Normally you are correct, but in this case, 3 drinks over 3 hours (if that is the truth), plus the time to get to the station, most of the alcohol had had consumed would already be declining by the point he was stopped, and further still later at the station. BAC reduces by 0.01% (average by body type) for every 40 minutes elapsed starting with the conclusion of the first beverage. In most DUI cases, the person who has been drinking has been exceeding 1 drink per hour (typically 2-3 drinks per hour) and there would be sufficient undigested alcohol in the stomach to hold you right. By hour 3 in this case, the first drink he consumed would not even be in his blood any longer except in trace amounts (0.008 or less if my math is right for a 175lb male).
First of all, thank you for being nice, and not flaming me back. It's nice to see someone on/. that doesn't immediately assume a lengthy rant was negative and targeted againts them personally.
As for the beer, Corona is 4.6%, Bud light 4.2%. Pretty close really, I was thinking bud light was around 3.5 (That would be Amstel light). Guiness by the way is 7.4 for extra stout, or only 4.0 for draft. Most Sam Adams products are over 5% (and their tripple Bock, only legal in a few states, is 17.4%) Pete's ales are also almost all between 5-6%. I can't find specifics, but from what I can gather, since wine is on average 12% and the service is 4oz, beer at 12oz should be measuered at 4%. 2 pint glasses of Bud from a tap atthe bar would be equal to 3 beer on the BAC chart.
Also, the average person consumes (converts) 1 unit of alcohol in one hour. The chart also indicates, that based on your weight, approxamately how much more you can drink before becoming intoxicated. Unfortunately, what it does not say is that it takes overweight persons longer (typically, due to metaboloc factars that are usually linked to obesity) to convert the alcohol.
You are correct that a 175lb male who has consumes 3 corona bottles should be somewhere between 0.6 and.07. For some reason, you pinged higher than that at a point likely about 1 hour after you left the bar (that's a guess). Either some food intake issues were effecting you, or you had a forth one you forgot... I wans't there so i can'ty say for certian.
You can refuse field sobriety tests, but if the cop even suspects you may be intoxicated, even a little, you get a ride to the station. There, I would still refuse the breath test and insist on the far more accurate blood test method. However, that can backfire quick and leave you in jail for a night waiting for a lab to open to test the sample...
Right now, America uses a 0.08 rating for intoxication. This is stricter than it used to be, and a lot of people fought lowering it. On the other hand, most nations of the world arrest you at 0.05. In parts of australia, it's 0.02! 1 drink and you could go to jail for 6 months minimum sentence for the first offence. There's pressure here in america to lower the limt again. In NY County (area surrounding NYC), get a DUI and you not only get fined, but your vehicle, regardless of it's value, becomes property of the county, no exceptions, regardless of how much you may still owe a bank on it. Ouch. Needless to say, NYC has an extremely low DUI rate...
I had my license suspended here too. All i did was change insurance companies. The guy at the old company (a local firm) was an ass, and was upset I stopped being his customer, so he, instead of sending in a transfer of insurance form and sending my details to my new insurance company, sent a cancelation of insurance letter to the state and nothing to my new insurer. Since the new insurer never got a transfer form, after 30 days they also canceled my policy. This not only suspended my license, but my wife's as well since she's a cosigner on the vehicle. This cost me $120 when I got picked at an insurace checkpoint, and $75 to re-instate my license, but again later when i also found out the wife's was suspended as well... The state, having my address from my license, never sent any paperwork to me indicating this (thanks). The new inurance company had noticed the lapse in coverage, called me, got me re-instated, even before I found out about the suspension, but that never updated my record with the state and I got scrwed for over $350 for it. Later, this screwed up my vehicle taxes because they showed my vehicle as uninsured (even though it was) and when they requested details, my old insurance company gave the county my old address (in another county) and sent my bill there. My license got suspended again for failing to pay my vehicle taxes on time, which then also (again) suspended my wife's. This in then end totaled almost $600 in fees and fin
You're equally as likely to get pulled over, and equally deserving of a ticket. Nothing in the constitution guarantees the cop has to be nice to you. Being nice may get you out of the ticket, but the latter is not necessarily the case. I'm also not talking about a "dity car" but an "unkept vehicle" Not washing it is one thing. Using it as a trashcan ot letting it rust out and have failing equipment is another, and speaks to your personal habits and places you in certain catagories that typically recieve additional scrutiny. This is not necesarily profiling, but something similar.
Law enforecemtnis not biased, people are. Unless you can rpove a pattern of a specific offecer favoring motorists particularly on race, religion, or other legally protected matter, then you have a statement to make and a day in court. The constitution says nothing about treating people equally based on other lesser factors like hygene or attitude.
The constitution may guarantee you freedom of speech, but that same freedom CAN and likely will sway your chance of getting out of a ticket. This is not to be confused with being issued a citation because of what you said (ie persecution, which IS illegal) This is simply you not getting OUT of a citation you shouold legally be issued because of what you said. You have the legally protected right to call a cop an asshole to his face and insult his religion, family, and uniform. He can't take you to prison for that, but be guaranteed: he'll issue you every legitimate violation he can think up that he could give you and might not have otherwise.
In a more perfect world, everyone would be issued a ticket and there would be no warnings. Good lick getting a politician to stand on that platform at re-election time....
I didn't say you couldn't be an individual, and I explicitly stated what rights you should exert. What I advised is that you not flaunt any stereotypes commonly associated with poor social taste, aggressive behavior, or a wealth of income, and also that you respect that the officer is doing a job, a relatively thankless and often dangerous job, and treat him with patience.
Why do so many people think it's OK to get in the face of authority? Would you also threaten a drug dealer, call a black man a nigger, bring a gun into a bank? Lets think of even simpler parallels: Do you leave no tip at a restaurant you frequent and expect good service every time? Do you cut in line and expect thanks? Do you accept free drinks but never return the favor?
Exert your rights, but only when it's not only your right to do so, but when it's JUSTIFIED to do so. Challenge authority, but only when you are prepared to deal with the potential consequences. Be nice to people, especially those who may have an impact on your life, freedom, happiness, etc. Don't flaunt your race, tastes, religion, attitude, or anything else that might be offensive unless it is your intent to offend, and again, you are prepared to deal with the consequences.
Who gets the job: the man in a suit with a resume, or the guy in a t-shirt with his shorts hanging below his ass? Who gets the ticket: The patient motorist who is calm and apologizes for speeding, or the obnoxious bitch in the $50K SUV who's on the phone with her girlfriend and states she's offended that he would even "waste her time with her when he should be arresting a crack dealer" just as the cop comes to the window? Who gets their car searched: The cooperative guy with a clean car and a clean record, or the 22 year old convenience employee in a 30K suped up speaker on 22" chrome spinner rims who won't look the cop in the eye because of how the white man oppresses the black man and who complains openly about being pulled over "for nothun?"
Fact is, everyone who gets pulled over should get some kind of ticket, or else what cause did they have to pull you over? Officers have "discretion" to issue a warning or polite advice instead (assuming you have valid documentation of your license, insurance, and the vehicle and your criminal record come up clean when he runs it), but it is entirely their prerogative to do so. It's best you stay on their good side. Any impression you make will likely determine the extent of your situation.
If you dislike authority, don't complain to the worker, complain to the people who can actually change things: congress, the press, or the courts. Anything else just pisses people off.
It's actually not that bad since they're not storing your whole DNA sequence. They're only storing specifics about 2000 or so markers, cut length of certain strings, and a bit more data. It's probably far less than 1MB per person, likely quite a bit less (50-200KB?). It's an encoded table structure, enough to fill a few pages of text or so per person.
Wow, you really may be an honest nut... More likely, you're just misunderstanding the technology at work here, so I'll personally refer to you simply as ignorant. Hope that's slightly less harsh. The 2000+ markers are all common markers, for the most part. Immunotype information may be interesting information to have, but who the hell is going to get a hospital to hire a hacker, hack the UK database, perform a search of all compatible persons (which takes hours even with proper access), not get caught, output that information so one can plan and commit a murder, making certain to not damage an organ that's needed, and guarantee that that person is even a doner... Maybe if someone of royalty was dying the government itself might do this, but then again, if they needed to, how many UK citizens would sacrifice themselves willingly without the need to be searched for this way?
Also, what agency cares if you're the child or father of a criminal? Criminal behavior has no confirmed link to inheritable genetics....and if it was found this WAS the case, I'd applaud being able to determine from birth that someone needs medication to avoid becoming a hardened criminal. Course, we also do have this innocent until proven guilty thing, so even if they know, they can't do anything to you unless you actually do commit a crime. This thing called free will does control us far better then our genetics go.
Also think of the sheer anarchy that would come about if anyone actually found out the database was being used that way? The government would be overthrown, and most of the members executed, for even suggesting a bill to propose this, let alone us finding out they actually did it... Paranoia is one thing, confirmed fears are another entirely.
Also, you apparently have no idea how a DB can be structure to simply prevent these types of searches. If I worked for the DMV, or even a city tax office, I can't just do a scan and come up with a list of people, I have to know at least 1 indexable piece of information about a specific individual, and then I can only search and see 1 result at a time... These databases are not designed to provide a list of matches, only a single record....and every search is logged. To get any more, you actually have to hack the database, and that usually means taking it off line or acquiring an export of it. Do you have any idea how big this database would be? How do you plan to get a copy? It could span dozens or even hundreds of tapes...
more importantly, this genetic fingerprint information would be encoded. It is searchable for patterns, but not for specific indexes or traits, unless of course you have access to the classified information on how a genetic fingerprint is actually stored in the database electronically, what fields it uses, and have access to the database using custom coded software to perform this kind of search.
I'm a network engineer with a strong background in programming, and many friends and colleagues who have in the past worked for governments or companies with classified clearance, who wrote databases like these, and inter-department connectivity systems so police and other agencies could be granted restricted access to that database. Being this close to the technology, I fundamentally understand how near impossible it is to even get the data, let alone abuse it without resulting in an overthrown government.
While I agree that a completely unified and open, interdepartmental database, is a very, very, bad thing (at least with current technology and regulations), that's not to say that trackable, ridgid, inter agency connections can not be made, and that this data poses many more positive benefits than negative. The ONLY excuse to not have a single massive database is the paranoia that it may be abused. (sorry, this does qualify as paranoia because by design it's virtually impossible to abuse this data).
A properly constructed database does not allow this information to be listed, but requires a search for a specific string (by name, ID, or input like a fingerprint). It does not return information about everyone, just those matching your string. Agencies that require certain pieces of information can have it, other agencies won't be able to get that data without prior approval, and then only for the specific search targets. The database is also held only on departmental systems, which are network isolated, by law, from the general internet, and can only be accessed by authorized personal using strong, frequently changed passwords, and this is logged religiously, and the logs scrutinized by agencies and departments that exist simply to look for this kind of abuse.
This is not some simple SQL DB file that could be hacked, dumped, and taken away. Databases like this are hand coded, typically run on Unix or AS400 (or mainframe) systems, and are very tightly controlled and logged. Even if you could get access to a system connected to this network, and had stolen a password, what can you really do with the database before you get noticed? very little.
Furthermore, the information it contains very little information of any real value except that which identifies you. Sure, they can get your SSN, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get that from your bank, your college, your high school, or other means than it would ever be to get it out of a secured state or federal database....and all this really boils down to is identity theft, which is easy to both stop and correct, and even easier to prevent simply by calling the credit agencies and adding a password to your SSN account preventing credit checks or new account openings. Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but its not like you'll be targeted by some government agency based on what's in this database for some untoward purpose (except maybe the police who will confirm you are in fact, provably in court, guilty of an unsolved crime that they deeped important enough to scan the database for.
But the real point here is not any of this... It's the fact that this information, in one form or another does exist, is accessible, and can already be compromised (though nearly impossible). My point was that adding DNA fingerprints to this adds zero ADDITIONAL risk to your privacy as the DNA data itself is vitually useless except in forensics. There are valid arguments for strictly regulating how this data is collected, by whom, and where and how it is stored and accessed, but collecting it in the first place is no additional risk to what is already in place.
um, if you did the walking test flawlessly, why did the cop even ask you to do a breathalyser? The process for using one has to be documented, there are costs involved in replacing the breathing tube used, and more. For a 0.085, it's so close it's almost not worth it, and in most cases, by the time you got to the station and did another breathalyser, normally the number would go down not up. Cops know this, and also know that if they drag you in and you pass, there's typically hell to pay.
That said, some people can ping 0.080 after only 1 drink, about 40 minutes after finishing that drink. If you had just finished your 3rd beverage, got in the car and then got pulled, after 3 drinks you could easily have been 0.08+. That fact that a second Breathalyzer confirmed this means you were guilty. Also, start counting the 3 hours from a point about 15 minutes after finishing the first drink, not from the time you got to the place to start drinking... You might see a different picture entirely there.
If you have even a half-assed lawyer, and you bothered to get the ID numbers of both breathalyser used, and both had not been calibrated withing their required term (or failed calibration testing) then you would be let go without a fuss. My guess, at least one of the 2 units was within normal parameters or would pass calibration anyway, and thus be admissible in court.
Fact is, at 0.08, you're impaired enough for it to be easily detectable in visual and reaction simulators. In fact, many states are arguing, based on scientific evidence, that this should be lowered to 0.06 as there is noticeable impairment at even that level. 0.06 means if you have 1 drink, 90 minutes later you could still fail.
As for NHTSA recommendations on field testing, that's it, they're recommendations. Officers are expected to use their own best judgment on how to test a person. The NHTSA is more concerned with the type of test and teaching officers how to recognize signs of intoxication. On the other hand saying "Are we done yet?" probably just pissed him off...
If you have 1 drink, you're probably OK, more than 1, you're at serious risk for DUI. Also remember, Corona is slightly stronger than say Bud Light. A Guiness is nearly twice as potent. A glass of wine is supposed to be 4 ounces, and is measured at 10% abv, but find me a restaurant that doesn't pour at least 6 oz glasses with 11-15% wine...
Some foods can accelerate or slow the absorption as well. The first drink probably went right through you, but if you were eating food during the second and third rounds, both of them may have entered your system concurrently through digestion.
Lessons learned here: 1, don't drive with a cracked tail light (and always use turn signals). 2, accept the field test, but decline the breathalyser. If you did bad enough on the field test, you'll go to jail anyway for a breathalyser or blood test, but if you're clean, you're OK, unless you piss off the cop or have a bad day. At the station, refuse a breathalyser and respectfully request a blood test on the grounds that it is more accurate. (if you failed a street sobriety test already, this might buy you a night in jail while you wait for results, but again, if you're clean, there's no worry) 3, never say "are we done yet" to a cop. Be polite, never act like you're in a rush. (and know his rank! This goes a long way!!!) 4, don't drink and drive... (drink at home, it's cheaper!) 5, if the calibration sticker is out of date, refuse the test and demand to have a supervisor come to the roadside site (it's your right to do so, though he may choose to bring you to the supervisor instead. this also goes for speeding tickets if the radar was not calibrated immediately before you were clocked with a tuning fork displaying a matching serial number to the radar). The more you know about the requirements the officer must display in the courtroom, the less likely you are to get a ticket. 6, have all your paperwork (registration, insurance, etc) neatly file
For all the people who scream "This is an invasion of privacy!" this is only one field in a database they ALREADY keep about you.
The government (in the USA anyway) has at LEAST the following: Your full name, birth record, race, eye color, hair color, parents names and IDs, your social security number, address, drivers license number, license plate, vehicle VIN number, vehicle registration number, insurance information, bank account numbers, credit account history, mortgage information, phone number (if you have ever included it on a form or called them from home, but they can get it on request anyway if you haven't), tax history, employer name(s), payroll information, fingerprints (from birth, typically elementary school age in most states, and adulthood if you've ever been to a police station or filed them voluntarily), your dental records and medical records (by request of a judge or coroner), military ID and rank (if any), and the list goes on.
Fact is, DNA registration is expensive, and time consuming. Of all of the above ways to identify you, the easiest being by government issued ID, and second by fingerprint, there's no reason they'll ever process your DNA unless they actually suspect you of a crime. It's too much info to include in a chip on your ID card, and can't yet be used in real time like a fingerprint scanner at the grocery store (nor likely will it be). In some cases of currently open serious crimes that are unsolved, they'll run it periodically (every few years?) against a DNA and fingerprint database. You only have to worry if you have actually committed and gotten away with a serious crime, and not only was your DNA present, but convincing information (provable in court) that the DNA was left there by the criminal at the time of the crime. (just having your DNA there does not convict you, in fact, should they even question you simply on DNA presence also, with no direct connection to the time frame of the crime, you could probably sue and win for false persecution). The DNA actually has to be collected from something like the smoking gun itself, or from skin scratches under someone's fingernails.
Also, there's nothing in your DNA fingerprint that's considered private. It's simply a unique form of ID like a fingerprint. We're not talking about genetic screening here, just simple enzymatic analysis of certain key markers in your DNA. It's basically a process that targets a few hundred locations in your DNA to confirm or deny if you have certain common traits. This is not a detailed gene by gene map of your DNA. There's nothing they can tell by looking at your DNA map that gives ANY remote clue as to your medical condition, genetic defects, or anything further, outside of common inheritable traits that are easy to scan for that virtually everyone should have. (not that they don't have access to your medical history anyway should they ask a judge).
Using a live blood sample we could go deeper, check for parenthood links, specific genetic traits, and such, but this requires a live blood screening. We're not asking you to put your blood on file for such testing (unless you left some of it at a crime scene), we're just asking you to go to a lab where a genetic fingerprint is taken, filed in a database, and the blood destroyed. A piece of paper or a database record is easy to store and track, but blood is extremely expensive to catalog, protect, and store as it has to be done in a frozen state. We're not doing that... From a forensic perspective, it's pointless.
The only people who fear this type of genetic fingerprinting and criminals and paranoids. Unfortunately, because most criminals (not an opinion, but a clearly documented fact) are of minority origin, minority groups have stepped forward to condemn this process and are making it a privacy issue. Once you commit a crime, you forgo any right to privacy.
100MB if far more than any person realistically needs for a bookmark cache, word, excel, and PPT docs, and an entire semester's worth of document trading between student and teacher. If you exclude music, video, and hi hes picture files (nothing over 1MP), then you really need very little storage. I have about 300 docs in a folder (mix of pdf, doc, xls, and other) and it's less than 40MB. Most of these docs include images...
Remember, this "useless" structure is not really a personal file store for the students, but a place to store assignments where only the individual student can get to them, and on a secure 3rd party managed system where the school does not have to front the massive cost of maintaining their own systems. It's also a direct connection between the student's home computer, classroom and lab workstations, and other points in between. The excuse "I lost my thumb drive" won't be an excuse if they are required to store, transfer, and submit works via this locker system. Also, this system prevents other students from swiping your thumb drive, copying your doc, changing the name, and then hacking the doc to make it look like it was made earlier than yours. This kind of plagiarism (and cheating) is becoming common in schools.
Because all docs in or out of the system are scanned for viruses, it also greatly reduces the risk of allowing kids to use floppies, bus drives, or CDs to move data in and out of the school network. Aside from e-mail and downloads, removable media is the next biggest security risk.
Also, in response to another poster who said, "If the kids are smart, they'll bring bootable thumb drives with a bootable copy of peanut Linux [linuxquestions.org] or some other mini-distro on it," what's the point? This locker is not a security system. Students VOLUNTARILY place docs here. There's nothing preventing them from saving these to a thumb drive (unless USB is disabled). I see this system being quickly tied into webmail and an assignment tracking system (like my wife uses for some college classes she takes online) to allow teachers to monitor progress on large projects, accept completed assignments, and to return graded docs to students electronically. The paper savings in one month alone likely pay for the electronic service for the whole year in this case. This particular article notes that an online markup system to allow teachers to do just that is coming soon.
The service is not to spy on kids, but to give them a place to store data where it is secure. Many schools spend thousands a year maintaining servers, backups, and redundancy to protect data. At $1 per student per year, there's no way any school can compete with this service and host the data themselves on their own school network, let alone provide enough bandwidth to it and make it reliable. Even a "cheap" storage server implementation, with backup, and accounting for bandwidth, licensing, and labor to implement and maintain is typically about $10K per 100GB.
On the note of booting from a linux distro, every school I've been in that offers any kind of secure system (I'm not counting the 80% of schools that don't, just the ones that actually embraced modern technology and have competent IT staffs) disables USB and CD boot in every PC installed in public areas. This is simple IT administration 101. A BIOS password prevents access to the settings, a case lock prevents resetting the firmware, and monitoring tools (optionally) let admins know if a machine is shut down or rebooted (and whether this was a normal shutdown or a hard power off). Even if they work around and reboot to other media, proxy and firewall systems should disallow network access if not authenticated normally, or if the MAC address appears active, but the OS type is not recognized or a security app is not seen to be running. The USB trick usually works at your local library, or in schools that think a custom OS and login screen equals security, but in most schools, especially those subject to security audits by local or state agencies, this is pointless.
I have spent a lot of time in upstate NY as well as the "pee dee" region of SC (AKA, the buckle of the bible belt). I can certainly attest to this: Southern rednecks are typically louder, and consume far more cheap beer and BBQ pork than any other rednecks. I can also say that no southern redneck can begin to compare to the levels backward society that is shared by most new england hicks. The NY breed in particular in many cases is not much more evolved than the inbred farmers of the early 1800s. Most New England hicks also work fields or other hard labor for a living, and endure harsher climate shifts, and thus are usually much tougher than they typical southern trailer hick variety.
In the south, for the most part, redneck is a lifestyle choice. In new england, it's much more of a lifestyle they're stuck with. Given access to cultured society, technology, and education, most NE hicks will willingly shed their status and quickly evolve. Most SC rednecks have such access, but continue to slide backwards due to apathy and low work ethic.
I would hesitate to cross either breed. In a knock down drag out fight between each other, I'd put my money on the NE breed any day. They may be somewhat single minded and simple, but they have much more drive!
(I state this jokingly of course, just in case a member of either breed reads this and fails to understand the sarcasm).
Now they've gone and done it... They went and got/.'s attention. Now there's tens of thousands of/. users who (if they didn't already) are running out and adding adblock to their install of firefox. In another screen I'm composing an email to every single family member in the clan (except 2 which I know are also/. readers) and letting them know they need this extension, how to get it, and how to install it... Get all of us to do this, and in a few days, there will be a million firefox users with adblock installed blocking all manner of sites! The attention from the advertisers being aware of this will cause them to lower advertising pay outs across the board, having a net effect on revenue for ad supported sites many times more than if they kept their mouthes shut!:D I love/.!
The lawyers may be the only ones to PROFIT from this case, but the fact that a verdict against the RIAA will have ripple effects in hundreds of cases, state and federal laws is something to watch. This case could determine the future of how piracy can be legally tracked, what kind of effort a company is allowed to put in to protect intellectual property, what lines are drawn as far as "harassing prosecution:" is concerned, and more. Even if the RIAA wins the action, on many levels they will also loose, most importantly, many of the methods they use will be once and for all ruled on by a judge and many of their powers will be stripped (and thus so will the powers of many other companies). The simple existence of this case is a great victory for internet freedom fighters. If we're really lucky, this could even legitimize many types of P2P systems, or have whole portions of copywrite and DMCA law changed or erased.
Actually, even with an expensive audio kit, most people can not tell the difference between 160kb and CD quality. The sample rate of 160 is higher than CD, and even though an MP3 has some loss, only certain types of tracks with complex harmonies suffer from quality issues. This is the same argument for vinyl vs. CD in the first place. This is why 96KHz audio is the standard mastering format now, not CD quality. There is some signal loss at extreme bass and treble ranges in any MP#, regardless of bit depth, and a true audiophile can with about 70% accuracy identify the ripped version of a track, when listening to both versions alternately at the same time. If only the CD or MP3 version is played, it's a crap shoot if even professionals with perfect equipment can actually guess whether it's an original or copy. 128K is an inferior signal quality and I don't recommend it, but 160 for ripped tracks, and 256 for DL'd tracks is indistinguishable to me or any of my friends. This of course is for MP3. Lossless formats exist, and most true audiophiles prefer to buy tracks either at 256K or in a lossless format (like Apple FINALLY offers for download). The real point here (which you agree with) was that between 160 and 192, it's extremely hard even for professionals to tell 2 tracks apart. When talking about DL'd music, it's all going to be ripped, so comparing it to CD is irrelevant (besides 256bit ripped from master is MUCH better than CD, and this is how distributors make MP3s. Making 256bit MP3s from CD media is a waste as theres no additional data to encode). Comparing a watermarked 128bit track to an unwatermarked 128bit track, nobody's going to be able to tell. At 256bit, even a machine would have difficulty without analyzing the waveform directly. Adding a watermark to a track will not degrade the quality. This is the point to make. In a lossless format, it would be impossible to tell from the original.
With voting machines, the whole assumption that it must be anonymous
Well, actually there's no part of the constitution that requires this. Votes are currently anonymous only to protect the voter from scrutiny at the time of casting the vote, or shortly after, by peers, community members, and other influences (even spouses). As long as the general public has no access to this data then this idea can be protected. There's no reason that the vote can't still be tied to a person. Congress does this every day. Some votes are truly anonymous and secret, some votes are by ballot, but recorded, others are simply a show of hands or "Yay's and Nay's"
Millions of people willfully announce their party affiliation and register their voting habits anyway. Vote to voter information can easily be stored in a central system, but the output of this data set can easily exclude personal information. Public officials already have access to information about the majority of households in their districts as far as voting habits. Basing this system on actual data instead of registration data is not a big deal, especially if the data displayed is based on a required opt-in system (unless you register, your voting habits are secret). Now, the only real reason to keep this information at all is to verify, through legal action, that voter receipts were in fact recorded centrally as they were at the precincts (making sure the national system wasn't hacked). All voters don't have to do this, only a small portion of them would opt-in, and upon request, produce their receipts is there is speculation of a hack possibility. If even if 1 tenth of 1% were inaccurately recorded, the who vote would have to be thrown out. Those who register with their party are already making their voting habit public, so is it unreasonable to ask them to be part of this redundant systems, since everyone already knows what they voted for? We don't need to record everyone's vote to person record, just a percentage of those who want to.
As far as paper receipts, these are cheap to make (even making 2 copies per vote). The voter should get a receipt that is basically a bar code (unreadable encoded information). This would prevent spousal arguments and family fights leaving the paper trail anonymous as well as people at the voting station from being able to read the receipts and influence voters. Voters should be able to place their receipt in a reader somewhere in the voting location and have separate (non-networked) visual confirmation of the vote record. A second receipt, kept in a spool inside the machine itself, and printed using impact heads (carbon copy so we can verify it's an EXACT match, not a hacked record). An incorrect vote should be easily re-read into the voting terminal, using the receipt, marked as a deleted vote and re-entered. Mistakes can be caught, and fixed using this process without trouble. You might be able to hack the machine, but you can't hack the paper trail as well, and if the paper trail can be re-verified by the voter in a seperate system not connected to the voting network, then we can guarantee vote recounts using an layman's equivalent of 2 factor authentication. In fact, recounting the paper trail should simply be SOP since it can be done quickly and accurately.
Removing a watermark is difficult. It's not so much that it's even a specifically identifiable piece of signal or code, but the fact that it's there, intermixed in the bits in certain locations, and by removing it, you would leave holes in the song file, or change its size in such a way that mathematically, we could identify the fact that the watermark was in fact removed from the file, and likely with what program with which it was removed.
Watermarking does not prevent the song from being distributed, it provides a means for proving that the person uploading it did so illegally, and a method for tracking that user. If the watermark remains, then it's easy to identify specifically who bought the song initially. If the watermark was removed, then the song could still be easily identified as pirated.
As far as removing the watermark, this is MUCH more difficult than removing encryption. Encryption is a mathematic process that converts the entire file predictably. If it wasn't converted properly, at best you might hear a hiss or squeal when passing the data through an mp3 player, but certainly not music. The key used is complex, but once found, the process for decoding a particular DRM is the same for all files encoded with the same method. The music, once decompressed, is instantly identified as correctly and completely converted.
In the case of watermarking, bits are scattered into the file itself. Each file can be made using a unique watermark pattern. Since the file will play on any MP3 player without DRM codings, there's no way for a listener to tell whether the track has been cracked or not. More importantly, since either way you can listen to the file, how do you tell if you properly removed the watermark or not even if some program tells you it did? Also, each file could have a unique watermark since there's no program that has to interpret the file. The publisher can stamp each file with a unique watermark, making the programming of a crack tool almost impossible.
Here's how this works: Each unique song created by an artist (in fact each version of each song that might be on different albums (live tracks, etc) would be assigned a unique pattern of where to place the watermark bits inside of the track. Think of this kind of like making tick marks on a ruler, but spacing them instead of at predictable intervals, placing them on the ruler based on a template, a template that could be different for each ruler manufactured. All rulers carrying the same artist name, track name, etc,would use the same template, but their could literally be millions of templates containing hundreds of uniquely placed tick marks each. The distributer, upon finding a possibly pirated track, can apply their pattern reader (template) for that specific file to the track and see the watermark. The actual CONTENTS of the watermark itself could be unique for each and every file distributed, created on the fly by the sales engine and encoding the seller's name, e-mail, and other information into that watermark space. Lets expand on our analogy here.
Each ruler made for (lest say this one is for the U2 song "One") would have a unique patter of where to look for the tick marks. When making the ruler to give to a purchaser (A fictitious person named Bob J Smith) we assign bob a unique color code of markers to use to make the ticks. There are thousands of colors that can be used, in any pattern, and we arbitrarily assign one from a database that is not in use yet and make not in the database that those marks belong to Bob J Smith. The pattern of colors repeats several times though the song, and uses a method of parity so that if some of the colors are removed, but not others (by an imperfect crack tool) then we could likely rebuild the color code.
Now to Bob's eye, the ticks all look to be in the exact same place he would expect them to be (1" apart), but in reality, there are microscopic anomalies in were the marks are specifically placed. this is so accurate, that Bob can't tell, it doe
For example, can you tell the difference between regular FM, High Definition FM, and FM with embedded PTY signals? I can't. taking a 128 bit signal down to say 126 bit (or 256 to 250) is not enough of a difference to distinguish, even for high end gear and computer analysis. People argue about the difference between 160 and 192 and unless you have really high end gear, only a fraction of people can tell, and usually only when listening to music that highlights the weaknesses of one of the lesser frequency. a watermark (a few Kbits our of a 5MB song) is subtle enough that you won't be able to tell.
This said, Florida has apparently gone off the deep end, requiring students to pick from 1 of 400 career paths. I can understand choosing a path of direct education closer to 11th grade, but not in 9th. In 9th they should decide, like in most states, between 10-15 paths for education. By the time they're in 11th grade, most student have a much better idea of what they'd like to do for the rest of their lives, but even that said, the most common major, by wide margins, for freshmen attending college is "undecided"
besides, 400 majors assumes, quite reasonably, at least 400 unique classes on top of the basic education requirement. I went to a small public high school in NY state. Our entire high school course offering, every possible class one could take, was only about 65 unique syllabus. 24 of those were just math, science, English and history, another 15 were art, music or photography related. Shop classes added maybe 10 more options. Foreign languages offered 15 classes (5 languages, 3 years each) Add health, psychology, Home Ec, computer and politics classes, and you've about exhausted everything my school offered. How the hell do you get 400 majors into a small school like mine? We only had about 25 full time teachers for shit's sake. Are each supposed to teach 8 different classes (to multiple groups of students each)?
They're not picking a specific career, this is simply picking 1 of 9 possible career paths. We're taking the initiative to have students decide early on whether they say, plan to work in business (management, accounting, finance, stocks, etc), traditional blue collar (plumbing, electrical, construction, etc), Technical (IT, engineering, design, architectural, etc), artistic (self explanitory?), and a few other choices.
When I was in HS, back in the late 80s, I had similar choices pinned on me. The new system is a little more refined, but it's still a career path option, not a career selection. It's also somewhat flexible, allowing the student (within reason) to adjust paths part way thru high school.
A similar system has been in use in NY for decades. The parents, kids, and a school counselor review the results of an extensive, career based, aptitude test taken very early in 9th grade. By this point, it should be clear to educators and parents alike what their kid is really capable of (are they strong in sciences and math, bad at memorization, etc) and this guides them into likely applicable career choices. Based on what everyone, including the student, agree on what the student is capable of realistically achieving, they pick a schedule of classes that fits the strengths of the student.
The class matrix picked fluctuated from having a "full boat" collegiate technical track (including 4 history, 4 english, 5 science, 5 math, and a few other electives thrown in), to a more business oriented program (4 math, 3 science, english, and history, plus business education classes), to a shop based curriculum (2 math, 2 science, 3 english, 3 history, and a slew of time spent at a local technical college learning trade skills). Artistic options existed too. Most students had 2-3 electives per year to play with, and could customize their path with what they wanted. Students in remedial programs had fewer options available to them.
Programs like this are a LOT better than simple programs used in states like SC, where every student takes the same classes except for a few electives each year, and anything beyond the basic expected classes is completely optional. Under "traditional" programs like this, most juniors and seniors have more study halls and "fluff" classes than career prep or advanced material classes. All this does typically is add an extra year of college classes to each high school graduates program since nobody encouraged them to take those prep classes or better yet AP to acquire college credits, before they got out of high school.
Again, this is not training or specific prep on a target career, but it's giving them the base education required for planning on entering college in either a technical, business, artistic, linguistic, research based, scientific, etc idea. Most kids, by age 14, have a pretty good idea that they like or dislike sciences, are good or bad at math, hate or love history. This program allows them to follow a more defined, customized path of learning focusing on where they're likely to seek employment, without training them, specifically say, to be an architect.
Find me anyone that lives inside city boundaries that doesn't drive into the city, use a local bridge, or have some interest in the fact that the city runs shelters for homeless that keep those people from wandering through their suburbs, has public water and sewer systems, and more. Also the school money, even collected locally under millage, is still typically redistributed on a larger scale within the city.
If we're talking about city representation vs rural at the state level, well, the same idea applies with someone being assigned (and on some level held liable) to convey the interests of the rural areas. Second, rural areas have far less representation anyway as by rule the number of districts is divided by population. A single city will have several reps, maybe 6 or 8, but maybe only 1 or 2 represent the surrounding area. People have to realize that if they are the minority, or live in less populated areas, then the state will by nature have less response to their needs, favoring spending money or having activity where more people will see it. It's also more costly to work in rural areas due to the scale of most projects (fixing a 12 mile rd that 200 people ride on per day vs. patching a 1/4 mile city block that 5000 people drive on per day for instance).
It's all one budget. We're still talking about assigning representation along district lines, so the districts still have say, but we're saying the the elected officials should be elected by the entire area populous, not small zones that are arbitrarily redrawn on maps to change voting based on demographics. Simply based on the idea that government is not by law allowed to discriminate between people of race, color, creed, sex, etc, even the idea of redistricting based on those metrics is technically against the that law... though it's never been directly challenged to my knowledge.
In a community I lived within in upstate NY, we voted not for a single rep, but we were instructed "there are 8 open seats, vote for 8 of the 13 available candidates" Minority groups organized to make sure they all voted for a particular rep and in almost every case each strongly organized racial or religious group got to vote in a candidate representing them, but this way they represented ALL people of that group, without having to outright say it. They then drew straws for assigning themselves to districts, and guess what? Elected minority candidates always chose to observe the district most densely populated by their constituents, but no lines on a map influenced the power for them to be elected, and democrats and republicans already in office could not modify district lines to make sure their competitors didn't get elected. Even if a minority candidate didn't get assigned to the minority district, his votes always have them in mind.
This system allows true public representation. You don't have cases where no one runs against a republican in a specific district just because every democrat knows he can't win there based on demographics. If there were 8 seats up, the top 8 vote getters got in. Everyone has to campaign to win. Even in a highly red city, blues, greens, and others could still get elected, and the proportions typically were very close to the local popular vote and democrats living in a red zone didn't feel their vote was wasted.
Many school districts use this voting method. If we could apply it to city, county, state and federal elections as well, we could get more consistent representation of the popular vote, and eliminate the expense and frustration of carving up locations to ensure re-election.
Until redistricting reform is enacted, or until a straight popular vote process is approved and electoral college finally eliminated, vote swapping should be supported on the state and federal levels. In local elections, when we have (for example) 10 candidate seats in a single city, who cares what part of the city any one of them is from? Laws are passed on a city level, not block level, so everyone should have an equal say in who gets the seats. Eliminate districting at any level more granular than the city, county, state, or federal seat representing the votes. A better solution is to allow local communities to hire (or elect) a sort of lobbyist who monitors the local community status and presents ideas and concerns to ALL the representatives as a group, thereby having indirect representation of the public without those elected being able to manipulate voter pools and demographics by dividing up a map.
Unfortunately, vote swapping doesn't really impact elections unless people in locked in counties convince people in sway counties to swap votes. People in sway counties don't normally want to give up that vote...
Mac OSX is UNIX, but as a UNIX admin you would know there are virtually no pre-defined scripts for administration. There are commands that can be run from shell for administration and remote administration, but they're almost all server based, not client, and the type of server your connecting to makes a BIG difference. With this central management system on a MAC OSX Server in the network, these settings can now become host environment independent, and it really doesn't matter if the domain is a UNIX, Novel, or Microsoft, or even a mix. It's easy to admin either way. Somewhere hidden underneath, being a UNIX OS, the commands must be there, but why bother with them at all?
Just the effort they've taken to ensure the Mac can easily join and work within an Active Directory domain is a fairly impressive step. Do you see any other Distro doing this? Even Suse/Novel's latest release is a bear to get into AD, and has no real direct management other than user generated batch scripts, for which Novel provides no help without also implementing a separate Novel domain.
Apple has always gone to great lengths to make integrating their OS with others easy. In this case, and after years of partnering with Microsoft, they have allowed their systems to store information in AD about Mac configurations and provided a GUI interface for it that's fairly click-and-go. Managing Group Policy within AD isn't even this easy, or this flexible, and even within Windows regularly requires writing scripts to accomplish some common tasks.
Re:Geeks do- everyone else doesn't.
on
The DRM Scorecard
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...And in the case of DRM, locks keep the less inclined honest.
DRM doesn't really stop people from copying, but combine the general laziness of the average public Joe with the fact that he'd have to have above average knowledge, and you eliminate 99% of the population. Children on the other hand have the time and knowledge, or time and will to do this. Combine ability, lack of fear of retribution due to anonymity, and a tightly controlled fiscal situation, and you create the perfect criminal.
I also ask a philosophical question: Is it really a crime to steal something that has no material cost, no property loss, and what your stealing is something you could not/would not every pay for? Hypothetically: I can't afford to buy 50 albums a year, so I buy a couple from bands I truly want to support, and download the rest anyway. If the record company is never going to get my money anyway, nor the artist, and I'm not stealing the physical media or distributing copies, who am i hurting? Artists I don't like enough to buy their music in the first place?
Personally, I don't have a single pirated file on my equipment, nor do i subscribe to any P2P system or other illegal download service. I do however stream rip a lot of music, but under current Fair Use legislation this is still legal and yet to fail that challenge in court. I don't see stream ripping as any different than changing out the HDD in My DVR to store more video, or recording digital radio to a CD. (as long as I don't further distribute those files, which I do not).
I agree with the poster. This is a cost of doing business. Go even a step further. ASK your auditor, or an auditing company how they expect you to do this. Do what they suggest. Get the suggestion in writing so you can refer later if the real auditor doesn't like what you've done. Trying an uncertified or home grown solution is only going to require dozens or hundres of man hours not only to research, set-up, test, and document the process, but another dozen or hundred hours explaining to the auditor how it works. Is a $5000 application not worth all that time wasted?
If you expect to do this for a Windows system, your basically screwed unless you buy supported software anyway.
We don't even need a true power on off switch that has to be flipped manually. What we need is a remote power switch that cuts main power, and a small, rechargeable battery cell that can respond to the remote and re-activate main power. A tiny battery and a capacitor to have enough juice to throw a 2.5 volt magnetic switch would add about $1 in manufacturing costs to home theater devices, but save dozens per year in electric fees per home for "trickle" devices. All network devices should support Wake on LAN, but unfortunately, most don't (or do, but people don't know what that means or how to use it).
Unfortunately, a lot of devices are always on, like DVRs, game stations with online access, and more. They do a lot of work at night updating databases, downloading new content, etc, and simply have to remain on. The fact that an XBox 360 doesn't spin down the graphic system power and down clock it's CPUs is a design issue we can change. An Apple TV box uses less than 20 watts when "asleep" and that included downloading content over wireless. Why can't the XBox and PS3 do that? They could even drop into an even lower power state when idle, spin down the HDD, and only "wake up" every 90 minutes or so to check for content without spinning the drive up again unless it needs to.
Unfortunately, there are even more devices we can't really do anything about that are the real sappers in the house. The cable modem, wireless router/firewall, VoIP modem, second access point to cover downstairs, possibly an extra switch to add more than 4 wired devices (I have 7), and base station and answering machine for wireless phones. That's just the network. Now add the garage door opener, automatic sprinkler system, home alarm and smoke detectors (most run on house power and rechargeable batteries now), safety lights in your halls and bathrooms (night lights), and several clocks.
I work for a computer systems manufacturer. We've got a meter (magnetic ring type thing) at the office that encircles a power line and displays the power being used by the device. We have it so we can document in our white papers the power consumption of our devices. I brought it home and played with it a few months ago when having a forum argument with another individual on this. My 27" tube TV used about 2 watts when sleeping. My 37" LCD used less than 1. My PS2 used no power (but the transformer was using 2 watts). My cable box used 12 watts when asleep, DVR used between 20 and 50 depending on what it was doing when asleep. What surprised me was the coffee pot was using 3 watts when off (it has a tiny built in clock). The 2 alarm clocks we have each use 5 watts. Adding up all my idle devices I was just over 220Watts in use! 10% of that was in scent plug-ins around the house and night lights, about 20% was in our cable boxes alone. 25% was in devices I can't turn off, like the garage opener, stove clock, built in microwave, etc. Another 20% was in my home theater equipment (amp, dvd, vcr, and TVs). There were some other random devices around as well, not including my network setup...
After finding this out, I installed a "step on" power extension (like people use under the Christmas tree) in line between the wall and home theater, so I can press one switch at night to turn off all the device in the HT setup (except the DVR which has to stay pugged in all the time per the cable company or they'll void the warranty on the device). I threw out all the scent plug-ins in favor of passively diffused oils and popuri. I changed the few night lights we had out for LCD versions. I now have a programmable timer power strip in the computer room that I have 2 laptops, a small TV, a printer and a network switch hooked up to. Each night at 11:00PM the adapter cuts power to the laptops (which hibernate automatically after 15 minutes when on battery), my printers, the switch they're connected to, and the TV and cable box in there. My HTPC now uses sleep mode with Wake on Lan to save power and automatically shuts down and powers
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Normally you are correct, but in this case, 3 drinks over 3 hours (if that is the truth), plus the time to get to the station, most of the alcohol had had consumed would already be declining by the point he was stopped, and further still later at the station. BAC reduces by 0.01% (average by body type) for every 40 minutes elapsed starting with the conclusion of the first beverage. In most DUI cases, the person who has been drinking has been exceeding 1 drink per hour (typically 2-3 drinks per hour) and there would be sufficient undigested alcohol in the stomach to hold you right. By hour 3 in this case, the first drink he consumed would not even be in his blood any longer except in trace amounts (0.008 or less if my math is right for a 175lb male).
First of all, thank you for being nice, and not flaming me back. It's nice to see someone on /. that doesn't immediately assume a lengthy rant was negative and targeted againts them personally.
.07. For some reason, you pinged higher than that at a point likely about 1 hour after you left the bar (that's a guess). Either some food intake issues were effecting you, or you had a forth one you forgot... I wans't there so i can'ty say for certian.
As for the beer, Corona is 4.6%, Bud light 4.2%. Pretty close really, I was thinking bud light was around 3.5 (That would be Amstel light). Guiness by the way is 7.4 for extra stout, or only 4.0 for draft. Most Sam Adams products are over 5% (and their tripple Bock, only legal in a few states, is 17.4%) Pete's ales are also almost all between 5-6%. I can't find specifics, but from what I can gather, since wine is on average 12% and the service is 4oz, beer at 12oz should be measuered at 4%. 2 pint glasses of Bud from a tap atthe bar would be equal to 3 beer on the BAC chart.
Also, the average person consumes (converts) 1 unit of alcohol in one hour. The chart also indicates, that based on your weight, approxamately how much more you can drink before becoming intoxicated. Unfortunately, what it does not say is that it takes overweight persons longer (typically, due to metaboloc factars that are usually linked to obesity) to convert the alcohol.
You are correct that a 175lb male who has consumes 3 corona bottles should be somewhere between 0.6 and
You can refuse field sobriety tests, but if the cop even suspects you may be intoxicated, even a little, you get a ride to the station. There, I would still refuse the breath test and insist on the far more accurate blood test method. However, that can backfire quick and leave you in jail for a night waiting for a lab to open to test the sample...
Right now, America uses a 0.08 rating for intoxication. This is stricter than it used to be, and a lot of people fought lowering it. On the other hand, most nations of the world arrest you at 0.05. In parts of australia, it's 0.02! 1 drink and you could go to jail for 6 months minimum sentence for the first offence. There's pressure here in america to lower the limt again. In NY County (area surrounding NYC), get a DUI and you not only get fined, but your vehicle, regardless of it's value, becomes property of the county, no exceptions, regardless of how much you may still owe a bank on it. Ouch. Needless to say, NYC has an extremely low DUI rate...
I had my license suspended here too. All i did was change insurance companies. The guy at the old company (a local firm) was an ass, and was upset I stopped being his customer, so he, instead of sending in a transfer of insurance form and sending my details to my new insurance company, sent a cancelation of insurance letter to the state and nothing to my new insurer. Since the new insurer never got a transfer form, after 30 days they also canceled my policy. This not only suspended my license, but my wife's as well since she's a cosigner on the vehicle. This cost me $120 when I got picked at an insurace checkpoint, and $75 to re-instate my license, but again later when i also found out the wife's was suspended as well... The state, having my address from my license, never sent any paperwork to me indicating this (thanks). The new inurance company had noticed the lapse in coverage, called me, got me re-instated, even before I found out about the suspension, but that never updated my record with the state and I got scrwed for over $350 for it. Later, this screwed up my vehicle taxes because they showed my vehicle as uninsured (even though it was) and when they requested details, my old insurance company gave the county my old address (in another county) and sent my bill there. My license got suspended again for failing to pay my vehicle taxes on time, which then also (again) suspended my wife's. This in then end totaled almost $600 in fees and fin
You're equally as likely to get pulled over, and equally deserving of a ticket. Nothing in the constitution guarantees the cop has to be nice to you. Being nice may get you out of the ticket, but the latter is not necessarily the case. I'm also not talking about a "dity car" but an "unkept vehicle" Not washing it is one thing. Using it as a trashcan ot letting it rust out and have failing equipment is another, and speaks to your personal habits and places you in certain catagories that typically recieve additional scrutiny. This is not necesarily profiling, but something similar.
Law enforecemtnis not biased, people are. Unless you can rpove a pattern of a specific offecer favoring motorists particularly on race, religion, or other legally protected matter, then you have a statement to make and a day in court. The constitution says nothing about treating people equally based on other lesser factors like hygene or attitude.
The constitution may guarantee you freedom of speech, but that same freedom CAN and likely will sway your chance of getting out of a ticket. This is not to be confused with being issued a citation because of what you said (ie persecution, which IS illegal) This is simply you not getting OUT of a citation you shouold legally be issued because of what you said. You have the legally protected right to call a cop an asshole to his face and insult his religion, family, and uniform. He can't take you to prison for that, but be guaranteed: he'll issue you every legitimate violation he can think up that he could give you and might not have otherwise.
In a more perfect world, everyone would be issued a ticket and there would be no warnings. Good lick getting a politician to stand on that platform at re-election time....
Extreme much?
I didn't say you couldn't be an individual, and I explicitly stated what rights you should exert. What I advised is that you not flaunt any stereotypes commonly associated with poor social taste, aggressive behavior, or a wealth of income, and also that you respect that the officer is doing a job, a relatively thankless and often dangerous job, and treat him with patience.
Why do so many people think it's OK to get in the face of authority? Would you also threaten a drug dealer, call a black man a nigger, bring a gun into a bank? Lets think of even simpler parallels: Do you leave no tip at a restaurant you frequent and expect good service every time? Do you cut in line and expect thanks? Do you accept free drinks but never return the favor?
Exert your rights, but only when it's not only your right to do so, but when it's JUSTIFIED to do so. Challenge authority, but only when you are prepared to deal with the potential consequences. Be nice to people, especially those who may have an impact on your life, freedom, happiness, etc. Don't flaunt your race, tastes, religion, attitude, or anything else that might be offensive unless it is your intent to offend, and again, you are prepared to deal with the consequences.
Who gets the job: the man in a suit with a resume, or the guy in a t-shirt with his shorts hanging below his ass?
Who gets the ticket: The patient motorist who is calm and apologizes for speeding, or the obnoxious bitch in the $50K SUV who's on the phone with her girlfriend and states she's offended that he would even "waste her time with her when he should be arresting a crack dealer" just as the cop comes to the window?
Who gets their car searched: The cooperative guy with a clean car and a clean record, or the 22 year old convenience employee in a 30K suped up speaker on 22" chrome spinner rims who won't look the cop in the eye because of how the white man oppresses the black man and who complains openly about being pulled over "for nothun?"
Fact is, everyone who gets pulled over should get some kind of ticket, or else what cause did they have to pull you over? Officers have "discretion" to issue a warning or polite advice instead (assuming you have valid documentation of your license, insurance, and the vehicle and your criminal record come up clean when he runs it), but it is entirely their prerogative to do so. It's best you stay on their good side. Any impression you make will likely determine the extent of your situation.
If you dislike authority, don't complain to the worker, complain to the people who can actually change things: congress, the press, or the courts. Anything else just pisses people off.
It's actually not that bad since they're not storing your whole DNA sequence. They're only storing specifics about 2000 or so markers, cut length of certain strings, and a bit more data. It's probably far less than 1MB per person, likely quite a bit less (50-200KB?). It's an encoded table structure, enough to fill a few pages of text or so per person.
Wow, you really may be an honest nut... More likely, you're just misunderstanding the technology at work here, so I'll personally refer to you simply as ignorant. Hope that's slightly less harsh. The 2000+ markers are all common markers, for the most part. Immunotype information may be interesting information to have, but who the hell is going to get a hospital to hire a hacker, hack the UK database, perform a search of all compatible persons (which takes hours even with proper access), not get caught, output that information so one can plan and commit a murder, making certain to not damage an organ that's needed, and guarantee that that person is even a doner... Maybe if someone of royalty was dying the government itself might do this, but then again, if they needed to, how many UK citizens would sacrifice themselves willingly without the need to be searched for this way?
...and if it was found this WAS the case, I'd applaud being able to determine from birth that someone needs medication to avoid becoming a hardened criminal. Course, we also do have this innocent until proven guilty thing, so even if they know, they can't do anything to you unless you actually do commit a crime. This thing called free will does control us far better then our genetics go.
...and every search is logged. To get any more, you actually have to hack the database, and that usually means taking it off line or acquiring an export of it. Do you have any idea how big this database would be? How do you plan to get a copy? It could span dozens or even hundreds of tapes...
Also, what agency cares if you're the child or father of a criminal? Criminal behavior has no confirmed link to inheritable genetics.
Also think of the sheer anarchy that would come about if anyone actually found out the database was being used that way? The government would be overthrown, and most of the members executed, for even suggesting a bill to propose this, let alone us finding out they actually did it... Paranoia is one thing, confirmed fears are another entirely.
Also, you apparently have no idea how a DB can be structure to simply prevent these types of searches. If I worked for the DMV, or even a city tax office, I can't just do a scan and come up with a list of people, I have to know at least 1 indexable piece of information about a specific individual, and then I can only search and see 1 result at a time... These databases are not designed to provide a list of matches, only a single record.
more importantly, this genetic fingerprint information would be encoded. It is searchable for patterns, but not for specific indexes or traits, unless of course you have access to the classified information on how a genetic fingerprint is actually stored in the database electronically, what fields it uses, and have access to the database using custom coded software to perform this kind of search.
I'm a network engineer with a strong background in programming, and many friends and colleagues who have in the past worked for governments or companies with classified clearance, who wrote databases like these, and inter-department connectivity systems so police and other agencies could be granted restricted access to that database. Being this close to the technology, I fundamentally understand how near impossible it is to even get the data, let alone abuse it without resulting in an overthrown government.
While I agree that a completely unified and open, interdepartmental database, is a very, very, bad thing (at least with current technology and regulations), that's not to say that trackable, ridgid, inter agency connections can not be made, and that this data poses many more positive benefits than negative. The ONLY excuse to not have a single massive database is the paranoia that it may be abused. (sorry, this does qualify as paranoia because by design it's virtually impossible to abuse this data).
...and all this really boils down to is identity theft, which is easy to both stop and correct, and even easier to prevent simply by calling the credit agencies and adding a password to your SSN account preventing credit checks or new account openings. Sure, it's a pain in the ass, but its not like you'll be targeted by some government agency based on what's in this database for some untoward purpose (except maybe the police who will confirm you are in fact, provably in court, guilty of an unsolved crime that they deeped important enough to scan the database for.
A properly constructed database does not allow this information to be listed, but requires a search for a specific string (by name, ID, or input like a fingerprint). It does not return information about everyone, just those matching your string. Agencies that require certain pieces of information can have it, other agencies won't be able to get that data without prior approval, and then only for the specific search targets. The database is also held only on departmental systems, which are network isolated, by law, from the general internet, and can only be accessed by authorized personal using strong, frequently changed passwords, and this is logged religiously, and the logs scrutinized by agencies and departments that exist simply to look for this kind of abuse.
This is not some simple SQL DB file that could be hacked, dumped, and taken away. Databases like this are hand coded, typically run on Unix or AS400 (or mainframe) systems, and are very tightly controlled and logged. Even if you could get access to a system connected to this network, and had stolen a password, what can you really do with the database before you get noticed? very little.
Furthermore, the information it contains very little information of any real value except that which identifies you. Sure, they can get your SSN, but it's a hell of a lot easier to get that from your bank, your college, your high school, or other means than it would ever be to get it out of a secured state or federal database.
But the real point here is not any of this... It's the fact that this information, in one form or another does exist, is accessible, and can already be compromised (though nearly impossible). My point was that adding DNA fingerprints to this adds zero ADDITIONAL risk to your privacy as the DNA data itself is vitually useless except in forensics. There are valid arguments for strictly regulating how this data is collected, by whom, and where and how it is stored and accessed, but collecting it in the first place is no additional risk to what is already in place.
um, if you did the walking test flawlessly, why did the cop even ask you to do a breathalyser? The process for using one has to be documented, there are costs involved in replacing the breathing tube used, and more. For a 0.085, it's so close it's almost not worth it, and in most cases, by the time you got to the station and did another breathalyser, normally the number would go down not up. Cops know this, and also know that if they drag you in and you pass, there's typically hell to pay.
That said, some people can ping 0.080 after only 1 drink, about 40 minutes after finishing that drink. If you had just finished your 3rd beverage, got in the car and then got pulled, after 3 drinks you could easily have been 0.08+. That fact that a second Breathalyzer confirmed this means you were guilty. Also, start counting the 3 hours from a point about 15 minutes after finishing the first drink, not from the time you got to the place to start drinking... You might see a different picture entirely there.
If you have even a half-assed lawyer, and you bothered to get the ID numbers of both breathalyser used, and both had not been calibrated withing their required term (or failed calibration testing) then you would be let go without a fuss. My guess, at least one of the 2 units was within normal parameters or would pass calibration anyway, and thus be admissible in court.
Fact is, at 0.08, you're impaired enough for it to be easily detectable in visual and reaction simulators. In fact, many states are arguing, based on scientific evidence, that this should be lowered to 0.06 as there is noticeable impairment at even that level. 0.06 means if you have 1 drink, 90 minutes later you could still fail.
As for NHTSA recommendations on field testing, that's it, they're recommendations. Officers are expected to use their own best judgment on how to test a person. The NHTSA is more concerned with the type of test and teaching officers how to recognize signs of intoxication. On the other hand saying "Are we done yet?" probably just pissed him off...
If you have 1 drink, you're probably OK, more than 1, you're at serious risk for DUI. Also remember, Corona is slightly stronger than say Bud Light. A Guiness is nearly twice as potent. A glass of wine is supposed to be 4 ounces, and is measured at 10% abv, but find me a restaurant that doesn't pour at least 6 oz glasses with 11-15% wine...
Some foods can accelerate or slow the absorption as well. The first drink probably went right through you, but if you were eating food during the second and third rounds, both of them may have entered your system concurrently through digestion.
Lessons learned here: 1, don't drive with a cracked tail light (and always use turn signals). 2, accept the field test, but decline the breathalyser. If you did bad enough on the field test, you'll go to jail anyway for a breathalyser or blood test, but if you're clean, you're OK, unless you piss off the cop or have a bad day. At the station, refuse a breathalyser and respectfully request a blood test on the grounds that it is more accurate. (if you failed a street sobriety test already, this might buy you a night in jail while you wait for results, but again, if you're clean, there's no worry) 3, never say "are we done yet" to a cop. Be polite, never act like you're in a rush. (and know his rank! This goes a long way!!!) 4, don't drink and drive... (drink at home, it's cheaper!) 5, if the calibration sticker is out of date, refuse the test and demand to have a supervisor come to the roadside site (it's your right to do so, though he may choose to bring you to the supervisor instead. this also goes for speeding tickets if the radar was not calibrated immediately before you were clocked with a tuning fork displaying a matching serial number to the radar). The more you know about the requirements the officer must display in the courtroom, the less likely you are to get a ticket. 6, have all your paperwork (registration, insurance, etc) neatly file
For all the people who scream "This is an invasion of privacy!" this is only one field in a database they ALREADY keep about you.
The government (in the USA anyway) has at LEAST the following: Your full name, birth record, race, eye color, hair color, parents names and IDs, your social security number, address, drivers license number, license plate, vehicle VIN number, vehicle registration number, insurance information, bank account numbers, credit account history, mortgage information, phone number (if you have ever included it on a form or called them from home, but they can get it on request anyway if you haven't), tax history, employer name(s), payroll information, fingerprints (from birth, typically elementary school age in most states, and adulthood if you've ever been to a police station or filed them voluntarily), your dental records and medical records (by request of a judge or coroner), military ID and rank (if any), and the list goes on.
Fact is, DNA registration is expensive, and time consuming. Of all of the above ways to identify you, the easiest being by government issued ID, and second by fingerprint, there's no reason they'll ever process your DNA unless they actually suspect you of a crime. It's too much info to include in a chip on your ID card, and can't yet be used in real time like a fingerprint scanner at the grocery store (nor likely will it be). In some cases of currently open serious crimes that are unsolved, they'll run it periodically (every few years?) against a DNA and fingerprint database. You only have to worry if you have actually committed and gotten away with a serious crime, and not only was your DNA present, but convincing information (provable in court) that the DNA was left there by the criminal at the time of the crime. (just having your DNA there does not convict you, in fact, should they even question you simply on DNA presence also, with no direct connection to the time frame of the crime, you could probably sue and win for false persecution). The DNA actually has to be collected from something like the smoking gun itself, or from skin scratches under someone's fingernails.
Also, there's nothing in your DNA fingerprint that's considered private. It's simply a unique form of ID like a fingerprint. We're not talking about genetic screening here, just simple enzymatic analysis of certain key markers in your DNA. It's basically a process that targets a few hundred locations in your DNA to confirm or deny if you have certain common traits. This is not a detailed gene by gene map of your DNA. There's nothing they can tell by looking at your DNA map that gives ANY remote clue as to your medical condition, genetic defects, or anything further, outside of common inheritable traits that are easy to scan for that virtually everyone should have. (not that they don't have access to your medical history anyway should they ask a judge).
Using a live blood sample we could go deeper, check for parenthood links, specific genetic traits, and such, but this requires a live blood screening. We're not asking you to put your blood on file for such testing (unless you left some of it at a crime scene), we're just asking you to go to a lab where a genetic fingerprint is taken, filed in a database, and the blood destroyed. A piece of paper or a database record is easy to store and track, but blood is extremely expensive to catalog, protect, and store as it has to be done in a frozen state. We're not doing that... From a forensic perspective, it's pointless.
The only people who fear this type of genetic fingerprinting and criminals and paranoids. Unfortunately, because most criminals (not an opinion, but a clearly documented fact) are of minority origin, minority groups have stepped forward to condemn this process and are making it a privacy issue. Once you commit a crime, you forgo any right to privacy.
100MB if far more than any person realistically needs for a bookmark cache, word, excel, and PPT docs, and an entire semester's worth of document trading between student and teacher. If you exclude music, video, and hi hes picture files (nothing over 1MP), then you really need very little storage. I have about 300 docs in a folder (mix of pdf, doc, xls, and other) and it's less than 40MB. Most of these docs include images...
Remember, this "useless" structure is not really a personal file store for the students, but a place to store assignments where only the individual student can get to them, and on a secure 3rd party managed system where the school does not have to front the massive cost of maintaining their own systems. It's also a direct connection between the student's home computer, classroom and lab workstations, and other points in between. The excuse "I lost my thumb drive" won't be an excuse if they are required to store, transfer, and submit works via this locker system. Also, this system prevents other students from swiping your thumb drive, copying your doc, changing the name, and then hacking the doc to make it look like it was made earlier than yours. This kind of plagiarism (and cheating) is becoming common in schools.
Because all docs in or out of the system are scanned for viruses, it also greatly reduces the risk of allowing kids to use floppies, bus drives, or CDs to move data in and out of the school network. Aside from e-mail and downloads, removable media is the next biggest security risk.
Also, in response to another poster who said, "If the kids are smart, they'll bring bootable thumb drives with a bootable copy of peanut Linux [linuxquestions.org] or some other mini-distro on it," what's the point? This locker is not a security system. Students VOLUNTARILY place docs here. There's nothing preventing them from saving these to a thumb drive (unless USB is disabled). I see this system being quickly tied into webmail and an assignment tracking system (like my wife uses for some college classes she takes online) to allow teachers to monitor progress on large projects, accept completed assignments, and to return graded docs to students electronically. The paper savings in one month alone likely pay for the electronic service for the whole year in this case. This particular article notes that an online markup system to allow teachers to do just that is coming soon.
The service is not to spy on kids, but to give them a place to store data where it is secure. Many schools spend thousands a year maintaining servers, backups, and redundancy to protect data. At $1 per student per year, there's no way any school can compete with this service and host the data themselves on their own school network, let alone provide enough bandwidth to it and make it reliable. Even a "cheap" storage server implementation, with backup, and accounting for bandwidth, licensing, and labor to implement and maintain is typically about $10K per 100GB.
On the note of booting from a linux distro, every school I've been in that offers any kind of secure system (I'm not counting the 80% of schools that don't, just the ones that actually embraced modern technology and have competent IT staffs) disables USB and CD boot in every PC installed in public areas. This is simple IT administration 101. A BIOS password prevents access to the settings, a case lock prevents resetting the firmware, and monitoring tools (optionally) let admins know if a machine is shut down or rebooted (and whether this was a normal shutdown or a hard power off). Even if they work around and reboot to other media, proxy and firewall systems should disallow network access if not authenticated normally, or if the MAC address appears active, but the OS type is not recognized or a security app is not seen to be running. The USB trick usually works at your local library, or in schools that think a custom OS and login screen equals security, but in most schools, especially those subject to security audits by local or state agencies, this is pointless.
I have spent a lot of time in upstate NY as well as the "pee dee" region of SC (AKA, the buckle of the bible belt). I can certainly attest to this: Southern rednecks are typically louder, and consume far more cheap beer and BBQ pork than any other rednecks. I can also say that no southern redneck can begin to compare to the levels backward society that is shared by most new england hicks. The NY breed in particular in many cases is not much more evolved than the inbred farmers of the early 1800s. Most New England hicks also work fields or other hard labor for a living, and endure harsher climate shifts, and thus are usually much tougher than they typical southern trailer hick variety.
In the south, for the most part, redneck is a lifestyle choice. In new england, it's much more of a lifestyle they're stuck with. Given access to cultured society, technology, and education, most NE hicks will willingly shed their status and quickly evolve. Most SC rednecks have such access, but continue to slide backwards due to apathy and low work ethic.
I would hesitate to cross either breed. In a knock down drag out fight between each other, I'd put my money on the NE breed any day. They may be somewhat single minded and simple, but they have much more drive!
(I state this jokingly of course, just in case a member of either breed reads this and fails to understand the sarcasm).
Now they've gone and done it... They went and got /.'s attention. Now there's tens of thousands of /. users who (if they didn't already) are running out and adding adblock to their install of firefox. In another screen I'm composing an email to every single family member in the clan (except 2 which I know are also /. readers) and letting them know they need this extension, how to get it, and how to install it... Get all of us to do this, and in a few days, there will be a million firefox users with adblock installed blocking all manner of sites! The attention from the advertisers being aware of this will cause them to lower advertising pay outs across the board, having a net effect on revenue for ad supported sites many times more than if they kept their mouthes shut! :D I love /.!
The lawyers may be the only ones to PROFIT from this case, but the fact that a verdict against the RIAA will have ripple effects in hundreds of cases, state and federal laws is something to watch. This case could determine the future of how piracy can be legally tracked, what kind of effort a company is allowed to put in to protect intellectual property, what lines are drawn as far as "harassing prosecution:" is concerned, and more. Even if the RIAA wins the action, on many levels they will also loose, most importantly, many of the methods they use will be once and for all ruled on by a judge and many of their powers will be stripped (and thus so will the powers of many other companies). The simple existence of this case is a great victory for internet freedom fighters. If we're really lucky, this could even legitimize many types of P2P systems, or have whole portions of copywrite and DMCA law changed or erased.
Actually, even with an expensive audio kit, most people can not tell the difference between 160kb and CD quality. The sample rate of 160 is higher than CD, and even though an MP3 has some loss, only certain types of tracks with complex harmonies suffer from quality issues. This is the same argument for vinyl vs. CD in the first place. This is why 96KHz audio is the standard mastering format now, not CD quality. There is some signal loss at extreme bass and treble ranges in any MP#, regardless of bit depth, and a true audiophile can with about 70% accuracy identify the ripped version of a track, when listening to both versions alternately at the same time. If only the CD or MP3 version is played, it's a crap shoot if even professionals with perfect equipment can actually guess whether it's an original or copy. 128K is an inferior signal quality and I don't recommend it, but 160 for ripped tracks, and 256 for DL'd tracks is indistinguishable to me or any of my friends. This of course is for MP3. Lossless formats exist, and most true audiophiles prefer to buy tracks either at 256K or in a lossless format (like Apple FINALLY offers for download). The real point here (which you agree with) was that between 160 and 192, it's extremely hard even for professionals to tell 2 tracks apart. When talking about DL'd music, it's all going to be ripped, so comparing it to CD is irrelevant (besides 256bit ripped from master is MUCH better than CD, and this is how distributors make MP3s. Making 256bit MP3s from CD media is a waste as theres no additional data to encode). Comparing a watermarked 128bit track to an unwatermarked 128bit track, nobody's going to be able to tell. At 256bit, even a machine would have difficulty without analyzing the waveform directly. Adding a watermark to a track will not degrade the quality. This is the point to make. In a lossless format, it would be impossible to tell from the original.
With voting machines, the whole assumption that it must be anonymous
Well, actually there's no part of the constitution that requires this. Votes are currently anonymous only to protect the voter from scrutiny at the time of casting the vote, or shortly after, by peers, community members, and other influences (even spouses). As long as the general public has no access to this data then this idea can be protected. There's no reason that the vote can't still be tied to a person. Congress does this every day. Some votes are truly anonymous and secret, some votes are by ballot, but recorded, others are simply a show of hands or "Yay's and Nay's"
Millions of people willfully announce their party affiliation and register their voting habits anyway. Vote to voter information can easily be stored in a central system, but the output of this data set can easily exclude personal information. Public officials already have access to information about the majority of households in their districts as far as voting habits. Basing this system on actual data instead of registration data is not a big deal, especially if the data displayed is based on a required opt-in system (unless you register, your voting habits are secret). Now, the only real reason to keep this information at all is to verify, through legal action, that voter receipts were in fact recorded centrally as they were at the precincts (making sure the national system wasn't hacked). All voters don't have to do this, only a small portion of them would opt-in, and upon request, produce their receipts is there is speculation of a hack possibility. If even if 1 tenth of 1% were inaccurately recorded, the who vote would have to be thrown out. Those who register with their party are already making their voting habit public, so is it unreasonable to ask them to be part of this redundant systems, since everyone already knows what they voted for? We don't need to record everyone's vote to person record, just a percentage of those who want to.
As far as paper receipts, these are cheap to make (even making 2 copies per vote). The voter should get a receipt that is basically a bar code (unreadable encoded information). This would prevent spousal arguments and family fights leaving the paper trail anonymous as well as people at the voting station from being able to read the receipts and influence voters. Voters should be able to place their receipt in a reader somewhere in the voting location and have separate (non-networked) visual confirmation of the vote record. A second receipt, kept in a spool inside the machine itself, and printed using impact heads (carbon copy so we can verify it's an EXACT match, not a hacked record). An incorrect vote should be easily re-read into the voting terminal, using the receipt, marked as a deleted vote and re-entered. Mistakes can be caught, and fixed using this process without trouble. You might be able to hack the machine, but you can't hack the paper trail as well, and if the paper trail can be re-verified by the voter in a seperate system not connected to the voting network, then we can guarantee vote recounts using an layman's equivalent of 2 factor authentication. In fact, recounting the paper trail should simply be SOP since it can be done quickly and accurately.
Removing a watermark is difficult. It's not so much that it's even a specifically identifiable piece of signal or code, but the fact that it's there, intermixed in the bits in certain locations, and by removing it, you would leave holes in the song file, or change its size in such a way that mathematically, we could identify the fact that the watermark was in fact removed from the file, and likely with what program with which it was removed.
Watermarking does not prevent the song from being distributed, it provides a means for proving that the person uploading it did so illegally, and a method for tracking that user. If the watermark remains, then it's easy to identify specifically who bought the song initially. If the watermark was removed, then the song could still be easily identified as pirated.
As far as removing the watermark, this is MUCH more difficult than removing encryption. Encryption is a mathematic process that converts the entire file predictably. If it wasn't converted properly, at best you might hear a hiss or squeal when passing the data through an mp3 player, but certainly not music. The key used is complex, but once found, the process for decoding a particular DRM is the same for all files encoded with the same method. The music, once decompressed, is instantly identified as correctly and completely converted.
In the case of watermarking, bits are scattered into the file itself. Each file can be made using a unique watermark pattern. Since the file will play on any MP3 player without DRM codings, there's no way for a listener to tell whether the track has been cracked or not. More importantly, since either way you can listen to the file, how do you tell if you properly removed the watermark or not even if some program tells you it did? Also, each file could have a unique watermark since there's no program that has to interpret the file. The publisher can stamp each file with a unique watermark, making the programming of a crack tool almost impossible.
Here's how this works: Each unique song created by an artist (in fact each version of each song that might be on different albums (live tracks, etc) would be assigned a unique pattern of where to place the watermark bits inside of the track. Think of this kind of like making tick marks on a ruler, but spacing them instead of at predictable intervals, placing them on the ruler based on a template, a template that could be different for each ruler manufactured. All rulers carrying the same artist name, track name, etc,would use the same template, but their could literally be millions of templates containing hundreds of uniquely placed tick marks each. The distributer, upon finding a possibly pirated track, can apply their pattern reader (template) for that specific file to the track and see the watermark. The actual CONTENTS of the watermark itself could be unique for each and every file distributed, created on the fly by the sales engine and encoding the seller's name, e-mail, and other information into that watermark space. Lets expand on our analogy here.
Each ruler made for (lest say this one is for the U2 song "One") would have a unique patter of where to look for the tick marks. When making the ruler to give to a purchaser (A fictitious person named Bob J Smith) we assign bob a unique color code of markers to use to make the ticks. There are thousands of colors that can be used, in any pattern, and we arbitrarily assign one from a database that is not in use yet and make not in the database that those marks belong to Bob J Smith. The pattern of colors repeats several times though the song, and uses a method of parity so that if some of the colors are removed, but not others (by an imperfect crack tool) then we could likely rebuild the color code.
Now to Bob's eye, the ticks all look to be in the exact same place he would expect them to be (1" apart), but in reality, there are microscopic anomalies in were the marks are specifically placed. this is so accurate, that Bob can't tell, it doe
For example, can you tell the difference between regular FM, High Definition FM, and FM with embedded PTY signals? I can't. taking a 128 bit signal down to say 126 bit (or 256 to 250) is not enough of a difference to distinguish, even for high end gear and computer analysis. People argue about the difference between 160 and 192 and unless you have really high end gear, only a fraction of people can tell, and usually only when listening to music that highlights the weaknesses of one of the lesser frequency. a watermark (a few Kbits our of a 5MB song) is subtle enough that you won't be able to tell.
This said, Florida has apparently gone off the deep end, requiring students to pick from 1 of 400 career paths. I can understand choosing a path of direct education closer to 11th grade, but not in 9th. In 9th they should decide, like in most states, between 10-15 paths for education. By the time they're in 11th grade, most student have a much better idea of what they'd like to do for the rest of their lives, but even that said, the most common major, by wide margins, for freshmen attending college is "undecided"
besides, 400 majors assumes, quite reasonably, at least 400 unique classes on top of the basic education requirement. I went to a small public high school in NY state. Our entire high school course offering, every possible class one could take, was only about 65 unique syllabus. 24 of those were just math, science, English and history, another 15 were art, music or photography related. Shop classes added maybe 10 more options. Foreign languages offered 15 classes (5 languages, 3 years each) Add health, psychology, Home Ec, computer and politics classes, and you've about exhausted everything my school offered. How the hell do you get 400 majors into a small school like mine? We only had about 25 full time teachers for shit's sake. Are each supposed to teach 8 different classes (to multiple groups of students each)?
They're not picking a specific career, this is simply picking 1 of 9 possible career paths. We're taking the initiative to have students decide early on whether they say, plan to work in business (management, accounting, finance, stocks, etc), traditional blue collar (plumbing, electrical, construction, etc), Technical (IT, engineering, design, architectural, etc), artistic (self explanitory?), and a few other choices.
When I was in HS, back in the late 80s, I had similar choices pinned on me. The new system is a little more refined, but it's still a career path option, not a career selection. It's also somewhat flexible, allowing the student (within reason) to adjust paths part way thru high school.
A similar system has been in use in NY for decades. The parents, kids, and a school counselor review the results of an extensive, career based, aptitude test taken very early in 9th grade. By this point, it should be clear to educators and parents alike what their kid is really capable of (are they strong in sciences and math, bad at memorization, etc) and this guides them into likely applicable career choices. Based on what everyone, including the student, agree on what the student is capable of realistically achieving, they pick a schedule of classes that fits the strengths of the student.
The class matrix picked fluctuated from having a "full boat" collegiate technical track (including 4 history, 4 english, 5 science, 5 math, and a few other electives thrown in), to a more business oriented program (4 math, 3 science, english, and history, plus business education classes), to a shop based curriculum (2 math, 2 science, 3 english, 3 history, and a slew of time spent at a local technical college learning trade skills). Artistic options existed too. Most students had 2-3 electives per year to play with, and could customize their path with what they wanted. Students in remedial programs had fewer options available to them.
Programs like this are a LOT better than simple programs used in states like SC, where every student takes the same classes except for a few electives each year, and anything beyond the basic expected classes is completely optional. Under "traditional" programs like this, most juniors and seniors have more study halls and "fluff" classes than career prep or advanced material classes. All this does typically is add an extra year of college classes to each high school graduates program since nobody encouraged them to take those prep classes or better yet AP to acquire college credits, before they got out of high school.
Again, this is not training or specific prep on a target career, but it's giving them the base education required for planning on entering college in either a technical, business, artistic, linguistic, research based, scientific, etc idea. Most kids, by age 14, have a pretty good idea that they like or dislike sciences, are good or bad at math, hate or love history. This program allows them to follow a more defined, customized path of learning focusing on where they're likely to seek employment, without training them, specifically say, to be an architect.
Find me anyone that lives inside city boundaries that doesn't drive into the city, use a local bridge, or have some interest in the fact that the city runs shelters for homeless that keep those people from wandering through their suburbs, has public water and sewer systems, and more. Also the school money, even collected locally under millage, is still typically redistributed on a larger scale within the city.
If we're talking about city representation vs rural at the state level, well, the same idea applies with someone being assigned (and on some level held liable) to convey the interests of the rural areas. Second, rural areas have far less representation anyway as by rule the number of districts is divided by population. A single city will have several reps, maybe 6 or 8, but maybe only 1 or 2 represent the surrounding area. People have to realize that if they are the minority, or live in less populated areas, then the state will by nature have less response to their needs, favoring spending money or having activity where more people will see it. It's also more costly to work in rural areas due to the scale of most projects (fixing a 12 mile rd that 200 people ride on per day vs. patching a 1/4 mile city block that 5000 people drive on per day for instance).
It's all one budget. We're still talking about assigning representation along district lines, so the districts still have say, but we're saying the the elected officials should be elected by the entire area populous, not small zones that are arbitrarily redrawn on maps to change voting based on demographics. Simply based on the idea that government is not by law allowed to discriminate between people of race, color, creed, sex, etc, even the idea of redistricting based on those metrics is technically against the that law... though it's never been directly challenged to my knowledge.
In a community I lived within in upstate NY, we voted not for a single rep, but we were instructed "there are 8 open seats, vote for 8 of the 13 available candidates" Minority groups organized to make sure they all voted for a particular rep and in almost every case each strongly organized racial or religious group got to vote in a candidate representing them, but this way they represented ALL people of that group, without having to outright say it. They then drew straws for assigning themselves to districts, and guess what? Elected minority candidates always chose to observe the district most densely populated by their constituents, but no lines on a map influenced the power for them to be elected, and democrats and republicans already in office could not modify district lines to make sure their competitors didn't get elected. Even if a minority candidate didn't get assigned to the minority district, his votes always have them in mind.
This system allows true public representation. You don't have cases where no one runs against a republican in a specific district just because every democrat knows he can't win there based on demographics. If there were 8 seats up, the top 8 vote getters got in. Everyone has to campaign to win. Even in a highly red city, blues, greens, and others could still get elected, and the proportions typically were very close to the local popular vote and democrats living in a red zone didn't feel their vote was wasted.
Many school districts use this voting method. If we could apply it to city, county, state and federal elections as well, we could get more consistent representation of the popular vote, and eliminate the expense and frustration of carving up locations to ensure re-election.
Until redistricting reform is enacted, or until a straight popular vote process is approved and electoral college finally eliminated, vote swapping should be supported on the state and federal levels. In local elections, when we have (for example) 10 candidate seats in a single city, who cares what part of the city any one of them is from? Laws are passed on a city level, not block level, so everyone should have an equal say in who gets the seats. Eliminate districting at any level more granular than the city, county, state, or federal seat representing the votes. A better solution is to allow local communities to hire (or elect) a sort of lobbyist who monitors the local community status and presents ideas and concerns to ALL the representatives as a group, thereby having indirect representation of the public without those elected being able to manipulate voter pools and demographics by dividing up a map.
Unfortunately, vote swapping doesn't really impact elections unless people in locked in counties convince people in sway counties to swap votes. People in sway counties don't normally want to give up that vote...
Mac OSX is UNIX, but as a UNIX admin you would know there are virtually no pre-defined scripts for administration. There are commands that can be run from shell for administration and remote administration, but they're almost all server based, not client, and the type of server your connecting to makes a BIG difference. With this central management system on a MAC OSX Server in the network, these settings can now become host environment independent, and it really doesn't matter if the domain is a UNIX, Novel, or Microsoft, or even a mix. It's easy to admin either way. Somewhere hidden underneath, being a UNIX OS, the commands must be there, but why bother with them at all?
Just the effort they've taken to ensure the Mac can easily join and work within an Active Directory domain is a fairly impressive step. Do you see any other Distro doing this? Even Suse/Novel's latest release is a bear to get into AD, and has no real direct management other than user generated batch scripts, for which Novel provides no help without also implementing a separate Novel domain.
Apple has always gone to great lengths to make integrating their OS with others easy. In this case, and after years of partnering with Microsoft, they have allowed their systems to store information in AD about Mac configurations and provided a GUI interface for it that's fairly click-and-go. Managing Group Policy within AD isn't even this easy, or this flexible, and even within Windows regularly requires writing scripts to accomplish some common tasks.
...And in the case of DRM, locks keep the less inclined honest.
DRM doesn't really stop people from copying, but combine the general laziness of the average public Joe with the fact that he'd have to have above average knowledge, and you eliminate 99% of the population. Children on the other hand have the time and knowledge, or time and will to do this. Combine ability, lack of fear of retribution due to anonymity, and a tightly controlled fiscal situation, and you create the perfect criminal.
I also ask a philosophical question: Is it really a crime to steal something that has no material cost, no property loss, and what your stealing is something you could not/would not every pay for? Hypothetically: I can't afford to buy 50 albums a year, so I buy a couple from bands I truly want to support, and download the rest anyway. If the record company is never going to get my money anyway, nor the artist, and I'm not stealing the physical media or distributing copies, who am i hurting? Artists I don't like enough to buy their music in the first place?
Personally, I don't have a single pirated file on my equipment, nor do i subscribe to any P2P system or other illegal download service. I do however stream rip a lot of music, but under current Fair Use legislation this is still legal and yet to fail that challenge in court. I don't see stream ripping as any different than changing out the HDD in My DVR to store more video, or recording digital radio to a CD. (as long as I don't further distribute those files, which I do not).
I agree with the poster. This is a cost of doing business. Go even a step further. ASK your auditor, or an auditing company how they expect you to do this. Do what they suggest. Get the suggestion in writing so you can refer later if the real auditor doesn't like what you've done. Trying an uncertified or home grown solution is only going to require dozens or hundres of man hours not only to research, set-up, test, and document the process, but another dozen or hundred hours explaining to the auditor how it works. Is a $5000 application not worth all that time wasted?
If you expect to do this for a Windows system, your basically screwed unless you buy supported software anyway.
We don't even need a true power on off switch that has to be flipped manually. What we need is a remote power switch that cuts main power, and a small, rechargeable battery cell that can respond to the remote and re-activate main power. A tiny battery and a capacitor to have enough juice to throw a 2.5 volt magnetic switch would add about $1 in manufacturing costs to home theater devices, but save dozens per year in electric fees per home for "trickle" devices. All network devices should support Wake on LAN, but unfortunately, most don't (or do, but people don't know what that means or how to use it).
Unfortunately, a lot of devices are always on, like DVRs, game stations with online access, and more. They do a lot of work at night updating databases, downloading new content, etc, and simply have to remain on. The fact that an XBox 360 doesn't spin down the graphic system power and down clock it's CPUs is a design issue we can change. An Apple TV box uses less than 20 watts when "asleep" and that included downloading content over wireless. Why can't the XBox and PS3 do that? They could even drop into an even lower power state when idle, spin down the HDD, and only "wake up" every 90 minutes or so to check for content without spinning the drive up again unless it needs to.
Unfortunately, there are even more devices we can't really do anything about that are the real sappers in the house. The cable modem, wireless router/firewall, VoIP modem, second access point to cover downstairs, possibly an extra switch to add more than 4 wired devices (I have 7), and base station and answering machine for wireless phones. That's just the network. Now add the garage door opener, automatic sprinkler system, home alarm and smoke detectors (most run on house power and rechargeable batteries now), safety lights in your halls and bathrooms (night lights), and several clocks.
I work for a computer systems manufacturer. We've got a meter (magnetic ring type thing) at the office that encircles a power line and displays the power being used by the device. We have it so we can document in our white papers the power consumption of our devices. I brought it home and played with it a few months ago when having a forum argument with another individual on this. My 27" tube TV used about 2 watts when sleeping. My 37" LCD used less than 1. My PS2 used no power (but the transformer was using 2 watts). My cable box used 12 watts when asleep, DVR used between 20 and 50 depending on what it was doing when asleep. What surprised me was the coffee pot was using 3 watts when off (it has a tiny built in clock). The 2 alarm clocks we have each use 5 watts. Adding up all my idle devices I was just over 220Watts in use! 10% of that was in scent plug-ins around the house and night lights, about 20% was in our cable boxes alone. 25% was in devices I can't turn off, like the garage opener, stove clock, built in microwave, etc. Another 20% was in my home theater equipment (amp, dvd, vcr, and TVs). There were some other random devices around as well, not including my network setup...
After finding this out, I installed a "step on" power extension (like people use under the Christmas tree) in line between the wall and home theater, so I can press one switch at night to turn off all the device in the HT setup (except the DVR which has to stay pugged in all the time per the cable company or they'll void the warranty on the device). I threw out all the scent plug-ins in favor of passively diffused oils and popuri. I changed the few night lights we had out for LCD versions. I now have a programmable timer power strip in the computer room that I have 2 laptops, a small TV, a printer and a network switch hooked up to. Each night at 11:00PM the adapter cuts power to the laptops (which hibernate automatically after 15 minutes when on battery), my printers, the switch they're connected to, and the TV and cable box in there. My HTPC now uses sleep mode with Wake on Lan to save power and automatically shuts down and powers