I think you describe the nuts and bolts of the algorithm...but that's not really that helpful when it comes to understanding the usefulness.
The big fuss about map-reduce (not necessarily Google's) is that we've pretty much hit the speed limit in single core processing power. 4GHz is about it...it's not going to get any faster for some time. Unfortunately, most programs are written to only run on a single core, so adding more cores is only going to get you so far. If you want truly distributive load at a low level of granularity, map-reduce can contribute to a compelling story.
I only have a passing familiarity with Map-Reduce, so I'm definitely not an authoritative source. It's definitely possible that sorting isn't part of the algorithm itself, but rather one example of context around how it's often implemented. It definitely makes sense, though—why not merge-sort the results as mappings are returned? If you do implement it this way, it just makes it possible to deal with really large maps that need to be spread over multiple nodes.
Map-Reduce is definitely a technique related to grid computing, but they are not one and the same.
The most popular (to my knowledge) open source Java library implementing MR is Hadoop.
Here's the algorithm in a nutshell (anyone who knows more than me, please correct, and I'll be forever grateful). I have a bunch of documents and I want to generate a list of word counts. So I begin with the first document and map each word in the document to the value 1. I return each mapping as I do it, and it is merge-sorted by key into a map. Let's say I start with a document of a single sentence: John likes Sue, but Sue doesn't like John. At the end of the map phase, I have compiled the following map, sorted by key:
but - 1
doesn't - 1
like - 1
likes - 1
John - 1
John - 1
Sue - 1
Sue - 1
Now begins the reduce phase. Since the map is sorted by key, all the reduce phase does is iterate through the keys and add up the associated values until a new key is encountered. The result is:
but - 1
doesn't - 1
like - 1
likes - 1
John - 2
Sue - 2
Simple. Stupid. What's the point? The point is that the way this algorithm divides up the work happens to be extremely convenient for parallel processing. So, the map phase of a single document can be split up and farmed out to different nodes in the grid for processing, which can be processed separately from the reduce phase. The merge-sort can even be done at a different processing node as mappings are returned. Redundancy can be achieved if the same document chunk is farmed out to several nodes for simultaneous processing, and the first one that returns the result is used, the others simply ignored or canceled (maybe they're queued up at redundant nodes that were busy, so canceling means simply removing from the queue with very few cycles wasted). Similarly, because the resulting map is sorted by key, an extremely large map can easily be split and sent to several processing nodes in parallel. The original task of counting words across a set of documents can be decomposed to an ridiculous extent for parallelization.
Of course, this doesn't make much sense to actually do this unless you have a very large number of documents. Or, let's say you have a lot of computing resources, but each resource on its own is very limited in terms of processing power. Or both.
This is very close to the problem a company like Google has to solve when indexing the web. The number of documents is huge (every web page), and they don't have any super computers—just a whole ton of cheap, old CPUs in racks.
At the end of the day, Map-Reduce is only useful for tasks that can be decomposed, though. If you have a problem with separate phases, where the input of each phase is determined by the output of the previous phase, then they must be executed serially and Map-Reduce can't help you. If you consider the word-counting example I posted above, it's easy to see that the result required depends upon state that is inherent in the initial conditions (the documents)—it doesn't matter how you divide up a document or if you jumble up the words, the count associated with each word doesn't change, so the result you're after doesn't depend on the context surrounding those words. On the other hand, if you're interested in counting the number of sentences in those documents, you might have a much more difficult problem. (You might think you could just chunk the documents up at the sentence level, but whether or not something is a sentence depends upon surrounding context—a machine can easily mistake an abbreviation like Mr. for the end of a sentence, especially if that Mr. is followed by a capital letter which could indicate the beginning of a new sentence...which it almost always is. Actually...if you're smart you can probably come up with a very compelling argument that this
I'm not disputing that self-signed certs are useful in some cases...I'm only saying that "secure" and "trusted" go hand-in-hand. The reason, I believe, there's only one icon to signify both and it's not split into two is because—well, what would be the point? How can something be secure if it's not trusted? I'm not really worried about a man in the middle attack if I haven't figured out who the man at the end is anyway.
On the other hand, if I have specific knowledge that the man at the end is trustworthy (like, it's my site), then I have no problem adding that to the exception list. But for FF3 to imply that self-signed certs are nearly as good as normal certs opens up a whole list of possible problems for those who aren't tech savvy. Better to just scare them off the site altogether.
So I guess what I'm saying is that secure but untrusted is worse than http, because the illusion of security is worse than openly stating there is no security, particularly for those that don't know the details. Simple truth is always better than complex truth.:-)
What's the problem here? If you want a self-signed cert, then do it, and when you browse to your site, make sure you added it to your browser's exception list. Easy.
If you are creating a site for others to browse to, and you're afraid they won't add your site to their exception list, then you should probably not be using a self-signed cert. What is the point of extolling security to people you don't know that you are yourself vouching for?
This is exactly the problem with sites that let their certs expire. If FF3 didn't behave the way it does, I'm supposed to know I'm hitting Google's site and not some spoof site how, exactly? (Let's assume I'm a n00b and not the mental giant I actually am. I know, I know...suspend your disbelief.)
You must be wrong. If it was the safety of the competitors at issue, they would restrict the training regimens these girls undergo since the age of 3, not the age at which they compete.
"Now, as we have reminded viewers several times already, you'll want to ignore what's actually going on on the beam itself and pay attention to the ultrasound video being broadcast on the stadium monitors, brought to you by our friends at GE. The mother is along for the ride, but she's definitely not the Olympic competitor here.
"Just look at the way Baby Xu is able to maintain its form within the amniotic sac. It really is amazing, having to contend with competing in a bubble of viscous fluid, on top of the other disadvantages of being a fetus, that it can perform at this level! Many people have wondered how, before the gender of this competitor is clear, it can be assigned to an apparatus properly, but I remind everyone that prior to birth, the apparatus eligibility is assigned based on the mother. Now watch this! Here we go...gotta stick that landing—oh! That's unfortunate."
So the rational response is to simply take away the option of the agency's weak response in similar situations. Set up a system whereby such information can aggressively and anonymously be made public for anyone that is interested, and leak it anonymously to the parties in control of the situation with enough advance for them to reasonably address the issues at hand.
I think this kind of system would be best for several reasons. (1) We already have the technology required to make it happen (thanks EFF!). (2) If it was discovered by benevolent actors willing to give the authorities a heads-up, it's only a matter of time before bad actors discover it for themselves, and this system encourages swift but not unreasonable response times while trucking no BS. (3) If BS ensues anyway and agency-in-question remains paralyzed and unable to cope, the public is made aware of what is now a public safety concern stemming from a systemically broken agency, which requires a solution to deeper issues that the initial security concern.
Part 3 is really the key to making the whole system work—if the people pay government to do a job, and the government screws it up, then this is the part that holds the government accountable to the people. And not in a way that requires people to be proactive...all they have to do is respond rationally by noticing the ridiculous lapse of responsibility and taking action such as not using the compromised system, which will eventually, and organically, snowball into the problem being fixed. And hopefully with enough hullabaloo that we don't allow the new solution to degrade as completely as what it replaced.
d) Under the pressure to solve a single case, the US Government could collapse in on itself, causing a new despotic regime to overtake what was a storied and noble system of checks and balances. The defendant's entire extended family would be flayed alive in front of him out of sheer spite since he already gave up the information the government wanted under mere threat of what was to come. And then the nukes.
I still feel insulted a little when I read things like these.
So let me get this straight. I'm guessing you are probably of German descent, and you're insulted that someone was coyly and humorously teasing Germans...for lacking a sense of humor?
I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything...:-p
Yea...just don't confuse government with the Bush Administration above. The actions of a particular administration are not what I'm referring to when I use the term...
No, she wasn't neglected or abused. And yes, her parents were/are good parents. Typical leave it to beaver style upbringing. The kid fell in with the wrong crowd and had things planted in their head by well meaning but unqualified counselors. What i described isn't a unique situation. The fact that it took a couple of years longer to effect her should be a sign of how well the parenting was.
I guess we part ways here. Parenting, in my way of thinking, is an active, engaged enterprise. "Leave it to beaver style" parenting has a technical term: neglect. Perhaps it doesn't meet the legal standard of neglect, but then I also think that parents bear more responsibility toward their offspring than what is legally defined as criminal behavior—call me crazy. This legal form of neglect is perhaps the most insidious. At least when it's illegal, there's a chance for someone to step in and stop it.
You say the fact that it took years for the child to fall in with the wrong crowd is evidence of good parenting? The fact that the parents sat idly by for years while this unfolded is a strong indictment of their uninvolved, passive approach.
Frankly, your attitude in these last couple of posts is more than I can stomach. It blows me away that you have written this and I detect no irony in your words at all. We should expect parents to try to produce the best people they can...not just provide the lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy for 18 years. That's a recipe for disaster.
One of the things that I have found in my travels to China is that they do not regard their govt the same way we do (I'm assuming the parent and GP poster are Americans, b/c I'm American, and that's what we do:-) ). Chinese do not identify their country with their govt, they're two separate things.
I'm intrigued to hear that, because I'd started to form the opposite impression: whereas Americans consider it patriotic to criticise their government (attacking the government == defending the people), Chinese seem to consider it unpatriotic (attacking the government == attacking the people). But I've never been to China - perhaps the crucial difference is whether the criticism comes from inside or outside the country?
Yes, I've perceived this too...but I think the source of the Chinese attitude is one of embarrassment, and also being miffed at the person they're talking to. It's bad form to point out something that a Chinese person should be ashamed about and make a big deal over it, particularly in Asian cultures. So it's a natural (though not a particularly sophisticated) response to get defensive and take up the mantle of a position you don't really believe in. But most often, when I've discussed these issues with Chinese people, they normally try to shift the focus of the discussion off of China and on to America (or some other non-political issue altogether). Which Americans are usually all too happy to do, because we don't necessarily feel embarrassed by the actions of our govt when we don't disagree with them.
It's a very interesting cultural dynamic. And I've found that the more educated the participants in the discussion, the more likely one or both of them will step outside the roles I've defined above.
I must admit I find it hard not to get defensive about my country's actions, even when I disagree with them, if I feel I'm being blamed. If Chinese people feel the same way then maybe it's more productive to focus on tools that help them organise resistance within their own country, than on tools that help them access Western media (with the implication that they should aspire to be more like the West)?
I think that when you say you find it hard not to get defensive, you are speaking on a whole different order of magnitude than a citizen of China. I mean, the Chinese govt has done some truly inane and obscene things in the name of progress, law, and order. And there's also another element—whereas Americans are typically uninformed, citizens of other countries are often actively misinformed. It doesn't take long in a discussion about the One China policy to realize that Chinese people have been inculcated quite strongly that allowing parts of "China" to go their own separate ways will damage the country severely (and here I speak of the foreign concept of country, distinct from govt, that citizens are typically very proud of).
Thus are you really like in these movies from hollywood? I thought that Americans in the real life made the difference between the government and the country.
Most Americans see the government as a defining feature of our country—a fundamental change to the way our government operates would, in the mind of most US citizens, myself included, essentially be a different place.
This makes sense because the US govt was established at the same time (or you could even argue before) the country itself. The path taken by the development of our nation has been guided each step of the way by our foundational principles. This doesn't mean that there's no room for evolution—it's obvious from the Constitution that the Founding Fathers defined only a framework into which the government-in-practice could grow. But I think a strong argument could be made that this country is inextricably linked with the history of its government much moreso than most other nations on the planet.
Please don't take the short view of what I'm saying though. I'm talking about the fundamentals here, the principles laid out in the Constitution, etc. I'm not referring to the news of the day or particular deviations of a particular administration, whether it's Lincoln suspending habeus corpus, the Nixon Watergate scandal, or GWB and the Patriot Act. I'm talking about the Bill of Rights, the three branches, checks and balances, etc.
Conflating other govts with the nations themselves is an attitude so ingrained in most Americans they don't even realize they're doing it until they travel abroad. The first time I encountered it I was somewhat shocked by the realization that it's not only possible but commonplace in other parts of the world to separate one's "country" from one's "government". It's an unfortunate truth that most Americans' notion of reasonable foreign policy sprouts from this one flawed premise, simply because many of us can't fathom a government that operates largely independent of what the people want. For us, we don't understand how an Iraqi soldier could fight for Saddam's regime without supporting it...or for that matter, how one could love one's homeland under such a regime. (I admit I don't completely understand the mindset as I type this, even as I acknowledge it as probably my limitation.)
One of the common slams against the US by citizens of other nations is that it's a "fairly young country," and I'm often surprised when most Americans accept this statement at face value (probably because they're ignorant of the history of other countries, which is sad). In fact, I don't think there are too many runs in history that outlasted the US.
If we accept the American definition of country for a moment, that a country is inextricably bound up with its government, then you can understand the common American view that we are one of the oldest nations in the world. Even though the names don't change, in our way of thinking, if the government does undergo a sea change, the nation is different. Measured this way, there are very few countries more than 100 years old. China is just approaching 60.
I don't mean to imply that there's no value in the foreign viewpoint that a country's history, shared culture, etc, is distinct from the current government, but I also think that the foreign viewpoint does avoid taking a certain amount of civic responsibility at the same time. To pretend that you as a citizen can (tacit though it may be) assent to the rule of a dictator and not suffer consequences is misguided at best (as any modern day citizen of Iraq will tell you). Am I saying the US is not partly responsible for the poor state of affairs over there? No, of course not. Nor do I believe the Iraqi citizenry should be completely absolved of its responsibility as the governed, either.
I think there's great value in exploring why we have lasted so long and been so successful...it would make an interesting meter stick to measure our forward progress, and if people becam
Well...I think perhaps you guys aren't respecting the full range of personalities out there. These tools aren't necessarily for everyone, I'm sure. They're for the Chinese citizens that: (a) feel they should be free to engage information as they like and/or (b) have information to share with the outside world that the Chinese govt may not want shared and (c) are willing to take the personal risk to engage their vision of the way things should be.
One of the things that I have found in my travels to China is that they do not regard their govt the same way we do (I'm assuming the parent and GP poster are Americans, b/c I'm American, and that's what we do:-) ). Chinese do not identify their country with their govt, they're two separate things. In the US, because our govt is supposed to have been founded on (and with the aegis to protect) the principles of the social contract of our country, we do not make a distinction. The Chinese attitude is, the country's been there long before this regime and will be there long after.
In the meantime, here are some tools to stir the pot a little. So what's wrong with that?
I will say this, though. It's not enough to have the tools. You also have to have the know-how to hide them properly. I suggest storing all of these apps on an encrypted partition. (I wonder if the Chinese govt blocks linux sites.)
This is an idle threat. The good name they are interested in defending is inextricably tied up with secrets they're supposed to be guarding about Jesus brother, wife, and kids. They'll never survive discovery.
Too lazy. I could barely get my way through having the idea and posting it.
It is a fantastic idea, though, you have to admit...really, really Earth-shakingly good. Besides, if guys like me had the idea and implemented it, how would all the intellectual proles fill their days?
You hear that, intellectual proles? Get to work! Post a note to this thread when it's done.
Not that the military is a general guidepost for child rearing, but I will say this: consider how the armed services promote unit integrity amongst their troops.
If one does something bad, they all get punished. (The perpetrator usually gets extra, but no one is happy.) Is it fair? No. Does it let you be friends with your kids all the time? No. Does it make you an authority figure to be reckoned with in your kids eyes? Yes. Does it create social pressure for each one to behave? Yes. Does it create shared experiences amongst your kids that will bring them closer together? Yes.
I'm not saying you should force them all to climb a tree and yell "I'm a chicken" at the top of their lungs all night (great hazing story a Marine once told me). But this idea can be applied successfully.
The parent should: (1) tell the child once that if they don't settle down, they'll pay the bill and leave immediately, food or no food and then (2) do it.
...and if I'm trying to have a nice family dinner at a restaurant with my wife and kids and one is misbehaving? I should really disappoint everyone because of one person's behavior?
YES!!! YES! A thousand times yes!
The more people affected by the child's bad behavior, the more of an impression it will make, particularly if the other adults present are willing to support you (that's a nice-to-have, but not a deal-breaker).
See, this is exactly the kind of attitude that allows kids the notion that their behavior doesn't affect anyone else, good or bad, it's totally compartmentalized to themselves and only themselves. I'm all for standing on one's own and teaching self-reliance and everything, but at some point in the US that goal got severely confused for parents and they started regarding children as property to be handled at their own whim and convenience.
This is not the fact. A child is a person, a thinking, living, breathing being that you have to deal with as such. If you figure you can cleave your kid off from the rest of the community at will and operate under this notion, then you'll be teaching the kid the same wrong thinking and they'll internalize it. In this country (the US), parents have taken this to the extreme, to the point that other people are even afraid to speak up if someone else's kid is severely impacting their good time, for fear of getting rebuked by the parent.
This is ridiculous. In China, I've seen kids get smacked on the behind or yelled at by waitresses serving food to the family itself! The kids learn early that their parents don't own them, and can't protect them from the outside world and learn to take that into their calculations from a very young age. American parents persist in this notion that "they're my kids, I'll do what I want with them!"
That's all well and good, provided you plan to keep that responsibility indefinitely. I don't know about you, but I would hope that they will someday grow up and go off and know how to operate in the world without me or the absurd notion that someone else can define a protective social bubble around them.
I think instead I'll give my kid a slightly different set of options: (1) tell the child their behavior is rude and unacceptable and that they need to stop. (2) excuse myself and the child, go to the car, and paddle their bottom. (3) If that fails, leave and they can skip their next meal for ruining everyone else.
Yes, god forbid you should be inconvenienced for raising a terror that's annoying everyone within earshot. In point of fact, when you're parenting is substandard, there should be consequences to you, shouldn't there? So you miss a couple of things every now and then because your kid wrecks it. Such is life and parenting. I'd go further and say that not everyone is going to be perfect parents all the time, so I would suspect that a parent would be inconvenienced fairly frequently in this way, at least until the child learns how to behave. If the costs on this one don't outweigh the benefits of having a kid...hrm...maybe you're not cut out for parenting. (I'm saying "you" here metaphorically, of course...I have no idea how you and your kids are...I'm saying "you, the/. community at large" here.)
Of course that is all dependent on age. That wouldn't be appropriate with a 1-year-old, but it would with most 8-year-olds.
Obviously you have to treat kids appropriate to their age. But at pretty much all ages it's appropriate to set some kind of limits, and whenever you do, make sure they know you're not playing around.
So, let me get this straight...this kid was good all her life, and then suddenly dramatic changes in her personality had her making false accusations against you in front of her own mother (unbeknownst to her, but still). And the parents were in the middle of a messy divorce, and "she turned bad fast".
This sounds like the sort of situation that does actually happen when a child is being neglected or abused. Perhaps it's not the type and nature of the abuse she described about her father, but I would venture a guess that her folks weren't winning any great parenting awards either.
And you know for a fact her father isn't the type to do what he was accused of, how exactly? You mean he wasn't wearing an incest/molestation badge on his shirt? That is the part I've always found most shocking about this kind of abuse—the brazenness with which the abuser flaunts the abuses they commit, the way brag about it and go on. It's like, Yea, we get it, you're evil. Now finish your beer so you can get home.
Come. On. "[H]e isn't the type to do what he was accused of"??? Seriously? That's how you know she was lying in the face of ample evidence that something seriously wrong was going on at home (based on the precipitous decline in her behavior that you yourself describe)? If you look at the cross-section of people that commit such acts, I think you will be shocked to find out that there is no common denominator amongst the lot, and there is no red flag tipping off those around them. And I would be shocked that you're shocked...because until now, I didn't it was possible not to know that.
Oh, I see. So your unreasonable posts in this thread come from a personal, emotional place that has to do with your ex-wife, not a child.
Got it.
Not that I don't sympathize. If you're a good guy and you're going through this with your ex, that's tough and I feel for you. But the truth is that none of us have any way of telling what the situation actually is—we only have your perspective on it. In such emotionally charged situations, I've found it's best not to take sides until you've heard a disinterested account of the specifics.
If there is grave and immediate threat to you or others, there is no state in the union that will prevent you from taking reasonable action to mitigate that threat. If you whip out a gun and immediately blow the 8 year old away, I suspect you'd have a tough time defending your actions. If you launch a flying tackle at the kid and end up securing the situation with some damage done to the child, I think you'd be just fine as far as the law is concerned.
Kids want more than anything to fit in socially...even if the social group is their parents (especially when young).
Sending your parents up the river for sexual molestation runs counter to their goal of finding social acceptance within the family unit. In fact, this is the primary reason why kids that are actually sexually molested by their parents tend not to say anything for years.
Not to say that this doesn't happen from time to time. Other posters have pointed out that the time for remediation of behavioral problems may have passed already if this is your child's first reaction to being told No!. It's also possible that the child is disturbed or something.
And you can take solace in the fact that, in the majority of cases where an abused child is brave and bold and centered enough to actively seek help to escape an abusive situation, most of the time the authorities don't believe them and do their utmost to place the child right back with their abusers. So—if we're really stretching here to find a silver lining on that turd of a thundercloud—it would be that your child's sexual molestation gambit is not likely to be successful in the least.
Either way, in the discussion between my post and yours, I am saying that parents should set limits, give one warning, and then back it up swiftly. You, as far as I can tell, are proposing that parents abdicate their responsibility to raise children to happy, healthy adulthood because of some bizarre and unsupportable notion that the kid will mount and flawlessly execute a campaign of legal vengeance against you at the merest provocation.
One of these things is reasonable. One of them is not.
Slashdot Mirror
map, v. - to perform a mapping
map, n. - a collection of mappings
I think you describe the nuts and bolts of the algorithm...but that's not really that helpful when it comes to understanding the usefulness.
The big fuss about map-reduce (not necessarily Google's) is that we've pretty much hit the speed limit in single core processing power. 4GHz is about it...it's not going to get any faster for some time. Unfortunately, most programs are written to only run on a single core, so adding more cores is only going to get you so far. If you want truly distributive load at a low level of granularity, map-reduce can contribute to a compelling story.
I only have a passing familiarity with Map-Reduce, so I'm definitely not an authoritative source. It's definitely possible that sorting isn't part of the algorithm itself, but rather one example of context around how it's often implemented. It definitely makes sense, though—why not merge-sort the results as mappings are returned? If you do implement it this way, it just makes it possible to deal with really large maps that need to be spread over multiple nodes.
Map-Reduce is definitely a technique related to grid computing, but they are not one and the same.
The most popular (to my knowledge) open source Java library implementing MR is Hadoop.
Here's the algorithm in a nutshell (anyone who knows more than me, please correct, and I'll be forever grateful). I have a bunch of documents and I want to generate a list of word counts. So I begin with the first document and map each word in the document to the value 1. I return each mapping as I do it, and it is merge-sorted by key into a map. Let's say I start with a document of a single sentence: John likes Sue, but Sue doesn't like John. At the end of the map phase, I have compiled the following map, sorted by key:
Now begins the reduce phase. Since the map is sorted by key, all the reduce phase does is iterate through the keys and add up the associated values until a new key is encountered. The result is:
Simple. Stupid. What's the point? The point is that the way this algorithm divides up the work happens to be extremely convenient for parallel processing. So, the map phase of a single document can be split up and farmed out to different nodes in the grid for processing, which can be processed separately from the reduce phase. The merge-sort can even be done at a different processing node as mappings are returned. Redundancy can be achieved if the same document chunk is farmed out to several nodes for simultaneous processing, and the first one that returns the result is used, the others simply ignored or canceled (maybe they're queued up at redundant nodes that were busy, so canceling means simply removing from the queue with very few cycles wasted). Similarly, because the resulting map is sorted by key, an extremely large map can easily be split and sent to several processing nodes in parallel. The original task of counting words across a set of documents can be decomposed to an ridiculous extent for parallelization.
Of course, this doesn't make much sense to actually do this unless you have a very large number of documents. Or, let's say you have a lot of computing resources, but each resource on its own is very limited in terms of processing power. Or both.
This is very close to the problem a company like Google has to solve when indexing the web. The number of documents is huge (every web page), and they don't have any super computers—just a whole ton of cheap, old CPUs in racks.
At the end of the day, Map-Reduce is only useful for tasks that can be decomposed, though. If you have a problem with separate phases, where the input of each phase is determined by the output of the previous phase, then they must be executed serially and Map-Reduce can't help you. If you consider the word-counting example I posted above, it's easy to see that the result required depends upon state that is inherent in the initial conditions (the documents)—it doesn't matter how you divide up a document or if you jumble up the words, the count associated with each word doesn't change, so the result you're after doesn't depend on the context surrounding those words. On the other hand, if you're interested in counting the number of sentences in those documents, you might have a much more difficult problem. (You might think you could just chunk the documents up at the sentence level, but whether or not something is a sentence depends upon surrounding context—a machine can easily mistake an abbreviation like Mr. for the end of a sentence, especially if that Mr. is followed by a capital letter which could indicate the beginning of a new sentence...which it almost always is. Actually...if you're smart you can probably come up with a very compelling argument that this
I'm not disputing that self-signed certs are useful in some cases...I'm only saying that "secure" and "trusted" go hand-in-hand. The reason, I believe, there's only one icon to signify both and it's not split into two is because—well, what would be the point? How can something be secure if it's not trusted? I'm not really worried about a man in the middle attack if I haven't figured out who the man at the end is anyway.
On the other hand, if I have specific knowledge that the man at the end is trustworthy (like, it's my site), then I have no problem adding that to the exception list. But for FF3 to imply that self-signed certs are nearly as good as normal certs opens up a whole list of possible problems for those who aren't tech savvy. Better to just scare them off the site altogether.
So I guess what I'm saying is that secure but untrusted is worse than http, because the illusion of security is worse than openly stating there is no security, particularly for those that don't know the details. Simple truth is always better than complex truth. :-)
What's the problem here? If you want a self-signed cert, then do it, and when you browse to your site, make sure you added it to your browser's exception list. Easy.
If you are creating a site for others to browse to, and you're afraid they won't add your site to their exception list, then you should probably not be using a self-signed cert. What is the point of extolling security to people you don't know that you are yourself vouching for?
This is exactly the problem with sites that let their certs expire. If FF3 didn't behave the way it does, I'm supposed to know I'm hitting Google's site and not some spoof site how, exactly? (Let's assume I'm a n00b and not the mental giant I actually am. I know, I know...suspend your disbelief.)
You must be wrong. If it was the safety of the competitors at issue, they would restrict the training regimens these girls undergo since the age of 3, not the age at which they compete.
"Now, as we have reminded viewers several times already, you'll want to ignore what's actually going on on the beam itself and pay attention to the ultrasound video being broadcast on the stadium monitors, brought to you by our friends at GE. The mother is along for the ride, but she's definitely not the Olympic competitor here.
"Just look at the way Baby Xu is able to maintain its form within the amniotic sac. It really is amazing, having to contend with competing in a bubble of viscous fluid, on top of the other disadvantages of being a fetus, that it can perform at this level! Many people have wondered how, before the gender of this competitor is clear, it can be assigned to an apparatus properly, but I remind everyone that prior to birth, the apparatus eligibility is assigned based on the mother. Now watch this! Here we go...gotta stick that landing—oh! That's unfortunate."
How about: "I am not taking questions at this time, and furthermore, I demand reparations for the query already posed."
So the rational response is to simply take away the option of the agency's weak response in similar situations. Set up a system whereby such information can aggressively and anonymously be made public for anyone that is interested, and leak it anonymously to the parties in control of the situation with enough advance for them to reasonably address the issues at hand.
I think this kind of system would be best for several reasons. (1) We already have the technology required to make it happen (thanks EFF!). (2) If it was discovered by benevolent actors willing to give the authorities a heads-up, it's only a matter of time before bad actors discover it for themselves, and this system encourages swift but not unreasonable response times while trucking no BS. (3) If BS ensues anyway and agency-in-question remains paralyzed and unable to cope, the public is made aware of what is now a public safety concern stemming from a systemically broken agency, which requires a solution to deeper issues that the initial security concern.
Part 3 is really the key to making the whole system work—if the people pay government to do a job, and the government screws it up, then this is the part that holds the government accountable to the people. And not in a way that requires people to be proactive...all they have to do is respond rationally by noticing the ridiculous lapse of responsibility and taking action such as not using the compromised system, which will eventually, and organically, snowball into the problem being fixed. And hopefully with enough hullabaloo that we don't allow the new solution to degrade as completely as what it replaced.
Or
d) Under the pressure to solve a single case, the US Government could collapse in on itself, causing a new despotic regime to overtake what was a storied and noble system of checks and balances. The defendant's entire extended family would be flayed alive in front of him out of sheer spite since he already gave up the information the government wanted under mere threat of what was to come. And then the nukes.
Wait, what were we talking about?
I still feel insulted a little when I read things like these.
So let me get this straight. I'm guessing you are probably of German descent, and you're insulted that someone was coyly and humorously teasing Germans...for lacking a sense of humor?
I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything... :-p
Yea...just don't confuse government with the Bush Administration above. The actions of a particular administration are not what I'm referring to when I use the term...
No, she wasn't neglected or abused. And yes, her parents were/are good parents. Typical leave it to beaver style upbringing. The kid fell in with the wrong crowd and had things planted in their head by well meaning but unqualified counselors. What i described isn't a unique situation. The fact that it took a couple of years longer to effect her should be a sign of how well the parenting was.
I guess we part ways here. Parenting, in my way of thinking, is an active, engaged enterprise. "Leave it to beaver style" parenting has a technical term: neglect. Perhaps it doesn't meet the legal standard of neglect, but then I also think that parents bear more responsibility toward their offspring than what is legally defined as criminal behavior—call me crazy. This legal form of neglect is perhaps the most insidious. At least when it's illegal, there's a chance for someone to step in and stop it.
You say the fact that it took years for the child to fall in with the wrong crowd is evidence of good parenting? The fact that the parents sat idly by for years while this unfolded is a strong indictment of their uninvolved, passive approach.
Frankly, your attitude in these last couple of posts is more than I can stomach. It blows me away that you have written this and I detect no irony in your words at all. We should expect parents to try to produce the best people they can...not just provide the lowest level of Maslow's hierarchy for 18 years. That's a recipe for disaster.
I'm intrigued to hear that, because I'd started to form the opposite impression: whereas Americans consider it patriotic to criticise their government (attacking the government == defending the people), Chinese seem to consider it unpatriotic (attacking the government == attacking the people). But I've never been to China - perhaps the crucial difference is whether the criticism comes from inside or outside the country?
Yes, I've perceived this too...but I think the source of the Chinese attitude is one of embarrassment, and also being miffed at the person they're talking to. It's bad form to point out something that a Chinese person should be ashamed about and make a big deal over it, particularly in Asian cultures. So it's a natural (though not a particularly sophisticated) response to get defensive and take up the mantle of a position you don't really believe in. But most often, when I've discussed these issues with Chinese people, they normally try to shift the focus of the discussion off of China and on to America (or some other non-political issue altogether). Which Americans are usually all too happy to do, because we don't necessarily feel embarrassed by the actions of our govt when we don't disagree with them.
It's a very interesting cultural dynamic. And I've found that the more educated the participants in the discussion, the more likely one or both of them will step outside the roles I've defined above.
I must admit I find it hard not to get defensive about my country's actions, even when I disagree with them, if I feel I'm being blamed. If Chinese people feel the same way then maybe it's more productive to focus on tools that help them organise resistance within their own country, than on tools that help them access Western media (with the implication that they should aspire to be more like the West)?
I think that when you say you find it hard not to get defensive, you are speaking on a whole different order of magnitude than a citizen of China. I mean, the Chinese govt has done some truly inane and obscene things in the name of progress, law, and order. And there's also another element—whereas Americans are typically uninformed, citizens of other countries are often actively misinformed. It doesn't take long in a discussion about the One China policy to realize that Chinese people have been inculcated quite strongly that allowing parts of "China" to go their own separate ways will damage the country severely (and here I speak of the foreign concept of country, distinct from govt, that citizens are typically very proud of).
Thus are you really like in these movies from hollywood? I thought that Americans in the real life made the difference between the government and the country.
Most Americans see the government as a defining feature of our country—a fundamental change to the way our government operates would, in the mind of most US citizens, myself included, essentially be a different place.
This makes sense because the US govt was established at the same time (or you could even argue before) the country itself. The path taken by the development of our nation has been guided each step of the way by our foundational principles. This doesn't mean that there's no room for evolution—it's obvious from the Constitution that the Founding Fathers defined only a framework into which the government-in-practice could grow. But I think a strong argument could be made that this country is inextricably linked with the history of its government much moreso than most other nations on the planet.
Please don't take the short view of what I'm saying though. I'm talking about the fundamentals here, the principles laid out in the Constitution, etc. I'm not referring to the news of the day or particular deviations of a particular administration, whether it's Lincoln suspending habeus corpus, the Nixon Watergate scandal, or GWB and the Patriot Act. I'm talking about the Bill of Rights, the three branches, checks and balances, etc.
Conflating other govts with the nations themselves is an attitude so ingrained in most Americans they don't even realize they're doing it until they travel abroad. The first time I encountered it I was somewhat shocked by the realization that it's not only possible but commonplace in other parts of the world to separate one's "country" from one's "government". It's an unfortunate truth that most Americans' notion of reasonable foreign policy sprouts from this one flawed premise, simply because many of us can't fathom a government that operates largely independent of what the people want. For us, we don't understand how an Iraqi soldier could fight for Saddam's regime without supporting it...or for that matter, how one could love one's homeland under such a regime. (I admit I don't completely understand the mindset as I type this, even as I acknowledge it as probably my limitation.)
One of the common slams against the US by citizens of other nations is that it's a "fairly young country," and I'm often surprised when most Americans accept this statement at face value (probably because they're ignorant of the history of other countries, which is sad). In fact, I don't think there are too many runs in history that outlasted the US.
If we accept the American definition of country for a moment, that a country is inextricably bound up with its government, then you can understand the common American view that we are one of the oldest nations in the world. Even though the names don't change, in our way of thinking, if the government does undergo a sea change, the nation is different. Measured this way, there are very few countries more than 100 years old. China is just approaching 60.
I don't mean to imply that there's no value in the foreign viewpoint that a country's history, shared culture, etc, is distinct from the current government, but I also think that the foreign viewpoint does avoid taking a certain amount of civic responsibility at the same time. To pretend that you as a citizen can (tacit though it may be) assent to the rule of a dictator and not suffer consequences is misguided at best (as any modern day citizen of Iraq will tell you). Am I saying the US is not partly responsible for the poor state of affairs over there? No, of course not. Nor do I believe the Iraqi citizenry should be completely absolved of its responsibility as the governed, either.
I think there's great value in exploring why we have lasted so long and been so successful...it would make an interesting meter stick to measure our forward progress, and if people becam
Well...I think perhaps you guys aren't respecting the full range of personalities out there. These tools aren't necessarily for everyone, I'm sure. They're for the Chinese citizens that: (a) feel they should be free to engage information as they like and/or (b) have information to share with the outside world that the Chinese govt may not want shared and (c) are willing to take the personal risk to engage their vision of the way things should be.
One of the things that I have found in my travels to China is that they do not regard their govt the same way we do (I'm assuming the parent and GP poster are Americans, b/c I'm American, and that's what we do :-) ). Chinese do not identify their country with their govt, they're two separate things. In the US, because our govt is supposed to have been founded on (and with the aegis to protect) the principles of the social contract of our country, we do not make a distinction. The Chinese attitude is, the country's been there long before this regime and will be there long after.
In the meantime, here are some tools to stir the pot a little. So what's wrong with that?
I will say this, though. It's not enough to have the tools. You also have to have the know-how to hide them properly. I suggest storing all of these apps on an encrypted partition. (I wonder if the Chinese govt blocks linux sites.)
This is an idle threat. The good name they are interested in defending is inextricably tied up with secrets they're supposed to be guarding about Jesus brother, wife, and kids. They'll never survive discovery.
Too lazy. I could barely get my way through having the idea and posting it.
It is a fantastic idea, though, you have to admit...really, really Earth-shakingly good. Besides, if guys like me had the idea and implemented it, how would all the intellectual proles fill their days?
You hear that, intellectual proles? Get to work! Post a note to this thread when it's done.
Not that the military is a general guidepost for child rearing, but I will say this: consider how the armed services promote unit integrity amongst their troops.
If one does something bad, they all get punished. (The perpetrator usually gets extra, but no one is happy.) Is it fair? No. Does it let you be friends with your kids all the time? No. Does it make you an authority figure to be reckoned with in your kids eyes? Yes. Does it create social pressure for each one to behave? Yes. Does it create shared experiences amongst your kids that will bring them closer together? Yes.
I'm not saying you should force them all to climb a tree and yell "I'm a chicken" at the top of their lungs all night (great hazing story a Marine once told me). But this idea can be applied successfully.
The parent should: (1) tell the child once that if they don't settle down, they'll pay the bill and leave immediately, food or no food and then (2) do it.
YES!!! YES! A thousand times yes! The more people affected by the child's bad behavior, the more of an impression it will make, particularly if the other adults present are willing to support you (that's a nice-to-have, but not a deal-breaker). See, this is exactly the kind of attitude that allows kids the notion that their behavior doesn't affect anyone else, good or bad, it's totally compartmentalized to themselves and only themselves. I'm all for standing on one's own and teaching self-reliance and everything, but at some point in the US that goal got severely confused for parents and they started regarding children as property to be handled at their own whim and convenience.
This is not the fact. A child is a person, a thinking, living, breathing being that you have to deal with as such. If you figure you can cleave your kid off from the rest of the community at will and operate under this notion, then you'll be teaching the kid the same wrong thinking and they'll internalize it. In this country (the US), parents have taken this to the extreme, to the point that other people are even afraid to speak up if someone else's kid is severely impacting their good time, for fear of getting rebuked by the parent.
This is ridiculous. In China, I've seen kids get smacked on the behind or yelled at by waitresses serving food to the family itself! The kids learn early that their parents don't own them, and can't protect them from the outside world and learn to take that into their calculations from a very young age. American parents persist in this notion that "they're my kids, I'll do what I want with them!"
That's all well and good, provided you plan to keep that responsibility indefinitely. I don't know about you, but I would hope that they will someday grow up and go off and know how to operate in the world without me or the absurd notion that someone else can define a protective social bubble around them.
I think instead I'll give my kid a slightly different set of options: (1) tell the child their behavior is rude and unacceptable and that they need to stop. (2) excuse myself and the child, go to the car, and paddle their bottom. (3) If that fails, leave and they can skip their next meal for ruining everyone else.
Yes, god forbid you should be inconvenienced for raising a terror that's annoying everyone within earshot. In point of fact, when you're parenting is substandard, there should be consequences to you, shouldn't there? So you miss a couple of things every now and then because your kid wrecks it. Such is life and parenting. I'd go further and say that not everyone is going to be perfect parents all the time, so I would suspect that a parent would be inconvenienced fairly frequently in this way, at least until the child learns how to behave. If the costs on this one don't outweigh the benefits of having a kid...hrm...maybe you're not cut out for parenting. (I'm saying "you" here metaphorically, of course...I have no idea how you and your kids are...I'm saying "you, the /. community at large" here.)
Of course that is all dependent on age. That wouldn't be appropriate with a 1-year-old, but it would with most 8-year-olds.
Obviously you have to treat kids appropriate to their age. But at pretty much all ages it's appropriate to set some kind of limits, and whenever you do, make sure they know you're not playing around.
With all due respect, your post is one of the dumbest in this thread.
And what's he supposed to do after he kidnaps her? Rambo his way around the country decimating any cop force that comes after him?
Jesus.
So, let me get this straight...this kid was good all her life, and then suddenly dramatic changes in her personality had her making false accusations against you in front of her own mother (unbeknownst to her, but still). And the parents were in the middle of a messy divorce, and "she turned bad fast".
This sounds like the sort of situation that does actually happen when a child is being neglected or abused. Perhaps it's not the type and nature of the abuse she described about her father, but I would venture a guess that her folks weren't winning any great parenting awards either.
And you know for a fact her father isn't the type to do what he was accused of, how exactly? You mean he wasn't wearing an incest/molestation badge on his shirt? That is the part I've always found most shocking about this kind of abuse—the brazenness with which the abuser flaunts the abuses they commit, the way brag about it and go on. It's like, Yea, we get it, you're evil. Now finish your beer so you can get home.
Come. On. "[H]e isn't the type to do what he was accused of"??? Seriously? That's how you know she was lying in the face of ample evidence that something seriously wrong was going on at home (based on the precipitous decline in her behavior that you yourself describe)? If you look at the cross-section of people that commit such acts, I think you will be shocked to find out that there is no common denominator amongst the lot, and there is no red flag tipping off those around them. And I would be shocked that you're shocked...because until now, I didn't it was possible not to know that.
Oh, I see. So your unreasonable posts in this thread come from a personal, emotional place that has to do with your ex-wife, not a child.
Got it.
Not that I don't sympathize. If you're a good guy and you're going through this with your ex, that's tough and I feel for you. But the truth is that none of us have any way of telling what the situation actually is—we only have your perspective on it. In such emotionally charged situations, I've found it's best not to take sides until you've heard a disinterested account of the specifics.
If there is grave and immediate threat to you or others, there is no state in the union that will prevent you from taking reasonable action to mitigate that threat. If you whip out a gun and immediately blow the 8 year old away, I suspect you'd have a tough time defending your actions. If you launch a flying tackle at the kid and end up securing the situation with some damage done to the child, I think you'd be just fine as far as the law is concerned.
Go back and read my post.
I said:
Sending your parents up the river for sexual molestation runs counter to their goal of finding social acceptance within the family unit. In fact, this is the primary reason why kids that are actually sexually molested by their parents tend not to say anything for years.
Not to say that this doesn't happen from time to time. Other posters have pointed out that the time for remediation of behavioral problems may have passed already if this is your child's first reaction to being told No!. It's also possible that the child is disturbed or something. And you can take solace in the fact that, in the majority of cases where an abused child is brave and bold and centered enough to actively seek help to escape an abusive situation, most of the time the authorities don't believe them and do their utmost to place the child right back with their abusers. So—if we're really stretching here to find a silver lining on that turd of a thundercloud—it would be that your child's sexual molestation gambit is not likely to be successful in the least.
Either way, in the discussion between my post and yours, I am saying that parents should set limits, give one warning, and then back it up swiftly. You, as far as I can tell, are proposing that parents abdicate their responsibility to raise children to happy, healthy adulthood because of some bizarre and unsupportable notion that the kid will mount and flawlessly execute a campaign of legal vengeance against you at the merest provocation.
One of these things is reasonable. One of them is not.