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A dirty bomb? Those have bugger all effectiveness, except against the emotions of the weak. The amount of radioactive material required to build a dirty bomb that actually did something would exceed the amount needed to build a real bomb. It would be utterly stupid.

It depends on what your goals are. The goal of a dirty bomb denotation is not likely large-scale destruction -- it would be terror. Detonate even a small one in Times Square and watch how much disruption it will cause. Actual number of casualties are almost irrelevant. Look at how much the deaths of 3000 people on 9/11 did -- it's not the body count that terrorists are often after, but the repercussions that follow the feeling of insecurity.

The US is reasonably well guarded. Certainly, it's enough to stop any serious physical weapon from getting through.

I cannot fathom how a post with this in it got modded "+5 Insightful." A kiloton weapon could be smuggled into the U.S. in a heavy backpack. You could move that in through a port. ABC News moved depleted uranium in back in 2002 and 2003. Congress passed laws requiring 100% scanning by 2012, then 2014... it's not here, and it's doubtful it would happen anytime soon.

Or you could drive it across the border from Canada. Cars are rarely inspected in detail. Hell, if you're a random septuagenarian nun, you could even wander into a U.S. nuclear weapons or depleted uranium facility restricted area in this country itself without a huge amount of trouble. Our own security within the U.S. to protect nuclear material is pretty abysmal -- and our ability to screen for a smallish nuclear weapon entering the U.S. by land or sea is nearly non-existent.

I have no clue how you equate this with a statement like "The US is reasonably well guarded" against nuclear devices. Could you easily smuggle in an ICBM? No. Duh. But you could easily smuggle in something that would incinerate many blocks of a major city. And again, terrorism isn't about the magnitude of the event, but the feeling of insecurity it creates.

You knew him personally? What else was he like? Oh...I see...you don't know him. You have no idea what you are talking about and are just parroting nonsense.

Well, Jefferson was pretty certainly a rapist.

alarmist nonsense like the impossible scenarios Al Gore presented

Yeah, about that...

http://phys.org/news/2015-10-s...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

Breaking an oath is not, necessarily, a crime. How you break it may be a crime. Also, he was a private contractor. I doubt he swore any oaths in connection with his duty as a private contractor working with the NSA. He probably did sign an NDA, take some training, and filled in a form to get approved. Filling in the form with lies is against the law but that's still not really swearing an oath or anything. He did swear some oaths when he worked at the CIA and he must have sworn when he was enlisted. I'm pretty sure of the former and certain of the latter.

Am I missing something and did he actually swear any oath? I keep hearing this.

It's odd 'cause I've sworn some oaths before. I served in the military and enlisted a second time. I've been sworn at a couple of times.

I've even had my security clearance. I've even worked as a private contractor. I've even worked, as a private contractor, with classified data. In this last part, there were no oaths sworn. Nope, not even a hand-holding-up-and-repeat-after-me, ceremony or anything. I didn't get a plaque, a certificate, or anything! So, if I should have been sworn at - I want to do it again.

That and, well... Violating your oath is not, necessarily, violating the law. It's grounds for termination but not (by itself) grounds for legal remediation. I'm trying to figure out what kind of oath this oath might be? I'm actually almost at a loss for words. That's a rarity for me. I just have no idea why this oath subject keeps coming back up as if it means something specific.

If he did sign an oath, it'd probably have been pretty generic. He probably did, however, sign a contract and an NDA. Signing isn't really swearing and contracts and NDAs aren't really oaths. Are they?

So, I figured I'd do some investigating. Here's what I've found so far:

... Snowden, as far as one can tell, didn’t take an “oath” not to disclose classified information ...

That's a bit out of context but the rest of the quote is immaterial, here's a link:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/...

Where did this oath thing even come from? Why do people believe vague oaths, very much subjective, are actually the rule of law? When the hell did you last see or hear of anyone facing trial for "oath-breaking?" Maybe you can help me figure out where the hell this all came from and why people are running around yelling about it as if it helps further the discussion?

Apple has become a design and fashion company, where all the important decisions are made by simplicity loving rounded corner loving designers. Designers are great, and I have nothing (well, not much) against design and fashion companies (OK, it annoys me when, in the name of simplicity, useful tools such as Aperture are removed from a product).

But as a software engineer, I prefer to work for a company that puts a higher value on my skills. Google and Facebook were founded by coders and have many mechanisms to allow ambitious early code to see the light of day. I like a company with more scope for experimentation. A playful corporate culture is an (imperfect) indicator of experimentation and risk taking, while a rigid controlling culture is an (imperfect) indicator of the opposite.

Also, the best way to strike it rich is to join a company on an exponential growth curve. That was why, int the 1990's, Microsoft could hire the best and the brightest, who would cash out 5 years later as millionaires. Both Apple and Microsoft made a lot of millionaires in their day, but today ambitious folks look elsewhere.

(((posting as AC because I have mod points)))

"The American People are sick and tired of hearing about [her] damn emails."

I'm not voting for her in the primaries, and she probably did fuck up w/operational security big-time. I don't think it was with malice-- I'm sure it is not anything beyond the usual hyprocritical fuckery from high up national security and diplomatic executives (didn't Clapper or someone just get their email hacked by a high schooler? guess so).

The real scandal in this arena is her simultaneous misinformed condemnation of Snowden, not this email "bombshell" three days before the first caucus. Seriously, who gives a shit? There are important issues like who does and doesn't get massive financial support from wall street to complain about.

Here's a quick bullshit detector I've learned to use when dealing with science "revisions". Note that this has nothing to do with global warming, I developed this tool on unrelated topics. The tool is: "does the revision only go one way? Does it never go the other way? Does it support the politics of the person claiming it? If so then it's likely bullshit."

Apply that test and does it pass?

that's great, if you live in a world where scientific results "support the politics" of people. AGW was a perfectly established theory that explained the difference in surface temp between the earth and the moon for over 100 years before it became political, by the decision of the Koch brothers. http://www.newyorker.com/news/...

The average Pakistani, and even the Pakistani government, has very little power to accept or reject anything. Virtually all power lies with the Pakistani army and its intelligence service, thanks to US "aid". This aid is moreover not entirely voluntarily any more today, as its main purpose now appears to be to keep a completely messed up corrupt bunch of people in power, in an attempt to reduce the risk of a completely messed up bunch of other people that may be allied with Al Qaeda or the Taliban from taking over that power (which includes the keys to nuclear weapons).

I bet the anti-Western/foreigner feelings, which often include vehemently defending what is considered to be one's own primary/distinguishing values/traditions, are to a large extent inspired by the fact that they feel it is this same West that keeps their country's leadership hijacked. I have a Pakistani colleague at the university, and he recently told me their civil government regularly has to ask the military for funding rather than the other way around, simply because almost all direct monetary US aid ends up with the military. It's insane.

Bank statements, ie where I got the money from.

They don't care.
"Morrow, who is black, was taken to jail, where he pleaded with authorities to call his bank to see proof of his recent cash withdrawal. They declined."

As for buying a car - a bank statement is not evidence that you're intending to use the cash to buy a car. They'll say you're intending to use it to buy drugs.

So I go to court with my bank statement and get my money back. That's what courts are for.

“Don’t even bother getting a lawyer. The money always stays here.” - The officer that seized Morrow's money.

BTW, Morrow filed suit in 2008. He finally got his money back in 2013, of which he ended up only getting back $400 after paying most of the recovery towards attorney's fees. Mind you, I support his action because I think that departments shouldn't profit from this stuff. So I'd sue even if it was going to cost me more money.

Just follow the links. The stories are written there.

Where do you grab it from?

ATM withdrawal, generally. But if I wasn't an older white male(yes, they're racist), they wouldn't give a shit. Remember what I said: If you can't prove where it came from, it's from the sale of drugs, they seize it. If you can't prove where it's going, it's to BUY drugs, and they seize it.

Just sold a car? Obviously you sold it to buy drugs. They're seizing the money. Spend $3-5k in attorney fees to get it back.

How did they earn it? That entity, by law must keep records.

I repeat: THE COPS DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Try to go to court to get your $1k back, it's going to cost $5k in fees.

With their native Pesos? Or did they exchange their local currency, at a bank or money changer who is required by law to give a receipt for USD?

What the hell are you talking about? I'm talking about people who immigrated here years ago, often from places like China and Vietnam, who worked hard in the USA to earn USD in the first place.

I'm still struggling to see any scenario when a normal person would be affected by this, but I can see how a lot of dealers get caught out

Sorry, I can't find the bank deposit bag seizure - drowned out by the IRS seizing accounts for 'suspicious' deposit patterns. As for ordinary people, well, think of it as the latest version of setting up a speed trap for out of towners.

I see nobody responded to this post, maybe if you weren't AC people would read it. It's important, so I took the liberty of reposting it, in that hope that people will pull their heads out of their asses and at some point admit that the police and their supporters are a criminal class.

"Just out of interest, what other scenario can you think of that is reasonable?"

Not being poor?

But civil asset forfeiture is usually used against stuff not money: The District of Columbia state prosecutor took them to court and recovered 375 cars that had been seized with no charges pressed against their owners. Gold jewelry, pearl necklaces, if its valuable its seized.

And the shakedown aspect is also clear:

"When Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson complained to the county in the hope of retrieving their savings, they got another surprise. Lynda Russell, the district attorney, told them she had warned âoerepeatedlyâ that they did not have to sign the waiver, but, if they continued to contest it, they could be indicted on felony charges. âoeI will contact you and give you an opportunity to turn yourself in without having an officer come to your door,â she wrote in a letter mentioning the prospect of a grand jury. Once again, their custody of the kids was threatened. Boatright and Henderson decided to fight anyway."

So give us your stuff or we try to take your kids from you.

"In August, 2007, Tenaha police pulled Morrow over for âoedriving too close to the white line,â and took thirty-nine hundred dollars from him. Morrow told Guillory that he was on his way to get dental work done at a Houston mall. (The arresting officers said that his âoestories of travelâ were inconsistent, as was his account of how much money he had; they also said they detected the âoeodor of burned marijuana,â although no contraband was found in the car.) Morrow, who is black, was taken to jail, where he pleaded with authorities to call his bank to see proof of his recent cash withdrawal. They declined." âoeThey impounded my car, and they impounded me, too,â Morrow told me, recalling the night he spent in jail. When he finally agreed to sign away his property, he was released on the side of the road with no money, no vehicle, and no phone. "

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

Fact is, when comparing unions to corporations, there are no angels.

While I've never seen angels — and doubt they exist in this sorry world of ours — corporations are inherently better than unions.

Troll my tail — for a corporation to make money, it has to sell something people want. Unions far too often have a captive "customer base — one must join, if one wishes to work in a properly "unionized workplace". Such as be a public school teacher or even a New York City carpenter.

TFA — and the overall decline of union-membership in this country — shows, that, given a choice, people usually prefer to not join a union. Their bosses may whine about it, and make grotesque claims about our not working on weekends, but the simple fact is, their services are overpriced and shoddy. And where they still hold power, they manage to sabotage things while gobbling-up vast amounts of money.

They are stupid and evil — a rare combination. Bugger them. Bugger them with a splintered broomstick. Sideways.

You'd be surprised how many don't think about these things in their rush to publish and get publicity (funding) for their work. The scientific world is full to overflowing with bullshit. I note with interest it's now thought that eating an egg for breakfast won't give me heart problems. Fantastic news.

Of course people like you sneered at Lehrer's Decline Effect and let's not even mention the recent study showing that fewer than half of peer-reviewed psychology studies published in reputable journals could be replicated.

The absolutely most basic skill you apparently need to learn is how to think for yourself.

Watch as your sources are labeled as biased or not trustworthy.

Philip Roth was not allowed to correct the Wikipedia article on "The Human Stain", the book he wrote himself.
The Wikipedia editor considered the interpretation on a random blog more important than the guy who wrote it.
So he was forced to get a letter published by the New Yorker, to get a "credible" source and then it still took some time to remove all traces of the "alternate opinion".

I get the need for unbiased sources, and the "no own research" policy, but there should also be a "demonstrably wrong" policy.
Nowadays you can find many false facts on Wikipedia, only because there is some "reputable" website claiming those facts.

This image should clarify things.

I remember a similar auction being written about in the new yorker. Was very interesting. This particular dinosaur only is found in mongolia so virtually every one has been smuggled out illegally. The article covers an american collector who swares that he didn't smuggle it out of china, but it ruined or nearly ruined him simply being in possession of it!

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

The one bright spot in climate change is that Miami, Florida is about to be wiped off the face of the Earth. The high-water levels there have been going up by an inch per year. Water is already seeping up through the limestone and flooding the place on a regular basis.

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

Why else would LeBron move back to Cleveland? He knew what was up.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor...

If only...you couldn't maximize the karma any further. :)

http://www.newyorker.com/humor... ;-)

3 movies for such a short story was what killed it. I mean did it have to take 1 whole movie just reach the damn mountain?

Agreed. Before I even saw the first movie, I said, "I'd rather have a 9-movie series doing The Lord of the Rings rather than 3 long movies about The Hobbit." There just wasn't enough material and enough stories to fill the time.

Anthony Lane, after alluding to Wagner's seemingly never-ending "Ring Cycle" of operas, in his review of the first Hobbit movie in The New Yorker probably summed it up best, concluding:

As Bilbo says, nearing the end of the book, "Roads go ever ever on." Tell me about it.

But any sceptic today is immediately suspected of being on Big Oil's payroll anyway.

Not doing so would be failing to take into account the existence of all the groups funded by ExxonMobil, the Koch foundations and others: American Enterprise Institute, American Legislative Exchange Council, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Americans for Prosperity, Beacon Hill Institute, Cato Institute, DonorsTrust, Heartland Institute, Heritage Foundation, Institute for Energy Research, , National Center for Policy Analysis, and hundreds more.

The $1.5 bln would buy a lot of scientists — especially those, who already think AGW is a real concern and whose conscience would thus be a lot cheaper.

So you would have us believe that the thousands of scientists who contributed to the IPCC report are all corrupt and not one of them spilled the beans. Not only that but since the report is reviewed by the governments of over 120 countries with competing interests you would also have us believe that they are all in on the conspiracy and that none saw fit to expose it to discredit their adversaries! And all these scientists would be producing bogus results without anyone in the organizations and countries financing them noticing something fishy?

Well, as they say, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof and all you have are unsubstantiated accusations.

I do not doubt, that you share the concerns over the fabled "Military-Industrial Complex" influencing the government towards "perpetual war" so it can forever sell the armaments.

Wow! Aren't you a bit quick putting people you disagree with into neat little boxes! What will you accuse me of next?

Yeah, and guess what?

Smith v Maryland (1979) says that phone call records, as "business records" provided to a third party, do not have an expectation of privacy, and are not covered by the Fourth Amendment. And the only data within that haystack that we care about are the foreign intelligence needles. I know that's difficult to comprehend, but it's the law of the land, unless and until SCOTUS reverses that ruling. And they very well may.

Until that happens, "We're pretty aggressive within the law. As a professional, Iâ(TM)m troubled if I'm not using the full authority allowed by law." -- General Michael Hayden

And when the full authority of the law is insufficient to do whatever they want, they will search until they find a creative lawyer to offer a legal opinion to redefine what the law really means and justify whatever they want to do. http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

You might also want to update your sources, Mr. apologist. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the law overseeing data collection could not be interpreted to have permitted the NSA to collect a "staggering" amount of phone records, contrary to claims by the Bush and Obama administrations. Lucky for them, Congress amended the law, moving the goalposts in mid game.

https://www.aclu.org/legal-doc...

Hopefully, you will find this as easy to comprehend as the Smith v Maryland case. And before you start wiping the brown off your nose and begin frothing at the mouth with another justification, I know it hasn't made it to the Supreme Court yet. Hopefully, you noticed Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act law yesterday. That should give you a clue that you are on the wrong side of this issue.

And that sort of shit is really what burns my ass (and I`m not Muslim). Yes, some Muslims did stupid, terrible shit. In more recent ``Christian`` history, we have Kim Davis getting a standing ovation to fucking eye of the tiger after being jailed for multiple instances of contempt because she refused to marry gays like her fucking job says to (apparently it`s against her religion, while her 4 marriages and infidelity weren`t somehow)

And we conveniently forget that in Iran, the major reaction to 9-11 was not celebration but actually this, because they recognize that - regardless or religion - all lives are valuable and a terrible thing had happened. Despite that, some people still want to put Iran in the same camp as ISIS (guess who was fighting ISIS before the rest of us got involved), and major outlets like the New York Times had articles that advocate an unprovoked bombing of Iran as a better alternative than a peaceful settlement.

I`ve met some pretty terrible Muslims in my life. For the most part they were holier-than-thou assholes that thought that praying twice a day made them ``good people`` in spite of their conduct. I see the exact same shit from certain members of Christian churches, as well as Jews, etc. There will always be bad people out there, and there are plenty who would use their so-called religion or beliefs to pretend they are good whilst actually doing evil.

According to this study, America is an oligarchy. Here is a quote (as per the New Yorker):

Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then Americaâ(TM)s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

When I hear about abuses of power, when I hear about the NSA spying on everyone, when I hear about militarization of police, when I hear about local police departments running roughshod over the Constitution as implied in the parent article, I start to think that something is deeply wrong in America. Then I remember that Americans still have the right to vote in those who rule them. And that is encouraging. But then I realize that most Americans have lost the ability to comprehend the systems of power that rule them. I remember that too many Americans vote based on shallow ignorant views, that they are persuaded by 30 second political TV commercials instead of actual rational argument, which is boring and long and tedious. And I remember that those 30 second TV commercials are expensive, and that politicians must go begging to those with large amounts of money in order to buy those 30 second commercials. And I remember that when politicians accept money from those very wealthy interests, that they become enslaved to them. And this makes me feel hopeless.

Then I remember that if Americans stopped listening to shallow arguments given in 30 second TV commercials, if they started to demand rational argument instead of the shallow blather that has so far persuaded them, then they could take back power from the corrupt wealthy interests who have driven the country into the ground over the last three and a half decades. And that makes me a little bit hopeful.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor...

SEATTLE (The Borowitz Report)—Saying that he was “horrified” by a New York Times article recounting callous behavior on the part of Amazon executives, company founder Jeff Bezos warned today that any employees found lacking in empathy would be instantly purged.

In an e-mail to all Amazon employees issued late Sunday evening, Bezos said that the company would begin grading its workers on empathy, and that the ten per cent found to be least empathic would be “immediately culled from the herd.”

To achieve this goal, Amazon said that it would introduce a new internal reporting system called EmpathyTrack, which will enable employees to secretly report on their colleagues’ lack of humanity.

The system will allow Amazon employees to grade their co-workers on a scale from a hundred (nicest) to zero (pure evil), resulting in empathy-based data that will be transmitted directly to Bezos.

Then, through a new program called Next Day Purging, any employee found lacking in empathy will be removed from the company within twenty-four hours of Bezos’s termination order. “We can’t be the greatest retailer in the world unless we are also the kindest,” Bezos wrote in his e-mail. “So my message to all Amazonians is loud and clear: be kind or taste my wrath. Love, Jeff.”

They also have a combined CIA & Special Forces called the Quds force that shapes events in the Middle East like a puppet master.

The Shadow Commander

Just wait till they get nuclear weapons.

I read more than enough reports at the time, but your references aren't. They're opinion pieces, written by people saddened by the tragedy. They don't reflect the criminal realities of Aaron's case. The prosecuting attorneys were aggressive and listed every reasonable charge separately, with maximum sentences. No judge would inflict all that, and the prosecuting attorneys clearly expected him to plea bargain. But as best I can tell from the _news_ articles at the time, Aaron refused to accept _any_ felony conviction at all. He'd gotten away without conviction with the PACER abuse, seemed to think he could escape unscathed again.

In order for the articles:

                    http://thinkprogress.org/justi... [thinkprogress.org] - op end piece, compares Aaron's charges, unmodified by a judge or plea bargaining, to the convicted sentences of murderers. Ignores that prosecutors routinely start with maximum possible charges and sentences, just as patent applications list all possible uses of an idea. They do this to see what remains after a judge, jury, or plea bargaining reduce the claims, and to avoid missing anything.

                  http://reason.com/archives/201... [reason.com] - invents a strawman argument that Aaron's numerous felonies were equivalent to a simple trespass. Shows complete ignorance of the law and of Aaron's abuse. Aaron was _crashing JSTOR servers_ and getting all of MIT cut off from JSTOR, repeatedly.

                http://www.newyorker.com/news/... [newyorker.com] - lies absurdly about the difficulty of public access to JSTOR. JSTOR _makes the data available in a usable format_, organized, and for the minimum they can charge. They're very generous with free subscriptions for education and research, their fees are quite modest, and Aaron didn't "try to check too many books out of a library". He was effectively copying the whole library and planning to set up his own in direct competition, but without any way to pay the librarians to keep the books in order.

Let's be quite clear. Aaron was trying to put JSTOR out of business by republishing not only the articles, but the invaluable JSTOR indexes, and publish them "free as in beer". I've tried to think of an equivalent. The best I can manage is trying to solve the drought in California by opening up all the fire hydrants. It was ridiculous and, yes, criminal behavior.

Except that neither case received brutal punishment. Aaron was never convicted.

i stopped reading there. yeah, he was never convicted because he committed suicide you dumb fuck

and to assert that aaron swartz didn't face brutal punishment makes you either an asshole, a moron, or both

http://thinkprogress.org/justi...

http://reason.com/archives/201...

http://www.newyorker.com/news/...

read the above. educate yourself. then open your ignorant mouth

What punishment? He killed himself before he was punished, so we'll never know.

why are you commenting when you don't even understand the fucking topic?

http://thinkprogress.org/justi...

http://reason.com/archives/201...

http://www.newyorker.com/news/...

it helps to understand the bare basic facts of a topic before you open your ignorant mouth

please educate yourself first next time, then talk

The question is how to undo the damage.

It's sort of like how after Texas passed one of the nation's toughest medical malpractice tort reform laws, McAllen, TX became the second most expensive place to get healthcare. You see, while the doctors ordered dozens of tests as "defensive healthcare" because of malpractice lawsuits, what really happened was that they learned that every time they ordered a test they got paid. Once malpractice was practically eliminated and the insurance costs dropped massively, they continue to order the tests that get them the big bucks. I personally know a doctor that ordered a $60,000 machine. Almost every patient that walks through the door goes for a ride on it for a couple hundred dollars a pop.

So go ahead and roll back code enforcement and zoning. What you'll get isn't cheap housing, it will be expensive housing constructed even cheaper than it is now, because why waste this beautiful lot on some lower-class peon when you could build a McMansion, sell it for $750k, and profit even more when you neglect to mention you used discount lead pipe you found in some ditch somewhere.

Don't pretend people aren't born into privilege in the US too. As far as I can tell (as a Canadian) the difference between Prince William and Paris Hilton is Prince William has class.

It's still theoretical, based on untrustworthy reports by the agencies involved.

However...

"Thomas Drake, an N.S.A. whistleblower who was profiled by Jane Mayer in the magazine, said over the phone that he believes the 2010 breakthrough was possibly more dramatic and may refer to the defeat of 'some of the main-line encryption' algorithms in wide use, like the R.S.A. algorithm or the Advanced Encryption Standard at 256-bit level."

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/...

And obviously, if we can do it, we must assume the Chinese and Russians can do it.

And before you ask, no, I do not think it would have been an exhaustive search of the key space, I would in fact suspect a mathematical attack; the details would depend on the PRNG algorithm being used to generate the pad.

Funny how when a corporation defaults on its debt and files for bankruptcy so that it can break union contracts and pay workers less, it's seen as a sharp business move, a recognition that their expenditures have come to surpass their income in a structural and unsustainable way. But when an individual decides the same, perhaps after coming to the conclusion that an investment in a home or university education wasn't as lucrative as it seemed it would be at the time, people start thundering about the moral necessity of paying back loans.

This man gave his life fighting the likes of the ACM, you insensitive clod!

I used to wonder if Obama learned something after becoming President which changed his mind but now I believe he lied from the start and never intended to do anything about it.

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

Yeah, I agree with the growing sentiment that whilst Ive is a talented hardware designer, he is also seriously overhyped (by Apple, not himself).

Case in point: how long did it take for Apple to make a larger iPhone? A long time. I read a story about Ive in a magazine. It described the process of them deciding to make a bigger screened iPhone. The design team milled dummies of a bazillion different sizes and carried them around to try and figure out the perfect larger size. They spent ages on it. They tried literally every size. Eventually they produced something ..... just like their competitors. You know what? Apple ignored the trend for years. Then they procrastinated because their holy design team can't do anything fast. They could just have looked at what was selling well - it's not always a good idea but it's not always a bad idea either. But they made a mountain out of it.

Why do Apple's products have almost no customisability? Why did it take YEARS for them to even support setting a wallpaper image in iOS? Well, probably because:

Ive’s decision to offer choice was a challenge to Apple’s recurring theme of design inevitability. In one of our conversations, Ive was scathing about a rival’s product, after asking me not to name it: “Their value proposition was ‘Make it whatever you want. You can choose whatever color you want.’ And I believe that’s abdicating your responsibility as a designer.”

He was probably talking about a Motorola phone. But I guess that's why everything Apple makes is white. You wouldn't want to "abdicate your responsibility" by letting people choose colours! Well, unless it's a watch, of course.

If you read the whole New Yorker article you'll get an overwhelming sense that the design team there live in a bubble where they feel it's OK to spend months on a trivial detail and then produce something almost exactly the same as what their competitors did in a week. Apple has been consistently behind the Android market for years now when it comes to features and even new design ideas, and reading the article will reveal why.

Never heard of him before I read this article.

If you had any shred of respect for obama still left, this article will destroy it

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

He is the only one fighting for the rights of americans to not be spied upon. Its a shame that 2 years after this article was written, people are caring less and less about these issues. For a while there in 2013, it looked like people really did care.

Canada pay an average of about half as much in taxes (scaled to their income), for the same quality and the same service.

From what I've heard about medicine in Canada from locals, this is laughably untrue. Only someone who has never had more than a minor boo-boo could claim the service is the same.

You are completely wrong.

I've talked to doctors and patients who have experienced both the Canadian and US systems, and I've read the literature comparing outcomes for different procedures in the two systems. http://www.openmedicine.ca/art... I read Canadian medical studies every week or two.

If I had a heart attack in front of the University of Toronto medical school, I would be confident that my survival and other outcomes would be just as good as they would be in front of the New York University medical center in New York. At one time, the breast cancer outcomes were slightly better in the US than in Canada, because the US was aggressively diagnosing and treating (sometimes overdiagnosing and overtreating) breast cancer, but by now the Canadians have adopted everything useful that the US was doing. OTOH, the Canadian outcomes for childhood leukemia were slightly better. The Canadian outcomes for diabetes were much better, with better control, fewer amputations, etc.

Gordon Guyatt, a professor at McMaster University, basically invented evidence-based medicine, which is the practice of making medical decisions based on the statistically valid scientific evidence, rather than prescribing drugs because the drug companies are giving you a free trip to Hawaii if you meet their quota.

It is true that American doctors are more aggressive about treatment, and will give you a quick appointment if they have slots available and you have good insurance. OTOH American doctors are more likely to treat patients unnecessarily. An American pulmonologist is more likely to see a spot on your x-ray and give you a lung biopsy. Lung biopsies have a fatality rate of about 1/1,000, and most of them are unnecessary. But in Canada, when you have a life-threatening condition and need a CAT scan immediately, they put you on top of the list and give you a CAT scan the same day.

OTOH if you don't have health insurance in the US, your access to health care in many states is nonexistent, and hospitals in Texas for example will kick cancer patients out in the street if they can't pay. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... There were several studies published in American medical journals in which researchers called doctors' offices, described the symptoms of a life-threatening condition, told them that they were on Medicare or Medicaid, and asked for an appointment. Depending on the studies, about half the doctors refused Medicare and three-quarters refused Medicaid.

The evidence is overwhelming that Canadian health care equals the US system in quality and service, and costs about half as much. Of course if you decide things on the basis of ideology http://www.newyorker.com/news/... rather than evidence you may not be convinced.

I always find it interesting that the government demands money at the point of a gun and with little to no choice, while a corporation asks for money by providing goods or services that you desire. Yet the corporations are the evil ones???

Well I find it interesting that for health care I had to pay private insurance companies $6,000 a year in premiums, while people getting government insurance in Canada pay an average of about half as much in taxes (scaled to their income), for the same quality and the same service.

I compared the private health insurance in the free market to get the best deal, and guess what? They're all the same. I have no choice. The Canadians have more of a choice than I do.

There are some things that the government can provide far more efficiently than the free market, if the free market can provide it at all. Health care is one of them. Education is another. Transportation is another. Low-income housing is another. Even Social Security is more secure than private retirement pensions.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/...
The Plot Against Trains
By Adam Gopnik
May 15, 2015

“The reason we don’t have beautiful new airports and efficient bullet trains is not that we have inadvertently stumbled upon stumbling blocks; it’s that there are considerable numbers of Americans for whom these things are simply symbols of a feared central government, and who would, when they travel, rather sweat in squalor than surrender the money to build a better terminal.” The ideological rigor of this idea, as absolute in its way as the ancient Soviet conviction that any entering wedge of free enterprise would lead to the destruction of the Soviet state, is as instructive as it is astonishing. And it is part of the folly of American “centrism” not to recognize that the failure to run trains where we need them is made from conviction, not from ignorance.

What we have, uniquely in America, is a political class, and an entire political party, devoted to the idea that any money spent on public goods is money misplaced, not because the state goods might not be good but because they would distract us from the larger principle that no ultimate good can be found in the state.

Obama wanted [theatlantic.com] to extend the war, not end it. But the Iraqis refused to let U.S. forces go on committing mass murder with impunity, so Obama had to adhere to the withdrawal timeline negotiated by Bush.

That's a popular theory, but it doesn't seem backed up by the evidence. It looks like Obama merely grabbed onto that as an excuse to leave. Check out this New Yorker article for example. From the reports, Obama was not pushing to leave troops, he was stalling and looking for a way out:

President Obama, too, was ambivalent about retaining even a small force in Iraq. For several months, American officials told me, they were unable to answer basic questions in meetings with Iraqis—like how many troops they wanted to leave behind—because the Administration had not decided. “We got no guidance from the White House,” Jeffrey told me. “We didn’t know where the President was. Maliki kept saying, ‘I don’t know what I have to sell.’ ” At one meeting, Maliki said that he was willing to sign an executive agreement granting the soldiers permission to stay, if he didn’t have to persuade the parliament to accept immunity. The Obama Administration quickly rejected the idea. “The American attitude was: Let’s get out of here as quickly as possible,” Sami al-Askari, the Iraqi member of parliament, said........Many Iraqi and American officials are convinced that even a modest force would have been able to prevent chaos

Obama seemed to affirm that fact when he was debating Romney. He said:

MR. ROMNEY: [W]ith regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should have been a status of forces agreement. Did you —

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's not true.

So it seems pretty clear Obama was against leaving a small force in Iraq.

Blaming the Bush timetable is silly.....he had several years to change the timetable (and not to mention that Bush was an idiot so doing anything because that is what Bush planned is utterly moronic. If Obama said, "I did this because Bush planned it" then I would have significantly less respect for him if he really meant that).

The US, by and large, has lucked out, in no small part to what Bagehot referred to as Americans' "genius for politics". But in other societies, where the legislative and judicial branches have remained stunted as compared to the US Congress, SCOTUS and the Federal Courts, all the Presidential system does is deliver near-dictatorial powers into the hands of the President.

Based on the record power grabs by the executive branch in the past couple administrations the US luck is fast running out. We've worked our way from free country to police state light. Sadly I expect in my lifetime that will become a full police state or, as I like to say, a banana republic.

Dude, this is all designed into the system. Checks and Balances are meaningless if the a) the Executive never does anything worthy of being checked, and b) everyone is not constantly bitching/arguing about which things should have been checked.

Here's what's not designed into the system: a lawyer makes a Youtube video alleging he's going to be assassinated by the President's thugs, then he pays someone to shoot him, and shuts down the country for six months until the cops figure it out. Or the time the President ordered the Army to administer a referendum allowing him to run for a third term, and the Constitutional Court and Senate decided this was impeachable, and ordered the army to exile him. There's still some debate over whether that counts as a coup d'tat. On the one hand, the Army stormed the Presidential Palace, on the other the Supreme Court said it was ok.

In the US we avoid these things largely because we've got a religious/./slavish devotion to the Constitution, and the guy trying to get around it by framing Obama for murder or arranging a secret impeachment trial would be fucked politically. And it seems to be working pretty well in some of the bigger countries of the world (ie: Indonesia, Brazil). But in quite a few Latin American the intricate levers of power, the numerous opportunities for stupid BS fights, etc. just seem to overwhelm the political system and you get a level of bullshit unimaginable for an American.

If you had a nice, boring Westminster system you'd have less personality cult (because the dude in power would technically be subordinate to a powerless President), less bullshitty (a PM is a creature of the Legislature, so if the Senate gets pissed at the PM of Honduras it just fires him and doesn't give a shit about either the Constitutional Court or the Army), elections matter less (Obama is Presient until 2016 come hell or high water, if David Cameron or Steven Harper fuck up enough they could be fired tomorrow), much simpler lines of responsibility (there's no ability for the Executive to claim the Legislative screwed up, and if they'd only supported that bill he'd wanted [Bad Thing] would have been avoided if the Legislative and Executive are the same guy), etc.

I wish liberals would abandon the "climate change" mantra

So you are saying you are one of those deniers?

No, reread his post, he's talking about FOCUS. Climate change is an argument; "Stop poisoning our children through the water we drink" should be a slam-dunk. See the New Yorker article suggesting similarly that the hugeness of climate change has had a negative impact on conservation efforts. After all, the feeling seems to be, if the world is going to end, why worry about lesser things? http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

What kind of rational human being does this?

A good parable, very short, for why we should not condemn the youth. Moral: We were the youth.

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

If I didn't smarten up when I was a dumb teen I would be in jail too. I think the same is true for lots of fully functioning, well adjusted people that you know and deal with everyday.

"I could blame adolescence, or point to the arm of science that claims that a young manâ(TM)s brain is dominated by impulse and adrenaline rather than by reason or conscience. Also, most of the bad things I did started with a drink. But allow me to simplify: I was a boy and I was having fun."

XEROX actually licensed it's technology to Apple in hopes that Steve Jobs could successfully bring products to market, because XEROX had no ability to turn it's bluesky tech into things people wanted. Their mouse cost hundreds (in 1981 dollars), and was not terribly reliable. Apple had to redesign everything, write their own code, etc.

The licensing deal was basically Apple sold them $1 Million in stock, at $10 a share, prior to IPO, Apple gets everything they want from the PARC portfolio. That stock would have to be worth 9 figures today so (assuming they were smart enough to not sell) they got paid.

So nobody stole code. Apple got extremely annoyed that they'd given XEROX all this money for GUIs and Mouses and things and MS just went in and copied it themselves without paying XEROX anything.

All of which is known and should be taken into account but apparently isn't. But don't worry, the same problem is evident in medicine. In fact all but the hard sciences have these issues. But then it's only hard sciences like Physics that have a 5-sigma standard for significance.

I know it's a liberal sacred cow but I find it hilarious that so many people are coming out here and saying "I told you so" about psychology when there's a "whoops, I couldn't be bothered to calculate my R statistic" elephant in the room called climate science that has an even worse problem.

At least 39% of psychology papers were replicable.

given the power of oil companies in Oklahoma. Here is one interesting article:

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

that discusses how they keep control over drilling.

Actually there has been damages. read up on it. http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

This is due to water injection wells as a result of fracking and other oil/gas drilling.

-G

http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

Until 2008, Oklahoma experienced an average of one to two earthquakes of 3.0 magnitude or greater each year. (Magnitude-3.0 earthquakes tend to be felt, while smaller earthquakes may be noticed only by scientific equipment or by people close to the epicenter.) In 2009, there were twenty. The next year, there were forty-two. In 2014, there were five hundred and eighty-five, nearly triple the rate of California. Including smaller earthquakes in the count, there were more than five thousand. This year, there has been an average of two earthquakes a day of magnitude 3.0 or greater.

The first case of earthquakes caused by fluid injection came in the nineteen-sixties. Engineers at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a chemical-weapons manufacturing center near Commerce City, Colorado, disposed of waste fluids by injecting them down a twelve-thousand-foot well. More than a thousand earthquakes resulted, several of magnitudes close to 5.0. “Unintentionally, it was a great experiment,” Justin Rubinstein, who researches induced seismicity for the U.S.G.S., told me.

Exactly.

Far too often people in authority are willing to use these results as cover for their own biases - they have a gut feeling that someone is guilty, but since that's obviously not scientific they seek a way to mask their bias in pseudoscience.

Here's the story of how FBI 'profiling' was invented out of bogus results.

The problem with DNA matches(bad application of statistics) leading example being a black man and a white man who came up as the 'same' person.

Then there is the use of drug-dogs that don't detect drugs, they detect subconscious (and sometimes conscious) cues from their handlers.

Also, the latest bogus fad - micro-expressions as a form of lie detection. The TSA has spent a billion+ dollars on it with zero useful results.

Seems to me that the constant push to mechanize judgment is commendable but misguided.

For background on the Brazilian aardvark and the citogenesis phenomenon see the original New Yorker story and How pranks, hoaxes and manipulation undermine the reliability of Wikipedia

What source of information is flawless and can be believed without question? Why do people exhibit good critical thinking skills when it comes to Wikipedia, but swallow wholesale what they get from Encyclopedia Britannica, CNN, Fox News, the Bible, etc?

Perhaps because those others tell them to believe, while Wikipedia tells them *not* to believe, but think critically? Compare:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://www.gotquestions.org/Bi...

to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...