Basically, yeah - we have several miles of comparatively dense atmosphere (or the entire bulk of the earth) protecting us from cosmic rays. Future Mars astronauts will pretty much have a few layers of tinfoil.
Still, it is possible to design ships which will shield passengers from the worst of the rays, but these tend to be prohibitively heavy (= prohibitive amounts of fuel) because of all the additional shielding.
The best alternative I've seen yet were plans to build a ship where all the water and other supplies were stored around the outsides of the ship, and the actual crew living compartment was a small space right in the middle - this uses water and fuel (the bulkiest of the supplies) as additional shielding, but it still carries a much elevated risk of irradiation and/or cancer than staying put on earth.
"What you have here is the typical end result of university."
Funny thing. University courses were always non-vocational. That means they aren't supposed to train you for specific jobs, but instead teach you to use your brain, teach yourself things and solve your own problems.
A university degree wasn't a certificate to say "Bob Jones is this good at C", but one which said "Bob Jones is this clever, and could therefore learn anything he put his mind to to this degree".
Ever notice how (historically) vocational courses were for the "simpler" trades like metal-working, carpentry and so on? That's why - the less-intelligent were apprenticed in one skill, while the clever/gifted/rich were trained to be polymaths.
This idea has been slightly buggered in recent years by the introduction of many "more vocational" university degrees, but the original intention of them was very different.
Oh, and you do still get the "hacker types from the 60s" - I happen to know two or three. The only difference is that computing's a more mature field now - all the low-hanging fruit's been picked, and because it's more mainstream they don't stand out as much.
If you don't get them any more, what would you call Sean Fanning (practically single-handedly popularised P2P), Linus Torvalds (for his social engineering of the Linux community, even if not for the actual programming of Linux), etc?
Re:If they're not interested, they're not interest
on
Brain Teasers for Coders?
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· Score: 1, Insightful
TBH, even then the reward is the prize, and not the programming.
There are two types of programmers in the world - hackers and code-grinders.
Hackers live for interesting problems, matching their wits and expertise against the hardest and most intracable problems they can find, and smash through complexities that would make anyone else's your brain bleed with a gleeful laugh. No reward you can offer them is better than a selection of interesting challenges, adequate pay and freedom from drudgery.
Code-grinders code because they have to, not because they like it - it's a job, nothing more. Nothing you can do will make them love it, or they'd be hackers, not code-grinders. You can try to improve morale with rewards, incentives and fun games, but you'll only be teaching them to work hard for extra rewards, not to love what they're doing or to do their best work.
On the upside, code-grinders don't do their jobs for fun or stimulation, so you can give them the shittiest, most boring problems and make them work under the most unnecessary, arbitrary restrictions, just as long as you also keep giving them the paycheques with the other hand. After all, that's the only reason they're there.
If you're lucky, you've got a room full of hackers, and your productivity will be enormous as long as you don't do something stupid like giving them drudge-work, putting a non-hacker manager in charge of them or needlessly forcing them to follow a non-optimal solution.
If you're unlucky (as it sounds) you've got a room full of code-grinders. You'll never motivate them to enjoy their jobs, only to tolerate them better.
Against this background I'd advise you not to bother tring to awaken their interest in programming - if they ever had one it would have sparked the second they first tried coding, and if it didn't, it ain't there.
Instead, focus on perks, pay and working conditions, to make their job more tolerable.
Ok, so I'm generalising a bit here, but I've found it broadly to be true - either you live to code, or code to live, and people don't really change that much.
Or, alternatively, it might just be the link that convinces the business world once and for all that OSS is commercially viable.
With a successful IBM (closed-source company moves towards open-source) at one end and a hopefully successful Mozilla Corp. at the other, it shows open-source to be commercially viable whether you open your existing products or develop them that way from scratch.
And, of course, as a 100% open-source corporation it does just that little bit more to bury the "open source as pinko commie anticapitalist economic trojan" meme...
"I do not have any data about the shutdown of these sites save for that which was in the article. I do think it's within the realm of plausibility that it was organized, if not executed, by the British government (or any number of others), but I'm not actually accusing them of doing it."
Fair point - it was the first thing that occurred to me too (especially with the recent London bombings). OTOH, there are two questions - was it the British (as opposed to, say, the Pakistani) government, and was the site in question actively promoting violent terrorism?
By my calculations I should only start worrying if the British government took the site down[1], and the takedown was unjustified. In the absence of any other information either way I make that only a 25% chance (1 option from 4) that it's something worrying, so I found myself disagreeing with many posters who seemed to take the least-likely answer[2] as read.
"To that, I would also add "should they be shut down at all?" Such information is trivially easy to find for anybody with access to a University library (read: nearly anybody) and a high-school understanding of chemistry and map-reading. I, myself, know how to make a few different explosives:"
That's true, and I'd have serious problems with a site being shut down just for telling someone how to make bombs - as you point out it's just information, and widely-available information at that.
However, a site which (for example) actively promotes, encourages, recruits for and takes donations for terrorism or specific terrorist acts or groups is a slightly harder question to tackle. Obviously I believe passionately in freedom of speech, but IMO this is where it starts overlapping with the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" counter-example.
You're right - it's a thorny issue, which I think is why people tend to polarise into "Information must always be free" and "Free speech as long as you're only parotting government policy" camps.
Unfortunately (as I said before), without more information we have no way of knowing which side of the debate this incident strengthens, and which it weakens... in isolation[3], but in the absence of hard information either way I'm happy to take this incident in isolation
[3] Like people who try to assuage fear of flying by telling you you're more likely to be killed in a car accident than a plane crash. It's true, but not when you're already sat on the plane.;-)
Exactly. This came out after he'd pretty well impressed upon us his anti-current-DRM-policies stance, and was he was asking questions about exactly what was possible.
As an aside, the other (geek) friend of mine raised an issue I'd never even considered before, and didn't know the answer to:
If DRMed files dial home to establish the "right" to play them, is there any DRM system that allows (or explicitely doesn't allow) the content-provider to actually subsequently modify the file before you view it?
For example, (marginally allowable) if a news report was peercast, then later information came in that indicated it was incorrect, could the content-producer "push" an updated version as a condition of the licence being granted, or would he just have to blanket-deny all licences for version 1, and only permit licence verification for version 2?
Or even (unacceptable) would such a system allow content-producers to literally rewrite history? Imagine George Lucas being able to not only stop the distribution of "old" versions of Star Wars, but actually being able to reach inside your collection and "improve" the one you've already bought?
Like I said, it seems a relatively trivial extension of existing DRM capabilities I already know about - is it already feasible, or are we safe (so far)?
I may dislike DRM, but frankly I'd rather present it as neutrally as I can and see what other think (hey, I could be the one being unreasonable here) than scare them with horror stories and end up with both of us agreeing, and both being completely wrong/selfish/unjustified.
I value the correctness of my opinions over what I actually believe, and if someone's prepared to argue differently I'll either spot a flaw in their argument which proves me right, or change my mind in the end and agree with them.
Although I forgive you your skepticism, because I'm told this is a freakishly unusual mindset on/.
Actually, that's pretty much how I explained it - "Digital music allows the unrestricted copying of files, and gives people the ability to perfectly duplicate songs pretty much without degradation."
He wanted to know what the difference is between that and copying/sharing your own CDs (which also theoretically allow for "perfect" copying), and I couldn't really give a good answer, apart from unimportant aspects like the speed at which you can do it and the (minimal) media cost of a physical CD.
In fact, there's nothing different that I could see between P2P MP3 swapping, and large-scale copy-and-pass-the-CD-on schemes organised through a website. Oh, the music costs pence instead of being totally free, but it's unrestricted and still preferable to paying through the nose for it.
"The MPAA/RIAA are worried that people will copy films and songs rather than pay for them, and the only way around it that they see is to prevent the unrestricted copying of un-DRMed media."
He immediately wanted to know why they couldn't distribute music using a DRM scheme that allowed exactly your existing "Fair Use" rights (he didn't know the term, but that was what he was groping for).
I explained that you could then (for example) burn a DRMed track onto CD, rip it again and distribute it DRM-free, but he didn't accept that as enough reason to take control "of his PC, that he'd bought", away from him.
Basically (summarising), he was happy in principle with DRM that protected the *AA and also enshrined his existing fair use rights.
Given that these aren't perfectly compatible, he wasn't prepared to compromise on his rights just so that the *AA could protect their profits.
His view was that it was their problem, and their issue to solve - they had no right to further restrict his life and his equipment because (paraphrasing again) their business model was obsolete.
"Al Quada was successful because they were able to get sphisticated weaponlry and intelligence from the US. Who will back them now? Maybe china? maybe north korea? Maybe Iran? maybe somebody from south america? maybe even the russians? I am afraid too many countries hate us and would like to see us suffer. It could be anybody."
Even worse, who says it has to be anybody?
In the 80s intelligence and high tech weapons were expensive, and hard to obtain.
These days you can buy high-tech weapons practically off the shelf, hi-res satellite information is commercially available (hell, even for free) and you can sometimes even pick up an acquired nuke or two in the former USSR for a couple of million.
If the worst came to the worst I could almost see al Quaeda surviving on private donations (eg, through a website) and occasional large-scale robberies.
This thread has gone on far too long, and some of your arguments are starting to resemble arguing backwards-from-conclusion-justifications rather than concluding-from-evidence-theories. Nevertheless, let me address a few key points in your above post:
"we didn't go into something like Saudi Arabia because, first of all, as you say, they're our official allies."
Yes. And so (before Gulf War I) was Saddam - we even (overtly!) supplied and aided him in the Iran-Iraq war. As other posters have repeatedly pointed out he was the essential counterbalance holding back Islamic fundamentalism in the entire Gulf region.
This is why we didn't continue in and depose him at the end of Gulf War I - it was recognised that to do so would be counter-productive, since his example of a modern, secular arab state was the single example of a viable alternative to the theocratic, fundmentalist extremist governments that had developed elsewhere.
"It has been repeated thousands of times that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi and that bin Laden is Saudi in all manner of print and television news media, and the administration has never said anything different. It tried to tie Iraq to Al Qaeda for a while, but NEVER said that Iraq was responsible for or involved in any major way in 9/11."
Ok, how about some quotes from Bush?
"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
"The regime . . . has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda."
"He has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations."
Even better, how about a whole fucking website full of them? Seriously - Dave, please reply to this point. I want to see what your reading of this is, since it's about a black-and-white as one can make it without resorting to Clintonesque hair-splitting of the meaning of "ally".
"As to Iraq's secular nature, as I said, that's exactly why it was picked opposed to others: it would have the least chance of a radical Islamic uprising from within. Indeed, that has proven to be true. What we didn't bargain for is a major Islamic uprising from without, with foreign fighters from everyplace but Iraq."
With respect, bullshit. When you're trying to encourage the growth of secular, modern, western-friendly arab states, you don't take out the only viable example of one as your first act. This explains why we put up with Hussain's genocides and internal violence, but not why we ousted him first.
In addition, although Iraq was a secular regime it had (and always has had) a huge muslim majority. Although many of the fighters are coming from outside Iraq it's not "all" by a long shot, and the ones who are fighting get a huge amount of aid from inside the country. Saddam spent half his tenure as ruler fighting internal dissention, especially form the fundamentalist Shi'ite muslims, who actually represent a majority in the country.
"Those reformers DO exist, but their forces are outnumbered by those who fear the US is on a mission to exterminate Islam and expand the Jewish empire (both untrue)."
Not, actually. What you're described in your posts is nothing less than the eradication of islam.
The trouble is by "not eradicating islam" you mean "not making them go to church and still letting them call their god Allah".
By "eradicating islam" they mean "manipulating governments to open their countries to other ("false") religions. Imposing your cultural values and eroding theirs (like, say, removing the laws forcing women to wear birkas). Imposing your laws and economic systems onto their countries, regardless of whether they think it'll actua
... Except, the conclusion of their survey is that IT workers are more valued than they believe, not less. Hence, they're less likely to get fired, and so are less likely to want Skillsoft's courses.
I know this is/., but can you at least pretend to have RTFA before posting half-baked incomprehensible conspiracy theories?
"I have news for you: neither UN resolutions, nor WMD were the reasons for going into Iraq... And before you ask if I'm really ok with the administration lying about the reasons, then, consider that we could never present the full foreign policy landscape in an understandable, accurate way, regarding any given situation on the planet, for easy and quick digestion by the American people"
So... you are ok with it?
Wow. Just... wow. You're actually happy that your government illegally entered a war, killing thousands, and lied to you and its citizens about the reasons, because "it might be a bit complicated to explain it to the little people".
Fuck me, but that's... I'm speechless.
And that's an interesting position, but how about this one:
Clear and present dangers to your liberty or way of life (that don't succumb to diplomacy) are obviously excuses to go to war (if we don't, we die or are subjugated). These are simple, valid reasons, and everyone can understand them.
More complex reasons ("we suspect X", or "in the future X could lead to Y") are more difficult cases to make persuasively, because there's an inherent possibility that you might be wrong.
If (as you offer) the real reasons are so obscure and esoteric that normal american citizens couldn't possibly ever understand them... maybe, just maybe they weren't important or definite enough to actually go to war over right now, eh?
"As for the UN resolutions: I have news for you: neither UN resolutions, nor WMD were the reasons for going into Iraq."
Believe it or not, you aren't telling anyone they don't already know - this is exactly what the "liberals" have been alleging all along.
Where we part company is that we can't believe you think this shaky justification is enough to invade foreign regimes, violently depose the ruling structure and put nothing solid in it's place, creating a power vacuum that runs the risk of creating a ruling theocracy more totalitarian and repressive even than Hussain.
We can't believe that anyone thinks that it's ok to support and encourage a despotic dictator, train his troops and sell him mustard gas to gas his own subjects with, then to despose him the moment it's in your interest to and you think you can get away with it, and then to expect to be thanked for it.
We can't believe that anyone is arrogant enough to believe they can predict the future to the extent that they're happy to dismantle entire countries, then try to put them back exactly the way the US wants, and expect everyone to sit around happily waiting for them to finish and trusting they'll do it right.
We can't believe anyone is arrogant enough to believe they have a right to do the above - what (other than selfishness) makes your wants and needs greater or more important than other people's? What moral right do you have to set the regime or agenda for a country? Especially one you're supposed to be "liberating"?
We can't believe that you think the answer to resentment and anti-americanism is to fight, assassinate, bomb and imprison without trial the very people who dislike you. We can't believe you think this will do anything but harden their resolve and bring more converts to their cause.
"the real reasons are a more broad strategy of change in the mideast. It's a multi-faceted approach about exerting our influence, militarily when necessary, to encourage and/or install free or quasi-free governments in the mideast, friendly with the West, in an attempt to kill radicalism over the next few decades rather than let it grow and take hold for the next couple centuries, possibly with devastating consequences."
So, again, what you're saying is that you have an avowed policy of destabilising regimes, even democratic/populist ones, in an attempt to install ones more friendly to the West. You are admitting you're going against the wishes of the majority of the populations of these countries, and installing a non-r
Amen to that. Unfortunately the mass-media provides a feedback loop - if they tell you that no-one cares, you're less likely to talk to other people about it and less likely to attempt to do anything about it.
Now, in an ideal world (with skeptical, investigative media) it also works the other way - small protests can get airtime, encourage others and the movement can snowball into real change.
Unfortunately, with the Bush administration's manipulation of the media, it's now very hard to go against the party line without having access to its high-up members effectively cut off.
Honest, proper journalists should take this penalty and continue transmitting impartial, carefully-researched news, regardless of the fact it's harder without inside information. Unfortunately whole sections of the media have instead caved, and are now reduced to effectively parroting whitehouse dogma to protect their precious (in fact now worthless) "access".
(As an aside, this is why I'm actually in favour of institutions like the BBC - no government oversight, but paid-for with public money. They can be impartial because they don't need to cosy up to the government, and public money means they don't have to chase ratings by spinning every story to conform to their viewers' existing prejudices.)
Of course, this is made hugely easier by the Democratic party basically bending over and grabbing their ankles every time the Republicans imply they're unamerican if they don't. The Republicans are framing the entire debate in their terms, and the Democrats are too wimpy to steal back the initiative.
First off, my apologies - the GP was posted at the end of a long, very irritating day, and could have used a little more thought and a little less ranty preaching before hitting submit.
Now, that said:
"When you start sputtering "fundamentalist republican" this and "neocon" that, you make it obvious that you're not up for serious, logical argument."
To be scrupulously fair here, the current administration is unarguably neoconservative in approach and outlook. It also has a very large (or just loud) contingent of fundamentalist/old-testament-influenced christian supporters. Granted, I'm not a US citizen (and don't even live there), but I was under the impression that many sections of the administration had self-identified using these very terms... no?
"I'll ask you the same question I asked another poster: How do you get your DNC talking points delivered? Did your tin-foil hat start buzzing and order you to post on/.?"
Funnily enough I'm not even USian - I even had to stop and think what you meant by "DNC" (Democratic National Congress, right?). I get these opinions by having studied history, skeptically reading a lot of news/current affairs from multiple sources, many of which I don't agree with (right-wing blogs, al Jazeera, etc), and trying to predict trends.
For example (not wishing to stir up an argument, but to demonstrate where the opinions I hold come from):
Since Bush got in America has taken a much more isolationist/militaristic bent - withdrawing from the many international environmental initiatives, refusing to ratify (or even withdrawing from) arms limitation treaties, etc, etc.
Since 9/11 America has pushed an extremely expansionist and overtly manipulative foriegn policy (it must be noted that, like some other countries, a covert one has always been in place, but there's no missing it now). This is understandable, especially given the provocation of 9/11, but the fact remains that in the popular consciousness the US has massively overreached what it had a right to do in response. It is also widely perceived that Bush has made a great deal of personal mileage out of the tragedy, and used tenuous links with "terrorism" to justify attacking or invading countries on his shitlist, irrespective of whether they actually significantly aided terrorism (Iraq, for example - dangerous, maybe. Terrorist base? Only after we invaded, killed a bunch of them and fucked the whole place up).
At the same time, the threat of terrorism has allowed the Bush administration to clamp down on Americans' personal freedom more than any other administration in recent memory - even McCarthyism and the "Reds under the bed" hysteria are starting to look tame compared to the provisions in the PATRIOT act and many other Republican-backed bills.
The majority of these provisions (or rather, the most worrying ones) prove on close examination not to actually protect the public much more than they are now, and certainly not enough to warrant such a loss of personal liberty. For example, no terrorists in recent years have been caught as a result of the FBI being able to get library records without a court order. However, several non-terrorists have suffered as a result (no-fly lists, etc).
Other aspects of the laws are now reducing accountability of law enforcement and eroding freedom of speech - witness the "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo held without trial, numerous provisions for secret courts and judgements (and the remainder of the temporary PATRIOT act which is now being (has been?) voted into law, permanently), and the fact that now not only can the FBI grab (for example) ISP logs without a warrant, but operators of the ISP may end up in jail if they even admit such an event has taken place.
The Bush administration also has control (whether direct or merely indirect influence) over a large proportion of the mass-media, and isn't afraid to use it to its advantage, irrespective of ethical o
"I might buy your argument that universities are private organizations if you are specifically refering to private universities. Public universities should not have the same ability to censor speech since they are funded by the public."
Good point - and not one I'd really considered this discussion. Part of this position was coming from the UK, where we have to pay several thousands of pounds a year in tuition fees to attend university now. If the universities were funded exclusively/mostly by public money then yes, I'd demand a right to free speech as a part of the (public) institution.
However, when they're funded by private money I believe they have a right if they want to clamp down or set the rules however they want. It must be emphasised I don't like the idea of the censorship, and would attempt to avoid going to an institution that practicesd it, but when you create your own private club that people are willing to pay to join, you have much more latitude in setting the ground rules.
For example, I see nothing wrong with a university or organisation that arbitrarily prohibits people from wearing the colour green, as long as they know the rule before-hand, and have a totally free and voluntary choice in whether to join said organisation or not.
Basically, if universities are primarily public bodies I expect them to uphold the standards that the public expects. If they're private bodies then they can set pretty much whatever rules they like, as long as people voluntarily join and deliberately accept such restrictions.
In other words, "freedom of speech" includes the freedom to say "If you want to be in my club you must do/not do X".
Rant^H^H^H^HPosting without thinking enough about this particular example (yeah, end of a bad day), you're right - I severely doubt that any of the universities I was thinking of are funded even mostly by private tuition fees, so in this case you're right - they should have no right to practice censorship.
"From reading your post history, I can assume that you have no problem with universities censoring speech particularly since the speech that is censored you do not agree with. The idea of free speech is to protect ALL speech. Especially speech that you do not agree with."
That's a very interesting (and concerning) reading of my past posts - I've always argued vociferously in favour of free speech, even to the extent I was almost expelled from university for standing up for that right. And in this very thread I was arguing that Freenet was vitally important because I see freedom of speech as being under threat in the US.
Just out of interest, what posts in particular did you read that gave you that impression? And did you read the thread they were part of, or just take them out of context?
"Because the United States and China are so similar when it comes to oppressing free speech and jailing political dissidents."
Give it ten more years of a fundamentalist republican-dominated government, and another successful bid by the next Neocon-backed Bush replacement (and hey, Arnie after him, right?), and I think you'll find the trend unmissable.
"It's clearly impossible in the US to criticize the government, or even have imagery of the president with a bullet hole in his head on the tob banner of your web site."
Yeah, you can have your token meaningless protests (but don't think they haven't been noted at some point by the Secret Service or FBI), but the current regime in the US has a far sneakier advantage than that - an institutionally corrupt government process, the facility for well-off special interest groups to effectively purchase their very own laws and control of a broad swathe of the mainstream media have lead to a situation where the large majority of Americans seemingly just don't care any more. There appears to be the perception that it doesn't matter which puppet you vote for - it's still the same bunch of rich white guys with their hand up his ass.
Why go to the trouble of "disappearing" someone and risking making them a martyr when you can just keep Joe Public fat 'n' stupid enough that he won't bother to lever his ass out the couch to go marching even when the (attempted, brief) revolution comes?
"If anyone can give actual provable examples of the US government abridging Constitutionally protected free speech, I'd love to hear it."
Oh FFS. How about Phil Zimmerman's prosecution for exporting "munitions" without a licence? Or the unprecendented-in-the-West restrictions on what scientists in many disciplines are allowed to discuss with their international colleagues?
Granted, these aren't as serious as stringing you up by your toenails for calling the president "stupid", but then the long slide towards totalitarianism very rarely happens all in one go. And what are the extra provisions in the PATRIOT Act (supposed to be short-term and temporary, now voted into permanence) if not a concerted attack on the Constitution?
"If you're looking for trampling of free speech, you needn't look to the government; you need only look no further than our own academic institutions."
Yeah, universities have been known to trample free speech. But you know what?
1. That's got nothing to do with the complaint about the government, and 2. Universities are private organisations. They can do what they like with their students. In return, students can choose to flock to a given institution or can choose to avoid them like the plague. Try avoiding the US government without emigrating. Try comparison shopping for governments.
Executive Sumamry:
The US's slide towards totalitarianism has begun, and it'll take positive action to turn the trend around. Indifference wil lonly accelerate the process.
Claiming that any small group within the US practices totalitarian behaviour is no excuse for the government to do the same, especially when it's like comparing apples and oranges. Totalitarianism's always bad, but "someone else is doing it" is a pathetic excuse.
First off, who says it's definitely the British government? The article passes on one bit of unsubstantiated hearsay, with no references whatsoever, from unspecified "Israeli intelligence agents" (who could well be doing it themselves and looking to avoid consequences). Now I don't mean to come off as one of the tinfoil hat brigade, but that's hardly definite - the article makes the accusation then immediately veers off into discussions of who's being shut down and a philosophical discussion on whether technology helps or harms us more.
In addition if the Israeli intelligence agents knew damn well it was British intelligence, why would they go public confirming the suspicions of the people it was happening to? The British government and the Israelis are supposed to be on the same side in the War on Terror - they're needlessly shooting British intelligence in the foot. Slightly suspicious, to my mind.
Secondly, I'm as rabid a supporter of civil rights (and civil disobedience) as the next guy, but what exactly are you trying to say here?
"Well, without the "killing civilians" bit, I can think of any number of groups who would love to disrupt our society and bring down our current government. Matter of fact, I'm not sure that a few of them don't have the right idea."
Yeah, this is with the "killing civilians" bit, so that's completely irrelevant.
Unless you're also arguing for al-Quaeda's sovereign right to blow up whoever they want you've neatly sidestepped the actual question and reduced a complex, real-world issue into an unrelated black-and-white no-brainer that you happen to be on the "correct" side of. This is a variation of the straw man tactic, and it's intellectually dishonest.
Apologies if it was unintentional, but it's a common tactic (called "framing the debate") used by the Rebublican party and media in the US, and it makes the "framer" look like they've won while leaving the actual debate unresolved.
"Of course, the government would disagree; natural, really, having an interest in self-preservation. What is the threshold for shutdown, and how do we maintain transparency to ensure that the government isn't abusing the power to shut down non-violent (but strongly critical) sites?"
Now this is the actual debate. However, by bringing it up here you seem to be implying that it was unjustified in this case - do you believe so? And why?
Obviously, regarding freedom of information there has to be a line drawn somewhere - instructions on how to make plastic explosives from bleach should not be wrapped around the tablet dispensed to violent paranoid schizophrenics, for example.
Now, given no evidence whatsoever, you seem to be assuming that these websites were shut down by British intelligence, and wrongly at that. Nobody here has any idea what was on the websites, who was running them or exactly why they were shut down.
I'm not saying the sites weren't totally innocent, but isn't it slightly possible that (for example), British intelligence alerted the Pakistani authorities to actual, documented lawbreaking connected with these sites, and the Pakistani authorities then closed the sites themselves?
That seems much more likely to me than rogue British intelligence factions starting black-ops DDoS attacks on suspected (but actually innocent) foreign websites.
Of course, that doesn't mean they were justified, but nobody in the article or on this thread has a single piece of hard evidence that could offer a conclusion either way. And that makes which way they jump very interesting to watch.
Interesting aside - last night my flatmate wandered in while I was talking to another geek friend about the TCA, Windows DRM^H^H^HVista and related matters.
This guy is no techie (christ, he asked me to help him hook his monitor up last week), but he listened in and asked us to explain exactly what Trusted Computing was. We sketched out the very basics - media files dialling home before play, your rights/viewing-licence agreement changing after purchase at the whims of the content producer, other theoretically possible restrictions that DRM allows for, files refusing to play on non-trusted platforms and your PC dynamically downsampling future DVDs if it detects your monitor isn't Trusted.
At the end of the five-minute conversation (again, attempting to inform rather than frighten) the guy was more pissed off than I've ever seen him - practically kicking furniture and swearing he'd never buy a bit of TCA-compliant electronics. Ever.
As I said, while this guy isn't stupid, he's not even remotely technical. And when he appreciated the actual, real-life restrictions Trusted Computing would place on him he was angry.
There is hope for these people, if they can be educated before the fight is over.
"everyone know how those uncrackable chips fared... well every time they tried to do something like this. it failed miserably."
So, you're saying that because in the past they've tried to do it and it's failed, we should stop worrying they might succeed the next time? If at stake is the freedom of information, the autonomy of our own posessions and the terms of participation in the entirety of future popular culture? Yeah, sounds like something we can safely ignore.
FYI (and IIRC) there's never been anything like the current DRM schemes, let alone one that's already failed. We now have a concerted attack from the combined forces of the operating system monopoly[1], the hardware oligarchy[2], the media player/telecomms companies[3] and the entire popular media industries[4].
If DRM like this becomes widespread before people wake up to it you won't really be able to buy a machine that doesn't have TC build in, and even if you can you'll be forced to use a non-mainstream OS with it. And when you re-learn all your skills and convert to your non-mainstream OS, you still won't be able to play music on it. Or watch movies. Or HDTV. In fact, you'll find it hard to participate in "mainstream" culture at all.
Just because it didn't work last time doens't mean the idea is impossible. It's just like chess - when your king's in check it's easy to get out of it... unless your opponent has set up his other pieces just right, and then it's checkmate, and you're screwed.
FWIW I'm not normally quite this pessimistic, but this laissez-faire "fuck it, and it'll all turn out ok" attitude is just uninformed - read up on it, and you'll see what the stakes are and how serious it can be.
"don't be fooled by their marketing, pearpc will work just fine, albeit maybe illegally in the US (and canada soon). thanks to the DMCA"
Oh, right, that's ok. Good job nobody's ever been prosecuted under the DMCA, eh? We really dodged a bullet there. Oh, and IIRC here in the EU we currently have the EUCD (European Union Copyright Directive) going through (might even have gone through, now) - it's basically our version of the DMCA. But that's ok, because merely behaving illegally never stopped anyone[5], especially high-profile, known-instigator, cash-poor public volunteer projects like PearPC, right? They'll be fine...
Footnotes:
[1] Microsoft (and associated minor players like Apple), covering 90%+ of the home/office desktop market.
[2] Intel/AMD, and anyone who wants to be compatible with them. So... every hardware manufacturer, pretty much.
[3] If they want anything they produce to work on the next-gen Trusted Computing PCs.
[4] The MPAA and RIAA, who between them produce the overwhelming majority of our popular culture.
[5] Ok, Microsoft aside. For strict accuracy that sarky aside should have been "Merely behaving illegally never stopped anyone who can't afford to purchase pet congressmen, fund presidential election campaigns or simply throw money at the case until the plaintiff runs out of money", but that would rather have spoiled the flow.;-)
"If they are able to screw things up in an un-easily recoverable way, then yes, it is your fault, sorry."
That's a very good example of a black-and-white, dogmatic, utterly unrealistic point of view.
"If management doesn't allow you to do your job, reevaluate your position, or prepare for a very unhappy career."
Unfortunately it's also completely irrelevent to to the point at hand.
The discussion was "whose fault is it if your users screw up their machines". If the admin can lock down the machines (especially selectively, so it won't impact on the users' work), but isn't permitted to by their ill-educated boss, how is it the admins fault when things go wrong?
Deliberately disobeying your boss's instructions is retarded - it'll simply get you disciplined or fired. The only professional thing to do is to make your case, attempt to educate your boss as to the implications of his decision (no matter how much he attempts to avoid education), then abide by his decision, no matter how retarded it is. You should subsequently always draw the line for him between ignoring your recommendation and Bad Things happening, but there's nothing you can do ahead of time.
In the example we're discussing the admin has notified the boss of a problem and made recommendations. The boss has (through ignorance, bloody-mindedness or stupidity) decided to ignore those recommendations. Then a user screws up his PC because those recommendations weren't implemented. This makes it (in this instance) very, very plainly the boss's fault.
Whether you should grit your teeth and stick it out or leave is utterly irrelevant. Yes, you might get blamed for it, but that doesn't mean you should.
In this situation, dogmatically blaming the sysadmin in defiance of all the facts is simply irrational.
Oh, and here's a tip - you won't ever teach them they're wrong by leaving - they'll either just keep on finding people like you who'll stick around for a few months then leave (who they'll blame for not being able to hack it at the company), or they'll find a doormat who's happy to absorb all the blame and get ulcers. Either way, the problem isn't solved, so changing jobs has no effect on the point in hand.
However, thanks for your predictable dogmatic "if the user can do it it's the admin's fault" slashbot answer. True, this is often the case with poor sysadmins. However, your two-dimensional reading of the situation totally ignores bloody-minded or ill-educated managers, company policies, poor executive cost/benefit analyses that indicate (wrongly) it would be a waste of time, boardroom politics, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
"As it happens, the admins at my company are pretty good. The boxes are locked down nice and tight, but there's a procedure in place for people (like me) who need more access to tinker. But I'm not the kind of person who deletes their windows directory...."
Bully for you - I'm very, very happy for you. But your sysadmins aren't just good - they're both good and allowed to be good. Your sysadmins are good, and their bosses (all the way up the chain) are at least selectively competent. All it takes is one fuckwit half-way up the chain and your sysadmins (yes, even the good ones) are the scapegoats for half the company.
I don't know if you've ever thought this through, but you are told what to do by your boss. If he tells you to stand on your head you can explain the downsides and suggest alternatives all day long, but ultimately if he dismisses the lot and you're still not standing on your head you're either leaving or getting fired.
And no, leaving isn't going to stop him telling the next poor guy to stand on his head, too.
You're right, in that in this situation you should leave and find work in a less stressful, more professional, more satisfying company, but the siatuation doesn't become your fault simply for sticking it out.
WEll, I suppose he's classically an EE, granted, but he's done everything from chip design to technical writing to the department budget to website design over the years, so I just tend to think of him as doing "general IT" these days.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC, NASA already does this as a matter of course for any astronauts going into space.
I might be mis-remembering, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading it somewhere last time the manned-Mars-trip meme came round.
Basically, yeah - we have several miles of comparatively dense atmosphere (or the entire bulk of the earth) protecting us from cosmic rays. Future Mars astronauts will pretty much have a few layers of tinfoil.
Still, it is possible to design ships which will shield passengers from the worst of the rays, but these tend to be prohibitively heavy (= prohibitive amounts of fuel) because of all the additional shielding.
The best alternative I've seen yet were plans to build a ship where all the water and other supplies were stored around the outsides of the ship, and the actual crew living compartment was a small space right in the middle - this uses water and fuel (the bulkiest of the supplies) as additional shielding, but it still carries a much elevated risk of irradiation and/or cancer than staying put on earth.
"What you have here is the typical end result of university."
Funny thing. University courses were always non-vocational. That means they aren't supposed to train you for specific jobs, but instead teach you to use your brain, teach yourself things and solve your own problems.
A university degree wasn't a certificate to say "Bob Jones is this good at C", but one which said "Bob Jones is this clever, and could therefore learn anything he put his mind to to this degree".
Ever notice how (historically) vocational courses were for the "simpler" trades like metal-working, carpentry and so on? That's why - the less-intelligent were apprenticed in one skill, while the clever/gifted/rich were trained to be polymaths.
This idea has been slightly buggered in recent years by the introduction of many "more vocational" university degrees, but the original intention of them was very different.
Oh, and you do still get the "hacker types from the 60s" - I happen to know two or three. The only difference is that computing's a more mature field now - all the low-hanging fruit's been picked, and because it's more mainstream they don't stand out as much.
If you don't get them any more, what would you call Sean Fanning (practically single-handedly popularised P2P), Linus Torvalds (for his social engineering of the Linux community, even if not for the actual programming of Linux), etc?
TBH, even then the reward is the prize, and not the programming.
There are two types of programmers in the world - hackers and code-grinders.
Hackers live for interesting problems, matching their wits and expertise against the hardest and most intracable problems they can find, and smash through complexities that would make anyone else's your brain bleed with a gleeful laugh. No reward you can offer them is better than a selection of interesting challenges, adequate pay and freedom from drudgery.
Code-grinders code because they have to, not because they like it - it's a job, nothing more. Nothing you can do will make them love it, or they'd be hackers, not code-grinders. You can try to improve morale with rewards, incentives and fun games, but you'll only be teaching them to work hard for extra rewards, not to love what they're doing or to do their best work.
On the upside, code-grinders don't do their jobs for fun or stimulation, so you can give them the shittiest, most boring problems and make them work under the most unnecessary, arbitrary restrictions, just as long as you also keep giving them the paycheques with the other hand. After all, that's the only reason they're there.
If you're lucky, you've got a room full of hackers, and your productivity will be enormous as long as you don't do something stupid like giving them drudge-work, putting a non-hacker manager in charge of them or needlessly forcing them to follow a non-optimal solution.
If you're unlucky (as it sounds) you've got a room full of code-grinders. You'll never motivate them to enjoy their jobs, only to tolerate them better.
Against this background I'd advise you not to bother tring to awaken their interest in programming - if they ever had one it would have sparked the second they first tried coding, and if it didn't, it ain't there.
Instead, focus on perks, pay and working conditions, to make their job more tolerable.
Ok, so I'm generalising a bit here, but I've found it broadly to be true - either you live to code, or code to live, and people don't really change that much.
Or, alternatively, it might just be the link that convinces the business world once and for all that OSS is commercially viable.
With a successful IBM (closed-source company moves towards open-source) at one end and a hopefully successful Mozilla Corp. at the other, it shows open-source to be commercially viable whether you open your existing products or develop them that way from scratch.
And, of course, as a 100% open-source corporation it does just that little bit more to bury the "open source as pinko commie anticapitalist economic trojan" meme...
"I do not have any data about the shutdown of these sites save for that which was in the article. I do think it's within the realm of plausibility that it was organized, if not executed, by the British government (or any number of others), but I'm not actually accusing them of doing it."
;-)
Fair point - it was the first thing that occurred to me too (especially with the recent London bombings). OTOH, there are two questions - was it the British (as opposed to, say, the Pakistani) government, and was the site in question actively promoting violent terrorism?
By my calculations I should only start worrying if the British government took the site down[1], and the takedown was unjustified. In the absence of any other information either way I make that only a 25% chance (1 option from 4) that it's something worrying, so I found myself disagreeing with many posters who seemed to take the least-likely answer[2] as read.
"To that, I would also add "should they be shut down at all?" Such information is trivially easy to find for anybody with access to a University library (read: nearly anybody) and a high-school understanding of chemistry and map-reading. I, myself, know how to make a few different explosives:"
That's true, and I'd have serious problems with a site being shut down just for telling someone how to make bombs - as you point out it's just information, and widely-available information at that.
However, a site which (for example) actively promotes, encourages, recruits for and takes donations for terrorism or specific terrorist acts or groups is a slightly harder question to tackle. Obviously I believe passionately in freedom of speech, but IMO this is where it starts overlapping with the "shouting 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre" counter-example.
You're right - it's a thorny issue, which I think is why people tend to polarise into "Information must always be free" and "Free speech as long as you're only parotting government policy" camps.
Unfortunately (as I said before), without more information we have no way of knowing which side of the debate this incident strengthens, and which it weakens... in isolation[3], but in the absence of hard information either way I'm happy to take this incident in isolation
[3] Like people who try to assuage fear of flying by telling you you're more likely to be killed in a car accident than a plane crash. It's true, but not when you're already sat on the plane.
Exactly. This came out after he'd pretty well impressed upon us his anti-current-DRM-policies stance, and was he was asking questions about exactly what was possible.
As an aside, the other (geek) friend of mine raised an issue I'd never even considered before, and didn't know the answer to:
If DRMed files dial home to establish the "right" to play them, is there any DRM system that allows (or explicitely doesn't allow) the content-provider to actually subsequently modify the file before you view it?
For example, (marginally allowable) if a news report was peercast, then later information came in that indicated it was incorrect, could the content-producer "push" an updated version as a condition of the licence being granted, or would he just have to blanket-deny all licences for version 1, and only permit licence verification for version 2?
Or even (unacceptable) would such a system allow content-producers to literally rewrite history? Imagine George Lucas being able to not only stop the distribution of "old" versions of Star Wars, but actually being able to reach inside your collection and "improve" the one you've already bought?
Like I said, it seems a relatively trivial extension of existing DRM capabilities I already know about - is it already feasible, or are we safe (so far)?
Oh, I'm sorry, I just checked your posting history - I didn't realise I was responding to a troll.
Y3a? Fuxx0rZ j00, cunT\/\/1T! I t3ll t3h 7ru7H! Jo0 suxx0rZ teh c0Ck, 5hith3aD!!!!111!!!!1!!1!1!111!
Better?
Oh yes? Based on what?
/.
I may dislike DRM, but frankly I'd rather present it as neutrally as I can and see what other think (hey, I could be the one being unreasonable here) than scare them with horror stories and end up with both of us agreeing, and both being completely wrong/selfish/unjustified.
I value the correctness of my opinions over what I actually believe, and if someone's prepared to argue differently I'll either spot a flaw in their argument which proves me right, or change my mind in the end and agree with them.
Although I forgive you your skepticism, because I'm told this is a freakishly unusual mindset on
Actually, that's pretty much how I explained it - "Digital music allows the unrestricted copying of files, and gives people the ability to perfectly duplicate songs pretty much without degradation."
He wanted to know what the difference is between that and copying/sharing your own CDs (which also theoretically allow for "perfect" copying), and I couldn't really give a good answer, apart from unimportant aspects like the speed at which you can do it and the (minimal) media cost of a physical CD.
In fact, there's nothing different that I could see between P2P MP3 swapping, and large-scale copy-and-pass-the-CD-on schemes organised through a website. Oh, the music costs pence instead of being totally free, but it's unrestricted and still preferable to paying through the nose for it.
"The MPAA/RIAA are worried that people will copy films and songs rather than pay for them, and the only way around it that they see is to prevent the unrestricted copying of un-DRMed media."
He immediately wanted to know why they couldn't distribute music using a DRM scheme that allowed exactly your existing "Fair Use" rights (he didn't know the term, but that was what he was groping for).
I explained that you could then (for example) burn a DRMed track onto CD, rip it again and distribute it DRM-free, but he didn't accept that as enough reason to take control "of his PC, that he'd bought", away from him.
Basically (summarising), he was happy in principle with DRM that protected the *AA and also enshrined his existing fair use rights.
Given that these aren't perfectly compatible, he wasn't prepared to compromise on his rights just so that the *AA could protect their profits.
His view was that it was their problem, and their issue to solve - they had no right to further restrict his life and his equipment because (paraphrasing again) their business model was obsolete.
Smart guy.
"Al Quada was successful because they were able to get sphisticated weaponlry and intelligence from the US. Who will back them now? Maybe china? maybe north korea? Maybe Iran? maybe somebody from south america? maybe even the russians? I am afraid too many countries hate us and would like to see us suffer. It could be anybody."
Even worse, who says it has to be anybody?
In the 80s intelligence and high tech weapons were expensive, and hard to obtain.
These days you can buy high-tech weapons practically off the shelf, hi-res satellite information is commercially available (hell, even for free) and you can sometimes even pick up an acquired nuke or two in the former USSR for a couple of million.
If the worst came to the worst I could almost see al Quaeda surviving on private donations (eg, through a website) and occasional large-scale robberies.
This thread has gone on far too long, and some of your arguments are starting to resemble arguing backwards-from-conclusion-justifications rather than concluding-from-evidence-theories. Nevertheless, let me address a few key points in your above post:
"we didn't go into something like Saudi Arabia because, first of all, as you say, they're our official allies."
Yes. And so (before Gulf War I) was Saddam - we even (overtly!) supplied and aided him in the Iran-Iraq war. As other posters have repeatedly pointed out he was the essential counterbalance holding back Islamic fundamentalism in the entire Gulf region.
This is why we didn't continue in and depose him at the end of Gulf War I - it was recognised that to do so would be counter-productive, since his example of a modern, secular arab state was the single example of a viable alternative to the theocratic, fundmentalist extremist governments that had developed elsewhere.
"It has been repeated thousands of times that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi and that bin Laden is Saudi in all manner of print and television news media, and the administration has never said anything different. It tried to tie Iraq to Al Qaeda for a while, but NEVER said that Iraq was responsible for or involved in any major way in 9/11."
Ok, how about some quotes from Bush?
"The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
"The regime . . . has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda."
"He has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations."
Even better, how about a whole fucking website full of them? Seriously - Dave, please reply to this point. I want to see what your reading of this is, since it's about a black-and-white as one can make it without resorting to Clintonesque hair-splitting of the meaning of "ally".
"As to Iraq's secular nature, as I said, that's exactly why it was picked opposed to others: it would have the least chance of a radical Islamic uprising from within. Indeed, that has proven to be true. What we didn't bargain for is a major Islamic uprising from without, with foreign fighters from everyplace but Iraq."
With respect, bullshit. When you're trying to encourage the growth of secular, modern, western-friendly arab states, you don't take out the only viable example of one as your first act. This explains why we put up with Hussain's genocides and internal violence, but not why we ousted him first.
In addition, although Iraq was a secular regime it had (and always has had) a huge muslim majority. Although many of the fighters are coming from outside Iraq it's not "all" by a long shot, and the ones who are fighting get a huge amount of aid from inside the country. Saddam spent half his tenure as ruler fighting internal dissention, especially form the fundamentalist Shi'ite muslims, who actually represent a majority in the country.
"Those reformers DO exist, but their forces are outnumbered by those who fear the US is on a mission to exterminate Islam and expand the Jewish empire (both untrue)."
Not, actually. What you're described in your posts is nothing less than the eradication of islam.
The trouble is by "not eradicating islam" you mean "not making them go to church and still letting them call their god Allah".
By "eradicating islam" they mean "manipulating governments to open their countries to other ("false") religions. Imposing your cultural values and eroding theirs (like, say, removing the laws forcing women to wear birkas). Imposing your laws and economic systems onto their countries, regardless of whether they think it'll actua
... Except, the conclusion of their survey is that IT workers are more valued than they believe, not less. Hence, they're less likely to get fired, and so are less likely to want Skillsoft's courses. I know this is /., but can you at least pretend to have RTFA before posting half-baked incomprehensible conspiracy theories?
"I have news for you: neither UN resolutions, nor WMD were the reasons for going into Iraq... And before you ask if I'm really ok with the administration lying about the reasons, then, consider that we could never present the full foreign policy landscape in an understandable, accurate way, regarding any given situation on the planet, for easy and quick digestion by the American people"
So... you are ok with it?
Wow. Just... wow. You're actually happy that your government illegally entered a war, killing thousands, and lied to you and its citizens about the reasons, because "it might be a bit complicated to explain it to the little people".
Fuck me, but that's... I'm speechless.
And that's an interesting position, but how about this one:
Clear and present dangers to your liberty or way of life (that don't succumb to diplomacy) are obviously excuses to go to war (if we don't, we die or are subjugated). These are simple, valid reasons, and everyone can understand them.
More complex reasons ("we suspect X", or "in the future X could lead to Y") are more difficult cases to make persuasively, because there's an inherent possibility that you might be wrong.
If (as you offer) the real reasons are so obscure and esoteric that normal american citizens couldn't possibly ever understand them... maybe, just maybe they weren't important or definite enough to actually go to war over right now, eh?
"As for the UN resolutions: I have news for you: neither UN resolutions, nor WMD were the reasons for going into Iraq."
Believe it or not, you aren't telling anyone they don't already know - this is exactly what the "liberals" have been alleging all along.
Where we part company is that we can't believe you think this shaky justification is enough to invade foreign regimes, violently depose the ruling structure and put nothing solid in it's place, creating a power vacuum that runs the risk of creating a ruling theocracy more totalitarian and repressive even than Hussain.
We can't believe that anyone thinks that it's ok to support and encourage a despotic dictator, train his troops and sell him mustard gas to gas his own subjects with, then to despose him the moment it's in your interest to and you think you can get away with it, and then to expect to be thanked for it.
We can't believe that anyone is arrogant enough to believe they can predict the future to the extent that they're happy to dismantle entire countries, then try to put them back exactly the way the US wants, and expect everyone to sit around happily waiting for them to finish and trusting they'll do it right.
We can't believe anyone is arrogant enough to believe they have a right to do the above - what (other than selfishness) makes your wants and needs greater or more important than other people's? What moral right do you have to set the regime or agenda for a country? Especially one you're supposed to be "liberating"?
We can't believe that you think the answer to resentment and anti-americanism is to fight, assassinate, bomb and imprison without trial the very people who dislike you. We can't believe you think this will do anything but harden their resolve and bring more converts to their cause.
"the real reasons are a more broad strategy of change in the mideast. It's a multi-faceted approach about exerting our influence, militarily when necessary, to encourage and/or install free or quasi-free governments in the mideast, friendly with the West, in an attempt to kill radicalism over the next few decades rather than let it grow and take hold for the next couple centuries, possibly with devastating consequences."
So, again, what you're saying is that you have an avowed policy of destabilising regimes, even democratic/populist ones, in an attempt to install ones more friendly to the West. You are admitting you're going against the wishes of the majority of the populations of these countries, and installing a non-r
Amen to that. Unfortunately the mass-media provides a feedback loop - if they tell you that no-one cares, you're less likely to talk to other people about it and less likely to attempt to do anything about it.
Now, in an ideal world (with skeptical, investigative media) it also works the other way - small protests can get airtime, encourage others and the movement can snowball into real change.
Unfortunately, with the Bush administration's manipulation of the media, it's now very hard to go against the party line without having access to its high-up members effectively cut off.
Honest, proper journalists should take this penalty and continue transmitting impartial, carefully-researched news, regardless of the fact it's harder without inside information. Unfortunately whole sections of the media have instead caved, and are now reduced to effectively parroting whitehouse dogma to protect their precious (in fact now worthless) "access".
(As an aside, this is why I'm actually in favour of institutions like the BBC - no government oversight, but paid-for with public money. They can be impartial because they don't need to cosy up to the government, and public money means they don't have to chase ratings by spinning every story to conform to their viewers' existing prejudices.)
Of course, this is made hugely easier by the Democratic party basically bending over and grabbing their ankles every time the Republicans imply they're unamerican if they don't. The Republicans are framing the entire debate in their terms, and the Democrats are too wimpy to steal back the initiative.
First off, my apologies - the GP was posted at the end of a long, very irritating day, and could have used a little more thought and a little less ranty preaching before hitting submit.
/.?"
Now, that said:
"When you start sputtering "fundamentalist republican" this and "neocon" that, you make it obvious that you're not up for serious, logical argument."
To be scrupulously fair here, the current administration is unarguably neoconservative in approach and outlook. It also has a very large (or just loud) contingent of fundamentalist/old-testament-influenced christian supporters. Granted, I'm not a US citizen (and don't even live there), but I was under the impression that many sections of the administration had self-identified using these very terms... no?
"I'll ask you the same question I asked another poster: How do you get your DNC talking points delivered? Did your tin-foil hat start buzzing and order you to post on
Funnily enough I'm not even USian - I even had to stop and think what you meant by "DNC" (Democratic National Congress, right?). I get these opinions by having studied history, skeptically reading a lot of news/current affairs from multiple sources, many of which I don't agree with (right-wing blogs, al Jazeera, etc), and trying to predict trends.
For example (not wishing to stir up an argument, but to demonstrate where the opinions I hold come from):
Since Bush got in America has taken a much more isolationist/militaristic bent - withdrawing from the many international environmental initiatives, refusing to ratify (or even withdrawing from) arms limitation treaties, etc, etc.
Since 9/11 America has pushed an extremely expansionist and overtly manipulative foriegn policy (it must be noted that, like some other countries, a covert one has always been in place, but there's no missing it now). This is understandable, especially given the provocation of 9/11, but the fact remains that in the popular consciousness the US has massively overreached what it had a right to do in response. It is also widely perceived that Bush has made a great deal of personal mileage out of the tragedy, and used tenuous links with "terrorism" to justify attacking or invading countries on his shitlist, irrespective of whether they actually significantly aided terrorism (Iraq, for example - dangerous, maybe. Terrorist base? Only after we invaded, killed a bunch of them and fucked the whole place up).
At the same time, the threat of terrorism has allowed the Bush administration to clamp down on Americans' personal freedom more than any other administration in recent memory - even McCarthyism and the "Reds under the bed" hysteria are starting to look tame compared to the provisions in the PATRIOT act and many other Republican-backed bills.
The majority of these provisions (or rather, the most worrying ones) prove on close examination not to actually protect the public much more than they are now, and certainly not enough to warrant such a loss of personal liberty. For example, no terrorists in recent years have been caught as a result of the FBI being able to get library records without a court order. However, several non-terrorists have suffered as a result (no-fly lists, etc).
Other aspects of the laws are now reducing accountability of law enforcement and eroding freedom of speech - witness the "enemy combatants" in Guantanamo held without trial, numerous provisions for secret courts and judgements (and the remainder of the temporary PATRIOT act which is now being (has been?) voted into law, permanently), and the fact that now not only can the FBI grab (for example) ISP logs without a warrant, but operators of the ISP may end up in jail if they even admit such an event has taken place.
The Bush administration also has control (whether direct or merely indirect influence) over a large proportion of the mass-media, and isn't afraid to use it to its advantage, irrespective of ethical o
"I might buy your argument that universities are private organizations if you are specifically refering to private universities. Public universities should not have the same ability to censor speech since they are funded by the public."
Good point - and not one I'd really considered this discussion. Part of this position was coming from the UK, where we have to pay several thousands of pounds a year in tuition fees to attend university now. If the universities were funded exclusively/mostly by public money then yes, I'd demand a right to free speech as a part of the (public) institution.
However, when they're funded by private money I believe they have a right if they want to clamp down or set the rules however they want. It must be emphasised I don't like the idea of the censorship, and would attempt to avoid going to an institution that practicesd it, but when you create your own private club that people are willing to pay to join, you have much more latitude in setting the ground rules.
For example, I see nothing wrong with a university or organisation that arbitrarily prohibits people from wearing the colour green, as long as they know the rule before-hand, and have a totally free and voluntary choice in whether to join said organisation or not.
Basically, if universities are primarily public bodies I expect them to uphold the standards that the public expects. If they're private bodies then they can set pretty much whatever rules they like, as long as people voluntarily join and deliberately accept such restrictions.
In other words, "freedom of speech" includes the freedom to say "If you want to be in my club you must do/not do X".
Rant^H^H^H^HPosting without thinking enough about this particular example (yeah, end of a bad day), you're right - I severely doubt that any of the universities I was thinking of are funded even mostly by private tuition fees, so in this case you're right - they should have no right to practice censorship.
"From reading your post history, I can assume that you have no problem with universities censoring speech particularly since the speech that is censored you do not agree with. The idea of free speech is to protect ALL speech. Especially speech that you do not agree with."
That's a very interesting (and concerning) reading of my past posts - I've always argued vociferously in favour of free speech, even to the extent I was almost expelled from university for standing up for that right. And in this very thread I was arguing that Freenet was vitally important because I see freedom of speech as being under threat in the US.
Just out of interest, what posts in particular did you read that gave you that impression? And did you read the thread they were part of, or just take them out of context?
"Because the United States and China are so similar when it comes to oppressing free speech and jailing political dissidents."
Give it ten more years of a fundamentalist republican-dominated government, and another successful bid by the next Neocon-backed Bush replacement (and hey, Arnie after him, right?), and I think you'll find the trend unmissable.
"It's clearly impossible in the US to criticize the government, or even have imagery of the president with a bullet hole in his head on the tob banner of your web site."
Yeah, you can have your token meaningless protests (but don't think they haven't been noted at some point by the Secret Service or FBI), but the current regime in the US has a far sneakier advantage than that - an institutionally corrupt government process, the facility for well-off special interest groups to effectively purchase their very own laws and control of a broad swathe of the mainstream media have lead to a situation where the large majority of Americans seemingly just don't care any more. There appears to be the perception that it doesn't matter which puppet you vote for - it's still the same bunch of rich white guys with their hand up his ass.
Why go to the trouble of "disappearing" someone and risking making them a martyr when you can just keep Joe Public fat 'n' stupid enough that he won't bother to lever his ass out the couch to go marching even when the (attempted, brief) revolution comes?
"If anyone can give actual provable examples of the US government abridging Constitutionally protected free speech, I'd love to hear it."
Oh FFS. How about Phil Zimmerman's prosecution for exporting "munitions" without a licence? Or the unprecendented-in-the-West restrictions on what scientists in many disciplines are allowed to discuss with their international colleagues?
Granted, these aren't as serious as stringing you up by your toenails for calling the president "stupid", but then the long slide towards totalitarianism very rarely happens all in one go. And what are the extra provisions in the PATRIOT Act (supposed to be short-term and temporary, now voted into permanence) if not a concerted attack on the Constitution?
"If you're looking for trampling of free speech, you needn't look to the government; you need only look no further than our own academic institutions."
Yeah, universities have been known to trample free speech. But you know what?
1. That's got nothing to do with the complaint about the government, and
2. Universities are private organisations. They can do what they like with their students. In return, students can choose to flock to a given institution or can choose to avoid them like the plague. Try avoiding the US government without emigrating. Try comparison shopping for governments.
Executive Sumamry:
The US's slide towards totalitarianism has begun, and it'll take positive action to turn the trend around. Indifference wil lonly accelerate the process.
Claiming that any small group within the US practices totalitarian behaviour is no excuse for the government to do the same, especially when it's like comparing apples and oranges. Totalitarianism's always bad, but "someone else is doing it" is a pathetic excuse.
First off, who says it's definitely the British government? The article passes on one bit of unsubstantiated hearsay, with no references whatsoever, from unspecified "Israeli intelligence agents" (who could well be doing it themselves and looking to avoid consequences). Now I don't mean to come off as one of the tinfoil hat brigade, but that's hardly definite - the article makes the accusation then immediately veers off into discussions of who's being shut down and a philosophical discussion on whether technology helps or harms us more.
In addition if the Israeli intelligence agents knew damn well it was British intelligence, why would they go public confirming the suspicions of the people it was happening to? The British government and the Israelis are supposed to be on the same side in the War on Terror - they're needlessly shooting British intelligence in the foot. Slightly suspicious, to my mind.
Secondly, I'm as rabid a supporter of civil rights (and civil disobedience) as the next guy, but what exactly are you trying to say here?
"Well, without the "killing civilians" bit, I can think of any number of groups who would love to disrupt our society and bring down our current government. Matter of fact, I'm not sure that a few of them don't have the right idea."
Yeah, this is with the "killing civilians" bit, so that's completely irrelevant.
Unless you're also arguing for al-Quaeda's sovereign right to blow up whoever they want you've neatly sidestepped the actual question and reduced a complex, real-world issue into an unrelated black-and-white no-brainer that you happen to be on the "correct" side of. This is a variation of the straw man tactic, and it's intellectually dishonest.
Apologies if it was unintentional, but it's a common tactic (called "framing the debate") used by the Rebublican party and media in the US, and it makes the "framer" look like they've won while leaving the actual debate unresolved.
"Of course, the government would disagree; natural, really, having an interest in self-preservation. What is the threshold for shutdown, and how do we maintain transparency to ensure that the government isn't abusing the power to shut down non-violent (but strongly critical) sites?"
Now this is the actual debate. However, by bringing it up here you seem to be implying that it was unjustified in this case - do you believe so? And why?
Obviously, regarding freedom of information there has to be a line drawn somewhere - instructions on how to make plastic explosives from bleach should not be wrapped around the tablet dispensed to violent paranoid schizophrenics, for example.
Now, given no evidence whatsoever, you seem to be assuming that these websites were shut down by British intelligence, and wrongly at that. Nobody here has any idea what was on the websites, who was running them or exactly why they were shut down.
I'm not saying the sites weren't totally innocent, but isn't it slightly possible that (for example), British intelligence alerted the Pakistani authorities to actual, documented lawbreaking connected with these sites, and the Pakistani authorities then closed the sites themselves?
That seems much more likely to me than rogue British intelligence factions starting black-ops DDoS attacks on suspected (but actually innocent) foreign websites.
Of course, that doesn't mean they were justified, but nobody in the article or on this thread has a single piece of hard evidence that could offer a conclusion either way. And that makes which way they jump very interesting to watch.
Unfortunately, there is - it's the de-facto standard, even now.
Interesting aside - last night my flatmate wandered in while I was talking to another geek friend about the TCA, Windows DRM^H^H^HVista and related matters.
This guy is no techie (christ, he asked me to help him hook his monitor up last week), but he listened in and asked us to explain exactly what Trusted Computing was. We sketched out the very basics - media files dialling home before play, your rights/viewing-licence agreement changing after purchase at the whims of the content producer, other theoretically possible restrictions that DRM allows for, files refusing to play on non-trusted platforms and your PC dynamically downsampling future DVDs if it detects your monitor isn't Trusted.
At the end of the five-minute conversation (again, attempting to inform rather than frighten) the guy was more pissed off than I've ever seen him - practically kicking furniture and swearing he'd never buy a bit of TCA-compliant electronics. Ever.
As I said, while this guy isn't stupid, he's not even remotely technical. And when he appreciated the actual, real-life restrictions Trusted Computing would place on him he was angry.
There is hope for these people, if they can be educated before the fight is over.
"everyone know how those uncrackable chips fared... well every time they tried to do something like this. it failed miserably."
;-)
So, you're saying that because in the past they've tried to do it and it's failed, we should stop worrying they might succeed the next time? If at stake is the freedom of information, the autonomy of our own posessions and the terms of participation in the entirety of future popular culture? Yeah, sounds like something we can safely ignore.
FYI (and IIRC) there's never been anything like the current DRM schemes, let alone one that's already failed. We now have a concerted attack from the combined forces of the operating system monopoly[1], the hardware oligarchy[2], the media player/telecomms companies[3] and the entire popular media industries[4].
If DRM like this becomes widespread before people wake up to it you won't really be able to buy a machine that doesn't have TC build in, and even if you can you'll be forced to use a non-mainstream OS with it. And when you re-learn all your skills and convert to your non-mainstream OS, you still won't be able to play music on it. Or watch movies. Or HDTV. In fact, you'll find it hard to participate in "mainstream" culture at all.
Just because it didn't work last time doens't mean the idea is impossible. It's just like chess - when your king's in check it's easy to get out of it... unless your opponent has set up his other pieces just right, and then it's checkmate, and you're screwed.
FWIW I'm not normally quite this pessimistic, but this laissez-faire "fuck it, and it'll all turn out ok" attitude is just uninformed - read up on it, and you'll see what the stakes are and how serious it can be.
"don't be fooled by their marketing, pearpc will work just fine, albeit maybe illegally in the US (and canada soon). thanks to the DMCA"
Oh, right, that's ok. Good job nobody's ever been prosecuted under the DMCA, eh? We really dodged a bullet there. Oh, and IIRC here in the EU we currently have the EUCD (European Union Copyright Directive) going through (might even have gone through, now) - it's basically our version of the DMCA. But that's ok, because merely behaving illegally never stopped anyone[5], especially high-profile, known-instigator, cash-poor public volunteer projects like PearPC, right? They'll be fine...
Footnotes:
[1] Microsoft (and associated minor players like Apple), covering 90%+ of the home/office desktop market.
[2] Intel/AMD, and anyone who wants to be compatible with them. So... every hardware manufacturer, pretty much.
[3] If they want anything they produce to work on the next-gen Trusted Computing PCs.
[4] The MPAA and RIAA, who between them produce the overwhelming majority of our popular culture.
[5] Ok, Microsoft aside. For strict accuracy that sarky aside should have been "Merely behaving illegally never stopped anyone who can't afford to purchase pet congressmen, fund presidential election campaigns or simply throw money at the case until the plaintiff runs out of money", but that would rather have spoiled the flow.
"If they are able to screw things up in an un-easily recoverable way, then yes, it is your fault, sorry."
That's a very good example of a black-and-white, dogmatic, utterly unrealistic point of view.
"If management doesn't allow you to do your job, reevaluate your position, or prepare for a very unhappy career."
Unfortunately it's also completely irrelevent to to the point at hand.
The discussion was "whose fault is it if your users screw up their machines". If the admin can lock down the machines (especially selectively, so it won't impact on the users' work), but isn't permitted to by their ill-educated boss, how is it the admins fault when things go wrong?
Deliberately disobeying your boss's instructions is retarded - it'll simply get you disciplined or fired. The only professional thing to do is to make your case, attempt to educate your boss as to the implications of his decision (no matter how much he attempts to avoid education), then abide by his decision, no matter how retarded it is. You should subsequently always draw the line for him between ignoring your recommendation and Bad Things happening, but there's nothing you can do ahead of time.
In the example we're discussing the admin has notified the boss of a problem and made recommendations. The boss has (through ignorance, bloody-mindedness or stupidity) decided to ignore those recommendations. Then a user screws up his PC because those recommendations weren't implemented. This makes it (in this instance) very, very plainly the boss's fault.
Whether you should grit your teeth and stick it out or leave is utterly irrelevant. Yes, you might get blamed for it, but that doesn't mean you should.
In this situation, dogmatically blaming the sysadmin in defiance of all the facts is simply irrational.
Oh, and here's a tip - you won't ever teach them they're wrong by leaving - they'll either just keep on finding people like you who'll stick around for a few months then leave (who they'll blame for not being able to hack it at the company), or they'll find a doormat who's happy to absorb all the blame and get ulcers. Either way, the problem isn't solved, so changing jobs has no effect on the point in hand.
However, thanks for your predictable dogmatic "if the user can do it it's the admin's fault" slashbot answer. True, this is often the case with poor sysadmins. However, your two-dimensional reading of the situation totally ignores bloody-minded or ill-educated managers, company policies, poor executive cost/benefit analyses that indicate (wrongly) it would be a waste of time, boardroom politics, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
"As it happens, the admins at my company are pretty good. The boxes are locked down nice and tight, but there's a procedure in place for people (like me) who need more access to tinker. But I'm not the kind of person who deletes their windows directory...."
Bully for you - I'm very, very happy for you. But your sysadmins aren't just good - they're both good and allowed to be good. Your sysadmins are good, and their bosses (all the way up the chain) are at least selectively competent. All it takes is one fuckwit half-way up the chain and your sysadmins (yes, even the good ones) are the scapegoats for half the company.
I don't know if you've ever thought this through, but you are told what to do by your boss. If he tells you to stand on your head you can explain the downsides and suggest alternatives all day long, but ultimately if he dismisses the lot and you're still not standing on your head you're either leaving or getting fired.
And no, leaving isn't going to stop him telling the next poor guy to stand on his head, too.
You're right, in that in this situation you should leave and find work in a less stressful, more professional, more satisfying company, but the siatuation doesn't become your fault simply for sticking it out.
See my earlier point about clueless managers overruling recommendations.
;-)
And thanks for handily proving Point #8, too
WEll, I suppose he's classically an EE, granted, but he's done everything from chip design to technical writing to the department budget to website design over the years, so I just tend to think of him as doing "general IT" these days. ;-)