i don't understand and maybe I missed it in the news but there's no link in the summary... why was the XBone having a bad launch at E3? it seems like a cool product to me.
Sir, I'm going to have to ask for your geek badge. Anonymous Cowards -- please escort this person from the building, and then give him a 20 second head start before releasing the dogs. If he replies to this comment, reduce it to 10 seconds.
Remember the rage around here a few years back when Sony nixed Linux on PS3. Or the whole "rootkit fiasco"? Amazing how quickly past outrage is forgotten.
There's incompetence, and then there's monumental epic cluster fuck moments of total and abject negligence like this. Sony throwing root kits onto CDs and nixing Linux on the PS3 were just bad decisions. Dumb decisions. The development of the XBone makes that look like someone flushing a cherry bomb down the toilet compared to a FAE.
This isn't normal stupid... this is weapons grade stupid.
Q: What exclusive first-party games are in development, and when will we see them?
A: None. Despite bending our customers over a barrel and raping them until they bled and screamed for mercy with our new DRM, we don't have a single exclusive to show for it.
Q: How many games do you plan to ship at launch?
A: We got a lot of promises, but the warehouse is presently, uhh, a bit vacant.
Q: What is the new Xbox Live?
A: For game publishers, it's the second coming of Christ, the ressurection, the moment we've been waiting for, beating ourselves off to in private fantasizing over. For game players, it's an unholy cluster fuck that makes Square Enix scorched Earth policy on every franchise you ever loved look positively humane.
Q: What new benefits does Xbox Live offer?
A: The new generation of Xbox Live gets to know you and your preferences, by watching you 24/7 through a webcam that cannot be turned off, and puts you at the center of all your games and entertainment, and then builds a giant 20 foot thick concrete wall between you and all your friends who you can't share any of it with without an extra fee. It will make sure your Xbox is always up to date and ready for you, like meeting every ex you ever had at a party, who then stalk you for the next year, posting comments on your Facebook about what a whore you were, and a cheater -- that gaming is better with smart, quick and intuitive multiplayer, unlike everything else on the market which can accomplish this basic feat without spying on you, whoring away your personal viewing habits, and knowing exactly when you're about to climax on the couch to post that new advertisement for Buxom Babes 7, backed by the new Smart Match system -- which is just like online dating, only creepier. It adds even more personalization to your TV and entertainment, because what's more entertaining and personal than sitting alone, in your basement, your friends unable to join you to play without paying an extra fee? Nothing, that's what! With the evolved Xbox Live, your games and profile are stored in the cloud, so you can access them from any Xbox One console, and we'd appreciate it a lot if you'd forget about what we've done with Sidekick, and every other Cloud platform we've absorbed like some Doctor Who alien, only with less wit and British charm.... this time will be different. We Promise(tm).
Q: I saw reports stating friends will be unlimited and reports saying the cap is 1,000. Which is correct?
A: We're excited to report it's the lower of the two, which shouldn't discourage you in any way... because we've tried very hard to match the same low standards that are already present in the industry with our next generation console!
Q: Do I have to pay to access Xbox Live?
A: No. We'll just be collecting your personal viewing habits and selling them to the lowest bidder.
This just in: The XBone One has managed to achieve what the Dreamcast couldn't... blowing up prior to launch. The Dreamcast at least fired the engines before exploding in a firey storm of shit. Which, given that their customers seem to be EA games and other publishers, and not, you know, people who are going to buy the console... seems about right.
There are Kickstarter consoles still on the drawing board, I mean, not even prototypes available yet, that have more pre-orders than the XBone. I don't think they could fail harder. Unless (dramatic pause)... they bring Square Enix to headline this collossal cluster f*ck.
Thanks! Are there tools that do this automatically?
If there were, we would have little need for programmers. Sorry, but sometimes paper and pencil is the best approach.:/
I've had some good experiences with Eclipse based editors but find the learning curve a bit steep. On the easy and less powerfull end I use Programmer's Notepad and grep in Cygwin.
Honestly, I wouldn't get too comfortable with a given IDE -- some of them (I'm looking at you, Visual Studio) abstract away and hide a lot of the code and it can make for some really confusing times for you. Just open up the raw.c or.cpp files with whatever is comfortable... anything with color coded formatting... and then just sit back and try to absorb it without any preconceptions.
Programming is a lot like sketching or other forms of art. It works best if you don't try and think about it. Thinking about is forcing it... and you'll find the best hackers tend to learn by osmosis... that is, they throw themselves in it, and trust that they'll absorb context and meaning as they walk through the functions and lines as they go...
Knowing the data structures gives you the ground work for understanding what the code is doing. The data structures are a more direct description of the design decisions.
This approach assumes the programmer hasn't gone native. Great for managed code, but when the data structures are basically pointers being passed back and forth and calls to APIs deep in the guts of the OS... well, how do I put this: You're screwed. It's a crap shoot on if the programmer even knows why it works... sometimes in C++ you stop debugging the moment it starts returning sane outputs and consider yourself lucky you didn't have to fully grok wtf just happened.:/
What are your tricks for quickly getting to grips with code written by others?
For me, it comes down to a lot of mountain dew, techno music, and hours of guru meditation. As you dissect each function, sketch out its relationship to other major functions. I take a two pass approach.. first, just look at the function call outs and the return values and make a rough sketch of the 'scaffolding' of a program. On the second pass, any function that you can't see the obvious application of, or appears obfusciated or complicated, dissect into functional units and sketch out what it does in your notes. I do this by actually physically drawing the relationships using something called a mind map.
Until you get used to it, actually writing it down, even if it's just a bunch of messy arrows to blobs of circled text... it will help job your memory and help things sink in until you have the necessary 'ah ha!' moment.
The fact that this information is easily available at all, and potentially without a court order, is a threat to our political system.
Dude, a lack of citizen participation is a threat to our political system, but I'm sure you're leaping from the couch right now, rushing out the door without even grabbing your coat, and driving like a crazy man down to your local congress critter's office and telling them what a threat it is. Or, more likely, you're doing what every other American does when faced with a political crisis: Turn on the TV and pat yourself on the back about how you agree with the talking heads of your choice, and then go to bed.
Except of course, it isn't a threat to our political system. Gathering information, in and of itself, means nothing. "The NSA is copy-pasting stuff off the internet! We're doomed!" Yeah, okay man... visited Reddit lately? or 4Chan? Copying data is sorta what the internet is all about.
You can be sure that the president gets national security reports on all major political figures, both allies and foes alike.
I sure as hell hope so. I don't want the President to be making decisions based solely on what he watches on CNN.
Tax evasion, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, illegitimate children, drug habits, whatever are all considered security relevant and would of course be reported.
Hold on. I'll give you all the rest -- but extramarital affairs is abit unbelievable man. If there's one thing Congress doesn't want the world to know about, it's their extramarital affairs. Okay, actually, I lied, I won't -- dude, you're a paranoid nutjob. The President does not care to know the full history of your sexual partners.
And all of those also happen to be wonderful means for exerting pressure on people to vote his way or drop out of political races. This is too powerful a political weapon to give to the executive branch.
No, it's not powerful enough. The President should keep detailed files on everyone. Worldwide. Think about how much better the world would be tuning in for the evening Presidential Name And Shame -- we'd know exactly who to hate, how much to hate them, and why to hate them. The 480,000 trillion dollars needed to compile such details dossiers, the installation of hundreds of millions of cameras, downloading the entire internet and monitoring all of it... it's a small price to pay for such certainty in an uncertain political landscape.... I'll just let you write the check while I skip off to the bathroom to call the NSA with the good news.
They actually have encrypted connection, so as long as the people can't actually get on your internal network (aka, your wifi is secure), you will not be able to do this. Maybe try to read something about the whole thing before judging. I know its hard but it makes everything a lot easier.
Anonymous Coward: Not having a sense of humor since 1997.
Yup, I can see it now... Drive by someone's house, whip out the phone, plunge them into the stone ages. Keep driving. (puts on sunglasses) AWWWWWW YEEEAAAAH.
o. The people responsible for spying on American citizens are the ones who have betrayed their country and the public interest.
I doubt they see it that way. And in any case, it's easy to blame somebody else... or a group of people... but let me ask: Did you vote in the last election? Did you write to your congress critters at any point during the long procession of decisions that has led us to this point? Held up a sign on a street corner? Had a meaningful discussion with a stranger about this? Met with anyone to discuss the problem? Democracy doesn't run very well on apathy... it's rather like pouring diesel into a gas tank... the results aren't pretty and the engine usually dies as a result.
They're the ones who should be caught, tried, and imprisoned.
Might I suggest that since we already have the highest incarceration rate of any country on the planet we start looking to solutions to social problems that don't involve sending people to our criminal education centers? Because that's pretty much what prison is: It's a place you go to meet like-minded people and learn all kinds of shit you wouldn't otherwise learn... and are then normalized to the idea that what you did was okay. And then you're released back into society where you're promptly told you have few housing or employment options, no friends, and very often just the clothes on your back. Oh... and a fresh new education.
. Government officials who violate the US constitution are traitors.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom â" go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!" -- Samuel Adams
If you aren't participating, you're part of the problem. As part of the problem, you must be a traitor. As a traitor, you should be executed. (grabs a big rock) So, how do you want to die, sinner?!... In other news, extreme statements like calling people "traitors" can result in extreme reactions, like stoning to death. Of course, a more civilized discourse would avoid using words like "traitor" to describe government officials carrying out their official duties, and perhaps might focus instead on the actual constitutional definition of what a traitor is... since you did invoke the Constitution afterall. Since you're obviously unfamiliar with the relevant passage...
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
. But what about gender? Transgendered folks are encountering embarrassing moments when they have to explain that their gender has changed from 'M' to 'F' or vice versa.
Transgendered folks are still having to explain to people like the original poster that 'M' and 'F' designate sex, not gender. There's a wide variety of reasons why a person's sex needs to be recorded, at least medically. A transgendered woman will have different medical needs than a non-transgendered woman, and the same for men. But for some reason, despite research going back over fifty years now, we still idiotically only have one field, with two options.
And if such disclosures really interfere with their capabilities, that suggests by itself that they are doing something they shouldn't be doing.
Not necessarily. There's good reason to capture all kinds of metadata ahead of time, and store it for a period of time; The most practical argument is that it reduces the cost of executing search warrants. Anyone who's worked in IT knows that the moment you have a database, people are going to want access, and eventually, mirrors of at least some of that data is going to start cropping up elsewhere on the network. It'll be exported to spreadsheets, it'll be handed to the building maintenance people, it'll be pushed out for the network engineers. There is a lot of redundant data floating around on a network, simply because it's faster and more convenient to simply trap what you need and keep your own copies, perhaps with notes or additional metadata, that is separate from the primary source.
A lot of this "big scary NSA" non-sense is based on a misconception that just because the NSA is capturing this information means they're using it, or even looking at it. In all likelihood, yes, they probably know what your last Facebook status was. In all likelihood, no human, or even an automated bot searching for keywords, is accessing it. It's simply recorded, shoved into a database, and forgotten until it expires from the super secret anti-terrorist caching system of doom.
That said...
At the root of the problem is really that there isn't enough transparency and that people have lost trust.
And this is the part of the equation that is troubling. The NSA has broken its social contract with the people it was supposed to be protecting. Trust has been damaged. There are legitimate reasons why the NSA would be keeping secrets from the American public. National security really is at stake for a lot of what the NSA does. That's no exaggeration. What's been exaggerated is what is being considered National security.
The United States has certain constitutional obligations; Specifically that the government should be transparent as much as possible. Now this is always a balancing act... and sometimes both sides are going to get it wrong -- the public will demand something they really ought not to have, and the government will hold back what they really shouldn't. This push and pull by itself is normal. It's expected. It's democracy "Working As Designed." The problem is, in the last 12 years or so, the balance, well... isn't anymore.
The government, as a whole, not just the NSA but the whole government superstructure, has been moving towards a heightened level of security (some would say paranoia), and been locking out the public from areas traditionally left open. In the short term, this isn't a threat to the democratic way of life, but it's been going on now for 12 years. Osama Bin Laden is dead. The few remnants of 9/11 now sit in a shitty museum in New York and scattered monuments throughout the country. It's long dead and gone; It is no longer justification for the present state of affairs -- Yet the present state of affairs has persisted.
And right now, the NSA is caught right in the middle of the public debate over where that tipping point should be between the public's need to know, and the government's need for national security. And frankly, it's done a shit job in the public relations department -- a formerly secretive and highly respected intelligence agency now looks like a bunch of incompetent assclowns John-Wayne-ing their way through the private data of Americans, and nary a fuck is given about whether it's right or wrong.
The NSA, as an organization, needs to return to its roots, which is specifically and only providing intelligence assets and support to operations abroad. Domestic operations should be the providence of the FBI, and foreign operations under the direction of the CIA... and both of those organizations should separate as much as is practical,
I simply cannot wrap my head around this. How is it in public's interest to be constantly surveiled in violation of the bill of rights?
It gets better. Mr. Clapper said, under oath and before Congress, that Snowden "didn't have the access" necessary to make his claims. He then goes on to state that he's a traitor. Well... he's lying about one of these two things: Either Snowden had access to classified information and is a credible source... or he didn't have access, in which case he can't be a traitor, because he's not giving away government secrets, since he never had them to begin with.
I suspect this is the NSA version of "We don't have a problem and we're working to fix it as quickly as possible," and by fixing, of course we mean throwing someone under the bus. Since Snowden is at the bottom of the food chain, we'll start there, and continue feeding people to the lions at progressively higher levels of the bureauacracy until the "problem" goes away. And the problem of course isn't that the NSA is doing this, but that they got pants'd by some kid. Remember, it's not wrong if it's legal! -_-
Because, while most men are respectable individuals - Family men, husbands, boyfriends, parents - We're also about 1% away from being sexually-driven monkeys.
Maybe you are. The fact that you sometimes, or even often, want sex, doesn't make you a "sexually-driven monkey"... not anymore than when I look at a guy and then fantasize about the size of his cock means I'm about to just spazz out, rip off his clothes, and scream "Fuck me now, man-beast!" But I'll fantasize about it.
The thing is, everybody is like this -- only our social expectations differ. If you walked up and grabbed my ass, you'd get slapped with sexual harassment and everyone would publicly denounce you. But privately, you and I both know, there'd be elbow ripping and some "Yeah, we understand." On the other hand, if I walk up and grab your crotch and suck on my lip, you're not going to file for sexual harassment, you're going to follow me to the bathroom and fuck me silly.
And is a trap that (for instance) the Republican leadership have just started to recognize. Not that that makes it any easier to escape, mind.
A trap? Just started to recognize? Machiavelli had this problem licked several hundred years before the first Republican resulted in a damp stain on the mattress. The majority means dick -- they can be bought. It's the extremists you need to cultivate. The problem is the Republicans cultivated the wrong crop, not that they farmed. Their rhetoric did what it was meant to until recently... unfortunately they committed the error of sliding too far into dogmatic reasoning while their opponents reorganized and stuck with the cardinal rule of politics: Promise them everything, deliver nothing. The Republicans stopped promising the right things to the people, which was jobs, financial security, and all the trappings of the "good life" that they knew they wouldn't deliver on, just like the democrats do. It was a stupid, amateur mistake.
Whole industries can (and often have) gone for decades doing things poorly because they all do it poorly. Detroit automakers among others come to mind. And then someone comes along and doesn't play that game and the good ol' boys get chewed up bad.
Hindsight's always 20/20. Those industries were thriving at the time... then they died because they couldn't adapt to change. That doesn't mean their business model at the time was wrong... it just means that the managers failed to act and change when it was required of them.
As for the attempted argumentum ad hominem, nice try.
You know, it was meant in the figurative, not literal -- "to live in the basement" as it were means to be cut off from reality, not to literally be in your mother's basement. I'm sorry if you didn't catch the reference, but I think it's an accurate characterization of your commentary thus far -- it has an air of cohesion to it, but cannot stand up to close scrutiny. In other words, your understanding lacks depth. You are not particularly "worldly", in spite of your apparent age.
MY Lizard Hindbrain is at LEAST 40! How dare you say something so offensive!
Perhaps he should have rephrased that... as we age, the "lizard hindbrain" is less able to assert itself in our observed behaviors. There are, of course exceptions. As the old saying goes, "Boys will be boys... and so will a lot of middle-aged men."
Or alternately, just because it's fine with you doesn't mean that it's cool with others. I notice that you're stuck speculating because apparenlty you've never actually, like, talked with (or more to the point, listented to) women on the subject. Hmmmmm.
While I'm in the difficult position of being a woman speaking up on this subject and, of course, feeling in no small way like I have to represent all of womankind when making these comments (guys -- you ever have that problem? Didn't think so)... I'll simply say that, as a general statement, women don't have a problem with other women dressing slutty publicly... they have a problem with it privately. Probably because we're jealous, insecure, and petty on the whole and any woman more attractive than we are is a threat that must be managed or eliminated... the inevitable source of so many cat fights. So it's not dressing slutty to attract men per se that's the problem... or rather, it's not the men's reaction to slutty dressing that causes so much grief... but rather other women's reactions to it.
Not to say that there isn't a wide diversity of opinion... because let's face it: There's more variation within the genders than between them... and it's hard to make generalized statements at all without finding a significant portion left out. But, that said... as a general statement, I'd stand by what I said. See also: Halloween.
What is extremist about people realizing their place in society?
The notion that people should be slotted into socially-approved roles, rather than self-defining who they are and what they want to be and do, is pretty extremist. As in extremely backwards. "realizing their place in society" is code for the conservative belief in a Natural Moral Order(tm). Whites before blacks, rich before poor, men before women, etc. And if a black person is doing better than a white person, or a woman better than a man, etc., then that shit's gotta stop because it's unnatural. And that notion, I think you'll find an awful lot of people consider to be extremely... wrong.
The endgame of extremist feminists looks very like that of extremist religions, with women chastely covered up and seperated from the lecherous menfolk for fear they will be overcome by their urges.
Extreme chauvinists wouldn't come up with anything different, you know. Perhaps rather than slamming feminism as a whole because of a vocal minority, you could consider more mainstream views on it...
Most at 30 are just smart enough to pretend otherwise to avoid arousing politically correct morons.
That's a new definition of "Fixing it" of which I was previously unaware. How does advocating treating women as people instead of objects turn them into politically correct morons? Do tell. And everyone else, grab some popcorn. There's about to be a roasting.
Slashdot Mirror
i don't understand and maybe I missed it in the news but there's no link in the summary... why was the XBone having a bad launch at E3? it seems like a cool product to me.
Sir, I'm going to have to ask for your geek badge. Anonymous Cowards -- please escort this person from the building, and then give him a 20 second head start before releasing the dogs. If he replies to this comment, reduce it to 10 seconds.
Remember the rage around here a few years back when Sony nixed Linux on PS3. Or the whole "rootkit fiasco"? Amazing how quickly past outrage is forgotten.
There's incompetence, and then there's monumental epic cluster fuck moments of total and abject negligence like this. Sony throwing root kits onto CDs and nixing Linux on the PS3 were just bad decisions. Dumb decisions. The development of the XBone makes that look like someone flushing a cherry bomb down the toilet compared to a FAE.
This isn't normal stupid... this is weapons grade stupid.
Q: What exclusive first-party games are in development, and when will we see them?
A: None. Despite bending our customers over a barrel and raping them until they bled and screamed for mercy with our new DRM, we don't have a single exclusive to show for it.
Q: How many games do you plan to ship at launch?
A: We got a lot of promises, but the warehouse is presently, uhh, a bit vacant.
Q: What is the new Xbox Live?
A: For game publishers, it's the second coming of Christ, the ressurection, the moment we've been waiting for, beating ourselves off to in private fantasizing over. For game players, it's an unholy cluster fuck that makes Square Enix scorched Earth policy on every franchise you ever loved look positively humane.
Q: What new benefits does Xbox Live offer?
A: The new generation of Xbox Live gets to know you and your preferences, by watching you 24/7 through a webcam that cannot be turned off, and puts you at the center of all your games and entertainment, and then builds a giant 20 foot thick concrete wall between you and all your friends who you can't share any of it with without an extra fee. It will make sure your Xbox is always up to date and ready for you, like meeting every ex you ever had at a party, who then stalk you for the next year, posting comments on your Facebook about what a whore you were, and a cheater -- that gaming is better with smart, quick and intuitive multiplayer, unlike everything else on the market which can accomplish this basic feat without spying on you, whoring away your personal viewing habits, and knowing exactly when you're about to climax on the couch to post that new advertisement for Buxom Babes 7, backed by the new Smart Match system -- which is just like online dating, only creepier. It adds even more personalization to your TV and entertainment, because what's more entertaining and personal than sitting alone, in your basement, your friends unable to join you to play without paying an extra fee? Nothing, that's what! With the evolved Xbox Live, your games and profile are stored in the cloud, so you can access them from any Xbox One console, and we'd appreciate it a lot if you'd forget about what we've done with Sidekick, and every other Cloud platform we've absorbed like some Doctor Who alien, only with less wit and British charm.... this time will be different. We Promise(tm).
Q: I saw reports stating friends will be unlimited and reports saying the cap is 1,000. Which is correct?
A: We're excited to report it's the lower of the two, which shouldn't discourage you in any way... because we've tried very hard to match the same low standards that are already present in the industry with our next generation console!
Q: Do I have to pay to access Xbox Live?
A: No. We'll just be collecting your personal viewing habits and selling them to the lowest bidder.
This just in: The XBone One has managed to achieve what the Dreamcast couldn't... blowing up prior to launch. The Dreamcast at least fired the engines before exploding in a firey storm of shit. Which, given that their customers seem to be EA games and other publishers, and not, you know, people who are going to buy the console... seems about right.
There are Kickstarter consoles still on the drawing board, I mean, not even prototypes available yet, that have more pre-orders than the XBone. I don't think they could fail harder. Unless (dramatic pause) ... they bring Square Enix to headline this collossal cluster f*ck.
Thanks! Are there tools that do this automatically?
If there were, we would have little need for programmers. Sorry, but sometimes paper and pencil is the best approach. :/
I've had some good experiences with Eclipse based editors but find the learning curve a bit steep. On the easy and less powerfull end I use Programmer's Notepad and grep in Cygwin.
Honestly, I wouldn't get too comfortable with a given IDE -- some of them (I'm looking at you, Visual Studio) abstract away and hide a lot of the code and it can make for some really confusing times for you. Just open up the raw .c or .cpp files with whatever is comfortable... anything with color coded formatting... and then just sit back and try to absorb it without any preconceptions.
Programming is a lot like sketching or other forms of art. It works best if you don't try and think about it. Thinking about is forcing it... and you'll find the best hackers tend to learn by osmosis... that is, they throw themselves in it, and trust that they'll absorb context and meaning as they walk through the functions and lines as they go...
Knowing the data structures gives you the ground work for understanding what the code is doing. The data structures are a more direct description of the design decisions.
This approach assumes the programmer hasn't gone native. Great for managed code, but when the data structures are basically pointers being passed back and forth and calls to APIs deep in the guts of the OS... well, how do I put this: You're screwed. It's a crap shoot on if the programmer even knows why it works... sometimes in C++ you stop debugging the moment it starts returning sane outputs and consider yourself lucky you didn't have to fully grok wtf just happened. :/
What are your tricks for quickly getting to grips with code written by others?
For me, it comes down to a lot of mountain dew, techno music, and hours of guru meditation. As you dissect each function, sketch out its relationship to other major functions. I take a two pass approach .. first, just look at the function call outs and the return values and make a rough sketch of the 'scaffolding' of a program. On the second pass, any function that you can't see the obvious application of, or appears obfusciated or complicated, dissect into functional units and sketch out what it does in your notes. I do this by actually physically drawing the relationships using something called a mind map.
Until you get used to it, actually writing it down, even if it's just a bunch of messy arrows to blobs of circled text... it will help job your memory and help things sink in until you have the necessary 'ah ha!' moment.
YMMV.
The fact that this information is easily available at all, and potentially without a court order, is a threat to our political system.
Dude, a lack of citizen participation is a threat to our political system, but I'm sure you're leaping from the couch right now, rushing out the door without even grabbing your coat, and driving like a crazy man down to your local congress critter's office and telling them what a threat it is. Or, more likely, you're doing what every other American does when faced with a political crisis: Turn on the TV and pat yourself on the back about how you agree with the talking heads of your choice, and then go to bed.
Except of course, it isn't a threat to our political system. Gathering information, in and of itself, means nothing. "The NSA is copy-pasting stuff off the internet! We're doomed!" Yeah, okay man... visited Reddit lately? or 4Chan? Copying data is sorta what the internet is all about.
You can be sure that the president gets national security reports on all major political figures, both allies and foes alike.
I sure as hell hope so. I don't want the President to be making decisions based solely on what he watches on CNN.
Tax evasion, extramarital affairs, homosexuality, illegitimate children, drug habits, whatever are all considered security relevant and would of course be reported.
Hold on. I'll give you all the rest -- but extramarital affairs is abit unbelievable man. If there's one thing Congress doesn't want the world to know about, it's their extramarital affairs. Okay, actually, I lied, I won't -- dude, you're a paranoid nutjob. The President does not care to know the full history of your sexual partners.
And all of those also happen to be wonderful means for exerting pressure on people to vote his way or drop out of political races. This is too powerful a political weapon to give to the executive branch.
No, it's not powerful enough. The President should keep detailed files on everyone. Worldwide. Think about how much better the world would be tuning in for the evening Presidential Name And Shame -- we'd know exactly who to hate, how much to hate them, and why to hate them. The 480,000 trillion dollars needed to compile such details dossiers, the installation of hundreds of millions of cameras, downloading the entire internet and monitoring all of it... it's a small price to pay for such certainty in an uncertain political landscape. ... I'll just let you write the check while I skip off to the bathroom to call the NSA with the good news.
They actually have encrypted connection, so as long as the people can't actually get on your internal network (aka, your wifi is secure), you will not be able to do this. Maybe try to read something about the whole thing before judging. I know its hard but it makes everything a lot easier.
Anonymous Coward: Not having a sense of humor since 1997.
Yup, I can see it now... Drive by someone's house, whip out the phone, plunge them into the stone ages. Keep driving. (puts on sunglasses) AWWWWWW YEEEAAAAH.
o. The people responsible for spying on American citizens are the ones who have betrayed their country and the public interest.
I doubt they see it that way. And in any case, it's easy to blame somebody else... or a group of people... but let me ask: Did you vote in the last election? Did you write to your congress critters at any point during the long procession of decisions that has led us to this point? Held up a sign on a street corner? Had a meaningful discussion with a stranger about this? Met with anyone to discuss the problem? Democracy doesn't run very well on apathy... it's rather like pouring diesel into a gas tank... the results aren't pretty and the engine usually dies as a result.
They're the ones who should be caught, tried, and imprisoned.
Might I suggest that since we already have the highest incarceration rate of any country on the planet we start looking to solutions to social problems that don't involve sending people to our criminal education centers? Because that's pretty much what prison is: It's a place you go to meet like-minded people and learn all kinds of shit you wouldn't otherwise learn... and are then normalized to the idea that what you did was okay. And then you're released back into society where you're promptly told you have few housing or employment options, no friends, and very often just the clothes on your back. Oh... and a fresh new education.
. Government officials who violate the US constitution are traitors.
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom â" go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!" -- Samuel Adams
If you aren't participating, you're part of the problem. As part of the problem, you must be a traitor. As a traitor, you should be executed. (grabs a big rock) So, how do you want to die, sinner?! ... In other news, extreme statements like calling people "traitors" can result in extreme reactions, like stoning to death. Of course, a more civilized discourse would avoid using words like "traitor" to describe government officials carrying out their official duties, and perhaps might focus instead on the actual constitutional definition of what a traitor is... since you did invoke the Constitution afterall. Since you're obviously unfamiliar with the relevant passage...
People like Snowden are heroes.
Snowden himself disagrees with your assessment.
. But what about gender? Transgendered folks are encountering embarrassing moments when they have to explain that their gender has changed from 'M' to 'F' or vice versa.
Transgendered folks are still having to explain to people like the original poster that 'M' and 'F' designate sex, not gender. There's a wide variety of reasons why a person's sex needs to be recorded, at least medically. A transgendered woman will have different medical needs than a non-transgendered woman, and the same for men. But for some reason, despite research going back over fifty years now, we still idiotically only have one field, with two options.
In support of rampant prudishness, stock up now:
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In support of an inability to properly utilize the HTML anchor tag, moderate this comment up.
Do you ever listen to yourself?
All the time. Don't you listen to the voices in your head?
And if such disclosures really interfere with their capabilities, that suggests by itself that they are doing something they shouldn't be doing.
Not necessarily. There's good reason to capture all kinds of metadata ahead of time, and store it for a period of time; The most practical argument is that it reduces the cost of executing search warrants. Anyone who's worked in IT knows that the moment you have a database, people are going to want access, and eventually, mirrors of at least some of that data is going to start cropping up elsewhere on the network. It'll be exported to spreadsheets, it'll be handed to the building maintenance people, it'll be pushed out for the network engineers. There is a lot of redundant data floating around on a network, simply because it's faster and more convenient to simply trap what you need and keep your own copies, perhaps with notes or additional metadata, that is separate from the primary source.
A lot of this "big scary NSA" non-sense is based on a misconception that just because the NSA is capturing this information means they're using it, or even looking at it. In all likelihood, yes, they probably know what your last Facebook status was. In all likelihood, no human, or even an automated bot searching for keywords, is accessing it. It's simply recorded, shoved into a database, and forgotten until it expires from the super secret anti-terrorist caching system of doom.
That said...
At the root of the problem is really that there isn't enough transparency and that people have lost trust.
And this is the part of the equation that is troubling. The NSA has broken its social contract with the people it was supposed to be protecting. Trust has been damaged. There are legitimate reasons why the NSA would be keeping secrets from the American public. National security really is at stake for a lot of what the NSA does. That's no exaggeration. What's been exaggerated is what is being considered National security.
The United States has certain constitutional obligations; Specifically that the government should be transparent as much as possible. Now this is always a balancing act... and sometimes both sides are going to get it wrong -- the public will demand something they really ought not to have, and the government will hold back what they really shouldn't. This push and pull by itself is normal. It's expected. It's democracy "Working As Designed." The problem is, in the last 12 years or so, the balance, well... isn't anymore.
The government, as a whole, not just the NSA but the whole government superstructure, has been moving towards a heightened level of security (some would say paranoia), and been locking out the public from areas traditionally left open. In the short term, this isn't a threat to the democratic way of life, but it's been going on now for 12 years. Osama Bin Laden is dead. The few remnants of 9/11 now sit in a shitty museum in New York and scattered monuments throughout the country. It's long dead and gone; It is no longer justification for the present state of affairs -- Yet the present state of affairs has persisted.
And right now, the NSA is caught right in the middle of the public debate over where that tipping point should be between the public's need to know, and the government's need for national security. And frankly, it's done a shit job in the public relations department -- a formerly secretive and highly respected intelligence agency now looks like a bunch of incompetent assclowns John-Wayne-ing their way through the private data of Americans, and nary a fuck is given about whether it's right or wrong.
The NSA, as an organization, needs to return to its roots, which is specifically and only providing intelligence assets and support to operations abroad. Domestic operations should be the providence of the FBI, and foreign operations under the direction of the CIA... and both of those organizations should separate as much as is practical,
I simply cannot wrap my head around this. How is it in public's interest to be constantly surveiled in violation of the bill of rights?
It gets better. Mr. Clapper said, under oath and before Congress, that Snowden "didn't have the access" necessary to make his claims. He then goes on to state that he's a traitor. Well... he's lying about one of these two things: Either Snowden had access to classified information and is a credible source... or he didn't have access, in which case he can't be a traitor, because he's not giving away government secrets, since he never had them to begin with.
I suspect this is the NSA version of "We don't have a problem and we're working to fix it as quickly as possible," and by fixing, of course we mean throwing someone under the bus. Since Snowden is at the bottom of the food chain, we'll start there, and continue feeding people to the lions at progressively higher levels of the bureauacracy until the "problem" goes away. And the problem of course isn't that the NSA is doing this, but that they got pants'd by some kid. Remember, it's not wrong if it's legal! -_-
Because, while most men are respectable individuals - Family men, husbands, boyfriends, parents - We're also about 1% away from being sexually-driven monkeys.
Maybe you are. The fact that you sometimes, or even often, want sex, doesn't make you a "sexually-driven monkey"... not anymore than when I look at a guy and then fantasize about the size of his cock means I'm about to just spazz out, rip off his clothes, and scream "Fuck me now, man-beast!" But I'll fantasize about it.
The thing is, everybody is like this -- only our social expectations differ. If you walked up and grabbed my ass, you'd get slapped with sexual harassment and everyone would publicly denounce you. But privately, you and I both know, there'd be elbow ripping and some "Yeah, we understand." On the other hand, if I walk up and grab your crotch and suck on my lip, you're not going to file for sexual harassment, you're going to follow me to the bathroom and fuck me silly.
Same desires. Different roles.
And is a trap that (for instance) the Republican leadership have just started to recognize. Not that that makes it any easier to escape, mind.
A trap? Just started to recognize? Machiavelli had this problem licked several hundred years before the first Republican resulted in a damp stain on the mattress. The majority means dick -- they can be bought. It's the extremists you need to cultivate. The problem is the Republicans cultivated the wrong crop, not that they farmed. Their rhetoric did what it was meant to until recently... unfortunately they committed the error of sliding too far into dogmatic reasoning while their opponents reorganized and stuck with the cardinal rule of politics: Promise them everything, deliver nothing. The Republicans stopped promising the right things to the people, which was jobs, financial security, and all the trappings of the "good life" that they knew they wouldn't deliver on, just like the democrats do. It was a stupid, amateur mistake.
Whole industries can (and often have) gone for decades doing things poorly because they all do it poorly. Detroit automakers among others come to mind. And then someone comes along and doesn't play that game and the good ol' boys get chewed up bad.
Hindsight's always 20/20. Those industries were thriving at the time... then they died because they couldn't adapt to change. That doesn't mean their business model at the time was wrong... it just means that the managers failed to act and change when it was required of them.
As for the attempted argumentum ad hominem, nice try.
You know, it was meant in the figurative, not literal -- "to live in the basement" as it were means to be cut off from reality, not to literally be in your mother's basement. I'm sorry if you didn't catch the reference, but I think it's an accurate characterization of your commentary thus far -- it has an air of cohesion to it, but cannot stand up to close scrutiny. In other words, your understanding lacks depth. You are not particularly "worldly", in spite of your apparent age.
MY Lizard Hindbrain is at LEAST 40! How dare you say something so offensive!
Perhaps he should have rephrased that... as we age, the "lizard hindbrain" is less able to assert itself in our observed behaviors. There are, of course exceptions. As the old saying goes, "Boys will be boys... and so will a lot of middle-aged men."
Scantily clad women itself isn't a problem. It is when it is seen as a predominant role for women at these functions that it is a problem.
Bingo. Give this man a medal, he's just hit the nail on the head. Welcome to gender studies 101... you just earned yourself an 'A', dude.
Or alternately, just because it's fine with you doesn't mean that it's cool with others. I notice that you're stuck speculating because apparenlty you've never actually, like, talked with (or more to the point, listented to) women on the subject. Hmmmmm.
While I'm in the difficult position of being a woman speaking up on this subject and, of course, feeling in no small way like I have to represent all of womankind when making these comments (guys -- you ever have that problem? Didn't think so)... I'll simply say that, as a general statement, women don't have a problem with other women dressing slutty publicly... they have a problem with it privately. Probably because we're jealous, insecure, and petty on the whole and any woman more attractive than we are is a threat that must be managed or eliminated... the inevitable source of so many cat fights. So it's not dressing slutty to attract men per se that's the problem... or rather, it's not the men's reaction to slutty dressing that causes so much grief... but rather other women's reactions to it.
Not to say that there isn't a wide diversity of opinion... because let's face it: There's more variation within the genders than between them... and it's hard to make generalized statements at all without finding a significant portion left out. But, that said... as a general statement, I'd stand by what I said. See also: Halloween.
What is extremist about people realizing their place in society?
The notion that people should be slotted into socially-approved roles, rather than self-defining who they are and what they want to be and do, is pretty extremist. As in extremely backwards. "realizing their place in society" is code for the conservative belief in a Natural Moral Order(tm). Whites before blacks, rich before poor, men before women, etc. And if a black person is doing better than a white person, or a woman better than a man, etc., then that shit's gotta stop because it's unnatural. And that notion, I think you'll find an awful lot of people consider to be extremely... wrong.
The endgame of extremist feminists looks very like that of extremist religions, with women chastely covered up and seperated from the lecherous menfolk for fear they will be overcome by their urges.
Extreme chauvinists wouldn't come up with anything different, you know. Perhaps rather than slamming feminism as a whole because of a vocal minority, you could consider more mainstream views on it...
What's serious about a game? Seriously.
I dunno. Why do men scream at the TV and dance about in their underwear when their sports team is on? I mean, it's only a game...
Most at 30 are just smart enough to pretend otherwise to avoid arousing politically correct morons.
That's a new definition of "Fixing it" of which I was previously unaware. How does advocating treating women as people instead of objects turn them into politically correct morons? Do tell. And everyone else, grab some popcorn. There's about to be a roasting.