>"When the public is made aware of the mass surveillance programs, they do say "No thank you""
Actually they say "I've got nothing to hide" or "there is nothing you can do anyway"
"trying to stay awake watching one slide after the other" these I hated the most the PowerPointProfs and in their exams question where like "name 6 things of something" where they wanted to have the things listed from their presentation and only their presentation.
More a proof of concept, bringing 3D into industry automation. Some Scada/Mes Software already have some kind of 3D interaction but these are basically DWG-Viewers. And that's the first point, dwg is the format which you will get most source from machine producers. A standard in software in production is OPC_UA which already offers functional protocols to be used for 3D implementation. So what I want to see is can you get dwg (maybe parsed to another format) together with the functionallity in OPC_UA present it in an engine (PCs in production are build for durability not graphics power) and can you find an interaction system which can actually be used by a machine operator in production.
"I want America like Europe where they'll educate your kid until his head explodes. You want to go to college, go, we need you, we need doctors because people grow up and fall down and go boom, everyone is going to need a doctor, let's have three doctors per floor of every apartment building in this town. How about that as a good idea? Like that is a good idea. Okay, so let's make college tuition either free or really low and if you have a country full of whip-crack smart people you have a country the rest of the world will fear. They will not invade a country of educated people because we are so smart we'll build a laser that will burn you, the enemy, in your sleep before you can even mobilize your air force to kill us. We will kill you so fast because we are so smart and we will have foreign policy that will not piss you off to the point to where you have to attack us." Henry Rollins
"Because size does matter. It seems to me that progressive, reasonable, pacific and prosperous states - like the Nordic countries, or Switzerland or New Zealand - tend to be less than 10 million people."
That is what I often thought regarding the EU. A EU of regions instead of nations. United under a banner for economy, foreign affairs, standards and military and let the regions handle social insurance, police, taxes. Im actually a big fan of the EU but right now it seems to go in some wrong directions and politicans of national governments always using Bruessel as an excuse, while the EU itself is not speaking with one voice in conflicts like in Ukraine.
As a Swiss I like your idea - I do think that an EU handled the right way[TM] could be a successor to national governments of federalistic countries such as Switzerland. However, there is one big thing missing right now in the EU (and you do hint at it yourself): Strong civil rights for the population resulting in keeping the political apparatus in check. The right to stop (and even introduce) any and every law through national votes keeps politicians nicely at bay. Large government projects need to be explained really well if people are to vote for it - yet they're still possible as the gotthard base tunnel proves[1]. Even the banking secrecy has the effect of keeping governments humble when it comes to taxation - people will simply just pay what they think is fair. It comes down to the government being more like an employee rather than an employer - and the Swiss people would loose dearly if they had to give this up. The EU at this point would require a complete reboot to get such strong mechanisms of checks and balances - and I'm not convinced that the Swiss system couldn't work for larger entities.
Yeah, the EU as a concept is phenomenal. Its execution is more questionable and its PR is flat out disastrous, with national politicians blaming it for all kinds of ills.
Also, banana curvature. Really, how was the EU not able to squash that myth? I get that the EU fundamentally answers to national governments and not voters directly, but the tiniest bit of PR effort towards voters might help in the long run, don't you think?
> Really, how was the EU not able to squash that myth?
When people like Rupert Murdoch are heavily invested in having people adopt a particular view it's rather hard to make headway with anything so unimportant as the truth.
- It wasn't entirely false, just misleading (there is a standard defining what a banana is for the purposes of trade categorisation, tax and subsidy)
- the EU does not believe it's dependent on the goodwill of voters; the elected part of the EU itself is the weakest
- the UK media is very anti-EU and the EU has no real UK media operation
- it's "tone accurate": the EU does produce an awful lot of fiddly little rules. The proposal to ban unsealed olive oil from restaurant tables got quite far recently before the public heard about it and it was laughed out of feasibility.
If the EU does not believe it's dependent on the goodwill of voters, then why did it care about the unsealed olive oil ban being laughed at? The Brussels bureaucracy is a mess, but it's not ridiculous. The proposal would never have passed, regardless of public attention.
Okay, that's just my belief, but it would be fairly depressing if I'm wrong.
The problem with this theory is that military force is the begin and end of sovereignty. Once you let go of that, weaker regions become beholden to the Wishes of the stronger ones.
That used to be the case, but changes slowly now. Enough less powerful states may understand common needs and unite to combat the stronger region, both economically and militarily.
Propably the shortest story on the list
/Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe -- ninety-six billion planets -- into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment's silence he said, "Now, Dwar Ev."
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. "The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn."
"Thank you," said Dwar Reyn. "It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer."
He turned to face the machine. "Is there a God?"
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
"Yes, now there is a God."
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut./ (Fredric Brown, "Answer")
"it isn't easy to ignore Lubos, but it is always worth it" if he could just be a little more on the topic, instead of insulting everyone, his legitimate critiscm would a far greater value.
