We might as well start getting the next generation of citizens ready for omnipresent, real-time survailence. I am not talking about Government, either, or security cameras monitored by barely sentient drones.
How about this concept moved into the corporate world -- a three-click report that gives you the productivity level, amount of time spent talking, idleness, last 5 applications opened, last 20 websites accessed, and whatever else might be relevant. Typing speed. Current assignment. Last unauthorized break from working.
Exact length of lunch break.
If people are exposed to this kind of treatment from the beginning of his or her socialization, then they will expect it -- and perhaps be unable to function without it.
Legally, corporations are people. People will an enormous amount of money.
Our (US) government was designed to be responsive to the needs of money rather than blood (aristocracy), as had been the case before that. So this should not really astound you -- everything is working perfectly! Really!
Is truth eternal, or is it based on perception? If most people believe that the President has a great effect on government just by being elected, does this not make it truth -- if only partly? As time goes on, executive feature creep takes more and more of these presumptions as mandate.
As much as I disliked his articles, I believe David Brin had a point with his critique of Star Wars. It has become apparent even to me that a large segment of our society does, in fact, want to be ruled, assuming that Good Guys are like Jedis; they weild awesome power in the name of all that is good and righteous. Unfortunately for all of us, the US sociopolitical system has yet to produce citizens of that fiber (except for, perhaps, one that got shot).
Another rather important point is that our government was expressly designed to express the will of people (sex/race ignored for time being) with resources. Not your average dock-worker, black-smith, or farmer (refer to the Whiskey Rebellion), but the landed and moneyed. Do not forget, they were simply trying to correct a system where blood trumped money.
So voter turnout can fix a lot of problems in US society, but it will have a -very- rough time fixing the money-power problem, because that is what our system is designed to do!
Notice I didn't even say Republican. 'Religiously conservative' does come to mind, though. And isn't the tactic of wrapping said conservatives in ethnic packages just charming? Why do you think there was such an uproar over Clarence Thomas?
Did anyone see the context in which the Patriot extension was raised?
Another secret warrant law, this one to help speed the capture of "lone wolves," that is, terrorists who work without affiliation to a terrorist group. See the problem here? This is all about targeting individuals and making it even more secretive than it already is.
By that time, hopefully, there will be some new court members in[SNIP]
Oh dear. I hope you are not counting on the kinds of judges that the current administration seems to favor. If Bush gets re-elected into a second term (probable), you can kiss a balanced court, and probably most kinds of abortion, good-bye for another generation.
For that, the Dark Templar will come and rend your flesh from your bones. You post on slashdot, but you know not of Starcraft?
At the very least, realize that the word has expanded out of your sterile dictionary. Look what happened to elves, and even more to the point, trolls....
1: No torture (yet) is officially sanctioned in the US.
The United States delegates its torture to nations with less strigent civil rights laws. In the present war on islam, eygpt is a popular choice, both for it's muslim base and it's savage interrogations.
This is New Totolitarianism, after all. ----------
Terrorists are bees, flying out of a hive that our collective Western (yes, that means Europeans too)have been throwing rocks at for years. You can try to wear that fancy bee-shielding, but as beekeepers know, they always find a crevice to crawl through.
So, ironically, terrorists are bogeymen as well, a kinda collective neurosis of guilt and fear. It's been worst in the United States, I feel, since World War II was ended through weapons of mass destruction. ----------
Re: Quoth the Simpsons:
on
BSA IDC FUD
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Homer: "There's not a single bear in sight--the 'Bear Patrol' is working like a charm".
Lisa: "That's specious reasoning."
Homer: "Thanks, honey."
Lisa: "According to your logic, this rock keeps tigers away".
Homer: "Hmmm. How does it work?"
Lisa: "It doesn't."
Homer: "How so?"
Lisa: "It's just a rock. But I don't see a tiger, anywhere."
Homer: "Lisa," *pulls out wallet* "I want to buy your rock."
----------
Keeping Money in the Bank Harms the Economy
on
BSA IDC FUD
·
· Score: 1
Yes, that's right. Remember the halcyon ninties when personal savings rates were actually negative? That kind of foolish spending was actually very good for the economy. Oh, and for the government as well, through all those sales.
So if everyone goes out and immediately spends all the money they have, many companies will see their profits increase.
After all, this is exactly what they've done with Guatemalan Bay and the "Unlawful Combatants".
This is also how my great nation is dealing with the touchy subject of interrogation. As long as it is not an American official who, say, connects a man's testicles to a car battery, then it's perfectly legal. The foreign interrogator simply reports his findings to his US associates.
By that logic, Dr. Evil is not, in fact, evil, because his minions do all the bad stuff for him.
----------
The real kicker, for me, is that my government is going about this the wrong way. There will be more terrorist attacks, and one will be successful, eventually. In all of history, there has never been such a thing as perfect defense.
No thought will be given to the motivations of the terrorists. Even thinking such things is enough to brand one as a hippy-liberal (at best).
When the next attack eventually occurs, American society will be locked down even more, and then even further after the following attack......I do not believe it will end until everyone that hates America is dead (HAR!), or when our great nation ends it's filthy addiction to oil.
----------
From the looks of the article, Earthlink bought a server-side web "accelerator." So, for that extra eight bucks (?) a month, you get http compression. And that's it. Everything else you do will still be terribly slow.....
Melcher, in short, has erected an impressive architecture of profit, grounded solidly in the foundation of consumer revenues.
What garbage. You pay $10 a month, and then have the priviledge of purchasing additional consumer goods with real money. Who honestly cares if an avatar is wearing Levis or just.....blue polygons?
I do not believe we will see a true metaverse until Open Source developers go for that grail. Why? Because every effort we've seen so far is about profit generation -- and the field has a long, long, long way to go before consumers will pay to do a half-assed version of what they do in real life.
Who created the metaverse in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash -- businesses, or hackers?
Well, Americans might believe in the Jeffersonian ideals, but our country is all about Hamilton's vision -- that is, the country survives by harnessing the greed of the rich and powerful. These men invest in America, so it is in their vested interest to see that America endures (or else they lose their investment). For what it's worth, its an extremely efficient and successful system. Indeed, in terms of power and wealth, no one does it better than the US.
As for enfranchisement -- I am really not concerned with whether or not people listen to me; I am more concerned with being somewhere else when terrorism returns......or when the rest of the world begins to move away from US currency.
At that point, the idiots can have the country for all I care.
I know of a startup that has already implemented such a system for PDAs. Wireless, location-based advertising.
Fortunately, the recession has left businesses unwilling to experiment with advertising, so the streets (and US cell phones) will be safe for a little while yet....
This is not a minor thing at all. The semantics problem you mentioned were pretty much worked out by the end of the text-command era. If you look at the parser in an Infocom game and compare it to Space Quest III or Quest for Glory ii (which in particular had command-line completion if i do recall correctly) -- very different experiences. I recall few, if any, vocabulary "puzzles" in those later games.
Once the graphic adventures switched over to mouse-commands, challenge and immersion went right out the window. Most puzzles could be solved by clicking (or dragging an icon and then clicking) on the screen. Of course, simulated dialog became possible with mouse commands, but that never did make up for the loss of gameplay.
Also, some of the most entertaining moments in many old games of that nature were the smart-ass responses you would get for an incorrect command.
If by "American Patriots," you mean "the wealthy and influential gentlemen who headed/backed the Revolution", and if by "freedom" you mean "the opportunity to create a government that would be beholden to moneyed interests and not aristocracy" then I would agree with that sentiment.
If you are talking about (what would later be called) the Jeffersonian ideals that incited the population to go along with them, then I do not. Because -- that is not the freedom that we offer today.
Or wishful thinking. Many journalists and the like seem to think that if they predict something long enough, it will happen. How many publications became smug after the recession began -- they had seen it coming years ago.
So now their logic is to start declaring the that Tech Bust is over, and....eventually....it will be.
That's like saying American soldiers should turn their guns on their Commander-in-Chief if they disagree with him. Or is it different because they are the Enemy, and Enemy Leaders are Always Wrong?
Just try to put yourself in someone else's position for a moment before you type, okay?
Bush Orders Iraq To Disarm Before Start of War
on
Updates on War in Iraq
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Bush Orders Iraq To Disarm Before Start Of War WASHINGTON, DC--Maintaining his hardline stance against Saddam Hussein, President Bush ordered Iraq to fully dismantle its military before the U.S. begins its invasion next week. "U.S. intelligence confirms that, even as we speak, Saddam is preparing tanks and guns and other weapons of deadly force for use in our upcoming war against him," Bush said Sunday during his weekly radio address. "This madman has every intention of firing back at our troops when we attack his country." Bush warned the Iraqi dictator to "lay down [his] weapons and enter battle unarmed, or suffer the consequences."
Oh, so the United States is leading this Crusade out of pure benevolence, while France and Russia are only concerned with the bottom line.
It has nothing to do with the fact that a single country can effectively destroy any other country at whim. It has nothing to do with the weakening of the UN. And, of course, it really has nothing to do with the current Administration's track record on energy concerns.
Incidentally, when countries have differing interests in a political situation, they use a technique called "Diplomacy." This technique allows opposing parties to resolve differences by equalling dissatisfaction. Please note that George Bush's poorly-worded, buzzword-laden speeches telling other nations what to do is not considered diplomacy.
And not least...
The 70s....wasn't there a few nice, fat recessions in the 70s? Remember what inner cities looked like in the 70s? Oh, but our military was big......
Slashdot Mirror
How about this concept moved into the corporate world -- a three-click report that gives you the productivity level, amount of time spent talking, idleness, last 5 applications opened, last 20 websites accessed, and whatever else might be relevant. Typing speed. Current assignment. Last unauthorized break from working. Exact length of lunch break.
If people are exposed to this kind of treatment from the beginning of his or her socialization, then they will expect it -- and perhaps be unable to function without it.
----------
Our (US) government was designed to be responsive to the needs of money rather than blood (aristocracy), as had been the case before that. So this should not really astound you -- everything is working perfectly! Really!
As much as I disliked his articles, I believe David Brin had a point with his critique of Star Wars. It has become apparent even to me that a large segment of our society does, in fact, want to be ruled, assuming that Good Guys are like Jedis; they weild awesome power in the name of all that is good and righteous. Unfortunately for all of us, the US sociopolitical system has yet to produce citizens of that fiber (except for, perhaps, one that got shot).
Another rather important point is that our government was expressly designed to express the will of people (sex/race ignored for time being) with resources. Not your average dock-worker, black-smith, or farmer (refer to the Whiskey Rebellion), but the landed and moneyed. Do not forget, they were simply trying to correct a system where blood trumped money.
So voter turnout can fix a lot of problems in US society, but it will have a -very- rough time fixing the money-power problem, because that is what our system is designed to do!
----------
-------
Another secret warrant law, this one to help speed the capture of "lone wolves," that is, terrorists who work without affiliation to a terrorist group. See the problem here? This is all about targeting individuals and making it even more secretive than it already is.
The decent into madness continues, unabated.
------
Oh dear. I hope you are not counting on the kinds of judges that the current administration seems to favor. If Bush gets re-elected into a second term (probable), you can kiss a balanced court, and probably most kinds of abortion, good-bye for another generation.
------
He is also the Commander-in-Chief of the System Templars. The RIAA should tred warily!
At the very least, realize that the word has expanded out of your sterile dictionary. Look what happened to elves, and even more to the point, trolls....
This is New Totolitarianism, after all.
----------
So, ironically, terrorists are bogeymen as well, a kinda collective neurosis of guilt and fear. It's been worst in the United States, I feel, since World War II was ended through weapons of mass destruction.
----------
Homer: "There's not a single bear in sight--the 'Bear Patrol' is working like a charm".
Lisa: "That's specious reasoning."
Homer: "Thanks, honey."
Lisa: "According to your logic, this rock keeps tigers away".
Homer: "Hmmm. How does it work?"
Lisa: "It doesn't."
Homer: "How so?"
Lisa: "It's just a rock. But I don't see a tiger, anywhere."
Homer: "Lisa," *pulls out wallet* "I want to buy your rock."
----------
So if everyone goes out and immediately spends all the money they have, many companies will see their profits increase.
That is all.
----------
This is also how my great nation is dealing with the touchy subject of interrogation. As long as it is not an American official who, say, connects a man's testicles to a car battery, then it's perfectly legal. The foreign interrogator simply reports his findings to his US associates.
By that logic, Dr. Evil is not, in fact, evil, because his minions do all the bad stuff for him.
----------
The real kicker, for me, is that my government is going about this the wrong way. There will be more terrorist attacks, and one will be successful, eventually. In all of history, there has never been such a thing as perfect defense.
No thought will be given to the motivations of the terrorists. Even thinking such things is enough to brand one as a hippy-liberal (at best).
When the next attack eventually occurs, American society will be locked down even more, and then even further after the following attack......I do not believe it will end until everyone that hates America is dead (HAR!), or when our great nation ends it's filthy addiction to oil.
----------
From the looks of the article, Earthlink bought a server-side web "accelerator." So, for that extra eight bucks (?) a month, you get http compression. And that's it. Everything else you do will still be terribly slow.....
Melcher, in short, has erected an impressive architecture of profit, grounded solidly in the foundation of consumer revenues.
What garbage. You pay $10 a month, and then have the priviledge of purchasing additional consumer goods with real money. Who honestly cares if an avatar is wearing Levis or just.....blue polygons?
I do not believe we will see a true metaverse until Open Source developers go for that grail. Why? Because every effort we've seen so far is about profit generation -- and the field has a long, long, long way to go before consumers will pay to do a half-assed version of what they do in real life.
Who created the metaverse in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash -- businesses, or hackers?
Well, Americans might believe in the Jeffersonian ideals, but our country is all about Hamilton's vision -- that is, the country survives by harnessing the greed of the rich and powerful. These men invest in America, so it is in their vested interest to see that America endures (or else they lose their investment). For what it's worth, its an extremely efficient and successful system. Indeed, in terms of power and wealth, no one does it better than the US.
As for enfranchisement -- I am really not concerned with whether or not people listen to me; I am more concerned with being somewhere else when terrorism returns......or when the rest of the world begins to move away from US currency. At that point, the idiots can have the country for all I care.
I know of a startup that has already implemented such a system for PDAs. Wireless, location-based advertising.
Fortunately, the recession has left businesses unwilling to experiment with advertising, so the streets (and US cell phones) will be safe for a little while yet....
This is not a minor thing at all. The semantics problem you mentioned were pretty much worked out by the end of the text-command era. If you look at the parser in an Infocom game and compare it to Space Quest III or Quest for Glory ii (which in particular had command-line completion if i do recall correctly) -- very different experiences. I recall few, if any, vocabulary "puzzles" in those later games.
Once the graphic adventures switched over to mouse-commands, challenge and immersion went right out the window. Most puzzles could be solved by clicking (or dragging an icon and then clicking) on the screen. Of course, simulated dialog became possible with mouse commands, but that never did make up for the loss of gameplay.
Also, some of the most entertaining moments in many old games of that nature were the smart-ass responses you would get for an incorrect command.
If by "American Patriots," you mean "the wealthy and influential gentlemen who headed/backed the Revolution", and if by "freedom" you mean "the opportunity to create a government that would be beholden to moneyed interests and not aristocracy" then I would agree with that sentiment.
If you are talking about (what would later be called) the Jeffersonian ideals that incited the population to go along with them, then I do not. Because -- that is not the freedom that we offer today.
Or wishful thinking. Many journalists and the like seem to think that if they predict something long enough, it will happen. How many publications became smug after the recession began -- they had seen it coming years ago.
So now their logic is to start declaring the that Tech Bust is over, and....eventually....it will be.
That's like saying American soldiers should turn their guns on their Commander-in-Chief if they disagree with him. Or is it different because they are the Enemy, and Enemy Leaders are Always Wrong?
Just try to put yourself in someone else's position for a moment before you type, okay?
Bush Orders Iraq To Disarm Before Start Of War
WASHINGTON, DC--Maintaining his hardline stance against Saddam Hussein, President Bush ordered Iraq to fully dismantle its military before the U.S. begins its invasion next week. "U.S. intelligence confirms that, even as we speak, Saddam is preparing tanks and guns and other weapons of deadly force for use in our upcoming war against him," Bush said Sunday during his weekly radio address. "This madman has every intention of firing back at our troops when we attack his country." Bush warned the Iraqi dictator to "lay down [his] weapons and enter battle unarmed, or suffer the consequences."
Oh, so the United States is leading this Crusade out of pure benevolence, while France and Russia are only concerned with the bottom line.
It has nothing to do with the fact that a single country can effectively destroy any other country at whim. It has nothing to do with the weakening of the UN. And, of course, it really has nothing to do with the current Administration's track record on energy concerns.
Incidentally, when countries have differing interests in a political situation, they use a technique called "Diplomacy." This technique allows opposing parties to resolve differences by equalling dissatisfaction. Please note that George Bush's poorly-worded, buzzword-laden speeches telling other nations what to do is not considered diplomacy.
And not least...
The 70s....wasn't there a few nice, fat recessions in the 70s? Remember what inner cities looked like in the 70s? Oh, but our military was big......
$75 an hour. After all, don't they want to see their Little Boy succeed?