Of course, if it's a choice between this and Sarah "kill all the baby seals/wolves/mooses cause it's manly" Palin, I'm pretty sure it's a no brainer. On a serious note, the new position actually does reiterate protections of net-neutrality:
Protect the Openness of the Internet: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet.
In fact this is his number one point under "Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets" as it was before. If you read the previous version, it goes from being a bullet point to being a full-blown lecture. Most people would stop reading. I suspect the ideas are all still there, only they are not being listed in so windy a manner.
Getting a job in some narrow field is what trade schools are for. Getting a liberal arts education is what a university is for. See wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education
No...not a troll. This guy has excellent points regarding engineering. We could also put the shoe on the other foot for the IT crowd. Wouldn't it be nice if some of the business types actually knew a little bit about the capabilities of computers, programs and networks so that they didn't make such outrageous demands on us?
But in regards to organic chemistry, physics, and the rest of the pre-med curriculum, there are several reasons for it classically:
1) Yes, it serves to weed out those who can't either take the pressure or be bothered to learn the material. You don't want those people being doctors.
2) It imparts useful information. Physics (mechanics) is useful to doctors who will be orthopedists. As someone who does research in a gait laboratory, I see two types of surgeons: those who use the kinematics and kinetics data to inform their surgical decisions, and those who couldn't be bothered and do it based on "feel". Nuclear physics (usually one or two chapters of content in the premed curriculum) is useful for having a sense of what MRIs, CT, and other sorts of scanning technology can and can't do. These technologies are covered in modern physics text books.
3) To practice memorization of relevant subjects. While organic chemistry may not seem relevant, if you are a doctor prescribing any sort of drug, it certainly is. I have heard some people claim that this is important for PharmD's but not for anyone else. My response is that the more people on a given medical team know about the other's areas, the more seemless the process, and the less chance for mistakes. [Think: how many times does a doctor prescribe a couple of drugs that interact incorrectly in so far as the patient is concerned?]
I could go on, but this is getting a bit long already.
Bingo. And check this out about tungsten, you know, the stuff used in filaments of incandescent bulbs:
Biologic results also identified tungsten as a potentially unique exposure within Churchill
County. We are working with NSHD to further define tungsten exposure in Nevada and to
evaluate potential routes of exposure. Because of our study findings, the National Institutes of
Health is considering tungsten as a priority chemical for toxicologic research.
To be fair, it says that this needs more study, but there is a weak link to leukemia. The bottom line is that just about everything can cause cancer if applied to the correct body part in the correct dosage. If gallium arsenide doesn't leach out of LEDs, it seems that the production and disposal are critical, but consumers may be relatively safe.
They tried to put a box like this where it blocked the rather small parking space we have at the back of the house. We told them to move it and tried reasoning with them (look, we really need to park here and you're blocking our driveway). It didn't register. At the time we were renting. After telling the landlord about this, he came out and told the utility guy that if he didn't move the box, he would be picking it up in pieces from the alley. He moved it to block someone else's driveway about five doors down.
Point being that while we need these things, many of the folks who are installing them don't particularly care who they inconvenience so long as they are paid for their work.
Seizure: a taking possession of an item, property, or person legally or by force
Notice that the amount of time that the item is kept does not enter into the definition.
Regarding your other point about what's reasonable, let me just say this: just because TSA needs a month to properly search your hard-drive (reasonable for them) does not mean that such a search and the month-long loss of your device is reasonable for you. My recollection of the law is that reasonable is some balance between what is ideal for law enforcement and what is ideal for their target of investigation. This stuff that's being seized isn't just property, it's people's business data bases, it's their appointment book for the rest of the day, it's the number of the person who was going to get them from the airport. It may even be the electronic ticketing information for a later flight.
Now it may be that it takes a long time to search a laptop or PDA. Fine. Then publicly post how long is reasonable (== how long you expect it to take TSA to thoroughly search a device), put up big signs everywhere saying that seizure of electronics is par for the course, and give people some due process in how to get their stuff back.
Not to be crass, but "yeah right". If you were to tell TSA or Homeland Security that you didn't want to be searched, nevermind, you'll find the first flight out of there, they'd see it as a reason to detain you.
The problem is that until recently, these rules were not public knowledge. So you expect reasonable searches (based on all practical experience with the US being a democracy and respecting peoples' rights and all) and suddenly your stuff is confiscated.
On the *somewhat* lighter side, just wait until Homeland Security and the baggage handlers team up. There will no longer be any such thing as "lost" baggage. When you ask about that suitcase, they'll start to claim that it was confiscated as a potential threat to national security. They can cut more jobs and forget about those nasty lost bags.
It is making me think twice about bringing along the laptop (either mine or the university's) for that last minute edit before the presentation I will give abroad this fall. Additionally, this will kill the opportunity to collaborate the way we have gotten used to. We can talk about things, but we can't actually do any implementation of new ideas until we return home for fear that our laptops and any work done at the conference (and not backed up) will be confiscated "because they can".
One would think that this goes against unreasonable search and seizure. The problem is that if you object to it, you need to have your device seized to have standing to bring it to trial. Then you need beaucoup bucks in order to see it through. If you consider the motivations that led to the unreasonable search and seizure protections vis-a-vis one's home, it seems that some of them may have been to protect one's personal papers and property. This rule is a blatant end-run around such Constitutional protections in letter and spirit. Because almost everyone now carries a large part of their life with them via cell-phone, laptop, or PDA, I would argue that taking such items is akin to the sort of disruption (financially and otherwise) that people would experience from home invasion by authorities. In many ways this can be even worse.
I'll be all for that when the auto manufacturers stop all their wasteful duplication of effort and give us some fuel efficient cars that can be correctly serviced anywhere. Heck, why stop there? Let's just have one model of printer that does everything that everyone needs.
The reason that this hasn't happened yet is because each distro, GUI toolkit, etc. has its own purpose and audience both in user space and developer space. Forget the freedom jargon, it just gets into to preferences and needs. Some people like red, and others like blue.
Exactly. There's a new paradigm in desktop coming and IMHO, it is worth waiting for. I, too, use KDE 3.5.8. However, I have compiled KDE 4.0.4 so that I could preview and screencast some of the programs (such as the physics simulator, Step). It's not terribly stable [but it's beta, so I don't expect it to be], but I love it.
I suspect that the rants against KDE 4 are from people who are either impatient (think of the world we live in), are complaining because they are happy with KDE 3.5 and are concerned that they will lose productivity in moving to 4.x, or simply didn't read the fine print that it's in beta at the moment.
I am also unhappy with people who have not acknowledged that the the goal posts are moving. It seems that they are not hearing the complaints against the KDE marketing machine. But the bottom line for me is that I have a usable platform until the release is stable, and I'm perfectly happy to wait until it is. Hey, I'm getting it for free.
This is a non-issue. When I was in Spain over a couple of summers, most houses had black-out shades, and many of them were dark in color. Few Spanish houses had AC, so everyone just draws their shades during the day while they are at work, but also during siesta (think nap time). You'd be amazed how much cooler it was with the shades down than with the shades up.
That said, I realize that in the US we don't have siesta, but we do have a ton of work-aholics who don't spend much time at home during the day. I would be more concerned with the reflection from the glass diminishing the efficiency of the curtains. Perhaps putting them on the roof *would* be a good idea.
First, the folks in control of implementing such technology classes would do the usual (let's memorize IE8 and Office 2008) in order to make people more "productive" instead of teaching people the overall context of DRM, net neutrality, black-box voting, and the like.
Second, even if you could get reasonable content in the class, most students wouldn't give a damn. "But I can use my iPhone (see: I'm using it now!)- therefore, I am tech saavy and this class is stupid."
Until the powers that be in education see the pervasiveness of technology in our lives, they will ignore the larger issues of being informed about our digital commons.
I am drinking mine as I read. The only issue with Mokas is quantity. If you have a party where everyone needs coffee, even having a couple of them won't be enough and you may have to break out the old style automatic coffee maker and serve your guests (gasp!) Cafe Americano (hot water with a sprinkling of coffee grounds). Sadly, I've found many Americans to be fearful of even mildly strong coffee.
So if an entity (any virus writer, for example), incorporates, then it's legal for them to mess with your computer? All they need to do is claim that they have evidence that you are infringing some property rights of theirs?
Is Congress insane?
The real answer is that they don't tend to think of consequences. Rather they are more interested in rewarding their friends and financiers.
Bingo. At our lab, we used LabVIEW for everything (not just data capture), but also data reduction and processing. Then, while looking for a post-doc position, I was out on my own for a while with some data and the need to publish. My wife jokes that this was my year sabbatical to learn Linux, GSL and the like so that I could be productive again. The bottom line is that my C/C++ skills improved, but I am still called on to use LabVIEW on occasion now that I have a real job.
Let me add that many NSF grants now require that you open source your methods (often including code) if you get public money. While you can easily open up your MatLab or LabVIEW code, no-one can run it without paying thousands of dollars for a license.
The war memorial was moved to a Russian cemetery, not destroyed. This was far more appropriate considering that most Estonians felt that Stalin was FAR worse than Hitler. Sheesh, 10% of the Estonian adult population was deported to gulags and death camps by the Russians. Under the Nazis, if you weren't Roma, gay, or Jewish, you were OK. [I'm not saying that the Nazis were nice folks. On the contrary, they were horrid too.]
So the bear rescued the rabbit from the falcon, the bear still tried eating the rabbit. It's either disingenuous or ignorant to claim that the rabbit ought to be thanking the bear.
I think that *is* a good point. However, it's not immediately clear from the description. I'd just be happier if the there was clearly working security. As Bruce Schneier says, they've constructed a security dog and pony show and haven't addressed many of the real concerns. Also, as they talk about a balance between security and utility, they ought to follow some common sense guidelines. For example:
Why not have a line for those who want to carry such things and who are willing to go through extra checks. If you are not interested in this kind of checking, don't bring the controversial stuff with you.
If I have more than 3.2 (or 3.5 oz, depending on the airport) of contact lens solution, why not have me prove it by shooting some in my eye. How many of the explosive chemicals would not cause some serious amount of irritation/blindness?
If I have an unopened bottle of beverage that I bought inside a secure area (on the plane at London/Gatwick), why can I not open it up and drink it? Again, I'd be willing to have increased scrutiny to not have to throw this out.
Instead, they have started having people take off their shoes/sandals/etc. when many of the airports I've flown through recently have sniffers. I don't know that I have all the solutions, but as a frequent flyer, I've been treated rudely by unaccountable security personal whose actions do not make any of us safer.
The preparation of these bombs is very much more complex than tossing together several bottles-worth of formula and lighting it up. In fact, in recent tests, a National Lab was asked to formulate a test mixture and it took several tries using the best equipment and best scientists for it to even ignite. That was with a bomb prepared in advance in a lab setting. A less skilled person attempting to put it together inside a secure area or a plane is not a good bet. You have to have significant uninterrupted time with space and other requirements that are not easily available in a secured area of an airport. It adds complexity to their preferred model and reduces our risk, having the expert make the bomb and give it to someone else to carry aboard. They are well aware of the Richard Reid factor where he could not even ignite a completed bomb. Simple is truly better for them. Also, bomb-makers are easier for us to identify than so-called clean 'mules.'
So what they are saying is that with top of the line equipment, even their experts had a tough job of it. I'm not sure how this helps their argument at all.
Actually, the line: 'But Microsoft may have gotten an even better deal: while the villain's operating system of choice is never mentioned, during closeups of his screen at the end, you can clearly see the word "GNU". ' made me think of this:
As a Linux geek I totally agree. If I'm correct, KDE on Windows means that in a couple of years people will start looking at Desktops the way they now look at skins and themes and pick the one that is most appealing to them for features. In the last couple of years people have become aware that there are multiple browsers available and that the internet is not an application, per se. It may be that good Desktops can stand in the way of malware in that the browsers will not be so integrated with the operating systems - and - malware authors will have their own equivalent of the browser wars in which they will have to code workarounds for several desktops on several operating systems to even have a chance at infecting a victim. (OTOH, I know someone who clicks OK no matter what the alert says, so perhaps this idea is DOA.)
Anyhow, I, for one, welcome our new KDE overlords.
One more thing, is there any chance in h*ll that we will see XFCE or Gnome ported to Windows?
While it is true that every bit of information out there is shaded by personal perceptions, I can better make my own informed decisions vis-a-vis said information if I know who is communicating it to me. What this information officer was doing is repugnant in a democratic society where people need to make informed choices. Saying that we've been doing it since forever doesn't set precedent as propaganda's general purpose is to control the public opinion: it seems antithetical to democratic societies. And while Wikipedia is not perfect on political topics, at least it's something and we can make discoveries about the editorial leanings of the contributors.
You bring up a good point: changing this stuff is not trivial as it is rooted into the very fabric of our law. Saying that copyright law is part of the US title code and therefore too difficult to change is ignoring the fact that it is rapidly becoming a problem for everyday people.
As for the Berne convention, the US only signed it in 1989. We've since ratified GATT in 1994 to add to this. Although many of the standard copyright conventions are worldwide, the US has taken the lead in the past decade to enforce copyrights overseas making us into a bit of an international cop (see TFA). There's a good reason for this. The lead players in this are the *AA's who rightly, or not, perceive billions of dollars to be at stake. Other companies are getting on the band wagon as they see the dollar signs. So in addition to the title code you cited, we also have to overcome the vested corporate interests who will give in to reasonable enforcement and penalties over their dead bodies.
So yes, changes to this stuff that are reasonable will be difficult to get written into law, but that doesn't change the fact that the whole thing is broken badly.
Slashdot Mirror
In fact this is his number one point under "Ensure the Full and Free Exchange of Ideas through an Open Internet and Diverse Media Outlets" as it was before. If you read the previous version, it goes from being a bullet point to being a full-blown lecture. Most people would stop reading. I suspect the ideas are all still there, only they are not being listed in so windy a manner.
Getting a job in some narrow field is what trade schools are for. Getting a liberal arts education is what a university is for. See wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education
No...not a troll. This guy has excellent points regarding engineering. We could also put the shoe on the other foot for the IT crowd. Wouldn't it be nice if some of the business types actually knew a little bit about the capabilities of computers, programs and networks so that they didn't make such outrageous demands on us?
But in regards to organic chemistry, physics, and the rest of the pre-med curriculum, there are several reasons for it classically:
I could go on, but this is getting a bit long already.
See, here I was thinking a Cylon. Number 6 specifically.
From: CDC.
To be fair, it says that this needs more study, but there is a weak link to leukemia. The bottom line is that just about everything can cause cancer if applied to the correct body part in the correct dosage. If gallium arsenide doesn't leach out of LEDs, it seems that the production and disposal are critical, but consumers may be relatively safe.
They tried to put a box like this where it blocked the rather small parking space we have at the back of the house. We told them to move it and tried reasoning with them (look, we really need to park here and you're blocking our driveway). It didn't register. At the time we were renting. After telling the landlord about this, he came out and told the utility guy that if he didn't move the box, he would be picking it up in pieces from the alley. He moved it to block someone else's driveway about five doors down.
Point being that while we need these things, many of the folks who are installing them don't particularly care who they inconvenience so long as they are paid for their work.
Seizure: a taking possession of an item, property, or person legally or by force Notice that the amount of time that the item is kept does not enter into the definition.
Regarding your other point about what's reasonable, let me just say this: just because TSA needs a month to properly search your hard-drive (reasonable for them) does not mean that such a search and the month-long loss of your device is reasonable for you. My recollection of the law is that reasonable is some balance between what is ideal for law enforcement and what is ideal for their target of investigation. This stuff that's being seized isn't just property, it's people's business data bases, it's their appointment book for the rest of the day, it's the number of the person who was going to get them from the airport. It may even be the electronic ticketing information for a later flight.
Now it may be that it takes a long time to search a laptop or PDA. Fine. Then publicly post how long is reasonable (== how long you expect it to take TSA to thoroughly search a device), put up big signs everywhere saying that seizure of electronics is par for the course, and give people some due process in how to get their stuff back.
Not to be crass, but "yeah right". If you were to tell TSA or Homeland Security that you didn't want to be searched, nevermind, you'll find the first flight out of there, they'd see it as a reason to detain you.
The problem is that until recently, these rules were not public knowledge. So you expect reasonable searches (based on all practical experience with the US being a democracy and respecting peoples' rights and all) and suddenly your stuff is confiscated.
On the *somewhat* lighter side, just wait until Homeland Security and the baggage handlers team up. There will no longer be any such thing as "lost" baggage. When you ask about that suitcase, they'll start to claim that it was confiscated as a potential threat to national security. They can cut more jobs and forget about those nasty lost bags.
It is making me think twice about bringing along the laptop (either mine or the university's) for that last minute edit before the presentation I will give abroad this fall. Additionally, this will kill the opportunity to collaborate the way we have gotten used to. We can talk about things, but we can't actually do any implementation of new ideas until we return home for fear that our laptops and any work done at the conference (and not backed up) will be confiscated "because they can".
One would think that this goes against unreasonable search and seizure. The problem is that if you object to it, you need to have your device seized to have standing to bring it to trial. Then you need beaucoup bucks in order to see it through. If you consider the motivations that led to the unreasonable search and seizure protections vis-a-vis one's home, it seems that some of them may have been to protect one's personal papers and property. This rule is a blatant end-run around such Constitutional protections in letter and spirit. Because almost everyone now carries a large part of their life with them via cell-phone, laptop, or PDA, I would argue that taking such items is akin to the sort of disruption (financially and otherwise) that people would experience from home invasion by authorities. In many ways this can be even worse.
I'll be all for that when the auto manufacturers stop all their wasteful duplication of effort and give us some fuel efficient cars that can be correctly serviced anywhere. Heck, why stop there? Let's just have one model of printer that does everything that everyone needs.
The reason that this hasn't happened yet is because each distro, GUI toolkit, etc. has its own purpose and audience both in user space and developer space. Forget the freedom jargon, it just gets into to preferences and needs. Some people like red, and others like blue.
Exactly. There's a new paradigm in desktop coming and IMHO, it is worth waiting for. I, too, use KDE 3.5.8. However, I have compiled KDE 4.0.4 so that I could preview and screencast some of the programs (such as the physics simulator, Step). It's not terribly stable [but it's beta, so I don't expect it to be], but I love it.
I suspect that the rants against KDE 4 are from people who are either impatient (think of the world we live in), are complaining because they are happy with KDE 3.5 and are concerned that they will lose productivity in moving to 4.x, or simply didn't read the fine print that it's in beta at the moment.
I am also unhappy with people who have not acknowledged that the the goal posts are moving. It seems that they are not hearing the complaints against the KDE marketing machine. But the bottom line for me is that I have a usable platform until the release is stable, and I'm perfectly happy to wait until it is. Hey, I'm getting it for free.
This is a non-issue. When I was in Spain over a couple of summers, most houses had black-out shades, and many of them were dark in color. Few Spanish houses had AC, so everyone just draws their shades during the day while they are at work, but also during siesta (think nap time). You'd be amazed how much cooler it was with the shades down than with the shades up.
That said, I realize that in the US we don't have siesta, but we do have a ton of work-aholics who don't spend much time at home during the day. I would be more concerned with the reflection from the glass diminishing the efficiency of the curtains. Perhaps putting them on the roof *would* be a good idea.
The problem with this is two-fold:
First, the folks in control of implementing such technology classes would do the usual (let's memorize IE8 and Office 2008) in order to make people more "productive" instead of teaching people the overall context of DRM, net neutrality, black-box voting, and the like.
Second, even if you could get reasonable content in the class, most students wouldn't give a damn. "But I can use my iPhone (see: I'm using it now!)- therefore, I am tech saavy and this class is stupid."
Until the powers that be in education see the pervasiveness of technology in our lives, they will ignore the larger issues of being informed about our digital commons.
I am drinking mine as I read. The only issue with Mokas is quantity. If you have a party where everyone needs coffee, even having a couple of them won't be enough and you may have to break out the old style automatic coffee maker and serve your guests (gasp!) Cafe Americano (hot water with a sprinkling of coffee grounds). Sadly, I've found many Americans to be fearful of even mildly strong coffee.
So if an entity (any virus writer, for example), incorporates, then it's legal for them to mess with your computer? All they need to do is claim that they have evidence that you are infringing some property rights of theirs?
Is Congress insane?
The real answer is that they don't tend to think of consequences. Rather they are more interested in rewarding their friends and financiers.
Bingo. At our lab, we used LabVIEW for everything (not just data capture), but also data reduction and processing. Then, while looking for a post-doc position, I was out on my own for a while with some data and the need to publish. My wife jokes that this was my year sabbatical to learn Linux, GSL and the like so that I could be productive again. The bottom line is that my C/C++ skills improved, but I am still called on to use LabVIEW on occasion now that I have a real job. Let me add that many NSF grants now require that you open source your methods (often including code) if you get public money. While you can easily open up your MatLab or LabVIEW code, no-one can run it without paying thousands of dollars for a license.
The war memorial was moved to a Russian cemetery, not destroyed. This was far more appropriate considering that most Estonians felt that Stalin was FAR worse than Hitler. Sheesh, 10% of the Estonian adult population was deported to gulags and death camps by the Russians. Under the Nazis, if you weren't Roma, gay, or Jewish, you were OK. [I'm not saying that the Nazis were nice folks. On the contrary, they were horrid too.]
So the bear rescued the rabbit from the falcon, the bear still tried eating the rabbit. It's either disingenuous or ignorant to claim that the rabbit ought to be thanking the bear.
Emacs key bindings??? Feh! Everyone knows that vi is better... Ducks to avoid the return fire...
Instead, they have started having people take off their shoes/sandals/etc. when many of the airports I've flown through recently have sniffers. I don't know that I have all the solutions, but as a frequent flyer, I've been treated rudely by unaccountable security personal whose actions do not make any of us safer.
So what they are saying is that with top of the line equipment, even their experts had a tough job of it. I'm not sure how this helps their argument at all.
"Hi my names Steve, and I'm a supervillain.".
Hear, hear!
As a Linux geek I totally agree. If I'm correct, KDE on Windows means that in a couple of years people will start looking at Desktops the way they now look at skins and themes and pick the one that is most appealing to them for features. In the last couple of years people have become aware that there are multiple browsers available and that the internet is not an application, per se. It may be that good Desktops can stand in the way of malware in that the browsers will not be so integrated with the operating systems - and - malware authors will have their own equivalent of the browser wars in which they will have to code workarounds for several desktops on several operating systems to even have a chance at infecting a victim. (OTOH, I know someone who clicks OK no matter what the alert says, so perhaps this idea is DOA.)
Anyhow, I, for one, welcome our new KDE overlords.
One more thing, is there any chance in h*ll that we will see XFCE or Gnome ported to Windows?
While it is true that every bit of information out there is shaded by personal perceptions, I can better make my own informed decisions vis-a-vis said information if I know who is communicating it to me. What this information officer was doing is repugnant in a democratic society where people need to make informed choices. Saying that we've been doing it since forever doesn't set precedent as propaganda's general purpose is to control the public opinion: it seems antithetical to democratic societies. And while Wikipedia is not perfect on political topics, at least it's something and we can make discoveries about the editorial leanings of the contributors.
You bring up a good point: changing this stuff is not trivial as it is rooted into the very fabric of our law. Saying that copyright law is part of the US title code and therefore too difficult to change is ignoring the fact that it is rapidly becoming a problem for everyday people.
As for the Berne convention, the US only signed it in 1989. We've since ratified GATT in 1994 to add to this. Although many of the standard copyright conventions are worldwide, the US has taken the lead in the past decade to enforce copyrights overseas making us into a bit of an international cop (see TFA). There's a good reason for this. The lead players in this are the *AA's who rightly, or not, perceive billions of dollars to be at stake. Other companies are getting on the band wagon as they see the dollar signs. So in addition to the title code you cited, we also have to overcome the vested corporate interests who will give in to reasonable enforcement and penalties over their dead bodies.
So yes, changes to this stuff that are reasonable will be difficult to get written into law, but that doesn't change the fact that the whole thing is broken badly.