of the software developer/distributor).
That being said... these things are flimsy legal contracts, at best, which I feel should not be binding. It'll be nice to get some precedent(s) set that declare click through EULAs to be the worthless shit that they are (despite previous precendents to the contrary).
As Lessig argued, this is not truly limited. That's the exact problem. If it were limited, things would fall out of copyright. Have you noticed much of anything falling out of copyright?
Endless (retroactive) copyright extensions mean that the term of a copyright is not limited. Really, if something does not fall out of copyright within the typical lifetime it's not limited. The framers most likely implied, by use of the word "limited", for copyrights to expire in a time notably less than the average lifespan. Currently, you shouldn't expect to see anything created in your life to fall into the public domain.
The thing is, the public has been indoctrinated to believe that copyrights should be something like the author's life + 75 years, or other unreasonable shit. Just ask an average "consumer" and they will probably be surprised by the idea of a copyright running out after 20 years.
The worst thing is that the profits from the vast majority of copyrighted works decays (something like) exponentially over time. So, most of this shit is locked up just because they want to hold on to the few "gems" that really earn over time (Mickey Mouse, Elvis, etc).
As a compromise I would say that we should institute a ~20 year copyright. Then allow 2-5 year extensions, that cost a buttload of cash to apply for. This means only the profitable stuff won't lapse into the public domain, and Disnet (et al.) can keep the things they want.
Of course, the best solution (ie. not a compromise) is to get some torches & pitchforks then lynch Eisner, Rosen, Valenti, etc. (let's lynch that fat whore Oprah while we're at it).
It looks like the public domain may have become essentially fixed and will no longer grow. Get used to it.
Re:It's not always about graphics and violence
on
Snood, the Simple Game
·
· Score: 0, Troll
It's frustrating games like these (I've never tried Snood, but I mean the general type) that cause people to go into violent fits, have high blood pressure and/or heart attacks.
Now, do you really think there's a good reason to find UT2003 more disturbing than Tetris??
Hmmm, we've been getting whacked by lots of radiation for centuries, we've just made it organized radiation. Yes, we've beefed up the amplitude (as well as focused it a bit), but I wonder if the net increase (over the space carved out by your average human) is that significant.
Some solar flares and magma displacements could probably do a similar job on biological organisms. As far as I know, there aren't any massive extinction events that can be traced to any EM phenomena (at least not reliably).
Still, it's a good thing to keep in mind. Of course, by the time anyone figures out if it increases cancer rates, we'll all have cancer! Whoopee!!
If you're really concerned, I expect Ted Kaczynski's cabin is vacant. I'll bet there's not a lot of man-made radiation way out there...
Re:dirty south niggaz!!!!!
on
1KM 802.11b @ 2MB
·
· Score: -1, Offtopic
Good sentiment, but Egyptians are from the northern part of Africa. Know thy enemy...
That place is a real shithole (oddly, most people don't seem to know that). A friend of mine from Italy goes there to scuba dive. The tourists are transported in caravans, escorted by soldiers. Supposedly there's a town where the locals speak Italian as their first language, because it's such a hotspot for pasta-eaters. Anyway, the diving is supposed to be great.
A large European company I know has a "compound" there. It's essentially a military base to protect its employees while they work there. I'm not sure who pays for them to be there anyway, since those fuckers are poor!!!.
Hardcore porn is already available on cell phones. I've done some work on this (not the porn, sadly, just the phones/infrastructure). In Germany and Italy, they're obsessed with this (especially Germany).
I had executives, during meetings, leaning over to show me two skanks sharing a double-ended dildo (it was an animated gif). It was really quite impressive, considering there's still a small market and the phones were only available to a few people at the time.
Of course, your definition of hardcore might vary. I'd consider softcore to be "just nudity" (some touching would be in this category), and hardcore is everything else. Scat is hardcore. A lezbo scene, with no penetration, is softcore. It's a fine line that separates the two.
The quality of the displays on some of these phones is really good (even though it's relatively small).
Now, I love porn more than the next guy, but I can't see much use for this besides the "wow factor". It's still kinda cool anyway...
Like any media (tv, movies, music, books, etc), there's good and bad stuff out there. It'd be easy to bounce examples of good tv shows, movies, songs, and stories back and forth all day (and I'd expect a fair amount of disagreement). If things are as bad as you say, you should be able to watch what you like without fear of "getting sucked into" the other things. It sounds like you might actually enjoy some of that other stuff...
I have a friend that loves movies. He goes to the movies no less than once a week, he owns over 500 DVDs (and watches them quite a bit), but he can't watch tv. I don't understand it at all. He just can not sit and focus enough on a tv show to follow it, yet he's fine if it's a DVD.
I also know a girl that loves tv. She knows all the classic shows, watches all the current hits. But, she can't watch a movie (in the theater or at home). Again, I'm totally mystified about why this is.
Who knows why people like what they like. If you don't like tv, that's fine. I can see why you might not like it, but I would point out that you are missing out on some things. I would also point out that you might (assuming you don't do them) be missing out on other things that I think are good uses of time (scientific research, lifting weights, travelling, etc).
Anyway, I don't care about anything you say... you're going to be a damned lawyer!!!
You make a good point, but you missed the important part. The value derived from watching tv is the entertainment.
You mention you like to read, as do I. I also happen to prefer to buy my books over borrowing them (although I do borrow some), just because I like having my own little library. So, everytime I, or you, buy a non-reference book, we are essentially paying for entertainment. Reading a book, despite what some think, does not necessarily improve you in any way (you can pick up new skills and reduce stress just as well with tv as with a book), you won't find "enlightenment" (assuming there is such a thing anyway).
Ever go to the movies, a concert, a play? All of these are like tv, in the fact that you are paying for the entertainment. Hell a lot of vacations are really people just paying for entertainment, of course there's a more tangible component to that entertainment.
Fine, if you don't get much enjoyment out of tv, don't watch it. I, however, find some shows rather amusing, and enjoy watching them. The great thing about tv is that it only requires partial attention, I often do something else while watching it. You can't do that with a book.
By the way, I never got into the habit of watching commercials (even long before TiVo). I'll gladly flip or do something else for those minutes, assuming I can't find a "filler show" to use during commercials, before I will sit there and absorb the advertising.
Is it possible that you just haven't found the right things to watch?
Maybe you didn't intend it, but to me your post comes off a bit "holier-than-thou", which is a sense I get from a lot of people who don't watch tv. I have gone a month without tv. I often don't watch it while I'm travelling. Still, I do enjoy it when I'm at home, and not doing anything in particular. You could make a similar case for surfing the web, it's not much better than tv...
I haven't read the spec (nor do I expect to look at it any time soon). It may be very well-concieved (as these things go), but there's a fundamental flaw...
I, as the owner, have access to every last bit of the machine. Therefore, it can never be totally secure (from the MS/Big-Brother perspective).
You mention the topic of class breaks... if I control the hardware, there's no need to break anything. That key is stored somewhere, for validation purposes, all I need to do is read (and decrypt; the encryption only needs to be broken once) or replace that key (hence, the mod-chip market). This is not that different from what's going on with X-Box modding nowadays (Disclamer: I'm not involved in the mod community, so I may be talking out of my ass.).
As for the encryption... either they ship encrypted binaries for trusted computers only, in which case they can be decrypted, because all instances of said binaries use the same encryption. Or, they encrypt and subsequently decrypt the data at two points along the pipeline, on the fly, from the hard-drive/RAM to the execution register (which seems like a rather assinine thing to do anyway). In this case, the original binaries are unencrypted, so if your OS thinks it's trusted, it will encrypt, move, decrypt, and execute the instructions.
As I stated in my first post, it shouldn't be exceptionally hard to trick the OS into thinking that it's trusted. As I see it, the biggest flaw in this system is that it passes its trust along blindly. Once the BIOS is trusted, it can pass it's trust down the chain, all the way to the application level (and the trustworthiness doesn't seem to degrade along the way). Thus, "full privledges" are granted to every actor in the scenario, thereby giving any actor the ability to subvert the whole system (ie. you can defeat this in either the hardware or the software).
Yet another disclaimer: I have never been involved in serious computer security or encryption/trust schemes, so (again) I may be talking out of my ass.
I have no problem with certification programs. They all have varying degrees of trustworthiness to them, so it's a "buyer beware" situation. If you go to an auto mechanic, and you see he's got his ASE (is that the right one?) you can possibly expect him to be better than someone without it. It also means that the certified guy can charge a premium, thus providing you some incentive to go with el-cheapo.
Personally, I don't put a whole lot of faith in certifications. I've picked up a few in my time, even though I was rather clueless on the subject when I took the test. Your mileage may vary.
I would often rather do something myself, or get someone I know to help me do it (if not outright do it for me). Then again, sometimes you'll need specialized equipment. I'll get a doctor to do an EKG, MRI, x-ray, etc. But I'm quite comfortable checking blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and so on, myself (thus I get checkups less frequently than most, and save time while there by telling my doctor my own results/observations/measurements).
There's also the consideration of what my time is worth. If I can get someone to fix something for me, for let's say $20-$30/hr, and it would take me a significant amount of time, I may pay just for the convenience.
The consumer should have enough education to recognize the value of certifications when they are shopping for a service (people often don't consider selecting a service the same as selecting a tangible product). Once you start implementing government mandates, then you've fucked things up (if I want to go with someone without credentials for my service, that's my business). Besides, I'll pick up a sizeable chunk of cash every so often by fixing some dumbass' PC for them (I would never do that for a career, but spending a few hours a year doing it and getting $1k for all that time is certainly worthwhile). A government mandate might cut me (or you) out of doing something like that.
Let's start the countdown to the release of a "dePalladium"-enabled distro (of your chosen OS). Do you really think that this won't get hacked (somehow), within a few months or less?
Just a few seconds of thought reveals two methods of defeating this sort of thing, in order to make your machine/OS seem "trusted". There's the possibility of having the operating system spoof the tokens that are supposed to come from the bios (while the bios is really running in "untrusted" mode). Worst case scenario, someone will start producing mods that bypass the hardware level security altogether (afterall, it may be something as simple as some flash ROM). As for running Palladium enabled software, that may only require breaking the Palladium encryption scheme (and we all know how well this sort of encryption has held up under scrutiny in the past).
If you've got some cash to burn, give this a shot. Buy this board, load up your Palladium shit. Make sure it boots okay. Then shutdown, physically yank/destroy the Palladium chip, and restart. Since this is first generation stuff, a decent designer might go for high fault tolerance in the interface to this piece of hardware. If there wasn't good communication between members of the design team, the BIOS may not realize that the Palladium hardware is gone.
Of course, any such work would be a possible DMCA violation and an EULA violation (among other bullshit legal transgressions).
I was kind of kidding when I posted that, and I do understand the "stop and smell the roses" philosophy. But, at the same time, there are lots of great stories out there, I'd like to absorb as many of them as I can. Rereading things won't help me to do that (although I would love to reread some). There's new stuff (ie. Gibson, Palahniuk, etc) coming out all the time, and there are lots of old gems (Asimov, Clarke, etc). Not to mention the bit of quality movies, tv, and music.
Then, of course, there are other "more important" things (by "important", I'm referring to what I think the majority of people consider important, see the recent/. articles on "success" for more about this), like social interactions and professional achievments to be had. I know this one isn't popular with the/. crowd, but exercise is both important and time consuming (plus, it'll help you to get laid). Which brings me to sex, sure it is covered by "social interactions", but it really deserves a special mention.
When looking at all the things there are to spend time on, reading the same book twice ranks pretty low on my list. Hell, visiting/. is low on my list, but for the next few weeks it's something I can do as a multitasked activity.
And, in case you weren't aware, fighting the race war really is a very very time consuming activity!
Cunningham is one of the best visual directors out there, and his style meshes really well with Gibson's prose. Cunningham worked with Kubrick while still in his teens. He did some of the initial design work for "A.I.", which is still visible even though Spielberg's usual crap surrounds it.
Of course, film is a collective artform, and a good director + good source material != good movie, in many cases. I don't know much about Cunningham's writing abilities, or how involved he is with the adaptation. Gibson's work has not been successfully adapted, yet (that's debatable, but most will agree with me).
It would be a real shame to see someone fuck up this project. I'm more forgiving of something like "Johnny Mnemonic" and "New Rose Hotel", because they were adapted from short stories, and therefore required a lot of reworking. I think "Neuromancer", with the right visual touch, could play really well without too much adaptation. One of the best things about Gibson's work, and "Neuromancer" in particular, is the viscerality of it all, the vividness... if they can capture that on film properly, there's a good chance it could be successful. The biggest danger in adapting this book is that there's great potential for the story to get really muddled.
I really like Gibson's imagery. In the beginning of Neuromancer, he uses the phrase "the sky is the color of tv", which has been stuck in my head ever since I read it. The thing is, I only read it once, just like every other novel/novella/short-story.
I wish I had the free time, and had accomplished every other significant thing I have left to do in life, so that I can sit and re-read novels backwards! What's your secret to having that kind of time? I'm sure other/.ers want to know this too.
P.S - I really hope Gibson's vision future isn't that accurate, otherwise I'd say we're pretty well fucked! But, it certainly does seem to be going that way...
Access to drones...
on
Droning On
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Has anyone thought about the privacy issues related to this? Yes, there's the whole "big brother" thing, but there's also a concern about the security of the data these drones send back.
There was some guy from the UK that somehow, accidentally, tapped into unencrypted military communications on public satellites.
It seems that our military satellite infrastructure is somewhat overloaded, so they push some of the load onto commercial satellites.
This guy tried to tell the US Navy, maybe some other branches, and some of the British military about this. They all dismissed him. So, he went to the media...
I saw this on CNN from a hotel in Europe, and you could watch US troop movements right on this guy's TV.
Who thinks that something similar can, and probably will, happen if we have drones flying over our homes. I'm not sure what the immediate motivation for tapping into things like this is, but someone else probably knows...
Did anyone else see, or hear about, this story and have more specific info?
Now, I'm not saying this is a totally horrible idea. It has some merits, as well as drawbacks (high crash rate, and so on). Certainly, better monitoring of airspace and the ability to track certain events is of great value.
As for privacy in general, there's a happy medium (somewhere). You will never have total safety and total privacy. In fact, you'll probably never have just one of those things. We just need to find the right point in the middle...
The problem is, from the foreigner's point of view, just getting to be in America (and out of their own hellhole), is a huge benefit. Therefore, they are willing to accept a low standard of living (by American standards).
The end result of this is an overall lowering of the standard of living, because if Americans want to be competitive, they have to sacrifice their standards.
There's a good chance that anti-H1B ideas will get a lot of momentum nowadays (with our heightened xenophobia). This is great.
I have no problem with foreigners, per se. If someone, who's skilled, wants to come over from Italy and work here, I'm fine with that. What gets to me is the stinking Indians and Chinese that come here and undercut American workers. The people here have invested a massive amount of time and effort in building their credentials, only to have some filthy bastard with bullshit credentials from some foreign shithole massively undercut them on salary.
Instead of letting people in, that we don't want here anyway, we should be encouraging our own people to become well educated and fill the vacancies.
150 years ago, we could use an influx of people. Now, our population is large, and relatively stable. We can manage a stable, sometimes very strong, economy. We have a "national culture". We're the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. It's time to curb immigration, it has served its purpose. Besides, the majority of immigrants now are much lower quality than they were 100 years ago (Irish vs. Pakistani).
Weather control could (potentially) be a better offensive/defensive weapon than tactical nukes because it won't leave an area irradiated. Hell, you could even use it on your own territory to impede an invading force.
Fallout is some nasty shit, so's a nuclear winter. Biological agents have a high risk of unintended consequences. By comparison, most chemical weapons are pretty nice, they may require serious cleanup, but their effects are relatively predictable, and the usually do not render an area uninhabitable for extremely long times.
This, of course, assumes that your control of the weather (and the associated consequences) does not cause destruction other than what was intended.
Ummm... maybe we should be altering the selection process to our benefit. The way things are going now, we are taking the physical element out. The end result (ignoring possible genetic engineering) may be a crippled populace, where most people are born with some set of severe physical deficiencies.
What we really should do is augment the selection process, so that it favors the physically and intellectually fit. That is what would best benefit mankind. Then again, why should you or I care anyway, we shouldn't expect live to see the fruits of such an endeavor, so what's the point? Might as well just say, "Fuck it, I'm gonna go get laid."
If I were to bring up and suggest implementing eugenics, all the "tolerance trolls" will come out of the woodwork to flame my post ("Ooh, a racist promoting eugenics, evil!!!"). Thus, I haven't mentioned eugenics.
Things like cancer and AIDS are good for the human species collectively, even if they suck for a bunch of people.
I've done some work on cancer diagnosis (specifically on certain types of leukemia), and even though I doubt my work is going to help anyone in the near future, I do somewhat regret having done it, simply for the reasons stated above.
All of our medical technology has basically pulled us out of the Darwinian game of life. If it weren't for modern medicine, hemophilia would likely have been (nearly) eradicated by natural selection already.
Of course, causing a major weather catastrophe or two will certainly help control the population. Lets not forget that this could eventually be used as a weapon (especially since some of the techniques are rather cheap/simple relative to nuclear devices).
Regardless of this weather stuff, the population is out of control (this is mostly a third world problem) and will need to be dealt with. Lots of sci-fi authors have covered the topic of selective breeding programs. I wouldn't call the concept of needing to schedule some sort of executions (in a century or so) completely unrealistic (but, it seems highly unlikely now).
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm... not quite. Assuming you did coat the globe in these things (including the oceans, which you'd have to do if you want to cut out the telcos completely) you'd have really really shitty throughput (at least over long distances). Not that I said throughput and not bandwidth.
For long haul signal tranfer the best available technology is [DWDM] fiber (which there happens to be a bit of a surplus of it, at the moment). I suppose satellites could cut in on some of this action. As of now, all non-local backbone traffic (including voice, IP, etc.) is carried over fiber. This probably won't change anytime soon (if ever). Radio is nice, but it's short range. Microwave is really only good for point-to-point. High-energy (x-ray, gamma-ray) is exactly that, high-energy (read: expensive/unrealistic). The really low frequencies suffer from lots of interference. The only thing that may ever beat optical is some kind of quantum entanglement based system (such a thing may not even be "mathematically possible", and even if it is, it's probably unworkable for use by the masses).
This is one of the things about all this wireless networking that kind of bothered me. Aside from the issue of interference, when you have a huge number of users, you end up with a lot of "routers" in ad-hoc networks. This can become extremely cumbersome. I'd guess that data transfer rates drop at least linearly with distance from "static" (non-ad-hoc) routing nodes.
At best, I can see wireless technologies handling last-mile links. But, as the user load increases, these last-mile networks will need some good regimentation (to allow for optimized routing, like cellular BSC layouts). From what I know of 802.11 (and the competitors), it's really only good for ad-hoc networking.
Lots of software has security holes. Games are no different... the difference with games is that they are not targets. It's interesting that this one was spotted, but it's no real surprise.
The poster mentions Slammer. The difference between Slammer and this is that Slammer affected "mission critical" systems, and there are pretty easily demonstratable monetary losses attributed to that worm.
In the case of Unreal, there are not many (if any) businesses (or lives) depending on this software. Hypothetically, someone who hosts games for a fee would get some complaints from customers. But really, a lot of the people affected would be "home users". And, let's face it, home users (including those running Linux) are really vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. This is just a drop in the bucket...
Of course, it'd still suck to get fucked over by this security flaw (just like all the others).
I'm far from being "an open source zealot" (I'm using Win2k as I type this) and I do see some merits to EULAs (especially when considered from the side of the software developer/distributor).
That being said... these things are flimsy legal contracts, at best, which I feel should not be binding. It'll be nice to get some precedent(s) set that declare click through EULAs to be the worthless shit that they are (despite previous precendents to the contrary).
Let's all hope she wins.
As Lessig argued, this is not truly limited. That's the exact problem. If it were limited, things would fall out of copyright. Have you noticed much of anything falling out of copyright?
Endless (retroactive) copyright extensions mean that the term of a copyright is not limited. Really, if something does not fall out of copyright within the typical lifetime it's not limited. The framers most likely implied, by use of the word "limited", for copyrights to expire in a time notably less than the average lifespan. Currently, you shouldn't expect to see anything created in your life to fall into the public domain.
The thing is, the public has been indoctrinated to believe that copyrights should be something like the author's life + 75 years, or other unreasonable shit. Just ask an average "consumer" and they will probably be surprised by the idea of a copyright running out after 20 years.
The worst thing is that the profits from the vast majority of copyrighted works decays (something like) exponentially over time. So, most of this shit is locked up just because they want to hold on to the few "gems" that really earn over time (Mickey Mouse, Elvis, etc).
As a compromise I would say that we should institute a ~20 year copyright. Then allow 2-5 year extensions, that cost a buttload of cash to apply for. This means only the profitable stuff won't lapse into the public domain, and Disnet (et al.) can keep the things they want.
Of course, the best solution (ie. not a compromise) is to get some torches & pitchforks then lynch Eisner, Rosen, Valenti, etc. (let's lynch that fat whore Oprah while we're at it).
It looks like the public domain may have become essentially fixed and will no longer grow. Get used to it.
What a fucking shame...
FUCK!!!
It's frustrating games like these (I've never tried Snood, but I mean the general type) that cause people to go into violent fits, have high blood pressure and/or heart attacks.
Now, do you really think there's a good reason to find UT2003 more disturbing than Tetris??
I feel like I speak for most people here, when I say " Oh, shit ."
Hmmm, we've been getting whacked by lots of radiation for centuries, we've just made it organized radiation. Yes, we've beefed up the amplitude (as well as focused it a bit), but I wonder if the net increase (over the space carved out by your average human) is that significant.
Some solar flares and magma displacements could probably do a similar job on biological organisms. As far as I know, there aren't any massive extinction events that can be traced to any EM phenomena (at least not reliably).
Still, it's a good thing to keep in mind. Of course, by the time anyone figures out if it increases cancer rates, we'll all have cancer! Whoopee!!
If you're really concerned, I expect Ted Kaczynski's cabin is vacant. I'll bet there's not a lot of man-made radiation way out there...
Good sentiment, but Egyptians are from the northern part of Africa. Know thy enemy...
That place is a real shithole (oddly, most people don't seem to know that). A friend of mine from Italy goes there to scuba dive. The tourists are transported in caravans, escorted by soldiers. Supposedly there's a town where the locals speak Italian as their first language, because it's such a hotspot for pasta-eaters. Anyway, the diving is supposed to be great.
A large European company I know has a "compound" there. It's essentially a military base to protect its employees while they work there. I'm not sure who pays for them to be there anyway, since those fuckers are poor!!!.
Hardcore porn is already available on cell phones. I've done some work on this (not the porn, sadly, just the phones/infrastructure). In Germany and Italy, they're obsessed with this (especially Germany).
I had executives, during meetings, leaning over to show me two skanks sharing a double-ended dildo (it was an animated gif). It was really quite impressive, considering there's still a small market and the phones were only available to a few people at the time.
Of course, your definition of hardcore might vary. I'd consider softcore to be "just nudity" (some touching would be in this category), and hardcore is everything else. Scat is hardcore. A lezbo scene, with no penetration, is softcore. It's a fine line that separates the two. The quality of the displays on some of these phones is really good (even though it's relatively small).
Now, I love porn more than the next guy, but I can't see much use for this besides the "wow factor". It's still kinda cool anyway...
- I have a friend that loves movies. He goes to the movies no less than once a week, he owns over 500 DVDs (and watches them quite a bit), but he can't watch tv. I don't understand it at all. He just can not sit and focus enough on a tv show to follow it, yet he's fine if it's a DVD.
- I also know a girl that loves tv. She knows all the classic shows, watches all the current hits. But, she can't watch a movie (in the theater or at home). Again, I'm totally mystified about why this is.
Who knows why people like what they like. If you don't like tv, that's fine. I can see why you might not like it, but I would point out that you are missing out on some things. I would also point out that you might (assuming you don't do them) be missing out on other things that I think are good uses of time (scientific research, lifting weights, travelling, etc).Anyway, I don't care about anything you say... you're going to be a damned lawyer!!!
You make a good point, but you missed the important part. The value derived from watching tv is the entertainment.
You mention you like to read, as do I. I also happen to prefer to buy my books over borrowing them (although I do borrow some), just because I like having my own little library. So, everytime I, or you, buy a non-reference book, we are essentially paying for entertainment. Reading a book, despite what some think, does not necessarily improve you in any way (you can pick up new skills and reduce stress just as well with tv as with a book), you won't find "enlightenment" (assuming there is such a thing anyway).
Ever go to the movies, a concert, a play? All of these are like tv, in the fact that you are paying for the entertainment. Hell a lot of vacations are really people just paying for entertainment, of course there's a more tangible component to that entertainment.
Fine, if you don't get much enjoyment out of tv, don't watch it. I, however, find some shows rather amusing, and enjoy watching them. The great thing about tv is that it only requires partial attention, I often do something else while watching it. You can't do that with a book.
By the way, I never got into the habit of watching commercials (even long before TiVo). I'll gladly flip or do something else for those minutes, assuming I can't find a "filler show" to use during commercials, before I will sit there and absorb the advertising.
Is it possible that you just haven't found the right things to watch?
Maybe you didn't intend it, but to me your post comes off a bit "holier-than-thou", which is a sense I get from a lot of people who don't watch tv. I have gone a month without tv. I often don't watch it while I'm travelling. Still, I do enjoy it when I'm at home, and not doing anything in particular. You could make a similar case for surfing the web, it's not much better than tv...
I haven't read the spec (nor do I expect to look at it any time soon). It may be very well-concieved (as these things go), but there's a fundamental flaw...
I, as the owner, have access to every last bit of the machine. Therefore, it can never be totally secure (from the MS/Big-Brother perspective).
You mention the topic of class breaks... if I control the hardware, there's no need to break anything. That key is stored somewhere, for validation purposes, all I need to do is read (and decrypt; the encryption only needs to be broken once) or replace that key (hence, the mod-chip market). This is not that different from what's going on with X-Box modding nowadays (Disclamer: I'm not involved in the mod community, so I may be talking out of my ass.).
As for the encryption... either they ship encrypted binaries for trusted computers only, in which case they can be decrypted, because all instances of said binaries use the same encryption. Or, they encrypt and subsequently decrypt the data at two points along the pipeline, on the fly, from the hard-drive/RAM to the execution register (which seems like a rather assinine thing to do anyway). In this case, the original binaries are unencrypted, so if your OS thinks it's trusted, it will encrypt, move, decrypt, and execute the instructions.
As I stated in my first post, it shouldn't be exceptionally hard to trick the OS into thinking that it's trusted. As I see it, the biggest flaw in this system is that it passes its trust along blindly. Once the BIOS is trusted, it can pass it's trust down the chain, all the way to the application level (and the trustworthiness doesn't seem to degrade along the way). Thus, "full privledges" are granted to every actor in the scenario, thereby giving any actor the ability to subvert the whole system (ie. you can defeat this in either the hardware or the software).
Yet another disclaimer: I have never been involved in serious computer security or encryption/trust schemes, so (again) I may be talking out of my ass.
I have no problem with certification programs. They all have varying degrees of trustworthiness to them, so it's a "buyer beware" situation. If you go to an auto mechanic, and you see he's got his ASE (is that the right one?) you can possibly expect him to be better than someone without it. It also means that the certified guy can charge a premium, thus providing you some incentive to go with el-cheapo.
Personally, I don't put a whole lot of faith in certifications. I've picked up a few in my time, even though I was rather clueless on the subject when I took the test. Your mileage may vary.
I would often rather do something myself, or get someone I know to help me do it (if not outright do it for me). Then again, sometimes you'll need specialized equipment. I'll get a doctor to do an EKG, MRI, x-ray, etc. But I'm quite comfortable checking blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, and so on, myself (thus I get checkups less frequently than most, and save time while there by telling my doctor my own results/observations/measurements).
There's also the consideration of what my time is worth. If I can get someone to fix something for me, for let's say $20-$30/hr, and it would take me a significant amount of time, I may pay just for the convenience.
The consumer should have enough education to recognize the value of certifications when they are shopping for a service (people often don't consider selecting a service the same as selecting a tangible product). Once you start implementing government mandates, then you've fucked things up (if I want to go with someone without credentials for my service, that's my business). Besides, I'll pick up a sizeable chunk of cash every so often by fixing some dumbass' PC for them (I would never do that for a career, but spending a few hours a year doing it and getting $1k for all that time is certainly worthwhile). A government mandate might cut me (or you) out of doing something like that.
Let's start the countdown to the release of a "dePalladium"-enabled distro (of your chosen OS). Do you really think that this won't get hacked (somehow), within a few months or less?
Just a few seconds of thought reveals two methods of defeating this sort of thing, in order to make your machine/OS seem "trusted". There's the possibility of having the operating system spoof the tokens that are supposed to come from the bios (while the bios is really running in "untrusted" mode). Worst case scenario, someone will start producing mods that bypass the hardware level security altogether (afterall, it may be something as simple as some flash ROM). As for running Palladium enabled software, that may only require breaking the Palladium encryption scheme (and we all know how well this sort of encryption has held up under scrutiny in the past).
If you've got some cash to burn, give this a shot. Buy this board, load up your Palladium shit. Make sure it boots okay. Then shutdown, physically yank/destroy the Palladium chip, and restart. Since this is first generation stuff, a decent designer might go for high fault tolerance in the interface to this piece of hardware. If there wasn't good communication between members of the design team, the BIOS may not realize that the Palladium hardware is gone.
Of course, any such work would be a possible DMCA violation and an EULA violation (among other bullshit legal transgressions).
This is exactly what every Chernobyl executive needs. It's stylish, functional, and will perfectly complement an active outdoor lifestyle.
Get yours today, while supplies last, and fallout levels are non-lethal! Timex has nothing on these guys...
I was kind of kidding when I posted that, and I do understand the "stop and smell the roses" philosophy. But, at the same time, there are lots of great stories out there, I'd like to absorb as many of them as I can. Rereading things won't help me to do that (although I would love to reread some). There's new stuff (ie. Gibson, Palahniuk, etc) coming out all the time, and there are lots of old gems (Asimov, Clarke, etc). Not to mention the bit of quality movies, tv, and music.
/. articles on "success" for more about this), like social interactions and professional achievments to be had. I know this one isn't popular with the /. crowd, but exercise is both important and time consuming (plus, it'll help you to get laid). Which brings me to sex, sure it is covered by "social interactions", but it really deserves a special mention.
/. is low on my list, but for the next few weeks it's something I can do as a multitasked activity.
Then, of course, there are other "more important" things (by "important", I'm referring to what I think the majority of people consider important, see the recent
When looking at all the things there are to spend time on, reading the same book twice ranks pretty low on my list. Hell, visiting
And, in case you weren't aware, fighting the race war really is a very very time consuming activity!
It's such an overload...
The best info on the movie, that I know of, comes from Coming Attractions. It appears that Chris Cunningham is still involved with the project (as of May '02), which is a good sign.
Cunningham is one of the best visual directors out there, and his style meshes really well with Gibson's prose. Cunningham worked with Kubrick while still in his teens. He did some of the initial design work for "A.I.", which is still visible even though Spielberg's usual crap surrounds it.
Of course, film is a collective artform, and a good director + good source material != good movie, in many cases. I don't know much about Cunningham's writing abilities, or how involved he is with the adaptation. Gibson's work has not been successfully adapted, yet (that's debatable, but most will agree with me).
It would be a real shame to see someone fuck up this project. I'm more forgiving of something like "Johnny Mnemonic" and "New Rose Hotel", because they were adapted from short stories, and therefore required a lot of reworking. I think "Neuromancer", with the right visual touch, could play really well without too much adaptation. One of the best things about Gibson's work, and "Neuromancer" in particular, is the viscerality of it all, the vividness... if they can capture that on film properly, there's a good chance it could be successful. The biggest danger in adapting this book is that there's great potential for the story to get really muddled.
Wow, I envy you!
/.ers want to know this too.
I really like Gibson's imagery. In the beginning of Neuromancer, he uses the phrase "the sky is the color of tv", which has been stuck in my head ever since I read it. The thing is, I only read it once, just like every other novel/novella/short-story.
I wish I had the free time, and had accomplished every other significant thing I have left to do in life, so that I can sit and re-read novels backwards! What's your secret to having that kind of time? I'm sure other
P.S - I really hope Gibson's vision future isn't that accurate, otherwise I'd say we're pretty well fucked! But, it certainly does seem to be going that way...
Has anyone thought about the privacy issues related to this? Yes, there's the whole "big brother" thing, but there's also a concern about the security of the data these drones send back.
There was some guy from the UK that somehow, accidentally, tapped into unencrypted military communications on public satellites.
It seems that our military satellite infrastructure is somewhat overloaded, so they push some of the load onto commercial satellites.
This guy tried to tell the US Navy, maybe some other branches, and some of the British military about this. They all dismissed him. So, he went to the media...
I saw this on CNN from a hotel in Europe, and you could watch US troop movements right on this guy's TV.
Who thinks that something similar can, and probably will, happen if we have drones flying over our homes. I'm not sure what the immediate motivation for tapping into things like this is, but someone else probably knows...
Did anyone else see, or hear about, this story and have more specific info?
Now, I'm not saying this is a totally horrible idea. It has some merits, as well as drawbacks (high crash rate, and so on). Certainly, better monitoring of airspace and the ability to track certain events is of great value.
As for privacy in general, there's a happy medium (somewhere). You will never have total safety and total privacy. In fact, you'll probably never have just one of those things. We just need to find the right point in the middle...
The problem is, from the foreigner's point of view, just getting to be in America (and out of their own hellhole), is a huge benefit. Therefore, they are willing to accept a low standard of living (by American standards).
The end result of this is an overall lowering of the standard of living, because if Americans want to be competitive, they have to sacrifice their standards.
There's a good chance that anti-H1B ideas will get a lot of momentum nowadays (with our heightened xenophobia). This is great.
I have no problem with foreigners, per se. If someone, who's skilled, wants to come over from Italy and work here, I'm fine with that. What gets to me is the stinking Indians and Chinese that come here and undercut American workers. The people here have invested a massive amount of time and effort in building their credentials, only to have some filthy bastard with bullshit credentials from some foreign shithole massively undercut them on salary.
Instead of letting people in, that we don't want here anyway, we should be encouraging our own people to become well educated and fill the vacancies.
150 years ago, we could use an influx of people. Now, our population is large, and relatively stable. We can manage a stable, sometimes very strong, economy. We have a "national culture". We're the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. It's time to curb immigration, it has served its purpose. Besides, the majority of immigrants now are much lower quality than they were 100 years ago (Irish vs. Pakistani).
Weather control could (potentially) be a better offensive/defensive weapon than tactical nukes because it won't leave an area irradiated. Hell, you could even use it on your own territory to impede an invading force.
Fallout is some nasty shit, so's a nuclear winter. Biological agents have a high risk of unintended consequences. By comparison, most chemical weapons are pretty nice, they may require serious cleanup, but their effects are relatively predictable, and the usually do not render an area uninhabitable for extremely long times.
This, of course, assumes that your control of the weather (and the associated consequences) does not cause destruction other than what was intended.
Ummm... maybe we should be altering the selection process to our benefit. The way things are going now, we are taking the physical element out. The end result (ignoring possible genetic engineering) may be a crippled populace, where most people are born with some set of severe physical deficiencies.
What we really should do is augment the selection process, so that it favors the physically and intellectually fit. That is what would best benefit mankind. Then again, why should you or I care anyway, we shouldn't expect live to see the fruits of such an endeavor, so what's the point? Might as well just say, "Fuck it, I'm gonna go get laid."
If I were to bring up and suggest implementing eugenics, all the "tolerance trolls" will come out of the woodwork to flame my post ("Ooh, a racist promoting eugenics, evil!!!"). Thus, I haven't mentioned eugenics.
My thoughts exactly!
Things like cancer and AIDS are good for the human species collectively, even if they suck for a bunch of people.
I've done some work on cancer diagnosis (specifically on certain types of leukemia), and even though I doubt my work is going to help anyone in the near future, I do somewhat regret having done it, simply for the reasons stated above.
All of our medical technology has basically pulled us out of the Darwinian game of life. If it weren't for modern medicine, hemophilia would likely have been (nearly) eradicated by natural selection already. Of course, causing a major weather catastrophe or two will certainly help control the population. Lets not forget that this could eventually be used as a weapon (especially since some of the techniques are rather cheap/simple relative to nuclear devices).
Regardless of this weather stuff, the population is out of control (this is mostly a third world problem) and will need to be dealt with. Lots of sci-fi authors have covered the topic of selective breeding programs. I wouldn't call the concept of needing to schedule some sort of executions (in a century or so) completely unrealistic (but, it seems highly unlikely now).