The 40% on the other hand is already a meaningful statistic.
Meaningful enough for one to conclude that if the real numbers were out there, they'd be doing about as well as random chance (hey, they have a 50/50 chance of being right), and quite probably are doing FAR worse.
If they're admitting that 40% don't have any ties, you can probably assume that the number of people who don't belong on the list is much higher.
This is what happens when you have secret lists, and no evidentiary threshold to apply to put people on it.
Overall, I'm going to conclude these agencies are at least 40% incompetent.
They know that 40% have nothing to do with terrorism, and one suspects it's much higher than that.
Basically they're taking a scatter-shot approach, and don't need to justify it, and don't give a damn that they're impacting people's lives with bad information.
These guys would be just as happy to go with the "everyone is a terrorist until proven otherwise model", where the proven otherwise occurs when you're dead.
It makes it so much easier to be fascists when you don't need to justify your lists of people to watch out for.
They've already more or less admitted that they have absolutely no control with these lists, and that any agency, for any reason, without any actual evidence can add someone to the watch lists.
This allows them to be both a malicious cancer and incompetent morons without recourse.
The add-on modules are expensive because you pay for the features they unlock, not for the components of the unlock device itself. It's a dongle.
This guy is essentially trying to cheat.
I disagree.
To me, they've sold you a fully functional product, and only for extra money will they 'license' you to use all of the features.
So, imagine you've bought a car, it's got an awesome radio and a turbo charger and a backup camera. They're hooked up and working, just not active unless you shell out a bunch more money.
This is saying we'll give you the rest of the functionality of the device we've sold you if you'll hand over more money.
This is intentionally making a crippled product, and then gouging your consumers to get the full version.
I see this as just rent seeking, and a business model based on upgrades.
I don't see this as legitimate business, I see it as gouging the consumer and getting found out that your "upgrades" are doing nothing more than unlocking functionality you already have.
Personally I don't think this should qualify as infringement since it prevents use - which should not be a copyright violation - rather than duplication
I agree with you, but the law has more or less been written to allow corporations to maximize profits.
In truth, I think the DMCA is so broadly written that if they had a default password of "password", their level of incompetence at security is irrelevant. What matters is they had a pretense of security.
In this case, they've locked out functionality which is already there, and are charging for access to it -- or it sounds like that.
I agree that it's your device and you should be able to do anything with it, but apparently publishing it so allow other people to not pay for already there features is a bad thing -- because it interferes with a shitty business model and involves a digital lock.
I think in general, people should just start posting reviews of Techtronix saying they're greedy bastards who sell crippled hardware and then charge ransom to unlock it.
Verizon has indicated that its throttling policy is meant to provide users with an incentive to limit their data usage
This is mostly about the fact that their business model is based on over-subscription, and they make their money by lying about what they're really selling you.
A user who has paid for unlimited bandwidth doesn't want or need an incentive to use less bandwidth -- this is just weaseling out of the contract by making sure you can't actually get that unlimited data.
They feed us horseshit while smiling at us, and somehow they expect us to not notice.
Essentially Verizon are lying assholes who are trying to not actually give unlimited bandwidth, and they're trying to make it sound like it is for the customer's own good.
I hope the FCC sees this for what it is and smacks them down.
Of course, that would assume the FCC hasn't been taken over a by a former Cable and Wireless lobbyist who will support the corporations in anything they want.
The cable companies are lying assholes, but they don't need to worry about it, because the head of the FCC is on the payroll -- or at least needs to keep his options open for after he's done as much damage as his term at the FCC allows.
All of these agencies are shown to be violating the law, lying to us (and Congress) about it, and generally ignoring basic rule of law.
So, either you have to conclude that everybody who works for these agencies has bought into the Kool-Aid of fascism... of some of them are going to realize that the surveillance state has gone way beyond what it should and is undermining everything.
This level government secrecy and abuse is a cancer, and it needs to be removed.
Quite frankly, leaking is pretty much moral obligation of anybody who has realized the extent to which these agencies have become toxic.
My conclusion, as you'd expect, is that string theory is not testable in any conventional scientific use of the term. The fundamental problem is that simple versions of the string theory unification idea, the ones often sold as "beautiful", disagree with experiment for some basic reasons. Getting around these problems requires working with much more complicated versions, which have become so complicated that the framework becomes untestable as it can be made to agree with virtually anything one is likely to experimentally measure. This is a classic failure mode of a speculative framework: the rigid initial version doesn't agree with experiment, making it less rigid to avoid this kills off its predictivity.
So, tell us, please... what is missing from our collective understanding of whether String Theory can be tested?
Because I've been hearing for rather a long time that physicists can't test it, or that parts of it have been refuted by the LHC.
I get the distinct impression that we simply have no basis on which to test it. Reputable scientists say it can't be tested.
So, on what basis are you asserting that it's testable?
Or would be have to create a 26 dimensional device to measure this? Because, really, that's a pretty steep challenge.
I know enough about math and science to know that physicists have been saying String Theory is voodoo for decades, and it doesn't sound like we're any closer to being able to test it.
String theory very clearly falls into the "not testable yet" category, rather than the "designed to resist testing" category that weapons grade bullshit enjoys.
No, but if it's inherently not testable... then what, exactly, is it's value to science? What conditions need to come about for it to ever be tested?
From a science perspective, is it really any different than me saying that deep within every star lives a napping space goat whose farts drive the fusion process? That's untestable as well, but isn't designed to resist testing. Is my farting space goat pseudo science while String Theory is real science?
It may not strictly speaking be pseudo-science -- but at this point, it's pretty far removed from actual science.
It's just awfully hard to take it seriously when it's a claim which can't be tested, verified, or really even investigated.
At which point, it seems hard to conclude that it's still actually science.
How he stayed sane with 40 parakeets in his house is something I will never understand.
LOL, based on how nobody has ever been able to explain WTF String Theory actually claims to tell us or how you'd verify it... I'm not sure of his 'sanity'.;-)
String Theory has always been a little dodgy, and there seems to be about 20 different versions of it, most of which seems to not to make sense, even to many physicists.
9/11 may not have been engineered by us, but the people in power certainly took advantage of it when it happened.
Thereby precipitating the most epic win imaginable against Western Democracy.
I honestly don't think they imagined the extent to which they would to undermine the society they were trying to shake. And if they did, that's truly scary.
That the 'authoritarians' (*cough* fascists *cough*) took advantage of that, we are not in disagreement about.
But either forcing them to, or giving them an excuse to, finally just fully take control... I still say 9/11 was a game-changing event, because everybody immediately rushed to build the "at any means" surveillance society in the open.
These guys almost have express written permission for these kinds of abuses. The exact same abuses people were warning would happen while they were being passed. The PATRIOT Act had stuff in it which people said would lead to this kind of crap while it was being passed, because it was a knee-jerk response.
I argue that Western society post 9/11 is overtly different than it was pre 9/11. Some of the rot may have been there already, but it's come into the full light of day since.
Yeah I was going to say the same thing. You NEVER make a change that you don't have a way to backout to the previous operational state.
And, really, if you have something which Absolutely Has To Be There... you make damned sure you have an environment you apply the changes to first. So that you can apply the changes and at least try to make sure stuff don't break without messing up the real one.
This is basic change management.
(And, yes, I am saying this without any context for this outage -- but, really, if you maintain a production environment for critical software, this is what you do)
we are going down a road that violates the very tenets of our nation's forming.
Going??? It's well underway.
9/11 was the most spectacular win for the terrorists, because they more or less kicked the foundations out from Western society, and have helped to create the worst form of surveillance state you can imagine.
This is the Stasi, the KGB, J Edgar Hoover, McCarthy, and cyberpunk all rolled up into one festering mass of shit.
or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort
Well, arguably these clowns have become the enemy of democracy, the Constitution, and the rights of pretty much every person on the planet.
No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
And, he's now confessed.
OK, fine, maybe it's not technically treason. But if the US isn't going to do some serious cleaning of house, it's only going to get FAR worse from here.
The rot at the upper levels of these agencies has created a mentality of "by any means necessary", and a complete indifference to the law.
If he just says "oops, sorry about that" and he and his subordinates aren't seriously punished, this shit will only get worse.
Fine, waterboard the son of a bitch, get the truth out of him that way.
He seems to think it's OK for other people.
This man can no longer be trusted, and if he isn't prosecuted and jailed for what he's readily admitted, democracy in the US is fucked, and the rest of the world won't be far behind.
Jail isn't going to do any good unless you put the whole agency in jail.
OK, fine.
If there is no oversight, and I don't mean a FISA court whose job it is to say everything is rosy, then you can't have an agency like this.
Having the CIA directly lying to congress about their activities, and actively spying on the people who are supposed to oversee them is something straight out of fiction -- only it's no longer fiction, they're doing anything they please, and no longer accountable to anybody.
Fuck, hit them up with a RICO suit. Do ANYTHING.
What next, he'll go into private industry as a security consultant for corporations? Oh, wait...
This is bloody scary. Neither Americans nor the rest of the world signed up for a fucking security agency which is no longer under anyone's control except people who feel they can do anything they want.
It is. The next step would be for the Senate oversight committee to vote to refer the matter for prosecution. The question is whether they want to go down this road or not.
The way I see it, if they don't go for prosecution, they've more or less given these agencies carte blanche to violate the law, lie about it, and have no consequences.
Sorry, but I think this sounds like treason, or at the very least an indication that all of the assurances we've had that they're playing by the rules is a pile of shit.
So, the question of "do you spy on Americans?" "Are you in compliance with the law?" "Have you been using this information to make yourself rich?" -- every single thing they do pretty much must be distrusted.
Blatantly lying to Congress means they've reached a point where they don't give a shit.
More like people were overpaying by thousands of dollars because until now none of them had the simple idea to duct tape a filter over a fan.
Well, he went as far as confirming he was getting the same particle counts.
His solution was remarkably simple and really cheap. He strapped a HEPA filter to a fan and quickly began to enjoy clean air. A particle counter he purchased confirmed the filter was effective.
He's not saying "I just invented something revolutionary", he's just sticking it to the people selling over prices kit.
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Meaningful enough for one to conclude that if the real numbers were out there, they'd be doing about as well as random chance (hey, they have a 50/50 chance of being right), and quite probably are doing FAR worse.
If they're admitting that 40% don't have any ties, you can probably assume that the number of people who don't belong on the list is much higher.
This is what happens when you have secret lists, and no evidentiary threshold to apply to put people on it.
Overall, I'm going to conclude these agencies are at least 40% incompetent.
No, I suspect it's much lower.
They know that 40% have nothing to do with terrorism, and one suspects it's much higher than that.
Basically they're taking a scatter-shot approach, and don't need to justify it, and don't give a damn that they're impacting people's lives with bad information.
These guys would be just as happy to go with the "everyone is a terrorist until proven otherwise model", where the proven otherwise occurs when you're dead.
It makes it so much easier to be fascists when you don't need to justify your lists of people to watch out for.
They've already more or less admitted that they have absolutely no control with these lists, and that any agency, for any reason, without any actual evidence can add someone to the watch lists.
This allows them to be both a malicious cancer and incompetent morons without recourse.
I disagree.
To me, they've sold you a fully functional product, and only for extra money will they 'license' you to use all of the features.
So, imagine you've bought a car, it's got an awesome radio and a turbo charger and a backup camera. They're hooked up and working, just not active unless you shell out a bunch more money.
This is saying we'll give you the rest of the functionality of the device we've sold you if you'll hand over more money.
This is intentionally making a crippled product, and then gouging your consumers to get the full version.
I see this as just rent seeking, and a business model based on upgrades.
I don't see this as legitimate business, I see it as gouging the consumer and getting found out that your "upgrades" are doing nothing more than unlocking functionality you already have.
I agree with you, but the law has more or less been written to allow corporations to maximize profits.
In truth, I think the DMCA is so broadly written that if they had a default password of "password", their level of incompetence at security is irrelevant. What matters is they had a pretense of security.
In this case, they've locked out functionality which is already there, and are charging for access to it -- or it sounds like that.
I agree that it's your device and you should be able to do anything with it, but apparently publishing it so allow other people to not pay for already there features is a bad thing -- because it interferes with a shitty business model and involves a digital lock.
I think in general, people should just start posting reviews of Techtronix saying they're greedy bastards who sell crippled hardware and then charge ransom to unlock it.
This is mostly about the fact that their business model is based on over-subscription, and they make their money by lying about what they're really selling you.
A user who has paid for unlimited bandwidth doesn't want or need an incentive to use less bandwidth -- this is just weaseling out of the contract by making sure you can't actually get that unlimited data.
They feed us horseshit while smiling at us, and somehow they expect us to not notice.
Essentially Verizon are lying assholes who are trying to not actually give unlimited bandwidth, and they're trying to make it sound like it is for the customer's own good.
I hope the FCC sees this for what it is and smacks them down.
Of course, that would assume the FCC hasn't been taken over a by a former Cable and Wireless lobbyist who will support the corporations in anything they want.
The cable companies are lying assholes, but they don't need to worry about it, because the head of the FCC is on the payroll -- or at least needs to keep his options open for after he's done as much damage as his term at the FCC allows.
All of these agencies are shown to be violating the law, lying to us (and Congress) about it, and generally ignoring basic rule of law.
So, either you have to conclude that everybody who works for these agencies has bought into the Kool-Aid of fascism ... of some of them are going to realize that the surveillance state has gone way beyond what it should and is undermining everything.
This level government secrecy and abuse is a cancer, and it needs to be removed.
Quite frankly, leaking is pretty much moral obligation of anybody who has realized the extent to which these agencies have become toxic.
I'm not clear on what magic needs to come into existence to test it.
This certainly says it's untestable:
So, tell us, please ... what is missing from our collective understanding of whether String Theory can be tested?
Because I've been hearing for rather a long time that physicists can't test it, or that parts of it have been refuted by the LHC.
I get the distinct impression that we simply have no basis on which to test it. Reputable scientists say it can't be tested.
So, on what basis are you asserting that it's testable?
Or would be have to create a 26 dimensional device to measure this? Because, really, that's a pretty steep challenge.
I know enough about math and science to know that physicists have been saying String Theory is voodoo for decades, and it doesn't sound like we're any closer to being able to test it.
My Linear Algebra prof used to say that about his office ... in 3-space, his office was an incomprehensible mess.
No, but if it's inherently not testable ... then what, exactly, is it's value to science? What conditions need to come about for it to ever be tested?
From a science perspective, is it really any different than me saying that deep within every star lives a napping space goat whose farts drive the fusion process? That's untestable as well, but isn't designed to resist testing. Is my farting space goat pseudo science while String Theory is real science?
It may not strictly speaking be pseudo-science -- but at this point, it's pretty far removed from actual science.
It's just awfully hard to take it seriously when it's a claim which can't be tested, verified, or really even investigated.
At which point, it seems hard to conclude that it's still actually science.
LOL, based on how nobody has ever been able to explain WTF String Theory actually claims to tell us or how you'd verify it ... I'm not sure of his 'sanity'. ;-)
String Theory has always been a little dodgy, and there seems to be about 20 different versions of it, most of which seems to not to make sense, even to many physicists.
LOL ... fsck it, we're going to 30 dimensions. ;-)
Thereby precipitating the most epic win imaginable against Western Democracy.
I honestly don't think they imagined the extent to which they would to undermine the society they were trying to shake. And if they did, that's truly scary.
That the 'authoritarians' (*cough* fascists *cough*) took advantage of that, we are not in disagreement about.
But either forcing them to, or giving them an excuse to, finally just fully take control ... I still say 9/11 was a game-changing event, because everybody immediately rushed to build the "at any means" surveillance society in the open.
These guys almost have express written permission for these kinds of abuses. The exact same abuses people were warning would happen while they were being passed. The PATRIOT Act had stuff in it which people said would lead to this kind of crap while it was being passed, because it was a knee-jerk response.
I argue that Western society post 9/11 is overtly different than it was pre 9/11. Some of the rot may have been there already, but it's come into the full light of day since.
And, really, if you have something which Absolutely Has To Be There ... you make damned sure you have an environment you apply the changes to first. So that you can apply the changes and at least try to make sure stuff don't break without messing up the real one.
This is basic change management.
(And, yes, I am saying this without any context for this outage -- but, really, if you maintain a production environment for critical software, this is what you do)
Going??? It's well underway.
9/11 was the most spectacular win for the terrorists, because they more or less kicked the foundations out from Western society, and have helped to create the worst form of surveillance state you can imagine.
This is the Stasi, the KGB, J Edgar Hoover, McCarthy, and cyberpunk all rolled up into one festering mass of shit.
Well, arguably these clowns have become the enemy of democracy, the Constitution, and the rights of pretty much every person on the planet.
And, he's now confessed.
OK, fine, maybe it's not technically treason. But if the US isn't going to do some serious cleaning of house, it's only going to get FAR worse from here.
The rot at the upper levels of these agencies has created a mentality of "by any means necessary", and a complete indifference to the law.
If he just says "oops, sorry about that" and he and his subordinates aren't seriously punished, this shit will only get worse.
Fine, waterboard the son of a bitch, get the truth out of him that way.
He seems to think it's OK for other people.
This man can no longer be trusted, and if he isn't prosecuted and jailed for what he's readily admitted, democracy in the US is fucked, and the rest of the world won't be far behind.
You more or less have to assume the entire upper management of the CIA (and other TLAs) are all equally corrupted.
They've decided that the people overseeing them don't know what they're talking about, and taken matters into their own hands.
Treason indeed. And there's no way just one guy is responsible. The whole system has rotted into this.
OK, fine.
If there is no oversight, and I don't mean a FISA court whose job it is to say everything is rosy, then you can't have an agency like this.
Having the CIA directly lying to congress about their activities, and actively spying on the people who are supposed to oversee them is something straight out of fiction -- only it's no longer fiction, they're doing anything they please, and no longer accountable to anybody.
Fuck, hit them up with a RICO suit. Do ANYTHING.
What next, he'll go into private industry as a security consultant for corporations? Oh, wait ...
This is bloody scary. Neither Americans nor the rest of the world signed up for a fucking security agency which is no longer under anyone's control except people who feel they can do anything they want.
The way I see it, if they don't go for prosecution, they've more or less given these agencies carte blanche to violate the law, lie about it, and have no consequences.
Sorry, but I think this sounds like treason, or at the very least an indication that all of the assurances we've had that they're playing by the rules is a pile of shit.
So, the question of "do you spy on Americans?" "Are you in compliance with the law?" "Have you been using this information to make yourself rich?" -- every single thing they do pretty much must be distrusted.
Blatantly lying to Congress means they've reached a point where they don't give a shit.
This is madness.
Fuck the apology. Put him in jail.
At this point there is no choice but to assume that when the CIA and NSA say they're in compliance with the law, they're bloody well lying.
When they're outright lying to the people who oversee them, they've become a criminal organization.
Yo dawg, I hear you like specs ... I 'spec the specs for your specs aren't what you'd 'spec.
Just remember, just because the marketing department says something, doesn't mean carries the same meaning as you and I would assign to it.
LOL ... Well, carry on then.
Well, there was a market for a $1000 product ... apparently nobody else thought of it.
Yes, this is the low-tech solution, but if it works just as well as the expensive one ... it's a damned fine solution.
How have you made the world a better place this week?
Well, he went as far as confirming he was getting the same particle counts.
He's not saying "I just invented something revolutionary", he's just sticking it to the people selling over prices kit.
And in my book, that gets applause.
He got similar results to a $1000 product, and told everybody how to do it.
That is newsworthy.
I suspect there are a lot of people in places with a lot of air pollution who would really like to have this.
Kudos to this guy.