Apple's biggest contribution wasn't that they have music available. It was that they finally convinced/forced the major music conglomerates to license the music for a sensible price, with sensible DRM, on a per song basis.
I share parent's frustration. I used to tell my students that 'Steve Jobs' "innovation" wasn't making an mp3 player, Creative Labs did that, it was getting the RIAA labels to go along with iTunes'
The Post has been lagging for years and is often accused of a neo-con bias.
Once it was on par with the New York Times as a 'national newspaper of record' but since the 2000s it has been more like the Wall Street Journal.
I think this sale will be good for journalism because Bezos will bring fresh hype and generate discussion of media ownership and what defines a 'profitable' newspaper. Bezos has shown to have the capacity to see past the horizons that usually limit tech companies...even 'innovative' ones like Apple.
For me Amazon always works. Their mp3's have always had non-DRM options. Amazon EC2 is expensive for what you get but it's legit.
I think Alan Turing and Brits are great, but really I'm asking in a non-flame way, what has the idea of a 'Turing machine' done to advance computing, from a **technical** perspective?
Sure, in computer science 101 the idea of 'Turing completeness' in computation theory is important, but it is more like a property of mathmatics than any theory that is usable for prediction.
It's like how history records that DeSoto 'discovered' the Mississippi River...I mean it was there, and being used by humans in a different context, but one guy, DeSoto gets credit for 'discovering' it.
Usable for prediction...that's what I mean for this context as a 'good' theory...i'm not interested in thought experiments
To me the 'Church-Turing Thesis' is like DeSoto discovering the Mississippi.
Compare to the Attanasoff/Berry computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff/Berry_computer It's almost the opposite of Llamba calculus because Attanasoff devised the computer as a way to do laborious Calculus calculations quickly.
Isn't computing more an engineering and linguistic challenge than a theoretical persuit?
Really, what, besides the obvious benefits of classroom use, has Turing's theories done to advance computing that wouldn't have been done throught the natural progression from the Attanasoff/Berry computer?
the WC3 gets credit for drafting HTML, which is just a markup language...internetworked computers and hyperlinks...well that was debuted in 1968:
The a href="http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/12/1209computer-mouse-mother-of-all-demos/">Mother of All Demos
Read it and weep:
WYSWYG editing, text and graphics displayed on a single screen, shared-screen videoconferencing, outlining, windows, version control, context-sensitive help and hyperlinks. Bam!
the 'world wide web' is nothing more than a concept that Tim Behrners-Lee thought up b/c it would help users contextualize the notion of a 'world wide computer network'...from a technical standpoint it is meaningless
I'm *not* trying to start some kind of flame war over who's country is better!
the facts matter...so many people do not understand computing and it is partially because we say things like 'Tim Behrners-Lee invented the internet'....it just causes so much confusion
first of all, this isn't like a domestic abuse case where the cops **have** to prosecute if they have evidence even if the 'victim' doesn't want it...
jeez...
Goldman could have tried to get the FBI off his back...even gone public...at least send a letter saying after review the files were legal, OSS...
From TFA:
Serge waived his right to call a lawyer. He phoned his wife and told her what had happened and that a bunch of F.B.I. agents were on the way to their home to seize their computers, and to please let them in—though they had no search warrant, either. Then he sat down and politely tried to clear up the F.B.I. agent’s confusion.
The state was handed a case on a platter...I feel sorry for the guy b/c he knew he'd done nothing wrong, but still, as criminal justice goes in the USA in 2013, most jurisdictions will prosecute you as a matter of course if there is something on paper that looks like an admission of guilt.
Some FBI guy, and the US attorney's office, they don't know Erlang or about high speed trading...but they **do** know they have a statement from the suspect that could be a confession.
That's when it goes to a jury.
I'm not saying it is right, but it is fairly common knowledge among people who follow criminal justice topics that this is the case. I want more discretion at all levels...but you're giving Goldman a pass here.
Goldman has alot of sway and credibility...they could have tried to get the FBI off this guy's ass...sent a letter at least!
Goldman should have dropped this at some point...or at least tried to get the FBI to leave it alone...it was obvious that it was OSS...
There is reason to be outraged at Goldman for this....and 'what else do you expect' is not a valid response (we are holding people accountable here...we decide what is to be expected)
Goldman Sachs should have used whatever power they had to end this or at least publicly plea for the FBI to end it. The guy did nothing wrong and nothing was to be gained by turning the FBI loose on him.
Criminal. Stupidity. That was the only crime here. It was CSI: FBI Edition...
So Goldman discovers the employee downloaded several files right before ending his tenure there...Goldman thinks it is criminal and calls the cops...specifically the FBI
The programmer, poor guy, knows he hasn't done anything wrong and...FTA:
Serge waived his right to call a lawyer. He phoned his wife and told her what had happened and that a bunch of F.B.I. agents were on the way to their home to seize their computers, and to please let them in—though they had no search warrant, either. Then he sat down and politely tried to clear up the F.B.I. agent’s confusion.
THAT was also 'stupid' as you say...I feel bad for the guy, but it was stupid.
So yeah Goldman is 'stupid' for not knowing that the employee's file downloads were OSS, FBI was 'stupid' for charging this guy with a crime, and Serge himself was stupid for talking to the cops without a lawyer!
The tone of many responses to GP (who was probably trolling I grant) has been to **defend** or at least shrug shoulders at Goldman in this...wrong...it's binary thinking.
This is a complex situation and all parties had a bit of 'stupid' going on
he hasn't harmed the US in any way and is not guilty of any crime
so which is it?
he can't be a 'hero' either...by your logic at best he's a sad sucker for the military/industrial complex
see, no matter how you slice it Snowden bungled this whole thing and you can't switch your argument mid-stream b/c I made a valid point about the NSA programs info released in 2006
however, Snowden still released **operational** details and that **is** a crime!
in 2006, the existence of the program and the type of data they collected was announced
Snowden released powerpoint slides about its usage including its name, processes and procedures, where it is located, what staff use it, and opertational details of actual use cases
That's different
it's the same as the US knowing that the military is hunting terrorists with drones vs leaking a copy of a dossier on a specific mission that says what time the strike will happen...broad strokes vs operational details
same...yes we knew the **existence** of the NSA programs in 2006 but not **operational details** and that matters...one is open info the other is secret
so you have to conclude his plan to 'leak' the documents was, at minimum, a pointless risk of his entire future for little to no **actual** gain
and as far as starting a 'national conversation'...Snowden could have done all kinds of things that would start a 'national conversation' without breaking the law
just accept that what is happening does *not* fit your reductive narrative
doesn't mean that it's ok for the government to violate its own surveillance laws, and it doesn't mean that Snowden is evil...but it's harmfully wrong to take such a oversimplified view of what's happening
Glen Greenwald should have published this *anonymously*....it just doesn't fit...anyone who has worked in journalism knows this could have been leaked in a way that protects Snowden's privacy (Greenwald would have to risk some jail time though...), just look at Deep Throat and the Pentagon Papers leakers
there is definitely other criminal or illuminati types involved here and Snowden is a pawn who got taken advantage of by larger forces
I think that both of them did a great service to Americans....Their motives, as far as I am concerned, are irrelevant.
I can't disagree here, but I look at it a bit differently I guess since I worked in journalism.
They don't control what 'the media' does or how it reacts to unfolding events and they can't be expected to be experts at media relations (even if they are narcissists to varying degrees).
However, 'the media' is definitely part of the military/industrial/illuminati complex...whole companies with vast media holdings are comprimised. Manning/Snowden knew enough to know their info was 'earth shaking'....if they knew that, they should have known they were at risk of getting in with the Adrian Lamos and Glen Greenwald's of the world.
I should, if I'm consistent, direct some of my personal outrage at Glen Greenwald, the reporter who originated Snowden's leaks for The Guardian. Greenwald and his bosses are snakes for how they handled Snowden.
if I was Obama, I'd offer Snowden a deal if he could offer evidence of malfeasence on Greenwald or The Guardian in this. They used him and hung him out to dry!
I hope he gets 'time served' which is already 4+ years IIRC (could be 3). They kept him naked in a cell for months...it's legal but it's pushing 'cruel and unusual' IMHO...he's suffered enough. Justice is not furthered by keeping him locked up any more.
Now you mention Assange and GP mentioned Snowden....
I think the Snowden comparison is more apt. Both had involvement with Assange at some level, it was only as a channel to leak the info.
What sets Snowden and Manning apart are their methods and the motives behind them. Both were mid-level (at best) functionaries with **high level** access and their conscience dictated they had to act somehow. They're both a bit 'angst-y'...kind of in the 'it's all bullshit' camp.
The difference is, Manning was gay and being discriminated against by the military. Snowden didn't have a central personal grievance.
We see that difference play out in how they attempted to release the info. Snowden **could** have leaked anonymously but he didn't, IMHO b/c of malignant narcissism. There's an established way to leak info to the press anonymously and he did it the egotistical way.
By contrast, Manning tried to release anonymously, but the Wikileaks que for processing raw incoming data was taking too long and he didn't know if his submission was being read (b/c if it had been they should have gotten back with him or released it somehow or something...)...it's all in the Manning/Lamo chat logs
He only contacted Lamo (who was an informant/operative...he snitched at best) b/c he thought Lamo could get him direct access to Assange.
I say let Manning out and throw Snowden in his cell.
That's also what I would think Julian Assange would get if the Federal Government got their hands on him.
Probably. Maybe less. See, Manning and Assange and Snowden...their leaks harm the US government, but the real enemy is **illegal actors** within the government.
The CIA is an empty vessel. An organization with a legal purpose. Beuracratic inefficiencies aside, theoretically in a democracy if the people allow and it is legal then it has a right to exist.
It's when **people** within an org like the CIA use their position for criminal activity...OR when the **leaders** above the CIA as an entity use it as an arm for their **own** illegal activity...same thing...one feeds into the other...
So it's the Military/Industrial/Illuminati Complex that is, IMHO, working over Assange.
If oil interests infiltrate a government and use its military (while engaged in legit military actions) to **also** help their business interests by securing a supply chain...and in that course laws are broken, who is to blame???
For me I can put *some* blame on a system that bueracratically screwed up self-policing it's own policies...but the main share of the blame is not the entity, but the **people** who MAKE THE DECISIONS...
So Assange's enemy is not, in the end, the US government...it's the people who USE that government to further their own illegal interests.
Yes, you rightly may point out that the US would arrest Assange immediately if they could. I won't disagree...my point is that **people want leaks** and that includes the **good people** in government.
There is a way to leak information that **exposes illegal activity** even if it is from the most powerful government in the world, that does not result in the leaker in prison.
Assange, Manning, and Snowden all should have taken notice from Deep Throat and the leakers of the Pentagon Papers...all of whom enjoyed privacy and long careers.
For sure. The government has the legal power to use it for X and you want to know if respondents think there is any 'non-X' use...which would be of course be 'illegal.'
The question is how to word the question. It's not something you'll find an easy answer to, trust me. I worked in journalism, politics, and in network engineering and database management. If you try to investigate a Gallup Poll or the like, and compare it to even mediocre Social Science research...it's depressing and frustrating.
Of course this is why we have things like peer review, etc. and psychology and other 'soft' sciences have improved their methodology by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years, I freely acknowledge.
I tried to investigate **how** all different kinds of surveys were worded and how, systematically, the researchers and pollsters did the work of asking large groups of people questions.
Honestly, there are not many answers out there...it's basically the Top Dog researcher writes the questions based on their own personal theory.
Seriously. Look it up for yourself and see if you can find anything. Best I could find was 2nd order Cybernetics stuff, basically its a linguistic approach to categorizing speech communication based on how the sender is using it to construct reality. It's a form of Discourse Analysis that some researchers have labeled Appraisal.
Sure, there is literature in every science about making questions...anthropology, psychology, sociology, etc...but it is only discussed in narrative context, never systematically. In other words it's all 'bullshit' kind of...it's what the head researcher's idea of the proper question.
And of course, there is also plenty of literature on how to use surveys as, essentially, tools to control people...but it's the exact opposite of science. Look into it...look at polls that the most dastardly Republicans use and where they come from, it's an industry, producing these polls. It's very much like the Ministry of Truth in 1984's system.
My point is, wording these questions is 'fuzzy'...it's like roping a quantum particle...it's too complex.
I do think a merging of things like speech recognition technology with some 2nd order Cybernetics *can* give us a way to more scientifically and precisely word the questions of survey research...it can happen.
But it's like journalism vs public relations in my mind...always a battle to get 'truth'
surely all those other uses should be lumped together into "other"?
It would surely cause confusion;)
First, the big assumption is that the survey respondent knows that the system can only be used for 'anti-terror'!
2. 'anti-terror' is an ill-defined concept. If the survey administrators wanted usable data, they should have used a different term. Ex: Lets say the next Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is at work as you read this. When do his activities become 'anti-terror' and therefore under this system's eye?
Of course there is an answer, but it is a complicated answer that involves links to US Code, the Patriot Act, etc etc...things that you **absoutely** cannot expect your survey respondent to know.
Third, a specific/general binary like that invites the user to ponder any **legal** means that would fall under the 'Also for other purposes' choice, which just causes more confusion.
the question is "do you trust your government's stated position?"
If they wanted to know that, they should have asked. Question could read any number of ways.
Of course, the data this will yield isn't very usable. It *only* measure attitude in a moment in time, and asks information of the user 'how does a distant government entity use your data?' that they most likely have no way to accurately answer.
Also, asking 'Do you trust x?' doesn't yield very usable results either, especially on questions of 'government'...there is a sizable portion of Americans who would always answer 'no' to any question like that no matter what the context.
Here's the text of the 'survey' questions and results from TFA...it is instructive on many levels:
'Do courts provide adequate limits on what is collected?' Yes=30% No=56% don't know=15%
'Is the government using this data...' 'Only for anti-terro'r=22% 'Also for other purposes'=70% don't know=7%
'Is the government collecting... ' 'Only metadata'=18% 'Also content of phone calls and email'=63% don't know=18%
the 63% from above question were asked asked 'Have YOUR calls or emails been listened to or read?' Yes=27% No=28% don't know 8%
'Overall view of the program' Approve=50% Disapprove=44% don't know=6%
Pew Research Center July 17-21, 2013 Figures may not add to 100% because of rounding.
It is an astoundingly awful survey.
Just look at how they question what survey respondents thing the government is doing with the data being collected. There are two options:
1. 'Only for anti-terror' and 2. 'Also other purposes'
It is obviously worded with bias. If the respondent thinks that the government does **anything** other than one very specific thing they will have to chose #2...that's not a logical breakdown of a binary choice and it implicitly acknowledges that there are other than a binary option in the text of the question (use of the plural for 'purposes'...).
I'd wager 90% of the surveys reported on the news are of this level of scientific rigor...
By some agency, humans will start playing around with asteroids relatively soon (less than 30 years by my guess).
TFA is light on details as to *what* mineral would be mined and how it would all be economically viable. However, this is NASA so we have the joy of not needing it to be taken to market.
Besides advancing science and operational spaceflight, we definitely could use an asteroid program like this to develop a procedure for deflecting/breaking up an asteroid that threatens to hit earth.
I bet somehow you could even get some of Homeland Security's budget...just tell them its to have a procedure to counter terrorists who use a captured asteroid to threaten earth.
What's funny is, by my own logic, the fact that you still make that argument makes it true, in a sense...
Because of what I said here:
That's *your* ideas...McLuhan isn't in the picture...except that in modern American discourse, his quotation is often mentioned...the continued use of it means it has to 'mean' something...so we project *our* ideas on it...
I'm giving you the credibility enough to read/think about your posts and ideas...that mental action on my part opens the door for you to take that credibility and turn the table, so to speak...
Odd, I always took McLuhan's tautology to mean "The transmission method used shapes the meaning of the content"
So, *your* idea is solid...the fact that the channel by which the sender and/or receiver choose to access the information can affect how they interpret the symbols, which drives their social construction of reality...
yes!
But McLuhan wasn't saying that in his work. Have you read it? Yikes...it's dense like a philosophy text.
McLuhan was more in 'TED talk' mode, breathlessly in wonder at the potential insights gleanable from the act of analyzing human communication with the tools of the network engineer.
More like "the shape is the promise". You see something that shape and size, and assume that it's designed to be eaten, and is a layered candy. This of course is why you should keep medicine out of the reach of small children.
Again, I can agree here.
My main point is, *you* are responsible for these ideas, via expanding your mind cybernetically to factorize symbols which were previously to fuzzy to factorize accurately. That's *your* ideas...McLuhan isn't in the picture...
except that in modern American discourse, his quotation is often mentioned...the continued use of it means it has to 'mean' something...so we project *our* ideas on it...
so yeah, it is a 'good quotation' in that it can be applied many ways! to me it is bad in that if the hearer wants to know more of the idea, and investigates the origin of the quotation...well, they are usually destined for more confusion not more understanding
I don't...when I type it out it is tl;dr...then i go back and summarize....
that makes it look the way it does...I've tried to take a post that started with 6 or 7 paragraphs with full thesis statments and supporting sentences and put them into a readable format for/.'ers
i'm trying to dodge trollers while still taking a discernable position that could be debated...often I find myself resorting to the same tricks and shorthand humans use in verbal conversation...that's why i have non-standard pauses...i'm trying to mimic speech pauses which are able to convey more information..........you see?
i know my posting style is weird but it yields fewer trolling comments and more comments worth responding to
the author of TFA definitely babbles on about imaginary correlations to other philosophical ideas...stuff that most likely wasn't on Kubrick's radar screen...but there's good stuff in there...
he draws out more commonalities between the monkey/bone, humans/nukes, hal/monolith thing and the author summarizes these notions succinctly (when he bothers to try and summarize)
ex: here he tries to further elucidate his interpretive theory by comparing to other Kubrick films...he summarizes Clockwork Orange:
[Kubrick's] stories seem to negate the myths humanity tells itself about our own nature, instead throwing cold water on our collective faces in order to reawaken us to our merciless underlying psychological forces. But unlike Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, Kubrick's narratives don't serve to act as a warning so much as simply a documentary newsreel of humanity's selfish abandon.
That's good stuff...especially viewing Kubrick's work as journalistic and attempting impartiality while depicting the ideas clashing on screen.
I wish someone had explained that to me before I saw Kubrick films...it would have spared me alot of misunderstanding and saved me time which I could have spent thinking of more productive things...like this..."Kubrick's films are awesome but they are unsettling...he shows rape and it might feel like he is somehow glorifying the act, but he's attempting to be impartial where other directors might not..."
ah, Marshall McLuhan...confusing the hell out of undergrads studying Comm Theory with one quotation...
I'm going to have to check out Annie Hall now.
FYI, McLuhan's quotation, "The medium is the message" is a tautology. It's like saying on the topic of candy, "The shape is the taste"
skittles and M&M's have the same shape, but very different tastes...what I mean is, McLuhan's quotation is only erudite if you take a ridiculously reductive understanding of communication theory...
My response to McLuhan when I used to teach Comm Theory: "The message is the message, the 'medium' is the channel by which the message is transmitted"
The value of McLuhan's quotation is this: it introduces us to a deeper, more complex understanding of Communications analysis...it isn't valuable in and of itself, but it teases us with notions best explained by others.
is that the people that make the money decisions don't know the difference between a 'blog' and a 'news story'
it's all just 'text' to them...or 'content'
tech industry types may not understand the news business, but we sure as hell know the concept...
why is Microsoft so alienating to users? b/c it tries to make everything proprietary...locking users out of features!
this article, with it's notions of 'finding proprietary content to charge for' as a way to save newspapers...well...
it's the exact opposite!
the news business is a perfectly viable economic system...print on cheap paper, sell ads to make profit
done
enter the internet, where the 'content' is available w/o purchase
the author, and most news CEO's problem is that they see the internet as only a 'downside'...they don't see it as **another** option to connect to users
the internet requires alot of infrastructure to use...compared to a piece of paper...print is still viable even though the demand is lower now with the internet
the solution is threefold:
1. adjust expectations regarding how profitable 'news' can be
2. online ads that connect to the print ads/classifieds
3. repost redundant content rather than producing it in-house
I must credit TFA for #3...the author rightly sees that *some* of what your average daily newspaper does in the newsroom is redundant.
Newspapers as organizations should cut staff, but they should cut everyone *but* editors and writers....
Newspapers and magazines are very 'top heavy' with corporate structure and HR type stuff and it really cuts into the profit margins.
it's a bad idea to assume "it was cheaper to settle quickly" is evidence of guilt.
You're missing potentialities and it causes you to focus too narrowly on a few outcomes.
It *could* be cheaper to settle quickly...for alot of reasons...but not in this case...
Ex: It could be cheaper to settle quickly because it gets it out of the news (hopefully on a good note) quickly which has a discernable effect on the ammount of awards from juries in civil cases.
I don't agree, but that's a falsification of my position that shows a broader view of outcomes.
See, the Civil lawsuits have just begun.
Pleading guilty now actually *hurts* BP and Halliburton because when Joe's shrimp boat company, or homeowners with destroyed beaches, or even municipalities file Civil lawsuits the facts of the charges (maybe not the plea of guilt, but the finding of fact of actions) is admissible.
That means a Civil jury can hear that, say, BP has admitted it tried to hide blowout simulations for the pump that indicate negligence...they can present that.
That means $$$$$$$$ in Civil awards from juries...so in the long run, no, admitting guilt would *not* in this case be a viable option.
It appears there could be negligence we don't know about...and that they are acting to keep it hidden...at least that's MHO about the matter.
Halliburton has agreed to pay the maximum fines available, be put on probation for three years and cooperate with federal agencies that are still investigating the spill, the Justice Department said in a statement announcing Thursday's agreement. In addition Halliburton has made a $55 million "voluntary contribution" to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation,
They 'took a deal' in the parlance of the criminal justice world.
I'm wondering what else is out there. Also in TFA I read that BP was 'convicted' of Manslaughter for its role.
These companies don't 'take deals' unless it is the absolute last option. They will deny and tie up litigation for 10 years until everyone forgets. They will buy judges and prosecutors. They will hire thugs to find dirt on opponents, or make dirt if none exists.
Given their history, the fact that Halliburton, BP, etc took these deals indicates they could be covering for a much larger level of negligence...
In my wildest conspiracy theories, the English Monarchy and other old money global illuminati types (Bush's?) purposefully had the well blown to punish America for stopping Keystone XL.
Slashdot Mirror
this:
I share parent's frustration. I used to tell my students that 'Steve Jobs' "innovation" wasn't making an mp3 player, Creative Labs did that, it was getting the RIAA labels to go along with iTunes'
heh...
but seriously, he didn't 'steal' anything...although of course I can see how it could appear that way
Goldman should have investigated it, but after he explained, they should have just let it go.
It's bad business to sue your former employees for doing legal things.
The Post has been lagging for years and is often accused of a neo-con bias.
Once it was on par with the New York Times as a 'national newspaper of record' but since the 2000s it has been more like the Wall Street Journal.
I think this sale will be good for journalism because Bezos will bring fresh hype and generate discussion of media ownership and what defines a 'profitable' newspaper. Bezos has shown to have the capacity to see past the horizons that usually limit tech companies...even 'innovative' ones like Apple.
For me Amazon always works. Their mp3's have always had non-DRM options. Amazon EC2 is expensive for what you get but it's legit.
I think Alan Turing and Brits are great, but really I'm asking in a non-flame way, what has the idea of a 'Turing machine' done to advance computing, from a **technical** perspective?
Sure, in computer science 101 the idea of 'Turing completeness' in computation theory is important, but it is more like a property of mathmatics than any theory that is usable for prediction.
It's like how history records that DeSoto 'discovered' the Mississippi River...I mean it was there, and being used by humans in a different context, but one guy, DeSoto gets credit for 'discovering' it.
Usable for prediction...that's what I mean for this context as a 'good' theory...i'm not interested in thought experiments
To me the 'Church-Turing Thesis' is like DeSoto discovering the Mississippi.
Compare to the Attanasoff/Berry computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff/Berry_computer It's almost the opposite of Llamba calculus because Attanasoff devised the computer as a way to do laborious Calculus calculations quickly.
Isn't computing more an engineering and linguistic challenge than a theoretical persuit?
Really, what, besides the obvious benefits of classroom use, has Turing's theories done to advance computing that wouldn't have been done throught the natural progression from the Attanasoff/Berry computer?
the WC3 gets credit for drafting HTML, which is just a markup language...internetworked computers and hyperlinks...well that was debuted in 1968:
The a href="http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/12/1209computer-mouse-mother-of-all-demos/">Mother of All Demos
Read it and weep:
the 'world wide web' is nothing more than a concept that Tim Behrners-Lee thought up b/c it would help users contextualize the notion of a 'world wide computer network'...from a technical standpoint it is meaningless
I'm *not* trying to start some kind of flame war over who's country is better!
the facts matter...so many people do not understand computing and it is partially because we say things like 'Tim Behrners-Lee invented the internet'....it just causes so much confusion
first of all, this isn't like a domestic abuse case where the cops **have** to prosecute if they have evidence even if the 'victim' doesn't want it...
jeez...
Goldman could have tried to get the FBI off his back...even gone public...at least send a letter saying after review the files were legal, OSS...
From TFA:
The state was handed a case on a platter...I feel sorry for the guy b/c he knew he'd done nothing wrong, but still, as criminal justice goes in the USA in 2013, most jurisdictions will prosecute you as a matter of course if there is something on paper that looks like an admission of guilt.
Some FBI guy, and the US attorney's office, they don't know Erlang or about high speed trading...but they **do** know they have a statement from the suspect that could be a confession.
That's when it goes to a jury.
I'm not saying it is right, but it is fairly common knowledge among people who follow criminal justice topics that this is the case. I want more discretion at all levels...but you're giving Goldman a pass here.
Goldman has alot of sway and credibility...they could have tried to get the FBI off this guy's ass...sent a letter at least!
Goldman should have dropped this at some point...or at least tried to get the FBI to leave it alone...it was obvious that it was OSS...
There is reason to be outraged at Goldman for this....and 'what else do you expect' is not a valid response (we are holding people accountable here...we decide what is to be expected)
Goldman Sachs should have used whatever power they had to end this or at least publicly plea for the FBI to end it. The guy did nothing wrong and nothing was to be gained by turning the FBI loose on him.
So Goldman discovers the employee downloaded several files right before ending his tenure there...Goldman thinks it is criminal and calls the cops...specifically the FBI
The programmer, poor guy, knows he hasn't done anything wrong and...FTA:
THAT was also 'stupid' as you say...I feel bad for the guy, but it was stupid.
So yeah Goldman is 'stupid' for not knowing that the employee's file downloads were OSS, FBI was 'stupid' for charging this guy with a crime, and Serge himself was stupid for talking to the cops without a lawyer!
The tone of many responses to GP (who was probably trolling I grant) has been to **defend** or at least shrug shoulders at Goldman in this...wrong...it's binary thinking.
This is a complex situation and all parties had a bit of 'stupid' going on
so which is it?
he can't be a 'hero' either...by your logic at best he's a sad sucker for the military/industrial complex
see, no matter how you slice it Snowden bungled this whole thing and you can't switch your argument mid-stream b/c I made a valid point about the NSA programs info released in 2006
however, Snowden still released **operational** details and that **is** a crime!
in 2006, the existence of the program and the type of data they collected was announced
Snowden released powerpoint slides about its usage including its name, processes and procedures, where it is located, what staff use it, and opertational details of actual use cases
That's different
it's the same as the US knowing that the military is hunting terrorists with drones vs leaking a copy of a dossier on a specific mission that says what time the strike will happen...broad strokes vs operational details
same...yes we knew the **existence** of the NSA programs in 2006 but not **operational details** and that matters...one is open info the other is secret
so you have to conclude his plan to 'leak' the documents was, at minimum, a pointless risk of his entire future for little to no **actual** gain
and as far as starting a 'national conversation'...Snowden could have done all kinds of things that would start a 'national conversation' without breaking the law
No way around it...Snowden bungled this
"just telling the truth"...
telling us operational details of classified programs we knew existed in 2006: http://yahoo.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-nsa_x.htm
just accept that what is happening does *not* fit your reductive narrative
doesn't mean that it's ok for the government to violate its own surveillance laws, and it doesn't mean that Snowden is evil...but it's harmfully wrong to take such a oversimplified view of what's happening
Glen Greenwald should have published this *anonymously*....it just doesn't fit...anyone who has worked in journalism knows this could have been leaked in a way that protects Snowden's privacy (Greenwald would have to risk some jail time though...), just look at Deep Throat and the Pentagon Papers leakers
there is definitely other criminal or illuminati types involved here and Snowden is a pawn who got taken advantage of by larger forces
I can't disagree here, but I look at it a bit differently I guess since I worked in journalism.
They don't control what 'the media' does or how it reacts to unfolding events and they can't be expected to be experts at media relations (even if they are narcissists to varying degrees).
However, 'the media' is definitely part of the military/industrial/illuminati complex...whole companies with vast media holdings are comprimised. Manning/Snowden knew enough to know their info was 'earth shaking'....if they knew that, they should have known they were at risk of getting in with the Adrian Lamos and Glen Greenwald's of the world.
I should, if I'm consistent, direct some of my personal outrage at Glen Greenwald, the reporter who originated Snowden's leaks for The Guardian. Greenwald and his bosses are snakes for how they handled Snowden.
if I was Obama, I'd offer Snowden a deal if he could offer evidence of malfeasence on Greenwald or The Guardian in this. They used him and hung him out to dry!
I hope he gets 'time served' which is already 4+ years IIRC (could be 3). They kept him naked in a cell for months...it's legal but it's pushing 'cruel and unusual' IMHO...he's suffered enough. Justice is not furthered by keeping him locked up any more.
Now you mention Assange and GP mentioned Snowden....
I think the Snowden comparison is more apt. Both had involvement with Assange at some level, it was only as a channel to leak the info.
What sets Snowden and Manning apart are their methods and the motives behind them. Both were mid-level (at best) functionaries with **high level** access and their conscience dictated they had to act somehow. They're both a bit 'angst-y'...kind of in the 'it's all bullshit' camp.
The difference is, Manning was gay and being discriminated against by the military. Snowden didn't have a central personal grievance.
We see that difference play out in how they attempted to release the info. Snowden **could** have leaked anonymously but he didn't, IMHO b/c of malignant narcissism. There's an established way to leak info to the press anonymously and he did it the egotistical way.
By contrast, Manning tried to release anonymously, but the Wikileaks que for processing raw incoming data was taking too long and he didn't know if his submission was being read (b/c if it had been they should have gotten back with him or released it somehow or something...)...it's all in the Manning/Lamo chat logs
He only contacted Lamo (who was an informant/operative...he snitched at best) b/c he thought Lamo could get him direct access to Assange.
I say let Manning out and throw Snowden in his cell.
Probably. Maybe less. See, Manning and Assange and Snowden...their leaks harm the US government, but the real enemy is **illegal actors** within the government.
The CIA is an empty vessel. An organization with a legal purpose. Beuracratic inefficiencies aside, theoretically in a democracy if the people allow and it is legal then it has a right to exist.
It's when **people** within an org like the CIA use their position for criminal activity...OR when the **leaders** above the CIA as an entity use it as an arm for their **own** illegal activity...same thing...one feeds into the other...
So it's the Military/Industrial/Illuminati Complex that is, IMHO, working over Assange.
If oil interests infiltrate a government and use its military (while engaged in legit military actions) to **also** help their business interests by securing a supply chain...and in that course laws are broken, who is to blame???
For me I can put *some* blame on a system that bueracratically screwed up self-policing it's own policies...but the main share of the blame is not the entity, but the **people** who MAKE THE DECISIONS...
So Assange's enemy is not, in the end, the US government...it's the people who USE that government to further their own illegal interests.
Yes, you rightly may point out that the US would arrest Assange immediately if they could. I won't disagree...my point is that **people want leaks** and that includes the **good people** in government.
There is a way to leak information that **exposes illegal activity** even if it is from the most powerful government in the world, that does not result in the leaker in prison.
Assange, Manning, and Snowden all should have taken notice from Deep Throat and the leakers of the Pentagon Papers...all of whom enjoyed privacy and long careers.
For sure. The government has the legal power to use it for X and you want to know if respondents think there is any 'non-X' use...which would be of course be 'illegal.'
The question is how to word the question. It's not something you'll find an easy answer to, trust me. I worked in journalism, politics, and in network engineering and database management. If you try to investigate a Gallup Poll or the like, and compare it to even mediocre Social Science research...it's depressing and frustrating.
Of course this is why we have things like peer review, etc. and psychology and other 'soft' sciences have improved their methodology by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years, I freely acknowledge.
I tried to investigate **how** all different kinds of surveys were worded and how, systematically, the researchers and pollsters did the work of asking large groups of people questions.
Honestly, there are not many answers out there...it's basically the Top Dog researcher writes the questions based on their own personal theory.
Seriously. Look it up for yourself and see if you can find anything. Best I could find was 2nd order Cybernetics stuff, basically its a linguistic approach to categorizing speech communication based on how the sender is using it to construct reality. It's a form of Discourse Analysis that some researchers have labeled Appraisal.
Sure, there is literature in every science about making questions...anthropology, psychology, sociology, etc...but it is only discussed in narrative context, never systematically. In other words it's all 'bullshit' kind of...it's what the head researcher's idea of the proper question.
And of course, there is also plenty of literature on how to use surveys as, essentially, tools to control people...but it's the exact opposite of science. Look into it...look at polls that the most dastardly Republicans use and where they come from, it's an industry, producing these polls. It's very much like the Ministry of Truth in 1984's system.
My point is, wording these questions is 'fuzzy'...it's like roping a quantum particle...it's too complex.
I do think a merging of things like speech recognition technology with some 2nd order Cybernetics *can* give us a way to more scientifically and precisely word the questions of survey research...it can happen.
But it's like journalism vs public relations in my mind...always a battle to get 'truth'
It would surely cause confusion ;)
First, the big assumption is that the survey respondent knows that the system can only be used for 'anti-terror'!
2. 'anti-terror' is an ill-defined concept. If the survey administrators wanted usable data, they should have used a different term. Ex: Lets say the next Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is at work as you read this. When do his activities become 'anti-terror' and therefore under this system's eye?
Of course there is an answer, but it is a complicated answer that involves links to US Code, the Patriot Act, etc etc...things that you **absoutely** cannot expect your survey respondent to know.
Third, a specific/general binary like that invites the user to ponder any **legal** means that would fall under the 'Also for other purposes' choice, which just causes more confusion.
If they wanted to know that, they should have asked. Question could read any number of ways.
Of course, the data this will yield isn't very usable. It *only* measure attitude in a moment in time, and asks information of the user 'how does a distant government entity use your data?' that they most likely have no way to accurately answer.
Also, asking 'Do you trust x?' doesn't yield very usable results either, especially on questions of 'government'...there is a sizable portion of Americans who would always answer 'no' to any question like that no matter what the context.
I'll give you 1:10 odds you have to have jokes explained to you often
Here's the text of the 'survey' questions and results from TFA...it is instructive on many levels:
It is an astoundingly awful survey.
Just look at how they question what survey respondents thing the government is doing with the data being collected. There are two options:
1. 'Only for anti-terror' and 2. 'Also other purposes'
It is obviously worded with bias. If the respondent thinks that the government does **anything** other than one very specific thing they will have to chose #2...that's not a logical breakdown of a binary choice and it implicitly acknowledges that there are other than a binary option in the text of the question (use of the plural for 'purposes'...).
I'd wager 90% of the surveys reported on the news are of this level of scientific rigor...
By some agency, humans will start playing around with asteroids relatively soon (less than 30 years by my guess).
TFA is light on details as to *what* mineral would be mined and how it would all be economically viable. However, this is NASA so we have the joy of not needing it to be taken to market.
Besides advancing science and operational spaceflight, we definitely could use an asteroid program like this to develop a procedure for deflecting/breaking up an asteroid that threatens to hit earth.
I bet somehow you could even get some of Homeland Security's budget...just tell them its to have a procedure to counter terrorists who use a captured asteroid to threaten earth.
Ha!
What's funny is, by my own logic, the fact that you still make that argument makes it true, in a sense...
Because of what I said here:
I'm giving you the credibility enough to read/think about your posts and ideas...that mental action on my part opens the door for you to take that credibility and turn the table, so to speak...
Fine! We can agree to disagree on that point ;)
So, *your* idea is solid...the fact that the channel by which the sender and/or receiver choose to access the information can affect how they interpret the symbols, which drives their social construction of reality...
yes!
But McLuhan wasn't saying that in his work. Have you read it? Yikes...it's dense like a philosophy text.
McLuhan was more in 'TED talk' mode, breathlessly in wonder at the potential insights gleanable from the act of analyzing human communication with the tools of the network engineer.
Again, I can agree here.
My main point is, *you* are responsible for these ideas, via expanding your mind cybernetically to factorize symbols which were previously to fuzzy to factorize accurately. That's *your* ideas...McLuhan isn't in the picture...
except that in modern American discourse, his quotation is often mentioned...the continued use of it means it has to 'mean' something...so we project *our* ideas on it...
so yeah, it is a 'good quotation' in that it can be applied many ways! to me it is bad in that if the hearer wants to know more of the idea, and investigates the origin of the quotation...well, they are usually destined for more confusion not more understanding
I don't...when I type it out it is tl;dr...then i go back and summarize....
that makes it look the way it does...I've tried to take a post that started with 6 or 7 paragraphs with full thesis statments and supporting sentences and put them into a readable format for /.'ers
i'm trying to dodge trollers while still taking a discernable position that could be debated...often I find myself resorting to the same tricks and shorthand humans use in verbal conversation...that's why i have non-standard pauses...i'm trying to mimic speech pauses which are able to convey more information..........you see?
i know my posting style is weird but it yields fewer trolling comments and more comments worth responding to
aka 'skimming'....
the author of TFA definitely babbles on about imaginary correlations to other philosophical ideas...stuff that most likely wasn't on Kubrick's radar screen...but there's good stuff in there...
he draws out more commonalities between the monkey/bone, humans/nukes, hal/monolith thing and the author summarizes these notions succinctly (when he bothers to try and summarize)
ex: here he tries to further elucidate his interpretive theory by comparing to other Kubrick films...he summarizes Clockwork Orange:
That's good stuff...especially viewing Kubrick's work as journalistic and attempting impartiality while depicting the ideas clashing on screen.
I wish someone had explained that to me before I saw Kubrick films...it would have spared me alot of misunderstanding and saved me time which I could have spent thinking of more productive things...like this..."Kubrick's films are awesome but they are unsettling...he shows rape and it might feel like he is somehow glorifying the act, but he's attempting to be impartial where other directors might not..."
ah, Marshall McLuhan...confusing the hell out of undergrads studying Comm Theory with one quotation...
I'm going to have to check out Annie Hall now.
FYI, McLuhan's quotation, "The medium is the message" is a tautology. It's like saying on the topic of candy, "The shape is the taste"
skittles and M&M's have the same shape, but very different tastes...what I mean is, McLuhan's quotation is only erudite if you take a ridiculously reductive understanding of communication theory...
My response to McLuhan when I used to teach Comm Theory: "The message is the message, the 'medium' is the channel by which the message is transmitted"
I used it to introduce the Shannon-Weaver Model.
The value of McLuhan's quotation is this: it introduces us to a deeper, more complex understanding of Communications analysis...it isn't valuable in and of itself, but it teases us with notions best explained by others.
is that the people that make the money decisions don't know the difference between a 'blog' and a 'news story'
it's all just 'text' to them...or 'content'
tech industry types may not understand the news business, but we sure as hell know the concept...
why is Microsoft so alienating to users? b/c it tries to make everything proprietary...locking users out of features!
this article, with it's notions of 'finding proprietary content to charge for' as a way to save newspapers...well...
it's the exact opposite!
the news business is a perfectly viable economic system...print on cheap paper, sell ads to make profit
done
enter the internet, where the 'content' is available w/o purchase
the author, and most news CEO's problem is that they see the internet as only a 'downside'...they don't see it as **another** option to connect to users
the internet requires alot of infrastructure to use...compared to a piece of paper...print is still viable even though the demand is lower now with the internet
the solution is threefold:
1. adjust expectations regarding how profitable 'news' can be
2. online ads that connect to the print ads/classifieds
3. repost redundant content rather than producing it in-house
I must credit TFA for #3...the author rightly sees that *some* of what your average daily newspaper does in the newsroom is redundant.
Newspapers as organizations should cut staff, but they should cut everyone *but* editors and writers....
Newspapers and magazines are very 'top heavy' with corporate structure and HR type stuff and it really cuts into the profit margins.
You're missing potentialities and it causes you to focus too narrowly on a few outcomes.
It *could* be cheaper to settle quickly...for alot of reasons...but not in this case...
Ex: It could be cheaper to settle quickly because it gets it out of the news (hopefully on a good note) quickly which has a discernable effect on the ammount of awards from juries in civil cases.
I don't agree, but that's a falsification of my position that shows a broader view of outcomes.
See, the Civil lawsuits have just begun.
Pleading guilty now actually *hurts* BP and Halliburton because when Joe's shrimp boat company, or homeowners with destroyed beaches, or even municipalities file Civil lawsuits the facts of the charges (maybe not the plea of guilt, but the finding of fact of actions) is admissible.
That means a Civil jury can hear that, say, BP has admitted it tried to hide blowout simulations for the pump that indicate negligence...they can present that.
That means $$$$$$$$ in Civil awards from juries...so in the long run, no, admitting guilt would *not* in this case be a viable option.
It appears there could be negligence we don't know about...and that they are acting to keep it hidden...at least that's MHO about the matter.
from TFA:
They 'took a deal' in the parlance of the criminal justice world.
I'm wondering what else is out there. Also in TFA I read that BP was 'convicted' of Manslaughter for its role.
These companies don't 'take deals' unless it is the absolute last option. They will deny and tie up litigation for 10 years until everyone forgets. They will buy judges and prosecutors. They will hire thugs to find dirt on opponents, or make dirt if none exists.
Given their history, the fact that Halliburton, BP, etc took these deals indicates they could be covering for a much larger level of negligence...
In my wildest conspiracy theories, the English Monarchy and other old money global illuminati types (Bush's?) purposefully had the well blown to punish America for stopping Keystone XL.