> "...if the military were to actually go through with this plan, it would absorb the initial R&D costs to take orbital solar platforms from scribbles on the back of a cocktail napkin..."
I see where you're comin' from here, brother.
The concept, as reported, is definitely a five-martini idea!
"...It is a criminal act to make bomb threats in an airport, just as it is a criminal act to shout "fire" in a movie theater...."
What if the theatre is actually on fire, though? Perhaps we should criminalise fire alarms!;-)
Seriously, the "yelling 'fire!' in a movie theatre" example is often trotted out during discussions regarding free speech as an illustration to show how completely unrestricted free speech cannot be tolerated.
Usually, however, the theatre quote is a magician's act of dishonest distraction. A fire in a large, enclosed public space demands immediate and direct action to prevent loss of life and injury. The hot
free-speech issues of the day, be it inflamatory speech, "hate" speech, speech which applauds terrorists or whatever, bear no resemblance to a life-or-death situation. Listeners must digest and reflect on what they hear and if any of them choose to act on that basis, then the consequences are, individually, theirs to bear.
Largely true, but remember that this was established in an age when in order to be observed or be subject to surveillance, an actual person had to be located in your sight and pretty close to you.
This of course meant that you, in turn, could observe them right back and if you felt like it, go up to them and ask them what their fucking problem was.
With the onset of the ubiquitous camera, you may or may not be under observation, but probably best to act as though you are, all the time, too. With the cameras, the balance of power has shifted completely - you may be watched by no-one or you may be being watched by dozens, and being recorded to boot - you simply don't know.
"...Ironicly, the best person to fix this rocket would have been scotty..."
I agree.
It's not well known, but whenever the Saturn V was playing up, NASA always got a hammy old actor in to sort out pogo resonance problems or suchlike. These thespians have hidden depths...
"...Long ago, in a virtual software galaxy far away, one of the developers involved in the design of the Xerox Star told me, 'if you need a manual to figure out how to use a computing environment, it wasn't properly designed.'..."
And someone else* said: "Basically, the only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned."
*Variously attributed to Jeff Raskin, Bruce Ediger, Jay Vollmer...
"...This reminds me of some ads I've seen "BASF... We don't make the things you buy, we make the things you buy better." Remember those? It was like they were purposely saying, "99% of you within the sound of our voice, we don't care about you... you can't even choose to buy our products or not, because they're everywhere in everything. To the other 1%... look how much we can waste on this - that's how big we are."
I disagree. The purpose, in my view, of adverts like this is purely to spend money on advertising. Lots of money.
They're spending monay on apparently pointless advertising, but what they're actually buying is leverage.
"What? You're going to run a story about a chemical spill at our plant in NJ / boardroom shenanigans / etc etc etc...? We'll might have to re-examine our advertising strategy!".
Much like the dead tree games mags of old, the big advertisers of today never seem to get a bad write up.
And if you're going to steal, get it right! George's wording was far better:
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."
See? That word: squandered. Much, much better than wasted. You can waste anything but only riches can be squandered. And you forgot the fast cars. Unforgivable.
"...There is a goof on Sandra Bullock's The Net (1995) where she types an IP address which starts with a number greater than 255... "
Might be a deliberate goof to stop a million horny nerds trying to pwn whomever has Sandra's IP. A bit like the 555 area code used in a lot of film & tv phone numbers.
"...The man affirmed that he created the page, the FBI had plenty of grounds to charge him. Why search his premises? Looking for other dirt to kick up in case the judge disagrees with the prosecutor?..."
Absolutely. Wouldn't a kiddy porn rap be so very useful in making any sympathy and support evaporate?
How the fuck do you think the cutting-edge stuff at defense contractors gets protected?
That's right, exactly the same way as the overnment does it. Compartmentalisation and Need To Know.
Jeezuz, the hoops I have to get through to get some guy from project "A" to come to a meeting regarding project "B"....
Security Controller: "But he's not cleared for 'B'!!! Can he come in part way through and do a presentation on (specific, sanitised parts of) 'A', then just leave?"
Me: "The 'B' guys will want to ask questions, though..."
Security Controller: "Oh no! Just the questions will tell him a lot about 'B'!"
Me: "????"
Security Controller: "How about if he presents via video link. After he's done we turn him off, then I can filter the questions. Any that are simple, we turn him back on and I ask the questions. Anything more complicated and we give him a set of sanitised written questions and he can present the answers in -oh, say a week..."
Me: "!!!!"
And people wonder why high-tech defense equipment costs so friggen much!
"...Keep many extra keyboards. Be prepeared to spend time every week putting the keys back in the correct order. Keys will also be stolen..."
Mainly OT, but... A friend of mine attended one of the first city technology colleges in the UK.
One day he was working in an otherwise empty computer lab. Pausing for thought he looked up, counted and happily realised there were more than 26 pc's in the room. By the next day, one machine's keyboard was all 'a's, the next 'b's...
The kids got a workout in touch-typing, the lab tech got a thrombo and my friend got a suspension - only 2 days, which seems fair as he hadn't really stolen or broken anything.
"...I played EQ since the first week, and it still took me over 2 years to get to level 50, hardly a powergamer rate (the first guys to 50 had done so in about a month. IIRC, the guy and his group offed a named unicorn "just to see what it dropped".)..."
What the hell are you talking about?
Yours, someone who obviously wouldn't become addicted to MMORPGs in a lifetime of Sundays,
The inference I took from the OP's post, was that Hans was cockey[sic], therefore a conventional interview would be of no use because he'd be able to run rings around the interviewer(s). My contention was that such a scenario may be harder to achieve than one imagines, when the interview is conducted by one who is skilled in identifying the gaps, prevarications and inconsistencies. Doubly hard when one is lying because the liar must keep two parallel realities in mind - the truth and the tale - and make sure that they coincide and remain consistent at all times.
But, as you pointed out, the cheapest and best legal advice you'll ever get is to state: "I have nothing to say. I want to see a/my lawyer". And keep your mouth tightly shut until he/she appears.
"... The standard interview isn't going to do the trick with this guy..."
I, too, used to think that a smart person, taking the time to consider their responses, could easily confound an interrogator.
Now I'm not so sure.
I've changed this opinion, very recently during an ongoing "talking therapy". Although the psychiatrist isn't trying to get me to confess to the execution of a crime or to implicate myself in a criminal matter, she is very interested in getting at the best version of my truth regarding my actions and experiences.
She's extremely skilled at spotting the inconsistencies, the loose threads, the big gaps in my narrative, what is unsaid, what is paraphrased, what is glossed-over as unimportant... Then by redirecting the discussion, she can home in on what really happened, sometimes resulting in important, sometimes uncomfortable revelations.
Add in the pressure of a murder charge, the much more oppressive nature of the police interview, the fact that you are (hypothetically) lying for the hugest stakes; all the while a skilled interrogator, backed by an investigative department and a team of researchers, is looking for that one loose thread that doesn't fit. Just the slightest tug on the smallest thread can unravel a whole garment.
"...The six party talks were sabotaged as far as I can detect and provoked this chest beating performance by lil kim, the real question now is how far they are towards miniaturization and delivery..."
I'm willing to belive that by beating her fists against her chest, L'il Kim could cause a quake of 4.0 on the richter scale, but seeing as the latest figures for the event go as high as 5.2, I expect that additional large-breasted hip-hop hunnies were involved in the chest pounding. Where was Missy Elliot during the test window? No-one's saying, especially Missy herself...
Talk of minaturization with respect to L'il Kim's strategic assets may seem premature, but my sources tell me that Tyler Durden is on standyby. Furthermore, Mr Durden is seeking competitive quotes from major bulk shipping corporations in order to safely retrieve and process the immense amount of byproduct that the minaturization effort would produce.
You heard it here first, off the record, on the Q.T. and very hush-hush.
"...And I don't know about yours, but my bible doesn't say "thou shalt not disclose personal information..."
My Bible does say: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. [Matthew 7:120]
Unfortunately, ol' Jason's been pulling his picture and contact details offa his business website, his myspace page, his entries on encyclopaedia dramatica & opting out of the wayback machine like there's no tomorrow. He's not very eager to have his own personal info in the open, now that his hilarious scheme has met with less than universal approval and props.
Seems he's not so keen on parading his superior intellect around when his own shit hits his own personal fan. Typical narcissistic sociopath: They're fine when everything's peachy, but when a plan goes wrong, he goes to pieces so quickly that folk get hit by the shrapnel.
I just wonder who he's going to blame this time? Probably another case of "momma never loved me"...
"...That will not work. The only thing to do is destroy the platters. The residual magnatism will permit anyone with a sensitive detector to read the disk. You need to destroy the platters to make the disk unreadable...."
Yes it will (work). This kind of tinfoil-hattism is a hangover from the days of MFM & RLL, when the tracks were sufficiently widely spaced that the overspill between tracks could be read with sufficiently sensitive equipment. Not any more, not in the era of 200GB+ in a 3.5" form factor.
Any talk of using an SEM to look at the state of the platter surface is similarly misguided wrt commercially sensitive data. This is a technique of government agencies, used to develop intelligence; it is ineffective at recovering data.
Not so sure about that. I work for a pretty big company, 65,000 people worldwide, 500+ people on the site I work.
The big deal is that we're a (fairly) major defence contractor. This means that anyone working on site has gone through at least a basic background check. One of the real "hot spots" during the check is any criminal record regarding crimes of dishonesty - theft, fraud suchlike. Your speeding ticket is no big deal, but a conviction for shoplifting is, presumably on the basis that someone who'll steal is more likely to throw a shopping bag full of burnt dvd's of data over the back wall of the Chinese embassy for a payoff.
I can leave my lunch in the fridge without even thinking about it. I can leave my wallet on my desk (and have done) without ever worrying about it. I can leave my GB£1200 in the bike sheds without locking it up. There are regular emails to say that some dude's found some money and would the owner like to pick it up? I guess that if you get to a working age without committing crimes, you probably never will: Crime is a young person's game...
How much money? Enough to live on - which, depending on your geographical location could be US$500 or US$50,000/pa? How much of their motivation should be financial? 0% = starving. 100% = Britney. Why should musicians and songwriters be denied the opportunity to make big bux, rather than living as minstrels, entertainers for others, while the technologists and financiers are free to better their financial standing by moving to better-paying employment or situations?
"If money is your incentive... ......then you shouldn't be making music."
So money making should be limited to......what? Accountancy? Law? Engineering? Software Development? Business Management?
Who the fuck are you to tell people how they should make their bucks? Some fat nerd in a parent's basement somewhere? Bill Gates? John T. Citizen, anytown USA?
I'm not impressed by the strength of your arguments. I doubt I'm alone in this.
Slashdot Mirror
> "...if the military were to actually go through with this plan, it would absorb the initial R&D costs to take orbital solar platforms from scribbles on the back of a cocktail napkin..."
I see where you're comin' from here, brother.
The concept, as reported, is definitely a five-martini idea!
T&K.
"...It is a criminal act to make bomb threats in an airport, just as it is a criminal act to shout "fire" in a movie theater...."
What if the theatre is actually on fire, though? Perhaps we should criminalise fire alarms!
Seriously, the "yelling 'fire!' in a movie theatre" example is often trotted out during discussions regarding free speech as an illustration to show how completely unrestricted free speech cannot be tolerated.
Usually, however, the theatre quote is a magician's act of dishonest distraction. A fire in a large, enclosed public space demands immediate and direct action to prevent loss of life and injury. The hot free-speech issues of the day, be it inflamatory speech, "hate" speech, speech which applauds terrorists or whatever, bear no resemblance to a life-or-death situation. Listeners must digest and reflect on what they hear and if any of them choose to act on that basis, then the consequences are, individually, theirs to bear.
"...In public, you have no right to privacy..."
Largely true, but remember that this was established in an age when in order to be observed or be subject to surveillance, an actual person had to be located in your sight and pretty close to you.
This of course meant that you, in turn, could observe them right back and if you felt like it, go up to them and ask them what their fucking problem was.
With the onset of the ubiquitous camera, you may or may not be under observation, but probably best to act as though you are, all the time, too. With the cameras, the balance of power has shifted completely - you may be watched by no-one or you may be being watched by dozens, and being recorded to boot - you simply don't know.
"...Ironicly, the best person to fix this rocket would have been scotty..."
I agree.
It's not well known, but whenever the Saturn V was playing up, NASA always got a hammy old actor in to sort out pogo resonance problems or suchlike. These thespians have hidden depths...
T&K.
"...Long ago, in a virtual software galaxy far away, one of the developers involved in the design of the Xerox Star told me, 'if you need a manual to figure out how to use a computing environment, it wasn't properly designed.'..."
And someone else* said: "Basically, the only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned."
*Variously attributed to Jeff Raskin, Bruce Ediger, Jay Vollmer...
"...This reminds me of some ads I've seen "BASF... We don't make the things you buy, we make the things you buy better." Remember those? It was like they were purposely saying, "99% of you within the sound of our voice, we don't care about you... you can't even choose to buy our products or not, because they're everywhere in everything. To the other 1%... look how much we can waste on this - that's how big we are."
I disagree. The purpose, in my view, of adverts like this is purely to spend money on advertising. Lots of money.
They're spending monay on apparently pointless advertising, but what they're actually buying is leverage.
"What? You're going to run a story about a chemical spill at our plant in NJ / boardroom shenanigans / etc etc etc...? We'll might have to re-examine our advertising strategy!".
Much like the dead tree games mags of old, the big advertisers of today never seem to get a bad write up.
And if you're going to steal, get it right! George's wording was far better:
"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."
See? That word: squandered. Much, much better than wasted. You can waste anything but only riches can be squandered. And you forgot the fast cars. Unforgivable.
"...There is a goof on Sandra Bullock's The Net (1995) where she types an IP address which starts with a number greater than 255... "
Might be a deliberate goof to stop a million horny nerds trying to pwn whomever has Sandra's IP. A bit like the 555 area code used in a lot of film & tv phone numbers.
"...The man affirmed that he created the page, the FBI had plenty of grounds to charge him. Why search his premises? Looking for other dirt to kick up in case the judge disagrees with the prosecutor?..."
Absolutely. Wouldn't a kiddy porn rap be so very useful in making any sympathy and support evaporate?
You speak the truth, brother. There's got to be a better way than this...
How the fuck do you think the cutting-edge stuff at defense contractors gets protected?
That's right, exactly the same way as the overnment does it. Compartmentalisation and Need To Know.
Jeezuz, the hoops I have to get through to get some guy from project "A" to come to a meeting regarding project "B"....
Security Controller: "But he's not cleared for 'B'!!! Can he come in part way through and do a presentation on (specific, sanitised parts of) 'A', then just leave?"
Me: "The 'B' guys will want to ask questions, though..."
Security Controller: "Oh no! Just the questions will tell him a lot about 'B'!"
Me: "????"
Security Controller: "How about if he presents via video link. After he's done we turn him off, then I can filter the questions. Any that are simple, we turn him back on and I ask the questions. Anything more complicated and we give him a set of sanitised written questions and he can present the answers in -oh, say a week..."
Me: "!!!!"
And people wonder why high-tech defense equipment costs so friggen much!
"...Keep many extra keyboards. Be prepeared to spend time every week putting the keys back in the correct order. Keys will also be stolen..."
Mainly OT, but... A friend of mine attended one of the first city technology colleges in the UK.
One day he was working in an otherwise empty computer lab. Pausing for thought he looked up, counted and happily realised there were more than 26 pc's in the room. By the next day, one machine's keyboard was all 'a's, the next 'b's...
The kids got a workout in touch-typing, the lab tech got a thrombo and my friend got a suspension - only 2 days, which seems fair as he hadn't really stolen or broken anything.
"... People without hands can visit any pub they like!..."
Not a problem: They can't pick up a glass, so they can't get drunk.
This scheme is better thought out than you might think on first inspection...
"...I played EQ since the first week, and it still took me over 2 years to get to level 50, hardly a powergamer rate (the first guys to 50 had done so in about a month. IIRC, the guy and his group offed a named unicorn "just to see what it dropped".)..."
What the hell are you talking about?
Yours, someone who obviously wouldn't become addicted to MMORPGs in a lifetime of Sundays,
T&K.
Absolutely correct, but smart != cocky.
The inference I took from the OP's post, was that Hans was cockey[sic], therefore a conventional interview would be of no use because he'd be able to run rings around the interviewer(s). My contention was that such a scenario may be harder to achieve than one imagines, when the interview is conducted by one who is skilled in identifying the gaps, prevarications and inconsistencies. Doubly hard when one is lying because the liar must keep two parallel realities in mind - the truth and the tale - and make sure that they coincide and remain consistent at all times.
But, as you pointed out, the cheapest and best legal advice you'll ever get is to state: "I have nothing to say. I want to see a/my lawyer". And keep your mouth tightly shut until he/she appears.
"... The standard interview isn't going to do the trick with this guy..."
I, too, used to think that a smart person, taking the time to consider their responses, could easily confound an interrogator.
Now I'm not so sure.
I've changed this opinion, very recently during an ongoing "talking therapy". Although the psychiatrist isn't trying to get me to confess to the execution of a crime or to implicate myself in a criminal matter, she is very interested in getting at the best version of my truth regarding my actions and experiences.
She's extremely skilled at spotting the inconsistencies, the loose threads, the big gaps in my narrative, what is unsaid, what is paraphrased, what is glossed-over as unimportant... Then by redirecting the discussion, she can home in on what really happened, sometimes resulting in important, sometimes uncomfortable revelations.
Add in the pressure of a murder charge, the much more oppressive nature of the police interview, the fact that you are (hypothetically) lying for the hugest stakes; all the while a skilled interrogator, backed by an investigative department and a team of researchers, is looking for that one loose thread that doesn't fit. Just the slightest tug on the smallest thread can unravel a whole garment.
I wouldn't fancy my chances, personally speaking.
"...The six party talks were sabotaged as far as I can detect and provoked this chest beating performance by lil kim, the real question now is how far they are towards miniaturization and delivery..."
I'm willing to belive that by beating her fists against her chest, L'il Kim could cause a quake of 4.0 on the richter scale, but seeing as the latest figures for the event go as high as 5.2, I expect that additional large-breasted hip-hop hunnies were involved in the chest pounding. Where was Missy Elliot during the test window? No-one's saying, especially Missy herself...
Talk of minaturization with respect to L'il Kim's strategic assets may seem premature, but my sources tell me that Tyler Durden is on standyby. Furthermore, Mr Durden is seeking competitive quotes from major bulk shipping corporations in order to safely retrieve and process the immense amount of byproduct that the minaturization effort would produce.
You heard it here first, off the record, on the Q.T. and very hush-hush.
"...Lucas figures that the small screen is cheaper. The low resolution means that makeup that used to take two hours now takes only half an hour...."
So much for one of the prime selling points of HDTV. Who's wrong here: You? George? Or Sony, Samsung, B&O, Technics, Panasonic, etc etc?
T&K.
"...And I don't know about yours, but my bible doesn't say "thou shalt not disclose personal information..."
My Bible does say: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. [Matthew 7:120]
Unfortunately, ol' Jason's been pulling his picture and contact details offa his business website, his myspace page, his entries on encyclopaedia dramatica & opting out of the wayback machine like there's no tomorrow. He's not very eager to have his own personal info in the open, now that his hilarious scheme has met with less than universal approval and props.
Seems he's not so keen on parading his superior intellect around when his own shit hits his own personal fan. Typical narcissistic sociopath: They're fine when everything's peachy, but when a plan goes wrong, he goes to pieces so quickly that folk get hit by the shrapnel.
I just wonder who he's going to blame this time? Probably another case of "momma never loved me"...
T&K.
"...That will not work. The only thing to do is destroy the platters. The residual magnatism will permit anyone with a sensitive detector to read the disk. You need to destroy the platters to make the disk unreadable...."
Yes it will (work). This kind of tinfoil-hattism is a hangover from the days of MFM & RLL, when the tracks were sufficiently widely spaced that the overspill between tracks could be read with sufficiently sensitive equipment. Not any more, not in the era of 200GB+ in a 3.5" form factor.
Any talk of using an SEM to look at the state of the platter surface is similarly misguided wrt commercially sensitive data. This is a technique of government agencies, used to develop intelligence; it is ineffective at recovering data.
Calm down and just run Dan's boot 'n' nuke...
Judging by your response to the OP, you either can't get an obvious joke or you can't spell.
Paedophile != pedophile.
"...The size of the company matters...."
Not so sure about that. I work for a pretty big company, 65,000 people worldwide, 500+ people on the site I work.
The big deal is that we're a (fairly) major defence contractor. This means that anyone working on site has gone through at least a basic background check. One of the real "hot spots" during the check is any criminal record regarding crimes of dishonesty - theft, fraud suchlike. Your speeding ticket is no big deal, but a conviction for shoplifting is, presumably on the basis that someone who'll steal is more likely to throw a shopping bag full of burnt dvd's of data over the back wall of the Chinese embassy for a payoff.
I can leave my lunch in the fridge without even thinking about it. I can leave my wallet on my desk (and have done) without ever worrying about it. I can leave my GB£1200 in the bike sheds without locking it up. There are regular emails to say that some dude's found some money and would the owner like to pick it up? I guess that if you get to a working age without committing crimes, you probably never will: Crime is a young person's game...
"Is a pedophile someone who loves walking?...
I'da thunk it meant someone with a foot fetish.
For the love of God: Won't someone - anyone - please, please, think of the feet?
How much money? Enough to live on - which, depending on your geographical location could be US$500 or US$50,000/pa? How much of their motivation should be financial? 0% = starving. 100% = Britney. Why should musicians and songwriters be denied the opportunity to make big bux, rather than living as minstrels, entertainers for others, while the technologists and financiers are free to better their financial standing by moving to better-paying employment or situations?
"If money is your incentive...
So money making should be limited to...
Who the fuck are you to tell people how they should make their bucks? Some fat nerd in a parent's basement somewhere? Bill Gates? John T. Citizen, anytown USA?
I'm not impressed by the strength of your arguments. I doubt I'm alone in this.
T&K.