We humans are drastically changing the environment. In this century we will see mass extinction. We will also see mass adaptations and new speciation. The hardiest and most successful new species may turn out to be the bacteria and engineered organisms and ultimately nanotechnological devices that can break down and reprocess our industrial waste. Who is to say all of this isn't natural? We're 100% natural, we evolved here and we're part of this system. Whatever we do, it's natural by definition.
The question is, what do we place value upon keeping around? The polar bears, the coral reefs, the rain forests? Polar bears are cute. Have you ever walked through a forest? I'd like for my kids to be able to go diving someday...
Security is no longer a concern with the Firefox installs I've set up for various family members. Firefox updates itself now, painlessly and seamlessly, and often within a day or two of serious security alerts. I wouldn't be surprised if some exploit gets announced over the weekend and everyone is on 1.5.0.7 by Tuesday morning. That is still way better than Microsoft.
I manage a team of Retention Specialists in Reston (posting AC for obvious reasons). I'm not so sure about all this talk of layoffs. They need us more than they realize, and they would surely be willing to keep us around a little while longer for a slightly lower salary. I mean, if they really decide we aren't needed anymore, they can always reconsider and cancel our employment next month. I'm sure they'll find they really really really miss us after we're gone.
Is whether Windows XP will still be available on new PCs. I don't want to purchase a license for Vista until at least a year after the bugs are worked out, which might be early 2008. Will I be able to buy a *NEW* PC (capable of running vista) with good ole windows XP preinstalled for the entirety of 2007?
Not everybody wants to upgrade to some shiny new untested environment.
When enough content exists within those hops to let users surf for longer and longer time periods before hopping to a big-pipe ISP, you're going to see this mess move on. The largest middleman of the internet to get cut is...the backbone!
That's why we need wireless hardware that has a built-in 1TB hard disk and talks freely to nearby unrelated wireless hardware. Instead of fetching http://slashdot.org/ from the central server each time, you can get it from one of your neighbors. Routers that hash, cache, and share chunks of data independently and anonymously are essential for decentralized Internet progress.
Anyone who is trying to predict what the Internet will really look like ten years from now is insane.
FWIW, I've had several run-ins with cops and they've been mostly friendly. I ran a red light when I was 16. I've been pulled over for speeding twice on the interstates. I had a minor fender bender [unrelated to the other incidents]. I've summoned police and/or medical for people in several life-threatening situations. I've dealt with local police, city police, campus police, state police, and the county sheriff deputies in several situations in different states and I really have no complaints. They were respectful, fair, and helpful. Maybe it's just because I'm white though.
Go forth with the electronic machines, they're fine and we need to move forward eventually. However, there needs to be a paper trail. It's important enough that each vote be represented with an anonymous piece of paper that spits out of the back of each voting machine after each vote is counted.
Then, count the votes efficiently by downloading the results from each of the electronic machines. But make it easy for anyone to calculate a checksum from the stack of ballots by visually inspecting them, to make sure the checksum matches with the machine's electronic total result. And randomly check a subset of the machines even more carefully to make sure each machine's stack of ballots matches its internal count of votes *EXACTLY*. There's no need to check them all, as long as the checks are random.
Anything less is inviting fraud.
Any tech guru leaving Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, YouTube, or any other innovative company, to go work for Microsoft, *would* be breaking news. Hate to say it, but it ain't happenin'. Somebody, prove me wrong.
Just like I can invite my neighbor upstairs to mosey on down and watch my cable TV, I can also invite him to SSH in and stream whatever I can capture live with my devices. There's no way to prevent that unless you allow the government to come in and regulate what I can and cannot do on my own LAN in my own home. I can thwart this easily with encryption. The only thing that will stop me from sharing my data is if I cannot buy hardware that will let me do what I want. At that point, I quit buying altogether. The media and distribution cartels would love to control the hardware, but guess what? If you make it so I can't keep a copy of what I watch on TV, I'lll quit subscribing to your service. Anyone who wants to control how culture and media spread between individuals can go fuck themselves. I don't need their content and I won't pay for it. And I won't buy hardware that constrains my fair use.
The media cartels can have the sheeple and their money. There will always be a significant chunk of people who don't mind missing out on the garbage they distribute. Bring it on, the broadcast flag, the HDMI ports, the DRM, all of it. There's nothing really compelling on TV anymore anyway.
One of the things that's unnerving about deja vu is that it reminds you that your perceptual systems are not perfect. What is reality is not necessarily what you perceive. Go have a look at this: http://www.ritsumei.ac.jp/~akitaoka/index-e.html. Your mind doesn't always register and record exactly what you're seeing.
Fortunately, deja vu can be (and is) being explained by science. I hope we don't get an influx of pseudoscientific theories like we did with the recent telepathy/esp article...
What is the standard of proof required in cases like these? Have any actually gone to trial? My understanding is that a British ISP basically told the European equivalent of the MPAA/RIAA to GTFO unless they could provide convincing evidence of the accused users downloading specific files at specific times. I've also heard that all the basically have is a screenshot of the "infringing content" along with a hash of some sort. That's not enough to convince me if I were a judge. The hash could be the result of a collision. On some of these networks you can try to download something called "ubuntu-5.10-intel.iso" and end up with an infringing copy of "Meet the Fokkers" because the filenames can be changed. If he had wifi, maybe his network got cracked. Maybe he was running a tor exit link. All of these establish plenty of doubt as to whether he actually deliberately downloaded anything.
Go Shawn Hogan. Get these crooks to tell us "Where's the proof?"
Hi. I agree Hatch is a corporate whore, but you can't googlebomb him from your slashdot sig. Googlebot doesn't log in to read pages, so it won't see the sig.
Back on track, one wonders what the management structures must be like if a project gets this far without someone, somewhere in the Walmart behomoth saying 'umm, this is a really, really cheesy and embarassingly bad idea'.
This is the challenge of the early 21st century in a nutshell: how do the people who actually have a clue take back control of the means of production and communication from the megacorporations and governments and reverse the otherwise inevitable train wreck of human civilization that we're currently living through.
You could... almost... write a mass-market book about it. But that would be selling out.
I can't believe how naive these failed-meme-launching marketing execs keep proving themselves to be.
There are 95 million myspace users and every week another million sign up. There aren't enough additional people in the Internet-using public in america to even come close to competing with myspace. They'd be lucky to pick up a couple hundred thousand users. And why would you use this instead of myspace?
This isn't intended to compete with myspace. It's just another marketing disaster.
"You've just become a member of one of the coolest cliques on the net. Be sure to spam your friends...
Wait for the goatse... Meanwhile I'll be uploading random copyright infringing content via tor... This must be good for something.
A saavy hosting company can virtualize multiple machines into one physical box. The companies who can do this well enough so that their customers cannot tell the difference will operate more efficiently. Power isn't going to get cheaper, until we figure out how to stop burning what's left of our fossil fuels.
In the end, the consumers will see none of it (who's really going to go through to paper work for a $3 rebate?), the lawyers will see millions, and the government will get the unclaimed payouts.
I've been an involuntary class member for several of these worthless fucking class action suits that only make the lawyers richer. And what did I get? Twenty minutes of free long distance phone calls, or maybe a free CD from the same damned company that screwed me in the first place.
Fuck that. These class action suits aren't helping the consumers they ostensibly represent and they're not doing anything to stop the guilty corporations from breaking the law in the first place.
We need some lawyers on our (the real consumers)' side, to sue the original company AND the fucking worthless partnerships who benefit from these "consumer class-action suits".
Let's see some REAL pro bono work. Let's see some of these rich attorneys take some real risks and litigate some cases for us, the consumers. Come on, it will make you famous if you win. I'm getting sick of this bullshit from Corporate America and our so-called representatives in Congress.
I haven't read it thoroughly, but as I understand it, the service is basically for entertainment purposes only. I can't use it to login for work and check on my server (section 3.4). I can't post a racist comment to an online forum. I can't send an obscene picture to another consenting adult who asked for it. I can't even send something obscene to myself. I can't really do much but access mainstream media like, say, disney.com. I can't count on my "connection" for anything.
What we need is neighborhood wireless (or wired) mesh networks with robust redundant connections to the actual internet via guaranteed (commercial) gateways. Then the telcos and the cable companies won't matter as much anymore.
This method of distributing large files which require a lot of bandwidth does an end run around the telcos who are trying to charge large sites extra money, without the need for specific "Net Neutrality" legislation.
If YouTube were able to distribute their video content (at least the most popular ones) via p2p, they wouldn't need such a large pipe if they're only seeding and running a tracker-like service. The p2p user base will share amongst themselves (which is more efficient anyway for the ISPs). If someone else on my own ISP's network has the video already, I don't need to stream it directly from YouTube or Google, when I can get most of it from my neighbor.
The government very clearly saw what happens when you have a well educated youth during the 60's. The fact that public education has been on the decline since those days is no accident.
Your post suggests a conspiracy theory which is
(x) paranoid ( ) delusional (x) impossible to confirm (x) impossible to refute
Specifically, your theory fails to account for
(x) Stupidity of the general population (x) Lack of a centrally controlling authority for conspiracies (x) Failure to mention the Illuminati (x) Facts can be explained without need for a real conspiracy (x) Stupidity of the politicians ( ) Asshats
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been proven (x) That's what they WANT us to think
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, you're batshit crazy ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it. ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
Slashdot Mirror
We humans are drastically changing the environment. In this century we will see mass extinction. We will also see mass adaptations and new speciation. The hardiest and most successful new species may turn out to be the bacteria and engineered organisms and ultimately nanotechnological devices that can break down and reprocess our industrial waste. Who is to say all of this isn't natural? We're 100% natural, we evolved here and we're part of this system. Whatever we do, it's natural by definition.
The question is, what do we place value upon keeping around? The polar bears, the coral reefs, the rain forests? Polar bears are cute. Have you ever walked through a forest? I'd like for my kids to be able to go diving someday...
Security is no longer a concern with the Firefox installs I've set up for various family members. Firefox updates itself now, painlessly and seamlessly, and often within a day or two of serious security alerts. I wouldn't be surprised if some exploit gets announced over the weekend and everyone is on 1.5.0.7 by Tuesday morning. That is still way better than Microsoft.
I manage a team of Retention Specialists in Reston (posting AC for obvious reasons). I'm not so sure about all this talk of layoffs. They need us more than they realize, and they would surely be willing to keep us around a little while longer for a slightly lower salary. I mean, if they really decide we aren't needed anymore, they can always reconsider and cancel our employment next month. I'm sure they'll find they really really really miss us after we're gone.
Microsoft is quite capable of this all by themselves.
sigh...
Is whether Windows XP will still be available on new PCs. I don't want to purchase a license for Vista until at least a year after the bugs are worked out, which might be early 2008. Will I be able to buy a *NEW* PC (capable of running vista) with good ole windows XP preinstalled for the entirety of 2007?
Not everybody wants to upgrade to some shiny new untested environment.
That's why we need wireless hardware that has a built-in 1TB hard disk and talks freely to nearby unrelated wireless hardware. Instead of fetching http://slashdot.org/ from the central server each time, you can get it from one of your neighbors. Routers that hash, cache, and share chunks of data independently and anonymously are essential for decentralized Internet progress.
Anyone who is trying to predict what the Internet will really look like ten years from now is insane.
There's always Glenn Beck.
FWIW, I've had several run-ins with cops and they've been mostly friendly. I ran a red light when I was 16. I've been pulled over for speeding twice on the interstates. I had a minor fender bender [unrelated to the other incidents]. I've summoned police and/or medical for people in several life-threatening situations. I've dealt with local police, city police, campus police, state police, and the county sheriff deputies in several situations in different states and I really have no complaints. They were respectful, fair, and helpful. Maybe it's just because I'm white though.
Go forth with the electronic machines, they're fine and we need to move forward eventually. However, there needs to be a paper trail. It's important enough that each vote be represented with an anonymous piece of paper that spits out of the back of each voting machine after each vote is counted.
Then, count the votes efficiently by downloading the results from each of the electronic machines. But make it easy for anyone to calculate a checksum from the stack of ballots by visually inspecting them, to make sure the checksum matches with the machine's electronic total result. And randomly check a subset of the machines even more carefully to make sure each machine's stack of ballots matches its internal count of votes *EXACTLY*. There's no need to check them all, as long as the checks are random. Anything less is inviting fraud.
Any tech guru leaving Google, Yahoo!, Amazon, YouTube, or any other innovative company, to go work for Microsoft, *would* be breaking news. Hate to say it, but it ain't happenin'. Somebody, prove me wrong.
Just like I can invite my neighbor upstairs to mosey on down and watch my cable TV, I can also invite him to SSH in and stream whatever I can capture live with my devices. There's no way to prevent that unless you allow the government to come in and regulate what I can and cannot do on my own LAN in my own home. I can thwart this easily with encryption. The only thing that will stop me from sharing my data is if I cannot buy hardware that will let me do what I want. At that point, I quit buying altogether. The media and distribution cartels would love to control the hardware, but guess what? If you make it so I can't keep a copy of what I watch on TV, I'lll quit subscribing to your service. Anyone who wants to control how culture and media spread between individuals can go fuck themselves. I don't need their content and I won't pay for it. And I won't buy hardware that constrains my fair use.
The media cartels can have the sheeple and their money. There will always be a significant chunk of people who don't mind missing out on the garbage they distribute. Bring it on, the broadcast flag, the HDMI ports, the DRM, all of it. There's nothing really compelling on TV anymore anyway.
Fortunately, deja vu can be (and is) being explained by science. I hope we don't get an influx of pseudoscientific theories like we did with the recent telepathy/esp article...
Pink Floyd fans go on a different list.
Go Shawn Hogan. Get these crooks to tell us "Where's the proof?"
Hi. I agree Hatch is a corporate whore, but you can't googlebomb him from your slashdot sig. Googlebot doesn't log in to read pages, so it won't see the sig.
It is not productive for slashdotters to repeatedly discuss the same thing over and over. The purpose of an article is for us to
Now, could you please RETRACT this article and reassign all relevant comments to the previous article. Thank you.
Quokkapox [wanna-be editor]
Sorry, I don't get the above. Please explain...
Back on track, one wonders what the management structures must be like if a project gets this far without someone, somewhere in the Walmart behomoth saying 'umm, this is a really, really cheesy and embarassingly bad idea'.
This is the challenge of the early 21st century in a nutshell: how do the people who actually have a clue take back control of the means of production and communication from the megacorporations and governments and reverse the otherwise inevitable train wreck of human civilization that we're currently living through.
You could... almost... write a mass-market book about it. But that would be selling out.
I can't believe how naive these failed-meme-launching marketing execs keep proving themselves to be.
There are 95 million myspace users and every week another million sign up. There aren't enough additional people in the Internet-using public in america to even come close to competing with myspace. They'd be lucky to pick up a couple hundred thousand users. And why would you use this instead of myspace?
This isn't intended to compete with myspace. It's just another marketing disaster.
"You've just become a member of one of the coolest cliques on the net. Be sure to spam your friends...
Wait for the goatse... Meanwhile I'll be uploading random copyright infringing content via tor... This must be good for something.
A saavy hosting company can virtualize multiple machines into one physical box. The companies who can do this well enough so that their customers cannot tell the difference will operate more efficiently. Power isn't going to get cheaper, until we figure out how to stop burning what's left of our fossil fuels.
I've been an involuntary class member for several of these worthless fucking class action suits that only make the lawyers richer. And what did I get? Twenty minutes of free long distance phone calls, or maybe a free CD from the same damned company that screwed me in the first place.
Fuck that. These class action suits aren't helping the consumers they ostensibly represent and they're not doing anything to stop the guilty corporations from breaking the law in the first place.
We need some lawyers on our (the real consumers)' side, to sue the original company AND the fucking worthless partnerships who benefit from these "consumer class-action suits".
Let's see some REAL pro bono work. Let's see some of these rich attorneys take some real risks and litigate some cases for us, the consumers. Come on, it will make you famous if you win. I'm getting sick of this bullshit from Corporate America and our so-called representatives in Congress.
Okay. How about this: Verizon Terms of Service.
I haven't read it thoroughly, but as I understand it, the service is basically for entertainment purposes only. I can't use it to login for work and check on my server (section 3.4). I can't post a racist comment to an online forum. I can't send an obscene picture to another consenting adult who asked for it. I can't even send something obscene to myself. I can't really do much but access mainstream media like, say, disney.com. I can't count on my "connection" for anything.
What we need is neighborhood wireless (or wired) mesh networks with robust redundant connections to the actual internet via guaranteed (commercial) gateways. Then the telcos and the cable companies won't matter as much anymore.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is subject to Bigguv'ment trying to screw it up.
Any technology vulnerable to governmental and corporate interference is insufficiently advanced.
This method of distributing large files which require a lot of bandwidth does an end run around the telcos who are trying to charge large sites extra money, without the need for specific "Net Neutrality" legislation.
If YouTube were able to distribute their video content (at least the most popular ones) via p2p, they wouldn't need such a large pipe if they're only seeding and running a tracker-like service. The p2p user base will share amongst themselves (which is more efficient anyway for the ISPs). If someone else on my own ISP's network has the video already, I don't need to stream it directly from YouTube or Google, when I can get most of it from my neighbor.
Your post suggests a conspiracy theory which is
(x) paranoid
( ) delusional
(x) impossible to confirm
(x) impossible to refute
Specifically, your theory fails to account for
(x) Stupidity of the general population
(x) Lack of a centrally controlling authority for conspiracies
(x) Failure to mention the Illuminati
(x) Facts can be explained without need for a real conspiracy
(x) Stupidity of the politicians
( ) Asshats
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been proven
(x) That's what they WANT us to think
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(x) Sorry dude, you're batshit crazy
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!