As far as alibi goes, yes, the system is so completely broken at this point that alibi is an important factor as to whether you will be convicted of something you didn't actually do. However, were the system operating reasonably and sanely, you could not be convicted without positive, assertive, objective proof that you actually did what you are accused of — not the lack of proof that you did. That's just religious thinking. "You can't prove there isn't a god, so there is one." It's toxic from word one. Stupid. Shortsighted. Lame. Dangerous.
I am saying, first, that if you're innocent, there should be no way on this planet that you can be convicted. Anything short of that is a failure. And as we are very far short of it, it's a horriffic, sad failure of brobdingnagian proportions.
Second, that records of a person's interactions with a business are valid for exactly how long they are relevant to that person's interaction with the business, and only in the specific level of granularity that is engendered by the current interaction.
Specifically: All the phone company needs to know about interactions of mine with them in 1970, for instance, is (a) was I customer of theirs at the time, and (b) if so, did I pay my bills (and even this may no longer have any relevance... I am not who I was in 1970, so trying to predict my reliability today from that information is probably useless.) Who I called, and when I called them, has no bearing on my relationship with that company today.
I'm glad this person got out from under the government's toxic use of the injustice system. But the means here is indicative of a completely different problem; not that the means represents a good thing in and of itself.
One of my business locations is fed by an optical data line, which aside from the (awesome) network connection, also provides the only standard telco POTS line brought into the business, sourced directly from the box where the optical connection comes in from outside. Switchhook dialing absolutely does not work. DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency), or you get nothing.
I asked about it when we got the optical interface; they told me straight up, "no."
Being a suspicious type, I connected a Hayes modem which hangs off my classic 6809 system, told it "ATDP xxxyyyy", watched as it agreeably pulsed away... and nothing.
You're looking at this wrong. The issue isn't correctly cast as "man exonerated because saving phone records is good thing" -- the nature of he problem, and what very much needs to be addressed, is "US justice system far too easily wrongfully convicts innocents."
Because if in fact the guy didn't do it, then whatever they had that resulted in a conviction was utter shite. Which is a 100% clear and unequivocal indication that the thresholds for conviction are too low by far.
And it would appear that in fact, he didn't do it. And THAT provides the critical indicator here. Just think about it: He didn't do it; but the court system managed to convict him on entirely wrongful (or lacking) evidence. Is that what you want if YOU end up in court? Speaking from deeply unfortunate personal experience, I really don't think you do.
The only way a conviction can occur of someone who is actually innocent is via lack of evidence, or fabrication of evidence, because there cannot be any evidence that actually indicates the person is guilty. A red sock is not a blue sock because it's not a yellow sock. It's a red sock if, and only if, it's a red sock.
So rather than screw us all (further) as to our privacy, we should stop screwing people in the courts. We can do that by setting the thresholds differently (and we should), or we can wait for technology to solve it by actually reading "did it" or "didn't do it" right from the accused person's mind. But if we do the latter, a whole lot of innocent people are going to to grievously suffer as a result.
Please agitate to fix what's actually broken. Don't consider a horrible mechanism "the answer" because it resulted in illumination of some other horrible mechanism.
Comprehension, in the context of intelligence: Capable of abstract thought about any subject or input presented. When we get there, we'll have AI. Not before. Everything to date, while often marvelously useful, is just marketing speak on the order or "3d television", which is to say, not.
Neither one precludes or reduces the quality of the other. And I assure you -- you can't do by hand what Viveza does by algorithm in any reasonably comparable length of time. I'm talking many, many hours to seconds. It's not just region selection. It's region selection with smart integration with other region selection, all of it cued to the varying characteristics of the region. It's like using a continuously variable region-to-region feather, along with a control-point-sensitive color key that does color and tone at the same time, while applying multiple types of non-destructive changes, which you can then drag around and the whole blinking thing re-calculates live.
On second thought, you can't do this by hand at all.
Look, I absolutely sympathize with skill building. I am very into photography, plus I have spent 20 years writing image processing algorithms, complex area selection tools, and unique (and all the standard) image layer modes. 70+ distinct modes to date. Non-destructive image modification is my specific "thing." I have to say that from my POV, Viveza is something I can't dismiss as "just another thingamajig I can replace with X series of by-hand operations. Could I do without it? Sure. But really, I wouldn't, given the choice. In fact, should it go away, I think I'd re-create it (and enhance it, heh) just for my own use. Only it wouldn't be a plug-in; I'd stick it right in my own software as an always-there and no-need-to-export-import tool.
Likely your phone would be doing that anyway -- if the NSA cared even in the slightest about you in particular. They're doing it on every phone call anyway. Government is long out of control on privacy issues. Then there's the "smart TV" issue...
Just keep in mind that "killed off" doesn't mean "I can't use it any longer" in the case of a desktop tool. I've been using these for years and will continue using them for years without any concern at all about what Google, or Nik before them, might do or not do with future versions, marketing, or availability.
For web products, certainly. But these aren't that, or at least, the versions I have that I bought from Nik aren't that. I suppose they could have mutated?
Likely. However, as a photographer and image processing professional, I can vouch for both Viveza and DFine. Both are worthy of use in many situations. The rest aren't much, IMHO, but those two are exceptionally useful as often as not.
Viveza is a somewhat-automatic region selecting modifier of basic image characteristics such as contrast, saturation and so on.
Dfine is a reasonably effective noise reduction tool.
Perfect, no, and I rather see them further developed as opposed to abandoned, as is quite possible due to Google's well known habit, but as they stand now, better to have them in the imaging toolbox than not.
Hmmm. I wonder if this means the Galaxy S8 will get back a removable battery, or IOW, a GOOD battery design. And implement a no-sense-zone at the edges so it doesn't keep doing random shit the way my s7 does unless I hold it open palm, no fingers on the sides. Oh, and put my groups back in the damned phone. Maybe actually properly transfer my shite from my current phone to my next phone (my note 3 -to- S7 "transfer" moved about half my apps, and no app data at all. THAT was unpleasant.)
Nah. Probably means they'll just take the removable memory card out of the next model. "Whoops.":/
There are, of course, exceptions. But the implication that all applications have those kinds of security concerns is invalid on its face.
Further, OS components are not what I am referring to here. An OS is not an application; The net is not the computer; "applications" does not imply large company models or otherwise significant separation between the developer and the app; and finally, if your application depends upon OPC and that takes down everything because you have chosen not to manage your own dependencies and write your own solutions, your application's failure is your failure.
Sometimes the underlying OS breaks. Accidentally, as with various unspotted vulnerabilities and bugs, or intentionally, as with Apple and Microsoft killing off or mangling existing APIs. The best developers are agile enough to deal with most such events; depending on fixes that (hopefully) will arrive in OPC is one of the primary ways to undermine achieving that level of agility.
For example: Both Microsoft and Apple have, at various points in time, broken their file selection dialogs. The first time it happened (Microsoft) it took my company two days to create, and then make available to our customers, a considerably-more-functional and not-broken replacement. The second time (Apple), it took one day. We gave customers a switch so they could switch back if (a) they were willing to tolerate the problems the broken OS dialogs inflicted upon them or (b) the OS vendor actually fixed the problem [Microsoft did; Apple didn't.]
You do what you can; ideally, you arrange things from day one such that you have the fewest possible dependencies upon the actions, errors, and whims of others. If you don't, then you, and your customers, are subject to a considerably higher risk of problems. Some things — almost always at the OS level — you have to assume will work. I have found, however, over a long career of building non-trivial applications, that those things are actually very few in number.
Any idea you might have that the market will do what you think is optimum is based upon a complete misunderstanding of markets.
Markets often choose inferior performance options. High quality solutions often fail to gain, or keep, traction. No undertaking that doesn't have significant lobbying impact (which of course means high $) with the relevant legislature can reasonably expect its business model to be protected in the face of any particular eroding force. Once a particular solution to a problem has been chosen, it is very likely that any change has social hurdles to overcome: those having made the decision are invested; training costs and familiarization erect similar barriers; disruption of stockholder confidence can be a factor.
The world needs high quality STT that works when the net is down and isn't vulnerable to arbitrary changes in API, availability, and legal impediments.
It's clearly one of the harder software problems, but I expect it to be solved in fairly short order; years, not decades.
I'm sorry, I don't have an airspy. I was thinking of the SdrPlay. Too many SDRs, not enough brain cells...
The airspy, however, also shares the design flaw of a USB interface. Without a server, it's much more difficult to support. From my POV, the place to put most of my effort is on the SDRs that have full network interfaces.
No. It doesn't matter if done properly. All dependencies should be local to the application. It's using the one the author intended. End of story. You don't overwrite system files. If you upgrade your package, you (a) make sure it doesn't overwrite your old version, and (b) it carries its own set of dependencies that don't screw up the previous install.
We're in a time of considerable available and inexpensive storage. This is one of the best possible uses of that storage, particularly in an environment where not only developers, but OS vendors also are likely to "reach out and break something" for no damned good reason at all. The more stable and isolated you can make an application, the better for everyone.
If I could say only one thing to all developers everywhere that they would actually pay attention to, it would definitely be "Do not break my stuff. Not my ability to load and use my data, not my ability to load and use my applications, not my languages, not my OS features. DO NOT BREAK MY STUFF."
As it stands, when a dev breaks my stuff, they go directly on my shitlist. Along with Apple, Microsoft, and a huge collection host of their minions. I am certainly not alone in this.
He's inclined to beat immigrants, Muslims, and Mexicans, too.
But not to worry. He is the perfect assurance we're going to have a Democrat in the white house this next time around. He's doing a wonderful job of divorcing the low-functioning and cognitively crippled from the traditional Republican voting block; no actual sane conservative who has looked even moderately closely at his rhetoric and history would vote for him. The Democrats, in contrast, will have the usual platitude-spouter, having rejected Bernie, plus will by and large look at Trump as the insane reality-show caricature he actually is and will handily swamp the damaged Republican brand in "oh no you don't" votes. Thinking swing voters likewise.
I'm hugely looking forward to watching all this come down. Hilarious to watch the garbage the Republicans a have been spewing for years at the Fox News demographic come back and bite a huge chunk out of their collective buttocks.
Trump has never met a stupid remark that can't get out of his mouth. What a clown.
Slashdot Mirror
"Lack of proof that you did" s/b "lack of proof that you didn't"
Sorry. Proofread, but... fail. And no post-posting editing because it's still 1990 here on Slashdot. New owners or not.
As far as alibi goes, yes, the system is so completely broken at this point that alibi is an important factor as to whether you will be convicted of something you didn't actually do. However, were the system operating reasonably and sanely, you could not be convicted without positive, assertive, objective proof that you actually did what you are accused of — not the lack of proof that you did. That's just religious thinking. "You can't prove there isn't a god, so there is one." It's toxic from word one. Stupid. Shortsighted. Lame. Dangerous.
I am saying, first, that if you're innocent, there should be no way on this planet that you can be convicted. Anything short of that is a failure. And as we are very far short of it, it's a horriffic, sad failure of brobdingnagian proportions.
Second, that records of a person's interactions with a business are valid for exactly how long they are relevant to that person's interaction with the business, and only in the specific level of granularity that is engendered by the current interaction.
Specifically: All the phone company needs to know about interactions of mine with them in 1970, for instance, is (a) was I customer of theirs at the time, and (b) if so, did I pay my bills (and even this may no longer have any relevance... I am not who I was in 1970, so trying to predict my reliability today from that information is probably useless.) Who I called, and when I called them, has no bearing on my relationship with that company today.
I'm glad this person got out from under the government's toxic use of the injustice system. But the means here is indicative of a completely different problem; not that the means represents a good thing in and of itself.
One of my business locations is fed by an optical data line, which aside from the (awesome) network connection, also provides the only standard telco POTS line brought into the business, sourced directly from the box where the optical connection comes in from outside. Switchhook dialing absolutely does not work. DTMF (Dual Tone Multi Frequency), or you get nothing.
I asked about it when we got the optical interface; they told me straight up, "no."
Being a suspicious type, I connected a Hayes modem which hangs off my classic 6809 system, told it "ATDP xxxyyyy", watched as it agreeably pulsed away... and nothing.
You're looking at this wrong. The issue isn't correctly cast as "man exonerated because saving phone records is good thing" -- the nature of he problem, and what very much needs to be addressed, is "US justice system far too easily wrongfully convicts innocents."
Because if in fact the guy didn't do it, then whatever they had that resulted in a conviction was utter shite. Which is a 100% clear and unequivocal indication that the thresholds for conviction are too low by far.
And it would appear that in fact, he didn't do it. And THAT provides the critical indicator here. Just think about it: He didn't do it; but the court system managed to convict him on entirely wrongful (or lacking) evidence. Is that what you want if YOU end up in court? Speaking from deeply unfortunate personal experience, I really don't think you do.
The only way a conviction can occur of someone who is actually innocent is via lack of evidence, or fabrication of evidence, because there cannot be any evidence that actually indicates the person is guilty. A red sock is not a blue sock because it's not a yellow sock. It's a red sock if, and only if, it's a red sock.
So rather than screw us all (further) as to our privacy, we should stop screwing people in the courts. We can do that by setting the thresholds differently (and we should), or we can wait for technology to solve it by actually reading "did it" or "didn't do it" right from the accused person's mind. But if we do the latter, a whole lot of innocent people are going to to grievously suffer as a result.
Please agitate to fix what's actually broken. Don't consider a horrible mechanism "the answer" because it resulted in illumination of some other horrible mechanism.
Pretty sure some of us do.
Comprehension, in the context of intelligence: Capable of abstract thought about any subject or input presented. When we get there, we'll have AI. Not before. Everything to date, while often marvelously useful, is just marketing speak on the order or "3d television", which is to say, not.
Sure. Unfortunately, however, that's not what I wrote.
No. Not learning. comprehension. Without comprehension, the "I" in "AI" is void.
Also yes. Fear and hysteria abound; serious risk does not. Rather than NIMBY, I'm all about PIIMBY. Put It In My Back Yard. And pay me accordingly. :)
Urban planners. I suspect they are a subspecies of the reviled lawyer class. Up is down, right is left, like that.
Waverly place, in NYC's "village", crosses itself.
Neither one precludes or reduces the quality of the other. And I assure you -- you can't do by hand what Viveza does by algorithm in any reasonably comparable length of time. I'm talking many, many hours to seconds. It's not just region selection. It's region selection with smart integration with other region selection, all of it cued to the varying characteristics of the region. It's like using a continuously variable region-to-region feather, along with a control-point-sensitive color key that does color and tone at the same time, while applying multiple types of non-destructive changes, which you can then drag around and the whole blinking thing re-calculates live.
On second thought, you can't do this by hand at all.
Look, I absolutely sympathize with skill building. I am very into photography, plus I have spent 20 years writing image processing algorithms, complex area selection tools, and unique (and all the standard) image layer modes. 70+ distinct modes to date. Non-destructive image modification is my specific "thing." I have to say that from my POV, Viveza is something I can't dismiss as "just another thingamajig I can replace with X series of by-hand operations. Could I do without it? Sure. But really, I wouldn't, given the choice. In fact, should it go away, I think I'd re-create it (and enhance it, heh) just for my own use. Only it wouldn't be a plug-in; I'd stick it right in my own software as an always-there and no-need-to-export-import tool.
Likely your phone would be doing that anyway -- if the NSA cared even in the slightest about you in particular. They're doing it on every phone call anyway. Government is long out of control on privacy issues. Then there's the "smart TV" issue...
Orwell was an optimist
Just keep in mind that "killed off" doesn't mean "I can't use it any longer" in the case of a desktop tool. I've been using these for years and will continue using them for years without any concern at all about what Google, or Nik before them, might do or not do with future versions, marketing, or availability.
For web products, certainly. But these aren't that, or at least, the versions I have that I bought from Nik aren't that. I suppose they could have mutated?
"I rather" s/b "I would rather"
Sigh. No post-posting editing. Is it 1990 yet? Oh. Right. Slashdot. Sorry.
Likely. However, as a photographer and image processing professional, I can vouch for both Viveza and DFine. Both are worthy of use in many situations. The rest aren't much, IMHO, but those two are exceptionally useful as often as not.
Viveza is a somewhat-automatic region selecting modifier of basic image characteristics such as contrast, saturation and so on.
Dfine is a reasonably effective noise reduction tool.
Perfect, no, and I rather see them further developed as opposed to abandoned, as is quite possible due to Google's well known habit, but as they stand now, better to have them in the imaging toolbox than not.
Hmmm. I wonder if this means the Galaxy S8 will get back a removable battery, or IOW, a GOOD battery design. And implement a no-sense-zone at the edges so it doesn't keep doing random shit the way my s7 does unless I hold it open palm, no fingers on the sides. Oh, and put my groups back in the damned phone. Maybe actually properly transfer my shite from my current phone to my next phone (my note 3 -to- S7 "transfer" moved about half my apps, and no app data at all. THAT was unpleasant.)
Nah. Probably means they'll just take the removable memory card out of the next model. "Whoops." :/
There are, of course, exceptions. But the implication that all applications have those kinds of security concerns is invalid on its face.
Further, OS components are not what I am referring to here. An OS is not an application; The net is not the computer; "applications" does not imply large company models or otherwise significant separation between the developer and the app; and finally, if your application depends upon OPC and that takes down everything because you have chosen not to manage your own dependencies and write your own solutions, your application's failure is your failure.
Sometimes the underlying OS breaks. Accidentally, as with various unspotted vulnerabilities and bugs, or intentionally, as with Apple and Microsoft killing off or mangling existing APIs. The best developers are agile enough to deal with most such events; depending on fixes that (hopefully) will arrive in OPC is one of the primary ways to undermine achieving that level of agility.
For example: Both Microsoft and Apple have, at various points in time, broken their file selection dialogs. The first time it happened (Microsoft) it took my company two days to create, and then make available to our customers, a considerably-more-functional and not-broken replacement. The second time (Apple), it took one day. We gave customers a switch so they could switch back if (a) they were willing to tolerate the problems the broken OS dialogs inflicted upon them or (b) the OS vendor actually fixed the problem [Microsoft did; Apple didn't.]
You do what you can; ideally, you arrange things from day one such that you have the fewest possible dependencies upon the actions, errors, and whims of others. If you don't, then you, and your customers, are subject to a considerably higher risk of problems. Some things — almost always at the OS level — you have to assume will work. I have found, however, over a long career of building non-trivial applications, that those things are actually very few in number.
Any idea you might have that the market will do what you think is optimum is based upon a complete misunderstanding of markets.
Markets often choose inferior performance options. High quality solutions often fail to gain, or keep, traction. No undertaking that doesn't have significant lobbying impact (which of course means high $) with the relevant legislature can reasonably expect its business model to be protected in the face of any particular eroding force. Once a particular solution to a problem has been chosen, it is very likely that any change has social hurdles to overcome: those having made the decision are invested; training costs and familiarization erect similar barriers; disruption of stockholder confidence can be a factor.
The world needs high quality STT that works when the net is down and isn't vulnerable to arbitrary changes in API, availability, and legal impediments.
It's clearly one of the harder software problems, but I expect it to be solved in fairly short order; years, not decades.
I'm sorry, I don't have an airspy. I was thinking of the SdrPlay. Too many SDRs, not enough brain cells...
The airspy, however, also shares the design flaw of a USB interface. Without a server, it's much more difficult to support. From my POV, the place to put most of my effort is on the SDRs that have full network interfaces.
No. If you are a billionaire or millionaire, you may be able to exert such influence. Doesn't mean you will. Even some that choose to try, fail.
"Meaningful" is one of those words that can carry import of a particular type to one person, and quite another to the next.
I would speculate that "consequential" might be more what you're thinking of. Consequences are the inevitable result of actions. Meaning... not.
No. It doesn't matter if done properly. All dependencies should be local to the application. It's using the one the author intended. End of story. You don't overwrite system files. If you upgrade your package, you (a) make sure it doesn't overwrite your old version, and (b) it carries its own set of dependencies that don't screw up the previous install.
We're in a time of considerable available and inexpensive storage. This is one of the best possible uses of that storage, particularly in an environment where not only developers, but OS vendors also are likely to "reach out and break something" for no damned good reason at all. The more stable and isolated you can make an application, the better for everyone.
If I could say only one thing to all developers everywhere that they would actually pay attention to, it would definitely be "Do not break my stuff. Not my ability to load and use my data, not my ability to load and use my applications, not my languages, not my OS features. DO NOT BREAK MY STUFF."
As it stands, when a dev breaks my stuff, they go directly on my shitlist. Along with Apple, Microsoft, and a huge collection host of their minions. I am certainly not alone in this.
He's inclined to beat immigrants, Muslims, and Mexicans, too.
But not to worry. He is the perfect assurance we're going to have a Democrat in the white house this next time around. He's doing a wonderful job of divorcing the low-functioning and cognitively crippled from the traditional Republican voting block; no actual sane conservative who has looked even moderately closely at his rhetoric and history would vote for him. The Democrats, in contrast, will have the usual platitude-spouter, having rejected Bernie, plus will by and large look at Trump as the insane reality-show caricature he actually is and will handily swamp the damaged Republican brand in "oh no you don't" votes. Thinking swing voters likewise.
I'm hugely looking forward to watching all this come down. Hilarious to watch the garbage the Republicans a have been spewing for years at the Fox News demographic come back and bite a huge chunk out of their collective buttocks.
Trump has never met a stupid remark that can't get out of his mouth. What a clown.
Hamburger chain???
All restaurants are Taco Bell. It's been that way since the Franchise Wars.
stuck s/b struck.
Sigh. I hate that /. doesn't allow (at least) a short period for editing. I proofread, but you can still miss stuff, as here.