I've been practicing environmental law for a long time in the U.S., mostly offering help to manufacturers with land use, impact assessment and pollution control permitting for new projects (from the 1980 Winter Olympics to the new $5.4 BLN GlobalFounderies plant).
20 years ago, my actual clients were plant managers for the new facility - mostly chemists and engineers. They knew their shit and knew that I did too. Working with them was a pleasure...even though the permitting costs could often be expensive when we tried to comply with regulations rather than avoid them, they were happy as long as the results were good -- that we were awarded the permits and that the litigation by the NIMBYs was swatted away successfully.
When things started to get dodgy in 2008, I was working on a huge energy project with hedge funded nincompoops who only knew MBA type stuff. They were puzzled and annoyed at the permitting requirements (hyrdoelectric projects require federal licensing, extensive multi-year studies of impact on fisheries in the project area). The project and developers went "poof" after Lehman Bros collapse and the panic of '08.
Now I'm not working much anymore. There is no work, except for really small stuff (lenders foreclose on bankrupt "jiffy lube" with leaking tanks, HOA puzzled by chemical permitting issues for swimming pool chlorine tanks, etc.).
Anyway, agree with your main point. MBAs only understand finance, stock pumping/dumping and the like. They have no clue about the underlying technical issues.
Did you know that you can "track" most packages on line and get the information you seek without putting a GPS in the package? There are even widgets and apps that do this (Delivery Status by Junecloud.com). The tracking number for UPS is the one near the bar code label that starts with "1Z...". Almost all shipments use the tracking number now.
That may be true for other papers, but no, there's little AP or other wire coverage on the front page of the Times. It's pretty much their own by-lined reporters, which is of course rare for all but the largest daily papers like the NYT.
Also, as far as criticizing the "powers that be" like my parent was talking about, you would tend to find that more in the Opinion pages of a reputable newspaper. Maybe Murdoch type tabloids like The New York Post put their opinions on the front page in the manner in which news reports are slanted, but this criticism cannot be made of traditional broadsheets like the Times.
You also won't find writers like those I mentioned who frequently take an "anti-establishment" position on the pages of the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post, for instance. Compare any of the writers I mentioned to the Post's David Broder or Charles Krauthammer who at best spout middle of the road conventional wisdom from inside the beltway bubble.
The NYT, were it actually concerned with journalism, would themselves be ripping into Wall Street and corporate America. But then again, I suppose they can't, because they seem more concerned with advertising revenue over realistic and quality reporting.
You obviously don't read the Op-Ed page of the Times, specifically writers Paul Krugman, Roger Cohen, Nicholas Kristof, Frank Rich, (even "the earth is flat" guy) Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd. They do what you are saying they don't on an almost daily basis.
I've clipped dozens of articles from those writers particularly since the Wall Street meltdown in 2008 that are indeed "ripping into Wall Street and corporate America" and Obama who they largely support.
I was getting that message most of yesterday afternoon. I sent a "fix it, I'm not a robot" email to the mailto: address on the error screen and regained access to the site about an hour later. It didn't make any difference which browser I used, which led me to suspect my DNS or pre-set cookie was behind the block.
They also had a dopey picture of a Irish setter on the "we're sorry" page, apparently so you wouldn't hate them so much for the blocking message.
FWIW (concededly not much), Eudora was not named for any Greek god, but for the American author Eudora Welty because of her short story "Why I Live at the P.O." as confirmed in the Wiki entry for "Eudora" (the mail program) here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_(e-mail_client ) .
A number of common carriers, including UPS, FedEx, Amtrak and Trailways have been reported to have "bounty" deals with the US drug enforcement agencies (DEA, ICE) where the companies get a ~10- 15% bounty on the value of a seizure of drugs or the "laundered" money used to purchase them.
Whether the employees are incentivized to narc out the shipping customers is unknown, but it would be reasonable to suspect that if the companies receive a bounty for being government agents, the employees are encouraged to help out.
You are correct about drug dogs being used in package shipping hubs. There have been a number of reported instances of FedEx deliveries being converted into "sting" operation busts, often with the claim that the package "broke open" during shipping which was how the employees were alerted.
I don't have the time to do the research on this now to provide links and support for what I'm saying, but if you go over to the Media Awareness Program site, www.mapinc.org/find and search back for stories involving Federal Express, UPS or Greyhound, you will find the stories.
Interestingly, many ppl have been caught by erroneously assuming private carriers such as UPS will guard the customers' privacy rights more than the "government-controlled" Postal Service. Actually, this is wrong. While postal inspectors have no fondness for mailing contraband items, there is no economic bounty incentive as with the private carriers, and the privacy laws and expectations governing mail privacy are generally stricter than the private carriers.
I agree with the many commentors who say "releasing movies that 'don't suck'" is more important than projection technology for reviving the movie industry.
But another good idea would be distributing the good movies out there, both indie and studio. When Oscar night comes each year, typically only one of the nominees, the blockbusterish one (e.g., Brokeback, Passion of the Christ, etc.), ever makes it out in to the chain mall theatres in the 'burbs or sticks. For the rest, you have to go to the big cineplex 50 miles away in the state capitol or to a remaining independent "art" theatre chain there. Or wait until the movie comes out on DVD next year to see it at home. Yet Regal Cinema, our monopoly chain that runs all the mall theatres in the Northeast, fills its theatres with those B-picture teen movie crap that Hollywood keeps churning out that play to mostly empty rooms.
I don't get why exhibitors don't put the Oscar or Sundance nominated films in their theatres and then complain that movie attendance is dropping. And yeah, overpriced tickets and concessions, too.
I succumbed to 20 years of mac envy and sprung for a new 15" Powerbook and 12" iBook for my college-aged daughter. I'm delighted and not looking back to Winblows and my many crappy employer-provided plastic boxen...
But why the switch now? It isn't just OS X and better hardware/software. It's because I bought an iPod last year and could see how an electronic device could be nicely made and aesthetically pleasing (as well as just works).
And Apple/iPod is selling "sex", customer experience, the sizzle along with the steak.
Remember "killer apps"? Is it easier to get people excited about some corporate "workgroup" crapware like Microsoft Outlook, or is it easier to get people to relate to personal things like your MUSIC COLLECTION?
Apples are music, movies and fun. Windows is cubicle serf-ware. Which do you think are going to be more appealing to people and get them excited about computing again?
Unlike most/. posters, IAAL;-) and want to say a couple of things about WP in law offices.
I have used WP since 1987 as my word processor, both the 5.1 DOS version, the initial (disasterous) 5.0 Win version and the stable and similar Win versions 6.1+ (basically unchanged since the mid 90s).
For the various reasons pointed out on this forum already (reveal codes feature, WISIWIG editable headers and footers, a more pleasing UI, less automagic default crap that gets in the way, like automatic paragraph numbering) I like to work in WP. About 1/2 the lawyers in the firm use WP, about half Word.
In our shop, secretaries edit and distribute final documents and are generally 'bilingual' as well, being able to edit and convert documents from and to WordPerfect and Word as needed. WordPerfect format will also continue to be popular because it is a non MS 'Rich Text Equivavent' level basic formating for legal documents available of the Westlaw publishing service for law documents (a two column traditional format that looks like the printed decisions in law books), as well as many government agency decisions and filings, including the SEC, FERC and my state environmental agency.
In addition to putting out documents in the required electronic and paper formats for a distribution, including Adobe Acrobat *.pdfs, our staff also will provide an editable file when required in whichever format the recipient prefers.
Our firm management once made the foolish mistake of trying to decree that everyone could only use MS Word based on the foolish views of some of the least tech savvy partners that we were "wasting money" supporting training for two programs, that somehow it was unseemly to be archiving files in different formats, and because some of our banking clients demanded that we furnish documents in Word.
Lawyers by trade are feisty about their personal productivity habits, and managing lawyers is kind of like herding cats. Basically, no one that was using WP stopped using it. Secretaries became bilingual depending on inputs and desired output format. File format incompatibility problems have been reduced in recent years; this is no longer a significant problem. I think if you asked most secretaries which programs they'd rather edit in, were they free to choose, they'd say WP (a lot of the automagic formatting in Word you can't figure out how to turn off and hidden codes in Word actually require relatively frequently our staff to go back to ASCII text cuts and pastes to burn off some stubborn hidden formatting bugs there that get embedded in the file, especially one that's been passed around or modified from old files (very common in a law firm for documents like contracts and briefs).
I'd also like to mention one word processing task that lawyers need that is poorly implemented on MS Word and drives me crazy, and that's redlining. We need redlining when we exchange marked up drafts of documents between parties so they can easily see the deletions and additions we've made/proposed.
I prefer a standalone program called CompareRite which is a command line MS DOS program which compares the "before" and "after" files and automatically spits out a mark up comparison file.
A lot of peeps give us Word documents with the "edit trace" automatic redlining turned on. This is a great idea which MS has made a FUGLY mess of, because the st00pid software authors assume kind of stupidly that a document is edited once by one person (your manager or coworker) and then passed back to you.
But when legal or even most technical documents are done, they may be reviewed or commented on by several people at Company X and then then passed to Company Y, and then go through many drafts. But Word gets extremely confused as to how many people are working this document over, it does not seem to recognize being run by different users on different machines, sometimes even on the same machine. In other words, it hasn't even thought through t
You go, Mr. Seth! Nobody will probably see this response at this point, but I'd mod you back up to where you started at least if I had mod points. Just about the whole thread was about "spyware", which leads pretty quickly to civil liberties and your comments regarding the WoD were extremely prescient.
I wish more techies would understand politics well enough to understand that we're well on our way to the classic police state of mid-20th century fascism or communism...all in the name of a culture war that hates hip intelligensia that aren't into traditional "values" (e.g., conservative forms of xian worship). If you think this is an overstatement, read the DEA's explanation/history of the WoD on their website. See, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/deamuseum/home.htm).
And I wish moderators here would stop modding down strongly argued opinions they disagree with as "off-topic", especially if they don't really have enough background info to understand the thread to begin with...
True, "real" totalitarian countries *do* stifle dissent more than Amerika. Here, the dissent is simply marginalized or ignored (although drug war protester leaders such as Peter McWilliams or the Rainbow Farm owners *are* essentially murdered for their beliefs, although lesser protestors draw only lengthy prison sentences). I guess you can marginalize my words as well, AV, and label me "whiny", I guess, since it's only pot or drugs that's involved, which you obviously don't consider a big deal and think those that do are spoiled, whiny or whatever your perjorative of the day is.
However, with over 1,000,000 people in prison in the U.S. for drug crimes and the former drug czar Barry McCaffry even worrying out loud that we had created "gulags" (HIS word, not mine) all too reminiscent of the former Soviet Union in terms of quantity/quality, I wonder at what point people like you AV are convinced that the problems with our too-authoritarian and Constitution-ignoring government are really a problem. (Do you have to piss in a bottle in order to keep writing computer code?). Certainly, Western Europeans and other people in developed democratic countries do not believe that the US is any beacon or exemplar of freedom as it was once viewed. It's only people like you, AV, and the millions of sheeple like you who believe the hype about we're the "free-est" people on earth.
So call me spoiled and whiny because "they" are stepping on my rights that (you think) don't involve you. Dietrich Bonhoffer got it right talking about Germany in the '30s: when they come for you, AV, there won't be anyone left to protest.
>Anyone who thinks the United States (or any modern democracy, for that matter) is going to become a police state >anytime soon should spend sometime in a real police state..like, say, Syria.
Anyone who thinks the United States is *not* already a police state should publicly support medical marijuana or have a campground where pro-pot festivals are held. You could get yourself imprisoned, killed or exiled easily by the police...usually jack-booted, ninja-clad SWAT team thugs who show up in the middle of the night just like the NKVD or Gestapo...
Anyone who thinks this is just "spoiled whiny, naive obiter dicta" should check out the news stories posted at www.mapinc.org for the main page bookmarks of "Peter McWilliams", "Steve Kubby" or "Rainbow Farm Shootings", the latter being an underreported mini-Waco which happened in a rural Michigan town just this past Labor Day...
Anyone who wants to bleat mindlessly with the rest of you sheeple about "our freedoms" should go downtown and light up a big spliff in the Town sqaure and see just how free you really are...
All of you people give me a big laugh. We've already LOST most of these freedoms during the past 30 years "War on user of some Drugs those in power don't like". "They" are just extending these anti-drug powers to the rest of us in the search for those elusive terrorists. They're even trying to justify the WOD because its (supposedly) anti-terrorist too, and because of the convenient Afghanistan-Opium connection.
Forget that most illegal drugs here in the U.S. don't have ANYTHING to do with Asia; this flim flam willl be used to pile on to Joe Potsmoker who will be portrayed not only as a criminal "loser", but now a full-fledged Enemy of the People who directly supports terrorism owing to his/her heinous lack of virtue.
Open your eyes a bit wider AC, you might see something....
I probably shouldn't post on an old thread with 320+ comments (I came to the site from the daily e-mail summary), but one function of the net that's invaluable is as a meta filter, where activists can ferret out thinly-reported, but significant stories.
An example is the anti-drug war archive site mapinc.org, which was one of the few places you could find information on the proposed new "drug czar's" Senate hearing Wednesday. Drug reformers are already on high alert where President Bush's Pentacostal Attorney General and Bob Jones U. graduate DEA chief equate "drugs" with international terrorism (so that maybe Joe Potsmoker or Chrissy Ecstacy Head is now a traitor supporting Bin Laden, or something).
It was therefore great to see this story ( http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1761/a05.html? 1042) , showing that a few brave politicians are reacting to events with rational thinking and not hysteria.
And now, they are already fingering the Taliban-opium-money-terror link, but its not clear that the old-style "drug czar" nominee, John Walters (like we need another czar) who is committed to a "drug free" fantasy by interdiction/eradication/imprisonment will not use "terrorism" as a further pretext to ramp up the War on Some Users of some drugs right here on the homefront from the now unpatriotic and treasonous act of drug use/selling which supports the international terrorists. Kind of like the permanent war from 1984.
I*A*AL, not a technical person, so I lurk here and post mostly on Plastic, but it seems many think of "privacy" in entirely benign terms, and say they're not concerned with corporate data mining or a bored ISP admin reading your e-mails. "What have I got to hide", you think?
The problem is when law enforcement is given sweeping powers to ferret out heinous crimes, but these crimes are often shadowy conspiracies proven by surreptitious monitoring of citizens. And there gets to be "mission creep" by law enforcement. Look to the War on Drugs for an example. Sweeping powers of surveillance (wiretaps, keyboard sniffing) to sweep up, ultimately (by the numbers), retail-level pot distributors and low-level drug mules, not the "kingpins" the laws were designed to get.
And now, they are already fingering the Taliban-opium-money-terror link, but its not clear that the old-style "drug czar" nominee, John Walters (like we need another czar) who is committed to a "drug free" fantasy by interdiction/eradication/imprisonment.
Whatever you think of pot smoking (which bet. 10-20% of the population uses, per studies), doesn't it ring ironic in at least your mind that when the Prez and his admin is busily preaching about our "freedom" and how fascistic totalitarian regimes have ended up on the scrap bin of history, that people are not only *not* free to use recreational or medicinal drugs of their choice, but are indeed imprisoned and gulaged *by the millions* right here in the good-old freedom lovin' USA to impose that prohibitionist policy, ultimately one designed to pander to the Christian right "family" groups. And if most Americans don't see this, our imprisonment status (#3) 2x Europe because of drug crime is plain knowledge to the rest of the world.
And what happens if international terrorists are connected to other crimes like hacking, and Joe Cracker is suddenly dealt with like he's a hijacker, SWAT team busting his doors down at 4 a.m. and all (with a fair number of Joes being killed in the act of arrest by thinking the ninja warriors were criminal invaders). Or maybe Joe's next door-neighbor. Whoops, wrong addy. This stuff not only happens, it happens frequently in the WOD.
So, if you don't smoke pot, don't don't worry. When they come for the guys who support international terrorism by not purchasing enough licenses for networked software or using cracks, you'll know that 1984 is finally here.
And that's what people ought to be thinking about when thinking about whether the gov't shoud have access to all header info to look over everyone's shoulder as they surf or communicate. Sweet, isn't it. I think Jefferson would be spinning in his grave to hear Ashcroft's wish list of new law enforcement powers.
Oppose John Walters' nomonation for "drug czar"; Sen. Jud. Cmte hrng 10/9/01
I couldn't have said it better myself. What was the biggest pretext for outlawing the citizen's own use of strong crypto? That crypto was used by pedophiles, so gov't had to have access to everyone's private mail so they could catch pedophiles.
I hope the people who think that if they (think) they are doing nothing illegal, they have nothing to fear from pervasive gov't surveillance wake up, or at least stop posting their lame rejoinders here in the meantime.
I can't speak for why/. readers may or may not be perceived as "anti-law enforcement", but speaking for myself, I don't share your glowing regard for a "robust law enforcement system". Right now, about half of the law enforcement system is dedicated to persecuting recreational drug users, for their own power. Check out, for instance, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1653/a11.html? 999, a story you probably didn't hear about, where last week, there was a Waco-like raid by the FBI on a Michigan campground where (gasp) people smoked marijuana at outdoor music concerts, which left the two campground owners dead.
Sixty percent of Federal prison inmates are doing time for non-violent crimes of drug possession. This effort is supported by a vast network of secret police and informers reminiscent of the Gestapo and KGB. 60% of arrest warrants relating to drugs are served by SWAT teams (this is the predominant reason that police have such teams now, its not hostage rescue or anything like that).
Hey, these were the same goons who wanted to use thermal imaging tools to ferret out indoor pot grows? And you think it's a good idea that there's a database documenting a citizens' every move?
In fact, this isn't just limited to pornography. If you read slashdot at -1, you will see homophobic, racist, sexist comments of the most distasteful sort in every front page story.
I don't think censorship is the way to deal with this, but you have to admit there really is a problem. I just don't know what a good solution is.
Perhaps you've suggested your own answer: user-moderation and setting your browser at "0"!
Of course, that answer would be unacceptable to Ashchroft and the right-wing Christian fundamentalists who set their browsers at -1 so they can find stuff which should be banned from all adults to "protect children" and conform to their sense of what "decency" should be allowed to be expressed in society.
(Just part of the right-wing Republican agenda to carve some major exceptions in the First Amendment on their way to winning the "culture wars".)
You are very naive, my friend. Try reading some books on the drug wars or criminal justice ("Drug Crazy", "Smoke and Mirrors", "Going up the River")...it may open your eyes that the FBI are not just good guys trying to catch "criminals".
By the way, for instance, 59% of all "criminals" who are convicted felons in the Federal prison system, many doing harsh sentences from 20 yrs to life, are non-violent drug users...drawing heavier sentences than most murderers or rapists...
BTW, most of the wiretaps relate directly to the "war on (some) drug (users)".
J
I have carried a Palm Vx for several years that I wouldn't want to think about losing, particularly because of the idea of strangers browsing through personal information. Some of the most sensitive stuff (logins, credit card ##s, etc.) is protected by encryption, but I do carry business and personal info which would not be good to be disclosed...
However, Palm's built-in security program is cumbersome...who wants to input a password everytime the PDA is used, or remember to arm the security program every time the device is turned off...it's contrary to the whole idea of simplicity and ease of use.
I finally found a program that seems to work, is simple and effective. It's called "EasyLock" v2.2b and is available from e.g., Palmgear or its author, Daniel Seifert (www.dseifert.de/easylock). It's a Hackmaster hack which requires you to press a "secret" button designated by you within a prescribed number of seconds from the time the unit's turned on. If you don't press the secret second button within the allotted time, or press the "wrong" button first, the unit goes to "system lockout", including after resets, and won't unlock without your security password. This shareware works really well and unlike others I've tried which require a log on signature or symbol to be drawn, this one doesn't seem to crash the OS frequently or work in unpredictable ways with, e.g., alarms and the alarm manager program...
I don't know whether the new 505's will have this (I'll be trading up, probably after my Vx is two years old, say, next January), but until then, I feel a lot better about security after adding Siefert's EasyLock program...
In answer to your question: no, the lawyers, executives and HR peeps who are shoving these overreaching terms down employees' throats have probably **never** considered the counterproductive effect these clauses have.
Having read the linked story and many of the comments on this thread, I believe that the real problem is that the attorneys and execs who refuse to negotiate clearly unwarranted terms with employees are really looking for docile, submissive employees willing to be directed by authoritarian types: the old-fashioned American "top-down/two-fisted management style": "my way or the highway".
It's not really about IP. It's about power relationships. Just like being asked to pee in a bottle before commencing employment or signing a "loyalty oath" in the '50s...do you think these clueless mgmt types ever consider that these policies might drive away talent to their competitors? Probably not, because buying docility and submissiveness is more what they're about than buying talent.
And as to the lawyer in the original story, it's my guess that like a lot of lawyers I deal with on the "other side" (I'm a lawyer, not a techie), that guy was just saying "no" to any changes to flex and showboat to his clients about what a tough guy he is. Too bad, sounds like they lost a good future employee by their lawyer and CEO just being unreasonable pricks, basically. But it was probably good for the prospective employee to run away and be glad he smoked these people out before he went to work there...
BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if their jerk lawyer is all over Slashdot or something if "Garden Tool Finance" is the company's real name and they're pissed that this guy publicly dissed them...
J
Slashdot Mirror
Bingo! If I had mod points, I'd mod you up!
I've been practicing environmental law for a long time in the U.S., mostly offering help to manufacturers with land use, impact assessment and pollution control permitting for new projects (from the 1980 Winter Olympics to the new $5.4 BLN GlobalFounderies plant).
20 years ago, my actual clients were plant managers for the new facility - mostly chemists and engineers. They knew their shit and knew that I did too. Working with them was a pleasure...even though the permitting costs could often be expensive when we tried to comply with regulations rather than avoid them, they were happy as long as the results were good -- that we were awarded the permits and that the litigation by the NIMBYs was swatted away successfully.
When things started to get dodgy in 2008, I was working on a huge energy project with hedge funded nincompoops who only knew MBA type stuff. They were puzzled and annoyed at the permitting requirements (hyrdoelectric projects require federal licensing, extensive multi-year studies of impact on fisheries in the project area). The project and developers went "poof" after Lehman Bros collapse and the panic of '08.
Now I'm not working much anymore. There is no work, except for really small stuff (lenders foreclose on bankrupt "jiffy lube" with leaking tanks, HOA puzzled by chemical permitting issues for swimming pool chlorine tanks, etc.).
Anyway, agree with your main point. MBAs only understand finance, stock pumping/dumping and the like. They have no clue about the underlying technical issues.
Did you know that you can "track" most packages on line and get the information you seek without putting a GPS in the package? There are even widgets and apps that do this (Delivery Status by Junecloud.com). The tracking number for UPS is the one near the bar code label that starts with "1Z...". Almost all shipments use the tracking number now.
That may be true for other papers, but no, there's little AP or other wire coverage on the front page of the Times. It's pretty much their own by-lined reporters, which is of course rare for all but the largest daily papers like the NYT.
Also, as far as criticizing the "powers that be" like my parent was talking about, you would tend to find that more in the Opinion pages of a reputable newspaper. Maybe Murdoch type tabloids like The New York Post put their opinions on the front page in the manner in which news reports are slanted, but this criticism cannot be made of traditional broadsheets like the Times.
You also won't find writers like those I mentioned who frequently take an "anti-establishment" position on the pages of the Wall Street Journal or the Washington Post, for instance. Compare any of the writers I mentioned to the Post's David Broder or Charles Krauthammer who at best spout middle of the road conventional wisdom from inside the beltway bubble.
You obviously don't read the Op-Ed page of the Times, specifically writers Paul Krugman, Roger Cohen, Nicholas Kristof, Frank Rich, (even "the earth is flat" guy) Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd. They do what you are saying they don't on an almost daily basis.
I've clipped dozens of articles from those writers particularly since the Wall Street meltdown in 2008 that are indeed "ripping into Wall Street and corporate America" and Obama who they largely support.
I was getting that message most of yesterday afternoon. I sent a "fix it, I'm not a robot" email to the mailto: address on the error screen and regained access to the site about an hour later. It didn't make any difference which browser I used, which led me to suspect my DNS or pre-set cookie was behind the block.
They also had a dopey picture of a Irish setter on the "we're sorry" page, apparently so you wouldn't hate them so much for the blocking message.
FWIW (concededly not much), Eudora was not named for any Greek god, but for the American author Eudora Welty because of her short story "Why I Live at the P.O." as confirmed in the Wiki entry for "Eudora" (the mail program) here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudora_(e-mail_client ) .
Not to nitpick, but while I agree with the point you're making, there are 8,760 hours in a year.
A number of common carriers, including UPS, FedEx, Amtrak and Trailways have been reported to have "bounty" deals with the US drug enforcement agencies (DEA, ICE) where the companies get a ~10- 15% bounty on the value of a seizure of drugs or the "laundered" money used to purchase them.
Whether the employees are incentivized to narc out the shipping customers is unknown, but it would be reasonable to suspect that if the companies receive a bounty for being government agents, the employees are encouraged to help out.
You are correct about drug dogs being used in package shipping hubs. There have been a number of reported instances of FedEx deliveries being converted into "sting" operation busts, often with the claim that the package "broke open" during shipping which was how the employees were alerted.
I don't have the time to do the research on this now to provide links and support for what I'm saying, but if you go over to the Media Awareness Program site, www.mapinc.org/find and search back for stories involving Federal Express, UPS or Greyhound, you will find the stories.
Interestingly, many ppl have been caught by erroneously assuming private carriers such as UPS will guard the customers' privacy rights more than the "government-controlled" Postal Service. Actually, this is wrong. While postal inspectors have no fondness for mailing contraband items, there is no economic bounty incentive as with the private carriers, and the privacy laws and expectations governing mail privacy are generally stricter than the private carriers.
Indeed, it would be! I meant "capital", Albany. ;-)
I agree with the many commentors who say "releasing movies that 'don't suck'" is more important than projection technology for reviving the movie industry.
But another good idea would be distributing the good movies out there, both indie and studio. When Oscar night comes each year, typically only one of the nominees, the blockbusterish one (e.g., Brokeback, Passion of the Christ, etc.), ever makes it out in to the chain mall theatres in the 'burbs or sticks. For the rest, you have to go to the big cineplex 50 miles away in the state capitol or to a remaining independent "art" theatre chain there. Or wait until the movie comes out on DVD next year to see it at home. Yet Regal Cinema, our monopoly chain that runs all the mall theatres in the Northeast, fills its theatres with those B-picture teen movie crap that Hollywood keeps churning out that play to mostly empty rooms.
I don't get why exhibitors don't put the Oscar or Sundance nominated films in their theatres and then complain that movie attendance is dropping. And yeah, overpriced tickets and concessions, too.
...it's iPod fit and finish and "sex appeal"
I succumbed to 20 years of mac envy and sprung for a new 15" Powerbook and 12" iBook for my college-aged daughter. I'm delighted and not looking back to Winblows and my many crappy employer-provided plastic boxen...
But why the switch now? It isn't just OS X and better hardware/software. It's because I bought an iPod last year and could see how an electronic device could be nicely made and aesthetically pleasing (as well as just works).
And Apple/iPod is selling "sex", customer experience, the sizzle along with the steak.
Remember "killer apps"? Is it easier to get people excited about some corporate "workgroup" crapware like Microsoft Outlook, or is it easier to get people to relate to personal things like your MUSIC COLLECTION?
Apples are music, movies and fun. Windows is cubicle serf-ware. Which do you think are going to be more appealing to people and get them excited about computing again?
Unlike most /. posters, IAAL ;-) and want to say a couple of things about WP in law offices.
I have used WP since 1987 as my word processor, both the 5.1 DOS version, the initial (disasterous) 5.0 Win version and the stable and similar Win versions 6.1+ (basically unchanged since the mid 90s).
For the various reasons pointed out on this forum already (reveal codes feature, WISIWIG editable headers and footers, a more pleasing UI, less automagic default crap that gets in the way, like automatic paragraph numbering) I like to work in WP. About 1/2 the lawyers in the firm use WP, about half Word.
In our shop, secretaries edit and distribute final documents and are generally 'bilingual' as well, being able to edit and convert documents from and to WordPerfect and Word as needed. WordPerfect format will also continue to be popular because it is a non MS 'Rich Text Equivavent' level basic formating for legal documents available of the Westlaw publishing service for law documents (a two column traditional format that looks like the printed decisions in law books), as well as many government agency decisions and filings, including the SEC, FERC and my state environmental agency.
In addition to putting out documents in the required electronic and paper formats for a distribution, including Adobe Acrobat *.pdfs, our staff also will provide an editable file when required in whichever format the recipient prefers.
Our firm management once made the foolish mistake of trying to decree that everyone could only use MS Word based on the foolish views of some of the least tech savvy partners that we were "wasting money" supporting training for two programs, that somehow it was unseemly to be archiving files in different formats, and because some of our banking clients demanded that we furnish documents in Word.
Lawyers by trade are feisty about their personal productivity habits, and managing lawyers is kind of like herding cats. Basically, no one that was using WP stopped using it. Secretaries became bilingual depending on inputs and desired output format. File format incompatibility problems have been reduced in recent years; this is no longer a significant problem. I think if you asked most secretaries which programs they'd rather edit in, were they free to choose, they'd say WP (a lot of the automagic formatting in Word you can't figure out how to turn off and hidden codes in Word actually require relatively frequently our staff to go back to ASCII text cuts and pastes to burn off some stubborn hidden formatting bugs there that get embedded in the file, especially one that's been passed around or modified from old files (very common in a law firm for documents like contracts and briefs).
I'd also like to mention one word processing task that lawyers need that is poorly implemented on MS Word and drives me crazy, and that's redlining. We need redlining when we exchange marked up drafts of documents between parties so they can easily see the deletions and additions we've made/proposed.
I prefer a standalone program called CompareRite which is a command line MS DOS program which compares the "before" and "after" files and automatically spits out a mark up comparison file.
A lot of peeps give us Word documents with the "edit trace" automatic redlining turned on. This is a great idea which MS has made a FUGLY mess of, because the st00pid software authors assume kind of stupidly that a document is edited once by one person (your manager or coworker) and then passed back to you.
But when legal or even most technical documents are done, they may be reviewed or commented on by several people at Company X and then then passed to Company Y, and then go through many drafts. But Word gets extremely confused as to how many people are working this document over, it does not seem to recognize being run by different users on different machines, sometimes even on the same machine. In other words, it hasn't even thought through t
You go, Mr. Seth! Nobody will probably see this response at this point, but I'd mod you back up to where you started at least if I had mod points. Just about the whole thread was about "spyware", which leads pretty quickly to civil liberties and your comments regarding the WoD were extremely prescient.
I wish more techies would understand politics well enough to understand that we're well on our way to the classic police state of mid-20th century fascism or communism...all in the name of a culture war that hates hip intelligensia that aren't into traditional "values" (e.g., conservative forms of xian worship). If you think this is an overstatement, read the DEA's explanation/history of the WoD on their website. See, http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/deamuseum/home.htm).
And I wish moderators here would stop modding down strongly argued opinions they disagree with as "off-topic", especially if they don't really have enough background info to understand the thread to begin with...
Not holding my breath, though...
True, "real" totalitarian countries *do* stifle dissent more than Amerika. Here, the dissent is simply marginalized or ignored (although drug war protester leaders such as Peter McWilliams or the Rainbow Farm owners *are* essentially murdered for their beliefs, although lesser protestors draw only lengthy prison sentences). I guess you can marginalize my words as well, AV, and label me "whiny", I guess, since it's only pot or drugs that's involved, which you obviously don't consider a big deal and think those that do are spoiled, whiny or whatever your perjorative of the day is.
However, with over 1,000,000 people in prison in the U.S. for drug crimes and the former drug czar Barry McCaffry even worrying out loud that we had created "gulags" (HIS word, not mine) all too reminiscent of the former Soviet Union in terms of quantity/quality, I wonder at what point people like you AV are convinced that the problems with our too-authoritarian and Constitution-ignoring government are really a problem. (Do you have to piss in a bottle in order to keep writing computer code?). Certainly, Western Europeans and other people in developed democratic countries do not believe that the US is any beacon or exemplar of freedom as it was once viewed. It's only people like you, AV, and the millions of sheeple like you who believe the hype about we're the "free-est" people on earth.
So call me spoiled and whiny because "they" are stepping on my rights that (you think) don't involve you. Dietrich Bonhoffer got it right talking about Germany in the '30s: when they come for you, AV, there won't be anyone left to protest.
J
An anonymous coward said:
>Anyone who thinks the United States (or any modern democracy, for that matter) is going to become a police state >anytime soon should spend sometime in a real police state..like, say, Syria.
Anyone who thinks the United States is *not* already a police state should publicly support medical marijuana or have a campground where pro-pot festivals are held. You could get yourself imprisoned, killed or exiled easily by the police...usually jack-booted, ninja-clad SWAT team thugs who show up in the middle of the night just like the NKVD or Gestapo...
Anyone who thinks this is just "spoiled whiny, naive obiter dicta" should check out the news stories posted at www.mapinc.org for the main page bookmarks of "Peter McWilliams", "Steve Kubby" or "Rainbow Farm Shootings", the latter being an underreported mini-Waco which happened in a rural Michigan town just this past Labor Day...
Anyone who wants to bleat mindlessly with the rest of you sheeple about "our freedoms" should go downtown and light up a big spliff in the Town sqaure and see just how free you really are...
All of you people give me a big laugh. We've already LOST most of these freedoms during the past 30 years "War on user of some Drugs those in power don't like". "They" are just extending these anti-drug powers to the rest of us in the search for those elusive terrorists. They're even trying to justify the WOD because its (supposedly) anti-terrorist too, and because of the convenient Afghanistan-Opium connection.
Forget that most illegal drugs here in the U.S. don't have ANYTHING to do with Asia; this flim flam willl be used to pile on to Joe Potsmoker who will be portrayed not only as a criminal "loser", but now a full-fledged Enemy of the People who directly supports terrorism owing to his/her heinous lack of virtue.
Open your eyes a bit wider AC, you might see something....
J
I probably shouldn't post on an old thread with 320+ comments (I came to the site from the daily e-mail summary), but one function of the net that's invaluable is as a meta filter, where activists can ferret out thinly-reported, but significant stories.
? 1042) , showing that a few brave politicians are reacting to events with rational thinking and not hysteria.
An example is the anti-drug war archive site mapinc.org, which was one of the few places you could find information on the proposed new "drug czar's" Senate hearing Wednesday. Drug reformers are already on high alert where President Bush's Pentacostal Attorney General and Bob Jones U. graduate DEA chief equate "drugs" with international terrorism (so that maybe Joe Potsmoker or Chrissy Ecstacy Head is now a traitor supporting Bin Laden, or something).
It was therefore great to see this story ( http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1761/a05.html
My bad on the 2nd para. Should read:
And now, they are already fingering the Taliban-opium-money-terror link, but its not clear that the old-style "drug czar" nominee, John Walters (like we need another czar) who is committed to a "drug free" fantasy by interdiction/eradication/imprisonment will not use "terrorism" as a further pretext to ramp up the War on Some Users of some drugs right here on the homefront from the now unpatriotic and treasonous act of drug use/selling which supports the international terrorists. Kind of like the permanent war from 1984.
I*A*AL, not a technical person, so I lurk here and post mostly on Plastic, but it seems many think of "privacy" in entirely benign terms, and say they're not concerned with corporate data mining or a bored ISP admin reading your e-mails. "What have I got to hide", you think?
The problem is when law enforcement is given sweeping powers to ferret out heinous crimes, but these crimes are often shadowy conspiracies proven by surreptitious monitoring of citizens. And there gets to be "mission creep" by law enforcement. Look to the War on Drugs for an example. Sweeping powers of surveillance (wiretaps, keyboard sniffing) to sweep up, ultimately (by the numbers), retail-level pot distributors and low-level drug mules, not the "kingpins" the laws were designed to get.
And now, they are already fingering the Taliban-opium-money-terror link, but its not clear that the old-style "drug czar" nominee, John Walters (like we need another czar) who is committed to a "drug free" fantasy by interdiction/eradication/imprisonment.
Whatever you think of pot smoking (which bet. 10-20% of the population uses, per studies), doesn't it ring ironic in at least your mind that when the Prez and his admin is busily preaching about our "freedom" and how fascistic totalitarian regimes have ended up on the scrap bin of history, that people are not only *not* free to use recreational or medicinal drugs of their choice, but are indeed imprisoned and gulaged *by the millions* right here in the good-old freedom lovin' USA to impose that prohibitionist policy, ultimately one designed to pander to the Christian right "family" groups. And if most Americans don't see this, our imprisonment status (#3) 2x Europe because of drug crime is plain knowledge to the rest of the world.
And what happens if international terrorists are connected to other crimes like hacking, and Joe Cracker is suddenly dealt with like he's a hijacker, SWAT team busting his doors down at 4 a.m. and all (with a fair number of Joes being killed in the act of arrest by thinking the ninja warriors were criminal invaders). Or maybe Joe's next door-neighbor. Whoops, wrong addy. This stuff not only happens, it happens frequently in the WOD.
So, if you don't smoke pot, don't don't worry. When they come for the guys who support international terrorism by not purchasing enough licenses for networked software or using cracks, you'll know that 1984 is finally here.
And that's what people ought to be thinking about when thinking about whether the gov't shoud have access to all header info to look over everyone's shoulder as they surf or communicate. Sweet, isn't it. I think Jefferson would be spinning in his grave to hear Ashcroft's wish list of new law enforcement powers.
Oppose John Walters' nomonation for "drug czar"; Sen. Jud. Cmte hrng 10/9/01
J
I couldn't have said it better myself. What was the biggest pretext for outlawing the citizen's own use of strong crypto? That crypto was used by pedophiles, so gov't had to have access to everyone's private mail so they could catch pedophiles.
I hope the people who think that if they (think) they are doing nothing illegal, they have nothing to fear from pervasive gov't surveillance wake up, or at least stop posting their lame rejoinders here in the meantime.
They're wrong on both counts.
J
I can't speak for why /. readers may or may not be perceived as "anti-law enforcement", but speaking for myself, I don't share your glowing regard for a "robust law enforcement system". Right now, about half of the law enforcement system is dedicated to persecuting recreational drug users, for their own power. Check out, for instance, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1653/a11.html? 999, a story you probably didn't hear about, where last week, there was a Waco-like raid by the FBI on a Michigan campground where (gasp) people smoked marijuana at outdoor music concerts, which left the two campground owners dead.
Sixty percent of Federal prison inmates are doing time for non-violent crimes of drug possession. This effort is supported by a vast network of secret police and informers reminiscent of the Gestapo and KGB. 60% of arrest warrants relating to drugs are served by SWAT teams (this is the predominant reason that police have such teams now, its not hostage rescue or anything like that).
Hey, these were the same goons who wanted to use thermal imaging tools to ferret out indoor pot grows? And you think it's a good idea that there's a database documenting a citizens' every move?
Feh, I say...
I don't think censorship is the way to deal with this, but you have to admit there really is a problem. I just don't know what a good solution is.
Perhaps you've suggested your own answer: user-moderation and setting your browser at "0"!
Of course, that answer would be unacceptable to Ashchroft and the right-wing Christian fundamentalists who set their browsers at -1 so they can find stuff which should be banned from all adults to "protect children" and conform to their sense of what "decency" should be allowed to be expressed in society. (Just part of the right-wing Republican agenda to carve some major exceptions in the First Amendment on their way to winning the "culture wars".)
You are very naive, my friend. Try reading some books on the drug wars or criminal justice ("Drug Crazy", "Smoke and Mirrors", "Going up the River")...it may open your eyes that the FBI are not just good guys trying to catch "criminals". By the way, for instance, 59% of all "criminals" who are convicted felons in the Federal prison system, many doing harsh sentences from 20 yrs to life, are non-violent drug users...drawing heavier sentences than most murderers or rapists... BTW, most of the wiretaps relate directly to the "war on (some) drug (users)". J
However, Palm's built-in security program is cumbersome...who wants to input a password everytime the PDA is used, or remember to arm the security program every time the device is turned off...it's contrary to the whole idea of simplicity and ease of use.
I finally found a program that seems to work, is simple and effective. It's called "EasyLock" v2.2b and is available from e.g., Palmgear or its author, Daniel Seifert (www.dseifert.de/easylock). It's a Hackmaster hack which requires you to press a "secret" button designated by you within a prescribed number of seconds from the time the unit's turned on. If you don't press the secret second button within the allotted time, or press the "wrong" button first, the unit goes to "system lockout", including after resets, and won't unlock without your security password. This shareware works really well and unlike others I've tried which require a log on signature or symbol to be drawn, this one doesn't seem to crash the OS frequently or work in unpredictable ways with, e.g., alarms and the alarm manager program...
I don't know whether the new 505's will have this (I'll be trading up, probably after my Vx is two years old, say, next January), but until then, I feel a lot better about security after adding Siefert's EasyLock program...
J
In answer to your question: no, the lawyers, executives and HR peeps who are shoving these overreaching terms down employees' throats have probably **never** considered the counterproductive effect these clauses have. Having read the linked story and many of the comments on this thread, I believe that the real problem is that the attorneys and execs who refuse to negotiate clearly unwarranted terms with employees are really looking for docile, submissive employees willing to be directed by authoritarian types: the old-fashioned American "top-down/two-fisted management style": "my way or the highway". It's not really about IP. It's about power relationships. Just like being asked to pee in a bottle before commencing employment or signing a "loyalty oath" in the '50s...do you think these clueless mgmt types ever consider that these policies might drive away talent to their competitors? Probably not, because buying docility and submissiveness is more what they're about than buying talent. And as to the lawyer in the original story, it's my guess that like a lot of lawyers I deal with on the "other side" (I'm a lawyer, not a techie), that guy was just saying "no" to any changes to flex and showboat to his clients about what a tough guy he is. Too bad, sounds like they lost a good future employee by their lawyer and CEO just being unreasonable pricks, basically. But it was probably good for the prospective employee to run away and be glad he smoked these people out before he went to work there... BTW, I wouldn't be surprised if their jerk lawyer is all over Slashdot or something if "Garden Tool Finance" is the company's real name and they're pissed that this guy publicly dissed them... J
Spot on, GungaDan, and not off-topic at all! You rock! J