Well, the average user doesn't get into touch with the file system structure anyway, instead he/she interacts exclusively with his/her home directory. Installing packages is fully transparent, too, as they just unpack into the default location. I don't see a problem at all...
Right, I forgot about all the DMG files that I download for Mac OSX that have the application and an arrow pointing to a symlink to/Applications
Oh wait, that's interacting with the file system structure, not just my home directory. >_ oops.
Haha, true. This is a very fortunate thing. Reading the first paragraph of TFA, I realized that they were describing the same exact thing I felt reading Conservapedia. It's like, funny for 5 minutes, but then it starts getting you depressed, and you start wanting to kill someone, usually the idiot doing it... then you start wanting to kill yourself because you realize that they're all around you.
The thing I keep telling myself is that these are concentrated stories of idiocy, and that the real world isn't composed of nearly the amount of them that I think there is by reading those stories. However, true. That they're going to die someday certainly helps. Here's to Schlafly's eventual death!
Personally, I feel that Linux's file system is even more of a sewer as the Windows file system, and until it takes a major jump up... perhaps it doesn't deserve to be everyone's desktop.
What do Linux filesystems have to do with gaming?
I believe GP is talking about the linux file structure (/usr,/etc,...).
Pretty much what I had to assume to make any sense of it. Especially since there are multiple file systems. I prefer ReiserFS! I don't care that there is little doubt that he had killed his wife... the filesystem is still, to use the words of Peter Griffin, "Freakin' sweet". After all, I accept as a fundamental part of my world view that products of a person's life are not all interconnected. A murderer doesn't _just_ murder. He does other stuff... and if he did a much better job at the other stuff, then why not accept it anyways?
In any case, I definitely agree that the whole/usr/etc etc stuff kind of sucks. Programs should be more self-containing and such... for a good example, see how Mac OSX handles things. Great idea. I understand the superficial benefits from having all your bins in the same directory, however that's just really worth it for CLIs, and stuff... when you're getting into non-command-line interaction... it's way better to have things encapsulated. It's like the difference between OOP and non-OOP... grouping things together doesn't just make so much sense that C programmers already do it anyways... but it also makes things manageable.
God, I must be tired... I'm rambling... Bed time for this girl, good night...
I still think the issue is x86 (windows) compatibility, portable support and never to forget the lack of small time developer support from IBM as the reason of Apple's switch to Intel.
X86 (windows) compatibility had little to do with it. Apple for a long time was trying to get good Desktop and Laptop performance from the PowerPC architecture. The design is just vastly superior to x86 that it's so much easier and cost effective. Unfortunately, because windows has dominated so strongly, and has only really been available for the x86, (the x86-64 is just a carry on upon the x86 design) and so the most money was spent on improving that.
There are really only three ways to do things. Design well upfront and save costs on furthering that design in the future, use something that already exists, and just pump money at it when you need to, and get crazy about design and assume that people will pick up the costs later, because the benefits of doing so will outweigh the costs.
The first is PowerPC, the second is x86, the third is Itanium. Here's the problem, what is already out there is cheap. Throwing money occasionally beats out upfront costs. A good design minimizes later costs, but only if you have the money to throw at it. Lastly, the last one just doesn't work because it's high upfront costs, and high maintenance cost. (The Itanium now goes the way of the chip in this post... to obscurity...)
Apple doesn't have the market share to throw money at things. As a result, they get better benefit by using what is already out there, even though they had already paid for the design. While the PowerPC design is way better fundamentally, the money poured into the x86 has just been ridiculous.
Apple was also completely unsatisfied with the PowerPC producers. Motorola wasn't interested in producing anything but embedded chips. The G4 was totally an embedded chip, that's why Apple laptops when the G4 came out were way better than x86 laptops until Intel and AMD wised up and started making power-efficient chips. It's also why the TiBooks had 5 hours of run time compared to the Intel books at like 2-3 hours at the time.
So, Apple went to IBM to get a Desktop chip. They worked on the G5, finally pushed it out, and it was an awesome chip. It has really good power-per-watt and performance. There's a reason why Apple started transitioning the G4 laptops first. They could get a 4-times speed increase out of moving from the G4 to an Intel chip. The PowerMac however would have only gained a 50% speed boost at the time of the original announcement. Later Intel development pushed this margin up high enough when they switched the desktops, and frankly, no one really cared that much about switching to x86 at that time... it was old news.
So, the reason Apple went to Intel is because other people, like say.... Microsoft... were pouring money into the x86 development that Apple couldn't match. IBM was more concerned about the big iron aspect of the PowerPC, and Motorola more the embedded aspect of it. Apple just couldn't afford to spend the money on the desktop market. I'm happy to see the consoles taking over PowerPC development, and hope that leads to the same selective pressures that the Intel chips have. Maybe Apple might be tempted to return........
Um... like, "like" always comes before "all". So like, it's "but then it would like, all cool down. Like food does when it's like heated. OMG! Maybe it could like, cool too much? Then what if I'm like not hot anymore? That would be like a total bummer!
Like, leave the valley girl talk to the valley girls, k? Cause like, you totally suck at it...
You do realize that the output of a biometric scanner is a data file, right? It can be copied and presented to a machine that expects to be talking to a biometric scanner, but is actually talking to your computer pretending to be a biometric scanner and feeding it the same file.
That's why there's a thing called repudiation in computer security. Here's how it works, first, both the biometric sensor and the receiving program both have a public-private key pair that protects EVERYONE'S information. The biometric sensor sends a private key encrypted message to the computer, the computer decrypts with the public key, then reencrypts with its private key, and the biometric scanner decodes with its public key, and verifies the identity of the receiver. The receiver then does the same thing to verify the biometric sensor. Once they know they can trust each other, use the private key for each to encode messages going to the other.
Of course, this all depends upon the security of the private keys. The device is relatively easy to lock down to keep the private key out of prying eyes (it's easier to hack around DRM hardware than produce the private key a.k.a. go through it.) and the private key of the receiver can easily be managed by having the internet site handle it itself. That way, the receivers public key is never exposed publicly.
Now, in order to sign into the webpage, you have to have a valid biometric sensor with a private key that is known only to the people who handle the biometric sensor... that or you can have each sensor be entirely randomly generated during construction, and tie the verification strictly to only that sensor.
Honestly... the faster way of beating biometric scanners is to just have the webpages ignore the password for you, rather than hacking the sensor... I mean, if you're going to have a law requiring all of them to surrender their passwords, why not just require webpage owners to be able to provide silent concurrent authentication upon production of a wiretap warrant...
State Sen. Cecil Staton, who wrote the bill, said the measure is designed to keep the Internet safe for children.
The Internet isn't safe for children. That's why parents should do their job and know what their kids are doing online not using the government to create a nanny-state.
The WHOLE WORLD isn't safe for children. People need to get out of this Disney fantasy world...
...and you are better off swimming across the Rio Grande in the wrong direction than complying with this. This almost makes the county that makes you live under a bridge look sane by comparison.
Actually, Mexican law is pretty easy on getting into it. From the American border, you just need about 25Â last time I lived 30 mins from the border for college. Even if the price doubled, 50Â to get into the country? What a steal!
i think Iran should be allowed to buy printers. Ink is more expensive than oil and with HP's / Lexmark's, etc. business model, I'd say making them buy ink to print is nearly an act of economic war more effective than the trade embargo itself.
[/humor]
I don't see why it should be such a horrible thing to sell printers to Iran in the first place... ZOMG! IRAN IS GETTING PRINTERS!!!! AH!!! RUN!!! NEXT THEY'LL HAVE THE BOMB!
Some (most? all?) of these trade embargos are just straight up stupid. The idea is like this. We don't like this country doing XY... so we won't sell them anything until they do it the way we like it. So, basically, let's PISS THEM OFF MORE, to get our desired effect? It's like the ultimate in passive-aggressive international policy.
It's like, I could sell printers to people in countries where they are actively committing genocide, but I can't sell printers to people in this other country, because my government doesn't like them? Retarded... seriously...
In 1995, UNSCOM's principal weapons inspector..showed Taha documents...that showed the Iraqi government had just purchased 10 tons of growth medium. Iraq's hospital consumption of growth medium was just 200 kg a year; yet in 1988, Iraq imported 39 tons of it. Shown this evidence by UNSCOM, Taha admitted to the inspectors that she had grown 19,000 litres of botulism toxin; 8,000 litres of anthrax; 2,000 litres of aflatoxins, which can cause liver failure; Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that can cause gas gangrene; and ricin, a castor-bean derivative which can kill by impeding circulation. She also admitted conducting research into cholera, salmonella, foot and mouth disease, and camel pox, a disease that uses the same growth techniques as smallpox, but which is safer for researchers to work with. It was because of the discovery of Taha's work with camel pox that the U.S. and British intelligence services feared Saddam Hussein may have been planning to weaponize the smallpox virus. Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
I seem to recall quite well reading just a few months before the invasion of Iraq that Iraq had (well, at least CLAIMED TO HAVE) destroyed a number of rockets that were designed to carry neurotoxins.
I'm not saying that the story "Iraq has WMDs!" didn't have some merit, as well as likely from the fronting that Iraq was putting forward. However, I still think that the US government intelligence should be better than me at guessing if there are WMDs in a certain country.......
However, my personal morality and ethics doesn't mean that I won't accept that if I were found in possession of marijuana, that I would accept my legal responsibility
If I was to ever get charged with marijuana possession (or charged with any law that contradicts [what I consider to be] morality or human nature) then I would do everything in my power to fight against such laws (like to obtain jury nullification, as what happen with Henry Morgentaler in his successful attempt to decriminalize abortion in Canada; or to try something brute force like having large scale protests of people smoking marijuana in front of police officers). However, in reality, I will not know if my ideals will defeat any forms of pragmatism (I may just psychologically and financially cower to a lowest common denominator "no contest" type of plea. I hope that if any such thing happens, that I would have the courage to remain steadfast).
My morality does not condone immoral laws.
Well said, and I appreciate the comment. However, you do know that Rosa Parks was arrested, right? Civil disobedience still isn't a "get out of hassles free" card. For instance, at a mass smoking of pot, the police could just come in and grab every tenth person randomly and arrest them, instead of arresting everyone. That would likely decimate the demonstrators... *baddumppssssh!*
Fighting against immoral laws means realizing that you WILL be subjected to hassle, arrest, and potentially even conviction. That doesn't mean that the act isn't noble, and I respect your convictions... I, however, am a) too lazy, and b) way too passive.
I've had arguments with my ex-bf about speeding tickets. He would say, "OH! You could totally fight that and win!" and I'm like, "but I was speeding... I really was breaking the law, and I was caught, and I should be a good citizen and accept my responsibility."
It's also the reason why I don't smoke pot... I've tried it a little bit, and my conclusion was, "the high isn't much better than alcohol. alcohol can be done safely. alcohol doesn't carry the risk of arrest all by itself." Weighing the options, my convictions about pot that it shouldn't be illegal (hell, it's WAY safer than alcohol) don't outweigh the known burden that I would have to endure were I to be caught with it.
Everyone makes these risk-analysis (as far as I know). Just in America a lot of people seem to think of the "if no one is looking, then I won't get caught." and "If I get caught, fight it, fight it HARD."
We cannot live in a democracy unless every arrest is accounted for in pubic records.
Freudian slip?
Actually, I recently had issues with my "L" button on my keyboard and so I attempted to correct the situation by cleaning it. Now, I usually don't have it depress half the time when I want to, so I usually end up posting things like "ol" or just "o" sometimes.
Maybe you should, you know, ask the guy on trial if he wants it to be publicized or not, before the end of it? If he wants to use his 6th Amendment rights, then sure; if not, then why should he be forced to screw his life by doing so?
People obtaining a new trial with definitive evidence that they are innocent that will be presented to the jury still have to openly and willfully waive their right of protection against double jeopardy.
The right to a public trial is not a protection for the individual itself, but for the public against the government.
That being said, someone accused of a crime has the right to ask the courts to keep the privacy of the individual if there are extreme circumstances. However, by far and in large, the rights of the people to know and understand what it is that their government is doing should always be paramount, even at the cost of the privacy of an individual.
Wouldn't the father be complicit in the crime by offering them their own tent and generally consenting to their relationship? I wouldn't expect him to be convicted or anything, as it would probably be his and his daughter's word against the guy, and the judge and jury tend to give law enforcement the benefit of any doubt, but based on the story, it seems that he was complicit to me.
I would likely call him complicit. In fact, you might even be able to get him as an accessory to the statutory rape. That's why parents can't provide sexual consent for their children. They might be able to provide marital consent so that the child may make their own marital consent in order to get married, but that's different.
At the very least, the sheriff would be guilty of negligent child abuse, at most an accessory to the statutory rape.
I think the suggestion is that we not publish the names of "alleged" criminals. By all means, people convicted of a crime should have their names brought to public attention.
Right, but the 6th Amendment guarantees a public trial. So, should we step on the rights of people to have it publicly known that they are on trial, so that police can't just secretly prosecute them, or do we follow the same rights of free speech that the requirement that a criminal trial be public is so paramount, that in order to protect those who might be falsely accused, we should remove public scrutiny of the justice system?
Also, "convicted" criminals are not always actually guilty of their crimes... should we protect their identities as well just in case a later court of appeals finds that they were wrongfully convicted?
I don't think that the 21 year old guy did anything wrong but the law is used as a tool of revenge.
I wouldn't really say that he had either. However, people need to understand that there are legal consequences for breaking legal codes. Going "that's not fair" isn't going to get you any sympathy from me.
I'll definitely agree that they shouldn't have been punished, or whatever. I also don't think marijuana should be illegal. However, my personal morality and ethics doesn't mean that I won't accept that if I were found in possession of marijuana, that I would accept my legal responsibility. I knew it was illegal, and choose to accept the possibility of consequences despite.
It's not about the families... it's about public records. The police shouldn't be able to charge and prosecute anyone without it being a public record.
It's kind of guaranteed somewhere in the Constitution... oh yeah, here it is... Amendment 6 (emphasis mine):
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Seriously, do you not think before you speak? The author said not to PUBLISH the information PUBLICLY. You still tell the families of those involved, but beyond that no one needs to know.
But public records need to be released. Especially about every crime, who was arrested, and why. We cannot live in a democracy unless every arrest is accounted for in pubic records.
The question is what the newspapers should do with this, obviously. However, since it's PUBLIC RECORDS, I don't really see a problem with a newspaper publishing that information.
You have no reason to take my advice, especially as an AC, but since you've shared a bit of your history, I'll do the same. I've had several long-term, deeply loving relationships with women, all of whom had been victims of some kind of sexual abuse, including forcible rape, date rape, "minor" child sexual abuse (single incident, no penetration, fondling only), and severe childhood sexual abuse (multiple abusers from age 5 through teen years, including blood relatives, frequent vaginal & oral penetration, cumulative physical damage leading to inability to have children).
According to RAINN One in six women are victims of sexual assault, and you appear to understand this. The statistics against falsely accusing rape are not that overwhelming.
My statement is, when one in six women are sexually assaulted, those charges are more likely to be presumed to be true at first. If it were not the case where one in six women are sexually assaulted, say, more like six in 100,000 for murder, then it would be a situation where presuming it to be true at face value wouldn't make sense.
To put this in perspective, in order to produce the same number of false accusations of sexual assault as actual occurrences of sexual assault, we would need one in six women to falsely accuse a man of sexual assault. To do the same for murder, we would need just six people in 100,000... I think I could find six people in 100,000 willing to falsely accuse someone of murder (or just "mistakenly"). Meanwhile, convincing one out of every six women to falsely accuse someone of sexual assault? I'm sorry, but I think the morals of even our society are too high for that one to be tractable.
So, let me put this into perspective for you. False accusations of rape are horrible, and they are wrong, and if they're done maliciously people need to be held accountable. However, I doubt very much so that one in sex men are falsely accused of rape. I find that HIGHLY unlikely.
Ok, step back a second. I'm not talking about what Megan's state of mind was, or if the boy was or was not fictitious to her. By all accounts of her reactions, she considered him to be real.
There is a difference here. Lori went out of her way to intentionally injure Megan. The purpose right from the start was to injure Megan.
The guy indicated above started off with different motives. He didn't intend to injure her in the first place.
I suppose my question to you is... should it be ok and legal for a person to enter into a relationship with another person solely with the intent of destroying that other person?
Megan did have existing psychological issues of her own, however, Eggshell skull doctrine says that just because your victim was excessively susceptible to your actions that does not excuse you from taking responsibility for the full extent of the damage caused.
If you go to your extreme, if I intentionally gave a peanut butter sandwich to someone allergic to peanuts, then I should have known what I was doing was going to injure that person. At that point, I accept responsibility for ALL injury to that person, even if it results in death, even though "hey, every time before, he just got a puffy face."
I'm not saying that SSRIs aren't helpful to certain people in certain specific situations, just that people need to realize that the SSRI television commercials are a marketing fantasy. While attractive people do attend parties and while beer is consumed at parties, a television commercial that shows some lonely guy crack open a beer and suddenly find himself at a wild party surround by super models is, fundamentally, a marketing fantasy. Similarly, television commercials that show some guy totally turn his life around by taking a few SSRIs are also marketing fantasies.
I would personally go further to say that no medication advertising is reality. All drugs have side-effects, this is known, any time that you're doing something good for the body, you can potentially harm that body.
The lay person in general doesn't have the knowledge necessary to understand what and why the drugs they are taking are important and what the risks are. All drugs have risks.
I think it's more important for doctors to be educated about the risks and uses of the drugs, rather than have the public flooded with advertising for medication. Of course, that was the idea back in the day before Big Pharma got permission to start showing medication ads. Thanks deregulation! One more thing you did good for us.
There's a reason why patent medicine worked for so long... people are wiling to believe a lie because they want it to be true. "Cure all, take it and you'll be cured of everything you have", wow, that's awesome, wow, when I take it, I'm happier!
Big Pharma is just using the patent medicine game to line their pockets anymore...
A good story and a good cautionary tale. As much as I despise homeopathy, they do have something right... generally, giving a drug to someone who doesn't need the treatment will evoke symptoms like those they are intended to prevent. Homeopathy is however after all, much like Alchemy... and early protoscience that was eventually shown to be over all counter-factual. But Alchemists still knew how to make hydrogen, and homeopaths did still know how to make reasonable treatments by diluting otherwise poisonous substances well below the LD50... like botox for example.
One needs to know what the causes are and address those real issues. As you pointed out, you weren't depressed, you were suffering from protein malnutrition (many vegetarians would hate to admit that this exists, healthy vegans know that you have to take supplements). Attempting to treat you for depression with SSRIs in that case is definitely not a good idea. It doesn't matter what drug or condition they were doing... they were treating your condition with a drug for a different condition.
SSRIs however are immensely important to people for whom they are necessary. Even at the risk of higher suicidal chances.
Thanks for the information though, I'll stick that in my SSRIs cause increased risk of suicide file.:)
Actually, I think the Duke lacrosse case is a good demonstration of the fact that false accusations of rape can have serious consequences.
I looked up the case on Wikipedia in order to get a grasp on the facts of the case. First of all, the prosecutor of the crime was permitted by the police to essentially head the investigation, and violated a number of due-process issues.
Honestly, it sounds like the prosecutor and the police are as much at fault for spreading the "guilty before proven innocent" effect that the Lacrosse team members had faced.
Should investigators been doing their job, they would have seen the holes in the woman's story, and that the guys had alibis, and would have shut her down, and nothing would have been in the papers at all.
It was the investigators being careless, wreckless, and most importantly working against due process... that's what caused the pain and suffering of the Duke Lacrosse team, not the false accusation itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the average user doesn't get into touch with the file system structure anyway, instead he/she interacts exclusively with his/her home directory. Installing packages is fully transparent, too, as they just unpack into the default location. I don't see a problem at all...
Right, I forgot about all the DMG files that I download for Mac OSX that have the application and an arrow pointing to a symlink to /Applications
Oh wait, that's interacting with the file system structure, not just my home directory. >_ oops.
In the long run, Everybody Dies.
Haha, true. This is a very fortunate thing. Reading the first paragraph of TFA, I realized that they were describing the same exact thing I felt reading Conservapedia. It's like, funny for 5 minutes, but then it starts getting you depressed, and you start wanting to kill someone, usually the idiot doing it... then you start wanting to kill yourself because you realize that they're all around you.
The thing I keep telling myself is that these are concentrated stories of idiocy, and that the real world isn't composed of nearly the amount of them that I think there is by reading those stories. However, true. That they're going to die someday certainly helps. Here's to Schlafly's eventual death!
Personally, I feel that Linux's file system is even more of a sewer as the Windows file system, and until it takes a major jump up... perhaps it doesn't deserve to be everyone's desktop.
What do Linux filesystems have to do with gaming?
I believe GP is talking about the linux file structure (/usr, /etc, ...).
Pretty much what I had to assume to make any sense of it. Especially since there are multiple file systems. I prefer ReiserFS! I don't care that there is little doubt that he had killed his wife... the filesystem is still, to use the words of Peter Griffin, "Freakin' sweet". After all, I accept as a fundamental part of my world view that products of a person's life are not all interconnected. A murderer doesn't _just_ murder. He does other stuff... and if he did a much better job at the other stuff, then why not accept it anyways?
In any case, I definitely agree that the whole /usr /etc etc stuff kind of sucks. Programs should be more self-containing and such... for a good example, see how Mac OSX handles things. Great idea. I understand the superficial benefits from having all your bins in the same directory, however that's just really worth it for CLIs, and stuff... when you're getting into non-command-line interaction... it's way better to have things encapsulated. It's like the difference between OOP and non-OOP... grouping things together doesn't just make so much sense that C programmers already do it anyways... but it also makes things manageable.
God, I must be tired... I'm rambling... Bed time for this girl, good night...
I still think the issue is x86 (windows) compatibility, portable support and never to forget the lack of small time developer support from IBM as the reason of Apple's switch to Intel.
X86 (windows) compatibility had little to do with it. Apple for a long time was trying to get good Desktop and Laptop performance from the PowerPC architecture. The design is just vastly superior to x86 that it's so much easier and cost effective. Unfortunately, because windows has dominated so strongly, and has only really been available for the x86, (the x86-64 is just a carry on upon the x86 design) and so the most money was spent on improving that.
There are really only three ways to do things. Design well upfront and save costs on furthering that design in the future, use something that already exists, and just pump money at it when you need to, and get crazy about design and assume that people will pick up the costs later, because the benefits of doing so will outweigh the costs.
The first is PowerPC, the second is x86, the third is Itanium. Here's the problem, what is already out there is cheap. Throwing money occasionally beats out upfront costs. A good design minimizes later costs, but only if you have the money to throw at it. Lastly, the last one just doesn't work because it's high upfront costs, and high maintenance cost. (The Itanium now goes the way of the chip in this post... to obscurity...)
Apple doesn't have the market share to throw money at things. As a result, they get better benefit by using what is already out there, even though they had already paid for the design. While the PowerPC design is way better fundamentally, the money poured into the x86 has just been ridiculous.
Apple was also completely unsatisfied with the PowerPC producers. Motorola wasn't interested in producing anything but embedded chips. The G4 was totally an embedded chip, that's why Apple laptops when the G4 came out were way better than x86 laptops until Intel and AMD wised up and started making power-efficient chips. It's also why the TiBooks had 5 hours of run time compared to the Intel books at like 2-3 hours at the time.
So, Apple went to IBM to get a Desktop chip. They worked on the G5, finally pushed it out, and it was an awesome chip. It has really good power-per-watt and performance. There's a reason why Apple started transitioning the G4 laptops first. They could get a 4-times speed increase out of moving from the G4 to an Intel chip. The PowerMac however would have only gained a 50% speed boost at the time of the original announcement. Later Intel development pushed this margin up high enough when they switched the desktops, and frankly, no one really cared that much about switching to x86 at that time... it was old news.
So, the reason Apple went to Intel is because other people, like say.... Microsoft... were pouring money into the x86 development that Apple couldn't match. IBM was more concerned about the big iron aspect of the PowerPC, and Motorola more the embedded aspect of it. Apple just couldn't afford to spend the money on the desktop market. I'm happy to see the consoles taking over PowerPC development, and hope that leads to the same selective pressures that the Intel chips have. Maybe Apple might be tempted to return........
Um... like, "like" always comes before "all". So like, it's "but then it would like, all cool down. Like food does when it's like heated. OMG! Maybe it could like, cool too much? Then what if I'm like not hot anymore? That would be like a total bummer!
Like, leave the valley girl talk to the valley girls, k? Cause like, you totally suck at it...
You do realize that the output of a biometric scanner is a data file, right? It can be copied and presented to a machine that expects to be talking to a biometric scanner, but is actually talking to your computer pretending to be a biometric scanner and feeding it the same file.
That's why there's a thing called repudiation in computer security. Here's how it works, first, both the biometric sensor and the receiving program both have a public-private key pair that protects EVERYONE'S information. The biometric sensor sends a private key encrypted message to the computer, the computer decrypts with the public key, then reencrypts with its private key, and the biometric scanner decodes with its public key, and verifies the identity of the receiver. The receiver then does the same thing to verify the biometric sensor. Once they know they can trust each other, use the private key for each to encode messages going to the other.
Of course, this all depends upon the security of the private keys. The device is relatively easy to lock down to keep the private key out of prying eyes (it's easier to hack around DRM hardware than produce the private key a.k.a. go through it.) and the private key of the receiver can easily be managed by having the internet site handle it itself. That way, the receivers public key is never exposed publicly.
Now, in order to sign into the webpage, you have to have a valid biometric sensor with a private key that is known only to the people who handle the biometric sensor... that or you can have each sensor be entirely randomly generated during construction, and tie the verification strictly to only that sensor.
Honestly... the faster way of beating biometric scanners is to just have the webpages ignore the password for you, rather than hacking the sensor... I mean, if you're going to have a law requiring all of them to surrender their passwords, why not just require webpage owners to be able to provide silent concurrent authentication upon production of a wiretap warrant...
From the article:
The Internet isn't safe for children. That's why parents should do their job and know what their kids are doing online not using the government to create a nanny-state.
The WHOLE WORLD isn't safe for children. People need to get out of this Disney fantasy world...
...and you are better off swimming across the Rio Grande in the wrong direction than complying with this. This almost makes the county that makes you live under a bridge look sane by comparison.
Actually, Mexican law is pretty easy on getting into it. From the American border, you just need about 25Â last time I lived 30 mins from the border for college. Even if the price doubled, 50Â to get into the country? What a steal!
i think Iran should be allowed to buy printers. Ink is more expensive than oil and with HP's / Lexmark's, etc. business model, I'd say making them buy ink to print is nearly an act of economic war more effective than the trade embargo itself.
[/humor]
I don't see why it should be such a horrible thing to sell printers to Iran in the first place... ZOMG! IRAN IS GETTING PRINTERS!!!! AH!!! RUN!!! NEXT THEY'LL HAVE THE BOMB!
Some (most? all?) of these trade embargos are just straight up stupid. The idea is like this. We don't like this country doing XY... so we won't sell them anything until they do it the way we like it. So, basically, let's PISS THEM OFF MORE, to get our desired effect? It's like the ultimate in passive-aggressive international policy.
It's like, I could sell printers to people in countries where they are actively committing genocide, but I can't sell printers to people in this other country, because my government doesn't like them? Retarded... seriously...
Not all of us paid for our own subscriptions...
ACH! Mine stollen ist stolen!!!
In 1995, UNSCOM's principal weapons inspector..showed Taha documents...that showed the Iraqi government had just purchased 10 tons of growth medium. Iraq's hospital consumption of growth medium was just 200 kg a year; yet in 1988, Iraq imported 39 tons of it. Shown this evidence by UNSCOM, Taha admitted to the inspectors that she had grown 19,000 litres of botulism toxin; 8,000 litres of anthrax; 2,000 litres of aflatoxins, which can cause liver failure; Clostridium perfringens, a bacterium that can cause gas gangrene; and ricin, a castor-bean derivative which can kill by impeding circulation. She also admitted conducting research into cholera, salmonella, foot and mouth disease, and camel pox, a disease that uses the same growth techniques as smallpox, but which is safer for researchers to work with. It was because of the discovery of Taha's work with camel pox that the U.S. and British intelligence services feared Saddam Hussein may have been planning to weaponize the smallpox virus. Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
I seem to recall quite well reading just a few months before the invasion of Iraq that Iraq had (well, at least CLAIMED TO HAVE) destroyed a number of rockets that were designed to carry neurotoxins.
I'm not saying that the story "Iraq has WMDs!" didn't have some merit, as well as likely from the fronting that Iraq was putting forward. However, I still think that the US government intelligence should be better than me at guessing if there are WMDs in a certain country.......
However, my personal morality and ethics doesn't mean that I won't accept that if I were found in possession of marijuana, that I would accept my legal responsibility
If I was to ever get charged with marijuana possession (or charged with any law that contradicts [what I consider to be] morality or human nature) then I would do everything in my power to fight against such laws (like to obtain jury nullification, as what happen with Henry Morgentaler in his successful attempt to decriminalize abortion in Canada; or to try something brute force like having large scale protests of people smoking marijuana in front of police officers). However, in reality, I will not know if my ideals will defeat any forms of pragmatism (I may just psychologically and financially cower to a lowest common denominator "no contest" type of plea. I hope that if any such thing happens, that I would have the courage to remain steadfast).
My morality does not condone immoral laws.
Well said, and I appreciate the comment. However, you do know that Rosa Parks was arrested, right? Civil disobedience still isn't a "get out of hassles free" card. For instance, at a mass smoking of pot, the police could just come in and grab every tenth person randomly and arrest them, instead of arresting everyone. That would likely decimate the demonstrators... *baddumppssssh!*
Fighting against immoral laws means realizing that you WILL be subjected to hassle, arrest, and potentially even conviction. That doesn't mean that the act isn't noble, and I respect your convictions... I, however, am a) too lazy, and b) way too passive.
I've had arguments with my ex-bf about speeding tickets. He would say, "OH! You could totally fight that and win!" and I'm like, "but I was speeding... I really was breaking the law, and I was caught, and I should be a good citizen and accept my responsibility."
It's also the reason why I don't smoke pot... I've tried it a little bit, and my conclusion was, "the high isn't much better than alcohol. alcohol can be done safely. alcohol doesn't carry the risk of arrest all by itself." Weighing the options, my convictions about pot that it shouldn't be illegal (hell, it's WAY safer than alcohol) don't outweigh the known burden that I would have to endure were I to be caught with it.
Everyone makes these risk-analysis (as far as I know). Just in America a lot of people seem to think of the "if no one is looking, then I won't get caught." and "If I get caught, fight it, fight it HARD."
We cannot live in a democracy unless every arrest is accounted for in pubic records.
Freudian slip?
Actually, I recently had issues with my "L" button on my keyboard and so I attempted to correct the situation by cleaning it. Now, I usually don't have it depress half the time when I want to, so I usually end up posting things like "ol" or just "o" sometimes.
It does make for a hilarious typo though...
Maybe you should, you know, ask the guy on trial if he wants it to be publicized or not, before the end of it? If he wants to use his 6th Amendment rights, then sure; if not, then why should he be forced to screw his life by doing so?
People obtaining a new trial with definitive evidence that they are innocent that will be presented to the jury still have to openly and willfully waive their right of protection against double jeopardy.
The right to a public trial is not a protection for the individual itself, but for the public against the government.
That being said, someone accused of a crime has the right to ask the courts to keep the privacy of the individual if there are extreme circumstances. However, by far and in large, the rights of the people to know and understand what it is that their government is doing should always be paramount, even at the cost of the privacy of an individual.
Wouldn't the father be complicit in the crime by offering them their own tent and generally consenting to their relationship? I wouldn't expect him to be convicted or anything, as it would probably be his and his daughter's word against the guy, and the judge and jury tend to give law enforcement the benefit of any doubt, but based on the story, it seems that he was complicit to me.
I would likely call him complicit. In fact, you might even be able to get him as an accessory to the statutory rape. That's why parents can't provide sexual consent for their children. They might be able to provide marital consent so that the child may make their own marital consent in order to get married, but that's different.
At the very least, the sheriff would be guilty of negligent child abuse, at most an accessory to the statutory rape.
I think the suggestion is that we not publish the names of "alleged" criminals. By all means, people convicted of a crime should have their names brought to public attention.
Right, but the 6th Amendment guarantees a public trial. So, should we step on the rights of people to have it publicly known that they are on trial, so that police can't just secretly prosecute them, or do we follow the same rights of free speech that the requirement that a criminal trial be public is so paramount, that in order to protect those who might be falsely accused, we should remove public scrutiny of the justice system?
Also, "convicted" criminals are not always actually guilty of their crimes... should we protect their identities as well just in case a later court of appeals finds that they were wrongfully convicted?
I don't think that the 21 year old guy did anything wrong but the law is used as a tool of revenge.
I wouldn't really say that he had either. However, people need to understand that there are legal consequences for breaking legal codes. Going "that's not fair" isn't going to get you any sympathy from me.
I'll definitely agree that they shouldn't have been punished, or whatever. I also don't think marijuana should be illegal. However, my personal morality and ethics doesn't mean that I won't accept that if I were found in possession of marijuana, that I would accept my legal responsibility. I knew it was illegal, and choose to accept the possibility of consequences despite.
It's not about the families... it's about public records. The police shouldn't be able to charge and prosecute anyone without it being a public record.
It's kind of guaranteed somewhere in the Constitution... oh yeah, here it is... Amendment 6 (emphasis mine):
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.
Seriously, do you not think before you speak? The author said not to PUBLISH the information PUBLICLY. You still tell the families of those involved, but beyond that no one needs to know.
But public records need to be released. Especially about every crime, who was arrested, and why. We cannot live in a democracy unless every arrest is accounted for in pubic records.
The question is what the newspapers should do with this, obviously. However, since it's PUBLIC RECORDS, I don't really see a problem with a newspaper publishing that information.
You have no reason to take my advice, especially as an AC, but since you've shared a bit of your history, I'll do the same. I've had several long-term, deeply loving relationships with women, all of whom had been victims of some kind of sexual abuse, including forcible rape, date rape, "minor" child sexual abuse (single incident, no penetration, fondling only), and severe childhood sexual abuse (multiple abusers from age 5 through teen years, including blood relatives, frequent vaginal & oral penetration, cumulative physical damage leading to inability to have children).
According to RAINN One in six women are victims of sexual assault, and you appear to understand this. The statistics against falsely accusing rape are not that overwhelming.
My statement is, when one in six women are sexually assaulted, those charges are more likely to be presumed to be true at first. If it were not the case where one in six women are sexually assaulted, say, more like six in 100,000 for murder, then it would be a situation where presuming it to be true at face value wouldn't make sense.
To put this in perspective, in order to produce the same number of false accusations of sexual assault as actual occurrences of sexual assault, we would need one in six women to falsely accuse a man of sexual assault. To do the same for murder, we would need just six people in 100,000... I think I could find six people in 100,000 willing to falsely accuse someone of murder (or just "mistakenly"). Meanwhile, convincing one out of every six women to falsely accuse someone of sexual assault? I'm sorry, but I think the morals of even our society are too high for that one to be tractable.
So, let me put this into perspective for you. False accusations of rape are horrible, and they are wrong, and if they're done maliciously people need to be held accountable. However, I doubt very much so that one in sex men are falsely accused of rape. I find that HIGHLY unlikely.
Ok, step back a second. I'm not talking about what Megan's state of mind was, or if the boy was or was not fictitious to her. By all accounts of her reactions, she considered him to be real.
There is a difference here. Lori went out of her way to intentionally injure Megan. The purpose right from the start was to injure Megan.
The guy indicated above started off with different motives. He didn't intend to injure her in the first place.
I suppose my question to you is... should it be ok and legal for a person to enter into a relationship with another person solely with the intent of destroying that other person?
Megan did have existing psychological issues of her own, however, Eggshell skull doctrine says that just because your victim was excessively susceptible to your actions that does not excuse you from taking responsibility for the full extent of the damage caused.
If you go to your extreme, if I intentionally gave a peanut butter sandwich to someone allergic to peanuts, then I should have known what I was doing was going to injure that person. At that point, I accept responsibility for ALL injury to that person, even if it results in death, even though "hey, every time before, he just got a puffy face."
I'm not saying that SSRIs aren't helpful to certain people in certain specific situations, just that people need to realize that the SSRI television commercials are a marketing fantasy. While attractive people do attend parties and while beer is consumed at parties, a television commercial that shows some lonely guy crack open a beer and suddenly find himself at a wild party surround by super models is, fundamentally, a marketing fantasy. Similarly, television commercials that show some guy totally turn his life around by taking a few SSRIs are also marketing fantasies.
I would personally go further to say that no medication advertising is reality. All drugs have side-effects, this is known, any time that you're doing something good for the body, you can potentially harm that body.
The lay person in general doesn't have the knowledge necessary to understand what and why the drugs they are taking are important and what the risks are. All drugs have risks.
I think it's more important for doctors to be educated about the risks and uses of the drugs, rather than have the public flooded with advertising for medication. Of course, that was the idea back in the day before Big Pharma got permission to start showing medication ads. Thanks deregulation! One more thing you did good for us.
There's a reason why patent medicine worked for so long... people are wiling to believe a lie because they want it to be true. "Cure all, take it and you'll be cured of everything you have", wow, that's awesome, wow, when I take it, I'm happier!
Big Pharma is just using the patent medicine game to line their pockets anymore...
A good story and a good cautionary tale. As much as I despise homeopathy, they do have something right... generally, giving a drug to someone who doesn't need the treatment will evoke symptoms like those they are intended to prevent. Homeopathy is however after all, much like Alchemy... and early protoscience that was eventually shown to be over all counter-factual. But Alchemists still knew how to make hydrogen, and homeopaths did still know how to make reasonable treatments by diluting otherwise poisonous substances well below the LD50... like botox for example.
One needs to know what the causes are and address those real issues. As you pointed out, you weren't depressed, you were suffering from protein malnutrition (many vegetarians would hate to admit that this exists, healthy vegans know that you have to take supplements). Attempting to treat you for depression with SSRIs in that case is definitely not a good idea. It doesn't matter what drug or condition they were doing... they were treating your condition with a drug for a different condition.
SSRIs however are immensely important to people for whom they are necessary. Even at the risk of higher suicidal chances.
Thanks for the information though, I'll stick that in my SSRIs cause increased risk of suicide file. :)
Actually, I think the Duke lacrosse case is a good demonstration of the fact that false accusations of rape can have serious consequences.
I looked up the case on Wikipedia in order to get a grasp on the facts of the case. First of all, the prosecutor of the crime was permitted by the police to essentially head the investigation, and violated a number of due-process issues.
Honestly, it sounds like the prosecutor and the police are as much at fault for spreading the "guilty before proven innocent" effect that the Lacrosse team members had faced.
Should investigators been doing their job, they would have seen the holes in the woman's story, and that the guys had alibis, and would have shut her down, and nothing would have been in the papers at all.
It was the investigators being careless, wreckless, and most importantly working against due process... that's what caused the pain and suffering of the Duke Lacrosse team, not the false accusation itself.