Taking home the new ipad3, turning it on for the first time, excited for the fast download speed and massive processor, and the first message that appears: You have exceeded your bandwidth quota for the month. All network apps disabled
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, just because you can download a lot of data quickly doesn't mean you have to, and it definitely doesn't mean the device will automatically do that when you power it on.
While it may keep joe blow from bringing a gun on a flight just to make a point, it doesn't do a thing to a terrorist because they know they are going to get through because they have studied the system and know what they are doing.
This line of reasoning would be more convincing if there had been a rash of successful terrorists on planes after 9/11.
However, there have only been a couple of terrorists on planes, and those that did get on a plane were unsuccessful because the weapons they brought with them were ineffective (and not to put too fine a point on it, stupid). The fact that the only terrorists to actually get on planes with weapons were resorting to ineffective tricks like underwear bombs, rather than the tried-and-true methods they had used in the past, suggests that perhaps something is working. Either that or the IQ of the average terrorist has gone down since 2001... which I suppose isn't out of the question either.
Some how I sincerely doubt any terrorists were fooled, just you:)
I wouldn't put too much faith in the intellectual capacity of terrorist if I were you. Keep in mind that these are people who have been convinced that they should kill themselves because after they die they will get to have sex with dozens of virgins. So it's not like they are terribly hard to fool.
(And as far as whether or not they would believe US news sources... don't discount the propaganda power of shiny high-tech gadgetry, either. You may recall that one of the big issues in Iraq was that Iraqis were convinced that soldiers' sunglasses had x-ray capabilities that could see underneath womens' clothing. Foreigners are just as susceptible as Americans to the "ooh, it's big and expensive and has lots of blinking lights, therefore it must have amazing capabilities" line of thought)
This is all fake. It's all BS masquerading as doing something for the sake of security.
So your proposal is not to have any security, and hope for the best? How do you suppose that would be viewed in retrospect after the next (inevitable) terrorist attack on a plane?
Or would you prefer instead to implement 100% effective security, that involves every passenger being stripped naked, anesthetized, packed into a shipping container for the duration of the flight, and revived only after being removed from the plane at the destination?
It's easy to criticize the TSA's policies as being circumventable, but it's not like maximizing security is the only directive (or even the primary constraint) they have to operate under. They have to keep things as secure as possible while at the same time keeping it at least minimally practical to fly, otherwise the entire airline industry would go out of business, defeating the purpose of the exercise.
I mean, nobody would give a shit if a few hundred people got blown up waiting to take their shoes off and walk though a body scanner right?
Of course everybody would be unhappy about that, but unless you want to outlaw all public gatherings, there's not much that can be done about that. If we somehow got rid of crowds at the airport, we'd still have crowds at the mall, or the skating rink, or the parade, etc etc etc. Finding a crowd of people and blowing it up will always be an option for terrorists.
The key point is that you seem to have missed is that the terrorists cannot turn the security line at (your favorite airport) into a giant guided missile and fly it into (your favorite important structure). That is the primary reason for the security gates at airports -- not the safety of the people in the line.
I saw a recent idea that involved painting it white in order to decrease absorptivity.
The real trick is to make it look like you're having so much fun repainting it that all the other countries demand to be allowed to repaint it as well.
Having worked some years at a Mac Repair shop, I can tell you that OS X is the most unstable POS operating system I have ever had the displeasure of working with.
So none of the Macs sent in to the repair shop were working correctly? How odd.
The last thing we need is ANOTHER country with nuclear weapons. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I suppose we should have thought of that before invading Iraq on a whim -- which we were able to do precisely because Iraq didn't actually have any WMDs. Compare that to how North Korea gets treated with kid gloves, because it does in fact have nukes. There won't be an invasion of North Korea any time soon, no matter how evil its government may be.
If I was the Iranian government watching those two scenarios play out, I know which side of the nuclear fence I'd want to be on.
Human nature, being human nature, we should know when to put a stop before it becomes too late
Since when has knowing when to stop ever been part of human nature? We'll stop when the oil runs out, or when the Y2.038k bug has reduced us all to cannibalism (whichever comes first)... and not a moment before.:^P
Of that 46% know how to use their smart phone to it's full potential. Most of them just have them because it is the "in thing" to own.
... and if you think that's shocking, just wait until you hear what percentage of computer owners have yet to write their first computer program. Or what percentage of car owners haven't entered a single road rally.
A "bank leaving the combination to its safe out" would get many articles written about it, and rightly so. If your intent was to indicate that this event wasn't newsworthy, then I think you need to come up with a different analogy.
It's irreplaceable in the sense that Bitcoin transactions can not be reversed.
That would be 'irreversible', not irreplaceable. Obviously the stolen bitcoins can be replaced by transferring an equivalent number of bitcoins to victims' accounts.
It's not as if a particular BitCoin ID string is of great sentimental value to anyone here; it's the value of the stolen coins that is the issue. Bitcoins are fungible.
Power often fails in earthquakes.....or does the system come with an instant start generator.
One likely possibility is that they keep a container of pre-compressed air on standby underneath the house. Then all the system has to do when the earthquake hits is open a valve to let the compressed air escape -- no power source necessary. (of course, this would mean you'd have to make trade-offs between container size, container pressure, and levitation duration... dunno if it would be practical or not)
Why would making the camera wireless save money? A modern car is already full of electrical wires, so running one more signal wire to the camera isn't going to make a difference, especially considering the camera needs a wire to power it anyway.
then the government can watch us (from the car ahead)
Would government spooks be driving in the lane next to every car in order to pick up the signal, or are you imagining that every backup-camera on the road will transmit a signal strong enough to be picked up by satellite?
It would seem that your urge to spread FUD about the government has overpowered your ability to think logically.
If they aren't paying attention their mirrors and turning round to look in their blind spots - what makes you think that they will pay attention to a screen on their dash?
I think this is a good point -- on the other hand, some camera systems will also beep when they detect that you are about to back into something. Assuming those systems don't generate a lot of false positives, the beeping sound would grab the driver's attention and get them to hit the break while they had a look back. (of course, it might also train them not to look when backing up, since no beep == no problem, right? Hmm...)
what idiot lets their toddler out in the driveway alone to wave goodbye to someone?
They're called "toddlers" because they know how to "toddle", i.e. walk around by themselves. That means that all it takes is you looking away from them for 5 seconds and they could be behind the Canyonero before you look back.
if the kid is too young to not know that standing behind a backing up car is dangerous, he's too young to be out running around by himself and it's 100% the fault of whoever is supposed to be watching them.
You're right -- but blaming the grieving parents for their 5 seconds of inattention won't bring their dead child back, or save the next one either. In particular if your solution is to demand that parents never make a mistake, ever -- well, that's not a solution at all, it's just a way to make yourself feel better by blaming someone else.
A search for the town shows pictures of the accident because Google chooses to have an algorithm that does so, not because having that happen is a natural result of searching.
Unless you are claiming that someone at Google is deliberately going out of his/her way to explicitly manipulate the results that turn up when someone googles the name of the this campsite, then I think it is fair to call what happens "a natural result of searching". What general ranking algorithm Google uses isn't relevant; its results are (by definition) the natural results for that algorithm.
then it is reasonable for someone to request that Google not do this in a manner which causes them financial damage
Sure. You can request anything you like, and it is then up to Google to decide whether or not they want to comply with your request. But it's Google's web page, and Google's server, and Google's search algorithm, so unless/until Google becomes a regulated public utility, Google gets the final say about what content they put on their site. People who don't like Google's service can apply for a refund.
What you are really saying is that your vendor is slow to get a clue about parallel programming.
Maybe there are CNC algorithms that aren't easily parallelizable. Or (more likely) they can be paralellized, but the CNC development teams haven't got around to doing that yet. It doesn't really matter which as far as the consumer is concerned -- in either case, they will want a chip that maximizes single-threaded performance. Finger-pointing doesn't help them one bit, but fast CPUs might.
Completely incorrect - but when did that ever get in the way of making a buck?
I submit that there is a distance from ground zero at which chances of in-fridge survival are in fact 50/50. Computing the distance is left as an exercise for the fanboy.
Note that I referred to logic, not "common sense" or "intuition".
Even logic is based on "common sense" at its lowest level. Logicians just refer to the "common sense" bits as "axioms". There is no iron-clad guarantee that the axioms are valid in all cases.
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Taking home the new ipad3, turning it on for the first time, excited for the fast download speed and massive processor, and the first message that appears: You have exceeded your bandwidth quota for the month. All network apps disabled
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, just because you can download a lot of data quickly doesn't mean you have to, and it definitely doesn't mean the device will automatically do that when you power it on.
While it may keep joe blow from bringing a gun on a flight just to make a point, it doesn't do a thing to a terrorist because they know they are going to get through because they have studied the system and know what they are doing.
This line of reasoning would be more convincing if there had been a rash of successful terrorists on planes after 9/11.
However, there have only been a couple of terrorists on planes, and those that did get on a plane were unsuccessful because the weapons they brought with them were ineffective (and not to put too fine a point on it, stupid). The fact that the only terrorists to actually get on planes with weapons were resorting to ineffective tricks like underwear bombs, rather than the tried-and-true methods they had used in the past, suggests that perhaps something is working. Either that or the IQ of the average terrorist has gone down since 2001... which I suppose isn't out of the question either.
Some how I sincerely doubt any terrorists were fooled, just you :)
I wouldn't put too much faith in the intellectual capacity of terrorist if I were you. Keep in mind that these are people who have been convinced that they should kill themselves because after they die they will get to have sex with dozens of virgins. So it's not like they are terribly hard to fool.
(And as far as whether or not they would believe US news sources... don't discount the propaganda power of shiny high-tech gadgetry, either. You may recall that one of the big issues in Iraq was that Iraqis were convinced that soldiers' sunglasses had x-ray capabilities that could see underneath womens' clothing. Foreigners are just as susceptible as Americans to the "ooh, it's big and expensive and has lots of blinking lights, therefore it must have amazing capabilities" line of thought)
This is all fake. It's all BS masquerading as doing something for the sake of security.
So your proposal is not to have any security, and hope for the best? How do you suppose that would be viewed in retrospect after the next (inevitable) terrorist attack on a plane?
Or would you prefer instead to implement 100% effective security, that involves every passenger being stripped naked, anesthetized, packed into a shipping container for the duration of the flight, and revived only after being removed from the plane at the destination?
It's easy to criticize the TSA's policies as being circumventable, but it's not like maximizing security is the only directive (or even the primary constraint) they have to operate under. They have to keep things as secure as possible while at the same time keeping it at least minimally practical to fly, otherwise the entire airline industry would go out of business, defeating the purpose of the exercise.
I mean, nobody would give a shit if a few hundred people got blown up waiting to take their shoes off and walk though a body scanner right?
Of course everybody would be unhappy about that, but unless you want to outlaw all public gatherings, there's not much that can be done about that. If we somehow got rid of crowds at the airport, we'd still have crowds at the mall, or the skating rink, or the parade, etc etc etc. Finding a crowd of people and blowing it up will always be an option for terrorists.
The key point is that you seem to have missed is that the terrorists cannot turn the security line at (your favorite airport) into a giant guided missile and fly it into (your favorite important structure). That is the primary reason for the security gates at airports -- not the safety of the people in the line.
"Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither." ~Ben Franklin
Those who misquote Ben Franklin do their cause a disservice.
Here's the actual quote. Note the qualifiers:
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I saw a recent idea that involved painting it white in order to decrease absorptivity.
The real trick is to make it look like you're having so much fun repainting it that all the other countries demand to be allowed to repaint it as well.
Having worked some years at a Mac Repair shop, I can tell you that OS X is the most unstable POS operating system I have ever had the displeasure of working with.
So none of the Macs sent in to the repair shop were working correctly? How odd.
The last thing we need is ANOTHER country with nuclear weapons. Two wrongs don't make a right.
I suppose we should have thought of that before invading Iraq on a whim -- which we were able to do precisely because Iraq didn't actually have any WMDs. Compare that to how North Korea gets treated with kid gloves, because it does in fact have nukes. There won't be an invasion of North Korea any time soon, no matter how evil its government may be.
If I was the Iranian government watching those two scenarios play out, I know which side of the nuclear fence I'd want to be on.
If you think we've got it bad, imagine how they feel.
Human nature, being human nature, we should know when to put a stop before it becomes too late
Since when has knowing when to stop ever been part of human nature? We'll stop when the oil runs out, or when the Y2.038k bug has reduced us all to cannibalism (whichever comes first)... and not a moment before. :^P
Of that 46% know how to use their smart phone to it's full potential. Most of them just have them because it is the "in thing" to own.
... and if you think that's shocking, just wait until you hear what percentage of computer owners have yet to write their first computer program. Or what percentage of car owners haven't entered a single road rally.
Let's write a news article about it
A "bank leaving the combination to its safe out" would get many articles written about it, and rightly so. If your intent was to indicate that this event wasn't newsworthy, then I think you need to come up with a different analogy.
It's irreplaceable in the sense that Bitcoin transactions can not be reversed.
That would be 'irreversible', not irreplaceable. Obviously the stolen bitcoins can be replaced by transferring an equivalent number of bitcoins to victims' accounts.
It's not as if a particular BitCoin ID string is of great sentimental value to anyone here; it's the value of the stolen coins that is the issue. Bitcoins are fungible.
For planes and airships there's that whole "Oh no we're losing altitude, let's push the fat guy out" trope.
Yes, that was one of the shortcomings of their previous system design
Power often fails in earthquakes.....or does the system come with an instant start generator.
One likely possibility is that they keep a container of pre-compressed air on standby underneath the house. Then all the system has to do when the earthquake hits is open a valve to let the compressed air escape -- no power source necessary. (of course, this would mean you'd have to make trade-offs between container size, container pressure, and levitation duration... dunno if it would be practical or not)
what if the power is knocked out in 500ms or less?
Not to worry, they've got nuclear power in Japan, it's proven to be very reliable during an earthquake. :^P
If they make the camera wireless (to save money)
Why would making the camera wireless save money? A modern car is already full of electrical wires, so running one more signal wire to the camera isn't going to make a difference, especially considering the camera needs a wire to power it anyway.
then the government can watch us (from the car ahead)
Would government spooks be driving in the lane next to every car in order to pick up the signal, or are you imagining that every backup-camera on the road will transmit a signal strong enough to be picked up by satellite?
It would seem that your urge to spread FUD about the government has overpowered your ability to think logically.
If they aren't paying attention their mirrors and turning round to look in their blind spots - what makes you think that they will pay attention to a screen on their dash?
I think this is a good point -- on the other hand, some camera systems will also beep when they detect that you are about to back into something. Assuming those systems don't generate a lot of false positives, the beeping sound would grab the driver's attention and get them to hit the break while they had a look back. (of course, it might also train them not to look when backing up, since no beep == no problem, right? Hmm...)
what idiot lets their toddler out in the driveway alone to wave goodbye to someone?
They're called "toddlers" because they know how to "toddle", i.e. walk around by themselves. That means that all it takes is you looking away from them for 5 seconds and they could be behind the Canyonero before you look back.
if the kid is too young to not know that standing behind a backing up car is dangerous, he's too young to be out running around by himself and it's 100% the fault of whoever is supposed to be watching them.
You're right -- but blaming the grieving parents for their 5 seconds of inattention won't bring their dead child back, or save the next one either. In particular if your solution is to demand that parents never make a mistake, ever -- well, that's not a solution at all, it's just a way to make yourself feel better by blaming someone else.
A search for the town shows pictures of the accident because Google chooses to have an algorithm that does so, not because having that happen is a natural result of searching.
Unless you are claiming that someone at Google is deliberately going out of his/her way to explicitly manipulate the results that turn up when someone googles the name of the this campsite, then I think it is fair to call what happens "a natural result of searching". What general ranking algorithm Google uses isn't relevant; its results are (by definition) the natural results for that algorithm.
then it is reasonable for someone to request that Google not do this in a manner which causes them financial damage
Sure. You can request anything you like, and it is then up to Google to decide whether or not they want to comply with your request. But it's Google's web page, and Google's server, and Google's search algorithm, so unless/until Google becomes a regulated public utility, Google gets the final say about what content they put on their site. People who don't like Google's service can apply for a refund.
What you are really saying is that your vendor is slow to get a clue about parallel programming.
Maybe there are CNC algorithms that aren't easily parallelizable. Or (more likely) they can be paralellized, but the CNC development teams haven't got around to doing that yet. It doesn't really matter which as far as the consumer is concerned -- in either case, they will want a chip that maximizes single-threaded performance. Finger-pointing doesn't help them one bit, but fast CPUs might.
Anyway, how is one supposed to be "efficient" with regards to JPG, MP3, and other highly-compressed file formats?
You can recover up to 50% of your drive space by switching your collection over to midget-pr0n.
Completely incorrect - but when did that ever get in the way of making a buck?
I submit that there is a distance from ground zero at which chances of in-fridge survival are in fact 50/50. Computing the distance is left as an exercise for the fanboy.
Note that I referred to logic, not "common sense" or "intuition".
Even logic is based on "common sense" at its lowest level. Logicians just refer to the "common sense" bits as "axioms". There is no iron-clad guarantee that the axioms are valid in all cases.