You may be too young to remember it, but it wasn't always that way. There was a time before Google turned it into an ad platform.
Ah, yes, I remember those days well. Those were the days when DoubleClick had tracking cookies on most of the major media sites, and the major sites that hadn't partnered with DoubleClick usually had their own advertising departments, so often their banners were placeholders advertising their advertising ability.
Of course, with decentralized management, all of those major players thought it was a new and innovative idea when X10 started their pop-under ad campaign using the new-fangled Flash thing, so it could be animated, too! Surely that would catch the eye, and they could finally make some steady income from those ads, right?
Then Google came along with its ad program. Simple text ads, tailored to the viewer, and all managed by an upstart company who seemed to be pretty good at managing such things. They didn't do pop-ups (or -unders), and they didn't do sound or video. They did volume. Sure, there are now ads everywhere, but they're not as bad as what we had before. I call it a net improvement.
There was content then as well.
Ah, yes, there was the content of the adolescent World Wide Web, hosted in large part by ad-supported GeoCities (and the like) and grant-supported universities, and consisting of low-bandwidth servers run as an afterthought to a business whose primary business wasn't dependent on having five-nines availability through DDoS attacks and peering disputes. I guess most of those "service unavailable" messages counted as some form of content.
...because I pay up front for the services that are worth paying for and ONLY if they allow me to avoid ads by paying for service.
...Like Slashdot, which offers a subscription that you don't appear to have?
Ignorant people like you are the ones who think its Okay that you get ads on cable TV and Hulu Plus.
Not quite. Ignorant people like me know that different companies are free to pick whatever business model they like, and I am free to use their service if and only if I agree with it. I find that Hulu Plus still offers me more value than they charge (including my time watching ads), so I'm inclined to subscribe to their service.
If only we were all as enlightened as you are, knowing that advertising is all Google's fault, and that all business must be conducted in the BitZtream-approved way.
I'm fighting the government right now. They decided...
Who? A court issuing a judgement, or the IRS seeking unpaid taxes? There is no Department of Government that simply decides anything. It's always the result of some bureaucracy, with a defined process for dispute resolution.
I owed them 37,000$. No explanations.
No explanations, or none that you understood? I've had the IRS come looking for money a few times, and each time it included an enumerated list of what parts of my paperwork they disagreed with. In typical government form, there was no colloquial interpretation, but to an accountant and tax preparer, though, all of the necessary information was there.
The only thing I was told was I'm supposed to have received everything by mail. Of course, I never received anything.
How did you get notice that you owed the money, then? Have you checked that the suitable department has your address correct?
I lost count how many time I called or went to talk to someone.
That's a mistake. Keep records of every time you talk to someone about the matter, and take notes on what they say.
Sometimes the guy I talk to says...
Which guy? Record names, ID numbers, or any other identifier. Those are important to track down exactly who has said what, and on what authority. I've had some matters resolved just by pointing different bureaucrats at each other, and letting them work out the disagreement internally.
Last year, the government froze all my accounts and stole my money.
"Froze" and "stole" are not the same things. Either way, get a good lawyer.
After talking to a lawyer, I was told this kind of cases could go on for a very long time and could cost me a lot of money.
...as can any lawsuit.
The advice was that I should forget about my money.
...I said to get a good lawyer.
The bottom line is that either your story doesn't add up, or you're rather incompetent with governmental matters. Find a suitable advocate for this matter (either a different lawyer for a judgement, or a tax specialist for an IRS dispute, etc.) and give them absolutely every piece of information you have. Record absolutely everything that transpires. Yes, it will cost you a significant amount of money now, because you've sat on this for three years, but I'd be surprised if it totaled more than $37,000.
The most important thing is to make sure that someone fighting on your side is an expert in the relevant process. If you work within the established process, the various governmental entities are actually very forgiving and understanding. You must realize that the actual humans involved don't really care about taking your money, finding guilt, or screwing you over in any other way. They're interested in following the process and closing disputes, so if you show that you're interested in doing things the right way, they'll often be happy to explain exactly what that is. You don't need to waste their time professing your innocence, or telling them how horribly wrong the Big Bad Government is for attacking you. Just find out what you need to do to resolve the dispute, have an expert on hand to verify the information and ask questions, then do whatever's appropriate.
If the US were to change the dollar like that, most folks wouldn't care. The vast majority of American money is held in banks, which would make the change automatically on their electronic balance.
The only thing affected by such a change would be large stockpiles of cash. For legitimate businesses, replacing the cash in circulation would be an annoyance, but not impossible. For most individuals, who would have less than a few thousand dollars in cash on hand, the change would mean just a quick trip to the nearest bank.
The biggest disruption would be to those who have significant stockpiles of cash, larger than what banks would normally exchange. For that, the process could be pretty similar to what happens today if you need to make a large cash withdrawal or foreign-currency exchange: the bank can accommodate it with advance notice. You call the bank, give them a name and amount, and they'll make sure they have the cash on hand to serve your needs. The key detail, then, is that the bank knows your name and the amount you're exchanging, providing a paper trail indicating the presence of large amounts of cash. That paper trail is a problem for the criminal and the paranoid, but there aren't enough of those to make for a successful uprising.
My previous commute, no matter how much distance I had, I'd often have to panic brake... I'm glad I never used the OBD2 dongle... I'd probably be paying a lot more.
...because you were driving on a riskier route, without a safe stopping distance in front of you. That seems reasonable to me.
What I'm waiting for is to be charged more if I -don't- use an ODB-2 monitor...
Yes, as is every other Slashdotter, and our paranoid kind have been waiting for such things since Sputnik made us realize that surveillance didn't have to be up-close and personal. Each decade we pretend it's a new apocalypse, because this time it's different! Now it's the Internet of Things, and last year it was drones, and before that it was Big Data, GPS tracking, cell phones, and dental fillings.
No, it's just the doctor and the hospital trying to practice modern medicine. If they don't have every minute detail recorded, or if they don't order every test that might help, the predatory jackasses in this country will not hesitate to sue them for malpractice, claiming that they should instinctively know what tests will be meaningful for every single patient that enters their offices.
I sincerely hope you are never in charge of any secure system. Defense in depth is indeed a trivial concept, yet so vital to having any meaningful security.
Do you also leave your doors unlocked because a really persistent thief could have a set of lockpicks?
...most of these guys are backed by people will millions in the bank.
"Millions" isn't so much money that any cost becomes irrelevant. "Billions" is closer, but no amount of money will buy more time. Those 100 extra preparation hours could be the time when an informant reveals the plot to the CIA, or that could be the time another aspect of the plot to develop problems.
...there is no point at which you stop and say "awww screw this, it's not worth the hassle"
But there is a point at which you say "This plan is too risky, and has too many ways to fail. Let's try something else."
So the whole being sat down like a child thing is basically to stop people who don't know what they're doing ending up with mountains of debt _by mistake_, it's not to stop people intentionally cooking the books.
I think this is exactly right. The lenders are not doing credit reviews for the purpose of stopping crime. They're checking for the purpose of minimizing their own risk. Sure, there's a risk that a loan applicant is going to do something criminal that results in the lender losing their money, but there is a much greater risk that an otherwise-honest individual is simply unable to manage their own finances.
Then, of course, there's the cost/benefit analysis of the investigation itself. If criminal fraud is rare, it may not be worth the cost to investigate every applicant deeply enough to find the crime.
I'm not ambitious enough to do the calculations myself, but I would expect to find that the most profitable course of action is to do a cursory examination of individual applicants, and just to consider intentional fraud to be a part of the cost of doing business.
...other than XRay the damn thing, which is what the TSA does anyway do they not?
Yes, they do, and the agents know what an unmodified phone or laptop looks like. They're usually not just a small circuit with most of the case filled with some unidentified material.
Only the most idiotic of plots would be foiled by this.
Well, yes, but only the most idiotic of plots would be foiled by any single measure. All together, the detection measures simply raise the cost of planning a non-idiotic plot. Now, a successful terrorist must spend an extra $100 on parts and 100 hours on hardware modifications, while still spending the time and money to jump through every other hurdle in the way.
Sure, a sufficiently-competent entity can get through every security measure, but the point is to raise the difficulty high enough that the attack isn't worth the hassle. That sentiment applies to every aspect of security, not just airplanes.
Well, that depends... did you leave your front door open with a big sign saying "Twisty passages inside! Great for losing pursuers!" posted next to it?
If so, then it's pretty easy to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were not just aware that your actions could assist criminals, but you actually made overt actions to help them.
A good language... should do its very best to make sure you CAN'T code sloppily.
Exactly, just like a good spoken language should make sure you CAN'T use profanity.
...But then, what about when profanity is appropriate? What if you need an emphasis that is so fucking strong that simply changing the tone of voice doesn't suffice? What if your whole damned speech is in reference to something condemned by a deity, or referring to Mohammed the thief, who assumed the name of the prophet?
The point of any language is to express. For programming languages, the idea is to express instructions for two different processing styles simultaneously: the deterministic and predetermined understanding of the parser, and the non-deterministic and subjective understanding of colleagues. Similarly, spoken languages must account for the subjective understandings of every listener, some of which may have very different rules regarding obscenity.
There is much more to coding "cleanly" than mere syntax. Structure is equally important, and it must change as the system design demands. If the rules of a language are too strict, then the whole program starts to look the same, and it's more difficult for future interpreters to understand the intent of the program.
There is an art to writing clean code, just as there's an art to writing eloquent language. Strict rules don't always improve that art.
Cute, but no. One of my first stage jobs was with a great stage manager, who did several decades of concerts dating back to the Big Band era. He was nearly deaf from it, so before the first show of the season he called all of the techs together, handed out pairs of high-quality earplugs, and warned us that if he ever found us not wearing them without a good reason, we'd be fired.
At every show since then, I've either worn earplugs or an in-ear monitor whenever the main amps were on. It's also worth noting that the stage crew isn't usually in front of the speakers, so all together I'm usually listening to less than 70 decibels, even at the loudest gigs.
Protective equipment is not just there to make the lawyers happy. It's there so that a decade later I don't have to hire someone else to tune a system.
He probably... is constantly going "Hunh?" to his wife.
Well, yes, but that's just because I'm inattentive, not deaf.
Ears are the worst in terms of durability, complexity, and as is the focus of my post, manufacturing consistency. Those criteria are all interconnected, also indicating that there is no good way to solve their problems well.
There is no other component for which so many things can go wrong. The ears serve as the intermediary between the analog vibrations and the sensation of hearing, comprised of millions of self-assembling cells whose function depends on trillions of chemical interactions executing perfectly. In reality, such perfection is rare. Most defects don't matter, but the sheer number of imperfections means that everyone's sense of hearing is different in some way.
Stretching the boundaries of definition a bit, even if the ears themselves are good enough, their connection to the consciousness may by different from one person to another. I, for instance, don't find the throb of bass to be pleasant, so my personal sound systems are tuned to my tastes, tapering off the low end. Others prefer that heavy bass, so their preferences for the rest of their sound system will be different from my own.
With such wide variation, attempting to declare that certain brands of equipment sound "good" or "bad" is a very subjective declaration, practically useless for anyone else. No matter how technically perfect the rest of your system is, you'll perceive a "bad" sound if it doesn't suit your ears' and brain's construction.
Accurate reproduction (typically meaning "none") at frequencies one or more octaves above the primary frequency, usually phase-shifted slightly.
I'd rather not get into the audiophile's favorite game of "my metric is better than yours", but AC is technically correct - there are qualities beside frequency response. Frequency distortion is one of those. The idea is that you play a particular frequency through the driver, and record the resulting vibration. Ideally, they match. Put in a perfect sinusoid, and you get a perfect sinusoid back.
In the real world, no driver is perfect. The cone may wobble a bit because the paper fibers aren't perfectly symmetrical, or the coil wires may be wound unevenly, or myriad other causes such that perfect waves going in become jagged before coming out. The result is effectively overlaying harmonic or phase-shifted noise on top of any given component frequency.
High-end audiophile manufacturers like to boast about their reproduction, but it really doesn't matter much. For most such distortion, your ears can't tell the difference, because your eardrum is less sensitive than the driver. Outside of the lab, you're also not going to have the perfect waveform going in, so the harmonic components will be physically interrupted by other frequencies. Supposedly, soldiers are ordered to break step when crossing certain bridges so as to avoid resonance damaging the structure. The idea is the same: When listening to a typical audio source, there won't be enough of a clear single frequency to create noticeable distortion, except in rare extremely-bad cases.
In my spare time, I've been an audio technician for the past 5 years. Before that, I was a DJ as a hobby, and I've been on stage crew occasionally for the last decade. My current professional job involves system engineering on a multi-million-dollar sound system.
At home, my headphones are a $30 Sennheiser over-ear pair, and I carry $15 earbuds that I can only describe offhand as "black".
It is my professional opinion that all of the audiophile bullshit is bullshit. On a low-end sound system using the cheapest components you can buy, the worst component is your ears. That's where all of your problems start, and you're trying to pay lots of money to compensate throughout the rest of the system.
If you want a pair of headphones that sound great to you, forget about brand names and fancy features. Sit down with a pair of cheap headphones, and listen to the tones in music/tv/whatever that you find most pleasing. Some folks like to hear the deep rumble of heavy bass, while others (like myself) prefer the crisp clarity of vocals that the high end provides. Still others like the nostalgia of 60's disco and AM radio, so they'll have both high- and low-end, but cut out midtones entirely. Know your ears and your tastes, and that will tell you what frequency response you'll be happiest with.
Next, think about features. This should not be a difficult decision, as it mostly just relates to lifestyle. If you ride a bus or train to work and listen to audiobooks, noise canceling is probably a decent choice. Otherwise, it's probably not worth the price. A good fit is more important for keeping unwanted noise out, so if you're in the market for earbuds, look for ones with adjustable rubber. On my traveling pair, I actually have different rubber cones for my ears, because my ears are different sizes. My wife doesn't like in-ear styles, so she carries a pair of folding on-ear headphones in her purse. That was a criterion when we bought them.
Finally, go to Google, and research candidates. Brand doesn't matter nearly as much as having the right headphones for your ears. Buy a cheap pair with the right criteria and try it out. As a general rule, all headphones are made with thin wire and fragile construction that falls apart at the slightest trauma. That's the nature of the beast. Expensive brands just tack on bigger profit margins.
Tom's Hardware has a decent reputation, unlike most of the rumor-mills that run their detritus through this place. That bit of credibility is an important detail of this story.
"whether the act of entering the password to decrypt the contents of a computer was an act of self-incrimination"
What I find interesting is that the answer is "no", implying that merely unlocking an encrypted disk does not in any way imply a criminal action. That would also necessarily mean that having an encrypted disk is affirmed by judgement to not be a criminal action
As an accused boot-licking pro-establishment government-and-big-business shill, I agree.
As a relatively sane individual who tends to think for myself, I also agree.
As someone with passing familiarity with 4th-amendment case law, I also agree.
This guy was a first-class idiot. An encrypted hard drive is little different from a locked safe. A court can order you to open it to reveal evidence, but the police need sufficient probable cause to convince a judge to issue that order. Saying "All the evidence is in there and I have the key" is pretty convincing probable cause that there's important relevant evidence in the safe (or disk). Saying nothing is a good way (and the only really safe way, as far as I know) to ensure that you're not giving the cops any additional assistance in proving your guilt.
So... was it patented? Was there, in fact, any legal protection to prohibit Disney from using the technology, or was it left unpatented by an inventor who didn't care? If the latter, would the state of robotics be as advanced today without Disney making the control systems from that little bird widely known? Even if it were patented, did the patent broadly cover all use of such technology, or merely the specific implementation as used in the bird?
I know that's a lot of questions to have to research before inciting an angry mob to go after the big-business bogeyman, but those are important questions to have answered. Go ahead; your pitchfork will wait here until you get back. You might want to extinguish the torch for now, though.
Secret negotiation provides an easy way to have a candid discussion, without worrying about vague implications of precise wording that one's political opponents will quote out of context and turn into the next hot election issue.
For example, in a negotiation, a diplomat can say "we don't need the unions to have disproportionate control over production costs", in reference to potentially giving unions control over tariffs. In public, that diplomat can then be quoted as saying "we don't need the unions", and he's lost a large number of supporting votes right there. If he's a Democrat, his career's over, because he didn't toe the party line giving unions full control over everything commercial.
Right now, I'd wager there's even a few Slashdotters getting mad at me because I used their precious unions in an example. Such is the danger of public discussion.
You're right, though, that Congress routinely fails to say "no", on the assumption that full and fair negotiations have already taken place. That's the big problem: there's never any push for politicians to do what's right rather than just reinforce the party.
Slashdot Mirror
According to a more informative article, this won't be nearly as bad, then.
180 decibels. The maximum underwater noise from sonic cannons allowed within 500 meters, mitigating physical damage to marine mammals.
You may be too young to remember it, but it wasn't always that way. There was a time before Google turned it into an ad platform.
Ah, yes, I remember those days well. Those were the days when DoubleClick had tracking cookies on most of the major media sites, and the major sites that hadn't partnered with DoubleClick usually had their own advertising departments, so often their banners were placeholders advertising their advertising ability.
Of course, with decentralized management, all of those major players thought it was a new and innovative idea when X10 started their pop-under ad campaign using the new-fangled Flash thing, so it could be animated, too! Surely that would catch the eye, and they could finally make some steady income from those ads, right?
Then Google came along with its ad program. Simple text ads, tailored to the viewer, and all managed by an upstart company who seemed to be pretty good at managing such things. They didn't do pop-ups (or -unders), and they didn't do sound or video. They did volume. Sure, there are now ads everywhere, but they're not as bad as what we had before. I call it a net improvement.
There was content then as well.
Ah, yes, there was the content of the adolescent World Wide Web, hosted in large part by ad-supported GeoCities (and the like) and grant-supported universities, and consisting of low-bandwidth servers run as an afterthought to a business whose primary business wasn't dependent on having five-nines availability through DDoS attacks and peering disputes. I guess most of those "service unavailable" messages counted as some form of content.
...because I pay up front for the services that are worth paying for and ONLY if they allow me to avoid ads by paying for service.
...Like Slashdot, which offers a subscription that you don't appear to have?
Ignorant people like you are the ones who think its Okay that you get ads on cable TV and Hulu Plus.
Not quite. Ignorant people like me know that different companies are free to pick whatever business model they like, and I am free to use their service if and only if I agree with it. I find that Hulu Plus still offers me more value than they charge (including my time watching ads), so I'm inclined to subscribe to their service.
If only we were all as enlightened as you are, knowing that advertising is all Google's fault, and that all business must be conducted in the BitZtream-approved way.
I'm fighting the government right now. They decided...
Who? A court issuing a judgement, or the IRS seeking unpaid taxes? There is no Department of Government that simply decides anything. It's always the result of some bureaucracy, with a defined process for dispute resolution.
I owed them 37,000$. No explanations.
No explanations, or none that you understood? I've had the IRS come looking for money a few times, and each time it included an enumerated list of what parts of my paperwork they disagreed with. In typical government form, there was no colloquial interpretation, but to an accountant and tax preparer, though, all of the necessary information was there.
The only thing I was told was I'm supposed to have received everything by mail. Of course, I never received anything.
How did you get notice that you owed the money, then? Have you checked that the suitable department has your address correct?
I lost count how many time I called or went to talk to someone.
That's a mistake. Keep records of every time you talk to someone about the matter, and take notes on what they say.
Sometimes the guy I talk to says...
Which guy? Record names, ID numbers, or any other identifier. Those are important to track down exactly who has said what, and on what authority. I've had some matters resolved just by pointing different bureaucrats at each other, and letting them work out the disagreement internally.
Last year, the government froze all my accounts and stole my money.
"Froze" and "stole" are not the same things. Either way, get a good lawyer.
After talking to a lawyer, I was told this kind of cases could go on for a very long time and could cost me a lot of money.
...as can any lawsuit.
The advice was that I should forget about my money.
...I said to get a good lawyer.
The bottom line is that either your story doesn't add up, or you're rather incompetent with governmental matters. Find a suitable advocate for this matter (either a different lawyer for a judgement, or a tax specialist for an IRS dispute, etc.) and give them absolutely every piece of information you have. Record absolutely everything that transpires. Yes, it will cost you a significant amount of money now, because you've sat on this for three years, but I'd be surprised if it totaled more than $37,000.
The most important thing is to make sure that someone fighting on your side is an expert in the relevant process. If you work within the established process, the various governmental entities are actually very forgiving and understanding. You must realize that the actual humans involved don't really care about taking your money, finding guilt, or screwing you over in any other way. They're interested in following the process and closing disputes, so if you show that you're interested in doing things the right way, they'll often be happy to explain exactly what that is. You don't need to waste their time professing your innocence, or telling them how horribly wrong the Big Bad Government is for attacking you. Just find out what you need to do to resolve the dispute, have an expert on hand to verify the information and ask questions, then do whatever's appropriate.
If the US were to change the dollar like that, most folks wouldn't care. The vast majority of American money is held in banks, which would make the change automatically on their electronic balance.
The only thing affected by such a change would be large stockpiles of cash. For legitimate businesses, replacing the cash in circulation would be an annoyance, but not impossible. For most individuals, who would have less than a few thousand dollars in cash on hand, the change would mean just a quick trip to the nearest bank.
The biggest disruption would be to those who have significant stockpiles of cash, larger than what banks would normally exchange. For that, the process could be pretty similar to what happens today if you need to make a large cash withdrawal or foreign-currency exchange: the bank can accommodate it with advance notice. You call the bank, give them a name and amount, and they'll make sure they have the cash on hand to serve your needs. The key detail, then, is that the bank knows your name and the amount you're exchanging, providing a paper trail indicating the presence of large amounts of cash. That paper trail is a problem for the criminal and the paranoid, but there aren't enough of those to make for a successful uprising.
My previous commute, no matter how much distance I had, I'd often have to panic brake... I'm glad I never used the OBD2 dongle... I'd probably be paying a lot more.
...because you were driving on a riskier route, without a safe stopping distance in front of you. That seems reasonable to me.
What I'm waiting for is to be charged more if I -don't- use an ODB-2 monitor...
Yes, as is every other Slashdotter, and our paranoid kind have been waiting for such things since Sputnik made us realize that surveillance didn't have to be up-close and personal. Each decade we pretend it's a new apocalypse, because this time it's different! Now it's the Internet of Things, and last year it was drones, and before that it was Big Data, GPS tracking, cell phones, and dental fillings.
No, it's just the doctor and the hospital trying to practice modern medicine. If they don't have every minute detail recorded, or if they don't order every test that might help, the predatory jackasses in this country will not hesitate to sue them for malpractice, claiming that they should instinctively know what tests will be meaningful for every single patient that enters their offices.
I sincerely hope you are never in charge of any secure system. Defense in depth is indeed a trivial concept, yet so vital to having any meaningful security.
Do you also leave your doors unlocked because a really persistent thief could have a set of lockpicks?
...most of these guys are backed by people will millions in the bank.
"Millions" isn't so much money that any cost becomes irrelevant. "Billions" is closer, but no amount of money will buy more time. Those 100 extra preparation hours could be the time when an informant reveals the plot to the CIA, or that could be the time another aspect of the plot to develop problems.
...there is no point at which you stop and say "awww screw this, it's not worth the hassle"
But there is a point at which you say "This plan is too risky, and has too many ways to fail. Let's try something else."
So the whole being sat down like a child thing is basically to stop people who don't know what they're doing ending up with mountains of debt _by mistake_, it's not to stop people intentionally cooking the books.
I think this is exactly right. The lenders are not doing credit reviews for the purpose of stopping crime. They're checking for the purpose of minimizing their own risk. Sure, there's a risk that a loan applicant is going to do something criminal that results in the lender losing their money, but there is a much greater risk that an otherwise-honest individual is simply unable to manage their own finances.
Then, of course, there's the cost/benefit analysis of the investigation itself. If criminal fraud is rare, it may not be worth the cost to investigate every applicant deeply enough to find the crime.
I'm not ambitious enough to do the calculations myself, but I would expect to find that the most profitable course of action is to do a cursory examination of individual applicants, and just to consider intentional fraud to be a part of the cost of doing business.
...other than XRay the damn thing, which is what the TSA does anyway do they not?
Yes, they do, and the agents know what an unmodified phone or laptop looks like. They're usually not just a small circuit with most of the case filled with some unidentified material.
Only the most idiotic of plots would be foiled by this.
Well, yes, but only the most idiotic of plots would be foiled by any single measure. All together, the detection measures simply raise the cost of planning a non-idiotic plot. Now, a successful terrorist must spend an extra $100 on parts and 100 hours on hardware modifications, while still spending the time and money to jump through every other hurdle in the way.
Sure, a sufficiently-competent entity can get through every security measure, but the point is to raise the difficulty high enough that the attack isn't worth the hassle. That sentiment applies to every aspect of security, not just airplanes.
Well, that depends... did you leave your front door open with a big sign saying "Twisty passages inside! Great for losing pursuers!" posted next to it?
If so, then it's pretty easy to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you were not just aware that your actions could assist criminals, but you actually made overt actions to help them.
Actually, yes, you can. That's pretty much the basis of contract law.
Excellent! You seem to understand my main goal.
Now just find a perfect way to codify "hard to read" in a way that all algorithms and designs may be encoded in a way that is not "hard to read".
A good language ... should do its very best to make sure you CAN'T code sloppily.
Exactly, just like a good spoken language should make sure you CAN'T use profanity.
...But then, what about when profanity is appropriate? What if you need an emphasis that is so fucking strong that simply changing the tone of voice doesn't suffice? What if your whole damned speech is in reference to something condemned by a deity, or referring to Mohammed the thief, who assumed the name of the prophet?
The point of any language is to express. For programming languages, the idea is to express instructions for two different processing styles simultaneously: the deterministic and predetermined understanding of the parser, and the non-deterministic and subjective understanding of colleagues. Similarly, spoken languages must account for the subjective understandings of every listener, some of which may have very different rules regarding obscenity.
There is much more to coding "cleanly" than mere syntax. Structure is equally important, and it must change as the system design demands. If the rules of a language are too strict, then the whole program starts to look the same, and it's more difficult for future interpreters to understand the intent of the program.
There is an art to writing clean code, just as there's an art to writing eloquent language. Strict rules don't always improve that art.
Cute, but no. One of my first stage jobs was with a great stage manager, who did several decades of concerts dating back to the Big Band era. He was nearly deaf from it, so before the first show of the season he called all of the techs together, handed out pairs of high-quality earplugs, and warned us that if he ever found us not wearing them without a good reason, we'd be fired.
At every show since then, I've either worn earplugs or an in-ear monitor whenever the main amps were on. It's also worth noting that the stage crew isn't usually in front of the speakers, so all together I'm usually listening to less than 70 decibels, even at the loudest gigs.
Protective equipment is not just there to make the lawyers happy. It's there so that a decade later I don't have to hire someone else to tune a system.
He probably ... is constantly going "Hunh?" to his wife.
Well, yes, but that's just because I'm inattentive, not deaf.
Ears are the worst in terms of durability, complexity, and as is the focus of my post, manufacturing consistency. Those criteria are all interconnected, also indicating that there is no good way to solve their problems well.
There is no other component for which so many things can go wrong. The ears serve as the intermediary between the analog vibrations and the sensation of hearing, comprised of millions of self-assembling cells whose function depends on trillions of chemical interactions executing perfectly. In reality, such perfection is rare. Most defects don't matter, but the sheer number of imperfections means that everyone's sense of hearing is different in some way.
Stretching the boundaries of definition a bit, even if the ears themselves are good enough, their connection to the consciousness may by different from one person to another. I, for instance, don't find the throb of bass to be pleasant, so my personal sound systems are tuned to my tastes, tapering off the low end. Others prefer that heavy bass, so their preferences for the rest of their sound system will be different from my own.
With such wide variation, attempting to declare that certain brands of equipment sound "good" or "bad" is a very subjective declaration, practically useless for anyone else. No matter how technically perfect the rest of your system is, you'll perceive a "bad" sound if it doesn't suit your ears' and brain's construction.
Accurate reproduction (typically meaning "none") at frequencies one or more octaves above the primary frequency, usually phase-shifted slightly.
I'd rather not get into the audiophile's favorite game of "my metric is better than yours", but AC is technically correct - there are qualities beside frequency response. Frequency distortion is one of those. The idea is that you play a particular frequency through the driver, and record the resulting vibration. Ideally, they match. Put in a perfect sinusoid, and you get a perfect sinusoid back.
In the real world, no driver is perfect. The cone may wobble a bit because the paper fibers aren't perfectly symmetrical, or the coil wires may be wound unevenly, or myriad other causes such that perfect waves going in become jagged before coming out. The result is effectively overlaying harmonic or phase-shifted noise on top of any given component frequency.
High-end audiophile manufacturers like to boast about their reproduction, but it really doesn't matter much. For most such distortion, your ears can't tell the difference, because your eardrum is less sensitive than the driver. Outside of the lab, you're also not going to have the perfect waveform going in, so the harmonic components will be physically interrupted by other frequencies. Supposedly, soldiers are ordered to break step when crossing certain bridges so as to avoid resonance damaging the structure. The idea is the same: When listening to a typical audio source, there won't be enough of a clear single frequency to create noticeable distortion, except in rare extremely-bad cases.
In my spare time, I've been an audio technician for the past 5 years. Before that, I was a DJ as a hobby, and I've been on stage crew occasionally for the last decade. My current professional job involves system engineering on a multi-million-dollar sound system.
At home, my headphones are a $30 Sennheiser over-ear pair, and I carry $15 earbuds that I can only describe offhand as "black".
It is my professional opinion that all of the audiophile bullshit is bullshit. On a low-end sound system using the cheapest components you can buy, the worst component is your ears. That's where all of your problems start, and you're trying to pay lots of money to compensate throughout the rest of the system.
If you want a pair of headphones that sound great to you, forget about brand names and fancy features. Sit down with a pair of cheap headphones, and listen to the tones in music/tv/whatever that you find most pleasing. Some folks like to hear the deep rumble of heavy bass, while others (like myself) prefer the crisp clarity of vocals that the high end provides. Still others like the nostalgia of 60's disco and AM radio, so they'll have both high- and low-end, but cut out midtones entirely. Know your ears and your tastes, and that will tell you what frequency response you'll be happiest with.
Next, think about features. This should not be a difficult decision, as it mostly just relates to lifestyle. If you ride a bus or train to work and listen to audiobooks, noise canceling is probably a decent choice. Otherwise, it's probably not worth the price. A good fit is more important for keeping unwanted noise out, so if you're in the market for earbuds, look for ones with adjustable rubber. On my traveling pair, I actually have different rubber cones for my ears, because my ears are different sizes. My wife doesn't like in-ear styles, so she carries a pair of folding on-ear headphones in her purse. That was a criterion when we bought them.
Finally, go to Google, and research candidates. Brand doesn't matter nearly as much as having the right headphones for your ears. Buy a cheap pair with the right criteria and try it out. As a general rule, all headphones are made with thin wire and fragile construction that falls apart at the slightest trauma. That's the nature of the beast. Expensive brands just tack on bigger profit margins.
Slashdot's moderation system sucks. It's the worst system there is, except for everything else that's been tried.
Tom's Hardware has a decent reputation, unlike most of the rumor-mills that run their detritus through this place. That bit of credibility is an important detail of this story.
The question at hand is
"whether the act of entering the password to decrypt the contents of a computer was an act of self-incrimination"
What I find interesting is that the answer is "no", implying that merely unlocking an encrypted disk does not in any way imply a criminal action. That would also necessarily mean that having an encrypted disk is affirmed by judgement to not be a criminal action
As an accused boot-licking pro-establishment government-and-big-business shill, I agree.
As a relatively sane individual who tends to think for myself, I also agree.
As someone with passing familiarity with 4th-amendment case law, I also agree.
This guy was a first-class idiot. An encrypted hard drive is little different from a locked safe. A court can order you to open it to reveal evidence, but the police need sufficient probable cause to convince a judge to issue that order. Saying "All the evidence is in there and I have the key" is pretty convincing probable cause that there's important relevant evidence in the safe (or disk). Saying nothing is a good way (and the only really safe way, as far as I know) to ensure that you're not giving the cops any additional assistance in proving your guilt.
The inability to elect proper representatives has nothing to do with whether or not the negotiations are secret.
So... was it patented? Was there, in fact, any legal protection to prohibit Disney from using the technology, or was it left unpatented by an inventor who didn't care? If the latter, would the state of robotics be as advanced today without Disney making the control systems from that little bird widely known? Even if it were patented, did the patent broadly cover all use of such technology, or merely the specific implementation as used in the bird?
I know that's a lot of questions to have to research before inciting an angry mob to go after the big-business bogeyman, but those are important questions to have answered. Go ahead; your pitchfork will wait here until you get back. You might want to extinguish the torch for now, though.
Secret negotiation provides an easy way to have a candid discussion, without worrying about vague implications of precise wording that one's political opponents will quote out of context and turn into the next hot election issue.
For example, in a negotiation, a diplomat can say "we don't need the unions to have disproportionate control over production costs", in reference to potentially giving unions control over tariffs. In public, that diplomat can then be quoted as saying "we don't need the unions", and he's lost a large number of supporting votes right there. If he's a Democrat, his career's over, because he didn't toe the party line giving unions full control over everything commercial.
Right now, I'd wager there's even a few Slashdotters getting mad at me because I used their precious unions in an example. Such is the danger of public discussion.
You're right, though, that Congress routinely fails to say "no", on the assumption that full and fair negotiations have already taken place. That's the big problem: there's never any push for politicians to do what's right rather than just reinforce the party.