Well, if you're worried it might compromise your privacy, don't be. It will not be long until cameras are small enough and ubiquitous enough (probably mobile, too) that you can be photographed and identified in any public area (and probably many private ones, too) by face recognition software with access to the population's vital statistics. It doesn't take RFID to compromise privacy if that is the way society is leaning, and it's only marginally easier with a chip. In fact, it's probably less useful with RFID because of the limited range. Camera recognition has far greater range.
As far as convenience, I doubt you get much of a win here, either, because you need support from all the industries that provide identification services or devices. Well...if you just want to automate your car and home doors...you can add the necessary support yourself, but how useful is that really? Wouldn't the real value be "one RFID works everywhere"? You pay at a boutique, it scans the RFID. You go to a ball game, they scan the RFID, verify you purchased tickets online and in you go. Etc.
If it's going to really simplify things, it's got to be widespread. And it isn't right now. But again. Even if it was, I don't think it's much of a privacy issue. People with money and power already know whatever they want to know about you anyway,:-). If the FBI suspects you are a terrorist, you bet they can get into your life right quick and figure out where you spend your money and what you do with your time. If they don't get enough from your bank records, they can just follow you around if they are so keen. Sure there are steps to make it harder for them, but average citizens near population centers don't take those steps...and for the most part that's because they don't need to.
OMG. Nippleless freaks! Definitely mature. We don't want to freak out our kids with anatomically incorrect depictions. Think of the trauma the first time in their ESRB "M" rated life when they see that they have been led astray...
There's a big difference between being sick and using medical benefits. Big difference between being sick and taking a day off, but the way PTO is structured at many companies, there's no difference at all,:-). And so on. Statistics can tell you any truth you want them to tell you.
The point of tying virtual economies to real ones is that the truth will out. And the truth is that 99% of what people do in the real world and get paid for is a pointless waste of time. There are certainly people out there that are really do things, but for every such person there are 10 freeloaders pulling down an enormous salary to fuck around.
Now we just see some honesty. Playing WoW 24/7 is a pointless waste of time, and the more people you have that agree on a particular waste of time as meaningful, the more currency. Currency = current interest of society. Why not have real compensation for people frittering away hours on an entertaining diversion? I've seen the same thing every day for years in the workplace.
If you are a working chap like myself, head down to a mall some day during business hours and just sit and watch for a couple hours and marvel at the efficiency with which we line consumerbot pockets. Some fellow is sitting at his 9-5 job watching the clock tic-toc while 1 to 5 other people are out mindlessly pouring the earnings back into the feedback loop.
And around and around it goes.
Having been the 9-5 tic-toc guy (post-college), one of his consumerbots (pre and during college), and a mindless gamer (all along), I can say, they're all the same hat. Without legislation, an unregulated virtual economy will ultimately find balance with the real economies because it is always a balance of time for money. If you have a working bloke that would invest 36 hours to get Cruel Hammer of +Infinity^2 Ass Kicking--and he can do that because the real economy lined his pocket with enough money that he can piss away 36 leisure hours on a collection of bits off in the ether--and there's no obstacle to him instead spending 2 hours of his salary to get it, well he's not an idiot and he's probably and addict so it's just simple numbers. Lower cost and faster gratification = that hammer is worth real money because I'd spend real time to get it.
We spend money on things we want. If they are scarce (because of supply or because of the high cost in time to obtain) we pay more. The more addicted people are to virtual worlds, the closer in parity virtual goods will come to real goods. If you spend more than 50% of your time in a virtual world, it is your real world or it would be, if only you could pay your bills there.
Well someday you probably can. Some people do now.
Honestly, I think virtual worlds will set us free and give us the strongest dose of reality check we've ever experienced. After a while you notice that you are valuing utterly imaginary things above actual real things and then you start thinking, "Well, Jesus. What is the value of real things? Maybe the 'real' things in my life aren't even real. Maybe the real things I bought are just as hollow as so many bits on the ether. Maybe that's a problem that I should address."
Or maybe it won't turn out that way for most. My perspective: there's as much virtual crap at the local shopping mall as there is in the Flavor of the Year online game. It's all the same hat.
Perhaps if we expected a bit more intelligence from our people, they might develop it. Does your Mom keep a collection of recipes in a little box of index cards separated into categories? Mine did and she was not a rocket scientist.
Practically, however. My Linux machine runs for months at a time with me just clicking applications on the desktop and saving/printing things that I create. And what kind of smack are you talking? Linux is worse than Windows because people have to deal with files and directories? Wtf? Windows isn't directoryless. Every Word user has to deal with directories and files from day one.
I think you insult the intelligence of everyone with little justification. I haven't modified fstab ever, to my recollection in 5 years. Then again, I'm not a wizard. I'm just a user that needs to get basic things done and does them.
Ok, as a motorcycle rider, I can say that I'm surprised by three responses saying that a motorcycle and this thing are the same. No way. This thing has a top speed of 60MPH and there's no way it has even close to the power of a motorcycle. Maneuverability, power, and visibility are the key advantages of a motorcycle and they compensate for the size difference. A skilled and alert rider can be defensive and is very maneuverable and has access to huge acceleration to avoid difficult situations.
Secondly, this car is recumbent which puts your eyeline very close to the ground which is a total disaster in a complicated driving environment, whereas on a motorcycle you have excellent visibility at a height comparable to the majority of vehicles. In other words, on a motorcycle you are not effectively blinded by every vehicle in front of you, or in any other direction.
Some of the responses to this were flip: "Hey, we call that a motorcycle," but in reality this vehicle and a motorcycle are radically different in many of the ways that really matter in an urban driving environment. And since I am a rider, I won't make the "Yeah, well motorcycles are deathtraps, too," argument that could also be brought up here,:-). But in any case. This thing is not a motorcycle. It has huge disadvantages relative to normal sized cars and none of the advantages of a motorcycle.
The BBC is reporting that a prototype of the new "Clever car" (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) is starting to make the rounds on European test tracks.
Look for their new model the OMGYGTD ("Oh, my God. Your going to die.") coming to a U.S. road near you.
This would be perfectly fabulous if there were federal regulations on vehicle sizes permitted in urban or other zones, but it sounds like a logistic nightmare for lawmakers to get a gradual migration to this going at any level that would prove effective. It's not really a phased migration thing. You can't put such a small car on roads with normal compact and larger cars. It's a safety nightmare. You can't really build a whole additional set of roads for these things other since municipalities like mine are already looking at $700 million dollar annual deficits.
This would allow members to discuss sensitive issues and share information without having to worry that it would be made widely public, he said.
And as far as this stated value of such a system goes, it is entirely laughable. How frequently is completely proprietary information leaked to the public--often intentionally--on high profile products and projects? And they think this half-assed...err open system is going to be somehow more robust at keeping sensitive information private? Durrr.
What you have here is the typical justification for elitism...which inevitably leads to bad thing.
It's not an oxymoron. It's just a bad metaphor. What you have here is a screen door, not an open one. I guess you can call it Screened Source if you want, but it isn't open. Open is IP for the use of all. This is IP for the good of the chosen. That's not exactly proprietary, in the project sense, but it is in the context of the "value" of IP pooled in the source associated with it.
What I think is funny is that the "feature" which is most in demand for me is that a service not be evil. I will gladly trade away bells and whistles in exchange for using a service that is less intent on trying to manipulate me. It's the #1 feature for everything in my life. If people or products try to manipulate me or otherwise fuck with me, I just go elsewhere.
You would think that eventually M$ would understand this, but the problem is, their whole business model is based on manipulation through lock-in. Hence the reason privacy has driven them crazy since day one. I am actually pretty bored with M$. I don't even look at any of their products and I just don't even bother with anything made by them because I know there is a better alternative available elsewhere and with fewer strings attached.
The idea that M$ can offer a product that is so revolutionary and good that no one can offer a competitive alternative is laughable. M$ loses. Gmail runs just beautifully on Firefox. Why does M$ even bother to bring some piece of crap to the market when it can't even run on the platforms an already existing decent product does.
That smacks of arrogance, stupidity, or something worse.
We've got a liquid cooled CPU in a separate enclosure that is connected to the body by a HyperTransport Interconnect, too! Soon vendors will come to market with processers in self-contained water cooling devices where you just take the cord and plug it into the computer.
What you are describing is a Culture of Fear. Many companies and indeed our society as a whole is moving toward the fear and lack of freedom end of the social spectrum. In my last job, I saw this. It was virtually impossible to provide negative feedback directly, even if it was done in a very polite way. The mere notion that something a person did was a mistake, or even more delicately, was done in a way that could be improved upon in a future iteration, was anathema.
What is happening here is that people are terrified of failure. Usually it comes from the top, as managers and manager's managers set the tone and culture and reinforce it by their actions. But if you work in a Culture of Fear, everything most be portrayed in a positive light or people become fearful and then they start scheming to protect themselves, which in turn causes fear in others around them and then it snowballs.
Most people can't take the truth. Most people will not get far in life because of it. In work, in martial arts, in every aspect of life, you will see the people that are terrified of fucking up, and then you will see those that are not. And you will rarely--very rarely--see those two kinds of people together.
Those that take mistakes in stride and realize that a mistake is a real growth opportunity and is desirable, will avoid the risk averse because the risk averse are suffocating to them. Those that are risk averse will avoid those that thrive on the learning opportunities provided by mistakes because they are terrified by anyone that makes mistakes in their vicinity and even worse will own up to it, confront it, and deal with it.
If you work for a corporation, you have to speak their language. But you can choose which corporation you work for. Not all corporations are Cultures of Fear. If you don't want to speak that language, seek out a corporation with management and leadership that speaks your language. If you see these things now, your eyes are open to it, and when you speak with new companies you will see what you would not have seen before.
You will recognize fear and you will recognize courage. Your choice.
If you work in a Culture of Fear, yes you have to speak their language. Otherwise you are going to terrify them with your openness and honesty and that is going to be bad for them and for you. If you decide to stay in that environment, your best bet is to find those that are courageous and work toward bringing them into your circle of existence (there are always wonderful people at a company, even if it is not readily apparent).
From a practical approach, if you can take it. Speak the language, get the promotion and the experience that goes with it, and then go find a great job at a company that is based on courage rather than fear.
I like that you make the comparison with voting. You probably subscribe to the "your vote matters" fallacy. Nothing is more silly. Only votes in mass matter. Single votes do not.
Every person's vote does matter. It's just matters about one millionth as much as most individuals wish it did. Lim(value of your vote) -> 1 as Card(votes) -> infinity. The value of your vote never approaches 0.
How many people has AIDs killed? Now suppose this was a modified strain of a naturally occuring pathogen. Effective distribution of biological agents is easy. For it to be effective, the goal is delayed mortality. You want people to be your vector and you want to give them time to spread your agent.
Municipal water supplies are another possibility, if you want to introduce a very lethal compound. But as far as body count, delayed mortality is what you want. The worst situations are the ones where life works for the terrorist. "How do I deliver this agent to all those people?" "Well, gee. If we can get the people to manufacture the agent and distribute it..."
The only reason we're not fucked is that almost everyone is sane, and of the insane people, very few are capable of the rational thought necessary to do what a sane person would never do. That and most people are completely directionless. The economic leash keeps most people working 40 hours a week or more and dreaming of a better life, instead of being focused enough to invest time and money over a period of time on annihilating large numbers of people and doing it intelligently enough that it is not readily apparent what is going on until it is too late.
You may think the government is blind, but if you do, you are the blind one. On some matters of national security, such as the purchase of various items which can be used to do very terrible things, controls are rather tight and there are computers churning through transactional records all over the world to identify risk factors. Just the other day we found that AT&T has been feeding all communication on their network to the NSA. Surprised? Hardly.
So basically, the only person capable of doing real harm is a really intelligent, focused, sane person. Exactly the person that will not.
What I found worked pretty well was to set a goal for the evening up front and then switch off when I got there. I would deliberately set a very moderate goal. Everyone is different, but what I found drove me the most was reaching a "stopping point" where I felt I had accomplished something. WoW is pretty awful for that because quests go on and on. The most dreaded goal is "clear this area's quests". *chuckle* Back in the good old days, I remember when the goal was "Do all the Ashenvale quests." Ugh.
Later it was, "Get these three interesting quests done and find a decent new weapon."
Even later it was, log on and check mail.
When I got really careful about deciding what was valuable to do in the game, I started having thoughts like, "You know...I think it would be more valuable to me to go for a walk and look at the sky."
That was pretty much the end of my interest in WoW.
Some day soon, internet will be as much a 24/7 utility as power. When that happens, I wouldn't be surprised if applications become to move toward such dependency on the fact, that they do not work without the internet anymore than they do without power.
You and I might hate that because we remember the "freedom" of doing things on your own disconnected from that big network, but the children or their children will never even notice it.
No internet access for a device will be just as disconcerting as it is when the lights go out for a day or two.
Don't be so sure of this ESRB we have created. The ability to have Hot Coffee is nothing, next to the power of Solitaire.
I've got a neighbor that regularly log a couple hours of solitaire every evening. I think she's farked, but you would be astonished how much solitaire occcurs at the workplace.
That's an interesting point, but by God if you have more books then you can remember, what is the point of having them? If you have such a voluminous collection that the only way to find something is to index them in a queryable database, maybe you should acquaint yourself with a library. Just seems like a terrible waste to spend good money on things you can't even remember you have.
If you see something interesting, you can just hold off on the purchase for--OH MY GOD, one day--and check at home first. While your at it, maybe grab a couple of the 3000 books you can't remember and barely ever use and sell them back to the store or donate them to a library.
Ah well. There are people in the world wondering where the next bowl of rice will come from and we're here jawing about wtf to do with a coolection of 3000 books the cost of which could have fed some starving person for a year or two.
The bookstore has this mysterious system which allows me to go there and pretty much find whatever book I am looking for in a couple minutes, without a computer.
If you can't alphabetize your catalog and maintain that order over time, about the only solution that will work is putting an RFID in every book and then getting a device that can locate specific tags.
That seems ridiculous. I have had over 1500 books for several years and aside from buying an extra shelf and shifting some books every now and then, they stay in order and are easy to find.
I can just imagine the day when your RFID finder runs out of juice and you realize, "My, God. I have no hope of finding anything in this mess. Now if I can just locate some fresh batteries with my...oh, snap!"
Slashdot Mirror
As far as convenience, I doubt you get much of a win here, either, because you need support from all the industries that provide identification services or devices. Well...if you just want to automate your car and home doors...you can add the necessary support yourself, but how useful is that really? Wouldn't the real value be "one RFID works everywhere"? You pay at a boutique, it scans the RFID. You go to a ball game, they scan the RFID, verify you purchased tickets online and in you go. Etc.
If it's going to really simplify things, it's got to be widespread. And it isn't right now. But again. Even if it was, I don't think it's much of a privacy issue. People with money and power already know whatever they want to know about you anyway, :-). If the FBI suspects you are a terrorist, you bet they can get into your life right quick and figure out where you spend your money and what you do with your time. If they don't get enough from your bank records, they can just follow you around if they are so keen. Sure there are steps to make it harder for them, but average citizens near population centers don't take those steps...and for the most part that's because they don't need to.
Not yet, anyway.
OMG. Nippleless freaks! Definitely mature. We don't want to freak out our kids with anatomically incorrect depictions. Think of the trauma the first time in their ESRB "M" rated life when they see that they have been led astray...
There's a big difference between being sick and using medical benefits. Big difference between being sick and taking a day off, but the way PTO is structured at many companies, there's no difference at all, :-). And so on. Statistics can tell you any truth you want them to tell you.
Now we just see some honesty. Playing WoW 24/7 is a pointless waste of time, and the more people you have that agree on a particular waste of time as meaningful, the more currency. Currency = current interest of society. Why not have real compensation for people frittering away hours on an entertaining diversion? I've seen the same thing every day for years in the workplace.
If you are a working chap like myself, head down to a mall some day during business hours and just sit and watch for a couple hours and marvel at the efficiency with which we line consumerbot pockets. Some fellow is sitting at his 9-5 job watching the clock tic-toc while 1 to 5 other people are out mindlessly pouring the earnings back into the feedback loop.
And around and around it goes.
Having been the 9-5 tic-toc guy (post-college), one of his consumerbots (pre and during college), and a mindless gamer (all along), I can say, they're all the same hat. Without legislation, an unregulated virtual economy will ultimately find balance with the real economies because it is always a balance of time for money. If you have a working bloke that would invest 36 hours to get Cruel Hammer of +Infinity^2 Ass Kicking--and he can do that because the real economy lined his pocket with enough money that he can piss away 36 leisure hours on a collection of bits off in the ether--and there's no obstacle to him instead spending 2 hours of his salary to get it, well he's not an idiot and he's probably and addict so it's just simple numbers. Lower cost and faster gratification = that hammer is worth real money because I'd spend real time to get it.
We spend money on things we want. If they are scarce (because of supply or because of the high cost in time to obtain) we pay more. The more addicted people are to virtual worlds, the closer in parity virtual goods will come to real goods. If you spend more than 50% of your time in a virtual world, it is your real world or it would be, if only you could pay your bills there.
Well someday you probably can. Some people do now.
Honestly, I think virtual worlds will set us free and give us the strongest dose of reality check we've ever experienced. After a while you notice that you are valuing utterly imaginary things above actual real things and then you start thinking, "Well, Jesus. What is the value of real things? Maybe the 'real' things in my life aren't even real. Maybe the real things I bought are just as hollow as so many bits on the ether. Maybe that's a problem that I should address."
Or maybe it won't turn out that way for most. My perspective: there's as much virtual crap at the local shopping mall as there is in the Flavor of the Year online game. It's all the same hat.
*furrows his brow and glances left and right suspiciously*
Damnit!
Practically, however. My Linux machine runs for months at a time with me just clicking applications on the desktop and saving/printing things that I create. And what kind of smack are you talking? Linux is worse than Windows because people have to deal with files and directories? Wtf? Windows isn't directoryless. Every Word user has to deal with directories and files from day one.
I think you insult the intelligence of everyone with little justification. I haven't modified fstab ever, to my recollection in 5 years. Then again, I'm not a wizard. I'm just a user that needs to get basic things done and does them.
Secondly, this car is recumbent which puts your eyeline very close to the ground which is a total disaster in a complicated driving environment, whereas on a motorcycle you have excellent visibility at a height comparable to the majority of vehicles. In other words, on a motorcycle you are not effectively blinded by every vehicle in front of you, or in any other direction.
Some of the responses to this were flip: "Hey, we call that a motorcycle," but in reality this vehicle and a motorcycle are radically different in many of the ways that really matter in an urban driving environment. And since I am a rider, I won't make the "Yeah, well motorcycles are deathtraps, too," argument that could also be brought up here, :-). But in any case. This thing is not a motorcycle. It has huge disadvantages relative to normal sized cars and none of the advantages of a motorcycle.
This would be perfectly fabulous if there were federal regulations on vehicle sizes permitted in urban or other zones, but it sounds like a logistic nightmare for lawmakers to get a gradual migration to this going at any level that would prove effective. It's not really a phased migration thing. You can't put such a small car on roads with normal compact and larger cars. It's a safety nightmare. You can't really build a whole additional set of roads for these things other since municipalities like mine are already looking at $700 million dollar annual deficits.
Time to visit Europe!
It's open if anyone can look at it.
You would think that eventually M$ would understand this, but the problem is, their whole business model is based on manipulation through lock-in. Hence the reason privacy has driven them crazy since day one. I am actually pretty bored with M$. I don't even look at any of their products and I just don't even bother with anything made by them because I know there is a better alternative available elsewhere and with fewer strings attached.
The idea that M$ can offer a product that is so revolutionary and good that no one can offer a competitive alternative is laughable. M$ loses. Gmail runs just beautifully on Firefox. Why does M$ even bother to bring some piece of crap to the market when it can't even run on the platforms an already existing decent product does.
That smacks of arrogance, stupidity, or something worse.
You have a strange manor of speaking, sir.
Mother Nature knew it all along.
All Windows software amazes me. I can't believe it even runs on that hunk of garbage OS.
What is happening here is that people are terrified of failure. Usually it comes from the top, as managers and manager's managers set the tone and culture and reinforce it by their actions. But if you work in a Culture of Fear, everything most be portrayed in a positive light or people become fearful and then they start scheming to protect themselves, which in turn causes fear in others around them and then it snowballs.
Most people can't take the truth. Most people will not get far in life because of it. In work, in martial arts, in every aspect of life, you will see the people that are terrified of fucking up, and then you will see those that are not. And you will rarely--very rarely--see those two kinds of people together.
Those that take mistakes in stride and realize that a mistake is a real growth opportunity and is desirable, will avoid the risk averse because the risk averse are suffocating to them. Those that are risk averse will avoid those that thrive on the learning opportunities provided by mistakes because they are terrified by anyone that makes mistakes in their vicinity and even worse will own up to it, confront it, and deal with it.
If you work for a corporation, you have to speak their language. But you can choose which corporation you work for. Not all corporations are Cultures of Fear. If you don't want to speak that language, seek out a corporation with management and leadership that speaks your language. If you see these things now, your eyes are open to it, and when you speak with new companies you will see what you would not have seen before.
You will recognize fear and you will recognize courage. Your choice.
If you work in a Culture of Fear, yes you have to speak their language. Otherwise you are going to terrify them with your openness and honesty and that is going to be bad for them and for you. If you decide to stay in that environment, your best bet is to find those that are courageous and work toward bringing them into your circle of existence (there are always wonderful people at a company, even if it is not readily apparent).
From a practical approach, if you can take it. Speak the language, get the promotion and the experience that goes with it, and then go find a great job at a company that is based on courage rather than fear.
Your argument is the fallacious one.
Municipal water supplies are another possibility, if you want to introduce a very lethal compound. But as far as body count, delayed mortality is what you want. The worst situations are the ones where life works for the terrorist. "How do I deliver this agent to all those people?" "Well, gee. If we can get the people to manufacture the agent and distribute it..."
The only reason we're not fucked is that almost everyone is sane, and of the insane people, very few are capable of the rational thought necessary to do what a sane person would never do. That and most people are completely directionless. The economic leash keeps most people working 40 hours a week or more and dreaming of a better life, instead of being focused enough to invest time and money over a period of time on annihilating large numbers of people and doing it intelligently enough that it is not readily apparent what is going on until it is too late.
You may think the government is blind, but if you do, you are the blind one. On some matters of national security, such as the purchase of various items which can be used to do very terrible things, controls are rather tight and there are computers churning through transactional records all over the world to identify risk factors. Just the other day we found that AT&T has been feeding all communication on their network to the NSA. Surprised? Hardly.
So basically, the only person capable of doing real harm is a really intelligent, focused, sane person. Exactly the person that will not.
Later it was, "Get these three interesting quests done and find a decent new weapon."
Even later it was, log on and check mail.
When I got really careful about deciding what was valuable to do in the game, I started having thoughts like, "You know...I think it would be more valuable to me to go for a walk and look at the sky."
That was pretty much the end of my interest in WoW.
It's called, "Oh, shit. We could make World of Starcraft on these Consoles and make bank."
You and I might hate that because we remember the "freedom" of doing things on your own disconnected from that big network, but the children or their children will never even notice it.
No internet access for a device will be just as disconcerting as it is when the lights go out for a day or two.
I've got a neighbor that regularly log a couple hours of solitaire every evening. I think she's farked, but you would be astonished how much solitaire occcurs at the workplace.
I still find the idea of playing Bard's Tale or Karate Champ more appealing then their modern counterparts...so ironic.
If you see something interesting, you can just hold off on the purchase for--OH MY GOD, one day--and check at home first. While your at it, maybe grab a couple of the 3000 books you can't remember and barely ever use and sell them back to the store or donate them to a library.
Ah well. There are people in the world wondering where the next bowl of rice will come from and we're here jawing about wtf to do with a coolection of 3000 books the cost of which could have fed some starving person for a year or two.
Bleck.
If you can't alphabetize your catalog and maintain that order over time, about the only solution that will work is putting an RFID in every book and then getting a device that can locate specific tags.
That seems ridiculous. I have had over 1500 books for several years and aside from buying an extra shelf and shifting some books every now and then, they stay in order and are easy to find.
I can just imagine the day when your RFID finder runs out of juice and you realize, "My, God. I have no hope of finding anything in this mess. Now if I can just locate some fresh batteries with my...oh, snap!"