My wife is a teacher and every couple of years some numbskulled administrator comes up with another brainstorm that boils down to thinking that throwing some more computers into the mix will fix everything. Of course computers are going to be part of these kids' world, so they need to learn about them, but figuring that kids learn better just because a computer is in front of them is a wrong-headed notion that's not borne out by the research.
Wow. And how long do they think their magical key will remain secret? If a single key can open all the doors, finding that key will become more important and the resourced dedicated to discovering it will be increased. The secrets that are being protected are not only -- or even primarily -- the secrets of criminals. There are millions of bank accounts and private medical records along with political dissidents.
Every weakening of security aids not only law enforcements but criminals as well.
can you explain what about CS is different from maths, English, physics, chemistry, biology, foreign languages, history, wood working, underwater basket weaving etc etc?
It's all about the concept of a core subject. A core subject is a basic set of skills on which other skills are built. Math and English are core subjects because there's very little you can do in life without using them to some extent. Wood working and basket weaving are not because they are secondary skills which are built on core skills and you can get along fine without them. (Provided you're not trying to build a cabinet or make a basket.) You could argue that computer science qualifies provided you don't confuse it with learning to code. Virtually everyone will require some level of computer skill in order to make a living because that particular tool has become essential in modern life, but that does not necessarily require learning to write code.
A "core" subject has multiple levels and is the basis for other knowledge. Basic math is fundamental to many jobs; you can't be a plumber or an architect without it. Ditto for reading and writing. If you excel on one of these disciplines you may need advanced skills; like trigonometry in math or learning the difference between composing a novel or a newspaper article if you're a writer.
Programming doesn't qualify for the same sort of focus. You can operate a computer without programming it the same way you can drive a car without being a mechanic. Programming computers is more of an end than a means and many people, both now and in the foreseeable future, will be able to make a life without having to write a single line of code. Calling it a core subject will just create a loss of focus on what core subjects are all about.
Disney can't make a movie without pasting on a happy ending. They even stuck a happy ending onto the Hunchback of Notre Dame. They got to the part where everyone is hopelessly falling into a black hole and they just couldn't help themselves. They stuck on a happy ending. It doesn't have to make sense, it's Disney.
There should already be backups in place and security safeguards to keep such an employee -- as much as possible -- from causing harm. Employees leave all the time, planned or unplanned, willingly or not. Certainly you want to make sure all their uncompleted tasks are turned over to someone else, but preparations should have already been in place in case health problems or personal issues cause a sudden departure.
The specific rule the FBI is targeting outlines the terms for obtaining a search warrant. It's called Federal Rule 41(b), and the requested change would allow law enforcement to obtain a warrant to search electronic data without providing any specific details as long as the target computer location has been hidden through a technical tool like Tor or a virtual private network.
Everything my employer does is via a VPN. This little change would be carte blanche for virtually all corporate communications within the United States. Even the company's internal networks would be laid bare if they're remotely accessible. The opportunities for abuse are staggering.
A mile? That's still 1760 yards right? Geez, my walk to grade school was longer than that. The local grade school here in Massachusetts doesn't require the school to provide bus service if the kid lives within two miles of the school. Maybe Maryland should come up here and arrest the school board.
This is inevitable under the No Child Left Behind Act. The law states that all children have to meet a single standard. The intended consequence is to raise the abilities of the less able and the disadvantaged. The actual result is that the gifted and average, who meet the standard easily, are considered "done" and ignored after that point. All the resources go into raising the abilities of the less able; sometimes an impossible task.
The end result is that the actual potential of most children is what gets "left behind".
An outsourcing tax would just result in jinking with the books so that it wasn't "really" outsourcing and any money generated would just go to the government. If they had to cut H1B visas they'd have to hire regular employees.
That's funny (as well as being a good point) but India already got hit with layoffs. Labor laws in India being what they are, the layoff's there were harsher with employees given hours to return their laptops and leave the premises.
“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.
There is a purpose behind declaring an argument over once the Nazis are mentioned. The assumption is that if a speaker resorts to comparing his opponents to the Nazis then he has run out of good arguments and is hoping for a visceral response that will therefore cause him to win the point.
There is no idea so dumb or ill-informed that there isn't going to be some politician, somewhere, proposing it
True, and yet the exceptional examples need to be discussed in order for them to exposed to the hoots of derision and mockery which they so richly deserved. I doubt they will learn anything from it since their cranial capacity seems to be, thus far, impervious to analytical thought, but it makes the rest of us feel better.
As a frequent traveler I've found that the first line of defense is to not check anything important. For some stuff, like liquid or knives, you don't have a choice, but otherwise I keep my valuables close. Between ham-fisted baggage handlers and bone-headed bureaucrats I want the chance to at least argue if they're going to do something stupid with anything more valuable than my dirty socks. In fact, I generally manage to get everything into my carry-ons and rarely check anything at all.
But according to Mehler, problems arise when the system needs clarification of what the driver wants, which often happens while they're trying to feed an address into a navigation system.
Which is why every GPS system I've ever used starts off with a disclaimer that tells you not to program the thing while you're driving. I travel for a living so the choice isn't whether I want a screen or not. It's whether the GPS is telling me directions out loud or I'm trying to read them off a piece of paper when I'm driving. And the rental car companies seem to think that the proper place for a GPS is somewhere down at the passenger's feet, so I bring my own and stick it on the windshield where it's in my peripheral vision. And I don't answer the phone if I'm driving.
If it's "smart" it should be smart enough not to pester you when you're trying to drive. It's not that we need smarter cars, we need smarter people.
So what was the outlet there for? If it's on a public building but not meant for public use, it should have been secured, either by locking it or having it shut off inside the building. Actually, the drinking fountain comment is a good point. Obviously, a drinking fountain is there for public use. But what if it's just a faucet? Is getting a drink from a drinking fountain okay, but not a faucet? Is charging a phone okay, but not a car? Where is the line here?
Other than the obviously boneheaded ignorance highlighted by the amounts involved, there needs to be more clarity on which public facilities are available to the public and which are reserved for the institution.
There was another sub called the I-25 that carried a seaplane. The seaplane was mostly for reconnaissance in support of the sub, but it did manage to drop a few incendiaries in Oregon in hopes of creating a wildfire. Nothing came of it and the I-25 was eventually sunk by a US destroyer.
The Japanese did try repeatedly to stage an effective attack on the US mainland. Some, like the balloon bombs were pretty inventive, but none of them amounted to much in the end.
What you say about bad specs is true, but Oracle shouldn't have taken a gig with bad specs. When a company asks for bids to do a project, the bidders need to look at the spec and make sure that they address the risks and assumptions in the bidding process. If there are still questions after winning the bid, then you need to make sure those are addressed right away. Taking the money and then realizing months down the road that the spec was junk is just poor management.
Projects don't fail just because one side dropped the ball. There's pretty much always plenty of blame to go around. Writing poor specs, accepting poor specs, undocumented assumptions and poor communications all go into making a mess like this.
This immediately made me think of those news stories where someone is found after having died weeks before. If you set up a system to do your chatting for you, when are your friends and neighbors going to realize they haven't seen you in a while? After all, they just got an email from you this morning responding to the one they sent a week before.
Do we really want to completely isolate ourselves from even the most trivial human contact?
Yes, filing false DMCA is explicitly defined by the law as perjury and the EFF is currently pursuing a number of these cases. The problem is that perjury is defined as the "willful act of swearing a false oath" so they're just going to claim that they didn't know the takedown notices were wrong and that it was just a mistake.
Which raises the question, when did they find out the program kicked out false positives and did they continue to use it after that? IANAL, but if they used a program they knew would commit perjury, I can't see how it's different than committing the perjury themselves. I find it pretty implausible that a company that lives by its copyrights doesn't know -- and is not required to know -- what a legitimate copyright claim is.
Yeah, it's a late post, but this one burns me. Metadata is data about the data, phone numbers are data. For instance, if I say that phone numbers are ten numeric digits comprised of a three-digit area code with a seven digit phone number, I'm talking about the metadata. If I say phone number 555-1212 called phone number 666-2323 and talked for fifteen minutes, I'm talking about data. Calling it "metadata" in this context is just trying to cloud the issue.
If the submitter found the cause of the problem with "a little scratching" I doubt that the ones who hired him are in the dark as to what the problem is. What they need is outside confirmation that absolves them of responsibility. It may be productive to create a list of best practices for IT managers (preferably one from a generally accepted outside source) and see how the guy stacks up. If you want places to look for this, I suggest you start with CIO Magazine and maybe get a book or two on the subject. (Here is one. There are plenty of others.)
Just keep in mind that, if it works out, you might find yourself making a career of this. There is no dearth of incompetent IT managers out there, nor of bosses looking for a good excuse to give them the axe. Whether they deserve it or not.
If you're going to crank out cheap guns, you'd do better with a trip to the local hardware store. You can get plans off the internet that will allow you to crank one out a lot faster and cheaper using stuff from the hardware store than shelling out top dollar for a printer that can crank out one of those plastic jobs and, being made of metal, are less likely to blow up in your hand as well.
As for having "no trace whatsoeever" the plans (if he had bothered to look at them) include a big metal block deliberately to make it traceable. Even if you left the block out, the bullets are metal and would still look like bullets in an x-ray. Just another politician trying to show he's up to date by getting panicked about whatever the press it panicking about this week.
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My wife is a teacher and every couple of years some numbskulled administrator comes up with another brainstorm that boils down to thinking that throwing some more computers into the mix will fix everything. Of course computers are going to be part of these kids' world, so they need to learn about them, but figuring that kids learn better just because a computer is in front of them is a wrong-headed notion that's not borne out by the research.
Wow. And how long do they think their magical key will remain secret? If a single key can open all the doors, finding that key will become more important and the resourced dedicated to discovering it will be increased. The secrets that are being protected are not only -- or even primarily -- the secrets of criminals. There are millions of bank accounts and private medical records along with political dissidents.
Every weakening of security aids not only law enforcements but criminals as well.
It's all about the concept of a core subject. A core subject is a basic set of skills on which other skills are built. Math and English are core subjects because there's very little you can do in life without using them to some extent. Wood working and basket weaving are not because they are secondary skills which are built on core skills and you can get along fine without them. (Provided you're not trying to build a cabinet or make a basket.) You could argue that computer science qualifies provided you don't confuse it with learning to code. Virtually everyone will require some level of computer skill in order to make a living because that particular tool has become essential in modern life, but that does not necessarily require learning to write code.
A "core" subject has multiple levels and is the basis for other knowledge. Basic math is fundamental to many jobs; you can't be a plumber or an architect without it. Ditto for reading and writing. If you excel on one of these disciplines you may need advanced skills; like trigonometry in math or learning the difference between composing a novel or a newspaper article if you're a writer.
Programming doesn't qualify for the same sort of focus. You can operate a computer without programming it the same way you can drive a car without being a mechanic. Programming computers is more of an end than a means and many people, both now and in the foreseeable future, will be able to make a life without having to write a single line of code. Calling it a core subject will just create a loss of focus on what core subjects are all about.
Disney can't make a movie without pasting on a happy ending. They even stuck a happy ending onto the Hunchback of Notre Dame. They got to the part where everyone is hopelessly falling into a black hole and they just couldn't help themselves. They stuck on a happy ending. It doesn't have to make sense, it's Disney.
There should already be backups in place and security safeguards to keep such an employee -- as much as possible -- from causing harm. Employees leave all the time, planned or unplanned, willingly or not. Certainly you want to make sure all their uncompleted tasks are turned over to someone else, but preparations should have already been in place in case health problems or personal issues cause a sudden departure.
That's okay. Just in case, Bruce Willis will be standing by.
Everything my employer does is via a VPN. This little change would be carte blanche for virtually all corporate communications within the United States. Even the company's internal networks would be laid bare if they're remotely accessible. The opportunities for abuse are staggering.
A mile? That's still 1760 yards right? Geez, my walk to grade school was longer than that. The local grade school here in Massachusetts doesn't require the school to provide bus service if the kid lives within two miles of the school. Maybe Maryland should come up here and arrest the school board.
This is inevitable under the No Child Left Behind Act. The law states that all children have to meet a single standard. The intended consequence is to raise the abilities of the less able and the disadvantaged. The actual result is that the gifted and average, who meet the standard easily, are considered "done" and ignored after that point. All the resources go into raising the abilities of the less able; sometimes an impossible task.
The end result is that the actual potential of most children is what gets "left behind".
An outsourcing tax would just result in jinking with the books so that it wasn't "really" outsourcing and any money generated would just go to the government. If they had to cut H1B visas they'd have to hire regular employees.
That's funny (as well as being a good point) but India already got hit with layoffs. Labor laws in India being what they are, the layoff's there were harsher with employees given hours to return their laptops and leave the premises.
“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress.
There is a purpose behind declaring an argument over once the Nazis are mentioned. The assumption is that if a speaker resorts to comparing his opponents to the Nazis then he has run out of good arguments and is hoping for a visceral response that will therefore cause him to win the point.
There is no idea so dumb or ill-informed that there isn't going to be some politician, somewhere, proposing it
True, and yet the exceptional examples need to be discussed in order for them to exposed to the hoots of derision and mockery which they so richly deserved. I doubt they will learn anything from it since their cranial capacity seems to be, thus far, impervious to analytical thought, but it makes the rest of us feel better.
Let the mockery resume.
As a frequent traveler I've found that the first line of defense is to not check anything important. For some stuff, like liquid or knives, you don't have a choice, but otherwise I keep my valuables close. Between ham-fisted baggage handlers and bone-headed bureaucrats I want the chance to at least argue if they're going to do something stupid with anything more valuable than my dirty socks. In fact, I generally manage to get everything into my carry-ons and rarely check anything at all.
Which is why every GPS system I've ever used starts off with a disclaimer that tells you not to program the thing while you're driving. I travel for a living so the choice isn't whether I want a screen or not. It's whether the GPS is telling me directions out loud or I'm trying to read them off a piece of paper when I'm driving. And the rental car companies seem to think that the proper place for a GPS is somewhere down at the passenger's feet, so I bring my own and stick it on the windshield where it's in my peripheral vision. And I don't answer the phone if I'm driving.
If it's "smart" it should be smart enough not to pester you when you're trying to drive. It's not that we need smarter cars, we need smarter people.
So what was the outlet there for? If it's on a public building but not meant for public use, it should have been secured, either by locking it or having it shut off inside the building. Actually, the drinking fountain comment is a good point. Obviously, a drinking fountain is there for public use. But what if it's just a faucet? Is getting a drink from a drinking fountain okay, but not a faucet? Is charging a phone okay, but not a car? Where is the line here?
Other than the obviously boneheaded ignorance highlighted by the amounts involved, there needs to be more clarity on which public facilities are available to the public and which are reserved for the institution.
There was another sub called the I-25 that carried a seaplane. The seaplane was mostly for reconnaissance in support of the sub, but it did manage to drop a few incendiaries in Oregon in hopes of creating a wildfire. Nothing came of it and the I-25 was eventually sunk by a US destroyer.
The Japanese did try repeatedly to stage an effective attack on the US mainland. Some, like the balloon bombs were pretty inventive, but none of them amounted to much in the end.
What you say about bad specs is true, but Oracle shouldn't have taken a gig with bad specs. When a company asks for bids to do a project, the bidders need to look at the spec and make sure that they address the risks and assumptions in the bidding process. If there are still questions after winning the bid, then you need to make sure those are addressed right away. Taking the money and then realizing months down the road that the spec was junk is just poor management.
Projects don't fail just because one side dropped the ball. There's pretty much always plenty of blame to go around. Writing poor specs, accepting poor specs, undocumented assumptions and poor communications all go into making a mess like this.
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury. The title is from a poem by Sara Teasdale.
This post generated by the Wikipedia reference bot.
This immediately made me think of those news stories where someone is found after having died weeks before. If you set up a system to do your chatting for you, when are your friends and neighbors going to realize they haven't seen you in a while? After all, they just got an email from you this morning responding to the one they sent a week before.
Do we really want to completely isolate ourselves from even the most trivial human contact?
Yes, filing false DMCA is explicitly defined by the law as perjury and the EFF is currently pursuing a number of these cases. The problem is that perjury is defined as the "willful act of swearing a false oath" so they're just going to claim that they didn't know the takedown notices were wrong and that it was just a mistake.
Which raises the question, when did they find out the program kicked out false positives and did they continue to use it after that? IANAL, but if they used a program they knew would commit perjury, I can't see how it's different than committing the perjury themselves. I find it pretty implausible that a company that lives by its copyrights doesn't know -- and is not required to know -- what a legitimate copyright claim is.
Yeah, it's a late post, but this one burns me. Metadata is data about the data, phone numbers are data. For instance, if I say that phone numbers are ten numeric digits comprised of a three-digit area code with a seven digit phone number, I'm talking about the metadata. If I say phone number 555-1212 called phone number 666-2323 and talked for fifteen minutes, I'm talking about data. Calling it "metadata" in this context is just trying to cloud the issue.
If the submitter found the cause of the problem with "a little scratching" I doubt that the ones who hired him are in the dark as to what the problem is. What they need is outside confirmation that absolves them of responsibility. It may be productive to create a list of best practices for IT managers (preferably one from a generally accepted outside source) and see how the guy stacks up. If you want places to look for this, I suggest you start with CIO Magazine and maybe get a book or two on the subject. (Here is one. There are plenty of others.)
Just keep in mind that, if it works out, you might find yourself making a career of this. There is no dearth of incompetent IT managers out there, nor of bosses looking for a good excuse to give them the axe. Whether they deserve it or not.
If you're going to crank out cheap guns, you'd do better with a trip to the local hardware store. You can get plans off the internet that will allow you to crank one out a lot faster and cheaper using stuff from the hardware store than shelling out top dollar for a printer that can crank out one of those plastic jobs and, being made of metal, are less likely to blow up in your hand as well.
As for having "no trace whatsoeever" the plans (if he had bothered to look at them) include a big metal block deliberately to make it traceable. Even if you left the block out, the bullets are metal and would still look like bullets in an x-ray. Just another politician trying to show he's up to date by getting panicked about whatever the press it panicking about this week.