AP guys weren't hacked or eavesdropped. State Department secretly required massive amount of call logs (who whom called in what time and how long) in seemingly fishing expedition. Heck, it had even legal oversight and it was properly done. Problem is, there's unwritten rule that you request such information only as last resort - and you inform subject media after the fact.
As for hacking - it really depends how good they tweak this system. If it's really separated and rebooted from live usb/cd-rom, then it's doable. They should have a specialist who check it regularly for newest exploits for such systems and upgrade system accordingly.
I really don't see how Facebook can go but down. It's not cool new thing. Everyone capable enough to use it from phone already does it. How many people are there without smartphones and with active Facebook account?
Really interesting - Have done this for 4 years, and never my edits have gone without trace. Also when changes get reversed, user are usually informed why - and that usually means that sources with restricted licensing has been used - or worse, just thirty party copyrighted material without any permission. You *do* know that you can't draw from local maps or Google Maps satellite view, don't you?
If you have really read articles about it, no, you really can't. 3D printing is tool here, not magic wand which will make reliable and fully functional weapon.
While 3D printing looks cool and interesting in general, this is really far fetched. You already can make assassination weapons from schematics from Internet - if you have skills and good understanding of physics involved.
And no, you can't really use this are argument against gun control laws.
Not really. All they need is to fix voting districts which Republicans created to win House despite popular vote going to Democrats and then it's over for gun lovers. Or not game over, because 99% of them current breed of laws won't impact any way at all. Just their pride will be hurt - and arm manufacturers profit.
Sorry, but no, Waze is completely proprietary, they tried to use OSM, but they understood that anyone with half a brain will be capable to capitalize on their improvements on OSM when creating competitor for their service and retreated. So please stop spread misinformation.
Petition signing (done amazingly well by Avaaz as always) kicked in when industry moved in heavy weights to kill the bill, despite the fact that a) ban is temporary to verify scientific findings b) usually corp-friendly EC weighted all opinions and decided that this can't be delayed. Seeing EC doing something against whishes of Germany is rare sight - so those people are convinced and they never take their decisions lightly.
So petition signing was to support countries and EC who where openly in favor of this temporary ban. And when Avaaz usually does these signing drives, they do amazingly much better job of explaining situation in as much as neutral as they can way than any media these days would so.
So while I understand that thanks to lot of stupid people on Internet petition signing seems to be some kind of joke, trust me, Avaaz does it very very well - and they have resources to deliver those signatures, take a little PR, etc.
"(never heard of anyone being allergic to honey - I just threw that out there)"
I, unfortunately, am (worst thing in my life, because it wasn't so in several years of my childhood - I know how honey tastes like, but can't even taste a bit). Still supporting ban and would like to see return of some sanity in farming in EU in general. Currently they just deplete soil just because they get bigger kickbacks for that. Screwed up big time. Some sort of support would make sense in territories where farming is struggling to survive as industry, but in rest of Europe - hardly doubt it. Of course farmers who are already heavily depend on subsides won't agree with me.
You just described approximately one tenth of working force. Also: 1) cable TV with basic channels are extremely cheap. Sometimes it's only option (in multi apartment building). And even then some people can't afford it; 2) I don't have dish washer, and I don't know many people who do. My friend does, but he is IT coder manager caliber (really smart guy), so it comes natural to him; 3) Cars? Really? Few of them do and even fewer have really new ones and can afford maintenance and fuel costs. Public transport usage is sky high in my country.
And yes, all people I know who have homes (most of them don't) shovels their driveway themselves.
So......when Google tries to publish orphaned works for everyone to read, copyright owners cry bloody river, but when user who doesn't know nothing about copyright law or how properly add copyright clauses adds a beautiful picture to social network, it's suddenly very legitimate for corporation to exploit this work.
Ok, this will bring socialism faster than any previous attempts. It's amazing how greed makes so much people plainly stupid.
For those who have studied economics (not be religious about, but really doing research) this strikes very close to Marx vision he predicted originally - t.i. cost of manufacturing will be driven down so much that it would kill capitalism and would allow socialism to take place.
Also keep in mind that in socialism social benefits != socialism per se. It was more like that workers own factories and work together for their own and other good.
This of course can be seen as naivety in today's terms, because it would require humanity to step up which it struggles to do.
For what I have heard, this is kinda mixed bag. There's stuff that gets destroyed due of quotas (like milk), but not in so much big quantities as we like to believe. However, in EU all farming is heavily subsided. In result we don't know actual cost.
Personally I would see Europe clean up subside mess more than allowing GMO. It's much urgent problem.
Ohh boy. Please guys, don't fall to their level. GMO is valid technology if applied right, as was genetic selection in the past (your poor man's GMO).
If you don't trust corporations, fine. But if you want to be taken serious in counterargument, please don't use "that's what they said". If you think their assumptions are wrong, please at least explain why.
"We need proof they're not harmful to us and the environment. We don't have that proof."
That's why you lobby for solid government agencies who actually do very good job on checking food safety (at least in my country).
You can't ignore food problems with clause "we don't trust corporations". Well, I don't, but what choice we have. It's not like we gonna change capitalism for something workable and better (I believe we can, but that's for another day). We need to lobby and support actually working government institutions to check on corporations. EU has better success in this regard, despite some members being in bed and naked with corps for years (hey UK).
Let's work within system. GMO food can be good, just let's keep pushing stuff we see as necessary for it to work. Just inflicting fear in general public won't work in long term I'm afraid.
Problem is complex. There's general fear of anything related with "genetic modification", because of this theme exploited so heavily in tabloids, junk and paperback sci-fi, and by conservative politicans betting heavily on science fearing crowd. And then there's huge greedy corporations like Monsanto, which are blinded by gold rush in this field. Then there's politicians, desperate to have at least some kind of investment in countries, relaxing some rules so far that it's really irresponsible.
In overall, GMO debate has almost same semantics as nuclear one. Done right, this field would really do right for humanity. However, there's that very strong question - can we really do right for humanity? It seems that we as society don't trust ourselves - or current capitalistic system we embrace.
So, this is actually discussion "we don't trust multinational corporations to do theoretically dangerous stuff", not "is GMO good or bad", isn't it? However no one discuss corporations, because it's well...just not worth it. Because when money talks, everyone asks how high to jump (including media).
"Just like the rest of humanity you have good eggs and bad eggs and usually their motives are complex and hard to pass easy moral judgement on."
You got me till this sentence. Bad eggs? Sure. Their motive? There's no complex motive. It's all about "free lunch till the end of my life". It's *all* about. Essentially, we all struggle to survive. And people without any significant income increase in near future will cheat and lie much more than those with some security guaranteed.
Keeping in mind that some of scientific fields have too much mouths to feed, that's kinda no surprise. All thanks to capitalism "race to the bottom" or so called competition.
I know, but still massive debt is not nice thing to carry in future, because things can get ugly pretty quickly.
Still I can agree that sometimes I wonder about some of UK decisions as getting too much into "doing austerity because we should" territory. But that's usually conservatives cred, so no big surprise here.
"Why assume austerity is the only method of deficit reduction? investment can increase growth which will in turn increase tax receipts which will in turn reduce the deficit."
It's only method when you have massive debt on which in current circumstances no one sane in head will lend you with actually payable kickback. It also can do wonders when it's done very fast and in right time. Unfortunately, due of heavy unpopularity of this method, this is usually last fallback and then it have disastrous, but unavoidable results.
So when recession hits, and you have too much of debt, be unpopular, bite a bullet right now. You can mix this with some pumping money in most sensitive areas. But what's most important you have to be clear when you intend this to end.
If you have manageable debt, and can shore up some sweet money, some cuts still would be reasonable (especially waste evaluation), however do reasonable investments in infrastructure and research, so when downwards cycle ends, you can be first in line to get piece of action.
Coordinated bombs have been out there for so long that anyone who would like to have Al Queda like PR would have to do that - more damage, more victims, perfect panic storm.
I guess I just don't want that to be Al Queda...again. Anyway, who cares. People died and have their lifes destroyed. I know it happens every day all the round the world. It still doesn't change that it is just sick to directly attack civilians like that.
Slashdot Mirror
AP guys weren't hacked or eavesdropped. State Department secretly required massive amount of call logs (who whom called in what time and how long) in seemingly fishing expedition. Heck, it had even legal oversight and it was properly done. Problem is, there's unwritten rule that you request such information only as last resort - and you inform subject media after the fact.
As for hacking - it really depends how good they tweak this system. If it's really separated and rebooted from live usb/cd-rom, then it's doable. They should have a specialist who check it regularly for newest exploits for such systems and upgrade system accordingly.
You must be living in cave, because literary *everybody* talking about it last 2 days. Check news.google.com for example.
I really don't see how Facebook can go but down. It's not cool new thing. Everyone capable enough to use it from phone already does it. How many people are there without smartphones and with active Facebook account?
Really interesting - Have done this for 4 years, and never my edits have gone without trace. Also when changes get reversed, user are usually informed why - and that usually means that sources with restricted licensing has been used - or worse, just thirty party copyrighted material without any permission. You *do* know that you can't draw from local maps or Google Maps satellite view, don't you?
If you have really read articles about it, no, you really can't. 3D printing is tool here, not magic wand which will make reliable and fully functional weapon.
While 3D printing looks cool and interesting in general, this is really far fetched. You already can make assassination weapons from schematics from Internet - if you have skills and good understanding of physics involved.
And no, you can't really use this are argument against gun control laws.
Not really. All they need is to fix voting districts which Republicans created to win House despite popular vote going to Democrats and then it's over for gun lovers. Or not game over, because 99% of them current breed of laws won't impact any way at all. Just their pride will be hurt - and arm manufacturers profit.
Sorry, but no, Waze is completely proprietary, they tried to use OSM, but they understood that anyone with half a brain will be capable to capitalize on their improvements on OSM when creating competitor for their service and retreated. So please stop spread misinformation.
Petition signing (done amazingly well by Avaaz as always) kicked in when industry moved in heavy weights to kill the bill, despite the fact that a) ban is temporary to verify scientific findings b) usually corp-friendly EC weighted all opinions and decided that this can't be delayed. Seeing EC doing something against whishes of Germany is rare sight - so those people are convinced and they never take their decisions lightly.
So petition signing was to support countries and EC who where openly in favor of this temporary ban. And when Avaaz usually does these signing drives, they do amazingly much better job of explaining situation in as much as neutral as they can way than any media these days would so.
So while I understand that thanks to lot of stupid people on Internet petition signing seems to be some kind of joke, trust me, Avaaz does it very very well - and they have resources to deliver those signatures, take a little PR, etc.
"(never heard of anyone being allergic to honey - I just threw that out there)"
I, unfortunately, am (worst thing in my life, because it wasn't so in several years of my childhood - I know how honey tastes like, but can't even taste a bit). Still supporting ban and would like to see return of some sanity in farming in EU in general. Currently they just deplete soil just because they get bigger kickbacks for that. Screwed up big time. Some sort of support would make sense in territories where farming is struggling to survive as industry, but in rest of Europe - hardly doubt it. Of course farmers who are already heavily depend on subsides won't agree with me.
You just described approximately one tenth of working force. Also:
1) cable TV with basic channels are extremely cheap. Sometimes it's only option (in multi apartment building). And even then some people can't afford it;
2) I don't have dish washer, and I don't know many people who do. My friend does, but he is IT coder manager caliber (really smart guy), so it comes natural to him;
3) Cars? Really? Few of them do and even fewer have really new ones and can afford maintenance and fuel costs. Public transport usage is sky high in my country.
And yes, all people I know who have homes (most of them don't) shovels their driveway themselves.
Please wake up and look around.
So......when Google tries to publish orphaned works for everyone to read, copyright owners cry bloody river, but when user who doesn't know nothing about copyright law or how properly add copyright clauses adds a beautiful picture to social network, it's suddenly very legitimate for corporation to exploit this work.
Ok, this will bring socialism faster than any previous attempts. It's amazing how greed makes so much people plainly stupid.
For those who have studied economics (not be religious about, but really doing research) this strikes very close to Marx vision he predicted originally - t.i. cost of manufacturing will be driven down so much that it would kill capitalism and would allow socialism to take place.
Also keep in mind that in socialism social benefits != socialism per se. It was more like that workers own factories and work together for their own and other good.
This of course can be seen as naivety in today's terms, because it would require humanity to step up which it struggles to do.
""Yes, let's just transport thousands of people around the world daily on your little flying contraption!" /sarcasm"
Sarcasm or not, that's how awfully lot of people (including some really smart scientists) saw flying in Wright brothers time :)
For what I have heard, this is kinda mixed bag. There's stuff that gets destroyed due of quotas (like milk), but not in so much big quantities as we like to believe. However, in EU all farming is heavily subsided. In result we don't know actual cost.
Personally I would see Europe clean up subside mess more than allowing GMO. It's much urgent problem.
Ohh boy. Please guys, don't fall to their level. GMO is valid technology if applied right, as was genetic selection in the past (your poor man's GMO).
If you don't trust corporations, fine. But if you want to be taken serious in counterargument, please don't use "that's what they said". If you think their assumptions are wrong, please at least explain why.
"We need proof they're not harmful to us and the environment. We don't have that proof."
That's why you lobby for solid government agencies who actually do very good job on checking food safety (at least in my country).
You can't ignore food problems with clause "we don't trust corporations". Well, I don't, but what choice we have. It's not like we gonna change capitalism for something workable and better (I believe we can, but that's for another day). We need to lobby and support actually working government institutions to check on corporations. EU has better success in this regard, despite some members being in bed and naked with corps for years (hey UK).
Let's work within system. GMO food can be good, just let's keep pushing stuff we see as necessary for it to work. Just inflicting fear in general public won't work in long term I'm afraid.
Problem is complex. There's general fear of anything related with "genetic modification", because of this theme exploited so heavily in tabloids, junk and paperback sci-fi, and by conservative politicans betting heavily on science fearing crowd. And then there's huge greedy corporations like Monsanto, which are blinded by gold rush in this field. Then there's politicians, desperate to have at least some kind of investment in countries, relaxing some rules so far that it's really irresponsible.
In overall, GMO debate has almost same semantics as nuclear one. Done right, this field would really do right for humanity. However, there's that very strong question - can we really do right for humanity? It seems that we as society don't trust ourselves - or current capitalistic system we embrace.
So, this is actually discussion "we don't trust multinational corporations to do theoretically dangerous stuff", not "is GMO good or bad", isn't it? However no one discuss corporations, because it's well...just not worth it. Because when money talks, everyone asks how high to jump (including media).
"Just like the rest of humanity you have good eggs and bad eggs and usually their motives are complex and hard to pass easy moral judgement on."
You got me till this sentence. Bad eggs? Sure. Their motive? There's no complex motive. It's all about "free lunch till the end of my life". It's *all* about. Essentially, we all struggle to survive. And people without any significant income increase in near future will cheat and lie much more than those with some security guaranteed.
Keeping in mind that some of scientific fields have too much mouths to feed, that's kinda no surprise. All thanks to capitalism "race to the bottom" or so called competition.
It's simple - Netflix itself don't care about DRM. Content providers does. It's iTunes versus recording labels all over again.
I really don't care how rightwingers spin it. However, money lenders have their opinion about it and it's hard to ignore if you have budget deficit.
I know, but still massive debt is not nice thing to carry in future, because things can get ugly pretty quickly.
Still I can agree that sometimes I wonder about some of UK decisions as getting too much into "doing austerity because we should" territory. But that's usually conservatives cred, so no big surprise here.
"Why assume austerity is the only method of deficit reduction? investment can increase growth which will in turn increase tax receipts which will in turn reduce the deficit."
It's only method when you have massive debt on which in current circumstances no one sane in head will lend you with actually payable kickback. It also can do wonders when it's done very fast and in right time. Unfortunately, due of heavy unpopularity of this method, this is usually last fallback and then it have disastrous, but unavoidable results.
So when recession hits, and you have too much of debt, be unpopular, bite a bullet right now. You can mix this with some pumping money in most sensitive areas. But what's most important you have to be clear when you intend this to end.
If you have manageable debt, and can shore up some sweet money, some cuts still would be reasonable (especially waste evaluation), however do reasonable investments in infrastructure and research, so when downwards cycle ends, you can be first in line to get piece of action.
They also found two unexploded bombs...well, it's not confirmed yet, but if they did, that means not everything went according to plan...thankfully.
Still lost limbs and two lost lifes (not counting bringing down major sports event) - I think he/she unfortunately succeeded.
Coordinated bombs have been out there for so long that anyone who would like to have Al Queda like PR would have to do that - more damage, more victims, perfect panic storm.
I guess I just don't want that to be Al Queda...again. Anyway, who cares. People died and have their lifes destroyed. I know it happens every day all the round the world. It still doesn't change that it is just sick to directly attack civilians like that.