I dated a woman who's uncle was retired from the CIA. Around 2001 or so, in a candid, personal conversation, well after he'd retired, he told us that every piece of data, without exception, sent over "computer networks", was backed up by the government/CIA (I lump them together despite history showing their disparity).
I believe he retired in the early 90's, and I recall being surprised that the government was on to, or rather suspicious of, the technology that early (so many things they're incompetent in, and so many they're not).
Regardless, I've never wanted to live in, or support, (passively or knowingly), a country that would partake in such things. That definitely wasn't the beginning of my mistrust and suspicion, but the memory comes back to me today hearing the recent court-orders.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

More ways to pass time and divert ourselves for sure- but definitely less autonomy. I won't walk out of the house without my iPhone, and am rarely away from my email or the Sift in case there's something that needs attention. Who is serving who in the networked world? I'm already serving my preferred corporate network person.>> ^Psychologic:
The decision was partly based on the designation of corporations being people, which was an "accidental" designation anyway. I can't really make any educated comments about the effects it will have though.
Tech: Computer networks, or whatever architecture we move towards, will continue to increase in sophistication and "intelligence". As far as free speech, I don't know how to handle that. It's difficult to imagine what those systems will be like at this point, though it may get interesting if distinguishing between human and machine in a virtual environment gets a lot harder.

> ^dag:
It doesn't take an oracle to see that the autonomy of the individual is decreasing.
Really? If anything, I'd say that autonomy is increasing. People have access to an unprecedented amount of information with minimal time investment, and the number of tasks that can be accomplished through tech is increasing monthly. People with disabilities have far more autonomy than they did even 20 years ago, and I can't think of anyone I know who would accept the government "doling out" work unless it were completely optional.
Of course, we could be defining "autonomy" differently. I think there are far more activities available to people today than there have been in the past, and we're still free to choose those activities for ourselves (depending on your country of residence).

The decision was partly based on the designation of corporations being people, which was an "accidental" designation anyway. I can't really make any educated comments about the effects it will have though.

Tech: Computer networks, or whatever architecture we move towards, will continue to increase in sophistication and "intelligence". As far as free speech, I don't know how to handle that. It's difficult to imagine what those systems will be like at this point, though it may get interesting if distinguishing between human and machine in a virtual environment gets a lot harder.


> ^dag:
It doesn't take an oracle to see that the autonomy of the individual is decreasing.

Really? If anything, I'd say that autonomy is increasing. People have access to an unprecedented amount of information with minimal time investment, and the number of tasks that can be accomplished through tech is increasing monthly. People with disabilities have far more autonomy than they did even 20 years ago, and I can't think of anyone I know who would accept the government "doling out" work unless it were completely optional.

Of course, we could be defining "autonomy" differently. I think there are far more activities available to people today than there have been in the past, and we're still free to choose those activities for ourselves (depending on your country of residence).

First of all, Connell did worked for McCain.

Connell basically had his hands in every major GOP campaign since 2000 (Jeb in 1998, Papa Bush back in Iowa). He redid the House internal computer network. He did work on Dept of Housing, Dept. of Energy. He was doing IT in a ton of places most notably the White House email system and all those missing emails.

Secondly, Connell wasn't so much involved in Ohio 2004 but he probably knows important stuff. He also did the programming for the state election results website.

And to the submitter or YouTube comments... THERE IS NO EXPLANATION GIVEN.. so how can all the evidence refute it? He very likely crashed from pilot error brought on by bad weather and possibly mechanical problems. There is nothing that points to this being anything more then an accident.

I agree on the bullshit at work when they are talking about it running when you aren't playing. It's just more logical to buy them wholesale as they are cheaper then more powerful supercomputers. Set up a distributed data computation network and do your research, this whole oh buy a PS3 and you will be contributing to the world is just marketing bullshit.

Well from YouTube -

"Brought to you by www.bluecatnetworks.com - See what happens when a computer networks fails, in the modern day war zone that is the office. Shot by www.port53films.com"

I like the disclosure. So I'll let it pass. But I really don't like Virals.