Even biases information can lead to freedom. Parents tell children all sorts of lies so that they can elleviate their fears of "scary things". This means that you can't tell your children that mass murderers have been and will be around. You tell them that Mr. Bear will protect them.
This makes the person free in their mind and free with their actions because they do not have the constraint of fear.
There is no lack of information in the US, or anywhere in the first world. Propeganda is information too, though it hardly helps the cause of freedom, indeed it works in the opposite direction. I think things would be a *bit* different in the US if the news were truly unbiased and factual.
Like I have said many, many, many time as well there is not a conspiracy in the news media. I really wish I had access to the book that I read it out of for an exact quote. Basically it was summed up by saying that in the news media there were many competing interests and that these interests were not under strict or hardly any control by and one person. Please get facts. The whole world isn't out to get you just because someone dosn't want to look bad. If you listen to enough of the news stories you will eventually get a compelte picture of what is going on.
Um, the Internet was DEVELOPED by the government (ARPA) and educators. Wtf is this crap????
By a small core group of them. That's like saying that the security guard at a post office actually knows all and is part of the NSA's massive spy network right? Just because some people in a group have done something dosn't mean that the group as a whole can do those things.
This is a pessimistic view, but it doesn't matter how cheap the appliances get or what they run. When your granny gets on the net, she'll have a box she's bought/got free from a big corporate entity of some sort. She'll get pointed at corporate web sites. They'll have links to other corporate web sites. She'll follow those links. She might type in addresses she sees in corporations' advertisements. She won't go to individuals' sites, because noone she trusts (i.e. no companies or governments) will point her at them. The freely flowing information of the underground community will be there on the Internet, but who will be listening to it except those who are already part of that community?
You can always lie or at worst just get a connection which then given you an IP and then get something like lynx of netscape through them. Porblem solved. Question for anyone do these free services work through wine? Could you just install them in windows and then run them in wine through Linux?
This is a pessimistic view, but it doesn't matter how cheap the appliances get or what they run. When your granny gets on the net, she'll have a box she's bought/got free from a big corporate entity of some sort. She'll get pointed at corporate web sites. They'll have links to other corporate web sites. She'll follow those links. She might type in addresses she sees in corporations' advertisements. She won't go to individuals' sites, because noone she trusts (i.e. no companies or governments) will point her at them. The freely flowing information of the underground community will be there on the Internet, but who will be listening to it except those who are already part of that community?
Search engines allow you to look at almost any content that you want. Just for kicks and giggles look up these key words on you favorite search engine(s):
sex porn warez hacking phreaking carding serials
These should return many, many, many hits to millions of sites that specialize in various "underground" things. And you can also look up various things like strange religious rituals and other things.
I don't ever see a leader of the Net, or a leader of geeks..Incompatible, I think..But that doesn't mean people can't gather on some broad principles..And no, absolutely not..OS is a choice, not a religion.
Well it's not a religion however it is a major philosophy of thinking because it employs programming and various app specifications it makes for some rather religious ways of thinking. When any given system gets more complex to the point of becomming incomphrensible to the common man he assigns various quasispiritual aspects to it. For example you could say that without having to knowledge of how a compiler works that making those things you write down in a text file and haveing a machine tranlate them into something a machine could understand "magic" or a "work of god".
No, the Internet's most central ideology has been promoting a certain kind of information. freedom != information . While, I admit, information should be free, not all agree.
I really would like to know what kind of information you are refering. I think that the protocols themselves that just basically allow you to talk to Aunt Edna isn't exactly real information. We don't have total information. Now maybe in your little world information dosn't make you free however I am one to disagree. You see if I have enough information about things I can get untimate freedom.
Suppose I can predict the future and say can anticipate exactly how anyone could kill me, how I could get into any sort of accident, or get any disease. Now I can prepare for all these things and with unlimited information I can even cure these things.
Granted this is not ultimately how it totally works however it is how most of the information in the world approaches. The internet because it has information make us all free and allows us to survive. It used to be that the only people who knew how to truely read in Europe were people in the Church back in the Middle ages. Eventually kings figured it out but until Gutenberg made that little gaget called the printing press we didn't have anything. We were all slaves to others. When people began to read we eventually had developments like the US Constitution.
The same can be said that many people can't afford a car and that many don't have the skills to drive a car. What makes the net so different though is that many companies provide a "free-ride" (ie NetZero) and software is getting dumbed down. But is this what we want? Do you really want everyone online. Just as you don't want drunk-drivers, mentally ustable, extremley elderly, or blind/deaf people on you highways, do you want child molesters, script kiddies, etc on the net? Be carfeul what you wish for...
Ohhh big deal. Did your new bently get mashed up by some 16 year old drunk? I don't think you understand the principal here. As I have argued and argued and argued here on slashdot you cannot turn what is supposed to be an openforum or an open system of protocols and exclude the people *you* don't like.
We grew out of this largely because of all the gentleman's club type atnosphere of times like the late 1800's and early 1900's. Most likely if you lived in America (and not everyone does or did) you were the parents of immigrants. Those groups were constantly excluded by calling them all sorts of titles that made them look really bad and shifty. I can't say that I can blame some people for trying to get revenge for what their forefathers had done unto them however I cannot say that I like your attitude of exclusion I really can't say that I savor closing the internet just so you boss can get his daily dose of porn'n'quotes for the day or so that you can play quake III arena in peace each and every night.
What I truely care about is access. Figuratively that homeless bum or that stupid kid in that leather jacket or that kid who smashed your bently last week has/had just as much right to be there as you. People who want to exclude come one step closer to being like good ol' Adolf a day at a time.
No, it is getting closer. The original idea was for information to travel cross-country in case of a nuclear war. And I would say it has accomplished that.
God do people always have to specifically say what they indent nowadays. He meant in the traditional sence with the development of the http protocol and adoption of things such as web browsers and such. Maybe going to the BBS days of the 80's but that's a stretch. You must understand that when people say internet in popular usage mean that recent developments.
Now seriously do you really think that in the event that H bombs go flying around and large city centers are actually hit that anyone let alone the government could reasonably expect to communicate and would it do them any good? Not really.
Getting back to your problem is that we are seeing a partial fultilment of the kind of widespread use and adoption in some areas and a bit of information is ther however we can't really see the forest for the trees and quality has gone downhill with shiny new bells and whistles.
So in reality I think that we have strayed from the founders (the true founders unless you think that 5 star generals and the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the NSA actually does all the internet startups or created geocities).
Is that bad? Everything doesn't have to be OPENSOURCE, GPL, LINUX, etc. And companies other than IBM have tried opensource models (ie OpenDK, OpenBSD).
I take it your haven't exactly had to make ecconomic choices in your life? You haven't had shitty software before? You really haven't had a need that wasn't fulfilled. Major companies don't give a shit that dosn't mean that we shouldn't care. Yeah I don't *expect* it to happen I do however *care* if it was and *want* it to happen. Sure people have to make money but does that mean that have to make so *much* money.
Ok, but lets review principles of governtment Mr. Katz. For a democracy to exist, there must be a leader. As it stands, the net is far far far from a democracy. It is, at best, anarchy in action.
No it is not anarchy! Think clearly. Even if you get to the point where there is at least one warlord or one group of savages who are huddled around a fire or if there is one woman/man traveling with their spouce you do not have anarchy. Maybe we are in the stage of fudalism and such because each person has to go through an ISP. The ISP is almost like a small emerging nation state. Unless everyone has a free and unregulated dedicated connection to the net and can access everything there are people who are in charge. And right now I compare Microsoft to Spain in the 16th century. Ever seen the movie (can't remeber the name) where some king or general of Spain looks at the map of the know world and says something like "and all this is spain"? Well we do have leaders just not all powerful ones.
I must say though, you did do some good research into the great thinkers of America, but you lack a bit in the Internet history.
The internet hasn't anything in common with the early days of the 60's-70's. I doubt you can find many similarities at all in almost anything. Everything has changed and nothing remains the same. What really characterizes the net has been the use and application of the average man the people not the generals, scientists, and people like Andrew P. Carnigie-esq.
I beleive the hardware which will encourage freedom in the "second Internet generation" has to be by far free or very low cost PCs. At the present, there are many people with PCs and Internet access, but still the majority does not have a PC or Internet access (barring public terminals, libraries, etc). I beleive once more people start to get a PC and get onto the Internet, they will begin to realize what is out there for them (on the Internet) and how they will be able to find almost anything they could ever dream of. There are some folks (governments in particular) which wish to limit the free flow of ideas and information on the Internet, and the more people who get on the Internet and find out the limitless amount of ideas, information and content available to them, the more new Internet users (hopefuly) will pay attention to what they have to lose when laws and "innovations" (such as SDMI or UCITA) are introduced.
Well maybe you caught me in a philosophical mood today but I think that the data on the internet is absolutely not limiteless. You have lots of data in categories that is sensationally popular however those obscure things are usually not to be found anywhere. Some of my greatest discoveries were almost made by chance and not something that I could have easily searched for. What we really have to do is to allow for more dedicated bandwidth for each household in America.
Now why would I say this? Simple. Check out all of the stuff at freshmeat.net. A disturbing fact you will quickly find out is that a great deal of the "interesting" tasks have been for network access and the control of a machine that can deliver content of one sort or another. Now I know all you sysadmins out there have all the access you want but quite frankly I don't give a rat's ass about any of you. I actually care about the average person who dosn't have that little ol' OC-48 line into his/her house and the ability to do whatever you want.
Think of all the possibilities if the net were truely something you could really access and publish content on? As it stands now all the telephone gives me now is just bad news or telemarketers in general. If I could scrap my telephone line and as standard could just have a dedicated line like a T-1 then I would be happy. I could run anything that I wanted and publish information and content that I truely think that the world would benefit from. Having to constantly need to pay for anything and everything to get my message out with all the fancy tools is not something that I can do. Microsoft hasn't done this no matter how much that they claim to the contrary wise.
Really just being able to passively look at the internet and all those big shiny windows with all their fascinating stuff isn't something that I like to do. I want to truely create. I want to run an IRC server a MUD server an http server and several others. I want to run the slash code. I want to have a web site that is something that I can truely be proud of and to make sure I feel a sence of accomplishment out of. I can't do that now. I can't actually get much out of any "free" access to such resources (most of them are just jokes).
The net may be "free" but the printing presses are all under control of insidious minions of orthodoxy.
The software which will help ensure freedom in the "second Internet generation" would be, of course, OSS solutions. Along with my theme of low cost PCs, free, readily available and reliable operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) are available at the present. Combine Linux with a low cost PC and Internet access, and consumers could be on the Internet with a $300 PC and $10/month Internet access (or $400 for 3 years of Internet access and a PC from some offers I've seen). $400 is a price I realistically feel many consumers can afford, as opposed to 2 or 3 years ago when consumers would have to spend at least $1500 for a PC with a modem and $25/month for Internet access.
Big deal. I have said before does it really help me? I have a 2400bps modem and I don't have any way to get my home machine connected. From a technological standpoint I can't really see what is so hard in just saying to the modem:
Ok look I don't want 56k of bandwidth I just want 2400bps. Yes I know you are capable of that but I just want to use this much.
That really isn't so hard. Yes I am cheap and until I actually want to shell out cash for a better one I would sure be appreciative of actually seeing some miraculous technology fixing the problem that I may have. What is rapidly happening is that linux and it's apps are getting resource heavy. I am constantly being bombarded with reasons that people upgrade PCs.
It seems that what happens is that you are slowly driven mad with crappy things. Lousy programs freezing the X server, hogging disk space, RAM. Have you ever seen any of those themes for various WMs out there? Well I have at least 256 colors and do you know what I see? Well all the niftly little effects such as transparency and something that dosn't look grainy can't happen. I am betrayed by the technology that is to set me free. What will only happen is that the people who write the code run monster machines. They buy more monster machines and then develop to fit this profile. Result? Machines that don't have all the bells and whistles don't get supported or are just broken or just ruined. Until software is streamlined again we cannot expect to be anything but slaves.
Damn it seems like $2,000 is't worth your sanity.
Another thing apps are still in the phase that makes them not totally acurate in the features that they have. Things like GNOME will probably be useful maybe in 2 years. Others in more time than that. Combined with betrayal of app makers this makes for a dismal affair.
My second answer to the "software" question would be free Intenet access. At the present, most free acess providers are limited in the OSes they support (Windows NT or 9x). However, if free service providers supply Linux clients, not only do they increase their customer base, but help more people discover what this whole "Intenet" thing they've been missing is. If you have a Windows PC and and no Internet access (how are you reading this?!), there are plenty of free access providers available (a good list can be seen here on Yahoo!). Personally, I would rather pay for Inernet access since I can't stand advertising, but if you live with some banners on your screen, it's a splendid deal.
They don't care about linux users anyway. What they care about are people who are idiots. They care about windows people. They don't have to target linux users because linux users are by and far loaded with cash because of their ritzy little programming jobs (which I am sure even though I am a CS major I will be cheated out of) can buy their own satellite relay system.
The protocols which will help the second generation Internet thrive will be IP v6. Not only is it an open protocol available for all OSes, vendors and individuals to use, but it also comes with other features such as built in encryption which helps to keep what someone wants to be private, well, private.
Ohhh wow encryption! Well that makes a world of difference to me *sticks finger in mouth and makes gagging sounds*. And IPv4 isn't a protocol that can use encryption and isn't open? Last I checked you can use encryption programs for all those people who have all their buddies who use encryption or who are scared out of their whitts by government officials trying to determine their location of their militia group's tent in Montana. Dosn't mean that I really care. I can't use encryption for anything for two major factors:
1. Never have any real communication with known individuals who actually support it.
2. No access to an IP address from home machine making the use of things like pgp almost a waste of time. (Well yeah I could just encrypt the thing ahead of time and then go a distance and include in in the text and do the reverse to decrypt however I can't say that such an idea appeals to me).
One problem with my ideas is that history has shown that the majority of people don't keep up on proposed and new laws, nor do they research what they buy before it's too late. I quick and easy example of this would be the low voter turnout each year.
Well maybe for the lack of ability to actually do all the fancy content and have true editorial control of said content they don't feel that they actually care. I for one can't say that I almost care any more. All the rich son't and daughters of lawyers/doctors/sowftware tycoons have all their life problems worked out but some do not.
Using these factors and the fact that a lot of the content that is out there is changing and becomming cheasy and network dependent (meaning that the data must be kept on the network medium that once held it or it becomes useless or not a useful; This would be like a database or a listing of information that constantly changes or perhaps something that is HTML formatted or that works well with only some things like javascript or shockwave)
The other issue is that, as much as we hate to admit it, Linux has a ways to go for usability. I've seen the "My grandma can use Linux!" discussion many times before here on Slashdot, but I feel installation, configuration, GUIs and easy ways to update the OS (to add new features and patch bugs) need to be improved before Linux will be the OS of choice for first time PC users.
I see a different problem with usability. I see a problem with actually getting the damn thing not to waste my resources like a drunken band of pirates on some tropical island. I can't believe that people can't make something work better. Hell these people are supposedly extremely bright and have so much knowledge and yet they almost force people to upgrade unless you want to turn you machine into a new jukebox for the sound of an hd grinding away (sure is cool however after several minutes of this happening it gets a little irritating).
So, in summary, PCs, OSes and Internet access which are at low or no cost will help more people to get onto the Internet, see all of the wonders it has to offer, and hopefuly realize what we all have to lose in the future if we do not protect the freedoms we have now.
Ohh boo hoo hoo I will grieve for a total of about 10 seconds for all those little rich people who are cheated from having all their fun. I see no reason to actually care about their plight or the fact that the multi-million dollar website at http://www.mycheasysitethatcostalotof$$$.com or something (creaps have the audacity to charge for something that is supposed to be an open protocol). I have seen decreasing utility of what is out there and a general lousy attempt to make thousands of $$ off of it. Could someone really tell me why in my present state of technology (or more precisely lack thereof I should actually care about all those people getting their toys taken away?). In the grand scheme of things I haven't actually written anything more complicated that some program that did a calculation about some simple physics problem with a single for loop. If I have to upgrade my PC anyway what would be the harm of using windows if linux is just going to just start taking more and more resources like that aforementioned band of rum drunken pirates. I can't say I like Billg however linux is betraying me royally. If you wish please take my message and de-moderate it for your vicarious feeling of triumph of squashing me with your fist I just wanted someone to see it (you have to look at it to moderate it).
In conclusion I say that in fact the internet is a medium that was designed with the sole purpose of allowing elites to communicate (military, DoD, Echelon, university departments and such), connects computers via extremely expensive bandwidth (ever try to actually afford one of those nifty dedicated connections which actually allow you to have a life with linux and friends), host expensive web sites (hell I can't think of anyone who would be impressed with even the best geoshitties pages no matter who you are) since they require the big $$$, or connecting computers which could dub as the next replacement for the NSA (something that the wonderful new world of consumerism has created) it is something that the average person who has average to ambitious goals cannot hope to attain because of laziness, sloth, and the general lack of touch with what I term the forgotten man of the world. To quote Roland in Steven King's "Gunslinger" series "The world has moved on"; and in this case it has moved on to be more repressive and unequal in nature than at any other time. Please if you want to drive you catellacs please don't drive them near me ok?
Well if I want something from slashdot I do the following. 1. Get a number of floppy disks. Usually even with maxium stories displayed on the main page and even with things like perhaps Linux goes commercial and abandons the GPL I can get all of slashdot's extended stories on 5 or so floppies at max. 2. Save the context via a decent browser (Netscape and IE both have their faults for overall indention and including of ^M characters and other bad things and lynx dosn't allow for the typical indention of comments via nested mode) IE 5 is actually good for the aboive because it automatically includes the title of the page for easy index. Spill over and the next page problem is solved with a simple appending of a numberal that is the same as the page in question (ie Slashdot News Linux goes commercil and abandon's the GPL1.txt "2.txt "3.txt.. "99.txt etc) 3. Filter this through a program similar to col with cat blah1.txt | col -b >newfile-without-control-characters.txt 4. Read the comments. Now this dosn't allow for the use of responding to various comments and such but if I want an archive of all of the ranting and raving on slashdot it is a very nice thing. Now how di I solve the problem of citations and such? Simple if you paraphrase something it usually works well enough. Now I actually think that from an access point of view that the use and collection of info using a web browser is actually more fail safe and better than usenet. Usenet is something that is not guaranteed from a services offered perspective from each and every ISP. Some ISPs have a bigger spool some only keep stuff for 24hrs. I know of some ISPs that only provide a simple IP address and you do everything else (even without mail). I most of the time don't use USENET because of it's inherent lack of accessibility and uneven resource distribution. You can flame me all you want but even slashdot partly agrees with me as there was posted a little sotry a couple of days ago about usenet dieing because people don't care. This type of a forum is quite nice. Now I pose a question to all of you. Suppose I did take information from slashdot and paraphrase each and every comment (no I really don't think that many people care about post the first or dousing heated grits down my trousers or a fossilized version of Natalie Portman would be interesting). Would anyone be able to honestly say that slashdot-terminal or anyone else didn't actually know all that stuff?
Well I am quite sory for the general gramatical flow of my post but I have heard of cases where people actually took Prozac and ended up killing themselves. The number one state for Prozac prescriptions is Utah, USA. There is clinical documented evidence that indicated that eratic brain function can result from giving drugs like this to healthy mentally sound people. The pattern was something like this: guy goes into a doctor because he has a back ache, doctor gives him prozac because he appears depressed, guy starts acting quite eratically mood swings and such, rapid changes in behaviour and then eventual suicide. If I were to give yuou say heart medication yould you be in tip top shape? How about something that is supposed to cure seizures? See the point is that a drug that is supposed to counteract something that is wrong with you has ingredients that are supposed to balance or stop the chemical agents or cellular processes that are causing this.
If you think that there are no problems with drugs then why are there so many people who become addicted and all these dead people or people who have had measurable decreased intelligence after abusing drugs for years (Jimmy has slured speech and can't preform basic motor functions without difficulty)? Oh I know what happened! You see our Evil Uncle Sam decided that all those hippies were making too much trouble and so he engineered all these hard core street drugs and got everyone addicted. Or even better he decided to "spike" all of those "pure" drugs with some of his own wacky stuff and discredit all those "reputable" drug "vendors" right? In China during the mid 1800's we had a little wide scale problem with this. You see Americn and British (yeah it wasn't just the "evil" Americans this time) thought that getting all of the native people of China hooked on opium was a really cool idea. Then the Chinese got really pissed and decided to kick ass. Well as it turned out the combined forces of the drug dealers and their governments allowed them to prevail. However after what happened to all the Chinese and all the people in Europe and North America there started a reform movement. I know that people have certain rights however getting physically damaged s usually not something that people enjoy. Can I take a razor blade and just randomly start cutting myself? Sure dosn't mean that it's a cool idea. What about addiction? I have had people in my genetic past who have been addicted to alchol and tobacco. There is a very storng possibility that if say I started smoking pot that I will also become addicted. This is totally unacceptable. We don't need more druggies in the world and we don't need more related fatalities clogging hostpital ER rooms when more people who chose not to use/abuse drugs are dieing. I am not an idiot because I have seen things which all point the other way with drugs and such. People getting sick, people becomming dependent, people going to jail, people loosing the ability to think and function. Anything that destroys the brain is bad and should be avoided. I think one of the worst diseases is Althertiezmers(sp) because you just loose yourself. Furthermore I would like some conclusive proof that in fact drugs can improve my productivity. I would be willing to try this little experiment: I will pump myself full of all fof these illegal drugs for the rest of my life and allow for daily/weekly cat scans/MRIs to determine it I am well; adding to this is a complete physical that will detect cancer and other nasties that are there. If I become a vegetable I will be mercifully shot and put our of my misery. Both will necessitate a series of comprehensive round the clock analysis by various teams of psychologists and other professionals who sill determine that I am indeed functioning and efficient.
Well just to break your little statement I have been able to use 486 systems in the past for compiling snapshots of egcs and development versions of the kernl (2.1.x) on my 486 (damn I stopped mainly because of the fact that e2compr has not really had support for 2.3.x past 2.3.6 or so).
What I am mostly concerned about is if maybe in the future I can get rid of my 486 in favor of a good mac that perhaps could run linux. I am wondering if perhaps if they could create cheaper macs to allow for a larger adoption. I am sure they would increase their user base by a great deal. I don't know what the support level for linux on the mac (in terms of getting all the hardware and everything up to it's full operating capacity and all. However it is a good thing and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth as the saying. This would mean that at least some better support can be had because then customers can see that at least Apple mentions linux officially and mention it to them that "hey my hardware xyz dosn't work with PPClinux why not?"
I'm just curious as to how many hackers and crackers use drugs to enhance their cognitive abilities for brief periods of time? The reason I ask this is because I seem to recall some famous page being hacked a little while back, and the perpetrator leaving a note that had, amongst other things, an apology for his spelling because he was "on methadiachromanphetamines" or something. Anybody have an idea as to what effects amphetamines can have on the problem-solving abilities of the human brain?
You know the reason that we say drugs are "bad" is that they have various facts that can cause permanent damage and such. You must understand this or else everything fails. People thought that using amphemetines of various sorts was a "really cool idea" back in the early years of the commercial drug industry. They were used for weight loss and also as a general stimulant. However what they didn't realize at the time is that you get eventual damage to your brain stem and nerve centers. They start to break down your ability to think. All drugs essentially do is to release various forms of artificial chemicals into the body and cause something that is seen as "good" in the brain. Now this is usually a bad thing. When you start messing with the brain you have problems. Hell even things that are supposedly "good" for you are usually not all that good.
A prime example of this are antiphychodics and other mental mood altering drugs. These have had known effects on the brain and can lead to general atrophy of higher brain function. Look at misdiagnosis and abuse of Prozac. People have commited suicide because of their damaged cognitive abilities from such substances.
Something more contemporary is the increase of meth labs and such in the western US. The chemicals used to create these substances are extremely toxic and they also cause wild and uncontrollable on the part of the user. I think you can safely say that this is a bad thing. I don't know of any coder stupid enough to do this but judging what MS puts out I think that they must hire all of those people.
I see just the opposite. All the techies I've known have had a secret interest in mind altering substances. Even though they don't use them very frequently that I've seen, they have generally been interested in exploring their minds using psychedelic drugs. You would be suprised at how many programmers out there take the occasional trip on acid or shrooms for inspiration.
Have you actually seen what various forms of truely mind altering drugs can do to a person? Medical evidence can be given that if you regularly take drugs of various sorts that produce neural stimulant reactions that the person in question will fall victim to eventual brain damage. Plus risking your freedom over getting ahold of drugs to keep an addict happy isn't pretty either.
We are all in the multiverse. But in all the universes where life doesn't exist there is nobody to think about the inprobability of lifes existense.
I don't see how this is revelent to anything. Just because someone isn't alive dosn't make a problem any less interesting at all.
When a quantum wave collapses you can't really tell if all the other possibilities that isn't this exact one it collapsed to, ceases to exist or lives on in their own world
Picard: Enough Data how do we collapse this anomaly and save Omicron Beta-Thraxis 6?
Really what exactly is a "quantum wave" and why is it so interesting. I can see how it is possible that uncertainy can occur however that would depend on the dimention that the wave was in and how it interacted with other areas in at least 4 space. You see for transition to another "multiverse" would require movement in something higher than 3 space. Which would mean at least 4 space. You then could have the wave in any point in time and space.
Hard SF writer Greg Egan recently wrote a story about a similar idea in his book Teranesia. Check Greg Egan's Home Page for more informatino about the story and this fascinating geek/programmer/author.
You know when I heard this little story posted up on slashdot I pondered and thought: How in the hell do they prove things that not even our most experienced theoretical physicists are barely even understanding. This must be a cast of wishful thinking.
Now correct me if I am wrong but has anyone ever conclusively proven than such a "multiverse" exists. I mean outside of maybe some form of science fiction it dosn't seem likely. What people have to realize is that when I want to prove something I just don't go looking for the most experimental alpha quality theory that I can find.
The good news is, it seems that at least somewhere in Scandinavia, there are places where the general populace won't let itself be taken by the mass hysteria regarding "hackers" and "piracy". However, I can't help but ask myself, considering the hegemony of the US in the global media, how long will it last - how much corporate effort will it take to make it so that all you know is what AOL-TimeWarner-EMI-WhoEverElse tells you - all over the world? If you ask me (and I know you didn't), this is a scary thought.
Someone has to gather and process the data. Specialist magazines are always out there. Did you know that most of the intelligence data that we currently have is actually compilations from standard news sources. If you really want to know something there is nothing stopping you from being able to just go there yourself.
And please don't try to tell me that the answer is more government regulation. Any sentence with "more government" in it is automatically evil:) Seriously, government control is, in the end, no better than corporate control, democratically elected or not. The real question is, are there any other means to try and preserve our freedoms from a certain group, that do not involve giving more power to another group that - history has taught us - will eventually turn around to stab us on the back and push an even more opressive regime upon us? Or is it by definition impossible (Individualists unite! and all that)?
Just for kicks:
MORE GOVENMENT is a bad thing!:)
Governments can actually do a better job because they need to care about what their voters think. If I am say a monopoly I dosn't have to care about anyone because I am the only supplier. I think it is largely impossible because people have greed and avarice. All these things make it quite interesting to deal with. You would have to have a group of people who try to enforce anarchy and that will eventuall turn into a form of government.
Theoretically you could have metamoderation of government and a peer review process which could make it a little better. However the constitution of the US was largely created so that things like the Third Reich will not as easily happen against a unpopular and small group.
(Yes, I am aware that Slashdot is hardly the right place for this kind of discussion. If I have interrupted your daydreaming about chipping Natalie Portman's underwear off, forgive me.)
I am not really impressed by good ol' Natalie I can think of dozens of different models and cartoon characters who are better than her any day of the week:)
I think that it has revelence due to the nature of the beast.
I got to thinking. If fiction is protected speech, and source code may not be, what if you combined the two. So here is a story about two intrepid programmers, Dick and Jane. Novel approach however what if I do something like this:
Once upon a time there was a little lizard and he crawled upon a piece of paper that said
"Dear GnrcMan
I will plan to attack torture, rape, and murder you on the 22nd on this month. Before that I will play subtle mind games with you until at such time you will fold and collapse from the strain. This is protected speech so there!"
As the lizard crossed the paper he started thinking about all the flies he would eat that day.
=========================================
Ok so it's a little extreme but it still is protected speech because it's totally fiction rigtht? Not that I don't think that your example is pretty much but you have to admit that it can eventually get problematic.
One final note; you probably should run that story through a word wrap or similar. This is something that will make it easier for people to "read" your story.
There's no uploading involved. It checks your CD-ROM drive & verifies if you have a physical copy of a CD. If you do, then it gives you (password protected) access to the MP3s of it.
Are the passwords unique or do they change on a fixed schedule?
Ermm, thats why that kid overseas got arrested. You would be surprised how far a companies reach is, even if the US courts cannot get you, the company can
Ohhhh the big bad ol' company's going to get me!! I don't know what I'll do if they get me! They are so strong and intelligent and all knowing; and they can have their private little police beat me up!
You see I live in a time when police power is not given to any group who has a bunch of money. Just because I have a great deal of money (Microsoft, IBM, Lexus Nexus, British Telecom, etc) dosn't mean that I can just call out my goombahas and do whatever I want to anyone. So big deal the company's goons can try to illegally attack me. I can also just drive a van full of TNT into their little building. See no more problem!
Maybe just suppose that their little 'representatives' get into a little 'accident' when they try to get me? Oh well:)
No matter what the judge says, this suit is still uncool. I guess it's OK to fix the DVD player market so that I can't play DVD's on my computer. I spent alot of money on my DVDs, my computer and my DVD player. Now all I want to do is play them. Is that so hard to understand judge?
People want to control things. I can also understand about possible control issues. I guess people can't totally be blaimed about things that they do to make a profit and then people think that they are a really good idea. I must say that I feel that I can't think that people will eventually come up with something better. I remember when VCR+ was around. The makers of VCR+ wanted to create a system whereby you could simply imput a 4 digit code and have a movie recorded on a particular channel and at a particular time. They defended this also.
I doubt that anyone will be swayed by being called "uncool" or anything like that. Eventually something better than DVDs will come along. I don't really have any of this technology and have never been obcessed about movies in general. I never stockpiled VHS tapes and can't see why people are taking so many risks.
Tell me why bother to make sure you do something questionable and then put your name on it! Why do something so stupid. Why shoot yourself in the foot. People created cracking programs in the past and usually never associated their actual Name/Address match on them. People only have their vanity to loose. I shure would release the code to the program under slashdot-terminal sooner than my actual name if it meant the world to people like you.
All people have done is draw attention to an actual person/people/group to do things.
We reported about this along time ago on geeknews (http://geeknews.net/cgi-bin/fooboard.pl?944436957 ), but it's still cool non-the-less. The bigger version of this is really cool. I can see this camera really being used in new Quake maps. The only problem would be that would need to tone down the poly count.. Just read the link above that I added and you'll see what we had to say.
I seriously doubt that the quake market could sustain a company's entire line of digital cameras. I would like to know a few things.
1. The cost? I don't want to have to mortage my house just to pay for one.
2. Interface? I would like this to just plug into a standard serial or parallel port. Failing that perhaps something like just taking the film and allowing for floppy film based things.
3. Linux compatability? I could always use a machine that actually worked with linux and that worked with linux apps. I don't want to buy either an expensive commercial 3d app or to have to upgrade my pc just to use this.
Slashdot Mirror
Factual information is a prerequisite to freedom.
Even biases information can lead to freedom. Parents tell children all sorts of lies so that they can elleviate their fears of "scary things". This means that you can't tell your children that mass murderers have been and will be around. You tell them that Mr. Bear will protect them.
This makes the person free in their mind and free with their actions because they do not have the constraint of fear.
There is no lack of information in the US, or anywhere in the first world. Propeganda is information too, though it hardly helps the cause of freedom, indeed it works in the opposite direction. I think things would be a *bit* different
in the US if the news were truly unbiased and factual.
Like I have said many, many, many time as well there is not a conspiracy in the news media. I really wish I had access to the book that I read it out of for an exact quote. Basically it was summed up by saying that in the news media there were many competing interests and that these interests were not under strict or hardly any control by and one person. Please get facts. The whole world isn't out to get you just because someone dosn't want to look bad. If you listen to enough of the news stories you will eventually get a compelte picture of what is going on.
Um, the Internet was DEVELOPED by the government (ARPA) and educators. Wtf is this crap????
By a small core group of them. That's like saying that the security guard at a post office actually knows all and is part of the NSA's massive spy network right? Just because some people in a group have done something dosn't mean that the group as a whole can do those things.
This is a pessimistic view, but it doesn't matter how cheap the appliances get or what they run. When your granny gets on the net, she'll have a box she's bought/got free from a big corporate entity of some sort. She'll get pointed at
corporate web sites. They'll have links to other corporate web sites. She'll follow those links. She might type in addresses she sees in corporations' advertisements. She won't go to individuals' sites, because noone she trusts (i.e. no
companies or governments) will point her at them. The freely flowing information of the underground community will be there on the Internet, but who will be listening to it except those who are already part of that community?
You can always lie or at worst just get a connection which then given you an IP and then get something like lynx of netscape through them. Porblem solved. Question for anyone do these free services work through wine? Could you just install them in windows and then run them in wine through Linux?
This is a pessimistic view, but it doesn't matter how cheap the appliances get or what they run. When your granny gets on the net, she'll have a box she's bought/got free from a big corporate entity of some sort. She'll get pointed at
corporate web sites. They'll have links to other corporate web sites. She'll follow those links. She might type in addresses she sees in corporations' advertisements. She won't go to individuals' sites, because noone she trusts (i.e. no
companies or governments) will point her at them. The freely flowing information of the underground community will be there on the Internet, but who will be listening to it except those who are already part of that community?
Search engines allow you to look at almost any content that you want. Just for kicks and giggles look up these key words on you favorite search engine(s):
sex
porn
warez
hacking
phreaking
carding
serials
These should return many, many, many hits to millions of sites that specialize in various "underground" things. And you can also look up various things like strange religious rituals and other things.
I don't ever see a leader of the Net, or a leader of geeks..Incompatible, I think..But that doesn't mean people can't gather on some broad principles..And no, absolutely not..OS is a choice, not a religion.
Well it's not a religion however it is a major philosophy of thinking because it employs programming and various app specifications it makes for some rather religious ways of thinking. When any given system gets more complex to the point of becomming incomphrensible to the common man he assigns various quasispiritual aspects to it. For example you could say that without having to knowledge of how a compiler works that making those things you write down in a text file and haveing a machine tranlate them into something a machine could understand "magic" or a "work of god".
No, the Internet's most central ideology has been promoting a certain kind of information. freedom != information . While, I admit, information should be free, not all agree.
I really would like to know what kind of information you are refering. I think that the protocols themselves that just basically allow you to talk to Aunt Edna isn't exactly real information. We don't have total information. Now maybe in your little world information dosn't make you free however I am one to disagree. You see if I have enough information about things I can get untimate freedom.
Suppose I can predict the future and say can anticipate exactly how anyone could kill me, how I could get into any sort of accident, or get any disease. Now I can prepare for all these things and with unlimited information I can even cure these things.
Granted this is not ultimately how it totally works however it is how most of the information in the world approaches. The internet because it has information make us all free and allows us to survive. It used to be that the only people who knew how to truely read in Europe were people in the Church back in the Middle ages. Eventually kings figured it out but until Gutenberg made that little gaget called the printing press we didn't have anything. We were all slaves to others. When people began to read we eventually had developments like the US Constitution.
The same can be said that many people can't afford a car and that many don't have the skills to drive a car. What makes the net so different though is that many companies provide a "free-ride" (ie NetZero) and software is getting
dumbed down. But is this what we want? Do you really want everyone online. Just as you don't want drunk-drivers, mentally ustable, extremley elderly, or blind/deaf people on you highways, do you want child molesters, script
kiddies, etc on the net? Be carfeul what you wish for...
Ohhh big deal. Did your new bently get mashed up by some 16 year old drunk? I don't think you understand the principal here. As I have argued and argued and argued here on slashdot you cannot turn what is supposed to be an openforum or an open system of protocols and exclude the people *you* don't like.
We grew out of this largely because of all the gentleman's club type atnosphere of times like the late 1800's and early 1900's. Most likely if you lived in America (and not everyone does or did) you were the parents of immigrants. Those groups were constantly excluded by calling them all sorts of titles that made them look really bad and shifty. I can't say that I can blame some people for trying to get revenge for what their forefathers had done unto them however I cannot say that I like your attitude of exclusion I really can't say that I savor closing the internet just so you boss can get his daily dose of porn'n'quotes for the day or so that you can play quake III arena in peace each and every night.
What I truely care about is access. Figuratively that homeless bum or that stupid kid in that leather jacket or that kid who smashed your bently last week has/had just as much right to be there as you. People who want to exclude come one step closer to being like good ol' Adolf a day at a time.
No, it is getting closer. The original idea was for information to travel cross-country in case of a nuclear war. And I would say it has accomplished that.
God do people always have to specifically say what they indent nowadays. He meant in the traditional sence with the development of the http protocol and adoption of things such as web browsers and such. Maybe going to the BBS days of the 80's but that's a stretch. You must understand that when people say internet in popular usage mean that recent developments.
Now seriously do you really think that in the event that H bombs go flying around and large city centers are actually hit that anyone let alone the government could reasonably expect to communicate and would it do them any good? Not really.
Getting back to your problem is that we are seeing a partial fultilment of the kind of widespread use and adoption in some areas and a bit of information is ther however we can't really see the forest for the trees and quality has gone downhill with shiny new bells and whistles.
So in reality I think that we have strayed from the founders (the true founders unless you think that 5 star generals and the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the NSA actually does all the internet startups or created geocities).
Is that bad? Everything doesn't have to be OPENSOURCE, GPL, LINUX, etc. And companies other than IBM have tried opensource models (ie OpenDK, OpenBSD).
I take it your haven't exactly had to make ecconomic choices in your life? You haven't had shitty software before? You really haven't had a need that wasn't fulfilled. Major companies don't give a shit that dosn't mean that we shouldn't care. Yeah I don't *expect* it to happen I do however *care* if it was and *want* it to happen. Sure people have to make money but does that mean that have to make so *much* money.
Ok, but lets review principles of governtment Mr. Katz. For a democracy to exist, there must be a leader. As it stands, the net is far far far from a democracy. It is, at best, anarchy in action.
No it is not anarchy! Think clearly. Even if you get to the point where there is at least one warlord or one group of savages who are huddled around a fire or if there is one woman/man traveling with their spouce you do not have anarchy. Maybe we are in the stage of fudalism and such because each person has to go through an ISP. The ISP is almost like a small emerging nation state. Unless everyone has a free and unregulated dedicated connection to the net and can access everything there are people who are in charge. And right now I compare Microsoft to Spain in the 16th century. Ever seen the movie (can't remeber the name) where some king or general of Spain looks at the map of the know world and says something like "and all this is spain"? Well we do have leaders just not all powerful ones.
I must say though, you did do some good research into the great thinkers of America, but you lack a bit in the Internet history.
The internet hasn't anything in common with the early days of the 60's-70's. I doubt you can find many similarities at all in almost anything. Everything has changed and nothing remains the same. What really characterizes the net has been the use and application of the average man the people not the generals, scientists, and people like Andrew P. Carnigie-esq.
I beleive the hardware which will encourage freedom in the "second Internet generation" has to be by far free or very low cost PCs. At the present, there are many people with PCs and Internet access, but still the majority does not
have a PC or Internet access (barring public terminals, libraries, etc). I beleive once more people start to get a PC and get onto the Internet, they will begin to realize what is out there for them (on the Internet) and how they will be
able to find almost anything they could ever dream of. There are some folks (governments in particular) which wish to limit the free flow of ideas and information on the Internet, and the more people who get on the Internet and find
out the limitless amount of ideas, information and content available to them, the more new Internet users (hopefuly) will pay attention to what they have to lose when laws and "innovations" (such as SDMI or UCITA) are introduced.
Well maybe you caught me in a philosophical mood today but I think that the data on the internet is absolutely not limiteless. You have lots of data in categories that is sensationally popular however those obscure things are usually not to be found anywhere. Some of my greatest discoveries were almost made by chance and not something that I could have easily searched for. What we really have to do is to allow for more dedicated bandwidth for each household in America.
Now why would I say this? Simple. Check out all of the stuff at freshmeat.net. A disturbing fact you will quickly find out is that a great deal of the "interesting" tasks have been for network access and the control of a machine that can deliver content of one sort or another. Now I know all you sysadmins out there have all the access you want but quite frankly I don't give a rat's ass about any of you. I actually care about the average person who dosn't have that little ol' OC-48 line into his/her house and the ability to do whatever you want.
Think of all the possibilities if the net were truely something you could really access and publish content on? As it stands now all the telephone gives me now is just bad news or telemarketers in general. If I could scrap my telephone line and as standard could just have a dedicated line like a T-1 then I would be happy. I could run anything that I wanted and publish information and content that I truely think that the world would benefit from. Having to constantly need to pay for anything and everything to get my message out with all the fancy tools is not something that I can do. Microsoft hasn't done this no matter how much that they claim to the contrary wise.
Really just being able to passively look at the internet and all those big shiny windows with all their fascinating stuff isn't something that I like to do. I want to truely create. I want to run an IRC server a MUD server an http server and several others. I want to run the slash code. I want to have a web site that is something that I can truely be proud of and to make sure I feel a sence of accomplishment out of. I can't do that now. I can't actually get much out of any "free" access to such resources (most of them are just jokes).
The net may be "free" but the printing presses are all under control of insidious minions of orthodoxy.
The software which will help ensure freedom in the "second Internet generation" would be, of course, OSS solutions. Along with my theme of low cost PCs, free, readily available and reliable operating systems (Linux, *BSD, etc) are
available at the present. Combine Linux with a low cost PC and Internet access, and consumers could be on the Internet with a $300 PC and $10/month Internet access (or $400 for 3 years of Internet access and a PC from some offers
I've seen). $400 is a price I realistically feel many consumers can afford, as opposed to 2 or 3 years ago when consumers would have to spend at least $1500 for a PC with a modem and $25/month for Internet access.
Big deal. I have said before does it really help me? I have a 2400bps modem and I don't have any way to get my home machine connected. From a technological standpoint I can't really see what is so hard in just saying to the modem:
Ok look I don't want 56k of bandwidth I just want 2400bps. Yes I know you are capable of that but I just want to use this much.
That really isn't so hard. Yes I am cheap and until I actually want to shell out cash for a better one I would sure be appreciative of actually seeing some miraculous technology fixing the problem that I may have. What is rapidly happening is that linux and it's apps are getting resource heavy. I am constantly being bombarded with reasons that people upgrade PCs.
It seems that what happens is that you are slowly driven mad with crappy things. Lousy programs freezing the X server, hogging disk space, RAM. Have you ever seen any of those themes for various WMs out there? Well I have at least 256 colors and do you know what I see? Well all the niftly little effects such as transparency and something that dosn't look grainy can't happen. I am betrayed by the technology that is to set me free. What will only happen is that the people who write the code run monster machines. They buy more monster machines and then develop to fit this profile. Result? Machines that don't have all the bells and whistles don't get supported or are just broken or just ruined. Until software is streamlined again we cannot expect to be anything but slaves.
Damn it seems like $2,000 is't worth your sanity.
Another thing apps are still in the phase that makes them not totally acurate in the features that they have. Things like GNOME will probably be useful maybe in 2 years. Others in more time than that. Combined with betrayal of app makers this makes for a dismal affair.
My second answer to the "software" question would be free Intenet access. At the present, most free acess providers are limited in the OSes they support (Windows NT or 9x). However, if free service providers supply Linux clients,
not only do they increase their customer base, but help more people discover what this whole "Intenet" thing they've been missing is. If you have a Windows PC and and no Internet access (how are you reading this?!), there are
plenty of free access providers available (a good list can be seen here on Yahoo!). Personally, I would rather pay for Inernet access since I can't stand advertising, but if you live with some banners on your screen, it's a splendid deal.
They don't care about linux users anyway. What they care about are people who are idiots. They care about windows people. They don't have to target linux users because linux users are by and far loaded with cash because of their ritzy little programming jobs (which I am sure even though I am a CS major I will be cheated out of) can buy their own satellite relay system.
The protocols which will help the second generation Internet thrive will be IP v6. Not only is it an open protocol available for all OSes, vendors and individuals to use, but it also comes with other features such as built in encryption
which helps to keep what someone wants to be private, well, private.
Ohhh wow encryption! Well that makes a world of difference to me *sticks finger in mouth and makes gagging sounds*. And IPv4 isn't a protocol that can use encryption and isn't open? Last I checked you can use encryption programs for all those people who have all their buddies who use encryption or who are scared out of their whitts by government officials trying to determine their location of their militia group's tent in Montana. Dosn't mean that I really care. I can't use encryption for anything for two major factors:
1. Never have any real communication with known individuals who actually support it.
2. No access to an IP address from home machine making the use of things like pgp almost a waste of time. (Well yeah I could just encrypt the thing ahead of time and then go a distance and include in in the text and do the reverse to decrypt however I can't say that such an idea appeals to me).
One problem with my ideas is that history has shown that the majority of people don't keep up on proposed and new laws, nor do they research what they buy before it's too late. I quick and easy example of this would be the low
voter turnout each year.
Well maybe for the lack of ability to actually do all the fancy content and have true editorial control of said content they don't feel that they actually care. I for one can't say that I almost care any more. All the rich son't and daughters of lawyers/doctors/sowftware tycoons have all their life problems worked out but some do not.
Using these factors and the fact that a lot of the content that is out there is changing and becomming cheasy and network dependent (meaning that the data must be kept on the network medium that once held it or it becomes useless or not a useful; This would be like a database or a listing of information that constantly changes or perhaps something that is HTML formatted or that works well with only some things like javascript or shockwave)
The other issue is that, as much as we hate to admit it, Linux has a ways to go for usability. I've seen the "My grandma can use Linux!" discussion many times before here on Slashdot, but I feel installation, configuration, GUIs and
easy ways to update the OS (to add new features and patch bugs) need to be improved before Linux will be the OS of choice for first time PC users.
I see a different problem with usability. I see a problem with actually getting the damn thing not to waste my resources like a drunken band of pirates on some tropical island. I can't believe that people can't make something work better. Hell these people are supposedly extremely bright and have so much knowledge and yet they almost force people to upgrade unless you want to turn you machine into a new jukebox for the sound of an hd grinding away (sure is cool however after several minutes of this happening it gets a little irritating).
So, in summary, PCs, OSes and Internet access which are at low or no cost will help more people to get onto the Internet, see all of the wonders it has to offer, and hopefuly realize what we all have to lose in the future if we do not
protect the freedoms we have now.
Ohh boo hoo hoo I will grieve for a total of about 10 seconds for all those little rich people who are cheated from having all their fun. I see no reason to actually care about their plight or the fact that the multi-million dollar website at http://www.mycheasysitethatcostalotof$$$.com or something (creaps have the audacity to charge for something that is supposed to be an open protocol). I have seen decreasing utility of what is out there and a general lousy attempt to make thousands of $$ off of it. Could someone really tell me why in my present state of technology (or more precisely lack thereof I should actually care about all those people getting their toys taken away?). In the grand scheme of things I haven't actually written anything more complicated that some program that did a calculation about some simple physics problem with a single for loop. If I have to upgrade my PC anyway what would be the harm of using windows if linux is just going to just start taking more and more resources like that aforementioned band of rum drunken pirates. I can't say I like Billg however linux is betraying me royally. If you wish please take my message and de-moderate it for your vicarious feeling of triumph of squashing me with your fist I just wanted someone to see it (you have to look at it to moderate it).
In conclusion I say that in fact the internet is a medium that was designed with the sole purpose of allowing elites to communicate (military, DoD, Echelon, university departments and such), connects computers via extremely expensive bandwidth (ever try to actually afford one of those nifty dedicated connections which actually allow you to have a life with linux and friends), host expensive web sites (hell I can't think of anyone who would be impressed with even the best geoshitties pages no matter who you are) since they require the big $$$, or connecting computers which could dub as the next replacement for the NSA (something that the wonderful new world of consumerism has created) it is something that the average person who has average to ambitious goals cannot hope to attain because of laziness, sloth, and the general lack of touch with what I term the forgotten man of the world. To quote Roland in Steven King's "Gunslinger" series "The world has moved on"; and in this case it has moved on to be more repressive and unequal in nature than at any other time. Please if you want to drive you catellacs please don't drive them near me ok?
Actually whenever the muse hits me. I find that a nice all purpose representation of informative data is the best cure for what I need.
Well if I want something from slashdot I do the following. .. "99.txt etc)
1. Get a number of floppy disks. Usually even with maxium stories displayed on the main page and even with things like perhaps Linux goes commercial and abandons the GPL I can get all of slashdot's extended stories on 5 or so floppies at max.
2. Save the context via a decent browser (Netscape and IE both have their faults for overall indention and including of ^M characters and other bad things and lynx dosn't allow for the typical indention of comments via nested mode)
IE 5 is actually good for the aboive because it automatically includes the title of the page for easy index. Spill over and the next page problem is solved with a simple appending of a numberal that is the same as the page in question (ie Slashdot News Linux goes commercil and abandon's the GPL1.txt "2.txt "3.txt
3. Filter this through a program similar to col with cat blah1.txt | col -b >newfile-without-control-characters.txt
4. Read the comments.
Now this dosn't allow for the use of responding to various comments and such but if I want an archive of all of the ranting and raving on slashdot it is a very nice thing.
Now how di I solve the problem of citations and such? Simple if you paraphrase something it usually works well enough.
Now I actually think that from an access point of view that the use and collection of info using a web browser is actually more fail safe and better than usenet. Usenet is something that is not guaranteed from a services offered perspective from each and every ISP. Some ISPs have a bigger spool some only keep stuff for 24hrs. I know of some ISPs that only provide a simple IP address and you do everything else (even without mail). I most of the time don't use USENET because of it's inherent lack of accessibility and uneven resource distribution. You can flame me all you want but even slashdot partly agrees with me as there was posted a little sotry a couple of days ago about usenet dieing because people don't care. This type of a forum is quite nice.
Now I pose a question to all of you. Suppose I did take information from slashdot and paraphrase each and every comment (no I really don't think that many people care about post the first or dousing heated grits down my trousers or a fossilized version of Natalie Portman would be interesting). Would anyone be able to honestly say that slashdot-terminal or anyone else didn't actually know all that stuff?
Well I am quite sory for the general gramatical flow of my post but I have heard of cases where people actually took Prozac and ended up killing themselves. The number one state for Prozac prescriptions is Utah, USA.
There is clinical documented evidence that indicated that eratic brain function can result from giving drugs like this to healthy mentally sound people. The pattern was something like this: guy goes into a doctor because he has a back ache, doctor gives him prozac because he appears depressed, guy starts acting quite eratically mood swings and such, rapid changes in behaviour and then eventual suicide. If I were to give yuou say heart medication yould you be in tip top shape? How about something that is supposed to cure seizures? See the point is that a drug that is supposed to counteract something that is wrong with you has ingredients that are supposed to balance or stop the chemical agents or cellular processes that are causing this.
If you think that there are no problems with drugs then why are there so many people who become addicted and all these dead people or people who have had measurable decreased intelligence after abusing drugs for years (Jimmy has slured speech and can't preform basic motor functions without difficulty)?
Oh I know what happened! You see our Evil Uncle Sam decided that all those hippies were making too much trouble and so he engineered all these hard core street drugs and got everyone addicted. Or even better he decided to "spike" all of those "pure" drugs with some of his own wacky stuff and discredit all those "reputable" drug "vendors" right?
In China during the mid 1800's we had a little wide scale problem with this.
You see Americn and British (yeah it wasn't just the "evil" Americans this time) thought that getting all of the native people of China hooked on opium was a really cool idea. Then the Chinese got really pissed and decided to kick ass. Well as it turned out the combined forces of the drug dealers and their governments allowed them to prevail. However after what happened to all the Chinese and all the people in Europe and North America there started a reform movement.
I know that people have certain rights however getting physically damaged s usually not something that people enjoy. Can I take a razor blade and just randomly start cutting myself? Sure dosn't mean that it's a cool idea. What about addiction? I have had people in my genetic past who have been addicted to alchol and tobacco. There is a very storng possibility that if say I started smoking pot that I will also become addicted. This is totally unacceptable. We don't need more druggies in the world and we don't need more related fatalities clogging hostpital ER rooms when more people who chose not to use/abuse drugs are dieing.
I am not an idiot because I have seen things which all point the other way with drugs and such. People getting sick, people becomming dependent, people going to jail, people loosing the ability to think and function. Anything that destroys the brain is bad and should be avoided. I think one of the worst diseases is Althertiezmers(sp) because you just loose yourself.
Furthermore I would like some conclusive proof that in fact drugs can improve my productivity. I would be willing to try this little experiment: I will pump myself full of all fof these illegal drugs for the rest of my life and allow for daily/weekly cat scans/MRIs to determine it I am well; adding to this is a complete physical that will detect cancer and other nasties that are there. If I become a vegetable I will be mercifully shot and put our of my misery. Both will necessitate a series of comprehensive round the clock analysis by various teams of psychologists and other professionals who sill determine that I am indeed functioning and efficient.
Well just to break your little statement I have been able to use 486 systems in the past for compiling snapshots of egcs and development versions of the kernl (2.1.x) on my 486 (damn I stopped mainly because of the fact that e2compr has not really had support for 2.3.x past 2.3.6 or so).
What I am mostly concerned about is if maybe in the future I can get rid of my 486 in favor of a good mac that perhaps could run linux. I am wondering if perhaps if they could create cheaper macs to allow for a larger adoption. I am sure they would increase their user base by a great deal.
I don't know what the support level for linux on the mac (in terms of getting all the hardware and everything up to it's full operating capacity and all. However it is a good thing and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth as the saying. This would mean that at least some better support can be had because then customers can see that at least Apple mentions linux officially and mention it to them that "hey my hardware xyz dosn't work with PPClinux why not?"
I'm just curious as to how many hackers and crackers use drugs to enhance their cognitive abilities for brief periods of time? The reason I ask this is because I seem to recall some famous page being hacked a little while back, and the perpetrator leaving a note that had, amongst other things, an apology for his spelling because he was "on methadiachromanphetamines" or something. Anybody have an idea as to what effects amphetamines can have on the problem-solving abilities of the human brain?
You know the reason that we say drugs are "bad" is that they have various facts that can cause permanent damage and such. You must understand this or else everything fails. People thought that using amphemetines of various sorts was a "really cool idea" back in the early years of the commercial drug industry. They were used for weight loss and also as a general stimulant. However what they didn't realize at the time is that you get eventual damage to your brain stem and nerve centers. They start to break down your ability to think. All drugs essentially do is to release various forms of artificial chemicals into the body and cause something that is seen as "good" in the brain. Now this is usually a bad thing. When you start messing with the brain you have problems. Hell even things that are supposedly "good" for you are usually not all that good.
A prime example of this are antiphychodics and other mental mood altering drugs. These have had known effects on the brain and can lead to general atrophy of higher brain function. Look at misdiagnosis and abuse of Prozac. People have commited suicide because of their damaged cognitive abilities from such substances.
Something more contemporary is the increase of meth labs and such in the western US. The chemicals used to create these substances are extremely toxic and they also cause wild and uncontrollable on the part of the user. I think you can safely say that this is a bad thing. I don't know of any coder stupid enough to do this but judging what MS puts out I think that they must hire all of those people.
I see just the opposite. All the techies I've known have had a secret interest in mind altering substances. Even though they don't use them very frequently that I've seen, they have generally been interested in exploring their minds using psychedelic drugs. You would be suprised at how many programmers out there take the occasional trip on acid or shrooms for inspiration.
Have you actually seen what various forms of truely mind altering drugs can do to a person? Medical evidence can be given that if you regularly take drugs of various sorts that produce neural stimulant reactions that the person in question will fall victim to eventual brain damage. Plus risking your freedom over getting ahold of drugs to keep an addict happy isn't pretty either.
We are all in the multiverse. But in all the universes where life doesn't exist there is nobody to think about the inprobability of lifes existense.
I don't see how this is revelent to anything. Just because someone isn't alive dosn't make a problem any less interesting at all.
When a quantum wave collapses you can't really tell if all the other possibilities that isn't this exact one it collapsed to, ceases to exist or lives on in their own world
Picard: Enough Data how do we collapse this anomaly and save Omicron Beta-Thraxis 6?
Really what exactly is a "quantum wave" and why is it so interesting. I can see how it is possible that uncertainy can occur however that would depend on the dimention that the wave was in and how it interacted with other areas in at least 4 space. You see for transition to another "multiverse" would require movement in something higher than 3 space. Which would mean at least 4 space. You then could have the wave in any point in time and space.
Hard SF writer Greg Egan recently wrote a story about a similar idea in his book Teranesia. Check Greg Egan's Home Page for more informatino about the story and this fascinating geek/programmer/author.
You know when I heard this little story posted up on slashdot I pondered and thought:
How in the hell do they prove things that not even our most experienced theoretical physicists are barely even understanding. This must be a cast of wishful thinking.
Now correct me if I am wrong but has anyone ever conclusively proven than such a "multiverse" exists. I mean outside of maybe some form of science fiction it dosn't seem likely. What people have to realize is that when I want to prove something I just don't go looking for the most experimental alpha quality theory that I can find.
The good news is, it seems that at least somewhere in Scandinavia, there are places where the general populace won't let itself be taken by the mass hysteria regarding "hackers" and "piracy". However, I can't help but ask myself,
:) Seriously, government control is, in the end, no better than corporate control,
:)
:)
considering the hegemony of the US in the global media, how long will it last - how much corporate effort will it take to make it so that all you know is what AOL-TimeWarner-EMI-WhoEverElse tells you - all over the world? If
you ask me (and I know you didn't), this is a scary thought.
Someone has to gather and process the data. Specialist magazines are always out there. Did you know that most of the intelligence data that we currently have is actually compilations from standard news sources. If you really want to know something there is nothing stopping you from being able to just go there yourself.
And please don't try to tell me that the answer is more government regulation. Any sentence with "more government" in it is automatically evil
democratically elected or not. The real question is, are there any other means to try and preserve our freedoms from a certain group, that do not involve giving more power to another group that - history has taught us - will eventually
turn around to stab us on the back and push an even more opressive regime upon us? Or is it by definition impossible (Individualists unite! and all that)?
Just for kicks:
MORE GOVENMENT is a bad thing!
Governments can actually do a better job because they need to care about what their voters think. If I am say a monopoly I dosn't have to care about anyone because I am the only supplier. I think it is largely impossible because people have greed and avarice. All these things make it quite interesting to deal with. You would have to have a group of people who try to enforce anarchy and that will eventuall turn into a form of government.
Theoretically you could have metamoderation of government and a peer review process which could make it a little better. However the constitution of the US was largely created so that things like the Third Reich will not as easily happen against a unpopular and small group.
(Yes, I am aware that Slashdot is hardly the right place for this kind of discussion. If I have interrupted your daydreaming about chipping Natalie Portman's underwear off, forgive me.)
I am not really impressed by good ol' Natalie I can think of dozens of different models and cartoon characters who are better than her any day of the week
I think that it has revelence due to the nature of the beast.
I got to thinking. If fiction is protected speech, and source code may not be, what if you combined the two. So here is a story about two intrepid programmers, Dick and Jane.
Novel approach however what if I do something like this:
Once upon a time there was a little lizard and he crawled upon a piece of paper that said
"Dear GnrcMan
I will plan to attack torture, rape, and murder you on the 22nd on this month. Before that I will play subtle mind games with you until at such time you will fold and collapse from the strain. This is protected speech so there!"
As the lizard crossed the paper he started thinking about all the flies he would eat that day.
=========================================
Ok so it's a little extreme but it still is protected speech because it's totally fiction rigtht? Not that I don't think that your example is pretty much but you have to admit that it can eventually get problematic.
One final note; you probably should run that story through a word wrap or similar. This is something that will make it easier for people to "read" your story.
There's no uploading involved. It checks your CD-ROM drive & verifies if you have a physical copy of a CD. If you do, then it gives you (password protected) access to the MP3s of it.
Are the passwords unique or do they change on a fixed schedule?
I am quite curious as to exactly what this does.
It may look cool, but its just vaporware until the IA-64 chips hit the streets, and you can run the demos for yourself.
I only thought that this was trade secreted or some such. Where can you get the demo? Are there any chips that are somewheat using IA-64?
Ermm, thats why that kid overseas got arrested.
:)
You would be surprised how far a companies reach is, even if the US courts cannot get you, the company can
Ohhhh the big bad ol' company's going to get me!!
I don't know what I'll do if they get me!
They are so strong and intelligent and all knowing; and they can have their private little police beat me up!
You see I live in a time when police power is not given to any group who has a bunch of money. Just because I have a great deal of money (Microsoft, IBM, Lexus Nexus, British Telecom, etc) dosn't mean that I can just call out my goombahas and do whatever I want to anyone. So big deal the company's goons can try to illegally attack me. I can also just drive a van full of TNT into their little building. See no more problem!
Maybe just suppose that their little 'representatives' get into a little 'accident' when they try to get me? Oh well
No matter what the judge says, this suit is still uncool. I guess it's OK to fix the DVD player market so that I can't play DVD's on my computer. I spent alot of money on my DVDs, my computer and my DVD player. Now all I
want to do is play them. Is that so hard to understand judge?
People want to control things. I can also understand about possible control issues. I guess people can't totally be blaimed about things that they do to make a profit and then people think that they are a really good idea. I must say that I feel that I can't think that people will eventually come up with something better. I remember when VCR+ was around. The makers of VCR+ wanted to create a system whereby you could simply imput a 4 digit code and have a movie recorded on a particular channel and at a particular time. They defended this also.
I doubt that anyone will be swayed by being called "uncool" or anything like that. Eventually something better than DVDs will come along. I don't really have any of this technology and have never been obcessed about movies in general. I never stockpiled VHS tapes and can't see why people are taking so many risks.
Tell me why bother to make sure you do something questionable and then put your name on it! Why do something so stupid. Why shoot yourself in the foot. People created cracking programs in the past and usually never associated their actual Name/Address match on them. People only have their vanity to loose. I shure would release the code to the program under slashdot-terminal sooner than my actual name if it meant the world to people like you.
All people have done is draw attention to an actual person/people/group to do things.
We reported about this along time ago on geeknews (http://geeknews.net/cgi-bin/fooboard.pl?944436957 ), but it's still cool non-the-less. The bigger version of this is really cool. I can see this camera really being used in new Quake
maps. The only problem would be that would need to tone down the poly count.. Just read the link above that I added and you'll see what we had to say.
I seriously doubt that the quake market could sustain a company's entire line of digital cameras. I would like to know a few things.
1. The cost? I don't want to have to mortage my house just to pay for one.
2. Interface? I would like this to just plug into a standard serial or parallel port. Failing that perhaps something like just taking the film and allowing for floppy film based things.
3. Linux compatability? I could always use a machine that actually worked with linux and that worked with linux apps. I don't want to buy either an expensive commercial 3d app or to have to upgrade my pc just to use this.
I really would love to see Deian and the kernel fully support this. Might be a little better than what we have.