like the hobo who wandered into his office and explained to him where to find the aliens in the early 90s.
It's nice to know that your father's university goes to such great lengths to prevent just anyone from walking into the faculty offices. A hobo just walked in? WTF. Of course, given the personal hygiene habits of some undergraduates these days, perhaps your father can be forgiven for mistaking a grungy and wild-eyed undergrad for a hobo.
If it were just once I wouldn't be bothered to RTFA but I shouldn't have to RTFA just to understand the summary of a story that normally I wouldn't care that much about. These things seem to come up once every couple of days though.
How much are you paying for this service again? Probably nothing unless you are a subscriber, so It's better than a sharp stick in the eye after all.
Why not blame Google for makeing it easy for people to find info on how to download music.
Google has the power to make the bands your label is promoting effectively "disappear" from the web by removing them from indexing. They could also ban your label from adwords, crippling your marketing efforts severely. No, it is best not to anger Google if you are in the music business (or indeed any business that relies upon Google services to connect with customers).
What do you think his chances for future employment are?
According to TFA, he started his own company installing solar panels. Basically, he will never work for any company ever again unless he is the founder of that company. However, given the grim future prospects of the American worker, starting your own business or becoming an entrepreneur or investor is looking more and more attractive as a long term option. There is simply no loyalty or stability anymore in being a "company man" so at least one of the main arguments against being self employed is now melting away under the pressures of a sputtering economy and the associated "jobless" recovery.
why would you torture yourself by trying to do remote desktop and SSH without a keyboard? I mean, yes, those tools exist, but the iPad itself really isn't suited for typing more than a few words at a time.
It's funny that you should mention that. In fact many of the UNIX shell commands were designed to be as short as possible so that they could be easily input with teletypes which were big and slow mechanical keyboards. The same limitation that made shortness desirable in the teletype days has shown its value again with the iPad and virtual keyboards.
Well, I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to a combover with glasses. I could even round it out with a calabash pipe and a tweed sports jacket to complete the look.
This is something that many people today, heads down and furiously texting on their phones, don't seem to understand. They waste their time sending or receiving meaningless or trivial texts instead of doing something, anything, that might have some lasting benefit for themselves or others. Those Windows 7 spots (really?) might have a point; not about Windows 7, but about the whole texting culture in general.
And yet those disruptive personal freedoms are the very same ones that make life worth living. The younger Chinese will eventually realize that there is more to life than mindless consumption and working 16 hour days in the name of economic growth; especially once they realize that a devalued US dollar and corrupt officials have cheated them out of their savings from all of that work anyway.
It's fortunate for ordinary Americans that the government does such a poor job enforcing these laws or we would all be living in a police state already. Of course, the real purpose of these laws is not to enforce, but rather to render any citizen, even the most honest and upright, vulnerable to felony prosecution at the whim of the state. Those who naively support such proscriptions would do well to remember the words of Cardinal Richelieu who famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged". This goes hand in glove with another of his assertions; namely that, "Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state." Ironically, it seems to have become the first essential in the affairs of individuals as well these days.
Facebook may make it easier, but it IMHO it demands a hell of price, payable in lost privacy, in return. There are other, more private ways, to keep in touch with your family and friends besides Facebook. How about a phone call now and then (people like your grandmother really appreciate that) or an exchange of emails? You can keep all of your friends and family members as contacts organized in your favorite local email or messaging app without sharing everything with some big third party corporation that is looking for every opportunity to "monetize" your relationships. I don't know about you, but my friends and family don't appreciate being "monetized" by corporation on my account. In short, Facebook provides too little and demands too much in return.
Funny, you'd think they'd take this opportunity as lame ducks to pass the legislation that's actually *good for the people* despite being unpopular with the powerful lobbies, because there wouldn't be many repercussions.
Of course, being a congressman who will be out of a job when the session ends, it's also an excellent opportunity to make or help some "friends" (i.e. lobbyists) on your way out who then might be in a position to "reward" you with a nice cushy job at one of their client's corporations; nobody likes to be unemployed after all, especially in today's economy.
I spent years teaching CS students and it was always a problem.
I once received a lower grade (due to curve) in an upper division CS project course because other people in the course, who had connections to resources from previous course iterations, cheated. It makes it hard for honest students who really want to try to implement something from scratch and have an honest go at actually learning something to compete with the cheaters. Of course, now that we are out in the real world working as software developers, who is going to be better: the student who has actually written code and gotten his own projects bootstrapped or the one who had good grades but cheated? Most of the CS cheating, in my experience, occurs in lower division lab courses (I once had someone steal my assignment off the print queue and was forced to defend my implementation in a meeting with the professor; the other guy got busted for cheating), but it happens in upper division as well. IMHO, the CS departments out there need to take a tougher stand against cheaters. Of course, these days the parents hire a lawyer and go after the university for accusing their "brilliant" son or daughter of cheating so I can understand the reluctance of some professors to pursue the matter, but letting it go only punishes honest students and encourages cheaters.
If they haven't already done so (and they may have, I don't know) the United States should do as the Chinese have and begin their own checked distribution of Linux or some other free software OS for critical applications and infrastructure. Of course it would also be necessary to budget for the sorts of personnel necessary to maintain such a system: software developers, sysadmins, etc; a great opportunity to support "STEM" jobs for Americans. There are already options for embedded and real time OS that are produced right here in the US by Americans and used for military and industrial applications (Integrity OS for example), but something else is need for systems that fall in between standard workstations and servers on the one hand and specialized embedded systems on the other.
Despite the oft heard complaints of insufficient designs and botched implementations, one rarely hears one of the primary reasons for poorly secured software: the powers that be really hate paying for it. Indeed, it seems that many organizations, for profit companies in particular, would rather wait until someone sues them or simply purchase insurance against the consequences rather than spend time and money on something they perceive as being of little real value. If we software developers are told to finish the project on time and within budget or they will get someone else (i.e. do it or we will fire you and outsource it to somehow who will say "yes") then we have to do what the people who write the checks want. Most software failures result in loss of wealth, not loss of life, so companies have insufficient incentive to spend time mitigating the problem. In summary, the software engineers are capable and willing but management doesn't want to "waste time" with security. Until that changes, no amount of technical analysis of why software is insecure is going to matter much.
If you are serious about protecting your privacy, both online and offline, then it is best to take matters into your own hands and learn the sorts of tradecraft techniques which are common to the intelligence community. There are many publicly accessible books and articles (of varying quality) on this and other relevant topics; finding them is left as an exercise for the reader. However, a good starting point is this exchange from the film Ronin.
Sam: Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you.
Vincent: Who taught you?
Sam: I don't remember. That's the second thing they teach you.
You might want to try OptOutPrescreen (the link to the external site is in the wiki article: http://www.optoutprescreen.com). It's a joint venture between Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion that allows you to opt out of pre-screened credit card and insurance offers for a period of 5 years or, if you wish, permanently. That alone will slash the risk of identity theft substantially. Of course, you will no longer receive credit offers in the mail but most Americans need another credit card like they need a hole in the head so it's probably for the best.
They want to be able to stop, search, and seize you and your property any time they please regardless of the constitution. If you think they really care about your privacy, I have some top quality products I would like to sell you! A fool and their money as well as their liberty are soon parted!
Precisely. However, the notion of "government as savior" and "hope" seem to be rather common delusions among those who support the policies of the Obama administration. Wake up people, the government isn't your friend and it certainly isn't looking out for your best interests. The United States Federal Government looks after the interests of the highest bidders in the last election (which probably doesn't include you). If you care about individual liberty and personal choice then only rational conclusion is to reduce the size, power and scope of the federal government. If you don't care about those things then fine, but quit whining about your damn privacy rights; children don't have privacy, that is a privilege reserved for adults.
Second, there is a difference between cultural conflict and war.
And yet history is replete with examples of cultural absorption and domination and whether by warfare or by other means the result is the same: destruction of one culture concurrent with the rise of another. To argue whether or not that process is war is to argue over durations and means, not end results.
Having airport screeners harass members of one culture is not an appropriate weapon for use in a cultural conflict.
If we decide that airport security is needed, and I think that most people would agree that airport security is necessary, then why must effective tactics be curtailed merely because they aren't politically correct? If you want to see what real airport security looks like, take a look at Ben Gurion International Airport and El Al. The Israelis don't screw around when it comes to airport security. Is it politically correct? Probably not. Does it work? Absolutely.
Like it or not that is an issue in Britain. There is a growing minority of second generation Britons who refuse to assimilate into their new culture. Instead, they maintain an alien and aggressive culture inside Britain with the ultimate goal of completely changing English society to match the sort of Sharia inspired nightmare that exists in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan where women have no rights and thefts are punished by chopping off limbs. The people of Britain had better wake up soon, as the people of France already have, to the dangers of invasive foreign cultures within their midst. The Islamists have a long term goal, which they are willing to pursue across generations, and the gradual displacement of western civilization with Sharia (which they European Court of Human Rights has ruled incompatible with democracy) is part of that agenda. You are in a culture war that your enemies are actively fighting. How long will some people continue to deny that they are even under attack before fighting back?
Why stop there? Surely such a large aerosol can warrants the full body cavity search with glove . What makes all of this security theater even more stupid is that they refuse to profile. How many white 71 year old female bombers have there been?. They probably would have waved someone wearing a burka right through while they were wasting time with the minister who is quite obviously of old British decent (she even has a peerage!) just so that they aren't accused of profiling. Ridiculous!
While I cannot speak for others, I can say that I do not have a great deal of sympathy for fools and especially not for rich fools. As others have often said, on Slashdot and elsewhere, the fool and his money are soon parted. If someone sells fantasy conspiracy theories, part of me wants to say that anyone foolish enough to participate in that to the tune of 160K per month deserves exactly what they are getting. I do not begrudge the wealth of anyone else, but neither do I believe that those with wealth are somehow entitled to keep it even in the face of their own gross incompetence and stupidity. In any case, the wealth and background of this heir should figure into the case (i.e. he came from a privileged background and with all of that elite education he should have known better).
Even RSM has pointed out on numerous occasions that free software is not immune to software patents. Indeed, he rarely misses an opportunity to remind everyone of this fact. I am very tired of hearing free software advocates bring up the patent issue and then act like free software is not equally or even more encumbered by these patents; software patents are a threat to all software, regardless of source.
Ellison has been known to keep a copy of a certain biography of Genghis Khan on or near the desk in his office. It is also said that he is an admirer of the Sun Tzu and the Art of War.
Slashdot Mirror
like the hobo who wandered into his office and explained to him where to find the aliens in the early 90s.
It's nice to know that your father's university goes to such great lengths to prevent just anyone from walking into the faculty offices. A hobo just walked in? WTF. Of course, given the personal hygiene habits of some undergraduates these days, perhaps your father can be forgiven for mistaking a grungy and wild-eyed undergrad for a hobo.
And we are the country that taught the world to rock-and-roll, thank you very much.
Yeah, I built that wonder in my last game as the Americans too.
If it were just once I wouldn't be bothered to RTFA but I shouldn't have to RTFA just to understand the summary of a story that normally I wouldn't care that much about. These things seem to come up once every couple of days though.
How much are you paying for this service again? Probably nothing unless you are a subscriber, so It's better than a sharp stick in the eye after all.
They should have created a new brand for the phone.
They already tried that with Kin and they pulled the plug when it became clear that it had failed to gain market traction.
Why not blame Google for makeing it easy for people to find info on how to download music.
Google has the power to make the bands your label is promoting effectively "disappear" from the web by removing them from indexing. They could also ban your label from adwords, crippling your marketing efforts severely. No, it is best not to anger Google if you are in the music business (or indeed any business that relies upon Google services to connect with customers).
What do you think his chances for future employment are?
According to TFA, he started his own company installing solar panels. Basically, he will never work for any company ever again unless he is the founder of that company. However, given the grim future prospects of the American worker, starting your own business or becoming an entrepreneur or investor is looking more and more attractive as a long term option. There is simply no loyalty or stability anymore in being a "company man" so at least one of the main arguments against being self employed is now melting away under the pressures of a sputtering economy and the associated "jobless" recovery.
why would you torture yourself by trying to do remote desktop and SSH without a keyboard? I mean, yes, those tools exist, but the iPad itself really isn't suited for typing more than a few words at a time.
It's funny that you should mention that. In fact many of the UNIX shell commands were designed to be as short as possible so that they could be easily input with teletypes which were big and slow mechanical keyboards. The same limitation that made shortness desirable in the teletype days has shown its value again with the iPad and virtual keyboards.
Your hairline will be receding.
Well, I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to a combover with glasses. I could even round it out with a calabash pipe and a tweed sports jacket to complete the look.
Not every message requires an immediate response.
This is something that many people today, heads down and furiously texting on their phones, don't seem to understand. They waste their time sending or receiving meaningless or trivial texts instead of doing something, anything, that might have some lasting benefit for themselves or others. Those Windows 7 spots (really?) might have a point; not about Windows 7, but about the whole texting culture in general.
And yet those disruptive personal freedoms are the very same ones that make life worth living. The younger Chinese will eventually realize that there is more to life than mindless consumption and working 16 hour days in the name of economic growth; especially once they realize that a devalued US dollar and corrupt officials have cheated them out of their savings from all of that work anyway.
It's fortunate for ordinary Americans that the government does such a poor job enforcing these laws or we would all be living in a police state already. Of course, the real purpose of these laws is not to enforce, but rather to render any citizen, even the most honest and upright, vulnerable to felony prosecution at the whim of the state. Those who naively support such proscriptions would do well to remember the words of Cardinal Richelieu who famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged". This goes hand in glove with another of his assertions; namely that, "Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state." Ironically, it seems to have become the first essential in the affairs of individuals as well these days.
Facebook may make it easier, but it IMHO it demands a hell of price, payable in lost privacy, in return. There are other, more private ways, to keep in touch with your family and friends besides Facebook. How about a phone call now and then (people like your grandmother really appreciate that) or an exchange of emails? You can keep all of your friends and family members as contacts organized in your favorite local email or messaging app without sharing everything with some big third party corporation that is looking for every opportunity to "monetize" your relationships. I don't know about you, but my friends and family don't appreciate being "monetized" by corporation on my account. In short, Facebook provides too little and demands too much in return.
Funny, you'd think they'd take this opportunity as lame ducks to pass the legislation that's actually *good for the people* despite being unpopular with the powerful lobbies, because there wouldn't be many repercussions.
Of course, being a congressman who will be out of a job when the session ends, it's also an excellent opportunity to make or help some "friends" (i.e. lobbyists) on your way out who then might be in a position to "reward" you with a nice cushy job at one of their client's corporations; nobody likes to be unemployed after all, especially in today's economy.
I spent years teaching CS students and it was always a problem.
I once received a lower grade (due to curve) in an upper division CS project course because other people in the course, who had connections to resources from previous course iterations, cheated. It makes it hard for honest students who really want to try to implement something from scratch and have an honest go at actually learning something to compete with the cheaters. Of course, now that we are out in the real world working as software developers, who is going to be better: the student who has actually written code and gotten his own projects bootstrapped or the one who had good grades but cheated? Most of the CS cheating, in my experience, occurs in lower division lab courses (I once had someone steal my assignment off the print queue and was forced to defend my implementation in a meeting with the professor; the other guy got busted for cheating), but it happens in upper division as well. IMHO, the CS departments out there need to take a tougher stand against cheaters. Of course, these days the parents hire a lawyer and go after the university for accusing their "brilliant" son or daughter of cheating so I can understand the reluctance of some professors to pursue the matter, but letting it go only punishes honest students and encourages cheaters.
If they haven't already done so (and they may have, I don't know) the United States should do as the Chinese have and begin their own checked distribution of Linux or some other free software OS for critical applications and infrastructure. Of course it would also be necessary to budget for the sorts of personnel necessary to maintain such a system: software developers, sysadmins, etc; a great opportunity to support "STEM" jobs for Americans. There are already options for embedded and real time OS that are produced right here in the US by Americans and used for military and industrial applications (Integrity OS for example), but something else is need for systems that fall in between standard workstations and servers on the one hand and specialized embedded systems on the other.
Despite the oft heard complaints of insufficient designs and botched implementations, one rarely hears one of the primary reasons for poorly secured software: the powers that be really hate paying for it . Indeed, it seems that many organizations, for profit companies in particular, would rather wait until someone sues them or simply purchase insurance against the consequences rather than spend time and money on something they perceive as being of little real value. If we software developers are told to finish the project on time and within budget or they will get someone else (i.e. do it or we will fire you and outsource it to somehow who will say "yes") then we have to do what the people who write the checks want. Most software failures result in loss of wealth, not loss of life, so companies have insufficient incentive to spend time mitigating the problem. In summary, the software engineers are capable and willing but management doesn't want to "waste time" with security. Until that changes, no amount of technical analysis of why software is insecure is going to matter much.
If you are serious about protecting your privacy, both online and offline, then it is best to take matters into your own hands and learn the sorts of tradecraft techniques which are common to the intelligence community. There are many publicly accessible books and articles (of varying quality) on this and other relevant topics; finding them is left as an exercise for the reader. However, a good starting point is this exchange from the film Ronin .
Sam: Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt. That's the first thing they teach you.
Vincent: Who taught you?
Sam: I don't remember. That's the second thing they teach you.
You might want to try OptOutPrescreen (the link to the external site is in the wiki article: http://www.optoutprescreen.com). It's a joint venture between Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and TransUnion that allows you to opt out of pre-screened credit card and insurance offers for a period of 5 years or, if you wish, permanently. That alone will slash the risk of identity theft substantially. Of course, you will no longer receive credit offers in the mail but most Americans need another credit card like they need a hole in the head so it's probably for the best.
They want to be able to stop, search, and seize you and your property any time they please regardless of the constitution. If you think they really care about your privacy, I have some top quality products I would like to sell you! A fool and their money as well as their liberty are soon parted!
Precisely. However, the notion of "government as savior" and "hope" seem to be rather common delusions among those who support the policies of the Obama administration. Wake up people, the government isn't your friend and it certainly isn't looking out for your best interests. The United States Federal Government looks after the interests of the highest bidders in the last election (which probably doesn't include you). If you care about individual liberty and personal choice then only rational conclusion is to reduce the size, power and scope of the federal government. If you don't care about those things then fine, but quit whining about your damn privacy rights; children don't have privacy, that is a privilege reserved for adults.
Second, there is a difference between cultural conflict and war.
And yet history is replete with examples of cultural absorption and domination and whether by warfare or by other means the result is the same: destruction of one culture concurrent with the rise of another. To argue whether or not that process is war is to argue over durations and means, not end results.
Having airport screeners harass members of one culture is not an appropriate weapon for use in a cultural conflict.
If we decide that airport security is needed, and I think that most people would agree that airport security is necessary, then why must effective tactics be curtailed merely because they aren't politically correct? If you want to see what real airport security looks like, take a look at Ben Gurion International Airport and El Al. The Israelis don't screw around when it comes to airport security. Is it politically correct? Probably not. Does it work? Absolutely.
entire cultures you seem to consider your enemy
Like it or not that is an issue in Britain. There is a growing minority of second generation Britons who refuse to assimilate into their new culture. Instead, they maintain an alien and aggressive culture inside Britain with the ultimate goal of completely changing English society to match the sort of Sharia inspired nightmare that exists in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan where women have no rights and thefts are punished by chopping off limbs. The people of Britain had better wake up soon, as the people of France already have, to the dangers of invasive foreign cultures within their midst. The Islamists have a long term goal, which they are willing to pursue across generations, and the gradual displacement of western civilization with Sharia (which they European Court of Human Rights has ruled incompatible with democracy) is part of that agenda. You are in a culture war that your enemies are actively fighting. How long will some people continue to deny that they are even under attack before fighting back?
Why stop there? Surely such a large aerosol can warrants the full body cavity search with glove . What makes all of this security theater even more stupid is that they refuse to profile. How many white 71 year old female bombers have there been?. They probably would have waved someone wearing a burka right through while they were wasting time with the minister who is quite obviously of old British decent (she even has a peerage!) just so that they aren't accused of profiling. Ridiculous!
While I cannot speak for others, I can say that I do not have a great deal of sympathy for fools and especially not for rich fools. As others have often said, on Slashdot and elsewhere, the fool and his money are soon parted. If someone sells fantasy conspiracy theories, part of me wants to say that anyone foolish enough to participate in that to the tune of 160K per month deserves exactly what they are getting. I do not begrudge the wealth of anyone else, but neither do I believe that those with wealth are somehow entitled to keep it even in the face of their own gross incompetence and stupidity. In any case, the wealth and background of this heir should figure into the case (i.e. he came from a privileged background and with all of that elite education he should have known better).
Even RSM has pointed out on numerous occasions that free software is not immune to software patents. Indeed, he rarely misses an opportunity to remind everyone of this fact. I am very tired of hearing free software advocates bring up the patent issue and then act like free software is not equally or even more encumbered by these patents; software patents are a threat to all software, regardless of source.
Ellison has been known to keep a copy of a certain biography of Genghis Khan on or near the desk in his office. It is also said that he is an admirer of the Sun Tzu and the Art of War.