... I'd really rather listen to the EFF, who have a lot more experience in the online privacy business and you know, have fought to actually defend these rights, than Mr Assange who approaches these things with little more than a clutch of advertising materials and offers no plan or counter-action than 'You're screwed!'. Let's hope he doesn't taint this field as well with his brand of divisive self-aggrandising paranoia.
Then again, maybe they are intended to make the US think that, when the real satellites use actually smaller targets, or calibrate using only a sub-portion of the grid?
In addition, mondrian is a good complement to R for some interactive data visualisations.
http://rosuda.org/mondrian/
The OP really needs to make clear what he wants to do, though.
Yeah, the irony with the statement "We have a "leader" bashing the United States 24/7" is that criticising the US is *exactly* what the OP is doing in his own comment. The US needs self-criticism to recognise its flaws and fix them. It's ones saying America is 'fine exactly the way it is', and that it's disloyal to try to point out issues and make changes, that is the real problem. If you are so damn fixated on denigrating and taking down people for having the temerity to complain about the present failing system, that you ignore their message completely, then no wonder the failure of the system is going to continue unarrested.
Well, I'd argue that outsourcing, when done well, can save money. I mean, we hear of the various horror stories, but obviously we don't hear of the corresponding cases where people *don't* get ripped off and instead get what they wanted for cheap. What's the overall state of outsourcing? We just don't know. It's like buying from ebay or whatever - the ebay sellers on the other end are just people. They aren't a monolithic mass. Sometimes you get a good deal, and sometimes you get screwed over. A simplistic 'outsourcing = bad' approach, while appealing, IMHO doesn't capture the full picture.
Regardless, the US probably *can* implement policy to get better deals out of outsourcing. They need to take a more aggressive position with respect to inspections and demanding quality assurances from the suppliers. And also, I feel like the full scale of the problem is rather overstated - as the article says, nobody's died or anything and the costs we are incurring are only in the mere millions. When plenty of US aircraft have fallen out of the skies for mechanical problems - not problems with counterfeit electronics - despite the parts involved being built in the US, there seems to be a lot of noise being made over nothing.
Well, according to the pentagon, no one has actually died from counterfeit parts, nor has any cases of 'catastrophic mission failure' occurred, at least yet. The argument that these parts are dangerous is still so far purely speculative.
Also I note that I'm the only one to mention the significant number of counterfeits from Canada and the UK in all of over 200 comments, so, hmm, that's interesting.
Investigators traced more than 70 per cent of the cases to China.
Nearly 20 per cent led to the United Kingdom and Canada, the lawmakers said.
I will point this line. Only 70% of the counterfeiting cases came from China. 20% of the cases came from the UK and Canada. If the US buys a lot more parts from China than from UK and Canada (which seems reasonable, but I don't know), then the evidence that parts bought from China are particularly more dangerous than parts from anywhere else is actually pretty weak. I'm not sure if the committee even looked at all at the problem of substandard parts built by US companies - given that the committee took evidence mainly from US manufacturers, who would obviously directly benefit from any change in policy, the lack of balance seems a little suspicious. Nor do we know of what proportion of the total procurements these 1800 cases are. It's possibly far cheaper to solve this problem by implementing tightened inspection regimes than the more drastic strategies certain people have advocated.
Also, to the people suggesting the US merely spend more to employ US producers, the flip side of that is that this money has to come from somewhere. If it doesn't come from increased taxation on everyone, then it'd come from other services. And I'd suggest that a billion dollars would do *far* more good saving lives in the healthcare industry than dealing with a problem that has never led to a loss of life or any mission failure so far. The US spends too much on its military already, and the situation is such that it seems like a frontline soldier who volunteers himself into a dangerous environment is far better protected and far more looked after than a civilian back at home, that he is supposedly protecting. Defense policy needs to keep that balance in mind, and accept that sometimes risks in the military are acceptable ones.
"Siri understands "call dad" means call my father, since it learned who that was. It also understands that if I don't say otherwise, I wish to use his mobile number. Is it useful? You betcha. The alternative is slower - take phone out of pocket, turn on screen, swipe to unlock, enter passcode if it's been a few minutes, click home if it's not home already, tap phone icon, tap favorites, tap "Dad - Mobile"."
Then surely the argument isn't that Siri is any good, but rather that the existing interface on the phone sucks? I mean, I note that you don't complain that using the laptop is slow, only that it's slow to take out. (Never mind the security risk of letting you do things without unlocking the phone, since entering the passcode seems to be the majority of your speed annoyances).
Hmmm, now that I think of this, this is possibly a massive alarm bell. People were saying earlier about telling Siri that a particular contact is their girlfriend, and having it remember that. If this means Apple gets to store this and other personal information of every Siri user, and if the security around it isn't strong enough, then this could be a massive privacy threat.
Yeah, this article is a pretty big duh for me. But well, guys, the whole field of statistics is built around finding proper ways to calibrate models. Economic models are maybe always wrong if you do things stupidly like these guys do, but there are alternative ways...
The Type 99 is probably not a match for the M1A2, but my impression is that it's at least equivalent to the T-90 - and why wouldn't it be? The T-90 has been around for a while and sold widely, and the Chinese have had plenty of time to examine it and steal its best ideas. It's also a good 7 tons heavier and you'd think the Chinese were doing something with those tons. Neither tank has much of a combat record, really, with the T-90 only having some anti-infantry activity in the Chechen war.
The Lancet study at least actually used methods that made sense. Unlike Iraq Body Count's 'read a bunch of newspapers and pretend that the reported deaths represent *all* the deaths in all of Iraq.' Apply that methodology to, say the US, and you conclude that maybe a thousand people die each year in the states?
Slashdot Mirror
... I'd really rather listen to the EFF, who have a lot more experience in the online privacy business and you know, have fought to actually defend these rights, than Mr Assange who approaches these things with little more than a clutch of advertising materials and offers no plan or counter-action than 'You're screwed!'. Let's hope he doesn't taint this field as well with his brand of divisive self-aggrandising paranoia.
Then again, maybe they are intended to make the US think that, when the real satellites use actually smaller targets, or calibrate using only a sub-portion of the grid?
In addition, mondrian is a good complement to R for some interactive data visualisations. http://rosuda.org/mondrian/ The OP really needs to make clear what he wants to do, though.
Wasn't Stuxnet connected with the US government in the end? Could there be a governmental connection with Duqu as well?
Yeah, the irony with the statement "We have a "leader" bashing the United States 24/7" is that criticising the US is *exactly* what the OP is doing in his own comment. The US needs self-criticism to recognise its flaws and fix them. It's ones saying America is 'fine exactly the way it is', and that it's disloyal to try to point out issues and make changes, that is the real problem. If you are so damn fixated on denigrating and taking down people for having the temerity to complain about the present failing system, that you ignore their message completely, then no wonder the failure of the system is going to continue unarrested.
According to the webcast of the committee I viewed, counterfeit as defined in their investigation includes both senses.
China isn't the enemy, whatever people on the internet say. They aren't necessarily our friend either, for sure...
Yes, it's rather similar to the software piracy figures.
Regardless, the US probably *can* implement policy to get better deals out of outsourcing. They need to take a more aggressive position with respect to inspections and demanding quality assurances from the suppliers. And also, I feel like the full scale of the problem is rather overstated - as the article says, nobody's died or anything and the costs we are incurring are only in the mere millions. When plenty of US aircraft have fallen out of the skies for mechanical problems - not problems with counterfeit electronics - despite the parts involved being built in the US, there seems to be a lot of noise being made over nothing.
Well, according to the pentagon, no one has actually died from counterfeit parts, nor has any cases of 'catastrophic mission failure' occurred, at least yet. The argument that these parts are dangerous is still so far purely speculative.
Also I note that I'm the only one to mention the significant number of counterfeits from Canada and the UK in all of over 200 comments, so, hmm, that's interesting.
I will point this line. Only 70% of the counterfeiting cases came from China. 20% of the cases came from the UK and Canada. If the US buys a lot more parts from China than from UK and Canada (which seems reasonable, but I don't know), then the evidence that parts bought from China are particularly more dangerous than parts from anywhere else is actually pretty weak. I'm not sure if the committee even looked at all at the problem of substandard parts built by US companies - given that the committee took evidence mainly from US manufacturers, who would obviously directly benefit from any change in policy, the lack of balance seems a little suspicious. Nor do we know of what proportion of the total procurements these 1800 cases are. It's possibly far cheaper to solve this problem by implementing tightened inspection regimes than the more drastic strategies certain people have advocated.
Also, to the people suggesting the US merely spend more to employ US producers, the flip side of that is that this money has to come from somewhere. If it doesn't come from increased taxation on everyone, then it'd come from other services. And I'd suggest that a billion dollars would do *far* more good saving lives in the healthcare industry than dealing with a problem that has never led to a loss of life or any mission failure so far. The US spends too much on its military already, and the situation is such that it seems like a frontline soldier who volunteers himself into a dangerous environment is far better protected and far more looked after than a civilian back at home, that he is supposedly protecting. Defense policy needs to keep that balance in mind, and accept that sometimes risks in the military are acceptable ones.
I think his point is that you get what you pay for, and outsourcing or not, a deal that seems too good to be true is usually too good to be true.
Then surely the argument isn't that Siri is any good, but rather that the existing interface on the phone sucks? I mean, I note that you don't complain that using the laptop is slow, only that it's slow to take out. (Never mind the security risk of letting you do things without unlocking the phone, since entering the passcode seems to be the majority of your speed annoyances).
Hmmm, now that I think of this, this is possibly a massive alarm bell. People were saying earlier about telling Siri that a particular contact is their girlfriend, and having it remember that. If this means Apple gets to store this and other personal information of every Siri user, and if the security around it isn't strong enough, then this could be a massive privacy threat.
Well, this still seems to be the smartphone version of Ask Jeeves, and we all know how that turned out.
Shh, geeks love to get up in arms about things.
And you missed the Esc before the colon.
Yeah, this article is a pretty big duh for me. But well, guys, the whole field of statistics is built around finding proper ways to calibrate models. Economic models are maybe always wrong if you do things stupidly like these guys do, but there are alternative ways...
Maybe they'll bring back DOS next. :)
The Type 99 is probably not a match for the M1A2, but my impression is that it's at least equivalent to the T-90 - and why wouldn't it be? The T-90 has been around for a while and sold widely, and the Chinese have had plenty of time to examine it and steal its best ideas. It's also a good 7 tons heavier and you'd think the Chinese were doing something with those tons. Neither tank has much of a combat record, really, with the T-90 only having some anti-infantry activity in the Chechen war.
I guess my ultimate point is that the original poster's claim - that China-Russia relations are poor, and in particular more poor than Russia-US relations, doesn't really seem supported at all. Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Mission_2005 to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasus_Frontier_2008
The Russians are selling T-90s to plenty of people. The Chinese aren't buying, because they prefer the indigenous Type 99 and Type 96 instead.
Uh, Russia's been doing joint military exercises with China for quite a while. I'd say relations are pretty good.
Would choking on your strawman be sufficient?
The Lancet study at least actually used methods that made sense. Unlike Iraq Body Count's 'read a bunch of newspapers and pretend that the reported deaths represent *all* the deaths in all of Iraq.' Apply that methodology to, say the US, and you conclude that maybe a thousand people die each year in the states?