Umm, quite often, the NSA are the people that create these guidelines. Yes, it's probably just a silly mistake, but these guys are supposed to be the gods of security, and making sure you follow all the piddling guidelines is part of that.
This is just a couple of minutes digging, but NPR ran a small blurb in January pointing out the Gates Foundation's work with GAVI, the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. GAVI is undeniably a force for good in the world, but in a critique published by Save the Children, UK, it was pointed out that "three of the current board members
were engaged in the production or development of vaccines being promoted by GAVI", and that they should try to do more to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest.
Granted, when you want vaccines, you go to drug companies, but this is fuel for conspiracy theorists. After all, who says you can't do good and make money at the same time.
But it has innumerable little pieces of code, from varying manufacturers - dlls, drivers, etc. The CPU itself is so complex, no human can design it - they only control the software that does the design.
While the parts list on a computer is much shorter, I'd bet the complexity of the software components - even taking into account the software in a car - and the much higher rates of interraction between them send the total complexity of a decently equipped PC over that of a car.
When I was an undergrad, I worked at a campus observatory giving tours, since it wasn't a working research site anymore. It did, however, hold offices for two astrophysics grad students. Since I had taken some graduate classes with one of them, they deigned to speak to me.
One of them was doing his dissertation on stellar pressure gradients. He was having this huge block writing his thesis, because his results contradicted a previously published paper's conclusions, and he couldn't figure out where he went wrong. After some digging and calculating, he realized that the prior paper's data contradicted their conclusion as well, and they had just faked the diagrams to match their predicted result.
IANAD, but I have to give a strong mod up to the above; the chemical influence on personality and memory formation cannot be underestimated. Hormone levels and mood affect how strongly an incident is remembered, and of course, our memories and learning shape our personality. How would you program this? In some science fiction I've read, they suggest a semi-random weighting to memory to mimic hormone fluxes.
Captain: I'll give you a ride on my space elevator if you show me your wormhole.
Green-skinned lady-of-casual-virtue: Well if it wasn't a nanotube, maybe you'd get somewhere! It takes exotic matter to keep my wormhole from collapsing.
And yet, the World Bank considers them a developing nation - They're one of the biggest recipients of World Bank loans. I believe the World Bank commits over a billion dollars a year to Chinese development.
What if the employees signed on-compete agreements? While I'm aware that common wisdom is that these are hard to enforce, this is Microsoft we're talking about, and they have mucho lawyerage behind them.
Imagine all the Red Hat employees frozen out of OSS development for a year by the evil empire.
From my overly long experience in graduate school (physics), I noticed some patterns in students' and professors' views of religion:
- Very religious students often had already as ungrads come to terms with the intersection of science and religion, either by witholding judgement on problematic issues (creationism and cosmology, eg.), or by becoming more secularized.
- Almost no non-religious students became more religious.
- Professors seemed to be more secular (or at least, lower key about religion) in general, until they entered their 60's, when some of them began to question their place in the universe again. I knew of one professor that converted from Judaism to Christianity and became an ordained minister.
For me, the main conflict has been that scientists are trained to question results, and religion seems to take more on faith. Plus, science seems to make more reliable predictions about the world than religion.
Of course, Google would be happy to sell you data replication services, where you are allocated a certain amount of near-line storage, should this occur.
TFA points out that most people don't back up their stuff anyway, and if they do, most of them certainly don't do it offsite.
Boy, the response to this around here was great. I walked into the nearest B & R (Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA) at 2 p.m., and before I had left 10 minutes later, the line was out the door. It seemed like half of Akamai was clutching their coupons and waiting in line. However, there was only one scooper on duty, so the line moved slowly.
Even with the line, Yahoo sure got their 10 minutes of good will. Was it worth it, though?
Has anyone else noticed that there are arguments beginning to surface that pirated media supports terrorists? I've even heard a reference to that hypothesis on "Law and Order: Ciminal Intent" (10/3/04), for one. Keep your eyes open, these may be trial balloons. Pretty soon, everyone may believe it. Whether it's the case remains to be seen.
It really wouldn't surprise me if, in the near future, media pirates are arrested in terrorism investigations, without any proven connections to terrorist organisations. After all, the Feds used the tax code to get Capone.
Slashdot Mirror
Even funnier, since the book he links to is freely available on the web as a PDF.
Umm, quite often, the NSA are the people that create these guidelines. Yes, it's probably just a silly mistake, but these guys are supposed to be the gods of security, and making sure you follow all the piddling guidelines is part of that.
...NOW I know what "gormless" means!
Granted, when you want vaccines, you go to drug companies, but this is fuel for conspiracy theorists. After all, who says you can't do good and make money at the same time.
But it has innumerable little pieces of code, from varying manufacturers - dlls, drivers, etc. The CPU itself is so complex, no human can design it - they only control the software that does the design.
While the parts list on a computer is much shorter, I'd bet the complexity of the software components - even taking into account the software in a car - and the much higher rates of interraction between them send the total complexity of a decently equipped PC over that of a car.
I wonder if you could automate this? The Universal Slashdot Universal Reply Generator Engine?
When I was an undergrad, I worked at a campus observatory giving tours, since it wasn't a working research site anymore. It did, however, hold offices for two astrophysics grad students. Since I had taken some graduate classes with one of them, they deigned to speak to me.
One of them was doing his dissertation on stellar pressure gradients. He was having this huge block writing his thesis, because his results contradicted a previously published paper's conclusions, and he couldn't figure out where he went wrong. After some digging and calculating, he realized that the prior paper's data contradicted their conclusion as well, and they had just faked the diagrams to match their predicted result.
So much for peer review...
Darl's claiming it's his money.
However, all of this was paid for, for the most part, by:
a) AT&T
b) The U.S. Department of Defense
As long as someone continues to be interested in funding pure or open-ended research, research institutions will continue to be sources of innovation.
Steve Ballmer wins, hands down.
IANAD, but I have to give a strong mod up to the above; the chemical influence on personality and memory formation cannot be underestimated. Hormone levels and mood affect how strongly an incident is remembered, and of course, our memories and learning shape our personality. How would you program this? In some science fiction I've read, they suggest a semi-random weighting to memory to mimic hormone fluxes.
I can just see the dialog now:
Captain: I'll give you a ride on my space elevator if you show me your wormhole.
Green-skinned lady-of-casual-virtue: Well if it wasn't a nanotube, maybe you'd get somewhere! It takes exotic matter to keep my wormhole from collapsing.
And yet, the World Bank considers them a developing nation - They're one of the biggest recipients of World Bank loans. I believe the World Bank commits over a billion dollars a year to Chinese development.
The second Whitedust reference in two days? There's more astroturf here than in the NFL.
What if the employees signed on-compete agreements? While I'm aware that common wisdom is that these are hard to enforce, this is Microsoft we're talking about, and they have mucho lawyerage behind them.
Imagine all the Red Hat employees frozen out of OSS development for a year by the evil empire.
From my overly long experience in graduate school (physics), I noticed some patterns in students' and professors' views of religion:
- Very religious students often had already as ungrads come to terms with the intersection of science and religion, either by witholding judgement on problematic issues (creationism and cosmology, eg.), or by becoming more secularized.
- Almost no non-religious students became more religious.
- Professors seemed to be more secular (or at least, lower key about religion) in general, until they entered their 60's, when some of them began to question their place in the universe again. I knew of one professor that converted from Judaism to Christianity and became an ordained minister.
For me, the main conflict has been that scientists are trained to question results, and religion seems to take more on faith. Plus, science seems to make more reliable predictions about the world than religion.
I'd be more likely to believe these April Fool's articles if I saw a Cmdr. Taco dup or two...
Of course, Google would be happy to sell you data replication services, where you are allocated a certain amount of near-line storage, should this occur.
TFA points out that most people don't back up their stuff anyway, and if they do, most of them certainly don't do it offsite.
Boy, the response to this around here was great. I walked into the nearest B & R (Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA) at 2 p.m., and before I had left 10 minutes later, the line was out the door. It seemed like half of Akamai was clutching their coupons and waiting in line. However, there was only one scooper on duty, so the line moved slowly.
Even with the line, Yahoo sure got their 10 minutes of good will. Was it worth it, though?
No, Textile
Unfortunately, when the tune "Jingle Bells" is coded in DNA for storage, it turns out to be a version of the flu...
Well, there's this guy named Johnny....
Has anyone else noticed that there are arguments beginning to surface that pirated media supports terrorists? I've even heard a reference to that hypothesis on "Law and Order: Ciminal Intent" (10/3/04), for one. Keep your eyes open, these may be trial balloons. Pretty soon, everyone may believe it. Whether it's the case remains to be seen.
It really wouldn't surprise me if, in the near future, media pirates are arrested in terrorism investigations, without any proven connections to terrorist organisations. After all, the Feds used the tax code to get Capone.
...Or some kid of tether system....
We must protect all PC users from the temptation to pirate software by requiring all PC's to come with Windows!
My God, I just channelled Jack Valenti!