The fact that Kati was able to nurse her children suggests she had a good supply of water. A mother can nurse on her fat stores without food for a good many days, but without water she'll be in trouble in just 1 or 2.
Sure, they might have had adequate water. But there's other factors to consider. How long will the relatively warm weather hold out? Maybe it'll plunge into the teens or single digits the next day. Seven days is beginning to be hard to go without food. It's also hard to believe that you're going to be rescued after a week. This is the third time I've heard this. Do you have a source for this? I've googled three different phrases and they all mention James was tracked by his footprints, I can't find any that say that the footprints were found before Kati.
I found it from the Wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_kim A $600 personal locator beacon would have brought help directly to him within a few hours
And how many people are willing to spend $600 on a personal locator beacon with no other use than the extremely unlikely scenario that your car becomes disabled in the middle of nowhere for a week? I'm certainly not. I'd be willing to spend maybe $20 on a device like this, but until this story broke, I didn't even know such things existed. If you really want to learn something from this scenario, telling people to spend a lot of money on something they'll be VERY unlikely to ever use is foolish.
A hat, gloves and jacket and boots can be had for $20-$30 and stashed in your car. They don't tend to break easily or have the batteries wear out. They have the added benefit of keeping you warm at other times when you're not stranded.
He did NOT go around telling the world that the scientist cabal was out to get him, or that the perfume cartel was conspiring to suppress his work. He simply went about building a successful business by *using* his hypothesis to create and license useful, concrete products.
I guess I'd be impressed if he actually did science and came up with an experiment or series of experiments that showed that his theory was correct, and the old theory is incorrect.
Since we presumably don't have any idea how his scent creation process works, it doesn't really lend any credence to his theory. Maybe his theory has nearly the same predictions as the current theory does, and his sucess is just because he's got a better process, better business model, etc? You can make a LOT of money while still completely misunderstanding how something works.
The fact that Hans was in the process of divorcing his wife is not relevant to those allegations he made against Sean Sturgeon. Sure they are. Credibility is always a factor in determining truth, especially when you have no other evidence. A huband in the process of divorce proceedings is simply less credible than someone who's not. He has reason to lie, to be affected by his own emotions, etc. The police don't have an infinite amount of resources to investigate every claim, so credibility is entirely relevant. The allegations Hans made do, however, justify investigating Sturgeon, possibly as a suspect.
Why do the allegations alone mean Sturgeon should be investigated? Is there any other evidence that the rape and threat allegations are true? The rest of them have nothing to do with Sturgeon being a suspect (and really only make the case that Reiser was trying to smear Sturgeon, as BDSM and "death yoga" have nothing to do with murder.
Obviously Sturgeon should be investigated to some degree because he was Nina's lover, and 9 times out of 10 it was a lover or former lover that commits this kind of murder. My guess is the police department did some kind of preliminary investigation. It just happens that the evidence is pointing towards Reiser.
The reason being that DVD+/-R has the recording surface sandwiched between the two layers of plastic. CD-Rs have the recording surface on top, which can flake off unless you handle it very carefully.
Sure, you can handle the CD-Rs carefully and avoid this problem. But wouldn't you rather use a more reliable medium in the first place?
The merging occurs way out in space, at a spot between the Earth and Sun, roughly 40,000 miles above our planet's surface. 40,000 miles isn't really that far, relative to what we consider "home". Geosynchronous satellites orbit at roughly 26,000 miles, and the moon orbits at more than 200,000 miles above earths surface.
In comparison to the average Sun-Earth distance is 93 million miles, so 40,000 miles is.04% of the distance. If your neighborhood grocery store is 3 miles away,.04% of the distance would be 6 feet.
Saving $200 on a TV for a few hours of hassle each year sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
heh. You really think you're "saving" $200 for the TV? You're obviously going to pay for it through higher rates the company charges everyone to pay for the phones. The "free" phones also encourage people to upgrade phones all the time, which you also wind up paying for eventually.
The only advantage I get through all this is that I can buy a phone that's only a couple years old on Ebay for $30, even though it sold for $250 and still works just as well now as it did then. It's hard for the people selling used phones on eBay to compete with a "free with 2 year contract" phone. So I wind up with an excellent deal because most people value "latest and greatest" over the freedom to switch carriers at any time.
Nina's boyfriend Sean Sturgeon allegedly practices BDSM
Assuming that's true, exactly how does practicing BDSM mean you're a likely murder suspect? raped Nina, made death threats against Hans
Both hearsay arguments made by Hans. I'd like to see some kind of evidence for this other than an ex-husbands allegations.
engages in "death yoga" I didn't know what this was until I read the article, but apparently it's just slowing down your heart rate. How does that have anything to do with someone being a likely murder suspect? Oh it does have the word "death" in it, so it must somehow involve actually killing people. Are people who listen to "death metal" also potential murder suspects? cheated with a married woman,
This is probbably at least likely (since the two were together before her death). But what does it have to do with him being a murder suspect? and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hans Reiser:
Another allegation by Reiser which we have no other real evidence for. But even if true, why is that a motive for him to murder Nina? Hans Reiser, on the other hand, is a linux developer.
Ahh.. well obviously if he does anything I personally like and approve of he can't be a murder suspect. Guess which one the cops arrested and which one isn't even a suspect?
Maybe the one who Nina Reiser had a temporary restraining order against him in 2004 for allegedly pushing her? A restraining order is really easy to get and isn't proof that Hans was violent. But it at least shows she was afraid of him. I don't know if Hans did it, the other guy did it, or neither. But the facts that we have point more toward Hans at the moment. Casting suspicion on someone who you have really no evidence to suspect is simply dishonest.
Ultimately, the biggest mistake Kim made was to leave the car. He wasn't stuck off the road or buried in a snow drift, and the car wasn't in any immediate danger.
Well, he didn't leave the car for 7 days, and by that time the car had run out of gas and they were burning magazines, tires, etc to stay warm. Weatherundergound indicates that it wasn't bitterly cold (low 30s to low 40s), so freezing to death wasn't an immediate concern. But remember that they probbably hadn't eaten much (if anything) for 7 days, and might have had a problem getting water (melting snow takes energy).
Also, the family was only found because the helicopter pilot saw footprints in the snow (those of James Kim). The footprints lead him to the car of the family. If Kim hadn't gone out to try to find help, the whole family might have died from exposure.
So, given the same situation are you really sure you'd just sit around forever and hope that you're rescued? I'm not sure I would have.
I'd say his biggest mistake was turning onto the road in the first place. It's never a good idea to take backroads in the winter, especially when you're unfamiliar with the area. His second mistake was probbably just not being dressed for the weather. It wasn't really bitterly cold that day, so if he had some boots, a warm jacket and some gloves he might have been able to survive the cold and walked to a road and flagged someone down. (Which reminds me I should stash a hat and gloves in my car).
The guy who thinks that high-tech would have saved him might be right, but it's much cheaper, easier, and reliable to just stash some warm clothes in your car. They'll also be usefull when you're just plain cold.
but it sounds to me like this is a classic case of "not enough research"
A rather funny comment coming from someone who presumably tested one system and found it to work, so therefore all systems must work.
The article mentions that the author had problems with "deep sleep" on 6 of 8 systems.
On 6 of the 8 tested systems, recovering Windows Vista from a hibernate or Deep Sleep results in one of the following:
So he's obviously not making the claim that hiberate/Deep Sleep is broken on ALL systems, since there were two he tested that worked correctly. 6 out of 8 is a pretty bad track record though, so it's likely that a significant amount of people are going to have problems with this feature. It's not a huge sample either, so maybe he's just unlucky enough to own systems where this feature doesn't work properly. I DO think it's a quite nice "heads up" to know about before before Vista becomes mainstream though.
I guess I can't be terribly surprised that hibernate/sleep is still broken though. It doesn't work properly under Windows 2000 on my circa 2002 desktop computer, but worked just fine on my Circa 1999 laptop.
You better stop your needless worrying. According to my new theory, worrying about cell phones causing cancer causes cancer. Don't believe it? Well no one has disproven it yet!
Also according to my made-up numbers, 10 years ago people used to only worry about cell phones causing cancer 5 minutes a day. These days with people like you around people worry about cell phones causing cancer 20 minutes a day! Maybe the worrying wasn't detectable back then, but it is now! We'll only know in 30 years! Putting a device that emits radiation next to your head is harmful. How much? Who knows.
Worrying about dangers that don't exist is harmful. How much? Who knows. But if I state things as if we don't know anything about it, that totally false sense of uncertainty sure sounds scary.
My prescription includes making fun of people that don't understand science.;)
Obviously this study has a lot more scientific integrity than what the Mythbusters do, but to say that what they do isn't science just isn't true.
Mythbusters is probbably the only show on TV that actually DOES science and shows what it is rather than just acting as a mouthpiece for science. The do everything that other scientists do, albiet within the confines of a television show. They repeat experiments, they accept "peer review", they establish controls. They do everything but publish a paper in a journal. Tell me how what the Mythbusters do isn't science?
It might not be something you'd want to site in a research paper, so it's not really up to the standards of acadamia, but calling what they do not science is simply wrong.
No, actually it's javascript. Yeah you have to know something but come on.
Actually I think that's kind of the point. The boarding pass was protected by some crappy, but unknown security measure. The vast majority of people would have no clue how to fake this thing. You'd have to reverse-engineer it to be able to forge documents. While I'm sure that wasn't terribly hard, it's near impossible for the vast majority of people.
Giving the whole world a frickin website that's setup to print them out like hotcakes is just irresponsible. The LEAST he could have done is hidden the code inside a CGI on his website, and made it print VOID VOID VOID all over the boarding pass, including over the barcode. Then make a press release to all the media and they can go all apeshit about it. NWA and the TSA will all make dumb press announcements, but still look like idiots. And several months later maybe the system will have changed.
Instead what happens is there's all this press about the guy going to jail, so the focus is on him instead of the dumb system they've implemented.
Well, the US Government allows guns, yet owning one is not a reason for anyone to go to jail.
Guns have other uses than commiting crimes. I see no other use for a system that produces a functioning boarding pass other than to break the law. Just because he created software that *could* be used maliciously, he hasn't broken the law.
Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't sound exactly cut and dry. My point is really that he didn't have to pull this stunt that landed him in jail and facing possible fines to accompish his goals. It's the same as saying "You know, you can make a BOMB by combining these chemicals". He doesn't go to jail for that.
This wasn't an academic paper, it wasn't even code that someone had to download and run themself. This was a system that made the actual thing that presents a danger. If we take your analogy, it'd be like making a device that creates bombs at the click of a switch. I read his blog, and it was clear he did it because he was concerned about the illusion of security from airports. He was just trying to help.
I'm sure he was, but that doesn't mean he wasn't extremely naive and stupid. I don't really know if what he did was illegal or not. I do know that it was potentially dangerous, really stupid, and could have been done in a much less dangerous way and accomplished the same goals.
You subsidize something because you want more of it and/or it to be better.
Right. That's why we "subsidize" things like AIDS. Obviously we want more AIDS. (See, I can play semantic games too).
The government funds social programs like MEDICAID because we don't want a bunch of sick, elderly people on the streets because they can't afford medical care. Similarly we offer programs to help the retarded or infirmed because we don't want them on the streets panhandling for change. (I guess maybe you do, since obviously being retarded is so glamorous and fun everyone wishes they were retarded). Do you really want the US to resemble India?
Of course we are, and it takes the form of the free market.
Haha! I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I was taking part in the "free market" when I helped my neighbor carrying a package up the stairs. I wasn't aware I was taking part in the "free market" when I offer or take advice to a friend.
The point is that there's more to people's dependence on one another than the "free" market. Anyone who says otherwise has taken too many business school classes and hasn't really lived a real life. Do you really want to be dependent on a body that is at any given moment is 45%-55% composed of people from the *insert political party you disagree with here* party?
So what's my other choice? Dependent on a body that's composed of a dictator? That's worked out well historically.
You seem to be of the opinion that government=bad. Why don't you take a gander on over to the countries without a government, or without funding of public good (like say a polio vaccine). My guess is you don't want to live there.
I didn't actually see the site while it was up, so maybe the guy actually DID this, but.
To avoid being arrested, why not make the boarding pass have VOID VOID VOID printed all over it in such a way as it exposes the problem, but doesn't actually create a valid boarding pass. Then he would have violated no laws, AND exposed the poor security procedure at the same time.
Once the story broke he could create a boarding pass that's given to someone that's authorized to test the fake boarding pass, or others others could independently confirm that the fake pass would work by comparing it to a real boarding pass.
Anyone know if the site did anything to show that the pass was actually invalid?
It seems a bit foolish to put up a working system and not expect the government to go all apeshit.
It kind of amazes me that this has become an argument. Just put the word subsidize in front of any form of funding and put people on the defensive.
So you want to subsidize transportation? So you want to subsidize schools? So you want to subsidize the Army? So you want to subsidize the elderly? So you want to subsidize Africa?
The basic premise seems to be "Why can't these lazy bastards stand on their own two feet and pull themselves up by their bootstraps!!"
Which ignores the basic fact that no one stands on their own two feet. We're all dependant on one another. I'm a bit tired of the "self made man" fallacy.
It's more like suing your drug dealer after you go to prison for getting caught with a rock.
A surprisingly good analogy. The only claim that really has any merit IMO is the spyware claim. Using the same analogy, can you sue your drug dealer for putting rat-poison in your drugs that wound up destroying your kidneys? I'd say yes. Sure you took the risk of being addicted to the drug and the effects of it, but the drug dealer put the rat-poison in and didn't tell you about it, therefore you didn't assume that risk.
I don't know much about spyware in Kazaa, but if Kazaa did put in spyware that created a further risk even after un-installing the software, they could be vulnerable.
That's the best reply to the old "why can't we all just be pacifists!" argument I've seen.
It drives me crazy the people that advocate a single solution (their own personal form of extremism) to the problems of the world. "Passive resistance worked for Ghandi, it must always work!." Or "War worked for the American Revolution, it must always work!". Or "Capitalism works to lower the price of tube socks to $2 a dozen, it must always work!".
Or use mace then. My point is everyone stood around picking their noses instead of helping the student.
I saw the video too, and that's not exactly true. There were several students asking for badge numbers, obviously one guy taping the whole thing (which later got submitted to youtube).
You seem to think the only problem is the immediate one of a student being tasered. That's obviously horrible, but I see the main problem as the police tasering people un-necessarily. There's probbably not a lot anyone could do to solve your problem without creating an even bigger problem. Escalating the situation would more than likely only resulted in more people being hurt.
It's easy to watch the video and think "Those fucking twisted cops! I'd have beat the shit out of them if I were there!" and maybe that's the right approach in a country where there's no rule of law or a fair justice system. But we do have the rule of law in this country, and while the justice system isn't always fair, armed with video of the incident it's pretty undeniable what went down. It works slowly, and all the officals try to cover their own asses by citing policy. But in the end I think the video will make change occur and stop the police from using tasers as a compliance device for non-violent "offenders".
You are attempting to replace an item that is heavily entrenched in consumers' mindshare and financial investment with something that offers no real benefit to the consumer?
That's obviously true everywhere else but China, but what's at least a little surprising is that it's true in China as well. The thing you have to remember is that China is a large enough market to sustain its own standard (ignoring the outside world of course). The interesting part is that the Chinese government can't really control the home video market inside China. China has to essentially bow out to market forces here. I'd say it's really more telling of how much China has become part of the world economy than anything else.
Imagine if another student had tasered the rent-a-cop to get them to stop tasering the student over and over.
I think the video camera was a far more effective weapon. Tasering the cop would have only resulting in the other cops either all tasering the guy dumb enough to taser cop #1, or more likely the other cops shooting and killing the student with the taser. The cops would then just claim the whole thing was in self defense, and without video of the incident they'd probbably get away with it. (Courts and officials tend to give cops the benefit of the doubt since they see them as an extension of their power).
I'm sure they once called these "booby traps". What's the obsession with acronyms?
The US Military loves acronyms, and has for a long time. MRE, RADAR, GITMO, FUBAR, AWACS, MP, SP, POW, WILCO.
I'm not exactly sure why, but my guess is the Military has a wide variety of intelligence levels inside it. Simplifying things down to an acronym makes it easier for everyone to communicate. Also acronyms allow for more precision and less ambiguity when speaking. If you simply call it a "booby trap", does that mean it contains an explosive, a gas weapon, or a knife that comes shooting into your chest? I'd also imagine communicating quickly is often times very important. By the time you should out "hey Bob! Look out for the Improvised Explosive Device!" Bob might be dead.
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The fact that Kati was able to nurse her children suggests she had a good supply of water. A mother can nurse on her fat stores without food for a good many days, but without water she'll be in trouble in just 1 or 2.
Sure, they might have had adequate water. But there's other factors to consider. How long will the relatively warm weather hold out? Maybe it'll plunge into the teens or single digits the next day. Seven days is beginning to be hard to go without food. It's also hard to believe that you're going to be rescued after a week.
This is the third time I've heard this. Do you have a source for this? I've googled three different phrases and they all mention James was tracked by his footprints, I can't find any that say that the footprints were found before Kati.
I found it from the Wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_kim
A $600 personal locator beacon would have brought help directly to him within a few hours
And how many people are willing to spend $600 on a personal locator beacon with no other use than the extremely unlikely scenario that your car becomes disabled in the middle of nowhere for a week? I'm certainly not. I'd be willing to spend maybe $20 on a device like this, but until this story broke, I didn't even know such things existed. If you really want to learn something from this scenario, telling people to spend a lot of money on something they'll be VERY unlikely to ever use is foolish.
A hat, gloves and jacket and boots can be had for $20-$30 and stashed in your car. They don't tend to break easily or have the batteries wear out. They have the added benefit of keeping you warm at other times when you're not stranded.
He did NOT go around telling the world that the scientist cabal was out to get him, or that the perfume cartel was conspiring to suppress his work. He simply went about building a successful business by *using* his hypothesis to create and license useful, concrete products.
I guess I'd be impressed if he actually did science and came up with an experiment or series of experiments that showed that his theory was correct, and the old theory is incorrect.
Since we presumably don't have any idea how his scent creation process works, it doesn't really lend any credence to his theory. Maybe his theory has nearly the same predictions as the current theory does, and his sucess is just because he's got a better process, better business model, etc? You can make a LOT of money while still completely misunderstanding how something works.
The fact that Hans was in the process of divorcing his wife is not relevant to those allegations he made against Sean Sturgeon.
Sure they are. Credibility is always a factor in determining truth, especially when you have no other evidence. A huband in the process of divorce proceedings is simply less credible than someone who's not. He has reason to lie, to be affected by his own emotions, etc. The police don't have an infinite amount of resources to investigate every claim, so credibility is entirely relevant.
The allegations Hans made do, however, justify investigating Sturgeon, possibly as a suspect.
Why do the allegations alone mean Sturgeon should be investigated? Is there any other evidence that the rape and threat allegations are true? The rest of them have nothing to do with Sturgeon being a suspect (and really only make the case that Reiser was trying to smear Sturgeon, as BDSM and "death yoga" have nothing to do with murder.
Obviously Sturgeon should be investigated to some degree because he was Nina's lover, and 9 times out of 10 it was a lover or former lover that commits this kind of murder. My guess is the police department did some kind of preliminary investigation. It just happens that the evidence is pointing towards Reiser.
The reason being that DVD+/-R has the recording surface sandwiched between the two layers of plastic. CD-Rs have the recording surface on top, which can flake off unless you handle it very carefully.
Sure, you can handle the CD-Rs carefully and avoid this problem. But wouldn't you rather use a more reliable medium in the first place?
The merging occurs way out in space, at a spot between the Earth and Sun, roughly 40,000 miles above our planet's surface.
40,000 miles isn't really that far, relative to what we consider "home". Geosynchronous satellites orbit at roughly 26,000 miles, and the moon orbits at more than 200,000 miles above earths surface.
In comparison to the average Sun-Earth distance is 93 million miles, so 40,000 miles is
Saving $200 on a TV for a few hours of hassle each year sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
heh. You really think you're "saving" $200 for the TV? You're obviously going to pay for it through higher rates the company charges everyone to pay for the phones. The "free" phones also encourage people to upgrade phones all the time, which you also wind up paying for eventually.
The only advantage I get through all this is that I can buy a phone that's only a couple years old on Ebay for $30, even though it sold for $250 and still works just as well now as it did then. It's hard for the people selling used phones on eBay to compete with a "free with 2 year contract" phone. So I wind up with an excellent deal because most people value "latest and greatest" over the freedom to switch carriers at any time.
People remove the passenger seat, rear wiper, AC, and other parts from their CRXs all the time for additional weight reduction.
And was Hans into street racing, or was the car like that when he bought it? If not, it's kind of suspicious. If so, it probbably means nothing.
Nina's boyfriend Sean Sturgeon allegedly practices BDSM
Assuming that's true, exactly how does practicing BDSM mean you're a likely murder suspect?
raped Nina, made death threats against Hans
Both hearsay arguments made by Hans. I'd like to see some kind of evidence for this other than an ex-husbands allegations.
engages in "death yoga"
I didn't know what this was until I read the article, but apparently it's just slowing down your heart rate. How does that have anything to do with someone being a likely murder suspect? Oh it does have the word "death" in it, so it must somehow involve actually killing people. Are people who listen to "death metal" also potential murder suspects?
cheated with a married woman,
This is probbably at least likely (since the two were together before her death). But what does it have to do with him being a murder suspect?
and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hans Reiser:
Another allegation by Reiser which we have no other real evidence for. But even if true, why is that a motive for him to murder Nina?
Hans Reiser, on the other hand, is a linux developer.
Ahh.. well obviously if he does anything I personally like and approve of he can't be a murder suspect.
Guess which one the cops arrested and which one isn't even a suspect?
Maybe the one who Nina Reiser had a temporary restraining order against him in 2004 for allegedly pushing her? A restraining order is really easy to get and isn't proof that Hans was violent. But it at least shows she was afraid of him. I don't know if Hans did it, the other guy did it, or neither. But the facts that we have point more toward Hans at the moment. Casting suspicion on someone who you have really no evidence to suspect is simply dishonest.
Ultimately, the biggest mistake Kim made was to leave the car. He wasn't stuck off the road or buried in a snow drift, and the car wasn't in any immediate danger.
Well, he didn't leave the car for 7 days, and by that time the car had run out of gas and they were burning magazines, tires, etc to stay warm. Weatherundergound indicates that it wasn't bitterly cold (low 30s to low 40s), so freezing to death wasn't an immediate concern. But remember that they probbably hadn't eaten much (if anything) for 7 days, and might have had a problem getting water (melting snow takes energy).
Also, the family was only found because the helicopter pilot saw footprints in the snow (those of James Kim). The footprints lead him to the car of the family. If Kim hadn't gone out to try to find help, the whole family might have died from exposure.
So, given the same situation are you really sure you'd just sit around forever and hope that you're rescued? I'm not sure I would have.
I'd say his biggest mistake was turning onto the road in the first place. It's never a good idea to take backroads in the winter, especially when you're unfamiliar with the area. His second mistake was probbably just not being dressed for the weather. It wasn't really bitterly cold that day, so if he had some boots, a warm jacket and some gloves he might have been able to survive the cold and walked to a road and flagged someone down. (Which reminds me I should stash a hat and gloves in my car).
The guy who thinks that high-tech would have saved him might be right, but it's much cheaper, easier, and reliable to just stash some warm clothes in your car. They'll also be usefull when you're just plain cold.
but it sounds to me like this is a classic case of "not enough research"
A rather funny comment coming from someone who presumably tested one system and found it to work, so therefore all systems must work.
The article mentions that the author had problems with "deep sleep" on 6 of 8 systems.
So he's obviously not making the claim that hiberate/Deep Sleep is broken on ALL systems, since there were two he tested that worked correctly. 6 out of 8 is a pretty bad track record though, so it's likely that a significant amount of people are going to have problems with this feature. It's not a huge sample either, so maybe he's just unlucky enough to own systems where this feature doesn't work properly. I DO think it's a quite nice "heads up" to know about before before Vista becomes mainstream though.
I guess I can't be terribly surprised that hibernate/sleep is still broken though. It doesn't work properly under Windows 2000 on my circa 2002 desktop computer, but worked just fine on my Circa 1999 laptop.
You better stop your needless worrying. According to my new theory, worrying about cell phones causing cancer causes cancer. Don't believe it? Well no one has disproven it yet!
;)
Also according to my made-up numbers, 10 years ago people used to only worry about cell phones causing cancer 5 minutes a day. These days with people like you around people worry about cell phones causing cancer 20 minutes a day! Maybe the worrying wasn't detectable back then, but it is now! We'll only know in 30 years!
Putting a device that emits radiation next to your head is harmful. How much? Who knows.
Worrying about dangers that don't exist is harmful. How much? Who knows. But if I state things as if we don't know anything about it, that totally false sense of uncertainty sure sounds scary.
My prescription includes making fun of people that don't understand science.
Obviously this study has a lot more scientific integrity than what the Mythbusters do, but to say that what they do isn't science just isn't true.
Mythbusters is probbably the only show on TV that actually DOES science and shows what it is rather than just acting as a mouthpiece for science. The do everything that other scientists do, albiet within the confines of a television show. They repeat experiments, they accept "peer review", they establish controls. They do everything but publish a paper in a journal. Tell me how what the Mythbusters do isn't science?
It might not be something you'd want to site in a research paper, so it's not really up to the standards of acadamia, but calling what they do not science is simply wrong.
causes cancer.
Hey, at least there's a mechanism. Stress has been implicated in contributing to a lot of other diseases, why not cancer?
Its fucking html!
No, actually it's javascript.
Yeah you have to know something but come on.
Actually I think that's kind of the point. The boarding pass was protected by some crappy, but unknown security measure. The vast majority of people would have no clue how to fake this thing. You'd have to reverse-engineer it to be able to forge documents. While I'm sure that wasn't terribly hard, it's near impossible for the vast majority of people.
Giving the whole world a frickin website that's setup to print them out like hotcakes is just irresponsible. The LEAST he could have done is hidden the code inside a CGI on his website, and made it print VOID VOID VOID all over the boarding pass, including over the barcode. Then make a press release to all the media and they can go all apeshit about it. NWA and the TSA will all make dumb press announcements, but still look like idiots. And several months later maybe the system will have changed.
Instead what happens is there's all this press about the guy going to jail, so the focus is on him instead of the dumb system they've implemented.
Well, the US Government allows guns, yet owning one is not a reason for anyone to go to jail.
Guns have other uses than commiting crimes. I see no other use for a system that produces a functioning boarding pass other than to break the law.
Just because he created software that *could* be used maliciously, he hasn't broken the law.
Maybe, maybe not. It doesn't sound exactly cut and dry. My point is really that he didn't have to pull this stunt that landed him in jail and facing possible fines to accompish his goals.
It's the same as saying "You know, you can make a BOMB by combining these chemicals". He doesn't go to jail for that.
This wasn't an academic paper, it wasn't even code that someone had to download and run themself. This was a system that made the actual thing that presents a danger. If we take your analogy, it'd be like making a device that creates bombs at the click of a switch.
I read his blog, and it was clear he did it because he was concerned about the illusion of security from airports. He was just trying to help.
I'm sure he was, but that doesn't mean he wasn't extremely naive and stupid. I don't really know if what he did was illegal or not. I do know that it was potentially dangerous, really stupid, and could have been done in a much less dangerous way and accomplished the same goals.
You subsidize something because you want more of it and/or it to be better.
Right. That's why we "subsidize" things like AIDS. Obviously we want more AIDS. (See, I can play semantic games too).
The government funds social programs like MEDICAID because we don't want a bunch of sick, elderly people on the streets because they can't afford medical care. Similarly we offer programs to help the retarded or infirmed because we don't want them on the streets panhandling for change. (I guess maybe you do, since obviously being retarded is so glamorous and fun everyone wishes they were retarded). Do you really want the US to resemble India?
Of course we are, and it takes the form of the free market.
Haha! I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I was taking part in the "free market" when I helped my neighbor carrying a package up the stairs. I wasn't aware I was taking part in the "free market" when I offer or take advice to a friend.
The point is that there's more to people's dependence on one another than the "free" market. Anyone who says otherwise has taken too many business school classes and hasn't really lived a real life.
Do you really want to be dependent on a body that is at any given moment is 45%-55% composed of people from the *insert political party you disagree with here* party?
So what's my other choice? Dependent on a body that's composed of a dictator? That's worked out well historically.
You seem to be of the opinion that government=bad. Why don't you take a gander on over to the countries without a government, or without funding of public good (like say a polio vaccine). My guess is you don't want to live there.
I didn't actually see the site while it was up, so maybe the guy actually DID this, but.
To avoid being arrested, why not make the boarding pass have VOID VOID VOID printed all over it in such a way as it exposes the problem, but doesn't actually create a valid boarding pass. Then he would have violated no laws, AND exposed the poor security procedure at the same time.
Once the story broke he could create a boarding pass that's given to someone that's authorized to test the fake boarding pass, or others others could independently confirm that the fake pass would work by comparing it to a real boarding pass.
Anyone know if the site did anything to show that the pass was actually invalid?
It seems a bit foolish to put up a working system and not expect the government to go all apeshit.
So you want to subsidize stupidity?
It kind of amazes me that this has become an argument. Just put the word subsidize in front of any form of funding and put people on the defensive.
So you want to subsidize transportation?
So you want to subsidize schools?
So you want to subsidize the Army?
So you want to subsidize the elderly?
So you want to subsidize Africa?
The basic premise seems to be "Why can't these lazy bastards stand on their own two feet and pull themselves up by their bootstraps!!"
Which ignores the basic fact that no one stands on their own two feet. We're all dependant on one another. I'm a bit tired of the "self made man" fallacy.
It's more like suing your drug dealer after you go to prison for getting caught with a rock.
A surprisingly good analogy. The only claim that really has any merit IMO is the spyware claim. Using the same analogy, can you sue your drug dealer for putting rat-poison in your drugs that wound up destroying your kidneys? I'd say yes. Sure you took the risk of being addicted to the drug and the effects of it, but the drug dealer put the rat-poison in and didn't tell you about it, therefore you didn't assume that risk.
I don't know much about spyware in Kazaa, but if Kazaa did put in spyware that created a further risk even after un-installing the software, they could be vulnerable.
That's the best reply to the old "why can't we all just be pacifists!" argument I've seen.
It drives me crazy the people that advocate a single solution (their own personal form of extremism) to the problems of the world. "Passive resistance worked for Ghandi, it must always work!." Or "War worked for the American Revolution, it must always work!". Or "Capitalism works to lower the price of tube socks to $2 a dozen, it must always work!".
Or use mace then. My point is everyone stood around picking their noses instead of helping the student.
I saw the video too, and that's not exactly true. There were several students asking for badge numbers, obviously one guy taping the whole thing (which later got submitted to youtube).
You seem to think the only problem is the immediate one of a student being tasered. That's obviously horrible, but I see the main problem as the police tasering people un-necessarily. There's probbably not a lot anyone could do to solve your problem without creating an even bigger problem. Escalating the situation would more than likely only resulted in more people being hurt.
It's easy to watch the video and think "Those fucking twisted cops! I'd have beat the shit out of them if I were there!" and maybe that's the right approach in a country where there's no rule of law or a fair justice system. But we do have the rule of law in this country, and while the justice system isn't always fair, armed with video of the incident it's pretty undeniable what went down. It works slowly, and all the officals try to cover their own asses by citing policy. But in the end I think the video will make change occur and stop the police from using tasers as a compliance device for non-violent "offenders".
You are attempting to replace an item that is heavily entrenched in consumers' mindshare and financial investment with something that offers no real benefit to the consumer?
That's obviously true everywhere else but China, but what's at least a little surprising is that it's true in China as well. The thing you have to remember is that China is a large enough market to sustain its own standard (ignoring the outside world of course). The interesting part is that the Chinese government can't really control the home video market inside China. China has to essentially bow out to market forces here. I'd say it's really more telling of how much China has become part of the world economy than anything else.
Imagine if another student had tasered the rent-a-cop to get them to stop tasering the student over and over.
I think the video camera was a far more effective weapon. Tasering the cop would have only resulting in the other cops either all tasering the guy dumb enough to taser cop #1, or more likely the other cops shooting and killing the student with the taser. The cops would then just claim the whole thing was in self defense, and without video of the incident they'd probbably get away with it. (Courts and officials tend to give cops the benefit of the doubt since they see them as an extension of their power).
I'm sure they once called these "booby traps". What's the obsession with acronyms?
The US Military loves acronyms, and has for a long time. MRE, RADAR, GITMO, FUBAR, AWACS, MP, SP, POW, WILCO.
I'm not exactly sure why, but my guess is the Military has a wide variety of intelligence levels inside it. Simplifying things down to an acronym makes it easier for everyone to communicate. Also acronyms allow for more precision and less ambiguity when speaking. If you simply call it a "booby trap", does that mean it contains an explosive, a gas weapon, or a knife that comes shooting into your chest? I'd also imagine communicating quickly is often times very important. By the time you should out "hey Bob! Look out for the Improvised Explosive Device!" Bob might be dead.