"I don't know why you were modded Troll because what you say is strategically correct."
If I didn't read your Slashdot User# I would think you were new to Slashdot
In the technical sense, I can think of several reasons for it that are all plausible explanations. None of them speak favorably of that moderator. Since there are multiple possible explanations, I can accurately say I don't know which was the motivation. That's not the same thing as being unable to understand how such things happen. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because people assume that anything they don't like must be trolling or an instance of flamebait, but that's just a guess. I don't claim to know the mind of that moderator and people don't always have rational reasons for their behavior that are so easy to explain.
So, I brought it up without trying to explain it. The point of that was to write from the perspective that understands why it's silly and absurd. It would not occur to that perspective that he was trolling. I think that's what the moderation system could use a little more of.
I heard one simple idea that probably would solve the illegal border crossing problem: landmines.
And when dozens of cattle and feral horses are left maimed or dead, we'll just say "serves those stupid animals right! They should learn to read!" What, you didn't realize there is a significant amount of non-human traffic in those areas?
Or, for that matter, how desperate some people are when they're trying to escape severe poverty or starvation? Or do you just not care? A rudimentary knowledge of fairly recent history would have told you land mines don't deter the very poor from attempting to use land - they just send people out into the fields/paddies with poles in an attempt to blow up any mines before planting their rice (yes, we're talking about a country in southeast Asia). If mines didn't stop them from entering land they'd use multiple times, it's not likely to stop illegal aliens from attempting a one-time crossing.
The person who modded me "Funny" had the right idea.
"Too bad those people caved, but that need not cost us the ability to know what they wanted so badly to hide."
Note to potential "cavers":
You can certainly sanitize the information you plan to agree to keep secret, give it to reliable third parties, then take the money.
It isn't honest, but there is no reason to be honest with your enemies. We are past the point of moral obligation to such people.
I don't know why you were modded Troll because what you say is strategically correct. As Sun Tzu advised, all warfare (physical or PR) is based on deception. The use of deception against an aggressor whom you have done nothing to provoke is the only legitimate, morally correct usage of it that I recognize. Whether this case fits that description is the only debatable point.
Having said that, if you sign a contract stating that you will not disclose information, and you disclose that information, then it's not just dishonest; it's also illegal (or at least, a tort). This is unwise, especially when Microsoft can afford the best lawyers and you cannot. There are times when you have concerns other than how much you can justify without violating your morality, and this is probably one of them. For that reason, I'd strongly advise against actually doing this, making this a bad example of the otherwise sound concepts you mention.
Imagine that clearly enough and you'll see why no one who could arrange that is inclined to let it happen.
Said no one who could arrange that being the electorate of your county/state/country?
Right. The electorate who lack the critical thinking skills and knowledge of logical fallacies to understand what's wrong with the status quo are unlikely to demand leaders who institute policies that stand up to critical thinking and are free of logical fallacies. This suits our current leaders just fine. Those leaders are not stupid. They know how to play the game of politics to their advantage. They are aware of the situation and its implications, they know what's wrong with their laws and policies, but those serve the interests who got them into power so they are unwilling to change this system. It could only come from the electorate, which, as I already said, is ill-equipped to demand this sort of change. Did you fail to derive that from my previous post?
That's the danger of giving government direct control over education and the curriculum. I have no problem with the state governments using tax money to fund education, but the parents should be able to use that tax money to send the children to any school they like. I'd like to see something like the voucher system (the money follows the child instead of the child having to follow the money) and I'd also like to see government get out of the education business entirely other than providing the voucher. The reason we don't have vouchers is because the NEA is its biggest opponent and they have a ton of political clout that they have no reservations about using. It's not because vouchers are an unsound idea or are logically flawed. Refer to my previous point for how we arrived at this situation.
I don't like it and I don't delight in pointing it out, but most people are passive sheep. If the schooling they received does not teach them logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, then they won't learn those things. They could find books, Web sites, and other resources and teach themselves, for only basic literacy is required, but they won't because it doesn't occur to them that they should. Only a tiny minority of people would ever take that sort of initiative. So the reality is, if the schools don't teach these things, then the number of people who retain this knowledge are going to be such a tiny minority that politicians can safely ignore them in any election. I hope this explains why we have the current situation and why it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
When you get out of grammar school they'll teach you about reasoning in a little more detail
No, they won't. It sure would be nice, though.
If the (government-owned, government-operated) public schools actually taught logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, thoroughly and exhaustively, it would remove a lot of individuals and interests from power. Imagine if we never had any laws or policies except those that could stand up to rigorous examination. Imagine that clearly enough and you'll see why no one who could arrange that is inclined to let it happen.
Rest assured that any information that isn't negative to Microsoft will be posted last if at all. GL/PJ isn't exactly know for being an unbiased source - she will say/do anything to keep the hits/money coming in.
That's a great balance against the marketing and PR that Microsoft spends a great deal of money producing. All of their marketing and PR is completely biased, of course. It would be reasonable to complain about GL being biased the moment Microsoft's marketing fully discloses, with equal emphasis and prominence, all disadvantages and downsides of all of their products in addition to their advantages and benefits. Until then, such a balance that PJ is providing is a welcome and useful thing.
So this is for people to view and observe the border and report any activity right....well I guess this plan is already in the toilet now that people IN MEXICO can view the cameras and see exactly where they are pointed.
Ok yes, we see you. We will mark that crossing off our list of possibilities. Ok, a little further...there I can see you...keep going....now I can't, mark that with a flag or something.
Well played Border Control, well played.
I heard one simple idea that probably would solve the illegal border crossing problem: landmines. Line our side of the border with antipersonnel landmines, everywhere except the legitimate entrances/checkpoints. Post highly visible signs in English and Spanish, and also with graphics in case the person is illiterate, warning that it is a minefield. The purpose of this is to establish a deterrent, not to actually hurt anyone (though if that happens, they can't say they weren't warned). Maybe those signs can include some contact information at the bottom, useful for obtaining information on how to go through the process of coming here legally.
After realizing how embarrassing the documents were to Microsoft, they put them online and later got a very large settlement from Microsoft by agreeing to take their website down.
I'm quite grateful for the Streisand Effect. If not for that, then normally someone who sells out or is (legally) bribed like this removes everyone's access to such information. Too bad those people caved, but that need not cost us the ability to know what they wanted so badly to hide.
It isn't the alcohol which gives you a headache. It's the alcohol in combination with the rest of the crap in the beverage.
Either buy decent quality and/or drink a glass of water for each drink and take two paracetamol before you go to bed.
There seems to be reason to believe that the hangover is caued by acetaldehyde. Though, I have noticed that some drinks are worse than others. For example, I think red wine has very small amounts of alcohols other than ethanol, alcohols which are a bit more toxic. It's probably also why I seem to get much more subjectively drunk from red wine than an equivalent amount of most liquors. Beer has a similar effect with me, and I assume that's because of the hops. Hops alone are sedating, and in fact hops tea (non-fermented, non-alcoholic) can be used as a natural sleep aid or a way to relax.
From that Wiki article:
Most people of East Asian descent have a mutation in their alcohol dehydrogenase gene that makes this enzyme unusually effective at converting ethanol to acetaldehyde, and about half of such people also have a form of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase that is less effective at converting acetaldehyde to acetic acid.[16] This combination causes them to suffer from alcohol flush reaction, in which acetaldehyde accumulates after drinking, leading to immediate and severe hangover symptoms. These people are therefore less likely to become alcoholics.[17][18]
The drug disulfiram (Antabuse) prevents the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, and it has the same unpleasant effect on drinkers. Antabuse is used as a deterrent for alcoholics who wish to stay sober.
Take this argument out of the airplane context, and think about it.
At the Fort Hood shooting, who took out the shooter? He started the shooting in the middle of a group of well trained, but unarmed individuals. Who took him out? An armed civilian. When you take away the ability of people to defend themselves, they are left defenseless.
Not to say a shootout on an aircraft would be a good thing. That's the last thing anyone would want to be involved in. A very dense population, with no place to run to, in an environment that is more dangerous to shoot in. Anyone who would consider such a thing would already consider, their odds of success are much smaller in any group of people who can defend themselves.
Before 9/11, I knew a guy who worked personal security. He brought his sidearm on board a couple times. Once was accidentally, where he forgot it was in his bag (he thought he moved it to checked luggage) and discovered it in his carry-on mid-flight. The other, he discovered he carried it to the checkpoint, but with his credentals, he was told to bring it on with him. He was asking to be allowed to check the bag, and was told "oh, you're clear, go."
Neither time did he create an incident, but if an incident did happen, he would have been the armed civilian who could have ended the situation.
It isn't just on the aircraft where the situation is amazingly dangerous. Consider the 2002 LAX shooting at the El Al terminal. He was shot by an airline security guard, who was one of the few armed people in the area.
Helpless people want you to be helpless too, thus they don't understand any of this.
"The transistor, which has a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts, could behave just like a silicon transistor." It isn't clear how large the transistor as a whole is. A benzene molecule is pretty small with only 12 atoms. That presumably isn't the entire transistor. Whether they mean benzene attached to something else isn't clear from the article. However, given that prior small transistors are on the order of 10s of atoms thick at minimum, this seems like a major improvement. It looks like Moore's law will live for a bit longer yet.
I'd assume that this is significantly better (smaller) than existing/economical technology, else it wouldn't have become a headline. But thanks to slow news days, I've been wrong about that before.
It already has been proven. Three groups of kids. First group traditional education. Second is guided but loose (like a lot of decent homeschoolers - not all, mind you) and Third was kids who just had someone to ask questions of and list topics/projects. Guess which group scored better at the end of the testing? Yep... group three. With little more than the Google equivalent of a "teacher". You ever see how quickly school can suck the imagination, creativity and desire to learn out of a kid?
And before you ask... "Values for a New Millenium"b Dr. Robert Humphrey. Info is in the last part of the book.
Now, when he proved several techniques that took Inner City kids from drug addicts to straight A students... who do you think shut him down? Kids? No. Parents? No. School Board? You betcha. (And that isn't knocking all School Board people...) Read the book.
You'd love what John Taylor Gatto has to say on this subject. He also has a shorter essay here. He highlights how many of modern public schooling's techniques are profoundly anti-educational and seem designed to encourage dependency. He also advises that it takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and mathematics skills; after that, the person is capable of educating themselves given access to books and other resources. One trivial example of the damage this does can be found in those computer users who get confounded by very simple issues that are found in Page 1 of the manual, the README file, the help file, the FAQ, and the vendor's Web site, yet they still need handholding, not because they are incapable of reading and understanding the information, but because they feel helpless.
I am very grateful that there are people like this who will stand up and say something, who will expose these important ideas. Make no mistake, that takes courage. It's little wonder that you generally don't see folks like that on the prime-time evening news, for what they have to say, however true, is also quite inconvenient to many powerful interests.
Incidentally, you may appreciate my sig; it's quite apropos.
It seems that Wikileaks should operate over Freenet. Leaks could be submitted anonymously that way, and also distributed anonymously. The advantage would be that it would be entirely decentralized, so there would be no organization vulnerable to legal action.
Freenet has been slow and hard to use in the past, but its improved quite a bit. It is the obvious platform for something like Wikileaks. Of course, there is nothing to prevent people from mirroring content on the web (since installing Freenet, like any piece of software, is a hassle). But at least there will be an unimpeachable backup of all data on Freenet.
I wish a comprehensive group of security experts with varying backgrounds and specialties would get together and try to compromise both Freenet and Tor to see just how secure and anonymous they really are. By this I mean in an open, public, collaborative sort of way. This could only be a good thing, as any vulnerabilities or weaknesses could potentially be addressed. Then we could be a bit more confident about the confidentiality of those who contribute documents to sites like Wikileaks. I am sure that many such folks are doing so at great risk to themselves, especially when they live under repressive regimes, yet they believe in our right to know and are willing to take that risk. It really would be nice to know they are a bit safer doing it.
TFS/TFA just says, what everybody on the net is repeating since the beginning of it all. Including pretty much every commenter here on Slashdot.
But now it’s all news, because a site that PHBs read mentiones it?
Are we PHBs, or what?
A respectable PHB chooses good people who understand their field and then listens to their advice. Such a boss would already be knowledgable about such issues if they are relevant to the business. Unfortunately, those bosses seem to be in the minority and many of their peers were simply promoted to their level of incompetence. To answer your question, we generally are not PHBs, but most of us have to deal with them. Getting the word out to them in a form that they accept as credible is far better than nothing, even if it's something the rest of us knew and could have told them all along.
hahaha all I could think of while reading the first two sentences was "this guy is another stoner rights advocate" and your third sentence proved it
During the 20s I'd have been "hahaha, another drinker's rights advocate". I don't believe that I have the right to tell consenting adults what they may or may not ingest, that what they do in the privacy of their homes is absolutely none of my business. That goes for alcohol, marijuana, or any other substance. It also goes for what religion they practice, what they want to watch, read, write, talk about, etc, you name it. If there is no victim, there is no crime. What's your point?
That's why they're drafting all these copyright treaties in secret. They know that as soon as these other countries have developed a bit more infrastructurally, they're not going to pay licensing costs and fork over the money circulating in their economy back to us: They're going to pour it back into industrialization and modernization of their own economies. The only way they can do that is by asserting sovereignty and independence from the global copyright framework being developed. That's why there's such a push right now to lock them out if they don't join in the global copyright racket. If this effort fails, the bubble will burst and trillions of dollars will drain out of the economies of the western world like someone pulled the plug out of the bathtub.
This part in particular helped me to understand. In terms of strategy, the attempt to lock-in the industrializing nations and the secrecy in particular really does look like a desperation maneuver. That's funny when it comes from people who generally get what they want when it comes to increasingly restrictive and unreasonable copyright laws.
I had already noticed that the more unreasonable those laws become, the more they are going to alienate people who otherwise would be sympathetic towards the laments of "piracy" by various monied interests. It is becoming more obvious to the public that supporting those interests is like assuming the status of useful idiot. This includes everyday folks who are not technically inclined and do not closely follow these issues. As a result, it seems natural to me that civil disobedience will only increase, and not just from an unwillingness of the cheap or lazy to pay for media but as a protest or rejection of those laws.
What I had not noticed until reading your post was that those same interests are showing desperation. They might even realize that the path they are on does not lead to a destination favorable to them, in which case I suppose they have already gone so far down that path that they don't know how to turn back. Maybe they're too proud to do so. The real idiocy of it all is that pushing so hard for so many restrictions ultimately won't end well for them politically. Had they been satisfied "merely" with copyright lasting the author's lifetime plus (I think) 70 years, they could have quit while they were ahead. As they refuse to do that, the financial and political backlash is not only inevitable but is also of their own creation.
The most unfortunate thing is all of the damage that will be done before the matter is settled, for example those people whose lives are financially ruined for violating copyright. They knew they were infringing copyright, yes, but no reasonable penalty for copyright violation would be so comparable to punishments we give to violent criminals. If it weren't unjust, the likes of the RIAA would not need to spend so much money trying to convince us that this is anything like justice or honor.
I wanted to add something. I'm not the writer that I one day hope to be, but I know just enough about writing to understand that it takes real effort to do it correctly. I call it effort and not "work" because a worthy subject that you truly wish to share with others removes the toil and it becomes an enjoyable and rewarding labor. I am confident you know what I mean by that, for not only have you been kind enough to take the time to give me a truly good answer, you have also done so with the intention of inspiring hope. I want you to know that you have succeeded. I really appreciate that.
That was a beautifully written post and a pleasure to read. Thank you for that.
I seem to have a bit of cynacism about it, though. I'd like to get rid of that, but I think it has a solid foundation. Your reference to Prohibition was absoutely right. The problem is, this country has not learned from it. Prohibition taught us that you cannot stop a powerful economic force, and if you try too hard to do it, you will create a black market and you will provide fertile soil for organized crime. No one fought with submachine guns and died in the streets over alcohol until it was made illegal. Alfonso Capone would be an anonymous figure if not for Prohibition. Imagine all the tax dollars, buildup of increasingly paramilitary police forces, involvement of the federal government in basic law enforcement issues and lives lost just to enforce a law that should never have been written, a law designed to enforce one group's Puritannical moral objections on everyone else.
For anyone who's actually familiar with American history and tradition, it's hard to imagine anything more un-American than using law to micromanage the personal lives of others. You cannot tell a person what they may put into their body without also, implicitly, claiming ownership of their body. Yet that happened, right here in the "land of the free." And we tolerated it, because we were told that it was for our own good.
Then consider that we haven't really learned anything from it because we still have Prohibition. We still have The War on (some) Drugs. Only the object of the prohibition has changed, but the process is the same. So are the problems. We have learned nothing.
I would like to think that when iron-fisted copyright proves to be a failure, we will learn from this and find more reasonable approaches. But the utter failure of Prohibition hasn't stopped us from implementing similar laws. I would like to believe that a cultural war has been won, that when the old guard retires those who replace them will have a more enlightened viewpoint. I truly want to believe that. But I really don't see much precedent for it.
Yeah, after I posted that I wished Slash had an edit function. I intended to limit my comment to the Western world and neglected to do so. Yes I am aware that some Muslims want to do much worse with Sharia law. Still, in the time-honored Slashdot tradition, don't ever miss an opportunity to denigrate or belittle a stranger.
Hubris - "to cause [or attempt to cause, in this case] shame to the target, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater."
-- Aristotle
What's stopping you? I make up tags all the time... sometimes they even persist and the story stays tagged that way for hours or more.
Really? Not once have I ever applied any tag, not even the more standard/common/generic ones, refreshed the Slashdot main page, and seen my tag still in place. My personal user page shows that I used such a tag, but not the main page. I have Excellent karma, frequently receive mod points, and otherwise don't appear to be on any shitlists. I have never received a good explanation for this. Someone somewhere is able to tag stories and have it stay on the main page, else I wouldn't see them there. But not me.
It takes courage to imagine something new and different, even when it's something relatively minor like this issue.
It really doesn't take courage to imagine something new or different?
Hoping that the majority's nature and their perspective will change any time soon is just silly...
"Anytime soon" is the only part that's in question. Otherwise, as the ancients observed, one of the laws of the universe is Change. That was more than a primitive, pre-physics observation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Particularly when things get bad and change is long overdue, it can often be quite sudden and sometimes severe. That's especially the case when gradual, incremental small changes that would have regularly occurred over time were held back by the fiat of some kind of hierarchy, such as a monied interest or an authority. A dam bursting is the model for that scenario.
If that were enough to guarantee that it would be impossible to be held legally responsible for product failures or shortcomings, it would be sufficient to attach a EULA to all medication that states the provider is not in any was responsible for death or disability caused by the drug. There's no way something like that would hold up in court if people experience severe problems from the drug.
I think it makes a difference that drugs are both intended for human ingestion. Drugs are also regulated by the FDA, and my point there is that the law has already decided that this is one thing that could be dangerous without regulation. No one eats software, and no government body exists that was specifically designed to regulate it.
I've always felt that all fines (anything from traffic violations to sanctions against companies) should be a percentage of the target's net worth. This completely eliminates the concern that the law is much more of a deterrent against poor people and small organizations while hardly amounting to a rounding error for the wealthy and multinational corporations.
P2P is not proof of illicit activity, although the RIAA wants everyone to think it is.
Absolutely correct. But to the uneducated masses, P2P users are all downloading illegal materials. Just like Tor users.
Educating people is the only way to clear this up.
I'm not sure if "education" is the word for "when monied interests are involved, don't assume you know anything about a subject until you've investigated it for yourself." Maybe "common sense" is a better word for that?
Slashdot Mirror
If I didn't read your Slashdot User# I would think you were new to Slashdot
In the technical sense, I can think of several reasons for it that are all plausible explanations. None of them speak favorably of that moderator. Since there are multiple possible explanations, I can accurately say I don't know which was the motivation. That's not the same thing as being unable to understand how such things happen. If I had to guess, I'd say it's because people assume that anything they don't like must be trolling or an instance of flamebait, but that's just a guess. I don't claim to know the mind of that moderator and people don't always have rational reasons for their behavior that are so easy to explain.
So, I brought it up without trying to explain it. The point of that was to write from the perspective that understands why it's silly and absurd. It would not occur to that perspective that he was trolling. I think that's what the moderation system could use a little more of.
I heard one simple idea that probably would solve the illegal border crossing problem: landmines.
And when dozens of cattle and feral horses are left maimed or dead, we'll just say "serves those stupid animals right! They should learn to read!" What, you didn't realize there is a significant amount of non-human traffic in those areas?
Or, for that matter, how desperate some people are when they're trying to escape severe poverty or starvation? Or do you just not care? A rudimentary knowledge of fairly recent history would have told you land mines don't deter the very poor from attempting to use land - they just send people out into the fields/paddies with poles in an attempt to blow up any mines before planting their rice (yes, we're talking about a country in southeast Asia). If mines didn't stop them from entering land they'd use multiple times, it's not likely to stop illegal aliens from attempting a one-time crossing.
The person who modded me "Funny" had the right idea.
"Too bad those people caved, but that need not cost us the ability to know what they wanted so badly to hide."
Note to potential "cavers": You can certainly sanitize the information you plan to agree to keep secret, give it to reliable third parties, then take the money.
It isn't honest, but there is no reason to be honest with your enemies. We are past the point of moral obligation to such people.
I don't know why you were modded Troll because what you say is strategically correct. As Sun Tzu advised, all warfare (physical or PR) is based on deception. The use of deception against an aggressor whom you have done nothing to provoke is the only legitimate, morally correct usage of it that I recognize. Whether this case fits that description is the only debatable point.
Having said that, if you sign a contract stating that you will not disclose information, and you disclose that information, then it's not just dishonest; it's also illegal (or at least, a tort). This is unwise, especially when Microsoft can afford the best lawyers and you cannot. There are times when you have concerns other than how much you can justify without violating your morality, and this is probably one of them. For that reason, I'd strongly advise against actually doing this, making this a bad example of the otherwise sound concepts you mention.
Imagine that clearly enough and you'll see why no one who could arrange that is inclined to let it happen.
Said no one who could arrange that being the electorate of your county/state/country?
Right. The electorate who lack the critical thinking skills and knowledge of logical fallacies to understand what's wrong with the status quo are unlikely to demand leaders who institute policies that stand up to critical thinking and are free of logical fallacies. This suits our current leaders just fine. Those leaders are not stupid. They know how to play the game of politics to their advantage. They are aware of the situation and its implications, they know what's wrong with their laws and policies, but those serve the interests who got them into power so they are unwilling to change this system. It could only come from the electorate, which, as I already said, is ill-equipped to demand this sort of change. Did you fail to derive that from my previous post?
That's the danger of giving government direct control over education and the curriculum. I have no problem with the state governments using tax money to fund education, but the parents should be able to use that tax money to send the children to any school they like. I'd like to see something like the voucher system (the money follows the child instead of the child having to follow the money) and I'd also like to see government get out of the education business entirely other than providing the voucher. The reason we don't have vouchers is because the NEA is its biggest opponent and they have a ton of political clout that they have no reservations about using. It's not because vouchers are an unsound idea or are logically flawed. Refer to my previous point for how we arrived at this situation.
I don't like it and I don't delight in pointing it out, but most people are passive sheep. If the schooling they received does not teach them logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, then they won't learn those things. They could find books, Web sites, and other resources and teach themselves, for only basic literacy is required, but they won't because it doesn't occur to them that they should. Only a tiny minority of people would ever take that sort of initiative. So the reality is, if the schools don't teach these things, then the number of people who retain this knowledge are going to be such a tiny minority that politicians can safely ignore them in any election. I hope this explains why we have the current situation and why it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
No, they won't. It sure would be nice, though.
If the (government-owned, government-operated) public schools actually taught logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, thoroughly and exhaustively, it would remove a lot of individuals and interests from power. Imagine if we never had any laws or policies except those that could stand up to rigorous examination. Imagine that clearly enough and you'll see why no one who could arrange that is inclined to let it happen.
Rest assured that any information that isn't negative to Microsoft will be posted last if at all. GL/PJ isn't exactly know for being an unbiased source - she will say/do anything to keep the hits/money coming in.
That's a great balance against the marketing and PR that Microsoft spends a great deal of money producing. All of their marketing and PR is completely biased, of course. It would be reasonable to complain about GL being biased the moment Microsoft's marketing fully discloses, with equal emphasis and prominence, all disadvantages and downsides of all of their products in addition to their advantages and benefits. Until then, such a balance that PJ is providing is a welcome and useful thing.
So this is for people to view and observe the border and report any activity right....well I guess this plan is already in the toilet now that people IN MEXICO can view the cameras and see exactly where they are pointed.
Ok yes, we see you. We will mark that crossing off our list of possibilities. Ok, a little further...there I can see you...keep going....now I can't, mark that with a flag or something.
Well played Border Control, well played.
I heard one simple idea that probably would solve the illegal border crossing problem: landmines. Line our side of the border with antipersonnel landmines, everywhere except the legitimate entrances/checkpoints. Post highly visible signs in English and Spanish, and also with graphics in case the person is illiterate, warning that it is a minefield. The purpose of this is to establish a deterrent, not to actually hurt anyone (though if that happens, they can't say they weren't warned). Maybe those signs can include some contact information at the bottom, useful for obtaining information on how to go through the process of coming here legally.
I'm quite grateful for the Streisand Effect. If not for that, then normally someone who sells out or is (legally) bribed like this removes everyone's access to such information. Too bad those people caved, but that need not cost us the ability to know what they wanted so badly to hide.
What junk are you drinking? Smirnoff?
It isn't the alcohol which gives you a headache. It's the alcohol in combination with the rest of the crap in the beverage.
Either buy decent quality and/or drink a glass of water for each drink and take two paracetamol before you go to bed.
There seems to be reason to believe that the hangover is caued by acetaldehyde. Though, I have noticed that some drinks are worse than others. For example, I think red wine has very small amounts of alcohols other than ethanol, alcohols which are a bit more toxic. It's probably also why I seem to get much more subjectively drunk from red wine than an equivalent amount of most liquors. Beer has a similar effect with me, and I assume that's because of the hops. Hops alone are sedating, and in fact hops tea (non-fermented, non-alcoholic) can be used as a natural sleep aid or a way to relax.
From that Wiki article:
Most people of East Asian descent have a mutation in their alcohol dehydrogenase gene that makes this enzyme unusually effective at converting ethanol to acetaldehyde, and about half of such people also have a form of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase that is less effective at converting acetaldehyde to acetic acid.[16] This combination causes them to suffer from alcohol flush reaction, in which acetaldehyde accumulates after drinking, leading to immediate and severe hangover symptoms. These people are therefore less likely to become alcoholics.[17][18]
The drug disulfiram (Antabuse) prevents the oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, and it has the same unpleasant effect on drinkers. Antabuse is used as a deterrent for alcoholics who wish to stay sober.
Take this argument out of the airplane context, and think about it.
At the Fort Hood shooting, who took out the shooter? He started the shooting in the middle of a group of well trained, but unarmed individuals. Who took him out? An armed civilian. When you take away the ability of people to defend themselves, they are left defenseless.
Not to say a shootout on an aircraft would be a good thing. That's the last thing anyone would want to be involved in. A very dense population, with no place to run to, in an environment that is more dangerous to shoot in. Anyone who would consider such a thing would already consider, their odds of success are much smaller in any group of people who can defend themselves.
Before 9/11, I knew a guy who worked personal security. He brought his sidearm on board a couple times. Once was accidentally, where he forgot it was in his bag (he thought he moved it to checked luggage) and discovered it in his carry-on mid-flight. The other, he discovered he carried it to the checkpoint, but with his credentals, he was told to bring it on with him. He was asking to be allowed to check the bag, and was told "oh, you're clear, go."
Neither time did he create an incident, but if an incident did happen, he would have been the armed civilian who could have ended the situation.
It isn't just on the aircraft where the situation is amazingly dangerous. Consider the 2002 LAX shooting at the El Al terminal. He was shot by an airline security guard, who was one of the few armed people in the area.
Helpless people want you to be helpless too, thus they don't understand any of this.
"The transistor, which has a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts, could behave just like a silicon transistor." It isn't clear how large the transistor as a whole is. A benzene molecule is pretty small with only 12 atoms. That presumably isn't the entire transistor. Whether they mean benzene attached to something else isn't clear from the article. However, given that prior small transistors are on the order of 10s of atoms thick at minimum, this seems like a major improvement. It looks like Moore's law will live for a bit longer yet.
I'd assume that this is significantly better (smaller) than existing/economical technology, else it wouldn't have become a headline. But thanks to slow news days, I've been wrong about that before.
It already has been proven. Three groups of kids. First group traditional education. Second is guided but loose (like a lot of decent homeschoolers - not all, mind you) and Third was kids who just had someone to ask questions of and list topics/projects. Guess which group scored better at the end of the testing? Yep... group three. With little more than the Google equivalent of a "teacher". You ever see how quickly school can suck the imagination, creativity and desire to learn out of a kid? And before you ask... "Values for a New Millenium"b Dr. Robert Humphrey. Info is in the last part of the book. Now, when he proved several techniques that took Inner City kids from drug addicts to straight A students... who do you think shut him down? Kids? No. Parents? No. School Board? You betcha. (And that isn't knocking all School Board people...) Read the book.
You'd love what John Taylor Gatto has to say on this subject. He also has a shorter essay here. He highlights how many of modern public schooling's techniques are profoundly anti-educational and seem designed to encourage dependency. He also advises that it takes about 50 contact hours to transmit basic literacy and mathematics skills; after that, the person is capable of educating themselves given access to books and other resources. One trivial example of the damage this does can be found in those computer users who get confounded by very simple issues that are found in Page 1 of the manual, the README file, the help file, the FAQ, and the vendor's Web site, yet they still need handholding, not because they are incapable of reading and understanding the information, but because they feel helpless.
I am very grateful that there are people like this who will stand up and say something, who will expose these important ideas. Make no mistake, that takes courage. It's little wonder that you generally don't see folks like that on the prime-time evening news, for what they have to say, however true, is also quite inconvenient to many powerful interests.
Incidentally, you may appreciate my sig; it's quite apropos.
Who would waste a mod point on an Anonymous Coward?
The editors?
(they have infinite points, and per the FAQ they are not shy about using them...)
It seems that Wikileaks should operate over Freenet. Leaks could be submitted anonymously that way, and also distributed anonymously. The advantage would be that it would be entirely decentralized, so there would be no organization vulnerable to legal action.
Freenet has been slow and hard to use in the past, but its improved quite a bit. It is the obvious platform for something like Wikileaks. Of course, there is nothing to prevent people from mirroring content on the web (since installing Freenet, like any piece of software, is a hassle). But at least there will be an unimpeachable backup of all data on Freenet.
I wish a comprehensive group of security experts with varying backgrounds and specialties would get together and try to compromise both Freenet and Tor to see just how secure and anonymous they really are. By this I mean in an open, public, collaborative sort of way. This could only be a good thing, as any vulnerabilities or weaknesses could potentially be addressed. Then we could be a bit more confident about the confidentiality of those who contribute documents to sites like Wikileaks. I am sure that many such folks are doing so at great risk to themselves, especially when they live under repressive regimes, yet they believe in our right to know and are willing to take that risk. It really would be nice to know they are a bit safer doing it.
TFS/TFA just says, what everybody on the net is repeating since the beginning of it all. Including pretty much every commenter here on Slashdot.
But now it’s all news, because a site that PHBs read mentiones it? Are we PHBs, or what?
A respectable PHB chooses good people who understand their field and then listens to their advice. Such a boss would already be knowledgable about such issues if they are relevant to the business. Unfortunately, those bosses seem to be in the minority and many of their peers were simply promoted to their level of incompetence. To answer your question, we generally are not PHBs, but most of us have to deal with them. Getting the word out to them in a form that they accept as credible is far better than nothing, even if it's something the rest of us knew and could have told them all along.
hahaha all I could think of while reading the first two sentences was "this guy is another stoner rights advocate" and your third sentence proved it
During the 20s I'd have been "hahaha, another drinker's rights advocate". I don't believe that I have the right to tell consenting adults what they may or may not ingest, that what they do in the privacy of their homes is absolutely none of my business. That goes for alcohol, marijuana, or any other substance. It also goes for what religion they practice, what they want to watch, read, write, talk about, etc, you name it. If there is no victim, there is no crime. What's your point?
This part in particular helped me to understand. In terms of strategy, the attempt to lock-in the industrializing nations and the secrecy in particular really does look like a desperation maneuver. That's funny when it comes from people who generally get what they want when it comes to increasingly restrictive and unreasonable copyright laws.
I had already noticed that the more unreasonable those laws become, the more they are going to alienate people who otherwise would be sympathetic towards the laments of "piracy" by various monied interests. It is becoming more obvious to the public that supporting those interests is like assuming the status of useful idiot. This includes everyday folks who are not technically inclined and do not closely follow these issues. As a result, it seems natural to me that civil disobedience will only increase, and not just from an unwillingness of the cheap or lazy to pay for media but as a protest or rejection of those laws.
What I had not noticed until reading your post was that those same interests are showing desperation. They might even realize that the path they are on does not lead to a destination favorable to them, in which case I suppose they have already gone so far down that path that they don't know how to turn back. Maybe they're too proud to do so. The real idiocy of it all is that pushing so hard for so many restrictions ultimately won't end well for them politically. Had they been satisfied "merely" with copyright lasting the author's lifetime plus (I think) 70 years, they could have quit while they were ahead. As they refuse to do that, the financial and political backlash is not only inevitable but is also of their own creation.
The most unfortunate thing is all of the damage that will be done before the matter is settled, for example those people whose lives are financially ruined for violating copyright. They knew they were infringing copyright, yes, but no reasonable penalty for copyright violation would be so comparable to punishments we give to violent criminals. If it weren't unjust, the likes of the RIAA would not need to spend so much money trying to convince us that this is anything like justice or honor.
I wanted to add something. I'm not the writer that I one day hope to be, but I know just enough about writing to understand that it takes real effort to do it correctly. I call it effort and not "work" because a worthy subject that you truly wish to share with others removes the toil and it becomes an enjoyable and rewarding labor. I am confident you know what I mean by that, for not only have you been kind enough to take the time to give me a truly good answer, you have also done so with the intention of inspiring hope. I want you to know that you have succeeded. I really appreciate that.
That was a beautifully written post and a pleasure to read. Thank you for that.
I seem to have a bit of cynacism about it, though. I'd like to get rid of that, but I think it has a solid foundation. Your reference to Prohibition was absoutely right. The problem is, this country has not learned from it. Prohibition taught us that you cannot stop a powerful economic force, and if you try too hard to do it, you will create a black market and you will provide fertile soil for organized crime. No one fought with submachine guns and died in the streets over alcohol until it was made illegal. Alfonso Capone would be an anonymous figure if not for Prohibition. Imagine all the tax dollars, buildup of increasingly paramilitary police forces, involvement of the federal government in basic law enforcement issues and lives lost just to enforce a law that should never have been written, a law designed to enforce one group's Puritannical moral objections on everyone else.
For anyone who's actually familiar with American history and tradition, it's hard to imagine anything more un-American than using law to micromanage the personal lives of others. You cannot tell a person what they may put into their body without also, implicitly, claiming ownership of their body. Yet that happened, right here in the "land of the free." And we tolerated it, because we were told that it was for our own good.
Then consider that we haven't really learned anything from it because we still have Prohibition. We still have The War on (some) Drugs. Only the object of the prohibition has changed, but the process is the same. So are the problems. We have learned nothing.
I would like to think that when iron-fisted copyright proves to be a failure, we will learn from this and find more reasonable approaches. But the utter failure of Prohibition hasn't stopped us from implementing similar laws. I would like to believe that a cultural war has been won, that when the old guard retires those who replace them will have a more enlightened viewpoint. I truly want to believe that. But I really don't see much precedent for it.
"It's hard to name another group that is so eager to use the law to enforce their morality on other people."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34939
You have the worst imagination ever.
---linuxrocks123
Yeah, after I posted that I wished Slash had an edit function. I intended to limit my comment to the Western world and neglected to do so. Yes I am aware that some Muslims want to do much worse with Sharia law. Still, in the time-honored Slashdot tradition, don't ever miss an opportunity to denigrate or belittle a stranger.
Hubris - "to cause [or attempt to cause, in this case] shame to the target, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater."
-- Aristotle
What's stopping you? I make up tags all the time ... sometimes they even persist and the story stays tagged that way for hours or more.
Really? Not once have I ever applied any tag, not even the more standard/common/generic ones, refreshed the Slashdot main page, and seen my tag still in place. My personal user page shows that I used such a tag, but not the main page. I have Excellent karma, frequently receive mod points, and otherwise don't appear to be on any shitlists. I have never received a good explanation for this. Someone somewhere is able to tag stories and have it stay on the main page, else I wouldn't see them there. But not me.
It takes courage to imagine something new and different, even when it's something relatively minor like this issue.
It really doesn't take courage to imagine something new or different? Hoping that the majority's nature and their perspective will change any time soon is just silly...
"Anytime soon" is the only part that's in question. Otherwise, as the ancients observed, one of the laws of the universe is Change. That was more than a primitive, pre-physics observation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Particularly when things get bad and change is long overdue, it can often be quite sudden and sometimes severe. That's especially the case when gradual, incremental small changes that would have regularly occurred over time were held back by the fiat of some kind of hierarchy, such as a monied interest or an authority. A dam bursting is the model for that scenario.
I think it makes a difference that drugs are both intended for human ingestion. Drugs are also regulated by the FDA, and my point there is that the law has already decided that this is one thing that could be dangerous without regulation. No one eats software, and no government body exists that was specifically designed to regulate it.
I've always felt that all fines (anything from traffic violations to sanctions against companies) should be a percentage of the target's net worth. This completely eliminates the concern that the law is much more of a deterrent against poor people and small organizations while hardly amounting to a rounding error for the wealthy and multinational corporations.
P2P is not proof of illicit activity, although the RIAA wants everyone to think it is.
Absolutely correct. But to the uneducated masses, P2P users are all downloading illegal materials. Just like Tor users. Educating people is the only way to clear this up.
I'm not sure if "education" is the word for "when monied interests are involved, don't assume you know anything about a subject until you've investigated it for yourself." Maybe "common sense" is a better word for that?
LMAO, British prudes.
Americans are only the biggest load of Christian fundamentalists in the world.
Yeah, I like to think that they could have stopped the Puritans from moving to North America, but didn't because they were happy to see them go.
It's hard to name another group that is so eager to use the law to enforce their morality on other people.