I bet a lot of countries can do without us sending foreign aid (why shouldn't they be able to stand on their own two feet?) I second this. I'm educated, qualified, experienced, natural born American and I'm lucky to get two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to eat in an area where the very industry which I'm qualified to work in has its largest presence but, for some odd reason, refuses to even respond to my resume...
Meanwhile the citizens of this fine city donate, annually, tens of millions to helping "disadvantaged" people that they've never met and, even if they are successfully prevented from starving to death, will probably never contribute anything back to this community.
Is decency at such a low ebb Look for CastleCops' karma to be modded to "terrible".
Maybe if these people put half the time and energy they did into stealing they could actually get a real job and sleep well for a change instead of ripping people off all the time. A good portion of the people who spend their lives maliciously destroying the reputations of others do not need a "real job". Many are independently wealthy or come from lineages that have never had a shortage of wealth. They're not out to ruin others' reputations for money--they do it for entertainment.
Use of anti-virus software which hooks system calls is actually creating an attack vector. The same can be said for the trillions of dollars worth of crapware which comes preloaded on systems and which people install from the web. Every poorly written messaging client, every poorly coded P2P transfer application, every browser plugin. There are real advantages to the minimalist approach.
One might speculate that, in the kernel of social behavior, constant cell phone use is the most poorly written anti-virus software available. You think you're staying in touch and up to date when, in reality, you're just opening yourself up to clique farmers.
Oh wait, we're talking about the US legal system here, the one which considers it perfectly natural to grant monopoly ownership of such brilliant ideas as clicking once (rather than twice!) to buy a product from an online store. Such a ridiculous and petty monopoly. Some people want a monopoly on oil. Some people want a monopoly on automobiles. Some people want a monopoly on lumber and paper. Some people want a monopoly on railroads.
I, on the other hand, think all of these are subsidiary monopolies. If I were really to think about it, and I really wanted to control everything that goes on beneath my gaze, I would want on a monopoly on the money that everything else (from oil, to automobiles, to lumber, to paper, to railroads, to mouse clicks) must use in order to be deemed legitimate.
Good thing the US government has protected us from such a top level monopoly. Even though it's a private collective it still has a.gov domain.
What? And you didn't quit?...you just completely failed rule #1: Defend yourself I don't know what calibre/size companies you've worked for but, having worked for Abbott Labs and Battelle Memorial Institute (both multibillion dollar multinational organizations), and having followed the mantra of "defend yourself and, if necessary, quit", I can tell you with certainty that, while the advice sounds good at a philosophical level, it's the equivalent of career suicide to defend yourself against an abusive and well-connected manager and/or quit when said abusive management steps over the line of tolerability.
I'm not saying that I disagree with you. I no longer have two ulcers, I'm not longer eating compulsively (and overweight), and I no longer dread waking up in the morning--but I've also been homeless for 18 months and, before becoming homeless, had fewer than five responses to over one thousand resumes sent out over the course of six/eight months prior to becoming homeless.
And I don't respond well to insults, questions of ability, yelling, or last-minute-emergencies-that-could-have-been-preve nted. Working as a research associate for Abbott Labs, or as a research scientist for Battelle, those things weren't explicitly stated in the job description but, when I took your approach ("Hey, I don't respond well to insults, questions of ability, or yelling") then it was I who was written up as argumentative, insubordinate, and not a team player with the generic excuse of "sh_t rolls downhill--we're the management, you're the employee". When things got too bad, and I began making plans and pursuing options to leave, then my HR file was maliciously stacked such that nobody else in the industry will hire me. Now I'm homeless and have been homeless for the last 18 months.
Didn't Germany recently pass a law banning most "hacking" tools, and by extension, most tools that can be used to detect and defeat hacking? And if so, could these be related? If the government can perform drive-by rootkit installation via e-mail then what is to ensure that the trojan won't be found and exploited by someone other than the government? If all exploit code and rootkit/trojan/remoate administration software is made illegal then only the government will be able to use them. Liability has never been a government concern.
a centralized API would make it far too easy for stalkers Red, you know you're drooling at the thought... and it's ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!!!!!!!1111oneoneoneone111!!!!OMG!
We're all a bunch of fucking pussies and that's what's scary. And the alternative is what? Everyone could end up like me: homeless and monitored post-per-post by slavering account farming trolls demanding "where's the evidence" and screaming "conspiracy theorist" for any statement they make?
All of the talk, the rhetoric, the grand speeches, and the good will in the world is meaningless against the power of the purse strings. As a total population we have no control left over government taxation and spending.
Even if they had ignored his bullshit, he would have just passed an Executive Order stating he could do it anyway That's the bottom line of it all: "Even if they had... he would have just... anyway." That's what happens when the whole of the population is maintained in inescapable debt. The entire nation was reduced, financially, to slave status about a century ago. It's much too late now to expect that people do anything but try to live their lives in a manner which is most comfortable for them. Some people manage to work their way into positions of greater or lesser privelege. That's about the best they can hope for.
Even if everyone would write in "Donald Duck" for every election from today forward, the politicians would just resume their own offices and collect their usual taxes and boondoggle and pork-barrel their friends and business associates anyway. It's one big useless show created to hide the reality that America is a classist nation, it is a plutocracy, and we do have a caste system which is every bit as rigid as anything ever imagined in any other nation.
I'm probably preaching to the choir, too. Mostly I just don't want to be homeless anymore but neither am I going to acquiesce to being shoveled back into the animal farm.
You've pointed out the 50/50 side in an equal world. In the real world, however, all of that is trumped if you're a mid-to-high ranking government or business official (and there's no current PR need for a scapegoat), or if you're one of the guys who has direct access to the database, or you work in a capacity where you can disable the monitor for periods of time, or if you're financially connected to the any of the aforementioned people.
Same arbitrary and selective enforcement with a whole new set of weapons to use against the hapless general population.
We'll let China start this one so that they can work out hte bugs in the software exploits, hardware exploits, and social engineering exploits. Then we can deploy it here in the States in the next five to ten years or so. We don't have to worry about the social engineering exploits, though, because we have this system called "security clearance" here in the US which absolutely prevents any undesirable character from ever gaining any sort of priveleged access to government resources on individual citizens.
residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens. Gosh. Good thing they don't tell us which company that will be. We'll likely find out that, through whatever business alliances they have, their executives and board members are probably also major shareholders in IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Pfizer, the Dow, GM, Goldman-Sachs, and Shell Oil. I'd love to be one of the guys who gets in on the priveleged stock offerings which will roll out due to this multi-billion dollar "monitor the world" contract.
"We have a very good relationship with U.S. companies like IBM, Cisco, H.P., Dell," said Robin Huang, the chief operating officer of China Public Security. "All of these U.S. companies work with us to build our system together." HA! Good thing I RTFA this time!
small startups like Apple wouldn't have made it. Since you're the expert maybe you would like to tell everyone who provided the venture capital for Apple's first production run, who insured the facility, who paid the lease, and who covered the advances for the payroll for the workers.
if you knew even the basic history of computing you'd know it did "just happen" Each day that I realize that you are a troll who, for whatever reason, has latched onto me specifically to the exclusion of everyone else you become more and more amusing.
The big corporations came in after the boom had already started. Since you're so intelligent maybe you could tell us when the 'boom' started. Then maybe you could tell us when the big corporations began.
No one mods the ACs that respond to you as trolls because Because, even if someone would successfully ban your IP block, you'd just go find another proxy, or another VPN, or another anonymizing network to post from.
Would someone mod the AC a troll for once?
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Well, if you're so intelligent, perhaps you could tell us where billions of dollars came from to build the infrastructure, create the startups, and pay for the advertising which led to the tech boom. It didn't "just happen". There hasn't been a single instance of a business sector event "just happening" since the stock market was created.
In my first post in this thread I pointed out that the government had little to do with Microsoft's startup. The original point of contention was that Microsoft single-handedly started the tech boom. The funding for the tech boom came from government grants and stock market manipulations.
You're such an amusing little creature. If I could keep you as my own personal gimp I would.
It's simple: something that works and is beneficial always catches on. Which in no way illustrates that the personal computer worked or was beneficial for the general population and is two of your troll-steps away from the original point of contention which was that Microsoft single-handedly created the tech boom.
You never were good at sticking to the original topic; instead preferring to degenerate quickly into personal attacks against me, rants of "conspiracy theory", shouts of "you don't know what you're talking about", disconnected assertions, and relying on mods who are educated in mediocrity or too young to know the difference.
The government had little to do with Microsoft's startup Microsoft's startup had little to do with the sudden popularity of Windows or the enormous need of every consumer to have a personal computer.
You're losing your trolling touch, AC.
Re:Beginning of the end?
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Windows caught on and created the tech boom almost single-handedly That was the sudden influx of suddenly massively popular 401(k) funds into the tech market via government handouts and decisions made by top-level investing groups. It had little or nothing to do with Windows catching on. In truth Windows never would have caught on if the startup capital hadn't been squeezed out of the population to begin with and the advertising markets primed the consumers into the "everyone should have a computer" frenzy.
The average American consumer paid for the startup capital, they paid for the products, they paid for the upgrades, they pay for the services, they pay for online subscriptions, they continue to invest money in the technology companies... and the only people who made a dime off the whole thing are the couple thousand of new millionaires on the west coast. The rest of the nation has promises of retirement plans, a three ring binder they call a stock portfolio, longer mortgages, lower insurance coverage, higher insurance premiums, and more taxes to pay.
Someone else causing great harm to others is no excuse to maim my career for having a few beers.
Guilt by association never has and never will be a valid legal premise. What you've written is a treatise which attempts to justify guilt by association. "Those people over there did XYZ after doing ABC. You did ABC, therefore you'll probably do XYZ, and therefore you should be treated as a felon."
There's something seriously imbalanced in your perception of Crime and Punishment.
However, when running a typical IR spec, how much do these things affect the absorbance? The same sample run in the same infrared spectrophotometer a mere five minutes apart can have an ~3000 cm^(-1) absorbance peak area which varies at least 20%. I'm not saying this is normal. Normal variance for this peak, for the exact same sample at five minute intervals is, in my experience, around 10%. The same sample analyzed a day apart will be, honestly, unpredictable. Calibration based on this peak is scientifically impossible if one truly desires at least two significant digit precision.
The human body would actually provide quite a controlled environment (36 to 38 degrees, high humidity) for measurement. Since the humidity of the calibration sample cannot possibly be tuned to match the humidity from the suspect human's lungs this is an enormous factor. Water vapor plays a huge part in the size and shape of the ~3000 cm^(-1) peak.
Keep in mind, though, that the Intoxilyzer in question works on two lines. ~3000 and ~1650. There is one calibration line for each of these, but the calibration curve is a single point curve: origin and set calibration point. That's hardly acceptable for readings with two significant digits. On top of that many intoxilyzers add an electrochemical detector which works on any primary or secondary alcohol and possibly some aldehydes, depending upon ambient temperature and humidity. So what you have are two very poorly tuned calibration curves and an electrochemical cell reading--those _THREE_ readings are then fed into an internal algorithm to produce the final reading.
Imagine buying two low quality current meters, one from your hardware store, one from Radio Shack (choose their cheapest model), and then making your own using parts (resistors and capacitors) that you bought from a mail order catalog. Now use all three of those to measure the current on a particular trace on your motherboard. Now average all three of those readings together so that it fits the mobo manufacturer's spec of "+3.2V".
Now add in the fact that the line at 3000 is affected by water, primary alcohols, secondary alcohols, tertiary alcohols, and 1',2',and 3' amines. There's _NO_ specificity. There's no way of showing that any given signal was solely ethanol, or if it was 1:1 ethanol/ethyl amine, or if it was 1:1:10:20:40 ethanol:ethyl amine:cologne:your wife's perfume:rubber cement from the trooper's thumb.
Now add in the fact that the line at ~1650 is affected by primary alcohols, _all_ aldehydes, and _all_ ketones. The same "how much of the signal is really JUST from ethyl alcohol" applies.
Now add in the fact that the EC current reading is from any reducible organic which flows over it. Theoretically the EC is somewhat alcohol specific but double bonds and amines will probably contribute to the current reading.
Now factor in that BAC is only empirically related to breath alcohol level and the ratios change given any individual's particular body chemistry.
Now factor in that the source code for the instrument has to take all of these measurements of dubious quality and spit out one single number.
Garbage in, garbage out.
The proof is in the data -- none of us can say that the presence of acetone would do this without trying it, and I acknowledge the improbable possibility. A former co-worker was a state trooper for a while. He exposed to me just how much the officers know how to manipulate the tests. His quote was,"You'd be surprised what you can find in the lunchroom refrigerator whose vapors will be over the legal limit."
You've presented a horribly simplified edition of the actual science which lends itself to dismissing the issue. While acetone itself will not produce a false positive, the presence of acetone in the test will artificially inflate any reading which is picked up from any alcohol. So, for example, if you had one beer and are hyperketotic, it will look like you had six beers. If you had no beers, but the arresting officer coats the intake tube with a little bit of non-acetone fingernail polish remover, you're now over the legal limit.
Have you ever seen the ~3000 cm^(-1) peak on an IR instrument? It's a _HILL_. It's not a single line peak. The size of that hill is known to chemists to vary based on ambient temperature, humidity, air composition (high/low oxygen/nitrogen/CO2), concentration of the sample, and even, when all of those factors are well-controlled, variances from one experiment to the next are still observed.
what the fuck is the source code going to show?...I mean, it's a simple num>X check You missed the part of significant figures in high school math class. You can't determine two significant figures from a test procedure which can barely assure one.
You also missed the part about IR spectroscopy in chemistry. The wavelengths used, ~3000 cm^(-1) and ~1600 cm^(-1), are neither selective for ethanol (apart from other alcohols, ketones, and aldehydes) nor are they particularly quantifiable. Even FT instruments can only give one or two sig figs on concentrations and that only when all experimental parameters are tightly controlled.
Yes, the introxilyzer will tell you "yes" or "no", but it really can't tell you if "yes" means 0.06 vs. 0.26, and it sure as heck has no way of knowing if "yes" is ethanol or if "yes" is your cologne.
A former coworker of mine was a state trooper. He told us stories of how they used to test anything and everything in those things to see what would produce false positives. The inference was that, if they pulled over a guy who smelled like beer but was doing okay on the field tests, they'd give him a DNF, put a little bit of a foreign substance on their fingertip, and rub their fingertip over the intake tube before putting the mouthpiece on. Some of their DUI defendants would mention that something tasted funny in the mouthpiece, but that's probably just leftover from the packaging *wink* *wink*.
Slashdot Mirror
As God looks down on the angry and embittered atheists and unfaithful and sends them even more life...
So I look down on you.
And I laugh.
Meanwhile the citizens of this fine city donate, annually, tens of millions to helping "disadvantaged" people that they've never met and, even if they are successfully prevented from starving to death, will probably never contribute anything back to this community.
One might speculate that, in the kernel of social behavior, constant cell phone use is the most poorly written anti-virus software available. You think you're staying in touch and up to date when, in reality, you're just opening yourself up to clique farmers.
Don't use CVS!
I, on the other hand, think all of these are subsidiary monopolies. If I were really to think about it, and I really wanted to control everything that goes on beneath my gaze, I would want on a monopoly on the money that everything else (from oil, to automobiles, to lumber, to paper, to railroads, to mouse clicks) must use in order to be deemed legitimate.
Good thing the US government has protected us from such a top level monopoly. Even though it's a private collective it still has a
I'm not saying that I disagree with you. I no longer have two ulcers, I'm not longer eating compulsively (and overweight), and I no longer dread waking up in the morning--but I've also been homeless for 18 months and, before becoming homeless, had fewer than five responses to over one thousand resumes sent out over the course of six/eight months prior to becoming homeless.
I hope it works out better for you.
Cue the AC trolls ranting "where's the evidence!" and "conspiracy theory!"
You're absolutely HILARIOUS!!!!1111oneoneoneoneZPMG!!!111oneoneZOMGH ILaRIOUS!!!!!ZOMG!!!oneoneone
All of the talk, the rhetoric, the grand speeches, and the good will in the world is meaningless against the power of the purse strings. As a total population we have no control left over government taxation and spending. Even if they had ignored his bullshit, he would have just passed an Executive Order stating he could do it anyway That's the bottom line of it all: "Even if they had... he would have just... anyway." That's what happens when the whole of the population is maintained in inescapable debt. The entire nation was reduced, financially, to slave status about a century ago. It's much too late now to expect that people do anything but try to live their lives in a manner which is most comfortable for them. Some people manage to work their way into positions of greater or lesser privelege. That's about the best they can hope for.
Even if everyone would write in "Donald Duck" for every election from today forward, the politicians would just resume their own offices and collect their usual taxes and boondoggle and pork-barrel their friends and business associates anyway. It's one big useless show created to hide the reality that America is a classist nation, it is a plutocracy, and we do have a caste system which is every bit as rigid as anything ever imagined in any other nation.
I'm probably preaching to the choir, too. Mostly I just don't want to be homeless anymore but neither am I going to acquiesce to being shoveled back into the animal farm.
You've pointed out the 50/50 side in an equal world. In the real world, however, all of that is trumped if you're a mid-to-high ranking government or business official (and there's no current PR need for a scapegoat), or if you're one of the guys who has direct access to the database, or you work in a capacity where you can disable the monitor for periods of time, or if you're financially connected to the any of the aforementioned people.
Same arbitrary and selective enforcement with a whole new set of weapons to use against the hapless general population.
HA-HA!
Well, if you're so intelligent, perhaps you could tell us where billions of dollars came from to build the infrastructure, create the startups, and pay for the advertising which led to the tech boom. It didn't "just happen". There hasn't been a single instance of a business sector event "just happening" since the stock market was created.
You never were good at sticking to the original topic; instead preferring to degenerate quickly into personal attacks against me, rants of "conspiracy theory", shouts of "you don't know what you're talking about", disconnected assertions, and relying on mods who are educated in mediocrity or too young to know the difference.
You're losing your trolling touch, AC.
The average American consumer paid for the startup capital, they paid for the products, they paid for the upgrades, they pay for the services, they pay for online subscriptions, they continue to invest money in the technology companies... and the only people who made a dime off the whole thing are the couple thousand of new millionaires on the west coast. The rest of the nation has promises of retirement plans, a three ring binder they call a stock portfolio, longer mortgages, lower insurance coverage, higher insurance premiums, and more taxes to pay.
Someone else causing great harm to others is no excuse to maim my career for having a few beers.
Guilt by association never has and never will be a valid legal premise. What you've written is a treatise which attempts to justify guilt by association. "Those people over there did XYZ after doing ABC. You did ABC, therefore you'll probably do XYZ, and therefore you should be treated as a felon."
There's something seriously imbalanced in your perception of Crime and Punishment.
Keep in mind, though, that the Intoxilyzer in question works on two lines. ~3000 and ~1650. There is one calibration line for each of these, but the calibration curve is a single point curve: origin and set calibration point. That's hardly acceptable for readings with two significant digits. On top of that many intoxilyzers add an electrochemical detector which works on any primary or secondary alcohol and possibly some aldehydes, depending upon ambient temperature and humidity. So what you have are two very poorly tuned calibration curves and an electrochemical cell reading--those _THREE_ readings are then fed into an internal algorithm to produce the final reading.
Imagine buying two low quality current meters, one from your hardware store, one from Radio Shack (choose their cheapest model), and then making your own using parts (resistors and capacitors) that you bought from a mail order catalog. Now use all three of those to measure the current on a particular trace on your motherboard. Now average all three of those readings together so that it fits the mobo manufacturer's spec of "+3.2V".
Now add in the fact that the line at 3000 is affected by water, primary alcohols, secondary alcohols, tertiary alcohols, and 1',2',and 3' amines. There's _NO_ specificity. There's no way of showing that any given signal was solely ethanol, or if it was 1:1 ethanol/ethyl amine, or if it was 1:1:10:20:40 ethanol:ethyl amine:cologne:your wife's perfume:rubber cement from the trooper's thumb.
Now add in the fact that the line at ~1650 is affected by primary alcohols, _all_ aldehydes, and _all_ ketones. The same "how much of the signal is really JUST from ethyl alcohol" applies.
Now add in the fact that the EC current reading is from any reducible organic which flows over it. Theoretically the EC is somewhat alcohol specific but double bonds and amines will probably contribute to the current reading.
Now factor in that BAC is only empirically related to breath alcohol level and the ratios change given any individual's particular body chemistry.
Now factor in that the source code for the instrument has to take all of these measurements of dubious quality and spit out one single number.
Garbage in, garbage out. The proof is in the data -- none of us can say that the presence of acetone would do this without trying it, and I acknowledge the improbable possibility. A former co-worker was a state trooper for a while. He exposed to me just how much the officers know how to manipulate the tests. His quote was,"You'd be surprised what you can find in the lunchroom refrigerator whose vapors will be over the legal limit."
You've presented a horribly simplified edition of the actual science which lends itself to dismissing the issue. While acetone itself will not produce a false positive, the presence of acetone in the test will artificially inflate any reading which is picked up from any alcohol. So, for example, if you had one beer and are hyperketotic, it will look like you had six beers. If you had no beers, but the arresting officer coats the intake tube with a little bit of non-acetone fingernail polish remover, you're now over the legal limit.
Have you ever seen the ~3000 cm^(-1) peak on an IR instrument? It's a _HILL_. It's not a single line peak. The size of that hill is known to chemists to vary based on ambient temperature, humidity, air composition (high/low oxygen/nitrogen/CO2), concentration of the sample, and even, when all of those factors are well-controlled, variances from one experiment to the next are still observed.
You also missed the part about IR spectroscopy in chemistry. The wavelengths used, ~3000 cm^(-1) and ~1600 cm^(-1), are neither selective for ethanol (apart from other alcohols, ketones, and aldehydes) nor are they particularly quantifiable. Even FT instruments can only give one or two sig figs on concentrations and that only when all experimental parameters are tightly controlled.
Yes, the introxilyzer will tell you "yes" or "no", but it really can't tell you if "yes" means 0.06 vs. 0.26, and it sure as heck has no way of knowing if "yes" is ethanol or if "yes" is your cologne.
A former coworker of mine was a state trooper. He told us stories of how they used to test anything and everything in those things to see what would produce false positives. The inference was that, if they pulled over a guy who smelled like beer but was doing okay on the field tests, they'd give him a DNF, put a little bit of a foreign substance on their fingertip, and rub their fingertip over the intake tube before putting the mouthpiece on. Some of their DUI defendants would mention that something tasted funny in the mouthpiece, but that's probably just leftover from the packaging *wink* *wink*.