What the heck. . ? Do you have a quota or something? If you don't lay down enough astroturf, does the dark lord gouge out your eyes? What's the deal?
I don't know why I should bother with such a stupid remark but...
What is this supposed to mean? What is your basis for this? So you can't argue the point and instead resort to childish remarks? I could be wrong, but you strike me as the sort of person who only likes reading news that confirms to your own personal world view.
First, you claim it's a lie but put forward nothing to back your claim other than linking to other Slashdot posts. Second, when in the hell did I ever say anything Bush has done has helped reduce terrorism? I was discussing the tactics, not their efficacy.
I'll repeat what I said. I stated that to date domestic spying, specifically phone-tapping which is what this spying actually is, has been used to investigate terrorists. Do I think it's been successful? Actually, I doubt it because I doubt any would-be terrorist would be so stupid as to call someone in the states and say anything incriminating. I think we haven't seen another terrorist attack primarily because they're essentially nonexistent in the United States, and not because of anything the government has done.
But if you're going to lash out at anyone who disagrees in the slightest bit from you and are unwilling to consider other viewpoints then we've got a bit of a problem here.
I absolutely agree that domestic spying is a concern. However, I also find an insult to my intelligence to see people claiming that they're being oppressed by the government, that someone is watching everything they say. I don't see how any rational person could actually believe that. Given all the open discourse, all the content out there vehemently opposing the president, ranging from blogs, to movies, to news media how can anyone say with a straight face that this administration has it in for anyone opposed to him. It's like people think it's more exciting if they see themselves as revolutionaries.
The patriot act is irrelevant anyway. Like the government is somehow not going to spy on us with our without some bit of legislation saying they can. The obvious difference is that if it's illegal it wont be disclosed to the public.
The problem with Americans today isn't that they don't care about domestic spying. It's that they're overly obsessed with security, specifically, they want the government to protect them from everything. See something offensive on television? Bring in government regulation. Someone says something disagreeable, make that speech illegal. Make poor financial decisions? Have the government come in with a bail out.
Americans want to be insulated from all the ills of the world. They don't want any responsibilities. This is something that apparently has afflicted Americans of all income levels. And what's worse, they have unrealistic expectations. They'll embrace domestic spying under the pretense that it will prevent a terrorist attack. It will certainly help, but it isn't foolproof. What if we face another serious attack. What then? Are we going have the military patrolling our streets.
And needless to say, the media feeds into this hysteria. To them it's all a money-making business, but it's having quite the detrimental impact on society. Priorities are all screwed up. Many people are fixated on terrorism which is a vague, relatively minor threat. I believe it's a real concern, but nowhere near the level that requires an obnoxious alert system, or required the Department of Homeland Security. For example, there's a more immediate and serious threat of crime which people seem to be oblivious through.
Anyway, my concern with things like domestic spying is their long-term application. I'm not concern with what this administration has done because he's on his way out and by and large it's been actually used against terrorism. My fear is what future administrations do with these powers. My fear is that the government engages what is essentially thought control, people are investigates for saying something perceived as offensive about some group. That's my concern with things like the Fairness Doctrine coupled with the Patriot Act.
We're already heading in a direction where anything deviating from group think is discouraged. And the internet is helping to feed particular mindsets where blogs perpetuate certain ideas. The idea basically is: you're free to say whatever you want as long as you agree with us. And because of this an alarming number of people seem to be embracing this notion that we should silence certain voices for whatever reason suits their agenda. And with the wrong people in power they can make this a reality.
The power technology affords provides the government with the resources to control us in ways that make what China is doing in Tibet seem like an amusement park ride.
Maybe so, but I'd argue the quality of his entertainment has suffered. World of Warcraft is a fun game but it's nothing compared to having a good time with friends, in person.
Japanese has all kinds of complexities. They have complex conjugations first of all, then there's the whole system of politeness depending on who's being addressed although that may be less relevant online. While at it's core Chinese is fairly intuitive and straightforward it quickly gets very complex.
Both Japanese and Chinese use all sorts of expressions, many of which make no sense whatsoever when translated literally. This becomes apparent when trying to use those translation tools. The translation ends up being complete gibberish to the point of being comedic.
Because people of so many nationalities speak English it's easier for an AI to fool people because there really is no standard for the language. English-speakers are used to hearing it spoken in all sorts of different ways, with a wide variety of expressions.
Automated chats are always obvious for what they are because they tend to stupidly repeat the same few comments over and over again. They're also incapable of responding properly to a user's comments, and colloquialisms always trip up these systems.
I'd argue our brain and perhaps even our DNA is the equivalent of a BIOS and OS. Humans are even born with certain instincts amounting to preprogrammed instructions, breast-feeding being one of them. A computer with no BIOS or AI is basically a pile of plastic and silicon. There needs to be some foundation to build upon.
The conditions I'd put on AI would be that it has to be able to improvise and create. It has to be able to learn and develop independently of it's program. Instructions which dictate how it should develop or how to deal with specific situations are prohibited.
One thing I'd suggest is important is desire, the desire to feed, to move, to do something. This would spur to develop itself to fulfill its desires. Otherwise it's just going to sit there.
China's economy isn't booming quite to the extent that the American media would have us believe. Inflation is becoming a serious problem there. It may not be as big an issue for the small percentage of the population who are well off, but given that most of the nation still lives close to or in poverty it is a serious problem.
There are economists who believe China has a bubble economy built on credit and corruption. So far they've done well for themselves but it's only a matter of time before they hit a downturn. And when that happens they're going to have serious problems with civil unrest. My concern is that when that happens the government will quickly start blaming other nations for all their ills.
Believe me, Chinese people have a lot to be resentful of. All that economic growth has been great, but many people have suffered greatly for it. Thousands, if not millions have lost their homes to what amounts to eminent domain to make way for new development. People have gone off to work only to return to find their homes demolished. Supposedly the government has passed property rights laws but they don't seem to have amounted to much of anything. And let's not forget how they control free speech, although people seem to have largely forgotten about that in the midst of this economic boom.
And they may be right in a few regards. There is already the big issue of low-quality goods coming out of the country. Just recently a number of people in Japan died from having eaten tainted food from China. Sales of Chinese foods have dropped dramatically. Quality clearly isn't improving but it's getting more expensive to manufacture in China. As infrastructure improves in places like India, Vietnam and elsewhere American, European and Japanese companies are going to look to those nations for their manufacturing needs.
From personal experience, a few years ago in Taiwan everyone and their grandmother was chomping at the bit to do business in China. Many gave it a try and most failed. Nowadays, there's still a good deal of interest, but people have are a lot more tentative. China's market is over-saturated with competition and business is too cutthroat. And that's to say nothing of all the corruption.
I'm not saying there aren't problems with the American economy, because there are. But the fundamentals are still good and we're on a somewhat more stable ground. This current downturn is due to speculation more than anything. Gasoline prices are high because of the weak dollar, and more importantly because of speculators. Some economists are saying that oil's value should be at about $70 per barrel, not $100+. Demand has actually dipped in the US. The problem is who the hell knows when a correction is coming. Speculation has led the housing and stock market to the situation we find ourselves today. Look at all the people who overpaid for homes because they expected to continue seeing these absurd increases in values. And that was despite the fact that we were being warned of the housing bubble.
Now, on to the topic at hand, some people have this tendency to criticize the US for it's supposed double-standards regarding this sort of thing. How can the US government complain about China doing the very thing they themselves are engaged in?
Well, here's my thinking, I live in the United States, not China. China is free to do whatever they like, of course, but I want my nation to have the upper-hand economically and militarily. I'm not saying the US should go around pushing everyone around with impunity, nor do I think the US should be invading every second country who looks at them the wrong way.
One thing China does have is a lot of nationalistic pride. Even when they're critical of the government they still manage to have a lot of ambition. When they set their minds to doing something they get it done and don't get mired in all kinds of nonsense like is so often the case here. I think that's admirable and something sorely lacking in the US.
The country is on the brink of unstoppable financial catastrophe that may make Great Depression seem mild
Talk about melodrama. There are serious problems out there to be sure, but nothing on the scale of what was encountered during the Great Depression. I can't help but that all this drama in the media has been timed to coincide with the upcoming presidential elections. I'm always reluctant to put stock in the opinion of a few bloggers; those are interesting reads, I admit, but I don't buy it.
While throttling bandwidth is important I think the government should expand their investigations to include general business practices. And they should include all service providers including cable, satellite, mobile phones, etc. Start by investigating pricing structure.
What justification do these companies have to raise rates every year? Why have mobile phone companies raised text messaging rates to 20 cents per message when it probably costs them a fraction of a cent to transmit them? We pay more for our internet than most of the rest of the world and suffer with subpar service.
Why are pricing packages offered by all competitors virtually identical. I don't mean somewhat similar; I mean exactly the same, beginning pricing and ending with so-called incentives and features. They love signing people up for features they didn't request and locking them into contracts.
Why do the people at these companies feel compelled to resort to dishonest business practices? They talk about the importance of the free market but then seem eager to do everything they can to drive people to embrace regulation. The sad thing is that people really have more control in all this than they'd like to believe. But unfortunately most consumers seem content to put up with this crap. In some ways I see why; we don't have any choice.
I can choose not to have a mobile phone, which I've considered doing. I can dump my internet service. But for various reason they've become necessary tools. So in the end I'm stuck dealing with this garbage regardless of what provider I choose. So in the face of all these problems that FCC investigation is insignificant and doesn't address the larger issues.
Maybe it's because your services are so reliable that management sees no need to invest any more money. Why fix something that isn't broken?
If everything facilities is responsible for is always breaking down someone needs to spend money either repairing or replacing it.
Maybe you need to make your servers less reliable to encourage that investment in your department.
It's kind of sad, but often that seems to be the case. It reminds me of how my state bases next year's snow removal budget on this year's winter. So the following winter inevitably is worse and they need to draw from emergency funds to continue snow removal. It basically encourages waste so that departments continue getting what they want from the state.
I had one of those Eigerman MP3 players; in fact, I still have it laying around somewhere. It came with 32mb, not 64mb. However, far more important was the fact that it had a SmartMedia slot which meant I could easily swap music, it wasn't like the cards at the time had much storage space anyway.
This was the F20 model, however, because the F10 model described in the article came with 32mb and apparently so slot. Consumers could send the device to the company and have it upgraded to 64mb for a fee.
I did find it interesting at the time that these MP3s popped up for a while and kind disappeared for a while. I assumed that people weren't really interested in these things; perhaps they found them to be an inconvenience given that a PC was needed to get music on the devices. I think the attitude is a bit different now that PCs are a bit more ubiquitous and people are comfortable with the notion of MP3s.
What I found interesting was that while living in Asia before the advent of the iPod MP3s were a bit more common there. It's not so much that they were popular, but that they were easier to find than in the US.
Then Apple came along with the iPod and changed everything. Although I found Apple's marketing at the time obnoxious, like I always do. They practically made it seem like they had invented the MP3 player.
Certainly the iPod's simple and trendy helped make it a success, in the very least it looked different from everything else on the market and seemed more approachable. On the other hand, I can't help but think they benefited greatly from entering the market just when consumers were ready to embrace the mp3 player.
Another party trick for the Mighty Mouse: the squeezeable sides are "harder" to squeeze when the mouse isn't on a surface. Try it now...squeeze it, then pick it up off the table and squeeze again.
The only reason those buttons are harder to squeeze when the mouse is off a surface is because your fingers don't have as much leverage to push on those buttons. Those squeeze buttons are nothing more than contacts mounted on both sides of the mouse.
The scroll ball doesn't feature anything that generations the vibration. It feels exactly the same whether or not the mouse is plugged in. The mouse does feature a tiny speaker which surprised me when I did learned about it.
The mighty mouse is no more a haptic device than any other mouse. Game controllers with force-feedback are really the only haptic devices currently available to consumers.
Actually, I'm surprised someone hasn't introduced force feedback into mice yet. It would be interesting to get some sort of feedback when the cursor hits the edge of the screen, and even more interesting to implement it in games. Perhaps nobody has done it because the mouse would just start vibrating all over the desk.
I agree that many, maybe most American companies are averse to real progress. They're more interested in stifling competition, which is basically the antithesis of the free market. However, the average American isn't particularly eager for progress either. All they seem to be clamoring for is government protection whether it be from terrorists, "evil" corporations, offensive, politically incorrect speech or their own responsibilities.
Government can certainly be a great motivator but they also have a penchant for making a mess of things through inefficiency, waste and excessive control. The American government may have spurred a lot of development but it's corporations which brought us a staggering amount of innovation. Whether the companies of today have the same pride and motivation as did companies of the past, however, I'm not entirely convinced.
Excessive nationalistic pride is certainly a bad thing, but a lack of it is also very harmful. The Chinese will get someone on Mars before we do precisely because of their pride, because they want to be the first to do it. The lack of pride in the US is what allows management to justify outsourcing even their core business. Why bother actually making something when a company can get someone to buy anything with enough marketing. Sales and marketing departments have far too much influence. We have business majors in charge of everything.
To think that Bush is somehow responsible for this, however, is very naive. This all began a long time ago. I fail to see how Bush might have facilitated this any more than Clinton or any other past president. The nature of economics and social trends is far more complex than the influence of any president, especially given one as stupid as people claim he is. And lets not forget that the congress is involved in all this.
What I find troubling is that there is no presidential candidate out there proposing anything that could turn this nation around. If anything, they're likely to only make things worse. They're all pushing short-term, feel-good solutions which will end up being costly for everyone. They're all pushing the same old garbage which I feel basically amounts to vote-buying.
Honestly, I won't be surprised if we don't even see a base on the Moon in the next 50 years let alone even thinking about sending someone to Mars.
I can't help but think that the West, particularly America has lost its vision. They can't see beyond next week let alone the next 10 years. What would be the predicable reaction to a proposal to spend billions on a manned mission anywhere? That money should be used here on Earth! We should be dumping it into yet another poorly conceived, wasteful social program. Nevermind that what would be learned from such an ambitious undertaking would be a great boon to us for years.
Americans can barely get large-scale construction projects going anymore. For decades there have been proposals for a link across the Long Island Sound; I point out this particular example because I live in the area. Recently a new proposal for a tunnel was made. And what was the reaction? Some politicians representing the towns on either end of the proposed tunnel start whining about the impact it will have. Then come the bleeding hearts concerned about the environmental impact of having to dump all the dirt and rock somewhere. Around the world, there are currently 10 major tunnel construction projects on this scale underway. For Americans, however, such a project is unfathomable.
If they can't even get behind a project like this how in the hell are they ever going to accept a manned mission to Mars which requires far more foresight, imagination and patience.
Americans by and large don't want progress. They claim they're looking for change, but what they really want is security. They certainly aren't going to back a project that diverts money from that goal. I didn't really intend to rant like this, but what I've been seeing leaves me a bit pessimistic.
What's really sad is that when we talk about the head of SCO or Microsoft, we require much more evil before we start throwing rocks than we do for Google or Wikipedia
You're kidding right? Are we visiting the same Slashdot?
I can't recall ever reading anything overly negative about Google and I think people here are generally quick to defend them. The criticisms of Microsoft are never-ending. Even a positive story on Microsoft descends into a bash-fast.
Regarding, Wikipedia, as has been mentioned I think it's great that content is so open to editing. This moderating increases the likelihood that content is accurate and true. It's not foolproof, however. A story may conform to what the majority of visitors believe and that doesn't necessarily coincide with the truth.
I'm convinced tailgating is the primary source of this problem. It's not so much that drivers want to tailgate but rather they're trying to drive at the maximum speed the conditions allow. This basically guarantees that they do tailgate and then are forced to brake on a regular basis to moderate their speed. And of course once anyone brakes it gets amplified because anyone behind them brakes even more. Aggravating this problem is the fact that many of these people are apparently incapable of coasting, and instead stomp on the gas every time they see an opening.
I've read, and have observed for myself, that big trucks act as dampers. Because they brake and accelerate more slowly they need to maintain greater distance from vehicles in front of them. They can nullify a traffic wave because by the time they've reached cars which had been stopped they've begun moving again which essentially ensures that the truck continues rolling.
I've applied this technique to rush hour traffic myself and unless traffic is particularly bad its extremely effective. Basically accelerate more slowly than the car ahead of me giving myself a considerable gap. And by considerably I mean a good 5 to 10 car gap. Then I let myself roll in first, maybe second gear. If I see cars braking ahead I regulate my speed more carefully. Most of the time, when I reach those cars ahead of me they're already accelerating again and I keep right on moving, maintaining a consistent speed.
What disrupts this is when idiots feel the need to get into any opening they see, worse, when they can't stand the fact that I've left an opening in front of me larger than they find acceptable. To them, they're not making progress if they aren't riding someone else's bumper.
I usually find that in rush hour this doesn't happen as frequently because people seem to be worn down an resigned to slow-moving traffic. They jockey for position a lot less frequently than they would on the weekend when heavy traffic is less common.
Then there's the New York area where drivers are overly aggressive and downright idiotic. There's nothing to be done then. But I also think their driving habits have arisen as a result of horrendously designed and constructed highways. I think better highway design could go a long way to alleviating traffic problems.
Last week we discussed Popular Mechanics' reporting from MIT, but missed one of the coolest breakthrough of all, something scientists have been working on quietly as Detroit spends money elsewhere.
I find it amusing that the summary takes a jab at American automakers in light of the fact that Ford has an on-going partnership with MIT. Whether Ford's funding is supporting this specific project I can't confirm, but clearly they are funding these types of projects. A press release describing the partnership can be found here.
And just because they aren't investing specifically at MIT doesn't mean they aren't investing in this sort of research.
Perhaps that is part of the reason why we americans do not rate very highly on the global happiness scale.
Is that so? Because in all the surveys I've seen Americans rate quite highly. While, they're not as high as Denmark, Switzerland and a few other places, they do come in 23rd place. That's quite a bit better than France, Germany, and the UK.
I saw a better listing a few weeks ago, but this site has those same findings.
It's funny reading this thread considering how tired I feel right now. I have no one to blame, but myself. Yet again I've stayed up too late on my computer. For me what keeps me up isn't so much television. I don't watch it much and when I do I normally fall asleep. But I don't know what it is about being in front of a computer that regardless of how tired I am I'm stimulated enough to stay awake. And it clearly has a detrimental effect on my well-being. If only I could break the habit.
I can't say it makes me depressed, at least not directly, but I do feel like shit all day.
The big push for at least a decade was that we were being threatened by global warming. The ice caps were going to melt, the seas were going to rise and who knows what else was going to come with that. All we hear about is some impending doom initiated by humanity. Except that it never actually arrives; it's always going to happen some day soon.
On now that evidence is arising that discredits the notion of global warming the terms get switched around on us. So now it's climate change. The nice thing about this term is that it's so all-encompassing. Any time we get weather a bit out of the ordinary it's chalked up to be due to climate change, specifically man-made climate change.
Last month is snowed lightly in Baghdad for the first time anyone can recall. You'd think so impressive an event would be covered more than it was. I eventually found a brief Agence France-Presse story about it. Predictably they stick a bit in there about how this was due to climate change. Like there's a set temperature for any spot on Earth.
I guess the implication is that the Earth's climate has always been static. I can't help but think that Creationists should be the most ardent believers of man-made climate change given that they're convinced the Earth is only 6000 years old.
Forecasters can barely predict the weather into next week and I'm supposed to accept has fact incomplete computer models that predict the weather in the next 50 or 100 years. More importantly, I'm supposed to subscribe to the belief that a global temperature increase is inherently a bad thing.
A while ago I was reading about the history of Japan, specifically the Jomon period. It turns out that between 4000BC and 2000BC temperatures tended to be several degrees Celsius higher then they are today and the seas are believed to have been 5m higher. The fascinating part was that the people living in Japan at the time thrived during this era, having developed rice-paddy farming and government control. When the climate cooled the population of these people declined dramatically. This trend is reflected around the world. Europe endured famines in the 1300s during periods of cooling and glacial expansion.
Unfortunately, it seems to be taboo to argue against man-made climate change. Any evidence critics put forward is dismissed off-hand. The double-standards are laughable. A believer will use a localized event as evidence of climate change. A critic does the same and their argument is discredited for being based on local weather.
So now we have these eskimo pulling what is essentially a publicity stunt. Well, it's worse than that. Behind them are a pack of scumbag lawyers looking to line their pockets.
The Roman Catholic church has recognized evolution essentially as fact and completely compatible with the bible. So I don't really understand what the problem is with Protestants in this country.
The only reason I see for this idiotic push to marginalize evolution and push creationism as a valid theory is because Christian conservatives see their influence on American culture slipping. This is a desperate attempt to make their religion relevant. I don't understand how this is permitted.
Evolution is a science. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science and have no place in the science class. Those concepts don't conform to the standards established by science. There is a place for creationism, and that's the theology class.
If parents want to compromise their children's education they should do so in private schools or at home instead of trying to force this stupidity on everyone.
Well, an African vulture once struck an airline at 37,000ft and other birds are known to fly at altitudes comparable to the height of Everest. Maybe not 40,000ft, but impressive nonetheless.
The Wii, and pretty much all game consoles ever, have been working just fine with input devices where your hands are "elevated."
No, they aren't elevated. These controllers are held with the player's elbows resting on their knees or arm rests. The hands themselves may be elevated, but there is clearly support preventing the arms from getting tired.
If someone is standing playing the Wii people wont face the same strain because they aren't holding their arm up, relatively motionless. They're swinging the controller around like a tool, However, I can't imagine playing a game like Metroid Prime or Zelda where someone is standing there with arms elevated for hours on end. At that point they'll be holding the controller more conventionally with arms at rest.
And certainly, there's no way in hell anyone would want to sit in front of a computer all day at work with their arms elevated and swinging around.
That's exactly what most of the dumbasses who vote people like Bush into office need: A world-view tuned more to what and who they already know.
What, you mean unlike the same sort of small world you live in where it's justifiable to call people who disagree with you dumb asses?
I already see this narrow world-view with blogs. People blog about other blogs to the point that they seem to exist for no other reason than to justify their own beliefs.
I'm not saying I agree with people who support Bush. And I do agree that social network-based search results will only make narrow-minded and ignorance worse.
However, it's already bad now and it's just as bad amongst liberal sites as it is amongst the conservative ones. Like it or not, anyone who believes otherwise probably as a narrow-minded view of the world themselves.
I can't stand blogs for this reason. Few bloggers want actual discussion. There's a tendency for certain viewpoints to get modded down on Slashdot, but by and large I still get to see all sorts of viewpoints expressed.
The problem isn't a hand off approach or tax breaks. The problem has been over-regulation. The government has put us into this situation creating an environment which as stifled competition. Look at all the nonsense of who can enter which markets. The cable companies are constantly fighting to prevent competition from entering their markets. And they've acquired this monopolistic position thanks to all the government support from years past.
If the government hadn't tried meddling from the start and let these companies fend for themselves I'm fairly certain we'd be seeing far more competition today, better service and cheaper rates.
The reason why there are so many options in Asia and why the quality of broadband has improved so much is because companies are on their own. If something doesn't go their way they don't go running to the government for help.
As for the comment about taxes, American companies already pay more in taxes than any other nation on Earth. Obviously it hasn't helped. Like it or not, companies create jobs. Ireland's economy completely turned around when they dramatically cut taxes across the board. The Taiwanese government is pushing to cut corporate taxes, I don't recall now if it was a 5% or 10% drop, to ensure continued positive growth. I can only imagine the shock if that were proposed here.
Anyway, if the government were serious about fixing broadband they'd completely remove any regulations which create an anti-competitive environment. Investment in infrastructure might be a good thing but there needs to be a way to prevent individual companies from exerting too much control over the network. Abuses are then dealt on an individual basis, instead of far-reaching legislation which fixes one problem but causes five others.
I've been doing research into the mess our broadband is in. I was originally skeptical about all the criticisms, but I've since discovered how bad it is. The conclusion I've come to, however, is that this mess is ultimately the fault of government meddling.
You're right, the so-called Chinese threat is a non-event. I haven't encountered anyone in Taiwan who was concerned about an invasion from China. What they don't want is the status quo being upset because of all the business they're doing in China.
China may ultimately prove to be an economic threat, but they're so far being Taiwan that won't materialize for quite some time. They do, however, apparently have a better marketing machine.
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I don't know why I should bother with such a stupid remark but...
What is this supposed to mean? What is your basis for this? So you can't argue the point and instead resort to childish remarks? I could be wrong, but you strike me as the sort of person who only likes reading news that confirms to your own personal world view.
First, you claim it's a lie but put forward nothing to back your claim other than linking to other Slashdot posts. Second, when in the hell did I ever say anything Bush has done has helped reduce terrorism? I was discussing the tactics, not their efficacy.
I'll repeat what I said. I stated that to date domestic spying, specifically phone-tapping which is what this spying actually is, has been used to investigate terrorists. Do I think it's been successful? Actually, I doubt it because I doubt any would-be terrorist would be so stupid as to call someone in the states and say anything incriminating. I think we haven't seen another terrorist attack primarily because they're essentially nonexistent in the United States, and not because of anything the government has done.
But if you're going to lash out at anyone who disagrees in the slightest bit from you and are unwilling to consider other viewpoints then we've got a bit of a problem here.
I absolutely agree that domestic spying is a concern. However, I also find an insult to my intelligence to see people claiming that they're being oppressed by the government, that someone is watching everything they say. I don't see how any rational person could actually believe that. Given all the open discourse, all the content out there vehemently opposing the president, ranging from blogs, to movies, to news media how can anyone say with a straight face that this administration has it in for anyone opposed to him. It's like people think it's more exciting if they see themselves as revolutionaries.
The patriot act is irrelevant anyway. Like the government is somehow not going to spy on us with our without some bit of legislation saying they can. The obvious difference is that if it's illegal it wont be disclosed to the public.
The problem with Americans today isn't that they don't care about domestic spying. It's that they're overly obsessed with security, specifically, they want the government to protect them from everything. See something offensive on television? Bring in government regulation. Someone says something disagreeable, make that speech illegal. Make poor financial decisions? Have the government come in with a bail out.
Americans want to be insulated from all the ills of the world. They don't want any responsibilities. This is something that apparently has afflicted Americans of all income levels. And what's worse, they have unrealistic expectations. They'll embrace domestic spying under the pretense that it will prevent a terrorist attack. It will certainly help, but it isn't foolproof. What if we face another serious attack. What then? Are we going have the military patrolling our streets.
And needless to say, the media feeds into this hysteria. To them it's all a money-making business, but it's having quite the detrimental impact on society. Priorities are all screwed up. Many people are fixated on terrorism which is a vague, relatively minor threat. I believe it's a real concern, but nowhere near the level that requires an obnoxious alert system, or required the Department of Homeland Security. For example, there's a more immediate and serious threat of crime which people seem to be oblivious through.
Anyway, my concern with things like domestic spying is their long-term application. I'm not concern with what this administration has done because he's on his way out and by and large it's been actually used against terrorism. My fear is what future administrations do with these powers. My fear is that the government engages what is essentially thought control, people are investigates for saying something perceived as offensive about some group. That's my concern with things like the Fairness Doctrine coupled with the Patriot Act.
We're already heading in a direction where anything deviating from group think is discouraged. And the internet is helping to feed particular mindsets where blogs perpetuate certain ideas. The idea basically is: you're free to say whatever you want as long as you agree with us. And because of this an alarming number of people seem to be embracing this notion that we should silence certain voices for whatever reason suits their agenda. And with the wrong people in power they can make this a reality.
The power technology affords provides the government with the resources to control us in ways that make what China is doing in Tibet seem like an amusement park ride.
Maybe so, but I'd argue the quality of his entertainment has suffered. World of Warcraft is a fun game but it's nothing compared to having a good time with friends, in person.
Japanese has all kinds of complexities. They have complex conjugations first of all, then there's the whole system of politeness depending on who's being addressed although that may be less relevant online. While at it's core Chinese is fairly intuitive and straightforward it quickly gets very complex.
Both Japanese and Chinese use all sorts of expressions, many of which make no sense whatsoever when translated literally. This becomes apparent when trying to use those translation tools. The translation ends up being complete gibberish to the point of being comedic.
Because people of so many nationalities speak English it's easier for an AI to fool people because there really is no standard for the language. English-speakers are used to hearing it spoken in all sorts of different ways, with a wide variety of expressions.
Automated chats are always obvious for what they are because they tend to stupidly repeat the same few comments over and over again. They're also incapable of responding properly to a user's comments, and colloquialisms always trip up these systems.
I'd argue our brain and perhaps even our DNA is the equivalent of a BIOS and OS. Humans are even born with certain instincts amounting to preprogrammed instructions, breast-feeding being one of them. A computer with no BIOS or AI is basically a pile of plastic and silicon. There needs to be some foundation to build upon.
The conditions I'd put on AI would be that it has to be able to improvise and create. It has to be able to learn and develop independently of it's program. Instructions which dictate how it should develop or how to deal with specific situations are prohibited.
One thing I'd suggest is important is desire, the desire to feed, to move, to do something. This would spur to develop itself to fulfill its desires. Otherwise it's just going to sit there.
China's economy isn't booming quite to the extent that the American media would have us believe. Inflation is becoming a serious problem there. It may not be as big an issue for the small percentage of the population who are well off, but given that most of the nation still lives close to or in poverty it is a serious problem.
There are economists who believe China has a bubble economy built on credit and corruption. So far they've done well for themselves but it's only a matter of time before they hit a downturn. And when that happens they're going to have serious problems with civil unrest. My concern is that when that happens the government will quickly start blaming other nations for all their ills.
Believe me, Chinese people have a lot to be resentful of. All that economic growth has been great, but many people have suffered greatly for it. Thousands, if not millions have lost their homes to what amounts to eminent domain to make way for new development. People have gone off to work only to return to find their homes demolished. Supposedly the government has passed property rights laws but they don't seem to have amounted to much of anything. And let's not forget how they control free speech, although people seem to have largely forgotten about that in the midst of this economic boom.
And they may be right in a few regards. There is already the big issue of low-quality goods coming out of the country. Just recently a number of people in Japan died from having eaten tainted food from China. Sales of Chinese foods have dropped dramatically. Quality clearly isn't improving but it's getting more expensive to manufacture in China. As infrastructure improves in places like India, Vietnam and elsewhere American, European and Japanese companies are going to look to those nations for their manufacturing needs.
From personal experience, a few years ago in Taiwan everyone and their grandmother was chomping at the bit to do business in China. Many gave it a try and most failed. Nowadays, there's still a good deal of interest, but people have are a lot more tentative. China's market is over-saturated with competition and business is too cutthroat. And that's to say nothing of all the corruption.
I'm not saying there aren't problems with the American economy, because there are. But the fundamentals are still good and we're on a somewhat more stable ground. This current downturn is due to speculation more than anything. Gasoline prices are high because of the weak dollar, and more importantly because of speculators. Some economists are saying that oil's value should be at about $70 per barrel, not $100+. Demand has actually dipped in the US. The problem is who the hell knows when a correction is coming. Speculation has led the housing and stock market to the situation we find ourselves today. Look at all the people who overpaid for homes because they expected to continue seeing these absurd increases in values. And that was despite the fact that we were being warned of the housing bubble.
Now, on to the topic at hand, some people have this tendency to criticize the US for it's supposed double-standards regarding this sort of thing. How can the US government complain about China doing the very thing they themselves are engaged in?
Well, here's my thinking, I live in the United States, not China. China is free to do whatever they like, of course, but I want my nation to have the upper-hand economically and militarily. I'm not saying the US should go around pushing everyone around with impunity, nor do I think the US should be invading every second country who looks at them the wrong way.
One thing China does have is a lot of nationalistic pride. Even when they're critical of the government they still manage to have a lot of ambition. When they set their minds to doing something they get it done and don't get mired in all kinds of nonsense like is so often the case here. I think that's admirable and something sorely lacking in the US.
I'm not saying it should be the FCC investigating them, I'm just saying they should be investigated.
While throttling bandwidth is important I think the government should expand their investigations to include general business practices. And they should include all service providers including cable, satellite, mobile phones, etc. Start by investigating pricing structure.
What justification do these companies have to raise rates every year? Why have mobile phone companies raised text messaging rates to 20 cents per message when it probably costs them a fraction of a cent to transmit them? We pay more for our internet than most of the rest of the world and suffer with subpar service.
Why are pricing packages offered by all competitors virtually identical. I don't mean somewhat similar; I mean exactly the same, beginning pricing and ending with so-called incentives and features. They love signing people up for features they didn't request and locking them into contracts.
Why do the people at these companies feel compelled to resort to dishonest business practices? They talk about the importance of the free market but then seem eager to do everything they can to drive people to embrace regulation. The sad thing is that people really have more control in all this than they'd like to believe. But unfortunately most consumers seem content to put up with this crap. In some ways I see why; we don't have any choice.
I can choose not to have a mobile phone, which I've considered doing. I can dump my internet service. But for various reason they've become necessary tools. So in the end I'm stuck dealing with this garbage regardless of what provider I choose. So in the face of all these problems that FCC investigation is insignificant and doesn't address the larger issues.
Maybe it's because your services are so reliable that management sees no need to invest any more money. Why fix something that isn't broken?
If everything facilities is responsible for is always breaking down someone needs to spend money either repairing or replacing it.
Maybe you need to make your servers less reliable to encourage that investment in your department.
It's kind of sad, but often that seems to be the case. It reminds me of how my state bases next year's snow removal budget on this year's winter. So the following winter inevitably is worse and they need to draw from emergency funds to continue snow removal. It basically encourages waste so that departments continue getting what they want from the state.
I had one of those Eigerman MP3 players; in fact, I still have it laying around somewhere. It came with 32mb, not 64mb. However, far more important was the fact that it had a SmartMedia slot which meant I could easily swap music, it wasn't like the cards at the time had much storage space anyway.
This was the F20 model, however, because the F10 model described in the article came with 32mb and apparently so slot. Consumers could send the device to the company and have it upgraded to 64mb for a fee.
I did find it interesting at the time that these MP3s popped up for a while and kind disappeared for a while. I assumed that people weren't really interested in these things; perhaps they found them to be an inconvenience given that a PC was needed to get music on the devices. I think the attitude is a bit different now that PCs are a bit more ubiquitous and people are comfortable with the notion of MP3s.
What I found interesting was that while living in Asia before the advent of the iPod MP3s were a bit more common there. It's not so much that they were popular, but that they were easier to find than in the US.
Then Apple came along with the iPod and changed everything. Although I found Apple's marketing at the time obnoxious, like I always do. They practically made it seem like they had invented the MP3 player.
Certainly the iPod's simple and trendy helped make it a success, in the very least it looked different from everything else on the market and seemed more approachable. On the other hand, I can't help but think they benefited greatly from entering the market just when consumers were ready to embrace the mp3 player.
The only reason those buttons are harder to squeeze when the mouse is off a surface is because your fingers don't have as much leverage to push on those buttons. Those squeeze buttons are nothing more than contacts mounted on both sides of the mouse.
The scroll ball doesn't feature anything that generations the vibration. It feels exactly the same whether or not the mouse is plugged in. The mouse does feature a tiny speaker which surprised me when I did learned about it.
You can see the internals of that mouse here.
The mighty mouse is no more a haptic device than any other mouse. Game controllers with force-feedback are really the only haptic devices currently available to consumers.
Actually, I'm surprised someone hasn't introduced force feedback into mice yet. It would be interesting to get some sort of feedback when the cursor hits the edge of the screen, and even more interesting to implement it in games. Perhaps nobody has done it because the mouse would just start vibrating all over the desk.
I agree that many, maybe most American companies are averse to real progress. They're more interested in stifling competition, which is basically the antithesis of the free market. However, the average American isn't particularly eager for progress either. All they seem to be clamoring for is government protection whether it be from terrorists, "evil" corporations, offensive, politically incorrect speech or their own responsibilities.
Government can certainly be a great motivator but they also have a penchant for making a mess of things through inefficiency, waste and excessive control. The American government may have spurred a lot of development but it's corporations which brought us a staggering amount of innovation. Whether the companies of today have the same pride and motivation as did companies of the past, however, I'm not entirely convinced.
Excessive nationalistic pride is certainly a bad thing, but a lack of it is also very harmful. The Chinese will get someone on Mars before we do precisely because of their pride, because they want to be the first to do it. The lack of pride in the US is what allows management to justify outsourcing even their core business. Why bother actually making something when a company can get someone to buy anything with enough marketing. Sales and marketing departments have far too much influence. We have business majors in charge of everything.
To think that Bush is somehow responsible for this, however, is very naive. This all began a long time ago. I fail to see how Bush might have facilitated this any more than Clinton or any other past president. The nature of economics and social trends is far more complex than the influence of any president, especially given one as stupid as people claim he is. And lets not forget that the congress is involved in all this.
What I find troubling is that there is no presidential candidate out there proposing anything that could turn this nation around. If anything, they're likely to only make things worse. They're all pushing short-term, feel-good solutions which will end up being costly for everyone. They're all pushing the same old garbage which I feel basically amounts to vote-buying.
Honestly, I won't be surprised if we don't even see a base on the Moon in the next 50 years let alone even thinking about sending someone to Mars.
I can't help but think that the West, particularly America has lost its vision. They can't see beyond next week let alone the next 10 years. What would be the predicable reaction to a proposal to spend billions on a manned mission anywhere? That money should be used here on Earth! We should be dumping it into yet another poorly conceived, wasteful social program. Nevermind that what would be learned from such an ambitious undertaking would be a great boon to us for years.
Americans can barely get large-scale construction projects going anymore. For decades there have been proposals for a link across the Long Island Sound; I point out this particular example because I live in the area. Recently a new proposal for a tunnel was made. And what was the reaction? Some politicians representing the towns on either end of the proposed tunnel start whining about the impact it will have. Then come the bleeding hearts concerned about the environmental impact of having to dump all the dirt and rock somewhere. Around the world, there are currently 10 major tunnel construction projects on this scale underway. For Americans, however, such a project is unfathomable.
If they can't even get behind a project like this how in the hell are they ever going to accept a manned mission to Mars which requires far more foresight, imagination and patience.
Americans by and large don't want progress. They claim they're looking for change, but what they really want is security. They certainly aren't going to back a project that diverts money from that goal. I didn't really intend to rant like this, but what I've been seeing leaves me a bit pessimistic.
You're kidding right? Are we visiting the same Slashdot?
I can't recall ever reading anything overly negative about Google and I think people here are generally quick to defend them. The criticisms of Microsoft are never-ending. Even a positive story on Microsoft descends into a bash-fast.
Regarding, Wikipedia, as has been mentioned I think it's great that content is so open to editing. This moderating increases the likelihood that content is accurate and true. It's not foolproof, however. A story may conform to what the majority of visitors believe and that doesn't necessarily coincide with the truth.
I'm convinced tailgating is the primary source of this problem. It's not so much that drivers want to tailgate but rather they're trying to drive at the maximum speed the conditions allow. This basically guarantees that they do tailgate and then are forced to brake on a regular basis to moderate their speed. And of course once anyone brakes it gets amplified because anyone behind them brakes even more. Aggravating this problem is the fact that many of these people are apparently incapable of coasting, and instead stomp on the gas every time they see an opening.
I've read, and have observed for myself, that big trucks act as dampers. Because they brake and accelerate more slowly they need to maintain greater distance from vehicles in front of them. They can nullify a traffic wave because by the time they've reached cars which had been stopped they've begun moving again which essentially ensures that the truck continues rolling.
I've applied this technique to rush hour traffic myself and unless traffic is particularly bad its extremely effective. Basically accelerate more slowly than the car ahead of me giving myself a considerable gap. And by considerably I mean a good 5 to 10 car gap. Then I let myself roll in first, maybe second gear. If I see cars braking ahead I regulate my speed more carefully. Most of the time, when I reach those cars ahead of me they're already accelerating again and I keep right on moving, maintaining a consistent speed.
What disrupts this is when idiots feel the need to get into any opening they see, worse, when they can't stand the fact that I've left an opening in front of me larger than they find acceptable. To them, they're not making progress if they aren't riding someone else's bumper.
I usually find that in rush hour this doesn't happen as frequently because people seem to be worn down an resigned to slow-moving traffic. They jockey for position a lot less frequently than they would on the weekend when heavy traffic is less common.
Then there's the New York area where drivers are overly aggressive and downright idiotic. There's nothing to be done then. But I also think their driving habits have arisen as a result of horrendously designed and constructed highways. I think better highway design could go a long way to alleviating traffic problems.
I find it amusing that the summary takes a jab at American automakers in light of the fact that Ford has an on-going partnership with MIT. Whether Ford's funding is supporting this specific project I can't confirm, but clearly they are funding these types of projects. A press release describing the partnership can be found here.
And just because they aren't investing specifically at MIT doesn't mean they aren't investing in this sort of research.
Is that so? Because in all the surveys I've seen Americans rate quite highly. While, they're not as high as Denmark, Switzerland and a few other places, they do come in 23rd place. That's quite a bit better than France, Germany, and the UK.
I saw a better listing a few weeks ago, but this site has those same findings.
It's funny reading this thread considering how tired I feel right now. I have no one to blame, but myself. Yet again I've stayed up too late on my computer. For me what keeps me up isn't so much television. I don't watch it much and when I do I normally fall asleep. But I don't know what it is about being in front of a computer that regardless of how tired I am I'm stimulated enough to stay awake. And it clearly has a detrimental effect on my well-being. If only I could break the habit.
I can't say it makes me depressed, at least not directly, but I do feel like shit all day.
The big push for at least a decade was that we were being threatened by global warming. The ice caps were going to melt, the seas were going to rise and who knows what else was going to come with that. All we hear about is some impending doom initiated by humanity. Except that it never actually arrives; it's always going to happen some day soon.
On now that evidence is arising that discredits the notion of global warming the terms get switched around on us. So now it's climate change. The nice thing about this term is that it's so all-encompassing. Any time we get weather a bit out of the ordinary it's chalked up to be due to climate change, specifically man-made climate change.
Last month is snowed lightly in Baghdad for the first time anyone can recall. You'd think so impressive an event would be covered more than it was. I eventually found a brief Agence France-Presse story about it. Predictably they stick a bit in there about how this was due to climate change. Like there's a set temperature for any spot on Earth.
I guess the implication is that the Earth's climate has always been static. I can't help but think that Creationists should be the most ardent believers of man-made climate change given that they're convinced the Earth is only 6000 years old.
Forecasters can barely predict the weather into next week and I'm supposed to accept has fact incomplete computer models that predict the weather in the next 50 or 100 years. More importantly, I'm supposed to subscribe to the belief that a global temperature increase is inherently a bad thing.
A while ago I was reading about the history of Japan, specifically the Jomon period. It turns out that between 4000BC and 2000BC temperatures tended to be several degrees Celsius higher then they are today and the seas are believed to have been 5m higher. The fascinating part was that the people living in Japan at the time thrived during this era, having developed rice-paddy farming and government control. When the climate cooled the population of these people declined dramatically. This trend is reflected around the world. Europe endured famines in the 1300s during periods of cooling and glacial expansion.
Unfortunately, it seems to be taboo to argue against man-made climate change. Any evidence critics put forward is dismissed off-hand. The double-standards are laughable. A believer will use a localized event as evidence of climate change. A critic does the same and their argument is discredited for being based on local weather.
So now we have these eskimo pulling what is essentially a publicity stunt. Well, it's worse than that. Behind them are a pack of scumbag lawyers looking to line their pockets.
The Roman Catholic church has recognized evolution essentially as fact and completely compatible with the bible. So I don't really understand what the problem is with Protestants in this country.
The only reason I see for this idiotic push to marginalize evolution and push creationism as a valid theory is because Christian conservatives see their influence on American culture slipping. This is a desperate attempt to make their religion relevant. I don't understand how this is permitted.
Evolution is a science. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not science and have no place in the science class. Those concepts don't conform to the standards established by science. There is a place for creationism, and that's the theology class.
If parents want to compromise their children's education they should do so in private schools or at home instead of trying to force this stupidity on everyone.
Well, an African vulture once struck an airline at 37,000ft and other birds are known to fly at altitudes comparable to the height of Everest. Maybe not 40,000ft, but impressive nonetheless.
No, they aren't elevated. These controllers are held with the player's elbows resting on their knees or arm rests. The hands themselves may be elevated, but there is clearly support preventing the arms from getting tired.
If someone is standing playing the Wii people wont face the same strain because they aren't holding their arm up, relatively motionless. They're swinging the controller around like a tool, However, I can't imagine playing a game like Metroid Prime or Zelda where someone is standing there with arms elevated for hours on end. At that point they'll be holding the controller more conventionally with arms at rest.
And certainly, there's no way in hell anyone would want to sit in front of a computer all day at work with their arms elevated and swinging around.
What, you mean unlike the same sort of small world you live in where it's justifiable to call people who disagree with you dumb asses?
I already see this narrow world-view with blogs. People blog about other blogs to the point that they seem to exist for no other reason than to justify their own beliefs.
I'm not saying I agree with people who support Bush. And I do agree that social network-based search results will only make narrow-minded and ignorance worse.
However, it's already bad now and it's just as bad amongst liberal sites as it is amongst the conservative ones. Like it or not, anyone who believes otherwise probably as a narrow-minded view of the world themselves.
I can't stand blogs for this reason. Few bloggers want actual discussion. There's a tendency for certain viewpoints to get modded down on Slashdot, but by and large I still get to see all sorts of viewpoints expressed.
The problem isn't a hand off approach or tax breaks. The problem has been over-regulation. The government has put us into this situation creating an environment which as stifled competition. Look at all the nonsense of who can enter which markets. The cable companies are constantly fighting to prevent competition from entering their markets. And they've acquired this monopolistic position thanks to all the government support from years past.
If the government hadn't tried meddling from the start and let these companies fend for themselves I'm fairly certain we'd be seeing far more competition today, better service and cheaper rates.
The reason why there are so many options in Asia and why the quality of broadband has improved so much is because companies are on their own. If something doesn't go their way they don't go running to the government for help.
As for the comment about taxes, American companies already pay more in taxes than any other nation on Earth. Obviously it hasn't helped. Like it or not, companies create jobs. Ireland's economy completely turned around when they dramatically cut taxes across the board. The Taiwanese government is pushing to cut corporate taxes, I don't recall now if it was a 5% or 10% drop, to ensure continued positive growth. I can only imagine the shock if that were proposed here.
Anyway, if the government were serious about fixing broadband they'd completely remove any regulations which create an anti-competitive environment. Investment in infrastructure might be a good thing but there needs to be a way to prevent individual companies from exerting too much control over the network. Abuses are then dealt on an individual basis, instead of far-reaching legislation which fixes one problem but causes five others.
I've been doing research into the mess our broadband is in. I was originally skeptical about all the criticisms, but I've since discovered how bad it is. The conclusion I've come to, however, is that this mess is ultimately the fault of government meddling.
You're right, the so-called Chinese threat is a non-event. I haven't encountered anyone in Taiwan who was concerned about an invasion from China. What they don't want is the status quo being upset because of all the business they're doing in China.
China may ultimately prove to be an economic threat, but they're so far being Taiwan that won't materialize for quite some time. They do, however, apparently have a better marketing machine.