It's got a more bureaucratically pleasant name on the paystub.
The chief complaints I have about it are a) the federal-level intrusion into individual income (somewhat understandable, given the period in which the idea was born), and b) the binding of the individual to the government. Dependencies suck, in policy as well as code.
Good - We shouldn't be using SSNs for identification (not even what they are intended for).
Maybe the ACLU could start claiming that Social Security is a civil liberty violation.
I don't think we'll ever get the US populace off that crack, but we could at least be honest, labeling the tax "a tax", and stop the crappy accounting sophistries.
The hammer is an inanimate object. With skill and obstinance, a wrench could have been used to build the house, as well.
And thats the point: the database is a tool that makes the difference between catching some criminals and letting them get away scot-free. The title of the story is exactly right.
Note that you want it both ways: either
"database is a tool that makes the difference" which makes the difference, or
"Database Finds Fugitive After 35 Years", to which I object: the database, an unconscious piece of software, is incapable of "knowing" what "finding" means.
The reason I find it unsettling is that, as is so frequently the case, we anthropomorphize, empower, and enshrine the means so much that our now-godlike-means are ends unto themselves. "Can't accomplish X, it's not in the database!". Technology, in general, is often a shield to mask non-accomplishment.
Overall, my point is that understanding the difference between means, ends, and the real motivators for events is a Good Thing, and that mushing the concepts together is a step in the direction of cretinism.
The title off the post is irritating.
The database did nothing. It is a process running on a computer. Information flows in, (potentially useful) information flows out, a suspected criminal is arrested. One could as well claim that the piping system in a house effected the drowning of someone. Water flowed in, water flowed out, and someone died.
The database is just an occasionally useful tool. The code for it is written by people, and the outputs are intrepreted and acted upon by people.
Could we eschew this slipshod causal analysis?
But encouraging people to raise an alarm every time they're spooked only squanders our security resources and makes no one safer.
Metrics, man: metrics!
We've got to kick up the number of calls to the hotline, the number of alerts, and number of actual deployments of personnel, or we can't argue for more staff, and no one gets promoted.
You think you know something of security? What about JOB security, mister?
Government is big business, and this is how we grow the market share, along with retirement and health care.
The fact that the economy gets a little trashed along the way will no doubt bother our great-grandchildren, or so.
At what point does balance, itself, become a foolish consistency, sir?
Sometimes a unit step function delivered to the fundament helps overcome static friction.
No offense taken; your observation is correct.
OTOH, if you are afraid to crank up the gain a little bit, you end up with the UN.
To quote Margaret Thatcher from a US Naval Academy speech around 15 years ago, "Consensus is the absence of leadership."
I wouldn't say that, but, when people need to be able to collaborate on and share a presentation, this is a fairly cheap way.
Wish is was available around a year ago. Had to do a group presentation for a class, divided it, and got all of the project members on Gmail so we could work on it as a Google document.
The real challenge was American laziness. Punks wouldn't work on it until their backs were against the wall, at which time the old MS Office reflexes kicked in, and we used PowerPuke.
You can lead the horse to the water, but it had better be a fire-hydrant-delivered enema if it's hydration you're after.
Oh, so people can set up a business based on information control?
Look, three credit reporting agencies (in the US), with a several hundred dollar/multiple hour investment required just to correct their non-command of database management, is a notable example of why this idea draws vacuum.
Your point is a good one, but the tension here is not the why but the what.
Joe User wants (the what) simple booklet printing, for example.
The fact that Person A hacks the kernel, whereas Person B hacks CUPS (the why) amounts to minutia.
No, this just proves that, for certain empirical cases, the difference between theory and practice is smaller in practice than certain other theoretically challenged cases: in other words, this one is rather similar, while still remaining slightly different.
Not a bad idea. We can probably make major inroads in the struggle for universal health care and other government-managed social safety net products in parallel with this enhanced emphasis on security.
More seriously, what about Priceline, CheapTickets, etc., whose business model is predicated upon people being able to do spontaneous things?
Is TSA going to tell you that, sorry, you can't see your dying mother because you moved too far to drive and she didn't give sufficient notice about her sudden illness?
Some security/useability line is being crossed here.
Or, he made the Wrong Mike Foxtrot look bad: Ivan: Igor, get in here and tell me why I have all of this spam in my Inbox. I told you last week to send it all to Dick Cheney, and now it is here. Do you say I look like Dick Cheney? Igor: I spoke last week to Alexy with words. I will now use something in a higher caliber.
Slashdot Mirror
Thought she was Ann Flatable.
Perhaps the /. article text, itself, was produced by Android.
Nonsense. Space has already been claimed by RMS as an inferior Emacs process.
It's got a more bureaucratically pleasant name on the paystub.
The chief complaints I have about it are a) the federal-level intrusion into individual income (somewhat understandable, given the period in which the idea was born), and b) the binding of the individual to the government. Dependencies suck, in policy as well as code.
Got radio head?
Listen, Fred:
RF containment
Could leave you dead
Drop the insulation
And broadcast, instead.
Burma Shave
I don't think we'll ever get the US populace off that crack, but we could at least be honest, labeling the tax "a tax", and stop the crappy accounting sophistries.
Calls for a Debby Boone moment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn4Kfvxczs0
Of course not, but, consider: if all the information were in plain view, society might be considerably more peaceful, no?
Note that you want it both ways: either
- "database is a tool that makes the difference" which makes the difference, or
- "Database Finds Fugitive After 35 Years", to which I object: the database, an unconscious piece of software, is incapable of "knowing" what "finding" means.
The reason I find it unsettling is that, as is so frequently the case, we anthropomorphize, empower, and enshrine the means so much that our now-godlike-means are ends unto themselves. "Can't accomplish X, it's not in the database!". Technology, in general, is often a shield to mask non-accomplishment.Overall, my point is that understanding the difference between means, ends, and the real motivators for events is a Good Thing, and that mushing the concepts together is a step in the direction of cretinism.
The title off the post is irritating.
The database did nothing. It is a process running on a computer. Information flows in, (potentially useful) information flows out, a suspected criminal is arrested. One could as well claim that the piping system in a house effected the drowning of someone. Water flowed in, water flowed out, and someone died.
The database is just an occasionally useful tool. The code for it is written by people, and the outputs are intrepreted and acted upon by people.
Could we eschew this slipshod causal analysis?
We've got to kick up the number of calls to the hotline, the number of alerts, and number of actual deployments of personnel, or we can't argue for more staff, and no one gets promoted.
You think you know something of security? What about J O B security, mister?
Government is big business, and this is how we grow the market share, along with retirement and health care.
The fact that the economy gets a little trashed along the way will no doubt bother our great-grandchildren, or so.
At what point does balance, itself, become a foolish consistency, sir?
Sometimes a unit step function delivered to the fundament helps overcome static friction.
No offense taken; your observation is correct.
OTOH, if you are afraid to crank up the gain a little bit, you end up with the UN.
To quote Margaret Thatcher from a US Naval Academy speech around 15 years ago, "Consensus is the absence of leadership."
You mean "Al Gore's Immaculate Inception", before it was destroyed by all these meddling kids and their global warming.
I wouldn't say that, but, when people need to be able to collaborate on and share a presentation, this is a fairly cheap way.
Wish is was available around a year ago. Had to do a group presentation for a class, divided it, and got all of the project members on Gmail so we could work on it as a Google document.
The real challenge was American laziness. Punks wouldn't work on it until their backs were against the wall, at which time the old MS Office reflexes kicked in, and we used PowerPuke.
You can lead the horse to the water, but it had better be a fire-hydrant-delivered enema if it's hydration you're after.
Look, three credit reporting agencies (in the US), with a several hundred dollar/multiple hour investment required just to correct their non-command of database management, is a notable example of why this idea draws vacuum.
'Crats to the left of me
'Cans to the right
Stuck in the middle, see
Keep that chin bright:
Burma Shave
Don't the overrated mods come when someone who's Friended the poster mods them up?
Thought it was an anti-crony device.
Domo arigato
Your point is a good one, but the tension here is not the why but the what.
Joe User wants (the what) simple booklet printing, for example.
The fact that Person A hacks the kernel, whereas Person B hacks CUPS (the why) amounts to minutia.
No, this just proves that, for certain empirical cases, the difference between theory and practice is smaller in practice than certain other theoretically challenged cases: in other words, this one is rather similar, while still remaining slightly different.
Demonstrating stability can also be relationship-forming.
There is a vast difference between erratic and erotic.
Not a bad idea. We can probably make major inroads in the struggle for universal health care and other government-managed social safety net products in parallel with this enhanced emphasis on security.
More seriously, what about Priceline, CheapTickets, etc., whose business model is predicated upon people being able to do spontaneous things?
Is TSA going to tell you that, sorry, you can't see your dying mother because you moved too far to drive and she didn't give sufficient notice about her sudden illness?
Some security/useability line is being crossed here.
Or, he made the Wrong Mike Foxtrot look bad:
Ivan: Igor, get in here and tell me why I have all of this spam in my Inbox. I told you last week to send it all to Dick Cheney, and now it is here. Do you say I look like Dick Cheney?
Igor: I spoke last week to Alexy with words. I will now use something in a higher caliber.
Aw, c'mon; they'll let you have IE7 on pirated Windows,
there's Vista,
Office2007's improved interfeces, and, of course,
OOXML!
What of Redmond's products couldn't possibly overcome all the ill will in the universe?