In the early '80s, me and most of my friends had all mapped our school for Dungeons and Dragons.
Late '80s, Paranoia. Pretty accurate, aside from the entire school being underground and the access to Green-level clearance area (outdoors) required going through the (in joke) glass ceiling above the (non-existent) third-floor (nonexistent) swimming pool. Due to a personality quirk of one of the odder members of local geekdom, the local outdoors was overrun by nine-foot carnivorous supermutant squirrels; her character promptly joined the Sierra Club Secret Society. By the end of senior year, our characters had blown up every single room at some point with the exception of the Biology classroom, which had been sealed shut while being filled with a hideous green goo... and then erased from the computer's records. "Room? What room?"
I think the most dangerous-seeming three of us went on to (a) drop out of nuclear engineering to work in a deli, (b) become a professional clown, and (c) work for the US government as a I'M SORRY CITIZEN YOU ARE NOT CLEARED FOR THAT INFORMATION. TRUST THE COMPUTER. THE COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND. Harmless, really.
Send a male crew, with a hooker to take care of all their needs.
One with a degree in Psychiatry, perhaps. You could call the position "Ship's Counselor." And not to be sexist, but a female-dominant crew with a male Ship's Counselor might also work, given sufficient stamina. Of course, the article also mentions needing to deal with death, so bringing another along would be a logical measure to prevent someone going crazy enough to screw the dead hooker. Come to that, NASA traditionally uses triple redundancy systems when practical....
Slightly more seriously, a Psychiatrist or Sexologist (either with an MD) to cover such, er, duties(?) isn't completely insane. For long missions with limited crew, MDs are certainly one area where having some personnel overlap may be desirable. However, finding MD specialists comfortable with localized promiscuity and in sufficient health to handle astronaut training makes for a bit of a challenge. Starting with writing the job description.
How long before some company tries to cover up the embarrassment by suing the people who disclose the fact that they have machines infected with bots? They might not succeed, but they might make life unpleasant for a short while for those who post the info.
Probably a little while, since it would be monumentally stupid. The obvious first step for the sued is talk to a lawyer (IAmNotALawyer). Then, have their lawyer to get a judge to order preservation of the current system state on each of the suspected machines for third party forensic analysis, and incidentally subpoena all of their logs — a serious counter-hassle for the users at fault. Depositions from anyone who used the computer or was responsible for its maintenance would probably be obvious early requests in the disclosure part of the case.
Sarbanes-Oxley makes for some nasty requirements on IT security reporting. By threatening to sue the person disclosing, they give a third party reasonable grounds for subpoena of evidence (such as I mention) that may later be admissible for future criminial and civil charges against the company and its officers... and providing the third party motive to pass the evidence along to Federal regulators. Any company lawyer starting such a lawsuit should be fired for stupidity and disbarred for vexatious litigation, although the latter is likely to take longer.
Doesn't Texas Law ("Sir, he was too dumb to let live.") apply in Utah?
I thought it was from one of the upper midwest states originally. The way I heard it, one of the State's senators shot and killed a man; he was brought up on charges, resigned, and conducted a pro se defense, arguing "He needed killin'." Successfully.
I thought it was Minnesota, but I may be getting that mixed up with the cheerful anecdote about the First National Bank in Northfield, where Jesse James lost most of his gang to civilian gunfire. It was over a hundred years before anyone tried robbing the bank again — with similar lack of success; the customers promptly tackled and subdued the gunman.
I know this man wasn't exactly our mascot, but can we please not celebrate the death of another human being? I'm not asking for a moment of silence or anything. I'm just saying that the man deserves some dignity. He was misguided, at least, but he was a human being.
I'm sorry if this comes as a surprise to you, but many of us on Slashdot are assholes, and honest enough to admit it to ourselves. Furthermore, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time and place for everything. I trust no-one here would disturb the mourners at the funeral, but for geeks everywhere, the end of his life merits at least a sigh of relief, and Slashdot is as ideal a forum for such as may be found.
Yes, a human being is dead. He doubtless had personal friends and family, and I feel some pity for the sense of loss they now experience. Losing someone is never easy. On the other hand, I never encountered the man in person. Instead, I encounter the DMCA he championed, the copyright extensions he supported, and the diminishing recognition of the "fair use" he disbelieved in. For those who interacted him as human being, feel free to mourn. For those who love humanity for its own sake, his life was long and rich, and with less to mourn in its ending than thousands who die each day across the face of the world. But for those of us who have only interacted with his legacy as a tool of corporate power, some may choose to celebrate, for having outlived the man, we have a better hope of outliving his ideas.
On the other hand, his ideas are thriving, so there's not all that much to celebrate. Ding, dong, the witch is dead... now, get back to work. There's still a DMCA.
I mean, this is a private organization doing this, not local police or the FBI as part of some larger investigation, so I imagine the suit would have to be civil, rather than criminal. They might have a harder time doing this than they realize.
On the other hand from what I(AmNotALawyer) understand, a civil suit needs only prove wrongdoing by preponderance of evidence, as opposed to beyond reasonable doubt; that is, you only need to prove that they probably did it, rather than almost certainly. It also has the possibility to increase the "expected" costs of such scum, which may shift the supply curve and reduce the spam level. (Alas, we're talking about a non-exclusive good, so the typical supply-demand model isn't very good. But one may hope.)
Also, a civil suit does not preclude later criminal charges.
It wasn't until Carter's Treasury Dept. folks decided to change how taxation was going to apply to religious private schools in the south that this particular voting block switched sides overnight. This resulted in the Republicans being saddled with the religious right and forever screwing up the right wing and American politics.
That does not follow. Even if we stipulate for this argument that your identified lynchpin did result in the then-democratic voting incipient "religious right" (hereafter "theocrats") to abandon the Democrats. However, it was purely the fault of the Republicans that they accepted this albatross in hopes of building a lasting power base. As a Democrat, Carter did the right thing to chase these whackos out of his party; the sensible thing would have been to let the organization wither and decay, like Segregationists and the Bull Moose Populist parties have. But no, the Republicans were too desperate and wanted to quickly overcome the distrust from Nixon, Agnew, and Ford too soon.
This is your fault. You held your nose and kissed 'em, and let politics make strange bedfellows, and if you haven't the stomach for a divorce by now (even despite the up-front pain and cost) then that's COMPLETELY your own fscking fault.
(I also suspect, but cannot prove, that you misidentify the key split point. I think the faction split was started when the Dixiecrats lost the desegregation fight and started bailing — there are enough common players that it looks fishy. However, that just may be co-locallity of the time frame of political involvement, and the need to take one side or another. Still, a lot of people who chose poorly are still far too prominent and too far whack.)
However, if I am sitting in a private room behind a known mafia front shop with ten gangsters at 4:00 am and there's a corpse laying in the corner, you are probably safe in assuming that I am a gangster.
Of course, in this case, there is no corpse, just a lot of allegedly suspicious red coloring.
Others may now have fun further extending this metaphor beyond all reasonable scope.
Potential customers cannot easily measure quality, but can readily see who has the lowest price, so they usually make their decisions on price alone.
Naive potential customers can't. However, the general consensus in this area that the Cable is cheaper for the same speed levels, but the downtime over the last five years has averaged about ten times higher, including regular multi-day outages. This is easily discovered with even the slightest effort at research. The local university Mac support mailing list regularly turns into a gripe session/reliability comparison every time the local Cable modem service craps out and the local Telco DSL doesn't. The IT support professionals' mail list only gives it passing mention, since this is the expected state of the world, but it's nice to be warned that your users will be complaining. The university IT department's page listing local non-university high speed services very clearly mentions but "does not recommend" the local CableCo offering. The U. Bookstore, local white box and repair shops, BestBuy, CircuitCity, Staples, the local wireless-equipped coffee shops, and any other retail outlet with a geek on staff all are quick to mention the reliability issue.
Now, for a college grad student on a lentils-and-ramen budget who lives within walking distance of the University's highly reliable network, the savings can easily allow for another case of beer per month (or more), in exchange for the occasional walk of a few blocks with their laptop. Furthermore, since the cable ISP problems are usually related to the summer thunderstorms, it's even less of a risk than first glance would suggest. So, for a large market segment hereabouts, even when informed, the tradeoff is acceptable.
On the other hand, for telecommuters, serious IT geeks, students who really hate the public computer labs, and anyone with no patience for a company that can't figure out there's an area problem until forty people call in at the same time saying their internet has been down for the last three days... DSL is the way to go.
It's not just a question of competition and imperfect information; it's a question of different quality offerings, since the market has a non-uniform demand curve for reliability.
If I am reading the summary and the article correctly and if your wirless network is open and bad stuff is traced to it, there is probable cause for obtaining and sharing that evidence in court. It weighs against you. But if you can show you were in the middle of a wilderness trip when illegal stuff was downloaded, I doubt you will be found guilty.
Not quite.
What this is saying is that if they trace the network traffic to your IP, that's grounds for a search of the physical premises. It doesn't matter that your open WAP meant the original traffic could have been someone else; it's reasonable to suspect it could have come from you. Further, as I(AmNotALawyer) understand the matter, any evidence they find within the limits of the warrant's search may be used as evidence against you, even if unrelated to the suspected crime forming the original basis for the (reasonable) grounds for search. Thus, if based on a suspicion of kiddie porn, they had a warrant for search-and-seizure of all computer storage, and they find a CD labeled (and indeed containing) "ST0LEN CR3DIT CARD NUMBERZ", you wouldn't be able to object that they didn't have probably cause for a search (although might have slim grounds for objecting to an overbroad search). At that point, they only need to link you to the physical evidence they've found, not to the specific offense that started the investigation.
As a non-IT example, imagine a warrant issued to search your premises for drugs, based on neighbor complaints about persistent odors of marijuana smoke. It doesn't matter that the original grounds for the search was your roommate smoking weed while you were out of town, if they find five kilos of cocaine packed in Ziplock bags with your fingerprints and stashed in your bedroom. You're still busted on a drug charge.
Of course, if the warrant says "computer media", and they come across the five kilos while ripping apart your mattress, that might not be admissible... but your lawyer will earn his pay keeping you out of jail.
So remember kiddies:
If you're going to leave your access point open, don't have evidence of any of your criminal activity about the house
The stupid housing community I'm currently renting in keeps trying to grow grass in places that really don't want grass, using the usual massive seed-fertilize-water approach. They dumped some seed and overfertilized again this morning; I spread six cans of wildflower seed into the area while they were at lunch break. I have high hopes for colorful ground cover this time. =)
Y'see, my contract said his claim became null and void if such a post ever got so modded. Now, as long as it's still +5 at midnight, he also has to throw in a great boxed set of stake knives.
And now, a most politically incorrect observation: Barring the development of an effective cure within the next decade or so, societies with large memberships that believe such superstitions will have their populations implode, with the culture likely to follow. This may be thought of a evolution in action: the trait of reliance on a non-scientific worldview is detrimental to survival in a globally-connected environment with urban populations. (The genetic mutation granting AIDS immunity may limit this; however, that gene does not seem to be as common in Africa as in Europe.)
Now, can we induce the "intelligent design" Christian fundamentalists to self-exterminate via something similar?
Even if you view humans as trained monkey, it's really comparing:
A) a human trained humans to do X, vs
B) a human trained monkeys to do X.
First, there's another remark which notes the observation of prostitution in bonobos, without the human introduction of economic concepts. Second, there were several behaviors (like the scramble for washers and prostitution) that the researchers did not train for, but emerged as a logical consequence of the introduction of the concept of "money". And third, your objection of "training" might be readily overcome if the monkeys are able to pass the ideas along to other monkey tribe members.
I'd be curious find out if the monkeys could handle the idea of different types of washers having different values, not necessarily related to size. EG: one big silver washer is worth two small silver washers, one big copper washer is worth two big silver washers, and one small copper washer is worth two big copper washers. (Prompted by an incident at the local comic shop, where the cashier offered to trade a dime to a three year old boy for his shiny penny. The boy turned town her offer — a monkey that needs more training.)
Depends how you define "profession", I suppose. It does suggest that prostitution seems to develop pretty quickly after the conceptual introduction of the idea of "trade", and perhaps some medium of exchange. The more abstract "trader" is likely to predate it, since the conceptual leap of trading something desirable for something desirable in a different manner is not required; trading grapes for bananas or some suchmay have come first. However, Prostitution thus seems likely to be the oldest professional specialization.
Doesn't it kind of scare you how much people on Slashdot know about assault weapons?
No.
There are usually other tools more suitable to solving problems. Since most Slashdotters have high conceptual flexibility (if not outright ADHD), they won't merely fixate on the first possible solution they encounter. It takes a different kind of monomania to be dangerous than the sort that scream "VI!" "EMACS!" "VI!" "EMACS!" at each other — those recognize the possibility of another viewpoint, they merely think the other viewpoint is idiotic. It's the ones with narrow vision who can ever only see one course of action being possible that you need to fear.
When I call tech support, 90% of the time it's because something is wrong outside of my control, if it was in my control I would have fixed it already.
Seconded; it's also sometimes the case that it's dead hardware. The problem is when the script reader tries to force an "almost" situation into the flowchart, or when the script writer faces a situation not in the flowchart. ("Not using Windows" is the classic.)
Here's an example that recently unnecessarily pissed me off. The product was notthis flash drive from Think Geek, but one similar enough for illustrative purposes; let's call the manufacturer Foonly, since I don't think the actual company deserves their name attached to this anecdote. I bought a drive about six months ago, and it worked fine. Then, it randomly died, despite being carried around quite carefully in its little plastic case. (Less likely to lose than with the keychain hanger.) This sort of thing happens once in a while with flash drives. No big deal, just irritating.
So, I checked out the Foonly.com website, looking for a number for warranty replacement. After poking around in their self-help area (and being led in circles), I found a phone number for Foonly computer hardware support. The phone system there (a) put me on hold for half an hour, (b) finally connected me to someone that said their system had crashed and I should call back the next day, which (c) involved a second half-hour wait and (d) when I did get through, finally had someone tell me I had the wrong department, and that I should call Foonly Computer Media instead. So, I'm not in a good mood already when I reach the right department.
The script reader asks (with a slight tonal accent) if I'm using my Foonly computer (due to the previous call, no doubt) with the drive. I respond I don't own one of theirs. They ask what computer I am using. I cheerfully inform them that I've had the problem with my home Dell WinXP laptop, Shuttle Win2KPro mini-desktop, and LianLi/Gigabyte homebuilt Win2KServer; plus my work OS X.2 desktop, the OS X.4 desktop next to my office, the Win2K3 Supermicro server, Fedora 5 Supermicro x86 server, and Fedora 6 PPC server on the old G4 that was lying about. After a distinct pause from the other end from this list, I politely ask which of these machines the script tech would like to try to repeat the troubleshooting from.
After another pause, they elect (of course) the Windows XP laptop. I boot it up, log in, plug in the device, and get the cheerful "USB device not recognized" message wont to come from something that has fried it's self-identifying chip. There's a pause on the other end, in which I jump to the standard Microsoft Management Console and check the device manager; I mention that it's shown attatched as an "Unknown Device". After some thought (click, click, click), they ask if I've installed any software lately; I inform, just the regular Security patches on the Windows and Linux machines. The script person decides this is a way out, and insists that since my machine has trouble seeing the device, I should order an adapter from yet ANOTHER (toll-free) number. I ask if this is an adapter to change the USB adapter from the funny USB to a standard USB-A-Male connector; I'm told I should order one. I ask what makes her thinks this will fix the Mac problem, which has not had any software installed; I'm told I should order one....
I hang up; I note that the "adapter" information is on the web-based self-help troubleshooting guide, but for if the device is "not detected", as opposed to "not detected correctly". From morbid curiousity, I rustle around my box of SCSI adapters, Syquest drives, Elder Seals and other such, and pull out another company's bare-pin-USB-M to USB-A-M adapter from another manufacturer (which includes the adapter standard with its products). It fits. I test with the three machines at home. No effect; still d
I would make the argument, however, that a nanny-state society that takes freedom away from citizens is one where citizens are less likely to take their own life into their own hands in situations like this.
I believe your argument is erroneous, for you confuse correlation with causation. "Society" (like governments or "states") is an abstraction of an emergent phenomenon. It has no intrinsic reality of its own; it exists "only" as the cumulative beliefs and behaviors of the component people (with some incidental geophysical and climatological environmental contributions). While it's a useful conceptual approximation to think of it as a single coherent entity, you should bear in mind that it's "only a model."
"Freedom" is another ill-defined abstraction that can't really be "taken away" by society. Rather, society reacts in a punitive manner (through government sanction or social ostracization) when someone exercises that "freedom".
In the case of United States society and restriction on the Freedom to Bear Arms, ostracization doesn't seem your primary concern. Instead, action taken by the Government (which abstraction exists at local, state, and federal levels in legislative, executive, and judicial form) is the problem. Because the United States through means of the electoral process, the action of government approximates (imperfectly) the collective will of the constituent citizenry. That is to say, it regularly tries to take away guns because of a large component of the citizens that are too fearful of them, and doesn't want them widely available. When most individuals in society no longer believe that the real source of the danger is the possession of guns, they'll stop trying to ban them.
Play back the same crime in a different sociological group, say a group of kids at West Point [...]
Which all but epitomizes the implementation of my suggested solution to this. I reiterate my previous remark:
I know this post is old, so there's little chance of people reading this, but somebody needs to recap the gun argument.
No; it's been going on for decades, and your "recap" is no better than any other. Also, you're only recapping one side to boot; that I happen to agree with that side is irrelevant.
But all of us (and I speak as someone who lives close to VT) can put ourselves in those student's shoes. We can imagine being hunted down and killed while we wept, shaking against a wall. [...] But I undertsand that the purpose of gun ownership is to empower the citizen.
I can't imagine it, because I have a very different understanding of "empowerment". You've forgotten the lesson of Flight 93. Faced with this grade of psycho gunman, if I couldn't avoid him, I'd charge toward him. Yes, coming barehanded to a gunfight is dumb, but the choice of instrument is less important than the choice to act.
You want citizen empowerment? Teach them to stop cowering in fear.
Other weapons are defined as any instrument of combat or any object not designed as an instrument of combat but carried for the purpose of inflicting or threatening bodily injury.
[...] Students who store weapons in residence hall rooms [...] may face disciplinary action which may include suspension or dismissal from the university.
I suppose this is a lousy time to point out that technically they've banned the brick? Take apart those bookshelves, gang....
Alas, it's simpler to get rid of a weapon than an attitude.
Remember the SARS outbreak? About five people in Asia died from it and it was reported as a 'worldwide pandemic.'
Your other examples are better; The World Health Organization disagrees with your death count, and I heard it more described as a potential pandemic. I don't think you seem to grasp the full threat from the multi-century periodic epidemic outbreaks. They are the single greatest natural threat to humanity's precarious dominance on this planet. And as someone who heard first hand horror stories about the 1918 Flu from one of my great aunts, pandemics are no laughing matter; she went to Camp Devens to watch her older brother die, because the army doctors were overwhelmed and helpless. She didn't tell the stories often, and never before I turned twelve, but she felt it was an important part of the family history to pass on. Even so, I got the sense she was leaving worse horrors out.
Yes, SARS turned out to be a dud, and the media over-hyped the disaster... but if anything, they understated the possible danger. If SARS had been only a bit more effective at airborne transmission, it could easily have dropped the planet's population by a couple percent; if it had also been one of the rare more-deadly-than-not viruses, North Korea might have been in a good position to conquer China today.
Slashdot Mirror
In the early '80s, me and most of my friends had all mapped our school for Dungeons and Dragons.
Late '80s, Paranoia. Pretty accurate, aside from the entire school being underground and the access to Green-level clearance area (outdoors) required going through the (in joke) glass ceiling above the (non-existent) third-floor (nonexistent) swimming pool. Due to a personality quirk of one of the odder members of local geekdom, the local outdoors was overrun by nine-foot carnivorous supermutant squirrels; her character promptly joined the Sierra Club Secret Society. By the end of senior year, our characters had blown up every single room at some point with the exception of the Biology classroom, which had been sealed shut while being filled with a hideous green goo... and then erased from the computer's records. "Room? What room?"
I think the most dangerous-seeming three of us went on to (a) drop out of nuclear engineering to work in a deli, (b) become a professional clown, and (c) work for the US government as a I'M SORRY CITIZEN YOU ARE NOT CLEARED FOR THAT INFORMATION. TRUST THE COMPUTER. THE COMPUTER IS YOUR FRIEND. Harmless, really.
Send a male crew, with a hooker to take care of all their needs.
One with a degree in Psychiatry, perhaps. You could call the position "Ship's Counselor." And not to be sexist, but a female-dominant crew with a male Ship's Counselor might also work, given sufficient stamina. Of course, the article also mentions needing to deal with death, so bringing another along would be a logical measure to prevent someone going crazy enough to screw the dead hooker. Come to that, NASA traditionally uses triple redundancy systems when practical....
Slightly more seriously, a Psychiatrist or Sexologist (either with an MD) to cover such, er, duties(?) isn't completely insane. For long missions with limited crew, MDs are certainly one area where having some personnel overlap may be desirable. However, finding MD specialists comfortable with localized promiscuity and in sufficient health to handle astronaut training makes for a bit of a challenge. Starting with writing the job description.
How long before some company tries to cover up the embarrassment by suing the people who disclose the fact that they have machines infected with bots? They might not succeed, but they might make life unpleasant for a short while for those who post the info.
Probably a little while, since it would be monumentally stupid. The obvious first step for the sued is talk to a lawyer (IAmNotALawyer). Then, have their lawyer to get a judge to order preservation of the current system state on each of the suspected machines for third party forensic analysis, and incidentally subpoena all of their logs — a serious counter-hassle for the users at fault. Depositions from anyone who used the computer or was responsible for its maintenance would probably be obvious early requests in the disclosure part of the case.
Sarbanes-Oxley makes for some nasty requirements on IT security reporting. By threatening to sue the person disclosing, they give a third party reasonable grounds for subpoena of evidence (such as I mention) that may later be admissible for future criminial and civil charges against the company and its officers... and providing the third party motive to pass the evidence along to Federal regulators. Any company lawyer starting such a lawsuit should be fired for stupidity and disbarred for vexatious litigation, although the latter is likely to take longer.Doesn't Texas Law ("Sir, he was too dumb to let live.") apply in Utah?
I thought it was from one of the upper midwest states originally. The way I heard it, one of the State's senators shot and killed a man; he was brought up on charges, resigned, and conducted a pro se defense, arguing "He needed killin'." Successfully.
I thought it was Minnesota, but I may be getting that mixed up with the cheerful anecdote about the First National Bank in Northfield, where Jesse James lost most of his gang to civilian gunfire. It was over a hundred years before anyone tried robbing the bank again — with similar lack of success; the customers promptly tackled and subdued the gunman.
I know this man wasn't exactly our mascot, but can we please not celebrate the death of another human being? I'm not asking for a moment of silence or anything. I'm just saying that the man deserves some dignity. He was misguided, at least, but he was a human being.
I'm sorry if this comes as a surprise to you, but many of us on Slashdot are assholes, and honest enough to admit it to ourselves. Furthermore, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, there is a time and place for everything. I trust no-one here would disturb the mourners at the funeral, but for geeks everywhere, the end of his life merits at least a sigh of relief, and Slashdot is as ideal a forum for such as may be found.
Yes, a human being is dead. He doubtless had personal friends and family, and I feel some pity for the sense of loss they now experience. Losing someone is never easy. On the other hand, I never encountered the man in person. Instead, I encounter the DMCA he championed, the copyright extensions he supported, and the diminishing recognition of the "fair use" he disbelieved in. For those who interacted him as human being, feel free to mourn. For those who love humanity for its own sake, his life was long and rich, and with less to mourn in its ending than thousands who die each day across the face of the world. But for those of us who have only interacted with his legacy as a tool of corporate power, some may choose to celebrate, for having outlived the man, we have a better hope of outliving his ideas.
On the other hand, his ideas are thriving, so there's not all that much to celebrate. Ding, dong, the witch is dead... now, get back to work . There's still a DMCA.
I mean, this is a private organization doing this, not local police or the FBI as part of some larger investigation, so I imagine the suit would have to be civil, rather than criminal. They might have a harder time doing this than they realize.
On the other hand from what I(AmNotALawyer) understand, a civil suit needs only prove wrongdoing by preponderance of evidence, as opposed to beyond reasonable doubt; that is, you only need to prove that they probably did it, rather than almost certainly. It also has the possibility to increase the "expected" costs of such scum, which may shift the supply curve and reduce the spam level. (Alas, we're talking about a non-exclusive good, so the typical supply-demand model isn't very good. But one may hope.)
Also, a civil suit does not preclude later criminal charges.
It wasn't until Carter's Treasury Dept. folks decided to change how taxation was going to apply to religious private schools in the south that this particular voting block switched sides overnight. This resulted in the Republicans being saddled with the religious right and forever screwing up the right wing and American politics.
That does not follow. Even if we stipulate for this argument that your identified lynchpin did result in the then-democratic voting incipient "religious right" (hereafter "theocrats") to abandon the Democrats. However, it was purely the fault of the Republicans that they accepted this albatross in hopes of building a lasting power base. As a Democrat, Carter did the right thing to chase these whackos out of his party; the sensible thing would have been to let the organization wither and decay, like Segregationists and the Bull Moose Populist parties have. But no, the Republicans were too desperate and wanted to quickly overcome the distrust from Nixon, Agnew, and Ford too soon.
This is your fault. You held your nose and kissed 'em, and let politics make strange bedfellows, and if you haven't the stomach for a divorce by now (even despite the up-front pain and cost) then that's COMPLETELY your own fscking fault.
(I also suspect, but cannot prove, that you misidentify the key split point. I think the faction split was started when the Dixiecrats lost the desegregation fight and started bailing — there are enough common players that it looks fishy. However, that just may be co-locallity of the time frame of political involvement, and the need to take one side or another. Still, a lot of people who chose poorly are still far too prominent and too far whack.)
However, if I am sitting in a private room behind a known mafia front shop with ten gangsters at 4:00 am and there's a corpse laying in the corner, you are probably safe in assuming that I am a gangster.
Of course, in this case, there is no corpse, just a lot of allegedly suspicious red coloring.
Others may now have fun further extending this metaphor beyond all reasonable scope.
Potential customers cannot easily measure quality, but can readily see who has the lowest price, so they usually make their decisions on price alone.
Naive potential customers can't. However, the general consensus in this area that the Cable is cheaper for the same speed levels, but the downtime over the last five years has averaged about ten times higher, including regular multi-day outages. This is easily discovered with even the slightest effort at research. The local university Mac support mailing list regularly turns into a gripe session/reliability comparison every time the local Cable modem service craps out and the local Telco DSL doesn't. The IT support professionals' mail list only gives it passing mention, since this is the expected state of the world, but it's nice to be warned that your users will be complaining. The university IT department's page listing local non-university high speed services very clearly mentions but "does not recommend" the local CableCo offering. The U. Bookstore, local white box and repair shops, BestBuy, CircuitCity, Staples, the local wireless-equipped coffee shops, and any other retail outlet with a geek on staff all are quick to mention the reliability issue.
Now, for a college grad student on a lentils-and-ramen budget who lives within walking distance of the University's highly reliable network, the savings can easily allow for another case of beer per month (or more), in exchange for the occasional walk of a few blocks with their laptop. Furthermore, since the cable ISP problems are usually related to the summer thunderstorms, it's even less of a risk than first glance would suggest. So, for a large market segment hereabouts, even when informed, the tradeoff is acceptable.
On the other hand, for telecommuters, serious IT geeks, students who really hate the public computer labs, and anyone with no patience for a company that can't figure out there's an area problem until forty people call in at the same time saying their internet has been down for the last three days... DSL is the way to go.
It's not just a question of competition and imperfect information; it's a question of different quality offerings, since the market has a non-uniform demand curve for reliability.
If I am reading the summary and the article correctly and if your wirless network is open and bad stuff is traced to it, there is probable cause for obtaining and sharing that evidence in court. It weighs against you. But if you can show you were in the middle of a wilderness trip when illegal stuff was downloaded, I doubt you will be found guilty.
Not quite.
What this is saying is that if they trace the network traffic to your IP, that's grounds for a search of the physical premises. It doesn't matter that your open WAP meant the original traffic could have been someone else; it's reasonable to suspect it could have come from you. Further, as I(AmNotALawyer) understand the matter, any evidence they find within the limits of the warrant's search may be used as evidence against you, even if unrelated to the suspected crime forming the original basis for the (reasonable) grounds for search. Thus, if based on a suspicion of kiddie porn, they had a warrant for search-and-seizure of all computer storage, and they find a CD labeled (and indeed containing) "ST0LEN CR3DIT CARD NUMBERZ", you wouldn't be able to object that they didn't have probably cause for a search (although might have slim grounds for objecting to an overbroad search). At that point, they only need to link you to the physical evidence they've found, not to the specific offense that started the investigation.
As a non-IT example, imagine a warrant issued to search your premises for drugs, based on neighbor complaints about persistent odors of marijuana smoke. It doesn't matter that the original grounds for the search was your roommate smoking weed while you were out of town, if they find five kilos of cocaine packed in Ziplock bags with your fingerprints and stashed in your bedroom. You're still busted on a drug charge.
Of course, if the warrant says "computer media", and they come across the five kilos while ripping apart your mattress, that might not be admissible... but your lawyer will earn his pay keeping you out of jail.
So remember kiddies:
No, I was thinking something a little more old-fashioned.
The stupid housing community I'm currently renting in keeps trying to grow grass in places that really don't want grass, using the usual massive seed-fertilize-water approach. They dumped some seed and overfertilized again this morning; I spread six cans of wildflower seed into the area while they were at lunch break. I have high hopes for colorful ground cover this time. =)
Y'see, my contract said his claim became null and void if such a post ever got so modded. Now, as long as it's still +5 at midnight, he also has to throw in a great boxed set of stake knives.
What is the code number for "Martian Invasion"?
Oh, and don't forget the superstition that having sex with a virgin will cure a man of AIDS.
And now, a most politically incorrect observation: Barring the development of an effective cure within the next decade or so, societies with large memberships that believe such superstitions will have their populations implode, with the culture likely to follow. This may be thought of a evolution in action: the trait of reliance on a non-scientific worldview is detrimental to survival in a globally-connected environment with urban populations. (The genetic mutation granting AIDS immunity may limit this; however, that gene does not seem to be as common in Africa as in Europe.)
Now, can we induce the "intelligent design" Christian fundamentalists to self-exterminate via something similar?
Even if you view humans as trained monkey, it's really comparing:
A) a human trained humans to do X, vs
B) a human trained monkeys to do X.
First, there's another remark which notes the observation of prostitution in bonobos, without the human introduction of economic concepts. Second, there were several behaviors (like the scramble for washers and prostitution) that the researchers did not train for, but emerged as a logical consequence of the introduction of the concept of "money". And third, your objection of "training" might be readily overcome if the monkeys are able to pass the ideas along to other monkey tribe members.
I'd be curious find out if the monkeys could handle the idea of different types of washers having different values, not necessarily related to size. EG: one big silver washer is worth two small silver washers, one big copper washer is worth two big silver washers, and one small copper washer is worth two big copper washers. (Prompted by an incident at the local comic shop, where the cashier offered to trade a dime to a three year old boy for his shiny penny. The boy turned town her offer — a monkey that needs more training.)
Proof positive that it's the oldest profession?
Depends how you define "profession", I suppose. It does suggest that prostitution seems to develop pretty quickly after the conceptual introduction of the idea of "trade", and perhaps some medium of exchange. The more abstract "trader" is likely to predate it, since the conceptual leap of trading something desirable for something desirable in a different manner is not required; trading grapes for bananas or some suchmay have come first. However, Prostitution thus seems likely to be the oldest professional specialization.
Doesn't it kind of scare you how much people on Slashdot know about assault weapons?
No.
There are usually other tools more suitable to solving problems. Since most Slashdotters have high conceptual flexibility (if not outright ADHD), they won't merely fixate on the first possible solution they encounter. It takes a different kind of monomania to be dangerous than the sort that scream "VI!" "EMACS!" "VI!" "EMACS!" at each other — those recognize the possibility of another viewpoint, they merely think the other viewpoint is idiotic. It's the ones with narrow vision who can ever only see one course of action being possible that you need to fear.
Let's then say that 1 out of 10 decide not to buy, and instead... well, it really doesn't matter what instead, as Sony has already lost their money.
My wallet votes for a nice old-fashioned dead tree edition book.
When I call tech support, 90% of the time it's because something is wrong outside of my control, if it was in my control I would have fixed it already.
Seconded; it's also sometimes the case that it's dead hardware. The problem is when the script reader tries to force an "almost" situation into the flowchart, or when the script writer faces a situation not in the flowchart. ("Not using Windows" is the classic.)
Here's an example that recently unnecessarily pissed me off. The product was not this flash drive from Think Geek, but one similar enough for illustrative purposes; let's call the manufacturer Foonly, since I don't think the actual company deserves their name attached to this anecdote. I bought a drive about six months ago, and it worked fine. Then, it randomly died, despite being carried around quite carefully in its little plastic case. (Less likely to lose than with the keychain hanger.) This sort of thing happens once in a while with flash drives. No big deal, just irritating.
So, I checked out the Foonly.com website, looking for a number for warranty replacement. After poking around in their self-help area (and being led in circles), I found a phone number for Foonly computer hardware support. The phone system there (a) put me on hold for half an hour, (b) finally connected me to someone that said their system had crashed and I should call back the next day, which (c) involved a second half-hour wait and (d) when I did get through, finally had someone tell me I had the wrong department, and that I should call Foonly Computer Media instead. So, I'm not in a good mood already when I reach the right department.
The script reader asks (with a slight tonal accent) if I'm using my Foonly computer (due to the previous call, no doubt) with the drive. I respond I don't own one of theirs. They ask what computer I am using. I cheerfully inform them that I've had the problem with my home Dell WinXP laptop, Shuttle Win2KPro mini-desktop, and LianLi/Gigabyte homebuilt Win2KServer; plus my work OS X.2 desktop, the OS X.4 desktop next to my office, the Win2K3 Supermicro server, Fedora 5 Supermicro x86 server, and Fedora 6 PPC server on the old G4 that was lying about. After a distinct pause from the other end from this list, I politely ask which of these machines the script tech would like to try to repeat the troubleshooting from.
After another pause, they elect (of course) the Windows XP laptop. I boot it up, log in, plug in the device, and get the cheerful "USB device not recognized" message wont to come from something that has fried it's self-identifying chip. There's a pause on the other end, in which I jump to the standard Microsoft Management Console and check the device manager; I mention that it's shown attatched as an "Unknown Device". After some thought (click, click, click), they ask if I've installed any software lately; I inform, just the regular Security patches on the Windows and Linux machines. The script person decides this is a way out, and insists that since my machine has trouble seeing the device, I should order an adapter from yet ANOTHER (toll-free) number. I ask if this is an adapter to change the USB adapter from the funny USB to a standard USB-A-Male connector; I'm told I should order one. I ask what makes her thinks this will fix the Mac problem, which has not had any software installed; I'm told I should order one....
I hang up; I note that the "adapter" information is on the web-based self-help troubleshooting guide, but for if the device is "not detected", as opposed to "not detected correctly". From morbid curiousity, I rustle around my box of SCSI adapters, Syquest drives, Elder Seals and other such, and pull out another company's bare-pin-USB-M to USB-A-M adapter from another manufacturer (which includes the adapter standard with its products). It fits. I test with the three machines at home. No effect; still d
Professor Liviu Librescu, holocaust survivor and hero. I suspect his background long ago taught him the importance of facing evil directly.
I would make the argument, however, that a nanny-state society that takes freedom away from citizens is one where citizens are less likely to take their own life into their own hands in situations like this.
I believe your argument is erroneous, for you confuse correlation with causation. "Society" (like governments or "states") is an abstraction of an emergent phenomenon. It has no intrinsic reality of its own; it exists "only" as the cumulative beliefs and behaviors of the component people (with some incidental geophysical and climatological environmental contributions). While it's a useful conceptual approximation to think of it as a single coherent entity, you should bear in mind that it's "only a model."
"Freedom" is another ill-defined abstraction that can't really be "taken away" by society. Rather, society reacts in a punitive manner (through government sanction or social ostracization) when someone exercises that "freedom".
In the case of United States society and restriction on the Freedom to Bear Arms, ostracization doesn't seem your primary concern. Instead, action taken by the Government (which abstraction exists at local, state, and federal levels in legislative, executive, and judicial form) is the problem. Because the United States through means of the electoral process, the action of government approximates (imperfectly) the collective will of the constituent citizenry. That is to say, it regularly tries to take away guns because of a large component of the citizens that are too fearful of them, and doesn't want them widely available. When most individuals in society no longer believe that the real source of the danger is the possession of guns, they'll stop trying to ban them.
Play back the same crime in a different sociological group, say a group of kids at West Point [...]
Which all but epitomizes the implementation of my suggested solution to this. I reiterate my previous remark:
Teach them to stop cowering in fear.
I know this post is old, so there's little chance of people reading this, but somebody needs to recap the gun argument.
No; it's been going on for decades, and your "recap" is no better than any other. Also, you're only recapping one side to boot; that I happen to agree with that side is irrelevant.
But all of us (and I speak as someone who lives close to VT) can put ourselves in those student's shoes. We can imagine being hunted down and killed while we wept, shaking against a wall. [...] But I undertsand that the purpose of gun ownership is to empower the citizen.
I can't imagine it, because I have a very different understanding of "empowerment". You've forgotten the lesson of Flight 93. Faced with this grade of psycho gunman, if I couldn't avoid him, I'd charge toward him. Yes, coming barehanded to a gunfight is dumb, but the choice of instrument is less important than the choice to act.
You want citizen empowerment? Teach them to stop cowering in fear.
Other weapons are defined as any instrument of combat or any object not designed as an instrument of combat but carried for the purpose of inflicting or threatening bodily injury. [...] Students who store weapons in residence hall rooms [...] may face disciplinary action which may include suspension or dismissal from the university.
I suppose this is a lousy time to point out that technically they've banned the brick? Take apart those bookshelves, gang....
Alas, it's simpler to get rid of a weapon than an attitude.
Remember the SARS outbreak? About five people in Asia died from it and it was reported as a 'worldwide pandemic.'
Your other examples are better; The World Health Organization disagrees with your death count, and I heard it more described as a potential pandemic. I don't think you seem to grasp the full threat from the multi-century periodic epidemic outbreaks. They are the single greatest natural threat to humanity's precarious dominance on this planet. And as someone who heard first hand horror stories about the 1918 Flu from one of my great aunts, pandemics are no laughing matter; she went to Camp Devens to watch her older brother die, because the army doctors were overwhelmed and helpless. She didn't tell the stories often, and never before I turned twelve, but she felt it was an important part of the family history to pass on. Even so, I got the sense she was leaving worse horrors out.
Yes, SARS turned out to be a dud, and the media over-hyped the disaster... but if anything, they understated the possible danger. If SARS had been only a bit more effective at airborne transmission, it could easily have dropped the planet's population by a couple percent; if it had also been one of the rare more-deadly-than-not viruses, North Korea might have been in a good position to conquer China today.