then how is it going to get on AppStore? They are the gatekeeper.
If you are talking about some sort of hack, then how is that different than all of the other hacks? I suppose it might make the iPhone easier to hack, but how hard will it be for Apple to put out a firmware update every three months or so that wipes out anything related to Java on the phone because it violates terms of service? Will serious users put up with that kind of instability?
If Apple doesn't want it to happen, it ain't gonna happen.
I don't want to pay for some idiot's screw-up/malicious intent. No, it should come directly out of the offender's pay, if anything. In reality they should all be fired and or prosecuted. They broke the law after all. Where the hell are the consequences?
This crap about putting process and procedures in place to prevent it from happening again is nonsense. It didn't work last time and it won't work this time because it's asking the fox to watch the hen house. If private industry were as inept at self-regulation there would be laws in place.
On another note: Do we have any objective evidence of how effective this snooping actually is? Say, 1 arrest in 10,000 phone taps? What am I getting for my freedom/tax payer dollars?
Uh, yeah, because open source has been such a huge commercial success. I am not saying that there hasn't been modest success but nothing on the scale of proprietary software. When there is a phone that actually uses Android in the hands of consumers we'll have something to talk about until then it's just vapor.
Let's be clear: Obama voted to strike the amendment that would provide immunity. In other words, he voted against telco. immunity. McCain, sadly, voted for immunity.
Why does this question always come up? Read some philosophy. Start with Plato.
It's a historical prejudice that our ability to reason, in particular our ability to understand Eternal unchanging Forms, separates us from nature which is understood as temporal and constantly changing. Many people still believe this myth including mathematicians, scientists, and Christians. By extension anything that we do as humans is informed, no pun intended, by Forms (or reason) and thus is unnatural. This criterion for this distinction (i.e. that only humans reason) is often the subject of attack by conservationists in order to secure the ethical treatment of animals because if animals can reason, so the thinking goes, they deserve to be treated like humans.
Unfortunately, you are right. Documenting processes does make what you describe possible, and, if you are especially worried about losing your job because you already know you are redundant or know that the only reason you still have a job is because you have not documented what you know, then you should definitely resist documenting your processes. Of course, you must realize that by doing so you are raising a huge, red flag. If the documentation of processes has the backing of management (which is absolutely crucial), you'll be looking for a new job fairly quickly because once you do document your processes management will realize that you are useless or your refusal to document your processes will result in your termination for non-compliance.
There are all sorts of benefits to documenting processes. Most of these benefits go to the company however. Documenting processes ensures quality because the task is done the same way every time and is amenable to improvement. It ensures business continuity (i.e. the "hit by a bus" argument). It also allows the company to outsource menial tasks to reduce costs. There are some benefits for the worker, too. Documentation allows the worker to delegate the work to junior people or to automate the work which will allow the worker to take on more interesting work and increased responsibility. This work should lead to a promotion. If not, the worker needs to learn how to manage his or her career better.
In short, if your company is growing or of a certain size, then documentation is absolutely required. If your company is not requiring people to document work, then you should be worried because that means they don't understand the requirements for growth. That being said, the key to getting documentation done is to have it required in the worker's performance review. (If your company doesn't have performance reviews, you have a whole other set of problems.) This may seem heavy handed but it's the only way to get the task to the top of the priority list, and it's the only way to terminate the worker, if they refuse. Personally, I think this is completely justified because the person is willing to pursue his or her interests to the *detriment* of the company's. If it were simply indifferent to the company's interests, then it would be irrelevant.
I have seen this refusal to document at several tech. start-ups. The company is usually in growth mode and the old guard are threatened by the changes going on around them. The usual excuse is that they are too busy because the company is growing (see my point above about management backing). They enjoy their little fiefdoms so they hang on to them as long as they can until they are working 80 hours a week because they are the only ones who know how to do what they do. Eventually they either leave because of exhaustion or the company suffers some sort of catastrophic failure and the worker is asked to move along due to his or her past contributions, laid-off in the next round of layoffs, or outright fired. I am not making a negative judgment about these people. They are usually key contributors to start-ups. Their work and passion are invaluable but they just aren't a good fit for a more established company.
and merely an incremental increase in knowledge. It either means that gravity waves are either smaller than "1/1000 of the diameter of a nucleus" (whatever that means) which would require a re-write of the theory because they were predicted to be large enough to detect or LIGO doesn't work which would require a re-write of the theory of gravity because according to that theory LIGO should detect gravity waves. It's a nice result but nothing definitive.
It uses a temperature differential to produce energy but in this case the differential is created by solar energy heating one end rather than burying one end in the earth and the energy seems to be converted directly into electricity rather than steam to turn a turbine to create electricity. Clever, if it works.
The scientist didn't restore walking after spinal cord injury. The mice restored their own ability to walk by neural rerouting. The scientist just cut the nerves and waited to see what happened. If the scientists actually restored the ability to walk when it was otherwise unlikely to return on its own, then this would be a much bigger story. This story is just another interesting data point that the brain and nervous system are much more plastic than previously thought but we've known that for at least a decade.
Just an FYI, any original creation is automatically copyrighted by law. The problem is that these copyrights are sold to corporations who then sell copies and don't want anyone to get a copy from anyone else whether by sale or gift.
It seems ridiculous to make the choice based on how a presidential contender feels about video games but when you are on the fence it just takes a little push. Barack Obama now has my vote.
That's great. I didn't think any Democrat would have the guts to do it.
Anyhow, my point was that they included the amnesty in order to avoid a Republican filibuster, but now that they have included it they are going to have a Democratic filibuster. Sweet.
The Democrats will cave again to the mythical, all-mighty filibuster. It doesn't seem like the Democrats got as much mileage out of that threat as the Republicans are. So are the Democrats spineless or is something else going on? It's especially pathetic because the public could really get behind this one and it's an opportunity for the Democrats to make it seem Republicans are beholden to special interests and corrupt (despite the fact that many Democrats are just as bad). And this I think brings us to the real issue. The Democrats say they want to prosecute the Telcos but they don't really because they are just as owned. So instead they blame the bogey-man, filibuster.
Most of what I do does not require me to be in the office or to work 9 to 5. So if I can work from home or work off hours and still get my job done, then I have a much higher quality of life. I do have to be careful to monitor how much I work though. It's easy to get burned out.
Yeah, they already have found a way around it. They use unofficial email addresses to discuss their dirty work. They aren't under any obligation to preserve emails sent or received via, say, their Republic National Committee email address.
Time flies. It's already time for the perennial call for forking the kernel. Now everyone will bitch and moan about what a bad idea it is and everyone will tell the person who suggested it that they are a moron. Where as it may have some practical value in some limited set of cases. However, I'd assume that if it presented that much value someone would have done it already and released it under the GPL. On the other hand, maybe they are so intimidated by the rabid reception the call receives that they can't even imagine attempting something so audacious.
Oh, I pretty much agree. If you look at Jefferson, Washington, and others, there is a very clear and well-placed mistrust of government (they did just get done fighting a revolution!). Almost all of the Founders feared oppression and tyranny. Ergo, their greatest contribution to government in the United States, the separation of powers and the insistence on defusing power as much as possible. (Something which modern "conservatives" who claim to revere the Founders seem to have forgotten despite their insistence on States Rights. The modern "conservative" movement sold its soul to the devil when it allied itself to the Religious Right.) But here is where things get interesting.
Their first attempt, the Articles of Confederation, diffused power so much that any form of governing, etc, was impossible. So there definitely seems to be a balance between centralization and decentralization. I'm not sure where it lies but I think the libertarians go too far in the decentralization direction. If we deregulated and decentralized as much as the libertarian idealists would like then we would without a doubt be one of the weakest countries in the world and basically be living in hell on earth. Governments exist to keep the domestic population from killing each other which in turn allows them to fulfill their individual aspirations. However since the government is so bloated and in general dysfunctional I find libertarianism is a good default negative position.
If anyone has any recommendations for readings that present a positive position, I'd love to hear about them.
Most of them seem to think government causes more problems than it solves. They believe government is intrinsically inept, corrupt, and oppressive. They believe in unfettered competition because competition always produces the best results. They think most people prefer to have big government because they are too lazy or too stupid to do things for themselves. Finally, for many they are just frustrated with stupid, corrupt, politicians from both parties.
In fact most of them benefit significantly from the government and just refuse to acknowledge it or are ignorant. Most of them overestimate their individual abilities and don't realize that they wouldn't survive for a second in the world they propose we live in. They are like those people who would like to live in the middle ages because they think it was like the fantasy stories they read about in books. The unspoken assumption being that they would be a prince or princess. In reality they probably wouldn't have made it past birth and if they did they would be farming some miserable plot of land in the middle of nowhere trying not to starve to death.
It's an amazing bit of intrinsically American naivete. That being said, I am a libertarian.:-)
Isn't this entrapment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment)? Maybe it isn't since the police are not involved. Also, it seems the real issue is what the trojan horse finds by scanning the HDD rather than downloading the content, but that seems like fraud. What's in the EULA?
"4. London - tube. No coverage. Whatsoever. The sole reason that our best beloved Mayor is a greedy c***. London tube refuses to put DAS or picocells because they want to give it exlcusively to a single operator and shave the profits. There is a ruling by the competition comission that this is not acceptable so the tube simply does not put any access in. Result - no access. 3G or no 3G."
Yeah, well, there is that and a cell phone is a great way to set off a bomb remotely. That's what happened in Spain and continues to happen in Iraq. Although being a cynic I think your reason is the real reason.
Slashdot Mirror
then how is it going to get on AppStore? They are the gatekeeper.
If you are talking about some sort of hack, then how is that different than all of the other hacks? I suppose it might make the iPhone easier to hack, but how hard will it be for Apple to put out a firmware update every three months or so that wipes out anything related to Java on the phone because it violates terms of service? Will serious users put up with that kind of instability?
If Apple doesn't want it to happen, it ain't gonna happen.
This is a non-issue.
I don't want to pay for some idiot's screw-up/malicious intent. No, it should come directly out of the offender's pay, if anything. In reality they should all be fired and or prosecuted. They broke the law after all. Where the hell are the consequences?
This crap about putting process and procedures in place to prevent it from happening again is nonsense. It didn't work last time and it won't work this time because it's asking the fox to watch the hen house. If private industry were as inept at self-regulation there would be laws in place.
On another note: Do we have any objective evidence of how effective this snooping actually is? Say, 1 arrest in 10,000 phone taps? What am I getting for my freedom/tax payer dollars?
Uh, yeah, because open source has been such a huge commercial success. I am not saying that there hasn't been modest success but nothing on the scale of proprietary software. When there is a phone that actually uses Android in the hands of consumers we'll have something to talk about until then it's just vapor.
It's not just "arts majors". See Bill Joy. In general it's useful to try to consider unintended consequences but this article is just silly.
Let's be clear: Obama voted to strike the amendment that would provide immunity. In other words, he voted against telco. immunity. McCain, sadly, voted for immunity.
Maybe from your viewpoint, but if you go back and read western philosophy and literature you'll see that my distinction is the correct one.
The accusation isn't what's immoral because it's true. It's the fact that they are doing the same thing that is immoral.
Why does this question always come up? Read some philosophy. Start with Plato.
It's a historical prejudice that our ability to reason, in particular our ability to understand Eternal unchanging Forms, separates us from nature which is understood as temporal and constantly changing. Many people still believe this myth including mathematicians, scientists, and Christians. By extension anything that we do as humans is informed, no pun intended, by Forms (or reason) and thus is unnatural. This criterion for this distinction (i.e. that only humans reason) is often the subject of attack by conservationists in order to secure the ethical treatment of animals because if animals can reason, so the thinking goes, they deserve to be treated like humans.
Unfortunately, you are right. Documenting processes does make what you describe possible, and, if you are especially worried about losing your job because you already know you are redundant or know that the only reason you still have a job is because you have not documented what you know, then you should definitely resist documenting your processes. Of course, you must realize that by doing so you are raising a huge, red flag. If the documentation of processes has the backing of management (which is absolutely crucial), you'll be looking for a new job fairly quickly because once you do document your processes management will realize that you are useless or your refusal to document your processes will result in your termination for non-compliance.
There are all sorts of benefits to documenting processes. Most of these benefits go to the company however. Documenting processes ensures quality because the task is done the same way every time and is amenable to improvement. It ensures business continuity (i.e. the "hit by a bus" argument). It also allows the company to outsource menial tasks to reduce costs. There are some benefits for the worker, too. Documentation allows the worker to delegate the work to junior people or to automate the work which will allow the worker to take on more interesting work and increased responsibility. This work should lead to a promotion. If not, the worker needs to learn how to manage his or her career better.
In short, if your company is growing or of a certain size, then documentation is absolutely required. If your company is not requiring people to document work, then you should be worried because that means they don't understand the requirements for growth. That being said, the key to getting documentation done is to have it required in the worker's performance review. (If your company doesn't have performance reviews, you have a whole other set of problems.) This may seem heavy handed but it's the only way to get the task to the top of the priority list, and it's the only way to terminate the worker, if they refuse. Personally, I think this is completely justified because the person is willing to pursue his or her interests to the *detriment* of the company's. If it were simply indifferent to the company's interests, then it would be irrelevant.
I have seen this refusal to document at several tech. start-ups. The company is usually in growth mode and the old guard are threatened by the changes going on around them. The usual excuse is that they are too busy because the company is growing (see my point above about management backing). They enjoy their little fiefdoms so they hang on to them as long as they can until they are working 80 hours a week because they are the only ones who know how to do what they do. Eventually they either leave because of exhaustion or the company suffers some sort of catastrophic failure and the worker is asked to move along due to his or her past contributions, laid-off in the next round of layoffs, or outright fired. I am not making a negative judgment about these people. They are usually key contributors to start-ups. Their work and passion are invaluable but they just aren't a good fit for a more established company.
and merely an incremental increase in knowledge. It either means that gravity waves are either smaller than "1/1000 of the diameter of a nucleus" (whatever that means) which would require a re-write of the theory because they were predicted to be large enough to detect or LIGO doesn't work which would require a re-write of the theory of gravity because according to that theory LIGO should detect gravity waves. It's a nice result but nothing definitive.
Mod parent up. That's hysterical.
It uses a temperature differential to produce energy but in this case the differential is created by solar energy heating one end rather than burying one end in the earth and the energy seems to be converted directly into electricity rather than steam to turn a turbine to create electricity. Clever, if it works.
The scientist didn't restore walking after spinal cord injury. The mice restored their own ability to walk by neural rerouting. The scientist just cut the nerves and waited to see what happened. If the scientists actually restored the ability to walk when it was otherwise unlikely to return on its own, then this would be a much bigger story. This story is just another interesting data point that the brain and nervous system are much more plastic than previously thought but we've known that for at least a decade.
Just an FYI, any original creation is automatically copyrighted by law. The problem is that these copyrights are sold to corporations who then sell copies and don't want anyone to get a copy from anyone else whether by sale or gift.
It seems ridiculous to make the choice based on how a presidential contender feels about video games but when you are on the fence it just takes a little push. Barack Obama now has my vote.
That's great. I didn't think any Democrat would have the guts to do it.
Anyhow, my point was that they included the amnesty in order to avoid a Republican filibuster, but now that they have included it they are going to have a Democratic filibuster. Sweet.
The Democrats will cave again to the mythical, all-mighty filibuster. It doesn't seem like the Democrats got as much mileage out of that threat as the Republicans are. So are the Democrats spineless or is something else going on? It's especially pathetic because the public could really get behind this one and it's an opportunity for the Democrats to make it seem Republicans are beholden to special interests and corrupt (despite the fact that many Democrats are just as bad). And this I think brings us to the real issue. The Democrats say they want to prosecute the Telcos but they don't really because they are just as owned. So instead they blame the bogey-man, filibuster.
Corruption and cowardice abound. Pathetic.
Most of what I do does not require me to be in the office or to work 9 to 5. So if I can work from home or work off hours and still get my job done, then I have a much higher quality of life. I do have to be careful to monitor how much I work though. It's easy to get burned out.
Yeah, they already have found a way around it. They use unofficial email addresses to discuss their dirty work. They aren't under any obligation to preserve emails sent or received via, say, their Republic National Committee email address.
Time flies. It's already time for the perennial call for forking the kernel. Now everyone will bitch and moan about what a bad idea it is and everyone will tell the person who suggested it that they are a moron. Where as it may have some practical value in some limited set of cases. However, I'd assume that if it presented that much value someone would have done it already and released it under the GPL. On the other hand, maybe they are so intimidated by the rabid reception the call receives that they can't even imagine attempting something so audacious.
Oh, I pretty much agree. If you look at Jefferson, Washington, and others, there is a very clear and well-placed mistrust of government (they did just get done fighting a revolution!). Almost all of the Founders feared oppression and tyranny. Ergo, their greatest contribution to government in the United States, the separation of powers and the insistence on defusing power as much as possible. (Something which modern "conservatives" who claim to revere the Founders seem to have forgotten despite their insistence on States Rights. The modern "conservative" movement sold its soul to the devil when it allied itself to the Religious Right.) But here is where things get interesting.
Their first attempt, the Articles of Confederation, diffused power so much that any form of governing, etc, was impossible. So there definitely seems to be a balance between centralization and decentralization. I'm not sure where it lies but I think the libertarians go too far in the decentralization direction. If we deregulated and decentralized as much as the libertarian idealists would like then we would without a doubt be one of the weakest countries in the world and basically be living in hell on earth. Governments exist to keep the domestic population from killing each other which in turn allows them to fulfill their individual aspirations. However since the government is so bloated and in general dysfunctional I find libertarianism is a good default negative position.
If anyone has any recommendations for readings that present a positive position, I'd love to hear about them.
government.
:-)
Most of them seem to think government causes more problems than it solves. They believe government is intrinsically inept, corrupt, and oppressive. They believe in unfettered competition because competition always produces the best results. They think most people prefer to have big government because they are too lazy or too stupid to do things for themselves. Finally, for many they are just frustrated with stupid, corrupt, politicians from both parties.
In fact most of them benefit significantly from the government and just refuse to acknowledge it or are ignorant. Most of them overestimate their individual abilities and don't realize that they wouldn't survive for a second in the world they propose we live in. They are like those people who would like to live in the middle ages because they think it was like the fantasy stories they read about in books. The unspoken assumption being that they would be a prince or princess. In reality they probably wouldn't have made it past birth and if they did they would be farming some miserable plot of land in the middle of nowhere trying not to starve to death.
It's an amazing bit of intrinsically American naivete. That being said, I am a libertarian.
Ok, now, go ahead, and mark me as a troll.
Have a fake identity! ;-)
Isn't this entrapment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrapment)? Maybe it isn't since the police are not involved. Also, it seems the real issue is what the trojan horse finds by scanning the HDD rather than downloading the content, but that seems like fraud. What's in the EULA?
"4. London - tube. No coverage. Whatsoever. The sole reason that our best beloved Mayor is a greedy c***. London tube refuses to put DAS or picocells because they want to give it exlcusively to a single operator and shave the profits. There is a ruling by the competition comission that this is not acceptable so the tube simply does not put any access in. Result - no access. 3G or no 3G."
Yeah, well, there is that and a cell phone is a great way to set off a bomb remotely. That's what happened in Spain and continues to happen in Iraq. Although being a cynic I think your reason is the real reason.