I agree with most of what you said, particularly the part you didn't say explicitly, which is that even grad students are smart enough to avoid breaking the law.
There's a difference between pointing out security flaws, even giving detailed instructions, and providing a mechanism for breaking the law. Although one could argue that that shouldn't be illegal, I think the DMCA's provisions against circumventing a security mechanism probably apply. It all depends on what his software actually does, and how well his lawyer can explain that.
On another point, the reason our airports were so lax before 9/11 is that we would not have put up with post-9/11 security back then.
Actually, I just realized that I've not been on an airplane since 1999, and I don't know first hand how things are different.
I know cryptography is important. But it's like saying the lock is more important than the house, or keyed ignition more important than internal combustion.
There have been three developments in apiculture in the last 30 years or so that have driven down the availability of honey, thus driving up the price.
First, DDT got banned. Ever hear the Joni Mitchell song that goes, "Hey farmer farmer, take away the DDT now. Give me spots on apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please." Unfortunately, the opposite happened: without DDT, honeybee competitors thrived, and stronger pesticides that actually did harm the bee were introduced.
The next problem was the spread of African or "killer" bees, which came to us via South America. These bees are basically the same as the European ones we've historically had, except for one trait: if they perceive hive attack, they don't stop attacking once the immediate threat is past, but follow the attacker until it is taught a lesson. They're somewhat more agressive in other ways, too, but it's been some years since I dealt with that.
Lastly, and possibly related to DDT removal, is a tracheal mite, Acarapis woodi, that kills off entire colonies. I don't think they've found any bees with defenses against the mites, nor against varroa jacobsoni, another deadly mite.
These threats have basically wiped out the cottage beekeeping industry. It got to be expensive, and no fun.
But if genetic alterations can be engineered to make the "attack until dead" gene recessive, the mite problem would be tolerable, even for hobbyists. The mites can be warded off -- that's a solvable problem, but having the hive attack you isn't. It's unlikely that genetics or DDT could do much to counter the mites directly, but you never know.
I hope we don't find life on Mars, and that it never existed. Why? Because there will be one less argument (however frail) against terraforming the place.
This whole "rigged voting" meme is tiresome, so tell me:
How are they keeping it a secret? Surely more than one person knows how they're rigging the elections. None of those people ever get disenchanted, greedy, or feel guilty? Just think of the wealth, fame, and status the whistleblower on that scandal would get.
Have you ever hear of Occam's Razor? It's a very useful tool.
Exit polls are not a good means of tracking election outcomes, for a number of easily understood reasons:
They suffer from bad sampling, because the voters can opt out, and only those willing to participate do so
The pollers themselves have a bias, which may be expressed in any number of ways they may not be able to control
Exit polls influence turnout in unpredictable ways
There are time-of-day differences among voting blocs
Exit polls by their nature lack the stringent controls that the voting booths have
But the main reason exit polls are useless at best is that in an uncorrupt system they are unneeded, while in a corrupt system they will be ignored. As there is no way to tell the two apart, and no logical room between them, exit polls fail to be anything but a waste of time.
He's not a bully. He's just an ordinary Joe, put in a position he probably shouldn't be in. But he is in that position, and by and large I think he's done a good job.
HAHAHA. you do understand that only right wing evangelical neoconservatives think that "liberty" means the same thing as "bombed into the stone age with no sustainable government/security/industry or future (except a civil war) or merger into a some mega theocratic union with our friends in Iran".
Fallacies, how shall we count thee? First, it's outright derision with the laughter bit. Then, you seque directly into ad hominem, followed by a redefinition of terms. You follow that quickly with hyperbole (the "stone age" is a little much). Then, I have to admit something: you lost me. So it might be that I'm misunderstanding your point. Gosh, it's almost like you're claiming to know the future... oh, that's it! The fallacy of future absurdity: "If X occurs, the world will end, so we'd better not let X occur".
But this just slays me: The mission is already "Accomplished". The mission to create instability in the middle east in an attempt to slow down Europe from becoming the dominant superpower on earth.
Europe is doing a fine job of falling down on the way to superpower status all by itself. The mission in Iraq was not and is not to destabilize. The forces who oppose us (Al Qaeda and friends) have that as their goal. We want stability, because stability breeds prosperity and because we just like stability. So not only are the two premises of your absurd statement false, your logic is invalid because, get this: there is no link between stability in the Middle East and European superpower status. Or at least, you failed to show one.
But let me give you an alternate way of looking at things that may help explain the CBS Evening News for you. There are two kinds of world leaders: foreign policy "realists" and "idealists". A realist sees foreign policy as a morality-free arena, and his goal is to manipulate the world to achieve some personal or national goal -- but he doesn't care about what he can't control. Since there is no right and wrong, and we and other nations are basically the same, there's no sense trying to spread our ideology. An idealist, on the other hand, has certain goals: supporting human rights, fighting communism, etc. Hugo Chavez is an idealist. Jacques Chirac is a realist. Got it? Like most things, it's a spectrum, and I don't intend to pigeonhole anybody.
Bill Clinton was a realist. Carter and Reagan were idealists when they came into office, and Reagan stayed that way. Jimmy Carter came into office as an idealist, as I said, but he quickly discovered realism. George W. Bush came into office as a realist (though he did make some noise about religious persecution, it didn't even rise to the level of sabre-rattling). 9/11 changed him into an foreign policy idealist. He believes (at least, I believe he believes) that there is a clear Good versus Evil epic being written, and wants to be the hero of it.
So if you're going to hate W, at least get his flaw right. He's not playing Risk to keep Europe at bay or rule the world. He's trying to turn the Huns back at the Volga.
I have a lot to keep track of, what with my checkbook, blogs, email, vehicle oil changes and tire rotation, bills, and keeping various client networks running.
So I'd appreciate it if someone could keep track of this whole gravity situation, and just give me a summary. Let me know if we're all about to go floating off into LEO, but otherwise, keep the announcements to a minimum.
The spammers actively try to subvert the more popular filters. That gives a lesser-known one a decided advantage, one which will go away as it becomes more popular.
As with most choices like this, factors such as ease of use, speed, and resource efficiency can overshadow selectivity. No system is perfect, so it's perfectly reasonable to go with a system that's pretty good if you already are using it, rather than switching to the latest cool thing.
I have found that using two dissimilar systems in a chain is quite effective.
Another is that Senator Arlen Specter (R-YesItIsAllAboutMe) is, in fact, posturing. He's thumping his proverbial chest, posing for the cameras, currying favor with GWB's opponents because of Bush's low approval numbers.
Another is that Specter knows there is nothing hinky going on with the NSA stuff, that it's all within the President's Constitutional authority, and wants to have that shown in a public forum -- a forum which, by pure coincidence, would feature Senator Specter prominently.
Why "almost"? Higher crude prices mean that with the same or even lower margins, profit will be higher. I don't think there's a controversy about that. I also don't think there's anything wrong with it. Capitalism works, and if oil prices get too high, people will figure out ways not to use oil.
Their risk is pretty high at this point, too. I will go out on a limb and predict that very soon now an oil tanker will explode within sight of a port in the U.S. or U.K.
I wasn't trying to tromp. It looked like he had a problem expressing what he wanted to say, so I offered that it would help, when putting together the kind of sentence he was attempting, to think of "to + verb" as one word.
Sorry for sounding like a know-it-all, which I evidently did thoroughly.
Like I always say, the only way to prevent people from doing something is to make them to not want to do it.
There are two ways to say this, depending on a subtlety of your intended meaning. If you mean to describe them as actively against a thing, you would say "to make them want not to do it".
If you mean merely not to be for a thing, you would say "to make them not want to do it".
In any case, avoid splitting the infinitive ("to" + verb). Think of the infinitive form as a single word, and it's a lot easier to figure out what to say.
Not so. Frijoles, known to be destined for gringo intestines, were not soaked overnight.
That was funny, but not so insightful.
Soaking beans does make them easier to digest, but improper soaking is not the sole reason they increase intestinal gas. Almost any food you don't eat on a regular basis can cause gas. Has to do with enzyme buildup.
Gringos who don't eat beans very much are going to suffer. Unless, like me, you go in for that. Sometimes I eat a cucumber, and then make a nice bean soup. Throw in some navy beans, kidney beans, red beans, black beans, pintos, great northerns, and a healthy dose of the dreaded garbanzo. Top it off with a tart green apple, just a little unripe. Really packs a wallop.
The key is to mix in a bunch of foods you don't normally eat. Why, if I were to eat a few sprigs of asparagus and some broccoli, foods which I normally can't stand for their smell when cooked, the output would do Old Faithful proud.
I'm not gonna go in to how the bi-partisan system fails here (nothing is black and white, dammit!), but at least a line is being drawn.
Perhaps you fail to see the contradiction in declaring that an unqualified "nothing" is absolute?
Politics is about making decisions. The two-party system makes those decisions the same way that multipary systems do: the sides argue, compromise, and work out a deal. The difference is that voters get to decide the governing coalition, by voting it into power directly, rather than having to wait to see who their party chooses to build a governing coalition. The system is more stable, but more closed and less interesting from the outside.
The downside is that making promises that seem idealistic and impossible just to drum up support will usually come around and bite you in the ass... hence our president's 36% approval rating.
There's no historical support for that statement. Politicians make grand promises they can't keep all the time, and no one calls them on it afterwards. The only time political promises come back to bite someone is when they renege on them. Bush41's "No new taxes!" pledge came back on him when he broke it, for instance. Pelosi would get hammered if she were to get in office and suddenly say, "No, sorry, we need more bombs and stuff."
On the other hand, the President's approval rating has more to do with the media/Democrat coalition hounding him about stuff that's not his fault. Katrina. The ports deal. Every cat in a tree and train derailment is his fault.
There is one sense in which you're right, though. GW has a grand plan to foster democracy in the Middle East. I think he underestimated the time that will take -- and it may be longer than his term. If the Iraqis can come together and ignore the (Iranian generated) hate-mongering, they'll have a chance to build their own government. If they do that, and ask us to leave, we'd have no choice but to do so.
"Hi there, Bob. Can I call you "Bob"? I know we've agreed on $15,000 for the boat, but all of a sudden I've... I've had some personal... I don't want to burden you with the details. My daughter is... anyway, I'm in a fix. I need to either call off the deal, or... tell you what: could you give me just $12,000 for the boat, but send it to me directly, not through E-Bay?"
Or you've fallen for a hoax. "Quiet" and "Programming" are two spelling errors that you've corrected but not noted. Also, "Operator's" has an apostrophe.
To belabor that point just a little bit, my personal observation is that for every hardware-based data loss event I've experienced, there have been 10 user-based events.
Just today I had to recover the Inbox of a user who deleted a message but didn't know who sent it, when it arrived, or what the subject of it was. He also wasn't sure when he deleted it, so I had to do the restore twice.
I keep a lot of data backed up on disk, rsynched once a day. Some data I even back up once an hour. It doesn't cost anything, but it's nice to say "sure, I've got a backup of that." They think I've got powers. I don't, of course, but I learned that back is part-and-parcel of my job.
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I agree with most of what you said, particularly the part you didn't say explicitly, which is that even grad students are smart enough to avoid breaking the law.
There's a difference between pointing out security flaws, even giving detailed instructions, and providing a mechanism for breaking the law. Although one could argue that that shouldn't be illegal, I think the DMCA's provisions against circumventing a security mechanism probably apply. It all depends on what his software actually does, and how well his lawyer can explain that.
On another point, the reason our airports were so lax before 9/11 is that we would not have put up with post-9/11 security back then.
Actually, I just realized that I've not been on an airplane since 1999, and I don't know first hand how things are different.
I know cryptography is important. But it's like saying the lock is more important than the house, or keyed ignition more important than internal combustion.
There have been three developments in apiculture in the last 30 years or so that have driven down the availability of honey, thus driving up the price.
First, DDT got banned. Ever hear the Joni Mitchell song that goes, "Hey farmer farmer, take away the DDT now. Give me spots on apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please." Unfortunately, the opposite happened: without DDT, honeybee competitors thrived, and stronger pesticides that actually did harm the bee were introduced.
The next problem was the spread of African or "killer" bees, which came to us via South America. These bees are basically the same as the European ones we've historically had, except for one trait: if they perceive hive attack, they don't stop attacking once the immediate threat is past, but follow the attacker until it is taught a lesson. They're somewhat more agressive in other ways, too, but it's been some years since I dealt with that.
Lastly, and possibly related to DDT removal, is a tracheal mite, Acarapis woodi, that kills off entire colonies. I don't think they've found any bees with defenses against the mites, nor against varroa jacobsoni, another deadly mite.
These threats have basically wiped out the cottage beekeeping industry. It got to be expensive, and no fun.
But if genetic alterations can be engineered to make the "attack until dead" gene recessive, the mite problem would be tolerable, even for hobbyists. The mites can be warded off -- that's a solvable problem, but having the hive attack you isn't. It's unlikely that genetics or DDT could do much to counter the mites directly, but you never know.
The transistor, Unix, and PERL, probably each had as big an impact as PKC.
Insipid journalists.
They're stacking assumption on assumption.
I hope we don't find life on Mars, and that it never existed. Why? Because there will be one less argument (however frail) against terraforming the place.
In other words, you've got nothing, but will continue to believe it until the negative is disproved.
Thanks for wasting my time.
(By the way, that catch-22 you're so worried about is called variously "probable cause", or in the instant case, "a reason to investigate".)
>>How are they keeping it a secret?
>They're not, we're talking about it.
No, that's not good enough. Which insider says "I have the evidence of vote fraud."
I'll wait for your response (but I'm sure Sudan will freeze over first).
This whole "rigged voting" meme is tiresome, so tell me:
How are they keeping it a secret? Surely more than one person knows how they're rigging the elections. None of those people ever get disenchanted, greedy, or feel guilty? Just think of the wealth, fame, and status the whistleblower on that scandal would get.
One more question: who planned 9/11?
Have you ever hear of Occam's Razor? It's a very useful tool.
Exit polls are not a good means of tracking election outcomes, for a number of easily understood reasons:
- They suffer from bad sampling, because the voters can opt out, and only those willing to participate do so
- The pollers themselves have a bias, which may be expressed in any number of ways they may not be able to control
- Exit polls influence turnout in unpredictable ways
- There are time-of-day differences among voting blocs
- Exit polls by their nature lack the stringent controls that the voting booths have
But the main reason exit polls are useless at best is that in an uncorrupt system they are unneeded, while in a corrupt system they will be ignored. As there is no way to tell the two apart, and no logical room between them, exit polls fail to be anything but a waste of time.Our elections are not rigged.
He's not a bully. He's just an ordinary Joe, put in a position he probably shouldn't be in. But he is in that position, and by and large I think he's done a good job.
So there.
Fallacies, how shall we count thee? First, it's outright derision with the laughter bit. Then, you seque directly into ad hominem, followed by a redefinition of terms. You follow that quickly with hyperbole (the "stone age" is a little much). Then, I have to admit something: you lost me. So it might be that I'm misunderstanding your point. Gosh, it's almost like you're claiming to know the future
But this just slays me:
The mission is already "Accomplished". The mission to create instability in the middle east in an attempt to slow down Europe from becoming the dominant superpower on earth.
Europe is doing a fine job of falling down on the way to superpower status all by itself. The mission in Iraq was not and is not to destabilize. The forces who oppose us (Al Qaeda and friends) have that as their goal. We want stability, because stability breeds prosperity and because we just like stability. So not only are the two premises of your absurd statement false, your logic is invalid because, get this: there is no link between stability in the Middle East and European superpower status. Or at least, you failed to show one.
But let me give you an alternate way of looking at things that may help explain the CBS Evening News for you. There are two kinds of world leaders: foreign policy "realists" and "idealists". A realist sees foreign policy as a morality-free arena, and his goal is to manipulate the world to achieve some personal or national goal -- but he doesn't care about what he can't control. Since there is no right and wrong, and we and other nations are basically the same, there's no sense trying to spread our ideology. An idealist, on the other hand, has certain goals: supporting human rights, fighting communism, etc. Hugo Chavez is an idealist. Jacques Chirac is a realist. Got it? Like most things, it's a spectrum, and I don't intend to pigeonhole anybody.
Bill Clinton was a realist. Carter and Reagan were idealists when they came into office, and Reagan stayed that way. Jimmy Carter came into office as an idealist, as I said, but he quickly discovered realism. George W. Bush came into office as a realist (though he did make some noise about religious persecution, it didn't even rise to the level of sabre-rattling). 9/11 changed him into an foreign policy idealist. He believes (at least, I believe he believes) that there is a clear Good versus Evil epic being written, and wants to be the hero of it.
So if you're going to hate W, at least get his flaw right. He's not playing Risk to keep Europe at bay or rule the world. He's trying to turn the Huns back at the Volga.
I have a lot to keep track of, what with my checkbook, blogs, email, vehicle oil changes and tire rotation, bills, and keeping various client networks running.
So I'd appreciate it if someone could keep track of this whole gravity situation, and just give me a summary. Let me know if we're all about to go floating off into LEO, but otherwise, keep the announcements to a minimum.
The spammers actively try to subvert the more popular filters. That gives a lesser-known one a decided advantage, one which will go away as it becomes more popular.
As with most choices like this, factors such as ease of use, speed, and resource efficiency can overshadow selectivity. No system is perfect, so it's perfectly reasonable to go with a system that's pretty good if you already are using it, rather than switching to the latest cool thing.
I have found that using two dissimilar systems in a chain is quite effective.
Another is that Senator Arlen Specter (R-YesItIsAllAboutMe) is, in fact, posturing. He's thumping his proverbial chest, posing for the cameras, currying favor with GWB's opponents because of Bush's low approval numbers.
Another is that Specter knows there is nothing hinky going on with the NSA stuff, that it's all within the President's Constitutional authority, and wants to have that shown in a public forum -- a forum which, by pure coincidence, would feature Senator Specter prominently.
almost should be ... because fuel prices
Why "almost"? Higher crude prices mean that with the same or even lower margins, profit will be higher. I don't think there's a controversy about that. I also don't think there's anything wrong with it. Capitalism works, and if oil prices get too high, people will figure out ways not to use oil.
Their risk is pretty high at this point, too. I will go out on a limb and predict that very soon now an oil tanker will explode within sight of a port in the U.S. or U.K.
I wasn't trying to tromp. It looked like he had a problem expressing what he wanted to say, so I offered that it would help, when putting together the kind of sentence he was attempting, to think of "to + verb" as one word.
Sorry for sounding like a know-it-all, which I evidently did thoroughly.
But the infinitive thing is still good form.
There are two ways to say this, depending on a subtlety of your intended meaning. If you mean to describe them as actively against a thing, you would say "to make them want not to do it".
If you mean merely not to be for a thing, you would say "to make them not want to do it".
In any case, avoid splitting the infinitive ("to" + verb). Think of the infinitive form as a single word, and it's a lot easier to figure out what to say.
ratify it.
It's a stupid treaty, whose primary beneficiary would be the suits on the carbon exchanges.
That was funny, but not so insightful.
Soaking beans does make them easier to digest, but improper soaking is not the sole reason they increase intestinal gas. Almost any food you don't eat on a regular basis can cause gas. Has to do with enzyme buildup.
Gringos who don't eat beans very much are going to suffer. Unless, like me, you go in for that. Sometimes I eat a cucumber, and then make a nice bean soup. Throw in some navy beans, kidney beans, red beans, black beans, pintos, great northerns, and a healthy dose of the dreaded garbanzo. Top it off with a tart green apple, just a little unripe. Really packs a wallop.
The key is to mix in a bunch of foods you don't normally eat. Why, if I were to eat a few sprigs of asparagus and some broccoli, foods which I normally can't stand for their smell when cooked, the output would do Old Faithful proud.
Perhaps you fail to see the contradiction in declaring that an unqualified "nothing" is absolute?
Politics is about making decisions. The two-party system makes those decisions the same way that multipary systems do: the sides argue, compromise, and work out a deal. The difference is that voters get to decide the governing coalition, by voting it into power directly, rather than having to wait to see who their party chooses to build a governing coalition. The system is more stable, but more closed and less interesting from the outside.
The downside is that making promises that seem idealistic and impossible just to drum up support will usually come around and bite you in the ass... hence our president's 36% approval rating.There's no historical support for that statement. Politicians make grand promises they can't keep all the time, and no one calls them on it afterwards. The only time political promises come back to bite someone is when they renege on them. Bush41's "No new taxes!" pledge came back on him when he broke it, for instance. Pelosi would get hammered if she were to get in office and suddenly say, "No, sorry, we need more bombs and stuff."
On the other hand, the President's approval rating has more to do with the media/Democrat coalition hounding him about stuff that's not his fault. Katrina. The ports deal. Every cat in a tree and train derailment is his fault.
There is one sense in which you're right, though. GW has a grand plan to foster democracy in the Middle East. I think he underestimated the time that will take -- and it may be longer than his term. If the Iraqis can come together and ignore the (Iranian generated) hate-mongering, they'll have a chance to build their own government. If they do that, and ask us to leave, we'd have no choice but to do so.
Particularly if the seller calls you up and says:
... I've had some personal ... I don't want to burden you with the details. My daughter is ... anyway, I'm in a fix. I need to either call off the deal, or ... tell you what: could you give me just $12,000 for the boat, but send it to me directly, not through E-Bay?"
..."
"Hi there, Bob. Can I call you "Bob"? I know we've agreed on $15,000 for the boat, but all of a sudden I've
"We'll just tell 'em we cancelled the deal
You and your $12,000 will be soon parted.
Or you've fallen for a hoax. "Quiet" and "Programming" are two spelling errors that you've corrected but not noted. Also, "Operator's" has an apostrophe.
Poor spell checking is a dead giveaway.
The Internet makes a market out of the smallest segments, and enables producers to enter those markets.
That's not nice. You should be more careful with your tongue, human.
I, for one, welcome our new crunchy tree huggin' creepy robotic hippy overlords.
To belabor that point just a little bit, my personal observation is that for every hardware-based data loss event I've experienced, there have been 10 user-based events.
Just today I had to recover the Inbox of a user who deleted a message but didn't know who sent it, when it arrived, or what the subject of it was. He also wasn't sure when he deleted it, so I had to do the restore twice.
I keep a lot of data backed up on disk, rsynched once a day. Some data I even back up once an hour. It doesn't cost anything, but it's nice to say "sure, I've got a backup of that." They think I've got powers. I don't, of course, but I learned that back is part-and-parcel of my job.