You've got it exactly backwards. If people with private/corporate power didn't act like selfish dicks a lot of the time, maybe we wouldn't need as much government. And maybe we wouldn't be wiping out species and ecosystems at 100 to 1000x background extinction rate, and maybe we wouldn't be warming the climate and acidifying the oceans. If only. I'm an environmentalist because I know more about what's actually going on, from both a physical-scientific and sociological perspective, and it scares the shit out of me. "Environmentalist" is also the wrong term, because it implies we are only concerned when it is going to affect us. "Eco-system integrity advocate" would be a better term.
"scientists have no credibility among members of Congress" So, to sum up what you've said, members of congress, in general, are idiots, at least when it comes to topics such as, for example, actual knowledge. So now we just have to find out why people keep electing idiots.
Let's say there wasn't yet a program to allow someone to create and edit and format documents containing words and pictures. (Arguably there still isn't a decent one in common use but that's another story.) Make such a program.
Or let's say there isn't an efficient and secure peer-to-peer data storage sharing framework, infrastructure, and application. Make me one of those, or, for extra credit, first design and implement a new programming language which will make it easier to build this encrypted, distributed storage layer app, the write the storage thing. Oh and please make it simple to use and extend, performant and highly scalable, multi-platform, and maintainable.
Faster verification of transactions is definitely needed with Bitcoin. Without that, its use as a "cash" / debit card equivalent for purchasing whatever (at a POS), is not feasible.
I haven't studied to know if the larger block size significantly addresses the speed of verification issue (as trade volume scales as it must if bitcoin is to be more than a toy), but something definitely needs to address that problem effectively.
Arguably, everyone who keeps savings in a particular currency is "investing" in that currency. They may not be expecting large windfall gains, but they are at least trying to prevent heavy loss of value, which might occur if they were invested instead in the stock market. So they are investing in, as well as co-creating, the stability of the value of the currency.
People from some other countries with less stable economies are either "investing" in US dollars, or in US/Western assets (real estate) as a way, not of gaining profit, but of avoiding catastrophic losses. That's still investing.
A language specifically designed to allow code to freely move around and execute on different nodes of a network of many devices is going to have extra challenges for security compared to other languages and platforms.
So those who came up with the language should be explicitly addressing the security aspects of this mobile code.
It should be pretty easy to design meta-apps that encrypt the traffic of the mainstream apps, if those app makers cave to dumbass laws like proposed.
I imagine script kiddies will be able to assemble and distribute new variants of encryption meta-apps on about a 10 per day new ones basis, using proven open-source code libraries as the core encryption tech.
Oh give me an f**ing break. A comment about a similar laptop in the same weight class is pretty much on topic and discusses relevant design points that come up when computer makers make usability compromises to get the weight and size down to these levels.
Use your friggin' imagination before sniping stupidly.
Light is great, for travelling, as long as strong enough.
But the latest Macbook (around 2 pounds) has two key problems that would prevent me buying it.
1) The keyboard feel really sucks compared to the Macbook Air. Not enough travel. And just feels shaky and iffy.
2) Having only one port (a USB C doubling as the power connector and for any peripheral) is going one step too far. Firstly, it doesn't have the amazing magsafe connector's safety, which is a showstopper for me. Secondly, it is not a rare use case to want plug power AND at least one peripheral (e.g. extra screen, usb memory stick, tethered smartphone.)
So this one lost Apple's famous design edge and QA excellence. Are they slipping?
You know, with a synthetic aperture nearly the diameter of the Earth created by fusing time-synched data from telescopes all around the Earth looking in the same direction of sky at the same time.
So I guess Cameron's comment means that they will be putting microphone bugs in every car and every few meters of public space, oh, and all the buildings.
It's not alarming for people to have different opinions.
What IS alarming is that scientific peer-reviewed information and the expertise of those who have had the intelligence and focus to get top-level credentials in a field of study is not valued higher than the opinion of those who have only casually looked into a matter without any rigour.
I'm sorry, but everyone's opinion, on some specialized factual question amenable to scientific investigation, is not of equal worth.
It is basic civility to listen to everyone's opinion. But opinions should be weighed rationally, according the opinion-stater's probable level of knowledge, demonstrated ability to reason, and freedom from self-interest on the particular topic.
The joke in all this is that what people react to are stories filled with misinformed hyperbole written by the media.
The punchline is that while all the fuss and ridicule are going on among the chattering classes, the legitimate AI researchers keep on plodding inexorably toward increasingly sophisticated and capable AI technology. It has always been thus. Sometimes the misinformed hype and backlash leads to funding boons or busts, but the plodding progress of those actually developing it continues, and the progress gradually speeds up, as discovery assists discovery.
The naysayers are going to be the most surprised when they are laid off by an automated human resources bot because their "knowledge worker" job is being outsourced to the smart cloud.
A.I. is really advancing very rapidly today. You can debate whether it's real or not til the robot dogs http://time.com/3703243/google... come home, but your philosophizing and wishful denialism won't change the reality on the ground, or in the clouds for that matter.
The governor of Hawaii tried a compromise where they would decomission 4 old telescopes, to be able to build this new one.
It was rejected.
My suggestion is, ante up on the compromise. Promise to build the new one on the site of one of the old ones. In other words, don't create any more development on undeveloped land, which seems to be a big part of the what the protestors object to.
Depends whether the act defines "Health Information" logically i.e. "Information about your health" or whether it defines it in some silly overspecific way such as "information held about people by the following kinds of agencies and companies".
I haven't read the act, but my guess is it's not defined in the first way alone.
Slashdot Mirror
So I take it that you, as a paid corporate shill. are not going to be joining our post-industrial revolution.
You've got it exactly backwards. If people with private/corporate power didn't act like selfish dicks a lot of the time, maybe we wouldn't need as much government.
And maybe we wouldn't be wiping out species and ecosystems at 100 to 1000x background extinction rate, and maybe we wouldn't be warming the climate and acidifying the oceans.
If only. I'm an environmentalist because I know more about what's actually going on, from both a physical-scientific and sociological perspective, and it scares the shit out of me.
"Environmentalist" is also the wrong term, because it implies we are only concerned when it is going to affect us.
"Eco-system integrity advocate" would be a better term.
"scientists have no credibility among members of Congress"
So, to sum up what you've said, members of congress, in general, are idiots, at least when it comes to topics such as, for example, actual knowledge.
So now we just have to find out why people keep electing idiots.
Let's say there wasn't yet a program to allow someone to create and edit and format documents containing words and pictures. (Arguably there still isn't a decent one in common use but that's another story.) Make such a program.
Or let's say there isn't an efficient and secure peer-to-peer data storage sharing framework, infrastructure, and application. Make me one of those, or, for extra credit, first design and implement a new programming language which will make it easier to build this encrypted, distributed storage layer app, the write the storage thing. Oh and please make it simple to use and extend, performant and highly scalable, multi-platform, and maintainable.
And I'd like it in red, by next Thursday?
Faster verification of transactions is definitely needed with Bitcoin. Without that, its use as a "cash" / debit card equivalent for purchasing whatever (at a POS), is not feasible.
I haven't studied to know if the larger block size significantly addresses the speed of verification issue (as trade volume scales as it must if bitcoin is to be more than a toy), but something definitely needs to address that problem effectively.
Arguably, everyone who keeps savings in a particular currency is "investing" in that currency.
They may not be expecting large windfall gains, but they are at least trying to prevent heavy loss of value, which might occur if they were invested instead in the stock market. So they are investing in, as well as co-creating, the stability of the value of the currency.
People from some other countries with less stable economies are either "investing" in US dollars, or in US/Western assets (real estate) as a way, not of gaining profit, but of avoiding catastrophic losses. That's still investing.
There. Fixed that for you.
A language specifically designed to allow code to freely move around and execute on different nodes of a network of many devices is going to have extra challenges for security compared to other languages and platforms.
So those who came up with the language should be explicitly addressing the security aspects of this mobile code.
It should be pretty easy to design meta-apps that encrypt the traffic of the mainstream apps, if those app makers cave to dumbass laws like proposed.
I imagine script kiddies will be able to assemble and distribute new variants of encryption meta-apps on about a 10 per day new ones basis, using proven open-source code libraries as the core encryption tech.
Oh give me an f**ing break. A comment about a similar laptop in the same weight class is pretty much on topic and discusses relevant design points that come up when computer makers make usability compromises to get the weight and size down to these levels.
Use your friggin' imagination before sniping stupidly.
Light is great, for travelling, as long as strong enough.
But the latest Macbook (around 2 pounds) has two key problems that would prevent me buying it.
1) The keyboard feel really sucks compared to the Macbook Air. Not enough travel. And just feels shaky and iffy.
2) Having only one port (a USB C doubling as the power connector and for any peripheral) is going one step too far.
Firstly, it doesn't have the amazing magsafe connector's safety, which is a showstopper for me.
Secondly, it is not a rare use case to want plug power AND at least one peripheral (e.g. extra screen, usb memory stick, tethered smartphone.)
So this one lost Apple's famous design edge and QA excellence. Are they slipping?
socially constructed concepts, like money, ARE, just like us, an emergent property of the universe.
On a method and process for conveying meaning or emotion via modulation of ambient air pressure (using a computer, of course).
You know, with a synthetic aperture nearly the diameter of the Earth created by fusing time-synched data from telescopes all around the Earth looking in the same direction of sky at the same time.
So I guess Cameron's comment means that they will be putting microphone bugs in every car and every few meters of public space, oh, and all the buildings.
Hey wait a minute, what is THAT?
It's not alarming for people to have different opinions.
What IS alarming is that scientific peer-reviewed information and the expertise of those who have had the intelligence and focus to get top-level credentials in a field of study is not valued higher than the opinion of those who have only casually looked into a matter without any rigour.
I'm sorry, but everyone's opinion, on some specialized factual question amenable to scientific investigation, is not of equal worth.
It is basic civility to listen to everyone's opinion. But opinions should be weighed rationally, according the opinion-stater's probable level of knowledge, demonstrated ability to reason, and freedom from self-interest on the particular topic.
The joke in all this is that what people react to are stories filled with misinformed hyperbole written by the media.
The punchline is that while all the fuss and ridicule are going on among the chattering classes, the legitimate AI researchers keep on plodding inexorably toward increasingly sophisticated and capable AI technology. It has always been thus. Sometimes the misinformed hype and backlash leads to funding boons or busts, but the plodding progress of those actually developing it continues, and the progress gradually speeds up, as discovery assists discovery.
The naysayers are going to be the most surprised when they are laid off by an automated human resources bot because their "knowledge worker" job is being outsourced to the smart cloud.
A.I. is really advancing very rapidly today. You can debate whether it's real or not til the robot dogs http://time.com/3703243/google... come home, but your philosophizing and wishful denialism won't change the reality on the ground, or in the clouds for that matter.
The governor of Hawaii tried a compromise where they would decomission 4 old telescopes, to be able to build this new one.
It was rejected.
My suggestion is, ante up on the compromise. Promise to build the new one on the site of one of the old ones. In other words, don't create any more development on undeveloped land, which seems to be a big part of the what the protestors object to.
And they probably produce these miracle outputs in intense 3 or 4 hour bursts followed by paid sit-on-your-ass mental exhaustion.
Just pushing the location of the the center of the conversation. A standard technique.
At the very least, one should be able to sue (perhaps in class action) for the unauthorized sale and disclosure of such information to 3rd parties.
And if man had been meant to fly, he'd have been given wings. Yeah yeah. Now move aside. My vehicle is set to "assertive" mode.
Depends whether the act defines "Health Information" logically i.e. "Information about your health" or whether it defines it in some silly overspecific way such as "information held about people by the following kinds of agencies and companies".
I haven't read the act, but my guess is it's not defined in the first way alone.
Just sign this crap ton of forms.
Do we need an extra constitutional right to the control of, and knowledge about, personally-identified data collected about us?
Good luck with that I know, given that we're all face-taggable by facebook, google, and the local police department already, not to mention the feds.