So... every time I open my inbox in Facebook, it has to search through 50TB of data? That sounds like a design problem. What has always floored me is why people think everything needs to be stuffed into a database. Terabyte sized binary blobs? You know, there's a certain point where people need to stop and actually think about the implimentation.
More important than the technology is the policies and training of the personnel running the operation. It will fail, eventually: It always does, no matter how well its designed or what with promises of infinite uptime. So walk into the data center and count the number of people wearing hiking boots, divide by the number of racks, and there you go. The most grizzly looking guy wearing hiking boots usually knows everything. He also usually has a lighter and a screwdriver if you ask.
As long as each car (including the lead) was restricted to brake at the same rate as the car with the worst stopping time no collision would ever occur. Besides, if the distance between the cars is small enough, even a discrepancy in braking power that wasn't compensated for would only cause a slight difference in velocity before a collision occurred.
This is an analog system, not a digital one. Braking power changes as a function of surface wear, applied pressure, rotor temperature, road conditions, vehicle speed, weight, and shifting of mass (which occurs during braking/turning). Also, a sinusoidal effect could be observed in a long chain where a vehicle brakes lightly at the start of the chain, causing each subsequent vehicle to brake slightly harder until the braking capacity is exceeded. With their close proximity, only a fraction of each vehicle's braking capacity could be utilized for safe operation.
You're handing control over to another driver, who may very well decide not to brake and cause a five car pileup, or worse. Also, there's no way to know the mechanical status of the vehicle -- what if one of them blows a tire, or runs out of gas, or the engine seizes?
What you should do is create a dedicated lane that is controlled entirely by computer, and you program your exit/entry point at that time, and let the signal and control computers handle traffic management. If an unauthorized vehicle enters the lane, sensors will immediately detect it, alert nearby drivers (and disengage), and send the police to go catch captain speedy pants and send him to a pants-down facility. Computers also do a much better job of fuel consumption and control... I mean, it'd basically be a packet-switched network, but with cars instead of pieces of data. It's a relatively benign IT problem.
As well, vehicle breakdowns would be handled a lot better because the system would be tied directly to the onboard computer and navigation systems: Just like lorries/semi-trucks operating on the road today. Having spoken to a commercial truck driver, I can tell you that the computer often knows about mechanical problems before the driver does, and their systems are pre-programmed to alert a dispatcher, who will send a rescue/repair vehicle out in situ.
Since SIEM equipment is typically used to consolidate alert and event data from multiple vendor sources...
Isn't that quaint! All these demands by the government to secure and protect critical "cyber"-resources, and here we have a major vendor basically giving the middle finger to that initative, making it more expensive and difficult to accomplish that objective. Once again two government initatives are at odds with each other: You have the DMCA and copyright advocates on one side, who have made overriding vendor lock-in by creating interoperability illegal, and national security interests on the other side asking ISPs and internet-connected networks to be secure.
My therapist used the word "sticktoitiveness" as well, mostly referencing my lack of it. There was a point to this post, but it has eluded the author. Oh look, a kitty!
Come on, how are you going to "test market" something like the iPhone? It releases everywhere, all at once - and it's been a rollercoaster for them since.
They could have released the iPhone in only a few places, at a few stores, just like they have done with many other phones. They didn't, because Apple didn't want to "spoil the big surprise". All AT&T saw was dollar signs.
Invariably there is something large no-one accounted for in the testing.
So I suppose now we should just build a million cars without testing them on the track, because assuredly, something "large" will go unnoticed: Like forgetting to install brakes.
as I said before part of the rise in bandwidth is the rise in the number of applications that make use of that bandwidth.
You've said many things before. Like how you invented the internet, know everything there is about computers, and would certainly do better as CEO of Microsoft than the current joker. Opinions are like assh*les, everybody has one. If you're going to assert that the number of applications is related to an increase in bandwidth, you need to provide a citation. And even here, the same methodology would still work: Which is making it available to beta testers, estimating the amount of bandwidth used, just like every other network application out there. But, alas, the iPhone is special! It's immune to standard networking practice.
And honestly, who even does small market test releases anymore?
People who listen to their engineers.
No, because you simply cannot take that kind of time in todays mobile market.
A few months of R&D, or a few years of unexpected hardware upgrades. Yeah, definately can't take that kind of time.
Ah, but this careful approach also would lose a lot of customers, and the iPhone would not have been a success had it been tried as it would have given everyone else way too much time to catch up.
Lay off the koolaid. More people bought motorola Razrs when they came out than the iPhone.
Personally as a customer I'd rather have a network with a few issues and an iPhone than be wondering when it would come to my town...
Did the koolaid taste good?
people always bitch when you release it into a limited market first.
People bitch when bad products come on the market, or it fails often, or its slow, or hell... it doesn't come in the right shade of purple. Your point?
Phones are not a thing you can do that with, although it works for other tech sectors.
Because phones are super special awesome and defy the laws of physics, or so says Steve Jobs, right?
I think what he is saying (badly) is that you can't find the peak if your network is constantly at peak.
If he'd been doing case studies from the start and deploying products in test markets on a schedule -- this wouldn't have become a problem because there would have been leading indicators of a sudden upward rise in demand. But they disregarded that in order to release the iPhone nationwide all at once as part of a huge marketing campaign, rather than in select markets in a phased deployment. They made a grave miscalculation in doing so and now have no idea where they sit. In this situation, the solution is to find parts of the network that aren't saturated and make an educated guess from that data about what the rest of the network "should" look like. Then do a pilot upgrade in, say, twenty locations where the network traffic is at its most dense and see if the those projections hold. Rinse, wash, repeat.
The problem is, it costs more to rush a deployment after a problem like this presents than to do a phased upgrade, when there's opportunities to cut costs by careful selection of distribution channels, contracting during periods of reduced production, etc. This executive, by procrastinating and delaying these upgrades, will now wind up costing the company more (possibly considerably more) because they're behind the curve than would have been necessary had proper engineering practice been followed from the start.
The bottom line here is that sooner or later, you have to pay the piper.
'If a network is not fully loaded, it's hard to know exactly how much demand is out there,' Donovan said. 'You put all you can in the ground, and they eat it all up, and then you put more in there, and they eat it all up.'"
You've never done any kind of network administration, have you Mr. Donovan? You designed your network for average use, not peak use. As anyone who designs networks for a living will tell you -- it will function perfectly well until it reaches close to or at 100% utilization, at which point it'll choke and die horribly. Had you excercised proper engineering methodology, you would have known to test each product/application being put on the network in test markets and used the use data to predict what the peak would be, and then only deploy it when you had a 20-50% greater capacity than what the data suggests.
But alas, you eschewed best practices to save a few bucks -- all those profitable quarters and executive kickbacks, all the while your towers were backhauled on 512kbit DSL and fractional T1s. Your infrastructure's been rotting for a long time, sir, and the iPhone has nothing to do with your failure as an executive to execute a proper deployment plan that accounts for growth. You should be ashamed: The chinese mobile phone network has over 500 million subscribers, and their plans are cheaper, have better options, and their infrastructure is far more modern. China has similar problems to the United States in terms of rural development and rugged terrain for deployment -- and yet you've abjectly failed to not only do your case studies, but even do exploratory research within your own market.
It's amazing that this level of incompetence is rewarded by our society.
But at the same tine, the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data.
I wonder how many people figured this out and didn't report it.
They didn't need to figure it out... Facebook lets people suck all that data out by making a game about vampires, pirates, farming, or god only knows whatever else is out there. Why go through the back door when the front door is already open and a welcome mat thrown out?
yeah, one problem: the moment you enter that code, you are giving up personal information that can be tracked to you, individually. Don't forget, an IP address is traceable. Private citizens may not know how you vote, but data correlation means the voting authority may.
Technology does not create policy, it follows it. This is a social problem, and technology is not the answer. It's just like copyright infringement, the war on drugs, poverty, or any other malaise of society. It's such a popular delusion though to think that throwing pharmaceuticals, medicine, computers, technology, money, etc., at a social problem fixes it. It doesn't.
Distracted driving occurs because of a lack of training and understanding regarding the operation of a motor vehicle. The correct solution is more stringent examinations and training before getting a driver's license -- training that will impress upon drivers the importance of what they are doing: Which is operating a several ton metal can on wheels at high speeds around other people, which if improperly used or maintained, can kill both the driver and other people. Look at Germany: I don't hear distracted driving being as much of a problem there, because in that country, they worship the car. They have very strict regulations for safety and the citizens respect the responsibility that comes with vehicle ownership and use.
In this country, however, we have a sense of entitlement about driving. We allow people convicted of drunk driving two, five, or even twenty times to retain their license. And then we impliment stupid policy decisions like stripping people of their license for failing to pay child support or taxes as punitive measures. First, a driver's license should be a certification in which the only factor for getting or retaining it is suitability to operate a motor vehicle. Secondly, people should be required as a condition of holding that certificate, to take refresher courses on driving and their vehicle should be subjected to regular inspections.
What we need to do is make people take their driving seriously, and we do that by making clear standards about what vehicles and drivers we want on the public highway system. Half-assing it with technological solutions only succeeds in creating a web of unintended consequences that trap innocent people without making a substantive or qualitative improvement to driving conditions for the general public.
If your interpretation of "news" is the latest headlines...
News, n.: 1. A report of a recent event; intelligence; information. 2. The presentation of a report on recent or new events in a newspaper or other periodical or on radio or television.
There are plenty of weekly, bi-monthly and monthly publications that not only are profitable, but also have increasing readership numbers.
I'm going to hell for this, but...Citation needed. Even if it were true, it's still a fallacy of composition: You're arguing from the specific to the general. My statement is made about the entire industry, not specific segments within it. As a general statement, it will hold broadly true but not necessarily be correct in every case.
I end up with broad and multiple perspectives, analysis and all the relevant facts, and come up away with a full understanding of what happened. What have you got? Timely and reliable reporting telling you that something did?
Whatever you're ending up with is not "broad and multiple perspectives". What you're talking about is called an analysis, which includes one or more interpretations of a given event in context with other events and/or information. The fact that "broad and multiple perspectives" are present (or not) in the analysis does not create any added value. News is the report of an event and/or facts. An analysis takes that information and draws conclusions about the objects presented and includes predictions about the future based on the information presented.
What I stated earlier are some of the same principles behind intelligence (intelligence gathering). The same principles apply in the civilian world, for much the same reason: It's a way of sorting and refining information in such a way that informed decisions can be made. I will again state the relevant factors:
1. Timeliness. A transmission from the enemy that a missile launch will occur in 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, that communication will have no value. There is a window of opportunity after which the information loses value. Likewise, reporting that a child has been kidnapped is a time-sensitive matter -- the likelihood of a successful retrieval drops substantially over the course a few hours. Civilian reporting agencies play a crucial role in public safety here, but can only do so if the information can be distributed quickly.
2. Verification. There's a lot of difference between an informant claiming that a terrorist is planning to bomb the town square at noon, and an intercepted cell phone call to his commander. The source of the information is also crucial in establishing trust. In a civilian context, consider the case of Deep Throat. The scenario could not have occurred if the Washington Post was not a trusted reporting agency.
Modern news distribution derives its value from two things: First, the reliability of its product. Second, the timeliness of its product. Newspapers and magazines fail the test because they are release daily, weekly, or even monthly -- whereas other distribution mediums can do it in seconds or minutes. This is not, however, what killed them. The deciding factor is therefore the reliability of the product. Unfortunately, the news industry has made several very bad decisions regarding this:
First, was catering to certain groups (liberals, conservatives, etc.) and following the demographics rather than the story. While this improves profitibility over the short term, it sets things up for a diminishing returns cycle -- to maintain the higher profitibility the product must be targeted more with each iteration, leading to an alienation of those who do not share the increasingly-restricted viewpoint. That is to say, they become aware of the bias and lose confidence in the product. This "short sell" ideology permeates many industries -- in some cases, the results are more dramatic and immediate than other cases.
Second, was the packaging of such information. Even leading up to the 9/11 media event, packaging of information from major news sources was being called into question. Scandals rocked the New York Times, Washington Post, and all major television networks within a three-year timespan -- why? In every case, the rush to get the information to press caused errors to be made. In other words, a lack of process control. The coverage of 9/11 -- with its constant flood of meaningless and un-contextualized data overloaded people. Simply put, anything that's "hot" is over-saturated and in their rush to deliver the latest "news" they bury people in a crap-flood of information -- there was a loss of impact.
The third factor in the loss of reliability of major media organizations was a lack of peer review. Because most of the media distribution in this country is owned by a select few individuals and/or corporations, the industry homogenized. There was no further innovation. In the quest for profitibility, only methods of reporting and investigation were used that guaranteed eyeballs. As history has shown time and time again, the key to the long-term survival of a business, or industry, is adapability. This was sacrificed when the industry homogenized into only a few major corporate players -- leading to formulaic products that were too similar to one another.
Finally, the rise of social networking and the internet proved that word of mouth is the most effective way of spreading information that is NOT time-sensitive. Ironically, the random churning of information on the internet was better at distributing stories than decades-old systems of distribution: Why? Because the information had been separated out into a free-format. Like CDs, where you have to purchase the entire album in order to get that one song -- this was how the media operated. No longer -- and the result was that over a period of days or weeks, many millions more would see a given product because of referrals by friends. The news industry failed to capitalize upon this by creating stand-alone product that could be distributed between people and remain intact (for example, with its advertising or "related" content hooks, perhaps in something similar to PDF).
I'd be more interested in knowing what the average length of time a person remains on the list, and a demographic breakdown. The problem with compiling lists like this is the same as with sex offender registries: Even after people are removed from it (sometimes winding up on it for petty reasons in the first place), they continue to be linked to it. Computers don't forget, and there's always some bureaucrat who wants to keep a list of everyone that's ever been on the list available and searchable. There is a point at which even justice becomes injust.
It opened in 1936. It's been up for 73 years. I'm surprised it hasn't fallen into the ocean with all the corrosion problems yet -- it should have been retired decades ago and only survives because it is a landmark, not because it is soundly built.
The sadder thing about slashdot's moderation system is it's made of a bunch of hateful asshats who mod me down because of who I am, not what I say. Everything I stated is correct, and if you want to disagree you can do it constructively by providing citations. But... I with an angry dyke on the loose, who has time to check their facts?
This works fine for off/on states, but not graduated ones where a range of input is needed. Muscles are binary -- they are off, or on. At least, at the cellular level. But when they're put in bunches, only some are activated while others are not, which leads to a range of possible force levels. Effectively monitoring neural activity here requires a large number of sensors to accurately determine how much force is being requested and then translate that into a digital representation. As well, do not forget that in the human body, motion is comprised of two separate inputs from the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system: And while complementary, these two are not always perfectly in balance. This is why prothetic limbs have to be computer-assisted and lack fine motor control: They simply can't get a good enough input resolution.
So yes, it'll be great for mouse clicks (binary), but I'll still own your ass in a video game in anything that uses a vector (analog).
Isolating functionality doesn't mean blocking yourself off from the net - he was talking about using dedicated devices to provide routing services in order to minimize the chance of being compromised.
Ignoring your pathetic ad hominim attack: Properly designed software has approximately the same level of security as dedicated devices. Case in point -- I have a Windows XP box directly connected to the internet (not behind NAT or anything). It has no anti-virus, anti-spyware, and the firewall is disabled. It has never been compromised. Why? Because all the networking services are disabled and it's only used for web browsing, which runs under a restricted account with Firefox and noscript.
This idea that hardware solutions are superior to software solutions is bunk. It's all in the configuration. Always has been.
It's because we want to isolate functionality to minimize the risk of getting hacked.
Mr. Salinger, is that you? I seem to recall you writing awhile ago, "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any g****m stupid, useless conversations with anybody."
A powered off laptop in a bag on a bus, train, or at an airport terminal is just as vulnerable to being "hacked" by a passerby. You don't need to connect a computer to a network to have its security compromised. A computer today without networking functionality is of limited utility; For the past thirty years now, there has been a constant march towards integration and networking of information technology, simply because of gestalt: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You can't just cut off access to the rest of the world, and consider yourself secured. This is the digital equivalent of moving to Montana and amassing a stockpile of arms and food and saying "Screw the world!"
I think that it is incredibly naive to believe that the FCC or the DHS has anything other than their own interests in mind when making decisions. History has unfortunately, shown this to be largely true.
You give the system too much credit: You assume they're organized enough to even know what their own interests are, let alone not stomping their own dicks in the stampede to get it. The government is a disorganized blob of conflicting interests, groups, organizations, and often counter-productive and poorly organized in whatever endeavor it undertakes.
You should be thankful you don't get all the government you pay for.
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So... every time I open my inbox in Facebook, it has to search through 50TB of data? That sounds like a design problem. What has always floored me is why people think everything needs to be stuffed into a database. Terabyte sized binary blobs? You know, there's a certain point where people need to stop and actually think about the implimentation.
More important than the technology is the policies and training of the personnel running the operation. It will fail, eventually: It always does, no matter how well its designed or what with promises of infinite uptime. So walk into the data center and count the number of people wearing hiking boots, divide by the number of racks, and there you go. The most grizzly looking guy wearing hiking boots usually knows everything. He also usually has a lighter and a screwdriver if you ask.
I don't know why this is...
As long as each car (including the lead) was restricted to brake at the same rate as the car with the worst stopping time no collision would ever occur. Besides, if the distance between the cars is small enough, even a discrepancy in braking power that wasn't compensated for would only cause a slight difference in velocity before a collision occurred.
This is an analog system, not a digital one. Braking power changes as a function of surface wear, applied pressure, rotor temperature, road conditions, vehicle speed, weight, and shifting of mass (which occurs during braking/turning). Also, a sinusoidal effect could be observed in a long chain where a vehicle brakes lightly at the start of the chain, causing each subsequent vehicle to brake slightly harder until the braking capacity is exceeded. With their close proximity, only a fraction of each vehicle's braking capacity could be utilized for safe operation.
So which is it?
The other one. :P
You're handing control over to another driver, who may very well decide not to brake and cause a five car pileup, or worse. Also, there's no way to know the mechanical status of the vehicle -- what if one of them blows a tire, or runs out of gas, or the engine seizes?
What you should do is create a dedicated lane that is controlled entirely by computer, and you program your exit/entry point at that time, and let the signal and control computers handle traffic management. If an unauthorized vehicle enters the lane, sensors will immediately detect it, alert nearby drivers (and disengage), and send the police to go catch captain speedy pants and send him to a pants-down facility. Computers also do a much better job of fuel consumption and control... I mean, it'd basically be a packet-switched network, but with cars instead of pieces of data. It's a relatively benign IT problem.
As well, vehicle breakdowns would be handled a lot better because the system would be tied directly to the onboard computer and navigation systems: Just like lorries/semi-trucks operating on the road today. Having spoken to a commercial truck driver, I can tell you that the computer often knows about mechanical problems before the driver does, and their systems are pre-programmed to alert a dispatcher, who will send a rescue/repair vehicle out in situ.
Wrong. The DMCA explicitly permits "reverse engineering" for the purpose of interoperability.
Did you forget about DeCSS?
Since SIEM equipment is typically used to consolidate alert and event data from multiple vendor sources...
Isn't that quaint! All these demands by the government to secure and protect critical "cyber"-resources, and here we have a major vendor basically giving the middle finger to that initative, making it more expensive and difficult to accomplish that objective. Once again two government initatives are at odds with each other: You have the DMCA and copyright advocates on one side, who have made overriding vendor lock-in by creating interoperability illegal, and national security interests on the other side asking ISPs and internet-connected networks to be secure.
My therapist used the word "sticktoitiveness" as well, mostly referencing my lack of it. There was a point to this post, but it has eluded the author. Oh look, a kitty!
Come on, how are you going to "test market" something like the iPhone? It releases everywhere, all at once - and it's been a rollercoaster for them since.
They could have released the iPhone in only a few places, at a few stores, just like they have done with many other phones. They didn't, because Apple didn't want to "spoil the big surprise". All AT&T saw was dollar signs.
Invariably there is something large no-one accounted for in the testing.
So I suppose now we should just build a million cars without testing them on the track, because assuredly, something "large" will go unnoticed: Like forgetting to install brakes.
as I said before part of the rise in bandwidth is the rise in the number of applications that make use of that bandwidth.
You've said many things before. Like how you invented the internet, know everything there is about computers, and would certainly do better as CEO of Microsoft than the current joker. Opinions are like assh*les, everybody has one. If you're going to assert that the number of applications is related to an increase in bandwidth, you need to provide a citation. And even here, the same methodology would still work: Which is making it available to beta testers, estimating the amount of bandwidth used, just like every other network application out there. But, alas, the iPhone is special! It's immune to standard networking practice.
And honestly, who even does small market test releases anymore?
People who listen to their engineers.
No, because you simply cannot take that kind of time in todays mobile market.
A few months of R&D, or a few years of unexpected hardware upgrades. Yeah, definately can't take that kind of time.
Ah, but this careful approach also would lose a lot of customers, and the iPhone would not have been a success had it been tried as it would have given everyone else way too much time to catch up.
Lay off the koolaid. More people bought motorola Razrs when they came out than the iPhone.
Personally as a customer I'd rather have a network with a few issues and an iPhone than be wondering when it would come to my town...
Did the koolaid taste good?
people always bitch when you release it into a limited market first.
People bitch when bad products come on the market, or it fails often, or its slow, or hell... it doesn't come in the right shade of purple. Your point?
Phones are not a thing you can do that with, although it works for other tech sectors.
Because phones are super special awesome and defy the laws of physics, or so says Steve Jobs, right?
I think what he is saying (badly) is that you can't find the peak if your network is constantly at peak.
If he'd been doing case studies from the start and deploying products in test markets on a schedule -- this wouldn't have become a problem because there would have been leading indicators of a sudden upward rise in demand. But they disregarded that in order to release the iPhone nationwide all at once as part of a huge marketing campaign, rather than in select markets in a phased deployment. They made a grave miscalculation in doing so and now have no idea where they sit. In this situation, the solution is to find parts of the network that aren't saturated and make an educated guess from that data about what the rest of the network "should" look like. Then do a pilot upgrade in, say, twenty locations where the network traffic is at its most dense and see if the those projections hold. Rinse, wash, repeat.
The problem is, it costs more to rush a deployment after a problem like this presents than to do a phased upgrade, when there's opportunities to cut costs by careful selection of distribution channels, contracting during periods of reduced production, etc. This executive, by procrastinating and delaying these upgrades, will now wind up costing the company more (possibly considerably more) because they're behind the curve than would have been necessary had proper engineering practice been followed from the start.
The bottom line here is that sooner or later, you have to pay the piper.
'If a network is not fully loaded, it's hard to know exactly how much demand is out there,' Donovan said. 'You put all you can in the ground, and they eat it all up, and then you put more in there, and they eat it all up.'"
You've never done any kind of network administration, have you Mr. Donovan? You designed your network for average use, not peak use. As anyone who designs networks for a living will tell you -- it will function perfectly well until it reaches close to or at 100% utilization, at which point it'll choke and die horribly. Had you excercised proper engineering methodology, you would have known to test each product/application being put on the network in test markets and used the use data to predict what the peak would be, and then only deploy it when you had a 20-50% greater capacity than what the data suggests.
But alas, you eschewed best practices to save a few bucks -- all those profitable quarters and executive kickbacks, all the while your towers were backhauled on 512kbit DSL and fractional T1s. Your infrastructure's been rotting for a long time, sir, and the iPhone has nothing to do with your failure as an executive to execute a proper deployment plan that accounts for growth. You should be ashamed: The chinese mobile phone network has over 500 million subscribers, and their plans are cheaper, have better options, and their infrastructure is far more modern. China has similar problems to the United States in terms of rural development and rugged terrain for deployment -- and yet you've abjectly failed to not only do your case studies, but even do exploratory research within your own market.
It's amazing that this level of incompetence is rewarded by our society.
But at the same tine, the group also came down hard on Google, contending that it needs to give users a vehicle for stopping the company from collecting any personal data.
Don't login. Disable cookies. Any questions?
I wonder how many people figured this out and didn't report it.
They didn't need to figure it out... Facebook lets people suck all that data out by making a game about vampires, pirates, farming, or god only knows whatever else is out there. Why go through the back door when the front door is already open and a welcome mat thrown out?
yeah, one problem: the moment you enter that code, you are giving up personal information that can be tracked to you, individually. Don't forget, an IP address is traceable. Private citizens may not know how you vote, but data correlation means the voting authority may.
Technology does not create policy, it follows it. This is a social problem, and technology is not the answer. It's just like copyright infringement, the war on drugs, poverty, or any other malaise of society. It's such a popular delusion though to think that throwing pharmaceuticals, medicine, computers, technology, money, etc., at a social problem fixes it. It doesn't.
Distracted driving occurs because of a lack of training and understanding regarding the operation of a motor vehicle. The correct solution is more stringent examinations and training before getting a driver's license -- training that will impress upon drivers the importance of what they are doing: Which is operating a several ton metal can on wheels at high speeds around other people, which if improperly used or maintained, can kill both the driver and other people. Look at Germany: I don't hear distracted driving being as much of a problem there, because in that country, they worship the car. They have very strict regulations for safety and the citizens respect the responsibility that comes with vehicle ownership and use.
In this country, however, we have a sense of entitlement about driving. We allow people convicted of drunk driving two, five, or even twenty times to retain their license. And then we impliment stupid policy decisions like stripping people of their license for failing to pay child support or taxes as punitive measures. First, a driver's license should be a certification in which the only factor for getting or retaining it is suitability to operate a motor vehicle. Secondly, people should be required as a condition of holding that certificate, to take refresher courses on driving and their vehicle should be subjected to regular inspections.
What we need to do is make people take their driving seriously, and we do that by making clear standards about what vehicles and drivers we want on the public highway system. Half-assing it with technological solutions only succeeds in creating a web of unintended consequences that trap innocent people without making a substantive or qualitative improvement to driving conditions for the general public.
If your interpretation of "news" is the latest headlines...
News, n.: 1. A report of a recent event; intelligence; information. 2. The presentation of a report on recent or new events in a newspaper or other periodical or on radio or television.
There are plenty of weekly, bi-monthly and monthly publications that not only are profitable, but also have increasing readership numbers.
I'm going to hell for this, but...Citation needed. Even if it were true, it's still a fallacy of composition: You're arguing from the specific to the general. My statement is made about the entire industry, not specific segments within it. As a general statement, it will hold broadly true but not necessarily be correct in every case.
I end up with broad and multiple perspectives, analysis and all the relevant facts, and come up away with a full understanding of what happened. What have you got? Timely and reliable reporting telling you that something did?
Whatever you're ending up with is not "broad and multiple perspectives". What you're talking about is called an analysis, which includes one or more interpretations of a given event in context with other events and/or information. The fact that "broad and multiple perspectives" are present (or not) in the analysis does not create any added value. News is the report of an event and/or facts. An analysis takes that information and draws conclusions about the objects presented and includes predictions about the future based on the information presented.
What I stated earlier are some of the same principles behind intelligence (intelligence gathering). The same principles apply in the civilian world, for much the same reason: It's a way of sorting and refining information in such a way that informed decisions can be made. I will again state the relevant factors:
1. Timeliness.
A transmission from the enemy that a missile launch will occur in 10 minutes. In 10 minutes, that communication will have no value. There is a window of opportunity after which the information loses value. Likewise, reporting that a child has been kidnapped is a time-sensitive matter -- the likelihood of a successful retrieval drops substantially over the course a few hours. Civilian reporting agencies play a crucial role in public safety here, but can only do so if the information can be distributed quickly.
2. Verification.
There's a lot of difference between an informant claiming that a terrorist is planning to bomb the town square at noon, and an intercepted cell phone call to his commander. The source of the information is also crucial in establishing trust. In a civilian context, consider the case of Deep Throat. The scenario could not have occurred if the Washington Post was not a trusted reporting agency.
Modern news distribution derives its value from two things: First, the reliability of its product. Second, the timeliness of its product. Newspapers and magazines fail the test because they are release daily, weekly, or even monthly -- whereas other distribution mediums can do it in seconds or minutes. This is not, however, what killed them. The deciding factor is therefore the reliability of the product. Unfortunately, the news industry has made several very bad decisions regarding this:
First, was catering to certain groups (liberals, conservatives, etc.) and following the demographics rather than the story. While this improves profitibility over the short term, it sets things up for a diminishing returns cycle -- to maintain the higher profitibility the product must be targeted more with each iteration, leading to an alienation of those who do not share the increasingly-restricted viewpoint. That is to say, they become aware of the bias and lose confidence in the product. This "short sell" ideology permeates many industries -- in some cases, the results are more dramatic and immediate than other cases.
Second, was the packaging of such information. Even leading up to the 9/11 media event, packaging of information from major news sources was being called into question. Scandals rocked the New York Times, Washington Post, and all major television networks within a three-year timespan -- why? In every case, the rush to get the information to press caused errors to be made. In other words, a lack of process control. The coverage of 9/11 -- with its constant flood of meaningless and un-contextualized data overloaded people. Simply put, anything that's "hot" is over-saturated and in their rush to deliver the latest "news" they bury people in a crap-flood of information -- there was a loss of impact.
The third factor in the loss of reliability of major media organizations was a lack of peer review. Because most of the media distribution in this country is owned by a select few individuals and/or corporations, the industry homogenized. There was no further innovation. In the quest for profitibility, only methods of reporting and investigation were used that guaranteed eyeballs. As history has shown time and time again, the key to the long-term survival of a business, or industry, is adapability. This was sacrificed when the industry homogenized into only a few major corporate players -- leading to formulaic products that were too similar to one another.
Finally, the rise of social networking and the internet proved that word of mouth is the most effective way of spreading information that is NOT time-sensitive. Ironically, the random churning of information on the internet was better at distributing stories than decades-old systems of distribution: Why? Because the information had been separated out into a free-format. Like CDs, where you have to purchase the entire album in order to get that one song -- this was how the media operated. No longer -- and the result was that over a period of days or weeks, many millions more would see a given product because of referrals by friends. The news industry failed to capitalize upon this by creating stand-alone product that could be distributed between people and remain intact (for example, with its advertising or "related" content hooks, perhaps in something similar to PDF).
I'd be more interested in knowing what the average length of time a person remains on the list, and a demographic breakdown. The problem with compiling lists like this is the same as with sex offender registries: Even after people are removed from it (sometimes winding up on it for petty reasons in the first place), they continue to be linked to it. Computers don't forget, and there's always some bureaucrat who wants to keep a list of everyone that's ever been on the list available and searchable. There is a point at which even justice becomes injust.
So what are the numbers, Big Brother?
It opened in 1936. It's been up for 73 years. I'm surprised it hasn't fallen into the ocean with all the corrosion problems yet -- it should have been retired decades ago and only survives because it is a landmark, not because it is soundly built.
The sadder thing about slashdot's moderation system is it's made of a bunch of hateful asshats who mod me down because of who I am, not what I say. Everything I stated is correct, and if you want to disagree you can do it constructively by providing citations. But... I with an angry dyke on the loose, who has time to check their facts?
This works fine for off/on states, but not graduated ones where a range of input is needed. Muscles are binary -- they are off, or on. At least, at the cellular level. But when they're put in bunches, only some are activated while others are not, which leads to a range of possible force levels. Effectively monitoring neural activity here requires a large number of sensors to accurately determine how much force is being requested and then translate that into a digital representation. As well, do not forget that in the human body, motion is comprised of two separate inputs from the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system: And while complementary, these two are not always perfectly in balance. This is why prothetic limbs have to be computer-assisted and lack fine motor control: They simply can't get a good enough input resolution.
So yes, it'll be great for mouse clicks (binary), but I'll still own your ass in a video game in anything that uses a vector (analog).
but the team has to fix the software
Why can't we just develop software on the ground to post-process the data?
Isolating functionality doesn't mean blocking yourself off from the net - he was talking about using dedicated devices to provide routing services in order to minimize the chance of being compromised.
Ignoring your pathetic ad hominim attack: Properly designed software has approximately the same level of security as dedicated devices. Case in point -- I have a Windows XP box directly connected to the internet (not behind NAT or anything). It has no anti-virus, anti-spyware, and the firewall is disabled. It has never been compromised. Why? Because all the networking services are disabled and it's only used for web browsing, which runs under a restricted account with Firefox and noscript.
This idea that hardware solutions are superior to software solutions is bunk. It's all in the configuration. Always has been.
It's because we want to isolate functionality to minimize the risk of getting hacked.
Mr. Salinger, is that you? I seem to recall you writing awhile ago, "I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes. That way I wouldn't have to have any g****m stupid, useless conversations with anybody."
A powered off laptop in a bag on a bus, train, or at an airport terminal is just as vulnerable to being "hacked" by a passerby. You don't need to connect a computer to a network to have its security compromised. A computer today without networking functionality is of limited utility; For the past thirty years now, there has been a constant march towards integration and networking of information technology, simply because of gestalt: The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. You can't just cut off access to the rest of the world, and consider yourself secured. This is the digital equivalent of moving to Montana and amassing a stockpile of arms and food and saying "Screw the world!"
I think that it is incredibly naive to believe that the FCC or the DHS has anything other than their own interests in mind when making decisions. History has unfortunately, shown this to be largely true.
You give the system too much credit: You assume they're organized enough to even know what their own interests are, let alone not stomping their own dicks in the stampede to get it. The government is a disorganized blob of conflicting interests, groups, organizations, and often counter-productive and poorly organized in whatever endeavor it undertakes.
You should be thankful you don't get all the government you pay for.