Nobody has the power to get another prize added-- the Economics one took a lot of political, economic, and monetary power to get -- nobody else comes close.
It may not be officially a Nobel prize but it is billed as such regardless and affords those who decide it the unique ability to promote their economic interests around the world. I doubt they think much about society when choosing and more about their economic beliefs or what helps them do well. I find it highly insulting because economics is no science; it is closer to rainmen or witch doctors than science... they just use academic tools for their beliefs like many religious academics working in theology -- acting like a duck doesn't make you a duck.
As far as Obama, he was not a new mistake; however, I think that for his award the justification was much stronger than their previous mistakes. I do not think the prize has had a downward trend: more than a few deviations does a trend make.
The US empire is slowly falling (if you don't see the empire then you have much to learn) and like previous empires, it can fade into history or it can put up a big fight -- Bush was going in the latter direction and Obama appeared to be going the other direction; given how much it will impact the world either way and the lives of millions literally sway in the balance! (the Iraq tragedy killed over a million already, BTW.) The Nobel people wanted to do their part to try to nudge the direction - they are a well informed bunch so one shouldn't think their decisions do not involve plenty of informed thought (and therefore out of the comprehension of most Americans-- Hey I am one and I know how bad it is here.)
Which is why slashdot should include a link actually explaining what is wrong with ANY simple hash solution for password storage like MD5 etc is temporary.
bcrypt is bsd so everybody should be using it. a lot of people use openssl so getting some security thing from the openbsd people is not so difficult.
A more informative link should be included, like: http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bcrypt-paper.ps so nerds not in the know can understand how silly the article is. NT hashes are a joke and other than pointing out how bad all the non-bcrypt ones are. It is not all that useful to work on GPU brute forcing for poorly designed systems... (other than to make a point or to aid in exploitation of them.)
You can use shorter passwords if the hash algorithm is sound. dictionary attacks will work regardless but once you are into using brute force your password could be short if it takes a long enough amount of time to cover the domain. bcrypt "scales" to as slow as needed ( I feel odd using "scales" in this way... ) one could make it so expensive that searching the space for short passwords would be too costly.
Treason is defined in the constitution to prevent reactionary fools from using it as some form of blasphemy to lynch people they do not like.
Manning is no traitor. FACT.
He may have violated his contract while arguably defending the constitution he swore his life to defend. Should he be punished? Yes. the degree is to be decided hopefully in a reasonable fashion - what he may have done was far far greater than wasting his life in Iraq for a neocon wet dream. Yes, I just said they are dying OF something (like an IED, or far more likely by suicide ) but they are not dying FOR something. Most of us only die of something, few die for something and even less for something worth death.
Manning is giving some of his life for something bigger than OIL or "TEARISM".
Americans are extremely NAIVE and unsophisticated but don't admit it; too much over confidence and too little knowledge or interest frankly. Sara Palin is an example of this. Its so bad these people are no longer just voters but they are running and getting into office.
I have a guy who used to be inside comcast who said they were working on audio and video monitoring of you from their cable boxes. audio was already there he said but it wasn't that useful while video was being developed. He said the motive was to know the demographics of people watching the ads and if they were actually looking at the ads. At the time, 6 years ago-- they didn't have a way to sell the intrusion to customers (that is, if they even tell us about it-- he seemed to think they wouldn't be secretive about any of it.)
Me personally, I'm waiting for them to come out with gesture based remote control system so we don't need the tv remote anymore because that would justify the feature.
Some nations are better than others, but in the USA the "Rule of Law" is just a phrase used when it sounds nice; seemingly, the people who use it more respect it less.
Reality is that the law which was initially something a citizen could comprehend and manage, it has grown into a job protection jargon and raised in complexity for political, power, and for extortion. Politicians are usually lawyers so they are trained in the game and they create complicated things they can later become consultants on or to help some benefactors. It can be made complex enough that even experts have a difficult time unless they created it. Its much easier to create mazes than it is solve them.
The most powerful lobby is the lawyers. Here in the USA, the legal code is so vast and complex just about anybody is likely in violation of something (depending upon how hard one looks.) Legal procedure is made overly complicated and the power of juries and judges to reason is greatly undermined and narrowed with the excuse of their errors but never mentioning that policies are brain dead rules where 1 size fits all which grossly oversimplify reality down to the level of some hollywood B movie.
We all see the rich and powerful get almost no punishment, conviction, or even prosecution while some powerless citizen is "made an example of" with inequitable "punishment" and even more insane we call the system "corrections" as if it does treatment and re-education.
Then we have large scale systematic idiocy like the black and white approach to crime and punishment. Mental cases largely get treated as if they are some "evil" person and locked up with the sane people and THEN RELEASED after a fixed time period!! A pedophile is sick in the head, if not "cured" they should be in for LIFE; drugged or whatever treatments fit their condition. Sure, there are error rates and we often use imperfection as an excuse to screw things up and make it worse. There is no utopia, when will the public wake up? I bet the schizophrenics off their meds do LESS harm than when we locked them all up for fixed time periods; at least in the public they CONTRIBUTE $35k per year average instead of costing $40k per year to jail.
1) Tax consumer inbound shipping and make the carriers collect it; they can because it is easy for them compared to the logistics they already handle so ignore their bitching.
2) Tax based upon insured value with a minimal scale. Amazon would likely opt out of shipping insurance.
Result: Local businesses which contribute more to the your economy can compete with out of state businesses who do not pay tax.
States who have been gradually robbed of income have less budget issues (although the economy is the primary cause of the current problem.)
The environment will benefit from less distance shipping. Shipping will go down a little but will have a measurable difference in the wear on the roads we pay for.
Foreign items will likely also go slightly down over local items, also boosting the economy but in a smaller amount than returning to the times of tariffs on imports and the economy was sound...
Obama wanted to follow CA in having the IRS do your taxes for you with you merely sending in corrections (if there were any) thus saving a great deal of money for everybody involved.
CA proved such a system briefly until the lobbyists had it killed. Obama dropped the issue after discovering how difficult a fight it would become.
Simplification of tax code likely will threaten accountants enough that they will oppose it; while the public has no lobbyists to counter them. (one could say the representatives are our lobbyists but not anymore... marketing has trumped democracy; the people's "free will" is not strong enough, or has been merely an illusion all along.)
Do you think that the same company who downplayed this huge disaster to the point of putting people at risk-- NOW during a big important disaster -- that they even maintained the plant within its designs? Those emergency generators probably didn't even function anyhow and they just lucked out that they could blame it on the water.... There are probably plenty of other things as well that were mismanaged, under reported, and covered up BEFORE THE DISASTER when the dishonesty was less important!
I wouldn't be shocked if they figure out tomorrow some of the leaked waste was being dumped there before the disaster... but rather than be seen as pure evil, they'll opt for just incompetence.
Here in the USA there are plenty of plants who only power up the generators for minutes (not days) with no load -- if at all -- and they could easily break down when they are needed. Actually, I read about 2 plants in the USA where a) the generators weren't run for many years and b) generators were not realistically tested.
The design is quite stupid as well, storing all that waste so close to the plant just to save money... Those flaws have nothing to do with technology and the same factors behind those "mistakes" are the SAME factors that exist today in modern projects. Actually, its likely a modern plant would have more foolish design errors simply because the level of corruption and cost cutting today is worse than it was back when these old plants were designed.
I would expect the examples of the previous accidents (every few decades) would provide more loophole planning for the legal advisers than design corrections.
Hopefully we will have a leak system working when somebody finally grows a spine and leaks the documents after they age a little bit.... We won't be alive when they finally release this info otherwise.
REMEMBER: part of the IAEA is to PROMOTE the nuclear industry not merely regulate it!
Government run nuke power. Private corps with crazy amounts of government welfare (including insurance) running plants ends up with a meltdown every 25 years and many smaller problems plus lax management all around (except during a meltdown year.) Nuclear powered military devices have a far better record and they are managed all around better; FYI, the military is government. There is accountability at all levels when they run it (or at least plenty of blame shifting and somebody gets in trouble way before disasters happen.) Before some people claim government/military can't be trusted, think about just how are they supposed to regulate a private industry (which is far less oversight than doing it all themselves?)
If you want nuclear power for good reasons, then you should be against privatized nuclear power; otherwise, you are just an industry lapdog.
The military has managed BOMBS and warships for decades really well since the invention of this stuff; I don't see why they couldn't (or something similar) run all nuclear everything.
Security wouldn't be a problem for them... When crisis happens the only organization capable enough to solve these problems IS THE MILITARY. Japan's biggest problem was in letting the corporation run the show; just like the USA's handling of BP's spill. They don't have their own experts or at least didn't listen to them and the corporation lacks the resources to respond properly (plus they have no profit motive to do so - just make enough of a showing to let their lawyers keep them from paying anywhere near what they should. Lawyers + PR is much cheaper than doing the right thing.)
Nuclear power is NOT cost effective. QED. The only way to make it worthwhile is if you run it non-profit (government) and never have meltdowns. Even then, it is not a cheap energy source and is easily beaten by wind and now even by newer solar tech. I am not against it for baseload power until a market can be created for power storage and the necessary modern power grid is created. Unfortunately, our governments are all so corrupt we won't upgrade our power grids (high voltage DC) so flexible and distributed power become practical; we must create/maintain centralized power bases at all costs and that is at the heart of the matter.
The MOST corrupting industries are coal, oil, and other highly critical industries. If we didn't have public roadways then the roadway industry would be one of them....
I'll leave to you to look it up; but I remember when the Clinton admin created Al-Qaeda after the WTC bombing in the 90s - the purpose was to use old laws used for organized crime which are not really fair but have existed for a long time. They created an organization so they then could apply these old laws to go after the leadership of the criminal organization.
Bin Laden I believe had some sort of name for his tiny little funding organization but it was small (but the name was long) and not directly doing anything - it provided funding for groups and people doing things it liked. Much the same as the USA has done for generations (but is accepted, but largely unknown to the ignorant public.) In doing this, they were able to convict leaders of the organization indirectly and do so legally. At the same time, it gave him a great name, lots of attention and P.R. to grow more influential.
Its been a long time but I do remember it. So, while it may be that he was convicted in the 90s and could have been again (especially when he finally took credit for the successful attack.) It still is the case that his death sentence was not carried out according to the "rule of law". (A meaningless phrase today.) I am not sure NY has the death sentence... Although he can die resisting arrest...
Correction: Even if you are an American, if you are a terrorist you do not count as human and they can kill you without trial if you leave the country. Bush moved towards this but it was Obama who has done it.
Correction: the USA hardly killed anybody looking for Osama; the vast majorities were killed for geopolitics and Osama was just the excuse for the ignorant masses. I read their plans in 1999 before Bush got in; I knew about the Afghanistan oil + pipeline plans before Bush was president - and so did anybody who followed Cheney's think tanks position papers. The idiot press didn't look behind the curtain - anybody with a brain realized Bush was really a front man and it would be his staff deciding most the policies (even if he wasn't a moron, the advisers have a big impact and most are not planning to run for high office so their opinions can easily be determined and by extension one can gain insight into the politician.) The trajectory of the Bush admin was quite predictable; we just have shallow reporters but no journalists.
Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the USA decades back... But back then we didn't claim the right to just openly assassinate such people and so he lives today as a hero and we are completely ignorant just how evil "we" thought he was.
1)
the leaks were vetted with the press and the white house; anything getting out is the fault of all the parties involved - obviously, the US gov is to blame for not being reasonable or making the mistake to not get something important blocked (as opposed to only insisting in NO leaks and trumping up criminal charges against wikileaks.)
2) Who cares if some people are named, even if they have regular contact you must FIND THEM before you can follow them to anybody else. We know Bin Ladden's name and it took a decade to do something with that name.
3) It is not confirmed that names leaked by wikileaks was involved (and given how upset the state dept is would you trust them in saying that?? without proof?)
4) It has not been reported exactly how they found him.
5) The possible "actionable intelligence" from gitmo could be part of the info gathered by LEGAL means just because it may have come from our prisoners does not mean we broke the law in getting that-- that is, assuming any of these theories about how things played out are correct.
6) War crimes even if fruitful are still war crimes. period. People die for causes and people go to jail for causes - it doesn't matter how you justify it, punishment for the crime is mandatory. This doesn't change anything even if all those hypotheticals go in this direction.
I believe cell tracking happened in the 90s and continues today. I remember reading about some legal case where they caught the murder from her cell phone (otherwise it was a perfect crime) and I think the data they used was gathered in the late 90s. Back then it may have only been logged for a short time but now they likely keep it forever.
I have no issue with the Location framework's tracking system which by design makes it work as well as it does - I'd actually like it if apple published all the wifi data out there -- if you didn't know, there are already services and communities gathering wifi location info. Would be nice to pull up some site and get a google map with all the open wifi networks marked on it. One just can't compete against a dataset generated from iphones and macs moving about.
I do however firewall apple from sending location data out of my network. The desktops do not need to know where they are. Mac OS has been doing location tracking since they put in the location framework; I think its a cron because I used to notice it every night when it was being blocked.
I also seem to recall something in the legalese gave apple broad rights to anonymous data. If they missed something I'd think it would be more likely in the stuff for Mac OS X not in the iOS agreement.
Then, having some context, decide if giving NASA a little more money or even doubling NASA would be that big of a deal.
What should be obvious (but isn't, are Americans stupid or their press?) is that if people don't mind a $1 more per year on their taxes for NASA to boost their budget by 10% they must RAISE TAXES to pay for that - I bet most Americans would be ok with $1 more on their NASA tax if it was an increase and not merely shifting money to loan sharks (interest on debt + they gain power over us.)
Going to the moon again is crazy expensive. Going to mars is crazy expensive. Improving space travel, developing robotics (which already surpass humans in this area) and climate science - those are priceless.
Don't forget, one of the reasons for the Mission to Mars program was to undermine climate science.
We all know the point of many programs is merely to maintain the status quot because their districts don't like change that can impact their local economies. We don't need much of the farming welfare or military welfare (oh yeah, I went there! I dare you think over what "defense" spending really means!) Those add up to a HUGE waste of money but those interests are so diversified that you'll never get enough politicians to take the blow for doing the right thing. Farming has a power bias due to the design of the election system while the military industry would attack any democratic system.
We have a lot of waste but we MOSTLY have a revenue problem and that is not being discussed because of the big elephants in the room. We also shouldn't have to be playing catch up pointing things that should be obvious.
q: So Quiad, how cold was it? a: Lol! It was so cold I had to boil my Oxygen!
Sure! melt it all somehow and put CO2 into the air until it snows back down as ice or rains down freezing liquid air... So we somehow heat up the whole area and the little atmosphere with a big heat lamp...Then we trigger the core to spin again in our Unobtanium drilling machine so Mars can keep the Atmosphere it was unable to maintain itself... In the process we discover that in fact, we broke Mars and escaped to Earth...and the main reason we left is the revealed!
We argue with the dumb half who don't believe we are making CO2 heat up our own planet... while too many people think of Mars as our future escape destination.
Even if you can double output; the population growth even without the gains in food production is going to be higher than the rate of increased production. This means only a small period of time will exist where production gains actually help everybody before the population growth rate overcomes it and surpasses it.
Overpopulation is the problem people do not want to address. All such talk about distribution is shallow because it doesn't matter if you evenly distribute all the food in a Marxist fashion regardless of production and distribution costs because again, population growth will continue outpace production and the starvation will slowly increase for all evenly.
Utopian equal food for all plans are not realistic or feasible long term. Overpopulation is the problem and doesn't stop naturally until significant numbers DIE -- or in our case, being "thinking" creatures we could plan ahead and avoid the unpleasant reality of letting the problem solve itself.
Why deal with something now when you can put it off until later and forget about it?
I aint goin' to THINK about my budget or save up money like people in inferior countries do - I'm American, my money troubles are for my loan consolidation company! GO USA! GO USA!
Spending zero down and not worrying about the end cost is the American way.
How many people are going to feel bad for poor ATnT or Verizon? I don't know anybody who doesn't have some hate for ATnT.
I still find it amazing how well the corporate propaganda has worked to brainwash so many people into screwing themselves; I'm sure I'll be surprised if we ever find out how many fake online identities marketing firms are using to spew more BS.
To put this into proper perspective, traditional phone companies have had to share their networks for a long time without huge marketplace disasters, they simply get a small break using their own network and pay a small fee to use another's network. All the DSL and dial-up providers have been sharing networks in various ways thanks to the FCC requiring them to do so. Yes, the private monopolies would have banned dial-up internet providers if they could have. (AOL wouldn't have existed so 1 good thing would have come out of that.)
LIMITED RESOURCES: It is OUR airwaves they buy monopolies on and our institutions manage them - if they do so poorly its because we the people are incompetent. We currently have a system which sells off bandwidth to the highest bidder and barely regulate the monopolistic usage; this is about as free-market as it can get without the costly chaos of letting anybody make radio noise. I suppose we should allow Verizon to install signal jamming devices or should we regulate that nobody can jam the competition? What constitutes jamming? Who decides? What if two providers bump heads over bandwidth-- the stronger signal and client hardware wins... a temporary battle...
People seem to forget that something as basic as FIRE and POLICE have been privatized in the past and that insanity resulted-- in something that is morally simplistic and necessary; yet they somehow other areas are going to be more civil and more effective by introducing free market anarchy??
Anarchy has a PR man and its the US Chamber of Commerce. "Free market" is just a PR creation.
If you can't verify the claims not because its not demonstrable (as faith is) but because you and your friends are not capable of verifying the claims you can only place your trust in that of expert groups with the skills and resources ($) - this involves faith in sourcing your information. Realization of this is important as we continually have to battle against corporate propaganda trying to prevent science from benefiting society (global warming being an easy example.)
Science is a process and a philosophy and within that context there is a little faith involved. Inductive reasoning has its flaws and is a huge part of science. There are many people who treat science like a religion - I'd say that most people do this; but I've run into plenty of "low-brow" scientists (usually teachers) who have a style of 'faith' in science that is narrow and shallow which, at least to me, resembles christian evangelicals I've known.
I wasn't an Obama supporter; however, I have seen him do much more good than harm while having to take the blame for things beyond his control. I'm not just talking about the economic mess (which was years in the making and more in the fixing) but the OVERWHELMING CORRUPTION. Obama will probably sell the farm rather than let the republicans shut down government -- which is too bad because they are more nutty now than they were last time.... Now days we actually have some congressmen who believe the PR lies as truth (for example: Bachmann, MN -- and most the right has an open hatred for the other side and its hard to ignore so one expects some return hate...) You can't be a republican today without being apeshit or stupid.
The reason Bush was closer to a dictator was because he went with the flow. Obama is tacking against the flow and getting a little progress while moving mostly sideways and in some areas completely losing ground. One simply can not move in all directions at once. Especially if he is all alone-- his staff is not so hot either - I won't go into where he is just flat out wrong if not bought off. Healthcare was almost entirely him, his staff gave up and that says something good about him. He wouldn't have been allowed to get in if he was going to be a real threat... ANYBODY post-bush was going to be a fall guy, its just how it works (you think Rove and the smart guys really wanted/cared if McSame won? ever hear of a sacrifice?)
REAL Politics is about how to look like you enjoy eating shit while covertly tossing as much of it as you can onto your predecessor's pile.
You can be powerful if you have the powerful behind you; otherwise you are lucky to survive when they plow over you. A Taoist approach of using their power against them only works to an extent - even in martial arts, a powerful enough foe is going to fuck you up no matter how much you try to redirect and deflect their power. In these corporatist times that approach seems (to me) like just a stalling tactic at best. A serious fight is coming and absent a political forum it will become violent.... Unless they can continue to sucker people forever... like 1984; except we're always at multiple "wars", including between the 2 parties.
All we have now is the GOP completely playing politics to the point where they are purposely trying to ruin everything even their own ideas - just to harm Obama; they hate him more than Clinton (must be the skin color.) Its a false political war distracting from the real problems and Obama has openly been trying to stop it and failing to do so; he doesn't seem to realize no president that allows this propaganda warfare to continue can get us back on track. The corporations are raping us while this ship sinks and any disaster or infighting is to their benefit.
In my state, the idiot GOP is fighting to cut all the walnut trees down in the state parks to raise money! (naturally sold at a cheap price to donor who also is "over-regulated" as if this would do any real good.) They are also fighting on nearly every front to make us mirror 3rd world states like Georgia (US state; however, I wouldn't be surprised if that nation was in better shape.) - in many cases repeating the same policies that worked so well down south in all those welfare states. It has little to do with ideology and much more to do with the corps buying them off. The dems just play weak while the other side openly fights for some of the most blatant corruption in generations. Sometimes I wonder if democrats would be as stupid if their party was hijacked... I won't need to wonder for long, its been gradually happening for some time.
If you wanted an honest guy with no-compromise for corruption you are just asking for another martyr.
There is no hope for people who read/watch mainstream "press" in the USA. Turn off your telescreen.
The REAL IMPORTANT question is how long will democracy last against the march of the social sciences?
Will computer science give us machine overlords before our "free will" is subverted by the oligarchy? That is, assuming we have any free will at all.... will we have 2 classes of people-- ones raised to rule and ones raised to be "free" within their cages?
MS likes to give stuff away create an addiction then charge you after you are hooked. There are a lot of cars out there for them to infect and HARM like they did with the computer industry for decades.
Last thing I want is another monopoly jumping to support the record industry when they bitch about public performances when my radio is too loud or I have > 3 people in the car or whatever crazy things they want to impose upon me.
An open system means cool hacks, cool software on your EXISTING car computer -- not paying for a 'professional' update or requiring the purchase of a new car or computer system. Say somebody adds a hack that ties into the car computer and the dealer doesn't like it-- an open system is going to be easier to do this. Some university could create optimized driving software to manage the car (may require hacks) or incorporate elevation into the map routing so you save power by not driving up hills.
After market add-ons or DIY mods like some sensors and automatic parallel parking etc. Its all much more realistically possible-- plus some DIY kit can get around most your IP laws hindering actual advancement.
Lots of apps possible....some more ideas
ID other drivers. an App which photos plates of other cars and IDs them using an online database. Measure the speed of the other cars... Peer ratings of other drivers online... automated driving grading; tests? virtual pets encouraging better driving. Score keepers for running over animals... Interesting security features... Detect police sirens and cut the music; USB radio devices for HAM or police scanning... Facebook crap (that'll kill people.) back seat stuff for the kiddies running on the same system. car-related watching games. Survival info (from useful to insane.) The car manual, FAQ, info on other cars-- how to use your HUGE power supply to jump start a normal car... simulators...that is, stupid apps that mimic TV shows. Route comparisons with online integration. Use wifi to automatically talk to your house; open doors, turn on lights, sync, backup, or whatever. Talk to fast food places already having wifi to make orders within range (or before you get there.) Pot hole detection and reporting to the DOT for repair. Virtual lawyer for accidents... Wind resistance estimators, car weight estimators (funny math geek problems turned into apps.) RFID scanner to pick up everybody else's info... Insurance company apps to rate and charge you based upon actual RISK not simplistic pooling (could be good for you if you are a good driver.) Company car tracking apps.... Car RENTAL. Run out of battery? it could help you find a rental place... they could meet you somewhere... (actually I'd like to see mini-trailers with gensets or batteries for extended ranges-- it could manage those as well.) Contests online for various driving feats (legal and illegal.) Take photos while driving without accidents. VoIP phone? various networking hacks and tethering hacks... Obviously somebody will port DOOM to it...then do something stupid like tie the game to your driving somehow. Liberty apps helping you not get screwed by the police.
One could track the lights and route and suggest speeds to avoid red lights, find turnabouts, use traffic info. Social stuff -- wifi broadcast your music so curious drivers nearby could hear it? other silly things possible... would be nice to yell at somebody and have them hear you (optionally.)
Perhaps better real time performance enhancements for linux so it can handle doing everything-- including more critical aspects for the car.
The next car - possibly from somebody else may run the SAME software so you can migrate or at least be familiar with the new car.
This is just a little bit off the top of my head-- there has to be a TON of stuff others are thinking of.
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Nobody has the power to get another prize added-- the Economics one took a lot of political, economic, and monetary power to get -- nobody else comes close.
It may not be officially a Nobel prize but it is billed as such regardless and affords those who decide it the unique ability to promote their economic interests around the world. I doubt they think much about society when choosing and more about their economic beliefs or what helps them do well. I find it highly insulting because economics is no science; it is closer to rainmen or witch doctors than science... they just use academic tools for their beliefs like many religious academics working in theology -- acting like a duck doesn't make you a duck.
As far as Obama, he was not a new mistake; however, I think that for his award the justification was much stronger than their previous mistakes. I do not think the prize has had a downward trend: more than a few deviations does a trend make.
The US empire is slowly falling (if you don't see the empire then you have much to learn) and like previous empires, it can fade into history or it can put up a big fight -- Bush was going in the latter direction and Obama appeared to be going the other direction; given how much it will impact the world either way and the lives of millions literally sway in the balance! (the Iraq tragedy killed over a million already, BTW.) The Nobel people wanted to do their part to try to nudge the direction - they are a well informed bunch so one shouldn't think their decisions do not involve plenty of informed thought (and therefore out of the comprehension of most Americans-- Hey I am one and I know how bad it is here.)
Which is why slashdot should include a link actually explaining what is wrong with ANY simple hash solution for password storage like MD5 etc is temporary.
bcrypt is bsd so everybody should be using it. a lot of people use openssl so getting some security thing from the openbsd people is not so difficult.
A more informative link should be included, like:
http://www.openbsd.org/papers/bcrypt-paper.ps
so nerds not in the know can understand how silly the article is. NT hashes are a joke and other than pointing out how bad all the non-bcrypt ones are. It is not all that useful to work on GPU brute forcing for poorly designed systems... (other than to make a point or to aid in exploitation of them.)
You can use shorter passwords if the hash algorithm is sound. dictionary attacks will work regardless but once you are into using brute force your password could be short if it takes a long enough amount of time to cover the domain. bcrypt "scales" to as slow as needed ( I feel odd using "scales" in this way... ) one could make it so expensive that searching the space for short passwords would be too costly.
Treason is defined in the constitution to prevent reactionary fools from using it as some form of blasphemy to lynch people they do not like.
Manning is no traitor. FACT.
He may have violated his contract while arguably defending the constitution he swore his life to defend. Should he be punished? Yes. the degree is to be decided hopefully in a reasonable fashion - what he may have done was far far greater than wasting his life in Iraq for a neocon wet dream. Yes, I just said they are dying OF something (like an IED, or far more likely by suicide ) but they are not dying FOR something. Most of us only die of something, few die for something and even less for something worth death.
Manning is giving some of his life for something bigger than OIL or "TEARISM".
Americans are extremely NAIVE and unsophisticated but don't admit it; too much over confidence and too little knowledge or interest frankly. Sara Palin is an example of this. Its so bad these people are no longer just voters but they are running and getting into office.
I have a guy who used to be inside comcast who said they were working on audio and video monitoring of you from their cable boxes. audio was already there he said but it wasn't that useful while video was being developed. He said the motive was to know the demographics of people watching the ads and if they were actually looking at the ads. At the time, 6 years ago-- they didn't have a way to sell the intrusion to customers (that is, if they even tell us about it-- he seemed to think they wouldn't be secretive about any of it.)
Me personally, I'm waiting for them to come out with gesture based remote control system so we don't need the tv remote anymore because that would justify the feature.
Some nations are better than others, but in the USA the "Rule of Law" is just a phrase used when it sounds nice; seemingly, the people who use it more respect it less.
Reality is that the law which was initially something a citizen could comprehend and manage, it has grown into a job protection jargon and raised in complexity for political, power, and for extortion. Politicians are usually lawyers so they are trained in the game and they create complicated things they can later become consultants on or to help some benefactors. It can be made complex enough that even experts have a difficult time unless they created it. Its much easier to create mazes than it is solve them.
The most powerful lobby is the lawyers. Here in the USA, the legal code is so vast and complex just about anybody is likely in violation of something (depending upon how hard one looks.) Legal procedure is made overly complicated and the power of juries and judges to reason is greatly undermined and narrowed with the excuse of their errors but never mentioning that policies are brain dead rules where 1 size fits all which grossly oversimplify reality down to the level of some hollywood B movie.
We all see the rich and powerful get almost no punishment, conviction, or even prosecution while some powerless citizen is "made an example of" with inequitable "punishment" and even more insane we call the system "corrections" as if it does treatment and re-education.
Then we have large scale systematic idiocy like the black and white approach to crime and punishment. Mental cases largely get treated as if they are some "evil" person and locked up with the sane people and THEN RELEASED after a fixed time period!! A pedophile is sick in the head, if not "cured" they should be in for LIFE; drugged or whatever treatments fit their condition. Sure, there are error rates and we often use imperfection as an excuse to screw things up and make it worse. There is no utopia, when will the public wake up? I bet the schizophrenics off their meds do LESS harm than when we locked them all up for fixed time periods; at least in the public they CONTRIBUTE $35k per year average instead of costing $40k per year to jail.
There is no left and right side based on seating in the french assembly centuries ago:
wake up: http://politicalcompass.org/
1) Tax consumer inbound shipping and make the carriers collect it; they can because it is easy for them compared to the logistics they already handle so ignore their bitching.
2) Tax based upon insured value with a minimal scale. Amazon would likely opt out of shipping insurance.
Result:
Local businesses which contribute more to the your economy can compete with out of state businesses who do not pay tax.
States who have been gradually robbed of income have less budget issues (although the economy is the primary cause of the current problem.)
The environment will benefit from less distance shipping. Shipping will go down a little but will have a measurable difference in the wear on the roads we pay for.
Foreign items will likely also go slightly down over local items, also boosting the economy but in a smaller amount than returning to the times of tariffs on imports and the economy was sound...
Obama wanted to follow CA in having the IRS do your taxes for you with you merely sending in corrections (if there were any) thus saving a great deal of money for everybody involved.
CA proved such a system briefly until the lobbyists had it killed. Obama dropped the issue after discovering how difficult a fight it would become.
Simplification of tax code likely will threaten accountants enough that they will oppose it; while the public has no lobbyists to counter them. (one could say the representatives are our lobbyists but not anymore... marketing has trumped democracy; the people's "free will" is not strong enough, or has been merely an illusion all along.)
Do you think that the same company who downplayed this huge disaster to the point of putting people at risk-- NOW during a big important disaster -- that they even maintained the plant within its designs? Those emergency generators probably didn't even function anyhow and they just lucked out that they could blame it on the water.... There are probably plenty of other things as well that were mismanaged, under reported, and covered up BEFORE THE DISASTER when the dishonesty was less important!
I wouldn't be shocked if they figure out tomorrow some of the leaked waste was being dumped there before the disaster... but rather than be seen as pure evil, they'll opt for just incompetence.
Here in the USA there are plenty of plants who only power up the generators for minutes (not days) with no load -- if at all -- and they could easily break down when they are needed. Actually, I read about 2 plants in the USA where a) the generators weren't run for many years and b) generators were not realistically tested.
The design is quite stupid as well, storing all that waste so close to the plant just to save money... Those flaws have nothing to do with technology and the same factors behind those "mistakes" are the SAME factors that exist today in modern projects. Actually, its likely a modern plant would have more foolish design errors simply because the level of corruption and cost cutting today is worse than it was back when these old plants were designed.
I would expect the examples of the previous accidents (every few decades) would provide more loophole planning for the legal advisers than design corrections.
Hopefully we will have a leak system working when somebody finally grows a spine and leaks the documents after they age a little bit.... We won't be alive when they finally release this info otherwise.
REMEMBER: part of the IAEA is to PROMOTE the nuclear industry not merely regulate it!
Government run nuke power. Private corps with crazy amounts of government welfare (including insurance) running plants ends up with a meltdown every 25 years and many smaller problems plus lax management all around (except during a meltdown year.) Nuclear powered military devices have a far better record and they are managed all around better; FYI, the military is government. There is accountability at all levels when they run it (or at least plenty of blame shifting and somebody gets in trouble way before disasters happen.) Before some people claim government/military can't be trusted, think about just how are they supposed to regulate a private industry (which is far less oversight than doing it all themselves?)
If you want nuclear power for good reasons, then you should be against privatized nuclear power; otherwise, you are just an industry lapdog.
The military has managed BOMBS and warships for decades really well since the invention of this stuff; I don't see why they couldn't (or something similar) run all nuclear everything.
Security wouldn't be a problem for them... When crisis happens the only organization capable enough to solve these problems IS THE MILITARY. Japan's biggest problem was in letting the corporation run the show; just like the USA's handling of BP's spill. They don't have their own experts or at least didn't listen to them and the corporation lacks the resources to respond properly (plus they have no profit motive to do so - just make enough of a showing to let their lawyers keep them from paying anywhere near what they should. Lawyers + PR is much cheaper than doing the right thing.)
Nuclear power is NOT cost effective. QED. The only way to make it worthwhile is if you run it non-profit (government) and never have meltdowns. Even then, it is not a cheap energy source and is easily beaten by wind and now even by newer solar tech. I am not against it for baseload power until a market can be created for power storage and the necessary modern power grid is created. Unfortunately, our governments are all so corrupt we won't upgrade our power grids (high voltage DC) so flexible and distributed power become practical; we must create/maintain centralized power bases at all costs and that is at the heart of the matter.
The MOST corrupting industries are coal, oil, and other highly critical industries. If we didn't have public roadways then the roadway industry would be one of them....
I'll leave to you to look it up; but I remember when the Clinton admin created Al-Qaeda after the WTC bombing in the 90s - the purpose was to use old laws used for organized crime which are not really fair but have existed for a long time. They created an organization so they then could apply these old laws to go after the leadership of the criminal organization.
Bin Laden I believe had some sort of name for his tiny little funding organization but it was small (but the name was long) and not directly doing anything - it provided funding for groups and people doing things it liked. Much the same as the USA has done for generations (but is accepted, but largely unknown to the ignorant public.) In doing this, they were able to convict leaders of the organization indirectly and do so legally. At the same time, it gave him a great name, lots of attention and P.R. to grow more influential.
Its been a long time but I do remember it. So, while it may be that he was convicted in the 90s and could have been again (especially when he finally took credit for the successful attack.) It still is the case that his death sentence was not carried out according to the "rule of law". (A meaningless phrase today.) I am not sure NY has the death sentence... Although he can die resisting arrest...
Correction: Even if you are an American, if you are a terrorist you do not count as human and they can kill you without trial if you leave the country. Bush moved towards this but it was Obama who has done it.
Correction: the USA hardly killed anybody looking for Osama; the vast majorities were killed for geopolitics and Osama was just the excuse for the ignorant masses. I read their plans in 1999 before Bush got in; I knew about the Afghanistan oil + pipeline plans before Bush was president - and so did anybody who followed Cheney's think tanks position papers. The idiot press didn't look behind the curtain - anybody with a brain realized Bush was really a front man and it would be his staff deciding most the policies (even if he wasn't a moron, the advisers have a big impact and most are not planning to run for high office so their opinions can easily be determined and by extension one can gain insight into the politician.) The trajectory of the Bush admin was quite predictable; we just have shallow reporters but no journalists.
Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the USA decades back... But back then we didn't claim the right to just openly assassinate such people and so he lives today as a hero and we are completely ignorant just how evil "we" thought he was.
1)
the leaks were vetted with the press and the white house; anything getting out is the fault of all the parties involved - obviously, the US gov is to blame for not being reasonable or making the mistake to not get something important blocked (as opposed to only insisting in NO leaks and trumping up criminal charges against wikileaks.)
2)
Who cares if some people are named, even if they have regular contact you must FIND THEM before you can follow them to anybody else. We know Bin Ladden's name and it took a decade to do something with that name.
3)
It is not confirmed that names leaked by wikileaks was involved (and given how upset the state dept is would you trust them in saying that?? without proof?)
4)
It has not been reported exactly how they found him.
5)
The possible "actionable intelligence" from gitmo could be part of the info gathered by LEGAL means just because it may have come from our prisoners does not mean we broke the law in getting that-- that is, assuming any of these theories about how things played out are correct.
6)
War crimes even if fruitful are still war crimes. period. People die for causes and people go to jail for causes - it doesn't matter how you justify it, punishment for the crime is mandatory. This doesn't change anything even if all those hypotheticals go in this direction.
I believe cell tracking happened in the 90s and continues today. I remember reading about some legal case where they caught the murder from her cell phone (otherwise it was a perfect crime) and I think the data they used was gathered in the late 90s. Back then it may have only been logged for a short time but now they likely keep it forever.
I have no issue with the Location framework's tracking system which by design makes it work as well as it does - I'd actually like it if apple published all the wifi data out there -- if you didn't know, there are already services and communities gathering wifi location info. Would be nice to pull up some site and get a google map with all the open wifi networks marked on it. One just can't compete against a dataset generated from iphones and macs moving about.
I do however firewall apple from sending location data out of my network. The desktops do not need to know where they are. Mac OS has been doing location tracking since they put in the location framework; I think its a cron because I used to notice it every night when it was being blocked.
I also seem to recall something in the legalese gave apple broad rights to anonymous data. If they missed something I'd think it would be more likely in the stuff for Mac OS X not in the iOS agreement.
People should check out the nice tax receipt:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/tax-receipt
Then, having some context, decide if giving NASA a little more money or even doubling NASA would be that big of a deal.
What should be obvious (but isn't, are Americans stupid or their press?) is that if people don't mind a $1 more per year on their taxes for NASA to boost their budget by 10% they must RAISE TAXES to pay for that - I bet most Americans would be ok with $1 more on their NASA tax if it was an increase and not merely shifting money to loan sharks (interest on debt + they gain power over us.)
Going to the moon again is crazy expensive.
Going to mars is crazy expensive.
Improving space travel, developing robotics (which already surpass humans in this area) and climate science - those are priceless.
Don't forget, one of the reasons for the Mission to Mars program was to undermine climate science.
We all know the point of many programs is merely to maintain the status quot because their districts don't like change that can impact their local economies. We don't need much of the farming welfare or military welfare (oh yeah, I went there! I dare you think over what "defense" spending really means!) Those add up to a HUGE waste of money but those interests are so diversified that you'll never get enough politicians to take the blow for doing the right thing. Farming has a power bias due to the design of the election system while the military industry would attack any democratic system.
We have a lot of waste but we MOSTLY have a revenue problem and that is not being discussed because of the big elephants in the room. We also shouldn't have to be playing catch up pointing things that should be obvious.
q: So Quiad, how cold was it?
a: Lol! It was so cold I had to boil my Oxygen!
Sure! melt it all somehow and put CO2 into the air until it snows back down as ice or rains down freezing liquid air... So we somehow heat up the whole area and the little atmosphere with a big heat lamp...Then we trigger the core to spin again in our Unobtanium drilling machine so Mars can keep the Atmosphere it was unable to maintain itself... In the process we discover that in fact, we broke Mars and escaped to Earth...and the main reason we left is the revealed!
We argue with the dumb half who don't believe we are making CO2 heat up our own planet... while too many people think of Mars as our future escape destination.
Even if you can double output; the population growth even without the gains in food production is going to be higher than the rate of increased production. This means only a small period of time will exist where production gains actually help everybody before the population growth rate overcomes it and surpasses it.
Overpopulation is the problem people do not want to address. All such talk about distribution is shallow because it doesn't matter if you evenly distribute all the food in a Marxist fashion regardless of production and distribution costs because again, population growth will continue outpace production and the starvation will slowly increase for all evenly.
Utopian equal food for all plans are not realistic or feasible long term. Overpopulation is the problem and doesn't stop naturally until significant numbers DIE -- or in our case, being "thinking" creatures we could plan ahead and avoid the unpleasant reality of letting the problem solve itself.
Why deal with something now when you can put it off until later and forget about it?
I aint goin' to THINK about my budget or save up money like people in inferior countries do - I'm American, my money troubles are for my loan consolidation company! GO USA! GO USA!
Spending zero down and not worrying about the end cost is the American way.
http://politicalcompass.org/
slashdot isn't on the left.
How many people are going to feel bad for poor ATnT or Verizon? I don't know anybody who doesn't have some hate for ATnT.
I still find it amazing how well the corporate propaganda has worked to brainwash so many people into screwing themselves; I'm sure I'll be surprised if we ever find out how many fake online identities marketing firms are using to spew more BS.
To put this into proper perspective, traditional phone companies have had to share their networks for a long time without huge marketplace disasters, they simply get a small break using their own network and pay a small fee to use another's network. All the DSL and dial-up providers have been sharing networks in various ways thanks to the FCC requiring them to do so. Yes, the private monopolies would have banned dial-up internet providers if they could have. (AOL wouldn't have existed so 1 good thing would have come out of that.)
LIMITED RESOURCES:
It is OUR airwaves they buy monopolies on and our institutions manage them - if they do so poorly its because we the people are incompetent. We currently have a system which sells off bandwidth to the highest bidder and barely regulate the monopolistic usage; this is about as free-market as it can get without the costly chaos of letting anybody make radio noise. I suppose we should allow Verizon to install signal jamming devices or should we regulate that nobody can jam the competition? What constitutes jamming? Who decides? What if two providers bump heads over bandwidth-- the stronger signal and client hardware wins... a temporary battle...
People seem to forget that something as basic as FIRE and POLICE have been privatized in the past and that insanity resulted-- in something that is morally simplistic and necessary; yet they somehow other areas are going to be more civil and more effective by introducing free market anarchy??
Anarchy has a PR man and its the US Chamber of Commerce. "Free market" is just a PR creation.
If you can't verify the claims not because its not demonstrable (as faith is) but because you and your friends are not capable of verifying the claims you can only place your trust in that of expert groups with the skills and resources ($) - this involves faith in sourcing your information. Realization of this is important as we continually have to battle against corporate propaganda trying to prevent science from benefiting society (global warming being an easy example.)
Science is a process and a philosophy and within that context there is a little faith involved. Inductive reasoning has its flaws and is a huge part of science. There are many people who treat science like a religion - I'd say that most people do this; but I've run into plenty of "low-brow" scientists (usually teachers) who have a style of 'faith' in science that is narrow and shallow which, at least to me, resembles christian evangelicals I've known.
I wasn't an Obama supporter; however, I have seen him do much more good than harm while having to take the blame for things beyond his control. I'm not just talking about the economic mess (which was years in the making and more in the fixing) but the OVERWHELMING CORRUPTION. Obama will probably sell the farm rather than let the republicans shut down government -- which is too bad because they are more nutty now than they were last time.... Now days we actually have some congressmen who believe the PR lies as truth (for example: Bachmann, MN -- and most the right has an open hatred for the other side and its hard to ignore so one expects some return hate...) You can't be a republican today without being apeshit or stupid.
The reason Bush was closer to a dictator was because he went with the flow. Obama is tacking against the flow and getting a little progress while moving mostly sideways and in some areas completely losing ground. One simply can not move in all directions at once. Especially if he is all alone-- his staff is not so hot either - I won't go into where he is just flat out wrong if not bought off. Healthcare was almost entirely him, his staff gave up and that says something good about him. He wouldn't have been allowed to get in if he was going to be a real threat... ANYBODY post-bush was going to be a fall guy, its just how it works (you think Rove and the smart guys really wanted/cared if McSame won? ever hear of a sacrifice?)
REAL Politics is about how to look like you enjoy eating shit while covertly tossing as much of it as you can onto your predecessor's pile.
You can be powerful if you have the powerful behind you; otherwise you are lucky to survive when they plow over you. A Taoist approach of using their power against them only works to an extent - even in martial arts, a powerful enough foe is going to fuck you up no matter how much you try to redirect and deflect their power. In these corporatist times that approach seems (to me) like just a stalling tactic at best. A serious fight is coming and absent a political forum it will become violent.... Unless they can continue to sucker people forever... like 1984; except we're always at multiple "wars", including between the 2 parties.
All we have now is the GOP completely playing politics to the point where they are purposely trying to ruin everything even their own ideas - just to harm Obama; they hate him more than Clinton (must be the skin color.) Its a false political war distracting from the real problems and Obama has openly been trying to stop it and failing to do so; he doesn't seem to realize no president that allows this propaganda warfare to continue can get us back on track. The corporations are raping us while this ship sinks and any disaster or infighting is to their benefit.
In my state, the idiot GOP is fighting to cut all the walnut trees down in the state parks to raise money! (naturally sold at a cheap price to donor who also is "over-regulated" as if this would do any real good.) They are also fighting on nearly every front to make us mirror 3rd world states like Georgia (US state; however, I wouldn't be surprised if that nation was in better shape.) - in many cases repeating the same policies that worked so well down south in all those welfare states. It has little to do with ideology and much more to do with the corps buying them off. The dems just play weak while the other side openly fights for some of the most blatant corruption in generations. Sometimes I wonder if democrats would be as stupid if their party was hijacked... I won't need to wonder for long, its been gradually happening for some time.
If you wanted an honest guy with no-compromise for corruption you are just asking for another martyr.
There is no hope for people who read/watch mainstream "press" in the USA. Turn off your telescreen.
The REAL IMPORTANT question is how long will democracy last against the march of the social sciences?
Will computer science give us machine overlords before our "free will" is subverted by the oligarchy? That is, assuming we have any free will at all.... will we have 2 classes of people-- ones raised to rule and ones raised to be "free" within their cages?
MS likes to give stuff away create an addiction then charge you after you are hooked. There are a lot of cars out there for them to infect and HARM like they did with the computer industry for decades.
Last thing I want is another monopoly jumping to support the record industry when they bitch about public performances when my radio is too loud or I have > 3 people in the car or whatever crazy things they want to impose upon me.
An open system means cool hacks, cool software on your EXISTING car computer -- not paying for a 'professional' update or requiring the purchase of a new car or computer system. Say somebody adds a hack that ties into the car computer and the dealer doesn't like it-- an open system is going to be easier to do this. Some university could create optimized driving software to manage the car (may require hacks) or incorporate elevation into the map routing so you save power by not driving up hills.
After market add-ons or DIY mods like some sensors and automatic parallel parking etc. Its all much more realistically possible-- plus some DIY kit can get around most your IP laws hindering actual advancement.
Lots of apps possible....some more ideas
ID other drivers. an App which photos plates of other cars and IDs them using an online database. Measure the speed of the other cars... Peer ratings of other drivers online... automated driving grading; tests? virtual pets encouraging better driving. Score keepers for running over animals... Interesting security features... Detect police sirens and cut the music; USB radio devices for HAM or police scanning... Facebook crap (that'll kill people.) back seat stuff for the kiddies running on the same system. car-related watching games. Survival info (from useful to insane.) The car manual, FAQ, info on other cars-- how to use your HUGE power supply to jump start a normal car... simulators...that is, stupid apps that mimic TV shows. Route comparisons with online integration. Use wifi to automatically talk to your house; open doors, turn on lights, sync, backup, or whatever. Talk to fast food places already having wifi to make orders within range (or before you get there.) Pot hole detection and reporting to the DOT for repair. Virtual lawyer for accidents... Wind resistance estimators, car weight estimators (funny math geek problems turned into apps.) RFID scanner to pick up everybody else's info... Insurance company apps to rate and charge you based upon actual RISK not simplistic pooling (could be good for you if you are a good driver.) Company car tracking apps.... Car RENTAL. Run out of battery? it could help you find a rental place... they could meet you somewhere... (actually I'd like to see mini-trailers with gensets or batteries for extended ranges-- it could manage those as well.) Contests online for various driving feats (legal and illegal.) Take photos while driving without accidents. VoIP phone? various networking hacks and tethering hacks... Obviously somebody will port DOOM to it...then do something stupid like tie the game to your driving somehow. Liberty apps helping you not get screwed by the police.
One could track the lights and route and suggest speeds to avoid red lights, find turnabouts, use traffic info.
Social stuff -- wifi broadcast your music so curious drivers nearby could hear it? other silly things possible... would be nice to yell at somebody and have them hear you (optionally.)
Perhaps better real time performance enhancements for linux so it can handle doing everything-- including more critical aspects for the car.
The next car - possibly from somebody else may run the SAME software so you can migrate or at least be familiar with the new car.
This is just a little bit off the top of my head-- there has to be a TON of stuff others are thinking of.