It seems like folks can't remember something for more than a few minutes. How else do you explain politicians who say one thing today, deny it tomorrow, and get away with it despite piles of evidence that they actually did say it? How else do you explain CNN being able to repeat the same few stories every hour and still hold on to viewers? How else do you explain the insane popularity of things like twitter?
Hell, TV shows have started showing "last time on..." flashbacks just to make sure that people remember what happened in the last episode.
I think you'd have a hard time doing a 4+ movie series without going back somewhere along the line and re-introducing the characters. I think you'd have people forgetting what happened in the first movie, and folks coming in midway through who wouldn't bother to go watch the first movie.
I expected to see the entire HDD crushed. Or maybe an array of spikes to thoroughly perforate the disk.
A single spike? A single hole in the disk?
I'd assume the controller and electronics are toast... But I bet that if you were sufficiently motivated you could mount those platters in a new box and recover a good chunk of data.
Re:Glucose anyone?
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Given that glucose is what our bodies run on, I'd have to say no, sugar is NOT toxic to us. Is having too much sugar bad for you? Certainly. It's about balance. Too much of nearly anything (even water) is going to be bad for you.
Glucose is one of the things our bodies run on. We can also run on ketones. And there is some evidence (controversial, of course) that our bodies run better on ketones than on glucose.
But just because our bodies run on it does not mean that it is non-toxic. There's a reason why unregulated blood sugar (diabetes) is considered a bad thing. High blood sugar causes damaged to capillaries and your retinas, causes neuropathy, all kinds of fun stuff. And we aren't even talking about hitting the LD50 of glucose.
The fact of the matter is that much of our dietary recommendations, like the food pyramid, are not based on good science. Sure, if you take in more calories than you burn you're going to gain weight... But that's an overly simplistic statement. It really depends on what kind of calories you take in, and how the body metabolizes them. There's no link between dietary fat and body fat (beyond the fact that dietary fat is generally calorically dense) - but we're told that low-fat is good. We're told to eat lots of grains and carbohydrates of various types... We start seeing all kinds of nutritionally fortified foods... We start sticking NuVal tags on everything in the supermarket... And obesity skyrockets. And dieticians are still telling folks to avoid fat and have a bowl of cereal instead.
We consume far more sugar in our daily diet than we were ever intended to. Not just glucose, but absolute craptons of fructose. And, whether the corn lobby likes it or not, fructose is not processed the same way glucose is. We consume craptons of starches, too... Dry cereals, various chips and crackers, pasta, potatoes, breads, corn in every form imaginable... All that starch gets converted into sugar eventually.
We'd really be much better off eating more natural fats like nuts, butter, and not-so-lean meat. We'd really be much better off eating more protein from meats, nuts, and beans. We'd really be much better off eating more vegetables. And we'd be a hell of a lot better off if so much of our food didn't come from a box or a freezer or a restaurant.
But industrial agriculture is a huge business... And you've got to do something with all that corn your grow... So we get lobbyists in Washington, and we get recommendations based on bad science, and we get inundated with commercials telling us how much better our lives will be if we just microwave something instead of spending hours in the kitchen... And then folks look amazed at our national epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
Re:The sugar lobby is worse than oil company lobbi
on
Is Sugar Toxic?
·
· Score: 1
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead? Obviously they've got nothing on the corn lobbyists.
Didn't you hear? It's "corn sugar" now. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it's just like cane sugar.
It effectively destroys the second hand value and they know it.
Of course it does, and that's the whole point.
Until fairly recently you could either pay $50+ for a new game, or wait a few months and buy the exact same game for $20 or less. Exact same content. No differences at all. You just have to wait a couple months to play it.
That was terrific for the buyer... But lousy for the publisher - because the publisher saw absolutely nothing of that second, $20 sale. That $20 sale was entirely between the buyer and whoever it was bought from - Gamestop, or some guy in the dorms, or eBay, or whatever.
These new penalties are to ensure that the publisher gets their cut of any used game sales. And, hopefully, to make used games unappealing enough that folks will be willing to pay for new games.
Seriously... My first thought - what the hell were you thinking?
You bought a server with your own money. Plugged it into the hospital's network. And you think that's going to be OK?
Does anybody else know how to run the thing? If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, what're they going to do with the machine?
You bought it with your money. If you get fired tomorrow, are you planning on taking it with you? Is it legally documented anywhere that you or the hospital own this thing? Is its value being tracked like every other asset in the hospital? If the auditors show up while you're out of the office, and ask what that box is and how much it cost and which department owns it, can anybody answer them?
Is the thing safe for use in a hospital environment? Every single piece of equipment in my server room (I work in a hospital) has a little tag on it indicating the last time it was tested to make sure it is safe to plug in to an electrical outlet. We don't do the testing ourselves - another company comes in once a year or so and audits absolutely everything in the building that plugs in to an electrical outlet.
Is the thing going to pass HIPAA regulations? You said it's a calendar server... Any chance you'll be putting any PHI on there? What safeguards are in place to make sure that any PHI on there will be protected? Or what kind of safeguards are in place to make sure PHI doesn't show up on there?
And you find it worrying that IT wants to know what you're planning on using port 8443 for? 8443 isn't a standard port number. I've seen it used for a number of different things - not all of which I'd want running on a random box on my network. And it doesn't sound like you asked for any kind of clearance ahead of time... Do you even know if they run public-facing servers on the same network you've got the thing plugged in to? Do you know if they've got a DMZ somewhere that this thing should be plugged in to? Do you know if they're already using 8443 for something? Do you know if they've got a public IP address available for your use? Hell, were you even given a private static IP to use, or did you just grab something that didn't respond to ping?
And you're thinking it's unreasonable for IT to have a login on the machine?
If the thing starts misbehaving in the middle of the night, are they supposed to page you in to fix the issue? If some segment of the network develops issues and they need to move your machine elsewhere, are they supposed to call you in to do it? If it becomes compromised and starts spitting out garbage, do they call you to clean it up? Are you going to be come an honorary member of the IT department, solely tasked with maintaining this single machine? And are you going to personally train a replacement when you leave the company? Or when you go on vacation? Or when you get sick?
I'd instead say "and in internet years, that's about 400 years, and it shows. retire the poor thing already!" It's a royal pain for firewalls and it sends text in the clear. Move into the 21st century and use scp...
The only reason it's a pain for firewalls is because we're still sitting on IPv4 and NATing everything all to hell.
Although the whole cleartext thing is a bit of a problem.
True... But I can study for a decade or two and attain the same knowledge and verify it for myself.
You simply cannot do that with religion. Ever.
Have you tried?
I assume your question is aimed at my second statement - about the ability to study religion for a decade or two to attain the same knowledge and verify it myself...
And, to be honest, I'm not quite sure how to answer it.
Yes, I did spend a decade or two studying religion. I was raised Methodist, but my mother's family was Southern Baptist and my father's family was Catholic. So I attended church every weekend, went to Sunday School, attended a few summer Bible camps, and went through Confirmation in the Methodist church. But we also attended Catholic and Baptist services if we were visiting relatives during the holidays, and I learned quite a bit about those versions of Christianity along the way. The differences between these three religions that all claimed to be worshiping the same god made me wonder if I was doing it right. Around age 10 I started asking questions. Around age 15 or so, I started doing some real research. I seriously looked into the beliefs of those three religions, as well as a couple different flavors of Judaism and Islam. I read up on just about every kind of ism I could think of. And at the age of 30 I came to the conclusion that it's all BS. So, yes, I did spend a decade or two studying religion in an attempt to attain the same knowledge and verify it for myself.
But the problem with religion is that you cannot attain that knowledge.
All the assorted flavors of religions have the same basic structure. You've got a book, or an oral tradition, or something... And this book (or whatever) relates a story that's been passed down through the years... And the story is that some special person had a direct line to god and was given some privileged information. And at this point, decades (or centuries, or millenia) later, we just have to trust that the story was accurate in the first place and has been relayed accurately throughout the years. Worse, most religions (not all) insist that you have to take this all on Faith. Not normal "I have faith that you aren't going to stab me in the back" faith... But "ignore all evidence to the contrary and hold tight to your beliefs as a show of trust in the almighty" faith.
So, most (not all) religions are going to frown on you asking questions and doing research in the first place.
But then you've got the question of what you're going to research... You can trace the texts and translations and whatnot back a good way... But how do you verify the story itself? How do you know that the originator was actually hearing from a god, and not simply delusional? How do you know that the various miracles that are reported aren't misinterpretations, or could be easily explained with modern science, or were straight-up fabrications? How do you dig out the intent of a storyteller who's been dead for decades/centuries/millenia? How do you determine if it was intended as literal truth, or simply allegory?
Of course various religions will tell you to pray for guidance, or listen to your heart, or whatever... But that isn't exactly objective, is it? That can't be tested and verified, can it? I mean, I physically gag when I try to eat tomatoes - does that mean they're poisonous? So everybody out there who loves eating tomatoes is going to die? Or is it just that my own physiology is such that my subjective experience of them is different from everyone else's?
The key difference with the scientific method is that it does not rely on faith.
Sure, it's much easier if you trust (have faith, if you prefer) that other folks out there know what they're doing... It saves you some effort if you don't go to the trouble of re-discovering every constant and formula out there...
I thnk you're missing the point: if you don't have the knowledge to understand the science, then you must take on faith that those who do, a) do, and b) are relaying the correct information.
I think the more correct way to phrase this is you must trust that those who do...
Folks like to roll out the word "faith" when discussing the differences between religion and science, because it makes the two seem more similar. "See, you have faith in science!" But when you're talking about having faith in a person, rather than having religious faith, what it really means is trust. You trust that the scientist did things right. You trust that the information is being relayed correctly. Trust is earned, and trust can be lost. Trust is not some permanent edifice that resists all rationality.
You could study for a decade or two in order to attain the same knowledge and verify it for yourself... but until you do that, your only option is to place your trust (and faith) in those who have already done that.
True... But I can study for a decade or two and attain the same knowledge and verify it for myself.
I would disagree if one was to say there is no faith. The difference is where and why faith is placed. There is no faith placed in any one scientist.
Religious faith and "faith in a person" are two dramatically different things.
When you have faith in a person, what you're basically saying is that you trust them. When you have religious faith, it's an unshakable belief in things that cannot be empirically proven.
I may trust a given scientist... But they can lose my trust as well. If they stop doing quality work and start publishing fluffy garbage that doesn't hold up to peer review, I will no longer trust them.
This is different from religion, because if you have faith it doesn't matter what kinds of fluffy garbage get published.
A dictionary is used to look up words when you don't know what they mean.
Imagine somebody encountering the characters "l33t" for the first time. Would they have any idea that the 3's were substitutes for e's?
If you don't know what the word "turnip" means, you go look in the dictionary. If you don't know what the word "l33t" means, you go look in the dictionary. What's the difference?
It is still completely possible for Google to use hashed passwords to authenticate users and only "save" the plain password in a "write only" file (text or separate database) with the unhashed passwords...
The reason passwords are generally not stored in an unencrypted format is so that they're only known to the person who generated them. It's a form of authentication. The system knows you're you, because you're the only one who knows your password.
If the password is stored in cleartext, or some kind of reversible encryption, this is no longer the case.
What happens if some bored employee goes looking at that list of unencrypted passwords? What happens if a stack of backup tapes containing that list goes missing?
or just "reset" the password of the account and give it to the French police.
That isn't what the government wants. Resetting a password tips you off that somebody is messing around with your account. The government wants to be able to peek in without anybody knowing.
This is ridiculous. The front page of my local newspaper (California, near the coast) is abuzz with "nyookulurr" concerns as well. Why don't they edit out the episodes having to do with, y'know, earthquakes and tsunamis, seeing as that's the brand of disaster Japan is facing right now. It seems to me that the situation with the power plants is being handled professionally and safely. If it wasn't for the public's irrational and uneducated fear of glowing green radioactivity, the nuclear power plants that we do have wouldn't be stuck at 1970's-level technology.
Because the earthquakes and tsunamis aren't going to wander over to California and knock over some buildings.
It has nothing to do with the suffering in Japan... It's all about the potential suffering in California (or wherever).
There is a very simple reason for this: People don't care about people but themselves. A tsunami washing away a few thousand Japanese? Ffft. Big deal.
A nuclear plant cooking off? OMFG! What if the death cloud comes over here!
Do you think anyone worries about the Japanese people suffering from radiation there? People are worried about whether the radiation comes to them, that's all. Get used to it, nobody gives a damn about anyone but themselves. That tsunami is over and doesn't threaten anyone (outside of Japan, that is) anymore. That radiation could still be a problem outside of Japan. Hence the coverage of the nuclear plants and not the tsunami.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, publishers don't need a cut of used game sales
Of course they don't need a cut of used game sales... But they want one. And that's all that matters.
I keep seeing this “don’t want to re-purchase my entire collection of DVD’s in Blu-Ray” comment over and over.
Except that this comment appears nowhere in my post.
Keep your old DVDs and watch them, they work fine in a Blu-Ray player.
That is exactly what I am doing.
I'm not running out to re-purchase my entire collection of DVD's in Blu-Ray format...
And I've always been picky about what I purchase.
But any new movies I buy have been in Blu-Ray format.
I blame our dwindling attention span...
It seems like folks can't remember something for more than a few minutes. How else do you explain politicians who say one thing today, deny it tomorrow, and get away with it despite piles of evidence that they actually did say it? How else do you explain CNN being able to repeat the same few stories every hour and still hold on to viewers? How else do you explain the insane popularity of things like twitter?
Hell, TV shows have started showing "last time on..." flashbacks just to make sure that people remember what happened in the last episode.
I think you'd have a hard time doing a 4+ movie series without going back somewhere along the line and re-introducing the characters. I think you'd have people forgetting what happened in the first movie, and folks coming in midway through who wouldn't bother to go watch the first movie.
I expected to see the entire HDD crushed. Or maybe an array of spikes to thoroughly perforate the disk.
A single spike? A single hole in the disk?
I'd assume the controller and electronics are toast... But I bet that if you were sufficiently motivated you could mount those platters in a new box and recover a good chunk of data.
Given that glucose is what our bodies run on, I'd have to say no, sugar is NOT toxic to us. Is having too much sugar bad for you? Certainly. It's about balance. Too much of nearly anything (even water) is going to be bad for you.
Glucose is one of the things our bodies run on. We can also run on ketones. And there is some evidence (controversial, of course) that our bodies run better on ketones than on glucose.
But just because our bodies run on it does not mean that it is non-toxic. There's a reason why unregulated blood sugar (diabetes) is considered a bad thing. High blood sugar causes damaged to capillaries and your retinas, causes neuropathy, all kinds of fun stuff. And we aren't even talking about hitting the LD50 of glucose.
The fact of the matter is that much of our dietary recommendations, like the food pyramid, are not based on good science. Sure, if you take in more calories than you burn you're going to gain weight... But that's an overly simplistic statement. It really depends on what kind of calories you take in, and how the body metabolizes them. There's no link between dietary fat and body fat (beyond the fact that dietary fat is generally calorically dense) - but we're told that low-fat is good. We're told to eat lots of grains and carbohydrates of various types... We start seeing all kinds of nutritionally fortified foods... We start sticking NuVal tags on everything in the supermarket... And obesity skyrockets. And dieticians are still telling folks to avoid fat and have a bowl of cereal instead.
We consume far more sugar in our daily diet than we were ever intended to. Not just glucose, but absolute craptons of fructose. And, whether the corn lobby likes it or not, fructose is not processed the same way glucose is. We consume craptons of starches, too... Dry cereals, various chips and crackers, pasta, potatoes, breads, corn in every form imaginable... All that starch gets converted into sugar eventually.
We'd really be much better off eating more natural fats like nuts, butter, and not-so-lean meat. We'd really be much better off eating more protein from meats, nuts, and beans. We'd really be much better off eating more vegetables. And we'd be a hell of a lot better off if so much of our food didn't come from a box or a freezer or a restaurant.
But industrial agriculture is a huge business... And you've got to do something with all that corn your grow... So we get lobbyists in Washington, and we get recommendations based on bad science, and we get inundated with commercials telling us how much better our lives will be if we just microwave something instead of spending hours in the kitchen... And then folks look amazed at our national epidemic of obesity and diabetes.
If the sugar lobby is so powerful, why is HFCS used in everything instead? Obviously they've got nothing on the corn lobbyists.
Didn't you hear? It's "corn sugar" now. And, despite all the evidence to the contrary, it's just like cane sugar.
It effectively destroys the second hand value and they know it.
Of course it does, and that's the whole point.
Until fairly recently you could either pay $50+ for a new game, or wait a few months and buy the exact same game for $20 or less. Exact same content. No differences at all. You just have to wait a couple months to play it.
That was terrific for the buyer... But lousy for the publisher - because the publisher saw absolutely nothing of that second, $20 sale. That $20 sale was entirely between the buyer and whoever it was bought from - Gamestop, or some guy in the dorms, or eBay, or whatever.
These new penalties are to ensure that the publisher gets their cut of any used game sales. And, hopefully, to make used games unappealing enough that folks will be willing to pay for new games.
Seriously... My first thought - what the hell were you thinking?
You bought a server with your own money. Plugged it into the hospital's network. And you think that's going to be OK?
Does anybody else know how to run the thing? If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, what're they going to do with the machine?
You bought it with your money. If you get fired tomorrow, are you planning on taking it with you? Is it legally documented anywhere that you or the hospital own this thing? Is its value being tracked like every other asset in the hospital? If the auditors show up while you're out of the office, and ask what that box is and how much it cost and which department owns it, can anybody answer them?
Is the thing safe for use in a hospital environment? Every single piece of equipment in my server room (I work in a hospital) has a little tag on it indicating the last time it was tested to make sure it is safe to plug in to an electrical outlet. We don't do the testing ourselves - another company comes in once a year or so and audits absolutely everything in the building that plugs in to an electrical outlet.
Is the thing going to pass HIPAA regulations? You said it's a calendar server... Any chance you'll be putting any PHI on there? What safeguards are in place to make sure that any PHI on there will be protected? Or what kind of safeguards are in place to make sure PHI doesn't show up on there?
And you find it worrying that IT wants to know what you're planning on using port 8443 for? 8443 isn't a standard port number. I've seen it used for a number of different things - not all of which I'd want running on a random box on my network. And it doesn't sound like you asked for any kind of clearance ahead of time... Do you even know if they run public-facing servers on the same network you've got the thing plugged in to? Do you know if they've got a DMZ somewhere that this thing should be plugged in to? Do you know if they're already using 8443 for something? Do you know if they've got a public IP address available for your use? Hell, were you even given a private static IP to use, or did you just grab something that didn't respond to ping?
And you're thinking it's unreasonable for IT to have a login on the machine?
If the thing starts misbehaving in the middle of the night, are they supposed to page you in to fix the issue? If some segment of the network develops issues and they need to move your machine elsewhere, are they supposed to call you in to do it? If it becomes compromised and starts spitting out garbage, do they call you to clean it up? Are you going to be come an honorary member of the IT department, solely tasked with maintaining this single machine? And are you going to personally train a replacement when you leave the company? Or when you go on vacation? Or when you get sick?
All I can say is that I sincerely wish I had mod points right now.
It is dead. FTP was once the majority of all bandwidth used on the Internet. It was overtaken by http... in 1995!
I still can't go for more than a day or two without hitting an FTP site for something...
I'd instead say "and in internet years, that's about 400 years, and it shows. retire the poor thing already!" It's a royal pain for firewalls and it sends text in the clear. Move into the 21st century and use scp...
The only reason it's a pain for firewalls is because we're still sitting on IPv4 and NATing everything all to hell.
Although the whole cleartext thing is a bit of a problem.
I dunno... If we hadn't been repeatedly beaten in the space race, would we have been willing to pour so much time/effort/money into a moon landing?
It'd probably still make a nice goal... And I assume the Soviets would have been aiming for it...
But would the "we do these things because they're hard" speech, with the aggressive deadline, have ever happened?
Anyone who's read Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card, is now fidgeting nervously.
Xenocide? I don't recall any video games that were actually controlling battle fleets in Xenocide.
Those were in Ender's Game.
True... But I can study for a decade or two and attain the same knowledge and verify it for myself.
You simply cannot do that with religion. Ever.
Have you tried?
I assume your question is aimed at my second statement - about the ability to study religion for a decade or two to attain the same knowledge and verify it myself...
And, to be honest, I'm not quite sure how to answer it.
Yes, I did spend a decade or two studying religion. I was raised Methodist, but my mother's family was Southern Baptist and my father's family was Catholic. So I attended church every weekend, went to Sunday School, attended a few summer Bible camps, and went through Confirmation in the Methodist church. But we also attended Catholic and Baptist services if we were visiting relatives during the holidays, and I learned quite a bit about those versions of Christianity along the way. The differences between these three religions that all claimed to be worshiping the same god made me wonder if I was doing it right. Around age 10 I started asking questions. Around age 15 or so, I started doing some real research. I seriously looked into the beliefs of those three religions, as well as a couple different flavors of Judaism and Islam. I read up on just about every kind of ism I could think of. And at the age of 30 I came to the conclusion that it's all BS. So, yes, I did spend a decade or two studying religion in an attempt to attain the same knowledge and verify it for myself.
But the problem with religion is that you cannot attain that knowledge.
All the assorted flavors of religions have the same basic structure. You've got a book, or an oral tradition, or something... And this book (or whatever) relates a story that's been passed down through the years... And the story is that some special person had a direct line to god and was given some privileged information. And at this point, decades (or centuries, or millenia) later, we just have to trust that the story was accurate in the first place and has been relayed accurately throughout the years. Worse, most religions (not all) insist that you have to take this all on Faith. Not normal "I have faith that you aren't going to stab me in the back" faith... But "ignore all evidence to the contrary and hold tight to your beliefs as a show of trust in the almighty" faith.
So, most (not all) religions are going to frown on you asking questions and doing research in the first place.
But then you've got the question of what you're going to research... You can trace the texts and translations and whatnot back a good way... But how do you verify the story itself? How do you know that the originator was actually hearing from a god, and not simply delusional? How do you know that the various miracles that are reported aren't misinterpretations, or could be easily explained with modern science, or were straight-up fabrications? How do you dig out the intent of a storyteller who's been dead for decades/centuries/millenia? How do you determine if it was intended as literal truth, or simply allegory?
Of course various religions will tell you to pray for guidance, or listen to your heart, or whatever... But that isn't exactly objective, is it? That can't be tested and verified, can it? I mean, I physically gag when I try to eat tomatoes - does that mean they're poisonous? So everybody out there who loves eating tomatoes is going to die? Or is it just that my own physiology is such that my subjective experience of them is different from everyone else's?
The key difference with the scientific method is that it does not rely on faith.
Sure, it's much easier if you trust (have faith, if you prefer) that other folks out there know what they're doing... It saves you some effort if you don't go to the trouble of re-discovering every constant and formula out there...
But it's based on objective, testable
I thnk you're missing the point: if you don't have the knowledge to understand the science, then you must take on faith that those who do, a) do, and b) are relaying the correct information.
I think the more correct way to phrase this is you must trust that those who do...
Folks like to roll out the word "faith" when discussing the differences between religion and science, because it makes the two seem more similar. "See, you have faith in science!" But when you're talking about having faith in a person, rather than having religious faith, what it really means is trust. You trust that the scientist did things right. You trust that the information is being relayed correctly. Trust is earned, and trust can be lost. Trust is not some permanent edifice that resists all rationality.
You could study for a decade or two in order to attain the same knowledge and verify it for yourself... but until you do that, your only option is to place your trust (and faith) in those who have already done that.
True... But I can study for a decade or two and attain the same knowledge and verify it for myself.
You simply cannot do that with religion. Ever.
I would disagree if one was to say there is no faith. The difference is where and why faith is placed. There is no faith placed in any one scientist.
Religious faith and "faith in a person" are two dramatically different things.
When you have faith in a person, what you're basically saying is that you trust them. When you have religious faith, it's an unshakable belief in things that cannot be empirically proven.
I may trust a given scientist... But they can lose my trust as well. If they stop doing quality work and start publishing fluffy garbage that doesn't hold up to peer review, I will no longer trust them.
This is different from religion, because if you have faith it doesn't matter what kinds of fluffy garbage get published.
Off-topic, but what's up with Slashdot links and FF4? Tried to go look at the images and the link didn't work. Had to copy & paste.
A dictionary is used to look up words when you don't know what they mean.
Imagine somebody encountering the characters "l33t" for the first time. Would they have any idea that the 3's were substitutes for e's?
If you don't know what the word "turnip" means, you go look in the dictionary. If you don't know what the word "l33t" means, you go look in the dictionary. What's the difference?
It is still completely possible for Google to use hashed passwords to authenticate users and only "save" the plain password in a "write only" file (text or separate database) with the unhashed passwords...
The reason passwords are generally not stored in an unencrypted format is so that they're only known to the person who generated them. It's a form of authentication. The system knows you're you, because you're the only one who knows your password.
If the password is stored in cleartext, or some kind of reversible encryption, this is no longer the case.
What happens if some bored employee goes looking at that list of unencrypted passwords? What happens if a stack of backup tapes containing that list goes missing?
or just "reset" the password of the account and give it to the French police.
That isn't what the government wants. Resetting a password tips you off that somebody is messing around with your account. The government wants to be able to peek in without anybody knowing.
Netbooks shot way up then crashed.
I still see netbooks all over the place...
As well as laptops that come in all sorts of shapes and sizes that blur the line between "laptop" and "netbook".
What happened is that the niche netbooks occupied was, to a certain degree, taken over by the iPad.
Why do people complain about "offensive" material on Simpsons or Family Guy? That is (partially) what those shows are about.
If you can make it through an episode of Family Guy without being offended, you aren't paying attention.
The whole point is to push every single button they can find. And then dig up a few more that you didn't know about.
Good humor pushes the boundaries, makes you uncomfortable, makes you re-evaluate your opinions. Good humor is frequently offensive.
This is ridiculous. The front page of my local newspaper (California, near the coast) is abuzz with "nyookulurr" concerns as well. Why don't they edit out the episodes having to do with, y'know, earthquakes and tsunamis, seeing as that's the brand of disaster Japan is facing right now. It seems to me that the situation with the power plants is being handled professionally and safely. If it wasn't for the public's irrational and uneducated fear of glowing green radioactivity, the nuclear power plants that we do have wouldn't be stuck at 1970's-level technology.
Because the earthquakes and tsunamis aren't going to wander over to California and knock over some buildings.
It has nothing to do with the suffering in Japan... It's all about the potential suffering in California (or wherever).
There is a very simple reason for this: People don't care about people but themselves. A tsunami washing away a few thousand Japanese? Ffft. Big deal.
A nuclear plant cooking off? OMFG! What if the death cloud comes over here!
Do you think anyone worries about the Japanese people suffering from radiation there? People are worried about whether the radiation comes to them, that's all. Get used to it, nobody gives a damn about anyone but themselves. That tsunami is over and doesn't threaten anyone (outside of Japan, that is) anymore. That radiation could still be a problem outside of Japan. Hence the coverage of the nuclear plants and not the tsunami.
Sad, but true.
It's pure self-interest.
And S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Fallout are banned too.
I'm probably going to hell for this...
But I can't help wondering if somebody is going to make a Japan/Fukushima mod for STALKER....