I'm afraid I don't see any lack of innovative games. I've been playing Deus Ex with wild abandon, loving the degree of interactivity. Stars! Supernova is approaching release, which should please a vast number of strategy fans. Black and White (which was sinfully omitted in the article) promises to be one of the most innovative games *ever* was demoed at ECTS.
There are a plethora of games coming out concentrating on team based gaming and massive multiplayer gaming. A subsection of society is re-aligning itself to become more in tune with gaming, from lan parties to the ubiquitous "guilds/clans".
If all you're seeing is bloody FPS genre games, then I suggest you take a closer look at gaming. There's far more out there than just gory shooters.
Since the first person shooter came of age (arguably with wolf3d, more realistically with doom), we've had several genres arrive. RTS, while marginally existent starting with Dune (1990) really didn't take off until Warcraft. While technically not an original concept, the MMORPG games are realistically a new genre as they take their MUD origins to significantly larger scales.
Arguably, team based FPS is a new genre as well, arriving on the scene significantly after the original FPS. First person "sneakers" (as somebody else coined previously) are also radically different from the original "shoot everything that moves" FPS.
While the C-Net article describes some symptoms of shifting awareness, it's probably very premature to declare any genre as dead. Flight sims, for instance, are a relatively niche product that appeal to a distinct audience. If somebody doesn't mind not selling a ton of units, then they will find an audience for a good flight sim. Further, I think that in the future you'll see a lot more cross genre games as the gaming worlds become for fleshed out. Having a FPS RPG game where you can climb into the cockpit of a helicopter to reach some objective is probably not too many years away.
One of the complaints I have with the ruling is the implicit assumption that the open source community is out to pirate everything. While this is certainly the case in many instances, he's basically calling everybody with DeCSS a pirate.
There are also omissions of logical conclusions, like stating that JJ created DeCSS simply to bypass CSS (anti-circumvention restriction of the DMCA). Yet, carried to the logical conclusion he wanted to bypass CSS so that he could engage in fair use viewing of DVDs.
Futher, he uses the fact that DeCSS was developed on Windows to support an argument that it was to be a general purpose cracker, instead of a means of viewing just on Linux. As JJ stated in the trial, they created the windows version first because that's where they had a working version to compare against.
Finally, the judge's ruling against linking is a fallacy. Just as it is not illegal to post instructions to making a bomb, it should not be illegal to post a *direct* link to information on DeCSS. The information is not illegal, the use of it is (by his ruling anyway).
So personally, I think criticism of his conclusions is certainly in order. In any case, I agree that the supreme court is a much better place for this case.
This is difficult to define. What if you're a page quoting another page in order to describe how purient the content is?
What if it's a court transcript?
Not only that, but describing context is notoriously difficult to do with the english language. It's rare than just a couple word matches. For a simple example, think of the word "pussy". What word combinations should you disallow given that this is both a word for a part of the female anatomy and can also mean a common feline?
"Wet pussy" (could be a cat that just came in from the rain)
"Hot pussy" (could need a haircut for the summer - talking about a cat you perverts!)
etc.
Without some sort of intelligence monitoring the filtering (that pretty much rules out all censors), it's very difficult to program in any sort of meaningful filtering.
Realistically the request is unsupportable. It is fundamentally impossible to only block "inappropriate" content based on keywords. This is even assuming you can agree on what material is appropriate or inappropriate.
The english language is suitably flexible that pretty much any word you can think of (yes, even "fuck") can be used appropriately in the right context. Therefor, anything that attempts to classify content on keywords without context will be doomed to failure.
Given your real world needs, however, I would recommend a filtering system that gives you complete disclosure and control over what sites are blocked. I also suggest you set up a feedback mechanism (preferably web based and easy to use) that allows people to request changes to the blocking list (both adding and deleting).
Unfortunately, I am only familiar with the issue enough to know that there are such filtering services available, not to know specifically who they are.
It's worth noting that a visit to www.peacefire.org is a good way to find out which services you *shouldn't* use.
IMO the guessability of the key is irrelevant. For a document to be accessed, the key must be known. For contentious files (like MP3) there will be warez channels that post the URLs or keys. All anybody has to do is find out where the URL/key is being listed and you have access.
The central goal of both Freenet and Publius is to make documents available. Thus spending time obsfucating documents beyond the simple idea of not being able to explicitely know what's on your system is relatively pointless (as access info will have to be made public to be used).
Actually, it's just the current incarnation of Freenet that does not have encryption. The.3 release (last I heard) should have encryption (requiring you to know the key to see if the file exists).
Freenet also distributes files based on requests for that file. If your request document X and your server (A) doesn't have it, it will request server B through E to get it. Those servers, in turn, will also request servers F through K (there are means to limit the depth of searches btw). If the document is found, it will then be copied into the caches (assuming space is available) of any servers between the server originally holding the document and the server requesting the document. Thus, even requesting the document to query for it's existence will actually propogate the document.
I'll grant you that the recovery features of Publius are rather nice. I just don't know that that's enough to justify the system based on the limited nature of the documents it can easily store.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but Freenet already seems to fit the "nail" as you describe it. Both systems do not have a searchable space (at least, that's my understanding of Freenets planned operation, please correct me if I'm wrong) so you have to have the key to access the file anyway. There is no "overwhelming with audio and video" files, since you never see the files you don't request.
I agree that Publius seems to be geared specifically for text, which is not a bad thing in and of itself (especially, as you note, for people who rarely download MP3s). However, how many of these things do we need? I'd rather just pull everything from one source. In doing so, I'd probably pick the source with the most flexibility (aka Freenet).
Here we are at/. discussing a tool that has obviously been crafted to help encourage online collaboration without enabling the D00DZ who want to distribute WAREZ. What are the first reactions?
It sucks cuz I can't distribute illegal files
It just makes the suits who are concerned about abuse say "See: we told you so. All they want to do is abuse it."
That's entirely the point. If you want to distribute LEGAL files then you don't need a system like this. You're assuming that a file being illegal means that it is a "bad" file. This is not necessarily the case, as what is legal may be dictated by malevolent (or at least not benevolent) forces.
The issue I see with this being like the "Snow Crash" repository is that it's artificially limited. The "Snow Crash" repository had voice and video feed, as well as extensive AI.
A better bet would be a system that is not at all limited, like Freenet. While it may eventually host a fair % of pirates, that's not the point of the system, it is built to provide a network of anonymous and ubiquitous data availability without allowing for contentious files to be deleted. Publius, on the other hand, is psuedo limited to text (although posting multipart fragments of a warez file is still entirely possible).
You're making an assumption that all MP3s are pirate. MP3 is highly effective for any audio data. While I will concede that it currently seems to be primarily used for piracy it's still just a form of media.
Besides, as I note in an earlier post, this is hardly going to stop anybody:
url 1: list of Publius URLs for file fragments 1-19
url 2 through 20 (listed in url 1): MP3 of "They Might Be Giants - Istanbul" in fragments.
Program a client to seek and re-assemble the MP3 based on url 1. It's merely inconvenient (to the point where freenet will probably darwinize this to obscurity) but hardly a showstopper for pirates.
If it's searchable then you can legally pursue folks that have it on their systems. Note that they don't say they won't host certain files, just that the publius project will only list "interesting" files. I assume that you can still add and retrieve files regardless of content.
My (admittedly limited) knowledge of freenet leads me to believe that it operates on a similar principal, if you don't know the file key then you can't retrieve it (or it'll be that way when they get to.3).
The file size limitation does seem somewhat arbitrary though. What's to prevent you from breaking a large file into several smaller files? It's a merely inconvenient method to try to suppress warez. You could even use the 100k file format to store a list of Publius URLs and then use a client program to download all the fragments listed.
Filterware doesn't work. It doesn't block most porn and it does block stuff that isn't porn. And yet, even with the obvious information that it just plain doesn't work, our government (or parts of it anyway) want to MANDATE it for public institutions and often for adult use. While the loss of a certain chicken recipe is hardly going to convert us to a dictatorship, censorship is a slippery slope. Already many of these censorware sites block www.peacefire.org simply because they discuss the flaws of the programs and there is currently no way to force them to remove politically blocked sites from their blocking lists.
Censorware is used by these political groups to try and mandate a philosophy or religion that many of us feel is inappropriate for our government to mandate. While you may be comfy with this notion, that is your perogative, but the constitution is fairly clear on censorship based on religious criteria.
I for one do not wish to live in a nation where information on sex and drugs cannot be found simply because some group has decided that my innocence would be shattered by viewing it.
Frankly, anything that censors what I see without my consent is in my eyes an abomination. I have never had too much information to help me decide how to live my life. Too little information, however, has often bitten me. If the cost to prevent this is to also allow my son to have more information than I might like then so be it. I doubt a few nekkid pictures will cause any lasting damage to my son's fragile psyche, but not knowing when a drug combination is dangerous might kill him.
This is a nonsense troll. Granting carte blanche to any agency will result in the subsequent corruption of that agency. The current system is in place to provide checks and balances so that agencies *cannot* abuse their power.
Unreasoned railing against the FBI is unjustified, but preventing them from circumventing a constitution restriction is hardly out of line. We all have the right to our privacy (against unwarranted search and seizure). Why should we give up this right because the FBI feels like it isn't important anymore? The FBI does provide a useful service *most* of the time, but occasionally they go and do something stupid like blowing away some guy's pregnant wife, right after they've killed his son. Don't assume the FBI is always in the right, as a human agency their likelyhood of acting responsibly 100% of the time is effectively nil.
Do you want the FBI knowing about the porn you look at (incidentally, looking at porn is not illegal) so that they can use it to blackmail you to report on a friend of yours that they think is a criminal? Do you want them seeing your son's email to a friend telling them what great weed there was at that party last night and how their dad was pissed when they came back stoned (failure to report a crime, even on your son, can be interpreted as accessory to that crime).
Why shouldn't data be posted anonymously. It's easy for you to say that everybody should own up to what they say, but what if it could get you killed or in more trouble than is justifyable by your actions?
Most governments are not perfect in regards to the treatment of their citizens. Even mostly benevolent societies like those found in the US and Europe have been known to trample the rights of individuals on a whim or at the behest of powerful entities.
Anonymity allows for a certain measure of protective freedom to say what you think without having to worry about being crucified for it (assuming you're appropriately cautious in your anonymity).
While most of us do not need this anonymity right now (possibly ever), do not discount it's importance to the repressed.
Anonymity will certainly be used by assholes and jerks worldwide. The "responsibility avoidance" you mentioned does apply. However, there is no reason to assume that just because the majority of such traffic is inane, that it does not have legit uses.
Humanity's revolution for the next two decades to be feuled by bio-genetic discoveries, not by advances in computing power (not that one didn't catalyze the other)
Actually, I think both will be still involved. Genes encode proteins which then work on other atoms/molecules (short form explanation). Until we can do molecular modeling on a macro scale (cell size and larger), any genemodding will be very difficult to test due to the several billion different compounds present in a biological higher life form.
The computer power required for that sort of thing is still a few orders of magnitude away from present day with all but the most powerful (and expensive) supercomputers.
The first step is to use the data to help us understand what makes us tick. Why does alzheimers make us vegetables, why doesn't our body regulate fat accumulation better, why does macular degeneration occur for some and not for others.
Once we understand the workings of our bodies and how to repair them, we can greatly advance our treatment of virtually every ailment known to man (including old age). When you ask about the practical applications, I'm somewhat at a loss, there are far too many to list here.
Cloning (in comparison) is a simplistic matter, it only involves trying to copy somebody's genetic matter.
Review boards aside, this information will be used for good (hopefully predominately) and to further causes of greed or malevolence. To draw an analogy, for molecular biologists this is like having somebody dump the source code to the universe on your lap. We still have to wade through it all and figure out what it means, but we now have the friggin source (although obsfucated).
The technology is not to blame for the uses to which it is put. As implied by your quoted "benevolent", the entities or organizations that perform tests on unknowing subjects are hardly laudable.
The human genome project is a technological project of tremendous potential for both good and evil. Unlike the atom bomb, this could help fundamentally change the very basis of our global society for the better.
While you can complain about abuses of the past, I think your efforts would be better spent trying to ensure that they don't happen again and to encourage that the technology is used for maximum benefit for all humankind.
To some extent. Depending on the terms of service there is the possibility that the user could sue for breach of contract if the ISP is not permitted to terminate them for that particular case (and a blanket "we reserve the right to terminate without warning" probably wouldn't cover their asses). The problem with that is that of course the damages would be negligable unless we're talking about this guy/gal running a major site with advertising revenue.
The user's best bet is to take them to small claims court and try to get them to refund him the last two pay periods (one because it was terminated, the second to cover the user's costs to move all his content to another ISP).
I agree in general, but I think that it's entirely possible that a shake up is potentially the desired result. If you've got >50% of the controlling interest against an arguably good idea then there need to be some changes. Either Carmack will be booted out or he won't. Either way he'll land on his feet. If he stays, he's exposed the controlling interest for what they are thus causing them to lose face, if he goes then he will probably pull all the talent away from Id to make a new company.
Actually, I would say this is a particularly smart move on Carmack's part. I strongly suspect that they'll end up firing him and that Carmack will pull all the Id talent away with him to work on something similarly "doomish". Id's reputation will then be shot to hell and they'll be forced to fade into obscurity or make some major changes in order to get people to even consider working for them.
The network code for Doom1 is the culprit there. A number of companies banned doom because of the first version's network code. By Doom2, the code had been optimized so that it no longer flooded the network with useless packets. In any case, network code has progressed quite a bit since the days of doom, they'd be insane to even consider using the original code.
If realism was the goal then it wouldn't be much fun.
Imagine the following:
Let's see, a demon that fires balls of fire...oops, forgot they don't exist.
How about a plasma gun that...oh yeah, nobody's ever built a working plasma gun that's smaller than a boxcar...
Ok, how about..oh hell, just scrap it.
In general, for a *game* you keep what's fun and scratch what's not. It's not fun to "realistically" model fatigue from running with a full kit for most people. It is fun to "realistically" model the physics of bouncing objects and light diffraction because it increases the suspension of disbelief by making the world you're gaming in more similar to our own in an immediately visible sense. Perhaps if we develop a neural shunt that allows us to feel weight then it would make sense to model carrying load and fatigue.
If you feel differently, make your own game, perhaps others feel as you do. You could call it "quiver" (for what you're legs do when you pick up 500 odd rounds of ammo for various weapons, and 200 pounds of hardware + body armor).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm afraid I don't see any lack of innovative games. I've been playing Deus Ex with wild abandon, loving the degree of interactivity. Stars! Supernova is approaching release, which should please a vast number of strategy fans. Black and White (which was sinfully omitted in the article) promises to be one of the most innovative games *ever* was demoed at ECTS.
There are a plethora of games coming out concentrating on team based gaming and massive multiplayer gaming. A subsection of society is re-aligning itself to become more in tune with gaming, from lan parties to the ubiquitous "guilds/clans".
If all you're seeing is bloody FPS genre games, then I suggest you take a closer look at gaming. There's far more out there than just gory shooters.
Since the first person shooter came of age (arguably with wolf3d, more realistically with doom), we've had several genres arrive. RTS, while marginally existent starting with Dune (1990) really didn't take off until Warcraft. While technically not an original concept, the MMORPG games are realistically a new genre as they take their MUD origins to significantly larger scales.
Arguably, team based FPS is a new genre as well, arriving on the scene significantly after the original FPS. First person "sneakers" (as somebody else coined previously) are also radically different from the original "shoot everything that moves" FPS.
While the C-Net article describes some symptoms of shifting awareness, it's probably very premature to declare any genre as dead. Flight sims, for instance, are a relatively niche product that appeal to a distinct audience. If somebody doesn't mind not selling a ton of units, then they will find an audience for a good flight sim. Further, I think that in the future you'll see a lot more cross genre games as the gaming worlds become for fleshed out. Having a FPS RPG game where you can climb into the cockpit of a helicopter to reach some objective is probably not too many years away.
One of the complaints I have with the ruling is the implicit assumption that the open source community is out to pirate everything. While this is certainly the case in many instances, he's basically calling everybody with DeCSS a pirate.
There are also omissions of logical conclusions, like stating that JJ created DeCSS simply to bypass CSS (anti-circumvention restriction of the DMCA). Yet, carried to the logical conclusion he wanted to bypass CSS so that he could engage in fair use viewing of DVDs.
Futher, he uses the fact that DeCSS was developed on Windows to support an argument that it was to be a general purpose cracker, instead of a means of viewing just on Linux. As JJ stated in the trial, they created the windows version first because that's where they had a working version to compare against.
Finally, the judge's ruling against linking is a fallacy. Just as it is not illegal to post instructions to making a bomb, it should not be illegal to post a *direct* link to information on DeCSS. The information is not illegal, the use of it is (by his ruling anyway).
So personally, I think criticism of his conclusions is certainly in order. In any case, I agree that the supreme court is a much better place for this case.
Err, make that "owL and the pussycat"
From my son's children's book (The own and the pussycat):
"Oh lovely pussy, oh pussy my love,
what a beautiful pussy you are."
And yes, I do have trouble keeping a strait face when I'm reading that to him.
This is difficult to define. What if you're a page quoting another page in order to describe how purient the content is?
What if it's a court transcript?
Not only that, but describing context is notoriously difficult to do with the english language. It's rare than just a couple word matches. For a simple example, think of the word "pussy". What word combinations should you disallow given that this is both a word for a part of the female anatomy and can also mean a common feline?
"Wet pussy" (could be a cat that just came in from the rain)
"Hot pussy" (could need a haircut for the summer - talking about a cat you perverts!)
etc.
Without some sort of intelligence monitoring the filtering (that pretty much rules out all censors), it's very difficult to program in any sort of meaningful filtering.
Realistically the request is unsupportable. It is fundamentally impossible to only block "inappropriate" content based on keywords. This is even assuming you can agree on what material is appropriate or inappropriate.
The english language is suitably flexible that pretty much any word you can think of (yes, even "fuck") can be used appropriately in the right context. Therefor, anything that attempts to classify content on keywords without context will be doomed to failure.
Given your real world needs, however, I would recommend a filtering system that gives you complete disclosure and control over what sites are blocked. I also suggest you set up a feedback mechanism (preferably web based and easy to use) that allows people to request changes to the blocking list (both adding and deleting).
Unfortunately, I am only familiar with the issue enough to know that there are such filtering services available, not to know specifically who they are.
It's worth noting that a visit to www.peacefire.org is a good way to find out which services you *shouldn't* use.
IMO the guessability of the key is irrelevant. For a document to be accessed, the key must be known. For contentious files (like MP3) there will be warez channels that post the URLs or keys. All anybody has to do is find out where the URL/key is being listed and you have access.
The central goal of both Freenet and Publius is to make documents available. Thus spending time obsfucating documents beyond the simple idea of not being able to explicitely know what's on your system is relatively pointless (as access info will have to be made public to be used).
I sit corrected ;)
Thanks for the info.
Actually, it's just the current incarnation of Freenet that does not have encryption. The .3 release (last I heard) should have encryption (requiring you to know the key to see if the file exists).
Freenet also distributes files based on requests for that file. If your request document X and your server (A) doesn't have it, it will request server B through E to get it. Those servers, in turn, will also request servers F through K (there are means to limit the depth of searches btw). If the document is found, it will then be copied into the caches (assuming space is available) of any servers between the server originally holding the document and the server requesting the document. Thus, even requesting the document to query for it's existence will actually propogate the document.
I'll grant you that the recovery features of Publius are rather nice. I just don't know that that's enough to justify the system based on the limited nature of the documents it can easily store.
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but Freenet already seems to fit the "nail" as you describe it. Both systems do not have a searchable space (at least, that's my understanding of Freenets planned operation, please correct me if I'm wrong) so you have to have the key to access the file anyway. There is no "overwhelming with audio and video" files, since you never see the files you don't request.
I agree that Publius seems to be geared specifically for text, which is not a bad thing in and of itself (especially, as you note, for people who rarely download MP3s). However, how many of these things do we need? I'd rather just pull everything from one source. In doing so, I'd probably pick the source with the most flexibility (aka Freenet).
Here we are at /. discussing a tool that has obviously been crafted to help encourage online collaboration without enabling the D00DZ who want to distribute WAREZ. What are the first reactions?
It sucks cuz I can't distribute illegal files
It just makes the suits who are concerned about abuse say "See: we told you so. All they want to do is abuse it."
That's entirely the point. If you want to distribute LEGAL files then you don't need a system like this. You're assuming that a file being illegal means that it is a "bad" file. This is not necessarily the case, as what is legal may be dictated by malevolent (or at least not benevolent) forces.
The issue I see with this being like the "Snow Crash" repository is that it's artificially limited. The "Snow Crash" repository had voice and video feed, as well as extensive AI.
A better bet would be a system that is not at all limited, like Freenet. While it may eventually host a fair % of pirates, that's not the point of the system, it is built to provide a network of anonymous and ubiquitous data availability without allowing for contentious files to be deleted. Publius, on the other hand, is psuedo limited to text (although posting multipart fragments of a warez file is still entirely possible).
You're making an assumption that all MP3s are pirate. MP3 is highly effective for any audio data. While I will concede that it currently seems to be primarily used for piracy it's still just a form of media.
Besides, as I note in an earlier post, this is hardly going to stop anybody:
url 1: list of Publius URLs for file fragments 1-19
url 2 through 20 (listed in url 1): MP3 of "They Might Be Giants - Istanbul" in fragments.
Program a client to seek and re-assemble the MP3 based on url 1. It's merely inconvenient (to the point where freenet will probably darwinize this to obscurity) but hardly a showstopper for pirates.
If it's searchable then you can legally pursue folks that have it on their systems. Note that they don't say they won't host certain files, just that the publius project will only list "interesting" files. I assume that you can still add and retrieve files regardless of content.
.3).
My (admittedly limited) knowledge of freenet leads me to believe that it operates on a similar principal, if you don't know the file key then you can't retrieve it (or it'll be that way when they get to
The file size limitation does seem somewhat arbitrary though. What's to prevent you from breaking a large file into several smaller files? It's a merely inconvenient method to try to suppress warez. You could even use the 100k file format to store a list of Publius URLs and then use a client program to download all the fragments listed.
Nice troll, but you're missing the point.
Filterware doesn't work. It doesn't block most porn and it does block stuff that isn't porn. And yet, even with the obvious information that it just plain doesn't work, our government (or parts of it anyway) want to MANDATE it for public institutions and often for adult use. While the loss of a certain chicken recipe is hardly going to convert us to a dictatorship, censorship is a slippery slope. Already many of these censorware sites block www.peacefire.org simply because they discuss the flaws of the programs and there is currently no way to force them to remove politically blocked sites from their blocking lists.
Censorware is used by these political groups to try and mandate a philosophy or religion that many of us feel is inappropriate for our government to mandate. While you may be comfy with this notion, that is your perogative, but the constitution is fairly clear on censorship based on religious criteria.
I for one do not wish to live in a nation where information on sex and drugs cannot be found simply because some group has decided that my innocence would be shattered by viewing it.
Frankly, anything that censors what I see without my consent is in my eyes an abomination. I have never had too much information to help me decide how to live my life. Too little information, however, has often bitten me. If the cost to prevent this is to also allow my son to have more information than I might like then so be it. I doubt a few nekkid pictures will cause any lasting damage to my son's fragile psyche, but not knowing when a drug combination is dangerous might kill him.
This is a nonsense troll. Granting carte blanche to any agency will result in the subsequent corruption of that agency. The current system is in place to provide checks and balances so that agencies *cannot* abuse their power.
Unreasoned railing against the FBI is unjustified, but preventing them from circumventing a constitution restriction is hardly out of line. We all have the right to our privacy (against unwarranted search and seizure). Why should we give up this right because the FBI feels like it isn't important anymore? The FBI does provide a useful service *most* of the time, but occasionally they go and do something stupid like blowing away some guy's pregnant wife, right after they've killed his son. Don't assume the FBI is always in the right, as a human agency their likelyhood of acting responsibly 100% of the time is effectively nil.
Do you want the FBI knowing about the porn you look at (incidentally, looking at porn is not illegal) so that they can use it to blackmail you to report on a friend of yours that they think is a criminal? Do you want them seeing your son's email to a friend telling them what great weed there was at that party last night and how their dad was pissed when they came back stoned (failure to report a crime, even on your son, can be interpreted as accessory to that crime).
Why shouldn't data be posted anonymously. It's easy for you to say that everybody should own up to what they say, but what if it could get you killed or in more trouble than is justifyable by your actions?
Most governments are not perfect in regards to the treatment of their citizens. Even mostly benevolent societies like those found in the US and Europe have been known to trample the rights of individuals on a whim or at the behest of powerful entities.
Anonymity allows for a certain measure of protective freedom to say what you think without having to worry about being crucified for it (assuming you're appropriately cautious in your anonymity).
While most of us do not need this anonymity right now (possibly ever), do not discount it's importance to the repressed.
Anonymity will certainly be used by assholes and jerks worldwide. The "responsibility avoidance" you mentioned does apply. However, there is no reason to assume that just because the majority of such traffic is inane, that it does not have legit uses.
Humanity's revolution for the next two decades to be feuled by bio-genetic discoveries, not by advances in computing power (not that one didn't catalyze the other)
Actually, I think both will be still involved. Genes encode proteins which then work on other atoms/molecules (short form explanation). Until we can do molecular modeling on a macro scale (cell size and larger), any genemodding will be very difficult to test due to the several billion different compounds present in a biological higher life form.
The computer power required for that sort of thing is still a few orders of magnitude away from present day with all but the most powerful (and expensive) supercomputers.
The first step is to use the data to help us understand what makes us tick. Why does alzheimers make us vegetables, why doesn't our body regulate fat accumulation better, why does macular degeneration occur for some and not for others.
Once we understand the workings of our bodies and how to repair them, we can greatly advance our treatment of virtually every ailment known to man (including old age). When you ask about the practical applications, I'm somewhat at a loss, there are far too many to list here.
Cloning (in comparison) is a simplistic matter, it only involves trying to copy somebody's genetic matter.
Review boards aside, this information will be used for good (hopefully predominately) and to further causes of greed or malevolence. To draw an analogy, for molecular biologists this is like having somebody dump the source code to the universe on your lap. We still have to wade through it all and figure out what it means, but we now have the friggin source (although obsfucated).
The technology is not to blame for the uses to which it is put. As implied by your quoted "benevolent", the entities or organizations that perform tests on unknowing subjects are hardly laudable.
The human genome project is a technological project of tremendous potential for both good and evil. Unlike the atom bomb, this could help fundamentally change the very basis of our global society for the better.
While you can complain about abuses of the past, I think your efforts would be better spent trying to ensure that they don't happen again and to encourage that the technology is used for maximum benefit for all humankind.
To some extent. Depending on the terms of service there is the possibility that the user could sue for breach of contract if the ISP is not permitted to terminate them for that particular case (and a blanket "we reserve the right to terminate without warning" probably wouldn't cover their asses). The problem with that is that of course the damages would be negligable unless we're talking about this guy/gal running a major site with advertising revenue.
The user's best bet is to take them to small claims court and try to get them to refund him the last two pay periods (one because it was terminated, the second to cover the user's costs to move all his content to another ISP).
I agree in general, but I think that it's entirely possible that a shake up is potentially the desired result. If you've got >50% of the controlling interest against an arguably good idea then there need to be some changes. Either Carmack will be booted out or he won't. Either way he'll land on his feet. If he stays, he's exposed the controlling interest for what they are thus causing them to lose face, if he goes then he will probably pull all the talent away from Id to make a new company.
Actually, I would say this is a particularly smart move on Carmack's part. I strongly suspect that they'll end up firing him and that Carmack will pull all the Id talent away with him to work on something similarly "doomish". Id's reputation will then be shot to hell and they'll be forced to fade into obscurity or make some major changes in order to get people to even consider working for them.
The network code for Doom1 is the culprit there. A number of companies banned doom because of the first version's network code. By Doom2, the code had been optimized so that it no longer flooded the network with useless packets. In any case, network code has progressed quite a bit since the days of doom, they'd be insane to even consider using the original code.
If realism was the goal then it wouldn't be much fun.
Imagine the following:
Let's see, a demon that fires balls of fire...oops, forgot they don't exist.
How about a plasma gun that...oh yeah, nobody's ever built a working plasma gun that's smaller than a boxcar...
Ok, how about..oh hell, just scrap it.
In general, for a *game* you keep what's fun and scratch what's not. It's not fun to "realistically" model fatigue from running with a full kit for most people. It is fun to "realistically" model the physics of bouncing objects and light diffraction because it increases the suspension of disbelief by making the world you're gaming in more similar to our own in an immediately visible sense. Perhaps if we develop a neural shunt that allows us to feel weight then it would make sense to model carrying load and fatigue.
If you feel differently, make your own game, perhaps others feel as you do. You could call it "quiver" (for what you're legs do when you pick up 500 odd rounds of ammo for various weapons, and 200 pounds of hardware + body armor).