For what? For it to suddenly not cost anything to produce professional entertainment? For Pixar to spend several years and untold hundreds of thousands of animation and rendering hours/servers to produce a movie using only volunteers? For a 50-seat orchestra to not mind doing a film soundtrack for free? For it to cost nothing when an artist brings in talent from other continents to collaborate on a project? For Neal Stephenson to not worry about how he's paying his mortgage while he writes novels for hipster nerds who like to rent coffee for $4 but complain about $0.99 tunes?
You want to wait, it seems, for all of your entertainment to be produced in basements by people who've just gotten off of their day job. Your absurd mental portrait of a bunch of old guys in pinstripe suits smoking cigars and plotting to harm young people who don't want to pay $18 for an album is... well, absurd. Do you not know anyone who creates things for a living, and that needs to spend 80 hours a week working on their craft so that what they produce is something more than the boundless oceans of amateur dreck out there?
... crime is in the process of relocating, and we are back to square one.
So, you're saying that check cashing businesses would be moving away from law enforcement is helping to prevent crime, and looking to set up in places where there will be more crime? The whole point, here, is that the crime goes where the local cash flow happens. Stepping up law enforcement around check cashing operations doesn't push check-cashing-related crime to other areas where there are no check-cashing operations.
As for his new book being set in the past, why does that seem to ring a bell? Anyone know of any other cyberpunk novelists that have gone that route?
And Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is a monument to how much fun that can be. I mean, how many novels get to have a thorough explanation of the origin and evolution of international banking, swashbuckling scenes involving Barbary pirates, a wide range of um... occasionally unorthodox intimate antics, and a chase scene involving Our Hero barely escaping through the Mines Of This-Ain't-Your-Daddy's-Moria while being chased by wacked out Teutonic pagans stoked on psychedelic mushrooms, and ending up in a phospohorous-decorated scene right out of Scooby Doo, only involving a hot chick that's smarter than most of her fans, and who hangs out with world-changing philosophers and scientists while longing for the identity and demise of the slave-owning, rotten-fish-eating villain that stole her as a child and whose son she unknowingly marries as a facade behind which to extend her reach into the pockets and policies of European aristocracy? Did I mention Isaac Newton being brought back from the mostly dead? Sci-fi, schmi-fi!
We need a term for postings that immediately condemn any post that happens to back up or rationally expand on information provided by a manufacturer as astroturfing. Since you're simply assuming that no one comes by their opinions honestly (unless they happen to echo you), you're really engaging in - and encouraging - a level of discourse that's as bad or worse than what you imagine you're combatting.
Is genuine "grass roots" sentiment or information that combats the opinion you hold (obviously, you think that HP is knowingly killing people and happily taking their proceeds and heading off to their vast underground lair, where they are using the captives they still have left over from the kidnapped fake-9/11-attack passengers to test new pigment-based inkjets to see which will kill customers the most slowly while still making them want to print more PowerPoint presentations than necessary) only "astroturfing" when it happens to be well worded and punctuated correctly?
How do you devine which post reflects personally held convictions or knowledge and which is from a shill? Since the GP is clearly thoughtful, informed, and able to comment constructively on the larger topic - but is none the less a shill in your estimation - we have to assume that you'd feel more comfortable with comments from reactionary, uneducated, poor communicators that happen to emotionally resonate with some vague, paranoid anti-business world view that you prefer? Idiots that rail against The Man are more credible to you than professionals and academics who cooly explain that some hysteria isn't exactly well-grounded?
Which... actually HAS happened. Just like bridge collapses have happened. The difference is that there isn't so much malice involved in structural failure by way of aging infrastructure (as opposed to, say, flying airplanes into buildings or driving truck bombs up to otherwise perfectly fine structures).
Bridges don't routinely pronouce their desire to alter your culture and spread Bridgelam by way of killing themselves. I think what we really need here is a sense of specifically which of the 70,000 bridges that have been labeled "deficient" are "actually ready to fall down."
Again, you claim to understand this issue: why would a progressive collapse go floor by floor? Answer the question.
He's not going to. He's got too much of his world view invested in the existence of absurd conspiracy theories - acknowleging the frailty/loopiness of his position now would seriously damage his self esteem. He cites the basis of his belief on this subject exactly like some others cite the bible... and demanding that he personally convey, in his own words, the actual underpinnings of his belief, it all sort of comes apart. One might even say that it collapses in fewer seconds than he'd otherwise wish.
So, again, all we hear is "several slides are shown that say that..." without a SINGLE allusion to the physical principles that we're supposed to assume have been established (but in no way recounted). In other words: he's talking out of his ass, and the person who's describing the presentation is simply buying off on it because slides were shown, and then you're buying off on that. The scientific method, hard at work!
Compared to, say, a mass murder plot that would involve hundreds of people at least, and the knowledge of thousands in a government that can't even keep its foreign surveilance programs secret? Compared to a large structure, running 24 hours a day, with an army of building engineers and maintenance people, none of whom noticed people crawling around it placing explosives?
The overall structure is weakened, but some points more than others.
NO piece of that structure could stand for a moment without the whole structure being solid. I suppose that bridge in Minnesota, which only took seconds to fall, was also professionally destroyed by men in black working for Dick Cheney?
The overall structure is weakened, but some points more than others.
So what? NONE of the structure, minus the substantial parts weakend by heat and stress, are capable of supporting the mass above it. Not even close. I can hold up a 20 pound iron skillet in my kitchen using drinking straws, too. But if one or two buckle, the whole thing comes down. Inertia and gravity have a lot to do with how that plays out, and when you're dealing with colossal masses, and no lateral forces being exerted, down is where things go.
It encounters resistance if the lower structure is still in place, and that resistance would cause the weight of the upper floors to tumble in other directions, just like a rock rolls down a mountain.
Other than the fact that this is nothing at all, whatsoever, like that terrible analogy. A rock is a tiny fraction of the mass of the mountain it's rolling down. The mountain isn't made of thin vertical supports, and doesn't have something like the top third of it sitting on top of those thin supports as they buckle. The WTC tower didn't have some solid-rock RAMP (like the side of a mountain) sitting inside them to deflect huges masses from above. The inside of the tower is mostly air. The vertical beams were never designed to hold up accelerating, shock-pounding masses collapsing from above - they were desiged to bear static weight, with the entire structure present to do the job, and to flex ever so subtly in high winds. The mass of the tower above the first sections to buckle were stil holding together (laterally). That makes the "rock" on your "mountain" the same size as your mountain.
Twice.
Mysterious! Astounding! It's almost as if... they were built the same way, and suffered pretty much identical damage. And almost as if the tremendous energy involved in the collapse did things like displace big pieces of metal that went crashing across the way into:
Then WTC7 collapsed for no apparent reason ("fire" my ass).
Where vertical supports were devasted by lateral-moving wreckage from the tower next door, and little things like generator fuel tanks got nicely peppered by red-hot debris, sparking electrical equipment (including huge battery backups in data facilities in the building). Again: that buidling wasn't designed to stand with important pieces of its central supporting structure weakened. Of COURSE if fell in on itself. What would be amazing would be if it fell any other way.
So, again: what's your actual agenda, that you're so anxious to cling to this little bit of nonsense? Is it REALLY worth perpetuating that kind of crap just so that your preferred politicians don't have to actually face up to the idealogies that drive the people that actually flew the planes into those structures? How are you on the moon landing, by the way? Loch Ness? Area 51's fleet of alien ships? So much ground to cover! I don't know how you get any sleep.
Wouldn't a progressive softening of the steel, especially concentrated on one side of the building, cause the building to tip over sideways rather than fall neatly into its own footprint?
No. It's not a goddamned tree-house we're talking about. Do you have any idea of the mass that's sitting directly above the area about to buckle from softening? And the moment that mass becomes poorly loaded across the entire structure, the stress weakens the entire structure. In an instant, you've got steel that can't possibly hold the thing up, and the whole thing buckles. The impact from the mass overhead buckles the floors below, and down she goes... getting more and more "straight down" with every inch it travels. The non-softened steel below doesn't have a chance of holding up under the direct collapse of multiple floors above. That you're SO anxious to find some bad X-Files episode buried in here is far more mysterious than the particular vagueries of a tall structure failing.
And how many writers and actors would end up on the streets because of a crappy 19 second clip? Get a grip man.
Way to not get the point. The question is, how many theaters and how many creative people would feel it if, as mentioned earlier in the thread, it was considered inoffensive for people to rip off and distribute movies? Who CARES by what means.
Last I saw, Transformers was making a killing at the box office - I dont think this 20 second clip, or the rather high-quality full-length cam recording going around the internet is stopping anyone involved from putting food onto their tables.
So, the owners of businesses that can only survive if people actually pay for tickets (the theaters) should just opt to trust each camcorder-carrying audience member's analysis of how successful a newly-debuted movie is or will be? Which standard would you apply, as to whether or not ripping it off is OK? Would you trust the people carrying the cameras into the theaters on the night the movie opens to only rip the movie when the people who invested in and made the movie have crossed your personal threshold of how many dollars they should be allowed to earn for their risk and effort? Speaking of which, how much should the group of people that gather to make a movie be allowed to earn before you recommend that people start ripping it off in the theaters? Some hard numbers would be helpful, wouldn't they? You start.
less severe than threatening the profits of a corporation
Right. Because, there are no actual people involved in making the movies people want to see. No grips, no stagehands, no electrical workers, no medics, no writers, no makeup artists, no editors, no continuity people, no voice coaches, no transportation people, no IT people, no CGI pros, no actors, no camera and lighting techs, no cinematographers, no directors, nobody who spends months or years getting someone else to gamble millions of dollars up front on the quality of your work... nope! Just big ol' Evil Corporations. Why, if it weren't for corporations, we'd have much better films made by mom-and-pop shops working in Ye Olde Village Filmakery, using 8mm film produced from wood cellulose by Ye Olde Philmsmythe down the road, who takes goat milk as payment. And not only that, they'd be happy when their work was ripped off, because, as long as that makes the village happy, why, they're happy. Give it a rest. "The Man" is you, me, and everyone else who forms a group bigger than one to do something. Don't like it? Then put down the keyboard and step away from the technology that wouldn't exist without profit-seeking groups of people acting in concert to reward themselves and the people that risked money and time to give them a chance to do it. Put down the refridgerated beer, and please go back to the grave you'd probably be in, if you'd even have been conceieved, without anit-biotics, etc.
By the way, what information do you have that the girl video taping the movie to "promote" it for her younger brother who's too cheap to buy a ticket for his entertainment, actually WILL do any time whatsoever, let alone a year? None? Right. You do make a compelling case, though, for even longer sentences for murderers and rapists.
NASA is not a military complex (by the books anyhow), Gary McKinnon IS a British citizen and should be governed by U.K. laws, and if Gary is sent over to us via Club Gitmo as our elected officials apparently want, I want to see ALL Chinese citizens that (attempt to) break into our (U.S.) institutions sent over, also
Wow, you're just spectacularly uninformed, or trolling like mad. Either way, please get smarter and also stop lying.
Gitmo? This guy is NOT a non-uniformed combatant attacking US troops or supporting those that do. He's a simple criminal subject to extradition treaties that have been in place and well understood for many, many years. There is no similar treaty with China. Further, if someone in the US cracked into government systems in the UK (and planted backdoors, etc, as this guy did at NASA as well as in DoD systems - or weren't you paying attention to the actual FACTS here?), the UK would be perfectly in their rights to ask for extradition of the US-based cracker. It's a treaty. It's a two-way street. You don't have to Google very hard at all to find examples of other countries agreeing to extradite people to the UK when the UK requests. Likewise, are you all uptight when Italy asks for extradition from the UK? Would you feel better if China's idea of reasonable prosecutions goverend how many extradition requests the US (or the UK, for that matter) had to deal with? They imprison and execute people for reasons we would never tolerate - we're sure as hell not going to enter an extradition treaty under those circumstances. Would I like all of the Chinese crackers to get busted? Sure. But many of them work for their government, so that's not really going to happen, is it?
Don't you think it alters the landscape just a BIT when I've actually CAUGHT you breaking in? A little bit of reason needs to be applied, here. Obviously the boxes he wandered into shouldn't have been so vulnerable. But if I've got reason think you HAVE been in there, it's going to start - in real life - some activity in IT-land that probably wouldn't happen otherwise. Of course, events like this are usually a catalyst for some serious review and bolting-down of other systems that there's no reason to think he DID get into... and he shouldn't be on the hook for that, any more than the person living next door to a recent break-in vicitim can blame the neighbor's burglar for what he's just spent on an improved alarm system to keep the same thing from happening next door.
The non-fiction story is written in the book The Cuckoo's Egg
Which is indeed an interesting (if, these days, rather quaint) read. But: his honeypot was plausible(-ish) stuff. The twit from the UK, in this case, already had himself convinced - having watched too many episodes of The X-Files - that all sorts of mysterious alien technology was being hidden by NASA, and so every context-less snippet of anything he saw just propped up his delusion. That, or instead of being delusional, he's just a particularly flaming liar. Or both. Doesn't matter... I don't think NASA would set up an "alien tech" honeypot. The institutional sense of humor isn't that far along.
But - if those systems were your responsibility - what would it take you to satisfy the people you report to that there was no damage? How many hours of review, extra archiving, and other admin chores would you face in the wake of known break in? Do you just take the cracker's word for it that he didn't alter anything, or do you have to spend lots of time checking that out, and probably get some third parties involved in auditing that look-see, just to be sure? None of that is free, and most of it's very expensive.
In case all the gamers out there don't bother reading a little trade news once in a while, it's worth mentioning that there are plenty of people putting together and actively supporting MMOG-ish things specifically for use by raised-on-games-generation recruits, and others. The training derived from time spent on these systems isn't so you can shoot straighter, or be able to run longer with an 80-pound pack on. It's so that when you actually do walk down a street or into a building with a particular purpose in mind, under some specific circumstances, you can tap into the deja-vu like power of having already DONE something like that before. Military people use such systems to make it easier for people about to be deployed to "see" what a crowded market looks like, and to have a sense of what it's like to remember where your hummer is parked, or where your team medic is in a crowd, etc., or how to parse crowd body language.
Think you might have a little trouble operating comfortably in a large group of western people in an urban setting as you go about casing a building or trying to meld in? SL or whatnot may not be a proper simulation, but it can take away the novelty of having to digest unfamiliar circumstances while still staying focused on what you're trying to accomplish. It's not any different than playing paintball as a way to learn how to think in evasive/predatory terms... doesn't make you better with a machine gun, or necessarily as fit as newly minted Marine, but helps.
Note that it isn't limited to commercial operators.
Right. It's driven by what people DO, not what their profession happens to be. People walking along and taking pictures, or stopping their group on a sidewalk for a family shot aren't even being considered here. They're not the ones that block a sidewalk with equipment, or take over some corner of a public park with sustained activities. Who cares if you're professional? If you DO the same things, in terms of getting under foot, or risking other people, then you need to get the same permits that the pros do, for the same REASONS the pros do.
The whole idea of such zones, incidently, is ridiculous given that the First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
You've got it exactly backwards. When YOU choose to assemble in a public space - with an event or group large enough that it's going to impact traffic, media, etc., then you ALSO get the same treatment: the police are there to protect your right to carry out your event, and not have it disrupted by your political opponents. You AND they get exactly the same protection of your First Amendment rights. When we're NOT talking about large-scale event, we're STILL talking about equal protection of those rights. Neither you, nor anyone else on the political spectrum, is prevented from traditional gathering, talking, or t-shirt wearing. But if you are working up an event large enough to require your attendees to have a multi-block access route to the event's locations, you have to work it out with the municipal authorities that will be the ones making sure that your attendees aren't blocked from coming and going.
YOUR rights to freedom of expression don't include the right to prevent someone ELSE from speaking and assembling when that someone has done the right things to obtain a permit and pay for the law enforcement presence that will keep traffic and people and media moving safely. Would you rather that large assemblies just became a contest over who can shout down or shove who else out of the way? Or, would you rather be able to assemble peaceably, just like your opponents should be able to? Large groups taking turns to use public facilities for gatherings isn't denial of First Amendment rights, it's preservation of those rights.
"New rules being considered by the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting would require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance."
And this is a photography prohibition how? The permits for sustained use of your fellow taxpayer's crowded urban spaces are readily available... or, you can just move a little bit after half an hour using the space, and be completely within the bounds being considered in this proposal. This prohibits photography how?
What, cities requiring businesses and professionals to have permits before they're allowed to tie up public property for their own pet projects? Cities not allowing you to block a sidewalk or a street without working out some of the logistics (and, potentially, the expense of dedicating law enforcement people just to babysit your money-making venture on taxpayer-owned property)? Yes, that insidious, creeping terror will soon spread the world over! What a load of crap. It would be hard to find a municipality anywhere that would allow someone to conduct their business on public property, in a disruptive way, without hashing it out first with the people who are charged with keeping public streets and walkways workable and safe for everyone. New York is home to countless ad agencies, film studios, indy project types, and a jillion other flavors of people that would LOVE to trim their budgets by not having to care about whether they need a permit to tie up a city block, or get in the way of people looking to have lunch in a city park so that they can use NY as their business's creative backdrop. HBO could have saved untold money producing Sex In The City if they didn't have to compensate NY's residents and businesses for their use of the public space in which they shot so many scenes. Should city residents foot the bill for that, or should HBO? Should city residents foot the bill for it when a production company half that size wants to tie up a sidewalk during morning rush hour? A quarter that size? A tenth? Here's an idea: if you're not just a tourist taking snapshots, just go get the freakin' permit and show a little respect for the peope whose city you want to leverage for your project. If you are a tourist taking snapshots, or an artist that wants to set up a tripod in that crowded public space, go for it. If it's going to take you a long time, and you know it is, get the permit, and show that you're prepared to deal with the consequences if the 20-pound medium format camera that you use to create the images you SELL in a NY gallery for hundreds of dollars (or more) happens to fall over when a tripod leg telescopes in and smacks some kid in the head.
It's amazing: first "free speech zones"
You mean, like when YOU go to organize an event, and arrange for the permits and the access to and from the large urban facility in which you'll be holding it, and might want the police (for which you are paying because they're doing more duty than normal, because of your event) to actually preserve your ability to HOLD your event without people who don't like you simply blocking the street access to it? EVERYBODY who makes the right arrangements to hold a large urban event gets the same service, and should reasonably expect to be able to get people in and out of the place where it's held without it being shut down by twits - regardless of their political idealogy. You make it sound like equal protection, which can be seen at events held on behalf of organizations across the political spectrum, is a bad thing. Or, do you only want protestors from your particular camp to have the right to crowd out someone else's permitted use of public space?
then forbidding photographers from taking photos?
Where, exactly, do you see any mention of photographers being forbidden to take photos? All I see is a city that wants a clearer definition of what they can and should do when commercial operators treat public space as if its their own personal revenue-generating studio, traffic and pedestrians be damned. You can walk right up to the same spot with a camera, and even with a tripod, as specifically mentioned. Doing it in a way that tilts toward a longer stay on the sidewalk as you continue to work? Just go online and get the permit. Where's the forbidding, again? With a permit in hand, you've got the exact opposite of that - you've got something to show a traffic cop that specifically demonstrates your right to spend time doing what yo
You do realize that it wasn't kdawson that wrote that part of the summary, right? Of course, that takes a few seconds of observation and thought to figure out...
But it takes kdawson a few seconds to deliberately choose THAT summary out of the hundreds that will get discarded today, including no doubt a dozen that refer to this exact article. The "Rove" comment is completely gratuitous, and you know it. It's an interesting topic, and raises questions about how wisely security people in a government agency are, or are not, interpreting policy regarding something that's going to be a bigger and bigger issue over the next few years (ICBMs made by, or used by people that talk loudly and frequently about which populations they want to see destroyed for religious reasons). Having a conversation about that, and how well or poorly the issue was repored, etc., doesn't require completely BS speculation about some Dr. Evil-esque secret poster-snatching scheme directed by the absurd comic-bookish portrayal of the left's favorite boogeyman. That's like saying that Clinton would approve the sale of missile technology to the Chinese military in exchange for back-door campaign cash. OK, maybe that's a bad example of total fiction.
We just asked the system admin guys to roll out the image we stored from last year's celebration. I mean, why fuss when you have a backup? Of course, we had to have them apply all of the interim patches before we could go live with the party. MAN those guys are grumpy - and this is their Special Day!
Dr Smith works for a subcontractor now? That Jupiter2 gig must have finished.
Not only that, but his even newer job at Scaled Composites doesn't seem to have worked out, either. Not to joke, though. Looks like some people died today out in the Mojave at that facility.
Fine. Please define this, taking into account historical and geographical differences - to *your* 'system of values'
Oy.
Why would reality and reason (as a tool for grappling WITH reality and exploring it) vary by geography? And in terms of history... what do past value systems based on ignorance and superstition, and the history wrought by such, have to do with whether or not one based on reality makes things simpler? I mean, it might be interesting to discuss the evolution of such value systems, or to stop for a moment and admire the changes that happened after the Dark Ages (or that are happening right now, in terms of cosmology, physics, biology, etc) - but why would reason vary over time or distance? And in keeping with that, why would a system of values that depends upon reason vary from place to place or over time?
NEW information that completely alters what you know about reality might change something... but only if it goes in the OPPOSITE direction that new information is, and has been for a long time now, taking us: towards an understanding that we're not, actually, at the mercy of, or products of magical beings and mysterious personality-having forces of nature that like to screw with us for dramatic effect before trying to decide if we get to go to Valhalla and whatnot. And when you strip away the supersitions and mysticism that was filling in the spaces for thousands of years before science was properly armed to show us the nature of things, you also strip away any excuse for pretending that your values are driven by some magical heaven/hell tag team invisible referee crew with a handy owner's manual of rules. Rather, you have to actually derive a value system from the fact of your existence in a universe that, itself, wouldn't appear to have any mechanism in place for giving a damn about you one way or the other.
Slashdot Mirror
wait
For what? For it to suddenly not cost anything to produce professional entertainment? For Pixar to spend several years and untold hundreds of thousands of animation and rendering hours/servers to produce a movie using only volunteers? For a 50-seat orchestra to not mind doing a film soundtrack for free? For it to cost nothing when an artist brings in talent from other continents to collaborate on a project? For Neal Stephenson to not worry about how he's paying his mortgage while he writes novels for hipster nerds who like to rent coffee for $4 but complain about $0.99 tunes?
You want to wait, it seems, for all of your entertainment to be produced in basements by people who've just gotten off of their day job. Your absurd mental portrait of a bunch of old guys in pinstripe suits smoking cigars and plotting to harm young people who don't want to pay $18 for an album is... well, absurd. Do you not know anyone who creates things for a living, and that needs to spend 80 hours a week working on their craft so that what they produce is something more than the boundless oceans of amateur dreck out there?
... crime is in the process of relocating, and we are back to square one.
So, you're saying that check cashing businesses would be moving away from law enforcement is helping to prevent crime, and looking to set up in places where there will be more crime? The whole point, here, is that the crime goes where the local cash flow happens. Stepping up law enforcement around check cashing operations doesn't push check-cashing-related crime to other areas where there are no check-cashing operations.
As for his new book being set in the past, why does that seem to ring a bell? Anyone know of any other cyberpunk novelists that have gone that route?
And Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is a monument to how much fun that can be. I mean, how many novels get to have a thorough explanation of the origin and evolution of international banking, swashbuckling scenes involving Barbary pirates, a wide range of um... occasionally unorthodox intimate antics, and a chase scene involving Our Hero barely escaping through the Mines Of This-Ain't-Your-Daddy's-Moria while being chased by wacked out Teutonic pagans stoked on psychedelic mushrooms, and ending up in a phospohorous-decorated scene right out of Scooby Doo, only involving a hot chick that's smarter than most of her fans, and who hangs out with world-changing philosophers and scientists while longing for the identity and demise of the slave-owning, rotten-fish-eating villain that stole her as a child and whose son she unknowingly marries as a facade behind which to extend her reach into the pockets and policies of European aristocracy? Did I mention Isaac Newton being brought back from the mostly dead? Sci-fi, schmi-fi!
Thanks for astroturfing though...
We need a term for postings that immediately condemn any post that happens to back up or rationally expand on information provided by a manufacturer as astroturfing. Since you're simply assuming that no one comes by their opinions honestly (unless they happen to echo you), you're really engaging in - and encouraging - a level of discourse that's as bad or worse than what you imagine you're combatting.
Is genuine "grass roots" sentiment or information that combats the opinion you hold (obviously, you think that HP is knowingly killing people and happily taking their proceeds and heading off to their vast underground lair, where they are using the captives they still have left over from the kidnapped fake-9/11-attack passengers to test new pigment-based inkjets to see which will kill customers the most slowly while still making them want to print more PowerPoint presentations than necessary) only "astroturfing" when it happens to be well worded and punctuated correctly?
How do you devine which post reflects personally held convictions or knowledge and which is from a shill? Since the GP is clearly thoughtful, informed, and able to comment constructively on the larger topic - but is none the less a shill in your estimation - we have to assume that you'd feel more comfortable with comments from reactionary, uneducated, poor communicators that happen to emotionally resonate with some vague, paranoid anti-business world view that you prefer? Idiots that rail against The Man are more credible to you than professionals and academics who cooly explain that some hysteria isn't exactly well-grounded?
Terrorism?
Which... actually HAS happened. Just like bridge collapses have happened. The difference is that there isn't so much malice involved in structural failure by way of aging infrastructure (as opposed to, say, flying airplanes into buildings or driving truck bombs up to otherwise perfectly fine structures).
Bridges don't routinely pronouce their desire to alter your culture and spread Bridgelam by way of killing themselves. I think what we really need here is a sense of specifically which of the 70,000 bridges that have been labeled "deficient" are "actually ready to fall down."
Again, you claim to understand this issue: why would a progressive collapse go floor by floor? Answer the question.
He's not going to. He's got too much of his world view invested in the existence of absurd conspiracy theories - acknowleging the frailty/loopiness of his position now would seriously damage his self esteem. He cites the basis of his belief on this subject exactly like some others cite the bible... and demanding that he personally convey, in his own words, the actual underpinnings of his belief, it all sort of comes apart. One might even say that it collapses in fewer seconds than he'd otherwise wish.
So, again, all we hear is "several slides are shown that say that..." without a SINGLE allusion to the physical principles that we're supposed to assume have been established (but in no way recounted). In other words: he's talking out of his ass, and the person who's describing the presentation is simply buying off on it because slides were shown, and then you're buying off on that. The scientific method, hard at work!
Your explanation is pure fantasy.
Compared to, say, a mass murder plot that would involve hundreds of people at least, and the knowledge of thousands in a government that can't even keep its foreign surveilance programs secret? Compared to a large structure, running 24 hours a day, with an army of building engineers and maintenance people, none of whom noticed people crawling around it placing explosives?
The overall structure is weakened, but some points more than others.
NO piece of that structure could stand for a moment without the whole structure being solid. I suppose that bridge in Minnesota, which only took seconds to fall, was also professionally destroyed by men in black working for Dick Cheney?
The overall structure is weakened, but some points more than others.
So what? NONE of the structure, minus the substantial parts weakend by heat and stress, are capable of supporting the mass above it. Not even close. I can hold up a 20 pound iron skillet in my kitchen using drinking straws, too. But if one or two buckle, the whole thing comes down. Inertia and gravity have a lot to do with how that plays out, and when you're dealing with colossal masses, and no lateral forces being exerted, down is where things go.
It encounters resistance if the lower structure is still in place, and that resistance would cause the weight of the upper floors to tumble in other directions, just like a rock rolls down a mountain.
Other than the fact that this is nothing at all, whatsoever, like that terrible analogy. A rock is a tiny fraction of the mass of the mountain it's rolling down. The mountain isn't made of thin vertical supports, and doesn't have something like the top third of it sitting on top of those thin supports as they buckle. The WTC tower didn't have some solid-rock RAMP (like the side of a mountain) sitting inside them to deflect huges masses from above. The inside of the tower is mostly air. The vertical beams were never designed to hold up accelerating, shock-pounding masses collapsing from above - they were desiged to bear static weight, with the entire structure present to do the job, and to flex ever so subtly in high winds. The mass of the tower above the first sections to buckle were stil holding together (laterally). That makes the "rock" on your "mountain" the same size as your mountain.
Twice.
Mysterious! Astounding! It's almost as if... they were built the same way, and suffered pretty much identical damage. And almost as if the tremendous energy involved in the collapse did things like displace big pieces of metal that went crashing across the way into:
Then WTC7 collapsed for no apparent reason ("fire" my ass).
Where vertical supports were devasted by lateral-moving wreckage from the tower next door, and little things like generator fuel tanks got nicely peppered by red-hot debris, sparking electrical equipment (including huge battery backups in data facilities in the building). Again: that buidling wasn't designed to stand with important pieces of its central supporting structure weakened. Of COURSE if fell in on itself. What would be amazing would be if it fell any other way.
So, again: what's your actual agenda, that you're so anxious to cling to this little bit of nonsense? Is it REALLY worth perpetuating that kind of crap just so that your preferred politicians don't have to actually face up to the idealogies that drive the people that actually flew the planes into those structures? How are you on the moon landing, by the way? Loch Ness? Area 51's fleet of alien ships? So much ground to cover! I don't know how you get any sleep.
Wouldn't a progressive softening of the steel, especially concentrated on one side of the building, cause the building to tip over sideways rather than fall neatly into its own footprint?
No. It's not a goddamned tree-house we're talking about. Do you have any idea of the mass that's sitting directly above the area about to buckle from softening? And the moment that mass becomes poorly loaded across the entire structure, the stress weakens the entire structure. In an instant, you've got steel that can't possibly hold the thing up, and the whole thing buckles. The impact from the mass overhead buckles the floors below, and down she goes... getting more and more "straight down" with every inch it travels. The non-softened steel below doesn't have a chance of holding up under the direct collapse of multiple floors above. That you're SO anxious to find some bad X-Files episode buried in here is far more mysterious than the particular vagueries of a tall structure failing.
And how many writers and actors would end up on the streets because of a crappy 19 second clip? Get a grip man.
Way to not get the point. The question is, how many theaters and how many creative people would feel it if, as mentioned earlier in the thread, it was considered inoffensive for people to rip off and distribute movies? Who CARES by what means.
Last I saw, Transformers was making a killing at the box office - I dont think this 20 second clip, or the rather high-quality full-length cam recording going around the internet is stopping anyone involved from putting food onto their tables.
So, the owners of businesses that can only survive if people actually pay for tickets (the theaters) should just opt to trust each camcorder-carrying audience member's analysis of how successful a newly-debuted movie is or will be? Which standard would you apply, as to whether or not ripping it off is OK? Would you trust the people carrying the cameras into the theaters on the night the movie opens to only rip the movie when the people who invested in and made the movie have crossed your personal threshold of how many dollars they should be allowed to earn for their risk and effort? Speaking of which, how much should the group of people that gather to make a movie be allowed to earn before you recommend that people start ripping it off in the theaters? Some hard numbers would be helpful, wouldn't they? You start.
less severe than threatening the profits of a corporation
Right. Because, there are no actual people involved in making the movies people want to see. No grips, no stagehands, no electrical workers, no medics, no writers, no makeup artists, no editors, no continuity people, no voice coaches, no transportation people, no IT people, no CGI pros, no actors, no camera and lighting techs, no cinematographers, no directors, nobody who spends months or years getting someone else to gamble millions of dollars up front on the quality of your work... nope! Just big ol' Evil Corporations. Why, if it weren't for corporations, we'd have much better films made by mom-and-pop shops working in Ye Olde Village Filmakery, using 8mm film produced from wood cellulose by Ye Olde Philmsmythe down the road, who takes goat milk as payment. And not only that, they'd be happy when their work was ripped off, because, as long as that makes the village happy, why, they're happy. Give it a rest. "The Man" is you, me, and everyone else who forms a group bigger than one to do something. Don't like it? Then put down the keyboard and step away from the technology that wouldn't exist without profit-seeking groups of people acting in concert to reward themselves and the people that risked money and time to give them a chance to do it. Put down the refridgerated beer, and please go back to the grave you'd probably be in, if you'd even have been conceieved, without anit-biotics, etc.
By the way, what information do you have that the girl video taping the movie to "promote" it for her younger brother who's too cheap to buy a ticket for his entertainment, actually WILL do any time whatsoever, let alone a year? None? Right. You do make a compelling case, though, for even longer sentences for murderers and rapists.
NASA is not a military complex (by the books anyhow), Gary McKinnon IS a British citizen and should be governed by U.K. laws, and if Gary is sent over to us via Club Gitmo as our elected officials apparently want, I want to see ALL Chinese citizens that (attempt to) break into our (U.S.) institutions sent over, also
Wow, you're just spectacularly uninformed, or trolling like mad. Either way, please get smarter and also stop lying.
Gitmo? This guy is NOT a non-uniformed combatant attacking US troops or supporting those that do. He's a simple criminal subject to extradition treaties that have been in place and well understood for many, many years. There is no similar treaty with China. Further, if someone in the US cracked into government systems in the UK (and planted backdoors, etc, as this guy did at NASA as well as in DoD systems - or weren't you paying attention to the actual FACTS here?), the UK would be perfectly in their rights to ask for extradition of the US-based cracker. It's a treaty. It's a two-way street. You don't have to Google very hard at all to find examples of other countries agreeing to extradite people to the UK when the UK requests. Likewise, are you all uptight when Italy asks for extradition from the UK? Would you feel better if China's idea of reasonable prosecutions goverend how many extradition requests the US (or the UK, for that matter) had to deal with? They imprison and execute people for reasons we would never tolerate - we're sure as hell not going to enter an extradition treaty under those circumstances. Would I like all of the Chinese crackers to get busted? Sure. But many of them work for their government, so that's not really going to happen, is it?
Don't you think it alters the landscape just a BIT when I've actually CAUGHT you breaking in? A little bit of reason needs to be applied, here. Obviously the boxes he wandered into shouldn't have been so vulnerable. But if I've got reason think you HAVE been in there, it's going to start - in real life - some activity in IT-land that probably wouldn't happen otherwise. Of course, events like this are usually a catalyst for some serious review and bolting-down of other systems that there's no reason to think he DID get into... and he shouldn't be on the hook for that, any more than the person living next door to a recent break-in vicitim can blame the neighbor's burglar for what he's just spent on an improved alarm system to keep the same thing from happening next door.
The non-fiction story is written in the book The Cuckoo's Egg
Which is indeed an interesting (if, these days, rather quaint) read. But: his honeypot was plausible(-ish) stuff. The twit from the UK, in this case, already had himself convinced - having watched too many episodes of The X-Files - that all sorts of mysterious alien technology was being hidden by NASA, and so every context-less snippet of anything he saw just propped up his delusion. That, or instead of being delusional, he's just a particularly flaming liar. Or both. Doesn't matter... I don't think NASA would set up an "alien tech" honeypot. The institutional sense of humor isn't that far along.
But - if those systems were your responsibility - what would it take you to satisfy the people you report to that there was no damage? How many hours of review, extra archiving, and other admin chores would you face in the wake of known break in? Do you just take the cracker's word for it that he didn't alter anything, or do you have to spend lots of time checking that out, and probably get some third parties involved in auditing that look-see, just to be sure? None of that is free, and most of it's very expensive.
In case all the gamers out there don't bother reading a little trade news once in a while, it's worth mentioning that there are plenty of people putting together and actively supporting MMOG-ish things specifically for use by raised-on-games-generation recruits, and others. The training derived from time spent on these systems isn't so you can shoot straighter, or be able to run longer with an 80-pound pack on. It's so that when you actually do walk down a street or into a building with a particular purpose in mind, under some specific circumstances, you can tap into the deja-vu like power of having already DONE something like that before. Military people use such systems to make it easier for people about to be deployed to "see" what a crowded market looks like, and to have a sense of what it's like to remember where your hummer is parked, or where your team medic is in a crowd, etc., or how to parse crowd body language.
Think you might have a little trouble operating comfortably in a large group of western people in an urban setting as you go about casing a building or trying to meld in? SL or whatnot may not be a proper simulation, but it can take away the novelty of having to digest unfamiliar circumstances while still staying focused on what you're trying to accomplish. It's not any different than playing paintball as a way to learn how to think in evasive/predatory terms... doesn't make you better with a machine gun, or necessarily as fit as newly minted Marine, but helps.
Note that it isn't limited to commercial operators.
Right. It's driven by what people DO, not what their profession happens to be. People walking along and taking pictures, or stopping their group on a sidewalk for a family shot aren't even being considered here. They're not the ones that block a sidewalk with equipment, or take over some corner of a public park with sustained activities. Who cares if you're professional? If you DO the same things, in terms of getting under foot, or risking other people, then you need to get the same permits that the pros do, for the same REASONS the pros do.
The whole idea of such zones, incidently, is ridiculous given that the First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
You've got it exactly backwards. When YOU choose to assemble in a public space - with an event or group large enough that it's going to impact traffic, media, etc., then you ALSO get the same treatment: the police are there to protect your right to carry out your event, and not have it disrupted by your political opponents. You AND they get exactly the same protection of your First Amendment rights. When we're NOT talking about large-scale event, we're STILL talking about equal protection of those rights. Neither you, nor anyone else on the political spectrum, is prevented from traditional gathering, talking, or t-shirt wearing. But if you are working up an event large enough to require your attendees to have a multi-block access route to the event's locations, you have to work it out with the municipal authorities that will be the ones making sure that your attendees aren't blocked from coming and going.
YOUR rights to freedom of expression don't include the right to prevent someone ELSE from speaking and assembling when that someone has done the right things to obtain a permit and pay for the law enforcement presence that will keep traffic and people and media moving safely. Would you rather that large assemblies just became a contest over who can shout down or shove who else out of the way? Or, would you rather be able to assemble peaceably, just like your opponents should be able to? Large groups taking turns to use public facilities for gatherings isn't denial of First Amendment rights, it's preservation of those rights.
"New rules being considered by the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting would require any group of two or more people who want to use a camera in a single public location for more than a half hour to get a city permit and insurance."
And this is a photography prohibition how? The permits for sustained use of your fellow taxpayer's crowded urban spaces are readily available... or, you can just move a little bit after half an hour using the space, and be completely within the bounds being considered in this proposal. This prohibits photography how?
If this takes off in the States
What, cities requiring businesses and professionals to have permits before they're allowed to tie up public property for their own pet projects? Cities not allowing you to block a sidewalk or a street without working out some of the logistics (and, potentially, the expense of dedicating law enforcement people just to babysit your money-making venture on taxpayer-owned property)? Yes, that insidious, creeping terror will soon spread the world over! What a load of crap. It would be hard to find a municipality anywhere that would allow someone to conduct their business on public property, in a disruptive way, without hashing it out first with the people who are charged with keeping public streets and walkways workable and safe for everyone. New York is home to countless ad agencies, film studios, indy project types, and a jillion other flavors of people that would LOVE to trim their budgets by not having to care about whether they need a permit to tie up a city block, or get in the way of people looking to have lunch in a city park so that they can use NY as their business's creative backdrop. HBO could have saved untold money producing Sex In The City if they didn't have to compensate NY's residents and businesses for their use of the public space in which they shot so many scenes. Should city residents foot the bill for that, or should HBO? Should city residents foot the bill for it when a production company half that size wants to tie up a sidewalk during morning rush hour? A quarter that size? A tenth? Here's an idea: if you're not just a tourist taking snapshots, just go get the freakin' permit and show a little respect for the peope whose city you want to leverage for your project. If you are a tourist taking snapshots, or an artist that wants to set up a tripod in that crowded public space, go for it. If it's going to take you a long time, and you know it is, get the permit, and show that you're prepared to deal with the consequences if the 20-pound medium format camera that you use to create the images you SELL in a NY gallery for hundreds of dollars (or more) happens to fall over when a tripod leg telescopes in and smacks some kid in the head.
It's amazing: first "free speech zones"
You mean, like when YOU go to organize an event, and arrange for the permits and the access to and from the large urban facility in which you'll be holding it, and might want the police (for which you are paying because they're doing more duty than normal, because of your event) to actually preserve your ability to HOLD your event without people who don't like you simply blocking the street access to it? EVERYBODY who makes the right arrangements to hold a large urban event gets the same service, and should reasonably expect to be able to get people in and out of the place where it's held without it being shut down by twits - regardless of their political idealogy. You make it sound like equal protection, which can be seen at events held on behalf of organizations across the political spectrum, is a bad thing. Or, do you only want protestors from your particular camp to have the right to crowd out someone else's permitted use of public space?
then forbidding photographers from taking photos?
Where, exactly, do you see any mention of photographers being forbidden to take photos? All I see is a city that wants a clearer definition of what they can and should do when commercial operators treat public space as if its their own personal revenue-generating studio, traffic and pedestrians be damned. You can walk right up to the same spot with a camera, and even with a tripod, as specifically mentioned. Doing it in a way that tilts toward a longer stay on the sidewalk as you continue to work? Just go online and get the permit. Where's the forbidding, again? With a permit in hand, you've got the exact opposite of that - you've got something to show a traffic cop that specifically demonstrates your right to spend time doing what yo
You do realize that it wasn't kdawson that wrote that part of the summary, right? Of course, that takes a few seconds of observation and thought to figure out...
But it takes kdawson a few seconds to deliberately choose THAT summary out of the hundreds that will get discarded today, including no doubt a dozen that refer to this exact article. The "Rove" comment is completely gratuitous, and you know it. It's an interesting topic, and raises questions about how wisely security people in a government agency are, or are not, interpreting policy regarding something that's going to be a bigger and bigger issue over the next few years (ICBMs made by, or used by people that talk loudly and frequently about which populations they want to see destroyed for religious reasons). Having a conversation about that, and how well or poorly the issue was repored, etc., doesn't require completely BS speculation about some Dr. Evil-esque secret poster-snatching scheme directed by the absurd comic-bookish portrayal of the left's favorite boogeyman. That's like saying that Clinton would approve the sale of missile technology to the Chinese military in exchange for back-door campaign cash. OK, maybe that's a bad example of total fiction.
We just asked the system admin guys to roll out the image we stored from last year's celebration. I mean, why fuss when you have a backup? Of course, we had to have them apply all of the interim patches before we could go live with the party. MAN those guys are grumpy - and this is their Special Day!
Dr Smith works for a subcontractor now? That Jupiter2 gig must have finished.
Not only that, but his even newer job at Scaled Composites doesn't seem to have worked out, either . Not to joke, though. Looks like some people died today out in the Mojave at that facility.
Do ISPs really do this? I've never really noticed anything like this.
None! None whatsoever. No carrier would do that, because it would be unseemly.
[ARE YOUR SEEMS TOO TIGHT? YOU NEED ACME MAGIC WEIGHT LOSS SUPER DIET GINGER ROOT SUPPLEMENT!]
Fine. Please define this, taking into account historical and geographical differences - to *your* 'system of values'
Oy.
Why would reality and reason (as a tool for grappling WITH reality and exploring it) vary by geography? And in terms of history... what do past value systems based on ignorance and superstition, and the history wrought by such, have to do with whether or not one based on reality makes things simpler? I mean, it might be interesting to discuss the evolution of such value systems, or to stop for a moment and admire the changes that happened after the Dark Ages (or that are happening right now, in terms of cosmology, physics, biology, etc) - but why would reason vary over time or distance? And in keeping with that, why would a system of values that depends upon reason vary from place to place or over time?
NEW information that completely alters what you know about reality might change something... but only if it goes in the OPPOSITE direction that new information is, and has been for a long time now, taking us: towards an understanding that we're not, actually, at the mercy of, or products of magical beings and mysterious personality-having forces of nature that like to screw with us for dramatic effect before trying to decide if we get to go to Valhalla and whatnot. And when you strip away the supersitions and mysticism that was filling in the spaces for thousands of years before science was properly armed to show us the nature of things, you also strip away any excuse for pretending that your values are driven by some magical heaven/hell tag team invisible referee crew with a handy owner's manual of rules. Rather, you have to actually derive a value system from the fact of your existence in a universe that, itself, wouldn't appear to have any mechanism in place for giving a damn about you one way or the other.
Damnation. That is REALLY funny. Whew!