I’m willing to bet the scientific method 400 years from now will differ from today’s understanding of science more than today’s science method differs from the proto-science used 400 years ago. A sensible forecast of technological innovations in the next 400 years is beyond our imaginations (or at least mine), but we can fruitfully envision technological changes that might occur in the next 50 years.

Based on the suggestions of the observers above, and my own active imagination, I offer the following as possible near-term advances in the evolution of the scientific method.

Compiled Negative Results

This is interesting. One of the core failings of modern science is its focus on "exciting" results. It turns what should be a methodological pursuit of the truth into a popularity contest in which people keep secrets and cut corners to reach interesting answers and gain fame and fortune. A failed experiment is just as useful as a successful one ifr your goal is to understand, and we now have the information technology needed to make use of a vast increase in the volume of published results. Some culture changes could be positive.

Kevin Kelly -- The Technium

Can you fly without ID? According to what the government told the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Gilmore case, you can – you need only submit to secondary screening in order to fly anonymously.

Please try doing some or all of your travel by declining to show ID and report back about what happens to you.

If you have some time on your hands and some big ass balls in your pants there is a significant legal issue here you can contribute to. All you have to do is go to an airport and try to get on a plane without showing ID. They aren't supposed to arrest you for trying this...

You ought to be able to travel freely without identifying yourself to the government. Totalitarian regimes have used secret laws in the past to control the free association of people. I'm sure that these travel restrictions were limited to the necessary protection of the national security interests of their respective states. Subversive people associating with eachother is a national security issue. We presently have a secret list of subversive people who are prohibited from flying and an ID requirement for flight. Is this list being abused? Who is on the list? Why are people put on the list? Almost nobody knows.

The 9th circuit is saying that its really not a problem because there really is no ID requirement and you can just get on planes so long as you are willing to allow them to search you for weapons. I had no idea! I'll bet TSA's agents don't know this either.

TSA cannot sit in court and say you don't need an ID to fly, and then put signs all over airports saying that you do need ID to fly and refuse to let people fly without ID. They either need to defend their ID requirement in court or actually not have one.

If you can't get on a plane without showing ID, TSA is lying.

Can you really fly without showing ID?

Turns out that if someone types "startkeylogger" or "stopkeylogger" in an IRC channel, anyone on the channel using the affected Norton products will be immediately kicked off without warning.

hehehe.... The problem with a lot of automated tools that try to respond to attacks is that an attack can trigger them intentionally. Dropping in a firewall rule to block anyone who port scans you? Why don't I spoof a port scan from your favorite website? Even worse is the idea of automatically retaliating. Retaliating security software is Texan for distributed denial of service zombie.

Leveraging automated attack response

Piggybacking, the usually unauthorized tapping into someone else's wireless Internet connection, is no longer the exclusive domain of pilfering computer geeks or shady hackers cruising for unguarded networks. Ordinarily upstanding people are tapping in. As they do, new sets of Internet behaviors are creeping into America's popular culture.

Wardriving is the new pop.

Half of all malfunctioning products returned to stores by consumers are in full working order, but customers can't figure out how to operate the devices, a scientist said on Monday.

Most product quality problems exist between terminal and chair

AT&T Inc. said Sunday it will acquire smaller rival BellSouth Corp. for $67 billion in stock, in a deal that goes a long way toward resurrecting the old Ma Bell telephone system.

Night of the living dead...

CNN.com - AT&T reaches deal to buy BellSouth - Mar 5, 2006

Situational science is about respecting both sides of a scientific argument, not just the one supported by the facts!

Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose

Peter J. Biondi, NJ Assemblyman for District 16, has introduced A1327, a bill to force every ISP and website with comments/forums to demand user identification from every single poster (called an "information content provider" in the bill). The bill also forces all ISP and websites to turn over that information upon demand to anyone who claims to have been defamed, without any legal process or protections:

Well, it appears Seigenthaler's stupid campaign to remove due process protecting the identity of Internet posters, based on the inane assumption that claimants are always good guys who always have a legitimate claim, has gotten traction in the New Jersey legislature. MemeStreams users in New Jersey ought to contact their local representatives and calmly and respectfully explain that for every human problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong.

Talking points:
1. Anonymous and pseudononymous speech has a long history of political significance in our country.
2. People seeking to identify Internet users do not always have a legitimate claim. Sometimes they are stalkers or other criminals.
3. Having a court decide whether Internet Services are required to turn over personal information about their customers creates a process which validates the legitimacy of a claim before personal information is forcibly disclosed.
4. Internet message boards are often informal things run by hobbyists. Information collection and reporting requirements create barriers to entry for those seeking to operate message boards, which has a deleterious effect on the free flow of discourse critical to our democracy.

LawGeek: New Jersey Assemblyman introduced bill to force online identification

RIM has paid NTP $612.5 million in full and final settlement of all claims against RIM, as well as for a perpetual, fully-paid up license going forward. This amount includes money already escrowed by RIM to date.

Well, thats over.

Research In Motion and NTP Sign Definitive Settlement Agreement to End Litigation

finethen wrote:

But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood

UGH. So this is the new right-wing rant? Hollywood is out of touch with the rest of the God-loving country? Fuck that.

This is a regular subject on AM radio. Apparently they don't like the "immoral" images that hollywood sends people about how to live. Secretly some of them are probably worried about the societal influence of people on McCarthy's list.

I didn't really get this take from Syriana, but its at least interesting enough to mention. This almost makes me want to watch it again. I didn't really think that any of the people in the movie were heros. I thought that was the point.

I'm somewhat disturbed by the characterization of this film and Munich by conservatives as "morally confused" because they portray Americans or Isrealis as complex people who are not always right about everything. The idea that Americans must not be protrayed in a critical light is childish at best, and fascist at worst. Will the new movie awards I link above be a short lived and widely ignored experient, or will they become a central institution, like Fox News, growing in influence until what is today declared immoral is declared illegal?

Failure to allow serious criticism is weakness. Totalitarianism is where weakness leads.

RE: Oscars for Osama