If I made it sound like I blame Bush, I am sorry. This is one thing that he had very little to do with. Our infrastructure has been in sorry shape for many administrations now, I can't even say exactly where I think it started. There is enough blame to go around; everyone is responsible.
Perhaps if we weren't mixing it up in every conflict we could afford better stewardship of what is truly and rightfully ours. We have spent billions in Iraq and there is little doubt that some, perhaps much of that money could have been used back here at home.
I live in Minneapolis, quite close to the I-35W bridge that collapsed. I was there Wednesday evening before many of the professionals were and helped with crowd control when the area I was in became an impromptu staging facility. I've driven over the bridge quite literally thousands of times. Like most people, I feel quite vested in my community and its infrastructure. I was completely unaware (as I am sure most people were) that the bridge had any problems at all. If I had to pick the least likely bridge to fall, it is quite likely I would have picked that one. It was quite frequently maintained and from all outward appearances looked to be in good shape.
I have had some time to think about it now and have come to the conclusion that we have not been good stewards of the infrastructure that our parents and grandparents worked so hard to give us. Instead of using the tsxes that we all pay to maintain our interstate system, dikes, levees and other items of commerce we have been off playing policeman for the world. We are like the nosey neighbor who complains about everything everyone else is doing while they let their own house and yard waste away. Only we do it on a global scale.
When I compare this disaster to the other recent disasters in the US, I think it compares not to 9/11 or the San Francisco earthquake but more to hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I think this because what happened in New Orleans was not a "natural disaster" but rather a failure of infrastructure. If the levees and dikes had held like they were intended to, not much would have happened in New Orleans, the natural disaster would have been a memorable big storm that caused damage, not the disaster it was.
In the past twenty or thirty years we have not kept pace with the growth of infrastructure that we saw in the fifties and sixties when almost the entire system of interstate highways were built. With the disasters that we have seen I believe that there is enough evidence to show that we have not been good stewards of the gifts that our predicessors left us. We have failed. It really is that simple.
It is time to learn our lesson and time to reinvest in America. We may need to stop dropping bombs and bring our serviemen and servicewomen home so that we can afford to do this. We may need to cut back on pork-barrel politics and instead concentrate on commerce. We may need to scale back on missions to mars and the moon. Hell, we may even need to raise taxes!
Most importantly, and I do not know how to do this, we need to elect people who will do the job we need them to do in Washington and the state capitols.
Finally, although this is off-topic, I want to say that the emergency crews that responded to this disaster did an amazing job. These people are civil-service workers and voulinteers. They deserve special recognition for their heroic efforts. In less than an hour responders from across the state were there and had already put together a structured and effective rescue plan.
First, any fool who makes bomb threats deserves to be busted, tossed in jail, and treated like a criminal because that is exactly what they are.
The internet is like a highway, on the internet how can anyone have any reasonable expectation of privacy?
Did the police (FBI in this case) overstep their bounds? Apparently a judge did not think so, he authorized the warrant.
Frankly, I am glad that they took this criminal off of the streets at least for now.
A bigger question really is being asked: "Should the FBI and police be allowed to use tools that would be illegal if used by civilians?" That question is a bit harder to answer but ultimately, we have a long history of giving our law enforcement officers tools that the general public is not allowed to use or, can only use in very limited ways. Examples of this would include machine guns, Tasers, two-way police radios, and mobile display terminals connected to restricted databases. The government has a right to employ some tools that in other hands may be illegal or unethical.
Did they use a known hole or did some one in a company somewhere create a hole for them? I don't know. Frankly, I would feel more comfortable ethically if they had discovered the hole on their own or used an accidental one. If they are using one that is custom designed, then I think that they are helping create a security vulnerability that could be exploited by someone else and that, I would think is wrong.
We are spending billions on "Homeland Security" and we are making our society and our people less free. Ninety year old women have to remove their shoes (just like everyone else) just to get on an airplane. We are doing all of this, including putting cameras on our streets in an effort to counter terrorisim!
I think, no I know, that the real terrorists we have to worry about are the pols who have done this to us. We are less free today than we were before 9-11-2001. The guys in the airplanes did not do that to us, GWB and his cronies at every level of government did it.
A few years ago the FCC was overhauled in an effort to speed the processes of approval and allocation. At that time the most common complaint was that it took years to obtain approval for new technology. The truth is, that the old FCC did seem to drag their feet and yes, it was rather difficult to get approval for new technology and to get a piece of the radio spectrum reallocated you may as well forget about it. People and industry did have a lot to complain about. When the FCC did make a decision, it was (almost) always the right one, it had been well researched and lobbiests and lawyers had little influence, even the politicians really had very little say.
When the system was overhauled, it was done with the best of intentions. They allowed industry access in ways that they never had before and the FCC had to start to rely on information presented by the very industry that they were intended to police! Today, we could almost describe the industry relationship with the FCC as symbiotic.
The FCC has as it's primary charge the responsibility of making the public airwaves work for the public. They protect these airwaves by allocating frequencies, by approving new uses, and by certifying equipment that may use or interfere with the public airwaves.
With technology changing so fast, and the airwaves being so crowded, and all sorts of new ideas (good and bad), the FCC has lots to do. Congress told them to work faster and be more responsive to industry. Industry does not want OSS, they view it as competition. They would rather develop copyrighted and even patented software to do this stuff so that they can earn a healthy return on investment. The FCC is simply echoing this as they have been instructed by congress to do (they see it as working with industry).
OSS is sort of socialist when you think about it from the closed source standpoint. It is a threat simply because it is free. You would think public airwaves would be a place where free software would be at home -- and it should be but it isn't. Becuase the FCC is no longer really allowed to make the best decisions for the public. They must now answer to the very people they are supposed to police. That is simply wrong; they should answer to the public and the requirements of international treaties.
I think you are correct. For an orginization the size of Homeland Security 800 break-ins is a pretty small number especially when you think about the vuneabilities of the operating system and the software that they are likely using.
One thing that I have been considering is the use of a virtual machine running an internet appliance. This method "sandboxes" the risk and it is wiped away simply by restarting the VM session.
Google is doing this simply because they can not lose and may gain big. This is not going to change anything else that they are doing.
The article is very long on fluff and does not give up a lot of details which makes it very hard to read between the lines or even to read much into the article. This is not something that aligns itself with Google's "core business" so one must ask why is Google doing this?
Almost everyone will agree that the folks at Google are smart. Frankly they have not comitted a lot of money. It could be that they are just funding this for the goodwill (and publicity) that they will gain. From the amount of money that they have pledged, this could be the only reason. Aligning yourself with an energy issue that everyone cares about is worth a million or even ten million to a company with the reach (and pocketbook) of a company like Google. Google is certainly doing "no evil" with this.
Going back to the part where I said the folks at Google are smart makes me think that this may be something a bit more. Something that they can justify simply for the goodwill and publicity that the effort generates but can maybe give them something more. It seems like this is how they almost always work. In this light, I am wondering if this is a "testing of the water" of the energy venture capital business. Low risk (with billions in available cash one or ten million is not a big wager) with huge potential rewards if the smart folks at Google pick the right project(s) to fund.
The smart people at Google come from a wide range of sciences and specialties. If you put the right people together to review the requests for funding, they stand a fair to middlin chance of picking the right one(s).
The iPhone is not a phone, it is a device that works as a phone and does a plethora of other things. To think of the iPhone as a cellular phone is to think of a laptop as a portable word processor. Sure it makes phone calls but it also surfs the web, plays music, stores video and photos and probably has other applications on it as well.
To use this device without a data plan of some sort is taking away a great deal of the functionality of the device even if it connects via WiFi under some circumstances. I suspect that the WiFi component is probably intended for wireless access to your home computer (for file transfer) more than it is intended for use in public WiFi hotspots.
Imagine trying to use the iPhone for surfing the web while riding a bus or as a passenger in a car. It would not be a good "user experience" which is something Apple is known for providing. So, Apple has an interest in making sure that the device has a plan that is appropriate. Obviously, AT&T also has an interest in selling a data plan with the device. Not only is the data plan for them but it is also important for them to provide a good "user experience" for the device. If word got out that the device was "flakey" they would have a hard time selling them!
Until last week I would never have dreamed of owning an iPod or iPhone now, I am seriously considering the iPhone. What caused this change? My daughter graduated and for a graduation present, I bought her a 30GB iPod. I've always felt that while Apple products have some unique features that they were overpriced and not all that much better than their other-brand or no-brand counterparts. I've never been one to pay extra for style or "bling" and that is exactly what I thought Apple brought to the party. Still my daughter was celebrating a major accomplishment, she wanted an iPod and I wanted to give her a special present for her big day.
The iPod surprised me. I was impressed with virtually everything about it. I liked the simple controls. The sound clarity was top notch. The screen was crisp and clear. Even the battery charged quickly! "Fit and finish" were awesome. I went out to the iTunes store and bought Alice Cooper's "Schools Out" and made that the first song put on the iPod (a symbolic gesture); even that was faster and far easier than I expected! In little time at all I had 500+ songs on it (and told her the rest of her CD collection was up to her to put on).
Now, I'm a believer. While paying several hundred bucks for a tiny electronic object that is nothing more than an entertainment device still feels kind of steep, I can finally understand why many (including my daughter) like it so much. When I started seeing the iPhone commercials, I was very impressed and really think that Apple may just be the company with the experience and foresight to actually build the right all-inclusive portable device for communications and entertainment. While I may balk at the hefty price, I have to say that I am at least tempted and can certainly understand why some people will rush out to buy one of these "phones" (they really aren't a phone anymore, that is just one of many functions). I'll probably wait for a few months but, I think that my next phone will probably be an iPhone.
I think that I would want to light many areas of the house with LED lighting, It is efficient and does not create heat which would reduce the air conditioning costs. I also think that I would put quite a bit of effort into building an efficient house because we can almost bet we know which way energy costs will continue to go! To that end, I think that after sealing the shell of the house, I would want to apply the closed cell expanding foam insulation - not only to help with insulation costs but also to prevent mold growth and insect infiltration.
I'd locate much of my A/C, electrical, and electronic control systems in the attic where they may stand a better chance of survival if the worst were to happen again.
I'd use a security system that is built for a business rather than a home. This way you could use an RFID system for most entry doors and many different sensors and cameras for internal and perimiter security.
Technology does not end with geek toys. I'd want to install the higher tech appliances; they are efficient and offer a wide variety of options that make using them easier.
Finally, I don't think many people need a real "panic room" but I would build one closet larger than normal and rig it up to make it harder to break into (this is where you can store your valuables) and build access to the attic into it. The attic access is just in case the worst happens again. This quazi panic room should be able to lock from the inside and have battery backup for lighting and perhaps a cel phone for comminications (a pre-paid phone stocked with minimum minutes would suffice). In the attic, I would leave a cache of supplies including non-perishable food, life jackets, and an axe (for roor access). A good sized cooler can hold enough food for several days for a family (don't forget a can opener).
I'll let these folks have their museum, they (like me) have the right to free speach and can exercise it as they wish. I just hope that no public money was used in the building of this shrine.
I'm not positive that science has everything right but as far as I know, humans are a much later development than the dinosaurs. Mixing the two seems sort of cartoonish at best and ignorant at worst. Based on this, I do not think that the museum will win any "converts" that had been sitting on the fence. The propoganda is too easily disproven.
Linux itself is a tool, like many tools it can be put to many different uses, some good, some evil, and some just plain silly. What if the O/S powering this array of hardware was Microsoft's would that somehow make it better? Would it make Microsoft more or less evil?
War in any time is horrible and it has always called upon the available technology of the day. We can not expect it to be any different in the 21st century! Technology is used to gain an advantage over the opponent and is today also being used to limit collateral damage (which I think is a good thing). Typically one of the fruits of war is the technological advancement that comes from technology being pushed to its limits. If it were not for WWII our world would very possibly be a different place today. The satellites that carry most of the worlds data, TV, and voice transmissions may not exist. Radar would not have been developed at the rate it had. The list goes on and on!
I know that this almost sounds hawkish. I assure you that I am not all that much of a hawk. I think our war in Iraq is an example of one of the poorest leadership examples ever set by a United States president! I don't feel quite the same about Afghanistan but still find myself wondering what good we are doing over there now. For the most part, I think we spend too much time sticking our military in other peoples business and would love to see most of our troops come home. Still, I am a realist. People will develop new weapons systems and find ways of improving the ones that we have. It comes as no big surprise to me that systems integrators have found their way into the combat zone. Why not? It really isn't very different from a technical standpoint than integrating a bunch of retail stores.
Could synesthaesia include the "feeling" of music? If so, I think more than 1 in 23 people may have synesthaesia to some degree or another. My wife who "likes" music does not seem to experience it like I do and when I talk to her about what I feel when I experience music, it does not seem to reach as deeply into her psyche and it does to me.
This does not seem to be related to musical skills; she can play piano, I can't play a darned thing even though I tried very hard to learn. Yet music (of many types) ignites a very emotional response in me.
Looking at the side-bar that shows us what non-genetically modified mice see, does their absence of red vision mean that I could make a better mouse trap just by painting a plain old mousetrap red?
At first I thought that I was going to write a sort of general reply of why I thought that AT&T was wrong but then I thought about it for a while and actually realized what a precarious position AT&T (and perhaps the entire telecom industry) is in. While I still think that AT&T can be blamed for not having enough backbone to stand up to the government, I think the reality is that this is the government's mess and the government's fault.
Instead of blaming AT&T, I think we should lay the blame at the feet of the United States Government. Traditionally we have been a government that allowed a lot of freedom and bestowed a great deal of rights on our citizens and even on non-citizen residents (even to some degree on illegal aliens which I personally find a little difficult to accept).
The current administration will tell us times have changed. They will say that happened on September 11th 2001. They say that they need additional powers to protect us from terrorists and other enemies. They say that they need the ability to spy domestically so that they can ferret out terrorist cells operating within the United States.
On the surface all of this sounds reasonable. Even congress agreed and passed bills like The Patriot Act and permitted the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (which for those of you who may be critical, I understand is a cabinet position under the control of the Executive branch but the money still needs to be appropriated by congress). As a nation we have spent untold billions on defense most of which has been spent on a war that many question in Iraq. The government will argue that we have had success, that there has not been a successful terrorist attack since 2001 so they must be doing something right.
Good government does sometimes need to have secrets. Nobody is saying that our government should be so open that they could not plan military actions in secret. Still, in general good government does need some transparency and does need to be held accountable for the things it has done. We can not accept an opaque government where everything is done in secret or where we are mislead into providing support (like the Iraq WMD mess).
Our current administration may not be opaque but they are getting so dark that it is hard to see behind the veil that they have set up. Even when they are told "no" they just try another end-run and try to accomplish the same thing in a different way.
I have no special knowledge of what happened between AT&T and the FBI or Homeland Security (or whoever it was) but I would imagine that they were squeezed very tightly and were put in a terribly uncomfortable position before they agreed to provide surveillance assistance. Considering the current climate in the telecom industry, I would not be surprised if they were also promised a few favors too.
We are supposed to be a nation by the people, of the people, and for the people. I take this to mean that the government is obliged to do the will of the people. I don't think that this means spying on us, invading our privacy, and taking our freedoms a bit and a piece at a time.
I'll freely admit that I have not paid much attention to the Novell/Microsoft agreement and what it means to the Free Software Movement in general or to Linux in particular. My observations here have less to do with the particulars of the agreement than they have to do with general observations about Open Source, Free Software, Novell and Microsoft.
First, we all love to hate Microsoft while many of us generally admire the direction that Novell has taken in the past several years. Remember several years ago that Novell was a has-been company that was seen as being on the verge of death's door. Rather than doing the SCO thing, they decided to jump in to Open Source in a big way. The Novell brand on open source products was generally seen as a good thing. While Novell did not have the mega-bucks of someone like IBM, it did have a solid reputation to lend to the industry.
Novell, as a company has profit as its motive, it has sharholders to satisfy and if it is to continue as an entity it has to find ways to position itself in the market in such a manner that it can make some money. Today very few companies in the computing industry can ignore Microsoft. At the very least they have to offer compatibility with the Microsoft products and at best, they want to offer true integration with Microsoft products while offering something that Microsoft itself isn't delivering. It is after all these niche markets where smaller companies can really deliver something of value to a market that will pay for it.
Novell's "deal with the devil" was probably something that they felt compelled to do. In their eyes, they probably felt that the "something" that they got out of the deal was much better than the "nothing" that they would have gotten without the deal. I would imagine that they also probably hoped that the deal would allow them to be able to escape some direct competition from Microsoft if and when they deliver the products born from this rather odd union.
Let us not forget that Microsoft itself has on occasion packaged open-source tools and utilities with their products and that the Open Source community has delevoped tools and utilities that have allowed Microsoft products to better integrate with things like Linux, Apache, and Samba.
If Microsoft's arrangment with Novell in some way actually affects free software, I would hope it would be in a good way. If Microsoft uses some of Novell's code that uses some open source code, then by virtue of the licenses, it would seem to me that Microsoft would either be required to eliminate the open source code or, be required to incorporate the requirements of the license into their product. In other words, Microsoft would have to play by the GPL rules.
While Linux and other open source operating systems pose a competitive risk to Microsoft's operating systems, it does not mean that it is always going to be in Microsoft's best interests to simply ignore the features the competition offers. Access to some of these features may very well be what Microsoft sees itself getting out of the Novell/Microsoft arrangment. I don't know, I have not paid that much attention but I would think that some tight closed-source Microsoft integration with things found in open source operating systems (and networking components) may prove to be a symbiotic benefit. How would it hurt Linux if Microsoft offered near-native access to the Riser file system or fully integrated with some other O/S and networking features? It seems to me that if they did this, it may make open-source more acceptable to a larger market.
I think your observation has merit. There is more "profit" in being critical of the administration now that the elections are over. Since the current president can not be re-elected it is a wise political move to be critical of the things that the polls tell them that the public opposes. Yet it is water off of a (lame) duck's back to the current administration.
I agree, we did do a lot of damage and I acknowlege that something should be done to make things better before we are actually "out" of Iraq. Bot, on the other hand, doesn't it seem that our military presence in Iraq is only making matters worse? If we are truly interested in giving Iraq back to Iraq, should we not let the civil authorities handle the internal dissent between factions? We could help them by giving them the tools to do it but wouldn't the best thing for Iraq be for us to be out of the picture almost entirely?
It is also my understanding that one of the worst civilian problems in the country is unemployment. Why not fund Iraq's rebuilding effort with the money we wouldn't spend on our military if we weren't there? Why not return the billions in cash and treasures siezed from the toppled regime and allow the Iraq government to use that to fund civil projects that would help everyone? Finally, why not make it a point to buy their oil to help their economy become strong?
If our military were to stay in Iraq it should only be as a stablizing presence. I can almost see doing that (only because we destroyed their ability to protect themselves). But if we are there for that purpose, we do not need to be in the thick of things, we could have a large base in the middle of nowhere and we could use that base to train Iraqi police and military forces. It would be far safer for our troops and much less likely to trigger internal problems in the country yet we could have thousands of troops and the requisite equipment immediately available should intervention be required. It would probably also be a regional influence, keeping countries like Iran and Syria from getting out of hand.
Still, my major frustration with our current administration is that they are not representing the American citizenry. They are not doing what is right for the country. They are not obeying laws and have even tossed human rights out the door. All of this is being done in the name of "Homeland Security" but I am sure we are far less safe today than we were on 9/10/2001. Our heavy handed handling of Iraq has created tens of thousands of new enemys willing to give their lives to hurt us. It will be several generations before we can possibly be as safe as we were before this administration took office.
We are no longer free, we have gotten to the point where we can be hauled off to a prison and held for who knows how long before we are taken before a secret court where the charges against us can be witheld from us for reasons of National Security. This is not the America that I thought it was.
We now live in a country that is doing the same things that it fought against for so long. How can we not compare our secret prisons and our secret courts to the things that Stallin and Hitler did? If it was so terrible when they did it, why is it okay for our leaders to do now?
I am so tired of the current administration running roughshod over the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike. The Executive Branch seems at every turn to believe that the law and indeed even the constitution do not apply to them! I suspect that if we were to harness the energy of Jefferson, Franklin, and the other signers of the constitution spinning in their graves we could once and for all solve the energy crisis!
I've noticed that recently this seems to have stopped being a Republican/Democrat thing and seems to have become an Executive Branch vs. Congress sort of thing. Dozens of Republican congressmen are now speaking critically of our president and his cabinet publicly. While I think this is a very good thing, I think it may be too little too late. So much damage has already been done. Laws like the Patriot Act have already been passed and implemented and our President has too much power and momentum going his way.
We have secret prisons and our citizens (and non-citizens alike) can be tried in secret courts. Hell, we don't even have to try them according to the Justice Department, Habeas Corpus is actually not a constitutional right!
Don't forget that our president was elected based on a highly questionable election in 2000. Many people called it a bloodless coup! I have no explanation on how he was re-elected in 2004 and frankly, I fear that the power structure is already in place to make the 2008 election another sham. I suspect that the people that control this administration will stop at nothing to remain in control.
The president and his cronies lied to us about the threat that Iraq represented and they dragged us into an illegal war that has killed thousands of people and maimed tens of thousands more. He sent our troops into battle without adequate protection and recently ordered even more in to Iraq despite the fact that we no longer have much of a reason to be there.
Our president is out-of-touch with the citizenry, he is not listening to congress or even to logic. He and his administration are operating not according to law but rather as they wish. The executive branch while part of a democracy is not functioning as if it is a component of a democratic nation but rather as if it were a dictatorship.
I think we need to place our hope in the third triad of our government, the one that is least democratic (it is not elected and its members are appointed for life). We must rely on the Judicial Branch to make the right decisions to keep democracy intact. Court cases like this one, and the one testing Habeas Corpus, are quite literally a test of the mettle of our country. Sadly, we have a (politically) "conservative" court, the majority of which were appointed by Republicans, the same people who are in control of our Executive Branch.
I am worried about what America is letting itself become. I don't think that our leadership in the Executive Branch any longer has any interest in representing "we the people" and I worry that we may be too late to restore our country to what it was.
It seems like job distinctions have blurred a lot in the IS field. I used to think a scientist was someone who explored the theoretical and figured out how to take what they learned and apply it in new ways. I thought an engineer was someone who took what scientists learned and got it working in real-world applications. I thought the technician took these applications and kept them working, fixing them when they broke.
I'm a technician. It seems that more often than not, I have to do a lot of the engineering work when something new comes along. I suspect that the engineers have to do a lot of the science work too. What I am trying to say is that I think there is a lot of overlap. It is likely to continue in this direction as long as things keep getting more and more complex.
How many of us haven't taken some idea and made it work for something entirely different than its intended purpose? Who hasn't made something that didn't quite work out like we wanted? Both of those things are opposite ends of the same concept, the concept that brings us engineering.
Your idea has merit and in fact similar things have been done when monopolies have been broken up before (Standard Oil, IBM, and Bell Telephone are examples). I do not know or understand why the courts did not do someting equally draconian with Microsoft when they had the chance. History seems to suggest that it is the most likely method to succeed.
Still, it did not happen. Instead they said "open the API" and now it looks like Microsoft has not done so, at least not to everyone's satisfaction. Sadly the order does not compel anyone to really look into this, it merely says "someone says they have some information and if you (the DOJ) want to look at it, you have our permission."
It seems to me without adequate political pressure, the DOJ will probably ignore this permission.
Think about what is important in your environment. Build your questions around that. Don't pick things that are too unique though.
Ask at least one question like "Tell me about a unique problem you encountered that you did not know too much about, what did you do to fix it and the process that you followed to accomplish this."
Don't depend too much on the litteral answers to the questions. Observe the applicant and see how they respond. Try to develop a good gut feeling about the person. What are your impressions about their intellegence? Their personality? What was your first impression when you initially met them? Believe it or not, "gut feelings" and "first impressions" are about 80% correct.
Remember, they are there to learn a bit about you too. Describe the work and the environment. After telling them a bit about the workplace, ask them if they think it is what they are looking for. Again, watch them as they formulate the answer. A little hesitation could be normal but do they wiggle or squirm? Do you feel like they really want the job?
Finally, there are not very many jobs out there that do not require good people skills and customer service skills. Spend some time on these aspects. They are every bit as important as the techie stuff.
One of the things that I also like to ask is about some of the jobs that they have held and liked, even the ones way back in high school. Sometimes, working at a McD or BK is valuable experience when you are dealing with difficult people or those who are in a rush.
I am starting to believe that "Homeland Security" is nothing more than a shield for unpopular programs that the current administration wants to push through. If there is likely to be opposition to a plan they simply drop it into the Homeland Security bucket and then explain it away as something that they can not divulge too much about for "reasons of national security."
I'll use the recent raid on Swift Company as an example -- but I would like to preface my comments by saying that I have no strong political feelings on wether or not these raids were justified. When I saw the television coverage of these raids (which were conducted by ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement) the most obvious things in the pictur were the giant busses that had covered windows and said "Homeland Security" on their sides.
A lot of what happened made sense. Our government has a right to enforce immigration laws and to deal with the identity theft that allowed these illegals to obtain jobs at the meat packing plants. Using a team of enforcement officers from various government agencies is a way of leveraging resources in a cost-effective manner. Both Customs and Immigration fall under the auspices of Homeland Security. I understand all of this and may even form an approving opinion of it if I were to spend enough time thinking about it (which I haven't).
Illegal aliens have become a significant problem in many states and from what I understand, their presence has risen to a point where they are now according to some, impacting America's "bottom line" because their children are being educated in our schools, they seek medical aid in our hospitals and, they are taking jobs from Americans and legal immigrants.
Clearly, if we are to beileve even a bit of this, the illegal alien probelm is something our government needs to deal with. It just seems to me that they way that they are accounting for it is terribly messed up. While I understand that Homeland Security has Customs, Immigration, and the Border Patrol under their wing I don't think that we exactly expected to pay for raids on mid-west meat packing plants with monies appropriated for homeland security. Who are we kidding by funding these raids with anti-terrorisim money? Only ourselves would seem to be the answer.
Like many people, I think it is a leap of logic to believe that the illegal immigrants working in mid-west meat packing plants are potential terrorists or even a direct threat to America. At worst they may be placing a demand on our infrastructure by using our schools and hospitals, and they may not be paying taxes. At best, they may be working at low-paying jobs very few other people want, the pay they earn is taxed but they can not file a return so they can not get their witholdings refunded to them so, in a way many of them are even paying taxes higher than the typical American!
As taxpayers, we paid for the raids, including the officers, the jails, the buses, and the airplanes that are used to deport these people. Frankly, I don't know if we are doing the right thing or the wrong thing but it does seem to me that the check is being written on the wrong account. It also seems to me that if we were to question it too hard, we would be accused of being un-American.
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If I made it sound like I blame Bush, I am sorry. This is one thing that he had very little to do with. Our infrastructure has been in sorry shape for many administrations now, I can't even say exactly where I think it started. There is enough blame to go around; everyone is responsible.
Perhaps if we weren't mixing it up in every conflict we could afford better stewardship of what is truly and rightfully ours. We have spent billions in Iraq and there is little doubt that some, perhaps much of that money could have been used back here at home.
I live in Minneapolis, quite close to the I-35W bridge that collapsed. I was there Wednesday evening before many of the professionals were and helped with crowd control when the area I was in became an impromptu staging facility. I've driven over the bridge quite literally thousands of times. Like most people, I feel quite vested in my community and its infrastructure. I was completely unaware (as I am sure most people were) that the bridge had any problems at all. If I had to pick the least likely bridge to fall, it is quite likely I would have picked that one. It was quite frequently maintained and from all outward appearances looked to be in good shape.
I have had some time to think about it now and have come to the conclusion that we have not been good stewards of the infrastructure that our parents and grandparents worked so hard to give us. Instead of using the tsxes that we all pay to maintain our interstate system, dikes, levees and other items of commerce we have been off playing policeman for the world. We are like the nosey neighbor who complains about everything everyone else is doing while they let their own house and yard waste away. Only we do it on a global scale.
When I compare this disaster to the other recent disasters in the US, I think it compares not to 9/11 or the San Francisco earthquake but more to hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I think this because what happened in New Orleans was not a "natural disaster" but rather a failure of infrastructure. If the levees and dikes had held like they were intended to, not much would have happened in New Orleans, the natural disaster would have been a memorable big storm that caused damage, not the disaster it was.
In the past twenty or thirty years we have not kept pace with the growth of infrastructure that we saw in the fifties and sixties when almost the entire system of interstate highways were built. With the disasters that we have seen I believe that there is enough evidence to show that we have not been good stewards of the gifts that our predicessors left us. We have failed. It really is that simple.
It is time to learn our lesson and time to reinvest in America. We may need to stop dropping bombs and bring our serviemen and servicewomen home so that we can afford to do this. We may need to cut back on pork-barrel politics and instead concentrate on commerce. We may need to scale back on missions to mars and the moon. Hell, we may even need to raise taxes!
Most importantly, and I do not know how to do this, we need to elect people who will do the job we need them to do in Washington and the state capitols.
Finally, although this is off-topic, I want to say that the emergency crews that responded to this disaster did an amazing job. These people are civil-service workers and voulinteers. They deserve special recognition for their heroic efforts. In less than an hour responders from across the state were there and had already put together a structured and effective rescue plan.
First, any fool who makes bomb threats deserves to be busted, tossed in jail, and treated like a criminal because that is exactly what they are.
The internet is like a highway, on the internet how can anyone have any reasonable expectation of privacy?
Did the police (FBI in this case) overstep their bounds? Apparently a judge did not think so, he authorized the warrant.
Frankly, I am glad that they took this criminal off of the streets at least for now.
A bigger question really is being asked: "Should the FBI and police be allowed to use tools that would be illegal if used by civilians?" That question is a bit harder to answer but ultimately, we have a long history of giving our law enforcement officers tools that the general public is not allowed to use or, can only use in very limited ways. Examples of this would include machine guns, Tasers, two-way police radios, and mobile display terminals connected to restricted databases. The government has a right to employ some tools that in other hands may be illegal or unethical.
Did they use a known hole or did some one in a company somewhere create a hole for them? I don't know. Frankly, I would feel more comfortable ethically if they had discovered the hole on their own or used an accidental one. If they are using one that is custom designed, then I think that they are helping create a security vulnerability that could be exploited by someone else and that, I would think is wrong.
We are spending billions on "Homeland Security" and we are making our society and our people less free. Ninety year old women have to remove their shoes (just like everyone else) just to get on an airplane. We are doing all of this, including putting cameras on our streets in an effort to counter terrorisim!
I think, no I know, that the real terrorists we have to worry about are the pols who have done this to us. We are less free today than we were before 9-11-2001. The guys in the airplanes did not do that to us, GWB and his cronies at every level of government did it.
A few years ago the FCC was overhauled in an effort to speed the processes of approval and allocation. At that time the most common complaint was that it took years to obtain approval for new technology. The truth is, that the old FCC did seem to drag their feet and yes, it was rather difficult to get approval for new technology and to get a piece of the radio spectrum reallocated you may as well forget about it. People and industry did have a lot to complain about. When the FCC did make a decision, it was (almost) always the right one, it had been well researched and lobbiests and lawyers had little influence, even the politicians really had very little say.
When the system was overhauled, it was done with the best of intentions. They allowed industry access in ways that they never had before and the FCC had to start to rely on information presented by the very industry that they were intended to police! Today, we could almost describe the industry relationship with the FCC as symbiotic.
The FCC has as it's primary charge the responsibility of making the public airwaves work for the public. They protect these airwaves by allocating frequencies, by approving new uses, and by certifying equipment that may use or interfere with the public airwaves.
With technology changing so fast, and the airwaves being so crowded, and all sorts of new ideas (good and bad), the FCC has lots to do. Congress told them to work faster and be more responsive to industry. Industry does not want OSS, they view it as competition. They would rather develop copyrighted and even patented software to do this stuff so that they can earn a healthy return on investment. The FCC is simply echoing this as they have been instructed by congress to do (they see it as working with industry).
OSS is sort of socialist when you think about it from the closed source standpoint. It is a threat simply because it is free. You would think public airwaves would be a place where free software would be at home -- and it should be but it isn't. Becuase the FCC is no longer really allowed to make the best decisions for the public. They must now answer to the very people they are supposed to police. That is simply wrong; they should answer to the public and the requirements of international treaties.
I think you are correct. For an orginization the size of Homeland Security 800 break-ins is a pretty small number especially when you think about the vuneabilities of the operating system and the software that they are likely using.
One thing that I have been considering is the use of a virtual machine running an internet appliance. This method "sandboxes" the risk and it is wiped away simply by restarting the VM session.
Google is doing this simply because they can not lose and may gain big. This is not going to change anything else that they are doing.
The article is very long on fluff and does not give up a lot of details which makes it very hard to read between the lines or even to read much into the article. This is not something that aligns itself with Google's "core business" so one must ask why is Google doing this?
Almost everyone will agree that the folks at Google are smart. Frankly they have not comitted a lot of money. It could be that they are just funding this for the goodwill (and publicity) that they will gain. From the amount of money that they have pledged, this could be the only reason. Aligning yourself with an energy issue that everyone cares about is worth a million or even ten million to a company with the reach (and pocketbook) of a company like Google. Google is certainly doing "no evil" with this.
Going back to the part where I said the folks at Google are smart makes me think that this may be something a bit more. Something that they can justify simply for the goodwill and publicity that the effort generates but can maybe give them something more. It seems like this is how they almost always work. In this light, I am wondering if this is a "testing of the water" of the energy venture capital business. Low risk (with billions in available cash one or ten million is not a big wager) with huge potential rewards if the smart folks at Google pick the right project(s) to fund.
The smart people at Google come from a wide range of sciences and specialties. If you put the right people together to review the requests for funding, they stand a fair to middlin chance of picking the right one(s).
Google is indeed smart.
The iPhone is not a phone, it is a device that works as a phone and does a plethora of other things. To think of the iPhone as a cellular phone is to think of a laptop as a portable word processor. Sure it makes phone calls but it also surfs the web, plays music, stores video and photos and probably has other applications on it as well.
To use this device without a data plan of some sort is taking away a great deal of the functionality of the device even if it connects via WiFi under some circumstances. I suspect that the WiFi component is probably intended for wireless access to your home computer (for file transfer) more than it is intended for use in public WiFi hotspots.
Imagine trying to use the iPhone for surfing the web while riding a bus or as a passenger in a car. It would not be a good "user experience" which is something Apple is known for providing. So, Apple has an interest in making sure that the device has a plan that is appropriate. Obviously, AT&T also has an interest in selling a data plan with the device. Not only is the data plan for them but it is also important for them to provide a good "user experience" for the device. If word got out that the device was "flakey" they would have a hard time selling them!
Until last week I would never have dreamed of owning an iPod or iPhone now, I am seriously considering the iPhone. What caused this change? My daughter graduated and for a graduation present, I bought her a 30GB iPod. I've always felt that while Apple products have some unique features that they were overpriced and not all that much better than their other-brand or no-brand counterparts. I've never been one to pay extra for style or "bling" and that is exactly what I thought Apple brought to the party. Still my daughter was celebrating a major accomplishment, she wanted an iPod and I wanted to give her a special present for her big day.
The iPod surprised me. I was impressed with virtually everything about it. I liked the simple controls. The sound clarity was top notch. The screen was crisp and clear. Even the battery charged quickly! "Fit and finish" were awesome. I went out to the iTunes store and bought Alice Cooper's "Schools Out" and made that the first song put on the iPod (a symbolic gesture); even that was faster and far easier than I expected! In little time at all I had 500+ songs on it (and told her the rest of her CD collection was up to her to put on).
Now, I'm a believer. While paying several hundred bucks for a tiny electronic object that is nothing more than an entertainment device still feels kind of steep, I can finally understand why many (including my daughter) like it so much. When I started seeing the iPhone commercials, I was very impressed and really think that Apple may just be the company with the experience and foresight to actually build the right all-inclusive portable device for communications and entertainment. While I may balk at the hefty price, I have to say that I am at least tempted and can certainly understand why some people will rush out to buy one of these "phones" (they really aren't a phone anymore, that is just one of many functions). I'll probably wait for a few months but, I think that my next phone will probably be an iPhone.
I think that I would want to light many areas of the house with LED lighting, It is efficient and does not create heat which would reduce the air conditioning costs. I also think that I would put quite a bit of effort into building an efficient house because we can almost bet we know which way energy costs will continue to go! To that end, I think that after sealing the shell of the house, I would want to apply the closed cell expanding foam insulation - not only to help with insulation costs but also to prevent mold growth and insect infiltration.
I'd locate much of my A/C, electrical, and electronic control systems in the attic where they may stand a better chance of survival if the worst were to happen again.
I'd use a security system that is built for a business rather than a home. This way you could use an RFID system for most entry doors and many different sensors and cameras for internal and perimiter security.
Technology does not end with geek toys. I'd want to install the higher tech appliances; they are efficient and offer a wide variety of options that make using them easier.
Finally, I don't think many people need a real "panic room" but I would build one closet larger than normal and rig it up to make it harder to break into (this is where you can store your valuables) and build access to the attic into it. The attic access is just in case the worst happens again. This quazi panic room should be able to lock from the inside and have battery backup for lighting and perhaps a cel phone for comminications (a pre-paid phone stocked with minimum minutes would suffice). In the attic, I would leave a cache of supplies including non-perishable food, life jackets, and an axe (for roor access). A good sized cooler can hold enough food for several days for a family (don't forget a can opener).
Amen.
I'll let these folks have their museum, they (like me) have the right to free speach and can exercise it as they wish. I just hope that no public money was used in the building of this shrine.
I'm not positive that science has everything right but as far as I know, humans are a much later development than the dinosaurs. Mixing the two seems sort of cartoonish at best and ignorant at worst. Based on this, I do not think that the museum will win any "converts" that had been sitting on the fence. The propoganda is too easily disproven.
Linux itself is a tool, like many tools it can be put to many different uses, some good, some evil, and some just plain silly. What if the O/S powering this array of hardware was Microsoft's would that somehow make it better? Would it make Microsoft more or less evil?
War in any time is horrible and it has always called upon the available technology of the day. We can not expect it to be any different in the 21st century! Technology is used to gain an advantage over the opponent and is today also being used to limit collateral damage (which I think is a good thing). Typically one of the fruits of war is the technological advancement that comes from technology being pushed to its limits. If it were not for WWII our world would very possibly be a different place today. The satellites that carry most of the worlds data, TV, and voice transmissions may not exist. Radar would not have been developed at the rate it had. The list goes on and on!
I know that this almost sounds hawkish. I assure you that I am not all that much of a hawk. I think our war in Iraq is an example of one of the poorest leadership examples ever set by a United States president! I don't feel quite the same about Afghanistan but still find myself wondering what good we are doing over there now. For the most part, I think we spend too much time sticking our military in other peoples business and would love to see most of our troops come home. Still, I am a realist. People will develop new weapons systems and find ways of improving the ones that we have. It comes as no big surprise to me that systems integrators have found their way into the combat zone. Why not? It really isn't very different from a technical standpoint than integrating a bunch of retail stores.
Could synesthaesia include the "feeling" of music? If so, I think more than 1 in 23 people may have synesthaesia to some degree or another. My wife who "likes" music does not seem to experience it like I do and when I talk to her about what I feel when I experience music, it does not seem to reach as deeply into her psyche and it does to me.
This does not seem to be related to musical skills; she can play piano, I can't play a darned thing even though I tried very hard to learn. Yet music (of many types) ignites a very emotional response in me.
Looking at the side-bar that shows us what non-genetically modified mice see, does their absence of red vision mean that I could make a better mouse trap just by painting a plain old mousetrap red?
At first I thought that I was going to write a sort of general reply of why I thought that
AT&T was wrong but then I thought about it for a while and actually realized what a
precarious position AT&T (and perhaps the entire telecom industry) is in. While I still
think that AT&T can be blamed for not having enough backbone to stand up to the
government, I think the reality is that this is the government's mess and the government's
fault.
Instead of blaming AT&T, I think we should lay the blame at the feet of the United
States Government. Traditionally we have been a government that allowed a lot of
freedom and bestowed a great deal of rights on our citizens and even on non-citizen
residents (even to some degree on illegal aliens which I personally find a little difficult to
accept).
The current administration will tell us times have changed. They will say that happened
on September 11th 2001. They say that they need additional powers to protect us from
terrorists and other enemies. They say that they need the ability to spy domestically so
that they can ferret out terrorist cells operating within the United States.
On the surface all of this sounds reasonable. Even congress agreed and passed bills like
The Patriot Act and permitted the creation of the Department of Homeland Security
(which for those of you who may be critical, I understand is a cabinet position under the
control of the Executive branch but the money still needs to be appropriated by
congress). As a nation we have spent untold billions on defense most of which has been
spent on a war that many question in Iraq. The government will argue that we have had
success, that there has not been a successful terrorist attack since 2001 so they must be
doing something right.
Good government does sometimes need to have secrets. Nobody is saying that our
government should be so open that they could not plan military actions in secret. Still, in
general good government does need some transparency and does need to be held
accountable for the things it has done. We can not accept an opaque government where
everything is done in secret or where we are mislead into providing support (like the Iraq
WMD mess).
Our current administration may not be opaque but they are getting so dark that it is hard
to see behind the veil that they have set up. Even when they are told "no" they just try
another end-run and try to accomplish the same thing in a different way.
I have no special knowledge of what happened between AT&T and the FBI or Homeland
Security (or whoever it was) but I would imagine that they were squeezed very tightly
and were put in a terribly uncomfortable position before they agreed to provide
surveillance assistance. Considering the current climate in the telecom industry, I would
not be surprised if they were also promised a few favors too.
We are supposed to be a nation by the people, of the people, and for the people. I take
this to mean that the government is obliged to do the will of the people. I don't think that
this means spying on us, invading our privacy, and taking our freedoms a bit and a piece
at a time.
I am so disgusted that I just want to puke.
I'll freely admit that I have not paid much attention to the Novell/Microsoft agreement and what it means to the Free Software Movement in general or to Linux in particular. My observations here have less to do with the particulars of the agreement than they have to do with general observations about Open Source, Free Software, Novell and Microsoft.
First, we all love to hate Microsoft while many of us generally admire the direction that Novell has taken in the past several years. Remember several years ago that Novell was a has-been company that was seen as being on the verge of death's door. Rather than doing the SCO thing, they decided to jump in to Open Source in a big way. The Novell brand on open source products was generally seen as a good thing. While Novell did not have the mega-bucks of someone like IBM, it did have a solid reputation to lend to the industry.
Novell, as a company has profit as its motive, it has sharholders to satisfy and if it is to continue as an entity it has to find ways to position itself in the market in such a manner that it can make some money. Today very few companies in the computing industry can ignore Microsoft. At the very least they have to offer compatibility with the Microsoft products and at best, they want to offer true integration with Microsoft products while offering something that Microsoft itself isn't delivering. It is after all these niche markets where smaller companies can really deliver something of value to a market that will pay for it.
Novell's "deal with the devil" was probably something that they felt compelled to do. In their eyes, they probably felt that the "something" that they got out of the deal was much better than the "nothing" that they would have gotten without the deal. I would imagine that they also probably hoped that the deal would allow them to be able to escape some direct competition from Microsoft if and when they deliver the products born from this rather odd union.
Let us not forget that Microsoft itself has on occasion packaged open-source tools and utilities with their products and that the Open Source community has delevoped tools and utilities that have allowed Microsoft products to better integrate with things like Linux, Apache, and Samba.
If Microsoft's arrangment with Novell in some way actually affects free software, I would hope it would be in a good way. If Microsoft uses some of Novell's code that uses some open source code, then by virtue of the licenses, it would seem to me that Microsoft would either be required to eliminate the open source code or, be required to incorporate the requirements of the license into their product. In other words, Microsoft would have to play by the GPL rules.
While Linux and other open source operating systems pose a competitive risk to Microsoft's operating systems, it does not mean that it is always going to be in Microsoft's best interests to simply ignore the features the competition offers. Access to some of these features may very well be what Microsoft sees itself getting out of the Novell/Microsoft arrangment. I don't know, I have not paid that much attention but I would think that some tight closed-source Microsoft integration with things found in open source operating systems (and networking components) may prove to be a symbiotic benefit. How would it hurt Linux if Microsoft offered near-native access to the Riser file system or fully integrated with some other O/S and networking features? It seems to me that if they did this, it may make open-source more acceptable to a larger market.
Montecello MN is fine too: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=600+Rocky+ Hill+Rd,+Plymouth,+Ma&ie=UTF8&om=1&z=16&ll=41.9439 79,-70.577717&spn=0.009113,0.024934&t=h
I think your observation has merit. There is more "profit" in being critical of the administration now that the elections are over. Since the current president can not be re-elected it is a wise political move to be critical of the things that the polls tell them that the public opposes. Yet it is water off of a (lame) duck's back to the current administration.
I agree, we did do a lot of damage and I acknowlege that something should be done to make things better before we are actually "out" of Iraq. Bot, on the other hand, doesn't it seem that our military presence in Iraq is only making matters worse? If we are truly interested in giving Iraq back to Iraq, should we not let the civil authorities handle the internal dissent between factions? We could help them by giving them the tools to do it but wouldn't the best thing for Iraq be for us to be out of the picture almost entirely?
It is also my understanding that one of the worst civilian problems in the country is unemployment. Why not fund Iraq's rebuilding effort with the money we wouldn't spend on our military if we weren't there? Why not return the billions in cash and treasures siezed from the toppled regime and allow the Iraq government to use that to fund civil projects that would help everyone? Finally, why not make it a point to buy their oil to help their economy become strong?
If our military were to stay in Iraq it should only be as a stablizing presence. I can almost see doing that (only because we destroyed their ability to protect themselves). But if we are there for that purpose, we do not need to be in the thick of things, we could have a large base in the middle of nowhere and we could use that base to train Iraqi police and military forces. It would be far safer for our troops and much less likely to trigger internal problems in the country yet we could have thousands of troops and the requisite equipment immediately available should intervention be required. It would probably also be a regional influence, keeping countries like Iran and Syria from getting out of hand.
Still, my major frustration with our current administration is that they are not representing the American citizenry. They are not doing what is right for the country. They are not obeying laws and have even tossed human rights out the door. All of this is being done in the name of "Homeland Security" but I am sure we are far less safe today than we were on 9/10/2001. Our heavy handed handling of Iraq has created tens of thousands of new enemys willing to give their lives to hurt us. It will be several generations before we can possibly be as safe as we were before this administration took office.
We are no longer free, we have gotten to the point where we can be hauled off to a prison and held for who knows how long before we are taken before a secret court where the charges against us can be witheld from us for reasons of National Security. This is not the America that I thought it was.
We now live in a country that is doing the same things that it fought against for so long. How can we not compare our secret prisons and our secret courts to the things that Stallin and Hitler did? If it was so terrible when they did it, why is it okay for our leaders to do now?
I am so tired of the current administration running roughshod over the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike. The Executive Branch seems at every turn to believe that the law and indeed even the constitution do not apply to them! I suspect that if we were to harness the energy of Jefferson, Franklin, and the other signers of the constitution spinning in their graves we could once and for all solve the energy crisis!
I've noticed that recently this seems to have stopped being a Republican/Democrat thing and seems to have become an Executive Branch vs. Congress sort of thing. Dozens of Republican congressmen are now speaking critically of our president and his cabinet publicly. While I think this is a very good thing, I think it may be too little too late. So much damage has already been done. Laws like the Patriot Act have already been passed and implemented and our President has too much power and momentum going his way.
We have secret prisons and our citizens (and non-citizens alike) can be tried in secret courts. Hell, we don't even have to try them according to the Justice Department, Habeas Corpus is actually not a constitutional right!
Don't forget that our president was elected based on a highly questionable election in 2000. Many people called it a bloodless coup! I have no explanation on how he was re-elected in 2004 and frankly, I fear that the power structure is already in place to make the 2008 election another sham. I suspect that the people that control this administration will stop at nothing to remain in control.
The president and his cronies lied to us about the threat that Iraq represented and they dragged us into an illegal war that has killed thousands of people and maimed tens of thousands more. He sent our troops into battle without adequate protection and recently ordered even more in to Iraq despite the fact that we no longer have much of a reason to be there.
Our president is out-of-touch with the citizenry, he is not listening to congress or even to logic. He and his administration are operating not according to law but rather as they wish. The executive branch while part of a democracy is not functioning as if it is a component of a democratic nation but rather as if it were a dictatorship.
I think we need to place our hope in the third triad of our government, the one that is least democratic (it is not elected and its members are appointed for life). We must rely on the Judicial Branch to make the right decisions to keep democracy intact. Court cases like this one, and the one testing Habeas Corpus, are quite literally a test of the mettle of our country. Sadly, we have a (politically) "conservative" court, the majority of which were appointed by Republicans, the same people who are in control of our Executive Branch.
I am worried about what America is letting itself become. I don't think that our
leadership in the Executive Branch any longer has any interest in representing "we the people" and I worry that we may be too late to restore our country to what it was.
It seems like job distinctions have blurred a lot in the IS field. I used to think a scientist was someone who explored the theoretical and figured out how to take what they learned and apply it in new ways. I thought an engineer was someone who took what scientists learned and got it working in real-world applications. I thought the technician took these applications and kept them working, fixing them when they broke.
I'm a technician. It seems that more often than not, I have to do a lot of the engineering work when something new comes along. I suspect that the engineers have to do a lot of the science work too. What I am trying to say is that I think there is a lot of overlap. It is likely to continue in this direction as long as things keep getting more and more complex.
How many of us haven't taken some idea and made it work for something entirely different than its intended purpose? Who hasn't made something that didn't quite work out like we wanted? Both of those things are opposite ends of the same concept, the concept that brings us engineering.
Your idea has merit and in fact similar things have been done when monopolies have been broken up before (Standard Oil, IBM, and Bell Telephone are examples). I do not know or understand why the courts did not do someting equally draconian with Microsoft when they had the chance. History seems to suggest that it is the most likely method to succeed.
Still, it did not happen. Instead they said "open the API" and now it looks like Microsoft has not done so, at least not to everyone's satisfaction. Sadly the order does not compel anyone to really look into this, it merely says "someone says they have some information and if you (the DOJ) want to look at it, you have our permission."
It seems to me without adequate political pressure, the DOJ will probably ignore this permission.
Think about what is important in your environment. Build your questions around that. Don't pick things that are too unique though.
Ask at least one question like "Tell me about a unique problem you encountered that you did not know too much about, what did you do to fix it and the process that you followed to accomplish this."
Don't depend too much on the litteral answers to the questions. Observe the applicant and see how they respond. Try to develop a good gut feeling about the person. What are your impressions about their intellegence? Their personality? What was your first impression when you initially met them? Believe it or not, "gut feelings" and "first impressions" are about 80% correct.
Remember, they are there to learn a bit about you too. Describe the work and the environment. After telling them a bit about the workplace, ask them if they think it is what they are looking for. Again, watch them as they formulate the answer. A little hesitation could be normal but do they wiggle or squirm? Do you feel like they really want the job?
Finally, there are not very many jobs out there that do not require good people skills and customer service skills. Spend some time on these aspects. They are every bit as important as the techie stuff.
One of the things that I also like to ask is about some of the jobs that they have held and liked, even the ones way back in high school. Sometimes, working at a McD or BK is valuable experience when you are dealing with difficult people or those who are in a rush.
I am starting to believe that "Homeland Security" is nothing more than a shield for unpopular programs that the current administration wants to push through. If there is likely to be opposition to a plan they simply drop it into the Homeland Security bucket and then explain it away as something that they can not divulge too much about for "reasons of national security."
I'll use the recent raid on Swift Company as an example -- but I would like to preface my comments by saying that I have no strong political feelings on wether or not these raids were justified. When I saw the television coverage of these raids (which were conducted by ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement) the most obvious things in the pictur were the giant busses that had covered windows and said "Homeland Security" on their sides.
A lot of what happened made sense. Our government has a right to enforce immigration laws and to deal with the identity theft that allowed these illegals to obtain jobs at the meat packing plants. Using a team of enforcement officers from various government agencies is a way of leveraging resources in a cost-effective manner. Both Customs and Immigration fall under the auspices of Homeland Security. I understand all of this and may even form an approving opinion of it if I were to spend enough time thinking about it (which I haven't).
Illegal aliens have become a significant problem in many states and from what I understand, their presence has risen to a point where they are now according to some, impacting America's "bottom line" because their children are being educated in our schools, they seek medical aid in our hospitals and, they are taking jobs from Americans and legal immigrants.
Clearly, if we are to beileve even a bit of this, the illegal alien probelm is something our government needs to deal with. It just seems to me that they way that they are accounting for it is terribly messed up. While I understand that Homeland Security has Customs, Immigration, and the Border Patrol under their wing I don't think that we exactly expected to pay for raids on mid-west meat packing plants with monies appropriated for homeland security. Who are we kidding by funding these raids with anti-terrorisim money? Only ourselves would seem to be the answer.
Like many people, I think it is a leap of logic to believe that the illegal immigrants working in mid-west meat packing plants are potential terrorists or even a direct threat to America. At worst they may be placing a demand on our infrastructure by using our schools and hospitals, and they may not be paying taxes. At best, they may be working at low-paying jobs very few other people want, the pay they earn is taxed but they can not file a return so they can not get their witholdings refunded to them so, in a way many of them are even paying taxes higher than the typical American!
As taxpayers, we paid for the raids, including the officers, the jails, the buses, and the airplanes that are used to deport these people. Frankly, I don't know if we are doing the right thing or the wrong thing but it does seem to me that the check is being written on the wrong account. It also seems to me that if we were to question it too hard, we would be accused of being un-American.