A few years back, an open source project working on a railroad train/computer interface thingum got sued. Google it, it was even here on/.
In any case, you don't have to be directly in the crosshairs to lose money to a troll. In order to get the money, and to avoid losing, trolls will drag into the case most any name they can justify. It's a hassle, it's costly, even if you're not the direct target. In litigation like this, there's no assurance you'll be able to recover expenses if you're just collateral damage.
If you do it because you want to protect yourself legaly, you must know that you do something wrong.
SCOTUS has ruled that desire to exercise one's right to privacy is no indication of suspicious activity. I'm not mentioning US Supremes cuz it's enforceable worldwide, but to show that learned persons who studied the concept in depth disagree with your statement.
Remaining anonymous to protect oneself legally only implies concern and caution that someone is doing something wrong. Yeah, you might win in court, but it's better to avoid meritless litigation, patent trolls,etc altogether. It also helps avoid becoming collateral damage in the ideological/economic war between the proprietary and libre sides of the marketplace.
Using a fake name offers at least the possibility of deciding later if you want to be known with a particular project. Since you speak with both voices, your pseudonum can out your real name when you choose, and when it is to your advantage to do so.
This assumes, of course, you're not outed some other way first. But at least the possibility of remaining anonymous is there. Use your real name first, and you can't ever take it back.
What's the harm? absolutely none, to be sure. The real work would be for the few of us around here who are really into software to be able to sway managers and other engineers into accepting the new ideas. Most programmers here are aerospace engineers, EEs, math or physics geniuses, etc, first, who write code to implement their particular expert discipline. "herding cats" doesn't hardly cover it.
There's no doubt they're brilliant, most of them, but I'm a minority here- a person whose first expertise is software science, then avionics. EEs, mech engineers, etc, are in general not looking in the direction of goings-ons in the software industry, and so are generally unfamiliar with free software, open collaboration, etc.
guess/opinion: Although there's probably not a lot of hassle in making the code available (it IS copyrighted by NASA), the legal aspects MUST be addressed. In doing so, the first question any manager (qualified in any industry) is gonna ask is "What's the payback?"
Once again, for the record: My conversational thoughts only, I am not speaking for NASA or my employer; also, I have no decision making authority in this area; All I can do is persuade.
Perhaps I was a bit snarky there...sorry.
I work in the astronaut training facility, on simulation software. Loosely,
I'd categorize the code like this:
simulation 'infrastructure' or 'framework' (ie,realtime game engine,graphics,network/shared memory protocols,etc).. (Requires knowledge specific to computational hardware, i/o devices, etc of the simulator itself)
Model software, such as payload X or onboard system Y (Requires specific aerospace tech knowledge)
Math, like equations of motion, mass properties, ephemeris, etc. (Requires rocket scientist)
Non-simulation support software, such as S/W CM, bug tracking, distribution software, process mgt s/w, etc.. (Requires paperwork-procedure-specific knowledge)
Maybe miscelleanous, but none comes to mind right now.
Bringing a good programmer up to speed on all this stuff takes several months. The math is the only part I'd think a good coder could analyze witout domain-specific knowledge. That was written,vetted and frozen decades ago (except ephemiris, Fischer stuff *should* get updated infrequently).
I work at JSC. I'm just a code monkey; and am not speaking for the customer (NASA) or my employer; This should be considered (changeable,poorly expressed) opinion only, limited in all sorts of ways that lawyers like.
Do you know what a Fischer ellipsoid is? (You're sitting on one.)
Go ahead, google it. Make sure you fully understand before continuing. I'll wait right here.
deedee dahdah boody-boop a doop...
hmmmm....(what's taking so long?)....
Ah, there you are.
That's just one of the bazillion things ya godda learn in order to help maintain the codebase. It's not enough to know software tech, you must understand space tech as well.
They're called rocket scientists for a reason, people.
About 100 ad domains eat up most bandwidth if you're using the most popular sites. Put those 100 domains into your hosts file pointed at '127.0.0.1' and eliminate half or more of the bandwidth used by normal surfing at cnn.com, yahoo.com, etc. Google it - there's a site out there that has a huge hosts file you can download; it's overkill - you really only need about 200 max. Just keep checking where your unwanted cookies are coming from, and null those sites.
They were trying to get the gov't to ensure the machines were secure. This story is the result of a long,long fight against the manufacturers of the crappy voting machines; all of the worst problems of "IP" have been demonstrated.
They win because we win. This is the TRUE driving force behind real capitalism - not the greedy, grab-all-you-can mentality of the privileged few. USA's economy used to be based on the idea that if everyone has equal opportunity, then most people will do what's best for themselves, most of the time.
If the barriers to entry into enterprenialship (if that's even a word) are low and kept low, then more people will build small businesses, which build greater localized, disposable incomes in more people. People who have more, spend more. If the **AA made it easy for small-time entertainers to get started, and earned and paid fair royalties from customers and to artists, then more people would buy, more artists would succeed and the **AA would get richer. The flawed concept is that control==wealth, and more control means more wealth.
But it's the long run benefit. Grab-all-you-can is the monopolist's way, and it works directly against the long term gain.
A few years back, Maine (Vermont? Conneticut?) started re-introducing beavers as a form of flood control. It seems more water (greater wealth) is possible if lotsa lil critters build lotsa lil dams (bank accounts), rather than huge dams and resevoirs. It worked. In Texas, something similar started about 15 years ago: new developments all must build water retention areas to reduce flash flooding and the channelization of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico. I've seen first hand that it works.
Maybe this is real obvious to people. it took me awhile to glom onto it.
It's been a success, it just hasn't finished its course yet. First, ask yerself, What is the **AA's ideal win situation?
Consider that they're substantially in bed with the TV industry also, and while not always in concert with cable and satellite distributors, often in parallel.
The ideal situation is what WAS, with a few new techno gadgets. That is, all information and entertainment channels neatly tied up; no individual (read: Human) talents leaking around the filters, only going thru the **AA contract filtering process, etc.
This requires that home computing be made illegal, completely. It must be a crime to write software, or load non-**AA approved software, onto any computing device you own. Consider this situation:
A. Enormous technological capacity at
B.. nearly zero cost in
C... everyone's home that is
D.... available to the corporations, and
E..... completely inaccessible to non-corporate (read: Human) interests.
What corporate interests would benefit? Political parties? Law Enforcement, Dept of Homeland Insanity? M$$$? **AA??? Marketing corps of all stripes?
Every corp and govt body that is interested in getting you to buy their stuff or control your stuff will benefit if the **AA eventually wins. I can't think of one national or international corporation/govt that won't benefit by using the people's computing powers against them.
This is going to be a long fight, and the only ones that can really lose are we the people. If we win utterly, and computing freedom is assured and privacy rights restored, corporations will win in the long run, they just can't see it.
Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.
Hmmm...nothing's changed in 5 years, RIAA has no slam-dunk victories to show for it, thousands upon thousands of customers pissed off to the point of not buying music at all anymore, only a few million bucks extorted from victims, despite claims of billions lost....
Well, I'm NOT wondering if it's an "utter failure".
The sun is somewhat larger than average, though I think it would still fit in the conversational region of 'very ordinary' -- as opposed to a metal star, say, or red giant like Betelgeuse. Our galaxy is also larger than average.
Statistically, this is kinda expected - larger galaxies will have more habitable stars, larger habitable stars (theoretically) have larger 'goldilocks' zones - not too cold, not too hot, just right, and so are more likely to produce Earth.
contrary to the accepted theory that it is an average planetary system. IIRC, ours is considered typical only because no data existed to show it wasn't. That doesn't make the idea into a 'theory'. Discoveries of extrasolar planets and improved models on more powerful supercomputers are bound to evolve this "Unintelligently Defined Theory" into a better creation story. ;)
how do they really know that? How do we know there are such things as negative numbers? Cuz 5 - 8 has to equal something. Then we find a use for the newly invented "negatives", and find that it just works. What about imaginary numbers? The new negatives have to have a 'square root', and the square root of -1 has to equal something. And so on. Eventually, the preponderance of what works with 'negatives' and 'imaginaries' and all that other stuff leads to acceptance. I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts. Please give an example.
A few years back, a scientist produced findings on meteorite ALH94001 that suggested life on Mars. I watched the press release live, since he was the friend of a friend and was tipped it was coming up.
A publication involved in peer-reviewing the article about it was going to break embargo and release early, forcing Dr. McKay to release before he was ready. Throughout the press release, he kept saying, "This rock passes all current tests for proving the existence of microfossils in earth rocks. It may be life, or we may have to change or add to the tests". Over and over; he said he was using new equipment that could see things better than before, and differently than before; he said he was putting his findings out there so that other scientists could improve the science. He was careful not to tout it as "fact".
Of course, that's not what the non-scientific media heard or reported. As a result of ALH94001, tests were improved, new things were learned about microfossilization, formation of nanoscale structures, etc.
Realize that science is an economy where the currency is reputation, not cash. It cannot be sold or transferred to another; it can be lost forever; it is seldom lost and regained. Every scientist knows that brightest minds in her/his field will be microanalyzing his/her work. This keeps one humble.
For some protections, not necessarily. On some systems I've worked on, "memory scrubbing" is an admin option, not a compiler option. Address translation mechanisms often occur below the compiler level also, so things like randomization and page border fencing can be invisible to C/C++. Lotsa other ways to do things.
The paper detailed how a java applet could use this to execute arbitrary code. It jumps around the browser (and JVM,plugin, etc) completely. It exploits the fact that many plugins have one or another protection (like DEP) turned off, and uses that to break loose and run free.
The browser could be secure, but because it allows optional on/off status of plugins, BHOs, JVMs, etc, it was still insecure overall.
I really think the lesson here is: Security Should Not Be A Compiler Option.
Imagine the next update to GNU C: gcc -IEn myhack.c -o crashit
(Make this app as insecure as IE version 'n')
Never pulled guard duty, did you?
Actually, yes I have. You'd be surprised how "abnormal behavior" fails to appear when a guard, even unarmed, walks by every few hours.
Sorry, I'm not intending to troll here.
Maybe you're telling the absolute unbiased truth. Maybe you're not. I have no opinion on that, either way.
Here's what you don't see because of where you are and what you know: The US public does NOT know what's going on in Iraq. The government has lied to us repeatedly, "spin doctored" the truth, hidden facts that really didn't need to be hidden, controlled the media instead of allowing freely reported news of all viewpoints, etc. Not just about Iraq, but about everything having to do with "the war on terror". We can't trust what we're being told because those who speak have an agenda and have been caught lying.
As for them not wearing uniforms: where would they get them? We overthrew their gov't and destroyed or took over their infrastructure. As for them being foreigners: See my comment about "allies", and: So are we.
Since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, I've not heard one single editorial that was sharply critical of government policy. A few softball
commentaries, "opponents say...." kinda things, but no hard-hitting investigations, no tough questions or rough press conferences. It's all very well orchestrated, politely and orderly presented, etc. There's no coverage of the protests that are occuring in many cities, no coverage of people being harassed because of anti-war views, no politicians speaking out against the war.
How can that be, when the pres has the lowest approval rating of any pres ever? High ranking leaders and the media are not reflecting the views of the people, but desire of gov't to maintain order and support for an unpopular war.
You talk about foreigners attacking Iraqis - why are we even involved? Iraq is a mess, but it always has been. There's no amount of external force (US troops) that can fix that, no matter how well meaning or well behaved our troops are. The longer we stay, the more it will develop towards another Viet Nam.
From TFA: $1,500 to $4,500 per camera. 100 screens, assume each one rotates thru, um, 5 cameras, that's 500 cameras, say $3000 per, 1.5 million bucks. You could actually HIRE HUMANS, say 20 of'em, at $75K each to watch 5 screens each, and have a 1:1 ratio of accuracy.
"I would call terrorists (caught in direct action against U.S. troops"
Direct actions against soldiers invading a country is normally done by patriots and allies of the patriots, not terrorists.
The US employs snipers in Iraq also - are they terrorists by your definition?
US munitions companies make bombs that are dropped from planes in Iraq - are they terrorists, too?
Remember, the US president carried out the invasion of soveriegn nation recognized by the United Nations, overthrew its government and installed its own "friendly" government (despite elections, it is still a US-installed government).
All this occurred without Congress declaring war as required by the US Constitution and arguably in violation of the Presidential War Powers Act. Any characterizations of events and people in Iraq by the US gov't is highly suspect, to say the least.
Consider the 1970s era jet fighter Phantom II F-4. The leading edge of the wing required an extender to help it pull out of dives. The outboard wingends required an upward angle to stop flat spins. During development, the fuselage design was expanded to accommodate the fuel tanks the beast would need, and provision was made for up to three under-wing external fuel tanks. The nose had to be extended to make room for the combat radar defined in the original requirements.
And it had to fly with 4 degree nose-up pitch to maintain level flight.
When I worked on this ugly bird in the 1980s, we said it was actual proof that if you put engines big enough on anything, you can make it fly.
In all likelihood, that's what's gonna happen with all the gov't facial and behavioral "recognition" systems that are under development. They'll pour billions into development, and wait for the computing horsepower to catch up and make it possible to achieve "3-1 false positives" (25% ???). It'll be a monster, but they'll be able to claim "mission accomplished".
And if anyone has a favorite replacement term for "piracy,"
infringement.
It's what the constitution calls it. Why change it just cuz it's electronic?
It's not stealing, looting, plundering, raping, etc, like the **AAholes would have it. Just infringement of the owner's exclusive right to copy.
PS:
If you're gonna reformat anyway, just buy the HARDWARE you want and not a prebuilt system at all. I wouldn't buy MS even to delete it, just cuz I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of getting a few of my $$$ for nothing.
I recently (~4 weeks ago) bought two Dells with Ubuntu on them. I didn't get all the software I wanted, but that was cuz Dell is so grudgingly offering Linux.
I've been a programmer since the 1970's. I write or have written code in many of the languages and environments you've ever heard of, and probably quite a few you haven't. I designed and built or upgraded my own home desktops on several occassions. But I've never been a desktop support person or sysadmin. I don't much care for 'tinkering' with configuration crap or rebuilding other people's code.
Although I've been in and out of Unix systems since the early 1980's, I've only limited experience with Linux itself. I wanted a quick 'leg up' on the task, and using Knoppix convinced me that I could easily waste a few weeks researching and gathering hardware, drivers, etc, that work together and with Linux.
One box I bought for my kid, and will be loading it up with games, internet stuff, etc. (Yes, I'm a good dad - I watch his online activities)
The other box is for me, for access, for hobby programming, etc. I bought the preloaded boxen for the convienence, not for the 'experience' of building a Linux system, which quite frankly, is valueless to me.
Slashdot Mirror
A few years back, an open source project working on a railroad train/computer interface thingum got sued. Google it, it was even here on /.
In any case, you don't have to be directly in the crosshairs to lose money to a troll. In order to get the money, and to avoid losing, trolls will drag into the case most any name they can justify. It's a hassle, it's costly, even if you're not the direct target. In litigation like this, there's no assurance you'll be able to recover expenses if you're just collateral damage.
If you do it because you want to protect yourself legaly, you must know that you do something wrong.
SCOTUS has ruled that desire to exercise one's right to privacy is no indication of suspicious activity. I'm not mentioning US Supremes cuz it's enforceable worldwide, but to show that learned persons who studied the concept in depth disagree with your statement.
Remaining anonymous to protect oneself legally only implies concern and caution that someone is doing something wrong. Yeah, you might win in court, but it's better to avoid meritless litigation, patent trolls,etc altogether. It also helps avoid becoming collateral damage in the ideological/economic war between the proprietary and libre sides of the marketplace.
Using a fake name offers at least the possibility of deciding later if you want to be known with a particular project. Since you speak with both voices, your pseudonum can out your real name when you choose, and when it is to your advantage to do so.
This assumes, of course, you're not outed some other way first. But at least the possibility of remaining anonymous is there. Use your real name first, and you can't ever take it back.
What's the harm? absolutely none, to be sure. The real work would be for the few of us around here who are really into software to be able to sway managers and other engineers into accepting the new ideas. Most programmers here are aerospace engineers, EEs, math or physics geniuses, etc, first, who write code to implement their particular expert discipline. "herding cats" doesn't hardly cover it.
There's no doubt they're brilliant, most of them, but I'm a minority here- a person whose first expertise is software science, then avionics. EEs, mech engineers, etc, are in general not looking in the direction of goings-ons in the software industry, and so are generally unfamiliar with free software, open collaboration, etc.
guess/opinion: Although there's probably not a lot of hassle in making the code available (it IS copyrighted by NASA), the legal aspects MUST be addressed. In doing so, the first question any manager (qualified in any industry) is gonna ask is "What's the payback?"
Once again, for the record: My conversational thoughts only, I am not speaking for NASA or my employer; also, I have no decision making authority in this area; All I can do is persuade.
I work in the astronaut training facility, on simulation software. Loosely, I'd categorize the code like this:
(Requires specific aerospace tech knowledge)
Bringing a good programmer up to speed on all this stuff takes several months. The math is the only part I'd think a good coder could analyze witout domain-specific knowledge. That was written,vetted and frozen decades ago (except ephemiris, Fischer stuff *should* get updated infrequently).
I work at JSC. I'm just a code monkey; and am not speaking for the customer (NASA) or my employer; This should be considered (changeable,poorly expressed) opinion only, limited in all sorts of ways that lawyers like.
Do you know what a Fischer ellipsoid is? (You're sitting on one.)
Go ahead, google it. Make sure you fully understand before continuing. I'll wait right here.
deedee dahdah boody-boop a doop...
hmmmm....(what's taking so long?)....
Ah, there you are.
That's just one of the bazillion things ya godda learn in order to help maintain the codebase. It's not enough to know software tech, you must understand space tech as well.
They're called rocket scientists for a reason, people.
The cop says, "If you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide."
Answer: "Why are you wearing clothes? Got something to hide?"
About 100 ad domains eat up most bandwidth if you're using the most popular sites. Put those 100 domains into your hosts file pointed at '127.0.0.1' and eliminate half or more of the bandwidth used by normal surfing at cnn.com, yahoo.com, etc. Google it - there's a site out there that has a huge hosts file you can download; it's overkill - you really only need about 200 max. Just keep checking where your unwanted cookies are coming from, and null those sites.
They were trying to get the gov't to ensure the machines were secure. This story is the result of a long,long fight against the manufacturers of the crappy voting machines; all of the worst problems of "IP" have been demonstrated.
They win because we win. This is the TRUE driving force behind real capitalism - not the greedy, grab-all-you-can mentality of the privileged few. USA's economy used to be based on the idea that if everyone has equal opportunity, then most people will do what's best for themselves, most of the time.
If the barriers to entry into enterprenialship (if that's even a word) are low and kept low, then more people will build small businesses, which build greater localized, disposable incomes in more people. People who have more, spend more. If the **AA made it easy for small-time entertainers to get started, and earned and paid fair royalties from customers and to artists, then more people would buy, more artists would succeed and the **AA would get richer. The flawed concept is that control==wealth, and more control means more wealth.
But it's the long run benefit. Grab-all-you-can is the monopolist's way, and it works directly against the long term gain.
A few years back, Maine (Vermont? Conneticut?) started re-introducing beavers as a form of flood control. It seems more water (greater wealth) is possible if lotsa lil critters build lotsa lil dams (bank accounts), rather than huge dams and resevoirs. It worked. In Texas, something similar started about 15 years ago: new developments all must build water retention areas to reduce flash flooding and the channelization of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico. I've seen first hand that it works.
Maybe this is real obvious to people. it took me awhile to glom onto it.
It's been a success, it just hasn't finished its course yet. First, ask yerself, What is the **AA's ideal win situation?
Consider that they're substantially in bed with the TV industry also, and while not always in concert with cable and satellite distributors, often in parallel.
The ideal situation is what WAS, with a few new techno gadgets. That is, all information and entertainment channels neatly tied up; no individual (read: Human) talents leaking around the filters, only going thru the **AA contract filtering process, etc.
This requires that home computing be made illegal, completely. It must be a crime to write software, or load non-**AA approved software, onto any computing device you own. Consider this situation:
A. Enormous technological capacity at
B.. nearly zero cost in
C... everyone's home that is
D.... available to the corporations, and
E..... completely inaccessible to non-corporate (read: Human) interests.
What corporate interests would benefit? Political parties? Law Enforcement, Dept of Homeland Insanity? M$$$? **AA??? Marketing corps of all stripes?
Every corp and govt body that is interested in getting you to buy their stuff or control your stuff will benefit if the **AA eventually wins. I can't think of one national or international corporation/govt that won't benefit by using the people's computing powers against them.
This is going to be a long fight, and the only ones that can really lose are we the people. If we win utterly, and computing freedom is assured and privacy rights restored, corporations will win in the long run, they just can't see it.
Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.
Hmmm...nothing's changed in 5 years, RIAA has no slam-dunk victories to show for it, thousands upon thousands of customers pissed off to the point of not buying music at all anymore, only a few million bucks extorted from victims, despite claims of billions lost....
Well, I'm NOT wondering if it's an "utter failure".
The sun is somewhat larger than average, though I think it would still fit in the conversational region of 'very ordinary' -- as opposed to a metal star, say, or red giant like Betelgeuse. Our galaxy is also larger than average. Statistically, this is kinda expected - larger galaxies will have more habitable stars, larger habitable stars (theoretically) have larger 'goldilocks' zones - not too cold, not too hot, just right, and so are more likely to produce Earth.
contrary to the accepted theory that it is an average planetary system.
IIRC, ours is considered typical only because no data existed to show it wasn't. That doesn't make the idea into a 'theory'. Discoveries of extrasolar planets and improved models on more powerful supercomputers are bound to evolve this "Unintelligently Defined Theory" into a better creation story.
;)
how do they really know that?
How do we know there are such things as negative numbers? Cuz 5 - 8 has to equal something. Then we find a use for the newly invented "negatives", and find that it just works. What about imaginary numbers? The new negatives have to have a 'square root', and the square root of -1 has to equal something. And so on. Eventually, the preponderance of what works with 'negatives' and 'imaginaries' and all that other stuff leads to acceptance.
I don't believe it is just the public mis-interpreting something that the scientists said was 'probable'. A lot of these guys pass off their discoveries as facts.
Please give an example.
A few years back, a scientist produced findings on meteorite ALH94001 that suggested life on Mars. I watched the press release live, since he was the friend of a friend and was tipped it was coming up.
A publication involved in peer-reviewing the article about it was going to break embargo and release early, forcing Dr. McKay to release before he was ready.
Throughout the press release, he kept saying, "This rock passes all current tests for proving the existence of microfossils in earth rocks. It may be life, or we may have to change or add to the tests". Over and over; he said he was using new equipment that could see things better than before, and differently than before; he said he was putting his findings out there so that other scientists could improve the science. He was careful not to tout it as "fact".
Of course, that's not what the non-scientific media heard or reported. As a result of ALH94001, tests were improved, new things were learned about microfossilization, formation of nanoscale structures, etc.
Realize that science is an economy where the currency is reputation, not cash. It cannot be sold or transferred to another; it can be lost forever; it is seldom lost and regained. Every scientist knows that brightest minds in her/his field will be microanalyzing his/her work. This keeps one humble.
For some protections, not necessarily. On some systems I've worked on, "memory scrubbing" is an admin option, not a compiler option. Address translation mechanisms often occur below the compiler level also, so things like randomization and page border fencing can be invisible to C/C++. Lotsa other ways to do things.
The paper detailed how a java applet could use this to execute arbitrary code. It jumps around the browser (and JVM,plugin, etc) completely. It exploits the fact that many plugins have one or another protection (like DEP) turned off, and uses that to break loose and run free.
The browser could be secure, but because it allows optional on/off status of plugins, BHOs, JVMs, etc, it was still insecure overall.
I really think the lesson here is: Security Should Not Be A Compiler Option.
Imagine the next update to GNU C:
gcc -IEn myhack.c -o crashit
(Make this app as insecure as IE version 'n')
Never pulled guard duty, did you?
Actually, yes I have. You'd be surprised how "abnormal behavior" fails to appear when a guard, even unarmed, walks by every few hours.
Sorry, I'm not intending to troll here. Maybe you're telling the absolute unbiased truth. Maybe you're not. I have no opinion on that, either way. ...." kinda things, but no hard-hitting investigations, no tough questions or rough press conferences. It's all very well orchestrated, politely and orderly presented, etc. There's no coverage of the protests that are occuring in many cities, no coverage of people being harassed because of anti-war views, no politicians speaking out against the war.
Here's what you don't see because of where you are and what you know: The US public does NOT know what's going on in Iraq. The government has lied to us repeatedly, "spin doctored" the truth, hidden facts that really didn't need to be hidden, controlled the media instead of allowing freely reported news of all viewpoints, etc. Not just about Iraq, but about everything having to do with "the war on terror". We can't trust what we're being told because those who speak have an agenda and have been caught lying.
As for them not wearing uniforms: where would they get them? We overthrew their gov't and destroyed or took over their infrastructure. As for them being foreigners: See my comment about "allies", and: So are we.
Since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, I've not heard one single editorial that was sharply critical of government policy. A few softball commentaries, "opponents say
How can that be, when the pres has the lowest approval rating of any pres ever? High ranking leaders and the media are not reflecting the views of the people, but desire of gov't to maintain order and support for an unpopular war.
You talk about foreigners attacking Iraqis - why are we even involved? Iraq is a mess, but it always has been. There's no amount of external force (US troops) that can fix that, no matter how well meaning or well behaved our troops are. The longer we stay, the more it will develop towards another Viet Nam.
From TFA: $1,500 to $4,500 per camera.
100 screens, assume each one rotates thru, um, 5 cameras, that's 500 cameras, say $3000 per, 1.5 million bucks. You could actually HIRE HUMANS, say 20 of'em, at $75K each to watch 5 screens each, and have a 1:1 ratio of accuracy.
"I would call terrorists (caught in direct action against U.S. troops"
Direct actions against soldiers invading a country is normally done by patriots and allies of the patriots, not terrorists.
The US employs snipers in Iraq also - are they terrorists by your definition?
US munitions companies make bombs that are dropped from planes in Iraq - are they terrorists, too?
Remember, the US president carried out the invasion of soveriegn nation recognized by the United Nations, overthrew its government and installed its own "friendly" government (despite elections, it is still a US-installed government).
All this occurred without Congress declaring war as required by the US Constitution and arguably in violation of the Presidential War Powers Act. Any characterizations of events and people in Iraq by the US gov't is highly suspect, to say the least.
Consider the 1970s era jet fighter Phantom II F-4. The leading edge of the wing required an extender to help it pull out of dives. The outboard wingends required an upward angle to stop flat spins. During development, the fuselage design was expanded to accommodate the fuel tanks the beast would need, and provision was made for up to three under-wing external fuel tanks. The nose had to be extended to make room for the combat radar defined in the original requirements.
And it had to fly with 4 degree nose-up pitch to maintain level flight.
When I worked on this ugly bird in the 1980s, we said it was actual proof that if you put engines big enough on anything, you can make it fly.
In all likelihood, that's what's gonna happen with all the gov't facial and behavioral "recognition" systems that are under development. They'll pour billions into development, and wait for the computing horsepower to catch up and make it possible to achieve "3-1 false positives" (25% ???). It'll be a monster, but they'll be able to claim "mission accomplished".
And if anyone has a favorite replacement term for "piracy,"
infringement.
It's what the constitution calls it. Why change it just cuz it's electronic?
It's not stealing, looting, plundering, raping, etc, like the **AAholes would have it. Just infringement of the owner's exclusive right to copy.
PS: If you're gonna reformat anyway, just buy the HARDWARE you want and not a prebuilt system at all. I wouldn't buy MS even to delete it, just cuz I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of getting a few of my $$$ for nothing.
I recently (~4 weeks ago) bought two Dells with Ubuntu on them. I didn't get all the software I wanted, but that was cuz Dell is so grudgingly offering Linux.
I've been a programmer since the 1970's. I write or have written code in many of the languages and environments you've ever heard of, and probably quite a few you haven't. I designed and built or upgraded my own home desktops on several occassions. But I've never been a desktop support person or sysadmin. I don't much care for 'tinkering' with configuration crap or rebuilding other people's code. Although I've been in and out of Unix systems since the early 1980's, I've only limited experience with Linux itself. I wanted a quick 'leg up' on the task, and using Knoppix convinced me that I could easily waste a few weeks researching and gathering hardware, drivers, etc, that work together and with Linux.
One box I bought for my kid, and will be loading it up with games, internet stuff, etc. (Yes, I'm a good dad - I watch his online activities)
The other box is for me, for access, for hobby programming, etc. I bought the preloaded boxen for the convienence, not for the 'experience' of building a Linux system, which quite frankly, is valueless to me.