Not taking any sides here, but here is what he has said about this (and other issues) from his blog
I thought you said it was a hijack yet you only showed a DoS.
Yup, I showed a crash. I didn't feel the need to do the do the entire hijack for two reasons: Apple already confirmed that this vulnerability leads to remote code execution (they said so in the advisory here). Everybody that was running a sniffer during my talk now has a copy of the DoS code. The demo had two parts. I showed the crash happening on a 10.4.6 machine since it didn't have any of the airport patches. I then rebooted into 10.4.8 and the crash no longer happened. I did this to prove that the Airport patches issued on Sept 21st, 2006 fixed the problem I was demoing. The only real change to airport code was the security fixes that were issued.
You just reversed the patches and found what you then showed on stage.
I find this to be a funny argument. If I have the skills to reverse the patches and do a binary difference analysis of them, why couldn't I use those same skills to find the bugs in the first place (they weren't hard to find). This argument also doesn't take into account the fact that I showed that the first crash of the exploit occurred on Jul 15th, 2006, or emails to Apple helping them build a wifi auditing box (A linux machine with madwifi patched with LORCON) and pointed them to a vulnerability that was fixed in their patches (a problem with overly long SSIDs). The picture below is from the day I bought the Macbook, July 15th 2006. This crash occurred because I was fuzzing other devices and the Macbook crashed before I got to run the initial setup.
but then you refuse to even talk about (or show that you really understand) what "Rights" are......that'd be cause for an outrage, kind of like the ongoing debate about Eminent Domain.
Listen, we can slice and dice and categorize rights until we're blue in the face if you'd really like to. However, as long you are OK with the government having the power the throw people in jail without evidence, use "aggressive interogation", and spy on its own citizens but will get all upset if the county siezes the first 14 inches of your property line to expand a road we will NEVER come close to agreeing so whats the point?
The Nov 13th 2001 Presidential Order made it legal to detain non-citizens
Sure it said that. However, like any other power given to a government they immediately abused it and also held US citizen (at least one off the top of my head) until the Supreme Court over-ruled them (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld)
suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism
Again fine in theory, however this again is often blatently abused and the government just calls all kinds of things "terrorism" related.
Habeas Corpus isn't a fundamental right - it's a procedural privilege.
Never said it was a fundamental right. I said it was guarenteed (as the supreme court has held). Anyway the Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in the Suspension Clause, located in Article One, Section 9. It states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.". The English common law this refers to is here. Whatever you want to call it is fine with me. However, since its in the constitution I will consider it pretty "fundamental".
You (or anyone else, for that matter) hasn't even names "many other" rights that we've lost. So what are they?
Sheesh! How many rights do you have to loose exactly before it worries you? Is it 2? Is it 7? Anyway, since you asked for another how about privacy (warrentless wire taps, etc, etc)? BTW, please don't bother lecturing me on exactly what type of right "privacy" is. I'm good, thanks anyway.
So, just so I'm clear, I've lost rights, but I can't wait till I've lost those rights, because then I will have lost those rights.
Sorry but your reading comprehension skills must be very poor. Here is what I said:
You may not realize it but you have also lost this guaranteed right. If you wait until the loss of that right actually personally affects you... well, it'll be too late.
Allow me to try to translate this in simple terms for you. Please don't take this personally, its just an example.
1) Assume we pass a law saying anyone with the/. id of Blappo can never have sex with any other humans. 2)I'm sure you have lots of trouble getting other humans to agree to this anyway, so years could pass without this actually affecting you. 3)Now assume many years from now you manage to get a girl (or guy whatever you prefer) REALLY drunk and finally have a chance to have sex with another human. 4)If you wait until that magical moment (MANY years from now), it will be too late to complain about the law because that is probably your one and only chance right then. By the time you complain and try to get the law removed, the other person certainly would have sobered up.
See? Thats what I'm saying! Even though you've already lost a right, it may not personally effect you right away. If you wait until it would effect you, it will most likely be far too late.
Where to begin? For one we've all lost the right of habeas corpus along with many others. You may not realize it but you have also lost this guarenteed right. If you wait until the loss of that right actually personally effects you... well, it'll be too late. You'll be locked up some where and you won't even be able to complain about it on/.
I simply don't understand people who refuse *any* limitations on rights
I consider giving the government the power to indefinately in prision people without a fair trial and "coerice" confessions or testimony, etc, etc FAR above and beyond *any* limitiations. I certainly cannot think of ANY other rights we should fight for more? Having given up those rights, no other rights really matter.
You can't close your eyes and pretend that bad people don't exist
We are fully aware that people like you (the bad people) are out there trying take away our liberties for the smallest and most false sense of security. Thats why we applaud this. Its a victory against you bad people. Don't worry we know you exist!
Why use DRM-free AAC when storage space is cheap and MP3 has far better compatibility?
That is true today, but you have to wonder how long that will remain if every company with products that provide that compatibility are sudden hit with billion dollar judgements like MS just was for using MP3.
I don't think for most people here its "too expensive" as in they cannot afford it. Its "too expensive" as in there is something just as good or better which costs less. IE if Bill Gates was in the market for a car and found two that were identical but one cost $50,000 while the other cost $70,000, the $70,000 one would be too expensive (far more expense for the same value).
That said, it also CAN be a matter of "too expensive" (as in cannot afford it). Say a poor college student is considering a PS3 and a couple games but he'll have to live next month on nothing but Mac 'n Cheese and Ramon noodles or he can get a X360 and a couple games plus he can have burgers and a few beers for the next month. Now your opinion seems to be such a person shouldn't buy any system, but we all know they will and in that case the PS3 is too expensive (cannot afford it).
Agreed with all that CSS is very useful, but as much as I like the Opera browser it seems this guy is suffering a bit of "if your a carpenter you think every problem can be solved with a hammer" syndrome.
that leaves the entire continent of Japan to Nintendo
My geography must be a bit rusty! When did Japan become a continent? Last I remember, it was one of the smaller countries in the world. Has there been some amazing terra-forming project over there I wasn't aware of?
Completely agree. It just bugs me so much it seems I pulled much the same mistake;-)
Whether a scientist (or anyone else) is motivated by greed, fear, ideology, or peer recognition is irrelevant. His findings are either valid or not.
This part is what bothers me the most. "Real" science will go through peer-review, etc to solidify the findings. The thing that annoys my to no end is how oil companies, tobbaco companies, intelligent design backers, etc, etc, etc for the most part don't bother with any of that. They don't care about the science, they just need to get someone to write something above the level of the medias understanding (generally not that hard) which supports thier view. They then just toss press releases everywhere pointing out their study. Even though "real" science tends to tear these studies apart in no time it doesn't matter. These debunking "studies" have already entered the public's mind and will be quoted as disproving whatever for years even after it has been completely debunked itself.
Its just this complete disreguard for the scientific process to try to make a point beneficial to them which drives me crazy. Just cannot stand this abuse of science. But you are correct. It doesn't matter the motivation. If this funding from oil companies really does find any new evidence or does find true holes in current thinking that that is amazingly great! It just after seeing this type of "science" for a few decades, I've VERY sceptical.
I just really hate the "OMG! Golbal Warming! Everybody Panic!" attitude.
I agree. It is horribly sensationalized by the media, but reguardless of that current scientific research points to it being true and should be deeply studied. One of the best aspects of the latest UN paper in my opinion is it doesn't try to tell us what we need to do or if we should do anything. Science can certainly help in these decisions, but it is society as a whole which will ultimately decide.
As far as what time lines of data should be used in these models, that is always a tricky question. When doing any such models you tend to want to use the largest set of accurate data which correlates to the conditions you want to test for. So you want as much data as possible, but if the data from long ago cannot be guaranteed to be as acurate as more current data, it can actually take away from the value of the output. Also, even if we know its 100% accurate but the conditions at the time were so different at the time it could also take away from the accuracy of the output. I mean, should we also include current data from Jupiter? I agree its a hard question, but I have to trust the professionals in that field to choose the best values. The beauty of science is if they don't others will catch it and offer counter agruements in the peer-review process.
I could go on a lot longer, because this stuff really is interesting, but lunch is over and I have to actually get back to work. Be well, and stock up on shorts both for the heat and the higher sea levels.:)
Agreed and same to you;-) BTW, I'm not freaking out about global warming (at least I don't mean to come across that way);-). I simply think its something that needs study and we need to begin thinking about what if anything needs to be done about it. It just bugs me to no end to see people dump on climate scientists who study this (and many of them have been well before there was any of this craziness) because its some sort of get quick rich scheme they are trying to pull on us. Its just complete nonsense.
They aren't going to risk being ostracized from the community by disagreeing with the MAN-MADE global warming hysteria. Being a scientific skeptic of MAN-MADE global warming effectively excommunicates them.
Sorry, but you seem to have absolutely zero understanding of the scientific community. Sure it can be a bit contentious at times, but this is hardly a new twist or isolated to climate study. ALL OF SCIENCE is about skeptisim of existing "truths" and looking for holes in it, then in finding holes discovering new "truths". Its the scientists which have pointed to man-made global warming which have been ostracized for nearly a century. However, after over a century of study and others trying to poke holes in thier studies, thier findings are holding up and those trying to pole holes in them are finding it harder and harder to do given refinements in thier findings. This is how science works!
Do I think anyone knows exactly the hows, whats, or whens of global warming (or how much of it is man-made)? Of course not! There is very little (if any) fields of science where I would guarentee we have a 100% correct and complete understanding. That CERTAINLY doesn't mean you just ignore it until it becomes 100% or you will be waiting for eternity! The fact is man-made global warming is currently the scientific concensous. May it be proven wrong tomorrow? Sure it might. However, not by people complaining about "These are the same people who predicted that the 2006 hurricane season would be the worst ever". (talk about your "taking advantage of fact that most people can't think of anything that encompasses a time-scale larger than a generation" you couldn't even make it past one year;-).
As opposed to scientiests who depend on grant money that only comes in if they say the exact opposite.
This should be added to the list of well known trolls!
It seems there are those (cannot imagine who they could POSSIBLY be) who want to convince the public that agreeing with or studying global warming is some new get rich quick scheme for scientists;-) The scientific community has been quietly (and largely un-funded) been studying the problem of "global warming" and man's effects on it for over 100 years! The first well know scientist I'm aware of to really bring this forward was Svante Arrhenius. Here is an article he published on the topic in 1896. Far from raking in the money because of his research as you suggest, this Nobel prize winner was widely critisized and had a lot of trouble getting any presigious posts because of his views.
Since him, thousands of other scientists have toiled in obscurity studying this field. Over the MANY years, these largely annonymous scientists have managed to compile and report on their data which points in some troubling directions for our future. Because of this, one would hope more and more money will go toward thier research (sadly today more money still goes toward trying to debunk them by organizations with VERY conflicting agendas).
Yes, there are some bad "scientists" out there which will sell themselves to any religious cult or multi-billon dollar company out there, but these are the VAST minority. You think scientists (especially climate scientists) have choosen that field for the celebrity and wealth that awaits??? Seriously???.
Please! Just please, let this stupid troll arguement die!
I never understood all the ohhhhhs! and ahhhhhs! over the iPhone (or whatever it will be called). If you want to call something vaporware, it would be the iPhone (since it isn't here yet). There are millions of MS based phones already being used around the world which far exceed the functionality of the "iPhone". Lookup HTC or E-Ten Technologies. They have been making pretty amazing phones for years based on Windows. These phones have specs like: quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 3G, integrated GPS, dual cameras (standard one on back for normal pics and videos and another on front for 3G video calls), Bluetooth, Wifi, voice activated operation, nice sized slide out Qwerty keyboard for SMS or document editing etc, touchscreen, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
I guess the US media just isn't aware of these things or if the hype is because Apple's phone will have an "i" in front of it. That said, there are two things i like about the iPhone (or one I like and one that interests me). First, the size of available storage on the iPhone will exceed anything I know of currently available. Always gotta like that, though I'm not sure I'd consider cramming more storage in a device all that inovative. The second thing which interests me is multi-touch. I love the concept of multi-touch and think it will find TONs of great uses. However, I'm a bit skeptical of its use on a cell phone for two reasons. First, I don't consider my hands freakishly large but with the screen size of the iPhone (or any cell phone currently available) I just struggule to see how more than one finger can hardly fit on a screen at the same time much less be used in combination to do anything useful. Second, its a cell phone. Presumably, one hand will be holding the phone so how do you use multi-touch without resorting to some exotic vulcan finger exersices? That said about multi-touch, I'll hold off final judgement until I can get my hands on one to see for myself. I DO think the technology has a TON of promise, just a little skeptical on its use on a cell phone.
Anyway, another intesting tidbit I heard recently. I'd heard HTC (phone I'm talking about above) recently opened thier first US offices right down the road from MS. If a Zune phone is coming, I'd bet just about anything that HTC will be the guys manufacturing them and it will just be a minor variation of the existing HTC line.
Give me the Aristotle, Pasteur or Darwin of Climatology who can present irrefutable proof
Pssst!.... don't tell anyone but none of them ever had irrefutable proof. They simply made observations, thoerized on the cause, found problems with the thoeries, refined those thoeries, etc, etc, etc.
I don't think science is what you seem to think it is.
We went the same route. By default it does the job good enough for a small shop at least and we've been able to extend it to do much more. There are many systems with much more specialized functionality out of the box for help-desk type needs, but for us we were already using SharePoint. If you are already using SharePoint and just need a basic system or don't mind a bit of customization, its a pretty good choice. Mainly because as a small shop we are already all overworked. We do NOT want to add to our work by having to learn yet another system from end-user and admin side. Since we already use SharePoint, our users already know how to use it and our admins already know how to do admin tasks. No extra learning about backup/restore, etc, etc. That was our main selling (OK not selling since its free but you know what I mean) point.
It took 3 hours on the phone with Microsoft but their tech support finally gave me a new license key for my Windows XP OEM.
I guess its possible that this is true, but I find it a bit hard to believe. I have to do this all the time and I don't think its ever taken much over 5-10 minutes. It was probably about 10 minutes the first time, but now that I know the drill its really quick.
Question: Is there any way to word a Net Neutrality bill without loopholes which wouldn't also interfere with legitimate activity?
I'd hope it would be possible, but it would certainly have to be carefully worded. However, and I'm sure this may put me in the minority here, but I don't think any Network Neutrality laws should be passed at this time. Any type of such regulations will add to costs (if nothing else than from an administrative/legal perspective) and of course those costs will be passed on to the consumer. I think Network Neutrality MUST be maintained, but I don't see the need for laws/regulation to enforce it as this time.
History teaches us laws tend to be far from perfect and I'm sure this would be no different. Instead of passing laws/regulations on this, hopefully just the threat of such laws/regulations will keep the telcos in line. Instead of passing a law on this, I think currently I'd rather see some kind of non-binding resolution passed explaining the spirit of Network Neutrality and threatening regulation if the Telcos attempt to interfer with it. My feeling is the Telcos would much rather live with Network Neutrality than face additional regulations, so hopefully this will keep the internet free without having to resort to the burden of regulations. Besides, who do you think will get the loadest voice if/when any such regulations are enacted? The Telcos! I think keeping things the way they are but with the threat of regulation is the best course right now.
That said, if there is to be a network neutrality law here are some important ideas I think should be included to allow legitimate activity while also keeping network neutrality:
1) Any network neutrality laws should only apply to "common carrier" networks (ISPs and the large backbone network providers). My private network at work or home, I can do with what I want. Now there will be some tricky questions here as well. Universities which provide internet access to students, are they ISPs? Should this apply to them? I'd say probably not, but thats open for debate. So there should probably be some carefully spelled out exceptions that these laws will NOT apply to and also have a system in place for organizations which do fall under the law to apply for exemptions (of course there is the danger of this beign abused, but I think it needs to be there to protect unforseen cases).
2) Network Neutrality should NOT be about treating ALL traffic equally. It should be about treating all of the same type of traffic equally. If there is a reason to give UDP traffic priority over TCP traffic, thats fine but all UDP traffic gets that priority not just certain people who pay more. If there is a reason to give port 80 traffic priority over port 21 traffic, again thats fine but all service providers get the same opportunity to use port 80 traffic not just the ISPs private service, etc, etc, etc. Possibly any such priority decisions like this will need to be approved by some type of standards body so each ISP/carrier doesn't just use different priorities to segment the network.
3) Exceptions about treating all traffic equally may be made for SPAM/virus/security reasons. If there is traffic coming from a botnet sending tons of spam you can treat that traffic differently. (ie black lists, etc are still permissable). However, any ISP or common carrier found to be abusing that exemption to the detrement of thier competitors will face stiff fines.
I'm sure I'm missing tons of other key ideas, but these are ones that first come to my head which will keep things flexible, but hopefully still get the hoped for result.
I believe they are talking about Sony dropping the price. Retailers will always adjust the price based on market demand, in this case I guess they couldn't sell any PS3's the the cost to them from Sony hasn't dropped. That's what TFA seems to be about.
Should have added that overall, I do agree with your post. Just because this bill seemed pretty good at trying the line between lobbiest and true bloggers and therefore I think a pretty good bill, it certainly wouldn't be a shock to see some quitely inserted langauge on a future bill (military appropraitions now seems the most popular spot) to completely twist this into a horrible bill. So the question is do you not pass a good law for fear in the future it will be twisted into a bad law? This is a very hard question indeed. Instinctively, my (and probably most) reactions is no, you cannot ignore good laws out of fear for what they may become or you could never pass any law. However, given history you certainly have to think twice and be a bit skeptical. So I don't know if there really is a correct answer to that.
A blogger is not a lobbyist, unless you define lobbying as trying to influence the public's opinion -- in which case I'm lobbying right now.
Trying to influence the public's opinion is now a huge part of lobbying. Because there have been finance reforms (not nearly enough but certainly better than before), you can pretty easily track who is contributing what to each politicion (there are ways to try to obfuscate this but its now getting pretty hard if you REALLY want to find out). So lets consider this example:
Congress is considering an outright ban on all smoking. All the tobaco companies will certainly give out a ton of money to politicans they think they can buy, however because this can be tracked fairly well now the politicans also need some cover or pretense to take thier side besides just all the money. So besides just lobbying (paying off) congress, they also need to try to raise a controversy over this and try to gain some popular support for thier position to give thier politicans an excuse for thier votes.
So the tobaco companies pool together to create the "Think of the Children, Freedom Liberty for America, Stop the Terrorists Institute". This "indepandent" organization will then fund a bunch of garbage studies to support thier position, produce and air a bunch of commercials, and pay a bunch of bloggers to take up thier side in an attempt to make enough noise to make is sound like thier is a popular upraising against this idea so thier politicans can vote for them and say its because they listened to the people.
The blogging part of this is a little new (but is certainly now well known), but the rest has been going on as part of "standard procedure" for decades. As far as your worry that "in which case I'm lobbying right now", the big question is someone paying you to say these things? Lobbying is more about being paid for trying to influence people then who you are trying to influence. If you think lobbying is simply about trying to convience congress, then everyone who has ever written to or called thier congressmen would be a lobbiest and would need to register as such. We can argue over strict definitions, but in reality lobbying today is about being paid to represent someone elses views or just being paid to try to influence people.
Now you need to be very careful in this as does having a blog and using Google advertising to make a bit of revenue make you a lobbiest? Thats where the fine line must be drawn and needs to be very carefully considered not to include TRUE grass-roots efforts and blogging. However, from what I've seen of this bill it seems like thier did a pretty good job.
Slashdot Mirror
Not taking any sides here, but here is what he has said about this (and other issues) from his blog
I thought you said it was a hijack yet you only showed a DoS.
Yup, I showed a crash. I didn't feel the need to do the do the entire hijack for two reasons: Apple already confirmed that this vulnerability leads to remote code execution (they said so in the advisory here). Everybody that was running a sniffer during my talk now has a copy of the DoS code. The demo had two parts. I showed the crash happening on a 10.4.6 machine since it didn't have any of the airport patches. I then rebooted into 10.4.8 and the crash no longer happened. I did this to prove that the Airport patches issued on Sept 21st, 2006 fixed the problem I was demoing. The only real change to airport code was the security fixes that were issued.
You just reversed the patches and found what you then showed on stage.
I find this to be a funny argument. If I have the skills to reverse the patches and do a binary difference analysis of them, why couldn't I use those same skills to find the bugs in the first place (they weren't hard to find). This argument also doesn't take into account the fact that I showed that the first crash of the exploit occurred on Jul 15th, 2006, or emails to Apple helping them build a wifi auditing box (A linux machine with madwifi patched with LORCON) and pointed them to a vulnerability that was fixed in their patches (a problem with overly long SSIDs). The picture below is from the day I bought the Macbook, July 15th 2006. This crash occurred because I was fuzzing other devices and the Macbook crashed before I got to run the initial setup.
but then you refuse to even talk about (or show that you really understand) what "Rights" are......that'd be cause for an outrage, kind of like the ongoing debate about Eminent Domain.
Listen, we can slice and dice and categorize rights until we're blue in the face if you'd really like to. However, as long you are OK with the government having the power the throw people in jail without evidence, use "aggressive interogation", and spy on its own citizens but will get all upset if the county siezes the first 14 inches of your property line to expand a road we will NEVER come close to agreeing so whats the point?
The Nov 13th 2001 Presidential Order made it legal to detain non-citizens
Sure it said that. However, like any other power given to a government they immediately abused it and also held US citizen (at least one off the top of my head) until the Supreme Court over-ruled them (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld)
suspected of connection to terrorists or terrorism
Again fine in theory, however this again is often blatently abused and the government just calls all kinds of things "terrorism" related.
Habeas Corpus isn't a fundamental right - it's a procedural privilege.
Never said it was a fundamental right. I said it was guarenteed (as the supreme court has held). Anyway the Constitution specifically included the English common law procedure in the Suspension Clause, located in Article One, Section 9. It states: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.". The English common law this refers to is here. Whatever you want to call it is fine with me. However, since its in the constitution I will consider it pretty "fundamental".
You (or anyone else, for that matter) hasn't even names "many other" rights that we've lost. So what are they?
Sheesh! How many rights do you have to loose exactly before it worries you? Is it 2? Is it 7? Anyway, since you asked for another how about privacy (warrentless wire taps, etc, etc)? BTW, please don't bother lecturing me on exactly what type of right "privacy" is. I'm good, thanks anyway.
So, just so I'm clear, I've lost rights, but I can't wait till I've lost those rights, because then I will have lost those rights.
... well, it'll be too late.
/. id of Blappo can never have sex with any other humans.
Sorry but your reading comprehension skills must be very poor. Here is what I said:
You may not realize it but you have also lost this guaranteed right. If you wait until the loss of that right actually personally affects you
Allow me to try to translate this in simple terms for you. Please don't take this personally, its just an example.
1) Assume we pass a law saying anyone with the
2)I'm sure you have lots of trouble getting other humans to agree to this anyway, so years could pass without this actually affecting you.
3)Now assume many years from now you manage to get a girl (or guy whatever you prefer) REALLY drunk and finally have a chance to have sex with another human.
4)If you wait until that magical moment (MANY years from now), it will be too late to complain about the law because that is probably your one and only chance right then. By the time you complain and try to get the law removed, the other person certainly would have sobered up.
See? Thats what I'm saying! Even though you've already lost a right, it may not personally effect you right away. If you wait until it would effect you, it will most likely be far too late.
Where to begin? For one we've all lost the right of habeas corpus along with many others. You may not realize it but you have also lost this guarenteed right. If you wait until the loss of that right actually personally effects you ... well, it'll be too late. You'll be locked up some where and you won't even be able to complain about it on /.
I agree with everything you are saying... however
I simply don't understand people who refuse *any* limitations on rights
I consider giving the government the power to indefinately in prision people without a fair trial and "coerice" confessions or testimony, etc, etc FAR above and beyond *any* limitiations. I certainly cannot think of ANY other rights we should fight for more? Having given up those rights, no other rights really matter.
You can't close your eyes and pretend that bad people don't exist
We are fully aware that people like you (the bad people) are out there trying take away our liberties for the smallest and most false sense of security. Thats why we applaud this. Its a victory against you bad people. Don't worry we know you exist!
Why use DRM-free AAC when storage space is cheap and MP3 has far better compatibility?
That is true today, but you have to wonder how long that will remain if every company with products that provide that compatibility are sudden hit with billion dollar judgements like MS just was for using MP3.
I don't think for most people here its "too expensive" as in they cannot afford it. Its "too expensive" as in there is something just as good or better which costs less. IE if Bill Gates was in the market for a car and found two that were identical but one cost $50,000 while the other cost $70,000, the $70,000 one would be too expensive (far more expense for the same value).
That said, it also CAN be a matter of "too expensive" (as in cannot afford it). Say a poor college student is considering a PS3 and a couple games but he'll have to live next month on nothing but Mac 'n Cheese and Ramon noodles or he can get a X360 and a couple games plus he can have burgers and a few beers for the next month. Now your opinion seems to be such a person shouldn't buy any system, but we all know they will and in that case the PS3 is too expensive (cannot afford it).
Agreed with all that CSS is very useful, but as much as I like the Opera browser it seems this guy is suffering a bit of "if your a carpenter you think every problem can be solved with a hammer" syndrome.
that leaves the entire continent of Japan to Nintendo
My geography must be a bit rusty! When did Japan become a continent? Last I remember, it was one of the smaller countries in the world. Has there been some amazing terra-forming project over there I wasn't aware of?
I challenge you to find an ACTUAL in game screenshot on the net.
Here are a few tens of thousands for ya (jack-ass AC troll).
Completely agree. It just bugs me so much it seems I pulled much the same mistake ;-)
Whether a scientist (or anyone else) is motivated by greed, fear, ideology, or peer recognition is irrelevant. His findings are either valid or not.
This part is what bothers me the most. "Real" science will go through peer-review, etc to solidify the findings. The thing that annoys my to no end is how oil companies, tobbaco companies, intelligent design backers, etc, etc, etc for the most part don't bother with any of that. They don't care about the science, they just need to get someone to write something above the level of the medias understanding (generally not that hard) which supports thier view. They then just toss press releases everywhere pointing out their study. Even though "real" science tends to tear these studies apart in no time it doesn't matter. These debunking "studies" have already entered the public's mind and will be quoted as disproving whatever for years even after it has been completely debunked itself.
Its just this complete disreguard for the scientific process to try to make a point beneficial to them which drives me crazy. Just cannot stand this abuse of science. But you are correct. It doesn't matter the motivation. If this funding from oil companies really does find any new evidence or does find true holes in current thinking that that is amazingly great! It just after seeing this type of "science" for a few decades, I've VERY sceptical.
I just really hate the "OMG! Golbal Warming! Everybody Panic!" attitude.
:)
;-) BTW, I'm not freaking out about global warming (at least I don't mean to come across that way) ;-). I simply think its something that needs study and we need to begin thinking about what if anything needs to be done about it. It just bugs me to no end to see people dump on climate scientists who study this (and many of them have been well before there was any of this craziness) because its some sort of get quick rich scheme they are trying to pull on us. Its just complete nonsense.
I agree. It is horribly sensationalized by the media, but reguardless of that current scientific research points to it being true and should be deeply studied. One of the best aspects of the latest UN paper in my opinion is it doesn't try to tell us what we need to do or if we should do anything. Science can certainly help in these decisions, but it is society as a whole which will ultimately decide.
As far as what time lines of data should be used in these models, that is always a tricky question. When doing any such models you tend to want to use the largest set of accurate data which correlates to the conditions you want to test for. So you want as much data as possible, but if the data from long ago cannot be guaranteed to be as acurate as more current data, it can actually take away from the value of the output. Also, even if we know its 100% accurate but the conditions at the time were so different at the time it could also take away from the accuracy of the output. I mean, should we also include current data from Jupiter? I agree its a hard question, but I have to trust the professionals in that field to choose the best values. The beauty of science is if they don't others will catch it and offer counter agruements in the peer-review process.
I could go on a lot longer, because this stuff really is interesting, but lunch is over and I have to actually get back to work. Be well, and stock up on shorts both for the heat and the higher sea levels.
Agreed and same to you
They aren't going to risk being ostracized from the community by disagreeing with the MAN-MADE global warming hysteria. Being a scientific skeptic of MAN-MADE global warming effectively excommunicates them.
;-).
Sorry, but you seem to have absolutely zero understanding of the scientific community. Sure it can be a bit contentious at times, but this is hardly a new twist or isolated to climate study. ALL OF SCIENCE is about skeptisim of existing "truths" and looking for holes in it, then in finding holes discovering new "truths". Its the scientists which have pointed to man-made global warming which have been ostracized for nearly a century. However, after over a century of study and others trying to poke holes in thier studies, thier findings are holding up and those trying to pole holes in them are finding it harder and harder to do given refinements in thier findings. This is how science works!
Do I think anyone knows exactly the hows, whats, or whens of global warming (or how much of it is man-made)? Of course not! There is very little (if any) fields of science where I would guarentee we have a 100% correct and complete understanding. That CERTAINLY doesn't mean you just ignore it until it becomes 100% or you will be waiting for eternity! The fact is man-made global warming is currently the scientific concensous. May it be proven wrong tomorrow? Sure it might. However, not by people complaining about "These are the same people who predicted that the 2006 hurricane season would be the worst ever". (talk about your "taking advantage of fact that most people can't think of anything that encompasses a time-scale larger than a generation" you couldn't even make it past one year
As opposed to scientiests who depend on grant money that only comes in if they say the exact opposite.
;-) The scientific community has been quietly (and largely un-funded) been studying the problem of "global warming" and man's effects on it for over 100 years! The first well know scientist I'm aware of to really bring this forward was Svante Arrhenius. Here is an article he published on the topic in 1896. Far from raking in the money because of his research as you suggest, this Nobel prize winner was widely critisized and had a lot of trouble getting any presigious posts because of his views.
This should be added to the list of well known trolls!
It seems there are those (cannot imagine who they could POSSIBLY be) who want to convince the public that agreeing with or studying global warming is some new get rich quick scheme for scientists
Since him, thousands of other scientists have toiled in obscurity studying this field. Over the MANY years, these largely annonymous scientists have managed to compile and report on their data which points in some troubling directions for our future. Because of this, one would hope more and more money will go toward thier research (sadly today more money still goes toward trying to debunk them by organizations with VERY conflicting agendas).
Yes, there are some bad "scientists" out there which will sell themselves to any religious cult or multi-billon dollar company out there, but these are the VAST minority. You think scientists (especially climate scientists) have choosen that field for the celebrity and wealth that awaits??? Seriously???.
Please! Just please, let this stupid troll arguement die!
I never understood all the ohhhhhs! and ahhhhhs! over the iPhone (or whatever it will be called). If you want to call something vaporware, it would be the iPhone (since it isn't here yet). There are millions of MS based phones already being used around the world which far exceed the functionality of the "iPhone". Lookup HTC or E-Ten Technologies. They have been making pretty amazing phones for years based on Windows. These phones have specs like: quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE, 3G, integrated GPS, dual cameras (standard one on back for normal pics and videos and another on front for 3G video calls), Bluetooth, Wifi, voice activated operation, nice sized slide out Qwerty keyboard for SMS or document editing etc, touchscreen, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
I guess the US media just isn't aware of these things or if the hype is because Apple's phone will have an "i" in front of it. That said, there are two things i like about the iPhone (or one I like and one that interests me). First, the size of available storage on the iPhone will exceed anything I know of currently available. Always gotta like that, though I'm not sure I'd consider cramming more storage in a device all that inovative. The second thing which interests me is multi-touch. I love the concept of multi-touch and think it will find TONs of great uses. However, I'm a bit skeptical of its use on a cell phone for two reasons. First, I don't consider my hands freakishly large but with the screen size of the iPhone (or any cell phone currently available) I just struggule to see how more than one finger can hardly fit on a screen at the same time much less be used in combination to do anything useful. Second, its a cell phone. Presumably, one hand will be holding the phone so how do you use multi-touch without resorting to some exotic vulcan finger exersices? That said about multi-touch, I'll hold off final judgement until I can get my hands on one to see for myself. I DO think the technology has a TON of promise, just a little skeptical on its use on a cell phone.
Anyway, another intesting tidbit I heard recently. I'd heard HTC (phone I'm talking about above) recently opened thier first US offices right down the road from MS. If a Zune phone is coming, I'd bet just about anything that HTC will be the guys manufacturing them and it will just be a minor variation of the existing HTC line.
Give me the Aristotle, Pasteur or Darwin of Climatology who can present irrefutable proof
Pssst!.... don't tell anyone but none of them ever had irrefutable proof. They simply made observations, thoerized on the cause, found problems with the thoeries, refined those thoeries, etc, etc, etc.
I don't think science is what you seem to think it is.
We went the same route. By default it does the job good enough for a small shop at least and we've been able to extend it to do much more. There are many systems with much more specialized functionality out of the box for help-desk type needs, but for us we were already using SharePoint. If you are already using SharePoint and just need a basic system or don't mind a bit of customization, its a pretty good choice. Mainly because as a small shop we are already all overworked. We do NOT want to add to our work by having to learn yet another system from end-user and admin side. Since we already use SharePoint, our users already know how to use it and our admins already know how to do admin tasks. No extra learning about backup/restore, etc, etc. That was our main selling (OK not selling since its free but you know what I mean) point.
It took 3 hours on the phone with Microsoft but their tech support finally gave me a new license key for my Windows XP OEM.
I guess its possible that this is true, but I find it a bit hard to believe. I have to do this all the time and I don't think its ever taken much over 5-10 minutes. It was probably about 10 minutes the first time, but now that I know the drill its really quick.
Question: Is there any way to word a Net Neutrality bill without loopholes which wouldn't also interfere with legitimate activity?
I'd hope it would be possible, but it would certainly have to be carefully worded. However, and I'm sure this may put me in the minority here, but I don't think any Network Neutrality laws should be passed at this time. Any type of such regulations will add to costs (if nothing else than from an administrative/legal perspective) and of course those costs will be passed on to the consumer. I think Network Neutrality MUST be maintained, but I don't see the need for laws/regulation to enforce it as this time.
History teaches us laws tend to be far from perfect and I'm sure this would be no different. Instead of passing laws/regulations on this, hopefully just the threat of such laws/regulations will keep the telcos in line. Instead of passing a law on this, I think currently I'd rather see some kind of non-binding resolution passed explaining the spirit of Network Neutrality and threatening regulation if the Telcos attempt to interfer with it. My feeling is the Telcos would much rather live with Network Neutrality than face additional regulations, so hopefully this will keep the internet free without having to resort to the burden of regulations. Besides, who do you think will get the loadest voice if/when any such regulations are enacted? The Telcos! I think keeping things the way they are but with the threat of regulation is the best course right now.
That said, if there is to be a network neutrality law here are some important ideas I think should be included to allow legitimate activity while also keeping network neutrality:
1) Any network neutrality laws should only apply to "common carrier" networks (ISPs and the large backbone network providers). My private network at work or home, I can do with what I want. Now there will be some tricky questions here as well. Universities which provide internet access to students, are they ISPs? Should this apply to them? I'd say probably not, but thats open for debate. So there should probably be some carefully spelled out exceptions that these laws will NOT apply to and also have a system in place for organizations which do fall under the law to apply for exemptions (of course there is the danger of this beign abused, but I think it needs to be there to protect unforseen cases).
2) Network Neutrality should NOT be about treating ALL traffic equally. It should be about treating all of the same type of traffic equally. If there is a reason to give UDP traffic priority over TCP traffic, thats fine but all UDP traffic gets that priority not just certain people who pay more. If there is a reason to give port 80 traffic priority over port 21 traffic, again thats fine but all service providers get the same opportunity to use port 80 traffic not just the ISPs private service, etc, etc, etc. Possibly any such priority decisions like this will need to be approved by some type of standards body so each ISP/carrier doesn't just use different priorities to segment the network.
3) Exceptions about treating all traffic equally may be made for SPAM/virus/security reasons. If there is traffic coming from a botnet sending tons of spam you can treat that traffic differently. (ie black lists, etc are still permissable). However, any ISP or common carrier found to be abusing that exemption to the detrement of thier competitors will face stiff fines.
I'm sure I'm missing tons of other key ideas, but these are ones that first come to my head which will keep things flexible, but hopefully still get the hoped for result.
Doesn't collecting data make you evil?
I believe they are talking about Sony dropping the price. Retailers will always adjust the price based on market demand, in this case I guess they couldn't sell any PS3's the the cost to them from Sony hasn't dropped. That's what TFA seems to be about.
Should have added that overall, I do agree with your post. Just because this bill seemed pretty good at trying the line between lobbiest and true bloggers and therefore I think a pretty good bill, it certainly wouldn't be a shock to see some quitely inserted langauge on a future bill (military appropraitions now seems the most popular spot) to completely twist this into a horrible bill. So the question is do you not pass a good law for fear in the future it will be twisted into a bad law? This is a very hard question indeed. Instinctively, my (and probably most) reactions is no, you cannot ignore good laws out of fear for what they may become or you could never pass any law. However, given history you certainly have to think twice and be a bit skeptical. So I don't know if there really is a correct answer to that.
A blogger is not a lobbyist, unless you define lobbying as trying to influence the public's opinion -- in which case I'm lobbying right now.
Trying to influence the public's opinion is now a huge part of lobbying. Because there have been finance reforms (not nearly enough but certainly better than before), you can pretty easily track who is contributing what to each politicion (there are ways to try to obfuscate this but its now getting pretty hard if you REALLY want to find out). So lets consider this example:
Congress is considering an outright ban on all smoking. All the tobaco companies will certainly give out a ton of money to politicans they think they can buy, however because this can be tracked fairly well now the politicans also need some cover or pretense to take thier side besides just all the money. So besides just lobbying (paying off) congress, they also need to try to raise a controversy over this and try to gain some popular support for thier position to give thier politicans an excuse for thier votes.
So the tobaco companies pool together to create the "Think of the Children, Freedom Liberty for America, Stop the Terrorists Institute". This "indepandent" organization will then fund a bunch of garbage studies to support thier position, produce and air a bunch of commercials, and pay a bunch of bloggers to take up thier side in an attempt to make enough noise to make is sound like thier is a popular upraising against this idea so thier politicans can vote for them and say its because they listened to the people.
The blogging part of this is a little new (but is certainly now well known), but the rest has been going on as part of "standard procedure" for decades. As far as your worry that "in which case I'm lobbying right now", the big question is someone paying you to say these things? Lobbying is more about being paid for trying to influence people then who you are trying to influence. If you think lobbying is simply about trying to convience congress, then everyone who has ever written to or called thier congressmen would be a lobbiest and would need to register as such. We can argue over strict definitions, but in reality lobbying today is about being paid to represent someone elses views or just being paid to try to influence people.
Now you need to be very careful in this as does having a blog and using Google advertising to make a bit of revenue make you a lobbiest? Thats where the fine line must be drawn and needs to be very carefully considered not to include TRUE grass-roots efforts and blogging. However, from what I've seen of this bill it seems like thier did a pretty good job.