It's funny (and sad at the same time) that it only seems to foil attacks around election time. Seems the only time we ever hear the words "terror alert" or "level orange" or "foiled attack" in the US is when things are gearing up for an election.
Makes me wonder who the terrorists *really* are. I think they work in a big white building - nay, maybe a house - on Pennsylvania Avenue.
MS would be in court pretty fast if they started bundling their other apps into the OS. Don't take shots at something they can't control.
I think you're missing the point; while MS can't bundle everything in one install, it takes as long to install the OS as it does to install competitors entire desktop environment. It's not about what's included in the installation, it's about the time of the installation.
Installing Vista + the new MS Office, a database server, and other such things as are bundled in Linux distributions could be a day-long operation for even an experienced user.
Honestly people, the more we talk about MS the more exposure they get.
Agreed, but not talking about them doesn't make them go away. I've tried for years.
I'd second following this sort of path - learning structured programming is like learning the Latin of programming languages. Once you understand structured programming constructs, you can pick up languages fairly easily. A loop is a loop is a loop is a loop; learning how to implement one in C/C++, Pascal, PHP, Perl, BASIC, or any other of the myriad of languages out there is just syntax.
Well, there are differences; for example, on the conservative side, the pro-life religion-permeates-every-aspect-of-my-life type candidate is not someone I'm likely to vote for. The ones who think big government contracts should go to their friends rather than pass through an objective process.
There are enough differences in idiology that I can pick a candidate that makes sense (for me) from the big parties as well as from the independents, libertarians, green, etc. Part of my choice depends on the scope of power the person gets as well - at a presidential level, voting for Perot or Nader tends to be counterproductive because the "little guy" candidates don't get elected, but they do tend to split the vote for one of the candidates or the other - which almost always results in the wrong lizard getting in.
I don't disagree with the basic premise here of convincing others - and when that convincing becomes apparent pre-election, it's time to take action and vote for the candidate you want; until there's a good feeling ahead of the election that a third party can stand a chance, though, I don't know that continuing to vote for that third party makes sense and becomes anything more than a lost vote. It's easy to vote your conscience knowing that the vote may not make a difference today or tomorrow, but may 20 years down the road; it's much harder to live with the immediate consequences of having another 4 years of the right-wing government we've ended up with.
I'll have to disagree with you; sure there are examples of the party controlling the candidate; there are also maverick candidates who can do well. I do tend to vote neither Republican or Democrat on a national level; at the same time, I tend towards liberal ideology on more topics than not (but not all) and live in a very conservative state, so if I want an alternative to the neocons in this state to be put into office, that usually means voting Democrat in local elections - often there are only the two choices. Sure, I could write someone in - and then my vote counts even less (when's the last time a write-in won in a non-moderate/non-centrist state?) because there's a snowball's chance of them being elected.
It's very much a case of "if you don't vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard will win" (for those who are familiar with the works of Douglas Adams).
Too late to fix the problem. I'd have thought that was apparent.
BTW, I never said 9/11 was a coverup or that it was staged; never once referenced Orwell or Germany, nor do I subscribe to the "conspiracy theory websites" as you put it. (This administration is too stupid/incompetent to keep a secret, which is necessary for conspiracy) I'll thank you to stop putting words in my mouth.
It's very simple: People have the freedoms they're willing to fight for, and that they're willing to stand up and say "no more" when the government overreaches it's authority. There are limits on governmental authority for a reason; this administration, however, doesn't feel it needs oversight or that it needs to be accountable to anyone - least of all the people who elected it.
A solution (and one I have proposed over and over again) is to simply have the government follow the laws and rules it is obligated to follow. If they want to mine phone data, get a goddamn warrant. If they want to wiretap, get a FISA court to issue a warrant. Stop the bullshit of doing things without oversight.
Impeach Bush? Yes, but don't remove him. I shudder to think how much worse things would be in Cheney were President.
It's kinda interesting; according to at least one source, Verizon says they only turned over non-cellular phone data.
Excuse me, but WTF? Does the NSA really think that terrorists are not using throw-away cell phones (perhaps even using them only once)? We keep hearing about how smart this enemy is that we're facing, and that we have to outsmart them.
Somehow, making a grab at 100 million phone users' phone records doesn't seem that terribly effective a way to outsmart them. The way you find a needle is not to make the haystack larger; you scope and then get a warrant for what you can demonstrate you need. That's common sense.
Oh, right, with Bush we're not looking at someone who has a lot of common sense....
If Bush & Company find some reason for elections not to be held in a couple of years, I'll start worrying about the erosion of American freedoms.
If (and I grant you it's a big if) that ever happened, it'd be far, far too late to start worrying.
Next time you're pulled over for speeding, tell the cop that since nobody was hurt, "what's the big deal" and see what that gets you. It's only a law you broke, not like anyone died because of your speeding, right? So why should you have to pay a fine?
Try not paying your taxes or cheating on them and see what that gets you. After all, the government spends money it doesn't have anyways (it's called "deficit spending"), so what difference does it make if you decide not to pay your taxes? It's not hurting anyone, right?
Try carrying a concealed weapon without a permit and talk your way out of it by saying "why? It's not hurting anyone, I haven't shot anyone yet."
The only people telling us that they need these records and that we should just trust them are people who have not earned our trust. They have lied to us over and over again about a wide range of things. When evaluating someone's credibility, you have to look at what they've said and done in the past, and if that past shows a history of deception, you have to apply some common sense as to whether or not they're being truthful to you in what they're currently saying.
I trust this administration no further than I could comfortably spit a rat. I've been perfectly willing to let them earn my trust and respect, and they've not done so yet.
The "real danger" is in having a government that thinks so little of the people who elected it as to not be honest with them. The "real danger" is in letting our freedoms erode to the point that we don't even know what the word means. We're not there yet, but we're well on the way unless someone stands up and says "No more!". You want to shoot people who refuse to let the government walk all over their freedoms, just because you can't see the harm in letting the government do what it says it needs to do?
Being a patriot is not lying down and "having faith" that your government is looking out for you. Being patriotic means being vigilant and always questioning what those in power are doing (regardless of their - or your - political affiliation). Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that - and Bush is making a power grab the likes of which we haven't seen in a while in this country. If you don't think so, just let him keep breaking the law and insisting that he's in the right.
Tell me something, if Bush was in the right about the wiretaps being legal, why did three GOP members of the Senate Intelligence Committee draft a bill (with a fourth member not on the committee) to make this legal? If it was already legal, there's no need for a new law.
The big deal is that the law says it's not legal for the government to request records like this without a warrant, and that when asked about it, the attorney general said that the reason he didn't go to congress to change the laws was because he didn't think they would. So instead, they ignored the law.
Doesn't a government that doesn't play by its own rules bother you? It sure bothers me.
There are some good people in each party - but yes, by and large, I agree. I don't think I've ever voted a party ticket, always based on the individuals' - their credibility and their positions.
And in light of this, Bush would STILL get re-elected if he could run.
Sadly, this is very true. Of course, Bush has so little regard for the law, that he might just attempt to run a third time. It's only a pesky law that stands in his way, and he's perfectly OK with breaking the existing laws in the name of "protecting us from the terrorists".
It's funny, Clinton perjured himself during a non-Presidential activity and was impeached. Bush repeatedly breaks the law in the line of his job and nobody is interested in holding him accountable for his actions.
But all Bush has to do to get re-elected is (a) disregard an existing law (which he's done already), and (b) scare the religious right with more "terror alerts". Mark my words, the terror alert colour coding system will be back for this November's elections and in time for the next presidential election. That WMD (Weapon of Mass Distraction) will be used against the citizenry to drive them to vote Republican again. Bush is the biggest terrorist attacking this country right now - using terror (in the form of "fear of another attack") to get away with whatever the hell he wants. It's time he stop ringing that bell and be held accountable for his actions.
like your ISP, your bank, your cell phone provider, etc. You give more personal data than this to rent a video or save $0.45 at Albertsons.
The difference is that you can choose to give up the information they request. I've made a decision to allow these organizations access to certain pieces of information about myself.
I did not elect to give my government my telephone records.
I really fail to see the harm.
There's no harm in not following the rules? Do you really want a government that doesn't feel that the laws put in place are important? That the rule of law isn't important?
Interestingly enough, when the AG of the US was asked why he didn't just work with Congress to change the law, his answer was "because we believe they will refuse to change the laws". There is actually a reason why government is required to abide by the law, and that's to protect the citizenry from government intrusion. Remember that thing called the "bill of rights"? It was intended that the people - not the government - ultimately decide what they want.
When the government refuses to follow its own rules and laws, everone is harmed.
Bill Maher joked on Real Time last night that "Osama Bin Laden needs to find a new reason to hate us - he used to hate us for our freedom." While Maher was joking, he was making a very poignant point: If we give up our freedoms, the terrorists win.
The complaint isn't that the government isn't doing enough; it's that the administration is breaking the laws that are in place. They can perfectly well do the exact same thing by following the rules - get a subpoena for the records; get a FISA court to approve the wiretaps. They refuse to do that, and then play the "if you don't let us do this, the terrorists win". NO! If we *DO* let the government do this, the terrorists win!
Bush made a campaign promise to restore honor and integrity to the White House. He has failed to deliver on that promise, bringing more scandal than any president since Nixon.
Was I upset that Clinton was doing this? Hell yes! That a previous president did stuff like this is no excuse for continuing to do it and for insisting that he doesn't need a warrant because he's the President. For someone who was promising to clean things up, he's sure got a hell of a way of doing it.
Bush is fighting the war on terror with terror. He's terrorizing the citizenry into giving up their freedoms in the name of security. Homeland Security should be about providing Homeland Security, as Bill Maher puts it, and the majority of Americans do not feel any more secure now than they did on 9/11. For all the changes that have been made, it's been an exercise in rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenburg. FEMA is in the worst state it's been in in; airport security is still something of an oxymoron (but hey, we can't take pocket knives on board airplanes anymore, yes, that makes me feel a hell of a lot safer; next up, they'll be banning those who practice martial arts or have big, strong hands, because hey, they might just break someone's neck on the plane).
Let's look at who's making the rational arguement here. You said:
This is just a database of phone numbers and times, without names or addresses.
Then you started conflating the database with the NSA wiretap program (which are, as far as anyone knows, two separate programs); you also disagreed with your previous statement by then saying "well of COURSE they have a reverse phone lookup system" - so what exatly was the point of your earlier comment? To perhaps suggest that the NSA doesn't know how to do a freakin' database join?
It isn't a "paranoid rambling" to assume that someone who has broken the law repeatedly will do so again. I'll admit to using an extreme example to make a point.
This NSA program violates a number of existing laws, something that QWest's lawyers observed and as a result, they refused to comply with the order because it was simply unlawful. The act the NSA (and the phone companies who turned over the records without resistance) violated is called the Stored Communications Act (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/ usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_121.html).
And it isn't "the other side" that's upset about this. People like Newt Gingritch, John Boehner (R-OH), Deborah Pryce (R-OH) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are expressing concern over this program. It's Bush's own "side" who are expressing deep concerns about this program. Even Fox News "correspondent" and Bush apologist Joe Scarborough is expressing concern over this program.
That's got to give one pause for thought.
The administration could very simply solve this problem by getting a warrant as is required by law. The fourth amendment protects the citizens of the US against unlawful government search & siezure. This is an unlawful program, just like the NSA wiretapping program is (NSA, BTW, is responsible for FOREIGN SIGINT and cryptological analysis - NOT for domestic spying - check out their charter on the NSA.GOV website). NSA is a MILITARY organization, and the US military is barred by law (under the Posse Comittatus Act of 1878 from conducting operations against US citizens.
The Posse Comitatus act was amended in 1981 to permit certain types of interactions (use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance) but generally prohibits direct participation of Department of Defense personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). Even then, the government is not permitted to act without a warrant, which is what the NSA did in this case.
Now if the government gets away with what is now two warrantless activities (the NSA wiretapping program first, and now this acquisition of protected records where the applicable laws clearly spell out that the government is required to get a search warrant), what's to prevent them from expanding to warrantless physical searches of citizen's homes?
BTW, if it were a democratic president doing the same thing, I'd have a problem with it as well - and you can bet your ass that a republican congress would be calling for impeachment, if not removal, of a democratic president who did this. I don't identify with the democrats any more than the republicans - both parties are corrupt, and my vote typically goes against someone rather than for someone. It always is a choice of the lesser of two evils these days.
The scary thing is that one insider is saying that what we're finding out now is just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the illegal programs this administration is running.
It's a fallacious arguement to say that the database only contains numbers; that was my point. It's a simple matter to do a join of phone numbers to phone records, and it's frankly stupid to assume that the NSA doesn't have a reverse lookup list of its own for all US citizens.
But where the numbers themselves are concerned, it doesn't take human interaction to build the patterns. If the government decides you're a terrorist because someone from a "terrorist state" called you repeatedly and puts you in Gitmo, even though it was a repeated wrong number, tell me exactly how that's "fighting the war on terror".
And before you say "well, of course the government wouldn't do that", remember that everything they're doing with this pair of NSA programs is warrantless and without oversight; this administration has already demonstrated that they're pefectly willing to break the law.
Clinton was lambasted for commiting perjury in the Whitewater case. Bush has done far worse than that with these programs, and it's time he be held accountable. The President of the United States is not above the law. If he wants to enact programs like this, let him do it *legally*.
Ah, yes, the tired old "if you don't like it, LEAVE" arguement. Heaven forbid we should try to influence change in our country, much less hold our elected officials accountable for their actions.
Our government was founded on a principle (among others) of checks and balances. With two of three branches in the hands of a single party (regardless of whether it's republican or democrat), there are no checks and balances.
If you were looking at a democratic executive branch and a democratic congress having their way with the American people, I'd bet you'd damn well not leave. Part of living in a democracy is giving the opposition a voice and allowing it to be heard. Perhaps you'd rather live in a dictatorship so you don't have to think any more?
How about this: Let the government take your guns away. I'm not talking child safety locks, I'm talking about you not owning any guns at all. Period. Being prosecuted and locked up for violating the ban. Let's see if you stay quiet about that.
What the Bush administration is doing is exactly the same - they are violating the fourth amendment and insisting that they "don't have time" to get a warrant. That's utter bullshit. They don't want oversight because they don't want to be held accountable. And if they don't want to be held accountable, that's all the more reason for the American people to rise up and DEMAND accountability.
...that the Americans in this poll are particularly interested in preserving - the right to bear arms. They seem to forget about little things like the free exercise of religion, speech, the right to a free press, the right of assembly, the right to be free of unreasonable search and siezures - particularly without warrants - and the right to a public and speedy trial.
It's interesting to me that those who fight for the right to bear arms because they don't trust the government to not interfere with that are more than OK with the government deciding what is reasonable with the search & siezure rule because "they have nothing to hide".
First my background: 15+ years in IT, no certifications until I came to work for Novell. Well-paid as an IT technical lead at a Fortune 50 company prior to joining Novell. First job after joining Novell was teaching advanced technical training, hence the need for certifications (=marketing value as an instructor)
Now my current job: Global CNI Program Manager for Novell. Been at it since November of last year.
As long as I've been in IT, I've always held the fact that I held no certifications as a bit of a badge of pride; as a published author, it made for a very good benchmark to see what a potential employer was looking for - a cert, or "real experience". In fact, I did not go back to a company for a second discussion about potential employment there when the department manager expressed disappointment at my lack of certifications.
My observation over the years has been that certifications have value for those who hold them if and only if there is scarcity in the market for a certification. The article mentioned CNA (among others) as a devalued certification; I would tend to agree with this, because it is relatively easy to get.
Certifications that are difficult to achieve (CCIE & CISSP come immediately to mind) seem to be highly valued because they are difficult to get. Similarly, for those who hold Novell's CDE, they see it as very valuable because there are a very few in the world who have it (I happen to be one of those, so I'm not entirely unbiased in that belief).
One of the projects I'm involved in at the moment is certification roadmaps. I'm involved because - as the CNI Program Manager - I need to make sure we have qualified instructors teaching the courses, so testing and certification becomes important (as a student, I know I would want to know that I was being taught by someone who was qualified, and I know that any employer that is going to invest in sending their employees to a class is going to want to be able to see improvement in the employee's job performance).
One of the things that I'm looking at is how certifications reflect real-world knowledge. Some certifications do better than others; speaking from a Novell certifications perspective, the CDE, CLP, CLE, and CLE9 seem to do well in this regard because the tests are not "written" (form) tests, but practical tests that require you to complete certain tasks within a certain timeframe. Clearly the goal is not to turn out certified individuals with no real knowledge (and I've known some at jobs I've worked in the past who passed the test but didn't retain any knowledge - so-called "paper" certs).
So my questions: What do you find makes for a good certification vs. a bad certification? Is it in the testing method? Is it in the validity of the question pool? Is it that a good certification (or valued certification) has scarcity - so you are somewhat "elite" in your validated knowledge?
Or is the value of certification more oriented at a validation of a path of learning that you're (or an employee of yours, if you're an employer) on and knowing that you're doing well within a goal of achieving expertise in a particular technology? (ie, certification as a validation that you're where you should be in the track, rather than a goal unto itself, similar to when you were in college/university)
Serious answers are greatly appreciated - I realize there will be a few ACs who reply with some degree of snark, and that's OK, of course - it is Slashdot - but I do see a lot of good experience out here and having some feedback from the real world would be very beneficial as our team looks to increase the value of the certifications we offer.
I've not seen the tasks for this years' contest yet, but the way this contest used to be run (10+ years ago), the tasks were something that looked fairly trivial in a lot of cases, but in the end the exception processing is what usually caused a problem for most teams.
I competed in the Southeast Regional competition in the US back in about 1991 or 1992 - our team tied with a bunch of others for last place with no problems solved. At the time, it was 10 problems, 6 or 8 hours, choice of C or Pascal as a language, and one computer.
I had the good fortune to be able to practice with the team from the University of Central Florida, who had been ranked in the top 5 back at that time - I remember one of the problems we were given was to make change with the smallest number of coins possible. Looks easy at first glance, but the UCF team had problems with that particular practice problem.
Another problem was to build Pascal's Triangle for any input through n=11.
The UCF team solved that one using just a series of Pascal "write" lines interspersed with tests for the input value of 'n'. The coach applauded their ingenuity, and then tore them apart for avoiding the algorithmic issue. Their coach (Dave, I remember his name was) was quite outstanding as a programmer himself - worked on some AI-related stuff for intelligent ATC training simulations (also a project I worked on a different part of at the time); he had someone who actually built the problem sets from past contests and didn't tell him what the problems would be, just so he could use them to practice his own skills. He knocked out 10/10 in the time the top-rated UCF team turned out about 3 problems at that particular practice.
The programs (at least when I was involved in the contest) required a text file input that the judges would test the programs against, and output had to meet a very specific format that was detailed in the problem. If you were off a space, the answer wouldn't count. If your program didn't handle bad data (which was always in the input file), you wouldn't pass. The program was sent back with either a "pass" or a "fail" and that was it - you had to figure out what was wrong without seeing the input file or the output generated. You were allowed to ask written yes/no questions, but it often took so long to get an answer that it impacted your ability to complete a task.
As others mentioned, this isn't so much a programming contest as it is an algorithmic competition - a lot of the "programming" was done by developing an algorithm on paper and then translating that to code - since only one person could use the team's computer at a time (collaboration was allowed by team members, and some teams operated that way). One of the tricks to being successful was being able to correctly identify which problems were the easiest and which were the most difficult and get someone started right away with banging out code (the UCF team even referred to one coder as the "banger", as the person who would take the problem the team determined was the simplest and start banging code out while other team members worked on the algorithms for other problems).
For about the first 5 years of my IT career (which now spans about 15 years and now has me in a non-technical position managing a corporate program), I was able to get by without knowing much about the business my employer was in, and just fiddle around and play with IT systems.
As you move up the corporate ladder and gain responsibility, it becomes necessary to speak the language of business. If you are unable to explain why an IT solution is a good solution in terms that business people can understand, you won't be successful.
But IT people in business positions who can speak to the business so they can be understood can do very well. I just recently had an experience in my current "program management" position where I needed a system implemented. I was able to describe to IS&T in explicit detail exactly what my requirements were, and they were able to implement the system I needed in about 2 weeks. I got thanks from both the implementor and his director for being able to articulate what it was that I needed, because they get a lot of requests from non-technical people and spend a lot of time spinning their wheels just trying to understand the requirements.
The best of both worlds - having business people understand you so you can implement things you believe are the right thing to implement, and being able to speak about the technology to the IT folks - can take you a long ways, unless your goal is to always be a tech and have the business tell you what to implement.
You still have to put up with things like "decision alignment" (a big one on my team) and such, but in the end it's not so bad. Having the respect of your business is one way to ensure future employment/employability as well, and it makes a hell of a resume point.
It also helps to be able to speak the language of business when a vendor comes in and tries to snow your company - it helps you see through the corporatespeak BS that a lot of vendor salespeople bring into your CIO/CTO and explain to the decision makers why it's BS.
> As good as Novell is/was, it allways was a layer ontop of the client OS - not an OS in itself, so by design, in my opinion, Windows AD is superior in that respect.
What on earth are you talking about here? NetWare is an OS unto itself that uses DOS as a boot loader; DOS does the work of starting the system up with NetWare.
If by "Windows AD", you mean "Active Directory", that's not an OS, it's a directory service. Analagous to eDirectory, not to NetWare.
If in the above quoted bit you are referring to Client32, that doesn't compare to Active Directory either - that compares to the Microsoft Client for Windows, which is an inherent part of Windows. Both hook into the GINA architecture in Windows to provide similar services (authentication, discovery, and redirection).
If you're going to compare the two companies' products, please compare components that are at least in the same area - and do so after acquiring some education about the components you're referring to.
Let's all say this together: NetWare is an Operating System, Active Directory is a Directory Service. Comparing an Operating System to a Directory Service is like comparing apples and chilled martian hamster brains.
Now, repeat those two sentences until the end of time.
If you want to compare Active Directory to something, compare it to eDirectory, not NetWare. At least then you're comparing two pieces of software that fit into the same category.
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It's funny (and sad at the same time) that it only seems to foil attacks around election time. Seems the only time we ever hear the words "terror alert" or "level orange" or "foiled attack" in the US is when things are gearing up for an election.
Makes me wonder who the terrorists *really* are. I think they work in a big white building - nay, maybe a house - on Pennsylvania Avenue.
MS would be in court pretty fast if they started bundling their other apps into the OS. Don't take shots at something they can't control.
I think you're missing the point; while MS can't bundle everything in one install, it takes as long to install the OS as it does to install competitors entire desktop environment. It's not about what's included in the installation, it's about the time of the installation.
Installing Vista + the new MS Office, a database server, and other such things as are bundled in Linux distributions could be a day-long operation for even an experienced user.
Honestly people, the more we talk about MS the more exposure they get.
Agreed, but not talking about them doesn't make them go away. I've tried for years.
I'd second following this sort of path - learning structured programming is like learning the Latin of programming languages. Once you understand structured programming constructs, you can pick up languages fairly easily. A loop is a loop is a loop is a loop; learning how to implement one in C/C++, Pascal, PHP, Perl, BASIC, or any other of the myriad of languages out there is just syntax.
Well, there are differences; for example, on the conservative side, the pro-life religion-permeates-every-aspect-of-my-life type candidate is not someone I'm likely to vote for. The ones who think big government contracts should go to their friends rather than pass through an objective process.
There are enough differences in idiology that I can pick a candidate that makes sense (for me) from the big parties as well as from the independents, libertarians, green, etc. Part of my choice depends on the scope of power the person gets as well - at a presidential level, voting for Perot or Nader tends to be counterproductive because the "little guy" candidates don't get elected, but they do tend to split the vote for one of the candidates or the other - which almost always results in the wrong lizard getting in.
I don't disagree with the basic premise here of convincing others - and when that convincing becomes apparent pre-election, it's time to take action and vote for the candidate you want; until there's a good feeling ahead of the election that a third party can stand a chance, though, I don't know that continuing to vote for that third party makes sense and becomes anything more than a lost vote. It's easy to vote your conscience knowing that the vote may not make a difference today or tomorrow, but may 20 years down the road; it's much harder to live with the immediate consequences of having another 4 years of the right-wing government we've ended up with.
I'll have to disagree with you; sure there are examples of the party controlling the candidate; there are also maverick candidates who can do well. I do tend to vote neither Republican or Democrat on a national level; at the same time, I tend towards liberal ideology on more topics than not (but not all) and live in a very conservative state, so if I want an alternative to the neocons in this state to be put into office, that usually means voting Democrat in local elections - often there are only the two choices. Sure, I could write someone in - and then my vote counts even less (when's the last time a write-in won in a non-moderate/non-centrist state?) because there's a snowball's chance of them being elected.
It's very much a case of "if you don't vote for a lizard, the wrong lizard will win" (for those who are familiar with the works of Douglas Adams).
Not sure which post you're referring to, but OK, fair enough.
Too late for what exactly?
Too late to fix the problem. I'd have thought that was apparent.
BTW, I never said 9/11 was a coverup or that it was staged; never once referenced Orwell or Germany, nor do I subscribe to the "conspiracy theory websites" as you put it. (This administration is too stupid/incompetent to keep a secret, which is necessary for conspiracy) I'll thank you to stop putting words in my mouth.
It's very simple: People have the freedoms they're willing to fight for, and that they're willing to stand up and say "no more" when the government overreaches it's authority. There are limits on governmental authority for a reason; this administration, however, doesn't feel it needs oversight or that it needs to be accountable to anyone - least of all the people who elected it.
A solution (and one I have proposed over and over again) is to simply have the government follow the laws and rules it is obligated to follow. If they want to mine phone data, get a goddamn warrant. If they want to wiretap, get a FISA court to issue a warrant. Stop the bullshit of doing things without oversight.
Impeach Bush? Yes, but don't remove him. I shudder to think how much worse things would be in Cheney were President.
It's kinda interesting; according to at least one source, Verizon says they only turned over non-cellular phone data.
Excuse me, but WTF? Does the NSA really think that terrorists are not using throw-away cell phones (perhaps even using them only once)? We keep hearing about how smart this enemy is that we're facing, and that we have to outsmart them.
Somehow, making a grab at 100 million phone users' phone records doesn't seem that terribly effective a way to outsmart them. The way you find a needle is not to make the haystack larger; you scope and then get a warrant for what you can demonstrate you need. That's common sense.
Oh, right, with Bush we're not looking at someone who has a lot of common sense....
If Bush & Company find some reason for elections not to be held in a couple of years, I'll start worrying about the erosion of American freedoms.
If (and I grant you it's a big if) that ever happened, it'd be far, far too late to start worrying.
Next time you're pulled over for speeding, tell the cop that since nobody was hurt, "what's the big deal" and see what that gets you. It's only a law you broke, not like anyone died because of your speeding, right? So why should you have to pay a fine?
Try not paying your taxes or cheating on them and see what that gets you. After all, the government spends money it doesn't have anyways (it's called "deficit spending"), so what difference does it make if you decide not to pay your taxes? It's not hurting anyone, right?
Try carrying a concealed weapon without a permit and talk your way out of it by saying "why? It's not hurting anyone, I haven't shot anyone yet."
The only people telling us that they need these records and that we should just trust them are people who have not earned our trust. They have lied to us over and over again about a wide range of things. When evaluating someone's credibility, you have to look at what they've said and done in the past, and if that past shows a history of deception, you have to apply some common sense as to whether or not they're being truthful to you in what they're currently saying.
I trust this administration no further than I could comfortably spit a rat. I've been perfectly willing to let them earn my trust and respect, and they've not done so yet.
The "real danger" is in having a government that thinks so little of the people who elected it as to not be honest with them. The "real danger" is in letting our freedoms erode to the point that we don't even know what the word means. We're not there yet, but we're well on the way unless someone stands up and says "No more!". You want to shoot people who refuse to let the government walk all over their freedoms, just because you can't see the harm in letting the government do what it says it needs to do?
Being a patriot is not lying down and "having faith" that your government is looking out for you. Being patriotic means being vigilant and always questioning what those in power are doing (regardless of their - or your - political affiliation). Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that - and Bush is making a power grab the likes of which we haven't seen in a while in this country. If you don't think so, just let him keep breaking the law and insisting that he's in the right.
Tell me something, if Bush was in the right about the wiretaps being legal, why did three GOP members of the Senate Intelligence Committee draft a bill (with a fourth member not on the committee) to make this legal? If it was already legal, there's no need for a new law.
The big deal is that the law says it's not legal for the government to request records like this without a warrant, and that when asked about it, the attorney general said that the reason he didn't go to congress to change the laws was because he didn't think they would. So instead, they ignored the law.
Doesn't a government that doesn't play by its own rules bother you? It sure bothers me.
There are some good people in each party - but yes, by and large, I agree. I don't think I've ever voted a party ticket, always based on the individuals' - their credibility and their positions.
And in light of this, Bush would STILL get re-elected if he could run.
Sadly, this is very true. Of course, Bush has so little regard for the law, that he might just attempt to run a third time. It's only a pesky law that stands in his way, and he's perfectly OK with breaking the existing laws in the name of "protecting us from the terrorists".
It's funny, Clinton perjured himself during a non-Presidential activity and was impeached. Bush repeatedly breaks the law in the line of his job and nobody is interested in holding him accountable for his actions.
But all Bush has to do to get re-elected is (a) disregard an existing law (which he's done already), and (b) scare the religious right with more "terror alerts". Mark my words, the terror alert colour coding system will be back for this November's elections and in time for the next presidential election. That WMD (Weapon of Mass Distraction) will be used against the citizenry to drive them to vote Republican again. Bush is the biggest terrorist attacking this country right now - using terror (in the form of "fear of another attack") to get away with whatever the hell he wants. It's time he stop ringing that bell and be held accountable for his actions.
like your ISP, your bank, your cell phone provider, etc. You give more personal data than this to rent a video or save $0.45 at Albertsons.
The difference is that you can choose to give up the information they request. I've made a decision to allow these organizations access to certain pieces of information about myself.
I did not elect to give my government my telephone records.
I really fail to see the harm.
There's no harm in not following the rules? Do you really want a government that doesn't feel that the laws put in place are important? That the rule of law isn't important?
Interestingly enough, when the AG of the US was asked why he didn't just work with Congress to change the law, his answer was "because we believe they will refuse to change the laws". There is actually a reason why government is required to abide by the law, and that's to protect the citizenry from government intrusion. Remember that thing called the "bill of rights"? It was intended that the people - not the government - ultimately decide what they want.
When the government refuses to follow its own rules and laws, everone is harmed.
Bill Maher joked on Real Time last night that "Osama Bin Laden needs to find a new reason to hate us - he used to hate us for our freedom." While Maher was joking, he was making a very poignant point: If we give up our freedoms, the terrorists win.
The complaint isn't that the government isn't doing enough; it's that the administration is breaking the laws that are in place. They can perfectly well do the exact same thing by following the rules - get a subpoena for the records; get a FISA court to approve the wiretaps. They refuse to do that, and then play the "if you don't let us do this, the terrorists win". NO! If we *DO* let the government do this, the terrorists win!
Bush made a campaign promise to restore honor and integrity to the White House. He has failed to deliver on that promise, bringing more scandal than any president since Nixon.
Was I upset that Clinton was doing this? Hell yes! That a previous president did stuff like this is no excuse for continuing to do it and for insisting that he doesn't need a warrant because he's the President. For someone who was promising to clean things up, he's sure got a hell of a way of doing it.
Bush is fighting the war on terror with terror. He's terrorizing the citizenry into giving up their freedoms in the name of security. Homeland Security should be about providing Homeland Security, as Bill Maher puts it, and the majority of Americans do not feel any more secure now than they did on 9/11. For all the changes that have been made, it's been an exercise in rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenburg. FEMA is in the worst state it's been in in; airport security is still something of an oxymoron (but hey, we can't take pocket knives on board airplanes anymore, yes, that makes me feel a hell of a lot safer; next up, they'll be banning those who practice martial arts or have big, strong hands, because hey, they might just break someone's neck on the plane).
Let's look at who's making the rational arguement here. You said:
/ usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_121.html).
This is just a database of phone numbers and times, without names or addresses.
Then you started conflating the database with the NSA wiretap program (which are, as far as anyone knows, two separate programs); you also disagreed with your previous statement by then saying "well of COURSE they have a reverse phone lookup system" - so what exatly was the point of your earlier comment? To perhaps suggest that the NSA doesn't know how to do a freakin' database join?
It isn't a "paranoid rambling" to assume that someone who has broken the law repeatedly will do so again. I'll admit to using an extreme example to make a point.
This NSA program violates a number of existing laws, something that QWest's lawyers observed and as a result, they refused to comply with the order because it was simply unlawful. The act the NSA (and the phone companies who turned over the records without resistance) violated is called the Stored Communications Act (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18
And it isn't "the other side" that's upset about this. People like Newt Gingritch, John Boehner (R-OH), Deborah Pryce (R-OH) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are expressing concern over this program. It's Bush's own "side" who are expressing deep concerns about this program. Even Fox News "correspondent" and Bush apologist Joe Scarborough is expressing concern over this program.
That's got to give one pause for thought.
The administration could very simply solve this problem by getting a warrant as is required by law. The fourth amendment protects the citizens of the US against unlawful government search & siezure. This is an unlawful program, just like the NSA wiretapping program is (NSA, BTW, is responsible for FOREIGN SIGINT and cryptological analysis - NOT for domestic spying - check out their charter on the NSA.GOV website). NSA is a MILITARY organization, and the US military is barred by law (under the Posse Comittatus Act of 1878 from conducting operations against US citizens.
The Posse Comitatus act was amended in 1981 to permit certain types of interactions (use of facilities, vessels, aircraft, intelligence, tech aid, surveillance) but generally prohibits direct participation of Department of Defense personnel in law enforcement (e.g., search, seizure, and arrests). Even then, the government is not permitted to act without a warrant, which is what the NSA did in this case.
Now if the government gets away with what is now two warrantless activities (the NSA wiretapping program first, and now this acquisition of protected records where the applicable laws clearly spell out that the government is required to get a search warrant), what's to prevent them from expanding to warrantless physical searches of citizen's homes?
BTW, if it were a democratic president doing the same thing, I'd have a problem with it as well - and you can bet your ass that a republican congress would be calling for impeachment, if not removal, of a democratic president who did this. I don't identify with the democrats any more than the republicans - both parties are corrupt, and my vote typically goes against someone rather than for someone. It always is a choice of the lesser of two evils these days.
The scary thing is that one insider is saying that what we're finding out now is just the tip of the iceberg with regard to the illegal programs this administration is running.
It's a fallacious arguement to say that the database only contains numbers; that was my point. It's a simple matter to do a join of phone numbers to phone records, and it's frankly stupid to assume that the NSA doesn't have a reverse lookup list of its own for all US citizens.
But where the numbers themselves are concerned, it doesn't take human interaction to build the patterns. If the government decides you're a terrorist because someone from a "terrorist state" called you repeatedly and puts you in Gitmo, even though it was a repeated wrong number, tell me exactly how that's "fighting the war on terror".
And before you say "well, of course the government wouldn't do that", remember that everything they're doing with this pair of NSA programs is warrantless and without oversight; this administration has already demonstrated that they're pefectly willing to break the law.
Clinton was lambasted for commiting perjury in the Whitewater case. Bush has done far worse than that with these programs, and it's time he be held accountable. The President of the United States is not above the law. If he wants to enact programs like this, let him do it *legally*.
This is just a database of phone numbers and times, without names or addresses.
And we only have the government's assurance that that's all they have. How difficult is it to do a reverse phone lookup these days?
Ah, yes, the tired old "if you don't like it, LEAVE" arguement. Heaven forbid we should try to influence change in our country, much less hold our elected officials accountable for their actions.
Our government was founded on a principle (among others) of checks and balances. With two of three branches in the hands of a single party (regardless of whether it's republican or democrat), there are no checks and balances.
If you were looking at a democratic executive branch and a democratic congress having their way with the American people, I'd bet you'd damn well not leave. Part of living in a democracy is giving the opposition a voice and allowing it to be heard. Perhaps you'd rather live in a dictatorship so you don't have to think any more?
How about this: Let the government take your guns away. I'm not talking child safety locks, I'm talking about you not owning any guns at all. Period. Being prosecuted and locked up for violating the ban. Let's see if you stay quiet about that.
What the Bush administration is doing is exactly the same - they are violating the fourth amendment and insisting that they "don't have time" to get a warrant. That's utter bullshit. They don't want oversight because they don't want to be held accountable. And if they don't want to be held accountable, that's all the more reason for the American people to rise up and DEMAND accountability.
...that the Americans in this poll are particularly interested in preserving - the right to bear arms. They seem to forget about little things like the free exercise of religion, speech, the right to a free press, the right of assembly, the right to be free of unreasonable search and siezures - particularly without warrants - and the right to a public and speedy trial.
It's interesting to me that those who fight for the right to bear arms because they don't trust the government to not interfere with that are more than OK with the government deciding what is reasonable with the search & siezure rule because "they have nothing to hide".
First my background: 15+ years in IT, no certifications until I came to work for Novell. Well-paid as an IT technical lead at a Fortune 50 company prior to joining Novell. First job after joining Novell was teaching advanced technical training, hence the need for certifications (=marketing value as an instructor)
Now my current job: Global CNI Program Manager for Novell. Been at it since November of last year.
As long as I've been in IT, I've always held the fact that I held no certifications as a bit of a badge of pride; as a published author, it made for a very good benchmark to see what a potential employer was looking for - a cert, or "real experience". In fact, I did not go back to a company for a second discussion about potential employment there when the department manager expressed disappointment at my lack of certifications.
My observation over the years has been that certifications have value for those who hold them if and only if there is scarcity in the market for a certification. The article mentioned CNA (among others) as a devalued certification; I would tend to agree with this, because it is relatively easy to get.
Certifications that are difficult to achieve (CCIE & CISSP come immediately to mind) seem to be highly valued because they are difficult to get. Similarly, for those who hold Novell's CDE, they see it as very valuable because there are a very few in the world who have it (I happen to be one of those, so I'm not entirely unbiased in that belief).
One of the projects I'm involved in at the moment is certification roadmaps. I'm involved because - as the CNI Program Manager - I need to make sure we have qualified instructors teaching the courses, so testing and certification becomes important (as a student, I know I would want to know that I was being taught by someone who was qualified, and I know that any employer that is going to invest in sending their employees to a class is going to want to be able to see improvement in the employee's job performance).
One of the things that I'm looking at is how certifications reflect real-world knowledge. Some certifications do better than others; speaking from a Novell certifications perspective, the CDE, CLP, CLE, and CLE9 seem to do well in this regard because the tests are not "written" (form) tests, but practical tests that require you to complete certain tasks within a certain timeframe. Clearly the goal is not to turn out certified individuals with no real knowledge (and I've known some at jobs I've worked in the past who passed the test but didn't retain any knowledge - so-called "paper" certs).
So my questions: What do you find makes for a good certification vs. a bad certification? Is it in the testing method? Is it in the validity of the question pool? Is it that a good certification (or valued certification) has scarcity - so you are somewhat "elite" in your validated knowledge?
Or is the value of certification more oriented at a validation of a path of learning that you're (or an employee of yours, if you're an employer) on and knowing that you're doing well within a goal of achieving expertise in a particular technology? (ie, certification as a validation that you're where you should be in the track, rather than a goal unto itself, similar to when you were in college/university)
Serious answers are greatly appreciated - I realize there will be a few ACs who reply with some degree of snark, and that's OK, of course - it is Slashdot - but I do see a lot of good experience out here and having some feedback from the real world would be very beneficial as our team looks to increase the value of the certifications we offer.
Jim
I've not seen the tasks for this years' contest yet, but the way this contest used to be run (10+ years ago), the tasks were something that looked fairly trivial in a lot of cases, but in the end the exception processing is what usually caused a problem for most teams.
I competed in the Southeast Regional competition in the US back in about 1991 or 1992 - our team tied with a bunch of others for last place with no problems solved. At the time, it was 10 problems, 6 or 8 hours, choice of C or Pascal as a language, and one computer.
I had the good fortune to be able to practice with the team from the University of Central Florida, who had been ranked in the top 5 back at that time - I remember one of the problems we were given was to make change with the smallest number of coins possible. Looks easy at first glance, but the UCF team had problems with that particular practice problem.
Another problem was to build Pascal's Triangle for any input through n=11.
The UCF team solved that one using just a series of Pascal "write" lines interspersed with tests for the input value of 'n'. The coach applauded their ingenuity, and then tore them apart for avoiding the algorithmic issue. Their coach (Dave, I remember his name was) was quite outstanding as a programmer himself - worked on some AI-related stuff for intelligent ATC training simulations (also a project I worked on a different part of at the time); he had someone who actually built the problem sets from past contests and didn't tell him what the problems would be, just so he could use them to practice his own skills. He knocked out 10/10 in the time the top-rated UCF team turned out about 3 problems at that particular practice.
The programs (at least when I was involved in the contest) required a text file input that the judges would test the programs against, and output had to meet a very specific format that was detailed in the problem. If you were off a space, the answer wouldn't count. If your program didn't handle bad data (which was always in the input file), you wouldn't pass. The program was sent back with either a "pass" or a "fail" and that was it - you had to figure out what was wrong without seeing the input file or the output generated. You were allowed to ask written yes/no questions, but it often took so long to get an answer that it impacted your ability to complete a task.
As others mentioned, this isn't so much a programming contest as it is an algorithmic competition - a lot of the "programming" was done by developing an algorithm on paper and then translating that to code - since only one person could use the team's computer at a time (collaboration was allowed by team members, and some teams operated that way). One of the tricks to being successful was being able to correctly identify which problems were the easiest and which were the most difficult and get someone started right away with banging out code (the UCF team even referred to one coder as the "banger", as the person who would take the problem the team determined was the simplest and start banging code out while other team members worked on the algorithms for other problems).
For about the first 5 years of my IT career (which now spans about 15 years and now has me in a non-technical position managing a corporate program), I was able to get by without knowing much about the business my employer was in, and just fiddle around and play with IT systems.
As you move up the corporate ladder and gain responsibility, it becomes necessary to speak the language of business. If you are unable to explain why an IT solution is a good solution in terms that business people can understand, you won't be successful.
But IT people in business positions who can speak to the business so they can be understood can do very well. I just recently had an experience in my current "program management" position where I needed a system implemented. I was able to describe to IS&T in explicit detail exactly what my requirements were, and they were able to implement the system I needed in about 2 weeks. I got thanks from both the implementor and his director for being able to articulate what it was that I needed, because they get a lot of requests from non-technical people and spend a lot of time spinning their wheels just trying to understand the requirements.
The best of both worlds - having business people understand you so you can implement things you believe are the right thing to implement, and being able to speak about the technology to the IT folks - can take you a long ways, unless your goal is to always be a tech and have the business tell you what to implement.
You still have to put up with things like "decision alignment" (a big one on my team) and such, but in the end it's not so bad. Having the respect of your business is one way to ensure future employment/employability as well, and it makes a hell of a resume point.
It also helps to be able to speak the language of business when a vendor comes in and tries to snow your company - it helps you see through the corporatespeak BS that a lot of vendor salespeople bring into your CIO/CTO and explain to the decision makers why it's BS.
> As good as Novell is/was, it allways was a layer ontop of the client OS - not an OS in itself, so by design, in my opinion, Windows AD is superior in that respect.
What on earth are you talking about here? NetWare is an OS unto itself that uses DOS as a boot loader; DOS does the work of starting the system up with NetWare.
If by "Windows AD", you mean "Active Directory", that's not an OS, it's a directory service. Analagous to eDirectory, not to NetWare.
If in the above quoted bit you are referring to Client32, that doesn't compare to Active Directory either - that compares to the Microsoft Client for Windows, which is an inherent part of Windows. Both hook into the GINA architecture in Windows to provide similar services (authentication, discovery, and redirection).
If you're going to compare the two companies' products, please compare components that are at least in the same area - and do so after acquiring some education about the components you're referring to.
Let's all say this together: NetWare is an Operating System, Active Directory is a Directory Service. Comparing an Operating System to a Directory Service is like comparing apples and chilled martian hamster brains.
Now, repeat those two sentences until the end of time.
If you want to compare Active Directory to something, compare it to eDirectory, not NetWare. At least then you're comparing two pieces of software that fit into the same category.
I do all of these things regularly from SUSE Linux 10.0 - and have since it shipped.