The Bush/Cheney campaign wasn't the one that tried to cherry pick which districts got recounts. There's only one person that deserves the credit (or blame) for electing GWB. His name is Al Gore.
That is, if you ignore all of those votes being thrown out from BS challenges, voter intimidation, etc. I'm not trying to devolve this into some partisan argument, but the Florida Republican party has much to answer for during that election.
What's your point? Hemp's not illegal. I even own a hemp golf shirt - feels great!
Actually, in the US, it is illegal to grow Hemp. The reason being that the DEA can't tell the difference from the air. The clothes you wear made of the material were most likely grown and manufactured in Canada.
However, there is no certain audit trail or chain of custody present like there is by keeping data in-house.
Does having data stored off-site necessarily mean there is no "audit trail or chain of custody"?
I think the problem is that you're dealing with another company. I'd imagine any interaction after a breach could be like this:
You: "We think your systems were breached and we lost sensitive data."
Them: "That couldn't have been us. It must have happened on your systems."
You: "No, we're sure it was not us, it was you."
Them: "Nuh-uh!"
Then where do you go from there? You start a lawsuit? You just forget about it? Maybe I'm missing something, but this kind of interaction sounds much more difficult than just going downstairs to talk to your own employees about the breach.
I'm pretty sure technology has advanced in the meantime.
That photo was a bit extreme, but let's say you have 5 competitors with communications cables. If it's on a pole, they'll each need atleast a single pair of fiber, or bundle, depending. They all need to be physically separated into their alloted spots on the pole so they don't need to interfere with eachother. And 5 isn't enough in most people's minds that argue this junk.
Or, if you're lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with burried cables, that's 5 different places to dig. 5 physically separated conduits under your street. That might work in a city with nice underground tubes and manholes, but no so much in the burbs or rural areas.
How long until 'anonymous credit card business mimics' spring up out of the woodworks, something like "you bring us $10 cash, here's your card number, put whatever name and address you like on it? Or does something like this already exist? And I don't mean paypal, what I am referring to is a service that is indistinguishable from a real credit card on the money recipient's end that also allows you to remain anonymous.
Pretty sure Visa Gift Cards operate this way. I don't know about the details of online processing of them, but I bet you can use whatever name you want.
Likewise, the corporation is vending you a job. You don't get to dictate the terms. They can place any terms they like onto the deal, since they are the ones doing the offering.
I think you're a bit backwards here. It is the employee selling his or her time. And technically, either party can dictate whatever terms they want(even haggling to get a cheaper cucumber). Unlike you, however, I'd like to see more of the power in the hands of the people. But alas, they like to keep a nice unemployment rate so they are in the stronger position of power. This is also why unions were created.
yeah if only they had lockers in some central location with 24/7 public access and a code to access the locker they could send you via email - then you could pick up your package when it suits you and eliminate the last mile costs.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but they do do this in some places. I live in a small town(<900) and they don't do local deliveries within the town. If you live on a ranch some 12 miles away, they will. Everyone within the town gets a PO box for just the cost of keys($2).
Probably the best thing Firefox has going for it now is dev tools like Firebug.
Virtually every decent browser in existence already has this functionality. Maybe not quite as good as firebug, but the idea is there. See Opera and Safari.
Citation, please. Everything I have been reading says purchasing power has decreased due to stagnent wages and inflation. The percentage of money spent on food these days has risen from our grandparents. Food is usually the greatest marker for purchasing power as the value of food doesn't usually change that much. If anything, it goes down thanks to more efficient production.
I kinda liked the human-generated Yahoo! index / hierarchy, it was a neat way to get started with the web, back when it wasn't all too big and time-sensitive to organize by hand.
Actually, that was the Open Directory Project that built the data that Yahoo directory was based on. I was an editor there for a few years about 10 years ago. Pretty nice idea, and when search engines really sucked at finding what you wanted back then, it could be a great alternative. But, there's just too much Web content out there for any human powered directory to deal with.
I have some personal experience in this area too. I hired the local (county) jail facility to do trash cleanup after a benefit I helped organized. (a mother and father of two were killed by a drunk driver and the surviving children would have been separated and placed in foster care if the only known next of kin- a disabled grandmother on a fixed income- couldn't find a means to support them). Anyways, it costs us close to $12.00 an hour per inmate plus the costs of sheriffs and guards at overtime rates to get about 40 inmates out to a 20 acre plot and dump trash cans, pick up litter, and help deconstruct two of the stages. My understanding is that the inmates only received about $3.50 an hour from the sheriff's department. Thankfully, a 3 local law-firms picked up the tab for that and it didn't come out of the collections.
Interesting. I have never really seen any information on the business side. Lots of information on how poorly the inmates themselves get paid, but I never heard of companies paying into the system at reasonable cost.
However, most everywhere I look keeps stating that it's a VERY low cost option for many companies and I can't find any real cost breakdowns. If you know of a place that would show this kind of info, I'd appreciate it if you'd share. I just keep finding conflicting reports
"Anything that creates a market incentive to lock people up undermines the very purpose of our criminal justice system," says Sheila Bedy, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute
Prison labor in the current US isn't really the same as in the older days. In the old days, laws were passed just to get people into prisons and the forced labor netted someone a profit. Now it's mostly volunteer, generally is some remedial task the prison already needs done, and is offered as a reward for not fucking up. There are some businesses that contract out with states in order to help fund some of the prisons but it doens't offset the costs of the prisoner.
I'd say it's closer to the older days than you think. I would argue that plenty of laws are passed just to get people into prisons. It may not be blatant, but consider our prison population per capita and how many non-violet offenders we have incarcerated. However, I hope that is unrelated to our use of prison labor.
While yes, most prison labor is volunteer(as-in, they have a choice), but they are not just completing tasks that the prison or state need done. They are also getting paid. Though the prison gets a cut, and the wages are traditionally VERY low. So it doesn't especially offset the cost of housing the prisoner, but it gives the hiring company an incredible profit compared to hiring minimum wage workers.
Up in washington, they're making US armed forces uniforms[1]. Apparently even Victoria's Secret clothing is being assembled by some prison labor now. And the practice is growing. The United States prison population is potentially an incredible underutilized workforce and can make some serious profits for the companies that take advantage of it.
However, we really need to be careful of the profit motive in using prison labor. Would it be benificial to society as a whole to lock up more of our population to have a cheaper workforce? Should judges be provided with more kickbacks for longer sentences for viable workers? It is a potential downward spiral.
Here's an article that sums up how some states are using their prison workfroce.
[1] - Last time I researched that was about 10 years ago. This may have changed since then.
Not at all. It's just that a big part of the USA has the "Everything is better if it's private" mental disease, combined with the "Regulation is unnecessary bureaucracy" mental disease. So the same corporate policy tendencies for short term profits at the expense of safety that made the Gulf of Mexico Three Amigos cut corners when running a deep water rig can be expected to also apply to privately run nuclear power plants. Instead of a large oil slick that kills all wildlife over hundreds of square miles and takes 20 years to break down, you would have a nuclear waste spill that infects groundwater, rendering a huge area uninhabitable for hundreds of years. Until you completely cut off for-profit corporate contributions to political organizations and campaigns, you can't allow corporations to run really dangerous projects because they'll manipulate the political process to allow them to make more money by cutting oversight on necessary safety processes.
Because even if you haven't figured it out yet after the bank bailouts, many corporate executives have figured out that it doesn't matter whether cutting corners may mean that the company might go bankrupt in 3 or 4 years as long as they can make massive bonuses through increasing profits by cutting safety margins and taking other significant risks with a half-life that's long enough to get them set up for life.
Mod this guy up! I don't understand how people can't realize that it's an almost certain consequence of capitalism that corners will be cut, that aught not have been cut because the payout to the few will outweigh the misery of the masses.
Take a look at our current nuke plants now. They have very strong oversight and are virtually accident proof these days. It is possible to check greed with oversight and regulation.
No one should have a vested interest in a high recidivism rate, particularly not when people's liberties are at stake. It does not serve society's interests.
There, fixed that for you.
Just for a great example, that judge from Pennsylvania that was handing down way too harsh sentences and doing his best to keep the detention facility packed full of kids. I would also lump law enforcement and the military into the pile of things that should never be motivated by profit. When people's lives and liberties are at stake(you know, important shit), there is no reason people should have a profit motive. Otherwise, we'd see more and more people being killed or caged so someone can make an extra buck.
The problem with PoliSci isn't that they are "left liberal elitists" nor is it because they are "edumecated and stuff" or that they come from "hippy universities", the problem is that they believe the crap they are saying and it's all political with no "science".
The only field of modern Polisci that has any relevance or worth is international relations.
I'd have to disagree with you somewhat. I work with a bunch of PoliSci majors and the vast majority are not biased in their work and do take the actual science in to account. It's mostly just polling science and statistical analysis(ugh), but it is based in science.
However, I can say a the InterPol folks do seem to have a better grasp on history and the application of certain policies and laws.
Yeah, the pilots should go back to bangin' the steward/ess from First Class...
They would except they can't open the door once the flight takes off so that leaves only the pilot and copilot.
Not sure where you heard this, but it's false. On my last flight, the co-pilot came out for a bathroom break. The door probably just can't be opened from the outside.
Your post was very good but I'd like to quibble a bit. You mix a lot of economic and governmental models in your post. I would like to point out that it could be possible to have a communist democracy.
Yes, communism would require force to make the non-conformists fall in line. However, every form of government requires some amount of force to make people follow the rules. The only difference with capitalism and communism is that that force is used for or against property rights.
There has never been(to my knowledge) a democratic communist country. I'd like to see it tried.
Libertarians? There are even fewer of those than there are moderates, and on top of that they can't agree on enough to want to vote for the same candidate.
Conservatives? If it took hold, it would displace the GOP.
Liberals? If it gained mindshare, it would displace the Democratic party.
You are way off, man. The two party system is still here because of our voting system and gerrymandering. Also, voters are too worried about giving up votes to the other side to vote for a 3rd party. Hence the presidential election in 2000.
But you're going to come up with Libertarian, conservative, and liberal as parties? wtf. You have to know some of the 3rd party names. If you can't think of them, you have no basis in this argument. There are plenty of viable 3rd parties; they just won't be allowed to play, thanks to the resident 2 party system. And bullshit thinking like yours continues this problem.
I'm tired of the assumption that your sort keeps making that you can bash America and love it at the same time. How many times do you think America will keep crawling back to you, hoping that you'll change?
Slashdot Mirror
The Bush/Cheney campaign wasn't the one that tried to cherry pick which districts got recounts. There's only one person that deserves the credit (or blame) for electing GWB. His name is Al Gore.
That is, if you ignore all of those votes being thrown out from BS challenges, voter intimidation, etc. I'm not trying to devolve this into some partisan argument, but the Florida Republican party has much to answer for during that election.
That wasn't really the administration, as much as it was inherent silliness in the actions of the Bush/Cheney campaign.
FTFY
FTFY
From there it presumably rides their T1 to the Internet. (Or whatever they have.)
1992 called...
What's your point? Hemp's not illegal. I even own a hemp golf shirt - feels great!
Actually, in the US, it is illegal to grow Hemp. The reason being that the DEA can't tell the difference from the air. The clothes you wear made of the material were most likely grown and manufactured in Canada.
Does having data stored off-site necessarily mean there is no "audit trail or chain of custody"?
I think the problem is that you're dealing with another company. I'd imagine any interaction after a breach could be like this:
You: "We think your systems were breached and we lost sensitive data."
Them: "That couldn't have been us. It must have happened on your systems."
You: "No, we're sure it was not us, it was you."
Them: "Nuh-uh!"
Then where do you go from there? You start a lawsuit? You just forget about it? Maybe I'm missing something, but this kind of interaction sounds much more difficult than just going downstairs to talk to your own employees about the breach.
I'm pretty sure technology has advanced in the meantime.
That photo was a bit extreme, but let's say you have 5 competitors with communications cables. If it's on a pole, they'll each need atleast a single pair of fiber, or bundle, depending. They all need to be physically separated into their alloted spots on the pole so they don't need to interfere with eachother. And 5 isn't enough in most people's minds that argue this junk.
Or, if you're lucky enough to live in a neighborhood with burried cables, that's 5 different places to dig. 5 physically separated conduits under your street. That might work in a city with nice underground tubes and manholes, but no so much in the burbs or rural areas.
No thanks, not in my neighborhood.
Also, without those monopoly agreements, you end up with poles in your neighborhoods looking something like this.
How long until 'anonymous credit card business mimics' spring up out of the woodworks, something like "you bring us $10 cash, here's your card number, put whatever name and address you like on it? Or does something like this already exist? And I don't mean paypal, what I am referring to is a service that is indistinguishable from a real credit card on the money recipient's end that also allows you to remain anonymous.
Pretty sure Visa Gift Cards operate this way. I don't know about the details of online processing of them, but I bet you can use whatever name you want.
I think you're a bit backwards here. It is the employee selling his or her time. And technically, either party can dictate whatever terms they want(even haggling to get a cheaper cucumber). Unlike you, however, I'd like to see more of the power in the hands of the people. But alas, they like to keep a nice unemployment rate so they are in the stronger position of power. This is also why unions were created.
yeah if only they had lockers in some central location with 24/7 public access and a code to access the locker they could send you via email - then you could pick up your package when it suits you and eliminate the last mile costs.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but they do do this in some places. I live in a small town(<900) and they don't do local deliveries within the town. If you live on a ranch some 12 miles away, they will. Everyone within the town gets a PO box for just the cost of keys($2).
Probably the best thing Firefox has going for it now is dev tools like Firebug.
Virtually every decent browser in existence already has this functionality. Maybe not quite as good as firebug, but the idea is there. See Opera and Safari.
Citation, please. Everything I have been reading says purchasing power has decreased due to stagnent wages and inflation. The percentage of money spent on food these days has risen from our grandparents. Food is usually the greatest marker for purchasing power as the value of food doesn't usually change that much. If anything, it goes down thanks to more efficient production.
SELECT c.*, u.*, t.sid FROM comment c JOIN thread t USING (sid) JOIN user u USING (uid) WHERE c.cid = 1612246
There's no reason cid would not be unique, so your order and limit, and doing where on sid and user is not really needed.
I kinda liked the human-generated Yahoo! index / hierarchy, it was a neat way to get started with the web, back when it wasn't all too big and time-sensitive to organize by hand.
Actually, that was the Open Directory Project that built the data that Yahoo directory was based on. I was an editor there for a few years about 10 years ago. Pretty nice idea, and when search engines really sucked at finding what you wanted back then, it could be a great alternative. But, there's just too much Web content out there for any human powered directory to deal with.
Interesting. I have never really seen any information on the business side. Lots of information on how poorly the inmates themselves get paid, but I never heard of companies paying into the system at reasonable cost.
Doing a bit more research, I ran into the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program enacted by congress. It's restrictions seem reasonable, as long as oversight is done properly.
However, most everywhere I look keeps stating that it's a VERY low cost option for many companies and I can't find any real cost breakdowns. If you know of a place that would show this kind of info, I'd appreciate it if you'd share. I just keep finding conflicting reports
"Anything that creates a market incentive to lock people up undermines the very purpose of our criminal justice system," says Sheila Bedy, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute
Prison labor in the current US isn't really the same as in the older days. In the old days, laws were passed just to get people into prisons and the forced labor netted someone a profit. Now it's mostly volunteer, generally is some remedial task the prison already needs done, and is offered as a reward for not fucking up. There are some businesses that contract out with states in order to help fund some of the prisons but it doens't offset the costs of the prisoner.
I'd say it's closer to the older days than you think. I would argue that plenty of laws are passed just to get people into prisons. It may not be blatant, but consider our prison population per capita and how many non-violet offenders we have incarcerated. However, I hope that is unrelated to our use of prison labor.
While yes, most prison labor is volunteer(as-in, they have a choice), but they are not just completing tasks that the prison or state need done. They are also getting paid. Though the prison gets a cut, and the wages are traditionally VERY low. So it doesn't especially offset the cost of housing the prisoner, but it gives the hiring company an incredible profit compared to hiring minimum wage workers.
Up in washington, they're making US armed forces uniforms[1]. Apparently even Victoria's Secret clothing is being assembled by some prison labor now. And the practice is growing. The United States prison population is potentially an incredible underutilized workforce and can make some serious profits for the companies that take advantage of it.
However, we really need to be careful of the profit motive in using prison labor. Would it be benificial to society as a whole to lock up more of our population to have a cheaper workforce? Should judges be provided with more kickbacks for longer sentences for viable workers? It is a potential downward spiral.
Here's an article that sums up how some states are using their prison workfroce.
[1] - Last time I researched that was about 10 years ago. This may have changed since then.
Good post. Eloquently spells out all the gripes I had with the parent's post. It's just too bad you're a Ruby developer. heh
Not at all. It's just that a big part of the USA has the "Everything is better if it's private" mental disease, combined with the "Regulation is unnecessary bureaucracy" mental disease. So the same corporate policy tendencies for short term profits at the expense of safety that made the Gulf of Mexico Three Amigos cut corners when running a deep water rig can be expected to also apply to privately run nuclear power plants. Instead of a large oil slick that kills all wildlife over hundreds of square miles and takes 20 years to break down, you would have a nuclear waste spill that infects groundwater, rendering a huge area uninhabitable for hundreds of years. Until you completely cut off for-profit corporate contributions to political organizations and campaigns, you can't allow corporations to run really dangerous projects because they'll manipulate the political process to allow them to make more money by cutting oversight on necessary safety processes. Because even if you haven't figured it out yet after the bank bailouts, many corporate executives have figured out that it doesn't matter whether cutting corners may mean that the company might go bankrupt in 3 or 4 years as long as they can make massive bonuses through increasing profits by cutting safety margins and taking other significant risks with a half-life that's long enough to get them set up for life.
Mod this guy up! I don't understand how people can't realize that it's an almost certain consequence of capitalism that corners will be cut, that aught not have been cut because the payout to the few will outweigh the misery of the masses.
Take a look at our current nuke plants now. They have very strong oversight and are virtually accident proof these days. It is possible to check greed with oversight and regulation.
No one should have a vested interest in a high recidivism rate, particularly not when people's liberties are at stake. It does not serve society's interests.
There, fixed that for you.
Just for a great example, that judge from Pennsylvania that was handing down way too harsh sentences and doing his best to keep the detention facility packed full of kids. I would also lump law enforcement and the military into the pile of things that should never be motivated by profit. When people's lives and liberties are at stake(you know, important shit), there is no reason people should have a profit motive. Otherwise, we'd see more and more people being killed or caged so someone can make an extra buck.
The problem with PoliSci isn't that they are "left liberal elitists" nor is it because they are "edumecated and stuff" or that they come from "hippy universities", the problem is that they believe the crap they are saying and it's all political with no "science".
The only field of modern Polisci that has any relevance or worth is international relations.
I'd have to disagree with you somewhat. I work with a bunch of PoliSci majors and the vast majority are not biased in their work and do take the actual science in to account. It's mostly just polling science and statistical analysis(ugh), but it is based in science.
However, I can say a the InterPol folks do seem to have a better grasp on history and the application of certain policies and laws.
Yeah, the pilots should go back to bangin' the steward/ess from First Class...
They would except they can't open the door once the flight takes off so that leaves only the pilot and copilot.
Not sure where you heard this, but it's false. On my last flight, the co-pilot came out for a bathroom break. The door probably just can't be opened from the outside.
Your post was very good but I'd like to quibble a bit. You mix a lot of economic and governmental models in your post. I would like to point out that it could be possible to have a communist democracy.
Yes, communism would require force to make the non-conformists fall in line. However, every form of government requires some amount of force to make people follow the rules. The only difference with capitalism and communism is that that force is used for or against property rights.
There has never been(to my knowledge) a democratic communist country. I'd like to see it tried.
'Southern' is not a race, holmes.
Libertarians? There are even fewer of those than there are moderates, and on top of that they can't agree on enough to want to vote for the same candidate. Conservatives? If it took hold, it would displace the GOP. Liberals? If it gained mindshare, it would displace the Democratic party.
You are way off, man. The two party system is still here because of our voting system and gerrymandering. Also, voters are too worried about giving up votes to the other side to vote for a 3rd party. Hence the presidential election in 2000.
But you're going to come up with Libertarian, conservative, and liberal as parties? wtf. You have to know some of the 3rd party names. If you can't think of them, you have no basis in this argument. There are plenty of viable 3rd parties; they just won't be allowed to play, thanks to the resident 2 party system. And bullshit thinking like yours continues this problem.
I'm tired of the assumption that your sort keeps making that you can bash America and love it at the same time. How many times do you think America will keep crawling back to you, hoping that you'll change?
How does one crawl back to himself?