Right? Nobody said anything about rights. I believe the expression you're looking for is "need to know". In that kind of situation, the principal has a "need to know". Even if he/she only knows that there's a "family situation" that demands that the child be withdrawn immediately. Is that such an affront to privacy that we need to allow disruptive personal communication devices to every student in public schools without restriction?
Yeah, because blocking cell phones blocks all wireless communication. I forgot about that. And of course, since all buildings that caught fire burned to the fucking ground before wireless communication was implementable, any and all buildings with a fire would be burning scrap without a functional cell phone inside.
Still, despite your dumb-assed oversight that blocking cells would somehow interfere with firefighting, I agree with the notion of taking away cells from students. I stand by my assertion that blocking them passively makes more sense than blocking them actively, but taking them away (and smashing the damned things for a second offense) seems like the best solution.
Still, this is a simple solution. Kids don't need cell-phones in class. If there's an emergency, the principal can inform the student involved. So, block cell-phones.
However, active transmitters are illegal - And there are valid reasons for that. So use passive blockers. The cost is probably a little higher, but the result is the same. And you're not tangling with the FCC. Our local movie theater does it (although they built it in during construction, lowering the installation price).
Heck, call installing chicken-wire a "make-work" program and you may get a chunk of the stimulus $$.
That analogy only works if the German company was selling them mail order and sending them over to Poland. Polish courts could certainly tell the German company to stop mailing guns to Polish customers residing in Poland.
Still, unless there's some strange and compelling business need, no big business should be allowing employees to run Limewire at work IMO. Especially on government machines with sensitive information. Some P2P may be useful for business purposes. But Limewire?
Slightly off-topic, sorry, but I think it's abysmal enough to post and interest a few (or just make you thankful you're not here.)
"Absolutely nothing" is my company's solution to filtering out large or suspect attachments. If somebody sends me an attachment and my company's filters don't like it, the e-mail is dropped. I don't get a notice saying, "This e-mail contains suspicious attachments and has been removed." My customer doesn't get a reply saying, "This e-mail could not be delivered to the recipient because it contained suspicious attachments." Nothing - Zip, zero, nothing. My customer thinks it went through and it's invisible to me.
After numerous complaints to IT, the response was that I need to contact each of my customers and any of their contacts that may be sending e-mail that I may be copied on with an attachment and have them call me on the phone any time they send on so that I know to expect it.
I realize that you're kidding, but removing more than expected is something that I consider unacceptable. If it hits the mail server and gets shuffled off into a spam folder with 100 pieces of trash, that's fine. But if it's not even going to make it to the mail server, 0.3% is too high a false positive rate.
Should we expect a series of PSAs about how iPhone jailbreaking aids the terrorists?
Might not be as far off as you think. "...could...use the Exclusive Chip Identification number to make calls anonymously." sounds like a good set-up for that kind of approach.
I'd imagine that the software is locked down well enough for the current environment. Playing devil's advocate, you could see how somebody who had found an exploit in the iPhone OS could make anonymous calls. Or potentially launch a DoS on a tower is they had a large army of compromised iPhones. And, while I don't know jack about cell-phone-tower-handshaking-protocol, perhaps you could initiate some kind of DoS by doing the equivalent of a SYN flood with a smaller group of phones.
Apart from those possibilities, I don't see much danger.
It's not even totally nonsensical. We don't want adversaries to know our capabilities regarding resolution of space imaging. So, we classify pretty much any good satellite imagery by default (at a fairly high level) and then decide later what to release or classify at a lower level. You can bet that our best imagery won't see the light of day until we've upgraded and have something better to keep secret.
I know, I know - Our tax $$ paid to take those pictures, blah, blah, blah. But classifying satellite data at least has some basis of thought behind it, as opposed to some of the other stuff we bury.
I've seen those installed. Be assured - An adult driving a car with a red swooshing light thing does not look nearly as cool as we all remember KITT and Michael to be.
Depends on the basilisk. The old-school ones were basically the size of roosters with snake tails. Killing one involved tossing a weasel into their hole in the ground. But, the myths vary pretty widely.
This puts the Atheist in the same boat as the theist: with a belief that lacks any evidence.
You're right, but I see the situation a little differently:
Pretend you're sitting in a room with a small box. A friend walks in and asks, "So, is there a basilisk in that box?"
An atheist says, "I believe that there is no basilisk in that box. If there was, he probably would have made some kind of noise or tried to get out. But the box has been completely silent the whole time I've been sitting here. Come to think of it, I've never seen a basilisk. Based on the fact that I have no evidence that gives me any reason to assume there's a basilisk in there, I believe that there is not one. A few people have remarked that some never-before-seen critter may be in there, but I don't think they based that on anything observable and a lot of them acted kind of nuts. So, even though I may be wrong, I believe that there is no basilisk."
An agnostic says, "I'm afraid that I haven't opened the box and don't have a key. There's no way for me to know whether there's a basilisk inside it or not. Since I can't say for certain what, if anything, is in the box I can't commit as the the potential of it containing a basilisk. Somebody did speculate that there may be a basilisk in there. Somebody else said there may be a griffin. Somebody else said that there may be a cat, a vial of poison, an unstable element, and a Geiger counter. But, since the box is locked, silent, and hasn't budged since it was first found, your guess is as good as mine."
Just an off-the-cuff analogy to try to get across my thought train. Feel free to offer a better one.
If so, Microsoft would have no one to sue but themselves before they demand people stop using the code.
I'm going to take this move at face value and assume that Microsoft is just doing something non-evil. But the notion still amuses me that they could be so fractured that one department may make a move like this only to be sued by another.
Agnosticism can mean either "I don't know whether there's a god or not" or "I believe it's unknowable whether there's a god or not".
I guess you're right, but not knowing whether or not there's a god doesn't necessarily make you agnostic. Nobody knows whether there is a god. Or many. Personally, I'm an atheist and am perfectly willing to admit that I don't know whether or not there's a god. I believe that there are no gods because I see no evidence of them and I see no useful reason to assume that there are any. It does no benefit to me, others, or my understanding of the universe to believe that they're there, so I assume that they're not. I don't understand some people's reasoning for doing otherwise, but am willing to accept that they do without judging or assuming that I'm somehow mentally superior because I reached a different conclusion.
That got longer than I'd intended, I'm just saying - Not knowing whether or not there are gods lurking about doesn't necessarily imply that you have to declare yourself "agnostic".
"Praise Allah" and "Praise God" mean the same thing and they reference the SAME GOD.
Tell that to the Hindus. Or Buddhists. Or Pagans. Or even the theistic agnostics.
I'm just saying... Like you point out, frame of reference is pretty essential for these kind of debates and it's easy to lose track once you've spent much time embedded in one.
Proof of performance? From my intimate knowledge of this case based on the headline, the necessary performance was to prove guilt - Not to accomplish a road race. Making stops to kill people takes much longer than stopping for potty breaks or tossing Gatorade bottles out of the car.
Of course, I could be putting too much faith into the headline...
OK, on the surface that seems like the right sentiment.
But the lawyer's job isn't to convince the public that his client is right, it's to persuade the jury to release him. If making some irresponsible public statement to garner press, no matter how immoral, inappropriate, unethical, or just seemingly stupid it might be, if it helps his client he's doing his job. Even if he's pulling a publicity stunt that no juror should know about (but may affect the outcome) he's doing his job.
You might be surprised. Shock therapy is still used in the US - I have a close family member for whom it was recommended and he volunteered. Of course, I'm not sure that we'd apply it without the patient's permission. But, although I'm not an expert (haven't even googled it since quite a few years ago when my family member was getting zapped), is somebody who volunteers for shock therapy necessarily qualified to make that decision for themselves?
Sorry for the admittedly off-topic self-reply, but it seems a little rough to post this article so late at night (by Mountain-time US standards) when so many registered users will be viewing this from areas that just lost Pandora... Sorry non-USians. We like the RIAA even less than you. As soon as your citizens get stupid enough to pump as much $$ as ours have into Britney Spears and the like (or smart enough to start supporting diverse talent on the same level as we support a select few pop stars), your RIAA equivalents can start competing with ours and we can suffer equally instead of selfishly.
Do you need access to a good torrent server to substitute for the lack of streaming of American music? I'm afraid it's the best I can offer.
(Please mods, don't confuse attempted humor for Troll. Hit me with Off-topic if I failed to interest you, but not the Troll mod - I am no Troll.)
Pandora is a cool service and they're playing the cards they've been dealt. Maybe those cards are largely viewed as unfair, but they want a level playing field. Why would anyone expect them to pony up for fees that some of their major competition (even though it's different technology) is immune to? Sure it would be better if they could win free broadcasting, but now that they've lost that battle they're just trying to level the playing field.
Hell, you could even view this as Pandora trying to get a couple of more players into the "let us broadcast w/o complications" game...
Yes, likely mislabeled and either destroyed or "permanently" stored. Some government agencies that I'll refrain from naming even let their stuff get trashed intentionally so that there are no questions when potentially valuable equipment is disposed of. I have terrible visions of these tapes sitting on a tarmac somewhere baking during the day and getting rained on for a couple of months before being degaussed, shredded, and incinerated.
Has anyone thought to check US Gov Crate #9906753? I hear there's good stuff in there.
Slashdot Mirror
Right? Nobody said anything about rights. I believe the expression you're looking for is "need to know". In that kind of situation, the principal has a "need to know". Even if he/she only knows that there's a "family situation" that demands that the child be withdrawn immediately. Is that such an affront to privacy that we need to allow disruptive personal communication devices to every student in public schools without restriction?
Grasp again - I think I see another straw.
Yeah, because blocking cell phones blocks all wireless communication. I forgot about that. And of course, since all buildings that caught fire burned to the fucking ground before wireless communication was implementable, any and all buildings with a fire would be burning scrap without a functional cell phone inside.
Still, despite your dumb-assed oversight that blocking cells would somehow interfere with firefighting, I agree with the notion of taking away cells from students. I stand by my assertion that blocking them passively makes more sense than blocking them actively, but taking them away (and smashing the damned things for a second offense) seems like the best solution.
Still, this is a simple solution. Kids don't need cell-phones in class. If there's an emergency, the principal can inform the student involved. So, block cell-phones.
However, active transmitters are illegal - And there are valid reasons for that. So use passive blockers. The cost is probably a little higher, but the result is the same. And you're not tangling with the FCC. Our local movie theater does it (although they built it in during construction, lowering the installation price).
Heck, call installing chicken-wire a "make-work" program and you may get a chunk of the stimulus $$.
That analogy only works if the German company was selling them mail order and sending them over to Poland. Polish courts could certainly tell the German company to stop mailing guns to Polish customers residing in Poland.
My first thought was, how in the world did the Pres get LimeWire running on his BlackBerry?
Still, unless there's some strange and compelling business need, no big business should be allowing employees to run Limewire at work IMO. Especially on government machines with sensitive information. Some P2P may be useful for business purposes. But Limewire?
Slightly off-topic, sorry, but I think it's abysmal enough to post and interest a few (or just make you thankful you're not here.)
"Absolutely nothing" is my company's solution to filtering out large or suspect attachments. If somebody sends me an attachment and my company's filters don't like it, the e-mail is dropped. I don't get a notice saying, "This e-mail contains suspicious attachments and has been removed." My customer doesn't get a reply saying, "This e-mail could not be delivered to the recipient because it contained suspicious attachments." Nothing - Zip, zero, nothing. My customer thinks it went through and it's invisible to me.
After numerous complaints to IT, the response was that I need to contact each of my customers and any of their contacts that may be sending e-mail that I may be copied on with an attachment and have them call me on the phone any time they send on so that I know to expect it.
Beautiful, huh?
I realize that you're kidding, but removing more than expected is something that I consider unacceptable. If it hits the mail server and gets shuffled off into a spam folder with 100 pieces of trash, that's fine. But if it's not even going to make it to the mail server, 0.3% is too high a false positive rate.
Should we expect a series of PSAs about how iPhone jailbreaking aids the terrorists?
Might not be as far off as you think. "...could...use the Exclusive Chip Identification number to make calls anonymously." sounds like a good set-up for that kind of approach.
I'd imagine that the software is locked down well enough for the current environment. Playing devil's advocate, you could see how somebody who had found an exploit in the iPhone OS could make anonymous calls. Or potentially launch a DoS on a tower is they had a large army of compromised iPhones. And, while I don't know jack about cell-phone-tower-handshaking-protocol, perhaps you could initiate some kind of DoS by doing the equivalent of a SYN flood with a smaller group of phones.
Apart from those possibilities, I don't see much danger.
It's not even totally nonsensical. We don't want adversaries to know our capabilities regarding resolution of space imaging. So, we classify pretty much any good satellite imagery by default (at a fairly high level) and then decide later what to release or classify at a lower level. You can bet that our best imagery won't see the light of day until we've upgraded and have something better to keep secret.
I know, I know - Our tax $$ paid to take those pictures, blah, blah, blah. But classifying satellite data at least has some basis of thought behind it, as opposed to some of the other stuff we bury.
I've seen those installed. Be assured - An adult driving a car with a red swooshing light thing does not look nearly as cool as we all remember KITT and Michael to be.
Depends on the basilisk. The old-school ones were basically the size of roosters with snake tails. Killing one involved tossing a weasel into their hole in the ground. But, the myths vary pretty widely.
This puts the Atheist in the same boat as the theist: with a belief that lacks any evidence.
You're right, but I see the situation a little differently:
Pretend you're sitting in a room with a small box. A friend walks in and asks, "So, is there a basilisk in that box?"
An atheist says, "I believe that there is no basilisk in that box. If there was, he probably would have made some kind of noise or tried to get out. But the box has been completely silent the whole time I've been sitting here. Come to think of it, I've never seen a basilisk. Based on the fact that I have no evidence that gives me any reason to assume there's a basilisk in there, I believe that there is not one. A few people have remarked that some never-before-seen critter may be in there, but I don't think they based that on anything observable and a lot of them acted kind of nuts. So, even though I may be wrong, I believe that there is no basilisk."
An agnostic says, "I'm afraid that I haven't opened the box and don't have a key. There's no way for me to know whether there's a basilisk inside it or not. Since I can't say for certain what, if anything, is in the box I can't commit as the the potential of it containing a basilisk. Somebody did speculate that there may be a basilisk in there. Somebody else said there may be a griffin. Somebody else said that there may be a cat, a vial of poison, an unstable element, and a Geiger counter. But, since the box is locked, silent, and hasn't budged since it was first found, your guess is as good as mine."
Just an off-the-cuff analogy to try to get across my thought train. Feel free to offer a better one.
If so, Microsoft would have no one to sue but themselves before they demand people stop using the code.
I'm going to take this move at face value and assume that Microsoft is just doing something non-evil. But the notion still amuses me that they could be so fractured that one department may make a move like this only to be sued by another.
Agnosticism can mean either "I don't know whether there's a god or not" or "I believe it's unknowable whether there's a god or not".
I guess you're right, but not knowing whether or not there's a god doesn't necessarily make you agnostic. Nobody knows whether there is a god. Or many. Personally, I'm an atheist and am perfectly willing to admit that I don't know whether or not there's a god. I believe that there are no gods because I see no evidence of them and I see no useful reason to assume that there are any. It does no benefit to me, others, or my understanding of the universe to believe that they're there, so I assume that they're not. I don't understand some people's reasoning for doing otherwise, but am willing to accept that they do without judging or assuming that I'm somehow mentally superior because I reached a different conclusion.
That got longer than I'd intended, I'm just saying - Not knowing whether or not there are gods lurking about doesn't necessarily imply that you have to declare yourself "agnostic".
"Praise Allah" and "Praise God" mean the same thing and they reference the SAME GOD.
Tell that to the Hindus. Or Buddhists. Or Pagans. Or even the theistic agnostics.
I'm just saying... Like you point out, frame of reference is pretty essential for these kind of debates and it's easy to lose track once you've spent much time embedded in one.
Proof of performance? From my intimate knowledge of this case based on the headline, the necessary performance was to prove guilt - Not to accomplish a road race. Making stops to kill people takes much longer than stopping for potty breaks or tossing Gatorade bottles out of the car.
Of course, I could be putting too much faith into the headline...
OK, on the surface that seems like the right sentiment.
But the lawyer's job isn't to convince the public that his client is right, it's to persuade the jury to release him. If making some irresponsible public statement to garner press, no matter how immoral, inappropriate, unethical, or just seemingly stupid it might be, if it helps his client he's doing his job. Even if he's pulling a publicity stunt that no juror should know about (but may affect the outcome) he's doing his job.
Maybe I'm just jaded, but what a world...
You might be surprised. Shock therapy is still used in the US - I have a close family member for whom it was recommended and he volunteered. Of course, I'm not sure that we'd apply it without the patient's permission. But, although I'm not an expert (haven't even googled it since quite a few years ago when my family member was getting zapped), is somebody who volunteers for shock therapy necessarily qualified to make that decision for themselves?
I hear that crate offers a pretty good time. I'm sure I read that somewhere.
For a good time, try calling it up. Everything I've heard on the radio says that Jenny's awesome. (Just have to narrow down the area code...)
Sorry for the admittedly off-topic self-reply, but it seems a little rough to post this article so late at night (by Mountain-time US standards) when so many registered users will be viewing this from areas that just lost Pandora... Sorry non-USians. We like the RIAA even less than you. As soon as your citizens get stupid enough to pump as much $$ as ours have into Britney Spears and the like (or smart enough to start supporting diverse talent on the same level as we support a select few pop stars), your RIAA equivalents can start competing with ours and we can suffer equally instead of selfishly.
Do you need access to a good torrent server to substitute for the lack of streaming of American music? I'm afraid it's the best I can offer.
(Please mods, don't confuse attempted humor for Troll. Hit me with Off-topic if I failed to interest you, but not the Troll mod - I am no Troll.)
Exactly - This should not be a surprise.
Pandora is a cool service and they're playing the cards they've been dealt. Maybe those cards are largely viewed as unfair, but they want a level playing field. Why would anyone expect them to pony up for fees that some of their major competition (even though it's different technology) is immune to? Sure it would be better if they could win free broadcasting, but now that they've lost that battle they're just trying to level the playing field.
Hell, you could even view this as Pandora trying to get a couple of more players into the "let us broadcast w/o complications" game...
Yes, likely mislabeled and either destroyed or "permanently" stored. Some government agencies that I'll refrain from naming even let their stuff get trashed intentionally so that there are no questions when potentially valuable equipment is disposed of. I have terrible visions of these tapes sitting on a tarmac somewhere baking during the day and getting rained on for a couple of months before being degaussed, shredded, and incinerated.
Has anyone thought to check US Gov Crate #9906753? I hear there's good stuff in there.
Corporations are making us more stupidity again =(
There's something oddly beautiful about that statement. But it hurts my brain as I try to figure out exactly what.