"One of the failure modes of extrapolative SF is to assume that just because something is technologically feasible, it will happen.... Someone has to want it enough to pay for it—and it will be competing with other, possibly more attractive options."
I'm not sure what Stross is saying here. An important part of the process of developing technology is not just to ensure it can be developed, but that it can be developed at a price that most people can afford.
So when I seen advanced technology portrayed in SF being used by fairly ordinary people, I assume that the technology has been made affordable enough that paying for it is not an issue.
I found it interesting that these criminals made a point of honouring their promise to provide the tools to decrypt the encrypted data.
At first, this didn't make sense to me. They are criminals; why do they have to honour anything?
But thinking about it some more, it works in their favour. Say I am a desperate person looking to get my files back, and I ask around if anyone has had any success with paying the ransom. If get responses saying "yes", then of course I am more likely to pay too, and this works in favour of the criminals' bottom line.
In addition, it dosn't cost the criminals much to provide the decryption tools, unlike if this was a kidnapping of a real person where there is the risk of the kidnapper getting caught during a hostage exchange.
When the dominant culture/language becomes decadent, people have no other choice than to push other cultures/languages in order to survive.
Why?
What do you mean by 'decadent' here?
Sure, some people bind up their culture in a language, but for others, language is just functional - a way to get someone else to understand your thoughts. Why should the 'decadence' of a language stop you from using it if it helps you pass your message across clearly, and if it does so better than many other languages because of its rich vocabulary?
Just to be clear, the concept of nationalities isn't going anywhere any time soon, as long as there's a need for there to be law and order in society. What *may* change is a person's affinity to a particular nationality.
Nationality is really just a legal construct, anyway - it allows a body of people (known as a 'government') to determine what rights and responsibilities you have by virtue of being in a particular physical location.
I think that most people have a stronger affinity to a culture - especially the culture they grew up with - than they do to a nationality, since culture evokes a more emotional response. Of course, for many people, the two are the same - but if you're a naturalized immigrant, they are two very different things.
Nationality will become even less important to people if more countries start trying to attract people to live in them (for economic or social reasons), but I don't see happening for a long while yet.
Not really. IF I call and need answers but get your voice mail I hang up and send an email with all relevent information. If I don't get a response back then I will call again. However I do give an hour or two to hear back.
Voicemail isn't nesscary. Now fax machines those aren't going anywhere until programmers can figure out group emails with only one person responding.
What if I don't know your email address, or I don't have access to a facility from which to email you?
What might be more convenient is to have a transcription of my voicemail sent to you as text, though (assuming your number is a mobile number).
If the person doesn't answer, send a text or email. Problem solved without voicemail.
What's more likely is the evolution of the transcription systems mentioned elsewhere in this thread, where the voicemail that the caller leaves is transcribed to text and sent as an email to the callee.
That's certainly more convenient that having to drop the call and send a separate email.
To be clear, as long as: - callers call callees; - callees are not available to pick up the phone; - callers want callees to know there and then why they called; voicemail is not going anywhere soon (although the means through which voicemail may be consumed might change).
"Now, to bring this home with a car analogy (and a moderately controversial one, although it shouldn't be), quoting the voltage of an electrical power source is not unlike quoting the torque of a car engine."
This assumes that we all know what the torque of a car engine means.
Have you considered how much it will cost your company to implement and manage such a solution?
You'll need to be able to convince management that the likelihood and impact of your company's IT infrastructure is high enough to justify such an expense.
I'm being very specific here - I'm referring to internet controlled home lighting. If all I care about is switching on/off lights, it is overkill.
I can't say I'm too hot ('scuse the pun) on remote controlled heating either; I'd need to see significant savings before I was tempted to invest in that.
Of course, if this is all about having fun while engaging in a home project, that's another story altogether.
The Fed's trying a new trick to hold bank reserves...
I don't understand this. Did you mean to say that the Fed is trying a new trick to force the banks to release their reserves and spur a little inflation?
I know that it's said that ignorance of a contract is no excuse for breaching it.
But I sometimes feel that there should not be a requirement that the issuer of the contract should make it so obvious and public that there could not possibly any chance that the breacher could have acted out of ignorance.
Say what you like about software EULAs, at least in many cases, you have to have seen the dialog box with the text before going ahead to install the software - much better than having to search for some microscopic print.
I do recognise the difficulty of ensuring that parties in a contract know what they're getting into - that's why lawyers aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Whatever they do, I hope they make the disablement reversible, for those who think they've had their phone stolen, only to find that it was just misplaced - or if the phone is later recovered from the thief.
"Reading may be fast, but comprehending may be tricky."
But what really is reading without comprehension? That's just like moving my eyeballs across a page and having my brain register black glyphs on a white background.
Slashdot Mirror
Is the Slashdotterati going to talk about...
- Militant Islam striking again?
- Guns killing people?
- The growth of citizen video?
- The fact that this is not 'news for nerds'?
I can't wait...
"One of the failure modes of extrapolative SF is to assume that just because something is technologically feasible, it will happen. ... Someone has to want it enough to pay for it—and it will be competing with other, possibly more attractive options."
I'm not sure what Stross is saying here. An important part of the process of developing technology is not just to ensure it can be developed, but that it can be developed at a price that most people can afford.
So when I seen advanced technology portrayed in SF being used by fairly ordinary people, I assume that the technology has been made affordable enough that paying for it is not an issue.
It's not fair to compare payday lenders to these guys.
Payday lenders don't get you into the debt that brings you to their doors, even if you feel that they are taking advantage of your situation.
I found it interesting that these criminals made a point of honouring their promise to provide the tools to decrypt the encrypted data.
At first, this didn't make sense to me. They are criminals; why do they have to honour anything?
But thinking about it some more, it works in their favour. Say I am a desperate person looking to get my files back, and I ask around if anyone has had any success with paying the ransom. If get responses saying "yes", then of course I am more likely to pay too, and this works in favour of the criminals' bottom line.
In addition, it dosn't cost the criminals much to provide the decryption tools, unlike if this was a kidnapping of a real person where there is the risk of the kidnapper getting caught during a hostage exchange.
When the dominant culture/language becomes decadent, people have no other choice than to push other cultures/languages in order to survive.
Why?
What do you mean by 'decadent' here?
Sure, some people bind up their culture in a language, but for others, language is just functional - a way to get someone else to understand your thoughts. Why should the 'decadence' of a language stop you from using it if it helps you pass your message across clearly, and if it does so better than many other languages because of its rich vocabulary?
Just to be clear, the concept of nationalities isn't going anywhere any time soon, as long as there's a need for there to be law and order in society. What *may* change is a person's affinity to a particular nationality.
Nationality is really just a legal construct, anyway - it allows a body of people (known as a 'government') to determine what rights and responsibilities you have by virtue of being in a particular physical location.
I think that most people have a stronger affinity to a culture - especially the culture they grew up with - than they do to a nationality, since culture evokes a more emotional response. Of course, for many people, the two are the same - but if you're a naturalized immigrant, they are two very different things.
Nationality will become even less important to people if more countries start trying to attract people to live in them (for economic or social reasons), but I don't see happening for a long while yet.
If their security is so bad, you should be able to hack into their network.
Once you've done so, post the story of the hacking on the internet.
Nothing like public embarassment to make them clean up their security practices.
Not really. IF I call and need answers but get your voice mail I hang up and send an email with all relevent information. If I don't get a response back then I will call again. However I do give an hour or two to hear back.
Voicemail isn't nesscary. Now fax machines those aren't going anywhere until programmers can figure out group emails with only one person responding.
What if I don't know your email address, or I don't have access to a facility from which to email you?
What might be more convenient is to have a transcription of my voicemail sent to you as text, though (assuming your number is a mobile number).
Voicemail can still die, even with all of that.
If the person doesn't answer, send a text or email. Problem solved without voicemail.
What's more likely is the evolution of the transcription systems mentioned elsewhere in this thread, where the voicemail that the caller leaves is transcribed to text and sent as an email to the callee.
That's certainly more convenient that having to drop the call and send a separate email.
To be clear, as long as:
- callers call callees;
- callees are not available to pick up the phone;
- callers want callees to know there and then why they called;
voicemail is not going anywhere soon (although the means through which voicemail may be consumed might change).
"Now, to bring this home with a car analogy (and a moderately controversial one, although it shouldn't be), quoting the voltage of an electrical power source is not unlike quoting the torque of a car engine."
This assumes that we all know what the torque of a car engine means.
I'd use a water pressure analogy myself.
Have you considered how much it will cost your company to implement and manage such a solution?
You'll need to be able to convince management that the likelihood and impact of your company's IT infrastructure is high enough to justify such an expense.
Political Action Committee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
You don't have to care; I wouldn't, if I lived outside the US.
I'm being very specific here - I'm referring to internet controlled home lighting. If all I care about is switching on/off lights, it is overkill.
I can't say I'm too hot ('scuse the pun) on remote controlled heating either; I'd need to see significant savings before I was tempted to invest in that.
Of course, if this is all about having fun while engaging in a home project, that's another story altogether.
I get that large industrial/office complexes might want to automate/regulate lighting, but why would you want to do this for your home?
Looks like overkill to me.
I wonder if the directorate gave the drivers enough of a heads up before the crackdown; if not, that would seem a rather harsh move.
Looks like Google wants to get children used to the idea of using Google Docs when they're young so that they keep on using it as they get older.
It isn't incredibly hard to make an OS that...
If it was easy, we wouldn't have so many viruses.
Even better would be if they could engineer mosquitoes whose *grandchildren* (or great grandchildren) would be sterile, further maximising the damage.
The Fed's trying a new trick to hold bank reserves...
I don't understand this. Did you mean to say that the Fed is trying a new trick to force the banks to release their reserves and spur a little inflation?
I know that it's said that ignorance of a contract is no excuse for breaching it.
But I sometimes feel that there should not be a requirement that the issuer of the contract should make it so obvious and public that there could not possibly any chance that the breacher could have acted out of ignorance.
Say what you like about software EULAs, at least in many cases, you have to have seen the dialog box with the text before going ahead to install the software - much better than having to search for some microscopic print.
I do recognise the difficulty of ensuring that parties in a contract know what they're getting into - that's why lawyers aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Whatever they do, I hope they make the disablement reversible, for those who think they've had their phone stolen, only to find that it was just misplaced - or if the phone is later recovered from the thief.
"Reading may be fast, but comprehending may be tricky."
But what really is reading without comprehension? That's just like moving my eyeballs across a page and having my brain register black glyphs on a white background.
Too bad I don't have points to mod this up. Love the way you send up the hype.