Of course, Markoff's book was written to sensationalize hackers and crackers, much the same as Mitnick's is to present hackers as generally benign and himself as a victim of a witchhunt (almost the same way that Cyberpunk protrayed Robert Morris as a victim) and somebody with no heroic aspects, just a venal brutality.
So it's almost too good to be true to see Mitnick in a scenario where he's the hero who saves the innocent villagers but shows no animosity towards the perpetrator, just a good helping of world-weary contempt for somebody who thinks he's an anti-hero (hacker) but isn't. He also, in the same epic tradition, shows respect for the abilities of the man who brought him down in the first place.
While I'd agree that there may well be a conservative religious backlash, I'm not sure that it would be about separating sex from reproduction (that we already have with in vitro fertilization and had that particular backlash then).
I'd expect to see it come from the concept that this is "unnatural" and that Deity of Their Choice made men with sperm and women with eggs and that's why babies should be made with both.
There might also be a social backlash about children growing up knowing that they don't biologically have a father.
Gotta wonder what they'd make of a situation where two women are the biological parents but the child is raised by one of the biological parents and a male spouse.
Who's more likely to attract viewers and keep them from clicking to the next channel, TinfoilHat Leader talking about how Mars wants your women and is using tractor beams to kidnap the particularly full-figured ones or Rational Thinker who demonstrates that a tractor beam just wouldn't work?
It's definitely a social trend for more and more people to feel strongly about their pets to the point of considering them family. People spend more time single, either before marrying or settling into a living together relationship or after a divorce, and as well those not able to have children, there are more people who choose not to, for any number of reasons.
We also live in a society where people are increasingly likely to spoiltheir pets, so these kinds of sites are just going to keep coming, much the same way that so many people put up sites about or for kids. Some of 'em will be kind of excessive, sure, but then when you have something like pets, an interest/hobby for some, family for others, of course there'll be passion and sites of varying usefulness and sanity.
Me, I'm firmly in the camp of if there's a living critter you love dearly and who loves you just as dearly right back, then that's family, at least in my book.
You are so right, but there's one thought that I would add.
Just like the tulip mania or the South Sea Bubble or all the other bubbles since, once all the attention is on the stock rather than the intrinsic value of the product or service, then winning or losing depends on timing the market. (Or on having insider information.)
One thing that I think made the Dotcom Bubble a different twist was that it coincided with the rise of daytrading, the ubiquitous information age, and the age of easy credit card debt, so it was even easier for the people who have only the foggiest notion of evaluating and forecasting a stock's value to get into the market.
Certainly during the previous bubbles, lower-income people could still get in on the speculation, but there were several new forces converging to add to its capacity to reach investors.
I thought that Mooter gets pretty close--it clusters results around specific areas that it finds in the surrounding text. Still very much in development but, like Vivismo, a good next step.
I so wish that this would send DeBeers and the diamond cartel down.
Unfortunately, history suggests otherwise.
Synthetic rubies and sapphires go for less than a dollar per carat wholesale. Natural ones are still more expensive, even ugly, flawed, tiny ones. The high-quality stones still go for hundres per carat, rising into the thousands as the size increases.
The synthetics are used mostly for industrial use, class rings, and similar very cheap jewelry (except where it's passed off as the real thing).
I don't see anything indicating that this is going to change, unfortunately, not until consumers decide that the DeBeers syndicate is just too dirty, and either insist on stones from outside the syndicate (Canada is producing some very nice ones) or choose diamond alternatives.
ADHD is really a syndrome rather than a disease: It's a group of symptoms. To reduce it almost to absurdity, it's like a runny nose. Allergies? Cold? Sinus infection? Just been crying? Lots of possible causes and possible responses.
In another way, it's a lot like depression. There's the range of approaches from "just be a strong person and you'll get over it" to the "drug 'em up ASAP and as much as possible."
While the extremes don't work that often, just about everything within that spectrum will work on some of the patients and not on others. There are gazillions of things that cause conditions such as depression, ADHD, and so on, and so there are going to be different solutions.
In ADHD, Ritalin is the standard pharmaceutical response, just like Proxac is for depression. And yes, a lot of lazy diagnosticians will just prescribe those to get the patient out of the office ASAP or because they don't even know better.
The neural feedback therapy has a good chance of working if the underlying cause is something that can be self-regulated, just like cognitive therapy has a good chance of working if the underlying cause of an individual patient's depression is maladaptive cognitive patterns.
However, Gates and the Gates Foundation have been willing to change course, which would suggest a more modest worldview. The Foundation first started as an organization to bring technology to the developing world, but it wasn't long before it did two remarkable things:
1. Noticed that emphasizing technology didn't do that much in nations and communities where the basics of food, water, and medical care weren't available
2. Rethought its purpose and determined that the best thing to do to serve the communities was to provide for those basic needs.
Of course, just about every foundation goes through changes in its focuses, but it's downright remarkable for one to do so so early and so thoroughly, instead of grudgingly, after ignoring realities for quite a long while.
That said, both initiatives are full of vision, in their own ways, and bravo to them both!
Slashdot Mirror
Or perhaps for bears with Achilles envy? "Watch the heel, the patch isn't ready yet."
So it's almost too good to be true to see Mitnick in a scenario where he's the hero who saves the innocent villagers but shows no animosity towards the perpetrator, just a good helping of world-weary contempt for somebody who thinks he's an anti-hero (hacker) but isn't. He also, in the same epic tradition, shows respect for the abilities of the man who brought him down in the first place.
I'd expect to see it come from the concept that this is "unnatural" and that Deity of Their Choice made men with sperm and women with eggs and that's why babies should be made with both.
There might also be a social backlash about children growing up knowing that they don't biologically have a father.
Gotta wonder what they'd make of a situation where two women are the biological parents but the child is raised by one of the biological parents and a male spouse.
Who's more likely to attract viewers and keep them from clicking to the next channel, TinfoilHat Leader talking about how Mars wants your women and is using tractor beams to kidnap the particularly full-figured ones or Rational Thinker who demonstrates that a tractor beam just wouldn't work?
Let a Beagle off the leash and it goes tearing off after a scent...
RoboCrop.
It's definitely a social trend for more and more people to feel strongly about their pets to the point of considering them family. People spend more time single, either before marrying or settling into a living together relationship or after a divorce, and as well those not able to have children, there are more people who choose not to, for any number of reasons.
We also live in a society where people are increasingly likely to spoiltheir pets, so these kinds of sites are just going to keep coming, much the same way that so many people put up sites about or for kids. Some of 'em will be kind of excessive, sure, but then when you have something like pets, an interest/hobby for some, family for others, of course there'll be passion and sites of varying usefulness and sanity.
Me, I'm firmly in the camp of if there's a living critter you love dearly and who loves you just as dearly right back, then that's family, at least in my book.
Just like the tulip mania or the South Sea Bubble or all the other bubbles since, once all the attention is on the stock rather than the intrinsic value of the product or service, then winning or losing depends on timing the market. (Or on having insider information.)
One thing that I think made the Dotcom Bubble a different twist was that it coincided with the rise of daytrading, the ubiquitous information age, and the age of easy credit card debt, so it was even easier for the people who have only the foggiest notion of evaluating and forecasting a stock's value to get into the market.
Certainly during the previous bubbles, lower-income people could still get in on the speculation, but there were several new forces converging to add to its capacity to reach investors.
Mooter
Unfortunately, history suggests otherwise.
Synthetic rubies and sapphires go for less than a dollar per carat wholesale. Natural ones are still more expensive, even ugly, flawed, tiny ones. The high-quality stones still go for hundres per carat, rising into the thousands as the size increases.
The synthetics are used mostly for industrial use, class rings, and similar very cheap jewelry (except where it's passed off as the real thing).
I don't see anything indicating that this is going to change, unfortunately, not until consumers decide that the DeBeers syndicate is just too dirty, and either insist on stones from outside the syndicate (Canada is producing some very nice ones) or choose diamond alternatives.
In another way, it's a lot like depression. There's the range of approaches from "just be a strong person and you'll get over it" to the "drug 'em up ASAP and as much as possible."
While the extremes don't work that often, just about everything within that spectrum will work on some of the patients and not on others. There are gazillions of things that cause conditions such as depression, ADHD, and so on, and so there are going to be different solutions.
In ADHD, Ritalin is the standard pharmaceutical response, just like Proxac is for depression. And yes, a lot of lazy diagnosticians will just prescribe those to get the patient out of the office ASAP or because they don't even know better.
The neural feedback therapy has a good chance of working if the underlying cause is something that can be self-regulated, just like cognitive therapy has a good chance of working if the underlying cause of an individual patient's depression is maladaptive cognitive patterns.
Ah, but do they support Diablo printers?
1. Noticed that emphasizing technology didn't do that much in nations and communities where the basics of food, water, and medical care weren't available
2. Rethought its purpose and determined that the best thing to do to serve the communities was to provide for those basic needs.
Of course, just about every foundation goes through changes in its focuses, but it's downright remarkable for one to do so so early and so thoroughly, instead of grudgingly, after ignoring realities for quite a long while.
That said, both initiatives are full of vision, in their own ways, and bravo to them both!