The moron-run Federal government won't give Amtrak enough money to improve the tracks
Every government agency (and every department of a corporation, for that matter) will complain of budget shortage, if asked...
The reason I called them morons is that with the limited resources given to them, they chose to buy expensive high-speed trains before getting tracks good enough to use the trains to their full potential...
Don't blame Amtrak for its inability to compete against a subsidy!
While I agree with your opinion on the folly of highway subsidies (beyond the strategically-needed interstates), I must note, that certain commercial train-companies manage to compete with highways anyway. True, these are mostly cargo trains, but they compete against cargo-carrying tracks successfully in many markets.
In the Northeast corridor, one of the primary speed limitations is the Acela equipment, which meets the crash test standards required by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
I'm confused... If it meets the requirements, than why is it not running faster?
AFAIK, between NYC and Boston it runs at higher speed for only a fraction of the distance — because the tracks are not good enough everywhere else. All hearsay, though...
The New York-Boston distance is only 230 miles or so. Even at modest (for a train) 120 miles/hour, that can be done in two hours. But it takes 3.5 hours or more, and the few stops Acela is making don't account for the 1.5 hour difference...
A passenger jet, supposedly, harms the environment as much per passenger, as five passenger cars would over the same distance — if you ignore the impact of building and maintaining the roads.
What's the impact of these trains — including the building and maintaining of the suitable tracks?
One must also note, that the overall (door-to-door) speed advantage, these machines seem to have over airplanes at short and medium distances, is due to the much simpler security/registration procedures, the passengers have to go through to board them. It is not the technology, that requires us to come to the airport 2 hours prior to departure...
What upsets me, is that American "Acela" train can also run pretty fast (even if not as fast as these bullet-trains) — but is not, because the tracks aren't suitable for higher speeds. The moron-run Amtrak has purchased these wonder-trains without improving the tracks, so most of the speed you buy on Acela is due to it simply making less stops between, say, New York and Boston, rather than due to it running appreciably faster.
You have no issue with a prosecutor jesting in his official capacity as the one who suggests a sentence without penalty?
You are changing the subject from whether a reasonable person can take the threat "to fry" McKinnon for real, to whether or not making such a jest is appropriate for a US prosecutor.
I'll take it as your agreeing with me, that only a fool would honestly believe such "threat" to be real.
No, I will not engage in the debate on what's appropriate for US prosecutors to say in public.
with threats of the electric chair being thrown at him
Come, come... Surely, you do not honestly believe, there was such a threat thrown. The prosecutor's threat "to fry him" was, obviously in jest and no more death-threatening, than promises to "destroy competition" — made by sportsmen and businesses daily — are, for example.
Even if the prosecutor wanted, he would not be able to do it — although New Jersey has capital punishment on the books, it has not executed anyonesince 1976... And not for lack of seriously violent crimes in the State — they are not going to execute a computer hacker, if they let murderers and rapists live.
Mr. McKinnon's lawyers are absolutely right to milk the Americans' "threats" for all they can (and more) to help their client — it is their job. But for you to seriously buy into that is rather foolish...
This has been done in the past to rectify the injustice of slavery, provide women their given right to vote, and even to limit the power of the President of the United States by limiting the number of terms possible to serve in the office to two.
These changes to the Constitution were done in accordance to the Constitution. What I was ridiculing, were attempts by some people (including some high-ranking judges) to find in the document, what's not actually there, by putting forth arguments like: "If if were written today, it would've contained such-and-such..."
They thus attempt to push in changes, which they know to have no chance (for better or worse) of getting through via the lawful (that is, Constitutional) way of modifying the Constitution...
If the Ten Commandments were a "living document" (as some claim, US Constitution ought to be), it would've been found to contain the "Thou shall not violate copyrights" by now...
Well, some people also honestly don't know, that a decent car audio system can not cost $40 (and would not be sold by a homeless guy), unless stolen. In fact, I'm pretty sure, the prosecutor would have to prove, you bought it knowing, it was stolen... Without that, all they can do is return it to the rightful owner.
But if the owner finds you with it, they can claim it. To keep the analogy with software licenses, the Microsoft has the right to demand payment, and if you dont' pay, but continue using the software, the can demand criminal prosecution. For after they politely educated to you (via Windows Genuine Advantage or some crap like that), you can no longer claim ignorance.
And, of course, the person committing the original theft (or infringement) is, usually, more culpable. But your roommate (and this poor Russian teacher) are still responsible as well...
Don't feel too bad for the teacher, though. I remember reading some Russian forum complaining about Vista's licensing and built DRM-crap. One of the proposed remedies against Microsoft was Topol... Apparently, people in that country don't realize, that one can just say "No" and use something else... "Jokes" aside, their attitude is, Microsoft owes them — big time — and the attitude is shared to the very top... As we read in TFA, the original case was dismissed, because Russia's president called it "non-sense"...
Well, buying stolen property has been illegal for many years, even though the same argument can be used to defend people prosecuted for it. How are they supposed to know, for example, that the nice car audio system they bought for $50 from a strange looking guy, was stolen?
Now, I'm not asking for a debate on whether license infringement is equivalent to stealing in all respects — just pointing out, that the argument you put forward applies (or, rather, does not apply) equally to both.
Often to straighten a bent stick, you have to bend it in the other direction. (Affirmative action laws are a clear example of this.)
It's clear you did not even read the article [...]
Right, I posted a quote from it without reading. Sure... That Diebold is not explicitly accusing any state official(s) of wrong-doing is simply "politeness". Similarly you should never accuse your opponent of lying in front of the judge... The sides are to maintain civility leaving the task of deciding, who is lying to the court.
It represents an attempt by a corporation to subvert the democratic process [...]
Ha-ha! Did you really type that? Yes, you must've... Oh, dear... A big chunk of sky must've fallen and hit your real hard.
Companies should not be able to sue the government every time they lose a bid for a contract. That will just create chaos and we will get even less accomplished through the government than we already do.
Why stop there? Why not declare all law suits as chaos-creating and disruptive? Most of them are, indeed... But, I'm sure, you meant only to prohibit the suits by the parties you dislike...
To counter the editor's and the submitter's obvious bias against the company, here is their position as reported by a more professional journalist in TFA:
William M. Weisberg , a lawyer representing Diebold, said in an interview yesterday that the company wants a review of the internal records showing how Galvin's office came to select AutoMARK earlier this year.
You, me, and any other private-sector entity do not have to explain our whims and caprices when (not) buying something (which may, actually, be unfortunate) to any one other than, perhaps, family members or stock-holders. The government, however, is legally obliged to pick the best — all of us are the stock-holders...
Knowing the policies and the corruption levels of Taxachusetts, Diebold may well be right suspecting something foul...
Diebold is, obviously, acting in its own best interests, but that's how life in this country is — we don't need people/companies to all be good and exemplary. Our system simply manages to pit the disagreeable qualities of some against such qualities of the others. In addition to the obvious free-market examples, we also rely on one (quite possibly crooked) politician to expose dishonesty of her opponent...
There was what, 40,000 people in that protest? How many windows got broken? Three?
Well, the Wikipedia article on the subject gives no precise figures of smashed windows and other disruptions. But it paints a much gloomier picture than you try to conjure (three windows, probably, get broken in a city of Seattle's size every hour of every day):
The situation was complicated around noon, when black-clad anarchists (in a formation known as a black bloc) began smashing windows and decorating storefronts, beginning with Fox's Gem Shop. This produced some of the most famous and controversial images of the protests. This set off a chain-reaction of sorts, with additional protesters pushing dumpsters into the middle of intersections and lighting them on fire, police vehicles turned-over, non-black-blockers joining in the property destruction, and a general disruption of all commercial activity in downtown Seattle.
Seattle's (Democratic) administration have patently failed to uphold law and order, allowing the mob of 40K (your numbers) to seriously disrupt lives of millions and cause millions of dollars worth of damage.
Thankfully, New York's (Republican) administration was better...
But I guess that's why I'm not a pacifist. but it might illustrate to you why civil disobediance is, in fact, a lot better than the alternative... armed insurrection.
Ha-ha! A/. nerd threatening armed violence (and tries to change the topic)... But don't worry — no tear gas was used in NYC — thanks in no small part to the solid preparations described in TFA.
Police has no morality whatsoever; they are not sworn-in to the Constitution like the armed forces are, and so are open to perform all abuses for the rich and powerful.
They do have morality — they even have their own honor and stuff. It just tends to be different from the rest of ours, which is largely due to their having to deal with the worst (and the Molotov-cocktail wielding Anarchists and Che Guevara sympathizers are way down there, below child molesters, but above actual murderers).
But I digress. Your flamebait mentioned "the rich and powerful", but that's a combination, that is rare in our society. The rich merchants with large Manhattan storefronts, for example, are not nearly as powerful as the mob of assholes throwing bricks through those storefronts. NYC would've seen that — as Seattle has 5 years earlier — if it weren't for the NYPD's and the rest of the city's administration excellent work.
If they are found to have broken laws in the process — burn them. Otherwise: ha-ha...
The Cold War drained them of everything and bankrupted the country, while leaving the US with "merely" a huge national debt...
Don't forget a military industrial complex to make Eisenhower proud!
Well, yes, and there were many other positive results too. The huge national debt was the negative one, so that's why I brought it up to contrast with USSR's complete collapse.
but whenever R&D is not pushed by consumer need/demand, it will never be able to satisfy consumer demand.
This is true, of course, but even "Communism" (Socialism, really — USSR never completed the "building of Communism") could've done much better than it did, if it did not spend so much on the military. They tried to keep up with the West on military spending, which meant, pretty much, no resources for anything else... I believe, this was the GP's point...
The Cold War drained them of everything and bankrupted the country, while leaving the US with "merely" a huge national debt...
"In 1998, Congress gave NASA's Spaceguard Survey program a mandate of 'discovering, tracking, cataloging and characterizing' 90 percent of the near-Earth objects larger than one kilometer (3,200 feet) wide by 2008. [...]
Interestingly, the movie Armageddon also came out in 1998...
Pardon me, but I'm skeptical. Earth had no civilization-killing encounters for thousands of years — no, the Tunguska-meteorite does not qualify, not even if it landed in Paris (the center of civilization at the time). The only suspected such encounter is blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs — a while ago...
Yes, it would be nice to not have this threat (especially now, that we almost can), but we must realize, that we perceive it as a much larger one, than it really is. All of the readers of this message (in 2007) have a much higher risk of dying from a new strain of flu, or a spectacular terrorist attack, for example. Or even from getting hit by a truck or choking on a pretzel...
What? If they don't need it to do their job, that argument falls apart, and you must step back and fall on the argument that it's bad for morale if they don't get webmail.
That's not for a system- or net-admin to decide. Whether or not employees are doing their jobs is up to their manager(s). And they — the managers — have mostly (wisely) decided, that enforcing "work-related only at work" policies is foolish. Phone calls are not limited to be "business only" either, so don't pull this "work-related only" card. It is not relevant.
Any competent boss I've ever had wants people to stay home when they're sick, so they don't make other people sick.
Of course. But people come in to work anyway — they may not realize they are sick, or they may not want to use up "sick days" (so as to attach them to vacation later), etc. Why they come to work is irrelevant. It is not even relevant, whether they come — productivity suffers anyway (from their staying home and from their infecting others).
But no one seems to mandate vitamin C, warm clothing, and other flu-preventive steps...
Don't bother replying, drinkypoo. I remember your nick from previous fruitless conversations and see, that you have not become any brighter... Both of your points are not irrelevant to my mine, you seem to post for the sake of posting.
Making a non-webmail page with links to nasty VBS scripts, etc. is just as easy as send an e-mail, so you are not really protecting your network by these annoying limitations... An attacker can send your charges an e-mail (at the corporate address) with a link to his script. And if you check all browsing (via scanning proxies), then you may as well leave webmails alone, for they'll be checked too, along with all other HTML pages.
You are not alone, unfortunately. I found, that whenever admins (pompously) argue for strict banishment of a particular "attack vector", they almost always ignore another vector for the same attack.
There could be one justification for banning external (non-corporate) means of communications, while at work — compliance and legal issues. A big bank, for example, does not want a broker to be able to claim, that a bank's trader ordered a (bad) trade via. GMail or cell-phone. But this only makes sense, when your official (corporate) communications get recorded and archived (unlike private webmail accounts and personal cell-phones), and can be played back.
In short, you have to remember, that you (an administrator) exist for the benefit and convenience of these people, not the other way around. So if they want to be able to access their webmail, you must have a much better reason than "you may get a virus" to deny it to them.
I bet, more productivity is lost, when an employee brings in flu and half the office gets sick. But no one is advocating forcing people to take vitamin C and wear scarves, right?..
Not only did the productivity grow, the jobs are easier to do. Even a slacker armed with computer is more productive, than his/her hardworking predecessor with only a desk (and, perhaps, a typewriter).
We can visit/. for an hour a day and still be reasonably productive...
Slashdot Mirror
Every government agency (and every department of a corporation, for that matter) will complain of budget shortage, if asked...
The reason I called them morons is that with the limited resources given to them, they chose to buy expensive high-speed trains before getting tracks good enough to use the trains to their full potential...
While I agree with your opinion on the folly of highway subsidies (beyond the strategically-needed interstates), I must note, that certain commercial train-companies manage to compete with highways anyway. True, these are mostly cargo trains, but they compete against cargo-carrying tracks successfully in many markets.
I'm confused... If it meets the requirements, than why is it not running faster?
AFAIK, between NYC and Boston it runs at higher speed for only a fraction of the distance — because the tracks are not good enough everywhere else. All hearsay, though...
The New York-Boston distance is only 230 miles or so. Even at modest (for a train) 120 miles/hour, that can be done in two hours. But it takes 3.5 hours or more, and the few stops Acela is making don't account for the 1.5 hour difference...
A passenger jet, supposedly, harms the environment as much per passenger, as five passenger cars would over the same distance — if you ignore the impact of building and maintaining the roads.
What's the impact of these trains — including the building and maintaining of the suitable tracks?
One must also note, that the overall (door-to-door) speed advantage, these machines seem to have over airplanes at short and medium distances, is due to the much simpler security/registration procedures, the passengers have to go through to board them. It is not the technology, that requires us to come to the airport 2 hours prior to departure...
What upsets me, is that American "Acela" train can also run pretty fast (even if not as fast as these bullet-trains) — but is not, because the tracks aren't suitable for higher speeds. The moron-run Amtrak has purchased these wonder-trains without improving the tracks, so most of the speed you buy on Acela is due to it simply making less stops between, say, New York and Boston, rather than due to it running appreciably faster.
Thank you for admitting, that it is still "a jump" to believe, that a person can be sentenced to death for computer hacking in the United States.
Your posts are reeking with the typical short-sighted anti-Americanism, and I'm not going to debate with you. Go smash a McDonald's or something...
Yes, indeed — because those two threats were quite real and within the power of the people making them.
Putting a computer hacker on electric chair, however, is not within the power of a prosecutor... Obviously so.
Now you are the one jesting...
You are changing the subject from whether a reasonable person can take the threat "to fry" McKinnon for real, to whether or not making such a jest is appropriate for a US prosecutor.
I'll take it as your agreeing with me, that only a fool would honestly believe such "threat" to be real.
No, I will not engage in the debate on what's appropriate for US prosecutors to say in public.
Come, come... Surely, you do not honestly believe, there was such a threat thrown. The prosecutor's threat "to fry him" was, obviously in jest and no more death-threatening, than promises to "destroy competition" — made by sportsmen and businesses daily — are, for example.
Even if the prosecutor wanted, he would not be able to do it — although New Jersey has capital punishment on the books, it has not executed anyone since 1976... And not for lack of seriously violent crimes in the State — they are not going to execute a computer hacker, if they let murderers and rapists live.
Mr. McKinnon's lawyers are absolutely right to milk the Americans' "threats" for all they can (and more) to help their client — it is their job. But for you to seriously buy into that is rather foolish...
These changes to the Constitution were done in accordance to the Constitution. What I was ridiculing, were attempts by some people (including some high-ranking judges) to find in the document, what's not actually there, by putting forth arguments like: "If if were written today, it would've contained such-and-such..."
They thus attempt to push in changes, which they know to have no chance (for better or worse) of getting through via the lawful (that is, Constitutional) way of modifying the Constitution...
If the Ten Commandments were a "living document" (as some claim, US Constitution ought to be), it would've been found to contain the "Thou shall not violate copyrights" by now...
Synzronvg zl nff...
Well, some people also honestly don't know, that a decent car audio system can not cost $40 (and would not be sold by a homeless guy), unless stolen. In fact, I'm pretty sure, the prosecutor would have to prove, you bought it knowing, it was stolen... Without that, all they can do is return it to the rightful owner.
But if the owner finds you with it, they can claim it. To keep the analogy with software licenses, the Microsoft has the right to demand payment, and if you dont' pay, but continue using the software, the can demand criminal prosecution. For after they politely educated to you (via Windows Genuine Advantage or some crap like that), you can no longer claim ignorance.
And, of course, the person committing the original theft (or infringement) is, usually, more culpable. But your roommate (and this poor Russian teacher) are still responsible as well...
Don't feel too bad for the teacher, though. I remember reading some Russian forum complaining about Vista's licensing and built DRM-crap. One of the proposed remedies against Microsoft was Topol... Apparently, people in that country don't realize, that one can just say "No" and use something else... "Jokes" aside, their attitude is, Microsoft owes them — big time — and the attitude is shared to the very top... As we read in TFA, the original case was dismissed, because Russia's president called it "non-sense"...
Well, buying stolen property has been illegal for many years, even though the same argument can be used to defend people prosecuted for it. How are they supposed to know, for example, that the nice car audio system they bought for $50 from a strange looking guy, was stolen?
Now, I'm not asking for a debate on whether license infringement is equivalent to stealing in all respects — just pointing out, that the argument you put forward applies (or, rather, does not apply) equally to both.
I'm so glad, musicians — the real experts — are finally weighting in on this issue. Why are the FAG still quiet, I wonder?
Often to straighten a bent stick, you have to bend it in the other direction. (Affirmative action laws are a clear example of this.)
Right, I posted a quote from it without reading. Sure... That Diebold is not explicitly accusing any state official(s) of wrong-doing is simply "politeness". Similarly you should never accuse your opponent of lying in front of the judge... The sides are to maintain civility leaving the task of deciding, who is lying to the court.
Ha-ha! Did you really type that? Yes, you must've... Oh, dear... A big chunk of sky must've fallen and hit your real hard.
Why stop there? Why not declare all law suits as chaos-creating and disruptive? Most of them are, indeed... But, I'm sure, you meant only to prohibit the suits by the parties you dislike...
To counter the editor's and the submitter's obvious bias against the company, here is their position as reported by a more professional journalist in TFA:
You, me, and any other private-sector entity do not have to explain our whims and caprices when (not) buying something (which may, actually, be unfortunate) to any one other than, perhaps, family members or stock-holders. The government, however, is legally obliged to pick the best — all of us are the stock-holders...
Knowing the policies and the corruption levels of Taxachusetts, Diebold may well be right suspecting something foul...
Diebold is, obviously, acting in its own best interests, but that's how life in this country is — we don't need people/companies to all be good and exemplary. Our system simply manages to pit the disagreeable qualities of some against such qualities of the others. In addition to the obvious free-market examples, we also rely on one (quite possibly crooked) politician to expose dishonesty of her opponent...
Well, the Wikipedia article on the subject gives no precise figures of smashed windows and other disruptions. But it paints a much gloomier picture than you try to conjure (three windows, probably, get broken in a city of Seattle's size every hour of every day):
Seattle's (Democratic) administration have patently failed to uphold law and order, allowing the mob of 40K (your numbers) to seriously disrupt lives of millions and cause millions of dollars worth of damage.
Thankfully, New York's (Republican) administration was better...
Ha-ha! A /. nerd threatening armed violence (and tries to change the topic)... But don't worry — no tear gas was used in NYC — thanks in no small part to the solid preparations described in TFA.
They do have morality — they even have their own honor and stuff. It just tends to be different from the rest of ours, which is largely due to their having to deal with the worst (and the Molotov-cocktail wielding Anarchists and Che Guevara sympathizers are way down there, below child molesters, but above actual murderers).
But I digress. Your flamebait mentioned "the rich and powerful", but that's a combination, that is rare in our society. The rich merchants with large Manhattan storefronts, for example, are not nearly as powerful as the mob of assholes throwing bricks through those storefronts. NYC would've seen that — as Seattle has 5 years earlier — if it weren't for the NYPD's and the rest of the city's administration excellent work.
If they are found to have broken laws in the process — burn them. Otherwise: ha-ha...
Well, yes, and there were many other positive results too. The huge national debt was the negative one, so that's why I brought it up to contrast with USSR's complete collapse.
This is true, of course, but even "Communism" (Socialism, really — USSR never completed the "building of Communism") could've done much better than it did, if it did not spend so much on the military. They tried to keep up with the West on military spending, which meant, pretty much, no resources for anything else... I believe, this was the GP's point...
The Cold War drained them of everything and bankrupted the country, while leaving the US with "merely" a huge national debt...
Interestingly, the movie Armageddon also came out in 1998...
Pardon me, but I'm skeptical. Earth had no civilization-killing encounters for thousands of years — no, the Tunguska-meteorite does not qualify, not even if it landed in Paris (the center of civilization at the time). The only suspected such encounter is blamed for wiping out the dinosaurs — a while ago...
Yes, it would be nice to not have this threat (especially now, that we almost can), but we must realize, that we perceive it as a much larger one, than it really is. All of the readers of this message (in 2007) have a much higher risk of dying from a new strain of flu, or a spectacular terrorist attack, for example. Or even from getting hit by a truck or choking on a pretzel...
That's not us. For better or worse...
That's not for a system- or net-admin to decide. Whether or not employees are doing their jobs is up to their manager(s). And they — the managers — have mostly (wisely) decided, that enforcing "work-related only at work" policies is foolish. Phone calls are not limited to be "business only" either, so don't pull this "work-related only" card. It is not relevant.
Of course. But people come in to work anyway — they may not realize they are sick, or they may not want to use up "sick days" (so as to attach them to vacation later), etc. Why they come to work is irrelevant. It is not even relevant, whether they come — productivity suffers anyway (from their staying home and from their infecting others).
But no one seems to mandate vitamin C, warm clothing, and other flu-preventive steps...
Don't bother replying, drinkypoo. I remember your nick from previous fruitless conversations and see, that you have not become any brighter... Both of your points are not irrelevant to my mine, you seem to post for the sake of posting.
I wish, there was "killfile" on /.... *Plonk*
Weren't we all lamenting the other day, that Computer Science is Dead?.. Well, I guess, it is not...
Making a non-webmail page with links to nasty VBS scripts, etc. is just as easy as send an e-mail, so you are not really protecting your network by these annoying limitations... An attacker can send your charges an e-mail (at the corporate address) with a link to his script. And if you check all browsing (via scanning proxies), then you may as well leave webmails alone, for they'll be checked too, along with all other HTML pages.
You are not alone, unfortunately. I found, that whenever admins (pompously) argue for strict banishment of a particular "attack vector", they almost always ignore another vector for the same attack.
There could be one justification for banning external (non-corporate) means of communications, while at work — compliance and legal issues. A big bank, for example, does not want a broker to be able to claim, that a bank's trader ordered a (bad) trade via. GMail or cell-phone. But this only makes sense, when your official (corporate) communications get recorded and archived (unlike private webmail accounts and personal cell-phones), and can be played back.
In short, you have to remember, that you (an administrator) exist for the benefit and convenience of these people, not the other way around. So if they want to be able to access their webmail, you must have a much better reason than "you may get a virus" to deny it to them.
I bet, more productivity is lost, when an employee brings in flu and half the office gets sick. But no one is advocating forcing people to take vitamin C and wear scarves, right?..
Not only did the productivity grow, the jobs are easier to do. Even a slacker armed with computer is more productive, than his/her hardworking predecessor with only a desk (and, perhaps, a typewriter).
We can visit /. for an hour a day and still be reasonably productive...