I'm pretty certain that even in 2001, the total number of Americans killed by terrorists was a rather small fraction of the number of Americans killed on our highways. Sometimes, it's hard to put things in perspective, but it's worth the effort.
Wait. Can I upload myself to youtube? How about someplace like wikileaks? Wikipedia? Once uploaded, can I move around the web? Can the cops download me from the web? Sounds really cool to me, but not if the cops can get me back out. Hmmmm. I wonder what the Pentagon's firewall looks like when you actually look at it from inside the intartubez? And, the Great Firewall of China has got to be impressive.
Do you have the hardware and software ready for sale, or are you offering vaporware, like Microsoft?
Uhhh - how much have you actually read about Hassan? The man made treasonous statements in the presence of other commissioned officers. The only thing that held those officers back, it seems, is the liberal feel-good policies that would have branded them as racists, and/or intolerant religious bigots.
I wasn't an officer, but I reported less treasonous statements made by a little freak skinhead who worked for me. Nazi, neo-nazi, skinhead, whatever you care to call it, the freak drew swastikas everywhere he could draw them, and praised Hitler and his policies. His attitude toward blacks was disgusting, and his attitude toward our flag was little better. I don't know how the little freak ever got into the service.
Hassan? Same thing.
If you've read very much of what I post around here, or elsewhere, I am NOT EVER "politically correct", and I'd have reported Hassan again and again, even if I had to send letters to BuPers, the Pentagon, the White House, and to congress. No man in uniform should ever run at the mouth like Hassan did. Most certainly not a commissioned officer.
Perhaps you are unaware of ACTA and other efforts on the part of RIAA and the other alphabet soup people. Given time, and no interference, piracy of any sort will become criminal activities. Right now, in most countries, copyright infringement is a civil matter. But, "civil" doesn't necessarily mean the same all over the world.
Phhht. I've actually stumbled across a couple of sites, that ask you to report pirates. I, quite naturally, reported myself, being an honest man. Basically, I told them, "Yes, I'm stealing material from any place I can find it, and THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT ASSHOLES!!" Guess what? No one has ever knocked at my door with a subpoena. Guess what else? They will never get one red cent out of me if they DO serve a summons. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I can be penniless at a moment's notice if I choose to be - and none of the alphabet suit guys can touch me financially. That's one of the nice things about owning nothing in your own name.;^)
"Someplace warm, I hope. Do you know any good cathouses around here?"
"Well, I hear talk about the East End, but I try to stay away from that area."
"Where at on the East End?"
"I guess I've heard more about Bill's Dive, than anyplace else."
"Take me there, I'll give you fifty bucks!"
"Nope, I'm not going down that alley. I'll take you to the shopping center on the main street over there, and point the direction to the alley, but I'm not going there."
"YOU ARE SO BUSTED!! YOU"RE UNDER ARREST!"
"For what?"
"SOCICITING FOR PROSTITUTION!! You're willing to show me where the whores are, you're guilty of procuring! BUSTED!!"
"the user could become the weak link to compromise their own system. "
I thought this was a well established fact. Even a Windows machine without users is hard to hack or crack. Default installation, with no crapware installed (whether by the vendor or the customer) of WinXP or Win7 are actually pretty damned secure. Only when the user connects to the internet as Administrator, and starts installing a bunch of stupid crap does Windows turn into a security sieve.
The single biggest difference between *nix users and Windows users is the gullibility level of the users.
You don't seem to be concerned that your ISP logs where you go. I say, it's none of the ISP's business where I go, and they have no business logging my destination. More, it's none of the government's business where I go, or what I do. If and when they have a reason to be suspicious, THEN they can get a warrant, and "tap" my line. Only then. Logging where I go, and/or what I do online is no different than tapping my telephone. 24/7 forever and ever, listening to every word that I might utter to my Mama, my wife, my daughter, or my girlfreind. It's none of their business!! And, being Italian or European doesn't change that at all.
Of course it's not a good idea to operate a ton or more of equipment while incapacitated. Only a moron would think it's a good idea.
But, the fact that some people are morons does not justify setting up roadblocks to question every passerby who happens by. Nor does it justify sitting at the nearest watering hole, waiting for people to exit and drive home, then pull everyone over. Nor, does it justify today's blood alcohol limits, which are unreasonable.
When I first got my commercial driver's license in the '80's, the department of transportation still had regulations that said a driver could drink a drink with his dinner. Not get drunk, not drink a sixpack, not drink a 5th - he could have a drink with his dinner. The brewery in Frankenmuth Michigan had free beer in the driver's room, for the drivers to sample. You could drink one or two, and still be sober.
Today, if you sniff a bottle cap, you're legally intoxicated. That's bullshit, plain and simple.
The laws for non-commercial drivers are lagging behind those for commercial drivers, but they are following right along. I've seen that "open container" law applied to people picking up aluminum cans along the roadway. FFS, the laws should at least be SANE!
Uhhhh - I guess a lame excuse is better than no excuse? Alright, if you insist:
"People from oppressed countries should know better than to have a political opinion. If their opinion is needed, it will be given to them in advance. Encrpting the communications of such people would put them at risk, as well as slashdot. Surely you don't want any HTTPS traffic being observed by your ISP and/or government, for which you can be blamed!"
That's as good as I can do for a lame excuse on such short notice. Next time, give some advance warning!
Texas may not be AS BAD as California - but they are working on it. A prisoner convinced the entire prison system that he was paralyzed, couldn't walk, and rolled around the prison in a wheelchair for quite a long time. Then, he convinced the prison officials that he needed some kind of medical attention, which required he be sent to a more central location, with better facilities. Somewhere between here and there, he pulled a weapon, relieved his two guards of THEIR weapons, and took off. Wasn't paralyzed at all!!
The shitbird didn't stay free for long though. The inept bungler was recaptured, without resistance, in about a week.
Oh - another story of ineptitude, in Houston. A teen was arrested, searched, taken to the local jail, and during his booking, he was "strip searched". No cop is allowed in the same room with him while naked, so you have one cop looking in through a doorway on one side, and another cop looking in through a doorway from the other side. The kid managed to smuggle a pistol into his jail cell, because the cops couldn't watch the kid.
I'll bet every state in this country has similar stories to tell. People joke about backwoods inbred Arkansans - but we had a scene out of one of those stupid movies. A prisoner sweet talked the jail warden's wife into giving him a gun and a vehicle.
Phhht.
As long as there are people, we can be assured that stupidity will survive.
"Next, you have to stop watching movies and TV shows" - check
"convince the rest of the world to do the same thing." - crap, I KNEW there was a catch here somewhere!
We've all heard people referred to as "sheeple". It's not so "in" as it was just a few years ago, but we've all heard it. The flock is led just anywhere the shepherd wants it to go. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a shepherd. The flock prefers to follow some stupid pied piper. I guess they don't mind being sheared regularly.
"" More citizens have been killed by their OWN government, than by foreign invasion""
I'm not about to sit down and start researching - but GP's statement is probably correct. Today, N. Korea seems to casually condemn it's villagers to starvation each winter, after ensuring that all the crops have been harvested for use by the government. Pol Pot. The Soviet. Idi Amin. Saddam Hussein. The list goes on and on.
The casualties due to both actively hunting down people, and due to gross neglect, added together, may very well outweigh the numbers of deaths due to foreign invasion. Maybe not in every country, but world wide, it would be interesting to see the statistics.
Granparent may or may not be exaggerating, but he isn't exactly being stupid.
Loss leaders are unethical anyway. Even at Walmart. Sure, it's accepted practice these days, but what do loss leaders really do? They are tremendous aids in running the competition out of business. Walmart has lost suits to pharmacies all over the country - but they haven't been penalized enough to end the practice.
If Oracle is using loss leaders to attract business, be assured that they are unfairly undercutting the competition.
There is no logic to your analogy. In your little scenario, I would be party to a conspiracy. In the case of the insecure security doors, I would be making public the fact that the security door company had been ripping people off. The case of Microsoft's vulnerabilities is very much the same as the manufacturer of the insecure security doors.
So, don't even try to equate consumer education with conspiracy to commit murder. You fail, dismally.
Bullshit. If I find that Company Z's Security doors are easily bypassed by pressing a lever under the bottom edge of the door, I'll tell everyone I know, publish it on the interwebz, report it to the Better Business Bureau, and send reports to law enforcement at the local, state, and federal levels. If I could afford it, I'd hire a skywriter to write the news over every major city, too. Company Z deserves to go bankrupt and be put out of business for selling a door so easily bypassed.
I just can't sit and read this entire discussion - time is short today.
I've read enough MS Fanboi whining to get their spin.
I've read enough MS haters to get their spin.
I've read several reasonable, middle of the road posts.
I've even read a couple of the off-topic racist bullshit posts.
Bottom line, to me, is that Microsoft brought this upon themselves when they enabled the browser to run the operating system. They created more vulnerabilities with that gimmick, than an army of security specialists have been able to close in a decade. A freaking ARMY of security people have been working with Windows XP for almost forever.
Come on, Microsoft. Just disable all the stupid bullshit. Issue a security update that disables IE from doing ANYTHING more than browsing the web. Let it have access to Java, Flash, and the other standard plugins - and nothing more. Anything facing the web should be as UN-privileged as possible, and still do it's job. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it - so MAKE IT HAPPEN!!
Meanwhile - people should really consider upgrading to Linux. Those who are stupider than me, should upgrade to Win7. (Hey, seriously folks, I'm not a physicist, a rocket scientist, a biologist, or even a meteorologist, and I figured Linux out!)
And, oh yeah. Fuck Microsoft, fuck Bill Gates, and fuck that chair throwing baboon who has replaced Gates. I never liked any of them. The next serious exploit to be discovered, I hope they give Microsoft only 48 hours. Bunch of douches.
"cloud dynamics are so ridiculously complicated that we don't even have good models for them yet"
You should get Al Gore and company to help you. FFS, they've had good working climatology models for decades now, complete with hockey stick projections! (Lest any particularly dense readers mistake the sarcasm, any time I refer to Al Gore, I use it as a synonym for "douchebag")
"AND there a lot of people here in South Carolina who really like this whole "anti-incumbent" trend."
I don't do primaries, to be honest. I'm neither democrat, nor republican, and the rest of the parties don't HAVE primaries where I live.
But, this time around, I voted in the primary, just for the sake of voting AGAINST THE INCUMBENT. Blanche Lincoln won the runoff anyway, but I feel somewhat justified that I helped to make her work for it.
Yes, I want to see incumbents sent home, and less entrenched douchebaggery in the capitol(s). It's been said that if you send an honest man to Washington, he won't be honest when he finishes his term. So, go ahead, vote incumbents out, and push for shorter term limits. No one should make a career of raping the tax payers.
I didn't even see a story here worth commenting on - til I read your comment.
Coffee costs a buck to a buck and a half in most restaurants. Real coffee. What Starbucks offers has almost nothing in common with coffee. Flavorings? Cream and/or sugar. Want something rather exotic? Espresso, or cappuccino. All the rest of what Starbucks offers is just so much pretentious bullshit.
Starbucks is what happens when to many people have more money than sense.
Posers and wannabes gather anywhere and everywhere they can, trying to be "cool". We saw the same thing a generation or so back, with "Cafe Racers" and "Truckstop Cowboys". You couldn't find a real racer or a real cowboy in the same room with either of them.
But, don't we already have that? Who exactly are these terrists we are at war with? Who exactly is Islam, and who are all these mullahs issuing fatwahs and such?
Slashdot Mirror
"According to the DHS"
Yes, I got that. There are a lot of other things I don't like about Napolitano. The bitch should have been drowned while she was still a pup.
I'm pretty certain that even in 2001, the total number of Americans killed by terrorists was a rather small fraction of the number of Americans killed on our highways. Sometimes, it's hard to put things in perspective, but it's worth the effort.
Wait. Can I upload myself to youtube? How about someplace like wikileaks? Wikipedia? Once uploaded, can I move around the web? Can the cops download me from the web? Sounds really cool to me, but not if the cops can get me back out. Hmmmm. I wonder what the Pentagon's firewall looks like when you actually look at it from inside the intartubez? And, the Great Firewall of China has got to be impressive.
Do you have the hardware and software ready for sale, or are you offering vaporware, like Microsoft?
Uhhh - how much have you actually read about Hassan? The man made treasonous statements in the presence of other commissioned officers. The only thing that held those officers back, it seems, is the liberal feel-good policies that would have branded them as racists, and/or intolerant religious bigots.
I wasn't an officer, but I reported less treasonous statements made by a little freak skinhead who worked for me. Nazi, neo-nazi, skinhead, whatever you care to call it, the freak drew swastikas everywhere he could draw them, and praised Hitler and his policies. His attitude toward blacks was disgusting, and his attitude toward our flag was little better. I don't know how the little freak ever got into the service.
Hassan? Same thing.
If you've read very much of what I post around here, or elsewhere, I am NOT EVER "politically correct", and I'd have reported Hassan again and again, even if I had to send letters to BuPers, the Pentagon, the White House, and to congress. No man in uniform should ever run at the mouth like Hassan did. Most certainly not a commissioned officer.
"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."
Perhaps you are unaware of ACTA and other efforts on the part of RIAA and the other alphabet soup people. Given time, and no interference, piracy of any sort will become criminal activities. Right now, in most countries, copyright infringement is a civil matter. But, "civil" doesn't necessarily mean the same all over the world.
http://tinyurl.com/2wlzw83
Phhht. I've actually stumbled across a couple of sites, that ask you to report pirates. I, quite naturally, reported myself, being an honest man. Basically, I told them, "Yes, I'm stealing material from any place I can find it, and THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT ASSHOLES!!" Guess what? No one has ever knocked at my door with a subpoena. Guess what else? They will never get one red cent out of me if they DO serve a summons. Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I can be penniless at a moment's notice if I choose to be - and none of the alphabet suit guys can touch me financially. That's one of the nice things about owning nothing in your own name. ;^)
Guy in suit hails cab, cab pulls over.
"Where you going to , buddy?"
"Someplace warm, I hope. Do you know any good cathouses around here?"
"Well, I hear talk about the East End, but I try to stay away from that area."
"Where at on the East End?"
"I guess I've heard more about Bill's Dive, than anyplace else."
"Take me there, I'll give you fifty bucks!"
"Nope, I'm not going down that alley. I'll take you to the shopping center on the main street over there, and point the direction to the alley, but I'm not going there."
"YOU ARE SO BUSTED!! YOU"RE UNDER ARREST!"
"For what?"
"SOCICITING FOR PROSTITUTION!! You're willing to show me where the whores are, you're guilty of procuring! BUSTED!!"
"the user could become the weak link to compromise their own system. "
I thought this was a well established fact. Even a Windows machine without users is hard to hack or crack. Default installation, with no crapware installed (whether by the vendor or the customer) of WinXP or Win7 are actually pretty damned secure. Only when the user connects to the internet as Administrator, and starts installing a bunch of stupid crap does Windows turn into a security sieve.
The single biggest difference between *nix users and Windows users is the gullibility level of the users.
You don't seem to be concerned that your ISP logs where you go. I say, it's none of the ISP's business where I go, and they have no business logging my destination. More, it's none of the government's business where I go, or what I do. If and when they have a reason to be suspicious, THEN they can get a warrant, and "tap" my line. Only then. Logging where I go, and/or what I do online is no different than tapping my telephone. 24/7 forever and ever, listening to every word that I might utter to my Mama, my wife, my daughter, or my girlfreind. It's none of their business!! And, being Italian or European doesn't change that at all.
Of course it's not a good idea to operate a ton or more of equipment while incapacitated. Only a moron would think it's a good idea.
But, the fact that some people are morons does not justify setting up roadblocks to question every passerby who happens by. Nor does it justify sitting at the nearest watering hole, waiting for people to exit and drive home, then pull everyone over. Nor, does it justify today's blood alcohol limits, which are unreasonable.
When I first got my commercial driver's license in the '80's, the department of transportation still had regulations that said a driver could drink a drink with his dinner. Not get drunk, not drink a sixpack, not drink a 5th - he could have a drink with his dinner. The brewery in Frankenmuth Michigan had free beer in the driver's room, for the drivers to sample. You could drink one or two, and still be sober.
Today, if you sniff a bottle cap, you're legally intoxicated. That's bullshit, plain and simple.
The laws for non-commercial drivers are lagging behind those for commercial drivers, but they are following right along. I've seen that "open container" law applied to people picking up aluminum cans along the roadway. FFS, the laws should at least be SANE!
Uhhhh - I guess a lame excuse is better than no excuse? Alright, if you insist:
"People from oppressed countries should know better than to have a political opinion. If their opinion is needed, it will be given to them in advance. Encrpting the communications of such people would put them at risk, as well as slashdot. Surely you don't want any HTTPS traffic being observed by your ISP and/or government, for which you can be blamed!"
That's as good as I can do for a lame excuse on such short notice. Next time, give some advance warning!
Texas may not be AS BAD as California - but they are working on it. A prisoner convinced the entire prison system that he was paralyzed, couldn't walk, and rolled around the prison in a wheelchair for quite a long time. Then, he convinced the prison officials that he needed some kind of medical attention, which required he be sent to a more central location, with better facilities. Somewhere between here and there, he pulled a weapon, relieved his two guards of THEIR weapons, and took off. Wasn't paralyzed at all!!
The shitbird didn't stay free for long though. The inept bungler was recaptured, without resistance, in about a week.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/02/texas.escaped.prisoner/
Oh - another story of ineptitude, in Houston. A teen was arrested, searched, taken to the local jail, and during his booking, he was "strip searched". No cop is allowed in the same room with him while naked, so you have one cop looking in through a doorway on one side, and another cop looking in through a doorway from the other side. The kid managed to smuggle a pistol into his jail cell, because the cops couldn't watch the kid.
I'll bet every state in this country has similar stories to tell. People joke about backwoods inbred Arkansans - but we had a scene out of one of those stupid movies. A prisoner sweet talked the jail warden's wife into giving him a gun and a vehicle.
Phhht.
As long as there are people, we can be assured that stupidity will survive.
"First you have to stop buying music." - check
"Next, you have to stop watching movies and TV shows" - check
"convince the rest of the world to do the same thing." - crap, I KNEW there was a catch here somewhere!
We've all heard people referred to as "sheeple". It's not so "in" as it was just a few years ago, but we've all heard it. The flock is led just anywhere the shepherd wants it to go. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a shepherd. The flock prefers to follow some stupid pied piper. I guess they don't mind being sheared regularly.
"" More citizens have been killed by their OWN government, than by foreign invasion""
I'm not about to sit down and start researching - but GP's statement is probably correct. Today, N. Korea seems to casually condemn it's villagers to starvation each winter, after ensuring that all the crops have been harvested for use by the government. Pol Pot. The Soviet. Idi Amin. Saddam Hussein. The list goes on and on.
The casualties due to both actively hunting down people, and due to gross neglect, added together, may very well outweigh the numbers of deaths due to foreign invasion. Maybe not in every country, but world wide, it would be interesting to see the statistics.
Granparent may or may not be exaggerating, but he isn't exactly being stupid.
Loss leaders are unethical anyway. Even at Walmart. Sure, it's accepted practice these days, but what do loss leaders really do? They are tremendous aids in running the competition out of business. Walmart has lost suits to pharmacies all over the country - but they haven't been penalized enough to end the practice.
If Oracle is using loss leaders to attract business, be assured that they are unfairly undercutting the competition.
There is no logic to your analogy. In your little scenario, I would be party to a conspiracy. In the case of the insecure security doors, I would be making public the fact that the security door company had been ripping people off. The case of Microsoft's vulnerabilities is very much the same as the manufacturer of the insecure security doors.
So, don't even try to equate consumer education with conspiracy to commit murder. You fail, dismally.
I anticipate a lot of penis shots. Especially after reading yesterday's slashdot story - http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/06/15/1419224/Chatroulette-Working-On-Genital-Recognition-Algorithm
Bullshit. If I find that Company Z's Security doors are easily bypassed by pressing a lever under the bottom edge of the door, I'll tell everyone I know, publish it on the interwebz, report it to the Better Business Bureau, and send reports to law enforcement at the local, state, and federal levels. If I could afford it, I'd hire a skywriter to write the news over every major city, too. Company Z deserves to go bankrupt and be put out of business for selling a door so easily bypassed.
I just can't sit and read this entire discussion - time is short today.
I've read enough MS Fanboi whining to get their spin.
I've read enough MS haters to get their spin.
I've read several reasonable, middle of the road posts.
I've even read a couple of the off-topic racist bullshit posts.
Bottom line, to me, is that Microsoft brought this upon themselves when they enabled the browser to run the operating system. They created more vulnerabilities with that gimmick, than an army of security specialists have been able to close in a decade. A freaking ARMY of security people have been working with Windows XP for almost forever.
Come on, Microsoft. Just disable all the stupid bullshit. Issue a security update that disables IE from doing ANYTHING more than browsing the web. Let it have access to Java, Flash, and the other standard plugins - and nothing more. Anything facing the web should be as UN-privileged as possible, and still do it's job. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it - so MAKE IT HAPPEN!!
Meanwhile - people should really consider upgrading to Linux. Those who are stupider than me, should upgrade to Win7. (Hey, seriously folks, I'm not a physicist, a rocket scientist, a biologist, or even a meteorologist, and I figured Linux out!)
And, oh yeah. Fuck Microsoft, fuck Bill Gates, and fuck that chair throwing baboon who has replaced Gates. I never liked any of them. The next serious exploit to be discovered, I hope they give Microsoft only 48 hours. Bunch of douches.
"cloud dynamics are so ridiculously complicated that we don't even have good models for them yet"
You should get Al Gore and company to help you. FFS, they've had good working climatology models for decades now, complete with hockey stick projections! (Lest any particularly dense readers mistake the sarcasm, any time I refer to Al Gore, I use it as a synonym for "douchebag")
"AND there a lot of people here in South Carolina who really like this whole "anti-incumbent" trend."
I don't do primaries, to be honest. I'm neither democrat, nor republican, and the rest of the parties don't HAVE primaries where I live.
But, this time around, I voted in the primary, just for the sake of voting AGAINST THE INCUMBENT. Blanche Lincoln won the runoff anyway, but I feel somewhat justified that I helped to make her work for it.
Yes, I want to see incumbents sent home, and less entrenched douchebaggery in the capitol(s). It's been said that if you send an honest man to Washington, he won't be honest when he finishes his term. So, go ahead, vote incumbents out, and push for shorter term limits. No one should make a career of raping the tax payers.
"If people feel like dressing up"
gag *cough* gag
I think that I used the word "posers" earlier. Maybe more people should get real lives.
I didn't even see a story here worth commenting on - til I read your comment.
Coffee costs a buck to a buck and a half in most restaurants. Real coffee. What Starbucks offers has almost nothing in common with coffee. Flavorings? Cream and/or sugar. Want something rather exotic? Espresso, or cappuccino. All the rest of what Starbucks offers is just so much pretentious bullshit.
Starbucks is what happens when to many people have more money than sense.
Posers and wannabes gather anywhere and everywhere they can, trying to be "cool". We saw the same thing a generation or so back, with "Cafe Racers" and "Truckstop Cowboys". You couldn't find a real racer or a real cowboy in the same room with either of them.
But, don't we already have that? Who exactly are these terrists we are at war with? Who exactly is Islam, and who are all these mullahs issuing fatwahs and such?