Bitcoin is fundamentally impractical. It limps along with the support of criminals, scammers, gamblers, and fools, but it's never going anywhere significant.
There's nothing that can be done to correct the problems of Bitcoin without making it no longer Bitcoin, and thus rendering the effort pointless.
So why is it still a topic to discuss on a site that's supposed to be "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? It's not news to us, and it's more or less irrelevant unless you're on the wrong end of a cryptolocker.
Actually, Hawking is afraid of aliens. That seems a little weird for a guy who has spent his life studying the physics of the heavens, but there ya go.
For instance, I found a lot in Toronto where the parking meter took your credit card and would allow you to authorize additional parking time by SMS. As the time got close, the meter at the lot would send you an SMS warning. The correct reply would automatically charge you for another increment of parking time. I imaging there's a web interface for it by now.
Mind you, that was a private lot. They just have to deal with a lot of hassle if you overstay, while the government is more interested in you running out the meter so they can ticket you and make more money on the fine (that's why it's generally illegal to feed someone else's parking meter).
If they need it... tough! (or at least it should be) - because they can't prove he hasn't genuinely forgotten the password.
If they don't need it, the contempt charge is a disgusting act by the legal system to ignore its internal checks and balances. Just finish the trial with the evidence you have, get the conviction, and apply an appropriate sentence.
With his disease, he should have been dead decades ago. Even without it, I wouldn't have expected him to be around too much longer. If he wants to die unaware after blacking out due to high G acceleration on the off chance he'll get to see the Earth from space and has the opportunity to do it... good for him.
I wouldn't insure him on his trip, but I wouldn't stop him, either.
This amounts to "We know you're guilty even though we can't prove it so we're not going to bother with proof", and worse, they're using that to apply a potentially unlimited sentence.
Just because the guy is accused of having a child porn collection doesn't mean the niceties of law shouldn't apply.
I'm actually not so much for the right against self-incrimination, but I am very much for the right to a fair trial based on evidence and not what people 'know'. I'm also very much on finite sentences proportional to the needs of protecting society, punishing enough to scare the next guy, and attempting to reform the convicted if possible... but there shouldn't be a sentence at all without a just conviction.
It's math, and they've been deciding with politics.
You look at the budget compared to the risk; if you can cut costs by 50% for less than double the risk, you're ahead of the game.
The problem is people see a few missions go splat and it's a big PR problem for future funding, even if you're actually getting more science for your dollar over all. And, of course, given the complexity of interplanetary missions I'm not confident you can decrease costs by a greater amount than you increase risks anyway.
Trump isn't the cause, he's a symptom. People feel threatened, they get tribal and mean... and they tend to do stupid things that make the problems causing them to feel threatened get worse.
Trump was elected over economic fear. Fear of the 1% (whose frankly ludicrous levels of wealth get thrown in our face by the media daily... and those aren't even the richest tier of people), fear of foreigners stealing our jobs.
So... vote in Trump to keep out the foreigners and stop the 1%ers in Washington. Which damages the economy and it turns out the kind of guy you vote in to the top position actually wants to line his own pockets and those of his (significant) supporters... the 1%.
It's a global problem because the same socioeconomic forces are driving the same mob reactions around the world.
Good point. Theatres in my area usually have an arcade, a variety of food options beyond popcorn & soda and... well, that's it.
They really should have a joined space (separately accessible outside theatre hours) that sells movie-related merchandise. I'd certainly make sure posters were on the list. And though you'd ultimately have to measure-and-order, I think using the bricks & mortar presence to market licensed movie costume replicas wouldn't be a bad idea, even if it's just a fairly normal jacket.
Throw in a decent large-format high quality printer and sell actor cut-outs on demand as well.
It might not have as much markup as popcorn, but I bet you'd have a huge boost to your net income.
Bracket is a generic term that includes the more specific term 'parenthesis'. And braces and chevrons (though I've never used chevrons and didn't even know that was an option until I looked it up just now).
Of course, it ALSO means 'square bracket' if you're American and 'parenthesis' if you're not, so perhaps I should have been more specific as a non-American on what is likely an American-dominated site.
Yep. Pretty much anyone who goes on about the Singularity is a loon. Not because it's necessarily a fundamentally loony concept, but because it attracts loons like moths to a flame.
The second indicator is putting a date on the dawn of strong AI. We likely need a hardware breakthrough (I'm hopeful it'll be memristors, they look promising and we've already made them), but we also need a massive increase in our understanding of how a mind works, how it emerges from the physical properties of a brain, how to create a physical structure that can replicate that, and how to program instincts into it. Maybe that'll be in a dozen years, maybe it'll be in hundreds of years, and maybe we'll never figure it out because even a simplified model is too much for a human mind to work with.
I'm OK with smart machines (if we can instill them with a form of Asimov's Laws of Robotics), but I'm not holding my breath waiting for them. For now it looks like we're going to get mindless but very complex systems that can do most things better than humans, but still don't come anywhere near crossing the boundary to actual intelligence or self-awareness.
You could design the shell to be grenade-like, put a tiny little valid bit of flash drive inside and surround it with high density capacitors.
Rather than blast the attached USB port, you could simply short out all the capacitors and you have a very low-yield anti-personnel device that could blind someone, maybe cripple a hand if you design it to explode on device removal. Anyone who has ever shorted the capacitors in a disposable camera knows they pack a fair bit of wallop in a small space when charged up.
Or put some actual explosives in it, I suppose. In a properly sealed case that might pass inspection.
The problem is ease of development - use something developers are already familiar with and suddenly there's a massive pool of people making 'apps' for your new device, which helps it appeal to the consumer since you're probably not going to build an app library of your own out of the gate.
People don't want a watch anymore - they want a wrist computer that primarily tells time but tracks a bunch of other stuff and brings some of it to your attention as necessary. No matter what OS you write, it's going to have to have Bluetooth and connect to an Android device for I/O, and to compete it's probably going to need environmental sensors, an accelerometer, maybe a light and sensor for guesstimating your pulse rate, etc. Oh, and it should probably be able to clone an RFID tag so you can use it as an access key. And play music (and video). And have a camera. Maybe also GPS and basic cell phone capability so it can solo without a phone.
Now we're right back to sucking up battery and doing a poor job attempting to be all things to all people.
Meh. It's a mix of finance and politics... buying a bit of this stock is supporting Musk, and I like what he's doing.
Yes, I'm making a rich guy richer (when he's structured things so he's not really footing the bill or all that much risk), but you can also look at it as an investment in the future instead of direct financial profit.
You know, a future with less expensive space travel, a better power grid and electric transportation, maybe even the stupid hyperloop (though I don't really buy the hyperloop arguments since most of the 'savings' are about right-of way, and that could easily be taken advantage of by traditional rail with less risk).
To be fair, the women making these reports on sexism probably don't have degrees that involved a course in statistics.
More seriously, whenever politics gets involved people throw honesty in the shitter and will deceive as much as they can get away with in order to convince you they're right.
It probably won't work (at least for people who saw the original) because it won't be the original. It won't have the novelty value of those cool action scenes, of bullet time, etc. It won't have Reeves, Fishburne, Moss, or Weaving. Chances are they've learned the wrong lessons (as already shown by the 2nd and 3rd movies) and instead of a good story we'll get endless boring overly-choreographed action scenes.
On the other hand, it's a chance to do it right - ditch the battery crap and make the humans enslaved so their unused brain capacity acts as processors for the machine network, making it more creative than any silicon-based system yet designed. Make Zion just another layer to capture those who 'escaped' the Matrix. Do more with the Architect (in fact, I'd have bits of the original trilogy on his wall displays...)
Then show the REAL real world at the end of it; the new Neo waking up into a more typical futuristic world, all shiny, bright sky... but all the 'people' walking around are machines. Make the machines afraid of humans waking up en-mass because it would lobotomize them. Make the humans concerned that if they all woke up, they'd simply starve to death if the robots didn't notice and strap them right back into the Matrix.
Lies promoting prejudice was what I said. Your example wouldn't qualify.
Holocaust denial would, because for some weird reason racists believe it's OK to hate Jews if Hitler killed less than the generally quoted numbers. Historians can debate revising numbers if and as new evidence comes to light, and their findings aren't lies. People without access to primary sources claiming it didn't happen? Lies, in promotion of hatred.
It's not really that difficult a distinction to draw unless you're defending the methods you're using to spread your prejudices.
> Look at a video "6 million lies" on youtube, there is some compelling evidence that what we all "know" to be true
Ahh, "I hate Jews and that's OK if I can pretend the Holocaust didn't actually happen at all (or at least to the degree historians say it did)".
What a strange position.
I guess that's what you get when you start with "I hate Jews and believe they shouldn't be considered human" and look for ways to justify your hatred instead of looking for truth.
> I may have to give up my comfortable google searches for something a little more open and honest.
Or you could just stop looking around entirely and get all your 'information' straight from Stormfront. Why risk seeing something that contradicts your prejudice?
Rather than offensive, the flag ought to be for 'lies, misrepresentations, and other deceptive content promoting prejudice'.
I reserve the right to be offended by someone preaching that a group of individuals is inherently generally inferior based on specific superficial characteristics. You let that go unchallenged, and a percentage of individuals will see that as verification and have have their dangerous ignorance reinforced.
When you allow a group to be successfully dehumanized by another group, hate crimes follow, and it's more than just nasty words that get used in those events.
Legislation is appropriate. Half the crime happened in the US. Or, to be more accurate, a crime happened in the US and (depending on the foreign nation) may also have happened elsewhere. Legally, separate crimes.
Treaties come up once you've locked down the legislation component and you're worried about extradition.
Then again, there should already be a law on the books to cover the US side of this issue. It's not like enough of this kind of thing hasn't happened within the country.
Look at what would happen if you shot an American on American soil from Canada or Mexico.
Now get your lawmakers to apply that same logic to digital aggression and draft some new legislation for what happens if you commit a computer offence against someone across legal jurisdictions.
>just how much longer will the rest of the world bend over backwards to accommodate the US in these matters?
How long will the US be militarily, economically, and culturally dominant?
I'm looking forward to a world where the biggest players have to compromise more with each other... but I'm slightly more comfortable with what I believe the USA will demand than China. It'd be nice to see the EU become cohesive enough to be a strong counter to the US as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Bitcoin is fundamentally impractical. It limps along with the support of criminals, scammers, gamblers, and fools, but it's never going anywhere significant.
There's nothing that can be done to correct the problems of Bitcoin without making it no longer Bitcoin, and thus rendering the effort pointless.
So why is it still a topic to discuss on a site that's supposed to be "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? It's not news to us, and it's more or less irrelevant unless you're on the wrong end of a cryptolocker.
Actually, Hawking is afraid of aliens. That seems a little weird for a guy who has spent his life studying the physics of the heavens, but there ya go.
For instance, I found a lot in Toronto where the parking meter took your credit card and would allow you to authorize additional parking time by SMS. As the time got close, the meter at the lot would send you an SMS warning. The correct reply would automatically charge you for another increment of parking time. I imaging there's a web interface for it by now.
Mind you, that was a private lot. They just have to deal with a lot of hassle if you overstay, while the government is more interested in you running out the meter so they can ticket you and make more money on the fine (that's why it's generally illegal to feed someone else's parking meter).
Either they need the drive or they don't.
If they need it... tough! (or at least it should be) - because they can't prove he hasn't genuinely forgotten the password.
If they don't need it, the contempt charge is a disgusting act by the legal system to ignore its internal checks and balances. Just finish the trial with the evidence you have, get the conviction, and apply an appropriate sentence.
With his disease, he should have been dead decades ago. Even without it, I wouldn't have expected him to be around too much longer. If he wants to die unaware after blacking out due to high G acceleration on the off chance he'll get to see the Earth from space and has the opportunity to do it... good for him.
I wouldn't insure him on his trip, but I wouldn't stop him, either.
This amounts to "We know you're guilty even though we can't prove it so we're not going to bother with proof", and worse, they're using that to apply a potentially unlimited sentence.
Just because the guy is accused of having a child porn collection doesn't mean the niceties of law shouldn't apply.
I'm actually not so much for the right against self-incrimination, but I am very much for the right to a fair trial based on evidence and not what people 'know'. I'm also very much on finite sentences proportional to the needs of protecting society, punishing enough to scare the next guy, and attempting to reform the convicted if possible... but there shouldn't be a sentence at all without a just conviction.
It's math, and they've been deciding with politics.
You look at the budget compared to the risk; if you can cut costs by 50% for less than double the risk, you're ahead of the game.
The problem is people see a few missions go splat and it's a big PR problem for future funding, even if you're actually getting more science for your dollar over all. And, of course, given the complexity of interplanetary missions I'm not confident you can decrease costs by a greater amount than you increase risks anyway.
Trump isn't the cause, he's a symptom. People feel threatened, they get tribal and mean... and they tend to do stupid things that make the problems causing them to feel threatened get worse.
Trump was elected over economic fear. Fear of the 1% (whose frankly ludicrous levels of wealth get thrown in our face by the media daily... and those aren't even the richest tier of people), fear of foreigners stealing our jobs.
So... vote in Trump to keep out the foreigners and stop the 1%ers in Washington. Which damages the economy and it turns out the kind of guy you vote in to the top position actually wants to line his own pockets and those of his (significant) supporters... the 1%.
It's a global problem because the same socioeconomic forces are driving the same mob reactions around the world.
Good point. Theatres in my area usually have an arcade, a variety of food options beyond popcorn & soda and... well, that's it.
They really should have a joined space (separately accessible outside theatre hours) that sells movie-related merchandise. I'd certainly make sure posters were on the list. And though you'd ultimately have to measure-and-order, I think using the bricks & mortar presence to market licensed movie costume replicas wouldn't be a bad idea, even if it's just a fairly normal jacket.
Throw in a decent large-format high quality printer and sell actor cut-outs on demand as well.
It might not have as much markup as popcorn, but I bet you'd have a huge boost to your net income.
Bracket is a generic term that includes the more specific term 'parenthesis'. And braces and chevrons (though I've never used chevrons and didn't even know that was an option until I looked it up just now).
Of course, it ALSO means 'square bracket' if you're American and 'parenthesis' if you're not, so perhaps I should have been more specific as a non-American on what is likely an American-dominated site.
Yeah, so you've just misinterpreted my opening sentence and made a lot of assumptions about my position, especially that last one.
That puts a high probability of you being in the 'Singularity Loon' group.
I will often throw brackets into sentences to make things clearer. That would absolutely have resolved the issue in TFA.
Yep. Pretty much anyone who goes on about the Singularity is a loon. Not because it's necessarily a fundamentally loony concept, but because it attracts loons like moths to a flame.
The second indicator is putting a date on the dawn of strong AI. We likely need a hardware breakthrough (I'm hopeful it'll be memristors, they look promising and we've already made them), but we also need a massive increase in our understanding of how a mind works, how it emerges from the physical properties of a brain, how to create a physical structure that can replicate that, and how to program instincts into it. Maybe that'll be in a dozen years, maybe it'll be in hundreds of years, and maybe we'll never figure it out because even a simplified model is too much for a human mind to work with.
I'm OK with smart machines (if we can instill them with a form of Asimov's Laws of Robotics), but I'm not holding my breath waiting for them. For now it looks like we're going to get mindless but very complex systems that can do most things better than humans, but still don't come anywhere near crossing the boundary to actual intelligence or self-awareness.
You could design the shell to be grenade-like, put a tiny little valid bit of flash drive inside and surround it with high density capacitors.
Rather than blast the attached USB port, you could simply short out all the capacitors and you have a very low-yield anti-personnel device that could blind someone, maybe cripple a hand if you design it to explode on device removal. Anyone who has ever shorted the capacitors in a disposable camera knows they pack a fair bit of wallop in a small space when charged up.
Or put some actual explosives in it, I suppose. In a properly sealed case that might pass inspection.
The problem is ease of development - use something developers are already familiar with and suddenly there's a massive pool of people making 'apps' for your new device, which helps it appeal to the consumer since you're probably not going to build an app library of your own out of the gate.
People don't want a watch anymore - they want a wrist computer that primarily tells time but tracks a bunch of other stuff and brings some of it to your attention as necessary. No matter what OS you write, it's going to have to have Bluetooth and connect to an Android device for I/O, and to compete it's probably going to need environmental sensors, an accelerometer, maybe a light and sensor for guesstimating your pulse rate, etc. Oh, and it should probably be able to clone an RFID tag so you can use it as an access key. And play music (and video). And have a camera. Maybe also GPS and basic cell phone capability so it can solo without a phone.
Now we're right back to sucking up battery and doing a poor job attempting to be all things to all people.
Meh. It's a mix of finance and politics... buying a bit of this stock is supporting Musk, and I like what he's doing.
Yes, I'm making a rich guy richer (when he's structured things so he's not really footing the bill or all that much risk), but you can also look at it as an investment in the future instead of direct financial profit.
You know, a future with less expensive space travel, a better power grid and electric transportation, maybe even the stupid hyperloop (though I don't really buy the hyperloop arguments since most of the 'savings' are about right-of way, and that could easily be taken advantage of by traditional rail with less risk).
> That empire fell - and another took it's place. So it shall be when America's empire finally falls - as all empires must fall sooner or later.
It's Canada's turn, bitches! Toques, Double-Doubles, poutine, and socialized medicine for all, eh?
To be fair, the women making these reports on sexism probably don't have degrees that involved a course in statistics.
More seriously, whenever politics gets involved people throw honesty in the shitter and will deceive as much as they can get away with in order to convince you they're right.
It probably won't work (at least for people who saw the original) because it won't be the original. It won't have the novelty value of those cool action scenes, of bullet time, etc. It won't have Reeves, Fishburne, Moss, or Weaving. Chances are they've learned the wrong lessons (as already shown by the 2nd and 3rd movies) and instead of a good story we'll get endless boring overly-choreographed action scenes.
On the other hand, it's a chance to do it right - ditch the battery crap and make the humans enslaved so their unused brain capacity acts as processors for the machine network, making it more creative than any silicon-based system yet designed. Make Zion just another layer to capture those who 'escaped' the Matrix. Do more with the Architect (in fact, I'd have bits of the original trilogy on his wall displays...)
Then show the REAL real world at the end of it; the new Neo waking up into a more typical futuristic world, all shiny, bright sky... but all the 'people' walking around are machines. Make the machines afraid of humans waking up en-mass because it would lobotomize them. Make the humans concerned that if they all woke up, they'd simply starve to death if the robots didn't notice and strap them right back into the Matrix.
Lies promoting prejudice was what I said. Your example wouldn't qualify.
Holocaust denial would, because for some weird reason racists believe it's OK to hate Jews if Hitler killed less than the generally quoted numbers. Historians can debate revising numbers if and as new evidence comes to light, and their findings aren't lies. People without access to primary sources claiming it didn't happen? Lies, in promotion of hatred.
It's not really that difficult a distinction to draw unless you're defending the methods you're using to spread your prejudices.
> Look at a video "6 million lies" on youtube, there is some compelling evidence that what we all "know" to be true
Ahh, "I hate Jews and that's OK if I can pretend the Holocaust didn't actually happen at all (or at least to the degree historians say it did)".
What a strange position.
I guess that's what you get when you start with "I hate Jews and believe they shouldn't be considered human" and look for ways to justify your hatred instead of looking for truth.
> I may have to give up my comfortable google searches for something a little more open and honest.
Or you could just stop looking around entirely and get all your 'information' straight from Stormfront. Why risk seeing something that contradicts your prejudice?
Rather than offensive, the flag ought to be for 'lies, misrepresentations, and other deceptive content promoting prejudice'.
I reserve the right to be offended by someone preaching that a group of individuals is inherently generally inferior based on specific superficial characteristics. You let that go unchallenged, and a percentage of individuals will see that as verification and have have their dangerous ignorance reinforced.
When you allow a group to be successfully dehumanized by another group, hate crimes follow, and it's more than just nasty words that get used in those events.
Legislation is appropriate. Half the crime happened in the US. Or, to be more accurate, a crime happened in the US and (depending on the foreign nation) may also have happened elsewhere. Legally, separate crimes.
Treaties come up once you've locked down the legislation component and you're worried about extradition.
Then again, there should already be a law on the books to cover the US side of this issue. It's not like enough of this kind of thing hasn't happened within the country.
Look at what would happen if you shot an American on American soil from Canada or Mexico.
Now get your lawmakers to apply that same logic to digital aggression and draft some new legislation for what happens if you commit a computer offence against someone across legal jurisdictions.
>just how much longer will the rest of the world bend over backwards to accommodate the US in these matters?
How long will the US be militarily, economically, and culturally dominant?
I'm looking forward to a world where the biggest players have to compromise more with each other... but I'm slightly more comfortable with what I believe the USA will demand than China. It'd be nice to see the EU become cohesive enough to be a strong counter to the US as well.