Not really since any act of you being on the net is being in public - i.e. recordable and not private, routers, scripts, ads. Anything that has to be downloaded to your system run and loaded and sends data back is all one needs. One can always find creative ways to expose what would otherwise be data through innocuous means.
Also the math to reconstruct a persons interest is going to get better and better, so it will make exposing data a moot point since you can reconstruct the patterns from patterns of a persons activity on the web. Most people are dumb remember, they don't give a rats ass about security.
Re:The Story of the Semantic Web--Slashdot Style!
on
Untangling Web Information
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· Score: 2, Interesting
"Trying to get a computer to understand the meaning of a web page is, fundamentally, getting machines to do my thinking for me. In my experience, they're pretty bad at it."
They're pretty bad at it NOW, personally I think the web would get infinitely better if all user tastes and profiles were congregated, as they are at delicious, so people with similar interests are pointed to the results found by others. That's one thing I like about delicious, you can browse the bookmarks of others who have "done the thinking" for you.
Sooner or later machines WILL get good at it, but it means giving up any kind of privacy, since the machine would have to have some kind of intimate knowledge about what you do, talk about, email, bookmark, etc, to make the results of searches more relevant.
I've noticed context adds in gmail getting suspiciously relevant and good, over the past couple of months, I have found services I would not have found on my own.
It is but the software isn't up to scratch yet, I checked out MIT open courseware and the new one at Stanford.
Things like
1) editable textbooks, being able to comment on each pargraph in a book would be an enormous boon to textbook authors by taking student feedback/suggestions, as well as the suggestions of other teachers from other institutions.
2) Comments on problems, etc... one thing I notice is that a lot of problems are structured in obtuse ways that could be expressed a lot better if one was able to simply edit the problem (via wiki), and then "fork" a copy off the main one that the teacher uses, and "may the best one win", this would allow bright students to reshape the curriculum from within without stepping on the professors toes, i.e. the professor can still post his problems in his own words, but other students can take them, reword them, etc, to get rid of the obscurantism.
And that's just the start of the many ideas I have in my head, the user interface and software usability over the web just isn't there yet in many respects. Though I certainly do appreciate the effort these institutions are making.
... if there is one thing I have noticed is that because of the internet, and the industry as aw hole. Most schools and universities simply cannot keep up, and many schools are outright bad, even the "major leagues". I think it's time to consolidate the best talent for subjects that can be taught online and have community edited courses + wiki's, etc. It would go along way to being able to improve courses in real time.
There's been tonnes of times I've wanted to leave comments on some professors problems, or notes under paragraph of a textbook/books he's ascribed to read, and change the wording to make it more clear. I think the whole "top down" approach to education is obsolete since there is just too much stuff that current teachers and professors are clueless about that has been learned about how we learn from cognitive science.
In fact if the internet teaches you anything, it teaches you how horrible teachers and professors and their classes really are. Many classes are so over-crowded and are taught by mere TA's (teaching assistents, etc), it's a wonder anything gets learned in modern university mills.
IMHO, if the game industry wants skills it should be funding it's own school and should be staffed with people FROM the industry, i.e. software and gaming, etc. It shouldn't be staffed by academics who have NEVER worked in the industry. This is one of my biggest pet peeves about universities, is that the people that frequently teach are out of touch or have never really done any serious work in the industry. A select few teachers can get by with that, but most can't. Most are busy doing other stuff.
Next is the fact that how we learn is just starting to be uncovered, there has been a lot of development in the cognitive sciences over the last 30 years that will have an enormous effect on pedagogy and teaching, right now much teaching is really in the dark ages, since it's not based on any science, it's based on "throw it against the wall, drill, practice, and hope it sticks" method.
"A little elitism is a good thing. You don't want just people making judgments in fields that they know little to nothing about."
Your comment assumes that men (elite men) have the universal capacity to separate truth from it's illusions, this is not the case. Elitism actually stems from the enlightenment fallacy, about the nature of reasoning and truth.
"Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency."--Ibn al-Haytham
Elitism = bad, having people knowing how to separate truth from it's illusions = good, but NO man has a monopoly on the truth. Experts have been frequently shown to be wrong throughout history, one only has to see the history of science to know how stupid experts are. They just don't get caught until after they are dead. Notice how when we look back in time, histories "experts" look childish as knowledge advances. Lots of histories world changers were resisted, criticized, or ignored by the "elites", especially in mathematics.
George Cantor, and George boole, just to name a few
One could write entire volumes about the errors in reasoning and mistakes of the "elite" throughout history, the truth is hard, and no one has a monopoly on the truth. Therefore we should all be careful about being dogmatic about anything, and not tie our identities up with what we think we know, because as knowledge advances new information will likely upset our current conceptions of what we accept as truth or not truth.
"The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres of cultural life.... We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm and the misguided....
Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)
Thought it was a good quote to follow up your excellent post.
... when they are ready will do a lot to alleviate the boot wait times. Although I'm sure a lot of wait time has to do with the programming of the bios/hardware initialization, not to mention programs optimized for the latency of hard drives. I noticed in previous versions of windows (and I'm certain even xp/vista still) when certain drivers load they can cause delays.
I've always wondered with the cheapness of ram, how hard/costly could it be after the first boot, and then simply have insta-boot thereafter. So it boots right out of the ram using standby +/w battery backup on the ram. You can get 2 gigs for less then $50, how much would be 256/512MBit chip soldered onto mass produced mobo be I wonder?
"Google would rather Knol didn't suffer the ignominious fate of Google Answers [google.com]. Not everything Google does is a hit."
Google answers was a bit of a cash grab, you'd get better responses for money. No one really wants to pay a bunch of google guys money for answers when they can use google themselves and save money.
I was thinking about some next generation communications that would reduce latency on the internet by a massive amount, but couldn't think of any good word, hence I put 'quantum' in quotes. Since I've heard of quantum entanglement and related experiments, was just saying maybe new discoveries in natural phenomena will find ways around current internet latency. Also there is this article here:
... really have a long way to go IMHO. The user interface for many websites and webapps is horrible, and I doubt they will ever fully replace offline apps (i.e. photoshop, 3d studio max, etc, etc), until we have a quantum leap in bandwidth + latency reduction (i.e. some kind of 'quantum' internet).
I like a lot of google apps, like Google notebook, Gmail, etc, but they are nowhere near as good as a well made offline app. Too many apps lack developmental time and focus, IMHO or lack vision to how the program could be made into a better app, with better integration. So people don't need to juggle many smaller apps which is cumbersome to get tasks done.
"I'd much rather buy a case without a supply than get some pos that's going in the trash as I don't dare hook it up to any of my equipment."
This is not a reason when dealing with aftermarket cases, places like antec can use their bulk/buying power so you don't have to go out and buy a case and THEN a power supply. They're just dinging gamers twice, power supply + case + insane gpu that needs all these special plugs to run... it's little wonder many people moved to consoles.
It's just so weird to buy a case and then have to buy a seperate power supply. Personally I think places like hardocp are selling ice to eskimo's, in the "pre internet" days, pretty much everoyne used powersupplies that came with their comp/comps case. I have never bought a seperate power supply until right after the generation after Pentium 4.
Again it's a nerdcore thing where the rip you off, most power supplies have to be tested to a certain degree so that they will work with a variety of motherboards, components, etc.
"$180 is very reasonable if you have a reason to buy a case like this instead of a standard tower."
I'm sorry but no, I regretted buying the antec nine hundred when it first came out only to realize it was painstakingly small and cramped on the inside, which wasn't really emphasized in the reviews. I like the case itself but the fact that there was hardly any space really ruined the design, sometimes I have to wonder who the hell is designing these things. Then they did the revision with the antec 1200... the truth is the hardware industry knows it can rip off computer modding nerds and gamers by adding "gamer case" or "modded case" and charge a hell of a lot extra. The antec 900 now can be found for 100 and less, when it first debut'd it was around $130+ (at least when I bought it).
That's the last time I spend over $100 on a case.
Anymore then $100 on a case and you're pushing it, especially if it comes WITHOUT a power supply
They want $200 for an antec 1200 without a fucking power supply, can you say rip off?
Here's a snip from the info
"No Power Supply included: To optimize performance of your Twelve Hundred, your choice of power supply is crucial."
Yeah apparently so crucial they don't include one or use their power as a manufacturer to get discounts on popular "gaming" and other power supplies.
"If an ISP has you capped at 20 gigs a month, switch."
It's not always that simple, many ISP's change bandwidth caps behind their users backs and without their consent. My ISP did exactly this a couple of months ago changing my regular cap and cutting it by over 30%, needless to say they got an ear full. ISP's unfortunately are a really uncompetitive industry in north america because of the nature of how they get profits, they could choose to "improve" their service, but most customers are too inept and too stupid to care about such things, hence they get away with things like overselling, etc. It's one sector of the economy where the market fails due to ignorance and it's sad. Hopefully as more bandwidth intensive apps appear it will force them to upgrade, but most likely they will push caps and overselling until they get enough complaints to do so.
Most people don't switch internet that often and for many, there are only a few options available, and even when there are more this does not mean people have any clue they exist. Especially DSL providers, technically you should be able to get DSL from a lot of vendors if you live in a densely populated area, but this often comes at quality of service. I thought of switching to DSL many times but my cables speed is ridiculously fast compared to the DSL when I tried it out for a couple of months. I notice that DSL providers will give you unlimited dl's but slower speed, but as file sizes increase speed matters just as much as bandwidth caps for some people.
Socrates stood up for truth - i.e. when people suffer from illusions and lies, he want around exposing other peoples illusions and claims that they had it. Hence the political nature of socrates life. He believed the good encompassed exposing other peoples lies, and hence he was annoyed the living crap out of the many people of his time.
People don't like their cherished ideas, religions, ideologies exposed for the illusions they are and hence this is why socrates showed the nature of truth is political to man, for man wants to think he has the truth when the truth is most men don't have it.
"Not sure what you mean by that. Socrates tried to show, probably more than anything else, that knowledges were innate. And that in the most fundamental things, learning is not really learning, but in some sense "remembering" what we already know."
You missed a major point of socrates death and life. His whole reasoning for going through that and questioning others was to show that the truth also was political, and hence that is why he was known as the gadfly of athens. "... and so socrates stung athens." to paraphrase. He went through that to defend what he believed to be the good (to be on the path of a lover of wisdom) to the very last.
Get out of here! Not everyone has tonnes of game playing friends close to them. Tonnes of gamers have friends that do not play games at all or think they are lame "omg video games, you loser!". That sentiment is still around. Not only that but many gamers who have good friends are often on the move because of their jobs and online gaming is a godsend for that. Speak for yourself only please. Online gaming > no social gaming at all.
Not only that but online games trump your friends(tm) in other ways, most peoples friends absolutely suck at games and the skill levels between them and there friends are usually disproportionate. This idea that "it's better with friends on my couch" is ok some of the time, but most of us enjoy both and get tired of both at different times.... I have no idea what I'd do without online gaming to challenge me in many games, since I am so good I hand most people their ass that it's not fun for me or them. Therefore I do mostly social / wii'ish kind of games with others if the skill is way too skewed.
"You see, too many people think that just because they created something, they deserve to be paid for it. That's simply not true. Being in a band should be a job, not just something you do for a few weeks or months and then expect to sit back and let the royalty money flow in for the rest of your life."
To play the devils advocate for a moment... I apologize but the world does not work anything like that. There's plenty of people who make money doing damn near nothing of value, except looking good. If you're going to make the time spent at a job (i.e. emphasizing that a job and time spent is some moral pre-requisite to earning money). We could take that moral claim further that some types of jobs don't 'deserve' to earn as much money as other types of jobs, and some jobs should always have the worker work for slave wages and poor working conditions and/or be totally free, etc. It's one big arbitrary point, the word "job" is an all encompassing vague willy nilly term for how a particular group of people value someone else and what they do or not do in order to dominate them or berate them for their perceived lack of worth according to someone else in some way.
Now I appreciate what you're getting at but this world is filled to the brim with injustices, we could take it further and ask whether the economic system is imorral and why is it that certain kinds of people get to rule and hog all the earths resources, etc, etc... your point touches upon the perceived and real injustices in the world at large, but the failings are our lack of being exellent people, compassionate, nice, forgiving, etc... they are moral failings IMHO, most people think they are moral when they are not, their territoriality, perceived selfrighteousness and selfishness over rule their other better qualities because the society we live in fosters them.
The real problem itself is that old conceptions of property when applied to many duplicate items in large populations adds elements of complexity due to the territorial psychology of the human beings... It's complexity is wholly psychological and has to do with culture and inherited ideas and values whether right or wrong.
"This is serious news. As it stands, the home user that actually sets up a RAID 5 raid is in the top percentile for actually giving a crap about home data. Once that becomes a non-issue, then the point has come when a reasonable backup is out of reach of 99% of private individuals"
This is why they made DVD, Blu-ray, USB thumb drives, Flash memory (Flash memory is getting mighty big now 16-32GB), with USB thumb drives, 16-32GB SDHC flash memory cards, then their are portable hard drives that connect via USB/Firewire and personal SAN solutions starting to appear. But it's highly likely within the next 5 years flash technology will make a lot of talk about backup moot, since online can take care of storing pictures and videos (the biggest portion usually) and then that leaves the user to just backup his higher quality pics and videos (should he/she be savvy enough to begin with). I wouldn't be surprised most people use shared picture sites like Google, Flickr, photbucket, and youtube to store their videos/pictures and not worry about having to back them up. Much of what people have is disposable or highly redundant and easy to redownload.
Most important data people want to backup is not a lot of data, unless you're talking about pictures and video and this could be done with a lot less if they were savvy about it. But... the truth of the matter is things will get better as the generations go by, as more and more people grow up with technology there will be less and less of a learning curve over time.
The problem goes deeper then that, the author comes across to me as missing the deep links between religion, gossip, and ideology -- that they trump the facts every time.
That religious or slopping thinking is the standard for all human beings, even science is subject to the same sloppy thinking they accuse creationists and other "nonscience" disciplines, peoples and opinions of and hence the dire need for peer review, criticism, and understanding, etc.
But the truth is, all truths people think are true are riddled with errors and misconceived ideas based on flawed understandings that pass as "true" during the historical period and culture in which the people exist. Cognitive science has shown that sciences understanding of truth and objectivity is deeply flawed also, science has shown the enlightenment's ideas about science and reasoning are deeply flawed also.
Most people and scientists don't even have a clue what has been discovered in the neurological sciences over the last 30 years and how it undermines the enlightenment's view of reason and enlightenment's view of education. Most people still operate under the enlightenment's view of reason
Today, with authoritarian governments in power around much of the world, increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic governments, and increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable corporations, the need for openness and transparency is greater than ever, and despite wikipedia's flaws, the fact that the internet exists and "anti wikipedia" sites exist, allow us to balance it's shortcomings through open criticism.
But you have to realize that this is a fundamental human problem for every human being, regardless of status, class, intellect, or education, many of histories brightest minds were horribly wrong in enormous ways about other things. Look at Newton for instance and the amount he wrote concerning religion, etc.
Lament for a Nation is a 1965 essay of political philosophy by Canadian philosopher George Grant. The essay examined the political fate of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative government in light of its refusal to allow nuclear arms on Canadian soil, and the Liberal party's political acceptance of the warheads.
Although grounded in the particular examination of Diefenbaker's fate in the 1963 federal election, the analysis transcended Canadian politics, studying Canadian and American national foundations, Conservatism in Britain and North America, Canada's dual nature as a French and English nation, the fate of Western Enlightenment, and the philosophical analysis of citizenship in modern democracies.
Content According to Grant, Diefenbaker's position against the Bomarc was defeated by the Central Canadian establishment, who conspired with the Liberal Party to bring down Diefenbaker and diminish Canadian sovereignty. This was his lament; he felt there was an emerging Americanization of Canadians and Canadian culture due to the inability of Canadian to live their lives outside of the hegemony of American liberal capitalism - and the technology that emanates from that system.
Critical reception Described as one of the seminal works of Canadian political thought, it discusses the influence of the United States via liberalism and technology on Canada - which Grant argued was traditionally a less-liberal and more traditionally conservative entity and culture. Grant argued that Canada was doomed as a nation as was illustrated by the 1963 Bomarc Missile Program crisis. He predicted the end of Canadian nationalism, which for Grant meant a small-town, populist conception of Canada as a British North American alternative to American capitalism and empire, and a move towards continentalism.
Soros was also making contacts for a ceasefire deal through JP Morgan.
He was losing money on his short-term positions, which were not covered, but subsequently would make money on his medium-term positions. In general he was not in big trouble, unlike other speculators who had attacked the baht in the spot market and were trapped in the guillotine of the two-tier currency system. (The two-tier system made it impossible for speculators to attack the baht from offshore.)
Soros' position was largely medium-term, which would be matured in six months. That was the big chunk of the attack. Rerngchai realised that come August, the Bank of Thailand would not have the dollars on hand to deliver to the speculators, as obligated by the currency swaps.
But Soros also realised that the carry-over, or interest, cost of his baht positions would not be worthwhile due to the abnormally high interest rates on the baht.
Rerngchai reached a broad agreement with his aides that the Bank of Thailand would settle only half of its US$14.8 billion in offshore swap positions, which confronted the speculators face to face.
Paiboon Kittisrikangwarn, then the central bank's chief trader, received several phone calls from speculators through local banks asking for a truce. But his reaction was stern. He would not meet the speculators, but he agreed to cut a deal at an exchange rate of Bt23 to the dollar or the forward rate of 9 per cent.
"Take it or leave it," he said.
The speculators wanted Bt26, meaning that the deal would have left them with a loss of Bt3 for every dollar. The speculators were fuming with rage.
It was evident that strong political backup was necessary if this mission was to be successful. When Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, then prime minister, was informed about this plan to talk it out with Soros, Chavalit agreed.
His tone was conciliatory. "It's alright. Let's do it. I am ready to help," he said.
But the political situation at that time was highly precarious. Engaging in this kind of clandestine operation required a stable administration; otherwise, the slightest jab by the opposition could bring down the government. In the meantime, rumours of ceasefire negotiations with Soros quickly became widespread.
Euromoney wrote in its September 1997 issue: "Undeterred by the freeze, those who needed baht offshore to cover short positions became more inventive. One particular exposed speculator - local gossip-mongers reckon it was George Soros - went cap in hand to the central bank to ask for baht and offered to play the bank's game in return by easing off hammering the currency. The Bank of Thailand declined the offer."
In the end, negotiations with Soros would never take place because the finance minister lacked the political back up. Amnuay was about to fall victim to coalition politics, engineered by the Chat Pattana, which wanted to take over economic management from the New Aspiration Party.
In early June Arminio Fraga, a former deputy governor of the central bank of Brazil, who worked for Soros, contacted the Bank of Thailand to cut a deal. Fraga, who would be appointed his country's central bank governor a year later to save the Brazilian real, was then the managing director of Soros Fund Management.
Fraga, who frequently visited Bangkok to investigate the business climate, came over to talk about the possibility of ending the baht war.
But after Amnuay's resignation in late June, he sensed victory. When one of the central bank officials tried to call him to reach a settlement, he said: "I think we can wait a little bit more".
With that sentence ringing in his ear, Rerngchai realised that the Bank of Thailand was about to lose the currency war.
Slashdot Mirror
"Yet another strike."
Not really since any act of you being on the net is being in public - i.e. recordable and not private, routers, scripts, ads. Anything that has to be downloaded to your system run and loaded and sends data back is all one needs. One can always find creative ways to expose what would otherwise be data through innocuous means.
Also the math to reconstruct a persons interest is going to get better and better, so it will make exposing data a moot point since you can reconstruct the patterns from patterns of a persons activity on the web. Most people are dumb remember, they don't give a rats ass about security.
"Trying to get a computer to understand the meaning of a web page is, fundamentally, getting machines to do my thinking for me. In my experience, they're pretty bad at it."
They're pretty bad at it NOW, personally I think the web would get infinitely better if all user tastes and profiles were congregated, as they are at delicious, so people with similar interests are pointed to the results found by others. That's one thing I like about delicious, you can browse the bookmarks of others who have "done the thinking" for you.
Sooner or later machines WILL get good at it, but it means giving up any kind of privacy, since the machine would have to have some kind of intimate knowledge about what you do, talk about, email, bookmark, etc, to make the results of searches more relevant.
I've noticed context adds in gmail getting suspiciously relevant and good, over the past couple of months, I have found services I would not have found on my own.
It is but the software isn't up to scratch yet, I checked out MIT open courseware and the new one at Stanford.
Things like
1) editable textbooks, being able to comment on each pargraph in a book would be an enormous boon to textbook authors by taking student feedback/suggestions, as well as the suggestions of other teachers from other institutions.
2) Comments on problems, etc... one thing I notice is that a lot of problems are structured in obtuse ways that could be expressed a lot better if one was able to simply edit the problem (via wiki), and then "fork" a copy off the main one that the teacher uses, and "may the best one win", this would allow bright students to reshape the curriculum from within without stepping on the professors toes, i.e. the professor can still post his problems in his own words, but other students can take them, reword them, etc, to get rid of the obscurantism.
And that's just the start of the many ideas I have in my head, the user interface and software usability over the web just isn't there yet in many respects. Though I certainly do appreciate the effort these institutions are making.
... if there is one thing I have noticed is that because of the internet, and the industry as aw hole. Most schools and universities simply cannot keep up, and many schools are outright bad, even the "major leagues". I think it's time to consolidate the best talent for subjects that can be taught online and have community edited courses + wiki's, etc. It would go along way to being able to improve courses in real time.
There's been tonnes of times I've wanted to leave comments on some professors problems, or notes under paragraph of a textbook/books he's ascribed to read, and change the wording to make it more clear. I think the whole "top down" approach to education is obsolete since there is just too much stuff that current teachers and professors are clueless about that has been learned about how we learn from cognitive science.
In fact if the internet teaches you anything, it teaches you how horrible teachers and professors and their classes really are. Many classes are so over-crowded and are taught by mere TA's (teaching assistents, etc), it's a wonder anything gets learned in modern university mills.
IMHO, if the game industry wants skills it should be funding it's own school and should be staffed with people FROM the industry, i.e. software and gaming, etc. It shouldn't be staffed by academics who have NEVER worked in the industry. This is one of my biggest pet peeves about universities, is that the people that frequently teach are out of touch or have never really done any serious work in the industry. A select few teachers can get by with that, but most can't. Most are busy doing other stuff.
Next is the fact that how we learn is just starting to be uncovered, there has been a lot of development in the cognitive sciences over the last 30 years that will have an enormous effect on pedagogy and teaching, right now much teaching is really in the dark ages, since it's not based on any science, it's based on "throw it against the wall, drill, practice, and hope it sticks" method.
Didn't you see I, Robot? These laws lead to REVOLUTION!
"A little elitism is a good thing. You don't want just people making judgments in fields that they know little to nothing about."
Your comment assumes that men (elite men) have the universal capacity to separate truth from it's illusions, this is not the case. Elitism actually stems from the enlightenment fallacy, about the nature of reasoning and truth.
(Quick version)
http://i35.tinypic.com/10fruxh.jpg
(Longer version)
http://www.linktv.org/video/2142
A few wise words from are good old friend Ibn...
"Therefore, the seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency."--Ibn al-Haytham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_al-haytham
Elitism = bad, having people knowing how to separate truth from it's illusions = good, but NO man has a monopoly on the truth. Experts have been frequently shown to be wrong throughout history, one only has to see the history of science to know how stupid experts are. They just don't get caught until after they are dead. Notice how when we look back in time, histories "experts" look childish as knowledge advances. Lots of histories world changers were resisted, criticized, or ignored by the "elites", especially in mathematics.
George Cantor, and George boole, just to name a few
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Cantor
"Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitiveâ"even shockingâ"that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré[3] and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God,[4] on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism.[5] The objections to his work were occasionally fierce: Poincaré referred to Cantor's ideas as a "grave disease" infecting the discipline of mathematics,[6] and Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth."[7] Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory," which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong".[8] Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life were once blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries,[9]..."
One could write entire volumes about the errors in reasoning and mistakes of the "elite" throughout history, the truth is hard, and no one has a monopoly on the truth. Therefore we should all be careful about being dogmatic about anything, and not tie our identities up with what we think we know, because as knowledge advances new information will likely upset our current conceptions of what we accept as truth or not truth.
Quote:
"The free, unhampered exchange of ideas and scientific conclusions is necessary for the sound development of science, as it is in all spheres of cultural life. ... We must not conceal from ourselves that no improvement in the present depressing situation is possible without a severe struggle; for the handful of those who are really determined to do something is minute in comparison with the mass of the lukewarm and the misguided. ...
Humanity is going to need a substantially new way of thinking if it is to survive!" (Albert Einstein)
Thought it was a good quote to follow up your excellent post.
... when they are ready will do a lot to alleviate the boot wait times. Although I'm sure a lot of wait time has to do with the programming of the bios/hardware initialization, not to mention programs optimized for the latency of hard drives. I noticed in previous versions of windows (and I'm certain even xp/vista still) when certain drivers load they can cause delays.
I've always wondered with the cheapness of ram, how hard/costly could it be after the first boot, and then simply have insta-boot thereafter. So it boots right out of the ram using standby + /w battery backup on the ram. You can get 2 gigs for less then $50, how much would be 256/512MBit chip soldered onto mass produced mobo be I wonder?
"Google would rather Knol didn't suffer the ignominious fate of Google Answers [google.com]. Not everything Google does is a hit."
Google answers was a bit of a cash grab, you'd get better responses for money. No one really wants to pay a bunch of google guys money for answers when they can use google themselves and save money.
I was thinking about some next generation communications that would reduce latency on the internet by a massive amount, but couldn't think of any good word, hence I put 'quantum' in quotes. Since I've heard of quantum entanglement and related experiments, was just saying maybe new discoveries in natural phenomena will find ways around current internet latency. Also there is this article here:
Trapping light and saving it for later
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7314502
"I'd like a job as a visionary"
What you describe is not a visionary, googles founders were visionary, visionary implies you are both capable and have a vision.
... really have a long way to go IMHO. The user interface for many websites and webapps is horrible, and I doubt they will ever fully replace offline apps (i.e. photoshop, 3d studio max, etc, etc), until we have a quantum leap in bandwidth + latency reduction (i.e. some kind of 'quantum' internet).
I like a lot of google apps, like Google notebook, Gmail, etc, but they are nowhere near as good as a well made offline app. Too many apps lack developmental time and focus, IMHO or lack vision to how the program could be made into a better app, with better integration. So people don't need to juggle many smaller apps which is cumbersome to get tasks done.
"I'd much rather buy a case without a supply than get some pos that's going in the trash as I don't dare hook it up to any of my equipment."
This is not a reason when dealing with aftermarket cases, places like antec can use their bulk/buying power so you don't have to go out and buy a case and THEN a power supply. They're just dinging gamers twice, power supply + case + insane gpu that needs all these special plugs to run... it's little wonder many people moved to consoles.
It's just so weird to buy a case and then have to buy a seperate power supply. Personally I think places like hardocp are selling ice to eskimo's, in the "pre internet" days, pretty much everoyne used powersupplies that came with their comp/comps case. I have never bought a seperate power supply until right after the generation after Pentium 4.
Again it's a nerdcore thing where the rip you off, most power supplies have to be tested to a certain degree so that they will work with a variety of motherboards, components, etc.
"$180 is very reasonable if you have a reason to buy a case like this instead of a standard tower."
I'm sorry but no, I regretted buying the antec nine hundred when it first came out only to realize it was painstakingly small and cramped on the inside, which wasn't really emphasized in the reviews. I like the case itself but the fact that there was hardly any space really ruined the design, sometimes I have to wonder who the hell is designing these things. Then they did the revision with the antec 1200... the truth is the hardware industry knows it can rip off computer modding nerds and gamers by adding "gamer case" or "modded case" and charge a hell of a lot extra. The antec 900 now can be found for 100 and less, when it first debut'd it was around $130+ (at least when I bought it).
That's the last time I spend over $100 on a case.
Anymore then $100 on a case and you're pushing it, especially if it comes WITHOUT a power supply
They want $200 for an antec 1200 without a fucking power supply, can you say rip off?
Here's a snip from the info
"No Power Supply included: To optimize performance of your Twelve Hundred, your choice of power supply is crucial."
Yeah apparently so crucial they don't include one or use their power as a manufacturer to get discounts on popular "gaming" and other power supplies.
"If an ISP has you capped at 20 gigs a month, switch."
It's not always that simple, many ISP's change bandwidth caps behind their users backs and without their consent. My ISP did exactly this a couple of months ago changing my regular cap and cutting it by over 30%, needless to say they got an ear full. ISP's unfortunately are a really uncompetitive industry in north america because of the nature of how they get profits, they could choose to "improve" their service, but most customers are too inept and too stupid to care about such things, hence they get away with things like overselling, etc. It's one sector of the economy where the market fails due to ignorance and it's sad. Hopefully as more bandwidth intensive apps appear it will force them to upgrade, but most likely they will push caps and overselling until they get enough complaints to do so.
Most people don't switch internet that often and for many, there are only a few options available, and even when there are more this does not mean people have any clue they exist. Especially DSL providers, technically you should be able to get DSL from a lot of vendors if you live in a densely populated area, but this often comes at quality of service. I thought of switching to DSL many times but my cables speed is ridiculously fast compared to the DSL when I tried it out for a couple of months. I notice that DSL providers will give you unlimited dl's but slower speed, but as file sizes increase speed matters just as much as bandwidth caps for some people.
In case I was too vague in my last reply...
Socrates stood up for truth - i.e. when people suffer from illusions and lies, he want around exposing other peoples illusions and claims that they had it. Hence the political nature of socrates life. He believed the good encompassed exposing other peoples lies, and hence he was annoyed the living crap out of the many people of his time.
People don't like their cherished ideas, religions, ideologies exposed for the illusions they are and hence this is why socrates showed the nature of truth is political to man, for man wants to think he has the truth when the truth is most men don't have it.
"Not sure what you mean by that. Socrates tried to show, probably more than anything else, that knowledges were innate. And that in the most fundamental things, learning is not really learning, but in some sense "remembering" what we already know."
You missed a major point of socrates death and life. His whole reasoning for going through that and questioning others was to show that the truth also was political, and hence that is why he was known as the gadfly of athens. "... and so socrates stung athens." to paraphrase. He went through that to defend what he believed to be the good (to be on the path of a lover of wisdom) to the very last.
"Ruin gameplay because of OTHER PEOPLE."
Get out of here! Not everyone has tonnes of game playing friends close to them. Tonnes of gamers have friends that do not play games at all or think they are lame "omg video games, you loser!". That sentiment is still around. Not only that but many gamers who have good friends are often on the move because of their jobs and online gaming is a godsend for that. Speak for yourself only please. Online gaming > no social gaming at all.
Not only that but online games trump your friends(tm) in other ways, most peoples friends absolutely suck at games and the skill levels between them and there friends are usually disproportionate. This idea that "it's better with friends on my couch" is ok some of the time, but most of us enjoy both and get tired of both at different times.... I have no idea what I'd do without online gaming to challenge me in many games, since I am so good I hand most people their ass that it's not fun for me or them. Therefore I do mostly social / wii'ish kind of games with others if the skill is way too skewed.
"You see, too many people think that just because they created something, they deserve to be paid for it. That's simply not true. Being in a band should be a job, not just something you do for a few weeks or months and then expect to sit back and let the royalty money flow in for the rest of your life."
To play the devils advocate for a moment... I apologize but the world does not work anything like that. There's plenty of people who make money doing damn near nothing of value, except looking good. If you're going to make the time spent at a job (i.e. emphasizing that a job and time spent is some moral pre-requisite to earning money). We could take that moral claim further that some types of jobs don't 'deserve' to earn as much money as other types of jobs, and some jobs should always have the worker work for slave wages and poor working conditions and/or be totally free, etc. It's one big arbitrary point, the word "job" is an all encompassing vague willy nilly term for how a particular group of people value someone else and what they do or not do in order to dominate them or berate them for their perceived lack of worth according to someone else in some way.
Now I appreciate what you're getting at but this world is filled to the brim with injustices, we could take it further and ask whether the economic system is imorral and why is it that certain kinds of people get to rule and hog all the earths resources, etc, etc... your point touches upon the perceived and real injustices in the world at large, but the failings are our lack of being exellent people, compassionate, nice, forgiving, etc... they are moral failings IMHO, most people think they are moral when they are not, their territoriality, perceived selfrighteousness and selfishness over rule their other better qualities because the society we live in fosters them.
The real problem itself is that old conceptions of property when applied to many duplicate items in large populations adds elements of complexity due to the territorial psychology of the human beings... It's complexity is wholly psychological and has to do with culture and inherited ideas and values whether right or wrong.
"This is serious news. As it stands, the home user that actually sets up a RAID 5 raid is in the top percentile for actually giving a crap about home data. Once that becomes a non-issue, then the point has come when a reasonable backup is out of reach of 99% of private individuals"
This is why they made DVD, Blu-ray, USB thumb drives, Flash memory (Flash memory is getting mighty big now 16-32GB), with USB thumb drives, 16-32GB SDHC flash memory cards, then their are portable hard drives that connect via USB/Firewire and personal SAN solutions starting to appear. But it's highly likely within the next 5 years flash technology will make a lot of talk about backup moot, since online can take care of storing pictures and videos (the biggest portion usually) and then that leaves the user to just backup his higher quality pics and videos (should he/she be savvy enough to begin with). I wouldn't be surprised most people use shared picture sites like Google, Flickr, photbucket, and youtube to store their videos/pictures and not worry about having to back them up. Much of what people have is disposable or highly redundant and easy to redownload.
Most important data people want to backup is not a lot of data, unless you're talking about pictures and video and this could be done with a lot less if they were savvy about it. But... the truth of the matter is things will get better as the generations go by, as more and more people grow up with technology there will be less and less of a learning curve over time.
You're missing the point entirely, it was the misunderstanding of what reason is, and how it works.
The problem goes deeper then that, the author comes across to me as missing the deep links between religion, gossip, and ideology -- that they trump the facts every time.
That religious or slopping thinking is the standard for all human beings, even science is subject to the same sloppy thinking they accuse creationists and other "nonscience" disciplines, peoples and opinions of and hence the dire need for peer review, criticism, and understanding, etc.
But the truth is, all truths people think are true are riddled with errors and misconceived ideas based on flawed understandings that pass as "true" during the historical period and culture in which the people exist. Cognitive science has shown that sciences understanding of truth and objectivity is deeply flawed also, science has shown the enlightenment's ideas about science and reasoning are deeply flawed also.
Most people and scientists don't even have a clue what has been discovered in the neurological sciences over the last 30 years and how it undermines the enlightenment's view of reason and enlightenment's view of education. Most people still operate under the enlightenment's view of reason
(quick version)
http://i35.tinypic.com/10fruxh.jpg [tinypic.com]
Longer version:
http://www.linktv.org/video/2142 [linktv.org]
Today, with authoritarian governments in power around much of the world, increasing authoritarian tendencies in democratic governments, and increasing amounts of power vested in unaccountable corporations, the need for openness and transparency is greater than ever, and despite wikipedia's flaws, the fact that the internet exists and "anti wikipedia" sites exist, allow us to balance it's shortcomings through open criticism.
But you have to realize that this is a fundamental human problem for every human being, regardless of status, class, intellect, or education, many of histories brightest minds were horribly wrong in enormous ways about other things. Look at Newton for instance and the amount he wrote concerning religion, etc.
(site for those interested)
http://www.isaac-newton.org/
Socrates showed a long time ago that all knowledge and claims to morals and truth is political. The truth is political, hence the phrase:
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. --George Orwell
"Couldn't they come up with a better name than "BuTteR FaSe?" I know I can't be the only one who read it like that. Call it anything but that."
I read it as:
BeTteR FileSystem
I guess we'll have to part was :P
See lament for a nation
Book info (amazon)
http://www.amazon.ca/Lament-nation-defeat-Canadian-nationalism/dp/0886292573
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lament_for_a_Nation:_The_Defeat_of_Canadian_Nationalism
Lament for a Nation is a 1965 essay of political philosophy by Canadian philosopher George Grant. The essay examined the political fate of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's Progressive Conservative government in light of its refusal to allow nuclear arms on Canadian soil, and the Liberal party's political acceptance of the warheads.
Although grounded in the particular examination of Diefenbaker's fate in the 1963 federal election, the analysis transcended Canadian politics, studying Canadian and American national foundations, Conservatism in Britain and North America, Canada's dual nature as a French and English nation, the fate of Western Enlightenment, and the philosophical analysis of citizenship in modern democracies.
Content
According to Grant, Diefenbaker's position against the Bomarc was defeated by the Central Canadian establishment, who conspired with the Liberal Party to bring down Diefenbaker and diminish Canadian sovereignty. This was his lament; he felt there was an emerging Americanization of Canadians and Canadian culture due to the inability of Canadian to live their lives outside of the hegemony of American liberal capitalism - and the technology that emanates from that system.
Critical reception
Described as one of the seminal works of Canadian political thought, it discusses the influence of the United States via liberalism and technology on Canada - which Grant argued was traditionally a less-liberal and more traditionally conservative entity and culture. Grant argued that Canada was doomed as a nation as was illustrated by the 1963 Bomarc Missile Program crisis. He predicted the end of Canadian nationalism, which for Grant meant a small-town, populist conception of Canada as a British North American alternative to American capitalism and empire, and a move towards continentalism.
Note: This is what really happened with the baht
Soros was also making contacts for a ceasefire deal through JP Morgan.
He was losing money on his short-term positions, which were not covered, but subsequently would make money on his medium-term positions. In general he was not in big trouble, unlike other speculators who had attacked the baht in the spot market and were trapped in the guillotine of the two-tier currency system. (The two-tier system made it impossible for speculators to attack the baht from offshore.)
Soros' position was largely medium-term, which would be matured in six months. That was the big chunk of the attack. Rerngchai realised that come August, the Bank of Thailand would not have the dollars on hand to deliver to the speculators, as obligated by the currency swaps.
But Soros also realised that the carry-over, or interest, cost of his baht positions would not be worthwhile due to the abnormally high interest rates on the baht.
Rerngchai reached a broad agreement with his aides that the Bank of Thailand would settle only half of its US$14.8 billion in offshore swap positions, which confronted the speculators face to face.
Paiboon Kittisrikangwarn, then the central bank's chief trader, received several phone calls from speculators through local banks asking for a truce. But his reaction was stern. He would not meet the speculators, but he agreed to cut a deal at an exchange rate of Bt23 to the dollar or the forward rate of 9 per cent.
"Take it or leave it," he said.
The speculators wanted Bt26, meaning that the deal would have left them with a loss of Bt3 for every dollar. The speculators were fuming with rage.
It was evident that strong political backup was necessary if this mission was to be successful. When Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, then prime minister, was informed about this plan to talk it out with Soros, Chavalit agreed.
His tone was conciliatory. "It's alright. Let's do it. I am ready to help," he said.
But the political situation at that time was highly precarious. Engaging in this kind of clandestine operation required a stable administration; otherwise, the slightest jab by the opposition could bring down the government. In the meantime, rumours of ceasefire negotiations with Soros quickly became widespread.
Euromoney wrote in its September 1997 issue: "Undeterred by the freeze, those who needed baht offshore to cover short positions became more inventive. One particular exposed speculator - local gossip-mongers reckon it was George Soros - went cap in hand to the central bank to ask for baht and offered to play the bank's game in return by easing off hammering the currency. The Bank of Thailand declined the offer."
In the end, negotiations with Soros would never take place because the finance minister lacked the political back up. Amnuay was about to fall victim to coalition politics, engineered by the Chat Pattana, which wanted to take over economic management from the New Aspiration Party.
In early June Arminio Fraga, a former deputy governor of the central bank of Brazil, who worked for Soros, contacted the Bank of Thailand to cut a deal. Fraga, who would be appointed his country's central bank governor a year later to save the Brazilian real, was then the managing director of Soros Fund Management.
Fraga, who frequently visited Bangkok to investigate the business climate, came over to talk about the possibility of ending the baht war.
But after Amnuay's resignation in late June, he sensed victory. When one of the central bank officials tried to call him to reach a settlement, he said: "I think we can wait a little bit more".
With that sentence ringing in his ear, Rerngchai realised that the Bank of Thailand was about to lose the currency war.