They could have at least hashed the PINs in the database so stealing the data from the database would not result in immediate compromise of the PINs. This is basic network login security 101 when designing this type of system.
So unless 2nd amendment advocates are going to actually advocate private ownership of stinger missiles and anti-tank weapons and what-not, it makes no sense at all. If that is true, then why have we had such a tough time in Iraq? The insurgents did not have attack helicopters, cruise missiles, or even artillery (unless you consider mortars to be artillery) and yet they managed to give our modern military a run for it's money.
but that doesn't mean the Bush administration hasn't been particularly egregious, or undeniably worse than any other in recent history. There is no way to know that for certain. It is possible that we just hear about it more these days due to the omnipresent wall to wall media and blog coverage of every detail. There is nobody alive today who remembers the Tammany Hall Political Machine which subsequently became a byword for corruption, back-room dealing, political violence, etc, but back then there was no worldwide media coverage and the scale was limited to New York city. I agree that there is the issue of scale now (and that is inevitable since we live in a larger world today than in the past), but in terms of egregious political maneuvering there is nothing new about the Bush administration...it has ALL happened before in the past: discretionary pre-emptive war, sweetheart government contracts, politically motivated appointments to powerful government positions. You name it and it has happened before.
Why try to explain away their excesses like this? The GP seemed surprised at what was occurring as if that wasn't what was supposed to happen. It almost sounded like reality just smacked him upside the head like a big wet fish. I find that certain types of people, particularly sheltered liberal types, often have this reaction, but really they brought it upon themselves by choosing to believe sincerely in a world view that doesn't fit reality. You may believe that you can change the world, but I on the other hand am a pragmatist who would rather be without illusions even if the world is a pretty crappy place and getting worse by the day.
Is it just an attempt to justify not getting up and doing something about it? What are you going to do? We each of us do what we can do and what we are willing to do, but not everyone has the time or the inclination to set out on a crusade (which is bound to fail anyway, just ask the original crusaders). I would prefer to live in peace with my family, keep more of the money that I earn, and generally enjoy the fruits of my labors. I am tired of trying to get people to understand why the problems of big government cannot be solved by even bigger government so I prefer to mostly withdraw from the whole affair, it just isn't worth more than the little effort required to vote (which I still do...I never miss a poll in spite of sneaking suspicions that it doesn't matter anyway).
You could have negotiated to keep the gas line open and use the gas to run sterling heat pumps to cool the server room rather than using electricity from the grid to run conventional air conditioning units. It probably was or is worth looking into.
What the hell? Politics never changes. This type of stuff has been going on since at least the days of the Ancient Roman senate and probably before that (as soon as more than a few apes got together for more than immediate survival goals there arose the first politician). There are guilty people on both sides of the aisle in this regard.
Isn't this why the FCC here in the United States classifies different electronic devices according to whether or not they can emit or must accept radio frequency interference from outside sources? Perhaps the medical device manufacturers have a more critical classification where they have the "right" not to be interfered with (unlike say, your iPod which must accept any outside interference and generate none of its own) and designed their systems around this assumption of legal protection by device classifications?
and one of those projects was run by a real textbook case of a nearly psychotic bully In fact there is an anti-pattern specifically for that type of manager: cage match negotiator. The cage match negotiator takes a "win the argument at any cost" approach to dispute resolution, up to and including driving other team members off the project. The name comes from the cage match format in wrestling where multiple wrestlers enter the cage but only one exits victorious when the match is finished.
The analysis is flawed. The predator example, among others, is not an adaptation to multi-tasking, or at least not in an active sense, but rather an adaptation to make objects moving in one's peripheral vision, like the details of walking and balance, part of the autonomic nervous system and sub-conscious control system of our brains. In other words, evolution has pushed certain selected tasks into deeper levels to be more "hard wired" so that we can do those few selected important things (like be aware of those sabertooth tigers lurking in our peripheral vision) without devoting active conscious thinking resources to the problem as we would do with more generic or complex situations which do not occur as often and are not as critical to immediate survival. However, this is not the same thing as a generic multitasking capability where any task that requires use of the brain can be conducted in this fashion.
The managers who continue to promote the multi-tasking paradigm (among other forms of wishful thinking) are the same ones who have little or no knowledge about how multi-tasking actually works, even in non-human settings such as computers. The ability of computers to multi-task is an illusion achieved by frequent and and continuous context-switching between tasks such that each task gets a miniscule slice of time during each cycle through the running tasks. Strictly speaking, the computer is only working on one thing at any given instant (or one per core if you count multi-core chips which support multiple but still finite simultaneous execution threads) whether that is a task or switching between tasks. The human brain is terrible at context switching, especially when compared to computers, and even computers can be easily overwhelmed by too much context switching (i.e. eventually so much work is expended to switch and maintain contexts that the amount of work required merely to switch leaves no time for any actual work to be done on the taks...or in other words, the computer is merely thrashing and not doing very much if any useful work).
Why would anyone want to live in Massachusetts anyway? High taxes, non-competes, mandatory purchase of health insurance from a state selected slate of "pre-approved" companies (i.e. they screw you because you have to choose one of them), did I mention the high taxes?
Employer provided health insurance, no matter how extravagant, is by law explicitly exempted from being taxed as income to the employee by either state or federal governments. In fact, the actual amount is deductible from the taxes of the business as a business expense or cost of doing business. This is one of several factors which encourage high health care costs here in the United States (the others being 3d party split payment of expenses, uncapped lawsuit liability damages, and poor consumer information about what goods and services are being provided and their relative level of quality). If you are interested in why health care is expensive then I recommend the following article:
In Japan the legal wast size is 33.5 inches. What if one's occupation is "sumo wrestler"? It would be difficult to be an effective sumo competitor with a waistline of only 33.5 inches.
Whatever we had that worked before doesn't seem to be there anymore. A functioning democracy depends upon a well informed and educated citizenry engaging amongst themselves and with the government in the common communications space in equal exchanges of ideas, critiques, and debate. That is what is most lacking from our democracy today and among the main reasons why our system is not now functioning as it was originally intended. For a more complete and insightful explanation I recommend Al Gore's new book, The Assault on Reason, where the case is made for what is wrong and how we can go about restoring the vigor of our democracy and preserving it for the generations yet to come.
No. As a nation, we need hearings, we need trials. Bush and his henchmen need to answer for their crimes. A standard needs to be set in stone: we are a nation of laws, not men, and no man is above the law. Even Presidents will be forced to account for their actions and pay for their sins.
But the volcano which destroyed Pompeii was not large, compared to other volcanoes, so the population was still wise because their volcano was relatively small.
Re:The Problem is Not Misunderstanding of Privacy
on
Understanding Privacy
·
· Score: 1
The courts are uncertain and expensive, people don't give a crap about social responsibility as long as the offense is relatively anonymous OR can be hidden behind the corporate veil, and there is money to be made by violating privacy. It boils down to risk versus reward in favor of the privacy violators because there is ultimately a lot of money involved and not enough downside risk or cost. I am of the opinion that it is extremely difficult to remedy the situation by creating sufficient downside risks and costs either socially or legally. Thus, the best and cheapest option for the individual, although admittedly not perfect, is the technology arms race. For the privacy violators it is like striking at ants. They don't care if a few of the ants are clever and escape them so long as they can get most of the rest. They will only retaliate in the arms race when most of the people adopt a certain countermeasure, but this gives us early adopters a long lead time during which we can still enjoy our privacy. Disincentivizing privacy violations is a laudible goal, but it is even less certain than the technology arms race. Right now, Firefox (AdBlock, NoScript, Flashblock), encryption, open wi-fi, and other technologies keep the informed among us ahead of the curve. If you trust the courts to force the corporations to respect your privacy then I think that you will be sorely disappointed.
Being monitored creates stress. Now imagine putting people permanently under stress. I could see a few flipping before long. In fact this is precisely what happened during the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment.
Google pays on the order of 25% less. Yes, but Google provides lots of perks like heavily subsidized and good quality food, on-site oil change, car wash, dry cleaning, massage therapy, gym, hair stylist, fitness classes, bike repair, shuttle service, etc...In fact, I would not be surprised if the IRS starts moving in on Google employees for not reporting these substantial fringe benefits as income (the IRS went after hollywood stars for high end gift baskets at award ceremonies, so it could happen).
The Problem is Not Misunderstanding of Privacy
on
Understanding Privacy
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
but rather insufficient penalties for violating the privacy of another. If the perceived profit, whether that be money or some other reward, outweighs the perceived loss (i.e. punishment for violating the privacy of another) then privacy will always be violated assuming that it can be. Many of the perceived problems with protecting one's privacy today have been created by or occurred as a consequence of the introduction of new technologies, so it follows then that solutions must also be technological rather than strictly social or legal because of the aforementioned favorable risk/reward quotient for breaching the privacy of another. That is why it is important for people to take the necessary steps to protect their own privacy including use of strong encryption, strong passwords, fake identities, mail drops, etc. I find that it is best to view the entire exercise as an adversarial process where the reward for winning is continued privacy and the cost of losing is a breach of privacy. You are continually seeking to protect your privacy while others are actively seeking to breach it.
I would actually put that in writing along with a summary of the other risks and get the sales manager to sign off on it before I implemented it. That way, when the inevitable retaliation comes in the form of getting black listed, dumped by the ISP, or being sued you will have an autographed get out of jail free card that prevents the slimy sales manager from pining the whole idea on you when his boss comes to shake his tree because you know that this sales manager will definitely sell you down the river to save his own butt. It is surprising how many requests simply disappear when the IT staff asks to get the marching orders in writing with wet ink signatures.
Yes, but the Mausoleum of Maussollos can extend that by 50% for a total of fifteen turns. In the meantime, should use the extra production in our cities to build more modern armor and mechanized infantry so that we can attack our neighbors as soon as the golden age has run its course.
The only reason that it has not happened yet on a global and scale is because of sustained economic growth beginning around the time of the enlightenment and accelerated by the industrial revolution and the subsequent progress made in agriculture and productivity during the petroleum and petro-chemical eras continuing up through today. There have been examples in history of isolated cultures stretched to their technological limits, particularly fresh water, agriculture, and irrigation, experiencing population collapses. Unless we can find a substitute which is just as good as petroleum or massively increase efficiency to compensate for less desirable substitutes for energy inputs then the risk of a sustained economic contraction, with the accompanying ill effects, following the end of cheap hydrocarbon energy is a very real possibility. The fact that the crunch may still be hundreds of years into the future does not alter the inevitability of the problem.
As others have already pointed out in this thread, the Earth is currently suffering from a massive over population problem which will only get worse with rising global temperatures and the end of the petroleum age. There is no way that this problem will NOT be resolved by massive famines or wars or both until new a new population resource equilibrium is reached. History has shown before what happens when resources are strained to the breaking point. It has happened before and it will happen again.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe if companies didn't buy applications on brain-dead, proprietary, single-vendor platforms they wouldn't run into these kinds of problems.
There. Fixed that for you.
They could have at least hashed the PINs in the database so stealing the data from the database would not result in immediate compromise of the PINs. This is basic network login security 101 when designing this type of system.
You could have negotiated to keep the gas line open and use the gas to run sterling heat pumps to cool the server room rather than using electricity from the grid to run conventional air conditioning units. It probably was or is worth looking into.
Isn't this why the FCC here in the United States classifies different electronic devices according to whether or not they can emit or must accept radio frequency interference from outside sources? Perhaps the medical device manufacturers have a more critical classification where they have the "right" not to be interfered with (unlike say, your iPod which must accept any outside interference and generate none of its own) and designed their systems around this assumption of legal protection by device classifications?
The analysis is flawed. The predator example, among others, is not an adaptation to multi-tasking, or at least not in an active sense, but rather an adaptation to make objects moving in one's peripheral vision, like the details of walking and balance, part of the autonomic nervous system and sub-conscious control system of our brains. In other words, evolution has pushed certain selected tasks into deeper levels to be more "hard wired" so that we can do those few selected important things (like be aware of those sabertooth tigers lurking in our peripheral vision) without devoting active conscious thinking resources to the problem as we would do with more generic or complex situations which do not occur as often and are not as critical to immediate survival. However, this is not the same thing as a generic multitasking capability where any task that requires use of the brain can be conducted in this fashion.
The managers who continue to promote the multi-tasking paradigm (among other forms of wishful thinking) are the same ones who have little or no knowledge about how multi-tasking actually works, even in non-human settings such as computers. The ability of computers to multi-task is an illusion achieved by frequent and and continuous context-switching between tasks such that each task gets a miniscule slice of time during each cycle through the running tasks. Strictly speaking, the computer is only working on one thing at any given instant (or one per core if you count multi-core chips which support multiple but still finite simultaneous execution threads) whether that is a task or switching between tasks. The human brain is terrible at context switching, especially when compared to computers, and even computers can be easily overwhelmed by too much context switching (i.e. eventually so much work is expended to switch and maintain contexts that the amount of work required merely to switch leaves no time for any actual work to be done on the taks...or in other words, the computer is merely thrashing and not doing very much if any useful work).
Why would anyone want to live in Massachusetts anyway? High taxes, non-competes, mandatory purchase of health insurance from a state selected slate of "pre-approved" companies (i.e. they screw you because you have to choose one of them), did I mention the high taxes?
Employer provided health insurance, no matter how extravagant, is by law explicitly exempted from being taxed as income to the employee by either state or federal governments. In fact, the actual amount is deductible from the taxes of the business as a business expense or cost of doing business. This is one of several factors which encourage high health care costs here in the United States (the others being 3d party split payment of expenses, uncapped lawsuit liability damages, and poor consumer information about what goods and services are being provided and their relative level of quality). If you are interested in why health care is expensive then I recommend the following article:
How to Cure Health CareInter arma enim silent leges
Not the way it should be mind you, but as another wise man once said, "reality bites".But the volcano which destroyed Pompeii was not large, compared to other volcanoes, so the population was still wise because their volcano was relatively small.
The courts are uncertain and expensive, people don't give a crap about social responsibility as long as the offense is relatively anonymous OR can be hidden behind the corporate veil, and there is money to be made by violating privacy. It boils down to risk versus reward in favor of the privacy violators because there is ultimately a lot of money involved and not enough downside risk or cost. I am of the opinion that it is extremely difficult to remedy the situation by creating sufficient downside risks and costs either socially or legally. Thus, the best and cheapest option for the individual, although admittedly not perfect, is the technology arms race. For the privacy violators it is like striking at ants. They don't care if a few of the ants are clever and escape them so long as they can get most of the rest. They will only retaliate in the arms race when most of the people adopt a certain countermeasure, but this gives us early adopters a long lead time during which we can still enjoy our privacy. Disincentivizing privacy violations is a laudible goal, but it is even less certain than the technology arms race. Right now, Firefox (AdBlock, NoScript, Flashblock), encryption, open wi-fi, and other technologies keep the informed among us ahead of the curve. If you trust the courts to force the corporations to respect your privacy then I think that you will be sorely disappointed.
but rather insufficient penalties for violating the privacy of another. If the perceived profit, whether that be money or some other reward, outweighs the perceived loss (i.e. punishment for violating the privacy of another) then privacy will always be violated assuming that it can be. Many of the perceived problems with protecting one's privacy today have been created by or occurred as a consequence of the introduction of new technologies, so it follows then that solutions must also be technological rather than strictly social or legal because of the aforementioned favorable risk/reward quotient for breaching the privacy of another. That is why it is important for people to take the necessary steps to protect their own privacy including use of strong encryption, strong passwords, fake identities, mail drops, etc. I find that it is best to view the entire exercise as an adversarial process where the reward for winning is continued privacy and the cost of losing is a breach of privacy. You are continually seeking to protect your privacy while others are actively seeking to breach it.
I would actually put that in writing along with a summary of the other risks and get the sales manager to sign off on it before I implemented it. That way, when the inevitable retaliation comes in the form of getting black listed, dumped by the ISP, or being sued you will have an autographed get out of jail free card that prevents the slimy sales manager from pining the whole idea on you when his boss comes to shake his tree because you know that this sales manager will definitely sell you down the river to save his own butt. It is surprising how many requests simply disappear when the IT staff asks to get the marching orders in writing with wet ink signatures.
Yes, but the Mausoleum of Maussollos can extend that by 50% for a total of fifteen turns. In the meantime, should use the extra production in our cities to build more modern armor and mechanized infantry so that we can attack our neighbors as soon as the golden age has run its course.
The only reason that it has not happened yet on a global and scale is because of sustained economic growth beginning around the time of the enlightenment and accelerated by the industrial revolution and the subsequent progress made in agriculture and productivity during the petroleum and petro-chemical eras continuing up through today. There have been examples in history of isolated cultures stretched to their technological limits, particularly fresh water, agriculture, and irrigation, experiencing population collapses. Unless we can find a substitute which is just as good as petroleum or massively increase efficiency to compensate for less desirable substitutes for energy inputs then the risk of a sustained economic contraction, with the accompanying ill effects, following the end of cheap hydrocarbon energy is a very real possibility. The fact that the crunch may still be hundreds of years into the future does not alter the inevitability of the problem.
As others have already pointed out in this thread, the Earth is currently suffering from a massive over population problem which will only get worse with rising global temperatures and the end of the petroleum age. There is no way that this problem will NOT be resolved by massive famines or wars or both until new a new population resource equilibrium is reached. History has shown before what happens when resources are strained to the breaking point. It has happened before and it will happen again.
Well, when the PTO finally gets around to it anyway...