After the Iraq WMD fiasco I don't trust the US to know its ass from its elbow when it comes to these sorts of things.
The standards of evidence are obviously so low that nowadays all you have to do is imagine a threat and suddenly it's real and all sorts of circumstantial evidence points to it being true.
Corporations are fascist in tendency (if they were governments they certainly would be). Seems to me the US government is heading in that general direction.
There's historical precedent for this but I won't mention it here.
Also, sign language (ASL) is a language in itself, like French or English.
For many deaf folks this would be like conversing with someone in their native tongue, as opposed to text messaging which would seem like using a second language.
One potential use of this technology would be for interpreting.
I.e. Deaf person approaches bank teller, sets up cell phone/PDA on counter. Teller speaks, interpreter signs, deaf person watches and responds, and interpreter translates into speech. Teller listens, responds, etc.
One eyebrow markedly higher than the other?! That's pure fuckup.
Back in 1995 I decided not to have laser eye surgery because the success rate was 71%, which struck me as pretty bad.
Nowadays I can't even find information on the success rate, I've googled like mad only to find various articles saying they don't keep track of these statistics. Of course, now I definitely won't have the surgery. This sort of information needs to be out there, I congratulate this woman.
"1. The Internet If for any reason the company loses it's internet access (this NEVER happens) "
It shouldn't. If connectivity is so important get a redundant line.
"2. Performance These are web apps, so they're inherently slow."
I don't think they are, but in any case talk to the hundreds of thousands of workers across the world who work with 512 MB or less RAM and for whom web apps like this would be faster than installed software.
3. Data integrity Google encourages users in the software to store all their documents on Google's servers, not locally. Is google willing to guarentee those documents availability?
Maybe?
4. Security Security on Google apps is feeble and basic, you might as well publish all your internal information to the web.
Has this been documented somewhere? Has google published app data to the web?
He/she has a point - does the linux community really want people to come to associate free with poor quality and service?
Seems like half the posts here are saying "you get what you paid for, stop your whining", which DOES seem strange coming from a free OSS/Linux-loving community.
You CAN get high quality and good support/service for something offered for free. Posters who assume otherwise are just not experiencing open source or are so far gone in the direction of capitalistic ideology they can't fathom how it's possible.
I don't see anything in the article to indicate THAAD works against ICBM's that can behave more like cruise missiles and zigzag to their targets. Check the following:
To me you have your systems or network administrator, who is responsible for a bunch of servers, routers, the physical cabling, etc. Then you have your webmaster who is directly responsible for web servers, namely the hardware and software, possibly even a web farm and the load balancing stuff, and almost certainly the security and configuration of the web servers.
I'm not sure the job/title was redefined. Considering the skills needed to do the job, there must still be a huge need for webmasters.
Sure, the vast majority of websites out there are on hosting plans but there are still many companies that will necessarily find it more cost-effective to have internally hosted web servers and to hire someone to administer them - not that managers are known for making logical decisions.
I could be wrong, I'm not that familiar with American laws, but I didn't think Americans were entitled to privacy, really.
I'm thrilled to see a senator seeming to hint at maybe moving in the direction of perhaps legislating something vague that might be seen as protecting personal privacy without offending all the entrenched institutions devoted to the opposite (FBI/CIA/NSA/DIA, probably most corporations, financial institutions, the neo-cons, the latter-day Republicans, etc.)...
For instance, Canada has a privacy commissioner, federal laws (PIPEDA, Privacy Act) and a range of provincial legislation which strictly regulates the use of personal information in the hands of both government and private enterprise. PIPEDA is especially of interest to slashdotters since it regulates personal information in electronic form.
Hard to imagine that sort of thing in the US, though I hope someone will correct me.
I expect that before long the banks and financial institutions will be sharing their complete databases with the government simply because, from the perspective of the banks and financial institutions, there's nothing illegal about them requesting this information - because no warrant is needed.
That a government currently has such power is no argument in favour of it. Why not take it away, make it illegal?
There are many reasons to do so. For one, it seems to me that the potential and risk of government abuse of this information far outweighs the benefits. The information WILL be used against you, with or without your consent or knowledge, whether you are innocent or guilty, and with no means for you to challenge or correct anything.
Where I used to work someone was fired for viewing porn. The interesting thing is that he was given a warning at first and afterwards started using other peoples machines to view his porn.
In my experience you generally don't get these sorts of popups unless you've been visiting porn sites. In this case it doesn't look like anyone considered the possibility that it might have been the janitor or some other teacher who was responsible for the machines having these popups.
Come to think of it, couldn't a forensic investigation have pinpointed when they were installed?
The DOD shouldn't be funding research, period. If the DOD hadn't come up with it then someone else would have, all the dollars that go into the military should go elsewhere.
The DOD is not the necessity that fosters invention, as you seem to think it is.
I never read of anyone having suffered consequences as a result of someone losing their data. Why is that?
Doesn't it seem as if there would be a few major class action lawsuits, at the very least? You'd think every time data loss occurs on this large a scale, it would be followed by droves of people suffering from identity theft or fraud
The problem is that English is not a first language for many deaf folk, and ASL (American Sign Language) is a whole language in itself, complete with it's own syntax, structure, idioms, etc. So if you're in a medical emergency setting, pen and paper will likely be very inaccurate compared to an ASL interpreter.
It would be like trying to communicate, via pen and paper, with someone just off the boat. If you were a doctor or lawyer in an emergency situation you'd need a level of accuracy which incorrect English doesn't provide.
This is similar to Camfrog Web, except with Camfrog you can have multiple open chat windows and can carry on a convo in text while communicating via webcam and voice.
The downsides are last time I checked it came with a hefty price tag ($9000 for unlimited users) and operates exclusively on Windows servers.
I really hope this WengoVisio project produces something of similar quality. I've been seeking ways for my organization to communicate with its deaf clients, using sign language, over the web. There is a desperate need for this sort of thing within the deaf community and those organizations serving them.
As an example, it could possibly be used for on the spot translation services. Imagine a nurse in an emergency ward needing to urgently communicate with a deaf patient, then browsing to an online translation service using this technology. The deaf patient can sign with an online interpreter who would then translate everything into voice and vice versa.
(No, pen and paper wouldn't always work in this instance.)
Your premise is wrong. You can detect disabled users. You do it in the same way you accomodate other languages, you simply ask their preference early on and set a cookie.
As proven by Iraq, the US can, rightly or wrongly, put forward any claim about a country's intentions and capabilities, in spite of the evidence to the contrary, then proceed to cause massive amounts of damage, death and destruction to innocent life - and apparently get away with it. Until recently a majority of Americans still thought Saddam was behind 9/11.
So it's understandable why people are wary and bothered by this sort of belligerent announcement claiming the right to pre-emptively attack others in space.
And consider this, are there UN weapons inspectors in space? How then does one prove the hostile intent of some orbitting toaster? Merely the country of origin?
A decent number here seem to think that yes, the election results will be inaccurate and this is how it's always been; yes, there will be deliberate attempts to meddle with the results but so what, this is how it's always been; statistics suck and are good for nothing, really; exit polls suck and are good for nothing, really; it's impossible really, to collect accurate datasets, etc.
Makes me wonder if some of these posters are in tech-related jobs. Is their approach that security sucks and is good for nothing? That data integrity sucks and is good for nothing, why bother, and so on and so forth?
What probably really happened was some ragtag bunch of Lebanese kids happened upon a broken IDF radio which was making all sorts of squawking staticky sounds, brought it to the local Hezbollah leaders, etc., and from there the story was born - "Hezbollah hacks IDF communications". The Israelis, for whatever reason, are obviously encouraging it - knowing it to be bunkum (what else can it be). Maybe the Israeli side thinks the spread of this story will lead to more American funding or equipment. They're probably right.
Slashdot Mirror
After the Iraq WMD fiasco I don't trust the US to know its ass from its elbow when it comes to these sorts of things.
The standards of evidence are obviously so low that nowadays all you have to do is imagine a threat and suddenly it's real and all sorts of circumstantial evidence points to it being true.
Corporations are fascist in tendency (if they were governments they certainly would be). Seems to me the US government is heading in that general direction.
There's historical precedent for this but I won't mention it here.
Also, sign language (ASL) is a language in itself, like French or English.
For many deaf folks this would be like conversing with someone in their native tongue, as opposed to text messaging which would seem like using a second language.
One potential use of this technology would be for interpreting.
I.e. Deaf person approaches bank teller, sets up cell phone/PDA on counter. Teller speaks, interpreter signs, deaf person watches and responds, and interpreter translates into speech. Teller listens, responds, etc.
One eyebrow markedly higher than the other?! That's pure fuckup.
Back in 1995 I decided not to have laser eye surgery because the success rate was 71%, which struck me as pretty bad.
Nowadays I can't even find information on the success rate, I've googled like mad only to find various articles saying they don't keep track of these statistics. Of course, now I definitely won't have the surgery. This sort of information needs to be out there, I congratulate this woman.
It shouldn't. If connectivity is so important get a redundant line.
I don't think they are, but in any case talk to the hundreds of thousands of workers across the world who work with 512 MB or less RAM and for whom web apps like this would be faster than installed software.
Maybe?
Has this been documented somewhere? Has google published app data to the web?
He/she has a point - does the linux community really want people to come to associate free with poor quality and service?
Seems like half the posts here are saying "you get what you paid for, stop your whining", which DOES seem strange coming from a free OSS/Linux-loving community.
You CAN get high quality and good support/service for something offered for free. Posters who assume otherwise are just not experiencing open source or are so far gone in the direction of capitalistic ideology they can't fathom how it's possible.
I don't see anything in the article to indicate THAAD works against ICBM's that can behave more like cruise missiles and zigzag to their targets. Check the following:
To me you have your systems or network administrator, who is responsible for a bunch of servers, routers, the physical cabling, etc. Then you have your webmaster who is directly responsible for web servers, namely the hardware and software, possibly even a web farm and the load balancing stuff, and almost certainly the security and configuration of the web servers.
I'm not sure the job/title was redefined. Considering the skills needed to do the job, there must still be a huge need for webmasters.
Sure, the vast majority of websites out there are on hosting plans but there are still many companies that will necessarily find it more cost-effective to have internally hosted web servers and to hire someone to administer them - not that managers are known for making logical decisions.
I could be wrong, I'm not that familiar with American laws, but I didn't think Americans were entitled to privacy, really.
I'm thrilled to see a senator seeming to hint at maybe moving in the direction of perhaps legislating something vague that might be seen as protecting personal privacy without offending all the entrenched institutions devoted to the opposite (FBI/CIA/NSA/DIA, probably most corporations, financial institutions, the neo-cons, the latter-day Republicans, etc.)...
For instance, Canada has a privacy commissioner, federal laws (PIPEDA, Privacy Act) and a range of provincial legislation which strictly regulates the use of personal information in the hands of both government and private enterprise. PIPEDA is especially of interest to slashdotters since it regulates personal information in electronic form.
Hard to imagine that sort of thing in the US, though I hope someone will correct me.
WTF did they have to capture it for?
They clearly moved it so a shallow area where it couldn't find its way back to the depths.
Does this mean MS products will be forever backwards compatible?
A codebase of infinite and ever growing proportions?
America and it's allies (including Israel) have nuclear weapons and don't seem to be using them, so why would Iran or Syria?
Oh, right, in your mind they're a bunch of insane ragheads that like to blow themselves up at every opportunity, every last one of them.
I expect that before long the banks and financial institutions will be sharing their complete databases with the government simply because, from the perspective of the banks and financial institutions, there's nothing illegal about them requesting this information - because no warrant is needed.
That a government currently has such power is no argument in favour of it. Why not take it away, make it illegal?
There are many reasons to do so. For one, it seems to me that the potential and risk of government abuse of this information far outweighs the benefits. The information WILL be used against you, with or without your consent or knowledge, whether you are innocent or guilty, and with no means for you to challenge or correct anything.
Where I used to work someone was fired for viewing porn. The interesting thing is that he was given a warning at first and afterwards started using other peoples machines to view his porn.
In my experience you generally don't get these sorts of popups unless you've been visiting porn sites. In this case it doesn't look like anyone considered the possibility that it might have been the janitor or some other teacher who was responsible for the machines having these popups.
Come to think of it, couldn't a forensic investigation have pinpointed when they were installed?
The DOD shouldn't be funding research, period. If the DOD hadn't come up with it then someone else would have, all the dollars that go into the military should go elsewhere.
The DOD is not the necessity that fosters invention, as you seem to think it is.
I never read of anyone having suffered consequences as a result of someone losing their data. Why is that?
Doesn't it seem as if there would be a few major class action lawsuits, at the very least? You'd think every time data loss occurs on this large a scale, it would be followed by droves of people suffering from identity theft or fraud
The problem is that English is not a first language for many deaf folk, and ASL (American Sign Language) is a whole language in itself, complete with it's own syntax, structure, idioms, etc. So if you're in a medical emergency setting, pen and paper will likely be very inaccurate compared to an ASL interpreter.
It would be like trying to communicate, via pen and paper, with someone just off the boat. If you were a doctor or lawyer in an emergency situation you'd need a level of accuracy which incorrect English doesn't provide.
This is similar to Camfrog Web, except with Camfrog you can have multiple open chat windows and can carry on a convo in text while communicating via webcam and voice.
The downsides are last time I checked it came with a hefty price tag ($9000 for unlimited users) and operates exclusively on Windows servers.
I really hope this WengoVisio project produces something of similar quality. I've been seeking ways for my organization to communicate with its deaf clients, using sign language, over the web. There is a desperate need for this sort of thing within the deaf community and those organizations serving them.
As an example, it could possibly be used for on the spot translation services. Imagine a nurse in an emergency ward needing to urgently communicate with a deaf patient, then browsing to an online translation service using this technology. The deaf patient can sign with an online interpreter who would then translate everything into voice and vice versa.
(No, pen and paper wouldn't always work in this instance.)
Your premise is wrong. You can detect disabled users. You do it in the same way you accomodate other languages, you simply ask their preference early on and set a cookie.
As proven by Iraq, the US can, rightly or wrongly, put forward any claim about a country's intentions and capabilities, in spite of the evidence to the contrary, then proceed to cause massive amounts of damage, death and destruction to innocent life - and apparently get away with it. Until recently a majority of Americans still thought Saddam was behind 9/11. So it's understandable why people are wary and bothered by this sort of belligerent announcement claiming the right to pre-emptively attack others in space. And consider this, are there UN weapons inspectors in space? How then does one prove the hostile intent of some orbitting toaster? Merely the country of origin?
A decent number here seem to think that yes, the election results will be inaccurate and this is how it's always been; yes, there will be deliberate attempts to meddle with the results but so what, this is how it's always been; statistics suck and are good for nothing, really; exit polls suck and are good for nothing, really; it's impossible really, to collect accurate datasets, etc. Makes me wonder if some of these posters are in tech-related jobs. Is their approach that security sucks and is good for nothing? That data integrity sucks and is good for nothing, why bother, and so on and so forth?
What probably really happened was some ragtag bunch of Lebanese kids happened upon a broken IDF radio which was making all sorts of squawking staticky sounds, brought it to the local Hezbollah leaders, etc., and from there the story was born - "Hezbollah hacks IDF communications". The Israelis, for whatever reason, are obviously encouraging it - knowing it to be bunkum (what else can it be). Maybe the Israeli side thinks the spread of this story will lead to more American funding or equipment. They're probably right.