This is for those readers who are in the U.S., of which I am one.
If there was a news report today that Yahoo helped use the information on its network to bring someone that the U.S. Government considered to be, say, a terrorist, to justice, would people be complaining?
Let's be consistent here. It sounds like China considered this guy to be a terrorist of sorts. Doesn't that mean, according to popular fear-driven definitions of justice, that it was right to do whatever was necessary to find him?
I should note, for those who didn't pick it up before now, that I don't mean at all that Yahoo should've actually helped in this effort. On the contrary, I think this should be considered to be a good example of how relative the definition of Terrorist is, and how if we are going to be so indignant about other countries abusing privacy issues to find their so-called "terrorists", perhaps we in the U.S. should not be so complacent as to accept and support when our own country goes on a witch hunt in violation of ethical law.
Hmm, I was certain that there'd be a healthy (er, unhealthy) amount of people ignorantly crying "FUD!" by now... they remind me of Eddie Izzard's comedy routine about how Britain ignored the rest of Europe... "No, no, no I can't! (sticks fingers in ears) la la la la la la la la!"
because it's *not a simulation*. Not in the semiotic definition at least, which implies a simulation as being something that's depicted to represent reality accurately. No, games *are* art, and that's what the author was really trying to say if you read it.
He's not arguing against bias in games, as is implied in this/. story... he's arguing against the incorrect assertion by many politicians that, as simulations, games should be mitigated of violence and regulated. Deus Ex, therefore, is a good example of how a game is not a simulation in the semiotic sense, but rather a good point to show how games should not be expected to mimic reality. After all, I've personally never had biomechanical implants installed into any part of my body, and I don't think many other people have either.
For instance, that the mere act of going back in time can alter motive or perception. That seems completely illogical to me. Even more illogical to me is the notion they present that "if you don't know something happened for certain, you can change it". That's the most illogical part of it all: so our personal perception of reality can allow us to change reality? Sorry, that doesn't make a lick of sense. Either the past should be universally alterable or universally unalterable: what is so special about our personal knowledge that it has some kind of effect on the universal events that affect us all, and that we all have at least the capacity to become aware of? This assertion in particular is utterly rediculous and unfounded.
Perhaps a thought experiment could help to clarify. Say that you knew, for certain, that there was a patch of grass in your front yard that was there 2 days ago. If you could, theoretically, go back in time and pull it out, what the hell would prevent you from doing so? The grass isn't going to move so that it won't be there when you get there, and you'll know for certain that (A) it was there and (B) Nothing horrible is going to happen as a result of pulling out the grass that would make you spontaneously change your mind about pulling it.
So what unearthly force prevents you from pulling out the grass that you know for certain "exists" in your time? The only explanation I can think of would be that you somehow lose your memory in the process of time travel, or something... but even then, you could destroy the grass entirely by accident, and no mysterious force (aside from God, which seems to be aside from this argument) is going to stop you from having that accidental destructive event even in the case I have stated where you might lose your motive to commit an action.
A more logical assumption could be that actions in the past are "locked": you can do what you want in the past, but it won't effect the time stream that has already been locked into place by the "first" set of actions that took place in the stream. It's like working with a duplicate of reality.
Umm... a 7 year old said that? I somehow doubt that.
However, my Ex girlfriend never saw the original Star Wars... hell, I know probably 2 dozen people who haven't. This really isn't/. worthy... I mean, unless I live in the only area in the world where grown human beings never saw Star Wars. =)
I find it interesting that the Congressional website (thomas.loc.gov) is now providing links to bills through "temporary" query results.
I can't find anywhere on the site that you can get a direct link to particular bills (like this one) in such a way that you can send the link to others and they can see it.
I don't like that one bit. I know that it used to be linkable, and it looks like they've intentionally changed the system. We cannot send people links to the text of bills from the source anymore. A cunning and wicked trick.
And in other news, apparently experts have come to the conclusion that the Earth is *not* flat as was previously expected, but rather it forms some sort of spherical shape. More on this news as it develops.
I haven't gone out to see the movie yet, but I was told that it (tries to) cover all five books already... would they have to consider this first one a "scrapped" one and do it again from the start if they made a trilogy out of it?
Suppose that it *is* advertised enough that people in the future would know about it and travel back. Would that mean that we'd see the time travelers in the time that *we* pass through it (as in, the first time we see the event)?
Because if we make it publicized now, then in the future when people travel back to the event, they will be traveling to this coming event.
So we'll know if it was successful immediately, because a time traveler (or many) will show up. How's that for instant gratification?
ROFL! =) Hey, they're chickens... and we cooked 'em up and ate 'em last semester. =) rofl j/k =)
Actually, you do bring up a good point... there was a rumor that those chickens were from Davis. I don't know if that's true though, someone from Davis should've owned up to it or spraypainted "Davis" on the chickens or something if Davis wanted credit for the prank. Better luck next time. =)
I wish that my school had that cool of a rivalry with another school. I go to CSUS, but no one here (or at Davis, our "Rivals") have the balls to do any really cool pranks.
I'd do a good prank, but those pansies would probably cry or wet themselves or something, and I'd have to deal with the stench as it drifted across the causeway into our town.
Hmm... aye, that's brilliant! I was thinking that maybe the station could have reserve fuel, but I hadn't thought about the spare cable idea. I have to admit, my opinion on this subject has shifted significantly now that I'm learning more about it. Someone in another post put up a good link to some additional content, and I spent a few minutes reading it. It's a fascinating idea, I have to admit... a lot less foolish of an idea than my initial reaction to it led me to believe.
Interesting! Oh, is it a rotational force thing? Okay, I'm starting to see the game plan. Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all...
Ouch, it'd be pretty bad if there was a space station and someone cut the cable though I'd imagine. There'd have to be some pretty hardcore security along the length of the cable to ensure that no one was going to cut it and shoot the attached station out to the nether-reaches of space.
Well... some people do have robots that do housework. Ones that vaccum with semi-intelligent pathfinding, for example. We can communicate with complex voice/text/video/etc data in real time over a distributed network that spans the globe and for which nodes reside in many individual's households. Private corporations are planning space travel for (wealthy) consumers. When I say the Science Fiction of the '50's is the science reality of today, I didn't mean it in an utterly literal sense (as in, *every* piece of science fiction is now fact). I mean things which in the 50's would've seemed impossible have come to pass.
Heh, and you called me a troll...
indeed, I don't know much about this topic, it's the first exposure I've ever had to the subject. I had a misinformed concept of what this elevator would look like/be composed of, but a few response posts have given me a more clear understanding of what constitutes a "Space Elevator"... but cut me some slack, not everyone who wanders into Slashdot is well versed in every subject that comes along.
I was posting my initial gut response to a subject upon first hearing about it. I'd say that's reasonable for a *response thread*.
Hmm... so the elevator itself would just be something attached to a long cable? Well, that's starting to make more sense at least... you'll have to pardon me for my "ignorant" responses, as this is my first exposure to the concept of Space Elevators. I'm trying to figure this all out as I go.
I was picturing something similar to a conventional elevator (with pulleys and enclosures and all...) which seemed highly impractical to me. A minor earthquake, or a good breeze could topple such a tall and narrow structure. Now if we're only talking a cable floating out in free space and attached to the ground, that's somewhat different.
That reminds me... what's the top fastened to? Granted, the upper part of the cable would be deep in space (and theoretically not directly affected by severe gravitational forces from Earth), but wouldn't it still be getting pulled down by the lower parts of the cable, which would be within the gravitational influence of Earth?)
Now I know, anything is possible with technology. Science fiction of the 50's is science reality of today. But let's stop the conversation of "is it possible" with that. The question of if the Space Elevator CAN be made seems irrelevant to me.
When it comes to this whole Space Elevator business, the relevant question in my opinion is "would we WANT to make something like that?" To me, it's a novelty idea and nothing more. If people want to get serious about space travel, we need to invest more into the building of in-orbit construction yards (IMHO). Once we get the infrastructure in space to produce the vehicles, we'll find that occasional trips to the "Drydock" from Earth to supply it with raw materials will be far more practical than some 21,700+ mile long elevator reaching into the sky.
Years ago (I believe it was back in 1997), I read about the prototype of this military product. It had an almost identical design, and was controlled much like one would control an RC plane. It had one camera, and the primary goal was surveillance. It sounds to me like they've improved the technology somewhat since then, and done some miniaturizing.
I wish I had kept the information on it... the research I did was for a high school paper on government technology. Sadly, those days have long past, and I've long since formatted all of it away. Kind of wish I'd kept it now.
For those readers who remember the early days of Xerox, when the Palo Alto facility theorized about a great deal of the earth-shattering technology that has emerged since the mid 80's, they will understand my reference.
One of Google's primary goals, as a company, is to do vast amounts of independant CS-Related research: research without the promise of profit. Their innovations are just now beginning to step outside of their offices in a big way, and it'll continue as they continue to release source code and theory documents to the Open Source community. Unlike Xerox, Google has an Open Source community in place to distribute this data to.
Actually, I seriously do. I'm unable to see the direct connection between this and Nanotechnology. It seems like our scales are just getting more sensitive... I don't mean this as a diss, just bringing it up in case someone knows how it is an advancement in Nanotechnology... 'cause I'm not seeing it.
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If there was a news report today that Yahoo helped use the information on its network to bring someone that the U.S. Government considered to be, say, a terrorist, to justice, would people be complaining?
Let's be consistent here. It sounds like China considered this guy to be a terrorist of sorts. Doesn't that mean, according to popular fear-driven definitions of justice, that it was right to do whatever was necessary to find him?
I should note, for those who didn't pick it up before now, that I don't mean at all that Yahoo should've actually helped in this effort. On the contrary, I think this should be considered to be a good example of how relative the definition of Terrorist is, and how if we are going to be so indignant about other countries abusing privacy issues to find their so-called "terrorists", perhaps we in the U.S. should not be so complacent as to accept and support when our own country goes on a witch hunt in violation of ethical law.
Hmm, I was certain that there'd be a healthy (er, unhealthy) amount of people ignorantly crying "FUD!" by now... they remind me of Eddie Izzard's comedy routine about how Britain ignored the rest of Europe... "No, no, no I can't! (sticks fingers in ears) la la la la la la la la!"
... why is it that my hometown paper (the Bee) always seems to come out with the most reactionary/idiotic quotables to pretty much any subject? Ugh...
He's not arguing against bias in games, as is implied in this
That seemed to me to be the point of the article.
I don't know, $1 million might not be worth it to someone who gets caught. Several years in a prison cell with "Bubba" might be a deterrant.
Perhaps a thought experiment could help to clarify. Say that you knew, for certain, that there was a patch of grass in your front yard that was there 2 days ago. If you could, theoretically, go back in time and pull it out, what the hell would prevent you from doing so? The grass isn't going to move so that it won't be there when you get there, and you'll know for certain that (A) it was there and (B) Nothing horrible is going to happen as a result of pulling out the grass that would make you spontaneously change your mind about pulling it.
So what unearthly force prevents you from pulling out the grass that you know for certain "exists" in your time? The only explanation I can think of would be that you somehow lose your memory in the process of time travel, or something... but even then, you could destroy the grass entirely by accident, and no mysterious force (aside from God, which seems to be aside from this argument) is going to stop you from having that accidental destructive event even in the case I have stated where you might lose your motive to commit an action.
A more logical assumption could be that actions in the past are "locked": you can do what you want in the past, but it won't effect the time stream that has already been locked into place by the "first" set of actions that took place in the stream. It's like working with a duplicate of reality.
However, my Ex girlfriend never saw the original Star Wars... hell, I know probably 2 dozen people who haven't. This really isn't /. worthy... I mean, unless I live in the only area in the world where grown human beings never saw Star Wars. =)
You have to admit, if you got someone to do it, you'd feel pretty damn proud of yourself though. ;)
I can't find anywhere on the site that you can get a direct link to particular bills (like this one) in such a way that you can send the link to others and they can see it.
I don't like that one bit. I know that it used to be linkable, and it looks like they've intentionally changed the system. We cannot send people links to the text of bills from the source anymore. A cunning and wicked trick.
And in other news, apparently experts have come to the conclusion that the Earth is *not* flat as was previously expected, but rather it forms some sort of spherical shape. More on this news as it develops.
I haven't gone out to see the movie yet, but I was told that it (tries to) cover all five books already... would they have to consider this first one a "scrapped" one and do it again from the start if they made a trilogy out of it?
Suppose that it *is* advertised enough that people in the future would know about it and travel back. Would that mean that we'd see the time travelers in the time that *we* pass through it (as in, the first time we see the event)?
Because if we make it publicized now, then in the future when people travel back to the event, they will be traveling to this coming event.
So we'll know if it was successful immediately, because a time traveler (or many) will show up. How's that for instant gratification?
Actually, you do bring up a good point... there was a rumor that those chickens were from Davis. I don't know if that's true though, someone from Davis should've owned up to it or spraypainted "Davis" on the chickens or something if Davis wanted credit for the prank. Better luck next time. =)
I'd do a good prank, but those pansies would probably cry or wet themselves or something, and I'd have to deal with the stench as it drifted across the causeway into our town.
(hopes some Davis students read this... ;) )
Congrats guys, you turned this nay sayer around. =)
Hmm... aye, that's brilliant! I was thinking that maybe the station could have reserve fuel, but I hadn't thought about the spare cable idea. I have to admit, my opinion on this subject has shifted significantly now that I'm learning more about it. Someone in another post put up a good link to some additional content, and I spent a few minutes reading it. It's a fascinating idea, I have to admit... a lot less foolish of an idea than my initial reaction to it led me to believe.
Ouch, it'd be pretty bad if there was a space station and someone cut the cable though I'd imagine. There'd have to be some pretty hardcore security along the length of the cable to ensure that no one was going to cut it and shoot the attached station out to the nether-reaches of space.
Well... some people do have robots that do housework. Ones that vaccum with semi-intelligent pathfinding, for example. We can communicate with complex voice/text/video/etc data in real time over a distributed network that spans the globe and for which nodes reside in many individual's households. Private corporations are planning space travel for (wealthy) consumers. When I say the Science Fiction of the '50's is the science reality of today, I didn't mean it in an utterly literal sense (as in, *every* piece of science fiction is now fact). I mean things which in the 50's would've seemed impossible have come to pass.
Heh, and you called me a troll...
indeed, I don't know much about this topic, it's the first exposure I've ever had to the subject. I had a misinformed concept of what this elevator would look like/be composed of, but a few response posts have given me a more clear understanding of what constitutes a "Space Elevator"... but cut me some slack, not everyone who wanders into Slashdot is well versed in every subject that comes along.
I was posting my initial gut response to a subject upon first hearing about it. I'd say that's reasonable for a *response thread*.
Hmm... so the elevator itself would just be something attached to a long cable? Well, that's starting to make more sense at least... you'll have to pardon me for my "ignorant" responses, as this is my first exposure to the concept of Space Elevators. I'm trying to figure this all out as I go.
I was picturing something similar to a conventional elevator (with pulleys and enclosures and all...) which seemed highly impractical to me. A minor earthquake, or a good breeze could topple such a tall and narrow structure. Now if we're only talking a cable floating out in free space and attached to the ground, that's somewhat different.
That reminds me... what's the top fastened to? Granted, the upper part of the cable would be deep in space (and theoretically not directly affected by severe gravitational forces from Earth), but wouldn't it still be getting pulled down by the lower parts of the cable, which would be within the gravitational influence of Earth?)
Now I know, anything is possible with technology. Science fiction of the 50's is science reality of today. But let's stop the conversation of "is it possible" with that. The question of if the Space Elevator CAN be made seems irrelevant to me.
When it comes to this whole Space Elevator business, the relevant question in my opinion is "would we WANT to make something like that?" To me, it's a novelty idea and nothing more. If people want to get serious about space travel, we need to invest more into the building of in-orbit construction yards (IMHO). Once we get the infrastructure in space to produce the vehicles, we'll find that occasional trips to the "Drydock" from Earth to supply it with raw materials will be far more practical than some 21,700+ mile long elevator reaching into the sky.
Years ago (I believe it was back in 1997), I read about the prototype of this military product. It had an almost identical design, and was controlled much like one would control an RC plane. It had one camera, and the primary goal was surveillance. It sounds to me like they've improved the technology somewhat since then, and done some miniaturizing.
I wish I had kept the information on it... the research I did was for a high school paper on government technology. Sadly, those days have long past, and I've long since formatted all of it away. Kind of wish I'd kept it now.
For those readers who remember the early days of Xerox, when the Palo Alto facility theorized about a great deal of the earth-shattering technology that has emerged since the mid 80's, they will understand my reference.
One of Google's primary goals, as a company, is to do vast amounts of independant CS-Related research: research without the promise of profit. Their innovations are just now beginning to step outside of their offices in a big way, and it'll continue as they continue to release source code and theory documents to the Open Source community. Unlike Xerox, Google has an Open Source community in place to distribute this data to.
My hat is off to them for their efforts.
Actually, I seriously do. I'm unable to see the direct connection between this and Nanotechnology. It seems like our scales are just getting more sensitive... I don't mean this as a diss, just bringing it up in case someone knows how it is an advancement in Nanotechnology... 'cause I'm not seeing it.