Slashdot Mirror

The New York Times is reporting that the two suspects attempted to light a bomb while engaging in gun-fire with the police during a standoff outside of the Watertown, MA, house of Andrew Kitzenberg. Andy Kitzenberg has been live tweeting images of the police activity, shootout, and bomb explosions, and a bullet going through his wall and his armchair on twitter as linked above.

One of the brothers went to Cambridge Rindge and Latin, one of the oldest high schools in the USA.

Same picture higher res....

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/thelede/posts/suspect-number-2.JPG

H1Bs from India are injecting their uncivilized Caste system in USA.
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/indias-200-million-strong-dalit-community-faces-discrimination-every-da/

I'll bet you defended Hans Reiser, as well.

And I bet you though Dominique Strass-Kahn was a rapist, and not a guy being set up for daring to question the viability of the U.S. dollar--whose "rock solid case" charges were dropped just one month after his U.S.-friendly IMF successor took office.

I agree. [I]t's just higher call volume.That's the same situation that TFS describes with social networks.

As first responders treated the wounded and the minutes ticked past, news organizations began vacuuming up Twitter and Facebook posts from around Boston and posting it on their Websites

The communications medium is being used more, but since it is an internet based medium it's treated as something new. What's especially odd about this piece is that it's acting like the "Tech Websites" were somehow remarkable in their actions. I was looking at CNN.com to get updates on this and it too featured live updates lifted or repeated from social media. If the there are sites we use to get news, and we go to these tragedy or no, then it is utterly unsurprising that these sites reported as much as they could about this news. (And as one Slashdotter helpfully pointed out yesterday, Slashdot was up when many other sites were down on 9/11, so maybe a proliferation of important news like this isn't a bad thing.) One almost suspects that the scare term "cyber" should have been attached to this somehow (e.g. cyber-exploitation, cyber-yellow-journalism etc.) to enhance the feeling it's something new. The most puzzling thing about this piece is this:

When a disaster strikes, and many of those same news Websites post 'live updates' that incorporate tons of social-networking posts, they face accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue.

There are only two concrete accusations mentioned in the linked (which, incidentally, is to a Slashdot article). FTFA:

“Your tech news site shouldn’t be live-blogging this,” journalist John Paul Titlow Tweeted at one point, a sentiment echoed (and reposted) by others.

“Tech blogs poking their amateurish noses into areas in which they offer neither authority nor insight is depressing,” Milo Yiannopoulos wrote in an email a few hours later. “It’s also spreading: shameless, tasteless pageview-chasing was to be expected after today’s tragedy in Boston from the likes of Mashable and TechCrunch. But how surprising, and how sad, to see The Verge and Wired getting in on the act as well.” This isn’t journalism, he insisted: “It’s attention-seeking.”

From whom do the vague accusations come? Well we've a tech journalist who tweets down his nose at tech websites, apparently reckoning that a website that normally talks about tech can't pass on info from social media to meet the high standards of real news sites like CNN. Oddly enough this doesn't stop him from retweeting a pic of the bombing from Josh Robin. And then we've a brief complaint excerpted from an email by Milo Yiannopoulos, a Slashdot contributor. His complaint again amounts to the notion that tech websites can't act as intermediaries for twitter and facebook updates as well as legitimate journalists. These were the only two concrete complaints and they, in turn, were reported by Nick Kolakowski on Slashdot and linked in a summery here.

Here's my new journalistic law, may Betteridge approve:

"Any article or article summary that claims an entity 'faces accusations' without mentioning the accusers is itself stirring said controversy for the sake of traffic."

So many unexploded packs found.

Nope.

On Tuesday morning officials said that the only explosive devices found were the ones that exploded at the marathon — clarifying conflicting statements that were given Monday in the chaotic aftermath of the blast, when some law-enforcement officials had said that other devices were found. “There were no unexploded devices found,” Gov. Deval Patrick said Tuesday morning.

This is in line with Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman's view of bitcoin as gold currency as expressed in his article Adam Smith Hates Bitcoin"

To highlight a paragraph from the op-ed piece, in which he quotes Smith:

"The gold and silver money which circulates in any country, and by means of which, the produce of its land and labour is annually circulated and distributed to the proper consumers, is, in the same manner as the ready money of the dealer, all dead stock. It is a very valuable part of the capital of the country, which produces nothing to the country."

Currently, the Democrats benefit from the voter fraud, nominally through a misapplication of the 1973 Voting Rights Act, predominantly in Florida, but one in eight voting registrations are flawed and/or illegal , while the Republicans benefit from the below market labor costs, so neither party actually wants the practice of illegal immigration stopped. Here is the NY Times article on it from the Pew Center for the States: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/politics/us-voter-registration-rolls-are-in-disarray-pew-report-finds.html?_r=0 [nytimes.com]

What a bullshitter you are. The article basically says there are lot of errors in the registration systems to the point that dead people are still in the roles (not that other people are using those identities to vote), that people that move often end up registered in more than one state (not that they are voting in more than one), that a high percentage of registrations contain data errors serious enough that the voter will not receive a ballot (flawed, but not "illegal" as you insinuate), and that approximately 1 in 4 eligible voters isn't even registered. It then says that Democrats want to make it easier to register people, but that Republicans don't want that because of fear that it could introduce fraud. The last election highlighted several occurrences of voter fraud, none of which being identity fraud that the Voter ID laws Republicans have been pushing would have stopped, and the most serious being perpetrated by Republicans.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/gop-voter-fraud_n_1990104.html
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/19/14556980-gop-registration-worker-charged-with-voter-fraud?lite
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/19/gop_voter_registration_scandal_widens/
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/02/162176990/republican-firm-tied-to-voter-fraud-allegations
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/06/the-real-gop-voter-fraud-employees-admit-forging-voter-registration-forms/

Who shall we blame this time? Dem dirty communist hippi anarchs? or ye good olde muslims?

Dirty communist hippi bombers are too busy at working at universities in Illinois and at Columbia.

Sure, of course; we all know the history. Mouse and GUI ideas were bought by Apple from Xerox PARC in the founding days. The key word here is "bought," and not "copied." (That is, a license fee was paid.) MS has always, apparently as a policy, simply copied the most successful company in a particular market-space. Or, alternatively, they buy the out for the IP and fire everyone. Or, as a third alternative, they "suck the oxygen out of the room" in an effort to crush and bankrupt companies who innovate, so that they can later buy their IP for pennies-on-the-dollar. This is all ancient history that everyone knows. So, perhaps Apple collects ideas for interface improvements for computing devices from multiple sources. But, they have never been publicly shamed for having "stolen" a particular idea. They buy it, usually with the intention of employing the innovators. Trust me, I know of several innovators who sold (or "almost" sold) their company to Apple, because Apple had the capability to recognize a good thing when they saw it. Very old and oft-repeated story, too.

Uhm, you do know that Xerox sued Apple for IP theft? http://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/15/business/company-news-xerox-sues-apple-computer-over-macintosh-copyright.html

Arguably, with strong magnets, it's swallowing them more than once that's dangerous.

By all means, ban their use in kids toys. But it's up to parents to keep their kids away from, or supervise the use of razor blades, balloons, lye, strong magnets, 240 V outlets, lilly-of-the-valley or anything else that might kill when handled inappropriately. If you're too lazy to watch and educate your kid, and your kid is too stupid to stay alive without the guidance he didn't get from you, oh well - the next generation will have slightly higher survivability rates, with fewer of your genes in the pool.

What does the Winklevii having USD11M in bitcoins say?

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/as-big-investors-emerge-bitcoin-gets-ready-for-its-close-up/

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

"Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.
Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,”"

I think its about time Apple [and the media;shills] stopped making excuses if Sony can manufacture the Rasberry Pi in Wales!?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/nyregion/justice-denied-bronx-court-system-mired-in-delays.html?hp&_r=0

Truly unbelievable story about the total collapse of city gov't for the poor.

Yes, in the golden island of Manhattan, where the wealthy roam, Mayor Bloomberg has brought a sanitized, bowdlerized version of NYC that people seem to like.
(I mean anyone in NYC who would eat at chain resturant like macdonalds is scum)

The price , tho, has been high

But the vast, vast majority of the Chinese workforce are not at all well educated. That's why they're cheap. They work in sweatshops, making shiploads of cheap Chinese crap to sell both to China and to the rest of the world.

Education is cheap. All of modern technology was created by people who had no access to technology, but had the education and the erudition on top of it. The primary school education is NOT tiered in China. There are smart Chinese who rise above their peers, but they rise from the same education level as their peers. Being well-educated does not preclude one from working in a sweatshop. An average Chinese peasant has gone though the same schooling as an average Chinese city dweller. In fact, they have an occasional problem of producing more technical university graduates than the economy can accommodate. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/business/as-graduates-rise-in-china-office-jobs-fail-to-keep-up.html

Compare that with the well-known Japanese obsession for perfectionism, for doing things right. I consider that attention to quality an important part, maybe the most important part, of one's work ethic.

I would consider that a difference in business styles rather than in work-ethic. I would think that a merchant who keeps his shop open 10 hours a day, 7 days a week has a high work ethic even if the shop sells crap. So I guess I would fundamentally disagree. Near-ocd attention to quality is not a component of work-ethic. There may be an overlap between those with high work ethic and those who are committed to quality work. But neither is a prerequisite of the other.

Wow, this is just like the "No, You Can't Name That Exoplanet" article. Idiot believes object has mysterious powers: both the Crick Nobel medal and the wacky magna-doofuck-oodle are the objects. Or maybe the guy is like L. Ron Hubbard: he knows his magnets are crap, but he believes that being the current holder of the "Francis Crick Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology" confers upon him the special power of marketing and he can convince morons to buy his crap. "Why what I say must be true!! They wouldn't sell this Authentic Nobel Prize Medal to just anyone with enough money, would they?"
.
It's the same as idiots believing in religious relics, or copper wrist-bands, or magnets along your skin, or even that quacky "blue tape" for atheletes that idiots put on their arms and legs at the olympics thinking the blue tape would give them magic healing abilities.

Kosbots in full effect. The parent Got to wonder about an article that starts out this way. Grant you, I haven't gone back and reviewed the video in a while. Still, I'm pretty sure what he said was that about 47% of the population wouldn't be interested in him and a platform for a smaller government. Replace smaller govt w/ lower taxes and it is precisely with Mitt Romney said. As for Obama dismissing a portion of the American people, how's this for a Citation?

April of 2008? So he went ahead and won two elections after making that inflammatory remark about how some Americans are "bitter." I'm sure he regrets that! Calling someone "bitter" is slightly different from saying half the country expects the government to provide "you name it" for them. Go ahead and call people "kosbots", ad hominems are all you're left with.

Kosbots in full effect. The parent Got to wonder about an article that starts out this way. Grant you, I haven't gone back and reviewed the video in a while. Still, I'm pretty sure what he said was that about 47% of the population wouldn't be interested in him and a platform for a smaller government.
Replace smaller govt w/ lower taxes and it is precisely with Mitt Romney said. As for Obama dismissing a portion of the American people, how's this for a Citation?

The Spiraling costs are caused by a few different factors, of which most are not addressed by ObamaCare directly.

1) Entitlement attitude. Everyone deserves the exact same level of care, regardless of ability to pay. Rich people do not deserve care they can pay for, and poor who cannot pay, deserve the care rich people can afford, but they themselves cannot.

2) Insurance masking the cost of care.

3) Disparate pricing models based on who is paying.

4) Insurance middleman costs

5) Malpractice Lawsuits (jury awards)

None of those are fixed in ObamaCare. In Fact, ObamaCare makes it even more of a regulatory nightmare. Hell to apply for insurance at one of the Insurance Exchanges requires 60+ pages of paperwork by the IRS. Tell me, how does that make healthcare more affordable?

And in spite of your protestations that everything is going honky dory, it isn't

http://www.dpmafoundation.org/physician-attitudes-on-medicine.html
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/survey-doctors-dropping-out-medicare
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/03/28/california-health-care-costs-to-rise-under-affordable-care-act/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/business/despite-new-health-law-some-see-sharp-rise-in-premiums.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-10/obama-doubles-estimate-to-4-billion-for-health-exchanges.html

I don't know what the future holds for Google Glass, but I know one thing for sure: Marc Andreessen should not be bald. I'm pretty sure I saw him in a movie with Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtain twenty years ago...

Americans generally do not want to do STEM degrees, which many other cultures value more highly than we do.

But which came first, the chicken or the egg?

It's hardly surprising that most Americans aren't interested in STEM degrees when these jobs are constantly under attack by H-1Bs and offshoring. Whenever businesses bitch about wages going up in STEM, the government steps in to bring in more indentured guest workers. In contrast, medical school graduation has remained constant since the 1980s at about 16,000 a year, and physician wages have consequently remained very high and continued to outpace inflation. Given the choice, why should an intelligent young person in America select STEM over medicine or business? Somehow the central tenets of our capitalist religion – like the notion that you get more of what you incentivize – seem to be forgotten with all this BS about "worker shortages".

"So I went ahead and settled this argument. I looked at the standard for Bitcoins. I saw that the standard indeed didn't establish or guarantee any sort of value for Bitcoins."

You have settled nothing. From USA Today:

"In essence, Bitcoin is similar to the "gold standard," the monetary system in force before modern central banking started to take root in the 1930s. Under the gold standard, each unit of currency was worth a certain amount of gold, leaving governments few means to increase the amount of currency in circulation."

From Paul Krugman (who I think is an incompetent fraud, but just in case you like him):

"In effect, Bitcoin has created its own private gold standard world, in which the money supply is fixed rather than subject to increase via the printing press."

From the Austrian school of economics:

"In short, Bitcoin addresses all of goldâ(TM)s shortcomings... In fact, since Bitcoin is a global network, it would retain its full value between banks on differing continents!"

(But of course, that would depend on a rational market... exactly my original point.)

Face it. Economists from EVERY school of thought disagree with you.

Seriously, I am done here.

US external debt is quite a bit smaller than it's GDP. Perhaps about 25% of GDP. Total gross government debt is 107% of GDP but a lot if that is debt from one part of the government to another.

Also nobody really knows what the Chinese government debt is because their statistics are completely unreliable. I've seen claims that local government debt is several times what the published government debt is.

http://www.dnaindia.com/money/1392108/comment-china-s-public-debt-a-damocles-sword

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/business/global/06iht-yuan06.html?_r=0

Almost all the government in the 31 Sanctuary Cities in the U.S. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary_city -- which are called that because they do not enforce federal immigration laws not cooperate in the enforcement of federal immigration laws, some going as far as to make it illegal for an officer to check immigration status, or release prisoners without checking their status, is Democratic. This includes the Mayors of Salt Lake City, Utah, and both El Paso and Houston in Texas.

Currently, the Democrats benefit from the voter fraud, nominally through a misapplication of the 1973 Voting Rights Act, predominantly in Florida, but one in eight voting registrations are flawed and/or illegal , while the Republicans benefit from the below market labor costs, so neither party actually wants the practice of illegal immigration stopped. Here is the NY Times article on it from the Pew Center for the States: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/politics/us-voter-registration-rolls-are-in-disarray-pew-report-finds.html?_r=0

Yeah, I didn't think you were very close with those numbers, and it didn't take much digging to confirm that suspicion:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/campaign-finance

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/

If you ignore outside spending, party spending, and anything other than what the Obama/Romney camps spent directly, then you're *sort of* close to 730/330 but still off by a factor of 30%, rather than the 200% that those living in the real world saw.

--Jeremy

What makes you so sure that it is all about the revenue? There's some evidence that revenue is a factor ( http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=F70713FC3E580C718CDDA00894DF404482 -- "Political Economy at Any Speed: What Determines Traffic Citations?"), but it's not a huge one. Being from out-of-town give you a 10% higher risk of a ticket versus a warning, and driving through a town that was tight for money gives you a 28% higher chance of a ticket versus a warning. 28% sounds like a lot, but there's that other 72% to think about.

The Daily Show said congressmen have given themselves immunity to the sequester so their salaries are not affected. http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/look-whos-not-taking-a-pay-cut/

It's not that there's no inflation, it's that it's very low. Like historic lows. Certain goods have had spikes, mostly due to competition with the emerging world and due to diversion of food to fuel stupidity. Higher inflation would be a _good_ thing because real inflation requires wage inflation, but doesn't inflate the amount you owe in your debts. Inflation is something you should put into calculations when getting a mortgage. If your mortgage takes 30% of your salary now, and there's 5% inflation (but low interest rates like we have now) you'd be crazy to get a 15 year instead of a 30 year. The dollars that you use to pay off the second 15 years would be worth much much less to you than they are now.

You don't have to trust what the Fed tells you: http://bpp.mit.edu/ and http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/billion-price-update-2/

The rich, the "rentiers" are the people who cry foul about inflation. People working for a living shouldn't, it raises their wages and ameliorates their debts.

That article directly contradicts a Utah study that showed that cell phone users drive more slowly and change lanes less. Both of these behaviors should decrease accidents, but they violate the accepted dogma that "cell phones cause accidents", so they're ignored. In fact, the researchers concluded that driving slower and changing lanes less was actually bad, which shows that they wanted to demonstrate something that followed the dogma (probably because it's easier to get funding if you come to the "correct" conclusions).

Non existent indeed

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/washington/02anthrax.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Seems like biowarfare researchers make just as solid scapegoats as crazy nuclear physicists and MIT computer nerds.

It's perfectly legal and non-monopolistic to tie a base product with add ons and consumables. So long as there are other viable choices of system.

Are you sure about that?

America should be really worried about the creeping caste system in US due to H1Bs from India.
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/at-a-sperm-bank-in-bihar-Caste-divisions-start-before-birth/

If the people producing the software for a product can't even implement a calendar correctly and then others can't find that fault in testing it makes you wonder what else they fucked up. Such a mistake would not even be considered acceptable in a high school project let alone a product.

Like Apple? They can't seem to puzzle out this whole time and date thing.

Just a few example.

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/14/more-iphone-clock-problems-reported/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/apple-iphone-4-alarm-problems-worldwide-clock-app-alarm-broken-3-days-in-a-row.html

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/iphone-do-not-disturb/

Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University professor, theorizes:

Mr. Obama "believed the cartoon version of the Bush critique so that Bush wasn't just trying to make tough calls how to protect America in conditions of uncertainty, Bush actually was trying to grab power for nefarious purposes. "So even though what I, Obama, am doing resembles what Bush did, I'm doing it for other purposes," Mr. Feaver added.

-- The New York Times
(disclosure: Feaver is a partisan with ties to the Bush administration.)

Jennifer Granholm supports this notion:

"We trust the president," the former Michigan governor told the Times, "And if this was Bush, I think that we would all be more up in arms because we wouldn't trust that he would strike in a very targeted way and try to minimize damage rather than contain collateral damage."

-- The Guardian
(The British columnist here goes on to assert: "That many Democratic partisans and fervent Obama admirers are vapid, unprincipled hacks willing to justify anything and everything when embraced by Obama - including exactly that which they pretended to oppose under George W Bush - has also been clear for many years.")

"Scientists, including an expert advisory panel to the F.D.A., gave early support to that request. But top F.D.A. officials rejected the application because, some said later, they worried they would be fired if they approved it."

Even when the FDA decided to overturn that decision in 2011 (well into the Obama administration's tenure), it was overruled by the Secretary of Health and Human Services who claimed that "After careful consideration of the F.D.A. summary review, I have concluded that the data submitted by Teva do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age".

The judge above determined this decision was "arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable". Looks to me like election year games took priority over the health of young women.

So we have the FDA obstructing the use of a drug for twelve years, to the detriment of young women's health, over the course of two completely different administrations for a variety of rather frivolous political and ideological reasons.

And nobody was punished.

The FDA can make decisions to protect the health of people currently taking drugs and undergoing related medical treatments. Or it can make decisions on the basis of protecting rent seeking, ideology, or keeping an issue away from an election year. What it doesn't do is make decisions on the basis of what is good for us in the long run.

"Scientists, including an expert advisory panel to the F.D.A., gave early support to that request. But top F.D.A. officials rejected the application because, some said later, they worried they would be fired if they approved it."

Even when the FDA decided to overturn that decision in 2011 (well into the Obama administration's tenure), it was overruled by the Secretary of Health and Human Services who claimed that "After careful consideration of the F.D.A. summary review, I have concluded that the data submitted by Teva do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age".

The judge above determined this decision was "arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable". Looks to me like election year games took priority over the health of young women.

So we have the FDA obstructing the use of a drug for twelve years, to the detriment of young women's health, over the course of two completely different administrations for a variety of rather frivolous political and ideological reasons.

And nobody was punished.

The FDA can make decisions to protect the health of people currently taking drugs and undergoing related medical treatments. Or it can make decisions on the basis of protecting rent seeking, ideology, or keeping an issue away from an election year. What it doesn't do is make decisions on the basis of what is good for us in the long run.

Interesting since I know many of the wealthy pay under under 20% taxes (Romney appears to have paid 13% and Buffett pays under 17%).

I'm wondering how so many people earn so much, pay such low tax rates, and yet pay 71% of the income taxes.

At a six figure income, my taxes paid was about 14% of my income.

So let me do some digging.

The NY Times supports your statement:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/26/nyregion/the-new-gilded-age.html?_r=0

The top 1% has 23.94% of the income (same as just before the great depression).

The top 10% earns 42% of the nations income. (this is the group I was apparently thinking of when I slapped off my post).

Okay... here is part of the issue:

Payroll taxes. 15% of most of our incomes... less than 1% of the wealthy income.
State and Local taxes (10% to 12% of moderate income vs .03% for the wealthy).

So this is really about "Federal Income Tax" vs the total tax load.

I agree - the wealthy pay the amounts you are saying of the Federal Income Tax.

However, they are paying a total tax load under half of what most of the rest of the citizens pay. As I alluded to above- raising the federal tax due by most of the country would throw them into poverty because they are paying 25% to 27% of their income in taxes and fixed fees which the wealthy pay a total of less than 1%.

So I'd trade you.... Percentage based state income tax instead of sales tax. And start applying the payroll tax all the way up, not just the first $106k.

It's going to get trickier as automation and robotics destroy jobs faster than they can be created. Hopefully retiring boomers will hide that until after 2020.

James B. Steward of the NY Times explains why.

We already have that today, you can guess any of the AP/SAT/GRE essays' grades with phenomenal accuracy just by looking at how long they are:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/04/education/04education.html?_r=0

It seems like a way to get people to start being subjugated and to prove compliance with any authority figure, regardless of whether or not that "so-called authority figure" has any right to assert that sort of, or any sort of, power at all.

Considering the US actually did sabotage enemies using software trojans... even resulting in "the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space.'" ... it's not surprising people/governments are wary of it.

Seems you forgot the part where they were STEALING the technology.

Seems to me all critical infrastructure should be based on Open systems -- both Open Source software and firmware, as well as Open hardware designs; so people can have the best chance possible at reviewing and verifying any critical infrastructure components.

Simply banning stuff from Chinese companies seems silly, though; since for every US company that has a foreign office and/or foreign employees, it's probable that their products have back doors too, from every intel agency in every one of those countries. Heck, I'd go so far as to speculate that most Microsoft security bugs might be such intentional back doors -- after all, if they don't it seems those intel agencies aren't really doing their jobs.

Despite the fact that HP paid too much for Autonomy, the reasons for the acquisition are still valid. The increasing ability to store large amounts of data means that big data is big and there are many big players entering the fray. For example, Intel:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/intels-big-data-push/

Many industries benefit from Big data mining. Netflix's new series 'House of Cards' was developed based on data Netflix collected about its users to determine what they liked and it has proven to be a success:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-of-cards-using-big-data-to-guarantee-its-popularity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Of course lets not forget the dark side of big data, the NSA and FBI can use the vast volume of data they collect to create statistical profiles of the average American. Any American outside the average is obviously going to be a target for additional investigation.

Despite the fact that HP paid too much for Autonomy, the reasons for the acquisition are still valid. The increasing ability to store large amounts of data means that big data is big and there are many big players entering the fray. For example, Intel:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/intels-big-data-push/

Many industries benefit from Big data mining. Netflix's new series 'House of Cards' was developed based on data Netflix collected about its users to determine what they liked and it has proven to be a success:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/business/media/for-house-of-cards-using-big-data-to-guarantee-its-popularity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Of course lets not forget the dark side of big data, the NSA and FBI can use the vast volume of data they collect to create statistical profiles of the average American. Any American outside the average is obviously going to be a target for additional investigation.

At least they aren't planning on landing (yet).... If there's no life before we land a spacecraft on the Europa, there will be afterwards.

We should probably become better at sterilizing our spacecraft before we land one on a moon where water is known to exist, and seed its oceans with earth-based life.

you know, that kind of philosophical statement needs to answer the question why the fuck would that be a problem, what do you know about how they're going to sterilize and do you propose we sterilize this planet first? and how would we know if we have sterilized well enough?

That they pretty much haven't 'done evil' with it so far is to my ken likely singular in history of business

fined $22.5 million for hacking safari privacy controls
$7 million fine for street view
$500m fine for rip off pharmacy ads

for a company that you suggest hasn't "done evil", they sure have been censured by government bodies for a lot of evil stuff. Not to mention all the stuff that the agencies haven't fined.

At least they aren't planning on landing (yet).... If there's no life before we land a spacecraft on the Europa, there will be afterwards.

We should probably become better at sterilizing our spacecraft before we land one on a moon where water is known to exist, and seed its oceans with earth-based life.

Nuclear power has the lowest deaths per TWh of any form of energy -- and that includes things like Chernobyl and Fukushima, the latter of which had a curious focus given that far, far, far more people were injured, displaced, or killed by the actual tsunami as opposed to any radiation events, now or in the future.

Direct deaths from fossil fuel sources -- including even naturally occurring radiation from conventional fossil fuel energy sources -- far outstrip any deaths that have ever occurred, or even will occur with even the most extreme statistical projections, from any nuclear power source, including accidents. That's right: there are more deaths from "radiation" from the byproducts of fossil fuel sources than there are from nuclear power, including accidents and waste.

This is what we should be worried about:

"Outdoor air pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in China in 2010, nearly 40 percent of the global total, according to a new summary of data from a scientific study on leading causes of death worldwide. Figured another way, the researchers said, China's toll from pollution was the loss of 25 million healthy years of life from the population."

There is a reason China has 30 nuclear plants under construction, while the US just approved its first new plant in 30 years.

I had been looking around too, but found nothing locally. Yes, I did get some "offers" which involved my moving, but the offers looked too tentative to accept unless they would give me a "golden parachute" for my relocation costs in case the job did not work out.

I have about accepted the fact that if I am going to ever work again, I have to create my own job.

The New York Times [NYT site I do not know if accessing direct will invoke a paywall] is running this which is also the only way I see I will ever be productive in society again, as the politicians and powers that be seem determined to tax and fee everyone onto welfare. How the government can even think of taxing the little guy so much while at the same time allowing international tax havens to operate is beyond me. Every dollar the government extracts from the little guy is a dollar taken from the till of a local business. I am seeing way too many failed businesses in my town, as people no longer have the money to buy their offerings. I really miss my pizza parlor. Its now occupied by a firm who prepares income tax, assisting people to comply with all the tax forms, laws and regulations passed by the people they voted into power.