"What if the storage fails in a way that shows incorrect data and you do end up in an accident when only driving 50 but the device showing you've been zigzagging and doing 90 (which you were just before it burned out, but on a privately owned racecourse a couple weeks prior)? Or what if someone manipulated the recorder to frame you?"
What if someone murders a family and puts a pile of bloody hatchets in your shed and anonymously report you to the police? If someone wants to frame you they have plenty of opportunity beyond tampering with a black box on your car.
All it would take is one android/ios app to read/send encrypted SMS messages and this would be defeated. Of course the cops would then try to extract your keys but that couldn't happen near as easy.
"helping people sell stuff they own, find a hotel, or a life partner – is that they represent a positive change in the lives of millions of people "
Lots of people use these systems for negative change. How many married people are on dating sites, buying things they shouldn't, taking trips with money they don't have. They do a lot of good, but there is always bad in there somewhere.
If this were true, then aliens would have wiped us out if they had ever visited us.
As some others have noted, you could always hook into your destination and cause all those hitchhiking particles to be shot into the nearest black hole. Then no one gets huts unless that cross in front of that traffic while its heading to the black hole.
" shareholders...need to be held personally liable "
What a way to kill the whole stock market. Would you ever invest in a company you didn't fully understand every business practice if you could be liable for its wrongdoing?
"there hasn't been anything genuinely new these past 20 years"
Are you serious? 20 years ago would be 1992. That was before 98% of the internet users today knew of the internet. Smart phones didn't exist. The Apple Newton just came out. Windows 3.1 came out. MIME was first defined. InterNIC did not exist. Linux was maybe a year old.
You better hope you don't actually employee people. You comments are the most obvious form of illegal age discrimination I've heard in a while.
Does anyone pick the president by the VP they choose? Do they think, "I like the other guy more for president, but I'm voting for this guy because he will be a better VP"?
The problem with this view is it is unrealistic. Yes, some peolple would realize this and react as you suggest. Most people though, will not save even if they know there will be no one there to bail them out and will end up at 80 with nothing anyway. Social security alone is not a great retirement, yet tons of people squirrel $0 away.
"Taking a life is the most extreme action available to our justice system."
There's no reason why our justice system couldn't take both your life and a loved one's. We just need a few laws added. Sadly, that would sometimes be a better deterent than taking the perp's life. Criminals often don't care about themselves, but say you'll execute their momma and they may think twice before they commit crime.
Before billions are spent going to Mars, I'd like to see a self-sufficient or at least semi-self-sufficient colony go live in Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean for an extended period. That includes growing food, climate control, recycling air, getting along with each other, etc. If an extinction level event happened like a giant asteroid hitting the earth, I believe a successful colony living at the bottom of the ocean may have a better chance than one on Mars.
True, living in the south pole or 3 miles under water isn't as cool as living on Mars but if you really are concerned with the human race living past an extinction level event this would likely be a better choice.
"guaranteeing food for people now with the promise of a horrible premature death later doesn't sound like a good compromise"
You say that as someone well fed and not worried about where or how any meal in the future will come from. There are people in Haiti eating cookies made of dirt to make hunger pains go away. Do you think they would hesitate to eat rice that had a 20% chance of causing cancer in 20 years?
What is your resistance to using the work billion? It isn't a dirty word.
Also, I agree with you mostly on this. They only way I can see people making a planet is by making self replicating robots that can mine the universe for energy and minerals and have them do all the work. If they can build themselves expoentially and are somewhat networked they could be "told" to go forth and multiply and make us a planet. It still wouldn't be a weekend endevour though.
Tell them you'd happily provide it but they should know it is also the same credentials for your online banking, gmail, credit cards, etc and by giving them that info they may be liable if you are a victim of identity theft in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
"What if the storage fails in a way that shows incorrect data and you do end up in an accident when only driving 50 but the device showing you've been zigzagging and doing 90 (which you were just before it burned out, but on a privately owned racecourse a couple weeks prior)? Or what if someone manipulated the recorder to frame you?"
What if someone murders a family and puts a pile of bloody hatchets in your shed and anonymously report you to the police? If someone wants to frame you they have plenty of opportunity beyond tampering with a black box on your car.
All it would take is one android/ios app to read/send encrypted SMS messages and this would be defeated. Of course the cops would then try to extract your keys but that couldn't happen near as easy.
Isn't that what BitCoin is for?
"helping people sell stuff they own, find a hotel, or a life partner – is that they represent a positive change in the lives of millions of people "
Lots of people use these systems for negative change. How many married people are on dating sites, buying things they shouldn't, taking trips with money they don't have. They do a lot of good, but there is always bad in there somewhere.
Not really, but if it looked like this he would definately have an issue...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4043/4702368517_812af64a5a.jpg
If this were true, then aliens would have wiped us out if they had ever visited us.
As some others have noted, you could always hook into your destination and cause all those hitchhiking particles to be shot into the nearest black hole. Then no one gets huts unless that cross in front of that traffic while its heading to the black hole.
" shareholders...need to be held personally liable "
What a way to kill the whole stock market. Would you ever invest in a company you didn't fully understand every business practice if you could be liable for its wrongdoing?
Yep. On a side note, how do I determine the length of the longest side in a right angled triangle?
"there hasn't been anything genuinely new these past 20 years"
Are you serious?
20 years ago would be 1992. That was before 98% of the internet users today knew of the internet. Smart phones didn't exist. The Apple Newton just came out. Windows 3.1 came out. MIME was first defined. InterNIC did not exist. Linux was maybe a year old.
You better hope you don't actually employee people. You comments are the most obvious form of illegal age discrimination I've heard in a while.
If you stood them side by side, I'd have to guess Biden is the MS guy and Ryan is the Mac guy
I understand that, but does that actually drive anyone's choice for #1?
Were there people who were actually going to vote for McCain, but once Palin was selected they decided Obama/Biden was a better ticket?
Does anyone pick the president by the VP they choose? Do they think, "I like the other guy more for president, but I'm voting for this guy because he will be a better VP"?
Go to Bass Pro and get some deer cams or just google "deer cam". You can get them as cheap as $100. They do exactly what you want. End of story.
The terrorists have definately won
best citation ever!
Hunter, Billy Joe. The Future Cool. New York: Macmillan, 1964
The problem with this view is it is unrealistic. Yes, some peolple would realize this and react as you suggest. Most people though, will not save even if they know there will be no one there to bail them out and will end up at 80 with nothing anyway. Social security alone is not a great retirement, yet tons of people squirrel $0 away.
"violent crimes in the USA are largely committed by certain few subcultures
Do you have the balls to outright name these "subcultures"? The police subculture [wikipedia.org] maybe? Or perhaps Rich people? [trutv.com]
Please clear this up, I fear you're making a thinly veiled racist statement about blacks and hispanics,..."
We all know he is talking about Canadians.
"Taking a life is the most extreme action available to our justice system."
There's no reason why our justice system couldn't take both your life and a loved one's. We just need a few laws added. Sadly, that would sometimes be a better deterent than taking the perp's life. Criminals often don't care about themselves, but say you'll execute their momma and they may think twice before they commit crime.
Before billions are spent going to Mars, I'd like to see a self-sufficient or at least semi-self-sufficient colony go live in Antarctica or the bottom of the ocean for an extended period. That includes growing food, climate control, recycling air, getting along with each other, etc. If an extinction level event happened like a giant asteroid hitting the earth, I believe a successful colony living at the bottom of the ocean may have a better chance than one on Mars.
True, living in the south pole or 3 miles under water isn't as cool as living on Mars but if you really are concerned with the human race living past an extinction level event this would likely be a better choice.
"guaranteeing food for people now with the promise of a horrible premature death later doesn't sound like a good compromise"
You say that as someone well fed and not worried about where or how any meal in the future will come from. There are people in Haiti eating cookies made of dirt to make hunger pains go away. Do you think they would hesitate to eat rice that had a 20% chance of causing cancer in 20 years?
What is your resistance to using the work billion? It isn't a dirty word.
Also, I agree with you mostly on this. They only way I can see people making a planet is by making self replicating robots that can mine the universe for energy and minerals and have them do all the work. If they can build themselves expoentially and are somewhat networked they could be "told" to go forth and multiply and make us a planet. It still wouldn't be a weekend endevour though.
Now we know why those birds are red.They are obviously commies.
You fool!
Everyone knows comic sans is the only legitimate font for mankind. I'm pretty sure the original bible used it.
Man, your a real Nazi on the proper use of Godwin's Law.
Tell them you'd happily provide it but they should know it is also the same credentials for your online banking, gmail, credit cards, etc and by giving them that info they may be liable if you are a victim of identity theft in the future.