You do realize the irony in your post is that you too posted virtually the same sort of annecdotal evidence, except without the specific annecdote, right? Just because you proclaim something doesn't make it true... in fact, a good ol' annecdote would have given your assertion a bit more weight...otherwise you could have sited materials used or specific, stated design philosophy from IBM. But alas, you chose the ironic route and didn't do anything of the sort.
Follow some links and find:
This could be used to DoS innocent victims.
That's the point of the blacklist. A site doesn't get pounded simply by being mentioned in a spam. It has to be mentioned in a spam and be on the blacklist.
And blacklisting is never wrong? I see DoS'ing someone as a digital analogy to the death penalty...before you do it as punsihment, you damn well better be sure you've got the right person...
iCal 1.5.1 is easier and faster use with its enhanced Info Drawer
No it's not.
I really don't see the value in having a "drawer" that isn't always attached to the primary (calendar) window but is there often enough that I have to keep that main window smaller in order to see the drawer when it is there. The alternative is to move the window because the drawer appears all but off-screen when I double click on any item/appointment in the calendar. (it used to bring up a small window that could be moved/resized inpendent of the main window.) I don't see the UI wisdom in forcing this on people -- there's no pref. to use to old windowing style and that is a real flaw, IMHO.
You cut out one of the biggest wins of the iPod and you also cut out one of the biggest reasons for the price difference. In electronics, if you want it smaller, you pay more. So, what should you do? I can't answer that for you because you've already shown that you don't think like me (I'm not saying that's bad or good, just different)...you've ignored the thing that I think makes the iPod worth the extra money... but, that's just my opinion...so I suppose, if it doesn't matter to you (size that is) go for the Zen...if you like how it sounds, as that's the second big win of the iPod and most important thing (to me) is cost...and that's where the Zen wins...so go for it.
The biggest companies in the world still use them heavily, and as long as those companies still want the machines (they still do as their programs already run on them, and do so quite well), IBM et al will NEVER discontinue them.
You know, this poster may almost be right... when things get entrenched, they have amazing staying power (if that isn't almost a circular statement...). A really good example is punch cards. Yes. Punch cards. Look at airline tickets/boarding passes. They're the size/shape that they are because they are, in fact, punch card stock and have been since way back. When a technology/system is embraced by business, it tends to stay longer than anyone ever would have thought it would.
"Now, we're not talking about things like heart rate and respiration here, although those are observed. We're talking about things like galvanic skin response, which basically measures how sweaty you are at a very fine level of detail. These are not things you can change with rhythmic breathing or whatever. They are beyond your conscious and autonomic nervous systems and into the realm of physiological response."
How about you stop right there and go and read up a bit more. Galvanic skin responses can be ellicited by *a lot* of conciously controlled actions. If you take a sudden, strong sniff of air, for example, you'll see a really big GSR. That's an easy one. Also, btw, GSR *is* an autonomic response. If you doubt me on either of these two points, go ahead and read the recently published report on the scientific basis for the polygraphby the National Academies of Science. You can find it online and read it for free.
I fail to grasp what, specifically you're saying I'm wrong about or how it affects my original point that the original poster was failing to correctly apply a previously thought up witticism.
I grant that your explanation is accurate but what I fail to see is how that contradicts what I've said in the least. I totally agree, Adobe is a near monopoly in some areas, but that isn't applicable to the either the original or secondary points made by other posters in this thread. How does being a monopoly alter the fact that as you produce more units, the share of the fixed costs, per unit, drops? It doesn't.
What you're talking about is Adobe's optimal revenue strategy and what sort of strategy they can/should adopt for maximal profit. I agree, you're right, but you're not on topic. If you want to debate economics, I'm sure you'll probably win, but where you lack seems to be your ability to follow arguments and make them yourself. So, quit the dick measuring contest here and try to follow the line of arguments before you jump in and make a tangential point, please.
Okay, so I looked at the A/C comment again, and I see their point about support costs rising as more units are sold is somewhat correct, however, I still claim that this is a minimal cost that can be factored in as a per-unit cost...nevertheless, this cost should drop, per unit, as the number of units rises. Imagine if you will the cost of supporting 1 user vs. 5 users 5 users will not cost 5x as much unless it actually requires a full time employee to support 1 user. So, let's be generous and say that the average support cost is $15 per unit (realistically, unless you've written shit software, most people rarely, if ever use live support resources -- note, the non-live support resources, such as web-faq's more closely resemble fixed costs, not per-unit costs, inasmuch as the major cost is the development of the faq/web interface/etc., not the hosting/bandwidth if one already hosts a website, though this can be argued, I guess).
So, being generous, it looks like a reasonable guess for the ammount of per-unit costs is around $20, before fixed costs are broken down and added to the unit-cost. That still supports my claim that the original poster was just wrong in his/her witty comment, funny though it was.
You conveniently forget about the cost of office space in central San Jose, who knows how many programmers, project managers, marketing types and all the support infrastructure that goes with it.
Actually, no, I didn't forget about all that. All of those things are fixed costs. Those costs *do not* increase as more copies of the exact same product ship. In no way whatsoever did I imply that the cost of software is only the cost of the media, manuals, shipping, etc. The neat thing about those fixed costs is that as the number of copies of a software release approaches infinity, the per copy cost for development approaches $0. That is to say, the more copies you sell, the less the development cost per copy sold is.
It's a fantasy called economics. You should check it out sometime.
For this to be an example of losing money on every sale, there'd have to be some huge cost associated with each unit produced, rather than huge fixed costs (i.e. software development). Where's the huge cost in selling a unit of Photoshop or Premiere? You know, those manual cost a lot to print...nope...how about the pressing of another CD? nope. I'm sorry, what you said is witty and all, but it's just plain wrong. A case where your witty remarkwould apply would be something like a piece of hardware that costs more in parts & labor to build each individual/additional unit than one of those units sells for. There is no such case when it comes to a software. The per-unit cost is probably around $4.00 for the pressing of CD's and printing/packaging materials. The real cost is in the development & testing...all of that does not increase based on the number of units sold.
So, while I'm all for funny comments, yours is just wrongly applied, Duck_Taffy.
-t
Re:Games changing sense of reality == bad
on
Law and Virtual Worlds
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
In the real world, you can spend a lot of money and time producing something that is worth much less (if anything at all) than the resources you put into it.
Why do people continue to believe that the things they arguably "create" online have a value equivalent to the amount of time and money they put into producing them?
There's also a real-world term called "replacement cost" which is often used in place of fair market value when one is talking about the worth of something.
Inasmuch as it would take a huge ammount of someone's time to replicate their character without violating the rules of the game system (such as getting an admin to re-create a character to some specification) it has a high value when you're talking about replacement cost. As for fair market value, that's another question... either way, I fear that you have missed the distinction between replacement cost (often used by insurance companies as an excuse to charge you more for your policy if you want it) vs. fair market value (often used by insurance companies in order to give you less when you file a claim;-) )
My take on it was that opwierde, like me, is on the thinkgeek email promotion list and got the email pimping this watch within the last day or so and figured he/she would grab some slashdot fame by submitting it...and look what happened...it worked.
-tcp
FWIW, I'm in the heart of Chicago and I've got (at times) as many as 10 machines hidden safely behind a NAT enabled Linksys router. No MAC address spoofing was required when I set it up and, btw, you don't need the extra software to do the basic setup. OS X has PPPoE support built in and it works fine on its own for SBC DSL, if you're doing the single computer setup.
When some complicated component breaks, whatever controls it will tell us. If that breaks, whatever controls IT will tell us.
This idea may hold some value except that it seems to be predicated upon the idea that when something breaks, it fails completely, outright. With computing hardware, that is often not the case. A prime example of this idea is the damage done by electrostatic discharges. Take a look at this quickly googled page for a brief explanation of non-catastrophic failures caused by ESD. In brief:
"An upset failure occurs when an electrostatic discharge has caused a current flow that is not significant enough to cause total failure, but in use may intermittently result in gate leakage causing loss of software or incorrect storage of information."
As it stands now, very few systems are designed to control for those sort of intermitent, non-catastrophic failures. Therefore, it's unlikely that the method of fault protection that you mention will actually prevent the strange sorts of buggy errors that some might label as "neurotic".
There's a lot of pseudo-science out there, especially with regards to the polygraph and other lie-detection methods, so becareful about what you trust.
One excellent and scientifically trustworthy source for polygraph information is from a committee put together by the National Academy of Sciences to study the scientific validity of the polygraph and related lie-detection methodologies, both in the lab and out in the real world. If you want to read the report, you can find it online through the NAS's publishing website.
Another excellent work on the uses and abuses of the polygraph is a
book by David Lykken called "A Tremor in the Blood". Lykken is a well respected researcher in the field of physiological detection of deception, and has spent a lot of time trying to bring to light the troubling science behind the polygraph.
In regards to not participating in Social Security, can you cite a source? I'm not saying I don't believe it, but I'd like something more than the word of an AC on/.
Anyway, while some companies may deny services if you decline to give them your SSN, there are some restrictions on its uses. For more information check out privacyrights.org.
It's damn cold for the "information brokers" to freely trade in the most intimate personal information about you that they've gleaned/compiled/extracted.
Just a thought here... If you consider your SSN, age, address or even specific birthdate to be "intimate personal information" then you've been under a rock or are living in a fantasy world. The fact of the matter is that the SSN has been used and abused to such a point that it is unsafe to think of it as a private piece of information in any way other than an ideal sort of sense. Same thing goes with your birthdate, address, etc.
This point is illustrated by just how quick most people are to turn over their "personal information" , such as a SSN or birthdate, when asked for it by anyone from a gas-company customer-service phone-rep all the way to doctors offices and insurance agents. If something is so intimate and personal, then why are people so willing to give it out to anyone that asks? The fact of the matter is, in the case of a SSN, the only place it's legally required is in certain financial and employment situations. In all other cases, you have the legal right to decline to give that information...but most people don't.
As such, things like the SSN, here in America, have become simply publicly held bits of data that act as tokens to identify individuals in the sea of individuals. In many ways, a SSN is no more personal than a name, at least judging by the way its used.
I'll grant that a lot the current state of affairs comes from the very type of activities that the ruling in question deals with. That does not change the fact that many pieces of information that were once much more "private" are no longer that way in reality. I'll also admit that there is a whole additional realm of personal information that is still personal and that information brokers seek to collect and sell...and that covers such things as shopping or travel habits. Most people still seem to guard that data fairly closely and it still seems to be "private" in nature...but that too is likely to change.
In the end, no ammount of information control can make up for a lack of good-will or a scewed sense of morality (whatever you define that to be). Suing the information brokers for contributing to the death of that poor woman seems to be only getting at an intermediate variable (and one with big pockets) rather than focusing on the primary cause of the woman's death...that is, the person who stalked her and killed her.
Anti-virus companies have a huge conflict of interest in that they sell 'protection' against anonymously produced virus threats. These, and firewall producers, are precisely the same companies that benefit the most from malware and network-borne threats of all kinds.
That same claim can (and has) been leveled against the defense and intelligence industry for some time now. If we don't believe there to be a threat, then we (any given 'we') will not pay for a defense against that (non) threat. The point you make, however valid, isn't really all that new.
I'm not in any way trying to flame you, however...I'm just pointing it out because it seems interesting to see how once again it's the same old story (life, that is) with a new wrapper on it.
There's a lot of pseudo-science out there, especially with regards to the polygraph and other lie-detection methods, you're right.
Recently, however, there was a committee put together by the National Academy of Sciences to study the scientific validity of the polygraph and related lie-detection methodologies, both in the lab and out in the real world. If you want to read the report, you can find it online through the NAS's publishing website.
As for what the report says about micro-expressions (from page 164), it notes that previous studies of micro-expression detection were able to achieve rates of up to 75% accuracy, far better than chance. It goes on to note that such methods, at the time of the report's writing, were labor intensive but that recent work in automating the process held promise. It seems that this new AI work is showing that promise to be well founded.
While 75% accuracy is good, it is nowhere near what would be needed in a diagnostic tool. Even 95% accuracy isn't good. (Note, according to signal detection theory, we really should be talking about percentages of false positives and false negatives, but I digress; let's assume the accuracy works the same for both error types.) 95% accuracy would mean that for every 100 truthful people interviewed, 5 would be judged as liars. For every 1,000 people, 50. Inasmuch as such false positives can ruin lives, careers, marriages, reputations, etc., that rate is too high. Likewise, if 5 out of 100 liars slip through, that isn't a test I feel confident using for national security concerns. Even "good science" needs to be damned good to fill the shoes made for the "lie-detector".
While I think that you raise a bunch of good points, I must raise one issue.
Polygraphs have not, in fact, been "barred" from the courtroom as evidence. Rather, they're not regarded as credible evidence, i.e., a polygraph examiner is not treated as an expert witness in regards to the matters of the diagnostics of truth telling. Interestingly, polygraphs can and often are used as evidence in grand jury considerations regarding possible indictments.
Where polygraphs truly have been barred is in the employee screening process for most industries/private firms. This was done by an act of congress in the late 1980's ( Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988). Of course, the government excluded itself from such prohibitions.
Okay, so my website is hosted by the university that I attend, so I suppose the package deal (including room and board) isn't that bad...I mean, I get a BA out of it in the end as well!
-tcp
fool. the problem isn't that open networks allow people to spam. your cited problem was that your IT department insufficiently configured their mail servers to deny, as you said, "untrusted" servers.
First, if you're going to make an ass of yourself, have some spine and don't do it as an AC.
this is precisely the problem. people are usually of one of two mindsets in this regard. either they want to limit inherent functionality of the network to preclude undesired use, or they understand that undesired use is inevitable and you simply have to protect yourself as necessary.
Actually, if you had bothered to really consider my comment, you'd have grasped that I am of the mind that *both* mindsets are worthwhile.
If you offer network/internet connectivity, you have a responsibility to try to make it as tight as possible. You don't set up an open mail relay, blah, blah, blah.
Now, as per my previous statement, you need to assume that the network you're connected to (that is, the internet) is insecure and that you *will* face such things as spam or DOS attacks and whatnot coming from outside your boundry router. For that reason, the position that you advocate is indeed also worthwhile.
Protect your network, sure, but the most you can do is stop it when it gets to your network. That's still load on your connection to the outside network or a load on your mail servers...etc.
Re:Always this argument...
on
The Wireless City
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The few who see it as a wilderness, full of abuse and crime and desparados checking for weakness tend to sell computer security services.
You've never had your email address harvested by a spammer, have you? Through a security flaw in my University's content sharing arrangement with another university, many many email addresses were harvested and spammed bigtime. The dramatic increase in mail volume caused problems for our mail servers...nothing that the IT folks couldn't handle but it was a problem.
That kind of thing is the simplest example of abuse of the internet.
The notion that the internet isn't actually an insecure, unsafe network that should, by its very nature be "untrusted" unless secured is a dangerous one. Just because you haven't had a problem yet doesn't mean that you won't.
A free wireless connection to the internet means that someone with a laptop could sit out there and gerate millions of spams and never be traced back to anything more than a (likely spoofed) MAC address. The only way to stop that from happening is through thoughtful design and good network practices. IMHO, that includes exgress filtering on the network to prevent excessive spam...
First, MacAndrew, I want to say that, in my opinion, you make a number of good points in your post above...but (and we all knew this was coming), I need to take issue with a bit of your reasoning/argument.
Even the usually benign HPV does not technically cause cervical cancer, it is risk factor for it.
So, what then, is the cause of cervical cancer? There isn't a cause and that was what I was trying to get at. When discussing the "causes" of cancer, all you are left with, in even the best understood cases, are a series of mutations which led to (or allowed) unchecked growth of tissue within the body.
As for assigning causal responsibility, that's difficult. Was it the first in the requisite six (or three or ten) mutations that caused the cancer...or was it the last? In such a multi-layered causal system where one specific thing does not act as a sufficient anticedent for cancer development, what you're left with is essentially a cascade of problematic events, when taken together, lead to cancer developing but when looked at individually cannot be said to cause cancer.
So, my point is, when you said that viruses don't cause many cancers, you were, in a lot of ways making an unclear statement. There have been a number of cases where viruses have been clearly linked to an increased rate of cancer development...that's what you could call contributory-causality, if you like, but in all those cases (as you point out in the second post), the virus isn't required for the cancer to develop, and even if the virus is present, it doesn't mean that cancer is sure to follow. Does that mean that, in the cases where a virus is shown to contribute substantially to the chance of developing cancer, that the virus isn't the cause or a cause? I think, rather, it argues for the idea that the virus could be called a cause as much as anything else could be called a cause.
MacAndrew, you seem to know a bit about this kinda stuff, so please, if you could, what's the difference between a risk factor and a cause, when speaking about cancer? I think it's important to get the terms straight here so that we're making sense to eachother. (I'm honestly curious. My previous post was modded down as being flame-bait and I really didn't intend it to be viewed as such...same goes for this post.
Slashdot Mirror
You do realize the irony in your post is that you too posted virtually the same sort of annecdotal evidence, except without the specific annecdote, right? Just because you proclaim something doesn't make it true... in fact, a good ol' annecdote would have given your assertion a bit more weight...otherwise you could have sited materials used or specific, stated design philosophy from IBM. But alas, you chose the ironic route and didn't do anything of the sort.
And blacklisting is never wrong? I see DoS'ing someone as a digital analogy to the death penalty...before you do it as punsihment, you damn well better be sure you've got the right person...
No it's not.
I really don't see the value in having a "drawer" that isn't always attached to the primary (calendar) window but is there often enough that I have to keep that main window smaller in order to see the drawer when it is there. The alternative is to move the window because the drawer appears all but off-screen when I double click on any item/appointment in the calendar. (it used to bring up a small window that could be moved/resized inpendent of the main window.) I don't see the UI wisdom in forcing this on people -- there's no pref. to use to old windowing style and that is a real flaw, IMHO.
-tcp
You cut out one of the biggest wins of the iPod and you also cut out one of the biggest reasons for the price difference. In electronics, if you want it smaller, you pay more. So, what should you do? I can't answer that for you because you've already shown that you don't think like me (I'm not saying that's bad or good, just different)...you've ignored the thing that I think makes the iPod worth the extra money... but, that's just my opinion...so I suppose, if it doesn't matter to you (size that is) go for the Zen...if you like how it sounds, as that's the second big win of the iPod and most important thing (to me) is cost...and that's where the Zen wins...so go for it.
You know, this poster may almost be right... when things get entrenched, they have amazing staying power (if that isn't almost a circular statement...). A really good example is punch cards. Yes. Punch cards. Look at airline tickets/boarding passes. They're the size/shape that they are because they are, in fact, punch card stock and have been since way back. When a technology/system is embraced by business, it tends to stay longer than anyone ever would have thought it would.
How about you stop right there and go and read up a bit more. Galvanic skin responses can be ellicited by *a lot* of conciously controlled actions. If you take a sudden, strong sniff of air, for example, you'll see a really big GSR. That's an easy one. Also, btw, GSR *is* an autonomic response. If you doubt me on either of these two points, go ahead and read the recently published report on the scientific basis for the polygraphby the National Academies of Science. You can find it online and read it for free.
I grant that your explanation is accurate but what I fail to see is how that contradicts what I've said in the least. I totally agree, Adobe is a near monopoly in some areas, but that isn't applicable to the either the original or secondary points made by other posters in this thread. How does being a monopoly alter the fact that as you produce more units, the share of the fixed costs, per unit, drops? It doesn't.
What you're talking about is Adobe's optimal revenue strategy and what sort of strategy they can/should adopt for maximal profit. I agree, you're right, but you're not on topic. If you want to debate economics, I'm sure you'll probably win, but where you lack seems to be your ability to follow arguments and make them yourself. So, quit the dick measuring contest here and try to follow the line of arguments before you jump in and make a tangential point, please.
So, being generous, it looks like a reasonable guess for the ammount of per-unit costs is around $20, before fixed costs are broken down and added to the unit-cost. That still supports my claim that the original poster was just wrong in his/her witty comment, funny though it was.
Actually, no, I didn't forget about all that. All of those things are fixed costs. Those costs *do not* increase as more copies of the exact same product ship. In no way whatsoever did I imply that the cost of software is only the cost of the media, manuals, shipping, etc. The neat thing about those fixed costs is that as the number of copies of a software release approaches infinity, the per copy cost for development approaches $0. That is to say, the more copies you sell, the less the development cost per copy sold is.
It's a fantasy called economics. You should check it out sometime.
For this to be an example of losing money on every sale, there'd have to be some huge cost associated with each unit produced, rather than huge fixed costs (i.e. software development). Where's the huge cost in selling a unit of Photoshop or Premiere? You know, those manual cost a lot to print...nope...how about the pressing of another CD? nope. I'm sorry, what you said is witty and all, but it's just plain wrong. A case where your witty remarkwould apply would be something like a piece of hardware that costs more in parts & labor to build each individual/additional unit than one of those units sells for. There is no such case when it comes to a software. The per-unit cost is probably around $4.00 for the pressing of CD's and printing/packaging materials. The real cost is in the development & testing...all of that does not increase based on the number of units sold.
So, while I'm all for funny comments, yours is just wrongly applied, Duck_Taffy.
-t
Why do people continue to believe that the things they arguably "create" online have a value equivalent to the amount of time and money they put into producing them?
There's also a real-world term called "replacement cost" which is often used in place of fair market value when one is talking about the worth of something.
Inasmuch as it would take a huge ammount of someone's time to replicate their character without violating the rules of the game system (such as getting an admin to re-create a character to some specification) it has a high value when you're talking about replacement cost. As for fair market value, that's another question... either way, I fear that you have missed the distinction between replacement cost (often used by insurance companies as an excuse to charge you more for your policy if you want it) vs. fair market value (often used by insurance companies in order to give you less when you file a claim ;-) )
My take on it was that opwierde, like me, is on the thinkgeek email promotion list and got the email pimping this watch within the last day or so and figured he/she would grab some slashdot fame by submitting it...and look what happened...it worked. -tcp
FWIW, I'm in the heart of Chicago and I've got (at times) as many as 10 machines hidden safely behind a NAT enabled Linksys router. No MAC address spoofing was required when I set it up and, btw, you don't need the extra software to do the basic setup. OS X has PPPoE support built in and it works fine on its own for SBC DSL, if you're doing the single computer setup.
This idea may hold some value except that it seems to be predicated upon the idea that when something breaks, it fails completely, outright. With computing hardware, that is often not the case. A prime example of this idea is the damage done by electrostatic discharges. Take a look at this quickly googled page for a brief explanation of non-catastrophic failures caused by ESD. In brief:
"An upset failure occurs when an electrostatic discharge has caused a current flow that is not significant enough to cause total failure, but in use may intermittently result in gate leakage causing loss of software or incorrect storage of information."
As it stands now, very few systems are designed to control for those sort of intermitent, non-catastrophic failures. Therefore, it's unlikely that the method of fault protection that you mention will actually prevent the strange sorts of buggy errors that some might label as "neurotic".
but that's just my thoughts on it...
One excellent and scientifically trustworthy source for polygraph information is from a committee put together by the National Academy of Sciences to study the scientific validity of the polygraph and related lie-detection methodologies, both in the lab and out in the real world. If you want to read the report, you can find it online through the NAS's publishing website.
Another excellent work on the uses and abuses of the polygraph is a book by David Lykken called "A Tremor in the Blood". Lykken is a well respected researcher in the field of physiological detection of deception, and has spent a lot of time trying to bring to light the troubling science behind the polygraph.
Anyway, while some companies may deny services if you decline to give them your SSN, there are some restrictions on its uses. For more information check out privacyrights.org.
Just a thought here... If you consider your SSN, age, address or even specific birthdate to be "intimate personal information" then you've been under a rock or are living in a fantasy world. The fact of the matter is that the SSN has been used and abused to such a point that it is unsafe to think of it as a private piece of information in any way other than an ideal sort of sense. Same thing goes with your birthdate, address, etc.
This point is illustrated by just how quick most people are to turn over their "personal information" , such as a SSN or birthdate, when asked for it by anyone from a gas-company customer-service phone-rep all the way to doctors offices and insurance agents. If something is so intimate and personal, then why are people so willing to give it out to anyone that asks? The fact of the matter is, in the case of a SSN, the only place it's legally required is in certain financial and employment situations. In all other cases, you have the legal right to decline to give that information...but most people don't.
As such, things like the SSN, here in America, have become simply publicly held bits of data that act as tokens to identify individuals in the sea of individuals. In many ways, a SSN is no more personal than a name, at least judging by the way its used.
I'll grant that a lot the current state of affairs comes from the very type of activities that the ruling in question deals with. That does not change the fact that many pieces of information that were once much more "private" are no longer that way in reality. I'll also admit that there is a whole additional realm of personal information that is still personal and that information brokers seek to collect and sell...and that covers such things as shopping or travel habits. Most people still seem to guard that data fairly closely and it still seems to be "private" in nature...but that too is likely to change.
In the end, no ammount of information control can make up for a lack of good-will or a scewed sense of morality (whatever you define that to be). Suing the information brokers for contributing to the death of that poor woman seems to be only getting at an intermediate variable (and one with big pockets) rather than focusing on the primary cause of the woman's death...that is, the person who stalked her and killed her.
That same claim can (and has) been leveled against the defense and intelligence industry for some time now. If we don't believe there to be a threat, then we (any given 'we') will not pay for a defense against that (non) threat. The point you make, however valid, isn't really all that new.
I'm not in any way trying to flame you, however...I'm just pointing it out because it seems interesting to see how once again it's the same old story (life, that is) with a new wrapper on it.
Recently, however, there was a committee put together by the National Academy of Sciences to study the scientific validity of the polygraph and related lie-detection methodologies, both in the lab and out in the real world. If you want to read the report, you can find it online through the NAS's publishing website.
As for what the report says about micro-expressions (from page 164), it notes that previous studies of micro-expression detection were able to achieve rates of up to 75% accuracy, far better than chance. It goes on to note that such methods, at the time of the report's writing, were labor intensive but that recent work in automating the process held promise. It seems that this new AI work is showing that promise to be well founded.
While 75% accuracy is good, it is nowhere near what would be needed in a diagnostic tool. Even 95% accuracy isn't good. (Note, according to signal detection theory, we really should be talking about percentages of false positives and false negatives, but I digress; let's assume the accuracy works the same for both error types.) 95% accuracy would mean that for every 100 truthful people interviewed, 5 would be judged as liars. For every 1,000 people, 50. Inasmuch as such false positives can ruin lives, careers, marriages, reputations, etc., that rate is too high. Likewise, if 5 out of 100 liars slip through, that isn't a test I feel confident using for national security concerns. Even "good science" needs to be damned good to fill the shoes made for the "lie-detector".
-tcp
Polygraphs have not, in fact, been "barred" from the courtroom as evidence. Rather, they're not regarded as credible evidence, i.e., a polygraph examiner is not treated as an expert witness in regards to the matters of the diagnostics of truth telling. Interestingly, polygraphs can and often are used as evidence in grand jury considerations regarding possible indictments.
Where polygraphs truly have been barred is in the employee screening process for most industries/private firms. This was done by an act of congress in the late 1980's ( Employee Polygraph Protection Act of 1988). Of course, the government excluded itself from such prohibitions.
-tcp
Even though it's posted previously in this discussion, here it is again.
-tcp
Okay, so my website is hosted by the university that I attend, so I suppose the package deal (including room and board) isn't that bad...I mean, I get a BA out of it in the end as well! -tcp
First, if you're going to make an ass of yourself, have some spine and don't do it as an AC.
this is precisely the problem. people are usually of one of two mindsets in this regard. either they want to limit inherent functionality of the network to preclude undesired use, or they understand that undesired use is inevitable and you simply have to protect yourself as necessary.
Actually, if you had bothered to really consider my comment, you'd have grasped that I am of the mind that *both* mindsets are worthwhile.
If you offer network/internet connectivity, you have a responsibility to try to make it as tight as possible. You don't set up an open mail relay, blah, blah, blah.
Now, as per my previous statement, you need to assume that the network you're connected to (that is, the internet) is insecure and that you *will* face such things as spam or DOS attacks and whatnot coming from outside your boundry router. For that reason, the position that you advocate is indeed also worthwhile.
Protect your network, sure, but the most you can do is stop it when it gets to your network. That's still load on your connection to the outside network or a load on your mail servers...etc.
You've never had your email address harvested by a spammer, have you? Through a security flaw in my University's content sharing arrangement with another university, many many email addresses were harvested and spammed bigtime. The dramatic increase in mail volume caused problems for our mail servers...nothing that the IT folks couldn't handle but it was a problem.
That kind of thing is the simplest example of abuse of the internet.
The notion that the internet isn't actually an insecure, unsafe network that should, by its very nature be "untrusted" unless secured is a dangerous one. Just because you haven't had a problem yet doesn't mean that you won't.
A free wireless connection to the internet means that someone with a laptop could sit out there and gerate millions of spams and never be traced back to anything more than a (likely spoofed) MAC address. The only way to stop that from happening is through thoughtful design and good network practices. IMHO, that includes exgress filtering on the network to prevent excessive spam...
Not an IT security sales guy, -tcp
Even the usually benign HPV does not technically cause cervical cancer, it is risk factor for it.
So, what then, is the cause of cervical cancer? There isn't a cause and that was what I was trying to get at. When discussing the "causes" of cancer, all you are left with, in even the best understood cases, are a series of mutations which led to (or allowed) unchecked growth of tissue within the body.
As for assigning causal responsibility, that's difficult. Was it the first in the requisite six (or three or ten) mutations that caused the cancer...or was it the last? In such a multi-layered causal system where one specific thing does not act as a sufficient anticedent for cancer development, what you're left with is essentially a cascade of problematic events, when taken together, lead to cancer developing but when looked at individually cannot be said to cause cancer.
So, my point is, when you said that viruses don't cause many cancers, you were, in a lot of ways making an unclear statement. There have been a number of cases where viruses have been clearly linked to an increased rate of cancer development...that's what you could call contributory-causality, if you like, but in all those cases (as you point out in the second post), the virus isn't required for the cancer to develop, and even if the virus is present, it doesn't mean that cancer is sure to follow. Does that mean that, in the cases where a virus is shown to contribute substantially to the chance of developing cancer, that the virus isn't the cause or a cause? I think, rather, it argues for the idea that the virus could be called a cause as much as anything else could be called a cause.
MacAndrew, you seem to know a bit about this kinda stuff, so please, if you could, what's the difference between a risk factor and a cause, when speaking about cancer? I think it's important to get the terms straight here so that we're making sense to eachother. (I'm honestly curious. My previous post was modded down as being flame-bait and I really didn't intend it to be viewed as such...same goes for this post.
-tcp