USPS has very strict government regulations regarding privacy.
That, and $1.65, will get you a cup of coffee at Denny's.
My dad was active in politics in his younger days, and someone at the USPS opened read every letter that came from party headquarters. The local postmaster could not have cared less, being from the other party....
Would you like spam with that?
Government is business, backwards: they aren't customers, they're cases. They aren't opportunities, they're burdens. To properly fight spam, we'll have to raise your taxes....
Re:How to take care of the situation you describe
on
Copyright as Cudgel
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· Score: 1
I noticed a number of (reasoned) replies against this post, and wanted to place one reply in favor of this post. Mostly, the worry is that we give up too much by giving up government control of business. I would suggest three points: 1) Government costs way too much. 2) Businesses are not all powerful - especially if they lose government backing. 3) Society is changing with this 21st century generation of kids - shifting power back to individuals.
1) I have worked in government for twelve years - five of those directly in the Health Department. Health = good, right? Except that of the 425+ people in the Health Department, only three (3) were doing work that directly affected the Public Good and were doing something Only Government Could Do. The other 99.3% were fluff - half were in the Doctor's Office business, a quarter were in the Advertising business, and a quarter were in the Enforcement business. I could go on a real diatribe here - but I'll spare you all that.;-) Suffice it to say that 99% of all government is crap. Note that you won't hear that from big media because government supplies them with money and content. Government schools aren't going to teach this either.
2) Is Firestone selling you tires that cause your Ford to roll over? Don't buy 'em. Did Sony sell you a CD that won't play in your PC? Take it back. They won't refund your money? Get a clue, don't buy any of their products ever again and tell your friends. Is your boss making you work 96 hours a week? What do you expect the government to do about it? At best, you take your employer to court and really piss them off - now where are you? The point I am trying to make is that government endorsement adds no value to you, the person conducting a transaction with a business - and the supposed protections they provide are largely illusory.
3) P2P networks and instant messaging with memory will fundamentally change business - and the 21st century generation will be immersed in P2P IM w/M. The old school activism/consumerism is by way of mouth: " I heard Disney and Levi jeans are pro-homosexual; boycott 'em." or "Did you know that the wife of a board member of Black and Decker is the head of the leading anti-gun group?" or "Denny's restaurants have built up a history of treating black patrons very badly." or "Clorox donated $5,000 to the local anti-smoking group - and they used to money to get that law passed that says you can't even smoke outside." The point is that people already vote with their dollars toward or against causes - they just have (fallible) memory to rely on to guide them. Enter the wired world.
Currently, if you look at the idea of web-rings, it isn't too much of a stretch to see that P2P networks will implement 'circles-of-trust'. Your reputation will live (or die) based on how well you maintain trust within the circles. IM within those circles is a natural. Combine IM with software agents that look up brands, and bad businesses have very much to fear - and good businesses will rejoice. Notice the government involvement in this equation? None. HOORAY!
Getting back toward the topic: by voting for government to control business, you force business to work with government. Thus you give teeth to government that businesses can only solve by buying them off. These strange bedfellows will soon become partners. All you have to do is look at the RIAA, MPAA and the DMCA. And finally, on topic: the article says the result of current copyright legislation is that government can provide businesses with DMCA protection against you and your circles' "slander".
I was glad the article mentioned the things that can be done: writing your own representative; supporting the EFF and the Digital Future Coalition; and, looking for legislation from Rep. Rick Boucher "...who is considering introducing legislation that would temper the more censorious aspects of the DMCA.". It's a start. But IMHO, the only real way to go is to work toward a government that is no longer allowed to 'regulate or subsidize business, so that businesses will realize it's no longer possible or necessary to buy politicians in order to obtain special favors or exemptions from proposed legislation.'
Um... Al Queda took out the World Trade Centers because, as a country, the USA pissed them off (first). So how is bombing a bunch of Columbians going to make us safer?
Let's see:
The drug lords that escape will be mighty pissed, and well funded.
The poor people that sponge off the drug lords won't exactly be happy either....
Nor will their widows, widowers, and orphans....
The current Columbian government will just love us for stopping one of the countries sources of revenue....
Other Anti-USA extremist groups will gain even more support as they rally against the bully.
The country has commercial demand for their product; war against the suppliers is a losing proposition. Seriously, if you wipe out the Columbian drug lords, what makes you think their replacements won't move to Mexico? (BTW, already in progress).
Either we should legalize these drugs or we should fight a full-scale war. This half-assed bullshit that we're doing now is just not going anywhere.
I agree we should legalize these drugs. But here is the current situation: as long as citizens feel good that the government is 'doing something' about the drug problem, then the results don't matter. We don't care that it is half-assed bullshit that is just not going anywhere. Legalizing drugs is just too hard. Sure, the killing of DEA agents would stop if the obscene profits of illicit trade vanished. Heck, 70% of the US courts and prisons would go away. Yes, drug use would go up if the stuff were legalized tomorrow. If drugs were legalized, big business would want the ability to fire all the stoners at will. - Whoa! Personal responsibility? Forget that! Let's just stick with the phoney war on drugs, ok?
Reading the article, you get a feel for just how much money is involved. That is the problem. It seems so obvious and it ruins lives. A young gang member told his math teacher (a friend of mine) "I don't need to learn this math crap. I'm going to be a drug dealer!" Can anyone see the kid saying "I don't need to learn this math crap. I'm going to be a beer dealer!"? Take out the profit, and you take out the allure. Give business free reign to fire your drug using ass, and drug use will go down, too. But war against business people filling a business demand is worse than fruitless, it is expensive.
Box-like building blocks of program pieces, there are really only three fundamental pieces: loops, if statements, and other (single) operations.
It was interesting, designing the program flowchart, and then writing the source code - and then going back and drawing the boxes around printout of the source code, re-creating the flowchart! The idea was that structure of the flowchart matched the structure of the program flow, and that the flowchart really could (with very little syntax tweaking) be the source code.
I do not understand why we aren't writing programs by dragging and dropping Nassi-Schneiderman blocks into an IDE that then prompts for the parameters of the piece. Put a 3-D visualizer/modeler on the thing and you should have a proveably correct code generator that would make the 20th century seem truly archaic.
I think you got it right. Another way of putting it is that Cappelas and Fiorina found a way to create Envelope 2.5 in the classic Three Envelopes joke regarding incompetent management.
It is sad, really. They were once a great company.
Over the last two decades, I have seen co-workers or acquaintences purchase six different IBM minicomputer systems (System/3x through AS/400). Every single time, the box was half as powerful as it needed to be. It seems, that to compete against the HP minis, the IBM guy would quote a (too-) small box, because then his price quote came in cheaper. He often won the quote.
He knew that after the box was put in production (months and many man-hours into the implementation) - people would pay for a hardware upgrade instead scrapping, restarting and switching to HP.
The last time we had to buy hardware, we doubled our expected demand on the box, just to get the real answer from the IBM salesman.
For some strange reason, all our new system platforms are Intel based....
Well, if your political leanings are pro-government and anti-business, I can see where you might want to promote this idea. I feel a need to rebut, however. I too, work with government, and know better than to assume total incompetence from isolated cases of incompetence. Libertarians harp about the government because of 1) power, 2) motive, and 3) reach.
The article warns people of the increase in private businesses collecting their demographic data. This is a good warning. But it does not bother me much, because I trust business more than I trust government.
Power:I choose to allow private business to have my data (or not). I always have the option of finding a business wants my money more than my identity. With the government, supplying identity is not optional, and you have no recourse. A huge part of government can be described as the business of 'case management for the public good.' And that 'public good' is often in the hands of someone that has no motivation to agree with me. The power in the transaction rests with the case worker / officer / collector / bureaucrat / inspector / counselor - because they know that your compliance is more important than your satisfaction. You do not have a choice to select a different 'provider'.
Motive: both private business and government are motivated to growth. At least with business, the motivation is overt. This means they will use the data to solicit my business. I don't see any reason to fear this - my participation is voluntary. Government may claim to be motivated by something other than growth; but a quick reality check corrects this.
Reach: For the most part, private business does not benefit by sharing data. Because of the nature of competition with other businesses, the data won't be shared nearly as much - which reduces my concern about its disemination. However, government collaboration is natural and good for growth. How much more powerful does an organization become if they can revoke your driver's license? Put a lien on your property for charges you did not authorize? Liquidate your estate in probate court? (Yes, I know - this power affects heirs, not self; but the point is one of reach - the government has a huge one.) The outreach / education divisions must share their findings with the enforcement divisions when the public good is at stake.
It seems to me a business that collects demographics is less able to do very much with that data, than governments. With business, my patronage motivates their action. With government, well...
"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan 1965
I disagree with the claim that the private sector poses the real risk to privacy. Schools have forever held 'the yellow sheet' in the student's record. (The yellow sheet is for a teacher's private notes to future teachers, and is to be removed before the record is handed to the parent or student). If you send an angry letter to some agency's office - they keep it in case it is useful later. I've seen discussions by government employees regarding investigation and monitoring of citizens with annoying political views. I have not seen or heard of these practices in the private sector - and I would not expect them, because they would be bad for business.
I vote Libertarian because I believe in the voting process, and I want my vote counted toward candidates the truly believe in smaller government.
Can you claim to be a programmer that knows RPG*? If so, then yes.
*Report Program Generator - and old IBM mainframe language, still used on the AS/400 platform. One step above assembly language, you can see the wiring boards in the language. If those of us don't qualify, no-one does.;-)
Although I agree with you, I could not help but remember a couple of ironic items.
...does not mean it is public, no more than postal mail being handled by a dozen different postal workers, makes postal mail public.
Thirty years ago, my dad was a semi-high mucky-muck in California in one of the two big political parties. I remember vivdly following him as a little kid to the mailbox and watching him burst into rage as yet another envelope arrived opened and read by some local postal worker. The only ones that were read were the ones from the party headquarters. Unfortunately, complaints to the postmaster were ignored. The solution was easy - they changed the return address so that mail from headquarters could not be identified. But it did make a lasting impression on me - 'the postal service was not, as they claimed, trustworthy'. In essence, my dad was in the 'wrong' party, and thereby 'defined as a criminal' (so to speak). (I have purposely avoided saying which political party it was, because it would be too easy for members of the other party to blow it off, saying 'well of course - those jerks deserved it.')
The problem is what, exactly, gets defined as criminal.
Indeed. And it appears that the government of China has their answer: everyone who might complain.
Yeah, you're right, the people should. They should be able to trust the government, and should vote accordingly when the government betrays its ideals. Unfortunately, you're describing a functional constitutional-democratic-republic, not the United States, here.
I've said it before, and I will say it again. I work in government, and I can tell you: elected officials may come and go, but bureaucrats are forever.
On a lighter note, I am also an email administrator for a local government. Thankfully, the only time we go snooping into people's email accounts is for discovery due to legal matters. And even that has only happened four times in six years.
IBM was faced with a simlar problem when they came out with the RISC version of the AS/400 hardware. They needed to re-write, but they had to maintain absolute compatibility. I think the articles describing this were in Dr. Dobb's Journal (although I might be wrong on this). Unfortunately, I do not have URL's for this.
One of the success factors they found was documenting the interfaces for each and every call between modules. The documentation turned out to be excruciatingly precise - but this led to zero ambiguity (and thus 100% interoperability). It also required meetings (sometimes arguments) between programmers to hash out what was actually going to happen. Another factor was that they decided to allow zero 'overloading' of functions by different modules. A programmer was not allowed to duplicate someone else's work, nor create a second, incompatible version of a function provided in a different module. If the function was provided by someone else's module, the programmer had to call it (properly). The result was that they reaped the benefit of object oriented programming - reuse and refinement of modular libraries.
It would be better if you could get the real scoop from the real programmers - but this might give you something to think about.
The version number was a mistake on my part. I knew he used the first version out, and I knew that Microsoft did not call the first release version one. Back on topic, do you think that most computer science students know that Microsoft will name their products version three to ward off the consumer's uncertainty of implementing version one? And if so, would that change their perception of the product or the company?
About two months ago, we had a server that was having problems seeing its partitions after moving to 'dynamic' storage from 'basic'. Our Windows expert took his best crack at it, but couldn't get it to play right. (This guy has been using Windows NT since version 3.0 and knows his stuff). He said that the problem is that the conversion is a one way path - no backtracking. So we finally break down, and pay Microsoft for a support incident. The technician we get puts us through all the basic steps, and doesn't know how to fix it. So he says 'convert from dynamic to basic', to which we reply "are you sure? Are you really, really sure?"
We do it. Server is trashed.
Well, we kick ourselves because we should have known better than to trust someone else with a really big problem. One of our managers wants a refund, though. And Microsoft tech support says no. Their position is that they did provide support - just not very good support. Specifically, they cannot guarantee results (which is reasonable). Still, the ill will they have instilled in us is substantial. Goes to show the point made in the article: with a lack of real experience, all people will know is what they heard from the marketing guys.
The first time I got paid for programming was at the circuit board shop where I worked. In 1984 management had to choose between spending $30K to expand the fab room to hold 15 people, or spend $90K on a NC (Numerical Control) router (profiler). They chose the NC router. I mention it, because the computer part of it was this six foot tall 19" rack cabinet holding - you guessed it - a Z80, paper tape reader, and 8" floppy drive. I got to be their first programmer, and learned the whole M-code and G-code language for the machine. Never did delve into the assembly language stuff, though.
FWIW, this machine removed all doubt that robots were superior to people for repetitive high-precision work (which was a real issue with some labor unions at that time). Not only did the fab department get all its work done with only two people - but the machine could do fancy curves and whole panel work that was just not possible by hand. Interestingly, the programmers of the system made a big deal about how the CPU had to compute a logarithmic slow down of the slew rate of the X- and Y- axis gears when going into or coming out of the bottoms of curves. I guess they had to calculate that by hand in Z80 assembly language.:-)
I wish I could remember the name of that machine. We got two Excellon drills at the same time ($100K each) and those were run by General Automation computers. But the router/profiler was by someone else.
"apparently if you cry wolf long enough you get promoted."
Elected officials may come and go, but bureaucrats are forever.
I work in government and can tell you that any idea will get pushed though, if the one person behind it is motivated enough.
Re:Important to read about jet fires.
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 1
Although you are correct, that the jet fuel will catch fire, the point that I failed to make was that a smaller, contained ball of fire would cause less damage than huge sheets of fire. I thought that tests of foam filled fuel tanks have already been done, and the result was that the fuel in the center of the foam ball-chunk couldn't burn until it seeped out to the outside, where the oxygen is. This effectivly slowed down the rate of combustion.
You are correct, putting the fire out is nearly impossible - but I would like to assert that any control over burning jet fuel is better than the alternative.
Re:The Buildings - The Fuel
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More WTC News
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· Score: 1
What I had heard about was a technology of building the fuel tanks where 10% of the space in the tank was taken up by foam. So instead of a water balloon, you have a watermelon. The foam does not prevent the fuel from draining slowly, but it does have the structural strength to keep the ball together (or at least localized to a few chunks).
My point is that if the mass of the fuel can be contained, it would have more momentum. As you watched the videos, you saw the jet go in one side of the building, and a spray of burning fuel go out the other. And it went out all over the place. My theory is that fewer chunks of flaming destruction would have been less trouble than wide-sprayed flaming destruction.
True enough, I do not know that this would have been the savior of the building. And I think you are correct about the running the finite element modeling tests. However, I think that fuel cell (foam filled tank) test have already been run by various insurance companies, and the results were that the fire was much less spread / much more contained.
Re:The Buildings - The Fuel
on
More WTC News
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· Score: 5, Interesting
"CHOCK-FULL-O-FUEL" - exactly. I have heard almost nothing of the usual hew-and-cry regarding fuel cells for jetliners. Every time a jetliner goes down, and the fuel tanks do the Molatov cocktail thing, there is usually a cry 'It doesn't have to be this way!' And then the airline industry whines 'but it will cost so much!'
I, for one, think enough is enough. If these tanks were filled with foam, there is a good chance the momentum of the things would have carried the fuel tanks out the other side of the building and the buildings would not have fallen. They fell because of fire; and fuel cells greatly minimize fire.
I certainly would not mind if the/. forums were integrated with a real nntp server. My email client has the ability to talk to multiple nntp servers - and that would be more convenient for me than the web interface. (And no, I do not know / want to know how to retrofit some home built news client, thank you.) Unfortunately, the moderation actions of the/. community wouldn't work. Anyone have an idea of how to merge the two worlds?
Yes, I was thinking of contacting NetFlix, and other DVD rental services, along the same lines. My statement will be "If you warn me which ones have commercials, then I will sign up for your service." Don't know how effective one consumer will be, but at least I can make myself feel better this way. Besides, one of the services might even come through. {:-}
I know that the FCC, through license renewals, can make life hard on broadcasters that 'inflict' unwanted (inappropriate or obscene) material on unsuspecting listeners / viewers. Similarly, content that people pay for (movies and music) often are voluntarily rated by the producer. However, you have seen that a disorganized free market usually loses to an organized monopoly or cartel (the Microsoft case). The movie and entertainment industries have gotten DCMA passed, and the FCC is being asked to facilitate the movement to HDTV and (copy-controlled) digital formats and protocols.
My question relates to copy control in the current environment. The latest scheme in DVD encoding is to force-run commercials when the DVD is inserted into the player.
I just learned this; the DVD of High Fidelity by Touchstone Home Video forced the playback of commercials on me of several other movies. When I tried to fast-forward past this involuntarily-inflicted-upon-me tripe, the DVD player responded with "Operation prohibited now."
This galls me.
(It actually ruined my whole movie watching experience this evening. I did not pay the rental fee to be subjected their dirt. At least with VHS, fast-forward works.) Now that I know that the movie producers are willing to use copy control to force upon me unwanted material, I would like the option to boycott these types of DVDs. Obviously, the producers won't warn me about this type of content. So I have two questions: 1) What remedies do I have available to keep me free from the abuse of copy-control? (other than to bend over and grab my ankles) and 2) What do you think the FCC's role is in copy-control? Advocate? Enforcer? And which aspects for which sides? People grumble about mandatory labeling on products, but for me, this type of 'government interference' is a good thing.
Feel free to comment on where you see the future going with soon-to-be online movie rental and real-time video delivery.
I agree. I also put my money where my mouth is, and just bought an analog TV. It should be my last for many years. I am not going HDTV until 1) copy control schemes fail in the marketplace or 2) the FCC / MPAA removes all choice in the matter.
FWIW, Montgomery Wards is going out of business, and have 60" projection TV's at a discount. This was the lowest cost option for me, because shipping costs were less than by internet purchase.
I too think this is an excellent question. I would also ask "To what extent do you think the public treasury must implement full disclosure; and by what means?"
Wouldn't hurt to mention that this is a/. audience.
Slashdot Mirror
My dad was active in politics in his younger days, and someone at the USPS opened read every letter that came from party headquarters. The local postmaster could not have cared less, being from the other party....
Would you like spam with that?
Government is business, backwards: they aren't customers, they're cases. They aren't opportunities, they're burdens. To properly fight spam, we'll have to raise your taxes....
1) I have worked in government for twelve years - five of those directly in the Health Department. Health = good, right? Except that of the 425+ people in the Health Department, only three (3) were doing work that directly affected the Public Good and were doing something Only Government Could Do. The other 99.3% were fluff - half were in the Doctor's Office business, a quarter were in the Advertising business, and a quarter were in the Enforcement business. I could go on a real diatribe here - but I'll spare you all that. ;-) Suffice it to say that 99% of all government is crap. Note that you won't hear that from big media because government supplies them with money and content. Government schools aren't going to teach this either.
2) Is Firestone selling you tires that cause your Ford to roll over? Don't buy 'em. Did Sony sell you a CD that won't play in your PC? Take it back. They won't refund your money? Get a clue, don't buy any of their products ever again and tell your friends. Is your boss making you work 96 hours a week? What do you expect the government to do about it? At best, you take your employer to court and really piss them off - now where are you? The point I am trying to make is that government endorsement adds no value to you, the person conducting a transaction with a business - and the supposed protections they provide are largely illusory.
3) P2P networks and instant messaging with memory will fundamentally change business - and the 21st century generation will be immersed in P2P IM w/M. The old school activism/consumerism is by way of mouth: " I heard Disney and Levi jeans are pro-homosexual; boycott 'em." or "Did you know that the wife of a board member of Black and Decker is the head of the leading anti-gun group?" or "Denny's restaurants have built up a history of treating black patrons very badly." or "Clorox donated $5,000 to the local anti-smoking group - and they used to money to get that law passed that says you can't even smoke outside ." The point is that people already vote with their dollars toward or against causes - they just have (fallible) memory to rely on to guide them. Enter the wired world.
Currently, if you look at the idea of web-rings, it isn't too much of a stretch to see that P2P networks will implement 'circles-of-trust'. Your reputation will live (or die) based on how well you maintain trust within the circles. IM within those circles is a natural. Combine IM with software agents that look up brands, and bad businesses have very much to fear - and good businesses will rejoice. Notice the government involvement in this equation? None. HOORAY!
Getting back toward the topic: by voting for government to control business, you force business to work with government. Thus you give teeth to government that businesses can only solve by buying them off. These strange bedfellows will soon become partners. All you have to do is look at the RIAA, MPAA and the DMCA. And finally, on topic: the article says the result of current copyright legislation is that government can provide businesses with DMCA protection against you and your circles' "slander".
I was glad the article mentioned the things that can be done: writing your own representative; supporting the EFF and the Digital Future Coalition; and, looking for legislation from Rep. Rick Boucher "...who is considering introducing legislation that would temper the more censorious aspects of the DMCA.". It's a start. But IMHO, the only real way to go is to work toward a government that is no longer allowed to 'regulate or subsidize business, so that businesses will realize it's no longer possible or necessary to buy politicians in order to obtain special favors or exemptions from proposed legislation.'
I can't believe this article wasn't posted 9.4 dekades ago.
Let's see:
- The drug lords that escape will be mighty pissed, and well funded.
- The poor people that sponge off the drug lords won't exactly be happy either....
- Nor will their widows, widowers, and orphans....
- The current Columbian government will just love us for stopping one of the countries sources of revenue....
- Other Anti-USA extremist groups will gain even more support as they rally against the bully.
The country has commercial demand for their product; war against the suppliers is a losing proposition. Seriously, if you wipe out the Columbian drug lords, what makes you think their replacements won't move to Mexico? (BTW, already in progress).Either we should legalize these drugs or we should fight a full-scale war. This half-assed bullshit that we're doing now is just not going anywhere.
I agree we should legalize these drugs. But here is the current situation: as long as citizens feel good that the government is 'doing something' about the drug problem, then the results don't matter. We don't care that it is half-assed bullshit that is just not going anywhere. Legalizing drugs is just too hard. Sure, the killing of DEA agents would stop if the obscene profits of illicit trade vanished. Heck, 70% of the US courts and prisons would go away. Yes, drug use would go up if the stuff were legalized tomorrow. If drugs were legalized, big business would want the ability to fire all the stoners at will. - Whoa! Personal responsibility? Forget that! Let's just stick with the phoney war on drugs, ok?
Reading the article, you get a feel for just how much money is involved. That is the problem. It seems so obvious and it ruins lives. A young gang member told his math teacher (a friend of mine) "I don't need to learn this math crap. I'm going to be a drug dealer!" Can anyone see the kid saying "I don't need to learn this math crap. I'm going to be a beer dealer!"? Take out the profit, and you take out the allure. Give business free reign to fire your drug using ass, and drug use will go down, too. But war against business people filling a business demand is worse than fruitless, it is expensive.
It was interesting, designing the program flowchart, and then writing the source code - and then going back and drawing the boxes around printout of the source code, re-creating the flowchart! The idea was that structure of the flowchart matched the structure of the program flow, and that the flowchart really could (with very little syntax tweaking) be the source code.
I do not understand why we aren't writing programs by dragging and dropping Nassi-Schneiderman blocks into an IDE that then prompts for the parameters of the piece. Put a 3-D visualizer/modeler on the thing and you should have a proveably correct code generator that would make the 20th century seem truly archaic.
Sigh - oh to be twenty again....
It is sad, really. They were once a great company.
He knew that after the box was put in production (months and many man-hours into the implementation) - people would pay for a hardware upgrade instead scrapping, restarting and switching to HP.
The last time we had to buy hardware, we doubled our expected demand on the box, just to get the real answer from the IBM salesman.
For some strange reason, all our new system platforms are Intel based....
The article warns people of the increase in private businesses collecting their demographic data. This is a good warning. But it does not bother me much, because I trust business more than I trust government.
Power: I choose to allow private business to have my data (or not). I always have the option of finding a business wants my money more than my identity. With the government, supplying identity is not optional, and you have no recourse. A huge part of government can be described as the business of 'case management for the public good.' And that 'public good' is often in the hands of someone that has no motivation to agree with me. The power in the transaction rests with the case worker / officer / collector / bureaucrat / inspector / counselor - because they know that your compliance is more important than your satisfaction. You do not have a choice to select a different 'provider'.
Motive: both private business and government are motivated to growth. At least with business, the motivation is overt. This means they will use the data to solicit my business. I don't see any reason to fear this - my participation is voluntary. Government may claim to be motivated by something other than growth; but a quick reality check corrects this.
Reach: For the most part, private business does not benefit by sharing data. Because of the nature of competition with other businesses, the data won't be shared nearly as much - which reduces my concern about its disemination. However, government collaboration is natural and good for growth. How much more powerful does an organization become if they can revoke your driver's license? Put a lien on your property for charges you did not authorize? Liquidate your estate in probate court? (Yes, I know - this power affects heirs, not self; but the point is one of reach - the government has a huge one.) The outreach / education divisions must share their findings with the enforcement divisions when the public good is at stake.
It seems to me a business that collects demographics is less able to do very much with that data, than governments. With business, my patronage motivates their action. With government, well...
I disagree with the claim that the private sector poses the real risk to privacy. Schools have forever held 'the yellow sheet' in the student's record. (The yellow sheet is for a teacher's private notes to future teachers, and is to be removed before the record is handed to the parent or student). If you send an angry letter to some agency's office - they keep it in case it is useful later. I've seen discussions by government employees regarding investigation and monitoring of citizens with annoying political views. I have not seen or heard of these practices in the private sector - and I would not expect them, because they would be bad for business.
I vote Libertarian because I believe in the voting process, and I want my vote counted toward candidates the truly believe in smaller government.
*Report Program Generator - and old IBM mainframe language, still used on the AS/400 platform. One step above assembly language, you can see the wiring boards in the language. If those of us don't qualify, no-one does. ;-)
On a lighter note, I am also an email administrator for a local government. Thankfully, the only time we go snooping into people's email accounts is for discovery due to legal matters. And even that has only happened four times in six years.
Some articles (and all posts) just scream to be rendered only with the teletype font.
One of the success factors they found was documenting the interfaces for each and every call between modules. The documentation turned out to be excruciatingly precise - but this led to zero ambiguity (and thus 100% interoperability). It also required meetings (sometimes arguments) between programmers to hash out what was actually going to happen. Another factor was that they decided to allow zero 'overloading' of functions by different modules. A programmer was not allowed to duplicate someone else's work, nor create a second, incompatible version of a function provided in a different module. If the function was provided by someone else's module, the programmer had to call it (properly). The result was that they reaped the benefit of object oriented programming - reuse and refinement of modular libraries.
It would be better if you could get the real scoop from the real programmers - but this might give you something to think about.
The version number was a mistake on my part. I knew he used the first version out, and I knew that Microsoft did not call the first release version one. Back on topic, do you think that most computer science students know that Microsoft will name their products version three to ward off the consumer's uncertainty of implementing version one? And if so, would that change their perception of the product or the company?
We do it. Server is trashed.
Well, we kick ourselves because we should have known better than to trust someone else with a really big problem. One of our managers wants a refund, though. And Microsoft tech support says no. Their position is that they did provide support - just not very good support. Specifically, they cannot guarantee results (which is reasonable). Still, the ill will they have instilled in us is substantial. Goes to show the point made in the article: with a lack of real experience, all people will know is what they heard from the marketing guys.
FWIW, this machine removed all doubt that robots were superior to people for repetitive high-precision work (which was a real issue with some labor unions at that time). Not only did the fab department get all its work done with only two people - but the machine could do fancy curves and whole panel work that was just not possible by hand. Interestingly, the programmers of the system made a big deal about how the CPU had to compute a logarithmic slow down of the slew rate of the X- and Y- axis gears when going into or coming out of the bottoms of curves. I guess they had to calculate that by hand in Z80 assembly language. :-)
I wish I could remember the name of that machine. We got two Excellon drills at the same time ($100K each) and those were run by General Automation computers. But the router/profiler was by someone else.
Elected officials may come and go, but bureaucrats are forever.
I work in government and can tell you that any idea will get pushed though, if the one person behind it is motivated enough.
You are correct, putting the fire out is nearly impossible - but I would like to assert that any control over burning jet fuel is better than the alternative.
My point is that if the mass of the fuel can be contained, it would have more momentum. As you watched the videos, you saw the jet go in one side of the building, and a spray of burning fuel go out the other. And it went out all over the place. My theory is that fewer chunks of flaming destruction would have been less trouble than wide-sprayed flaming destruction.
True enough, I do not know that this would have been the savior of the building. And I think you are correct about the running the finite element modeling tests. However, I think that fuel cell (foam filled tank) test have already been run by various insurance companies, and the results were that the fire was much less spread / much more contained.
I, for one, think enough is enough. If these tanks were filled with foam, there is a good chance the momentum of the things would have carried the fuel tanks out the other side of the building and the buildings would not have fallen. They fell because of fire; and fuel cells greatly minimize fire.
I certainly would not mind if the /. forums were integrated with a real nntp server. My email client has the ability to talk to multiple nntp servers - and that would be more convenient for me than the web interface. (And no, I do not know / want to know how to retrofit some home built news client, thank you.) Unfortunately, the moderation actions of the /. community wouldn't work. Anyone have an idea of how to merge the two worlds?
Yes, I was thinking of contacting NetFlix, and other DVD rental services, along the same lines. My statement will be "If you warn me which ones have commercials, then I will sign up for your service." Don't know how effective one consumer will be, but at least I can make myself feel better this way. Besides, one of the services might even come through. {:-}
My question relates to copy control in the current environment. The latest scheme in DVD encoding is to force-run commercials when the DVD is inserted into the player.
I just learned this; the DVD of High Fidelity by Touchstone Home Video forced the playback of commercials on me of several other movies. When I tried to fast-forward past this involuntarily-inflicted-upon-me tripe, the DVD player responded with "Operation prohibited now."
This galls me.
(It actually ruined my whole movie watching experience this evening. I did not pay the rental fee to be subjected their dirt. At least with VHS, fast-forward works.) Now that I know that the movie producers are willing to use copy control to force upon me unwanted material, I would like the option to boycott these types of DVDs. Obviously, the producers won't warn me about this type of content. So I have two questions: 1) What remedies do I have available to keep me free from the abuse of copy-control? (other than to bend over and grab my ankles) and 2) What do you think the FCC's role is in copy-control? Advocate? Enforcer? And which aspects for which sides? People grumble about mandatory labeling on products, but for me, this type of 'government interference' is a good thing.
Feel free to comment on where you see the future going with soon-to-be online movie rental and real-time video delivery.
Thanks in advance for your time and insight.
FWIW, Montgomery Wards is going out of business, and have 60" projection TV's at a discount. This was the lowest cost option for me, because shipping costs were less than by internet purchase.
That's right, coming to a movie theater near you: C.R.U.D - Cannibalistic Robotic Underground Dwellers!
Who says they don't eat meat?
I too think this is an excellent question. I would also ask "To what extent do you think the public treasury must implement full disclosure; and by what means?"
/. audience.
Wouldn't hurt to mention that this is a