First, the "we broke 20 plots" is bullshit. They have have used these tools in 20 investigations, so what? And what about the other 280 they admit to? And anyway, how many people's data was involved in each of these investigations? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
In any case, we still come back to the basic problem: The police could certainly stop a few more crimes, if they were allowed unfettered access to people's homes. See someone suspicious? Walk in and search the house, no warrant required. The point is: This price is not worth paying.
Why? For many reasons, but here are the ones that leap immediately to mind:
(1) People need to feel they have personal privacy.
(2) Government bureaucrats are humans: some good, some bad, most just muddling along. Put this kind of power in their hands, and it will be abused. Whether for political ends, to get back at the ex after a nasty divorce, or whatever. Because they work for the government, they will not be punished. See the recent IRS scandals for a perfect example of this.
It is important to limit government power, because this is the only sure way to prevent abuses. You can't abuse power you don't have. If this makes police work a little more difficult, that is a price well worth paying. Convince a judge and get a warrant before spying on someone - this just isn't that hard.
Or maybe they are. Read the oath taken by military officers: American officers are required to disobey illegal orders. Certainly any military officer involved in direct and clear violations of the Geneva Conventions (torture, indefinite detainment of civiliains, etc.) is guilty of following illegal orders. This applies from the JCS on down - there have been a *lot* of illegal and unconstitutional orders that should have been rejected.
What is it with the apparent belief that the US Constitution is only supposed to guarantee rights for US citizens?
This seems to be an implicit assumption in the public reaction to the NSA spying scandals. The Constitution makes no such distinction; it is intended to limit the power of the government, period, regardless of who is affected. If this were not the case, the US government could do anything it wanted to foreigners: search without a warrant, detain them indefinitely without charges, torture them, even murder them.
Oh, right...
Sorry for the cynicism, but the point should be obvious: This is clearly not the intent of the Constitution. The US government is out of control, but too many Americans excuse this by saying "well, it's mostly them foreigners, so it's ok". It is not ok. Anyway, it is now beyond obvious that the US government routinely violates the rights of everyone including US citizens.
One of the best arguments I have heard for the fifth amendment is "pressure" to confess. I put "pressure" in quotes, because we have surely all heard the stories about rubber hoses being applied in back rooms. If you cannot appeal to the fifth amendment, then you have no easy way to refuse to make a confession.
This applies especially if you are innocent, since without a confession the police and prosecutor may be unable to prove their case.
I don't know, or particularly care, if this argument meets all of Bennett's conditions. His conditions are pretty damned pedantic - he can do his own damned homework.
p.s. I grant that the government has found a way to get around the fifth amendment: piling on the charges, and then intimidating people into plea bargains. Still, you do have a right to demand a trial, and a right to refuse to say anything they can use against you.
The original study seems to be using PCs as a quick way of counting the users that they support. Many computer intensive organizations spend GBP 6000 per person per year in - here's the catch - total IT costs. Government administration is probably typical here, and GBP 6000 is not at all unreasonable.
The author of this article quickly points out that she can buy 22 iPads for that price. That's great, but it doesn't pay her website, server, ERP system or the people to run it all. Her CIO friend who thinks a spend of GBP 1000 (EUR 1500) per person per year was either answering a different question, or is clueless.
Are we supposed to be impressed with 8.5 inches of concrete in the walls? In much of Europe, that's pretty close to normal residential construction, nothing special. Ok, maybe they are including more steel - I surely hope so - but it's still nothing special.
In Moore, the school where children were trapped under rubble and drowned because they couldn't escape the flooding: This school had no designated safe room from burst water mains. This is "tornado alley" we're talking about - the last time that Moore was flattened was just 15 years ago! What kind of idiot builds a school in that area that cannot stand up to tornados and has no shelter to retreat to? In this area, tinkertoy construction ought to be forbidden in government buildings, and utterly uninsurable in private ones.
"the new administrative fee is a key component for accelerating revenue growth for the rest of the year"
So, have I understood this correctly? If you have a contract with them, they aren't violating it, because they aren't raising your rates. They're just adding a separate administrative fee. Reminds me of the game airlines play: your flight is cheap, but you have to pay the fees for the airports, for fuel, for your luggage, for having wings on the airplane...
This is great for the bean-counters and marketeers, but it's unethical as hell. Why do big businesses lose their ethics? Does MBA stand for "Must Be an A**hole"?
What is your agreement with the contractors? From your statement that you "pay on time" I have the feeling that this is where your problem is.
If you have agreed: "I will pay you $x per hour of work", then you are paying for their time. If bugs need fixed, you need to pay for some more of their time.
On the other hand, if you say "I will pay you $x if you write a program that meets this specification", then you simply do not pay until you have such a program. If it's a big project, it may make sense to define some intermediate milestones, where the programmer receives partial payment. However, a large portion of the payment (at least 1/3) should be released only after the program has passed acceptance tests.
A contractor ought to charge you slightly more for the second option, because the contractor is carrying the risk.
girlintraining writes: "American labor often stresses that people take their own initiative in solving a problem. You're expected to come up with a solution on your own, with little oversight or guidance, and you're given some leeway in making that happen. Yes, some companies are worse about this than others -- I am speaking in generalities here. YMMV. The culture of many of our immigrants is to not take that initiative -- but to only do things under the express guidance of their leaders."
This is an incredibly important point. Many Asian workers have this problem - technically, they are incredibly competent, but they have learned to do just exactly what they are told to do. I have visited Asian programming shops, and watched as the boss instructed his programmers on every detail, all the way down to "you need to put that CD back in its cover". Western management style is to give general directions and leave the initiative to the developers. This combination is a recipe for disaster. It is also a direct contributor to for GPP's complaints about "Substandard code, slipping release schedules, low wages."
You ask the question: "What would it take for me to get out of my mismanaged and failed country of fools and into your country, which appears to be slightly less mismanaged and the changes are being pushed by startups who want to pay me"
The answer is surprisingly simple: Apply for jobs. If the employer decides that you're the person they want, they will apply for a work-permit and deal with the paperwork. Sure, you'll get a lot of rejections - that's always the case when job hunting - but it only takes one acceptance, and you're golden.
FWIW: I emigrated 20 years ago. It's easier now than it was then. Just do it!
What the devil is the federal government (or, indeed, any government) doing, telling companies how they need to package their sales offerings?
In the best case, this is micromanagement. In the worst case, follow the money, just who is paying for the legislation, and how are they going to use it to screw consumers?
There is every reason to use MySQL: It is integrated in pre-configured LAMP stacks, it is ubiquitous, and it "just works". If MySQL isn't good enough, why would anyone change to MariaDB, which is - and will remain - 99% the same thing?
This appears to be a guy trying to take back a product he already sold. Regrets? Doesn't know what to do with his life? Whatever...
Lots of people arguing with the expert that there are still security holes.
Of course there are security holes with the chip and NFC. It's kind of like DRM: in the end, you need to be able to access the content. This means that, ultimately, the content must be decrypted into a usable form. It is at least good news that the card companies are finally - at the speed of a slow snail - adding something resembling security.
Look at the places they called. Likely the hijacker is somewhere in a developing country. Unlikely to be the same country where the poster lives. The ISP will not care, as long as their bills are paid.
The German magazine c't is the equivalent of the old Byte, as it existed 30 years ago in the US: Coverage of every techie hardware and software topic, written by people who actually know what they're talking about. Details, not just marketing fluff. For the the big company IT types, there's the sister publication i'X - not to my personal taste, but an equally good read for its target audience.
I don't know of any equally good magazines in the English-speaking world.
They have opened the door. From TFA: Notably, however, lawmakers dropped from the legislation the phrase “free from government control”
Which is to say: They have deliberately opened the door for further regulation by the FCC and whatever other federal agencies care to stick their noses in.
They have opened the door. From TFA: Notably, however, lawmakers dropped from the legislation the phrase “free from government control,”
Which is to say: They have deliberately opened the door for further regulation by the FCC and whatever other federal agencies care to stick their noses in.
Um, no? If the cops arrest you, they do not have the right to ransack your house.
They can search you and your car. As I understand it, the original idea was simply to ensure that you weren't armed and weren't carrying anything that they didn't want you to have while in jail. Creeping decisions by the courts have broadened this beyond recognition.
Allowing them to search your phone is much more like your house: This has nothing to do with officer safety. They may not want you to have the phone while in jail, so they can confiscate it. However, looking around in your files and messages is like going to your home and rummaging through your personal papers. So far, that *does* require a warrant. Granted, it's an easy warrant to get if you've been arrested.
Then they went the next step: using this guy's phone to set a trap for someone else. IANAL, but this sounds an awful lot like entrapment.
The police want to nail the bad guys. They will use whatever means they can get away with, because their cause is just and their hearts are pure. Mostly, the courts go along with them, because they are all players on the same team. This is all great, until you consider what happens when an innocent citizen falls under suspicion.
If the cops and prosecutors think you are guilty of some crime, they will use whatever means they have to nail you. Then they pile on the charges to intimidate you into accepting a plea bargain, so they can go on to the next case without the trouble of providing any due process. That pic of your kids in the bath? Child porn. That joking message to your friend? Conspiracy. Ridiculous, sure, but do you have the money to defend yourself?
It must be our goal as citizens to keep the system under control.
Patents on new drugs make sense. When these patents expire, the companies try to find some way to re-patent the drug. Too often, the change is from "take 2 25mg tablets twice a day" to "take 1 50mg tablet twice a day". In other words, the changes often really have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual active ingredient being delivered. Instead of capsules, the drug become a tablet; instead of a syrup it's now a capsule.
This case seems to be even more egregious, because Novartis did not even develop the original drug. Novartis patented their particular formulation, and hoped to use this to prevent anyone else from manufacturing competing formulations. They presumably purchased marketing rights from the drug developer, but I haven't been able to find the details. In any case, India's court has simply said that other companies can also produce the drug, and sell it in their own formulations.
A lot of people have some minor interest in their ancestry. However, with few exceptions, our ancestors were people just like any other, with lives interesting only to themselves. Those few exceptions are people who will be in the historical record, and have no need of this kind of service.
And that's the point: my life is interesting to me, but I am not egotistical enough to suppose that - in a hundred year - anyone will care how I looked, moved, and spoke. Anyone who thinks that their distant descendents will care about such a "life review" is, imho, pathetically full of themselves.
The other point to take issue with is the idea that this is "healthy". As one gets older, there is a danger of living more and more in the past. The happiest and healthiest elderly people I have known are the ones who avoid this: they live in the present and have plans for the future. Spending your time producing a "life review" would seem to be exactly the opposite of a healthy activity!
What kind of country allows this kind of information to be tracked "en masse", much less sells it to private companies? It reminds me of the credit-rating agencies:P private companies that somehow are magically authorized to suck up all of your financial information and sell it. At least the US finally added the ability for you to "freeze" your credit data. That's the wrong way around - they ought to have to actively ask for permission, but it's better than nothing.
Now your kids need to be able to "freeze" their school data. Worse, the US is continually trying to force its lack of privacy on the rest of the world, most recently with FATCA.
It's a crying shame that the US Constitution forgot to list privacy as a basic right to be guaranteed by the government, right next to life and liberty. Failing that, you guys really need to get some privacy laws on the books!
Seems like the wrong question - really, you're making this overly complicated. The right question is: how do you work with a laptop attached to a big monitor.
- Low budget: Set the darned monitor on a couple of books, to raise it above the laptop screen. I know people who like to work this way: laptop monitor with menus and info, big screen for coding.
- Almost as cheap: Shove the laptop off to the side, turn off the screen (or close it), and attach a real keyboard and mouse.
- More expensive, but the "right" solution: buy a docking station.
Note that none of these involve buying an overpriced monitor stand.
Every German speaker who studies IT learns enough English to read technical stuff. Many - maybe even most - prefer to use English documentation and tools.
I will go out on a limb and say that this is probably true for every Western European country except France.
The French make a real effort to prevent their language from becoming "contaminated" with foreign terms. Where every other language has just adopted computer terms as they were invented, the French have specifically gone to the trouble of inventing different words that sound more French. To take just one example: consider the word "byte". The Spanish say "byte", the Germans say "byte", the Italians say "byte", the Dutch say "byte", but the French say "octet". This is annoying, but really, it's their problem, they've done it to themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
First, the "we broke 20 plots" is bullshit. They have have used these tools in 20 investigations, so what? And what about the other 280 they admit to? And anyway, how many people's data was involved in each of these investigations? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
In any case, we still come back to the basic problem: The police could certainly stop a few more crimes, if they were allowed unfettered access to people's homes. See someone suspicious? Walk in and search the house, no warrant required. The point is: This price is not worth paying.
Why? For many reasons, but here are the ones that leap immediately to mind:
(1) People need to feel they have personal privacy.
(2) Government bureaucrats are humans: some good, some bad, most just muddling along. Put this kind of power in their hands, and it will be abused. Whether for political ends, to get back at the ex after a nasty divorce, or whatever. Because they work for the government, they will not be punished. See the recent IRS scandals for a perfect example of this.
It is important to limit government power, because this is the only sure way to prevent abuses. You can't abuse power you don't have. If this makes police work a little more difficult, that is a price well worth paying. Convince a judge and get a warrant before spying on someone - this just isn't that hard.
Or maybe they are. Read the oath taken by military officers: American officers are required to disobey illegal orders. Certainly any military officer involved in direct and clear violations of the Geneva Conventions (torture, indefinite detainment of civiliains, etc.) is guilty of following illegal orders. This applies from the JCS on down - there have been a *lot* of illegal and unconstitutional orders that should have been rejected.
Wrong question anyway...
What is it with the apparent belief that the US Constitution is only supposed to guarantee rights for US citizens?
This seems to be an implicit assumption in the public reaction to the NSA spying scandals. The Constitution makes no such distinction; it is intended to limit the power of the government, period, regardless of who is affected. If this were not the case, the US government could do anything it wanted to foreigners: search without a warrant, detain them indefinitely without charges, torture them, even murder them.
Oh, right...
Sorry for the cynicism, but the point should be obvious: This is clearly not the intent of the Constitution. The US government is out of control, but too many Americans excuse this by saying "well, it's mostly them foreigners, so it's ok". It is not ok. Anyway, it is now beyond obvious that the US government routinely violates the rights of everyone including US citizens.
One of the best arguments I have heard for the fifth amendment is "pressure" to confess. I put "pressure" in quotes, because we have surely all heard the stories about rubber hoses being applied in back rooms. If you cannot appeal to the fifth amendment, then you have no easy way to refuse to make a confession.
This applies especially if you are innocent, since without a confession the police and prosecutor may be unable to prove their case.
I don't know, or particularly care, if this argument meets all of Bennett's conditions. His conditions are pretty damned pedantic - he can do his own damned homework.
p.s. I grant that the government has found a way to get around the fifth amendment: piling on the charges, and then intimidating people into plea bargains. Still, you do have a right to demand a trial, and a right to refuse to say anything they can use against you.
The original study seems to be using PCs as a quick way of counting the users that they support. Many computer intensive organizations spend GBP 6000 per person per year in - here's the catch - total IT costs. Government administration is probably typical here, and GBP 6000 is not at all unreasonable.
The author of this article quickly points out that she can buy 22 iPads for that price. That's great, but it doesn't pay her website, server, ERP system or the people to run it all. Her CIO friend who thinks a spend of GBP 1000 (EUR 1500) per person per year was either answering a different question, or is clueless.
Are we supposed to be impressed with 8.5 inches of concrete in the walls? In much of Europe, that's pretty close to normal residential construction, nothing special. Ok, maybe they are including more steel - I surely hope so - but it's still nothing special.
In Moore, the school where children were trapped under rubble and drowned because they couldn't escape the flooding: This school had no designated safe room from burst water mains. This is "tornado alley" we're talking about - the last time that Moore was flattened was just 15 years ago! What kind of idiot builds a school in that area that cannot stand up to tornados and has no shelter to retreat to? In this area, tinkertoy construction ought to be forbidden in government buildings, and utterly uninsurable in private ones.
"the new administrative fee is a key component for accelerating revenue growth for the rest of the year"
So, have I understood this correctly? If you have a contract with them, they aren't violating it, because they aren't raising your rates. They're just adding a separate administrative fee. Reminds me of the game airlines play: your flight is cheap, but you have to pay the fees for the airports, for fuel, for your luggage, for having wings on the airplane...
This is great for the bean-counters and marketeers, but it's unethical as hell. Why do big businesses lose their ethics? Does MBA stand for "Must Be an A**hole"?
What is your agreement with the contractors? From your statement that you "pay on time" I have the feeling that this is where your problem is.
If you have agreed: "I will pay you $x per hour of work", then you are paying for their time. If bugs need fixed, you need to pay for some more of their time.
On the other hand, if you say "I will pay you $x if you write a program that meets this specification", then you simply do not pay until you have such a program. If it's a big project, it may make sense to define some intermediate milestones, where the programmer receives partial payment. However, a large portion of the payment (at least 1/3) should be released only after the program has passed acceptance tests.
A contractor ought to charge you slightly more for the second option, because the contractor is carrying the risk.
girlintraining writes: "American labor often stresses that people take their own initiative in solving a problem. You're expected to come up with a solution on your own, with little oversight or guidance, and you're given some leeway in making that happen. Yes, some companies are worse about this than others -- I am speaking in generalities here. YMMV. The culture of many of our immigrants is to not take that initiative -- but to only do things under the express guidance of their leaders."
This is an incredibly important point. Many Asian workers have this problem - technically, they are incredibly competent, but they have learned to do just exactly what they are told to do. I have visited Asian programming shops, and watched as the boss instructed his programmers on every detail, all the way down to "you need to put that CD back in its cover". Western management style is to give general directions and leave the initiative to the developers. This combination is a recipe for disaster. It is also a direct contributor to for GPP's complaints about "Substandard code, slipping release schedules, low wages."
You ask the question: "What would it take for me to get out of my mismanaged and failed country of fools and into your country, which appears to be slightly less mismanaged and the changes are being pushed by startups who want to pay me"
The answer is surprisingly simple: Apply for jobs. If the employer decides that you're the person they want, they will apply for a work-permit and deal with the paperwork. Sure, you'll get a lot of rejections - that's always the case when job hunting - but it only takes one acceptance, and you're golden.
FWIW: I emigrated 20 years ago. It's easier now than it was then. Just do it!
What the devil is the federal government (or, indeed, any government) doing, telling companies how they need to package their sales offerings?
In the best case, this is micromanagement. In the worst case, follow the money, just who is paying for the legislation, and how are they going to use it to screw consumers?
There is every reason to use MySQL: It is integrated in pre-configured LAMP stacks, it is ubiquitous, and it "just works". If MySQL isn't good enough, why would anyone change to MariaDB, which is - and will remain - 99% the same thing?
This appears to be a guy trying to take back a product he already sold. Regrets? Doesn't know what to do with his life? Whatever...
Lots of people arguing with the expert that there are still security holes.
Of course there are security holes with the chip and NFC. It's kind of like DRM: in the end, you need to be able to access the content. This means that, ultimately, the content must be decrypted into a usable form. It is at least good news that the card companies are finally - at the speed of a slow snail - adding something resembling security.
Look at the places they called. Likely the hijacker is somewhere in a developing country. Unlikely to be the same country where the poster lives. The ISP will not care, as long as their bills are paid.
The German magazine c't is the equivalent of the old Byte, as it existed 30 years ago in the US: Coverage of every techie hardware and software topic, written by people who actually know what they're talking about. Details, not just marketing fluff. For the the big company IT types, there's the sister publication i'X - not to my personal taste, but an equally good read for its target audience.
I don't know of any equally good magazines in the English-speaking world.
They have opened the door. From TFA: Notably, however, lawmakers dropped from the legislation the phrase “free from government control”
Which is to say: They have deliberately opened the door for further regulation by the FCC and whatever other federal agencies care to stick their noses in.
Darn, wrong article, sorry...
They have opened the door. From TFA: Notably, however, lawmakers dropped from the legislation the phrase “free from government control,”
Which is to say: They have deliberately opened the door for further regulation by the FCC and whatever other federal agencies care to stick their noses in.
Um, no? If the cops arrest you, they do not have the right to ransack your house.
They can search you and your car. As I understand it, the original idea was simply to ensure that you weren't armed and weren't carrying anything that they didn't want you to have while in jail. Creeping decisions by the courts have broadened this beyond recognition.
Allowing them to search your phone is much more like your house: This has nothing to do with officer safety. They may not want you to have the phone while in jail, so they can confiscate it. However, looking around in your files and messages is like going to your home and rummaging through your personal papers. So far, that *does* require a warrant. Granted, it's an easy warrant to get if you've been arrested.
Then they went the next step: using this guy's phone to set a trap for someone else. IANAL, but this sounds an awful lot like entrapment.
The police want to nail the bad guys. They will use whatever means they can get away with, because their cause is just and their hearts are pure. Mostly, the courts go along with them, because they are all players on the same team. This is all great, until you consider what happens when an innocent citizen falls under suspicion.
If the cops and prosecutors think you are guilty of some crime, they will use whatever means they have to nail you. Then they pile on the charges to intimidate you into accepting a plea bargain, so they can go on to the next case without the trouble of providing any due process. That pic of your kids in the bath? Child porn. That joking message to your friend? Conspiracy. Ridiculous, sure, but do you have the money to defend yourself?
It must be our goal as citizens to keep the system under control.
Patents on new drugs make sense. When these patents expire, the companies try to find some way to re-patent the drug. Too often, the change is from "take 2 25mg tablets twice a day" to "take 1 50mg tablet twice a day". In other words, the changes often really have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual active ingredient being delivered. Instead of capsules, the drug become a tablet; instead of a syrup it's now a capsule.
This case seems to be even more egregious, because Novartis did not even develop the original drug. Novartis patented their particular formulation, and hoped to use this to prevent anyone else from manufacturing competing formulations. They presumably purchased marketing rights from the drug developer, but I haven't been able to find the details. In any case, India's court has simply said that other companies can also produce the drug, and sell it in their own formulations.
A lot of people have some minor interest in their ancestry. However, with few exceptions, our ancestors were people just like any other, with lives interesting only to themselves. Those few exceptions are people who will be in the historical record, and have no need of this kind of service.
And that's the point: my life is interesting to me, but I am not egotistical enough to suppose that - in a hundred year - anyone will care how I looked, moved, and spoke. Anyone who thinks that their distant descendents will care about such a "life review" is, imho, pathetically full of themselves.
The other point to take issue with is the idea that this is "healthy". As one gets older, there is a danger of living more and more in the past. The happiest and healthiest elderly people I have known are the ones who avoid this: they live in the present and have plans for the future. Spending your time producing a "life review" would seem to be exactly the opposite of a healthy activity!
What kind of country allows this kind of information to be tracked "en masse", much less sells it to private companies? It reminds me of the credit-rating agencies:P private companies that somehow are magically authorized to suck up all of your financial information and sell it. At least the US finally added the ability for you to "freeze" your credit data. That's the wrong way around - they ought to have to actively ask for permission, but it's better than nothing.
Now your kids need to be able to "freeze" their school data. Worse, the US is continually trying to force its lack of privacy on the rest of the world, most recently with FATCA.
It's a crying shame that the US Constitution forgot to list privacy as a basic right to be guaranteed by the government, right next to life and liberty. Failing that, you guys really need to get some privacy laws on the books!
Seems like the wrong question - really, you're making this overly complicated. The right question is: how do you work with a laptop attached to a big monitor.
- Low budget: Set the darned monitor on a couple of books, to raise it above the laptop screen. I know people who like to work this way: laptop monitor with menus and info, big screen for coding.
- Almost as cheap: Shove the laptop off to the side, turn off the screen (or close it), and attach a real keyboard and mouse.
- More expensive, but the "right" solution: buy a docking station.
Note that none of these involve buying an overpriced monitor stand.
Block 3rd party cookies, and that is. This is my default setting, and it rarely has any impact on the actual content of a website.
Every German speaker who studies IT learns enough English to read technical stuff. Many - maybe even most - prefer to use English documentation and tools.
I will go out on a limb and say that this is probably true for every Western European country except France.
The French make a real effort to prevent their language from becoming "contaminated" with foreign terms. Where every other language has just adopted computer terms as they were invented, the French have specifically gone to the trouble of inventing different words that sound more French. To take just one example: consider the word "byte". The Spanish say "byte", the Germans say "byte", the Italians say "byte", the Dutch say "byte", but the French say "octet". This is annoying, but really, it's their problem, they've done it to themselves.