The teacher's assertion was different from mine. I said that I don't like such words. She made a statement about what kind of business would succeed or fail. Her mistake was to neglect the published views of such luminaries as:
"You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public". - Phineas T Barnum (Barnum’s Law)
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public". - H. L. Mencken
As so often before, Henry Baker sums up the issue to perfection:
"Once again, in our asymmetric world, people who live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing rocks—especially at those who don't live in glass houses". http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks...
It's quite certain that, of all the nations in the world, the USA has far more to lose from "cyberwar" than any other.
Indeed, looking at the current situation in China, I'd say the West is doing a pretty fine job of letting them wallow in their own corruption right now.
I'm not convinced. History is full of instances to the contrary: cases in which a general failed because his army was too big for him to control. Indeed, there is a well-known story about a war in which the leading general of Nation A was warned that Nation B's commander-in-chief had 50,000 soldiers whereas Nation A had only 20,000. Nation A's general smiled and relaxed. "Why are you acting so pleased to hear that you are outnumbered two-and-a-half to one?" asked his alarmed subordinates. "Ah, I know General X," he replied. Given 10,000 men he is very competent. I think he could just about handle 20,000. But given 50,000 he will spend all his time trying to keep track and get organized. While he is doing that, we shall move in quickly and defeat him. It will be easy".
Disclaimer: Like many other, I abhor and reject all terms including "cyber" except "cyberspace" in its proper meaning (see William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer") which has very little in common with the Internet or any other present-day technology.
That said, yes - "cyberwar" is entirely possible and would be immensely harmful. But no, we have not seen anything even slightly related to full-blown "cyberwar". If it happened, we would notice: trust me. It would blow the doors off computer systems most people have no idea exist: systems that give them power, light, water, network access (of course), banking, medical services, education, food, etc. etc. Our present posture in this respect is basically that of a person camping in the woods who has been told there are grizzly bears around, and whose response has been to tie himself up stark naked and hang himself from a tree at convenient nibbling height.
It must have been about 20 years ago that I began lecturing and writing about the security risks of software systems. I always kept it as short and simple as I could, since I realize that security is not only very counter-intuitive but (to most people) appallingly boring. But I usually wound up with a warning: there were many threats, ranging from the trivial to the extremely serious; there was hardly any defence; and hardly anyone was taking the trouble or investing the resources to put up any defence at all. The only good news, I added, was that so far criminals had made no real efforts to exploit all the juicy vulnerabilities spread out before them. That wouldn't necessarily last, I warned.
The same remarks, mutatis mutandis, apply to "cyberwar". It would cause far more harm than criminal exploitation, because the objective of war is to bring about complete defenselessness and unconditional surrender. Look at Iraq after the second Gulf war, and imagine that happening to all the IT infrastructure you know about (and that you don't know about). And, due to the design of the Internet and the amazingly insouciant carelessness of governments and corporations, our infrastructure is almost completely unprotected. What we have seen so far is analogous to a few spies and skirmishers probing the most obvious weaknesses. They have deliberately refrained from even hinting at what they could really do, because (as Sun Tzu pointed out)
"Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions".
The title of the paper is "Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens". Note the absence of any question marks or qualifiers such as "could...?"
Poor people need to visit hospital more often, as their health is worse. And where better to frack than among poor people, whose political representatives don't give a crap about their welfare?
"And like I love, like, when a 16 year old, like, writes articles about stuff, like, they don't fully understand, like now. like dude".
That's rather funny, in view of some of the comments here about MUMPS' technical features. Criticizing a programming language and database management system based on a few lines of remarks made by someone who may not know much about it either... doesn't make a lot of sense.
What cuts a bit more ice with me is that MUMPS is still being used - by the people who are responsible for getting the work done.
... to reflect that the danger of a patent lawsuit might be alleviated if the AI you build as a result is smart enough to get you off the patent lawsuit.
Whatever your political disposition, it must surely be obvious that - just as in the world of banking and finance - the incentives are dangerously skewed. The arguments in favour of private enterprise focus on efficiency and the profit motive. So far, so good: but how are we to guarantee the quality of work done by private enterprise? It's surprisingly easy to enter the low bid, and then use weasel methods to deliver far less than was required and promised.
Take the analogy of big banks. They gamble dangerously, so dangerously in fact that they are almost certain to fail after a fairly short time. Because they gamble so riskily, they make big profits. Then, when they step on a mine and get blown up, instead of being allowed to go bankrupt, they are bailed out by government using taxpayers' money. This has been described as "social security for the rich". The obvious solution is to forbid the creation of banks "too big to fail", and then allow nature to take its course. Also, no doubt, to enforce the separation between everyday consumer banking and legalised gambling.
When it comes to government contracts, especially for potentially very dangerous projects such as nuclear power stations, we need to demand a far greater degree of accountability from the contractors. The Romans are said to have required that, whenever a new bridge or aqueduct was built, the designers and architects should stand underneath it. That gave them a powerful personal interest in safety; and they built in such adequate safety factors that much of their work is still standing (and even usable) today.
What is the modern day equivalent of making an engineer stand underneath an aqueduct as it fills with water? If an industrial accident of any kind happens, possibly causing great harm, all those responsible should have to answer for their actions. Maybe the death penalty would be excessive, but certainly very long jail sentences would be in order. For a corporation, perhaps a fine equal to twice its annual profits coupled to prison sentences for all executives involved...
It will be objected that this would raise the cost of such projects excessively. So be it: if there is a serious element of danger, the cost of avoiding that danger must be factored in. If we can't afford the project, again so be it.
My, what a long comment! And all based on a misunderstanding. Of course I do know that "Hill Street Blues" is fiction. But one of the reasons I enjoy it is that it appears to be accurate, realistic fiction. Regardless of the many details, the basic plot idea I mentioned - a political boss who is willing and eager to throw a subordinate to the wolves "for the look of it", regardless of the facts - is something that is common in real life.
Actually I do think about these things before I write. The Daily Mail story is something quite unusual nowadays: a well-researched, fully documented, professional piece of journalism. We already knew that Sir Tim Hunt was a distinguished scientist who has made great contributions to his field. After reading the story, it's clear that his accuser is not quite what she pretends to be - to say the very least.
In short, my reaction might sound "pretty kneejerk" to you - but it's not.
We see this kind of outcome all over the place nowadays. It's mostly because those in positions of power are far too worried about public perception. (Of course, their almost complete lack of any firmly held moral principles leaves them adrift, and very much at the mercy of popular sentiment). Obviously Sir Tim Hunt is of infinitely more value to society than Connie St Louis - a glance at the Daily Mail story referred to in the summary makes that clear. So why was he forced to resign as a kneejerk reaction to a wave of ephemeral indignation, which will be forgotten by next week (and it's Saturday as I write)?
Recently I have been glued to a box set of the complete "Hill Street Blues" - yes, I know that telegraphs my age and unadventurous taste in TV. It was only the other night that I got quite angry at the spectacle of the police chief twisting Captain Furillo's arm to get him to abandon his defence of an apparently "bad cop". This guy, a narcotics agent, had shot and killed a young black man while interrupting some suspicious activity in the small hours. The cop claimed that he had given due warning, and fired only after being fired on - all of which was true. Also, the group he tried to apprehend were in fact committing crimes. Nevertheless, the police chief tells Furillo that it's vital for the department to be seen to throw this "bad cop" to the wolves. It's all about perception, he explains. The facts don't matter at all; all that counts is that this is a good time to throw someone to the wolves.
University College London (UCL) has indeed stained its reputation. Its refusal even to consider reinstating Professor Hunt makes matters worse. And Britain, which seems to prefer Ms St Louis to Professor Hunt, will get what it has chosen. Not to its advantage.
"Think every government does this to each other, it just seems the US is better at it. Nations don't have friends they have interests and spying on friends is the norm I think".
Fine. Just don't act surprised next time your government asks ours for help and we tell you "No, because we know you are only pursuing your own interests and everything you say otherwise is a lie".
Ah. OK. Now I see. When I posted the parent, I had only read the summary on Slashdot. I assumed the research was competently done, and accurately reported. As I finished posting, I realised those are not safe assumptions, so I took a closer look.
Well, folks, the study was done on... mice. Because obviously mice have evolved to eat the same diet as human beings, and react in exactly the same ways to changes in diet. Right.
Reminds me of the early researchers in the "cholesterol will kill you" racket, who did painstaking studies that showed a diet of fatty foods leads to clogged arteries and death. Right - in *rabbits*. Herbivores. Those "scientists" fed exclusive herbivores a diet heavy in *animal fat* - something they would never have consumed in nature - and then wondered that it harmed them.
As far as I can see, the study concluded that "too much" fat or sugar impairs cognitive function. Presumably the study itself explains what is considered "too much"; but obviously no diet can reduce both fat and sugar very far, or the majority of calories would have to come from protein. And that is very unhealthy. It is well known that deriving more than 40-50% of calories from protein leads to ill health and, in extreme cases, death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So at least half of daily calories must come from carbohydrate and fat in some combination. And all carbohydrate is rapidly broken down to simple sugars in the gut. Sounds like Scylla and Charybdis.
"You'll always have your very rich who don't have to work and your very poor who choose not to..."
Huh? Run that by me again...
The "very rich who don't have to work" amount to perhaps the wealthiest 1% (or much less) of the population. So we can ignore them, as it's a vanishingly small proportion.
But "your very poor who choose not to [work]..."?
Surely someone who is very poor has the greatest incentive of all to work? According to all economics textbooks, anyway. Remember how the marginal value of income increases the less money you have? Consider that someone who is hungry and cannot get anything to eat has a strong motive to get some money.
Of course you may be one of those superficially sophisticated, callous people who like to feel better by condemning millions of complete strangers for their supposed "laziness". In which case, please think again.
Or you could concentrate on threats that aren't vanishingly improbable.
"As We Show In This Updated list, You’re Much More Likely to Be Killed By Brain-Eating Parasites, Toddlers, Lightning, Falling Out of Bed, Alcoholism, Food Poisoning, Choking On Your Meal, a Financial Crash, Obesity, Medical Errors or “Autoerotic Asphyxiation” than by Terrorists". http://www.washingtonsblog.com...
Slashdot Mirror
The teacher's assertion was different from mine. I said that I don't like such words. She made a statement about what kind of business would succeed or fail. Her mistake was to neglect the published views of such luminaries as:
"You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public".
- Phineas T Barnum (Barnum’s Law)
"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public".
- H. L. Mencken
OK, it's a fair cop guv'nor.
Alas and dammit, that link should be http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks...
Please pardon my incompetence.
As so often before, Henry Baker sums up the issue to perfection:
"Once again, in our asymmetric world, people who live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing rocks—especially at those who don't live in glass houses". http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks...
It's quite certain that, of all the nations in the world, the USA has far more to lose from "cyberwar" than any other.
Indeed, looking at the current situation in China, I'd say the West is doing a pretty fine job of letting them wallow in their own corruption right now.
Matthew 7:3-5 https://www.biblegateway.com/p...
I'm not convinced. History is full of instances to the contrary: cases in which a general failed because his army was too big for him to control. Indeed, there is a well-known story about a war in which the leading general of Nation A was warned that Nation B's commander-in-chief had 50,000 soldiers whereas Nation A had only 20,000. Nation A's general smiled and relaxed. "Why are you acting so pleased to hear that you are outnumbered two-and-a-half to one?" asked his alarmed subordinates. "Ah, I know General X," he replied. Given 10,000 men he is very competent. I think he could just about handle 20,000. But given 50,000 he will spend all his time trying to keep track and get organized. While he is doing that, we shall move in quickly and defeat him. It will be easy".
Disclaimer: Like many other, I abhor and reject all terms including "cyber" except "cyberspace" in its proper meaning (see William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer") which has very little in common with the Internet or any other present-day technology.
That said, yes - "cyberwar" is entirely possible and would be immensely harmful. But no, we have not seen anything even slightly related to full-blown "cyberwar". If it happened, we would notice: trust me. It would blow the doors off computer systems most people have no idea exist: systems that give them power, light, water, network access (of course), banking, medical services, education, food, etc. etc. Our present posture in this respect is basically that of a person camping in the woods who has been told there are grizzly bears around, and whose response has been to tie himself up stark naked and hang himself from a tree at convenient nibbling height.
It must have been about 20 years ago that I began lecturing and writing about the security risks of software systems. I always kept it as short and simple as I could, since I realize that security is not only very counter-intuitive but (to most people) appallingly boring. But I usually wound up with a warning: there were many threats, ranging from the trivial to the extremely serious; there was hardly any defence; and hardly anyone was taking the trouble or investing the resources to put up any defence at all. The only good news, I added, was that so far criminals had made no real efforts to exploit all the juicy vulnerabilities spread out before them. That wouldn't necessarily last, I warned.
The same remarks, mutatis mutandis, apply to "cyberwar". It would cause far more harm than criminal exploitation, because the objective of war is to bring about complete defenselessness and unconditional surrender. Look at Iraq after the second Gulf war, and imagine that happening to all the IT infrastructure you know about (and that you don't know about). And, due to the design of the Internet and the amazingly insouciant carelessness of governments and corporations, our infrastructure is almost completely unprotected. What we have seen so far is analogous to a few spies and skirmishers probing the most obvious weaknesses. They have deliberately refrained from even hinting at what they could really do, because (as Sun Tzu pointed out)
"Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of the enemy's unpreparedness; travel by unexpected routes and strike him where he has taken no precautions".
The title of the paper is "Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens". Note the absence of any question marks or qualifiers such as "could...?"
Poor people need to visit hospital more often, as their health is worse. And where better to frack than among poor people, whose political representatives don't give a crap about their welfare?
"/. comments seem to be a contest to see who can demonstrate the least knowledge of the subject".
Exactly. And the competition is white hot.
"And like I love, like, when a 16 year old, like, writes articles about stuff, like, they don't fully understand, like now. like dude".
That's rather funny, in view of some of the comments here about MUMPS' technical features. Criticizing a programming language and database management system based on a few lines of remarks made by someone who may not know much about it either... doesn't make a lot of sense.
What cuts a bit more ice with me is that MUMPS is still being used - by the people who are responsible for getting the work done.
They said that about COBOL too. It's still very probably the most-used language for business applications - for very good reasons.
... to reflect that the danger of a patent lawsuit might be alleviated if the AI you build as a result is smart enough to get you off the patent lawsuit.
Whatever your political disposition, it must surely be obvious that - just as in the world of banking and finance - the incentives are dangerously skewed. The arguments in favour of private enterprise focus on efficiency and the profit motive. So far, so good: but how are we to guarantee the quality of work done by private enterprise? It's surprisingly easy to enter the low bid, and then use weasel methods to deliver far less than was required and promised.
Take the analogy of big banks. They gamble dangerously, so dangerously in fact that they are almost certain to fail after a fairly short time. Because they gamble so riskily, they make big profits. Then, when they step on a mine and get blown up, instead of being allowed to go bankrupt, they are bailed out by government using taxpayers' money. This has been described as "social security for the rich". The obvious solution is to forbid the creation of banks "too big to fail", and then allow nature to take its course. Also, no doubt, to enforce the separation between everyday consumer banking and legalised gambling.
When it comes to government contracts, especially for potentially very dangerous projects such as nuclear power stations, we need to demand a far greater degree of accountability from the contractors. The Romans are said to have required that, whenever a new bridge or aqueduct was built, the designers and architects should stand underneath it. That gave them a powerful personal interest in safety; and they built in such adequate safety factors that much of their work is still standing (and even usable) today.
What is the modern day equivalent of making an engineer stand underneath an aqueduct as it fills with water? If an industrial accident of any kind happens, possibly causing great harm, all those responsible should have to answer for their actions. Maybe the death penalty would be excessive, but certainly very long jail sentences would be in order. For a corporation, perhaps a fine equal to twice its annual profits coupled to prison sentences for all executives involved...
It will be objected that this would raise the cost of such projects excessively. So be it: if there is a serious element of danger, the cost of avoiding that danger must be factored in. If we can't afford the project, again so be it.
My, what a long comment! And all based on a misunderstanding. Of course I do know that "Hill Street Blues" is fiction. But one of the reasons I enjoy it is that it appears to be accurate, realistic fiction. Regardless of the many details, the basic plot idea I mentioned - a political boss who is willing and eager to throw a subordinate to the wolves "for the look of it", regardless of the facts - is something that is common in real life.
Actually I do think about these things before I write. The Daily Mail story is something quite unusual nowadays: a well-researched, fully documented, professional piece of journalism. We already knew that Sir Tim Hunt was a distinguished scientist who has made great contributions to his field. After reading the story, it's clear that his accuser is not quite what she pretends to be - to say the very least.
In short, my reaction might sound "pretty kneejerk" to you - but it's not.
We see this kind of outcome all over the place nowadays. It's mostly because those in positions of power are far too worried about public perception. (Of course, their almost complete lack of any firmly held moral principles leaves them adrift, and very much at the mercy of popular sentiment). Obviously Sir Tim Hunt is of infinitely more value to society than Connie St Louis - a glance at the Daily Mail story referred to in the summary makes that clear. So why was he forced to resign as a kneejerk reaction to a wave of ephemeral indignation, which will be forgotten by next week (and it's Saturday as I write)?
Recently I have been glued to a box set of the complete "Hill Street Blues" - yes, I know that telegraphs my age and unadventurous taste in TV. It was only the other night that I got quite angry at the spectacle of the police chief twisting Captain Furillo's arm to get him to abandon his defence of an apparently "bad cop". This guy, a narcotics agent, had shot and killed a young black man while interrupting some suspicious activity in the small hours. The cop claimed that he had given due warning, and fired only after being fired on - all of which was true. Also, the group he tried to apprehend were in fact committing crimes. Nevertheless, the police chief tells Furillo that it's vital for the department to be seen to throw this "bad cop" to the wolves. It's all about perception, he explains. The facts don't matter at all; all that counts is that this is a good time to throw someone to the wolves.
University College London (UCL) has indeed stained its reputation. Its refusal even to consider reinstating Professor Hunt makes matters worse. And Britain, which seems to prefer Ms St Louis to Professor Hunt, will get what it has chosen. Not to its advantage.
"Think every government does this to each other, it just seems the US is better at it. Nations don't have friends they have interests and spying on friends is the norm I think".
Fine. Just don't act surprised next time your government asks ours for help and we tell you "No, because we know you are only pursuing your own interests and everything you say otherwise is a lie".
Surely your sig should read "Procrastinate Now!"
Ah. OK. Now I see. When I posted the parent, I had only read the summary on Slashdot. I assumed the research was competently done, and accurately reported. As I finished posting, I realised those are not safe assumptions, so I took a closer look.
Well, folks, the study was done on... mice. Because obviously mice have evolved to eat the same diet as human beings, and react in exactly the same ways to changes in diet. Right.
Reminds me of the early researchers in the "cholesterol will kill you" racket, who did painstaking studies that showed a diet of fatty foods leads to clogged arteries and death. Right - in *rabbits*. Herbivores. Those "scientists" fed exclusive herbivores a diet heavy in *animal fat* - something they would never have consumed in nature - and then wondered that it harmed them.
As far as I can see, the study concluded that "too much" fat or sugar impairs cognitive function. Presumably the study itself explains what is considered "too much"; but obviously no diet can reduce both fat and sugar very far, or the majority of calories would have to come from protein. And that is very unhealthy. It is well known that deriving more than 40-50% of calories from protein leads to ill health and, in extreme cases, death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So at least half of daily calories must come from carbohydrate and fat in some combination. And all carbohydrate is rapidly broken down to simple sugars in the gut. Sounds like Scylla and Charybdis.
"You'll always have your very rich who don't have to work and your very poor who choose not to..."
Huh? Run that by me again...
The "very rich who don't have to work" amount to perhaps the wealthiest 1% (or much less) of the population. So we can ignore them, as it's a vanishingly small proportion.
But "your very poor who choose not to [work]..."?
Surely someone who is very poor has the greatest incentive of all to work? According to all economics textbooks, anyway. Remember how the marginal value of income increases the less money you have? Consider that someone who is hungry and cannot get anything to eat has a strong motive to get some money.
Of course you may be one of those superficially sophisticated, callous people who like to feel better by condemning millions of complete strangers for their supposed "laziness". In which case, please think again.
The bls.gov website's figures don't match reality.
FTFY.
For a closer approximation to reality, refer to http://www.shadowstats.com/
" Now we get bullshitted and bored at the same time? What's that, we're moving towards communism?"
No, more like flying on any commercial airline in the USA.
Or you could concentrate on threats that aren't vanishingly improbable.
"As We Show In This Updated list, You’re Much More Likely to Be Killed By Brain-Eating Parasites, Toddlers, Lightning, Falling Out of Bed, Alcoholism, Food Poisoning, Choking On Your Meal, a Financial Crash, Obesity, Medical Errors or “Autoerotic Asphyxiation” than by Terrorists".
http://www.washingtonsblog.com...