No, it actuallyisn't a useless argument in this case.
When there's some indication that the smallpox vaccine actually does increase resistance to HIV infection, the argument is a fairly interesting one to bring up.
I'd certainly want to see an itemized breakdown if I were on his legal team, but I'm not so sure it's excessive.
Given that the article reports, "Prosecutors had sought the money from Terry Childs, a former Department of Technology network engineer, to repay The City for its efforts in trying to regain control over the FiberWAN network and later test it for vulnerabilities." Judging by the budgets for the projects my company is regularly launching, 1.5 million dollars isn't a particularly large project for vulnerability testing across an infrastructure the size of SF's city government infrastructure.
And... what's your point? The two are completely unrelated situations, aside from happening "in the same city." That they replaced one incompetent admin with another incompetent admin doesn't mean that the first incompetent admin is somehow innocent of attempting to hold the city's infrastructure hostage.
Your assertion was that somehow withholding the password was a sign of his competence, such that he was refusing to turn it over to incompetent people. Yet the fact that he built no failsafe indicates that he is - at best - incompetent, and at worse downright malicious. He was not a white knight. He fucked up, and then he made the situation worse by digging in his heels, instead of simply pointing them to his failsafe and saying, "Go ahead and use the passwords, they're clearly documented."
By neglecting to build a failsafe into the systems he administered, allowing other people to gain access in case he were sacked or incapacitated. The old "hit by a bus" rule. He had EVERY responsibility, obligation, and freedom to set up such a system, and he opted not to. That makes him, at best, an incompetent admin, no matter how gifted he is with configuring and troubleshooting the boxes.
SPOF? what if he was the only person QUALIFIED to run the system.. ?
Then you implement a failsafe so that if you are incapacitated, or terminate your employment, your employer is not fucked, and can hire another admin to come in and take over using the carefully & securely documented passwords & critical information you've written down to start from. This is EVEN MORE important if you are a SPOF. People have heart attacks. People get in car accidents. People get laid off, outsourced, or simply get fed up and decide to quit their job. If you are a competent professional, you plan for these things and don't take your systems hostage. If you are incompetent, you keep it all in your head and try to ransom access when you feel slighted.
He had nothing to do with the issue detailed in the link you provided, and I never said he was the ONLY incompetent in the city's employ. I said he was PART of the incompetence, and he was. I'm a SPOF in my role; I did two things when I realized this: 1) Spent a week documenting critical processes, passwords, and systems; Handed the ~20 pages of documentation to my boss in a sealed envelope, and told him, "In case you fire me, or I get hit by a bus, this is the critical information somebody would need to keep things running here. Please lock it up in one of your filing cabinets for safekeeping." I also provide him with an updated printout (new passwords, system config changes, hardware changes, etc) at the beginning of each month, and ask him to destroy the old one and replace it with the new. It's not ideal, but it provides some level of coverage.
2) Spent a couple months badgering every manager in my division to identify people who they would agree to let me cross-train so they could do at least the basics of my role while they found a replacement for me if I ever left / was incapacitated. I now have two guys trained in the simple "day to day" stuff, which means I can also take a goddamned vacation without having to be plugged into the network constantly.
This "I'm the only one QUALIFIED" to run the system is nonsense, and you know it. He's not the only guy who could possibly hope to understand his network config, and sooner or later, he'll quit, retire, get laid off or fired, or move on - and somebody will need to replace him. Part of his job while he's there is to think to the future and document things clearly in light of that fact.
Although I do agree that Terry was in the wrong, so was the City for its bad procedures.
Mr. Childs was in a position to implement better procedures, and in fact, had a professional obligation to improve the bad procedures which you point out. He did not do this. At a bare minimum, he could have simply done this: "Hey boss, since I'm a single point of failure, if I'm ever hit by a bus, here's a sealed envelope with passwords and critical access information for all of the systems I work with. I'll update this once a month, and make sure you receive a new copy. I'll also do the same with $some_guy_who_covers_for_me_when_im_on_vacation, and if you like, a third manager who you deem appropriate." This is cheap and easy to implement, and requires absolutely no "new policies" or politicking. He's simply setting up a failsafe in case he's incapacitated or turfed out - the sort of failsafe any sysadmin should implement ASAP in any new job where they find that they're the only person who knows the appropriate access passwords to critical systems.
He failed to do anything like this, and elected to keep everything in his head. We can only conclude from this that he was just as incompetent as the rest of the people implementing "bad procedures" on behalf of the city, or he was deliberately trying to set up a chokehold on city infrastructure. Either way, I have very little sympathy with him for obstructing access to the systems under the guise of "caring so deeply" about them. If he cared so deeply about the systems, he never would have set himself up as a single point of failure.
Oh bullshit. He was part of the incompetence. At what point do we admit that Mr. Childs was just as irresponsible for neglecting to create an appropriate backup and contingency plan for outages, disaster recovery, etc. that allowed for someone else to get access to the passwords?
Where I'm sitting, any sysadmin with half a brain knows that a single point of failure is a no-no. Let's not pretend he was some white knight, if there were no adequate plans for password access in place, then he's just as incompetent as his managers were. Only difference is, he was incompetent, and broke the law in the process, by refusing to turn over the password to his management chain when he was reassigned and holding the network he was "protecting" hostage.
1) It is absolutely illegal for Bradley Manning to have improperly handled (and released) classified information, as he is alleged to have done. This is what I was referring to when I mentioned a relese of classified information.
2) It is not always legal for the press to publish leaked information, though admittedly the bar is high, and the government must show a significant likelihood of danger to troops or plans in order to suppress publication. This is further compounded by the fact that Wikileaks is not a US-based organization, thus it would be necessary for them to show that an agent of Wikileaks actually solicited the leaked information, and encouraged someone to leak the data for it to amount to any charges of espionage against wikileaks staffers.
3) The "fuss" over publication of that data is most definitely about PFC Manning's alleged leak of that data. Unless you see legal action being pursued against wikileaks that none of us have heard about?
The wikileaks "fuss" was about somebody releasing classified information to the public, and has nothing to do with whether "strategic" or "tactical" information was leaked. The information is classified, therefore it is illegal to release - whether or not it's considered "strategic" or "tactical" is irrelevant.
Strategy is regularly and openly discussed by many people, and I don't think you'd have much difficulty finding people discussing the US strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan all over the media - they use terms like "Troop Surge" and "counterinsurgency" and "nation building" and "winning hearts and minds." Strategy is the broad strokes needed to achieve your goals. Many times, the specific plan is classified, but it's not very hard to divine the strategic intent of the people in charge.
If you take a look at any of the AWD leaks - and actually understand what you're looking at - you'll see that it's - generally speaking - not "strategic" information at all, anyway - it's very much specific tactical & operational information - situation reports and the like.
care to actually cite something that demonstrates that?
Yes, how dare he not provide footnotes. After all, you provided citations and references for each of your carefully-researched, exhaustively studied counterpoints, relying on hard facts and numbers, rather than appeals to emotion and "common sense" that you no doubt picked up from some politicians' talking points.
It has less to do with "ZOMG SEX" than it does with painting him as a hypocrite, who was happy to tell his followers to follow strict muslim laws, and then flout them in his own private life. Much like you'd roll your eyes and say "Yeah whatever," if a man with a plate full of bacon was sitting there telling you how horrible and filthy pork is, and how nobody should ever eat it, or even be allowed to smell it.
But don't let the obviousness of that derail your attempt at bashing Americans as if 300+ million people all hew to the same cultural norms. Get your hate on, brah!
In this particular case, however, the treatment involves the use of two existing drugs, so there's really no profitability to discuss.
You're an idiot. Let's break down how:
1) Life expectancy for people with CF is ~40-45 years today. WITH modern medical care. 2) The reportedly successful drug cocktail of two already-existing drugs:
a) Would extend the lives of those people with CF by years - meaning more sales over time;
b) Would require $0 new research to produce - these drugs already exist;
c) Would not "cure" the underlying genetic condition, meaning that if you have CF, you need this cocktail for as long as you're alive to manage your disease;
What world do you live in that increased sales to a new market, over a longer time frame, with zero up-front development costs equals "no profitability"?
Actually, electric trains are, as a rule, "cleaner" than diesel trains. A giant power plant generally operates at much higher efficiencies (generally ~2x the efficiency of a typical car motor, if I recall correctly) than your automobile engine - less fuel is consumed to produce the same amount of energy, which means less pollution is emitted.
The giant power plants also have the option to generate some or all of their capacity from "clean" (or at least, "cleaner") sources. Diesel engines are... diesel engines, no matter where they're installed.
Especially considering many buses operate in high-traffic city areas, where they are constantly accelerating and decelerating. That extra 10,000 pounds of meat takes more energy to get moving from a standstill, and more energy to bring to a stop from 30 miles an hour. If that extra weight required no additional energy, then a Volkswagen Beetle would be able to tow a 30 foot trailer.
Yeah, I'm not sure I see the invasive privacy concern of somebody knowing "when you wake up, when you leave for work and come home, when you go on vacation and when you take a shower."
It seems oddly paranoid to me that we'd consider these mundane details of daily life "sensitive private information." Is "your privacy is at risk!" becoming the new "won't somebody think of the children?!" I just don't see a very serious privacy concern over somebody knowing that I take a shower at 7:30 each morning. My neighbors all already know this, it's not like it's my super-secret PIN code or financial account passwords.
There's absolutely nothing that says geeks can't be bullies
Interestingly, there's been some recent studies that bullies and victims often share many of the same traits:
They found the typical bully has trouble with academics and resolving problems, has negative attitudes and comes from a family with conflict.
A typical victim sounds surprisingly similar: he or she is likely to be aggressive, lacks social skills, thinks negative thoughts, has difficulty in problem-solving and comes from an environment of negativity. These youths are rejected and isolated, the research found.
Strike "trouble with academics," and you've just described many geeks. It's not surprising that people in a group that tends to fit the profile of bullying victims also learned how to be bullies somewhere along the way. Now that there's no "dumb jock" to shove their head in the toilet, one of them gets to be big man on campus and shove some other poor nerd's head in the toilet.
You Canadians build your homes out of snow and drape yourselves in nothing but beaver pelts to stay warm. With no electricity, what in god's name do you need computer network services for, eh?
Actually, "blocking until you get an answer" is a very effective method for getting a critical answer or clarification.
An email to the person you need an answer from, their boss, and your boss, clearly stating:
"I do not know how to proceed on this issue, because the spec is unclear. I require clarification and answers to these questions before I'm able to proceed: (list of questions) I cannot proceed on this effort until I receive this clarification; this is a blocking issue and runs the risk of disrupting our schedule if clarification is not received soon. In the meantime, I will be moving on to work on my second-most-important task until I receive this clarification. (optional: provide a recommendation or possible alternatives if appropriate, and ask them to make a choice or to provide their own preferred alternative.)"
Slamming on the brakes on a critical project, or threatening to do so, will get you a very fast response, and it's not an inappropriate technique for mission critical projects. It's better to stop & get clarification than to proceed and say "don't say anything if you agree with what I did," because that guarantees your message will be skimmed-at-best by the people you're asking for a clarification from.
Indeed... I have 3 or 4 shows I enjoy watching, and have them set to record on my DVR. When I have some time, I sit down, pull up my recorded programs, and watch an episode or two. I'm not "current," but who cares? I get to watch it at my own pace at a time that's convenient for me, rather than having to rearrange my schedule so I can be home every week on a certain day & time. The only time I even notice a show's schedule generally is if there's a hiatus and suddenly I don't have anything recorded for a few weeks.
It clearly states that there has to be a written offer as well, if Apple doesn't have one (and I have seen no evidence therefore, few companies choose this option) then none of 'd' applies to them.
Two points: 1) If one method for distribution specifically allows for delays, and the method they are using (6D, quoted previously) does not specifically state that it must have a simultaneous release, then it is logically consistent to conclude that the license allows for delays between releasing the object code and releasing the source code. Why? Because in 6A and 6B, they *specifically* state that the source code, or an offer to provide it, must "accompany" the physical media on which the binaries are being distributed. If they specifically state it in only 2 of the 6 clauses, and specifically allow for delays in another clause, then it is reasonable to conclude that some delay is expected or allowed in the remaining 3 clauses, as well - 6D is one of these remaining clauses. In short, if the person writing the license doesn't stipulate something, then the benefit of the doubt goes to the licensee where a clause is vague and non-specific.
2) None of '6B' applies to them, 6D most certainly does:
6 b) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by a written offer, valid for at least three years and valid for as long as you offer spare parts or customer support for that product model, to give anyone who possesses the object code either (1) a copy of the Corresponding Source for all the software in the product that is covered by this License, on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange, for a price no more than your reasonable cost of physically performing this conveying of source, or (2) access to copy the Corresponding Source from a network server at no charge.
-- this specifies that physical media must be "accompanied by" an offer to provide the source. iOS releases are not distributed on a physical medium, therefore this does not apply.
6 d) Convey the object code by offering access from a designated place (gratis or for a charge), and offer equivalent access to the Corresponding Source in the same way through the same place at no further charge. You need not require recipients to copy the Corresponding Source along with the object code. If the place to copy the object code is a network server, the Corresponding Source may be on a different server (operated by you or a third party) that supports equivalent copying facilities, provided you maintain clear directions next to the object code saying where to find the Corresponding Source. Regardless of what server hosts the Corresponding Source, you remain obligated to ensure that it is available for as long as needed to satisfy these requirements.
-- this specifies a release by "offering access from a designated place" for both the source and object distribution, such as a file server, which is exactly how apple manages it.
Note that I'm not calling for anyone to sue Apple, I'm pointing out that there is no reason to defended them on this, they are on the wrong side of the license and should fix things, not have the community make excuses for them.
Apple has a pretty good history of releasing the source code in a timely fashion. There's been a slightly-longer-than-normal delay between iOS release & source release, and it's entirely possible that the components in question didn't change in each of the iOS 4.3 releases, and thus didn't require a release of source code for each and every one. A blogger (and numerous commenters here) are reading some sort of bizarre nefarious plot by Apple into what is, most likely, a simple resource issue with the wrong person being out on vacation for a week or two, compounded by the fairly rapid build & deploy they needed to do to address the "tracking" issues that recently caused such a stir.
Now I'm curious if you actually read what you wrote. Let's look at it, shall we?
"Is it possible that's because of the conservatives on Slashdot?"
Translation: The difficulty of espousing a conservative opinion on Slashdot is related to the thinking and communcation skills of those who are expressing those opinions. Now, if you had stopped there, I could concede that perhaps you're right - I don't often see conservative arguments advanced by the likes of people like Goldwater or Buckley here on Slashdot. Perhaps they're just not expressing themselves as well as they could. But then you continued:
"Or maybe it's because of the overall quality of what passes for "conservative thought" circa 2011 and the cognitive dissonance such opinion requires."
Translation: "conservative thought" today, and anybody who is attempting to express a conservative opinion, is illogical, irrational, and, to borrow your phrase, of the same quality as "anything that's being trumpeted on Fox News." In fact, there's quite a bit of "conservative thought" - both in the world today, and expressed here on Slashdot, that you might be chagrined to know that Messrs Buckley and Goldwater would probably agree with wholeheartedly. But you opted to go with the broad swipe at "conservatives," and paint all "conservative thought" today as the stuff of Fox News and Tea Partiers, which is not only a gross overgeneralization, but grossly inaccurate.
I'm responding to exactly what you wrote, and I'm responding to you specifically because it was a thinly veiled insult. If you'd care to clarify or restate, I'd be happy to see what you *really* meant to say.
Slashdot Mirror
No, it actually isn't a useless argument in this case.
When there's some indication that the smallpox vaccine actually does increase resistance to HIV infection, the argument is a fairly interesting one to bring up.
I'd certainly want to see an itemized breakdown if I were on his legal team, but I'm not so sure it's excessive.
Given that the article reports, "Prosecutors had sought the money from Terry Childs, a former Department of Technology network engineer, to repay The City for its efforts in trying to regain control over the FiberWAN network and later test it for vulnerabilities." Judging by the budgets for the projects my company is regularly launching, 1.5 million dollars isn't a particularly large project for vulnerability testing across an infrastructure the size of SF's city government infrastructure.
And... what's your point? The two are completely unrelated situations, aside from happening "in the same city." That they replaced one incompetent admin with another incompetent admin doesn't mean that the first incompetent admin is somehow innocent of attempting to hold the city's infrastructure hostage.
Your assertion was that somehow withholding the password was a sign of his competence, such that he was refusing to turn it over to incompetent people. Yet the fact that he built no failsafe indicates that he is - at best - incompetent, and at worse downright malicious. He was not a white knight. He fucked up, and then he made the situation worse by digging in his heels, instead of simply pointing them to his failsafe and saying, "Go ahead and use the passwords, they're clearly documented."
By neglecting to build a failsafe into the systems he administered, allowing other people to gain access in case he were sacked or incapacitated. The old "hit by a bus" rule. He had EVERY responsibility, obligation, and freedom to set up such a system, and he opted not to. That makes him, at best, an incompetent admin, no matter how gifted he is with configuring and troubleshooting the boxes.
Then you implement a failsafe so that if you are incapacitated, or terminate your employment, your employer is not fucked, and can hire another admin to come in and take over using the carefully & securely documented passwords & critical information you've written down to start from. This is EVEN MORE important if you are a SPOF. People have heart attacks. People get in car accidents. People get laid off, outsourced, or simply get fed up and decide to quit their job. If you are a competent professional, you plan for these things and don't take your systems hostage. If you are incompetent, you keep it all in your head and try to ransom access when you feel slighted.
He had nothing to do with the issue detailed in the link you provided, and I never said he was the ONLY incompetent in the city's employ. I said he was PART of the incompetence, and he was. I'm a SPOF in my role; I did two things when I realized this:
1) Spent a week documenting critical processes, passwords, and systems; Handed the ~20 pages of documentation to my boss in a sealed envelope, and told him, "In case you fire me, or I get hit by a bus, this is the critical information somebody would need to keep things running here. Please lock it up in one of your filing cabinets for safekeeping." I also provide him with an updated printout (new passwords, system config changes, hardware changes, etc) at the beginning of each month, and ask him to destroy the old one and replace it with the new. It's not ideal, but it provides some level of coverage.
2) Spent a couple months badgering every manager in my division to identify people who they would agree to let me cross-train so they could do at least the basics of my role while they found a replacement for me if I ever left / was incapacitated. I now have two guys trained in the simple "day to day" stuff, which means I can also take a goddamned vacation without having to be plugged into the network constantly.
This "I'm the only one QUALIFIED" to run the system is nonsense, and you know it. He's not the only guy who could possibly hope to understand his network config, and sooner or later, he'll quit, retire, get laid off or fired, or move on - and somebody will need to replace him. Part of his job while he's there is to think to the future and document things clearly in light of that fact.
Mr. Childs was in a position to implement better procedures, and in fact, had a professional obligation to improve the bad procedures which you point out. He did not do this. At a bare minimum, he could have simply done this: "Hey boss, since I'm a single point of failure, if I'm ever hit by a bus, here's a sealed envelope with passwords and critical access information for all of the systems I work with. I'll update this once a month, and make sure you receive a new copy. I'll also do the same with $some_guy_who_covers_for_me_when_im_on_vacation, and if you like, a third manager who you deem appropriate." This is cheap and easy to implement, and requires absolutely no "new policies" or politicking. He's simply setting up a failsafe in case he's incapacitated or turfed out - the sort of failsafe any sysadmin should implement ASAP in any new job where they find that they're the only person who knows the appropriate access passwords to critical systems.
He failed to do anything like this, and elected to keep everything in his head. We can only conclude from this that he was just as incompetent as the rest of the people implementing "bad procedures" on behalf of the city, or he was deliberately trying to set up a chokehold on city infrastructure. Either way, I have very little sympathy with him for obstructing access to the systems under the guise of "caring so deeply" about them. If he cared so deeply about the systems, he never would have set himself up as a single point of failure.
Oh bullshit. He was part of the incompetence . At what point do we admit that Mr. Childs was just as irresponsible for neglecting to create an appropriate backup and contingency plan for outages, disaster recovery, etc. that allowed for someone else to get access to the passwords?
Where I'm sitting, any sysadmin with half a brain knows that a single point of failure is a no-no. Let's not pretend he was some white knight, if there were no adequate plans for password access in place, then he's just as incompetent as his managers were. Only difference is, he was incompetent, and broke the law in the process, by refusing to turn over the password to his management chain when he was reassigned and holding the network he was "protecting" hostage.
1) It is absolutely illegal for Bradley Manning to have improperly handled (and released) classified information, as he is alleged to have done. This is what I was referring to when I mentioned a relese of classified information.
2) It is not always legal for the press to publish leaked information, though admittedly the bar is high, and the government must show a significant likelihood of danger to troops or plans in order to suppress publication. This is further compounded by the fact that Wikileaks is not a US-based organization, thus it would be necessary for them to show that an agent of Wikileaks actually solicited the leaked information, and encouraged someone to leak the data for it to amount to any charges of espionage against wikileaks staffers.
3) The "fuss" over publication of that data is most definitely about PFC Manning's alleged leak of that data. Unless you see legal action being pursued against wikileaks that none of us have heard about?
The wikileaks "fuss" was about somebody releasing classified information to the public, and has nothing to do with whether "strategic" or "tactical" information was leaked. The information is classified, therefore it is illegal to release - whether or not it's considered "strategic" or "tactical" is irrelevant.
Strategy is regularly and openly discussed by many people, and I don't think you'd have much difficulty finding people discussing the US strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan all over the media - they use terms like "Troop Surge" and "counterinsurgency" and "nation building" and "winning hearts and minds." Strategy is the broad strokes needed to achieve your goals. Many times, the specific plan is classified, but it's not very hard to divine the strategic intent of the people in charge.
If you take a look at any of the AWD leaks - and actually understand what you're looking at - you'll see that it's - generally speaking - not "strategic" information at all, anyway - it's very much specific tactical & operational information - situation reports and the like.
Yes, how dare he not provide footnotes. After all, you provided citations and references for each of your carefully-researched, exhaustively studied counterpoints, relying on hard facts and numbers, rather than appeals to emotion and "common sense" that you no doubt picked up from some politicians' talking points.
Shhh... let them yell at each other, it'll be fun to watch trolls trolling trolls.
I always imagined it'd be more like the Honeymooners, but with the character of Ralph Kramden shouting "To the Earth, Alice! To the Earth!"
... and?
It has less to do with "ZOMG SEX" than it does with painting him as a hypocrite, who was happy to tell his followers to follow strict muslim laws, and then flout them in his own private life. Much like you'd roll your eyes and say "Yeah whatever," if a man with a plate full of bacon was sitting there telling you how horrible and filthy pork is, and how nobody should ever eat it, or even be allowed to smell it.
But don't let the obviousness of that derail your attempt at bashing Americans as if 300+ million people all hew to the same cultural norms. Get your hate on, brah!
His wife wasn't killed. For somebody with a lot of strong opinions, you seem rather short on facts.
You're an idiot. Let's break down how:
1) Life expectancy for people with CF is ~40-45 years today. WITH modern medical care.
2) The reportedly successful drug cocktail of two already-existing drugs:
a) Would extend the lives of those people with CF by years - meaning more sales over time;
b) Would require $0 new research to produce - these drugs already exist;
c) Would not "cure" the underlying genetic condition, meaning that if you have CF, you need this cocktail for as long as you're alive to manage your disease;
What world do you live in that increased sales to a new market, over a longer time frame, with zero up-front development costs equals "no profitability"?
Actually, electric trains are, as a rule, "cleaner" than diesel trains. A giant power plant generally operates at much higher efficiencies (generally ~2x the efficiency of a typical car motor, if I recall correctly) than your automobile engine - less fuel is consumed to produce the same amount of energy, which means less pollution is emitted.
The giant power plants also have the option to generate some or all of their capacity from "clean" (or at least, "cleaner") sources. Diesel engines are... diesel engines, no matter where they're installed.
Especially considering many buses operate in high-traffic city areas, where they are constantly accelerating and decelerating. That extra 10,000 pounds of meat takes more energy to get moving from a standstill, and more energy to bring to a stop from 30 miles an hour. If that extra weight required no additional energy, then a Volkswagen Beetle would be able to tow a 30 foot trailer.
Does this mean I should stop eating Thai and Indian food?
Yeah, I'm not sure I see the invasive privacy concern of somebody knowing "when you wake up, when you leave for work and come home, when you go on vacation and when you take a shower."
It seems oddly paranoid to me that we'd consider these mundane details of daily life "sensitive private information." Is "your privacy is at risk!" becoming the new "won't somebody think of the children?!" I just don't see a very serious privacy concern over somebody knowing that I take a shower at 7:30 each morning. My neighbors all already know this, it's not like it's my super-secret PIN code or financial account passwords.
Interestingly, there's been some recent studies that bullies and victims often share many of the same traits:
Strike "trouble with academics," and you've just described many geeks. It's not surprising that people in a group that tends to fit the profile of bullying victims also learned how to be bullies somewhere along the way. Now that there's no "dumb jock" to shove their head in the toilet, one of them gets to be big man on campus and shove some other poor nerd's head in the toilet.
You Canadians build your homes out of snow and drape yourselves in nothing but beaver pelts to stay warm. With no electricity, what in god's name do you need computer network services for, eh?
Actually, "blocking until you get an answer" is a very effective method for getting a critical answer or clarification.
An email to the person you need an answer from, their boss, and your boss, clearly stating:
"I do not know how to proceed on this issue, because the spec is unclear. I require clarification and answers to these questions before I'm able to proceed:
(list of questions)
I cannot proceed on this effort until I receive this clarification; this is a blocking issue and runs the risk of disrupting our schedule if clarification is not received soon. In the meantime, I will be moving on to work on my second-most-important task until I receive this clarification.
(optional: provide a recommendation or possible alternatives if appropriate, and ask them to make a choice or to provide their own preferred alternative.)"
Slamming on the brakes on a critical project, or threatening to do so, will get you a very fast response, and it's not an inappropriate technique for mission critical projects. It's better to stop & get clarification than to proceed and say "don't say anything if you agree with what I did," because that guarantees your message will be skimmed-at-best by the people you're asking for a clarification from.
Indeed... I have 3 or 4 shows I enjoy watching, and have them set to record on my DVR. When I have some time, I sit down, pull up my recorded programs, and watch an episode or two. I'm not "current," but who cares? I get to watch it at my own pace at a time that's convenient for me, rather than having to rearrange my schedule so I can be home every week on a certain day & time. The only time I even notice a show's schedule generally is if there's a hiatus and suddenly I don't have anything recorded for a few weeks.
Two points:
1) If one method for distribution specifically allows for delays, and the method they are using (6D, quoted previously) does not specifically state that it must have a simultaneous release, then it is logically consistent to conclude that the license allows for delays between releasing the object code and releasing the source code. Why? Because in 6A and 6B, they *specifically* state that the source code, or an offer to provide it, must "accompany" the physical media on which the binaries are being distributed. If they specifically state it in only 2 of the 6 clauses, and specifically allow for delays in another clause, then it is reasonable to conclude that some delay is expected or allowed in the remaining 3 clauses, as well - 6D is one of these remaining clauses. In short, if the person writing the license doesn't stipulate something, then the benefit of the doubt goes to the licensee where a clause is vague and non-specific.
2) None of '6B' applies to them, 6D most certainly does:
-- this specifies that physical media must be "accompanied by" an offer to provide the source. iOS releases are not distributed on a physical medium, therefore this does not apply.
-- this specifies a release by "offering access from a designated place" for both the source and object distribution, such as a file server, which is exactly how apple manages it.
Apple has a pretty good history of releasing the source code in a timely fashion. There's been a slightly-longer-than-normal delay between iOS release & source release, and it's entirely possible that the components in question didn't change in each of the iOS 4.3 releases, and thus didn't require a release of source code for each and every one. A blogger (and numerous commenters here) are reading some sort of bizarre nefarious plot by Apple into what is, most likely, a simple resource issue with the wrong person being out on vacation for a week or two, compounded by the fairly rapid build & deploy they needed to do to address the "tracking" issues that recently caused such a stir.
Now I'm curious if you actually read what you wrote. Let's look at it, shall we?
"Is it possible that's because of the conservatives on Slashdot?"
Translation: The difficulty of espousing a conservative opinion on Slashdot is related to the thinking and communcation skills of those who are expressing those opinions. Now, if you had stopped there, I could concede that perhaps you're right - I don't often see conservative arguments advanced by the likes of people like Goldwater or Buckley here on Slashdot. Perhaps they're just not expressing themselves as well as they could. But then you continued:
"Or maybe it's because of the overall quality of what passes for "conservative thought" circa 2011 and the cognitive dissonance such opinion requires."
Translation: "conservative thought" today, and anybody who is attempting to express a conservative opinion, is illogical, irrational, and, to borrow your phrase, of the same quality as "anything that's being trumpeted on Fox News." In fact, there's quite a bit of "conservative thought" - both in the world today, and expressed here on Slashdot, that you might be chagrined to know that Messrs Buckley and Goldwater would probably agree with wholeheartedly. But you opted to go with the broad swipe at "conservatives," and paint all "conservative thought" today as the stuff of Fox News and Tea Partiers, which is not only a gross overgeneralization, but grossly inaccurate.
I'm responding to exactly what you wrote, and I'm responding to you specifically because it was a thinly veiled insult. If you'd care to clarify or restate, I'd be happy to see what you *really* meant to say.