This is as old - at least - as President Jackson, who said "To the victor belong the spoils." One of the spoils is to be able to pardon the guys who do dirty work for you. Sad to say, it's been going on for at least 150 years.
Does it have a 'no George Bush' option to see how the world would be doing without him?
Seriously, I wonder how much the current fiasco in Iraq has to do with the desire for this program. There are probably a lot of people who would like to have been able to say: "Mr. President, our supercomputers say that this is a bad idea."
It could be used for politics. Imagine someone from Ron Paul's campaign saying: "Our ideas are better, and now we can finally prove it!"
In Soviet Russia Santa gets coal from you. Knowing the Russians, this claimed territory will become a polluted industrial mess.
Author needs to get out of the basement
on
The Internet Of Things
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
'All entities - everything from the particular chair I am sitting on to objects like the Lincoln Memorial monument should have a unique digital identifier. Jawohl! Everything vill be numbered today und vill be ready for inspection tomorrow.
No. The world should not be re-organized to suit computers. Computers should be reprogrammed to handle a complex world.
We see one of the classic symptoms of the bureaucrat here: someone who thinks that the person - or thing - should be subordinate to the numbering system.
Does this mean I won't be able to call my ex girlfriend up at 3am with a phone number she doesn't recognize, and proceed to breathe heavily into the phone? We gotcha covered. Post her number and the friendly folks here at slashdot will do it for you.
...their long standing rivalry with us on economic, political and cyberspace issues we very much need to watch this a lot closer than Iraq/war on terror because of the real implications of possible future conflict. Why are we assuming it's all about us? Could the Chinese have other concerns than trying to match the US militarily?
If I were the Chinese leadership, I'd be more scared of my own people. Look at it from their point of view: the US does not seem to be able to get it's political leadership together to really crush someone since WWII. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq 1, Iraq 2, etc. ( Ok, we crushed Grenada, but they could have been taken out by the SWAT team from any major US city )
But their own people are becoming more educated, wealthier, and more connected. They are slowly becoming a middle class, which as any historian can tell you, is the group that usually starts successful revolutions. The current leadership remembers Tienamin Square. The people who survived that are starting to reach middle age, and maybe thinking of trying again, but this time with better planning and better communications. If they start a revolution, it would sure be nice to be able to cut of all communication with the rest of the world in 24 hours.
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'
By the time this child makes the transition from high school to college, he will be required to accept a curriculum that too often lacks meaning and content, that fails to allow him to satisfy his own curiosity about the challenges facing humanity, and is, moreover, expensive and will likely lead to indebtedness. Nothing new here. This is how it was prior to the net.
The next stage in the individual's life is integration into the mature world of the computerized economy, i.e., when he becomes a "stakeholder." He accepts a world that does away with human values and subordinates him to "market values." Furthermore, he is bound to lose his sense of privacy...
Efficiency is nearly the sole criterion by which modern corporations make decisions, and it is no accident that these two ideas, human values versus efficiency, are mutually exclusive. This is a false distiction. Modern corporations - with the exception of those that we have foolishly allowed to become monopolies - have to be efficient at pleasing the customer. We customers still have our 'human values', and corporations will cater to those values or go broke.
There is nothing new here, really. There has always been a tension between those who learned a new technology and those who were late learning it. Whether it is the wheel, or the inclined plane, or whatever the latest tech is, the question is who is master.
Ok, technically P is right and GP is wrong. But P seems a tad idealistically naive here. Anyone who has ever had a brush with the wrong end of the law enforcement business knows that this is not about an officer enforcing the law because he has a noble goal of enforcing the law; rather it is - as GP says - a power trip.
P ought to get out of civics class and into the real world.
So it's safe to say that I have a pro-Google/anti-Microsoft bias in general. Still, I don't see why Google or anybody else should have much if any say in the features that Microsoft is allowed to put in their products... How about the reverse: if a google page had a one-click option to modify vista so that Google was the preferred search engine?
Hybrids are not a dead end. They are the equilibrium waiting to be punctured.
Or, in less metaphorical terms, they are the bridging technology that makes the transition to electics possible when the battery technology improves. When the first really economical, environmentally reasonable battery comes along, it will face the chicken-and-egg problem of cars first or charging stations first. Hybrids wiil solve that.
As you say, other parts of the same paragraph may indeed offer advice on what insurance to buy or not buy, but quoting from item #3 of the website in question: "Once your model is off the refurb site, drop it. Voila! New laptop."
This looks pretty clear to me. On a certain date, deliberately damage the merchandise, and the insurance that you bought will get you a new one. This part is advice on how to commit fraud. Surrounding it with other advice doesn't change that.
I'm goig to buck the slashdoxy and defend Dell. Please read the full post before modding down.
Doesn't #3 bother anyone else? It is explicit instructions on how to commit insurance fraud. If I were Dell management, I'd want it taken down for that reason alone. ( How would you feel if someone posted your bank password on the net, thus enabling any reader to defraud you? )
You are letting them off too easily. The candidate should have 3 choices:
1) yes
2) no
3) Oh, God, nooo!!! Please don't turn that crank again!! I'll answer the question!
Ok, video is new, but this has been done before with more traditional formats. We've seen questions from the audience - sometimes even live - to presidential candidates before. The problem has always been not the questions, but the answers. Ask any question you want, but there is no way to compel the candidate to really answer it. Most don't.
What they do is speak about the topic with prepared mini-speeches...
Voter: Sir, does the right to free speech mean I can burn a flag?
Candidated: Let me tell you, I stand second to none in my love for the flag or this great country that it stands for. That flag represents all the people who have risked their lives and died to save her...
And after ten minutes of posturing and spouting non-sequiturs, he still will not have said yes or no. But for some reason, most people do not seem to notice the fact.
What we need is not a new way of asking questions, but a new way of getting answers.
I just looked at your blog, read the article on '300', which says
Since 9/11, including the people that were killed in 9/11, more people have been accidently killed by police officers in the United States than killed by terrorists. Yet how many people are convinced, by the government, by the media, that terrorists lurk behind every corner. That fear gives the governments power to do things its people would normally never allow. It's not the terrorists you should be afraid of. If true, that fact is appalling. It is over 1.5 people per day, including holidays. Do you have sources to back that? ( Not trying to challenge you - I'm truly curious )
Why use weak crypto? To avoid triggering some kind of knee-jerk reaction from the US govenrment intelligence agencies.
I'm assuming that if ATT goes to the NSA and says "Please help us pass a law that says that stuff can't be encrypted" and the NSA sees low-grade crpyto they will reply "You pussies, we solved that stuff in kindergarden". But if they see high-level crypto, they may start screaming "national security" and do something that is stupid, unconstitutional, or both.
They can have the absolute best filtering software in the world, and it will all go tits up the moment the client encrypts his communications Yes, P is right. Now we should start writing free, low-strength, fast encrytion/decryption software. Nothing that requires the NSA to break, but just enough to make it economically impractical for ATT to decrypt.
One burger for me, one for the wife.
Huh?? What's a wife? Ohhh, I forgot this is slashdot. A wife is a member of the oposite sex that you have a permanent relationship with.
What's that?? What's a relationship? It's like how you feel about your computer, but towards another human being.
Slashdot Mirror
Ooops! You're right, I meant commuted. Pardon me.
This is as old - at least - as President Jackson, who said "To the victor belong the spoils." One of the spoils is to be able to pardon the guys who do dirty work for you. Sad to say, it's been going on for at least 150 years.
Does it have a 'no George Bush' option to see how the world would be doing without him?
Seriously, I wonder how much the current fiasco in Iraq has to do with the desire for this program. There are probably a lot of people who would like to have been able to say: "Mr. President, our supercomputers say that this is a bad idea."
It could be used for politics. Imagine someone from Ron Paul's campaign saying: "Our ideas are better, and now we can finally prove it!"
PS: Hey, Zonk! It is spelled 'parallel'.
In Soviet Russia Santa gets coal from you. Knowing the Russians, this claimed territory will become a polluted industrial mess.
No. The world should not be re-organized to suit computers. Computers should be reprogrammed to handle a complex world.
We see one of the classic symptoms of the bureaucrat here: someone who thinks that the person - or thing - should be subordinate to the numbering system.
I have truly scary visions of Karen Black running on AOL software.
...their long standing rivalry with us on economic, political and cyberspace issues we very much need to watch this a lot closer than Iraq/war on terror because of the real implications of possible future conflict. Why are we assuming it's all about us? Could the Chinese have other concerns than trying to match the US militarily?If I were the Chinese leadership, I'd be more scared of my own people. Look at it from their point of view: the US does not seem to be able to get it's political leadership together to really crush someone since WWII. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq 1, Iraq 2, etc. ( Ok, we crushed Grenada, but they could have been taken out by the SWAT team from any major US city )
But their own people are becoming more educated, wealthier, and more connected. They are slowly becoming a middle class, which as any historian can tell you, is the group that usually starts successful revolutions. The current leadership remembers Tienamin Square. The people who survived that are starting to reach middle age, and maybe thinking of trying again, but this time with better planning and better communications. If they start a revolution, it would sure be nice to be able to cut of all communication with the rest of the world in 24 hours.
By the time this child makes the transition from high school to college, he will be required to accept a curriculum that too often lacks meaning and content, that fails to allow him to satisfy his own curiosity about the challenges facing humanity, and is, moreover, expensive and will likely lead to indebtedness. Nothing new here. This is how it was prior to the net. The next stage in the individual's life is integration into the mature world of the computerized economy, i.e., when he becomes a "stakeholder." He accepts a world that does away with human values and subordinates him to "market values." Furthermore, he is bound to lose his sense of privacy...
Efficiency is nearly the sole criterion by which modern corporations make decisions, and it is no accident that these two ideas, human values versus efficiency, are mutually exclusive. This is a false distiction. Modern corporations - with the exception of those that we have foolishly allowed to become monopolies - have to be efficient at pleasing the customer. We customers still have our 'human values', and corporations will cater to those values or go broke.
There is nothing new here, really. There has always been a tension between those who learned a new technology and those who were late learning it. Whether it is the wheel, or the inclined plane, or whatever the latest tech is, the question is who is master.
But you will have to pay court costs to do this.
Ok, technically P is right and GP is wrong. But P seems a tad idealistically naive here. Anyone who has ever had a brush with the wrong end of the law enforcement business knows that this is not about an officer enforcing the law because he has a noble goal of enforcing the law; rather it is - as GP says - a power trip.
P ought to get out of civics class and into the real world.
Only in the long run.
GP: If you're a US tax payer, you've already paid for this software.
P: Erm . . . no you havent. Maybe if the Govt created it, but it came from Caltech, not NASA.
Caltech donated it? Gee, that was sure nice of them.
Hybrids are not a dead end. They are the equilibrium waiting to be punctured.
Or, in less metaphorical terms, they are the bridging technology that makes the transition to electics possible when the battery technology improves. When the first really economical, environmentally reasonable battery comes along, it will face the chicken-and-egg problem of cars first or charging stations first. Hybrids wiil solve that.
"As long as there are people who believe in thoughtcrime... I think maybe privacy is something we should hang onto for just a bit longer."
As you say, other parts of the same paragraph may indeed offer advice on what insurance to buy or not buy, but quoting from item #3 of the website in question: "Once your model is off the refurb site, drop it. Voila! New laptop."
This looks pretty clear to me. On a certain date, deliberately damage the merchandise, and the insurance that you bought will get you a new one. This part is advice on how to commit fraud. Surrounding it with other advice doesn't change that.
I'm goig to buck the slashdoxy and defend Dell. Please read the full post before modding down.
Doesn't #3 bother anyone else? It is explicit instructions on how to commit insurance fraud. If I were Dell management, I'd want it taken down for that reason alone. ( How would you feel if someone posted your bank password on the net, thus enabling any reader to defraud you? )
What's the big deal? It's already a BLUE state...
You are letting them off too easily. The candidate should have 3 choices:
1) yes
2) no
3) Oh, God, nooo!!! Please don't turn that crank again!! I'll answer the question!
Ok, video is new, but this has been done before with more traditional formats. We've seen questions from the audience - sometimes even live - to presidential candidates before. The problem has always been not the questions, but the answers. Ask any question you want, but there is no way to compel the candidate to really answer it. Most don't.
What they do is speak about the topic with prepared mini-speeches...
Voter: Sir, does the right to free speech mean I can burn a flag?
Candidated: Let me tell you, I stand second to none in my love for the flag or this great country that it stands for. That flag represents all the people who have risked their lives and died to save her...
And after ten minutes of posturing and spouting non-sequiturs, he still will not have said yes or no. But for some reason, most people do not seem to notice the fact.
What we need is not a new way of asking questions, but a new way of getting answers.
I personally favor the rack.
I'm assuming that if ATT goes to the NSA and says "Please help us pass a law that says that stuff can't be encrypted" and the NSA sees low-grade crpyto they will reply "You pussies, we solved that stuff in kindergarden". But if they see high-level crypto, they may start screaming "national security" and do something that is stupid, unconstitutional, or both.
One burger for me, one for the wife.
Huh?? What's a wife? Ohhh, I forgot this is slashdot. A wife is a member of the oposite sex that you have a permanent relationship with.
What's that?? What's a relationship? It's like how you feel about your computer, but towards another human being.