There's an option better than encryption - just don't take anything important with you at all. Why not swap in a different hard drive with a clean install and critical programs? Not only does this guarantee that you can say "nothing to see here, move along..." but that your important data stays safe - as well as avoiding lack-of-access upon your return if the border guards do keep your laptop. I've done this recently for my trip to Playa del Carmen, and it had the extra payoff of giving me a swap-and-go safety net while writing my dissertation - if the real hard drive (backed-up, of course) died, I could pop in the extra harddrive/OS and keep on working.
TrueCrypt gives plausible deniability, sure - there's nothing to explain at all with a lack of data. You simply didn't want to take your important and personal data to a hotel while on vacation - I'm not a fan of doing so while still in this country.
That said, sure - encrypt your 'clean' hard drive if you care to - that way, your data you've generated while outside the country is safe en route to home. In the end, data security is bolstered by having encryption and preventing physical access - what better way than this? (And the question is not purely rhetorical - if there's a better approach I'd like to know!)
Re:C-sharp or C-pound (or something else?)
on
C# In-Depth
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· Score: 1
There's something missing in your considerations - time. That's a mighty list of things you've written that I can learn and use, but I have experiments to do. So, I use Excel at a pretty high level for some serious analysis because I've incrementally learned to do so. I'd never try to create molecular dynamics simulations in Excel (and I have learned some code for those purposes...) But for manipulating/understanding the implications of experimental physical chemistry experimental data, Excel does the job more than fine, does it quickly, is pretty darn transparent to the user, and only requires me to occasionally learn 1 new function, rather than a programming language (IMO, Mathematica counts). So, Excel it is!
I've actually read the book in question on a flight to Vegas, and it was a good time (I had time to whip up the frequency analysis spreadsheet it describes thanks to the 'timely' nature of flights in the IS lately...) If you've incrementally become a high-level Excel user, the book gives you "I never through of doing it that way" moments, rather than convincing you that there aren't more optimized approaches in the world - but again, I was able to do tricky stuff with +4 hours during a layover than I could have ever learned with a programming language.
Many threads have mentioned that when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail - they forget/gloss over that if you have enough finesse with a hammer but no experience with an sig welder, you'll likely get better results with your hammer than you will with the arc welder. You'll learn to weld when you need to.
C-sharp or C-pound (or something else?)
on
C# In-Depth
·
· Score: 1
Since this doesn't match to my personal experiences, or to the examples of communist Russia (where academics were the one class who were able to critique the government through the back door), I'll repeat my common comment: citation please.
I think we'd have cars built from so many different part sources that no Western mechanic would know what to do with it. that was certainly the case with Soviet-era tractors; if they couldn't get a part, they found a way to make a different part work.
That said, it might be good for Western mechanics to improve their creative approach to repairs; that ability has been broken in the last few decades.
That's right, as far as the brain goes, in Soviet Russia, tractors fix YOU!
No, no, no.... He wants LOWER risk...! Have you been to a LAN party lately? Between that many PSU's and the lack of a shirt to hold in the BO, explosives are less of a risk than biowarfare.
And no one wants a real-world Zerg rush on the nose.
Well, apparently if you were a Cambridge undergrad when the policy was in place, 'all' you have to do is make a significant contribution to the field, submit your work, and defend it in an oral examination. That's a reasonable approach - you make it sound like he has a self-awarded Ph.D., or that it came from the Jamaican Schhol for Advanced Studies, Periodonty, and Carburetor Repair...
They said they same thing about crystal meth when they placed the precursors onto controlled substances lists. And yet, we still have crystal meth. Why? Because with a little knowledge and a kitchen, you can replicate most chemistry.
If you ban bullets (by which you actually mean _cartridges_ - the bullet, the brass jacket, the primer, and the propellant), you also better ban every precursor to propellant, all malleable metals, etc. And expect the same effect as the 'war on drugs'.
Bullets (cartridges) are not hard to make - you should see the reloading bench sitting next to my computer desk. And as a chemist, I'm not joking when I say it would not be difficult to 'homebrew' a form of gunpowder. Whether you're for/against the second amendment as an individual right, remember: legislation never changes physics and chemistry, and if people want guns/bullets/whatever, they can make them. And if you think that only people who have the know-how will have them (i.e. not the criminals) ask yourself how many of them know anything about phosphorus chemistry. Then check again to see who among them can get meth. People with specialized skill sets will find a way to profit from them.
In summary, whichever side of the issue you prefer doesn't matter - there are no simple solutions.
Not only that, but even if the observation (that women write better documented code than men) is true, that would only be a correlation. The gender itself is not causation - if you want to learn something meaningful, find out why the gender is correlated (e.g. women at that company are given more reasonable deadlines, men feel less secure in their positions so they don't care about helping others untangle the 'spaghetti').
More likely, given the sensitivity of the technique, is that it luggage will be swabbed, the swab will be treated, and it will be placed under the UV light (305 nm if I remember the primary source correctly - I point that out to head off the "we'll all be blinded!!1" comments because it means normal glass is 'black' to that light).
You've fallen into the most common problem non-chemists have when reading about chemistry. Glycerin is NOT the same thing as trinitroglycerin. The reactivities aren't even close, and the structures have significant differences which lead to very different behaviors. Another comment also treated household hydrogen peroxide as equivalent to all other peroxides, and assumed they would all be detected the same way (this shows the same misconception, but is accidentally more correct than the parent comment...)
Remember folks, if you're chemically untrained the WHOLE word is what you should be looking for (there is structural info in the name, and that helps give rise to the properties we observe, but interpreting structures into behavior is tricky even for professional chemists....) Some analogous circumstances which arise from noticing a word fragment and extrapolating..... screw = screwdriver son = sonogram hill = hillary bus = business
I'm sure there are better examples, but hopefully I've made the point.
True, but I'd take it one step further and say that ethics extends after death (in some ways) when someone's wishes are known. For example, consider organ donation; if the family knows that the person expressly wished for a certain type of burial, there's generally some consideration of their wishes in deciding whether to allow organ harvesting (and I'm not going into the ethics of when to override these wishes - too off-topic).
So, I'd say that if the person never specified his accounts were in a metaphorical 'burn-box' when he died, it's up to the family to decide about his privacy (same as for organ donation, or releasing personal works/letters [e.g. Tolkien]). So, if the family is requesting it and you have no contrary knowledge of his wishes, I don't see any ethics problems.
I suppose what the court is saying is that the laptop is like a filing cabinet filled with papers, and that they claim the right to search it when it crosses the border. IANAL, so I'm not going to evaluate the merits of that claim, but I will certainly be taking advantage of the analogy when I fly to Mexico in a few weeks. Rather than taking my 'full filing cabinet' filled with files that aren't anyones business (my research, tax documents, etc.) I'll be carrying a 'small attache' of files (i.e. a different hard drive with only an OS, my essential programs, and basic entertainment files.)
We're probably better off thinking along the lines of this analogy anyway, for the same reason I don't carry my social security card in my wallet - compartmentalization of information, and diminished risk of theft (whether illegal theft, or government sanctioned.)
"Normally I wouldn't really care, but I think this is interesting because eBay is so dominant in their field, that there is no real alternative."
There was a time that people said the same thing about Hotmail in the webmail market. In the end, if people call for an alternative, someone will fill the emergent niche; if this alternative is of wide enough appeal, it may become the new mainstream. So, I agree with the summary that this will be interesting to watch - it always fun to see the lightweight newcomer battle the huge and established titan, even if the little guy ends up getting smashed...
(In fact, this is a good summary for why I read/....)
We need to learn more in order to 'innovate' the next battery technology. And I seriously doubt any scientists are having an epiphany and saying, "Oh, wow! People need to watch HD movies on their laptops! I better move my cot into the lab to better supply consumer demand!" Especially since there's already substantial funding opportunities for research in areas leading to these developments - http://www.nsti.org/press/PRshow.html?id=1342 for example (and there're probably better examples, but that's what 15 seconds of Google and a burning need to go back to my lab allow).
Here's a real-world example of why it might be 'useful'. Dental hygienists often work part time for a single dentist (full-time over multiple offices) and their patient room is used by someone else when they're not there. So, they usually take their pictures/diplomas off the wall when they leave for the last day of the week, and the other person puts theirs up. Also, consider that many of these patients have been going to the same dentist for >20 years - they know the employees, and want to see the new pictures. That frame allows a few hundred pictures to be in the same spot, and come down easily at the end of your mini-week.
At least, my mom thinks so. In the end, that's the key thing to remember about specialized technology - there is/should always be a niche it fills, and it's most profitable when niche > 1. Nearly nothing is too esoteric to be useful to someone - ask me to show you some of the glassware in my chem lab!
For the sake of the wider conversation, let me remind folks that there are still cases where (nearly) every cycle counts. One that comes to mind is is scientific computing (e.g. molecular modeling, !e.g. most analysis). So, if anyone's still missing "ye good 'ole days", there's still a need for 'Shakespearean' code...
Slashdot Mirror
There's an option better than encryption - just don't take anything important with you at all. Why not swap in a different hard drive with a clean install and critical programs? Not only does this guarantee that you can say "nothing to see here, move along..." but that your important data stays safe - as well as avoiding lack-of-access upon your return if the border guards do keep your laptop. I've done this recently for my trip to Playa del Carmen, and it had the extra payoff of giving me a swap-and-go safety net while writing my dissertation - if the real hard drive (backed-up, of course) died, I could pop in the extra harddrive/OS and keep on working.
TrueCrypt gives plausible deniability, sure - there's nothing to explain at all with a lack of data. You simply didn't want to take your important and personal data to a hotel while on vacation - I'm not a fan of doing so while still in this country.
That said, sure - encrypt your 'clean' hard drive if you care to - that way, your data you've generated while outside the country is safe en route to home. In the end, data security is bolstered by having encryption and preventing physical access - what better way than this? (And the question is not purely rhetorical - if there's a better approach I'd like to know!)
This thread's humor has fallen flat... ;*)
There's something missing in your considerations - time. That's a mighty list of things you've written that I can learn and use, but I have experiments to do. So, I use Excel at a pretty high level for some serious analysis because I've incrementally learned to do so. I'd never try to create molecular dynamics simulations in Excel (and I have learned some code for those purposes...) But for manipulating/understanding the implications of experimental physical chemistry experimental data, Excel does the job more than fine, does it quickly, is pretty darn transparent to the user, and only requires me to occasionally learn 1 new function, rather than a programming language (IMO, Mathematica counts). So, Excel it is!
I've actually read the book in question on a flight to Vegas, and it was a good time (I had time to whip up the frequency analysis spreadsheet it describes thanks to the 'timely' nature of flights in the IS lately...) If you've incrementally become a high-level Excel user, the book gives you "I never through of doing it that way" moments, rather than convincing you that there aren't more optimized approaches in the world - but again, I was able to do tricky stuff with +4 hours during a layover than I could have ever learned with a programming language.
Many threads have mentioned that when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail - they forget/gloss over that if you have enough finesse with a hammer but no experience with an sig welder, you'll likely get better results with your hammer than you will with the arc welder. You'll learn to weld when you need to.
I'm just curious how C# is said - anyone?
Thanks!
Since this doesn't match to my personal experiences, or to the examples of communist Russia (where academics were the one class who were able to critique the government through the back door), I'll repeat my common comment:
citation please.
I think we'd have cars built from so many different part sources that no Western mechanic would know what to do with it. that was certainly the case with Soviet-era tractors; if they couldn't get a part, they found a way to make a different part work.
That said, it might be good for Western mechanics to improve their creative approach to repairs; that ability has been broken in the last few decades.
That's right, as far as the brain goes, in Soviet Russia, tractors fix YOU!
No, no, no.... He wants LOWER risk...! Have you been to a LAN party lately? Between that many PSU's and the lack of a shirt to hold in the BO, explosives are less of a risk than biowarfare.
And no one wants a real-world Zerg rush on the nose.
I'm ok with asking for a grant. However, I'm not so keen on asking for a press release.
Where's the data? (config -80'sArbys)
Well, apparently if you were a Cambridge undergrad when the policy was in place, 'all' you have to do is make a significant contribution to the field, submit your work, and defend it in an oral examination. That's a reasonable approach - you make it sound like he has a self-awarded Ph.D., or that it came from the Jamaican Schhol for Advanced Studies, Periodonty, and Carburetor Repair...
I think I missed the memo - why is AVG a "Slimy anti-virus provider"? That portion of the summary BEGS for supporting links...
Gunsmithing isn't too hard to do, if you know what you're doing...
http://www.amazon.com/Guerrilla-Gunsmithing-Methods-Firearms-Desperate/dp/1581601190
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9xf62PKC5M
etc.
They said they same thing about crystal meth when they placed the precursors onto controlled substances lists. And yet, we still have crystal meth. Why? Because with a little knowledge and a kitchen, you can replicate most chemistry.
If you ban bullets (by which you actually mean _cartridges_ - the bullet, the brass jacket, the primer, and the propellant), you also better ban every precursor to propellant, all malleable metals, etc. And expect the same effect as the 'war on drugs'.
Bullets (cartridges) are not hard to make - you should see the reloading bench sitting next to my computer desk. And as a chemist, I'm not joking when I say it would not be difficult to 'homebrew' a form of gunpowder. Whether you're for/against the second amendment as an individual right, remember: legislation never changes physics and chemistry, and if people want guns/bullets/whatever, they can make them. And if you think that only people who have the know-how will have them (i.e. not the criminals) ask yourself how many of them know anything about phosphorus chemistry. Then check again to see who among them can get meth. People with specialized skill sets will find a way to profit from them.
In summary, whichever side of the issue you prefer doesn't matter - there are no simple solutions.
I agree, but I'll add a relevant example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Not only that, but even if the observation (that women write better documented code than men) is true, that would only be a correlation. The gender itself is not causation - if you want to learn something meaningful, find out why the gender is correlated (e.g. women at that company are given more reasonable deadlines, men feel less secure in their positions so they don't care about helping others untangle the 'spaghetti').
More likely, given the sensitivity of the technique, is that it luggage will be swabbed, the swab will be treated, and it will be placed under the UV light (305 nm if I remember the primary source correctly - I point that out to head off the "we'll all be blinded!!1" comments because it means normal glass is 'black' to that light).
You've fallen into the most common problem non-chemists have when reading about chemistry. Glycerin is NOT the same thing as trinitroglycerin. The reactivities aren't even close, and the structures have significant differences which lead to very different behaviors. Another comment also treated household hydrogen peroxide as equivalent to all other peroxides, and assumed they would all be detected the same way (this shows the same misconception, but is accidentally more correct than the parent comment...)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycerin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitroglycerin
Remember folks, if you're chemically untrained the WHOLE word is what you should be looking for (there is structural info in the name, and that helps give rise to the properties we observe, but interpreting structures into behavior is tricky even for professional chemists....) Some analogous circumstances which arise from noticing a word fragment and extrapolating.....
screw = screwdriver
son = sonogram
hill = hillary
bus = business
I'm sure there are better examples, but hopefully I've made the point.
I'd say, sounds like someone inside the company knows, and is trying to collect enough evidence to convince the PHB's of it.
True, but I'd take it one step further and say that ethics extends after death (in some ways) when someone's wishes are known. For example, consider organ donation; if the family knows that the person expressly wished for a certain type of burial, there's generally some consideration of their wishes in deciding whether to allow organ harvesting (and I'm not going into the ethics of when to override these wishes - too off-topic).
So, I'd say that if the person never specified his accounts were in a metaphorical 'burn-box' when he died, it's up to the family to decide about his privacy (same as for organ donation, or releasing personal works/letters [e.g. Tolkien]). So, if the family is requesting it and you have no contrary knowledge of his wishes, I don't see any ethics problems.
I suppose what the court is saying is that the laptop is like a filing cabinet filled with papers, and that they claim the right to search it when it crosses the border. IANAL, so I'm not going to evaluate the merits of that claim, but I will certainly be taking advantage of the analogy when I fly to Mexico in a few weeks. Rather than taking my 'full filing cabinet' filled with files that aren't anyones business (my research, tax documents, etc.) I'll be carrying a 'small attache' of files (i.e. a different hard drive with only an OS, my essential programs, and basic entertainment files.)
We're probably better off thinking along the lines of this analogy anyway, for the same reason I don't carry my social security card in my wallet - compartmentalization of information, and diminished risk of theft (whether illegal theft, or government sanctioned.)
"Normally I wouldn't really care, but I think this is interesting because eBay is so dominant in their field, that there is no real alternative."
/. ...)
There was a time that people said the same thing about Hotmail in the webmail market. In the end, if people call for an alternative, someone will fill the emergent niche; if this alternative is of wide enough appeal, it may become the new mainstream. So, I agree with the summary that this will be interesting to watch - it always fun to see the lightweight newcomer battle the huge and established titan, even if the little guy ends up getting smashed...
(In fact, this is a good summary for why I read
We need to learn more in order to 'innovate' the next battery technology. And I seriously doubt any scientists are having an epiphany and saying, "Oh, wow! People need to watch HD movies on their laptops! I better move my cot into the lab to better supply consumer demand!" Especially since there's already substantial funding opportunities for research in areas leading to these developments - http://www.nsti.org/press/PRshow.html?id=1342 for example (and there're probably better examples, but that's what 15 seconds of Google and a burning need to go back to my lab allow).
Here's a real-world example of why it might be 'useful'. Dental hygienists often work part time for a single dentist (full-time over multiple offices) and their patient room is used by someone else when they're not there. So, they usually take their pictures/diplomas off the wall when they leave for the last day of the week, and the other person puts theirs up. Also, consider that many of these patients have been going to the same dentist for >20 years - they know the employees, and want to see the new pictures. That frame allows a few hundred pictures to be in the same spot, and come down easily at the end of your mini-week.
At least, my mom thinks so. In the end, that's the key thing to remember about specialized technology - there is/should always be a niche it fills, and it's most profitable when niche > 1. Nearly nothing is too esoteric to be useful to someone - ask me to show you some of the glassware in my chem lab!
Doh! That hurt my soul.
For the sake of the wider conversation, let me remind folks that there are still cases where (nearly) every cycle counts. One that comes to mind is is scientific computing (e.g. molecular modeling, !e.g. most analysis). So, if anyone's still missing "ye good 'ole days", there's still a need for 'Shakespearean' code...
Some more evidence in support of your comment: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/163