And that's all. (That's the phone's IP address on T-Mobile, incidentally.)
Now let's look at the SMTP server and see if there's any evidence of a connection from the 68.171 address block -- which belongs to BlackBerry, and which is alleged tries to connect back.
Why yes there is, as the phone does connect to validate that the connection works (and it tells you it's doing so.) The other line, incidentally, is because there's another email account there (my real one!)
The phone connected to the SMTP server ("spamblock-sys" is my custom spam filter, which knows how to perform SSL/TLS negotiation) and performs a STARTTLS negotiation exactly as I told it to do.
Incidentally, it also brings up the server's certificate and asks me if it's ok too.
But there is no connection back to either service from any other location related to this account setup. Not from BlackBerry, not from some other place, nowhere. Period.
For those who want a bit more background on the SMTP side the code in question, particularly the SMTP code, is mine. The SMTP server in question ("Spamblock-Sys") was written from the ground up by myself. I know every single line of that code and am not relying on anyone else's word as to what is and is not logged, since I wrote it.
The IMAP server in question is WU's with moderate modification.
I have no idea if the guy in Germany is lying or if he is on an account provisioned for BIS (the older BlackBerry handsets) and his mobile provider is intercepting the transaction and passing it to BIS, which is doing what he's talking about.
There's a "report" flying around alleging that BB10 phones send unencrypted email passwords to BlackBerry and additionally that BlackBerry immediately connects back to the email server and signs on (which would, of course, require that it knows the password.)
This is easily tested and since I have a Z10 I decided to do exactly that.
What am doing here is setting up an account called "test" on my IMAP server to receive email and then will enter the credentials into the phone.
To make it interesting I will do it over the Cellular Connection rather than over WiFi, so that if the phone wants to do some sort of DNS lookup that my server might block (if it was using my DNS servers as it was connected via WiFi) it'll work.
I worked two summers back in the 1980s for a company that did FCC certification. Compaq would ship us their brand-spankin-new luggables and we'd see just how bad they interfered with prohibited bandwidth.
I spent a lot of time in front of that HP oscilloscope those summers.
It's not as bad as you make it out to be - if you imagine the average SUV-driving commuter has a 20-mile one-way commute, 20 days per month, that's 800 miles. On a "pounds CO2 per passenger per mile"** basis, commercial jet travel is quite efficient. In other words, that same SUV would produce twice as much CO2 if it were driven from NYC to Denver.
In today's age, a better question is whether it's really necessary to go to Denver. There's still a lot of unneeded business travel going on, when voice- or video-conference would work just as well.
(** quite possibly the worst, non-SI unit of measure I've ever used)
I would then ask you why light is both a particle and a wave and why electrons jump to a different energy level when hit by the right frequencey of light. There's probably less than 1,000 people on the planet who can give a good answer to these questions Oh, come on... there have to be considerably more than 1,000 people in the world who can explain that. You see,
The energy states an electron can occupy are discrete, not continuous And this has something to do with quanta And electrons move when hit by light at the right frequency And... you know, isn't the rest obvious?
The behaviour being studied occurs in 3% of the sample population. When predicting which individuals will exhibit this behaviour, a coin flip will have a 97% false positive rate. The model being studied has only a 50% false positive rate. In a population of 100, the model will predict that six individuals will exhibit the behaviour. It will be correct on the three, and incorrect on three more. It will correctly predict the 94 inmates who will not.
Good point. I'd completely forgotten about that one. I had honestly chalked that up to a disgruntled US postal worker or something, but I guess my assumption doesn't make it so.
So, it's possible that we've been attacked on US soil after 9/11 - but not proven. I stand by my orignal analysis, with that slight modification.
Interesting questions of cause and effect, and of morality.The opinion of most people is that the threat of terrorism is now much greater thanks to activities in Iraq. The opinion of most people is that the threat of terrorism is now much greater thanks to the events of 9/11. Which has had a greater effect on the opinions of the people regarding their safety - the attacks on 9/11 or the subsequent (misdirected) attacks on Iraq? How does the more direct attack and liberation of Afghanistan fit into this opinion equation?
On morality -
it seems that the threat of terrorism and actual terrorism has increased markedly since the Iraq war elsewhere, the London Tube Bombings being the most obvious sign of that - what is the moral obligation of the United States following its attack? Is it to ensure that such attacks do not repeat on the US? Or is it to ensure that such attacks won't succeed anywhere? It would be nice to accomplish both goals, but clearly the first takes higher priority.
Can we accept it as a given that there are extremists in the world who wish to practice acts of terror on western civilization? They will attack. They want us dead. The US has been successful for five years in keeping these attacks confined to other countries. Is that success? Some in the US would argue yes. Is this success at the expense of residents of other countries? Almost certainly. Is this a moral failing? I don't have a good answer to that one.
maybe terrorists can't cross water until they reach a suitable power level This is certainly not true. They did it in 2001, and didn't have any more power then than now. The US was lazy, and allowed the enemy to walk right through the gates. September 11 changed that... until the next Congressional session, anyway. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats choose to balance national security with individual liberty when they're given the pen in 2007.
And, of course, the invasion did absolutely nothing to deter or prevent terrorists from striking again on US soil.Do you know about any attacks on US soil after 9/11 that I don't? It seems to me that US soil (excluding metro Detroit) has been a pretty safe place to be since we "liberated" Iraq.
Are you implying that the terrorists have not been detered or prevented from striking again, but have simply agreed to not take such action? That seems unlikely. Given the lack of activity on US soil, it seems much more likely that one or more post-9/11 attacks have been detered or prevented.
You can make a lot of arguments against this war. I can too. One argument that does not hold water is that invading Iraq has made US soil a more dangerous place on which to stand. We may not be safer than pre-9/11, but we're not demonstrably in more danger, either. The other "given" result of the invasion is that Saddam was removed - an unequivical "good thing" which may or may not be followed by a less dangerous leader (or leaders) taking office in Iraq. I'd wager that the Iraqis couldn't find another leader as crooked and dangerous as Saddam, though I guess I could be wrong.
Using a Tazer (or four!) to enforce ID card possession makes as much sense as this:
Headmaster: Well... Well... Well, it's all got to do with the library, you see. We've had a lot of trouble recently with boys taking out library books without library cards. Your son was caught, and I administered a beating, during which he died. But you'll be glad to know... You'll be glad to know that the ringleader was caught, so I don't think we'll be having any trouble with library discipline. You see, the library card system...
Mr Perkins: I'm sorry...
Headmaster:...was...
Mr Perkins: You beat my son to death?
Headmaster: Yes, yes, so it would seem. Please, I'm not used to being interrupted. You see, the library card system was introduced...
Mr Perkins: Well, exactly what happened?
Headmaster: Well, apparently, boys were just slipping into the library and taking the books!
Repeat after me: "The United States of America is not a democracy. It is a representative republic."
The Electoral College exists for the same reason (and to the same benefit) that Congress exists. Put unlimited legislative power directly in the hands of the people, and they will make irresponsible choices, primarily in the redistribution of wealth. The Framers knew this, and have protected us from a fundamental human weakness.
Can you imagine what would happen if the people of the United States of America voted on laws directly? Just look at California's numerous approved Propositions, and then expand to a national scope.
An any sufficiently large society, pure democracy eventually leads to ruin.
Pro-tip: 1 yen coins work as pennies in the wal-mart check out line!
That's one of the more absurd tips I've ever heard.
At the current spot exchange rate, 116 yen per USD, I stand to save a MAXIMUM of 14% (1/1.16) by using Yen coins in place of pennies.
Not to mention the fact that, for purchases larger than, say, a pack of gum, the opportunity cost of time spent on line feeding coins into the slot quickly eats up any gains I may have enjoyed in the transaction.
Here's a better tip:
The 1AED coin (United Arab Emirates) is exactly the same size as the US quarter dollar. However, it's worth 10% more than the US quarter, so this trick only works in automated grocers in Dubai. Good luck!
Seriously, This is a beautiful application for distributed computing:
Since each copy of the DVD titled "Foo" is identical, one could:
Write an app that will grab a random ten seconds (or 256 frames, whatever) of audio and video from a DVD Distributed app will then share those ten seconds via bittorrent protocol with the rest of the world Distributed app also monitors trackers to grab other ten-second chunks of movies you're interested in Buy a DVD, share ten seconds, get ten movies in return. Not a bad model. Unless you're the MPAA.
I work for a Fortune 100 company, 30,00+ employees. Exchange/Outlook.
Two years ago, we migrated from Lotus Notes to Exchange -- at the time of migration, we were informed, in no uncertain terms, that any email left on the server for more than 30 days would be automatically purged. If you want to keep it, back it up to a local fileserver, or to localhost. There is an option to retrieve auto-deleted email, but it's costed back to your department, so repeat offenders will likely be talking this over with a manager.
The most common approach to managing the archive is to create an annual archive, and stuff everything in there during the year. At the next calendar flip, start a new archive. I've gone back to the 2004 archive a couple of times to retrieve stuff, but not often.
Being forced to keep one's inbox cleaned out (nothing over 30 days old in there, or it gets wiped) is good practice - it's helped a lot of people to stay ahead of their inbox. Whereas I used to use the inbox for long-term storage, and touch a message four or five times, I now tend to touch it once: read it and then either delete it, file it, or copy into a new calendar/todo entry.
The Arabian camel trains were a form of self-insurance pool: the members agreed to pool losses, if any. You can be assured that they did not agree to pool their collective profits, however.
We have self-insurance pools today, as well. They function in much the same way: all members share proportionally in any loss, so if there are no losses, then nobody pays. The downside is that all members of the pool could simultaneously lose all of their assets in the event of a catastrophe.
We also have Mutual insurance companies today which are owned by the policyholders. If on a collective basis losses are less than expected, then each policyholder receives a dividend for their share of the company's profits. The goal of the Mutual comapany is to show a small profit at the end of each year, and to return that profit to the policyholders. The downside is that, in the event of a catastrophe, a Mutual company may more easily run out of assets, and be unable to pay all claims, or may have the right to "assess" the policyholders to recoup the shortfall.
Finally, there are the stock insurance companies, which aim to maximize profit, with the intent of distributing that profit back to the shareholders. The downside is that there's no chance of a "refund" in the event that you're loss-free, though you may qualify for lower premiums in the future.
If you'd like a return to the Arabian camel train model, your path is clear: simply find a group of individuals who agree with you, and pool your assets, with the agreement to share in any losses. If there are no losses, you'll get all of your assets back. If losses are catastrophic, you may lose everything.
I did a cursory read of the posts so far, and it appears nobody has proposed this one yet, so allow me:
The last four years have been an unprecendented period (in my opinion) of political partisanship in America, partially because of the unusually even balance conservative and liberal partisans.
In the years leading up to our last election, we saw (again in my opinion) an unprecedented volume of America's entertainers enter quite vocally into the political debate. As a result, there are now many Americans who look at the film stars of 1990-2001 and instead of thinking "cute actor; great roles", think "political idiot; endorsed Kerry."
Add in the fact that Hollywood has historically given significant contributions to Democrat candidates...
People want to go to movies to escape real life -- they won't go if actors in the film are too intimately tied in their minds to real-world political conflict. This may well be an indictment on these conservative ex-moviegoers - they simply need to learn to "let go" and get on with life. Hollywood has always been populated by a group of idiots largely out of touch with reality, right?
Actors come out in support (or opposition) of political causes all the time -- but the sheer numbers, the frequency, and the extreme polarization in the country in the last four years have worked against them this time like never before. The result? Ten to twenty percent of the population no longer has the desire to funnel money into Hollywood.
Your central thesis, however, is that the US is acting from primarily a selfish, greedy motivation. I don't think that that's true.
Under Saddam, Iraq had historically produced oil at about the same levels that they've just now reached again this August. The proceeds from those sales, apparently, went straight to Saddam and family, with a bit siphoned off for UN bribes. The US has replaced Saddam with a representative form of government, which is now free to tell them to get the hell out, and refuse to sell oil to the US. I don't see that the US would have any choice in the matter but to comply, unless the UN told them to go in and enforce something again.
The scenario we have now: The US, UK, Australia, and the rest of the Coalition took a big risk, politically, militarily, economically, in enforcing the UN mandate. They increased worldwide security by eliminating a large funding source of Islamic terrorists. They toppled a murderous dictator, and have paved the way for the election of a representative government. The Iraqi people are days (weeks?) away from proposing their own constitution.
The US has undertaken the monumental task of rebuilding the oil infrastructure (most of which was destroyed not by coalition forces, but by Saddam's or by sympathetic, reactionary Islamic forces) to allow Iraq to return to economic viability as soon as possible. The US is not asking for anything in return. (I've heard proposals that Iraq "pay back" the US for the cost of the war out of its oil proceeds -- I do not support that proposal.) I'm sure that US firms will make proposals to help explore the estimated 90% of Iraq's oil resources which have yet to be surveyed. Firms from other countries will do so, as well.
The Iraqis are free to determine who wins those contracts.
I hope that this gives US firms more opportunities in the future. That would be a nice outcome. I hope some British, Australian, and German firms get some opportunities, as well. But it's not the reason we went to war.
Time will tell. Continue to watch what happens to the oil economy in Iraq. If it becomes a massive siphon into US gas tanks, or US oil companies, then I'll be proven wrong.
I fully expect US troops to remain present in Iraq for many years to come. Hell, they're still in Germany, and it's been 60 years since they last fought to liberate that country from its oppressive dictator.
The US has a long history of doing the right thing, for the right reasons -- much to the dismay of the pundits of the day. History, by and large, is on its side. I have a feeling that it will be in this conflict, as well.
The world isn't running out of oil, its running out of cheap, easy to extract oil. It doesn't help that Iraq's oil production is now in a shambles thanks to George W.
I should take that at face value; that is, as pure uninformed flamebait. Instead, I'll take a moment to correct you on two points:
First, Oil production is not in shambles. Production was at 2.5 million bpd "Before U.S.-led forces defeated Saddam Hussein".
The latest figures show that oil production is now at 2.75 - 2.85 million bpd . This is up from about 2.3 million bpd last month.
Not "in shambles".
Second, I assume you're being semantically dense when you blame the temporary damage to Iraq's oil production on George W.
In spite of the fact that little damage was done to Iraq's oil fields during the war itself, looting and sabotage after the war ended was highly destructive, accounting for perhaps 80 percent of total damage. Starting in mid-May 2003, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- which had the lead in restoring Iraq's oil output to pre-war levels -- began a major effort to ramp up production in the country. On April 22, 2003, the first oil production since the start of the war began at the Rumaila field, with the restart of an important gas/oil separation plant (GOSP). In May 2004, Iraq's Qarmat Ali water injection facility reportedly was 75 percent operational again, helping boost production from Rumaila and other southern oil fields. (Taken from the DOE factbook.)
Contrary to common misbelief, the US did not invade Iraq to steal their oil. The US currently purchasesabout 25% of Iraq's exports, or about 600,000 bpd. This puts Iraq at number six as a supplier to the US, behind Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, each over 1.5 million bpd. Iraq is a bit player in this game.
But I'm happy to see that they're finally free of Saddam.
Well, perhaps not, but if I were Jobs, it would be going something like this:
1. Develop OSX for x86, in secret 2. Announce it to a stunned audience 3. Seed dev Intel boxes 4. Wait for image to leak 5. Anticipate hackers discover image will boot on SSE3 procs 6. ??? 7. Gain market share 8. Profit!!!
The trick is in step 6:
Insert the following code into Aqua:
aqua_speed=1.0; if (!genuine_apple_hardware_bit) aqua_speed=0.25;
Thus, OSX runs natively on non-Apple hardware, but the GUI runs at quarter speed. If you want full-speed Aqua, you'll need the branded hardware. It's the crack dealer's approach: your first taste is free. There'll be time enough to get your money once you're hooked.
when I start reading TFA and run across something like this: Laurie is known as Major Malfunction in the hacker community. He also revealed how infrared used for garage door openers and car-door locks could be hacked, using simple brute force programming techniques to decipher the code that opens the doors. [emphasis mine]
Now, I'm not a remote entry expert, by any stretch, but I've never even heard of infrared keyless entry or garage door transmitters. Always RF.
When the article commits such a glaring error in the opening paragraphs, I'm sorry, I just can't trust anything I read further on.
Slashdot Mirror
Karl continues:
Let's push the button and see who talks to us.
Jul 18 10:25:05 NewFS imapd[88446]: Login user=test host=mc35536d0.tmodns.net [208.54.85.195]
And that's all. (That's the phone's IP address on T-Mobile, incidentally.)
Now let's look at the SMTP server and see if there's any evidence of a connection from the 68.171 address block -- which belongs to BlackBerry, and which is alleged tries to connect back.
[root@NewFS /var/log]# grep 68.171 spamblock /var/log]#
[root@NewFS
Nothing. Is the 208.54 address there?
Jul 18 10:09:21 NewFS spamblock-sys[81673]: Starting SSL/TLS negotiation with peer [208.54.85.195] /var/log]#
Jul 18 10:24:53 NewFS spamblock-sys[88447]: Starting SSL/TLS negotiation with peer [208.54.85.195]
[root@NewFS
Why yes there is, as the phone does connect to validate that the connection works (and it tells you it's doing so.) The other line, incidentally, is because there's another email account there (my real one!)
The phone connected to the SMTP server ("spamblock-sys" is my custom spam filter, which knows how to perform SSL/TLS negotiation) and performs a STARTTLS negotiation exactly as I told it to do.
Incidentally, it also brings up the server's certificate and asks me if it's ok too.
But there is no connection back to either service from any other location related to this account setup. Not from BlackBerry, not from some other place, nowhere. Period.
For those who want a bit more background on the SMTP side the code in question, particularly the SMTP code, is mine. The SMTP server in question ("Spamblock-Sys") was written from the ground up by myself. I know every single line of that code and am not relying on anyone else's word as to what is and is not logged, since I wrote it.
The IMAP server in question is WU's with moderate modification.
I have no idea if the guy in Germany is lying or if he is on an account provisioned for BIS (the older BlackBerry handsets) and his mobile provider is intercepting the transaction and passing it to BIS, which is doing what he's talking about.
Karl Denninger writes up his experience in attempting to replicate the claim. Karl calls BS:
http://market-ticker.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?singlepost=3242634
Don't Buy The BS Being Run on BB10 Email Security
There's a "report" flying around alleging that BB10 phones send unencrypted email passwords to BlackBerry and additionally that BlackBerry immediately connects back to the email server and signs on (which would, of course, require that it knows the password.)
This is easily tested and since I have a Z10 I decided to do exactly that.
What am doing here is setting up an account called "test" on my IMAP server to receive email and then will enter the credentials into the phone.
To make it interesting I will do it over the Cellular Connection rather than over WiFi, so that if the phone wants to do some sort of DNS lookup that my server might block (if it was using my DNS servers as it was connected via WiFi) it'll work.
Here we go. {full documentation follows}
Care to explain what vim in laptop-mode is? (Genuinely interested)
Welcome to Slashdot, where non-sarcastic comments now require special markup.
This wasn't in St. Paul MN, was it?
I worked two summers back in the 1980s for a company that did FCC certification. Compaq would ship us their brand-spankin-new luggables and we'd see just how bad they interfered with prohibited bandwidth.
I spent a lot of time in front of that HP oscilloscope those summers.
But a brilliant success with...
Honestly, I can only think of one word that rhymes with "angina."
Ironic. Whatever.
It's not as bad as you make it out to be - if you imagine the average SUV-driving commuter has a 20-mile one-way commute, 20 days per month, that's 800 miles. On a "pounds CO2 per passenger per mile"** basis, commercial jet travel is quite efficient. In other words, that same SUV would produce twice as much CO2 if it were driven from NYC to Denver.
In today's age, a better question is whether it's really necessary to go to Denver. There's still a lot of unneeded business travel going on, when voice- or video-conference would work just as well.
(** quite possibly the worst, non-SI unit of measure I've ever used)
The energy states an electron can occupy are discrete, not continuous
And this has something to do with quanta
And electrons move when hit by light at the right frequency
And... you know, isn't the rest obvious?
You mean, Spider-Man can't fly?
You're not getting it.
The behaviour being studied occurs in 3% of the sample population. When predicting which individuals will exhibit this behaviour, a coin flip will have a 97% false positive rate. The model being studied has only a 50% false positive rate. In a population of 100, the model will predict that six individuals will exhibit the behaviour. It will be correct on the three, and incorrect on three more. It will correctly predict the 94 inmates who will not.
Good point. I'd completely forgotten about that one. I had honestly chalked that up to a disgruntled US postal worker or something, but I guess my assumption doesn't make it so.
So, it's possible that we've been attacked on US soil after 9/11 - but not proven. I stand by my orignal analysis, with that slight modification.
Interesting questions of cause and effect, and of morality.The opinion of most people is that the threat of terrorism is now much greater thanks to activities in Iraq. The opinion of most people is that the threat of terrorism is now much greater thanks to the events of 9/11. Which has had a greater effect on the opinions of the people regarding their safety - the attacks on 9/11 or the subsequent (misdirected) attacks on Iraq? How does the more direct attack and liberation of Afghanistan fit into this opinion equation?
On morality - it seems that the threat of terrorism and actual terrorism has increased markedly since the Iraq war elsewhere, the London Tube Bombings being the most obvious sign of that - what is the moral obligation of the United States following its attack? Is it to ensure that such attacks do not repeat on the US? Or is it to ensure that such attacks won't succeed anywhere? It would be nice to accomplish both goals, but clearly the first takes higher priority.
Can we accept it as a given that there are extremists in the world who wish to practice acts of terror on western civilization? They will attack. They want us dead. The US has been successful for five years in keeping these attacks confined to other countries. Is that success? Some in the US would argue yes. Is this success at the expense of residents of other countries? Almost certainly. Is this a moral failing? I don't have a good answer to that one. maybe terrorists can't cross water until they reach a suitable power level This is certainly not true. They did it in 2001, and didn't have any more power then than now. The US was lazy, and allowed the enemy to walk right through the gates. September 11 changed that... until the next Congressional session, anyway. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats choose to balance national security with individual liberty when they're given the pen in 2007.
And, of course, the invasion did absolutely nothing to deter or prevent terrorists from striking again on US soil.Do you know about any attacks on US soil after 9/11 that I don't? It seems to me that US soil (excluding metro Detroit) has been a pretty safe place to be since we "liberated" Iraq.
Are you implying that the terrorists have not been detered or prevented from striking again, but have simply agreed to not take such action? That seems unlikely. Given the lack of activity on US soil, it seems much more likely that one or more post-9/11 attacks have been detered or prevented.
You can make a lot of arguments against this war. I can too. One argument that does not hold water is that invading Iraq has made US soil a more dangerous place on which to stand. We may not be safer than pre-9/11, but we're not demonstrably in more danger, either. The other "given" result of the invasion is that Saddam was removed - an unequivical "good thing" which may or may not be followed by a less dangerous leader (or leaders) taking office in Iraq. I'd wager that the Iraqis couldn't find another leader as crooked and dangerous as Saddam, though I guess I could be wrong.
I had a hard time imagining how the admins of Ted Haggard's site could be miffed at Slashdot.
I also didn't recollect Slashdot discussing our favorite non-homosexual, non-meth-using ex-pastor recently...
Repeat after me: "The United States of America is not a democracy. It is a representative republic."
The Electoral College exists for the same reason (and to the same benefit) that Congress exists. Put unlimited legislative power directly in the hands of the people, and they will make irresponsible choices, primarily in the redistribution of wealth. The Framers knew this, and have protected us from a fundamental human weakness.
Can you imagine what would happen if the people of the United States of America voted on laws directly? Just look at California's numerous approved Propositions, and then expand to a national scope.
An any sufficiently large society, pure democracy eventually leads to ruin.
Pro-tip: 1 yen coins work as pennies in the wal-mart check out line!
That's one of the more absurd tips I've ever heard.
At the current spot exchange rate, 116 yen per USD, I stand to save a MAXIMUM of 14% (1/1.16) by using Yen coins in place of pennies.
Not to mention the fact that, for purchases larger than, say, a pack of gum, the opportunity cost of time spent on line feeding coins into the slot quickly eats up any gains I may have enjoyed in the transaction.
Here's a better tip:
The 1AED coin (United Arab Emirates) is exactly the same size as the US quarter dollar. However, it's worth 10% more than the US quarter, so this trick only works in automated grocers in Dubai. Good luck!
Seriously, This is a beautiful application for distributed computing:
Since each copy of the DVD titled "Foo" is identical, one could:
Write an app that will grab a random ten seconds (or 256 frames, whatever) of audio and video from a DVD
Distributed app will then share those ten seconds via bittorrent protocol with the rest of the world
Distributed app also monitors trackers to grab other ten-second chunks of movies you're interested in
Buy a DVD, share ten seconds, get ten movies in return. Not a bad model. Unless you're the MPAA.
Best. Slashdot. Post. Evar.
Thanks. That made my whole week.
I work for a Fortune 100 company, 30,00+ employees. Exchange/Outlook.
Two years ago, we migrated from Lotus Notes to Exchange -- at the time of migration, we were informed, in no uncertain terms, that any email left on the server for more than 30 days would be automatically purged. If you want to keep it, back it up to a local fileserver, or to localhost. There is an option to retrieve auto-deleted email, but it's costed back to your department, so repeat offenders will likely be talking this over with a manager.
The most common approach to managing the archive is to create an annual archive, and stuff everything in there during the year. At the next calendar flip, start a new archive. I've gone back to the 2004 archive a couple of times to retrieve stuff, but not often.
Being forced to keep one's inbox cleaned out (nothing over 30 days old in there, or it gets wiped) is good practice - it's helped a lot of people to stay ahead of their inbox. Whereas I used to use the inbox for long-term storage, and touch a message four or five times, I now tend to touch it once: read it and then either delete it, file it, or copy into a new calendar/todo entry.
The 30-day quota has worked very well for us.
The Arabian camel trains were a form of self-insurance pool: the members agreed to pool losses, if any. You can be assured that they did not agree to pool their collective profits, however.
We have self-insurance pools today, as well. They function in much the same way: all members share proportionally in any loss, so if there are no losses, then nobody pays. The downside is that all members of the pool could simultaneously lose all of their assets in the event of a catastrophe.
We also have Mutual insurance companies today which are owned by the policyholders. If on a collective basis losses are less than expected, then each policyholder receives a dividend for their share of the company's profits. The goal of the Mutual comapany is to show a small profit at the end of each year, and to return that profit to the policyholders. The downside is that, in the event of a catastrophe, a Mutual company may more easily run out of assets, and be unable to pay all claims, or may have the right to "assess" the policyholders to recoup the shortfall.
Finally, there are the stock insurance companies, which aim to maximize profit, with the intent of distributing that profit back to the shareholders. The downside is that there's no chance of a "refund" in the event that you're loss-free, though you may qualify for lower premiums in the future.
If you'd like a return to the Arabian camel train model, your path is clear: simply find a group of individuals who agree with you, and pool your assets, with the agreement to share in any losses. If there are no losses, you'll get all of your assets back. If losses are catastrophic, you may lose everything.
It's all in your risk preference.
I did a cursory read of the posts so far, and it appears nobody has proposed this one yet, so allow me:
The last four years have been an unprecendented period (in my opinion) of political partisanship in America, partially because of the unusually even balance conservative and liberal partisans.
In the years leading up to our last election, we saw (again in my opinion) an unprecedented volume of America's entertainers enter quite vocally into the political debate. As a result, there are now many Americans who look at the film stars of 1990-2001 and instead of thinking "cute actor; great roles", think "political idiot; endorsed Kerry."
Add in the fact that Hollywood has historically given significant contributions to Democrat candidates...
People want to go to movies to escape real life -- they won't go if actors in the film are too intimately tied in their minds to real-world political conflict. This may well be an indictment on these conservative ex-moviegoers - they simply need to learn to "let go" and get on with life. Hollywood has always been populated by a group of idiots largely out of touch with reality, right?
Actors come out in support (or opposition) of political causes all the time -- but the sheer numbers, the frequency, and the extreme polarization in the country in the last four years have worked against them this time like never before. The result? Ten to twenty percent of the population no longer has the desire to funnel money into Hollywood.
Very well said.
Your central thesis, however, is that the US is acting from primarily a selfish, greedy motivation. I don't think that that's true.
Under Saddam, Iraq had historically produced oil at about the same levels that they've just now reached again this August. The proceeds from those sales, apparently, went straight to Saddam and family, with a bit siphoned off for UN bribes. The US has replaced Saddam with a representative form of government, which is now free to tell them to get the hell out, and refuse to sell oil to the US. I don't see that the US would have any choice in the matter but to comply, unless the UN told them to go in and enforce something again.
The scenario we have now: The US, UK, Australia, and the rest of the Coalition took a big risk, politically, militarily, economically, in enforcing the UN mandate. They increased worldwide security by eliminating a large funding source of Islamic terrorists. They toppled a murderous dictator, and have paved the way for the election of a representative government. The Iraqi people are days (weeks?) away from proposing their own constitution.
The US has undertaken the monumental task of rebuilding the oil infrastructure (most of which was destroyed not by coalition forces, but by Saddam's or by sympathetic, reactionary Islamic forces) to allow Iraq to return to economic viability as soon as possible. The US is not asking for anything in return. (I've heard proposals that Iraq "pay back" the US for the cost of the war out of its oil proceeds -- I do not support that proposal.) I'm sure that US firms will make proposals to help explore the estimated 90% of Iraq's oil resources which have yet to be surveyed. Firms from other countries will do so, as well.
The Iraqis are free to determine who wins those contracts.
I hope that this gives US firms more opportunities in the future. That would be a nice outcome. I hope some British, Australian, and German firms get some opportunities, as well. But it's not the reason we went to war.
Time will tell. Continue to watch what happens to the oil economy in Iraq. If it becomes a massive siphon into US gas tanks, or US oil companies, then I'll be proven wrong.
I fully expect US troops to remain present in Iraq for many years to come. Hell, they're still in Germany, and it's been 60 years since they last fought to liberate that country from its oppressive dictator.
The US has a long history of doing the right thing, for the right reasons -- much to the dismay of the pundits of the day. History, by and large, is on its side. I have a feeling that it will be in this conflict, as well.
The world isn't running out of oil, its running out of cheap, easy to extract oil. It doesn't help that Iraq's oil production is now in a shambles thanks to George W.
I should take that at face value; that is, as pure uninformed flamebait. Instead, I'll take a moment to correct you on two points:
First, Oil production is not in shambles. Production was at 2.5 million bpd "Before U.S.-led forces defeated Saddam Hussein".
The latest figures show that oil production is now at 2.75 - 2.85 million bpd . This is up from about 2.3 million bpd last month.
Not "in shambles".
Second, I assume you're being semantically dense when you blame the temporary damage to Iraq's oil production on George W.
In spite of the fact that little damage was done to Iraq's oil fields during the war itself, looting and sabotage after the war ended was highly destructive, accounting for perhaps 80 percent of total damage. Starting in mid-May 2003, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- which had the lead in restoring Iraq's oil output to pre-war levels -- began a major effort to ramp up production in the country. On April 22, 2003, the first oil production since the start of the war began at the Rumaila field, with the restart of an important gas/oil separation plant (GOSP). In May 2004, Iraq's Qarmat Ali water injection facility reportedly was 75 percent operational again, helping boost production from Rumaila and other southern oil fields. (Taken from the DOE factbook.)
Contrary to common misbelief, the US did not invade Iraq to steal their oil. The US currently purchases about 25% of Iraq's exports, or about 600,000 bpd. This puts Iraq at number six as a supplier to the US, behind Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, each over 1.5 million bpd. Iraq is a bit player in this game.
But I'm happy to see that they're finally free of Saddam.
1. Develop OSX for x86, in secret
2. Announce it to a stunned audience
3. Seed dev Intel boxes
4. Wait for image to leak
5. Anticipate hackers discover image will boot on SSE3 procs
6. ???
7. Gain market share
8. Profit!!!
The trick is in step 6:
Insert the following code into Aqua:Thus, OSX runs natively on non-Apple hardware, but the GUI runs at quarter speed. If you want full-speed Aqua, you'll need the branded hardware. It's the crack dealer's approach: your first taste is free. There'll be time enough to get your money once you're hooked.
when I start reading TFA and run across something like this:
Laurie is known as Major Malfunction in the hacker community. He also revealed how infrared used for garage door openers and car-door locks could be hacked, using simple brute force programming techniques to decipher the code that opens the doors. [emphasis mine]
Now, I'm not a remote entry expert, by any stretch, but I've never even heard of infrared keyless entry or garage door transmitters. Always RF.
When the article commits such a glaring error in the opening paragraphs, I'm sorry, I just can't trust anything I read further on.