Really, if people talk about the wasted money of "security theater" why do they never talk about the wasted money of "fire fighting show". Go and count, how many exthinguishers and such do you come across in a typical day, all of them unused. Why bother? Especially since in a real fire they are rarely used?
I come across tons. And I also come across one I had to use to put a fire out. I quite like that one. The difference is that a fire extinguisher actually has a chance of doing some good. Security theater doesn't - it's like an empty fire extinguisher that someone comes by and polishes once a week. Looks damn good but is otherwise useless.
It has become popular to bash aircraft security and to be fair, they made some really stupid choices at times, but there isn't much of an alternative. Do nothing and it will happen again, do something and people will say "oh you wasted money, because it never happened again".
People almost never say that, even when it's warranted. What usually happens is this: Do something and when nothing happens, proclaim that all that money spent was worth it, even if all you did was stick feathers in the ears of everyone named Steve. Terrorism is rare, so all one has to do is implement SOMETHING and then when nothing else happens - because terrorism is rare - proclaim that action was right. Eventually you'll be proven wrong, but that's probably years in the future when it's not your responsibility anymore.
One of the signs that democracy is severely overrated.
I find it's idiots with power that are severely overrated. Sadly, every system has them.
Actually the answer is Yes. We can. Just not in it's current form. Today travel is considered a right. It isn't. Instead of deciding who to keep off of an airplane. Decide who to let ON an airplane. Problem solved.
Until someone spends enough years looking like an upstanding citizen that he can get on a plane and do whatever he wants. Want there to be no terrorism on planes? Ground all the planes. As soon as you let a human being onto a plane, there's a risk that human wants do so something other than see the plane reach its listed destination.
I for one would sacrifice some privacy to know the person sitting next to me has done the same.
The problem with that idea isn't that you've sacrificed the same rights as the next guy, it's that you've both sacrificed them to someone else. Someone who's not going to give them back, even if you find out he's been abusing his power.
Torchwood Cardiff moves to North Pole
on
The Science of Santa
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Advanced alien tech, memory-erasing milk? And Santa is centuries old.... The song "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"....
Oh my God, it all makes sense now. Santa Claus is Jack Harkness in a costume.
I wonder how much of this is a response to events like Sabina Guzzanti saying that Benedict had gay demons waiting for him in Hell. The Italian government tried to send her to jail for five years for saying that, specifically for the crime of insulting the Pope (which is a crime thanks to the Lateran Treaty of the 1920's). But after the case lost momentum... well, I wonder if they're not trying to shut her up in a different way, now.
Technically, Bryan Adams and Celine Dion are getting paid no matter what music you are copying. The blank media levy is divvied up between the top selling artists based on commercial radio airplay.
They're even paid if you use the disks for your own music, or not even music at all, which is where their logic goes from shaky to 'shot to hell'.
A garage band making their own disks of original music and trying to get a career started on a shoestring have to give money to the guys who are already successful because the successful people are being cheated of their fair share.
And a guy backing up his digital photos of his kids is forced to give money to Avril Lavigne et al. because taking something you didn't earn is bad.
The pictures did not show any SLI bridge, so it looks like they are just taking advantage of multiple GPUs per card.
There's no seven-way SLI anyway. Since the GPUs are being used for processing and not graphics, there's no need for them to work together via SLI or Crossfire or what have you as long as the OS and programs treat 'em like any other multiprocessor setup.
With the numbers on the table, the only thing that 30 million could be effectively used for is ramping up police departments and the FBI for cracking down on large scale bootleg operations.
Assume it is. How does Congress' budget change the summit at all? It's not a summit to discuss the money Congress earmarked, it's a summit to discuss piracy, so is probably only marginally related.
Besides, Variety reported that representatives of Warner Music Group and the RIAA are there. If it's all about DVD copying, why is the music industry there? Protecting their tour video DVDs?
Meddling with the Fourth isn't going to be something that can be done at a whim.
And I don't expect anything a tenth as big as that directly out of this summit. I don't expect oak trees from acorns because of one good rain shower either. This could be the start of something. Maybe I'm wrong, I hope I'm wrong, but it's better to pay attention to possible problems when they're starting rather than when they're sitting on the President's desk waiting for his signature.
So put away the tinfoil hat for a minute and use some common sense. Large scale bootleggers are criminals, plain and simple.
And when we have proof that that's all Biden is convening this summit for, I'll start using my tinfoil for wrapping up foodstuffs. Current news items (in the past 2 hours) are talking a lot about copyright infringement, and not at all about DVD bootlegging. Further news items will help clarify that, so I'm willing to be proven wrong...
... except for the small fact that they've kicked the press out so we'll never find out what was said after that point. I guess they didn't want all those bootleggers who vote hearing about tough anti-bootlegging measures.
Am I paranoid? Probably. Are they giving me reason to be paranoid? Definitely.
Targeting individual downloaders wouldn't really be ultimately worth the government's time to properly enforce.
And pork barrel projects are inefficient and waste time and money and aren't worth it. So they never happen.
"are interested in are large-scale DVD bootleggers, not individual downloaders [for now]. "
You can scratch the "for now" even. Any laws that start in meetings like this aren't going to be "If you bootleg DVDs, you get punishment X per bootleg disk." they're going to be "If you infringe copyright, you get punishment X per infringement." where "infringe" can be taken to mean "bootleg, copy for a friend, download, upload, format shift for yourself, write an unfavorable online review of" and so on, however much the lawyers can twist the word and destroy the spirit in a court of law.
See also: Laws against pedophiles and child pornographers that somehow apply to pairs of consenting teenagers and individual teenagers photographing themselves, laws against racketeers that apply to people not running a racket, laws against drug dealers that apply to people with a lot of cash, etc. etc. etc.
Not so much a problem for the folks on the spacecraft, relativity can make the journey very manageable for them. They better not think about returning home to see Grandma though...
So space will be colonized by people with dysfunctional families?
I'll take it. I've even worked
in security, although as a programmer not
as an executive or highly respected author and lecturer
(e.g., Bruce Schneier)
That's okay. As far as I know, few highly respected authors and lecturers have been asked. And asked or not, several such people have preemptively refused the, er, honor.
which is what I imagine they want
and will never get.
If they wanted, I imagine they would've asked more people who could do it.
Where do I send my resumé?
First print off a copy of everything you've ever said online and send it so they can check it for anything embarrassing. I gather that's what one of their pre-screening requirements was. Which is to say, they want people who have never used the internet for their security czar.
That actually gave me the idea that I might, somehow, be able to cause a stack overflow in the police. I guess I'll be trying that the next time I'm arrested...
Don't. Cop++ has an exception handler. When it hits a stack overflow or other situation outside its programming, it calls use_taser(civilian).
Star Wars Christmas Special: the only thing a black hole can't stomach.
Please don't say that. If the Earth is destroyed with just a bunch of VHS tapes in orbit around the carnage, someday an alien archaeologist will develop a description of our entire society based on that special. I really don't want that museum exhibit to exist. I'm starting to picture it now, and I feel very, very ashamed. And horrified. But mostly ashamed.
Pretty much. I'd like to know what sort of psychological mechanism makes (some) adults entirely forget the sort of raunchy, crazy things they did and talked about as a kid.
Part of the nostalgia system, I imagine. Childhood becomes a time of innocence, best friends, summers too short, and 100% awesome cartoons.
How many people have told a kid "these are the best years of your life"? What, don't you REMEMBER those so-called best years? If it's been all downhill since grade school, your life has sucked.
My name is fairly uncommon, let's see what comes up.
I'm a veteran of the Second World War, I'm an avid golfer, I have three young sons, I donate to charity, I served during the Gulf War, I have two grown children, I'm five years old, and I died in 1823.
So I'm doing pretty well, I think.
(Conclusion: Using names as unique identifiers doesn't work. Ask any database admin.)
all except the distended assholes. That is definitely an unfortunate consequence of the internet.
I don't know - freaks were around before the Internet. I was in high school when the internet was just starting to catch on but still uncommon and some of the things I heard the seven-year-olds talking about on the bus were far worse than what the teenagers were talking about. One day I heard slices of two conversations on the same bus:
Teenager: "So they're fucking without protection? Oh my God, she really thinks he's gonna stick around? His parents are divorced and no one knows where his mom lives. She misses by a DAY and he is GONE."
Little kid: "I dare you to stick a pencil up your pee-hole."
As much as I loathe gossip, I listened closely to my fellow teens in an effort to not hear the little kids.
Lucas is going to get wind of this and shut it down.
They're asking for toy donations for Toys for Tots. Somehow, I don't think George Lucas is so epically cold-hearted-with-a-heaping-side-of-douchebag that he would attempt to stop poor children from getting toys on Christmas, which would just bring more publicity to the special - and him - anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
But how do you know if your name is on a no-fly list? I'm pretty sure the authorities don't tell you. You won't know until you actually try to fly.
Two words: "Dry run"
Really, if people talk about the wasted money of "security theater" why do they never talk about the wasted money of "fire fighting show". Go and count, how many exthinguishers and such do you come across in a typical day, all of them unused. Why bother? Especially since in a real fire they are rarely used?
I come across tons. And I also come across one I had to use to put a fire out. I quite like that one. The difference is that a fire extinguisher actually has a chance of doing some good. Security theater doesn't - it's like an empty fire extinguisher that someone comes by and polishes once a week. Looks damn good but is otherwise useless.
It has become popular to bash aircraft security and to be fair, they made some really stupid choices at times, but there isn't much of an alternative. Do nothing and it will happen again, do something and people will say "oh you wasted money, because it never happened again".
People almost never say that, even when it's warranted. What usually happens is this: Do something and when nothing happens, proclaim that all that money spent was worth it, even if all you did was stick feathers in the ears of everyone named Steve. Terrorism is rare, so all one has to do is implement SOMETHING and then when nothing else happens - because terrorism is rare - proclaim that action was right. Eventually you'll be proven wrong, but that's probably years in the future when it's not your responsibility anymore.
One of the signs that democracy is severely overrated.
I find it's idiots with power that are severely overrated. Sadly, every system has them.
Awesome idea!
One question...how do we make sure that we only train the good guys in martial arts?
Check their evil bit, duh.
Actually the answer is Yes. We can. Just not in it's current form. Today travel is considered a right. It isn't. Instead of deciding who to keep off of an airplane. Decide who to let ON an airplane. Problem solved.
Until someone spends enough years looking like an upstanding citizen that he can get on a plane and do whatever he wants. Want there to be no terrorism on planes? Ground all the planes. As soon as you let a human being onto a plane, there's a risk that human wants do so something other than see the plane reach its listed destination.
I for one would sacrifice some privacy to know the person sitting next to me has done the same.
The problem with that idea isn't that you've sacrificed the same rights as the next guy, it's that you've both sacrificed them to someone else. Someone who's not going to give them back, even if you find out he's been abusing his power.
Oh my God, it all makes sense now. Santa Claus is Jack Harkness in a costume.
Dances With Thundersmurfs
I don't care what it's about; if they make a movie with that title, I'll watch it.
I wonder how much of this is a response to events like Sabina Guzzanti saying that Benedict had gay demons waiting for him in Hell. The Italian government tried to send her to jail for five years for saying that, specifically for the crime of insulting the Pope (which is a crime thanks to the Lateran Treaty of the 1920's). But after the case lost momentum... well, I wonder if they're not trying to shut her up in a different way, now.
Technically, Bryan Adams and Celine Dion are getting paid no matter what music you are copying. The blank media levy is divvied up between the top selling artists based on commercial radio airplay.
They're even paid if you use the disks for your own music, or not even music at all, which is where their logic goes from shaky to 'shot to hell'.
A garage band making their own disks of original music and trying to get a career started on a shoestring have to give money to the guys who are already successful because the successful people are being cheated of their fair share.
And a guy backing up his digital photos of his kids is forced to give money to Avril Lavigne et al. because taking something you didn't earn is bad.
Yeah, perfectly sound logic behind that levy.
The pictures did not show any SLI bridge, so it looks like they are just taking advantage of multiple GPUs per card.
There's no seven-way SLI anyway. Since the GPUs are being used for processing and not graphics, there's no need for them to work together via SLI or Crossfire or what have you as long as the OS and programs treat 'em like any other multiprocessor setup.
With the numbers on the table, the only thing that 30 million could be effectively used for is ramping up police departments and the FBI for cracking down on large scale bootleg operations.
Assume it is. How does Congress' budget change the summit at all? It's not a summit to discuss the money Congress earmarked, it's a summit to discuss piracy, so is probably only marginally related.
Besides, Variety reported that representatives of Warner Music Group and the RIAA are there. If it's all about DVD copying, why is the music industry there? Protecting their tour video DVDs?
Meddling with the Fourth isn't going to be something that can be done at a whim.
And I don't expect anything a tenth as big as that directly out of this summit. I don't expect oak trees from acorns because of one good rain shower either. This could be the start of something. Maybe I'm wrong, I hope I'm wrong, but it's better to pay attention to possible problems when they're starting rather than when they're sitting on the President's desk waiting for his signature.
So put away the tinfoil hat for a minute and use some common sense. Large scale bootleggers are criminals, plain and simple.
And when we have proof that that's all Biden is convening this summit for, I'll start using my tinfoil for wrapping up foodstuffs. Current news items (in the past 2 hours) are talking a lot about copyright infringement, and not at all about DVD bootlegging. Further news items will help clarify that, so I'm willing to be proven wrong...
Am I paranoid? Probably. Are they giving me reason to be paranoid? Definitely.
Targeting individual downloaders wouldn't really be ultimately worth the government's time to properly enforce.
And pork barrel projects are inefficient and waste time and money and aren't worth it. So they never happen.
"are interested in are large-scale DVD bootleggers, not individual downloaders [for now]. "
You can scratch the "for now" even. Any laws that start in meetings like this aren't going to be "If you bootleg DVDs, you get punishment X per bootleg disk." they're going to be "If you infringe copyright, you get punishment X per infringement." where "infringe" can be taken to mean "bootleg, copy for a friend, download, upload, format shift for yourself, write an unfavorable online review of" and so on, however much the lawyers can twist the word and destroy the spirit in a court of law.
See also: Laws against pedophiles and child pornographers that somehow apply to pairs of consenting teenagers and individual teenagers photographing themselves, laws against racketeers that apply to people not running a racket, laws against drug dealers that apply to people with a lot of cash, etc. etc. etc.
I for one welcome our quasi-migratory cephalopod overlords. The African Swallow has been sacked.
Of course. A swallow is not as clever as an octopus. It's only a birdbrain!
(I'm so sorry, I couldn't resist.)
Not so much a problem for the folks on the spacecraft, relativity can make the journey very manageable for them. They better not think about returning home to see Grandma though...
So space will be colonized by people with dysfunctional families?
But the drug czars have failed to stop drugs, so therefore a cybersecurity czar would improve cybersecurity!
I finally understand government logic!
I'll take it. I've even worked in security, although as a programmer not as an executive or highly respected author and lecturer (e.g., Bruce Schneier)
That's okay. As far as I know, few highly respected authors and lecturers have been asked. And asked or not, several such people have preemptively refused the, er, honor.
which is what I imagine they want and will never get.
If they wanted, I imagine they would've asked more people who could do it.
Where do I send my resumé?
First print off a copy of everything you've ever said online and send it so they can check it for anything embarrassing. I gather that's what one of their pre-screening requirements was. Which is to say, they want people who have never used the internet for their security czar.
That actually gave me the idea that I might, somehow, be able to cause a stack overflow in the police. I guess I'll be trying that the next time I'm arrested...
Don't. Cop++ has an exception handler. When it hits a stack overflow or other situation outside its programming, it calls use_taser(civilian).
Has anyone ever succeeded at that? I ask only because maybe I could piggyback on it and get a +5 Offtopic.
Score:1, Offtopic
Hey, you're halfway there!:)
Star Wars Christmas Special: the only thing a black hole can't stomach.
Please don't say that. If the Earth is destroyed with just a bunch of VHS tapes in orbit around the carnage, someday an alien archaeologist will develop a description of our entire society based on that special. I really don't want that museum exhibit to exist. I'm starting to picture it now, and I feel very, very ashamed. And horrified. But mostly ashamed.
Pretty much. I'd like to know what sort of psychological mechanism makes (some) adults entirely forget the sort of raunchy, crazy things they did and talked about as a kid.
Part of the nostalgia system, I imagine. Childhood becomes a time of innocence, best friends, summers too short, and 100% awesome cartoons.
How many people have told a kid "these are the best years of your life"? What, don't you REMEMBER those so-called best years? If it's been all downhill since grade school, your life has sucked.
I'm a veteran of the Second World War, I'm an avid golfer, I have three young sons, I donate to charity, I served during the Gulf War, I have two grown children, I'm five years old, and I died in 1823.
So I'm doing pretty well, I think.
(Conclusion: Using names as unique identifiers doesn't work. Ask any database admin.)
all except the distended assholes. That is definitely an unfortunate consequence of the internet.
I don't know - freaks were around before the Internet. I was in high school when the internet was just starting to catch on but still uncommon and some of the things I heard the seven-year-olds talking about on the bus were far worse than what the teenagers were talking about. One day I heard slices of two conversations on the same bus:
Teenager: "So they're fucking without protection? Oh my God, she really thinks he's gonna stick around? His parents are divorced and no one knows where his mom lives. She misses by a DAY and he is GONE."
Little kid: "I dare you to stick a pencil up your pee-hole."
As much as I loathe gossip, I listened closely to my fellow teens in an effort to not hear the little kids.
Lucas is going to get wind of this and shut it down.
They're asking for toy donations for Toys for Tots. Somehow, I don't think George Lucas is so epically cold-hearted-with-a-heaping-side-of-douchebag that he would attempt to stop poor children from getting toys on Christmas, which would just bring more publicity to the special - and him - anyway.
Apparently it was created in Soviet Russia, and I leave it to another /.er to come up with an appropriately funny saying to that effect.
In Soviet Russia they don't have Christmas, the godless bastards?
(Got nothin'.)
Didn't happen...next week? Only a time traveller would get their tenses mixed up like that, therefore:
RODRIGOANDRADE IS A LHC SABOTEUR FROM THE FUTURE! SIEZE HIM!!!
Don't worry. If he sees the Star Wars Christmas Special, he probably won't WANT to save the world from a black hole.
they are bred in even larger numbers to be fed live to snakes and lizards.
That's horrible! Obviously we must starve the snakes to prevent animal cruelty.