So you support full disclosure of US Army operations, order of battle, the schematics for nuclear weapons, submarine patrol routes, ongoing anti-terror investigations, Iranian spy networks (including informant names and addresses) and any other information that might be considered "Secret".
Forgive me if I find your first amendment argument a little fatuous.
Curiously nobody has suggested that they're acting correctly.
"Secret" information has been leaked. Sources on the internet are hosting that leaked information. It's perfectly sensible and legitimate to ask how that information can be suppressed, and whether legal action is (or should be made) possible against those that disseminate it.
The answer is obviously that it'll be extremely difficult (and for certain types of information, impossible), but I would expect people in their position to at least ask the question.
Whether the information should be suppressed, and the extent and severity of the actions appropriate to suppressing it are irrelevant to the main point. Should they implement new laws and start arresting and extraditing foreign nationals, seizing foreign servers and invading/bombing foreign countries (as has already happened) then quite rightly they should be criticised, but merely asking what can be done is appropriate and proportionate.
At a guess, no - the information is not relevant as no infringement has been legally demonstrated, and thus an out of court settlement involving no admission of guilt or liability has no bearing on other cases.
Technical staff in my country tend to be salary too.
However, the long term career path is the correct answer to this question. If a management career is desired then this may be a great opportunity. If management is the great evil then turn it down.
My experience is that employers welcome honest assessment of career opportunities and don't penalise people that choose not to pursue inappropriate paths. I've disappointed managers by turning down Project Management or other management roles, but highlighting the rationale for my choice has appeased them and overall I've enjoyed my work far more as a result.
It also hasn't stopped me getting promotions. My job titles, and the companies that I was with when I first got them: - programmer (A) - software engineer (B) - senior software engineer (B) - senior developer (C) - technical specialist (C) - architect (C) - application architect (D) - solutions architect (D) - enterprise architect (D) - enterprise architect (E)
Still at company E, doing a hell of a lot of management, but still not a manager, still technically a technical person (well, a specialist), but my role preferences have evolved as my skills have expanded and I've enjoyed the progression.
Each company move has been for different reasons, but each promotion has been within the same company thus far.
So a technical career path is available, there are many managerial (and a few technical) roles I chose not to do, but at each decision point I make sure I'm staying true to what I enjoy doing.
Back when I was mudding a lot, a WM that would auto-arrange three muds (in xterms), two to three command lines (in xterms) and Angband (in an xterm) would've been ideal.
These days I wouldn't want to tile though - especially if I'm programming.
The code needs as much screen space as possible. To the extent that frankly everything else can be hidden. If I'm using an IDE, then it has panes with useful information/abilities in them, that aid the programming, so they can stay, but they're still tiny relative to the code. That said, on something like my laptop, I don't need the code window to be 1920 pixels wide, so I can put other windows to the side. I do still want it 1200 pixels tall though (less the usual fluff of window borders, menu bars, scroll bars, etc - but I don't let those take up much screen real estate either).
Command lines, web browser, email clients.. all hidden in the background or on another monitor.
For non-programming uses, word processors work best for me at around half screen width. Web browsers do too - full screen and I'm looking left to right too often; I use a large screen fairly close, I have to explicitly look at different regions of the screen. However, something like Visio needs to be full screen - you can't draw diagrams in a small window.
So I still don't want to tile, I want different applications to have different window sizes.
Would tabbed applications work? On a netbook, where the small screen size effectively forces everything full-screen, probably. On a 1920x1200 screen, possibly. I could have my usual text editor and my word processor in one window, tabbed, my main and secondary command lines in another window, tabbed, my spreadsheets/drawing tools/presentation tools in another window (full screen), tabbed. I guess I'm saying I'd have to be able to group windows together by both the position and width on screen that I tend to use them.
Instinctively I'm against the idea, but I was also against tabbed web browsing until I tried it and now I'm completely hooked..
It's prepared on behalf of the home secretary, so in theory it reflects the intent of parliament.
In practice it reflects the Government's attempts to appease their lobbyists, impose their draconian and authoritarian policies and avoid being voted out of office.
This is why you often hear of judges expressing reservations about minimum sentences for certain crimes - it's often the Government mandating a populist measure that ignores any concept of justice.
In the UK the Fritzl case would have been tried anonymously, so that the victim could remain anonymous.
Whether whistleblower or not the authorities in this country do their best to protect victims from reputational loss associated with sex related offences.
Since ifwm's pithy and accurate post was modded to oblivion, allow me to respond.
Whistleblowers do not reveal the names of children involved by revealing the abuser.
An excellent recent example is the nursery worker recently arrested in the UK for abusing her wards. She was vilified for the original offence, but then attacked constantly by the media for days because she wouldn't reveal which children she'd abused.
The abuser was clearly known, but not the victims. (Yes, there's photographic evidence. No, I don't know why they can't identify the victims from the photos - could be that all 3 year olds look the same naked or that they didn't include the heads in the pictures, or something).
In UK law sexual abuse victims have an automatic right to anonymity. I think that's sensible and appropriate; I would personally extend the right to those accused of abuse to protect their reputations too - there are too many false accusations, which destroy peoples careers and family lives. Remove the anonymity at the point they are convicted of the crime, not the point at which someone (who remains anonymous) accuses them.
This would be the British couple that were boarded in full sight of a Royal Navy vessel that sat by and watched as the pirates kidknapped them and stripped the yacht?
Forget paying up, I want the SBS to go in and rescue them and damn the casualties that causes - on both sides. It's the only way the Navy can come out of this with any credibility at all (and that's necessary if they're to be at all effective in both discouraging future piracy and in defending the UK).
England and France are no longer 'superpowers' but they are permanent members of the UN Security Council, they are nuclear powers and they do have significant world economies. They also have education levels and quality of life better than most of the world (basically behind Scandinavia, really). You appear to have a curious definition of '2nd rate'.
There's a reason Bush wanted Britain involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's because without us America would have been isolated and alone in the world, and he lacked the guts to do that.
US military spending is frankly stupendous and trying to match it broke the USSR. Maybe learning a little diplomacy and avoiding unnecessary wars would help you cut the costs a little. That's why the other major powers don't need to spend as much.
Hell, look at China. Reprehensible record on human rights, but they just don't bother to play games on other continents, so they're completely militarily secure for around a tenth of the US budget.
Iraq's impossible borders have fuck all to do with invading Iraq, or the US supporting Hussein's regime there.
Depending who you believe the Brits actually did gas the Kurds; many people highlighted this as an irony at the time our Government were trying to justify invading Iraq because Saddam allegedly had poison gas of his own. Sorry, remind me, who sold that to him?
Incidentally, you don't like my answer to the Israel/Palestine conflict. Trust me on that one. It involves letting Iran go nuclear. Hey, I didn't say I was sane or that I had sensible policies of my own..
If the US were to withdraw its military to within its own borders, I'd be delighted. Better yet, withdraw the CIA and their interference too.
Describing the UK and France as second rate nations demonstrates ignorance. Suggesting that the US is having to deal with trouble spots caused by other people is arrogant, deluded and ignorant.
Iran was doing fine until the US helped remove the democratic government. Afghanistan was never under British control and recent problems derive from the failed Russian occupation. Iraq was propped up and encouraged by the US until they decided to sell oil to the French instead, at which point they became enemy #1. The whole middle east region would be significantly happier if Israel wasn't getting such encouragement from the US.
Blaming the UK and France is frankly comical.
Lets consider some former UK colonies that don't have oil and thus haven't had interest from the US: India, democratic and doing well. South Africa, democratic and doing well. Australia, democratic and doing well. Canada, democratic and doing well. Actually, Canada I think do have oil, we'd better warn them to build a bigger army.
Pakistan was doing fairly well, but is now struggling with the influence of the people that left Afghanistan. Good of the US to cause trouble to an otherwise innocent nation. We haven't seen that before..
Regarding your off topic attack on the UK's parliament, most people in the UK will happily acknowledge that the British Government is far from perfect. The House of Lords is ironically one of the better aspects to it; the lack of credibility and issues with the elected politicians are far more of a concern, along with the leakage of power to the EU. However, I wasn't trying to defend my own Government, I was merely contesting your view that Europeans are scared to use their own armies.
That you highlight the Falklands (very successful campaign) and Northern Ireland (peace achieved despite the fucking US funding and support for terrorists - you forgot to mention that) which are relatively trivial activities neglects Korea (stalemate), Kuwait (crushing victory), Iraq (despite the warcrimes, we won the ground war with ease and were winning over the population until the US fucked it up for us - and yes, I can list hundreds of references) and Afghanistan (where despite your suggestion that the US is having to do everything, there is a sizeable European force and British soldiers are dying every week). Plus the numerous smaller engagements that British forces have been involved in through the years.
Afghanistan's actually unusual. It's the only war in the last two decades where the Americans haven't killed nearly as many British soldiers as the enemy.
So I think general concensus is that European nations do pull their own weight, and are committing resources (including the lives of their soldiers) to put right the messes made by the US.
The US may continue to do it its own way, but that'll just lead to more radicalism, more attacks on the US and more dead Europeans as we try and deal with it on your behalf. See also the last 40 years.
Don't bother to reply unless you can quit with the hyperbolic diatribe and use some factual evidence to support your rants.
I reject the constitution. I also dislike this. My answer isn't the make the EU more democratic, it's the make the EU less powerful.
Ideally I'd kill the council of ministers. Literally.
That's the appropriate message to send out to unelected politicians fucking over the people they're meant to helping.
I would however settle for a significant reduction in EU powers, the removal of the council of ministers, the removal of an EU president and foreign minister and control of nations given back to their elected parliaments.
SWIFT is used for intra-country transactions too. It's also the underlying transport for CHAPS messages, which cover most high value payments within the UK.
SWIFT being compromised like this would be a significant concern and one that I'll raise with my employer - we have a duty of care to our customers that I don't think we can realistically meet if we're giving their sensitive data to the US.
It could be worse - if credit card payments went over SWIFT there'd be scary PCI implications.
I seldom defend the US on anything, but please.. their soldiers are extremely well trained, and extremely well equipped compared to almost any other army on the planet.
Even the armies better trained (the UK, maybe some other European nations, Israel) aren't better equipped.
That the training doesn't sufficiently cover peacekeeping, civilian relations and policing activities is a serious issue, but the US army is very effective and very capable in the field.
Slashdot Mirror
That might be the case where you live, but in the UK if the police stop you, you get out of the car.
They like you to sit in their car while they tell you off :(
Find a way to measure relative productivity, and relative error rates, for before and after you had to stop using music.
Use objective facts to show your boss what a twat he is.
So you support full disclosure of US Army operations, order of battle, the schematics for nuclear weapons, submarine patrol routes, ongoing anti-terror investigations, Iranian spy networks (including informant names and addresses) and any other information that might be considered "Secret".
Forgive me if I find your first amendment argument a little fatuous.
Curiously nobody has suggested that they're acting correctly.
"Secret" information has been leaked. Sources on the internet are hosting that leaked information. It's perfectly sensible and legitimate to ask how that information can be suppressed, and whether legal action is (or should be made) possible against those that disseminate it.
The answer is obviously that it'll be extremely difficult (and for certain types of information, impossible), but I would expect people in their position to at least ask the question.
Whether the information should be suppressed, and the extent and severity of the actions appropriate to suppressing it are irrelevant to the main point. Should they implement new laws and start arresting and extraditing foreign nationals, seizing foreign servers and invading/bombing foreign countries (as has already happened) then quite rightly they should be criticised, but merely asking what can be done is appropriate and proportionate.
At a guess, no - the information is not relevant as no infringement has been legally demonstrated, and thus an out of court settlement involving no admission of guilt or liability has no bearing on other cases.
Technical staff in my country tend to be salary too.
However, the long term career path is the correct answer to this question. If a management career is desired then this may be a great opportunity. If management is the great evil then turn it down.
My experience is that employers welcome honest assessment of career opportunities and don't penalise people that choose not to pursue inappropriate paths. I've disappointed managers by turning down Project Management or other management roles, but highlighting the rationale for my choice has appeased them and overall I've enjoyed my work far more as a result.
It also hasn't stopped me getting promotions. My job titles, and the companies that I was with when I first got them:
- programmer (A)
- software engineer (B)
- senior software engineer (B)
- senior developer (C)
- technical specialist (C)
- architect (C)
- application architect (D)
- solutions architect (D)
- enterprise architect (D)
- enterprise architect (E)
Still at company E, doing a hell of a lot of management, but still not a manager, still technically a technical person (well, a specialist), but my role preferences have evolved as my skills have expanded and I've enjoyed the progression.
Each company move has been for different reasons, but each promotion has been within the same company thus far.
So a technical career path is available, there are many managerial (and a few technical) roles I chose not to do, but at each decision point I make sure I'm staying true to what I enjoy doing.
It's working so far..
Nobody ever was irreplaceable, in any company with more than a dozen or so employees.
Expensive to replace, sure, but ultimately..
(Yes, you can quote the seven known incidents that break the rule. All seven, in 60 years of commercial IT, worldwide.)
Assume you are replaceable, and add value by avoiding a key man dependency. Increase your skills, enjoy your job.
Back when I was mudding a lot, a WM that would auto-arrange three muds (in xterms), two to three command lines (in xterms) and Angband (in an xterm) would've been ideal.
These days I wouldn't want to tile though - especially if I'm programming.
The code needs as much screen space as possible. To the extent that frankly everything else can be hidden. If I'm using an IDE, then it has panes with useful information/abilities in them, that aid the programming, so they can stay, but they're still tiny relative to the code. That said, on something like my laptop, I don't need the code window to be 1920 pixels wide, so I can put other windows to the side. I do still want it 1200 pixels tall though (less the usual fluff of window borders, menu bars, scroll bars, etc - but I don't let those take up much screen real estate either).
Command lines, web browser, email clients.. all hidden in the background or on another monitor.
For non-programming uses, word processors work best for me at around half screen width. Web browsers do too - full screen and I'm looking left to right too often; I use a large screen fairly close, I have to explicitly look at different regions of the screen. However, something like Visio needs to be full screen - you can't draw diagrams in a small window.
So I still don't want to tile, I want different applications to have different window sizes.
Would tabbed applications work? On a netbook, where the small screen size effectively forces everything full-screen, probably. On a 1920x1200 screen, possibly. I could have my usual text editor and my word processor in one window, tabbed, my main and secondary command lines in another window, tabbed, my spreadsheets/drawing tools/presentation tools in another window (full screen), tabbed. I guess I'm saying I'd have to be able to group windows together by both the position and width on screen that I tend to use them.
Instinctively I'm against the idea, but I was also against tabbed web browsing until I tried it and now I'm completely hooked..
It's prepared on behalf of the home secretary, so in theory it reflects the intent of parliament.
In practice it reflects the Government's attempts to appease their lobbyists, impose their draconian and authoritarian policies and avoid being voted out of office.
This is why you often hear of judges expressing reservations about minimum sentences for certain crimes - it's often the Government mandating a populist measure that ignores any concept of justice.
In the UK the guidance isn't in the laws, but the police, the CPS and magistrates/judges do get copious amounts of guidance about interpreting them.
Disclaimer: My mother is a magistrate. And yes, of course I give her a lot of grief about the law and how she applies it.
In the UK the Fritzl case would have been tried anonymously, so that the victim could remain anonymous.
Whether whistleblower or not the authorities in this country do their best to protect victims from reputational loss associated with sex related offences.
Since ifwm's pithy and accurate post was modded to oblivion, allow me to respond.
Whistleblowers do not reveal the names of children involved by revealing the abuser.
An excellent recent example is the nursery worker recently arrested in the UK for abusing her wards. She was vilified for the original offence, but then attacked constantly by the media for days because she wouldn't reveal which children she'd abused.
The abuser was clearly known, but not the victims. (Yes, there's photographic evidence. No, I don't know why they can't identify the victims from the photos - could be that all 3 year olds look the same naked or that they didn't include the heads in the pictures, or something).
In UK law sexual abuse victims have an automatic right to anonymity. I think that's sensible and appropriate; I would personally extend the right to those accused of abuse to protect their reputations too - there are too many false accusations, which destroy peoples careers and family lives. Remove the anonymity at the point they are convicted of the crime, not the point at which someone (who remains anonymous) accuses them.
I'm sorry, did you just support blackmailing a mother and child?
Exactly why should someone have anonymity when making threats to someone else, clearly violating the law?
The wikipedia poster may not be the blackmailer, but it seems pretty fair to find out.
This would be the British couple that were boarded in full sight of a Royal Navy vessel that sat by and watched as the pirates kidknapped them and stripped the yacht?
Forget paying up, I want the SBS to go in and rescue them and damn the casualties that causes - on both sides. It's the only way the Navy can come out of this with any credibility at all (and that's necessary if they're to be at all effective in both discouraging future piracy and in defending the UK).
Indeed. Ironic really :)
You've made the mistake of assuming that major world religions are any better.
The only real difference with Scientology is that they're not quite as old as the rest.
You want to summarise that one for people that have no intention of going to that website on any internet connection that can be traced back to them?
You mean, with enough of those you get the money anyway.
A virgin birth is pretty easy to arrange, even with 2000 year old technology.
The hardest part is finding the virgin and a reason to do it..
I also don't think that leaders of major religions truly believe the shit they espouse. Fucking con artists the lot of them.
England and France are no longer 'superpowers' but they are permanent members of the UN Security Council, they are nuclear powers and they do have significant world economies. They also have education levels and quality of life better than most of the world (basically behind Scandinavia, really). You appear to have a curious definition of '2nd rate'.
There's a reason Bush wanted Britain involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's because without us America would have been isolated and alone in the world, and he lacked the guts to do that.
US military spending is frankly stupendous and trying to match it broke the USSR. Maybe learning a little diplomacy and avoiding unnecessary wars would help you cut the costs a little. That's why the other major powers don't need to spend as much.
Hell, look at China. Reprehensible record on human rights, but they just don't bother to play games on other continents, so they're completely militarily secure for around a tenth of the US budget.
Iraq's impossible borders have fuck all to do with invading Iraq, or the US supporting Hussein's regime there.
Depending who you believe the Brits actually did gas the Kurds; many people highlighted this as an irony at the time our Government were trying to justify invading Iraq because Saddam allegedly had poison gas of his own. Sorry, remind me, who sold that to him?
Incidentally, you don't like my answer to the Israel/Palestine conflict. Trust me on that one. It involves letting Iran go nuclear. Hey, I didn't say I was sane or that I had sensible policies of my own..
If the US were to withdraw its military to within its own borders, I'd be delighted. Better yet, withdraw the CIA and their interference too.
Describing the UK and France as second rate nations demonstrates ignorance. Suggesting that the US is having to deal with trouble spots caused by other people is arrogant, deluded and ignorant.
Iran was doing fine until the US helped remove the democratic government. Afghanistan was never under British control and recent problems derive from the failed Russian occupation. Iraq was propped up and encouraged by the US until they decided to sell oil to the French instead, at which point they became enemy #1. The whole middle east region would be significantly happier if Israel wasn't getting such encouragement from the US.
Blaming the UK and France is frankly comical.
Lets consider some former UK colonies that don't have oil and thus haven't had interest from the US: India, democratic and doing well. South Africa, democratic and doing well. Australia, democratic and doing well. Canada, democratic and doing well. Actually, Canada I think do have oil, we'd better warn them to build a bigger army.
Pakistan was doing fairly well, but is now struggling with the influence of the people that left Afghanistan. Good of the US to cause trouble to an otherwise innocent nation. We haven't seen that before..
Regarding your off topic attack on the UK's parliament, most people in the UK will happily acknowledge that the British Government is far from perfect. The House of Lords is ironically one of the better aspects to it; the lack of credibility and issues with the elected politicians are far more of a concern, along with the leakage of power to the EU. However, I wasn't trying to defend my own Government, I was merely contesting your view that Europeans are scared to use their own armies.
That you highlight the Falklands (very successful campaign) and Northern Ireland (peace achieved despite the fucking US funding and support for terrorists - you forgot to mention that) which are relatively trivial activities neglects Korea (stalemate), Kuwait (crushing victory), Iraq (despite the warcrimes, we won the ground war with ease and were winning over the population until the US fucked it up for us - and yes, I can list hundreds of references) and Afghanistan (where despite your suggestion that the US is having to do everything, there is a sizeable European force and British soldiers are dying every week). Plus the numerous smaller engagements that British forces have been involved in through the years.
Afghanistan's actually unusual. It's the only war in the last two decades where the Americans haven't killed nearly as many British soldiers as the enemy.
So I think general concensus is that European nations do pull their own weight, and are committing resources (including the lives of their soldiers) to put right the messes made by the US.
The US may continue to do it its own way, but that'll just lead to more radicalism, more attacks on the US and more dead Europeans as we try and deal with it on your behalf. See also the last 40 years.
Don't bother to reply unless you can quit with the hyperbolic diatribe and use some factual evidence to support your rants.
Sorry, I'm confused. Just what's the problem with Muslim minorities?
Suddenly I see why you're worried about people being labelled a bigot.
I reject the constitution. I also dislike this. My answer isn't the make the EU more democratic, it's the make the EU less powerful.
Ideally I'd kill the council of ministers. Literally.
That's the appropriate message to send out to unelected politicians fucking over the people they're meant to helping.
I would however settle for a significant reduction in EU powers, the removal of the council of ministers, the removal of an EU president and foreign minister and control of nations given back to their elected parliaments.
SWIFT is used for intra-country transactions too. It's also the underlying transport for CHAPS messages, which cover most high value payments within the UK.
SWIFT being compromised like this would be a significant concern and one that I'll raise with my employer - we have a duty of care to our customers that I don't think we can realistically meet if we're giving their sensitive data to the US.
It could be worse - if credit card payments went over SWIFT there'd be scary PCI implications.
I seldom defend the US on anything, but please.. their soldiers are extremely well trained, and extremely well equipped compared to almost any other army on the planet.
Even the armies better trained (the UK, maybe some other European nations, Israel) aren't better equipped.
That the training doesn't sufficiently cover peacekeeping, civilian relations and policing activities is a serious issue, but the US army is very effective and very capable in the field.