Not trying to karma whore, but I had already written about this in a previous comment.
What I have linked to is both the original article from our local paper as well as two other articles from blogs which covered this subject.
As you can see from some of the comments in the original article, there are those who have some inside information to what went on as well as what type of person he was.
I used the issue of China in my IT ethics class and said that having Google or Cisco leave China because they refuse to censor brings up a whole host of other issues. If Google leaves, are they taking their code and such with them? What about equipment they used? Are they scrubbing that before leaving? What about any documents pertaining to how their searches are done?
While the Chinese people won't see much of a difference if Google leaves, the Chinese IT folks might have some issues recreating what was once there. Personally, Google should leave and post whatever information they want so people know what they had to deal with in China.
As most asian countries have a cultural bias towards not losing stature, having their dirty laundry aired, the really dirty stuff, would be a mighty slap in the face which China won't be able to deny so easily. They'll deny it, but their words will ring hollow.
Our state CISO was fired when he got back from the conference because he spoke about a hacking incident to the state's DOT site which allows one to schedule driver's exams. Apparently, it was initially presumed the attack came from Russia but was later found to have come from Philadelphia where a driving school had exploited a vulnerability in the web site to schedule more driving tests than there were allotted slots.
By exploiting this vulnerability, the driving school was able to close all available slots EXCEPT for the school so everyone else had to wait up to 6 weeks to schedule a test.
He was a scheduled presenter with over 24 years in IT in both the public and private sector. He was recognized, according to the RSA schedule, as "one of the most high-profile experts in the field of securing the data of American citizens today."
As you read the comments after the article, it's clear that some folks with knowledge of the subject insist he went out of bounds on the subject while others consider what he did to be a normal part of the IT security process.
I'm only posting this as it does relate to the overall RSA conference. Note that the web site indicated will probably prevent reading the article after a certain time has passed so read it now. In addition, here are two other sites which talk about the firing:
The difference between a placebo and homeopathy is the doctor prescribing a placebo KNOWS there is no medicinal value in what they are giving to a patient, whereas the person using homeopathy CLAIMS there will be a medicinal benefit.
In the former, the doctor is merely giving sugar pills (or something similar) in a controlled environment to test whether the person's condition is real or imagined, or is part of a study to see if a new medicine actually works.
In the latter, the person using homeopathy claims that by repeated dilutions of a mixture to the point there is no discernible ingredient other than water, that somehow, through some unknown conveyance, the water "remembers" what it was instilled with and thus, miraculously, can become effective at treating an ill.
So no, homeopathy is not better than nothing. If anything, it is more harmful because a) people with serious medical conditions do not seek out real medicine to alleviate what afflicts them, b) it sucks money from people without offering any evidence that what it claims to do actually takes place, c) it runs counter to every scientific principle of how things really work, thus dumbing down even further the public's understanding of how science is performed.
Granted, a and b aren't really that bad as it tends to cull the herd, but c is what exasperates those who use common sense by having to listen to such drivel.
So essentially what you're saying is, I have to pay for my half pack-a-day coworker or my neighbor who drinks a case of beer each weekend so if, sometime in the distant future and they're still around, they get to pay for my once-a-decade visit to the doctor.
Sorry, not my problem you think smoking is cool or getting drunk each weekend is cool. Every person has one and only one priority responsibility, and that is to themselves (or in the case of the OP, his family as well). Everything else comes secondary.
You posed the question how it's bad to pay into a general fund so everyone can partake. Simple, I'm subsidizing someone else's unhealthy lifestyle. They get to benefit from the fruits of my labors. Just like we, the taxpayers, subsidized Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, et al for their unhealthy risk taking. They got to benefit from our labors without having to pay a penalty for their ways.
I expect to pay for any and all medical bills the same way I pay my credit card and utility bills: on my own. That may sound selfish and self-centered, which it is, but I don't care. I'm done having my money confiscated to pay for those who think there are no consequences to their actions.
If people want to cover the medical costs of someone else, then fine, they can pay for it out of their own pocket. I shouldn't be forced to do so.
Here's the easiest solution. Find out how much you would pay in yearly premiums to cover you and your family, then find out how much visits to the doctor and dentist would cost you if you had no insurance. I'm certain you'll see a huge discrepancy between the two.
For the average, healthy, person, it is much more cost effective to pay your own doctor bills than it is to get insurance. The extra money you save can be put into a money market account to collect interest in case something large comes up.
When you consider how much you and your company spent to cover you while you were employed, and the fact you almost never used it, it's a huge financial drain with the only winner being the insurance companies.
Now if only they could force companies to unbundle their services and keep the cost proportional to the service. By that I mean, if they bundle tv, phone and internet for $99/month, they can offer each service for $33/month.
Which is not the case at the moment. I cannot get internet service from either Verizon or Comcast (my only two providers) for $33/month at the same speed as they offer for their bundled service.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that either Phobos or Deimos are composed of something we really want. Titanium, uranium, etc. What would be the effect on Mars' orbit if we mined the moon? I know that their gravity, compared to Mars, is negligible, but they still have an effect on the orbit.
What would happen if one or both moons were removed from their orbits?
that clergy may not talk about a political candidate from the puplit.
In exchange for not paying taxes, churches were told they could not do political stumping. This came about as a direct result of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church meddling in political affairs for centuries.
The Founding Fathers were smart enough to recognize this and forced the separation onto our new nation. And before you claim that the words aren't in the Constitution, recognize that both Jefferson and Madison explicitly stated that separation both during the haggling over the wording of the Constitution as well as in letters, with Jefferson using that exact phrase. Madison, in a letter to the President of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, specifically stated he disagreed with a pamphlet the President had distributed which tried to link Christianity and the new government. In fact, Madison explicitly states, in the fourth paragraph, that the Papal system, which combines government and religion, is the worst of governments.
For reference: Jefferson's Danbury letter, including parts he did not include in the final letter.
Madison's letter to Jasper Adams in which he clearly states that neither State nor religion should intrude on one another's toes. More quotes from Madison showing his desire for separation of Church and State.
I'm not sure how much more clear what the Founding Fathers thought about concerning the role of religion in the new country can be. They clearly wanted, and specifically stated as much, that there is a wall between the two entities. And for good reason.
I still have my Dell P-133 machine at home but I upgraded it to a whopping 64 mb ram a long time ago. It does a good job of running the various V for Victory games and storing long ago porn which can no longer be found anywhere (how is that possible?).
significant drops in fuel efficiency that appear when you start moving up past 75 or so.
You're being too generous. Fuel mileage starts to drop off around 60 mph for most vehicles. See this link and the accompanying chart as well as this link from Wikipedia which shows a fuel mileage chart from various cars over the years. Note how all of them have reduced fuel mileage at 60 mph. For a more simplified version of the graph, see this link.
Even using the word 'significant' is a misnomer as you can lose 5 mpg going from 55 to 65 or nearly 10 mpg going from 60 to 70, depending on your vehicle.
The idea of being trapped with Kate Beckinsale, for any length of time, while highly appealing, is immediately dashed when one realizes she smokes.
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, smokers. Sorry, if I'm going to have any sense of enjoyment being in close proximity to someone like Kate, I don't want them or me to be horfing up a lung or smelling like shit all the time.
They were on the edge of extiction until they were commercially marketed,
Er, not quite. They were on the verge of extinction because of the wholesale slaughter for their hides due in large part to poachers as well as the railroads who wanted to use the land. Their meat was rarely used by the white man.
It was thanks to Teddy Roosevelt and his making Yellowstone the first national park, that the buffalo survived at all. One of the first wardens, Buffalo Jones, used his own ranch in Nebraska to bring buffalo back to Yellowstone and breed with the remaining 500 or so (Roosevelt's estimate).
But with everyone covered and everyone in the risk pool, everyone's costs go down.
No, my costs go up because I'm forced to either buy insurance (which I don't need) or pay a penalty (for not buying insurance).
Question: why should I have to use my money to cover the medical expenses of my next door neighbor who smokes half a pack a day? Or how about my other neighbor who thinks it's great to drink a case of beer every weekend by himself.
What about some of the people I work with who waddle like hippos yet refuse to walk up one flight of stairs? (excluding those who legitimately can't walk due to arthritis and the like).
Why must I spend my money to cover someone else? Why should I be forced to pay for something I don't want?
And don't use that tired argument of how, if I need it at some point in the future, I'll have it because I could have been investing that money all along and be able to pay my bills if I ever need to. Nor will I ever be covered to the extent I've paid in. Ever.
I hate to harp on someone's name (Berkely Breathed anyone?), but when I read the title, I had to reread it several times to be sure it wasn't a misprint. I kept wanting to think Dries should have been Tries and that Buytaert was the name of some new software package, thus creating:
Drupal Creator Tries Buytaert on Drupal 7
I guess those in the know understood it perfectly, but for the rest of us...
And even more so, who actually types in www.bing.com or www.google.com to do a search,
If I had to hazard a guess, I suspect upwards of 93% of people, including me, still type in those addresses.
Why you ask? Force of habit, don't want the extra space of the search box taking up room, don't know that you can usually do a search from the address bar, don't care about the fancy way of doing things, don't have ADD and think they need to shave.29 seconds off their ability to do a search.
This is what happens when you make your search engine the default one for your web browser as well as make it difficult for someone to add or change this option.
I've actually done this but in a much less formal manner. I tried to determine, based on what and who I'm looking for, the percentage of potential women in the entire female population who meet my criteria.
Then, based on that number, the percentage of women in my area who meet those criteria.
Let's just say that living next to a small to mid-size city tends to make the final number not much larger than the number of people who still own a Pinto.
Evolution happens to groups, mutation happens to individuals.
Evolution is nothing more than mutations over time.
Further, you can have a few individuals of a group evolve at a different rate and in a different direction than the remainder of the group. Humans are good example of this.
Males are not an independent population. And individuals don't evolve, so the notion of evolving males is silly.
You might want to look at the hummingbirds of St. Lucia before you make such a broad statement. The male bills are much shorter and straighter than those of the female which are longer and more curved. Same species, different bills. For reference. Also, the video from the PBS show where this was discussed.
Also, why can't an individual evolve? How do you think evolution works? That everyone in the group changes at once?
Slashdot Mirror
Not trying to karma whore, but I had already written about this in a previous comment.
What I have linked to is both the original article from our local paper as well as two other articles from blogs which covered this subject.
As you can see from some of the comments in the original article, there are those who have some inside information to what went on as well as what type of person he was.
'If there is information that harms stability or the people, of course we will have to block it,' he said."
Yes, wouldn't want the people to know about the corruption of your officials. That wouldn't be a good thing.
I used the issue of China in my IT ethics class and said that having Google or Cisco leave China because they refuse to censor brings up a whole host of other issues. If Google leaves, are they taking their code and such with them? What about equipment they used? Are they scrubbing that before leaving? What about any documents pertaining to how their searches are done?
While the Chinese people won't see much of a difference if Google leaves, the Chinese IT folks might have some issues recreating what was once there. Personally, Google should leave and post whatever information they want so people know what they had to deal with in China.
As most asian countries have a cultural bias towards not losing stature, having their dirty laundry aired, the really dirty stuff, would be a mighty slap in the face which China won't be able to deny so easily. They'll deny it, but their words will ring hollow.
e (damn /. and its short subject field).
Our state CISO was fired when he got back from the conference because he spoke about a hacking incident to the state's DOT site which allows one to schedule driver's exams. Apparently, it was initially presumed the attack came from Russia but was later found to have come from Philadelphia where a driving school had exploited a vulnerability in the web site to schedule more driving tests than there were allotted slots.
By exploiting this vulnerability, the driving school was able to close all available slots EXCEPT for the school so everyone else had to wait up to 6 weeks to schedule a test.
He was a scheduled presenter with over 24 years in IT in both the public and private sector. He was recognized, according to the RSA schedule, as "one of the most high-profile experts in the field of securing the data of American citizens today."
As you read the comments after the article, it's clear that some folks with knowledge of the subject insist he went out of bounds on the subject while others consider what he did to be a normal part of the IT security process.
I'm only posting this as it does relate to the overall RSA conference. Note that the web site indicated will probably prevent reading the article after a certain time has passed so read it now. In addition, here are two other sites which talk about the firing:
Site one
Site two
Further, here is an article which talks to the firee after he became the state's first CISO and what he had to contend with.
killing his dogs at the first signs of illness
So when he gets the sniffles, we can do the same to him?
She didn't have to say, "Have a Godless day."
Nor do people have to say "Have a blessed day". Same thing.
What a piece of detritus she is for including that little "gem."
Thank you for proving the point that religious people aren't as peaceful as they claim to be.
God knows she needs it.
If God doesn't exist, how can it know what she needs?
The difference between a placebo and homeopathy is the doctor prescribing a placebo KNOWS there is no medicinal value in what they are giving to a patient, whereas the person using homeopathy CLAIMS there will be a medicinal benefit.
In the former, the doctor is merely giving sugar pills (or something similar) in a controlled environment to test whether the person's condition is real or imagined, or is part of a study to see if a new medicine actually works.
In the latter, the person using homeopathy claims that by repeated dilutions of a mixture to the point there is no discernible ingredient other than water, that somehow, through some unknown conveyance, the water "remembers" what it was instilled with and thus, miraculously, can become effective at treating an ill.
So no, homeopathy is not better than nothing. If anything, it is more harmful because a) people with serious medical conditions do not seek out real medicine to alleviate what afflicts them, b) it sucks money from people without offering any evidence that what it claims to do actually takes place, c) it runs counter to every scientific principle of how things really work, thus dumbing down even further the public's understanding of how science is performed.
Granted, a and b aren't really that bad as it tends to cull the herd, but c is what exasperates those who use common sense by having to listen to such drivel.
Paragraphs are your friend.
So essentially what you're saying is, I have to pay for my half pack-a-day coworker or my neighbor who drinks a case of beer each weekend so if, sometime in the distant future and they're still around, they get to pay for my once-a-decade visit to the doctor.
Sorry, not my problem you think smoking is cool or getting drunk each weekend is cool. Every person has one and only one priority responsibility, and that is to themselves (or in the case of the OP, his family as well). Everything else comes secondary.
You posed the question how it's bad to pay into a general fund so everyone can partake. Simple, I'm subsidizing someone else's unhealthy lifestyle. They get to benefit from the fruits of my labors. Just like we, the taxpayers, subsidized Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, et al for their unhealthy risk taking. They got to benefit from our labors without having to pay a penalty for their ways.
I expect to pay for any and all medical bills the same way I pay my credit card and utility bills: on my own. That may sound selfish and self-centered, which it is, but I don't care. I'm done having my money confiscated to pay for those who think there are no consequences to their actions.
If people want to cover the medical costs of someone else, then fine, they can pay for it out of their own pocket. I shouldn't be forced to do so.
Here's the easiest solution. Find out how much you would pay in yearly premiums to cover you and your family, then find out how much visits to the doctor and dentist would cost you if you had no insurance. I'm certain you'll see a huge discrepancy between the two.
For the average, healthy, person, it is much more cost effective to pay your own doctor bills than it is to get insurance. The extra money you save can be put into a money market account to collect interest in case something large comes up.
When you consider how much you and your company spent to cover you while you were employed, and the fact you almost never used it, it's a huge financial drain with the only winner being the insurance companies.
Now if only they could force companies to unbundle their services and keep the cost proportional to the service. By that I mean, if they bundle tv, phone and internet for $99/month, they can offer each service for $33/month.
Which is not the case at the moment. I cannot get internet service from either Verizon or Comcast (my only two providers) for $33/month at the same speed as they offer for their bundled service.
For the sake of argument, let's assume that either Phobos or Deimos are composed of something we really want. Titanium, uranium, etc. What would be the effect on Mars' orbit if we mined the moon? I know that their gravity, compared to Mars, is negligible, but they still have an effect on the orbit.
What would happen if one or both moons were removed from their orbits?
The fact is that the CO2 that humans put into the atmosphere is infinitesimal compared to volcanoes and the oceans.
Not quite. Read on McDuff. And look, even more refutation.
Are we done with this canard yet?
that clergy may not talk about a political candidate from the puplit.
In exchange for not paying taxes, churches were told they could not do political stumping. This came about as a direct result of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church meddling in political affairs for centuries.
The Founding Fathers were smart enough to recognize this and forced the separation onto our new nation. And before you claim that the words aren't in the Constitution, recognize that both Jefferson and Madison explicitly stated that separation both during the haggling over the wording of the Constitution as well as in letters, with Jefferson using that exact phrase. Madison, in a letter to the President of the College of Charleston in South Carolina, specifically stated he disagreed with a pamphlet the President had distributed which tried to link Christianity and the new government. In fact, Madison explicitly states, in the fourth paragraph, that the Papal system, which combines government and religion, is the worst of governments.
For reference: Jefferson's Danbury letter, including parts he did not include in the final letter.
Madison's letter to Jasper Adams in which he clearly states that neither State nor religion should intrude on one another's toes. More quotes from Madison showing his desire for separation of Church and State.
I'm not sure how much more clear what the Founding Fathers thought about concerning the role of religion in the new country can be. They clearly wanted, and specifically stated as much, that there is a wall between the two entities. And for good reason.
I still have my Dell P-133 machine at home but I upgraded it to a whopping 64 mb ram a long time ago. It does a good job of running the various V for Victory games and storing long ago porn which can no longer be found anywhere (how is that possible?).
You're both wrong. To be really successful, you only need to fit into one of these categories.
significant drops in fuel efficiency that appear when you start moving up past 75 or so.
You're being too generous. Fuel mileage starts to drop off around 60 mph for most vehicles. See this link and the accompanying chart as well as this link from Wikipedia which shows a fuel mileage chart from various cars over the years. Note how all of them have reduced fuel mileage at 60 mph. For a more simplified version of the graph, see this link.
Even using the word 'significant' is a misnomer as you can lose 5 mpg going from 55 to 65 or nearly 10 mpg going from 60 to 70, depending on your vehicle.
The idea of being trapped with Kate Beckinsale, for any length of time, while highly appealing, is immediately dashed when one realizes she smokes.
Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, smokers. Sorry, if I'm going to have any sense of enjoyment being in close proximity to someone like Kate, I don't want them or me to be horfing up a lung or smelling like shit all the time.
They were on the edge of extiction until they were commercially marketed,
Er, not quite. They were on the verge of extinction because of the wholesale slaughter for their hides due in large part to poachers as well as the railroads who wanted to use the land. Their meat was rarely used by the white man.
It was thanks to Teddy Roosevelt and his making Yellowstone the first national park, that the buffalo survived at all. One of the first wardens, Buffalo Jones, used his own ranch in Nebraska to bring buffalo back to Yellowstone and breed with the remaining 500 or so (Roosevelt's estimate).
For reference
But with everyone covered and everyone in the risk pool, everyone's costs go down.
No, my costs go up because I'm forced to either buy insurance (which I don't need) or pay a penalty (for not buying insurance).
Question: why should I have to use my money to cover the medical expenses of my next door neighbor who smokes half a pack a day? Or how about my other neighbor who thinks it's great to drink a case of beer every weekend by himself.
What about some of the people I work with who waddle like hippos yet refuse to walk up one flight of stairs? (excluding those who legitimately can't walk due to arthritis and the like).
Why must I spend my money to cover someone else? Why should I be forced to pay for something I don't want?
And don't use that tired argument of how, if I need it at some point in the future, I'll have it because I could have been investing that money all along and be able to pay my bills if I ever need to. Nor will I ever be covered to the extent I've paid in. Ever.
I hate to harp on someone's name (Berkely Breathed anyone?), but when I read the title, I had to reread it several times to be sure it wasn't a misprint. I kept wanting to think Dries should have been Tries and that Buytaert was the name of some new software package, thus creating:
Drupal Creator Tries Buytaert on Drupal 7
I guess those in the know understood it perfectly, but for the rest of us...
And even more so, who actually types in www.bing.com or www.google.com to do a search,
.29 seconds off their ability to do a search.
If I had to hazard a guess, I suspect upwards of 93% of people, including me, still type in those addresses.
Why you ask? Force of habit, don't want the extra space of the search box taking up room, don't know that you can usually do a search from the address bar, don't care about the fancy way of doing things, don't have ADD and think they need to shave
Shall I go on?
This is what happens when you make your search engine the default one for your web browser as well as make it difficult for someone to add or change this option.
Duh!
I've actually done this but in a much less formal manner. I tried to determine, based on what and who I'm looking for, the percentage of potential women in the entire female population who meet my criteria.
Then, based on that number, the percentage of women in my area who meet those criteria.
Let's just say that living next to a small to mid-size city tends to make the final number not much larger than the number of people who still own a Pinto.
Evolution happens to groups, mutation happens to individuals.
Evolution is nothing more than mutations over time.
Further, you can have a few individuals of a group evolve at a different rate and in a different direction than the remainder of the group. Humans are good example of this.
Males are not an independent population. And individuals don't evolve, so the notion of evolving males is silly.
You might want to look at the hummingbirds of St. Lucia before you make such a broad statement. The male bills are much shorter and straighter than those of the female which are longer and more curved. Same species, different bills. For reference. Also, the video from the PBS show where this was discussed.
Also, why can't an individual evolve? How do you think evolution works? That everyone in the group changes at once?