The War on Drugs needs to be extended to hallucinatory drugs like caffeine. Hippies arguing that "coffee" is made from natural ingredients will have to be brought in line. Cocaine too is derived from natural ingredients. Coffee beans (the basis of soon-to-be illegal home-made hallucinogens) will likewise be banned, along with all apparatus to extract the drug from its source materials.
Companies like Starbucks will have to become "clean" on short notice, or face huge fines and see their management become the target of criminal prosecution. Well-monitored sales of "decaf" might be allowed for the time being to allow addicts a period in which to detox themselves.
Theine too (found in tea) must be banned, along with tea leaves, teapots, and tea strainers. The sale of electric kettles may have to be regulated as well. Licenses for the operation of said electric kettles, microwave ovens, and stoves are being considered for those with clean criminal records.
Overseas countries will be put on notice that failure to institute proper control of the above substances, their natural precursors, and apparatus to refine said hallucinatory drugs will be viewed as criminally irresponsible, may result in trade sanctions.
When it comes to War on Drugs there can be no compromise!
Those who read the article will see that the survey hedges in every way possible and that the above list is _not_ a list of companies that people expect to see disappear. It's a list of companies that people discussed, looked up the turnover of and then wrote noncommittal "analysis" next to.
Please Anonymous, if you're going to try and summarize the article for those too lazy to click on a link, at least make sure you get it right. This is rubbish.
From the perspective of efficiency, functionality, and avoidance of unneeded duplication it's a very good idea.
In addition we have seen that it's no use to wait for private industry to come up with a common data-format: they have no motive to spend time or money on a standardization effort, and they won't agree on a standard unless they do. And that's precisely why, despite the ritual groans about The Government being inefficient and whatnot, you need a player like the Federal Government to crack the whip and impose a mandatory standard over any objections that will be raised in order to break the logjam.
So far so good.
What's less beneficial of course is that once such records make it into any sort of network-accessible database, neither the patient nor his doctor has any further say in who accesses and uses those records or where they are sent.
Such records are are going to be (a) leaked (b) abused by everyone from employers (they prefer employees with clean medical records), insurance companies (lets sift out the high-risks), the police (lets see who had detox treatment or who is on anti-depressants), newspapers (lets find out the truth about that pesky senator XYZ), and your friendly neighborhood watch (anyone who ever had psychiatric treatment is now a child-abuse suspect).
First of all the Encyclopedia of Earth article on nuclear energy you refer to was written by mr. Ian Hore-Lacy (see http://www.eoearth.org/contributor/Ian.horelacy), a "Director for Public Communications at the World Nuclear Association". If that sounds like a PR man, that's because he is. Now I have nothing but respect for mr. Hore-Lacy, but his article is a lot less forthcoming about the possible dis-benefits of nuclear power generation, let alone the possible impact of accidents) than it is about technicalities about reactors.
Now I'm (somewhat reluctantly) in favor of large controlled nuclear power plants, but I think one ought to recognize statements like:
The industry is one of the most tightly legislated, and well trained in the world, and it is extremely improbable that the industry will ever have another significant accident.
for what they are: meaningless guesswork, and irrelevant in the discussion to boot.
First off, "extremely improbable" is so vague as to be meaningless. Secondly, it's not the probability of failure that defines "value at risk", it's probability of failure times cost of failure.
This is precisely the reason that it's very easy to life-insure workers in a nuclear power plant: value at risk at most a few hundred thousand $, probability: very small and fairly well known. As a matter of fact insurance premiums are higher in most other occupations (including staying at home). It is also the reason that no insurance company in the world will insure all the possible damage of a nuclear power plant having a catastrophic accident: the probability is tiny, but *if* it happens the insurance company is immediately wiped out.
I respectfully submit that (a) hundreds of micro nuclear reactors operated all around our major cities are going to be less carefully, competently, and rigorously operated than fifty or so big ones *or* reactors in the care of the US Navy, and that (b) the cost of a micro nuclear reactor accident in the outskirts of a city isn't going to be particularly small; especially not if radioactive contamination makes it into our ground water.
Therefore (and for reasons of security) I see hundreds of micro nuclear reactors as a lot more threatening than a few big ones.
I furthermore feel that the whole issue is too important to take the nuclear industry's word for operational safety and security. Instead I think the whole concept, including safety and security, should be subject to a very public scrutiny. And one in which vigorous handwaving, of the type shown in the parent post, does has no place.
Now we can tell anyone who feels their chakra's are being interfered with by GSM antennas that all of their problems will be resolved through the installation of... whatsit... ah yes... Orgone generators! Brilliant. Problem solved.
I agree with the first part of your post: to me R is something to code in when you have to, and to keep the resulting code as short and simple as possible. If I ever had to code a real application with a GUI that needed the statistical strengths of R, I would almost certainly not use R.
On the other hand I'd probably use Java and link to R as a server (see my other post about R and Java) instead of using Python.
A partial answer can be found in the links posted by Anonymous in a first response to your question.
A more complete answer would be: the R system is basically an interpreter which accepts messages and terminal connections, like a server. It has no "native" front-end (except a stark command-line window) per se.
This means that *any* application that can log in to R as a client or send the R interpreter messages and capture the response can use the R interpreter as a slave, and can hence act as a GUI. It doesn't matter if that's a Windows application, a Linux application, or a Java application, or a web-server (R can work as a back-end to a web-server too). The only thing is the amount of work needed to get things working and to actually code up the GUI. There is a package called Rserve (see http://www.rforge.net/Rserve/) that greatly facilitates this for C++ and Java. Below is a quote from the Rforge repository:
Rserve is a TCP/IP server which allows other programs to use facilities of R (see www.r-project.org) from various languages without the need to initialize R or link against R library. Every connection has a separate workspace and working directory. Client-side implementations are available for popular languages such as C/C++ and Java. Rserve supports remote connection, authentication and file transfer. Typical use is to integrate R backend for computation of statstical models, plots etc. in other applications.
The following Java code illustrates the easy integration of Rserve:
Rconnection c = new Rconnection();
double d[]=c.eval("rnorm(10)").asDoubleArray();
d now contains 10 random samples from the N(0,1) distribution if there is a runing Rserve on the local machine. The Rconnection doesn't have to be created more than once in your application.
There is at least one R gui's written in Java (called "JGR" (Java Gui for R); see the post with the JGR link; JGR is FOSS too). In principle this ought to be able to run under Linux, but the last time I tried (a year or so ago) I had nothing but trouble getting it to install. The Windows installer does a nice job of it though: 5 seconds and it's up and running with all its features enabled. I don't know how easy or hard it is to add your own Java routines to JGR and how easy or hard it is to redirect R output to your own Java application under JGR, or put them under the menu structure of JGR. I never tried, but I strongly suspect that it's possible and not hard. As far as I can see, this is not a question of interfacing with R but with JGR (a native Java application), but I never gave it much thought so you'll have to see for yourself. Sorry.
Last but not least, R has excellent interactivity with Emacs, which works as well under Linux as it does under Windows. I personally can't stand Emacs, but lots of people swear by it (I just swear at it).
I'll pitch in because R deserves better than the usual Slashdot cocktail of random ignorance and immature jokes.
The R language (yes, it's a language; an interpreted languages is a language too) has developed as the language of choice by statisticians (both academics and sundry statistical researchers) around the world as their main computer language. It is used in those cases where researchers feel the need for customized computations rather than the use of a package like SAS or SPSS.
The reason that R has become popular is due to a snowball effect and history. It started as a FOSS re-implementation-from-scratch of the "S" language designed for statistical work at Bell labs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language). Some academics and researchers of repute used it (the S language) because at that time (1975) it was very innovative and far better than most alternatives, and others followed. The S language gained a measure of acceptance among statisticians. Then when R became available the cycle intensified because of the much improved availability of the interpretor and its libraries. This cycle continued to the point that by now probably most professional statisticians use it.
As far as I can see, the R language isn't especially sophisticated or elegant, and may strike people used to more modern languages as a bit repugnant. It does however excel in three respects:
(a) it allows for easy access of Fortran and C library routines
(b) it allows you to pass large blobs of data by name
(c) it makes it easy to pass data to and from your own compiled C and Fortran routines
The first reason is particularly important because it allows one to use e.g. pre-compiled linear algebra package like LAPACK, or Fourier Transforms, or special function evaluations and thereby gain execution speeds comparable to C despite being an interpreted language (just like Matlab, Octave, Scilab, Gauss, Ox and suchlike): the hard work is carried out by a compiled library routine which is made easily accessible through the interpreted language. Any algorithm needed in statistics that's available as C or Fortran code can be linked in and called without too much effort.
The second reason is important because it slows down execution much less than any pass-by-value interpreted language would, and it allows you to change data that is passed into a function.
The third reason is particularly important because it helps researchers be more productive. Reading in your data, examining it, graphing it, tracing outliers and cleaning them up is best done in an interactive environment in an interpreted language. Coding such things in C or Fortran is an awful waste of time, and besides, researchers aren't code-monkeys and don't enjoy coding inane for-loops to read, clean, and display data. Vector and matrix primitives are far more powerful, and usually preferable unless they are so inefficient that you have to wait for the result. However, there are times when you just need to carry out standard algorithms (linear algebra, calculation of mathematical or statistical functions) or simply time-consuming repetitive algorithms that run so much faster in a genuine compiled language. You could start out by coding the algorithm in an interpreted language to check if it's working, and then isolate the computationally expensive part and code it up in C or Fortran. Using R (or Matlab or Scilab) you can *call* the compiled subroutine, pass it your (cleaned) data, and get the result back in an environment where you can easily analyze it.
That's why languages like R, Matlab, Scilab, Octave, Gauss, and Ox are so productive: you get the best of both worlds. Both the convenience, interactiveness, and terseness of a high-level interpreted language and the speed of compiled languages.
So why R, and why not Gauss or Matlab or whatever?
Well, part of that is cultural. If you're an econometrician you'll have been weane
In the last 40-50 years the folks on the loading dock have seen a loss of unions, guaranteed pensions, guaranteed employment for life, and virtually nothing in return.
Well... ok.
Trying to explain to people that companies are no longer in a position to offer "employment for life" or pensions falls on deaf ears. People want assurances.
Well... they want them, but they know they can't get them. On the other hand, people have a certain gross labor cost. Part of it goes towards pay, part towards benefits. Part of it could go onto a private (i.e. not company-owned) pension fund (our beloved 401(k) plans). a fund that *every* employer of an employee who has the misfortune of only being offered short-term contracts pays into. All you have to do to guarantee people's pensions is to make that contribution mandatory, mandate a low risk profile, and to set minimum wages that are high enough to ensure a pension after, say, 45 years of work.
Now setting minimum wages at that level (from what I hear from people in the EU that would amount to a minimum gross wage (including tax, health benefits, pension fund contribution, and pay) of about 2000$ per month) might squeeze certain jobs out of the system (I really don't know what a hamburger flipper makes). But then again you can ask yourself why we want to pay people so little. We do, and that's why we have so many million jobs that are filled by illegal immigrants, but that's another story. It isn't as if the economy can't support everyone getting that minimum wage: Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and France do so. They pay for that by (much) lower economic growth rates, but that's their choice.
They will do anything to get them, including voting in whomever promises to get this stuff back for them.
Which is why the Republicans almost won the elections, and why the middle-of-the-road Democrats did win, right? The party that promises to guarantee freedom of organization for employees and legal guarantees against union representatives being fired has been voted in, yes? No??? No political (read voter (!)) support for EU-style minimum wages and social security??? Perhaps your premisse "They will vote for whomever promises to get this back for them" is faulty then. Very very faulty.
Hence, it is difficult to trust anyone - because at least large numbers of them are actively against management and the company.
Does that follow? I don't believe that for an instant. I don't believe that employees are unreasonable. They know that the company is the cork upon which they all float. I know for a fact that even unionized auto workers agreed to take pay cuts. What I *do* think creates resentment is when a company systematically tries to pay them peanuts while showering the CEO with money in "compensation" packages. Perceived unfairness rankles.
Will unions fix the problem? Sure. It will make sure that no company ever gets formed unless it can guarantee lifetime employment to everyone it hires. That is how it is in Europe for the most part and it is where we are headed in the US.
I don't know where you got this gem of wisdom, but all it shows is that you really know d*ck about "how it is in Europe". I know people who live and work there, and I have worked there myself. Their economic system is firmly capitalist, and people can and *are* fired for under-performance, or even when they are surplus to requirements, and lifetime employment is only found in state-owned mail services (like the one in Italy) or the Government.
And yes, what you are right about is that it's a lot harder to start a company in Europe than it is in the US, and that firing people when times are bad is harder and subject to much more rules than here. Ok, be happy about that, it's one of our main assets. But their labor laws have since been
The "backgrounder" turns out to be a 4-page brochure with explanatory text.
What is immediately apparent is the following:
- the Nuscale reactor is an ordinary boiling-water reactor with one cooling circuit: the heat exchanger is inside the reactor vessel itself, and steam from the secondary circuit is lead out of the reactor vessel to the generators
- it uses control rods like any other BWR, but which does not contain coolant pumps. Convection takes care of coolant circulation.
- it uses standard low-enriched reactor fuel which needs to be replaced every 2 years
From the brochure:
Thermal capacity: 150 Mwt
Electrical capacit: 45 Mwe
Capacity factor: > 90 percent
Dimensions: 60 feet x 14 feet cylindrical
containment vessel module containing reactor
and steam generator
Weight: ~ 300 tons as shipped from
fabrication for shipping
Transportation: Barge, truck or train
Manufacturing: Forge and fabricate at any
mid-size facility
Cost: Numerous advantages due to simplicity,
modular design, volume manufacturing and shorter
construction times
Fuel: Standard LWR fuel in 17 x 17 configuration,
each 6 feet in length. 24 month refueling cycle
with fuel enriched at 4.95 percent.
In summary: this is a conventional Light Water Reactor which has been simplified and scaled down. I personally wouldn't want to see anything like that near where I live, or even in the same rainwater basin. I can just about live with large nuclear reactors which are situated in large concrete structures on carefully selected sites and monitored ever minute of their life-cycle by people who know something about them, but this little boondoggle is something else.
I don't care if it has a low operational risk. If you install thousands of the things (as you must because of their limited capacity) throughout the country (and close to population centers remember; that's the whole idea) and then run them for 50 years (carting spent fuel and fresh fuel to and from all those sites every 2 years), there is bound to be a catastrophic mishap *somewhere*. A meltdown, bent control rods, an earthquake that tears the reactor vessel open, and aircraft that crashes on top, a terrorist attack, fuel transport trucks that are ruptured in a traffic accident, or even good old criminal blackmail.
I'm not against nuclear energy per se, but this sort of nuclear micro-reactors makes me nervous. Very nervous. If we are going to have micro reactors, then conventional ones are fine. If we are going to have nuclear reactors, big is beautiful.
The opening post breathes a mentality which seems to pervade US firms. It runs approximately as follows:
(1) view employees purely as resources (about on level with the printers and the staples)
(2) use every possible means to make their job manageable for the Human Resources department (which is shorthand "define all tasks in such a way that every individual instantly plug-replaceable by (a) your average worker in the job market with his job title and (b) any of his colleagues, actively remove any individuality, and rather waste someone's talents than allow him to enrich his job")
(3) use HRM to "Dynamically contribute to optimization of enterprise processes and results" (translation: hire people when they are marginally qualified for their job and let their colleagues educate them, fire 'em the instant they become overqualified and aren't immediately placeable in a higher function, or if they show signs of become tired, bored, jaded, cynical, or if they catch on to what Human Resource Management really means for them)
(4) use an elaborate system of "who reports to whom", physical access checks and "security" guards, to ensure that people are total strangers in the company they work for with the sole exception of the department they work (this enhances "security")
(5) determine scientifically that your employees may spontaneously become disgruntled and hostile towards the company they work for (or after being fired)
(6) determine that the company urgently needs to protect itself from the consequences of its employees becoming disgruntled and hostile
(7) further plan employees jobs and tighten "security" so that the amount of damage any disgruntled individual below the rank of executive can do is reduced to an acceptable minimum.
The final step (8) is to spend good money to outsource security and workflow monitoring to establish tight restrictions on what employees can mess up before being physically apprehended. Outside firms have nice glossy brochures that provide your board with plenty of reasons why employees should be treated as detainees rather than as collaborators. Recommending specialized outside firms to cover specific areas of employee containment definitively establishes you as a savvy and professional manager (and keeps you in line for that end-year performance bonus).
On the other hand, the suggestion of actually treating employees as if they were collaborators confuses simple PR slogans meant for glossy company brochures with actual management. Expecting people to behave civilly when treated like people is naive in the extreme and something no manager with an ounce of professionalism should sully himself with.
Recognize this mindset? I foresee that work-flow monitoring will become a growth industry.
Again we see this snake oil gizmo. It's stupid. Perhaps it's a US fascination for anything that solves a problem so that you no longer have to think about it. Make that: "no longer have to think, so that we can have total morons man all our checkpoints".
According to the article all the much vaunted device does is measure heart-rate, blink rate, direction of gaze, perspiration level. All somatic quantities linked to anxiety levels. Nothing else.
And there's the rub. You can't catch someone who's calm and at peace with what he's about to do. Now that is a state of mind. Does "religious fanatic on a righteous mission" ring a bell? They have high levels of anxiety do they?
Or someone with naturally low anxiety levels who has been trained to commit violence and is at ease with that? Or someone who is able to take his mind off something? Or even someone who has been sedated?
This sort of monitoring might get an 80% success rate on ordinary Americans who are asked to carry an incriminating device through a checkpoint, but it was never tested with professional criminals. Like pick-pockets. Or fraudsters. Or even politicians for that matter.
That's why this scanner seems to be a bit useless against pre-meditated acts of terrorism committed by dedicated terrorists. It may have some success against people who are planning to spray grafitti on the wall of the office loo though. Nice going to counter a high-impact threat.
Personally I couldn't care less about what happens to Australia's Internet connections, but I see proposed filter as an interesting experiment. And a good laugh.
An experiment moreover funded and carried out by Australians. An experiment which the world at large can and should watch. And why not? It's free of charge. Let's face it: there is no actual downside to this experiment.
Therefore I urge Australia's parliamentarians not to let the protests from obvious anarchists and lawbreakers put them off-course, and to implement the strictest possible Internet filtering without delay. You know... to protect innocent Australians and their families from the dangers, smut, and immorality that lurks in the darkest recesses of the Internet. It's all about the kiddies after all.
Oh yes, and I'm buying some popcorn today to watch the show.
Err... could someone please consider modding the parent up? His comments are on the mark.
A team of programmers generally needs a lead programmer, someone who is respected for his technical expertise, who is responsible for the system as a whole and who has the authority to make technical decisions.
From the article I gather that you aren't taking the role as technical lead, so someone else needs to. And he reports to you. If all programmers report to you separately, then who is responsible for overall systems design (supposing all programmers are working on the same project)? By default that's going to be you, and you probably don't want that.
Apart from that, the most general piece of advice I can give is to extend the maximum amount of trust you can. And know your people. Think of the management quadrant. There may be employee files and some project documentation on who did what and with what result. Be sure to read that sort of stuff (if available) even before you talk to them and provisionally peg them. Ideally all of your programmers are software engineers (quadrant 4 people) and really don't need managing. Just some muppet who's job it is to interface with the rest of the organization, negotiate tasks and budgets, fight their corner when it comes to pay scales and perks, tell them where they stand with the company in the annual evaluation talks, look out for career opportunities for them, ensure that facilities are up to scratch, and take care of the paperwork (i.e. you). But sometimes you get people from other quadrants (even when they're 50 years of age). It happens, and as boss it's your duty to spot that and to act appropriately. If you fail to be firm when needed, you fail just as badly as when you are needlessly directive.
Of course you also have a role in safeguarding budget and deadlines, so you must have some checks. If those programmers are experienced, they will know that. And they will generally be able to suggest some good way of measuring progress and guarding against calamities. If they do, adopt it.
So my general advice is: treat those people as adults and professionals (unless they prove they can't bear that responsibility), trust them to do their job, but ensure that there are checks.
In addition, *ask* them if e.g. they would like to have lunch with you as a group. Or dinner. Or Pizza. But half an hour isn't much.
I'd say that's a very good idea. Our much-vaunted leave-it-to-the-market approach clearly isn't working in this specific area. Not if we're no. 15 in the world.
So let the government lay down lots of "last mile" high-speed fiber connections to every home and business in the country and put multiplexers into the ground at street level (the most costly and diffuse part of the network). Existing telcos can then take care of traffic to and from those multiplexers.
Oh yes, and let the government connect every last village and county to the data-communication grid by optical fiber. No matter how remote. How about being no. 1 again instead of no. 15?
I think this would be one of the more worthwhile stimulation packages.
"To compile the report, which is entitled "Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency," commission members say they reviewed tens of thousands of pages of undisclosed documentation, visited forensics labs and the National Security Agency, and were briefed in closed-door sessions by top officials from Pentagon, CIA, and British spy agency MI5. From their research, they concluded that the U.S. badly needs a comprehensive cybersecurity policy to replace an outdated checklist of security requirements for government agencies under the existing Federal Information Security Management Act."
Ok? The US apparently needs a "comprehensive cybersecurity policy". Apparently all they have now is an "outdated checklist of security requirements".
Now why am I suddenly reminded of that British teenage computer cracksman (Gary McKinnon) who showed that the emperor (Nasa, US dept. of defense, JPL) had lots of computer systems with (a) no password at all, (b) the manufacturer's standard password, and (c) in-dictionary passwords? If anything it showed that US computer security was absent during the time he broke in. Not lax. Not inadequate. Absent.
And now we're asked to lend belief to panicky news stories about "cyberwar"? *sighs* We have known for half a century (at least since WW II) about industrial espionage and we still leave National Laboratories wide open?
I see it as a question of mentality. Remember that Slashdot story about this guy at Lawrence Livermore (or another National Laboratory) who was sacked by management for failing to comply with "instructions" because despite having no time budgeted for that activity he had the temerity to inform a Defense Agency outside the laboratory that he had found traces of someone hacking their systems and helped them? That kind of managerial view on doing one's duty where national security is involved? That story still raises my blood pressure.
Lifting data is not "war", is just ordinary everyday intelligence gathering. If it's from a nominally closed installation then it's "espionage". Now espionage is of all ages, and it was never easier to transfer large amounts of data than today. So you would think that people working in the military or National Laboratories, or civilian contractors in defense industries were a little cautious about access control, right? Well... apparently not. It seems they first need a "comprehensive cybersecurity policy" for that to tell them what to do, and how.
Could it be that those responsible have been both clueless and asleep at the wheel? To me that looks a lot more plausible than any excited crowing about "rah rah, cyberwar, rah rah".
I mean... people (managers) who believe that by buying and installing software with "C2" level security throughout (read MS Windows NT or more recent versions) their systems and their networks are therefore automatically of "C2" grade. Irrespective of e.g. password policy and dozens of severe to critical security exploits published every year.
I'll start lending credence to panicky "war stories" when I see a congressional report that concludes that all National Laboratories, every single branch of the military and every last contractor is practicing decent password discipline and is using 2-factor authentication throughout. Not before.
Well... it all depends. And you are quite right to ask for proof and benchmarks (the usual opinionated-but-lacking-in-solid facts Slashdot comments notwithstanding) because performance issues are typically quite complicated (se e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benchmark_(computing)#Challenges).
One thing needs to be understood however: the speed of a library like Gtk has nothing whatsoever to do with the speed of an application coded in a particular language (like C or C++). Don't confuse the efficiency of a language (implementation) with that of a popular graphics library coded in that language.
On these benchmarks (and on Sometimes C and C++ end up as the fastest of the pack, sometimes they don't (contrary to the usual opinion of Slashdot commenters). Fortran wins several times. However, C and C++ always tend to be in the top-10%.
A rule of thumb I use:
(1) If it's floating-point centred, and especially linear-algebra centred (Linpack, LAPACK, Eispack), Fortran is likely to be fastest, certainly not C or C++. However... Matlab, Octave, Scilab etc. tend to be quite competitive when the work can be formulated in terms of high-level matrix operations (so that the overhead caused by the interpreter can be made up for by the excellence of hand-optimized assembler libraries). Besides they get the job done in one tenth of the time it takes to code from scratch in Fortran, and you get a far better chance of getting things right the first time.
(2) If it's centred on manipulating data-structures (trees, heaps, allocation. eallocation, moving, traversing, counting, coding) which relies mostly on pointer juggling, then C and C++ tend to be fastest.
(3) For everything else... try to find real-world examples.
I am really skeptical about this "brain-scan" stuff and I'm afraid it is snake-oil at best, and totally idiotic at worst. Here's why:
The test hinges on potential terrorists showing signs of stress and apprehension, and responding to subliminal visual queues. The test doesn't detect "intent", it detects "apprehension" and "emotional response".
So for the dedicated terrorist organization the remedy is simple: find people who are calm and collected before they commit an act of violence by nature or by indoctrination. People who are naturally relaxed before lapsing into violence exist and in a civillian environment they are called psychopaths. In a military environment they are often highly respected members of the special forces.
People can also be trained up to be calm before going into action, and religion is an especially good way of doing this. As is combat experience. When people are totally at peace with what they are going to do and what will happen to them as a result, they don't show up as anxious.
In addition you can train people to pass the test by first sending them through security without weapons, but with the firm intent to deceive. Those who are successful can be sent through with (allowed) plastic knives (or whatever) to see if they pass again. Then you send them through with a sealed bag and a phone and instructions that they will receive an signal on their mobile phone when they are to act (after passing through security of course so it doesn't necessarily show up). Everything risk-free and above-board, but as a terrorist organization you *do* get to find out the sort of fatalistic dupe who would be suitable for an operation. And when you finally mount your terror attack, it will work fabulously because all airport scanners have been replaced by "apprehension scans", which the people you are sending in can successfully negate.
Used alongside conventional scanners, the proposed scheme might, just might, be able to increase the detection rate. Which will produce generous amounts of false positives anyway since the number of terrorists amongst the thousands of passengers who fly each day is extremely low (how many hijackings do we get per week, eh?).
Sorry, but in my book Greenpeace has incurred a sizable credibility problem. Its word is no longer "good" for me because I can't be sure if it's speaking the truth or just spouting a load of propaganda.
I used to support Greenpeace, by and large, but ever since Greenpeace pulled the Brent Spar hoax I have distanced myself from it. Greenpeace has admitted that it knew full well that sinking the Brent Spar in deep ocean was just about the best solution from an environmental perspective, but it raised a big stink about it anyway because it was good publicity.
Sorry, but that's not the kind of environmental organization I want to be associated with. If it's too much to ask of an organization of environmental activists to behave in and honest and ethical fashion, then I'll happily do without it.
At best Greenpeace's allegations are an indication that it might be useful to have someone honest and knowledgeable investigate the issue.
IBM's new patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,812 constitutes a valuable and timely intellectual contribution with immediate application to the real-world economy. It is a shining example of US ingenuity and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers which basically holds that "anything under the sun" can (in principle) be patented.
A guaranteed way of evenly splitting a Restaurant Bill (note: the patent may have even wider applicability !) will help ensure that restaurant patrons will not, in these economically troubled times, be driven to ramp down their much-needed demand for the professional hospitality industry due to irrational and unjustified fears over how to divide the bill. Its importance cannot be overestimated and forms the basis for the continued economic viability of a branch of industry with a rich history which America can rightly be proud of.
In principle IBM would be within its rights to take the view that restaurants are responsible for unlicensed use of this invention on their premises and to demand a license fee for this invention from each and every restaurant on US soil. As an added benefit, after obtaining a license, restaurants would be empowered to apportion the fees payable for the use of IBM's Invention for apportioning restaurant bills by their clientele, to their clientele using IBM's patented invention.
In addition IBM would be in a position to institute RIAA-like proceedings against any restaurant that fails to promptly obtain a proper license for IBM's ground-breaking technology. Failure to properly license this technology would raise the gravest questions about the good-faith intentions of these establishments. I am certain we can all agree that unlicensed use of this intellectual property is Theft, and should be met with a zero-tolerance policy.
However, I urge IBM not to do this. On the contrary, I firmly believe that it is IBM's patriotic duty to make this patent available for general use for all restaurant bills that are generated by patrons who meet to discuss Open Source issues on the premises and who are prepared to publish their Restaurant Bills in the public domain under the GPL license.
I trust that IBM, given its commitment to the use of Open Source world-wide, will assume its responsibility in this matter and allow individual restaurants to refrain from charging license fees for the use of this Invention if they are satisfied that the issues discussed on their premises consist for at least 75% of the time of Open Source topics. Restaurants are in a position to verify this through the simple expedient of having their waiters listen in to conversations where those waiters currently do not record such proceedings. Following precedents set in the telecommunications industry, it is clear that it is only fair and reasonable to require Restaurants to keep logs of topics discussed and the time allotted to each topic.
Restaurants who are in compliance with this monitoring scheme should then be allowed to pro-actively deduct the fees payable from the annual licensing plan.
In order to ensure fair dealing, Restaurants would of course agree to accommodate un-announced spot-checks on the topic of conversation of patrons of their establishments, either in person by designated IBM personnel, or remotely through audio-pickups to be installed at every table.
It's so mindbogglingly stupid. I can buy and store gallons of diesel and sacks with fertiliser full of ammonium nitrate at home, and kilos of arsenic (rat poison) but I can get into real trouble for possessing an erlenmeyer, 100 CC of methanol or 100 CC of nitric acid.
It's quite possible to make explosives and poisons using only household chemicals. *sighs* All it takes is a few weeks of study on the Internet, a decent library, and some systematic note-taking.
But you can't stop that sort of thing without prohibiting oft-used household chemicals. So it's not widely talked about.
The general public hasn't got a clue about what is or isn't dangerous, and neither do most of the Authorities. Starting with the police.
It's long since ceased to be about ensuring safety for neighbours and society at large, it's simply cover-your-backside regulation on part of otherwise clueless officials.
It's Ok that something's done to prevent people from building complete plastique factories and amphetamine laboratories in their basements, but with a little common sense and some understanding of chemicals it's s completely doable to safeguard the neighbourhood.
Register people with home laboratories if you must, but leave them alone. Like HAM radio amateurs.
I find this a remarkable case of dynamic value creation from synergistically focusing on core competencies in a forward-looking way.
I see great opportunities for agressively monetizing valuable core intellectual property that hasn't yet realised its full potential with an agressive view to the bottom line.
I am excited to say that I am undertaking research to pro-actively leverage the demand for capitalization in this high-value venture.
In other words: "This sounds like a great racket. Where can I get a piece of the action?"
Obama had something interesting to say, so the press reported it. McCain had very little news to say, and his running mate Palin had nothing to say that's worth listening to. If the press simply reports on what's intereting you *will* get a bias.
Well, there does seem to be a bias. But there may be a very good reason for that. And one which has nothing to do with the Press being "partisan" or "favouring" one candidate over another.
Perhaps it's because Obama actually had something interesting to say. Something with a little thought behind it. Something that the other candidate did not. The Press is about giving coverage to news... new developments, new ideas. If one candidate has something interesting to say, and the other does not, well you will get a bias. An unbiased Press is not necessarily about giving both candidates 50% page real estate and 50% of the positive stories.
[rant mode on]
And then there is Governor Palin. Articles about her were generally negative, but is that the fault of the Press? It beats me how anyone can write a positive article about someone that clueless. Someone who muffs interviews because she can't be bothered to prepare for them (against the advice of the campaign staff), and who has the brazen presumption to consider herself suitable for the office of VP or even the Presidency (in case her running mate suddenly retires for lack of a pulse) and doesn't know whether Africa is a country or a continent.
Some people might say that a VP candidate doesn't need to know one end of the world map from another (for the record, I disagree), so lets judge her on her professed area of competence. Our "energy expert" has this to say:
Palin: Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that's with the energy independence that I've been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.
Ah right. Presiding over the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commissions counts as "working on energy independence"? And her "oversight" brought something to the table? *shrugs*
And how about that claim of 20% of our energy production? Well, factcheck.org disagreed with our little "expert":
Palin claims Alaska "produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy." That's not true.
Alaska did produce 14 percent of all the oil from U.S. wells last year, but that's a far cry from all the "energy" produced in the U.S.
Alaska's share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And if by "supply" Palin meant all the energy consumed in the U.S., and not just produced here, then Alaska's production accounted for only 2.4 percent.
Right. Right. Mistaking 14% of our domestic energy production for 20% is all in a day's work. A detail. And confusing 20% of our domestic oil production with 20% of our energy production is something any "expert" would have trouble keeping apart, am I right? And mistaking 14% of our domestic oil production for 3.5% of our total energy production is another trivial mistake. Sheesh. I like it when a politician knows what he or she is talking about. Especially regarding "what she brings to the table".
Ah well... perhaps I'm too gloomy. Perhaps I'm missing something. Some golden glimmer of insight somewhere in all gaffes. You never know. Only I wouldn't know how to write a positive article about that, but then I'm no trained journalist.
On the contrary. I'm biased against terminal ignorance. In students it's not that bad: they don't pretend to know it all and they are generally willing to learn. And they typically *do* learn before the end of term. Most of them.
Unfortunately politicians don't *have* to learn. For them it's an optional extra that takes valuable time from doing appearances. Some do learn (Governor Schwarzenegger for example). Some don't.
Slashdot Mirror
I had always thought that it would be Alabama who would come up with a bill like that. And now this. I feel cheated.
The War on Drugs needs to be extended to hallucinatory drugs like caffeine. Hippies arguing that "coffee" is made from natural ingredients will have to be brought in line. Cocaine too is derived from natural ingredients. Coffee beans (the basis of soon-to-be illegal home-made hallucinogens) will likewise be banned, along with all apparatus to extract the drug from its source materials.
Companies like Starbucks will have to become "clean" on short notice, or face huge fines and see their management become the target of criminal prosecution. Well-monitored sales of "decaf" might be allowed for the time being to allow addicts a period in which to detox themselves.
Theine too (found in tea) must be banned, along with tea leaves, teapots, and tea strainers. The sale of electric kettles may have to be regulated as well. Licenses for the operation of said electric kettles, microwave ovens, and stoves are being considered for those with clean criminal records.
Overseas countries will be put on notice that failure to institute proper control of the above substances, their natural precursors, and apparatus to refine said hallucinatory drugs will be viewed as criminally irresponsible, may result in trade sanctions.
When it comes to War on Drugs there can be no compromise!
Those who read the article will see that the survey hedges in every way possible and that the above list is _not_ a list of companies that people expect to see disappear. It's a list of companies that people discussed, looked up the turnover of and then wrote noncommittal "analysis" next to.
Please Anonymous, if you're going to try and summarize the article for those too lazy to click on a link, at least make sure you get it right. This is rubbish.
In addition we have seen that it's no use to wait for private industry to come up with a common data-format: they have no motive to spend time or money on a standardization effort, and they won't agree on a standard unless they do. And that's precisely why, despite the ritual groans about The Government being inefficient and whatnot, you need a player like the Federal Government to crack the whip and impose a mandatory standard over any objections that will be raised in order to break the logjam.
So far so good.
What's less beneficial of course is that once such records make it into any sort of network-accessible database, neither the patient nor his doctor has any further say in who accesses and uses those records or where they are sent.
Such records are are going to be (a) leaked (b) abused by everyone from employers (they prefer employees with clean medical records), insurance companies (lets sift out the high-risks), the police (lets see who had detox treatment or who is on anti-depressants), newspapers (lets find out the truth about that pesky senator XYZ), and your friendly neighborhood watch (anyone who ever had psychiatric treatment is now a child-abuse suspect).
It's all a matter of balancing the pros and cons.
Now I'm (somewhat reluctantly) in favor of large controlled nuclear power plants, but I think one ought to recognize statements like:
The industry is one of the most tightly legislated, and well trained in the world, and it is extremely improbable that the industry will ever have another significant accident.
for what they are: meaningless guesswork, and irrelevant in the discussion to boot.
First off, "extremely improbable" is so vague as to be meaningless. Secondly, it's not the probability of failure that defines "value at risk", it's probability of failure times cost of failure.
This is precisely the reason that it's very easy to life-insure workers in a nuclear power plant: value at risk at most a few hundred thousand $, probability: very small and fairly well known. As a matter of fact insurance premiums are higher in most other occupations (including staying at home). It is also the reason that no insurance company in the world will insure all the possible damage of a nuclear power plant having a catastrophic accident: the probability is tiny, but *if* it happens the insurance company is immediately wiped out.
I respectfully submit that (a) hundreds of micro nuclear reactors operated all around our major cities are going to be less carefully, competently, and rigorously operated than fifty or so big ones *or* reactors in the care of the US Navy, and that (b) the cost of a micro nuclear reactor accident in the outskirts of a city isn't going to be particularly small; especially not if radioactive contamination makes it into our ground water.
Therefore (and for reasons of security) I see hundreds of micro nuclear reactors as a lot more threatening than a few big ones.
I furthermore feel that the whole issue is too important to take the nuclear industry's word for operational safety and security. Instead I think the whole concept, including safety and security, should be subject to a very public scrutiny. And one in which vigorous handwaving, of the type shown in the parent post, does has no place.
Now we can tell anyone who feels their chakra's are being interfered with by GSM antennas that all of their problems will be resolved through the installation of ... whatsit ... ah yes ... Orgone generators! Brilliant. Problem solved.
I agree with the first part of your post: to me R is something to code in when you have to, and to keep the resulting code as short and simple as possible. If I ever had to code a real application with a GUI that needed the statistical strengths of R, I would almost certainly not use R.
On the other hand I'd probably use Java and link to R as a server (see my other post about R and Java) instead of using Python.
A more complete answer would be: the R system is basically an interpreter which accepts messages and terminal connections, like a server. It has no "native" front-end (except a stark command-line window) per se.
This means that *any* application that can log in to R as a client or send the R interpreter messages and capture the response can use the R interpreter as a slave, and can hence act as a GUI. It doesn't matter if that's a Windows application, a Linux application, or a Java application, or a web-server (R can work as a back-end to a web-server too). The only thing is the amount of work needed to get things working and to actually code up the GUI. There is a package called Rserve (see http://www.rforge.net/Rserve/) that greatly facilitates this for C++ and Java. Below is a quote from the Rforge repository:
Rserve is a TCP/IP server which allows other programs to use facilities of R (see www.r-project.org) from various languages without the need to initialize R or link against R library. Every connection has a separate workspace and working directory. Client-side implementations are available for popular languages such as C/C++ and Java. Rserve supports remote connection, authentication and file transfer. Typical use is to integrate R backend for computation of statstical models, plots etc. in other applications.
The following Java code illustrates the easy integration of Rserve:
Rconnection c = new Rconnection(); double d[]=c.eval("rnorm(10)").asDoubleArray();
d now contains 10 random samples from the N(0,1) distribution if there is a runing Rserve on the local machine. The Rconnection doesn't have to be created more than once in your application.
There is at least one R gui's written in Java (called "JGR" (Java Gui for R); see the post with the JGR link; JGR is FOSS too). In principle this ought to be able to run under Linux, but the last time I tried (a year or so ago) I had nothing but trouble getting it to install. The Windows installer does a nice job of it though: 5 seconds and it's up and running with all its features enabled. I don't know how easy or hard it is to add your own Java routines to JGR and how easy or hard it is to redirect R output to your own Java application under JGR, or put them under the menu structure of JGR. I never tried, but I strongly suspect that it's possible and not hard. As far as I can see, this is not a question of interfacing with R but with JGR (a native Java application), but I never gave it much thought so you'll have to see for yourself. Sorry.
A popular Windows GUI (called TinnR) (see http://www.sciviews.org/Tinn-R/) has been written in Delphi 5.
Last but not least, R has excellent interactivity with Emacs, which works as well under Linux as it does under Windows. I personally can't stand Emacs, but lots of people swear by it (I just swear at it).
The R language (yes, it's a language; an interpreted languages is a language too) has developed as the language of choice by statisticians (both academics and sundry statistical researchers) around the world as their main computer language. It is used in those cases where researchers feel the need for customized computations rather than the use of a package like SAS or SPSS.
The reason that R has become popular is due to a snowball effect and history. It started as a FOSS re-implementation-from-scratch of the "S" language designed for statistical work at Bell labs (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_(programming_language). Some academics and researchers of repute used it (the S language) because at that time (1975) it was very innovative and far better than most alternatives, and others followed. The S language gained a measure of acceptance among statisticians. Then when R became available the cycle intensified because of the much improved availability of the interpretor and its libraries. This cycle continued to the point that by now probably most professional statisticians use it.
As far as I can see, the R language isn't especially sophisticated or elegant, and may strike people used to more modern languages as a bit repugnant. It does however excel in three respects:
(a) it allows for easy access of Fortran and C library routines
(b) it allows you to pass large blobs of data by name
(c) it makes it easy to pass data to and from your own compiled C and Fortran routines
The first reason is particularly important because it allows one to use e.g. pre-compiled linear algebra package like LAPACK, or Fourier Transforms, or special function evaluations and thereby gain execution speeds comparable to C despite being an interpreted language (just like Matlab, Octave, Scilab, Gauss, Ox and suchlike): the hard work is carried out by a compiled library routine which is made easily accessible through the interpreted language. Any algorithm needed in statistics that's available as C or Fortran code can be linked in and called without too much effort.
The second reason is important because it slows down execution much less than any pass-by-value interpreted language would, and it allows you to change data that is passed into a function.
The third reason is particularly important because it helps researchers be more productive. Reading in your data, examining it, graphing it, tracing outliers and cleaning them up is best done in an interactive environment in an interpreted language. Coding such things in C or Fortran is an awful waste of time, and besides, researchers aren't code-monkeys and don't enjoy coding inane for-loops to read, clean, and display data. Vector and matrix primitives are far more powerful, and usually preferable unless they are so inefficient that you have to wait for the result. However, there are times when you just need to carry out standard algorithms (linear algebra, calculation of mathematical or statistical functions) or simply time-consuming repetitive algorithms that run so much faster in a genuine compiled language. You could start out by coding the algorithm in an interpreted language to check if it's working, and then isolate the computationally expensive part and code it up in C or Fortran. Using R (or Matlab or Scilab) you can *call* the compiled subroutine, pass it your (cleaned) data, and get the result back in an environment where you can easily analyze it.
That's why languages like R, Matlab, Scilab, Octave, Gauss, and Ox are so productive: you get the best of both worlds. Both the convenience, interactiveness, and terseness of a high-level interpreted language and the speed of compiled languages.
So why R, and why not Gauss or Matlab or whatever?
Well, part of that is cultural. If you're an econometrician you'll have been weane
Well ... ok.
Well ... they want them, but they know they can't get them. On the other hand, people have a certain gross labor cost. Part of it goes towards pay, part towards benefits. Part of it could go onto a private (i.e. not company-owned) pension fund (our beloved 401(k) plans). a fund that *every* employer of an employee who has the misfortune of only being offered short-term contracts pays into. All you have to do to guarantee people's pensions is to make that contribution mandatory, mandate a low risk profile, and to set minimum wages that are high enough to ensure a pension after, say, 45 years of work.
Now setting minimum wages at that level (from what I hear from people in the EU that would amount to a minimum gross wage (including tax, health benefits, pension fund contribution, and pay) of about 2000$ per month) might squeeze certain jobs out of the system (I really don't know what a hamburger flipper makes). But then again you can ask yourself why we want to pay people so little. We do, and that's why we have so many million jobs that are filled by illegal immigrants, but that's another story. It isn't as if the economy can't support everyone getting that minimum wage: Sweden, Germany, Denmark, and France do so. They pay for that by (much) lower economic growth rates, but that's their choice.
Which is why the Republicans almost won the elections, and why the middle-of-the-road Democrats did win, right? The party that promises to guarantee freedom of organization for employees and legal guarantees against union representatives being fired has been voted in, yes? No??? No political (read voter (!)) support for EU-style minimum wages and social security??? Perhaps your premisse "They will vote for whomever promises to get this back for them" is faulty then. Very very faulty.
Does that follow? I don't believe that for an instant. I don't believe that employees are unreasonable. They know that the company is the cork upon which they all float. I know for a fact that even unionized auto workers agreed to take pay cuts. What I *do* think creates resentment is when a company systematically tries to pay them peanuts while showering the CEO with money in "compensation" packages. Perceived unfairness rankles.
I don't know where you got this gem of wisdom, but all it shows is that you really know d*ck about "how it is in Europe". I know people who live and work there, and I have worked there myself. Their economic system is firmly capitalist, and people can and *are* fired for under-performance, or even when they are surplus to requirements, and lifetime employment is only found in state-owned mail services (like the one in Italy) or the Government.
And yes, what you are right about is that it's a lot harder to start a company in Europe than it is in the US, and that firing people when times are bad is harder and subject to much more rules than here. Ok, be happy about that, it's one of our main assets. But their labor laws have since been
The "backgrounder" turns out to be a 4-page brochure with explanatory text.
What is immediately apparent is the following:
- the Nuscale reactor is an ordinary boiling-water reactor with one cooling circuit: the heat exchanger is inside the reactor vessel itself, and steam from the secondary circuit is lead out of the reactor vessel to the generators
- it uses control rods like any other BWR, but which does not contain coolant pumps. Convection takes care of coolant circulation.
- it uses standard low-enriched reactor fuel which needs to be replaced every 2 years
From the brochure:
Thermal capacity: 150 Mwt
Electrical capacit: 45 Mwe
Capacity factor: > 90 percent
Dimensions: 60 feet x 14 feet cylindrical containment vessel module containing reactor and steam generator
Weight: ~ 300 tons as shipped from fabrication for shipping
Transportation: Barge, truck or train Manufacturing: Forge and fabricate at any mid-size facility
Cost: Numerous advantages due to simplicity, modular design, volume manufacturing and shorter construction times
Fuel: Standard LWR fuel in 17 x 17 configuration, each 6 feet in length. 24 month refueling cycle with fuel enriched at 4.95 percent.
In summary: this is a conventional Light Water Reactor which has been simplified and scaled down. I personally wouldn't want to see anything like that near where I live, or even in the same rainwater basin. I can just about live with large nuclear reactors which are situated in large concrete structures on carefully selected sites and monitored ever minute of their life-cycle by people who know something about them, but this little boondoggle is something else.
I don't care if it has a low operational risk. If you install thousands of the things (as you must because of their limited capacity) throughout the country (and close to population centers remember; that's the whole idea) and then run them for 50 years (carting spent fuel and fresh fuel to and from all those sites every 2 years), there is bound to be a catastrophic mishap *somewhere*. A meltdown, bent control rods, an earthquake that tears the reactor vessel open, and aircraft that crashes on top, a terrorist attack, fuel transport trucks that are ruptured in a traffic accident, or even good old criminal blackmail.
I'm not against nuclear energy per se, but this sort of nuclear micro-reactors makes me nervous. Very nervous. If we are going to have micro reactors, then conventional ones are fine. If we are going to have nuclear reactors, big is beautiful.
(1) view employees purely as resources (about on level with the printers and the staples)
(2) use every possible means to make their job manageable for the Human Resources department (which is shorthand "define all tasks in such a way that every individual instantly plug-replaceable by (a) your average worker in the job market with his job title and (b) any of his colleagues, actively remove any individuality, and rather waste someone's talents than allow him to enrich his job")
(3) use HRM to "Dynamically contribute to optimization of enterprise processes and results" (translation: hire people when they are marginally qualified for their job and let their colleagues educate them, fire 'em the instant they become overqualified and aren't immediately placeable in a higher function, or if they show signs of become tired, bored, jaded, cynical, or if they catch on to what Human Resource Management really means for them)
(4) use an elaborate system of "who reports to whom", physical access checks and "security" guards, to ensure that people are total strangers in the company they work for with the sole exception of the department they work (this enhances "security")
(5) determine scientifically that your employees may spontaneously become disgruntled and hostile towards the company they work for (or after being fired)
(6) determine that the company urgently needs to protect itself from the consequences of its employees becoming disgruntled and hostile
(7) further plan employees jobs and tighten "security" so that the amount of damage any disgruntled individual below the rank of executive can do is reduced to an acceptable minimum.
The final step (8) is to spend good money to outsource security and workflow monitoring to establish tight restrictions on what employees can mess up before being physically apprehended. Outside firms have nice glossy brochures that provide your board with plenty of reasons why employees should be treated as detainees rather than as collaborators. Recommending specialized outside firms to cover specific areas of employee containment definitively establishes you as a savvy and professional manager (and keeps you in line for that end-year performance bonus).
On the other hand, the suggestion of actually treating employees as if they were collaborators confuses simple PR slogans meant for glossy company brochures with actual management. Expecting people to behave civilly when treated like people is naive in the extreme and something no manager with an ounce of professionalism should sully himself with.
Recognize this mindset? I foresee that work-flow monitoring will become a growth industry.
According to the article all the much vaunted device does is measure heart-rate, blink rate, direction of gaze, perspiration level. All somatic quantities linked to anxiety levels. Nothing else.
And there's the rub. You can't catch someone who's calm and at peace with what he's about to do. Now that is a state of mind. Does "religious fanatic on a righteous mission" ring a bell? They have high levels of anxiety do they?
Or someone with naturally low anxiety levels who has been trained to commit violence and is at ease with that? Or someone who is able to take his mind off something? Or even someone who has been sedated?
This sort of monitoring might get an 80% success rate on ordinary Americans who are asked to carry an incriminating device through a checkpoint, but it was never tested with professional criminals. Like pick-pockets. Or fraudsters. Or even politicians for that matter.
That's why this scanner seems to be a bit useless against pre-meditated acts of terrorism committed by dedicated terrorists. It may have some success against people who are planning to spray grafitti on the wall of the office loo though. Nice going to counter a high-impact threat.
An experiment moreover funded and carried out by Australians. An experiment which the world at large can and should watch. And why not? It's free of charge. Let's face it: there is no actual downside to this experiment.
Therefore I urge Australia's parliamentarians not to let the protests from obvious anarchists and lawbreakers put them off-course, and to implement the strictest possible Internet filtering without delay. You know ... to protect innocent Australians and their families from the dangers, smut, and immorality that lurks in the darkest recesses of the Internet. It's all about the kiddies after all.
Oh yes, and I'm buying some popcorn today to watch the show.
A team of programmers generally needs a lead programmer, someone who is respected for his technical expertise, who is responsible for the system as a whole and who has the authority to make technical decisions.
From the article I gather that you aren't taking the role as technical lead, so someone else needs to. And he reports to you. If all programmers report to you separately, then who is responsible for overall systems design (supposing all programmers are working on the same project)? By default that's going to be you, and you probably don't want that.
Apart from that, the most general piece of advice I can give is to extend the maximum amount of trust you can. And know your people. Think of the management quadrant. There may be employee files and some project documentation on who did what and with what result. Be sure to read that sort of stuff (if available) even before you talk to them and provisionally peg them. Ideally all of your programmers are software engineers (quadrant 4 people) and really don't need managing. Just some muppet who's job it is to interface with the rest of the organization, negotiate tasks and budgets, fight their corner when it comes to pay scales and perks, tell them where they stand with the company in the annual evaluation talks, look out for career opportunities for them, ensure that facilities are up to scratch, and take care of the paperwork (i.e. you). But sometimes you get people from other quadrants (even when they're 50 years of age). It happens, and as boss it's your duty to spot that and to act appropriately. If you fail to be firm when needed, you fail just as badly as when you are needlessly directive.
Of course you also have a role in safeguarding budget and deadlines, so you must have some checks. If those programmers are experienced, they will know that. And they will generally be able to suggest some good way of measuring progress and guarding against calamities. If they do, adopt it.
So my general advice is: treat those people as adults and professionals (unless they prove they can't bear that responsibility), trust them to do their job, but ensure that there are checks.
In addition, *ask* them if e.g. they would like to have lunch with you as a group. Or dinner. Or Pizza. But half an hour isn't much.
So let the government lay down lots of "last mile" high-speed fiber connections to every home and business in the country and put multiplexers into the ground at street level (the most costly and diffuse part of the network). Existing telcos can then take care of traffic to and from those multiplexers.
Oh yes, and let the government connect every last village and county to the data-communication grid by optical fiber. No matter how remote. How about being no. 1 again instead of no. 15?
I think this would be one of the more worthwhile stimulation packages.
"To compile the report, which is entitled "Securing Cyberspace in the 44th Presidency," commission members say they reviewed tens of thousands of pages of undisclosed documentation, visited forensics labs and the National Security Agency, and were briefed in closed-door sessions by top officials from Pentagon, CIA, and British spy agency MI5. From their research, they concluded that the U.S. badly needs a comprehensive cybersecurity policy to replace an outdated checklist of security requirements for government agencies under the existing Federal Information Security Management Act."
Ok? The US apparently needs a "comprehensive cybersecurity policy". Apparently all they have now is an "outdated checklist of security requirements".
Now why am I suddenly reminded of that British teenage computer cracksman (Gary McKinnon) who showed that the emperor (Nasa, US dept. of defense, JPL) had lots of computer systems with (a) no password at all, (b) the manufacturer's standard password, and (c) in-dictionary passwords? If anything it showed that US computer security was absent during the time he broke in. Not lax. Not inadequate. Absent.
And now we're asked to lend belief to panicky news stories about "cyberwar"? *sighs* We have known for half a century (at least since WW II) about industrial espionage and we still leave National Laboratories wide open?
I see it as a question of mentality. Remember that Slashdot story about this guy at Lawrence Livermore (or another National Laboratory) who was sacked by management for failing to comply with "instructions" because despite having no time budgeted for that activity he had the temerity to inform a Defense Agency outside the laboratory that he had found traces of someone hacking their systems and helped them? That kind of managerial view on doing one's duty where national security is involved? That story still raises my blood pressure.
Lifting data is not "war", is just ordinary everyday intelligence gathering. If it's from a nominally closed installation then it's "espionage". Now espionage is of all ages, and it was never easier to transfer large amounts of data than today. So you would think that people working in the military or National Laboratories, or civilian contractors in defense industries were a little cautious about access control, right? Well ... apparently not. It seems they first need a "comprehensive cybersecurity policy" for that to tell them what to do, and how.
Could it be that those responsible have been both clueless and asleep at the wheel? To me that looks a lot more plausible than any excited crowing about "rah rah, cyberwar, rah rah".
I mean ... people (managers) who believe that by buying and installing software with "C2" level security throughout (read MS Windows NT or more recent versions) their systems and their networks are therefore automatically of "C2" grade. Irrespective of e.g. password policy and dozens of severe to critical security exploits published every year.
I'll start lending credence to panicky "war stories" when I see a congressional report that concludes that all National Laboratories, every single branch of the military and every last contractor is practicing decent password discipline and is using 2-factor authentication throughout. Not before.
One thing needs to be understood however: the speed of a library like Gtk has nothing whatsoever to do with the speed of an application coded in a particular language (like C or C++). Don't confuse the efficiency of a language (implementation) with that of a popular graphics library coded in that language.
Have a look here for some benchmarks: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/
On these benchmarks (and on Sometimes C and C++ end up as the fastest of the pack, sometimes they don't (contrary to the usual opinion of Slashdot commenters). Fortran wins several times. However, C and C++ always tend to be in the top-10%.
A rule of thumb I use:
(1) If it's floating-point centred, and especially linear-algebra centred (Linpack, LAPACK, Eispack), Fortran is likely to be fastest, certainly not C or C++. However ... Matlab, Octave, Scilab etc. tend to be quite competitive when the work can be formulated in terms of high-level matrix operations (so that the overhead caused by the interpreter can be made up for by the excellence of hand-optimized assembler libraries). Besides they get the job done in one tenth of the time it takes to code from scratch in Fortran, and you get a far better chance of getting things right the first time.
(2) If it's centred on manipulating data-structures (trees, heaps, allocation. eallocation, moving, traversing, counting, coding) which relies mostly on pointer juggling, then C and C++ tend to be fastest.
(3) For everything else ... try to find real-world examples.
The test hinges on potential terrorists showing signs of stress and apprehension, and responding to subliminal visual queues. The test doesn't detect "intent", it detects "apprehension" and "emotional response".
So for the dedicated terrorist organization the remedy is simple: find people who are calm and collected before they commit an act of violence by nature or by indoctrination. People who are naturally relaxed before lapsing into violence exist and in a civillian environment they are called psychopaths. In a military environment they are often highly respected members of the special forces.
People can also be trained up to be calm before going into action, and religion is an especially good way of doing this. As is combat experience. When people are totally at peace with what they are going to do and what will happen to them as a result, they don't show up as anxious.
In addition you can train people to pass the test by first sending them through security without weapons, but with the firm intent to deceive. Those who are successful can be sent through with (allowed) plastic knives (or whatever) to see if they pass again. Then you send them through with a sealed bag and a phone and instructions that they will receive an signal on their mobile phone when they are to act (after passing through security of course so it doesn't necessarily show up). Everything risk-free and above-board, but as a terrorist organization you *do* get to find out the sort of fatalistic dupe who would be suitable for an operation. And when you finally mount your terror attack, it will work fabulously because all airport scanners have been replaced by "apprehension scans", which the people you are sending in can successfully negate.
Used alongside conventional scanners, the proposed scheme might, just might, be able to increase the detection rate. Which will produce generous amounts of false positives anyway since the number of terrorists amongst the thousands of passengers who fly each day is extremely low (how many hijackings do we get per week, eh?).
Sorry, but this scheme sounds idiotic to me.
I used to support Greenpeace, by and large, but ever since Greenpeace pulled the Brent Spar hoax I have distanced myself from it. Greenpeace has admitted that it knew full well that sinking the Brent Spar in deep ocean was just about the best solution from an environmental perspective, but it raised a big stink about it anyway because it was good publicity.
Sorry, but that's not the kind of environmental organization I want to be associated with. If it's too much to ask of an organization of environmental activists to behave in and honest and ethical fashion, then I'll happily do without it.
At best Greenpeace's allegations are an indication that it might be useful to have someone honest and knowledgeable investigate the issue.
A guaranteed way of evenly splitting a Restaurant Bill (note: the patent may have even wider applicability !) will help ensure that restaurant patrons will not, in these economically troubled times, be driven to ramp down their much-needed demand for the professional hospitality industry due to irrational and unjustified fears over how to divide the bill. Its importance cannot be overestimated and forms the basis for the continued economic viability of a branch of industry with a rich history which America can rightly be proud of.
In principle IBM would be within its rights to take the view that restaurants are responsible for unlicensed use of this invention on their premises and to demand a license fee for this invention from each and every restaurant on US soil. As an added benefit, after obtaining a license, restaurants would be empowered to apportion the fees payable for the use of IBM's Invention for apportioning restaurant bills by their clientele, to their clientele using IBM's patented invention.
In addition IBM would be in a position to institute RIAA-like proceedings against any restaurant that fails to promptly obtain a proper license for IBM's ground-breaking technology. Failure to properly license this technology would raise the gravest questions about the good-faith intentions of these establishments. I am certain we can all agree that unlicensed use of this intellectual property is Theft, and should be met with a zero-tolerance policy.
However, I urge IBM not to do this. On the contrary, I firmly believe that it is IBM's patriotic duty to make this patent available for general use for all restaurant bills that are generated by patrons who meet to discuss Open Source issues on the premises and who are prepared to publish their Restaurant Bills in the public domain under the GPL license.
I trust that IBM, given its commitment to the use of Open Source world-wide, will assume its responsibility in this matter and allow individual restaurants to refrain from charging license fees for the use of this Invention if they are satisfied that the issues discussed on their premises consist for at least 75% of the time of Open Source topics. Restaurants are in a position to verify this through the simple expedient of having their waiters listen in to conversations where those waiters currently do not record such proceedings. Following precedents set in the telecommunications industry, it is clear that it is only fair and reasonable to require Restaurants to keep logs of topics discussed and the time allotted to each topic.
Restaurants who are in compliance with this monitoring scheme should then be allowed to pro-actively deduct the fees payable from the annual licensing plan.
In order to ensure fair dealing, Restaurants would of course agree to accommodate un-announced spot-checks on the topic of conversation of patrons of their establishments, either in person by designated IBM personnel, or remotely through audio-pickups to be installed at every table.
It's quite possible to make explosives and poisons using only household chemicals. *sighs* All it takes is a few weeks of study on the Internet, a decent library, and some systematic note-taking.
But you can't stop that sort of thing without prohibiting oft-used household chemicals. So it's not widely talked about.
The general public hasn't got a clue about what is or isn't dangerous, and neither do most of the Authorities. Starting with the police.
It's long since ceased to be about ensuring safety for neighbours and society at large, it's simply cover-your-backside regulation on part of otherwise clueless officials.
It's Ok that something's done to prevent people from building complete plastique factories and amphetamine laboratories in their basements, but with a little common sense and some understanding of chemicals it's s completely doable to safeguard the neighbourhood.
Register people with home laboratories if you must, but leave them alone. Like HAM radio amateurs.
I see great opportunities for agressively monetizing valuable core intellectual property that hasn't yet realised its full potential with an agressive view to the bottom line.
I am excited to say that I am undertaking research to pro-actively leverage the demand for capitalization in this high-value venture.
In other words: "This sounds like a great racket. Where can I get a piece of the action?"
Obama had something interesting to say, so the press reported it. McCain had very little news to say, and his running mate Palin had nothing to say that's worth listening to. If the press simply reports on what's intereting you *will* get a bias.
Perhaps it's because Obama actually had something interesting to say. Something with a little thought behind it. Something that the other candidate did not. The Press is about giving coverage to news ... new developments, new ideas. If one candidate has something interesting to say, and the other does not, well you will get a bias. An unbiased Press is not necessarily about giving both candidates 50% page real estate and 50% of the positive stories.
[rant mode on]
And then there is Governor Palin. Articles about her were generally negative, but is that the fault of the Press? It beats me how anyone can write a positive article about someone that clueless. Someone who muffs interviews because she can't be bothered to prepare for them (against the advice of the campaign staff), and who has the brazen presumption to consider herself suitable for the office of VP or even the Presidency (in case her running mate suddenly retires for lack of a pulse) and doesn't know whether Africa is a country or a continent.
Some people might say that a VP candidate doesn't need to know one end of the world map from another (for the record, I disagree), so lets judge her on her professed area of competence. Our "energy expert" has this to say:
Ah right. Presiding over the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commissions counts as "working on energy independence"? And her "oversight" brought something to the table? *shrugs* And how about that claim of 20% of our energy production? Well, factcheck.org disagreed with our little "expert":
Right. Right. Mistaking 14% of our domestic energy production for 20% is all in a day's work. A detail. And confusing 20% of our domestic oil production with 20% of our energy production is something any "expert" would have trouble keeping apart, am I right? And mistaking 14% of our domestic oil production for 3.5% of our total energy production is another trivial mistake. Sheesh. I like it when a politician knows what he or she is talking about. Especially regarding "what she brings to the table".
Ah well ... perhaps I'm too gloomy. Perhaps I'm missing something. Some golden glimmer of insight somewhere in all gaffes. You never know. Only I wouldn't know how to write a positive article about that, but then I'm no trained journalist.
On the contrary. I'm biased against terminal ignorance. In students it's not that bad: they don't pretend to know it all and they are generally willing to learn. And they typically *do* learn before the end of term. Most of them.
Unfortunately politicians don't *have* to learn. For them it's an optional extra that takes valuable time from doing appearances. Some do learn (Governor Schwarzenegger for example). Some don't.
[rant mode off]