So give Facebook a FISA order to turn over messages from the Iranian government. They don't need unfettered access to Facebook's servers to accomplish that, nor do they need to force companies to build weaknesses into their software and servers to accomplish that.
My first thought reading this was (assuming the story is true), "this is exactly what the NSA is *supposed* to be doing." They should be focusing on gathering foreign intelligence, NOT collecting bazillions of phone records of Americans and coercing American companies (Google/Microsoft/etc) to build backdoors and weaknesses into their software and servers.
Though I sympathize with the gist of your position, I must question this particular argument:
If there is no privacy the government will eventually degenerate to a tyranny.
Why exactly is this so? Of course, it would be rather uncomfortable to have no privacy, but would it necessarily lead to tyranny? Why not the opposite, for example — if no one's dealings are private and all information (from banking transactions, to kissing, to bowel movements) about everyone is readily available to whoever cares, wouldn't it be harder to subdue the electoral process, for example?
You would make it much, much easier to "subdue the electoral process". If you're currently the party in power and facing re-election, you first kill everyone who donates money to the opposition--everybody stops giving them money, hampering their campaign. Then you kill anyone who's given any hint that they might vote for the opposition. You and your cohorts get re-elected. Rinse and repeat, and eventually nobody dares form an opposition party, much less support one. If anybody says or does anything that remotely sounds like rebellion, you kill them too. Your party stays in power indefinately, the only things that might end your reign are a split in your party, or killing off so many people that there not enough people left to work and your economy collapses.
The population of Chicago has been declining for decades, meaning fewer students to fill the schools. That, combined with "No Child Left Behind"'s (unfunded) mandate to fix or close failing schools, combined with falling property values (meaning less property taxes to fund the school district) has led to the massive closures. Those buildings really aren't needed as schools, they have plenty of space for the smaller student population in the remaining schools.
Chicago is suffering from the same suburban sprawl that chokes the tax money off of many U.S. cities.
Well if you think people shouldn't be allowed to leave a city and take their skills and money with them, then build a wall like East Germany did to stop people from running away from their "obligations" to those less well off.
Where did he say people shouldn't be allowed to leave a city? He stated a fact (people leaving cities for suburbs hurt the cities' tax revenue), he didn't state an opinion whether that was a good or bad thing.
You're right, food safety is completely useless. As long as you pay Monsato/Nestle/PepsiCo/McDonalds/etc/etc/etc for your food, it doesn't really matter if it's tainted and you die from it.
They're only doing this to show the International Olympic Committee that they're doing something about it. It's pretty disturbing that if they weren't trying to get the 2020 Olympics, they wouldn't be doing anything.
I mean that should catch any weapons of power enough to do anything, right? And if you simply don't want them entering the U.S. well that's what customs is for.
The counter-argument would be that the No-Fly list is part of the 'increased screening'.
How is that part of 'increased screening'? If you're on the list, you cannot fly with any amount of screening.
In a free society if one is free to travel then mode of transportation is irrelevant. If they have been charged with committing a crime that warrants limiting their travel, then maybe they shouldn't be free to travel at all, the 'air' part seems irrelevant. If they haven't be charged with a crime in a open court of law then there is nothing to discuss and they are free to travel however they choose.
The problem is, most of the people on the list haven't been charged or convicted of anything. They just happen to have a name that sort of, kind of, somewhat resembles the name of someone who the authorities think might, possibly, conceivably be a terrorist. If there were a suspected terrorist named John Smith, then every single person with the name John Smith would be put on the list.
There already do this. If you buy your ticket 2 days or less before the flight and are not in the airline's frequent flyer club, you are subject to extra screening. And I'm pretty sure you cannot buy a ticket at the airport with cash anymore (at least not without also showing a valid CC and 50 forms of ID).
Because startup and shut down speed are the most important aspects of an OS? FYI, Windows 7 starts up quite fast with an SSD too, and faster GPUs and CPUs will help no matter what OS you run.
I read the article. My point is that I suspect the appearance of causality, even in those cases where participants were conditioned with "scientific" or "non-scientific" lingo beforehand, is mediated by political propaganda, which form a subconscious association between "science" and political liberalism (thanks to the right wing's persistent popular use of anti-intellectualism in conjunction with anti-human ideologies). Talk about "sciencey" things, and you'll fire up the parts of a typical American's brain that are also generally activated in more "politically liberal" contexts; not because science is fundamentally more "socially progressive" in itself, but because the American right has worked to systematically exclude rational, "scientific-sounding" discourse in the public sphere in favor of racist/sexist/emotional appeals.
A very interesting take... I wish I had mod points. Your hypothesis could be tested by repeating the study in another nation with a different political atmosphere.
This ISN'T a stable society. It's a society that has been below replacement levels of reproduction for several generations. We're in the middle of a crisis of too many elderly and not enough young. You're living in a bubble untarnished by reality. If you search for key words such as "Demographic Winter" or "Ageing Population" there are plenty of numbers to substantiate the simple truth that we are REALLY FUCKED.
But don't let the facts get in the way of your ideals and preconceptions...
Birth rates globally are still above replacement levels (2.36 per woman of child-bearing age), albeit just by a hair (2.33 globally is break even), but are falling. You are assuming that trend will continue indefinately, probably falsely.
Also note the "break even" fertility rate falls as infant/child mortality rates fall. In developed countries, 2.1 is break even; in developing countries it ranges from 2.5 - 3.3 due to higher mortality rates. As medical science improves (and existing advances become available in poorer nations), replacement level should fall closer to the ideal 2.0.
Don't know the relevance of the link you posted. A number of the listed iPad apps that don't have equivalent Android apps are made by Apple, so of course they don't have Android versions. There are very few listed there that have Android versions but are not optimized for tablets, which kinda defeats the fragmentation argument. As someone who owns an Android tablet, I run into very few apps that don't work well on a tablet screen. Most I see *are* optimized for tablets, and many of those that aren't optimized still scale up well enough that it's not a problem.
I'm still not sure why this is a fragmentation issue. I can run windows on any x64 or i86 machine, I don't need to get security updates from Dell or HP or myself if I built it myself. Why then do I have to get updates to the core os via my carrier?
Because many smartphones (at least in the US) have locked bootloaders, usually at the carrier's insistence. The carrier's want to control the experience on the phones they are selling. Stick with Nexus devices, unlocked developer devices, or easily unlockable devices and you can run custom ROMs and updates to your heart's content.
How is it that for Windows fragmentation was key to them becoming ubiquitous but for Android is becoming a hindrance?
I agree that the Android fragmentation "problem" is grossly overstated. You generally only hear it from fanboys of other OSs, or from clueless analysts who repeat what others have said. Very rarely do you hear actual Android developers complain about fragmentation problems.
Not quite the same. Crystal radios can't transmit information, only receive it, while this can both transmit and received. In the sense that they're powered only by the RF received, they are similar.
The "American Dream" as it was (house, car, giving your kids better opportunities than you had) didn't require stepping on others. Nowadays a lot of people (but far from all) think it means getting very, very rich with as little work or effort as possible, which does require stepping on people.
Slashdot Mirror
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't BSD more permissive than GPL?
So give Facebook a FISA order to turn over messages from the Iranian government. They don't need unfettered access to Facebook's servers to accomplish that, nor do they need to force companies to build weaknesses into their software and servers to accomplish that.
My first thought reading this was (assuming the story is true), "this is exactly what the NSA is *supposed* to be doing." They should be focusing on gathering foreign intelligence, NOT collecting bazillions of phone records of Americans and coercing American companies (Google/Microsoft/etc) to build backdoors and weaknesses into their software and servers.
Though I sympathize with the gist of your position, I must question this particular argument:
Why exactly is this so? Of course, it would be rather uncomfortable to have no privacy, but would it necessarily lead to tyranny? Why not the opposite, for example — if no one's dealings are private and all information (from banking transactions, to kissing, to bowel movements) about everyone is readily available to whoever cares, wouldn't it be harder to subdue the electoral process, for example?
You would make it much, much easier to "subdue the electoral process". If you're currently the party in power and facing re-election, you first kill everyone who donates money to the opposition--everybody stops giving them money, hampering their campaign. Then you kill anyone who's given any hint that they might vote for the opposition. You and your cohorts get re-elected. Rinse and repeat, and eventually nobody dares form an opposition party, much less support one. If anybody says or does anything that remotely sounds like rebellion, you kill them too. Your party stays in power indefinately, the only things that might end your reign are a split in your party, or killing off so many people that there not enough people left to work and your economy collapses.
The population of Chicago has been declining for decades, meaning fewer students to fill the schools. That, combined with "No Child Left Behind"'s (unfunded) mandate to fix or close failing schools, combined with falling property values (meaning less property taxes to fund the school district) has led to the massive closures. Those buildings really aren't needed as schools, they have plenty of space for the smaller student population in the remaining schools.
Well if you think people shouldn't be allowed to leave a city and take their skills and money with them, then build a wall like East Germany did to stop people from running away from their "obligations" to those less well off.
Where did he say people shouldn't be allowed to leave a city? He stated a fact (people leaving cities for suburbs hurt the cities' tax revenue), he didn't state an opinion whether that was a good or bad thing.
Everywhere I've lived (also in the US), water has been provided by the city.
You're right, food safety is completely useless. As long as you pay Monsato/Nestle/PepsiCo/McDonalds/etc/etc/etc for your food, it doesn't really matter if it's tainted and you die from it.
Will only happen if Pepsi changes it name to something that starts with the letter L.
'Candybar' doesn't start with K. Besides, it's a silly joint marketing ploy. Hard to do with generic names.
They're only doing this to show the International Olympic Committee that they're doing something about it. It's pretty disturbing that if they weren't trying to get the 2020 Olympics, they wouldn't be doing anything.
-40 Celsius IS equal to -40 Fahrenheit.
I mean that should catch any weapons of power enough to do anything, right? And if you simply don't want them entering the U.S. well that's what customs is for.
The counter-argument would be that the No-Fly list is part of the 'increased screening'.
How is that part of 'increased screening'? If you're on the list, you cannot fly with any amount of screening.
In a free society if one is free to travel then mode of transportation is irrelevant. If they have been charged with committing a crime that warrants limiting their travel, then maybe they shouldn't be free to travel at all, the 'air' part seems irrelevant. If they haven't be charged with a crime in a open court of law then there is nothing to discuss and they are free to travel however they choose.
The problem is, most of the people on the list haven't been charged or convicted of anything. They just happen to have a name that sort of, kind of, somewhat resembles the name of someone who the authorities think might, possibly, conceivably be a terrorist. If there were a suspected terrorist named John Smith, then every single person with the name John Smith would be put on the list.
There already do this. If you buy your ticket 2 days or less before the flight and are not in the airline's frequent flyer club, you are subject to extra screening. And I'm pretty sure you cannot buy a ticket at the airport with cash anymore (at least not without also showing a valid CC and 50 forms of ID).
Because startup and shut down speed are the most important aspects of an OS? FYI, Windows 7 starts up quite fast with an SSD too, and faster GPUs and CPUs will help no matter what OS you run.
Is everyone paying thousands of dollars for a MSDN subscription now? News to me...
I read the article. My point is that I suspect the appearance of causality, even in those cases where participants were conditioned with "scientific" or "non-scientific" lingo beforehand, is mediated by political propaganda, which form a subconscious association between "science" and political liberalism (thanks to the right wing's persistent popular use of anti-intellectualism in conjunction with anti-human ideologies). Talk about "sciencey" things, and you'll fire up the parts of a typical American's brain that are also generally activated in more "politically liberal" contexts; not because science is fundamentally more "socially progressive" in itself, but because the American right has worked to systematically exclude rational, "scientific-sounding" discourse in the public sphere in favor of racist/sexist/emotional appeals.
A very interesting take... I wish I had mod points. Your hypothesis could be tested by repeating the study in another nation with a different political atmosphere.
This ISN'T a stable society. It's a society that has been below replacement levels of reproduction for several generations. We're in the middle of a crisis of too many elderly and not enough young. You're living in a bubble untarnished by reality. If you search for key words such as "Demographic Winter" or "Ageing Population" there are plenty of numbers to substantiate the simple truth that we are REALLY FUCKED.
But don't let the facts get in the way of your ideals and preconceptions...
Birth rates globally are still above replacement levels (2.36 per woman of child-bearing age), albeit just by a hair (2.33 globally is break even), but are falling. You are assuming that trend will continue indefinately, probably falsely.
Also note the "break even" fertility rate falls as infant/child mortality rates fall. In developed countries, 2.1 is break even; in developing countries it ranges from 2.5 - 3.3 due to higher mortality rates. As medical science improves (and existing advances become available
in poorer nations), replacement level should fall closer to the ideal 2.0.
Source Total fertility rate
Short answer: lack of competition in service providers
Maybe the fragmentation is why there aren't anywhere near as many Android tablet optimized apps.
Umm... no. It's quite easy to have different layouts for larger screens in Android.
http://www.canalys.com/download/tablet_apps.pdf
Don't know the relevance of the link you posted. A number of the listed iPad apps that don't have equivalent Android apps are made by Apple, so of course they don't have Android versions. There are very few listed there that have Android versions but are not optimized for tablets, which kinda defeats the fragmentation argument. As someone who owns an Android tablet, I run into very few apps that don't work well on a tablet screen. Most I see *are* optimized for tablets, and many of those that aren't optimized still scale up well enough that it's not a problem.
I'm genuinely curious?
I can't answer that.
I'm still not sure why this is a fragmentation issue. I can run windows on any x64 or i86 machine, I don't need to get security updates from Dell or HP or myself if I built it myself. Why then do I have to get updates to the core os via my carrier?
Because many smartphones (at least in the US) have locked bootloaders, usually at the carrier's insistence. The carrier's want to control the experience on the phones they are selling. Stick with Nexus devices, unlocked developer devices, or easily unlockable devices and you can run custom ROMs and updates to your heart's content.
How is it that for Windows fragmentation was key to them becoming ubiquitous but for Android is becoming a hindrance?
I agree that the Android fragmentation "problem" is grossly overstated. You generally only hear it from fanboys of other OSs, or from clueless analysts who repeat what others have said. Very rarely do you hear actual Android developers complain about fragmentation problems.
The example error message the Open Rights Group gives in TFA does exactly what you're asking for.
It has a direct impact on education. And try to get a decent job in today's world without knowing at least basic Internet use.
Not quite the same. Crystal radios can't transmit information, only receive it, while this can both transmit and received. In the sense that they're powered only by the RF received, they are similar.
The "American Dream" as it was (house, car, giving your kids better opportunities than you had) didn't require stepping on others. Nowadays a lot of people (but far from all) think it means getting very, very rich with as little work or effort as possible, which does require stepping on people.