Various people in the US government (some public, some anonymous) have already stated this is a routine renewal that has been going on since the Bush administration, and all carriers must be ordered separately, so you can pretty much guarantee that AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc are doing the same thing, and have been for the last 8 years or so. Further, they have also stated the records just include to/from and time (not the actual call data).
None of those are REMOTELY focused. The prevailing theory is the NSA is basically building a relationship map to find patterns and networks of cell phone users based on the calls made. So for example, if they discover that you are a terrorist, they can instantly look up the network of people you talk to regularly (and who they talk to, etc).
No, actually, it was already stated this was just a routine renewal of something they have been doing since the warrantless wiretapping started in the Bush administration. And it pretty much applies to all carriers. So you can basically assume it's every cell phone call in the last 8 years or so. How's that for focused?
Hmm, that analogy doesn't seem very relevant. A Communist dictator who kept himself in power by brutal means and exported all of his country's resources for his own personal gain vs. a democracy with a 2 term president, checks and balances, and media that scrutinizes and publicizes every dump a politician takes?
The fact is > 50% of the voters elected the current leader of the US within the last 4 years, which makes it pretty hard to have passionate majority popular uprising. Pretty sure the military, though not happy about it, would have no problem using their guns on any small revolt (that we all know will never happen anyway). As history has shown, the only realistic way a remotely successful revolt can happen in the US is when it's on extremely divisive and more importantly GEOGRAPHICAL boundaries (which allowed the military itself to organize along *local* loyalties - as you said, friends and neighbors). Those divisions just don't exist any more on geographical lines - now the only major division (beyond the relatively recent idiotic fanatical "conservative" vs. "liberal" debate which is mostly just a disgusting media-driven creation) is really rich vs poor, with a large buffering middle class that just doesn't care much as long as they are left alone.
Then again, even if I disagree with your point it was at least much more interesting than the one you replied to, which was just a blatant anti-US troll with no real insight whatsoever...
Which is funny considering Paul Hogan managed to convince the rest of the world Australians all walked around with 12" bush knives stuffed down their pants;)
this also ends my plans for Ackthpt's Small Knives And Pointy Objects Emporium in airports from coast to coast.
Yeah, now you know why the TSA rescinded the order - they didn't want you to compete with their current side business selling pocket knives. (I think my uncle bought a box of corkscrews by the pound).
Of course, it's not actually as good as a regular, cheap motion sensor.
Apparently it works off of ambient RF in the house with a single AP that can detect motion (including specific gestures) anywhere in its range. *IF* it does what they say it does (who knows...) then it's WAY better than a cheap (IR) motion sensor. Especially if it can be programmed to ignore my cat and dog:)
According to TFA, this detects *movement* by Doppler shift in the wireless signal - yet it describes it as "similar to Xbox Kinect" but with a bunch of advantages.
However, Kinect doesn't just detect motion - it detects and reports skeletal position regardless of movement. Major differences in potential applications there (especially as the Kinect 2.0 has the resolution to detect finger position/movement as well) - probably not that great for most games.
One thing I can think of that this could be great for - home security. The current crappy IR motion sensors have to have semi-line of sight and (despite what they advertise) are NOT very pet-friendly (especially for large dogs). So, as long as it can tell the difference between a St. Bernard and a guy in a St. Bernard costume...
No, of course not. And there would be no need for anything like that. All they have to do is arrest those who launched the craft and confiscate their equipment, same as any other violation. That would end it pretty fast (and the space tourism companies know that, so they wouldn't bother trying).
What I think is absurd about this is when properly managed, it really shouldn't be much different from the commercial airline industry. I mean, several aircraft were used as munitions already, does that mean the FAA should now be placed under the DOD and commercial international flights banned?
But with a decreasing pool of collectors and a relatively large supply of working cats and consoles that's exactly his point! Supply and demand, and most vintage consoles are still fairly supply heavy...
Personally - wanting a real Intellivision and some games vs the emulated versions (love those overlays!) I went on eBay, and discovered while there is a healthy market they are for the most part still less expensive in absolute dollars form their cost in the 80's, let alone their adjusted value; i.e. it would have been a bad long term investment.
Of course, Sweden is currently the model of peaceful socialism. "Class division" isn't some abstract concept of immigration status, it's fueled (like everything else) by differences in race, status, income, education, and other social inequalities.
Not saying Sweden is any worse (or even as bad) as many other countries, but don't kid yourself that you somehow avoided these universal issues faced by all societies. That attitude and misperception of the real situation is one of the reason these things get as bad as they are. You can see it play out over and over in European and American history whenever there are waves of "immigration" (slavery, escape from war, famine, or just "opportunity").
Exactly... what's worse than someone wasting their talents on a dumb idea? Someone wasting their talents writing about someone wasting their talents on a dumb idea...
Except that pretty much every store in the US has security cameras these days, so it would be kind of a pointless sign (and most people here know that).
I'm assuming you are in the UK? I mean, you should just have "monitored by CCTV" stamped on your forehead at birth there;)
On the one hand, it is unfortunate that these kids are being ripped off.
On the other hand, why are they pursuing athletic careers at academic institutions?
Because despite what you seem to think, 95%+ of college athletes do not go on to play professional sports, but go into the working world like everyone else. It's not a career for the vast majority, it's an extracurricular activity they love and have been doing since they were little kids. And if they studied and committed themselves in college (as many do, again despite what you think), they come out with a bachelor's degree.
My objection is that athletes that have no interest in higher education are forced into academic pursuits (necessarily displacing others, assuming full enrollment) as a part of their career track. This makes about as much sense as forcing software developers through MLB in order to be employable. In my eyes it's idiotic, but it's possible that I'm just not seeing the logic. I've been asking repeatedly for someone to state in clear and understandable terms why this seemingly absurd system is in society's best interest. I haven't gotten a satisfactory response yet.
Your basic problem here (and the reason no one has given you a "satisfactory response") is that your assumptions are just wrong to start, so there is no response that would make sense to you. You are making an incorrect and stereotypical assumption that all college athletes are on some professional sports career track and don't study or benefit from a college education (or could even be as smart or smarter than non-athletes).
As a personal example (maybe not *typical*, but also far from *unique*), my freshman roommate was on full scholarship for football and actually was one of the lucky few who drafted into the NFL, playing for a few years. He also had a 1300 SAT, an BA in economics, and is now very successful in a completely non-football related business. He's a smart guy, who has used and enjoyed both his athletic and academic abilities. What's wrong with that?
Or if you want the purely numerical reason why it's in the *schools'* best interest (and to some extent students and taxpayers funding the school) - well, I already went over this in detail in another post, but here's the short summary of an example: UTexas football made $133M last year and paid their players $5M in scholarships; after all expenses they made over $90M for the school. An average NFL team makes about $250M a year and pays their players about $125M in salary. The equivalent (~50% revenue to players) for UT would then be about $500K per player, or an extra $60M over what they pay in scholarships. Instead that $60M is part of the $90M going to other school programs and expenses. Even paying the players salaries commensurate with professional programs (which won't happen, though paying something more might) nets the school $30M. The schools in the NCAA just aren't going to walk away from that. Sure, it's largely about money, but what in education, government, business, etc isn't these days? That answer may not be satisfactory to you, but it's the truth...
Perhaps we should give scholarships based upon need/grades/test scores and move the folks that are only in school to play sports into some minor leagues that are funded by the major sports leagues instead of by tax payers.
Wrong. The math is simple. Here's an example. The UT Austin football program brought in $133M (yes MILLION) last year. They gave about $5M in scholarships to the players, which is something like $40k per player on average. That's 3.7% to the players. Their net income from the program is something like $90-100M after all expenses (various employee payroll, facilities, etc). That goes back into the university for other athletic and non-athletic scholarships and the school budget in general. Not only to the taxpayers not fund the football program, it adds $90M+ to the bottom line that the taxpayers (or more likely, students via tuition) don't need to pay.
In comparison the average NFL team makes about $250M a year in revenue. Player salaries are average almost 50% of the team revenue, which is about $125M in salaries. By that standard, if you thought of the players as "minor leagues" then college athletes (via simple supply and demand that is athletic entertainment) should be making more like $500K a year, not a $40K scholarship.
For every kid on a chess scholarship there's dozens of kids on basketball scholarships. Why is that? Why is it in society's best interest to reward people for playing basketball but not for playing chess?
Actually a major problem with collegiate athletics now is NOT that scholarships are being given to athletes over chess players, it's that the colleges are making huge amounts of money off of may of these athletes (ticket sales, TV coverage, merchandising, even using their likenesses in ads and video games for free!) while basically giving them the equivalent of near-minimum wage in return. Highly competitive team sports at the college or pro level is supply and demand at it's extreme, just like many forms of entertainment. It is what it is and that's the way the world works.
And yes, in some ways the whole system is pretty fucked up at many of the schools with great athletic problems but mediocre academic programs. But that's really orthogonal to this discussion. Would you prefer the football and basketball players get a salary equivalent to the income they draw instead of a scholarship, and then pay for tuition with that? For some major programs those salaries would be in the high 6 figures or more. At least with the current system some of the extra money goes to scholarships for other students (often in neglected sports, but sometimes in other areas as well).
I never said I idolized him, I just said he was brilliant (he was) and he encouraged non-academic pursuits as important to a healthy academic career (which I agree with).
Einstein loved sailing and music (was a great violinist), both of which he was avidly involved with in college and said helped him take a break, relax, and focus later on his studies.
Feynman... well, here's one of his most famous quotes: "Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.”
And Hawking was a coxswain at Oxford. In fact, he has admitted he was somewhat of an academic slacker there, but his extracurricular activities helped him socialize and avoid boredom/depression given he was younger (and smarter) than most of his peers.
I'm pretty sure for almost every brilliant person you could find multiple examples of them having strong interests outside of their academic field. What you call "distractions" most others consider essential to the creative process.
I have a lot of friends who were involved in collegiate athletics - some on scholarship, some not, some actually played professionally later, but most went on to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers, even a couple of PhDs. I know my experience probably wasn't typical these days, but it is still common at many highly selective successful private universities. Athletics, music, and other non-academic activities have been a integral part of advanced education from ancient Greece and Rome through the Renaissance in Europe and the Enlightenment extending to America. This isn't some recent modern development.
But in the end how much "actual usable information" is stored by an arbitrary web server? Maybe your IP and user agent. Anything more requires the cooperation of some other site that has more specific information about you, which as I said really puts it on *them* and not a random website recording your access of their pages. If you have agreed to give a store your facial profile and your home address and agreed to a TOS letting them share it with other stores, then they theoretically could know who you are and everything you browsed in the store. Same with Facebook Connect.
Really in the end privacy is up to your client and any sites *you* have given personal information to, not the other random websites you access...
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously? Have you been WATCHING the news lately? And this time it's not even just Fox stirring up the shit against the Democratic administration.
Long rambling post, not much relevance.
Various people in the US government (some public, some anonymous) have already stated this is a routine renewal that has been going on since the Bush administration, and all carriers must be ordered separately, so you can pretty much guarantee that AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc are doing the same thing, and have been for the last 8 years or so. Further, they have also stated the records just include to/from and time (not the actual call data).
None of those are REMOTELY focused. The prevailing theory is the NSA is basically building a relationship map to find patterns and networks of cell phone users based on the calls made. So for example, if they discover that you are a terrorist, they can instantly look up the network of people you talk to regularly (and who they talk to, etc).
No, actually, it was already stated this was just a routine renewal of something they have been doing since the warrantless wiretapping started in the Bush administration. And it pretty much applies to all carriers. So you can basically assume it's every cell phone call in the last 8 years or so. How's that for focused?
Well, you voluntarily hand over the items when you go through security - you always have the option to turn around and walk away.
Not that I agree with the policy, but calling it theft is fairly hyperbolic.
Hmm, that analogy doesn't seem very relevant. A Communist dictator who kept himself in power by brutal means and exported all of his country's resources for his own personal gain vs. a democracy with a 2 term president, checks and balances, and media that scrutinizes and publicizes every dump a politician takes?
The fact is > 50% of the voters elected the current leader of the US within the last 4 years, which makes it pretty hard to have passionate majority popular uprising. Pretty sure the military, though not happy about it, would have no problem using their guns on any small revolt (that we all know will never happen anyway). As history has shown, the only realistic way a remotely successful revolt can happen in the US is when it's on extremely divisive and more importantly GEOGRAPHICAL boundaries (which allowed the military itself to organize along *local* loyalties - as you said, friends and neighbors). Those divisions just don't exist any more on geographical lines - now the only major division (beyond the relatively recent idiotic fanatical "conservative" vs. "liberal" debate which is mostly just a disgusting media-driven creation) is really rich vs poor, with a large buffering middle class that just doesn't care much as long as they are left alone.
Then again, even if I disagree with your point it was at least much more interesting than the one you replied to, which was just a blatant anti-US troll with no real insight whatsoever...
This seems unlikely to be a focused surveillance effort
Yeah, I think collecting logs of all calls made by 70+ million people for 3 months pretty much rules out "focused surveillance" ;)
Which is funny considering Paul Hogan managed to convince the rest of the world Australians all walked around with 12" bush knives stuffed down their pants ;)
this also ends my plans for Ackthpt's Small Knives And Pointy Objects Emporium in airports from coast to coast.
Yeah, now you know why the TSA rescinded the order - they didn't want you to compete with their current side business selling pocket knives. (I think my uncle bought a box of corkscrews by the pound).
Actually, now that I think of it, if you have a St. Bernard in your house, you probably don't NEED an alarm :)
Of course, it's not actually as good as a regular, cheap motion sensor.
Apparently it works off of ambient RF in the house with a single AP that can detect motion (including specific gestures) anywhere in its range. *IF* it does what they say it does (who knows...) then it's WAY better than a cheap (IR) motion sensor. Especially if it can be programmed to ignore my cat and dog :)
According to TFA, this detects *movement* by Doppler shift in the wireless signal - yet it describes it as "similar to Xbox Kinect" but with a bunch of advantages.
However, Kinect doesn't just detect motion - it detects and reports skeletal position regardless of movement. Major differences in potential applications there (especially as the Kinect 2.0 has the resolution to detect finger position/movement as well) - probably not that great for most games.
One thing I can think of that this could be great for - home security. The current crappy IR motion sensors have to have semi-line of sight and (despite what they advertise) are NOT very pet-friendly (especially for large dogs). So, as long as it can tell the difference between a St. Bernard and a guy in a St. Bernard costume...
No, of course not. And there would be no need for anything like that. All they have to do is arrest those who launched the craft and confiscate their equipment, same as any other violation. That would end it pretty fast (and the space tourism companies know that, so they wouldn't bother trying).
What I think is absurd about this is when properly managed, it really shouldn't be much different from the commercial airline industry. I mean, several aircraft were used as munitions already, does that mean the FAA should now be placed under the DOD and commercial international flights banned?
That would explain why the site itself loads so slowly...
But with a decreasing pool of collectors and a relatively large supply of working cats and consoles that's exactly his point! Supply and demand, and most vintage consoles are still fairly supply heavy...
Personally - wanting a real Intellivision and some games vs the emulated versions (love those overlays!) I went on eBay, and discovered while there is a healthy market they are for the most part still less expensive in absolute dollars form their cost in the 80's, let alone their adjusted value; i.e. it would have been a bad long term investment.
And when you outlaw outlaws, only outlaws will be outlaws!
Of course, Sweden is currently the model of peaceful socialism. "Class division" isn't some abstract concept of immigration status, it's fueled (like everything else) by differences in race, status, income, education, and other social inequalities.
Not saying Sweden is any worse (or even as bad) as many other countries, but don't kid yourself that you somehow avoided these universal issues faced by all societies. That attitude and misperception of the real situation is one of the reason these things get as bad as they are. You can see it play out over and over in European and American history whenever there are waves of "immigration" (slavery, escape from war, famine, or just "opportunity").
Exactly... what's worse than someone wasting their talents on a dumb idea? Someone wasting their talents writing about someone wasting their talents on a dumb idea...
Was just guessing because "shop" and "CCTV" tend to be British English terminology, vs. "store" and "camera" :)
Except that pretty much every store in the US has security cameras these days, so it would be kind of a pointless sign (and most people here know that).
I'm assuming you are in the UK? I mean, you should just have "monitored by CCTV" stamped on your forehead at birth there ;)
On the one hand, it is unfortunate that these kids are being ripped off.
On the other hand, why are they pursuing athletic careers at academic institutions?
Because despite what you seem to think, 95%+ of college athletes do not go on to play professional sports, but go into the working world like everyone else. It's not a career for the vast majority, it's an extracurricular activity they love and have been doing since they were little kids. And if they studied and committed themselves in college (as many do, again despite what you think), they come out with a bachelor's degree.
My objection is that athletes that have no interest in higher education are forced into academic pursuits (necessarily displacing others, assuming full enrollment) as a part of their career track. This makes about as much sense as forcing software developers through MLB in order to be employable. In my eyes it's idiotic, but it's possible that I'm just not seeing the logic. I've been asking repeatedly for someone to state in clear and understandable terms why this seemingly absurd system is in society's best interest. I haven't gotten a satisfactory response yet.
Your basic problem here (and the reason no one has given you a "satisfactory response") is that your assumptions are just wrong to start, so there is no response that would make sense to you. You are making an incorrect and stereotypical assumption that all college athletes are on some professional sports career track and don't study or benefit from a college education (or could even be as smart or smarter than non-athletes).
As a personal example (maybe not *typical*, but also far from *unique*), my freshman roommate was on full scholarship for football and actually was one of the lucky few who drafted into the NFL, playing for a few years. He also had a 1300 SAT, an BA in economics, and is now very successful in a completely non-football related business. He's a smart guy, who has used and enjoyed both his athletic and academic abilities. What's wrong with that?
Or if you want the purely numerical reason why it's in the *schools'* best interest (and to some extent students and taxpayers funding the school) - well, I already went over this in detail in another post, but here's the short summary of an example: UTexas football made $133M last year and paid their players $5M in scholarships; after all expenses they made over $90M for the school. An average NFL team makes about $250M a year and pays their players about $125M in salary. The equivalent (~50% revenue to players) for UT would then be about $500K per player, or an extra $60M over what they pay in scholarships. Instead that $60M is part of the $90M going to other school programs and expenses. Even paying the players salaries commensurate with professional programs (which won't happen, though paying something more might) nets the school $30M. The schools in the NCAA just aren't going to walk away from that. Sure, it's largely about money, but what in education, government, business, etc isn't these days? That answer may not be satisfactory to you, but it's the truth...
Perhaps we should give scholarships based upon need/grades/test scores and move the folks that are only in school to play sports into some minor leagues that are funded by the major sports leagues instead of by tax payers.
Wrong. The math is simple. Here's an example. The UT Austin football program brought in $133M (yes MILLION) last year. They gave about $5M in scholarships to the players, which is something like $40k per player on average. That's 3.7% to the players. Their net income from the program is something like $90-100M after all expenses (various employee payroll, facilities, etc). That goes back into the university for other athletic and non-athletic scholarships and the school budget in general. Not only to the taxpayers not fund the football program, it adds $90M+ to the bottom line that the taxpayers (or more likely, students via tuition) don't need to pay.
In comparison the average NFL team makes about $250M a year in revenue. Player salaries are average almost 50% of the team revenue, which is about $125M in salaries. By that standard, if you thought of the players as "minor leagues" then college athletes (via simple supply and demand that is athletic entertainment) should be making more like $500K a year, not a $40K scholarship.
For every kid on a chess scholarship there's dozens of kids on basketball scholarships. Why is that? Why is it in society's best interest to reward people for playing basketball but not for playing chess?
Actually a major problem with collegiate athletics now is NOT that scholarships are being given to athletes over chess players, it's that the colleges are making huge amounts of money off of may of these athletes (ticket sales, TV coverage, merchandising, even using their likenesses in ads and video games for free!) while basically giving them the equivalent of near-minimum wage in return. Highly competitive team sports at the college or pro level is supply and demand at it's extreme, just like many forms of entertainment. It is what it is and that's the way the world works.
And yes, in some ways the whole system is pretty fucked up at many of the schools with great athletic problems but mediocre academic programs. But that's really orthogonal to this discussion. Would you prefer the football and basketball players get a salary equivalent to the income they draw instead of a scholarship, and then pay for tuition with that? For some major programs those salaries would be in the high 6 figures or more. At least with the current system some of the extra money goes to scholarships for other students (often in neglected sports, but sometimes in other areas as well).
I never said I idolized him, I just said he was brilliant (he was) and he encouraged non-academic pursuits as important to a healthy academic career (which I agree with).
Einstein loved sailing and music (was a great violinist), both of which he was avidly involved with in college and said helped him take a break, relax, and focus later on his studies.
Feynman... well, here's one of his most famous quotes: "Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.”
And Hawking was a coxswain at Oxford. In fact, he has admitted he was somewhat of an academic slacker there, but his extracurricular activities helped him socialize and avoid boredom/depression given he was younger (and smarter) than most of his peers.
I'm pretty sure for almost every brilliant person you could find multiple examples of them having strong interests outside of their academic field. What you call "distractions" most others consider essential to the creative process.
I have a lot of friends who were involved in collegiate athletics - some on scholarship, some not, some actually played professionally later, but most went on to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers, even a couple of PhDs. I know my experience probably wasn't typical these days, but it is still common at many highly selective successful private universities. Athletics, music, and other non-academic activities have been a integral part of advanced education from ancient Greece and Rome through the Renaissance in Europe and the Enlightenment extending to America. This isn't some recent modern development.
But in the end how much "actual usable information" is stored by an arbitrary web server? Maybe your IP and user agent. Anything more requires the cooperation of some other site that has more specific information about you, which as I said really puts it on *them* and not a random website recording your access of their pages. If you have agreed to give a store your facial profile and your home address and agreed to a TOS letting them share it with other stores, then they theoretically could know who you are and everything you browsed in the store. Same with Facebook Connect.
Really in the end privacy is up to your client and any sites *you* have given personal information to, not the other random websites you access...