Pride? Spite? No, it's inertia, and the Imperial/Standard system has a lot of mass, I mean weight behind it;)
Some units have more inertia than others - I mean most of us don't care if it's centipoise or pascal seconds for viscosity, but at a glance - from the most fundamental part of our brain's framework for visual estimation - we know we're getting cheated if we're only see four liters instead of a gallon.
It's that fundamental sensory calibration we were taught in infancy and todlery (I'm allowed to make up a word from time to time - I say so, QED) so the only way the change will really happen is via generational change - so we need to pull Standard units out of school entirely other than footnotes and charts in the back of a textbook. Note that changing the education system won't get the first round of students, but that first round will be the right smarty-pants age to correct their parents when the parents try to inoculate the second or third child in the family.
As an aside, I was in Wales several years ago helping direct a small project for kids (which means it was the old men doing the building) and because of the tape measure I had with me - I did all of the design in ft/in and converted it to metric. The old guys saw my notes and thanked me for going through the trouble of giving them proper units to work with (not the metric ones). So it is indeed a generational change, and not quite complete yet even in the UK.
I the assumption that one's home computer system is entirely private is not necessarily valid. The communication may take place in a public medium, but, for the most part there is no intrinsic expectation of privacy like there is in a postal system when the message is nominally secured in an envelope (and far more secured by law). The communication takes place wide open and can be observed in the same way that a conversation in the park can be overheard by anyone within range of the sound waves. Instead of a letter, it's more like passing a note in the third grade to someone several desks away without bothering to fold it up. Such a communication not only lacks intrinsic privacy expectations, it has intrinsic expectations of being observed by all parties in between.
In the third grader's example, if one were to transmit an unfolded note written in a secret code it actually invites effort from the other students to read it (because if you wanted privacy you should have folded it up or given it directly to the recipient). (That is of course the strength of public key encryption - everyone can see it, but nobody (announced) can read it other than the recipient).
So, just as one doesn't have the right to expect complete privacy in one's own home (i.e. open windows) one should not expect the same for an electronic device in one's own home. That is precisely why the division between public/private and warrant access/simple request needs to be defined by law. The doors, window shades, open windows, park bench conversations, and etc... of the digital world need to be worked out, and we're only still at the threshold of the computer/internet integration phase.
I've never registered a Facebook account (not even for my cat), but it was more over dissatisfaction with the EULA (or whatever they call it) in their treatment of IP than treatment of privacy for me.
My cat didn't like the IP treatment either, privacy doesn't matter to her - she'll lick herself whether or not anyone's in the room.
Calling "Astroturf!" is easier than picking up the debate.
Maybe Pop'n'Shop's been reading for years and just now hit the straw which made him/her finally have to post. I've read/. since the fall of '99, but it was years and years (and more years) before I finally snapped (and then got sucked in - see the social inherent in the system?). I can't even remember what it was about when I registered. Sure I've kicked myself a few times over never registering early (Ebay fodder if nothing else), but really I almost never check a UID when instead there's all that text in the box below it which is so much more informative.
I think the point is that computers have changed from private to public locations and not everyone has caught up to that fact yet. People have private conversations all the time in public (restaurants, parks, walking down hallways, passing love notes) but the rights mostly belong to other member of public - they can film you, take your picture, stand close to you and read what you are holding, and the only privacy privileges you have are granted by law (e.g. wiretapping, gender segregation in restrooms, etc...). In the computer world the internet is public. A modern computer is crippled without a connection to the internet. (Remember the days when a FPU was optional)?
So, if a modern computer is in a public location, and we extend physical items to their digital corollaries, then any privacy granted would then be a privilege granted by law (probably those same wire tapping rules). So where are the dividing lines? Is it the firewall? People are allowed to take pictures of the interior of a house from public locations (although some states have rules about magnification through windows), so shouldn't anyone be able to look at anything you have visible through a hole (e.g. window) in your firewall? But where is the dividing line between looking in a window and smashing it in to crawl through? Read = OK, Write = illegal?
This is not a simple discussion (and neither is privacy in the physical domain). But many electronic devices (especially computers) have a public presence which is critical to their operation and you should not expect privacy if there is a 'net connection. If you want privacy - then it is your responsibility to make sure legislation is generated which defines, delineates, and grants privacy in a public location as it pertains to your computer (my responsibility as well).
Huh, I've never argued from this side of the coin before. It's been an interesting exercise.
Seriously? You think we're stuck at the second year of the Civil War?
Game theory and first past the post may make that an inevitable cyclic event, but I think we've got a long time before we see troops marching under a Lone Star or Cascadia flag against the Stars and Stripes.
It'd still need to be nation-state fanatics however. Ashley et al. did point out the need for neutron bombardment for this pathway - so you'll need some sort of existing reactor/neutron source. Now there are a lot of those things around, but not many in the exclusive control of non-nation-state fanatics. However, thorium is a heck of a lot easier to get a hold of versus traditional weapon source material, and this proposed conversion removes a lot of complicated barriers to entry from the lab side.
From the article
Given the need for access to a research or power reactor to irradiate thorium, the most likely security threat stems not from terrorist organizations but from wilful proliferating nation states. (emphasis mine). We have three main concerns:
First, nuclear-energy technologies that involve irradiation of thorium fuels for short periods could be used covertly to accumulate quantities of 233U by parallel or batch means, perhaps without raising IAEA proliferation flags.
Second, the infrastructure required to undertake the chemical partitioning of protactinium could be acquired and established surreptitiously in a small laboratory.
Third, state proliferators could seek to use thorium to acquire 233U for weapons production. These three points should be included in debates on the proliferation attributes of thorium.
So, yeah. If one is worried about proliferation - then thorium needs to be considered.
But companies C, D, and E (all competitors to A) benefit from the broken price fixing imposed by B (and it's allies) and will wipe the floor with A unless enough damages are awarded to compensate A for the additional expenses. Breaking an artificial monopoly is a noble thing, but my no means a sure bet financially.
I'm quite close to a different national lab type of federal facility and all of their laptops have been encrypted for at least a few years now. The stuff here isn't any more sensitive than the stuff there - it's just under an actual cabinet position. Bureaucracy may sometimes be a headache - but enforcing common sense policies is one of it's strong suits. Besides - is NASA really benefiting in it's efficiency from it's "bureaucratic freedom"?
Maybe McGrew's a computer scientist. Look at the way they name things. 8 bits is a byte, and half of a byte is a nibble. You come from a background like that and you're seriously liable to name anything after whimsey:)
Uterine replicators were pretty central to the start of Bujold's series in '86 with one of her first Hugo's coming out of that initial plot. She's examined their impact from a few different angles over the years - although it's just background or a side line in many of the Vorkosigan novels. I'd say she gave it a far better treatment than Herbert (though he certainly got there first) who only ever managed to share a Hugo let alone win the four Bujold's got. Actually, I think I liked the collaborative work of his son with Anderson a bit more than most of the original Dune books (barring Dune itself), although their work is probably best accompanied by a SSRI.
One of the things I appreciate about SF is not just the imagination of the future as much as exploring the ethics and social implications of where we might end up.
I would have followed up with another question: weight, or volume (and which liquid), or troy? But if I wanted to really annoy someone I would have inquired about gravity or picked on them for converting to the gram which isn't the SI unit for mass.
I believe that the manufacturer set broadcast power is usually well below the FCC limit. Someone once told me that there was a line of routers who's only difference between the cheap and expensive models was the firmware fixed broadcast power. Don't know how true any of that is, but probably worth looking into if your router doesn't cover the house well enough.
The other option is to instal tomato/ddwrt on the new and old routers and set several up as wifi repeaters. Keep a list of tomato/ddwrt compatible routers when you go yard sale-ing and you'll set up a small wireless empire on the real-cheap!
Start small and ask for IRV to be implemented at your city level (or another voting system better suited for democracy than first past the post - which covers a lot of options you know). Then try for county level. Eventually adoption (and education) may reach a point when people can actually pressure the national level into adoption.
It was telling in this morning's headlines (not the top of the page headlines of course) that Jill Stein had to be described as a presidential candidate in relation to her arrest last night.
Slashdot Mirror
Pride? Spite? No, it's inertia, and the Imperial/Standard system has a lot of mass, I mean weight behind it ;)
Some units have more inertia than others - I mean most of us don't care if it's centipoise or pascal seconds for viscosity, but at a glance - from the most fundamental part of our brain's framework for visual estimation - we know we're getting cheated if we're only see four liters instead of a gallon.
It's that fundamental sensory calibration we were taught in infancy and todlery (I'm allowed to make up a word from time to time - I say so, QED) so the only way the change will really happen is via generational change - so we need to pull Standard units out of school entirely other than footnotes and charts in the back of a textbook. Note that changing the education system won't get the first round of students, but that first round will be the right smarty-pants age to correct their parents when the parents try to inoculate the second or third child in the family.
As an aside, I was in Wales several years ago helping direct a small project for kids (which means it was the old men doing the building) and because of the tape measure I had with me - I did all of the design in ft/in and converted it to metric. The old guys saw my notes and thanked me for going through the trouble of giving them proper units to work with (not the metric ones). So it is indeed a generational change, and not quite complete yet even in the UK.
I the assumption that one's home computer system is entirely private is not necessarily valid. The communication may take place in a public medium, but, for the most part there is no intrinsic expectation of privacy like there is in a postal system when the message is nominally secured in an envelope (and far more secured by law). The communication takes place wide open and can be observed in the same way that a conversation in the park can be overheard by anyone within range of the sound waves. Instead of a letter, it's more like passing a note in the third grade to someone several desks away without bothering to fold it up. Such a communication not only lacks intrinsic privacy expectations, it has intrinsic expectations of being observed by all parties in between.
In the third grader's example, if one were to transmit an unfolded note written in a secret code it actually invites effort from the other students to read it (because if you wanted privacy you should have folded it up or given it directly to the recipient). (That is of course the strength of public key encryption - everyone can see it, but nobody (announced) can read it other than the recipient).
So, just as one doesn't have the right to expect complete privacy in one's own home (i.e. open windows) one should not expect the same for an electronic device in one's own home. That is precisely why the division between public/private and warrant access/simple request needs to be defined by law. The doors, window shades, open windows, park bench conversations, and etc... of the digital world need to be worked out, and we're only still at the threshold of the computer/internet integration phase.
I've never registered a Facebook account (not even for my cat), but it was more over dissatisfaction with the EULA (or whatever they call it) in their treatment of IP than treatment of privacy for me.
My cat didn't like the IP treatment either, privacy doesn't matter to her - she'll lick herself whether or not anyone's in the room.
Calling "Astroturf!" is easier than picking up the debate.
Maybe Pop'n'Shop's been reading for years and just now hit the straw which made him/her finally have to post. I've read /. since the fall of '99, but it was years and years (and more years) before I finally snapped (and then got sucked in - see the social inherent in the system?). I can't even remember what it was about when I registered. Sure I've kicked myself a few times over never registering early (Ebay fodder if nothing else), but really I almost never check a UID when instead there's all that text in the box below it which is so much more informative.
I think the point is that computers have changed from private to public locations and not everyone has caught up to that fact yet. People have private conversations all the time in public (restaurants, parks, walking down hallways, passing love notes) but the rights mostly belong to other member of public - they can film you, take your picture, stand close to you and read what you are holding, and the only privacy privileges you have are granted by law (e.g. wiretapping, gender segregation in restrooms, etc...). In the computer world the internet is public. A modern computer is crippled without a connection to the internet. (Remember the days when a FPU was optional)?
So, if a modern computer is in a public location, and we extend physical items to their digital corollaries, then any privacy granted would then be a privilege granted by law (probably those same wire tapping rules). So where are the dividing lines? Is it the firewall? People are allowed to take pictures of the interior of a house from public locations (although some states have rules about magnification through windows), so shouldn't anyone be able to look at anything you have visible through a hole (e.g. window) in your firewall? But where is the dividing line between looking in a window and smashing it in to crawl through? Read = OK, Write = illegal?
This is not a simple discussion (and neither is privacy in the physical domain). But many electronic devices (especially computers) have a public presence which is critical to their operation and you should not expect privacy if there is a 'net connection. If you want privacy - then it is your responsibility to make sure legislation is generated which defines, delineates, and grants privacy in a public location as it pertains to your computer (my responsibility as well).
Huh, I've never argued from this side of the coin before. It's been an interesting exercise.
And now that board is free to form a committee ;)
Seriously? You think we're stuck at the second year of the Civil War?
Game theory and first past the post may make that an inevitable cyclic event, but I think we've got a long time before we see troops marching under a Lone Star or Cascadia flag against the Stars and Stripes.
US Security Needs Re-Thinking
US Security Needs Thinking
FTFY
It'd still need to be nation-state fanatics however. Ashley et al. did point out the need for neutron bombardment for this pathway - so you'll need some sort of existing reactor/neutron source. Now there are a lot of those things around, but not many in the exclusive control of non-nation-state fanatics. However, thorium is a heck of a lot easier to get a hold of versus traditional weapon source material, and this proposed conversion removes a lot of complicated barriers to entry from the lab side.
From the article
So, yeah. If one is worried about proliferation - then thorium needs to be considered.
But companies C, D, and E (all competitors to A) benefit from the broken price fixing imposed by B (and it's allies) and will wipe the floor with A unless enough damages are awarded to compensate A for the additional expenses. Breaking an artificial monopoly is a noble thing, but my no means a sure bet financially.
Wait - are you talking about active directory? From an enterprise point of view that's what I'd be looking at.
I feel so ashamed - the apostrophe protection society is going to hunt me down.
I'm quite close to a different national lab type of federal facility and all of their laptops have been encrypted for at least a few years now. The stuff here isn't any more sensitive than the stuff there - it's just under an actual cabinet position. Bureaucracy may sometimes be a headache - but enforcing common sense policies is one of it's strong suits. Besides - is NASA really benefiting in it's efficiency from it's "bureaucratic freedom"?
Well he certainly never finished it!
*(Ok, so Herbert and Anderson might have made that possible).
Maybe McGrew's a computer scientist. Look at the way they name things. 8 bits is a byte, and half of a byte is a nibble. You come from a background like that and you're seriously liable to name anything after whimsey :)
Uterine replicators were pretty central to the start of Bujold's series in '86 with one of her first Hugo's coming out of that initial plot. She's examined their impact from a few different angles over the years - although it's just background or a side line in many of the Vorkosigan novels. I'd say she gave it a far better treatment than Herbert (though he certainly got there first) who only ever managed to share a Hugo let alone win the four Bujold's got. Actually, I think I liked the collaborative work of his son with Anderson a bit more than most of the original Dune books (barring Dune itself), although their work is probably best accompanied by a SSRI.
One of the things I appreciate about SF is not just the imagination of the future as much as exploring the ethics and social implications of where we might end up.
So for clarification that "the" was to be read th-ee not th-uh. So yes, a SI unit, but not the SI unit.
I don't think I'm an interesting party (what a setup), but I'm glad to hear POP3 is safe ;)
I would have followed up with another question: weight, or volume (and which liquid), or troy? But if I wanted to really annoy someone I would have inquired about gravity or picked on them for converting to the gram which isn't the SI unit for mass.
Oh come on. What could possibly go wrong?
Save the lava-salmon! Fish-ladder or bust!
Wait, this chick's been auto-dialing slashdot readers and she still can't get a date? That's what you call desperate!
I believe that the manufacturer set broadcast power is usually well below the FCC limit. Someone once told me that there was a line of routers who's only difference between the cheap and expensive models was the firmware fixed broadcast power. Don't know how true any of that is, but probably worth looking into if your router doesn't cover the house well enough.
The other option is to instal tomato/ddwrt on the new and old routers and set several up as wifi repeaters. Keep a list of tomato/ddwrt compatible routers when you go yard sale-ing and you'll set up a small wireless empire on the real-cheap!
Start small and ask for IRV to be implemented at your city level (or another voting system better suited for democracy than first past the post - which covers a lot of options you know). Then try for county level. Eventually adoption (and education) may reach a point when people can actually pressure the national level into adoption.
It was telling in this morning's headlines (not the top of the page headlines of course) that Jill Stein had to be described as a presidential candidate in relation to her arrest last night.