... why can't all the highly educated people in the world get with the program? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read what marketers are doing to influence and create our thoughts...
No but it takes money and influence, lots of money and lots of politically connected people, see also lobbyist.
9. Have you EVER been a member of or in any way associated (either directly or indirectly) with: a. The Communist Party? Yes No b. Any other totalitarian party? Yes No c. A terrorist organization?
Similar questions appear on most immigration forms (green card, H1B visa,...). Having been a member of the communist party can bar you from working in the US or becoming a US citizen...
Some things in Japan are archaic (government, banks etc. (really, ATMs which close at 7pm...)),
Even if 7pm is a little early, the first thing that popped in my mind was Chris Rock's ATM comment in his latest HBO special:
Drugs are illegal, but ATM machines are open twenty four hours a day. Twenty four hours a day! For who?! Who the fuck is it open for?! Have you ever taken out three hundred dollars at four o'clock in the morning for something positive? Shit, when you press that machine at four o'clock in the morning I think a psychiatrist should pop up on the screen an go "C'mon man, save your money man. Don't buy drugs, buy some rims!" -- Chris Rock, Never Scared
[Louis Armstrong International Airport] aviation director Roy Williams said the airport is "open and operational" despite some hurricane damage.
I was in New Orleans last February and the airport is not far away from the city center. You can check that out with Google Earth.
A field military/FEMA hospital should have been set up there on Tuesday and heavy helicopter rotations should have been started then as opposed to seing transport helicopters only yesterday. From the airport, evacuation to distant cities can be done by plane.
Private airlines could have been summoned to provide transport out of New Orleans airport. This is a national emergency and it should have been treated as such at the local/state and federal levels right away.
How do you handle the air traffic around the Superdome? That's not trivial.
DHS was created after 9/11 to deal with catastrophic attacks in the US. This is not terrorist based but it still is a catastrophic attack. DHS, FEMA and the military should have plans in place for such disasters and in fact they do but they didn't implement them soon enough. Budgets for all those agencies have been increased in response to 9/11. How has the money been used? Improved cooperation and preventing communication problems were amongst the main stated goals? Was it enough?
Using boats to rescue people? Where are you going to get the boats from? Boats are slow and they'd have to be brought in from far away.
Well, have you heard of military cargo planes? Oops, there's only one problem: they're deployed in Irak or the few ones left in the States are not used due to utter lack of planning and incompetence. The same goes of the transport helicopters (Chinook and black hawks) that we've only seen since yesterday, 5 days after the hit.
And before you tell me the airport is not fonctional, see this link from Wed. Aug 31:
Louis Armstrong International Airport, but aviation director Roy Williams said the airport is "open and operational" despite some hurricane damage.
It's hard to understand that there was not more aerial help provided. Think about the Saigon evacuation, the Berlin airlift,... performed by the US army and you'd figure there would be more resources for something happening on US soil. Sad, sad, sad...
from your linked article: Responding to a CNN inquiry, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Marc Short said Friday the gear has not been moved because none of the governors in the hurricane-ravaged area has requested it.
Seems clear enough to me why HS and Fema haven't deployed it. Now ask the governors why it hasn't been deployed.
How convenient to shift the blame. I see it differently though:
Fema is aware that there are supplies there, so I assume the Fema manager for Louisiana is aware of it also as it is his/her job to know such things and it is his/her duty to make sure the governor's office is aware that there are first responder gear available for them. Of course this assumes the managers in place are competent and not political cronnies...
Well, I think that ALL resources should be used no matter what EVEN if that means abandoning Iraq;
In case you're not aware of it, it takes weeks to bring back helicopters back. It's not like fighter planes that can refuel in flight and even that is a costly operation. For helicopters, the carrier has to come back as was demonstrated in the initial days of the tsunami rescue efforts where helicopters were also a scarce resourse until the carriers where in the vicinity.
they are close to being stable anyway.
you made a similar comment in your initial post and I didn't want to be too controversial but if you really think that, you're delusional.
Personally I think this is a command and control problem,
I agree completly on that point but what we really have to ask is what was all this reorganization after 9/11 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security about? Wasn't that supposed to help deal with major disasters? How can the communications break to such an extent when that was one of the major focus of training?
2) Drop paratroopers to secure sites for coming supply drops
3) Do air drops of food and medical supplies (water too)
4) Send in the SEALS with their dingy boats to begin to rescue people/pick off snipers/gangs
The only problem with those points is that the heavy duty helicopters (black hawks, Chinooks) are in Irak along with the paratroopers and SEALs needed in your plan. I'm sure using Chinooks to evacuate people would have sped up the process and the delivery of medicine/food...
To all those questions, you could add: where were the airlines and Amtrak on Sunday before the huricane hit? They could have provided one way rides , i.e. emergency airlift, out of the city for people without cars once it was clear New Orleans would be majorly hit?
Instead airlines bailed out while conditions were still good for flying, stranding their customers and countless others and Amtrak did the same.
you mean the darwin awards who refused to leave despite a cat 5 storm and mandatory evacuation?
No, I mean the 75 year old handicapped woman who has lost her support network and is too dirt poor/overwhelmed to understand what was going to happen.
Not everybody is as fortunate as you and even if they can understand what is going to happen, what about the airport and Amtrak shutting down way ahead of the storm when the rental cars were not available anymore? They could have provided one way tickets out of the city and we wouldn't have 30.000+ in the Superdome right now...
Blaming it on Bush is a joke. The levees haven't been properly funded for decades.
I would not blame the levy breaks on Bush but he certainly had some impact: how many people did die after the hurricane when the water was raising and they drowned in their homes or trying to escape as the National Guard choppers that could have saved them where nowhere to be found because:
a) some (most?) of the helicopters are in Iraq
and/or b) most of their pilots are in Iraq?
I've read an article recently that the local med-evac service had problems because their pilots are in the reserve and being deployed so their choppers stayed grounded even when they're needed...
Remember the new talking points word for the day is "process" or at least it was yesterday to describe the Iraqui constitution... OK, I admmit, I just watched yesterdays' Daily Show on my DVR...
If you have alot of neihbors around with thier own WiFi routers, and alot of the channels are used up, how do you make sure you are not connecting to someone elses
Use encryption and change the SSID on your wireless router and use the same settings on your wireless card(s) and you should only connect to your own router.
Well, it was consistent with some of your previous comments and that meant you ended up on my foes list. You're removed now for "good behavior". Hopefully, you'll stick to a more rational approach (including criticism) of the european cultures instead of using tired stereotypes...
Its sad that something like this has to bring home the point that the pissing and moaning some of the Americans (raises hand) here do about the euros should stop for good.. -- Les Francais sont des singes de capitulation qui mangent du fromage.
How about starting by changing your signature to show that you actually meant what you wrote?
OK, maybe I didn't insert the required tags in my previous message and in his case (friends/family), it's probably overkill but after reading the post, others may be tempted to boot from the DVD in an internet cafe for instance where hardware keyloggers are an issue.
As we all know, security is a process, once you remove the spyware issue from the host machine by booting from the DVD, the next issue is the hardware loggers and OTP is one solution for that problem.
Did you check for hardware keyloggers on the borrowed machines before connecting to your servers using ssh? Even if you trust your friends/family not to install them, there's always the weird room mate to consider. Maybe having one time passwords on the server would help in that case just to be sure...
After the FBI, CIA and local bomb-squads get around to opening the box, they'll probably hand-deliver your request to the company president!
With your fingerprints all over the box and your address on the applications inside the box, the FBI will most likely hand deliver you to Gitmo instead...
What are you talking about? Yes, some of the Lenna pictures that can be accessed indirectly from the site are not safe for work but all the pages you open when clicking on the links in the story description are safe for work unless a portrait picture of a woman is not safe and in that case, please let us know where you work so we can avoid that place...
You forgot about another set of problems: vote-buying & extortion.
It is much easier and more effective to commit election fraud via tampering with the counting process. It was, however, specifically with an eye towards goon squads that I specifically stipulated that individual voters could chose to discard their receipt before leaving the polling place. If you are concerned, about these things, however, there was a system with graphically encrypted receipts discussed here a while back.
No, it still is not enough. If there is the possibility of taking a copy home, then it will be abused. For example, if the intimidation is "go and vote now, we'll keep an eye on your 5 year old child while you vote", would the voter discard the receipt before leaving the polling place? I don't think so. If there's no possibility of carrying a receipt out of the polling place, such a scenario is not possible and I believe it's better to think about the worst case scenario when designing a new system instead of assuming that in most cases it will be fine.
No, open source doesn't solve anything as there's too many parameters that cannot be controled and bringing this issue will only confuse people. The only solution is an independent paper trail that can be audited and is the official vote result.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read what marketers are doing to influence and create our thoughts...
No but it takes money and influence, lots of money and lots of politically connected people, see also lobbyist.
Well, political affiliation can also be a problem in the US. In the naturalization form (available at http://uscis.gov/graphics/formsfee/forms/files/N-
Similar questions appear on most immigration forms (green card, H1B visa, ...). Having been a member of the communist party can bar you from working in the US or becoming a US citizen...
Even if 7pm is a little early, the first thing that popped in my mind was Chris Rock's ATM comment in his latest HBO special:
Drugs are illegal, but ATM machines are open twenty four hours a day. Twenty four hours a day! For who?! Who the fuck is it open for?! Have you ever taken out three hundred dollars at four o'clock in the morning for something positive? Shit, when you press that machine at four o'clock in the morning I think a psychiatrist should pop up on the screen an go "C'mon man, save your money man. Don't buy drugs, buy some rims!" -- Chris Rock, Never Scared
Where in New Orleans are you going to land a C-17? Oh yeah, nowhere.
a irport/index.html%3Fsection=cnn_travel//
The New Orleans airport wasn't that damaged by the storm. CNN article from Aug 31:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/08/31/new.orleans.
[Louis Armstrong International Airport] aviation director Roy Williams said the airport is "open and operational" despite some hurricane damage.
I was in New Orleans last February and the airport is not far away from the city center. You can check that out with Google Earth.
A field military/FEMA hospital should have been set up there on Tuesday and heavy helicopter rotations should have been started then as opposed to seing transport helicopters only yesterday. From the airport, evacuation to distant cities can be done by plane.
Private airlines could have been summoned to provide transport out of New Orleans airport. This is a national emergency and it should have been treated as such at the local/state and federal levels right away.
How do you handle the air traffic around the Superdome? That's not trivial.
DHS was created after 9/11 to deal with catastrophic attacks in the US. This is not terrorist based but it still is a catastrophic attack. DHS, FEMA and the military should have plans in place for such disasters and in fact they do but they didn't implement them soon enough. Budgets for all those agencies have been increased in response to 9/11. How has the money been used? Improved cooperation and preventing communication problems were amongst the main stated goals? Was it enough?
Using boats to rescue people? Where are you going to get the boats from? Boats are slow and they'd have to be brought in from far away.
a irport/index.html%3Fsection=cnn_travel/:
... performed by the US army and you'd figure there would be more resources for something happening on US soil. Sad, sad, sad...
Well, have you heard of military cargo planes? Oops, there's only one problem: they're deployed in Irak or the few ones left in the States are not used due to utter lack of planning and incompetence. The same goes of the transport helicopters (Chinook and black hawks) that we've only seen since yesterday, 5 days after the hit.
And before you tell me the airport is not fonctional, see this link from Wed. Aug 31:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/08/31/new.orleans.
Louis Armstrong International Airport, but aviation director Roy Williams said the airport is "open and operational" despite some hurricane damage.
It's hard to understand that there was not more aerial help provided. Think about the Saigon evacuation, the Berlin airlift,
from your linked article:
Responding to a CNN inquiry, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Marc Short said Friday the gear has not been moved because none of the governors in the hurricane-ravaged area has requested it.
Seems clear enough to me why HS and Fema haven't deployed it. Now ask the governors why it hasn't been deployed.
How convenient to shift the blame. I see it differently though:
Fema is aware that there are supplies there, so I assume the Fema manager for Louisiana is aware of it also as it is his/her job to know such things and it is his/her duty to make sure the governor's office is aware that there are first responder gear available for them. Of course this assumes the managers in place are competent and not political cronnies...
In case you're not aware of it, it takes weeks to bring back helicopters back. It's not like fighter planes that can refuel in flight and even that is a costly operation. For helicopters, the carrier has to come back as was demonstrated in the initial days of the tsunami rescue efforts where helicopters were also a scarce resourse until the carriers where in the vicinity.
they are close to being stable anyway.
you made a similar comment in your initial post and I didn't want to be too controversial but if you really think that, you're delusional.
Personally I think this is a command and control problem,
I agree completly on that point but what we really have to ask is what was all this reorganization after 9/11 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security about? Wasn't that supposed to help deal with major disasters? How can the communications break to such an extent when that was one of the major focus of training?
3) Do air drops of food and medical supplies (water too)
4) Send in the SEALS with their dingy boats to begin to rescue people/pick off snipers/gangs
The only problem with those points is that the heavy duty helicopters (black hawks, Chinooks) are in Irak along with the paratroopers and SEALs needed in your plan. I'm sure using Chinooks to evacuate people would have sped up the process and the delivery of medicine/food...
Instead airlines bailed out while conditions were still good for flying, stranding their customers and countless others and Amtrak did the same.
No, I mean the 75 year old handicapped woman who has lost her support network and is too dirt poor/overwhelmed to understand what was going to happen.
Not everybody is as fortunate as you and even if they can understand what is going to happen, what about the airport and Amtrak shutting down way ahead of the storm when the rental cars were not available anymore? They could have provided one way tickets out of the city and we wouldn't have 30.000+ in the Superdome right now...
Blaming it on Bush is a joke. The levees haven't been properly funded for decades.
I would not blame the levy breaks on Bush but he certainly had some impact: how many people did die after the hurricane when the water was raising and they drowned in their homes or trying to escape as the National Guard choppers that could have saved them where nowhere to be found because:
a) some (most?) of the helicopters are in Iraq
and/or b) most of their pilots are in Iraq?
I've read an article recently that the local med-evac service had problems because their pilots are in the reserve and being deployed so their choppers stayed grounded even when they're needed...
Well maybe the French weren't that stupid after all: they did manage to relocate while unloading Louisiana onto the US...
Remember the new talking points word for the day is "process" or at least it was yesterday to describe the Iraqui constitution... OK, I admmit, I just watched yesterdays' Daily Show on my DVR...
Where are our leaders? Oh, yeah...
Vacationing yet again in Crawford?
If you have alot of neihbors around with thier own WiFi routers, and alot of the channels are used up, how do you make sure you are not connecting to someone elses
Use encryption and change the SSID on your wireless router and use the same settings on your wireless card(s) and you should only connect to your own router.
Well, it was consistent with some of your previous comments and that meant you ended up on my foes list. You're removed now for "good behavior". Hopefully, you'll stick to a more rational approach (including criticism) of the european cultures instead of using tired stereotypes...
--
Les Francais sont des singes de capitulation qui mangent du fromage.
How about starting by changing your signature to show that you actually meant what you wrote?
OK, maybe I didn't insert the required tags in my previous message and in his case (friends/family), it's probably overkill but after reading the post, others may be tempted to boot from the DVD in an internet cafe for instance where hardware keyloggers are an issue.
As we all know, security is a process, once you remove the spyware issue from the host machine by booting from the DVD, the next issue is the hardware loggers and OTP is one solution for that problem.
Did you check for hardware keyloggers on the borrowed machines before connecting to your servers using ssh? Even if you trust your friends/family not to install them, there's always the weird room mate to consider. Maybe having one time passwords on the server would help in that case just to be sure...
"is reporting that the Pentagon is working with a marketing firm"
Remind me again which one is the evil one?
Both?
For more info on the privatization of the army, see the frontline documentary:
r iors/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/war
After the FBI, CIA and local bomb-squads get around to opening the box, they'll probably hand-deliver your request to the company president!
With your fingerprints all over the box and your address on the applications inside the box, the FBI will most likely hand deliver you to Gitmo instead...
What are you talking about? Yes, some of the Lenna pictures that can be accessed indirectly from the site are not safe for work but all the pages you open when clicking on the links in the story description are safe for work unless a portrait picture of a woman is not safe and in that case, please let us know where you work so we can avoid that place...
You forgot about another set of problems: vote-buying & extortion.
It is much easier and more effective to commit election fraud via tampering with the counting process. It was, however, specifically with an eye towards goon squads that I specifically stipulated that individual voters could chose to discard their receipt before leaving the polling place. If you are concerned, about these things, however, there was a system with graphically encrypted receipts discussed here a while back.
No, it still is not enough. If there is the possibility of taking a copy home, then it will be abused. For example, if the intimidation is "go and vote now, we'll keep an eye on your 5 year old child while you vote", would the voter discard the receipt before leaving the polling place? I don't think so. If there's no possibility of carrying a receipt out of the polling place, such a scenario is not possible and I believe it's better to think about the worst case scenario when designing a new system instead of assuming that in most cases it will be fine.
No, open source doesn't solve anything as there's too many parameters that cannot be controled and bringing this issue will only confuse people. The only solution is an independent paper trail that can be audited and is the official vote result.