If there's an Internet kill switch, next year there will be one, or more, open source radio Internets on shifting multiply redundant frequencies. Or underground radio transmission will be revived and improved, or satellite hacking will become the new favorite geek sport, or internet signals will be introduced into powerlines, or cell phones will be hacked into being mobile packet switch devices, or...
And that's what I can think of, just off the top of my head.
Seriously. If anyone in the government is dumb enough to think they can stop the Internet or it's clones, they had better go back to school for a remedial electricity course.
What's happening with this issue is a microcosm of what's happening in the world. Democracy and the rule of law wither, while wealth, in the form of organizations or a few super-rich individuals control outcomes.
Bright thing? Balderdash! Rumor and hearsay only, my good man. Some call it "the sun" - some sort of fusion device that generates "free energy." Pay it no mind.
In America, you purchase respect. America losing its edge in innovation because engineers and scientists in the US are not as well paid as they are in other countries relative to local prices. Why would anyone spend 4 years training to become a low paid engineer when they could become a highly paid lawyer or financier or manager?
portable energy density. Right now, you still can't beat oil. When oil gets too expensive, you won't be able to affordably create and distribute the means to use substitutes.
As for electrical power, there are lots of solutions, none of which will make a corporation money (solar tower turbines, ubiquitous small scale hydropower, ubiquitous wind and wave power, ubiquitous slow wave hydropower in the Mississippi, ubiquitous solar, geothermal in some spots), so you can forget those.
My suggestion? Dig in and prepare yourself for a long, unpleasant adjustment.
They may be just copying, but the implications of "just copying" apparently haven't sunk in yet.
If they are able to acquire that much of our technology, then they've acquired the rest of it too, as has every other country to which we've outsourced our technology manufacturing. 10 years ago, I ranted about how outsourcing was not just an economic problem for geeks, but a major national security risk. At that time, I was still naive enough to believe that the folks who owned defemse technology companies gave a damn about the United States.
Well, the national security risk is there in the photo, and it's clear that those executives who were willing to sell out their country for next quarter's earnings and a bigger bonus didn't, and don't, give a rat's patoot about the USA. They can live quite comfortably in any country, after all. Why should they care? Let the peasants get bombed.
Do we value having $1.00 stores so much we will slit our own throats to save 0.50 cents on plastic goods? Well, thus far, all evidence points to "Yes! And can I have some more flavored corn syrup and an all meat, extra cheese pizza while I watch 'Dancing With the Stars?'"
We fail of our own volition. We don't have to let the transnational wealthy fleece us, suck us dry and throw away the bones... but we do.
All governments, including our own, always make illegal some ubiquitous, harmless activity so that there is always an excuse to round up large parts of the population at any time. In China, it's porn. Here, it's drug laws,.soon to include "questioning homeland security" or "revealing K-Street Lobbying contributions" to congress.
I call semi-bullshit. I've put a solar panel array in the back yard. 4, 80-watt kyoceras charging as many batteries. It works fine, but it wasn't cheap (about $3000 for panels, box, charge controller, inverter). And it doesn't do much. Yes, it runs small lights, a TV and a computer. Maybe a drill and a blender. Forget it for cooking. And forget it if you have a string of cloudy days.
For my money, the current crop of solar panels and batteries are still pretty poorly designed, expensive and inefficient. At the very least, scalable solar power systems should have been integrated (battery, panel, and inverter in one box) and modularized for plug and play long ago. I know Clarian Power is trying to do this, but they don't have a shippable product yet.
At the moment I'd put it into the category of a rich man's toy. If there are *cheap* solar panels, I'd love to know where to buy them. If anyone has a line on cheap *non-touchy* nickel-iron batteries, i'd like to hear about that too.
True. There are jobs where it's simply not possible to work remotely. The IT guy (which today is me, f'rinstance) who has to add additional drives to the VMWare ESX server number 15 and upgrade the server software can't do it from China or India.
However, in several of my previous job incarnations, where I was designing automated testing system architecture, or writing proposals, or writing technical documentation, or developing applications, going to the office was an active hindrance to getting things done efficiently.
Issue everyone a laptop and phone with a camera and a Jabra. Let them work where they want. Measure by task and project completion and quality. How much physical interaction is necessary for most information jobs?
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If there's an Internet kill switch, next year there will be one, or more, open source radio Internets on shifting multiply redundant frequencies. Or underground radio transmission will be revived and improved, or satellite hacking will become the new favorite geek sport, or internet signals will be introduced into powerlines, or cell phones will be hacked into being mobile packet switch devices, or...
And that's what I can think of, just off the top of my head.
Seriously. If anyone in the government is dumb enough to think they can stop the Internet or it's clones, they had better go back to school for a remedial electricity course.
...the USA might actually survive a few more decades as a single, unified country.
What's happening with this issue is a microcosm of what's happening in the world. Democracy and the rule of law wither, while wealth, in the form of organizations or a few super-rich individuals control outcomes.
I mean, why not?
should meet some of my ex-girlfriends.
Bright thing? Balderdash! Rumor and hearsay only, my good man. Some call it "the sun" - some sort of fusion device that generates "free energy." Pay it no mind.
In America, you purchase respect. America losing its edge in innovation because engineers and scientists in the US are not as well paid as they are in other countries relative to local prices. Why would anyone spend 4 years training to become a low paid engineer when they could become a highly paid lawyer or financier or manager?
of the pump and dump variety. Would it? :) Ahem.
Doc says I need to lose a little weight. I say, "What's wrong with rotund gaseous bodies in circular motion? Look at Uranus!"
portable energy density. Right now, you still can't beat oil. When oil gets too expensive, you won't be able to affordably create and distribute the means to use substitutes.
As for electrical power, there are lots of solutions, none of which will make a corporation money (solar tower turbines, ubiquitous small scale hydropower, ubiquitous wind and wave power, ubiquitous slow wave hydropower in the Mississippi, ubiquitous solar, geothermal in some spots), so you can forget those.
My suggestion? Dig in and prepare yourself for a long, unpleasant adjustment.
Right out of the gate.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/eons-of-darwinian-evolution-somehow-produce-mitch,17635/
They may be just copying, but the implications of "just copying" apparently haven't sunk in yet.
If they are able to acquire that much of our technology, then they've acquired the rest of it too, as has every other country to which we've outsourced our technology manufacturing. 10 years ago, I ranted about how outsourcing was not just an economic problem for geeks, but a major national security risk. At that time, I was still naive enough to believe that the folks who owned defemse technology companies gave a damn about the United States.
Well, the national security risk is there in the photo, and it's clear that those executives who were willing to sell out their country for next quarter's earnings and a bigger bonus didn't, and don't, give a rat's patoot about the USA. They can live quite comfortably in any country, after all. Why should they care? Let the peasants get bombed.
Do we value having $1.00 stores so much we will slit our own throats to save 0.50 cents on plastic goods?
Well, thus far, all evidence points to "Yes! And can I have some more flavored corn syrup and an all meat, extra cheese pizza while I watch 'Dancing With the Stars?'"
We fail of our own volition. We don't have to let the transnational wealthy fleece us, suck us dry and throw away the bones... but we do.
...to file a patent on filing patents against people who file patents.
No, wait....
But are not all of these advantages not obviated by the costs of initial setup?
OK, OK, I have to give you that one.
Really, what's on Mars that can't be done more cheaply by building near earth orbital environments?
All governments, including our own, always make illegal some ubiquitous, harmless activity so that there is always an excuse to round up large parts of the population at any time. In China, it's porn. Here, it's drug laws,.soon to include "questioning homeland security" or "revealing K-Street Lobbying contributions" to congress.
It's going to take... *days* to restore all those sites in a way that can't be censored.
I call semi-bullshit. I've put a solar panel array in the back yard. 4, 80-watt kyoceras charging as many batteries. It works fine, but it wasn't cheap (about $3000 for panels, box, charge controller, inverter). And it doesn't do much. Yes, it runs small lights, a TV and a computer. Maybe a drill and a blender. Forget it for cooking. And forget it if you have a string of cloudy days.
For my money, the current crop of solar panels and batteries are still pretty poorly designed, expensive and inefficient. At the very least, scalable solar power systems should have been integrated (battery, panel, and inverter in one box) and modularized for plug and play long ago. I know Clarian Power is trying to do this, but they don't have a shippable product yet.
At the moment I'd put it into the category of a rich man's toy. If there are *cheap* solar panels, I'd love to know where to buy them. If anyone has a line on cheap *non-touchy* nickel-iron batteries, i'd like to hear about that too.
isn't supercomputers, per se, but AI. The first country that develops scalable human-like AI wins. Period. End of story.
Naturally this isn't even on the *radar* of the leadership of the USA, whose government is dominated by lawyers and financiers, not engineers.
NOT!
True. There are jobs where it's simply not possible to work remotely. The IT guy (which today is me, f'rinstance) who has to add additional drives to the VMWare ESX server number 15 and upgrade the server software can't do it from China or India.
However, in several of my previous job incarnations, where I was designing automated testing system architecture, or writing proposals, or writing technical documentation, or developing applications, going to the office was an active hindrance to getting things done efficiently.
Issue everyone a laptop and phone with a camera and a Jabra. Let them work where they want. Measure by task and project completion and quality. How much physical interaction is necessary for most information jobs?