I agree that for those with the attention span, Myst or the Sim-series games are excellent choices. For those who might want something a bit faster paced, I might suggest any of the sports titles with a career or franchise option. The actual arcade game is pretty much a time-waster, but making people interact in a simulated "league" with other competing team owners and attempt to develop a franchise over the long term might be an interesting exercise.
I know why I code, and I know why I prefer open source software. The reasons aren't profound, but I think they make a lot of sense.
I enjoy writing code because it is, in many ways, a professional implementation of building a better mousetrap. The emphasis is on making something that performs a task better, faster, more reliably, and credit is given for ingenuity and resourcefulness. I find this appealing. Moreover, unlike most things, software design (or at least algorithm design) takes place almost entirely in mindspace, and as such provides nearly endless possibilities for intriguing mental exercises. I find immense reward in coming up with an elegant solution to a problem.
Aside from the coding aspect, there are practical concerns that make open source attractive. Chief among these, in my opinion, is the fact that if it isn't the way I want it, I can fix it. To draw a relatively poor analogy, I once took a file to a plastic TV set case so it would clear a hinge in the cabinet in which I wanted to put it. With open source software, I can file the case; if Microsoft Office doesn't fit in the "cabinet" in which I wish to put it, I am out of luck. Worse, if I want it and it doesn't work on my system, I am completely out of luck; if it is open source and I am up to it, I can port it on my own. There's an issue of self-sufficiency and independence here.
Finally, I am loathe to give control in my life to someone else. Using proprietary software does this. What if Microsoft stops supporting a product? What if they reduce backwards compatibility (Office 95->Office 98 is still causing me headaches when I pass documents around)? With open source such a scenario is unlikely; anyone who was to make such a move would quickly be stopped by a community effort that would negate all effects of the action. Consider, for example, if the StarOffice 6 were not compatible with 5.2--how long would that last?
There are many appealing things about open source, and I think that's reflected in its rapid growth. Were I you, I would also point out that open source will never replace proprietary software so much as augment it. I don't view the open source movement as an anti-corporate leftist group so much as a group of often like-minded developers who recognize the inherent advantages of the open model in many applications. If we can make our legislators at least conversant in the right areas, I think the cause of open source will be greatly advanced.
Perhaps the reason that people don't expect much from software is that we are legally prevented from doing so. Let's face it, selling software without warrantying it fit for *any* purpose is nonsensical, and everyone does it. There's a vicious cycle at work; no expectations breed no impetus to improve breeds no expectations...
She noted that the Ninth Circuit had ruled just this year that the law was violated when an employer accessed an employee Web site.
Wait a second here. I read this to mean that it was ruled a violation of privacy to visit someone's website? This seems a bit far in the other direction. Does anyone have any more information? I am firmly against workplace monitoring, but at the same time, I can't imagine how some one could post a web page and not expect visitors.
While I agree with you that the posted article was a bit over the top on rhetoric, I fear that yours leans too far the other way.
Now, I happen to be very much in favor of the development of a national missile defense system. However, I do not agree that the only ways to argue against it are the two you mention.
For starters, in spite of the last test, the NMD still isn't regarded as functional (even at the Pentagon). I hope that it will be soon. But if we can't make it work, we shouldn't deploy it.
Your analysis of mutually assured destruction is glib; the concept has assured that Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw the only atomic weapons ever loosed in anger. MAD has its place in international politics. With the development of largely indestructible strategic weapons (in the case of the US, Ohio/Trident D5 submarines), MAD prevents a rational actor from unleashing a powerful nuclear arsenal. The Russians, in particular are very concerned about a NMD that could render their arsenal impotent (hence Putin's comments that a large-scale NMD would spark a new arms race) and render MAD obsolete. If we could launch a nuclear attack without fear of nuclear annihilation ourselves, it might suddenly be considered a rational decision. It is important to me that this never be the case. You posit that a nuclear attack on the United States would earn an overwhelming response, but it is not clear to me that this is or should be the case. If Iraq (strictly an example to illustrate my point) manages to hit Manhattan with a small cobbled together missile and kills 100,000 people, it is not clear to me that we ought to fire dozens of warheads at Iraq killing millions and causing an environmental nightmare that we can't even fathom, as well as irradiating a great deal of the Middle East. Worse, what if Osama bin Laden manages to launch a missile from the mountains of Afghanistan. Are we to destroy all of Afghanistan (with which bin Laden is not, technically, affiliated)? How do you think the Russians would feel (hint: how would the US feel if the Russians decided to destroy Mexico with ICBMs?)?
In fact, the NMD is designed to prevent rogue states from launching one (or a few) missile at the United States or her allies. I regard this as a worthwhile goal, to the extent that we can achieve it. But it is not yet clear to me that we can.
The "I live here" card is a non-starter. I'm writing this at my home in Somerville, MA. I think Massachusetts has an interesting take on government; I don't regard your claim that it is "one of the most constitutionally illiterate states in the country" as particularly serious. While Massachiusetts laws tend towards the paternalistic, I have much more immediate problems with laws in various other states in the Union.
I'm not clear on your reasoning regarding the uselessness of dissenting opinions. Dissenting opinions exist to explain *why* the dissenters did not vote with the majority. In this case, it seems that Justice Marshall saw the small logical step that would have been needed to get from this unfortunate precedent to one which would have obviated the possibility of any justice in a Rodney King-type case.
I think it is unfortunate that the central point here has been missed. Not only did this motorist tape a police officer, he taped a police officer's improper conduct! I submit that if the police are doing their jobs properly, there's no reason not to tape them.
In my opinion, your original post fails to address the fact that in light of this precedent, if I were pulled over for going 36 in a 35, pulled from my car and severely beaten but managed to audio tape the entire event, I'd be entirely out of luck pursuing justice. That is not right, by any stretch of the imagination. Justice Marshall saw that, and I agree with her.
Are you an attorney? I'd just like to note that the Rodney King opinion to which you refer is from Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who sits on the SJC, and as such has a say in the ultimate interpretation of the law in Massachusetts. On what basis do you claim that it is "flat out wrong?"
Everytime you run a redlight, you run the risk of killing someone.
I could not agree more on the red light issue. There is no promise, ever, in running a red light. My friends laugh at me when I stop at lights that have been yellow for a while. I continue to do it.
Everytime you speed, you run the risk of killing someone.
To the extent that every time you get in a car, you run the risk of killing someone, this is true. But increasing speed does not necessarily increase the risk of accident. The death rates on the unlimited stretches of the Autobahnen in Germany have almost identical death rates to American highways. Death rates on surface roads are generally higher than on highways. When the federal speed limit was dropped, the 41 states that raised their limits saw an aggregate decrease in deaths; the nine that didn't saw an aggregate increase. This is certainly not black and white; there are statistics to back both sides, but the trite "speed kills" argument statistically doesn't wash. There's more to it than that.
Speed doesn't kill, bad driving does. And don't tell me that because you parallel parked on the test, you know how to drive.
While I can't say how a privacy fight would turn out, I suspect that a fight in the courts against the constitutionality of assuming the driver of the vehicle would be a tough one to win. If my car is going 110 mph on surface roads, do I get points on my license? What if my wife/mother/girlfriend/dog/roommate/mechanic/car thief is at the wheel?
A friend in Germany actually once told me that Germans were beating photo radar by wearing masks that made it impossible to tell who the driver was. The law was then changed to be a simple fine for speeding, payable by the owner of the car.
Now, frankly, I find that system a lot less of a hassle than the current one. Why? The current cost of speeding isn't really the ticket, but the insurance banditos who come in afterwards (really, am I more dangerous because I was going 42 in a 35?). If it is just a generic fine, no points and no insurance hikes, then it amounts to a Fast Road Use Tax. I'll occasionally pay a tax to go fast. Don't want to pay the tax? Go more slowly. Want to go faster than I do? Pay more tax.
Most municipal governments cannot give up speeding tickets as a part of their revenue. Hopefully, in an effort to squeeze us a little harder, they'll take a bad step and end up making the system more reasonable, removing the insurance companies from the loop and abandoning the silly "speed kills" business.
I don't know if it is correct to say that things are "that bad." At least here in Boston, the jobs are out there, and though no one promises that you can retire with a fortune in three years, they will pay the rent, provided you live sensibly.
That last part is what troubles me. Though I feel for the people mentioned in the article, I can't help but wonder how people making 60-100k annually end up in shelters. What happened to savings? I don't make either of those sums and I'm saving sufficient money to keep myself out of a shelter even if I do end up jobless for an extended period of time. Even if I double my rent, I still can't figure out how I would sensibly spend 60k (after taxes) per year. And I'm not skimping; I have a nice apartment (though not alone), I drive a late-model sports sedan, I go out, etc.
I think the technology industry is in the middle of swallowing a bitter pill. In spite of what we wanted to believe, or what the press led us to believe, or what the economy seemed to indicate for a time, there's a real business world out there that will still govern technical work. We as tech workers may have unique and highly desirable skills, but we are neither invincible nor immortal.
TLAM's would be overkill; the resources needed to put a TLAM on target are enormous (submarine, various classes of destroyer and cruiser, or various large aircraft (B-52, B-1B, F-111?, A-6?). Also, TLAM's are themselves expensive, relatively scarce, and complicated to target (since they fly NOE all the way to the target, they require up-to-date satellite terrain maps that as of recently were inconvenient to download to the missiles; one reason cited for poor Tomahawk performance in various uses in the Gulf and Afghanistan was decade-old terrain maps that caused the Tomahawks to miss by far more than their standard circular error probability).
By contrast, a standard pair of F-16 Wild Weasels would ordinarily carry 2-4 HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles), weapons designed to home on a radar transmitter's energy. Either the radar shuts down (in which case the weapon will attack the last known location for it) or it gets hit by the missile. I don't know a whole lot about EM radiation, but I suspect that a redesign of the seeker head would allow a HARM to effectively target a cell tower.
The added bonus of the HARM is that if the radar knows it is coming, it can be forced to shut down, which can sometimes be as important as actually destroying it. I recall one story from the Gulf War (I need to find the source...anyone help?) which described a radar that was believed to be destroyed coming up and threatening a USAF strike force. Now, the Wild Weasel air defense suppression patrols all had beer call signs, and to alert friendly forces that they had engaged a target with a HARM, they would call out in the clear their call sign and the word "Magnum." An enterprising Strike Eagle pilot (who wasn't carrying any HARMs), when he detected that the radar had come up, immediately keyed his mic and called out "Michelob, Magnum!" The radar shut down, and the strike passed unmolested.
This all seems to depend on the definition of "high." True nap-of-the-earth flight is extremely difficult to achieve using only passive sensors, and transmitting can give away the position. This is compounded by the fact that the standard ordinance for stealth aircraft would not be of the type that can be delivered from low-level (assorted retarded bombs), but rather laser-guided weapons that partially glide to the target and require some altitude. If I recall correctly, in Panama and the Gulf, F-117s were attacking from moderate altitudes.
Also, from the standpoint of individual aircraft defense, altitude is most certainly not useless. Essentially, altitude is potential energy that can be quickly traded for speed. It is also useful in giving a missile (moving much faster than the aircraft can) problems it can't resolve. In Vietnam, one of the standard tactics when a pilot spotted an SA-2 (large, very fast but not particularly maneuverable Soviet SAM) was to dump chaff and pull into a split S (basically the down half of a loop). Ideally, the SAM wouldn't or couldn't correct and would pass harmlessly by. Eventually, however, planes would run out of altitude, leaving them vulnerable.
The minimal reading I've done on this topic indicates that the theory behind this is not entirely new. It has long been known that with a scattered network of receivers and some extensive computational power stealth aircraft can be tracked. After all, the Yugoslavs got one (not sure if it was blind luck, but I think I recall reading something about a reasonably effective trap).
Nevertheless, stealth technology remains useful for several reasons. For starters, it is impractical to deploy this system (as far as I can tell) on aircraft, meaning that interceptors are going to be vectored right into the engagement by ground controllers. Ground controlled intercepts are generally considered to be tactically inferior to intercepts in which the controllers vector fighters into the vicinity and allow the fighters autonomous control in the final phases of the intercept (and has more or less been proven as such over the Persian Gulf and the Middle East). Shooting the planes down will still require an enemy pilot to find and track the stealth fighter, which remains difficult.
Additionally, the ordinanace involved encounters the same problem. Provided the stealth aircraft is not transmitting, a missile has to home in on a very small radar or IR signature, which may cause additional issues.
Finally, stealth was never meant to be the end-all technology. Like most military advances, it requires a tactical and strategic shift on the part of the enemy force that may make them less effective against conventional aircraft or may cause them to make an error that can be exploited. Implementing this requires command and control additions, organizational shifts, reanalysis of defensive planning, etc. At the very least, the enemy has expended substantial time, money and effort implementing a response. The onus now becomes to develop a response to the response. In this case, widespread implementation of this technology might well see the design of a cellular-frequency homing missile. Now Wild Weasels hit SAM sites, radar sites, and cellular towers (causing an additional problem when in wartime a substantial chunk of a countries cellular network goes down the first night of the war).
Witness too that, at least in the case of the USAF, the military is moving away from pure stealth. The F-22 was acknowledged to be the less stealthy of the two entries in the ATF competition, but won out due to its somewhat higher performance and usefulness as an air superiority weapon. Its stealth characteristics are useful, but it is not a stealth aircraft in the way that an F-117 or B-2 is a stealth aircraft.
Does this technology alter the landscape with regard to air defense somewhat? Absolutely. But I would judge Siemens' title "Stealth Aircraft to be Rendered Useless" to be roughly as accurate as an article appearing around 1940 or so touting radar as the invention that would "Render Bombers Useless." Stealth aircraft were only "undetectable" if one listened to the media. They will remain powerful weapons, if only because of the strategic and tactical problems they cause.
experience teaching computers to elementary school kids
The key words in the above line are "teaching" and "elementary school kids." For starters, kids don't have long attention spans, so whatever you come up with, try and keep the "ooh-wow" factor up there. This probably means discussing the finer points of the GPL probably isn't going to make it.
Your lesson will inevitably depend on their background. Are you going to need to teach them how to interact with a computer? Maybe. Demonstrate how to use a mouse (the little Java/Javscript game in which one tries to click on the button that moves onmouseover comes to mind).
Showcase some of the strengths of computers--speed and accuracy, for one, and availability of information. Keep your demonstrations brief and highly interactive or you'll lose people. Maybe have the kids add 10 numbers as fast as they can and time them. Then let a computer do it. See who wins...Talk about the Internet, and show them some flashy (or even Flash-y) things (like/.!). Maybe coordinate with a friend and show them email and maybe instant messaging. Depending on the resources you have at your disposal, teach them to email each other. Show them how big the Internet is. Visit sites from around the world and describe what's happening (the Internet is Big. The Internet is Fast. Big and Fast are Good when one is in fourth grade).
A developer from Dragon once impressed a college CS lecture with a NaturallySpeaking demo just before it was released. I'd be fairly impressed by speech recognition software if I were a fourth grader. Something to think about.
Show them different kinds of computers if possible (calculator, Palm, laptop, desktop) and let them come up with other places that one finds computers. Have them talk about where they'd *like* to find computers, or what they wish computers would do.
My examples are primarily of the lame "off-the-top-of-my-head" variety, but I think that the overriding advice is sound. Keep it interactive, and always have something for the kids' hands to be doing (even if it is just raising them to shout out answers). Keep their attention, and you'll have success teaching computers or anything else.
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I agree on this point; the state of open source software is impressive. But how much more impressive could it be if people would set aside their differences and focus on moving forward? I am more experienced with GNOME, but I like some KDE features. I also like (gasp) some Windows features. As a community, I think it makes a lot more sense to aggregate things and push forward rather than splintering. Competition at this point is counterproductive--the competition consists of the people looking to shut open source down.
Everyone reading/. knows that open source has some inherent advantages--and some inherent disadvantages. It is critically important that the community press the advantages and minimize the impact of the disadvantages.
I did reasonably extensive research on this topic attempting to prove this very point. What I ended up was a thesis more along the lines of "Roosevelt, Kimmel and Short *should* have known..." All of the pointers were there, and with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, they are easily identifiable. But a military just beginning to believe that their remote (bear in mind, the Japanese refuelings in the North Pacific were a new phenomenon), shallow harbor was vulnerable was not willing to accept that an exhaustively trained and disciplined force could do what the Japanese did.
The kicker is that in 1973, in a speech to the San Francisco Bar Association, Admiral Chester Nimitz (succeeded Kimmel as commander of the Pacific Fleet for the duration) mused on what would have happened had Kimmel had warning. He surmised that Kimmel would have recalled the carriers and sortied the fleet to meet the Japanese, where the entirety of the Pacific Fleet would have been sunk in thousands of feet of water rather than 60, and the losses would have been 10 times greater than what they were.
Not entirely true. The USS Ward sent a message that she had engaged a mini-submarine at the entrance to the harbor, but did not claim to have sunk it immediately, I believe. At least two sets of messages and replies went back and forth between Kimmel's staff and Ward with the composition and encoding taking up almost the entire hour. By the time it was sorted out, it was literally minutes before bombs were falling.
The radar returns were not ignored so much as misinterpreted. No one had been properly trained on the Army radar station by December 7; the Japanese strike was in fact detected, but the Corporal (I believe) in charge identified them as B-17's due in from the mainland. The report went no higher than that. If I recall correctly, in the wake of Pearl, policy was changed to require a positive visual identification of incoming bogeys. Unidentified returns were considered hostile. I don't have my source for this one handy, I'll check when I can.
The real, live breathing men in uniform were both Air Force pilots, namely Lieutenants George S. Welch and Kenneth A. Taylor. Lt. Welch was credited with four kills, while Taylor was credited with three. In fact, two of Taylor's three were the the two trailing planes in the three-ship led by Lt. Zenji Abe, who commanded the second wave off the Akagi from his Val.
I believe a total of four Warhawks scrambled against the first wave, but I don't know anything about the others.
There are lots of reasons to be annoyed by Pearl Harbor; I don't believe that the portrayal of the men who scrambled in the face of 80-1 odds is one of them.
The ever-popular cipherpunk/cipherpunk also works (note the odd spelling). I think cypherpunk/cypherpunk also once worked, but they appear to have deleted that one.
As you suggest, I am not going to purchase from a company knowing that their price may change ten minutes later. There is simply too much room for dishonesty (and again as you point out, the only given is that the company is operating in its own best interest). Then again, I am already not the target customer; I tend, as I am certain many/.ers do, to build my own boxen. But it nevertheless seems unusual to make a decision that risks driving away customers.
Your point about intraday price changes is well-taken. Rereading the article, it seems that I took that as an implication; it isn't specifically stated. This seems to be a matter of degree. No one will complain about a $10 price change every week, but if they start with the Amazon-esque random changes based on nebulous causes, they're going to see some backlash.
As for the market pricing, minute-to-minute changes would require the company (each company) to have access to data on sufficient trading volume to assess supply and demand in the market in real time. I don't feel that any of these companies has access to that kind of trading volume. But maybe there's an opportunity to build a business arbitraging PC components...
If you're comfortable owning a box that your neighbor got last Tuesday for $89 less, fine. I'll take Pricewatch and the cash. And I think it is very odd that a company would do something to encourage me to buy elsewhere.
I'm sorry, I disagree. A company simply cannot admit that they are trying to maximize their profits by milking every cent out of their customers; it would be corporate suicide. Hence these companies have as a prerequisite for the implementation of dynamic pricing a need to apply some positive spin, providing an explanation that makes it seem like they are out to help their customers. The presumed volatility of components provides that spin.
I have several problems with the idea. I simply don't believe that markets for most components are such that it would require intraday updates. And even for those components that are extremely volatile, if we assume unrelated random walks for the price points, the changes will tend to amortize more often than not, leaving the overall price largely unchanged. Weekly updates? Fine. Daily? Maybe. Intra day? No way.
And on what basis should I buy Dell's assertion that they pass on savings "in almost real time?" Who is to say that their software doesn't have a programmed six-hour delay between the time when their cost drops and the time the price is reflected on their website, and a ten-second delay when their cost rises?
The analogy to car dealers is only semi-valid. I don't mean to impugn anyone's intelligence, but anyone who walks into a car dealer with any intent of purchasing should have a very good idea of the invoice price for the car and options, the msrp, the average dealer holdback for the model and region, some idea of demand and what the market price is, etc. None of that information is readily available when I visit IBM's site. They could tell me memory pricing just tripled 7 minutes ago due to freak sunspot activity, but I will have a very hard time verifying that. If Dell, IBM and Compaq want to put up a site that passes such information to consumers (raw wholesale memory, cpu, disk, etc. prices), fine. But I have no faith that they are operating in my best interests, and even if they do post the data, they'll need to convince me that the published numbers are accurate reflections of the market.
The only saving grace is that 9 months after they start this crap a consulting firm is going to come out with an audit and see how well they are really passing on those "savings".
In the meantime, Pricewatch had better get a few new servers. That's where I'll be putting my next machine together.
I swear, Major League Baseball must have a hand in this. Now we're really going to need their express written consent for any rebroadcast or retransmission. But I'm still going to miss having them remind me.
So who do we propose should regulate this? Who is going to escrow the perpetual keys or pass judgment on the terms of a license transfer in case of bankruptcy? The government? Verisign? Please.
Moreover, do you as an end user want to be subject to the shenanigans that will inevitably take place when a company goes under? Keep in mind that Software Rental 'R Us has your address, email, name, etc. etc. If Software Rental 'R Us goes out of business and they have a database of, oh, a million active emails, Direct Marketers 'R Us might just want to take a look at purchasing the keys.
There's a better solution: don't do it. If Microsoft comes along with Office 2005 (now with polka-dot highlighting!) with a rental license and 2 Fortune 500 companies purchase it (everyone else stays with Office 2004), how long do you think rental software licenses will last at MS? If people make informed decisions as end users (or, more saliently, IT Directors), this problem may still be avoidable.
Unfortunately, I think the original post misses a number of important points. This isn't about cultural identity or a virtual state, but about the U.S. using its immense military capacity to eavesdrop on the EM spectrum use of the Chinese. It's legal under international law. The EP-3s loiter in international airspace, gathering EM emissions. Of course, the Chinese hate it (so did the Russians when we did it to them, so did we when they did it to us). So the standard response is and has been to intercept the planes and annot the heck out of them. Ordinarily, one would not ram them, however (and make no mistake, unless the F-8 wanted to be hit, there's no way a P-3 could do it; they maneuver like freight trains). With China building up its military (particularly its Navy) and making noises about the South China Sea and Taiwan (what's new), it is important to the U.S. military that the eavesdropping continue.
So why not apologize? Several international law experts have speculated that a formal, official U.S. acceptance of responsibility might give the Chinese a legal basis to stop the flights. This is somewhat more concrete than any notion of cultural pride, and it is an important consideration.
And it is true, the virtual state will continue to be a myth until the real states start to find common ground. Rogue states will be rogue states, Internet or not.
Slashdot Mirror
-db
I enjoy writing code because it is, in many ways, a professional implementation of building a better mousetrap. The emphasis is on making something that performs a task better, faster, more reliably, and credit is given for ingenuity and resourcefulness. I find this appealing. Moreover, unlike most things, software design (or at least algorithm design) takes place almost entirely in mindspace, and as such provides nearly endless possibilities for intriguing mental exercises. I find immense reward in coming up with an elegant solution to a problem.
Aside from the coding aspect, there are practical concerns that make open source attractive. Chief among these, in my opinion, is the fact that if it isn't the way I want it, I can fix it. To draw a relatively poor analogy, I once took a file to a plastic TV set case so it would clear a hinge in the cabinet in which I wanted to put it. With open source software, I can file the case; if Microsoft Office doesn't fit in the "cabinet" in which I wish to put it, I am out of luck. Worse, if I want it and it doesn't work on my system, I am completely out of luck; if it is open source and I am up to it, I can port it on my own. There's an issue of self-sufficiency and independence here.
Finally, I am loathe to give control in my life to someone else. Using proprietary software does this. What if Microsoft stops supporting a product? What if they reduce backwards compatibility (Office 95->Office 98 is still causing me headaches when I pass documents around)? With open source such a scenario is unlikely; anyone who was to make such a move would quickly be stopped by a community effort that would negate all effects of the action. Consider, for example, if the StarOffice 6 were not compatible with 5.2--how long would that last?
There are many appealing things about open source, and I think that's reflected in its rapid growth. Were I you, I would also point out that open source will never replace proprietary software so much as augment it. I don't view the open source movement as an anti-corporate leftist group so much as a group of often like-minded developers who recognize the inherent advantages of the open model in many applications. If we can make our legislators at least conversant in the right areas, I think the cause of open source will be greatly advanced.
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Wait a second here. I read this to mean that it was ruled a violation of privacy to visit someone's website? This seems a bit far in the other direction. Does anyone have any more information? I am firmly against workplace monitoring, but at the same time, I can't imagine how some one could post a web page and not expect visitors.
-db
Now, I happen to be very much in favor of the development of a national missile defense system. However, I do not agree that the only ways to argue against it are the two you mention.
For starters, in spite of the last test, the NMD still isn't regarded as functional (even at the Pentagon). I hope that it will be soon. But if we can't make it work, we shouldn't deploy it.
Your analysis of mutually assured destruction is glib; the concept has assured that Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw the only atomic weapons ever loosed in anger. MAD has its place in international politics. With the development of largely indestructible strategic weapons (in the case of the US, Ohio/Trident D5 submarines), MAD prevents a rational actor from unleashing a powerful nuclear arsenal. The Russians, in particular are very concerned about a NMD that could render their arsenal impotent (hence Putin's comments that a large-scale NMD would spark a new arms race) and render MAD obsolete. If we could launch a nuclear attack without fear of nuclear annihilation ourselves, it might suddenly be considered a rational decision. It is important to me that this never be the case. You posit that a nuclear attack on the United States would earn an overwhelming response, but it is not clear to me that this is or should be the case. If Iraq (strictly an example to illustrate my point) manages to hit Manhattan with a small cobbled together missile and kills 100,000 people, it is not clear to me that we ought to fire dozens of warheads at Iraq killing millions and causing an environmental nightmare that we can't even fathom, as well as irradiating a great deal of the Middle East. Worse, what if Osama bin Laden manages to launch a missile from the mountains of Afghanistan. Are we to destroy all of Afghanistan (with which bin Laden is not, technically, affiliated)? How do you think the Russians would feel (hint: how would the US feel if the Russians decided to destroy Mexico with ICBMs?)?
In fact, the NMD is designed to prevent rogue states from launching one (or a few) missile at the United States or her allies. I regard this as a worthwhile goal, to the extent that we can achieve it. But it is not yet clear to me that we can.
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I'm not clear on your reasoning regarding the uselessness of dissenting opinions. Dissenting opinions exist to explain *why* the dissenters did not vote with the majority. In this case, it seems that Justice Marshall saw the small logical step that would have been needed to get from this unfortunate precedent to one which would have obviated the possibility of any justice in a Rodney King-type case.
I think it is unfortunate that the central point here has been missed. Not only did this motorist tape a police officer, he taped a police officer's improper conduct! I submit that if the police are doing their jobs properly, there's no reason not to tape them.
In my opinion, your original post fails to address the fact that in light of this precedent, if I were pulled over for going 36 in a 35, pulled from my car and severely beaten but managed to audio tape the entire event, I'd be entirely out of luck pursuing justice. That is not right, by any stretch of the imagination. Justice Marshall saw that, and I agree with her.
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Are you an attorney? I'd just like to note that the Rodney King opinion to which you refer is from Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who sits on the SJC, and as such has a say in the ultimate interpretation of the law in Massachusetts. On what basis do you claim that it is "flat out wrong?"
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I could not agree more on the red light issue. There is no promise, ever, in running a red light. My friends laugh at me when I stop at lights that have been yellow for a while. I continue to do it.
Everytime you speed, you run the risk of killing someone.
To the extent that every time you get in a car, you run the risk of killing someone, this is true. But increasing speed does not necessarily increase the risk of accident. The death rates on the unlimited stretches of the Autobahnen in Germany have almost identical death rates to American highways. Death rates on surface roads are generally higher than on highways. When the federal speed limit was dropped, the 41 states that raised their limits saw an aggregate decrease in deaths; the nine that didn't saw an aggregate increase. This is certainly not black and white; there are statistics to back both sides, but the trite "speed kills" argument statistically doesn't wash. There's more to it than that.
Speed doesn't kill, bad driving does. And don't tell me that because you parallel parked on the test, you know how to drive.
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A friend in Germany actually once told me that Germans were beating photo radar by wearing masks that made it impossible to tell who the driver was. The law was then changed to be a simple fine for speeding, payable by the owner of the car.
Now, frankly, I find that system a lot less of a hassle than the current one. Why? The current cost of speeding isn't really the ticket, but the insurance banditos who come in afterwards (really, am I more dangerous because I was going 42 in a 35?). If it is just a generic fine, no points and no insurance hikes, then it amounts to a Fast Road Use Tax. I'll occasionally pay a tax to go fast. Don't want to pay the tax? Go more slowly. Want to go faster than I do? Pay more tax.
Most municipal governments cannot give up speeding tickets as a part of their revenue. Hopefully, in an effort to squeeze us a little harder, they'll take a bad step and end up making the system more reasonable, removing the insurance companies from the loop and abandoning the silly "speed kills" business.
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That last part is what troubles me. Though I feel for the people mentioned in the article, I can't help but wonder how people making 60-100k annually end up in shelters. What happened to savings? I don't make either of those sums and I'm saving sufficient money to keep myself out of a shelter even if I do end up jobless for an extended period of time. Even if I double my rent, I still can't figure out how I would sensibly spend 60k (after taxes) per year. And I'm not skimping; I have a nice apartment (though not alone), I drive a late-model sports sedan, I go out, etc.
I think the technology industry is in the middle of swallowing a bitter pill. In spite of what we wanted to believe, or what the press led us to believe, or what the economy seemed to indicate for a time, there's a real business world out there that will still govern technical work. We as tech workers may have unique and highly desirable skills, but we are neither invincible nor immortal.
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By contrast, a standard pair of F-16 Wild Weasels would ordinarily carry 2-4 HARMs (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles), weapons designed to home on a radar transmitter's energy. Either the radar shuts down (in which case the weapon will attack the last known location for it) or it gets hit by the missile. I don't know a whole lot about EM radiation, but I suspect that a redesign of the seeker head would allow a HARM to effectively target a cell tower.
The added bonus of the HARM is that if the radar knows it is coming, it can be forced to shut down, which can sometimes be as important as actually destroying it. I recall one story from the Gulf War (I need to find the source...anyone help?) which described a radar that was believed to be destroyed coming up and threatening a USAF strike force. Now, the Wild Weasel air defense suppression patrols all had beer call signs, and to alert friendly forces that they had engaged a target with a HARM, they would call out in the clear their call sign and the word "Magnum." An enterprising Strike Eagle pilot (who wasn't carrying any HARMs), when he detected that the radar had come up, immediately keyed his mic and called out "Michelob, Magnum!" The radar shut down, and the strike passed unmolested.
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Also, from the standpoint of individual aircraft defense, altitude is most certainly not useless. Essentially, altitude is potential energy that can be quickly traded for speed. It is also useful in giving a missile (moving much faster than the aircraft can) problems it can't resolve. In Vietnam, one of the standard tactics when a pilot spotted an SA-2 (large, very fast but not particularly maneuverable Soviet SAM) was to dump chaff and pull into a split S (basically the down half of a loop). Ideally, the SAM wouldn't or couldn't correct and would pass harmlessly by. Eventually, however, planes would run out of altitude, leaving them vulnerable.
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Nevertheless, stealth technology remains useful for several reasons. For starters, it is impractical to deploy this system (as far as I can tell) on aircraft, meaning that interceptors are going to be vectored right into the engagement by ground controllers. Ground controlled intercepts are generally considered to be tactically inferior to intercepts in which the controllers vector fighters into the vicinity and allow the fighters autonomous control in the final phases of the intercept (and has more or less been proven as such over the Persian Gulf and the Middle East). Shooting the planes down will still require an enemy pilot to find and track the stealth fighter, which remains difficult.
Additionally, the ordinanace involved encounters the same problem. Provided the stealth aircraft is not transmitting, a missile has to home in on a very small radar or IR signature, which may cause additional issues.
Finally, stealth was never meant to be the end-all technology. Like most military advances, it requires a tactical and strategic shift on the part of the enemy force that may make them less effective against conventional aircraft or may cause them to make an error that can be exploited. Implementing this requires command and control additions, organizational shifts, reanalysis of defensive planning, etc. At the very least, the enemy has expended substantial time, money and effort implementing a response. The onus now becomes to develop a response to the response. In this case, widespread implementation of this technology might well see the design of a cellular-frequency homing missile. Now Wild Weasels hit SAM sites, radar sites, and cellular towers (causing an additional problem when in wartime a substantial chunk of a countries cellular network goes down the first night of the war).
Witness too that, at least in the case of the USAF, the military is moving away from pure stealth. The F-22 was acknowledged to be the less stealthy of the two entries in the ATF competition, but won out due to its somewhat higher performance and usefulness as an air superiority weapon. Its stealth characteristics are useful, but it is not a stealth aircraft in the way that an F-117 or B-2 is a stealth aircraft.
Does this technology alter the landscape with regard to air defense somewhat? Absolutely. But I would judge Siemens' title "Stealth Aircraft to be Rendered Useless" to be roughly as accurate as an article appearing around 1940 or so touting radar as the invention that would "Render Bombers Useless." Stealth aircraft were only "undetectable" if one listened to the media. They will remain powerful weapons, if only because of the strategic and tactical problems they cause.
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The key words in the above line are "teaching" and "elementary school kids." For starters, kids don't have long attention spans, so whatever you come up with, try and keep the "ooh-wow" factor up there. This probably means discussing the finer points of the GPL probably isn't going to make it.
Your lesson will inevitably depend on their background. Are you going to need to teach them how to interact with a computer? Maybe. Demonstrate how to use a mouse (the little Java/Javscript game in which one tries to click on the button that moves onmouseover comes to mind).
Showcase some of the strengths of computers--speed and accuracy, for one, and availability of information. Keep your demonstrations brief and highly interactive or you'll lose people. Maybe have the kids add 10 numbers as fast as they can and time them. Then let a computer do it. See who wins...Talk about the Internet, and show them some flashy (or even Flash-y) things (like /.!). Maybe coordinate with a friend and show them email and maybe instant messaging. Depending on the resources you have at your disposal, teach them to email each other. Show them how big the Internet is. Visit sites from around the world and describe what's happening (the Internet is Big. The Internet is Fast. Big and Fast are Good when one is in fourth grade).
A developer from Dragon once impressed a college CS lecture with a NaturallySpeaking demo just before it was released. I'd be fairly impressed by speech recognition software if I were a fourth grader. Something to think about.
Show them different kinds of computers if possible (calculator, Palm, laptop, desktop) and let them come up with other places that one finds computers. Have them talk about where they'd *like* to find computers, or what they wish computers would do.
My examples are primarily of the lame "off-the-top-of-my-head" variety, but I think that the overriding advice is sound. Keep it interactive, and always have something for the kids' hands to be doing (even if it is just raising them to shout out answers). Keep their attention, and you'll have success teaching computers or anything else. -db
Everyone reading /. knows that open source has some inherent advantages--and some inherent disadvantages. It is critically important that the community press the advantages and minimize the impact of the disadvantages.
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The kicker is that in 1973, in a speech to the San Francisco Bar Association, Admiral Chester Nimitz (succeeded Kimmel as commander of the Pacific Fleet for the duration) mused on what would have happened had Kimmel had warning. He surmised that Kimmel would have recalled the carriers and sortied the fleet to meet the Japanese, where the entirety of the Pacific Fleet would have been sunk in thousands of feet of water rather than 60, and the losses would have been 10 times greater than what they were.
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The radar returns were not ignored so much as misinterpreted. No one had been properly trained on the Army radar station by December 7; the Japanese strike was in fact detected, but the Corporal (I believe) in charge identified them as B-17's due in from the mainland. The report went no higher than that. If I recall correctly, in the wake of Pearl, policy was changed to require a positive visual identification of incoming bogeys. Unidentified returns were considered hostile. I don't have my source for this one handy, I'll check when I can.
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I believe a total of four Warhawks scrambled against the first wave, but I don't know anything about the others.
There are lots of reasons to be annoyed by Pearl Harbor; I don't believe that the portrayal of the men who scrambled in the face of 80-1 odds is one of them.
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As you suggest, I am not going to purchase from a company knowing that their price may change ten minutes later. There is simply too much room for dishonesty (and again as you point out, the only given is that the company is operating in its own best interest). Then again, I am already not the target customer; I tend, as I am certain many /.ers do, to build my own boxen. But it nevertheless seems unusual to make a decision that risks driving away customers.
Your point about intraday price changes is well-taken. Rereading the article, it seems that I took that as an implication; it isn't specifically stated. This seems to be a matter of degree. No one will complain about a $10 price change every week, but if they start with the Amazon-esque random changes based on nebulous causes, they're going to see some backlash.
As for the market pricing, minute-to-minute changes would require the company (each company) to have access to data on sufficient trading volume to assess supply and demand in the market in real time. I don't feel that any of these companies has access to that kind of trading volume. But maybe there's an opportunity to build a business arbitraging PC components...
If you're comfortable owning a box that your neighbor got last Tuesday for $89 less, fine. I'll take Pricewatch and the cash. And I think it is very odd that a company would do something to encourage me to buy elsewhere.
I'm sorry, I disagree. A company simply cannot admit that they are trying to maximize their profits by milking every cent out of their customers; it would be corporate suicide. Hence these companies have as a prerequisite for the implementation of dynamic pricing a need to apply some positive spin, providing an explanation that makes it seem like they are out to help their customers. The presumed volatility of components provides that spin.
I have several problems with the idea. I simply don't believe that markets for most components are such that it would require intraday updates. And even for those components that are extremely volatile, if we assume unrelated random walks for the price points, the changes will tend to amortize more often than not, leaving the overall price largely unchanged. Weekly updates? Fine. Daily? Maybe. Intra day? No way.
And on what basis should I buy Dell's assertion that they pass on savings "in almost real time?" Who is to say that their software doesn't have a programmed six-hour delay between the time when their cost drops and the time the price is reflected on their website, and a ten-second delay when their cost rises?
The analogy to car dealers is only semi-valid. I don't mean to impugn anyone's intelligence, but anyone who walks into a car dealer with any intent of purchasing should have a very good idea of the invoice price for the car and options, the msrp, the average dealer holdback for the model and region, some idea of demand and what the market price is, etc. None of that information is readily available when I visit IBM's site. They could tell me memory pricing just tripled 7 minutes ago due to freak sunspot activity, but I will have a very hard time verifying that. If Dell, IBM and Compaq want to put up a site that passes such information to consumers (raw wholesale memory, cpu, disk, etc. prices), fine. But I have no faith that they are operating in my best interests, and even if they do post the data, they'll need to convince me that the published numbers are accurate reflections of the market.
The only saving grace is that 9 months after they start this crap a consulting firm is going to come out with an audit and see how well they are really passing on those "savings".
In the meantime, Pricewatch had better get a few new servers. That's where I'll be putting my next machine together.
I swear, Major League Baseball must have a hand in this. Now we're really going to need their express written consent for any rebroadcast or retransmission. But I'm still going to miss having them remind me.
-dbinet addr:10.0.3.2 P-t-P:10.0.3.1
collisions:0
RX bytes:88 (88.0 b) TX bytes:168 (168.0 b)
You know, I never thought of packet collisions as really funny. Now, somehow it seems much more entertaining.
-dbMoreover, do you as an end user want to be subject to the shenanigans that will inevitably take place when a company goes under? Keep in mind that Software Rental 'R Us has your address, email, name, etc. etc. If Software Rental 'R Us goes out of business and they have a database of, oh, a million active emails, Direct Marketers 'R Us might just want to take a look at purchasing the keys.
There's a better solution: don't do it. If Microsoft comes along with Office 2005 (now with polka-dot highlighting!) with a rental license and 2 Fortune 500 companies purchase it (everyone else stays with Office 2004), how long do you think rental software licenses will last at MS? If people make informed decisions as end users (or, more saliently, IT Directors), this problem may still be avoidable.
Let's hope so.
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So why not apologize? Several international law experts have speculated that a formal, official U.S. acceptance of responsibility might give the Chinese a legal basis to stop the flights. This is somewhat more concrete than any notion of cultural pride, and it is an important consideration.
And it is true, the virtual state will continue to be a myth until the real states start to find common ground. Rogue states will be rogue states, Internet or not.
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