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  1. Re:PIV - HIV on Feds To Have Unified Biometric Federal ID System · · Score: 1
    If it's serious enough - yes, you don't rely on a single electronic panacea for your security,

    A single electronic system is far superior to a system of multiple laminated paper badges. I know lots of folks who, to get their jobs done, carry around half a dozen badges. Some are electronic (rf door openers, etc), but most are just pieces of paper with organizations' logos and the holder's name and picture.
    Folks get badges by filling out detailed histories of themselves. The FBI (or their contractors) then contact references, neighbors, former employers, whoever they can think of to dig up dirt. So don't lose sleep about the folks carrying these new badges losing their privacy. They gave up privacy from the government when they asked for a clearance.
    The main superiority of a unified electronic system is that there is the possibilty of an easy, centralized revocation mechanism. With paper, you have to physically take the badge away. And most agencies don't know which other agencies may have granted a person access. So if one agency decides someone is a risk, it can take a while for all the badges to go away.

    We still don't know how much was breifing an ally and how much was a figment of McCarthy's power crazed little mind.

    Google Klaus Fuchs. Born a German, fled the Nazis, became a British subject, got work on the Manhatten project, passed information to the USSR, was caught after returning to the UK, confessed, and was convicted in 1950. Several years before Mccarthy started his reign of terror. Likely Fuchs was one of the reasons that people were scared enough to listen to McCarthy.

    You probably wouldn't find anyone working on anthrax, smallpox or other pathogens for military use in a building at MIT.

    No, but I expect you would at Harvard. BTW, the Army's main medical research facility (which includes "defensive" research on biological weapons) is in Frederick, Md, about 30 miles upwind of Washington DC.
    Ebola got loose in a reseach facility in Reston, Va in 1989. Killed all the monkeys, but didn't affect the humans. They tore the building down and built a day care center on the site. Reston is in the second tier of DC suburbs.

    You can't exile everyone who works on classified or dangerous material to the boonies; not enough folks will give up their lives for a job.

  2. Re:PIV - HIV on Feds To Have Unified Biometric Federal ID System · · Score: 1
    The Manhatten project was pretty secure without the benefit of biometric ID

    They would have used biometrics if they had them. But also consider that the manhatten project involved isolating most of the scientists out in the desert. No visits home allowed. And even so, the Soviets got wind of what was going on.

    If you are so concerned about a badge system that allows people to use one badge instead of half a dozen, then are you going to move all classified work to the middle of nowhere?

  3. Re:wont work on Feds To Have Unified Biometric Federal ID System · · Score: 1
    Back in April, I noticed soldiers armed with assult rifles walking around the domestic terminal at Toronto International Airport. I must admit I was not expecting to see this at all, though they were only around the entrance, and no where near security.

    Back in 1975 I noticed soldiers walking around the Rome airport with machine guns. In fact they had their own little balcony that overlooked the entire area. Two soldiers every 20 yards or so. Remember that Italy had a nasty terrorist problem then. Societies accept whatever they need to feel safe.

  4. Re:Nothing for you to see here. Please move along on SCO.com Defaced · · Score: 2, Interesting
    ...so what better way to stir up some noise...

    It is a little curious that this happens the morning after Groklaw puts up the USL-UCB Regents agreement from '94. The one that SCO doesn't have a copy of. Hmmm

  5. Re:-1 Wrong on New Bin Laden Tape Surfaces · · Score: 1

    At one level, you are right, the civil was was about whether or not a state could secceed from the Union. (By the way, I am of the opinion that Lincoln was wrong. States should have had the right to leave the Union.) But the cause of the war was slavery. By the middle of the 1800s the South had become very aggressive in trying to expand the reach of slavery. Texas' independence from Mexico was driven by the need of immigrants from the US to use slaves to run their cotton plantations. Mexico's constitution forbad slavery, so the Texicans revolted. Similarly, the Mexican war of 1847 was fought to get more room for the westward expansion of slavery. Finally, in the 1850s we get the repeal of the Missouri compromise (allowing westward expansion of slavery), the fugitive slave laws (requiring that Northerners assist slave catchers), and the Dred Scott decision (written by a mostly Southern Supreme Court) overthrew all the compromises about slavery. The South wanted the civil war; they got it; they lost; and then they rewrote history, at least popular history.

  6. Re:100 000 civilians collateral damages on New Bin Laden Tape Surfaces · · Score: 1
    My question to supporters and non supporters of the war is: Do 100 000 civilians death is an acceptable price to pay to overthrow a dictator?

    My question is, who gave us the right to make the choice to spend Iraqi lives to change the Iragi government. One of the fundamental tenets of democracy is that people have the right to choose their own government. It is a paradox that a committed democrat must respect the decision of a people to choose a non-democratic form of government.

    If people have the right to choose their government, then they also have the duty to choose their government. If the people of Iraq chose not to overthrow Saddam, then who are we to say their choice was wrong. Perhaps the Iraqis didn't want to spend 100,000 lives (and counting).

    And for those of you who are thinking that the people of Iraq could not have overthrown Saddam, it seems to me that they are doing a hell of a job of standing up to the US.

  7. Re:Honest question on Big Arctic Perils Seen in Warming · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Shutting off the gulf stream (GS) is much simpler than complex fluid dymanics. The GS is warm and salty. As it gets to northern reaches, it cools and becomes denser than the surrounding water, so it sinks. If you introduce large amounts of fresh water from melting glaciers you get a problem, because even cold fresh water won't sink. It is lighter than the surrounding salt water. A large enough body of fresh water will block the GS.

    There is strong evidence that this has happened in the past, most recently at the end of the last ice age. And when the GS shuts off, it takes a many human lifetimes to restart.

  8. Re: Yes, and don't forget on 100,000 Civilians Dead in Iraq · · Score: 1
    I'd like to see the accounting measures that these "experts" used.

    Then RTFA. It explains the sampling techniques, includes the study's authors talking about the uncertainties involved in doing this kind of estimate.

    Until then, it is best to remain skeptical of anything coming out of American media regarding the middle east.

    This study did not originate with American media. The study was published in The Lancet which is a generally well-regarded British medical journal.

  9. Re:The study is a lie and an extrapolation tsarkon on 100,000 Civilians Dead in Iraq · · Score: 1
    What is interesting is that the administration seems to be backing off from the "hundreds of thousands in mass graves" claim. I have heard reports (but can't find a good link at the moment) that we have only found about 5000 bodies in mass graves to date. Even Rumsfeld has reduced the estimate: Rumsfeld remarked that "some very bad people" want to take Iraq back "to a place where there are mass graves of tens of thousands of people."

    Tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands. So it is entirely possible that the US has killed more Iraqi civilians in a year and a half that Saddam did in 30 years.

  10. Re: Yes, and don't forget on 100,000 Civilians Dead in Iraq · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I learned this from reading our intelligence reports, which is my job.

    Are these reports from the same folks who told us the Iraqis would throw flowers at our tanks?
    Are these reports from the same folks who said Saddam had WMD ready to fire in 45 minutes?
    Are these reports from the same folks who underestimated the extent of Saddam's WMD programs before gulf war 1?
    Are these reports from the same folks who didn't see the Pakistani A-bomb coming?

  11. Re:Saturn Vs, Please? on NASA Considering Early Retirement of Shuttle Program · · Score: 5, Informative
    I worked in a NASA shop 10 years ago. I was surprized to learn that we couldn't restart production of the Saturns. We don't have all the manufacturing specs, prints, etc. And we certainly don't have any of the jigs and special setups that they used to make those birds.

    The moral of the story is that when you shut down the manufacturing line for a complex product, you shut it down for good.

  12. Re:No differnces? on Would John Kerry Defang the DMCA? · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Democrats use the courts to pass policies they know they could never be elected by supporting.

    Oh, those sneaky Dems! They must be really clever to get the courts to do their bidding, considering that most judges have been appointed by Republicans.

    Just to review, of the 9 Supreme Court justices, 1 was appointed by Ford(R), 4 by Reagan(R), 2 by Bush1(R), and 2 by Cinton(D). So the 7-2 Republican court is doing the Dems dirty work.

  13. Re:Bullshit on Electoral College Abolition Amendment and IRV Bill · · Score: 2, Insightful
    We only have slightly over a million people, but the STATE has 3 electoral votes so while the candidates spend most of their time in the states with the huge populations, tiny states like ours don't get a lot of attention, but the electoral college makes sure we're not forgotten.

    Lets see, according to the 2000 census, Delaware's population is 738,600. US population is 281,241,906. So Delaware is 0.26% of the total population. For fairness, Deleware should have 0.26 senators, 1.14 represenatatives, and 1.41 electoral college votes.

    I'd say Delaware's citizens are over-represented. At the expense of the citizens of larger states.

  14. Re:Second Amendment on Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor · · Score: 2, Interesting
    because the rule is found in the second clause

    True. But if you look up the phrase "to bear arms" in the Oxford English Dictionary, you will find that the definition current at the time of the writing of the Second Amendment (indeed, the only definition the phrase has ever had) is "to serve as a soldier, to fight."

    Here's a statement that shows similar sentence structure: "Since all clowns are purple, you must clean your room." The truthfulness of whether or not all clowns actually are purple doesn't affect whether or not you must clean your room.

    You misparse the Second Amendment. What you call the first clause is actually a nominative absolute (NA). NAs are descended from the Latin ablative absolute, and serve to set the conditions of the sentence. An example NA is, "The weather being fair, we decided to have a picnic." The main sentence (the picnic decision) is embedded in the fact that the weather was nice. So the right to bear arms is colored by the the necessity of well-regulated militias.

    There was also a bit of social nose-thumbing going on, because in England you had to be at a certain level in the hierarchy of the aristocracy before you were allowed to bear arms. The new Americans were turning that bit of snobery on its head.

  15. Re:Nice flamebait re: FDR on The Jobs Crunch · · Score: 1
    This is modded informative??

    As president FDR, during the London Economic Conference in 1933 which called to coordinate efforts stabilize the world wide economy, he pretty much unilaterally pulled out angering and alienating all the European delegates and eventually leading to the breakdown of the conference. Some historians feel that this breakdown of this conference contributed to prolonging the recession/depression in europe and led to the rise of dictators in some countries which eventually led to WWII.

    I'd like to know who these historians are, so I can avoid them. Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922. Hitler came to power in January 1933, before FDR took office. Stalin pretty much controlled the Soviet Union by 1926. What dictators came to power because of the failure of the London Conference in the summer of 1933? Franco? He was neutral during WWII.

    By the way, one of FDR's biggest legacies is the Federal Income Tax

    Say what?? The 16th ammendment to the constitution (which allows the federal income tax) was passed in 1913. And by the end of WWI, the higest tax rate was 97%.

    Where do you get this stuff??

  16. Re:All I know is... on The Jobs Crunch · · Score: 2, Insightful
    But you have to admit that the possibility is there for anybody determined enough.

    But it is mostly the possibility of failure. From this report

    According to Dun & Bradstreet reports, "Businesses with fewer than 20 employees have only a 37% chance of surviving four years (of business) and only a 9% chance of surviving 10 years." Restaurants only have a 20% chance of surviving 2 years. Of these failed business, only 10% of them close involuntarily due to bankruptcy and the remaining 90% close because the business was not successful, did not provide the level of income desired or was too much work for their efforts

    The old adage, "People don't plan to fail, they fail to plan" certainly holds true when it comes to small business success. The failure rate for new businesses seems to be around 70% to 80% in the first year and only about half of those who survive the first year will remain in business the next five years 3 .

  17. Re:Counter example would have helped. on Randall Davis: IBM Has No SCO Code · · Score: 2, Informative
    It surely wouldn't have been hard to take some, say, early and "in the clear" code that has been reused and modified over time to show both that it can be identified and to show how code that has evolved can still leave the fingerprint of the original code.

    That's the SCO argument, isn't it, that derivative works are theirs by copyright. Trouble is that the law is different. Copyright covers the representation not the idea. And for software having malloc() in two pieces of code doesn't rise to copyright violation.

  18. Re:Best reason to vote Bush out on Cringely: MS To Hurt Linux Via USB Enhancements · · Score: 1
    And what does Bush have to do with this anyway?

    Weren't paying attention to the MS antitrust trial, were you? Clinton's Department of Justice (DOJ) got MS convicted for antitrust violations. Bush's DOJ declined to ask for effective remedies. MS went back to business as usual.

  19. Re:The thing about corporations... on Companies, Government and Community Fiber Rollouts · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Even if an unusually-enlightened CEO were to end up in charge of a major corporation, he would soon be removed from office when his sense of responsibility and duty to the community lowered the profit margin a fraction of a percent.

    Nonsense! Last time I checked (~10 years ago) Target gave 5% of their profit back to the communities where their stores are. Costco pays its workers a living wage (min is $10/hr I hear) when they could probably get by paying $5.15 to the lowest rungs.
    Corporations, like people, get to decide what posture they want to take in the world. WalMart may decide to screw everybody in sight for that last nickle. But I get to decide what kind of companies I deal with. I shop at Target and Costco, but not WalMart.
    Make your own choices. They shape the world.

  20. Re:Ma Bell can't die... on Companies, Government and Community Fiber Rollouts · · Score: 1
    Netflix would not be able to operate if not for the United States Postal Service, for example. The same goes for most magazine subscriptions. Sure, FedEx, UPS and Airborne Express all compete with the USPS express and priority line of services, but everybody else is prohibited by law from making a daily stop at every address without a pre-existing relationship.

    You choose a bad example. Prior to WWI, Wells Fargo (then a shipping company, now a bank) ran a mail service in direct competition to the Post Office. At the US entry to WWI, all of Wells Fargo's rolling stock was nationalized for the war effort. So they couldn't run their mail service. After the war, the Post Office was granted a formal monopoly on mail delivery.

  21. Re:Chewbacca Economic Theory on Outsourcing is Good for You · · Score: 1
    As software becomes cheaper ...

    This sounds like an argument for open source.

    Don't expect software prices to fall just because they are coded by folks making 5K$/yr. Microsoft is already 37% Indian, and I don't see their prices falling.

  22. Re:nonsense... on The Python Paradox, by Paul Graham · · Score: 1
    financial incentive is one of the strongest motivators

    For some folks, that's true. For others, it is not true. Consider poets. What they do has no economic value whatsoever. But they continue to write. Just like great hackers continue to write code.

    I actually feel sorry for folks who work only for money.

  23. Re:Well Rounded - Read the curriculum on Northface University - Computer Science in Half the Time? · · Score: 1

    I did dig around on their site, and I wonder how they got this accredited as a BS degree. You got the course titles right, but did you spend any time wondering how you do justice to graph theory and introductory calculus in 3 "credits?"

    I put credits in quotes because their credits bear no relation to quarter hours from the schools I'm familiar with. The currriculum has 3 25 credit quarters and one 24 hour quarter. Where I come from a credit represented 1 hour in class and 3 hours studying.

    Back to the curriculum.
    150 credits of CS (including certification labs).
    12 credits of Language Arts.
    6 credits of science.
    8 credits of philosophy.
    12 credits of math.
    4 credits of history.
    2 credits psychology.
    2 credits of what looks like sociology.
    5 credits of business.
    3 credits of healthy living.

    So 150 of the 204 credits in this program are in CS. It may be a fine trade school, but no way should they be allowed to grant a bachelor's degree.

  24. Commoditization on The Future of the Software Industry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think that what software is turning into a commodity. It think what is happening is that it is getting very hard to charge premium prices for software that implements old solutions. My customers (mostly) don't care about programming languages, OSes, or database managers. But they sure have to pay for them.
    But there is very little innovation left to be had in these basic layers, so why are we being charged thousands, and even tens of thousands, for licenses? Surely not to support R&D.
    It may well be that we are entering an era when we will see a great blossoming of innovation, if only because sole proactitioners and small teams can afford to the tools to tackle the kinds of problems that need to be solved today.

  25. Re:My post on How Microsoft Develops Its Software · · Score: 1
    No, defects are known bugs. We write software, and we have our own jargon for describing that process. You can like it or not - we really don't care what you think. What's next, will you demand that doctors use plain english when talking to one another?

    It's nice that you don't care what we think. And it's nice that you have your own jargon. But don't think that it is universal. The folks from the 5th Internatioal Conference on Software Testing seem to disagree with you:

    "Wouldn't it be nice if you could have more insight into the quality of a product, while it is developed, and not afterwards? Would you like to be able to estimate how many defects are inserted in the product in a certain phase, and how effective a (test) phase is in capturing these defects? To optimize your test phases regarding focus and effort in relation to how many defects they will find? This presentation will show a simple but very effective model that makes it possible: The Project Defect Model. " emphasis added

    You can't substitute "known bug" for "defect" in this quote. Google "latent defect software" for more examples.