There are secret documents that are secret just because that's how the bureaucracy is, some that are secret because someone doesn't want to be embarrassed, and some that are secret because they legitimately should be secret. If the government opts for transparency so only the truly justified documents remain secret, any further leaks will be truly damaging. It might be in their best interest to keep somewhat of a buffer of secret-but-leakable documents.
Now, this is a somewhat dubious argument, as you wouldn't expect those leaking to discriminate as to which documents they should leak. The best justification I can come up with is that you give people with a tendency to leak documents a chance to expose themselves with a less-damaging leak before they get to a clearance with the justifiably secret stuff.
Try reading some of the summaries offered on Wikileaks (not accessible at the moment, I can only get to the new Iraq stuff). If you think those summaries are unbiased...
Given the message most people get from wikileaks is basically what their summaries say, yes biased summaries are a big deal. If you want to argue the facts will speak for themselves, go ask people about "Climategate".
Ask a someone with a basic understanding of physics if two cars at a 5MPH relative velocity can collide safely, and they would say yes. But ask that same person what to do about a pickup doing 40MPH with a passed out driver, and they'd say "call 911". You need the problem solving instinct of an engineer to know calling 911 won't help, and then to trust your knowledge of physics well enough to let that pickup hit you. Even if someone did figure out they should stop the pickup themselves, they would likely do so by trying to run it off the road, or slam into it- again it takes an engineering state of mind to come up with an optimal solution that puts no one at harm, all within a few seconds. Now, an engineering degree isn't required, but you need to know enough to be able to think like one*.
*Of course, prior training works too. For example, police should know how to do what this engineer did- I recall reading a police officer did something similar to stop a "runaway Prius" (I'm not looking to start a debate over the cause of that problem).
Assuming your kids aren't riding in the trunk, the people in the car really shouldn't be put in harm by doing this. As the engineer said, he let the pickup hit his car at a low relative speed (the article doesn't mention airbags, but they might not have deployed). Cars can brake far stronger than they can accelerate, so once the cars are in contact you can do a controlled stop without a problem. I assume he had a nice minivan (at least for safety and braking)- he should have decent pay in his position- so the only other risk would be from other drivers. Given how the pickup had yet to hit anyone, I assume that wasn't much of an issue either.
Even if the people in the car were put in harm's way, it would most likely be far less danger than what could have happened if this pickup made it to the intersection. Given we would now be talking side-on collisions, if the pickup hit a passenger door with a kid on the other side...
How did they manage to build it by 2500 BC? I usually don't manage to finish it until 2000BC... they must have had a nearby source of marble I wasn't aware of.
At the very least, they should add a "revert to old comment style" link somewhere obvious (like just before the comments on each story)... as long as showing us the new style is quick and painless I won't complain (I'll have to settle for grumbling on this one).
Packets already have priority flags- I expect it would be within net neutrality* for ISPs to have a minimum guaranteed low-latency bandwidth (say 128kb for a nominally 1Mb connection). By letting priority be defined by the user (or the content), the ISP stays neutral, and the ISP could still reasonably guarantee your high priority packets get through (at the expense of your neighbor's low-priority or over-demanded high priority porn packets, after he gets his 128kb).
I understand the concern for VOIP- you have a legitimate argument for the need for traffic shaping. The problem of using it to argue against net neutrality is that you ignore all the problems that can arise without net neutrality: ISPs can throttle VOIP (many ISPs offer phone services), they can throttle video streaming (some ISPs offer cable services)- in general they can throttle to "improve" service in lieu of upgrading the pipes. You also allow ISPs to put websites into priority tiers based on which websites are willing to pay, and then charge users along similar lines (like cable channel packages).
I'm already not certain I can trust the government to do a good job properly defining net neutrality (I'm confident I trust them more than ISPs)- I have zero trust the government could properly deal with all of the above issues separately, especially considering how laws that get specific on technical issues can age quickly. With NN all you need is better-enforced QoS (something ISPs avoid with anti-net-neutrality red herrings).
In short, your comment sounded backward to me as I immediately thought "If NN doesn't pass, I hope the ISP's make people choke on it. "You don't want Net Neutrality? OK, asshole, here you go. Have fun.". Although I don't fully intend the harsh language, I do think you need to better consider the repercussions of letting the ISPs do as they wish. Of course, if you're convinced things will still work out fine without NN regulation, we probably won't agree until hindsight gives us the answer.
You're off in your understanding of net neutrality. Neutrality in a nutshell means "all packets are created equal". Neutrality is being violated if the ISP sees that you are streaming video and throttles that. Neutrality is not being violated if the ISP has a policy to throttle your connection if you exceed 2GB in 24 hours (or whatever content-neutral usage policy). ISPs love to conflate neutrality and "breaking the internets" as a scare tactic- they really have nothing to do with each other.
My internet connection here at school determines my bandwidth based on my data usage in the last 36 hours, with 3 tiers (unlimited, 512k, 128k). I would be perfectly happy to sign up for a similar plan through an ISP if it is reasonably priced and reliable. We can have net neutrality, reasonable usage plans and reliable connections without unreasonable strain on capacity- all while ISPs earn a profit- but ISPs are happier with their secure monopolies and will never change until the government tells them to or breaks the monopoly.
That's not sarcasm- that's what's on the script congressmen will read, as provided by the ISPs, and the conversation will end there so you can't ask about the availability of alternate providers. This isn't speculation- when I wrote to my congresswoman her reply basically boiled down to what you said.
... Or he likes to be in control. A lot of people don't really want money- they want the power that goes with it. I'm sure Zuckerberg is telling the truth when he says he likes building things- he's building himself an online kingdom.
Some people are saying Zuckerberg might be an okay guy just based on the idea that he built facebook for the love of it. But, you still need to make the distinction whether he built the "useful for social interaction" Facebook for the love of it, or the "useful for data mining" Facebook for the love of it. Sure, he couldn't have known enough to have built the "worth $billions" Facebook from the start, but he knew from the start he'd be a man with control.
NB: I'm not so much trying to bash Zuckerberg as simply make the observation that there are people solely motivated by power and Zuckerberg sounds like he fits that profile pretty well. Being considered a negative personality type, it comes across as bashing regardless.
I agree with the GP, and I didn't think he was talking about command lines. There have been countless times I fight with Word or other MS Office programs thanks to their ever-"improved" auto-correct and auto-format, and these issues become more common with each new version. A word processor doesn't need much processing power, so they apparently decide they need to add to the program to make up for that, only to make things worse.
While some changes are useful (the ribbon is a good idea, although the lock-in and lack of customizing isn't), they are usually changes in design- independent of processing power.
the group built a small prototype [...] the prototype is capable of producing 80 gallons of water a day [...] They estimate that a larger version of the unit, which would cost about $8,000 to construct, could provide about 1,000 gallons of water per day.
So based on your metric this supplies drinking water for over 1000 people. Still need a lot of these for bigger disasters, but $8/person isn't too bad.
No, the antibiotics would just mean Darth Vader would catch autism, which would have questionable effects on his evilness. Bacteria has nothing to do with it- the problem obviously lies with his thetans (so pay up!).
To be fair, if your oppressive government uses the software piracy pretext, "we use Linux" probably won't stop them from raiding the place (it would be treated the same as "but we paid for Windows"). Removing the pretext by making piracy a non-issue actually has some effect (how much of an effect depends on how much the government cares about having a plausible excuse). Yes, if everyone used Linux piracy would also be a non-issue, but unfortunately that isn't a realistic expectation.
No, they think they still have lots of users. The cancellation department is separate from HQ- at 56k it's still going to be a few decades before the suits finish receiving all the cancellation notices.
Speaking of the apocalypse:
Of course doomsday predictions are always for a future date. It would be much more interesting if someone figured out a doomsday prediction for a date 3 years past. That would mean someone has to make a time machine to go back and warn them that the world is about to end. Knowing the world didn't end we could be certain that we will succeed in the time-travel mission.
This of course means that when the world does end it isn't our fault- it's the fault of the people from the future failing to post-predict the apocalypse and make a time machine to stop it.
The actual Microsoft report has a map that is far more informative than the article itself. As expected, Brazil has a higher infection rate than the US, with the US only leading by gross number of infections. Of course, this data is just number of infections detected and cleaned- it isn't necessarily a complete survey. From the site where the map is given:
Figure 15 [the map] shows the infection rates in locations around the world using a metric called computers cleaned per thousand, or CCM, which represents the number of reported computers cleaned for every 1,000 executions of the MSRT.
The actual site is here if you want to get straight to the information (link is also given in the article).
Let's take the summary (copy+pasted from the article) and summarize each sentence (compare to the summary if you think I exaggerate):
Spammers are using the soft hyphen. Spammers are using the soft hyphen....Spammers are using the soft hyphen. "Spammers are using the soft hyphen."
Yes, each sentence says a little bit more, but it still repeats the same fact over and over. I usually don't complain about slashdot summaries, but this was honestly painful to read. Just because you copy+pasted what TFA says doesn't mean it's okay.
Slashdot Mirror
There are secret documents that are secret just because that's how the bureaucracy is, some that are secret because someone doesn't want to be embarrassed, and some that are secret because they legitimately should be secret. If the government opts for transparency so only the truly justified documents remain secret, any further leaks will be truly damaging. It might be in their best interest to keep somewhat of a buffer of secret-but-leakable documents.
Now, this is a somewhat dubious argument, as you wouldn't expect those leaking to discriminate as to which documents they should leak. The best justification I can come up with is that you give people with a tendency to leak documents a chance to expose themselves with a less-damaging leak before they get to a clearance with the justifiably secret stuff.
Just trying to play devil's advocate here...
Try reading some of the summaries offered on Wikileaks (not accessible at the moment, I can only get to the new Iraq stuff). If you think those summaries are unbiased...
Given the message most people get from wikileaks is basically what their summaries say, yes biased summaries are a big deal. If you want to argue the facts will speak for themselves, go ask people about "Climategate".
Ask a someone with a basic understanding of physics if two cars at a 5MPH relative velocity can collide safely, and they would say yes. But ask that same person what to do about a pickup doing 40MPH with a passed out driver, and they'd say "call 911". You need the problem solving instinct of an engineer to know calling 911 won't help, and then to trust your knowledge of physics well enough to let that pickup hit you. Even if someone did figure out they should stop the pickup themselves, they would likely do so by trying to run it off the road, or slam into it- again it takes an engineering state of mind to come up with an optimal solution that puts no one at harm, all within a few seconds. Now, an engineering degree isn't required, but you need to know enough to be able to think like one*.
*Of course, prior training works too. For example, police should know how to do what this engineer did- I recall reading a police officer did something similar to stop a "runaway Prius" (I'm not looking to start a debate over the cause of that problem).
Assuming your kids aren't riding in the trunk, the people in the car really shouldn't be put in harm by doing this. As the engineer said, he let the pickup hit his car at a low relative speed (the article doesn't mention airbags, but they might not have deployed). Cars can brake far stronger than they can accelerate, so once the cars are in contact you can do a controlled stop without a problem. I assume he had a nice minivan (at least for safety and braking)- he should have decent pay in his position- so the only other risk would be from other drivers. Given how the pickup had yet to hit anyone, I assume that wasn't much of an issue either.
Even if the people in the car were put in harm's way, it would most likely be far less danger than what could have happened if this pickup made it to the intersection. Given we would now be talking side-on collisions, if the pickup hit a passenger door with a kid on the other side...
How did they manage to build it by 2500 BC? I usually don't manage to finish it until 2000BC... they must have had a nearby source of marble I wasn't aware of.
My guess is Stonehenge told these guys that it is offended by people taking pictures, given how broad British libel laws are.
Kill two birds with one stone and play the drums with the flags- it should double your bandwidth.
No need for a battery- just get yourself a kite and a really big capacitor.
If that happens, it would only take a few days before goatse becomes illegal... there might be some benefit to this!
At the very least, they should add a "revert to old comment style" link somewhere obvious (like just before the comments on each story)... as long as showing us the new style is quick and painless I won't complain (I'll have to settle for grumbling on this one).
Packets already have priority flags- I expect it would be within net neutrality* for ISPs to have a minimum guaranteed low-latency bandwidth (say 128kb for a nominally 1Mb connection). By letting priority be defined by the user (or the content), the ISP stays neutral, and the ISP could still reasonably guarantee your high priority packets get through (at the expense of your neighbor's low-priority or over-demanded high priority porn packets, after he gets his 128kb).
I understand the concern for VOIP- you have a legitimate argument for the need for traffic shaping. The problem of using it to argue against net neutrality is that you ignore all the problems that can arise without net neutrality: ISPs can throttle VOIP (many ISPs offer phone services), they can throttle video streaming (some ISPs offer cable services)- in general they can throttle to "improve" service in lieu of upgrading the pipes. You also allow ISPs to put websites into priority tiers based on which websites are willing to pay, and then charge users along similar lines (like cable channel packages).
I'm already not certain I can trust the government to do a good job properly defining net neutrality (I'm confident I trust them more than ISPs)- I have zero trust the government could properly deal with all of the above issues separately, especially considering how laws that get specific on technical issues can age quickly. With NN all you need is better-enforced QoS (something ISPs avoid with anti-net-neutrality red herrings).
In short, your comment sounded backward to me as I immediately thought "If NN doesn't pass, I hope the ISP's make people choke on it. "You don't want Net Neutrality? OK, asshole, here you go. Have fun.". Although I don't fully intend the harsh language, I do think you need to better consider the repercussions of letting the ISPs do as they wish. Of course, if you're convinced things will still work out fine without NN regulation, we probably won't agree until hindsight gives us the answer.
*I'm not certain, someone correct me as needed.
You're off in your understanding of net neutrality. Neutrality in a nutshell means "all packets are created equal". Neutrality is being violated if the ISP sees that you are streaming video and throttles that. Neutrality is not being violated if the ISP has a policy to throttle your connection if you exceed 2GB in 24 hours (or whatever content-neutral usage policy). ISPs love to conflate neutrality and "breaking the internets" as a scare tactic- they really have nothing to do with each other.
My internet connection here at school determines my bandwidth based on my data usage in the last 36 hours, with 3 tiers (unlimited, 512k, 128k). I would be perfectly happy to sign up for a similar plan through an ISP if it is reasonably priced and reliable. We can have net neutrality, reasonable usage plans and reliable connections without unreasonable strain on capacity- all while ISPs earn a profit- but ISPs are happier with their secure monopolies and will never change until the government tells them to or breaks the monopoly.
That's not sarcasm- that's what's on the script congressmen will read, as provided by the ISPs, and the conversation will end there so you can't ask about the availability of alternate providers. This isn't speculation- when I wrote to my congresswoman her reply basically boiled down to what you said.
... Or he likes to be in control. A lot of people don't really want money- they want the power that goes with it. I'm sure Zuckerberg is telling the truth when he says he likes building things- he's building himself an online kingdom.
Some people are saying Zuckerberg might be an okay guy just based on the idea that he built facebook for the love of it. But, you still need to make the distinction whether he built the "useful for social interaction" Facebook for the love of it, or the "useful for data mining" Facebook for the love of it. Sure, he couldn't have known enough to have built the "worth $billions" Facebook from the start, but he knew from the start he'd be a man with control.
NB: I'm not so much trying to bash Zuckerberg as simply make the observation that there are people solely motivated by power and Zuckerberg sounds like he fits that profile pretty well. Being considered a negative personality type, it comes across as bashing regardless.
I agree with the GP, and I didn't think he was talking about command lines. There have been countless times I fight with Word or other MS Office programs thanks to their ever-"improved" auto-correct and auto-format, and these issues become more common with each new version. A word processor doesn't need much processing power, so they apparently decide they need to add to the program to make up for that, only to make things worse.
While some changes are useful (the ribbon is a good idea, although the lock-in and lack of customizing isn't), they are usually changes in design- independent of processing power.
the group built a small prototype [...] the prototype is capable of producing 80 gallons of water a day [...] They estimate that a larger version of the unit, which would cost about $8,000 to construct, could provide about 1,000 gallons of water per day.
So based on your metric this supplies drinking water for over 1000 people. Still need a lot of these for bigger disasters, but $8/person isn't too bad.
No, the antibiotics would just mean Darth Vader would catch autism, which would have questionable effects on his evilness. Bacteria has nothing to do with it- the problem obviously lies with his thetans (so pay up!).
To be fair, if your oppressive government uses the software piracy pretext, "we use Linux" probably won't stop them from raiding the place (it would be treated the same as "but we paid for Windows"). Removing the pretext by making piracy a non-issue actually has some effect (how much of an effect depends on how much the government cares about having a plausible excuse). Yes, if everyone used Linux piracy would also be a non-issue, but unfortunately that isn't a realistic expectation.
No, they think they still have lots of users. The cancellation department is separate from HQ- at 56k it's still going to be a few decades before the suits finish receiving all the cancellation notices.
Speaking of the apocalypse: Of course doomsday predictions are always for a future date. It would be much more interesting if someone figured out a doomsday prediction for a date 3 years past. That would mean someone has to make a time machine to go back and warn them that the world is about to end. Knowing the world didn't end we could be certain that we will succeed in the time-travel mission.
This of course means that when the world does end it isn't our fault- it's the fault of the people from the future failing to post-predict the apocalypse and make a time machine to stop it.
Figure 15 [the map] shows the infection rates in locations around the world using a metric called computers cleaned per thousand, or CCM, which represents the number of reported computers cleaned for every 1,000 executions of the MSRT.
The actual site is here if you want to get straight to the information (link is also given in the article).
So when people go online, the ISP should pop up a EULA saying you can only use the internet for legal activity. Problem solved.
Spammers are using the soft hyphen. Spammers are using the soft hyphen. ...Spammers are using the soft hyphen. "Spammers are using the soft hyphen."
Yes, each sentence says a little bit more, but it still repeats the same fact over and over. I usually don't complain about slashdot summaries, but this was honestly painful to read. Just because you copy+pasted what TFA says doesn't mean it's okay.
kudos to A.C. Clarke for the reference.
How dare you call Clarke an anonymous coward!
Er if the laptop is on idle it probably isn't hot enough to cause the problem. I think you're missing the point here...