Well, the only way that comes to mind is a living solution. Bacteria forms slimes, some fungi form mycelium mats. Seems there ought to be some way to coax our microbial friends into binding this flotsam together, given there's a lot of plastic substrate for then to grow on. We introduce the spores and some food and let them go to work. Once the blob forms and starts swimming purposefully toward California, we toss in a vacuum cleaner.
The FBI can't crack it, true, but crypto is rarely the weakest link. Can you prevent the FBI from installing a keylogger on the computer you use to access the drives? Can you prevent them from installing a camera somewhere that records your keystrokes, or records your computer screen? It sounds like they moved on this guy too soon. If you need a brick of encrypted data to make your case against a white collar criminal, that's just lazy police work. If you build enough of a case against him beforehand, he'll give you the key as part of a deal to reduce his jail-time. Then you can use that data to go after the next leve of baddies.
If no one knows what Mohammed looks like, how can you tell if someone is drawing a picture of him? Can I make a sketch of Lady Gaga and then scrawl "Mohammed" under it and expect a fatwa? More interestingly, can I scrawl "Mohammed" under someone else's drawing and have them killed?
There's another side to the story, but why should we believe it? There are still unanswered questions. Is there a policy to leave kids stuck in a tree? Are the school staff lying to cover up malfeasance? Mindlessly believing a rebuttal is no better than mindlessly believing the original story. The government involved cannot be trusted. An international human rights tribunal is the only way we'll ever learn the truth about what happened to that distressed little boy.
How fair is it to the other companies that had to pay the dues that there are companies displaying products without paying the 10,000 fee?
Well, you would assume that if you're on the CES floor as opposed to a hotel suite, you'd get a lot more people walking by your display, neh? That's part of what the floor display fee buys you. How is it fair to pay the fee and not get that foot traffic, which is what these people were apparently being asked to do?
The development of multiple AI's was one of the points I liked about SCC. By pushing Judgment Day back they made it possible for multiple weakly-superhuman AI's to come on the scene. Enlisting these beings as allies is probably the only way to keep the nuclear armageddon from happening. Trying to stem the tide of technological development was definitely a losing strategy, something the main characters should have come to grips with in season 1, frankly.
Asimov already let people into his Robots universe, with mixed results. There's the Robot City series of books. There's Robots and Aliens. There's the Inferno trilogy: Caliban, Inferno, and Utopia by Roger MacBride Allen. So this new author will have lots of company and a standard to measure up to.
NPR is indifferent to sources of funding. They have a huge endowment, take government money, take corporate money and beg for money from individuals every spring and fall by way of their local affiliates. If men from Mars landed today, NPR would be interviewing them tomorrow and asking them for money the next day. If the question is "money", NPR's answer is going to be "yes."
Star Trek was not science fiction, any more than the Jetsons was science fiction. Once you flip the switch in your head from sf to fantasy, the show doesn't grate on the nerves nearly as much.
The deus ex machina didn't bother me. What bothered me was that we'd never see the introduced technology again. What happened to the water that made you move a thousand times faster? The food that amplified psi talents? What became of the various AI's that Kirk talked to death? The drug that turned crones into beautiful women in a few seconds? These are breakthroughs that would utterly change even a faux-utopia like the Federation, but they vanished without a trace.
Except that he's already met with the insurance CEOs and promised not to negotiate pricecuts during the next 10 years. In exchange the companies are supposed to endorse his Uncle Sam healthcare. (And why wouldn't they if they are guaranteed to be paid big bucks by the government, and without hassle.)
Unless they got the deal in writing, they're the suckers, not Obama.
Interesting. Looked like the tower failed (bent) and then the blades impacted the tower. Instead of canting the blades, they should build a stronger tower....
Profit!
Although I think this is an unfortunate law, it is difficult to see how it could be any different. What is your proposal to prevent organised crime using encrypted media to conceal their activities? Unless you can point to a workable alternative solution, you are just ranting.
There are several alternatives, and law enforcement in the U.S. at least is already using them. Keyloggers. Wiretaps. Hidden cameras. Infiltration of suspect groups. If your case hangs on an inscrutable brick of encrypted data, you didn't have much of a case to begin with.
You want to know what weakly superhuman AI looks like? It's here. We call them major corporations. We need to shoot these things in the head while there's still time.
If the original developer wants the iPhone app to be free, he can take your source, pay Apple the $99 SDK nuisance fee and list the app for free at the app store. The GPL permits this and such undercutting is the main deterrent to trying to sell GPL'd apps. No scarcity = no leverage to maintain your prices.
Which was pretty inexplicable in the context of the Terminator. The visual processing system derived information about the environment, then integrated it as text into the signal from which it was derived such that it had to be processed a second time to be acted upon?
Obvious, that was debugging output. The unfortunate SOB at CRS who wrote the code happened not to be wearing SPF 2,000,000 sunblock on judgment day and so died before he could #ifdef the debugging code out. Skynet left it in because, well, who can really guess why a strong AI does what it does?
Slashdot Mirror
Another good sf story ruined. I was kinda looking forward to the aftereffects of a "P = NP" proof... it's been a dull Sunday.
Well, the only way that comes to mind is a living solution. Bacteria forms slimes, some fungi form mycelium mats. Seems there ought to be some way to coax our microbial friends into binding this flotsam together, given there's a lot of plastic substrate for then to grow on. We introduce the spores and some food and let them go to work. Once the blob forms and starts swimming purposefully toward California, we toss in a vacuum cleaner.
Seems more sensible to make it all heavier than water and sink it. Once it's on the bottom natural sedimentation processes will bury it for good.
The FBI can't crack it, true, but crypto is rarely the weakest link. Can you prevent the FBI from installing a keylogger on the computer you use to access the drives? Can you prevent them from installing a camera somewhere that records your keystrokes, or records your computer screen? It sounds like they moved on this guy too soon. If you need a brick of encrypted data to make your case against a white collar criminal, that's just lazy police work. If you build enough of a case against him beforehand, he'll give you the key as part of a deal to reduce his jail-time. Then you can use that data to go after the next leve of baddies.
I'd count an infinite loop as a bug...
Unless it's documented.
More like embrace and extend. And then extinguish.
If no one knows what Mohammed looks like, how can you tell if someone is drawing a picture of him? Can I make a sketch of Lady Gaga and then scrawl "Mohammed" under it and expect a fatwa? More interestingly, can I scrawl "Mohammed" under someone else's drawing and have them killed?
There's another side to the story, but why should we believe it? There are still unanswered questions. Is there a policy to leave kids stuck in a tree? Are the school staff lying to cover up malfeasance? Mindlessly believing a rebuttal is no better than mindlessly believing the original story. The government involved cannot be trusted. An international human rights tribunal is the only way we'll ever learn the truth about what happened to that distressed little boy.
How fair is it to the other companies that had to pay the dues that there are companies displaying products without paying the 10,000 fee?
Well, you would assume that if you're on the CES floor as opposed to a hotel suite, you'd get a lot more people walking by your display, neh? That's part of what the floor display fee buys you. How is it fair to pay the fee and not get that foot traffic, which is what these people were apparently being asked to do?
On pins and needles here... did the film crew die? :-)
The development of multiple AI's was one of the points I liked about SCC. By pushing Judgment Day back they made it possible for multiple weakly-superhuman AI's to come on the scene. Enlisting these beings as allies is probably the only way to keep the nuclear armageddon from happening. Trying to stem the tide of technological development was definitely a losing strategy, something the main characters should have come to grips with in season 1, frankly.
Asimov already let people into his Robots universe, with mixed results. There's the Robot City series of books. There's Robots and Aliens. There's the Inferno trilogy: Caliban, Inferno, and Utopia by Roger MacBride Allen. So this new author will have lots of company and a standard to measure up to.
NPR is indifferent to sources of funding. They have a huge endowment, take government money, take corporate money and beg for money from individuals every spring and fall by way of their local affiliates. If men from Mars landed today, NPR would be interviewing them tomorrow and asking them for money the next day. If the question is "money", NPR's answer is going to be "yes."
Death Race got there first.
Star Trek was not science fiction, any more than the Jetsons was science fiction. Once you flip the switch in your head from sf to fantasy, the show doesn't grate on the nerves nearly as much.
The deus ex machina didn't bother me. What bothered me was that we'd never see the introduced technology again. What happened to the water that made you move a thousand times faster? The food that amplified psi talents? What became of the various AI's that Kirk talked to death? The drug that turned crones into beautiful women in a few seconds? These are breakthroughs that would utterly change even a faux-utopia like the Federation, but they vanished without a trace.
The good guys will make you pay them for exposing holes.
The bad guys will pay you.
Hmmm, maybe I got the "bad guys" and "good guys" mixed up there.
Except that he's already met with the insurance CEOs and promised not to negotiate pricecuts during the next 10 years. In exchange the companies are supposed to endorse his Uncle Sam healthcare. (And why wouldn't they if they are guaranteed to be paid big bucks by the government, and without hassle.)
Unless they got the deal in writing, they're the suckers, not Obama.
Interesting. Looked like the tower failed (bent) and then the blades impacted the tower. Instead of canting the blades, they should build a stronger tower. ...
Profit!
Although I think this is an unfortunate law, it is difficult to see how it could be any different. What is your proposal to prevent organised crime using encrypted media to conceal their activities? Unless you can point to a workable alternative solution, you are just ranting.
There are several alternatives, and law enforcement in the U.S. at least is already using them. Keyloggers. Wiretaps. Hidden cameras. Infiltration of suspect groups. If your case hangs on an inscrutable brick of encrypted data, you didn't have much of a case to begin with.
You want to know what weakly superhuman AI looks like? It's here. We call them major corporations. We need to shoot these things in the head while there's still time.
If the original developer wants the iPhone app to be free, he can take your source, pay Apple the $99 SDK nuisance fee and list the app for free at the app store. The GPL permits this and such undercutting is the main deterrent to trying to sell GPL'd apps. No scarcity = no leverage to maintain your prices.
And they aren't the only ones.
I continue to wonder why the Slashdot editors don't convert story links to the Coral Cache equivalents automatically.
Which was pretty inexplicable in the context of the Terminator. The visual processing system derived information about the environment, then integrated it as text into the signal from which it was derived such that it had to be processed a second time to be acted upon?
Obvious, that was debugging output. The unfortunate SOB at CRS who wrote the code happened not to be wearing SPF 2,000,000 sunblock on judgment day and so died before he could #ifdef the debugging code out. Skynet left it in because, well, who can really guess why a strong AI does what it does?
What if all correctly functioning AIs act like Pee-wee Herman?
Or Adolf Hitler. The endlessly self-improving AI described in Vinge's hard takeoff scenario definitely has a predilection towards eugenics.