To get away from Earth. Some say humanity, in its current form, is doomed to destroy itself. Being on another astronomical body would afford some protection from that, should we Earth-bound folks finally kick the bucket. They're not self-sufficient. It would offer as much protection as a sheet of kleenex in a burning building.
Humanity has its issues, but really... there is no fucking thing we could possibly do that is on the level of the hostility of the moon. Zero atmosphere, zero water. Temepratures that simply does not exist on our planet. Baked in cosmic radiation and meteors hitting full force. I mean, that thing is devoid of life for a reason...
The moon is simply put: more hostile than every single doomsday scenarion you can think of, happening the same day.
I know what I'm about to say is anathema to many geeks, but just hear me out before you open the can of napalm. With our limited budget and socio-political 'attention span', I say that research money is much better spent doing research here on earth. Ok, I heard you out. Can I open the napalm now? Thanks:)
We'll do both. Explore space AND take care of thing on earth. Because we're 6 billion people and we can focus on more than just one thing at a time. While "earth first" may sound like a nice and beautiful thing, it's utterly retarded and would be the death of us all. Because earth will NEVER be perfect and we'd never get anywhere, ever.
Humans: "Ok, guys, now earth is a perfect, wonderful place filled with happiness! Let's explore space!" Meteor: *hits earth*
Similarly, Europeans landed on North America sometime around 1000, but it was an accident, and Norse sailing craft, which were the best in the western world, weren't really up to the task of regular trans-atlantic voyages, it would be another 500 years before really practical technology caught up to the mere feasibility. Accident? There were settlements on Greenland. On the West side, mind you. Fire up google Earth and check the distances involved.
There are many reasons the Norse didn't go there regularly. One thing is being able to go, another is to be able to make a profit from going. And without guns, the natives would have been deadly if provoked. Then toss in internal problems: The Black Plague completely, utterly devastated the populations of Norway and Iceland, and that was the end of the Norse era.
If we have a third world war, it might be the same story on a greater scale. Huamkind having been able to go to the moon once, then collapsing and being unable to do it for perhaps centuries.
History shows that prior to the easy of unauthorized reproduction that we have today there were no explicit copyright protection mechanisms. How would you implement an "explicit copyright protection mechanisms" on a book?
They implement copy protection because they can. There is nothing the industry would like more than to be able to demand payment every single time you hear their content playing.
I can use the same argument for the industry: If they hadn't attempted to double- and triple-charge for their content, maybe people wouldn't have supported wholesale piracy?
It's the same argument. Maybe people would pirate for free no matter how reasonable the industry were? Correct! Just like the industry would charge whatever it could get away with no matter how reasonable their consumere were.
A computer is a machine built for manipulating information and Internet is built for sending information across the globe. If your product can be represented digitally, it will be consumed by the information behemoth we call the Internet. And you should not control it.
Should not. Because you can control it. The only problem is that when you can control one form of information, it becomes much easier to control other forms of information. Oppressive regimes would love an Internet where every piece of information had a key, and you could just reach in and remove the pieces you didn't like.
And it's really the same thing. IT doesn't care if you're using your computer to upload illegal music or upload illegal political texts. Control one, and you control the other.
Wait- so you can't get high-speed internet in the cities, but you can in the "middle of nowhere"? how interesting. Depends on what you define as high-speed. He couldn't get fiber, but he probably has ADSL.
The interesting part is that power companies are bundling fiber with their power cables. Which means that and new building can get connected, even if it's in the mountains.
Did your grandparents throw up their arms and make excuses about how big the place was? Did they whine? Did they look the other way and say it wasn't such a big deal when other countries surpassed them?
Why is it that everytime this topic comes up on Slashdot, the discussion gets filled with whining about your population density?
Suck it up! Lagging behind in technology is NOT a good thing. Get it up to snuff or you risk facing serious negative effects in the long term. This is the time you roll up your sleeves and cover that big country of yours in fiber, just like you did with roads.
You should be sitting down and figuring out why it's not getting built and how to change that. Making excuses related to the size of your country might make you feel better, but it will not help your technological infrastructure.
Evolution is very very good at adjusting parameters. The (approximate) age at which you die is exactly the kind of biological parameter that evolution would set to the best possible range. If it had been a survival advantage to live to 500, you can bet we'd do just that. We die to make room for the next generation, and we die as soon as possible because faster generation time is a long-term benefit.
A turtle can live to 150 and a rabbit maybe 10. I am sure the longevity of the turtle has been a great benefit, but at the moment they're going extinct. Rabbits took over a continent.
Won't even mention insects and their generation time. They adapt to pretty much anything at all.
"Languages quite honestly give you a completely different way of thinking": Now there's a statement that requires a lot of backup. Language does not encapsulate ways of thinking; it's a means of conveying thoughts. I can't find the link, but I once read that there is a small native language that supposedly would express the thinking behind the general theory of relativity wonderfully. Most people tend to get confused by the theory, because our languages handles the concept of time in our specific way. With a different language and a different visualization of what time is, you think differently.
And learning Japanese certainly isn't only learning words and phrases. It's also learning to think about the world in terms of where you fit into a hierarchy and what role you are performing to decide which level of politeness you should use.
Not to mention that my own language have 3 words for "yes" and "no".
That's a poor analogy. How about a world in which there is only one CPU architecture Ok. I'm imagining a world with only one CPU architecture: Nintendo!
I would think the programmers here would be the first to get it Thank you for your good points.
Slashdotters should think programming languages. Imagine a world where there were no programming languages except visual basic. Even if you love Ruby, even if you love c#, even if you love assembly... Removing everything except one is not an improvement, because different languages have different strenghts ans weaknesses.
This is also true for human languages. I forgot the details, but there was a story about a one particular primitive tribe that could easily grasp the theory of relativity - because their language was built with a different way of expressing time.
Wouldn't this be a good thing? Less languages will mean more people speaking the same one, thus promoting better communication. At the cost of diversity. In the long run, diversity is more far important than efficiency.
We need diversity. We need different countries and people. Not because it's such a wonderful thing, but because every civilization sooner or later comes up with Really Bad Ideas. Until now, if the leaders fucked up a civilization too much, they'd be conquered and replaced with a system that works better.
Globalization gives us the ability to fuck up on a global scale. This worries me.
So even slashdotters are uanble to use their site successfully... It took me way too long to figure out that URL. Tried a few approaches, but every single one of them seemes to slam a huge ad and trying to make me write my credit card number to get something "for free".
Frankly, what the hell is their design goal? "Impersonate a scam site"? If I had dropped in there by chance, every single red flag I have would trigger: "SCAM! SCAM! Don't fall for this! Get out! Close the browser, scan for spyware. Phew. I'm safe again."
This is exactly the kind of site I warn my family about and tell them they should never, ever hand even their email to. Kinda sucks when you're a legit site... I'm sure they could have a huge boost in subscribers by changing their fron page to something just a little bit less scammy-looking.
Agree with parent on all points. I have been considering to purchase music from them several times, but everytime I visit their site, I just end up thinking "why bother? this site sucks" and postphone it another 3 months.
Have they forgotten that cockroaches exist in all parts of the world !? Actually, there are no cockroaches in Norway. Unless you manage to bring some back from vacation. Do they exist in Canada and the Northern US?
Truth is, buggers don't like cold. So for the myth about them shrugging off a nuclear war... Nuclear Winter, baby.
(Obviously, only Scandinavians could survive a nuclear war!)
Today the record label fulfills that role. Tomorrow, the Internet will.
There will be less risk for artists, because their fans will already know who they are.
I can't predicte the future, but imagine fans pre-ordering concert tickets. Then you go touring when there is enough interest in an area for you to assume you'll make a profit. You could have smaller touring agencies working for a much smaller share than a label, because they can estimate the risk so much better when you know how many fans you already have in the area.
Though the superstar days are gone. I don't want artist A or B. I want slightly darkern than A, with a twist of B's vocals and various elements from C D and E. And there will be an artist just like that, because when everyone can easily find just the artist they love, there will be a huge number of nieche markets.
So: Less risk & lower profit. New business models. More artists, more variation. Less superstars, since people will be spread out more. Much less overhead, and much more content that is just the right for you.
If you want to follow a TV show in Japan though you live in Iceland, no problem.
In a world where kids grow up with every piece of information at their fingertips, the old business model won't work. Waiting a year for plastic disks to be released in your area (For foreign shows, they will never be released at all except blockbusters)? Just in order to buy a certain piece of information legally? When you find the same information online the day after it was released. Good luck enforcing that business models.
I won't be surprised if we have another google-event. A small company springing up with a great model, growing past many of the large media internationals.
So, as long as I manage to take a picture of someone with their consent, I hold all the rights? I could use it in, say, a nation-wide advertisement campaign for anal pleasure devices? Without asking?
Could you do the same with a picture of the Mayor, taken at a public speech?
Before, one was more worth, now it's the other. US dollars "won". Now, Canadian dollars "win". That's a big difference.
Sure, it's not really that important. But this stuff kicks right into the primitive parts of our brain that loves to divide the world into "winners" and "loosers". Even when it doesn't apply all that much.
In fact, if you look at Google Trends more and more people are searching for "Ubuntu" on Google, even as the amount of people searching for "Linux" is dropping. Well.... email is dropping, too, do you think less and less people are using it?
Since you've seemed to miss a huge point in Google Trends, I'll make sure to point this out: It's not the number of searches, it's relative to the total search volume. If you allow, we could say that an increasing graph actually means it's "growing faster than the Internet". Which is completely OMFGxrz!!!, by the way.
Pretty much all technical terms are dropping. This has nothing to do with the number of searches and everything to do with more and more non-technical people getting online and searching for non-technical things.
Slashdot Mirror
I have bought music directly from the artist.
However, I have never bought anything from the RIAA (or any label remotely related).
I think God modded me +5 (Fuck the RIAA) for that.
Gotta start somewhere, you know.
The goals will obviously to have solar-powered mines and factories and ramp up some production.
Humanity has its issues, but really... there is no fucking thing we could possibly do that is on the level of the hostility of the moon. Zero atmosphere, zero water. Temepratures that simply does not exist on our planet. Baked in cosmic radiation and meteors hitting full force. I mean, that thing is devoid of life for a reason...
The moon is simply put: more hostile than every single doomsday scenarion you can think of, happening the same day.
RIAA lawsuit in 3.. 2.. 1..
A couple of years ago, brick-and-mortar retailers were upset on eBay for potentially leading some of their customers astray.
Today, eBayers are upset because brick-and-mortar retailers advertise on eBay, potentially leading some of their customers astray.
We've come full circle. Now we just have to smooth out the kinks until everyone goes where it is best for them to go, and purchase there.
We'll do both. Explore space AND take care of thing on earth. Because we're 6 billion people and we can focus on more than just one thing at a time. While "earth first" may sound like a nice and beautiful thing, it's utterly retarded and would be the death of us all. Because earth will NEVER be perfect and we'd never get anywhere, ever.
Humans: "Ok, guys, now earth is a perfect, wonderful place filled with happiness! Let's explore space!"
Meteor: *hits earth*
There are many reasons the Norse didn't go there regularly. One thing is being able to go, another is to be able to make a profit from going. And without guns, the natives would have been deadly if provoked. Then toss in internal problems: The Black Plague completely, utterly devastated the populations of Norway and Iceland, and that was the end of the Norse era.
If we have a third world war, it might be the same story on a greater scale. Huamkind having been able to go to the moon once, then collapsing and being unable to do it for perhaps centuries.
They implement copy protection because they can. There is nothing the industry would like more than to be able to demand payment every single time you hear their content playing.
I can use the same argument for the industry: If they hadn't attempted to double- and triple-charge for their content, maybe people wouldn't have supported wholesale piracy?
It's the same argument. Maybe people would pirate for free no matter how reasonable the industry were? Correct! Just like the industry would charge whatever it could get away with no matter how reasonable their consumere were.
A computer is a machine built for manipulating information and Internet is built for sending information across the globe. If your product can be represented digitally, it will be consumed by the information behemoth we call the Internet. And you should not control it.
Should not. Because you can control it. The only problem is that when you can control one form of information, it becomes much easier to control other forms of information. Oppressive regimes would love an Internet where every piece of information had a key, and you could just reach in and remove the pieces you didn't like.
And it's really the same thing. IT doesn't care if you're using your computer to upload illegal music or upload illegal political texts. Control one, and you control the other.
The interesting part is that power companies are bundling fiber with their power cables. Which means that and new building can get connected, even if it's in the mountains.
How on earth did the US get their roads?
Did your grandparents throw up their arms and make excuses about how big the place was? Did they whine? Did they look the other way and say it wasn't such a big deal when other countries surpassed them?
Why is it that everytime this topic comes up on Slashdot, the discussion gets filled with whining about your population density?
Suck it up! Lagging behind in technology is NOT a good thing. Get it up to snuff or you risk facing serious negative effects in the long term. This is the time you roll up your sleeves and cover that big country of yours in fiber, just like you did with roads.
You should be sitting down and figuring out why it's not getting built and how to change that. Making excuses related to the size of your country might make you feel better, but it will not help your technological infrastructure.
Definetely about generation time.
Evolution is very very good at adjusting parameters. The (approximate) age at which you die is exactly the kind of biological parameter that evolution would set to the best possible range. If it had been a survival advantage to live to 500, you can bet we'd do just that. We die to make room for the next generation, and we die as soon as possible because faster generation time is a long-term benefit.
A turtle can live to 150 and a rabbit maybe 10. I am sure the longevity of the turtle has been a great benefit, but at the moment they're going extinct. Rabbits took over a continent.
Won't even mention insects and their generation time. They adapt to pretty much anything at all.
And learning Japanese certainly isn't only learning words and phrases. It's also learning to think about the world in terms of where you fit into a hierarchy and what role you are performing to decide which level of politeness you should use.
Not to mention that my own language have 3 words for "yes" and "no".
Bah, they're just two forks of the same OS.
You should install Hindi or Chinese. No, wait, this is Slashdot, Finnish!
Slashdotters should think programming languages. Imagine a world where there were no programming languages except visual basic. Even if you love Ruby, even if you love c#, even if you love assembly... Removing everything except one is not an improvement, because different languages have different strenghts ans weaknesses.
This is also true for human languages. I forgot the details, but there was a story about a one particular primitive tribe that could easily grasp the theory of relativity - because their language was built with a different way of expressing time.
Language is the OS of our brains.
We need diversity. We need different countries and people. Not because it's such a wonderful thing, but because every civilization sooner or later comes up with Really Bad Ideas. Until now, if the leaders fucked up a civilization too much, they'd be conquered and replaced with a system that works better.
Globalization gives us the ability to fuck up on a global scale. This worries me.
It is actually possible to brose their selection without giving them your credit card number:
http://www.emusic.com/browse/all.html
So even slashdotters are uanble to use their site successfully... It took me way too long to figure out that URL. Tried a few approaches, but every single one of them seemes to slam a huge ad and trying to make me write my credit card number to get something "for free".
Frankly, what the hell is their design goal? "Impersonate a scam site"? If I had dropped in there by chance, every single red flag I have would trigger: "SCAM! SCAM! Don't fall for this! Get out! Close the browser, scan for spyware. Phew. I'm safe again."
This is exactly the kind of site I warn my family about and tell them they should never, ever hand even their email to. Kinda sucks when you're a legit site... I'm sure they could have a huge boost in subscribers by changing their fron page to something just a little bit less scammy-looking.
Agree with parent on all points. I have been considering to purchase music from them several times, but everytime I visit their site, I just end up thinking "why bother? this site sucks" and postphone it another 3 months.
Truth is, buggers don't like cold. So for the myth about them shrugging off a nuclear war... Nuclear Winter, baby.
(Obviously, only Scandinavians could survive a nuclear war!)
There will be less risk for artists, because their fans will already know who they are.
I can't predicte the future, but imagine fans pre-ordering concert tickets. Then you go touring when there is enough interest in an area for you to assume you'll make a profit. You could have smaller touring agencies working for a much smaller share than a label, because they can estimate the risk so much better when you know how many fans you already have in the area.
Though the superstar days are gone. I don't want artist A or B. I want slightly darkern than A, with a twist of B's vocals and various elements from C D and E. And there will be an artist just like that, because when everyone can easily find just the artist they love, there will be a huge number of nieche markets.
So: Less risk & lower profit. New business models. More artists, more variation. Less superstars, since people will be spread out more. Much less overhead, and much more content that is just the right for you.
Not just easy. The selection is HUMONGOUS!
If you want to follow a TV show in Japan though you live in Iceland, no problem.
In a world where kids grow up with every piece of information at their fingertips, the old business model won't work. Waiting a year for plastic disks to be released in your area (For foreign shows, they will never be released at all except blockbusters)? Just in order to buy a certain piece of information legally? When you find the same information online the day after it was released. Good luck enforcing that business models.
I won't be surprised if we have another google-event. A small company springing up with a great model, growing past many of the large media internationals.
Ugh?
lolcat is: "IM IN UR xxx, yyyING UR zzz"
At least get it right when youære correcting people.
So, as long as I manage to take a picture of someone with their consent, I hold all the rights? I could use it in, say, a nation-wide advertisement campaign for anal pleasure devices? Without asking?
Could you do the same with a picture of the Mayor, taken at a public speech?
I doubt it.
the obsession with 1:1:
Before, one was more worth, now it's the other. US dollars "won". Now, Canadian dollars "win". That's a big difference.
Sure, it's not really that important. But this stuff kicks right into the primitive parts of our brain that loves to divide the world into "winners" and "loosers". Even when it doesn't apply all that much.
Since you've seemed to miss a huge point in Google Trends, I'll make sure to point this out: It's not the number of searches, it's relative to the total search volume. If you allow, we could say that an increasing graph actually means it's "growing faster than the Internet". Which is completely OMFGxrz!!!, by the way.
http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html
Pretty much all technical terms are dropping. This has nothing to do with the number of searches and everything to do with more and more non-technical people getting online and searching for non-technical things.