I just keep having horrific images of RobotCop dancing merrily in the streets to the music of the screams of crime victims everywhere. I think that 'dancing' directive pretty much conflicts with crimefighting.
Unless, I suppose, a master criminal arises with such a horror of dancing that the mere sight of it will cause him to fall to the ground with a penitent's plea for mercy?
On second thought, that's really reaching for it...
I think you don't really understand how VoIP works. In the case of Vonage, it's a box that you plug into your LAN/WAN that converts an analog telephone input into a digital signal. The appeal of VoIP is that you can take the box and plug it into any network and effectively take your phone with you. I don't think it is, nor is it intended to be, a cell phone replacement; nor is there any need to 'log on to your computer' unless you are using dialup internet access. In the latter case, you probably shouldn't be using VoIP anyway, as it requires broadband [always on] to have decent quality.
I've seen thousands of times people saying that they don't read books on the computer. I honestly don't understand this. My eyes are equally uncomfortable after 8-hour marathon reading sessions and spending 8 hours staring at a screen. There is little to no difference to me as to whether I'll read something online or offline, rather than cost and the 'reading room' factor [don't really feel like carrying digital devices in there]. So effectively I end up reading almost every book I've read in the past three years on my regular desktop screen or laptop LCD, and have found it to be little different in terms of strain/ease of use.
I suspect that the largest difference is really one of habituation. People grow up attaching certain expectations/sentimental values to the process of reading and do prefer print, but I'm not at all convinced that print is any less harsh on your eyes than screen. Remind yourself to blink once in a while and you'll probably be fine in both cases.
Personally, I really hope e-books take off. The Gutenberg project has been a part of my life since I was 14 and discovered it on a local BBS, and I have since found that almost anything I wish to read can be found digitized.
The only real complaint I have with e-books are the unauthorized scans of books - they tend to be poorly edited, or constructed using the "OCR and publish" method without any preview/cleanup at all. But, that's a side effect of my choice to read such scans, and I'm not complaining excessively.
Just a bunch of random thoughts..maybe someone will find it interesting.:-)
Having read the full article, I have to say that this is one of the most annoying pieces of writing I've read in quite a while. The author of this paper is assuming some naive elitist position in a fantasy world where corporate interests can never be anti-government and where code produced by the masses is somehow 'dangerous' because it might be exploitable.
As several other comments have pointed out, there is absolutely nothing to the "foul play" argument presented in this article that could not also apply to a closed-source project. In my opinion, the major difference is that the closed-source project's flaws [and note that in this article the author is talking about deliberately introduced flaws - basically the idea that OSS projects might be converted into trojan horses], if they exist, might never be discovered at all. If I buy a copy of Windows, I have absolutely no clue whether or not any such flaws exist, but more importantly, I have no way to check because I can not examine the source code. At least with open source software, if I suspect misuse or even if I'm only paranoid, I can examine the source code myself or have someone knowledgable [whom I trust] do it for me
Overall, this seems to be a pretty blind and poorly thought-out attack. A pity that editors aren't more carefully edited.:-P
I misread "The system, say its British creators, did just as well as biology graduate students in solving a problem in genetics, according to an article in today's issue of the journal Nature." as "The system says its British creators did just as well as biology graduate students in solving a problem in genetics, according to an article in today's issue of the journal Nature."
Eyelashes can be opened? What do people store in there, extra eyeglasses? And damn, super glue on eyelashes - that is a serious nightmare to make the worst case of conjunctivitis seem like a walk in the park...scary!
I've had the opportunity to actually work with Steve Mann on a couple of projects he did here at the University of Toronto, where I got my master's in sociology and did the collaborative program with the new Knowledge Media Design Institute [http://www.kmdi.utoronto.ca].
A couple of people mentioned that they didn't understand how wearing a computer made one a cyborg. The understanding that I've gotten out of my graduate studies in these areas indicates that the academic definition of 'cyborg' is a bit different than the common Hollywood conception. Steve has said before that basically any piece of technology, however primitive or advanced, that you use or reach for without thinking about it, makes you a cyborg. If you automatically check a watch when looking for time, or reach for a pen [or PDA] to record someone's address, or run to Google if you don't know something, you've effectively 'internalized' those technologies as a part of the...organism that is you, for lack of a better way of putting it.
The Eyetap link a few people have mentioned [http://www.eyetap.org] is a good place to look at what Steve is doing. He's experimenting with what he calls post-post-modernism, and incorporating the cute little "de-as-in-deconstructionism" prefix into anything he possibly can.
About the videotaping thing - it's probably mentioned in the article [which I haven't read yet - I know, I'm lazy], but this is the whole "sousveillance" idea of "watching the watchers". You can find a paper that Steve Mann helped to author on the Netlab site [http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman] called "Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices to Challenge Surveillance" which talks a bit about this.
You say "making and distributing movies, music and books isn't cheap." Sure, making them isn't cheap [but we might ask ourselves whether this is because it REALLY isn't cheap to make them, or if there are hidden costs to other middlemen making the production process vastly inflated in terms of price], but obviously the whole point of this debate is that with the internet, distribution HAS become cheap. _Very_ cheap. This is largely what the entertainment industry is fighting - the loss of monopoly over distribution. Think of it this way - it's no longer impossible to get content out to the consumer, so why not spend more money on the production side, funding arts and artists, rather than trying to maintain an outmoded content distribution system?
Just my thoughts on the matter. For what it's worth, it's not expensive to write a book; I'm in the process of doing it and the main cost is mental agony over writing the first few lines every time I sit down again to continue.;-)
Hence the comment below about 'crappy pay'. A person with a decent education is going to avoid crappy-paying jobs - after all, who wants to get stuck in a crappy-paying job if you can get something that pays better and doesn't come with so little gratitude from having to mollify upset and stressed people every day?
Basically what HP is trying to sell is grid computing, as best as I can interpret this. Nothing new, just another heavyweight moving in to this 'technology of the future' area.:-P
She says "Whether it's called utility or grid or any of the words that are used, I think the next 10 years will be typified by the linkage of business processes to your IT resources and dynamically reallocating--I like to say it's the automatic supply and demand matching of your computing resources. So they become much more resilient and adaptable." Also, "We're entering a new decade of computing--whatever it is called. All it means is that you will use IT resources in the same way that you use a utility like a light. You take what you use. You don't have a generator at your house; there's a power grid somewhere else and you tap into it."
Essentially that's what she's trying to say, if you cut out all of the jargon.
Not to mention the stuff you could find buried in download sections on local BBS's. I think the first time I found porn on a BBS, I was 13 or so and using 2400 bps.:-P As a million other people have stated already, if kids really want to find it, they will. God knows I did.
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I just keep having horrific images of RobotCop dancing merrily in the streets to the music of the screams of crime victims everywhere. I think that 'dancing' directive pretty much conflicts with crimefighting.
Unless, I suppose, a master criminal arises with such a horror of dancing that the mere sight of it will cause him to fall to the ground with a penitent's plea for mercy?
On second thought, that's really reaching for it...
If you google this (too tired to suggest any terms) you'll find it. I recall reading articles about this at the end of last summer. Nothing new.
I think you don't really understand how VoIP works. In the case of Vonage, it's a box that you plug into your LAN/WAN that converts an analog telephone input into a digital signal. The appeal of VoIP is that you can take the box and plug it into any network and effectively take your phone with you. I don't think it is, nor is it intended to be, a cell phone replacement; nor is there any need to 'log on to your computer' unless you are using dialup internet access. In the latter case, you probably shouldn't be using VoIP anyway, as it requires broadband [always on] to have decent quality.
I've seen thousands of times people saying that they don't read books on the computer. I honestly don't understand this. My eyes are equally uncomfortable after 8-hour marathon reading sessions and spending 8 hours staring at a screen. There is little to no difference to me as to whether I'll read something online or offline, rather than cost and the 'reading room' factor [don't really feel like carrying digital devices in there]. So effectively I end up reading almost every book I've read in the past three years on my regular desktop screen or laptop LCD, and have found it to be little different in terms of strain/ease of use.
I suspect that the largest difference is really one of habituation. People grow up attaching certain expectations/sentimental values to the process of reading and do prefer print, but I'm not at all convinced that print is any less harsh on your eyes than screen. Remind yourself to blink once in a while and you'll probably be fine in both cases.
Personally, I really hope e-books take off. The Gutenberg project has been a part of my life since I was 14 and discovered it on a local BBS, and I have since found that almost anything I wish to read can be found digitized.
The only real complaint I have with e-books are the unauthorized scans of books - they tend to be poorly edited, or constructed using the "OCR and publish" method without any preview/cleanup at all. But, that's a side effect of my choice to read such scans, and I'm not complaining excessively.
Just a bunch of random thoughts..maybe someone will find it interesting.:-)
Having read the full article, I have to say that this is one of the most annoying pieces of writing I've read in quite a while. The author of this paper is assuming some naive elitist position in a fantasy world where corporate interests can never be anti-government and where code produced by the masses is somehow 'dangerous' because it might be exploitable.
As several other comments have pointed out, there is absolutely nothing to the "foul play" argument presented in this article that could not also apply to a closed-source project. In my opinion, the major difference is that the closed-source project's flaws [and note that in this article the author is talking about deliberately introduced flaws - basically the idea that OSS projects might be converted into trojan horses], if they exist, might never be discovered at all. If I buy a copy of Windows, I have absolutely no clue whether or not any such flaws exist, but more importantly, I have no way to check because I can not examine the source code. At least with open source software, if I suspect misuse or even if I'm only paranoid, I can examine the source code myself or have someone knowledgable [whom I trust] do it for me
Overall, this seems to be a pretty blind and poorly thought-out attack. A pity that editors aren't more carefully edited. :-P
TiVO Buys Super Secret Strangleberry!
TiVo recently announced the acquisition of Strangleberry, a new startup producing super-secret equipment with which TiVo plans to take over the world.
A spokesperson for TiVo attempted to comment, but was only able to make odd coughing and gagging noises.
How bizarre!
I misread "The system, say its British creators, did just as well as biology graduate students in solving a problem in genetics, according to an article in today's issue of the journal Nature." as "The system says its British creators did just as well as biology graduate students in solving a problem in genetics, according to an article in today's issue of the journal Nature."
Subtle, but frighteningly hilarious.
Eyelashes can be opened? What do people store in there, extra eyeglasses? And damn, super glue on eyelashes - that is a serious nightmare to make the worst case of conjunctivitis seem like a walk in the park...scary!
I've had the opportunity to actually work with Steve Mann on a couple of projects he did here at the University of Toronto, where I got my master's in sociology and did the collaborative program with the new Knowledge Media Design Institute [http://www.kmdi.utoronto.ca].
A couple of people mentioned that they didn't understand how wearing a computer made one a cyborg. The understanding that I've gotten out of my graduate studies in these areas indicates that the academic definition of 'cyborg' is a bit different than the common Hollywood conception. Steve has said before that basically any piece of technology, however primitive or advanced, that you use or reach for without thinking about it, makes you a cyborg. If you automatically check a watch when looking for time, or reach for a pen [or PDA] to record someone's address, or run to Google if you don't know something, you've effectively 'internalized' those technologies as a part of the...organism that is you, for lack of a better way of putting it.
The Eyetap link a few people have mentioned [http://www.eyetap.org] is a good place to look at what Steve is doing. He's experimenting with what he calls post-post-modernism, and incorporating the cute little "de-as-in-deconstructionism" prefix into anything he possibly can.
About the videotaping thing - it's probably mentioned in the article [which I haven't read yet - I know, I'm lazy], but this is the whole "sousveillance" idea of "watching the watchers". You can find a paper that Steve Mann helped to author on the Netlab site [http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman] called "Sousveillance: Inventing and Using Wearable Computing Devices to Challenge Surveillance" which talks a bit about this.
I just have to say...this is brilliant.:-)
Seems like Microsoft is adopting SCO's tactics now. They must be getting really desperate!
1. Find a large group of people [America's obese]
2. Charge a license for something they have no ownership over [the fat!]
3. Profit! $$$$$$
Okay, I know it's cheesy but I couldn't resist.;-)
You say "making and distributing movies, music and books isn't cheap." Sure, making them isn't cheap [but we might ask ourselves whether this is because it REALLY isn't cheap to make them, or if there are hidden costs to other middlemen making the production process vastly inflated in terms of price], but obviously the whole point of this debate is that with the internet, distribution HAS become cheap. _Very_ cheap. This is largely what the entertainment industry is fighting - the loss of monopoly over distribution. Think of it this way - it's no longer impossible to get content out to the consumer, so why not spend more money on the production side, funding arts and artists, rather than trying to maintain an outmoded content distribution system?
Just my thoughts on the matter. For what it's worth, it's not expensive to write a book; I'm in the process of doing it and the main cost is mental agony over writing the first few lines every time I sit down again to continue.;-)
To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
Hence the comment below about 'crappy pay'. A person with a decent education is going to avoid crappy-paying jobs - after all, who wants to get stuck in a crappy-paying job if you can get something that pays better and doesn't come with so little gratitude from having to mollify upset and stressed people every day?
Basically what HP is trying to sell is grid computing, as best as I can interpret this. Nothing new, just another heavyweight moving in to this 'technology of the future' area.:-P
She says "Whether it's called utility or grid or any of the words that are used, I think the next 10 years will be typified by the linkage of business processes to your IT resources and dynamically reallocating--I like to say it's the automatic supply and demand matching of your computing resources. So they become much more resilient and adaptable." Also, "We're entering a new decade of computing--whatever it is called. All it means is that you will use IT resources in the same way that you use a utility like a light. You take what you use. You don't have a generator at your house; there's a power grid somewhere else and you tap into it."
Essentially that's what she's trying to say, if you cut out all of the jargon.
Not to mention the stuff you could find buried in download sections on local BBS's. I think the first time I found porn on a BBS, I was 13 or so and using 2400 bps. :-P As a million other people have stated already, if kids really want to find it, they will. God knows I did.
This, or something very similar, has been in the works at the University of Toronto since last year.
An article about this can be found, and the McLuhan Center's current projects page has some more information.