I'd not heard of it nor the fellow involved (who as it turns out is still alive), so I went and looked it up, and learned all sorts of interesting stuff:
Very good point that you give your doctor *permission* to commit a procedure upon your body.
No need to call it "sexual assault" -- it's unwarranted search of your person and effects.
But yeah, it's enough to make me reconsider, or not fly at all -- the fact that MY gov't is restricting MY rights in this fashion rankles, and I'm sorry it hurts the airlines, but they didn't have to knuckle under and go along with it.
I get Alaska Air's cargo memos, and it seems to me they do try to be fair about costs vs charges, but they're getting squeezed from both ends and that leads to nickel-and-diming in an effort to make it back *somewhere*. Of course it won't work, as more and more people either opt out of flying, or decide NOT to travel at all.
Methinks there's a market niche ready and waiting for an airline that makes a policy of "We just get in the plane and go", and allows *armed passengers* to take care of onboard security. Give a ticket discount to anyone who holds a concealed-carry permit and brings their piece, and you just about ensure that every flight has a volunteer security marshal aboard, with enough training to do the job at need -- at no real cost to the airline.
Maybe not an average xray machine (tho I'd hazard an inner city ER's might be just as busy), but medical devices in general can get just as much use as this device. Yet here is something equivalent to an xray machine that is put into production use with no more than token testing.
Or, as you say, WE are the guinea pigs...
I expect any ill effects are liable to take years to manifest, given that it's a fairly low level of radiation. Trouble is, by that point it would be too late for a lot of people.
"These scanners are already, in themselves, more of a safety hazard than actually flying. They have been through nowhere near the degree of rigorous safety testing and analysis that any component of an aircraft has to go through."
Consider the level of testing and analysis that the *very same device* would require if it were labeled "medical equipment" rather than "airport security equipment". Consider also the site and personnel licensing required to operate one (probably akin to that required for a modern xray machine).
So the obvious solution for the terrorist contingent is to stuff your bomb into the wheel well, then quietly walk away. No need to get on the plane or go through the silly security system.
Still a damned sight more honest than the outfits they report on. Ask anyone in the ag sector which "activists" they'd prefer to have on their side.
At any rate, my point was that the term itself is already contaminated, just as is "hacker". As someone's sig here says, "When I hear the word 'activist', I reach for my revolver."
You're shooting the messenger. Everything on the site is documented, and it doesn't really matter who did the documenting. Consider them the wikileaks of the activist world.
"Activist" hasn't meant anything positive in a long time, ever since the basic philosophy of too many activist groups became "We'll make your lives miserable until you give in and do what WE want you to do." Thanks to groups like ALF/ELF and the money-making/laundering machines behind many others (see http://www.activistcash.com/ ), "activist" has almost become synonymous with "domestic terrorist".
It's the same unfortunate regression of meaning that "hacker" suffers from, for the same reasons -- too many black hats among the white hats.
Really, current "climate change" (global warming theory) is so short-term-focused as to be meaningless, as both graphs amply demonstrate.
Re:That's one heck of a "long goodbye"
on
Goodbye, VGA
·
· Score: 1
Generally it's just a visual check -- a bad one has a swelled top, or evidence of leaking (crusting) around the bottom. However, if one goes, probably all of them (or at least all of the same class) should be replaced, as it's seldom just one bad cap, but rather a batch failure problem.
Also as a general rule, the kind with an "X" mark on the top are more likely to fail, while those with a 3-pronged mark (I don't know what it's called, if anything) or Pi-shaped mark seldom do.
"Such societies tend to develop when there's almost no scarcity, but there is a little bit, so someone needs to go out and collect the stuff for people, and they get prestige for doing that and giving it away. But there's not enough scarcity to actually build a 'market' around that."
This reminds me of the economic liberal thought that one should take wealth and redistribute it. Trouble is, at present there isn't any unclaimed "wealth" left to go forth and collect, so they wind up stealing physical wealth (as taxes) from others.
And tho it proved not-my-thing, that download is why I recognise your nym today. I'm more likely to notice it in the future, via good old name-recognition, whether I'm actually interested in your product or not. That's what advertising is really about, for the most part.
Probably because in the corporate case, it gives you someone else to blame in the event of legal liability. Also, it gives someone else the main responsibility of keeping YOUR setup updated... you just start the process by installing it; after that it's the AV company's job.
And finally, my observation is that average people, conditioned by seeing boxes of Norton AV and McAfee at the store for $50, are shocked to learn that there are better AV products available for free, tho some of them do know about warez. So it doesn't occur to them to look for a legal-free AV; they go looking for warez instead. Strange but true.:(
Property taxes going down are not the norm, tho. You got lucky. Prop13 is all that stands between most Californians who bought before the spike (myself included) and foreclosure (based on peak value, as it is in most states, my property tax would have gone to 3 times what my mortgage is!! This has actually happened to many people in western Montana.)
True that Fannie Mae doesn't give a shit about local gov'ts, but I do think local gov'ts smelled the lure of higher property tax, being fully aware that real estate booms mean increased taxable values. Meanwhile, realtors were making as much from a single sale as they previously did in an entire YEAR. (My place, when bought -- realtors made $6000. At the peak -- they'd have made $72,000. Yes, the market value changed THAT much. Taxes would have increased apace.) So I suspect there was a lot of pro-idiocy lobbying from those factions, who had a lot to gain and nothing to lose if buyers eventually got foreclosed (after all the banks will still pay the property taxes!) They had only benefits, not costs, so why bother considering the ratio?:(~
Fundamentally, it shows the folly of having authority without responsibility, which is itself benefit without cost.
Me, I drive a truck and it wouldn't hurt my feelings any to have a rear-view camera (truck is pretty blind in spots) but I'd trust it as far as I do my mirrors... which is to say, if I can't crane my neck and see the same spot, I still have to make a judgment call on whether the view I'm being shown is accurate. A passenger-side camera would be more-useful, tho -- my biggest risk point is always whenever I have to change lanes to the right (into my largest blind spot).
As to where the benefit was from the Fannie Mae disaster, that would be recipients of property taxes, which are driven up each time ANY property is sold (not to mention how rich realtors got during the spike). So... state and local gov'ts benefited through higher taxes with no effort or changes to the tax codes, and cost analysis usually halts at any point where short-term gov't revenue might be impacted.
And that's probably the point. At a certain level, many big corps are actually in the real estate business, NOT whatever nominal product. McDonald's leaps to mind... they're really in the primo location business, not the hamburger business.
This entire discussion forgets that neither commercials nor content is the product. YOUR EYEBALLS are the product, which the "content providers" SELL TO the advertisers. They are NOT in the business of bringing you anything; they're in the business of harvesting and selling your attention.
Trouble is, two grand can be as much as half your revenue for the total life of the book's sales. Remember authors only get a few percent of cover price from the publisher. $5000 worth of income is considered a decent amount of sales for an average book (which is why writing is so seldom a full-time job). You don't want to hurt the little guy to the point that only the big guys can use the system. And the publisher is NOT going to eat it either. So... if it kicks in that early, you've just killed off all the writers who aren't independently wealthy, a situation even more draconian than we have with today's ridiculously extended copyrights.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd not heard of it nor the fellow involved (who as it turns out is still alive), so I went and looked it up, and learned all sorts of interesting stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
http://www.brightstarsound.com/world_hero/article.html
http://www.armscontrol.ru/start/publications/petrov.htm
Very good point that you give your doctor *permission* to commit a procedure upon your body.
No need to call it "sexual assault" -- it's unwarranted search of your person and effects.
But yeah, it's enough to make me reconsider, or not fly at all -- the fact that MY gov't is restricting MY rights in this fashion rankles, and I'm sorry it hurts the airlines, but they didn't have to knuckle under and go along with it.
I get Alaska Air's cargo memos, and it seems to me they do try to be fair about costs vs charges, but they're getting squeezed from both ends and that leads to nickel-and-diming in an effort to make it back *somewhere*. Of course it won't work, as more and more people either opt out of flying, or decide NOT to travel at all.
Methinks there's a market niche ready and waiting for an airline that makes a policy of "We just get in the plane and go", and allows *armed passengers* to take care of onboard security. Give a ticket discount to anyone who holds a concealed-carry permit and brings their piece, and you just about ensure that every flight has a volunteer security marshal aboard, with enough training to do the job at need -- at no real cost to the airline.
Maybe not an average xray machine (tho I'd hazard an inner city ER's might be just as busy), but medical devices in general can get just as much use as this device. Yet here is something equivalent to an xray machine that is put into production use with no more than token testing.
Or, as you say, WE are the guinea pigs...
I expect any ill effects are liable to take years to manifest, given that it's a fairly low level of radiation. Trouble is, by that point it would be too late for a lot of people.
"Do they work and violate our privacy or do they not work and you are lying to us?"
To which the terrorist responds, "Who cares?? We still got you to waste $300 million dollars!!"
"These scanners are already, in themselves, more of a safety hazard than actually flying. They have been through nowhere near the degree of rigorous safety testing and analysis that any component of an aircraft has to go through."
Consider the level of testing and analysis that the *very same device* would require if it were labeled "medical equipment" rather than "airport security equipment". Consider also the site and personnel licensing required to operate one (probably akin to that required for a modern xray machine).
So the obvious solution for the terrorist contingent is to stuff your bomb into the wheel well, then quietly walk away. No need to get on the plane or go through the silly security system.
Still a damned sight more honest than the outfits they report on. Ask anyone in the ag sector which "activists" they'd prefer to have on their side.
At any rate, my point was that the term itself is already contaminated, just as is "hacker". As someone's sig here says, "When I hear the word 'activist', I reach for my revolver."
You're shooting the messenger. Everything on the site is documented, and it doesn't really matter who did the documenting. Consider them the wikileaks of the activist world.
"Activist" hasn't meant anything positive in a long time, ever since the basic philosophy of too many activist groups became "We'll make your lives miserable until you give in and do what WE want you to do." Thanks to groups like ALF/ELF and the money-making/laundering machines behind many others (see http://www.activistcash.com/ ), "activist" has almost become synonymous with "domestic terrorist".
It's the same unfortunate regression of meaning that "hacker" suffers from, for the same reasons -- too many black hats among the white hats.
Great, now we're gonna have a bunch of obese trolls. ;)
But saying it enough times makes it a meme that a lot of people will believe. See "The Big Lie".
Pfah, such short-term thinking. I prefer this graph:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/65_Myr_Climate_Change.png
Really, current "climate change" (global warming theory) is so short-term-focused as to be meaningless, as both graphs amply demonstrate.
Generally it's just a visual check -- a bad one has a swelled top, or evidence of leaking (crusting) around the bottom. However, if one goes, probably all of them (or at least all of the same class) should be replaced, as it's seldom just one bad cap, but rather a batch failure problem.
Also as a general rule, the kind with an "X" mark on the top are more likely to fail, while those with a 3-pronged mark (I don't know what it's called, if anything) or Pi-shaped mark seldom do.
[goes off, roots around]
I see this handy feature:
http://rekonq.kde.org/node/43
Can you unload what you just loaded, too?
"Such societies tend to develop when there's almost no scarcity, but there is a little bit, so someone needs to go out and collect the stuff for people, and they get prestige for doing that and giving it away. But there's not enough scarcity to actually build a 'market' around that."
This reminds me of the economic liberal thought that one should take wealth and redistribute it. Trouble is, at present there isn't any unclaimed "wealth" left to go forth and collect, so they wind up stealing physical wealth (as taxes) from others.
And tho it proved not-my-thing, that download is why I recognise your nym today. I'm more likely to notice it in the future, via good old name-recognition, whether I'm actually interested in your product or not. That's what advertising is really about, for the most part.
Much more interesting and enlightening, the entire report:
http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/users/lerner/papers/ccs10-jsc.pdf
Probably because in the corporate case, it gives you someone else to blame in the event of legal liability. Also, it gives someone else the main responsibility of keeping YOUR setup updated... you just start the process by installing it; after that it's the AV company's job.
And finally, my observation is that average people, conditioned by seeing boxes of Norton AV and McAfee at the store for $50, are shocked to learn that there are better AV products available for free, tho some of them do know about warez. So it doesn't occur to them to look for a legal-free AV; they go looking for warez instead. Strange but true. :(
Property taxes going down are not the norm, tho. You got lucky. Prop13 is all that stands between most Californians who bought before the spike (myself included) and foreclosure (based on peak value, as it is in most states, my property tax would have gone to 3 times what my mortgage is!! This has actually happened to many people in western Montana.)
True that Fannie Mae doesn't give a shit about local gov'ts, but I do think local gov'ts smelled the lure of higher property tax, being fully aware that real estate booms mean increased taxable values. Meanwhile, realtors were making as much from a single sale as they previously did in an entire YEAR. (My place, when bought -- realtors made $6000. At the peak -- they'd have made $72,000. Yes, the market value changed THAT much. Taxes would have increased apace.) So I suspect there was a lot of pro-idiocy lobbying from those factions, who had a lot to gain and nothing to lose if buyers eventually got foreclosed (after all the banks will still pay the property taxes!) They had only benefits, not costs, so why bother considering the ratio? :(~
Fundamentally, it shows the folly of having authority without responsibility, which is itself benefit without cost.
Me, I drive a truck and it wouldn't hurt my feelings any to have a rear-view camera (truck is pretty blind in spots) but I'd trust it as far as I do my mirrors... which is to say, if I can't crane my neck and see the same spot, I still have to make a judgment call on whether the view I'm being shown is accurate. A passenger-side camera would be more-useful, tho -- my biggest risk point is always whenever I have to change lanes to the right (into my largest blind spot).
Lots of good points.
As to where the benefit was from the Fannie Mae disaster, that would be recipients of property taxes, which are driven up each time ANY property is sold (not to mention how rich realtors got during the spike). So... state and local gov'ts benefited through higher taxes with no effort or changes to the tax codes, and cost analysis usually halts at any point where short-term gov't revenue might be impacted.
And that's probably the point. At a certain level, many big corps are actually in the real estate business, NOT whatever nominal product. McDonald's leaps to mind... they're really in the primo location business, not the hamburger business.
Yep... until 3rd party advertising enters the picture.
This entire discussion forgets that neither commercials nor content is the product. YOUR EYEBALLS are the product, which the "content providers" SELL TO the advertisers. They are NOT in the business of bringing you anything; they're in the business of harvesting and selling your attention.
Trouble is, two grand can be as much as half your revenue for the total life of the book's sales. Remember authors only get a few percent of cover price from the publisher. $5000 worth of income is considered a decent amount of sales for an average book (which is why writing is so seldom a full-time job). You don't want to hurt the little guy to the point that only the big guys can use the system. And the publisher is NOT going to eat it either. So... if it kicks in that early, you've just killed off all the writers who aren't independently wealthy, a situation even more draconian than we have with today's ridiculously extended copyrights.
You're missing the obvious here. If he disappears, the real story would be leaked ... via Wikileaks. ;)