What's the alternative? the knowledge that is the cornerstone of modern physics, knowledge that has been tested time and time again and found true, is upturned by one experiment? Sorry, my money's on a measurement error.
This isn't a fundamental difference between macroscopic and microscopic; what it boils down to is human perception. We exist in the macroscopic world, so we perceive things thusly. Quantum "weirdness" doesn't just happen on the microscopic scale, but the odds of a quantum event being observed macroscopically would equal the odds of the same quantum event happening simultaneously to every particle of a macroscopic object (quantum tunneling is the event that comes immediately to mind). The world doesn't change just because we're in it, regardless of what new-age pseudo-scientists would have you believe.
Some people are willing to shell out more money for a faster processor, while other people are not. It costs more to produce genuinely different CPU's than to just cripple one CPU, so the idea is that they make a large profit from the people who will pay for the faster CPU, and a lower profit from those who won't.
If the connection was routed solely inside of the United States, I would say you're right; however, the connections are routed around the world, and would require the concerted efforts of several countries to even begin to trace the origin. Even if they do monitor every packet going across a backbone provider in the U.S., TOR packets are encrypted. The NSA may well have technology to crack encryption that we don't know about, but unless you've seriously pissed somebody high up off, I doubt you have anything to worry about.
While what you say about IP addresses being included in every packet is true, it's possible to mask your identity by going through proxies. If I, for example, use TOR, my connection can be routed all over the world before reaching my final destination; this makes it at the very least impractical, and most of the time outright impossible, to trace the origin. Anonymity is possible on the internet if you have the right tools and the intelligence to use them properly.
Statistics show this to be the opposite. People with lower income (and thus having a lower tax burden) tend to reproduce more than those more well off. Moreover, people with a lower income are more likely to gamble away what little they have (high rollers are a minority). Online poker has lower buy-ins than brick and mortar card rooms, making it even more likely that lower income populations will play. I am a firm believer in personal responsibility, so I don't believe that online poker should be banned for this reason; however, it should be regulated to prevent money from funneling to unsavory endeavors (terrorism, human trafficking, etc.)
Yes, but idiots are more likely to find value in worthless things. A computer is a useful tool; the more expensive the computer, the more use a particular individual will get out of it (though idiots also buy more expensive computers than they really need).
If someone tries to put it into a bill, then you can whine about censorship; until then, it's no different than you, me, or anyone else asking for the app to be pulled. I'll concede that they might have a bigger voice than the rest of us, but the burden still falls completely on Apple to heed or dismiss the request. Perceived authority is not the same as actual authority; both you and I have been around long enough to know this, and so have the people at Apple who will ultimately decide this app's fate.
The article fails to mention whether he initiated the voice mail recording for the specific purpose of recording his interaction with the police officer. If so, then the city might have a case (NH is an all party consent state). On the other hand, any competent judge should throw out a criminal case where the sole evidence was a snippet of conversation accidentally recorded from a cellphone. Intent still matters in this country... For now, anyway. IANALBIPOTGL (I Am Not a Lawyer, But I Pretended Once To Get Laid).
I couldn't agree more. Many don't realize how much computers run our lives, mostly because of how seldom they fail. On the other hand, most peoples' direct experience with computers are PC's running badly written software. The paranoia is understandable, but people need to realize that these are two different animals. A system designed for a specialized task running on standardized hardware is more reliable than any person on the best day of their life... Which is why we have anti-lock brakes on cars and autopilot on airplanes.
I'm not suggesting that an AI be given full, unchecked reign of the road (at least not right now, anyway), but a type of "smart" cruise control with a human backup wouldn't be a bad thing.
Do you trust student drivers with instructors in the passenger seat? At least in this case a capable, trained driver can take over at a moments notice. Being cautious isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there comes a point with every new technology where it has to be tested in the real world (or are suggesting that it never be allowed off the track? I can see it now: fully automated stock car races... And you thought NASCAR was boring before).
Do you have a driver's license? Have you ever declined to show it when asked? If so, you know it causes more trouble than it's worth. Not having one is even more of a hassle. It's great to have principles, but at the end of the day you have to pick your fights; it's easier to just comply and move on with your life. We no longer live in a society where people can be anonymous; Accept it and move on.
The details of our evolutionary line may be incomplete, but there is enough information to chart a rough lineage from the earliest organisms to modern man. As for Natural Selection, which is the scientifically accepted mechanism behind evolution, the evidence is overwhelming; humans have been controlling the evolution of plants, dogs, and other creatures through artificial selection for thousands of years. It's a very short mental step to infer Natural Selection from artificial.
As for the teachers fumbling over tough answers: that's an inadequacy in the education system, and perhaps a bit of hubris on the part of the teachers. It is okay for a teacher to say "I don't know the answer to your question, but I will find out and get back to you." Instead, we have educators who make up answers on the spot using incomplete or inaccurate knowledge (I once had a CS teacher who insisted that a page fault was something that happened when a program crashed), or who just don't care enough to formulate any sort of answer, leading to students who mistakenly believe that evolution isn't a complete science.
It is what it is; geeks (for better or worse) may be responsible for creating the technology, but in an era dominated by computers even people who "have a life" need to have an basic awareness of computer security practices. The problem is that people are lazy, afraid of change, or just plain stubborn. Every new technology has a breaking in period, but computers have been in the home for over thirty years. It's time people get with the program.
You're missing the point; simply because you, me, or the majority experience no memory leak issues does not mean they don't exist. Computers differ enough that it's impossible to say that what works on one system will work on another with a different operating system, different system settings, different software installed, or even different hardware. I'll concede that it's impossible to replicate every possible user installation, but it's likely that the people who report the problem have something in common, even if it's not readily apparent; being hostile toward them for reporting it is arrogant and counterproductive.
The law is irrational and based on archaic values. Commercially available cigarettes and alcohol do more damage to a person's physical, psychological, and social well-being than marijuana and a few other of the less dangerous "illegal" drugs ever could. As long as a practice doesn't subvert the rights of others, the fourteenth amendment guarantees the right to perform it (in part, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States").
By definition, the law preventing the possession and use of marijuana is criminal, and not the people who break it.
[quote]And wasn't McKinnon extradited for crimes that were US created (not to mention created AFTER the event)? So how is he to know what the law is in the US..?[/quote]
I get what you're trying to say, but I'm going to correct you on this specific example; one of the conditions of extradition is that the alleged crime must be a criminal violation in both countries. A person would not be required to know the laws of the U.S., just the laws of the country they reside in.
Obviously this is different than physically traveling to a country, but I felt the need to be pedantic.
I think it's more than that. I think the ego can't/won't let a person perceive a state of nonexistence (try it, you can't do it), so it logically follows that people would make up an afterlife to account for this.
Slashdot Mirror
What's the alternative? the knowledge that is the cornerstone of modern physics, knowledge that has been tested time and time again and found true, is upturned by one experiment? Sorry, my money's on a measurement error.
This isn't a fundamental difference between macroscopic and microscopic; what it boils down to is human perception. We exist in the macroscopic world, so we perceive things thusly. Quantum "weirdness" doesn't just happen on the microscopic scale, but the odds of a quantum event being observed macroscopically would equal the odds of the same quantum event happening simultaneously to every particle of a macroscopic object (quantum tunneling is the event that comes immediately to mind). The world doesn't change just because we're in it, regardless of what new-age pseudo-scientists would have you believe.
Some people are willing to shell out more money for a faster processor, while other people are not. It costs more to produce genuinely different CPU's than to just cripple one CPU, so the idea is that they make a large profit from the people who will pay for the faster CPU, and a lower profit from those who won't.
If the connection was routed solely inside of the United States, I would say you're right; however, the connections are routed around the world, and would require the concerted efforts of several countries to even begin to trace the origin. Even if they do monitor every packet going across a backbone provider in the U.S., TOR packets are encrypted. The NSA may well have technology to crack encryption that we don't know about, but unless you've seriously pissed somebody high up off, I doubt you have anything to worry about.
While what you say about IP addresses being included in every packet is true, it's possible to mask your identity by going through proxies. If I, for example, use TOR, my connection can be routed all over the world before reaching my final destination; this makes it at the very least impractical, and most of the time outright impossible, to trace the origin. Anonymity is possible on the internet if you have the right tools and the intelligence to use them properly.
Statistics show this to be the opposite. People with lower income (and thus having a lower tax burden) tend to reproduce more than those more well off. Moreover, people with a lower income are more likely to gamble away what little they have (high rollers are a minority). Online poker has lower buy-ins than brick and mortar card rooms, making it even more likely that lower income populations will play. I am a firm believer in personal responsibility, so I don't believe that online poker should be banned for this reason; however, it should be regulated to prevent money from funneling to unsavory endeavors (terrorism, human trafficking, etc.)
We're whalers on the moon,
We carry a harpoon,
For they ain't no whales
So we tell tall tales
And sing our whaling toon
Yes, but idiots are more likely to find value in worthless things. A computer is a useful tool; the more expensive the computer, the more use a particular individual will get out of it (though idiots also buy more expensive computers than they really need).
If someone tries to put it into a bill, then you can whine about censorship; until then, it's no different than you, me, or anyone else asking for the app to be pulled. I'll concede that they might have a bigger voice than the rest of us, but the burden still falls completely on Apple to heed or dismiss the request. Perceived authority is not the same as actual authority; both you and I have been around long enough to know this, and so have the people at Apple who will ultimately decide this app's fate.
noone knows how to spell any more.
The article fails to mention whether he initiated the voice mail recording for the specific purpose of recording his interaction with the police officer. If so, then the city might have a case (NH is an all party consent state). On the other hand, any competent judge should throw out a criminal case where the sole evidence was a snippet of conversation accidentally recorded from a cellphone. Intent still matters in this country... For now, anyway. IANALBIPOTGL (I Am Not a Lawyer, But I Pretended Once To Get Laid).
I'm not suggesting that an AI be given full, unchecked reign of the road (at least not right now, anyway), but a type of "smart" cruise control with a human backup wouldn't be a bad thing.
Do you trust student drivers with instructors in the passenger seat? At least in this case a capable, trained driver can take over at a moments notice. Being cautious isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there comes a point with every new technology where it has to be tested in the real world (or are suggesting that it never be allowed off the track? I can see it now: fully automated stock car races... And you thought NASCAR was boring before).
Do you have a driver's license? Have you ever declined to show it when asked? If so, you know it causes more trouble than it's worth. Not having one is even more of a hassle. It's great to have principles, but at the end of the day you have to pick your fights; it's easier to just comply and move on with your life. We no longer live in a society where people can be anonymous; Accept it and move on.
As for the teachers fumbling over tough answers: that's an inadequacy in the education system, and perhaps a bit of hubris on the part of the teachers. It is okay for a teacher to say "I don't know the answer to your question, but I will find out and get back to you." Instead, we have educators who make up answers on the spot using incomplete or inaccurate knowledge (I once had a CS teacher who insisted that a page fault was something that happened when a program crashed), or who just don't care enough to formulate any sort of answer, leading to students who mistakenly believe that evolution isn't a complete science.
What about the children? Won't somebody please think of the children!?
Not sayin this guy used Ubuntu, but still....
I used to fight against apathy, but now I just don't care anymore.
The necrophiliacs.
It is what it is; geeks (for better or worse) may be responsible for creating the technology, but in an era dominated by computers even people who "have a life" need to have an basic awareness of computer security practices. The problem is that people are lazy, afraid of change, or just plain stubborn. Every new technology has a breaking in period, but computers have been in the home for over thirty years. It's time people get with the program.
You're missing the point; simply because you, me, or the majority experience no memory leak issues does not mean they don't exist. Computers differ enough that it's impossible to say that what works on one system will work on another with a different operating system, different system settings, different software installed, or even different hardware. I'll concede that it's impossible to replicate every possible user installation, but it's likely that the people who report the problem have something in common, even if it's not readily apparent; being hostile toward them for reporting it is arrogant and counterproductive.
The law is irrational and based on archaic values. Commercially available cigarettes and alcohol do more damage to a person's physical, psychological, and social well-being than marijuana and a few other of the less dangerous "illegal" drugs ever could. As long as a practice doesn't subvert the rights of others, the fourteenth amendment guarantees the right to perform it (in part, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States"). By definition, the law preventing the possession and use of marijuana is criminal, and not the people who break it.
[quote]And wasn't McKinnon extradited for crimes that were US created (not to mention created AFTER the event)? So how is he to know what the law is in the US..?[/quote] I get what you're trying to say, but I'm going to correct you on this specific example; one of the conditions of extradition is that the alleged crime must be a criminal violation in both countries. A person would not be required to know the laws of the U.S., just the laws of the country they reside in. Obviously this is different than physically traveling to a country, but I felt the need to be pedantic.
I think it's more than that. I think the ego can't/won't let a person perceive a state of nonexistence (try it, you can't do it), so it logically follows that people would make up an afterlife to account for this.
oops, this was supposed to be a reply to the sibling, not the parent.