There seems to be an increasingly accepted view in America that the 'founding words' of our esteemed Founders (women most certainly included) are some sort of 'ideal' to be striven for.
Nothing could be further from the truth -- the Declaration, Constitution, et. al. are practical recipes, written by experienced and reflective authors, a group of people that had personally suffered and/or witnessed the murders, intrusions, seizures, violations, wrongs, indignities and humiliations the Documents are meant prevent. This most certainly includes the right to keep private from the "state" communications between individuals.
(Just who the fuck does this current government think they are, anyway? They were too cowardly to go to the original site for their own first "inauguration" (thats another story) because of the protesters, and its been all downhill since that day. They haven't looked a protester in the eyes since, the gutless wonders, instead they spend mass quantities of cash avoiding them and locking them out of public forums. Heaven forbid that they actually tried to match wits with one.)
I also find the political (for lack of a better word) similarities between then and now ironic, to say the least. The American Revolution was pretty much entirely caused by years of increasing economic and physical depredation, abuse and exploitation by the dominant trans-national "entity" of the day, the British East India Company, an entity that at times employed its own military force, established its own governments, etc.
Although schoolchildren are usually taught that the American Revolution was a rebellion against "taxation without representation," akin to modern day conservative taxpayer revolts, in fact what led to the revolution was rage against a transnational corporation that, by the 1760s, dominated trade from China to India to the Caribbean, and controlled nearly all commerce to and from North America, with subsidies and special dispensation from the British crown. Hewes notes: "The [East India] Company received permission to transport tea, free of all duty, from Great Britain to America..." allowing it to wipe out New England-based tea wholesalers and mom-and-pop stores and take over the tea business in all of America. (British East India Company, wikipedia.org).
Sound anything like whats happening with the oil in Iraq?
But actually, my favorite part is that smugglers played such a large part in early American history. Dunno why, but that appeals to me sooooooo much.:)
Interesting, too, that lobbyists played a part in the run up to the American Revolution:
The Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 angered colonists regarding British decisions on taxing the colonies despite a lack of representation in the Westminster Parliament. One of the protesters was John Hancock. In 1768, Hancock's ship Liberty was seized by customs officials, and he was charged with smuggling. He was defended by John Adams, and the charges were eventually dropped. However, Hancock later faced several hundred more indictments.
Hancock organized a boycott of tea from China sold by the British East India Company, whose sales in the colonies then fell from 320,000 pounds (145,000 kg) to 520 pounds (240 kg). By 1773, the company had large debts, huge stocks of tea in its warehouses and no prospect of selling it because smugglers, such as Hancock, were importing tea without paying import taxes. The British government passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea to the colonies directly and without "payment of any customs or duties whatsoever" in Britain, instead paying the much lower American duty. This tax break allowed the East India Company to sell for lower prices than those offered by the colonial merchants and smugglers.
A friend whose avocation is politics explained it to me like this: presidents can get away with a lot in respect to Congress for a few reasons, not least of which is that nearly every member of Congress secretly believes that one day they might be President.
Sort of like how so many Americans just know the lottery ticket will pay off, the hot stock will split, or the Nigerian check will clear, so they aren't too troubled by the tax breaks and other privileges conferred on the wealthy ruling class in the US at their expense, since one day they, too, will "benefit".
(French, "little vine"): A short composition showing considerable skill, especially such a composition designed with little or no plot or larger narrative structure. Often vignettes are descriptive or evocative in their nature.
The one thing none of us has enough of is time, and most of these concern, at the very least, a theft of time that is happening on a massive scale, and pervades online computing. In fact, judging by the posts, these thefts and frauds seem to be taken for granted by rather too many folks here.
(Fraud) There is money to be made in insecure, unstable software, and the hours people spend dealing with it is, apparently, inconsequential. (At least to people here?)
(Shoddy workmanship) That whizbang jillion GB drive you got for a song? -- won't last long!
(Racketeering) **AAs be watchin', you be dodgin' -- more time, and emotion, wasted.
(Criminal trespass, possible burglary, vandalization) The botz gots ya.
Seems to be your argument assumes that such surveillance will be useful, and won't be abused, in return for which the precedent is set for secret, universal, unlimited warrantless surveillance of electronic communications.
Such powers would never be abused to say, oh, listen in on political opponents, now would they?
How long until such powers are used to catch middle class tax "cheats", who are "shirking" (part of) their share of paying for the war that polls for months (years?) have shown at least half the country is against, and that is vastly enriching the company still paying the Vice President a yearly stipend?
Doesn't casting so wide a net then present the problem of sorting out the desirable "fish"? Hasn't that precise problem already been cited has the reason the 9/11 guys weren't stopped, i.e., we had evidence against a few, but it was fragmented amongst agencies, and thus ignored? Given the number of cell phones in use at any given moment is it even practical in the foreseeable future?
While FISA may have been meant for CI, it doesn't mean that same tool can't be used -- the issue is the government having the grounds for wiretapping vs. listening to anybody anytime/all the time to just hear what they can hear and hope for something to pop up.
Let's consider the also the source and context a bit, shall we?
In recent weeks, the US government has been debating what degree of torture is "acceptable", despite the fact that the military and CIA, et. al. are on record as saying that torture is ineffective, counter-productive and produces unreliable information. Never mind that it is just wrong.
Too, we have the Military Detainee Act, an act that essentially eliminates habeas corpus in the US, on the whim of a single individual, at present a failed businessman, recovering alcoholic who has publicly laughed at and mimicked a woman who was pleading for her life after he had signed her death warrant and refused her appeal for clemency. He has already ordered the execution of many people -- he bragged as much in a State of the Union address. But we don't know whom, or on what evidence, now do we? Consider the fact that the military has admitted that a waaaaay too large percentage (majority?) of people at Gitmo are innocent, yet they continue to hold them.
These are the people, tactics and results the Founding Fathers repeatedly warned us about.
2. Isolated protective measures to limit outsourcing will ultimately fail. If you put restrictions on US companies that increase their costs while overseas competitors have no such restrictions, US companies will be at a competitive disadvantage ultimately hurting their growth and their employees.
Wrong attitude for businesses to take, seems to me -- competing on cost alone results in a race to the bottom, which is what we seem to be experiencing. I've worked with Indian teams, in person, and they are *exactly* like everyone else I've ever worked with, i.e., 10% were essentially unproductive, 10% were utter joys to work with -- sharp, organized, capable, motivated and could communicate well -- the remaining 80% were somewhere in between.
Over the last 20 years I've watched as American business management seemed to forget about delivering the best product, and focused on maximizing profits instead, as if the two could be entirely separated. Stupid, and it will take probably at least a *generation* to fix that.
Your point about multiple architectures dividing the attention of the antivirus community might be true to some extent -- but on the other hand, there might just be more jobs for people writing antivirus programs for all those extra operating systems.
Not only that:
Script kiddes and real "crackers" would also have their attention spread across multiple platforms, so OS diversity reduces the "bad guy" resources, as well, and
Anti-virus folks would very likely learn a *lot* about various virus writing strategies in general, and of necessity become sharper and produce more effective tools.
Now, let's look at an IT example... let's say you have a 4-way even split (25% apiece) between Mac OS, Solaris, Red Hat Linux, and Windows in your enterprise. Now, I knock 25% of your systems offline via an exploit in one of those operating systems. How has diversity helped you? Sure, the other 75% of your systems are up, but you're probably missing critical services (DNS? LDAP? Web Services? Web SERVERS? Network drives? Domain Controllers? NIS masters?) that are hurting even the "unaffected" 75% of your systems.
You seem to be assuming that even with diverse OSes, some or all mission-critical services would still be limited to one OS platform.
Too, just because "the" mailserver was down, say, doesn't mean that people on the OSes couldn't be creating documents, crunching numbers, doing database queries, playing Solitaire.
I also think that the OP is very mistaken concerning "the cost to society". One company might find a monoculture cheaper, but different companies implementing different OSes wouldn't cost society one bit more, and in terms of avoided loss of productivity due to the diversity, societ would thus save money via OS diversity. I fart in your general direction, sir.
F/OSS software is the only truly free market of which I am aware, and the methodology of building and sharing one's own has spread into other arena well--beauty!
Markets work on info, and the telcos/cable unreasonable rates have been "taxing" small business and consultants (such as myself) at highly excessive rates.
These communities, one or another "get it"--their economies will enefit in sooooo many ways from this (relatively) minor investments.
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There seems to be an increasingly accepted view in America that the 'founding words' of our esteemed Founders (women most certainly included) are some sort of 'ideal' to be striven for.
Nothing could be further from the truth -- the Declaration, Constitution, et. al. are practical recipes, written by experienced and reflective authors, a group of people that had personally suffered and/or witnessed the murders, intrusions, seizures, violations, wrongs, indignities and humiliations the Documents are meant prevent. This most certainly includes the right to keep private from the "state" communications between individuals.
(Just who the fuck does this current government think they are, anyway? They were too cowardly to go to the original site for their own first "inauguration" (thats another story) because of the protesters, and its been all downhill since that day. They haven't looked a protester in the eyes since, the gutless wonders, instead they spend mass quantities of cash avoiding them and locking them out of public forums. Heaven forbid that they actually tried to match wits with one.)
I also find the political (for lack of a better word) similarities between then and now ironic, to say the least. The American Revolution was pretty much entirely caused by years of increasing economic and physical depredation, abuse and exploitation by the dominant trans-national "entity" of the day, the British East India Company, an entity that at times employed its own military force, established its own governments, etc.
Sound anything like whats happening with the oil in Iraq?
But actually, my favorite part is that smugglers played such a large part in early American history. Dunno why, but that appeals to me sooooooo much. :)
Interesting, too, that lobbyists played a part in the run up to the American Revolution:
A friend whose avocation is politics explained it to me like this: presidents can get away with a lot in respect to Congress for a few reasons, not least of which is that nearly every member of Congress secretly believes that one day they might be President.
Sort of like how so many Americans just know the lottery ticket will pay off, the hot stock will split, or the Nigerian check will clear, so they aren't too troubled by the tax breaks and other privileges conferred on the wealthy ruling class in the US at their expense, since one day they, too, will "benefit".
Why is this modded '+4 funny'?
Can anyone seriously believe that this warrantless wiretapping, an abuse in and of itself, isn't being used for political purposes?
Never mind for so-called 'business intelligence' by all the CEOs/CFOs/COOs currently in appointed positions.
Perhaps, because of how commonplace many of these are, these vignettes make people feel powerless, thus the expressed dislike for them?
Vignette:
The one thing none of us has enough of is time, and most of these concern, at the very least, a theft of time that is happening on a massive scale, and pervades online computing. In fact, judging by the posts, these thefts and frauds seem to be taken for granted by rather too many folks here.
- (Fraud) There is money to be made in insecure, unstable software, and the hours people spend dealing with it is, apparently, inconsequential. (At least to people here?)
- (Shoddy workmanship) That whizbang jillion GB drive you got for a song? -- won't last long!
- (Racketeering) **AAs be watchin', you be dodgin' -- more time, and emotion, wasted.
- (Criminal trespass, possible burglary, vandalization) The botz gots ya.
- etc.
(Sheesh. I kinda liked TFA, for once.)Here's the story. Where's my check?
I agree.
Also, this sounds to me like an expensive, high tech way to 'rediscover' how tribal councils, etc. work -- complete with wise elders and shamans.
I'm not very enthusiastic about trying to "productize" and systematize this -- its about people communicating, silly.
Seems to be your argument assumes that such surveillance will be useful, and won't be abused, in return for which the precedent is set for secret, universal, unlimited warrantless surveillance of electronic communications.
Such powers would never be abused to say, oh, listen in on political opponents, now would they?
How long until such powers are used to catch middle class tax "cheats", who are "shirking" (part of) their share of paying for the war that polls for months (years?) have shown at least half the country is against, and that is vastly enriching the company still paying the Vice President a yearly stipend?
Doesn't casting so wide a net then present the problem of sorting out the desirable "fish"? Hasn't that precise problem already been cited has the reason the 9/11 guys weren't stopped, i.e., we had evidence against a few, but it was fragmented amongst agencies, and thus ignored? Given the number of cell phones in use at any given moment is it even practical in the foreseeable future?
While FISA may have been meant for CI, it doesn't mean that same tool can't be used -- the issue is the government having the grounds for wiretapping vs. listening to anybody anytime/all the time to just hear what they can hear and hope for something to pop up.
Let's consider the also the source and context a bit, shall we?
In recent weeks, the US government has been debating what degree of torture is "acceptable", despite the fact that the military and CIA, et. al. are on record as saying that torture is ineffective, counter-productive and produces unreliable information. Never mind that it is just wrong.
Too, we have the Military Detainee Act, an act that essentially eliminates habeas corpus in the US, on the whim of a single individual, at present a failed businessman, recovering alcoholic who has publicly laughed at and mimicked a woman who was pleading for her life after he had signed her death warrant and refused her appeal for clemency. He has already ordered the execution of many people -- he bragged as much in a State of the Union address. But we don't know whom, or on what evidence, now do we? Consider the fact that the military has admitted that a waaaaay too large percentage (majority?) of people at Gitmo are innocent, yet they continue to hold them.
These are the people, tactics and results the Founding Fathers repeatedly warned us about.
Let us not submit to such chicanery.
Once we hit bottom.
Wrong attitude for businesses to take, seems to me -- competing on cost alone results in a race to the bottom, which is what we seem to be experiencing. I've worked with Indian teams, in person, and they are *exactly* like everyone else I've ever worked with, i.e., 10% were essentially unproductive, 10% were utter joys to work with -- sharp, organized, capable, motivated and could communicate well -- the remaining 80% were somewhere in between.
Over the last 20 years I've watched as American business management seemed to forget about delivering the best product, and focused on maximizing profits instead, as if the two could be entirely separated. Stupid, and it will take probably at least a *generation* to fix that.
Not only that:
Still looks like a win, to me.
You seem to be assuming that even with diverse OSes, some or all mission-critical services would still be limited to one OS platform.
Too, just because "the" mailserver was down, say, doesn't mean that people on the OSes couldn't be creating documents, crunching numbers, doing database queries, playing Solitaire.
I also think that the OP is very mistaken concerning "the cost to society". One company might find a monoculture cheaper, but different companies implementing different OSes wouldn't cost society one bit more, and in terms of avoided loss of productivity due to the diversity, societ would thus save money via OS diversity. I fart in your general direction, sir.
F/OSS software is the only truly free market of which I am aware, and the methodology of building and sharing one's own has spread into other arena well--beauty!
Markets work on info, and the telcos/cable unreasonable rates have been "taxing" small business and consultants (such as myself) at highly excessive rates.
These communities, one or another "get it"--their economies will enefit in sooooo many ways from this (relatively) minor investments.
I love it.