Enough, already! All of this arguing over whether "Wargames", the original "Tron" and "The Last Starfighter" are really as bad as everyone says, or if it's just elitist snobbery ("I really liked them, but I'm too cool to admit it") is making me want to go watch all three movies to find out if I only enjoyed them because I was in junior high school at the time. In any case, I really don't have the time or money to watch a bunch of old movies, so can we PUH-LEASE end the list with just those three?:D
But the way I see it, that stuff is available 24/7 on the Internet, so have we really fallen all that far? I hit APOD first thing every morning. That often sends me off to various astronomy web sites or wikipedia entries on subjects I didn't even know existed. Then, of course, there's Phil Plait, who's pretty much a hero around here:)
If Richard Reid and the Christmas bomber had succeeded...
They did succeed -- admirably, in fact. They kept the paranoia going so TSA could continue to whittle away at quickly eroding rights. Terrorism doesn't have to end in hundreds or thousands of people dead to achieve its goals (instilling fear in the target population).
...your odds would halve been about 1 in 8 million.
No, "halve" would have been 1 in 12,500,000. "Third" or possibly "have" would have been appropriate choices here. </pedantic>
Still good, but it's amazing how quickly the odds can go to shit.
So which is it? Are the odds "still good" or do they suck? It may be a large reduction in the odds, but I'd gladly take a 1:8,000,000 chance of things going wrong not to have my 4th Amendment rights trampled to death.
I have gained nothing
You can either let the odds get greater or you can play cat-and-mouse. What are acceptable odds to you? Isn't that an arbitrary number? Why is your number better than 1:25 million?
Now you're being pedantic. Pretty much everything in life is trade-off. I'm not willing to allow my civil rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, become null-and-void so an already insignificant risk can be further minimalized. What you are advocating is a search for perfect security. There is no such thing. It is time for the American people to get over their obsession with safety and realize that life entails risk. The only time risk is completely gone is when you are already dead.
I don't see any of the people killed by collateral damage opting out of getting killed.
You CAN'T opt out of being killed. Sooner or later, we all will die, so the best we can do is make wise decisions to prolong the inevitable. Unfortunately, this generation does not seem to have much skill at making wise decisions. Case in point: Do you own a car? Do you drive on the highway? According to Wikipedia, almost 2800 people died on 9/11, but an estimated 1595 people, 57% of the 9/11 body count, died the following year on the highway because they were afraid to fly. Not such a good choice for those 1595 people, was it?
So go find me a way to eliminate all risk from life. It can't be done. You could trip over your blanket and break your neck as you get out of bed in the morning. A meteorite could just happen to fall on your house as you sleep at night. For that matter, all the stress that comes from obsessing over all the myriad ways you could meet your demise could cause an aneurysm.
TSA's scope or grope choice doesn't make anyone measurably safer*, but indisputably makes people feel violated. That's exceptionally poor risk management, IMHO.
*anything with a statistical likelihood less than getting struck by lightning is, IMHO, an insignificant risk.
...when faced with certain death on one hand and the possibility of survival on the other, most will go with the latter.
Which is why terrorists on an airplane no longer have the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell, and therefore is why all of the TSA's recent shenanigans are security theatre. No AIT scanner is going to keep me anywhere near as safe as 100 other highly motivated passengers.
That's probably good in a number of locations, most likely including pretty much everywhere that would be affected by the rogue satellite. However, at risk of being pedantic, the ISP and telco that I work for delivers Internet via satellite links because there are no roads and no land-lines from our upstream to the area we serve. Satellite is the *only* way to get there for at least another couple of years.
IMHO, our views on polygamy and homosexuality are a direct reflection on how rarely most Americans involve themselves in critical thinking. For example, as a nation, we have collectively decided (for the most part) that discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong...unless you want to get married. Another example is that we have decided that the government has no business interfering if I want to engage in an extramarital affair or two (or three or twenty or even more), but somehow it is different if I want to make it a permanent, stable contractual arrangement (i.e., polygamy)? What's the logic behind that?
For whatever it's worth, I am a straight, married man. I'm satisfied with one wife. In fact, a polygamist relationship honestly is my idea of Hell -- keeping one woman happy is enough work for me, thank you very much. However, if someone else wants multiple wives -- or even multiple wives and multiple husbands -- then that's his/her business. So long as everyone involved is an adult, the government has no place in anyone's bedrooms, I believe. So while I personally might find homosexuality or polygamy distasteful (and I do), I don't believe it's any of the government's business.
That sounds like a great idea on/., but I think it's a bit of an oversimplification.
For example, let's take the medium of music. *Who* is "the artist"? Is it the song writer? The performer? Unless you are Nine Inch Nails or Moby or Phil Keaggy or some other phenom who understands both technology and music, even a "solo" artist isn't truly solo -- they almost always have a full band backing them in the studio, and they certainly do while live (even NIN has a backing band on tour). So, which "artist" has to die for the work to go into public domain? The front man? Everyone in the band? Does it go public domain when the band breaks up? Or do you propose that other musicians can't reproduce the song without paying royalties until the song writer dies, and any recorded performance (whether studio or live) doesn't go public domain until the performer(s) die? Even then, it's still not so black and white, because if the performance goes public domain but the song writer is still alive, does the song writer still get royalties every time that particular performance is played? It's not quite as cut-and-dried as it would seem at first glance.
...what next declaring another stupid war, like 'the war on drugs'.
I came here to say exactly that. First, there was the "war on drugs" (Reagan), and then the "war on terror" (Bush, Jr.). Is this to become the "war on piracy" under Obama?
Maybe there was a *whoosh*-ing sound over my head as I read your post, but on the off-chance that I'm *not* missing something, the Bill of Rights does not apply only to laws written by Congress. The Bill of Rights sets limits on THE GOVERNMENT, which includes the President. The fact that "We the People" have grown complacent on our rights does not change the fact that executive orders are no less bound by the Constitution -- including all of the Amendments. In other words, GPP was correct.
Having said that...the Constitution is nothing but a really cool piece of paper if the people allow the government to violate it at will. The last nine years don't make me very optimistic about whether it has any value other than as a somewhat interesting historical document any longer (Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, NSLs, NSA wiretapping, TSA scope-and-grope, etc.).
Slave: bondage, the state of being under the control of another person; someone entirely dominated by some other influence or person. Source: wordnetweb.Princeton.edu. QED.
Maybe my dogs are weird. I've got a Sibe, and my wife has one of those small foo-foo dogs (part Bichon, part Papillon -- but for a fluff ball, he's actually a pretty cool dog). When I've been sipping on a brew, I've offered a little to them, and both of them run away like I'm offering them bleach or ammonia or something. And it's not like I'm drinking the cheap crap, either...it's usually Guinness or Alaskan Amber or something like that.
There's a big difference between no security measures and reasonable security measures. I am arguing for a reasoned approach for airport security, maybe something like it was pre-9/11: metal detectors, ditch the random searches and x-ray backscatter imaging, 3 oz. liquids restrictions, etc. The biggest difference, IMHO, in the security risk pre-9/11 and post-9/11 is the attitude of passengers and crew on the airplane. Pre-9/11, it was "do what the hijackers want, and we'll have a good story to tell our grandchildren in 20 years." Now, it's "Beat the **** out of the hijackers, because they want to kill us, so we've got nothing to lose." THAT, I believe, has more to do with why we've not lost more airliners than anything TSA has done in the last 9 years.
Slashdot Mirror
You just HAD to do that, didn't you? :)
"The test, funded by Microsoft..."
That told me everything I needed to know.
Tron was a program created by "a user" (and I forget his name)...
Alan, IIRC.
TRON was an intelligent computer
Technically, Tron was a program, not a computer. But I'm just being pedantic :)
Enough, already! All of this arguing over whether "Wargames", the original "Tron" and "The Last Starfighter" are really as bad as everyone says, or if it's just elitist snobbery ("I really liked them, but I'm too cool to admit it") is making me want to go watch all three movies to find out if I only enjoyed them because I was in junior high school at the time. In any case, I really don't have the time or money to watch a bunch of old movies, so can we PUH-LEASE end the list with just those three? :D
Well, maybe.
:)
But the way I see it, that stuff is available 24/7 on the Internet, so have we really fallen all that far? I hit APOD first thing every morning. That often sends me off to various astronomy web sites or wikipedia entries on subjects I didn't even know existed. Then, of course, there's Phil Plait, who's pretty much a hero around here
Well, he isn't super strong or hyper brilliant, anyway...
Oh, the irony.
Indeed. I wonder how many delegates will by flying in through airport security to attend?
I'm assuming you mean centigrade rather than farenheight. If so, I don't feel sorry for you. It's -11C here right now :)
If Richard Reid and the Christmas bomber had succeeded...
They did succeed -- admirably, in fact. They kept the paranoia going so TSA could continue to whittle away at quickly eroding rights. Terrorism doesn't have to end in hundreds or thousands of people dead to achieve its goals (instilling fear in the target population).
...your odds would halve been about 1 in 8 million.
No, "halve" would have been 1 in 12,500,000. "Third" or possibly "have" would have been appropriate choices here. </pedantic>
Still good, but it's amazing how quickly the odds can go to shit.
So which is it? Are the odds "still good" or do they suck? It may be a large reduction in the odds, but I'd gladly take a 1:8,000,000 chance of things going wrong not to have my 4th Amendment rights trampled to death.
I have gained nothing
You can either let the odds get greater or you can play cat-and-mouse. What are acceptable odds to you? Isn't that an arbitrary number? Why is your number better than 1:25 million?
Now you're being pedantic. Pretty much everything in life is trade-off. I'm not willing to allow my civil rights, guaranteed by the Constitution, become null-and-void so an already insignificant risk can be further minimalized. What you are advocating is a search for perfect security. There is no such thing. It is time for the American people to get over their obsession with safety and realize that life entails risk. The only time risk is completely gone is when you are already dead.
I don't see any of the people killed by collateral damage opting out of getting killed.
You CAN'T opt out of being killed. Sooner or later, we all will die, so the best we can do is make wise decisions to prolong the inevitable. Unfortunately, this generation does not seem to have much skill at making wise decisions. Case in point: Do you own a car? Do you drive on the highway? According to Wikipedia, almost 2800 people died on 9/11, but an estimated 1595 people, 57% of the 9/11 body count, died the following year on the highway because they were afraid to fly. Not such a good choice for those 1595 people, was it?
So go find me a way to eliminate all risk from life. It can't be done. You could trip over your blanket and break your neck as you get out of bed in the morning. A meteorite could just happen to fall on your house as you sleep at night. For that matter, all the stress that comes from obsessing over all the myriad ways you could meet your demise could cause an aneurysm.
TSA's scope or grope choice doesn't make anyone measurably safer*, but indisputably makes people feel violated. That's exceptionally poor risk management, IMHO.
*anything with a statistical likelihood less than getting struck by lightning is, IMHO, an insignificant risk.
'Kay. And I'll take YOU down so the rest of the passengers on the airplane have a chance against the terrorist.
...when faced with certain death on one hand and the possibility of survival on the other, most will go with the latter.
Which is why terrorists on an airplane no longer have the proverbial snowball's chance in Hell, and therefore is why all of the TSA's recent shenanigans are security theatre. No AIT scanner is going to keep me anywhere near as safe as 100 other highly motivated passengers.
That's probably good in a number of locations, most likely including pretty much everywhere that would be affected by the rogue satellite. However, at risk of being pedantic, the ISP and telco that I work for delivers Internet via satellite links because there are no roads and no land-lines from our upstream to the area we serve. Satellite is the *only* way to get there for at least another couple of years.
The rouge one, of course.
Interestingly enough, the summary spelled "rogue" correctly.
I'd imagine you are probably uploading gigabytes of Viagra on a daily basis, lol!
IMHO, our views on polygamy and homosexuality are a direct reflection on how rarely most Americans involve themselves in critical thinking. For example, as a nation, we have collectively decided (for the most part) that discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong...unless you want to get married. Another example is that we have decided that the government has no business interfering if I want to engage in an extramarital affair or two (or three or twenty or even more), but somehow it is different if I want to make it a permanent, stable contractual arrangement (i.e., polygamy)? What's the logic behind that?
For whatever it's worth, I am a straight, married man. I'm satisfied with one wife. In fact, a polygamist relationship honestly is my idea of Hell -- keeping one woman happy is enough work for me, thank you very much. However, if someone else wants multiple wives -- or even multiple wives and multiple husbands -- then that's his/her business. So long as everyone involved is an adult, the government has no place in anyone's bedrooms, I believe. So while I personally might find homosexuality or polygamy distasteful (and I do), I don't believe it's any of the government's business.
That sounds like a great idea on /., but I think it's a bit of an oversimplification.
For example, let's take the medium of music. *Who* is "the artist"? Is it the song writer? The performer? Unless you are Nine Inch Nails or Moby or Phil Keaggy or some other phenom who understands both technology and music, even a "solo" artist isn't truly solo -- they almost always have a full band backing them in the studio, and they certainly do while live (even NIN has a backing band on tour). So, which "artist" has to die for the work to go into public domain? The front man? Everyone in the band? Does it go public domain when the band breaks up? Or do you propose that other musicians can't reproduce the song without paying royalties until the song writer dies, and any recorded performance (whether studio or live) doesn't go public domain until the performer(s) die? Even then, it's still not so black and white, because if the performance goes public domain but the song writer is still alive, does the song writer still get royalties every time that particular performance is played? It's not quite as cut-and-dried as it would seem at first glance.
...what next declaring another stupid war, like 'the war on drugs'.
I came here to say exactly that. First, there was the "war on drugs" (Reagan), and then the "war on terror" (Bush, Jr.). Is this to become the "war on piracy" under Obama?
Maybe there was a *whoosh*-ing sound over my head as I read your post, but on the off-chance that I'm *not* missing something, the Bill of Rights does not apply only to laws written by Congress. The Bill of Rights sets limits on THE GOVERNMENT, which includes the President. The fact that "We the People" have grown complacent on our rights does not change the fact that executive orders are no less bound by the Constitution -- including all of the Amendments. In other words, GPP was correct.
Having said that...the Constitution is nothing but a really cool piece of paper if the people allow the government to violate it at will. The last nine years don't make me very optimistic about whether it has any value other than as a somewhat interesting historical document any longer (Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, NSLs, NSA wiretapping, TSA scope-and-grope, etc.).
Slave: bondage, the state of being under the control of another person; someone entirely dominated by some other influence or person. Source: wordnetweb.Princeton.edu. QED.
...no, this does not mean little grey men with probes.
You mean, the TSA? (Sorry, I just couldn't resist the opportunity!)
Maybe my dogs are weird. I've got a Sibe, and my wife has one of those small foo-foo dogs (part Bichon, part Papillon -- but for a fluff ball, he's actually a pretty cool dog). When I've been sipping on a brew, I've offered a little to them, and both of them run away like I'm offering them bleach or ammonia or something. And it's not like I'm drinking the cheap crap, either...it's usually Guinness or Alaskan Amber or something like that.
There's a big difference between no security measures and reasonable security measures. I am arguing for a reasoned approach for airport security, maybe something like it was pre-9/11: metal detectors, ditch the random searches and x-ray backscatter imaging, 3 oz. liquids restrictions, etc. The biggest difference, IMHO, in the security risk pre-9/11 and post-9/11 is the attitude of passengers and crew on the airplane. Pre-9/11, it was "do what the hijackers want, and we'll have a good story to tell our grandchildren in 20 years." Now, it's "Beat the **** out of the hijackers, because they want to kill us, so we've got nothing to lose." THAT, I believe, has more to do with why we've not lost more airliners than anything TSA has done in the last 9 years.