Obama very clearly opposed this, then got in office and supports it. The clear inference here is that he learned _something_ between then and now to lead him to believe this was saving lives or in some other way acceptable.
I get 'those who would sacrifice privacy for security deserve neither'. I have to believe that there are pros and cons both ways to this, but that the scale tip toward the pros. (For the record, I'm not an Obama supporter on just about any other issue.)
If, as is implied here, "soul" and "consciousness" are a mere byproduct of a complex computing process, then it follows that they are deterministic. That is, for all their complexity, they still just process inputs into outputs by following predictable natural laws. Which means that any notion of "choice" is an illusion- the brain or AI can't "choose" anything anymore than mentos can "choose" to fiz in diet coke. Which has implications in law, ethics, and slashdot posts. Did Person A really _choose_ to kill Person B, or was he merely following the inputs into his system? Are you really _choosing_ to disagree with this post?
Puh-leas. People who fly civilian planes into civilian buildings are bad guys. You can argue that's not related to current conflicts, but let's not deceive ourselves that these folks are simply misunderstood and need a hug.
Also, it's not a 'recent American trend'. The belief in the concept that the "other side" is evil/bad and "our side" is good dates easily to WWII, and arguably to the historical beginning of conflict. Similarly, in WWII, there were those who argued for a 'broader view'. They were wrong then too.
I agree it's possible to separate a user's choice from their identity and still provide an audit trail, but wouldn't any encryption scheme require that the 'user' provide some sort of identity - be it a public key, id #, etc.? Even if that identity was in no way tied to a particular vote, it is still considered a civil rights violation in many states to require id cards/drivers license/etc. In my state, you give your name, which is crossed out in a big book- and efforts to do otherwise have been called "racist" and "voter intimidation". In other words, you get to log in by providing any username and no password. Without reliably establishing identity, you can't verify that a person hasn't voted twice.
Well, I do generally think quickly tracking down criminals is a better than not tracking them down, or slowly tracking them down, or tracking them down using an expensive paper & human based system. That said, I also value privacy and limited government, so those are requirements too. My point in the original post is that people complain of a)government not doing enough to fight crime, terrorism, etc. and then b)government going too far. That's all fine- these are complex issues. But the problem is the people complaining rarely provide an alternative. They state what's wrong, they jump to conclusions like "why not embed tracking chips", and are generally unhelpful.
Who gets to pick which crimes are stupid and don't deserve being solved? Seems a little callous to me. As I pointed out to the other guy, though, what's really stupid is that the same agency catches flack for being too slow and inefficient- at least in the political sphere from the exact same people.
You don't fight crime by catching criminals. You don't fight crime by deterrence. You fight crime by removing the incentive.
Interesting concept. Describe "removing the incentive" to, say, fight the crime of child abduction. Taken to it's logical conclusion, we should also quit investigating kidnapping, and instead "remove the incentive" for people to kidnap in the first place?
Of course, I should assume you didn't mean that literally - in some cases deterrence is needed, and in some cases deterring more quickly could save lives.
What's really funny though, is that some of the same complainers also say the current system is too slow and inefficient.
I agree in principal, but read your post- not one positive alternative is presented. You state what's wrong, what we're not doing right, but it gets us no closer to practical steps to take when, say, a large, loosely organized group of fanatics flies planes into our buildings. For all of the complaints I've heard in the past 7 years (many of them well founded), I've heard hardly any suggestions about better approaches.
OK/.ers, if you're opposed to this, let's hear the alternatives. Describe a system that allows quickly tracking down criminals but protects personal privacy.
Actually, according to this plan from Scientific American, the energy can be stored as compressed air underground.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
I'm not sure I agree 100%, but it's an interesting article, with recommendations on paying for it as well.
Seriously, I hear many critics, and can partly agree with some of their points. Any self-respecting conservative should believe in 'staying out of foreign entanglements'. But what I don't hear is an alternative. What should the policy be for handling groups of people with the stated goal of destroying our country? Dialog? Ok, what when the dialog comes to a standstill? What when the groups are loosely organized and not tied directly to a country, treaties, etc.?
So, all you complainers need to get together on a wiki and come up with an alternative manual for anti-terror policy.
One interesting solution I've heard for this sort of unethical lawyering is to require lawyers to carry malpractice insurance. Talk to any doctor, and they'll tell you that malpractice insurance actually makes them targets for litigation, since the prosecution knows there is a higher chance of a high payout. At least in my state, it's mandatory doctors carry it.
Apply that same rule to lawyers, and you would get a great, entertaining situation of lawyers suing each other over malpractice.
Too bad politicians are typically lawyers.
You're saying you disagree with BSA, because they're not inclusive, and in so doing, you're not being inclusive. Maybe not classical verbal irony, but definitely not logical. Also, I'm not attacking you personally- just pointing out the illogic of it. As you put it- just a statement of fact- you're accusing them of one thing, and doing the exact same thing. You've made the case for me.
The irony is, you're declining because they aren't "inclusive", and yet using wording that is also not "inclusive". So, you're free to say those things, but you are being illogical and hypocritical.
I've never had problems with FxCop - it catches tons of common and not-so common real-world errors, lets you turn off rules you don't care about, and links to usually helpful MSDN articles to explain the rules. I'd say everything in the Security, and Design categories are well worth the few minutes it takes to run a free tool.
Having it baked into VS08 is even better, but I was a big fan of it with 05/2.0 as well.
Source control doesn't go far enough, IMO. They need a continuous integration system. When a bill is checked in, the system should notify the interested parties, perform checks for things like grammar, etc., post the changes to a public website, generate RSS feeds, etc.
I think this touches on a bigger idea. Imagine if law were written in such a way that both people and computers could understand it. For example, a murder law would have a set of inputs (Was act in self defense? Was act premeditated?), rules for handling the input, and return a verdict and sentencing guideline (Guilty- recommended sentence 10-20 years). Such a system would still require the Judicial System to debate the inputs, and could still leave room for human intervention, but would result in a fairer system.
Slashdot Mirror
Obama very clearly opposed this, then got in office and supports it. The clear inference here is that he learned _something_ between then and now to lead him to believe this was saving lives or in some other way acceptable. I get 'those who would sacrifice privacy for security deserve neither'. I have to believe that there are pros and cons both ways to this, but that the scale tip toward the pros. (For the record, I'm not an Obama supporter on just about any other issue.)
This is how freedom dies...with thunderous applause.
If, as is implied here, "soul" and "consciousness" are a mere byproduct of a complex computing process, then it follows that they are deterministic. That is, for all their complexity, they still just process inputs into outputs by following predictable natural laws. Which means that any notion of "choice" is an illusion- the brain or AI can't "choose" anything anymore than mentos can "choose" to fiz in diet coke. Which has implications in law, ethics, and slashdot posts. Did Person A really _choose_ to kill Person B, or was he merely following the inputs into his system? Are you really _choosing_ to disagree with this post?
Puh-leas. People who fly civilian planes into civilian buildings are bad guys. You can argue that's not related to current conflicts, but let's not deceive ourselves that these folks are simply misunderstood and need a hug. Also, it's not a 'recent American trend'. The belief in the concept that the "other side" is evil/bad and "our side" is good dates easily to WWII, and arguably to the historical beginning of conflict. Similarly, in WWII, there were those who argued for a 'broader view'. They were wrong then too.
I agree it's possible to separate a user's choice from their identity and still provide an audit trail, but wouldn't any encryption scheme require that the 'user' provide some sort of identity - be it a public key, id #, etc.? Even if that identity was in no way tied to a particular vote, it is still considered a civil rights violation in many states to require id cards/drivers license/etc. In my state, you give your name, which is crossed out in a big book- and efforts to do otherwise have been called "racist" and "voter intimidation". In other words, you get to log in by providing any username and no password. Without reliably establishing identity, you can't verify that a person hasn't voted twice.
Well, it wasn't a rare earth element.
Well, I do generally think quickly tracking down criminals is a better than not tracking them down, or slowly tracking them down, or tracking them down using an expensive paper & human based system. That said, I also value privacy and limited government, so those are requirements too. My point in the original post is that people complain of a)government not doing enough to fight crime, terrorism, etc. and then b)government going too far. That's all fine- these are complex issues. But the problem is the people complaining rarely provide an alternative. They state what's wrong, they jump to conclusions like "why not embed tracking chips", and are generally unhelpful.
Who gets to pick which crimes are stupid and don't deserve being solved? Seems a little callous to me. As I pointed out to the other guy, though, what's really stupid is that the same agency catches flack for being too slow and inefficient- at least in the political sphere from the exact same people.
You don't fight crime by catching criminals. You don't fight crime by deterrence. You fight crime by removing the incentive.
Interesting concept. Describe "removing the incentive" to, say, fight the crime of child abduction. Taken to it's logical conclusion, we should also quit investigating kidnapping, and instead "remove the incentive" for people to kidnap in the first place?
Of course, I should assume you didn't mean that literally - in some cases deterrence is needed, and in some cases deterring more quickly could save lives.
What's really funny though, is that some of the same complainers also say the current system is too slow and inefficient.
I think you replied to the wrong post. Mine said nothing about Iraq, and your reply didn't describe an alternative plan for dealing with terrorism.
I agree in principal, but read your post- not one positive alternative is presented. You state what's wrong, what we're not doing right, but it gets us no closer to practical steps to take when, say, a large, loosely organized group of fanatics flies planes into our buildings. For all of the complaints I've heard in the past 7 years (many of them well founded), I've heard hardly any suggestions about better approaches.
OK /.ers, if you're opposed to this, let's hear the alternatives. Describe a system that allows quickly tracking down criminals but protects personal privacy.
Actually, according to this plan from Scientific American, the energy can be stored as compressed air underground. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan I'm not sure I agree 100%, but it's an interesting article, with recommendations on paying for it as well.
Seriously, I hear many critics, and can partly agree with some of their points. Any self-respecting conservative should believe in 'staying out of foreign entanglements'. But what I don't hear is an alternative. What should the policy be for handling groups of people with the stated goal of destroying our country? Dialog? Ok, what when the dialog comes to a standstill? What when the groups are loosely organized and not tied directly to a country, treaties, etc.? So, all you complainers need to get together on a wiki and come up with an alternative manual for anti-terror policy.
One interesting solution I've heard for this sort of unethical lawyering is to require lawyers to carry malpractice insurance. Talk to any doctor, and they'll tell you that malpractice insurance actually makes them targets for litigation, since the prosecution knows there is a higher chance of a high payout. At least in my state, it's mandatory doctors carry it. Apply that same rule to lawyers, and you would get a great, entertaining situation of lawyers suing each other over malpractice. Too bad politicians are typically lawyers.
"Articles of homage to Lord Zebulon of Orion" "Articles of request for step stool"
You're saying you disagree with BSA, because they're not inclusive, and in so doing, you're not being inclusive. Maybe not classical verbal irony, but definitely not logical. Also, I'm not attacking you personally- just pointing out the illogic of it. As you put it- just a statement of fact- you're accusing them of one thing, and doing the exact same thing. You've made the case for me.
The irony is, you're declining because they aren't "inclusive", and yet using wording that is also not "inclusive". So, you're free to say those things, but you are being illogical and hypocritical.
I have this ocean front property near Las Vegas that would be _perfect_ for them.
I've never had problems with FxCop - it catches tons of common and not-so common real-world errors, lets you turn off rules you don't care about, and links to usually helpful MSDN articles to explain the rules. I'd say everything in the Security, and Design categories are well worth the few minutes it takes to run a free tool. Having it baked into VS08 is even better, but I was a big fan of it with 05/2.0 as well.
Microsoft has actually released a library which I would imagine is related to this work. PLINQ lets you very easily and declaratively multithread tasks. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163329.aspx
And Rt. Click -> Go to Definition...
Oh, wait, forgot what site I was on.
and you'll need to surf for jobs to pay for it...
Two words: Dharma Intitiative.
Source control doesn't go far enough, IMO. They need a continuous integration system. When a bill is checked in, the system should notify the interested parties, perform checks for things like grammar, etc., post the changes to a public website, generate RSS feeds, etc. I think this touches on a bigger idea. Imagine if law were written in such a way that both people and computers could understand it. For example, a murder law would have a set of inputs (Was act in self defense? Was act premeditated?), rules for handling the input, and return a verdict and sentencing guideline (Guilty- recommended sentence 10-20 years). Such a system would still require the Judicial System to debate the inputs, and could still leave room for human intervention, but would result in a fairer system.