What...the...hell? Even though I'm starting a "old-is-new" 1st edition AD&D campaign this weekend (maybe we'll go down to the basement, even!), I'm not offended so much as bemused. What an odd attempt at an insult. *shrug* What's this guy got against gamers, anyway? Did a bunch beat him up when he was a kid or something?

That is an impressive build. I haven't been in-world in probably 6 months, but I'm going to have to check that out.

Arrgh...this TOTALLY sucks. Search Engine is one of my favorite podcasts; a well-produced, intelligent, topical and insightful technology show.

#12 (kurtmac), the reason we're doing this again is because the bills passed by the House and Senate back earlier in the year didn't match (on immunity, among other things). This is the "compromise" legislation to sync things up. Now that it has passed the House, it goes to the Senate, where (hopefully) some folks like Sen. Dodd may consider a filibuster. Against their own party. What a world we live in, eh?

If you want to check your Rep., here's the link to the vote results: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml

I can't wait for "Paul Bunyan vs. Chuck Norris".

Zoinks...I'd consider wearing my old "RSA encryption in Perl" barcoded T-shirt through security; it even has the jazzy "THIS T-SHIRT IS A MUNITION" on the back. (it arguably was, at the time [mid-90s], before the encryption laws were changed.) But I think I would indeed probably get arrested, which would suck.

Well-produced, relevant, and thought-provoking. I particularly like the point about the gov't wanting, in the event of a problem, the very photos that they sometimes are trying to prevent from being taken in the first place.

And I can't wait until I forget about this, rip off an old luggage tag, and (finding no nearby trash receptacle) just stick it in the side pocket of my bag. As I have done on numerous occasions...I still find them in bags occasionally. The relatively small number of airports using this tech may save me for now; but when an errant RFID makes your bag "disappear" to the wrong luggage carousel, that's going to be hard to diagnose.

I suspect this will be a problem in many environments where RFIDs exist, but folks are not widely aware of them. Unintended consequences.

I can certainly confirm that my largest concern about the RFID (I'm the guy who took the photo and made the post) was that there was no indication that it was in the luggage tag.

Are they useful? Absolutely. Can they be misused? Absolutely...and obscurity may not bring security, but it does often make misuse, overreaching, and slippery slopes more likely.

Heck, I think RFIDs are interesting tech...but finding ones on my person that I'm not aware of doesn't thrill me. At all.

Noted...it's in your luggage TAG, not your luggage...I made an unclear typo, but I think the photo makes it clear what we're talking about, @WeightedCompanionCube. And as I said in the post...I don't even think it's a bad idea for purposes of bag sorting, etc...but when there's no indication? Eh...tricky.

I frequently only rip airport luggage tags off when I'm getting ready for the next trip via plane. They sometimes stick around for months on my bags otherwise, including trips by car, etc. Not anymore, of course.

The best line in the piece:

If there's one thing the government and our educational institutions could do to keep us safer, it's this: teach us how statistics works.

I agree wholeheartedly. As you noted, human beings aren't wired for statistical analysis; it's counter intuitive, and the REALLY useful conditional stuff the general public has hardly any idea about at all. (Makes my spam filter run like gangbusters, though!)

Education isn't a cure-all, but it'll get us a helluva lot further than x-raying everyone's toothbrushes.

Those Linux hounds who foam at the mouth over stories like this as potential to convert the unwashed Windows masses seem to be missing the point. ...

Hm. Maybe. And maybe they've decided that the point isn't how to fix Microsoft. It's instead to watch what they want to watch. If Microsoft can handle providing that, great. If not, go elsewhere. Companies get the point a lot faster when you leave than when you keep giving them money, but ask them to be nicer to you. Companies only care about nice when it involves a profit motive.

We totally need to go national on this, agreed. I'm in if it comes to Atlanta (or anywhere fairly nearby). We need a good flickrtag, too! Both for individual protests, and the general act of taking back our public places.

Oh....wow. My highschool roomie and I played H2G2 'til our eyes bled (friggin' babelfish). I'm drooling reading this background stuff. I almost don't want to play the prototype; it seems unreal!

+1 for this post, Cory. Thanks.

The Illusion of Conscious Will, by Daniel Wegner, also delves into this subject in some detail, and is well worth reading if you're into the subject. Point: as noted in both the title of Wegner's book, and in the article above, the illusion is of "conscious will", not "free will". There's no question that the decisions are indeed being made in your brain; it's just that the little person that sits in our head and thinks that they're in charge...well, they may not be. They may be, in a sense, working with echoes of what has already been decided at a deeper level, and just thinking "they" (ie, the conscious you) came up with it. Weird to wrap your head around...but the evidence does seem to point that way.

Oops...I think I forgot to sign in. That previous (Jamais Cascio related) comment was me!