You know, Whiteboards still work really well. They even have fancy schmancy smart whiteboards which are networked. Hell, they make collaborative software which has some of these features.
Every time I see one of these things it seems like people are using technology for the sake of technology.
A whiteboard, an easel board, pen and paper... all of these technologies still work well, and will continue to do so.
I can also provide, most of the time, web access via my phone
Or, you know, your company has much better infrastructure and technology than your phone.
If I was in a meeting and someone said "I will provide web access via my phone", I would have to start laughing at you and not take you seriously.
Well, anything is 'trivially solvable' with non-trivial amounts of money and effort. And therein lies the problem.
Because then it's no longer 'trivial' to solve.
Say you were going to spend a few thousand dollars per intersection. How much would a large city have to spend on this 'trivial' solution? Would it still be considered trivial at this point?
You would think knowing exactly when the light would turn yellow would help drivers not behave like this.
No, due to human nature, I would expect drivers to use this information to maximize their own personal outcome.
Avoiding sitting at a light for a full cycle is apparently something drivers do not like, so their response is to use this information to unsafely blast through intersections.
I don't think people in general make rational choices aimed at obeying the rules. They make selfish choices aimed at optimizing their own outcomes.
But a yellow light does not mean speed up, it means slow down and prepare to stop, as the light is about to turn red.
LOL, remember that old movie Starman with Jeff Bridges?
[Starman is driving the car, and speeds across a recently turned red light, causing crashes for the other motorists]
Starman: Okay?
Jenny Hayden: Okay? Are you crazy? You almost got us killed! You said you watched me, you said you knew the rules!
Starman: I do know the rules.
Jenny Hayden: Oh, for your information pal, that was a *yellow* light back there!
Starman: I watched you very carefully. Red light stop, green light go, yellow light go very fast.
Sadly, for a very large number of motorists, a yellow light means "go very fast" to get through before it changes.
I see this all the time.
If drivers reinterpret the meaning of traffic signals to mean the opposite of what is intended then you are going to have some problems.
And, here we sit, discussing those problems.
I would wager that a non-trivial amount of drivers pretty much reinterpret what the signals are supposed to mean.
Take Stop for instance. It doesn't mean roll through the light/stop sign, begin your right turn, and when you're half way into the lane, then look left for oncoming traffic.
But I see that pretty much daily.
Other examples would be speed limit signs, signs which say do not pass, signs which say no right turn on red, or my favorite one about not entering an intersection unless the exit is clear.
In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a single traffic sign which is consistently followed as it is intended.
The conclusion I offer is that most motorists don't actually give a damn about what they're supposed to be doing, and if they think they can get away with it, they care even less.
Drivers need to pay attention to the road, there is no excuse for hitting a pedestrian in a cross walk or for a car to hit car at a cross walk.
They do.
Unfortunately, there is a countdown timer telling them the light will change to yellow in 4 seconds, so they know they need to speed up to make it through.
I can't tell you how often I see cars racing to get through an amber light who actually enter the intersection after the light turns red.
You do understand that parallel construction is basically perjury, right? And that police have outright lied about the circumstances of arrest on many occasions?
So if they illegally look, and then radio to one of their buddies to call in an 'anonymous' tip, you're pretty much screwed.
Or like when the police officer tries to delete pictures off your phone, and you tell him no, and he arrests you for resisting arrest... which is absurd since you weren't in the process of being arrested in the first place.
If you're going to purely rely on the fruit of the poison tree or the integrity of a specific police officer you've just met... you're doing it wrong.
Not all cops are dishonest. But enough of them are that you should more or less not trust that any given one is.
How about, "don't have evidence of crimes on your phone," because "you aren't a criminal."
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
So, are you suggesting we should all consent to illegal (and unconstitutional) searches on the assumption that since we're innocent it's OK for the police to break the law because the won't find anything??
Sorry, but no. When the police start abusing their power, the solution isn't to allow it to happen.
You may be willing to accept fascism, but we're not.
it's exploiting peoples' body image dysphoria to charge lots of money for unnecessary operations.
(I'm a little scared that I'll offend some transsexual people by using the word dysphoria
Random pedantry, but you've conflated two different things.
There is Body Dysmorphic Disorder, where people are really really concerned about the appearance of their pieces and parts. This is the broader one which includes why people get 30 plastic surgeries.
There is Gender Dysphoria, in which the pieces and parts don't match internal identify.
I've known a few women (and a few men come to think of it) who fell into the former. It's not vanity, it can be a clinical issue where it becomes debilitating for you.
I've also met a couple of people in the latter category -- and trust me, nobody would go through all of the stuff they do unless they were really really committed to it and felt they had no choice. It's hardly a glamorous (or easy) thing to do.
But every time I've found I need to write a script like this, I've attributed it to being too lazy to want to repeat the process.
A few years ago we automated something -- because we'd just spent a few hours doing it on one server, and would have to repeat the process for a bunch of other servers, and that wasn't something any of us wanted to do again since it was a huge sequence of manual steps.
It's more of an investment in long-term laziness to make the problem go away.
If I do a small amount of work now, I can make a large amount of work go away later. Lazy. But in a proactive get something off my plate kind of way.
Like Scrooge McDuck says... work smarter, not harder.
I assure you, I mean lazy in a very complimentary way here.;-)
More useful things have been invented out of an express desire to be lazy than I can even count.
The realization of "WTF am I doing this by hand when I can write a script" sparks so many cool things.
If he streamlined his job and got better results I don't see why he shouldn't get recognition.
I'm sure the military hasn't introduced the Perl Star or anything, so I'm sure they've worked within existing stuff to say "damn, son, that's some fine work".
I don't see how what they're saying could be taken as legal.
This is just the police departments doing an end-run around oversight, and coming up with their own re-interpretation of what they're legally allowed to do.
I take this as evidence that law enforcement doesn't give a damn about the law, they care about being able to do anything they want, without oversight, and without having to pay attention to the letter and intent of the law.
And, federal agencies are actively working with them to tell them how to ignore the constitution, use illegally obtained data, or just plain old frame people if they need to.
And, if they're going to act like this, I still say we should require them to wear mandatory recording devices with audio -- that way when they do something questionable, we have a record of it.
Taking the police at their word, or trusting them to enforce the law against their own members is proving to be not working. So the solution is to not take them at their word or trust them.
This is not some banana republic where the cops are above the law. And at no point should private companies be performing SWAT raids on houses.
The people who have made this claim should be fired.
No, this is a government entity which has decided it isn't a government entity, but still has the right to operate as if it were.
Sorry, but a government entity doesn't get to declare independence from the part that gives is legitimacy.
If these guys are a corporation, they can pay their own salaries, and operate under the sames rules as private security firms. Which means they're no longer police officers.
If they want to be law enforcement, well, that means they aren't private corporations, and they are subject to oversight.
Especially when they have a history of playing fast and loose with the law, 'using fictional informants to obtain warrants ', and other shady activities.
Sorry, but if it looks like a cop, and shoots people like a cop, and can arrest people like a cop, it needs oversight like a cop.
If people think police departments are terrible at investigating their own wrong doing now, wait until they're private corporations and can simply say "piss off".
If these clowns want to be private corporations, fire them all, and then tell them they're only legally allowed to be mall cops.
If they want to be cops, they're part of whatever level of government gives them the legal authority to operate, and subject to the applicable laws.
Any refusal to hand over the records should lead to dismissal, or criminal charges.
Now they're private police forces and not subject to oversight?
Fine, then they're not law enforcement officers, and have far fewer room to operate legally, and any deaths and the like means they go to jail, right?
"You can't have it both ways," Jessie Rossman, a staff attorney for the Massachusetts ACLU, told me in a phone interview. "The same government authority that allows them to carry weapons, make arrests, and break down the doors of Massachusetts residents during dangerous raids also makes them a government agency that is subject to the open records law."
Exactly. If you're private corporations, you're not cops, you're vigilantes and operating outside of the law. If you're officers of the law, you're subject to oversight.
The argument that the LECs in Massachusetts are private corporations and therefore immune to the state open records law was made by Jack Collins, the general counsel for the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association.
And, once again, the 'police' have no interest in upholding the law, just covering their own asses.
If this doesn't get tossed out by a court or the law makers, this is a terrible precedent. They're asking for the right to do anything they want without oversight or responsibility.
And it sounds like they've got a long history of doing things which they'd prefer to keep hidden from oversight -- like accidentally killing people.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, Whiteboards still work really well. They even have fancy schmancy smart whiteboards which are networked. Hell, they make collaborative software which has some of these features.
Every time I see one of these things it seems like people are using technology for the sake of technology.
A whiteboard, an easel board, pen and paper ... all of these technologies still work well, and will continue to do so.
Or, you know, your company has much better infrastructure and technology than your phone.
If I was in a meeting and someone said "I will provide web access via my phone", I would have to start laughing at you and not take you seriously.
Well, anything is 'trivially solvable' with non-trivial amounts of money and effort. And therein lies the problem.
Because then it's no longer 'trivial' to solve.
Say you were going to spend a few thousand dollars per intersection. How much would a large city have to spend on this 'trivial' solution? Would it still be considered trivial at this point?
Good luck with that ... you don't mess with the Zoltan. ;-)
And markets.
So, as a currency, it is somehow magically not affected by markets or the chance of devaluation?
I must admit, I read that and thought "I have no idea what this man is saying".
Bitcoin is a currency, and it is subject to modern market economies. The entire summary sounds like Bitcoin is somehow magic.
No, due to human nature, I would expect drivers to use this information to maximize their own personal outcome.
Avoiding sitting at a light for a full cycle is apparently something drivers do not like, so their response is to use this information to unsafely blast through intersections.
I don't think people in general make rational choices aimed at obeying the rules. They make selfish choices aimed at optimizing their own outcomes.
LOL, remember that old movie Starman with Jeff Bridges?
Sadly, for a very large number of motorists, a yellow light means "go very fast" to get through before it changes.
I see this all the time.
And, here we sit, discussing those problems.
I would wager that a non-trivial amount of drivers pretty much reinterpret what the signals are supposed to mean.
Take Stop for instance. It doesn't mean roll through the light/stop sign, begin your right turn, and when you're half way into the lane, then look left for oncoming traffic.
But I see that pretty much daily.
Other examples would be speed limit signs, signs which say do not pass, signs which say no right turn on red, or my favorite one about not entering an intersection unless the exit is clear.
In fact, I'm not sure I can think of a single traffic sign which is consistently followed as it is intended.
The conclusion I offer is that most motorists don't actually give a damn about what they're supposed to be doing, and if they think they can get away with it, they care even less.
They do.
Unfortunately, there is a countdown timer telling them the light will change to yellow in 4 seconds, so they know they need to speed up to make it through.
I can't tell you how often I see cars racing to get through an amber light who actually enter the intersection after the light turns red.
Yeah, no shit. The first thing I told my mother when she wanted to become 'digitally literate' is to never trust the internet.
Never trust it's telling you the truth, never trust it cares about your interests, and never trust that someone might not be out to rip you off.
Then I'll show you how to actually get to it.
Not trusting the internet is a damned good starting point.
How about:
You do understand that parallel construction is basically perjury, right? And that police have outright lied about the circumstances of arrest on many occasions?
So if they illegally look, and then radio to one of their buddies to call in an 'anonymous' tip, you're pretty much screwed.
Or like when the police officer tries to delete pictures off your phone, and you tell him no, and he arrests you for resisting arrest ... which is absurd since you weren't in the process of being arrested in the first place.
If you're going to purely rely on the fruit of the poison tree or the integrity of a specific police officer you've just met ... you're doing it wrong.
Not all cops are dishonest. But enough of them are that you should more or less not trust that any given one is.
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
So, are you suggesting we should all consent to illegal (and unconstitutional) searches on the assumption that since we're innocent it's OK for the police to break the law because the won't find anything??
Sorry, but no. When the police start abusing their power, the solution isn't to allow it to happen.
You may be willing to accept fascism, but we're not.
As always, I will invoke rule #34.
I'm sure it's been done. ;-)
Bah, laziness is the mother of invention. ;-)
The wheel being the prime example. Instead of schlepping stuff around, let the wheel do some of the work.
And, since I saw this link elsewhere in this thread ... I'm hardly the first person to phrase it as 'lazy'.
OK, smartass, what is the evolutionary advantage for stupidity?
Because you'd think we'd have selected that away a long time ago as well.
Hell, we have an appendix. Why do we have an appendix? Why hasn't evolution made that go away?
Evolution is awesome, but it can do some silly things that stick around.
Random pedantry, but you've conflated two different things.
There is Body Dysmorphic Disorder, where people are really really concerned about the appearance of their pieces and parts. This is the broader one which includes why people get 30 plastic surgeries.
There is Gender Dysphoria, in which the pieces and parts don't match internal identify.
I've known a few women (and a few men come to think of it) who fell into the former. It's not vanity, it can be a clinical issue where it becomes debilitating for you.
I've also met a couple of people in the latter category -- and trust me, nobody would go through all of the stuff they do unless they were really really committed to it and felt they had no choice. It's hardly a glamorous (or easy) thing to do.
I'm not saying the man was 'lazy'. Not at all.
But every time I've found I need to write a script like this, I've attributed it to being too lazy to want to repeat the process.
A few years ago we automated something -- because we'd just spent a few hours doing it on one server, and would have to repeat the process for a bunch of other servers, and that wasn't something any of us wanted to do again since it was a huge sequence of manual steps.
It's more of an investment in long-term laziness to make the problem go away.
If I do a small amount of work now, I can make a large amount of work go away later. Lazy. But in a proactive get something off my plate kind of way.
Like Scrooge McDuck says ... work smarter, not harder.
I assure you, I mean lazy in a very complimentary way here. ;-)
Or, in this case, for profit.
Plain and simple, this is about getting Google more information they can use to generate revenue.
This has nothing to do with saving lives, it has everything to do with eroding privacy and ensuring Google makes more money.
Larry Page doesn't like the idea of there being private data. Because Larry Page is an asshole.
How many fingers am I holding up?
Screw you Google. "Do no evil" my ass.
This is just another instance of him saying "trust us, we're google, give us all your private information, what could possibly go wrong".
More useful things have been invented out of an express desire to be lazy than I can even count.
The realization of "WTF am I doing this by hand when I can write a script" sparks so many cool things.
If he streamlined his job and got better results I don't see why he shouldn't get recognition.
I'm sure the military hasn't introduced the Perl Star or anything, so I'm sure they've worked within existing stuff to say "damn, son, that's some fine work".
I don't see how what they're saying could be taken as legal.
This is just the police departments doing an end-run around oversight, and coming up with their own re-interpretation of what they're legally allowed to do.
I take this as evidence that law enforcement doesn't give a damn about the law, they care about being able to do anything they want, without oversight, and without having to pay attention to the letter and intent of the law.
And, federal agencies are actively working with them to tell them how to ignore the constitution, use illegally obtained data, or just plain old frame people if they need to.
And, if they're going to act like this, I still say we should require them to wear mandatory recording devices with audio -- that way when they do something questionable, we have a record of it.
Taking the police at their word, or trusting them to enforce the law against their own members is proving to be not working. So the solution is to not take them at their word or trust them.
This is not some banana republic where the cops are above the law. And at no point should private companies be performing SWAT raids on houses.
The people who have made this claim should be fired.
No, this is a government entity which has decided it isn't a government entity, but still has the right to operate as if it were.
Sorry, but a government entity doesn't get to declare independence from the part that gives is legitimacy.
If these guys are a corporation, they can pay their own salaries, and operate under the sames rules as private security firms. Which means they're no longer police officers.
If they want to be law enforcement, well, that means they aren't private corporations, and they are subject to oversight.
Especially when they have a history of playing fast and loose with the law, 'using fictional informants to obtain warrants ', and other shady activities.
So, they're vigilantes then?
Sorry, but if it looks like a cop, and shoots people like a cop, and can arrest people like a cop, it needs oversight like a cop.
If people think police departments are terrible at investigating their own wrong doing now, wait until they're private corporations and can simply say "piss off".
If these clowns want to be private corporations, fire them all, and then tell them they're only legally allowed to be mall cops.
If they want to be cops, they're part of whatever level of government gives them the legal authority to operate, and subject to the applicable laws.
Any refusal to hand over the records should lead to dismissal, or criminal charges.
Now they're private police forces and not subject to oversight?
Fine, then they're not law enforcement officers, and have far fewer room to operate legally, and any deaths and the like means they go to jail, right?
Exactly. If you're private corporations, you're not cops, you're vigilantes and operating outside of the law. If you're officers of the law, you're subject to oversight.
And, once again, the 'police' have no interest in upholding the law, just covering their own asses.
If this doesn't get tossed out by a court or the law makers, this is a terrible precedent. They're asking for the right to do anything they want without oversight or responsibility.
And it sounds like they've got a long history of doing things which they'd prefer to keep hidden from oversight -- like accidentally killing people.
In the immortal words of NWA ... Fuck tha police.
So many rule #34 jokes, so little time.
Yeah, that was kind of my point ... what is the benefit of going through several transformations versus using the stuff you make ammonia from?
That sounds like it does nothing to get us away from petrochemicals, it just changes the form of it.