I disagree to some extent, it is relatively common for HR to look into those sorts of things quickly. But I don't think that they can legally use somebody else's actions against a prospective employee.
It's often part of the screening to do to make sure that they're not going to be embarrassed by web information. I don't think the practice will continue into the future, especially in light of the fact that it's going to be increasingly difficult to avoid candidates that are completely clean or non-existent online.
But honestly, many employers do have a prescreen which would catch both that as well as the lack of a criminal conviction. It would be potentially dangerous legally to use wrong information of that nature in a decision to not hire.
Perhaps, but then you'd never know if that were the reason. Potential employers can always find and concoct some other "excuse" for not hiring you.
Of course, I'm of the philosophy that if the employer doesn't like you, why would you want to work there anyway, unless you are a glutton for punishment? No good can come of it.
California has the same thing, I just found out. We are required to cite "out of state" purchases that we didn't pay sales taxes on and pay sales tax on it. It is very, very stupid.
Now that subs are nearly undetectable by sonic means, I'd surprised to find that they are undetectable by electric or magnetic means. I mean, can you really hide the magnetic or electric signature of a big sub?
You should, in theory at least, be able to lay out a grid of ultrasensitive electric field and magnetic detectors, do some heavy-duty DSP on them, and spot *anything* embedded in the water up to a certain range.
If that's the case, the the rush will be on to make your subs indistinguishable from whales. But then, your sub would have to move like a whale to be completely convincing.:-)
>if your Sonar is switched on, the other sub should pick that up.
Not necessarily. Some sonar is passive - my company (well, the company I work for...) designs hull and towed-array sonar which basically just listens to the noise in the water. Pinging helps find things, but the idea is if you just hang a bunch of hydrophones out your tail end, you can pick up other subs, especially as they get close.
Ok, yeah, another bloke explained this. I've been out of touch with this line of technology for too long.
But couldn't you also detect changes in the electric field in the water as well? Fish do this all the time. And I would imagine it would be tough to completely mask the electrical signature of something as large as a sub. Even if the hull was completely non-conductive.
Let me guess. You can do this too, but it's top secret. You'd have to shoot all of us if you talked about it.:-)
Ok, that makes sense. The article could've just mentioned they used passive sonar, but I expect too much.
And yes, the engineers did their stuff well.
So if we were to ever have a "Dr. Strangelove" incident with these subs, they'd be even more difficult to spot than that plane was in the film.
But I am sure I can have full trust and confidence in the nuclear-wielding powers of the world that "OPE" could never happen. As much as I can trust that the US story about live nukes being flown unauthorized over its own land was false.
I have no problem with the technology. It's the people behind the technology I have a problem with. Can't the Royal Navy, the French, and the US, and the Russians (should I throw in China as well)? all agree to conduct their silly little war games in separate waters?
Nuclear Subs -- my, how the Big Boys love to play with their little toys. Except these "little toys" each have the capacity to take out many cities, and Nuclear Bombs are indiscriminate little killers.
From a technological standpoint, I find it rather amusing that the anti-sonar systems on both subs, according to the article, worked "a little too well." Well, duh -- they did as their engineers designed them to do.
Except, one thing puzzles me -- if your Sonar is switched on, the other sub should pick that up. So the sonar systems of both subs must've been running quiet. So the anti-sonar systems have nothing to do with the collision. So why does the article mentions them? Did I miss something?
Must be the reporters. They can never seem to get the story right; nor do they seem able to catch the obvious flaws in what they report.
In short: they're just as incompetent as the Big Boys...
Your stupidity makes me angry. What are you, 12, or a troll? You've posted about 5 long non-copypasta posts, so even if you're trolling, I'll bite - you've earned it.
How can we guarantee that you're not either maliciously or accidentally stepping on someone else's broadcast? Maybe some sort of central registry would work.
Yeah, and "central registries" works so well against spam and botnets, the functional equivalent of the same style of abuse you mention about the wireless.
[the web]
Terrible analogy, and incorrect, too. There are essentially unlimited domain names, and domain names ARE licenced (ICANN, etc). They provide the service of keeping you in everyone's DNS server, at the same time as providing everyone else the service of telling them what domain names are taken.
Is it? Botnets, DDoS attacks, spam, spyware, viruses -- how is that different, in ways that matter? Any medium has it abusers. And I'd just love to see the FCC try to stop cyber abuse.
We need technological approaches to protect ourselves against abuse, not bureaucratic ones. The only reason the FCC can be "effective" at all over the so-called "airwaves" is that you can triangulate in on the abuser. But obviously that approach won't work with a DDoS attack.
Somehow, with all the perils and pitfalls of the Internet, we still manage just fine without the government getting int regulating everyone's access, websites, and the like.
We're not. Selling the whitespace to companies is actually making us money. More free market in action - the government sells something we own, and then buys us something nice with it (roads or schools or discounted converter boxes). Good deal.
"We own?" Well, go on and keep believing that fantasy. Hell, you may think you "own" your home, but watch what happens when you stop paying your property taxes.
Nope. The "we own" is just a feel-good to placate the masses. Like voting. Your "choices" are largely controlled by influences that work in the background. You are given the illusion of "democracy". And the real powers that be are more than happy that you believe that fantasy as well.
We need power back in the hands of the *individual*, where it belongs. If the "airwaves" truly belong to "us", then how come we are rarely invited to help make decisions about how best to use these "airwaves" that "belong to us?" When was the last time you were consulted on this matter, or any matter that is supposed to be "in the public trust?"
But the fantasies are sweet, I've got to admit. They Live.
It wrinkles my feathers big time whenever the government claims something is "public", and yet the public has little control or voice over it.
I don't see the conspiracy here. Yes, public is a word that can mean government. Note how the economy has the public sector (government) and the private sector (business). Either you are just trolling, or you've forgotten a very basic purpose of government - it's like the operating system. It's there to mediate access to shared resources. Is "shared" a better synonym for you? That's why you can't just put up a radio transmitter in your yard. Then you wouldn't be playing nicely with others.
I know what government is *supposed* to do. However, that's not reality. Government does as it pleases. It cares not if you are innocent or guilty -- it will steamroll you anyway. Our government is responsible for millions of deaths just in the 20th century alone.
No, I am not "trolling". I'm just tired of so many that turns a blind eye to the atrocities government commits every day against individuals. There is the promise, and there is reality.
How do you know no one is using the frequency? What if a licensed low power station 100 miles away is using it? You can't hear it, but when you put your pirate transmitter on the air, suddenly you're interfering with his signal. He paid the licensing fees for that spectrum. What are you doing to his rights to use the airwaves?
I can check the frequency before I start broadcasting on it. I could limit my power levels so as to not overwhelm his area.
...
Wrong analogy. Internet bandwidth is essentially limitless - all you have to do is install the extra fiber and cables. The same with domain names - even at the peak of domain name squatting, no one ever had difficulties thinking of a new name and registering it.
How do cell phones manage to share the same frequency band? Yep! They fire off packets! We could do something potentially similar with the wireless spectrum. And audio does not need a lot of bandwidth. But I digress.
And what if I then decide that I want to squat on top of your frequency with my bigger transmitter, and provide my own news, commentary, information, etc.? What then? Do we duel it out in the streets? Gather our respective gangs of anarchists and take axes to each others' equipment?
Then you are being unneighborly and rude. If I got there first with that frequency, then you should choose another, unoccupied one.
Sorry, but when it comes to the public spectrum, you have to have government regulation, else you will have nothing but anarchy and waste.
And with government comes dictatorial control, over-regulation, and subsecptibility to lobbies, politics, and all the usual ugliness. The big corporations wedge out the little guy for the share of the spectrum. You don't have a bazillion dollars? Tough. Go home.
Which, BTW, is my point. Getting Big Government involed only allows Big Players to participate.
Indeed - by setting up a transmitter of significant wattage, you're depriving everybody else in the public the use of that particular frequency. You're only one member of the public, and the rest of us get to have consideration too. Try looking up the 'tragedy of the commons' sometime.
You get to use the frequency exclusively by paying the licence fee, thus compensating the rest of the public for their loss. That money goes back to the government, and ultimately (at least in principle) benefits all the public - including yourself. Yes, you get back much less than you put in as an individual; but with exclusive use of the frequency, the benefit you get is that much higher also.
Am I depriving the community? Or providing a service? If no one was using that frequency anyway, who cares?
Thank goodness we don't have to license our websites. I can reach a far greater number of people with my websites than I ever could with a transmitter. And yeah, I am "depriving" others the use of the domain names I've acquired.
I would do with the airwaves what I do with my websites -- provide free information, free commentary, and the like. The "benefit" to me is not described in terms of money, but in being able to make a tiny difference in the world I live in, which, in theory at least, should benefit all.
The stuff you have said is what they teach us in civics class. As usual, what the government teaches you about how the government "operates" fails to reflect the reality of what actually goes on. Today, our "airwaves" are filled with torrents of mediocrity, paid for and pumped by those who licensed those frequencies. I fail to see the benefit to the public. Oh, but the civics lesson sounds "good" and "right". It is also a fantasy. In reality, something else is afoot.
Funny thing is, no one cared diddly about "the spectrum" until someone invented radio. Where was all the concern about "rights" over "airwaves" before then?
And why the frell is it called "airwaves", anyway? It's got nothing to do with air. "Sound" is "airwaves". Electromagnetic energy, as you know, does not need air to propagate. Basic physics. So perhaps I really should build a high-wattage "airwaves" transmitter -- except my neighbors may get annoyed at not being able to get a good night's sleep! And the FCC wouldn't bother me either, though the local cops may.:-)
You mean the government has seized the rights to the airwaves. We public own nothing. Don't believe me? Try setting up a transmitter with any serious wattage -- even on an open frequency -- without a license and watch what happens to you.
It wrinkles my feathers big time whenever the government claims something is "public", and yet the public has little control or voice over it. "Public" schools. "Public" airwaves. "Public" roads, etc.
"Public" doesn't mean "you", it means "everyone".
And you don't see the fallacy in this? "Everyone" means no one.
Somewhere along the way the government decided that television is a right and not a privilege.
Because the public still owns the right to the airwaves. The TV companies are leasing the public's property, as negotiated by the government.
You mean the government has seized the rights to the airwaves. We public own nothing. Don't believe me? Try setting up a transmitter with any serious wattage -- even on an open frequency -- without a license and watch what happens to you.
It wrinkles my feathers big time whenever the government claims something is "public", and yet the public has little control or voice over it. "Public" schools. "Public" airwaves. "Public" roads, etc.
Let's be honest here. GOVERNMENT Schools, GOVERNMENT Airwaves, GOVERNMENT Roads. Sounds sinister? You bet. And that's the very thing the Government wants to keep everyone asleep over.
And how will the Government accomplish this audacious task? By making sure you have your converter box, so you can continue to receive your sleep programming!
TV, like radio, is a way to get news out quickly to the population.
If joe schmoes analog TV stopped working, he would no longer receive those emergency broadcast notifications.
So, the notification that would tell him to get his fat, beer-sodden arse up and out (because some natural disaster is coming) wouldn't be heard.
So in a wierd, twisted way... TV and radio are integral to our safety now.
I stopped watching TV a long-ass time ago due to lack of programming I would consider even moderately tolerable. And the only time I listen to radio is during my commute where I can do little else.
The government here has always been especially interested in making sure that every poor bloke out there had his booze tube, and before I never understood what the big deal was. I mean, it's just TV. Nothing special.
Then it dawned on me.
The real reason our government is so damned interested in everyone having their "bread and circuses" -- well, it's just that. The vast masses of goof-offs out there will stop paying attention to you if they have their drone-boxes pumping their already dull minds with even more dull mind-numbing programming 24/7. Self-induced brainwashing to control the masses and to keep them from revolting.
Joe Blow dies over 40,000 times per year on the highway? Who cares? Joe Blow is going without his TV? It's a bloody national emergency, a risk to national security!
George Orwell had no idea Joe Blow would be so willing to invite Big Brother so quickly into his home.
Cameras aren't so much of a problem, because it is pretty much obvious to anyone around what it is used for.
Whereas with a camera phones, you can be pretending to be SMSing while discretely taking a shot of someone else while in a changing room.
And you can't do that with watches, PDAs, and perhaps other devices that are not phones?
The government should never be in the position of telling corporate how to decide how to trim down its work force, especially in high-tech. An H1-B doing, say driver development, may not have an equivalent US analog to take his or her place.
Alas, politicians can't seem to distinguish the difference between ditch-digging and high-tech. Or perhaps they love to play politics at the expense of damaging the company. A US company, no less. Hello! Did I miss something?
The US is plagued with anti-intellectualism, which shapes the career choices of our younger citizens. Because of that, you need to go across the ocean to bring in the talent you need.
When the crunch comes, what's among the first things to be cut? Schools. What's among the last things things to be cut? Prisons, the Armed Forces, and anything else that represents "might" and "power" of the government to lord it over others.
Why is this?
If they want the high-tech firms to hire Americans first, then perhaps they should give some thoughts on how they prioritize their spending. Slash budgets for Prisons and stop arresting people for victimless and consensual "crimes". Stop making divorced dads to pay far more than they can afford for child support and far more than the kid needs, so they can stop occupying our prison systems as well. Stop playing "world cop" and bring those damn troops home already. Stop relying on foreign money to support the wildly out-of-control spending habits of the government. Focus on what truly builds wealth and prosperity and knowledge and well-being of the individual, and stop all pork, corporate welfare, manipulating the markets and the like.
The only way to counter-act a surveillance society is for the population observed to practice constant inverse-surveillance on the observers (i.e. sousviellance).
Yep. And armed with our cell-phone video capability, coupled with being able to instantly upload them to the Internet, we can keep tabs on the police and any other government badness that's out there.
Well, we know where this is really going. They want to eventually outlaw use of cameras in public.
Leave it to the government to enact stupid laws that takes even more of our freedom away. And of course, the real grit will be found in the complete text of the bill. I'm sure they will not stop at camera phones....
Texas Board of Ed should be simply supporting the unadulterated teaching of actual science, period. You simply don't get to pick and choose what you like and don't like about science. That's what the Scientific Method is for, and if they were teaching that, there would be no place whatsover for Creation "Science" or "Intelligent" Design. They would simply be scientific hypotheses which are either true or false. Then you have to discuss the falseability of those hypotheses, and if they are not falsefiable, they are not Science, period.
If proponents of the many Superstring theories have to face this notion, surely religious nutcakes must also fall under the same strictures of Science. And if that was taught in the classrooms, the students would learn far more about Science than what the normal litany of crap usually rammed down their throats from K onwards confers.
But, gasp -- that would be teaching our little young ones how to THINK, and the government could not possibly want a nation of young, inquisitive, aspiring CRITICAL THINKERS on their hands!!! Tough to pull the wool over the eyes of those who actually ASK QUESTIONS and will simply refuse to "just believe". Which would require far more out of our politicans and bureaucrats. Nope, can't have that...
Now if we can only get Red Hat to support FS other than ext3. That snafu on their parts is causing us all kinds of angst at our shop.
Oh, me too! I often gaze whistfully at all our servers and think, "Wow. If only we could get some experimental filesystems on these bitches, my job would be so much better."
In fact, my biggest grip with RedHat is that they always seem 2-3 revisions behind everyone else.
I don't think you've quite got your head around this "enterprise" thing.
I understand the whole "Enterprise" thing and the "Stability" mantras, but sometimes that over-caution can get in the way and slow progress.
There has to be a happy medium behind "dinosaur" stability and "bleeding edge" features. Damn it, why can't I have them both?
Here is the challenge for some would-be entrepreneur. Come up with a way to provide stable systems suitable for the "enterprise", yet not so far out of date that we can have something close to modern functionality. The first one to hit this happy medium will be well along the way to putting RedHad out of business!!!!
Come on! It is an intellectual challenge worthy of you!
Now if we can only get Red Hat to support FS other than ext3. That snafu on their parts is causing us all kinds of angst at our shop.
In fact, my biggest grip with RedHat is that they always seem 2-3 revisions behind everyone else. I mean, come on! I wonder exactly what it is they are doing with all that money?
The biggest issue, it seems to me, is that people who spend a lot of time playing video games generally lack social skills. While everyone else was learning how to relate to the world, video game players were learning how to relate to video games.
Those who play games don't realize that they are socially backward because they are socially backward.
As I parent and actually remembering my teenage years that's a good thing. Why? Because if they are at home watching TV or playing video games, I know exactly where they are, what they are doing, and what they aren't doing. During my teenage years those "not socially backward" kids as you would put them would be drinking, smoking, having sex, or sometimes partying. So I'd much rather my kids be "socially backward" in that respect. My wife and I don't drink or smoke, and we close and lock the door when we have sex. What other good example do we have to be to our kids?
My kids go to public school and get dragged to church by the wife. It's how I grew up. Why shouldn't that be enough outside the family socialization?
Yup. What's considered "Socially Backwards" is largely in the eyes of the beholder. Some think that a kid is "socially backwards" if he is not out playing football, baseball, or some other Jock Sport.
Then you look at something like SecondLife, which engenders lots of social interaction in "cyberspace". Are SLers "socially backwards?"
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree to some extent, it is relatively common for HR to look into those sorts of things quickly. But I don't think that they can legally use somebody else's actions against a prospective employee.
It's often part of the screening to do to make sure that they're not going to be embarrassed by web information. I don't think the practice will continue into the future, especially in light of the fact that it's going to be increasingly difficult to avoid candidates that are completely clean or non-existent online.
But honestly, many employers do have a prescreen which would catch both that as well as the lack of a criminal conviction. It would be potentially dangerous legally to use wrong information of that nature in a decision to not hire.
Perhaps, but then you'd never know if that were the reason. Potential employers can always find and concoct some other "excuse" for not hiring you.
Of course, I'm of the philosophy that if the employer doesn't like you, why would you want to work there anyway, unless you are a glutton for punishment? No good can come of it.
How about the electric fields? I would think that would be much more tough to counter.
California has the same thing, I just found out. We are required to cite "out of state" purchases that we didn't pay sales taxes on and pay sales tax on it. It is very, very stupid.
It's also very, very unenforceable.
Now that subs are nearly undetectable by sonic means, I'd surprised to find that they are undetectable by electric or magnetic means. I mean, can you really hide the magnetic or electric signature of a big sub?
You should, in theory at least, be able to lay out a grid of ultrasensitive electric field and magnetic detectors, do some heavy-duty DSP on them, and spot *anything* embedded in the water up to a certain range.
If that's the case, the the rush will be on to make your subs indistinguishable from whales. But then, your sub would have to move like a whale to be completely convincing. :-)
>if your Sonar is switched on, the other sub should pick that up.
Not necessarily. Some sonar is passive - my company (well, the company I work for...) designs hull and towed-array sonar which basically just listens to the noise in the water. Pinging helps find things, but the idea is if you just hang a bunch of hydrophones out your tail end, you can pick up other subs, especially as they get close.
Ok, yeah, another bloke explained this. I've been out of touch with this line of technology for too long.
But couldn't you also detect changes in the electric field in the water as well? Fish do this all the time. And I would imagine it would be tough to completely mask the electrical signature of something as large as a sub. Even if the hull was completely non-conductive.
Let me guess. You can do this too, but it's top secret. You'd have to shoot all of us if you talked about it. :-)
And yes, the engineers did their stuff well.
So if we were to ever have a "Dr. Strangelove" incident with these subs, they'd be even more difficult to spot than that plane was in the film.
But I am sure I can have full trust and confidence in the nuclear-wielding powers of the world that "OPE" could never happen. As much as I can trust that the US story about live nukes being flown unauthorized over its own land was false.
I have no problem with the technology. It's the people behind the technology I have a problem with. Can't the Royal Navy, the French, and the US, and the Russians (should I throw in China as well)? all agree to conduct their silly little war games in separate waters?
Yeah, I know -- I expect too much.
From a technological standpoint, I find it rather amusing that the anti-sonar systems on both subs, according to the article, worked "a little too well." Well, duh -- they did as their engineers designed them to do.
Except, one thing puzzles me -- if your Sonar is switched on, the other sub should pick that up. So the sonar systems of both subs must've been running quiet. So the anti-sonar systems have nothing to do with the collision. So why does the article mentions them? Did I miss something?
Must be the reporters. They can never seem to get the story right; nor do they seem able to catch the obvious flaws in what they report.
In short: they're just as incompetent as the Big Boys...
Gee, I feel so much safer now...
Your stupidity makes me angry. What are you, 12, or a troll? You've posted about 5 long non-copypasta posts, so even if you're trolling, I'll bite - you've earned it.
And now that we have resorted to lowering ourselves to ad-hominem attacks, Your apparent naiveté makes me angry.
How can we guarantee that you're not either maliciously or accidentally stepping on someone else's broadcast? Maybe some sort of central registry would work.
Yeah, and "central registries" works so well against spam and botnets, the functional equivalent of the same style of abuse you mention about the wireless.
[the web] Terrible analogy, and incorrect, too. There are essentially unlimited domain names, and domain names ARE licenced (ICANN, etc). They provide the service of keeping you in everyone's DNS server, at the same time as providing everyone else the service of telling them what domain names are taken.
Is it? Botnets, DDoS attacks, spam, spyware, viruses -- how is that different, in ways that matter? Any medium has it abusers. And I'd just love to see the FCC try to stop cyber abuse.
We need technological approaches to protect ourselves against abuse, not bureaucratic ones. The only reason the FCC can be "effective" at all over the so-called "airwaves" is that you can triangulate in on the abuser. But obviously that approach won't work with a DDoS attack.
Somehow, with all the perils and pitfalls of the Internet, we still manage just fine without the government getting int regulating everyone's access, websites, and the like.
We're not. Selling the whitespace to companies is actually making us money. More free market in action - the government sells something we own, and then buys us something nice with it (roads or schools or discounted converter boxes). Good deal.
"We own?" Well, go on and keep believing that fantasy. Hell, you may think you "own" your home, but watch what happens when you stop paying your property taxes.
Nope. The "we own" is just a feel-good to placate the masses. Like voting. Your "choices" are largely controlled by influences that work in the background. You are given the illusion of "democracy". And the real powers that be are more than happy that you believe that fantasy as well.
We need power back in the hands of the *individual*, where it belongs. If the "airwaves" truly belong to "us", then how come we are rarely invited to help make decisions about how best to use these "airwaves" that "belong to us?" When was the last time you were consulted on this matter, or any matter that is supposed to be "in the public trust?"
But the fantasies are sweet, I've got to admit. They Live.
I don't see the conspiracy here. Yes, public is a word that can mean government. Note how the economy has the public sector (government) and the private sector (business). Either you are just trolling, or you've forgotten a very basic purpose of government - it's like the operating system. It's there to mediate access to shared resources. Is "shared" a better synonym for you? That's why you can't just put up a radio transmitter in your yard. Then you wouldn't be playing nicely with others.
I know what government is *supposed* to do. However, that's not reality. Government does as it pleases. It cares not if you are innocent or guilty -- it will steamroll you anyway. Our government is responsible for millions of deaths just in the 20th century alone.
No, I am not "trolling". I'm just tired of so many that turns a blind eye to the atrocities government commits every day against individuals. There is the promise, and there is reality.
How do you know no one is using the frequency? What if a licensed low power station 100 miles away is using it? You can't hear it, but when you put your pirate transmitter on the air, suddenly you're interfering with his signal. He paid the licensing fees for that spectrum. What are you doing to his rights to use the airwaves?
I can check the frequency before I start broadcasting on it. I could limit my power levels so as to not overwhelm his area.
... Wrong analogy. Internet bandwidth is essentially limitless - all you have to do is install the extra fiber and cables. The same with domain names - even at the peak of domain name squatting, no one ever had difficulties thinking of a new name and registering it.
How do cell phones manage to share the same frequency band? Yep! They fire off packets! We could do something potentially similar with the wireless spectrum. And audio does not need a lot of bandwidth. But I digress.
And what if I then decide that I want to squat on top of your frequency with my bigger transmitter, and provide my own news, commentary, information, etc.? What then? Do we duel it out in the streets? Gather our respective gangs of anarchists and take axes to each others' equipment?
Then you are being unneighborly and rude. If I got there first with that frequency, then you should choose another, unoccupied one.
Sorry, but when it comes to the public spectrum, you have to have government regulation, else you will have nothing but anarchy and waste.
And with government comes dictatorial control, over-regulation, and subsecptibility to lobbies, politics, and all the usual ugliness. The big corporations wedge out the little guy for the share of the spectrum. You don't have a bazillion dollars? Tough. Go home.
Which, BTW, is my point. Getting Big Government involed only allows Big Players to participate.
No, it means "whoever controls the government".
Ah,you prove my point!!!
Indeed - by setting up a transmitter of significant wattage, you're depriving everybody else in the public the use of that particular frequency. You're only one member of the public, and the rest of us get to have consideration too. Try looking up the 'tragedy of the commons' sometime.
You get to use the frequency exclusively by paying the licence fee, thus compensating the rest of the public for their loss. That money goes back to the government, and ultimately (at least in principle) benefits all the public - including yourself. Yes, you get back much less than you put in as an individual; but with exclusive use of the frequency, the benefit you get is that much higher also.
Am I depriving the community? Or providing a service? If no one was using that frequency anyway, who cares?
Thank goodness we don't have to license our websites. I can reach a far greater number of people with my websites than I ever could with a transmitter. And yeah, I am "depriving" others the use of the domain names I've acquired.
I would do with the airwaves what I do with my websites -- provide free information, free commentary, and the like. The "benefit" to me is not described in terms of money, but in being able to make a tiny difference in the world I live in, which, in theory at least, should benefit all.
The stuff you have said is what they teach us in civics class. As usual, what the government teaches you about how the government "operates" fails to reflect the reality of what actually goes on. Today, our "airwaves" are filled with torrents of mediocrity, paid for and pumped by those who licensed those frequencies. I fail to see the benefit to the public. Oh, but the civics lesson sounds "good" and "right". It is also a fantasy. In reality, something else is afoot.
Funny thing is, no one cared diddly about "the spectrum" until someone invented radio. Where was all the concern about "rights" over "airwaves" before then?
And why the frell is it called "airwaves", anyway? It's got nothing to do with air. "Sound" is "airwaves". Electromagnetic energy, as you know, does not need air to propagate. Basic physics. So perhaps I really should build a high-wattage "airwaves" transmitter -- except my neighbors may get annoyed at not being able to get a good night's sleep! And the FCC wouldn't bother me either, though the local cops may. :-)
You mean the government has seized the rights to the airwaves. We public own nothing. Don't believe me? Try setting up a transmitter with any serious wattage -- even on an open frequency -- without a license and watch what happens to you.
It wrinkles my feathers big time whenever the government claims something is "public", and yet the public has little control or voice over it. "Public" schools. "Public" airwaves. "Public" roads, etc.
"Public" doesn't mean "you", it means "everyone".
And you don't see the fallacy in this? "Everyone" means no one.
Somewhere along the way the government decided that television is a right and not a privilege.
Because the public still owns the right to the airwaves. The TV companies are leasing the public's property, as negotiated by the government.
You mean the government has seized the rights to the airwaves. We public own nothing. Don't believe me? Try setting up a transmitter with any serious wattage -- even on an open frequency -- without a license and watch what happens to you.
It wrinkles my feathers big time whenever the government claims something is "public", and yet the public has little control or voice over it. "Public" schools. "Public" airwaves. "Public" roads, etc.
Let's be honest here. GOVERNMENT Schools, GOVERNMENT Airwaves, GOVERNMENT Roads. Sounds sinister? You bet. And that's the very thing the Government wants to keep everyone asleep over.
And how will the Government accomplish this audacious task? By making sure you have your converter box, so you can continue to receive your sleep programming!
TV, like radio, is a way to get news out quickly to the population.
If joe schmoes analog TV stopped working, he would no longer receive those emergency broadcast notifications.
So, the notification that would tell him to get his fat, beer-sodden arse up and out (because some natural disaster is coming) wouldn't be heard.
So in a wierd, twisted way... TV and radio are integral to our safety now.
I stopped watching TV a long-ass time ago due to lack of programming I would consider even moderately tolerable. And the only time I listen to radio is during my commute where I can do little else.
The government here has always been especially interested in making sure that every poor bloke out there had his booze tube, and before I never understood what the big deal was. I mean, it's just TV. Nothing special.
Then it dawned on me.
The real reason our government is so damned interested in everyone having their "bread and circuses" -- well, it's just that. The vast masses of goof-offs out there will stop paying attention to you if they have their drone-boxes pumping their already dull minds with even more dull mind-numbing programming 24/7. Self-induced brainwashing to control the masses and to keep them from revolting.
Joe Blow dies over 40,000 times per year on the highway? Who cares? Joe Blow is going without his TV? It's a bloody national emergency, a risk to national security!
George Orwell had no idea Joe Blow would be so willing to invite Big Brother so quickly into his home.
I say defenestrate that damn TV!!!!
No, actually, because companies need customers to survive.
But in the case of Google, you're not the customer, you're the product. Google's customers are the advertisers, and they're selling your eyeballs.
And publishers who also promote space to reach your eyeballs.
I confess; I am one of those publishers.
Cameras aren't so much of a problem, because it is pretty much obvious to anyone around what it is used for. Whereas with a camera phones, you can be pretending to be SMSing while discretely taking a shot of someone else while in a changing room.
And you can't do that with watches, PDAs, and perhaps other devices that are not phones?
Alas, politicians can't seem to distinguish the difference between ditch-digging and high-tech. Or perhaps they love to play politics at the expense of damaging the company. A US company, no less. Hello! Did I miss something?
The US is plagued with anti-intellectualism, which shapes the career choices of our younger citizens. Because of that, you need to go across the ocean to bring in the talent you need.
When the crunch comes, what's among the first things to be cut? Schools. What's among the last things things to be cut? Prisons, the Armed Forces, and anything else that represents "might" and "power" of the government to lord it over others.
Why is this?
If they want the high-tech firms to hire Americans first, then perhaps they should give some thoughts on how they prioritize their spending. Slash budgets for Prisons and stop arresting people for victimless and consensual "crimes". Stop making divorced dads to pay far more than they can afford for child support and far more than the kid needs, so they can stop occupying our prison systems as well. Stop playing "world cop" and bring those damn troops home already. Stop relying on foreign money to support the wildly out-of-control spending habits of the government. Focus on what truly builds wealth and prosperity and knowledge and well-being of the individual, and stop all pork, corporate welfare, manipulating the markets and the like.
I know, I know, an Impossible Dream.
The only way to counter-act a surveillance society is for the population observed to practice constant inverse-surveillance on the observers (i.e. sousviellance).
Yep. And armed with our cell-phone video capability, coupled with being able to instantly upload them to the Internet, we can keep tabs on the police and any other government badness that's out there.
Lil' Bro' is Watchin' Back!!!!
Well, we know where this is really going. They want to eventually outlaw use of cameras in public.
Leave it to the government to enact stupid laws that takes even more of our freedom away. And of course, the real grit will be found in the complete text of the bill. I'm sure they will not stop at camera phones....
If proponents of the many Superstring theories have to face this notion, surely religious nutcakes must also fall under the same strictures of Science. And if that was taught in the classrooms, the students would learn far more about Science than what the normal litany of crap usually rammed down their throats from K onwards confers.
But, gasp -- that would be teaching our little young ones how to THINK, and the government could not possibly want a nation of young, inquisitive, aspiring CRITICAL THINKERS on their hands!!! Tough to pull the wool over the eyes of those who actually ASK QUESTIONS and will simply refuse to "just believe". Which would require far more out of our politicans and bureaucrats. Nope, can't have that...
Now if we can only get Red Hat to support FS other than ext3. That snafu on their parts is causing us all kinds of angst at our shop.
Oh, me too! I often gaze whistfully at all our servers and think, "Wow. If only we could get some experimental filesystems on these bitches, my job would be so much better."
In fact, my biggest grip with RedHat is that they always seem 2-3 revisions behind everyone else.
I don't think you've quite got your head around this "enterprise" thing.
I understand the whole "Enterprise" thing and the "Stability" mantras, but sometimes that over-caution can get in the way and slow progress.
There has to be a happy medium behind "dinosaur" stability and "bleeding edge" features. Damn it, why can't I have them both?
Here is the challenge for some would-be entrepreneur. Come up with a way to provide stable systems suitable for the "enterprise", yet not so far out of date that we can have something close to modern functionality. The first one to hit this happy medium will be well along the way to putting RedHad out of business!!!!
Come on! It is an intellectual challenge worthy of you!
In fact, my biggest grip with RedHat is that they always seem 2-3 revisions behind everyone else. I mean, come on! I wonder exactly what it is they are doing with all that money?
It's bad enough when the general media smears the name of Hackers, but we really should know better on /.
The biggest issue, it seems to me, is that people who spend a lot of time playing video games generally lack social skills. While everyone else was learning how to relate to the world, video game players were learning how to relate to video games.
Those who play games don't realize that they are socially backward because they are socially backward.
As I parent and actually remembering my teenage years that's a good thing. Why? Because if they are at home watching TV or playing video games, I know exactly where they are, what they are doing, and what they aren't doing. During my teenage years those "not socially backward" kids as you would put them would be drinking, smoking, having sex, or sometimes partying. So I'd much rather my kids be "socially backward" in that respect. My wife and I don't drink or smoke, and we close and lock the door when we have sex. What other good example do we have to be to our kids?
My kids go to public school and get dragged to church by the wife. It's how I grew up. Why shouldn't that be enough outside the family socialization?
Yup. What's considered "Socially Backwards" is largely in the eyes of the beholder. Some think that a kid is "socially backwards" if he is not out playing football, baseball, or some other Jock Sport.
Then you look at something like SecondLife, which engenders lots of social interaction in "cyberspace". Are SLers "socially backwards?"