The simpler tests are appropriate because it is easy to rule out people. The more specific tests are only needed for those who are close target genetic profile.
With respect to incidental transfer, that is not very different from having just been seen with a victim, having just called a victim, etc. Reasonable doubt exists.
Once everyone's DNA is indexed somewhere then it opens up a can of worms. It's inevitable that at some point it will be misused. Perhaps it's opened up for other uses (Insurance companies, public domain, etc) or maybe someone just gets access to the data.
In the US, since the 1970s, government agencies have been restricted in terms of what information they can collect and what they can share even amongst each other and subcontractors. Since then privacy rules have become even more restrictive, in particular with respect to medical information.
The insurance company screening argument is a red herring to a degree. They could collect a DNA sample as part of a mandatory physical. Unless such profiling is outlawed, it will happen regardless of whether or not there is a national DNA database.
Have you got any evidence to back this up? Because poor people are more likely to commit crimes (at least crimes you'll get caught for) and in America unfortunately a black person is more likely to be poor then a white person (thanks to all of those decades of racism). So therefore a black person truly is more likely to commit a crime. It's not the police's fault, it's not a genetic trait of black people, it is a social one we have imparted onto them through a series of unfortunate events.
You are misrepresenting things to a degree. Racism is not the only cause of poverty, benevolent liberalism is also a cause. The deterioration of the family unit is not due to racism, it is in part due to well meaning social programs that had unintended effects. To a degree, the War on Poverty inadvertently contributed to a culture of dependency and displaced a cultural strong on family and self reliance. While the preceding could fall under your "imparted onto them" theme, there are also internal factors such as the current fashion of embracing the "thug life". I'm not attacking rap, I certainly saw plenty of examples of whites embracing a "rock and roll" lifestyle and relegating themselves to poverty due to excessive drug use. I was a punk as a kid, did my share of recreationals, but fortunately I came to realize "this is dumb" one day and stepped back from the precipice a little. Others did not have this realization and dial it back a little and they and their eventual children suffer.
There's no single database -- yet -- where you can sit down, CSI-style, and bring up any citizen's dossier. Your local police department knows your name, address, and how many parking tickets you've gotten this year, but they don't have access to your tax information from the IRS. (And the IRS is actually pretty snarky about not sharing information casually;
It's not being snarky, it is that the law restricts them from doing so.(*) There are laws on the books that specifically restrict governmental agencies from collecting more information than is necessary and from sharing the collected information.
(*) I don't mean to imply that the IRS is not a PITA to deal with when they are free to conduct themselves as they wish to, regardless of whether you are an individual or another agency.
It's when you start to get all that information put into a single database, and where there's a natural primary key that allows the database to be easily searched and information to be linked...
I believe that the use of a SSN as a key is prohibited unless the agency needs it, and that agencies are also prohibited from using the same key. The laws are specifically designed to make it difficult to search multiple governmental databases.
Why not? In the U.S., don't we already record fingerprints at birth? Let's just all do this.
I don't think these fingerprints go into a government database. I think they are for the parents. I'm thinking of the programs offered at schools where the parents can have the kids fingerprinted in case they are abducted or something. I'm hoping what is being done at the hospital is something similar. Or is this a mandatory component of a birth certificate now?
this proposal would force every Briton - and visitor - to prove his or her innocence for every crime in the future
I apologize, I haven't had my morning coffee yet, but I don't understand. DNA samples tend to clear innocent suspects, not falsely implicate them. In the US numerous people suffering from false imprisonment, DNA tests were not available at the time of their trial, have been released as they managed to get DNA tests performed. Thank goodness for long term preservation of evidence.
Men picked the colors. Pink was chosen because it represents a favorite body part of women. For those slashdotters who are really confused, log out, leave the basement, and avoid coming back until this all makes sense.
Pop celebrities? Pah! If you want to maintain a job in research, you need to prove yourself by publishing in acknowledged journals etc. Otherwise you never ascend to a tenured position.
You are making my point for me, you are indicating that the messenger (journal) is more important than the content (article). It *is* very much like showing up on the red carpet with the babe-of-the-month to increase your chance of winning an award because a good performance (content) is not enough.
However, there are still only 24 hours in a day, meaning that I have about the same amount of time to read as I did at the beginning. This means that my reading list does not, and cannot, extend beyond the top journals. The papers that go into the lower tier of the journals are only there to pad the CV of the author. They are very unlikely to be read or cited by anyone.
I understand the problem, but you seem fixated on a single historic pre-internet solution. The "top journal" solution is no longer the only viable solution since communication is so easy today. Another solution that is completely viable is to use community reviews and recommendations. The truly great work will get the reviews it deserves, well known journals just speed things up a little, lesser known journals will take a little more time.
The librarian sounded like he was reading Springer's marketing material to us.
No, the librarian was passing along the sad truth, not corporate spin. The corporation did not create this situation, they merely leverage it to make a profit, as with any other trend. As noted, the academics have created and brought this upon themselves. Academics are sometimes like pop celebrities, they want to see their name in the *right* places, the fashionable high status places.
As you begin your study and research be prepared to take part in the big academic pissing contest. Your research will most likely be *directed* by advisors away from your pure interests and spun in a more marketable and fashionable direction. Welcome to the herd.:-)
What is the cost of this computer with XP/Vista in comparison. We have seen this happen before where Dell shipped FreeDOS systems that actually cost more than with Windows (which means there is definitely malarky going on there).
No malarky, Red Hat charges for RHEL. Prices range from $80 to $339 depending on whether or not you want support for 2 CPU sockets, more than 4 GB RAM, virtualization, server applications (apache, samba, nfs). Keep in mind that Red Hat is offering support.
Buying them legally from a store might also be another idea, novel as it may be.
Let me offer a variation on that. Buy them legally from a different online store. Why is it that only Apple can offer such products, why is a defacto monopoly by Apple OK? If NBC doesn't like Apple's terms they should backout, contract with a competitor who they can come to terms with, or start their own.
Personally I see history repeating itself. Apple pioneers something, validates the product or business model, develops a commanding lead with early adopters, then missteps and get beaten by others as the bulk of the market beings using the product or service. Apple has "been there, done that" with respect to personal computers, the graphical interface, etc. I wish it were otherwise, I wish Apple could come to terms and maintain their position as the bulk of the market enters, as they may have with iPod - we aren't that far beyond early adopters though, but its Apple so I am not optimistic - changing their position would go against Steve's vision.
While you are correct in a practical and realistic sense, I know people who have *legally* purchased rifles and do not have FFLs, taking possesion was not face-to-face with a dealer - the seller literally mailed the rifle to an address and the postman collected a signature, there we no yellow forms that you would get at a real dealer. Of course, the seller was the US Army. They are allowed to sell surplus World War II rifles (M1 Garand) to tournament shooters and the paperwork was a little more detailed than the yellow forms and include fingerprinting and an FBI background check.:-)
My biggest fear about having these monopolies is that the SCOTUS will rule that you have little to no expectation of privacy from government surveillance if you are using the local muni wifi
No, you actually have more privacy if government operates it. Government is subject to various ammendments, but individuals or corporations are not. Also, there are various privacy acts that apply to government but not individuals or corporations.
The best one that comes to mind was Scalia's lowering of requirements on police to read rights because of the "new professionalism among police." He based a ruling on how he feels about the current state of police professionalism.
Scalia lowered nothing. He wrote the dissenting opinion. The court had upheld Miranda.
His argument was not based upon police professionalism: "The Court did not just apply the Constitution when it handed down Miranda, it expanded the Constitution, imposing an immense and antidemocratic prophylactic rule upon Congress and the states. It was an example of raw, judicial power that simply asserted a constitutional right... Miranda should not be preserved simply because it occupies a special place in the public consciousness. There is little harm in admitting that we made a mistake in taking away from people their ability to decide for themselves. By overturning Miranda, we reaffirm for the people the wonderful reality that they govern themselves, as stated in the Tenth Amendment".
Note that by "governing themselves" he does not mean governing themselves well: "Preventing foolish people from incriminating themselves is the only purpose of Miranda, and that is a far cry from what the Fifth Amendment requires in terms of protecting someone from being compelled to incriminate themself. Nor is a lawyer required because the interrogators can do the same as any lawyer can -- tell the suspect they have a right to be silent. The Constitution is not offended by a criminal's commendable qualm of conscience or fortunate fit of stupidity."
Well, the "toasters" were, but these may only count as artificial intelligence. The ones that can medically pass for human, artificial life?, were not.
They sure don't sound like violations to me. Especially since they're "hidden in DLLs", it sounds a lot more like they're simply being used in their pristine forms. The GPL only requires that any modifications to the source be freely available under the same license as the original code. It says nothing about requiring you to convert to Free Software and attend church once a week.
Read up on the distinctions between the GPL and the LGPL. My limited understanding is that the LGPL exists because the GPL will require that your app be GPL. I also believe that the DLL source code may need to be provided, not just the source to the (L)GPL libraries. The user is supposed to be able to make changes and reintegrate those changes, in other words recreate the DLL with their changes. If the DLL is simply a rapper/bundling of various useful (L)GPL libraries the developer might as well do so to make this issue "go away". Well, assuming they also start handing out the GPL license text file too.
Have you seen this guy? Hello? Mom's basement? Holy Cow!
When a 17 year old receives a 350Z they are no longer spending much time in Mom's basement. Hopefully not all of that time outside the basement is spent earning money for gas, insurance, and taxes. That prize/gift is taxable, many a game show winner has been screwed by that. Fortunately, or sadly, I've never won anything over $1,000.
To go to a darker topic, I hope he doesn't move from Mom's basement to the basement at the morgue. Giving a high performance car to a 17 year old can be a dangerous thing to do. My Dad and his friends had muscle cars at a young age, he was wise enough to make sure I only had underpowered 4-cylinder Toyota when I was under his roof. By the time I graduated college, got a job, and could afford that 5.7L Trans Am(*) I had enough experience behind the wheel and enough common sense to do little damage. I swear I saw a half dozen cars like mine in the paper, all wrapped around telephone poles by teenage drivers.
(*) That first job didn't pay well enough for a Corvette, and by now I've turned into a cheap bastard.:-)
How do you determine that a person is spending their "non-work" time in the right place? Some people, to use your coding example, can formulate a structure in their head with no visible signs of actual work and, if they do it this way, can execute the transcription of code better than if they had taken notes/outlined what they were about to do.
Why? They just work that way. Why would you chance having good work made poorer by requiring forehand documentation (the only true way to ensure that they aren't wasting time). After all, you can't accurately determine how much time someone is surfing wastefully based on how long a browser window has been up or how long it takes between hyper-link jumps.
You are reading in things that are not there. I do not advocate forehand documentation. I have nothing against staring out a window while thinking about a problem, I've done that. I have no problem with giving employees the benefit of the doubt. However if you routinely find someone staring at CNN, slashdot, etc you might want to have a talk with them to see what is going on.
I work at a place that actually understands this, and love it. We do agile dev, and 4 "hours" is the daily level.
I don't think you understand agile or the 4 hours of daily work. It does not mean you only work 4 hours a day, it means that you only get 4 hours of *scheduled* work done per day. The other 4 hours reflect business related interruptions, unanticipated/unscheduled work, etc. Agile still expect you to be doing work for the company for 8 hours.
if your projects are getting done, they don't really care how you're archiving that.
If progress is merely being measured by getting 4 hours of scheduled work done per day then this company is probably doomed due to inefficiency. There has to be an overall look at where time is being spent, and some care to make sure employees are not spending excessive amounts of time "relaxing". An hour spent thinking about how to solve a problem before coding the implementation is great, coding without some thinking often leads to crap. An hour on the web beyond normal break times means estimates are being sandbagged and there is poor overall efficiencency.
Slashdot Mirror
In general google "personally identifiable information", (PII).
b le_information t ed_states.htm
Some collections of references I have used in the past when researching PII:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personally_identifia
http://www.outsourcing-law.com/privacy.htm
http://www.outsourcing-law.com/privacy_in_the_uni
The simpler tests are appropriate because it is easy to rule out people. The more specific tests are only needed for those who are close target genetic profile.
With respect to incidental transfer, that is not very different from having just been seen with a victim, having just called a victim, etc. Reasonable doubt exists.
Once everyone's DNA is indexed somewhere then it opens up a can of worms. It's inevitable that at some point it will be misused. Perhaps it's opened up for other uses (Insurance companies, public domain, etc) or maybe someone just gets access to the data.
In the US, since the 1970s, government agencies have been restricted in terms of what information they can collect and what they can share even amongst each other and subcontractors. Since then privacy rules have become even more restrictive, in particular with respect to medical information.
The insurance company screening argument is a red herring to a degree. They could collect a DNA sample as part of a mandatory physical. Unless such profiling is outlawed, it will happen regardless of whether or not there is a national DNA database.
Have you got any evidence to back this up? Because poor people are more likely to commit crimes (at least crimes you'll get caught for) and in America unfortunately a black person is more likely to be poor then a white person (thanks to all of those decades of racism). So therefore a black person truly is more likely to commit a crime. It's not the police's fault, it's not a genetic trait of black people, it is a social one we have imparted onto them through a series of unfortunate events.
You are misrepresenting things to a degree. Racism is not the only cause of poverty, benevolent liberalism is also a cause. The deterioration of the family unit is not due to racism, it is in part due to well meaning social programs that had unintended effects. To a degree, the War on Poverty inadvertently contributed to a culture of dependency and displaced a cultural strong on family and self reliance. While the preceding could fall under your "imparted onto them" theme, there are also internal factors such as the current fashion of embracing the "thug life". I'm not attacking rap, I certainly saw plenty of examples of whites embracing a "rock and roll" lifestyle and relegating themselves to poverty due to excessive drug use. I was a punk as a kid, did my share of recreationals, but fortunately I came to realize "this is dumb" one day and stepped back from the precipice a little. Others did not have this realization and dial it back a little and they and their eventual children suffer.
There's no single database -- yet -- where you can sit down, CSI-style, and bring up any citizen's dossier. Your local police department knows your name, address, and how many parking tickets you've gotten this year, but they don't have access to your tax information from the IRS. (And the IRS is actually pretty snarky about not sharing information casually;
...
It's not being snarky, it is that the law restricts them from doing so.(*) There are laws on the books that specifically restrict governmental agencies from collecting more information than is necessary and from sharing the collected information.
(*) I don't mean to imply that the IRS is not a PITA to deal with when they are free to conduct themselves as they wish to, regardless of whether you are an individual or another agency.
It's when you start to get all that information put into a single database, and where there's a natural primary key that allows the database to be easily searched and information to be linked
I believe that the use of a SSN as a key is prohibited unless the agency needs it, and that agencies are also prohibited from using the same key. The laws are specifically designed to make it difficult to search multiple governmental databases.
"I'm moving to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific to start my own country. Anyone care to join me?"
What are your breasts like?
I'd add are you a woman? I really don't care about a man's c-cups.
Why not? In the U.S., don't we already record fingerprints at birth? Let's just all do this.
I don't think these fingerprints go into a government database. I think they are for the parents. I'm thinking of the programs offered at schools where the parents can have the kids fingerprinted in case they are abducted or something. I'm hoping what is being done at the hospital is something similar. Or is this a mandatory component of a birth certificate now?
I thought this was done already. Which is why they keep pennies in circulation...
And bills are used to help identify cocaine users.
this proposal would force every Briton - and visitor - to prove his or her innocence for every crime in the future
I apologize, I haven't had my morning coffee yet, but I don't understand. DNA samples tend to clear innocent suspects, not falsely implicate them. In the US numerous people suffering from false imprisonment, DNA tests were not available at the time of their trial, have been released as they managed to get DNA tests performed. Thank goodness for long term preservation of evidence.
Men picked the colors. Pink was chosen because it represents a favorite body part of women. For those slashdotters who are really confused, log out, leave the basement, and avoid coming back until this all makes sense.
Pop celebrities? Pah! If you want to maintain a job in research, you need to prove yourself by publishing in acknowledged journals etc. Otherwise you never ascend to a tenured position.
You are making my point for me, you are indicating that the messenger (journal) is more important than the content (article). It *is* very much like showing up on the red carpet with the babe-of-the-month to increase your chance of winning an award because a good performance (content) is not enough.
However, there are still only 24 hours in a day, meaning that I have about the same amount of time to read as I did at the beginning. This means that my reading list does not, and cannot, extend beyond the top journals. The papers that go into the lower tier of the journals are only there to pad the CV of the author. They are very unlikely to be read or cited by anyone.
I understand the problem, but you seem fixated on a single historic pre-internet solution. The "top journal" solution is no longer the only viable solution since communication is so easy today. Another solution that is completely viable is to use community reviews and recommendations. The truly great work will get the reviews it deserves, well known journals just speed things up a little, lesser known journals will take a little more time.
The librarian sounded like he was reading Springer's marketing material to us.
:-)
No, the librarian was passing along the sad truth, not corporate spin. The corporation did not create this situation, they merely leverage it to make a profit, as with any other trend. As noted, the academics have created and brought this upon themselves. Academics are sometimes like pop celebrities, they want to see their name in the *right* places, the fashionable high status places.
As you begin your study and research be prepared to take part in the big academic pissing contest. Your research will most likely be *directed* by advisors away from your pure interests and spun in a more marketable and fashionable direction. Welcome to the herd.
What is the cost of this computer with XP/Vista in comparison. We have seen this happen before where Dell shipped FreeDOS systems that actually cost more than with Windows (which means there is definitely malarky going on there).
No malarky, Red Hat charges for RHEL. Prices range from $80 to $339 depending on whether or not you want support for 2 CPU sockets, more than 4 GB RAM, virtualization, server applications (apache, samba, nfs). Keep in mind that Red Hat is offering support.
https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/desktop/
Buying them legally from a store might also be another idea, novel as it may be.
Let me offer a variation on that. Buy them legally from a different online store. Why is it that only Apple can offer such products, why is a defacto monopoly by Apple OK? If NBC doesn't like Apple's terms they should backout, contract with a competitor who they can come to terms with, or start their own.
Personally I see history repeating itself. Apple pioneers something, validates the product or business model, develops a commanding lead with early adopters, then missteps and get beaten by others as the bulk of the market beings using the product or service. Apple has "been there, done that" with respect to personal computers, the graphical interface, etc. I wish it were otherwise, I wish Apple could come to terms and maintain their position as the bulk of the market enters, as they may have with iPod - we aren't that far beyond early adopters though, but its Apple so I am not optimistic - changing their position would go against Steve's vision.
While you are correct in a practical and realistic sense, I know people who have *legally* purchased rifles and do not have FFLs, taking possesion was not face-to-face with a dealer - the seller literally mailed the rifle to an address and the postman collected a signature, there we no yellow forms that you would get at a real dealer. Of course, the seller was the US Army. They are allowed to sell surplus World War II rifles (M1 Garand) to tournament shooters and the paperwork was a little more detailed than the yellow forms and include fingerprinting and an FBI background check. :-)
You could make him the victim in a murder mystery. The list of suspects would be long. Call it 'Who cares whodunnit.'
I say it was the geek, in the basement, with a CD-ROM that was snapped in half.
My biggest fear about having these monopolies is that the SCOTUS will rule that you have little to no expectation of privacy from government surveillance if you are using the local muni wifi
... Miranda should not be preserved simply because it occupies a special place in the public consciousness. There is little harm in admitting that we made a mistake in taking away from people their ability to decide for themselves. By overturning Miranda, we reaffirm for the people the wonderful reality that they govern themselves, as stated in the Tenth Amendment".
No, you actually have more privacy if government operates it. Government is subject to various ammendments, but individuals or corporations are not. Also, there are various privacy acts that apply to government but not individuals or corporations.
The best one that comes to mind was Scalia's lowering of requirements on police to read rights because of the "new professionalism among police." He based a ruling on how he feels about the current state of police professionalism.
Scalia lowered nothing. He wrote the dissenting opinion. The court had upheld Miranda.
His argument was not based upon police professionalism: "The Court did not just apply the Constitution when it handed down Miranda, it expanded the Constitution, imposing an immense and antidemocratic prophylactic rule upon Congress and the states. It was an example of raw, judicial power that simply asserted a constitutional right
Note that by "governing themselves" he does not mean governing themselves well: "Preventing foolish people from incriminating themselves is the only purpose of Miranda, and that is a far cry from what the Fifth Amendment requires in terms of protecting someone from being compelled to incriminate themself. Nor is a lawyer required because the interrogators can do the same as any lawyer can -- tell the suspect they have a right to be silent. The Constitution is not offended by a criminal's commendable qualm of conscience or fortunate fit of stupidity."
The Cylons were created by man...
Well, the "toasters" were, but these may only count as artificial intelligence. The ones that can medically pass for human, artificial life?, were not.
"...welcome our wet, artificial overlords!"
;-)
Gah, that sounds so sleazy. Brings to mind the "Weird Science" build-a-babe scene.
Pris from Blade Runner was my first thought.
They sure don't sound like violations to me. Especially since they're "hidden in DLLs", it sounds a lot more like they're simply being used in their pristine forms. The GPL only requires that any modifications to the source be freely available under the same license as the original code. It says nothing about requiring you to convert to Free Software and attend church once a week.
Read up on the distinctions between the GPL and the LGPL. My limited understanding is that the LGPL exists because the GPL will require that your app be GPL. I also believe that the DLL source code may need to be provided, not just the source to the (L)GPL libraries. The user is supposed to be able to make changes and reintegrate those changes, in other words recreate the DLL with their changes. If the DLL is simply a rapper/bundling of various useful (L)GPL libraries the developer might as well do so to make this issue "go away". Well, assuming they also start handing out the GPL license text file too.
This will be most useful in my efforts to summon Gozer!
I was kind of hoping it would be useful in getting the various tribes in Iraq talking to each other.
Have you seen this guy? Hello? Mom's basement? Holy Cow!
:-)
When a 17 year old receives a 350Z they are no longer spending much time in Mom's basement. Hopefully not all of that time outside the basement is spent earning money for gas, insurance, and taxes. That prize/gift is taxable, many a game show winner has been screwed by that. Fortunately, or sadly, I've never won anything over $1,000.
To go to a darker topic, I hope he doesn't move from Mom's basement to the basement at the morgue. Giving a high performance car to a 17 year old can be a dangerous thing to do. My Dad and his friends had muscle cars at a young age, he was wise enough to make sure I only had underpowered 4-cylinder Toyota when I was under his roof. By the time I graduated college, got a job, and could afford that 5.7L Trans Am(*) I had enough experience behind the wheel and enough common sense to do little damage. I swear I saw a half dozen cars like mine in the paper, all wrapped around telephone poles by teenage drivers.
(*) That first job didn't pay well enough for a Corvette, and by now I've turned into a cheap bastard.
How do you determine that a person is spending their "non-work" time in the right place? Some people, to use your coding example, can formulate a structure in their head with no visible signs of actual work and, if they do it this way, can execute the transcription of code better than if they had taken notes/outlined what they were about to do. Why? They just work that way. Why would you chance having good work made poorer by requiring forehand documentation (the only true way to ensure that they aren't wasting time). After all, you can't accurately determine how much time someone is surfing wastefully based on how long a browser window has been up or how long it takes between hyper-link jumps.
You are reading in things that are not there. I do not advocate forehand documentation. I have nothing against staring out a window while thinking about a problem, I've done that. I have no problem with giving employees the benefit of the doubt. However if you routinely find someone staring at CNN, slashdot, etc you might want to have a talk with them to see what is going on.
I work at a place that actually understands this, and love it. We do agile dev, and 4 "hours" is the daily level.
I don't think you understand agile or the 4 hours of daily work. It does not mean you only work 4 hours a day, it means that you only get 4 hours of *scheduled* work done per day. The other 4 hours reflect business related interruptions, unanticipated/unscheduled work, etc. Agile still expect you to be doing work for the company for 8 hours.
if your projects are getting done, they don't really care how you're archiving that.
If progress is merely being measured by getting 4 hours of scheduled work done per day then this company is probably doomed due to inefficiency. There has to be an overall look at where time is being spent, and some care to make sure employees are not spending excessive amounts of time "relaxing". An hour spent thinking about how to solve a problem before coding the implementation is great, coding without some thinking often leads to crap. An hour on the web beyond normal break times means estimates are being sandbagged and there is poor overall efficiencency.