Which is why Smith (and Rand) are wrong, and capitalism works best under some kind of independent control.
I would prefer to say that it works but on a time scale longer than you are giving it. In a perfectly open capitalistic market, a company that propped itself up in a manner such as HD-DVD is being propped up would eventually collapse. A subsidized product will always cost more (to the producer if not the customer) than a non-subsidized product. Therefore, a superior product that sold on its own merits need not be subsidized and would be more appealing.
The problem here is we're dealing with short time scales of a few years, which is just one big-ticket buying cycle. Much like the current situation with Windows vis-a-vis Linux, Windows is the de facto standard for now, but complacency on Microsoft's part and aggressiveness on the Linux-heads could (and most likely will) eventually topple it. Microsoft's overhead and profit-margin "commitments" to shareholders can ultimately conspire to make it too expensive to justify a narrowing list of advantages over competing products.
Also keep in mind that technical excellence is not necessarily the measure of what is the "best" product for a consumer. Other factors such as usability, availability, aesthetics, and a ton of other things factor in the perceived value. Although you and I may think the best is choice A, we probably represent a distinct minority of the overall buying public. If something wins ths fight that we consider to be inferior, remember that others have a distinctly different set of priorities. However, if it is "best" for the majority of the market, the "best" product has indeed won the fight.
It's called a 'joke'. An attempt at wit, or humor. A common subject of humor is political figures.
Dear sub-Genius,
I challenge you to point out exactly how that could be construed as humor. It seems in no way even remotely entertaining, and the subject matter is a serious concern. Neither was your post humorous. Or informative. Or even relevant. In fact, you were devoid of useful thoughts on the matter at hand. Please try again later when you're feeling more...intelligent.
If they're actually doing the deed, and it appears they are, what difference does the motivation of the whistle blower make?
First off, I've seen zero evidence presented (by you or anyone else) that would back up your statement that "they're actually doing the deed." When such evidence is presented, I'll be happy to consider it. However, that's not what I was arguing by making my prior statement. The motivation matters not, but neither does it help the article's author to attempt to draw some conclusion that he/she readily admits may not even exist. It seems more to be a straining attempt to paint guilt by association.
Why would you defend this heavy handed stupidity under any circumstances?
You know, this reminds me of the idiotic statements so many liberals have made lately claiming that conservatives are calling their patriotism into question when in fact they're calling their judgment into question. Go back and read my post. Does it defend this NASA censorship in any way whatsoever? Does it try to justify it? Can you point to any single word, phrase, or sentence that can even obliquely hints that I think it's a good thing? No, you cannot, because such words, phrases, or sentences do not exist! You have made them up in your head because you want them to be there, thus giving you an excuse to excoriate NASA/Bush/Rove/whoever for whatever crime you've already indicted them with.
Well, fucktard, perhaps you misunderstand the use of common English. Let me school you a bit since you seem in dire need of it.
The use of the phrase "some hardwired DoS attacks involve..." [emphasis mine] denotes that some attacks involve a spoofed source. This does not mean it is required, just as the fact that you can type obviously does not require you to have any intelligence whatsoever as you've so ably demonstrated. Spoofing a source address can allow an attacker to camouflage their attack, but you can launch a DoS just as easily (moreso, actually) without. It just increases the likelihood that you're going to be found and prosecuted, that's all.
Now, will you please go back to your Lair of Stupid and leave the intelligent discussion to those of us who know what the fuck we're talking about?
I am taking a cisco internetworking class and I do not think that it is similar to a DoS attack because a DoS attack involves changing the source address in the packets that are sent to a server. I do not think any students at Duke have found a way to hack the iphone to allow modified packets to be sent out.
Not to seem unkind, but it sounds like you need to finish your classes before weighing in on this subject. You do not seem to understand the nature of a DoS attack enough to comment properly on it.
To clarify, it has nothing to do with altering the source address. While some hardwired DoS attacks involve the spoofing of source addresses, it is not required. Any kind of action that prevents the target from functioning as designed constitutes a DoS attack, and flooding an AP with spurious MAC requests fits that description. Since the iPhone is doing this as part of its (probably flawed) design, no hacking of the iPhone is required.
The Cisco AP's and WLAN controller have little choice but to listen to whatever traffic the iPhone spews out. Sure, they can discard or ignore the traffic, but it doesn't change the fact that a rampant iPhone "attack" will consume shared air time even if such action is taken. With enough iPhones, any single AP can be completely overwhelmed even if it's ignoring everything the iPhone is throwing at it.
As I said before, you can't switch, route, or firewall air. You're always at the mercy of the person transmitting with the least control or scruples.
Probably because he knows that a wireless network -- no matter how robust -- will always be at the mercy of a misbehaving device. Air is a shared medium. You can't force a device to shut up no matter what you try, assuming the device is engineered badly enough. That seems to be the case here. Even attempting something basic like blocking a wildcard MAC for all iPhones wouldn't work if the device just persistently floods the airwaves with spurious requests. It's essentially a DoS attack similar to a ping flood, but with no way to "cut it off" at an upstream router. Even better, the "attacking" device isn't fixed to a landline somewhere, it could be roving around in somebody's pocket or purse making neutralization a huge headache. Fun!
I've done consulting in the wireless market for a while now. One of my key markets is the healthcare market, and I make sure I tell any hospital using wireless that there is absolutely, positively, unequivocally no way they can stop a determined DoS WLAN attack. Set up a noise source at 2.4GHz (or 5.8GHz for 802.11a), crank up the wattage well above the FCC limit for the ISM bands, and aim the antenna at the building. It *will* shut down *any* WLAN you've got unless the building is built like a Faraday cage.
There is nothing you can do about it short of rooting out the source of the noise and shutting it down. Granted, such an attack is highly illegal (violates FCC radiated power limits, which might be a felony, I'm not sure), but I doubt that's on the mind of the prankster (or terrorist) who's shutting you down.
Libby was covering whose ass, exactly? Unless you're either (a) living in a cave or (b) hopelessly unable to separate a liberal ideology from reality, you'd know that Richard Armitage, not Libby, "leaked" the name of CIA "agent" Valerie Plame.
So, Libby lied about what? Having a faulty memory? He couldn't have lied about leaking Plame's identity because Armitage did that. And all this completely ignores the fact that (a) Plame didn't meet the definition of a covert agent since she hadn't served in a covert capacity in the last several years and (b) the person "leaking" the name of the "agent" had to be aware that the agent's status was protected. Libby met none of those requirements. Neither did Rove, Cheney, Bush, or anybody else. The only person who could reasonably be charged with doing anything wrong was Richard Armitage who, thus far, was completely ignored by the special counsel appointed specifically to investigate this entire non-incident.
Libby was a scapegoat alright, but a scapegoat of the left, not the right. Libby got convicted not to save Rove/Cheney/Bush, but because the Democrats had to produce a victim in their witch hunt or face humiliation.
And, for the record, Reagan shouldn't have pardoned a heroin dealer and Bush shouldn't have pardoned the Iran-Contra folks.
With an administration that is turning out to be as bad as the Nixon and Harding administrations combined, I wouldn't be at all surprised. Marvel will tell you that it's just coincidence, and it may very well be, but that doesn't mean it's not timely.
You forgot to add "Clinton" to that list. You do realize Bill Clinton pardoned 16 members of the FALN, a Puerto Rican terrorist group responsible for more than 120 bombings and at least six deaths? And don't forget the cocaine trafficker, the bank fraudsters, the perjurers, the billionaire tax evasion fugitive, the Whitewater contempt-of-court inmate, several Congressional Democrat felons, and his own drug-convicted brother. All of these done on the very last day of his presidency, of course. Not that such actions were in any way designed to pay back political favors while escaping any sort of press scrutiny or political fallout.
Lots of presidents have used the power of the pardon and clemency unwisely, but if you're going to go back as far as Harding to find an example to go with Nixon, I think you overlooked a rather sterling example of this kind of abuse. I fixed that for you.
If you took the time to read the parent post to which I was replying to, maybe you wouldn't have made such an ass of yourself. But hey, it's a free country, right?
What parent post? OH! You mean, my parent post! Or are you too dense to understand the threading concept at Slashdot? But wait, I'm forgetting that you have a media degree, so I should've automatically adjusted my expectations of your intelligence downwards to begin with. My apologies for exposing your mental limitations for all to see.
As for it being a free country, you should be careful saying that! It sounds too much like that old "land of the free, home of the brave bullshit" you spoke of earlier. The censors will come and get you! After all, censorship is everywhere...right?
As a media graduate let me just say that there are many subtle ways to censor a story.
Thank you, dear sir, for stumbling upon the obvious. It's a credit to your degree in media that you have such a penetrating insight into the commonplace.
Now that the sarcasm is out of the way, allow me to say that, according to your definition, censorship can be anything, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, done by anyone to anything. Conveniently, this allows you to play the victim whenever you want whilst simultaneously brushing off criticism as either naive or myrmidons of The Man(tm). "Censorship exists whenever I say it does, and your refutation of that confirms your desire to censor me!" How quaint and useful!
Pardon me if I don't subscribe to such a ridiculous notion. Then again, maybe I'm just partaking too much of this "'land of the free, home of the brave bullshit" as you so eloquently put it. Did your media professor advise you to use that last expletive, or did you have to look it up? Perhaps you've heard of the phrase "profanity is the province of little minds," or didn't they teach that in your curriculum?
Now what? You admit you're completely wrong, or you plow on ahead?
Uh...how about option (C) point out how absolutely obtuse you are in ignoring the meaning of the definition you just quoted. Conveniently, you have now justified my original post. Bravo! I've been needing a dictionary lackey for a while.
Now, what was your point again? Or were you just ineffectually trying to seem important to this debate?
The problem is, here in America, "mass media" is controlled by very few people. There's almost no independent media left. So, most news stories are controlled by a small number of self-interested individuals. Some are controlled by the profit motive. Others are controlled by their limited access. In the end, we get a very slanted view of "news."
I've got a solution for you. It's this newfangled thing called "The Internet." It's a world-spanning network where anyone can become a news source instantly and almost for free. Even better, hundreds of millions of people can view your "news," largely without any interference by any other party (except places like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.) You should try The Internet sometime. I hear it's great!
Hey, don't worry if you've never heard of this "Internet" thing. I hear Bill Gates underestimated it as well, so you're in good company.
Last I heard, censorship is when The Man(tm) takes forcible action to squash a story that's damaging, incriminating, or otherwise detrimental to The Powers That Be(tm). You know, like North Korea killing stories of mass starvation, or good old Soviet-style disinformation and destruction of the concept of a free press like what's going on in...old Soviet-style Russia.
However, while I was napping last night, someone conveniently changed the definition to mean "when the mass media doesn't give a certain pet story/cause/event of mine the attention I think it deserves."
Somebody call Websters. Unless, of course, the story headline is wrong, and this is merely someone upset their pet story/cause/event isn't getting the attention they think it deserves......nah, that couldn't be it.
What are these "women" things you speak of? I've been in IT for around two decades. Although I've heard of these "women" things, I have yet to ever see one. I think they're a myth, like the tooth fairy or something, made up to give lonely IT guys something to dream about while they're debugging C++.
Hey, why are you reading this? Aren't you supposed to be changing that toner cartridge out for the project manager on the 11th floor?
If we spent even one tenth of what we spend on building new weapons, instead on diplomacy and peace initiatives, and curing world diseases and poverty, maybe so many people wouldn't want to attack and kill us in the first place.
No...the rest of the world would look at us and say "What? You could only give a tenth? We want more!" The U.N. would pass a resolution mandating we give 50% of our GNP to help the "poor and underdeveloped" nations of the world that have been busily squandering the billions in aid we already pipe overseas.
Face it, bub. The rest of the world hates us because we have more of everything they want. More money, more guns, more liberties, more land, more resources...
We are hated because of envy, pure and simple. All this other crap about us "not playing well with others" is just a BS smokescreen for envy.
Were it not for larger, profitable companies buying and propping up some of these car companies up, some of them would be extinct. So, your "line of reasoning" comment is truer than you might think despite your attempt to make my argument sound incorrect.
As for how the others stay in business, you could say they follow the Apple Macintosh business model: they offer semi-premium products at an ultra-premium price, counting on cachet value to draw customers who have more money than sense. One odd automotive parallel I've seen is that lots of Mac owners are also Porsche-philes. Clearly they don't mind paying double what their neighbor paid for the same goods just so they can loft their Porsche-scented noses in the air. Never mind that for the price of a Turbo 911 you could've bought a Corvette Z06 that would see the 911 eating exhaust fumes. It's all about "image" you know...[/sarcasm]
Look, if you want to be ridiculously pedantic, go right ahead. I'll freely admit I should have said "nearly no one" instead of "nobody." Happy now?
The thrust of my argument remains true, however. You're more likely to win the lottery than to ever see one of those 350 cars on the road during a commute.
When I can buy one of these for under $40K, call me. Until then, this is a neat idea which requires much more development before anyone will be interested.
I'm all for green power, green transport, et. al. But if it costs me more than my house, what's the point? Nobody will buy it because nobody can afford it, good intentions or not.
Now if all automakers would suddenly convert over to pure carbon-fiber bodies, CF production costs would (eventually) plummet to the point where it's the same cost (or cheaper) than steel. But that's not likely to happen anytime soon.
Now that's a bit of a stretch, don't you think? I use and love Firefox. It's what I'm typing this in right now. But I use both browsers on a daily basis. There are some sites that only look right in IE7 (due to web developers optimizing for IE at the expense of standards), and there are some sites that don't like IE7 yet (and thus work better in IE6 or -- since that isn't available if you have IE7 -- in FF). And then there's sites using ActiveX (such as Microsoft's Outlook Web Access) which only work at full capacity in IE.
Sure, FF is making inroads. It's my browser of choice (almost exclusively because of extensions, though, and not due to any other groundbreaking feature in FF). But to construe that "abandoning" IE is ridiculous. Both are useful.
What most amazes me are the Viking landers. Looking at some of the pictures they took, the quality is just great. And they kept transmitting information for years - I think Viking 2 finally died in 1982 or something, six years after landing. Cult 1970s technology!
Not to denigrate that "cult 1970's technology," but what's really sad about this is how pretty much all of our post-Viking landers have been limited by batteries and solar cells, whereas the "old" 70's tech had long-lived radioisotope thermal generators (RTG). What a pity the anti-nuke crowd is so paranoid that we're forced to limit the exploration of Mars because their knee-jerk reactions to anything nuclear border on the hysterical.
Interestingly enough it is the free market economists that answer this question for us. US Automakers provide an inferior product and refuse to compete on service and warranty (or at least that is the common perception).
I think you rely a bit too much on that "common perception" thing you refer to. While it may be true that imports consistently rank highest in terms of initial quality, the spread between the top and the bottom is quite narrow compared to the Bad Old Days of Detroit in the 70's and 80's. Suffice to say that, while perhaps not the best there is, domestic automaking quality is sufficiently high that they're not cutting costs with third-world labor. If anything, they're forced to cut corners in materials or engineering because union-mandated wages are so high compared to their foreign competition.
Linux is no threat to Microsoft
I'm sure Steve Ballmer would be pleased to hear you say that, but your argument misses the point so blatantly that I'm surprised you'd use it. Linux isn't a competitor because it's free? What nonsense is that? Linux and Microsoft compete head to head in a very important, high profitable market: the server room. Every Linux server installation is one sale Microsoft (most likely) lost. Saying that they're not competing is just ridiculous.
And you know this is inherent from what historic record. The closest the world has seen to free market economy was in the United States in the late 1920s. This was the time of rampant organized crime
Gee, that little thing called "Prohibition" had nothing to do with it, did it? Nah, it was all just those greedy capitalists fostering organized crime that did it.
and, I'm sure coincidentally, this was right before the great depression were unemployment reach the "impossible" level you mentioned.
Again you resort to either exaggeration or unreality to make your point. The Great Depression was brought on by a lot of factors that had little to do with a free market economy. Overseas wars (both finishing up and starting up), stock market speculation, and host of other things contributed to the Perfect Economic Storm. What you fail to take into account is how fundamentally different America is today compared to the 1920's. Back then, the majority of the economy was agrarian, and unskilled labor was the norm, not the exception. Today, farm jobs represent single-digit percentages of the overall workforce, and skilled labor is the rule, not the exception. While it's certainly possible to have another Depression, it would take a large number of events all happening wrong at a precise time to allow it. It's not likely, and certainly not a good basis for an argument as you're presenting.
Only with radical wealth redistribution in the form of the New Deal was the US able to recover.
No, only with massive government spending and major intrusion into free market principles was the US able to recover. Today we're feeling the "balancing" effects I brought up earlier in the form of a Social Security system that cannot work and is effectively bankrupt. The invisible hand takes time to make its effects known, but they always come around.
If you haven't yet figured it out "Natural Law" is a joke, it has been refuted enough times that I don't need to waste my breath on it here.
You dismiss this too easily, I think. Try being sensitive and empathetic with a person intent on killing you. It's you or them, simple as that. If you're not willing to fight for your own preservation, and your adversary is, you're doomed from the start. It doesn't matter whether it's fair. Nature has no room for fair. Capitalism is the ferocity of nature ensconced in economic principles. You either thrive (profit) or your die (go bankrupt). And you can never stagnate, because there's always a predator (competitor) out there willing to steal the meal you spent time hunting and killing (sales pitch). Greed can sustain for a short period, but it cann
I don't want to deny this as a possibility but could you point at a reference that backs this up as opposed to the concept that reduction in labor cost increase profit margin while having no effect on retail price.
I could probably provide you the information you seek if I spent a fair amount of time digging through foreign and domestic labor cost trends, automotive industry pricing, and a host of other things. The problem is that I don't have the time to do that tonight. However, I would posit this: GM/Ford/Dodge are outsourcing labor wherever they can, yet their profit margins are actually less enviable than in years past. While one can draw no bulletproof conclusions from this, the most obvious (and most likely) scenario is that domestic automakers have been more or less forced to use cheaper labor in order to compete with foreign firms. How do I come to this conclusion? Process of elimination. If they were doing it strictly to make a higher profit, why aren't they making a higher profit?
But doesn't outsourcing lead to the exact same thing as you are suggesting it fixes, loss of jobs, pensions, etc? Plus in many industries outsourcing has lead to lower quality rather than you suggested higher quality.
Someone once said that the only constant in life is change. Human beings -- as a race, as a civilization, and as an organism -- must evolve. Those that adapt to changing conditions reap the benefits of their flexibility; those who do not suffer or perish. It is not fair. It is not nice. But it is reality as sure as a force of nature. You see it all around you without noticing it. After all, how much demand is there for, say, wooden shipbuilders? How about blacksmith shops? Horse carriages? Milk men? Ice deliveries? Do you have any idea how angry and violet people became when the steam engine started replacing manual labor? You think people are upset now, but you have no idea. Go read some history on it and you'll see what I mean.
All of the above "industries" once were major concerns during their respective eras. But technology marches onwards, and every few decades we get a "disruptive" technological advance. People find ways to do things better, and whole career segments go the way of the dodo. I would suspect you're not suggesting we ignore these advances and remain in the dark ages, but the analogy is only partially complete.
In this case, we're not experiencing a disruptive technology, but a disruptive economy. The developed world has developed so far and so fast that unskilled labor tasks are now uneconomical to sustain. Heck, even skilled labor is unsustainable in some instances. Why is it unsustainable? Because rapid, cheap transportation has shrunk the globe and allowed heretofore untapped labor markets to become viable.
And while we're at it, let's turn this "greed" argument entirely on its ear. Put yourself in the place of that third-world worker living in abject poverty. Most of them make enormous wages in their respective countries doing outsourcing. To them, this is a gold rush of epic proportions. If we fat, lazy Americans want $200/hour to do a job they'll do for $5/hour -- yet we don't wish to share the wealth pie with them lest we suffer a loss of income -- who's the greedy one here? The argument swings both ways. You need but look at things from the other side of the fence to see how and why.
To become a competitor a person, or company, would need comparable resources to enter into the same business. I'm not saying this happens but it would be cheaper to pay people to not produce goods for a competitor than it would to allow them to do so and then lose market share, free market economy would allow such a thing to take place.
I disagree. There's another old saying: "where there's a will, there's a way". It goes right along with "if you build it, they will come." Microsoft is a monopoly, right? They own the market lock, stock, and barrel, and nobody can d
Like it or not, our government and our corporations are pushing us towards 3rd World standards of living due to greed. "Let's outsource everything to 3rd World countries where that measly $1,000 a year seems like a lot. Then we get to pocket the difference."
I was with you until you brought up "greed" as the reason for this third-world slide. You are completely neglecting a major effect of this outsourcing: goods and services become cheaper to obtain. If your car is built in Mexico or China -- where labor is much cheaper -- instead of in Detroit, the car is cheaper for you to obtain. This leaves you with a greater residual amount of disposable income to spend on other things like health care, widescreen TV's, or whatever else tickles your fancy.
There are other realities you're ignoring in your quest to blame this on greed. For example, if GM/Ford/Dodge didn't outsource this assembly or manufacturing, they'd be at a competitive disadvantage to overseas automakers like Honda, Toyota, BMW, and so forth who have no such limitations. Able to offer lower prices and better quality, the overseas firms could put GM/Ford/Dodge out of business, leading to the loss of millions of jobs, pensions, stock holdings, and more. Attempts to prop up non-competitive wage structures with import tariffs doesn't work either because overseas nations retaliate with tariffs of their own.
The automobile manufacturing world is but a microcosm of what's going on in almost any industry in any developed nation right now, but the same principles apply. We live in a global economy these days. We must come to grips with that and quit fighting it.
Your last sentence is the one that makes the least sense. Corporations use third-world labor to enrich themselves? While that's certainly possible (and it does happen), you are again ignoring the power of a free market economy. If someone like Nike is making a killing by selling third-world-made shoes, a competitor can use that same labor (thus saving labor costs) but undercut Nike in retail pricing (by taking a lower profit margin) and muscle in on Nike's turf. This process goes back and forth and sooner or later, everyone is making about the same profit margin and nobody is making a killing. Look at Dell, IBM, and HP; they all make roughly the same margins on commodity gear. There's a good reason for that, and it's found in this paragraph. The only time this breaks down is if there is industry collusion (such as DRAM makers collaborating to fix the price of RAM, which has happened) or there is a monopoly (see Microsoft). In both cases, though, collusion and monopolies are eventually exposed and either prosecuted (as was the case in DRAM price fixing) or pressured to change/fined (see Microsoft).
The system works. What you lack is patience and understanding. There isn't a single company in the history of the world that's been able to live on greed forever.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why Smith (and Rand) are wrong, and capitalism works best under some kind of independent control.
I would prefer to say that it works but on a time scale longer than you are giving it. In a perfectly open capitalistic market, a company that propped itself up in a manner such as HD-DVD is being propped up would eventually collapse. A subsidized product will always cost more (to the producer if not the customer) than a non-subsidized product. Therefore, a superior product that sold on its own merits need not be subsidized and would be more appealing.
The problem here is we're dealing with short time scales of a few years, which is just one big-ticket buying cycle. Much like the current situation with Windows vis-a-vis Linux, Windows is the de facto standard for now, but complacency on Microsoft's part and aggressiveness on the Linux-heads could (and most likely will) eventually topple it. Microsoft's overhead and profit-margin "commitments" to shareholders can ultimately conspire to make it too expensive to justify a narrowing list of advantages over competing products.
Also keep in mind that technical excellence is not necessarily the measure of what is the "best" product for a consumer. Other factors such as usability, availability, aesthetics, and a ton of other things factor in the perceived value. Although you and I may think the best is choice A, we probably represent a distinct minority of the overall buying public. If something wins ths fight that we consider to be inferior, remember that others have a distinctly different set of priorities. However, if it is "best" for the majority of the market, the "best" product has indeed won the fight.
It's called a 'joke'. An attempt at wit, or humor. A common subject of humor is political figures.
Dear sub-Genius,
I challenge you to point out exactly how that could be construed as humor. It seems in no way even remotely entertaining, and the subject matter is a serious concern. Neither was your post humorous. Or informative. Or even relevant. In fact, you were devoid of useful thoughts on the matter at hand. Please try again later when you're feeling more...intelligent.
If they're actually doing the deed, and it appears they are, what difference does the motivation of the whistle blower make?
First off, I've seen zero evidence presented (by you or anyone else) that would back up your statement that "they're actually doing the deed." When such evidence is presented, I'll be happy to consider it. However, that's not what I was arguing by making my prior statement. The motivation matters not, but neither does it help the article's author to attempt to draw some conclusion that he/she readily admits may not even exist. It seems more to be a straining attempt to paint guilt by association.
Why would you defend this heavy handed stupidity under any circumstances?
You know, this reminds me of the idiotic statements so many liberals have made lately claiming that conservatives are calling their patriotism into question when in fact they're calling their judgment into question. Go back and read my post. Does it defend this NASA censorship in any way whatsoever? Does it try to justify it? Can you point to any single word, phrase, or sentence that can even obliquely hints that I think it's a good thing? No, you cannot, because such words, phrases, or sentences do not exist! You have made them up in your head because you want them to be there, thus giving you an excuse to excoriate NASA/Bush/Rove/whoever for whatever crime you've already indicted them with.
No word yet if the assignment of a Karl Rove protege high up in NASA has any connection.
So why bother mentioning it unless you're trying to establish some sort of political agenda of your own?
Well, fucktard, perhaps you misunderstand the use of common English. Let me school you a bit since you seem in dire need of it.
The use of the phrase "some hardwired DoS attacks involve..." [emphasis mine] denotes that some attacks involve a spoofed source. This does not mean it is required, just as the fact that you can type obviously does not require you to have any intelligence whatsoever as you've so ably demonstrated. Spoofing a source address can allow an attacker to camouflage their attack, but you can launch a DoS just as easily (moreso, actually) without. It just increases the likelihood that you're going to be found and prosecuted, that's all.
Now, will you please go back to your Lair of Stupid and leave the intelligent discussion to those of us who know what the fuck we're talking about?
I am taking a cisco internetworking class and I do not think that it is similar to a DoS attack because a DoS attack involves changing the source address in the packets that are sent to a server. I do not think any students at Duke have found a way to hack the iphone to allow modified packets to be sent out.
Not to seem unkind, but it sounds like you need to finish your classes before weighing in on this subject. You do not seem to understand the nature of a DoS attack enough to comment properly on it.
To clarify, it has nothing to do with altering the source address. While some hardwired DoS attacks involve the spoofing of source addresses, it is not required. Any kind of action that prevents the target from functioning as designed constitutes a DoS attack, and flooding an AP with spurious MAC requests fits that description. Since the iPhone is doing this as part of its (probably flawed) design, no hacking of the iPhone is required.
The Cisco AP's and WLAN controller have little choice but to listen to whatever traffic the iPhone spews out. Sure, they can discard or ignore the traffic, but it doesn't change the fact that a rampant iPhone "attack" will consume shared air time even if such action is taken. With enough iPhones, any single AP can be completely overwhelmed even if it's ignoring everything the iPhone is throwing at it.
As I said before, you can't switch, route, or firewall air. You're always at the mercy of the person transmitting with the least control or scruples.
Probably because he knows that a wireless network -- no matter how robust -- will always be at the mercy of a misbehaving device. Air is a shared medium. You can't force a device to shut up no matter what you try, assuming the device is engineered badly enough. That seems to be the case here. Even attempting something basic like blocking a wildcard MAC for all iPhones wouldn't work if the device just persistently floods the airwaves with spurious requests. It's essentially a DoS attack similar to a ping flood, but with no way to "cut it off" at an upstream router. Even better, the "attacking" device isn't fixed to a landline somewhere, it could be roving around in somebody's pocket or purse making neutralization a huge headache. Fun!
I've done consulting in the wireless market for a while now. One of my key markets is the healthcare market, and I make sure I tell any hospital using wireless that there is absolutely, positively, unequivocally no way they can stop a determined DoS WLAN attack. Set up a noise source at 2.4GHz (or 5.8GHz for 802.11a), crank up the wattage well above the FCC limit for the ISM bands, and aim the antenna at the building. It *will* shut down *any* WLAN you've got unless the building is built like a Faraday cage.
There is nothing you can do about it short of rooting out the source of the noise and shutting it down. Granted, such an attack is highly illegal (violates FCC radiated power limits, which might be a felony, I'm not sure), but I doubt that's on the mind of the prankster (or terrorist) who's shutting you down.
Libby was covering whose ass, exactly? Unless you're either (a) living in a cave or (b) hopelessly unable to separate a liberal ideology from reality, you'd know that Richard Armitage, not Libby, "leaked" the name of CIA "agent" Valerie Plame.
So, Libby lied about what? Having a faulty memory? He couldn't have lied about leaking Plame's identity because Armitage did that. And all this completely ignores the fact that (a) Plame didn't meet the definition of a covert agent since she hadn't served in a covert capacity in the last several years and (b) the person "leaking" the name of the "agent" had to be aware that the agent's status was protected. Libby met none of those requirements. Neither did Rove, Cheney, Bush, or anybody else. The only person who could reasonably be charged with doing anything wrong was Richard Armitage who, thus far, was completely ignored by the special counsel appointed specifically to investigate this entire non-incident.
Libby was a scapegoat alright, but a scapegoat of the left, not the right. Libby got convicted not to save Rove/Cheney/Bush, but because the Democrats had to produce a victim in their witch hunt or face humiliation.
And, for the record, Reagan shouldn't have pardoned a heroin dealer and Bush shouldn't have pardoned the Iran-Contra folks.
With an administration that is turning out to be as bad as the Nixon and Harding administrations combined, I wouldn't be at all surprised. Marvel will tell you that it's just coincidence, and it may very well be, but that doesn't mean it's not timely.
You forgot to add "Clinton" to that list. You do realize Bill Clinton pardoned 16 members of the FALN, a Puerto Rican terrorist group responsible for more than 120 bombings and at least six deaths? And don't forget the cocaine trafficker, the bank fraudsters, the perjurers, the billionaire tax evasion fugitive, the Whitewater contempt-of-court inmate, several Congressional Democrat felons, and his own drug-convicted brother. All of these done on the very last day of his presidency, of course. Not that such actions were in any way designed to pay back political favors while escaping any sort of press scrutiny or political fallout.
Lots of presidents have used the power of the pardon and clemency unwisely, but if you're going to go back as far as Harding to find an example to go with Nixon, I think you overlooked a rather sterling example of this kind of abuse. I fixed that for you.
If you took the time to read the parent post to which I was replying to, maybe you wouldn't have made such an ass of yourself. But hey, it's a free country, right?
What parent post? OH! You mean, my parent post! Or are you too dense to understand the threading concept at Slashdot? But wait, I'm forgetting that you have a media degree, so I should've automatically adjusted my expectations of your intelligence downwards to begin with. My apologies for exposing your mental limitations for all to see.
As for it being a free country, you should be careful saying that! It sounds too much like that old "land of the free, home of the brave bullshit" you spoke of earlier. The censors will come and get you! After all, censorship is everywhere...right?
Ah, so we can add "lack of reading comprehension" to your invaluable list of skills, eh?
I don't know what's more pathetic: your overblown "argument" or your inability to understand you've lost the debate.
As a media graduate let me just say that there are many subtle ways to censor a story.
Thank you, dear sir, for stumbling upon the obvious. It's a credit to your degree in media that you have such a penetrating insight into the commonplace.
Now that the sarcasm is out of the way, allow me to say that, according to your definition, censorship can be anything, anywhere, anytime, anyhow, done by anyone to anything. Conveniently, this allows you to play the victim whenever you want whilst simultaneously brushing off criticism as either naive or myrmidons of The Man(tm). "Censorship exists whenever I say it does, and your refutation of that confirms your desire to censor me!" How quaint and useful!
Pardon me if I don't subscribe to such a ridiculous notion. Then again, maybe I'm just partaking too much of this "'land of the free, home of the brave bullshit" as you so eloquently put it. Did your media professor advise you to use that last expletive, or did you have to look it up? Perhaps you've heard of the phrase "profanity is the province of little minds," or didn't they teach that in your curriculum?
Now what? You admit you're completely wrong, or you plow on ahead?
Uh...how about option (C) point out how absolutely obtuse you are in ignoring the meaning of the definition you just quoted. Conveniently, you have now justified my original post. Bravo! I've been needing a dictionary lackey for a while.
Now, what was your point again? Or were you just ineffectually trying to seem important to this debate?
The problem is, here in America, "mass media" is controlled by very few people. There's almost no independent media left. So, most news stories are controlled by a small number of self-interested individuals. Some are controlled by the profit motive. Others are controlled by their limited access. In the end, we get a very slanted view of "news."
I've got a solution for you. It's this newfangled thing called "The Internet." It's a world-spanning network where anyone can become a news source instantly and almost for free. Even better, hundreds of millions of people can view your "news," largely without any interference by any other party (except places like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.) You should try The Internet sometime. I hear it's great!
Hey, don't worry if you've never heard of this "Internet" thing. I hear Bill Gates underestimated it as well, so you're in good company.
Last I heard, censorship is when The Man(tm) takes forcible action to squash a story that's damaging, incriminating, or otherwise detrimental to The Powers That Be(tm). You know, like North Korea killing stories of mass starvation, or good old Soviet-style disinformation and destruction of the concept of a free press like what's going on in...old Soviet-style Russia.
...nah, that couldn't be it.
However, while I was napping last night, someone conveniently changed the definition to mean "when the mass media doesn't give a certain pet story/cause/event of mine the attention I think it deserves."
Somebody call Websters. Unless, of course, the story headline is wrong, and this is merely someone upset their pet story/cause/event isn't getting the attention they think it deserves...
What are these "women" things you speak of? I've been in IT for around two decades. Although I've heard of these "women" things, I have yet to ever see one. I think they're a myth, like the tooth fairy or something, made up to give lonely IT guys something to dream about while they're debugging C++.
Hey, why are you reading this? Aren't you supposed to be changing that toner cartridge out for the project manager on the 11th floor?
If we spent even one tenth of what we spend on building new weapons, instead on diplomacy and peace initiatives, and curing world diseases and poverty, maybe so many people wouldn't want to attack and kill us in the first place.
No...the rest of the world would look at us and say "What? You could only give a tenth? We want more!" The U.N. would pass a resolution mandating we give 50% of our GNP to help the "poor and underdeveloped" nations of the world that have been busily squandering the billions in aid we already pipe overseas.
Face it, bub. The rest of the world hates us because we have more of everything they want. More money, more guns, more liberties, more land, more resources...
We are hated because of envy, pure and simple. All this other crap about us "not playing well with others" is just a BS smokescreen for envy.
Were it not for larger, profitable companies buying and propping up some of these car companies up, some of them would be extinct. So, your "line of reasoning" comment is truer than you might think despite your attempt to make my argument sound incorrect.
As for how the others stay in business, you could say they follow the Apple Macintosh business model: they offer semi-premium products at an ultra-premium price, counting on cachet value to draw customers who have more money than sense. One odd automotive parallel I've seen is that lots of Mac owners are also Porsche-philes. Clearly they don't mind paying double what their neighbor paid for the same goods just so they can loft their Porsche-scented noses in the air. Never mind that for the price of a Turbo 911 you could've bought a Corvette Z06 that would see the 911 eating exhaust fumes. It's all about "image" you know...[/sarcasm]
Look, if you want to be ridiculously pedantic, go right ahead. I'll freely admit I should have said "nearly no one" instead of "nobody." Happy now?
The thrust of my argument remains true, however. You're more likely to win the lottery than to ever see one of those 350 cars on the road during a commute.
When I can buy one of these for under $40K, call me. Until then, this is a neat idea which requires much more development before anyone will be interested.
I'm all for green power, green transport, et. al. But if it costs me more than my house, what's the point? Nobody will buy it because nobody can afford it, good intentions or not.
Now if all automakers would suddenly convert over to pure carbon-fiber bodies, CF production costs would (eventually) plummet to the point where it's the same cost (or cheaper) than steel. But that's not likely to happen anytime soon.
Now that's a bit of a stretch, don't you think? I use and love Firefox. It's what I'm typing this in right now. But I use both browsers on a daily basis. There are some sites that only look right in IE7 (due to web developers optimizing for IE at the expense of standards), and there are some sites that don't like IE7 yet (and thus work better in IE6 or -- since that isn't available if you have IE7 -- in FF). And then there's sites using ActiveX (such as Microsoft's Outlook Web Access) which only work at full capacity in IE.
Sure, FF is making inroads. It's my browser of choice (almost exclusively because of extensions, though, and not due to any other groundbreaking feature in FF). But to construe that "abandoning" IE is ridiculous. Both are useful.
What most amazes me are the Viking landers. Looking at some of the pictures they took, the quality is just great. And they kept transmitting information for years - I think Viking 2 finally died in 1982 or something, six years after landing. Cult 1970s technology!
Not to denigrate that "cult 1970's technology," but what's really sad about this is how pretty much all of our post-Viking landers have been limited by batteries and solar cells, whereas the "old" 70's tech had long-lived radioisotope thermal generators (RTG). What a pity the anti-nuke crowd is so paranoid that we're forced to limit the exploration of Mars because their knee-jerk reactions to anything nuclear border on the hysterical.
Interestingly enough it is the free market economists that answer this question for us. US Automakers provide an inferior product and refuse to compete on service and warranty (or at least that is the common perception).
I think you rely a bit too much on that "common perception" thing you refer to. While it may be true that imports consistently rank highest in terms of initial quality, the spread between the top and the bottom is quite narrow compared to the Bad Old Days of Detroit in the 70's and 80's. Suffice to say that, while perhaps not the best there is, domestic automaking quality is sufficiently high that they're not cutting costs with third-world labor. If anything, they're forced to cut corners in materials or engineering because union-mandated wages are so high compared to their foreign competition.
Linux is no threat to Microsoft
I'm sure Steve Ballmer would be pleased to hear you say that, but your argument misses the point so blatantly that I'm surprised you'd use it. Linux isn't a competitor because it's free? What nonsense is that? Linux and Microsoft compete head to head in a very important, high profitable market: the server room. Every Linux server installation is one sale Microsoft (most likely) lost. Saying that they're not competing is just ridiculous.
And you know this is inherent from what historic record. The closest the world has seen to free market economy was in the United States in the late 1920s. This was the time of rampant organized crime
Gee, that little thing called "Prohibition" had nothing to do with it, did it? Nah, it was all just those greedy capitalists fostering organized crime that did it.
and, I'm sure coincidentally, this was right before the great depression were unemployment reach the "impossible" level you mentioned.
Again you resort to either exaggeration or unreality to make your point. The Great Depression was brought on by a lot of factors that had little to do with a free market economy. Overseas wars (both finishing up and starting up), stock market speculation, and host of other things contributed to the Perfect Economic Storm. What you fail to take into account is how fundamentally different America is today compared to the 1920's. Back then, the majority of the economy was agrarian, and unskilled labor was the norm, not the exception. Today, farm jobs represent single-digit percentages of the overall workforce, and skilled labor is the rule, not the exception. While it's certainly possible to have another Depression, it would take a large number of events all happening wrong at a precise time to allow it. It's not likely, and certainly not a good basis for an argument as you're presenting.
Only with radical wealth redistribution in the form of the New Deal was the US able to recover.
No, only with massive government spending and major intrusion into free market principles was the US able to recover. Today we're feeling the "balancing" effects I brought up earlier in the form of a Social Security system that cannot work and is effectively bankrupt. The invisible hand takes time to make its effects known, but they always come around.
If you haven't yet figured it out "Natural Law" is a joke, it has been refuted enough times that I don't need to waste my breath on it here.
You dismiss this too easily, I think. Try being sensitive and empathetic with a person intent on killing you. It's you or them, simple as that. If you're not willing to fight for your own preservation, and your adversary is, you're doomed from the start. It doesn't matter whether it's fair. Nature has no room for fair. Capitalism is the ferocity of nature ensconced in economic principles. You either thrive (profit) or your die (go bankrupt). And you can never stagnate, because there's always a predator (competitor) out there willing to steal the meal you spent time hunting and killing (sales pitch). Greed can sustain for a short period, but it cann
I don't want to deny this as a possibility but could you point at a reference that backs this up as opposed to the concept that reduction in labor cost increase profit margin while having no effect on retail price.
I could probably provide you the information you seek if I spent a fair amount of time digging through foreign and domestic labor cost trends, automotive industry pricing, and a host of other things. The problem is that I don't have the time to do that tonight. However, I would posit this: GM/Ford/Dodge are outsourcing labor wherever they can, yet their profit margins are actually less enviable than in years past. While one can draw no bulletproof conclusions from this, the most obvious (and most likely) scenario is that domestic automakers have been more or less forced to use cheaper labor in order to compete with foreign firms. How do I come to this conclusion? Process of elimination. If they were doing it strictly to make a higher profit, why aren't they making a higher profit?
But doesn't outsourcing lead to the exact same thing as you are suggesting it fixes, loss of jobs, pensions, etc? Plus in many industries outsourcing has lead to lower quality rather than you suggested higher quality.
Someone once said that the only constant in life is change. Human beings -- as a race, as a civilization, and as an organism -- must evolve. Those that adapt to changing conditions reap the benefits of their flexibility; those who do not suffer or perish. It is not fair. It is not nice. But it is reality as sure as a force of nature. You see it all around you without noticing it. After all, how much demand is there for, say, wooden shipbuilders? How about blacksmith shops? Horse carriages? Milk men? Ice deliveries? Do you have any idea how angry and violet people became when the steam engine started replacing manual labor? You think people are upset now, but you have no idea. Go read some history on it and you'll see what I mean.
All of the above "industries" once were major concerns during their respective eras. But technology marches onwards, and every few decades we get a "disruptive" technological advance. People find ways to do things better, and whole career segments go the way of the dodo. I would suspect you're not suggesting we ignore these advances and remain in the dark ages, but the analogy is only partially complete.
In this case, we're not experiencing a disruptive technology, but a disruptive economy. The developed world has developed so far and so fast that unskilled labor tasks are now uneconomical to sustain. Heck, even skilled labor is unsustainable in some instances. Why is it unsustainable? Because rapid, cheap transportation has shrunk the globe and allowed heretofore untapped labor markets to become viable.
And while we're at it, let's turn this "greed" argument entirely on its ear. Put yourself in the place of that third-world worker living in abject poverty. Most of them make enormous wages in their respective countries doing outsourcing. To them, this is a gold rush of epic proportions. If we fat, lazy Americans want $200/hour to do a job they'll do for $5/hour -- yet we don't wish to share the wealth pie with them lest we suffer a loss of income -- who's the greedy one here? The argument swings both ways. You need but look at things from the other side of the fence to see how and why.
To become a competitor a person, or company, would need comparable resources to enter into the same business. I'm not saying this happens but it would be cheaper to pay people to not produce goods for a competitor than it would to allow them to do so and then lose market share, free market economy would allow such a thing to take place.
I disagree. There's another old saying: "where there's a will, there's a way". It goes right along with "if you build it, they will come." Microsoft is a monopoly, right? They own the market lock, stock, and barrel, and nobody can d
Like it or not, our government and our corporations are pushing us towards 3rd World standards of living due to greed. "Let's outsource everything to 3rd World countries where that measly $1,000 a year seems like a lot. Then we get to pocket the difference."
I was with you until you brought up "greed" as the reason for this third-world slide. You are completely neglecting a major effect of this outsourcing: goods and services become cheaper to obtain. If your car is built in Mexico or China -- where labor is much cheaper -- instead of in Detroit, the car is cheaper for you to obtain. This leaves you with a greater residual amount of disposable income to spend on other things like health care, widescreen TV's, or whatever else tickles your fancy.
There are other realities you're ignoring in your quest to blame this on greed. For example, if GM/Ford/Dodge didn't outsource this assembly or manufacturing, they'd be at a competitive disadvantage to overseas automakers like Honda, Toyota, BMW, and so forth who have no such limitations. Able to offer lower prices and better quality, the overseas firms could put GM/Ford/Dodge out of business, leading to the loss of millions of jobs, pensions, stock holdings, and more. Attempts to prop up non-competitive wage structures with import tariffs doesn't work either because overseas nations retaliate with tariffs of their own.
The automobile manufacturing world is but a microcosm of what's going on in almost any industry in any developed nation right now, but the same principles apply. We live in a global economy these days. We must come to grips with that and quit fighting it.
Your last sentence is the one that makes the least sense. Corporations use third-world labor to enrich themselves? While that's certainly possible (and it does happen), you are again ignoring the power of a free market economy. If someone like Nike is making a killing by selling third-world-made shoes, a competitor can use that same labor (thus saving labor costs) but undercut Nike in retail pricing (by taking a lower profit margin) and muscle in on Nike's turf. This process goes back and forth and sooner or later, everyone is making about the same profit margin and nobody is making a killing. Look at Dell, IBM, and HP; they all make roughly the same margins on commodity gear. There's a good reason for that, and it's found in this paragraph. The only time this breaks down is if there is industry collusion (such as DRAM makers collaborating to fix the price of RAM, which has happened) or there is a monopoly (see Microsoft). In both cases, though, collusion and monopolies are eventually exposed and either prosecuted (as was the case in DRAM price fixing) or pressured to change/fined (see Microsoft).
The system works. What you lack is patience and understanding. There isn't a single company in the history of the world that's been able to live on greed forever.