This point of view is not universal. The belief that it's immoral is only a belief, one which others, apparently, do not hold or agree with. The point isn't that this is or is not bad, the point is that you are foisting your beliefs and opinions on others.
Sure riled you up, though. I'll leave you alone now.:)
I'm sorry to hear you have so little moral fiber in your body and can't fathom why someone finds the idea of intentionally polluting an object we can't even inhabit so despicable. It's unfortunate that there are so many people that think like you, because the underlying problem with that kind of thought process is always the same:
Gee, you're right. I'm going to change my culture and ideals because you took time to insult me and all the people you grouped me with.
So, are you saying that you would not accept 6 million dollars to dump a bucket of stuff in the middle of yellowstone park (subject to some restrictions)? You didn't exactly specify that you wouldn't - you only decided that I must have bad morals because I posited that most people would. would it make a difference if I said I'd put that money to good use - such as donating it to yellowstone park?
Are you principled only when it's convenient for you, or do you make every reasonable attempt to follow your own ideals at all times, in all places, and under any circumstances?
At this point the discussion devolves into Churchill's quote (paraphrased):
"Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"
"I do believe I would."
"How about for 5 pounds?"
"What kind of a woman do you think I am?!"
"We've already determined that, now we're just haggling over price.
I'd send up an optical 10gbps repeater (otherwise know by it's more technical term, "corner cube" though the active version could also have storage of its own) and store 3.2megabytes of data in flight between the earth and the moon. If the feds ever call, it'll be erased with absolutely no trace in 2.56 seconds.
Unfortunately they don't have jurisdiction where the perp currently lives, so you'll have to wait for them to go to the moon and then arrest them. I doubt the Lunar Embassy has an extradition treaty with the US or the Russians...
If you could find a way of making someone pay you 6 million to dump a bucket full of 'stuff' in your yard, you'd do it. If someone payed you 6 million to dump a bucket full of stuff somewhere in yellowstone park, subject to some restrictions, then you'd likely do it in a heartbeat. Why is the moon so special? When spaceships can pollute a large portion of the moon, they'll be able to take people there and the pollution will happen naturally. But the pollution from this one 'hit' will be so small that you'll actually have to look for it, you aren't just going to stumble across it.
They argue that many water shortages could simply be solved by better conservation of existing supplies.
Well DUH. The people aren't trying to solve a 'water shortage' problem. They are trying to solve a "demand exceeds supply" problem. They don't have a reason to deny people the water they want to use if the people are willing to pay a higher cost. Eventually they hit a price point where people will naturally conserve water.
Water is a reusable natural resource. It's not easy to come up with a reason to conserve it, since they are already conserving it with water treatment plants.
Think of the water system as a closed system. The only unaccounted for openings are evaporation, and letting it go into the water table (ground, streams, ocean, etc). Otherwise the water is contained entirely in storage, pipes, and treatment plants. To offset evaporation and adding to the water table a system must have a certian amount of intake from wells or another water source. A water shortage doesn't necessarily mean that not enough water is being produced, it means that the system has reached its capacity --> the treatement plants are supplying less water per day than people are consuming, and they are draining (slowly) their reserves of treated water. Alternately more and more water is being stored in additional piping added by new neighborhoods/buildings or evaporated/drained into the environment by new lawns and pools and not enough used water is getting back to the treatment plants. The wells and other 'new water' sources are too stressed.
There are two ways of combating this - either take in more water from the environment, or increase the efficiency of the treatment system (more plants, better plants, etc) Obviously the second problem can only be solved by getting more 'new water' into the system. In many cities it makes more sense to place a new well than to upgrade the treatement plant, especially if the treatement plant isn't at capacity. In many cases a well cannot be placed because it puts too much strain on the water table, so a desalination plant makes very good sense.
The environmental people are not complaining so much because they feel we are destroying the planet as they are complaining because it's a symptom of our consumerism which they fundamentally oppose on principle. If they can get everyone else to 'think green' in general then they hope that other problems which do directly affect the environment will also abate.
Oh, and yes, desalination does stress the water source. If they do not process the salt into other forms then the source many become too salty near the plant. If they do not replace the salt then it may not be salty enough. Either way, a desalination plant affects the water source. Whether that's bad or good is subjective.
"Four years ago, a group dubbing itself the Anarchist Golfing Association broke into a seed research facility in Portland, Ore., and stomped on experimental plots, then spray-painted the walls with the slogan, "Nature Bites Back."
This is simply unrealistic. Would you be able to hear message from a group that's 'dubbing itself'? No! Of course not, self dubbed messages are always scratchy and difficult to understand. Why can't these environmental groups get a clue and hire a recording engineer?
Since large businesses use secure VPN over any insecure channel (wireless, internet, dialup, even inside their own wired network) then it will only affect small businesses or those with poor security specialists who try to save money by putting the security into the network infrastructure.
Unfortunately while the firmware may be upgradeable, the cryptographic functions are usually implemented in hardware (better performance) and it may be hard, if not impossible, to secure the authentication so this kind of attack is harder.
What they really should do is have a public/private key for each access point, with the SSID set to the public key. Then any client can transmit to the access point without possibility of eavesdropping. This would be used to set up the secure LEAP session. Since the password is never sent back to the client then it's not going to be breakable by offline brute force attacks.
Of course, in the end anything is breakable given enough time and/or money.
MPEG4. They recorded at least 20 minutes of it. Since they didn't mention quality, and they stressed (repeatedly) that it doesn't replace current camcorders then we can safely assume that the image quality is, at best, standard tv quality. Still, that's much better than the old CIF stuff most digital cameras do, and the convenience factor (carry it everywhere, whip it out at a moment's notice) is worth it for some people.
I expect low-budget proctology offices everywhere buying them in droves... Hope you've got good healthcare.
The reason why you feel safe to speed is that you have certian expectations of the drivers around you. Those expectations are based loosely on the laws, and tightly on what you've experienced while driving.
If you believe that removing the laws is going to make driving a safer, more pleasant experience, even with your so called 'harsh penalties' then you are sorely mistaken. Read a text on psychology or anthropology.
Or just give it a try - you probably won't be caught, and you'll probably be safer than those who you do terrorize: Get on a freeway, and go about the same speed as everyone else. Now change lanes (all of them) in about 2 seconds. Do this 10 times in quick succession - swerve across the path of other cars. You'll quickly see that you have an amazing ability to clear the lanes in front of you and behind you to about 50-100 feet depending on the speed of traffic. Since they cannot anticipate your moves they are giving themselves enough room to manuever should you careen in their direction. Now if you take away some of the laws and rules (ie, expectations you can generally apply to most motorist's behavior) then everyone will have to keep a large gap between everyone else - even when stopped so they have room to move if something happens behind them. This is clearly not efficient, nevermind safe and orderly.
Now that you've accomplished that, go to a turn around spot, and travel the wrong way down the freeway in the middle lane. You only need to be going about 10 miles an hour for them to percieve that you are not a stationary target. The most likely outcome is that they will be involved in accidents while you will drive away after stopping traffic. This exreme version shows another side of the story, and the consequences happen much faster because not only do they not know what you are going to do (is he going right, or left? And who's right or left?) but they can no longer rely on their expectations of the drivers around them. Does the guy next to me see him, and will there be room to change lanes? Which lane should I change to? Now that I've slammed on my brakes can I even change lanes safely?
Of course, you now have a certian expectation of how those other drivers are going to react to your actions, but the reality is that since you cannot really know what's going to happen you'll feel even less safe. If you knew, for instance, that a certain man was coming to beat you with a crowbar without talking to you first then you wouldn't be scared so much as, "What can I do to counter the threat?" Since you don't know what's going to happen, you cannot set up defenses other than, "Some guy on slashdot told me to! Get him instead !" and then curl into a fetal position...
I (obviously) do not recomend actually pursuing these activities, but little thought experiments show that laws and rules provide a common mental framework for expectations. It is these expectations that make humans 'feel' safe. Not some threat of enforcement.
Chances are good that it turns red only that direction, then turns yellow and red for the oncoming direction at a normal yellow-red pacing before changing so the opposite direction can go. This gives the speeder plenty of time to blow the light, get caught for both speeding and running a red. Hopefully the idiot's insurance also doubles.
Before you disagree with speed limits in general, or specific speed limited roads read up on the studies done when the nation lowered the speed limits to save gas for the war. You'll then find out why so many states decided not to increase them, increased them and then lowered them back, or only increased them a little bit.
2) Eventually cell phones, pdas, computers, entertainment devices (tivo,etc) will converge into one or two devices, one of which will be portable. This is one item on the continuum leading towards the ubiquitous always on computing device.
3) OpenGL on the cell phone is simply a way of saying, "OpenGL on any platform requiring 3d graphics." It's marketting. It may not be used heavily on cell phones, but perhaps new a new HDTV format will allow for an opengl data stream to place products in pretaped shows for different areas (ie, midwest viewers see a CVS pharmacy, while southeast see an Eckard). Having a pared down implementation meant for little processors and low resolution screens is an asset. Don't abuse the implementation if the idea can be generalized.
Frequency hopping radios are much harder to detect, nevermind jam. Trunking systems, spread spectrum radios, etc. The technology is there, but it's very expensive, so many (if not most) departments still use trunking systems and a narrow range of frequencies.
I don't think that taking down their radios is going to paralize them in small actions, but in large coordinated actions, such as stopping a hostage situation or a 9/11 incident it can paralize the forces. But even in the 9/11 situation so many frequencies were being used, and many of the radios were incompatible that this happened almost naturally, and it would have been hard to jam it any worse without a lot of jamming equipment. It brought home some good lessons about radio usage and system cooperation/consolidation.
Games naturally turn players against contrived limits and inconsistencies.
But they reenforce the idea that some limits need to be set and must be enforced. Take the current cheat vs anti-cheat wars, and the limits placed on all MMOGs.
Portions of the radio spectrum are not just set aside for commercial use, but are legally sold (or leased) to entities. As long as your transmissions do not interfere with their usage of that frequency and you maintain all other regulations there should be no problem.
However, it could be shown that depriving a cell phone provider and/or their customers access to their frequency spectrum in public places (ie, not private clubs or residences, but public restaurants/theaters/etc) is infringing on their right to that spectrum. I doubt many courts would actually find in favor of the provider if other methods of limiting cell phone use were ineffective, but they probably have more money and lawyers than a given restaurant/theater, and it's probably not worth fighting with them.
Can we really trust closed-source vendors, such as Cisco, to develop secure products that are free of backdoors?
Yes. They have to keep an eye out for their customers. However, there are two ways of getting around this:
Password can only be entered while someone is physically present - so you have to press a button on the device, then login with back door in the next 30 seconds. This proves access, and any company that has poor physical security is not likely to care about network security.
Second use challenge-response password mechanisms. This prevents a 'global' backdoor, while still giving the manufacturer the ability to gain access. The user enters a generic name/pass ("lost", "password") the machine then responds with a 128 bit (hexadecimal) number (randomly generated) and the user provides both the serial number and this random number to the company. The company responds with a correct response (another 128 bit number, perhaps) and the device allows access.
Combine either or both of these two methods with a "reset configuration to factory defaults when back door is used" and the company can claim that they are as secure as can be, without preventing the occasional user complaint that the hardware is a doorstop because some subadmin made a mistake changing the password.
Legality: In theory if your radio transmissions do not exceed your property boundaries then you can practically transmit anything you want. Practically, though, radio transmissions are 'infinite' in distance, so they are regulated by the FCC to a specific power level at various frequencies, and a license is often required when the power exceeds the regulation. In other words, these devices may or may not require a license, but I doubt they are 'illegal' already according to current regulations.
Safety: Yes, they will prevent emergency phone calls from being received or made. With well posted signs this could be mitigated (ie, you can't be held liable if the doctor or liver transplant candidate were aware of the cell phone blocking upon entering the establishment) However, I wouldn't want to be the owner when the place is taken hostage, landlines cut, and no one from inside can use their cell phone.
Ideally such a technology would allow ring signals to get through, but would disable call initiations (answering or dialing). This is not impossible, but technically expensive (snoop on all frequencies, short jamming bursts on specific activity types)
This is a social problem which can really only be taken care of in a social manner. Theaters, restaurants should alert guests to turn off or silence their phones. If they must use them they should leave to a cell-phone allowed area (near pay phones, for instance) or be escorted out if they forget to do so. They should not be allowed to re-enter if it will prove an interruption to other guests (ie, during intermission only, if one is available). If there are no penalties and immediate actions taken against anti-social guests, then they will assume their behavior is allowed in that establishment.
Very short text messages and pages would work very well for many emergency situations. One-way text pager coverage in the US exceeds cell phone coverage significantly, and those who have to deal with unexpected emergencies know this and use it, relying on the cell phone as a contact and status device only.
You'd be suprised what an Oscilliscope in the hands of a VERY well trained person can accomplish.
Translation:
You'd be surprised at the shear amount of BS a well trained conartist^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htechnician can pull off with an oscilliscope. Doesn't even have to be hooked up to anything.
"I see you have a large piece of test equipment there."
"Yes. It's telling me your password is insecure and hackers know about you-know-what..."
"Uh - I'll be right back..."
The first thing you want to discover is how the users are going to read the manual. A few options:
If they have an isolated problem to solve they don't want to read the entire thing, or even 1/10th of it to solve the problem - they want a microscope view that includes a very short broad overview then focuses on the salient details so they know enough to complete the task (ie, printing a customer record, or adding a plug-in module) but don't need to know about the intimate details of related modules. This is task oriented documentation.
If they need to understand what the system is trying to accomplish and how individuals in the company use the resource then they need a complete, high-level fly over with examples of why bill in accounting is accessing the same data jerry in manufacturing uses, and how the data gets there, etc. This is process oriented documentation.
If they need to know how the program accomplishes its objectives (laid out in both the task and process docs) then you need a low level, complete program documentation that shows an overview of the data movement and processing through each module/function/database and then a low level view of each module/function/table and how they interact with each other so a future programmer knows that foo won't work properly with a table that has a key length of larger than 128 bit int. This is code oriented documentation, and may include fancy flow charts, uml, etc.
Many self taught (and some traditionally taught) programmers are unaware of the benefits to themselves and their companies of having complete, up to date documentation, nevermind the actual types of documentation and how to go about designing and creating for different uses and audiences. There is a vast library of books on this subject. Two of which come to the top of the google search and appear to be similar to my points above are: How To Write Usable User Documentation : Second Edition
by Edmond H. Weiss (Author) and Writing Software Documentation: A Task-Oriented Approach (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication)
by Thomas T. Barker (Author)
Make sure that you and especially your managers understand that this is not a one time project - if they truly want this done adequately (not even good, but adequate) then it may require as much time to write as the program was to create, if not longer, and that as additions are made to the code the documentation must also be kept in sync, which should double code writing time. Of course, code writing time will similarily be cut in half because you won't have to read the entire commentless program in order to understand how to insert new feature x, so it should be a wash with a much easier maintenance track.
Would it change the discussion If we changed "Email" to "mail" and made the same statements?
No. They still have to get a warrant to re-assemble the packets and read the message, as indicated at the bottom of the article. The outside of the mail (like the headers) tells the interesting story, and like US mail they can go ahead and create links between people based on external envelope information with their current power.
Do we grant ourselves the right to read every piece of postal mail that goes through the US? Why stop there? Why not search mail and packages?
Under warrant, why not? If several threatening letters are posted from a specific area to a specific possible target, then any packages coming from that area and going to that target are going to be delayed while they get a warrant, then they will be opened.
And luggage...oops, we already do that one. Where does it stop? The Supreme Court has never met an unreasonable search.
I suppose you mean to say that a case against unreasonable search and siezure has never come to the supreme court (nevermind all the state supreme courts)? That they've never decided against law enforcement. Please. Now you're just grasping at straws.
It's all well and good when the bad guys get caught...right up until the definition of "bad guys" gets changed. Yesterday there was an article about the DOJ labeling pornographers as "bad guys." There's no logical end. What's to stop someone being labeled as a bad guy for not going to church, or not supporting the government, or not going along with whatever intrusion-of-the-day on your privacy? It's not that big of a change from where we are now.
You're absolutely right. Our rights and freedoms depend on an objective view of a subjective situation by subjective people. A 'civil' society is NEVER more than two steps away from something much worse. That is because our culture's defintion of 'civil' is also not more than two steps away from our society's definition of 'much worse'.
The fact that you want absolute liberty does not come without a cost in security. The vast majority of Americans prefer greater security with greater restrictions. However, the point at which everday americans find themselves under a microscope and subject to unreasonable restrictions always comes, and when it does there is a severe backlash, and much greater liberty for a long period of time, along with less security. See the communist era leading into the 80's as a salient example.
There's no logical end.
Of course there's no logical end. Wherever did you get the idea that there should be a logical end? Liberty and security mean different things to different people, and those people, being human, have illogical reasons for those definitions. There is no logical reason to have liberty, unless happiness is logical, which I think you'd have a hard time proving without using some illogical steps.
Unless you are omniscient and omnipotent you do not have absolute truth, ie, truth which is valid and applicable to all people, mideast/midwest, young/old, rich/poor, dead/alive, etc. Even scientists concede that their most succesful experiments are mere conclusions, and not truths.
Therefore all you can base your flaming/trolling on are those laws which are currently in play, those being prepared to be in play, and those being considered. If you were familiar with them you'd know that various enforcement agencies have always had access to much more information about mail than you appear to realize. The patriot act has likely given them just as much, possibly more, access to data packets flowing into and out of US controlled areas which can be shown to be unrelated to US citizens. Since we process a majority of packets on the internet that gives us an incredible amount of control and power. We are not just a military or economic world power - are you just realizing that now?
but a little historical research might have saved him a decade or two.
Making a speaker cone is not merely 'bending wood'. First the cone has to be very light, so the wood is very thin. There are lots of ways of bending nearly any thin wood. Second the cone has to be extremely dense/solid/inflexible. There is currently, as of this article, only one way to make a thin sheet of appropiate woods into the proper shape with all the desired properties.
Besides, when's the last time you did something cool and someone dismissed it by relating a similar but non-applicable technology invented years ago? The fool is not the person who did the work. This doesn't even begin to cover all the fun 'geeky' things one might accomplish (such as a modern 8-bit computer realized in relays) for which a cheaper/better/faster/etc solution already exists.
Meanwhile, we're all ignoring that "supercomputing for the masses" is already here. The original Cray-1 supercomputer in 1976 ran at a whopping 75MHz with 160 megaflops. Today you can get that much power in a palmtop.
Meanwhile meanwhile, some people still insist that a supercomputer is little more than a fast calculator. A supercomputer is one which can process huge amounts of information in a short amount of time. While the Cray was slow, comparatively, at the time it could process and move data sets like no palmtop today can even approach.
You really can't compare yesterday's supercomputers with today's desktops. Even today's 'supercomputers' don't handle data the same way, and there are many problems that are handled much better by a 'real' supercomputer rather than a cluster or other technology which we now consider to be 'supercomputers'.
A company like Pixar, which needs a lot of computing power, should host a flashmob, and give people who come a free ticket to the movie they just helped render.
After the first viewing, the producer looks at the technical director, "How the #@$% did RMS get in our movie, and why is our main lead a freaking penguin?! That's the last time I let geeks render my movie! Get me Microsoft on the phone..."
Slashdot Mirror
it's still immoral
:)
This point of view is not universal. The belief that it's immoral is only a belief, one which others, apparently, do not hold or agree with. The point isn't that this is or is not bad, the point is that you are foisting your beliefs and opinions on others.
Sure riled you up, though. I'll leave you alone now.
-Adam
I'm sorry to hear you have so little moral fiber in your body and can't fathom why someone finds the idea of intentionally polluting an object we can't even inhabit so despicable. It's unfortunate that there are so many people that think like you, because the underlying problem with that kind of thought process is always the same:
Gee, you're right. I'm going to change my culture and ideals because you took time to insult me and all the people you grouped me with.
So, are you saying that you would not accept 6 million dollars to dump a bucket of stuff in the middle of yellowstone park (subject to some restrictions)? You didn't exactly specify that you wouldn't - you only decided that I must have bad morals because I posited that most people would. would it make a difference if I said I'd put that money to good use - such as donating it to yellowstone park?
Are you principled only when it's convenient for you, or do you make every reasonable attempt to follow your own ideals at all times, in all places, and under any circumstances?
At this point the discussion devolves into Churchill's quote (paraphrased):
"Madam, would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"
"I do believe I would."
"How about for 5 pounds?"
"What kind of a woman do you think I am?!"
"We've already determined that, now we're just haggling over price.
-Adam
I'd send up an optical 10gbps repeater (otherwise know by it's more technical term, "corner cube" though the active version could also have storage of its own) and store 3.2megabytes of data in flight between the earth and the moon. If the feds ever call, it'll be erased with absolutely no trace in 2.56 seconds.
-Adam
Unfortunately they don't have jurisdiction where the perp currently lives, so you'll have to wait for them to go to the moon and then arrest them. I doubt the Lunar Embassy has an extradition treaty with the US or the Russians...
-Adam
For $24,000 You can get a sidewinder missile lobbed at a Fallujahn mosque much closer to home
Shoot, for that much you could get 4 or 5 suicide bombers.
(Only a shallow conscience can ever be cleared)
If you could find a way of making someone pay you 6 million to dump a bucket full of 'stuff' in your yard, you'd do it. If someone payed you 6 million to dump a bucket full of stuff somewhere in yellowstone park, subject to some restrictions, then you'd likely do it in a heartbeat. Why is the moon so special? When spaceships can pollute a large portion of the moon, they'll be able to take people there and the pollution will happen naturally. But the pollution from this one 'hit' will be so small that you'll actually have to look for it, you aren't just going to stumble across it.
-Adam
They argue that many water shortages could simply be solved by better conservation of existing supplies.
Well DUH. The people aren't trying to solve a 'water shortage' problem. They are trying to solve a "demand exceeds supply" problem. They don't have a reason to deny people the water they want to use if the people are willing to pay a higher cost. Eventually they hit a price point where people will naturally conserve water.
Water is a reusable natural resource. It's not easy to come up with a reason to conserve it, since they are already conserving it with water treatment plants.
Think of the water system as a closed system. The only unaccounted for openings are evaporation, and letting it go into the water table (ground, streams, ocean, etc). Otherwise the water is contained entirely in storage, pipes, and treatment plants. To offset evaporation and adding to the water table a system must have a certian amount of intake from wells or another water source. A water shortage doesn't necessarily mean that not enough water is being produced, it means that the system has reached its capacity --> the treatement plants are supplying less water per day than people are consuming, and they are draining (slowly) their reserves of treated water. Alternately more and more water is being stored in additional piping added by new neighborhoods/buildings or evaporated/drained into the environment by new lawns and pools and not enough used water is getting back to the treatment plants. The wells and other 'new water' sources are too stressed.
There are two ways of combating this - either take in more water from the environment, or increase the efficiency of the treatment system (more plants, better plants, etc) Obviously the second problem can only be solved by getting more 'new water' into the system. In many cities it makes more sense to place a new well than to upgrade the treatement plant, especially if the treatement plant isn't at capacity. In many cases a well cannot be placed because it puts too much strain on the water table, so a desalination plant makes very good sense.
The environmental people are not complaining so much because they feel we are destroying the planet as they are complaining because it's a symptom of our consumerism which they fundamentally oppose on principle. If they can get everyone else to 'think green' in general then they hope that other problems which do directly affect the environment will also abate.
Oh, and yes, desalination does stress the water source. If they do not process the salt into other forms then the source many become too salty near the plant. If they do not replace the salt then it may not be salty enough. Either way, a desalination plant affects the water source. Whether that's bad or good is subjective.
-Adam
"Four years ago, a group dubbing itself the Anarchist Golfing Association broke into a seed research facility in Portland, Ore., and stomped on experimental plots, then spray-painted the walls with the slogan, "Nature Bites Back."
This is simply unrealistic. Would you be able to hear message from a group that's 'dubbing itself'? No! Of course not, self dubbed messages are always scratchy and difficult to understand. Why can't these environmental groups get a clue and hire a recording engineer?
-Adam
Since large businesses use secure VPN over any insecure channel (wireless, internet, dialup, even inside their own wired network) then it will only affect small businesses or those with poor security specialists who try to save money by putting the security into the network infrastructure.
Unfortunately while the firmware may be upgradeable, the cryptographic functions are usually implemented in hardware (better performance) and it may be hard, if not impossible, to secure the authentication so this kind of attack is harder.
What they really should do is have a public/private key for each access point, with the SSID set to the public key. Then any client can transmit to the access point without possibility of eavesdropping. This would be used to set up the secure LEAP session. Since the password is never sent back to the client then it's not going to be breakable by offline brute force attacks.
Of course, in the end anything is breakable given enough time and/or money.
-Adam
MPEG4. They recorded at least 20 minutes of it. Since they didn't mention quality, and they stressed (repeatedly) that it doesn't replace current camcorders then we can safely assume that the image quality is, at best, standard tv quality. Still, that's much better than the old CIF stuff most digital cameras do, and the convenience factor (carry it everywhere, whip it out at a moment's notice) is worth it for some people.
I expect low-budget proctology offices everywhere buying them in droves... Hope you've got good healthcare.
-Adam
The reason why you feel safe to speed is that you have certian expectations of the drivers around you. Those expectations are based loosely on the laws, and tightly on what you've experienced while driving.
If you believe that removing the laws is going to make driving a safer, more pleasant experience, even with your so called 'harsh penalties' then you are sorely mistaken. Read a text on psychology or anthropology.
Or just give it a try - you probably won't be caught, and you'll probably be safer than those who you do terrorize: Get on a freeway, and go about the same speed as everyone else. Now change lanes (all of them) in about 2 seconds. Do this 10 times in quick succession - swerve across the path of other cars. You'll quickly see that you have an amazing ability to clear the lanes in front of you and behind you to about 50-100 feet depending on the speed of traffic. Since they cannot anticipate your moves they are giving themselves enough room to manuever should you careen in their direction. Now if you take away some of the laws and rules (ie, expectations you can generally apply to most motorist's behavior) then everyone will have to keep a large gap between everyone else - even when stopped so they have room to move if something happens behind them. This is clearly not efficient, nevermind safe and orderly.
Now that you've accomplished that, go to a turn around spot, and travel the wrong way down the freeway in the middle lane. You only need to be going about 10 miles an hour for them to percieve that you are not a stationary target. The most likely outcome is that they will be involved in accidents while you will drive away after stopping traffic. This exreme version shows another side of the story, and the consequences happen much faster because not only do they not know what you are going to do (is he going right, or left? And who's right or left?) but they can no longer rely on their expectations of the drivers around them. Does the guy next to me see him, and will there be room to change lanes? Which lane should I change to? Now that I've slammed on my brakes can I even change lanes safely?
Of course, you now have a certian expectation of how those other drivers are going to react to your actions, but the reality is that since you cannot really know what's going to happen you'll feel even less safe. If you knew, for instance, that a certain man was coming to beat you with a crowbar without talking to you first then you wouldn't be scared so much as, "What can I do to counter the threat?" Since you don't know what's going to happen, you cannot set up defenses other than, "Some guy on slashdot told me to! Get him instead !" and then curl into a fetal position...
I (obviously) do not recomend actually pursuing these activities, but little thought experiments show that laws and rules provide a common mental framework for expectations. It is these expectations that make humans 'feel' safe. Not some threat of enforcement.
-Adam
Chances are good that it turns red only that direction, then turns yellow and red for the oncoming direction at a normal yellow-red pacing before changing so the opposite direction can go. This gives the speeder plenty of time to blow the light, get caught for both speeding and running a red. Hopefully the idiot's insurance also doubles.
Before you disagree with speed limits in general, or specific speed limited roads read up on the studies done when the nation lowered the speed limits to save gas for the war. You'll then find out why so many states decided not to increase them, increased them and then lowered them back, or only increased them a little bit.
-Adam
1) You are not their target audience.
2) Eventually cell phones, pdas, computers, entertainment devices (tivo,etc) will converge into one or two devices, one of which will be portable. This is one item on the continuum leading towards the ubiquitous always on computing device.
3) OpenGL on the cell phone is simply a way of saying, "OpenGL on any platform requiring 3d graphics." It's marketting. It may not be used heavily on cell phones, but perhaps new a new HDTV format will allow for an opengl data stream to place products in pretaped shows for different areas (ie, midwest viewers see a CVS pharmacy, while southeast see an Eckard). Having a pared down implementation meant for little processors and low resolution screens is an asset. Don't abuse the implementation if the idea can be generalized.
-Adam
This happens:
Judge rejects Motorola bid to keep radio jamming testimony secret
Cops: Radio jamming a menace
Frequency hopping radios are much harder to detect, nevermind jam. Trunking systems, spread spectrum radios, etc. The technology is there, but it's very expensive, so many (if not most) departments still use trunking systems and a narrow range of frequencies.
I don't think that taking down their radios is going to paralize them in small actions, but in large coordinated actions, such as stopping a hostage situation or a 9/11 incident it can paralize the forces. But even in the 9/11 situation so many frequencies were being used, and many of the radios were incompatible that this happened almost naturally, and it would have been hard to jam it any worse without a lot of jamming equipment. It brought home some good lessons about radio usage and system cooperation/consolidation.
-Adam
Games naturally turn players against contrived limits and inconsistencies.
But they reenforce the idea that some limits need to be set and must be enforced. Take the current cheat vs anti-cheat wars, and the limits placed on all MMOGs.
-Adam
I should point out one caveat to the legal issue:
Portions of the radio spectrum are not just set aside for commercial use, but are legally sold (or leased) to entities. As long as your transmissions do not interfere with their usage of that frequency and you maintain all other regulations there should be no problem.
However, it could be shown that depriving a cell phone provider and/or their customers access to their frequency spectrum in public places (ie, not private clubs or residences, but public restaurants/theaters/etc) is infringing on their right to that spectrum. I doubt many courts would actually find in favor of the provider if other methods of limiting cell phone use were ineffective, but they probably have more money and lawyers than a given restaurant/theater, and it's probably not worth fighting with them.
-Adam
Can we really trust closed-source vendors, such as Cisco, to develop secure products that are free of backdoors?
Yes. They have to keep an eye out for their customers. However, there are two ways of getting around this:
Password can only be entered while someone is physically present - so you have to press a button on the device, then login with back door in the next 30 seconds. This proves access, and any company that has poor physical security is not likely to care about network security.
Second use challenge-response password mechanisms. This prevents a 'global' backdoor, while still giving the manufacturer the ability to gain access. The user enters a generic name/pass ("lost", "password") the machine then responds with a 128 bit (hexadecimal) number (randomly generated) and the user provides both the serial number and this random number to the company. The company responds with a correct response (another 128 bit number, perhaps) and the device allows access.
Combine either or both of these two methods with a "reset configuration to factory defaults when back door is used" and the company can claim that they are as secure as can be, without preventing the occasional user complaint that the hardware is a doorstop because some subadmin made a mistake changing the password.
-Adam
Legality: In theory if your radio transmissions do not exceed your property boundaries then you can practically transmit anything you want. Practically, though, radio transmissions are 'infinite' in distance, so they are regulated by the FCC to a specific power level at various frequencies, and a license is often required when the power exceeds the regulation. In other words, these devices may or may not require a license, but I doubt they are 'illegal' already according to current regulations.
Safety: Yes, they will prevent emergency phone calls from being received or made. With well posted signs this could be mitigated (ie, you can't be held liable if the doctor or liver transplant candidate were aware of the cell phone blocking upon entering the establishment) However, I wouldn't want to be the owner when the place is taken hostage, landlines cut, and no one from inside can use their cell phone.
Ideally such a technology would allow ring signals to get through, but would disable call initiations (answering or dialing). This is not impossible, but technically expensive (snoop on all frequencies, short jamming bursts on specific activity types)
This is a social problem which can really only be taken care of in a social manner. Theaters, restaurants should alert guests to turn off or silence their phones. If they must use them they should leave to a cell-phone allowed area (near pay phones, for instance) or be escorted out if they forget to do so. They should not be allowed to re-enter if it will prove an interruption to other guests (ie, during intermission only, if one is available). If there are no penalties and immediate actions taken against anti-social guests, then they will assume their behavior is allowed in that establishment.
Very short text messages and pages would work very well for many emergency situations. One-way text pager coverage in the US exceeds cell phone coverage significantly, and those who have to deal with unexpected emergencies know this and use it, relying on the cell phone as a contact and status device only.
-Adam
You'd be suprised what an Oscilliscope in the hands of a VERY well trained person can accomplish.
Translation:
You'd be surprised at the shear amount of BS a well trained conartist^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htechnician can pull off with an oscilliscope. Doesn't even have to be hooked up to anything.
"I see you have a large piece of test equipment there."
"Yes. It's telling me your password is insecure and hackers know about you-know-what..."
"Uh - I'll be right back..."
-Adam
The first thing you want to discover is how the users are going to read the manual. A few options:
If they have an isolated problem to solve they don't want to read the entire thing, or even 1/10th of it to solve the problem - they want a microscope view that includes a very short broad overview then focuses on the salient details so they know enough to complete the task (ie, printing a customer record, or adding a plug-in module) but don't need to know about the intimate details of related modules. This is task oriented documentation.
If they need to understand what the system is trying to accomplish and how individuals in the company use the resource then they need a complete, high-level fly over with examples of why bill in accounting is accessing the same data jerry in manufacturing uses, and how the data gets there, etc. This is process oriented documentation.
If they need to know how the program accomplishes its objectives (laid out in both the task and process docs) then you need a low level, complete program documentation that shows an overview of the data movement and processing through each module/function/database and then a low level view of each module/function/table and how they interact with each other so a future programmer knows that foo won't work properly with a table that has a key length of larger than 128 bit int. This is code oriented documentation, and may include fancy flow charts, uml, etc.
Many self taught (and some traditionally taught) programmers are unaware of the benefits to themselves and their companies of having complete, up to date documentation, nevermind the actual types of documentation and how to go about designing and creating for different uses and audiences. There is a vast library of books on this subject. Two of which come to the top of the google search and appear to be similar to my points above are:
How To Write Usable User Documentation : Second Edition by Edmond H. Weiss (Author)
and
Writing Software Documentation: A Task-Oriented Approach (Part of the Allyn & Bacon Series in Technical Communication) by Thomas T. Barker (Author)
Make sure that you and especially your managers understand that this is not a one time project - if they truly want this done adequately (not even good, but adequate) then it may require as much time to write as the program was to create, if not longer, and that as additions are made to the code the documentation must also be kept in sync, which should double code writing time. Of course, code writing time will similarily be cut in half because you won't have to read the entire commentless program in order to understand how to insert new feature x, so it should be a wash with a much easier maintenance track.
-Adam
Would it change the discussion If we changed "Email" to "mail" and made the same statements?
No. They still have to get a warrant to re-assemble the packets and read the message, as indicated at the bottom of the article. The outside of the mail (like the headers) tells the interesting story, and like US mail they can go ahead and create links between people based on external envelope information with their current power.
Do we grant ourselves the right to read every piece of postal mail that goes through the US? Why stop there? Why not search mail and packages?
Under warrant, why not? If several threatening letters are posted from a specific area to a specific possible target, then any packages coming from that area and going to that target are going to be delayed while they get a warrant, then they will be opened.
And luggage...oops, we already do that one. Where does it stop? The Supreme Court has never met an unreasonable search.
I suppose you mean to say that a case against unreasonable search and siezure has never come to the supreme court (nevermind all the state supreme courts)? That they've never decided against law enforcement. Please. Now you're just grasping at straws.
It's all well and good when the bad guys get caught...right up until the definition of "bad guys" gets changed. Yesterday there was an article about the DOJ labeling pornographers as "bad guys." There's no logical end. What's to stop someone being labeled as a bad guy for not going to church, or not supporting the government, or not going along with whatever intrusion-of-the-day on your privacy? It's not that big of a change from where we are now.
You're absolutely right. Our rights and freedoms depend on an objective view of a subjective situation by subjective people. A 'civil' society is NEVER more than two steps away from something much worse. That is because our culture's defintion of 'civil' is also not more than two steps away from our society's definition of 'much worse'.
The fact that you want absolute liberty does not come without a cost in security. The vast majority of Americans prefer greater security with greater restrictions. However, the point at which everday americans find themselves under a microscope and subject to unreasonable restrictions always comes, and when it does there is a severe backlash, and much greater liberty for a long period of time, along with less security. See the communist era leading into the 80's as a salient example.
There's no logical end.
Of course there's no logical end. Wherever did you get the idea that there should be a logical end? Liberty and security mean different things to different people, and those people, being human, have illogical reasons for those definitions. There is no logical reason to have liberty, unless happiness is logical, which I think you'd have a hard time proving without using some illogical steps.
Unless you are omniscient and omnipotent you do not have absolute truth, ie, truth which is valid and applicable to all people, mideast/midwest, young/old, rich/poor, dead/alive, etc. Even scientists concede that their most succesful experiments are mere conclusions, and not truths.
Therefore all you can base your flaming/trolling on are those laws which are currently in play, those being prepared to be in play, and those being considered. If you were familiar with them you'd know that various enforcement agencies have always had access to much more information about mail than you appear to realize. The patriot act has likely given them just as much, possibly more, access to data packets flowing into and out of US controlled areas which can be shown to be unrelated to US citizens. Since we process a majority of packets on the internet that gives us an incredible amount of control and power. We are not just a military or economic world power - are you just realizing that now?
-Adam
but a little historical research might have saved him a decade or two.
Making a speaker cone is not merely 'bending wood'. First the cone has to be very light, so the wood is very thin. There are lots of ways of bending nearly any thin wood. Second the cone has to be extremely dense/solid/inflexible. There is currently, as of this article, only one way to make a thin sheet of appropiate woods into the proper shape with all the desired properties.
Besides, when's the last time you did something cool and someone dismissed it by relating a similar but non-applicable technology invented years ago? The fool is not the person who did the work. This doesn't even begin to cover all the fun 'geeky' things one might accomplish (such as a modern 8-bit computer realized in relays) for which a cheaper/better/faster/etc solution already exists.
Less talking - more walking.
-Adam
Meanwhile, we're all ignoring that "supercomputing for the masses" is already here. The original Cray-1 supercomputer in 1976 ran at a whopping 75MHz with 160 megaflops. Today you can get that much power in a palmtop.
Meanwhile meanwhile, some people still insist that a supercomputer is little more than a fast calculator. A supercomputer is one which can process huge amounts of information in a short amount of time. While the Cray was slow, comparatively, at the time it could process and move data sets like no palmtop today can even approach.
You really can't compare yesterday's supercomputers with today's desktops. Even today's 'supercomputers' don't handle data the same way, and there are many problems that are handled much better by a 'real' supercomputer rather than a cluster or other technology which we now consider to be 'supercomputers'.
-Adam
A company like Pixar, which needs a lot of computing power, should host a flashmob, and give people who come a free ticket to the movie they just helped render.
After the first viewing, the producer looks at the technical director, "How the #@$% did RMS get in our movie, and why is our main lead a freaking penguin?! That's the last time I let geeks render my movie! Get me Microsoft on the phone..."
-Adam
Man, talk about overworking your colon....
Silly, VB uses a semicolon. After what he's gone through, do you expect him to have a whole colon left?
-Adam