...for some I'm sure, but the idea that you are what you read is faulty. An intelligent person can tell if what their reading is complete BS or not.
As Americans we've come to distrust our own eyes in favor of a benevolent authority to tell us what to believe. We want our information catered to our world views so we're all nice and cozy. But a true intellectual reads everything and makes all their decisions on their own without any help from anyone. The author has basically taken the fad diet and applied it to mental health.
I do think our collective ADD is related to our obesity, but it has more to do with our malnourishment than our obesity. Most people don't realize that you can be fat and malnourished. But our food has no nutrients at all, it's just empty calories. (Even the stuff that's marketed as healthy like yogurt.) I think it's the hidden root of a lot of our problems. And I don't see how you can build a great society on sugar and wonder bread.
I agree whole heartedly with the parent post. Ignore the Java slam post entirely; it's a bit of arrogence. I've found that the only practical use of such garbage is to formulate esoteric interview questions. A company that would expect you to know something so specific given the breadth of work available with computers is rediculous.
For me, my education in computer science was a survey of what was out there and a ticket into the door for my first job. I think it was worth it and I think that's all you can really expect of it. It's up to you to get excited about an area, not your university. I suggest you do get excited about something and bring that excitement to your interviews. Good people will appreciate that much more than your amazing knowledge of template specialization. Although you certainly do need to build up some domain knowledge. But focusing on knowledge for knowledge sake is putting the horse before the cart in my opinion. You will gain knowledge automatically through the joyful practice of your profession. This stuff is fun. Don't let the inferiority complexes of a few a-holes ruin that for you.
That's so true. I always just scan the quests quickly for whatever it is I need to kill or gather. I never pay attention to the story. I shut off my account because I can't stand another gather 20 of these things quests, or kill 20 of these... Boring as hell. Especially now that I've played Oblivion and know that story can actually drive the game. Flying is boring as hell too, who thought I'd be fun to wait 15 minutes to fly from one end of a continent to the other?
Re:Ability to accept training
on
The Expert Mind
·
· Score: 1
So what do you suggest we aim for? Virtuosity?
Re:Ability to accept training
on
The Expert Mind
·
· Score: 1
Not necessarily a bad thing if we're talking about one's general happines. In America Samoa they work only a few hours a week, just long enough to ensure that the village has food. The rest of the time is spent with social activities. They have lots of sex and everyone in their society learns to dance from birth. Their society centers around community and cooperation with no room for prodigies.
Our technical advances don't necessarily buy us happiness, just power - for whatever that is worth. You might even be able to argue that our technology actually takes us further away from our natural human state; shopping malls and internet superhighways are far removed from our simian roots.
(Not that I would ever go back or anything. I'd die of boredom without my computer.)
Re:Ability to accept training
on
The Expert Mind
·
· Score: 1
Your comment that life should be tasted evoked a thought.
Why are we so obsessed with perfection in this society? Who really cares that Mozart was so great? Did it make him a happier person? Did he enjoy life any more than a debaucherous lazy person? I think we're overly obsessed with being special people. We all want to be celebrities so our existance is somehow not so pointless. Some tribal societies find this behavior obnoxious.
I haven't bought a CD in 10 years. Partly because of the RIAA suing the hands that feed them, but more so because I don't want to own lots of little plastic disks that are going to have to be organized, shelved, and tended to. IP is intangible and I'm already not a big fan of collecting tangible things like stamps, so why in the world would I want a collection of things that aren't really there at all?
I don't understand why we can't have a distribution service devoid of DRM that lets me download and use whatever I want. The amount of IP out there is larger than what I can store and organize on my PC. And so I would gladly pay 30 bucks a month for a service that lets me freely access new and old content in an organized and fun way.
The RIAA is gloming onto this DRM because they've had it so good for so long and they just don't want to give it up. They are the corporate equivalents of the crusty old men that refuse to let go of the old ways. They could still maintain their empire if they'd just get their heads out of their asses. But I'm personally hoping they don't adapt and are destroyed by technological progress. It's really what they deserve for attacking their consumers.
I thought the story was about societal conformance, pressure to be "normal", and the consequences for not doing so. (Death apparently.) Kind of makes sense that people trying to buck the system would make something like this.
I think the story is besides the point though. What's really impressed me is that the drove their software development through an actual project.
Since the funhouse mirror analogy didn't work for your feeble mind, I'll try a different one. Photons are much like this fast food burrito here. It will come out the other end even before you've placed it all the way into your mouth. That's because its actually propagating backwards. So you might actually want to consider placing it in the other end first. See? It's so incredibly simple.
Still confused? Hmm, okay. Consider a plasma TV...
Instead of looking for strong.NET experience, perhaps you should just look for high quality professional coders in general. If you're a good coder, you'll know several different languages and be able to pick up new languages and programming environments with ease.
Instead of asking do they know this specific thing, you should be looking for people who understand the abstract concepts behind coding. Do they know what object oriented programming is? Do they know what intepreted languages bring to the table that compiled languages don't? And vice-versa. Are they willing to pick the best language for the job or are they going to be a shill for the one they're most comfortable with? How are they with absorbing new information? Do they understand the pitfalls of large software projects?
You're surely turning away tons of talented programmers, just because they haven't stumbled upon the oportunity to work with.NET.
I agreed at first until I read the article and didn't see that conclusion. They offered several speculations, debunked an old myth, and in the very last paragraph refrained from saying people should be one way or the other. What they're getting at is EXTREME pessimism or optimism is bad.
Which makes me wonder if we should have more studies that prove old addages like, "Everything in moderation." or "Don't run with scissors." I know I've been wondering if I'm actually about to go blind...
They are on about the same scale relative to our tiny insignificant existance. But perhaps if you factor in our arrogence it comes out even. You missed my point fallacy boy.
What I was saying was that maybe we should deal with the fact we're going to die out as a species. It will happen. And in light of this inevitability, how do you think we should live?
All we have is now. Who cares that the earth will destroy us when it had it in for us all along? There's no pain in death. It's living that's a real kick in the pants. You want to worry neurotically about something, worry about that.
Me, I don't care. I'm going to go eat doritos, watch star trek reruns in my underwear, and wait for the sun to explode.
I agree, nature will not be threatened by global warming. It's on the natural order of things for species to be completely wiped out due to climate change and for new ones to eventually develop over time. That we're somehow speeding up the process is of no offense to nature what-so-ever.
The arguments I hear that it's a natural phenomenon or that we're causing it are irrelevant. If the climate changes, independent of the cause we'll go extinct. For our own survival we need to be looking for ways to stabilize our environment, which is currently extremely chaotic and dangerous.
I seriously doubt we'll become so powerful that we can protect ourselves from everything. The problem gets even worse if you consider current scientific thought, which says that our sun will eventually explode. We'll have to escape that somehow. But even if we find a way, we'll have to figure out how to escape the universe before entropy takes hold and cools it down completely.
It's arrogent to think our technology will save us. You have to ask yourself, what's so special about us as a species that we deserve to live after all life in the Universe has died? I think I'd be kind of lonely.
I say don't worry about global warming or our dying sun. Go play in the rain. It's fun. Just try not to think so much about the lightning off in the distance.
Since all these commercial corporations are building their patent libraries, why doesn't the open source community do the same? Since OSS is not profit seeking, they won't litigate and they'd effectively keep corporations from being able to litigate over untangible abstractions that belong in the scientific domain anyway.
There's a rule that 80 % of the cpu time is spent in 20% of the code. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle So why not use both GC and non-GC languages together? Write the app first in a user friendly language like Python and then optimize the slow parts in C++. Then you can focus on your design and less on your heap.
This project assumes we'll be more advanced in 10,000 years. It's possible a tribe could stumble across it and start worshiping it. Or maybe they'll think that the clock is what's running the earth. I'm not sure they can really anticipate what effect this will have, if any at all. Kind of a useless and vain thing to do, imho.
I haven't bought a CD in years. And I've stopped downloading them too. I've discovered that the majority of the stuff they promote isn't worth anything at all. I have a ton of CD's that I never listen too anymore because I'm sick of them. Why buy CD's when you're can't possibly listen to them all the time, or all at once for that matter? It's a waste of money.
I haven't stopped enjoying music though. I get my fix from internet radio like http://www.radioparadise.com/. Or from subscription based services like itunes or napster. Actually I got rid of my napster subscription because I found the DRM on my portable mp3 player too cumbersome and slow. I was thinking maybe itunes might be better and was going to give that a try.
There are alternatives to supporting this business model of suing children. If everyone stopped buying their crap and suppported better models based on distribution of material rather than the material itself, then everyone wins.
I personally would rather go without their crappy music than support them. Think about it, when you buy a CD you're funding their legal department that sues children.
This was more of a personal rant than good advice. Anywhere you go you're going to have to deal with office politics. Someone has to be in charge and if you keep switching jobs, its not going to be you.
I say this because if I had followed this guy's advice, I would've quit my job during the first 6 months when I was 'pulling cable and fixing network connections.' But instead I toughed it out, learned what I could about how things worked, and found a spot for myself where I'm useful and best of all I'm doing fun stuff. Now instead of just programming I get to make 3d models and I get to code. And yes it's loud because I work in a cube and there's the occasional dolt to deal with, but it completely doesn't matter. That's what headphones are for.
My advice would be to give it more that a year or two before you make any judgements. And bear in mind that it doesn't look good to employers if you're job hopping.
It's also used by ion, a neat tabbed windows manager that focuses on non-overlapping windows and keyboard shortcuts. Fun to try if you're bored. http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/
Very nice response to XorNand. Some people are soothed by the idea that no other system works better than the one they're in, in much the same way that those sun glasses worked in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Remember? The ones that turned black when anything dangerous happend, so as to not disturb the wearer? Blind conformity such as this makes it easier to ignore societal problems. And ignorance is bliss, especially when you're putting all of your energy into a business.
The thing is, we made this system. We can change it. Just because we're capitalistic doesn't mean we have to sell everything. It's silly to buy air in our society in much the same way as it was silly for the native Americans to buy land. Things can fall in and out of tangibility. (I know there are oxygen bars. It's still silly.)
But I digress. The main thing I wanted to comment on was the 'virtues of the barter system' spiel. We all got that lecture in elementary school, not high school economics. XorNand's arrogent tone about banal things is kind of obnoxious. Sure now from the incredible invention of barter I don't have to plow the fields and I've got all these modern conveniences. But really do these things add any value to the human existance? I read a book while in COLLEGE anthropology class called Coming of Age In Samoa by Margaret Mead. That book and zillions of others like it will tell you that societies that just farm have a ton of free time. They tend to their crops for only a handfull of hours a week. Contrast that with our own society where everyone works 40 to 60 hours a week. And for what? The barter system? This is time we'll never get back. It's time we could be spending with our loved ones and friends, or coding open source software.:)
Barter is great and it has gotten us this far. But maybe we should think about where we're heading. We know that the universe is eventually going to cool and life will end here. Entropy sucks like that. I think we should focus on enjoying life now, while we have it. Or we can just spend our existence amassing lots of wealth and then die with coins in our pockets. I don't know, sounds a little absurd to me.
Sigh: Learn to see beyond the edge of your nose...
I think voice recognition and eye tracking are going to cause people to suffer from the same repeditive stress injuries that the keyboard and mouse are inflicting on people today.
When I was younger I didn't really believe in carpel tunnel. I just thought the hypochondriacs were at it again. But ten years of typing and mousing have just killed my wrists. If I bang them funny, my whole wrists will turn numb.
Anyway I suspect that constant blinking and talking are going to cause similar problems. Not only that, I can type faster than I can speak. And I can think a lot faster than I can type.
IMHO the only efficient and ergonomic solution is a neural interface. And aparently its not completely unplausible: http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/.
What I was trying to do was to point out how strange it is for our government to restrict someone from communicating information to another person. Whether that information is propagated via a computer or sound waves through the air is irrelevent. It's still just an exchange of information that looks a lot like speech when you break it down.
I also think it's strange that the government can deem some information okay for communication and other information not okay. How did they figure that out? When I give a recipe I found out of a book to a friend, am I a criminal? Of course it's not a crime because the book publishers want you to do that so you'll encourge others to buy the recipe book. This seems so arbitrary to me. Who makes these rules? I don't think it's individuals. In recorded music there's a rule for determining if a work is derived or not. If you produce a song that has 24 consecutive measures that are the same as another song, then you can be charged with copyright infringement. Who decided on that number?
I think we as a society get to decide on this. It is arbirary. It's just a question of who do you want to empower with this information. Industry? Or individuals?
The other day I opened up a divx file with my handy dandy hex editor and orated the one's and zeros to a friend of mine. My friend, as I orated, saved the one's and zero's with his hex editor and then happily watch the divx on his computer.
Have I just comitted a crime? Or does the constitution protect my right to free speech?
Voyager was a thousand times better than Enterprise because the writing was vastly superior. Enterprise has the plot depth of a soap opera. Voyager on the other hand used literary symbolism to make subtle points on society and humanity in general. Even the characters themselves represented different things. Janeway was the mother, protecting and nurturing her crew. Seven was the ever questioning philosopher that had lost her humanity and was trying to rediscover it. After watching a Voyager episode I can walk away with something to think about. Maybe its not the most profound thing in the world, but at least its something. With Enterprise I feel I've wasted my time.
I wonder what happens when things like "birth control and break pads" really do become IP. I know it's still science fiction, but I've heard a lot about how nano technology might be able to build objects at the molecular level.
What do you think will happen when you can push a button and make anything you want for free? Will companies continue to push for criminalization? And if so how much can our natural movements be constrained before it becomes incredibly oppressive?
Slashdot Mirror
...for some I'm sure, but the idea that you are what you read is faulty. An intelligent person can tell if what their reading is complete BS or not. As Americans we've come to distrust our own eyes in favor of a benevolent authority to tell us what to believe. We want our information catered to our world views so we're all nice and cozy. But a true intellectual reads everything and makes all their decisions on their own without any help from anyone. The author has basically taken the fad diet and applied it to mental health. I do think our collective ADD is related to our obesity, but it has more to do with our malnourishment than our obesity. Most people don't realize that you can be fat and malnourished. But our food has no nutrients at all, it's just empty calories. (Even the stuff that's marketed as healthy like yogurt.) I think it's the hidden root of a lot of our problems. And I don't see how you can build a great society on sugar and wonder bread.
I agree whole heartedly with the parent post. Ignore the Java slam post entirely; it's a bit of arrogence. I've found that the only practical use of such garbage is to formulate esoteric interview questions. A company that would expect you to know something so specific given the breadth of work available with computers is rediculous.
For me, my education in computer science was a survey of what was out there and a ticket into the door for my first job. I think it was worth it and I think that's all you can really expect of it. It's up to you to get excited about an area, not your university. I suggest you do get excited about something and bring that excitement to your interviews. Good people will appreciate that much more than your amazing knowledge of template specialization. Although you certainly do need to build up some domain knowledge. But focusing on knowledge for knowledge sake is putting the horse before the cart in my opinion. You will gain knowledge automatically through the joyful practice of your profession. This stuff is fun. Don't let the inferiority complexes of a few a-holes ruin that for you.
That's so true. I always just scan the quests quickly for whatever it is I need to kill or gather. I never pay attention to the story. I shut off my account because I can't stand another gather 20 of these things quests, or kill 20 of these... Boring as hell. Especially now that I've played Oblivion and know that story can actually drive the game. Flying is boring as hell too, who thought I'd be fun to wait 15 minutes to fly from one end of a continent to the other?
So what do you suggest we aim for? Virtuosity?
Not necessarily a bad thing if we're talking about one's general happines. In America Samoa they work only a few hours a week, just long enough to ensure that the village has food. The rest of the time is spent with social activities. They have lots of sex and everyone in their society learns to dance from birth. Their society centers around community and cooperation with no room for prodigies.
Our technical advances don't necessarily buy us happiness, just power - for whatever that is worth. You might even be able to argue that our technology actually takes us further away from our natural human state; shopping malls and internet superhighways are far removed from our simian roots.
(Not that I would ever go back or anything. I'd die of boredom without my computer.)
Your comment that life should be tasted evoked a thought.
Why are we so obsessed with perfection in this society? Who really cares that Mozart was so great? Did it make him a happier person? Did he enjoy life any more than a debaucherous lazy person? I think we're overly obsessed with being special people. We all want to be celebrities so our existance is somehow not so pointless. Some tribal societies find this behavior obnoxious.
I haven't bought a CD in 10 years. Partly because of the RIAA suing the hands that feed them, but more so because I don't want to own lots of little plastic disks that are going to have to be organized, shelved, and tended to. IP is intangible and I'm already not a big fan of collecting tangible things like stamps, so why in the world would I want a collection of things that aren't really there at all?
I don't understand why we can't have a distribution service devoid of DRM that lets me download and use whatever I want. The amount of IP out there is larger than what I can store and organize on my PC. And so I would gladly pay 30 bucks a month for a service that lets me freely access new and old content in an organized and fun way.
The RIAA is gloming onto this DRM because they've had it so good for so long and they just don't want to give it up. They are the corporate equivalents of the crusty old men that refuse to let go of the old ways. They could still maintain their empire if they'd just get their heads out of their asses. But I'm personally hoping they don't adapt and are destroyed by technological progress. It's really what they deserve for attacking their consumers.
I thought the story was about societal conformance, pressure to be "normal", and the consequences for not doing so. (Death apparently.) Kind of makes sense that people trying to buck the system would make something like this.
I think the story is besides the point though. What's really impressed me is that the drove their software development through an actual project.
Since the funhouse mirror analogy didn't work for your feeble mind, I'll try a different one. Photons are much like this fast food burrito here. It will come out the other end even before you've placed it all the way into your mouth. That's because its actually propagating backwards. So you might actually want to consider placing it in the other end first. See? It's so incredibly simple.
Still confused? Hmm, okay. Consider a plasma TV...
Maybe you're not asking the right questions.
.NET experience, perhaps you should just look for high quality professional coders in general. If you're a good coder, you'll know several different languages and be able to pick up new languages and programming environments with ease.
.NET.
Instead of looking for strong
Instead of asking do they know this specific thing, you should be looking for people who understand the abstract concepts behind coding. Do they know what object oriented programming is? Do they know what intepreted languages bring to the table that compiled languages don't? And vice-versa. Are they willing to pick the best language for the job or are they going to be a shill for the one they're most comfortable with? How are they with absorbing new information? Do they understand the pitfalls of large software projects?
You're surely turning away tons of talented programmers, just because they haven't stumbled upon the oportunity to work with
I agreed at first until I read the article and didn't see that conclusion. They offered several speculations, debunked an old myth, and in the very last paragraph refrained from saying people should be one way or the other. What they're getting at is EXTREME pessimism or optimism is bad.
Which makes me wonder if we should have more studies that prove old addages like, "Everything in moderation." or "Don't run with scissors." I know I've been wondering if I'm actually about to go blind...
They are on about the same scale relative to our tiny insignificant existance. But perhaps if you factor in our arrogence it comes out even. You missed my point fallacy boy.
What I was saying was that maybe we should deal with the fact we're going to die out as a species. It will happen. And in light of this inevitability, how do you think we should live?
All we have is now. Who cares that the earth will destroy us when it had it in for us all along? There's no pain in death. It's living that's a real kick in the pants. You want to worry neurotically about something, worry about that.
Me, I don't care. I'm going to go eat doritos, watch star trek reruns in my underwear, and wait for the sun to explode.
I agree, nature will not be threatened by global warming. It's on the natural order of things for species to be completely wiped out due to climate change and for new ones to eventually develop over time. That we're somehow speeding up the process is of no offense to nature what-so-ever.
The arguments I hear that it's a natural phenomenon or that we're causing it are irrelevant. If the climate changes, independent of the cause we'll go extinct. For our own survival we need to be looking for ways to stabilize our environment, which is currently extremely chaotic and dangerous.
I seriously doubt we'll become so powerful that we can protect ourselves from everything. The problem gets even worse if you consider current scientific thought, which says that our sun will eventually explode. We'll have to escape that somehow. But even if we find a way, we'll have to figure out how to escape the universe before entropy takes hold and cools it down completely.
It's arrogent to think our technology will save us. You have to ask yourself, what's so special about us as a species that we deserve to live after all life in the Universe has died? I think I'd be kind of lonely.
I say don't worry about global warming or our dying sun. Go play in the rain. It's fun. Just try not to think so much about the lightning off in the distance.
Since all these commercial corporations are building their patent libraries, why doesn't the open source community do the same? Since OSS is not profit seeking, they won't litigate and they'd effectively keep corporations from being able to litigate over untangible abstractions that belong in the scientific domain anyway.
There's a rule that 80 % of the cpu time is spent in 20% of the code. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle So why not use both GC and non-GC languages together? Write the app first in a user friendly language like Python and then optimize the slow parts in C++. Then you can focus on your design and less on your heap.
This project assumes we'll be more advanced in 10,000 years. It's possible a tribe could stumble across it and start worshiping it. Or maybe they'll think that the clock is what's running the earth. I'm not sure they can really anticipate what effect this will have, if any at all. Kind of a useless and vain thing to do, imho.
I haven't bought a CD in years. And I've stopped downloading them too. I've discovered that the majority of the stuff they promote isn't worth anything at all. I have a ton of CD's that I never listen too anymore because I'm sick of them. Why buy CD's when you're can't possibly listen to them all the time, or all at once for that matter? It's a waste of money.
I haven't stopped enjoying music though. I get my fix from internet radio like http://www.radioparadise.com/. Or from subscription based services like itunes or napster. Actually I got rid of my napster subscription because I found the DRM on my portable mp3 player too cumbersome and slow. I was thinking maybe itunes might be better and was going to give that a try.
There are alternatives to supporting this business model of suing children. If everyone stopped buying their crap and suppported better models based on distribution of material rather than the material itself, then everyone wins.
I personally would rather go without their crappy music than support them. Think about it, when you buy a CD you're funding their legal department that sues children.
This was more of a personal rant than good advice. Anywhere you go you're going to have to deal with office politics. Someone has to be in charge and if you keep switching jobs, its not going to be you.
I say this because if I had followed this guy's advice, I would've quit my job during the first 6 months when I was 'pulling cable and fixing network connections.' But instead I toughed it out, learned what I could about how things worked, and found a spot for myself where I'm useful and best of all I'm doing fun stuff. Now instead of just programming I get to make 3d models and I get to code. And yes it's loud because I work in a cube and there's the occasional dolt to deal with, but it completely doesn't matter. That's what headphones are for.
My advice would be to give it more that a year or two before you make any judgements. And bear in mind that it doesn't look good to employers if you're job hopping.
It's also used by ion, a neat tabbed windows manager that focuses on non-overlapping windows and keyboard shortcuts. Fun to try if you're bored. http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/ion/
Very nice response to XorNand. Some people are soothed by the idea that no other system works better than the one they're in, in much the same way that those sun glasses worked in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Remember? The ones that turned black when anything dangerous happend, so as to not disturb the wearer? Blind conformity such as this makes it easier to ignore societal problems. And ignorance is bliss, especially when you're putting all of your energy into a business.
The thing is, we made this system. We can change it. Just because we're capitalistic doesn't mean we have to sell everything. It's silly to buy air in our society in much the same way as it was silly for the native Americans to buy land. Things can fall in and out of tangibility. (I know there are oxygen bars. It's still silly.)
But I digress. The main thing I wanted to comment on was the 'virtues of the barter system' spiel. We all got that lecture in elementary school, not high school economics. XorNand's arrogent tone about banal things is kind of obnoxious. Sure now from the incredible invention of barter I don't have to plow the fields and I've got all these modern conveniences. But really do these things add any value to the human existance? I read a book while in COLLEGE anthropology class called Coming of Age In Samoa by Margaret Mead. That book and zillions of others like it will tell you that societies that just farm have a ton of free time. They tend to their crops for only a handfull of hours a week. Contrast that with our own society where everyone works 40 to 60 hours a week. And for what? The barter system? This is time we'll never get back. It's time we could be spending with our loved ones and friends, or coding open source software. :)
Barter is great and it has gotten us this far. But maybe we should think about where we're heading. We know that the universe is eventually going to cool and life will end here. Entropy sucks like that. I think we should focus on enjoying life now, while we have it. Or we can just spend our existence amassing lots of wealth and then die with coins in our pockets. I don't know, sounds a little absurd to me.
Sigh: Learn to see beyond the edge of your nose...
I think voice recognition and eye tracking are going to cause people to suffer from the same repeditive stress injuries that the keyboard and mouse are inflicting on people today.
When I was younger I didn't really believe in carpel tunnel. I just thought the hypochondriacs were at it again. But ten years of typing and mousing have just killed my wrists. If I bang them funny, my whole wrists will turn numb.
Anyway I suspect that constant blinking and talking are going to cause similar problems. Not only that, I can type faster than I can speak. And I can think a lot faster than I can type.
IMHO the only efficient and ergonomic solution is a neural interface. And aparently its not completely unplausible: http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/.
Yes, but no one is going to die if you pirate IP.
What I was trying to do was to point out how strange it is for our government to restrict someone from communicating information to another person. Whether that information is propagated via a computer or sound waves through the air is irrelevent. It's still just an exchange of information that looks a lot like speech when you break it down.
I also think it's strange that the government can deem some information okay for communication and other information not okay. How did they figure that out? When I give a recipe I found out of a book to a friend, am I a criminal? Of course it's not a crime because the book publishers want you to do that so you'll encourge others to buy the recipe book. This seems so arbitrary to me. Who makes these rules? I don't think it's individuals. In recorded music there's a rule for determining if a work is derived or not. If you produce a song that has 24 consecutive measures that are the same as another song, then you can be charged with copyright infringement. Who decided on that number?
I think we as a society get to decide on this. It is arbirary. It's just a question of who do you want to empower with this information. Industry? Or individuals?
The other day I opened up a divx file with my handy dandy hex editor and orated the one's and zeros to a friend of mine. My friend, as I orated, saved the one's and zero's with his hex editor and then happily watch the divx on his computer.
Have I just comitted a crime? Or does the constitution protect my right to free speech?
Voyager was a thousand times better than Enterprise because the writing was vastly superior. Enterprise has the plot depth of a soap opera. Voyager on the other hand used literary symbolism to make subtle points on society and humanity in general. Even the characters themselves represented different things. Janeway was the mother, protecting and nurturing her crew. Seven was the ever questioning philosopher that had lost her humanity and was trying to rediscover it. After watching a Voyager episode I can walk away with something to think about. Maybe its not the most profound thing in the world, but at least its something. With Enterprise I feel I've wasted my time.
I wonder what happens when things like "birth control and break pads" really do become IP. I know it's still science fiction, but I've heard a lot about how nano technology might be able to build objects at the molecular level. What do you think will happen when you can push a button and make anything you want for free? Will companies continue to push for criminalization? And if so how much can our natural movements be constrained before it becomes incredibly oppressive?