It is called "Cat-Robot" (in Japanese). There's a conversation starter you can use while you're in Tokyo - "Atarashii Neko-ro wa chotto okashii desu ne?"
BTW, I'm sure this will be a flop - at least in the west. The great Japanese ideas are never heard about until they are everywhere, and they seem to ration them to only one per company.
DRM could be used for the purchase of the right to content without media. For example I buy the rights to an album, I can then listen to it wherever I have a net connection, stream it to my stereo or buy as many (copy protected of course) CDs as I like for a small price each.
It also depends on what you mean by "user". As a "consumer" it will not give me more rights, but as a producer it will. It could create a platform for independant music artists, movie makers, software writers, etc. to distribute their work and get paid for it.
Notice I say could in both of the above. I doubt either of these will happen in a reasonable way with any scheme designed by the RIAA and their ilk.
Thats not entirely true. We'll always be able to download music off the internet. The only real question is when will we be able to legitimately download music off the internet?
This moving-crack theory is crap. I can't show it's not true, but a model of interlocking surfaces explains friction perfectly well. Consider two horizontal surfaces whose interface is a zig-zag. There is a force Fd holding these surfaces together and a horizontal force Fm on the top surface. The top surface will not move until it slides up to the peaks in the lower surface. It's quite trivial to show that the required force depends upon the degree of interlocking (the angle of the zig-zag) and the force Fd, which must be overcome to seperate the surfaces.
I trust the US government will not even consider using a nuclear device. That would make them far worse than the terrorists thay are after.
Even if your hatred and anger have gone this far, I hope you can see that such an act in an already war-torn area of the world, near countries which are nuclear armed themselves, would be a supreme act of stupidity.
I only hope there are at least a few people in the US who will actually consider trying to find out who is responsible before breaking out the BFGs.
Another difference is that this attack was a complete surprise, and we still do not know who did it. It is far more frightening to have an unknown enemy, especially when they are so ruthless and unpredictable.
Yeah, I know, Osama declared a fatwah or whatever, but I have yet to hear of a single shred of evidence pointing to him.
Unless you own incoime property, you are a slave. If you have to go to work for someone to make a living, you are a slave. If you think your taz burden is only 30%, think again. If you count all the hidden taxes, it's more like 60 or 70%. You are a slave and you don't even know it.
You are right, by your own definition of slavery. I have to work to make a living, but I have absolute freedom in how I choose to do it (although some choices will make me less well off than others). I can choose to earn income on my wealth or I can choose to spend it as I see fit. I know some people start better off than me, and have to do no work in order to live but I do not envy them - they have chosen to accomplish nothing. If everyone was "free" by your definition, no work would be done - each person would be scratching around in the dirt trying to grow enough food for himself to survive. If that is freedom, give me slavery.
As for taxes, this is how my society has chosen to create things cooperatively. I may not agree with all the ways this money is spent, but if people did not pay them we would have no transport systems, schools, law enforcement or other common services. Some things I can accomplish on my own, for other things I must rely on my society. This also includes relieving poverty and hardship - my country does not have people starving to death, mainly because of taxes.
The earth has existed for billions of years before homo sapiens showed up. It belongs to nobody and should not be bought and sold as property. It should not be divided for a price. Doing so invariably ends up putting the vast majority of people into abject poverty and servitude because a few ends up owning 90% of the land and its wealth and resources. The land and its wheath should be divided as an inheritance to be passed to our children and their children. What we do with our piece of the pie is up to us. Demand freedom! Always!
So I cannot sell my land to another person, becuase that would give them an unfair advantage? If everyone must tend my own crops, who is going to do all the other jobs? Don't I have the freedom to do something other than run my land? What the hell kind of system is this anyway?
I understand the problems you are pointing out, but I do not understand your solution. If you are advocating all ownership passing to common property upon death, that is an interesting concept but how will stop people avoiding it? If you wish to stop corporations from owning assets, OK but how is business going to be conducted?
There is value in the capitalist system, I'm sure most people would agree. To me the value is this: in the capitalist system if I contribute to society by producing something of value, I make money. If I am intelligent and work hard I can make a very good living, even become "rich". Those who are too lazy to contribute do not make money. Thus there is a very high incentive to do something worthwhile. Of course, this is in theory and there are plenty of holes in the system, but it does work.
If there is no intellectual property, the capitalist system will not work for it. Thus there will be no incentive to work on IP and loafers will get a free ride. I do not believe this really appplies to free software because it is produced by cooperation between people who need the software, I write a program because I want to use it and share it because I wish to, and it may make the program better.
There are other ways to provide incentive for IP, such as the above, or commissioned work, or street performer protocols, etc. But they won't work for every kind of IP, and there will be big problems in integrating with the capitalist system.
I agree that IP laws are becoming more draconian, but before the relatively recent WIPO treaties and associated laws there was a fairly good balance between the needs of IP producers and consumers. What will happen when this balance is disturbed? I predict that IP consumers (ie. the general public) will become more and more willing to break the restrictively laws. It could end messily unless the laws are changed, just like most regimes who have sought to enslave their citizens.
Although the link is effectively dead, the Telstra spokesman said the company would hold a decommissioning ceremony for all those staff involved in the cable's 25-year lifespan.
In any other industry a 25-year old cable wouldn't be seen as anything special. Then again, I work for an electricity distributor, and routinely deal with cables laid 70 years ago, switches which could be sold as antiques and poles which are literally held up by the wires attached to them.
It must make things easier when you can actually talk to someone who was alive when the assets you're working on were installed.
The first undersea cable connection between Australia and New Zealand was commissioned on February 21, 1876.
Most computer games are good for developing concentration. The ideal is to obtain a zen-like state which figther pilots and athletes usually describe as being "in the zone". This is when you feel like you are inside the game, everything is reflex and the outside world disappears. I believe this is a talent which is definately not developed by most other typical teenage activities like watching TV, socialising, etc. I agree that the degree to which game players learn to concentrate will give them a great edge in other skills.
However, I'd still have reservations about having kids play lots of computer games. For one thing, zoning out is only good for some real world skills. If you want to be a pilot or racing driver it's great and for programmers and other technical people it's good too, however for other jobs it may be a bad thing. I feel that I do it too much (I'm an engineer), it makes me concetrate on some details and forget others.
I'd also worry about the type of games. It's not the violence that concerns me , but the mindlessness of a lot of current computer games. Strategy and RPGs may be very good for developing a wider range of skills, but FPS games only involve a small amout of tactics beyond blowing away anything that moves. So, you may be zoning out but only processing very simple actions.
Of course, this is only based on personal experience. YMMV.
...someone in charge who might not have the same definition of the word "silly" (READ: Taliban).
Lucky for you they can't read this since they banned the internet.
Seriously though, does anyone believe that any country that can get a nuclear device can't also find a way to deliver it that doesn't involve lobbing it through space? Does anyone believe that any nation that can build an ICBM can't also build countermeasures that could defeat these missile defences?
I'm pretty sure that this is just another way for the US government to justify its huge military budget and stimulate the economy by buying heaps of stuff. Kind of economic masturbation. Wish I knew how it worked - you borrow heaps of money, spend it useless shit and then benefit from how great the economy is. Its just a pity they can't spend the money on better forms of energy, or better "education" systems, or other projects that would actually benefit people.
The debate is centered on whether or not man or natural processes (cycles of flora and fauna, volcanoes) are driving the current trend. I have not seen any convincing evidence to support the existence of anthropogenic phenomenon, and plenty to support the existence of natural phenomenon.
Care to present any of this evidence? I haven't heard of any natural processes which would significantly raise the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 50 years.
BTW, I though the debate was mainly about how the climate will change and how screwed we will be when it does. What caused it may make interesting research, but we aren't going to be able to stop it, whether it's anthropogenic or not.
So, I plug my digital camera into my computer running my (pirated / OEM) copy of XP. The photos are downloaded with nary a button click, and I get the option of having the photos printed and sent to me. I choose a company and receive the photos a couple of days later.
Microsoft has now made money from me without me paying them directly. The kickback from the printer to MS increases the price of the photos a little, but not enough to make me change companies. It's only a short step to the point where any transaction made with MS software may involve such a scheme. Then how do you know MS is not getting a kickback, even if you made the choice yourself?
You and I may have the sense to realise this and boycott it, or we may help make software for Linux which does the same thing. But even the average people who don't like MS and always pirate their copies of windows are going to fall for this.
Without court regulations, Pichinson can close a firm in a few weeks and keep the liquidation out of government documents and thus off board members' resumes.
I don't see why this should happen. Particularly if I am the shareholder of a company I want to know the background of the board members. I think it's reasonable to be able to find out which companies they've been on the board of in the past.
A piece of software is not enough so just having an open source alternatvie is not the issue. We are talking about a user's data here and what is going to be done with it. Sure, you could do it with open source tools, but who is going to actually store the info and handle the authentication?
I can see a private company (or more than one) coming forward to accept user's details and provide authentication to web sites, but they are likely to be just as bad or worse than MS.
The other problem is trust - you can build it, but why would users register their important info with someone they've never heard of before. You and I may not trust MS, but plenty of people will (and do).
What is needed is a large, recognised group which can provide authentication, funded by micropayments, advertising or contributions and backed by names that people will come to trust. I think this would be a perfect service for the government to provide, although I imagine many people here will be pretty dirty on that idea. But what the hell, they already have all your info and at least they wont play silly buggers with preferred partners and closed standards.
The only other possibility is an open consortium or perhaps financial companies (someone like paypal), but the possibility will still be there for abuse.
Unless someone can come up with a way of using a decentralised system like freenet to provide secure authentication, but I can't see people trusting that either.
> take udf
A Jack Valenti steals your/dev/dvd!
> use decss
The Jack Velenti is stunned.
You are attacked by a large band of corporate lawyers!
> take udf
udf: taken
A corporate lawyer hits you for 5 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 6 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 3 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 7 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 5 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 5 years!
You are eaten by a corporate lawyer!
Game Over
Re:I am afraid it is you who are mistaken
on
Insanely Audiophile
·
· Score: 2
Are you saying that stereo effects are the only concern when reproducing audio, and that response and dynamics are inconsequential? Or are you saying that all but the most obscure releases are poor quality and sound engineers get paid lots of money for a job that could be done by a trained monkey?
Short of having the actual musicians in my living room, manually panned is what I get. Even if the music is entirely artificial there is a huge difference between qualities of reproduction.
Most people just don't understand, even those who like music. They shell out money for their sony integrated system, turn the bass up and think their sound is great.
What they don't realise is that for a relatively small amount more you can buy a system which is really good at reproducing sound. Those "companies with name you've never heard" are experts at reproducing music, comparing them with Sony or Panasonic is like comparing Porsche to Hayundai or GM. And the price difference is not necessarily that much, many hi-fi companies are producing cheaper components which are still high quality, to compete with the generic brand names. They continue to develop and use technology to reproduce music with cheaper equipment at higher quality.
If you're one of these people, I urge you to go down to your nearest hi-fi shop and ask to have a listen to some of their systems. If you have a typical integrated stereo at home, even the cheapest setups will amaze you. If you're willing to shell out a bit more, the music will be so realistic you can imagine the musicians standing in your living room when you close your eyes.
Admittedly, it can be a slippery slope but spending $140,000 is rare and really ridiculous. My system cost a bit over $3000 australian ($1600 and falling for you yanks) and I'm quite satisfied with it for any type of music (until I can afford a better one:-). But these days you can get a reasonably cheap system from companies who actually care about the music rather than their brand image. And you can also buy them from more local businesses, instead of sending the profits to some head office in Asia for products made as cheaply as possible in Taiwan.
You could try the Virtual Terrain Project, or the pretty funky terraform artificial terrain generator. Steal the algorithms from terraform and you could generate maps galore. E-mail me if you want any help.
I disagree completely. You say "Freedom comes from owning a piece of the earth", in Capitalism this simply means money. My decision power depends on my wealth both by the proxy of owning shares and by purchasing or investment decisions. Thus each person is as free as they can afford to be, and competes for "freedom" in the form of wealth.
Of course there are those who get their freedom through other means - usually spiritual, but we are discussing the poor money-obsessed slobs here.
As technology progresses, the system will eventually die a horrible death. What will happen to a slave economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace all the slaves, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless? It will colapse, that's what.
Only once all human functions are exceeded. Before that, intelligence and creativity will become more valuable compared to physical things (as has been happening over the past decades). In your fictional world where we can replace humans with robots (which presumably cost less money to maintain than humans), all non-owner humans would die out as they are not worth paying upkeep on while owners remain to make decisions (or not, their exponentially-increasing wealth must sustain them). I find this completely implausible because of the huge leap into the unknown this represents, the effects of such a huge serious of changes cannot be forseen so simply.
And don't think for a minute this won't happen in your lifetime. The internet is the latest giant leap in human communication. Before that came mass telecommunication technologies and before that was the movable press. If history is any indication, we can expect a giant leap in technological progress and scientific knowledge. In fact, it is happening before our very eyes.
Are you suggesting that technology will produce AI better than humans, cheaper than humans and more accessable than humans before any other world-changing discoveries are made? What makes you think that people even want to do this, simply the history of the industrial revolution? What makes you think that truly creative machines are even possible? If anything the internet is evidence of human stupidity, not machine intelligence.
The wealth of the earth is the earth. We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed an estate, a piece of the pie. There is plenty for everybody. Even animals are wise enough to set territories for themselves. What we do with our piece is up to us. No more slavery, no more exploitation! Down with the slave masters!
There is not plenty for everyone. Our level of society is supported by continually increasing levels of extraction of non-renewable resources, supported by extraordinarily complex management and distribution structures. These structures function through central control, thus a small number of rich, controlling people. If you can propose a distributed-control system that guarantees petrol, fertiliser, food and power will be available everywhere I would be interested to hear it. However your current proposal of revolution is likely to cause more death and suffering than all previous wars put together, as our society disintegrates due to the lack of the huge inputs it needs.
The real collapse will occur when these resources start to run out. This appears to be starting to happen to both oil and natural gas right now. Once demand exceeds all possible supply, the shit's gonna hit the fan and it's going to be a lot sooner than your AIs.
Slashdot Mirror
It is called "Cat-Robot" (in Japanese). There's a conversation starter you can use while you're in Tokyo - "Atarashii Neko-ro wa chotto okashii desu ne?"
BTW, I'm sure this will be a flop - at least in the west. The great Japanese ideas are never heard about until they are everywhere, and they seem to ration them to only one per company.
DRM could be used for the purchase of the right to content without media. For example I buy the rights to an album, I can then listen to it wherever I have a net connection, stream it to my stereo or buy as many (copy protected of course) CDs as I like for a small price each.
It also depends on what you mean by "user". As a "consumer" it will not give me more rights, but as a producer it will. It could create a platform for independant music artists, movie makers, software writers, etc. to distribute their work and get paid for it.
Notice I say could in both of the above. I doubt either of these will happen in a reasonable way with any scheme designed by the RIAA and their ilk.
Thats not entirely true. We'll always be able to download music off the internet. The only real question is when will we be able to legitimately download music off the internet?
Is now OK?
(BTW I do not work for emusic, I am just a customer.)
Wouldn't the religion be just "Jedi"?
Does this cover the dark side of the force as well?
Can you be of the Jedi religion without being a knight?
What's the official Jedi position on abortion, contraception and religious killing?
How do you make those lightsabers anyway?
There is no evidence that banning encryption will stop any terrorists at all. There isn't even a logical reason it will work that I can see.
Any terrorist stupid enough to use a form of communication they know is insecure is not smart enough to carry out any serious attacks.
I guess someone should post something serious.
This moving-crack theory is crap. I can't show it's not true, but a model of interlocking surfaces explains friction perfectly well. Consider two horizontal surfaces whose interface is a zig-zag. There is a force Fd holding these surfaces together and a horizontal force Fm on the top surface. The top surface will not move until it slides up to the peaks in the lower surface. It's quite trivial to show that the required force depends upon the degree of interlocking (the angle of the zig-zag) and the force Fd, which must be overcome to seperate the surfaces.
It's so they can identify you when you crash your jumbo-jet into the whitehouse.
I trust the US government will not even consider using a nuclear device. That would make them far worse than the terrorists thay are after.
Even if your hatred and anger have gone this far, I hope you can see that such an act in an already war-torn area of the world, near countries which are nuclear armed themselves, would be a supreme act of stupidity.
I only hope there are at least a few people in the US who will actually consider trying to find out who is responsible before breaking out the BFGs.
Another difference is that this attack was a complete surprise, and we still do not know who did it. It is far more frightening to have an unknown enemy, especially when they are so ruthless and unpredictable.
Yeah, I know, Osama declared a fatwah or whatever, but I have yet to hear of a single shred of evidence pointing to him.
I have a word macro which converts a document to basic HTML if anyone is interested. Unfortunately it's not online ATM.
You are right, by your own definition of slavery. I have to work to make a living, but I have absolute freedom in how I choose to do it (although some choices will make me less well off than others). I can choose to earn income on my wealth or I can choose to spend it as I see fit. I know some people start better off than me, and have to do no work in order to live but I do not envy them - they have chosen to accomplish nothing. If everyone was "free" by your definition, no work would be done - each person would be scratching around in the dirt trying to grow enough food for himself to survive. If that is freedom, give me slavery.
As for taxes, this is how my society has chosen to create things cooperatively. I may not agree with all the ways this money is spent, but if people did not pay them we would have no transport systems, schools, law enforcement or other common services. Some things I can accomplish on my own, for other things I must rely on my society. This also includes relieving poverty and hardship - my country does not have people starving to death, mainly because of taxes.
The earth has existed for billions of years before homo sapiens showed up. It belongs to nobody and should not be bought and sold as property. It should not be divided for a price. Doing so invariably ends up putting the vast majority of people into abject poverty and servitude because a few ends up owning 90% of the land and its wealth and resources. The land and its wheath should be divided as an inheritance to be passed to our children and their children. What we do with our piece of the pie is up to us. Demand freedom! Always!So I cannot sell my land to another person, becuase that would give them an unfair advantage? If everyone must tend my own crops, who is going to do all the other jobs? Don't I have the freedom to do something other than run my land? What the hell kind of system is this anyway?
I understand the problems you are pointing out, but I do not understand your solution. If you are advocating all ownership passing to common property upon death, that is an interesting concept but how will stop people avoiding it? If you wish to stop corporations from owning assets, OK but how is business going to be conducted?
There is value in the capitalist system, I'm sure most people would agree. To me the value is this: in the capitalist system if I contribute to society by producing something of value, I make money. If I am intelligent and work hard I can make a very good living, even become "rich". Those who are too lazy to contribute do not make money. Thus there is a very high incentive to do something worthwhile. Of course, this is in theory and there are plenty of holes in the system, but it does work.
If there is no intellectual property, the capitalist system will not work for it. Thus there will be no incentive to work on IP and loafers will get a free ride. I do not believe this really appplies to free software because it is produced by cooperation between people who need the software, I write a program because I want to use it and share it because I wish to, and it may make the program better.
There are other ways to provide incentive for IP, such as the above, or commissioned work, or street performer protocols, etc. But they won't work for every kind of IP, and there will be big problems in integrating with the capitalist system.
I agree that IP laws are becoming more draconian, but before the relatively recent WIPO treaties and associated laws there was a fairly good balance between the needs of IP producers and consumers. What will happen when this balance is disturbed? I predict that IP consumers (ie. the general public) will become more and more willing to break the restrictively laws. It could end messily unless the laws are changed, just like most regimes who have sought to enslave their citizens.
In any other industry a 25-year old cable wouldn't be seen as anything special. Then again, I work for an electricity distributor, and routinely deal with cables laid 70 years ago, switches which could be sold as antiques and poles which are literally held up by the wires attached to them.
It must make things easier when you can actually talk to someone who was alive when the assets you're working on were installed.
The first undersea cable connection between Australia and New Zealand was commissioned on February 21, 1876.Is this a typo?
I think they should split off hardware, legal and marketing. We can call them MS-good, MS-bad and MS-ugly.
Most computer games are good for developing concentration. The ideal is to obtain a zen-like state which figther pilots and athletes usually describe as being "in the zone". This is when you feel like you are inside the game, everything is reflex and the outside world disappears. I believe this is a talent which is definately not developed by most other typical teenage activities like watching TV, socialising, etc. I agree that the degree to which game players learn to concentrate will give them a great edge in other skills.
However, I'd still have reservations about having kids play lots of computer games. For one thing, zoning out is only good for some real world skills. If you want to be a pilot or racing driver it's great and for programmers and other technical people it's good too, however for other jobs it may be a bad thing. I feel that I do it too much (I'm an engineer), it makes me concetrate on some details and forget others.
I'd also worry about the type of games. It's not the violence that concerns me , but the mindlessness of a lot of current computer games. Strategy and RPGs may be very good for developing a wider range of skills, but FPS games only involve a small amout of tactics beyond blowing away anything that moves. So, you may be zoning out but only processing very simple actions.
Of course, this is only based on personal experience. YMMV.
Lucky for you they can't read this since they banned the internet.
Seriously though, does anyone believe that any country that can get a nuclear device can't also find a way to deliver it that doesn't involve lobbing it through space? Does anyone believe that any nation that can build an ICBM can't also build countermeasures that could defeat these missile defences?
I'm pretty sure that this is just another way for the US government to justify its huge military budget and stimulate the economy by buying heaps of stuff. Kind of economic masturbation. Wish I knew how it worked - you borrow heaps of money, spend it useless shit and then benefit from how great the economy is. Its just a pity they can't spend the money on better forms of energy, or better "education" systems, or other projects that would actually benefit people.
Care to present any of this evidence? I haven't heard of any natural processes which would significantly raise the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the last 50 years.
BTW, I though the debate was mainly about how the climate will change and how screwed we will be when it does. What caused it may make interesting research, but we aren't going to be able to stop it, whether it's anthropogenic or not.
So, I plug my digital camera into my computer running my (pirated / OEM) copy of XP. The photos are downloaded with nary a button click, and I get the option of having the photos printed and sent to me. I choose a company and receive the photos a couple of days later.
Microsoft has now made money from me without me paying them directly. The kickback from the printer to MS increases the price of the photos a little, but not enough to make me change companies. It's only a short step to the point where any transaction made with MS software may involve such a scheme. Then how do you know MS is not getting a kickback, even if you made the choice yourself?
You and I may have the sense to realise this and boycott it, or we may help make software for Linux which does the same thing. But even the average people who don't like MS and always pirate their copies of windows are going to fall for this.
I don't see why this should happen. Particularly if I am the shareholder of a company I want to know the background of the board members. I think it's reasonable to be able to find out which companies they've been on the board of in the past.
A piece of software is not enough so just having an open source alternatvie is not the issue. We are talking about a user's data here and what is going to be done with it. Sure, you could do it with open source tools, but who is going to actually store the info and handle the authentication?
I can see a private company (or more than one) coming forward to accept user's details and provide authentication to web sites, but they are likely to be just as bad or worse than MS.
The other problem is trust - you can build it, but why would users register their important info with someone they've never heard of before. You and I may not trust MS, but plenty of people will (and do).
What is needed is a large, recognised group which can provide authentication, funded by micropayments, advertising or contributions and backed by names that people will come to trust. I think this would be a perfect service for the government to provide, although I imagine many people here will be pretty dirty on that idea. But what the hell, they already have all your info and at least they wont play silly buggers with preferred partners and closed standards.
The only other possibility is an open consortium or perhaps financial companies (someone like paypal), but the possibility will still be there for abuse.
Unless someone can come up with a way of using a decentralised system like freenet to provide secure authentication, but I can't see people trusting that either.
> take udf /dev/dvd!
A Jack Valenti steals your
> use decss
The Jack Velenti is stunned.
You are attacked by a large band of corporate lawyers!
> take udf
udf: taken
A corporate lawyer hits you for 5 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 6 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 3 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 7 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 5 years!
A corporate lawyer hits you for 5 years!
You are eaten by a corporate lawyer!
Game Over
Are you saying that stereo effects are the only concern when reproducing audio, and that response and dynamics are inconsequential? Or are you saying that all but the most obscure releases are poor quality and sound engineers get paid lots of money for a job that could be done by a trained monkey?
Short of having the actual musicians in my living room, manually panned is what I get. Even if the music is entirely artificial there is a huge difference between qualities of reproduction.
Most people just don't understand, even those who like music. They shell out money for their sony integrated system, turn the bass up and think their sound is great.
What they don't realise is that for a relatively small amount more you can buy a system which is really good at reproducing sound. Those "companies with name you've never heard" are experts at reproducing music, comparing them with Sony or Panasonic is like comparing Porsche to Hayundai or GM. And the price difference is not necessarily that much, many hi-fi companies are producing cheaper components which are still high quality, to compete with the generic brand names. They continue to develop and use technology to reproduce music with cheaper equipment at higher quality.
If you're one of these people, I urge you to go down to your nearest hi-fi shop and ask to have a listen to some of their systems. If you have a typical integrated stereo at home, even the cheapest setups will amaze you. If you're willing to shell out a bit more, the music will be so realistic you can imagine the musicians standing in your living room when you close your eyes.
Admittedly, it can be a slippery slope but spending $140,000 is rare and really ridiculous. My system cost a bit over $3000 australian ($1600 and falling for you yanks) and I'm quite satisfied with it for any type of music (until I can afford a better one :-). But these days you can get a reasonably cheap system from companies who actually care about the music rather than their brand image. And you can also buy them from more local businesses, instead of sending the profits to some head office in Asia for products made as cheaply as possible in Taiwan.
You could try the Virtual Terrain Project, or the pretty funky terraform artificial terrain generator. Steal the algorithms from terraform and you could generate maps galore. E-mail me if you want any help.
I disagree completely. You say "Freedom comes from owning a piece of the earth", in Capitalism this simply means money. My decision power depends on my wealth both by the proxy of owning shares and by purchasing or investment decisions. Thus each person is as free as they can afford to be, and competes for "freedom" in the form of wealth.
Of course there are those who get their freedom through other means - usually spiritual, but we are discussing the poor money-obsessed slobs here.
As technology progresses, the system will eventually die a horrible death. What will happen to a slave economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace all the slaves, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless? It will colapse, that's what.Only once all human functions are exceeded. Before that, intelligence and creativity will become more valuable compared to physical things (as has been happening over the past decades). In your fictional world where we can replace humans with robots (which presumably cost less money to maintain than humans), all non-owner humans would die out as they are not worth paying upkeep on while owners remain to make decisions (or not, their exponentially-increasing wealth must sustain them). I find this completely implausible because of the huge leap into the unknown this represents, the effects of such a huge serious of changes cannot be forseen so simply.
And don't think for a minute this won't happen in your lifetime. The internet is the latest giant leap in human communication. Before that came mass telecommunication technologies and before that was the movable press. If history is any indication, we can expect a giant leap in technological progress and scientific knowledge. In fact, it is happening before our very eyes.Are you suggesting that technology will produce AI better than humans, cheaper than humans and more accessable than humans before any other world-changing discoveries are made? What makes you think that people even want to do this, simply the history of the industrial revolution? What makes you think that truly creative machines are even possible? If anything the internet is evidence of human stupidity, not machine intelligence.
The wealth of the earth is the earth. We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed an estate, a piece of the pie. There is plenty for everybody. Even animals are wise enough to set territories for themselves. What we do with our piece is up to us. No more slavery, no more exploitation! Down with the slave masters!There is not plenty for everyone. Our level of society is supported by continually increasing levels of extraction of non-renewable resources, supported by extraordinarily complex management and distribution structures. These structures function through central control, thus a small number of rich, controlling people. If you can propose a distributed-control system that guarantees petrol, fertiliser, food and power will be available everywhere I would be interested to hear it. However your current proposal of revolution is likely to cause more death and suffering than all previous wars put together, as our society disintegrates due to the lack of the huge inputs it needs.
The real collapse will occur when these resources start to run out. This appears to be starting to happen to both oil and natural gas right now. Once demand exceeds all possible supply, the shit's gonna hit the fan and it's going to be a lot sooner than your AIs.