You do realize you're talking about an organization run by politicians, don't you? Do you really think that's a realistic option?
I don't want my government to be at a disadvantage compared to criminals. When the government commits to something, it should follow through. But when what appears to be a private organization does it, it's OK.
Wasting money protecting source code after the event.
Any time the police arrests a criminal, it is by definition after the event. Sometimes the damage can be undone, as in theft. Sometimes it cannot, as in murder. We still want criminals punished to deter others.
If you truly don't want source code leaks punished because it's a waste of your tax dollars, you're welcome to lobby to change the law. However, I'm sure other tax payers, such as corporations that own source code, would lobby to keep it.
It might be different on the networking side, but I've never seen a developer cert that was worth the paper it was printed on.
Programming certs are silly because programmers are usually hired by other programmers who use the same systems. Serious programs are rarely written by a single person. The manager of a Java programming team usually knows Java.
System administration certs make more sense because the hiring manager may not be familiar with the specific product, and so would be unable to verify the competence of prospective employees.
I know quite a few folks who got degrees that they've never used to make a dime, but are glad that they go the degrees for the way that that education has enriched their lives.
Education as a luxury good is wonderful - I've taken a large number of courses for that. But luxury goods are something you should buy when you can afford it, not a good reason to get into debt.
Do you mean that the average driver cannot be trusted with a car, and we should outlaw private ownership of vehicles and force everybody to use public transportation? Or merely that we need to increase the requirements to get a drivers' license?
...from the other side of the pond, Obama is the right choice. Palin's stance on creationism alone should be enough to decide this particular issue.
Interestingly, people who believe in evolution in the US average less children than people who believe in creationism. I don't know exactly what this means, but I suspect Palin's children will outvote Obama's.
How many times have you shot a gun? They're not that difficult to use. A lot easier than some other lethal devices available to the general public, such as cars.
If you don't think you can carry a gun safely, don't. I don't either, because I have four curious children who are too young to understand that "no" doesn't mean "don't do it when I'm looking". But there is no reason to assume the average driver, who can be trusted with a car, can't be trusted with a gun.
If two people with clubs attack a single person with a club, they are likely to win and not get hurt. If two people with guns have a shootout with a single person with a gun, they are likely to win, but it's quite likely at least one of them will get shot.
Besides, who will keep guns out of the hands of criminals? The same government that fails miserably to keep drugs out of the hands of the same criminals?
Actually, there is a way to achieve reasonable security. Be so scary nobody wants to mess with you. I think this is the current US strategy.
AFAIK, there hasn't been a successful terrorist attack on the US since 9/11. This could be explained in three ways:
1. We've been so nice nobody wants to attack us. Obviously not the case.
2. We tightened security to the point we are nearly immune and it's close to impossible to attack us. Our southern border is still a sieve, our airport security mostly theater, etc. I don't buy this.
3. We are scary. Not scary to the guy who pilots the plane into the tower, because we can't kill him deader than he's willing to kill himself. Scary to the leaders who sends those guys, leaders who want to stay in power.
I don't see the big deal here, since Muslims are supposed to want to distribute the Qur'an. But I can see how people would be extra paranoid about offending Muslims, since some of them take offense violently.
The US could handle a much larger population, but no - I don't want people who don't want children to have them, or have more than they want. What I recommend is to give up on the idea of retirement, at least until you're too sick to even use a computer.
That's what socking money for retirement is aimed at - self-sufficiency.
It only works if enough people are producing what you need, so that you can buy it with your stashed money.
If not, then the stuff you need will rise in price, making your stash worth less (= inflation). Presumably this will cause retirees to get back to work, until the system equalizes.
They'd probably invade the US to over-throw the government and attempt to stop the devaluation of the currency (and their investment). Somehow I see world war 3 coming out of this royal fuck up by the US.
China doesn't have the navy to invade the US. It may or may not be able to nuke the US, but if it does, their investment in Chinese cities will be devalued.
Our (I'm in the US) standard of living will probably drop, once we can't buy valuable stuff from China for dollars is doesn't cost us anything to produce. But it won't be apocalyptic.
There's also another, broader question, which last I heard nobody quite agrees on, namely "Is an undifferentiated ball of cells a human being?".
This is the big question. At what point between conception and the age of legal majority are we discussing a human being that should be under the protection of the law?
Couldn't this become a huge target for hackers/terrorists/people with nothing better to do to try and find out classified secrets?
Sure. If you use information, you risk it getting leaked. However, if you do not use it, it does you no good. A lot of information probably comes from sources that are publicly available, or that aren't that secret. Sharing it, along with analysis and meta-data, makes sense.
I think it's the reverse. z/VM is a virtualization product. Under z/VM, you can run z/OS, the traditional mainframe OS. You can also run Linux/390 (either SLES or RHEL).
z/OS is an upgrade of OS390, but yes - it has something called UNIX System Services, which is POSIX compliant but not as friendly as LINUX.
It's not that z/OS fights changes, exactly. Windows is crufty because it has to run MS-DOS programs from the eighties. z/OS has to run programs from the sixties, and do it with a high degree of reliability.
If you cannot see how that can be good for education, you need to consider the question better.
Universities should do this because it would also be good for the education industry. If the students didn't have to spend so much on textbooks, the universities could squeeze more tuition out of them.
Universities are often managed as businesses. Let them act like ones and help their customers.
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Well Sir, I like my government to be trustworthy.
You do realize you're talking about an organization run by politicians, don't you? Do you really think that's a realistic option?
I don't want my government to be at a disadvantage compared to criminals. When the government commits to something, it should follow through. But when what appears to be a private organization does it, it's OK.
Wasting money protecting source code after the event.
Any time the police arrests a criminal, it is by definition after the event. Sometimes the damage can be undone, as in theft. Sometimes it cannot, as in murder. We still want criminals punished to deter others.
If you truly don't want source code leaks punished because it's a waste of your tax dollars, you're welcome to lobby to change the law. However, I'm sure other tax payers, such as corporations that own source code, would lobby to keep it.
It might be different on the networking side, but I've never seen a developer cert that was worth the paper it was printed on.
Programming certs are silly because programmers are usually hired by other programmers who use the same systems. Serious programs are rarely written by a single person. The manager of a Java programming team usually knows Java.
System administration certs make more sense because the hiring manager may not be familiar with the specific product, and so would be unable to verify the competence of prospective employees.
I know quite a few folks who got degrees that they've never used to make a dime, but are glad that they go the degrees for the way that that education has enriched their lives.
Education as a luxury good is wonderful - I've taken a large number of courses for that. But luxury goods are something you should buy when you can afford it, not a good reason to get into debt.
Do you mean that the average driver cannot be trusted with a car, and we should outlaw private ownership of vehicles and force everybody to use public transportation? Or merely that we need to increase the requirements to get a drivers' license?
...from the other side of the pond, Obama is the right choice. Palin's stance on creationism alone should be enough to decide this particular issue.
Interestingly, people who believe in evolution in the US average less children than people who believe in creationism. I don't know exactly what this means, but I suspect Palin's children will outvote Obama's.
How many times have you shot a gun? They're not that difficult to use. A lot easier than some other lethal devices available to the general public, such as cars.
If you don't think you can carry a gun safely, don't. I don't either, because I have four curious children who are too young to understand that "no" doesn't mean "don't do it when I'm looking". But there is no reason to assume the average driver, who can be trusted with a car, can't be trusted with a gun.
If two people with clubs attack a single person with a club, they are likely to win and not get hurt. If two people with guns have a shootout with a single person with a gun, they are likely to win, but it's quite likely at least one of them will get shot.
Besides, who will keep guns out of the hands of criminals? The same government that fails miserably to keep drugs out of the hands of the same criminals?
No, but I read Empires of Trust.
Actually, there is a way to achieve reasonable security. Be so scary nobody wants to mess with you. I think this is the current US strategy.
AFAIK, there hasn't been a successful terrorist attack on the US since 9/11. This could be explained in three ways:
1. We've been so nice nobody wants to attack us. Obviously not the case.
2. We tightened security to the point we are nearly immune and it's close to impossible to attack us. Our southern border is still a sieve, our airport security mostly theater, etc. I don't buy this.
3. We are scary. Not scary to the guy who pilots the plane into the tower, because we can't kill him deader than he's willing to kill himself. Scary to the leaders who sends those guys, leaders who want to stay in power.
They used anti-terror laws against Iceland, who are not at all terrorists.
When? Do you have a cite on this?
However, if you're planning $LARGE_SPECTACULAR_JIHADIST_ATTACK, and you steal a phone, it makes you a little more likely to be caught/fail.
You don't. You get a sympathizer to buy one for you, and then claim it was stolen. Enough phones are stolen anyway that this won't look suspicious.
Open societies are going to be vulnerable to terrorism. We can accept that, give up our freedoms, or be so scary nobody will want to mess with us.
I don't see the big deal here, since Muslims are supposed to want to distribute the Qur'an. But I can see how people would be extra paranoid about offending Muslims, since some of them take offense violently.
The US could handle a much larger population, but no - I don't want people who don't want children to have them, or have more than they want. What I recommend is to give up on the idea of retirement, at least until you're too sick to even use a computer.
If we were willing to accept the standard of living of our grandparents, we could probably have an average work week for 10 hours.
But most of us are not, we like our toys too much.
That's what socking money for retirement is aimed at - self-sufficiency.
It only works if enough people are producing what you need, so that you can buy it with your stashed money.
If not, then the stuff you need will rise in price, making your stash worth less (= inflation). Presumably this will cause retirees to get back to work, until the system equalizes.
They'd probably invade the US to over-throw the government and attempt to stop the devaluation of the currency (and their investment). Somehow I see world war 3 coming out of this royal fuck up by the US.
China doesn't have the navy to invade the US. It may or may not be able to nuke the US, but if it does, their investment in Chinese cities will be devalued.
Our (I'm in the US) standard of living will probably drop, once we can't buy valuable stuff from China for dollars is doesn't cost us anything to produce. But it won't be apocalyptic.
Yeah, but then your retirement becomes essentially worthless..
Your retirement is worthless. We aren't raising enough kids, so the economy won't be able to support us retiring.
There's also another, broader question, which last I heard nobody quite agrees on, namely "Is an undifferentiated ball of cells a human being?".
This is the big question. At what point between conception and the age of legal majority are we discussing a human being that should be under the protection of the law?
For example, if you were on a jury trying immigrants from Fiji for killing their 2 week old daughter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Oceania ), would you convict them for murder?
It's a bit out of topic, but I have to link to The Onion for this.
Couldn't this become a huge target for hackers/terrorists/people with nothing better to do to try and find out classified secrets?
Sure. If you use information, you risk it getting leaked. However, if you do not use it, it does you no good. A lot of information probably comes from sources that are publicly available, or that aren't that secret. Sharing it, along with analysis and meta-data, makes sense.
I think it's the reverse. z/VM is a virtualization product. Under z/VM, you can run z/OS, the traditional mainframe OS. You can also run Linux/390 (either SLES or RHEL).
z/OS is an upgrade of OS390, but yes - it has something called UNIX System Services, which is POSIX compliant but not as friendly as LINUX.
It's not that z/OS fights changes, exactly. Windows is crufty because it has to run MS-DOS programs from the eighties. z/OS has to run programs from the sixties, and do it with a high degree of reliability.
Disclosure: I am an IBM employee and the author of a mainframe book.
You do realize that means married men would rather die earlier than live without their wives, don't you.
I know that's the case with me - I can hardly imagine living without her.
If you cannot see how that can be good for education, you need to consider the question better.
Universities should do this because it would also be good for the education industry. If the students didn't have to spend so much on textbooks, the universities could squeeze more tuition out of them.
Universities are often managed as businesses. Let them act like ones and help their customers.