When people say something complicated "isn't feasible for home-brew," they're not saying it is rocket surgery or brain science.
Heck, a great example would be rocket science, something people absolutely do at home, using kits, but doing it entirely from scratch "isn't feasible for home-brew." You need to be some sort of smarty-pants who can understand the relevant details of the underlying technology, and take on the risk associated with doing it.
In the case of an auto ECM, it isn't just the owner's risk that needs to be consented to, so it is not obviously as simple and safe as home-brew manned rockets.
If you're literally just talking about driving things with a custom PCM in the shop, yeah I can do that on a breadboard with a 555 and nobody is going to get hurt unless I slip my thumb under the timing belt.
80s ECMs were doing very little, and sucked at it pretty bad. There was motivation for companies to sell replacements, and it still wasn't very popular or lucrative. Modern ECMs work very well. Few people even want to replace them, because they really do work well, and it is difficult to get parts to even fit unless the part is made as a replacement, in which case it already has sensors compatible with the original. It is not normal to add entirely new engine functionality onto an existing engine. What they want, and do, is usually to tweak the constants to reduce emissions control. That is way over 99% of the demand for alterations.
The other use case cited is diagnostics, but that is already available through a standardized access port. There is a lack of documentation that is limiting, sure. If somebody had some Free Software for the elm chip or something similar so that it would start creating a giant database of seen data, then in a decade we'd be able to correlate easily and be able to create something like the proprietary diagnostics, but that would run on-board and give you early warning of exactly what was failing. On my own vehicle, a 2000 Nissan, there is actually very little in the service manual that can't already be done with a Generic Scan Tool, which is approximately what a Elm+Android setup is. And yet, there is very little action happening in the areas that available. Why? Because most of the interest that cites diagnostics is not from people willing to put time into that sort of project; it is just a checklist reason to include when people want to increase their pollution to save 3 cents and prove that hippies suck.
No, you're missing the point that it's actually cheaper to just burn once to get out of Earth orbit and be done with it, than it is to go to a "gas station" that's in orbit around the thing you're trying to escape the gravity well of
LMFAO click the wrong post, eh?
No, I didn't miss that point... that was the point I made! What I literally said was, "you don't need a gas station to land at, you can just float the stuff in orbit."
I sentence you to 1 hour of Hamster Dance on replay.
The physics are actually pretty simple, if you're capable of math, and reading.
As a software guy I generally agree, but the idea that the software code and the configuration code are different is rather hair-splitting here, though obvious and important from system design and implementation perspectives.
That the code doesn't change just means that the formulas needed to manage that type of machine don't change from model to model. But the constants do. While it is normal and good for a software guy to think about data and code as being different, in this case it really doesn't matter. If they compile the constants into the code, or store them in some sort of separate memory, that doesn't actually change what they're building or how it interacts with the users. I know for a fact that some are using Harvard Architecture with physically separate storage for code and data, and in that case it is just the data portion that most people want access to. But still, both are probably stored on a single chip. So for the purposes of the DMCA, where it is the protection device rule that is at issue, they are the same. You can't access any of it without defeating the protections. If we had the exception for auto electronics, then the exact architecture used would affect the details of the Fair Use evaluation, but not by very much; once you get past the anti-access provision, whatever you need to interoperate is already Fair Use.
That said, I also know for a fact many ECUs do not use Harvard Architecture, do mix the code and data in the same storage, and people modify them by flipping bits in the binary to change the stored values. In that case the original value is literally compiled in. Sure, if you actually have access to the code it is just a different header file with those values. But just because software engineering practices encourage thinking about code and data as being different, in the actual implementation that is often an arbitrary distinction.
The real fear of the auto makers is that third-party ECUs could start to displace the vehicle brand, and people might start treating the body and engine as generic, and the ECU as the part that gives the vehicle its identity and performance tradeoffs. Instead of a "Ford Foo," maybe somebody is buying an aftermarket "Joe's FreedomCar (custom Foo model)" and then for their next car, they might get a "Joe's FeedomCar (custom Bar model)" based on a Honda. If they are also replacing driver instrumentation, they might really manage to change the driving experience enough to hijack the consumer association.
It is going to get much, much harder to stop all this when things go electric, because an electric ECU (MCU?) doesn't even need to be designed for a similar model motor; each feature can controlled entirely by sensor feedback, and the differences between ideal and actual parts can be detected by sensing voltage and current in different places. Existing third-party controllers already work easily with fairly random collections of home-brew parts. There is no complicated emissions technology to manage or worry about. If they want to lock us out, fine, in that case you can replace the whole controller.
They're missing the fact that you don't need a gas station to land at, you can just float the stuff in orbit if you want a different number of Earth-to-orbit and Earth-orbit-to-Mars legs. Probably is a misguided concern mostly due to the use of multi-stage rockets.
While I do think the code should be available for third-party review for safety reasons, I want to disagree with the claim that they don't sell software. They do not sell the hardware without the software, and the products always have the software. To put it another way, they distribute software, and the only way to receive it is to buy the controller with it. Saying they're not selling the software makes as little sense as saying they're not selling the hardware, they just give it away free when they sell the software. But no, they sell the software and hardware together.
The funny part of this whole story is that the linked PDF letter from EPA counsels against a DMCA exception for automobile enthusiasts specifically because they're concerned the main purpose it would be used for would be to reduce emission controls. And they're probably right about that point. The speculation here that this VW cheating will cause things to open up is exactly backwards. It will just create pressure to have the testing and validation process include a code review. But that won't actually happen, because road tests already solves the whole problem more cheaply.
While I agree it is not feasible to home-brew an internal combustion ECM for a modern automobile, you should be advised that the full range of "grades" of parts are available to consumers. There is no special access for auto grade or military grade parts, it is just a different temperature/vibration/noise spec. There is no difficulty at all in choosing industrial controller chips and components. Getting even vaguely close to the needed timing adjustments based on sensor readings would be a major project though.
For a full electric car, you can buy aftermarket controllers, and building your own is totally feasible for somebody that can design circuits and write firmware. In practice amateur controllers rarely get the range that higher quality commercial controllers do, but a good build can beat a cheap controller. The first one I saw was in the 90s.
Ok, to walk you though it in baby steps, in the scenario where it detects cheaters it is a prop. Get it? The humans observing the process catch the cheaters. The cheaters are trying to cheat the prop. It is similar to a honey-pot.
It is about the size of the reference insect, but they wanted a larger reference insect they just couldn't find one for sale to include. It is the same size as the originally intended reference insect, and the case could be reworked to match the new reference.
It is a crude skittering military recon bot that looks like a nasty bug and can hide in the bushes. And is cheap, cheap, cheap.
People are only going to try to squish it indoors. If it is hiding in the bushes, most humans will scurry away. If it looks cute, they'll stop and scrutinize it. This is for military recon, not signals intelligence or spy vs spy.
Obviously you need to use it for disaster relief because you can get people to pay for the testing, and then you have performance data relevant for military use. That way you know how to price the final version.
They have to find something to pretend to agree on, and it isn't going to be the Spratly Islands, human rights, or reserve currency standards. Might as well play patty-cake over something with secret details.
"The question now is, are words followed by actions? And we will be watching carefully to make an assessment as to whether progress has been made in this area."
Not being allowed to start a career there is just an annoyance, but taking damage to (or ending) a career you've already built there over years is a bit more of a kick in the balls.
Sure! But it is part of the job. People should know that going in; there are lots of things that can happen that will end your career. As long as you don't do something really stupid like getting caught cheating the polygraph, then you can just move laterally to another agency if something happens. Even if you lose your clearance for some other innocent reason, like a polygraph false-positive, which is entirely possible, you can just switch to a different agency and still be a federal law enforcement agent, and probably even maintain a similar pay grade and benefit package. Assuming a person is aware of the realities of their choice, none of this is harmful or creates a damned/damned scenario.
The FBI is always going to have the highest security requirements, and loads of arcane and stupid-looking employment criteria, because they're the agency that is charged with investigating the other agencies. Congress has passed laws, for example, limiting the types of activities the CIA can do inside the US. Who could possibly keep the CIA under observation for that? The FBI is charged with that task. Plus, almost all the counter-intelligence work inside the US is done by the FBI. They do this because the FBI doesn't do other intelligence work; it really increases the difficulty of getting moles in, and protecting them. So the FBI has a special basket of job requirements. Prospective employees need to be aware that because of the sensitivity of much of the work they have no basis for feeling entitled to do that work forever. The work is more important than the worker.
It may even be that the polygraph has some sort of unknown purpose, like identifying anti-polygraph training techniques used by specific foreign entities. I don't know that that is true, but I do know that taking what the FBI says at face value is a bad idea, because they have a known policy (as does all law enforcement in the US) of using deception in their work.
A lot of the debate here is exceptionally naive; on the level or arguing about the Roswell "weather balloon" and if it was a weather balloon, instead of getting to the real subject: why would the Air Force tell that lie, what are the reasonable possibilities? If you start out on the wrong question, the answer could be "anything," but if you pay attention to the obvious questions then "hiding an experimental aircraft" stands out right away as the top-shelf answer. So many people are willing to just presume that FBI agents are the same sort of bumbling morons that the local police hire, without even realizing that local police exclude most college grads as over-qualified, while the FBI requires having a good education and high IQ. If the FBI is doing something that looks stupid, people should realize, it probably looks stupid on purpose. Not because they don't do stupid things, everybody does that; but because very little of what they do is even visible to the public. If we see their "stupidity," they probably intended us to.
You can sue for unfair dismissal in the US. If it is actually "unfair" and not just, "waaaaaa I didn't like their policy." You can't sue the government except where it is allowed. There is no civil right to work in government, and when elected officials who are supposed to be in charge of an agency might be ordered by a court to keep unwanted employees, that actually presents a danger to voters and to civil liberties. I don't think you've really thought out these issues, I think you're just engaging in some really super-silly anti-Americanism.
If you think Americans lack civil rights, you're probably falling victim to credulity in American broadcast media, and mistaking our obsession with complaining loudly about any perceived threat to our rights for not having rights.
The idea that you have "more employee rights" is silly. You have a different package of employment rights. If it is more or less depends on a bunch of known contested points. Anybody claiming that it is just one way or the other, and pretending there is no debate or disagreement, is guaranteed to be wrong. Narrowly on the process of ending employment, it is more difficult to end employment in Europe than in the US. But that doesn't guarantee that the result is increased rights. It might be that other employees have less rights directly as a result of being less able to fire workers who trample the rights of their co-workers. There are numerous cases where a US employer would be required to fire somebody in order to protect the rights of the other workers, because that person had created a bigoted or hostile work environment; in Europe those other employees would very likely have to "suck it up" and tolerate years of abuse before it amounted to enough to get rid of the person. As a result, it is much more common in Europe for workplace harassment victims to change jobs, where in the same situation in the US they would have the option of fighting to protect their rights.
If you just assume you're right about things that are known to be contentious, you put yourself in the position of having the only position that is provably wrong.;)
It is only "for entertainment purposes" in the same way that a counselor who only listens and talks and doesn't do psychoanalysis or prescribe drugs is just for "entertainment purposes" and not a doctor.
It is "entertainment" when you don't believe in it, like at a carnival, but it is just a form of traditional non-medical counseling when done as normally practiced. It is very different than that "cold reading" stuff, which isn't counseling at all. Tarot isn't a "mentalist" trick to make the person doing it look like a mind reader; you're confusing counselors with illusionists. The purpose of tarot reading is to provide a safe space for people to talk about things they're uncomfortable talking about. The purpose of the stuff you mentioned is to make the performer look magical. Very, very different.
There is nothing inherently immoral about placebo effects. They're only immoral when they're used as a substitute for effective treatment. There is no real way to talk to dead people, so there is no chance that the placebo is displacing the real treatment. Therefore, it is immoral only when used as you describe; to benefit the performer. When it is used in traditional methods as a counseling technique, where the purpose is to help the patient work through unresolved feelings connected to dead people, then it can be beneficial. A person already either believes in it, or doesn't. There is nothing about this field where it tricks people into believing. People who can benefit from this treatment are people who already believe in an afterlife, and in the possibility of communication. People who don't believe in that sort of superstition should seek modern counseling methods.
You're just blatantly lying, and I'm going to call you on it. Where did I claim special secret knowledge? Very strange to invent details like that. It is like a cross between a strawman and a red herring. A straw herring.
Start over. Toss out your faulty analysis that relied on me claiming secret knowledge. Reread what I wrote, and understand each word literally. Then you can give yourself a chance at understanding.
You claim that "we know that... polygraphs don't [filter out potential... security threats]" but that is a load of horse shit. What we know is that they aren't "lie detectors." If they filter out some classes of security threat by other means is not so clear. You can't get to a conclusion on that just by waving your hands, and you certainly can't start at an "objective" conclusion and then just wave your hands and have it be true. The FBI says it is useful for [things] and we have none of the secret knowledge you talked about. You don't have that secret knowledge, neither do I. We don't have objective information about their results using it, so we can't say either way what the net effects are. Claiming to have that knowledge guarantees being wrong. The only part we know about is that they do catch people trying to cheat on the test. And that willingness to cheat is claimed by the FBI (quite reasonably) to be correlated with a security risk.
If the only utility of the test, ever, is to catch people that would try to cheat on the test, that already would refute your absurdly over-broad claim that there is no utility as a filter of security threats.
Just because there are experts who are idiots, doesn't mean that any experts is non-expert, or an idiot, or can't be trusted to manage their own damn employees. How would a non-expert such as yourself hope to impeach their judgement? You can't, of course. As you point out, their field is shrouded in secrecy; that means you don't know, it doesn't mean they don't know. It means you can't judge what they do effectively. Now, there are lots of legitimate policy opinion responses to that situation. But it doesn't leave you in a position to impeach their judgement about things where the facts are mostly secret. And they're not bumbling morons, regardless of your or my opinion of their polices.
Well, which is it doctor? Am I insane, and you're a bully who picks on the mentally disabled, or am I an idiot and you're a bully who picks on the stupid?
What does it say about you that you make a medical diagnosis of somebody, and then wave it off. Ooops, you were wrong, right genius? Not really very confidence-building regarding the follow-up correction. What led to your mistake, and what changed your conclusion? It seems more likely that you're just full of shit, and being a bully, than that you actually managed to diagnose "stupidity."
And, what I wrote is literally true. There is not anything I said that would be "not possible." (aka impossible) Which part is it that is impossible, Mr Genius?
If you're in Shenzen you can take a walk and pick up all the components you need for your prototype project in the morning and assemble them in the afternoon.
Here in the US we have to order the components from china and it takes weeks to months.
Close, I mean, I order the parts from Texas, where the wholesaler keeps them in a warehouse and manages the "from China" part of that process. So if I don't want to increase shipping costs, it is a 4-5 shipping days wait for parts. It encourages a more design-intensive process. If there were better local parts markets, I could be more prototype-intensive.
Well, just because they lose localized search results doesn't mean another search engine will be successful. It might just mean that their citizens get more generic results, and less links to local businesses.
You have a mental problem. Get help. I am serious.
My advice is to consult a qualified mental health professional about this subject before attempting to give "quack doctor" type of advice. If you believe a person has a mental abnormality, but it is not harming them, and you're aggressively advocating that they seek unnecessary "help," well that is anti-social and potentially harmful behavior both for yourself, and your community.
No, that answer is that people with no real content should erect paywalls so they can either fail or not, but without me having to be there.;)
The answer to the underlying question is that sites without a real product or service don't necessarily deserve revenue just for having a website. If they fail, that is good, because the content created by people passionate enough about the subject to create content on a volunteer basis is higher quality for the type of content that doesn't involve a product or service. Also, there is room for businesses to create content and sell branded merchandise based entirely on the content brand. But I don't see any right for them to make money; it is up to them to make merchandise I would want to buy. I don't use advertising to make purchasing decisions, so it is not helpful even for the thing it does; it is almost entirely parasitic.
I used to read the NYT. When I was a kid, I would read it at the library. I read it for most of my life. And when the internet came, I read it more often. Then they put up a paywall, but excepted incoming links from google, so I kept reading. Eventually, they put google news outside the paywall too, and I learned to click on other sources. If they want to be the standard source of information, they're going to have to provide access, not just to hardcore fans but to everybody participating in the public discourse. If they don't want that, that is fine. I'm not convinced an advertising-supporting site has any better reason to be a default information source than crap behind a paywall.
But if I was a rich, I'd probably spend thousands of dollars a year on Janes subscriptions, because they have interesting content that isn't otherwise available to civilians. So I'm not for or against paywalls; but they do preclude being a default source. And I feel advertising does the same thing, if it is actually required for the site to bother providing the content.
Ultimately as long as there are organizations like the BBC and wikipedia providing quality default data sources that are accessible, then there is no problem from having more or less websites trying to make money. The less of them there are, the higher the signal quality. The more of them there are, the higher the noise. Some people like the noise. Some insist on filtering it. It is all fine. If more people don't like it, good for them. It is natural in that case for the parasites to die back.
I run websites that make no money, and others sell products. If the ones that don't make money had more traffic, then the users would give donations. If they won't support what it is, then they're not getting much value from the service, and maybe it is healthier on both sides if I don't try to pump that traffic up. Same as with real estate; I could let people hang out on the lawn, and depending who they are and why they are there, they might be giving me lots of money for fancy dinners, or just sitting on my lawn drinking BYO beer and pissing in the bushes. Just because people will show up doesn't guarantee there is a good reason to host the event, or a good reason to expect it to generate revenue.
If nobody other than the parties knows what happened... we'll never know
Have you ever heard of "testimony under oath"? This phase is when the truth comes out.
Wow. Just wow. No, that is when the testimony comes out. Truth may or may not come out at all. The purpose of testimony under oath isn't to uncover truth, it is to prepare the jury to decide what the facts are.
The facts of the case might be determined to be against you, even if Truth is on your side, and even if the guy they didn't let testify knows exactly what happened for real reasons. The Truth may or may not "come out" eventually, regardless of who does or doesn't know what happened.
It is just not true that there is an automatic nexus between employee selection, and the way of government doing their job. You don't convince me that you've even identified a problem, much less that you have insight into it.
If your concern was just in their hiring practice, as a hiring practice, I might agree generally with the sentiment, though if it is within their legit discretion then I won't agree it is really a problem. But you don't do that. You wave your hands and jump from bad hiring practice, all the way to "if these agencies are left unchecked" and blah blah blah. It is rather unhinged, and irrational.
As to your conclusion, we're not experts in the End Of The World As We Know It. It has never happened to us, even once. So I don't have to like the FBI to say, they have a better idea of what type of employees can do their work than you do. That's true even if they're a bunch of dangerous assholes. I've been interrogated by the FBI, and by local cops, and I have to say, the FBI guys I've met were all serious professionals of above-average intelligence, with college degrees. Not people I would get along with, sure; probably dangerous assholes, really. But you know what would be even more dangerous? Deciding they're unqualified just because I don't like them, and making policy on that basis. There would be no rights to worry about in that type of insanity.
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When people say something complicated "isn't feasible for home-brew," they're not saying it is rocket surgery or brain science.
Heck, a great example would be rocket science, something people absolutely do at home, using kits, but doing it entirely from scratch "isn't feasible for home-brew." You need to be some sort of smarty-pants who can understand the relevant details of the underlying technology, and take on the risk associated with doing it.
In the case of an auto ECM, it isn't just the owner's risk that needs to be consented to, so it is not obviously as simple and safe as home-brew manned rockets.
If you're literally just talking about driving things with a custom PCM in the shop, yeah I can do that on a breadboard with a 555 and nobody is going to get hurt unless I slip my thumb under the timing belt.
80s ECMs were doing very little, and sucked at it pretty bad. There was motivation for companies to sell replacements, and it still wasn't very popular or lucrative. Modern ECMs work very well. Few people even want to replace them, because they really do work well, and it is difficult to get parts to even fit unless the part is made as a replacement, in which case it already has sensors compatible with the original. It is not normal to add entirely new engine functionality onto an existing engine. What they want, and do, is usually to tweak the constants to reduce emissions control. That is way over 99% of the demand for alterations.
The other use case cited is diagnostics, but that is already available through a standardized access port. There is a lack of documentation that is limiting, sure. If somebody had some Free Software for the elm chip or something similar so that it would start creating a giant database of seen data, then in a decade we'd be able to correlate easily and be able to create something like the proprietary diagnostics, but that would run on-board and give you early warning of exactly what was failing. On my own vehicle, a 2000 Nissan, there is actually very little in the service manual that can't already be done with a Generic Scan Tool, which is approximately what a Elm+Android setup is. And yet, there is very little action happening in the areas that available. Why? Because most of the interest that cites diagnostics is not from people willing to put time into that sort of project; it is just a checklist reason to include when people want to increase their pollution to save 3 cents and prove that hippies suck.
No, you're missing the point that it's actually cheaper to just burn once to get out of Earth orbit and be done with it, than it is to go to a "gas station" that's in orbit around the thing you're trying to escape the gravity well of
LMFAO click the wrong post, eh?
No, I didn't miss that point... that was the point I made! What I literally said was, "you don't need a gas station to land at, you can just float the stuff in orbit."
I sentence you to 1 hour of Hamster Dance on replay.
The physics are actually pretty simple, if you're capable of math, and reading.
I know you are but what am I!
As a software guy I generally agree, but the idea that the software code and the configuration code are different is rather hair-splitting here, though obvious and important from system design and implementation perspectives.
That the code doesn't change just means that the formulas needed to manage that type of machine don't change from model to model. But the constants do. While it is normal and good for a software guy to think about data and code as being different, in this case it really doesn't matter. If they compile the constants into the code, or store them in some sort of separate memory, that doesn't actually change what they're building or how it interacts with the users. I know for a fact that some are using Harvard Architecture with physically separate storage for code and data, and in that case it is just the data portion that most people want access to. But still, both are probably stored on a single chip. So for the purposes of the DMCA, where it is the protection device rule that is at issue, they are the same. You can't access any of it without defeating the protections. If we had the exception for auto electronics, then the exact architecture used would affect the details of the Fair Use evaluation, but not by very much; once you get past the anti-access provision, whatever you need to interoperate is already Fair Use.
That said, I also know for a fact many ECUs do not use Harvard Architecture, do mix the code and data in the same storage, and people modify them by flipping bits in the binary to change the stored values. In that case the original value is literally compiled in. Sure, if you actually have access to the code it is just a different header file with those values. But just because software engineering practices encourage thinking about code and data as being different, in the actual implementation that is often an arbitrary distinction.
The real fear of the auto makers is that third-party ECUs could start to displace the vehicle brand, and people might start treating the body and engine as generic, and the ECU as the part that gives the vehicle its identity and performance tradeoffs. Instead of a "Ford Foo," maybe somebody is buying an aftermarket "Joe's FreedomCar (custom Foo model)" and then for their next car, they might get a "Joe's FeedomCar (custom Bar model)" based on a Honda. If they are also replacing driver instrumentation, they might really manage to change the driving experience enough to hijack the consumer association.
It is going to get much, much harder to stop all this when things go electric, because an electric ECU (MCU?) doesn't even need to be designed for a similar model motor; each feature can controlled entirely by sensor feedback, and the differences between ideal and actual parts can be detected by sensing voltage and current in different places. Existing third-party controllers already work easily with fairly random collections of home-brew parts. There is no complicated emissions technology to manage or worry about. If they want to lock us out, fine, in that case you can replace the whole controller.
a stable construction site for one.
Space is full of vacant construction sites, and few are in earthquake zones. You don't need to fall down to the moon to find a stable orbit.
They're missing the fact that you don't need a gas station to land at, you can just float the stuff in orbit if you want a different number of Earth-to-orbit and Earth-orbit-to-Mars legs. Probably is a misguided concern mostly due to the use of multi-stage rockets.
While I do think the code should be available for third-party review for safety reasons, I want to disagree with the claim that they don't sell software. They do not sell the hardware without the software, and the products always have the software. To put it another way, they distribute software, and the only way to receive it is to buy the controller with it. Saying they're not selling the software makes as little sense as saying they're not selling the hardware, they just give it away free when they sell the software. But no, they sell the software and hardware together.
The funny part of this whole story is that the linked PDF letter from EPA counsels against a DMCA exception for automobile enthusiasts specifically because they're concerned the main purpose it would be used for would be to reduce emission controls. And they're probably right about that point. The speculation here that this VW cheating will cause things to open up is exactly backwards. It will just create pressure to have the testing and validation process include a code review. But that won't actually happen, because road tests already solves the whole problem more cheaply.
While I agree it is not feasible to home-brew an internal combustion ECM for a modern automobile, you should be advised that the full range of "grades" of parts are available to consumers. There is no special access for auto grade or military grade parts, it is just a different temperature/vibration/noise spec. There is no difficulty at all in choosing industrial controller chips and components. Getting even vaguely close to the needed timing adjustments based on sensor readings would be a major project though.
For a full electric car, you can buy aftermarket controllers, and building your own is totally feasible for somebody that can design circuits and write firmware. In practice amateur controllers rarely get the range that higher quality commercial controllers do, but a good build can beat a cheap controller. The first one I saw was in the 90s.
False. It is a known fact that cheaters have been caught using physical evidence. In some cases there are even recordings of the training sessions.
Ok, to walk you though it in baby steps, in the scenario where it detects cheaters it is a prop. Get it? The humans observing the process catch the cheaters. The cheaters are trying to cheat the prop. It is similar to a honey-pot.
It is about the size of the reference insect, but they wanted a larger reference insect they just couldn't find one for sale to include. It is the same size as the originally intended reference insect, and the case could be reworked to match the new reference.
It is a crude skittering military recon bot that looks like a nasty bug and can hide in the bushes. And is cheap, cheap, cheap.
People are only going to try to squish it indoors. If it is hiding in the bushes, most humans will scurry away. If it looks cute, they'll stop and scrutinize it. This is for military recon, not signals intelligence or spy vs spy.
Obviously you need to use it for disaster relief because you can get people to pay for the testing, and then you have performance data relevant for military use. That way you know how to price the final version.
They have to find something to pretend to agree on, and it isn't going to be the Spratly Islands, human rights, or reserve currency standards. Might as well play patty-cake over something with secret details.
As President Obama put it,
Not being allowed to start a career there is just an annoyance, but taking damage to (or ending) a career you've already built there over years is a bit more of a kick in the balls.
Sure! But it is part of the job. People should know that going in; there are lots of things that can happen that will end your career. As long as you don't do something really stupid like getting caught cheating the polygraph, then you can just move laterally to another agency if something happens. Even if you lose your clearance for some other innocent reason, like a polygraph false-positive, which is entirely possible, you can just switch to a different agency and still be a federal law enforcement agent, and probably even maintain a similar pay grade and benefit package. Assuming a person is aware of the realities of their choice, none of this is harmful or creates a damned/damned scenario.
The FBI is always going to have the highest security requirements, and loads of arcane and stupid-looking employment criteria, because they're the agency that is charged with investigating the other agencies. Congress has passed laws, for example, limiting the types of activities the CIA can do inside the US. Who could possibly keep the CIA under observation for that? The FBI is charged with that task. Plus, almost all the counter-intelligence work inside the US is done by the FBI. They do this because the FBI doesn't do other intelligence work; it really increases the difficulty of getting moles in, and protecting them. So the FBI has a special basket of job requirements. Prospective employees need to be aware that because of the sensitivity of much of the work they have no basis for feeling entitled to do that work forever. The work is more important than the worker.
It may even be that the polygraph has some sort of unknown purpose, like identifying anti-polygraph training techniques used by specific foreign entities. I don't know that that is true, but I do know that taking what the FBI says at face value is a bad idea, because they have a known policy (as does all law enforcement in the US) of using deception in their work.
A lot of the debate here is exceptionally naive; on the level or arguing about the Roswell "weather balloon" and if it was a weather balloon, instead of getting to the real subject: why would the Air Force tell that lie, what are the reasonable possibilities? If you start out on the wrong question, the answer could be "anything," but if you pay attention to the obvious questions then "hiding an experimental aircraft" stands out right away as the top-shelf answer. So many people are willing to just presume that FBI agents are the same sort of bumbling morons that the local police hire, without even realizing that local police exclude most college grads as over-qualified, while the FBI requires having a good education and high IQ. If the FBI is doing something that looks stupid, people should realize, it probably looks stupid on purpose. Not because they don't do stupid things, everybody does that; but because very little of what they do is even visible to the public. If we see their "stupidity," they probably intended us to.
You can sue for unfair dismissal in the US. If it is actually "unfair" and not just, "waaaaaa I didn't like their policy." You can't sue the government except where it is allowed. There is no civil right to work in government, and when elected officials who are supposed to be in charge of an agency might be ordered by a court to keep unwanted employees, that actually presents a danger to voters and to civil liberties. I don't think you've really thought out these issues, I think you're just engaging in some really super-silly anti-Americanism.
If you think Americans lack civil rights, you're probably falling victim to credulity in American broadcast media, and mistaking our obsession with complaining loudly about any perceived threat to our rights for not having rights.
The idea that you have "more employee rights" is silly. You have a different package of employment rights. If it is more or less depends on a bunch of known contested points. Anybody claiming that it is just one way or the other, and pretending there is no debate or disagreement, is guaranteed to be wrong. Narrowly on the process of ending employment, it is more difficult to end employment in Europe than in the US. But that doesn't guarantee that the result is increased rights. It might be that other employees have less rights directly as a result of being less able to fire workers who trample the rights of their co-workers. There are numerous cases where a US employer would be required to fire somebody in order to protect the rights of the other workers, because that person had created a bigoted or hostile work environment; in Europe those other employees would very likely have to "suck it up" and tolerate years of abuse before it amounted to enough to get rid of the person. As a result, it is much more common in Europe for workplace harassment victims to change jobs, where in the same situation in the US they would have the option of fighting to protect their rights.
If you just assume you're right about things that are known to be contentious, you put yourself in the position of having the only position that is provably wrong. ;)
It is only "for entertainment purposes" in the same way that a counselor who only listens and talks and doesn't do psychoanalysis or prescribe drugs is just for "entertainment purposes" and not a doctor.
It is "entertainment" when you don't believe in it, like at a carnival, but it is just a form of traditional non-medical counseling when done as normally practiced. It is very different than that "cold reading" stuff, which isn't counseling at all. Tarot isn't a "mentalist" trick to make the person doing it look like a mind reader; you're confusing counselors with illusionists. The purpose of tarot reading is to provide a safe space for people to talk about things they're uncomfortable talking about. The purpose of the stuff you mentioned is to make the performer look magical. Very, very different.
There is nothing inherently immoral about placebo effects. They're only immoral when they're used as a substitute for effective treatment. There is no real way to talk to dead people, so there is no chance that the placebo is displacing the real treatment. Therefore, it is immoral only when used as you describe; to benefit the performer. When it is used in traditional methods as a counseling technique, where the purpose is to help the patient work through unresolved feelings connected to dead people, then it can be beneficial. A person already either believes in it, or doesn't. There is nothing about this field where it tricks people into believing. People who can benefit from this treatment are people who already believe in an afterlife, and in the possibility of communication. People who don't believe in that sort of superstition should seek modern counseling methods.
You're just blatantly lying, and I'm going to call you on it. Where did I claim special secret knowledge? Very strange to invent details like that. It is like a cross between a strawman and a red herring. A straw herring.
Start over. Toss out your faulty analysis that relied on me claiming secret knowledge. Reread what I wrote, and understand each word literally. Then you can give yourself a chance at understanding.
You claim that "we know that... polygraphs don't [filter out potential... security threats]" but that is a load of horse shit. What we know is that they aren't "lie detectors." If they filter out some classes of security threat by other means is not so clear. You can't get to a conclusion on that just by waving your hands, and you certainly can't start at an "objective" conclusion and then just wave your hands and have it be true. The FBI says it is useful for [things] and we have none of the secret knowledge you talked about. You don't have that secret knowledge, neither do I. We don't have objective information about their results using it, so we can't say either way what the net effects are. Claiming to have that knowledge guarantees being wrong. The only part we know about is that they do catch people trying to cheat on the test. And that willingness to cheat is claimed by the FBI (quite reasonably) to be correlated with a security risk.
If the only utility of the test, ever, is to catch people that would try to cheat on the test, that already would refute your absurdly over-broad claim that there is no utility as a filter of security threats.
Just because there are experts who are idiots, doesn't mean that any experts is non-expert, or an idiot, or can't be trusted to manage their own damn employees. How would a non-expert such as yourself hope to impeach their judgement? You can't, of course. As you point out, their field is shrouded in secrecy; that means you don't know, it doesn't mean they don't know. It means you can't judge what they do effectively. Now, there are lots of legitimate policy opinion responses to that situation. But it doesn't leave you in a position to impeach their judgement about things where the facts are mostly secret. And they're not bumbling morons, regardless of your or my opinion of their polices.
Well, which is it doctor? Am I insane, and you're a bully who picks on the mentally disabled, or am I an idiot and you're a bully who picks on the stupid?
What does it say about you that you make a medical diagnosis of somebody, and then wave it off. Ooops, you were wrong, right genius? Not really very confidence-building regarding the follow-up correction. What led to your mistake, and what changed your conclusion? It seems more likely that you're just full of shit, and being a bully, than that you actually managed to diagnose "stupidity."
And, what I wrote is literally true. There is not anything I said that would be "not possible." (aka impossible) Which part is it that is impossible, Mr Genius?
If you're in Shenzen you can take a walk and pick up all the components you need for your prototype project in the morning and assemble them in the afternoon.
Here in the US we have to order the components from china and it takes weeks to months.
Close, I mean, I order the parts from Texas, where the wholesaler keeps them in a warehouse and manages the "from China" part of that process. So if I don't want to increase shipping costs, it is a 4-5 shipping days wait for parts. It encourages a more design-intensive process. If there were better local parts markets, I could be more prototype-intensive.
Well, just because they lose localized search results doesn't mean another search engine will be successful. It might just mean that their citizens get more generic results, and less links to local businesses.
Ask Spanish publishers how this all works out.
You have a mental problem. Get help. I am serious.
My advice is to consult a qualified mental health professional about this subject before attempting to give "quack doctor" type of advice. If you believe a person has a mental abnormality, but it is not harming them, and you're aggressively advocating that they seek unnecessary "help," well that is anti-social and potentially harmful behavior both for yourself, and your community.
No, that answer is that people with no real content should erect paywalls so they can either fail or not, but without me having to be there. ;)
The answer to the underlying question is that sites without a real product or service don't necessarily deserve revenue just for having a website. If they fail, that is good, because the content created by people passionate enough about the subject to create content on a volunteer basis is higher quality for the type of content that doesn't involve a product or service. Also, there is room for businesses to create content and sell branded merchandise based entirely on the content brand. But I don't see any right for them to make money; it is up to them to make merchandise I would want to buy. I don't use advertising to make purchasing decisions, so it is not helpful even for the thing it does; it is almost entirely parasitic.
I used to read the NYT. When I was a kid, I would read it at the library. I read it for most of my life. And when the internet came, I read it more often. Then they put up a paywall, but excepted incoming links from google, so I kept reading. Eventually, they put google news outside the paywall too, and I learned to click on other sources. If they want to be the standard source of information, they're going to have to provide access, not just to hardcore fans but to everybody participating in the public discourse. If they don't want that, that is fine. I'm not convinced an advertising-supporting site has any better reason to be a default information source than crap behind a paywall.
But if I was a rich, I'd probably spend thousands of dollars a year on Janes subscriptions, because they have interesting content that isn't otherwise available to civilians. So I'm not for or against paywalls; but they do preclude being a default source. And I feel advertising does the same thing, if it is actually required for the site to bother providing the content.
Ultimately as long as there are organizations like the BBC and wikipedia providing quality default data sources that are accessible, then there is no problem from having more or less websites trying to make money. The less of them there are, the higher the signal quality. The more of them there are, the higher the noise. Some people like the noise. Some insist on filtering it. It is all fine. If more people don't like it, good for them. It is natural in that case for the parasites to die back.
I run websites that make no money, and others sell products. If the ones that don't make money had more traffic, then the users would give donations. If they won't support what it is, then they're not getting much value from the service, and maybe it is healthier on both sides if I don't try to pump that traffic up. Same as with real estate; I could let people hang out on the lawn, and depending who they are and why they are there, they might be giving me lots of money for fancy dinners, or just sitting on my lawn drinking BYO beer and pissing in the bushes. Just because people will show up doesn't guarantee there is a good reason to host the event, or a good reason to expect it to generate revenue.
If nobody other than the parties knows what happened... we'll never know
Have you ever heard of "testimony under oath"? This phase is when the truth comes out.
Wow. Just wow. No, that is when the testimony comes out. Truth may or may not come out at all. The purpose of testimony under oath isn't to uncover truth, it is to prepare the jury to decide what the facts are.
The facts of the case might be determined to be against you, even if Truth is on your side, and even if the guy they didn't let testify knows exactly what happened for real reasons. The Truth may or may not "come out" eventually, regardless of who does or doesn't know what happened.
It is just not true that there is an automatic nexus between employee selection, and the way of government doing their job. You don't convince me that you've even identified a problem, much less that you have insight into it.
If your concern was just in their hiring practice, as a hiring practice, I might agree generally with the sentiment, though if it is within their legit discretion then I won't agree it is really a problem. But you don't do that. You wave your hands and jump from bad hiring practice, all the way to "if these agencies are left unchecked" and blah blah blah. It is rather unhinged, and irrational.
As to your conclusion, we're not experts in the End Of The World As We Know It. It has never happened to us, even once. So I don't have to like the FBI to say, they have a better idea of what type of employees can do their work than you do. That's true even if they're a bunch of dangerous assholes. I've been interrogated by the FBI, and by local cops, and I have to say, the FBI guys I've met were all serious professionals of above-average intelligence, with college degrees. Not people I would get along with, sure; probably dangerous assholes, really. But you know what would be even more dangerous? Deciding they're unqualified just because I don't like them, and making policy on that basis. There would be no rights to worry about in that type of insanity.