I wouldnt do it for the same reason I refuse to buy clothes with logos on them that advertise the maker of those clothes, or some other form of advertisement.
If someone wants me to wear such advertisement-enhanced clothes, they should pay me for the priviledge.
Same with computer cycles. I pay the electricity. If they plan on making money from the product of the cycles I give them, they should pay me.
However, I have no problem giving away free computer cycles to non-profit scientific endeavors.
I think their main motivation is to stop the spread of virus attachments... anytime there's a MS-targetting worm going around, using similar distribution processes as spam, it creates an additional workload, not to mention that it tars Microsoft's image.
From my point of view, the spam cleanup would just be collateral.
I agree with you 100%. And to make matters worse, they'll limit the maximum speed electronically to 120 km/h (from a maximum speed of 140 km/h). I'm sure it'll be possible to hack/remove that limit, but that would probably void the warranty.
...they might as well invent their own alternative to the metric system
They've already GOT ONE!
1 km = 2 li (3.218 li = 1 mile) 1 m = 3 chi (0.914 chi = 1 foot) 1 kg = 2 jin (0.907 jin = 1 pound) 1 hectare = 15 mu (6.070 mu = 1 acre) 1 litre = 1 sheng (4.546 sheng = 1 gallon)
Proof? In the movie Troy, starring Brad Pitt as Achilles, we have Patroclus, who, in the original Illiad, is Achilles' lover... in the movie, he's Achilles' cousin.
is this BBC article: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/373 2475.stm
10 things the Google ethics committee could discuss It's reported that Google, whose motto is Do No Evil, has an ethics committee to debate its impact on the world - something that will doubtless grow as the company floats. So what sort of things might it discuss?
1. From being a stripped-down search engine, Google is now a major player in advertising. Its webmail system, Gmail, runs on inserting adverts into people's e-mails. "How far should this go?" asks Danny Sullivan, editor of Internet Search Engine Watch. "Is it ethical to put ads on absolutely everything they do, almost like a supermarket floor?" 2. How much personal data should it collect? The company is going to understand more and more about what people are doing online, says Sullivan. But does that mean our information is fair game?
3. How much permission should it seek when it wants to "mine" public data for new facts, asks Danny O'Brien, co-editor of technology newsletter NTK. "Say Google designed a system that could scan photographs online, and tell you where they'd been taken. Would it be OK to collect all the snapshots uploaded on the net and index them, even when people could find out where you lived from your photo album? Is it OK to use public information to uncover facts that might have been private?"
4. How much should the company intervene in search results? The "ethics committee", which the company says is an informal discussion between interested managers and staff, debates changes to the algorithms which order search results. Spammers who try to skew the results are one target of adjustments, according to software engineer Eran Gabber. But any alteration will change the way people see the web, so should they be undertaken lightly?
5. Does it have a role in taste and decency? Sullivan says the company will remove search results for legal considerations - but what about other cases? What about links that showed, for instance, video of American Nick Berg being beheaded?
6. As a big company, Google has business relationships with lots of other companies - it's no longer a matter of just doing search. And business is business, so what if the company wanted to introduce "favoured status" within its results?
7. Google has become something of a standard bearer for ethics - who, for instance, would know if Yahoo had a similar committee, asks Sullivan. So should Google even be bothered about ethics now, or was that something for when it was a small affair?
8. For many people , Google is the internet. They use it as the front end and trust it to give them what they need - the Google deskbar makes this even more apparent. Does Google have any feeling for how it filters the net, do many of its users even know that they get a filtered view of cyberspace or how much filtering is going on?
9. Google is not a monopoly; there's plenty of competition. But should it strive to become one? What effect might that have?
10. Do they feel lucky? Sitting on billions of dollars, what is the best way to share their luck?
I feel your pain. I myself play simple games on my cellphone during public transportation commutes...
my favourite (ok, the most playable) game on my cellphone is a form of video-poker.
I'm starting to wonder if the odds arent overly stacked against me... I never win more than a certain amount until I inevitably start to lose everything, which makes me want to throw the damn phone against the floor of the bus.
couldn't a standard be developed to fix the current one that we are using?
how do you implement the new fix though? if the system still basically works for the lowest common denominator user, there's no incentive (or knowledge or motivation) for that user to upgrade.
if there is a competing network that looks and feels better to use, then people HAVE to use new tools to access it.
the contrast I'd like to see is something like when people had to migrate from BBSes to ISPs.
erm, what? you can send email through a web interface.
besides, I'm not proposing that a new system be identical to the old one.
I'm just thinking that future iterations of Internet-based networks and content-delivery interfaces should co-exist at first with the current ones, compete with them, and eventually take over due to various improvements...
A major improvement to the Internet I'd like to see is the elimination of spam and other shameless, annoying exploiters.
Everyone agrees in Slashdot Spam discussion threads that you cant just instantly replace the whole email infrastructure, but I think that if you offer a competing alternative, which is more than email and more than the WWW all at once, and devoid of most nuisances, a lot of people would migrate.
not really, i mean, we already have FTP servers, Usenet, the WWW, instant messagers, the email system...
speaking of which, a separate web could also have a new form of electronic mail which could be spam-proof, and this could be a real incentive for the masses to start using this new interface.
The macworld article isnt very informative to someone who've never heard of this "next generation" web, but it seems like they want to add it on top of the existing WWW.
Why cant someone just invent a new similar, improved web that is separated from the current WWW, with its own specific browser, and implement the various ins, outs and whathaveyous to keep the riffraff from exploiting it in very annoying ways?
as soon as I get me one of these video t-shirts, I'm gonna walk around playing Blipverts and giving people headaches, epileptic seizures (and maybe even a few explosions?)
There's this well known webpage that analyses all the sources of inspiration Lucas used to create the original trilogy.
I bet this lava thing was stolen from Jules Vernes' Journey to the Center of the Earth, where the characters escape by being catapulted out of a volcano while surfing the rising lava.
So I think you are right in that either Ben or Anny will catch some serious air.
your theory fails to take into account how some galaxies merge together, etc.
See my Coffee Mug theory ( science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=108143&cid=91 95316 )
Not only does it explain oscillation between alternating cold and hot / contracting and expanding states of the Universe, but also explains other phenomena, such as what happens when the Big Geek drops a sugar cube or two in the coffee, or, alternatively, some sugar replacement, 2% or homo milk, or even coffee creamer, the next Cosmic-Day.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldnt do it for the same reason I refuse to buy clothes with logos on them that advertise the maker of those clothes, or some other form of advertisement.
If someone wants me to wear such advertisement-enhanced clothes, they should pay me for the priviledge.
Same with computer cycles. I pay the electricity. If they plan on making money from the product of the cycles I give them, they should pay me.
However, I have no problem giving away free computer cycles to non-profit scientific endeavors.
I think their main motivation is to stop the spread of virus attachments... anytime there's a MS-targetting worm going around, using similar distribution processes as spam, it creates an additional workload, not to mention that it tars Microsoft's image.
From my point of view, the spam cleanup would just be collateral.
I'm a big fan of First Person Shooters, and I love to go out and play a good paintball match...
Of course, it wont help you burn calories if you're one of them bloody campers.
I agree with you 100%. And to make matters worse, they'll limit the maximum speed electronically to 120 km/h (from a maximum speed of 140 km/h). I'm sure it'll be possible to hack/remove that limit, but that would probably void the warranty.
the RIAA is bound to push for implanted "ear-meters" in everyone, and automatic billing whenever music is listened to.
"The saddest part with Toyota's gadget: It appears too much a toy, and they will have terrible image problems"
I cant wait to see how the North American market reacts to the arrival of the Smart this fall (at least in Canada).
It positively looks like a toy car, and I fully expect SUV owners to disrespect it.
However, I cant wait for the Smart Roadster models which are sure to be produced for North America if the regular Smart models catch on.
And that, my friends, is the thin edge of the wedge for micro-cars in the Land of the SUVs.
hmmmm Grand Theft Auto: Vatican City... ;)
Makes me wonder if China is working on its own global positioning system (see previous slashdot story/thread)
...they might as well invent their own alternative to the metric system
They've already GOT ONE!
1 km = 2 li
(3.218 li = 1 mile)
1 m = 3 chi
(0.914 chi = 1 foot)
1 kg = 2 jin
(0.907 jin = 1 pound)
1 hectare = 15 mu
(6.070 mu = 1 acre)
1 litre = 1 sheng
(4.546 sheng = 1 gallon)
I'd host a beowulf cluster of Unreal Tournament 2004 servers with 32-player maps.
We cant handle the TRUTH!
Even when it's about ancient Greeks.
Proof? In the movie Troy, starring Brad Pitt as Achilles, we have Patroclus, who, in the original Illiad, is Achilles' lover... in the movie, he's Achilles' cousin.
I see a bit more similarity with the Burning of the Reichstag...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
is this BBC article:3 2475.stm
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/37
10 things the Google ethics committee could discuss
It's reported that Google, whose motto is Do No Evil, has an ethics committee to debate its impact on the world - something that will doubtless grow as the company floats. So what sort of things might it discuss?
1. From being a stripped-down search engine, Google is now a major player in advertising. Its webmail system, Gmail, runs on inserting adverts into people's e-mails. "How far should this go?" asks Danny Sullivan, editor of Internet Search Engine Watch. "Is it ethical to put ads on absolutely everything they do, almost like a supermarket floor?"
2. How much personal data should it collect? The company is going to understand more and more about what people are doing online, says Sullivan. But does that mean our information is fair game?
3. How much permission should it seek when it wants to "mine" public data for new facts, asks Danny O'Brien, co-editor of technology newsletter NTK. "Say Google designed a system that could scan photographs online, and tell you where they'd been taken. Would it be OK to collect all the snapshots uploaded on the net and index them, even when people could find out where you lived from your photo album? Is it OK to use public information to uncover facts that might have been private?"
4. How much should the company intervene in search results? The "ethics committee", which the company says is an informal discussion between interested managers and staff, debates changes to the algorithms which order search results. Spammers who try to skew the results are one target of adjustments, according to software engineer Eran Gabber. But any alteration will change the way people see the web, so should they be undertaken lightly?
5. Does it have a role in taste and decency? Sullivan says the company will remove search results for legal considerations - but what about other cases? What about links that showed, for instance, video of American Nick Berg being beheaded?
6. As a big company, Google has business relationships with lots of other companies - it's no longer a matter of just doing search. And business is business, so what if the company wanted to introduce "favoured status" within its results?
7. Google has become something of a standard bearer for ethics - who, for instance, would know if Yahoo had a similar committee, asks Sullivan. So should Google even be bothered about ethics now, or was that something for when it was a small affair?
8. For many people , Google is the internet. They use it as the front end and trust it to give them what they need - the Google deskbar makes this even more apparent. Does Google have any feeling for how it filters the net, do many of its users even know that they get a filtered view of cyberspace or how much filtering is going on?
9. Google is not a monopoly; there's plenty of competition. But should it strive to become one? What effect might that have?
10. Do they feel lucky? Sitting on billions of dollars, what is the best way to share their luck?
I feel your pain. I myself play simple games on my cellphone during public transportation commutes...
my favourite (ok, the most playable) game on my cellphone is a form of video-poker.
I'm starting to wonder if the odds arent overly stacked against me... I never win more than a certain amount until I inevitably start to lose everything, which makes me want to throw the damn phone against the floor of the bus.
I wonder if it'd be possible to use those spam servers to spread anticommunist propaganda into China.
The problem would be solved in short order... at least until the next crop of servers pops up.
couldn't a standard be developed to fix the current one that we are using?
how do you implement the new fix though? if the system still basically works for the lowest common denominator user, there's no incentive (or knowledge or motivation) for that user to upgrade.
if there is a competing network that looks and feels better to use, then people HAVE to use new tools to access it.
the contrast I'd like to see is something like when people had to migrate from BBSes to ISPs.
Email has nothing to do with the web
erm, what? you can send email through a web interface.
besides, I'm not proposing that a new system be identical to the old one.
I'm just thinking that future iterations of Internet-based networks and content-delivery interfaces should co-exist at first with the current ones, compete with them, and eventually take over due to various improvements...
A major improvement to the Internet I'd like to see is the elimination of spam and other shameless, annoying exploiters.
Everyone agrees in Slashdot Spam discussion threads that you cant just instantly replace the whole email infrastructure, but I think that if you offer a competing alternative, which is more than email and more than the WWW all at once, and devoid of most nuisances, a lot of people would migrate.
not really, i mean, we already have FTP servers, Usenet, the WWW, instant messagers, the email system...
speaking of which, a separate web could also have a new form of electronic mail which could be spam-proof, and this could be a real incentive for the masses to start using this new interface.
The macworld article isnt very informative to someone who've never heard of this "next generation" web, but it seems like they want to add it on top of the existing WWW.
Why cant someone just invent a new similar, improved web that is separated from the current WWW, with its own specific browser, and implement the various ins, outs and whathaveyous to keep the riffraff from exploiting it in very annoying ways?
Wait 20 years or so. (...)
better yet, forget the whole thing. let it be.
instead, give us a different science fiction story, set in another universe, with a good plot.
as soon as I get me one of these video t-shirts, I'm gonna walk around playing Blipverts and giving people headaches, epileptic seizures (and maybe even a few explosions?)
you'd be getting neck cramps watching TV on your biceps... you'd better grow some Popeye forearms instead.
There's this well known webpage that analyses all the sources of inspiration Lucas used to create the original trilogy.
I bet this lava thing was stolen from Jules Vernes' Journey to the Center of the Earth, where the characters escape by being catapulted out of a volcano while surfing the rising lava.
So I think you are right in that either Ben or Anny will catch some serious air.
your theory fails to take into account how some galaxies merge together, etc.
1 95316 )
See my Coffee Mug theory ( science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=108143&cid=9
Not only does it explain oscillation between alternating cold and hot / contracting and expanding states of the Universe, but also explains other phenomena, such as what happens when the Big Geek drops a sugar cube or two in the coffee, or, alternatively, some sugar replacement, 2% or homo milk, or even coffee creamer, the next Cosmic-Day.
And dont get me started about Turkish coffee...
So your friend theorizes that we live in a universe about nothing?
Is he related to Jerry Seinfeld?