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User: sycodon

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  1. Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 1

    Well said.

  2. Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 1

    You cannot. The nation can.

    Some would say replacing Bush with Obama is a great example.

  3. Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 1

    Killing people and breaking things is often in the national interest when others are trying to do the same to you.

  4. Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 1

    I suspect that Wikileaks does not care about the difference considering that they have apparently posted the answers to a Red Hat Certified Engineer's exam.

  5. Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 1

    The answer is that you trust the people you elect to make decisions that are in the best interest of the country. If you elect people that do not do this, then vote them out. It's slow, it's tedious, but it is the right way to do it.

    Wikileaks is quick, but it is reckless, with the potential to wreak havoc, and is the wrong way to do it.

  6. Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 1

    Your ATM PIN code is secret, is it not?

    The location of our nuclear warheads is secret, is it not?

    The location of the emergency shelters for the Executive Branch is secret...OK, Biden fucked that up.

    There are some things that need to be kept under wraps.

  7. Re:The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 1, Insightful

    So, to go to the extreme, if someone decided to leak our nuclear launch codes, you would be OK with that? Or how about leaking information that could end up making it easier to take out the President?

    Nothing in your support for wikileaks discounts that. You would be relying on them to judge whether is would be an appropriate leak.

    Where do you draw the line? What is your process for deciding? Do they have one? What is it? Who makes the final call?

    Our current system has answers for all of that, even though people may not like the answer, there is still a process.

  8. The problem with Wikileaks is... on WikiLeaks' Daniel Schmitt Speaks · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The U.S. has set up over the last two centuries a means by which information that should be kept secret is kept secret and information that should be public is public. By and large, this works, despite some well publicized failures. Legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act, etc. has proved to be a means to uncover unsavory facts that would see the light of day despite the wishes of unsavory politicians. All of this takes place in the well defined arena of law and politics.

    Wikileaks would throw all of this out and make themselves (the collective leakers) the sole arbiter of what is in the national interest and what is not with respect to keeping secrets. They do this without realizing the potential impact to national security or potential diplomatic damage that, while the leaker may think is justified and deserved, is more damaging to the U.S. (or other country subject to a wikileak) than the leaker realizes. They can't know the potential impact because they do not have access to the entire picture.

    So what wikileaks does is to substitute the judgment of a system, made of up of untold knowledgeable individuals, with the judgment of one or two cranks with an ax to grind. The cranks may be right sometimes, but I think more often that not they will be wrong.

  9. Re:And then the commercials on Testing 3G Networks Across the US · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Ha!

    The only thing you can do when in a two year contract. Bitch and moan.

    BTW,
    I can be in the middle of a call, stopped...not moving, 5 bars, great connection. Then nothing. Signal gone, can't connect again.

    Seems like a brown out type of thing. I bet they don't have enough capacity.

  10. Re:And then the commercials on Testing 3G Networks Across the US · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have AT&T for my cell phone. Even though I live in a major urban area, it drops calls all the time. Their service and coverage sucks.

  11. Re:Survey of Human Knowledge? on Squeezing a Wikipedia Snapshot Onto an 8GB iPhone · · Score: 1

    And I bet there is some troll living in his momma's basement editing the physicians edits.

  12. Except... on Investigators Suspect Computers Doomed Air France Jet · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I believe that the Airbus aircraft are pure fly-by-wire (die-by-wire). Meaning they have no physical connections between the cockpit controls and the control surfaces. No hydraulics, no cables, nuttin.

    So, when the computers went bye bye, then everyone was in a huge version of a paper airplane.

    Computers should not fly planes unless you have an ejector seat.

  13. Re:News Flash! Civil Servants Corrupt! News @ 11:0 on EPA Quashed Report Skeptical of Global Warming · · Score: 1

    James Hansen is trained in Physics and Astronomy. So I guess anything he has to say about global warming is crap because he is not a climatologists.

  14. Re:News Flash! Civil Servants Corrupt! News @ 11:0 on EPA Quashed Report Skeptical of Global Warming · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems Obama isn't the only one quashing dissenting opinions.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5664069/Polar-bear-expert-barred-by-global-warmists.html

    Summary. Leading export on Polar Bears excluded from Polar Bear conference because he is a "skeptic" (shudder)

  15. Re:Porn Industry on Concrete Comparisons of Theora Vs. Mpeg-4 · · Score: 1

    OK, I mean then with respect to the web.

  16. Porn Industry on Concrete Comparisons of Theora Vs. Mpeg-4 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let the porn industry sort it out.

    Seeing as they are the only people that actually make real money on the web, we can count on them to pick the most cost effective and highest quality video technology.

  17. Re:Another freedom gone on US House Democrats Unveil a Health Care Plan · · Score: 1

    The only thing the feds do well is to kill people and break things.

    I suspect if they are put in charge of health care, they will carry on in their finest tradition.

  18. Re:Going to be more changes soon on Visualizing the Ideological History of SCOTUS · · Score: 1

    Yeah, because a nation is run best when it's run by polling organizations.

  19. I do My Part on Carnegie Researchers Say Geotech Can't Cure Ocean Acidification · · Score: 1

    By consuming copious amounts of beef, much to the consternation of my Dr.

  20. Who were these authors? on Anonymous Newspaper Commenters Subpoenaed In Tax Case · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And should they have been prosecuted? They formented a war ya know.

    Publius, Pacificus, Cattalus, Horatius and Philo Camillus, Silence Dogood, Alice Addertongue, Fanny Mournful, Obadiah Plainman, Busy Body, Populus, An American, A Son of Liberty ,"Vindex the Avenger".

  21. Re:Could be... on Ocean Currents Proposed As Cause of Magnetic Field · · Score: 1

    Interesting. What ferrous material floats (that is in the category of "junk")?

  22. Re:Y2012 problem: Mayan calendar runs out on Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran? · · Score: 2, Funny

    The only reason it stops at 2012 is that they ran out of space on the stone and the quarry workers were on strike.

  23. Re:Oh come on. on Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran? · · Score: 1

    What I don't get is why, if asp.net is smart enough to know that an object has not been set to an instance...blah blah..., why doesn't it tell me which object has not been set?

    "Doesn't Work" is not very conducive to debugging.

  24. Re:Oh come on. on Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran? · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I believe that what gives COBOL the edge when it comes to working with large amounts of data (in addition to the fact that it runs on mainframes built for throughput) is that...

    1. The data record can be/is defined clearly in the application (it's required).

    2. The data record can be redefined many many times, allowing you to subdivide the data many ways, naming each individual part, retyping it, etc. If done with just a little bit of common sense, it makes the code fairly clear about what's going on.

    3. What some would see as a weakness is actually a strength when used in the normal COBOL processing environment. That is that you really can't get too fancy in the code without it becoming unreadable and unmaintainable.

    So you are forced to break up your processing into steps, which are managed by some kind of process management system. OK, JCL in 99% of the cases.

    While seemingly clunky, it provides a great amount of resilience because you are able to restart jobs after failures from just before the failure, not from the beginning.

    Bottom line, is that COBOL and the surrounding technologies and procedures are designed to get the job done, every day, 365 days a year.

    It's not as pretty as the O'Rielly Animal House series of languages (perl, python, rattler, donkey, whatever) but it's rock solid and unstoppable when done with even just a bit of care.

    Contrast this with the ASP.net web app development I'm doing now. Talk about finicky, temperamental code. Speaking of which...need to deal with the Object not set to an Instance of an Object.

  25. Re:Oh come on. on Should Undergraduates Be Taught Fortran? · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Mock if you will, but when it comes to manipulating and moving massive amounts of data and maintaining the application, nothing beats COBOL.