This assumes, as you stated, that every life is important, but additionally that each life is valued equally. Herein lies the basis for those who studying foreign policy. When resources become scarce, when issues cross borders, when violence becomes polarized in over-populated areas... when do you start to value some lives more than others and how do you do it. It sucks, but if we can't take care of ourselves reasonably well first, there is little use in offering help to anyone.
Don't worry about it. They will get meta-moderated and in the future not get as many mod points. Eventually.
In the mean time, feel free to expound upon the most difficult aspect of the copyright dialogue: how to compensate original authors.
Certainly the moral aspect of taking someone's work for free, representing it as your own, and then profiting tremendously from it is plain as day wrong.
However, let's complicate it a bit. Take each of these as a "What if?" scenario:
The original author is dead.
The "rights" were transferred to an organization that will never die, like his family or corp.
The original work is obscure.
Other work is independently achieved.
The work is too expensive for someone to "buy".
The work is used, but not for profit.
The work is used, new work is made and the original cited.
The list goes on, though it should show some of the key inherent problems with material value and ownership. Attributing material value to an idea seems fraught with philosophical peril.
What is ownership, anyway? Just some government given attribute that allows us to take from others.
Being your usual polite Midwestern guy, I would prefer to solve to problem by getting people to willingly remove money from their wallets for my work, as opposed to some government enforced law decreeing so. The solution to copy-cats is fairly easy: keep creating. They may have taken your fish today, but you still know how to fish and they don't.
How we ought to legislate copy-rights and other such weird concepts such as intellectual property, I have no idea. So long as the government doesn't spend much money on it and it's so unenforceably broken (like now), it's fine.
In the current system, the low hanging fruit seems to be 1) spending less tax money on the problem overall, 2) decreasing the copyright lifetime, 3) protect individuals, not corporations, 3) simple policy, 4) provide swift and immediate judgments.
It also makes any victory or defeat in this case entirely hollow. This case will not change what is legal in relation to copyright law, but merely what you get to weasel out of.
Duh. It's a courtroom, not the parliament. You don't make law there, you enforce it. Imagine if any random murder trial could legalize murder.
If you want to change law, you don't do it on the defentants' seat.
This is frankly not true in the United States. Jury Nullification, though obscure, is a very balancing and necessary part of trial by a jury of peers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
"The on-chip antenna feeds the LTCC patch antenna through aperture coupling, thus negating the need for RF buffer amplifiers, matching elements, baluns, bond wires and package transmission lines."
From the systems perspective he made a better RF transmitter block. Digging into that block and looking at the RF design level, he simplified the circuitry normally used such as a matching network for the antenna, transmission lines, oscillator (for modulating the information over the carrier frequency), etc into a discrete chip as opposed to multiple printed circuit board components to do that same job.
Beyond that I'd need to study the paper and find more detailed examples of cell phone architecture to have a better idea of the advantages and disadvantages over the legacy design.
I'm sorry, what? Rail obsolete? Are you kidding me? Our government is downright sucking the rail industry dry with property taxes for the rails and, unlike the air industry, doesn't practically pay for your ticket and it's/still profitable/.
Also, there's the fact that it takes at least 3 to 4 hours to get anywhere by air, including places that it takes 2 hours to drive. That would be 2 hours for regular rail and 1 hour for high speed. Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, etc? The fact of the matter is that medium to small length distances are immediately better suited to rail. Sorry. The TSA and the complexity of flight guarantee that.
The government should serve the best interests of the common wealth. If that means bringing out horses and buggies, then so be it. However, until oil disappears from the energy equation, I think the numbers will show otherwise.
Certainly there is a law of diminishing returns. However, for each and every drawback you mention there are advantages inherent to that mode of transportation. A monoculture of transportation is not in our best interest. Our rail is underdeveloped. In terms of the international community, our rail is third world. And that precedent is anything but American.
Air travel is incredibly unreliable. I've worked in the industry and the pilots laugh whenever there are delays. They have a saying for it: If you have time to spare, go by air. The point being that short to medium length trips are not always best suited to air travel.
Sure, some of the old railroads had some nasty heritage but to discount the entire mode of transportation because of that is a mistake. IMHO the airlines need competition and I want a way around the PITA that is the TSA.
And when has anything great that America has taken on ever NOT been tremendous? Men on the Moon, nuclear power, the computer?
Rail is not altogether dead in the US, though I will grant that it is a bloody beaten wretched creature and, much to my chagrin, the butt of our transportation industry. Europeans have begun to stop laughing at us it's so bad. The once mocking heckle has turned to outright pity for our overwhelming dependence on cars and air.
If that doesn't rile you up I don't know what will.
This only serves to feed my point that a diverse transportation infrastructure is best.
And if it weren't for a strong water-based transportation Japan would not be able to ship their vehicles over for American consumption. Sure, you may not wish to take a boat for personal transportation but what about when you want to take several thousand lbs of machinery from the US to Japan for your business? I doubt you will be going by air freight.
To discount any method of transportation completely without looking at the entire spectrum is horribly dualistic and short-sighted. The more options I have available for personal and freight transportation, the happier I will be.
You're right. Check out my comment below. I was mostly pointing out that building rail is not as difficult as people make it out to be. In other words, IMHO it's a relatively small step from the VIA rail to maglev.
That doesn't really have any bearing on my point. People complain about complexity of endeavors whenever it comes to upgrading our infrastructure. Canada had adverse conditions to running rail, and yet the succeeded. It seems pretty clear to me that rail can be used effectively in just about any environment, given proper planning and execution.
Also, relying solely on one form of transportation, whether it be air, rail, ship, or car, is a mistake. Continuously improving all forms of transportation is in the best interests of our society and economy. Remember 9/11? Every plane grounded. How many flights are delayed due to weather? Likewise for rail and roads with earthquakes. IMHO America is embarrassingly behind on rail. We used to be known for our daring innovation and technological know-how. Now it seems like we just want to whine and collect profits.
Wouldn't it be awesome if Canada had an awesome rail system with stunning scenery, decent trip times and fairs, and with good train stops? Oh wait, they do, and it's world class:
We're not talking about the same things. You're talking about electronic voting as it is now with custom hardware. I'm talking about voting in a system that allows me to access it at a later time to verify accuracy. Two completely different things.
Simpler things are easier to secure, but no more inherently secure than the next. Security is a requirement for the system. Simpler systems are generally easier to secure. This has no bearing on the level we're talking about. Talking at such a low level as actual design is pointless. Identifying the key requirements, the minimal set if possible, and the novel ways with which to go about it and succeed are the only points of interest I made.
Nice rhetoric. I laud you for your enthusiasm, but your premise is still flawed and you still have not even bothered to address MY thesis. You have also started to cross the line from rational discourse into fascist troll that must be/right/. I will not post again until you actually solve the problem where the voter does not trust the system and yet is satisfied with the outcome. And no, bread and circuses are not the answer. =)
I understand that a process in place and that has been used over the years has value in the experience gained by using it and making it work. Mindlessly and senselessly upgrading processes all the time is about as debilitating as never improving ever. I am all for keeping and improving upon processes that work and throwing out those that don't.
The paper ballot system as it as now has been hacked. Exploited. Cracked. Whatever you want to call it. Sure, it took THOUSANDS of people in concerted effort to do it, but they did it and it made a very significant difference in the last two presidential elections. Perhaps we can make a patch to fix it up, or perhaps we can improve upon a procedure that was devised back when horses were _the_ way to do transportation and the population and urban densities were a tiny percentage of what it is now.
*sigh* Your response makes me sad. You are attacking my premise via the technical details, but not the merits of the requirements that they meet. Any technical details mentioned are subject to change or improvement or whatever to the most suitable solution for that part of the system. Yes, that's right, the user interface is whatever. Unspecified. System level. Let me spell it out: IF PAPER BALLOTS ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE USER INTERFACE FOR VOTING, THEN THAT IS WHAT SHALL BE USED. However, you must then allow the user at some point to check the status and accuracy of their vote. Whether it's a paper interface or not.
As to the paper interface, I could care less. Do both! I really don't care. The electronic solution is cheaper, better, faster in almost every way but if the users won't use it, it's worthless! With a properly designed electronic system the exploitation vectors fizzle down to +/- a few people instead of percents, ESPECIALLY if the results are open enough to do auditing. The current paper system is NOT that open to auditing, hence my thesis for fixing it.
I don't think you're being very open minded for the possibility for a technical solution to the problem. It is my understanding of the problem which leads me to a technical solution: the user does not trust the voting system. Regardless of the system used, the only way to guarantee transparency is to allow open access to the voting records.
Technology makes this "opennness" feasible. Crypto makes this feasible as well as 1-way (remember, this is supposed to be an secret ballot). Proper design makes this robust to 100 ms of fun by one guy and various other attacks.
There is a wide solution space with many possibilities. Paper and OCR could be made to work, but I think it's a waste of time and effort. I don't like voting with paper. I don't like voting with other people. And frankly, I don't like having to take a day off work to vote. Why should I wait in line for 5 hours just to scribble down on some sheet of paper that's going to be processed by hacked OCR machines anyway? It might as well take me 5 minutes online, hack me there, and be done with it. But 5 hours? Really?
The elegant solution usually is the simplest, but in this case there really is no perfect solution to satisfy everyone. Proper use of technology in an open way will be just as effective as your claimed paper and pencil and OCR.
Honestly, I just don't see how you can possibly argue for a system that doesn't allow the user to check their vote for consistency. That is the real problem. The system is untrusted. Paper and OCR do not solve that.
You're saying paper ballots and OCR is less complex than my solution? I don't think so. I think that method has just as many vulnerabilities, if not, perhaps, more. Especially at the social level.
The transparency of my proposed system allows for one to check their own vote at any point in time given their citizenship info and a password. And heck, if you don't believe the official count you can count it yourself. Hell! Everybody could count and recount all they like all day long until the last moment before the last second of the voting period! That is transparency through accountability. Technofetish? Not quite. It's merely one of the/right ways/ to do voting where the user doesn't trust the system.
I find your tone toward joe sixpack condescending and not quite right. Joe sixpack, whoever the hell that is, will do his due diligence to learn about the voting solution that his elected representatives have chosen in his best interest. Certainly, at some level, I require his (moreso the majority's) buyout. But in the end if it was created in his best interest that design intent will show through his evaluation of the system.
I disagree. A fully transparent online voting system is the way to go. Redundant databases with one way hashing algorithms and self-consistency checks are not impossible to do. Letting people check their vote before, during, and after the election is the best form of validation. Allowing the statistics to be publicly published will keep the numbers honest. I really don't think it's that hard of a problem to solve technologically. Most of the problem is social and political acceptance.
The Republicans have been whining about this for years. They want peoples votes to be weighted by the dollars they control. Sorry, buddy, that's the point of our Democracy: give a voice to the little man, regardless of his socio-economic stature. Call it socialism if you want, but that's what equality means.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. There will be orders of magnitude of difference between digital TV broadcasts and the wide band spectrum power levels. Your TV won't be able to tell the difference, hence the name "white space device."
It's kind of funny that we're all fussed about this particular topic when my classmates and I more or less solved this problem from a system's level in an rf class for homework. The problem was similar though not exactly the same. Given the sensitivity of modern FM radios and some background noise levels, how many white spaces would you need to occupy in packed FM spectrum in order to transmit some given amount of bandwidth without interfering with the original reception (quantified in dB of additional noise).
Point being, the device is technically feasible. The politics, however, may not be.
Don't forget that if it's opened up it could even support *GASP* WIRELESS MICROPHONES!!!
Re:I don't know if I fully agree with that
on
Fire Your IT Boss
·
· Score: 1
...I often think the better way to consider a manager is as an assistant to those who do the actual work, taking care of the peripheral details of a project allowing the important people to do the actual work. But the reasoning in this article, along the lines of whether the manager can do the programmers job, is *not* the place to start.</quote>
If they can't even start to do what you do, with the tools that you do, then how can they possibly know what will positively affect your development process without interrupting it? How can they possibly understand and resolve a technical conflict of opinions? If a manager doesn't understand what you do and how you do it and what tools you use they are incompetent. They cannot assist you competently without understanding intimately the process flow of development. Sorry. The rest is an excuse to have mindless managers where employees do self-management for the incompetent line manager. This is not acceptable in any true development environment that continuously improves. Take Toyota for instance. Do you think their line managers don't know the whole manufacturing process intimately before designing for it? You bet you ass they all do.
Slashdot Mirror
This assumes, as you stated, that every life is important, but additionally that each life is valued equally. Herein lies the basis for those who studying foreign policy. When resources become scarce, when issues cross borders, when violence becomes polarized in over-populated areas... when do you start to value some lives more than others and how do you do it. It sucks, but if we can't take care of ourselves reasonably well first, there is little use in offering help to anyone.
Yeah, cause those poor beautiful people in Sweden are... so... poor... because they lack the infinite bliss that is what, Baconnaise(TM)?
Actually, I'm pretty sure Benjamin was talking about "public provisions made for the poor" and not merely public provisions made for the commonwealth.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225113&title=the-stockholm-syndrome
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=225126&title=the-stockholm-syndrome-pt.-2
Don't worry about it. They will get meta-moderated and in the future not get as many mod points. Eventually.
In the mean time, feel free to expound upon the most difficult aspect of the copyright dialogue: how to compensate original authors.
Certainly the moral aspect of taking someone's work for free, representing it as your own, and then profiting tremendously from it is plain as day wrong.
However, let's complicate it a bit. Take each of these as a "What if?" scenario:
The original author is dead.
The "rights" were transferred to an organization that will never die, like his family or corp.
The original work is obscure.
Other work is independently achieved.
The work is too expensive for someone to "buy".
The work is used, but not for profit.
The work is used, new work is made and the original cited.
The list goes on, though it should show some of the key inherent problems with material value and ownership. Attributing material value to an idea seems fraught with philosophical peril.
What is ownership, anyway? Just some government given attribute that allows us to take from others.
Being your usual polite Midwestern guy, I would prefer to solve to problem by getting people to willingly remove money from their wallets for my work, as opposed to some government enforced law decreeing so. The solution to copy-cats is fairly easy: keep creating. They may have taken your fish today, but you still know how to fish and they don't.
How we ought to legislate copy-rights and other such weird concepts such as intellectual property, I have no idea. So long as the government doesn't spend much money on it and it's so unenforceably broken (like now), it's fine.
In the current system, the low hanging fruit seems to be 1) spending less tax money on the problem overall, 2) decreasing the copyright lifetime, 3) protect individuals, not corporations, 3) simple policy, 4) provide swift and immediate judgments.
It also makes any victory or defeat in this case entirely hollow. This case will not change what is legal in relation to copyright law, but merely what you get to weasel out of.
Duh. It's a courtroom, not the parliament. You don't make law there, you enforce it. Imagine if any random murder trial could legalize murder.
If you want to change law, you don't do it on the defentants' seat.
This is frankly not true in the United States. Jury Nullification, though obscure, is a very balancing and necessary part of trial by a jury of peers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
"The on-chip antenna feeds the LTCC patch antenna through aperture coupling, thus negating the need for RF buffer amplifiers, matching elements, baluns, bond wires and package transmission lines."
From the systems perspective he made a better RF transmitter block. Digging into that block and looking at the RF design level, he simplified the circuitry normally used such as a matching network for the antenna, transmission lines, oscillator (for modulating the information over the carrier frequency), etc into a discrete chip as opposed to multiple printed circuit board components to do that same job.
Beyond that I'd need to study the paper and find more detailed examples of cell phone architecture to have a better idea of the advantages and disadvantages over the legacy design.
I'm sorry, what? Rail obsolete? Are you kidding me? Our government is downright sucking the rail industry dry with property taxes for the rails and, unlike the air industry, doesn't practically pay for your ticket and it's /still profitable/.
Also, there's the fact that it takes at least 3 to 4 hours to get anywhere by air, including places that it takes 2 hours to drive. That would be 2 hours for regular rail and 1 hour for high speed. Cleveland to Columbus, Toledo to Cincinnati, etc? The fact of the matter is that medium to small length distances are immediately better suited to rail. Sorry. The TSA and the complexity of flight guarantee that.
The government should serve the best interests of the common wealth. If that means bringing out horses and buggies, then so be it. However, until oil disappears from the energy equation, I think the numbers will show otherwise.
This is true. Why post anon? It wasn't particularly inflammatory. =)
Certainly there is a law of diminishing returns. However, for each and every drawback you mention there are advantages inherent to that mode of transportation. A monoculture of transportation is not in our best interest. Our rail is underdeveloped. In terms of the international community, our rail is third world. And that precedent is anything but American.
Air travel is incredibly unreliable. I've worked in the industry and the pilots laugh whenever there are delays. They have a saying for it: If you have time to spare, go by air. The point being that short to medium length trips are not always best suited to air travel.
Sure, some of the old railroads had some nasty heritage but to discount the entire mode of transportation because of that is a mistake. IMHO the airlines need competition and I want a way around the PITA that is the TSA.
And when has anything great that America has taken on ever NOT been tremendous? Men on the Moon, nuclear power, the computer?
Rail is not altogether dead in the US, though I will grant that it is a bloody beaten wretched creature and, much to my chagrin, the butt of our transportation industry. Europeans have begun to stop laughing at us it's so bad. The once mocking heckle has turned to outright pity for our overwhelming dependence on cars and air.
If that doesn't rile you up I don't know what will.
This only serves to feed my point that a diverse transportation infrastructure is best.
And if it weren't for a strong water-based transportation Japan would not be able to ship their vehicles over for American consumption. Sure, you may not wish to take a boat for personal transportation but what about when you want to take several thousand lbs of machinery from the US to Japan for your business? I doubt you will be going by air freight.
To discount any method of transportation completely without looking at the entire spectrum is horribly dualistic and short-sighted. The more options I have available for personal and freight transportation, the happier I will be.
If it were half as subsidized as the air industry, I'd bet fixing the tracks and the cost of a cross country ticket would not be an issue.
You're right. Check out my comment below.
I was mostly pointing out that building rail is not as difficult as people make it out to be. In other words, IMHO it's a relatively small step from the VIA rail to maglev.
That doesn't really have any bearing on my point. People complain about complexity of endeavors whenever it comes to upgrading our infrastructure. Canada had adverse conditions to running rail, and yet the succeeded. It seems pretty clear to me that rail can be used effectively in just about any environment, given proper planning and execution.
Also, relying solely on one form of transportation, whether it be air, rail, ship, or car, is a mistake. Continuously improving all forms of transportation is in the best interests of our society and economy. Remember 9/11? Every plane grounded. How many flights are delayed due to weather? Likewise for rail and roads with earthquakes. IMHO America is embarrassingly behind on rail. We used to be known for our daring innovation and technological know-how. Now it seems like we just want to whine and collect profits.
Wouldn't it be awesome if Canada had an awesome rail system with stunning scenery, decent trip times and fairs, and with good train stops? Oh wait, they do, and it's world class:
http://www.viarail.ca/en_index.html?wt.ad=english_link_view&wt.ac=click_English_link
We're not talking about the same things. You're talking about electronic voting as it is now with custom hardware. I'm talking about voting in a system that allows me to access it at a later time to verify accuracy. Two completely different things.
Simpler things are easier to secure, but no more inherently secure than the next. Security is a requirement for the system. Simpler systems are generally easier to secure. This has no bearing on the level we're talking about. Talking at such a low level as actual design is pointless. Identifying the key requirements, the minimal set if possible, and the novel ways with which to go about it and succeed are the only points of interest I made.
Nice rhetoric. I laud you for your enthusiasm, but your premise is still flawed and you still have not even bothered to address MY thesis. You have also started to cross the line from rational discourse into fascist troll that must be /right/. I will not post again until you actually solve the problem where the voter does not trust the system and yet is satisfied with the outcome. And no, bread and circuses are not the answer. =)
I understand that a process in place and that has been used over the years has value in the experience gained by using it and making it work. Mindlessly and senselessly upgrading processes all the time is about as debilitating as never improving ever. I am all for keeping and improving upon processes that work and throwing out those that don't.
The paper ballot system as it as now has been hacked. Exploited. Cracked. Whatever you want to call it. Sure, it took THOUSANDS of people in concerted effort to do it, but they did it and it made a very significant difference in the last two presidential elections. Perhaps we can make a patch to fix it up, or perhaps we can improve upon a procedure that was devised back when horses were _the_ way to do transportation and the population and urban densities were a tiny percentage of what it is now.
*sigh* Your response makes me sad. You are attacking my premise via the technical details, but not the merits of the requirements that they meet. Any technical details mentioned are subject to change or improvement or whatever to the most suitable solution for that part of the system. Yes, that's right, the user interface is whatever. Unspecified. System level. Let me spell it out: IF PAPER BALLOTS ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE USER INTERFACE FOR VOTING, THEN THAT IS WHAT SHALL BE USED. However, you must then allow the user at some point to check the status and accuracy of their vote. Whether it's a paper interface or not.
As to the paper interface, I could care less. Do both! I really don't care. The electronic solution is cheaper, better, faster in almost every way but if the users won't use it, it's worthless! With a properly designed electronic system the exploitation vectors fizzle down to +/- a few people instead of percents, ESPECIALLY if the results are open enough to do auditing. The current paper system is NOT that open to auditing, hence my thesis for fixing it.
I don't think you're being very open minded for the possibility for a technical solution to the problem. It is my understanding of the problem which leads me to a technical solution: the user does not trust the voting system. Regardless of the system used, the only way to guarantee transparency is to allow open access to the voting records.
Technology makes this "opennness" feasible. Crypto makes this feasible as well as 1-way (remember, this is supposed to be an secret ballot). Proper design makes this robust to 100 ms of fun by one guy and various other attacks.
There is a wide solution space with many possibilities. Paper and OCR could be made to work, but I think it's a waste of time and effort. I don't like voting with paper. I don't like voting with other people. And frankly, I don't like having to take a day off work to vote. Why should I wait in line for 5 hours just to scribble down on some sheet of paper that's going to be processed by hacked OCR machines anyway? It might as well take me 5 minutes online, hack me there, and be done with it. But 5 hours? Really?
The elegant solution usually is the simplest, but in this case there really is no perfect solution to satisfy everyone. Proper use of technology in an open way will be just as effective as your claimed paper and pencil and OCR.
Honestly, I just don't see how you can possibly argue for a system that doesn't allow the user to check their vote for consistency. That is the real problem. The system is untrusted. Paper and OCR do not solve that.
And how _exactly_ can an election seem to be fair unless you satisfy the crypto/security people (i.e. the experts in the field)?
You're saying paper ballots and OCR is less complex than my solution? I don't think so. I think that method has just as many vulnerabilities, if not, perhaps, more. Especially at the social level.
/right ways/ to do voting where the user doesn't trust the system.
The transparency of my proposed system allows for one to check their own vote at any point in time given their citizenship info and a password. And heck, if you don't believe the official count you can count it yourself. Hell! Everybody could count and recount all they like all day long until the last moment before the last second of the voting period! That is transparency through accountability. Technofetish? Not quite. It's merely one of the
I find your tone toward joe sixpack condescending and not quite right. Joe sixpack, whoever the hell that is, will do his due diligence to learn about the voting solution that his elected representatives have chosen in his best interest. Certainly, at some level, I require his (moreso the majority's) buyout. But in the end if it was created in his best interest that design intent will show through his evaluation of the system.
I disagree. A fully transparent online voting system is the way to go. Redundant databases with one way hashing algorithms and self-consistency checks are not impossible to do. Letting people check their vote before, during, and after the election is the best form of validation. Allowing the statistics to be publicly published will keep the numbers honest. I really don't think it's that hard of a problem to solve technologically. Most of the problem is social and political acceptance.
The Republicans have been whining about this for years. They want peoples votes to be weighted by the dollars they control. Sorry, buddy, that's the point of our Democracy: give a voice to the little man, regardless of his socio-economic stature. Call it socialism if you want, but that's what equality means.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. There will be orders of magnitude of difference between digital TV broadcasts and the wide band spectrum power levels. Your TV won't be able to tell the difference, hence the name "white space device."
It's kind of funny that we're all fussed about this particular topic when my classmates and I more or less solved this problem from a system's level in an rf class for homework. The problem was similar though not exactly the same. Given the sensitivity of modern FM radios and some background noise levels, how many white spaces would you need to occupy in packed FM spectrum in order to transmit some given amount of bandwidth without interfering with the original reception (quantified in dB of additional noise).
Point being, the device is technically feasible. The politics, however, may not be.
Irrelevant for post the 2009 switch to all digital broadcasts.
Don't forget that if it's opened up it could even support *GASP* WIRELESS MICROPHONES!!!
If they can't even start to do what you do, with the tools that you do, then how can they possibly know what will positively affect your development process without interrupting it? How can they possibly understand and resolve a technical conflict of opinions? If a manager doesn't understand what you do and how you do it and what tools you use they are incompetent. They cannot assist you competently without understanding intimately the process flow of development. Sorry. The rest is an excuse to have mindless managers where employees do self-management for the incompetent line manager. This is not acceptable in any true development environment that continuously improves. Take Toyota for instance. Do you think their line managers don't know the whole manufacturing process intimately before designing for it? You bet you ass they all do.