I disagree. By making a unified OS like Windows 8, Microsoft leverages its desktop monopoly to quickly populate its store with apps that will work on Windows tablets and phones, which puts it in a much better position to compete against iOS and Android. It is a good idea in theory - it just seems to have been poorly executed.
With technical workers, the management's job is to run interference against external distractions and help remove roadblocks. Your team should be largely self-organizing and self-motivating, such that you don't have to watch over them. Deviation from this is generally a failure in hiring, a failure in management, or both.
Precisely. Before much of our newer technologies, it was only feasible to place surveillance on a select few people, so the assumption was that law enforcement would make sure to get the right person to the best of their ability. It also took the approval of a number of people in the chain of command because of the resource usage, so there was at least some de facto oversight in place.
If you set up a few objects with enough medical grade material and called in bomb threats sufficiently early so the radioactivity still sets off cops' detectors, you would get a massive federal overreaction bill fast-tracked through Congress which makes the TSA look tame. It wouldn't matter that no one was hurt or that there wasn't any *real* danger, because it certainly wouldn't be reported that way.
Instead, you would get all the major news networks producing a series of stories (complete with a plethora of radiation symbols) about how there was a backpack nuke or a dirty bomb that was imminently going to kill hundreds of thousands, and the only reason the radiation disappeared within 24 hours was because the "heroes of the FBI" detected, diffused, and dragged the bombs off before anyone could be hurt.
Cool troll, but when it comes to official government policy in China, there's probably no better source of information than the government controlled/censored news. For everything else... not so much.
That's fine, if we are talking about cold, hard, statistical thinking. It's just that... should we really go that route, we have no choice but to eliminate the TSA altogether.
tl;dr: the TSA indirectly costs more in terms of money and loss of life annually than the cumulative costs in money/life due to terrorism back to and including 9/11.
it's just the general computer/dataprocessing/IT company policy to screw everyone the second you get the chance.
That's not limited to the tech sector. Hell, I thought screwing everyone the second you get a chance was codified in the basic corporate charter template.
Perhaps, but I've yet to see news of such a conspiracy from the liberal side. It is healthy to treat both sides with a fair amount of skepticism, but don't let the news of one side openly committing fraud turn into a belief that the other is automatically guilty of the same.
It is scary that a case involving complicated legal and technical issues is being decided by a group of people who couldn't even get themselves out of jury duty.
And inevitably: A applies for patent without secret protection, B notices the item after 18 months when the patent is revealed, slips some money under the table and declares that they now have a secret patent that was applied 3 years prior.
Surely, you aren't saying you believe that setting up shell companies in alternate countries is honest, despite the legal loopholes that allow for it.
As for fair... the new age accounting trickery used by Microsoft and Apple is not available to all. They are special-case legal loopholes that are exploitable only by a small fraction of businesses working in very specific industries.
I'm waiting for a candidate to comes along and do campaign ads involving a ton of blatant product placement. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether the first will be a genuine candidate trying to offset campaign fees or if it is a clever corporation that puts up a fake candidate for cheaper advertising rates.
Why would you need a bunch of employees sifting through the data? That's what data mining algorithms are for. And, in case you get the oddball thought that it has to be accurate or bust, just take a look at our no-fly list.
Instead, they should narrowly-focus only on those vocations which make the most money - professional sports, law, political science, and investment banking. All of those are immensely important jobs and a civilization full of nothing but those professions would be a prosperous one indeed.
I am not defending LBGT studies and Russian literature individually, mind you, but if we ditched any field of study that didn't rain down money upon graduation, we would be much poorer for it.
Since incorporation means that you obligate yourself to the pursuit of profit over all else, it is not much of a stretch to say it also effectively obligates you to evil. More often than not, the road to more profit is the road which ignores ethics and law. This might be less true if we had anything resembling effective justice for companies which are caught breaking the law and social standards.
Since when has violating the law deterred the actions of our government? With the wiretapping of people without a warrant, search and seizure of anyone unfortunate enough to require air travel or border crossing, detainment of individuals without due process, to instigating of torture of war prisoners, I'm somewhat surprised we don't hear more stories like this.
... we need to look at building and improving systems to reign in this natural tendency towards corruption.
To do that, we need to take money out of the equation at every step in the process. Below are just a few things that would have to occur:
During the campaign process, you would have to federally fund everything, eliminating contributions and third-party advertisements. Supply freely accessible avenues of advertising the candidates and their stances on the issues. There would still be the problem of narrowing-down who gets to be a candidate, however.
Eliminate lobbying entirely. Set up a process that takes in peer-reviewed briefs for laws that are considered, rather than the current bribes-for-access lobbying system we have now. This simultaneously lowers the barrier to entry for real experts to give their input, eliminates the market for highly-paid lobbyists, and exposes what all parties are pushing for.
Make it illegal for regulators to ever enter/return to the industry they regulate. Hire experts in the industry and/or train people to become experts in the industry and pay them fair wages, rather than relying on a system where there's a revolving door and money rains down on those who come back to the private sector.
There are lots of other things that would have to happen as well, and even if we identified changes for every current mechanism of corruption that has turned most democracies/republics into the festering piles they have become, you still have to hurdle the immense wall of making the change. We are unfortunately at a point where most countries (US included) are too set on their path to increased corruption for anything to occur short of a revolution, and it will be a long time (if ever) that the public as a whole become incensed enough to do so.
Because it's costly to set up the system, a hassle to do so, and it's none of the US government's business where anyone travels until the itinerary enters US borders.
I will never understand the whole "why not just give them all your data" mentality. There is zero upside for the person handing over the data, but there is always a non-zero potential downside.
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree. By making a unified OS like Windows 8, Microsoft leverages its desktop monopoly to quickly populate its store with apps that will work on Windows tablets and phones, which puts it in a much better position to compete against iOS and Android. It is a good idea in theory - it just seems to have been poorly executed.
With technical workers, the management's job is to run interference against external distractions and help remove roadblocks. Your team should be largely self-organizing and self-motivating, such that you don't have to watch over them. Deviation from this is generally a failure in hiring, a failure in management, or both.
Precisely. Before much of our newer technologies, it was only feasible to place surveillance on a select few people, so the assumption was that law enforcement would make sure to get the right person to the best of their ability. It also took the approval of a number of people in the chain of command because of the resource usage, so there was at least some de facto oversight in place.
Now it is quite feasible to track everyone.
The terror would be precisely the point, though.
If you set up a few objects with enough medical grade material and called in bomb threats sufficiently early so the radioactivity still sets off cops' detectors, you would get a massive federal overreaction bill fast-tracked through Congress which makes the TSA look tame. It wouldn't matter that no one was hurt or that there wasn't any *real* danger, because it certainly wouldn't be reported that way.
Instead, you would get all the major news networks producing a series of stories (complete with a plethora of radiation symbols) about how there was a backpack nuke or a dirty bomb that was imminently going to kill hundreds of thousands, and the only reason the radiation disappeared within 24 hours was because the "heroes of the FBI" detected, diffused, and dragged the bombs off before anyone could be hurt.
Cool troll, but when it comes to official government policy in China, there's probably no better source of information than the government controlled/censored news. For everything else... not so much.
I remember that. Keep in mind that most people will sign any petition you put in front of them that sounds urgent and seems semi-credible.
It isn't much different than the petition to end women's suffrage.
That's fine, if we are talking about cold, hard, statistical thinking. It's just that... should we really go that route, we have no choice but to eliminate the TSA altogether.
tl;dr: the TSA indirectly costs more in terms of money and loss of life annually than the cumulative costs in money/life due to terrorism back to and including 9/11.
it's just the general computer/dataprocessing/IT company policy to screw everyone the second you get the chance.
That's not limited to the tech sector. Hell, I thought screwing everyone the second you get a chance was codified in the basic corporate charter template.
Perhaps, but I've yet to see news of such a conspiracy from the liberal side. It is healthy to treat both sides with a fair amount of skepticism, but don't let the news of one side openly committing fraud turn into a belief that the other is automatically guilty of the same.
Innocent until proven guilty, and all that.
Well, that's what you get for thinking we still have a government by, for, and of the People.
We still do. Remember: corporations are people, too.
It is scary that a case involving complicated legal and technical issues is being decided by a group of people who couldn't even get themselves out of jury duty.
And inevitably: A applies for patent without secret protection, B notices the item after 18 months when the patent is revealed, slips some money under the table and declares that they now have a secret patent that was applied 3 years prior.
Female reporter: "Those windmills will keep them cool!"
Morbo: "WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!"
Legal != fair/honest.
Surely, you aren't saying you believe that setting up shell companies in alternate countries is honest, despite the legal loopholes that allow for it.
As for fair... the new age accounting trickery used by Microsoft and Apple is not available to all. They are special-case legal loopholes that are exploitable only by a small fraction of businesses working in very specific industries.
I'm waiting for a candidate to comes along and do campaign ads involving a ton of blatant product placement. The only thing I'm not sure about is whether the first will be a genuine candidate trying to offset campaign fees or if it is a clever corporation that puts up a fake candidate for cheaper advertising rates.
Perhaps, though I think the larger and more obvious astroturfing effort here is the anti-union sentiment.
Damn those corrupt unions wanting things like running water. Next you know, they'll be asking for bathrooms.
Why would you need a bunch of employees sifting through the data? That's what data mining algorithms are for. And, in case you get the oddball thought that it has to be accurate or bust, just take a look at our no-fly list.
Don't forget to remove the book of Job, then.
Instead, they should narrowly-focus only on those vocations which make the most money - professional sports, law, political science, and investment banking. All of those are immensely important jobs and a civilization full of nothing but those professions would be a prosperous one indeed.
I am not defending LBGT studies and Russian literature individually, mind you, but if we ditched any field of study that didn't rain down money upon graduation, we would be much poorer for it.
Silly me, thinking they stood for Non-Disclosure Agreement and DeoxyriboNucleic Acid.
Since incorporation means that you obligate yourself to the pursuit of profit over all else, it is not much of a stretch to say it also effectively obligates you to evil. More often than not, the road to more profit is the road which ignores ethics and law. This might be less true if we had anything resembling effective justice for companies which are caught breaking the law and social standards.
Since when has violating the law deterred the actions of our government? With the wiretapping of people without a warrant, search and seizure of anyone unfortunate enough to require air travel or border crossing, detainment of individuals without due process, to instigating of torture of war prisoners, I'm somewhat surprised we don't hear more stories like this.
... we need to look at building and improving systems to reign in this natural tendency towards corruption.
To do that, we need to take money out of the equation at every step in the process. Below are just a few things that would have to occur:
There are lots of other things that would have to happen as well, and even if we identified changes for every current mechanism of corruption that has turned most democracies/republics into the festering piles they have become, you still have to hurdle the immense wall of making the change. We are unfortunately at a point where most countries (US included) are too set on their path to increased corruption for anything to occur short of a revolution, and it will be a long time (if ever) that the public as a whole become incensed enough to do so.
Because it's costly to set up the system, a hassle to do so, and it's none of the US government's business where anyone travels until the itinerary enters US borders.
I will never understand the whole "why not just give them all your data" mentality. There is zero upside for the person handing over the data, but there is always a non-zero potential downside.
A fucking quest!
Sounds like we just need to start up an achievements system to drum up tourism again.