That said, it's not a question of whether the adjectives used are 'complimentary' or not, but rather the generalization across an entire race that offends (some) people. They feel that racial generalizations (aka stereotypes) are unhelpful and inaccurate, and have a major history of abuse.
So what? This was an off-hand remark made in private. Have we come to the point where every word one says must be parsed and examined for any trace of anything that might offend the most hypersensative among us lest he or she be branded a racist?
I'm sorry, this is not "Hacking," it's the way the web works. They sent the web server a URL, requesting a document, and the web server gave it to them. They didn't do anything nefarious, underhanded, or tricky. The didn't claim to be anybody they weren't, there was no phishing or pretexting or anything like that involved.
I don't know how you can be so supportive of this activity as it's a dangerous and unclear line to take. Exactly what separates this from an SQL injection attack or spoofing a session ID within a URL? Afterall, you're just sending the webserver a URL/packets, how it responds is their problem, right? I don't think so. It's not like they were just choosing URLs at random. Even if the accused did the most basic form of this attack (i.e. server directory listings), they were still intentionally using URLs designed to trick the server into giving them access to material they knew they weren't authorized to access.
Is it illegal? Probably not, but I'm sure the courts will decide that one. Is it lame? Very. And I think it should call into question the type of campaign they're running. The democratic campaign decided to show their asses, and all for what? Because of a comment that even the victim in question didn't find offensive.
he trick might be to turn off the expression of the gene temporarily to rejuvenate aging organs, then switch it back in again to suppress cancer. That way, maybe Yossarian can have is cake and eat it too...
Wishful thinking. As much as people would love to blame the cause of aging on one particular gene or process, the truth of the matter is that aging is a complex and multi-factorial phenomenon that can't be addressed that easily.
Sure, stopping this particular gene might allow for more somatic cell repair but what does that do for the damaged mDNA due to free radicals in the mitohondria? And what about the telomeres protecting the ends of your chromosomes which would decrease with every replication? And what about damaged cells whose replication could cause the very cancer this gene was probably "designed" to prevent?
Not to be discouraging of this kind of research, but really it is just pie-in-the-sky type of stuff and should be regarded as such; the science just isn't there yet. And the irony of it all is that immortality most certainly won't be obtained in our lifetimes. Joseph Heller has to be smiling somewhere about that one.
I dislike Microsoft's business practices as much as the next guy, but give me a break. If you actually read the linked patent, it isn't a patent on conjugating words. It's a patent on automatically providing all of the different possible conjugation forms of any verb on the fly, which is something I, for one, haven't seen before and think could be pretty useful...
Interesting story. I had an 8:00 AM Microbiology class whose professor insisted on not only taking attendance but also having assigned seating... for a 500 person lecture class. To make sure you weren't tardy, every day he would have silly little thought questions for people in groups (determined by the seating arrangement) to solve and/or quizzes. To accomplish all this, he had a team of about 15 TAs that facilitated everything. All together, attendance accounted for 15% of your total grade.
Suffice it to say that I'm not a morning person and have always had a knack for microbiology anyway, so I was rarely present. I would review the material the week before the exams and made A's on them all. About halfway through the semester, when I was taking my third exam--I kid you not--the professor stood over my desk the entire time, watching me take the test. I can only guess that he thought I was cheating somehow--that there could be no other way to ace his intro-level material without attending. LOL
The more I think about it, there's a reason why the tests were so easy: because he spent half the allotted class time obsessing about attendance. In the time it took for him to orchestrate all of those quizzes and attendance rolls, we could've been covering more material. And what about the TAs? The class had to be ridiculously expensive to administer if they were paid.
For large classes, I just don't get the point of even beginning to worry about attendance. Education should be about the knowledge gained, not gratification for the professors or some rite of passage in the form of an 8:00 AM pop quiz. Furthermore, I've seen too many mediocre students use attendance grades as a prop for their low test scores. I say post the podcasts, and if nobody shows up to class just do what any upset teacher has a right to do; make the tests harder.
Profiling only catches stupid terrorists, not effective ones.
Nobody is arguing that terrorists practicing perfect tradecraft against a free and open society can be stopped. Not even 100% random searches are a guarantee against knowledgable and patient terrorists as you suggest. The reason why we aren't constantly attacked is because nobody is perfect and mistakes will most certainly be made. I mean look at Richard Reed, the infamous "shoe bomber." If the idiot had just went to the lavatory to try and light the fuse to his bomb, he probably would have been successful. It was this simple mistake that foiled his plans. The idea of a good security policy of limited resources should be to capitalize on these mistakes when they are made. This is, as I understand it, the rational behind the TSA's multi-faceted security policy.
But I'd like to go back to your example for a minute.
"If the system is 100% biased toward profiling, either all of them or none of them will be searched. If the system is a mix of profiling and random selection, then they can still figure out who's being profiled with as little as, say, 10 plane trips per attacker over the course of, say, a year or 2. If there aren't enough un-profiled attackers to carry out an attack, they can start picking more candidates, and this time they'll have some information that will let them guess the criteria."
It would be a mistake to focus solely on security at the airport itself as the only obstacle terrorists must navigate. In fact, that is probably the easiest part of the puzzle, even after September 11th. One of the things stacked against their favor is time. The longer it takes for an operation to go from the planning stage to execution, the more likely they are to get on the radar of police or intelligence services. What you view as a complete failure of profiling, is actually a great deterrent. If it takes over a year to get just a viable group of operatives together for a terrorist attack, you've just given law enforcement that much time to track them down using any number of methods.
Of course, in the real world, no rational security policy relies just on profiling. And much of the profiling criteria are contextual (i.e. demeanor, destination, length of the flight, etc.) and simply can't be avoided by simply changing personnel alone.
But for the sake of the argument, let's say you're right: a 100% profiling based security policy is ineffective. However, since nobody uses 100% profiling based policies, what does that prove? It certainly doesn't prove what you're suggesting: that using a mixture of profiling and randomly based searches is less effective than 100% random searches or that profiling doesn't have a place at all in a good security policy. Both of those are much harder claims to make.
Well, okay, fine... But how many types of terrorist groups have publicly declared war upon the United States and its interests? How many types have struck within the past decade? And how many of those--most importantly--have historically targeted airlines? The answer, of course, is that there is only one type: muslim extremists.
Given the above, why doesn't it make sense for U.S. airlines to use criteria that selects for those who are most likely to attack them? That isn't racism or bigotry--it's common sense.
Does that mean that we should only target muslims or people of middle eastern descent? Clearly not, but I do think that a bit of perspective is important. Otherwise we'd be too busy randomly detaining harmless people like Teddy Kennedy (who it literally took act of Congress to get off the Terrorist watch list) to miss the real threats.
If the employer AND the government AND the congressman AND apparently no one else will listen to this boob, maybe, just maybe, his issue ain't that important and he should quit bellyaching.
Did you even watch the video?
Basically the entire project he was working on was a sham. Not only were the systems not designed to specifications but were flawed in such a way as that if they did fail they would do so catastrophically.
Do you even know what FLIR is? It's how they know navigate and identify targets in low-level light conditions or fog (which, I hope I don't have to tell you is very common on coastlines). It's very simple, if the FLIR system fails (and according to him it will at low temperatures), people can die--either from collisions or friendly fire. If what he's saying is true, he should be making a stink.
Furthermore, the security camera issue is huge too. It's one thing to have blind spots. It's quite another to have two symmetrical approach angles that lead right ONTO the ship which can't be seen. Again, a failure due to this design flaw could lead to either the capture or deaths of American servicemen. And it could've been fixed by only adding one more camera.
As far as the non-TEMPEST compliance goes--I don't know. As I understand it, TEMPEST is literally tin-foil hat paranoid, but honestly there's no reason not to use something as simple as shielded cables is that's all that's preventing compliance.
Regardless, this is just another example of how government incompetence combined with corporate greed serves to hurt the American taxpayer and unnecessarily puts the lives of our service-men and women at risk. If you don't think there's a connection between this very believable story and deadly screw-ups like the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq or the Ospreys crashes, you're the boob--not the whistleblower.
With regard to Adelphia, that little graphic isn't the entire story. First of all, it doesn't show a price for any of the options, so you have no reference as far as what the actual cost is. Secondly, what's the difference in channels--specifically--between Adelphia Classic and Digital? Between Digital and Digital Plus? Shouldn't those be very easy questions to answer? Lastly, it doesn't show all of the options. Do you want DVR? That's going to cost you. Do you want additional T.V.s for your digital service? That's another fee.
The pricing structure is deliberately vague and confusing because, in the end, most people just resign and pay the higher rates.
As far as your criticism of a la carte goes, again, it doesn't have to be confusing as the example you bring up. What if they just gave a discount for increasing numbers of channels (Ex. "$5.00 dollars off your bill for every 5 channels you buy) or had a "The Works" package for people who honestly do want EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL?
It can be very simple. Every channel has its own price. You pick the ones you want. Take the sum of the prices, deduct credits (shopping/infomercial credits or total channel number credits, etc.), add basic service charges, tax the subtotal and it's done. How is this above and beyond the intelligence of an average person? Or, to put it in perspective, how is this any more complicated than your mobile phone bill which--if it's anything like mine--is full of things like "Anytime minutes," "Roaming charges," "Miscellaneous fees," "Wireless Web Access fees" or "Network Access fees" (whatever the hell that means--isn't network access what I'm paying for anyway...bah)?
Bottom line: consumers win with cable a la carte. People get the channels they want. The only people that have anything to fear are those subsidizing their crappy channels by being bundled with the few good channels. I'll never understand what makes disinterested people so afraid of things like this, which only serve to put more power in the hands of consumers and competition back into the marketplace.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention two things I forgot. I *did* have to buy a new power supply because the original one did not have enough wattage to support my 6800 and because dell uses their propeitary plugs, it did cost quite more than a power supply should. Secondly, that that $2200 included a 20-inch Sony Trinitron CRT monitor.
Regardless, if I could afford a new computer now, yeah, I wouldn't touch a pre-made one--not even after my good experience with Dell, for the reasons you stated. But I don't think that that is a reflection on Dell as a company but the whole business of pre-made computers in general.
Well, it's been awhile, but I do remember that many of those prices were more expensive than what you have listed. Particularly the processor, the RAM, the HDD and the CDRW drive ($30? are you kidding?) were in early 2002 no way near what you have above. Furthermore you also omitted the shipping and software costs. For my computer, I needed Microsoft Windows XP Pro (my undergrad required Pro) but also the Microsoft Office Suite (again, required).
I'm not saying it wasn't strictly possible to build the same computer at the same or lower price, but it couldn't have been much lower. And you certainly couldn't have done it going through reputable dealers. After doing a bunch of research, I concluded at the time that it was a better buy to just go with a pre-made.
While I understand that Dell sucks (I hate them too)...
I understand that there are good reasons to dislike Dell. It's very difficult to get a good computer at a reasonable price from them lately. However, I have had a very good experience with Dell.
In 2002, I got a Dell Dimension 8200 with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB RDRAM, an Nvidia 4200ti graphics card, a Soundblaster Live soundcard, an 80 Gb harddrive, CD-RW, and a DVD drive for $2200. At the time, that was an incredible deal. I couldn't have built the same computer on my own without paying hundreds more.
Two years later, I was upgrading the graphics card when I accidently mangaged to fry the motherboard. (I'm still not sure how that one happened--I was grounded the entire time.) After a 30 minute phonecall (lol yes with technician from India) where I did a number of tests to verify that it was, in fact, dead, the warrenty kicked in and only three days later, a computer repair guy was in my house (at no cost) and replaced not only the motherboard but the two drives, the processor, the RAM, the powersupply, and the soundcard. For all intents and purposes, I got a new computer because of my own negligence. Now how's that for customer service?
With only two upgrades of a Geforce 6800 (unlocked pipelines, slightly overclocked) and an extra 512 MB of RD RAM, that computer is what I still use today to play even new videogames.
Granted, I'm probably the exception rather than the rule, but I think it's unfair to say that Dell is always a bad deal or that Dell's customer service universally sucks.
Who ever said that the credit had to be the same as the price as a regular channel?
Imagine if the shopping channels credited one tenth of the price as the average channel debited. With a minimum number of regular channels of even five, you'd need FIFTY shopping channels to make the net price zero. I don't even think there are fifty infomercial/shopping channels, but it doesn't matter because the providers will know and can EASILY design a system that can account for this specific case with those two simple variables..
Regardless I think it's funny how people criticize the a la carte system for being confusing or complicated, when the current cable company pricing systems are already a mess. I currently get my service from Adelphia and it's almost impossible to get even a friggin price point for the individual options out of them. Everything is all bound up in "Advantage Paks" (a double-speak term if I've ever heard one) that lack any rhyme, reason, or advertised pricing. I mean look at their FAQ. It's hilariously defensive, with questions like "Is the "New Vision of Cable" just another way to increase your rates?" or "What 'value' am I getting from these new packages? It looks like I'm going to be paying more, so please explain the "savings" that I'll be receiving." The answers to these of course explain how, by paying more, you're actually saving money, which is double-plus-good to know and certainly puts this consumer's mind at ease.
How could a la carte pricing be any more complicated or confusing than that?
So the throngs of Iranians chanting "Death to America!" in unison are something we shouldn't be worried about? A government-sanctioned suicide-bomber brigade, "The Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison" is something a peaceful people would support? The elected leader of Iran, Ahmadinejad publicly stating that the time of the 12th Imam (the muslim version of the Apocalypse) is near doesn't concern you in the least?
Stop burying your head in the sand. As it is now, Iran is a major obstacle to any potential peace within the middleast. With nuclear weapons, Iran could be the provocateur of the next World War.
If the Iranian people are as moderate as you claim they are, then where are they? Why aren't they speaking out? Even assuming these moderates exist, don't they share responsibility (through their inaction) for the aggression of their government regardless? How are we supposed to simultaneously protect the interests of the region as a whole if we can't do anything that might coerce the Iranian people (such as sanctions)? Furthermore, if you are right--the Iranian people don't support their government--how does sitting back and letting the Iranian government risk a nuclear conflict in any way serve the interest of the Iranian people?
Or pluged the wrong power cord in (it really does the trick, too)... or had a power surge... or it fell out of a 30th floor window...
Not that I'm advocating one should do this, but be careful there. If they still want the damaged drive, don't assume that the data won't still be there. Don't end up like this chick and and be sloppy about itif you're going to do it. Burning out the controller interface does NOT delete the data on the drive--it just makes it hard to get to. Similarly dropping it is no gauarentee of anything either.
And more ethical. No need to slaughter all those cows now (not that we really need to for our abundant food supply anyway). And there won't be the risk of getting CJD since there should be no neural tissue.
But see, that's just a small benefit to labrotory grown (invitro) meats. Not only could you certify your meat free of CJD but also E.Coli, Salmonella, and all microbes/prions in general--including non-pathogenic microbes responsible for food spoilage. In fact, under sterile conditions you could produce a steak that could stay fresh in its original package for months (if not years) in a normal refrigerator--or no refrigerator at all (a la MREs, but uncooked).
But even sterile food is just the beginning. See, because you have complete control over the genes of the cells being consumed, you could do all kinds of things that most people can't even dream about now. Imagine genetically engineering a tenderloin that had all the essential nutrients one needs or a pork-chop with only the "good" cholesterols in it. There could be genes for non-essential nutrients that everybody loves like anti-oxidants, caffeine or ginseng. You could add genes for preservatives such as antibiotics or anti-fungal agents. Hell, you could make the food glow if you wanted to. The only limits to this are the marketplace and the imagination.
Speaking of the marketplace, invitro meat will inevitably be better but in one way especially; and that is price. Think about it. It takes YEARS to get a cow to the age of slaughter. Not only does this process require a lot of time and energy, but it takes up huge amounts of space to accomplish--none of which are cheap. The slaughtering and packaging process itself is work-intensive, cumbersome and highly regulated. And even after all of that, much of the end product is completely wasted in the form of non-edible parts of the animal. Invitro meat has none of these problems. No energy is wasted creating tissues that won't be used. Once the process is perfected, meat that used to take years to generate could take only weeks or even a matter of days. No industrialized farm could match that, because the current way of producing meat is inherently inefficient. Even with heavy federal subsidies, it would be impossible for them to compete.
I don't care what people say in this country about their ethical concerns. If you can consistently deliver the freshest steak they've ever eaten at a tenth of the price, they'll buy it. People travel miles to Wal-mart or Sam's to save 20 cents on toliet paper. There's no way they'd pass invitro meat up with the prices we're talking about--no matter how creepy they might have initially thought it was.
I'm absolutely convinced that invitro meat is the way of the future. Maybe not in the next five years. Maybe not in our lifetimes. But the biology, brute efficiency, and potential marketability behind the idea makes it all but inevitable.
Then you are faced with proving that there isn't any encrypted real data amongst the random free space...
Which is, for all intents and purposes, impossible--putting the burden of proof on your adversaries. In court the suspicion or possibility of there being something more is circumstancial evidence at best.
I agree with the gist of your message, but I just wanted to point out that as much as we slashdotters like to jeer at American Idol watchers, we're no better. How many of us play WoW? How many of us watch ESPN or play sports? Well, scratch that last one. =P Entertainment--any entertainment--is a a distraction; from the most banal (American Idol) to the most intellectual (Tinkering with the Linux kernal).
This isn't the only case where we are very hypocritical, though. Look at your sig and its disdain of SUVs--a common theme around here lately. Sure, most SUVs are fuel inefficient and oftentimes unnecessary. But sports cars are inefficient and, by definition, unnecessary? How many of us have sports cars or would be falling over ourselves to check out some high-tech innovation in one? Why is this?
Now I'm not saying I'm any better or worse in this regard. But perhaps we might have a more effective time of convincing the general public to change if we started advocating change within ourselves.
History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun, yadda yadda yadda. I am sick of people like you who blame one religion for all the problems. Religion, in general, is the problem (and especially retarded religious people).
You're jumping to a conclusion that "religion"(*) is the origin of the world's problems when everything you say in your post suggests that people are, in fact, the true source. You say that people are, in general, a "bloodthirsty lot," but then want to make the claim that religion is the source of religious violence. Is soccer to blame for soccer hooliganism? Is the institution of marriage the real cause of domestic violence? Furthermore, you outline the social dynamics that enable religious genocide, but then never bother to mention that such polarizing tactics are quite prevalent throughout history in non-religious contexts. Modern examples of this include ethnic genocide within Rwanda, Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia, and atrocities under Stalin during the Bolshevik Revolution. In fact, some anthropological evidence indicates that it was probably humans who are to blame for the rapid and striking disappearance of the Neanderthals. In all likelihood, it seems that our violent and tribalistic tendencies have been with us since our beginning as a species.
That being said, the GP was right: There is a problem with Islam. Now before you begin your atheistic, all-religions-are-equal claptrap again, allow me to expand upon that statement. The problem with Islam isn't the doctrine or religion, per se. Indeed, Islam, as you pointed out, was the source of great intellectual and social advancement at one point in history. The current problem with Islam is its dominant interpretation and institutions.
What's wrong with the dominate interpretation(s) of Islam? The main problems are rather simple. First of all, there is no voice of moderation within the mainstream Islamic society today. Secondly, for muslims, cosmopolitan ("I am a citizen of the world.") viewpoints are highly discouraged. These worldviews are replaced by an unquestionable religious identity whose value supersedes even the very lives of non-muslims. With the extremism created by lack of moderation within Islamic society combined with the tribalism of the "You are a muslim, first and foremost"-doctrine, conflict with non-muslims is inevitable and the cause of violence all over the world. I suggest you read this book, which documents these problems if you want a more in depth analysis. And just in case you were wondering that book was written by a muslim who happens to also be a lesbian.
-Grym
(*)Whatever that means. Any religion? All Religions? Even the contradictory ones? What about unstructured religions like Taoism?
Outsourcing is not a race to the bottom, it is a race to the average.
This conversation has long since passed the headlines of slashdot and this comment probably fall on deaf ears, but I just wanted to point out that this is a common misconception about globalization. Sure, in theory, globalization does mean that every country is able to become a productive member in the international community, effectively redistributing wealth in an equitable fashion. However, that is not how it plays out in reality. In reality, it is much more profitable for companies to abandon countries as soon as their economic conditions improve and/or workers start organizing--hopping back and forth between exploitable third world countries and profiting the entire time. If you doubt this, understand that it's already happened in Malaysia and it's about to happen in India too.
It's a shell game, and the only winners are the ones running it.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised about this, but once again, the slashdot discussion misses the point. Investment advice aside, if the student loan you are talking about is from the government, you are not permitted to use it for investing. Read the Borrower's Rights and Responsibilities Statement (.pdf LINK) you signed (or at least clicked through). Section 6 clearly does not include personal investments. That being said, going out to bars or other entertainment expenses aren't included either. Truth be told, most students are probably in violation of section 6; your problem, however, is one of scale. If you plan on misappropriating thousands of dollars, don't expect to fly under the radar. If you are caught misspending your student loan, not only do you lose it but you must immediately pay back the sum of what you borrowed up to that point, which I assume would be disastrous because your taking loans out in the first place. Why risk it?
And for God's sakes, start paying attention to what you're signing or agreeing to! Clicking through a EULA or two might have worked up till now, but not taking the time to ascertain the basic jist of the terms of a loan worth tens of thousands of dollars is just ridiculous. Skipping over these sections because they're lawyer-talk and boring is a recipe for disaster. Sooner or later, you're going to sign something that wasn't written in your best interest and consequently get burnt.
Well there is two angles to the "anti-outsourcing jobs" thing.
Lou Dobbs Side: Americans are the only ones who should have decent paying jobs, that's the way God wants it.
Pragmatic Side: Most outsourced companies turn to shit because they hire just about anyone willing to work for low wages. Net result are shitty Engrish products that suck twice as hard as most natively built products.
I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Should I rant about slashdot's moderation system for modding this insightful? Would it make more sense to combat your derisive portrayal of Lou Dobbs' position on outsourcing as somehow religiously based? Or would it be best to just make fun of how your simplified dissent on outsourcing into your view (which is reasonable and well-stated) and everyone else (which, coincidently, are raving lunatics)? Maybe I could tug at the moderators' liberal heartstrings and out you as a racist for associating poorly spoken "engrish" with foreign workers, despite the fact that India is the largest English speaking country in the world. Ahh... the possibilities.
Regardless, on every point, you're wrong. First of all, there are many reasons to oppose outsourcing and the larger trend of globalization. Many feel that it is a race to the bottom, both for worker's wages and quality of life. For the latter, outsourcing is a convenient way for companies to avoid the costs associated with worker's rights and safety (think: child labor laws, occupational health and safety laws, etc.). It also weakens the strength of organized labor in countries whose jobs are being outsourced. These are all bad things that directly result from outsourcing in just the short term alone.
A long term-view can also be taken. In a completely globalized economy, the traditional checks on business (via national governments) are removed. What's left is a form of a Plutocracy and a precarious situation where the world's societies cannot function independently. Under such a system, large spikes in the cost of transportation (e.g. an oil shortage drastically increases the cost of shipping) could have disastrous effects.
Note that none of the above reasons depend upon the efficacy or quality of products and services which result from outsourcing. Indeed, one could expect that over time, they would be superior. Instances where they have not could be seen as the growing pains of a new way of doing business.
The scholarships are there because African Americans have been repressed financially for so long that it is difficult for their children to escape poverty. The rich stay rich historically and the poor stay poor.
Then why not base affirmative action off of socioeconomic status and not something as arbitrary as skin color? Besides, given that blacks are per-capita the lowest, wouldn't they be helped the most?
It saddens me that you have such horrible views on gifts designed to improve a historically repressed people.
Disagreeing with affirmative action doesn't represent a callous view towards blacks. Expecting less of blacks is, in my opinion, far less respectful. It's a cosmopolitan, condescending type of racism; one that doesn't expect any real academic or professional competition from someone, simply because their black.
Slashdot Mirror
That said, it's not a question of whether the adjectives used are 'complimentary' or not, but rather the generalization across an entire race that offends (some) people. They feel that racial generalizations (aka stereotypes) are unhelpful and inaccurate, and have a major history of abuse.
So what? This was an off-hand remark made in private. Have we come to the point where every word one says must be parsed and examined for any trace of anything that might offend the most hypersensative among us lest he or she be branded a racist?
-Grym
I'm sorry, this is not "Hacking," it's the way the web works. They sent the web server a URL, requesting a document, and the web server gave it to them. They didn't do anything nefarious, underhanded, or tricky. The didn't claim to be anybody they weren't, there was no phishing or pretexting or anything like that involved.
I don't know how you can be so supportive of this activity as it's a dangerous and unclear line to take. Exactly what separates this from an SQL injection attack or spoofing a session ID within a URL? Afterall, you're just sending the webserver a URL/packets, how it responds is their problem, right? I don't think so. It's not like they were just choosing URLs at random. Even if the accused did the most basic form of this attack (i.e. server directory listings), they were still intentionally using URLs designed to trick the server into giving them access to material they knew they weren't authorized to access.
Is it illegal? Probably not, but I'm sure the courts will decide that one. Is it lame? Very. And I think it should call into question the type of campaign they're running. The democratic campaign decided to show their asses, and all for what? Because of a comment that even the victim in question didn't find offensive.
-Grym
Wishful thinking. As much as people would love to blame the cause of aging on one particular gene or process, the truth of the matter is that aging is a complex and multi-factorial phenomenon that can't be addressed that easily.
Sure, stopping this particular gene might allow for more somatic cell repair but what does that do for the damaged mDNA due to free radicals in the mitohondria? And what about the telomeres protecting the ends of your chromosomes which would decrease with every replication? And what about damaged cells whose replication could cause the very cancer this gene was probably "designed" to prevent?
Not to be discouraging of this kind of research, but really it is just pie-in-the-sky type of stuff and should be regarded as such; the science just isn't there yet. And the irony of it all is that immortality most certainly won't be obtained in our lifetimes. Joseph Heller has to be smiling somewhere about that one.
-Grym
I dislike Microsoft's business practices as much as the next guy, but give me a break. If you actually read the linked patent, it isn't a patent on conjugating words. It's a patent on automatically providing all of the different possible conjugation forms of any verb on the fly, which is something I, for one, haven't seen before and think could be pretty useful...
-Grym
Interesting story. I had an 8:00 AM Microbiology class whose professor insisted on not only taking attendance but also having assigned seating... for a 500 person lecture class. To make sure you weren't tardy, every day he would have silly little thought questions for people in groups (determined by the seating arrangement) to solve and/or quizzes. To accomplish all this, he had a team of about 15 TAs that facilitated everything. All together, attendance accounted for 15% of your total grade.
Suffice it to say that I'm not a morning person and have always had a knack for microbiology anyway, so I was rarely present. I would review the material the week before the exams and made A's on them all. About halfway through the semester, when I was taking my third exam--I kid you not--the professor stood over my desk the entire time, watching me take the test. I can only guess that he thought I was cheating somehow--that there could be no other way to ace his intro-level material without attending. LOL
The more I think about it, there's a reason why the tests were so easy: because he spent half the allotted class time obsessing about attendance. In the time it took for him to orchestrate all of those quizzes and attendance rolls, we could've been covering more material. And what about the TAs? The class had to be ridiculously expensive to administer if they were paid.
For large classes, I just don't get the point of even beginning to worry about attendance. Education should be about the knowledge gained, not gratification for the professors or some rite of passage in the form of an 8:00 AM pop quiz. Furthermore, I've seen too many mediocre students use attendance grades as a prop for their low test scores. I say post the podcasts, and if nobody shows up to class just do what any upset teacher has a right to do; make the tests harder.
-Grym
Profiling only catches stupid terrorists, not effective ones.
Nobody is arguing that terrorists practicing perfect tradecraft against a free and open society can be stopped. Not even 100% random searches are a guarantee against knowledgable and patient terrorists as you suggest. The reason why we aren't constantly attacked is because nobody is perfect and mistakes will most certainly be made. I mean look at Richard Reed, the infamous "shoe bomber." If the idiot had just went to the lavatory to try and light the fuse to his bomb, he probably would have been successful. It was this simple mistake that foiled his plans. The idea of a good security policy of limited resources should be to capitalize on these mistakes when they are made. This is, as I understand it, the rational behind the TSA's multi-faceted security policy.
But I'd like to go back to your example for a minute.
"If the system is 100% biased toward profiling, either all of them or none of them will be searched. If the system is a mix of profiling and random selection, then they can still figure out who's being profiled with as little as, say, 10 plane trips per attacker over the course of, say, a year or 2. If there aren't enough un-profiled attackers to carry out an attack, they can start picking more candidates, and this time they'll have some information that will let them guess the criteria."
It would be a mistake to focus solely on security at the airport itself as the only obstacle terrorists must navigate. In fact, that is probably the easiest part of the puzzle, even after September 11th. One of the things stacked against their favor is time. The longer it takes for an operation to go from the planning stage to execution, the more likely they are to get on the radar of police or intelligence services. What you view as a complete failure of profiling, is actually a great deterrent. If it takes over a year to get just a viable group of operatives together for a terrorist attack, you've just given law enforcement that much time to track them down using any number of methods.
Of course, in the real world, no rational security policy relies just on profiling. And much of the profiling criteria are contextual (i.e. demeanor, destination, length of the flight, etc.) and simply can't be avoided by simply changing personnel alone.
But for the sake of the argument, let's say you're right: a 100% profiling based security policy is ineffective. However, since nobody uses 100% profiling based policies, what does that prove? It certainly doesn't prove what you're suggesting: that using a mixture of profiling and randomly based searches is less effective than 100% random searches or that profiling doesn't have a place at all in a good security policy. Both of those are much harder claims to make.
-Grym
Well, okay, fine... But how many types of terrorist groups have publicly declared war upon the United States and its interests? How many types have struck within the past decade? And how many of those--most importantly--have historically targeted airlines? The answer, of course, is that there is only one type: muslim extremists.
Given the above, why doesn't it make sense for U.S. airlines to use criteria that selects for those who are most likely to attack them? That isn't racism or bigotry--it's common sense.
Does that mean that we should only target muslims or people of middle eastern descent? Clearly not, but I do think that a bit of perspective is important. Otherwise we'd be too busy randomly detaining harmless people like Teddy Kennedy (who it literally took act of Congress to get off the Terrorist watch list) to miss the real threats.
-Grym
Did you even watch the video?
Basically the entire project he was working on was a sham. Not only were the systems not designed to specifications but were flawed in such a way as that if they did fail they would do so catastrophically.
Do you even know what FLIR is? It's how they know navigate and identify targets in low-level light conditions or fog (which, I hope I don't have to tell you is very common on coastlines). It's very simple, if the FLIR system fails (and according to him it will at low temperatures), people can die--either from collisions or friendly fire. If what he's saying is true, he should be making a stink.
Furthermore, the security camera issue is huge too. It's one thing to have blind spots. It's quite another to have two symmetrical approach angles that lead right ONTO the ship which can't be seen. Again, a failure due to this design flaw could lead to either the capture or deaths of American servicemen. And it could've been fixed by only adding one more camera.
As far as the non-TEMPEST compliance goes--I don't know. As I understand it, TEMPEST is literally tin-foil hat paranoid, but honestly there's no reason not to use something as simple as shielded cables is that's all that's preventing compliance.
Regardless, this is just another example of how government incompetence combined with corporate greed serves to hurt the American taxpayer and unnecessarily puts the lives of our service-men and women at risk. If you don't think there's a connection between this very believable story and deadly screw-ups like the lack of armored vehicles in Iraq or the Ospreys crashes, you're the boob--not the whistleblower.
-Grym
With regard to Adelphia, that little graphic isn't the entire story. First of all, it doesn't show a price for any of the options, so you have no reference as far as what the actual cost is. Secondly, what's the difference in channels--specifically--between Adelphia Classic and Digital? Between Digital and Digital Plus? Shouldn't those be very easy questions to answer? Lastly, it doesn't show all of the options. Do you want DVR? That's going to cost you. Do you want additional T.V.s for your digital service? That's another fee.
The pricing structure is deliberately vague and confusing because, in the end, most people just resign and pay the higher rates.
As far as your criticism of a la carte goes, again, it doesn't have to be confusing as the example you bring up. What if they just gave a discount for increasing numbers of channels (Ex. "$5.00 dollars off your bill for every 5 channels you buy) or had a "The Works" package for people who honestly do want EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL?
It can be very simple. Every channel has its own price. You pick the ones you want. Take the sum of the prices, deduct credits (shopping/infomercial credits or total channel number credits, etc.), add basic service charges, tax the subtotal and it's done. How is this above and beyond the intelligence of an average person? Or, to put it in perspective, how is this any more complicated than your mobile phone bill which--if it's anything like mine--is full of things like "Anytime minutes," "Roaming charges," "Miscellaneous fees," "Wireless Web Access fees" or "Network Access fees" (whatever the hell that means--isn't network access what I'm paying for anyway...bah)?
Bottom line: consumers win with cable a la carte. People get the channels they want. The only people that have anything to fear are those subsidizing their crappy channels by being bundled with the few good channels. I'll never understand what makes disinterested people so afraid of things like this, which only serve to put more power in the hands of consumers and competition back into the marketplace.
-Grym
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention two things I forgot. I *did* have to buy a new power supply because the original one did not have enough wattage to support my 6800 and because dell uses their propeitary plugs, it did cost quite more than a power supply should. Secondly, that that $2200 included a 20-inch Sony Trinitron CRT monitor.
Regardless, if I could afford a new computer now, yeah, I wouldn't touch a pre-made one--not even after my good experience with Dell, for the reasons you stated. But I don't think that that is a reflection on Dell as a company but the whole business of pre-made computers in general.
-Grym
Well, it's been awhile, but I do remember that many of those prices were more expensive than what you have listed. Particularly the processor, the RAM, the HDD and the CDRW drive ($30? are you kidding?) were in early 2002 no way near what you have above. Furthermore you also omitted the shipping and software costs. For my computer, I needed Microsoft Windows XP Pro (my undergrad required Pro) but also the Microsoft Office Suite (again, required).
I'm not saying it wasn't strictly possible to build the same computer at the same or lower price, but it couldn't have been much lower. And you certainly couldn't have done it going through reputable dealers. After doing a bunch of research, I concluded at the time that it was a better buy to just go with a pre-made.
-Grym
While I understand that Dell sucks (I hate them too)...
I understand that there are good reasons to dislike Dell. It's very difficult to get a good computer at a reasonable price from them lately. However, I have had a very good experience with Dell.
In 2002, I got a Dell Dimension 8200 with a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB RDRAM, an Nvidia 4200ti graphics card, a Soundblaster Live soundcard, an 80 Gb harddrive, CD-RW, and a DVD drive for $2200. At the time, that was an incredible deal. I couldn't have built the same computer on my own without paying hundreds more.
Two years later, I was upgrading the graphics card when I accidently mangaged to fry the motherboard. (I'm still not sure how that one happened--I was grounded the entire time.) After a 30 minute phonecall (lol yes with technician from India) where I did a number of tests to verify that it was, in fact, dead, the warrenty kicked in and only three days later, a computer repair guy was in my house (at no cost) and replaced not only the motherboard but the two drives, the processor, the RAM, the powersupply, and the soundcard. For all intents and purposes, I got a new computer because of my own negligence. Now how's that for customer service?
With only two upgrades of a Geforce 6800 (unlocked pipelines, slightly overclocked) and an extra 512 MB of RD RAM, that computer is what I still use today to play even new videogames.
Granted, I'm probably the exception rather than the rule, but I think it's unfair to say that Dell is always a bad deal or that Dell's customer service universally sucks.
-Grym
Who ever said that the credit had to be the same as the price as a regular channel?
Imagine if the shopping channels credited one tenth of the price as the average channel debited. With a minimum number of regular channels of even five, you'd need FIFTY shopping channels to make the net price zero. I don't even think there are fifty infomercial/shopping channels, but it doesn't matter because the providers will know and can EASILY design a system that can account for this specific case with those two simple variables..
Regardless I think it's funny how people criticize the a la carte system for being confusing or complicated, when the current cable company pricing systems are already a mess. I currently get my service from Adelphia and it's almost impossible to get even a friggin price point for the individual options out of them. Everything is all bound up in "Advantage Paks" (a double-speak term if I've ever heard one) that lack any rhyme, reason, or advertised pricing. I mean look at their FAQ. It's hilariously defensive, with questions like "Is the "New Vision of Cable" just another way to increase your rates?" or "What 'value' am I getting from these new packages? It looks like I'm going to be paying more, so please explain the "savings" that I'll be receiving." The answers to these of course explain how, by paying more, you're actually saving money, which is double-plus-good to know and certainly puts this consumer's mind at ease.
How could a la carte pricing be any more complicated or confusing than that?
-Grym
For example, cable companies get paid to carry the home shopping channel and if you drop it you will end up paying more for the other chans.
Alright, then give customers a corresponding credit onto their bills for every shopping/infomercial channel I take--problem solved.
But that wasn't really the problem was it?
-Grym
So the throngs of Iranians chanting "Death to America!" in unison are something we shouldn't be worried about? A government-sanctioned suicide-bomber brigade, "The Lovers of Martyrdom Garrison" is something a peaceful people would support? The elected leader of Iran, Ahmadinejad publicly stating that the time of the 12th Imam (the muslim version of the Apocalypse) is near doesn't concern you in the least?
Stop burying your head in the sand. As it is now, Iran is a major obstacle to any potential peace within the middleast. With nuclear weapons, Iran could be the provocateur of the next World War.
If the Iranian people are as moderate as you claim they are, then where are they? Why aren't they speaking out? Even assuming these moderates exist, don't they share responsibility (through their inaction) for the aggression of their government regardless? How are we supposed to simultaneously protect the interests of the region as a whole if we can't do anything that might coerce the Iranian people (such as sanctions)? Furthermore, if you are right--the Iranian people don't support their government--how does sitting back and letting the Iranian government risk a nuclear conflict in any way serve the interest of the Iranian people?
-Grym
Or pluged the wrong power cord in (it really does the trick, too)... or had a power surge... or it fell out of a 30th floor window...
Not that I'm advocating one should do this, but be careful there. If they still want the damaged drive, don't assume that the data won't still be there. Don't end up like this chick and and be sloppy about itif you're going to do it. Burning out the controller interface does NOT delete the data on the drive--it just makes it hard to get to. Similarly dropping it is no gauarentee of anything either.
-Grym
And more ethical. No need to slaughter all those cows now (not that we really need to for our abundant food supply anyway). And there won't be the risk of getting CJD since there should be no neural tissue.
But see, that's just a small benefit to labrotory grown (invitro) meats. Not only could you certify your meat free of CJD but also E.Coli, Salmonella, and all microbes/prions in general--including non-pathogenic microbes responsible for food spoilage. In fact, under sterile conditions you could produce a steak that could stay fresh in its original package for months (if not years) in a normal refrigerator--or no refrigerator at all (a la MREs, but uncooked).
But even sterile food is just the beginning. See, because you have complete control over the genes of the cells being consumed, you could do all kinds of things that most people can't even dream about now. Imagine genetically engineering a tenderloin that had all the essential nutrients one needs or a pork-chop with only the "good" cholesterols in it. There could be genes for non-essential nutrients that everybody loves like anti-oxidants, caffeine or ginseng. You could add genes for preservatives such as antibiotics or anti-fungal agents. Hell, you could make the food glow if you wanted to. The only limits to this are the marketplace and the imagination.
Speaking of the marketplace, invitro meat will inevitably be better but in one way especially; and that is price. Think about it. It takes YEARS to get a cow to the age of slaughter. Not only does this process require a lot of time and energy, but it takes up huge amounts of space to accomplish--none of which are cheap. The slaughtering and packaging process itself is work-intensive, cumbersome and highly regulated. And even after all of that, much of the end product is completely wasted in the form of non-edible parts of the animal. Invitro meat has none of these problems. No energy is wasted creating tissues that won't be used. Once the process is perfected, meat that used to take years to generate could take only weeks or even a matter of days. No industrialized farm could match that, because the current way of producing meat is inherently inefficient. Even with heavy federal subsidies, it would be impossible for them to compete.
I don't care what people say in this country about their ethical concerns. If you can consistently deliver the freshest steak they've ever eaten at a tenth of the price, they'll buy it. People travel miles to Wal-mart or Sam's to save 20 cents on toliet paper. There's no way they'd pass invitro meat up with the prices we're talking about--no matter how creepy they might have initially thought it was.
I'm absolutely convinced that invitro meat is the way of the future. Maybe not in the next five years. Maybe not in our lifetimes. But the biology, brute efficiency, and potential marketability behind the idea makes it all but inevitable.
-Grym
Which is, for all intents and purposes, impossible--putting the burden of proof on your adversaries. In court the suspicion or possibility of there being something more is circumstancial evidence at best.
-Grym
I agree with the gist of your message, but I just wanted to point out that as much as we slashdotters like to jeer at American Idol watchers, we're no better. How many of us play WoW? How many of us watch ESPN or play sports? Well, scratch that last one. =P Entertainment--any entertainment--is a a distraction; from the most banal (American Idol) to the most intellectual (Tinkering with the Linux kernal).
This isn't the only case where we are very hypocritical, though. Look at your sig and its disdain of SUVs--a common theme around here lately. Sure, most SUVs are fuel inefficient and oftentimes unnecessary. But sports cars are inefficient and, by definition, unnecessary? How many of us have sports cars or would be falling over ourselves to check out some high-tech innovation in one? Why is this?
Now I'm not saying I'm any better or worse in this regard. But perhaps we might have a more effective time of convincing the general public to change if we started advocating change within ourselves.
-Grym
History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun, yadda yadda yadda. I am sick of people like you who blame one religion for all the problems. Religion, in general, is the problem (and especially retarded religious people).
You're jumping to a conclusion that "religion"(*) is the origin of the world's problems when everything you say in your post suggests that people are, in fact, the true source. You say that people are, in general, a "bloodthirsty lot," but then want to make the claim that religion is the source of religious violence. Is soccer to blame for soccer hooliganism? Is the institution of marriage the real cause of domestic violence? Furthermore, you outline the social dynamics that enable religious genocide, but then never bother to mention that such polarizing tactics are quite prevalent throughout history in non-religious contexts. Modern examples of this include ethnic genocide within Rwanda, Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia, and atrocities under Stalin during the Bolshevik Revolution. In fact, some anthropological evidence indicates that it was probably humans who are to blame for the rapid and striking disappearance of the Neanderthals. In all likelihood, it seems that our violent and tribalistic tendencies have been with us since our beginning as a species.
That being said, the GP was right: There is a problem with Islam. Now before you begin your atheistic, all-religions-are-equal claptrap again, allow me to expand upon that statement. The problem with Islam isn't the doctrine or religion, per se. Indeed, Islam, as you pointed out, was the source of great intellectual and social advancement at one point in history. The current problem with Islam is its dominant interpretation and institutions.
What's wrong with the dominate interpretation(s) of Islam? The main problems are rather simple. First of all, there is no voice of moderation within the mainstream Islamic society today. Secondly, for muslims, cosmopolitan ("I am a citizen of the world.") viewpoints are highly discouraged. These worldviews are replaced by an unquestionable religious identity whose value supersedes even the very lives of non-muslims. With the extremism created by lack of moderation within Islamic society combined with the tribalism of the "You are a muslim, first and foremost"-doctrine, conflict with non-muslims is inevitable and the cause of violence all over the world. I suggest you read this book, which documents these problems if you want a more in depth analysis. And just in case you were wondering that book was written by a muslim who happens to also be a lesbian.
-Grym
(*)Whatever that means. Any religion? All Religions? Even the contradictory ones? What about unstructured religions like Taoism?
This conversation has long since passed the headlines of slashdot and this comment probably fall on deaf ears, but I just wanted to point out that this is a common misconception about globalization. Sure, in theory, globalization does mean that every country is able to become a productive member in the international community, effectively redistributing wealth in an equitable fashion. However, that is not how it plays out in reality. In reality, it is much more profitable for companies to abandon countries as soon as their economic conditions improve and/or workers start organizing--hopping back and forth between exploitable third world countries and profiting the entire time. If you doubt this, understand that it's already happened in Malaysia and it's about to happen in India too.
It's a shell game, and the only winners are the ones running it.
-Grym
And for God's sakes, start paying attention to what you're signing or agreeing to! Clicking through a EULA or two might have worked up till now, but not taking the time to ascertain the basic jist of the terms of a loan worth tens of thousands of dollars is just ridiculous. Skipping over these sections because they're lawyer-talk and boring is a recipe for disaster. Sooner or later, you're going to sign something that wasn't written in your best interest and consequently get burnt.
-Grym
then, they came for the schmucks. Who will speak out for me?
The loudmouths?
Oh wait! I know this one! The slashdot pedants?
I'm not even sure how to respond to this. Should I rant about slashdot's moderation system for modding this insightful? Would it make more sense to combat your derisive portrayal of Lou Dobbs' position on outsourcing as somehow religiously based? Or would it be best to just make fun of how your simplified dissent on outsourcing into your view (which is reasonable and well-stated) and everyone else (which, coincidently, are raving lunatics)? Maybe I could tug at the moderators' liberal heartstrings and out you as a racist for associating poorly spoken "engrish" with foreign workers, despite the fact that India is the largest English speaking country in the world. Ahh... the possibilities.
Regardless, on every point, you're wrong. First of all, there are many reasons to oppose outsourcing and the larger trend of globalization. Many feel that it is a race to the bottom, both for worker's wages and quality of life. For the latter, outsourcing is a convenient way for companies to avoid the costs associated with worker's rights and safety (think: child labor laws, occupational health and safety laws, etc.). It also weakens the strength of organized labor in countries whose jobs are being outsourced. These are all bad things that directly result from outsourcing in just the short term alone.
A long term-view can also be taken. In a completely globalized economy, the traditional checks on business (via national governments) are removed. What's left is a form of a Plutocracy and a precarious situation where the world's societies cannot function independently. Under such a system, large spikes in the cost of transportation (e.g. an oil shortage drastically increases the cost of shipping) could have disastrous effects.
Note that none of the above reasons depend upon the efficacy or quality of products and services which result from outsourcing. Indeed, one could expect that over time, they would be superior. Instances where they have not could be seen as the growing pains of a new way of doing business.
-Grym
Then why not base affirmative action off of socioeconomic status and not something as arbitrary as skin color? Besides, given that blacks are per-capita the lowest, wouldn't they be helped the most?
Disagreeing with affirmative action doesn't represent a callous view towards blacks. Expecting less of blacks is, in my opinion, far less respectful. It's a cosmopolitan, condescending type of racism; one that doesn't expect any real academic or professional competition from someone, simply because their black.
-Grym