There are other issues which make security more than simply a technical problem in commercial closed source products like Flash. Sometimes a bug is not fixed because management feels that "nobody cares" or "users won't notice" and so they order the devs to ignore it to "cut costs" and "save money". At other times, security is thought (by managers) to make the product "user unfriendly" or "too hard" to use. I have heard of projects where the devs were deliberately ordered to remove security features because they weren't "easy to use". This is one area where open source projects like Linux consistently do better (i.e. quality and security) whereas closed source products tend to get the chrome and polish done, but fail the quality and security tests. Some rare companies, Apple being the canonical example, do both well but then it sure doesn't come cheap.
if the employees are unhappy they can always get another job, no shortages of those!
Amen. At least they don't have to deal directly with the general public. If I had to choose between packing boxes or dealing with rude and disgusting people all day, then box packing would win every time. Besides, I don't know about the rest of you here on Slashdot, but I could stand to lose a few pounds and walking 14 miles a day during a ten hour shift would probably go a long way towards accomplishing that.
Anyone here on Slashdot who knows me knows that I am not a big fan of copyright in general as a concept and certainly not the current US implementation which has been really skewed against the public since the Copyright Act of 1976 and followed with real gems like the Copyright Term Extension Act (a.k.a "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act"). However, having said that; doesn't Microsoft own the copyrights on the Windows XP icon set? It seems to me that they could still quash this in the United States because it appears that the icon files have been ripped verbatim from Windows XP.
They were willing to negotiate in the same way that Ahmadinejad "negotiates" with the UN; going in circles and playing the international community for fools. If we let ourselves be fooled by those tactics then maybe he is right. There are limits to negotiations. The Taliban foreclosed any negotiations beyond the ultimatum when they said "no" to "hand them over". Did you notice the distinct lack of sympathy for the Taliban the world over when the US bombed them after 9-11? There was a reason for that. The Taliban got and are getting what they had coming to them for throwing their lot in with Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. They wrote the declaration of war in their Fatwas and they have made no offers of surrender. They mean to fight to the death so we are left with no other choice but to finish it; even Obama acknowledged as much in his Nobel Peace Prize speech. Some people are beyond negotiation and redemption. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda fall into that category.
Its called stalling for time. Nobody with any credibility seriously believes that Al-Qaeda wasn't behind 9-11 or that Bin Laden and other top leadership didn't plan, coordinate, and approve the attacks. If you believe that the Taliban ever would have handed him over then you are being naive.
Proceed with the invasion.
It wasn't an invasion, at least not at first. The CIA landed very small groups, as small as eight man teams, to organize the tribesman and coordinate air strikes. There was a segment on 60 Minutes just tonight, Out of the Shadows where former CIA operative Henry Crumpton describes how the initial operations in 2001 were handled. As Crumpton and others point out, you cannot invade a country with 8 men; they had to get the cooperation of the local tribesmen to kick the Taliban out. The number of US forces directly involved, especially on the ground, was actually quite small back then.
BTW: I especially liked the comments of the head of Afghan intelligence in the interview. He strikes me as being a credible, pragmatic, and realistic sort who understands the threat of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Not just to his own skin (which is of course at risk), but to the United States itself if we fail in Afghanistan. In his words, if Al-Qaeda "wins" in the Afghanistan because American forces pull out, then watch out. They will not wait long before they come back with attacks on the US homeland from a secured base in a "failed" Afghanistan. In his words, many Americans underestimate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and I agree with him.
Many on the left, including some here on Slashdot, like to point out that terrorism is "no big deal" or "not very important" and so they miss the long term threat to the west posed by militant Islam, not just the prospect of more frequent or regular attacks. The survival of Europe and the United States beyond the 21st century will depend upon, among other things, dealing successfully with the problem of militant Islamists. Does that mean that we simply kill em all? Of course not, it isn't that simple; but it will involve some long term commitments, like in Afghanistan, and that means some amount of ongoing fighting. To suggest otherwise is to be naive and in error about that nature and scope of the threat posed by militant Islamists.
Well, that's not how I remember it.. and read the.. "Prelude to invasion"
Notice the part were we said, "hand over the Al-Qaeda leaders" (presumably that would have included Bin Laden)? And what do you know...they said "no". Shocking? Hardly. So I was correct when I said that we demanded they (i.e. the Taliban) hand them over or else and they Taliban said "see you in hell" and we made good on our threat. When you threaten to use the stick, you have to follow through sometimes; otherwise your enemies begin to doubt your sincerity and resolve.
We also did similar ultimatums with Saddam, that were basicly just like the police telling someone "stop or I'll shoot"
Saddam was a useful minion, especially during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. We kept the Mullahs in Iran busy and they kept him from making trouble elsewhere. The only thing that we should have done differently was found a way to keep the Iraq-Iran war going or arranged for Saddam to "exit" the stage a bit sooner than he eventually did (preferably sometime around 1989); before our pawn completely outlived his usefulness and caused more trouble than he was worth by invading Kuwait.
Yes, yes, killing the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the rest is too expensive. Perhaps we could ask the Israelis for more ideas on how to be more effective on the cheap? They seem to kill the ringleaders with much greater reliably and for much less money than we do, but who knows...Americans are innovative after all, we just have to find cheaper ways of killing the bad guys. Perhaps that is an area for some stimulus spending? Nothing like investment in arms and weapons to get the economy going after all.
One possible benefit is that increased regulation creates increased barriers to entry of new firms, which has in the past been a major factoring in price wars and increased competition in the airline industry (at least pre 9/11). So it is definitely possible for airlines to lobby for increased regulations and even more stringent security procedures, up to a point anyway, in the hope that it will shield them from competition and give them more convenient ways to deal with rude and abusive travelers. There was a CNBC documentary on American Airlines recently where a 30 year veteran flight attendant said something to the effect of, "when I started working in 1972 they issued me little white gloves; now they issue me handcuffs instead." It was hilarious.
This notion that everything in society has to defer to security is insane.
That is the world we live in; if you don't believe that, ask the Israelis and see how they handle things on El Al and most especially at Ben Gurion International Airport. The TSA goons are rank amateurs compared to the Israelis who are more professional, more effective, and generally more courteous if at times a bit gruff. The TSA could learn a few things from the El Al security personnel about how to actually be effective instead of just annoying.
Imagine if instead of torturing people and invading two countries and starting two wars we had produced evidence, fought hard to extradite bin Laden from Afghanistan, tried him at the world court, and locked him up for the rest of his life. We would have said that the West is not barbaric, fundamentalist religious fanatics are.
You are living in lala land if you think that the Taliban would have handed over Bin Laden. In fact, we demanded that they do exactly that and they told us to piss off (in so many words). We were right to bomb the shit out of them. Although, I agree that the post 9-11 military strategy could have been handled better. IMHO, it would have been better to put more resources into the CIA, unmanned drones, and special forces operations instead of misguided attempts at nation building. The Israelis have had great success at reducing the number and severity of terrorist attacks through targeted killings, security barriers, and successful covert operations. You might not like the methods, but you cannot argue with the results; they speak for themselves. Instead of spending hundreds of billions on invasions we could have exploited the sectarian differences to keep the arabs, persians, and the rest divided and fighting amongst themselves. For decades we supplied arms and played them off against eachother and it worked brilliantly. They were too busy cutting eachothers' throats to be concerned about Europe and the United States. A little bit more Machiavelli and Sun Tzu would have gone a long way towards an acceptable outcome (i.e. fewer and less severe terrorist attacks on US soil) for a much more modest investment. A conflict between the Islamists and the west was and is inevitable, so we might as well play our hand a bit better instead of wasting time, money, and lives on fools errands like nation building.
but the response to 9/11 really isn't the way you want to remember/avenge/retaliate in their memory.
On the other hand, diplomacy has for decades gotten the United States almost nothing in the middle east. At least the Arab governments, corrupt and unsavory though they may have been (or still are), got results when we pay them to crack down or, in the case of the Egyptians and Saudis, prop them up with military aid. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are now, at last, showing some fruits but one wonders what might have been had we taken a more Machiavellian approach after 9/11. For example, expanding the CIA, moving more quickly on the drone program, and more use of targeted killings (as the Israelis have done successfully), etc. One might not like the methods, but for decades Israel and the United States, for a relatively modest investment of arms and cash bribes, were able to keep the Arabs divided, off-balance, and fighting amongst themselves. It might not have been a perfect solution but it kept the bin Ladens of the world preoccupied with their own regional problems and made willing, if reluctant, allies of the Arab regimes. Sometimes, there is something to be said for taking the "evil" path in foreign relations; it gets results where rational negotiations and niceties fail.
Enjoy the crowds of obnoxious people, screaming babies, filthy floors, cramped seats, blocked views, terrible traffic, and insufficient parking.
This can be a problem yes, but one thing that Avatar has going for it is the Imax 3D angle which generally costs at least $16 US dollars per seat and more like $20+ if one gets popcorn and soda. While some might say that price is a rip-off, it does have the rather nice side effect of discouraging some of the more low-brow elements of the general public (especially during a recession). So, if I were going to see it at the theater I would chose the more expensive Imax 3D option at least one week after release. This reduces substantially the probability of encountering the unpleasant elements enumerated by the parent.
I don't trust them. I cannot trust them because in the United States a public corporation is required by law, first and foremost, to do what is in the best interests of shareholders which generally means anything which legally maximizes profits. As long as Brin and Page continue to deliver the profits, the shareholders will go along with whatever they want to do, but if it comes down to profits or data liberation, I am betting on profits winning the argument; whether or not that is good for "openness".
The problem is that businesses don't want to pay highly-trained and specialized workers more. They've tried outsourcing, right-sizing, downsizing, globalization, and every other way possible to screw people out of wages. And curiously enough, we keep coming back to the same problem -- no matter how big you make the labor pool, the required training and experience required to do these jobs demands a certain minimum income
This is a good point and it highlights a problem with current government attempts to encourage more youngsters to pursue careers in STEM. We say that we want "smarter" high school students and more interest in STEM professions while at the same time we continue to see outsourcing, visa fraud, and even less savory tactics used by employers to avoid paying for skills and expertise they say are needed to compete in the 21st century economy. The smart high school students are going to ask, "Why should we bust our butts to earn an engineering degree for a job that is underpaid, relative to the time, effort, and expense required to train for it, and is under constant threat of being cut, outsourced, or downsized"? They will choose to go into law, business, or medicine (although poorly implemented health care "reform" may soon ruin that career path too) instead.
A career in STEM is in many ways a lifelong commitment requiring high levels of ongoing participation both to stay current and to grow in one's chosen area of expertise. People are reluctant to make these sorts of commitments where employment is no longer guaranteed, jobs get outsourced at the drop of a hat, and STEM gets little or no respect from upper management. In fact, many upper management types are actively hostile towards STEM and resent the "high" wages earned by "skilled" workers (especially in IT) who are not, in their eyes, involved in "leadership" roles. This is compounded by the fact that many R&D oriented STEM careers require higher levels of independence and creative freedom than most MBAs are comfortable granting.
How then can we convince a "smart" student that STEM are great career choices? Given the present reality, I am not sure that we can.
Ah, the wonderful sound of thousands of cancelled contracts! Nothing quite like it.
Which won't happen because just about everyone who wanted the iphone or out of Verizon for some other reason has already bailed. The people who are left are there for the coverage or to put it more bluntly, it's the network stupid. They will piss and moan and grumble about it but it will not be enough to get them to switch because they chose Verizon for the network; not because they had the best smartphones. Verizon is doing this because they can and their customers will like it that way. Verizon a bully? who knew....right.
With the amount of Federal money currently tied up in health care reform there will be massive pressure to cut costs which means threat of Federal preemption of state licensing rules if states refuse cost cutting measures like out of state doctors. I am not saying that this is a good thing, but I can definitely see it happening. This, among other things, is one of the main reasons why so many Americans oppose health care reform as currently proposed because once the Federal government gets involved and Federal money starts flowing there will be strong pressure to centralize and control all health care and related issues at the Federal level. Naturally, this would constitute a massive expansion of the power and intrusiveness of Federal government; hence the visceral opposition of most freedom loving and clear thinking Americans.
Is it just me or does this sound like code for offshore outsourcing of doctors? If the doctor doesn't have to actually see you in person then the next logical question is: Does it matter where the doctor is physically located? If the answer to that is 'no' then you can bet your bottom dollar (or rupee if you prefer) that you 'personal physician' will be some video conference station linked to some 'doctor center' in India. Of course, most American senior citizens have a hard enough time understanding Indian accented English when the get 'outsourced to India' for phone tech support so just imagine how they will feel when their doctor is outsourced too as a 'cost saving' measure. The outsourcing of front line medical services (it is already being done with back office tasks like reading x-rays) may become the next big battleground issue in the offshoring debate; the demand is there, cost is the issue in health care, and the tech makes it possible or at least plausible.
The best programming language in the world will not solve the problem of poor programmers and poor coding practices.
In my experience, the problem is more often due to inept hit and run management getting into a project, causing chaos among the dev teams, and then bailing for a new job or a promotion before the full harmful effects of their meddling become apparent. For example, they may "trim the fat" from the schedule without realizing that they have completely ruined the system by forcing premature release with abbreviated testing (i.e. the customers can do the testing so we don't have to worry about that now) or perhaps they insist upon a certain sub-optimal technology being used without understanding the implications or just to be "buzzword compliant". These poor decisions often have a ripple effect throughout the entire project, completely overshadowing any redeeming features that might have otherwise averted a complete disaster. These managers believe that their oh-so-smart MBA degree certifies them to contribute to anything, including software development, with superior results when in fact it only certifies their stupidity.
That was one thing that I liked about Dark Age of Camelot back in the day. The stealth classes, which most people either love or hate, provided some balance in this area by being able to backstab with poisons for massive damage. In PvP this basically meant that if the stealther was equal level to the healer he could kill the healer in seconds with that first surprise attack. Of course, the stealther was then visible to everyone and vulnerable to counter-attack and depending upon what other players where in the area the healers may or may not have been the most important targets to take out first. They basically decided not to do stealth classes in WoW and IMHO that removes an important balancing element from the game; especially in PvP.
but we see the ratio of men to women in computing because men are interested in or gifted in computing at a ratio higher than women.
Working in computing requires a certain amount of rational and logical thinking as well as the ability to grasp complex abstractions and juggle multiple constructs simultaneously in the short term memory. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, these traits are much more common in men and even then mostly in particular personality types (not every man is cut out to work in computing either). Finally there is a certain minimum intelligence score required to grasp the complex incantations required for high level IT work. That last one was a joke for those not following.
The problem is that there is no deterministic way to determine what is and what is not a "peaceful, non-intrusive, text-only delivery system" so those of us using ad blockers invariably have regular expression rules that block any links with common advertising substrings such as "ads" in the URL. When people use ad blockers there is going to be "collateral damage", there is a reason why some call ad blockers "the nuclear plugins" after all.
There are many differences between Switzerland and the United States that make this problem more complex than you suggest. For example, illegal immigration is practically unheard of in Switzerland whereas in the United States it is quite common. This might have something to do with the fact that Switzerland is practically surrounded by mountains in the middle of continental Europe while the United States shares one of the largest land borders in the world with what is effectively a second-world country. There are many other reasons too. The American consumer uses checks for certain transactions because, for a variety of reasons that are not under his control, a check sometimes makes the most sense. Is it inefficient? Probably. Is that the fault of the US consumer? In many cases, no.
if some of us little people got together to try to build a network for handling cash out of the government's and the banks' eyes, it would be tied up in anti-terror laws faster than you can say, "Hawala."
As proof, witness what happened with the Liberty Dollar in 2007.
That's it right there. The banking systems are all ultimately controlled by the governments of this world and they have no interest in enabling large anonymous transactions. This is why large denomination bills, at least in countries where rampant inflation hasn't made them worthless, haven't been printed in nearly half a century in most places around the world.
Slashdot Mirror
There are other issues which make security more than simply a technical problem in commercial closed source products like Flash. Sometimes a bug is not fixed because management feels that "nobody cares" or "users won't notice" and so they order the devs to ignore it to "cut costs" and "save money". At other times, security is thought (by managers) to make the product "user unfriendly" or "too hard" to use. I have heard of projects where the devs were deliberately ordered to remove security features because they weren't "easy to use". This is one area where open source projects like Linux consistently do better (i.e. quality and security) whereas closed source products tend to get the chrome and polish done, but fail the quality and security tests. Some rare companies, Apple being the canonical example, do both well but then it sure doesn't come cheap.
if the employees are unhappy they can always get another job, no shortages of those!
Amen. At least they don't have to deal directly with the general public. If I had to choose between packing boxes or dealing with rude and disgusting people all day, then box packing would win every time. Besides, I don't know about the rest of you here on Slashdot, but I could stand to lose a few pounds and walking 14 miles a day during a ten hour shift would probably go a long way towards accomplishing that.
Anyone here on Slashdot who knows me knows that I am not a big fan of copyright in general as a concept and certainly not the current US implementation which has been really skewed against the public since the Copyright Act of 1976 and followed with real gems like the Copyright Term Extension Act (a.k.a "The Mickey Mouse Protection Act"). However, having said that; doesn't Microsoft own the copyrights on the Windows XP icon set? It seems to me that they could still quash this in the United States because it appears that the icon files have been ripped verbatim from Windows XP.
they are willing to negotiate
They were willing to negotiate in the same way that Ahmadinejad "negotiates" with the UN; going in circles and playing the international community for fools. If we let ourselves be fooled by those tactics then maybe he is right. There are limits to negotiations. The Taliban foreclosed any negotiations beyond the ultimatum when they said "no" to "hand them over". Did you notice the distinct lack of sympathy for the Taliban the world over when the US bombed them after 9-11? There was a reason for that. The Taliban got and are getting what they had coming to them for throwing their lot in with Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. They wrote the declaration of war in their Fatwas and they have made no offers of surrender. They mean to fight to the death so we are left with no other choice but to finish it; even Obama acknowledged as much in his Nobel Peace Prize speech. Some people are beyond negotiation and redemption. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda fall into that category.
No, unless you provide us with evidence.
Its called stalling for time. Nobody with any credibility seriously believes that Al-Qaeda wasn't behind 9-11 or that Bin Laden and other top leadership didn't plan, coordinate, and approve the attacks. If you believe that the Taliban ever would have handed him over then you are being naive.
Proceed with the invasion.
It wasn't an invasion, at least not at first. The CIA landed very small groups, as small as eight man teams, to organize the tribesman and coordinate air strikes. There was a segment on 60 Minutes just tonight, Out of the Shadows where former CIA operative Henry Crumpton describes how the initial operations in 2001 were handled. As Crumpton and others point out, you cannot invade a country with 8 men; they had to get the cooperation of the local tribesmen to kick the Taliban out. The number of US forces directly involved, especially on the ground, was actually quite small back then.
BTW: I especially liked the comments of the head of Afghan intelligence in the interview. He strikes me as being a credible, pragmatic, and realistic sort who understands the threat of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Not just to his own skin (which is of course at risk), but to the United States itself if we fail in Afghanistan. In his words, if Al-Qaeda "wins" in the Afghanistan because American forces pull out, then watch out. They will not wait long before they come back with attacks on the US homeland from a secured base in a "failed" Afghanistan. In his words, many Americans underestimate the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and I agree with him.
Many on the left, including some here on Slashdot, like to point out that terrorism is "no big deal" or "not very important" and so they miss the long term threat to the west posed by militant Islam, not just the prospect of more frequent or regular attacks. The survival of Europe and the United States beyond the 21st century will depend upon, among other things, dealing successfully with the problem of militant Islamists. Does that mean that we simply kill em all? Of course not, it isn't that simple; but it will involve some long term commitments, like in Afghanistan, and that means some amount of ongoing fighting. To suggest otherwise is to be naive and in error about that nature and scope of the threat posed by militant Islamists.
Well, that's not how I remember it.. and read the.. "Prelude to invasion"
Notice the part were we said, "hand over the Al-Qaeda leaders" (presumably that would have included Bin Laden)? And what do you know...they said "no". Shocking? Hardly. So I was correct when I said that we demanded they (i.e. the Taliban) hand them over or else and they Taliban said "see you in hell" and we made good on our threat. When you threaten to use the stick, you have to follow through sometimes; otherwise your enemies begin to doubt your sincerity and resolve.
We also did similar ultimatums with Saddam, that were basicly just like the police telling someone "stop or I'll shoot"
Saddam was a useful minion, especially during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. We kept the Mullahs in Iran busy and they kept him from making trouble elsewhere. The only thing that we should have done differently was found a way to keep the Iraq-Iran war going or arranged for Saddam to "exit" the stage a bit sooner than he eventually did (preferably sometime around 1989); before our pawn completely outlived his usefulness and caused more trouble than he was worth by invading Kuwait.
Yes, yes, killing the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and the rest is too expensive. Perhaps we could ask the Israelis for more ideas on how to be more effective on the cheap? They seem to kill the ringleaders with much greater reliably and for much less money than we do, but who knows...Americans are innovative after all, we just have to find cheaper ways of killing the bad guys. Perhaps that is an area for some stimulus spending? Nothing like investment in arms and weapons to get the economy going after all.
One possible benefit is that increased regulation creates increased barriers to entry of new firms, which has in the past been a major factoring in price wars and increased competition in the airline industry (at least pre 9/11). So it is definitely possible for airlines to lobby for increased regulations and even more stringent security procedures, up to a point anyway, in the hope that it will shield them from competition and give them more convenient ways to deal with rude and abusive travelers. There was a CNBC documentary on American Airlines recently where a 30 year veteran flight attendant said something to the effect of, "when I started working in 1972 they issued me little white gloves; now they issue me handcuffs instead." It was hilarious.
This notion that everything in society has to defer to security is insane.
That is the world we live in; if you don't believe that, ask the Israelis and see how they handle things on El Al and most especially at Ben Gurion International Airport. The TSA goons are rank amateurs compared to the Israelis who are more professional, more effective, and generally more courteous if at times a bit gruff. The TSA could learn a few things from the El Al security personnel about how to actually be effective instead of just annoying.
Imagine if instead of torturing people and invading two countries and starting two wars we had produced evidence, fought hard to extradite bin Laden from Afghanistan, tried him at the world court, and locked him up for the rest of his life. We would have said that the West is not barbaric, fundamentalist religious fanatics are.
You are living in lala land if you think that the Taliban would have handed over Bin Laden. In fact, we demanded that they do exactly that and they told us to piss off (in so many words). We were right to bomb the shit out of them. Although, I agree that the post 9-11 military strategy could have been handled better. IMHO, it would have been better to put more resources into the CIA, unmanned drones, and special forces operations instead of misguided attempts at nation building. The Israelis have had great success at reducing the number and severity of terrorist attacks through targeted killings, security barriers, and successful covert operations. You might not like the methods, but you cannot argue with the results; they speak for themselves. Instead of spending hundreds of billions on invasions we could have exploited the sectarian differences to keep the arabs, persians, and the rest divided and fighting amongst themselves. For decades we supplied arms and played them off against eachother and it worked brilliantly. They were too busy cutting eachothers' throats to be concerned about Europe and the United States. A little bit more Machiavelli and Sun Tzu would have gone a long way towards an acceptable outcome (i.e. fewer and less severe terrorist attacks on US soil) for a much more modest investment. A conflict between the Islamists and the west was and is inevitable, so we might as well play our hand a bit better instead of wasting time, money, and lives on fools errands like nation building.
but the response to 9/11 really isn't the way you want to remember/avenge/retaliate in their memory.
On the other hand, diplomacy has for decades gotten the United States almost nothing in the middle east. At least the Arab governments, corrupt and unsavory though they may have been (or still are), got results when we pay them to crack down or, in the case of the Egyptians and Saudis, prop them up with military aid. The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are now, at last, showing some fruits but one wonders what might have been had we taken a more Machiavellian approach after 9/11. For example, expanding the CIA, moving more quickly on the drone program, and more use of targeted killings (as the Israelis have done successfully), etc. One might not like the methods, but for decades Israel and the United States, for a relatively modest investment of arms and cash bribes, were able to keep the Arabs divided, off-balance, and fighting amongst themselves. It might not have been a perfect solution but it kept the bin Ladens of the world preoccupied with their own regional problems and made willing, if reluctant, allies of the Arab regimes. Sometimes, there is something to be said for taking the "evil" path in foreign relations; it gets results where rational negotiations and niceties fail.
Enjoy the crowds of obnoxious people, screaming babies, filthy floors, cramped seats, blocked views, terrible traffic, and insufficient parking.
This can be a problem yes, but one thing that Avatar has going for it is the Imax 3D angle which generally costs at least $16 US dollars per seat and more like $20+ if one gets popcorn and soda. While some might say that price is a rip-off, it does have the rather nice side effect of discouraging some of the more low-brow elements of the general public (especially during a recession). So, if I were going to see it at the theater I would chose the more expensive Imax 3D option at least one week after release. This reduces substantially the probability of encountering the unpleasant elements enumerated by the parent.
I don't trust them. I cannot trust them because in the United States a public corporation is required by law, first and foremost, to do what is in the best interests of shareholders which generally means anything which legally maximizes profits. As long as Brin and Page continue to deliver the profits, the shareholders will go along with whatever they want to do, but if it comes down to profits or data liberation, I am betting on profits winning the argument; whether or not that is good for "openness".
The problem is that businesses don't want to pay highly-trained and specialized workers more. They've tried outsourcing, right-sizing, downsizing, globalization, and every other way possible to screw people out of wages. And curiously enough, we keep coming back to the same problem -- no matter how big you make the labor pool, the required training and experience required to do these jobs demands a certain minimum income
This is a good point and it highlights a problem with current government attempts to encourage more youngsters to pursue careers in STEM. We say that we want "smarter" high school students and more interest in STEM professions while at the same time we continue to see outsourcing, visa fraud, and even less savory tactics used by employers to avoid paying for skills and expertise they say are needed to compete in the 21st century economy. The smart high school students are going to ask, "Why should we bust our butts to earn an engineering degree for a job that is underpaid, relative to the time, effort, and expense required to train for it, and is under constant threat of being cut, outsourced, or downsized"? They will choose to go into law, business, or medicine (although poorly implemented health care "reform" may soon ruin that career path too) instead.
A career in STEM is in many ways a lifelong commitment requiring high levels of ongoing participation both to stay current and to grow in one's chosen area of expertise. People are reluctant to make these sorts of commitments where employment is no longer guaranteed, jobs get outsourced at the drop of a hat, and STEM gets little or no respect from upper management. In fact, many upper management types are actively hostile towards STEM and resent the "high" wages earned by "skilled" workers (especially in IT) who are not, in their eyes, involved in "leadership" roles. This is compounded by the fact that many R&D oriented STEM careers require higher levels of independence and creative freedom than most MBAs are comfortable granting.
How then can we convince a "smart" student that STEM are great career choices? Given the present reality, I am not sure that we can.
Ah, the wonderful sound of thousands of cancelled contracts! Nothing quite like it.
Which won't happen because just about everyone who wanted the iphone or out of Verizon for some other reason has already bailed. The people who are left are there for the coverage or to put it more bluntly, it's the network stupid. They will piss and moan and grumble about it but it will not be enough to get them to switch because they chose Verizon for the network ; not because they had the best smartphones. Verizon is doing this because they can and their customers will like it that way. Verizon a bully? who knew....right.
With the amount of Federal money currently tied up in health care reform there will be massive pressure to cut costs which means threat of Federal preemption of state licensing rules if states refuse cost cutting measures like out of state doctors. I am not saying that this is a good thing, but I can definitely see it happening. This, among other things, is one of the main reasons why so many Americans oppose health care reform as currently proposed because once the Federal government gets involved and Federal money starts flowing there will be strong pressure to centralize and control all health care and related issues at the Federal level. Naturally, this would constitute a massive expansion of the power and intrusiveness of Federal government; hence the visceral opposition of most freedom loving and clear thinking Americans.
Is it just me or does this sound like code for offshore outsourcing of doctors? If the doctor doesn't have to actually see you in person then the next logical question is: Does it matter where the doctor is physically located? If the answer to that is 'no' then you can bet your bottom dollar (or rupee if you prefer) that you 'personal physician' will be some video conference station linked to some 'doctor center' in India. Of course, most American senior citizens have a hard enough time understanding Indian accented English when the get 'outsourced to India' for phone tech support so just imagine how they will feel when their doctor is outsourced too as a 'cost saving' measure. The outsourcing of front line medical services (it is already being done with back office tasks like reading x-rays) may become the next big battleground issue in the offshoring debate; the demand is there, cost is the issue in health care, and the tech makes it possible or at least plausible.
The best programming language in the world will not solve the problem of poor programmers and poor coding practices.
In my experience, the problem is more often due to inept hit and run management getting into a project, causing chaos among the dev teams, and then bailing for a new job or a promotion before the full harmful effects of their meddling become apparent. For example, they may "trim the fat" from the schedule without realizing that they have completely ruined the system by forcing premature release with abbreviated testing (i.e. the customers can do the testing so we don't have to worry about that now) or perhaps they insist upon a certain sub-optimal technology being used without understanding the implications or just to be "buzzword compliant". These poor decisions often have a ripple effect throughout the entire project, completely overshadowing any redeeming features that might have otherwise averted a complete disaster. These managers believe that their oh-so-smart MBA degree certifies them to contribute to anything, including software development, with superior results when in fact it only certifies their stupidity.
That was one thing that I liked about Dark Age of Camelot back in the day. The stealth classes, which most people either love or hate, provided some balance in this area by being able to backstab with poisons for massive damage. In PvP this basically meant that if the stealther was equal level to the healer he could kill the healer in seconds with that first surprise attack. Of course, the stealther was then visible to everyone and vulnerable to counter-attack and depending upon what other players where in the area the healers may or may not have been the most important targets to take out first. They basically decided not to do stealth classes in WoW and IMHO that removes an important balancing element from the game; especially in PvP.
but we see the ratio of men to women in computing because men are interested in or gifted in computing at a ratio higher than women.
Working in computing requires a certain amount of rational and logical thinking as well as the ability to grasp complex abstractions and juggle multiple constructs simultaneously in the short term memory. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect, these traits are much more common in men and even then mostly in particular personality types (not every man is cut out to work in computing either). Finally there is a certain minimum intelligence score required to grasp the complex incantations required for high level IT work. That last one was a joke for those not following.
resulting in massive beancounter agro.
Yes, but do they add?
The problem is that there is no deterministic way to determine what is and what is not a "peaceful, non-intrusive, text-only delivery system" so those of us using ad blockers invariably have regular expression rules that block any links with common advertising substrings such as "ads" in the URL. When people use ad blockers there is going to be "collateral damage", there is a reason why some call ad blockers "the nuclear plugins" after all.
There are many differences between Switzerland and the United States that make this problem more complex than you suggest. For example, illegal immigration is practically unheard of in Switzerland whereas in the United States it is quite common. This might have something to do with the fact that Switzerland is practically surrounded by mountains in the middle of continental Europe while the United States shares one of the largest land borders in the world with what is effectively a second-world country. There are many other reasons too. The American consumer uses checks for certain transactions because, for a variety of reasons that are not under his control, a check sometimes makes the most sense. Is it inefficient? Probably. Is that the fault of the US consumer? In many cases, no.
if some of us little people got together to try to build a network for handling cash out of the government's and the banks' eyes, it would be tied up in anti-terror laws faster than you can say, "Hawala."
As proof, witness what happened with the Liberty Dollar in 2007.
That's it right there. The banking systems are all ultimately controlled by the governments of this world and they have no interest in enabling large anonymous transactions. This is why large denomination bills, at least in countries where rampant inflation hasn't made them worthless, haven't been printed in nearly half a century in most places around the world.