Actually, the stated purpose was to impress VIPs. No one is suggesting it's actually used for anything else.
If the layout is functional
It isn't. It's poorly designed as a control room, . Even for command decks and control rooms that borrow from Star Trek TOS, this ignores most of the actual functionality that they take from the Enterprise bridge set. But that's okay, since apparently it worked as a fake set to impress VIPs, so the Hollywood set designer read his intended audience well.
What I find more disturbing than one narcissist with an unlimited budget was the idea that this was really built not as his idea of an actual data-command-centre, but as a set to impress VIPs, especially Congressmen, especially those on oversight committees...
What I find disturbing is that they claim it worked. None of those VIPs had the reaction that apparently everyone else in the entire fucking world had upon hearing about this (and moreso on seeing it). Not one, not a single one of them went, "WTF? Are you people insane?", they were all impressed and wanted to sit in the "Captain's chair", and then went away and helped NSA's cause and budget in Congress/Committee.
if you compared the US to the UK using FBI rates, that the US averages 466 violent crimes per 100k and the UK is somewhere around 750 per 100k.
The problem with that is that the US definition of "assault" is the UK (and Canadian/Australian/NZ) definition of "aggravated assault". So the UK "violent crime" statistics are measuring much more than US "violent crime" statistics. The UK definition of "assault", otoh, isn't even Federally reported in the US.
Australian Independents Party. How would you classify them on a rough political spectrum?
Social left, economic populist. Naive or counter-preferencing, therefore politically inept or a front party. Preference low. Bam! Done.
Now go to belowtheline.org.au and see which parties they preference
Irrelevant, except to understand the handful of parties I didn't recognise. I voted below-the-line, my preferences override their above-the-line deals. The preference harvesting only occurred with above-the-line voters.
I agree that "across the line" would be a major improvement. But... how do you deal with ungrouped independents? Over time, you'd end up with the 70+ micro-party candidates being instead listed as independents, and the "across the line" would still be 70+ names long.
Write to Nick Xenophon's office. His group got a quarter of the primary Senate vote in SA (actually finishing above Labor and second only to the Libs (LP 26%, NX 25%, ALP 22%)) and yet only ended up with one quota due to preference harvesting by the motoring/shooting/fishing/immigration/sport/neonazi cluster and stupid preferencing by the left-minors. And the two majors will almost certainly accept a deal to change the rules to hurt the micro-parties.
will not take the 10-15mins it takes to vote below the line, let alone the hours of studying the policies AND the registered preferences of the 45 odd parties vying for election.
Que? It took me about ten minutes to classify all of the minor parties on a rough political spectrum, and about two to sort them on senate.io. Then less than five minutes to number all the boxes on Saturday.
Of course, below-the-liners don't even get counted unless there are enough to match the above-the-line minor voters.
As much as I like exhaustive preferential voting on principle, the time has come to give voters the right to vote optionally preferentially above the line (if not also below it), so that votes are not cast against the voters actual preferences.
Better to eliminate the above the line vote, but allow people to preference for as many below-the-line candidates as they wish. Once they stop (which can be just a [1] for the preferred party-leader) the remainder of their distributed preferences would then flow according to the registered-preferences of their [1] choice. (So that no one is disenfranchised by limiting their vote, only if they deliberately spoil their ballot.)
"Historically" is a trap. You need to remember that the Democrats once contained what is now the southern-dominated Republican party as a major influence. The Republicans otoh were primarily a northern dominated party. To a large degree, the parties swapped roles in the seventies.
Scientists, for example, used to vote primarily for the Republican party. Now 90+% vote Democrat.
A 2000+ year old book (older, in some cases) fraudulently constructed by ignorant, illiterate peasant halfwits
Actually the old testament was created by scholars in Jerusalem in the 8th century BC to help a local king to exploit a temporary power vacuum in the Israel/Judea region by creating and co-opting a series of stories about "unity", always with Jerusalem as the historical centre (in reality a small goat-herder mountain town on the fringes, brought to brief glory by being a crossroads between two occupying powers, Egyptian and Assyrian.) He didn't survive to see it completed, his land invaded by the Babylonians. And the stories were finished by the scholars in exile in Babylon, trying to create something to promote a cultural unity amongst the exiles.
It was a cleverly crafted political document that drew on familiar myths from throughout the region, all focused on reinforcing the idea of a single unified people. Hence single god, single law, single nation, single temple, and repeated warnings about those who stray from the true path being punished.
(Archaeologically, you see all the household gods and local temples throughout Israel and Judea abandoned over a remarkably short period.)
Why would he go public if he was a spy? He's more useful to the Russians in place. He was an IT guy working for a company that did background checks for the NSA (and the rest of the US intelligence community and contractors), how is that not more useful than a bit of public embarrassment that probably caused a tightening in security procedures?
The Snowden affair gives you an idea of how riddled the modern US intelligence/contractor community must be with actual spies. Not just foreign nationals, but also contractors spying on each other and their host agencies for commercial advantage.
I'm fairly certain ThreeKelvin's original comment was in reference to the article.;)
[Facepalm] D'oh! Sorry.
I meant I was responding to what I took as more general objection to "ship-suits", ie your reply to Anon's comment, but I wasn't not saying that a ship-suit would work for the team in the article.
If your response to Anon was purely to the utility of ship-suits for this particular application, then I was doubly wrong (or triply, I'm not sure what I'm up to.)
I was responding to the ThreeKelvin's comment, not the article. So no argument with your last line.
sort of like the drivers suits used on race tracks.
A more immediate analogy is the pressure suits used in the early "edge of space" X-plane and balloon flights, and the bail-out suits worn by post-Challenger shuttle astronauts. Very similar appearance too.
The old fans would be far too busy hating on the new captain not being a Kirk or Picard or Sisko (or even Janeway or Archer)...
The very length of the list of characters accepted by "old fans" disproves your thesis. Have you seen any Star Trek? Do you realise how badly those series treated the fans? Trekkies have put up with the a history of writers and producers who don't respect the "universe", hammy actors, cheap production values, the endless threat of cancellation, and continued to love the shows. If you've got $100m to throw at a green screen and you can't please those guys for 90 minutes then you are a moron.
No, NuTrek was hated because of its own internal failures. Cadet-on-suspension becomes new Captain because he made old Captain cry? Like some kind of emo version of Klingons? Oh, and the same cadet can now keep the ship because [shrug] why not... If the director cares so little about his own story, why the fuck should anyone else care about it? Everything else people complain about, the destruction of Vulcan, the stupid gigantor version of Enterprise, that it is built on Earth, Kirk's weak-ass "cheat", the just-so discovery of Scotty on Random Planet 624, and yes even the lens flare, is all just a symptom of the same "the director doesn't give a fuck" slap in the face.
Why? One of the advantages of a "ship-suit" is that it can remain outside the main capsule or module's pressure-vessel, even easier than a "hard suit" since there are less moving parts to service.
7. Start doing steps 1-6 NOW. Routinely. Across your entire media organisation. When you don't need it.
Don't wait until you're doing something you want to hide, then suddenly start using high-end crypto and data obfuscation and special networks to shout "LOOK AT ME, I HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE".
Of course, this ignores TEMPEST/Van Eck phreaking; chances are, you aren't that important, but if you are, you should also take precautions to physically secure your air gap room against any EM emissions from the computer in question.
The article isn't about being monitored. It's about delaying detection long enough to a) get the source out of the country, b) publish before they raid you. If you are known enough to be actively monitored (and you're not a foreign spook or tech-company), then you've already been raided, your hdds seized or smashed, and/or your partner jailed, without warrant, lawyer, or trial.
In spite of the headline, really the article isn't about protecting the source, it's about preventing the authorities from preventing you from publishing, or detaining your partner/data-mule under a vile security law that makes not incriminating yourself a serious criminal offence.
(It doesn't say, but the paranoia exhibited in the article reinforces the recent claims that we're going to see less precaution from press in the future. They will just dump everything online at once, making no attempts to redact names/etc, for fear that they'll be shut down while they are trying to review the leaked documents.)
Slashdot Mirror
The stated purpose: to act as a command center.
Actually, the stated purpose was to impress VIPs. No one is suggesting it's actually used for anything else.
If the layout is functional
It isn't. It's poorly designed as a control room, . Even for command decks and control rooms that borrow from Star Trek TOS, this ignores most of the actual functionality that they take from the Enterprise bridge set. But that's okay, since apparently it worked as a fake set to impress VIPs, so the Hollywood set designer read his intended audience well.
What I find more disturbing than one narcissist with an unlimited budget was the idea that this was really built not as his idea of an actual data-command-centre, but as a set to impress VIPs, especially Congressmen, especially those on oversight committees...
What I find disturbing is that they claim it worked. None of those VIPs had the reaction that apparently everyone else in the entire fucking world had upon hearing about this (and moreso on seeing it). Not one, not a single one of them went, "WTF? Are you people insane?", they were all impressed and wanted to sit in the "Captain's chair", and then went away and helped NSA's cause and budget in Congress/Committee.
Yeah, the CRTs certainly made me think "ooh futuristic".
Hooray! Zero tolerance works! ;-)
"He said it was a result of him being frustrated and tired of being bullied. [....] We have to take all threats seriously"
Apparently not.
if you compared the US to the UK using FBI rates, that the US averages 466 violent crimes per 100k and the UK is somewhere around 750 per 100k.
The problem with that is that the US definition of "assault" is the UK (and Canadian/Australian/NZ) definition of "aggravated assault". So the UK "violent crime" statistics are measuring much more than US "violent crime" statistics. The UK definition of "assault", otoh, isn't even Federally reported in the US.
Maybe call it GoogleNSA.
Ticker code GOON?
Australian Independents Party. How would you classify them on a rough political spectrum?
Social left, economic populist. Naive or counter-preferencing, therefore politically inept or a front party. Preference low. Bam! Done.
Now go to belowtheline.org.au and see which parties they preference
Irrelevant, except to understand the handful of parties I didn't recognise. I voted below-the-line, my preferences override their above-the-line deals. The preference harvesting only occurred with above-the-line voters.
I agree that "across the line" would be a major improvement. But... how do you deal with ungrouped independents? Over time, you'd end up with the 70+ micro-party candidates being instead listed as independents, and the "across the line" would still be 70+ names long.
Write to Nick Xenophon's office. His group got a quarter of the primary Senate vote in SA (actually finishing above Labor and second only to the Libs (LP 26%, NX 25%, ALP 22%)) and yet only ended up with one quota due to preference harvesting by the motoring/shooting/fishing/immigration/sport/neonazi cluster and stupid preferencing by the left-minors. And the two majors will almost certainly accept a deal to change the rules to hurt the micro-parties.
will not take the 10-15mins it takes to vote below the line, let alone the hours of studying the policies AND the registered preferences of the 45 odd parties vying for election.
Que? It took me about ten minutes to classify all of the minor parties on a rough political spectrum, and about two to sort them on senate.io. Then less than five minutes to number all the boxes on Saturday.
Of course, below-the-liners don't even get counted unless there are enough to match the above-the-line minor voters.
As much as I like exhaustive preferential voting on principle, the time has come to give voters the right to vote optionally preferentially above the line (if not also below it), so that votes are not cast against the voters actual preferences.
Better to eliminate the above the line vote, but allow people to preference for as many below-the-line candidates as they wish. Once they stop (which can be just a [1] for the preferred party-leader) the remainder of their distributed preferences would then flow according to the registered-preferences of their [1] choice. (So that no one is disenfranchised by limiting their vote, only if they deliberately spoil their ballot.)
Then there's the Microsoft release cycle:
- Crap
- Alpha
- Crap
- Alpha
- Crap
- Alpha
- Crap
my wife will know that 20 minutes later chances are higher than 90% that I will be driving.
That, or pulled over by the side of the road, answering her text.
what is it actually good for?
You can use it to build a boat.
"Historically" is a trap. You need to remember that the Democrats once contained what is now the southern-dominated Republican party as a major influence. The Republicans otoh were primarily a northern dominated party. To a large degree, the parties swapped roles in the seventies.
Scientists, for example, used to vote primarily for the Republican party. Now 90+% vote Democrat.
Actually the old testament was created by scholars in Jerusalem in the 8th century BC to help a local king to exploit a temporary power vacuum in the Israel/Judea region by creating and co-opting a series of stories about "unity", always with Jerusalem as the historical centre (in reality a small goat-herder mountain town on the fringes, brought to brief glory by being a crossroads between two occupying powers, Egyptian and Assyrian.) He didn't survive to see it completed, his land invaded by the Babylonians. And the stories were finished by the scholars in exile in Babylon, trying to create something to promote a cultural unity amongst the exiles.
It was a cleverly crafted political document that drew on familiar myths from throughout the region, all focused on reinforcing the idea of a single unified people. Hence single god, single law, single nation, single temple, and repeated warnings about those who stray from the true path being punished.
(Archaeologically, you see all the household gods and local temples throughout Israel and Judea abandoned over a remarkably short period.)
Why would he go public if he was a spy? He's more useful to the Russians in place. He was an IT guy working for a company that did background checks for the NSA (and the rest of the US intelligence community and contractors), how is that not more useful than a bit of public embarrassment that probably caused a tightening in security procedures?
The Snowden affair gives you an idea of how riddled the modern US intelligence/contractor community must be with actual spies. Not just foreign nationals, but also contractors spying on each other and their host agencies for commercial advantage.
I'm fairly certain ThreeKelvin's original comment was in reference to the article. ;)
[Facepalm] D'oh! Sorry.
I meant I was responding to what I took as more general objection to "ship-suits", ie your reply to Anon's comment, but I wasn't not saying that a ship-suit would work for the team in the article.
If your response to Anon was purely to the utility of ship-suits for this particular application, then I was doubly wrong (or triply, I'm not sure what I'm up to.)
I was responding to the ThreeKelvin's comment, not the article. So no argument with your last line.
sort of like the drivers suits used on race tracks.
A more immediate analogy is the pressure suits used in the early "edge of space" X-plane and balloon flights, and the bail-out suits worn by post-Challenger shuttle astronauts. Very similar appearance too.
The old fans would be far too busy hating on the new captain not being a Kirk or Picard or Sisko (or even Janeway or Archer) ...
The very length of the list of characters accepted by "old fans" disproves your thesis. Have you seen any Star Trek? Do you realise how badly those series treated the fans? Trekkies have put up with the a history of writers and producers who don't respect the "universe", hammy actors, cheap production values, the endless threat of cancellation, and continued to love the shows. If you've got $100m to throw at a green screen and you can't please those guys for 90 minutes then you are a moron.
No, NuTrek was hated because of its own internal failures. Cadet-on-suspension becomes new Captain because he made old Captain cry? Like some kind of emo version of Klingons? Oh, and the same cadet can now keep the ship because [shrug] why not... If the director cares so little about his own story, why the fuck should anyone else care about it? Everything else people complain about, the destruction of Vulcan, the stupid gigantor version of Enterprise, that it is built on Earth, Kirk's weak-ass "cheat", the just-so discovery of Scotty on Random Planet 624, and yes even the lens flare, is all just a symptom of the same "the director doesn't give a fuck" slap in the face.
so I expect to [see] them succeed in the near future.
Or die brilliantly.
Yet, in Soviet Russia they didn't.
From your own link:
"Both U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights"
Graphite from pencils
Which is why you use wax pencils.
but it'd have to fit inside the main space ship
Why? One of the advantages of a "ship-suit" is that it can remain outside the main capsule or module's pressure-vessel, even easier than a "hard suit" since there are less moving parts to service.
7. Start doing steps 1-6 NOW. Routinely. Across your entire media organisation. When you don't need it.
Don't wait until you're doing something you want to hide, then suddenly start using high-end crypto and data obfuscation and special networks to shout "LOOK AT ME, I HAVE SOMETHING TO HIDE".
Of course, this ignores TEMPEST/Van Eck phreaking; chances are, you aren't that important, but if you are, you should also take precautions to physically secure your air gap room against any EM emissions from the computer in question.
The article isn't about being monitored. It's about delaying detection long enough to a) get the source out of the country, b) publish before they raid you. If you are known enough to be actively monitored (and you're not a foreign spook or tech-company), then you've already been raided, your hdds seized or smashed, and/or your partner jailed, without warrant, lawyer, or trial.
Too few people are using Freenet today for the obfuscation to work against an adversary that has pwn'd the physical telecommunications infrastructure.
In spite of the headline, really the article isn't about protecting the source, it's about preventing the authorities from preventing you from publishing, or detaining your partner/data-mule under a vile security law that makes not incriminating yourself a serious criminal offence.
(It doesn't say, but the paranoia exhibited in the article reinforces the recent claims that we're going to see less precaution from press in the future. They will just dump everything online at once, making no attempts to redact names/etc, for fear that they'll be shut down while they are trying to review the leaked documents.)