That old fart had two really good film ideas. With the first idea he got two really good films, Star Wars and Empire, and then 4 (soon 5) crappy empty sequels. The second idea, Raiders, resulted in one really good movie and one passable movie out of 3 sequels. I feel sorry for the sad joke he's become.
It ought to be very useful to the law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. It seems like this kind of access could prove to be very fruitful in busting criminals. I'm not even in IT, but this seems like a no brainer. Look at the script; see where they are storing the stolen data; get a warrant to find the IP of whoever set up the account or whoever accesses it; go to their home with a warrant; and bust them. But perhaps I am expecting too much of our law enforcement agencies since they are so busy tracking all of the millions of Americans on their terrorist watch lists.
What I keep thinking is that if the crooks are this lazy it is because they can be. Nobody is chasing after them. It boggles the mind.
Tell him that this may seem like a long shot but it really is an ace in the hole. They may even get some good publicity out of it. At some level all police have elected bosses who love good publicity.
Uhm, there has been a crime committed you don't need to be sneaky. Arguably the crime was a felony, Grand Theft. Figure out which ISP hosts that IP, goto the cops and tell them to get a warrant to require the ISP to give up their data on the IP. Then have them serve a warrant on that home. Then they go get your PC and throw the thieves in jail.
I have 3 different kitchen sink add-ons. One is really good at hot and cold water, one is great at draining, but it crashes if you get hair in there. I use a third for dispose-all purposes.
I use statcounter.com to track use on my websites. I noticed that when I access my own sites from work, statcounter tells me that I was in Plano, Texas. I've only been in Texas once. I've noticed since then that LOTS of surfers are apparently from Plano, Texas. I'm guessing that some major ISP has a big operation there.
Aside from preventing your own computer from getting compromised, how could a person ensure that there isn't unknown bad content on their computer? We have weak security on our PCs here at work, and others have gotten infected from time to time. After reading this, I did a search of the hard drive for all image files, and was happy to find nothing scary. But I would expect that if someone was using this PC for a server of "pure evil" then they wouldn't leave it in the open.
Ooh now my curiosity has been piqued. I wonder what I would find on the two company laptops that go into the field frequently, have wireless, are shared, and have the minimum protection installed. Yikes!
Just curious for comparison, how many copies of IE7 were downloaded in the first 24hrs. How many were downloaded in the first 24hrs that it was included as an auto-update?
I surfed over to the download page at 9:58am pacific time, and it loaded right up. I got a phone call and remembered to hit reload at about 10:01. Fully 5 minutes later I was told my connection reset. I tried a few more times during that first hour. I was so
An attempt to make a record for most downloads turned into the record for the largest socially engineered DDOS attack. Do I get my name in Guinness?
To me this issue is as simple as can be. We are (in theory) a nation governed by rule of LAW, not men. This administration has committed serious crimes. The proof is clearcut and easy to find for anyone who bothers to look. For some of the crimes, the domestic spying, we have public admissions of guilt. So being a nation of law, we put the accused on trial. The likely outcome of the trial is totally irrelevant at this point. In fact it doesn't matter if you support the republicans or the democrats, if you support the constitution you support impeachment and trail. It is the process that matters not the outcome. I supported the impeachment of Clinton, the crime was clear and so was the evidence, put him on trial and see how it works out. I was glad to see he was acquitted, but no man especially the President is above the law. If we let them/him get away with all of these crimes, then we set a precedent and since these crimes are about basic constitutional issues and issues of life or death for thousands of Americans and many more Iraqis, and the evidence is very strong, the precedent is that we become a nation governed by men. Laws become irrelevant to those in power.
Of course that's just my patriotic rhetoric. I believe that we stopped being a nation governed by law a looooong time ago. It's just now we have to live with it thrown into our faces on a daily basis, and there will be no consequences for these criminals except that a marginalized senator reads a bunch of accusations into the record.
It is about power and corruption, but that's not the main point. The main reason corporations are dangerous is that they are legally persons, with all the attendant rights and none of the attendant responsibilities. Imagine if you created a class of people that had all the rights of other people but did not die and could not be put in jail, that could earn tremendous quantities of money but could arrange things so they were not taxed. That class of people would come to dominate all other people.
What libertarians seem to miss, an this is just my perspective, is that it isn't just concentrations of power in government that are dangerous to liberty, it is concentrations of power in any form that are dangerous to our liberty.
Kent cigarettes in the early '50s used to have "Micronite" filters, which were made out of crocidolite asbestos. They used to advertise "More scientists smoke Kent with the Micronite filter."
Asbestos Abatement contractors have gotten big contracts based on my surveys, and rightfully so. The law requires removal of most types of asbestos materials from a building before demolition (or rennovation.) The alternative would be to send huge clouds of known carcinogens downwind during the demo or renovation.
I am fairly certain that no lawsuits have come out of my work. I am fairly certain because I haven't been deposed or subpoenaed. Actually to a large degree I am in the business of preventing lawsuits. Building owners hire us to monitor and document the removal of asbestos so that if someone were to sue them they can wave our report and say, "We did it according to the law, and here are all the lab results showing that it was done right. I am also fairly certain that millions of people would have been exposed to carcinogenic or toxic stuff if it weren't for my work and the work of many thousands of industrial hygienists all over the work.
Among then I have highlighted the materials that you have to suck on, to get any exposure to oh-so-deadly asbestos:
vinyl floor tiles
linoleum
adhesives of all sorts
duct tape
Actually sucking on them would taste bad but the exposure that has negative health effects is by breathing it into the lungs.
Floor tiles and adhesives are generally non-friable (meaning that they don't crumble easily) and are unlikely to release fibers into the air unless they are disturbed or damaged. Linoleum and duct tape can be very friable. In sheet flooring (linoleum) the part that sometimes has asbestos is the paper backing. When it does have asbestos it is often 30-60% asbestos. Pulling up old sheet flooring is an excellent way to get a very high concentration of asbestos in the air very quickly. How do I know that? Because I have collected air samples in the vicinity of exactly that activity and seen the results. The type of duct tape that has asbestos is the older cloth duct tape (the tape you will find that was used to seal joints in ducts) and it is usually brittle with age and is usually very friable.
Actually the most likely way for you to be exposed to airborne asbestos from those materials is during improper removal of the material. If the stuff is in good shape then leave it intact and train your people to not disturb the stuff.
That was a great bit of TV. The first bull was actually unusually gentle, and had been a tourist attraction and a source of income for the family for years. When it died, the owner convinced people at the local university, who were experimenting with cloning, to make a clone of his beloved bull. The new one didn't kick the owner in the crotch. He gored him, twice. The second time was during the filming of the segment, and the cameras went with him to the hospital. The guy was still convinced that it was the same bull.
Correct. The onset of symptoms from lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis does not occur immediately after exposure. There is a latency period of 15-40 years from the onset of exposure until the appearance of symptoms. Hopefully we don't introduce enormous quantities of carcinogenic nano stuff into the environment and workplace only to discover decades later that it hurts us.
It is illegal to demolish a building anywhere in the US without first conducting a "thorough inspection for the presence of asbestos." In most places you cannot get a demo permit without showing proof that the inspection was done. Many states only allow certified people to conduct the surveys.
SatanicPuppy is right. In a well maintained building it is usually better to leave it in place and manage the asbestos materials than to remove the materials for no reason. But that is not the same as ignoring the issue. If you're gonna safely manage asbestos-containing materials (ACM) then you have to know where they are. The worst thing you can do is say, "we're gonna leave well enough alone" then "lets knock down this wall, which may or may not contain asbestos, to make this office bigger."
I am an asbestos consultant, and I have surveyed hundreds of buildings. Only a tiny handful had no asbestos in them Even brand new buildings usually have some asbestos in them.
I always get a good laugh when someone tells me, "oh well we had the popcorn ceiling tested and this building is asbestos free." Here is a short and far from complete list of materials that frequently contain asbestos:
joint compound/taping mud on sheetrock
texture coats on sheetrock
plaster, esp acoustical plaster
vinyl floor tiles
linoleum
adhesives of all sorts
roofing
roofing patching material
pipe insulation
duct insulation
duct tape
transite
acoustical ceiling tiles
'popcorn' or 'cottage cheese' ceiling
fireproofing
fire door cores
exterior paint
Actually if it isn't wood, glass, ceramic, metal, or plastic then it is suspect. If it is one of those there is a decent chance that it is glued on with ACM adhesive.
This is true. Nicotine is a potent paralyzing chemical. It paralyzes the cillia which are the tiny hairs that move the mucus lining of the lungs up and out. The cillia and mucus are the lung's system for self cleaning. Nicotine shuts that process down leaving asbestos, and potentially nanotubes, in the lungs longer giving them more chance to cause injury or cancer. Luckily smoking is much less common around here than it used to be.
Jon Q. Nonsmoker-noasbestos chance of getting lung cancer = X
Bill X. Asbestosworker = 5X
Jane Z. Smoker = 10X
Mike V. Smokingasbestosworker = 50X - 90X
Actually the big reason that lawyers sue over mesothelioma cases is because the only known cause of mesothelioma is asbestos, so if a person has mesothelioma then the case is half proven, the lawyer then only has to prove who exposed the sick person to asbestos. Lung cancer isn't as useful. The defense only has to show that the sick person smoked 10 cigarettes 20 years ago and the lawsuit is undermined to the point of uselessness. If nanotubes cause mesothelioma and become widespread it is likely to make make mesothelioma lawsuits more difficult to litigate.
Face masks are less effective than tinfoil hats at filtering smog. They are useless for filtering CO, O3, NOx, PM10 particles, or diesel particles, which are the dangerous elements of smog. Facemasks are designed to keep really big dust particles like sawdust out of your lungs. They are also designed to keep spittle from falling into body during surgery. They are NOT gases or fine particles.
One of the biggest reasons that asbestos has proved to be fertile ground for lawsuits is because the negative health effects have been know for about 100 years now, and corporations still used it in large quantities through the 1970s. That demonstrates a certain recklessness. "We're willing to risk your health for our profits."
I work in the asbestos business, and I can tell you that enforcement of asbestos regulations is REALLY lax. The main item that drives employers to follow OSHA regulations and protect their employees is fear of litigation. The main thing that drives manufacturers to keep asbestos out of their products is fear of litigation. You should be grateful to that fear of lawsuits, it is the only thing that prevents industry from continuing to put asbestos in thousands of building products.
It is most likely that P100 HEPA filter respirators are appropriate for managing exposure to airborne nanotubes. P100 HEPA filters are designed to filter 99.97% of particles larger than 0.3 microns. There is substantial evidence that asbestos fibers smaller than this are not a risk factor for cancer. It's probably a similar story for nanotubes. Incidentally those dust masks are useless for asbestos and are probably useless for nanoparticles in general.
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That old fart had two really good film ideas. With the first idea he got two really good films, Star Wars and Empire, and then 4 (soon 5) crappy empty sequels. The second idea, Raiders, resulted in one really good movie and one passable movie out of 3 sequels. I feel sorry for the sad joke he's become.
It ought to be very useful to the law enforcement agencies such as the FBI. It seems like this kind of access could prove to be very fruitful in busting criminals. I'm not even in IT, but this seems like a no brainer. Look at the script; see where they are storing the stolen data; get a warrant to find the IP of whoever set up the account or whoever accesses it; go to their home with a warrant; and bust them. But perhaps I am expecting too much of our law enforcement agencies since they are so busy tracking all of the millions of Americans on their terrorist watch lists.
What I keep thinking is that if the crooks are this lazy it is because they can be. Nobody is chasing after them. It boggles the mind.
Tell him that this may seem like a long shot but it really is an ace in the hole. They may even get some good publicity out of it. At some level all police have elected bosses who love good publicity.
Uhm, there has been a crime committed you don't need to be sneaky. Arguably the crime was a felony, Grand Theft. Figure out which ISP hosts that IP, goto the cops and tell them to get a warrant to require the ISP to give up their data on the IP. Then have them serve a warrant on that home. Then they go get your PC and throw the thieves in jail.
I have 3 different kitchen sink add-ons. One is really good at hot and cold water, one is great at draining, but it crashes if you get hair in there. I use a third for dispose-all purposes.
I use statcounter.com to track use on my websites. I noticed that when I access my own sites from work, statcounter tells me that I was in Plano, Texas. I've only been in Texas once. I've noticed since then that LOTS of surfers are apparently from Plano, Texas. I'm guessing that some major ISP has a big operation there.
Ooh now my curiosity has been piqued. I wonder what I would find on the two company laptops that go into the field frequently, have wireless, are shared, and have the minimum protection installed. Yikes!
Just curious for comparison, how many copies of IE7 were downloaded in the first 24hrs. How many were downloaded in the first 24hrs that it was included as an auto-update?
To help protect our bottom line, Windows has blocked access to this file.
Name: Firefox Setup 3.0.exe
I surfed over to the download page at 9:58am pacific time, and it loaded right up. I got a phone call and remembered to hit reload at about 10:01. Fully 5 minutes later I was told my connection reset. I tried a few more times during that first hour. I was so
An attempt to make a record for most downloads turned into the record for the largest socially engineered DDOS attack. Do I get my name in Guinness?
someone's been drinking the Fox Kool-Aid.
To me this issue is as simple as can be. We are (in theory) a nation governed by rule of LAW, not men. This administration has committed serious crimes. The proof is clearcut and easy to find for anyone who bothers to look. For some of the crimes, the domestic spying, we have public admissions of guilt. So being a nation of law, we put the accused on trial. The likely outcome of the trial is totally irrelevant at this point. In fact it doesn't matter if you support the republicans or the democrats, if you support the constitution you support impeachment and trail. It is the process that matters not the outcome. I supported the impeachment of Clinton, the crime was clear and so was the evidence, put him on trial and see how it works out. I was glad to see he was acquitted, but no man especially the President is above the law. If we let them/him get away with all of these crimes, then we set a precedent and since these crimes are about basic constitutional issues and issues of life or death for thousands of Americans and many more Iraqis, and the evidence is very strong, the precedent is that we become a nation governed by men. Laws become irrelevant to those in power.
Of course that's just my patriotic rhetoric. I believe that we stopped being a nation governed by law a looooong time ago. It's just now we have to live with it thrown into our faces on a daily basis, and there will be no consequences for these criminals except that a marginalized senator reads a bunch of accusations into the record.
It is about power and corruption, but that's not the main point. The main reason corporations are dangerous is that they are legally persons, with all the attendant rights and none of the attendant responsibilities. Imagine if you created a class of people that had all the rights of other people but did not die and could not be put in jail, that could earn tremendous quantities of money but could arrange things so they were not taxed. That class of people would come to dominate all other people.
What libertarians seem to miss, an this is just my perspective, is that it isn't just concentrations of power in government that are dangerous to liberty, it is concentrations of power in any form that are dangerous to our liberty.
Kent cigarettes in the early '50s used to have "Micronite" filters, which were made out of crocidolite asbestos. They used to advertise "More scientists smoke Kent with the Micronite filter."
Asbestos Abatement contractors have gotten big contracts based on my surveys, and rightfully so. The law requires removal of most types of asbestos materials from a building before demolition (or rennovation.) The alternative would be to send huge clouds of known carcinogens downwind during the demo or renovation.
I am fairly certain that no lawsuits have come out of my work. I am fairly certain because I haven't been deposed or subpoenaed. Actually to a large degree I am in the business of preventing lawsuits. Building owners hire us to monitor and document the removal of asbestos so that if someone were to sue them they can wave our report and say, "We did it according to the law, and here are all the lab results showing that it was done right. I am also fairly certain that millions of people would have been exposed to carcinogenic or toxic stuff if it weren't for my work and the work of many thousands of industrial hygienists all over the work.
vinyl floor tiles
linoleum
adhesives of all sorts
duct tape
Actually sucking on them would taste bad but the exposure that has negative health effects is by breathing it into the lungs.
Floor tiles and adhesives are generally non-friable (meaning that they don't crumble easily) and are unlikely to release fibers into the air unless they are disturbed or damaged. Linoleum and duct tape can be very friable. In sheet flooring (linoleum) the part that sometimes has asbestos is the paper backing. When it does have asbestos it is often 30-60% asbestos. Pulling up old sheet flooring is an excellent way to get a very high concentration of asbestos in the air very quickly. How do I know that? Because I have collected air samples in the vicinity of exactly that activity and seen the results. The type of duct tape that has asbestos is the older cloth duct tape (the tape you will find that was used to seal joints in ducts) and it is usually brittle with age and is usually very friable. Actually the most likely way for you to be exposed to airborne asbestos from those materials is during improper removal of the material. If the stuff is in good shape then leave it intact and train your people to not disturb the stuff.
sorry, I called it by its Johns Manville brand name, Transite.
That was a great bit of TV. The first bull was actually unusually gentle, and had been a tourist attraction and a source of income for the family for years. When it died, the owner convinced people at the local university, who were experimenting with cloning, to make a clone of his beloved bull. The new one didn't kick the owner in the crotch. He gored him, twice. The second time was during the filming of the segment, and the cameras went with him to the hospital. The guy was still convinced that it was the same bull.
Correct. The onset of symptoms from lung cancer, mesothelioma, and asbestosis does not occur immediately after exposure. There is a latency period of 15-40 years from the onset of exposure until the appearance of symptoms. Hopefully we don't introduce enormous quantities of carcinogenic nano stuff into the environment and workplace only to discover decades later that it hurts us.
It is illegal to demolish a building anywhere in the US without first conducting a "thorough inspection for the presence of asbestos." In most places you cannot get a demo permit without showing proof that the inspection was done. Many states only allow certified people to conduct the surveys.
SatanicPuppy is right. In a well maintained building it is usually better to leave it in place and manage the asbestos materials than to remove the materials for no reason. But that is not the same as ignoring the issue. If you're gonna safely manage asbestos-containing materials (ACM) then you have to know where they are. The worst thing you can do is say, "we're gonna leave well enough alone" then "lets knock down this wall, which may or may not contain asbestos, to make this office bigger."
I am an asbestos consultant, and I have surveyed hundreds of buildings. Only a tiny handful had no asbestos in them Even brand new buildings usually have some asbestos in them.
I always get a good laugh when someone tells me, "oh well we had the popcorn ceiling tested and this building is asbestos free." Here is a short and far from complete list of materials that frequently contain asbestos:
joint compound/taping mud on sheetrock
texture coats on sheetrock
plaster, esp acoustical plaster
vinyl floor tiles
linoleum
adhesives of all sorts
roofing
roofing patching material
pipe insulation
duct insulation
duct tape
transite
acoustical ceiling tiles
'popcorn' or 'cottage cheese' ceiling
fireproofing
fire door cores
exterior paint
Actually if it isn't wood, glass, ceramic, metal, or plastic then it is suspect. If it is one of those there is a decent chance that it is glued on with ACM adhesive.
This is true. Nicotine is a potent paralyzing chemical. It paralyzes the cillia which are the tiny hairs that move the mucus lining of the lungs up and out. The cillia and mucus are the lung's system for self cleaning. Nicotine shuts that process down leaving asbestos, and potentially nanotubes, in the lungs longer giving them more chance to cause injury or cancer. Luckily smoking is much less common around here than it used to be.
Jon Q. Nonsmoker-noasbestos chance of getting lung cancer = X
Bill X. Asbestosworker = 5X
Jane Z. Smoker = 10X
Mike V. Smokingasbestosworker = 50X - 90X
Actually the big reason that lawyers sue over mesothelioma cases is because the only known cause of mesothelioma is asbestos, so if a person has mesothelioma then the case is half proven, the lawyer then only has to prove who exposed the sick person to asbestos. Lung cancer isn't as useful. The defense only has to show that the sick person smoked 10 cigarettes 20 years ago and the lawsuit is undermined to the point of uselessness. If nanotubes cause mesothelioma and become widespread it is likely to make make mesothelioma lawsuits more difficult to litigate.
Face masks are less effective than tinfoil hats at filtering smog. They are useless for filtering CO, O3, NOx, PM10 particles, or diesel particles, which are the dangerous elements of smog. Facemasks are designed to keep really big dust particles like sawdust out of your lungs. They are also designed to keep spittle from falling into body during surgery. They are NOT gases or fine particles.
One of the biggest reasons that asbestos has proved to be fertile ground for lawsuits is because the negative health effects have been know for about 100 years now, and corporations still used it in large quantities through the 1970s. That demonstrates a certain recklessness. "We're willing to risk your health for our profits."
I work in the asbestos business, and I can tell you that enforcement of asbestos regulations is REALLY lax. The main item that drives employers to follow OSHA regulations and protect their employees is fear of litigation. The main thing that drives manufacturers to keep asbestos out of their products is fear of litigation. You should be grateful to that fear of lawsuits, it is the only thing that prevents industry from continuing to put asbestos in thousands of building products.
It is most likely that P100 HEPA filter respirators are appropriate for managing exposure to airborne nanotubes. P100 HEPA filters are designed to filter 99.97% of particles larger than 0.3 microns. There is substantial evidence that asbestos fibers smaller than this are not a risk factor for cancer. It's probably a similar story for nanotubes. Incidentally those dust masks are useless for asbestos and are probably useless for nanoparticles in general.