So if you encrypt something today, do you care if itâ(TM)s secret 10 years from now? Depending on what youâ(TM)re encrypting, yes you do.
If your oposition is nation-states, theyâ(TM)re probably collecting things that are interesting now, for decryption later when they have the ability, so ya, you probably care now.
Iâ(TM)ve had multiple professional conversations about âoepost-quantum cryptographyâ in the last 2 years because of exaclty this. Todayâ(TM)s emails are evidence or headlines 10 years from now, so you may care.
In psychology there is a reason you need to clear your experiment with an ethics board prior to conducting it on a subject. If the subject is unaware you need to convince your board that there is no harm to come to the subject.
I'd say potentially exposing information (Are you redacting appropriate things, what happens if a popup from another app comes up while you're doing a screen capture? Is the metadata your collecting potentially have uses that run contrary to the interests of the user - hey this user asked for directions to an HIV clinic...) is a harm that should be considered. Maybe detect interesting behavior and offer the user a discount on your app if they allow you to send the collected data?
I also contend that the phrase 'screen time' is poorly chosen. I prefer to differentiate between what she's doing with the screen. I count coding differently then watching Youtube vids, Minecraft different from reading a book on Overdrive, etc.
There's.a whole lot of nuance that tends to get lost. Also depends on the kid. Mine is fit and active (unlike her old man) so that feeds into it too.
Sometimes, but that leads to someone else doing the job.
I've taken the job, written up a detailed analysis of the risks involved, the costs involved to remediate those risks (PR firms on hot standby, lawyers in airplanes with parachutes, etc), and challenged the sales dept to prove they could cover the costs and still make a profit.
That killed the project permanently. Usually when somethings unethical, its also unprofitable when all the externalities are priced in.
Actually in a display of common sense, Toronto and region refused to offer any 'incentives' (my 10 yr old kid is confused as to why they're not called bribes, and I'll grant her that it's a fine line, but Amazon never said paying the refs to choose you was against the rules, so incentives rather then bribes)
I don't generally respond to ACs but just in case this point is useful to someone who hasn't though this through. If you're worried about spying, faraday bag your cell phone first. At least with my google home I can do network traffic analysis on it (hint, when its idle it sends very little). Try that trick on your cell phone. Well for starters, there's a whole level of your phone you don't have access to. (check out https://media.ccc.de/v/27c3-40... ) - spoiler alert: Silicon/firmware security hasn't gotten any better since then.
Source: I've been involved in cell network security.
Funny thing - before, yes. Now, not as often actually. I find myself tending to leave my phone in a charger and grabbing it when I go out.
And of course our 10 year old ("Hey google, how do you spell X") doesn't have a phone, and she often leaves her tablet on a different floor (or dead:)).
As for the flow of conversation (not your comment, but figure I'll save some electrons:)) - I find it helps for us. We'd get hung up on some question that's parenthetical to the main topic. Now we can google that and move on with the main topic.
Oh and "Hey google, tell ourgroceries to add butter" has saved so many runs to the corner store when something gets missed off the shopping list because one of us used the last of the butter and forgot to tell me before I run to the store.:)
Not sure I agree. We have one in our living room where we don't have any desktops. We often use it during dinner conversations to get facts to support a position, "Hey Google, when was France invaded during WW II?" or cooking "Hey Google, how long do you boil a potato?" or set a timer "Hey google, set a timer for 7 minutes".
None of those would be accomplished faster by going upstairs and bringing a system back from sleep and typing the question in.
And "Hey Google, let there be light!" is just fun:)
There are classes of secrets for which "decades" is a reasonable threat model. Communications can be an example. If I'm recording everything you send NOW, are you sure there's nothing in there that won't be a problem for you in 20, 30 years? Consider some person is going to be present of the US in 20, 30 years.
If you're on the Nation State side of this, recording everything you can and decrypting later is a totally legitimate strategy, as SOMEONE will be the leader of $otherCountry then, and having all their emails ever is going to be valuable, even if only for putting together a psychological profile.
So people who work for companies whose job it is to protect your information SHOULD be looking ahead. I know I'm writing policy documents with words like "Quantium Horizon" in them and looking at up and coming post-quantum algorithms. You're welcome:).
But the localsâ"whose farms and homes had been condemned and displaced to make room for the observatoryâ(TM)s campusâ"didnâ(TM)t take so kindly to the influx
The last one is the most directly applicable but requires access to the journal to read it.
In essence, having been asked to choose the child more likely to be gifted from two profiles, a teacher will, in statistically significant degree select the male student.
In most school districts the selection criteria for choosing a student for further testing is that the teacher refers the student, and then a screening test is administered (e.g. CCAT) to confirm the teacher's initial assessment. Then a full spectrum IQ test is administered - typically a WISC V at the moment.
If you pre-select at the first gate, your overall statistics will be skewed at the last gate.
Add onto this the social issues cited in the other two papers, (e.g. a social predisposition away from competitive activities (I'll leave nature vs nature discussions aside as 1) they're not germane to the discussion, and 2) I'm unaware of any well regarded research on the matter) influencing the result of most(*) testing situations.
(* This can be reduced through a testing environment divorced from the classroom environment with an appropriately trained test administer, but these aren't available to most parents as typically such testing is provided through the school system)
If you have appropriate evidence to support your implied position, I'd be interested in reading them.
1) There are very few females in the top ranks of genius
2) It may well be that at the tail end of the bell-curve, there are fewer women than men.
2 does not necessarily follow from 1. My daughter lives towards the top end of the curve. Getting her TESTED only happened because we noticed issues she was having, and had the resources to privately test her (it costed about 4k$ by the time it was all said and done). The school didn't notice because she was a B student, they don't pay much attention to quiet, geeky, autistic girls who are scoring OK in school.
So I submit that the reality may not be a discrepancy in the number of females in the 99.99+ percentile range, but rather the number of females in the 99.99+ percentile range that are tested.
Our school district has since instituted 100% screening for gifted children, recognizing this and other statistical dependencies, and it'll be interesting to see how the statistics change over time.
Being one of the exceptions here (auditory learner, dyslexia/dysgraphia (or if you prefer the current parlance 'a specific learning disability in reading' and 'a specific learning disability that affects written expression' - someone was being paid by the word for that update:))), I'm assuming that was the carveout you intended there.
But as a father of a high functioning ASD child, (who had the bad luck to also inherit Daddy's psych-ed verbiage) what's your experience with ASD kids? is the electronics a help or a hindrance in working around their communications disability?
Not trying to be "That Guy" although I will point out your language was a tad attacky, particularly the use of the "that's cute" diminutive. Anyways, in case if's useful to other people who are attempting to change corporate cultures:
CentrifyDC will allow Linux desktops to communicate with a MS-centric administrative plane, in an almost seamless manner.
I find that unless I trip over a particularly bad document, LibreOffice handles 99% of my Excel/Word issues. For things like Visio, crossover office is easy mode, Wine works too.
Our corporation has thousands of Windows seats, AD, O365, Azure AD interconnections, etc. We also have thousands of Linux servers across private and public clouds. Oh and we're rolling out MS Teams - not my project, but we'll find a way to bang it into shape for linux, or start putting pressure on our MS sales folks, because they'll want linux users in those conversations I'm sure!:)
If I need a Windows machine (usually because some benighted Azure API has broken under python and I wanna try Powershell) I fire one up on the private cloud. No biggie. But It's been 3 months or so since that's been an issue.
If Centrify doesn't work (it doesn't for some server loads for example) check out sssd - it allows you to do things like push out ssh keys through active directory, which is handy as hell, as it allows you to tie in all those ssh accounts into your centralized identity system and avoids whack-a-mole exercises whenever someone with server access leaves the company.
At the end it comes down to corporate culture. There's nothing hard stopping a company from embracing linux as a desktop environment for their users. This is my second company which chose to make Linux a first class citizen on the desktop. If your management refuses, it's not a technical issue, it's a culture issue.
Oh and lest you think otherwise - both the companies I refer to are household names, with market valuations measured in billions. And both are valued Microsoft customers too. MS sales reps are perfectly happy to take me out for dinner at conferences.
Any company of more than 100 users will likely have need of these services
Less true now then 5 years ago. As much as I may have emotional issues with it, MS O365 is becoming widespread and removes a number of use cases for needing on-prem windows servers for the reasons listed above.
Definitely viable for a company ~100 users. Arguable for larger firms.
My corporate PTB gave me the choice of a Windows install or a Linux one. I took the plunge and am not tempted to go back.
The only area which causes me some grief is interfacing with the Skype For Business infrastructure at work. Other then that, clear sailing.
IMO - unless you're a hardcore Windows gamer (the latest greatest stuff, not things that WINE can take care of) Linux is a solid desktop choice for even the most mildly technical adept user.
Get rid of all that Queen bullshit, and purge biometrics and all the kowtowing to american IP interests you guys have passed and I will personally move up there.
Get rid of the queen? That would mean spending millions of dollars setting up our own head of state to replace a person who is solely a figurehead. And it risks giving an oversized ego to our head of state. Looking at other countries which have gone this route (US, Russia, France, etc) the track record has been spotty. Our current model allows us to essentially dispense with executive power (The PM can be ousted at any time by a simple non-confidence vote of Parliament, which sends us back to the polls, a perfectly normal and relatively common exercise, as opposed to impeachment or guillotines. Not seeing the upside, sorry:).
Until then, Canada is just diet America with slightly different liberties but swirling its way down the same giant drain, just at 0.8x-1.6x the exchange rate:)
So when the exchange rate was in Canada's favor a few years ago did that mean the US was swirling its way down the drain? Checked out the Euro lately? (.8 EU to the USD when I checked just now). I'd expect your leadership to not agree with that metric of greatness.;).
In seriousness, I will grant you that the wiliness to bow to the US has been a historical issue. We may be breaking that habit now, given the current leadership. Consider that for a moment. A country that has historically been mocked as the US'd younger sibling is standing up and (politely) telling you that you've gone too far. Worth thinking about.
This statement ignores most major world religions, whose sacred texts predate 1787 by thousands of years. But, this is Slashdot, so let's sidestep the Bible,
Actually let's not:), because it proves my point well.
The Constitution has a strong faction who believes it should be read as the framers intended. While I will grant that there are people who would argue the same about the Bible, the Pope for example has not gotten up recently and ranted against the use of fabric blends in clothing (Leviticus 19:19 reads, âoeYou are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.â), round haircuts, (Leviticus 19:27 reads âoeYou shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.â) footballs, (Leviticus 11:8, which is discussing pigs, reads âoeYou shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.â) tattoos ("Leviticus 19:28 reads, âoeYou shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord")
Somehow I suspect that were these items found in the Constitution, we'd be hearing all sorts of interesting cases!. So I'd argue that my point stands.
The rest of your points fall into the 'reasonable people disagree' category and if it wasn't my original point, I could devil's advocate your position too, but I will point out that generally speaking (probably with the exceptions of the 1st and 3rd, 4th and 5th - and the 5th
largely because of its place in popular culture due to police procedurals) are held in less regard with may of them having been repealed, and most Americans being largely unaware of most of them
I will point out that my wife, who has been out of the US for a bit, but was born the daughter of a Navy crewman commented (paraphrasing) It'll be difficult for people living in the US to see some of these points. I've lived outside of the US for more then a decade so I won't divorce you for maligning the Constitution, but you might get voted off the Internet!
Well argued and I thank you sir/madam for getting my morning off to a good start.
That was my comment of patch vs rewrite. In all the countries in the world the US has the oldest governing document.
Not because it's the oldest country obviously, but because the rest of the world has gone through multiple rewrites of their governing documents (when Canada's supreme court has a question, they can call up Berry who's 85 and living in Saskatchewan, and ask him what the heck he was thinking when they wrote that bit:))
Doing a rewrite allows you to learn from mistakes (yours and others) and frame a governing document that's consistent with your countries' views and beliefs now as opposed to 231 years ago.
As a non-American I find it odd to observe from a distance the esteem that a document written in 1787 is held.
Few other concepts from that era are held in unquestioning reverence by as many people. Horses and buggies? Leeches for tonsillitis? Nope we've moved on.
But suggest that a document in 1787 might require a bit of interpretation as society has moved on a bit since then? Somehow this is an unthinkable affront to the framers of said document.
My own country holds our founders in a bit less regard. John A McDonald? Any decent highschooler will tell you he was an alcoholic, racist, womanizer and all around asshole. Why highschooler? Because we learn it in school. Canadians tend not to place our leaders in amber and preserve them forever more. We don't dietize them. We recognize their faults and virtues in equal measure.
Sometimes we do it to excess, but it might be worth thinking about. I'm reasonably sure the framers when they held it as self-evident that all men were created equal, they didn't intend to be placed on a pedestal for all time, nor I think would a person who truly believes that sentiment expect their words to be enshrined in amber, never to be looked at with a critical gaze?
Might it be time for a V2 rewrite as opposed to another patch release? Just a thought.
It's wierd, isn't it? I grew up in a small town (~3000 ppl) and grew up looking at the sky. Then I moved 'north of 60' and was gobsmacked by the northern lights. Then I moved to the Caribbean and stared at the 'bathtub moon' ("I thought those were only in cartoons or the movies!"
Then I moved to Toronto, and missed the sky. I'd go out camping for the pure benefit of being able to see my childhood friends again.
Many of my friends had grown up in Toronto and never left. "Why would I, the city has everything I could want? If I want to see stars the internet has pictures from any telescope I could imagine." It's hard to explain the color blue to a person who has never seen.
I live in a smaller town again, and thankfully my daughter sees the stars now and never ceases to point them out. I feel like I dodged a bullet there.
Speaking as a father whose daughter survived because of this injection (not his exactly - we're on the other side of the world), but who cares really) I'd just like to publicly thank this man for his time and humanity. It's easy to poke fun at the statistics and such, but let's all take a moment to acknowledge that this gentleman took time out of his life EVERY WEEK FOR 60 YEARS to give something precious that improved lives for millions of people.
Imagine you and your wife (or vice versa) are in your first trimester and she starts bleeding a bit. You rush to ER and they do blood work, and you realize to your horror that your blood is killing your child. And then the doctors say to your wife "sign here, we've made a vaccine that we're going to give you that should stop it". I literally sobbed.
My daughter is playing on her computer behind me as I type this and can't see the tears in my eyes.
Slashdot Mirror
So if you encrypt something today, do you care if itâ(TM)s secret 10 years from now? Depending on what youâ(TM)re encrypting, yes you do.
If your oposition is nation-states, theyâ(TM)re probably collecting things that are interesting now, for decryption later when they have the ability, so ya, you probably care now.
Iâ(TM)ve had multiple professional conversations about âoepost-quantum cryptographyâ in the last 2 years because of exaclty this. Todayâ(TM)s emails are evidence or headlines 10 years from now, so you may care.
Min
In psychology there is a reason you need to clear your experiment with an ethics board prior to conducting it on a subject. If the subject is unaware you need to convince your board that there is no harm to come to the subject.
I'd say potentially exposing information (Are you redacting appropriate things, what happens if a popup from another app comes up while you're doing a screen capture? Is the metadata your collecting potentially have uses that run contrary to the interests of the user - hey this user asked for directions to an HIV clinic...) is a harm that should be considered. Maybe detect interesting behavior and offer the user a discount on your app if they allow you to send the collected data?
Min
I also contend that the phrase 'screen time' is poorly chosen. I prefer to differentiate between what she's doing with the screen. I count coding differently then watching Youtube vids, Minecraft different from reading a book on Overdrive, etc.
There's.a whole lot of nuance that tends to get lost. Also depends on the kid. Mine is fit and active (unlike her old man) so that feeds into it too.
Min
In Soviet Russia:
Tech journalists do as little research as they do anywhere else before writing an article!
Min
Check out this video:
https://youtu.be/r-7lUgpemqc
Along with showing how this is done, heâ(TM)s a great speaker.
Min
Sometimes, but that leads to someone else doing the job.
I've taken the job, written up a detailed analysis of the risks involved, the costs involved to remediate those risks (PR firms on hot standby, lawyers in airplanes with parachutes, etc), and challenged the sales dept to prove they could cover the costs and still make a profit.
That killed the project permanently. Usually when somethings unethical, its also unprofitable when all the externalities are priced in.
Min
Actually in a display of common sense, Toronto and region refused to offer any 'incentives' (my 10 yr old kid is confused as to why they're not called bribes, and I'll grant her that it's a fine line, but Amazon never said paying the refs to choose you was against the rules, so incentives rather then bribes)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/busine...
Min
I don't generally respond to ACs but just in case this point is useful to someone who hasn't though this through. If you're worried about spying, faraday bag your cell phone first. At least with my google home I can do network traffic analysis on it (hint, when its idle it sends very little). Try that trick on your cell phone. Well for starters, there's a whole level of your phone you don't have access to. (check out https://media.ccc.de/v/27c3-40... ) - spoiler alert: Silicon/firmware security hasn't gotten any better since then.
Source: I've been involved in cell network security.
Funny thing - before, yes. Now, not as often actually. I find myself tending to leave my phone in a charger and grabbing it when I go out.
And of course our 10 year old ("Hey google, how do you spell X") doesn't have a phone, and she often leaves her tablet on a different floor (or dead :)).
As for the flow of conversation (not your comment, but figure I'll save some electrons :)) - I find it helps for us. We'd get hung up on some question that's parenthetical to the main topic. Now we can google that and move on with the main topic.
Oh and "Hey google, tell ourgroceries to add butter" has saved so many runs to the corner store when something gets missed off the shopping list because one of us used the last of the butter and forgot to tell me before I run to the store. :)
Min
Not sure I agree. We have one in our living room where we don't have any desktops. We often use it during dinner conversations to get facts to support a position, "Hey Google, when was France invaded during WW II?" or cooking "Hey Google, how long do you boil a potato?" or set a timer "Hey google, set a timer for 7 minutes".
None of those would be accomplished faster by going upstairs and bringing a system back from sleep and typing the question in.
And "Hey Google, let there be light!" is just fun :)
Min
There are classes of secrets for which "decades" is a reasonable threat model. Communications can be an example. If I'm recording everything you send NOW, are you sure there's nothing in there that won't be a problem for you in 20, 30 years? Consider some person is going to be present of the US in 20, 30 years.
If you're on the Nation State side of this, recording everything you can and decrypting later is a totally legitimate strategy, as SOMEONE will be the leader of $otherCountry then, and having all their emails ever is going to be valuable, even if only for putting together a psychological profile.
So people who work for companies whose job it is to protect your information SHOULD be looking ahead. I know I'm writing policy documents with words like "Quantium Horizon" in them and looking at up and coming post-quantum algorithms. You're welcome :).
Min
PS: https://csrc.nist.gov/projects...
Oh? Check out this article:
https://www.washingtonian.com/...
But the localsâ"whose farms and homes had been condemned and displaced to make room for the observatoryâ(TM)s campusâ"didnâ(TM)t take so kindly to the influx
https://nrcgt.uconn.edu/newsle...
https://tspace.library.utoront...
https://www.tandfonline.com/do...
The last one is the most directly applicable but requires access to the journal to read it.
In essence, having been asked to choose the child more likely to be gifted from two profiles, a teacher will, in statistically significant degree select the male student.
In most school districts the selection criteria for choosing a student for further testing is that the teacher refers the student, and then a screening test is administered (e.g. CCAT) to confirm the teacher's initial assessment. Then a full spectrum IQ test is administered - typically a WISC V at the moment.
If you pre-select at the first gate, your overall statistics will be skewed at the last gate.
Add onto this the social issues cited in the other two papers, (e.g. a social predisposition away from competitive activities (I'll leave nature vs nature discussions aside as 1) they're not germane to the discussion, and 2) I'm unaware of any well regarded research on the matter) influencing the result of most(*) testing situations.
(* This can be reduced through a testing environment divorced from the classroom environment with an appropriately trained test administer, but these aren't available to most parents as typically such testing is provided through the school system)
If you have appropriate evidence to support your implied position, I'd be interested in reading them.
Thanks/Min
1) There are very few females in the top ranks of genius
2) It may well be that at the tail end of the bell-curve, there are fewer women than men.
2 does not necessarily follow from 1. My daughter lives towards the top end of the curve. Getting her TESTED only happened because we noticed issues she was having, and had the resources to privately test her (it costed about 4k$ by the time it was all said and done). The school didn't notice because she was a B student, they don't pay much attention to quiet, geeky, autistic girls who are scoring OK in school.
So I submit that the reality may not be a discrepancy in the number of females in the 99.99+ percentile range, but rather the number of females in the 99.99+ percentile range that are tested.
Our school district has since instituted 100% screening for gifted children, recognizing this and other statistical dependencies, and it'll be interesting to see how the statistics change over time.
Min
For most students
Being one of the exceptions here (auditory learner, dyslexia/dysgraphia (or if you prefer the current parlance 'a specific learning disability in reading' and 'a specific learning disability that affects written expression' - someone was being paid by the word for that update :))), I'm assuming that was the carveout you intended there.
But as a father of a high functioning ASD child, (who had the bad luck to also inherit Daddy's psych-ed verbiage) what's your experience with ASD kids? is the electronics a help or a hindrance in working around their communications disability?
Min
Not trying to be "That Guy" although I will point out your language was a tad attacky, particularly the use of the "that's cute" diminutive. Anyways, in case if's useful to other people who are attempting to change corporate cultures:
CentrifyDC will allow Linux desktops to communicate with a MS-centric administrative plane, in an almost seamless manner.
I find that unless I trip over a particularly bad document, LibreOffice handles 99% of my Excel/Word issues. For things like Visio, crossover office is easy mode, Wine works too.
Our corporation has thousands of Windows seats, AD, O365, Azure AD interconnections, etc. We also have thousands of Linux servers across private and public clouds. Oh and we're rolling out MS Teams - not my project, but we'll find a way to bang it into shape for linux, or start putting pressure on our MS sales folks, because they'll want linux users in those conversations I'm sure! :)
If I need a Windows machine (usually because some benighted Azure API has broken under python and I wanna try Powershell) I fire one up on the private cloud. No biggie. But It's been 3 months or so since that's been an issue.
If Centrify doesn't work (it doesn't for some server loads for example) check out sssd - it allows you to do things like push out ssh keys through active directory, which is handy as hell, as it allows you to tie in all those ssh accounts into your centralized identity system and avoids whack-a-mole exercises whenever someone with server access leaves the company.
At the end it comes down to corporate culture. There's nothing hard stopping a company from embracing linux as a desktop environment for their users. This is my second company which chose to make Linux a first class citizen on the desktop. If your management refuses, it's not a technical issue, it's a culture issue.
Oh and lest you think otherwise - both the companies I refer to are household names, with market valuations measured in billions. And both are valued Microsoft customers too. MS sales reps are perfectly happy to take me out for dinner at conferences.
Any company of more than 100 users will likely have need of these services
Less true now then 5 years ago. As much as I may have emotional issues with it, MS O365 is becoming widespread and removes a number of use cases for needing on-prem windows servers for the reasons listed above.
Definitely viable for a company ~100 users. Arguable for larger firms.
My corporate PTB gave me the choice of a Windows install or a Linux one. I took the plunge and am not tempted to go back.
The only area which causes me some grief is interfacing with the Skype For Business infrastructure at work. Other then that, clear sailing.
IMO - unless you're a hardcore Windows gamer (the latest greatest stuff, not things that WINE can take care of) Linux is a solid desktop choice for even the most mildly technical adept user.
Min
I do this because no company I've worked for has used that IP block avoiding all sorts of 'fun' NAT issues when I'm VPN'd in from home.
Get rid of all that Queen bullshit, and purge biometrics and all the kowtowing to american IP interests you guys have passed and I will personally move up there.
Get rid of the queen? That would mean spending millions of dollars setting up our own head of state to replace a person who is solely a figurehead. And it risks giving an oversized ego to our head of state. Looking at other countries which have gone this route (US, Russia, France, etc) the track record has been spotty. Our current model allows us to essentially dispense with executive power (The PM can be ousted at any time by a simple non-confidence vote of Parliament, which sends us back to the polls, a perfectly normal and relatively common exercise, as opposed to impeachment or guillotines. Not seeing the upside, sorry :).
Until then, Canada is just diet America with slightly different liberties but swirling its way down the same giant drain, just at 0.8x-1.6x the exchange rate :)
So when the exchange rate was in Canada's favor a few years ago did that mean the US was swirling its way down the drain? Checked out the Euro lately? (.8 EU to the USD when I checked just now). I'd expect your leadership to not agree with that metric of greatness. ;).
In seriousness, I will grant you that the wiliness to bow to the US has been a historical issue. We may be breaking that habit now, given the current leadership. Consider that for a moment. A country that has historically been mocked as the US'd younger sibling is standing up and (politely) telling you that you've gone too far. Worth thinking about.
This statement ignores most major world religions, whose sacred texts predate 1787 by thousands of years. But, this is Slashdot, so let's sidestep the Bible,
Actually let's not :), because it proves my point well.
The Constitution has a strong faction who believes it should be read as the framers intended. While I will grant that there are people who would argue the same about the Bible, the Pope for example has not gotten up recently and ranted against the use of fabric blends in clothing (Leviticus 19:19 reads, âoeYou are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear a garment upon you of two kinds of material mixed together.â), round haircuts, (Leviticus 19:27 reads âoeYou shall not round off the side-growth of your heads nor harm the edges of your beard.â) footballs, (Leviticus 11:8, which is discussing pigs, reads âoeYou shall not eat of their flesh nor touch their carcasses; they are unclean to you.â) tattoos ("Leviticus 19:28 reads, âoeYou shall not make any cuts in your body for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves: I am the Lord")
Somehow I suspect that were these items found in the Constitution, we'd be hearing all sorts of interesting cases!. So I'd argue that my point stands.
The rest of your points fall into the 'reasonable people disagree' category and if it wasn't my original point, I could devil's advocate your position too, but I will point out that generally speaking (probably with the exceptions of the 1st and 3rd, 4th and 5th - and the 5th
largely because of its place in popular culture due to police procedurals) are held in less regard with may of them having been repealed, and most Americans being largely unaware of most of them
I will point out that my wife, who has been out of the US for a bit, but was born the daughter of a Navy crewman commented (paraphrasing) It'll be difficult for people living in the US to see some of these points. I've lived outside of the US for more then a decade so I won't divorce you for maligning the Constitution, but you might get voted off the Internet!
Well argued and I thank you sir/madam for getting my morning off to a good start.
That was my comment of patch vs rewrite. In all the countries in the world the US has the oldest governing document.
Not because it's the oldest country obviously, but because the rest of the world has gone through multiple rewrites of their governing documents (when Canada's supreme court has a question, they can call up Berry who's 85 and living in Saskatchewan, and ask him what the heck he was thinking when they wrote that bit :))
Doing a rewrite allows you to learn from mistakes (yours and others) and frame a governing document that's consistent with your countries' views and beliefs now as opposed to 231 years ago.
As a non-American I find it odd to observe from a distance the esteem that a document written in 1787 is held.
Few other concepts from that era are held in unquestioning reverence by as many people. Horses and buggies? Leeches for tonsillitis? Nope we've moved on.
But suggest that a document in 1787 might require a bit of interpretation as society has moved on a bit since then? Somehow this is an unthinkable affront to the framers of said document.
My own country holds our founders in a bit less regard. John A McDonald? Any decent highschooler will tell you he was an alcoholic, racist, womanizer and all around asshole. Why highschooler? Because we learn it in school. Canadians tend not to place our leaders in amber and preserve them forever more. We don't dietize them. We recognize their faults and virtues in equal measure.
Sometimes we do it to excess, but it might be worth thinking about. I'm reasonably sure the framers when they held it as self-evident that all men were created equal, they didn't intend to be placed on a pedestal for all time, nor I think would a person who truly believes that sentiment expect their words to be enshrined in amber, never to be looked at with a critical gaze?
Might it be time for a V2 rewrite as opposed to another patch release? Just a thought.
It's wierd, isn't it? I grew up in a small town (~3000 ppl) and grew up looking at the sky. Then I moved 'north of 60' and was gobsmacked by the northern lights. Then I moved to the Caribbean and stared at the 'bathtub moon' ("I thought those were only in cartoons or the movies!"
Then I moved to Toronto, and missed the sky. I'd go out camping for the pure benefit of being able to see my childhood friends again.
Many of my friends had grown up in Toronto and never left. "Why would I, the city has everything I could want? If I want to see stars the internet has pictures from any telescope I could imagine." It's hard to explain the color blue to a person who has never seen.
I live in a smaller town again, and thankfully my daughter sees the stars now and never ceases to point them out. I feel like I dodged a bullet there.
Min
Speaking as a father whose daughter survived because of this injection (not his exactly - we're on the other side of the world), but who cares really) I'd just like to publicly thank this man for his time and humanity. It's easy to poke fun at the statistics and such, but let's all take a moment to acknowledge that this gentleman took time out of his life EVERY WEEK FOR 60 YEARS to give something precious that improved lives for millions of people.
Imagine you and your wife (or vice versa) are in your first trimester and she starts bleeding a bit. You rush to ER and they do blood work, and you realize to your horror that your blood is killing your child. And then the doctors say to your wife "sign here, we've made a vaccine that we're going to give you that should stop it". I literally sobbed.
My daughter is playing on her computer behind me as I type this and can't see the tears in my eyes.
Give the man a medal.
Min