NASA has a confirmed a theory of what took place post-Big Bang and time expansion.
Please don't use sensationalist and misleading headlines. Confirmation of a theory is tantamount to saying that it is proven. Given that this is scientific theory we're referring to, I don't think that's what you want to say. What you probably want to say is, "New evidence supports a Big Bang Theory".
What NASA actually says in their article is:
The WMAP team is announcing two major results: evidence for cosmic inflation, and confirmation of when stars first turned on. Both results depended on a combination of temperature and polarization data.
To put that into laymans terms, they have new data that agrees with old data and theories. That can be a good thing for the status of a theory. But let's be somewhat scientific here and not throw around statements that imply proven theories. This is, after all, supposed to be "News for Nerds".:-)
All you're doing is confusing the issue. The enforcement of the supoena goes only as far as the FBI/Police. If you start attacking citizens and enforcement officers of the USA, you will be taken out regardless of whether you have been subpoenaed or not.
The subpoena is ultimately enforced by the FBI or Police. The military defense of the United States is ultimately enforced by the US Military.
In other words, the one action does not correlate with the other. Attempting to force a logical correlation where none exists does not change that.
But my point remains, the ultimate force guaranteeing you will comply with a subpoena is the US army.
This doesn't seem to be sinking in. The US Army will not enforce the supoena. Plain and simple. Their job would be to blow you the hell away if you become a threat the United States of America. And even then, only under a state of Martial Law. The supoena has absolutely nothing to do with that matter, and would likely be voided anyway.
Even if we assume that the evidence requested by the supoena is still valid after such a revolution (one hell of a stretch, mind you), it would still be the job of the FBI or local Police to obtain it. The military would be required to withdraw so that law enforcement can procede without contamination.
Next time, pay more attention in your social studies class.
This comes back to the original question I posed. Is Google able to produce the evidence, or has the data already been de-indexed and/or purged? The GP for some reason thought it would be stupid if Google couldn't search for data that was no longer in their system.
If you manage to kill the FBI and local Police Force, then the US would have a lot more problems on its hands than just someone failing to respond to a subpoena.
Keep in mind that situations like Waco have happened throughout the FBI's history, going all the way back to the gangsters of the 20's. Having stockpiles of powerful munitions and arms is rarely sufficient to withstand a full out assault from well-equipped and well-trained FBI teams. The only reason why most situations take time to resolve is that the FBI desires a minimal loss of life.
Destroying complete police forces would mean that there was a war on our own soil. Thus the Army would be brought in for the common defense. By then, any subpoena would have been long forgotten and considered irrelevant to the situation. The US Troops would make zero effort to enforce the demand of the subpoena, and would actually invalidate the evidence if they did attempt enforcement.
This is Google - they better be able to search their own systems to find the messages!
* AKAImBatman LARTs MrWa upside the head
How do you expect them to search for data they've deleted? Google runs tens of thousands of computers. You want them to check the empty space on each and every one of them just in case that empty space might be an email from this guy? I have a hard time believing that even a judge could order such a massive disruption of a company's business just to look for a needle that may or may not be there.
I don't see why that's a "safe" assumption. The Google search engine churns through terabytes of data that can easily be recreated. That safety net allowed them to test their GoogleFS system before using it on other applications like Mail. GoogleFS was very much built around the concept that the system is its own backup. If any one PC in the cluster fails, they simply yank it and throw in another. No recovery is attempted on the old PC. They simply repair and wipe it if it's feasible, or junk it if it would cost too much time.
Thus in this guy's case, the matter will likely depend on whether Google explicitly maintains an index of deleted email and accounts, or if they simply "delete" things by removing the indexes and waiting until the various GoogleFS rebuilds wipe out the extra data.
Before you fly off the handle here, keep in mind that Google has only been ordered to produce the emails. What will be interesting is whether or not Google is able to produce the emails. If so, how many of them will they be able to retrieve? The subpoena itself - which is scary, but unfortunately a part of the legal system - is really secondary to this. A judge can't magically make deleted data reappear, no matter what they order. But if the data is not deleted... well... then your fears are fully justified.
I've always wondered if that clause was more of a CYA clause meant to get around the fact that plenty of stuff may remain in the GoogleFS for a period of time after it has been "deleted", but without a live index. The results here may very well show if that is true or not.
Ah, that's my mistake. I was thinking of Zonks "Is tech innovation dead?" comment, and had mistakenly thought that he used it as the headline. Just replace "headline" with "Zonk's comment" in my post, and everything should make more sense.
Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"
Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"
Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"
Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."
Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"
Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"
Personally, I think the Batmobiles down the road (BeOS) are kind of cool...:-P
Well, they should've just gone to my grandparents to learn about that, hands on, in practice.
That's more or less what the foreign farmers did. However, your grandparents are the recipients of tons of research from all the argricultural scientists, whether they know it or not. Everything from their seed stock, to their farm equipment, to their fertilizer has been boosted by argricultural scientists researching new ways of making farming more efficient. In most cases, they actually take their research to real farmers for testing before it makes its way into farming reports, recommendations, and products.
It's incredibly interesting how much work goes into making farms produce like they do. Especially how much of it is behind the scenes.
Not really if you look at the example of cars and airplanes. They really where hobbyist creations until WWI. Cars where not big business until Ford and his Model-T.
I have no idea where you're getting this from. Ever hear of Benz? Daimler? Maybach? Oldsmobile? All these companies were producing hundreds of cars before Ford ever entered the market. Even Cadillac (formed out of Ford's first, failed venture) beat Ford Motor Company to the market, netting itself about 2000 orders a mere 4 months after the first vehicles were produced.
As for airplanes, there were dozens of inventors who were competing with the Wrights to be the first to achieve powered flight. Even after the Wrights' flight, competition remained fierce as these different companies tried to build better planes to achieve sustained flight. Prizes like the Coupe d'Aviation Ernest Archdeaco and Grand Prix d'Aviation spurred development of the airplane to produce vehicles like Santos Dumont's 14-bis. By 1907, the first helicopter had flown.
By 1908, the Wright Brothers were offered to direct a French Flight School in Sarthe département, and later in Pau. They then returned to the states in 1909 and accepted a military contract for $30,000 to produce a plane that met the military's standards. Of course, they were by no means alone in the market. Here's a list of the pioneers and manufacturers who made early airplanes.
In other words, the car and airplane were hughly disruptive technologies. It took several years for critical mass to be reached (thus make it to the general public), but they were hot areas of research with tons of competition.
After WWI the aircraft manufacturers shrank back to small businesses.
The surplus planes from post WWI were flooded the market and temporarily met its needs. But by the mid-20's, investments into new technologies from Howard Hughes, Boeing, Lockheed, and others took hold in the rapid mail and passenger transport businesses. By the time of WWII, aircraft were far larger, more powerful, and capable of transatlantic flight.
I enjoy a good Microsoft bash (oh lololo m$ nevar innovates!!1!)
Good to know.
but your comment tells me you have probably no idea how commercial software works.
I'm not quite sure how this statement follows from your first. Do you like a joke or not? Maybe, just maybe, I was only joking?
The key is that it's an option that you (as the DB admin) can choose to turn off. The MySQL root account will also run with a blank password when you first install it from, say, Synaptic. It's up to you to tighten it down.
The reason why the root/sa passwords start blank is so you can configure the server immediately after installation. Using a default username/password of some sort (ala Oracle) wouldn't change the security situation to any appreciable degree, and only serves to force the DB administrator to look up the default every time he does an installation. (Which is likely to be rare enough to prevent him from memorizing it.)
Are you kidding me? That's Microsoft "innovation" at it's finest! Customers always complain to Microsoft that they can't remember their password. So Microsoft created an innovative new way to remember your password: Don't use one!
Only Microsoft can bring you incredible innovation like this.
You're only looking at their market penetration without looking at the disruption they caused. Each of those technologies resulted in an overnight industry of new companies trying to capitalize on the technology. In all cases, no critical mass would be achieved for several years, but massive amounts of money would be spent in the meanwhile.
What is more likely is that Mr. Donofrio suffers from failure of the imagination.
What I think he's really suffering from is a sensationalist headline (he never used those words) and a poor usage of terms. The Slashdot headline has neatly turned a complex issue into a "yes or no" question, when it is nothing of the sort.
First, let's define some terms here:
Innovation is the practice of making technology work better than it did before. e.g. Plastic soda bottles are an innovative improvement over glass.
Disruptive Technologies are rare technological discoveries that result in a complete change in the way we do things. e.g. steam power, trains, cars, airplanes and computers all resulted in sudden shifts in market ability.
After a disruptive technology hits the market, a tumultuous cycle of new businesses and old businesses betting their livelihood on the new technology is created. They compete fiercely for the attention of the early adopters, and very few emerge to be winners. Nearly everyone in this cycle "loses", but this is often ofset by the competitive advantage the technology provides in other areas of business. This was were computers were a decade or so ago. Before that, microelectronics were the disruptive technology that put Silicon Valley on the map.
Innovation, on the other hand, is usually about solving people's problems by applying technology in new and "innovative" ways. Most consumers may not think that a squeezable ketchup bottle is "innovative", but then they probably don't remember using a knife to get a flood of ketchup onto their plate.
The problem that Mr. Donofrio has is that he's using "innovation" to describe both innovative ideas and disruptive technology. Specificly, he's saying that computers are no longer a disruptive technology, and have entered a more stable period. He's basically correct.
Unfortunately, he doesn't understand that "the next big thing" will be a technology that probably has nothing to do with his business. For example, someone could invent an anti-gravity device tomorrow. The result would be another major disruption as shipping, transportation, space travel, and other industry raced to keep up with the disruption caused. So it will come, but he won't be able to predict its arrival.
Because you're used to something different? My wife is from Russia (I assume that's where you're from based on your URL), but I can't stand some of the stuff she thinks is tasty. (Homemade cottage cheese? Blech.)
Americans produce food that appeals to Americans. There's no big suprise there. However, most large communities tend to have ethnic stores that have foods that are closer to what you might be used to. So we do produce the stuff you like, but the average American isn't going to eat/drink it. I'd be honest to goodness amazed if you made a successful business out of selling Kvas as a general alternative to Coke.
Sure and my having a PhD in Mathematics in a farm based community has helped my opportunities.
Perhaps not, but having a PhD in farming would do wonders for your area. You'd be amazed at how much things like crop rotation, harvesting patterns, fertilizer distribution patterns, and new harvesting machines can have on improving yeild and quality. Having grown up in a farm community myself, I often witnessed farmers from other countries come over to the states to learn how to improve their own yields. Even the stuff being done in genetic testing of livestock can have profound effects on things like milk yeild and quality.
I feel honored by the fact that one of my earliest jobs allowed me to work directly alongside some of the cutting edge researchers in the farming industry. Without them, we'd still have trouble producing enough food for ourselves, much less 25% of the world's supply.
That was a retorical question intended to motivate the mods to wipe out the troll mod.
FWIW, I've had my own run-ins with Biblical issues on Slashdot. For example, this argument over whether GTA and the Bible are comparable. I've found that the key is to make your points clearly, and don't rush into an argument. (Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread, eh? I wish I'd keep that in mind more often.) And don't let the trolls pull you down. There are plenty of people who would love to get into a theological debate just for the sake of making you look stupid. Don't get dragged into that debate, "lest thou also be like unto him." Instead, it's best to call them on it, "lest they look wise in their own eyes." (Proverbs 26):-)
Agreed. The concerns you raise are pretty much the reasons why I'm withholding judgement on these devices. The technology is sound, and the cause is good, but politics and poor planning could easily screw up the entire plan.
That being said, we'll have to see how it plays out. The UN may completely botch the distribution of these devices, but that doesn't mean that many private organizations won't follow up with their own inititives. If the device really meets the needs as advertised, it could be just the thing these organizations have been looking for.
Slashdot Mirror
If you would be kind enough to look up a few posts above, you'll find out exactly what happened.
Look like you were in a big hurry to do some karma whoring and you neglected to even look at the story.
Looks like you were in such a big hurry to criticize that you weren't paying attention to the signs that the story changed.
To the editors, thank you for correcting the headline and text. Twice. :-)
Still, I'm not sure if "Reaffirms" is better. How about "More Evidence for Big Bang Theory." The text itself seems fine now.
NASA has a confirmed a theory of what took place post-Big Bang and time expansion.
Please don't use sensationalist and misleading headlines. Confirmation of a theory is tantamount to saying that it is proven. Given that this is scientific theory we're referring to, I don't think that's what you want to say. What you probably want to say is, "New evidence supports a Big Bang Theory".
What NASA actually says in their article is:
To put that into laymans terms, they have new data that agrees with old data and theories. That can be a good thing for the status of a theory. But let's be somewhat scientific here and not throw around statements that imply proven theories. This is, after all, supposed to be "News for Nerds".
All you're doing is confusing the issue. The enforcement of the supoena goes only as far as the FBI/Police. If you start attacking citizens and enforcement officers of the USA, you will be taken out regardless of whether you have been subpoenaed or not.
The subpoena is ultimately enforced by the FBI or Police. The military defense of the United States is ultimately enforced by the US Military.
In other words, the one action does not correlate with the other. Attempting to force a logical correlation where none exists does not change that.
But my point remains, the ultimate force guaranteeing you will comply with a subpoena is the US army.
This doesn't seem to be sinking in. The US Army will not enforce the supoena. Plain and simple. Their job would be to blow you the hell away if you become a threat the United States of America. And even then, only under a state of Martial Law. The supoena has absolutely nothing to do with that matter, and would likely be voided anyway.
Even if we assume that the evidence requested by the supoena is still valid after such a revolution (one hell of a stretch, mind you), it would still be the job of the FBI or local Police to obtain it. The military would be required to withdraw so that law enforcement can procede without contamination.
Next time, pay more attention in your social studies class.
This comes back to the original question I posed. Is Google able to produce the evidence, or has the data already been de-indexed and/or purged? The GP for some reason thought it would be stupid if Google couldn't search for data that was no longer in their system.
If you manage to kill the FBI and local Police Force, then the US would have a lot more problems on its hands than just someone failing to respond to a subpoena.
Keep in mind that situations like Waco have happened throughout the FBI's history, going all the way back to the gangsters of the 20's. Having stockpiles of powerful munitions and arms is rarely sufficient to withstand a full out assault from well-equipped and well-trained FBI teams. The only reason why most situations take time to resolve is that the FBI desires a minimal loss of life.
Destroying complete police forces would mean that there was a war on our own soil. Thus the Army would be brought in for the common defense. By then, any subpoena would have been long forgotten and considered irrelevant to the situation. The US Troops would make zero effort to enforce the demand of the subpoena, and would actually invalidate the evidence if they did attempt enforcement.
Demand ultimately backed by the force of the US Army.
I think you mean the FBI and/or local Police Force.
This is Google - they better be able to search their own systems to find the messages!
* AKAImBatman LARTs MrWa upside the head
How do you expect them to search for data they've deleted? Google runs tens of thousands of computers. You want them to check the empty space on each and every one of them just in case that empty space might be an email from this guy? I have a hard time believing that even a judge could order such a massive disruption of a company's business just to look for a needle that may or may not be there.
I would think that they have Google Backup.
I don't see why that's a "safe" assumption. The Google search engine churns through terabytes of data that can easily be recreated. That safety net allowed them to test their GoogleFS system before using it on other applications like Mail. GoogleFS was very much built around the concept that the system is its own backup. If any one PC in the cluster fails, they simply yank it and throw in another. No recovery is attempted on the old PC. They simply repair and wipe it if it's feasible, or junk it if it would cost too much time.
Thus in this guy's case, the matter will likely depend on whether Google explicitly maintains an index of deleted email and accounts, or if they simply "delete" things by removing the indexes and waiting until the various GoogleFS rebuilds wipe out the extra data.
Before you fly off the handle here, keep in mind that Google has only been ordered to produce the emails. What will be interesting is whether or not Google is able to produce the emails. If so, how many of them will they be able to retrieve? The subpoena itself - which is scary, but unfortunately a part of the legal system - is really secondary to this. A judge can't magically make deleted data reappear, no matter what they order. But if the data is not deleted... well... then your fears are fully justified.
I've always wondered if that clause was more of a CYA clause meant to get around the fact that plenty of stuff may remain in the GoogleFS for a period of time after it has been "deleted", but without a live index. The results here may very well show if that is true or not.
Ah, that's my mistake. I was thinking of Zonks "Is tech innovation dead?" comment, and had mistakenly thought that he used it as the headline. Just replace "headline" with "Zonk's comment" in my post, and everything should make more sense.
Reminds me of the Auto Dealers Metaphor:
Personally, I think the Batmobiles down the road (BeOS) are kind of cool...
Well, they should've just gone to my grandparents to learn about that, hands on, in practice.
That's more or less what the foreign farmers did. However, your grandparents are the recipients of tons of research from all the argricultural scientists, whether they know it or not. Everything from their seed stock, to their farm equipment, to their fertilizer has been boosted by argricultural scientists researching new ways of making farming more efficient. In most cases, they actually take their research to real farmers for testing before it makes its way into farming reports, recommendations, and products.
It's incredibly interesting how much work goes into making farms produce like they do. Especially how much of it is behind the scenes.
Not really if you look at the example of cars and airplanes. They really where hobbyist creations until WWI. Cars where not big business until Ford and his Model-T.
I have no idea where you're getting this from. Ever hear of Benz? Daimler? Maybach? Oldsmobile? All these companies were producing hundreds of cars before Ford ever entered the market. Even Cadillac (formed out of Ford's first, failed venture) beat Ford Motor Company to the market, netting itself about 2000 orders a mere 4 months after the first vehicles were produced.
As for airplanes, there were dozens of inventors who were competing with the Wrights to be the first to achieve powered flight. Even after the Wrights' flight, competition remained fierce as these different companies tried to build better planes to achieve sustained flight. Prizes like the Coupe d'Aviation Ernest Archdeaco and Grand Prix d'Aviation spurred development of the airplane to produce vehicles like Santos Dumont's 14-bis. By 1907, the first helicopter had flown.
By 1908, the Wright Brothers were offered to direct a French Flight School in Sarthe département, and later in Pau. They then returned to the states in 1909 and accepted a military contract for $30,000 to produce a plane that met the military's standards. Of course, they were by no means alone in the market. Here's a list of the pioneers and manufacturers who made early airplanes.
In other words, the car and airplane were hughly disruptive technologies. It took several years for critical mass to be reached (thus make it to the general public), but they were hot areas of research with tons of competition.
After WWI the aircraft manufacturers shrank back to small businesses.
The surplus planes from post WWI were flooded the market and temporarily met its needs. But by the mid-20's, investments into new technologies from Howard Hughes, Boeing, Lockheed, and others took hold in the rapid mail and passenger transport businesses. By the time of WWII, aircraft were far larger, more powerful, and capable of transatlantic flight.
I enjoy a good Microsoft bash (oh lololo m$ nevar innovates!!1!)
Good to know.
but your comment tells me you have probably no idea how commercial software works.
I'm not quite sure how this statement follows from your first. Do you like a joke or not? Maybe, just maybe, I was only joking?
The key is that it's an option that you (as the DB admin) can choose to turn off. The MySQL root account will also run with a blank password when you first install it from, say, Synaptic. It's up to you to tighten it down.
The reason why the root/sa passwords start blank is so you can configure the server immediately after installation. Using a default username/password of some sort (ala Oracle) wouldn't change the security situation to any appreciable degree, and only serves to force the DB administrator to look up the default every time he does an installation. (Which is likely to be rare enough to prevent him from memorizing it.)
Yeash. Way to spoil a joke.
Are you kidding me? That's Microsoft "innovation" at it's finest! Customers always complain to Microsoft that they can't remember their password. So Microsoft created an innovative new way to remember your password: Don't use one!
Only Microsoft can bring you incredible innovation like this.
That's a self-referential paradox, not a recursive statement. The grandparent is an example of a recursive statement.
You're only looking at their market penetration without looking at the disruption they caused. Each of those technologies resulted in an overnight industry of new companies trying to capitalize on the technology. In all cases, no critical mass would be achieved for several years, but massive amounts of money would be spent in the meanwhile.
That's self-referential, not recursive. One does not immediately imply the other. GNU, on the other hand, is recursive.
What is more likely is that Mr. Donofrio suffers from failure of the imagination.
What I think he's really suffering from is a sensationalist headline (he never used those words) and a poor usage of terms. The Slashdot headline has neatly turned a complex issue into a "yes or no" question, when it is nothing of the sort.
First, let's define some terms here:
Innovation is the practice of making technology work better than it did before. e.g. Plastic soda bottles are an innovative improvement over glass.
Disruptive Technologies are rare technological discoveries that result in a complete change in the way we do things. e.g. steam power, trains, cars, airplanes and computers all resulted in sudden shifts in market ability.
After a disruptive technology hits the market, a tumultuous cycle of new businesses and old businesses betting their livelihood on the new technology is created. They compete fiercely for the attention of the early adopters, and very few emerge to be winners. Nearly everyone in this cycle "loses", but this is often ofset by the competitive advantage the technology provides in other areas of business. This was were computers were a decade or so ago. Before that, microelectronics were the disruptive technology that put Silicon Valley on the map.
Innovation, on the other hand, is usually about solving people's problems by applying technology in new and "innovative" ways. Most consumers may not think that a squeezable ketchup bottle is "innovative", but then they probably don't remember using a knife to get a flood of ketchup onto their plate.
The problem that Mr. Donofrio has is that he's using "innovation" to describe both innovative ideas and disruptive technology. Specificly, he's saying that computers are no longer a disruptive technology, and have entered a more stable period. He's basically correct.
Unfortunately, he doesn't understand that "the next big thing" will be a technology that probably has nothing to do with his business. For example, someone could invent an anti-gravity device tomorrow. The result would be another major disruption as shipping, transportation, space travel, and other industry raced to keep up with the disruption caused. So it will come, but he won't be able to predict its arrival.
Because you're used to something different? My wife is from Russia (I assume that's where you're from based on your URL), but I can't stand some of the stuff she thinks is tasty. (Homemade cottage cheese? Blech.)
Americans produce food that appeals to Americans. There's no big suprise there. However, most large communities tend to have ethnic stores that have foods that are closer to what you might be used to. So we do produce the stuff you like, but the average American isn't going to eat/drink it. I'd be honest to goodness amazed if you made a successful business out of selling Kvas as a general alternative to Coke.
Sure and my having a PhD in Mathematics in a farm based community has helped my opportunities.
Perhaps not, but having a PhD in farming would do wonders for your area. You'd be amazed at how much things like crop rotation, harvesting patterns, fertilizer distribution patterns, and new harvesting machines can have on improving yeild and quality. Having grown up in a farm community myself, I often witnessed farmers from other countries come over to the states to learn how to improve their own yields. Even the stuff being done in genetic testing of livestock can have profound effects on things like milk yeild and quality.
I feel honored by the fact that one of my earliest jobs allowed me to work directly alongside some of the cutting edge researchers in the farming industry. Without them, we'd still have trouble producing enough food for ourselves, much less 25% of the world's supply.
That was a retorical question intended to motivate the mods to wipe out the troll mod.
:-)
FWIW, I've had my own run-ins with Biblical issues on Slashdot. For example, this argument over whether GTA and the Bible are comparable. I've found that the key is to make your points clearly, and don't rush into an argument. (Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread, eh? I wish I'd keep that in mind more often.) And don't let the trolls pull you down. There are plenty of people who would love to get into a theological debate just for the sake of making you look stupid. Don't get dragged into that debate, "lest thou also be like unto him." Instead, it's best to call them on it, "lest they look wise in their own eyes." (Proverbs 26)
Agreed. The concerns you raise are pretty much the reasons why I'm withholding judgement on these devices. The technology is sound, and the cause is good, but politics and poor planning could easily screw up the entire plan.
That being said, we'll have to see how it plays out. The UN may completely botch the distribution of these devices, but that doesn't mean that many private organizations won't follow up with their own inititives. If the device really meets the needs as advertised, it could be just the thing these organizations have been looking for.