Many Americans do, indeed, believe that there should be some restraint on flag burning. They are goose-stepping pricks. Luckily, the chaps who wrote the constitution we smarter than they are, and those ugly, atavistic, elements of our culture Just Don't Get What They Want. Same for the "I feel strongly about deity X, so all criticism of deity X must be forbidden" crowd.
To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no problem applying my standards(some of which are, albeit imperfectly, reasonably close to qualifying as "American") to another culture. If the Thais wish to be self restrained, I wish them all the best. If they wish to restrain the speech of those who they don't think are self restrained enough, fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
The world over, I respect the right of people to respect whatever they fancy(though I agree with some and mock others for doing so, depending on what they chose). However, I nowhere respect the right of anybody to compel others to display 'respect' for their chosen object, whether it be the flag, the nation, the monarch, the god, the literary masterpiece. If this makes me an insensitive, cultural-imperialist prick, so be it. At least I'm an equal-opportunity bigot.
If we just agreed to define, for judicial purposes, all white collar criminals as 300lb, tattooed, black men named "Tyrone"(with gang connections, if a corporation is involved), I suspect that the problem would take care of itself.
On the plus side, datacenters are a touch water and power heavy; but aren't particularly noisy, noxious, or dangerous.
What you have to watch out for is situations where state or local governments end up offering ludicrously generous "incentive" packages that the locals will still be eating in taxes long after the industry in question has moved on(datacenters not exactly being a business where deep roots in the community help much, so they can and will pack up and move if you try to buy them in with 'incentives').
You can forget reviving the dreams of your blue collar workforce or such; but a datacenter should be a reasonably quiet, unassuming producer of modest taxes and a few support jobs. Just don't get sucked into a bidding war to host one...
I'm sure that I'm just tilting at windmills here; but I don't think that the US medical situation is news to anybody: As with schools, if you have deep pockets you can get among the best, hence the steady stream of foreign dignitaries and suits(some amusingly embarrassing in retrospect) showing up for the purpose. If you don't, though, quality can often drop off much faster than cost(with a little bump up down at the very bottom, where the ER people are legally obligated to scrape your ass off the street even if they can't collect). In a number of other countries, the price/quality drop off is far less steep, and thus much more sensible(and, if this guy was thai, he may also have had handy things like helpful family...)
While it is helpful for the specific guy in question, laws that are selectively enforced to the point of meaninglessness are, perhaps, among the most dangerous. Because they have such a ceremonial feel to them, and usually don't come down hard on people who matter, they stick around; but you can blow the dust off them and give somebody a good hard whack any time you like...
While I'm not a huge fan of the fact that threatening the president is more serious than threatening other people, there is kind of a large difference between "threatening" and "insulting".
You can insult the president all you like(in practice, even in situations where private citizens or celebrities might reach for the libel suit, presidents don't seem to bother), you just can't threaten to kill, injure, or kidnap him. Even then, because of the first amendment concerns, the secret service typically ignores many of the less dangerous looking cases.
The cool thing about Thailand is that they've been through 17 constitutions(and more governments) since 1932, and basically all of them have afforded at least theoretical deference to the king. Your heuristic might have hit a corner case here.
While I agree about avoiding travel to shithole jurisdictions whose laws I'm on the wrong side of, I have to wonder whether this guy has some backstory that made him more interesting to the locals.
Unless the Thai authorities are way ahead of the game, they must have about a zillion other cases that they could be taking an interest in(or local troublemakers they feel like beating down, it isn't stability city over there), rather than some random Yank who said something mean four years ago, and (seeing as he went there for treatment) will either be leaving when recovered or going out the back door, depending on what he is being treated for. He seems like a low-priority case.
Is this just a matter of some google-using authoritarian jackoff justifying his job by bring cases, no matter how cold and irrelevant, or is the american in question of interest for some other reason(suspected enthusiasm for underage ladyboys, dubiously ethical business dealings, meddling in local revolutionary politics, or something) and this is just the easiest way to bring him in?
As with much of "evolutionary psychology"(especially the stuff that has the misfortune to be human-facing enough to make it into pop-psych publication), the notion is at nontrivial risk of being nonsense floating on a foundation of methodological malpractice; but there is the suspicion in some quarters that humans bear some of the adaptations one sees in primates where sperm competition, as well mate selection competition, exists.
In large primates, for instance, the more promiscuous species tend to have comparatively large testicles for their body size, in order to produce more sperm, either for more frequent matings, or to have the advantage of numbers against competitors mating with the same partner. Humans are not at the top of that list; but they aren't at the bottom, either.
There is a bunch of other stuff about mate-guarding behavior, possible structural adaptation of the head of the penis for scraping out competitors' sperm, and the like.
The psychological side is a bit more speculative, and it is hard to measure things like that accurately in humans "Please rate your level of arousal, on a scale of one to five, at the notion of cuckoldry...)
Horatio: *makes the goatse face, turns away from monitor* "You were right, Hamlet, there is more between heaven and earth than is dreampt of in my philosophy. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've just seen a black hole large enough to contain my entire philosophy and then some..."
I have some bad news(no, not pornographic or anything, just a site-ranking) for anybody to whom female enthusiasm for reading about male homosexual relationships is a surprise...
It's funny how often things go badly when people(even, perhaps especially) very smart ones step out of their discipline and assume that somebody else's disciple must be fairly simply reduceable to the rules and techniques of their own. Economists seem to be the most notable offenders; but these computational neuroscientists seem to have wandered deep into the sociologists' territory just because they saw a database and a tenuous connection to human behavior. Of course the primitive locals who've been developing the study of population behaviors had nothing to teach them... so they stumbled merrily into nonsense.
Sorry kids, it is arguable that some disciplines are utterly useless, or that some disciplines attract smarter people than others; and it is definitely the case that strict segmentation between them is counterproductive; but it is rarely the case that your neighbor's discipline is just a pitiful subset of yours, engulfed in darkness and just waiting for you to enlighten them...
Unless that was just Time fucking it up, which probably wouldn't be a first, I would steer a wide berth around a computational neuroscientist who views the mind "as software" rather than "as something usefully analogous to, and modellable by, software".
We don't know as much as we would like about the brain; but we know enough to say that it looks very, very, very unlike a "computer" or something that "runs software" except for near-uselessly broad definitions of those things. If anything, the more or less complete annihilation of analog computers by cheap, fast, transistors and the brutally fast Von Neumman architecture devices that they make possible have made the "brain = computer, mind = software" analogy less useful than it used to be(ironically, of course, at the same time, those same not-very-brainlike machines have brute-forced their way ever closer to being able to model biological neural networks of non-useless size...)
The constitution carefully incorporates a relatively narrow definition of what constitutes treason and broadening it would be both difficult and dangerous.
However, I think that moving toward a sentencing model for high-numbers white collar criminals that recognizes that they are that much more pernicious than the deeply-unsympathetic-but-really-rather-penny-ante blue collar set would be a wholesome development.
You can rack up fairly stiff sentences for frauds and property crimes with expected gains of $10,000 or less. If we started basing the sentences for the million+ set on multiples of those, we might see their numbers dwindle... In cases where conspiracies, shell companies, and the like, are involved, we could make a good start by simply adopting the same mindset that we have for street gangs to more upmarket criminal organizations.
This is SAIC we are talking about. Corruption, regulatory capture, and general parasitism-on-dodgy-private-contract-projects are basically their business model.
I, for one, am shocked, shocked, that RSA's assertion that the breach was minor and totally, not, y'know, a real world issue was less than 100% truthful...
It's worse than that. This guy was an employee of their ATM division, which makes products that count things people care about. Their election systems division is the shallow end of the talent pool.
Slashdot Mirror
Just wait until they start paying in Zanga cash...
Many Americans do, indeed, believe that there should be some restraint on flag burning. They are goose-stepping pricks. Luckily, the chaps who wrote the constitution we smarter than they are, and those ugly, atavistic, elements of our culture Just Don't Get What They Want. Same for the "I feel strongly about deity X, so all criticism of deity X must be forbidden" crowd.
To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no problem applying my standards(some of which are, albeit imperfectly, reasonably close to qualifying as "American") to another culture. If the Thais wish to be self restrained, I wish them all the best. If they wish to restrain the speech of those who they don't think are self restrained enough, fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
The world over, I respect the right of people to respect whatever they fancy(though I agree with some and mock others for doing so, depending on what they chose). However, I nowhere respect the right of anybody to compel others to display 'respect' for their chosen object, whether it be the flag, the nation, the monarch, the god, the literary masterpiece. If this makes me an insensitive, cultural-imperialist prick, so be it. At least I'm an equal-opportunity bigot.
If we just agreed to define, for judicial purposes, all white collar criminals as 300lb, tattooed, black men named "Tyrone"(with gang connections, if a corporation is involved), I suspect that the problem would take care of itself.
Never mind the whole "feeder" subset...
Where applicable, yeah. We haven't been doing such a hot job with the "land of the free" or "home of the brave" stuff lately.
Do all packets have to be routed through it five times a day?
On the plus side, datacenters are a touch water and power heavy; but aren't particularly noisy, noxious, or dangerous.
What you have to watch out for is situations where state or local governments end up offering ludicrously generous "incentive" packages that the locals will still be eating in taxes long after the industry in question has moved on(datacenters not exactly being a business where deep roots in the community help much, so they can and will pack up and move if you try to buy them in with 'incentives').
You can forget reviving the dreams of your blue collar workforce or such; but a datacenter should be a reasonably quiet, unassuming producer of modest taxes and a few support jobs. Just don't get sucked into a bidding war to host one...
I'm sure that I'm just tilting at windmills here; but I don't think that the US medical situation is news to anybody: As with schools, if you have deep pockets you can get among the best, hence the steady stream of foreign dignitaries and suits(some amusingly embarrassing in retrospect) showing up for the purpose. If you don't, though, quality can often drop off much faster than cost(with a little bump up down at the very bottom, where the ER people are legally obligated to scrape your ass off the street even if they can't collect). In a number of other countries, the price/quality drop off is far less steep, and thus much more sensible(and, if this guy was thai, he may also have had handy things like helpful family...)
While it is helpful for the specific guy in question, laws that are selectively enforced to the point of meaninglessness are, perhaps, among the most dangerous. Because they have such a ceremonial feel to them, and usually don't come down hard on people who matter, they stick around; but you can blow the dust off them and give somebody a good hard whack any time you like...
While I'm not a huge fan of the fact that threatening the president is more serious than threatening other people, there is kind of a large difference between "threatening" and "insulting".
You can insult the president all you like(in practice, even in situations where private citizens or celebrities might reach for the libel suit, presidents don't seem to bother), you just can't threaten to kill, injure, or kidnap him. Even then, because of the first amendment concerns, the secret service typically ignores many of the less dangerous looking cases.
The cool thing about Thailand is that they've been through 17 constitutions(and more governments) since 1932, and basically all of them have afforded at least theoretical deference to the king. Your heuristic might have hit a corner case here.
While I agree about avoiding travel to shithole jurisdictions whose laws I'm on the wrong side of, I have to wonder whether this guy has some backstory that made him more interesting to the locals.
Unless the Thai authorities are way ahead of the game, they must have about a zillion other cases that they could be taking an interest in(or local troublemakers they feel like beating down, it isn't stability city over there), rather than some random Yank who said something mean four years ago, and (seeing as he went there for treatment) will either be leaving when recovered or going out the back door, depending on what he is being treated for. He seems like a low-priority case.
Is this just a matter of some google-using authoritarian jackoff justifying his job by bring cases, no matter how cold and irrelevant, or is the american in question of interest for some other reason(suspected enthusiasm for underage ladyboys, dubiously ethical business dealings, meddling in local revolutionary politics, or something) and this is just the easiest way to bring him in?
As with much of "evolutionary psychology"(especially the stuff that has the misfortune to be human-facing enough to make it into pop-psych publication), the notion is at nontrivial risk of being nonsense floating on a foundation of methodological malpractice; but there is the suspicion in some quarters that humans bear some of the adaptations one sees in primates where sperm competition, as well mate selection competition, exists.
In large primates, for instance, the more promiscuous species tend to have comparatively large testicles for their body size, in order to produce more sperm, either for more frequent matings, or to have the advantage of numbers against competitors mating with the same partner. Humans are not at the top of that list; but they aren't at the bottom, either.
There is a bunch of other stuff about mate-guarding behavior, possible structural adaptation of the head of the penis for scraping out competitors' sperm, and the like.
The psychological side is a bit more speculative, and it is hard to measure things like that accurately in humans "Please rate your level of arousal, on a scale of one to five, at the notion of cuckoldry...)
Horatio: *makes the goatse face, turns away from monitor* "You were right, Hamlet, there is more between heaven and earth than is dreampt of in my philosophy. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've just seen a black hole large enough to contain my entire philosophy and then some..."
I have some bad news(no, not pornographic or anything, just a site-ranking) for anybody to whom female enthusiasm for reading about male homosexual relationships is a surprise...
It's funny how often things go badly when people(even, perhaps especially) very smart ones step out of their discipline and assume that somebody else's disciple must be fairly simply reduceable to the rules and techniques of their own. Economists seem to be the most notable offenders; but these computational neuroscientists seem to have wandered deep into the sociologists' territory just because they saw a database and a tenuous connection to human behavior. Of course the primitive locals who've been developing the study of population behaviors had nothing to teach them... so they stumbled merrily into nonsense.
Sorry kids, it is arguable that some disciplines are utterly useless, or that some disciplines attract smarter people than others; and it is definitely the case that strict segmentation between them is counterproductive; but it is rarely the case that your neighbor's discipline is just a pitiful subset of yours, engulfed in darkness and just waiting for you to enlighten them...
Unless that was just Time fucking it up, which probably wouldn't be a first, I would steer a wide berth around a computational neuroscientist who views the mind "as software" rather than "as something usefully analogous to, and modellable by, software".
We don't know as much as we would like about the brain; but we know enough to say that it looks very, very, very unlike a "computer" or something that "runs software" except for near-uselessly broad definitions of those things. If anything, the more or less complete annihilation of analog computers by cheap, fast, transistors and the brutally fast Von Neumman architecture devices that they make possible have made the "brain = computer, mind = software" analogy less useful than it used to be(ironically, of course, at the same time, those same not-very-brainlike machines have brute-forced their way ever closer to being able to model biological neural networks of non-useless size...)
Which is why SAIC is #9(FY 2009 data) among federal contractors...
Hey, be nice. Fraud is a physical task, right?
The constitution carefully incorporates a relatively narrow definition of what constitutes treason and broadening it would be both difficult and dangerous.
However, I think that moving toward a sentencing model for high-numbers white collar criminals that recognizes that they are that much more pernicious than the deeply-unsympathetic-but-really-rather-penny-ante blue collar set would be a wholesome development.
You can rack up fairly stiff sentences for frauds and property crimes with expected gains of $10,000 or less. If we started basing the sentences for the million+ set on multiples of those, we might see their numbers dwindle... In cases where conspiracies, shell companies, and the like, are involved, we could make a good start by simply adopting the same mindset that we have for street gangs to more upmarket criminal organizations.
I wonder how toothy the Bloomberg L.P. media coverage of this won't be?
Only the full amount?
This is SAIC we are talking about. Corruption, regulatory capture, and general parasitism-on-dodgy-private-contract-projects are basically their business model.
I, for one, am shocked, shocked, that RSA's assertion that the breach was minor and totally, not, y'know, a real world issue was less than 100% truthful...
It's worse than that. This guy was an employee of their ATM division, which makes products that count things people care about. Their election systems division is the shallow end of the talent pool.