Isreal is one of the few nations that practice this and it tends to help with new political parties come in and not stagnate with with a two party system.
You do know that your employer is required by law to give you time off to vote, don't you?
That is nice to know, but I think we should celebrate elections much we do other holidays. Voting should be a celebration, but not a hassle or a burden where we have to stand up and ask our employers time off when we know it will be 6 hours in line at the polls.
Because many think there is such at thing as a free lunch. They are wrong but that's what they think.
Technically, I used to get free lunches all the time, but I had to waste time listening to bad powerpoint presentations of sales people who I had no intention of buying anything from.
But seriously, nothing is free except air and the light from the sun, but cost is minimized to an extent it might as well be free. When your cost to produce comodities reaches near zero (bandwidth, hardware, and electricity) then your product or ad space could be sold for extremely low prices and you still make enourmous profit (depending)
However, we haven't reached that point (yet) mostly because it still costs an arm and a leg to host full streaming HD quality video and unless you are Comcast, Google, or Verizon you really don't have the resources needed to give it away for free forever like YouTube.
However, what happens in 20 years when bandwidth exceeds full motion HD video and you can download a 1000 TB in just a few seconds and you can host your own super webserver from your laptop? I mean full imersion can only go up to the point where we can't tell the difference between reality and our downloadable entertainment?
At that point in our lives (if we are still around) everything will literally become free at least with Intellectual Property (in a sense) because we've saturated the known universe with material that no one is going to bother paying for either through piracy or home made junk or reality TV etc. I dunno... Its just a guess.
However, in 20 years we might have robotics making things you buy at the store for free as well... But as they mentioned in the technological singularity article a few stories back... Well... It might be a moot point.
Because, if they DO PROTECT THEIR IP, The OTHER GUY has to waste TONS OF MONEY on reverse-engineering teams and highly-qualified people to reverse-engineer the processor via electron microscopes.
Hrm... That sounds like wearing a bullet proof vest to force the other guys to drop an expensive missile on your head to kill you.
The only problem I see with this is that you are still dead, but if the fact that just dropped an object that costs $25 million dollars on you is any consolation... So be it.
Ever hear of the generation gap? The youth of today are different from us--they've been raised from birth in a world of ubiquitous networked computing and ambient findability. (see? I can throw around stupid buzzwords too.) Talk of "The Singularity" is not much different from complaining that your kids spend all their time texting. It's making explicit the fact that you can't imagine keeping up as you age. Well duh. We won't be running the show in 2050--our kids and their kids will.
That is a fallicy because things will be changing so fast that it won't be the old generation vs the new generation but rather the person who can upgrade their mind via nanotechnology or implants versus a ordinary biological human.
People in the future will not be old and new, but rather enchanced or unenhanced.
A 60 year old with a full prosthetic body with direct neural implants with memory augmentation in 2040 will be far superior than a 20 year old with old fashion flesh and bloody.
Not only can the 60 year old not die in a car wreck but he can outthink the 20 year old and command all the knowledge of the internet wireless through this implants in his brain.
Newsflash: If you piss off your judge by publically whining about their policies and practices, you can be probably be hanged until dead at any war crimes trial in the world.
Moral of the story: If your company is practicing illegal, immoral, and activities that violate international treaties and conventions you'd better cover your ass because "They told me to do it or they'd fire me" won't be a good exscuse.
That and if believe its ok for your employer to fire you because you stated opposition to their illegal activities than you've got another thing coming.
When your fingerprints have been compromised (not very hard to do) you can't change them
Ummm.... Yes you can. Although it requires an exacto knife, a hot iron, and a bottle of tequila.
But seriously, one of my friends bio-metric logon dongle they had for their computer wouldn't recognize one of my fingers after I had an accident with a hot light bulb. It burned my thumb print til it blistered and I removed the dead skin leaving only smooth raw skin exposed for a bit. Actually, it wasn't as much as an accident me being stupid.
But still... I noticed that the device couldn't read a smooth print. It grew back though.
Funny... If you replaced your words with another famous "uhampered" security group we all know of we get something like this:
Personally I think we should let the Gestopo do its job. When Gestopo data starts being used to find Christian Democrats and Socialists we've got a problem, but as long as its used for national defense and national defense only I personally think its a good idea to let them do there job unhampered. Imagine if the Reichstag fire had been prevented by such a program? When I say national defense I mean attacks like Reichstag fire, Soviet invasions, etc. things killing hundreds or thousands of people.
Ironically, unhampered security groups do lead to invasions and killing of hundred of thousands of people. Personally I don't think that the NSA is even remotly comparable to the Gestopo, but what if in 20 years a power hungry psycho uses the massive amount of power we let the NSA have today to declare a defacto dictatorship?
If we make the Presidency so powerful and unhampered as well as its agencies then corrupt evil people desiring power will seek this position. We must keep the Presidents and security groups in check so that this never happens.
All it takes is one large volcano to erupt and it'll throw off all your predictions.
Don't panic. The 30-Year weather predicting supercomputer predicted this and is designing supercomputer that is powerful enough and specifically built for predicting volcanic activity.
However, it will take 30 years to do so... Much to relief of weather who were protesting that their livelihoods were at stake.
Prove it. But hey, I bet you predicted that response.
To be fair, there is nothing that can really be proven by scientific method. That is the definition of Proof. Just approximated to be "We think this phenomenon happens most of time according to these sets of rules in the observable universe" and every now and then we have to revise the rules to account for different scenarios. You know... like traveling close to the speed of light.
I sat 2 hours of this movie and he just dies at the end anyways so that nothing changes?
I mean he could have died at the begining of the movie and everything would have been peachy because none of the things he did mattered......because he was supposed to die all along.
The only other game that has disturbed me was those "You win!" ending screens on the NES after 36 hours of game play.
"Well, of course we must respect the views of those who follow the transhumanist faith..."
But then again... Transhumanism isn't a religion. At best it is an ideology like Technocratism, Marxism, or Singularitian.
Transhumanists don't believe in a messiah of technology or even go to church or pay dues. They just assume that technology will help them rise above their current limitations as a human.
As opposed to a Singularitian, who believes that currents trends make lead to a Singularity type of event through Strong AI. But that movement is secular and believes that such an event would be acheived via science and technology instead of magic and gods.
Then again... Many Transhumanists buy into the singularity and vice versa.
But both groups are pretty much secular and or humanists. No faith or belief or required.
Assuming we could keep body parts alive in suspended animation after the host is dead, we could do exactly what Niven described. The question is, will we?
The Singularity, nanotechnology, robotics, or genetic engineering will make your question a moot point in say 50 or so odd years. I'm not sure which...
However, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex had a unique take on the problem during one of their episodes.
Basically across a few episodes involving people who kidnapped girls for the fresh organs to sell on the blackmarket there were several types of people that were involved in organ transplants.
1. The cyborgs (like the Major) - who didn't need organs since they there were 99% (except for their brains) machine 2. People that paid an organ company to grow their organs in pigs who were genetically engineered to have human blood as the same type as the person growing the organs 3. The Russian mafia types who were kidnapping girls and removing their organs. 4. Med students who secretly stole organs from people getting full prosthetic bodies and were going to throw those organs out anyways.
So my opinion is that in 30-50 years, the need for organs will be minimal either because of that we can grow them in a vat (or maybe a pig) or just replace them with a machine that does something similar.
Despite the expierience of not a few Slashdotters, managers are still quite important in any organisation.
I've always said, managers are bad per se, but when they don't understand the technology or the work their employees do or even understand what the company does to make money, then you've got a problem.
In most places that I have seen be successful, they have taken engineers or technicians who weren't the world's best technician or engineer, but knew a bit about management or had "managment-esque skills" and then upgraded him to that position rather than hiring someone from outside the company. Since the new manager knows what the people beneath him do and understand the concepts and technology they work with, he can effectively make decisions.
Hiring management people just because they are managers is a bad idea when working with complex or difficult technologies. Either the manager is going to make bad decisions because he is oblivious to his ignorance or he just lets people do whatever they want because he doesn't know what to do.
This approach may or may not solve click fraud, but it certainly doesn't solve the wider problem of proving that it's a human performing some action instead of a computer - and that one definitely needs to be nailed.
Actually, as computer power increases as well as the complexity of pattern recognition algorithms, this will be harder and harder to tell a human user from a computer.
Eventually, we won't be able to tell the difference in 20 years or so...
On the bright side, sentient computers might way to make purchases online too.
Access to gasoline isn't a right either, but kind of puts a crimp in your life if you can't buy it.
And I guess the telephone service isn't a right either, but kind of sucks when you need to call 911 or get a call for a phone interview for a new job to feed your family.
Then again... We don't have an inalienable right to electricity either even if it means we can't store food in our fridges or do things at night.
I mean... We can live without all above, but life would be pretty miserable.
Say that you are on an earth size planet with no atmosphere and you drop two similar size spheress... One is normal matter. One is Neturon Star matter and has the mass of Jupiter. Do you think they fall at the same speed in this 1 G planet?
Ummm... I hate to break this to you, but... Um.... If you drop a small sphere with the mass of Jupiter on the surface of an earth sized... Well... The earth sized planet will break orbit and move towards it... At an alarming rate... And um.... Basically be crushed and consumed by that small sphere of neutron star matter including the science team involved in droping the sphere and any other near orbiting matter.
Slashdot Mirror
Proportional Representation
Isreal is one of the few nations that practice this and it tends to help with new political parties come in and not stagnate with with a two party system.
You do know that your employer is required by law to give you time off to vote, don't you?
That is nice to know, but I think we should celebrate elections much we do other holidays. Voting should be a celebration, but not a hassle or a burden where we have to stand up and ask our employers time off when we know it will be 6 hours in line at the polls.
Because many think there is such at thing as a free lunch. They are wrong but that's what they think.
Technically, I used to get free lunches all the time, but I had to waste time listening to bad powerpoint presentations of sales people who I had no intention of buying anything from.
But seriously, nothing is free except air and the light from the sun, but cost is minimized to an extent it might as well be free. When your cost to produce comodities reaches near zero (bandwidth, hardware, and electricity) then your product or ad space could be sold for extremely low prices and you still make enourmous profit (depending)
However, we haven't reached that point (yet) mostly because it still costs an arm and a leg to host full streaming HD quality video and unless you are Comcast, Google, or Verizon you really don't have the resources needed to give it away for free forever like YouTube.
However, what happens in 20 years when bandwidth exceeds full motion HD video and you can download a 1000 TB in just a few seconds and you can host your own super webserver from your laptop? I mean full imersion can only go up to the point where we can't tell the difference between reality and our downloadable entertainment?
At that point in our lives (if we are still around) everything will literally become free at least with Intellectual Property (in a sense) because we've saturated the known universe with material that no one is going to bother paying for either through piracy or home made junk or reality TV etc. I dunno... Its just a guess.
However, in 20 years we might have robotics making things you buy at the store for free as well... But as they mentioned in the technological singularity article a few stories back... Well... It might be a moot point.
Because, if they DO PROTECT THEIR IP, The OTHER GUY has to waste TONS OF MONEY on reverse-engineering teams and highly-qualified people to reverse-engineer the processor via electron microscopes.
Hrm... That sounds like wearing a bullet proof vest to force the other guys to drop an expensive missile on your head to kill you.
The only problem I see with this is that you are still dead, but if the fact that just dropped an object that costs $25 million dollars on you is any consolation... So be it.
That is a fallicy because things will be changing so fast that it won't be the old generation vs the new generation but rather the person who can upgrade their mind via nanotechnology or implants versus a ordinary biological human.
People in the future will not be old and new, but rather enchanced or unenhanced.
A 60 year old with a full prosthetic body with direct neural implants with memory augmentation in 2040 will be far superior than a 20 year old with old fashion flesh and bloody.
Not only can the 60 year old not die in a car wreck but he can outthink the 20 year old and command all the knowledge of the internet wireless through this implants in his brain.
Newsflash: If you piss off your judge by publically whining about their policies and practices, you can be probably be hanged until dead at any war crimes trial in the world.
Moral of the story: If your company is practicing illegal, immoral, and activities that violate international treaties and conventions you'd better cover your ass because "They told me to do it or they'd fire me" won't be a good exscuse.
That and if believe its ok for your employer to fire you because you stated opposition to their illegal activities than you've got another thing coming.
Im I the only one wondering what the hell this has to do with our online rights??
I'm sure the people being waterboarded were thinking the same thing.
Why can't the Chinese set up thier firewalls block this kind sh*t?
Who says this isn't the Chinese government sending out the PPT files?
When your fingerprints have been compromised (not very hard to do) you can't change them
Ummm.... Yes you can. Although it requires an exacto knife, a hot iron, and a bottle of tequila.
But seriously, one of my friends bio-metric logon dongle they had for their computer wouldn't recognize one of my fingers after I had an accident with a hot light bulb. It burned my thumb print til it blistered and I removed the dead skin leaving only smooth raw skin exposed for a bit. Actually, it wasn't as much as an accident me being stupid.
But still... I noticed that the device couldn't read a smooth print. It grew back though.
Ironically, unhampered security groups do lead to invasions and killing of hundred of thousands of people. Personally I don't think that the NSA is even remotly comparable to the Gestopo, but what if in 20 years a power hungry psycho uses the massive amount of power we let the NSA have today to declare a defacto dictatorship?
If we make the Presidency so powerful and unhampered as well as its agencies then corrupt evil people desiring power will seek this position. We must keep the Presidents and security groups in check so that this never happens.
All it takes is one large volcano to erupt and it'll throw off all your predictions.
Don't panic. The 30-Year weather predicting supercomputer predicted this and is designing supercomputer that is powerful enough and specifically built for predicting volcanic activity.
However, it will take 30 years to do so... Much to relief of weather who were protesting that their livelihoods were at stake.
I think for the large part, the world of psychics is snake oil, predators preying on the gullible.
Depends. I think I have latent psychic powers, but its not very useful.
Mostly, I notice it when people call in to my job at tech support and I already know what the problem is.
And I already know the solution to their problem.
You know... Rebooting the computer
Unfortunatley I haven't been able to figure out how to strangle people remotley with my mind... yet.
To be fair, there is nothing that can really be proven by scientific method. That is the definition of Proof. Just approximated to be "We think this phenomenon happens most of time according to these sets of rules in the observable universe" and every now and then we have to revise the rules to account for different scenarios. You know... like traveling close to the speed of light.
...it just pissed me off!
...because he was supposed to die all along.
I sat 2 hours of this movie and he just dies at the end anyways so that nothing changes?
I mean he could have died at the begining of the movie and everything would have been peachy because none of the things he did mattered...
The only other game that has disturbed me was those "You win!" ending screens on the NES after 36 hours of game play.
I'm sure Skype's lawyers might see this differently.
I'm sure the Chinese authorities might not care what they see differently.
Occam's Razor be damned.
To be fair, the simplest solution ist that Occam could be wrong about his razor.
"Well, of course we must respect the views of those who follow the transhumanist faith ..."
But then again... Transhumanism isn't a religion. At best it is an ideology like Technocratism, Marxism, or Singularitian.
Transhumanists don't believe in a messiah of technology or even go to church or pay dues. They just assume that technology will help them rise above their current limitations as a human.
As opposed to a Singularitian, who believes that currents trends make lead to a Singularity type of event through Strong AI. But that movement is secular and believes that such an event would be acheived via science and technology instead of magic and gods.
Then again... Many Transhumanists buy into the singularity and vice versa.
But both groups are pretty much secular and or humanists. No faith or belief or required.
Maybe a bit of over reaching optimism.
There is lots of evidence that we landed on the moon (900 pounds of moonrocks being a good part of it).
The funny thing about moon rocks is that they turned out to be very similar to material on the the earth.
So we can assume that the moon was either part of the earth a long time ago or that they just happened to fly in some rocks from the desert.
Assuming we could keep body parts alive in suspended animation after the host is dead, we could do exactly what Niven described. The question is, will we?
The Singularity, nanotechnology, robotics, or genetic engineering will make your question a moot point in say 50 or so odd years. I'm not sure which...
However, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex had a unique take on the problem during one of their episodes.
Basically across a few episodes involving people who kidnapped girls for the fresh organs to sell on the blackmarket there were several types of people that were involved in organ transplants.
1. The cyborgs (like the Major) - who didn't need organs since they there were 99% (except for their brains) machine
2. People that paid an organ company to grow their organs in pigs who were genetically engineered to have human blood as the same type as the person growing the organs
3. The Russian mafia types who were kidnapping girls and removing their organs.
4. Med students who secretly stole organs from people getting full prosthetic bodies and were going to throw those organs out anyways.
So my opinion is that in 30-50 years, the need for organs will be minimal either because of that we can grow them in a vat (or maybe a pig) or just replace them with a machine that does something similar.
Despite the expierience of not a few Slashdotters, managers are still quite important in any organisation.
I've always said, managers are bad per se, but when they don't understand the technology or the work their employees do or even understand what the company does to make money, then you've got a problem.
In most places that I have seen be successful, they have taken engineers or technicians who weren't the world's best technician or engineer, but knew a bit about management or had "managment-esque skills" and then upgraded him to that position rather than hiring someone from outside the company. Since the new manager knows what the people beneath him do and understand the concepts and technology they work with, he can effectively make decisions.
Hiring management people just because they are managers is a bad idea when working with complex or difficult technologies. Either the manager is going to make bad decisions because he is oblivious to his ignorance or he just lets people do whatever they want because he doesn't know what to do.
This approach may or may not solve click fraud, but it certainly doesn't solve the wider problem of proving that it's a human performing some action instead of a computer - and that one definitely needs to be nailed.
Actually, as computer power increases as well as the complexity of pattern recognition algorithms, this will be harder and harder to tell a human user from a computer.
Eventually, we won't be able to tell the difference in 20 years or so...
On the bright side, sentient computers might way to make purchases online too.
Don't.
Be.
Evil.
Access to the "Internet" is not a right.
Access to gasoline isn't a right either, but kind of puts a crimp in your life if you can't buy it.
And I guess the telephone service isn't a right either, but kind of sucks when you need to call 911 or get a call for a phone interview for a new job to feed your family.
Then again... We don't have an inalienable right to electricity either even if it means we can't store food in our fridges or do things at night.
I mean... We can live without all above, but life would be pretty miserable.
I'm a firm believer in the idea, "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."
I dunno... I've always felt that sometimes outright malice is forgiven for pretending to be stupid.
Say that you are on an earth size planet with no atmosphere and you drop two similar size spheress... One is normal matter. One is Neturon Star matter and has the mass of Jupiter. Do you think they fall at the same speed in this 1 G planet?
Ummm... I hate to break this to you, but... Um.... If you drop a small sphere with the mass of Jupiter on the surface of an earth sized... Well... The earth sized planet will break orbit and move towards it... At an alarming rate... And um.... Basically be crushed and consumed by that small sphere of neutron star matter including the science team involved in droping the sphere and any other near orbiting matter.
So yeah... I think this is a bad idea.