Well, it's all fine and dandy to dismiss arguments about posthumanity by claiming that "they will still be human", but this is pointless, unless you provide a definition of what a human is. If you consider "flying, genderless, half-robot telepaths" to be human, that is great, but not very helpful for the discussion.
You see, I was making a point that posthumans (whom you may still consider humans) will be able to avoid boredom of extended lives. By "composing artistic works directed at senses that youn don't even have", for example. If you agree with this point, it doesn't really matter whether you consider them human or not. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
However, it's just easier to use different labels for different objects. We do not call people "children" after they live for about 20 years, because they change so much, even though that change is gradual and they retain most of the essential features of a child to some extent. We call them adults. Similarly posthumans will be sufficiently different from modern, unmodified biological humans to warrant a different word.
P.S. And calling my argument "dogma" was unnecessary, especially since your disagreement appears to stem primarily from terminological differences.
It is by no means certain that everybody living today will benefit from medical advances. Actually, I am quite confident that a great deal of people living today will die from lack of adequate nutrition and health care.
But eventually (and the word eventually sounds reassuring only to those who consider themselves at least somewhat well-off today) the current capitalist system will be gone. Capitalism is simply not compatible with advanced robotics, desktop manufacturing or mature nanotechnology. Once the means of production can quickly and easily produce more means of production (i.e. reproduce themselves) and the designs are available on sourceforge (or P2P), capitalism will disappear (although not overnight).
To realise this it helps to have at least some idea of the evolution of tools and machine tools (e.g. history of metal working, machine building, engines and energy, etc.). Computer controlled machines are not new (they first appeared in 1950-1960s), but they are quickly becoming cheap, versatile and powerful enough. In 10-15 years desktop manufacturing (fabrication labs) will become widespread.
And that would mean that you will be able to make the latest and most advanced robotic surgeoun in your home desktop fabrication machine. Of course, the intellectual property issues (since design won't be free yet) will complicate things for a while, but the direction of progress is nevertheless clear.
P.S. I hope it's obvious that (as usual) the development of all these technologies (and the accompanying socioeconomic changes) will be gradual. The AI-controlled robotic surgeon will not just appear from the Internet one day. But over the next 10-20 years health care institution over the world will change to accomodate new possibilities of providing cheap/free health care to people.
People are not rational. It is also very hard for them to evaluate the changes over decades. As a result, their beliefs about the effects of technological progress are mostly dependent on their psychological state - whether they are optimists or pessimists.
If someone believes that technology brings mostly bad things, you can't persuade him. And even in the unlikely event that you can, it won't be done with logical arguments.
You tell about polio, they say AIDS. You say something else, they say global warming, growth hormones in milk, etc. You can't argue that there are no bad things and you can't persuade them to think in a balanced way about both negative and positive sides, you lose.
It is interesting how those opposing immortality attack a completely unrealistic scenario. The reality of technological progress is that
1) At no point will immortality be achieved. 2) We will not suffer more than three decades of extended life.
This makes all discussions of whether we should "allow" immortality and whether we will become bored (or suffer other drawbacks of immortality) pointless.
Allow me to clarify what may seem a pessimistic view, but actually is anything but.
My first point means that there won't be a year in which immortality pill or treatment is invented and the society is facing the choice of allowing it or not. The dynamics of progress are such that we will first eliminate heart deseases, cancer and a host of other problems. In late 2010s-2020s this will lead to dramatic drops in death rates (in developed countries at least), so people will simply cease dying that much. Achievements on other fronts will drastically reduce deaths from hunger and other problems in developing countries. We won't be getting immortal, but the number of deaths per day will drop at least a few times and possibly an order of magnitude or more. Then aging-related problems will be solved, similarly without much ado. The real immortality will not be possible until advanced nanotechnology to make bodies essentially invulnerable and tweak them to run forever, but by then nobody would actually care about such trivial issues as lack of death.
The second point is related to the fact that humanity doesn't have centuries of time ahead of it. We simply won't have time to become bored or suffer from lack of turnover or be ruled by an immortal tyrant long enough. A few decades after we mostly stop dying we will ascend to the posthuman level and all our current problems (such as boredom) will become irrelevant. A posthuman being will simply not be able of boredom, he/she/it will be able to remain in peak mental and emotional condition all the time.
However, these two simple (once you know as much as I do) points are almost always ignored in any popular discussion of immortality.
Well, I like Finland, but it is rich because it exploits the third-world countries, plain and simple. The commodities you get on the world market are priced extremely cheaply.
The world economy is not designed to make it possible for every country to become the next South Korea. It is designed to keep them the source of cheap labour and cheap natural resources. That makes it possible for Finns to have clean environment, subsidized farming, great social security and large public sector.
I don't want a Slashdot theme for my handheld, I want a simple HTML2.0-looking theme for my desktop. When I was forced to look at this new design, I wanted to vomit. Seriously, just give us the Light mode back, without any changes, thank you very much!
Everything fits. Today scanning and OCRing books is difficult, because you either need expensive equipment (thousands of $$$), or you need tedious manual work. But in a few years it would 1) be possible to use a camera (webcam or camcorder) to convert book to ebook just by flipping the pages or 2) use desktop manufacturing to make a robotic scanning system and mass-convert books automatically. By 2015 someone will make all books available online for free. Of course, the transition to the future of unlimited accessible knowledge will not be smooth, but only because it makes sense to start as early as possible! Google is betting that it can be the first, it's willing to take a risk and it may fail. If not they, the Europeans will charge ahead with their project... We don't know how exactly it will happen, but we know the end result.
despite it posessing payload and operational capacities superior to those of US Shuttle...
Furthermore, the Energiya-Buran system was designed with the orbiter being an optional add-on. You could use the boosters to carry something else, when the shuttle wasn't needed. The American Space Shuttle, however, can only be used in single configuration, that's why every space launch carries the 70-ton orbiter (and a bunch of people), whether you need it or not.
I would guarantee that more people have heard of Neil Armstrong than Spirit and Opportunity.
I would guarantee that more people have heard of Sputnik than Neil Armstrong or John Glenn.
Let's compare comparable things. However, I do agree that in some situations humans can get more media attention. As for the reality shows, it's not as far-fetched as some may think. After all, Malaisians already choose their first cosmonaut by SMS voting!:)
Is that a well-masqueraded troll or are you just poorly informed?
1) It's not that Reagan had convinved anyone in anything, "technological parity" was considered a default strategy in any field by both superpowers. Just like with Spiral vs. Dyna Soar 20 years before. This was actually a good policy, considering that in 1970s the possibility of space warfare was quite real. 2) Soviet Union didn't went bankrupt, Russia didn't either (it was ransacked during privatisation, however). 3) Neither US, nor any other country pumped any significant $$$ into Russia. 4) Facilities were in Baikonur, Kazakhstan (they are still leased by Russia today), not Ukraine. Ukrainian government never gave any loans to Russia (what nonsense!). The Burans (no longer operational) are in Baikonur and in Moscow.
Richard Feynman discusses in his notes on Shuttle safety how NASA management estimated the risk of a catastrophic accident as 1 in 100000, while engineers did an actual evaluation and arrived to (also suspiciously round, but still) about 1 in 100 risk.
Now if you had to guess who does this 10 times safer estimate comes from - the management or the engineers - what would be your guess?
That's the functional core, that's why you need to get along in society. But there is also the human core, things that you need to know in order to be a worthy person, in order to be able to personally develop. If you don't know that Earth goes around Sun and that Sun produces energy by turning hydrogen into helium converting some of the mass into energy, you can't be fully human. Even if you can find your way around your neighbourhood. The same goes for knowing where dodo lived and thousands other things.
it seemed like it was written because some editor really needed a technology article, fast, and just pulled first thing he could find out of his butt... it didn't really offer anything at all, and when it did, it was all obvious It may be obvious in retrospect, but the article puts the ideas very well together (and for some reason they even decided to interview the 3 big guys, although their quotes are used very sparingly... may be their next article will have more).
The idea that "it has become easier to program a cell phone or computer--instead of your brain--to recall facts or other essential information. In some sense, our digital devices do the thinking for us now" is very insightful and not everyone realises that. Perhaps, even this article is not sufficient, but if you learn (not necessarily do, for our purposes here) about things like GtD or keeping notebooks, you start to get a very good picture of how the brain interfaces with external tools. This helps you understand the natural gradual progression of improvements that will lead in a few decades to the exocortex.
i don't think anything is going to change, except there will be more toys to play with. It's really easy to dismiss the change, but you are wrong. Things will change. It's not just the calculators. It's that part of your thinking really does go outside of your brain, literally. Some thinking process happens outside your cranium and it's not just adding 2+2. And as it happens outside, you gain unprecedented control over your thinking, you can direct it on the meta-level, you can now decide how you want to think, what do you want to think on. Yes, most people don't realise that yet, but we are talking about fundamental changes here, not just some new toys.
Well, yes, you are right. For example (my pet peeve), many articles on the Soviet Union are factually wrong, because they are written by Americans based on what they were told about their enemy by their government. Now for the same reason I wouldn't trust Hitlerugend kids to write articles about United States I don't think it works for Wikipedia... However, you simply don't have enough people to fix this and there are enough motivated anti-Soviet Americans, who would annoy other contributors with constant reverts.... Anyway, even though Wikipedia is not reliable, it's quite good at providing brief, but comprehensive information about complex issues. Often it has more information than Britannica or any other online encyclopedia and that alone can make Wikipedia worth using. Consider "artificial intelligence". What better way I have of finding basic introduction to all aspects of this topic? This Wikipedia article can use a lot of work, but it's already better than anything else.
The article isn't about the fact that RIAA realised the value of P2P and accepted the change. No, this isn't so yet. The article is about the fact that the music business has already experienced a drastic, profound and irreversible change that can no longer be ignored.
This is not a victory for common (business) sense yet, but it's a sign that rules of the game have changed. Treating customers as criminals is always stupid, but the RIAA was doing it out of desperation - trying to retain the control that they grappled for with the consumers. Now the labels are gradually realising that MP3 players are a reality, that downloads are a reality, that playing music on multiple devices is a reality, that consumer wants more freedom to consume the consumables in any consum^H^H^Hceivable way. They are gradually changing their approach, even though they are still trying to clutch at straws of DRM and lawsuits. Changing the approach is not saying OK to piracy, it's slowly adapting to the new world, where piracy is also part of the game (just like it was with the cassettes).
Sorry for the offtopic, but I just don't like people succumbing to the idea that Ghandi and Mother Theresa somehow are saints and have done only good things. If you dig deeper, you will find that neither Ghandi, nor Mother Theresa did anything particularly good to deserve their reputation, except for being lucky and good at publicity. And there are plenty of things they did that were outright disgusting. I don't want to discuss this here, but just want to encourage people question their beliefs in myths and search for information to either support or disprove them.
Actually, as a rule, communism doesn't fail horribly. For example, people in Cuba live much better than their neighbours in Haiti. People in North Korea live better than people in Bangladesh. People in Soviet Union in 1960-1980s lived better than people pretty much everywhere. If you don't beleive me (and chances are you don't), just check historical ratings of human development from the UN. By 1980s Soviet Union was in world top 10 for most of the relevant quality of life indicators. And all that done without colonial exploitation.
If communism had a chance to be implemented in the USA, for example, most of you (excluding Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, George Bush, etc.) would be able to maintain their standards of living, but stop exploiting the third world.
P.S. Just don't rely on American sources too much. Because of the (Cold) War they weren't objective, sadly.
And what's the problem with shadows? Last time I checked, clouds caused shadows too. It's not like this tower will permanently shade some spot, no, the shadow will be moving. It's just that every day you would have no sunshine for a few minutes. No big deal.
The problem with conversion is complex layout. I haven't tried pdftotext (will check it out), but most such programs can't handle multiple columns or text inserts properly and intermingle the text.
But conservation is almost the same as alternative energy! I can argue that the more you develop solar and wind power, the cheaper the oil will become (compared to not developing alternative tech) and the more people will be inclined to burn it. That is certainly true, but we shouldn't ignore the obvious fact that the overall situation will still be better because alternative energy is better developed.
Please, please, let's stay civil. I know about the sun, it's a great natural source of light. However, we are no longer the peasants we were, reading books in the field or under a tree. We are city dwellers and most of our life happens under artificial light. Yes, I know you can read a book outside, let's say in a park. I've done that myself and I really do enjoy the experience (though ironically I am still reading from my Palm most of the time), but this is (much) less than 20% of all reading done. Just follow my logic and don't be so quick to resort to personal attacks.
1) Is a front pocket OK? That's where I keep my Palm. And, in fact a paperback doesn't fit neither in the front, nor in the back pocket. Ebooks lead 1:0. 2) I can sit for six hours under a tree and not worry about my E2's battery. This round is a draw. 1.5:0.5 so far. 3) I don't go to stores, I get my books online (P2P, IRC and WWW). Any format is convertable to HTML easily (except for idiotic PDF, which always was a retarded invention and always will be). But I concede this one to paper books. 1.5:1.5.
A draw so far, but you've said nothing about the clear advantages of ebooks. And you mentioned "keep". Well, ebooks are MUCH easier to keep than paper books. 2.5:1.5. You said "carry". Well, I carry about 30 unread books (and some read, and some reference books) with me. Can I do the same with paperbacks? It's 3.5:1.5.
I think that ebooks are already better than paper books. In fact I only read paper books when I can't find what I need in electronic form. Yeah, I admit that ebooks aren't mainstream yet, however, it's not because they are worse than paper books.
E-books can be physically uncomfortable to read (whether you're sitting at a desk looking at a monitor or squinting at a tiny PDA screen). It doesn't matter how large the screen is, unless you need huge diagrams or maps. What matters for reading comfort is resolution and contrast. My Palm Tungsten E2 has about the same contrast than average book paper under average lighting and about 30-50% the resulution. On the other hand, a PDA is 100-200 grams, while a book can be 0.5-2 kg. It's physically uncomfortable to read books when you lie on your back, for example. And you won't get proper lighting then, while PDA screen is backlit. The author tried to mislead the readers about squinting - you don't squint because of a small screen, you squint because of small text. And who forces you to read in small font? With a PDA you can choose ANY font.
They're not portable if you have to read them on a desktop computer; if you read them on a laptop or PDA, you can't read if you run out of power. You can't read an ordinary book if you run out of power too. I probably isn't be mistaken much when I estimate that about 80% of reading or more is done under artificial light. And if you have artificial light it usually means you have electricity, which means you can plug in your notebook or PDA.
There's a number of often incompatible formats that the files come in. That doesn't affect those of us, who use compatible formats. It's like saying that cars have failed, because Model X is ugly or that Hollywood has failed because Actor Y can't act.
And the user's ability to access the book's content is often restricted by various digital rights management technologies. Same as above. My ability is never restricted, because I simply don't accept (and will never accept) any DRM curses on my books. I prefer IRC (#bookwarez) to DRM. And again, this doesn't prove ebooks are bad.
The guy doesn't understand the reality of the issue and he is really at the kindergarten level. Just ignore him and he will go away. BTW, everyone who brings up flying cars is dangerous to society and should get a court order restraining him from speaking about future.
He is also clueless, because he thinks that electronic paper will greatly increase the popularity of ebooks. This is not the case, to put it mildly. Yes, in a decade or two we will have paper-thin computers that look better than paper. And at the same time ebooks will be mainstream. But the latter won't happen because of the former. Of course, someone who thinks that reflected light is somehow more pleasing to the eye than emitted light is better ignored (rather than asked to cover "technological issues").
Interestingly, as I learned from "The Science of Creation" lecture (Lecture 20 of History Of Science - Antiquity To 1700 by Lawrence Principe from the Teaching Company), theologians circa 13th century considered "It's God's will" a cop out. At that time studying Creation was a reputable endeavor in natural philosophy, trying to construct a system that makes sense and doesn't rely on God's intervention much. Sadly, modern creationists are worse than those from Dark Ages...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, it's all fine and dandy to dismiss arguments about posthumanity by claiming that "they will still be human", but this is pointless, unless you provide a definition of what a human is. If you consider "flying, genderless, half-robot telepaths" to be human, that is great, but not very helpful for the discussion.
You see, I was making a point that posthumans (whom you may still consider humans) will be able to avoid boredom of extended lives. By "composing artistic works directed at senses that youn don't even have", for example. If you agree with this point, it doesn't really matter whether you consider them human or not. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
However, it's just easier to use different labels for different objects. We do not call people "children" after they live for about 20 years, because they change so much, even though that change is gradual and they retain most of the essential features of a child to some extent. We call them adults. Similarly posthumans will be sufficiently different from modern, unmodified biological humans to warrant a different word.
P.S. And calling my argument "dogma" was unnecessary, especially since your disagreement appears to stem primarily from terminological differences.
It is by no means certain that everybody living today will benefit from medical advances. Actually, I am quite confident that a great deal of people living today will die from lack of adequate nutrition and health care.
But eventually (and the word eventually sounds reassuring only to those who consider themselves at least somewhat well-off today) the current capitalist system will be gone. Capitalism is simply not compatible with advanced robotics, desktop manufacturing or mature nanotechnology. Once the means of production can quickly and easily produce more means of production (i.e. reproduce themselves) and the designs are available on sourceforge (or P2P), capitalism will disappear (although not overnight).
To realise this it helps to have at least some idea of the evolution of tools and machine tools (e.g. history of metal working, machine building, engines and energy, etc.). Computer controlled machines are not new (they first appeared in 1950-1960s), but they are quickly becoming cheap, versatile and powerful enough. In 10-15 years desktop manufacturing (fabrication labs) will become widespread.
And that would mean that you will be able to make the latest and most advanced robotic surgeoun in your home desktop fabrication machine. Of course, the intellectual property issues (since design won't be free yet) will complicate things for a while, but the direction of progress is nevertheless clear.
P.S. I hope it's obvious that (as usual) the development of all these technologies (and the accompanying socioeconomic changes) will be gradual. The AI-controlled robotic surgeon will not just appear from the Internet one day. But over the next 10-20 years health care institution over the world will change to accomodate new possibilities of providing cheap/free health care to people.
People are not rational. It is also very hard for them to evaluate the changes over decades. As a result, their beliefs about the effects of technological progress are mostly dependent on their psychological state - whether they are optimists or pessimists.
If someone believes that technology brings mostly bad things, you can't persuade him. And even in the unlikely event that you can, it won't be done with logical arguments.
You tell about polio, they say AIDS. You say something else, they say global warming, growth hormones in milk, etc. You can't argue that there are no bad things and you can't persuade them to think in a balanced way about both negative and positive sides, you lose.
It is interesting how those opposing immortality attack a completely unrealistic scenario. The reality of technological progress is that
1) At no point will immortality be achieved.
2) We will not suffer more than three decades of extended life.
This makes all discussions of whether we should "allow" immortality and whether we will become bored (or suffer other drawbacks of immortality) pointless.
Allow me to clarify what may seem a pessimistic view, but actually is anything but.
My first point means that there won't be a year in which immortality pill or treatment is invented and the society is facing the choice of allowing it or not. The dynamics of progress are such that we will first eliminate heart deseases, cancer and a host of other problems. In late 2010s-2020s this will lead to dramatic drops in death rates (in developed countries at least), so people will simply cease dying that much. Achievements on other fronts will drastically reduce deaths from hunger and other problems in developing countries. We won't be getting immortal, but the number of deaths per day will drop at least a few times and possibly an order of magnitude or more. Then aging-related problems will be solved, similarly without much ado. The real immortality will not be possible until advanced nanotechnology to make bodies essentially invulnerable and tweak them to run forever, but by then nobody would actually care about such trivial issues as lack of death.
The second point is related to the fact that humanity doesn't have centuries of time ahead of it. We simply won't have time to become bored or suffer from lack of turnover or be ruled by an immortal tyrant long enough. A few decades after we mostly stop dying we will ascend to the posthuman level and all our current problems (such as boredom) will become irrelevant. A posthuman being will simply not be able of boredom, he/she/it will be able to remain in peak mental and emotional condition all the time.
However, these two simple (once you know as much as I do) points are almost always ignored in any popular discussion of immortality.
Well, I like Finland, but it is rich because it exploits the third-world countries, plain and simple. The commodities you get on the world market are priced extremely cheaply.
The world economy is not designed to make it possible for every country to become the next South Korea. It is designed to keep them the source of cheap labour and cheap natural resources. That makes it possible for Finns to have clean environment, subsidized farming, great social security and large public sector.
I don't want a Slashdot theme for my handheld, I want a simple HTML2.0-looking theme for my desktop. When I was forced to look at this new design, I wanted to vomit. Seriously, just give us the Light mode back, without any changes, thank you very much!
Everything fits. Today scanning and OCRing books is difficult, because you either need expensive equipment (thousands of $$$), or you need tedious manual work. But in a few years it would 1) be possible to use a camera (webcam or camcorder) to convert book to ebook just by flipping the pages or 2) use desktop manufacturing to make a robotic scanning system and mass-convert books automatically. By 2015 someone will make all books available online for free. Of course, the transition to the future of unlimited accessible knowledge will not be smooth, but only because it makes sense to start as early as possible! Google is betting that it can be the first, it's willing to take a risk and it may fail. If not they, the Europeans will charge ahead with their project... We don't know how exactly it will happen, but we know the end result.
See digital libraries a bit at the Future Wiki. Feel free to contribute.
despite it posessing payload and operational capacities superior to those of US Shuttle...
Furthermore, the Energiya-Buran system was designed with the orbiter being an optional add-on. You could use the boosters to carry something else, when the shuttle wasn't needed. The American Space Shuttle, however, can only be used in single configuration, that's why every space launch carries the 70-ton orbiter (and a bunch of people), whether you need it or not.
I would guarantee that more people have heard of Neil Armstrong than Spirit and Opportunity.
:)
I would guarantee that more people have heard of Sputnik than Neil Armstrong or John Glenn.
Let's compare comparable things. However, I do agree that in some situations humans can get more media attention. As for the reality shows, it's not as far-fetched as some may think. After all, Malaisians already choose their first cosmonaut by SMS voting!
Is that a well-masqueraded troll or are you just poorly informed?
1) It's not that Reagan had convinved anyone in anything, "technological parity" was considered a default strategy in any field by both superpowers. Just like with Spiral vs. Dyna Soar 20 years before. This was actually a good policy, considering that in 1970s the possibility of space warfare was quite real.
2) Soviet Union didn't went bankrupt, Russia didn't either (it was ransacked during privatisation, however).
3) Neither US, nor any other country pumped any significant $$$ into Russia.
4) Facilities were in Baikonur, Kazakhstan (they are still leased by Russia today), not Ukraine. Ukrainian government never gave any loans to Russia (what nonsense!). The Burans (no longer operational) are in Baikonur and in Moscow.
Richard Feynman discusses in his notes on Shuttle safety how NASA management estimated the risk of a catastrophic accident as 1 in 100000, while engineers did an actual evaluation and arrived to (also suspiciously round, but still) about 1 in 100 risk.
Now if you had to guess who does this 10 times safer estimate comes from - the management or the engineers - what would be your guess?
That's the functional core, that's why you need to get along in society. But there is also the human core, things that you need to know in order to be a worthy person, in order to be able to personally develop. If you don't know that Earth goes around Sun and that Sun produces energy by turning hydrogen into helium converting some of the mass into energy, you can't be fully human. Even if you can find your way around your neighbourhood. The same goes for knowing where dodo lived and thousands other things.
it seemed like it was written because some editor really needed a technology article, fast, and just pulled first thing he could find out of his butt... it didn't really offer anything at all, and when it did, it was all obvious
It may be obvious in retrospect, but the article puts the ideas very well together (and for some reason they even decided to interview the 3 big guys, although their quotes are used very sparingly... may be their next article will have more).
The idea that "it has become easier to program a cell phone or computer--instead of your brain--to recall facts or other essential information. In some sense, our digital devices do the thinking for us now" is very insightful and not everyone realises that. Perhaps, even this article is not sufficient, but if you learn (not necessarily do, for our purposes here) about things like GtD or keeping notebooks, you start to get a very good picture of how the brain interfaces with external tools. This helps you understand the natural gradual progression of improvements that will lead in a few decades to the exocortex.
i don't think anything is going to change, except there will be more toys to play with.
It's really easy to dismiss the change, but you are wrong. Things will change. It's not just the calculators. It's that part of your thinking really does go outside of your brain, literally. Some thinking process happens outside your cranium and it's not just adding 2+2. And as it happens outside, you gain unprecedented control over your thinking, you can direct it on the meta-level, you can now decide how you want to think, what do you want to think on. Yes, most people don't realise that yet, but we are talking about fundamental changes here, not just some new toys.
Well, yes, you are right. For example (my pet peeve), many articles on the Soviet Union are factually wrong, because they are written by Americans based on what they were told about their enemy by their government. Now for the same reason I wouldn't trust Hitlerugend kids to write articles about United States I don't think it works for Wikipedia... However, you simply don't have enough people to fix this and there are enough motivated anti-Soviet Americans, who would annoy other contributors with constant reverts.... Anyway, even though Wikipedia is not reliable, it's quite good at providing brief, but comprehensive information about complex issues. Often it has more information than Britannica or any other online encyclopedia and that alone can make Wikipedia worth using. Consider "artificial intelligence". What better way I have of finding basic introduction to all aspects of this topic? This Wikipedia article can use a lot of work, but it's already better than anything else.
The article isn't about the fact that RIAA realised the value of P2P and accepted the change. No, this isn't so yet. The article is about the fact that the music business has already experienced a drastic, profound and irreversible change that can no longer be ignored.
This is not a victory for common (business) sense yet, but it's a sign that rules of the game have changed. Treating customers as criminals is always stupid, but the RIAA was doing it out of desperation - trying to retain the control that they grappled for with the consumers. Now the labels are gradually realising that MP3 players are a reality, that downloads are a reality, that playing music on multiple devices is a reality, that consumer wants more freedom to consume the consumables in any consum^H^H^Hceivable way. They are gradually changing their approach, even though they are still trying to clutch at straws of DRM and lawsuits. Changing the approach is not saying OK to piracy, it's slowly adapting to the new world, where piracy is also part of the game (just like it was with the cassettes).
Sorry for the offtopic, but I just don't like people succumbing to the idea that Ghandi and Mother Theresa somehow are saints and have done only good things. If you dig deeper, you will find that neither Ghandi, nor Mother Theresa did anything particularly good to deserve their reputation, except for being lucky and good at publicity. And there are plenty of things they did that were outright disgusting. I don't want to discuss this here, but just want to encourage people question their beliefs in myths and search for information to either support or disprove them.
Actually, as a rule, communism doesn't fail horribly. For example, people in Cuba live much better than their neighbours in Haiti. People in North Korea live better than people in Bangladesh. People in Soviet Union in 1960-1980s lived better than people pretty much everywhere. If you don't beleive me (and chances are you don't), just check historical ratings of human development from the UN. By 1980s Soviet Union was in world top 10 for most of the relevant quality of life indicators. And all that done without colonial exploitation.
If communism had a chance to be implemented in the USA, for example, most of you (excluding Bill Gates, Michael Jackson, George Bush, etc.) would be able to maintain their standards of living, but stop exploiting the third world.
P.S. Just don't rely on American sources too much. Because of the (Cold) War they weren't objective, sadly.
And what's the problem with shadows? Last time I checked, clouds caused shadows too. It's not like this tower will permanently shade some spot, no, the shadow will be moving. It's just that every day you would have no sunshine for a few minutes. No big deal.
Green is a color too, you know.
The problem with conversion is complex layout. I haven't tried pdftotext (will check it out), but most such programs can't handle multiple columns or text inserts properly and intermingle the text.
But conservation is almost the same as alternative energy! I can argue that the more you develop solar and wind power, the cheaper the oil will become (compared to not developing alternative tech) and the more people will be inclined to burn it. That is certainly true, but we shouldn't ignore the obvious fact that the overall situation will still be better because alternative energy is better developed.
You, however, ignored that relation.
Please, please, let's stay civil. I know about the sun, it's a great natural source of light. However, we are no longer the peasants we were, reading books in the field or under a tree. We are city dwellers and most of our life happens under artificial light. Yes, I know you can read a book outside, let's say in a park. I've done that myself and I really do enjoy the experience (though ironically I am still reading from my Palm most of the time), but this is (much) less than 20% of all reading done. Just follow my logic and don't be so quick to resort to personal attacks.
1) Is a front pocket OK? That's where I keep my Palm. And, in fact a paperback doesn't fit neither in the front, nor in the back pocket. Ebooks lead 1:0.
2) I can sit for six hours under a tree and not worry about my E2's battery. This round is a draw. 1.5:0.5 so far.
3) I don't go to stores, I get my books online (P2P, IRC and WWW). Any format is convertable to HTML easily (except for idiotic PDF, which always was a retarded invention and always will be). But I concede this one to paper books. 1.5:1.5.
A draw so far, but you've said nothing about the clear advantages of ebooks. And you mentioned "keep". Well, ebooks are MUCH easier to keep than paper books. 2.5:1.5. You said "carry". Well, I carry about 30 unread books (and some read, and some reference books) with me. Can I do the same with paperbacks? It's 3.5:1.5.
I think that ebooks are already better than paper books. In fact I only read paper books when I can't find what I need in electronic form. Yeah, I admit that ebooks aren't mainstream yet, however, it's not because they are worse than paper books.
E-books can be physically uncomfortable to read (whether you're sitting at a desk looking at a monitor or squinting at a tiny PDA screen).
It doesn't matter how large the screen is, unless you need huge diagrams or maps. What matters for reading comfort is resolution and contrast. My Palm Tungsten E2 has about the same contrast than average book paper under average lighting and about 30-50% the resulution. On the other hand, a PDA is 100-200 grams, while a book can be 0.5-2 kg. It's physically uncomfortable to read books when you lie on your back, for example. And you won't get proper lighting then, while PDA screen is backlit. The author tried to mislead the readers about squinting - you don't squint because of a small screen, you squint because of small text. And who forces you to read in small font? With a PDA you can choose ANY font.
They're not portable if you have to read them on a desktop computer; if you read them on a laptop or PDA, you can't read if you run out of power.
You can't read an ordinary book if you run out of power too. I probably isn't be mistaken much when I estimate that about 80% of reading or more is done under artificial light. And if you have artificial light it usually means you have electricity, which means you can plug in your notebook or PDA.
There's a number of often incompatible formats that the files come in.
That doesn't affect those of us, who use compatible formats. It's like saying that cars have failed, because Model X is ugly or that Hollywood has failed because Actor Y can't act.
And the user's ability to access the book's content is often restricted by various digital rights management technologies.
Same as above. My ability is never restricted, because I simply don't accept (and will never accept) any DRM curses on my books. I prefer IRC (#bookwarez) to DRM. And again, this doesn't prove ebooks are bad.
The guy doesn't understand the reality of the issue and he is really at the kindergarten level. Just ignore him and he will go away. BTW, everyone who brings up flying cars is dangerous to society and should get a court order restraining him from speaking about future.
He is also clueless, because he thinks that electronic paper will greatly increase the popularity of ebooks. This is not the case, to put it mildly. Yes, in a decade or two we will have paper-thin computers that look better than paper. And at the same time ebooks will be mainstream. But the latter won't happen because of the former. Of course, someone who thinks that reflected light is somehow more pleasing to the eye than emitted light is better ignored (rather than asked to cover "technological issues").
Interestingly, as I learned from "The Science of Creation" lecture (Lecture 20 of History Of Science - Antiquity To 1700 by Lawrence Principe from the Teaching Company), theologians circa 13th century considered "It's God's will" a cop out. At that time studying Creation was a reputable endeavor in natural philosophy, trying to construct a system that makes sense and doesn't rely on God's intervention much. Sadly, modern creationists are worse than those from Dark Ages...