Yes but nobody with a functioning prefrontal cortex believed them. But they believed us for a long time after World War II. It took many years and a succession of mentally-defective Presidents, Congresses and corporate leaders to throw that trust and good will away.
'Theoretically,' says Azim Premji, chairman and founder of India outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., 'anything on a network can be managed remotely from India.'
Yes indeed it can, and what, if anything, is the point? I can understand trying to cut corners and save money by outsourcing lower-echelon personnel such as those who man support lines and so forth (not that that is typically very satisfactory from the customer's perspective) but eliminating your in-house network administration personnel and turning over their responsibility and authority to a company in another country (any country, I'm not picking on India per se) is a foot-in-self-shoot situation. The head of Wal-Mart's IT got asked a similar question about outsourcing IT, and his response was along the lines of "What? Are you NUTS?". Probably the most rational comment I've ever heard coming from Wal-Mart management, but there it is. Unfortunately, I can see bean counters everywhere drooling at the thought of laying off even more high-overhead employees. Well, whatever. They'll get what they're paying for.
Either way, it's like predicting the weather. Depending upon your knowledge of the conditions and your computational power, you can predict to a certain point and to a certain accuracy... after that it's anyone's guess.
Truth be told, I think you've definitely surpassed us in this area for the time being, although we are hard at work catching up to your magnificent antiterrorism defense. Good news: the recent renewal of some of the Patriot Act's worst provisions indicates that we'll soon be at parity with the U.K. once more. I must say am ashamed to admit that we are rather far behind you when it comes to automated surveillance. Fortunately, significant efforts in that arena are ongoing as well and I am comforted by the thought that, in just a few short years, there will be at least two video cameras covering me wherever I go. In addition, there is even talk about embedding RFID chips into everyone! Isn't that wonderful? Now we'll know who everybody is all the time, no matter where they are. Ha, I'd like to see the terrorists get past that one! I, for one, welcome our high-tech, camera-wielding overlords.
My point exactly. World War II, and the tremendous expansion of government powers that invoked, are most directly responsible for the current state of affairs. However, in my previous comment I was referring to the two hundred years prior to that conflict, where we were a relatively insular nation and hadn't yet experienced the dubious benefits of "big government". So I stand by my remarks.
if our respective governments would just come right out and admit that they really just want us all to grease up, bend over and take it, and that acquisition of power, not national security, is at the core of their efforts. Furthermore, it would be nice if they'd acknowledge that what they are doing is simply shifting the balance of fear experienced by our respective populations from real terrorism to the rule of {bad} law.
You're wrong. Lawmakers impose laws, not government agencies, and when they're doing their job properly they pass laws that keep dangerous organizations like the NSA in check. They've been rather lax in their duties lately... certainly Congress has largely fallen down on the job. The problem is that too much of our current government has been infected by the disease of unaccountability. They do whatever the Hell they please in the name of "homeland security" or "antiterrorism", and there's nobody left to tell them to stop.
I would further submit that America was far less chaotic in the good old days when big government wasn't so big, wasn't so invasive and tended to leave its citizens alone. It isn't necessary to have a government that restricts and monitors its citizens to the degree that ours is doing for the purpose of achieving a stable society. In fact, the imposition of excessive control, coupled with erratic enforcement, creates instability! This is variously called "political unrest" or "social protest" or, when carried to the logical extreme, "rebellion". Furthermore, it is the kind of thing Americans do when they're pushed too far. At least, I hope it's still the kind of thing we do. It's about the only hope we have left. The way things are in D.C. nowadays, it's pretty obvious that while the lights are still on there's nobody home.
The Wild West aspect of the Internet, which seems to disturb you to some degree, is precisely what makes the Internet the greatest advance since the invention of fire, the wheel and air conditioning! The economic, scientific and cultural benefits of the Internet, as it is today, far far outweigh the dark side. Reducing the Internet experienced by ordinary people to a bland, "civilized" mix of email and heavily-filtered browsing would take away the power, freedom and utility so many people have come to expect and enjoy. It would also largely eliminate innovation and the development of new technologies, as no-one would be allowed to do anything not approved by the powers-that-be. Huh... I think I just described AOL.
The rest of ya'll who do not believe in the conspiracy, you are now paranoid.:)
No, they're not paranoid because it's not paranoia when they really ARE out to get you. What they are is complacent, and excessive complacency usually comes back to bite one in the ass.
then it must use the same principle of Dimensional Transcendentalism which, as any Who fan knows, just means that it's bigger on the inside. However, Tom Baker's Doctor Who once commented that he felt there was something fundamentally wrong with DT, so Google had best be careful.
Grow up, actually read other people's posts, and stop being a dick. I made it perfectly clear in my original post that I have nothing against any person of Chinese extraction, and no problem with any such individual working here if they have the United States' best interests at heart. That, indeed, is the point of any good immigration policy, no matter what nations are under discussion. In this case, I simply dislike the transfer of knowledge and technology that is being made from the United States to China, with little being given in return. In fact, all we are doing is saving China from having to make the century of investment in research and development that we and the rest of the Western world did. Even worse, we are building up a fearsome economic and military opponent at our own expense. There is no conspiracy theory necessary: I can look at facts and draw my own conclusions, one of which is that China didn't burst onto the world scene as a major industrial power overnight without acquiring a lot of the necessary skills and knowledge from outside sources. That doesn't make me a racist... at worst it makes me selfish because I don't want to see everything my countrymen sweated bullets to create given away for free to an inimical foreign power.
And, as an aside, let me say that I'm sick to death of people calling other people "racist" or "bigoted" when they try to discuss any issue that involves anyone from a different country. Just try and talk about illegal immigration here in the United States. "Oh, you think there's a problem with millions of people living and working on American soil in flagrant violation of the law? What are you, a racist?" There will never be anything resembling a rational discourse on any of these issues, nor will any of them be solved, until we can talk about them without calling each other names. So, yes, if I'm bigoted I'm bigoted against small-minded, stupid people that can't see the beyond their own noses.
Yes indeed, but then again the military has long made enormous investments into basic research that have had wide-ranging military and civilian application. In fact, there's nothing like a good war (cold or otherwise) with an enemy at technological parity to encourage such development. The Soviet Union made a similar trillion-ruble investment in military and space technology, and truly they achieved some amazing things. However, they never achieved the economic gains that the United States did by commercializing their efforts, which did have the effect of leapfrogging decades of private sector research and development. But it was corporate America which took that basic research and successfully commercialized it, so I stand by my remarks so far as the personal computer revolution is concerned.
Yes, I've seen it happen. Chinese engineers that simply vanished along with equipment and other materials. Circumstantial, I suppose... but pretty damning all the same. And no, I'm not going to tell you specifics because I don't have the right to do that. But it happens, it happens a lot, and you're a fool if you think it doesn't. It's our own fault, of course: China has never had a history of playing nice with its economic partners. Our leaders of industry seem to have blinders on when it comes to China... blinders composed of money. Well, promises of money, anyway.
Like I said, many countries engage in industrial and scientific espionage but China is doing it on a significant scale. And you can carry on about how China is helping to sustain our technological edge, but you're sorely mistaken if you believe that it is being done with the best of intentions. It's being done because, for the time being, we have something China wants and they'll flood us with helpful researchers until they've mined us out and left us in the dust. I'll take you at your word regarding the number of Chinese tech workers in the Bay Area but I would advise you not to take their motivations at face value. Ask yourself where these people will go once they've learned everything they can about whatever it is they're doing. Will they apply for citizenship and become productive lifelong members of our society? Some will and they're welcome... but many will simply head back to China taking with them everything they know about our scientific and technological base. The fact of the matter is that we are directly bootstrapping the economy of a nation whose goals and ideals are diametrically opposed to our own, which does not consider us an ally, and whose economic and military potential are off the charts. Maybe you consider that to be a good idea, but frankly I'd rather China be forced to spend its own time and resources developing its own technological base rather than leeching from everyone else.
And I beg to differ about the Chinese being here because there are too few Americans capable of doing graduate level work. The reason that they are here is that they work for peanuts compared to what an American Ph.D would want for a salary. Corporations (and for that matter our Institutions of Higher Learning) like that fact, and are perfectly willing to spout propaganda about how they have no choice because there aren't enough home-grown workers. When there's a demand for a certain class of worker the system will eventually fill that need, but that takes time. Nobody wants to wait several years to graduate enough new Ph.Ds, or to pay the existing ones what they're really worth. They want those workers now, they want them cheap, with the net result that the domestic workforce has once again been sold down the river right alongside the rest of us.
Are you trolling? It's not just a "slight optimization" it's a substantial difference. Why do you think that police cars have video recorders in them? I mean, if there's no difference between images recorded in the cop's brain and frames stored on a videotape why bother? Well, it's because there is a difference. The camera provides a limited but comparatively objective account of a series of events unfiltered by emotion and human perception, and is stable over time. Conversely, individuals who witness the same events often fail to agree upon even the most basic of details, may adjust their account to fit their perceptions of the people involved, and will forget information as time goes on. The police themselves cannot be trusted to be one-hundred-percent accurate either, hence the video. And to compound the problem, when video recordings are presented in court there's a good chance they'll be misinterpreted anyway. That's just the way it is and nothing will change that. Recording everything simply provides more opportunities for illegitimate prosecution and other abuses. I don't feel that it's worth so many of my hard-earned tax dollars to have my government become even more of a threat than it already is, thank you very much.
As a general principle, I always look at any proposed expansion of police powers with a jaundiced eye. The government will always represent that there are no downsides and will point to any number of expected positive outcomes. When all is said and done, the usual result is that the downsides were far greater than the government claimed, a significant number of innocents were injured in one way or another, and the positive outcomes are virtually nil. That's always been the case in the United States with wiretapping... the results (in terms of actual convictions based upon wiretap evidence) just don't justify the incredible expense incurred. And that's not even counting the current fiasco with AT&T and the NSA.
I think you're all confused on the subject of privacy. The issue is not just whether you're monitored in real-time (that's bad enough) but that you are being recorded for all time! Worse, you're being watched by people with the power to have you arrested if they so choose. Perhaps you have faith in your government and truly believe that this power will only be used for the common good and that any mistakes that are made will be minor and easily rectified. Frankly, I'm not so trusting, and the more power my government arrogates to itself the less trusting I become.
There's a qualitative difference between being in public and having others casually observe your activities, and having video of you watched by a police officer dozens or hundreds of miles away and archived for some indefinite period. If you honestly believe that that information cannot be used against you at some later date you're simply fooling yourself.
Hell, I live in the U.S., and records from our tollway automated billing system have already been subpoenaed for numerous stupid reasons, even divorce cases ("well, if you were at work Mr. Smith why does the tollway's billing system say you were nowhere near your place of employment?") This is getting out of hand, and you can apologize for your (or my) government's intrusive behavior all you want, but the truth is that everyone will, sometime, somewhere, do something he'd rather other people didn't see. In your shiny new world, all of our imperfections would be recorded for posterity the instant they occur, and come back to bite us in the ass when we least expect it.
Automated surveillance is bad, any way you cut it, for law-abiding citizens, because it can very quickly turn into automated justice.
The concepts of patent and copyright are hardly unique to America, nor are they fundamentally flawed... and the system our Founders laid out worked rather well for a very long time. Unfortunately our system of limited protection for creative works has been mucked about with by an incompetent and/or corrupt Congress to the point where it is more of a liability than anything else. Frankly, if the Chinese want to follow in the European Union's footsteps and "harmonize" their "intellectual property" laws with ours, I say more power to 'em. Really... I hope they do.
Slashdot Mirror
Step #3 only works if the plaintiff is filthy rich. That doesn't seem to be the case, in this case.
Oh, they did. Many times, and at length.
Yes but nobody with a functioning prefrontal cortex believed them. But they believed us for a long time after World War II. It took many years and a succession of mentally-defective Presidents, Congresses and corporate leaders to throw that trust and good will away.
Fatal to who? The laptop, or the Sith Lord that you're trying to brain with the thing?
'Theoretically,' says Azim Premji, chairman and founder of India outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., 'anything on a network can be managed remotely from India.'
Yes indeed it can, and what, if anything, is the point? I can understand trying to cut corners and save money by outsourcing lower-echelon personnel such as those who man support lines and so forth (not that that is typically very satisfactory from the customer's perspective) but eliminating your in-house network administration personnel and turning over their responsibility and authority to a company in another country (any country, I'm not picking on India per se) is a foot-in-self-shoot situation. The head of Wal-Mart's IT got asked a similar question about outsourcing IT, and his response was along the lines of "What? Are you NUTS?". Probably the most rational comment I've ever heard coming from Wal-Mart management, but there it is. Unfortunately, I can see bean counters everywhere drooling at the thought of laying off even more high-overhead employees. Well, whatever. They'll get what they're paying for.
Either way, it's like predicting the weather. Depending upon your knowledge of the conditions and your computational power, you can predict to a certain point and to a certain accuracy ... after that it's anyone's guess.
Truth be told, I think you've definitely surpassed us in this area for the time being, although we are hard at work catching up to your magnificent antiterrorism defense. Good news: the recent renewal of some of the Patriot Act's worst provisions indicates that we'll soon be at parity with the U.K. once more. I must say am ashamed to admit that we are rather far behind you when it comes to automated surveillance. Fortunately, significant efforts in that arena are ongoing as well and I am comforted by the thought that, in just a few short years, there will be at least two video cameras covering me wherever I go. In addition, there is even talk about embedding RFID chips into everyone! Isn't that wonderful? Now we'll know who everybody is all the time, no matter where they are. Ha, I'd like to see the terrorists get past that one! I, for one, welcome our high-tech, camera-wielding overlords.
Do they cure it by reversing the polarity of Jordie's visor and routing a graviton particle beam through Data's knee?
Nope. It's a verteron pulse.
My point exactly. World War II, and the tremendous expansion of government powers that invoked, are most directly responsible for the current state of affairs. However, in my previous comment I was referring to the two hundred years prior to that conflict, where we were a relatively insular nation and hadn't yet experienced the dubious benefits of "big government". So I stand by my remarks.
It's immoral to test on humans and it should be banned. Can't they use guinea pigs instead? That's what they were invented for.
There are some people who might disagree with you.
PETA
OF course, they are also very confused on this subject.
May I ask...do you know how it was contracted?
Probably it was outsourced.
Well, if nothing else it will shrink the "ball" in Ballmer. Maybe then he'd stop throwing chairs.
I suppose ... but still, "gnuflect" is pretty funny.
if our respective governments would just come right out and admit that they really just want us all to grease up, bend over and take it, and that acquisition of power, not national security, is at the core of their efforts. Furthermore, it would be nice if they'd acknowledge that what they are doing is simply shifting the balance of fear experienced by our respective populations from real terrorism to the rule of {bad} law.
Holding not my breath, am I.
You're wrong. Lawmakers impose laws, not government agencies, and when they're doing their job properly they pass laws that keep dangerous organizations like the NSA in check. They've been rather lax in their duties lately ... certainly Congress has largely fallen down on the job. The problem is that too much of our current government has been infected by the disease of unaccountability. They do whatever the Hell they please in the name of "homeland security" or "antiterrorism", and there's nobody left to tell them to stop.
... I think I just described AOL.
I would further submit that America was far less chaotic in the good old days when big government wasn't so big, wasn't so invasive and tended to leave its citizens alone. It isn't necessary to have a government that restricts and monitors its citizens to the degree that ours is doing for the purpose of achieving a stable society. In fact, the imposition of excessive control, coupled with erratic enforcement, creates instability! This is variously called "political unrest" or "social protest" or, when carried to the logical extreme, "rebellion". Furthermore, it is the kind of thing Americans do when they're pushed too far. At least, I hope it's still the kind of thing we do. It's about the only hope we have left. The way things are in D.C. nowadays, it's pretty obvious that while the lights are still on there's nobody home.
The Wild West aspect of the Internet, which seems to disturb you to some degree, is precisely what makes the Internet the greatest advance since the invention of fire, the wheel and air conditioning! The economic, scientific and cultural benefits of the Internet, as it is today, far far outweigh the dark side. Reducing the Internet experienced by ordinary people to a bland, "civilized" mix of email and heavily-filtered browsing would take away the power, freedom and utility so many people have come to expect and enjoy. It would also largely eliminate innovation and the development of new technologies, as no-one would be allowed to do anything not approved by the powers-that-be. Huh
The rest of ya'll who do not believe in the conspiracy, you are now paranoid. :)
No, they're not paranoid because it's not paranoia when they really ARE out to get you. What they are is complacent, and excessive complacency usually comes back to bite one in the ass.
then it must use the same principle of Dimensional Transcendentalism which, as any Who fan knows, just means that it's bigger on the inside. However, Tom Baker's Doctor Who once commented that he felt there was something fundamentally wrong with DT, so Google had best be careful.
... nanoparticles can penetrate cells and tissues, migrate through the body and brain and cause biochemical damage.
Of course, so does just about everything else.
Well, engineers sometimes float ideas around.
Grow up, actually read other people's posts, and stop being a dick. I made it perfectly clear in my original post that I have nothing against any person of Chinese extraction, and no problem with any such individual working here if they have the United States' best interests at heart. That, indeed, is the point of any good immigration policy, no matter what nations are under discussion. In this case, I simply dislike the transfer of knowledge and technology that is being made from the United States to China, with little being given in return. In fact, all we are doing is saving China from having to make the century of investment in research and development that we and the rest of the Western world did. Even worse, we are building up a fearsome economic and military opponent at our own expense. There is no conspiracy theory necessary: I can look at facts and draw my own conclusions, one of which is that China didn't burst onto the world scene as a major industrial power overnight without acquiring a lot of the necessary skills and knowledge from outside sources. That doesn't make me a racist ... at worst it makes me selfish because I don't want to see everything my countrymen sweated bullets to create given away for free to an inimical foreign power.
And, as an aside, let me say that I'm sick to death of people calling other people "racist" or "bigoted" when they try to discuss any issue that involves anyone from a different country. Just try and talk about illegal immigration here in the United States. "Oh, you think there's a problem with millions of people living and working on American soil in flagrant violation of the law? What are you, a racist?" There will never be anything resembling a rational discourse on any of these issues, nor will any of them be solved, until we can talk about them without calling each other names. So, yes, if I'm bigoted I'm bigoted against small-minded, stupid people that can't see the beyond their own noses.
Good for you.
Yes indeed, but then again the military has long made enormous investments into basic research that have had wide-ranging military and civilian application. In fact, there's nothing like a good war (cold or otherwise) with an enemy at technological parity to encourage such development. The Soviet Union made a similar trillion-ruble investment in military and space technology, and truly they achieved some amazing things. However, they never achieved the economic gains that the United States did by commercializing their efforts, which did have the effect of leapfrogging decades of private sector research and development. But it was corporate America which took that basic research and successfully commercialized it, so I stand by my remarks so far as the personal computer revolution is concerned.
Yes, I've seen it happen. Chinese engineers that simply vanished along with equipment and other materials. Circumstantial, I suppose ... but pretty damning all the same. And no, I'm not going to tell you specifics because I don't have the right to do that. But it happens, it happens a lot, and you're a fool if you think it doesn't. It's our own fault, of course: China has never had a history of playing nice with its economic partners. Our leaders of industry seem to have blinders on when it comes to China ... blinders composed of money. Well, promises of money, anyway.
... but many will simply head back to China taking with them everything they know about our scientific and technological base. The fact of the matter is that we are directly bootstrapping the economy of a nation whose goals and ideals are diametrically opposed to our own, which does not consider us an ally, and whose economic and military potential are off the charts. Maybe you consider that to be a good idea, but frankly I'd rather China be forced to spend its own time and resources developing its own technological base rather than leeching from everyone else.
Like I said, many countries engage in industrial and scientific espionage but China is doing it on a significant scale. And you can carry on about how China is helping to sustain our technological edge, but you're sorely mistaken if you believe that it is being done with the best of intentions. It's being done because, for the time being, we have something China wants and they'll flood us with helpful researchers until they've mined us out and left us in the dust. I'll take you at your word regarding the number of Chinese tech workers in the Bay Area but I would advise you not to take their motivations at face value. Ask yourself where these people will go once they've learned everything they can about whatever it is they're doing. Will they apply for citizenship and become productive lifelong members of our society? Some will and they're welcome
And I beg to differ about the Chinese being here because there are too few Americans capable of doing graduate level work. The reason that they are here is that they work for peanuts compared to what an American Ph.D would want for a salary. Corporations (and for that matter our Institutions of Higher Learning) like that fact, and are perfectly willing to spout propaganda about how they have no choice because there aren't enough home-grown workers. When there's a demand for a certain class of worker the system will eventually fill that need, but that takes time. Nobody wants to wait several years to graduate enough new Ph.Ds, or to pay the existing ones what they're really worth. They want those workers now, they want them cheap, with the net result that the domestic workforce has once again been sold down the river right alongside the rest of us.
Are you trolling? It's not just a "slight optimization" it's a substantial difference. Why do you think that police cars have video recorders in them? I mean, if there's no difference between images recorded in the cop's brain and frames stored on a videotape why bother? Well, it's because there is a difference. The camera provides a limited but comparatively objective account of a series of events unfiltered by emotion and human perception, and is stable over time. Conversely, individuals who witness the same events often fail to agree upon even the most basic of details, may adjust their account to fit their perceptions of the people involved, and will forget information as time goes on. The police themselves cannot be trusted to be one-hundred-percent accurate either, hence the video. And to compound the problem, when video recordings are presented in court there's a good chance they'll be misinterpreted anyway. That's just the way it is and nothing will change that. Recording everything simply provides more opportunities for illegitimate prosecution and other abuses. I don't feel that it's worth so many of my hard-earned tax dollars to have my government become even more of a threat than it already is, thank you very much.
... the results (in terms of actual convictions based upon wiretap evidence) just don't justify the incredible expense incurred. And that's not even counting the current fiasco with AT&T and the NSA.
As a general principle, I always look at any proposed expansion of police powers with a jaundiced eye. The government will always represent that there are no downsides and will point to any number of expected positive outcomes. When all is said and done, the usual result is that the downsides were far greater than the government claimed, a significant number of innocents were injured in one way or another, and the positive outcomes are virtually nil. That's always been the case in the United States with wiretapping
I think you're all confused on the subject of privacy. The issue is not just whether you're monitored in real-time (that's bad enough) but that you are being recorded for all time! Worse, you're being watched by people with the power to have you arrested if they so choose. Perhaps you have faith in your government and truly believe that this power will only be used for the common good and that any mistakes that are made will be minor and easily rectified. Frankly, I'm not so trusting, and the more power my government arrogates to itself the less trusting I become.
There's a qualitative difference between being in public and having others casually observe your activities, and having video of you watched by a police officer dozens or hundreds of miles away and archived for some indefinite period. If you honestly believe that that information cannot be used against you at some later date you're simply fooling yourself.
Hell, I live in the U.S., and records from our tollway automated billing system have already been subpoenaed for numerous stupid reasons, even divorce cases ("well, if you were at work Mr. Smith why does the tollway's billing system say you were nowhere near your place of employment?") This is getting out of hand, and you can apologize for your (or my) government's intrusive behavior all you want, but the truth is that everyone will, sometime, somewhere, do something he'd rather other people didn't see. In your shiny new world, all of our imperfections would be recorded for posterity the instant they occur, and come back to bite us in the ass when we least expect it.
Automated surveillance is bad, any way you cut it, for law-abiding citizens, because it can very quickly turn into automated justice.
No thanks.
The concepts of patent and copyright are hardly unique to America, nor are they fundamentally flawed ... and the system our Founders laid out worked rather well for a very long time. Unfortunately our system of limited protection for creative works has been mucked about with by an incompetent and/or corrupt Congress to the point where it is more of a liability than anything else. Frankly, if the Chinese want to follow in the European Union's footsteps and "harmonize" their "intellectual property" laws with ours, I say more power to 'em. Really ... I hope they do.