as an atheist, I can look at something considered sinful to a Christian and objectively evaluate whether or not it is a good thing or a bad thing without feeling morally obligated to torment it, shoot it, or blow it up.
And as a pseudoChristian, I can do so while feeling morally obligated *not* to torment it, shoot it, or blow it up. I prefer a society where people feel a moral obligation to not blow things up, and that has to be counterbalanced by a stronger obligation to blow it up, to one where people are perfectly comfortable blowing things up.
Because I could be one of those things someone decides to blow up.
We don't watch much TV (I watch one NFL game a week and we do some Netflix streaming) and our son definitely doesn't (and probably won't watch much more than football even after he reaches the suggested age of two). However, after observing the TV watching habits of those with children we know, especially one who proudly placed a photo online of their child watching Futurama, I'm going to guess that STEM education via PBS isn't as going to do as much as they may hope.
The education of an individual is a lifelong process. Sesame street might be able to help for a few moments, but of course it won't do everything.
Seems like a natural consequence of having any political actors on the show. It's the naive part of me, but I still think having the first lady on can be neat, regardless of which party is involved.
Agreed. It's not as good as a parent--it's not enough, without a parent--but I've seen kids watch television with math problems and do the math problems. It's pretty normal, I imagine, among children who have been taught to do math in the first place.
Out of curiosity, what are appropriate responses when you are too busy? I am not a parent, but certainly know some parents who always put the needs of their children so far ahead of their own that their children wind up with a real inability to function in the real world, because they expect things to always be done for them and expect themselves to come first. The anecdotal results down the road tend to be traumatic corrections that sometimes cost the child years of his or her life when becoming an adult.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just genuinely asking.
The best thing you get out of college, if you go to a good one, is not merely learning from the occasional great mind and a bunch of above mediocre minds.
It's that you are surrounded by brilliant people from dozens of fields. They are your community. Sometimes the professors--depending on how much the school emphasizes teaching as opposed to research--but mostly the students. The students you meet at a great college are more intelligent than almost everyone else you will meet in your lifetime.
How about by not being such a promiscuous slut / manwhore? Being in an honest and monogamous relationship does wonders at stopping the spread of STDs. Instead, we're focusing on drugs and condoms so humanity can continue on with its wonton fuckfest.
I don't know what you mean by "instead." Lots of people live honest and monogamous relationships.
Including many people who are HIV positive.
People also get it from blood, or from rape--including trafficking.
If we didn't have condoms, the problem would be much worse. You can say "X is better," and even be right, but pretending some people aren't going to have sex no matter the consequences is naive at best. We should have as many ways to prevent the spread of HIV as reasonably possible and be honest and open about the problem.
Serious question: Why is this routine advice demanded of all noob linux admins? If my root password is geka#r#t-epu6ramAthap_eke (that's not my password) people can feel free to brute force away. Perhaps in 300 trillion years, they might have a 50/50 shot at breaking it, but I won't lose sleep over that. Besides, there are a lot of perfectly valid reasons to log in as root. Off the top of my head, you can't escalate to root permissions using SCP, so right there's a fine reason to have a remote account with root permissions enabled. Running certain remote backup jobs often requires root permissions. I realize that these concerns have workarounds, but why turn a 1-step process of transferring a file into a 6 step process for no real gain in security?
Because there is also a gain in n00b-insurance.
If you are operating as root, it is a lot easier to screw up your entire system when you do something wrong. If you are operating where you have to run sudo, this keeps you from running commands you don't need root for as root. How many times are you changing directories, poking around in world or group-readable files, or otherwise doing things you don't need root for in the middle of a few commands you actually do need root for?
A classic example would be removing a file named -rf. n00b sees it, deletes it without using -- (perhaps because n00b doesn't know how to escape it), and realizes "Oh crap!"
If n00b was operating as root, n00b is screwed. If n00b was operating as a regular user, then the damage is usually smaller and is hopefully nonexistent.
Make sure your installations are up-to-date and *easy* to upgrade, and follow any program-specific "security" FAQs, instructions, manual chapters, etc...
A LAMP System with common server applications and without careful configuration is basically begging to be cracked. Following the basic instructions for tightening it down (limiting system access of www-data user, limiting database permissions of the database user your web applications are accessing the database as, making sure strong input validation is used on anything you create personally and that all applications are up-to-date, etc...) will go along way toward reducing the risk and consequences of an attack, and will take much less time to do in the beginning than it will take to fix if the system gets compromised.
Besides, you'll learn a surprising amount doing it, if you've never done it before.
But it was in the context of an arbitration clause. Look up the federal arbitration act, and read the next few contracts you sign. Contracts of adhesion routinely require a waiver of one's right to sue, and "No Jury Trial" is often spelled out in them in some detail, IIRC--and aren't uncommon even in negotiated contracts. Contract Law cases are more frequently settled by a bench trial than by a jury, as I recall. And even more frequently they are prevented entirely by arbitration clauses which are usually more in the corporation's favor.
(Note: do not rely on random slashdot comments when writing contracts. Duh.)
People still use land-lines without so much as caller-ID for backup phones, for odd locations, for apartment phones (in buildings not rigged to use cell-phones) and in a few other contexts.
Some of your generation were abducted and constantly ass-raped, you just don't know it because (I'm guessing) you were fortunate enough not to live in a place where it was common. Such things are more common in less privileged areas and among people who basically are isolated--repeat runaway teens are at high risk, for example. Look into reports on domestic human trafficking.
Outside of the game causing your console to overheat and burn down your house, why would anyone sue a game manufacturer? Outside of the Atari 7800 Impossible Mission fiasco, I've never even been all that upset with a game.
Am I missing something? I probably am, since I also miss why adults sink so much money into games. Don't you people have children? Don't you drink?
Because they want money. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, maybe. Loss of consortium.
Considering that the world's longest tunnel is 57 km long and they drilled it from both ends and the error when both ends met in the middle was about a half meter, one gets an idea of what's the attainable precision.
If they used the same level of precision, scaling up the error would result in a 6 m error at 732 km. However one must take into account that in digging the railroad tunnel they only went to the precision level they needed for that job, one must assume that the scientists used more precise methods.
So, it's very hard, practically impossible, to imagine that there would exist an error of 18 m in the position of the detector.
The Erie Canal was much longer and IIRC, the two ends met in the middle with less than 3 ft of error. Of course, it was aboveground, which helps.
Depends what they're planning to do. Congressional hearings are precisely the ones you want if the most likely fix involves changes to the laws. You can't really do that with the courts or regulatory agencies. And it may turn out that Google's behavior is technically legal, but nonetheless unacceptable.
Or at least you're not supposed to be able to, but SCOTUS tends to forget that it's supposed to declare things as constitutional or not, and in some cases weigh in on the interpretation of the law.
Not necessarily true for antitrust. Antitrust law is almost entirely judge-made law, by design; Congress wanted it that way because it figured any attempt to legislate it would be bad--too hard to write the law to correctly apply antitrust theory to all cases, and each case would be different. So they just wrote a law prohibiting "restraint of trade," and theoretically every contract is in restraint of trade, but the DOJ and other agencies can only use it to go after people who engage in behavior which should be regulated under antitrust theory. Now it's possible Google or MSFT is lobbying for this to get a new statute written since their lobbying powers are MUCH greater than their influence over the courts, but this would be a *really* thin pretext for that sort of thing.
Of course it's an opinion, but it's based on fact. If we had perfect information about valuation and it weren't just an opinion, then nobody would buy or sell stocks. In the real world, we have imperfect information and uncertain results. My definition of a prudent investor here may differ from someone else's.
Investors are betting on the possibility that they are undervalued, and one justification for that POV is they believe it will continue to increase. To my mind, that's far from prudent.
I don't know or care if these accusations about Google are true. I think the more important question is why should the government care about how Google is running their search results. They are the dominant search engine, but there are other competitors in this space and other alternatives.
Yet another example of government pushing its nose into something it doesn't understand in the name of the public good.
Several reasons.
If it results in false advertising, there can be a false advertising claim under the Lanham Act by a competitor or the FTC. unlikely in this kind of case, but Google has been investigated in the past for making money off of that kind of thing, and the same agency is doing the investigation here.
In addition, there's antitrust law. Merely having other competitors in the space doesn't mean that a company isn't violating antitrust law. The concern of antitrust law is protecting against anticompetitive use of a firm's market power in a way which reduces competition--in simple terms, doing this takes away from the total benefit that society obtains from the marketplace, because it results in the firm with market power artificially raising prices, meaning that the company demands more and produces less while people pay more for products the company would have been willing to produce for less had it not manipulated the marketplace--effectively, people lose the benefit that reflects the difference between the old price and the new price, and fewer people buy because it costs more, and the company doesn't gain as much as the consumers lose. So it's generally a net loss when a firm abuses market power.
Antitrust law doesn't always protect against monopolies, because it doesn't prevent people from using economies of scale or integrating their supply chain. It does, however, sometimes result in regulation even in markets that are or seem to be oligopolies.
Slashdot Mirror
True. But if I'm working at the pentagon, I still don't want the toy airplane with C4 going off next to my window.
Also, there is a subtle difference between C4 and dynamite.
as an atheist, I can look at something considered sinful to a Christian and objectively evaluate whether or not it is a good thing or a bad thing without feeling morally obligated to torment it, shoot it, or blow it up.
And as a pseudoChristian, I can do so while feeling morally obligated *not* to torment it, shoot it, or blow it up. I prefer a society where people feel a moral obligation to not blow things up, and that has to be counterbalanced by a stronger obligation to blow it up, to one where people are perfectly comfortable blowing things up.
Because I could be one of those things someone decides to blow up.
We don't watch much TV (I watch one NFL game a week and we do some Netflix streaming) and our son definitely doesn't (and probably won't watch much more than football even after he reaches the suggested age of two). However, after observing the TV watching habits of those with children we know, especially one who proudly placed a photo online of their child watching Futurama, I'm going to guess that STEM education via PBS isn't as going to do as much as they may hope.
The education of an individual is a lifelong process. Sesame street might be able to help for a few moments, but of course it won't do everything.
Seems like a natural consequence of having any political actors on the show. It's the naive part of me, but I still think having the first lady on can be neat, regardless of which party is involved.
Agreed. It's not as good as a parent--it's not enough, without a parent--but I've seen kids watch television with math problems and do the math problems. It's pretty normal, I imagine, among children who have been taught to do math in the first place.
You really don't understand children, do you? Suddenly they now have a reason to switch the channel and watch something less educational...
As opposed to the #1 Nielson spot the discovery channel gets each week among adult viewers... :)
Out of curiosity, what are appropriate responses when you are too busy? I am not a parent, but certainly know some parents who always put the needs of their children so far ahead of their own that their children wind up with a real inability to function in the real world, because they expect things to always be done for them and expect themselves to come first. The anecdotal results down the road tend to be traumatic corrections that sometimes cost the child years of his or her life when becoming an adult.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just genuinely asking.
The best thing you get out of college, if you go to a good one, is not merely learning from the occasional great mind and a bunch of above mediocre minds.
It's that you are surrounded by brilliant people from dozens of fields. They are your community. Sometimes the professors--depending on how much the school emphasizes teaching as opposed to research--but mostly the students. The students you meet at a great college are more intelligent than almost everyone else you will meet in your lifetime.
It's great for networking, too.
How about by not being such a promiscuous slut / manwhore? Being in an honest and monogamous relationship does wonders at stopping the spread of STDs. Instead, we're focusing on drugs and condoms so humanity can continue on with its wonton fuckfest.
I don't know what you mean by "instead." Lots of people live honest and monogamous relationships.
Including many people who are HIV positive.
People also get it from blood, or from rape--including trafficking.
If we didn't have condoms, the problem would be much worse. You can say "X is better," and even be right, but pretending some people aren't going to have sex no matter the consequences is naive at best. We should have as many ways to prevent the spread of HIV as reasonably possible and be honest and open about the problem.
Disable root login via SSH as soon as possible
Serious question: Why is this routine advice demanded of all noob linux admins? If my root password is geka#r#t-epu6ramAthap_eke (that's not my password) people can feel free to brute force away. Perhaps in 300 trillion years, they might have a 50/50 shot at breaking it, but I won't lose sleep over that. Besides, there are a lot of perfectly valid reasons to log in as root. Off the top of my head, you can't escalate to root permissions using SCP, so right there's a fine reason to have a remote account with root permissions enabled. Running certain remote backup jobs often requires root permissions. I realize that these concerns have workarounds, but why turn a 1-step process of transferring a file into a 6 step process for no real gain in security?
Because there is also a gain in n00b-insurance.
If you are operating as root, it is a lot easier to screw up your entire system when you do something wrong. If you are operating where you have to run sudo, this keeps you from running commands you don't need root for as root. How many times are you changing directories, poking around in world or group-readable files, or otherwise doing things you don't need root for in the middle of a few commands you actually do need root for?
A classic example would be removing a file named -rf. n00b sees it, deletes it without using -- (perhaps because n00b doesn't know how to escape it), and realizes "Oh crap!"
If n00b was operating as root, n00b is screwed. If n00b was operating as a regular user, then the damage is usually smaller and is hopefully nonexistent.
And move SSH to a non-standard port, assuming you're running it. You'll cut SSH attacks in half.
Make sure your installations are up-to-date and *easy* to upgrade, and follow any program-specific "security" FAQs, instructions, manual chapters, etc...
A LAMP System with common server applications and without careful configuration is basically begging to be cracked. Following the basic instructions for tightening it down (limiting system access of www-data user, limiting database permissions of the database user your web applications are accessing the database as, making sure strong input validation is used on anything you create personally and that all applications are up-to-date, etc...) will go along way toward reducing the risk and consequences of an attack, and will take much less time to do in the beginning than it will take to fix if the system gets compromised.
Besides, you'll learn a surprising amount doing it, if you've never done it before.
But it was in the context of an arbitration clause. Look up the federal arbitration act, and read the next few contracts you sign. Contracts of adhesion routinely require a waiver of one's right to sue, and "No Jury Trial" is often spelled out in them in some detail, IIRC--and aren't uncommon even in negotiated contracts. Contract Law cases are more frequently settled by a bench trial than by a jury, as I recall. And even more frequently they are prevented entirely by arbitration clauses which are usually more in the corporation's favor.
(Note: do not rely on random slashdot comments when writing contracts. Duh.)
People still use land-lines without so much as caller-ID for backup phones, for odd locations, for apartment phones (in buildings not rigged to use cell-phones) and in a few other contexts.
Better idea: either use the phone pad as a calculator or write an app for it that uses the layout you prefer.
Some of your generation were abducted and constantly ass-raped, you just don't know it because (I'm guessing) you were fortunate enough not to live in a place where it was common. Such things are more common in less privileged areas and among people who basically are isolated--repeat runaway teens are at high risk, for example. Look into reports on domestic human trafficking.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/att-mobility-v-concepcion/
Outside of the game causing your console to overheat and burn down your house, why would anyone sue a game manufacturer? Outside of the Atari 7800 Impossible Mission fiasco, I've never even been all that upset with a game.
Am I missing something? I probably am, since I also miss why adults sink so much money into games. Don't you people have children? Don't you drink?
Because they want money. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, maybe. Loss of consortium.
Ditto. Why would it be a breach? Is it just that they are formally the "publisher" for some arcane reason?
Considering that the world's longest tunnel is 57 km long and they drilled it from both ends and the error when both ends met in the middle was about a half meter, one gets an idea of what's the attainable precision.
If they used the same level of precision, scaling up the error would result in a 6 m error at 732 km. However one must take into account that in digging the railroad tunnel they only went to the precision level they needed for that job, one must assume that the scientists used more precise methods.
So, it's very hard, practically impossible, to imagine that there would exist an error of 18 m in the position of the detector.
The Erie Canal was much longer and IIRC, the two ends met in the middle with less than 3 ft of error. Of course, it was aboveground, which helps.
Depends what they're planning to do. Congressional hearings are precisely the ones you want if the most likely fix involves changes to the laws. You can't really do that with the courts or regulatory agencies. And it may turn out that Google's behavior is technically legal, but nonetheless unacceptable.
Or at least you're not supposed to be able to, but SCOTUS tends to forget that it's supposed to declare things as constitutional or not, and in some cases weigh in on the interpretation of the law.
Not necessarily true for antitrust. Antitrust law is almost entirely judge-made law, by design; Congress wanted it that way because it figured any attempt to legislate it would be bad--too hard to write the law to correctly apply antitrust theory to all cases, and each case would be different. So they just wrote a law prohibiting "restraint of trade," and theoretically every contract is in restraint of trade, but the DOJ and other agencies can only use it to go after people who engage in behavior which should be regulated under antitrust theory. Now it's possible Google or MSFT is lobbying for this to get a new statute written since their lobbying powers are MUCH greater than their influence over the courts, but this would be a *really* thin pretext for that sort of thing.
The FTC is investigating. The Senate is window-dressing.
Oh, just shut the fuck up.
If you run for Senate, I will vote for you. (He's right, but you'd be funnier in the Congressional Record.)
Of course it's an opinion, but it's based on fact. If we had perfect information about valuation and it weren't just an opinion, then nobody would buy or sell stocks. In the real world, we have imperfect information and uncertain results. My definition of a prudent investor here may differ from someone else's.
Investors are betting on the possibility that they are undervalued, and one justification for that POV is they believe it will continue to increase. To my mind, that's far from prudent.
I don't know or care if these accusations about Google are true.
I think the more important question is why should the government care about how Google is running their search results. They are the dominant search engine, but there are other competitors in this space and other alternatives.
Yet another example of government pushing its nose into something it doesn't understand in the name of the public good.
Several reasons.
If it results in false advertising, there can be a false advertising claim under the Lanham Act by a competitor or the FTC. unlikely in this kind of case, but Google has been investigated in the past for making money off of that kind of thing, and the same agency is doing the investigation here.
In addition, there's antitrust law. Merely having other competitors in the space doesn't mean that a company isn't violating antitrust law. The concern of antitrust law is protecting against anticompetitive use of a firm's market power in a way which reduces competition--in simple terms, doing this takes away from the total benefit that society obtains from the marketplace, because it results in the firm with market power artificially raising prices, meaning that the company demands more and produces less while people pay more for products the company would have been willing to produce for less had it not manipulated the marketplace--effectively, people lose the benefit that reflects the difference between the old price and the new price, and fewer people buy because it costs more, and the company doesn't gain as much as the consumers lose. So it's generally a net loss when a firm abuses market power.
Antitrust law doesn't always protect against monopolies, because it doesn't prevent people from using economies of scale or integrating their supply chain. It does, however, sometimes result in regulation even in markets that are or seem to be oligopolies.