If you can blank the screen, then it should be feasible to actually *change* the screen's output. This attack doesn't require any knowledge of the actual election software, but if you *did* have that knowledge, you could dummy up a screen that has the "correct" votes on it, and display that instead of the votes that are actually being recorded.
Also, the "without evidence of tampering" is referring to the lack of any evidence that the machine has been tampered with after you remove the alien hardware. Gain access to the machine weeks or months before voting opens, then simply cast your vote later in the day and remove your hardware... no evidence.
You being a special case does not change how the world works. I would like to express my condolences that you have removed yourself from society to the point that advertisers are somehow not legally allowed to access you in any way, shape, or form.
Let's clear the air a bit, and set down some basic ground rules that apply in most jurisdictions:
Any activity taking place in a space considered to be public (usually anywhere outside of your dwelling) is considered to be "public". This means that if I stand in front of your house on the sidewalk and take pictures of it, I am legally in the right. I may not be able to stand there for very long, as I may be considered to be loitering, but I am legally allowed to stand on public property. I am also legally allowed to record anything I can perceive with my unaided senses. Therefore, if you come screaming out your front door, naked and dripping from the shower, and punch me in the face for daring to videotape my walk around your block, not only will you be the one the authorities arrest (whereas I did nothing wrong (and have video evidence!)), but I can put the video I took on YouTube, and the world (or at least those over 18, once the video gets flagged for adult content) can see you naked, dripping, and committing assault on a public sidewalk.
As for the rest of your claims of immunity to advertising:
If your house does not have a phone, then you may not be in the phone book. If it does have a phone, and you don't pay extra to have an unlisted number, then you have essentially published your number in a public directory. If you have not added yourself to the Do-Not-Call registry, then anyone with access to a phone book (that would be anyone able to read) is able to call you at will, for any reason whatsoever. A single phone call is not considered harassment, if you have not placed yourself on the Do-Not-Call list.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that your home does not contain a telephone, and you instead have an unlisted cell phone. Do you have cable TV? If so, then you have a business relationship with your cable provider; this allows them to contact you for business purposes, regardless of your "Do-Not-Call" status. They can also mail business-related correspondence to your home. Surprise! Advertising is a business purpose.
Do you have a shopper's card for your local grocery store? The information they require you to fill out on that card is used for exactly the same reason, so the savings you are receiving is actually them paying you for allowing them to send you information about future sales, send you coupons, offer you other services, etc.
Do you have an internet access account? A cell phone? Electricity, Water, Gas, Sewage, Garbage? All of these things are services that give the service providers access to your "private" information. All of them require your name, phone number, address, and possibly your social security number to be in a database of customer information, which can (and is) used for the purposes of advertising. Utility companies love to sell their customers' information, because the customer usually can't change companies... there isn't a competitor to change to. It's a government-granted monopoly (or duopoly, in some areas, but the information still applies).
Are you employed? Your employer (and the IRS, if you're in America - I assume other nations have similar agencies) has all of your contact information. Any place you've applied to has your name, address, phone number, and possibly other contact information (as well as demographic information), all on that application or resume.
Ever had your taxes done? That company has your information, too.
Do you own, or rent? If you rent, then there's another potential information leak... and the address belongs to the owner, so they can sell the information about the address and current resident(s) to whoever wants it.
Ever signed up for a contest? That's a notorious method of collecting contact information.
For example, your server IP address is blacklisted by RBLs because you left your SMTP port open and spammers started using it.
This means that your SMTP port scenario is an utter fabrication, because there's no mail server installed by default, and/or there's no configuration for it, so it's not running (or at least not accessible anywhere except 127.x.x.x).
And just to top it off, you are laughably wrong about mail servers. There is ALWAYS a mail server installed by default. At an absolute minimum, you will have sendmail installed, because the OS tries to send emails to the internal users (most often status messages to root). Yes, by default it only listens to 127.0.0.1. But that's the only thing protecting you. All you have to do is say to yourself, "Hey, I want to receive mails too!" update the binding address, and there's your open relay.
Except I said earlier in my post that you should
Use a whitelist-based firewall (that is, only allow known legitimate connections (this can be per service/port rather than by remote IP, in case that wasn't obvious)). A firewall generation script can build you a good starting point, if you would prefer for it to be (mostly) done for you.
... And you yourself reiterated my point that a default OS install includes a local only sendmail.
In addition, if the user is savvy enough to update the binding addresses, then they are (hopefully) savvy enough to secure their shiny new mailserver. If not, their ISP will cheerfully shut down their 25 and 110 for them when they start pushing more than a couple dozen emails per day. That is, of course, assuming they're running their server in their living room. If they're running it in a corporate environment, then either someone else in the building will ask them why their internet is suddenly slow, or their ISP will call them up and ask if they actually intend to be sending out thousands of emails with the subject line "V1@6R@ 4 U!!!!1!"
You are absolutely correct, thank you for the correction.
I did, indeed, intend to express the idea that I could not care less about someone's accent unless and until it becomes necessary to be able to comprehend their meaning. The local dialect appears to have meddled with my speech patterns; I will need to exercise more care in my future communications.
znerk makes a very good point. The kernel is an important difference between Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop - they use different schedulers, and the server version leaves out the "user interface" tweaks which the desktop has.
However, bearing in mind that you're a Linux newbie, and you probably want to have an easy GUI style installation, the desktop version is the way to go. The differences in serving performance between the two kernels are unlikely to be noticeable unless the site is a high-throughput one.
But if you are concerned about performance, and you want to take on board znerks' advice, install the server kernel after installation, with a single CLI command like this: # sudo apt-get install linux-image-server
I hadn't considered installing the server kernel into the desktop system at some point after installation; good idea.
iOS is a little more complex than that, and Apple users are not automatically retarded. Please note, I type this on a Windows machine, sitting on a network of Linux servers and clients, behind a Linux router/firewall. I don't own any Apple products, and there are none residing in my household. I disagree with the walled garden approach Apple has taken with their products, and choose not to use them, but many people find them much more suited to their task set than PCs.
Again, I'm not advocating any one OS over another, but I get really tired of seeing people who have never touched a Mac bitching about how retarded the Apple fanbois are. They're no more rabid or zealous than Linux users were a few years ago.
I love the services that fail to function from a "clean install", and scream about it in the logs (and on boot) - forcing you to locate the conf file and actually set it up in the first place before it will do a single thing it's supposed to.
I also love how those services' conf files tend to have comments like "don't touch this line if you don't know exactly what you're doing", or "for security's sake, you may want to set this variable to x". Head-scratchers in the conf files make you find the man pages.
Oh, and I actually agree with you on the webmin/virtualmin thing - I don't usually use them, myself, because I find the command line to be much more efficient and effective at doing exactly what I intend - no more, no less.
While it's not news, it is not anticipated and expected behavior. Why should it be, only because the advertisers are using it for 10 years? It's the cooperate brainwash so far that if you bend over for 10 years and they breach your privacy it's suddenly become "anticipated and expected behavior"?
If I log-out from a page I expect it to be gone for good. What right is there to track me forever, only because I visit and log-in in a site once? To still be on every page and track me, even if I clearly stated that I do not want it (because I log-out) is clearly a violation of my privacy rights.
To expect from every user to delete their coockies and use AdBlock is not acceptable. It is the responsibility of the politics to ensure my privacy rights and make such coockies illegal.
Actually, you are confusing "anticipated and expected" with "welcomed". One can "anticipate and expect" a snake to bite you if you step close enough to it for it to do so. This does not imply that you are a willing participant, but the result is most certainly not unexpected, nor could it not be anticipated.
Advertisers have been invading our privacy for far longer than 10 years; most people expect and anticipate that any claims in an advertisement are to be taken with a grain of salt, at best; they are snakes in the grass, and should be treated with respect and a healthy dose of distance, like any other.
Jeremiah 28:6, 'He said, "Amen! May the LORD do so! May the LORD fulfill the words you have prophesied by bringing the articles of the LORD's house and all the exiles back to this place from Babylon."'
I figure if the bible can take the liberty of starting a sentence with the word amen then I'm safe to do the same.
The bible didn't take any liberties, nor did it simply start the sentence with it. The bible passage you quoted used the word correctly, because "Amen!" was the sentence. Not to make you feel silly, but an exclamation point ends a sentence just as well as a period or question mark. Translated from the Hebrew, "Amen" literally means "So be it," and is therefore a perfectly functional sentence all by itself.
To put it another way, you said "Amen (So be it) to the use of Noscript and AdBlockPlus together," which could indicate an acceptance of the idea, but I don't think that was your intent. My replacement makes much more sense: "Huzzah (I am delighted with and approve of) the use of NoScript and AdBlockPlus together."
Unless, of course, you were meaning to end a prayer as the start of a sentence?
No offense taken to your pedantical nature.
I hope you still feel that way, as I took your response to indicate you wished to open a dialogue on the subject.
In the meantime, I'll tag crap like this at least off-topic, and most likely flamebait.
Seeing as you responded to it, you can't moderate it at all (I'm assuming you intended to write "moderate", rather than "tag"). However, my intent was not to be flamebait; I simply tire of seeing these ridiculously racist AC posts all over the place (usually at least one per article), and actually had a response for this one other than my usual "this isn't worth responding to".
I will cheerfully agree that this entire thread is off-topic. Thank you for contributing.
... and if the first guy to go outside and spit on the newly-drawn battle lines get shot, the next ones to come out might be carrying (and aiming and firing) weapons.
This is somewhat similar in basic concept to "You don't have to outrun the dragon, you just have to outrun the halfling," assuming you convinced the halfling to go into the dragon's den in the first place.
I don't know what is worse. That she believes the tunnel exists, or that she believes that 45 million euro is a significant contribution towards building a 900km long tunnel that doesn't actually exist.
I really do hate to appear to be supporting an obvious troll, but IQ tests bear the same "racial prejudice". Asians tend to score higher (on average) than other ethnic groups, while those of African descent tend to score lower than others. European ancestry puts one squarely in the middle of the curve. There is great debate and controversy over whether there is a "cultural bias" towards "differing skill sets", but no one has anything they can actually call a theory without sounding racist, so any discussion is moot.
Before you mod me into Flamebait/Troll oblivion along with the parent, please keep in mind that I can actually back my statements up with facts*., and I'm not actually being racist myself, merely pointing out that this particular racist misinformation has a basis in actual, factual for-really-reals facts. Of course, I will cheerfully accept an "Off-Topic" mod, because we're not commenting on the correct article. A better place for this discussion would have been here.
Keep in mind, moderation is anonymous, so no one will know if you mod this "Informative" or "Interesting" instead of "Troll" or "Flamebait".
* I could find something more informative than wikipedia, but it expresses the gist of the information I wish to convey, and I'm being lazy due to the lateness of the hour in my geographic location.
Honestly? I could care less how much of an accent you speak with. You, as a person, are entitled to speak with whatever (and however much) accent you want to.
That being said, if your job is to communicate with my customers, and every other statement from the customer in the QA recording is "please repeat that, I couldn't understand you", then you're fired.
Similarly, if your job is to teach others, and you are unable to communicate effectively with your students due to an accent that you refuse to work on, then you're fired.
The requirement to speak clearly to those you are supposed to be communicating with is not racist, it's not a civil rights violation, it's just requiring you to perform the duties pertaining to doing your fucking job.
While many of the customers on that particular support line would of been American, I was not.
What you meant there was "would have been". Using "would of been" indicates to an educated person that you are practically illiterate, and don't understand what you are saying, and thus your entire point is missed because you portray yourself as not having enough of an education to respond adequately to any subject.
Seriously, look those two words up in the dictionary, and figure out why it's so retarded and infuriating to anyone with a decent vocabulary when people write things the way they are used to saying them without knowing what the phrase actually means, or how their accent has colored their ability to communicate.
I'm not saying that you are stupid, I am merely pointing out that you look stupid when you say things as you have spoken them, rather than as they are actually supposed to have been written.
I see what you're saying, and I don't disagree that installing Gentoo from scratch may be the fastest method of learning a Unix-like OS... my point was that this is akin to learning how to launch a boat by flinging yourself into the ocean. Yes, you will likely learn to swim extremely quickly, or... not. I'm not a big fan of the "Portal" method of learning; "Here at Aperture Science, we believe that if at first you don't succeed, you fail."
Jumping into Gentoo would be an excellent method for acquiring a ton of information at a very rapid pace, but (to bring in the car analogy), I don't want to have to build a car if all I wanted to do in the first place was learn to drive.
What a lot of geeks are missing today is the little piece of information that many people don't actually care about *how* a computer works, any more than they care about how their refrigerator or toilet works. It causes problems when it doesn't, and they call someone to take care of it... other than that, they expect it to Just Work(tm). Computers are just another appliance to many (most?) users.
I don't mean to imply that the submitter feels that way, I merely wish to point out a potentially overlooked viewpoint.
How would you go about compensating for the impact of using the generated data as the basis for massive amounts of trading? How do you compensate for competing predictive engines, doing the same thing with the same data but using different algorithms?
The problem with attempting to utilize a predictive system to influence a decision is that acting on the predicted outcome changes the outcome, invalidating the prediction.
...we will see martial law declared preemptively, military and police forces will start flooding areas before anything can happen, and people who the computer says will be key figures in the revolution will be preemptively jailed and/or executed.
... except that (according to most "psychohistory" proponents), the information you get is not that granular.
Also, declaring martial law and flooding the potential problem area with enforcers could be just what those fomenting rebellion are waiting for, to finally get the "little guy" involved in something that wasn't (up to that point) affecting him.
"No, you can't go outside, they'll shoot you." "Oh, yeah? Watch me."
Interesting project, but their predictions exit their scope of possible indicators. For instance, natural disasters don't have societal indicators.
As for the stock market, it has defied analysis for as long as it has existed... although that may very well be due to interested parties acting upon potentially accurate predictions and skewing the anticipated actions, thus invalidating the predictions.
Call me back when they can accurately and reliably tell me whether it will rain next Tuesday.
Slashdot Mirror
If you can blank the screen, then it should be feasible to actually *change* the screen's output. This attack doesn't require any knowledge of the actual election software, but if you *did* have that knowledge, you could dummy up a screen that has the "correct" votes on it, and display that instead of the votes that are actually being recorded.
Also, the "without evidence of tampering" is referring to the lack of any evidence that the machine has been tampered with after you remove the alien hardware. Gain access to the machine weeks or months before voting opens, then simply cast your vote later in the day and remove your hardware... no evidence.
You being a special case does not change how the world works. I would like to express my condolences that you have removed yourself from society to the point that advertisers are somehow not legally allowed to access you in any way, shape, or form.
Let's clear the air a bit, and set down some basic ground rules that apply in most jurisdictions:
Any activity taking place in a space considered to be public (usually anywhere outside of your dwelling) is considered to be "public". This means that if I stand in front of your house on the sidewalk and take pictures of it, I am legally in the right. I may not be able to stand there for very long, as I may be considered to be loitering, but I am legally allowed to stand on public property. I am also legally allowed to record anything I can perceive with my unaided senses. Therefore, if you come screaming out your front door, naked and dripping from the shower, and punch me in the face for daring to videotape my walk around your block, not only will you be the one the authorities arrest (whereas I did nothing wrong (and have video evidence!)), but I can put the video I took on YouTube, and the world (or at least those over 18, once the video gets flagged for adult content) can see you naked, dripping, and committing assault on a public sidewalk.
As for the rest of your claims of immunity to advertising:
If your house does not have a phone, then you may not be in the phone book. If it does have a phone, and you don't pay extra to have an unlisted number, then you have essentially published your number in a public directory. If you have not added yourself to the Do-Not-Call registry, then anyone with access to a phone book (that would be anyone able to read) is able to call you at will, for any reason whatsoever. A single phone call is not considered harassment, if you have not placed yourself on the Do-Not-Call list.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that your home does not contain a telephone, and you instead have an unlisted cell phone. Do you have cable TV? If so, then you have a business relationship with your cable provider; this allows them to contact you for business purposes, regardless of your "Do-Not-Call" status. They can also mail business-related correspondence to your home. Surprise! Advertising is a business purpose.
Do you have a shopper's card for your local grocery store? The information they require you to fill out on that card is used for exactly the same reason, so the savings you are receiving is actually them paying you for allowing them to send you information about future sales, send you coupons, offer you other services, etc.
Do you have an internet access account? A cell phone? Electricity, Water, Gas, Sewage, Garbage? All of these things are services that give the service providers access to your "private" information. All of them require your name, phone number, address, and possibly your social security number to be in a database of customer information, which can (and is) used for the purposes of advertising. Utility companies love to sell their customers' information, because the customer usually can't change companies... there isn't a competitor to change to. It's a government-granted monopoly (or duopoly, in some areas, but the information still applies).
Are you employed? Your employer (and the IRS, if you're in America - I assume other nations have similar agencies) has all of your contact information. Any place you've applied to has your name, address, phone number, and possibly other contact information (as well as demographic information), all on that application or resume.
Ever had your taxes done? That company has your information, too.
Do you own, or rent? If you rent, then there's another potential information leak... and the address belongs to the owner, so they can sell the information about the address and current resident(s) to whoever wants it.
Ever signed up for a contest? That's a notorious method of collecting contact information.
Do you have
For example, your server IP address is blacklisted by RBLs because you left your SMTP port open and spammers started using it.
This means that your SMTP port scenario is an utter fabrication, because there's no mail server installed by default, and/or there's no configuration for it, so it's not running (or at least not accessible anywhere except 127.x.x.x).
And just to top it off, you are laughably wrong about mail servers. There is ALWAYS a mail server installed by default. At an absolute minimum, you will have sendmail installed, because the OS tries to send emails to the internal users (most often status messages to root). Yes, by default it only listens to 127.0.0.1. But that's the only thing protecting you. All you have to do is say to yourself, "Hey, I want to receive mails too!" update the binding address, and there's your open relay.
Except I said earlier in my post that you should
Use a whitelist-based firewall (that is, only allow known legitimate connections (this can be per service/port rather than by remote IP, in case that wasn't obvious)). A firewall generation script can build you a good starting point, if you would prefer for it to be (mostly) done for you.
... And you yourself reiterated my point that a default OS install includes a local only sendmail.
In addition, if the user is savvy enough to update the binding addresses, then they are (hopefully) savvy enough to secure their shiny new mailserver. If not, their ISP will cheerfully shut down their 25 and 110 for them when they start pushing more than a couple dozen emails per day. That is, of course, assuming they're running their server in their living room. If they're running it in a corporate environment, then either someone else in the building will ask them why their internet is suddenly slow, or their ISP will call them up and ask if they actually intend to be sending out thousands of emails with the subject line "V1@6R@ 4 U!!!!1!"
You are absolutely correct, thank you for the correction.
I did, indeed, intend to express the idea that I could not care less about someone's accent unless and until it becomes necessary to be able to comprehend their meaning. The local dialect appears to have meddled with my speech patterns; I will need to exercise more care in my future communications.
znerk makes a very good point. The kernel is an important difference between Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop - they use different schedulers, and the server version leaves out the "user interface" tweaks which the desktop has.
However, bearing in mind that you're a Linux newbie, and you probably want to have an easy GUI style installation, the desktop version is the way to go.
The differences in serving performance between the two kernels are unlikely to be noticeable unless the site is a high-throughput one.
But if you are concerned about performance, and you want to take on board znerks' advice, install the server kernel after installation, with a single CLI command like this:
# sudo apt-get install linux-image-server
I hadn't considered installing the server kernel into the desktop system at some point after installation; good idea.
Amen.
iOS is a little more complex than that, and Apple users are not automatically retarded. Please note, I type this on a Windows machine, sitting on a network of Linux servers and clients, behind a Linux router/firewall. I don't own any Apple products, and there are none residing in my household. I disagree with the walled garden approach Apple has taken with their products, and choose not to use them, but many people find them much more suited to their task set than PCs.
Again, I'm not advocating any one OS over another, but I get really tired of seeing people who have never touched a Mac bitching about how retarded the Apple fanbois are. They're no more rabid or zealous than Linux users were a few years ago.
I love the services that fail to function from a "clean install", and scream about it in the logs (and on boot) - forcing you to locate the conf file and actually set it up in the first place before it will do a single thing it's supposed to.
I also love how those services' conf files tend to have comments like "don't touch this line if you don't know exactly what you're doing", or "for security's sake, you may want to set this variable to x". Head-scratchers in the conf files make you find the man pages.
Oh, and I actually agree with you on the webmin/virtualmin thing - I don't usually use them, myself, because I find the command line to be much more efficient and effective at doing exactly what I intend - no more, no less.
Philip K Dick is awesome, but his short stories have been made into many more astonishingly bad movies than people suspect.
I respectfully disagree; we probably have differing methodologies for mindless popcorn consumption.
Aside: Love your sig. Who is it quoting?
While it's not news, it is not anticipated and expected behavior. Why should it be, only because the advertisers are using it for 10 years? It's the cooperate brainwash so far that if you bend over for 10 years and they breach your privacy it's suddenly become "anticipated and expected behavior"?
If I log-out from a page I expect it to be gone for good. What right is there to track me forever, only because I visit and log-in in a site once? To still be on every page and track me, even if I clearly stated that I do not want it (because I log-out) is clearly a violation of my privacy rights.
To expect from every user to delete their coockies and use AdBlock is not acceptable. It is the responsibility of the politics to ensure my privacy rights and make such coockies illegal.
Actually, you are confusing "anticipated and expected" with "welcomed". One can "anticipate and expect" a snake to bite you if you step close enough to it for it to do so. This does not imply that you are a willing participant, but the result is most certainly not unexpected, nor could it not be anticipated.
Advertisers have been invading our privacy for far longer than 10 years; most people expect and anticipate that any claims in an advertisement are to be taken with a grain of salt, at best; they are snakes in the grass, and should be treated with respect and a healthy dose of distance, like any other.
Jeremiah 28:6, 'He said, "Amen! May the LORD do so! May the LORD fulfill the words you have prophesied by bringing the articles of the LORD's house and all the exiles back to this place from Babylon."'
I figure if the bible can take the liberty of starting a sentence with the word amen then I'm safe to do the same.
The bible didn't take any liberties, nor did it simply start the sentence with it. The bible passage you quoted used the word correctly, because "Amen!" was the sentence. Not to make you feel silly, but an exclamation point ends a sentence just as well as a period or question mark.
Translated from the Hebrew, "Amen" literally means "So be it," and is therefore a perfectly functional sentence all by itself.
To put it another way, you said "Amen (So be it) to the use of Noscript and AdBlockPlus together," which could indicate an acceptance of the idea, but I don't think that was your intent. My replacement makes much more sense: "Huzzah (I am delighted with and approve of) the use of NoScript and AdBlockPlus together."
Unless, of course, you were meaning to end a prayer as the start of a sentence?
No offense taken to your pedantical nature.
I hope you still feel that way, as I took your response to indicate you wished to open a dialogue on the subject.
In the meantime, I'll tag crap like this at least off-topic, and most likely flamebait.
Seeing as you responded to it, you can't moderate it at all (I'm assuming you intended to write "moderate", rather than "tag"). However, my intent was not to be flamebait; I simply tire of seeing these ridiculously racist AC posts all over the place (usually at least one per article), and actually had a response for this one other than my usual "this isn't worth responding to".
I will cheerfully agree that this entire thread is off-topic. Thank you for contributing.
... and if the first guy to go outside and spit on the newly-drawn battle lines get shot, the next ones to come out might be carrying (and aiming and firing) weapons.
This is somewhat similar in basic concept to "You don't have to outrun the dragon, you just have to outrun the halfling," assuming you convinced the halfling to go into the dragon's den in the first place.
Looks like someone doesn't understand how the slashdot effect can apply to email addresses, angry nerds, and mailbombs.
I don't know what is worse. That she believes the tunnel exists, or that she believes that 45 million euro is a significant contribution towards building a 900km long tunnel that doesn't actually exist.
FTFY :)
I really do hate to appear to be supporting an obvious troll, but IQ tests bear the same "racial prejudice". Asians tend to score higher (on average) than other ethnic groups, while those of African descent tend to score lower than others. European ancestry puts one squarely in the middle of the curve. There is great debate and controversy over whether there is a "cultural bias" towards "differing skill sets", but no one has anything they can actually call a theory without sounding racist, so any discussion is moot.
Before you mod me into Flamebait/Troll oblivion along with the parent, please keep in mind that I can actually back my statements up with facts*., and I'm not actually being racist myself, merely pointing out that this particular racist misinformation has a basis in actual, factual for-really-reals facts. Of course, I will cheerfully accept an "Off-Topic" mod, because we're not commenting on the correct article. A better place for this discussion would have been here.
Keep in mind, moderation is anonymous, so no one will know if you mod this "Informative" or "Interesting" instead of "Troll" or "Flamebait".
* I could find something more informative than wikipedia, but it expresses the gist of the information I wish to convey, and I'm being lazy due to the lateness of the hour in my geographic location.
Honestly? I could care less how much of an accent you speak with. You, as a person, are entitled to speak with whatever (and however much) accent you want to.
That being said, if your job is to communicate with my customers, and every other statement from the customer in the QA recording is "please repeat that, I couldn't understand you", then you're fired.
Similarly, if your job is to teach others, and you are unable to communicate effectively with your students due to an accent that you refuse to work on, then you're fired.
The requirement to speak clearly to those you are supposed to be communicating with is not racist, it's not a civil rights violation, it's just requiring you to perform the duties pertaining to doing your fucking job.
Is that easy enough to understand?
Sorry, I can't stand it.
While many of the customers on that particular support line would of been American, I was not.
What you meant there was "would have been". Using "would of been" indicates to an educated person that you are practically illiterate, and don't understand what you are saying, and thus your entire point is missed because you portray yourself as not having enough of an education to respond adequately to any subject.
Seriously, look those two words up in the dictionary, and figure out why it's so retarded and infuriating to anyone with a decent vocabulary when people write things the way they are used to saying them without knowing what the phrase actually means, or how their accent has colored their ability to communicate.
I'm not saying that you are stupid, I am merely pointing out that you look stupid when you say things as you have spoken them, rather than as they are actually supposed to have been written.
Amen to the use of Noscript and AdBlockPlus together
amen/ämen/
Noun: An utterance of “amen.”.
Exclamation: Uttered at the end of a prayer or hymn, meaning ‘so be it.’
I think you may have meant something along the lines of
huzzah/hzä/
Verb: Cry “huzzah.”.
Exclamation: Used to express approval or delight; hurrah.
... sorry for being pedantic.
1x1 "spacer" image the same color as the background
GIF has a transparent color value, easing this issue for the nefariously inclined.
Yeah, blame my afternoon sleepies for missing that obvious trick.
I see what you're saying, and I don't disagree that installing Gentoo from scratch may be the fastest method of learning a Unix-like OS... my point was that this is akin to learning how to launch a boat by flinging yourself into the ocean. Yes, you will likely learn to swim extremely quickly, or... not. I'm not a big fan of the "Portal" method of learning; "Here at Aperture Science, we believe that if at first you don't succeed, you fail."
Jumping into Gentoo would be an excellent method for acquiring a ton of information at a very rapid pace, but (to bring in the car analogy), I don't want to have to build a car if all I wanted to do in the first place was learn to drive.
What a lot of geeks are missing today is the little piece of information that many people don't actually care about *how* a computer works, any more than they care about how their refrigerator or toilet works. It causes problems when it doesn't, and they call someone to take care of it... other than that, they expect it to Just Work(tm). Computers are just another appliance to many (most?) users.
I don't mean to imply that the submitter feels that way, I merely wish to point out a potentially overlooked viewpoint.
How would you go about compensating for the impact of using the generated data as the basis for massive amounts of trading?
How do you compensate for competing predictive engines, doing the same thing with the same data but using different algorithms?
The problem with attempting to utilize a predictive system to influence a decision is that acting on the predicted outcome changes the outcome, invalidating the prediction.
And the moment they get something like this...
... except that (according to most "psychohistory" proponents), the information you get is not that granular.
Also, declaring martial law and flooding the potential problem area with enforcers could be just what those fomenting rebellion are waiting for, to finally get the "little guy" involved in something that wasn't (up to that point) affecting him.
"No, you can't go outside, they'll shoot you."
"Oh, yeah? Watch me."
You beat me to it, mate.
So did the first response to this article, posted 5 minutes before the post you replied to. Sorry, better luck next time.
Interesting project, but their predictions exit their scope of possible indicators. For instance, natural disasters don't have societal indicators.
As for the stock market, it has defied analysis for as long as it has existed... although that may very well be due to interested parties acting upon potentially accurate predictions and skewing the anticipated actions, thus invalidating the predictions.
Call me back when they can accurately and reliably tell me whether it will rain next Tuesday.