> I've been wondering, and would love to hear what/.'ers have to say, what advice do we give to children to on how to financially secure their future? What college major do you recommend for our next generation?
1) Basic financial common sense like that outlined in The Millionaire Next Door. Stay out of debt unless what you bought has is likely to return your initial investment plus the cost of interest. Going into debt for a postgraduate education is a good gamble. Going to Disneyland every year on a credit card is a poor gamble. Don't buy crap you don't need with money you don't have.
2) And don't have kids unless you have $500K in liquid assets to fund their development. If you can't raise it, feed it, and educate it to the postgraduate level, it's not going to have what you consider a middle class lifestyle. Don't like that? Tough. Bitch about it all you want, but don't waste your time or its time by breeding something you can't program to the point of self sufficiency.
3) If it's too late for #2, start dissecting frogs and playing with logic puzzles. Explain that ones and zeroes can encode words, and that words can contain instructions. Explain that DNA is like ones and zeroes. Play games with ones, zeroes, and codes. Assuming your offspring is human, your offspring's brain comes with preloaded firmware that's capable of doing the rest. Catch is, it also comes with a few zillion open ports suitable for exploitation -- and everyone from your offspring's peers, to marketroids, to your own political leaders, is portscanning it 24/7. Keep your offspring's CPU pegged on useful processes as a first line of defense against hijackers.
4) Start with a firm grounding in rationality and the scientific method. Work up to Organic Chemistry + Biology + Computer Science + Bioinformatics = Biological Engineering. Depending on how things work out abroad (because the technology leaders sure as hell won't be coming from here anymore), you may wish to swap out the bioinformatics and add in some inorganic chemistry and you've got Materials Science and/or Nanotechnological Engineering.
As for #4 - if they're not teaching it in the schools, that's fine. If you're reading this, you've got most of what you need. You don't need a biology background to beat the system from public school to an undergraduate degree -- you just need to stay a chapter or two ahead of your offspring while you learn about it yourself.
> The general population has been shunning computer scientists and engineers for years!
There are at least two In Soviet Russia jokes here, but they're mutually-exclusive. I know that because I've been shunning the general population for years, and I learned about mutual exclusivity while getting my CompSci degree.
If kids were getting out of CompSci and CompEng but taking up ChemEng and Bioinformatics, we'd rule the world.
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening.
Given that it's pretty hard to get out of the US public school system with an awareness of something as central to biology as the theory of evolution, the probability of the US turning out a good crop of bioengineers and doctors is rapidly dropping.
The reason high-tech jobs are being outsourced is because there are fewer high-tech skills being taught domestically. Universities at the undergraduate level have become what "high school" used to be -- a piece of paper that says you've got the minimum skills and education necessary to participate in the economy.
If we ever needed proof that Douglas Adams was right, we have it here. We're a society of lawyers, the marketing executives, the telephone sanitization technicians, and the rest of the Useless Third Of The Population that crashed here from the "B" Ark. Ayn Rand got it wrong -- in our world, unlike Atlas Shrugged, the men of the mind can't go on strike, because they're already extinct. We're a load of useless bloody looneys.
> Instead, take the time to study things that are interesting and really mind-expanding like literature, philosophy, and languages.
With a liberal arts degree, after you discover that the only thing to read is the script your training partner hands you and that the only language you'll ever use involves varying the accent on "Y'want frizewiddat" from English to Ebonics as appropriate for your store's demographics, you'll derive existentialism from first principles.
> I wonder if they got tired of all those 'If runs on OS X, why don't you have a Linux version?
They're practically the same thing!' questions.
It never ran on OS X. So that answers that question.
Sort of. Problem is, they had a Linux version three years ago. FrameMaker on Linux.
So the mystery deepens. What the fuck happened to Frame on Linux, and if Adobe could port from Solaris to Linux three years ago, surely they can port from Solaris to OS X (and Solaris to Linux) today.
I can see the market for Frame on Linux being pretty small in 2000 -- anyone with $800 to spend on software probably wasn't using Linux as a desktop. I can't see that argument holding water today. And that goes double for OS X.
> You'll probably have to replace breast implants made of this kind of tissue, too. Your body should absorb it over time, I would think. It would be nice if you could make them permanent though, I'd start a nonprofit to buy women bigger tits.
Brain: And once this Slashdotter has started the nonprofit fundraiser, and our kind has a monopoly on breast production, we shall rule the world! (And it shall be a wonderful world, full of tits.)
Pinky: Well, Brain, if the world needs more tits, I'm glad to do my part! Tits tits tits tits tits tits ! Tiiiiiiiiits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits...
Brain: You do realize we can grow them ourselves now, don't you? I like tits as much as the next mouse, but if you don't stop that, I shall have to hurt you.
Pinky:...tits tits tits tits tits tits ti-*WHAM*-NARF! Sorry, Brain. Tits on the brain and all.
> > "We wish it was 10 tonnes instead of 100 kilograms," said Hildebrand, who is the co-ordinator of the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre. > >Maybe I'm just a bit old-fashioned, but I prefer that the rocks that fall from the sky are as small as possible. Science is great and all, but c'mon I just bought my townhouse, I really don't want a skylight *that* badly.
Maybe he was talking about the amount of hot grits required to safely capture the meteoric but ever-so-shapley form of Ms. Portman upon her impact with Saskatchewan?
> if your brain was so completely full of names of people that it just couldn't take any more, would anyone new who you met after that, therefore not be a person?
The two-legged things in my office have names?! Not just email addresses?
> I would be much more impressed if they could tell from my brainwaves wether I am thinking of a
car or a dog.
Or a bomb.
Would sure make Homesec checkpoints a lot more interesting. The harder you try not to think about bombs, the more likely you are to trigger a false positive.
> This stuff isn't like dynamite that blows up and becomes inert. Radioactive material can take
thousands of years to decay.
And that's why, after decades of above-ground nuclear tests on our own soil, we're all dead, right? Oh, wait.
Global thermonuclear exchange between USA and USSR? Yeah, probably the end of civilization.
Moslems take out one US city, US takes out the Middle East? The only civilization that ends in that scenario is the one that believes in infibulation and worshipping a fucking meteorite fragment. I can live with that.
For what it's worth, I woke up on 9/11 to see the "live" pictures of 5-10-minutes after-both-towers-collapsed Manhattan, with entire island covered in smoke and ash, and the first thought that crossed my mind (after "WTF?") was that a low-yield tac-nuke had been used.
(Considering the kinetic energy released in the collapse of both towers, I was pretty close to the truth:)
> However, I have almost been kicked off the air multiple times because of the lameass obscenity rules imposed by the FCC. Songs such as this, this, this, and this have cost me much grief in the past.
I'll see that and raise you Karen Finley's Tales of Taboo, Radio Mix.
I first heard Ms. Finley's piece on a 50 watt college station at 2:00 am. That DJ had balls. Big brassy balls that went clank whenever she sat down at the mic.:)
> I think it's funny that Congress will pass laws with all kinds of minutia and details in them, such as gun laws that list a bunch of specific models of guns, but then we also have laws like what gives the FCC its powers, with vague terms such as "indecent" so that we get to fight for years in courtrooms over what the terms mean.
If the laws that govern expression were concrete, the government would lose its power to bring prosecutions against those who threaten its world view.
Howard Stern, for example, needs to get back on side with the Administration, whereupon he'll be given sufficient latitude by the FCC to resume being funny. He got in trouble because someone saw Janet's boobies and declared that Something Had To Be Done, and he wasn't sufficient onside with the administration to escape being the scapegoat. Brought it on himself, really. In an profession for which the laws are written with deliberate ambiguity, one must always have their political bets suitably hedged. Stern failed to do that, and it's costing him bigtime.
That's not the FCC's jurisdiction, that's the FTC's jurisdiction. (Sorta like how we had trouble with the two agencies when the FCC had trouble the FTC during the Do-Not-Call list lawsuits of a few months ago)
We could address these sorts of problems by merging the FTC and the FCC into a Federal Trade and Federal Communications Commission.
FTFCC.
I kinda like the sound of that. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say why I like the sound of that.
But I sure like the sound of that.
Re:PC Magazine reports non-PC product will die
on
TiVo Will Die
·
· Score: 1
> You missed his biggest (and IMHO most valid) point. Why would anyone pay $300 + $12 a month for a tivo when for $6 a month you can do it with your cable company? Yes, tivo may be technically superior and easier to use than the cable offerings, but for $6 a month vos $11 a month + $300 up front, I know which I would choose.
The cable boxes cost $300 - the cable companies are eating that cost. That's why the interfaces suck, of course, and why the ads take up 90% of the screen and you have to sit through 10 minutes of them when you just want to see what's on TV in the next hour.
If the cable companies were smart, they'd make a good set-top box. But they're hooked on the "shovel ads down the viewer's throat while forcing the user to wade through the ads to get to the content".
Problem with that model is that TiVo is more like a VCR ("it does what I want it to do, not what my cable company tells it to do") than a set-top box. Most users think of a VCR as something they pay for - and a cable set-top box as "something they need to get the signal". In that sense, TiVo is worth $300, and a cable box is "worthless", because a TiVo is more like "stuff they've paid for in the past", and a cable box is more like "stuff the cable company foists on you".
I'm not claiming TiVo will be able to sell units for $300 to the general public forever -- but as long as it can sell units for $250 to cable companies looking for something better than the crap Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta are coming out -- the cable companies that have better "boxes" (i.e. TiVo-based ones) will gain marketshare over those who don't.
(The counterargument -- which is valid -- is that the scenario I described sure as hell didn't take place in cable "modems" or DSL "modems". The users use what their provider offers, nothing else.)
The counter-counterargument is that users appear to accept the notion that their "modems" are locked to their Internet service providers, because they don't know squat about TCP/IP. The question that the market has yet to answer is this: "Will they consumers accept having to get a 'new VCR' every time they change from cable, to satellite, to HDTV3-over-subspace?"
> Secondly, a PC vs a tivo is not quite so simple
As for PC vs TiVo -- my TiVo is a PC for the reasons you describe. No DRM, serves files where I want 'em, does stuff other than TiVoing. But I did it with a PC and PC hardware because it was fun and I like fooling around with hardware. But I'd never imagine my Aunt Tilly putting up with the hell (a fun hell, mind you!) I went through to get there, though.
PC Magazine reports non-PC product will die
on
TiVo Will Die
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Let's see - a magazine that sells PCs (that can do TiVo-like functionality, at the expsense of usability) - predicts the death of TiVo.
Moore's Law - Just because you can put an MPEG2 stream onto a hard drive without converting to analog, doesn't mean a TiVo isn't a better way to do it than a clunky piece of crap set-top box from your local spam^H^H^H^Hcable company. TiVo wins marketshare because of its UI, not because it's doing anything technologically revolutionary. Moore's law merely means that the cost of silicon will continue to drop -- but the cost of building a TiVo is about the same as the cost of building anything else. TiVo's strength - its usability - is a function of good design, not the cost of silicon.
HDTV - And next week, IPv6 to take over the world! Enough said.
Murdoch / DirecTV - Then he'll buy TiVo outright, which will also be good for TiVo. Why oust it in favor of something less useful but cheaper, when Moore's Law says both the clunky and the useful products are going to be the same price?
The article's an unwarranted slam against TiVo and only towards the end do we find the real motivation:
In the early years of TiVo, I'd get instant service. TiVo even gave me the name of a special ambassador-a strategy meant to ensure that the company got a fair hearing in the press, on the Web, and in other public forums. Today my inquiries go unanswered-or even worse, I never receive a promised response. Hold times on the help lines are interminable: It took me over half an hour last week to determine why the company had charged me $14.
So that's the real reason for this poorly-thought-out slam: The author used to get serviced to orgasm from the company whenever he flashed his press credentials. But today, he gets the same customer service as the rest of us get... from every company we do business with. It's phone support. It's going to suckDeal with it.
What's next? Netcraft author denied photo-op with cute daemon-suited ch1x0rz at LinuxWorld, and writes a report that confirms FreeBSD is dying?
> I don't want to point out what a stretch this is to make your point (oops, I guess I did anyway), but MY granny (and probably many others) would know better.
As would mine. (Fuck, what I wouldn't give for mod points to your post). She'd know that her grandchildren were as good as dead whether or not she complied with the plot as soon as she hung up.
More importantly for purposes of profiling, terrorists are unlikely to use this method because while some people might fall for it, not all would, and the risk of exposing the network by relying on hostage compliance would be too great.
The final argument in favor of profiling is the counterargument: People who oppose profiling say things like "Well, what if instead of a recent prison recruit to Islam, it was a your six-year-old child, or your grandmother that was tricked or forced into taking part in a terrorist plot, that'd defeat profiling!"
What? Opponents of profiling choose these examples precisely because they're absurd! But why are they absurd? Because there is a "profile" of the typical terrorist, and anti-profilers' choice of examples simply serves to prove the point that profiling can be a valuable piece of the security puzzle.
Male? 15-45? Bow down to a meteorite five times a day? Believe that a camelfucking freak was the prophet of a nonexistent God? Think dressing your kids up in dynamite and parading them around the streets is a celebration of freedom? Wish someone had hacked your wives' clits off at puberty? Wanna jump around on the streets when you hear about 3000 of us dying? Got a problem with me nibbling on pork rinds for the duration of the entire flight?
Well, first, fuck you, and second, get the fuck off my plane.
> The flight you attempted to board requires Ultra-violet clearance. You only have yellow level clearance at this time. > >
You will be terminated for attempted treason and/or terrorism. Your clone will be commendated for your willingess to cooperate.
Citizen Air-O-naughty, I noticed your attractive orange flight attendant's uniform. The aircraft looks orange to me. What is this clearance of which you speak? Is there some form of transparent paint on the aircraft that I cannot see?
TROUBLESHOOTERS! FLIGHT ATTENDANT AIR-O-NAUGHTY IS EITHER DISPLAYING MUTANT POWERS OR ATTEMPTING TO DECEIVE LOYAL CITIZENS BY SPREADING DISINFORMATION ABOUT A NONEXISTENT SECURITY CLEARANCE!
Trust no one except the Computer! Turn in your laser at the Homesec checkpoint before boarding!
> At the end of the day, Islamic nations just want the same thing as everyone else in the world does - to be able to live their lives as they wish, without having someone else's ideals imposed on them.
Your right to swing your fist ends in my face.
Your right to hack off your daughter's clit ended in downtown Manhattan.
We didn't start this war, but we are going to finish it.
I'd rather we wipe you out with memetic warfare - Democracy, Whisky, Sexy. People free to speak, drink, and fuck are also free to invent when they're bored of drinking and fucking. It's not only more fun to sell you cool toys, it's more profitable, too!
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly
immoral - doctrine that 'violence never settles anything' I would
advise to conjure up the ghost of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke
of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the
Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in
history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful
thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
- Heinlein, Starship Troopers
Do not confuse our preference for ending this war in the more profitable and fun way with our capability of ending this war in a more direct manner.
> the US is becoming the feared bohemoth, in George Orwell's 1984. Soon, everyone will have a camera in their homes, and there will be no escaping Big Brother.
If you really believed that, would you post such a thing to a public message board whose contents are archived by anyone (and everyone)?
Slashdot Mirror
1) Basic financial common sense like that outlined in The Millionaire Next Door. Stay out of debt unless what you bought has is likely to return your initial investment plus the cost of interest. Going into debt for a postgraduate education is a good gamble. Going to Disneyland every year on a credit card is a poor gamble. Don't buy crap you don't need with money you don't have.
2) And don't have kids unless you have $500K in liquid assets to fund their development. If you can't raise it, feed it, and educate it to the postgraduate level, it's not going to have what you consider a middle class lifestyle. Don't like that? Tough. Bitch about it all you want, but don't waste your time or its time by breeding something you can't program to the point of self sufficiency.
3) If it's too late for #2, start dissecting frogs and playing with logic puzzles. Explain that ones and zeroes can encode words, and that words can contain instructions. Explain that DNA is like ones and zeroes. Play games with ones, zeroes, and codes. Assuming your offspring is human, your offspring's brain comes with preloaded firmware that's capable of doing the rest. Catch is, it also comes with a few zillion open ports suitable for exploitation -- and everyone from your offspring's peers, to marketroids, to your own political leaders, is portscanning it 24/7. Keep your offspring's CPU pegged on useful processes as a first line of defense against hijackers.
4) Start with a firm grounding in rationality and the scientific method. Work up to Organic Chemistry + Biology + Computer Science + Bioinformatics = Biological Engineering. Depending on how things work out abroad (because the technology leaders sure as hell won't be coming from here anymore), you may wish to swap out the bioinformatics and add in some inorganic chemistry and you've got Materials Science and/or Nanotechnological Engineering.
As for #4 - if they're not teaching it in the schools, that's fine. If you're reading this, you've got most of what you need. You don't need a biology background to beat the system from public school to an undergraduate degree -- you just need to stay a chapter or two ahead of your offspring while you learn about it yourself.
>
> Oh yeah?? When we evolve into pure energy beings you guys are SCREWED!
There are at least two In Soviet Russia jokes here, but they're mutually-exclusive. I know that because I've been shunning the general population for years, and I learned about mutual exclusivity while getting my CompSci degree.
And that's the problem.
If kids were getting out of CompSci and CompEng but taking up ChemEng and Bioinformatics, we'd rule the world.
Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening.
Given that it's pretty hard to get out of the US public school system with an awareness of something as central to biology as the theory of evolution, the probability of the US turning out a good crop of bioengineers and doctors is rapidly dropping.
The reason high-tech jobs are being outsourced is because there are fewer high-tech skills being taught domestically. Universities at the undergraduate level have become what "high school" used to be -- a piece of paper that says you've got the minimum skills and education necessary to participate in the economy.
If we ever needed proof that Douglas Adams was right, we have it here. We're a society of lawyers, the marketing executives, the telephone sanitization technicians, and the rest of the Useless Third Of The Population that crashed here from the "B" Ark. Ayn Rand got it wrong -- in our world, unlike Atlas Shrugged, the men of the mind can't go on strike, because they're already extinct. We're a load of useless bloody looneys.
With a liberal arts degree, after you discover that the only thing to read is the script your training partner hands you and that the only language you'll ever use involves varying the accent on "Y'want frizewiddat" from English to Ebonics as appropriate for your store's demographics, you'll derive existentialism from first principles.
So skip the philosophy, because it's redundant.
It never ran on OS X. So that answers that question.
Sort of. Problem is, they had a Linux version three years ago. FrameMaker on Linux.
So the mystery deepens. What the fuck happened to Frame on Linux, and if Adobe could port from Solaris to Linux three years ago, surely they can port from Solaris to OS X (and Solaris to Linux) today.
I can see the market for Frame on Linux being pretty small in 2000 -- anyone with $800 to spend on software probably wasn't using Linux as a desktop. I can't see that argument holding water today. And that goes double for OS X.
Brain: And once this Slashdotter has started the nonprofit fundraiser, and our kind has a monopoly on breast production, we shall rule the world! (And it shall be a wonderful world, full of tits.)
Pinky: Well, Brain, if the world needs more tits, I'm glad to do my part! Tits tits tits tits tits tits ! Tiiiiiiiiits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits tits ...
Brain: You do realize we can grow them ourselves now, don't you? I like tits as much as the next mouse, but if you don't stop that, I shall have to hurt you.
Pinky:...tits tits tits tits tits tits ti-*WHAM*-NARF! Sorry, Brain. Tits on the brain and all.
Brain: Yes, I know. Occupational hazard.
>
>Maybe I'm just a bit old-fashioned, but I prefer that the rocks that fall from the sky are as small as possible. Science is great and all, but c'mon I just bought my townhouse, I really don't want a skylight *that* badly.
Maybe he was talking about the amount of hot grits required to safely capture the meteoric but ever-so-shapley form of Ms. Portman upon her impact with Saskatchewan?
The two-legged things in my office have names?! Not just email addresses?
Or a bomb.
Would sure make Homesec checkpoints a lot more interesting. The harder you try not to think about bombs, the more likely you are to trigger a false positive.
And that's why, after decades of above-ground nuclear tests on our own soil, we're all dead, right? Oh, wait.
Global thermonuclear exchange between USA and USSR? Yeah, probably the end of civilization.
Moslems take out one US city, US takes out the Middle East? The only civilization that ends in that scenario is the one that believes in infibulation and worshipping a fucking meteorite fragment. I can live with that.
For what it's worth, I woke up on 9/11 to see the "live" pictures of 5-10-minutes after-both-towers-collapsed Manhattan, with entire island covered in smoke and ash, and the first thought that crossed my mind (after "WTF?") was that a low-yield tac-nuke had been used.
(Considering the kinetic energy released in the collapse of both towers, I was pretty close to the truth :)
I'll see that and raise you Karen Finley's Tales of Taboo, Radio Mix.
I first heard Ms. Finley's piece on a 50 watt college station at 2:00 am. That DJ had balls. Big brassy balls that went clank whenever she sat down at the mic. :)
If the laws that govern expression were concrete, the government would lose its power to bring prosecutions against those who threaten its world view.
Howard Stern, for example, needs to get back on side with the Administration, whereupon he'll be given sufficient latitude by the FCC to resume being funny. He got in trouble because someone saw Janet's boobies and declared that Something Had To Be Done, and he wasn't sufficient onside with the administration to escape being the scapegoat. Brought it on himself, really. In an profession for which the laws are written with deliberate ambiguity, one must always have their political bets suitably hedged. Stern failed to do that, and it's costing him bigtime.
That's not the FCC's jurisdiction, that's the FTC's jurisdiction. (Sorta like how we had trouble with the two agencies when the FCC had trouble the FTC during the Do-Not-Call list lawsuits of a few months ago)
We could address these sorts of problems by merging the FTC and the FCC into a Federal Trade and Federal Communications Commission.
FTFCC.
I kinda like the sound of that. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say why I like the sound of that.
But I sure like the sound of that.
The cable boxes cost $300 - the cable companies are eating that cost. That's why the interfaces suck, of course, and why the ads take up 90% of the screen and you have to sit through 10 minutes of them when you just want to see what's on TV in the next hour.
If the cable companies were smart, they'd make a good set-top box. But they're hooked on the "shovel ads down the viewer's throat while forcing the user to wade through the ads to get to the content".
Problem with that model is that TiVo is more like a VCR ("it does what I want it to do, not what my cable company tells it to do") than a set-top box. Most users think of a VCR as something they pay for - and a cable set-top box as "something they need to get the signal". In that sense, TiVo is worth $300, and a cable box is "worthless", because a TiVo is more like "stuff they've paid for in the past", and a cable box is more like "stuff the cable company foists on you".
I'm not claiming TiVo will be able to sell units for $300 to the general public forever -- but as long as it can sell units for $250 to cable companies looking for something better than the crap Motorola and Scientific-Atlanta are coming out -- the cable companies that have better "boxes" (i.e. TiVo-based ones) will gain marketshare over those who don't.
(The counterargument -- which is valid -- is that the scenario I described sure as hell didn't take place in cable "modems" or DSL "modems". The users use what their provider offers, nothing else.)
The counter-counterargument is that users appear to accept the notion that their "modems" are locked to their Internet service providers, because they don't know squat about TCP/IP. The question that the market has yet to answer is this: "Will they consumers accept having to get a 'new VCR' every time they change from cable, to satellite, to HDTV3-over-subspace?"
> Secondly, a PC vs a tivo is not quite so simple
As for PC vs TiVo -- my TiVo is a PC for the reasons you describe. No DRM, serves files where I want 'em, does stuff other than TiVoing. But I did it with a PC and PC hardware because it was fun and I like fooling around with hardware. But I'd never imagine my Aunt Tilly putting up with the hell (a fun hell, mind you!) I went through to get there, though.
Moore's Law - Just because you can put an MPEG2 stream onto a hard drive without converting to analog, doesn't mean a TiVo isn't a better way to do it than a clunky piece of crap set-top box from your local spam^H^H^H^Hcable company. TiVo wins marketshare because of its UI, not because it's doing anything technologically revolutionary. Moore's law merely means that the cost of silicon will continue to drop -- but the cost of building a TiVo is about the same as the cost of building anything else. TiVo's strength - its usability - is a function of good design, not the cost of silicon.
HDTV - And next week, IPv6 to take over the world! Enough said.
Murdoch / DirecTV - Then he'll buy TiVo outright, which will also be good for TiVo. Why oust it in favor of something less useful but cheaper, when Moore's Law says both the clunky and the useful products are going to be the same price?
The article's an unwarranted slam against TiVo and only towards the end do we find the real motivation:
So that's the real reason for this poorly-thought-out slam: The author used to get serviced to orgasm from the company whenever he flashed his press credentials. But today, he gets the same customer service as the rest of us get... from every company we do business with. It's phone support. It's going to suck Deal with it.
What's next? Netcraft author denied photo-op with cute daemon-suited ch1x0rz at LinuxWorld, and writes a report that confirms FreeBSD is dying?
As would mine. (Fuck, what I wouldn't give for mod points to your post). She'd know that her grandchildren were as good as dead whether or not she complied with the plot as soon as she hung up.
More importantly for purposes of profiling, terrorists are unlikely to use this method because while some people might fall for it, not all would, and the risk of exposing the network by relying on hostage compliance would be too great.
The final argument in favor of profiling is the counterargument: People who oppose profiling say things like "Well, what if instead of a recent prison recruit to Islam, it was a your six-year-old child, or your grandmother that was tricked or forced into taking part in a terrorist plot, that'd defeat profiling!"
What? Opponents of profiling choose these examples precisely because they're absurd! But why are they absurd? Because there is a "profile" of the typical terrorist, and anti-profilers' choice of examples simply serves to prove the point that profiling can be a valuable piece of the security puzzle.
Male? 15-45? Bow down to a meteorite five times a day? Believe that a camelfucking freak was the prophet of a nonexistent God? Think dressing your kids up in dynamite and parading them around the streets is a celebration of freedom? Wish someone had hacked your wives' clits off at puberty? Wanna jump around on the streets when you hear about 3000 of us dying? Got a problem with me nibbling on pork rinds for the duration of the entire flight? Well, first, fuck you, and second, get the fuck off my plane.
>
> You will be terminated for attempted treason and/or terrorism. Your clone will be commendated for your willingess to cooperate.
Citizen Air-O-naughty, I noticed your attractive orange flight attendant's uniform. The aircraft looks orange to me. What is this clearance of which you speak? Is there some form of transparent paint on the aircraft that I cannot see?
TROUBLESHOOTERS! FLIGHT ATTENDANT AIR-O-NAUGHTY IS EITHER DISPLAYING MUTANT POWERS OR ATTEMPTING TO DECEIVE LOYAL CITIZENS BY SPREADING DISINFORMATION ABOUT A NONEXISTENT SECURITY CLEARANCE!
Trust no one except the Computer! Turn in your laser at the Homesec checkpoint before boarding!
The Holy Spirit just uploads a tongue of flame to the FTP site and lets us take care of mirroring it?
It puts the fucking Ebola in the pressure-contained work area!
You keep the Australians and their vegemite out of this!
Your right to swing your fist ends in my face.
Your right to hack off your daughter's clit ended in downtown Manhattan.
We didn't start this war, but we are going to finish it.
I'd rather we wipe you out with memetic warfare - Democracy, Whisky, Sexy. People free to speak, drink, and fuck are also free to invent when they're bored of drinking and fucking. It's not only more fun to sell you cool toys, it's more profitable, too!
Do not confuse our preference for ending this war in the more profitable and fun way with our capability of ending this war in a more direct manner.
If you really believed that, would you post such a thing to a public message board whose contents are archived by anyone (and everyone)?
You really, really, really , have no fucking clue about how corn came to exist, do you?
Then the future's gonna be pretty fucking bright, isn't it? Anybody not wearing two-million sunblock's gonna have a real bad day.