Congress doesn't goof off for months and then pretend they were investigating something.
They're more the "hold pointless hearings to make it seem like you're doing something and then go out on recess" kind of folks. Of course, they also will mix in "pass a law you claim with solve X when it really just benefits your favorite lobbyists."
At best, there will be a handful of sacrificial firings with sternly worded statements about how they will not be tolerating this behavior in the future. Then, business as usual will resume.
Don't let them watch movies until he's read the books they're based on.
We did this with the Harry Potter series. We let my oldest (now almost 11) watch the first two movies and then insisted that he read the books with me before he could see any more movies. (He could see a subsequent movie when he finished the book.)
We recently started his with our youngest (7). I let him watch the first movie and now he's reading the first book with my wife. He will be able to watch the other movies as he finishes the books.
In other words, we used the first movie as a hook to get them interested in the series. Not something you can do with any book/movie, but works very nicely with Harry Potter. As a bonus, they can really appreciate what was cut out of the books to make them into movies. As much as I like the movies, the books contain a LOT more details for why things happen and have many subplots that were cut entirely.
My son, now in second grade, was like that too. He refused to even acknowledge that he knew how to read and would complain that reading was "too hard." We were patient and read to him. We also reassured him that him reading wouldn't mean the end of time spent with us reading to him. A couple of weeks ago, he read his first chapter book (in the Bad Kitty series) and it sparked something in him. Over the past couple of weeks, he has read the entire rest of the Bad Kitty series as well as a bunch of other chapter books.
It might be a confidence issue or a desire to keep spending reading time with Mom/Dad. Be patient and keep reading to your child. Encourage him to read a page or paragraph whenever possible. That might help build up your son's confidence in his own reading ability.
Also being interested in how the subject is taught.
Like the GP, I have a son who is ahead of his class in math. He used to love math class and would figuratively devour any math problem presented to him. Recently, his love of math has become tempered, though. It's not that he's getting into harder math problems, but the way the math is being taught. (New York State adopted a system of teaching that requires all teachers to teach the same lessons to their kids in the same way - regardless of learning level.) He doesn't do well with the current system so he's slipping. Of course, at this point, he's slipping from "way ahead" to just "marginally ahead", but still slipping.
A good teacher can take a kid with ability and make him/her excel. A great teacher can take a child who hated a subject and uncover a hidden talent for said subject. A bad teacher (or teaching style) can take a kid with ability and make them hate that subject and not want to put any effort into it ever again.
The same thing happens with civil lawsuits also. If the RIAA thinks they've caught you uploading a thousand songs, they'll sue you for $150 million (the maximum penalty the law allows). Then, they will offer to settle for "only" $3,000 and a signed statement that they give you which basically admits your guilt and forces your silence on the matter. Your options are a) pay for a lawyer and spend time and money fighting the case knowing that you might lose and, even if you win, might not get back lawyer fees or b) settle and cut your losses.
Most people understandably choose option b. It's nice to say you'll defend your innocence in theory but in reality a fight like this would be too much for some people when they need to juggle work, bills, and other aspects of real life. The RIAA counts on this and abuses the legal system to ensure as high a "number of pirates caught" number as possible regardless of whether those "pirates" are really guilty or not.
If you are using mySQL, it would be "Select * from Users limit 1000". If you are using Microsoft SQL Server, it would be "Select top 1000 * from Users".
Because: What if one of those 40% decides to become a terrorist and is allowed on a plane or isn't tracked closely thanks to being removed from the list? Can you prove that none of those 40% will ever become a terrorist in the future? No? Then they need to remain on the list just in case they one day get terrorist leanings.
Seriously, though. These agencies, sadly, seem to think in these terms. Any reduction in surveillance or removal from a terrorist watch list - even if the people being removed have no terrorist ties - is potentially letting future terrorists through. Their ultimate wet dream would be the ability to monitor everything about everyone at once. Only then could they provide maximum security for everyone (from everyone).
It could be. Enough other things in my house have wound up to be horrible and needing repair. As much as I like not having a landlord to answer to, there are days when I miss being able to say "X is broken. I'll call the landlord so he can get it fixed."
Exactly this. When I went into college, I was convinced that I'd major in physics and minor in math. There was no question in my mind. I took a computer science course because it seemed like the best option on the list of required courses. My second semester in college, I hit into Quantum Mechanics and found myself struggling. As much as I liked physics, I couldn't wrap my head around the equations and was NOT enjoying it at all. Meanwhile, in my computer science course, I was barely paying attention in class and pulling down straight A's. Everything there just clicked naturally. So I switched majors and never looked back. Now I build web applications and while I'll always love physics, I am much more comfortable managing code than managing complex mathematical equations to plot the course of an electron around a hydrogen atom.
When I entered college, I had no idea I'd love programming so much. Were I able to just pick and choose "modules" instead of being required to take a wide variety of courses, I'd never have found out what I really like.
Our problem is that this snow undermelt runs down our roof to our house's overhang where it freezes forming big ice dams. To prevent these from forming, I need to rake the roof. As careful as I am with the roof rake, maneuvering a 15 foot pole with numb fingers in the freezing cold isn't easy and sometimes the rake slams down on our roof. Not hard enough to damage it, but I'd worry if there was a solar panel there.
Ideally, we would re-insulate the house to prevent this, but there is a ton of things that need to be fixed on this house (it was built in the 40's) that re-insulating is the least of our worries. As for the roof rake itself, it can be hard to handle when you are using the long pole (about 15 feet). Especially if your hands are numb. There are times when it drops down on the roof too quickly. Not hard enough to damage the roof, mind you, but I'd be worried about any solar panels on the roof. Of course, they could be placed higher up where my roof rake doesn't touch.
I'm not sure how solar panels would do on my roof. I live in upstate New York. During the summer, yes, we could generate electricity, but during the winter, they could be covered with snow.
Worse still, when it snows I need to rake my roof. For those who have never had the "pleasure" of having to do this, heat from the house melts roof snow which runs down to the colder overhang where it melts into ice. When enough ice forms, it dams up any additional water which can then get pushed under the roof shingles and inside the house. (It happened to us once. Dripping water in your bedroom is NOT a nice sound to wake up to!) To prevent this from happening, I use a long pole with a sort of shovel on the end to pull snow off the roof. This way, there is less to melt. The down side is you are standing in the freezing cold (sometimes deep in snow) reaching high above you to pull a ton of snow down off your roof.
Getting back to solar panels, if I had them on my roof and had to rake my roof, I'd be worried that my roof rake would damage the solar panels.
I can personally attest to this. Our house was built in the 1940's. When we were fixing it up, we asked our contractor's electrician how much it would cost to replace the kitchen light fixture on the side. He looked quickly and, figuring it would only take ten minutes, said $25 which we paid him up front. When he took off the old light, however, he found that the wires kept crumbling in his hands. He kept needing to pull new wiring until he could hook it up. The job wound up taking him quite a few hours. That's the best hourly electrician rate we're ever likely to get.
I know that you can enter into a contract with a company essentially saying "I won't post a negative review online." That would be sleazy but legal. How legal would it be, however, to have a person sign a contract that binds a third party into not posting a negative review under penalty of the signing party (not the bad review posting party) being fined? I don't know about you, but if I throw an event, I'm not usually in total control of my guests once they leave the event. If a guest leaves the party/wedding/ete, goes home, and posts a negative review of the hotel, how would that be under the control of the person who hosted the event/signed the contract?
I wonder if they ever tried implementing this policy and, if so, how many lawyers fired off letters warning the hotel to back down or else.
Hopefully they hire better pilots. The last massive mechanical humanoid pilots didn't think to use their giant sword (with a 100% effectiveness rating against giant space monsters) until after they've tried other methods that had nearly 0% effectiveness.
How can any animal species survive, if animal parents don't care more about their offsprings' survival more than anything else, and will risk their lives to save them, and work constantly to find food and shelter for them?
Not all animal species care for their young. Some species of sea turtles, for example, bury their eggs and then leave. The eggs hatch, the turtles crawl to the sea, and begin their life. The parents aren't around at all. Thanks to our species' typical behavior (parents raising their children) we can sometimes think this is the only way it can be, but there are many different parenting models in the animal kingdom.
Sadly, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and a bunch of other countries have wanted this for awhile. They want the "law of the Internet" to be that if you do X and you doing X is visible in their country where X is illegal, you've broken the law and can be prosecuted. They drool at the thought of being able to force their laws on the Internet at large. Sadly, this US judge is only helping their plan with his short-sighted ruling.
No, it's like if you take a bunch of information to a country border and hand it off to someone on the other side.
Now, say that information you passed to the foreign national was stolen nuclear launch codes, or a list of where you hid the bodies. Do you really think the government should not be able to get a warrant for that information, just because it's not on US soil anymore?
Of course, the government should be able to get a warrant for that information. The difference is that the government should go to the foreign government's court system to get said warrant. Issuing a warrant in the US for data stored on a server in Ireland makes as much sense as police from the US demanding to cross the border and search the house of a Canadian because he was suspected of a crime in the US.
There's also the ability for anonymity to be used to avoid bullying, etc online. The obvious example is speaking out against a tyrannical regime. If I post a political rant against a powerful public figure (be he the head of a country or some local mayor who uses the sheriff as his own personal guard dog) under the name "Jason Levine", it might be easy to track me down. If I post it as "Political WatchDog 1776" or some other pseudonym, it becomes harder.
To give a more concrete example, and one that affected me personally: There was this woman who was harassing people online. She was seriously mentally unhinged (thought that she spoke to god and that she was a prophet). She would accuse people of serious crimes and then contact their friends, family, places of business, etc to spread these accusations. Accusations which were totally founded in "god told me they did it" but accusations which the mere mention of could get people in trouble. (We're talking accusing a teacher of fooling around with kids. It's easy to picture a reactionary administrator firing a teacher just based on an accusation.) When she targeted me, though, I was using a pseudonym. (Slashdot is one of the rare spots I use my real name.) Since she didn't know my real name, she couldn't spread lies to my friends, family, work, etc. My anonymity helped save me from worse harassment.
There is a method of dealing with people who abuse anonymity. Go to a judge and present evidence that the anonymous postings constitute harassment, libel, etc. Get the judge to issue a court order which will give you access to the poster's IP address. Use that with their ISP to get their name. It's not fool proof, of course, but nothing is. This also keeps it from being trivial to find out a poster's real name just because you don't like what they said.
Exactly. Too many people (both businesses and home users) say "Well, I don't have anything that 'those hackers' would want so why bother with protections?" The thing is, though, you DO have something they want. At the very least, a home user has bandwidth. If a malware author hijacks a computer, he can use it to pump out tons of spam. The user might notice an annoying slowdown but otherwise wouldn't know what was up. In the case of businesses, infecting your customers with malware (due to being hacked) or your site slowing down to a crawl (because it is a spam bot and is spending precious resources spamming people) is a sure method to lose customers. I'd wager that the money "gained" by not doing a proper firewall network is more than lost by the "lost sales" of customers fleeing after the servers have been hacked.
Slashdot Mirror
Congress doesn't goof off for months and then pretend they were investigating something.
They're more the "hold pointless hearings to make it seem like you're doing something and then go out on recess" kind of folks. Of course, they also will mix in "pass a law you claim with solve X when it really just benefits your favorite lobbyists."
At best, there will be a handful of sacrificial firings with sternly worded statements about how they will not be tolerating this behavior in the future. Then, business as usual will resume.
We did this with the Harry Potter series. We let my oldest (now almost 11) watch the first two movies and then insisted that he read the books with me before he could see any more movies. (He could see a subsequent movie when he finished the book.)
We recently started his with our youngest (7). I let him watch the first movie and now he's reading the first book with my wife. He will be able to watch the other movies as he finishes the books.
In other words, we used the first movie as a hook to get them interested in the series. Not something you can do with any book/movie, but works very nicely with Harry Potter. As a bonus, they can really appreciate what was cut out of the books to make them into movies. As much as I like the movies, the books contain a LOT more details for why things happen and have many subplots that were cut entirely.
My son, now in second grade, was like that too. He refused to even acknowledge that he knew how to read and would complain that reading was "too hard." We were patient and read to him. We also reassured him that him reading wouldn't mean the end of time spent with us reading to him. A couple of weeks ago, he read his first chapter book (in the Bad Kitty series) and it sparked something in him. Over the past couple of weeks, he has read the entire rest of the Bad Kitty series as well as a bunch of other chapter books.
It might be a confidence issue or a desire to keep spending reading time with Mom/Dad. Be patient and keep reading to your child. Encourage him to read a page or paragraph whenever possible. That might help build up your son's confidence in his own reading ability.
Also being interested in how the subject is taught.
Like the GP, I have a son who is ahead of his class in math. He used to love math class and would figuratively devour any math problem presented to him. Recently, his love of math has become tempered, though. It's not that he's getting into harder math problems, but the way the math is being taught. (New York State adopted a system of teaching that requires all teachers to teach the same lessons to their kids in the same way - regardless of learning level.) He doesn't do well with the current system so he's slipping. Of course, at this point, he's slipping from "way ahead" to just "marginally ahead", but still slipping.
A good teacher can take a kid with ability and make him/her excel. A great teacher can take a child who hated a subject and uncover a hidden talent for said subject. A bad teacher (or teaching style) can take a kid with ability and make them hate that subject and not want to put any effort into it ever again.
The same thing happens with civil lawsuits also. If the RIAA thinks they've caught you uploading a thousand songs, they'll sue you for $150 million (the maximum penalty the law allows). Then, they will offer to settle for "only" $3,000 and a signed statement that they give you which basically admits your guilt and forces your silence on the matter. Your options are a) pay for a lawyer and spend time and money fighting the case knowing that you might lose and, even if you win, might not get back lawyer fees or b) settle and cut your losses.
Most people understandably choose option b. It's nice to say you'll defend your innocence in theory but in reality a fight like this would be too much for some people when they need to juggle work, bills, and other aspects of real life. The RIAA counts on this and abuses the legal system to ensure as high a "number of pirates caught" number as possible regardless of whether those "pirates" are really guilty or not.
If you are using mySQL, it would be "Select * from Users limit 1000". If you are using Microsoft SQL Server, it would be "Select top 1000 * from Users".
Because if you can hack into a system and get a billion passwords, you can sell those to "interested parties" for a penny each and retire.
Because: What if one of those 40% decides to become a terrorist and is allowed on a plane or isn't tracked closely thanks to being removed from the list? Can you prove that none of those 40% will ever become a terrorist in the future? No? Then they need to remain on the list just in case they one day get terrorist leanings.
Seriously, though. These agencies, sadly, seem to think in these terms. Any reduction in surveillance or removal from a terrorist watch list - even if the people being removed have no terrorist ties - is potentially letting future terrorists through. Their ultimate wet dream would be the ability to monitor everything about everyone at once. Only then could they provide maximum security for everyone (from everyone).
It could be. Enough other things in my house have wound up to be horrible and needing repair. As much as I like not having a landlord to answer to, there are days when I miss being able to say "X is broken. I'll call the landlord so he can get it fixed."
Don't worry, I'm sure Tektronix will suffer the full penalties of abusing the DMCA. *doles out zero penalties* There, done.
Exactly this. When I went into college, I was convinced that I'd major in physics and minor in math. There was no question in my mind. I took a computer science course because it seemed like the best option on the list of required courses. My second semester in college, I hit into Quantum Mechanics and found myself struggling. As much as I liked physics, I couldn't wrap my head around the equations and was NOT enjoying it at all. Meanwhile, in my computer science course, I was barely paying attention in class and pulling down straight A's. Everything there just clicked naturally. So I switched majors and never looked back. Now I build web applications and while I'll always love physics, I am much more comfortable managing code than managing complex mathematical equations to plot the course of an electron around a hydrogen atom.
When I entered college, I had no idea I'd love programming so much. Were I able to just pick and choose "modules" instead of being required to take a wide variety of courses, I'd never have found out what I really like.
Our problem is that this snow undermelt runs down our roof to our house's overhang where it freezes forming big ice dams. To prevent these from forming, I need to rake the roof. As careful as I am with the roof rake, maneuvering a 15 foot pole with numb fingers in the freezing cold isn't easy and sometimes the rake slams down on our roof. Not hard enough to damage it, but I'd worry if there was a solar panel there.
Ideally, we would re-insulate the house to prevent this, but there is a ton of things that need to be fixed on this house (it was built in the 40's) that re-insulating is the least of our worries. As for the roof rake itself, it can be hard to handle when you are using the long pole (about 15 feet). Especially if your hands are numb. There are times when it drops down on the roof too quickly. Not hard enough to damage the roof, mind you, but I'd be worried about any solar panels on the roof. Of course, they could be placed higher up where my roof rake doesn't touch.
I'm not sure how solar panels would do on my roof. I live in upstate New York. During the summer, yes, we could generate electricity, but during the winter, they could be covered with snow.
Worse still, when it snows I need to rake my roof. For those who have never had the "pleasure" of having to do this, heat from the house melts roof snow which runs down to the colder overhang where it melts into ice. When enough ice forms, it dams up any additional water which can then get pushed under the roof shingles and inside the house. (It happened to us once. Dripping water in your bedroom is NOT a nice sound to wake up to!) To prevent this from happening, I use a long pole with a sort of shovel on the end to pull snow off the roof. This way, there is less to melt. The down side is you are standing in the freezing cold (sometimes deep in snow) reaching high above you to pull a ton of snow down off your roof.
Getting back to solar panels, if I had them on my roof and had to rake my roof, I'd be worried that my roof rake would damage the solar panels.
Or about 14% of the cost of the Iraq War.
I can personally attest to this. Our house was built in the 1940's. When we were fixing it up, we asked our contractor's electrician how much it would cost to replace the kitchen light fixture on the side. He looked quickly and, figuring it would only take ten minutes, said $25 which we paid him up front. When he took off the old light, however, he found that the wires kept crumbling in his hands. He kept needing to pull new wiring until he could hook it up. The job wound up taking him quite a few hours. That's the best hourly electrician rate we're ever likely to get.
I know that you can enter into a contract with a company essentially saying "I won't post a negative review online." That would be sleazy but legal. How legal would it be, however, to have a person sign a contract that binds a third party into not posting a negative review under penalty of the signing party (not the bad review posting party) being fined? I don't know about you, but if I throw an event, I'm not usually in total control of my guests once they leave the event. If a guest leaves the party/wedding/ete, goes home, and posts a negative review of the hotel, how would that be under the control of the person who hosted the event/signed the contract?
I wonder if they ever tried implementing this policy and, if so, how many lawyers fired off letters warning the hotel to back down or else.
Hopefully they hire better pilots. The last massive mechanical humanoid pilots didn't think to use their giant sword (with a 100% effectiveness rating against giant space monsters) until after they've tried other methods that had nearly 0% effectiveness.
Not all animal species care for their young. Some species of sea turtles, for example, bury their eggs and then leave. The eggs hatch, the turtles crawl to the sea, and begin their life. The parents aren't around at all. Thanks to our species' typical behavior (parents raising their children) we can sometimes think this is the only way it can be, but there are many different parenting models in the animal kingdom.
Sadly, North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and a bunch of other countries have wanted this for awhile. They want the "law of the Internet" to be that if you do X and you doing X is visible in their country where X is illegal, you've broken the law and can be prosecuted. They drool at the thought of being able to force their laws on the Internet at large. Sadly, this US judge is only helping their plan with his short-sighted ruling.
Of course, the government should be able to get a warrant for that information. The difference is that the government should go to the foreign government's court system to get said warrant. Issuing a warrant in the US for data stored on a server in Ireland makes as much sense as police from the US demanding to cross the border and search the house of a Canadian because he was suspected of a crime in the US.
There's also the ability for anonymity to be used to avoid bullying, etc online. The obvious example is speaking out against a tyrannical regime. If I post a political rant against a powerful public figure (be he the head of a country or some local mayor who uses the sheriff as his own personal guard dog) under the name "Jason Levine", it might be easy to track me down. If I post it as "Political WatchDog 1776" or some other pseudonym, it becomes harder.
To give a more concrete example, and one that affected me personally: There was this woman who was harassing people online. She was seriously mentally unhinged (thought that she spoke to god and that she was a prophet). She would accuse people of serious crimes and then contact their friends, family, places of business, etc to spread these accusations. Accusations which were totally founded in "god told me they did it" but accusations which the mere mention of could get people in trouble. (We're talking accusing a teacher of fooling around with kids. It's easy to picture a reactionary administrator firing a teacher just based on an accusation.) When she targeted me, though, I was using a pseudonym. (Slashdot is one of the rare spots I use my real name.) Since she didn't know my real name, she couldn't spread lies to my friends, family, work, etc. My anonymity helped save me from worse harassment.
There is a method of dealing with people who abuse anonymity. Go to a judge and present evidence that the anonymous postings constitute harassment, libel, etc. Get the judge to issue a court order which will give you access to the poster's IP address. Use that with their ISP to get their name. It's not fool proof, of course, but nothing is. This also keeps it from being trivial to find out a poster's real name just because you don't like what they said.
So what you are saying is that we need a program where kids go in to read to athletes and rappers?
Exactly. Too many people (both businesses and home users) say "Well, I don't have anything that 'those hackers' would want so why bother with protections?" The thing is, though, you DO have something they want. At the very least, a home user has bandwidth. If a malware author hijacks a computer, he can use it to pump out tons of spam. The user might notice an annoying slowdown but otherwise wouldn't know what was up. In the case of businesses, infecting your customers with malware (due to being hacked) or your site slowing down to a crawl (because it is a spam bot and is spending precious resources spamming people) is a sure method to lose customers. I'd wager that the money "gained" by not doing a proper firewall network is more than lost by the "lost sales" of customers fleeing after the servers have been hacked.