Bevelling is pretty advanced stuff for the Patent Office. Didn't really exist until, you know, about 2000 BC. Proximity sensors, on the other hand, has been around since we grew eyeballs. So I guess the takeaway here is, the Patent Office is in the stone age.
A lot of those workstations are also the employee's primary workstation, and access to the internet is needed for business purposes. Doctor's offices for example; There's an application in use by regional providers called 'mychart', which is a website patients can use to view test results and send/receive confidential messages from their providers. The doctors often have the patient sign up while at the clinic.
So while yes, there can be some circumstances where cutting off internet access is desireable or possible, it is not a pancea that works in all situations, as the GP suggested.
Yes, mostly due to the fact that we needed a way to get past the 4GB memory limitation, and not because we gave a damn about whether the processor was native x64 or not. AMD has had some great ideas, but they've almost always shorted themselves on the implimentation, leaving the field wide open for Intel to come in with a better offering and take the lion's share of the profit.
In case you haven't noticed, the Democrats are currently in power. If you have complaints, you should take them to the governing party, no?
If that's the case, then how come everything is stalled in Congress, the sequester is now in it's second month, and Obama's attempts to regulate guns have all failed? Having the majority in this country in only the executive branch and one of the houses of Congress doesn't make them "in power".
We were asked to come up with reasonable options, and the general consensus is to unplug these computers from the Internet.
Yes, I read the article. I simply happen to disagree with the conclusion. And there is no "general consensus" here. Slashdot posters do not represent the professional IT crowd anymore. They've been replaced by hipsters who think because they can ipod their interwebs, they're qualified to speak on these things.
No sympathy for someone with HIPAA data trying to get out of patching their system.
Yeah, upgrades that cost more than the company's IT budget, due to federal regulations and auditing, is definately a reason to have no sympathy. You're too small to succeed. Please go out of business now, so the larger businesses can continue to rake us over the coals with exorbinant fees and costs due to a lack of competition. The free market thanks you.
Now, if you had picked an example of someone who didn't have HIPAA data I'd point to options that could be done.
Yes, let's take on the low-hanging fruit that anyone here can offer solutions for, and ignore the person who's stuck high and dry and desperately in need of cost-effective alternatives that only people in our industry would be aware of.
However to be frank I am all out of sympathy for anyone in this situation.
Or perhaps, you're simply too inexperienced to know of a solution. Any good engineer doesn't care about the "sympathy factor". They care about knowing what solutions are available for the given circumstances, with the understanding that the constraints may have solid business reasons behind them.
They had years of advanced notice, yet they still refused to modernize something critical to their business that they knew they needed to.
Yes, because we know that projects involving hundreds of thousands of workstations, spread across all corners of the Earth, managed by many different people, in a heterogeneous and constantly-changing environment, each with differing needs, can be modernized simply, easily, and by anyone with a minimal level of training.
Time came that they could no longer be grandfathered in and all of a sudden a bunch of stations went out of business.
Yeah: The mom and pop operations that couldn't have implimented it anyway, even with ten years notice, because their profit margins were too small. Who lobbied for those changes again?
Why, because they didn't want to spend money for tanks that were resistant to leaks that could ruin the environment?
Or possibly because when they opened their business, the tanks were spec'd to last 50 years under existing law, and 20 years into their service life, new laws were passed that told them they had to be dug up and replaced. And considering this isn't cheap, not by a long shot, and these businesses had only saved up a fraction of the replacement cost by that point, failed.
A doctor that doesn't want to spend money to help prevent leaks (patient data) is no better than the gas station owner.
Yes, let's blame the doctors for the problem, and not the hospital administration, inept government, and greedy shareholders! That makes so much more sense.
It's a business expense just like any other and a business owner that refuses to give IT it's due as they should.
In other news, all business expenses are the same. Whether it's toilet paper or unplanned for major construction, shame on you for not planning ahead.
Quit supporting IT neglect by helping people like this out.
Yes. Stop doing your job, which is to engineer solutions in a resource-constrained environment. We should all have shiny new lab coats, brand new computers, and everything triply-redundant, before we even consider the project.
Much of this is due to people who think they're smart being duped by people who are smarter into thinking they need special software.
You haven't actually worked with these people professionally, have you? Let me explain something: The specialized software isn't because they've been "duped", it's because of complex federal regulations, for which only a select few software solutions have been certified as meeting. And it cost them an arm and a leg to install it, and let me tell you -- the specialized nature of, for example, healthcare records, means that upgrading isn't trivial. Again, not because of technical limitations, but regulatory.
Admittedly, there is certainly some software that has to be written for very narrow and specialized needs, but a lot of these needs can be met by pretty much off-the-shelf solutions implemented by people who know what they're doing.
Ahahahahahahaaaaaah. ha. haaaah. You're funny. You (and apparently many of the slashmods) believe that a company's going to purposefully and intentionally pick a higher-priced, super-specialized, locked-in and non-upgradable solution, and then hire specialists to install and support it... when an "off the shelf solution" implimented by "people who know what they're doing" can do it cheaper? And in what bizarro universe do managers do this?
I'd laugh at all this, but it's part of why our health care costs so damn much.
I'm not laughing. Neither is anyone else in the healthcare industry. We know it's bad. Everyone who's worked with them knows it. And there aren't any easy solutions. Unless of course really smart people, in just this one, teeny area, went full retard. Which is about the only way your conclusions could make any sense.
Prevent those few computers that are running the program from touching the Internet in anyway.
That's one of the stupidest things I've read on slashdot in awhile, and I'm really disappointed you got modded up for it. The main thing the average person uses their computer for is the internet. Poor people, especially, need it for things like, I don't know, looking for a job, paying bills, etc. The past 8 years, during which time Windows 7 debuted and XP was introduced, and then phased out, has been one continuous economic depression for many. The computers out there that many people are using are 5+ years old; They couldn't upgrade even if they wanted to.
So rather than suggesting that they just give up, log off, and throw away their computer, why not suggest something that might actually let them continue using the devices; Like switching to Linux. Maybe link to a distribution that will let them continue to use it to browse the internet, with the option to auto-upgrade for years to come.
Or, you know, we could throw them under the bus for being poor.
Where do I sign up to deliver machines without any quality control? I can do it much cheaper.
US Department of Homeland Security ATTN: Office of Security Technology System Planning and Evaluation Group Transportation Security Administration 601 South 12th Street Arlington, VA 22202-4220
Make sure you ask for their blanket immunity from prosecution plan, which also has options to avoid house oversight committees and contractual exemptions that all other federal agencies must comply with, like, for example, a requirement to choose the lowest-cost contract that meets requirements.
Now it's clear: They were waiting for a terrorist attack.
And yet I couldn't find a single comment in support, even right after a terrorist attack, on the webpage, until about 10 pages in. And you know what? It'd still be a bad idea even if there was a boston bomber situation every month from now until doomsday. But you know what they say about our most inept public agency... "You can't cure stupid."
The public would have TARGETED a half dozen people who LATER were determined to be not guilty for INVESTIGATION.
With emotions running high, 24/7 news coverage, that "the public" will behave in a perfectly rational, level-headed fashion. Also, I'm the Queen of England. The problem with your logic is that it isn't. When people are swept up in emotions, the mob mentality takes over. This is why every few years we get a story out of the south where they decided to lynch someone and when the federal government comes in to investigate... everyone says "Well, he just showed up there swinging from a tree one fine afternoon. Ain't nobody here knows why."
Look up the phrase Rule of Law sometime. Vigilantism is a step backwards. It's reverting to a more primitive social structure. The rule of law is about taking away the general public's enforcement of social values and rules and handing it over to a group that is trained to be impartial and fair; Because vigilantism is neither. And even mere accusations, especially in this day and age, can ruin a person's life. Every future employer, romantic partner, friend, etc., will now google for those people's names and it'll say "THIS DUDE WAS A TERRORIST". He's fucked.
And all it'll take is one crazy asshole to take the law into his own hands, and he won't just be fucked, he'll be dead. And some self-righteous asshat with a gun will use the defense in court "I thought he was a terrorist!" and he'll get a reduced sentence. Because that's how these things work. This is how you destroy innocent people.
, the fact that people can start leads anonymously, it all reeks of a really bad, lawless, unaccountable lynch mob.
Yes, but if you point that out, everyone jumps on you to shut you up. Asking even educated and highly literate people to restrain themselves is an excercise in futility. They will have their emotional satisfaction, dammit, and who cares who gets hurt? Yet these very same people rant about the ineptitude of government and the restriction of their civil liberties.
Well guys, take a good look: The government found the right people, in a targeted search, within days. The general public, would, and have, condemned a half dozen innocent people to spent the rest of their lives in fear. Very few will feel any remorse whatsoever for reposting these "crowdsourced" reports. The officers who investigated this, on the other hand, risked and gave their lives in pursuit of the actual criminals... and nobody else. If this is any indication, the government is far better at keeping you safe and preserving your freedoms than the general public is. And the government, at least, apologizes when they screw up -- usually with big piles of cash to the victims.
The vigilants can't say the same. Their only apology is that they're already looking for the next innocent to hang.
Who cares? What the GP is doing is counter-productive and even harmful to a high profile terrorism investigation. Are we really going to sit here and nitpick about what the "system was designed for" ?!
It may encourage vigilance (different from vigilantism), and even result in a credible tip. Why assume the worst?
Because everybody in the country knows about it by now. There's a finite number of people who can potentially and legitimately help the case, and a whole big, giant, seething ball of useless people who only think they're helpful but in reality are only making things worse. The people who can help know who they are, and hopefully by now have contacted the FBI... and not posted to their Facebook where it does almost no good.
The internet is a great tool, and as an IT professional I know this better than most. But I also know that the average person is a dumb, stupid animal, and if they get the idea that they can be a hero into their head, they may wind up getting themselves or someone else killed.
This is something the professionals need to handle, not people like you and me. People like you and me need to just sit back, watch the news, and let them do their job. I know how I feel whenever someone screws up a computer or piece of software because they thought they knew what they were doing -- it's a big reason why I get paid so much money. Right now, if I were working on this case, the one thing I'd want from someone like me, is to stay out of the way, and not make it worse.
To be fair to them, plenty of other sites picked out everyone with a backpack except those two as well.
To be fair to them, they aren't trained law enforcement officers with many years of experience identifying suspects. They shouldn't have been picking anyone out; They should have been submitting their photos, videos, and eyewitness accounts directly to the FBI instead of engaging in vigilantism.
Everyone on 4Chan and Reddit who engaged in such activity should be ashamed of themselves -- they've engaged in modern-day witch hunting, with potentially deadly consequences. If I could, I'd reach through my computer monitor and punch each and every one of them in the face. Hard.
None of you are going to "crack the case". The very most you'll accomplish is diverting valuable law enforcement resources during a critical window of opportunity. They've said what they need; If you can provide that, then do so. Otherwise shut up, get out of the way and let the professionals do their job.
And yes, I am being a bit harsh, but the stakes are high -- people's lives are at risk as long as the people responsible for this act of terrorism remain free. I have no sympathy whatsoever for 4Chan, Reddit, and the rest of the armchair internet sleuths. We've spent billions on homeland security preparing for exactly this -- now let them take care of it. We're paying enough for it as-is, without you asshats throwing monkey-wrenches into the process thinking you're "helping".
http://i.imgur.com/I1dF69f.jpg left of the screen with white hat
"For clarity, these images should be the only onesâ"the only onesâ"that the public should view to assist us. Other photos should not be deemed credible and unnecessarily divert the publicâ(TM)s attention in the wrong direction and create undue work for vital law enforcement resources." Source: FBI
Which part of that statement are you having apparent difficulty with? Please mod this person -1 without delay; The correct thing to do with images of potential suspects is to confidentially submit them to the FBI, not post them on the internet to encourage vigilantism. To borrow from the movie Serenity, "Do you know what a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed." Don't be a hero. Post it to the FBI, and let them do their job.
Validâ"and normally I'd defend that point myself; the irony of such a recent story condemning other sites for doing the same thing, however, was just too tempting. (And many do have communities themselves, though obviously not as well-developed.)
Nobody ever said the new management doesn't regularly open their mouth and insert their foot.
Don't blow a fuse; the answer was just in the news!
True, but a serious disaster is an event of national interest. Even special interest websites like this one are, in addition to being news sources, are also community gathering locations. Which means, we gather here to talk about what's going on in the world. Is there profit to be made? Sure. But there's also a discussion to be had. And our view into this news event may differ from that of the popular media; For example, there are chemical engineers who read this site. They may have something to say about how this happened. Maybe the fire suppression system failed -- maybe it was even due to a computer glitch. Whether it did or didn't, I can't really say. But the point is, we have a different perspective.
Also be aware when you say "predispositon to violence" you walk that razor's edge of falling prey to stereotypes.
I thought it was a pretty clear indication that he hadn't just walked it, but decided to make a running start and go leaping off.
In your words, "most other rational thinking people" often throw the stereotype around that if you grew up poor then you will be poor your whole life, that you will end up in jail as a criminal most likely for drugs or gang violence, an so on. A person should not be judged on where they came from, grew up, race, etc. Their own merits speak all on their own. Look at that.
In conservative circles, we refer to this kind of wild conjecture and vague allusionary statements as conclusive proof. See also: Fox news. And the funny thing is? People who run around screaming "I'm the sanest one here!" usually aren't, anymore than people who yell on internet forums "I'm rational! I'm so very, very rational!"...:)
That's a walking, quacking duck right there. So let's call it a duck ummkay?
"B-b-b-ut, that doesn't fit with my worldview, therefore it must be wrong!" See also: Cognitive dissonance. And my good man, you've hit upon a goldmine of it with the GP. He feels threatened by the idea that this sort of thing could happen to anyone and by anyone, I mean him. Because if an upstanding and heroic person can, through no fault of his own, go straight to crazytown, then that means that all the notions of punishment and fire and brimstone and raise the pitchforks hu-ra are all bullshit rationalizations... and what is needed here is compassion instead of vengance. But vengance feels so good... and compassion more like that bread they put out at the table while you wait for the main course.
So to answer your final question, why should we believe her over consensus? We shouldn't. We should give them equal consideration with the facts that we know. I know science and I know how mob rule works and mob rule is the last thing one should defer to.
Fair point. And I agree; I claim no special access to the truth. I am merely advocating the position that an enhanced understanding of the causes of violence will likely lead to more effective treatments for it. I haven't said anything, at any point, about the judicial response to what he did... which was to kill him. Whether it's a bear trying to eat members of the public, or a guy with a brain lesion trying to pump them full of lead, really makes no difference: You have to stop it.
But we don't have to stop asking questions once it's over.
For instance, I could say that Hitler was an artist, who had an accomplished military career, as well as a career in politics (which must mean he was popular, right?)
Well, he did win the popular vote, so I fail to see the problem here.
but looking through that Wikipedia article makes it fairly clear that his father was abusive, and he joined the military to get away from him. These two facts scream "predisposition to violence" to me, and I think most other rational thinking people.
And unfortunately, you'd be very wrong. There is no such thing as a "predisposition to violence". There are risk factors, but these are not predictive at an individual (micro) level, only at a macro level. Or put another way, if I run into a crowd and start shooting a gun into the air, I cannot predict how any particular individual will react in that situation... but I can predict to a reasonably high accuracy what the group will do.
Your comment, on the other hand, is your own statement of belief.
Statement of belief #1, by Dr. Michael Koenigs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Neuroscience Training Program. His conclusion? I'm right, you're wrong.
The informally-named Connally Commission also concluded that the brain lesion likely played a role in his violent impulses. This report was produced under the direction of the office of the Governor of Texas, and was prepared by medical experts with the sole purpose of answering the question I outlined earlier.
I could go on, if you'd like. Wikipedia is not the only citation I can provide, just the easiest.
I'm afraid I have to point out that the burden of proof lies with you,
Oh please. It's a well known fact that Bin Laden died his hair pink and cross-dressed after 9/11 up to his death. Terrorists are so predictable.
How come whenever we want to make fun of a man, we call him gay, or girlie, etc.? Did it ever occur to anyone that it's insulting to women? As though the worst thing a man can do is to act like a woman? I could give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut how Bin Laden was dressed, or was wearing a dress, or the color of his hair, or his sexual orientation.
The only thing I'm going to remember about the guy is he was the leader of an organization that claimed a lot of innocent lives before getting what he had coming to him. But implying that he was more (or less) of a man because of what he did is stupid -- he's still a man. A disgusting, evil, vile man, but still a man. And nothing he did changed that.
Slashdot Mirror
Motorola Loses ITC Case Against Against Apple for Proximity Sensor Patents
Error: Cyclic Redundancy Check failed while parsing headline.
but round corners can't?
Bevelling is pretty advanced stuff for the Patent Office. Didn't really exist until, you know, about 2000 BC. Proximity sensors, on the other hand, has been around since we grew eyeballs. So I guess the takeaway here is, the Patent Office is in the stone age.
For a business computer, it's not stupid at all.
A lot of those workstations are also the employee's primary workstation, and access to the internet is needed for business purposes. Doctor's offices for example; There's an application in use by regional providers called 'mychart', which is a website patients can use to view test results and send/receive confidential messages from their providers. The doctors often have the patient sign up while at the clinic.
So while yes, there can be some circumstances where cutting off internet access is desireable or possible, it is not a pancea that works in all situations, as the GP suggested.
But it worked out in the end.
Yes, mostly due to the fact that we needed a way to get past the 4GB memory limitation, and not because we gave a damn about whether the processor was native x64 or not. AMD has had some great ideas, but they've almost always shorted themselves on the implimentation, leaving the field wide open for Intel to come in with a better offering and take the lion's share of the profit.
In case you haven't noticed, the Democrats are currently in power. If you have complaints, you should take them to the governing party, no?
If that's the case, then how come everything is stalled in Congress, the sequester is now in it's second month, and Obama's attempts to regulate guns have all failed? Having the majority in this country in only the executive branch and one of the houses of Congress doesn't make them "in power".
We were asked to come up with reasonable options, and the general consensus is to unplug these computers from the Internet.
Yes, I read the article. I simply happen to disagree with the conclusion. And there is no "general consensus" here. Slashdot posters do not represent the professional IT crowd anymore. They've been replaced by hipsters who think because they can ipod their interwebs, they're qualified to speak on these things.
No sympathy for someone with HIPAA data trying to get out of patching their system.
Yeah, upgrades that cost more than the company's IT budget, due to federal regulations and auditing, is definately a reason to have no sympathy. You're too small to succeed. Please go out of business now, so the larger businesses can continue to rake us over the coals with exorbinant fees and costs due to a lack of competition. The free market thanks you.
Now, if you had picked an example of someone who didn't have HIPAA data I'd point to options that could be done.
Yes, let's take on the low-hanging fruit that anyone here can offer solutions for, and ignore the person who's stuck high and dry and desperately in need of cost-effective alternatives that only people in our industry would be aware of.
However to be frank I am all out of sympathy for anyone in this situation.
Or perhaps, you're simply too inexperienced to know of a solution. Any good engineer doesn't care about the "sympathy factor". They care about knowing what solutions are available for the given circumstances, with the understanding that the constraints may have solid business reasons behind them.
They had years of advanced notice, yet they still refused to modernize something critical to their business that they knew they needed to.
Yes, because we know that projects involving hundreds of thousands of workstations, spread across all corners of the Earth, managed by many different people, in a heterogeneous and constantly-changing environment, each with differing needs, can be modernized simply, easily, and by anyone with a minimal level of training.
Time came that they could no longer be grandfathered in and all of a sudden a bunch of stations went out of business.
Yeah: The mom and pop operations that couldn't have implimented it anyway, even with ten years notice, because their profit margins were too small. Who lobbied for those changes again?
Why, because they didn't want to spend money for tanks that were resistant to leaks that could ruin the environment?
Or possibly because when they opened their business, the tanks were spec'd to last 50 years under existing law, and 20 years into their service life, new laws were passed that told them they had to be dug up and replaced. And considering this isn't cheap, not by a long shot, and these businesses had only saved up a fraction of the replacement cost by that point, failed.
A doctor that doesn't want to spend money to help prevent leaks (patient data) is no better than the gas station owner.
Yes, let's blame the doctors for the problem, and not the hospital administration, inept government, and greedy shareholders! That makes so much more sense.
It's a business expense just like any other and a business owner that refuses to give IT it's due as they should.
In other news, all business expenses are the same. Whether it's toilet paper or unplanned for major construction, shame on you for not planning ahead.
Quit supporting IT neglect by helping people like this out.
Yes. Stop doing your job, which is to engineer solutions in a resource-constrained environment. We should all have shiny new lab coats, brand new computers, and everything triply-redundant, before we even consider the project.
Much of this is due to people who think they're smart being duped by people who are smarter into thinking they need special software.
You haven't actually worked with these people professionally, have you? Let me explain something: The specialized software isn't because they've been "duped", it's because of complex federal regulations, for which only a select few software solutions have been certified as meeting. And it cost them an arm and a leg to install it, and let me tell you -- the specialized nature of, for example, healthcare records, means that upgrading isn't trivial. Again, not because of technical limitations, but regulatory.
Admittedly, there is certainly some software that has to be written for very narrow and specialized needs, but a lot of these needs can be met by pretty much off-the-shelf solutions implemented by people who know what they're doing.
Ahahahahahahaaaaaah. ha. haaaah. You're funny. You (and apparently many of the slashmods) believe that a company's going to purposefully and intentionally pick a higher-priced, super-specialized, locked-in and non-upgradable solution, and then hire specialists to install and support it... when an "off the shelf solution" implimented by "people who know what they're doing" can do it cheaper? And in what bizarro universe do managers do this?
I'd laugh at all this, but it's part of why our health care costs so damn much.
I'm not laughing. Neither is anyone else in the healthcare industry. We know it's bad. Everyone who's worked with them knows it. And there aren't any easy solutions. Unless of course really smart people, in just this one, teeny area, went full retard. Which is about the only way your conclusions could make any sense.
Prevent those few computers that are running the program from touching the Internet in anyway.
That's one of the stupidest things I've read on slashdot in awhile, and I'm really disappointed you got modded up for it. The main thing the average person uses their computer for is the internet. Poor people, especially, need it for things like, I don't know, looking for a job, paying bills, etc. The past 8 years, during which time Windows 7 debuted and XP was introduced, and then phased out, has been one continuous economic depression for many. The computers out there that many people are using are 5+ years old; They couldn't upgrade even if they wanted to.
So rather than suggesting that they just give up, log off, and throw away their computer, why not suggest something that might actually let them continue using the devices; Like switching to Linux. Maybe link to a distribution that will let them continue to use it to browse the internet, with the option to auto-upgrade for years to come.
Or, you know, we could throw them under the bus for being poor.
Where do I sign up to deliver machines without any quality control? I can do it much cheaper.
US Department of Homeland Security
ATTN: Office of Security Technology System Planning and Evaluation Group
Transportation Security Administration
601 South 12th Street
Arlington, VA 22202-4220
Make sure you ask for their blanket immunity from prosecution plan, which also has options to avoid house oversight committees and contractual exemptions that all other federal agencies must comply with, like, for example, a requirement to choose the lowest-cost contract that meets requirements.
Now it's clear: They were waiting for a terrorist attack.
And yet I couldn't find a single comment in support, even right after a terrorist attack, on the webpage, until about 10 pages in. And you know what? It'd still be a bad idea even if there was a boston bomber situation every month from now until doomsday. But you know what they say about our most inept public agency... "You can't cure stupid."
Just checking: are drone strikes, domestic spying, overzealous prosecution, and all the other things we usually rant about, still bad?
It's bad when other governments and people kill our citizens. It's good when our own government kills our citizens.
The public would have TARGETED a half dozen people who LATER were determined to be not guilty for INVESTIGATION.
With emotions running high, 24/7 news coverage, that "the public" will behave in a perfectly rational, level-headed fashion. Also, I'm the Queen of England. The problem with your logic is that it isn't. When people are swept up in emotions, the mob mentality takes over. This is why every few years we get a story out of the south where they decided to lynch someone and when the federal government comes in to investigate... everyone says "Well, he just showed up there swinging from a tree one fine afternoon. Ain't nobody here knows why."
Look up the phrase Rule of Law sometime. Vigilantism is a step backwards. It's reverting to a more primitive social structure. The rule of law is about taking away the general public's enforcement of social values and rules and handing it over to a group that is trained to be impartial and fair; Because vigilantism is neither. And even mere accusations, especially in this day and age, can ruin a person's life. Every future employer, romantic partner, friend, etc., will now google for those people's names and it'll say "THIS DUDE WAS A TERRORIST". He's fucked.
And all it'll take is one crazy asshole to take the law into his own hands, and he won't just be fucked, he'll be dead. And some self-righteous asshat with a gun will use the defense in court "I thought he was a terrorist!" and he'll get a reduced sentence. Because that's how these things work. This is how you destroy innocent people.
And you're defending this shit. You asshole.
, the fact that people can start leads anonymously, it all reeks of a really bad, lawless, unaccountable lynch mob.
Yes, but if you point that out, everyone jumps on you to shut you up. Asking even educated and highly literate people to restrain themselves is an excercise in futility. They will have their emotional satisfaction, dammit, and who cares who gets hurt? Yet these very same people rant about the ineptitude of government and the restriction of their civil liberties.
Well guys, take a good look: The government found the right people, in a targeted search, within days. The general public, would, and have, condemned a half dozen innocent people to spent the rest of their lives in fear. Very few will feel any remorse whatsoever for reposting these "crowdsourced" reports. The officers who investigated this, on the other hand, risked and gave their lives in pursuit of the actual criminals... and nobody else. If this is any indication, the government is far better at keeping you safe and preserving your freedoms than the general public is. And the government, at least, apologizes when they screw up -- usually with big piles of cash to the victims.
The vigilants can't say the same. Their only apology is that they're already looking for the next innocent to hang.
Professionals built the Titanic; amateurs built the Ark.
The Titanic actually existed.
That's not what the mod system is for.
Who cares? What the GP is doing is counter-productive and even harmful to a high profile terrorism investigation. Are we really going to sit here and nitpick about what the "system was designed for" ?!
It may encourage vigilance (different from vigilantism), and even result in a credible tip. Why assume the worst?
Because everybody in the country knows about it by now. There's a finite number of people who can potentially and legitimately help the case, and a whole big, giant, seething ball of useless people who only think they're helpful but in reality are only making things worse. The people who can help know who they are, and hopefully by now have contacted the FBI... and not posted to their Facebook where it does almost no good.
The internet is a great tool, and as an IT professional I know this better than most. But I also know that the average person is a dumb, stupid animal, and if they get the idea that they can be a hero into their head, they may wind up getting themselves or someone else killed.
This is something the professionals need to handle, not people like you and me. People like you and me need to just sit back, watch the news, and let them do their job. I know how I feel whenever someone screws up a computer or piece of software because they thought they knew what they were doing -- it's a big reason why I get paid so much money. Right now, if I were working on this case, the one thing I'd want from someone like me, is to stay out of the way, and not make it worse.
To be fair to them, plenty of other sites picked out everyone with a backpack except those two as well.
To be fair to them, they aren't trained law enforcement officers with many years of experience identifying suspects. They shouldn't have been picking anyone out; They should have been submitting their photos, videos, and eyewitness accounts directly to the FBI instead of engaging in vigilantism.
Everyone on 4Chan and Reddit who engaged in such activity should be ashamed of themselves -- they've engaged in modern-day witch hunting, with potentially deadly consequences. If I could, I'd reach through my computer monitor and punch each and every one of them in the face. Hard.
None of you are going to "crack the case". The very most you'll accomplish is diverting valuable law enforcement resources during a critical window of opportunity. They've said what they need; If you can provide that, then do so. Otherwise shut up, get out of the way and let the professionals do their job.
And yes, I am being a bit harsh, but the stakes are high -- people's lives are at risk as long as the people responsible for this act of terrorism remain free. I have no sympathy whatsoever for 4Chan, Reddit, and the rest of the armchair internet sleuths. We've spent billions on homeland security preparing for exactly this -- now let them take care of it. We're paying enough for it as-is, without you asshats throwing monkey-wrenches into the process thinking you're "helping".
http://i.imgur.com/I1dF69f.jpg left of the screen with white hat
"For clarity, these images should be the only onesâ"the only onesâ"that the public should view to assist us. Other photos should not be deemed credible and unnecessarily divert the publicâ(TM)s attention in the wrong direction and create undue work for vital law enforcement resources." Source: FBI
Which part of that statement are you having apparent difficulty with? Please mod this person -1 without delay; The correct thing to do with images of potential suspects is to confidentially submit them to the FBI, not post them on the internet to encourage vigilantism. To borrow from the movie Serenity, "Do you know what a hero is? Someone who gets other people killed." Don't be a hero. Post it to the FBI, and let them do their job.
1 in 20 infected machines implies there is something wrong.
Yes. Criminals have discovered they can make money screwing up other people's computers.
Validâ"and normally I'd defend that point myself; the irony of such a recent story condemning other sites for doing the same thing, however, was just too tempting. (And many do have communities themselves, though obviously not as well-developed.)
Nobody ever said the new management doesn't regularly open their mouth and insert their foot.
Don't blow a fuse; the answer was just in the news!
True, but a serious disaster is an event of national interest. Even special interest websites like this one are, in addition to being news sources, are also community gathering locations. Which means, we gather here to talk about what's going on in the world. Is there profit to be made? Sure. But there's also a discussion to be had. And our view into this news event may differ from that of the popular media; For example, there are chemical engineers who read this site. They may have something to say about how this happened. Maybe the fire suppression system failed -- maybe it was even due to a computer glitch. Whether it did or didn't, I can't really say. But the point is, we have a different perspective.
Also be aware when you say "predispositon to violence" you walk that razor's edge of falling prey to stereotypes.
I thought it was a pretty clear indication that he hadn't just walked it, but decided to make a running start and go leaping off.
In your words, "most other rational thinking people" often throw the stereotype around that if you grew up poor then you will be poor your whole life, that you will end up in jail as a criminal most likely for drugs or gang violence, an so on. A person should not be judged on where they came from, grew up, race, etc. Their own merits speak all on their own. Look at that.
In conservative circles, we refer to this kind of wild conjecture and vague allusionary statements as conclusive proof. See also: Fox news. And the funny thing is? People who run around screaming "I'm the sanest one here!" usually aren't, anymore than people who yell on internet forums "I'm rational! I'm so very, very rational!" ... :)
That's a walking, quacking duck right there. So let's call it a duck ummkay?
"B-b-b-ut, that doesn't fit with my worldview, therefore it must be wrong!" See also: Cognitive dissonance. And my good man, you've hit upon a goldmine of it with the GP. He feels threatened by the idea that this sort of thing could happen to anyone and by anyone, I mean him. Because if an upstanding and heroic person can, through no fault of his own, go straight to crazytown, then that means that all the notions of punishment and fire and brimstone and raise the pitchforks hu-ra are all bullshit rationalizations... and what is needed here is compassion instead of vengance. But vengance feels so good... and compassion more like that bread they put out at the table while you wait for the main course.
So to answer your final question, why should we believe her over consensus? We shouldn't. We should give them equal consideration with the facts that we know. I know science and I know how mob rule works and mob rule is the last thing one should defer to.
Fair point. And I agree; I claim no special access to the truth. I am merely advocating the position that an enhanced understanding of the causes of violence will likely lead to more effective treatments for it. I haven't said anything, at any point, about the judicial response to what he did... which was to kill him. Whether it's a bear trying to eat members of the public, or a guy with a brain lesion trying to pump them full of lead, really makes no difference: You have to stop it.
But we don't have to stop asking questions once it's over.
For instance, I could say that Hitler was an artist, who had an accomplished military career, as well as a career in politics (which must mean he was popular, right?)
Well, he did win the popular vote, so I fail to see the problem here.
but looking through that Wikipedia article makes it fairly clear that his father was abusive, and he joined the military to get away from him. These two facts scream "predisposition to violence" to me, and I think most other rational thinking people.
And unfortunately, you'd be very wrong. There is no such thing as a "predisposition to violence". There are risk factors, but these are not predictive at an individual (micro) level, only at a macro level. Or put another way, if I run into a crowd and start shooting a gun into the air, I cannot predict how any particular individual will react in that situation... but I can predict to a reasonably high accuracy what the group will do.
Your comment, on the other hand, is your own statement of belief.
Statement of belief #1, by Dr. Michael Koenigs of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Neuroscience Training Program. His conclusion? I'm right, you're wrong.
The informally-named Connally Commission also concluded that the brain lesion likely played a role in his violent impulses. This report was produced under the direction of the office of the Governor of Texas, and was prepared by medical experts with the sole purpose of answering the question I outlined earlier.
I could go on, if you'd like. Wikipedia is not the only citation I can provide, just the easiest.
I'm afraid I have to point out that the burden of proof lies with you,
*punt* Your turn.
"I don't understand... it worked fine in the lab."
Oh please. It's a well known fact that Bin Laden died his hair pink and cross-dressed after 9/11 up to his death. Terrorists are so predictable.
How come whenever we want to make fun of a man, we call him gay, or girlie, etc.? Did it ever occur to anyone that it's insulting to women? As though the worst thing a man can do is to act like a woman? I could give a flying fuck through a rolling doughnut how Bin Laden was dressed, or was wearing a dress, or the color of his hair, or his sexual orientation.
The only thing I'm going to remember about the guy is he was the leader of an organization that claimed a lot of innocent lives before getting what he had coming to him. But implying that he was more (or less) of a man because of what he did is stupid -- he's still a man. A disgusting, evil, vile man, but still a man. And nothing he did changed that.