I don't really give a shit about expletives coming over the airwaves.
Even if you DO care about it, does the Federal government need to be involved? Do we need to pay people at the FCC to monitor the airwaves and protect our delicate ears from bad words?
Furthermore, when our nation is in the midst of 2 wars, the budget deficit and national debt are out of control, we've got 20 million illegal immigrants in the country, Social Security remains a looming crisis, etc. etc. doesn't it seem like out elected officials should have something better to do?
"This year I finished BS in Computer Science and currently applying for Masters . .."
Congratulations, and best of luck in your future pursuits.
"I'm surprised you're not aware of special schools in your state, the ones smart kids goto. Yes you are going to drive your kids there or maybe even pay for them to go to such school but this is your choice or duty as a parent."
"goto":-)
I'm aware of "special" schools and the home schooling option, but my interest in education is broader than the needs of my own family. In addition, we all pay to fund the public education system through our tax dollars, and should have the right to provide input. My only point is that the public education system should not cater to the needs of the least capable students at the EXPENSE OF the most capable. I'm afraid that's exactly what's happening now. Why should the parents of "smart" kids be the ones forced to spend extra time and resources on "special" schools that meet their particular needs? This isn't an immigrant issue, but, for example, why shouldn't the non-English speaking immigrants send THEIR kids to "special" schools until they can get caught up?
I'm just suggesting that we shift our public education focus so that it covers the upper and lower halves of the bell curve more equitably.
"How would making instructional works copyright-free lower their quality?"
I think he/she was definitely talking about future "to be created" work as opposed to existing stuff. Maybe the intent was to suggest that the set of instructional works on a particular topic would be of less quality overall. There would certainly be smaller body of material available. I'd sort of consider that "lower quality", even though the quality of an individual work might be ~ the same.
"The value of a manual (to the company making it) is not in it's royalties. It is usually given away for free, so there are no royalties."
I guess you've never purchased the service/maintenance manual for an automobile. These typically run in the $100-$200 range. There are 3rd party alternatives in similar price ranges, but I *think* they must license the specs from the manufacturer as well.
I see no reason why instructional works should get different treatment.
I think a major part of the problem is that the U.S. public education system has an overwhelming focus on bringing the slow learning underachievers up to par. Far too little is done to accelerate and unleash the potential of the best and brightest. Raise your hand if you were in the public education system and got all 'A' and 'B' grades while rarely or never bringing a book home with you. I susepct that most of the readers here were taking AP or college prep classes as well.
With idiotic programs like "No child left behind" the entire herd has to move at the pace of the slowest member. For example, I know an elementary school teacher that has a small group of students who are children of recent immigrants. They barely speak English, yet the school is supposed to make sure that they don't get "left behind"? Where do you think she needs to focus all of her extra effort? The phrase is emotionally pleasing, but the implementation has serious negative consequences (I HOPE they are unintended, but I'm not sure). I think that kids SHOULD be left behind a lot more frequently than they are.
I'd be in favor of getting the Federal government out of the public education system entirely. We should eliminate the Dept.of Education and distribute the entire department budget as block grants to the states for the next couple of years.
"You actually do not need an SSN to get a bank account . .."
Huh? Have you actually tried to open a bank account since the USA PATRIOT Act went into effect? When, and with what bank?
I really wanted to open up a new account a couple of years ago. I ultimately did it, but I quit during my first two attempts because I thought that the information they were requesting was ridiculously intrusive. I complained to the bank, and was politely informed that due to some "Know Your Customers" clause in the PA, they were required to collect that information. I hesitated for many weeks, but I really wanted the account, and finally gave up everything. I see no reason why they would lie to a person trying to deposit money in their bank.
Based on that experience, I would be surprised if you could go to a bank these days and start an account with a name, address and phone #.
I checked out the Wikipedia articles on keylogging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging and a link to something called "Magic Lantern" which is supposedly an FBI key logging software.
Neither really described much about how the logged info can be stored or accessed in a covert manner. Assuming the system is temporarily disconnected from any networks, how does a software-based keylogger guard against someone typing a particular (long?) string of characters and then searching for those characters or other large files on the hard drive? I was thinking an encryption mechanism, but even that would use up disk space. Couldn't you design a generic test which involved unplugging your system(from a network, not the power) and analyzing the data being generated as you type?
"The fit and finish, polish and performance of Microsoft Office to this point, is unparalleled."
Well, the performance of MS sales and marketing is certainly unparalleled, as is their success in leveraging the Windows monopoloy.
You may laugh, but in my opinion the Lotus office suite would kick the hell out of MS Office in a fair battle. Lotus 1-2-3 is the best spreadsheet App of all time (previously owned by a company with the worst marketing department of all time) and it still rules over Excel. WordPro has all the functionality of Word without all of the annoying bells and whistles that have crept into Word since '97. I'm less qualified to weigh Approach vs. Access due to lack of familiarity with the MS product, but I've had great luck with Approach. PowerPoint crushes "Freelance Graphics", but I think the latter is more than adequate.
Too bad IBM/Lenovo still think they're going to sell "SmartSuite" for a price on the same order of magnitude as MS Office. If they would port this to Linux and bring it down to the Star Office price range, Linux would finally have an office suite that could compete. I don't know why the big Linux supporters at Big Blue haven't done this yet.
"the marines and the army have tiny uavs (backpack size) that they can launch by throwing."
That doesn't seem like it would be very useful. How far can someone throw a backpack sized object, and how do they control the orientation of the cameras? Seems like you'd get a 3 second view of your immediate surroundings followed by a picture of the ground.
"Trust me, the FBI does not want to spy on you if you are not. .."
-speaking out against the government -a peace activist -espousing politically incorrect views
Trust me, when they ignore reports from one of their own agents claiming that a certain few Middle-Eastern men are taking flying lessons but opting out of the "How to Land the Aircraft" class, The Patriot Act isn't about counter-terrorism.
offtopic, but thanks for bringing that up. Another part of history that 99% of folks in the U.S. are completely ignorant about. If you went to secondary school in the U.S. I'll bet that you didn't learn about it in your high school history classes did you? Heaven forbid that FDR's good friends in the USSR had a genocidal campaign of their own.
"It doesn't make your vote any more worthless than a Democrat in Utah, or a Republican in New York (or and Independent or third party voter pretty much anywhere)."
Sure it does. I appreciate your point about being in a non-swing state. However, in the EC system each "state" as an entity actually matters. The Democrats in Utah and Republicans in NY might face a tough battle, but that's better than allowing 2% of the vote in California to cancel out 100% of the vote in Wyoming.
(The only vote that's truly wasted is one that's cast for Republicans or Democrats.)
"Those telephone calls oversees?.. the government has the explicit right to monitor them."
"Those emails overseas and surfing of overseas web pages... the government has the explicit right to monitor them."
Where are you from? In the United States, the government doesn't have any "rights", they have the powers that were explicitly delegated to it by The Constitution. Please provide a link or reference to the laws which grant government the power to monitor the phone calls, e-mails and web surfing activities of U.S. Citizens without a warrant. (statements by FOX News and government officials don't count).
I always ask people who make this ridiculous assertion if they would volunteer to have a device in their vehicle that continuously transmitted their position and speed to a network of police computers. It would be set up so that every time they exceeded the speed limit, the system would automatically mail them a speeding ticket and notify their insurance company.
We could balance a lot of state and local government budgets that way, and it would all be thanks to those wonderful people who are completely willing to give up their privacy. If they're not driving at 66 mph in a 65 mph zone, then they have nothing to hide.
"Privacy is a responsibility... viewing it as a right only puts you at a disadvantage"
When we talk about our "Rights" in terms of those inalienable freedoms that our Constitutional Republic is founded on, we are specifically talking about prohibitions on the GOVERNMENT. Technology does not render our Rights "obsolete". Just because the government "can" spy on us doesn't mean that we have to give them permission to do it.
"Privacy" is my responsibility in the sense that I need to take certain precautions to protect things like my personal financial information, or trade secrets that I don't want to share with competitors. Privacy is my RIGHT, in the sense that I should NOT need to protect myself against unwarranted government snooping.
"You need a key to pretend to be the virtual machine? Give me a soldering iron, and a PS3; I'll be right back."
Wow! Those are some bold statements without a lot of substance to back them up. I'd be very interested to know the details of how you defeated a stronger DRM scheme than this one, and how you would go about doing a hardware hack on a PS3 to emulate a VM. Why don't you put a/. ID behind your boastful post and I'll check back to see if you've published this Blue Ray crack inside the 10 year window? If you're afraid of the DMCA provisions on publishing copyright circumvention techniques, you can just provide some links, or the general details of your brilliant hacks.
" . ..problem with surveillance societies is that all of those laws become enforced"
I don't follow that line of reasoning. I think it would just open up the door to further abuse. One of the MANY problems with universal spying and surveillance is that it makes selective enforcement of laws that much EASIER.
As you said, everyone is guilty of violating some stupid law, and if everything is being recorded, the government can just decide to throw people in jail arbitrarily.
I'll always oppose this Big Brother stuff, but if it actually meant that every single law would be enforced universally (i.e. cops, politicians and the ultra wealthy would be subjected to the same laws as the rest of us), it would have some benefits.
"The problem is that everything you do that you don't want at least one person to know about is a potential way to blackmail you."
That's great. I think I've been trying to formulate a sentence like that for about 6 years now. A concise and non-anecdotal way of suggesting to the "If you're not guilty . .." nitwits that there are things people do which are not illegal, but which they have the desire and the RIGHT to keep private from the government.
Cross NYC off my list of travel destinations as soon as this goes into effect.
"Whenever I see a post related to H1B or outsourcing, I see gazillion comments complaining how [corporations] are looking for cheap labor. Of course they are!"
Indeed. It is naive to blame the corporations for seeking to minimize labor costs. The complaints should rightly be directed toward the Federal government which created and maintains these disastrous immigration policies. The whole idea of a "representative" government is to have laws which serve the best interests of the citizens(those dumb Americans who insist on decent wages and working conditions.) When the government creates laws which are detrimental to the citizens(e.g. immigration laws), don't you think the citizens have a legitimate gripe?
"If you don't have [capital to produce the 1st widget] you probably don't have the money to defend the patent."
"Good patent lawyers always advise that if you can't afford to defend the patent, don't patent it."
What kind of a standard is that? Wouldn't a good patent lawyer give you advice based on the merits and potential value of the idea itself? I would find a reality which conforms to your statement to be absolutely infuriating, as it would basically preclude all but corporations and wealthy individuals from filing for patents. I can only hope that you're totally wrong. How many patent lawyers do you actually know? What's the general consensus among them about how much money you need to set aside for a patent "legal defense fund" these days?
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I don't really give a shit about expletives coming over the airwaves.
Even if you DO care about it, does the Federal government need to be involved? Do we need to pay people at the FCC to monitor the airwaves and protect our delicate ears from bad words?
Furthermore, when our nation is in the midst of 2 wars, the budget deficit and national debt are out of control, we've got 20 million illegal immigrants in the country, Social Security remains a looming crisis, etc. etc. doesn't it seem like out elected officials should have something better to do?
"This year I finished BS in Computer Science and currently applying for Masters . . ."
:-)
Congratulations, and best of luck in your future pursuits.
"I'm surprised you're not aware of special schools in your state, the ones smart kids goto. Yes you are going to drive your kids there or maybe even pay for them to go to such school but this is your choice or duty as a parent."
"goto"
I'm aware of "special" schools and the home schooling option, but my interest in education is broader than the needs of my own family. In addition, we all pay to fund the public education system through our tax dollars, and should have the right to provide input. My only point is that the public education system should not cater to the needs of the least capable students at the EXPENSE OF the most capable. I'm afraid that's exactly what's happening now. Why should the parents of "smart" kids be the ones forced to spend extra time and resources on "special" schools that meet their particular needs? This isn't an immigrant issue, but, for example, why shouldn't the non-English speaking immigrants send THEIR kids to "special" schools until they can get caught up?
I'm just suggesting that we shift our public education focus so that it covers the upper and lower halves of the bell curve more equitably.
"How would making instructional works copyright-free lower their quality?"
I think he/she was definitely talking about future "to be created" work as opposed to existing stuff. Maybe the intent was to suggest that the set of instructional works on a particular topic would be of less quality overall. There would certainly be smaller body of material available. I'd sort of consider that "lower quality", even though the quality of an individual work might be ~ the same.
"The value of a manual (to the company making it) is not in it's royalties. It is usually given away for free, so there are no royalties."
I guess you've never purchased the service/maintenance manual for an automobile. These typically run in the $100-$200 range. There are 3rd party alternatives in similar price ranges, but I *think* they must license the specs from the manufacturer as well.
I see no reason why instructional works should get different treatment.
"No child left behind?"
I think a major part of the problem is that the U.S. public education system has an overwhelming focus on bringing the slow learning underachievers up to par. Far too little is done to accelerate and unleash the potential of the best and brightest. Raise your hand if you were in the public education system and got all 'A' and 'B' grades while rarely or never bringing a book home with you. I susepct that most of the readers here were taking AP or college prep classes as well.
With idiotic programs like "No child left behind" the entire herd has to move at the pace of the slowest member. For example, I know an elementary school teacher that has a small group of students who are children of recent immigrants. They barely speak English, yet the school is supposed to make sure that they don't get "left behind"? Where do you think she needs to focus all of her extra effort? The phrase is emotionally pleasing, but the implementation has serious negative consequences (I HOPE they are unintended, but I'm not sure). I think that kids SHOULD be left behind a lot more frequently than they are.
I'd be in favor of getting the Federal government out of the public education system entirely. We should eliminate the Dept.of Education and distribute the entire department budget as block grants to the states for the next couple of years.
"This isn't Malware 101, ok? I already got enough work to do without additional people creating more of that junk . . ."
/. ?
Does your work involve responding to posts on
If you don't have time and are not interested in the dialogue, then don't bother participating, OK?
"You actually do not need an SSN to get a bank account . . ."
Huh? Have you actually tried to open a bank account since the USA PATRIOT Act went into effect? When, and with what bank?
I really wanted to open up a new account a couple of years ago. I ultimately did it, but I quit during my first two attempts because I thought that the information they were requesting was ridiculously intrusive. I complained to the bank, and was politely informed that due to some "Know Your Customers" clause in the PA, they were required to collect that information. I hesitated for many weeks, but I really wanted the account, and finally gave up everything. I see no reason why they would lie to a person trying to deposit money in their bank.
Based on that experience, I would be surprised if you could go to a bank these days and start an account with a name, address and phone #.
Interesting.
I checked out the Wikipedia articles on keylogging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging
and a link to something called "Magic Lantern" which is supposedly an FBI key logging software.
Neither really described much about how the logged info can be stored or accessed in a covert manner. Assuming the system is temporarily disconnected from any networks, how does a software-based keylogger guard against someone typing a particular (long?) string of characters and then searching for those characters or other large files on the hard drive? I was thinking an encryption mechanism, but even that would use up disk space. Couldn't you design a generic test which involved unplugging your system(from a network, not the power) and analyzing the data being generated as you type?
Just curious.
Jeesh! You could have at least taken the time to encode the message based on the ASCII characters.
"Would you openly publish how to recognize all of the government's spy software?"
."
Seriously, how would you know it's government-issue spyware if you just find it on your machine?
Jokingly,
"FBI Warning: Unauthorized removal of this spyware can result in severe criminal penalties including fines and imprisonment . .
"The fit and finish, polish and performance of Microsoft Office to this point, is unparalleled."
Well, the performance of MS sales and marketing is certainly unparalleled, as is their success in leveraging the Windows monopoloy.
You may laugh, but in my opinion the Lotus office suite would kick the hell out of MS Office in a fair battle. Lotus 1-2-3 is the best spreadsheet App of all time (previously owned by a company with the worst marketing department of all time) and it still rules over Excel. WordPro has all the functionality of Word without all of the annoying bells and whistles that have crept into Word since '97. I'm less qualified to weigh Approach vs. Access due to lack of familiarity with the MS product, but I've had great luck with Approach. PowerPoint crushes "Freelance Graphics", but I think the latter is more than adequate.
Too bad IBM/Lenovo still think they're going to sell "SmartSuite" for a price on the same order of magnitude as MS Office. If they would port this to Linux and bring it down to the Star Office price range, Linux would finally have an office suite that could compete. I don't know why the big Linux supporters at Big Blue haven't done this yet.
"the marines and the army have tiny uavs (backpack size) that they can launch by throwing."
That doesn't seem like it would be very useful. How far can someone throw a backpack sized object, and how do they control the orientation of the cameras? Seems like you'd get a 3 second view of your immediate surroundings followed by a picture of the ground.
STEM?
That's terrible! The government will probably confuse it with STEM cells and cut off funding.
"Trust me, the FBI does not want to spy on you if you are not. . ."
-speaking out against the government
-a peace activist
-espousing politically incorrect views
Trust me, when they ignore reports from one of their own agents claiming that a certain few Middle-Eastern men are taking flying lessons but opting out of the "How to Land the Aircraft" class, The Patriot Act isn't about counter-terrorism.
offtopic, but thanks for bringing that up. Another part of history that 99% of folks in the U.S. are completely ignorant about. If you went to secondary school in the U.S. I'll bet that you didn't learn about it in your high school history classes did you? Heaven forbid that FDR's good friends in the USSR had a genocidal campaign of their own.
"It doesn't make your vote any more worthless than a Democrat in Utah, or a Republican in New York (or and Independent or third party voter pretty much anywhere)."
Sure it does. I appreciate your point about being in a non-swing state. However, in the EC system each "state" as an entity actually matters. The Democrats in Utah and Republicans in NY might face a tough battle, but that's better than allowing 2% of the vote in California to cancel out 100% of the vote in Wyoming.
(The only vote that's truly wasted is one that's cast for Republicans or Democrats.)
"Those telephone calls oversees?.. the government has the explicit right to monitor them."
"Those emails overseas and surfing of overseas web pages... the government has the explicit right to monitor them."
Where are you from? In the United States, the government doesn't have any "rights", they have the powers that were explicitly delegated to it by The Constitution. Please provide a link or reference to the laws which grant government the power to monitor the phone calls, e-mails and web surfing activities of U.S. Citizens without a warrant. (statements by FOX News and government officials don't count).
I always ask people who make this ridiculous assertion if they would volunteer to have a device in their vehicle that continuously transmitted their position and speed to a network of police computers. It would be set up so that every time they exceeded the speed limit, the system would automatically mail them a speeding ticket and notify their insurance company.
We could balance a lot of state and local government budgets that way, and it would all be thanks to those wonderful people who are completely willing to give up their privacy. If they're not driving at 66 mph in a 65 mph zone, then they have nothing to hide.
"Privacy is a responsibility... viewing it as a right only puts you at a disadvantage"
When we talk about our "Rights" in terms of those inalienable freedoms that our Constitutional Republic is founded on, we are specifically talking about prohibitions on the GOVERNMENT. Technology does not render our Rights "obsolete". Just because the government "can" spy on us doesn't mean that we have to give them permission to do it.
"Privacy" is my responsibility in the sense that I need to take certain precautions to protect things like my personal financial information, or trade secrets that I don't want to share with competitors. Privacy is my RIGHT, in the sense that I should NOT need to protect myself against unwarranted government snooping.
"I defeated stronger stuff than this myself. . ."
/. ID behind your boastful post and I'll check back to see if you've published this Blue Ray crack inside the 10 year window? If you're afraid of the DMCA provisions on publishing copyright circumvention techniques, you can just provide some links, or the general details of your brilliant hacks.
"You need a key to pretend to be the virtual machine? Give me a soldering iron, and a PS3; I'll be right back."
Wow! Those are some bold statements without a lot of substance to back them up. I'd be very interested to know the details of how you defeated a stronger DRM scheme than this one, and how you would go about doing a hardware hack on a PS3 to emulate a VM. Why don't you put a
I tend to think you're full of S#!T.
" . . .problem with surveillance societies is that all of those laws become enforced"
I don't follow that line of reasoning. I think it would just open up the door to further abuse. One of the MANY problems with universal spying and surveillance is that it makes selective enforcement of laws that much EASIER.
As you said, everyone is guilty of violating some stupid law, and if everything is being recorded, the government can just decide to throw people in jail arbitrarily.
I'll always oppose this Big Brother stuff, but if it actually meant that every single law would be enforced universally (i.e. cops, politicians and the ultra wealthy would be subjected to the same laws as the rest of us), it would have some benefits.
"The problem is that everything you do that you don't want at least one person to know about is a potential way to blackmail you."
." nitwits that there are things people do which are not illegal, but which they have the desire and the RIGHT to keep private from the government.
That's great. I think I've been trying to formulate a sentence like that for about 6 years now. A concise and non-anecdotal way of suggesting to the "If you're not guilty . .
Cross NYC off my list of travel destinations as soon as this goes into effect.
"What about cellphones, am I going to be arrested if I've got a cell on me . . ."
No, but if it rings during the movie you're going to be shot.
"Where's the "Sad but true" mod when you need it..."
Copyrighted by Metallica.
Naive +1
"Whenever I see a post related to H1B or outsourcing, I see gazillion comments complaining how [corporations] are looking for cheap labor. Of course they are!"
Indeed. It is naive to blame the corporations for seeking to minimize labor costs. The complaints should rightly be directed toward the Federal government which created and maintains these disastrous immigration policies. The whole idea of a "representative" government is to have laws which serve the best interests of the citizens(those dumb Americans who insist on decent wages and working conditions.) When the government creates laws which are detrimental to the citizens(e.g. immigration laws), don't you think the citizens have a legitimate gripe?
"If you don't have [capital to produce the 1st widget] you probably don't have the money to defend the patent ."
"Good patent lawyers always advise that if you can't afford to defend the patent, don't patent it."
What kind of a standard is that? Wouldn't a good patent lawyer give you advice based on the merits and potential value of the idea itself? I would find a reality which conforms to your statement to be absolutely infuriating, as it would basically preclude all but corporations and wealthy individuals from filing for patents. I can only hope that you're totally wrong. How many patent lawyers do you actually know? What's the general consensus among them about how much money you need to set aside for a patent "legal defense fund" these days?