This is a useful suggestion, but is something that Citizendium is really already doing. Their restriction of only allowing real-names is a breath of fresh air too. I am just waiting for the day some angsty script kiddie teeny bopper incorporate a random paper generator into a botnet to attach Wikipedia. With some good cloaking (first have one IP on the botnet obviously vandalize a page, then have another on the botnet "fix' the vandalization but add something from the random paper generator) the damage will be years fixing.
Say what you want for anonimity, it is turning the internet into a sewer. The number of attacks on my web server in a day is staggering, and my web site isn't all that popular. One of these days soon, someone will create an overnet on top of the internet where each site only accepts packets from users registered with a real name and real address.
You and I both should have read the FAQ before posting.;)
Q: This is a lame publicity stunt, Linux development has always been done this way.
A: Well, the NDA program that we have set up with The Linux Foundation is new. But yes, other than that, this is exactly how Linux kernel development has been done. But it is good to point out exactly how it all works for those who are not familiar with how it works. (emphasis added)
To me it is quite clear as well. To the Attorney General of the United States, it is not so clear. There is an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that gives his quotes and some analysis.
You make some statements that I would question. I don't agree that the United States is the most free nation in the world. First of all, having 5% of the world's population, they incarcerate 25% of the world's prisoners. If I lived in the United States, I would have a 1 in 14 chance of spending time behind bars in my lifetime.
Let's address your "anarchist retards" who were "breaking shit". If the investigation was really into people who were "breaking shit", it would be carried out by state law enforcement. A federal government anti-terrorism task force is claiming federal laws were broken because they give extra grants to police for anti-terrorism training, which makes the potential damage of a police cruiser a federal jurisdiction matter. The jailed journalist offered the requested information for an in camera (private) review by the judge to determine if it merited turning over as evidence of the alleged crimes. I can't think anywhere (else) in the world where this wouldn't be good enough.
The United States is only the "most free nation on earth" on paper. The constitution is, unfortunately, vague and in areas where it does speak, the government is taking pains to erode it further. Let me give an example: habeas corpus. The constitution says that habeas corpus can only be suspended at time of war. Right now, the United States federal government is alleging that because the constitution doesn't explicitely say that habeas corpus is a right the rest of the time, that it isn't.
Yes, that is the boogeyman. This keeps me awake at nights precisely because I do worry about losing rights in my own borders. Canada is under enormous pressure to cave into things like DMCA. Yes, let's in one law criminalize law using technical means to protect the fair use that another law expressly allows. I've published articles on how to rip and transcode DVD's onto Pocket PCs, and host the software for doing that. If I own a DVD, that is perfectly legal in Canada, yet if I travel to the United States, I can get arrested for making software to let me watch the video from my own DVD on a different device. You call that the most free nation on earth? Don't even get me started on the Patriot Act.
If this were a state supoena investigating the attack on a police officer, I would agree that he should have showed up. If it were a genuine investigation of an inury offense, it would be carried out by state law enforcement and involve a state grand jury. The fact that it's a federal investigation by a terrorism task force investigating a civil demonstration - that is frightening. Eevn more frightening considering the stretch the government used to call it federal.
What he is fighting for is to change exactly the sort of mentality people have that says when the government comes calling, the automatic answer is to give them what they want.
I thank God daily that I am not American. Please understand, I don't intend to bash Americans, but I am scared to death of the police state that is forming. Gitmo makes the Japanese internment camps of WWII look like quilting bees. It frightens me so much that I'd even move out of Canada just to get further away from that, except for people like Josh Wolf. He's being asked for the wrong information by the wrong authorities and he's standing up and saying no, this isn't right. People like him are the only thing that gives me any hope that maybe Canada can win the fight to keep this from spreading North.
I'm surprised the article's author didn't try a user agent string from IE7. I couldn't reach what I velieve to be the web site in question in either Firefox or IE, so the site just may be having problems at the moment.
I apologize, I may have misread a percentage chance for American men to mean all Americans. Perhaps that shows up some gender bias in myself. I recall having read that it was 8% as of 2005, but I cannot now find the article in a cursory search. Here are the stats I have found, though:
It may still be accurate that it is close to 10% based on current incarceration rates. I know that the DoJ web site shows incarceration percentages have been rising for the last five years, so it may not be outside my original mark of 10% today. However, being that I can't find any reliable stats, I'll withdraw my 10% and enter in a plea of 6%. I'll do some more digging and see if I can find the article I remember reading, or see if I can find estimates based on more recent incarceration rates.
1 in 136 is the percentage of people who are in jail at any one time. It's about ten times that for a lifetime average - ie, about 10% of the population will spend time in jail or prison in their life.
I think way too much is being made of this. Assuming she did what she is being accused of (something that I don't necesarily accept at face value anyway), it just goes to show that the woman is, like all the rest of the astronauts, just as human as the rest of us. There have been close to 500 people who have been in space, slightly more than half are American. The national average for imprisonment is something close to 10% in the states, so well, they are shooting way below the average.
It is reported that NASA is going to change their psych evals in response to this. Rather than trying to hammer out the humanity from people, perhaps we all need to just accept that they are people. That sooner or later something bad is going to happen because of that, and be ready to deal with it as it happens and then move on. No need for a world to stand in shock. It happens, we wish it didn't happen, we work to make it so it happens as little as possible, but it does so we just deal with it.
The point is, we need to improve and grow and become better as a people and as a society before we can expect that any segment of that society is going to be perfect.
There are more fundamental issues with this technology than timing. The mapping of different areas of the brain to function is only accurate on a coarse level. The area of the brain that would be activated if the person was going to perform mathematics is known, but we can't differentiate what type of operation the person intended to perform. Testing for different emotions on a gross level is possible, but not the subject of those emotions. At least, not without actively flipping photos past the person. And even then, you'd tell little more than you would by simply looking at much more accessable physisiological responses available with a polygraph.
Sorry, but this is oversensationalized. My guess is that they are trolling for funding.
I thought of this as well when I looked at it - that the aspect ratio had been tinkered with. This is hard to say for sure, though. The photo angles could be quite different. It looks to me the "before" shot was shot from above, and that her head is also tilted a little down to boot. This can do odd things to the apparent aspect ratio. Especially if she is opening her jaw in the second photo to specifically to exadgerate the length of her face. In the first we can see the top row of teeth, but her jaw is probably fully closed which will hide her bottom teeth somewhat behind her top. In the second photo, it's hard to tell for sure, but it looks like I can see both rows of teeth, hinting her jaw is lowered. Look at yourself in the mirror - if you practice, I'm sure you can make your face look longer in this way.
No, I'm not convinced the photo was altered, but I am convinced that she used virtually every other trick in order to make the second one look as bad as possible to forward her claim.
She put up the web site with the "terrible" photos because she wants money from the surgeon. She puts up a web site saying the surgeon is a hack. She hopes the sugeon will settle out of court and give her money. The deal being, he pays her off and the web site goes away. So it is in her best interest to make herself look as trashed over as she can. The surgeon looks at the web site and instantly can see what she is doing. He knows her looks are not accurately being depicted by the photos she posted, so he countersues to get the web site taken down. Unfortunately he lost that part. No, the web site is part of the gun at the surgeon's head. It's a very smart move. It is attacking his prospects for future clients, and pressures him to settle.
How many previous malpractice suits there are are irelevent to whether or not there was malpractice in this case. First of all, her statement that there may be many more cases that were settled out of court, is designed to lead you to make the conclusion there probably have been many more cases. This is actually almost certainly false. Generally, any time you are going to request money you issue the statement of claim to the courts at the very beginning, which starts a law suit. Even cases that are settled out of court, almost 100% of the time, they have a case number. This is done to protect the "plaintiff" against claims of extortion. If you are trying to get money from someone, and no to get them to stop an activity or perform an action, your lawyer will tell you the first thing to do is issue a statement of claim through the courts.
As for the cited cases, malpractice is, unfortunately, much more common for plastic surgeons than other specialties. We also have no way of knowing if those cases were settled in the plaintifs favour or not. They should not alter your opinion of the surgeon unless you take the time to research them. Having them on her site is just more leverage she is trying to use against the doctor.
No, the more I think of it and look at her site, the more I sympathize with the surgeon.
I've visited the web site in question, and I believe the surgeon has a point. It looks like the woman is using some of the same techniques shady businesses use to make before/after photos look different, but in reverse. These are:
- One photo being done in a natural setting, one artificial.
- One photo with a happy expression, one without
- One photo with good lighting, one with very stark.
- One photo with makeup, one without
Some of this is related, but look. She insists one eyebrow is higher than the other and she is left with a permanent "surpised" look. This is quite possible, the eyebrow position can give that look, but raising the eyebrows would not have a significant effect on how wide her eye lids are open. Notice in the second photo she exadgerates her "surpised" look by opening her eyes as wide as possible. Add to that the camera in the before photo is slightly above her, and the angle difference adds to the effect. She is smiling in the first photo, which tends to close the eyelids a little and adjusts the eyebrow position.
The makeup makes quite a difference to shading, and the after photo is in much more stark contrast, which elimates facial details.
Also remember that the woman has filed a malpractice suit and stands to gain financially from seeming to look badly now.
However the court ruled, I think the surgeon had a point.
There's a fundamental difference between "mumbo jumbo stuff I don't understand inside [my] box" and "mumbo jumbo stuff I don't understand inside [someone else's] box". Reliability isn't even an issue so much as:
Sure, you can have a copy of the documents in case of emergency, but then can you even open them if there is that "emergency"?
Do you trust Google themselves, or anyone, with all your documents?
Do you trust that Google is completely safe from electronic attack from an outside party?
It also raises an interesting issue for public infrastructure and security. If Google's data center were to be the target, today, of a terrorist attack, then the country would be annoyed, but get over it. The worst that would happen is a few people would get lost on their way to an unfammiliar office during a business trip. Google's stock drops, no one elses does.
Let's say tomorrow, though, they are successful... let's say they are Microsoft successful in attracting corporate usage of Google Office and then their data centers are the target of an attack. Suddenly no one has access to their documents. What would that do for the markets?
That has the potential of adding a degree of centralization to virtually all sectors that dwarfs the financial sector centralization in the twin towers that caused them to attract notice.
There are fundamental differences between the switch from my PC to Google servers that sets it apart from the switch from paper to PC.
There is no need for a move like this. If you want to save money, go to OpenOffice.org.
Google is doing what Microsoft has dreamed about forever - turn computer platforms into monthly revenue generators. This has been the source of erotic dreams for Microsoft executives forever. I don't care how cool a web application is, there is just something fundamentally wrong with having my productivity depend on someone else's servers.
In some measure, this is already the case - how many people at work haven't searched online for solutions to problems encountered at work. This being one form of online dependence. This is a far cry from depending on an outside server. Think about the exposure to DoS attacks that this makes your company? Corporate war is just around the corner. Get a botnet to bring down your competitor's internet and their entire workforce productivity drops to zero.
Additionally, just wait until some security hole opens up and a lawyer's documents are hacked into because they are being edited online.
DO you want to go through metal detectors to go to work? Do you want your coworkers talking to the corporate security department if you happen to browse to a web site for a packet sniffer program on your break? A certain amount of vulnerability is the price a free society pays for
freedom.
It's truly ironic that here in Canada, where far fewer personal freedoms are directly enshrined in our constitution, I today enjoy more personal liberty and freedom from state interferance than those in the United States.
When the Communications Decency Act was signed into law, every major intelligence and law enforcement agency in the United States went into a hiring binge to try and internet and tellecommunications expertise. They were wringing their hands in glee at the chance to make anyone having an internet connection and a bottle of beer grounds for a wiretap. What the government couldn't pull off with that act, they had handed to them on a silver platter with the Patriot Act.
There is a push towards far more state control in your country, and it frightens the hell out of me that my country is on the receiving end of very significant pressure to do the same thing. Not just in the area of security, but in all areas. Wiretap "sharing", copyright controls, and an armed border are just a few things on the agenda. At stake - billions of dollars in arguably ilegal trade tarrifs if we don't tow the line. My government may cave in. I don't want to have 10% of our population imprisoned like yours.
In short, I don't want your fear mongering in my country, and books like this only serve to advance that agenda.
It really sounds to me like this is just a continuing tune on the terrorist theme. Watch out, you aren't safe anywhere, you can't tell who might be out to get you, no one is excluded from suspicion.
My assertion is that looking behind you all the time and treating everyone as a potential threat causes more damage than the problems it supposedly avoids. If the patriot act is the cure, I'd rather have the disease, thank-you. The same goes in the office.
This is the whole point of revenue sharing in the first place. Remember, you are potentially violating copyright if the intent is to make money. Now, with the new scheme, it can be successfully argued that any upload to Youtube is with the intention of making money.
I would be willing to bet that the revenue sharing is part of the negotiations that Google have been in with the major studios. The agreement being the studios generally allow (for a fee of course) content to be on Youtube, but the revenue sharing gives them a larger stick to go after people who use copyrighted material in a way the studios don't like. Youtube then agrees that they won't get in the way of the studios pulling those things down.
There is no way Youtube is coughing up money for any other reason than they are getting a return on their investment. The above is the only way they are getting RoI on revenue sharing that makes sense.
Sounds like an attempt at distributed computing... without the computing part.
Log into web site, check out work unit, complete unit, check in results, rinse and repeat.
There is an assumption in this sort of thing that there is a large enough untapped pool of relevant expertise to make this sort of job distribution effective. Is this actually just a study on whether or not that assumption is correct, or has someone really made that assumption and is expecting success?
I have troubles believing that this is really an effective means for tackling some of the listed problems.
Canada's last federal election used machine-read paper. A sheed of paper with circles you mark an X in. They are put in an envelope you can't see through, then given to the election official who feeds the paper into a reader. You get a green light if the machine was able to read your vote, at which point the paper is sucked into the lock box in case a manual recount is needed. If it didn't read it, it is spat back out and you are given the option of destroying the ballot and getting a new one.
A certain number of polling stations in each area randomly have their machines opened and their electronic count matched against a manual count. If they are off by one, the entire district is manually counted.
All in all, this is the best voting system I have ever seen. Quietly implemented, without a fuss. Designed by people who are more interested in an accurate, quick, efficient system than they are interested in partisan politics or winning contracts for their favourite corporation.
Not a conspiracy at all. It's a public that gets a value from Hubble, who also happens to be paying for it, demanding to have a say in what they are paying for.
What is wrong with the people making the purchase having a say in what they are buying?
People are also apt to sue if they buy a product and find out that the manufacturer knew of some issue, like a virus, and sat on that info. In fact, I think I'd be more apt to sue in that instance than if they did notify people.
For any corporation, the first question the execs have for their lawyer when they discover a flaw in their product is "if we don't warn the public, will our lawsuit damages exceed the loss of sales if we do warn the public". The problem is, they ask this question whether it is an MP3-player screen, trojan, or vehicle brake line. It is this cover-your-ass mentality that causes the problems (and my fury).
Slashdot Mirror
This is a useful suggestion, but is something that Citizendium is really already doing. Their restriction of only allowing real-names is a breath of fresh air too. I am just waiting for the day some angsty script kiddie teeny bopper incorporate a random paper generator into a botnet to attach Wikipedia. With some good cloaking (first have one IP on the botnet obviously vandalize a page, then have another on the botnet "fix' the vandalization but add something from the random paper generator) the damage will be years fixing.
Say what you want for anonimity, it is turning the internet into a sewer. The number of attacks on my web server in a day is staggering, and my web site isn't all that popular. One of these days soon, someone will create an overnet on top of the internet where each site only accepts packets from users registered with a real name and real address.
Can users sign up for this? I've got some hardware I'd love Linux to support. :p
To me it is quite clear as well. To the Attorney General of the United States, it is not so clear. There is an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that gives his quotes and some analysis.
You make some statements that I would question. I don't agree that the United States is the most free nation in the world. First of all, having 5% of the world's population, they incarcerate 25% of the world's prisoners. If I lived in the United States, I would have a 1 in 14 chance of spending time behind bars in my lifetime.
Let's address your "anarchist retards" who were "breaking shit". If the investigation was really into people who were "breaking shit", it would be carried out by state law enforcement. A federal government anti-terrorism task force is claiming federal laws were broken because they give extra grants to police for anti-terrorism training, which makes the potential damage of a police cruiser a federal jurisdiction matter. The jailed journalist offered the requested information for an in camera (private) review by the judge to determine if it merited turning over as evidence of the alleged crimes. I can't think anywhere (else) in the world where this wouldn't be good enough.
The United States is only the "most free nation on earth" on paper. The constitution is, unfortunately, vague and in areas where it does speak, the government is taking pains to erode it further. Let me give an example: habeas corpus. The constitution says that habeas corpus can only be suspended at time of war. Right now, the United States federal government is alleging that because the constitution doesn't explicitely say that habeas corpus is a right the rest of the time, that it isn't.
Yes, that is the boogeyman. This keeps me awake at nights precisely because I do worry about losing rights in my own borders. Canada is under enormous pressure to cave into things like DMCA. Yes, let's in one law criminalize law using technical means to protect the fair use that another law expressly allows. I've published articles on how to rip and transcode DVD's onto Pocket PCs, and host the software for doing that. If I own a DVD, that is perfectly legal in Canada, yet if I travel to the United States, I can get arrested for making software to let me watch the video from my own DVD on a different device. You call that the most free nation on earth? Don't even get me started on the Patriot Act.
If this were a state supoena investigating the attack on a police officer, I would agree that he should have showed up. If it were a genuine investigation of an inury offense, it would be carried out by state law enforcement and involve a state grand jury. The fact that it's a federal investigation by a terrorism task force investigating a civil demonstration - that is frightening. Eevn more frightening considering the stretch the government used to call it federal.
What he is fighting for is to change exactly the sort of mentality people have that says when the government comes calling, the automatic answer is to give them what they want.
I thank God daily that I am not American. Please understand, I don't intend to bash Americans, but I am scared to death of the police state that is forming. Gitmo makes the Japanese internment camps of WWII look like quilting bees. It frightens me so much that I'd even move out of Canada just to get further away from that, except for people like Josh Wolf. He's being asked for the wrong information by the wrong authorities and he's standing up and saying no, this isn't right. People like him are the only thing that gives me any hope that maybe Canada can win the fight to keep this from spreading North.
I'm surprised the article's author didn't try a user agent string from IE7. I couldn't reach what I velieve to be the web site in question in either Firefox or IE, so the site just may be having problems at the moment.
I apologize, I may have misread a percentage chance for American men to mean all Americans. Perhaps that shows up some gender bias in myself. I recall having read that it was 8% as of 2005, but I cannot now find the article in a cursory search. Here are the stats I have found, though:
n alsys.htm . html
- In 1991, the odds were 5.1%. http://www.jointcenter.org/DB/factsheet/correctio
- Based on data from 1991-2001, the odds for all Americans is 6%, 11% for American males. http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/lifetimechance
It may still be accurate that it is close to 10% based on current incarceration rates. I know that the DoJ web site shows incarceration percentages have been rising for the last five years, so it may not be outside my original mark of 10% today. However, being that I can't find any reliable stats, I'll withdraw my 10% and enter in a plea of 6%. I'll do some more digging and see if I can find the article I remember reading, or see if I can find estimates based on more recent incarceration rates.
1 in 136 is the percentage of people who are in jail at any one time. It's about ten times that for a lifetime average - ie, about 10% of the population will spend time in jail or prison in their life.
I think way too much is being made of this. Assuming she did what she is being accused of (something that I don't necesarily accept at face value anyway), it just goes to show that the woman is, like all the rest of the astronauts, just as human as the rest of us. There have been close to 500 people who have been in space, slightly more than half are American. The national average for imprisonment is something close to 10% in the states, so well, they are shooting way below the average.
It is reported that NASA is going to change their psych evals in response to this. Rather than trying to hammer out the humanity from people, perhaps we all need to just accept that they are people. That sooner or later something bad is going to happen because of that, and be ready to deal with it as it happens and then move on. No need for a world to stand in shock. It happens, we wish it didn't happen, we work to make it so it happens as little as possible, but it does so we just deal with it.
The point is, we need to improve and grow and become better as a people and as a society before we can expect that any segment of that society is going to be perfect.
"The alternative is Microsoft."
There are more fundamental issues with this technology than timing. The mapping of different areas of the brain to function is only accurate on a coarse level. The area of the brain that would be activated if the person was going to perform mathematics is known, but we can't differentiate what type of operation the person intended to perform. Testing for different emotions on a gross level is possible, but not the subject of those emotions. At least, not without actively flipping photos past the person. And even then, you'd tell little more than you would by simply looking at much more accessable physisiological responses available with a polygraph.
Sorry, but this is oversensationalized. My guess is that they are trolling for funding.
I thought of this as well when I looked at it - that the aspect ratio had been tinkered with. This is hard to say for sure, though. The photo angles could be quite different. It looks to me the "before" shot was shot from above, and that her head is also tilted a little down to boot. This can do odd things to the apparent aspect ratio. Especially if she is opening her jaw in the second photo to specifically to exadgerate the length of her face. In the first we can see the top row of teeth, but her jaw is probably fully closed which will hide her bottom teeth somewhat behind her top. In the second photo, it's hard to tell for sure, but it looks like I can see both rows of teeth, hinting her jaw is lowered. Look at yourself in the mirror - if you practice, I'm sure you can make your face look longer in this way.
No, I'm not convinced the photo was altered, but I am convinced that she used virtually every other trick in order to make the second one look as bad as possible to forward her claim.
She put up the web site with the "terrible" photos because she wants money from the surgeon. She puts up a web site saying the surgeon is a hack. She hopes the sugeon will settle out of court and give her money. The deal being, he pays her off and the web site goes away. So it is in her best interest to make herself look as trashed over as she can. The surgeon looks at the web site and instantly can see what she is doing. He knows her looks are not accurately being depicted by the photos she posted, so he countersues to get the web site taken down. Unfortunately he lost that part. No, the web site is part of the gun at the surgeon's head. It's a very smart move. It is attacking his prospects for future clients, and pressures him to settle.
How many previous malpractice suits there are are irelevent to whether or not there was malpractice in this case. First of all, her statement that there may be many more cases that were settled out of court, is designed to lead you to make the conclusion there probably have been many more cases. This is actually almost certainly false. Generally, any time you are going to request money you issue the statement of claim to the courts at the very beginning, which starts a law suit. Even cases that are settled out of court, almost 100% of the time, they have a case number. This is done to protect the "plaintiff" against claims of extortion. If you are trying to get money from someone, and no to get them to stop an activity or perform an action, your lawyer will tell you the first thing to do is issue a statement of claim through the courts.
As for the cited cases, malpractice is, unfortunately, much more common for plastic surgeons than other specialties. We also have no way of knowing if those cases were settled in the plaintifs favour or not. They should not alter your opinion of the surgeon unless you take the time to research them. Having them on her site is just more leverage she is trying to use against the doctor.
No, the more I think of it and look at her site, the more I sympathize with the surgeon.
I've visited the web site in question, and I believe the surgeon has a point. It looks like the woman is using some of the same techniques shady businesses use to make before/after photos look different, but in reverse. These are:
- One photo being done in a natural setting, one artificial.
- One photo with a happy expression, one without
- One photo with good lighting, one with very stark.
- One photo with makeup, one without
Some of this is related, but look. She insists one eyebrow is higher than the other and she is left with a permanent "surpised" look. This is quite possible, the eyebrow position can give that look, but raising the eyebrows would not have a significant effect on how wide her eye lids are open. Notice in the second photo she exadgerates her "surpised" look by opening her eyes as wide as possible. Add to that the camera in the before photo is slightly above her, and the angle difference adds to the effect. She is smiling in the first photo, which tends to close the eyelids a little and adjusts the eyebrow position.
The makeup makes quite a difference to shading, and the after photo is in much more stark contrast, which elimates facial details.
Also remember that the woman has filed a malpractice suit and stands to gain financially from seeming to look badly now.
However the court ruled, I think the surgeon had a point.
There's a fundamental difference between "mumbo jumbo stuff I don't understand inside [my] box" and "mumbo jumbo stuff I don't understand inside [someone else's] box". Reliability isn't even an issue so much as:
Sure, you can have a copy of the documents in case of emergency, but then can you even open them if there is that "emergency"?
Do you trust Google themselves, or anyone, with all your documents?
Do you trust that Google is completely safe from electronic attack from an outside party?
It also raises an interesting issue for public infrastructure and security. If Google's data center were to be the target, today, of a terrorist attack, then the country would be annoyed, but get over it. The worst that would happen is a few people would get lost on their way to an unfammiliar office during a business trip. Google's stock drops, no one elses does.
Let's say tomorrow, though, they are successful... let's say they are Microsoft successful in attracting corporate usage of Google Office and then their data centers are the target of an attack. Suddenly no one has access to their documents. What would that do for the markets?
That has the potential of adding a degree of centralization to virtually all sectors that dwarfs the financial sector centralization in the twin towers that caused them to attract notice.
There are fundamental differences between the switch from my PC to Google servers that sets it apart from the switch from paper to PC.
There is no need for a move like this. If you want to save money, go to OpenOffice.org.
Google is doing what Microsoft has dreamed about forever - turn computer platforms into monthly revenue generators. This has been the source of erotic dreams for Microsoft executives forever. I don't care how cool a web application is, there is just something fundamentally wrong with having my productivity depend on someone else's servers.
In some measure, this is already the case - how many people at work haven't searched online for solutions to problems encountered at work. This being one form of online dependence. This is a far cry from depending on an outside server. Think about the exposure to DoS attacks that this makes your company? Corporate war is just around the corner. Get a botnet to bring down your competitor's internet and their entire workforce productivity drops to zero.
Additionally, just wait until some security hole opens up and a lawyer's documents are hacked into because they are being edited online.
This is just a bad, bad idea on its face.
DO you want to go through metal detectors to go to work? Do you want your coworkers talking to the corporate security department if you happen to browse to a web site for a packet sniffer program on your break? A certain amount of vulnerability is the price a free society pays for freedom.
It's truly ironic that here in Canada, where far fewer personal freedoms are directly enshrined in our constitution, I today enjoy more personal liberty and freedom from state interferance than those in the United States.
When the Communications Decency Act was signed into law, every major intelligence and law enforcement agency in the United States went into a hiring binge to try and internet and tellecommunications expertise. They were wringing their hands in glee at the chance to make anyone having an internet connection and a bottle of beer grounds for a wiretap. What the government couldn't pull off with that act, they had handed to them on a silver platter with the Patriot Act.
There is a push towards far more state control in your country, and it frightens the hell out of me that my country is on the receiving end of very significant pressure to do the same thing. Not just in the area of security, but in all areas. Wiretap "sharing", copyright controls, and an armed border are just a few things on the agenda. At stake - billions of dollars in arguably ilegal trade tarrifs if we don't tow the line. My government may cave in. I don't want to have 10% of our population imprisoned like yours.
In short, I don't want your fear mongering in my country, and books like this only serve to advance that agenda.
It really sounds to me like this is just a continuing tune on the terrorist theme. Watch out, you aren't safe anywhere, you can't tell who might be out to get you, no one is excluded from suspicion.
My assertion is that looking behind you all the time and treating everyone as a potential threat causes more damage than the problems it supposedly avoids. If the patriot act is the cure, I'd rather have the disease, thank-you. The same goes in the office.
This is the whole point of revenue sharing in the first place. Remember, you are potentially violating copyright if the intent is to make money. Now, with the new scheme, it can be successfully argued that any upload to Youtube is with the intention of making money.
I would be willing to bet that the revenue sharing is part of the negotiations that Google have been in with the major studios. The agreement being the studios generally allow (for a fee of course) content to be on Youtube, but the revenue sharing gives them a larger stick to go after people who use copyrighted material in a way the studios don't like. Youtube then agrees that they won't get in the way of the studios pulling those things down.
There is no way Youtube is coughing up money for any other reason than they are getting a return on their investment. The above is the only way they are getting RoI on revenue sharing that makes sense.
Sounds like an attempt at distributed computing... without the computing part.
Log into web site, check out work unit, complete unit, check in results, rinse and repeat.
There is an assumption in this sort of thing that there is a large enough untapped pool of relevant expertise to make this sort of job distribution effective. Is this actually just a study on whether or not that assumption is correct, or has someone really made that assumption and is expecting success?
I have troubles believing that this is really an effective means for tackling some of the listed problems.
Canada's last federal election used machine-read paper. A sheed of paper with circles you mark an X in. They are put in an envelope you can't see through, then given to the election official who feeds the paper into a reader. You get a green light if the machine was able to read your vote, at which point the paper is sucked into the lock box in case a manual recount is needed. If it didn't read it, it is spat back out and you are given the option of destroying the ballot and getting a new one.
A certain number of polling stations in each area randomly have their machines opened and their electronic count matched against a manual count. If they are off by one, the entire district is manually counted.
All in all, this is the best voting system I have ever seen. Quietly implemented, without a fuss. Designed by people who are more interested in an accurate, quick, efficient system than they are interested in partisan politics or winning contracts for their favourite corporation.
I love living here.
Not a conspiracy at all. It's a public that gets a value from Hubble, who also happens to be paying for it, demanding to have a say in what they are paying for.
What is wrong with the people making the purchase having a say in what they are buying?
People are also apt to sue if they buy a product and find out that the manufacturer knew of some issue, like a virus, and sat on that info. In fact, I think I'd be more apt to sue in that instance than if they did notify people.
For any corporation, the first question the execs have for their lawyer when they discover a flaw in their product is "if we don't warn the public, will our lawsuit damages exceed the loss of sales if we do warn the public". The problem is, they ask this question whether it is an MP3-player screen, trojan, or vehicle brake line. It is this cover-your-ass mentality that causes the problems (and my fury).