A lot of Congressman Putnam's phraseology in the beginning of the article sounds comforting, but this bit bothers me:
"[The threat is] not nearly as sexy, or as engaging, or as interesting as the threats that are posed by terrorists boarding aircraft, or terrorists threats to the Brooklyn Bridge... or to Disney World, and so the cyber threat has taken a back seat to the physical threat. I think that is a dangerously lopsided approach to homeland security."
I'm not usually given to hyperbole (and in this I differ from the Congressman), but terrorist threats to aircraft, the Brooklyn Bridge, or Disney World are not sexy, engaging, OR interesting. They are scary. The fact that the Congressman downplays these issues for the sake of raising the cyber-security issue makes me wonder if the Congressman's motives are to be trusted. Why should a U.S. Congressman be using such language against the people who are trying to prevent U.S. citizens, residents, and guests from getting blown up?
I am supported in the supposition Congressman Putnam may not have everyone's best interest at heart by the fact that he is 28 years old. While some might think his youth might work in favor of computer users, I instead think what we have here is a pretty young person who simply understands computers better than his senior colleagues in Congress (and perhaps only slightly better....after all, he majored in Food and Consumer Resources in college). Said young person could be trying to make a name for himself by playing up an issue his elders can't handle or won't be bothered with because of their age and perhaps lack of experience in the area. Putnam has held state or federal office as a legislator since he was 21 years old. To me, an attraction to power of that sort is not reflective of someone who is apt to be balanced, or thoughtful, or careful. It, his above tirade, and his use of the "Pearl Harbor" metaphor speaks of someone driven by a powerful ambition. If you aren't a constituent, I seriously doubt any contact letter will make a lick of difference (notice on the contact page that the only state given as a choice is Florida).
I think the thing to do here is keep and eye on Congressman Putnam, and then start emailing our OWN Congressman, if Congressman Putnam tries to pull one over on us in the name of National Cyber-security.
According to the officer who taught a traffic school class I had to take in Arizona, the GPS Nav systems are illegal, too, as are screens for rear-view video cameras mounted on big RVs. As with most laws regarding technology, the Arizona legislation seems a little weak on fine distinctions.
My questions are, "Why aren't statutes that govern reckless driving good enough? Why do need the additional laws?"
There are those of us in the archaeology profession who dedicate their entire careers to studying the processes behind the collapse of civilizations. The critical thing that Diamond fails to recognize is his own hidebound ethnocentric assumption about what collapse actually is. The examples he uses in his discussions (the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi, the Maya) have one major thing in common: the fact that commonplace Euro-American historical accounts treat these societies as if they "disappeared."
Diamond seems to accept such a premise in spite of strong archaeological evidence that it is nonsense. The descendants of the Classic Period Maya, the Anasazi, and all his other examples are all very much alive today and most still live on or near the ancestral lands from which they supposedly "vanished" centuries ago.
Folks who have thought about this issue for a little longer than Diamond recognize continuity between groups that may have undergone major socio-economic changes resulting from systemic conflicts between they way people made their living and the stresses that the natural or cultural environment could handle. So, instead of collapse, what we are really talking about is *reorganization.* Seen in this light, the Civil War could be viewed as a major period of such reorganization...in which the Federalist system "collapsed" and was replaced by the National system. This example points out another omission of Diamond's, namely that some societies, such as the Mississippian Chiefdoms of the southeastern US, shifted organization in the presence of abundant natural resources and collapsed sheerly as the result of conflicting social forces.
In sum, I would take any of Diamond's work with an entire shaker of salt grains, recognizing his tendency toward ethnocentrism and environmental determinism.
Instead, here are a few sometimes thick, but much more cogent resources on collapse and reorganization.
Culbert, T. Patrick (editor)
1972 The Classic Maya Collapse. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Yoffee, Norman and George L. Cowgill 1988 The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, edited by N. Yoffee and G. L. Cowgill, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Weiss, H., M. -A. Courty, W. Wetterstrom, F. Guichard, L. Senior, R. Meadow and A. Curnow
1993 The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millenium North Mesopotamian Civilization. Science 261:995-1004.
Blanton, Richard E., Stephen A. Kowalewski, Gary M. Feinman and Laura M. Finsten
1993 Ancient Mesoamerica. Second ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
If this lady is the sort of person that will be attracted to Linux if Linux is made easier to use then I think the current situation is fine. Keep Linux hard to use because that will keep these ungrateful brats away from Linux.,
......sooooo, I guess it is safe for us to assume that your livelihood does not depend on Linux gaining marketshare in the desktop category?
....and so, too will be this post because I didn't check in at Slashdot soon enough.
Nevertheless, I do think there is something to be said for some of the quiet films that have been made about working-class American families. Some got good reviews in their time, and some even won Oscars, but now they seem forgotten.
Without further ado, my faves in this category are:
1. The Straight Story - true story about a guy who heals old hurts between he and his brother by riding a John Deere lawn tractor from central Iowa to southern Wisconsin.
2. The Milagro Bean Field War - a story those of us who live in the west only wish was true about local landowners giving rich white-bread developers the finger.
3. Ulee's Gold - a Dad whose kids have gone wrong, perhaps because of his quiet nature. There's some strength behind that quiet and perhaps that will ultimately pay off.
4. Ruby in Paradise - I believe this is Ashley Judd's premiere film. A nice southern girl with a shithead family heads off to the Panama City to start her new life.
5. Mississippi Masala - A young Denzel Washington plays a commercial carpet cleaner who falls in love with the daughter of an Indian hotel owner who has been exiled from Zimbabwe. Difficulties ensue.
So, these movies all end well, have family themes, and my affection for them points me out as a big sap.
The world really needs a few more Carl Sagans. Ever since his passing, there's really no one willing to responsibly "popularize" science.
The world needs a damn sight more than "a few more" Carl Sagans. I'm an archaeologist, and though archaeology isn't exactly a science, it suffers from the same kind of problems that most sciences do - namely, that most of its practicioners become so deeply invested in whatever esoteric topic that their research is directly concerned with, that they forget how to connect the little piece they are working on back to the big picture. Moreover, they then also fail to communicate the importance of the big picture back to general audiences.
Archaeology is a particularly interesting example of this phenomenon. After all, archaeology is all about exploration and the understanding of the ancient past, right? What could be more interesting? Nevertheless, only about.01% of what is actually happening in archaeology ever makes it into the popular press. The media does bear a measure of the blame, as many archaeologists dread talking to reporters who often seem to be listening to their own preconceptions more than they are listening to us. Still, archaeologists could overcome such problems by learning to be more effective communicators....and yet we do not. If you have a Ph.D., or any job of responsibility is a science or science-related field, you should be trying to become a Carl Sagan, at least part-time.
For those in Geographic and Spatial Analysis fields, Arc/INFO, produced by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) is *the* industry standard software package. Although ESRI claims that its software will always be supportive of UNIX and will always be an open package, the reality is that the majority of their development efforts are going into software for Windows platforms. My fiancé has a MAC with OS X, and I would happily make all my machines LINUX boxes, but the fact is that as long as ESRI develops for Microsoft, my biggest, shiniest machine will be running Win2k or its most recent flavor.
Speaking as an academic who just wishes he was a geek, I would say that, if you want to do the Science thing (and I do worry about people who capitalize the "S"), the most important thing is that you consider the context of where you work. Depending on the school you end up at, your experiences are likely to vary. If you start looking for a university job, you need to investigate the institutional culture of the schools to which you apply. At my undergrad alma mater, I have several extremely competent IT buddies (sysadmins for the email system that serves 40K plus users, etc). who could be quite rich by now, but for the fact that they could not be dragged away from their academic jobs. Part of it is that they just like Athens, GA., but part of it is that, among the staff at least (and some faculty, too), there was a can-do attitude....a willingness to cooperate toward a higher purpose. Some of that came from the fact that the state government committed lots of money to IT in the higher education system..so folks weren't quarreling over scarce resources. But some of it was simply culture.
If you end up in a specific academic department, you may be overqualified....especially if it is social science, not hard science. Some (but not all) professors are going to be jerks to you and many of your tasks may be menial (I hope you like hardware upgrades). The important thing is that you can serve them...even contribute to what they are doing, while having the rest of the staff and the cool profs. as a lifeline. If see an institution where there aren't lots of cross-departmental friendships and relationships, and a large number of people treat their job as a personal fiefdom, head the other way. These are things you can find out by keeping your eyes open while job hunting. When you interview, I encourage you to talk to as many profs. and staff members as they will allow you to. This is the best way to collect intelligence.
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of Congressman Putnam's phraseology in the beginning of the article sounds comforting, but this bit bothers me:
... or to Disney World, and so the cyber threat has taken a back seat to the physical threat. I think that is a dangerously lopsided approach to homeland security."
"[The threat is] not nearly as sexy, or as engaging, or as interesting as the threats that are posed by terrorists boarding aircraft, or terrorists threats to the Brooklyn Bridge
I'm not usually given to hyperbole (and in this I differ from the Congressman), but terrorist threats to aircraft, the Brooklyn Bridge, or Disney World are not sexy, engaging, OR interesting. They are scary. The fact that the Congressman downplays these issues for the sake of raising the cyber-security issue makes me wonder if the Congressman's motives are to be trusted. Why should a U.S. Congressman be using such language against the people who are trying to prevent U.S. citizens, residents, and guests from getting blown up?
I am supported in the supposition Congressman Putnam may not have everyone's best interest at heart by the fact that he is 28 years old. While some might think his youth might work in favor of computer users, I instead think what we have here is a pretty young person who simply understands computers better than his senior colleagues in Congress (and perhaps only slightly better....after all, he majored in Food and Consumer Resources in college). Said young person could be trying to make a name for himself by playing up an issue his elders can't handle or won't be bothered with because of their age and perhaps lack of experience in the area. Putnam has held state or federal office as a legislator since he was 21 years old. To me, an attraction to power of that sort is not reflective of someone who is apt to be balanced, or thoughtful, or careful. It, his above tirade, and his use of the "Pearl Harbor" metaphor speaks of someone driven by a powerful ambition. If you aren't a constituent, I seriously doubt any contact letter will make a lick of difference (notice on the contact page that the only state given as a choice is Florida).
I think the thing to do here is keep and eye on Congressman Putnam, and then start emailing our OWN Congressman, if Congressman Putnam tries to pull one over on us in the name of National Cyber-security.
According to the officer who taught a traffic school class I had to take in Arizona, the GPS Nav systems are illegal, too, as are screens for rear-view video cameras mounted on big RVs. As with most laws regarding technology, the Arizona legislation seems a little weak on fine distinctions.
My questions are, "Why aren't statutes that govern reckless driving good enough? Why do need the additional laws?"
There are those of us in the archaeology profession who dedicate their entire careers to studying the processes behind the collapse of civilizations. The critical thing that Diamond fails to recognize is his own hidebound ethnocentric assumption about what collapse actually is. The examples he uses in his discussions (the Easter Islanders, the Anasazi, the Maya) have one major thing in common: the fact that commonplace Euro-American historical accounts treat these societies as if they "disappeared."
Diamond seems to accept such a premise in spite of strong archaeological evidence that it is nonsense. The descendants of the Classic Period Maya, the Anasazi, and all his other examples are all very much alive today and most still live on or near the ancestral lands from which they supposedly "vanished" centuries ago.
Folks who have thought about this issue for a little longer than Diamond recognize continuity between groups that may have undergone major socio-economic changes resulting from systemic conflicts between they way people made their living and the stresses that the natural or cultural environment could handle. So, instead of collapse, what we are really talking about is *reorganization.* Seen in this light, the Civil War could be viewed as a major period of such reorganization...in which the Federalist system "collapsed" and was replaced by the National system. This example points out another omission of Diamond's, namely that some societies, such as the Mississippian Chiefdoms of the southeastern US, shifted organization in the presence of abundant natural resources and collapsed sheerly as the result of conflicting social forces.
In sum, I would take any of Diamond's work with an entire shaker of salt grains, recognizing his tendency toward ethnocentrism and environmental determinism.
Instead, here are a few sometimes thick, but much more cogent resources on collapse and reorganization.
Culbert, T. Patrick (editor)
1972 The Classic Maya Collapse. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
Yoffee, Norman and George L. Cowgill
1988 The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations, edited by N. Yoffee and G. L. Cowgill, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Weiss, H., M. -A. Courty, W. Wetterstrom, F. Guichard, L. Senior, R. Meadow and A. Curnow
1993 The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millenium North Mesopotamian Civilization. Science 261:995-1004.
Blanton, Richard E., Stephen A. Kowalewski, Gary M. Feinman and Laura M. Finsten
1993 Ancient Mesoamerica. Second ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Funny, except that the most powerful men in America are actually named "Donald," "Dick," and "Paul."
If this lady is the sort of person that will be attracted to Linux if Linux is made easier to use then I think the current situation is fine. Keep Linux hard to use because that will keep these ungrateful brats away from Linux.,
......sooooo, I guess it is safe for us to assume that your livelihood does not depend on Linux gaining marketshare in the desktop category?
....and so, too will be this post because I didn't check in at Slashdot soon enough.
Nevertheless, I do think there is something to be said for some of the quiet films that have been made about working-class American families. Some got good reviews in their time, and some even won Oscars, but now they seem forgotten.
Without further ado, my faves in this category are:
1. The Straight Story - true story about a guy who heals old hurts between he and his brother by riding a John Deere lawn tractor from central Iowa to southern Wisconsin.
2. The Milagro Bean Field War - a story those of us who live in the west only wish was true about local landowners giving rich white-bread developers the finger.
3. Ulee's Gold - a Dad whose kids have gone wrong, perhaps because of his quiet nature. There's some strength behind that quiet and perhaps that will ultimately pay off.
4. Ruby in Paradise - I believe this is Ashley Judd's premiere film. A nice southern girl with a shithead family heads off to the Panama City to start her new life.
5. Mississippi Masala - A young Denzel Washington plays a commercial carpet cleaner who falls in love with the daughter of an Indian hotel owner who has been exiled from Zimbabwe. Difficulties ensue.
So, these movies all end well, have family themes, and my affection for them points me out as a big sap.
The world really needs a few more Carl Sagans. Ever since his passing, there's really no one willing to responsibly "popularize" science.
.01% of what is actually happening in archaeology ever makes it into the popular press. The media does bear a measure of the blame, as many archaeologists dread talking to reporters who often seem to be listening to their own preconceptions more than they are listening to us. Still, archaeologists could overcome such problems by learning to be more effective communicators....and yet we do not. If you have a Ph.D., or any job of responsibility is a science or science-related field, you should be trying to become a Carl Sagan, at least part-time.
The world needs a damn sight more than "a few more" Carl Sagans. I'm an archaeologist, and though archaeology isn't exactly a science, it suffers from the same kind of problems that most sciences do - namely, that most of its practicioners become so deeply invested in whatever esoteric topic that their research is directly concerned with, that they forget how to connect the little piece they are working on back to the big picture. Moreover, they then also fail to communicate the importance of the big picture back to general audiences.
Archaeology is a particularly interesting example of this phenomenon. After all, archaeology is all about exploration and the understanding of the ancient past, right? What could be more interesting? Nevertheless, only about
For those in Geographic and Spatial Analysis fields, Arc/INFO, produced by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) is *the* industry standard software package. Although ESRI claims that its software will always be supportive of UNIX and will always be an open package, the reality is that the majority of their development efforts are going into software for Windows platforms. My fiancé has a MAC with OS X, and I would happily make all my machines LINUX boxes, but the fact is that as long as ESRI develops for Microsoft, my biggest, shiniest machine will be running Win2k or its most recent flavor.
Habeus Haiku
is religious fallacy
To work, ALL must play
Speaking as an academic who just wishes he was a geek, I would say that, if you want to do the Science thing (and I do worry about people who capitalize the "S"), the most important thing is that you consider the context of where you work. Depending on the school you end up at, your experiences are likely to vary. If you start looking for a university job, you need to investigate the institutional culture of the schools to which you apply. At my undergrad alma mater, I have several extremely competent IT buddies (sysadmins for the email system that serves 40K plus users, etc). who could be quite rich by now, but for the fact that they could not be dragged away from their academic jobs. Part of it is that they just like Athens, GA., but part of it is that, among the staff at least (and some faculty, too), there was a can-do attitude....a willingness to cooperate toward a higher purpose. Some of that came from the fact that the state government committed lots of money to IT in the higher education system..so folks weren't quarreling over scarce resources. But some of it was simply culture.
If you end up in a specific academic department, you may be overqualified....especially if it is social science, not hard science. Some (but not all) professors are going to be jerks to you and many of your tasks may be menial (I hope you like hardware upgrades). The important thing is that you can serve them...even contribute to what they are doing, while having the rest of the staff and the cool profs. as a lifeline. If see an institution where there aren't lots of cross-departmental friendships and relationships, and a large number of people treat their job as a personal fiefdom, head the other way. These are things you can find out by keeping your eyes open while job hunting. When you interview, I encourage you to talk to as many profs. and staff members as they will allow you to. This is the best way to collect intelligence.
Good luck.