At the end of the day, you want uptime, not the illusion of control. Even if you run everything yourself, what ends up happening is that you have to tell your CEO instead that "we lost Internet connectivity because Verizon screwed the pooch and cut the fiber while pulling someone's FiOS line" or "building maintenance will fix the burst pipe flooding our server room as soon as they can." Even if you have the IT budget to run your own datacenter, bizarre shit will happen that is out of your hands.
If a judge required absolute proof of guilt before issuing a search warrant, we would never catch anyone. The police would have to ask the guy if he secured his wireless router, and any guilty dude would refuse to answer while he formatted the porn off of his computer.
The standard for issuing a search warrant is probable cause. The search warrant is meant to allow the police to get more evidence that might prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. An IP address from which child porn has been downloaded is probable cause to search the computers of the registered customer using that IP address at that time. It's hard to see how it would not be probable cause even though it is not enough to convict.
HOWEVER, the police should not have run into the building with guns drawn. They should have known that probable cause does not mean guilty. Furthermore, charging into a building with guns drawn is freaking retarded in all cases where the guy is not violent and the crime he is suspected of is not violent.
Bottom line, the cops screwed the pooch on this one.
The Kindle is based on e-ink, which consumes a negligible amount of electricity when displaying a page. The ads will only be displayed on the lock screen page, and the bottom of the home page. There will not be any ads on the bottom of the books themselves. This might work if Amazon regularly includes really great offers to owners of the ad-Kindle such as half-priced Amazon gift cards and books, as the article suggests.
Personally, I'd rather pay the extra $25 to get an ad-free version. However, if this works out and advertisers are plenty, Amazon might start giving bigger discounts to get a larger audience.
The awesome thing about this is that I can use an ATA to make a phone call directly from my desk phone without having to use the web interface or having Google call me. Also, I can use the SIP support built into Android 2.3 to make calls via wifi.
I guess the CIA is suffering from a shortage of workers so they need to spice up their image to get some fresh blood. There are CIA recruiting commercials and I guess showing off what has been done in the past is meant to make you want to take part in the modern continuation of that trend.
"Hiding taxes among the 'rich' doesn't help people realize this, as the taxes just get hidden, and passed down to the little guy in the form of higher prices, lower wages and so on."
That's the incorrect assumption that you make. The incidence of a tax (i.e., who actually feels the burden of the tax) varies but not all taxes are spread amongst the entire population. For instance, the payroll tax on employers is borne entirely by the employee. However, sales and income taxes have a strong incidence on whoever is being taxed. For instance, if I have a business that's making X million dollars, and my income taxes go up, I can't easily increase the cost of my products because that would not necessarily maximize my company's profits; I'd probably have to grin and bear it.
Furthermore, the poor and middle class are more likely to consume the public goods supplied by taxes. Rich people tend to drive to work so they subsidize the public transportation for the middle class and poor. The rich also tend to send their kids to private schools so they subsidize the public schools and universities. So pretend that taxes are cut and as a result, public transportation and free health clinics are cut. Well, that affects the poor and middle class a lot more than the rich! But the poor don't necessarily understand that. They'll be happy with a $300 tax cut but don't realize that they had to give up $1000 in services so the rich guy can have his $5,000 tax break!
Anyway, that's why tax policy is hard to set correctly. You can use it to set policy, but how are you going to avoid massive tax fraud? A hooker already is pretty hard to bust on Craigslist, but are you really going to go after her for tax evasion?!
It should be no big deal for them to license code from Tomato USB firmware or DD-WRT, both of which support IPv6 amongst many other really cool features. I don't buy routers that do not support DD-WRT, and I strongly prefer routers that support Tomato USB.
Hopefully, failing that, Cisco can still add IPv6 support through a future firmware upgrade. I doubt anyone who just spent $180 on a router is going to buy a new one a year from now.
Social skills are hard as hell to master and are at a premium. Many brilliant workers never get anywhere because they aren't good at office politics or client relations. At the end of the day, making money matters to a business--it's the only matter, in fact. The brightest engineer may not be able to get a client to sign a multi-million dollar contract whereas a "dumb frat boy" can get that deal done. The next time you see that coworker of yours, ask yourself whether or not you like him a lot as a person; does he remember who you are and what your kid is studying in college? There's a very good chance that he does, and you like him (aside from the professional issues). That schmoozing at conventions and getting information about rivals is very difficult to do, and I bet that most engineers could not do that successfully.
The US didn't bomb the wreckage because the scene was soon overrun with civilians, which was broadcast on CNN. It would have been horrible PR if those civilians dancing on the wreckage suddenly disappeared and the image faded to static.
Each of those dictators caused tens of millions of deaths... why aren't they less "green" than Genghis Kahn? Did the article take into account the method of death used? I guess the Nazis used a lot of gas running the trains to the concentration camps, but what about Pol Pot or Stalin, who just starved tens of millions of people to death?
A better explanation is that this is a stupid article that makes no freaking sense.
The problem with the "prosecute the cops who broke the law to obtain evidence and you no longer need the exclusionary rule" is that a prosecutor will not bite the hand that feeds it. If they just put a child rapist in jail because a cop bent a few rules, the prosecutor will NOT stir up trouble by prosecuting the hero cop who just broke the case. Remember that the case that led to the exclusionary rule dealt with a guy who killed a young girl, wrapped her body up in a rug, and threw her away around Christmastime. He requested a lawyer, but the cop started guilt-tripping the defendant while driving to the lawyer in violation of Miranda. The guy gave away the location of the corpse, and was convicted based on that fact.
Do you really think any prosecutor in the entire world would file charges against a cop who didn't beat the suspect but rather just asked him to bring some peace to his victim's family? What's your recourse if the prosecutor refuses to charge the cop, sue the prosecutor? It's called sovereign immunity and decisions to charge and not charge are absolutely immune.
What's the alternative, to just keep getting blown up by dumb IEDs? You even admit it yourself. The IED v.6.0 is much more expensive to make, and harder to deploy, so the overall number of successful IED attacks has gone down as a result of the cat and mouse game. Sure, Stuxnet isn't going to knock Iran's nuclear program out forever, but it's better than nothing. Now Iran will strengthen its computer infrastructure against attack, but so what? Their nuclear program already got pushed off track by a while, and it's not like leaving them alone was a much better alternative.
Iran depends on other countries for almost all of their technology. For Christ's sake, they can't even refine enough gasoline for their domestic consumption so they have to import gasoline. The problem is that Iran cannot just buy new technology to replace the untrustworthy systems, so they have to try to fix it. The Stuxnet virus has penetrated into all of their systems, including the SCADA controllers themselves. Apparently, their systems just keep re-infecting themselves. Furthermore, Stuxnet caused physical damage to a bunch of their centrifuges by cranking them up and down past operational parameters, while keeping the data readouts within normal limits. Therefore, the Iranians have no idea what can and cannot be trusted.
I use Keepass to maintain all of my passwords. It's open-source and encrypted using AES 256. I save the password database on Dropbox, which keeps an updated copy available on all of my computers. The only problem is that I cannot login to the websites on public computers, but I think that's an added security bonus. I have my Blackberry with me to check my email, which is what I really need to check on the road.
You and the article are missing the point of the ruling. Manufacturers price discriminate by selling the products at higher prices to countries that can afford a higher price. For instance, watches sold in America cost more than watches sold in Paraguay. The question is whether or not the first sale doctrine can stop someone from buying cheaper watches in Paraguay then selling them into the United States. The Ninth Circuit said that it does. I disagree, but it's not as retarded as giving foreign companies the right to decide vastly greater control of the products in your home than you do.
From what I have read, the passwords were hashed but only with DES. Furthermore, there was salting and no password complexity requirement because rainbow tables were able to reveal a medley of Gawker passwords. Gawker's reaction to the first signs of a break in a month ago (complete indifference) was pretty nuts. It's user base is its biggest asset; the disrespect they show their users was ridiculous.
Wikileaks has lost a lot of its credibility once it became a purely anti-American operation. There are rumors that Wikileaks will release some documents about Bank of America, but there hasn't been any leaks regarding other countries or their companies. I am certain that there's a lot of juicy shit going on in Mexico regarding their drug problem, or Russia and their corruption. Why don't we ever here about that?
In any case, the US government doesn't have a reason to give too much of a shit about the released documents so far. The Collateral Murder video didn't cause widespread rebellion, and Iran seems pretty butthurt about the leak of diplomatic cables.
The entire point of redefining the kilogram would be to allow any sufficiently-technical laboratory to make their own mass. Right now, there are forty artifacts that must be kept safe. If you do not have one of these artifacts, you in fact have no way to determine what your kilogram actually is. Hell, the artifacts probably do not even have the same mass as each other. So they are proposing to replace a few sets of metal with an instruction manual on how anyone with the right technology can make their own reference weight. That's a huge difference.
The scary answer for why there are so many competing intelligence organs? To keep CIA in check. State has been at odds with CIA for decades, with CIA wanting to overthrow governments and to blow stuff up and with State trying to keep the status quo. The most bizarre aspect of CIA isn't that it has its own paramilitary directorate, but that this directorate has been responsible for high-tech advances such as the SR-71 Blackbird (which began life as the CIA-funded A-12) and the Predator drones, and has some of the most skilled warriors on the face of the planet within their Special Activities Division. Someone needs to watch the watcher, and you can be damned sure that Congress is not capable of such oversight.
I am a pretty left-leaning guy, and I am no huge fan of Gitmo, but there is probably a reason that Gitmo still hasn't been closed. After all, President Obama would have really fired up his base going into these midterm elections if he could check off "closed Gitmo" on his list of to-dos. Therefore, I really, honestly believe that there are some really scary things happening at Gitmo with very few horrible, hardcore killers who have been giving up all sorts of useful intelligence but who cannot be tried in a civilian court because they have been endlessly tortured to obtain that information. Senator Obama made his campaign promises to close down Gitmo not knowing the secret horrors and President Obama has to backtrack because he now knows about the shit going on.
I do not like the "national security" thing but this might be one of the cases where it actually is happening.
The Voyager probes were helped along with a once-in-a-lifetime alignment of the planets that provided multiple very significant gravity assist for what was called a Grand Tour. The trip took 12 years with the assists; it otherwise would have taken 30 years. This alignment of the planets will not occur for another 150 years or so.
Windows 7 was basically Vista SP2 with a better GUI. That said, Windows 7 is perhaps the best operating system I have ever used, including OS X. I know that's crazy, but I like to tinker with my systems. OS X is slick but it runs on very expensive hardware, and it's not that customizable. Windows 7 runs on commodity hardware, and I can mess around with it quite a bit. It's fast, snappy, and the GUI really makes life easier for me. It supports multiple monitors and Bluetooth and networking. It is very stable. I haven't crashed Windows 7 yet after over a year of constant use. Although apps crash, the underlying OS is stable. Linux is great for my VPS but Ubuntu simply is not there yet in terms of desktop use.
The problem with Chinese trade with America are: (1) Chinese manipulation of their currency to benefit their exporters. (2) Non-existent worker protection laws allow children to work for long hours in dangerous conditions. (3) Environmental standards don't exist so they can pollute to their heart's content.
This can be addressed by tariffs and other trade agreements. But is this going to happen under any regime? No. We're terrified of the Chinese and their huge inventories of our treasuries. But does that mean that government regulation of American energy policies is a bad thing just because GE is in trouble? Nope.
For the most part, Google has moved onto Caffeine and GFS2 for their support. Apparently, Big Table was taking too long to regenerate the entire index, forcing Google to refresh only part of their index frequently. The new Caffeine framework supposedly lets Google get closer-to-real-time search results because newly-indexed/crawled data can be continuously tossed into the search database without requiring an entire batch process. Perhaps that's why quotes from Slashdot comments show up in Google so quickly. This technology allows Google to chase news, blogs, and Twitter feeds while they're still relevant, which is pretty freaking cool.
The guys who were complaining about Google Instant and how Google should make better search results didn't mention Caffeine. Hopefully, Google can figure out how to use this technology to weed out the spam links and SEO crap that dominates some searches.
Slashdot Mirror
At the end of the day, you want uptime, not the illusion of control. Even if you run everything yourself, what ends up happening is that you have to tell your CEO instead that "we lost Internet connectivity because Verizon screwed the pooch and cut the fiber while pulling someone's FiOS line" or "building maintenance will fix the burst pipe flooding our server room as soon as they can." Even if you have the IT budget to run your own datacenter, bizarre shit will happen that is out of your hands.
If a judge required absolute proof of guilt before issuing a search warrant, we would never catch anyone. The police would have to ask the guy if he secured his wireless router, and any guilty dude would refuse to answer while he formatted the porn off of his computer.
The standard for issuing a search warrant is probable cause. The search warrant is meant to allow the police to get more evidence that might prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. An IP address from which child porn has been downloaded is probable cause to search the computers of the registered customer using that IP address at that time. It's hard to see how it would not be probable cause even though it is not enough to convict.
HOWEVER, the police should not have run into the building with guns drawn. They should have known that probable cause does not mean guilty. Furthermore, charging into a building with guns drawn is freaking retarded in all cases where the guy is not violent and the crime he is suspected of is not violent.
Bottom line, the cops screwed the pooch on this one.
The Kindle is based on e-ink, which consumes a negligible amount of electricity when displaying a page. The ads will only be displayed on the lock screen page, and the bottom of the home page. There will not be any ads on the bottom of the books themselves. This might work if Amazon regularly includes really great offers to owners of the ad-Kindle such as half-priced Amazon gift cards and books, as the article suggests.
Personally, I'd rather pay the extra $25 to get an ad-free version. However, if this works out and advertisers are plenty, Amazon might start giving bigger discounts to get a larger audience.
The awesome thing about this is that I can use an ATA to make a phone call directly from my desk phone without having to use the web interface or having Google call me. Also, I can use the SIP support built into Android 2.3 to make calls via wifi.
I guess the CIA is suffering from a shortage of workers so they need to spice up their image to get some fresh blood. There are CIA recruiting commercials and I guess showing off what has been done in the past is meant to make you want to take part in the modern continuation of that trend.
"Hiding taxes among the 'rich' doesn't help people realize this, as the taxes just get hidden, and passed down to the little guy in the form of higher prices, lower wages and so on."
That's the incorrect assumption that you make. The incidence of a tax (i.e., who actually feels the burden of the tax) varies but not all taxes are spread amongst the entire population. For instance, the payroll tax on employers is borne entirely by the employee. However, sales and income taxes have a strong incidence on whoever is being taxed. For instance, if I have a business that's making X million dollars, and my income taxes go up, I can't easily increase the cost of my products because that would not necessarily maximize my company's profits; I'd probably have to grin and bear it.
Furthermore, the poor and middle class are more likely to consume the public goods supplied by taxes. Rich people tend to drive to work so they subsidize the public transportation for the middle class and poor. The rich also tend to send their kids to private schools so they subsidize the public schools and universities. So pretend that taxes are cut and as a result, public transportation and free health clinics are cut. Well, that affects the poor and middle class a lot more than the rich! But the poor don't necessarily understand that. They'll be happy with a $300 tax cut but don't realize that they had to give up $1000 in services so the rich guy can have his $5,000 tax break!
Anyway, that's why tax policy is hard to set correctly. You can use it to set policy, but how are you going to avoid massive tax fraud? A hooker already is pretty hard to bust on Craigslist, but are you really going to go after her for tax evasion?!
It should be no big deal for them to license code from Tomato USB firmware or DD-WRT, both of which support IPv6 amongst many other really cool features. I don't buy routers that do not support DD-WRT, and I strongly prefer routers that support Tomato USB.
Hopefully, failing that, Cisco can still add IPv6 support through a future firmware upgrade. I doubt anyone who just spent $180 on a router is going to buy a new one a year from now.
Social skills are hard as hell to master and are at a premium. Many brilliant workers never get anywhere because they aren't good at office politics or client relations. At the end of the day, making money matters to a business--it's the only matter, in fact. The brightest engineer may not be able to get a client to sign a multi-million dollar contract whereas a "dumb frat boy" can get that deal done. The next time you see that coworker of yours, ask yourself whether or not you like him a lot as a person; does he remember who you are and what your kid is studying in college? There's a very good chance that he does, and you like him (aside from the professional issues). That schmoozing at conventions and getting information about rivals is very difficult to do, and I bet that most engineers could not do that successfully.
The US didn't bomb the wreckage because the scene was soon overrun with civilians, which was broadcast on CNN. It would have been horrible PR if those civilians dancing on the wreckage suddenly disappeared and the image faded to static.
Each of those dictators caused tens of millions of deaths ... why aren't they less "green" than Genghis Kahn? Did the article take into account the method of death used? I guess the Nazis used a lot of gas running the trains to the concentration camps, but what about Pol Pot or Stalin, who just starved tens of millions of people to death?
A better explanation is that this is a stupid article that makes no freaking sense.
The problem with the "prosecute the cops who broke the law to obtain evidence and you no longer need the exclusionary rule" is that a prosecutor will not bite the hand that feeds it. If they just put a child rapist in jail because a cop bent a few rules, the prosecutor will NOT stir up trouble by prosecuting the hero cop who just broke the case. Remember that the case that led to the exclusionary rule dealt with a guy who killed a young girl, wrapped her body up in a rug, and threw her away around Christmastime. He requested a lawyer, but the cop started guilt-tripping the defendant while driving to the lawyer in violation of Miranda. The guy gave away the location of the corpse, and was convicted based on that fact.
Do you really think any prosecutor in the entire world would file charges against a cop who didn't beat the suspect but rather just asked him to bring some peace to his victim's family? What's your recourse if the prosecutor refuses to charge the cop, sue the prosecutor? It's called sovereign immunity and decisions to charge and not charge are absolutely immune.
What's the alternative, to just keep getting blown up by dumb IEDs? You even admit it yourself. The IED v.6.0 is much more expensive to make, and harder to deploy, so the overall number of successful IED attacks has gone down as a result of the cat and mouse game. Sure, Stuxnet isn't going to knock Iran's nuclear program out forever, but it's better than nothing. Now Iran will strengthen its computer infrastructure against attack, but so what? Their nuclear program already got pushed off track by a while, and it's not like leaving them alone was a much better alternative.
Iran depends on other countries for almost all of their technology. For Christ's sake, they can't even refine enough gasoline for their domestic consumption so they have to import gasoline. The problem is that Iran cannot just buy new technology to replace the untrustworthy systems, so they have to try to fix it. The Stuxnet virus has penetrated into all of their systems, including the SCADA controllers themselves. Apparently, their systems just keep re-infecting themselves. Furthermore, Stuxnet caused physical damage to a bunch of their centrifuges by cranking them up and down past operational parameters, while keeping the data readouts within normal limits. Therefore, the Iranians have no idea what can and cannot be trusted.
I use Keepass to maintain all of my passwords. It's open-source and encrypted using AES 256. I save the password database on Dropbox, which keeps an updated copy available on all of my computers. The only problem is that I cannot login to the websites on public computers, but I think that's an added security bonus. I have my Blackberry with me to check my email, which is what I really need to check on the road.
You and the article are missing the point of the ruling. Manufacturers price discriminate by selling the products at higher prices to countries that can afford a higher price. For instance, watches sold in America cost more than watches sold in Paraguay. The question is whether or not the first sale doctrine can stop someone from buying cheaper watches in Paraguay then selling them into the United States. The Ninth Circuit said that it does. I disagree, but it's not as retarded as giving foreign companies the right to decide vastly greater control of the products in your home than you do.
From what I have read, the passwords were hashed but only with DES. Furthermore, there was salting and no password complexity requirement because rainbow tables were able to reveal a medley of Gawker passwords. Gawker's reaction to the first signs of a break in a month ago (complete indifference) was pretty nuts. It's user base is its biggest asset; the disrespect they show their users was ridiculous.
Wikileaks has lost a lot of its credibility once it became a purely anti-American operation. There are rumors that Wikileaks will release some documents about Bank of America, but there hasn't been any leaks regarding other countries or their companies. I am certain that there's a lot of juicy shit going on in Mexico regarding their drug problem, or Russia and their corruption. Why don't we ever here about that?
In any case, the US government doesn't have a reason to give too much of a shit about the released documents so far. The Collateral Murder video didn't cause widespread rebellion, and Iran seems pretty butthurt about the leak of diplomatic cables.
If those cables include replies from Saudi Arabians urging a strike on Iran, yeah, that is pretty surprising.
The entire point of redefining the kilogram would be to allow any sufficiently-technical laboratory to make their own mass. Right now, there are forty artifacts that must be kept safe. If you do not have one of these artifacts, you in fact have no way to determine what your kilogram actually is. Hell, the artifacts probably do not even have the same mass as each other. So they are proposing to replace a few sets of metal with an instruction manual on how anyone with the right technology can make their own reference weight. That's a huge difference.
The scary answer for why there are so many competing intelligence organs? To keep CIA in check. State has been at odds with CIA for decades, with CIA wanting to overthrow governments and to blow stuff up and with State trying to keep the status quo. The most bizarre aspect of CIA isn't that it has its own paramilitary directorate, but that this directorate has been responsible for high-tech advances such as the SR-71 Blackbird (which began life as the CIA-funded A-12) and the Predator drones, and has some of the most skilled warriors on the face of the planet within their Special Activities Division. Someone needs to watch the watcher, and you can be damned sure that Congress is not capable of such oversight.
I am a pretty left-leaning guy, and I am no huge fan of Gitmo, but there is probably a reason that Gitmo still hasn't been closed. After all, President Obama would have really fired up his base going into these midterm elections if he could check off "closed Gitmo" on his list of to-dos. Therefore, I really, honestly believe that there are some really scary things happening at Gitmo with very few horrible, hardcore killers who have been giving up all sorts of useful intelligence but who cannot be tried in a civilian court because they have been endlessly tortured to obtain that information. Senator Obama made his campaign promises to close down Gitmo not knowing the secret horrors and President Obama has to backtrack because he now knows about the shit going on.
I do not like the "national security" thing but this might be one of the cases where it actually is happening.
The Voyager probes were helped along with a once-in-a-lifetime alignment of the planets that provided multiple very significant gravity assist for what was called a Grand Tour. The trip took 12 years with the assists; it otherwise would have taken 30 years. This alignment of the planets will not occur for another 150 years or so.
Windows 7 was basically Vista SP2 with a better GUI. That said, Windows 7 is perhaps the best operating system I have ever used, including OS X. I know that's crazy, but I like to tinker with my systems. OS X is slick but it runs on very expensive hardware, and it's not that customizable. Windows 7 runs on commodity hardware, and I can mess around with it quite a bit. It's fast, snappy, and the GUI really makes life easier for me. It supports multiple monitors and Bluetooth and networking. It is very stable. I haven't crashed Windows 7 yet after over a year of constant use. Although apps crash, the underlying OS is stable. Linux is great for my VPS but Ubuntu simply is not there yet in terms of desktop use.
The problem with Chinese trade with America are:
(1) Chinese manipulation of their currency to benefit their exporters.
(2) Non-existent worker protection laws allow children to work for long hours in dangerous conditions.
(3) Environmental standards don't exist so they can pollute to their heart's content.
This can be addressed by tariffs and other trade agreements. But is this going to happen under any regime? No. We're terrified of the Chinese and their huge inventories of our treasuries. But does that mean that government regulation of American energy policies is a bad thing just because GE is in trouble? Nope.
For the most part, Google has moved onto Caffeine and GFS2 for their support. Apparently, Big Table was taking too long to regenerate the entire index, forcing Google to refresh only part of their index frequently. The new Caffeine framework supposedly lets Google get closer-to-real-time search results because newly-indexed/crawled data can be continuously tossed into the search database without requiring an entire batch process. Perhaps that's why quotes from Slashdot comments show up in Google so quickly. This technology allows Google to chase news, blogs, and Twitter feeds while they're still relevant, which is pretty freaking cool.
The guys who were complaining about Google Instant and how Google should make better search results didn't mention Caffeine. Hopefully, Google can figure out how to use this technology to weed out the spam links and SEO crap that dominates some searches.