but I haven't really seen anyone argue against that, so I don't know where you are getting the notion of a false dichotomy.
Sometimes in waiting rooms and airports, they have CNN or Fox News on. Sometimes I get trapped in those places and forget to bring my TV-B-Gone. I assure you, it's not intentional... but sometimes you just hear these sorts of things. As I understand it though... a lot of people purposefully watch the "news", and regrettably do not carry covert ways of turning off banks of televisions. I don't really understand it myself, but, I guess watching the "news" is a thing in society.
Sorry, but to anyone who's worked with users in any serious capacity for any length of time, this is kind of obvious
Tell that to anyone who's had to apply for government assistance. Obvious doesn't mean it's gonna happen. It's one of mankind's oldest delusions: Believing that an enhanced understanding of a problem will lead to a solution. Think of people as having a very high static friction; Individually you can push them with a solid jolt -- like showing up a methodone clinic because your habit nearly got you killed. For the fifth time. Collectively though, they don't budge until the're an ridiculous amount of pressure behind them, in which case they finally uncork and all that potential energy that's been behind them building up blasts through them like a dam giving way. Which is very unfortunate if you live in the town at the bottom of it.
I've figured out roughly that the ratio is 3:1 -- that is, it takes at least 3 people dedicated to hammering on the poor bastard before you can overcome the average person's resistance to it. So take the number of people in a group, and the number needed to overcome the static resistance is a cube of that. Needless to say... there's a reason large bureauacracies and governments don't change... they eventually simply fail catastrophically from the pressure. You can't build up that much energy for social change and then, when the whole mass unanchors, have any hope of controlling its trajectory. It's best to just get as far a way as possible and wait for the shrapnel to stop flying.:(
I searched high and low in your post for some kind of disagreement. And I'll be damned, but you didn't put any in. You just backfilled what I said in more detail. O__O My tenuous grip on reality might have just slipped a bit more at the notion that this is now four exchanges in, and there's no sign of anything but civilized discourse yet. Quick, make a Hitler reference before I pass out from shock!
with the slight difference that you won't be assured to have a house, a job and food every day.
You need to go back and look at some of the photos of East Germany once the wall came down. Not everyone had a house, a job, and food every day. That's one of the compelling reasons why they kept trying to cross to West Germany; Economic conditions.
More seriously... those SCADA systems control life support. That's a problem if you're one of those types of people that would rather go on sucking nitrogen/oxygen mixtures instead of vaccum up there. Now, I'm pretty sure that unlike in the movies there's no computer control that lets them just vent all the atmosphere into space in a few seconds, but if those systems were programmed to damage the ISS, it might force it to be abandoned. That would be bad.. especially if it de-orbited suddenly. That's a very, very big thing to be coming down to Earth, and it wouldn't break apart in a tight pattern either.
If you look very carefully, you might avoid looking like a total moron on your rebuttal. The OP never mentioned the United States. The article is about the Brisih. The OP mentioned the courts. The British, unless something has gone terribly wrong in London very recently, still have courts. They wear wigs and robes, and that's worth a chuckle, but the courts are still a very real thing. We inherited them from the British, warts and all. And believe me, the common law system... is a very. big. wart.
You expect everybody to understand a reference to a US-American TV sitcom about white, straight New Yorkers from two decades ago. Maybe it's your incredibly narrow American perspective that should get out and know more of the world.
You expect everybody to understand a reference to a "Single's day", which originated from Nanjing University in 1993? Oh wait.. that was when Seinfeld was on TV. Now given that it's obviously become very, very popular over there in the same amount of time, to the point that you, a lowly Anonymous Dimwit on Slashdot have now heard of it... is it really that much of a stretch to say that one of the most popular sitcoms of that era might be well-recognized to the people that visit this site; A primarily english-speaking site based in the United States? No, not really. No.
Exactly! They claim that they use laws to control what they snoop, and have oversight. When the laws are "secret", the courts are "secret", and the oversight is internal how much should we trust them? None at all!
Not necessarily. Some things need to be secret. When we put spies on trial, we shouldn't showcase all the classified documents they stole for public inspection. It's evidence, but it's secret evidence -- and the sensitive nature of the documents is sufficient justification for doing so. The problem is not secrecy, anymore than keeping your password secret is a security vulnerability. The problem is when secrecy exceeds its mandate; when it crosses a line from matters of true national security to matters that are politically embarassing or unpopular. And as we can see in contemporary society, that line seems to be quite muddled.
What irks me is people's reactionary "teh guv'ment's tryin' to take away mah freedomz!" to every discussion presented about government surveillance and/or intelligence activities. They have to know that it's necessary at some level, but they reduce this wide breadth of space from no surveillance to police society to a binary. I don't understand why so many people engage in black and white thinking when the problem so obviously isn't as clear cut as the overwhelmingly vast majority of people argue it is.
I mean, the government's using circular logic, and that's wrong. But the people raging against it are using equally broken logic. And there's perfectly good discussion not happening because everyone flung themselves to the polar extremes. Why?
All GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensure that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight
The Stasi said the same thing in East Germany. But that's circular logic: We're authorized to do this because we authorized it.
Well, while it was signed by a republican president and sponsored by a republican, it was cosponsored by 2 dems and a republican. It also passed house with a voice vote, and the senate with a unanimous vote.
That doesn't mean as much as you think it does. Perhaps to the surprise of nobody, our lawmakers rarely read the full text of the bill they vote on, instead trusting their underlings to summarize it. Sometimes hundred page documents get about as much space as a Twitter post in the mindspace of these guys before they vote on it. And you might have noticed... the names are less and less related to the thing they're about with every new session. At this point, I fully expect to see a Strengthing America's Freedom Act authorizing labor camps and bringing back debtor's prisons in the not too distant future.:/
So there is that. And the argument can be made that whether it was the Republicans or the Democrats... the result rather speaks for itself. Also, questionable what difference there really is between the two parties... since right now over 93% of candidates who win elections are better financed than their opponent. It's clear there really is only one political party: The Richy McRich Club. What colors you wanna wear they leave up to you, but ultimately, both parties are just part of one organization that's only really distinct in the minds of the poor and the uneducated.
But the OP is right: It was fine before it was shot in the head by our government.
As a Canadian, I want to prepare for my online shopping discounts, but I can never remember when it is...
This isn't a holiday though; It's an anti-holiday... it was meant as a joke. It'd be like finding out that Christmas got the crap kicked out of it by people buying unadorned aluminum rods.* This is China's version of that... their parody holiday is kicking the crap out of our real holidays.
*) For the three people in the audience who didn't catch the reference, google 'Festivus'. And get out more.
And yet the goal from that executive order boils down to gathering information to protect us against national security threats.
And the goal of that goal was to improve national security. And the goal of the goal of the goal was to make America strong. And the goal of the... (vomits)Yeah, okay -- moving the goal posts through abstraction. Be a little creative in your dodge. You said it, it was taken at face value, and it was patently absurd and obvious to everyone except you. The end.
Re:military. I didn't say their purpose was not to shoot and bomb people, but rather, that they have to exercise discretion in doing so.
Nope. You totally did. Copied it word for word. You should add extra reverse gears... back pedaling this hard can't be easy.
Re:naivety, I know what the spooks ACTUALLY do and why they do it, but that is different from how they have to sell themselves.
Okay, so... two moving goal posts and for the two point conversion... a No True Scotsman. Sigh. The quality on this site lately...
While the technology is there, can the United States afford to send a mission to the moon when so many of its citizens are starving, unemployed and unable to afford health care?
The first attempt resulted in the destruction of the prototype vehicle. If the second round of tests is successful,
It's times like these I wonder if the html BLINK tag was retired too early. Because that's a very, very big 'if', so big in fact that the atrocity that was BLINK might be justified. But not marquee, because screw you Microsoft. Sinner!
Saying that the purpose of the GCHQ or NSA is to spy outside the country is like saying that the purpose of the military is to shoot and bomb people.
The NSA Mission Statement references Executive Order 12333, and I quote directly -- "2.2 Purpose. This Order is intended to enhance human and technical collection techniques, especially those undertaken abroad..." The GCHQ lacks a specific mission statement, because as you know, the British are terrible at getting to the point. The website is, however, full of committee-written documents and available in 9 different languages and makes a point of saying it's available to those who require "assistive devices". The NSA makes no such attempt; I guess that's social commentary.
And as to the military... for an organization whose purpose isn't to shoot and bomb people, they sure do shoot and bomb people a lot. In other news... If an NSA or GCHQ analyst ever reads your post... they'd laugh as hard as I did at your naivety, except part of the swearing in ceremony to become an employee requires they surgically remove the sense of humor.
Also, Iran knows that if Republicans come back to power, Israel will be able to dupe the US into attacking Iran. It is prudent for Iran to negotiate a deal with an administration that is capable of negotiating (and isn't Israel's puppet).
Since the Carter Administration, every President has said we need to negotiate a peace between Israel and Palestine, the middle east, etc. Every. Last. One. Don't give me that "the republicans..." bull... it's been everyone for the past 20 years. And with every new Presidency, nothing happens. America loves to say it'll get everyone to the negotiating table, and then they... don't. Even Jon Stewart from the Daily Show, who happens to be Jewish, says the US is impotent when it comes to Israel.
Also, how stupid do you have to be to think that a tiny sliver of land in the Middle East... which is mostly desert and has no major world exports or imports... is puppeting the largest, most powerful, country on Earth by GDP and military expenditures?
Really.. if you are broadcasting personal info to the world unencrypted,
You do realize that broadcasting this information is how wifi works, right? This is like saying if you don't want companies to record your keystrokes, you shouldn't use a wireless keyboard, while conveniently ignoring the question why the hell are they doing it anyway?
flooding the market with Iranian crude could carry its own negative consequences by suddenly making fracked oil in the US unprofitable."
And this is a problem how, exactly? Fuck the frackers. Gimme my cheap gas. I'm sick of you bastards charging so much... you're squeezing the poor and putting our economy in the crapper. Cheap gas = fast economic recovery, not this stagnant crap.
Slashdot Mirror
but I haven't really seen anyone argue against that, so I don't know where you are getting the notion of a false dichotomy.
Sometimes in waiting rooms and airports, they have CNN or Fox News on. Sometimes I get trapped in those places and forget to bring my TV-B-Gone. I assure you, it's not intentional... but sometimes you just hear these sorts of things. As I understand it though... a lot of people purposefully watch the "news", and regrettably do not carry covert ways of turning off banks of televisions. I don't really understand it myself, but, I guess watching the "news" is a thing in society.
Sorry, but to anyone who's worked with users in any serious capacity for any length of time, this is kind of obvious
Tell that to anyone who's had to apply for government assistance. Obvious doesn't mean it's gonna happen. It's one of mankind's oldest delusions: Believing that an enhanced understanding of a problem will lead to a solution. Think of people as having a very high static friction; Individually you can push them with a solid jolt -- like showing up a methodone clinic because your habit nearly got you killed. For the fifth time. Collectively though, they don't budge until the're an ridiculous amount of pressure behind them, in which case they finally uncork and all that potential energy that's been behind them building up blasts through them like a dam giving way. Which is very unfortunate if you live in the town at the bottom of it.
I've figured out roughly that the ratio is 3:1 -- that is, it takes at least 3 people dedicated to hammering on the poor bastard before you can overcome the average person's resistance to it. So take the number of people in a group, and the number needed to overcome the static resistance is a cube of that. Needless to say... there's a reason large bureauacracies and governments don't change... they eventually simply fail catastrophically from the pressure. You can't build up that much energy for social change and then, when the whole mass unanchors, have any hope of controlling its trajectory. It's best to just get as far a way as possible and wait for the shrapnel to stop flying. :(
I searched high and low in your post for some kind of disagreement. And I'll be damned, but you didn't put any in. You just backfilled what I said in more detail. O__O My tenuous grip on reality might have just slipped a bit more at the notion that this is now four exchanges in, and there's no sign of anything but civilized discourse yet. Quick, make a Hitler reference before I pass out from shock!
with the slight difference that you won't be assured to have a house, a job and food every day.
You need to go back and look at some of the photos of East Germany once the wall came down. Not everyone had a house, a job, and food every day. That's one of the compelling reasons why they kept trying to cross to West Germany; Economic conditions.
Skynet transported into space by sneakernet.
More seriously... those SCADA systems control life support. That's a problem if you're one of those types of people that would rather go on sucking nitrogen/oxygen mixtures instead of vaccum up there. Now, I'm pretty sure that unlike in the movies there's no computer control that lets them just vent all the atmosphere into space in a few seconds, but if those systems were programmed to damage the ISS, it might force it to be abandoned. That would be bad.. especially if it de-orbited suddenly. That's a very, very big thing to be coming down to Earth, and it wouldn't break apart in a tight pattern either.
We?
You are to disavow that previous post, Citizen. Cooperation is mandatory. Thank you for your cooperation.
2) You've been pawned.
1.e4 e5
2.Bc4 Nf6
3.d3 c6
4.Bg5 h6
5.Bxf6 Qxf
6 6.Nc3 b5
7.Bb3 a5
8.a3 Bc5
9.Nf3 d6
10.Qd2 Be6
11.Bxe6 fxe6
12.O-O g5
13.h3 Nd7
14.Nh2 h5
15.g3 Ke7
16.Kg2 d5
17.f3 Nf8
18.Ne2 Ng6
19.c3 Rag8
20.d4 Bb6
21.dxe5 Qxe5
22.Nd4 Kd7
23.Rae1 h4
24.Qf2 Bc7
25.Ne2 hxg3
26.Qxg3 Qxg3+
27.Nxg3 Nf4+
28.Kh1 Rxh3
29.Rg1 Rxh2+
You were saying?
If you look very carefully, you might avoid looking like a total moron on your rebuttal. The OP never mentioned the United States. The article is about the Brisih. The OP mentioned the courts. The British, unless something has gone terribly wrong in London very recently, still have courts. They wear wigs and robes, and that's worth a chuckle, but the courts are still a very real thing. We inherited them from the British, warts and all. And believe me, the common law system... is a very. big. wart.
You expect everybody to understand a reference to a US-American TV sitcom about white, straight New Yorkers from two decades ago. Maybe it's your incredibly narrow American perspective that should get out and know more of the world.
You expect everybody to understand a reference to a "Single's day", which originated from Nanjing University in 1993? Oh wait.. that was when Seinfeld was on TV. Now given that it's obviously become very, very popular over there in the same amount of time, to the point that you, a lowly Anonymous Dimwit on Slashdot have now heard of it... is it really that much of a stretch to say that one of the most popular sitcoms of that era might be well-recognized to the people that visit this site; A primarily english-speaking site based in the United States? No, not really. No.
Exactly! They claim that they use laws to control what they snoop, and have oversight. When the laws are "secret", the courts are "secret", and the oversight is internal how much should we trust them? None at all!
Not necessarily. Some things need to be secret. When we put spies on trial, we shouldn't showcase all the classified documents they stole for public inspection. It's evidence, but it's secret evidence -- and the sensitive nature of the documents is sufficient justification for doing so. The problem is not secrecy, anymore than keeping your password secret is a security vulnerability. The problem is when secrecy exceeds its mandate; when it crosses a line from matters of true national security to matters that are politically embarassing or unpopular. And as we can see in contemporary society, that line seems to be quite muddled.
What irks me is people's reactionary "teh guv'ment's tryin' to take away mah freedomz!" to every discussion presented about government surveillance and/or intelligence activities. They have to know that it's necessary at some level, but they reduce this wide breadth of space from no surveillance to police society to a binary. I don't understand why so many people engage in black and white thinking when the problem so obviously isn't as clear cut as the overwhelmingly vast majority of people argue it is.
I mean, the government's using circular logic, and that's wrong. But the people raging against it are using equally broken logic. And there's perfectly good discussion not happening because everyone flung themselves to the polar extremes. Why?
Maybe it was just our and it wasn't made as well or something, but people would always be commenting on how they smelled bacon wherever we went.
You need to use logs, not pigs. Common mistake.
All GCHQ's work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework which ensure that our activities are authorised, necessary and proportionate, and that there is rigorous oversight
The Stasi said the same thing in East Germany. But that's circular logic: We're authorized to do this because we authorized it.
Well, while it was signed by a republican president and sponsored by a republican, it was cosponsored by 2 dems and a republican. It also passed house with a voice vote, and the senate with a unanimous vote.
That doesn't mean as much as you think it does. Perhaps to the surprise of nobody, our lawmakers rarely read the full text of the bill they vote on, instead trusting their underlings to summarize it. Sometimes hundred page documents get about as much space as a Twitter post in the mindspace of these guys before they vote on it. And you might have noticed... the names are less and less related to the thing they're about with every new session. At this point, I fully expect to see a Strengthing America's Freedom Act authorizing labor camps and bringing back debtor's prisons in the not too distant future. :/
So there is that. And the argument can be made that whether it was the Republicans or the Democrats... the result rather speaks for itself. Also, questionable what difference there really is between the two parties... since right now over 93% of candidates who win elections are better financed than their opponent. It's clear there really is only one political party: The Richy McRich Club. What colors you wanna wear they leave up to you, but ultimately, both parties are just part of one organization that's only really distinct in the minds of the poor and the uneducated.
But the OP is right: It was fine before it was shot in the head by our government.
As a Canadian, I want to prepare for my online shopping discounts, but I can never remember when it is...
This isn't a holiday though; It's an anti-holiday... it was meant as a joke. It'd be like finding out that Christmas got the crap kicked out of it by people buying unadorned aluminum rods.* This is China's version of that... their parody holiday is kicking the crap out of our real holidays.
*) For the three people in the audience who didn't catch the reference, google 'Festivus'. And get out more.
And yet the goal from that executive order boils down to gathering information to protect us against national security threats.
And the goal of that goal was to improve national security. And the goal of the goal of the goal was to make America strong. And the goal of the... (vomits)Yeah, okay -- moving the goal posts through abstraction. Be a little creative in your dodge. You said it, it was taken at face value, and it was patently absurd and obvious to everyone except you. The end.
Re:military. I didn't say their purpose was not to shoot and bomb people, but rather, that they have to exercise discretion in doing so.
Nope. You totally did. Copied it word for word. You should add extra reverse gears... back pedaling this hard can't be easy.
Re:naivety, I know what the spooks ACTUALLY do and why they do it, but that is different from how they have to sell themselves.
Okay, so... two moving goal posts and for the two point conversion... a No True Scotsman. Sigh. The quality on this site lately...
While the technology is there, can the United States afford to send a mission to the moon when so many of its citizens are starving, unemployed and unable to afford health care?
The American Dream... now available in Diet.
The first attempt resulted in the destruction of the prototype vehicle. If the second round of tests is successful,
It's times like these I wonder if the html BLINK tag was retired too early. Because that's a very, very big 'if', so big in fact that the atrocity that was BLINK might be justified. But not marquee, because screw you Microsoft. Sinner!
but two major components, a new type of lunar lander, now called Morpheus, and
(puts on sunglasses) What if I told you... There is no money to go to the moon?
Saying that the purpose of the GCHQ or NSA is to spy outside the country is like saying that the purpose of the military is to shoot and bomb people.
The NSA Mission Statement references Executive Order 12333, and I quote directly -- "2.2 Purpose. This Order is intended to enhance human and technical collection techniques, especially those undertaken abroad..." The GCHQ lacks a specific mission statement, because as you know, the British are terrible at getting to the point. The website is, however, full of committee-written documents and available in 9 different languages and makes a point of saying it's available to those who require "assistive devices". The NSA makes no such attempt; I guess that's social commentary.
And as to the military... for an organization whose purpose isn't to shoot and bomb people, they sure do shoot and bomb people a lot. In other news... If an NSA or GCHQ analyst ever reads your post... they'd laugh as hard as I did at your naivety, except part of the swearing in ceremony to become an employee requires they surgically remove the sense of humor.
Whose watching?
The grammar police. We've had our eyes on you for some time.
The Spanish Inquisition and the other Inquisitions of the Holy Roman Church were given a bad rap by
... The people that survived.
FTFY
Also, Iran knows that if Republicans come back to power, Israel will be able to dupe the US into attacking Iran. It is prudent for Iran to negotiate a deal with an administration that is capable of negotiating (and isn't Israel's puppet).
Since the Carter Administration, every President has said we need to negotiate a peace between Israel and Palestine, the middle east, etc. Every. Last. One. Don't give me that "the republicans..." bull... it's been everyone for the past 20 years. And with every new Presidency, nothing happens. America loves to say it'll get everyone to the negotiating table, and then they... don't. Even Jon Stewart from the Daily Show, who happens to be Jewish, says the US is impotent when it comes to Israel.
Also, how stupid do you have to be to think that a tiny sliver of land in the Middle East... which is mostly desert and has no major world exports or imports... is puppeting the largest, most powerful, country on Earth by GDP and military expenditures?
Lay off the crack, man.
Really.. if you are broadcasting personal info to the world unencrypted,
You do realize that broadcasting this information is how wifi works, right? This is like saying if you don't want companies to record your keystrokes, you shouldn't use a wireless keyboard, while conveniently ignoring the question why the hell are they doing it anyway?
flooding the market with Iranian crude could carry its own negative consequences by suddenly making fracked oil in the US unprofitable."
And this is a problem how, exactly? Fuck the frackers. Gimme my cheap gas. I'm sick of you bastards charging so much... you're squeezing the poor and putting our economy in the crapper. Cheap gas = fast economic recovery, not this stagnant crap.
As a fake investor, I will follow this development closely.
* Starts following. :)