Domain: utsandiego.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to utsandiego.com.
Comments · 33
-
Re:Should be rezoned agricultural
He's getting fined for it, and it could become significant. I'm not sure what my opinion is on it, either. I don't like that his usage of land was put into law by others, after he had bought it. But then again, he bought a golf course and is trying to do something totally different with it.
-
Re:A precaution when done ahead of time.
It is ironic. It is an engineering challenge to balance blade weight and strength. Sometimes even stopping them doesn't protect them enough;
http://www.utsandiego.com/news... -
Re:everytime this is tired
The LA Unified School District is spending over $1 billion to give all students (650,000) iPads.
Note that Beverly Hills School District is independent, and not part of LAUSD...
-
Relevant news - interesting timing...
http://www.utsandiego.com/news...
This goes back 2 years, but just hit the news wires today:
LA JOLLA — UC San Diego has been targeted by a series of cyber attackers seeking access to sensitive research and other data since 2012 and officials say the so-called advanced persistent threat has prompted the campus to take steps to bolster its security.
The initial security breach, detected in June 2012, involved the use of stolen passwords by hackers targeting computer servers. University information technology security director John Denune said that no work was lost and no critical research data was accessed.
-
Re:I enjoy gay sex.What?
BioFilm's flagship product is Astroglide personal lubricant, aptly named, since Wray developed the clear, slippery, water-based product while working on a space shuttle at Edwards Air Force Base in 1977.
Wray, a chemist who was in the "bombs and rockets" business for 20 years, was working on the shuttle's cooling system when life took a surprising turn.
"I was trying to remove the oil from anhydrous ammonia and I ended up with this substance," he said.
You're going to suck until you stop making up stuff that can be checked withing ten seconds.
-
Re:Screwed...
wrong asshat: http://www.utsandiego.com/news...
-
Re:DEsalination plants should be a priority
some are already on the way, but this one, which will be the largest in the western hemisphere, will supply San Diego (pop ~ 3 million) with 10% of its water. It currently imports about 90% of its water from Northern California and the Colorado river.
So if one of these $1 billion plants can service about 300k people, should just be algebra to figure out how many more we need to service the west coast....
-
Re:Like this doesn't happen all the time?
Oh, here it is, not the Turkofile I remember but the same story. See "Why this fence?" http://www.utsandiego.com/unio...
-
Re:And when you lose Atlantis...
Of course sometimes the act of making sure you (and your team) are safe before trying to give first-aid to someone might get you hauled away in handcuffs.
-
Prevent crimes? What about justice?
"Preventing" crimes is not justice. Locking up innocents to "prevent" them from committing crimes is essentially the opposite of justice.
Also, note what they're preventing: "crimes". Not violence or any action that harms anyone. "Crimes" encompasses all manner of disobedience toward authority, regardless of whether that authority is legitimate. Example: Man faces felony charge over trimming shrubs. Not a crime: DEA locks up a student, forgets about him for 4 days with no food or water.
-
Re:Just Hateful
With today's internet, both are simply cut out of about half (or more) of their revenues.
Maybe now cities will start switching from sales taxes to property taxes. Property taxes "encourage cities to make land-use decisions that bolster property values...Sales tax just incentivizes you to put up big-box stores."
I'd rather see my house value go up than see more Wal-Marts. Wouldn't you?
-
Not about supply / demand, about taxes
Demand for gas has been going down, thanks to the recession. It is not about demand going up, and now it is not about supply going down, it is about governments raising taxes to get more out of the population.
-
Re:Ah, no...
Some kings probably spent resources on hiring wizards to cast magic spells to protect their castles and curse their enemies. To say the least, this was probably not cost effective.
Modern spells like "Authorized Use Only" and curses like "Full extent of the law" are nearly as effective, especially when obtained from and managed by a lowest bidder wizard. Not all wizards are created equal
;)Well one thing you can do is use an open source operating system. It isn't going to be 100% secure (nothing is), but at least the source code has millions of eyes on it looking for holes, and you aren't reliant on some central authority to make fixes available after the NSA is done exploiting them.
Yes, this is an excellent suggestion and one of the most reasonable responses to the attack we're under. A thing about these millions of eyes is they are millions of unqualified and non-programmer eyes. The domain specific talent required is supplied mainly by commercial companies, each with their own agendas. I understand the sentiment and even with opensource you're still running it on someone else's hardware, even if you paid for it and possess it you do not own it.
Even if the NSA has proof that a guy hacked into a computer to become student president of a state college, they aren;t going to allow this info to be used in a trial.
Initially you mentioned cost, that it's "expensive" and my point was that the system is already in place and is paid for (by us, also those fees that get tacked on to cellphone bills) and seeing use. Compared to the cost of the network, the $20 million USD annually, it's cheap just like storage space. I'll give you another comparison, Youtube (estimated) costs $2 million USD to operate daily. Location information with handsets specifically is a byproduct of the system; see the value of accurate billing information. The way this guy "hacked things" was done locally with keyloggers negating the need to snoop on traffic. No need for the NSA, just simple admin work.
I think a world where 0 day exploits are rampant is preferable to one where all these holes exist but are yet to be discovered. Even if the bad guys find them first, the good guys can usually know shortly after.
"Bad" guys finding them first would be hackers, no? Is it only bad when hackers sell them to others? Or is it when they don't tell people about them? Or is it only when they're exploited? Wouldn't supporting one of these companies where you buy 0days make you complicit in supporting the "bad" people thus making you one of the "bad" even if you're doing it for the perceived greater good?
-
Re:Settings examples
Slashdot and threatpost both have it wrong. The original article(linked threatpost) from says "his arrest on suspicion of wire fraud, access device fraud and unauthorized access to a computer" http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/feb/07/Former-student-arrested-after-probe/
-
Re:Water intake issue
Great comment. Also, the water intake issue affects more than just San Onofre - it affects all of the state's power plants sucking water from the ocean.
I hate linking to UT San Diego, but it's the only good article I could fine on the subject. Note the date of the article (May 4, 2010):
-
Re:This is why...
That's not enough: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/Jun/01/bicyclist-killed-was-a-poway-father-of-two/
(bicyclists on the train I commute with knew that guy)My worst bicycling injury came from kids following grampa up a bike path, swinging out to take up the entire path, forcing me over the lip of the newly paved asphalt path, tearing off my sew-up (yeah, they were the racy thing in the olde days), sending me sliding on my side on the new asphalt, busting both rims, I went into immediate shock. Later, after I got out of the hospital, police laughed when I told them what happened. "Haha, be on the lookout for killer gramps and grandkids!"
And yes, I used to ride on the freeway (101 near Ventura, only way through, semi's blowing past you and sucking you into traffic lanes).
-
Re:Ouch!
Maybe animosity was too strong a word. However, given that E.U. nations such as Spain and France were trying to force Bolivia's Evo Morales to give him up, if he'd had Snowden on a plane, there is no support from nations that should be helping Snowden. Further, several, not all, but several, nations appear to playing along with the U.S. instead of finding another solution for Snowden.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jul/05/tp-snowden-still-seeking-asylum-offer/
-
Greed == "a lack of attention to detail"Greed is usually the leading cause for "a lack of attention to detail", as in a desire for profits leading to taking shortcuts designed to save money. San Onofre, just north of San Diego and Camp Pendleton had a shutdown in 2012 specifically because non-approved and non-tested techniques and modifications to approved plans were used during construction,, most likely to save costs and increase profits so someone could go home with bigger paychecks and bigger bonuses.
.
Prior to 2012, plenty of other problems were found at San Onofre: "Problems at nuclear plant concern regulators" in the San Diego Union Tribune covered a few of these which ended up "resulting in the simultaneous shutdown of two safety backup systems and placing operators on standby to shut down a nuclear reactor."
.
In Florida, you've got the hubris of Duke Energy trying to repair a cooling tower on its own using its own idiots rather than hiring people expertly capable of doing things just to save $10M$us (ten million usa dollars) resulting in the total shutdown of the Crystal River nuclear plant until at least 2014 at a total cost of repair projected to be $2.75B$us (2.75 Billion usa dollars): http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/03/01/1894613/nuclear-fiasco-vexes-progress.html : The problems experienced at Crystal River stem from a botched attempt to replace the plant's steam generator. The replacement required cutting a giant hole - measuring 23 feet by 27 feet - in the 42-inch-thick protective wall of the building that contains the nuclear reactor. To save money, Progress opted to manage the project on its own and awarded the contract to an engineering firm that had no experience in such repairs. The work resulted in three instances of "delamination," a term used to describe an internal separation of the building wall. Each delamination is the size of a basketball court, said Florida's Deputy Public Counsel, Charles Rehwinkel. "They were definitely three separate events, or discrete incidents," he said..
The blunder shows that a highly experienced nuclear operator with a sterling reputation in the industry is not immune from unforeseen miscues that raise questions about judgment and competence.
The sequence of mistakes has put Progress in a state of crisis management for more than two years. Company officials are dealing with persistent questions from Wall Street analysts while they negotiate data requests from the insurer, Nuclear Electric Insurance Limited, known as NEIL.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/crystal-river-nuclear-plant-had-flaw-in-its-safety-procedures-for-more/1276841 also shows that Crystal River had other serious problems, just like so many other plants that consistently skirt safety regulations and prescribed critical safety procedures:
4 generator failures hit US nuclear plants in in AP article: Four generators that power emergency systems at nuclear plants have failed when needed since April, an unusual cluster that has attracted the attention of federal inspectors and could prompt the industry to re-examine its maintenance plans.and those are just from a quick cursory review from a web search engine. People who look harder can find more. The common link in all of these are shortcuts taken to save money and to bypass conventional procedures which are required to be followed by the NRC.
-
Re:Tax evasion is good for some of us
Tijuana! You're right, I was off by an order of 1000, shit.
Also, I pay for a "flush tax", plus I pay municipal (city) water on my property taxes, plus the water flow is used to calculate my sewage usage and added as a sewage bill. The "flush tax" is an additional standard sewage tax(!) that aims at a fund to restore our wetland assets from damage caused by all this sewage being spewed into the environment. I pay my electric bill to Baltimore Gas and Electric, a privately-owned corporation recently acquired by the conglomerate private entity Constellation Energy; they charge me for distribution, as the distribution network is privately owned by BGE, but they forward my commodity payments to the private entity American Power for 100% 'green' (non-air-polluting, containable) electricity and to Mount Washington Gas and Electric for 100% offset natural gas (I pay a LOT more for natural gas commodity, but the extra buys carbon offsets that go into programs to improve air and water quality).
So yes, I pay a bunch of private entities for some "public" infrastructure, and a lot of public entities for other actually-public infrastructure. I pay the government based on my usage of water and on estimated usage of sewage infrastructure, and I pay the power company based on my metered usage of supplied commodities and on distribution of said commodities through their privately-owned distribution network. Our state asserts that the fuel tax is used to fund our roads, although I know better: they get federal funding that comes from my federal income tax, although I know I don't do $15,000 of damage to the roads each year.
-
Re:My answer
Please. This is not a partisan story:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/gadget-border-searches/
http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Court-limits-border-searches-of-laptops-4340897.php
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/mar/10/tp-court-limits-border-searches-of-electronic/
http://nhregister.com/articles/2013/03/08/life/announcements/doc513ac37fad245865930407.txt
http://www.wntp.com/article.aspx?id=b38e3b70-1d3d-43ff-aee0-f207dea377d7&catid=0 -
Re:The "problem" is private ownership
There are very large plots of privately-owned undeveloped land and even farm land mixed in with normal suburban development, not quite large enough to be scenic but big enough to make it clear that we're sprawling.
Undeveloped land and farmland aren't sprawl. Sprawl is low density single-use development--singly family homes, strip malls, shopping malls, etc.
I don't see a real solution without either refusing to push utilities further south or enacting price controls on land deals which is unfair to the owner (and maybe illegal).
Undeveloped land costs the city more per capita for infrastructure than high density development. So one solution is for the city to recover its costs by raising the property tax.
If the city doesn't have a property tax, it ought to, not just for this reason, but also because sales taxes (which are the usual alternative) incentivize big-box stores while property taxes encourages the city to make land-use decisions that raise property values. Which would you rather have, more Wal-Marts or higher property values?
-
Blimps, manned and unmannedI remember reading about an unmanned blimp crashing:
.
San Diego Union Tribune article about an unmanned Army blimp brought down in Pa. woods A remote-controlled, unmanned reconnaissance blimp launched from Ohio by defense contractor Lockheed Martin was brought down Wednesday in a controlled descent in the woods of southwestern Pennsylvania after it was unable to climb to the desired altitude. The HALE-D blimp was designed to float above the jet stream at 60,000 feet and can be used for reconnaissance, intelligence and other purposes often accomplished by satellites, but at lower cost. The blimp was being tested as a communications relay device as part of a contract Lockheed Martin has with the ArmyAnd another one, found by searching for military and blimps, also found in gizmag and wired, is a dedicated blimp site article about the army preparing and training for using a huge/mammoth spy blimp, an LEMV = US Army's massive Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle:
The Air Force's highly computerized (and potentially missile-armed) Blue Devil 2 airship recently ran into integration problems, forcing the flying branch to cancel a planned test run in Afghanistan. (Although the service had never been too hot on airships in the first place.) The Navy meanwhile grounded its much smaller MZ-3A research blimp for a lack of work until the Army paid to take it over. The LEMV seemed to be losing air, too, as Northrop and the Army repeatedly delayed its first flight and planned combat deployment originally slated for the end of 2011.also http://www.gizmag.com/lemv-first-flight/22675/
and http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05/massive-spy-blimp : Army Readies Its Mammoth Spy Blimp for First Flight ...
There wass also an auxilliary naval air field north of La Jolla in Del Mar that also was used for blimps: http://www.militarymuseum.org/NAAFDelMar.html -
Did they offer a VSI?
Did they offer another VSI? Back in 2005 this Voluntary Severance Initiative (VSI) notice with enhanced severance was offered to several employees.
It's no secret, see: http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050430/news_1b30hp.html and http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050505/news_1b5hp.html.
For the employee offered VSI, the gamble was clear: take VSI and voluntarily leave the company with enhanced severance pay, or decline VSI but take a risk at whether or not the employee would get a workforce reduction (WFR) notice later on, with less severance pay.
Well, I took VSI back in 2005 because they offered it to me, and before I accepted it I asked the manager I was reporting to and even a section manager about it, no one could tell me for sure whether or not I was going to be WFR'd if I declined VSI. The best I got was "I would hate to lose someone like you", but no nothing definite such as "you can decline VSI, you are safe from WFR". A year or so after I had VSI'd from HP, I heard unofficial rumors that those without college degrees were part of the total employees that were VSI'd regardless of their length of service at HP. Well guess what? I have some college experience but no degree, I guess I made the right choice in the short term, since I might have very well have been WFR'd at some point after VSI. I don't know for sure, of course, but that's the conclusion I can draw.
What about returning as a contractor? That's possible. If I recall correctly, it is a six month or one year waiting period before a VSI'd (or WFR'd) employee can return back as a contractor. But even returning back to HP as an External Temporary Worker (ETW) on a contract assignment from an agency is a maximum of 24 months, after which one must take a minimum of 100 days off. What that means: the employee effectively loses their job after the 24 months maximum and must reapply for another contract assignment after the 100 days is up (compare/contrast vs. Qualcomm where I am aware that the contract employee must remain offsite for 90 days after their maximum term, but in many cases they can return right back to their job after that).
Or, did they just do a WFR this time around? With a WFR there is no voluntary severance option, they are just notified they are part of a workforce reduction.
-
Did they offer a VSI?
Did they offer another VSI? Back in 2005 this Voluntary Severance Initiative (VSI) notice with enhanced severance was offered to several employees.
It's no secret, see: http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050430/news_1b30hp.html and http://www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050505/news_1b5hp.html.
For the employee offered VSI, the gamble was clear: take VSI and voluntarily leave the company with enhanced severance pay, or decline VSI but take a risk at whether or not the employee would get a workforce reduction (WFR) notice later on, with less severance pay.
Well, I took VSI back in 2005 because they offered it to me, and before I accepted it I asked the manager I was reporting to and even a section manager about it, no one could tell me for sure whether or not I was going to be WFR'd if I declined VSI. The best I got was "I would hate to lose someone like you", but no nothing definite such as "you can decline VSI, you are safe from WFR". A year or so after I had VSI'd from HP, I heard unofficial rumors that those without college degrees were part of the total employees that were VSI'd regardless of their length of service at HP. Well guess what? I have some college experience but no degree, I guess I made the right choice in the short term, since I might have very well have been WFR'd at some point after VSI. I don't know for sure, of course, but that's the conclusion I can draw.
What about returning as a contractor? That's possible. If I recall correctly, it is a six month or one year waiting period before a VSI'd (or WFR'd) employee can return back as a contractor. But even returning back to HP as an External Temporary Worker (ETW) on a contract assignment from an agency is a maximum of 24 months, after which one must take a minimum of 100 days off. What that means: the employee effectively loses their job after the 24 months maximum and must reapply for another contract assignment after the 100 days is up (compare/contrast vs. Qualcomm where I am aware that the contract employee must remain offsite for 90 days after their maximum term, but in many cases they can return right back to their job after that).
Or, did they just do a WFR this time around? With a WFR there is no voluntary severance option, they are just notified they are part of a workforce reduction.
-
Re:Automation and unemployment
think of the dophins! http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/nov/30/navy-dolphins-losing-out-to-robots/
-
Dear Black Parrot: Obfuscant Just Pwned You
Lesson: Facts do not cease to be facts just because they were reported on Fox News.
Different members of the Obama Administration have said different things about Benghazi at different times.
American forces in a position to help were evidently told repeatedly to stand down.
Charles Woods, the father of the slain Tyrone Woods, thinks Obama is lying. And the mother of slain State Department employee Sean Patrick Smith just came out and said "I believe that Obama murdered my son” though his negligence. Compare the amount of press given to them compared to Cindy Sheehan.
Now two chain-of-command figures central to the Benghazi controversy, CIA Director David Petraeus and General Carter Ham, commander of AFRICOM, have resigned, while a third, Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette, has been reassigned.
None of this necessarily means that Obama issued the stand-down order, or validates the speculation in some quarters that Ambassador Stevens may have been involved in arms transfers. But how blind do you have to be to think that the fact that no additional forces were sent to protect Americans during a seven hour battle with jihadests is unworthy of being investigated?
-
Re:strange end result
True. I wonder what the obesity levels are like in Mexico.
-
Re:Popular vote
Many yes, but far too many feel that "If that's the price we have to pay for safety, then so be it".
It's all in how the survey question is stated. If you ask people "Do you support airport security?" you'll find overwhelming support. Obviously. Ask people if they support the TSA irradiating its citizens, "raping" them with invasive pat-downs -- whether they agree with those security procedures, and you'll get much lower response. It's like the IRS: Most people acknowledge they have to pay their taxes. Few agree with the collection tactics the IRS uses, or the lack of judicial oversight.
-
Re:Suprising how?
This very morning I listened as NPR recited one email after another from angry listeners complaining that NPR had given air to Stanford University research (funded exclusively by the University) showing `organic' food provided no health benefits over conventionally produced food. Enraged foodies are letting it be known that they won't tolerate `anti-organic' research.
Other Stanford research shows no correlation “between the dollars spent by districts or schools and the outcomes of their students" and that reforms must precede new spending if there is to be any benefit. The same warmist educrats that would have Al Gore's AGW propaganda playing on a loop in classrooms (but for parents) don't hesitate to reject those results.
Closer to home we have slashdot readers expressing no small amount of skepticism about CDC research on rates of autism. Another way to induce irrational anti-science behavior around here is by pointing out the correlation between vehicle size and safety; warmists indulge a lot of magical thinking trying to deal with that one.
People resist results they don't like.
-
Obama beats the Zombies
No word on which candidate is most fit to defend America against shambling hordes of undead seeking to destroy civilization in the zombie apocalypse (perhaps that will be brought out in the debates).
Obviously, Obama would be best against the Zombies. Romney would be best against the Vampires. Or maybe it's the other way around.
-
Re:Don't you have to enter your password?
People will sue for anything, the question is whether they won. In other recent news, US troops sue phone company for expensive calls
-
Just get rid of sales taxes.
Sales taxes are regressive, they discourage commerce, and they incentivize cities to put up big-box stores, while property taxes encourage cities to make land-use decisions that bolster property values.
With so many advantages of property taxes over sales taxes, the sales tax just doesn't make much sense. Conveniently, eliminating the sales tax would also solve the problem of collecting it over the Internet.
-
Re:Good
Tolerance -- The idea of putting up with beliefs differing from one's own.
Zero Tolerance -- What right-wing nuts have for anyone who doesn't agree with them...FTFY..? Really though, why are you bringing political ideology up? It seems it's mostly the social conservatives fighting for these sorts of DUI laws. Heck, the ACLU (arguably a fairly liberal organization) has a history of fighting against some of these police activities.