Worth remembering that the only evidence is the guy who was tweeting. Who do you trust, the head of the NSA, or some guy who tweets? The answer is neither.
Horseshit.
See, the fact that Hayden has actually responded to this and asserted the guy was a liberal activist who misunderstood him
Someone eventually tipped off Hayden, who finished a call, stood up and walked over to Matzzie.
"Would you like a real interview?" Hayden asked.
"I'm not a reporter," Matzzie replied.
"Everybody's a reporter," Hayden said.
The Post said the two then talked about the U.S. Constitution's s Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, and NSA surveillance, and then Hayden posed for a photo with Matzzie.
Hayden told the Post later he wasn't disparaging Obama or his administration. Matzzie "got it terribly wrong," Hayden said, dismissing the tweets as an inaccurate "story from a liberal activist sitting two seats from me on the train hearing intermittent snatches of conversation."
"I didn't criticize the president," Hayden said. "I actually said these are very difficult issues. I said I had political guidance, too, that limited the things that I did when I was director of NSA. Now that political guidance (for current officials) is going to be more robust. It wasn't a criticism."
I trust the fact that it happened, I trust the fact that Hayden responded to it, and I don't trust Hayden at all. This is a guy who has claimed that torture was merely a legal definition which could be skirted around -- which in my books makes him a bit of a sleazebag.
Are you suggesting there is evidence this never happened? Or that the guy overhearing truly got it all wrong? People like this love to try to weasel on what they actually said and what it actually meant, but I find it much more plausible than "guy sitting on train makes up conversation between NSA former director and someone else".
to actively listen in on other people's conversations, even if you *can* incidentally hear them?
You know, if you're a former security official sitting on a train discussing this kind of stuff in the clear -- rude has ceased to apply.
It's not about privacy and politeness -- it's about being an epic asshole discussing things you shouldn't be discussing on a train with other people listening.
And if you're someone who has called torture 'a legal term', you should probably be subjected to it yourself. People who sit behind desks and play semantic games about what constitutes torture are just thugs with official badges.
In fact, those people could be called war criminals in some contexts.
Well see, your premise is incorrect. The NSA's stated goal is to "gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances".
And how's that gonna work for you when you become persona non grata when your allies all get fed up with you?
If you're undermining your allies and pissing them off, and they tell you the legal facilities you have need to close up shop and go home, you've only hurt yourself in the long run.
Depending on how irate some of these governments get, they could be far less willing to cooperate in the future.
Other factors contributed to dinosaurs' larger sizes, including their lighter, air-sac-filled skeletons, and some researchers point out that the sizes of some dinosaurs and mammals were approximately equal, so anatomical differences between cartilage in dinosaurs and mammals may not directly explain why some dinosaurs grew to larger sizes.
I thought the much larger concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere was supposed too have been a factor, and they'd never have been able to grow that big in our current atmosphere.
Since when is a country's leader considered a civilian? Targeting a world leader is exactly who they should be going after.
If the stated goal is to prevent terrorism, then going after your allies is NOT how you do that.
This has now become "we'll spy on everybody because we want to and because we can". It's doing far more than the stated purpose, and damaging your relations with other countries.
If you still think that's a good idea, well, that's your problem.
Vengeance seems to be a top priority for some reason.
So, it's angry Christians bent on vengeance then? Because I'm not sure who else is -- god must be so proud, it seems like the bible belt is most keen on executions and vengeance. I thought he'd reserved that for himself.
And as someone else pointed out, it's hypocritical how some who claim to want small government also say that the government should have the power to murder people who've already been imprisoned
They only really want the parts they disagree with smaller. Some of the rest (like military spending and spying) they seem to want to increase.
Betamax vs. VHS was not decided by the broader population, it was decided by bleeding edge folks.
I was under the impression (having been in a house which had a Beta VCR) it was more decided by Sony not being willing to license their technology to other people (or wanting too much money) or something stupid like that.
And then the crushing lack of content completely killed it.
At one point, if you walked into a video store that had both Beta and VHS, the beta section was about 8 feet wide, and the entire rest of the store was all VHS. Trust me, I was stuck in the Beta section, and my parents were about as far from 'bleeding edge' as you can get.
I don't think the bleeding edge folks had anything to do with the death of Beta. Sony's arrogance, and the fact that there wasn't anything available for Beta led to the death of Beta.
Actually cans don't foam much. Many soda formulations include anti-foaming agents specifically to avoid the problem. So 3 is not so trivially false.
I learned to do this in the early-mid 80's, and I doubt there was any of that. It was certainly a problem as a can could produce quite a geyser..
Also there are a number of other possibilities your list excluded. The most obvious being "the time that elapsing during the can transfer and top-taping are sufficient to squelch the foaming reaction"
LOL, I've been handed cans by people who shook them in front of me and successfully opened them if I was careful. But I don't recommend trying it at home unless you have a place you can make a mess in.
My friends were heartless bastards, so you had to assume all cans had been shaken just before you got them. This came out of simple self preservation.
This sounds like it requires further testing. The setup: 5 identical cans, 4 shaken, one left unshaken as a control.
Oh you'd need much more than that.
You need to test beer (light beer, normal beer, dark beer, American beer), sodas (clear, dark, diet, rootbeer). You could also test energy drinks.
You need to control for how cold the can and it's contents are. You could test for can size (is a tall can fizzier than a short can?). You could test the ratio of the can height to diameter. There's likely different types of pop-tops.
You might also need to determine the threshold for spontaneous can explosion where it's coming out even if you don't do anything. We'll need a paint shaker for this.
Hell, we might also need to do tests to determine if the likelihood is determined by how inconvenient it would be (critical need detectors and dress clothes).
I'm going to need a truckload of beers, sodas, a walk in fridge, a normal fridge, a bar fridge, several changes of wardrobe, two assistants, a steady supply of pizza, a lazy boy, a paint shaker, a monkey, 4K of cocaine, some LSD, several hookers, a high speed camera, a good internet connection and a really fast car.
Considering how many people walk around Manhattan every day, I don't know where you heard that.
Possibly a cumulative effect of movies in which one more or less expects crazy cab drivers and other mayhem.
The closest I've been to NYC is the Newark airport, and that was close enough for me.
But I know that in Montreal, for example, pedestrians getting ran over is a regular occurrence because the drivers are all crazy. Visited there with my wife a couple of times, and she warned me to NEVER be anywhere except the sidewalk, and definitely be fully out of the crosswalk before the light changed or the cabs would just run you over.
After a relatively short period of time of seeing how things worked, I took that very much to heart and was grateful we weren't driving there.
I guess one just assumes that Manhattan is even worse than that.
4) the main useful thing you did was the slow opening maybe.
Entirely possible. I haven't done rigorous testing to isolate which aspects of it are the biggest factor. If someone was to give me a grant I might.;-)
But I successfully went through my adolescence opening cans that I knew my friends had shaken and never got sprayed in the face.
So I pretty much have kept opening cans that way since.
You have to tap the sides. Tapping the top doesn't help much.
And yet, I have successfully used my technique for 3 decades.
From which we can conclude: either 1) I've never actually been given a can which was shaken, 2) my technique also works, 3) or cans don't foam up and it's a myth.
To the best of my knowledge, 1) and 3) are provably false.
The post I replied to said "no one will ever" and listed a series of things. I can tell you factually that, having seen people do those things, the assertion is false. Just like most categorical statements.
I never suggested there would be thousands of people doing it. But people do in fact do those things. I've been out in snow storms and seen quite a few cyclists in fact. And in the rain. And on hot days.
At no point did I assert that a lot of people would do it, merely pointed out that claiming nobody would ever do it is patently false.
Pull your head out of your ass.
I'd suggest you do the same, but it might be difficult to tell where the ass ends and where the head begins.
Ah... that explains it. I had become somewhat nervous about the beverages handed to me by my grade school son ever since he learned about that prank. Nothing ever happened
I learned a long time ago how to open a can without too much fear of this.
Tap the top of the can a couple of times, and crack it open just enough to let a small amount of pressure escape, and wait a little while. It might foam a little, but you can actually 'burp' off most of the pressure if you're careful.
Even back in the 80s I could open a can which had been shaken without much incidence of spraying. And I've always opened cans that way since because, well, my friends weren't good, thoughtful kids when it came to that.;-)
Exactly. One of the cities cited in the article is NYC; I live right next to Manhattan and visit frequently, and it's one of the least bike-friendly cities I've ever seen
From what I've heard, it's one of the least pedestrian friendly cities in the world.
Manhattan doesn't have a reputation as being a safe place to walk, bike, or drive a car from what I've heard.:-P
No one is going to bike to work in 3 feet of snow and/or 12 degrees. No one is going to bike to work in driving rain. No one is going to bike to work in 100+ degree temps.
I have actually seen all of these things, and many workplaces have shower facilities.
So, I would say all of your "no one is going to" are pretty much wrong. I've certainly seen cyclists out in snow storms, because you can buy studded tires for bikes these days, and rain gear.
Slashdot Mirror
Not the SHIELD I was hoping for. ;-)
So, all those countries who consider the US an ally should stop being naive and assume the US is (or could be) an enemy and stop trusting them then?
Because that might be what's happening right now.
And since he then proceeded to pose for a picture with the guy, I'd say evidence this actually happened is pretty incontrovertible.
Then it comes down to whose version of events you believe.
Horseshit.
See, the fact that Hayden has actually responded to this and asserted the guy was a liberal activist who misunderstood him
I trust the fact that it happened, I trust the fact that Hayden responded to it, and I don't trust Hayden at all. This is a guy who has claimed that torture was merely a legal definition which could be skirted around -- which in my books makes him a bit of a sleazebag.
Are you suggesting there is evidence this never happened? Or that the guy overhearing truly got it all wrong? People like this love to try to weasel on what they actually said and what it actually meant, but I find it much more plausible than "guy sitting on train makes up conversation between NSA former director and someone else".
You know, if you're a former security official sitting on a train discussing this kind of stuff in the clear -- rude has ceased to apply.
It's not about privacy and politeness -- it's about being an epic asshole discussing things you shouldn't be discussing on a train with other people listening.
And if you're someone who has called torture 'a legal term', you should probably be subjected to it yourself. People who sit behind desks and play semantic games about what constitutes torture are just thugs with official badges.
In fact, those people could be called war criminals in some contexts.
How the heck does a former NSA director come to be talking about such things in public?
It's like fight club, you don't talk about it in front of other people.
I should think sitting on a train conducting this interview would be an epic breach of both his secrecy agreements, and his common sense.
And how's that gonna work for you when you become persona non grata when your allies all get fed up with you?
If you're undermining your allies and pissing them off, and they tell you the legal facilities you have need to close up shop and go home, you've only hurt yourself in the long run.
Depending on how irate some of these governments get, they could be far less willing to cooperate in the future.
I thought the much larger concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere was supposed too have been a factor, and they'd never have been able to grow that big in our current atmosphere.
I get the impression it's more about certain drugs which could be made into certain other drugs. Something which the US has a very serious stance on.
My bet, they can't make the drugs domestically because the ingredients are tightly controlled. Which is why the US relies on foreign suppliers.
If the stated goal is to prevent terrorism, then going after your allies is NOT how you do that.
This has now become "we'll spy on everybody because we want to and because we can". It's doing far more than the stated purpose, and damaging your relations with other countries.
If you still think that's a good idea, well, that's your problem.
So, it's angry Christians bent on vengeance then? Because I'm not sure who else is -- god must be so proud, it seems like the bible belt is most keen on executions and vengeance. I thought he'd reserved that for himself.
They only really want the parts they disagree with smaller. Some of the rest (like military spending and spying) they seem to want to increase.
So, the rest of the world has your permission to start spying on US citizens then?
I sincerely hope that comes true for you.
I was under the impression (having been in a house which had a Beta VCR) it was more decided by Sony not being willing to license their technology to other people (or wanting too much money) or something stupid like that.
And then the crushing lack of content completely killed it.
At one point, if you walked into a video store that had both Beta and VHS, the beta section was about 8 feet wide, and the entire rest of the store was all VHS. Trust me, I was stuck in the Beta section, and my parents were about as far from 'bleeding edge' as you can get.
I don't think the bleeding edge folks had anything to do with the death of Beta. Sony's arrogance, and the fact that there wasn't anything available for Beta led to the death of Beta.
I've seen it happen at companies where the people who started it are still in charge.
So, we can amend what you just said to: All companies will degenerate into a moneygrubbing greed machine only interested in the next quarter profits
I learned to do this in the early-mid 80's, and I doubt there was any of that. It was certainly a problem as a can could produce quite a geyser..
LOL, I've been handed cans by people who shook them in front of me and successfully opened them if I was careful. But I don't recommend trying it at home unless you have a place you can make a mess in.
My friends were heartless bastards, so you had to assume all cans had been shaken just before you got them. This came out of simple self preservation.
Oh you'd need much more than that.
You need to test beer (light beer, normal beer, dark beer, American beer), sodas (clear, dark, diet, rootbeer). You could also test energy drinks.
You need to control for how cold the can and it's contents are. You could test for can size (is a tall can fizzier than a short can?). You could test the ratio of the can height to diameter. There's likely different types of pop-tops.
You might also need to determine the threshold for spontaneous can explosion where it's coming out even if you don't do anything. We'll need a paint shaker for this.
Hell, we might also need to do tests to determine if the likelihood is determined by how inconvenient it would be (critical need detectors and dress clothes).
I'm going to need a truckload of beers, sodas, a walk in fridge, a normal fridge, a bar fridge, several changes of wardrobe, two assistants, a steady supply of pizza, a lazy boy, a paint shaker, a monkey, 4K of cocaine, some LSD, several hookers, a high speed camera, a good internet connection and a really fast car.
The only thing I'm worried about is the bats. ;-)
Possibly a cumulative effect of movies in which one more or less expects crazy cab drivers and other mayhem.
The closest I've been to NYC is the Newark airport, and that was close enough for me.
But I know that in Montreal, for example, pedestrians getting ran over is a regular occurrence because the drivers are all crazy. Visited there with my wife a couple of times, and she warned me to NEVER be anywhere except the sidewalk, and definitely be fully out of the crosswalk before the light changed or the cabs would just run you over.
After a relatively short period of time of seeing how things worked, I took that very much to heart and was grateful we weren't driving there.
I guess one just assumes that Manhattan is even worse than that.
Entirely possible. I haven't done rigorous testing to isolate which aspects of it are the biggest factor. If someone was to give me a grant I might. ;-)
But I successfully went through my adolescence opening cans that I knew my friends had shaken and never got sprayed in the face.
So I pretty much have kept opening cans that way since.
And yet, I have successfully used my technique for 3 decades.
From which we can conclude: either 1) I've never actually been given a can which was shaken, 2) my technique also works, 3) or cans don't foam up and it's a myth.
To the best of my knowledge, 1) and 3) are provably false.
No it's not. Because I'm not making an argument.
The post I replied to said "no one will ever" and listed a series of things. I can tell you factually that, having seen people do those things, the assertion is false. Just like most categorical statements.
I never suggested there would be thousands of people doing it. But people do in fact do those things. I've been out in snow storms and seen quite a few cyclists in fact. And in the rain. And on hot days.
At no point did I assert that a lot of people would do it, merely pointed out that claiming nobody would ever do it is patently false.
I'd suggest you do the same, but it might be difficult to tell where the ass ends and where the head begins.
Go ahead, add the banner ads.
I already block google analytics at my firewall. I'll just block these with something.
Google just seems to constantly get worse over time.
I learned a long time ago how to open a can without too much fear of this.
Tap the top of the can a couple of times, and crack it open just enough to let a small amount of pressure escape, and wait a little while. It might foam a little, but you can actually 'burp' off most of the pressure if you're careful.
Even back in the 80s I could open a can which had been shaken without much incidence of spraying. And I've always opened cans that way since because, well, my friends weren't good, thoughtful kids when it came to that. ;-)
I don't know about mixing beer and lasers.
Just saying. ;-)
Still, maybe we can look forward to beer bottles which are designed to prevent catastrophic foaming in cases like this.
From what I've heard, it's one of the least pedestrian friendly cities in the world.
Manhattan doesn't have a reputation as being a safe place to walk, bike, or drive a car from what I've heard. :-P
I have actually seen all of these things, and many workplaces have shower facilities.
So, I would say all of your "no one is going to" are pretty much wrong. I've certainly seen cyclists out in snow storms, because you can buy studded tires for bikes these days, and rain gear.
Maybe you wouldn't, but it definitely happens.