From TFA:
"For a reason we do not know," child molesters tend to be better educated and to have a higher social status than men who rape adult women, Canovas said in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.
But then:
Suspects detained in Spain have included people from all social classes, ranging from taxi drivers and construction workers to lawyers and physicians.
Canovas tells us pedophiles "tend to be" well-to-do and the article follows by telling us that as far as education and status are concerned, pedophiles seem to be pretty evenly distributed. So which one is it?
The article contians no mention of any research to back up Save the Children's claims. There are estimates of more 30,000 Spaniards traveling abroad to have sex and an estimate of four million "internet zones" that host child pornography. Its just talk to stir up a moral panic in people and make his little club relevant.
So you think having a couple of tech monkies getting paid $50k plus per year to sit around playing solitaire and waiting in case something goes wrong, even though they didn't develop the browser, don't have the source code for the browser, and likely only know as much as the F1 button will tell them, is a better choice?
Exactly. The more pieces of software you install, the more points of failure you have. Its another thing to patch and another security hole waiting to be exploited.
That said, I use Firefox exclusively at work. Once I discovered the mouse gestures add-on, I dropped IE like a bad habit.
Also how people who WERE sexually molested tend to sexually molest other people. So what? Should we put the victims in a database as well and add them to a dozen watch lists? An ounce of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure, right?
With the current system (jail time and some evaluation from a shrink) sexual predators DO repeat offend. Which means our approach is wrong. Sex offenders going through our system are coming out unreformed.
... however should the guys name be in a database yes. Why? Putting sex offenders on display for the general public to see doesn't prevent them from repeat offending. Incarceration is meant to isolate people who are dangerous to society and the database treatment hinders the offender's ability to assimilate. How does this make him less dangerous? If he's still a danger, why is he not in jail?
I think all crimes should be listed in databases. If you have to wonder if your employer is going to look you up and wonder what crimes you committed maybe we will have less stupid dumb asses in the prison system. Yeah I know you can be falsely accused/convicted and that has its own problems throughout the justice system. Everyone gets parking tickets. So many people speed that many states consider speeding tickets a reliable source of income. Maybe half of all marriages end in divorce and that situation brings out the worst in us and, provided you go through the courts, will put your name in public record. Maybe you got caught with a bag of grass when you were a teenager.
Everybody has something to hide, so if we throw enough information about everyone onto a web page anyone can search from anywhere, it will all become moot.
I live in Baltimore. Graffiti is the LEAST of our city's problems and littering is our town pasttime.
Once the weather warms up here, residents in neighborhoods were the cameras are installed will have to listen to the machine saying "don't litter" all summer long because bored kids are going to find the camera's line of sight and throw trash right into it. Or *act* like they're tagging so they can hear "don't graf!". Come August, these will be the new Wii and PS3 for kids who live in zip codes that start with 212.
The citywatch cameras used to catch drug dealers have been very effective at moving drug dealers off busy thru streets and into dark alleys where the cameras can't see. They also have big blue flashing lights on top, some of them shining right into people's windows. The big blue lights now equate to "ghetto" for most Baltimoreans and they're hurting the city's own gentrefication efforts.
They're installing these cameras because they'll pay for themselves and then some. Hitting people with small fines for littering just racks up cash for the city. Funny, because they had a budget surplus last year (and yet our schools still suck). Constantly fining people only erodes the police department's relationship with the public in a city that already has a bad witness intimidation problem.
Looking back at my past employers, it's entirely possible to run your business in such a way that nobody wants to work for you. Treat your developers like trash, periodically fire some of them to keep the remaining ones on their toes and see what happens.
IT people are gossipy. When amongst ourselves, we'll talk about work and swap war stories about who screwed us. There are a few places in this town where I wouldn't work for $100k/year because why bother even learning their database system if you're just going to get canned in five months? I can think of a couple companies in my town who went under because their reputation and turnover rates were so bad that they'd post to careerbuilder every day and hear nothing back. They went out of business because no engineers means no product means no money means move on.
Unfortunately most people blow it when they build their house and nearly all commercial home builders blow it too; orienting your house in the proper direction and building overhangs and windows to match one another so that you get sun in the winter and not in the summer is one of the most important steps
Nail on the head. The most energy efficent houses were built before air conditioning and even electricity. I have a skylight that keeps the upstairs nice and warm during the day in the winter. In the summer, I get a great crossbreeze and only really need a/c for a couple weeks in August.
I can't recommend a wood or pellet stove enough. We all know they produce heat and cut energy costs, but having a 1500 degree heat source in the winter is addictive. If you get cold, stand close to the stove for about twenty seconds and you're warm again.
I assume Citi is testing thumbprint ATMs on unbanked and lower income people because the fallout should be more managable if the technology failed. Sounds like a nice test market where you don't have to worry about losing loyal customers with $10k in the bank.
I live in Baltimore. Crime and urban decay exist in every city, but here its on another level. Our population is around 600k and our murders have been in the upper 200s for decades.
A couple years ago, the city put up cameras to watch notoriously bad drug corners and blocks. And I have to admit we've seen results. The police were able to get to know the faces of the dealers without risking lives using undercover agents. I'll admit these cameras disturbed me at first until a lawyer explained that on a city street I have no reasonable expectation of privacy. I'll walk from my shower to my bedroom in a towel, but I'll put some clothes on before I go to the corner store.
I think the cameras worked well against drug dealers because they tend to stay put. Pushers stake out a block or two hang around there. But I question the UK's logic in using a camera/voice tone recgonition system for fights and "anti-social behavior". Most street fights are prefaced by five minutes of arguing and the fight lasts about three. UFC fighters train religiously for months on end to fight for fifteen minutes. By the time the police receive the dispatch and head to the scene of the fight, it will be over.
If your city has criminals committing the same crime in the same place for months on end, nothing beats cameras. I don't think it will be effective in stopping fights. Keep in mind that NOTHING scares criminals and comforts honest citizens like a cops walking a beat.
Stem cell research? You can get stem cells from lots of places. Umbilical cords and, oh yeah, aborted fetuses. Of course, the religious right doesn't take kindly to stem cells. W ain't funding it. How are the Chinese doing on this one?
Impending fuel crisis? We sure are addicted to oil in this country. We all seemed really into converting our cars to run on booze for a while, but then gas prices dipped down to $2.75 a gallon and we dropped that fad like a bad habit. What's up with that, slashdot? Any good articles about alternatives to fossil fuels?
Oh, wait, what's this? A NEW way to buy movies? Wow. Used to be you had to go to get off your ass and go to Blockbuster, then those Netflix boys started sending 'em to ya in the mail and damn was that convienent. It was easier to rent a movie than get up to use the can. I saw a RedBox in a McDonalds the other day. You can order three big macs and use the change to get a DVD!
Gotta go get in the Esclade and pick up Kyle and Rylee's Ritalin, then clean the McMansion...
Wait.... Facebook let high school students join? Excuse me? Thats why we had Myspace and if you didn't want to participate in 16 year olds breaking new ground in sexual harassment, you could join Facebook. Facebook fell on its own sword by its own damn self.
Why are they trying to become Myspace? Sure, they'll have more users and make more money off banner ads that way, but then they gotta put up with Myspace-like problems. When a rich white girl disappears, you'll see a few minutes on Fox News about the alleged piss poor moral credit score of Myspace (if not outright bankruptcy!). Facebook was the golden boy if it was ever mentioned.
So they flip off our entire userbase and hope that myspace's millions of users will want to create ANOTHER profile and REBUILD their network of friends for no good reason at all!
And in case myspace and facebook (or their sponsors) haven't woken up and smelled the coffee, social networking is over with. This is no longer a new frontier, revolutionary idea, or any better of marketing scheme/data mine than it was two years ago. Users' social networks are firmly in place, most myspace profiles are blank or ridicuously oblique and ultimately uninviting. Tila Tequila and Christine Dolce got their Maxim shoots or makeup deals or whatever. It's over.
I managed a team of three women on one of my little contracts.
I learned that their modes of communication are vastly different from mine. They don't see the world the same way as I do. At the same time, some confuse sensetivity to this as a preferential treatment or form of discrimination. Some find talking to men to be very easy and I don't mean that in a sexual way. Some are quite intimidated by us and making a little chit chat with them before dropping that big bomb of a technical question can make the conversation more productive. Some are just mean and maybe its not all my fault, personally. I know plenty of men who are assholes, so why not?
But I can tell you this: Should you be so fortunate as to have a woman on your team, set yourself an outlook reminder for her birthday right now. If you don't know what her birthday is, talk to someone in HR about it. She loves cards. I can't promise that flowers from you personally won't cross the line, but a little something from the whole team can't hurt.
Oh, and: Don't leave dishes in the sink in the break room. Especially after a party. I just have a gut feeling that this is a bad idea on par with "rm -f/" as far as having female co-workers is concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
"For a reason we do not know," child molesters tend to be better educated and to have a higher social status than men who rape adult women, Canovas said in a telephone interview with Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa.
But then:
Suspects detained in Spain have included people from all social classes, ranging from taxi drivers and construction workers to lawyers and physicians.
Canovas tells us pedophiles "tend to be" well-to-do and the article follows by telling us that as far as education and status are concerned, pedophiles seem to be pretty evenly distributed. So which one is it?
The article contians no mention of any research to back up Save the Children's claims. There are estimates of more 30,000 Spaniards traveling abroad to have sex and an estimate of four million "internet zones" that host child pornography. Its just talk to stir up a moral panic in people and make his little club relevant.
Exactly. The more pieces of software you install, the more points of failure you have. Its another thing to patch and another security hole waiting to be exploited.
That said, I use Firefox exclusively at work. Once I discovered the mouse gestures add-on, I dropped IE like a bad habit.
"Drink more Ovaltine"
... however should the guys name be in a database yes. Why? Putting sex offenders on display for the general public to see doesn't prevent them from repeat offending. Incarceration is meant to isolate people who are dangerous to society and the database treatment hinders the offender's ability to assimilate. How does this make him less dangerous? If he's still a danger, why is he not in jail? I think all crimes should be listed in databases. If you have to wonder if your employer is going to look you up and wonder what crimes you committed maybe we will have less stupid dumb asses in the prison system. Yeah I know you can be falsely accused/convicted and that has its own problems throughout the justice system. Everyone gets parking tickets. So many people speed that many states consider speeding tickets a reliable source of income. Maybe half of all marriages end in divorce and that situation brings out the worst in us and, provided you go through the courts, will put your name in public record. Maybe you got caught with a bag of grass when you were a teenager. Everybody has something to hide, so if we throw enough information about everyone onto a web page anyone can search from anywhere, it will all become moot.Maryland is way ahead of you:
http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/inquiry/inquiry-index.jsp
No.
Since their image is so dismal, I guess it's not the Halliburton way to get caught up in what the public thinks.
I live in Baltimore. Graffiti is the LEAST of our city's problems and littering is our town pasttime.
Once the weather warms up here, residents in neighborhoods were the cameras are installed will have to listen to the machine saying "don't litter" all summer long because bored kids are going to find the camera's line of sight and throw trash right into it. Or *act* like they're tagging so they can hear "don't graf!". Come August, these will be the new Wii and PS3 for kids who live in zip codes that start with 212.
The citywatch cameras used to catch drug dealers have been very effective at moving drug dealers off busy thru streets and into dark alleys where the cameras can't see. They also have big blue flashing lights on top, some of them shining right into people's windows. The big blue lights now equate to "ghetto" for most Baltimoreans and they're hurting the city's own gentrefication efforts.
They're installing these cameras because they'll pay for themselves and then some. Hitting people with small fines for littering just racks up cash for the city. Funny, because they had a budget surplus last year (and yet our schools still suck). Constantly fining people only erodes the police department's relationship with the public in a city that already has a bad witness intimidation problem.
But we'll have less trash in the street!
Looking back at my past employers, it's entirely possible to run your business in such a way that nobody wants to work for you. Treat your developers like trash, periodically fire some of them to keep the remaining ones on their toes and see what happens.
IT people are gossipy. When amongst ourselves, we'll talk about work and swap war stories about who screwed us. There are a few places in this town where I wouldn't work for $100k/year because why bother even learning their database system if you're just going to get canned in five months? I can think of a couple companies in my town who went under because their reputation and turnover rates were so bad that they'd post to careerbuilder every day and hear nothing back. They went out of business because no engineers means no product means no money means move on.
Either you drink the kool-aid or die of dehydration.
Nail on the head. The most energy efficent houses were built before air conditioning and even electricity. I have a skylight that keeps the upstairs nice and warm during the day in the winter. In the summer, I get a great crossbreeze and only really need a/c for a couple weeks in August.
I can't recommend a wood or pellet stove enough. We all know they produce heat and cut energy costs, but having a 1500 degree heat source in the winter is addictive. If you get cold, stand close to the stove for about twenty seconds and you're warm again.
I assume Citi is testing thumbprint ATMs on unbanked and lower income people because the fallout should be more managable if the technology failed. Sounds like a nice test market where you don't have to worry about losing loyal customers with $10k in the bank.
d svpunbanked.html
But why India? There are 56 million unbanked people in the US:
http://www.forbes.com/business/2005/02/23/0223fin
I live in Baltimore. Crime and urban decay exist in every city, but here its on another level. Our population is around 600k and our murders have been in the upper 200s for decades.
A couple years ago, the city put up cameras to watch notoriously bad drug corners and blocks. And I have to admit we've seen results. The police were able to get to know the faces of the dealers without risking lives using undercover agents. I'll admit these cameras disturbed me at first until a lawyer explained that on a city street I have no reasonable expectation of privacy. I'll walk from my shower to my bedroom in a towel, but I'll put some clothes on before I go to the corner store.
I think the cameras worked well against drug dealers because they tend to stay put. Pushers stake out a block or two hang around there. But I question the UK's logic in using a camera/voice tone recgonition system for fights and "anti-social behavior". Most street fights are prefaced by five minutes of arguing and the fight lasts about three. UFC fighters train religiously for months on end to fight for fifteen minutes. By the time the police receive the dispatch and head to the scene of the fight, it will be over.
If your city has criminals committing the same crime in the same place for months on end, nothing beats cameras. I don't think it will be effective in stopping fights. Keep in mind that NOTHING scares criminals and comforts honest citizens like a cops walking a beat.
Stem cell research? You can get stem cells from lots of places. Umbilical cords and, oh yeah, aborted fetuses. Of course, the religious right doesn't take kindly to stem cells. W ain't funding it. How are the Chinese doing on this one?
Impending fuel crisis? We sure are addicted to oil in this country. We all seemed really into converting our cars to run on booze for a while, but then gas prices dipped down to $2.75 a gallon and we dropped that fad like a bad habit. What's up with that, slashdot? Any good articles about alternatives to fossil fuels?
Oh, wait, what's this? A NEW way to buy movies? Wow. Used to be you had to go to get off your ass and go to Blockbuster, then those Netflix boys started sending 'em to ya in the mail and damn was that convienent. It was easier to rent a movie than get up to use the can. I saw a RedBox in a McDonalds the other day. You can order three big macs and use the change to get a DVD!
Gotta go get in the Esclade and pick up Kyle and Rylee's Ritalin, then clean the McMansion...
Wait.... Facebook let high school students join? Excuse me? Thats why we had Myspace and if you didn't want to participate in 16 year olds breaking new ground in sexual harassment, you could join Facebook. Facebook fell on its own sword by its own damn self.
Why are they trying to become Myspace? Sure, they'll have more users and make more money off banner ads that way, but then they gotta put up with Myspace-like problems. When a rich white girl disappears, you'll see a few minutes on Fox News about the alleged piss poor moral credit score of Myspace (if not outright bankruptcy!). Facebook was the golden boy if it was ever mentioned.
So they flip off our entire userbase and hope that myspace's millions of users will want to create ANOTHER profile and REBUILD their network of friends for no good reason at all!
And in case myspace and facebook (or their sponsors) haven't woken up and smelled the coffee, social networking is over with. This is no longer a new frontier, revolutionary idea, or any better of marketing scheme/data mine than it was two years ago. Users' social networks are firmly in place, most myspace profiles are blank or ridicuously oblique and ultimately uninviting. Tila Tequila and Christine Dolce got their Maxim shoots or makeup deals or whatever. It's over.
*drops microphone*
I managed a team of three women on one of my little contracts. I learned that their modes of communication are vastly different from mine. They don't see the world the same way as I do. At the same time, some confuse sensetivity to this as a preferential treatment or form of discrimination. Some find talking to men to be very easy and I don't mean that in a sexual way. Some are quite intimidated by us and making a little chit chat with them before dropping that big bomb of a technical question can make the conversation more productive. Some are just mean and maybe its not all my fault, personally. I know plenty of men who are assholes, so why not? But I can tell you this: Should you be so fortunate as to have a woman on your team, set yourself an outlook reminder for her birthday right now. If you don't know what her birthday is, talk to someone in HR about it. She loves cards. I can't promise that flowers from you personally won't cross the line, but a little something from the whole team can't hurt. Oh, and: Don't leave dishes in the sink in the break room. Especially after a party. I just have a gut feeling that this is a bad idea on par with "rm -f /" as far as having female co-workers is concerned.