the few actually involved in "the bad stuff" we all hate are probably the same ordinary civil service workers who just "doing their job" and give no more thought to the moral rightness of what theyre doing than a Chevy worker does as he tightens the same nut 50k times a day as the line moves past.
Wow, mark this day on the calendar, folks. It's the day you saw a Slashdotter in support of the Nuremberg defense. Is this, like, the anti-Godwin?
This is why, for anything other than very obscure and complicated functionality that would put a project way over budget, I write my own JavaScript. That includes AJAX functions, dynamic element management, form data collection and processing and all the fancy stuff that jQuery makes super easy.
Because when you use a generalizing library or framework, you trade convenience for performance and contribute to the continual problem of lazy programmers relying on unnecessarily powerful hardware.
Currently, jQuery loads 90+ KB of JavaScript and processes a whole lot of it every time you invoke functionality that uses it. Similarly capable CMS tools I've built load ~30KB of original JavaScript and only run the relevant functions when called, rather than parsing through and jumping around reams of nested and interdependent routines.
Maybe their superiors are less incompetent, maybe they've had better luck or maybe the subtle nuances differ from those of Korea.
I recall watching a documentary on this exact issue several years ago. In these types of cultures whose traditions of deference to superiors has been ingrained over hundreds of years, when a junior knows something is up that the superior officer fails to notice, the junior will neglect to call him on it. This *has* resulted in deadly crashes.
Maybe equipment failure contributed to the problem, but so would this type neglect. Whatever the principle cause, removing any one of these factors could have resulted in a safe landing.
Sub-postmasters, for those who aren't aware, are private subcontractors of the UK postal system. They are not directly employed by the government, they operate as private businesses.
The UK requires them to use specific software, called Horizon, to manage all transactions and accounting.
This software had a pretty serious bug that resulted in wrongly calculated shortfalls into the thousands of pounds. Their contracts, however, stipulate that they must make up for shortfalls themselves. Doesn't matter if the software is wrong, that's what it says, that's what it is (sounds like government to me...)
This bug went unfixed for years, despite numerous complaints and reports.
Some postmasters started falsely reporting the shortfalls as the obviously miscalculated numbers climbed to ridiculous amounts (tens of thousands) that would put them out of business by the end of the day. Because falsely reporting accounting numbers is illegal (even though the "right" numbers are obviously wrong and completely not the postmasters' fault), some of them were sentenced to prison, most likely due to the strict, unwavering and unreasoning nature of law.
Basically, they were users self-correcting for what they knew was a flaw in the software they were forced to use, and they went to jail for it or otherwise paid dearly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. All in all, a pretty deplorable miscarriage of justice.
Have two operating systems; one's encrypted, the other is cleartext with the tracking software and boots by default There's a trick or two you can setup with TrueCrypt, GRUB and other boot loaders to obfuscate the password prompt and easily fool adversaries into booting the OS with the tracking software. Even if they figure that out, they're still not getting into your encrypted OS without the key.
Whatever the case, your data should be in a separate partition or container isolated from operating system and encrypted with a different key.
I've already PAID you handsomely for the console, I've PAID for the games, now you want to shove ads on my face? FUCK YOU.
If you want me to put up with this horseshit, you need to give me something in return, like a free console, games or Live subscription. Until then, FUCK YOU.
Seriously, everyone go listen to the recording. That is some hardcore, no bullshit Q&A. Er, well, the Q's were. The NSA stooges spent the whole time beating around the bush and using their native tongue of Orwellian doublespeak with every non-answer they gave.
The American incumbent telcos have "pledged" a similar amount of money to suppress any regulation that would threaten their oligopolistic practice of wringing out their customers while providing world class shitty service.
I contributed to the user documentation on an open source project many years ago. We used the software on our systems, so my email address was listed among the contact information for support on our copy of the distribution.
Of course, no one set the correct contact information on their own installations (in hindsight, I should have set the email addresses to null before distributing) and I still get support emails from clueless users to this day.
I would love to. Now how do I actually get the damn things?
I'm a fairly technical person, but I've spent hours dicking around on various trading exchanges and buying sites, but there are just *no* clear directions. Most of them tell me to go to a Walmart to get some tokens or a code or some shit. WTF? I thought this was supposed to be a purely online currency.
Until we have "I PayPal you X dollars/Euros/whatever, you give me Y bitcoins" this newfangled shit just ain't gonna catch on.
Which is why I have always said that funding of law enforcement should come from taxes only and be completely isolated from their duties to prevent profit from becoming a motive.
But we are way to far through the looking glass for merely reorganizing police resources to effect any real change... the problems facing America and much of the western world are so numerous, complex, interwoven and multifaceted; and the entrenched powers have seen how our pettiness and bickering keeps us disunified and know that perpetuating this disunity prevents us from tackling the real problems that face us.
The only thing that might work, as a start, is to dissolve the federal government and let each state become it's own sovereign nation (a similar agreement like the treaty between several European countries that enables people to cross between them without border stops would be practical in this case). I know it sounds extreme, but the situation is equally or more so.
Every group of common people (in this case, teachers and/or school administrators in your particular area) tends to have one or two "hot button" issues; things that, when they hear, alarm bells go off in their head and they cannot be swayed otherwise due to past experience or ingrained culture.
Home in on whatever that hot-button is for these particular teachers and find a way to press it hard. Figure out how gmail and cloud services could be exploited against them in that context.
I know it's kind of a dirty political tactic -- and we Slashdorks believe ourselves above such means, preferring to generalize, establishing rationality and understanding -- but sometimes people incapable of unwilling to consider such foresight need to be jerked around for their own good. Otherwise, you'll just come off sounding paranoid and delusional, which is amazing considering recent revelations.
In other words, find out how to be on their side; to align this issue align with the issues in which they already collectively believe.
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly what I feared when I read that Microsoft bought Skype. It was an eye-widening moment and now my fears have proven true.
Anyone who isn't rushing to start running their own XMPP server and get all their friends and family moved over to it is insane.
If ever there was a story totally appropriate for that, this is it. I feel dejected.
Wow, mark this day on the calendar, folks. It's the day you saw a Slashdotter in support of the Nuremberg defense. Is this, like, the anti-Godwin?
And it's not working!
This is why, for anything other than very obscure and complicated functionality that would put a project way over budget, I write my own JavaScript. That includes AJAX functions, dynamic element management, form data collection and processing and all the fancy stuff that jQuery makes super easy.
Because when you use a generalizing library or framework, you trade convenience for performance and contribute to the continual problem of lazy programmers relying on unnecessarily powerful hardware.
Currently, jQuery loads 90+ KB of JavaScript and processes a whole lot of it every time you invoke functionality that uses it. Similarly capable CMS tools I've built load ~30KB of original JavaScript and only run the relevant functions when called, rather than parsing through and jumping around reams of nested and interdependent routines.
Maybe their superiors are less incompetent, maybe they've had better luck or maybe the subtle nuances differ from those of Korea.
I recall watching a documentary on this exact issue several years ago. In these types of cultures whose traditions of deference to superiors has been ingrained over hundreds of years, when a junior knows something is up that the superior officer fails to notice, the junior will neglect to call him on it. This *has* resulted in deadly crashes.
Maybe equipment failure contributed to the problem, but so would this type neglect. Whatever the principle cause, removing any one of these factors could have resulted in a safe landing.
And they wasted an additional $1.5 million paying various "contractors" who apparently didn't know what they were doing.
Or maybe they did, if you get my drift.
To resummarize:
Sub-postmasters, for those who aren't aware, are private subcontractors of the UK postal system. They are not directly employed by the government, they operate as private businesses.
The UK requires them to use specific software, called Horizon, to manage all transactions and accounting.
This software had a pretty serious bug that resulted in wrongly calculated shortfalls into the thousands of pounds. Their contracts, however, stipulate that they must make up for shortfalls themselves. Doesn't matter if the software is wrong, that's what it says, that's what it is (sounds like government to me...)
This bug went unfixed for years, despite numerous complaints and reports.
Some postmasters started falsely reporting the shortfalls as the obviously miscalculated numbers climbed to ridiculous amounts (tens of thousands) that would put them out of business by the end of the day. Because falsely reporting accounting numbers is illegal (even though the "right" numbers are obviously wrong and completely not the postmasters' fault), some of them were sentenced to prison, most likely due to the strict, unwavering and unreasoning nature of law.
Basically, they were users self-correcting for what they knew was a flaw in the software they were forced to use, and they went to jail for it or otherwise paid dearly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. All in all, a pretty deplorable miscarriage of justice.
Unless you're part of the massive private insurance business rolling in piles of money from denied claims.
Not necessarily.
Have two operating systems; one's encrypted, the other is cleartext with the tracking software and boots by default There's a trick or two you can setup with TrueCrypt, GRUB and other boot loaders to obfuscate the password prompt and easily fool adversaries into booting the OS with the tracking software. Even if they figure that out, they're still not getting into your encrypted OS without the key.
Whatever the case, your data should be in a separate partition or container isolated from operating system and encrypted with a different key.
I've done exactly that with my laptop and my mom's netbook running Ubuntu.
There's a nice trace route by GeoBytes from which you can easily extract itemized location output.
And yet, it's still lower than the woosh sound that just went over your head.
I've already PAID you handsomely for the console, I've PAID for the games, now you want to shove ads on my face? FUCK YOU.
If you want me to put up with this horseshit, you need to give me something in return, like a free console, games or Live subscription. Until then, FUCK YOU.
Seriously, everyone go listen to the recording. That is some hardcore, no bullshit Q&A. Er, well, the Q's were. The NSA stooges spent the whole time beating around the bush and using their native tongue of Orwellian doublespeak with every non-answer they gave.
The American incumbent telcos have "pledged" a similar amount of money to suppress any regulation that would threaten their oligopolistic practice of wringing out their customers while providing world class shitty service.
Given that those are the type of people who need the most convincing ... yes.
I contributed to the user documentation on an open source project many years ago. We used the software on our systems, so my email address was listed among the contact information for support on our copy of the distribution.
Of course, no one set the correct contact information on their own installations (in hindsight, I should have set the email addresses to null before distributing) and I still get support emails from clueless users to this day.
And if I don't live in any one of those locations in that limited selection?
I would love to. Now how do I actually get the damn things?
I'm a fairly technical person, but I've spent hours dicking around on various trading exchanges and buying sites, but there are just *no* clear directions. Most of them tell me to go to a Walmart to get some tokens or a code or some shit. WTF? I thought this was supposed to be a purely online currency.
Until we have "I PayPal you X dollars/Euros/whatever, you give me Y bitcoins" this newfangled shit just ain't gonna catch on.
The government and their corporate cronies clearly don't give a shit about the existing amendments. What good is a new one gonna do?
Hmmm, I was going for +x Funny, but whatever...
Those who don't know any better never disable it, those who do use NoScript.
like this
Which is why I have always said that funding of law enforcement should come from taxes only and be completely isolated from their duties to prevent profit from becoming a motive.
But we are way to far through the looking glass for merely reorganizing police resources to effect any real change ... the problems facing America and much of the western world are so numerous, complex, interwoven and multifaceted; and the entrenched powers have seen how our pettiness and bickering keeps us disunified and know that perpetuating this disunity prevents us from tackling the real problems that face us.
The only thing that might work, as a start, is to dissolve the federal government and let each state become it's own sovereign nation (a similar agreement like the treaty between several European countries that enables people to cross between them without border stops would be practical in this case). I know it sounds extreme, but the situation is equally or more so.
Every group of common people (in this case, teachers and/or school administrators in your particular area) tends to have one or two "hot button" issues; things that, when they hear, alarm bells go off in their head and they cannot be swayed otherwise due to past experience or ingrained culture.
Home in on whatever that hot-button is for these particular teachers and find a way to press it hard. Figure out how gmail and cloud services could be exploited against them in that context.
I know it's kind of a dirty political tactic -- and we Slashdorks believe ourselves above such means, preferring to generalize, establishing rationality and understanding -- but sometimes people incapable of unwilling to consider such foresight need to be jerked around for their own good. Otherwise, you'll just come off sounding paranoid and delusional, which is amazing considering recent revelations.
In other words, find out how to be on their side; to align this issue align with the issues in which they already collectively believe.