This issue brings harshly to light the ethical problems inherent in all scientific advancement. Clearly this technology can be put to excellent use to restore mobility to paraplegics, or to allow those of us who were nicknamed "Twitches" in high school to improve our success in Counterstrike: Source.
That said, this technology could also be used for less noble goals; while it says nothing about direct brain control via the implant, and indeed I feel that that would be difficult at best, perhaps even impossible, there are other questionable deeds that could be accomplished with such a device.
Certainly it will make warfare much quicker, and mass-destruction much easier; it has the capacity to lend a remote-control, push-button effect to war that was previously limited to such weaponry as ICBM's. Imagine soldiers in tanks who no longer see enemy soldiers, but just blips on a screen that they manipulate and shoot without any physical interaction! or "suicide bombers" who directly drive bomb-laden delivery trucks into buildings with their brains from over a DSL connection.
It shall be interesting to see where this technology goes.
I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that Blizzard lost a lawsuit against them in Germany for the incorporation of hard-drive scans in the internation al version of Starcraft? that reported back to the Blizzard server to let them know if you had any illegal copies of their software on your machine. Long story short, privacy invasion wouldn't be a first for them.
Honestly, have you actually tried Firefox? It loads quickly, and it doesn't require any configuring, at least on my machine, aside from standard installation-type stuff, it didn't.
Unlike IE, though, it has several bonuses: You can configure it to do all kinds of cool and useful things if you're a Morlock instead of an Eloi (thank you Neal Stephenson), using any of a variety of useful tools; it comes with tabbed browsing; and it's pretty much adware-spyware-popup proof, unlike IE, every version of which (until XP SP 2) came with a handy "Always Trust Content from the Gator Corporation" checkbox.
Bottom line is, Firefox is a much more flexible, streamlined browser, to suit a variety of needs, including those of the eloi who don't want to mess with all the messy details behind the pretty pictures on the screen. Comparatively, IE doesn't allow nearly as much useful flexibility, although you can get the Google toolbar if you are hard up (though that basically comes integrated in Firefox).
Gamespot had a comprehensive article in which they did thorough bottlneck benchmark testing to determine what you should replace to get the most bang-for-your-buck for HL2 out of a hardware upgrade. They cover everything, from different DirectX modes, to onboard sound vs. sound card, and of course processors, RAM, and video cards. It's a great way to figure out how to best spend a hundred bucks to make HL2 a much better game for you.
I'm pretty sure that in situations where they just want to blow it up (few, if they value the buildings at all) they can just chuck a long-fused grenade in the room and head for the hills. But, in modern explosives, it doesn't take much to bring down a city block, so presumably they don't just want to set it off and gamble that the bomb-maker doesn't know a detonator from a doorknob.
Not necessarily. Just enough jobs in the more influential congressional districts... or, tell them that it also pumps oil and has a WMD locator built into the remote control.
... to have robots with hands in orbit! I mean, we could make giant shadow puppets on the Great Wall of China!
Re:Expensive launch mass?
on
NASA's Deep Impact
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· Score: 4, Insightful
I don't think the emission lines would actually provide much of a problem, it would be pretty easy to filter out the gaseous emissions of the explosives... I think the greater problem would be the unpredictability of the momentum problem if you added a chemical explosion. With a solid projectile, you can expect to learn a lot about the comet simply by what happens to the path of the intercepting projectile- ie shooting the snowball example. But, if you shoot a snowball with an RPG, or an iceball with an RPG, it's a lot harder to look at the resulting dispersion and tell what the target was made of after the fact.
Re:Uh.... does this strike anybody else as wrong?
on
NASA's Deep Impact
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· Score: 5, Insightful
It seems so destructive to possibly break apart something that's been circling our sun for millions of years.
Have you looked out your window recently?
I would wholeheartedly support this technology exclusively on the condition that all criminals had to walk around dressed like pirates to fool the scanners. I mean, really, that would just be awesome. "Don't go down any dark alleys- you might be accosted by buccaneers"...
Re:I'm waiting for the comethuggers...
on
NASA's Deep Impact
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· Score: 1
Aw, hell, if they're that worried about it they can go chain themselves to the comet. I wonder if NASA would still have the balls to keep the bathtub on-target then?
Slashdot Mirror
those desktops without power buttons
Are you talking about current Macs? *evil grin*
This issue brings harshly to light the ethical problems inherent in all scientific advancement. Clearly this technology can be put to excellent use to restore mobility to paraplegics, or to allow those of us who were nicknamed "Twitches" in high school to improve our success in Counterstrike: Source.
That said, this technology could also be used for less noble goals; while it says nothing about direct brain control via the implant, and indeed I feel that that would be difficult at best, perhaps even impossible, there are other questionable deeds that could be accomplished with such a device.
Certainly it will make warfare much quicker, and mass-destruction much easier; it has the capacity to lend a remote-control, push-button effect to war that was previously limited to such weaponry as ICBM's. Imagine soldiers in tanks who no longer see enemy soldiers, but just blips on a screen that they manipulate and shoot without any physical interaction! or "suicide bombers" who directly drive bomb-laden delivery trucks into buildings with their brains from over a DSL connection.
It shall be interesting to see where this technology goes.
Of course, I assumed that was implied. I just didn't want to neglect Stephenson's clever application to modern technology.
That would lead to fairly humorous role-playing:
...
"F4llenAng3l has entered the store. You may buy:
A ring - 54 GP
A Fire Arrow Quiver - 68 GP
F4llenAng3l has selected to buy a ring. Please type the text from the image below to complete the purchase, to ensure that you are not a script."
I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that Blizzard lost a lawsuit against them in Germany for the incorporation of hard-drive scans in the internation al version of Starcraft? that reported back to the Blizzard server to let them know if you had any illegal copies of their software on your machine. Long story short, privacy invasion wouldn't be a first for them.
Honestly, have you actually tried Firefox? It loads quickly, and it doesn't require any configuring, at least on my machine, aside from standard installation-type stuff, it didn't. Unlike IE, though, it has several bonuses: You can configure it to do all kinds of cool and useful things if you're a Morlock instead of an Eloi (thank you Neal Stephenson), using any of a variety of useful tools; it comes with tabbed browsing; and it's pretty much adware-spyware-popup proof, unlike IE, every version of which (until XP SP 2) came with a handy "Always Trust Content from the Gator Corporation" checkbox. Bottom line is, Firefox is a much more flexible, streamlined browser, to suit a variety of needs, including those of the eloi who don't want to mess with all the messy details behind the pretty pictures on the screen. Comparatively, IE doesn't allow nearly as much useful flexibility, although you can get the Google toolbar if you are hard up (though that basically comes integrated in Firefox).
Gamespot had a comprehensive article in which they did thorough bottlneck benchmark testing to determine what you should replace to get the most bang-for-your-buck for HL2 out of a hardware upgrade. They cover everything, from different DirectX modes, to onboard sound vs. sound card, and of course processors, RAM, and video cards. It's a great way to figure out how to best spend a hundred bucks to make HL2 a much better game for you.
You just know that the museum director has gone mad and is currently hatching a diabolical scheme to get Data in that collection, too...
where is Al Gore, and when is he going to claim responsibility for it?
I'm pretty sure that in situations where they just want to blow it up (few, if they value the buildings at all) they can just chuck a long-fused grenade in the room and head for the hills. But, in modern explosives, it doesn't take much to bring down a city block, so presumably they don't just want to set it off and gamble that the bomb-maker doesn't know a detonator from a doorknob.
Not necessarily. Just enough jobs in the more influential congressional districts... or, tell them that it also pumps oil and has a WMD locator built into the remote control.
... to have robots with hands in orbit! I mean, we could make giant shadow puppets on the Great Wall of China!
I don't think the emission lines would actually provide much of a problem, it would be pretty easy to filter out the gaseous emissions of the explosives... I think the greater problem would be the unpredictability of the momentum problem if you added a chemical explosion. With a solid projectile, you can expect to learn a lot about the comet simply by what happens to the path of the intercepting projectile- ie shooting the snowball example. But, if you shoot a snowball with an RPG, or an iceball with an RPG, it's a lot harder to look at the resulting dispersion and tell what the target was made of after the fact.
It seems so destructive to possibly break apart something that's been circling our sun for millions of years.
Have you looked out your window recently?
I would wholeheartedly support this technology exclusively on the condition that all criminals had to walk around dressed like pirates to fool the scanners. I mean, really, that would just be awesome. "Don't go down any dark alleys- you might be accosted by buccaneers"...
Aw, hell, if they're that worried about it they can go chain themselves to the comet.
I wonder if NASA would still have the balls to keep the bathtub on-target then?
We might have Reds vs. Greens before we even go there...
That was exactly my first thought on reading this post.