I haven't read the article, and don't know if what I'm about to say adds anything to the conversation.
I have an acquaintance that, as a kid, was brought up on telephone system hacking charges. An interesting point about the evidence against him was that as soon as his data (or any signals instigated by him) touched the public network, it was evidence. He had no privacy - data on the public network is public data.
And in his case, the wiring inside the home is private, but as it leaves the home and hits the phone company junction box, it becomes public. The M.P.O.E. (Minimum Point Of Entry) is used by the phone company to exactly define that transition point.
Thus, it seems reasonable that the keystroke logger did not attach to the public network.
Of course there is the problem of how the data is extracted out of the keystroke logger - if it does involve remote access, that makes the issue murkier.
So I think the can of worms has only a hole in the lid, rather than having had the whole lid ripped off.
You have a good point, and I thank you for that. We *do* get farm subsidies, and although many industries get some subsidies, we probably get a greater 'share' than others. I had forgotten about that and I stand corrected.
And you are correct about electricity and mail, too. Flip side is, as the cost of living goes up in urban areas, (as you all become more affluent) you drive poor people into the rural areas. Its not a great change - I just compared Tulare County's expense for Public Assistance (38% of the budget) to Los Angeles County's, and L.A. still pays out 30%. Still, if the country must have a centralized welfare system, we get stuck with that burden. I did not compare additional costs, like health care, job training, etc. And you are correct - the rural counties will cost more to provide such services, because we will need six small campuses to provide service, instead of being able to get away with one large campus.
Truth to be told, I very much would like subsidies to be eliminated over time. There is a quote (that may be ficticious) that suggests the danger of subsidy driven government.
Anyway, you reminded me of something I had forgotten, and for that I thank you.
What is happening, is that someone wants to make a huge buck off the government, and some other set of bureaucrats are bored stiff, and want to play with something sexy.
"Oooh! Wouldn't it be cool if we implemented something like GPS Enabled Transponders, Reporting Every Vehicle Entry Now Using Expressway (G.E.T.R.E.V.E.N.U.E)??? Oooh! This'll be so cool."
Just making the vehicles pay by weight is boring. It also doesn't create a huge system for some outsourcer (or state bureaucrat empire-builder) to build, maintain, and abuse.
It is a false claim that urban centers generate any larger or smaller share of tax revenue.
The agriculture industry in the central San Joaquin Valley produces about 1/10 of the California "GDP". (That doesn't include the Imperial valley down around San Diego.)
10% of GDP is 10% of GDP, whether it comes from an urban area or a rural area.
The only place where lower taxes come into effect is the endpoint sales tax on groceries. Sales tax revenues are consumed locally - so you don't really lose.
FWIW, since Ag takes about 3% of the population to produce that 10% of GDP, we are actually more efficient than you: it's you who are the moocher.
If you really want to shift roads expenses to us rural people - go for it. But don't be surprised when the delivery cost on food becomes astronomical to you people who are so foolish to live so far away from it.
Maybe you want to let that sleeping dog lie, eh? Or, you can continue to stab at it with a sharp stick. What do your brains tell you?
I think every failing business could get 20 cents on the dollar from their more successful competitors - providing the competitor: a) was going to lose more than that in court, or b) was so flush with cash that outgo of half a billion dollars was worth ridding oneself of the nuisance.
I'd give them two hits: 1) writing a DOS & Windows redirector to add drive letters to a machine, putting the files on the network, and 2) Directory Services. That one logged into the network and not individual files servers (and wrangling all the near- realtime behind-the-scenes file system permissions to back it up) was ahead of its time.
On a more serious note, this income for Novell is the 'payoff' for a multi-year hemorrhaging of market share....
Almost half a billion dollars seems like a lot of money, but compare that to the loss of customers: at one time, NetWare *was* 70% of all business networks (not the internet, obviously).
So what is that $536 Million? Something like 20 cents on the dollar?
Not that they could have gotten any more. I'm just saying, it is kind of like discounted severance pay: nice to have, but continued income would be better.
FWIW, I filled out a web form for "Contact US/CNN.COM" with the following question:
I hit "Search CNN.com" put in "badnarik" and submitted the search. Zero entries returned.
So what am I supposed to think about your news reporting?
Surely some of the ideas of the big two party candidates reported by CNN really only apply to 4% of the electorate. To exclude a candidate with 4% of the vote is tantamount to excluding a party position that matters to only 4% of the electorate. Do you do that?
Because it seems they always try to stage their event on "same day, only a few feet away".
You don't upstage the big party candidates by competing with them* for their precious big media time slot. You upstage them by holding your debate the day prior.
Ideally, you'd rent the very same hall the day prior, so the networks would save some money by pre-setting up their cameras and microphones - they wouldn't have to go to the expense of rolling out a duplicate set. Better yet, the news exposure would be good: Wednesday, Presidential Candidates X and Y debated, Thursday, A and B debated - and it all looks the same on the TV to Joe viewer.
Lastly, and the biggest win, would be that the debate prior is likely to give some journalist material (or at least an idea) to ask the big two kahunas. We all know that the War on Drugs or the National Debt won't be a question topic Thursday night. But if Candidates X and Y come out and say they have a solution, the possibility exists that Candidates A and B will at least be asked.
*And losing! Its one of those pride things: "Sure we're gonna lose, but if we won, it would be awesome man!
Right - he is letting several of us go; only the on-call guy doesn't get to go. Company rules are that the on-call person has to stay close enough to make a one hour response if called in. It is too bad, but the guy that has on-call duty this week would *really* like to go, too.
The other aspect is that due to the change in California labor law, we recently all changed to be hourly employees. So trading a half day Wednesday for a half day Saturday is good, as it means I'll still get 40 hours this week, and I didn't have to take it as vacation.
If you live in Southern California, its not too far to go to see the launch. From the Ansari web site:
launch currently scheduled for approximately 6:47 a.m.
Mojave Civilian Flight Test Center
Address: Mojave Airport
1434 Flight Line Mojave, CA 93501
Parking is $35. My boss is letting some of us trade 1/2 day off Wednesday for some Saturday work - we will car pool and split the fee. There is more expensive, premium parking available - but we can't tell what that buys us.
Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions submitted by us, the slashdot crowd. As members of the 'news for nerds, stuff that
matters' faction, we recognize that 21st century media involves interactivity - which is exactly what slashdot provides.
But today, the USA Presidential election is won or lost by three forks of 20th century media: commercials, big media journalism, and debates.
I understand that the Green Party does not have the funding to win on the TV and radio spot market. Big media journalism doesn't focus
on the Green candidate much, because of a perceived lack of marketshare.
So my questions are: do you see any way of breaking into the Presidential race via public debate? What is the Green Party
doing to promote the debates in which you do participate, to get the big media to ask the same questions of the two major party candidates?
Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions submitted by us, the slashdot crowd. As members of the 'news for nerds, stuff that matters' faction, we recognize that 21st century media involves interactivity - which is exactly what slashdot provides.
But today, the USA Presidential election is won or lost by three forks of 20th century media: commercials, big media journalism, and debates. I understand that the Libertarian Party does not have the funding to win on the TV and radio spot market. Big media journalism doesn't focus on the Libertarian candidate much, because of a perceived lack of marketshare.
So my questions are: do you see any way of breaking into the Presidential race via public debate? What is the Libertarian Party doing to promote the debates in which you do participate, to get the big media to ask the same questions of the two major party candidates?
Yeah, one of my better friends had a dad who was anti-gun. Then the burglar killed him in his own home. At least he saved his daughter from kidnap +
Sad thing was, the police were pretty sure they knew who did it - they just didn't have the evidence. A several months later, the (suspected) same guy killed a shop clerk at a mini-mart, trying to rob the place. At least the second time around, they caught him, had witnesses, and he went to jail for 17 years. He should be out now - lets pray the prisons ministries got to him.
I wouldn't have minded if the dad had killed the burglar during round one. But some people think resistance is wrong.
I have not read that book, but the question "Schools -- For What?" seems insightful to me. As far as funding goes, I've read that pre- 1960, school funding was a simple formula (bucket of money divided evenly per pupil), and the local districts spent the money as they saw fit. Since 1960, the California legislature has been earmarking money for special causes (mostly to suck up to the proponents of that myriad of special causes). At least one of those special allocation programs is still in force today - special education.
Let me disclose here that my mom taught special ed for the bulk of her 30+ year career, only retired recently, and even still substitutes occasionally. Last week, she was a substitute, and the class of seven had only five students in attendance, with five teacher's aides present. One was so bored she spent her time reading a romance novel.
So my argument is that before we decide on funding levels, we need to seriously look at who best decides how the funding is spent. Do we continue to let the foxes guard the hen house? Or do we fund the hens to move out if they want? The smarter hens will move.
My hope is that the hens left behind will realize that they've been left to fend for themselves - and will actually do so.
Today, there is an unspoken agreement between the school system and clueless parents: we will take care of your children. But it is a lie, and one that won't be exposed as long as the current system is propped up. These same parents want to believe that as long as there is a War On Drugs their children are protected. Same fallacy, same solution: admit defeat, and announce loudly "Fend for yourselve people! You aren't stupid - protect your children! No one else will!"
Seems like a fair enough of a question, but it makes an incorrect assumption.
Both my parents were/are school teachers, and I have four cousins who are, also - so I have a bit of an insider view. My step-sons got treated very poorly by the public school system.
So my argument is: there is nothing first-rate about public education.
How about I pay less taxes, and let market forces weed out the worst schools? That is what vouchers bring to the table.
Then the kids that want a future will pursue schooling in some other (better, farther away) school. Having fought for it, it will mean more to them.
This is an improvement.
The kids that don't care about their future will stay home with mom or dad and watch TV and play videogames. Later, they will get a job at McDonalds, or get knocked up and subscribe to welfare. Around age 20 they will realize that they needed their schooling after all.
This isn't really any different than the status quo today.
With vouchers, there is at least the possibility that some capitalist venture will offer to teach the dropouts, in exchange for their voucher money. Best case is the student learns. Worst case is the student doesn't. The net effect will be: same results, less expense.
The book being reviewed said that it is absolutely imperative that mass-schools be replaced with neighborhood schools where the parents are the teachers, or at least choose the teachers. As the parent poster said:
Are voucher systems somehow the silver bullet? They sort of are."
America, previously land of the free, now home of the Corporate controlled puppet government run by lawyers with the best healthcare taxpayer money can buy.
It wasn't a/. article, but recently I received a piece of mail postmarked with an image of Shrek, coming from "Far, Far, Away".
The U.S. Post Office became a shill for Hollywood.
FWIW, ACS has data entry people in Ghana. Second largest employer in the country, too. ACS does the back-end IT on tons of stuff; you've probably used their services today and not even known it.
The other interesting thing is that ACS had a processing center in Mexico, and is moving it to Fiji. ACS chooses countries based on political stability, english language skills, and low labor costs. So either: Mexico's government has become unstable (doubt it), the english speaking labor has lost its ability to speak english (doubt it), or... labor in Mexico priced itself out of the market.
Slashdot Mirror
I have an acquaintance that, as a kid, was brought up on telephone system hacking charges. An interesting point about the evidence against him was that as soon as his data (or any signals instigated by him) touched the public network, it was evidence. He had no privacy - data on the public network is public data.
And in his case, the wiring inside the home is private, but as it leaves the home and hits the phone company junction box, it becomes public. The M.P.O.E. (Minimum Point Of Entry) is used by the phone company to exactly define that transition point.
Thus, it seems reasonable that the keystroke logger did not attach to the public network.
Of course there is the problem of how the data is extracted out of the keystroke logger - if it does involve remote access, that makes the issue murkier.
So I think the can of worms has only a hole in the lid, rather than having had the whole lid ripped off.
Not to be too picky, but your .sig should use the word "than" where you used the word "then".
And you are correct about electricity and mail, too. Flip side is, as the cost of living goes up in urban areas, (as you all become more affluent) you drive poor people into the rural areas. Its not a great change - I just compared Tulare County's expense for Public Assistance (38% of the budget) to Los Angeles County's, and L.A. still pays out 30%. Still, if the country must have a centralized welfare system, we get stuck with that burden. I did not compare additional costs, like health care, job training, etc. And you are correct - the rural counties will cost more to provide such services, because we will need six small campuses to provide service, instead of being able to get away with one large campus.
Truth to be told, I very much would like subsidies to be eliminated over time. There is a quote (that may be ficticious) that suggests the danger of subsidy driven government.
Anyway, you reminded me of something I had forgotten, and for that I thank you.
What is happening, is that someone wants to make a huge buck off the government, and some other set of bureaucrats are bored stiff, and want to play with something sexy.
"Oooh! Wouldn't it be cool if we implemented something like GPS Enabled Transponders, Reporting Every Vehicle Entry Now Using Expressway (G.E.T.R.E.V.E.N.U.E)??? Oooh! This'll be so cool."
Just making the vehicles pay by weight is boring. It also doesn't create a huge system for some outsourcer (or state bureaucrat empire-builder) to build, maintain, and abuse.
My tax dollars at work.
And people wonder why I'm a Libertarian.
The agriculture industry in the central San Joaquin Valley produces about 1/10 of the California "GDP". (That doesn't include the Imperial valley down around San Diego.)
10% of GDP is 10% of GDP, whether it comes from an urban area or a rural area.
The only place where lower taxes come into effect is the endpoint sales tax on groceries. Sales tax revenues are consumed locally - so you don't really lose.
FWIW, since Ag takes about 3% of the population to produce that 10% of GDP, we are actually more efficient than you: it's you who are the moocher.
If you really want to shift roads expenses to us rural people - go for it. But don't be surprised when the delivery cost on food becomes astronomical to you people who are so foolish to live so far away from it.
Maybe you want to let that sleeping dog lie, eh? Or, you can continue to stab at it with a sharp stick. What do your brains tell you?
I'd give them two hits: 1) writing a DOS & Windows redirector to add drive letters to a machine, putting the files on the network, and 2) Directory Services. That one logged into the network and not individual files servers (and wrangling all the near- realtime behind-the-scenes file system permissions to back it up) was ahead of its time.
Almost half a billion dollars seems like a lot of money, but compare that to the loss of customers: at one time, NetWare *was* 70% of all business networks (not the internet, obviously).
So what is that $536 Million? Something like 20 cents on the dollar?
Not that they could have gotten any more. I'm just saying, it is kind of like discounted severance pay: nice to have, but continued income would be better.
Fricken' idiots - and no, I won't be their customer any time this next century....
FWIW, I filled out a web form for "Contact US/CNN.COM" with the following question:
I hit "Search CNN.com" put in "badnarik" and submitted the search. Zero entries returned.
So what am I supposed to think about your news reporting?
Surely some of the ideas of the big two party candidates reported by CNN really only apply to 4% of the electorate. To exclude a candidate with 4% of the vote is tantamount to excluding a party position that matters to only 4% of the electorate. Do you do that?
Thanks!
It doesn't do the whole depth that you get inside your own GroupWise system - but you do get back a message that the remote MTA received the message.
You don't upstage the big party candidates by competing with them* for their precious big media time slot. You upstage them by holding your debate the day prior.
Ideally, you'd rent the very same hall the day prior, so the networks would save some money by pre-setting up their cameras and microphones - they wouldn't have to go to the expense of rolling out a duplicate set. Better yet, the news exposure would be good: Wednesday, Presidential Candidates X and Y debated, Thursday, A and B debated - and it all looks the same on the TV to Joe viewer.
Lastly, and the biggest win, would be that the debate prior is likely to give some journalist material (or at least an idea) to ask the big two kahunas. We all know that the War on Drugs or the National Debt won't be a question topic Thursday night. But if Candidates X and Y come out and say they have a solution, the possibility exists that Candidates A and B will at least be asked.
*And losing! Its one of those pride things: "Sure we're gonna lose, but if we won, it would be awesome man!
The other aspect is that due to the change in California labor law, we recently all changed to be hourly employees. So trading a half day Wednesday for a half day Saturday is good, as it means I'll still get 40 hours this week, and I didn't have to take it as vacation.
Lucky me, I have cool boss. ;-)
Mr. Cobb,
Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions submitted by us, the slashdot crowd. As members of the 'news for nerds, stuff that matters' faction, we recognize that 21st century media involves interactivity - which is exactly what slashdot provides.
But today, the USA Presidential election is won or lost by three forks of 20th century media: commercials, big media journalism, and debates. I understand that the Green Party does not have the funding to win on the TV and radio spot market. Big media journalism doesn't focus on the Green candidate much, because of a perceived lack of marketshare.
So my questions are: do you see any way of breaking into the Presidential race via public debate? What is the Green Party doing to promote the debates in which you do participate, to get the big media to ask the same questions of the two major party candidates?
Thank you very much for your time and attention.
Mr. Badnarik,
Thank you for taking the time to answer the questions submitted by us, the slashdot crowd. As members of the 'news for nerds, stuff that matters' faction, we recognize that 21st century media involves interactivity - which is exactly what slashdot provides.
But today, the USA Presidential election is won or lost by three forks of 20th century media: commercials, big media journalism, and debates. I understand that the Libertarian Party does not have the funding to win on the TV and radio spot market. Big media journalism doesn't focus on the Libertarian candidate much, because of a perceived lack of marketshare.
So my questions are: do you see any way of breaking into the Presidential race via public debate? What is the Libertarian Party doing to promote the debates in which you do participate, to get the big media to ask the same questions of the two major party candidates?
Thank you very much for your time and attention.
Sad thing was, the police were pretty sure they knew who did it - they just didn't have the evidence. A several months later, the (suspected) same guy killed a shop clerk at a mini-mart, trying to rob the place. At least the second time around, they caught him, had witnesses, and he went to jail for 17 years. He should be out now - lets pray the prisons ministries got to him.
I wouldn't have minded if the dad had killed the burglar during round one. But some people think resistance is wrong.
Let me disclose here that my mom taught special ed for the bulk of her 30+ year career, only retired recently, and even still substitutes occasionally. Last week, she was a substitute, and the class of seven had only five students in attendance, with five teacher's aides present. One was so bored she spent her time reading a romance novel.
So my argument is that before we decide on funding levels, we need to seriously look at who best decides how the funding is spent. Do we continue to let the foxes guard the hen house? Or do we fund the hens to move out if they want? The smarter hens will move.
My hope is that the hens left behind will realize that they've been left to fend for themselves - and will actually do so.
Today, there is an unspoken agreement between the school system and clueless parents: we will take care of your children. But it is a lie, and one that won't be exposed as long as the current system is propped up. These same parents want to believe that as long as there is a War On Drugs their children are protected. Same fallacy, same solution: admit defeat, and announce loudly "Fend for yourselve people! You aren't stupid - protect your children! No one else will!"
Both my parents were/are school teachers, and I have four cousins who are, also - so I have a bit of an insider view. My step-sons got treated very poorly by the public school system.
So my argument is: there is nothing first-rate about public education.
How about I pay less taxes, and let market forces weed out the worst schools? That is what vouchers bring to the table.
BTW, I'm a native Californian and still here too.
This is an improvement.
The kids that don't care about their future will stay home with mom or dad and watch TV and play videogames. Later, they will get a job at McDonalds, or get knocked up and subscribe to welfare. Around age 20 they will realize that they needed their schooling after all.
This isn't really any different than the status quo today.
With vouchers, there is at least the possibility that some capitalist venture will offer to teach the dropouts, in exchange for their voucher money. Best case is the student learns. Worst case is the student doesn't. The net effect will be: same results, less expense.
The book being reviewed said that it is absolutely imperative that mass-schools be replaced with neighborhood schools where the parents are the teachers, or at least choose the teachers. As the parent poster said:
I tend to agree.If your mouse cord is a problem, the solution is a proper desk. Get something with plenty of room on it - but that's the way I like it anyway.
Put another way, the network is your hard drive....
The last computer I used that wasn't on the net was getting DBAN'd for the junk heap, er, garage sale.
That's cool - I didn't know it could be done. Thanks!
The U.S. Post Office became a shill for Hollywood.
Pretty much sums it up, don't you think?
The other interesting thing is that ACS had a processing center in Mexico, and is moving it to Fiji. ACS chooses countries based on political stability, english language skills, and low labor costs. So either: Mexico's government has become unstable (doubt it), the english speaking labor has lost its ability to speak english (doubt it), or ... labor in Mexico priced itself out of the market.