Maybe he should of said 'accidental sinking'. The Wilhelm Gustloff wasn't an accident, seeing as how the Russians hit it with torpedos. It was also transporting combat troops at the time, had anti-aircraft guns, and was traveling blacked out. In other words, the sort of ship you try to avoid for transporting refugees. I'd count it as a military ship.
As for the Dona Paz, I can only guess that the rich and famous of the Titanic combined with the hubris of it's builders has made it more famous than the Dona Paz, a 'mere' ferry not carrying a signficant amount of Americans, English, and other Europeans. That and the Titanic had probably already entered the public legend by the time of the sinking of the Dona Paz.
At least in my view, a point would be that the statue of limitations has passed in the most final fashion possible. While I'd gladly prosecute anybody who made the decision to substitute substandard rivets with manslaughter - I really doubt that any survive at this point. Same deal with the company - ownership has passed so many hands since then it's not really fair to submarine the current owners over something that happened more than a lifetime ago.
Incidentally, I feel the same way about the current trend to snob companies that can be traced back to the days of slavery, and connections in the trade of. Especially when the connection is that a Bank bought out the assets of a failing bank back in the day, that had in the past bought out a bank that merged with a company that made loans for the purchase of slaves(not to mention homes, farm equipment, etc...). The final bank didn't even exist until after the civil war. Yes, slavery is and was wrong, but after a certain point we need to let it go.
oh and... hit by a mine? I can easily explain how the Britannic went down...... it was hit by a freaking mine!!!
But the damage might of been survivable if a number of features had worked or been used. It was noted that a number of doors couldn't be sealed. Damage to two watertight compartments I can understand, maybe even three, but a couple more compartments remaining water tight might of made a huge difference. Another thing noted was that the nurses aboard had opened most of the portholes to ventilate the wards. If those had been closed, it would have slowed things as well.
Still, they did manage to get everyone off the ship, though there were casualties from boats launched without authorization that got hit by the propellors.
I do like your steps 1-4, they do make sense. Note: The Iceberg might of been the primary cause of the loss of the titanic, but I'll view it like a car and crash safety standards - sure, a crash isn't normal operating procedure, but safety in a crash is a required design measure for cars. Sturdy rivets not only increase the life of the ship, they also help it survive damage - whether that allows the ship to be saved like the USS Cole, or simply keeps it above water long enough to be evacuated.
And yes, there are many schools with some serious problems.
I liked your earlier point with the wages - It's not just that, but today a plumber or electrician can make as much as a guy with a bachelors. More if you figure that a journeyman/master is never going to be out of work.
Should posting on/. require a degree in basic spelling and proper punctuation?
Remedial proofreading perhaps? I don't exactly hold myself to the highest standards on slashdot. Besides, the first one is obviously a double tap.
Haven't you heard of beauty school? Most bank tellers these days have college degrees.
Beauty school I can understand. But why does a bank teller need a college degree?
Car mechanics, plumbers and electricians also need very specialized training.
Duh, but they can learn via apprenticeship and technical training - starting in high school in at least some instances.
Are you telling me that we should reduce that number to 20%? 15%?
Nope, I'm saying that we need to prepare those not going to college better.
The more liberally educated our population is, the better off our society. We need more citizens informed about history, math, science and art, not less.
Liberally indoctrinated?;) Though I agree with the latter part.
Perhaps I should state that I think that we need to go more to a seperate tracked system - don't hold the smart kids back, or ignore them to try to meet the 'no child left behind' stuff. For the ones who aren't going to be able to make it to college, prepare them as best as possible to be contributing members of society in their own way.
I'm just saying that we don't have enough of it early enough. And in many cases it could be taught in HS, allowing people who aren't destined for college to get started sooner.
Thing about newspapers is to realize that they're normally written extremely quickly to meet space requirements by an author not necessarily skilled in the topic. Then it goes through an editor who'll chop it down even more, again, without always realizing the importance of what they're chopping. Sometimes it can change meanings completely.
Still, I've become a bit jaded with all the mistakes I see in the paper. Stuff like '.9 caliber revolver', '10 12 gauge magazines' that were associated with a ruger 10-22, automatic revolver, Etc...
And why should they? It's your job to teach them isn't it? Why are we constantly expecting "students" to know things?
Because, let's face it, college is supposed to be an advanced curriculum, and people attending are supposed to already have a High School diploma that indicates that they have met requirements to graduate that include things like writing a report. They don't need to be perfect, but they should know how.
Besides, High School teachers have become so retarded over the years it's amazing that graduates know anything.
This is the REAL problem. Why the heck should we spend 12 years in school if we don't learn anything useful? If anything, the spread of AP courses into high school doesn't indicate that students are learning stuff earlier, it indicates that standards have slipped. What used to be considered HS material is now college level stuff.
What used to require a HS diploma now requires an Associates, what used to require an Associates now requires a Bachelor. So on and so forth. We're costing ourselves a lot of resources to take another couple years to get people ready for the workplace - It's arguable who's better off, somebody who goes to work out of HS, or somebody to goes to college and comes out $60k in debt for a 'mere' $10k more a year in income while the guy who went to work has 4 extra years of income.
I think that we need to bring back the technical training - not everybody needs to go to college, nor is it beest for everyone. We still need mechanics, plumbers, and electricions. Hairdressers/barbers, cashiers and tellers. There are people who are happier in those jobs.
That's what my teachers taught me in the "dark ages" when encyclopedias were printed on paper, and they should be teaching students the same thing today. Wikipedia or Britannica are great places to get a general understanding, and maybe a few sources, but that's it.
I'll uske wikipedia to get a general view of things or to provide a general description on the internet. I'd use a paper encyclopedia in similar circumstances to describe something to friends.
When I want to get more in depth or it's more serious than a post on/. or similar, then I start looking for primary sources.
Random post about nuclear power on slashdot - wikipedia will work. More in depth? I'll probably end up linking/refrencing something on the DOE page.
Basically, I'd require justification, and assuming that the person/business being subpeonad isn't a defendant, I'd require the requester to pay reasonable costs for the preperation/presentation of the material.
In the case of an individual like this, their hourly wage would be a good start.
In the case of a defendant, costs for this sort of stuff could be decided in the awards phase if the defendant isn't found liable(IE the plaintiff is forced to pay for hassling the defendant).
Maybe I should of said effective use of patents. Plenty of people have been screwed by companies without a single patent being involved. Plenty of people have managed to become rich from patents.
That's why I talked about tweaking terms and durations. By preference you want to find what makes the most sense for society as a whole. Generally speaking, that's getting people to divulge their trade secrets so knowledge isn't lost when the person croaks, as is pretty much inevitable.
For example, the shaman, if he's smart, might not sign over all rights, instead keeping the right for him and his heirs to distribute the treatment in their village.
What incentive does a patent offer some village shaman? Do you think he's going to setup a pharmaceutical lab in his home and export to the US and EU?
More a problem with our current medical requirements than the patent system. Perhaps we've gone too far in requirements for FDA approval, but on the other hand I keep hearing about how drugs aren't effective either, and that's supposed to be one of the core issues, to be approved a drug is supposed to be safe* and effective.
If nothing else, a good patent system would allow him to get the patent then auction it off for much more than $5k if he could scientifically demonstrate effectiveness in even a limited fashion. While there's FDA concerns about anything proposed as a medical treatment, there's nothing preventing him from packaging the stuff up and selling it himself and growing the business as he's able.
*Safe sometimes meaning 'safer than not taking the drug' as is the case for drugs like chemo./Gotta remember that slashdot uses actual html code, not brackets...
I can put it on eBay to sell even if there was a big sticker on it that said "Do Not Sell." They would have no rights to tell me to send it back or to tell me that I need to keep it and not sell it. If I made copies of that CD and sold them, I would still be in the wrong, however.
Yep. That's why I put the 'This' at the beginning. I put the copyright stuff in afterwards to elaborate about the 'bits on the CD'. Copyright still applies. Restrictions other than that are unenforcable because the party you sent it to never agreed to the terms, thus there's no contract.
Of course, I'm wondering why I got modded flamebait, but oh well, stuff happens.
It's your option to shred, toss, or burn the mail in a furnace in the wintertime.
Still, the [i]majority[/i] of the costs are borne by the mailer, thus resulting in limites to the amount, and at least some specifivity. Not to mention that in order to get the best rates you have to identify yourself to the post office pretty well. This limits the amount of scamming that can be done as the scammers are normally stuck paying first class if they want to do anonymous drops. That increases costs to the point it has to be a very good scam or very selectively mailed if the scammer is to have any hope of making money and avoiding the postal police.
Of course LN2, being a liquid, is easier to pump around than the solid dry ice. Both have the beneficial properties of being non-explosive, though you have to be careful to ensure sufficient ventilation, especially if you're dealing with large amounts of it.
I wonder if 200k is reachable using some sort of heat pump system using a thin oil(so it remains liquid) as a medium?
But he's not, at the moment at least, he's keeping it a trade secret.
So, if anything goes wrong, the knowledge would be lost forever. This happened with a specific process used to make artificial gemstones(I think rubies). The inventor died without passing it on, and while we've found alternate methods, we've never found [i]his[/i]. The process is unique.
By allowing patents, we get people like him to divulge his or her information in exchange for protection of their patent, allowing them to make money off from it in a non-secretive fashion, helping society as a whole. Beyond that, setting terms and time limits is 'tweaking' the formula to try to gain maximum benefit.
Don't even need to do that. Like I said, federal law is that they mailed it to you without authorization/contract, so it's yours.
It's like somebody dumping something valuable on my property, deliberately. If I want it I can keep it. If I don't want it I can sue them for removal costs.;)
Under U.S. law, what the recipient "owns" is a plastic disc (pretty much irregardless of what data is encoded on said disc). AOL can't deter someone from selling that particular disc -- not arguing that an AOL disc would be worth anything to begin with. It is actually a good consumer protection law, preventing companies from doing things like sending "free samples" and then attempting to bill you for it.
This. Just because they send you a unsolicited demo CD, software CD, whatever, doesn't mean that you can just go violate copyright by setting up a duplication line to sell copies of the CD. They just can't go after you for the CD. Well, they can try to annoy you with letters to send it back or pay for it, but you're under no legal obligation.
Good thing, one organization sent me a video, they made returning it annoying enough that I said 'screw this, I ain't donating them any tape(that I didn't have) to return their stupid product'. They followed it up with a half dozen dunning notices - followed up by a call. I told them 'your return required tape, I didn't have any, so I threw it away. Stop bothering me, I'm not paying, I don't even have a VCR'. Note - I normally support the organization that sent me the tape, but they do get annoying at times.
Agreed. The USAF is more and more 'contractor', but it's still part of the government.
The USPS still has the legal monopoly on mail*. They actually have police and the power to prosecute. Federal building laws apply to postal buildings. Heck, If I remember right(it's been a while since I saw one), I think that postal trucks either have government plates, or even no plates.
Thus, I consider the USPS a government agency. One of the more independant ones, but still a government agency.
*Except for packages and 'priority' stuff. Some businesses have been fined for using exclusively fedex, for example.
When I say safety, I mean in stability of the grid.
And I'll say that stability or reliability would be better words than safety. You talk about safety and people think that failures lead to trips to the hospital and morgue. I was pointing out, that from a safety perspective, designing the system to shut down when it fails is a good thing, because that means 'power workers aren't getting electrocuted', or even better, that non-power workers aren't getting electrocuted because that downed powerline was detected and rendered dead.
After you assure that, then you can worry about whether or not you can reroute power and stuff to keep outages down. And yes, they're working on it.
Imagine, for example, that some fool goes and fires a thick chain into a substation.
Didn't mention it in my parent post, but I did mention the potential for terrorists playing with a buss bar in much the same way. You don't need to hack computers to shut down the grid. Most substations are only protected by fencing. A few people get themselves killed each year by climbing over the fence and either trying to vandalize or steal something.
Slashdot Mirror
But that was almost 100 years in the past!
Yes, but they were substandard even for the rivets of the time. They've even found documentation stating such.
Maybe he should of said 'accidental sinking'. The Wilhelm Gustloff wasn't an accident, seeing as how the Russians hit it with torpedos. It was also transporting combat troops at the time, had anti-aircraft guns, and was traveling blacked out. In other words, the sort of ship you try to avoid for transporting refugees. I'd count it as a military ship.
As for the Dona Paz, I can only guess that the rich and famous of the Titanic combined with the hubris of it's builders has made it more famous than the Dona Paz, a 'mere' ferry not carrying a signficant amount of Americans, English, and other Europeans. That and the Titanic had probably already entered the public legend by the time of the sinking of the Dona Paz.
At least in my view, a point would be that the statue of limitations has passed in the most final fashion possible. While I'd gladly prosecute anybody who made the decision to substitute substandard rivets with manslaughter - I really doubt that any survive at this point. Same deal with the company - ownership has passed so many hands since then it's not really fair to submarine the current owners over something that happened more than a lifetime ago.
Incidentally, I feel the same way about the current trend to snob companies that can be traced back to the days of slavery, and connections in the trade of. Especially when the connection is that a Bank bought out the assets of a failing bank back in the day, that had in the past bought out a bank that merged with a company that made loans for the purchase of slaves(not to mention homes, farm equipment, etc...). The final bank didn't even exist until after the civil war. Yes, slavery is and was wrong, but after a certain point we need to let it go.
oh and... hit by a mine? I can easily explain how the Britannic went down...... it was hit by a freaking mine!!!
But the damage might of been survivable if a number of features had worked or been used. It was noted that a number of doors couldn't be sealed. Damage to two watertight compartments I can understand, maybe even three, but a couple more compartments remaining water tight might of made a huge difference. Another thing noted was that the nurses aboard had opened most of the portholes to ventilate the wards. If those had been closed, it would have slowed things as well.
Still, they did manage to get everyone off the ship, though there were casualties from boats launched without authorization that got hit by the propellors.
I do like your steps 1-4, they do make sense. Note: The Iceberg might of been the primary cause of the loss of the titanic, but I'll view it like a car and crash safety standards - sure, a crash isn't normal operating procedure, but safety in a crash is a required design measure for cars. Sturdy rivets not only increase the life of the ship, they also help it survive damage - whether that allows the ship to be saved like the USS Cole, or simply keeps it above water long enough to be evacuated.
And I got typing. On actual typewriters! ;)
And yes, there are many schools with some serious problems.
I liked your earlier point with the wages - It's not just that, but today a plumber or electrician can make as much as a guy with a bachelors. More if you figure that a journeyman/master is never going to be out of work.
At teh high school a went to the vocational guys (technical training) are out there with real plumbers, carpenters, auto mechanics, etc.
;)
looking at your post, it seems some other things suffered instead.
Seriously, your HS might be one of the lucky ones. I know of many that have dropped that sort of stuff entirely.
Should posting on /. require a degree in basic spelling and proper punctuation?
;) Though I agree with the latter part.
Remedial proofreading perhaps? I don't exactly hold myself to the highest standards on slashdot. Besides, the first one is obviously a double tap.
Haven't you heard of beauty school? Most bank tellers these days have college degrees.
Beauty school I can understand. But why does a bank teller need a college degree?
Car mechanics, plumbers and electricians also need very specialized training.
Duh, but they can learn via apprenticeship and technical training - starting in high school in at least some instances.
Are you telling me that we should reduce that number to 20%? 15%?
Nope, I'm saying that we need to prepare those not going to college better.
The more liberally educated our population is, the better off our society. We need more citizens informed about history, math, science and art, not less.
Liberally indoctrinated?
Perhaps I should state that I think that we need to go more to a seperate tracked system - don't hold the smart kids back, or ignore them to try to meet the 'no child left behind' stuff. For the ones who aren't going to be able to make it to college, prepare them as best as possible to be contributing members of society in their own way.
I'm just saying that we don't have enough of it early enough. And in many cases it could be taught in HS, allowing people who aren't destined for college to get started sooner.
Thing about newspapers is to realize that they're normally written extremely quickly to meet space requirements by an author not necessarily skilled in the topic. Then it goes through an editor who'll chop it down even more, again, without always realizing the importance of what they're chopping. Sometimes it can change meanings completely.
Still, I've become a bit jaded with all the mistakes I see in the paper. Stuff like '.9 caliber revolver', '10 12 gauge magazines' that were associated with a ruger 10-22, automatic revolver, Etc...
And why should they? It's your job to teach them isn't it? Why are we constantly expecting "students" to know things?
Because, let's face it, college is supposed to be an advanced curriculum, and people attending are supposed to already have a High School diploma that indicates that they have met requirements to graduate that include things like writing a report. They don't need to be perfect, but they should know how.
Besides, High School teachers have become so retarded over the years it's amazing that graduates know anything.
This is the REAL problem. Why the heck should we spend 12 years in school if we don't learn anything useful? If anything, the spread of AP courses into high school doesn't indicate that students are learning stuff earlier, it indicates that standards have slipped. What used to be considered HS material is now college level stuff.
What used to require a HS diploma now requires an Associates, what used to require an Associates now requires a Bachelor. So on and so forth. We're costing ourselves a lot of resources to take another couple years to get people ready for the workplace - It's arguable who's better off, somebody who goes to work out of HS, or somebody to goes to college and comes out $60k in debt for a 'mere' $10k more a year in income while the guy who went to work has 4 extra years of income.
I think that we need to bring back the technical training - not everybody needs to go to college, nor is it beest for everyone. We still need mechanics, plumbers, and electricions. Hairdressers/barbers, cashiers and tellers. There are people who are happier in those jobs.
That's what my teachers taught me in the "dark ages" when encyclopedias were printed on paper, and they should be teaching students the same thing today. Wikipedia or Britannica are great places to get a general understanding, and maybe a few sources, but that's it.
/. or similar, then I start looking for primary sources.
I'll uske wikipedia to get a general view of things or to provide a general description on the internet. I'd use a paper encyclopedia in similar circumstances to describe something to friends.
When I want to get more in depth or it's more serious than a post on
Random post about nuclear power on slashdot - wikipedia will work. More in depth? I'll probably end up linking/refrencing something on the DOE page.
They need to be reviewed by the judge, not just blanket issued. Normal procedure
Thus, the 'they need justification' deal.
ur proposal puts off sanctions until after the whole trial is over. Pain for misconduct like this needs to occur much, MUCH earlier.
For stuff they request from the defendant. Who's presumably involved and has lawyers of their own to control this stuff.
For parties that aren't directly involved in the case(IE they aren't suing or being sued), standard billing practices apply. COD makes sense to me.
Basically, I'd require justification, and assuming that the person/business being subpeonad isn't a defendant, I'd require the requester to pay reasonable costs for the preperation/presentation of the material.
In the case of an individual like this, their hourly wage would be a good start.
In the case of a defendant, costs for this sort of stuff could be decided in the awards phase if the defendant isn't found liable(IE the plaintiff is forced to pay for hassling the defendant).
Man, talk about being a downer.
/Gotta remember that slashdot uses actual html code, not brackets...
Maybe I should of said effective use of patents. Plenty of people have been screwed by companies without a single patent being involved. Plenty of people have managed to become rich from patents.
That's why I talked about tweaking terms and durations. By preference you want to find what makes the most sense for society as a whole. Generally speaking, that's getting people to divulge their trade secrets so knowledge isn't lost when the person croaks, as is pretty much inevitable.
For example, the shaman, if he's smart, might not sign over all rights, instead keeping the right for him and his heirs to distribute the treatment in their village.
What incentive does a patent offer some village shaman? Do you think he's going to setup a pharmaceutical lab in his home and export to the US and EU?
More a problem with our current medical requirements than the patent system. Perhaps we've gone too far in requirements for FDA approval, but on the other hand I keep hearing about how drugs aren't effective either, and that's supposed to be one of the core issues, to be approved a drug is supposed to be safe* and effective.
If nothing else, a good patent system would allow him to get the patent then auction it off for much more than $5k if he could scientifically demonstrate effectiveness in even a limited fashion. While there's FDA concerns about anything proposed as a medical treatment, there's nothing preventing him from packaging the stuff up and selling it himself and growing the business as he's able.
*Safe sometimes meaning 'safer than not taking the drug' as is the case for drugs like chemo.
I can put it on eBay to sell even if there was a big sticker on it that said "Do Not Sell." They would have no rights to tell me to send it back or to tell me that I need to keep it and not sell it. If I made copies of that CD and sold them, I would still be in the wrong, however.
Yep. That's why I put the 'This' at the beginning. I put the copyright stuff in afterwards to elaborate about the 'bits on the CD'. Copyright still applies. Restrictions other than that are unenforcable because the party you sent it to never agreed to the terms, thus there's no contract.
Of course, I'm wondering why I got modded flamebait, but oh well, stuff happens.
Is it being used to cook?
Personally, while I'd use junk mail in a furnace(vented to the outside), I wouldn't use it to cook food, too many chemicals.
It's your option to shred, toss, or burn the mail in a furnace in the wintertime.
Still, the [i]majority[/i] of the costs are borne by the mailer, thus resulting in limites to the amount, and at least some specifivity. Not to mention that in order to get the best rates you have to identify yourself to the post office pretty well. This limits the amount of scamming that can be done as the scammers are normally stuck paying first class if they want to do anonymous drops. That increases costs to the point it has to be a very good scam or very selectively mailed if the scammer is to have any hope of making money and avoiding the postal police.
Of course LN2, being a liquid, is easier to pump around than the solid dry ice. Both have the beneficial properties of being non-explosive, though you have to be careful to ensure sufficient ventilation, especially if you're dealing with large amounts of it.
I wonder if 200k is reachable using some sort of heat pump system using a thin oil(so it remains liquid) as a medium?
But he's not, at the moment at least, he's keeping it a trade secret.
So, if anything goes wrong, the knowledge would be lost forever. This happened with a specific process used to make artificial gemstones(I think rubies). The inventor died without passing it on, and while we've found alternate methods, we've never found [i]his[/i]. The process is unique.
By allowing patents, we get people like him to divulge his or her information in exchange for protection of their patent, allowing them to make money off from it in a non-secretive fashion, helping society as a whole. Beyond that, setting terms and time limits is 'tweaking' the formula to try to gain maximum benefit.
cows just kind of looked at him like "WTF??" as he moved them to where he wanted them.
;)
But they moved, didn't they?
Herding dogs is an interesting behavior and I wonder where the baseline for the behavior came before selective breeding enhanced it.
BTW, live brains are better for knowledge transfer.
Don't even need to do that. Like I said, federal law is that they mailed it to you without authorization/contract, so it's yours.
;)
It's like somebody dumping something valuable on my property, deliberately. If I want it I can keep it. If I don't want it I can sue them for removal costs.
Under U.S. law, what the recipient "owns" is a plastic disc (pretty much irregardless of what data is encoded on said disc). AOL can't deter someone from selling that particular disc -- not arguing that an AOL disc would be worth anything to begin with. It is actually a good consumer protection law, preventing companies from doing things like sending "free samples" and then attempting to bill you for it.
This. Just because they send you a unsolicited demo CD, software CD, whatever, doesn't mean that you can just go violate copyright by setting up a duplication line to sell copies of the CD. They just can't go after you for the CD. Well, they can try to annoy you with letters to send it back or pay for it, but you're under no legal obligation.
Good thing, one organization sent me a video, they made returning it annoying enough that I said 'screw this, I ain't donating them any tape(that I didn't have) to return their stupid product'. They followed it up with a half dozen dunning notices - followed up by a call. I told them 'your return required tape, I didn't have any, so I threw it away. Stop bothering me, I'm not paying, I don't even have a VCR'. Note - I normally support the organization that sent me the tape, but they do get annoying at times.
Agreed. The USAF is more and more 'contractor', but it's still part of the government.
The USPS still has the legal monopoly on mail*. They actually have police and the power to prosecute. Federal building laws apply to postal buildings. Heck, If I remember right(it's been a while since I saw one), I think that postal trucks either have government plates, or even no plates.
Thus, I consider the USPS a government agency. One of the more independant ones, but still a government agency.
*Except for packages and 'priority' stuff. Some businesses have been fined for using exclusively fedex, for example.
US law, at least for goods sent through the USPS*, is even better - if you sent me something unsolicited through the mail, it's mine.
They can 'arrange' for pickup all they like, I don't have to do a thing. It's my choice as to whether to give it back or not.
*The USPS is actually part of the Federal Government, it's just self sustaining through the sale of stamps and such.
When I say safety, I mean in stability of the grid.
And I'll say that stability or reliability would be better words than safety. You talk about safety and people think that failures lead to trips to the hospital and morgue. I was pointing out, that from a safety perspective, designing the system to shut down when it fails is a good thing, because that means 'power workers aren't getting electrocuted', or even better, that non-power workers aren't getting electrocuted because that downed powerline was detected and rendered dead.
After you assure that, then you can worry about whether or not you can reroute power and stuff to keep outages down. And yes, they're working on it.
Imagine, for example, that some fool goes and fires a thick chain into a substation.
Didn't mention it in my parent post, but I did mention the potential for terrorists playing with a buss bar in much the same way. You don't need to hack computers to shut down the grid. Most substations are only protected by fencing. A few people get themselves killed each year by climbing over the fence and either trying to vandalize or steal something.