Posts by Mephistro263 posts • joined Monday 8th October 2007 01:55 GMT
"presumably it will be a beaver of some sort"
Registering comparethebeaver.com and .xxx in three... two... one...
... it doesn't give enough incentive for working, thinking and innovating. After a few years of this, with the exception of a few elites -political, scientific, military- , most of the population goes for the lowest common denominator, and everything stagnates and rots.
But the problem with Capitalism is that wealth and power tend to end in the hands of a few, who at some point in the game have enough power to lobby/corrupt the system for their profit. This process snowballs for some time, until The Powers That Be gain the ability to erode the middle classes until they almost disappear, killing in a single blow the biggest wealth producers, the biggest consumers and the biggest taxpayers (taken as a group). And then everything stagnates and rots. We are almost there.
And that's a reason why proportional deductions make sense. To help prevent too much power and wealth in the hands of a few. Also helping to give an acceptable standard of living to the population helps to prevent riots/coups/revolutions, something that most people -at least most people that shouldn't be threading baskets- considers a good thing. Similar arguments cold be made about a National Health System and a National Educative System.
I'd love to be wrong on this, but there are many chances that our grandchildren -most of them- end up living like serfs.
The icon? A flameproof suit! ;-)
Yours is a great idea, but the costs are too high.
What they should be doing is this: equip every human being in the planet with an explosive necklace, of the kind usually seen in cheap SF prison movies. The necklace could be fitted with technology for detecting IP infringement and allow the local government to remotely remove the infringing subjects through surgical -but noisy- strikes . The necklace could also track and/or eliminate political dissidents and protesters, who, as is widely known, always end up becoming terrorists.
Your post describes one of the biggest problems with Globalization, i.e. citizens and companies benefiting from the infrastructure, education, laws and sales made in country 'A' -usually a 1st World country- and paying their taxes to country 'B', usually the lowest bidder. The fact that many of these 'B countries' are -more or less well disguised- dictatorships*, where most of the taxes paid by people like Mr. Saverin are used to line the pockets of the elites, while the common citizens have a low living standard, and little chance to improve it.
The process above described implies that the conditions at 'Country A' will worsen, as their lower tax income prevents them from adequately maintaining their Health, Educative and Judiciary Systems and their infrastructure, while at the same time the middle classes -the biggest consumers- vanish.
Does this state of things sound familiar?
IMHO Mr. Savarin is a parasite, and the guys that wrote and approved the laws he uses to cheat the rest of mankind are also parasites.
(Steam pressure going down - Mission accomplished ;-)
Note*: there are several exceptions to this, like Switzerland, but they have been in this business for centuries.
It's a great idea, but, somehow, I don't think it's totally original.
... will be financing -err, unofficially- a viral campaign promoting the use of MacBooks as nutcrackers. Huge increase in sales, low costs and what Apple really loves: void warranties!
Agreed. It would be sweet.
Alternatively, they could code password input fields with an autofill feature, 'a la' Google's Instant Search. That would make forgotten passwords something from the past. XD
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO THAT POOR DUCK???!!!
"1. How did third party anti virus application/vendors protect a Mac from the Java runtime flaw
a. Before it came common knowledge of the breach.
b. Before Apple released a patch?
c. After Apple released a patch and their own code removing any malware."
Point 1a: behavioral antiviruses -though they're a pain in the ass in terms of computational resources used- could help here. Also, many AVs send suspicious 'samples' to their creators to be analyzed. Having lots of Mac owners using an antivirus would probably speed up the process a lot. In the PC world most viruses remain hidden only for a few days.
Point 1b: The antivirus blocks the viruses before they infect the machines, so even if Apple takes its time in publishing a patch -as they usually do- the computer remains safe. Also, for some kinds of viruses, preventing infections also protects machines that don't have AV software installed. There is a similar effect with epidemics/vaccination.
Point 1c: If the only thing the patch does is to remove the vulnerability, the files you receive may still be infected, even when they can't affect your machine. Having some AV informing you of this would prevent you from i.e. mailing infected files to your friends.
Point 2: If you expect software makers to make big complex apps without any errors, you're in for a long long wait. :-)
If you ever put a keyboard into a dishwasher, make sure that:
- You use a 'cold' program. Most keyboards today have some kind of 'membrane' made of silicon or plastic that could be damaged by hot water.
- You don't use dishwasher's 'salts', as they could corrode the metallic parts -springs, ...- of the keyboard.
- Make sure to let it dry completely before using it. It'll dry faster if you disassemble it first.
I learned this the hard way. :-(
What other use may anyone have for whips and harnesses and... Oh, wait!...
"What do they usually pay people for?"
Sex.
I think you're getting it backwards. If they are developing a Linux based console, making Linux ports of all of their games makes lots of sense. Other developers will have to follow suit or become irrelevant. A Linux based console would be a lot cheaper than one built from scratch, and probably use lots of standard PC parts. With a good amount of compatible games -i.e. the Steam catalog- it'd probably become a big hit.
It could well be the wedge needed to put Linux in every home.
Yep, I'll keep on dreaming...
"Murdoch claimed his company had spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" over the past year in investigating the matter to find out how widespread those actions were on the tabloid."
For that kind of money, I would have found out everything, and told him, and with the remaining $$$ I'd probably have found a cure for malaria. But, on second thought, you can intercept lots of calls , set up lots of blackmails and pay lots of huge bribes with "hundreds of millions of dollars". Perhaps it was well spent money, after all.
"just as men carry around used loo-roll?"
I tell you, this 'recycling' thing is going too far!
You're totally right! If a thief finds that the woman he's robbing keeps used tampons in her handbag, he'll probably consider her another victim of society and give her things back. Either that or GTFO screaming :)
Even if the thief is one of those 'tampon connoisseurs' that have been named in recent comments in this thread, chances are that the device will never see a USB port again.
It's a win-win.
It's clear that these tampons should be made mandatory for any company employee or civil servant that wants to move around citizen's unencrypted private data in a thumbdrive.
"Dances with Wolves with Stretched Smurfs"
That's a good name, but I'd prefer "Pocahontas 2.0"
"bring it ashore at Gibraltar itself just to annoy the Spanish."
Good! then you can send the leccy to the rest of Europe with a fleet of pigeons carrying rechargeable batteries. * :-D
*: ¡Gibraltar español!"
"...watch on my wrist that is powered by the every day movement of my hand."
I had one of those when I was a teenager. It exploded.
Right on the money!
I'd go further and say that Nokia/MS could be using this bug as an opportunity for giving their phones for free. If you want a massive market penetration, giving away the product -for a few days only- seems a very good move.
For thousands of years some people have been trying to tell the rest which parts they could or could not plug into other parts. As a result, these building blocks are probably illegal in Texas right now.
When I was fifteen y modded several Lego pieces in order use them in a mixed Lego - Meccano crane model. Everything I needed was an electric drill and a steady hand. It took me a while to find the right bit's size and type, though. Kudos to these guys!
"Given that Bonobo's are the other primates that lurve to fuck".
Fixed.
This article reminds me of my grandpa telling me this history from the Spanish Civil War, when some of his mates, Republican soldiers like himself, had the bright idea of shooting a rotting dead cow from ten meters away. The cow exploded, and these geniuses spent two days trying to remove the stains and the stench from their kit, their clothes and themselves, in a mountain river, in April. Don't think they tried the same trick again :-).
"'Climate scientists' have done everything possible to deny and obscure the Medieval Warm Period."
Yeah! It was economists who discovered MWP, not climate scientists.
"'Climate scientists' haven't been 'wrong' - they've bloody well lied "
So, when there is a controversy between scientists with no clear consensus, and new data is gathered, supporting one or another side of the argument, your explanation is that scientists were lying. Yep. Good logic. Congrats.
"Why is it massively disrupting civilisation around the world is 'erring on the side of caution', but being reluctant to do so is 'poor logic'?"
Massively disrupting civilization????
- Taxing contaminating industries. The worst effect would probably be a price rise for manufactured goods, so your electronic gizmos would cost a 20% more (Yep, I just made up that number). The up side would be an economic incentive for industries to contaminate less and spend less energy, which is good no matter if AGW is real or not.
- Promoting public transport, i.e. by designing cities and residential areas with public transport in mind. Consequences: A better use of energy, less contamination and less road accidents. What's not to like?
- Giving incentives for reforestation, possibly allowing contaminating industries to reduce their pollution taxes creating woodlands to act as carbon sinks.
- Promoting a sensible use of forest's resources, in such a way that such resources become true renewable resources. This would probably rise the price of printing paper and furniture.
- Fighting planned obsolescence, as it causes a huge loss of resources.
- Promoting recycling in an intelligent way, so the users and companies involved get incentives to recycle their products. This would also rise the price of manufactured goods, so instead of changing our flat panel TVs every 4 years we'd be stuck with the same TV for 6 years. The horror!
- Promoting research on better insulation, more durable materials, eco-friendly materials, more efficient machines and alternative energy sources.
-...
So, doing all this would 'massively disrupt civilization?
Yes. My ass.
"The AGW warmmongers are precisely the people who for the last 20 years have been claiming the science is settled and we skeptics need to stuff a sock in it"
I don't doubt that there exists a % of AGW supporters who are claiming that 'the science is settled'. Misinformed individuals abound at both sides of this discussion, and their existence proves zilch regarding this AGW controversy.
"Our claim... ...is that if they lied about item #1 in order to advance a specific non-scientific agenda"
Please re-read my comment. What I'm saying is that the consensus that the article claims that existed before -i.e. that the Medieval warm period was only local to Europe- didn't in fact exist, so the implication that 'THEY' were lying to us is disingenuous at best.
"I've checked on a few papers and they ALL start with an assumption I KNOW to be wrong: Solar activity does not constitute the major component of warming on Earth. Run the thought experiment where you turn off the sun and see how warm the CO2 keeps it."
Misdirection, indeed, but it's all yours. Plus a big smoking straw dog. No scientist in his sane mind would ever say that the Sun is not what keeps the Earth warm. Please read what you wrote and tell me who is trying to misdirect whom.
"You expend scarce resource only in proportion to the combine damage*risk danger factor when compared to cose"
WTF??? Please rewrite that into something understandable.
"When there are serious questions about both damage and risk, and the cost is 10 orders of magnitude higher than either..."
Genius. So the cost of measures against AGW is 10 orders of magnitude bigger than the cost of possible consequences of AGW? You got that from one of the many papers you read on the subject, didn't you? Yep, bullshit, indeed.
" I present as an objective example the danger that near-Earth object of sufficient size to cause a Tanguskan event"
The Tunguskan event killed at most a few dozen people. If it had happened in a densely populated area the death toll would have been at most a few millions. A big tragedy, but life would have continued in the rest of the world almost as usual. AGW would damage our agriculture, destroy coastal areas -where most of mankind resides-, disrupt transportation, cause famines and wars... .
It goes without saying that a really huge space rock could exterminate us, but on the other hand we don't have yet the technology that would allow us to destroy/deflect/whatever one of these big rocks.
"Yet no one is seriously expending money on identifying such objects"
FYI: Yes, they are. There are several projects that are compiling a catalog of such objects and their trajectories.
AGW deniers seem to be making several huge logic leaps here. I would summarize them as follows:
- Climate scientists were wrong when claiming that the Medieval Warm Period was local to Europe only.: I have been reading discussions about this for ages, and -contrary to what the article implies- there has never been a clear consensus on the subject, due to scarcity of data. A 60% of climate scientists believing 'X' and a 40% believing '!X' is not a clear consensus, by most definitions.
- As Climate scientists were wrong regarding this MWP, they must be also wrong regarding AGW: Scientists can always be wrong. We're discussing Science here, not Religion. But if most of the data seems to support the hypothesis of AGW we should probably stick with it until more data proves or disproves AGW. Similarly, If the scientific consensus says that drinking 1.5 litres of Vodka has a 50% chance of killing you, you probably shouldn't do it, unless you get very clear evidence that this consensus is wrong.
- This study is an important breakthrough, as it proves that GW can be caused by factors other than human activity: We already knew that. The Earth has been going through warm periods and glaciations for several hundred millions of years at least, and this well known fact doesn't by itself invalidate AGW. Volcanoes, Sun cycles and other -non anthropogenic- factors can cause warm and cold periods.
-As AGW can't be proved without a shadow of doubt, we shouldn't preemptively act to prevent it:'Erring on the side of caution' is the usually best approach when addressing something as potentially catastrophic and destructive as GW. In the best case, if AGW is wrong, the data used to debunk it would be useful for forecasting future climate changes and improving climate models, so we can predict -or even prevent- other warming/cooling episodes. "Hope for the best and prepare for the worst" is always a sound advice for issues like this.
You put a motorized camera on top of the thing, to take panoramic photos of its surroundings.
Using these images, a suitable application scans the images and finds 'important' points. After taking one of these panoramic views, the robot slowly displaces itself a given distance and repeats the process, until it has gathered enough data to triangulate the entire garden. From this data the app obtains a 'mathematical model' of your garden, that it can use to choose its path .
If you want to define 'boundaries', so your Gaga-bot doesn't try to mow the swimming pool, you use a 'laser wall', something you can cheaply build yourselves with a laser pointer and a suitably shaped reflector. Once the bot has 'learned' it's surroundings, the user can save and give a name to the 'map' generated. After this, the user can remove the 'laser walls', as they aren't need now that Gaga has the terrain map.
In normal operation, the Gaga takes more photos -not complete panoramics- to know its exact position and define an optimal path using the map model created before.
I admit that the programs to perform those tasks must be really complicated, but several systems for obtaining 3D data from overlapping 2D photos have already been developed, and this is very close to what would be needed here. I'm sure that if ElReg sponsored an open source project for this, they would get top talent to do the work. And lots of fun.
Another drawback is that you'd probably need a PC connected -WiFi?- to the Gaga-bot to perform these tasks. Of course that's not a big issue, as any one nerdy enough to build one of these, and use it, probably has more computers at home than they have shoes.
Yes, I mean all those guys able to lay relaxedly in a hammock enjoying a pint of beer or three, while Gaga suffers some software bug, escapes the boundaries of his internal map and brings indescribable havoc upon the neighborhood.
Why, we IT guys should be thanking M$ for making us learn yet another new interface, and giving us the opportunity of enjoying re-learning all the tricks and shenanigans hidden in it. We all loved those years when trying to fix a Vista box would mean countless hours of fun trying to decide whether the cause of the problem was a poorly written driver, a design inconsistency in the GUI ,another bug in the OS or a virus entered through one of the gazillion security holes, those years or simply searching in the Net for hours for someone, anyone, who had any fleeting idea about WTF was going on. Ohhh, I could go on for hours.
I want to send a very clear message to Microsoft:
" Stop developing that 'Metro' shit OR THE KITTEN GETS IT !!!"
Here. Hope it helps.
Thank you, Mr. Monkey, for the hint. And thanks to the good folks at ElReg for the banner, the article and the robo-lawnmower project.
That should read:
"1. if 'we'/Neanderthal/hobbits/deer people interbred then we are really a single species, aren't we?"
At least according to Population Genetics. IMHO he traditional definitions 'species' are usually too vague to be useful in most contexts.
"Of all the trades that I've ken, the beggin is the best
for when a beggar's weary he can sit and update his Facebook wall..."
Nah
Sorry
"...be they government employees of Bill Gates."
A Freudian slip?
And thought of the possibilities.
I'm drooling! :D
- Biological and chemical detectors, that can detect hundreds of pathogens, toxins and contaminants, 'printed' in something the size of an A4 sheet. Complete blood analysis made almost instantaneously and cheaply with a only few drops of blood. Hospital masks and patients clothes including this technology. Same thing for firemen's masks, contamination detectors...
- Tactile micro-sensors and micro-actuators for robotic applications, i.e. for giving a surgeon a complete tactile feedback while doing remote surgery. True 'bomb squad robots', able to interact with a bomb the same way a human bomb disposal operative would, instead of just detonating it. 'Creeping hand robots' for repairing things in places not accessible to human workers...
- 'Spider feet' and 'Gecko feet', allowing small robots to walk on any surface, be it floor, walls or ceiling.
- Engineered surfaces, so as to retain moist, or oils, or contaminants, or remain dry.
- ...
Perhaps even if this substrate is not too hard, you can still use this method to create molds. And the plastic itself could be used to create tubes, micropumps and valves. Think of the possibilities!
"And atomic bombs could potentially ignite the atmosphere, oh wait....."
Nowadays physicists believe this is impossible, at least with the kind of atomic bombs available. On the other hand most biologists and oceanologists -the kind of people you should trust in these subjects- believe that the acidification of the sea will bring dire consequences. Yes, you'll probably be able to find dissenting voices in the scientific community, even some dissenting voices who aren't being paid by some industry cartel or another. But the vast majority of biologists and oceanologists would agree with what I wrote in my comment. I'm perfectly aware that this scientific consensus could be proved wrong -we're discussing science here, not religion- but usually following the actual scientific consensus is the best way to go for those of us who are not experts in the areas discussed. Otherwise we may end up believing some quack who says that vaccines are bad for children... oh wait...
Not being an expert in the area myself, the only thing I can do is check this consensus against what I've read previously on this and other related subjects. And in this case it seems to fit nicely.
There is also a small fallacy in your comment, when you try to equate the 'minority opinion' about the a-bombs igniting the atmosphere with the actual consensus on the subject of sea acidification.
"I thought there was a "non-obvious" requirement?"
I totally agree. Furthermore, "showing *stuff* on a screen" is undobtedly covered-implied in the original patent for screens. This is another example of the way the patent system is broken, and how it is slowing down our technological advance rate.
'The oceans are alkaline and that alkalinity has reduced ever so slightly in some areas. That is not, in any way, "acidifying".'
Yes, it is. Look it up*. But this is only 'playing with words'. Taken in its context, what this 'acidification' -or 'neutralization', to have it your way - means is that the fine PH balance on which many sea organisms depend is being destroyed. It also affects other factors, such as the abiloity of the oceans to store CO2 and CH4. The consequences of this are potentially catastrophic.
My take on the matter is that this kind of technology is great for anything depending on surface area for the generation of energy and/or useful chemical compounds, as long as the energy cost of creating the nanowires is less than the benefit obtained. Solar cells, hydrogen production, fuel cells, catalysts, ...
Considering the way the efficiency of nanowire creation has been rising in the last decade, I'd bet that these technologies will be very useful in a near future.
Some 3 cm. per kilometer. Not the best glider I've seen :D
I can't see final user's devices using this. On the other hand, if a pair of these rotating antennas can carry as much bandwidth as an optical cable, Cable companies could probably save lots of dough by using them for everything but the last mile. Maintaining a cable network is a pain in the ass, and laying new cable is costly, slow and full of potential trouble.
You accidentally pressed the 'Joke Alert' icon when making your post. Be more careful next time! ;-)
" What the annonytwats don't realize is that they are actually annony-nots. No man is an island ..."
What the Interpol is doing here is winnowing out the less apt, and promoting the ones that 'work safe' and their methods. The best memes will prevail!.
That is, if the Interpol isn't just going after the guys who run the IRC servers Anonymous uses to communicate, as they did in a similar raid in my country last year. If this is the case, we can expect most of those arrested getting out scotch free after some small judiciary farce and legal harassment.
And, Jake, FYI, mom's basement dwellers aren't the only ones that believe 'The Authority' deserves several kicks in the 'nads whenever they try to take rights away from us . Anything that sheds light on their underhanded tactics -i.e. the Stratfor affaire with Wikileaks- is good for our freedom.
"Being computer literate gives you an advantage over computer illiterate people"
On the other hand, being a noble born millionaire gives Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg -his friends call him Joe- an advantage over the rest of us.
"Try reading the PDF, it is implicitly very critical of the industry's practices and capital expenditure strategy"
That could have something to do with the fact that the report is sponsored by a bank, not by the Oil Industry.
FYI, I didn't go through the document in detail, just a quick read of its main points -I plan to give it a thorough read tonight- and is those points I don't like. Last time I read on the issue of fracking, it was a subsidized technology, so the real cost is higher than stated, but the difference is paid by taxpayers. And we are not even considering the environmental damage, which is huge and should be accounted for in any analysis of the costs incurred.
More info here: http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking
Till everybody has a 'smart meter' at home. A week without leccy and/or gas in a cold winter, in London would probably kill more people than a week of German air raids in WWII.
Oil refineries would probably be also a good target, given their actual scarcity. Hacking Domotics systems in the near future would come handy for kidnapping and blackmail.
Affecting traffic lights should be a cake. The inputs and outputs of such a system are few and easy to deduce, and in the worst case you could create mayhem -The biggest gridlock in History!!!- just by changing some random bytes.
The other examples? If you have access to a similar facility and to its hw and sw, understanding the workings of the plant should be relatively easy.
The next step? Create a personalized virus. Given the way many techies play loose with USB memory sticks and the like, most systems vulnerable would be infected in less than a year. Then comes the 'trigger date', and then comes the gridlocks, the blackouts and the shit-floods.
Trusting a report on energy production and future availability made by lawyers employed by a bank is like sending your children to a kindergarten sponsored by NAMBLA .
"There is something wrong with the models"
Could you please be more specific?
And, just to clarify my point:
What we see in CGI -i.e. WWD- is an artwork. Paleontologists define the bone models, mark the places where the articulations go and give some other parameters. The CGI artists try to make a dinosaur inside those parameters. A paleontologist checks the results and gives them -hopefully- an OK.
What the 'complex computer models' are for is for testing whether a given arrangement of muscles is 'functional' or not, and whether it supports the kind of locomotion attributed to that species, or if that attributed locomotion is possible or makes sense at all.
"...go and look at a Bernini or a Michelangelo..."
Bernini and Michelangelo had a big advantage over paleontologists studying dinosaurs. They had living models. If we had living dinosaurs nobody would be bothering at all with this 'computer model' crap. Observation and an autopsy now and then would suffice.
