"The more "progressive" a government, the more it progressed in the UK in placing surveillance."
The word "progressive" is a PR way of implying improvement and governments are getting very good at using PR to manipulate perceptions. The goal of any "improvement" is simply an improvement for the ones in power, to gain a greater control over the ones they seek to lead. They consider more control an improvement. Ultimately its about Cluster B Personality Disorders and how they behave. They relentlessly seek power over others. Normal people do not seek power so relentlessly, not matter what the people who seek power say or even think. Because people who seek power, think others are like them and so assume they think the same way as them. People who seek power fear the loss of power and constantly seek to gain ever more power. Over time, they bias things ever further in their faviour. This pattern of behaviour has been shown throughout history.
Its not what people want, its simply the ones in power refuse to actually listen to us anymore. Each party in power at the time, pretends to listen. They pretend to care, but then they still go off and do whatever it was they intended to do, regardless of what anyone says about their plans. The ones in power are simply looking for ways to convince us all of their views. The ones in power are are people who constantly seek power over others. The ones in power don't actually care what people think. The very nature of seeking power over people, means that person seeks to push others below them.
You can probably guess today, I've finally sadly had enough of living in a growing police state, I once knew as England. The people in power seek information on everyone, because knowledge is power. Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between information gathering and any danger. The process of information gathering (i.e. Big Brother) allows the creation of lists of people's views to be created... I write about how the power seekers are using that knowledge to control, in the other UK Big Brother style news on Slashdot today... http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=997305&cid=25397001
Add this phone and email reading news, to the password wanting news and then add in the political profiling news, all on Slashdot today, its clear where things are heading. So much for fairness or freedom.
I should also have added, the process of information gathering (i.e. Big Brother) allows the creation of lists of people's views to be created. Thats why I mentioned lists, although hopefully most people will get that connection.
Now I've had some more time to think about this news, (and adding this password news to the news about them wanting access to every phone call and email etc..., then its occured to me, how long will it be, before we have to send our passwords to the government, whenever we send an email containing a password protected file?... its the logical next step, in their creation of Big Brother, otherwise people could talk behind their backs, about how unfair the ones in power are getting, simply by sending password protected encripted text. But then they tell us they are not going to look in the emails, (yet), so we can just trust they are not really going to read everyones emails... and once they have the power to monitor everything, we can trust them not to extend that power.
(You can probably guess today, I've finally sadly had enough of living in a growing police state, I once knew as England).
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety"... sadly very true... So now we have two UK Big Brother bits of news in one morning. Oh what a time to live in the UK. But in the end, it doesn't just affect the UK. It will eventually apply to every country, because...
Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between lists and any danger. The lists are being made to influence people who speaking out against the ones in power. But most people fail to see the danger of giving the power seekers ever more data to mine on everyone. Knowledge is power and the ones in power seek the use that knowledge to prevent people standing against their point of view.
With ever more detailed lists on peoples views, soon we end up with people fearful of what they say on the phone and in emails, for fear of their views could even just risk being taken out of context and in any way critical of the people in power. At that point, the ones in power are influencing people directly.
At that point, we live in a police state, where freedom is gone and replaced by fear of the ones in power. Problem is, we are getting there now, and from here on out, its simply a matter of consolidation of ever more detailed data mining. The central reason why centuries ago votes were made in secret, was to prevent the ones in power, from seeking to influence the voters. Yet the power seekers are forever seeking to game the system to gain ever more information on peoples opinions. Now the ones in power are building automated systems to influence people.
Throughout history its been shown time and time again that the ones in power become ever more corrupt over time without any feedback on how they are behaving. Its been show so many times through history.
Most people don't realise the game people in power are playing. People in power are not so interested in individuals. The ones in power are interested in adding everyone to different lists so they can then control and profiling groups of people, so they can then use divide and conquer tactics, to break groups of people up. The goal is that the fragmented groups cannot then stand and oppose the point of view of the ones in power. That is why they data mine.
The lessons of history have not been learned by enough people. Looks like the world is seeking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Freedom and democracy are constantly undermined by a minority of people in power for their own gain. Its just a matter of time and how far we are going to let them all game the system to push the excesses ever more unfairly in their favour. After all, its not as if they are robbing hundreds of billions of tax payers money to keep their rich lifestyles while millions risk loosing everything.
Anyway, if the millions of people can't buy bread, then let them eat cake.... My point is, the names in history change and the names of their ideologies change. But what remains is basic human psychology and that doesn't change. The lack of empathy of the ones in power over their powerless minions never changes. For all their words, its only their actions which count and millions now face loosing their jobs and millions are treated unfairly by the ones in power. In such a world, its no surprise that the ones in power would want to watch their minions very closely. After all, people could start to complain its getting all to unfair. But we cannot have that. We need ever more laws to protect the ones in power and ever more laws to keep the minions down and away from power.
The world will never change until everyone worldwide realises that people who constantly seek power over others have a recognisable cluster B personality disorder. All cluster B personality disorders are ultimately driven by fear. And the ones with the disorder constantly seek to control that fear and control everyone around them based on their fear. (There are multiple fears, two examples are lack of a
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I know you're joking, but I was thinking something similar. Could it be ex-military spec junk hardware?. It could just be junk hardware that's getting thrown out (over a 10 year period), but is not officially signed off as allowed to be taken home as junk. From the paper trail it would look like the junk was still owned. Plus if people leave the organisation who allowed others to take some old junk home, then it would be hard to prove it was given away as rubbish. The paperwork would say it was still owned.
Considering how they are (only) now starting to take security a lot more seriously, I'm wondering if they are making an example of this person, who's basically got a house and/or garage full of junk?. Plus a system admin working for them, would probably get access to a lot of junk old hardware. It could just be old rubbish, but to paranoid non-technical types, who are looking for demons to fear everywhere, they would see it as wrong, rather than just seeing some engineer collecting a lot of interesting looking rubbish, before it hits the rubbish bins.
"if we could write a software to find out all the areas lacking patents and suggesting patents for that area"
The software would also recursively generate ever more patents as it searches the patent idea trees, until its patented everything and the value of all patents worldwide = $0.00
Then again, if it was a really smart program, it would see it was undermining the value of patents by flooding the world with ever more patents and so it would then have to invent an entirely new patent system, which it could then start to sell new patents from.
You could then get it generating ever greater generations of patenting systems, and ever smarter versions of its own program, until all computing power on the planet gets used up by its searches, until it achieves the Technological Singularity and all patents become worthless.:)
"I imagine it won't be long before you can search with whatever engine you can think of."
And then Google will release a standard search engine plugin which the majority of non-technical users will then simply use by default. Plus the Google one could even be pre-installed by default. Google then gets the information they origonally designed this feature for. The ability to know what products the majority of users are interested in. This is just like Google's way of profiling searches on their web site, to then workout from an advertisers point of view, what products people are interested in. Now Google will be able to extend that goal onto knowing what physical products we scan in. Its another step towards their goal of total information awareness on people.
It would be interesting to combine this barcode scanning data with GPS data, as that would then give a lot more infomation.
Google wants to becoming Big Brother. Because with total information comes huge power (even political power) and with huge power they have the potential to earn huge amounts of money profiling everyone, to then sell that data to advertisers. But then even political campaign's need to be advertised and marketed, so Google is aiming to become litrally Big Brother.
That statement is so true and its not something I fully realized, even just a few years ago. I had thought that as my ancestors and people like them had fought so long and hard to finally win Democracy. Then surely as we now have Democracy, we therefore much now just keep Democracy. I didn't realize there are people constantly trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain and so over time, Democracy has to be constantly defended against these people.
The people trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain are almost by definition people without empathy towards others. They actually choose to violate Democracy for their own gain.
Its good to see that there are still groups around that will stand against the people who undermine Democracy. I have never been that interested in politics until this year, but the almost constant news in 2008 has shown me that 2008 should go down in history as the start of a massive move towards a global Big Brother. This year has finally shown me the danger of letting this minority of powerful people undermine Democracy. Its sad that in every generation, we have to suffer this minority of power seekers constantly trying to dominate others and undermine Democracy for their own gain.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956)... it was true in his time, and sadly its still true now.
I know the feeling, I wasn't thinking when I started to mention dark side:)... If I could edit the post, I would have added, "dark side..DOH!"... I was just focusing on thinking about solar. I should have thought about the post more and worded it better, before posting.:)... either that, or I should have had a coffee before posting!, so that I could wake up!;)
Anyway, solar + batteries/ultracaps are practical, especially as over time, ever more can be transported up there, to give an ever growing reserve of clean power.
The episode (and book) was called "Breakaway"... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakaway_(Space:_1999)... Safety is a good point, as the safety of this nuclear fission power station does seem to a big issue. Also if it fails and just needs replacing, (or servicing) its a major issue.
I would have thought Solar power would have been a better idea. There's many reasons for Solar, not least of which, if some panels fail, then others will still keep working, so its very fault tolerant, which is a big advantage over a nuclear fission reactor. Also solar can be made light weight (its even being developed on plastic). Also there isn't any limited area problems on the moon, so they can scale up to a multi-Mega watt solar power station. (Plus no atmosphere, so greater power output than on Earth). Plus solar panels have been used in space for many years, so its usage is very well understood.
While a nuclear fission reactor does have some uses, its limited on the moon unless just for the dark side, and even then operating a base on the dark side would be difficult due to comms limitations etc..
It still makes sense they will develop small nuclear fission reactors, but it also makes more sense to push forward solar power research. All of us can benefit from solar research, (and we need it on Earth), but there are limit short term gains from small fission reactors. (Well, other than the gains the companies seeking funding get for research into fission reactors).
Not sure about "Intrepid $animal". As for Jaunty Jackalope?, what a name... I was hoping for a Jucy Jezabel. Oh well, at least they are going for Intrepid Ibex. My best guess was Incontinent Iguana. So what next?, Kinky Hangaroo and Lopsided Lobster?
Oh well, trying to guess the new name is making waiting for each update more fun. Maybe Microsoft should try using names. I guess they could try to be different and start with Zoosporangium Zebra and work backwards.
From the article...
"The 'covert human intelligence sources' keep watch on suspected law-breakers"
"Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area"
"The recruits will also be involved in the 'promotion of recycling and waste minimisation"
Sounds more like "Thought Police" than Special Constables.
For example... "Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements" - i.e. Watching others. "Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area" - i.e. Reporting others. "The recruits will also be involved in the 'promotion of recycling and waste minimisation" - i.e. Changing how people think and so behave.
So its far more like "Thought Police". Yeah they are there to protect us all, so its good warm feelings for all of us. Yeah right. The problem is this new Thought Police are also there to enforce whatever new rules petty councils think up. As usual the minority of power seekers, who seek to dictate rules and terms to others, also seek to encourage and lead their mini armies of sheep minded people to follow what they want. (Power seekers are sadly so predictable. Their names and ideas change thoughout history, and from country to country, but what always remains, is their constant need to find ever more ways to dictate their rules to others and always, ultimately they are the ones who gain from their power seeking, even these want-to-be petty council dictators with their free army of sheep minded people).
Not so much an excuse, its more like the way people in power need to think to maintain power. Unfortunately people who seek power over others, don't want people to stand against their point of view. Almost by definition, the ones in power (in every country) seek to have the power to dictate terms and control everyone they rule over. So any attempt to oppose their point of view, can be interpreted as wrong by them, but now they have this fear filled terror label under which they can label anything which could oppose their point of view and so can (and do) use it to stop any attempt to oppose their point of view.
What I also find very disturbing about this case is how they are trying to use Aspergers as some kind of defense. I find it extremely insulting to Aspergers to be treated somehow inferior. Most Aspergers would leave most of the sheep like people in this world standing for their intelligence But the capacity to learn isn't the same as having learned something already. Also just because someone has the capacity to learn, doesn't mean they have used their ability to learn to the full. This hacker has shown he has not thought through the full implications of what he was said to be doing. He is very misguided to think he can just look around military computers to find UFO evidence or any evidence. However being an Asperger is not a defense. If anything it should undermine his defense. So his defense team are "clutching at straws" so to speak, to hope Aspergers can become a defense for failing to think something through.
His defence team would do better to point out how this case is already decided in the press. The press seem to be helping to condemn him before he goes to trial, by constantly highlighting the apparent scale of what he is said to have done.
"This will include an awful lot of banking data" and "I wonder what would happen if somebody decided to record and archive all "incidents of data exchange" on the UK government's end"
Its an interesting idea, but it would never be allowed to happen, as the people in power make the laws and so they will always create new laws to keep covering up what they do. They would cover it up by implying it was to protect the country, but it would actually be protecting people in power, from being removed from power by other people who seek power. People in power are power seekers who constantly seek more power and so more importantly, they also fear any loss of power. Its their fear of the loss of power which drives them to constantly close off ways in which they can be undermined by other power seekers.
The people who want power don't want an open and equal world. They don't want equality at all. They want to be higher up than others. They want to be the centre of attention. They want more money than others. They want more power than others and that power allows them to make the rules and laws by which everyone has to work. Throughout history the rules have been biased in the favour of the people in power and that will never change. So the idea of a totally open world is a scifi only utopian world, that cannot ever exist in a world that has some people who also seek power and that will never change. Plus these people who seek power ultimately make the rules, so they will not allow it to go that far, where everyone becomes equal.
What I find fascinating about this news, is how open they are becoming, about their goal of creating literally a total Big Brother police state. Its when they said this... "The main reason for it is to assist in the investigation of crime," says a Home Office spokesperson. "Each local council can make a decision for themselves on what is the most interest to them."
The problem is, they make the laws and so they decide what is a crime. They are behaving with incredible self-righteousness. They always have this attitude of "trust us, we are only trying to help". What the fools constantly fail to see, is that they can ignorantly ignore the harm they are doing to groups of people, as they close mindedly seek to do various new things. (Like e.g. destroy a village of peoples homes to make a new runway). Yet in Big Brother police state, like they want to create, any attempt to speak out and so stop them doing what they are doing, will be see and labelled as a crime by them, as they are already doing with the protest law changes. There will be no way to stop them being unfairly to groups of people, in a world that automatically builds up a profile of ever persons attitudes over the course of their life.
The argument that's often used against this idea that they would bother to build up a profile of people is based on the idea that individuals are too unimportant for the people in power to want to record and profile them. While its true the people in power don't see most individuals as that important at all, what the people in power actually fear is large numbers of people moving together and against the ones in power. Its groups of people forming is what people in power fear and they always have throughout history. This is why people in power want to profile everyone to workout which groups of people can move against them. Power seekers fear groups of people moving against them, to block their ideas and stand against them and all large countries are governed by groups of power seekers using the same methodology. Its a methodology underlying all political systems, because its driven by the the underlying psychology of the the people who seek power.
So the idea of using the same Big Brother monitoring methodology against a government, to stop it behaving unfairly isn't ever going to work, as the people in power will simply keep changing the laws to keep protecting themselves and outlawing any attempt to monitor the government (For example, its
"intentional way of censoring what somebody considers a really sensitive topic"
I've also suspected this is possible a number of times. Companies like Sony, for example, have been shown up for using such tactics as Gorilla Marketing, to get their message across and employing bloggers to appear to be independent reviewers, when in fact they are working as part of an organized PR campaign So its well within the concepts of Gorilla Marketing style behavior to work to manipulate popular forum discussions. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many big companies and even some governments could be playing these same disinformation style games. Its interesting how manipulations to the Wikipedia have been detected and proven to be occurring. Forum style discussions need some way to detect organized disinformation/manipulation campaigns, but that's not going to be so easy to detect, but over time, at least more people are becoming aware of these disinformation games.
"The atmosphere is incredibly dense. Think "deepest trench in the ocean floor" dense. We'd need to get rid of most of it. Burying it seems unwise, if only because all it would take is one major geological upheaval to undo all our hard work. That leaves dragging vast amounts of mass up past escape velocity."
One distant future engineering solution to the dense atmosphere problem, could be to use future molecular nanotechnology to create large sealed lakes of "Grey Goo" style self replicating robots, which were specially designed to convert the current atmosphere into a solid material. (The nano-robots would only operate in the presence of some control radio signal, otherwise they turn off). (The resulting output material (hopefully solid) would be ideal if it was practical for construction). Once enough of the atmosphere had been converted, the robots can be commanded to move toward collection points for their conversion into something else). That way, you get vast engineering capabilities from initially very small amounts of engineering work.
"Venus' rotational period is too long"
Yes, this one is a bigger problem, but I think technology could work around most of the problems, without trying to change the rotation of the planet. For example, with planet wide solar cells in major cities, this could help distribute some of the solar energy, so the cold side was warmer and had light. But the hot side would still be bad to be in the sunlight (That is without creating some kind of solar dimming effect). However with cities constructed from hundreds of big geodesic domes (something like a larger version of the Eden Project in Cornwall, England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Project), then that is very practical to control the solar radiation levels and possible to construct with current technology.
You would need to develop a way to filter out the acids but trees on their own, don't seem a likely way to remove that much CO2. However I think you are on to something about finding a way to deal with its CO2. One solution to Venus maybe to engineer a way to deal with its overall chemistry rather than trying to endure its current state. The planet is in some ways similar to Earth, but would require some awesome advances in technology, not least terraforming to alter its chemical composition.
Maybe in the distant future, humans could combine billions of tonnes of lime with an artificially created seawater like solution and then bombard/rain the planet with it, over the course of a few centuries. (Its an idea thats been suggested to deal with CO2 on earth... http://www.physorg.com/news135820173.html). It would only be a partial solution as its more complex than just CO2, but its a step in the right direction.
Its engineering way beyond anything we could do I guess for many centuries, but its theoretically possible to deal with the CO2, plus it would give us small ocean like lakes over time. Plus once there are more favorable conditions for some life on the surface, then I think plant life, like your ideas about trees, would then add to the process of terraforming the planet. It would be an awesome engineering project.
Ok, to stop Indiana Jones types, then leave the most dangerous waste in an open heap on the surface. That way, everyone else will know to stay away from the pile of dead bodies and bones of Indiana Jones types.
(A pile of dead bodies is universal code for, "Danger!, stay away from here!").
"number of patents issued in a country is often cited as a proxy for Innovation" and the earlier post... "The patent system is run by the USPTO + lawyers primarily for their benefit"
Given these above issues about the people who run the patent system, it points towards a trend, especially when combined with a thought I posted a while ago, which is...
"as we live in a world where some people are determined to control others, then everyone else has no choice. Unfortunately a minority of people, seek power over others and they are obsessed with finding new ways to control other people (for their own gain), but what they fail to realize, is their acts of control create a pressure for change away from their control. The power seekers throughout history have tried to create a bias in their favor, but it never lasts."
(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=602657&cid=24041459)
The patent system is therefore creating a pressure for change away from their control. They are undermining themselves. It would mean that even if the concept of open development didn't already exist, then given these driving forces above, the pressure for change would likely create something like open development, as patents no longer held so much value. The trends point towards more open development in the future, as the patent system is becoming its own worst enemy. (Somewhat ironic, they are killing their own golden goose so to speak).
It also means that big business is likely to move towards ever more open development in the future.
Also as many businesses are in a trend of moving more towards a service industry, rather than purely a manufacturing industry (as the value is moving towards service), this means that patents on often changing technology are likely to become less important than earning money from services derived from using the technology, which at times is almost given away, (like some kind of 'loss leader' method), simply to get people locked into a particular service. (Games consoles are a good example of this kind of business and a lot of Internet businesses are moving towards this kind of thinking). Even businesses heavily dependent on manufacturing are seeing the additional benefits of earning money from services, to the point for many, where the service becomes the priority.
I suspect for some industries (like biotech) the patent system will remain relevant to their business model, but in a lot of technology companies, the trends point towards ever more open development in the future and the decline of the patent system for many industries.
Slashdot Mirror
"The more "progressive" a government, the more it progressed in the UK in placing surveillance."
The word "progressive" is a PR way of implying improvement and governments are getting very good at using PR to manipulate perceptions. The goal of any "improvement" is simply an improvement for the ones in power, to gain a greater control over the ones they seek to lead. They consider more control an improvement. Ultimately its about Cluster B Personality Disorders and how they behave. They relentlessly seek power over others. Normal people do not seek power so relentlessly, not matter what the people who seek power say or even think. Because people who seek power, think others are like them and so assume they think the same way as them. People who seek power fear the loss of power and constantly seek to gain ever more power. Over time, they bias things ever further in their faviour. This pattern of behaviour has been shown throughout history.
"It's what the British people want."
...
Its not what people want, its simply the ones in power refuse to actually listen to us anymore. Each party in power at the time, pretends to listen. They pretend to care, but then they still go off and do whatever it was they intended to do, regardless of what anyone says about their plans. The ones in power are simply looking for ways to convince us all of their views. The ones in power are are people who constantly seek power over others. The ones in power don't actually care what people think. The very nature of seeking power over people, means that person seeks to push others below them.
You can probably guess today, I've finally sadly had enough of living in a growing police state, I once knew as England. The people in power seek information on everyone, because knowledge is power. Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between information gathering and any danger. The process of information gathering (i.e. Big Brother) allows the creation of lists of people's views to be created... I write about how the power seekers are using that knowledge to control, in the other UK Big Brother style news on Slashdot today
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=997305&cid=25397001
Add this phone and email reading news, to the password wanting news and then add in the political profiling news, all on Slashdot today, its clear where things are heading. So much for fairness or freedom.
I should also have added, the process of information gathering (i.e. Big Brother) allows the creation of lists of people's views to be created. Thats why I mentioned lists, although hopefully most people will get that connection.
... its the logical next step, in their creation of Big Brother, otherwise people could talk behind their backs, about how unfair the ones in power are getting, simply by sending password protected encripted text. But then they tell us they are not going to look in the emails, (yet), so we can just trust they are not really going to read everyones emails ... and once they have the power to monitor everything, we can trust them not to extend that power.
Now I've had some more time to think about this news, (and adding this password news to the news about them wanting access to every phone call and email etc..., then its occured to me, how long will it be, before we have to send our passwords to the government, whenever we send an email containing a password protected file?
(You can probably guess today, I've finally sadly had enough of living in a growing police state, I once knew as England).
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety" ... sadly very true... So now we have two UK Big Brother bits of news in one morning. Oh what a time to live in the UK. But in the end, it doesn't just affect the UK. It will eventually apply to every country, because...
... My point is, the names in history change and the names of their ideologies change. But what remains is basic human psychology and that doesn't change. The lack of empathy of the ones in power over their powerless minions never changes. For all their words, its only their actions which count and millions now face loosing their jobs and millions are treated unfairly by the ones in power. In such a world, its no surprise that the ones in power would want to watch their minions very closely. After all, people could start to complain its getting all to unfair. But we cannot have that. We need ever more laws to protect the ones in power and ever more laws to keep the minions down and away from power.
Unfortunately most people fail to see the connection between lists and any danger. The lists are being made to influence people who speaking out against the ones in power. But most people fail to see the danger of giving the power seekers ever more data to mine on everyone. Knowledge is power and the ones in power seek the use that knowledge to prevent people standing against their point of view.
With ever more detailed lists on peoples views, soon we end up with people fearful of what they say on the phone and in emails, for fear of their views could even just risk being taken out of context and in any way critical of the people in power. At that point, the ones in power are influencing people directly.
At that point, we live in a police state, where freedom is gone and replaced by fear of the ones in power. Problem is, we are getting there now, and from here on out, its simply a matter of consolidation of ever more detailed data mining. The central reason why centuries ago votes were made in secret, was to prevent the ones in power, from seeking to influence the voters. Yet the power seekers are forever seeking to game the system to gain ever more information on peoples opinions. Now the ones in power are building automated systems to influence people.
Throughout history its been shown time and time again that the ones in power become ever more corrupt over time without any feedback on how they are behaving. Its been show so many times through history.
Most people don't realise the game people in power are playing. People in power are not so interested in individuals. The ones in power are interested in adding everyone to different lists so they can then control and profiling groups of people, so they can then use divide and conquer tactics, to break groups of people up. The goal is that the fragmented groups cannot then stand and oppose the point of view of the ones in power. That is why they data mine.
The lessons of history have not been learned by enough people. Looks like the world is seeking to repeat the mistakes of the past. Freedom and democracy are constantly undermined by a minority of people in power for their own gain. Its just a matter of time and how far we are going to let them all game the system to push the excesses ever more unfairly in their favour. After all, its not as if they are robbing hundreds of billions of tax payers money to keep their rich lifestyles while millions risk loosing everything.
Anyway, if the millions of people can't buy bread, then let them eat cake.
The world will never change until everyone worldwide realises that people who constantly seek power over others have a recognisable cluster B personality disorder. All cluster B personality disorders are ultimately driven by fear. And the ones with the disorder constantly seek to control that fear and control everyone around them based on their fear. (There are multiple fears, two examples are lack of a
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Behold the word: "Soap"
"any technology that a High Court Judge would be confused by"
Finally, a practical use for my slashdot sig message, below... (I would love to see how long it took to explain even just binary in some court rooms).
"were talking 'military spec' pencils"
I know you're joking, but I was thinking something similar. Could it be ex-military spec junk hardware?. It could just be junk hardware that's getting thrown out (over a 10 year period), but is not officially signed off as allowed to be taken home as junk. From the paper trail it would look like the junk was still owned. Plus if people leave the organisation who allowed others to take some old junk home, then it would be hard to prove it was given away as rubbish. The paperwork would say it was still owned.
Considering how they are (only) now starting to take security a lot more seriously, I'm wondering if they are making an example of this person, who's basically got a house and/or garage full of junk?. Plus a system admin working for them, would probably get access to a lot of junk old hardware. It could just be old rubbish, but to paranoid non-technical types, who are looking for demons to fear everywhere, they would see it as wrong, rather than just seeing some engineer collecting a lot of interesting looking rubbish, before it hits the rubbish bins.
"if we could write a software to find out all the areas lacking patents and suggesting patents for that area"
:)
The software would also recursively generate ever more patents as it searches the patent idea trees, until its patented everything and the value of all patents worldwide = $0.00
Then again, if it was a really smart program, it would see it was undermining the value of patents by flooding the world with ever more patents and so it would then have to invent an entirely new patent system, which it could then start to sell new patents from.
You could then get it generating ever greater generations of patenting systems, and ever smarter versions of its own program, until all computing power on the planet gets used up by its searches, until it achieves the Technological Singularity and all patents become worthless.
"I imagine it won't be long before you can search with whatever engine you can think of."
And then Google will release a standard search engine plugin which the majority of non-technical users will then simply use by default. Plus the Google one could even be pre-installed by default. Google then gets the information they origonally designed this feature for. The ability to know what products the majority of users are interested in. This is just like Google's way of profiling searches on their web site, to then workout from an advertisers point of view, what products people are interested in. Now Google will be able to extend that goal onto knowing what physical products we scan in. Its another step towards their goal of total information awareness on people.
It would be interesting to combine this barcode scanning data with GPS data, as that would then give a lot more infomation.
Google wants to becoming Big Brother. Because with total information comes huge power (even political power) and with huge power they have the potential to earn huge amounts of money profiling everyone, to then sell that data to advertisers. But then even political campaign's need to be advertised and marketed, so Google is aiming to become litrally Big Brother.
"You think that is bad, just wait until some wieseguy gets on and hits the buttons for every floor."
... Ground Floor and Space!
Err... A "Space Elevator" (clue in the name), only has two buttons?!
Also, while i'm here, from the top text, "Japan are devoting themselves to cracking the greatest sci-fi vision of all"
If an elevator into space, is the limit of their imagination, then I don't hold out much hope, for their choice in lift music!.
"Democracy only works if you make it work."
... it was true in his time, and sadly its still true now.
That statement is so true and its not something I fully realized, even just a few years ago. I had thought that as my ancestors and people like them had fought so long and hard to finally win Democracy. Then surely as we now have Democracy, we therefore much now just keep Democracy. I didn't realize there are people constantly trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain and so over time, Democracy has to be constantly defended against these people.
The people trying to undermine Democracy for their own gain are almost by definition people without empathy towards others. They actually choose to violate Democracy for their own gain.
Its good to see that there are still groups around that will stand against the people who undermine Democracy. I have never been that interested in politics until this year, but the almost constant news in 2008 has shown me that 2008 should go down in history as the start of a massive move towards a global Big Brother. This year has finally shown me the danger of letting this minority of powerful people undermine Democracy. Its sad that in every generation, we have to suffer this minority of power seekers constantly trying to dominate others and undermine Democracy for their own gain.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." - H.L. Mencken (September 12, 1880 - January 29, 1956)
I know the feeling, I wasn't thinking when I started to mention dark side :) ... If I could edit the post, I would have added, "dark side ..DOH!" ... I was just focusing on thinking about solar. I should have thought about the post more and worded it better, before posting. :) ... either that, or I should have had a coffee before posting!, so that I could wake up! ;)
Anyway, solar + batteries/ultracaps are practical, especially as over time, ever more can be transported up there, to give an ever growing reserve of clean power.
"Space: 1999? It's a disaster in the making"
... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakaway_(Space:_1999) ... Safety is a good point, as the safety of this nuclear fission power station does seem to a big issue. Also if it fails and just needs replacing, (or servicing) its a major issue.
The episode (and book) was called "Breakaway"
I would have thought Solar power would have been a better idea. There's many reasons for Solar, not least of which, if some panels fail, then others will still keep working, so its very fault tolerant, which is a big advantage over a nuclear fission reactor. Also solar can be made light weight (its even being developed on plastic). Also there isn't any limited area problems on the moon, so they can scale up to a multi-Mega watt solar power station. (Plus no atmosphere, so greater power output than on Earth). Plus solar panels have been used in space for many years, so its usage is very well understood.
While a nuclear fission reactor does have some uses, its limited on the moon unless just for the dark side, and even then operating a base on the dark side would be difficult due to comms limitations etc..
It still makes sense they will develop small nuclear fission reactors, but it also makes more sense to push forward solar power research. All of us can benefit from solar research, (and we need it on Earth), but there are limit short term gains from small fission reactors. (Well, other than the gains the companies seeking funding get for research into fission reactors).
Doh, Kinky Kangaroo, not a Hangaroo. Not sure what a Hangaroo is. Then again, not sure I would want to meet either of them!
Not sure about "Intrepid $animal". As for Jaunty Jackalope?, what a name ... I was hoping for a Jucy Jezabel. Oh well, at least they are going for Intrepid Ibex. My best guess was Incontinent Iguana. So what next?, Kinky Hangaroo and Lopsided Lobster?
Oh well, trying to guess the new name is making waiting for each update more fun. Maybe Microsoft should try using names. I guess they could try to be different and start with Zoosporangium Zebra and work backwards.
"How do they release the heat in the hot water?"
They don't, the Orc's working there, have been waiting for a hot water bath for years.
"Sun Has First Spotless Month Since 1913"
... see, its not a black hole making machine, it actually washes whiter than white.
... zip ... crush]
Ok, who switched on the LHC!
Ha!, that'll stop the critics who think the earth will vanish in a instant... see nothing to worry ab.o.u..t... [KABOOOMMMMMM
From the article...
"The 'covert human intelligence sources' keep watch on suspected law-breakers"
"Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area"
"The recruits will also be involved in the 'promotion of recycling and waste minimisation"
Sounds more like "Thought Police" than Special Constables.
For example...
"Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements" - i.e. Watching others.
"Volunteers will be involved in reporting issues in their area" - i.e. Reporting others.
"The recruits will also be involved in the 'promotion of recycling and waste minimisation" - i.e. Changing how people think and so behave.
So its far more like "Thought Police". Yeah they are there to protect us all, so its good warm feelings for all of us. Yeah right. The problem is this new Thought Police are also there to enforce whatever new rules petty councils think up. As usual the minority of power seekers, who seek to dictate rules and terms to others, also seek to encourage and lead their mini armies of sheep minded people to follow what they want. (Power seekers are sadly so predictable. Their names and ideas change thoughout history, and from country to country, but what always remains, is their constant need to find ever more ways to dictate their rules to others and always, ultimately they are the ones who gain from their power seeking, even these want-to-be petty council dictators with their free army of sheep minded people).
"an excuse for doing something"
Not so much an excuse, its more like the way people in power need to think to maintain power. Unfortunately people who seek power over others, don't want people to stand against their point of view. Almost by definition, the ones in power (in every country) seek to have the power to dictate terms and control everyone they rule over. So any attempt to oppose their point of view, can be interpreted as wrong by them, but now they have this fear filled terror label under which they can label anything which could oppose their point of view and so can (and do) use it to stop any attempt to oppose their point of view.
What I also find very disturbing about this case is how they are trying to use Aspergers as some kind of defense. I find it extremely insulting to Aspergers to be treated somehow inferior. Most Aspergers would leave most of the sheep like people in this world standing for their intelligence But the capacity to learn isn't the same as having learned something already. Also just because someone has the capacity to learn, doesn't mean they have used their ability to learn to the full. This hacker has shown he has not thought through the full implications of what he was said to be doing. He is very misguided to think he can just look around military computers to find UFO evidence or any evidence. However being an Asperger is not a defense. If anything it should undermine his defense. So his defense team are "clutching at straws" so to speak, to hope Aspergers can become a defense for failing to think something through.
His defence team would do better to point out how this case is already decided in the press. The press seem to be helping to condemn him before he goes to trial, by constantly highlighting the apparent scale of what he is said to have done.
"This will include an awful lot of banking data" and "I wonder what would happen if somebody decided to record and archive all "incidents of data exchange" on the UK government's end"
... "The main reason for it is to assist in the investigation of crime," says a Home Office spokesperson. "Each local council can make a decision for themselves on what is the most interest to them."
Its an interesting idea, but it would never be allowed to happen, as the people in power make the laws and so they will always create new laws to keep covering up what they do. They would cover it up by implying it was to protect the country, but it would actually be protecting people in power, from being removed from power by other people who seek power. People in power are power seekers who constantly seek more power and so more importantly, they also fear any loss of power. Its their fear of the loss of power which drives them to constantly close off ways in which they can be undermined by other power seekers.
The people who want power don't want an open and equal world. They don't want equality at all. They want to be higher up than others. They want to be the centre of attention. They want more money than others. They want more power than others and that power allows them to make the rules and laws by which everyone has to work. Throughout history the rules have been biased in the favour of the people in power and that will never change. So the idea of a totally open world is a scifi only utopian world, that cannot ever exist in a world that has some people who also seek power and that will never change. Plus these people who seek power ultimately make the rules, so they will not allow it to go that far, where everyone becomes equal.
What I find fascinating about this news, is how open they are becoming, about their goal of creating literally a total Big Brother police state. Its when they said this
The problem is, they make the laws and so they decide what is a crime. They are behaving with incredible self-righteousness. They always have this attitude of "trust us, we are only trying to help". What the fools constantly fail to see, is that they can ignorantly ignore the harm they are doing to groups of people, as they close mindedly seek to do various new things. (Like e.g. destroy a village of peoples homes to make a new runway). Yet in Big Brother police state, like they want to create, any attempt to speak out and so stop them doing what they are doing, will be see and labelled as a crime by them, as they are already doing with the protest law changes. There will be no way to stop them being unfairly to groups of people, in a world that automatically builds up a profile of ever persons attitudes over the course of their life.
The argument that's often used against this idea that they would bother to build up a profile of people is based on the idea that individuals are too unimportant for the people in power to want to record and profile them. While its true the people in power don't see most individuals as that important at all, what the people in power actually fear is large numbers of people moving together and against the ones in power. Its groups of people forming is what people in power fear and they always have throughout history. This is why people in power want to profile everyone to workout which groups of people can move against them. Power seekers fear groups of people moving against them, to block their ideas and stand against them and all large countries are governed by groups of power seekers using the same methodology. Its a methodology underlying all political systems, because its driven by the the underlying psychology of the the people who seek power.
So the idea of using the same Big Brother monitoring methodology against a government, to stop it behaving unfairly isn't ever going to work, as the people in power will simply keep changing the laws to keep protecting themselves and outlawing any attempt to monitor the government (For example, its
"intentional way of censoring what somebody considers a really sensitive topic"
I've also suspected this is possible a number of times. Companies like Sony, for example, have been shown up for using such tactics as Gorilla Marketing, to get their message across and employing bloggers to appear to be independent reviewers, when in fact they are working as part of an organized PR campaign So its well within the concepts of Gorilla Marketing style behavior to work to manipulate popular forum discussions. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many big companies and even some governments could be playing these same disinformation style games. Its interesting how manipulations to the Wikipedia have been detected and proven to be occurring. Forum style discussions need some way to detect organized disinformation/manipulation campaigns, but that's not going to be so easy to detect, but over time, at least more people are becoming aware of these disinformation games.
"The atmosphere is incredibly dense. Think "deepest trench in the ocean floor" dense. We'd need to get rid of most of it. Burying it seems unwise, if only because all it would take is one major geological upheaval to undo all our hard work. That leaves dragging vast amounts of mass up past escape velocity."
One distant future engineering solution to the dense atmosphere problem, could be to use future molecular nanotechnology to create large sealed lakes of "Grey Goo" style self replicating robots, which were specially designed to convert the current atmosphere into a solid material. (The nano-robots would only operate in the presence of some control radio signal, otherwise they turn off). (The resulting output material (hopefully solid) would be ideal if it was practical for construction). Once enough of the atmosphere had been converted, the robots can be commanded to move toward collection points for their conversion into something else). That way, you get vast engineering capabilities from initially very small amounts of engineering work.
"Venus' rotational period is too long"
Yes, this one is a bigger problem, but I think technology could work around most of the problems, without trying to change the rotation of the planet. For example, with planet wide solar cells in major cities, this could help distribute some of the solar energy, so the cold side was warmer and had light. But the hot side would still be bad to be in the sunlight (That is without creating some kind of solar dimming effect). However with cities constructed from hundreds of big geodesic domes (something like a larger version of the Eden Project in Cornwall, England http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_Project), then that is very practical to control the solar radiation levels and possible to construct with current technology.
"floating trees to convert all the CO2 to oxygen"
... http://www.physorg.com/news135820173.html). It would only be a partial solution as its more complex than just CO2, but its a step in the right direction.
You would need to develop a way to filter out the acids but trees on their own, don't seem a likely way to remove that much CO2. However I think you are on to something about finding a way to deal with its CO2. One solution to Venus maybe to engineer a way to deal with its overall chemistry rather than trying to endure its current state. The planet is in some ways similar to Earth, but would require some awesome advances in technology, not least terraforming to alter its chemical composition.
Maybe in the distant future, humans could combine billions of tonnes of lime with an artificially created seawater like solution and then bombard/rain the planet with it, over the course of a few centuries. (Its an idea thats been suggested to deal with CO2 on earth
Its engineering way beyond anything we could do I guess for many centuries, but its theoretically possible to deal with the CO2, plus it would give us small ocean like lakes over time. Plus once there are more favorable conditions for some life on the surface, then I think plant life, like your ideas about trees, would then add to the process of terraforming the planet. It would be an awesome engineering project.
"Indiana Jones"
Ok, to stop Indiana Jones types, then leave the most dangerous waste in an open heap on the surface. That way, everyone else will know to stay away from the pile of dead bodies and bones of Indiana Jones types.
(A pile of dead bodies is universal code for, "Danger!, stay away from here!").
"number of patents issued in a country is often cited as a proxy for Innovation" and the earlier post ... "The patent system is run by the USPTO + lawyers primarily for their benefit"
Given these above issues about the people who run the patent system, it points towards a trend, especially when combined with a thought I posted a while ago, which is...
"as we live in a world where some people are determined to control others, then everyone else has no choice. Unfortunately a minority of people, seek power over others and they are obsessed with finding new ways to control other people (for their own gain), but what they fail to realize, is their acts of control create a pressure for change away from their control. The power seekers throughout history have tried to create a bias in their favor, but it never lasts."
(http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=602657&cid=24041459)
The patent system is therefore creating a pressure for change away from their control. They are undermining themselves. It would mean that even if the concept of open development didn't already exist, then given these driving forces above, the pressure for change would likely create something like open development, as patents no longer held so much value. The trends point towards more open development in the future, as the patent system is becoming its own worst enemy. (Somewhat ironic, they are killing their own golden goose so to speak).
It also means that big business is likely to move towards ever more open development in the future.
Also as many businesses are in a trend of moving more towards a service industry, rather than purely a manufacturing industry (as the value is moving towards service), this means that patents on often changing technology are likely to become less important than earning money from services derived from using the technology, which at times is almost given away, (like some kind of 'loss leader' method), simply to get people locked into a particular service. (Games consoles are a good example of this kind of business and a lot of Internet businesses are moving towards this kind of thinking). Even businesses heavily dependent on manufacturing are seeing the additional benefits of earning money from services, to the point for many, where the service becomes the priority.
I suspect for some industries (like biotech) the patent system will remain relevant to their business model, but in a lot of technology companies, the trends point towards ever more open development in the future and the decline of the patent system for many industries.