The real question is: Why is sleep needed in mammals in the first place? We've already found drugs that can keep a person going without sleep for weeks or months at a time, apparently without any significant reduction in cognitive ability or any significant change in neurological functioning. It's been investigated my the military for quite some time now.
Evolution says the reason for sleep is that it improves a creature's ability to adapt... but what does sleep adapt us for? Why the downtime? Even here with mammals where never going to sleep is a survival necessity... nature kept it intact and instead segmented the brain so parts of it could sleep. Something about sleep is very, very important... but be damned if we can figure out what.
There's the idea that's been tossed around for a long time that we're programmed to believe in gods, goddesses, higher powers, and all that to explain things we don't yet understand, that it's some kind of evolutionary coping strategy. Do you think that's true? Why (or why not)?
Foxconn may say the iphone5 is a pain, but I think the workers getting paid peanuts for 80 hours shifts might have a different idea of what 'pain' means. Besides, how much quality assembly is really possible when your workforce is bleary-eyed and exhausted? I bet there's a lot of QA rejects and extra controls required to keep quality from plummeting.
You forgot another problem with dogs: They can be trained to respond to a surrepticious signal to indicate explosives or drugs when there are none... thus allowing the officers probable cause to go dig around for what they're actually looking for. Same thing with breathalyzers -- they're suseptible to near-field EM... like the kind that comes from a police radio being keyed up while the suspect is breathing into the device. Tools not only need to limit false negatives and positives, but also intentional manipulation by a 3rd party.
And I already covered my ass there by stipulating that being "caught" in the grey area should be a misdemeanor at most, with even just a warning as a first "punishment".
I don't like the idea of anyone going to jail because what they did was in a "grey area". It doesn't matter the size of the grey area, the standard in law is beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard is we'd rather let ten guilty men go free than convict an innocent person. I cannot and will not accept your idea that there should be "grey area" crimes. "Well sir, you were close to the speed limit, so I'm going to write you a ticket that's close to the fine you'd get for actually speeding."
Wait what? I'm not interfering with their ability to work. Its "just" their "emotional reaction" causing any issues, and according to you I'm not liable for that.
It doesn't matter... you don't have free speech in the workplace. Employers have wide latitude in what behaviors can be regulated. And it's not "just" their emotional reaction here in any event -- your constant advances interfere with their ability to do their job in the same way that children in the backseat of a car shouting "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" interferes with a person's ability to operate a motor vehicle.
So, rather than a fine or a warning, you prefer a straight up restraint on free speech?
It's not a restraint on free speech, but a restaint on the person's proximity to another person. They can quite happily scream profanities and talk about the person all they want... as long as they're more than 500 feet away.
You're proceeding from a faulty premise. You're assuming that you are seeing all of the traffic being sent to you.
My "premise" is that e-mail makes up a very small minority of internet traffic. I'm arguing against the size of the problem as automatically justifying extreme and extraordinary measures to control because of its severity.
Even if 99.999% of all e-mail is spam, the author's original assertion is busted: E-mail makes up a very small amount of total internet traffic. The idea that filtering is mandatory is silly -- even if 100% of that spam went through, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of traffic for Netflix, or bittorrent, or even just casual web browsing. I'm not against filtering; I just think that the idea we have to cede access control to a third party because spam is so unmanageable is ridiculous. Even if 95% of incoming e-mail was dropped, my inbox still says that would mean....04% of the average person's internet bandwidth is spam.
It's like trying to kill a spider with a flame thrower...
So you really think if I round up a dozen people and ask them whether a given behavior is offensive, all 12 of them will agree in the substantial majority of cases that it's offensive (or not)? Because I've been watching the Presidential debates, and let me just say, even when not giving offense is at a premium, they're still regularly infuriating people in significant quantities. "A binder full of women" anyone?
Why should we be at all liable in any way that it upset him to the point of depression and attempted suicide?
Because being a douchebag isn't a crime. If it was, most of the people on slashdot would be on America's Most Wanted.
And now when I continually proposition my hot coworker for sex and compliment her ass? She should be flattered. But now I've got this sexual harrassment charge pending. WTF!
You're interfering with a person's ability to work, something everyone needs to do to survive. Workplace behavior is more regulated because of that. Now if you left the workplace and did the same thing you wouldn't have that charge pending. Different circumstances, different standards.
So then I posted images of holocaust mass graves, except with little penises drawn on the bodies, and each one labelled a faggot. It was hilarious, so I posted it to the local jewish temple's public forum with the subject "the faggots deserved it". Like what reasonable person could determine ahead of time that this was going to offend any one? Not me, that's for sure!
That would be poor taste. Nobody was harmed, and you didn't go on to advocate or incite violence against jews, so it would be protected speech.
But at the same time, I do think there should be tools in law for people to protect themselves from complete assholes who are just deliberately harassing them.
Most people solve this with restraining orders. The remainder usually beat the shit out of them, and the law recognizes this -- if someone punches you in the face after you call them names and/or provoke them, they will probably only get a simple misdemeanor assault charge, and not be arrested or serve jail time. It happens every day.
There IS a balance that needs to be struck
Yes, and historically that balance has been far on the side of protecting free speech, even if it's offensive, unethical, immoral, or disgusting. Speech in and of itself has a low inherent ability to harm -- in most circumstances you can walk away. In the remainder, you can get a court order to keep them away. Only in a very tiny island out of the vast ocean of things a person can say, is there a danger zone where regulation is needed. Inciting to violence, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, etc., are classic examples of unprotected speech -- because it's speech that poses a imminent danger to the life or wellbeing of others. That is the balance point.
These are people who are misrepresenting the truth, often creating online profiles as people whom they actually are not, and that action is hurtful to society.
If misrepresenting the truth is a crime, anyone who's a politician or politically active is a criminal. Creating online profiles as people who they are not means a lot of people who only use Facebook to play Farmville are now criminals. And my definition of hurtful to society depends on an objective, clear, and unambiguous hurt -- like cutting off someone's arm, stealing their car, etc. There's a clear loss there. "Someone lied to me!" isn't harming society to the extent that it needs to be regulated behavior.
And your definition completely omits from its definition of a crime the person's intent in doing those things. I consider that pretty important in determining what should be a crime and what shouldn't be. So do most criminal defense attorneys, judges, and law enforcement... they want to see criminal intent, not just "oops"
Americans used to say, "I hate what you say, but I would die for your right to say it."
Actually, that was Voltaire, a french man best known for writing such withering critiques of certain written works that the authors would commit suicide. He said "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Americans paraphrase it by just saying "free speech, fuck yeah!"
you, sir, must have unlimited network resources. With spam taking up +90% [1] of internet traffic, you just rolled over and admitted that you
weren't as skilled as the opposition and let them sap your resources. I was hoping for better advice.
Yeah, let's have a look here at my current google spam folder... okay, about 64 messages. Each message is at best about 4KB in size. 4 * 64 = 256KB of spam per month. But let's quadruple that, because maybe my mailbox, which has been around since 2003 and subscribed to approximately a hundred lists, is lower than average. Comcast states that the average user uses 1-2GB per month; Ludicriously low, but for the sake of debate let's say the average user only uses 1GB of bandwidth per month. That means that spam consumes 0.08% of a typical user's bandwidth. And that's a front of the envelope number -- realistically, it's probably lower. So 1/10th of one percent of your average ISPs front-end bandwidth (not last mile) is being wasted filtering out spam.
Yeah. I can definately see how it's eating up 90% of all internet traffic. Oh wait... the article says it's 90% of all e-mail traffic, which makes up less than 1% of aggregate internet traffic. Whups! Minor details... they'll fuck you every time.
a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offense,' punishable by three years in jail."
Cause offense? Your existance offends me! Your funny-colored hair offends me! The fact that you're a man, woman, human, or bovine offends me! See, that's the problem with "cause offense" -- it's entirely subjective. It depends on the recipient. No free country should have a law on the books claiming things that are offensive are illegal, anymore than people should be liable for the emotional reactions of others. When you make something criminal, you need to be specific about the behavior. "Entered house with force and intent to steal." That's provable, objective, and fairly unambiguous. "Caused emotional distress" can't be proven, it's totally subjective, and highly ambiguous. In any criminal test, you have to ask yourself: Could a reasonable person determine ahead of time that the behavior in question was (unambiguously) illegal?
Kill this law with fire, and while you're at it, tell the legislator to fuck off, eat a bag of dicks, and that his face is ugly. But be sure to put a smiley face at the end... we wouldn't want to sound... offensive. In other news, please enjoy this politically, culturally, and sexually correct joke:
It was a good idea in the beginning; Getting network and system administrators to share their stories of problems on the frontier. And for awhile, it was good. But as these services developed, they decided to start automating the process. And that's when the problems started. As an example, let's say all spammers use open relays. The logic here then is to test for open relays and block any that are found. Spam problem solved! Except it doesn't look at the reverse case: Namely, that not all open relays are used by spammers. In fact, it could be the case that the vast majority of open relays are perfectly harmless and have a legitimate reason for existing.
Now I'm not trying to discuss open relays from a technical standpoint, or the arguments for or against them -- what I'm trying to show is the logic problem in assuming that just because when 'A' is often found next to 'B', that means that 'B' is often found next to 'A'. That's the crux of the problem with the RBL and Spamhaus -- it's a logic fail of epic proportions.
Automation is attractive because it can catch things faster and with greater accuracy than humans can. But humans are better at making judgement calls, looking at the evidence, and problem resolution with other humans. Spamhaus and the RBL fail here because they implimented the automation and then because of their perceived success, they decided Automation Was God and made appealing the decision of its robot overlords increasingly difficult if not impossible. And that's when Spamhaus and the RBL became evil: The process stopped being overseen by humans, started to assume everyone was an evil spammer, and that the solution in every case was to follow the De Facto Anti-Spammer Laws as laid down by its robotic overlords. "Fix your open relay!" became the reply, instead of checking to see whether said open relay had actually sent any spam, or whether there was a good reason for its existance (again: No debates about open relays please! It's just the example!).
Of course, spammers got smarter and started coming up with more sophisticated methods of injecting their crap... which led to more complex robots, and as each new counter-measure was rolled out, the reply to hapless admins caught in the motorized wheels o spammy justice was "It's your problem, not ours!" My advice to system and network admins these days is to not use spamhaus or the RBL, or if you must, make sure your mailboxes and such are setup similar to how gmail and many exchange servers are: Have a separate spam folder, and give the user the option to whitelist anything your filters catch. Ultimately, you're providing a service to them... you have no duty or obligation to anyone else. Make sure they can use what you've given them.
You could place the blame entirely at the feet of the chief constable or the GMP Authority, however holding individuals responsible for collective failures never works well.
Yes, a fine against the police department will certainly show them! Oh wait.. isn't it the taxpayers who pay for their budget... sooo, wouldn't that mean the taxpayers will wind up paying for this? Some of them, twice even -- once for the loss of data, and again when they have to pay for it with their next tax return (admitedly, mere fractions of a pence, but it's the principle of the thing). That seems like a terribly effective method of teaching those officers not to leave sensitive data around! Far more effective, I think, then suspending one without pay or additional training how how to properly handle sensitive information.
They already have a magic fingers interface: You can find it at most seedier inner-city hotels. Go ahead, mod this +5, Funny, and post any other humorous quips under this thread as well, cuz the tech is cool, even if it is pun-worthy.
Is your position that we should just tear up contracts whenever we no longer feel like they're benefiting us? Because that would spell the end of the civilization that you love to take for granted.
They are the only people responsible for being in this mess themselves. They screwed up, and now the public is suffering because of their incompetence. They should be removed from office, to ensure the next batch of contracts doesn't contain some similarly stupid language that will probably be in there for the same reason the current contracts have idiotic clauses in it: Kickbacks. Corrupt public officials? Remove them. It's simple. I'm not advocating "the end of civilization", I'm advocating the end of a select few people's careers as public officials because they were fucking stupid.
How adding more vehicles to overcrowded streets is an "efficiency improvement"
With the slightest amount of mental effort, I was able to discern that many people in New York don't own cars due to having access to an extensive public transportation network, of which taxi cabs are a part of. For every taxi cab on the road, perhaps a dozen personal vehicles aren't. So... restricting the number of taxis on the road would mean there'd be some multiple of that in personal vehicles clogging the streets instead.
It seems to be that adding more taxis to overcrowded streets would reduce the overload. Not all vehicles are created equal. But, I can understand how, if you had really bad luck with thinking, you might make that assertion...:\
The NYC TLC and the city councilors have significant concerns about this effectively siphoning off high paying customers, leaving few cabs for the lower classes. I'm not sure that's rational, but I also wouldn't call it greed.
The greed would be charging over a hundred grand for "medallions" that are required to operate a taxi. If there's a shortage of taxicabs at affordable rates, it's not because of a lack of vehicles, manpower, or capital -- it's because the City Council controls the number of cabs on the road by making the cost of entry exceptionally high. If they're so worried about the poor having adequate access to taxi services, perhaps Ye Old Taxicab OPEC ought to think about increasing production.
There's no efficiency improvement or human betterment that can't be completely destroyed by bureaucracy and greed.
Of course, you forget that the reverse is true: Destroying bureaucracy and greed results in efficiency improvement and human betterment. So if the NY Taxi Commission is no longer serving the public interest the general public should tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. There is no law or police force that can contend with half a million angry New Yorkers surrounding the commissioners and telling them it's time for them to leave town. And of all the things that piss of New Yorkers, things that obstruct the free flow of traffic ranks right up there with the coffee machine breaking. So... where are the angry New Yorkers?
Ah well, these are the same people that let a bunch of crooked cops and bureaucrats chase the Occupiers out, and happily let the government encase their entire downtown in giant walls with mounted machine guns... so I suppose thinking they'd actually organize to defend their own interests from a few dudes in suits is probably too much to ask. Unless those dudes are in an airplane and carrying boxcutters, New Yorkers just don't have the balls to say or do anything anymore.
Native Americans are so much more in tune with nature......
I think it's more a bit of history repeating -- Native Americans meet people who see only dollar signs, agree to let them use their property (hey, what's the worst that could happen?), and after the commercial break, we'll be onto the ecological disaster and a lot of dead natives portion of the story. If this guy's fringe tech fails, it could very well starve them to death.
We desperately need an easy-to-initiate vote of no confidence.
I don't think that's a good idea. Elected representatives shouldn't be yanked on a whim anymore than laws should be passed on them. Governmental action should be deliberate, carefully considered, and with many opportunities for feedback, criticism, and discussion. The opinion of a population changes rapidly, only to return to how it was before a short time later. If a law or action is undertaken on a 'whim', that becomes the prevailing law or process, because of a short emotional peak, not out of a sustained and heartfelt desire for change. It should take sustained pressure to bring about a social or political change, and the process should be deliberate. Once a year is plenty often for the people to assemble and organize for political change... we do not need voting to be a daily affair. Today, prayer in schools is popular. Tomorrow, it's yesterday's news. The day after that, muslims shouldn't be able to build their churches... and a week later, nobody gives a damn anymore. If we give in to these temporary outbursts, our government would be in endless chaos.
There's a lot to be said for turtling along... even if it does occasionally frustrate the hell out of you.
Slashdot Mirror
The real question is: Why is sleep needed in mammals in the first place? We've already found drugs that can keep a person going without sleep for weeks or months at a time, apparently without any significant reduction in cognitive ability or any significant change in neurological functioning. It's been investigated my the military for quite some time now.
Evolution says the reason for sleep is that it improves a creature's ability to adapt... but what does sleep adapt us for? Why the downtime? Even here with mammals where never going to sleep is a survival necessity... nature kept it intact and instead segmented the brain so parts of it could sleep. Something about sleep is very, very important... but be damned if we can figure out what.
There's the idea that's been tossed around for a long time that we're programmed to believe in gods, goddesses, higher powers, and all that to explain things we don't yet understand, that it's some kind of evolutionary coping strategy. Do you think that's true? Why (or why not)?
... Well, we know it wasn't Comcast.
About as well as a dog. Please list for me the precursors for the 200 or so common explosives used today.
Hydrocarbons. Ammonia. Oxygen. That should cover most of 'em right there.
So why the hell does every airport I've been to swab me for explosives instead of using a dog? Those mass spectrometers aren't cheap.
You assume the swab is then used in a mass spectrometer. Putting the swab in a precursor that changes color when it detects something works too.
Foxconn may say the iphone5 is a pain, but I think the workers getting paid peanuts for 80 hours shifts might have a different idea of what 'pain' means. Besides, how much quality assembly is really possible when your workforce is bleary-eyed and exhausted? I bet there's a lot of QA rejects and extra controls required to keep quality from plummeting.
You forgot another problem with dogs: They can be trained to respond to a surrepticious signal to indicate explosives or drugs when there are none... thus allowing the officers probable cause to go dig around for what they're actually looking for. Same thing with breathalyzers -- they're suseptible to near-field EM... like the kind that comes from a police radio being keyed up while the suspect is breathing into the device. Tools not only need to limit false negatives and positives, but also intentional manipulation by a 3rd party.
And I already covered my ass there by stipulating that being "caught" in the grey area should be a misdemeanor at most, with even just a warning as a first "punishment".
I don't like the idea of anyone going to jail because what they did was in a "grey area". It doesn't matter the size of the grey area, the standard in law is beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard is we'd rather let ten guilty men go free than convict an innocent person. I cannot and will not accept your idea that there should be "grey area" crimes. "Well sir, you were close to the speed limit, so I'm going to write you a ticket that's close to the fine you'd get for actually speeding."
Wait what? I'm not interfering with their ability to work. Its "just" their "emotional reaction" causing any issues, and according to you I'm not liable for that.
It doesn't matter... you don't have free speech in the workplace. Employers have wide latitude in what behaviors can be regulated. And it's not "just" their emotional reaction here in any event -- your constant advances interfere with their ability to do their job in the same way that children in the backseat of a car shouting "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" interferes with a person's ability to operate a motor vehicle.
So, rather than a fine or a warning, you prefer a straight up restraint on free speech?
It's not a restraint on free speech, but a restaint on the person's proximity to another person. They can quite happily scream profanities and talk about the person all they want... as long as they're more than 500 feet away.
You're proceeding from a faulty premise. You're assuming that you are seeing all of the traffic being sent to you.
My "premise" is that e-mail makes up a very small minority of internet traffic. I'm arguing against the size of the problem as automatically justifying extreme and extraordinary measures to control because of its severity.
Even if 99.999% of all e-mail is spam, the author's original assertion is busted: E-mail makes up a very small amount of total internet traffic. The idea that filtering is mandatory is silly -- even if 100% of that spam went through, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of traffic for Netflix, or bittorrent, or even just casual web browsing. I'm not against filtering; I just think that the idea we have to cede access control to a third party because spam is so unmanageable is ridiculous. Even if 95% of incoming e-mail was dropped, my inbox still says that would mean ... .04% of the average person's internet bandwidth is spam.
It's like trying to kill a spider with a flame thrower...
A reasonable person could.
So you really think if I round up a dozen people and ask them whether a given behavior is offensive, all 12 of them will agree in the substantial majority of cases that it's offensive (or not)? Because I've been watching the Presidential debates, and let me just say, even when not giving offense is at a premium, they're still regularly infuriating people in significant quantities. "A binder full of women" anyone?
Why should we be at all liable in any way that it upset him to the point of depression and attempted suicide?
Because being a douchebag isn't a crime. If it was, most of the people on slashdot would be on America's Most Wanted.
And now when I continually proposition my hot coworker for sex and compliment her ass? She should be flattered. But now I've got this sexual harrassment charge pending. WTF!
You're interfering with a person's ability to work, something everyone needs to do to survive. Workplace behavior is more regulated because of that. Now if you left the workplace and did the same thing you wouldn't have that charge pending. Different circumstances, different standards.
So then I posted images of holocaust mass graves, except with little penises drawn on the bodies, and each one labelled a faggot. It was hilarious, so I posted it to the local jewish temple's public forum with the subject "the faggots deserved it". Like what reasonable person could determine ahead of time that this was going to offend any one? Not me, that's for sure!
That would be poor taste. Nobody was harmed, and you didn't go on to advocate or incite violence against jews, so it would be protected speech.
But at the same time, I do think there should be tools in law for people to protect themselves from complete assholes who are just deliberately harassing them.
Most people solve this with restraining orders. The remainder usually beat the shit out of them, and the law recognizes this -- if someone punches you in the face after you call them names and/or provoke them, they will probably only get a simple misdemeanor assault charge, and not be arrested or serve jail time. It happens every day.
There IS a balance that needs to be struck
Yes, and historically that balance has been far on the side of protecting free speech, even if it's offensive, unethical, immoral, or disgusting. Speech in and of itself has a low inherent ability to harm -- in most circumstances you can walk away. In the remainder, you can get a court order to keep them away. Only in a very tiny island out of the vast ocean of things a person can say, is there a danger zone where regulation is needed. Inciting to violence, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, etc., are classic examples of unprotected speech -- because it's speech that poses a imminent danger to the life or wellbeing of others. That is the balance point.
These are people who are misrepresenting the truth, often creating online profiles as people whom they actually are not, and that action is hurtful to society.
If misrepresenting the truth is a crime, anyone who's a politician or politically active is a criminal. Creating online profiles as people who they are not means a lot of people who only use Facebook to play Farmville are now criminals. And my definition of hurtful to society depends on an objective, clear, and unambiguous hurt -- like cutting off someone's arm, stealing their car, etc. There's a clear loss there. "Someone lied to me!" isn't harming society to the extent that it needs to be regulated behavior.
And your definition completely omits from its definition of a crime the person's intent in doing those things. I consider that pretty important in determining what should be a crime and what shouldn't be. So do most criminal defense attorneys, judges, and law enforcement... they want to see criminal intent, not just "oops"
Americans used to say, "I hate what you say, but I would die for your right to say it."
Actually, that was Voltaire, a french man best known for writing such withering critiques of certain written works that the authors would commit suicide. He said "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Americans paraphrase it by just saying "free speech, fuck yeah!"
you, sir, must have unlimited network resources. With spam taking up +90% [1] of internet traffic, you just rolled over and admitted that you weren't as skilled as the opposition and let them sap your resources. I was hoping for better advice.
Yeah, let's have a look here at my current google spam folder... okay, about 64 messages. Each message is at best about 4KB in size. 4 * 64 = 256KB of spam per month. But let's quadruple that, because maybe my mailbox, which has been around since 2003 and subscribed to approximately a hundred lists, is lower than average. Comcast states that the average user uses 1-2GB per month; Ludicriously low, but for the sake of debate let's say the average user only uses 1GB of bandwidth per month. That means that spam consumes 0.08% of a typical user's bandwidth. And that's a front of the envelope number -- realistically, it's probably lower. So 1/10th of one percent of your average ISPs front-end bandwidth (not last mile) is being wasted filtering out spam.
Yeah. I can definately see how it's eating up 90% of all internet traffic. Oh wait... the article says it's 90% of all e-mail traffic, which makes up less than 1% of aggregate internet traffic. Whups! Minor details... they'll fuck you every time.
a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offense,' punishable by three years in jail."
Cause offense? Your existance offends me! Your funny-colored hair offends me! The fact that you're a man, woman, human, or bovine offends me! See, that's the problem with "cause offense" -- it's entirely subjective. It depends on the recipient. No free country should have a law on the books claiming things that are offensive are illegal, anymore than people should be liable for the emotional reactions of others. When you make something criminal, you need to be specific about the behavior. "Entered house with force and intent to steal." That's provable, objective, and fairly unambiguous. "Caused emotional distress" can't be proven, it's totally subjective, and highly ambiguous. In any criminal test, you have to ask yourself: Could a reasonable person determine ahead of time that the behavior in question was (unambiguously) illegal?
Kill this law with fire, and while you're at it, tell the legislator to fuck off, eat a bag of dicks, and that his face is ugly. But be sure to put a smiley face at the end... we wouldn't want to sound... offensive. In other news, please enjoy this politically, culturally, and sexually correct joke:
___________________________________
It was a good idea in the beginning; Getting network and system administrators to share their stories of problems on the frontier. And for awhile, it was good. But as these services developed, they decided to start automating the process. And that's when the problems started. As an example, let's say all spammers use open relays. The logic here then is to test for open relays and block any that are found. Spam problem solved! Except it doesn't look at the reverse case: Namely, that not all open relays are used by spammers. In fact, it could be the case that the vast majority of open relays are perfectly harmless and have a legitimate reason for existing.
Now I'm not trying to discuss open relays from a technical standpoint, or the arguments for or against them -- what I'm trying to show is the logic problem in assuming that just because when 'A' is often found next to 'B', that means that 'B' is often found next to 'A'. That's the crux of the problem with the RBL and Spamhaus -- it's a logic fail of epic proportions.
Automation is attractive because it can catch things faster and with greater accuracy than humans can. But humans are better at making judgement calls, looking at the evidence, and problem resolution with other humans. Spamhaus and the RBL fail here because they implimented the automation and then because of their perceived success, they decided Automation Was God and made appealing the decision of its robot overlords increasingly difficult if not impossible. And that's when Spamhaus and the RBL became evil: The process stopped being overseen by humans, started to assume everyone was an evil spammer, and that the solution in every case was to follow the De Facto Anti-Spammer Laws as laid down by its robotic overlords. "Fix your open relay!" became the reply, instead of checking to see whether said open relay had actually sent any spam, or whether there was a good reason for its existance (again: No debates about open relays please! It's just the example!).
Of course, spammers got smarter and started coming up with more sophisticated methods of injecting their crap... which led to more complex robots, and as each new counter-measure was rolled out, the reply to hapless admins caught in the motorized wheels o spammy justice was "It's your problem, not ours!" My advice to system and network admins these days is to not use spamhaus or the RBL, or if you must, make sure your mailboxes and such are setup similar to how gmail and many exchange servers are: Have a separate spam folder, and give the user the option to whitelist anything your filters catch. Ultimately, you're providing a service to them... you have no duty or obligation to anyone else. Make sure they can use what you've given them.
You could place the blame entirely at the feet of the chief constable or the GMP Authority, however holding individuals responsible for collective failures never works well.
It works better than holding nobody responsible.
Yes, a fine against the police department will certainly show them! Oh wait.. isn't it the taxpayers who pay for their budget... sooo, wouldn't that mean the taxpayers will wind up paying for this? Some of them, twice even -- once for the loss of data, and again when they have to pay for it with their next tax return (admitedly, mere fractions of a pence, but it's the principle of the thing). That seems like a terribly effective method of teaching those officers not to leave sensitive data around! Far more effective, I think, then suspending one without pay or additional training how how to properly handle sensitive information.
They already have a magic fingers interface: You can find it at most seedier inner-city hotels. Go ahead, mod this +5, Funny, and post any other humorous quips under this thread as well, cuz the tech is cool, even if it is pun-worthy.
Is your position that we should just tear up contracts whenever we no longer feel like they're benefiting us? Because that would spell the end of the civilization that you love to take for granted.
They are the only people responsible for being in this mess themselves. They screwed up, and now the public is suffering because of their incompetence. They should be removed from office, to ensure the next batch of contracts doesn't contain some similarly stupid language that will probably be in there for the same reason the current contracts have idiotic clauses in it: Kickbacks. Corrupt public officials? Remove them. It's simple. I'm not advocating "the end of civilization", I'm advocating the end of a select few people's careers as public officials because they were fucking stupid.
Try not to confuse the two.
How adding more vehicles to overcrowded streets is an "efficiency improvement"
With the slightest amount of mental effort, I was able to discern that many people in New York don't own cars due to having access to an extensive public transportation network, of which taxi cabs are a part of. For every taxi cab on the road, perhaps a dozen personal vehicles aren't. So... restricting the number of taxis on the road would mean there'd be some multiple of that in personal vehicles clogging the streets instead.
It seems to be that adding more taxis to overcrowded streets would reduce the overload. Not all vehicles are created equal. But, I can understand how, if you had really bad luck with thinking, you might make that assertion... :\
The NYC TLC and the city councilors have significant concerns about this effectively siphoning off high paying customers, leaving few cabs for the lower classes. I'm not sure that's rational, but I also wouldn't call it greed.
The greed would be charging over a hundred grand for "medallions" that are required to operate a taxi. If there's a shortage of taxicabs at affordable rates, it's not because of a lack of vehicles, manpower, or capital -- it's because the City Council controls the number of cabs on the road by making the cost of entry exceptionally high. If they're so worried about the poor having adequate access to taxi services, perhaps Ye Old Taxicab OPEC ought to think about increasing production.
You see? That's more like it! This is the kind of hate I wanna see around here! :D
There's no efficiency improvement or human betterment that can't be completely destroyed by bureaucracy and greed.
Of course, you forget that the reverse is true: Destroying bureaucracy and greed results in efficiency improvement and human betterment. So if the NY Taxi Commission is no longer serving the public interest the general public should tell them to take a long walk off a short pier. There is no law or police force that can contend with half a million angry New Yorkers surrounding the commissioners and telling them it's time for them to leave town. And of all the things that piss of New Yorkers, things that obstruct the free flow of traffic ranks right up there with the coffee machine breaking. So... where are the angry New Yorkers?
Ah well, these are the same people that let a bunch of crooked cops and bureaucrats chase the Occupiers out, and happily let the government encase their entire downtown in giant walls with mounted machine guns... so I suppose thinking they'd actually organize to defend their own interests from a few dudes in suits is probably too much to ask. Unless those dudes are in an airplane and carrying boxcutters, New Yorkers just don't have the balls to say or do anything anymore.
[Reverse psychology, bitches]
Native Americans are so much more in tune with nature......
I think it's more a bit of history repeating -- Native Americans meet people who see only dollar signs, agree to let them use their property (hey, what's the worst that could happen?), and after the commercial break, we'll be onto the ecological disaster and a lot of dead natives portion of the story. If this guy's fringe tech fails, it could very well starve them to death.
We desperately need an easy-to-initiate vote of no confidence.
I don't think that's a good idea. Elected representatives shouldn't be yanked on a whim anymore than laws should be passed on them. Governmental action should be deliberate, carefully considered, and with many opportunities for feedback, criticism, and discussion. The opinion of a population changes rapidly, only to return to how it was before a short time later. If a law or action is undertaken on a 'whim', that becomes the prevailing law or process, because of a short emotional peak, not out of a sustained and heartfelt desire for change. It should take sustained pressure to bring about a social or political change, and the process should be deliberate. Once a year is plenty often for the people to assemble and organize for political change... we do not need voting to be a daily affair. Today, prayer in schools is popular. Tomorrow, it's yesterday's news. The day after that, muslims shouldn't be able to build their churches... and a week later, nobody gives a damn anymore. If we give in to these temporary outbursts, our government would be in endless chaos.
There's a lot to be said for turtling along... even if it does occasionally frustrate the hell out of you.