There is a semantic problem with this association:
There exists a fairly sizable pool of people (at least in the PC software end of the swimming pool anyway) that legitimately purchase software, only to have it broken by the vendor in one way or another. (DRM, limited activations, etc...)
These people then rightly resort to "Piracy" (Going to GameCopyWorld, et al, to get a crack for their legitimately owned software) to get the equity they paid for.
This causes a problem with people who use the availability or the "in the wild" populations of hacked installations of software as a metric for piracy; It is only truly piracy if those installations are not also accompanied by a legitimately purchased license for use.
Likewise-- if I have already purchased the game previously, but my 3 year old child has decided that the game disc in the brightly colored case looked like it would be fun to "play with"--, how does the physical destruction of the original medium invalidate my intangible license to USE that software? How is it morally reprehensible to download a replacement for the destroyed physical copy, when I have already purchased a license? Why should I be forced to purchase an additional license?
These two (and actually several others too) cases call into question the raw data metric for piracy, which is already abysmally low in terms of the percentage of the consumer population that engages in it. --They pretty much delegate the "arch-typical Pirate" that sings Yo Ho HO while they download 500GB of game titles they don't have licenses for to the fringe of being LESS than 1/2 of 1% of the consumer population (the estimated "total piracy" rate in most software markets is about 1/2 of 1%, last I read. The fact that there are people just trying to get their equity out of their purchases included in this statistic means that the ACTUAL piracy rate (those people who DONT have licenses) is actually lower than this.)
1) Note the quotes around "Dog sized"--;) (It was a poorly performed jab at the media, who spun it as that large.)
2) Hominids as a class cover more than just H Erectus, Cro-magnon, and pals; It also covers other apes, like the asian mountain gorrilas, (which is where the presumed "yeti" comes from, since gorillas do exhibit hair coloration adaptation in northern/mountainous areas of their asian habitats.) The migratory passageway existed a LONG time ago, plenty of time for micro-adaptation for such an itinerant species. Note, I said a large ape that meets the description of bigfoot in my prior post, not "Bigfoot."
3) Who said anything about Montana? Last I checked I was talking about Canada. (Namely Alberta , Brittish Columbia, and the Northwest Territories provinces. There have been several sightings there, as well as a blood sample collected from a trap placed near a summer cabin near Snellgrove lake. (It's mtDNA was sequenced by Dr. Curt Nelson (University of Minnesota, PhD), Guess what, it WASN'T a bear. Skin and hair samples were also collected in the same sample. Sample size was too small (statistically) for a paper. (only a single source was obtained.)) These locations are less hospitable to having weekend "researchers" stumble around like bull elephants, and are substantially less populated by humans than other sightings areas. (The number of "Sightings" in the US increases as a factor of the increase in total population, and has more to do with the number of eyes looking for what they want to see than what is actually there; EG, There wont be sightings in places where people dont live or go, because nobody is there to see them.)
Also, concerning calculators and searching; Your "typical" cryptozologist is operating on a minimalist budget, since they most frequently have a need for a day job. That means that their "Searches" are usually restricted to areas that are at least reasonably accessible by modern transportation, within your typical 1 week vacation time; such as highways. As pointed out, the population density of the Northern Territories is LESS than 1 person per 10 square miles, AND unfriendly to modern transportation. (Helicopter blades freeze up, roads become impassible, etc.) It is less about ruling out "Living room" so much as it is ruling out "Top shelf of walk-in closet", or "At my friend's house", and citing that you peeked up there and didnt see it, or that you looked in your friend's living room and concluded that it wasn't in his house. Or, if you insist on staying in the living room-- Its like saying you looked on the coffee table and didnt find it, so it must not be in the living room.
Aliens and ESP I can see doing that with, but Bigfoot's major "objection" from the scientific community is along the lines of "If an ape that big lived out there, we would have found it by now."
I call hubris for several reasons:
1) Large macro-species are discovered all the time in remote locations; Northern Territories has a population density of below 1 person per 10 miles, and is inhospitable to modern transit. Thus "remote." Not that long ago a large "Dog sized" rat was discovered in Papua New Guinea.
2) It is silly to presume that other homnids besides early modern humans failed to cross the migratory passageway from Asia to the north american contintent, while humans did. (Hell, horses, dromedaries, and others did too, finding their way all the way to south america.)
3) "Esteemed Scientists" said the same thing about the then "Apochryphal" "Orangutan", or "Old man of the forest." Now just about every zoo has one. For a very long time (in the era of the 20s, or there abouts) it was equal "Crackpottery" to go looking for Orangutans as it is to look for "Bigfoot" now.
Given the track record, I refuse to rule out the potential for a large ape species that would fit the physical description of "bigfoot", just because somebody with a PHD has an opinion about him/herself, and their abilities.
Now, if you pose an argument like "There is insufficient nutritional sources to support a large hominid of that description in the area, making their being there undiscovered unlikely", that I would go for, since it makes a rational case for being skeptical. The "We would have found it by now" rhetoric does not, and expects us to accept on faith, rather than reason. That's why I reject it. It is similarly why I reject the notion that the earth is only 6000 years old, or that the earth is the center of the universe.
The RIAA is an association; An umbrella front man. Essentially a litigation middle man for various recording industries.
The RIAA does not need to collect "damages"; since the RIAA does not own copyrights; it's members do.
Personally, I would spin it this way: The purpose of copuyright is to promote the creation of createive works. The recording industry's recording equipment does not produce creative works; It is used to fascilitate the creation, BY artists.
Thus, the purpose of copyright is to pay artists. (The artists pay for the use of the recording equipment with their contracts.)
Naturally, It should follow that any punitive damages should be paid directly to artists.
Take for instance, Kansas interstate highway K15. Between Winfield and Mulvane? 70mph, for the most part. But then you go through 2 podunk towns that literally straddle the highway... BAM-- 20mph.
Ever tried to decelelrate from 70 to 20 in 50 ft or less? -- Yeah.
Then, you GET to winfield; The highway magically becomes mainstreet, after an obscuring turn around a municiple water project.. BAM-15mph, and a detour through a traffic light just a few blocks down.
This is quite common around here in "Flyover Country", and is the rule, NOT the exception.
The problem is that nation states have the intrinsic right to self-governance.
When it comes to nation states, there is not "higher authority" per-se; They are all peers.
You can have a group of like-minded nation states agree to some kind of trade or non-agression compact, (like the UN, or even the EU), but the nations themselves (usually) retain their soveriegnty.
It sounds to me like the issue you have with the concept of blanket national soveriegnty is that it allows forms of government and political activities that you personally disagree with to go "Unpunished", as long as they dont start pooping in other people's cheerios.
The issue is one of who watches the watchers. One nation cannot just decide that it will police all the others without suffering reprocussions. (much like having bombs planted in their trade centers...)
As for the question that brings up the spectre of Godwin's law: (I dont intend for this to sound aggressive, btw.)
Perhaps you missed out on Chairman Mao's little happy fun-ride through China? What did the world stage do about it? What is it doing about the aftermath of it right now? [exactly.]
Or, for a more recent example, Sarkosy (however you sell his name anyway) and the Roma extirpation; even though it does not involve extermination.
The most that other nations have the RIGHT to do about these kinds of things are to 1) Condemn the practice publicly, and 2) withold trade from those countries. (For an example of how 'effective' that is, look at Cuba and the embargo.) Certainly, more militarily active nations, or those with strangleholds over vital resources can force the issue, but they are actually attempting to enforce their own wills on those of others. It goes without saying that the government that is the target of such tactics does not DESIRE to be controlled in this manner; how and where do you draw the line about meddling in foriegn policies? Who decides what is ethical, what is justified, and what is a crime? (more importantly, who has the RIGHT to impose such arbitration?)
As for the questions about pre-war afghanistan and co.; These nations were ruled by a theocratic agency, more or less. The same could have been said about pretty much every european country during the dark ages. (The power of the papacy exceeded that of local kings. The catholic church's only real adversary was the islamic nations, only later to be replaced with protestantism.) The question then boils down to one of "Do you accept the Taliban as a governmental entity" or not. (much like asking if you accept the papacy as being a government or not. Both are politically charged theocratic agencies, that hold territories. The taliban holds several cities and wasteland areas in the middle east, and the papacy holds Rome. The only outstanding difference that I can see is that the Vatican is internationally recognized as a soveriegn nation, while the Taliban is not. It is this issue of being recognized as a "peer" that is important when a newly born nation declares independance, as such recognition is what confers national soveriegnty; the right to self-rule.)
As for materialistic wealth and standards of living; Consider for a moment how that situation would not be the same without a globalist economy, just for a starter. (Since without that, there would be no cheap outsourced labor in China, producing cheap plastic crap-- Nor would there be "inexpensive" (comparatively speaking-- no such thing as a cheap battery.) rechargable batteries being manufactured and recycled in places like Tiawan, where there are laxer environmental restrictions (which were imposed to increase the standard of living in the countries that implemented them). Same goes for a whole lot of products; The result would be that pretty much everything, everywhere would be more expensive, following the increased standards of living; if such increases would even be possible in such circumstances. All this kind of statement does is illustrate the point about how our dirty dealings with the res
It is when the leadership in those areas is disproportionately empowered, and are basically shills for western nations for the supply of cheap energy or of cheap toxic waste disposal/factory labor.
Take for example, the anecdotes in Confessions of an Economic Hitman. If even only a tiny handful of the nastiness in that book is even partially true, then at least the US (A major western country) is culpable for a GREAT deal of suffering in the rest of the world.
One cannot produce medicine without infrastructure, and one cannot produce the needed infrastructure if the local power elite prevent you from doing it.
Likewise, why do you think ACTA is so evil? Software piracy? Think again-- it's the "Counterfeit Drugs" issue-- See how they classified "Counterfeit Drugs"-- Basically the exact same chemicals, produced in the exact same processes, are "Counterfeit" when they are not made by eg-- GSK, or Phiser or (insert pharmaceutical giant here).
Many of the criticisms levied against the US government by foreign nationals are actually true. The argument that "They hate our freedom!" is both a smokescreen and a farce all wrapped up in one-- The nationals want us to actually comprehend what the concept of National Sovereignty means. It means that Iran can do whatever Iran wants, inside Iran's borders, because Iran is in control of Iran- Not the UN, Not the US, not Multinational corporations. (Just like the US does what the US wants, inside the US, or the UK does inside the UK, or (Country) inside (Country's territory).
If that means being a theocratically managed hell-hole, that is THEIR business.
("Oh, but we NEEEEEEEED that OOOOIL so that I can drive my Hummer H3!"--- THAT is why they are sending bombs; We keep using our muscle to infiltrate their government with shills, to sell them out. That's why they attacked THE TRADE CENTER, and THE PENTAGON, and not EG-- Disney Land. They want us to stop. It's that simple. It's not that they hate OUR freedom, they WANT freedom from US! (and they are willing to kill for it.))
If you use the computerized voting system to generate the paper ballot, then you gain the ability to have a truly uniform ballot form that can be quickly mechanically sorted and counted, as well as easily manually sorted and counted.
Think something like printing a 2D barcode in the top right corner of the form (containing the digital ballot), and the rest of the form containing the paper ballot data. Throw in some physical differences based major election criteria (like president), such as a unique hole punched in a specific place of the ballot card, and you can readily use a light-beam sorting machine to sort the ballots, then verify sorting using a minimum wage volunteer associate. Humans are pretty good at thumbing through a stack of cards that are all supposed to have "this hole in this place", and put all the others in stack B.
You can then have triple redundancy in counting. the first automated tabulator reads the barcodes and produces a tally. The second one sorts the cards by the punch marks, and generates and tally, and the third utilizes humans to check the human-readable part, and produces a tally. A disparity between any of the tabulations would produce suspicions of voting fraud. The increased complexity of the counting and generation process would make orchestrating bulk voter fraud very difficult.
What is gained is the uniform ballot format, and possible redundancy; not the time invested to read/check both ballot signatures.
A friend of mine has parents that run an "Evil collections agency." They DO keep paper records, despite most collections and debt agencies keeping digital-only ones.
An interesting fact is that paper records are not destroyed by a filesystem malfunction; just momentarily misplaced. They have actually had larger agencies ask for copies of their paper files when the larger agency's data has been lost or damaged by technical malfunctions or disasters, on several occasions. (Debt collectors also share information on debtors to help in the collection of debts. If you have a debt in one township, and create another debt in another, the two collections agencies can collaborate, based on seeing the debts posted on your credit report to get information about where you live, your list of active phone numbers, etc. They cannot share it without an active debt in collections though.)
The basic crux of the argument is that it is hard to get a computer to modify paper-only documents without being uniquely visible as a process. (A simple shell-script can "Bulk-process" digital files. Not so with paper ones.) Also, people that keep paper documents provide a valuable service to their digitized peers.
I would very much like to see a "paper ballot" warehouse that keeps the paper versions of ballots, and uses this cache for evaluating prior elections post-hoc, and as a raw data collection for evaluating and designing new ballot strategies. Like all public knowledge institutions, it should be a transparent agency. Ideally, it should keep them for at least 2 decades, and perhaps longer.
The obvious solution is to disallow cellphones of any sort, (Sorry asian iPhone users!) and to put several honeypot APs in the room. (One on each channel of the Wifi frequency band.)
Bonus if the APs are running linux, and are spamming out broadcast beacons at an above normal rate.
In most consumer hardware with network capabilities, they will connect to any readily available network device that is unsecured, unless directed otherwise. At the very least, they will alert that one is available, which would give away it's networking capabilities.
You could be particularly nasty, by giving them all SSIDs that match the college's wifi network, as it is likely that all such networked devices would already be configured to attempt connections with that network.
Such APs wouldnt need network access, in fact, they shouldnt-- You could stick all of them on a simple media cart, and share them with other instructors. Surely the college has some obsoleted APs from their most recent infrastructure upgrades or maintenance? Instead of throwing them out, just repurpose them. It's actually a BONUS if they are defective as network devices! (just as long as devices TRY to connect to them. Worn out buggy POS APs are PERFECT!)
This approach would legally reduce the quality of service to abysmal levels where the anti-network cart is placed, and would give some added disincentive to try and use Google-- and has the benefit of possibly being nearly free.
[JOKE] Why not? that's what the Scientologists did! You Atheists are behind the game! [/JOKE]
In all seriousness though, I find the whole "My religion is more truthier than your religion!" rhetoric tiresome.:)
The objective truth, as far as we can tell, is that if a diety exists, he doesnt give a shit about humans, or the rest of the universe in general, because he seems to have shit little to do with us, or the rest of our universe, because if he did, his activities would leave tell-tale signs, which we have yet to detect.
Thus, at least for me, the whole argument is moot, and a waste of energy. The part about atheism that rankles my skin is the claim of scientific validity, which is demonstrably false.:D It is a claim based on personal interpretation and faith, just like the theist's claim. In that one respect, they are interchangable. (anything else, is of course, apples and oranges.)
I would be perfectly happy with people who claim they are atheist if they did not make this correlation.
In defense, many purely secular 'religions" (like shinto, which deals with how people interact with each other and with places, and does not really need divine beings of any sort) exist, and would seem to need something like my definition in order to be classified as religions instead of philosophies.
Also, I clarified my position on providing my own definition on Religion, by asserting that the dictionary definition does not always equate with what is in actual use of the word, and that "word-nerds" tend to get up in arms about this. Take for instance, the stark resistance to the addition of the words "W00t", and "PWN". (They WERE eventually added to some prestigious dictionaries BECAUSE they are in active use, and have a specific, concise meaning.)
You will find that most people polled will reply that Atheism is a religious belief, despite the dictionary's specific interpretation of that word, which implies that the dictionary definition is not in synch with popular useage of that particular word, and therefor not authoritatively correct. The authority of a word's meaning is defined by the culture that uses that word, not by the book binders that codify those meanings.;)
Written history has been well established to have been politicized, Hence the phrase "History is written by the victors".
(See for instance, the disparities between "wild west" histories written in the 1900s, VS those written today... Especially concerning the behaviors and beliefs of the native americans, and the motivations of US government and its settlers.)
Now, the sciences of Archeology, and of paleontology, and of Anthropology, are all based on repeatable findings, or on hard empirical observations, and are different from written history. They provide proof of their assertions with physical objects, or repeatably testable hypotheses.
Your appeal to authority argument lands squarely on it's face. History DOES involve a great deal of faith, and can be objectively proven to do so.
As for your attempt to lump me in with "believers"-- I assure you, I am staunchly agnostic. I really dont know if a god exists or not, and frankly dont care. The only foundational "Belief" I have on that matter, is that our scientific method cannot answer the question, and lacking a better tool, support the opinion that we simply cannot know at this time.
From my perspective, your assertion that god does not exist is equally flawed logically as is the theist's claim that there is at least one of them-- and your incessant vocalization about the subject and ridicule of the theists for holding the opposing view, is equally nauseating, because both are equally faulted for the same reason.
It's like arguing if null is = 0 or not. The answer is No, it is not. Null is NOT zero, since zero is an integer (a value), and Null is the absence of a value. null == a blank space. They are not interchangeable. Likewise, Your argument that "there is no evidence to support", is not equivalent to "There is evidence that it does not exist." This is a fundamental principle in the scientific method, that you claim to uphold. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." (With careful note of what I am actually saying here. I am NOT arguing for the existence of god, but for the 3rd option; that we dont really know.)
That was the basis of the statement I made above. There was absolutely no theological bias invested whatsoever. Any influence of any such bias, you invented all by yourself.
Personally, I take religion's definition this way, rather than thumping the dictionary. (since definitions DO change over the years, and despite the word-nerds that make dictionaries and their reactions, dictionary definitions need to reflect popular use of words, and not the contrary.)
religion: The systemic process of taking any behavior or phenomenon on pure, simple faith. See also "Religion", the organized practice or adherence to such faith; often involving active conversion.
where
faith: The blind assertion of truthfulness or falsehood of any situation without rationalization or evidence, base wholly on one's own perceptions or emotional condition of a given condition or situation.
In which case, "Atheism" indeed DOES become a Religion (note capital N), since it not only takes the non-existence of God on pure faith it also organizes and preaches this viewpoint.
(The scientific method that they espouse so greatly is literally unable to answer this question, so the logically sound stance is agnosticism, not atheism. No small number of agnostic people find this highly hypocritical, myself included. When sheared of this claimed scientific basis, it boils down to an opinion about the lack of supporting evidence for a diety, not the actual proof of non-existence of one, as claimed. [occam's razor is a statement of probability that is not exclusive: It allows for the fringe case where the complex answer is indeed true. It merely points out that this is highly unlikely. As such, the assertion that it violates the principle of the razor and is therefor false, is an assertion of faith.] Thus, "Faith." It could be possible that a deity exists, but just doesnt give a fuck, and ignores the universe, and in doing so leaves no evidence of its existence. Such an example can be found here on our secular universe in a lab setting; Scientist creates a perfect universe simulation on a computer (to test his own understanding of his own universe), simulates a universe, but does not interact with the simulation, only observes. To the inhabitants of the simulated universe, their universe would appear to have been derived from natural means, since it follows all the observable rules that they can detect, and in abusing the principle of the razor above, they would errantly conclude that there is no scientist. Occam's razor does not rule out this scenario, it merely points out that it is unnecessarily complicated, and therefor "unlikely." "Unlikely" does not equal "does not/cannot happen." The assertion that it does, is faith.)
However, unlike most other Religions, Atheism does not make it a practice to defraud its fellow (non)believers, or to (ab)use the Faith of its adherents to attain other secular goals. These behaviors are often associated with Religion, but are not necessary for it, so an assertion that Atheism is not a Religion based on this tact is an immediate non-sequitor.
Sine pedantry already was part of this discussion, it is important for me to bring up this interesting side-effect of these definitions in advance of critical attack:
"A group of people all feel strongly about X, and based on their feelings, do Y" is then an example of religion?
(lets say, "A group of people all feel strongly about [Sex], and based on their feelings, [have an orgy]/[engage in staunch abstinence]")
I would say, "YES", in both conditions, despite their being contradictory to one another (one is all about having sex, the other all about not having it), because the basis of the decision is one on faith about the effects or powers of sex itself. What makes it a religious experience either way is the fact that it is based on feelings and faith instead of empirical data, observations, or rationality [based on the former two].
If the question had read as this instead, i would have to say No:
"A group of people all accept that X causes Y effect, and so do Z" is then an example of religion?
(lets say, "A gro
Actually, Wasn't there an article about a month ago here on slashdot about the "Maximum effective energy" a laser can reach, before the photon flux itself breaks down into antiparticle pairs?
A similar effect could be attained using a modification of the optical tweaser approach used here, that WOULD be effective in space. (It would, however, also tend to vaporize whatever you shined it at... but Meh.)
Namely, you add another "layer" in your optical tweasers, at a very very high photon flux. This will create antiparticle pairs in one part of the beam path (middle layer), the less energetic optical confinement stream (outer layer), and then the "cavity" in the center.
Due to the self-scattering caused by the antiparticle pair production, this approach would have very limited range, but would at least partially solve the "no atmosphere" problem. (I wouldnt expect to move a huge asteroid this way; the vented gasses caused by hitting it with that much photon flux would provide vastly more propulsive force than that of the optical tweaser effect... but if you absolutely MUST move a particle in what is otherwise a vacuum, this kind of thing might work. Just keep it small enough to fit in the cavity, and OUT of the high flux layer. I just can't think of any reason why you would want to do this though. )
You can get fanless Atom based motherboards in mini ITX and pico ITX form factors, some of which have actual (as in, not intel embedded crap) graphics hardware.
Right now, you can get a 1.6ghz atom CPU, pair it up with 2gb of RAM, and use an SD to SATA adapter for booting a minimalist linux. Since it won't be running any major applications, it shouldn't need swap.
The whole thing will be fanless, and wont have a mechanical disk drive. As such, it would be totally silent.
Put a USB2 wireless N dongle on, and you are good to go.
(It would also take up far less space, and use much less power than a typical MMPC.)
Allowing remote administration of consumer utilization of public utilities is exactly what sets the stage for this theoretical attack against infrastructure. It is THE PROBLEM.
EG, you can cause use a remote control exploit on vulnerable home automation systems to cause those systems to turn on every single electrical appliance connected to the automation system; If your botnet does this to enough homes in the target area, on -- say, a really hot day, you can overload the power grid beyond it's ability to handle with fail-over reserve wire or capacity, and suddenly you have a massive power outage in triple digit (F) weather, and people start dieing.
"Saving you money" is not a suitable justification for making critical infrastructures more vulnerable to attack.
A smart grid that uses an isolated command and control network would be perfectly OK; It wouldnt use the public internet as it's backbone. The legislation I suggested would prevent the latter, not the former. It would not prohibit the formation of a smart power grid; it would just prevent you from turning off your kitchen lights using your iPhone.
The legislation wouldnt prevent you from having a home automation server; it would just make it illegal for it to be controllable/configurable across the internet. So, in your hypothetical situation where you check your power consumption from work, you would be out a day's energy costs until you came home to add timeslots to your home automation system, or other automated behaviors to regulate your homes power consumption without your input. (Such as turning your thermostat down if it is cool outside already, or turning it down while you expect to be away for the day at work. Hence my original statements concering "automation" vs "administration".)
Forgive me if this seems oxymoronic, but wouldnt remote administration of one's home NOT be "Home automation", but instead, "Home administration"?
Automation, by the very terminology used, defines a state that is controlled WITHOUT user intervention. When a human operator is involved, however remotely, it becomes administration, not automation.
It seems to me that the best solution (one that gets the objective outcome you want [terrorists cannot destroy power plants or substations] with the least collateral damage) is to instead pass legislation to prevent the internet being used to control any kind of public utility, or any device attached to the public utility that plays an active role in the use of that public utility. (EG, It is illegal to produce such a remote-controlled automation system. Nothing wrong with it "REPORTING" its current status and power consumption, but once it stops being a report and allows you to shut it down or change the current power mode remotely, it becomes in violation.)
This would be true for any kind of utility, and not just power-- EG, imagine the problems that could be had in a drought year by a nasty bit of software designed to infect and manipulate these proposed home automation systems, if that system also controlled the lawn sprinkers. One could waste a considerable amount of a truly limited resource in a period of scarcity, and cause even more serious problems than causing the substation to overload.
The internet is a good, and useful tool, but it is not always the BEST or even APPROPRIATE tool for every application.
Likewise, a fully blown killswitch is overkill for a problem that is hypothesised to become extant; that particular genie is still in the bottle. Better to put super glue and a "Do not open until christmas" sign on the cork while you still can, to prevent it being opened.
Implementing a killswitch, that likely would/could itself (though the same clusterfuck insane MBA approved mindlessness that necessitated its creation in the first place) be remotely activated THROUGH the internet. (How else would President Man in the oval office be able to push the button, without having to remodel and run dedicated line?) As such, it itself becomes the single biggest target for terrorist attack, since instead of an isolated community power plant being damaged, you end up with billions of dollars of lost productivity, because a script kiddy brute forced the killswitch.
Really, preventative medicine makes more sense than reactionary "nuke it from orbit" protectivism, on every relevent front. (And no, I dont consider Mr Senator Man's personal sense of power/comfort on being able to push the button relevant.)
If you recall, the original "Anti-GPL" stance that Microsoft had, went something along the lines of "Contaminating the software ecosystem."
This was at a time when Microsoft was a quasi-dominant force in the server market, when their IIS server platform actually had a reasonable install base in production environments, and Windows was totally unchallenged by Linux and pals.
Fast forward about a decade now. Ubuntu Linux (and it's sub-flavors) is gaining popularity, Android is devistating Microsoft's offering in the handheld OS market, FOSS software is gaining deeply established traction in many developing countries and making inroads in countries that were previously deeply in Microsoft's pockets, and the FUD campaign that GPL==Communism has failed miserably.
As such, their "Cherished" "Software ecosystem" has had no choice but to accept the new competition, which if you re-read their old FUD campaigns, is exactly what they were saying was wrong with GPL software; It is a disruptive license that destroys the status quo, and threatens for-profit development (as it was practiced at the time.)
In the face of their major competitors (like apple) who have at least partially embraced FOSS software (OSX is based on BSD, IIRC.. could be mistaken. That's why Darwin is FOSS.) and are leveraging it like a catylist to gain more and more market penetration and market share, microsoft can no longer afford to try and play the status quo card. That's why the whole "Software ecosystem" rhetoric has dried up. Now they are playing damage control, and trying to butter up to the same projects and people that they snubbed just a decade ago, hoping that small time developers have as short a memory as do MBAs. (Or, even more disturbing, that they can bamboozle new, young and fresh talent in the FOSS community into drinking the koolaid.)
I would trust Microsoft to "Actually like" FOSS, as I would trust Darl McBride to make a linux kernel patch.
Like you pointed out in your post above, Just about the only thing you can predict that Microsoft will do is do whatever is necessary to increase its bottom line; including redact its own policy statements. Likewise, you should expect that Microsoft will do the same thing concerning FOSS policies and licenses, should it cease being profitable for MS to continue such licensing tactics.
This is a very important situation to quietly think to yourself "Caveat Emptor" about, because when you buy into their new policies, you need to be fully aware that Microsoft, can, and likely will, pull the rug out later. Their ONLY loyalty is to their stockholders, and to the all mighty dollar. They don't even have loyalty to their own rules; it would be absurd to expect that they have somehow had a change of heart in a deep way, or to behave ethically if money is involved.
Personally, I find that as a company, they are overburdened in a faulted development and managerial model that wont fare well in the current market environment. Microsoft is slowly but surely being left behind by smaller, or more agile players, much like IBM was neutered by the end of the 90s. As such, I personally would approach this whole issue with a more forward thinking eye.
As much as I DESPISE apple and Mr Jobs, I feel that he is a much more savvy CEO than Ballmer ever was, or ever could be, and this is probably the main reason why there are rumors of his imminent replacement. As such, I would predict Apple's market share to continue to grow in handheld electronic devices, and through that, leverage more into the personal computer market, though Apple seems to be taking the stance that the macintosh market is now a secondary priority.
About the only thing Microsoft has going for it right now is market momentum, and the upgrade inertia of other corporations. (The exact same reason why IE6 refuses to die.)
So, personally I would focus more on other platforms than the microsoft offerings. Microsoft has the smell of death about it.
Found some tasty information for those who are inclined to produce their own 3D model of a human adenovirus. Gives some juicy details that the linked article doesn't.
A quasi-atomic model of human adenovirus type 5 capsid
If we are going to accept an absurd pricetag for these bad boys, why not skip the dreaded battery idea entirely, and use SuperCaps instead?
APowerCap [ http://www.apowercap.com/?pg=2&lang=eng&rand=81001670 ] (is just one brand that) offers supercaps with internal efficiency ratings of over 90%. (Meaning, more than 90% of the energy used in the charging process is able to be used in a useful manner.) This far exceeds the internal efficiency of even LiON battery packs. Additionally, these devices can reach full charge in a matter of seconds when provided with wall outlet power, and can do so safely without overheating. They can also deliver more charge, more quickly, and more efficiently than chemical batteries.
From a technological point of view, they are just all around better, AND (Surprise) they even have a better energy density to weight ratio then LiON.
Why even bother with batteries with this kind of budget, when there are FAR superior storage solutions?
Perhaps he knew what his MAC address in the built in ethernet device was.
Granted, this would only work if the crook was not behind a NAT firewall, (which makes him double moronic, but I digress) since then the perp could be tracked using an ARP query search method to see what the IP address of that physical device was, by probing all the local ISP networks.
A real pain in the butt to have to do, but it COULD be used to track down an unknown IP address for a KNOWN piece of hardware.
This method would fail behind NAT routers however, because the exposed MAC address would be that of the perp's router, which would not be knowable by the person trying to track down the stolen laptop.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a semantic problem with this association:
There exists a fairly sizable pool of people (at least in the PC software end of the swimming pool anyway) that legitimately purchase software, only to have it broken by the vendor in one way or another. (DRM, limited activations, etc...)
These people then rightly resort to "Piracy" (Going to GameCopyWorld, et al, to get a crack for their legitimately owned software) to get the equity they paid for.
This causes a problem with people who use the availability or the "in the wild" populations of hacked installations of software as a metric for piracy; It is only truly piracy if those installations are not also accompanied by a legitimately purchased license for use.
Likewise-- if I have already purchased the game previously, but my 3 year old child has decided that the game disc in the brightly colored case looked like it would be fun to "play with"--, how does the physical destruction of the original medium invalidate my intangible license to USE that software? How is it morally reprehensible to download a replacement for the destroyed physical copy, when I have already purchased a license? Why should I be forced to purchase an additional license?
These two (and actually several others too) cases call into question the raw data metric for piracy, which is already abysmally low in terms of the percentage of the consumer population that engages in it. --They pretty much delegate the "arch-typical Pirate" that sings Yo Ho HO while they download 500GB of game titles they don't have licenses for to the fringe of being LESS than 1/2 of 1% of the consumer population (the estimated "total piracy" rate in most software markets is about 1/2 of 1%, last I read. The fact that there are people just trying to get their equity out of their purchases included in this statistic means that the ACTUAL piracy rate (those people who DONT have licenses) is actually lower than this.)
1) Note the quotes around "Dog sized"-- ;) (It was a poorly performed jab at the media, who spun it as that large.)
2) Hominids as a class cover more than just H Erectus, Cro-magnon, and pals; It also covers other apes, like the asian mountain gorrilas, (which is where the presumed "yeti" comes from, since gorillas do exhibit hair coloration adaptation in northern/mountainous areas of their asian habitats.) The migratory passageway existed a LONG time ago, plenty of time for micro-adaptation for such an itinerant species. Note, I said a large ape that meets the description of bigfoot in my prior post, not "Bigfoot."
3) Who said anything about Montana? Last I checked I was talking about Canada. (Namely Alberta , Brittish Columbia, and the Northwest Territories provinces. There have been several sightings there, as well as a blood sample collected from a trap placed near a summer cabin near Snellgrove lake. (It's mtDNA was sequenced by Dr. Curt Nelson (University of Minnesota, PhD), Guess what, it WASN'T a bear. Skin and hair samples were also collected in the same sample. Sample size was too small (statistically) for a paper. (only a single source was obtained.)) These locations are less hospitable to having weekend "researchers" stumble around like bull elephants, and are substantially less populated by humans than other sightings areas. (The number of "Sightings" in the US increases as a factor of the increase in total population, and has more to do with the number of eyes looking for what they want to see than what is actually there; EG, There wont be sightings in places where people dont live or go, because nobody is there to see them.)
Also, concerning calculators and searching; Your "typical" cryptozologist is operating on a minimalist budget, since they most frequently have a need for a day job. That means that their "Searches" are usually restricted to areas that are at least reasonably accessible by modern transportation, within your typical 1 week vacation time; such as highways. As pointed out, the population density of the Northern Territories is LESS than 1 person per 10 square miles, AND unfriendly to modern transportation. (Helicopter blades freeze up, roads become impassible, etc.) It is less about ruling out "Living room" so much as it is ruling out "Top shelf of walk-in closet", or "At my friend's house", and citing that you peeked up there and didnt see it, or that you looked in your friend's living room and concluded that it wasn't in his house. Or, if you insist on staying in the living room-- Its like saying you looked on the coffee table and didnt find it, so it must not be in the living room.
Aliens and ESP I can see doing that with, but Bigfoot's major "objection" from the scientific community is along the lines of "If an ape that big lived out there, we would have found it by now."
I call hubris for several reasons:
1) Large macro-species are discovered all the time in remote locations; Northern Territories has a population density of below 1 person per 10 miles, and is inhospitable to modern transit. Thus "remote." Not that long ago a large "Dog sized" rat was discovered in Papua New Guinea.
2) It is silly to presume that other homnids besides early modern humans failed to cross the migratory passageway from Asia to the north american contintent, while humans did. (Hell, horses, dromedaries, and others did too, finding their way all the way to south america.)
3) "Esteemed Scientists" said the same thing about the then "Apochryphal" "Orangutan", or "Old man of the forest." Now just about every zoo has one. For a very long time (in the era of the 20s, or there abouts) it was equal "Crackpottery" to go looking for Orangutans as it is to look for "Bigfoot" now.
Given the track record, I refuse to rule out the potential for a large ape species that would fit the physical description of "bigfoot", just because somebody with a PHD has an opinion about him/herself, and their abilities.
Now, if you pose an argument like "There is insufficient nutritional sources to support a large hominid of that description in the area, making their being there undiscovered unlikely", that I would go for, since it makes a rational case for being skeptical. The "We would have found it by now" rhetoric does not, and expects us to accept on faith, rather than reason. That's why I reject it. It is similarly why I reject the notion that the earth is only 6000 years old, or that the earth is the center of the universe.
Parent has the right idea.
I wouldnt want to go there, but THAT at least is somewhat plausible, and you dont even need chemicals or MIB.
Good old fashioned social engineering techniques can cause people to have a shared/similar delusional state.
(Just look at Fox News...)
Obligatory Obviousness:
The RIAA is an association; An umbrella front man. Essentially a litigation middle man for various recording industries.
The RIAA does not need to collect "damages"; since the RIAA does not own copyrights; it's members do.
Personally, I would spin it this way: The purpose of copuyright is to promote the creation of createive works. The recording industry's recording equipment does not produce creative works; It is used to fascilitate the creation, BY artists.
Thus, the purpose of copyright is to pay artists. (The artists pay for the use of the recording equipment with their contracts.)
Naturally, It should follow that any punitive damages should be paid directly to artists.
Never been to Kansas I take it...
Take for instance, Kansas interstate highway K15. Between Winfield and Mulvane? 70mph, for the most part. But then you go through 2 podunk towns that literally straddle the highway... BAM-- 20mph.
Ever tried to decelelrate from 70 to 20 in 50 ft or less? -- Yeah.
Then, you GET to winfield; The highway magically becomes mainstreet, after an obscuring turn around a municiple water project.. BAM-15mph, and a detour through a traffic light just a few blocks down.
This is quite common around here in "Flyover Country", and is the rule, NOT the exception.
The problem is that nation states have the intrinsic right to self-governance.
When it comes to nation states, there is not "higher authority" per-se; They are all peers.
You can have a group of like-minded nation states agree to some kind of trade or non-agression compact, (like the UN, or even the EU), but the nations themselves (usually) retain their soveriegnty.
It sounds to me like the issue you have with the concept of blanket national soveriegnty is that it allows forms of government and political activities that you personally disagree with to go "Unpunished", as long as they dont start pooping in other people's cheerios.
The issue is one of who watches the watchers. One nation cannot just decide that it will police all the others without suffering reprocussions. (much like having bombs planted in their trade centers...)
As for the question that brings up the spectre of Godwin's law: (I dont intend for this to sound aggressive, btw.)
Perhaps you missed out on Chairman Mao's little happy fun-ride through China? What did the world stage do about it? What is it doing about the aftermath of it right now? [exactly.]
Or, for a more recent example, Sarkosy (however you sell his name anyway) and the Roma extirpation; even though it does not involve extermination.
The most that other nations have the RIGHT to do about these kinds of things are to 1) Condemn the practice publicly, and 2) withold trade from those countries. (For an example of how 'effective' that is, look at Cuba and the embargo.) Certainly, more militarily active nations, or those with strangleholds over vital resources can force the issue, but they are actually attempting to enforce their own wills on those of others. It goes without saying that the government that is the target of such tactics does not DESIRE to be controlled in this manner; how and where do you draw the line about meddling in foriegn policies? Who decides what is ethical, what is justified, and what is a crime? (more importantly, who has the RIGHT to impose such arbitration?)
As for the questions about pre-war afghanistan and co.; These nations were ruled by a theocratic agency, more or less. The same could have been said about pretty much every european country during the dark ages. (The power of the papacy exceeded that of local kings. The catholic church's only real adversary was the islamic nations, only later to be replaced with protestantism.) The question then boils down to one of "Do you accept the Taliban as a governmental entity" or not. (much like asking if you accept the papacy as being a government or not. Both are politically charged theocratic agencies, that hold territories. The taliban holds several cities and wasteland areas in the middle east, and the papacy holds Rome. The only outstanding difference that I can see is that the Vatican is internationally recognized as a soveriegn nation, while the Taliban is not. It is this issue of being recognized as a "peer" that is important when a newly born nation declares independance, as such recognition is what confers national soveriegnty; the right to self-rule.)
As for materialistic wealth and standards of living; Consider for a moment how that situation would not be the same without a globalist economy, just for a starter. (Since without that, there would be no cheap outsourced labor in China, producing cheap plastic crap-- Nor would there be "inexpensive" (comparatively speaking-- no such thing as a cheap battery.) rechargable batteries being manufactured and recycled in places like Tiawan, where there are laxer environmental restrictions (which were imposed to increase the standard of living in the countries that implemented them). Same goes for a whole lot of products; The result would be that pretty much everything, everywhere would be more expensive, following the increased standards of living; if such increases would even be possible in such circumstances. All this kind of statement does is illustrate the point about how our dirty dealings with the res
It is when the leadership in those areas is disproportionately empowered, and are basically shills for western nations for the supply of cheap energy or of cheap toxic waste disposal/factory labor.
Take for example, the anecdotes in Confessions of an Economic Hitman. If even only a tiny handful of the nastiness in that book is even partially true, then at least the US (A major western country) is culpable for a GREAT deal of suffering in the rest of the world.
One cannot produce medicine without infrastructure, and one cannot produce the needed infrastructure if the local power elite prevent you from doing it.
Likewise, why do you think ACTA is so evil? Software piracy? Think again-- it's the "Counterfeit Drugs" issue-- See how they classified "Counterfeit Drugs"-- Basically the exact same chemicals, produced in the exact same processes, are "Counterfeit" when they are not made by eg-- GSK, or Phiser or (insert pharmaceutical giant here).
Many of the criticisms levied against the US government by foreign nationals are actually true. The argument that "They hate our freedom!" is both a smokescreen and a farce all wrapped up in one-- The nationals want us to actually comprehend what the concept of National Sovereignty means. It means that Iran can do whatever Iran wants, inside Iran's borders, because Iran is in control of Iran- Not the UN, Not the US, not Multinational corporations. (Just like the US does what the US wants, inside the US, or the UK does inside the UK, or (Country) inside (Country's territory).
If that means being a theocratically managed hell-hole, that is THEIR business.
("Oh, but we NEEEEEEEED that OOOOIL so that I can drive my Hummer H3!"--- THAT is why they are sending bombs; We keep using our muscle to infiltrate their government with shills, to sell them out. That's why they attacked THE TRADE CENTER, and THE PENTAGON, and not EG-- Disney Land. They want us to stop. It's that simple. It's not that they hate OUR freedom, they WANT freedom from US! (and they are willing to kill for it.))
If you use the computerized voting system to generate the paper ballot, then you gain the ability to have a truly uniform ballot form that can be quickly mechanically sorted and counted, as well as easily manually sorted and counted.
Think something like printing a 2D barcode in the top right corner of the form (containing the digital ballot), and the rest of the form containing the paper ballot data. Throw in some physical differences based major election criteria (like president), such as a unique hole punched in a specific place of the ballot card, and you can readily use a light-beam sorting machine to sort the ballots, then verify sorting using a minimum wage volunteer associate. Humans are pretty good at thumbing through a stack of cards that are all supposed to have "this hole in this place", and put all the others in stack B.
You can then have triple redundancy in counting. the first automated tabulator reads the barcodes and produces a tally. The second one sorts the cards by the punch marks, and generates and tally, and the third utilizes humans to check the human-readable part, and produces a tally. A disparity between any of the tabulations would produce suspicions of voting fraud. The increased complexity of the counting and generation process would make orchestrating bulk voter fraud very difficult.
What is gained is the uniform ballot format, and possible redundancy; not the time invested to read/check both ballot signatures.
A friend of mine has parents that run an "Evil collections agency." They DO keep paper records, despite most collections and debt agencies keeping digital-only ones.
An interesting fact is that paper records are not destroyed by a filesystem malfunction; just momentarily misplaced. They have actually had larger agencies ask for copies of their paper files when the larger agency's data has been lost or damaged by technical malfunctions or disasters, on several occasions. (Debt collectors also share information on debtors to help in the collection of debts. If you have a debt in one township, and create another debt in another, the two collections agencies can collaborate, based on seeing the debts posted on your credit report to get information about where you live, your list of active phone numbers, etc. They cannot share it without an active debt in collections though.)
The basic crux of the argument is that it is hard to get a computer to modify paper-only documents without being uniquely visible as a process. (A simple shell-script can "Bulk-process" digital files. Not so with paper ones.) Also, people that keep paper documents provide a valuable service to their digitized peers.
I would very much like to see a "paper ballot" warehouse that keeps the paper versions of ballots, and uses this cache for evaluating prior elections post-hoc, and as a raw data collection for evaluating and designing new ballot strategies. Like all public knowledge institutions, it should be a transparent agency. Ideally, it should keep them for at least 2 decades, and perhaps longer.
The obvious solution is to disallow cellphones of any sort, (Sorry asian iPhone users!) and to put several honeypot APs in the room. (One on each channel of the Wifi frequency band.)
Bonus if the APs are running linux, and are spamming out broadcast beacons at an above normal rate.
In most consumer hardware with network capabilities, they will connect to any readily available network device that is unsecured, unless directed otherwise. At the very least, they will alert that one is available, which would give away it's networking capabilities.
You could be particularly nasty, by giving them all SSIDs that match the college's wifi network, as it is likely that all such networked devices would already be configured to attempt connections with that network.
Such APs wouldnt need network access, in fact, they shouldnt-- You could stick all of them on a simple media cart, and share them with other instructors. Surely the college has some obsoleted APs from their most recent infrastructure upgrades or maintenance? Instead of throwing them out, just repurpose them. It's actually a BONUS if they are defective as network devices! (just as long as devices TRY to connect to them. Worn out buggy POS APs are PERFECT!)
This approach would legally reduce the quality of service to abysmal levels where the anti-network cart is placed, and would give some added disincentive to try and use Google-- and has the benefit of possibly being nearly free.
[JOKE]
Why not? that's what the Scientologists did! You Atheists are behind the game!
[/JOKE]
In all seriousness though, I find the whole "My religion is more truthier than your religion!" rhetoric tiresome. :)
The objective truth, as far as we can tell, is that if a diety exists, he doesnt give a shit about humans, or the rest of the universe in general, because he seems to have shit little to do with us, or the rest of our universe, because if he did, his activities would leave tell-tale signs, which we have yet to detect.
Thus, at least for me, the whole argument is moot, and a waste of energy. The part about atheism that rankles my skin is the claim of scientific validity, which is demonstrably false. :D It is a claim based on personal interpretation and faith, just like the theist's claim. In that one respect, they are interchangable. (anything else, is of course, apples and oranges.)
I would be perfectly happy with people who claim they are atheist if they did not make this correlation.
Accepted;
In defense, many purely secular 'religions" (like shinto, which deals with how people interact with each other and with places, and does not really need divine beings of any sort) exist, and would seem to need something like my definition in order to be classified as religions instead of philosophies.
Also, I clarified my position on providing my own definition on Religion, by asserting that the dictionary definition does not always equate with what is in actual use of the word, and that "word-nerds" tend to get up in arms about this. Take for instance, the stark resistance to the addition of the words "W00t", and "PWN". (They WERE eventually added to some prestigious dictionaries BECAUSE they are in active use, and have a specific, concise meaning.)
You will find that most people polled will reply that Atheism is a religious belief, despite the dictionary's specific interpretation of that word, which implies that the dictionary definition is not in synch with popular useage of that particular word, and therefor not authoritatively correct. The authority of a word's meaning is defined by the culture that uses that word, not by the book binders that codify those meanings. ;)
Written history has been well established to have been politicized, Hence the phrase "History is written by the victors".
(See for instance, the disparities between "wild west" histories written in the 1900s, VS those written today... Especially concerning the behaviors and beliefs of the native americans, and the motivations of US government and its settlers.)
Now, the sciences of Archeology, and of paleontology, and of Anthropology, are all based on repeatable findings, or on hard empirical observations, and are different from written history. They provide proof of their assertions with physical objects, or repeatably testable hypotheses.
Your appeal to authority argument lands squarely on it's face. History DOES involve a great deal of faith, and can be objectively proven to do so.
As for your attempt to lump me in with "believers"-- I assure you, I am staunchly agnostic. I really dont know if a god exists or not, and frankly dont care. The only foundational "Belief" I have on that matter, is that our scientific method cannot answer the question, and lacking a better tool, support the opinion that we simply cannot know at this time.
From my perspective, your assertion that god does not exist is equally flawed logically as is the theist's claim that there is at least one of them-- and your incessant vocalization about the subject and ridicule of the theists for holding the opposing view, is equally nauseating, because both are equally faulted for the same reason.
It's like arguing if null is = 0 or not. The answer is No, it is not. Null is NOT zero, since zero is an integer (a value), and Null is the absence of a value. null == a blank space. They are not interchangeable. Likewise, Your argument that "there is no evidence to support", is not equivalent to "There is evidence that it does not exist." This is a fundamental principle in the scientific method, that you claim to uphold. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." (With careful note of what I am actually saying here. I am NOT arguing for the existence of god, but for the 3rd option; that we dont really know.)
That was the basis of the statement I made above. There was absolutely no theological bias invested whatsoever. Any influence of any such bias, you invented all by yourself.
Ah, the joys of pedantry...
Personally, I take religion's definition this way, rather than thumping the dictionary. (since definitions DO change over the years, and despite the word-nerds that make dictionaries and their reactions, dictionary definitions need to reflect popular use of words, and not the contrary.)
religion: The systemic process of taking any behavior or phenomenon on pure, simple faith. See also "Religion", the organized practice or adherence to such faith; often involving active conversion.
where
faith: The blind assertion of truthfulness or falsehood of any situation without rationalization or evidence, base wholly on one's own perceptions or emotional condition of a given condition or situation.
In which case, "Atheism" indeed DOES become a Religion (note capital N), since it not only takes the non-existence of God on pure faith it also organizes and preaches this viewpoint.
(The scientific method that they espouse so greatly is literally unable to answer this question, so the logically sound stance is agnosticism, not atheism. No small number of agnostic people find this highly hypocritical, myself included. When sheared of this claimed scientific basis, it boils down to an opinion about the lack of supporting evidence for a diety, not the actual proof of non-existence of one, as claimed. [occam's razor is a statement of probability that is not exclusive: It allows for the fringe case where the complex answer is indeed true. It merely points out that this is highly unlikely. As such, the assertion that it violates the principle of the razor and is therefor false, is an assertion of faith.] Thus, "Faith." It could be possible that a deity exists, but just doesnt give a fuck, and ignores the universe, and in doing so leaves no evidence of its existence. Such an example can be found here on our secular universe in a lab setting; Scientist creates a perfect universe simulation on a computer (to test his own understanding of his own universe), simulates a universe, but does not interact with the simulation, only observes. To the inhabitants of the simulated universe, their universe would appear to have been derived from natural means, since it follows all the observable rules that they can detect, and in abusing the principle of the razor above, they would errantly conclude that there is no scientist. Occam's razor does not rule out this scenario, it merely points out that it is unnecessarily complicated, and therefor "unlikely." "Unlikely" does not equal "does not/cannot happen." The assertion that it does, is faith.)
However, unlike most other Religions, Atheism does not make it a practice to defraud its fellow (non)believers, or to (ab)use the Faith of its adherents to attain other secular goals. These behaviors are often associated with Religion, but are not necessary for it, so an assertion that Atheism is not a Religion based on this tact is an immediate non-sequitor.
Sine pedantry already was part of this discussion, it is important for me to bring up this interesting side-effect of these definitions in advance of critical attack:
"A group of people all feel strongly about X, and based on their feelings, do Y" is then an example of religion?
(lets say, "A group of people all feel strongly about [Sex], and based on their feelings, [have an orgy]/[engage in staunch abstinence]")
I would say, "YES", in both conditions, despite their being contradictory to one another (one is all about having sex, the other all about not having it), because the basis of the decision is one on faith about the effects or powers of sex itself. What makes it a religious experience either way is the fact that it is based on feelings and faith instead of empirical data, observations, or rationality [based on the former two].
If the question had read as this instead, i would have to say No:
"A group of people all accept that X causes Y effect, and so do Z" is then an example of religion? (lets say, "A gro
Actually, Wasn't there an article about a month ago here on slashdot about the "Maximum effective energy" a laser can reach, before the photon flux itself breaks down into antiparticle pairs? A similar effect could be attained using a modification of the optical tweaser approach used here, that WOULD be effective in space. (It would, however, also tend to vaporize whatever you shined it at... but Meh.) Namely, you add another "layer" in your optical tweasers, at a very very high photon flux. This will create antiparticle pairs in one part of the beam path (middle layer), the less energetic optical confinement stream (outer layer), and then the "cavity" in the center. Due to the self-scattering caused by the antiparticle pair production, this approach would have very limited range, but would at least partially solve the "no atmosphere" problem. (I wouldnt expect to move a huge asteroid this way; the vented gasses caused by hitting it with that much photon flux would provide vastly more propulsive force than that of the optical tweaser effect... but if you absolutely MUST move a particle in what is otherwise a vacuum, this kind of thing might work. Just keep it small enough to fit in the cavity, and OUT of the high flux layer. I just can't think of any reason why you would want to do this though. )
You can get fanless Atom based motherboards in mini ITX and pico ITX form factors, some of which have actual (as in, not intel embedded crap) graphics hardware.
Right now, you can get a 1.6ghz atom CPU, pair it up with 2gb of RAM, and use an SD to SATA adapter for booting a minimalist linux. Since it won't be running any major applications, it shouldn't need swap.
The whole thing will be fanless, and wont have a mechanical disk drive. As such, it would be totally silent.
Put a USB2 wireless N dongle on, and you are good to go. (It would also take up far less space, and use much less power than a typical MMPC.)
Did you not pay attention to the GP?
Allowing remote administration of consumer utilization of public utilities is exactly what sets the stage for this theoretical attack against infrastructure. It is THE PROBLEM.
EG, you can cause use a remote control exploit on vulnerable home automation systems to cause those systems to turn on every single electrical appliance connected to the automation system; If your botnet does this to enough homes in the target area, on -- say, a really hot day, you can overload the power grid beyond it's ability to handle with fail-over reserve wire or capacity, and suddenly you have a massive power outage in triple digit (F) weather, and people start dieing.
"Saving you money" is not a suitable justification for making critical infrastructures more vulnerable to attack.
A smart grid that uses an isolated command and control network would be perfectly OK; It wouldnt use the public internet as it's backbone. The legislation I suggested would prevent the latter, not the former. It would not prohibit the formation of a smart power grid; it would just prevent you from turning off your kitchen lights using your iPhone.
The legislation wouldnt prevent you from having a home automation server; it would just make it illegal for it to be controllable/configurable across the internet. So, in your hypothetical situation where you check your power consumption from work, you would be out a day's energy costs until you came home to add timeslots to your home automation system, or other automated behaviors to regulate your homes power consumption without your input. (Such as turning your thermostat down if it is cool outside already, or turning it down while you expect to be away for the day at work. Hence my original statements concering "automation" vs "administration".)
Forgive me if this seems oxymoronic, but wouldnt remote administration of one's home NOT be "Home automation", but instead, "Home administration"?
Automation, by the very terminology used, defines a state that is controlled WITHOUT user intervention. When a human operator is involved, however remotely, it becomes administration, not automation.
It seems to me that the best solution (one that gets the objective outcome you want [terrorists cannot destroy power plants or substations] with the least collateral damage) is to instead pass legislation to prevent the internet being used to control any kind of public utility, or any device attached to the public utility that plays an active role in the use of that public utility. (EG, It is illegal to produce such a remote-controlled automation system. Nothing wrong with it "REPORTING" its current status and power consumption, but once it stops being a report and allows you to shut it down or change the current power mode remotely, it becomes in violation.)
This would be true for any kind of utility, and not just power-- EG, imagine the problems that could be had in a drought year by a nasty bit of software designed to infect and manipulate these proposed home automation systems, if that system also controlled the lawn sprinkers. One could waste a considerable amount of a truly limited resource in a period of scarcity, and cause even more serious problems than causing the substation to overload.
The internet is a good, and useful tool, but it is not always the BEST or even APPROPRIATE tool for every application.
Likewise, a fully blown killswitch is overkill for a problem that is hypothesised to become extant; that particular genie is still in the bottle. Better to put super glue and a "Do not open until christmas" sign on the cork while you still can, to prevent it being opened.
Implementing a killswitch, that likely would/could itself (though the same clusterfuck insane MBA approved mindlessness that necessitated its creation in the first place) be remotely activated THROUGH the internet. (How else would President Man in the oval office be able to push the button, without having to remodel and run dedicated line?) As such, it itself becomes the single biggest target for terrorist attack, since instead of an isolated community power plant being damaged, you end up with billions of dollars of lost productivity, because a script kiddy brute forced the killswitch.
Really, preventative medicine makes more sense than reactionary "nuke it from orbit" protectivism, on every relevent front. (And no, I dont consider Mr Senator Man's personal sense of power/comfort on being able to push the button relevant.)
If you recall, the original "Anti-GPL" stance that Microsoft had, went something along the lines of "Contaminating the software ecosystem."
This was at a time when Microsoft was a quasi-dominant force in the server market, when their IIS server platform actually had a reasonable install base in production environments, and Windows was totally unchallenged by Linux and pals.
Fast forward about a decade now. Ubuntu Linux (and it's sub-flavors) is gaining popularity, Android is devistating Microsoft's offering in the handheld OS market, FOSS software is gaining deeply established traction in many developing countries and making inroads in countries that were previously deeply in Microsoft's pockets, and the FUD campaign that GPL==Communism has failed miserably.
As such, their "Cherished" "Software ecosystem" has had no choice but to accept the new competition, which if you re-read their old FUD campaigns, is exactly what they were saying was wrong with GPL software; It is a disruptive license that destroys the status quo, and threatens for-profit development (as it was practiced at the time.)
In the face of their major competitors (like apple) who have at least partially embraced FOSS software (OSX is based on BSD, IIRC.. could be mistaken. That's why Darwin is FOSS.) and are leveraging it like a catylist to gain more and more market penetration and market share, microsoft can no longer afford to try and play the status quo card. That's why the whole "Software ecosystem" rhetoric has dried up. Now they are playing damage control, and trying to butter up to the same projects and people that they snubbed just a decade ago, hoping that small time developers have as short a memory as do MBAs. (Or, even more disturbing, that they can bamboozle new, young and fresh talent in the FOSS community into drinking the koolaid.)
I would trust Microsoft to "Actually like" FOSS, as I would trust Darl McBride to make a linux kernel patch.
Like you pointed out in your post above, Just about the only thing you can predict that Microsoft will do is do whatever is necessary to increase its bottom line; including redact its own policy statements. Likewise, you should expect that Microsoft will do the same thing concerning FOSS policies and licenses, should it cease being profitable for MS to continue such licensing tactics.
This is a very important situation to quietly think to yourself "Caveat Emptor" about, because when you buy into their new policies, you need to be fully aware that Microsoft, can, and likely will, pull the rug out later. Their ONLY loyalty is to their stockholders, and to the all mighty dollar. They don't even have loyalty to their own rules; it would be absurd to expect that they have somehow had a change of heart in a deep way, or to behave ethically if money is involved.
Personally, I find that as a company, they are overburdened in a faulted development and managerial model that wont fare well in the current market environment. Microsoft is slowly but surely being left behind by smaller, or more agile players, much like IBM was neutered by the end of the 90s. As such, I personally would approach this whole issue with a more forward thinking eye.
As much as I DESPISE apple and Mr Jobs, I feel that he is a much more savvy CEO than Ballmer ever was, or ever could be, and this is probably the main reason why there are rumors of his imminent replacement. As such, I would predict Apple's market share to continue to grow in handheld electronic devices, and through that, leverage more into the personal computer market, though Apple seems to be taking the stance that the macintosh market is now a secondary priority.
About the only thing Microsoft has going for it right now is market momentum, and the upgrade inertia of other corporations. (The exact same reason why IE6 refuses to die.)
So, personally I would focus more on other platforms than the microsoft offerings. Microsoft has the smell of death about it.
Found some tasty information for those who are inclined to produce their own 3D model of a human adenovirus. Gives some juicy details that the linked article doesn't. A quasi-atomic model of human adenovirus type 5 capsid
I dunno, I kinda like my Laptop/Easy Bake Oven. I suspect I could market the oven portion to college students and make a killing.
If we are going to accept an absurd pricetag for these bad boys, why not skip the dreaded battery idea entirely, and use SuperCaps instead? APowerCap [ http://www.apowercap.com/?pg=2&lang=eng&rand=81001670 ] (is just one brand that) offers supercaps with internal efficiency ratings of over 90%. (Meaning, more than 90% of the energy used in the charging process is able to be used in a useful manner.) This far exceeds the internal efficiency of even LiON battery packs. Additionally, these devices can reach full charge in a matter of seconds when provided with wall outlet power, and can do so safely without overheating. They can also deliver more charge, more quickly, and more efficiently than chemical batteries. From a technological point of view, they are just all around better, AND (Surprise) they even have a better energy density to weight ratio then LiON. Why even bother with batteries with this kind of budget, when there are FAR superior storage solutions?
Ever heard of In(verse)ARP? ;)
It is an extension to the ARP protocol, where a known hardware MAC address is used to query for an unknown IP address.
Perhaps he knew what his MAC address in the built in ethernet device was. Granted, this would only work if the crook was not behind a NAT firewall, (which makes him double moronic, but I digress) since then the perp could be tracked using an ARP query search method to see what the IP address of that physical device was, by probing all the local ISP networks. A real pain in the butt to have to do, but it COULD be used to track down an unknown IP address for a KNOWN piece of hardware. This method would fail behind NAT routers however, because the exposed MAC address would be that of the perp's router, which would not be knowable by the person trying to track down the stolen laptop.