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Dude.. Just so you know, that's exactly how your system works too. The most common visa for this sort of thing, the H1B, requires the applicant to have a US employer who is willing to sponsor the visa, needs to have a skill set that requires at least a bachelor's degree, the company needs to show that they tried hiring an American first AND there are annual caps. Talk about easy!
Then there's the diversity visa lottery of course which doesn't have any restrictions, but those 50'000 people a year really don't make a difference.
If you're an expert at science with tons of experience, you can get a visa even without a job offer. If you're really rich you can invest half a million dollars or so in areas where the US needs it most to get a visa. Then there's inter-company transfers (needs high skill set too), internship visa (limited to one year) and study visa (usually can not work and must leave the country afterwards). All the rest is standard stuff like marriage etc. |
Comcast cut all analog channels from their plant a few years ago, similar to how over the air broadcast TV made the transition from analog to digital. In the same frequency space that 1 analog channel could be carried, 12 digital SD or 3 digital HD channels can be carried instead. This freed up space for more HD channels and faster internet speeds (docsis 3.0)
What this means is since these digital channels are also being encrypted, to receive any television you will need some kind of box. Most people have a regular STB that is often a DVR on their main TV, but it used to be common to have a old crappy 13" analog TV hooked directly to coax receiving analog TV.
That is not possible anymore once analog was cut off and these DTA boxes convert the digital signal back to analog for second/third outlets with older crappy TVs. |
I HATE the music sales industry. I knew this would happen.
the file -sharing became popularized because the old-heads in the industry were to not able/willing to modernize their industry..
CDs were a Fad. I was shocked that the industry thought charging $20 was still cool in the 2000s (considering lots of people had Cd burners and 100 spools of blank disks)...
Spotify and their cohorts took an industry from the hands of jurassic complacent fogies.. and industry leaders switching places is natural... just the cd industry went down crying like bitches.. |
fisker is entirely style over substance.
just look at the engineering behind it. I mean the basic engineering. Tesla was committed to engineering a good car. Fisker has yet to be crash tested and i'm almost certain it hasn't been wind tunnel tested. the Karma does not look aerodynamic at all.
Second, it's simply not competitive. it exists for the styling, and styling only.
this >$100k "sports car" has a 0-60 of 6 seconds. That's about as sporty as a Toyota Camry. Tesla made a >$100k sports car, too. Except it was competitive with existing cars in that price range.
Now Tesla's made a $70k sport sedan. And guess what? It's competitive with other $70k sport sedans. The electric drivetrain, tesla rightly knows, is a feature of the car, not some kind of branding that automatically makes people willing to pay double what a car's normally worth. |
Facebook and Google/YouTube feel very intrusive and I avoid them or block objects and try to anonymize my client.
Go ahead, start searching for wedding-related stuff and find out what starts arriving in your real-world mailbox. (Great, I just added more to their database with that simple statement.) |
back in the days when I was on 9gag (I didnt knew about all this stuff going on mkay?) I saw a post where they wanted to ddos reddit and 4chan and the comments were full of questions how to do this. |
Ok, I'm going to preface this by saying the following: I work in computer security, and used to be a developer, so I know a thing or two about crypto in secure software - I've had experience designing cryptosystems, implementing crypto in applications, analysing schemes, and breaking them. However, I am not a cryptographer. If you want to talk to a cryptographer, I suggest going over to Crypto StackExchange and having a chat with people there.
Anyway, the strongest link in the chain is cryptography. The weakest link is people.
As an example, when you create a connection via SSL, several things happen:
You request a certificate from the site. It gives that certificate to you. The certificate contains a public key which you can use to send secret messages to the server. Only the holder of the corresponding private key can decrypt these messages, but anyone with the corresponding public key can encrypt messages.
You check which certificate authority (CA) the certificate was signed by. This is a record in the certificate.
You verify that the certificate is signed by an authority that your browser trusts. Your browser has CA certificates installed in it when you install it. These CAs are people like GlobalSign, VeriSign, Thawte, etc. These certificates have a public key in them that allows you to verify a signature created by the corresponding private key . The idea is that the certificate authority signs with the private key, and anyone can verify that signature with the public key, but they can't use that public key to forge signatures themselves.
The verification process involves computing a cryptographic hash (e.g. SHA-1) of the certificate data, and checking that the hash matches the signature provided by the CA. The signature is generated by an asymmetric cipher such as RSA.
If the CA signature is valid, you then verify that the name in the certificate matches the entity you're communicating with. In this case, you're verifying that the name matches the domain name (e.g. reddit.com) that you're trying to talk to. If it doesn't match, it's invalid.
Other checks, including valid from / expiry dates, are performed.
If all is well, you can now agree upon a cipher suite. This cipher suite describes which mechanisms are used for key exchange, entity authenticity, bulk data confidentiality, and message authenticity. For example, DHE-RSA-AES128-CBC-SHA1 uses Diffie-Hellman Ephemeral for key exchange, RSA for entity authenticity (i.e. the type of signature used in the certificates), AES-128 in Cipher Block Chaining mode for encrypting the actual conversation data, and HMAC-SHA1 for verifying that each message sent was authentic.
All of this seems pretty complex, but it's not that hard to understand once you work out what the overall flow is. Your browser trusts the SSL certificate that the server hands to you because that certificate is signed by a CA that your browser trusts. Your browser accepts the certificate because it matches the domain name you're trying to talk to. From there, you have a shared key pair (public and private keys for the specific server you're talking to) that you can use to generate and share a session key, which is then used to encrypt the conversation.
You can't generate your own certificate and pretend to be the server, because you can't get the CA to sign it, and therefore the certificate will be invalid because it has no signature. You can't just alter the existing certificate, because it'll invalidate the signature. You can't modify messages, because they're authenticity checked against the shared key. You can't sniff the shared key off the wire, because secure key exchange is used. You can't work out the secret key exchange primitives, because they're rendered secure by the public key in the certificate. You can't read the data because you can't break AES.
Nice and secure!
The weak link is the CA. If you can get the CA's private key, you can issue your own certificates for any site you like. If you can get into the connection, you can perform a man-in-the-middle attack where you pretend to be the real server, and proxy the traffic across to the real server whilst decrypting it in the middle. This isn't a risk in 99% of cases, because CAs protect their certificates, and it's difficult to get a man-in-the-middle condition without being on the local network of the user or server. However, if you're a government, you can force the CAs to give you their private keys, and hold them to secrecy under whatever secrets act(s) you have at your disposal. At that point, you can actively inject faked SSL certificates into connections and read their contents, without the user being any the wiser, all without having to break a single bit of cryptography. |
Is this a valid form of protest? Just one day everyone just torched the computers looking for this shit and wreck their filters.
There are quite a few things that worry me about this. First and the most scary is my apathy. I'm tired of caring. I'm tired of keeping myself informed and when you try and have a conversation about this and you actually find someone that actually has voted in more elections than they have voted for the American Idol the conversations quickly devolve into culture war issues or things that simply don't matter. You can't have a cordial disagreement about governance anymore because now people can consider opinions as facts, if your ideas evolve you are a flip flopper, and a political party is now a type of sports team where it is us vs them. In the past decade in the US we have seen asset seizures for simply being suspected of drug trafficking, indefinite detention, summary executions, warrantless wiretapping, jailing journalists for reporting government secrets, suspension of Habeus corpus, people being jailed for debts, a justice system that literally cannot function without institutionalized extortion, a supreme court justice that believes that it is not unconstitutional to execute someone who has had a trial but later found to be actually undeniably innocent, elections that are literally bought, corporations are given personhood and therefore constitutional rights, elected officials placed in office merely to serve corporate interests, farmers sued out of existence because they replant beans from last years crop. All of this is allowed to go on and when those who speak out are marginalized time and time again eventually one June day we find out that the government is listening to every single one of our calls we sit at a computer and impotently bitch on a stupid website so somebody someday who is wondering how a country that was founded on liberty and freedom and defeated authoritarian Communism turned into an authoritarian neo-feudalistic police state in a constant state of war where people can die cause they can't afford health care in less than a lifetime.
The next thing that scares me is bears. |
Not just planned. Coded. Completely coded. They had to have already had access to the complete source, the documentation, etc. and been working on it for at least months. As a software engineering manager for a mid-sized corporation, I can tell you there is absolutely no way in hell they could have just bought the company and managed to release a major change to the software within a month. When a company is acquired, it generally takes several months just to get an accurate inventory of the applications they support. Then it takes months more to dispell all the assumptions that you originally had about how the software products worked together. During this time, you lose several of the engineering staff because they don't like their new corporate overlords, or they owned stock, and cashed out. Nothing is actually accomplished during this time except, possibly, what was already underway months before. Only after 6-9 months of this transitional period do you start to make new changes of any significance. |
American here, don't care. Sorry guys I know this fucks freedom but I just don't care. If anything I was sure surveillance was happening since I was at the age 0f 5. It reminds me of the time I asked my highschool politics teacher if he thought the government was listening to out phone calls(he was a cool teacher) and he replies "Well Buddha, I would tell you but then I would have to kill you". Before I graduated I put that quote he said on a photoshopped cover of the black ops cover with his head on it. |
Skype story time:
I had Skype and never used it. I had auto updates off. When I was trying to solve some connection problems I discovered it was auto updating. It wasn't running and had not been run in weeks and had turned auto updates on, on it's own. So I deleted Skype.
Months later I needed Skype for something. I downloaded a new copy and set it up. I made absolute 100% damn sure auto updates were off. Months pass without it being used again. The day after the NSA story made a big splash I discover Skype running a hidden process again. It had auto updates on, and was auto updating again. I'm certain that it changed it's own settings without user input. |
Lets put things into perspective. The NSA doesn't care about you. I agree that it is disturbing that they could - but in reality - they do not give one shit about you or your porn.
While there are many things in this world that are scary - the internet should be the least of your concerns. You should be more worried about every ATM that you walk by. They all have cameras that are much more likely to be monitored.
The thing that seems to be lacking from /every/ single argument is capacity. Let us assume that most interconnect links on the internet are 10 Gig links. I can promise most of them are much bigger. But at 10 Gbps and at 1/2 max capacity a 10 gig link could fill a 1TB drive will be full in all of about ..... oh under 27 minutes. I realize that 1 TB isn't much, but neither is a 10 gig link when you are talking about companies like Level 3, AT&T and other T1 providers.
40 Gig links are ohhh so five years ago and 500 Gig links are tomorrow.
Right now most larger providers are using 100 gig links and are looking at future hardware from Cisco & Juniper for 500 gig and 1 TB links.
So you fill a harddrive in a matter of minutes - assuming that the motherboard could sustain that kind of throughput. Which it can't.
Next problem is where are the cops going to place their magical "Tap" A vampire tap was an option back in the old days. Not in the world of glass. If you break fiber - it breaks. Doesn't work. End of story.
So our next option is setting up a tap on every router, on every port on the internet. So you then decrease the bandwidth of every router on the internet by 1/2. I can promise you that isn't happening.
On a Cisco 7609 you can run 8 linecards and one supervisor card. On those 8 linecards you are limited to a max of 40 gigabits per card. 8x40 puts you at about 320 Gbps. Not bad.
You can step up to a Cisco CRS3 with a 16 slot chassis and 140 Gbps per slot, so now you are pushing 2.25 Tbps per chassis. If you delve into the next realm and make it a multi-chassis, the sky is almost the limit. Ok, your HVAC & power bill will probably break first. 70+ racks is not really sustainable in one building. Well it is - but an an insane pain in the ass.
Do you really think that L3, AT&T, Comcast & Deutsche Telekom really have racks and racks of hard drives lined up to capture your pervy e-mails, text messages and downloads?
I would be more concerned with the behavior of your local police department, school system and a myriad of other things before you panic about your Japanese schoolgirl fetish.
Edit: |
The most upsetting thing about this whole situation is the governments complete recklessness and lack of foresight when it comes to the internet. The internet is only 20 years old and is potentially perhaps the single greatest invention in the history of mankind; right now though use of the internet one has the potential to essentially know about anything that has ever happened and communicate with anyone with a connection. What happens once humans and the internet converge and now everyone can know everything, there would be an infinite amount of progress with a finite amount of time to keep up, also with each successive new technology/information it would contribute to the collective body of information as a whole (so now everything person A learns, the other 8 billion people also learn instantaneously.) With this ability in the near future (centuries) our species would be millenniums ahead as opposed to not using the internet; it is absolutely unfathomable the technology that could be created.
That is what could happen and that is what should happen, but if we allow the short-sighted government control over this magnificent power the future could be very different and we could inadvertently destroy our greatest creation. The government will allow corporate interests to be involved also they will more than likely never allow civilization access to this amazing technology; why would they, it would make the people too powerful.
In my opinion this issue should be the most important issue in the world right now; the government giving itself power to control the internet today means that it will also have the power to control the internet in the future, and to be quite frank our fucking governments suck complete dick. We need to stop being so obsessed and focused on today and start planning and trying to better tomorrow. |
The only way to stop this is for citizens to elect officials who pledge to end it. When your elected officials are up for reelection, vote them out. Put in new, right-minded people who will ensure our privacy AND our security, not one over the other. If you like the party that's running things in your area and don't want to put another party in power, then seek out new candidates from that party to do the right thing. Become active in your community. That's how you find those candidates. The quasi-anarchic vibe of the protest culture can feel romantic and empowering, but the truth is, no amount of protest will end this problem with the current officeholders in place. They're too entrenched and beholden to certain interests to change their ways. |
It's not that simple - people are complicated, and lots of people are exponentially more complicated. The following are some facts, some of which are related, but are always conflated by folks like the other commenters:
1) Corporations are there to make money. Don't fault them for that - it's their raison d'etre. And good luck to them! However, because they are amoral entities (amoral, not immoral.. think "true neutral" in D&D terms) they will take advantage of any and all opportunities to further their financial interests. And when I say "they" I'm talking about a transient group of people, not actual individuals, sitting around a fire with cigars talking about how best to rule the world. Corporations are more like sports teams. The Chicago Bulls from 1999 are not the same Bulls today. Similarly, while it's always called PepsiCo, the players aren't always the same from year to year.
Anyway, because of the laws and climate in Washington, these organizations have lots of lobbying dollars as well as having some select politicians in their pockets - depending on the industry. So that's thing 1.
2) Many politicians are just out for their own business interests... one example are those who have businesses and investments in military contracting. They used 9-11 to write themselves a blank check, called the Patriot Act. At least one of those jokers just happen to have been second in command of the executive branch for eight years. Which leads us to:
3) The NSA is a military organization, and is not in the domain of most of those politicians - but rather the executive branch. You can thank the Bush administration and Cheney's business interests for ramping that up, and Obama for not dismantling it ASAP.
4) So now we come full circle - when the United States military and the highest members of the Executive branch go to a corporation and say "You must do X, for National Security", then they must do X in order to stay in business. They have no recourse, mostly because of the Patriot Act. So even if they think it'll hurt their bottom line, which in many cases it will, they still have to comply. Many of them will no doubt try to have their pet politicians in Washington make exceptions for them -- except they are not supposed to know about it. The second anyone mentions it on the House Floor, the secrecy has been breached and someone's head will roll. Hence, whistleblowers are the only way. |
What's to stop them from lying to placate you? And I mean this of anybody (Rep, Dem, or otherwise). No matter how virtuous you may think a candidate is, they have no obligation to keep any promises they made once they are elected.
>It's about forcing them to talk about the issues in the way you want or not showing up to vote for them.
Do you honestly think they care? A movement like this will never get big enough until situations are truly dire (which they really aren't). Until then, talking points (no matter what they are or the force behind them) are empty unless followed by a tangible outcome. In 2008, one of Obama's platforms was closing Gitmo within the first year of his presidency. Five years later, guess what military prison is still open with no sign of closing anytime soon. |
Oh please. Representative of who? Half our fucking countrymen don't even fucking vote. Much less than that vote for their reps. We have one of the lowest voter turnout rates of the western nations. I would bet that a high percentage of people have no idea who their reps are or even have a good grasp on how the government is structured. |
The company likes to say they're on par with Nvidia's GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics chip, and while we can't definitively test that claim,
[fortunately there are websites who do that for a living.]( |
I take solace in that you're so inept that you just grouped me in with an argument I'm not actually making because you smelled something similar to a position you disagree with. But you know, if your reading comprehension is that low, it unburdens me with having to respond since you won't get it anyways. |
But, there is nothing to make but an ethical argument. Laws are practical implications of morals. Where is the argument that we need to change laws regarding music piracy just because it is popular (and at that, no statistics in your original argument—and at a later point, 70% of 18 - 29 year olds. But, you know, that's really, really far from being "nearly everyone")?
Your argument is that it is obvious we need to change laws regarding music piracy because it is popular. First, this does not follow. Why is it obvious? You don't tell us. Second, why does mere popularity necessitate this?
Where is the pragmatic argument? There are legitimate arguments to be made here, that current civil laws ruin people's lives for sharing a few songs. But that is not an obvious argument, and it has fuck all to do with popularity.
Where is the moral argument? You seem to be implying one here, because you fall back onto popularity, which first brings to mind the idea that it is being endorsed by a large amount of people and thus "good."
And, there is no such thing as an argument divorced from ethics, anyway. The legal system in most of the West is based on some sort of balance between individual liberty and the common good. We define good through ethical philosophy, which does take the real world/pragmatics into account.
Your argument needs to show why doing something comes closer to achieving the good than what we're currently doing, regarding ethical philosophy. |
I'm not implying a morality, which is why I'm being short and irritated. Music piracy is immoral. You're grouping my statements with a whole area of thought that I don't subscribe to because of the thoughts you assume go along with my statement, and the extra things you think my argument implies.
To engage the part that you actually interpreting close to the meaning - a law that everyone ignores needs to change because it is either ineffectual or not morally relevant. In the case music piracy, it is ineffectual and does not deal with the actual problem that the continuous piracy is pointing out. It is a morally correct law.
I will reiterate about nearly everyone - those who know how to pirate, and those who want to acquire and own new music - nearly everyone in that setting does do it. 70% is huge, and includes people who can't, and those who don't want to acquire music. Nearly everyone who would care about it, does.
Yeah, for your |
I'm all for SteamOS. But I just don't see how this is the solution... Someone will surely explain this to me but the way I see it, the problem with PC gaming is that a gaming PC is expensive and doesn't last long, that is because new hardware comes out all the time and games optimize for newest hardware (generally speaking).
This is something that PC gamers understand and cope with but PC gamers are a small minority. SteamOS hardware seems to have the same issues, you buy a level 6 today and in a year your level 6 is really more of a level 3. But you can upgrade it! yea well so can you a regular PC.
SteamOS basically dumbs down what is already doable with a regular gaming PC. But to be honest I really don't think the problem with pc gaming is that it's complicated but more that it's expensive and very changes occur at a fast pace. SteamOS and SteamBoxes don't seem to be answering those problems.
Please chime in if you think I'm missing something. |
Nope, your describing the PC back in late 90s and early 2000s.
The "Must upgrade PC every 2 years" is gone and dead for more than 6 years now. Maybe because games where always ported for Xbox360 and PS3, and they did not push the boundaries.
The fact is that a $1000 PC back in 2007 can still play most of the games that are released Today!
I know this because this is what I have at the moment, Only did a small GPU upgrade that cost me around $100 because I fried my old gpu.
Only games like Crysis3 and BF4 are pushing the hardware limits right now, I can still play games like Bioshock Infinite, etc.. on High with a machine that is 6 years old, and beats graphically what the consoles can do at the moment.
Just think before buying a PC, spend more on the GPU, less on the CPU, and you can have a $500-$700 PC today that can last 3 to 7 years.
And if you use Steam and other promotions properly, you will save 2x to 3x the money you would spend on a console and games. |
proof its no better than Windows.
No, it's not. Sure, there are going to be people who have problems using computers/software no matter what operating system you use, no matter what kernel is implemented. The thing about Windows is that it's incredibly messy. When a new Linux kernel is released Linus Torvalds and the rest of the community keep in mind what would be the best options. When a new Windows kernel is released the developers are thinking about what would be the most profitable option, taking care not to step on any corporate toes.
I have been using Linux now for less than a year and during that time I've written over a hundred programs. Sure, they're not world-changing or revolutionary, but they've taught me a lot about computing in general and I feel confident that I can handle any problem that I face. I once accidentally uninstalled my window manager. I booted up my computer and all I had was a black screen and a cursor. Obviously I've since fixed the issue, but the fact of the matter is that Linux isn't perfect, but at least you're given the tools to fix them.
That's the problem with Windows and why developers are moving toward a more open platform. DirectX is dying in my opinion. If users don't like it, well they should just get the fuck over it. It's closed off. You may think that "closed" means safe or more efficient, but that's not true at all. In fact, during the time that Valve was porting their games to Linux they saw a substantial increase in frames per second on Linux compared to on Windows. In fact, I've seen an increase in efficiency on Linux in things like the Java runtime environment. I wrote a program that basically prints out 100,000 numbers into a terminal as fast as possible using a "while loop." First I ran it on Windows 8, then Ubuntu 12.04. Linux won, even with Unity, the hefty desktop environment Ubuntu uses. |
Personally, I think SteamOS is promising in its streaming feature. I'd love to built a shitbox to run SteamOS and pop it on a TV in my living room. I don't do a ton of living room gaming (because my office chair and corner desk are awesome) but it could be fun for parties or just for a change of pace. Maybe i'll get more into platformers and third-person adventure games with a controller. Who knows? |
Just playing devils advocate here, but are we really that shitty of people? We seriously can't turn off our phones for twenty minutes to listen to a safety briefing? I know the responce, "I've heard that briefing tons of times, herp de derp I wanna play candy crush," but really people, this is an important goddamn briefing. We as people have gotten to the point where the most painful thing we put up with is turning off our iPads for a few minutes so we can pay attention to the procedure in case we FALL OUT OF THE GODDAMN SKY. I don't care if the signals don't mess with the navigation or whatever the old reasons were; shut up, sit up strait, and try to wrap your head around a half hour without snap chatting a picture of yourself saying "lol plane." If you are that dedicated to skipping the safety demo, bring a book, or even better read skymall, SKYMALL IS THE SHIT. Nobody is doing anything important in these few minutes either, of course no one will admit they just want a few more precious seconds of angry birds or candy crush or whatever the fuck instagram is, so they say "I'm writing an important email, because I'm a lawye," or some other garbage. |
I wasn't aware that they were letting only some social networking sites through as opposed to others. Given reddit's reputation as an online catalyst and the countless number of trolls, I can see why people wouldn't view Reddit as a 100% positive site. They probably think Reddit gives people outlandish ideas or some other kind of bullshit, whereas they probably see Tumblr or FB as more sociable and publicly acceptable than Reddit. Kind of backwards for a school setting, but welcome to Earth :/
I'm sitting here thinking, "Ok yea, kids are complaining that they can't waste their time at school when they're bored...it's school, that's what it's designed for." But now I see it as "The school is limiting bandwidth for some sites and not others, and the system isn't working the way they designed it to work so it's causing problems."
In either case, students should probably treat school as a school and not a place to party. I know, I know, it gets boring and what about the dorm rooms and whatnot...but people are paying to learn and by limiting bandwidth for non-academic related sites, the schools are moving in the right direction. I think the whole bandwidth-limit plan should have been fine-tuned and really worked out on paper before it was implemented...they could have made it work a lot better. |
That guy will never win. In order for Apple, Amazon, and CD Baby to get your stuff, you have to upload it to them or another placement service like TuneCore. Unless he can prove that some 3rd party uploaded the songs without his knowledge, there's no way he'll get anything from this.
Add to that the fact that he said he GAVE them 3 songs to stream and they made the whole album available (which means he gave them the whole album, and being an idiot doesn't realize they don't do "teasers") |
Alas, if this whole FISA-secret-courts thing has shown us anything, it's that many of our public servants aren't worth their salt.
If you watch the excellent [PBS Frontline two part documentary series, United States of Secrets,]( you might get a different impression about our public servants. Many of our public servants did what they should do to protect our privacy. Many of our public servants had no clue about the privacy violation program, because President Bush ordered the NSA to keep his order a secret. We even had a large number of top level intelligence officers in the DOJ threaten to resign when they discovered Bush had issued the secret order for the surveillance program. Those intelligence officials forced the preservation of the program into the FISA courtroom. President Bush and Vice President Cheney had tried to keep the privacy invasion program a secret order issued under the President's authority as Commander in Chief. Before the DOJ backlash forcing the program into the FISA court, several lawyers had already signed off on the secret order certifying it as lawful including Cheney's lawyer, David Addington, who had written the order, the Attorney General and the leadership of the general counsel of the NSA consisting of three lawyers. Some of our public servants, who had been kept out of the loop of the secret order, courageously issued press leaks about the program. Meanwhile, after the DOJ backlash about the illegality of the program, President Bush took to the podium and lied about the program, in an attempt to cover up the previous abuses of the illegal operation of the program when it operated without FISA approval. The obvious lies to the people then led Snowden to leak the story about the illegal program and the cover up. Throughout all of this, Bush and Cheney claimed that not having the program would endanger our troops, and not keeping it a secret would endanger our troops too. |
Incorrect. The task being completed is inspection of data that replaces a humans bias and avoids a human seeing the real data. The issue isn't that the machine has logic created by a human to begin with but that privacy is protected because horny neckbeard NSA agent #3 can't read your gf's nude selfie emails to you.
The gun analogy only applies if we are talking about whether a programmed machine is really sentient
Unfortunately the discussion is really about whether there is a genuine degree of separation between human and data. Not whether there is an acceptable distancing of responsibility by utilising a machine to complete the task |
The problem with solar panels is that it doesn't work in all locations. I know you can stay battery storage, but that isn't a cheap or space efficient solution. If it was paired with electrical charging stations it would be more feasible. But dirt and the environment play a huge factor on it. I won't say that solar panels can get burnt out or damaged since it goes with pretty much everything. The only issue is that a solar powered/EV car would still not have as much range as an gas powered electric generator car. Additionally, there wouldn't be a "recharge time" since all you would need to do is get gas. And once the batteries are full, it would use the excess energy to run the electric motor. Not to mention NO CHANGE to the fuel station infrastructure, which saves tons of time, and one doesn't have to drive around to find an EV station. |
Electricity isn't as clean as people think it is. I know the cars would be clean. HOWEVER, you have to acknowledge that the electricity has to come from a source, and since most people would use charging stations, it means power plants. Resulting in more pollution from those plants. Hyrdo-generators can only create so much energy and requires water, and a lot of places are going through droughts. If it is nuclear, that is more radioactive waste. If coal, oil, or gas, they have to drill for it, which are powered by machines which uses non-green power. Then on top of that the power plants would generate even more pollution.
The self driving part is a bigger part that the fact that it is electric. The self driving means that it would that there should be fewer automotive related deaths. Less traffic, make people more efficient, spending more less time on the roads. It is estimated that the US economy would save over 100 billion dollars due to the down turn in traffic congestion, according to Clifford Winston, a Brookings Institution fellow in economics. Mind you that is just calculating the savings from self driving cars, not even considering the electric aspect of the vehicle. Additionally, traffic is EXTREMELY FUEL INEFFICIENT. In 2012, Americans were losing 1.9 BILLION GALLONS annually due to traffic jams. This is from a USA today [article]( And this doesn't include the bills from hospitals from automotive related incidences. Now if you look how self driving cars would affect Americans mentally. Imagine, no more road rage, no more worrying about falling asleep at the wheel. No more getting pissed off that you have to drive in unfavorable circumstance, i.e. drunk, sick, tired, mentally occupied. Now driving isn't the most difficult thing, and some people still find it enjoyable. Having done well over three dozen 6+ hour car trips solo. After the third or fourth hour, it becomes soul destroying. Driving for fun is different than being tasked with driving. Going on long road trips would be more bearable and likely in increase. |
I tried for a long time to not use addblock plus, but some adds and websites ruin it for the rest of them. I don't want adds that pop up new windows, or try to trick me. I don't want obnoxious music playing from one of 50 adds that I can't locate. And then do I really want to risk clicking the in-add mute button? Or will that pop up another add?
And the snooping is just ridiculous. It'd be cool if the internet said "Hey we'd like to personalize your adds so you can get cool stuff you're actually interested in! This is the stuff we will track and we will/will not disclose this information to others. Press 'aight' to be enrolled." But I don't like the forced participation here. It's not friendly, and it's not in our best interests as customers. |
It's a pathetically dependent society we live in. People who expect that they shouldn't have to make decisions for themselves because "marketing companies are being unethical" by paying to create, develop, host, and maintain a website to no cost to the end user, but heaven forbid that site includes obnoxious and totally avoidable advertisements. It's like if I build a swimming pool, and let anyone in for free, and paint the whole interior of the building like a giant coca-cola ad. Would people then want the government to come in and forbid me from painting the interior of my free building red? I mean they probably would try to I guess. Absurd... |
I want to end this comment thread right here and laugh at you, but you should really understand that the "nothing to hide" stance on privacy issues is a very narrow one.
Just because you think that you have nothing to hide does not mean that a case cannot be made against you if the circumstances are right. Chances are good that you break laws that you aren't even aware of on a daily basis, due to the often overwhelming amount of statutes that can be active in a given place. You can even be made to appear guilty — which is all that's required for a conviction — even if you have done nothing wrong merely by being associated with a controversial group (i.e. you visit Reddit).
Short story:
I had a look at the county noise ordinances where I live about a year ago. It was late at night and some buttwipe down the street wouldn't stop detonating his leftover fireworks in the backyard. I never found the info I was looking for regarding quiet times, but I did learn that it is actually illegal to have a stereo in my car while driving on a public road in the county where I live; possession of such a device means that I intend to play it at an unreasonable volume, which is a violation of the county's noise ordinances. |
The thing is those programs are to important to rewrite. If the financial software on old languages goes down or messes up to much we have a big issue and sad ots not like you can stop all the banks from flowing money for an hour to make a new one work. The other thing is since they are constant use they are constant maintained, so you would need 2 large expensive teams to rewrite it. One laast thing is the current software has gone millions of bug fixes and maintenance. Any new program would have to redo this trial by fire and like I said before the less problems the better.
So would rewriting the programs in a newer language help enough to offset the expensive cost? Other than slightly better performace. Yes you get an access to more programmers but honestly if your a good programmer you not a one trick pony and you would be will to use any tool(carpenters don't use just a hammer, they use whatever works best. There in no cult following of the hammer proclaiming why its a gift of god and you should only use that.), yes this tool is the equivalent of a caveman's rock but it still does what you need it to do. |
Maybe full encryption for the data kept on the device.
Google's business model necessetates that user information is stored on Google's servers
If served with a warrant, Google will have to give up its data. |
You can't exactly extrapolate this to corporations and all technologies because its only dealing with: data that is within the scope of a search warrant, which an individual is refusing to furnish (obstruction of justice),
No. Don't throw a legal term in there like you're right.
Refusing to surrender encryption keys is not "obstruction of justice". It is a refusal to create evidence against yourself.
Remember: encrypted data is not "locked" -- the original data is no longer there. Only by applying the key to the encryption function is the original data reconstructed.
There's a big difference between encrypting data and locking a safe. When you lock a safe, the contents still exist. When you encrypt data and destroy the original copy, the contents no longer exist. Instead, you end up with different data that can -- given the right circumstances and processes -- be used to create the original data. |
This is an old argument, it's still in flux, but right now you most definitely would be guilty of obstruction of justice if you did not unencrypt data which is subject to a search warrant and to which you have the key.
Your right against self-incrimination with regards to passwords extends only so far as the text of the password itself. The gov't gets around that by asking you to plug it in yourself, meaning if you make your password "IBuriedJimmyInTheStadium" you don't have to reveal it, but you do have to furnish access to the data it protects (assuming warrant).
You are correct with regards to how data encryption works from a purely mathematical/ signal theory(? i think is what its called) perspective in that once data is encrypted everything you knew about it goes away until it is reconstituted.
However, the law sees it differently, since it is concerned with the practical side. |
There basically should be multiple groups who control each other with appropriate power (in paper, every democracy). So no-one can rise to the top. But in real life, that just leads to unneeded bureaucracy and corruption. Someone always wants to be the top chicken in the pecking order. |
I think their argument is more along the lines of "this information cannot be used to identify you, and thus cannot be considered personal information."
I work for AT&T, and while not Australian we deal with different types of "personal information" surrounding customer accounts. US law refers to Personally Identifying Information as anything that could reasonably lead to the identification of a person - name, address, phone number, SSN, etc.
Sensitive Personal Information is information the customer would want protected or which could, combined with other info, reasonably lead to the identification of a person - email address, credit card info, payment history, etc.
Customer Proprietary Network Information is a subset of SPI, and is an odd duck. This is information about their network configuration and usage, that generally cannot be used to identify a person, but which they would want protected - current price plan and features, numbers called or messaged, locations called or messaged, equipment used, dates and times of usage, or locations service was used in, among many others. The FCC actually strongly regulates how and when we can divulge this type of information.
I've outlined all that to say this: if the intention of the act he's using is aimed at the first type of info, which can be used to identify him, and which can be "corrected" as specified in the law, the third kind of data would not be included in that (most of which is not really "correctable"), which is what he's seeking, and that seems to be Telstra's argument. Conversely, it could contain data of the first kind for other customers, which some customers may have requested they not provide.
I'm just trying to clarify their line of thinking, potentially. I don't work for them (and I'm not saying this is how at&t would or wouldn't handle this, either), and I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the actual ramifications of a win or a loss here. |
Maybe this belongs more into /r/conspiracy, but I am doubtful that the authors would be something like anonymous or the usual script kiddies. This looks more like corporate warfare - something on the scale of Stuxnet but between corporations which have to grind an axe with each other.
Why I do think this? It is unlikely that an attack of this scale remains completely untraced and anonymous. So with Stuxnet, this was possible because a state (or a state alliance) backed the attackers, so that they could remain without persecution. By this definition, "warfare" would be any act which is damaging and clearly outside any usual societal limits, but is backed by some kind of state or para-state which defines what will be persecuted and what not. |
We have some questions/reservations about GDI’s numbers. All versions of OS X are lumped together under a single “OS X” line entry. However, all major Windows versions are given their own separate line entries.
Take out that little bit of creative reporting, and Windows tops the list with 248 vulnerabilities. Even given that some of these vulnerabilities are probably common across different Windows versions, you still have double the listed vulnerabilities over OS X. Also note that Windows 7 is still running 5x as many installs as Windows 8, whereas almost half of current OS X users are on Yosemite.
> Android has always been a very popular target for hackers but it’s not specifically called out in this study.
Whereas Android truly has no equal in the [mobile malware statistics:](
Note that iOS doesn't even rate its own title, being simply lumped under "Other", even though [iOS sees more real-world usage:](
Also note that these are listed as "vulnerabilities" and not as actual known attacks. If we look at currently active malware penetrations, the numbers paint an entirely different story. |
The source GFI article for this blogspam is terrible, and I'll save you some of the trouble as I've already picked it apart:
> There any particular reason why this article omits Android? I find this hard to reconcile with the recent Alcatel study that stated Android devices make up almost 50% of infected devices, trailing just behind Windows:
>The NVD contains multiple Android hits too:
>Either way, contrasting this article with what botnets are actually composed of makes it clear that security is more than just CVE counts.
Then /u/CapsUnlocker asked if they lumped the Android issues with Linux issues, and my response:
>That's what I thought too, but some of the Linux kernel bugs were highlighted specifically for affecting Android due to the bug being in a Qualcomm driver or some such are specifically for Android.
>While I was searching though I noticed that there were THOUSANDS of Android issues in the database, but they were mostly centered around application SSL implementation and there was an individual item opened for each application with the issue.
>So it looks like the article's author elected to omit those entries(and many others) to avoid "clogging" the stats, without so much as an asterisk, and that opens up LOTs of questions about their methods and rationale behind their methods.
>This article is two-fold misleading because counting CVEs is not a great way to measure an OS's "security", and omitting some CVEs because reasons makes this particular measurement totally invalid. |
If someone was hacking into the network or was doing something "terroristic" on the internet, the US government can knock on the ISP's door and request all information on said person.
This removes the whole purpose of the service which is:
>"At the Hacknight conference in Malmö yesterday, Nipe further said that they will not allow the Swedish Government to monitor Pirate ISP users and will refuse to retain logs. He warned that any attempt to force it to do otherwise will result in a constitutional issue."
In other words, The US government forces companies to retain logs and monitor ISP activities. The Patriot Act requires telecommunication companies to keep records and allow for network surveillance, as much as the broadband companies are fighting against the FCC about this, they sure by into it with the Patriot Act, even though it's not fully stated out right in the document (at least to my knowledge).
For more information on Big Brother, please read this wonderful [EFF guide to the US government hating the internet with the PATRIOT II Act]( |
You bring up some of the great counter-arguments to transition out of "current" society. The bottom-line on how we get the system to work in some incarnation is education. Until we can change the way our children learn and respect each other, then this really is just a model on "perfect" society, and unattainable. This is the entire reason I based the structure in three parts, because the "hardest" part is actually changing how people think in the future.
Greed is the wrong reason to start a business. Most people become entrepreneurs to better society and fill a hole in the market or revolutionize the industry. These people are driven by passion. Once the money/power goes to your head, it changes your personality/character and your goals as a person.
We must first teach the children to love and respect. Once bullying become a rarity and we get the right people/environment for education, this dream will come even closer to reality. |
He was downvoted because there is a very outspoken group of open source advocates that firmly believe that just because an application is open source, it is by definition "more secure" by virtue of the possibility of peer review, and that somehow outweighs giving people with malicious intentions direct access to the codebase. In practice, however, there aren't people combing through every tiny little snippet of open source code written to make sure it is magically better than a similar closed source solution, which tends to be the proverbial elephant in the room when it comes to open source. This is backed up by reports such as the OP, which illustrate that even some of the biggest, most heavily peer reviewed open source projects still fall victim to this sort of thing. |
On the 7% to 14% overcounting, it sounds like the plaintiff has never heard of protocol overhead. Delivering 50 kbytes of content to your browser takes more than 50 kbytes of transmission -- you send out a request (which counts) and every byte you send or received has to be wrapped in a packet that has a header which (depending on protocol) includes such information as host and port addressing, content checksum, and various flags and fields controlling the handling and delivery of the packet (all of which count as well.) Actually, multiple such wrappings occur..
the "ghost traffic" issue is murkier, but there's probably a sound and understandable reason for it. |
I've always thought that the primary issue preventing the average layperson from operating a private flying vehicle is that it requires so much more training to safely fly than it does to drive. Not to mention that the freedom of movement allowed would result in a mass of crowded skies and collisions.
These issues are solved by computerized pilots. The actual mechanics of a flying car should be affordable enough for upper-middle class and wealthy individuals in a mass-production scenario. I think the last hurdle for this technology is the lack of a cheap enough fuel since it takes so much more energy to lift an entire vehicle than roll it (private flights are pricey to fuel). A hydrogen-based economy (reliant on electrolysis fueled by nuclear fusion) could be one solution to this. |
I thought part of IT's job was to facilitate other's productivity. Having users screw around with poorly written time sheets for thirty minutes a week is a sign that you're doing it wrong. Have you actually done an analysis of how long users spend doing tasks on your intranet? Work is a place for work, not making excuses for crappy internal applications. |
Here are the things nearly every single user expects them to do:
Print right out of the box (which they almost kind-of-sort-of do but with so many restrictions and rules it may as well not count)
Microsoft Excel. Numbers does not count as a serious spreadsheet... it's not a viable solution, doesn't import complicated spreadsheets worth a damn and frequently corrupts them. Users are absolutely shocked that their "simple" Excel spread sheets are crippled when they finally migrate them over. In our offices, this is almost a show stopper for the device.
Interact with our financial system. Why our users want to do this, I don't know because it sucks bad enough when using it on a real computer.
Load up their favorite office software existing on their PC or Mac. We have over 150 applications that are used across all our offices and the vast majority of them do not have an iPad counterpart. Then there is the issue of mass licensing for software which is a huge sticking point for us.
iPads do not play nicely with projectors/video output which hobbles their potential as a presentation device. Lots of apps simply won't output video.
A complete inability to access the file system easily without jailbreaking the device. Most of our users expect retrieving their data is going to be just like on their computer and experience a rude awakening when they discover how difficult that process actually is.
Basically iPads are exceptionally good for email, very basic documents, web browsing, and a few other things. The calendar on an iPad is actually pretty damn awesome in my opinion. Unfortunately we do so much more with our office computers and laptops it is completely unrealistic for our users to expect that same functionality and performance out of an iPad or Droid tablet. I am confident that situation will change eventually, but we have at least a year or two of telling people "sorry, your iPad can't do that".
Every single one of my complaints about the iPad in the office also applies to Droid phones in the office as well. The majority of our users just have unrealistic expectations of mobile devices in general. |
Fucking thank you. I got blasted on some other sub for saying the same exact thing. The sad thing is that people will read this and feel even more justified. What a society we live in. Piracy isn't wrong because it is slamming profits. It's wrong because it's steeeeealing!
I do my fair share of downloading, but I don't try justifying it. It's fucking stealing. We're all damned pirates, just accept it. |
This makes it possible for massive 60TB (terabyte) hard drives to arrive within the next decade.
500GB/month or smaller limit for most US Internet Service Providers. Even less for Canadian. 2 months per TB. That would take a decade to fill the hard drive without going over the ISP limit, assuming you go at maximum bandwidth every month. Seeing as ISPs are trying to lower the limit rather than raise it, I don't see the point.
Fun facts: At the average U.S. internet speed (3.9Mbps) it would take 3 years 10 months 9 days nonstop to completely fill the 60TB hard drive.
At a much higher speed of 30Mbps (nonstop) it would still take over 6 months to completely fill it.
At 3.9Mbps nonstop for 30 days, you would transfer 1.26 TB, far more than most ISPs allow. In order to stay under the cap (I use the 250GB of Comcast as an example), you would need to limit your speeds to 770Kbps nonstop.
Of course, most people don't transfer data 24/7. So let's lower transfer time to 6 hours per day. 6 hours per day x 30 days = 180 hours. This comes up to 316GB at 3.9Mbps for 6 hours each day. 5 hours per day = 263GB. 4 hours = 211 GB. So you would have to limit yourself to about 4 and a half hours per day to stay under the limit.
But wait! The lowest speed offered by Comcast here , 30Mbps, 50Mbps, and their fastest speed of 105Mbps.
20Mbps for 3 hours per day for 30 days = 810GB. Oh dear. That's well over double the monthly cap! Let's try toning it down to an hour of usage per day. Wait... that's still 270GB! Ok, let's say we skip a few days. Not everyone gets online each day, right? 20Mbps for an hour each day for 27 days of the month = 243 GB.
At 30Mbps, you would hit the 250GB cap at just under 19 hours of usage. Compare this to the number of hours in 30 days - 720. So basically you're paying to use the internet for 19 hours out of 720 hours. But we're not done yet! There are still 2 higher speeds!
At 50Mbps for half a day (12 hours) you would have transferred 270GB. Well, that's problematic. You can't even download things for half of a day even though you're paying for a month! I wonder how long you can download with their best rate?
At Comcast's highest rate - 105Mbps - in 12 hours you would transfer 567GB - more than double their data cap. So let's cut that in half - 6 hours, or just a quarter of one day: 283.5GB. Hmm, that's still over the cap. At 105Mbps, you would hit the 250GB data cap after 5 hours 17 minutes 30 seconds . Remember, there are 720 hours in 30 days. In other words, you are paying [$200/month]( to be able to transfer data for a grand total of 0.735% of the month. |
You read the law wrong. The part you quoted is about limiting liability of websites if they have to put something up again which they took down previously.
What you bolded specifically says "ceases disabling access following receipt of the counter notice"
Counter notice? Cessation of disabling access? To cease to disable access means to reinstate access. This subsection is only about counter notices and putting back up material after a counter notice has been given following a notice. This has nothing to do with taking down material (as you claim) and everything with the law on putting back up material.
You quote subsection (d). Now let me quote something for you from the DMCA
>Limitation for Information Location Tools
Section 512(d) relates to hyperlinks, online directories, search engines and the
like . It limits liability for the acts of referring or linking users to a site that contains
infringing material by using such information location tools, if the following conditions
are met:
Megaupload is not eligible for a limitation for information location tools. MegaUpload didn't even have a search function. The limitation you refer to is a limitation for search engines so google doesn't get sued every time its bots go to the pirate bay. All google has to do is remove the links. This section does not apply to MegaUpload.
Now lets quote the relevant information from the DMCA here:
> Limitation for Information Residing on Systems or Networks at the
Direction of Users
Section 512(c) limits the liability of service providers for infringing material on
websites (or other information repositories) hosted on their systems. It applies to
storage at the direction of a user. In order to be eligible for the limitation, the
following conditions must be met:
>* The provider must not have the requisite level of knowledge of the
infringing activity, as described below.
If the provider has the right and ability to control the infringing activity,
it must not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the
infringing activity.
Upon receiving proper notification of claimed infringement, the
provider must expeditiously take down or block access to the material.
Now ask yourself this. Is Megaupload a company which is in charge of "Information Residing on Systems or Networks at the Direction of Users" or is Megaupload a company whose business "relates to hyperlinks, online directories, search engines and the like"
Now to the argument; Megaupload does perform md5 checksums on every single file that is uploaded. If it finds two of the same MD5s it only keeps one file since the second is a duplicate. Then it offers two different links to two different uploaders uploading the same two files. This is done to save space. Now lets say 5 people upload a copyrighted file. MegaUpload gives every user a different link but on their server those 5 links link to the same file. Now Megaupload gets a DMCA takedown notice against the file found by going to one of those five links. MegaUpload promptly makes it so that when you try that link again, you get a 404.
Now here the lawyering comes in. The law says:
>Upon receiving proper notification of claimed infringement, the
provider must expeditiously take down or block access to the material.
Now they did take down a link to the material, but they didn't take down the material, as it is still accessible by other links. MegaUpload now knows this file is copyrighted, but leaves up the 4 other links that are still there.
MegaUpload does check MD5 sums for child porn or something like that when someone uploads a file. If it matches a previous child porn MD5 then they obviously get rid of the file, never offering it to the user who uploaded it. They had this system in place, but didn't use it for copyrighted material. Instead they just checked the MD5 here to save space. Even if the MD5 was already in their DB as a file which is copyrighted.
This proves that not only is it possible to prevent people from uploading previously confirmed copyrighted material, the system is already in place to do so, yet unused.
Rapidshare and youtube still fall under the same legislation. The only difference is that they don't break it. |
That part about exponentially increasing the number of possible states based on number of qubits: that's true for standard computers as well. Every bit of information has two possible states (0 or 1, on or off, etc.), so if you have n bits of usable space on a standard computer, then 2^n states are possible. |
Your entiere point boils down to a tautology that reading something somebody else wrote without paying them the price they ask is wrong because it is."
No, I didnt say anything like that and you are simply twisting my words to serve your argument. I addressed why I believe piracy is explicitly immoral when I stated "Dont act like you've got the moral high ground because the truth of the matter is you actively exploit these companies". There is no way you can deny that in downloading content a company exercises copywrite on with the specific intention of selling it you arent exploiting their business.
"How is it worse to disagree with you on this than on any other political-ethical position? Why are we "parading it around" when we try and defend or even just spread around news of what to us is a right as obvious as freedom of speech or congregation, while gay couples and symathising groups are fighting the good fight when they protest or get frontpaged on reddit when fighting for what they consider an obvious right? The only answer appears to be because you happen to disagree. And that, my friend, makes you intolerant."
Comparing piracy activism to gay rights groups is disingenuous too, seeing as the rights these minorities are fighting for dont cause any actual harm to people, as opposed to piracy, which actively undermines businesses and causes very real losses in revenue. This vapid and shallow attempt to compare me to a gay hating, intolerant bigot is just a means to paint a nasty picture of me so people are more likely to sympathise with your emotionally charged argument. I'd like to also add that in light of my previous point that piracy is exploitative, I'm not being intolerant, but merely pointing out the untenable position of piracy advocates that they have a moral incentive to defend piracy.
I'd also like to add that there's a very big difference between freedom of information and free entertainment. There is all kinds of information that should be free on the web, but content like privately owned music, films, literature and videogames are something that are explicitly copywrited by businesses and creators, and therefore by allowing people to actively undermine their business (a position the vast majority of piracy supporters advocate) we are essentially stripping them of their right to enforce their claim of copywrite, which is just a step shy of outright stealing that content from them.
As a final note, I'd like to reassure you that I dont hate myself for pirating as you assume I do, I merely acknowledge that I'm willing to compromise my beliefs for the convenience of acquiring things I would ordinarily be unable to afford, like language textbooks that are normally sold in the range of £30-£40 per book. Your comment about how you justify that you arent a leech because you dont believe you are a leech from your own perspective made me think I might have suffered a brain aneurysm for a second. Do you honestly believe your position allows you to roost on the moral highground just because you believe you are right? Your logic baffles me. |
I don't pirate because I don't want to pay. I pirate because I can't get the content legally in a convenient and cost effective manner. Let me pay $10 a month for BBC iPlayer even though I'm not in the US and I won't pirate Top Gear. Let me pay $15 a month for HBO Go without paying $100 a month for cable and I won't pirate Game of Thrones. Make digital versions of movies easier to get and not copy protected and I won't pirate them, either.
If they crack down on piracy to the point where I can't get these things illegally I'm not going to get them legally. I just won't watch them. There's plenty of other stuff for me to do. |
So, your point is check more brick and mortar? Here's my answer:
No. Best Buy is AWFUL. I just had a ridiculous experience two days ago. I was looking for a music DVD for my mother. I checked online and found that they had it at the store close to me. I called, and they confirmed four copies. I arrive, and I cannot find it in the jumbled mess they call a music section. I check the DVD section. I ask someone. They spend 10 minutes looking around, just as I have, and proceed to tell me they'll "check the back." 15 more minutes, and all I get is "sorry, I can't find any copies."
So, no thank you. No, I think I would prefer to hop on the internet as well. Sadly, in my situation, the biggest thing was having a good gift. Thankfully, there was a Target with employees more competent than gorillas within 30 minutes of my parents' residence, so my mother got a nice gift. |
Paragraph 1: Of course you can argue that copying the information a company has produced without their consent (which they would give after payment) is not unethical. That's exactly what I'm doing and all pirates who bother to justify their actions do. And obviously when you're giving "exploiting those companies [by not paying them for use of their intellectual property]" as a reason for not paying them for using their IP being immoral, that's a tautology. Exploitation means not paying people what they deserve. You have to give a reason why it's exploitation other than saying "there's no way you can deny..." or, to make the tautological nature more obvious still, "it's self-evident".
Paragraph 2: Oh, how surprising. Still arguing from tautology. And while I'm comparing LGBT rights activists and various pirate movements, I've never said the problems were equal. It's like comparing apples and oranges: totally doable in many ways.
You are intolerant bigot, similar in every path of reasoning as one who denies homosexuals the chance of marriage, in that you not only point out that piracy is morally untenable (tautologically), but that pirates should not defend themselves. With one statement you deny to hear our arguments, and with the next you use the lack of arguments heard as proof of our unworthiness of being heard. "Indefensible"
Paragraph 3: No shit Sherlock, legalised piracy = the end of copyright law.
Paragraph 4: I think we may have a semantics problem here. You see, I define "good" as that which has the best result for all. I will not compromise my beliefs because I am fully aware that the laws of living I have set myself (do not break the law, aim to become a professor of physics, do not buy EA games, etc.) are an imperfect approximation of actual good. The only reason I would want something bad would be because of ignorance or poor judgment. Piracy does not compromise my beliefs because it has greater benefit than harm (benefit for me, but still). I'm a subjectivist utilitarian.
You, however, appear to have a different definition of good. Your actual morality may be more similar to mine than I expected, just with different terms. Ones which seem to make very little sense to me. How in the world are you supposed to be capable of compromising your own beliefs willingly and consciously? Why would you call those things your beliefs if you don't believe in them enough to want to follow them, or even disapprove of (i.e. loathe) yourself for disobeying them? I called you self-loathing because I was under the false assumption that you, apparently a Briton, have mastered the English language.
As for my aneurism-inducing ethics, once again you are baffled by the concept of ethical discussion. What I said is that my ethical terminology is beter than yours because I don't end up contradicting my own beliefs. Whoever of us is the better person can't be decided like that, true, but at least with my system the scale of good and evil is sensibly defined. I have the moral high ground in my system as do you in yours, but my system is superior to yours in fuctioning. |
That is interesting. I suspect they'd make it exceedingly difficult to return though. We didn't think to check the EUA for legal ammo, but I once had a friend attempt to return a game (Bioshock) to Wal-Mart because he had no Internet connection at the time, and Bioshock required online activation. Argued with them for about 15 minutes, and got nothing, so I imagine you need both extreme persistence and a rock solid legal argument. Most likely, the store would refer you back to Blizzard anyway. I know when we went, they basically said tough luck, and said the DMCA prohibited them from accepting a return on open software. In the end, he carted his functional, but very open and hard to transport desktop to his nearest friend's house, and activated the game off that connection, but it was really quite a pain. |
The Movie industry needs more competition.
The reason gaming has done so well is because there are so many markets to game from.
The second people start making movies and stuff on terms of quality with large theaters with more accessibility, popularity, and cheaper costs, the second large movie producers will have to rethink how they market. |
And I don't think it's actually all that bad when people die doing something they know to be incredibly dangerous. NASA's failing, in fact, was not that they had failed to make the Shuttle safe, but that they insisted it was safe despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This broke the chain of informed consent. |
Nowhere in the Google ToS does it say that they claim ownership of your uploads. That's what the Skydrive/Dropbox ToS explicitly warn against.
Instead, it says that they claim a license to:
Use: Ambiguous. It probably means, in this context, to "access" your files. This is obviously required for uploading things; Google likes to offer to convert your .DOC files to Gdocs files, and they'd have to look at the metadata to see what it is. But otherwise, its for keyword finding for advertisement.
Host: Required for Google Drive. They're hosting your stuff.
Reproduce: Required for Google Drive. They have to reproduce every file which is downloaded to your computer. Additionally, they reproduce it when they store it across multiple hard drives for redundancy.
Modify: In the context of Google Drive, this doesn't really mean anything. They could change the contents of your file, but they won't. In reality, it could apply to possibly changing the metadata of your file; like the modification date.
Create Derivative Works: They said it in the ToS. It's for translations.
Communicate: Sharing. Google Drive has very deep baked-in sharing features. They need to be able to communicate the existence of your file to other users, should you want to share it with them. So, when you invite "[email protected]" to your Google Doc, they can communicate to him that he's been invited via an email.
Publish: When you right click on a file, click share, and click "Public: anyone on the web can view", you are publishing your file to the internet. Or, more importantly, Google is. They need permission from you to create that public link, and that permission is granted through this publish clause.
Publicly Perform/Display/Distribute: No meaning in the context of google drive. This clause is probably included for any of your content which could be put (or performed publicly) on Google+. But GDrive doesn't really have G+ integration, so I doubt it means anything. But, if it did; you're granting them the ability to post your stuff to your G+ stream. That's it.
Plus, I love how every anti-Google thread like this forgets the clause which comes before this one:
> Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.
Actually, I'd take Google' ToS over Dropbox's or Skydrive's anyday. The latter two only claim that they don't claim ownership of your files. That's a given. It'd be illegal , against the DMCA, if they claimed ownership of a file which you own the intellectual property to. It doesn't say anything to say that they don't claim ownership. We know that they don't.
Google's goes on to say exactly what they're going to do with your file. I have no idea what Dropbox or Skydrive are doing with mine. |
Okay, so I never thought that this was actually possible, but when I was younger I once spent months feeling utterly confused by the idea of time zones. I asked dozens of people how it was that the clocks didn't just keep going backwards, and nobody could give me a satisfactory answer. The day I found out about the international date line was probably the greatest intellectual relief of my life. |
I remember the day one of my professors remarked, offhandedly, that you should view any new law/reg as tilting the playing field towards a competitor, who most likely is a donor. The corollary being there's a monetary benefit to someone for any change in the law.
Could be kickbacks, could be a super-successful lobbyist for a carrier who actually does hit their advertised data rates. I'm sure it's easy to justify a 7-figure lobbying salary when you can inflict this kind of damage to your rivals---rivals with deeper-infrastructure in a market where coverage means a lot. Put up more towers and extend your true-4G network? Or smack your rivals down for their phoney 4G "LTE" crap? I bet the latter looks better on the bottom line. |
If only there were a way to hold Clear to the fire on this one. I'm paying for 3mb down and 1 up.
This is a good day. it gets down to .1 down and .2 up. |
If I may - part of the reason HFR looks odd is that the shutter angle (read: time the image is exposed for) isn't big enough yet. Say you're shooting at 60FPS, you'd think that the image is exposed for 1/60th of a second. The reality is that due to the fact that the sensor needs to be read off, blanked, and primed for exposing again, (or in film, advanced), you end up exposing for something around 1/100th of a second. This results in an exceptionally sharp image with very little motion blur. When shown, your brain registers the video as a series of static images rather than smooth motion and you get a very odd effect of seeing multiple images when watching fast movement. It's the same effect as waving your hand in front of a flickering light: your brain sees the discrete images and you get the impression of multiple hands. This also happens when shooting at 24FPS but is less of a problem since it allows for some motion to be captured as blur, fooling the brain into 'seeing' motion.
Source: I work in post production. |
Your entire monitor is [0.201 m^2]( , and it has [2073600]( pixels. That means each pixel has a width of just over [0.3 mm]( Compare that to about [0.08 mm]( for the Nexus 10. |
I was a hardcore Windows fanboy for the longest time, but once I got to College and started working for the "face of IT" on campus (aka the Help Desk) and got exposed to Macs, my attitude changed. The pretentious people annoy the crap out of me, because I see just as many Mac coming to the desk for help as I do Windows machines.
I ponied up the money this summer and purchased a Macbook Pro (not the retina version, but I did get the ~high res screen option), and I have to say, I'm thoroughly impressed. I specced it out with a 1TB HD and 16GB of RAM (barring the fact that going over 8GB causes a slight performance decrease thanks to how memory addressing works). Not to mention the fact that with Boot Camp, I've got an install of Windows 7 sitting on it's own little partition. Just hold the option key while starting and pick your OS. No virtualization, all native running, so whatever software you use, you've got access to it, just select your OS and go. |
They typically are... the issue is that to a lot of us, 16:10 is simply superior . I don't use my monitor primarily for movies; that's what the TV is for, and it's 16:9. Especially in video games where it's not at all uncommon for the bottom and top bars to be occupied by UI components, that extra 120px makes a world of difference. |
The height is fixed while changing the width actually shows more of the battlefield... [as can be seen here.](
Discussion about the optimal aspect ratio [here on Teamliquid]( |
Dots Per Inch (DPI) is a measure of how many pixels (dots) a device can cram into an inch of space. Here are some common DPI values:
60 DPI: Dot Matrix Printer (Epson MX-80, circa 1980)
72 DPI: Apple Macintosh (circa 1992)
96 DPI: CGA Monitor (circa 1980)
100 DPI: Modern Computer Monitor (circa 2012)
220 DPI: MacBook Pro Retina (2012)
300 DPI: Apple LaserWriter (circa 1992)
326 DPI: iPhone 4 (2010)
600 DPI: HP LaserJet 4 (1992)
1200 DPI: HP LaserJet 5 (1997)
Having more dots per inch doesn't make anything smaller, it just makes it more crisp. A 10-point font on a LaserJet 5 is the exact same height as a 10-point font on an MX-80. The difference is that the LaserJet is much more "crisp": no jagged edges in the curves of an "O", for instance.
It wasn't until 2010 that computer displays were capable of the DPI that printers were doing 20 years ago . The reason many people don't think anything more is necessary is because they are so used to seeing low-DPI monitors that they don't think to compare the crispness of those to what their printer spits out.
Apple has made some inroads here: they were the only company that could do it, because early on, Microsoft made a decision in their "font smoothing" algorithm that bound Windows to displays around 75-100 DPI: anything with a higher DPI would mess up how dialog boxes looked. One company (IBM, I think), actually made a higher DPI monitor in the 1990s, and there were so many complains that it messed up Windows dialog boxes that people quit buying them.
With OS X, Apple made a conscious decision not to repeat this mistake: initially many people complained that text on Macs looked "blurry" because of this (which was true). But it allowed Apple to begin using higher resolution displays. |
So something I have never understood about the aussie economy. Mostly I have noticed through video game prices how expensive things can become in Austrailia. What I'm curious of, is does the Australian economy have a healthy currency that allows the common lower middle class to middle class to be able to afford these things? Or does this create a huge barrier to entry for low income families etc.
Sorry that My question probably doesn't make much sense. |
It's because American-based pharmaceutical companies need to recuperate the R&D costs (which take years and millions of dollars to bring a drug to market.)
The development, trial phases, etc, all require an initial investment that has to be made back later. It's like putting $100 in and hoping your drug ends up being able to make $150, but only after 5 years. Many times, that $100 will end up being worth $0 (if the FDA rejects the drug.)
I'm not arguing this system is "correct," it's just that the US medical system charges more domestically because, well, we can afford it and also benefit from their medical patents BEFORE the rest of the world. Thus we end up with cutting-edge drugs FIRST, but at a price.
But it's not really a monopoly issue. |
It's a lot but it's pretty standard if you live in one of the big three cities i.e. Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne. The price of living closer to the cities are insane and public transport is generally awful so living further away from the city is hard if you don't drive which most young people don't because it takes years to get your license. |
I came to say this.
In 2001, it was AUS$2 to the US$1. [It was even reflected in lyrics by Ben Folds at the time.]( Now it's at parity. Some of the prices have adjusted, but it's a slow process.
The basic Subway footlong sandwich in America is $5. In Australia, it's $7. So a REALLY hungry Aussie that wanted to buy 600 footlong sandwiches would pay AUS$4,200 in Sydney, but only US$3,000 (which converts to AUS$2,922) in LA.
That return flight to Los Angeles costs AUS$1,147.58 on Virgin Australia, so this works for Subway sandwiches too.
I bet it works for Holden / GM cars, clothes, most stuff really at the "few thousand dollar" range. |
There are increased costs of customer support, legal advice, etc. that are added by selling in another country that need to be recouped by charging a premium price, especially if the market is barely large enough to be worth the bother. |
Oh god, your holier than thou rhetoric is painful. Also, your line about the "corruptive nature of capitalism" exposes your bias. Stop. Just stop.
I bet you work for one of those multi-national nameless, faceless companies, in which case you have absolutely no frame of reference here regarding actual consequences to people producing the goods you rely on. |
i have Photoshop (CS, then CS2, then CS3, then CS5). i like Photoshop. i prefer Photoshop. i use Photoshop.
But Photoshop is awful. It has an awful, awful interface, full of undocumented features, hidden keystrokes, secret places to click to accomplish a goal. Learning Photoshop was the most god awful experience; nothing behaved in any intuitive manner.
But now i'm used to it, and don't want to change. |
At this point, its toothless, but now the government can make new laws that "enforce" the old toothless ones. Kind of like the DMCA; technically, the DMCA didn't say anything new, it just took the older copyright laws (common and statuary), and said "if its digital, extra penalties! And that "fair use" stuff you guys have built up for over 200 years, that's all gone!").
In a couple years, depending on bitcoin's popularity, the government will craft a "DCA", Digital Currency Act, that will be sold to the people as simply a tailored act to enforce already-existing law, but will actually be something that attempts to destroy it. |
The entire problem is that the industry is based upon advertising impressions for commercials. Cable companies structure their entire contract portfolios around eye ball impressions based on channel location. There is a reason the "big" networks all exist in the actual tiered services - as those are the most widely viewed stations.
The content holders, nor the cable companies, can give up this formula right now because its the only way they can guarantee the ad impressions. It literally takes new starts like Net Flix that do not have the incumbent issue of a multi-billion dollar business built around legacy content agreement structures.
The only way the cable companies will change their formula is to stave off bankruptcy. There is honestly no way in the short term (and they are publicly traded) for them to digress from this method of contract. The ONLY possible way for them to change in the current state is for investors to put the squeeze on both the content producers AND the cable co's to change the way the game is played. |
I fly rc helis all the time. I even have a small 450 sized electric heli.
Those fucking rotor blades spin at well over 2300 rpm (I upgraded the shit out of my trex), and weigh about .2 kilos including the head assembly. Not to mention that I have a dfc setup which essentially makes the blade holders totally unable to shift out of position. |
In any monopoly there are usually large barriers to entry, whether it be government intervention or large start up fees. Because of those barriers to entry there are high economic gains being made by these companies. Much higher end of year profits than in any other industry. Economic profits usually tend to always gravitate to zero in a perfectly competitive market. These high economic profits are healthy for any company, if you earn a high economic profit chances of your company going under is pretty unlikely.
This ensures high job security and high paid salaries to those employees who matter most to the company. If they entered into the new market then the barriers to entry for that gigabyte fiber internet speed are probably much lower than the current internet provided. Lower barriers to entry means more firms entering the market meaning lower economic gains meaning less yearly take home profit. Those economics gains are probably so high in an industry like this that its worth it, in the long run, to just pay for things like this then take the lower yearly profits. It also doesn't help that all internet service provided in america is owned and operated by the same three companies. Same goes for phone service providers. |
Misleading title. SpaceX is going for a five year lease of the launch pad, Blue Origin submits a proposal for the pad to be shared, NASA says no. Blue Origin complains, NASA says no again, and SpaceX says that while they're leasing the pad they'll let other companies use it. Musk says that Blue Origin hasn't done a suborbital or orbital launch yet, so he doesn't know why they want significant control of the launch pad to begin with. |
Let me hit you with some knowledge here. There's a difference between sell-side (the financial analysts that are "scared") and buy-side. Just because sell-side analysts 'are concerned about competition and margins' doesn't mean they have a monetary interest in the stock. Further, their job is to analyze a company, good, neutral, or bad. Typically, the focus tends to frame around growth, because why would you want to invest in the equity of a failing company. Nevertheless, it's possible to profit on bad news. |
The short story is that in the eyes of the law, digital voice is not plain old telephone service (POTS) and thus not subject to common carrier rules. The FCC way back when ruled that broadband providers were not telephony provider but we're content providers thus not subject to common carriage rules. |
It's our ISPs. [Transit Providers]( such as Cogent and L3 already charge large-scale content providers such as Google to use their networks, just like they also charge Comcast, Time Warner, etc. This is all fine and dandy.
The issue here is that our ISPs (Access providers) to be able to do the same.
With practices like this, content providers could end up having to pay each access provider for the provelege of reaching their customers. It would be a whole new market full of wild profits for Comcast and friends. This would be similar to if Cogent and L3 each started charging you to route things through them. |
I'm a forced Time Warner customer. I was not pleased when I heard about this. I used to say, "well at least it's not comcast". Well, shit. I just don't understand why ISPs just hate their customers! I feel like they are a drug dealer. They know we're all hooked, we need it. So they say fuck it. Let's put the screws too em'.
Probably ISPs hate cats. It infuriates them because the internet is made of cats. |
All true. I work for a cable company (not one of the big ones, a smaller regional company) and there are definitely times when the caller is sure they know what the issue is. I get "It must be an outside problem" all the time. Right before I have them reboot their router, which apparently magically repairs the cable lines.
Although our tools are wrong sometimes, too. I've definitely had cases where the system test showed no fluctuation in signal levels over a 24-hour period, the mode was online at the time of call and I did not have any packet loss when pinging the modem... but it still turned out that there was an offsite issue with the RG6 lines at the pole.
It costs about $300 to roll a truck. I worked with a guy who used to work for TWC and he said that they could actually get penalized for scheduling unnecessary truck rolls. My company doesn't do that, but we do try to avoid unnecessary service appointments.
So on one hand, you do sometimes have customers with legitimate service issues that your tools don't detect, but you also have customers who call constantly for issues that have nothing to do with the service and demand truck rolls, costing the company thousands of dollars every month.
All that aside, it shouldn't really be a problem to open a command prompt and ping your public IP. |
When I lived in Rochester, NY I had time Warner, biggest pile of shit ever. Services were slow, and outages were frequent. Couple that with the fact that every time I received a bill from them it felt like I was getting fist fucked by someone with a toaster duck taped to their hand. Now that I'm in Philadelphia, I have Comcast. Now it's like getting fist fucked with an ice skate, but at least the service works most of the time. |
Telecom worker here. Shit breaks. Sometimes shit breaks while other shit is already broken. Sometimes shit breaks in a way that nobody has ever seen before. Fucking networks are complex as fuck. |
Ninja edit: replied to wrong comment. Sorry, but I typed this on my phone so it's gonna stay.
It's what the teachers learned on, it's the system they know. Teachers don't want to learn new shit, add more to their load learning and re - writing their syllabus to include new instructions for other calculators. It's the same reason many stores still use pos systems (point of sale, but they are pieces of shit too) that run some defunct version of Dos from 1991. People hate change, and are generally lazy fucks if the consequences of that laziness is passed onto someone else.
Does this reliance on ti-84 calculators fuck over students who could buy a casio for half price (one with color, that graphs faster, has a better gui, is easier to learn and use)? Yes. Is it the teachers money? Nope, fuck it, I'm not learning a new system to save those kids 45-60 bucks.
It's really just that, reliance on people's inability to change is Texas instruments business model. No reason to innovate or complicate your product if the users who "recommend" your product have no reason to learn a new system. Simply put if the school system was somehow more competitive on a "who can save the children money and teach them better" system, ti would be a different story. As it is, teachers are underpaid, overworked, and just trying to get by teaching the syllabus.
On Texas instruments side they have a product which continually becomes cheaper to manufacture, while the price point remains the same. Higher profits, no r&d, better business.
Just a cyclone of fuckery for the consumer and benefit for the company. |
It's what the teachers learned on, it's the system they know. Teachers don't want to learn new shit, add more to their load learning and re - writing their syllabus to include new instructions for other calculators. It's the same reason many stores still use pos systems (point of sale, but they are pieces of shit too) that run some defunct version of Dos from 1991. People hate change, and are generally lazy fucks if the consequences of that laziness is passed onto someone else.
Does this reliance on ti-84 calculators fuck over students who could buy a casio for half price (one with color, that graphs faster, has a better gui, is easier to learn and use)? Yes. Is it the teachers money? Nope, fuck it, I'm not learning a new system to save those kids 45-60 bucks.
It's really just that, reliance on people's inability to change is Texas instruments business model. No reason to innovate or complicate your product if the users who "recommend" your product have no reason to learn a new system. Simply put if the school system was somehow more competitive on a "who can save the children money and teach them better" system, ti would be a different story. As it is, teachers are underpaid, overworked, and just trying to get by teaching the syllabus.
On Texas instruments side they have a product which continually becomes cheaper to manufacture, while the price point remains the same. Higher profits, no r&d, better business.
Just a cyclone of fuckery for the consumer and benefit for the company. |
Two things: that video actually address a different a different conspiracy theory about shadows and lighting than the one nvidia addressed.
Also, a 3D simulation in no way discredits, attempts to discredit, or claims to be more credible than any other examinations of the reality of the moon landing. You seem to be creating an antagonism that doesn't exist. Evidence of truth should only be glad to see further evidence of truth. |
how the fuck does a computer simulation prove anything?
It's not proving anything by itself, but adds weight to scientific proof.
>They aren't physical. They follow their coding, even if it goes against how things work in reality.
Well, yes. That is basically foundation of all video games. That is why when environment laws described in code resemble reality it is usually called a simulation.
>how can you prove that something is physically possible via any means but physically reproducing the conditions?
While physical proof is the best and most solid and easiest to comprehend for a lay person, sometimes it's difficult to replicate the condition or process itself. May be it takes insane amount of time (like galactic formation simulation), or sizes of objects interacting are to big to observe with your eyes, or it's requires you to go the Moon.
Since physics laws and math are behind everything in life you can create a model of environment to simulate real life process. That is a huge branch in science called [mathematical modeling]( That is absolutely true that most times models are not 100% accurate, most of the time due to computing power limitations, but also because it's hard to describe every last detail of real world.
Now back to the article in topic. If you've read it carefully, you'll notice how developer describes his research in materials involved in this picture and their light reflecting properties - that was necessary to create proper simulation, so that objects interacting in it (light bouncing of surfaces) will have right properties. And light behavior and its properties were already included in NVIDIA engine. All that allowed to set a virtual experiment with conditions and results closely resembling real life test. |
Do you honestly think these people are going to change their minds? No matter how much evidence you throw at them, they will still deny it. You could fly them to the moon and shove their face in front of the Lander's base, and they would say NASA planted it there years after 1969.
You see, cranks and crackpots don't function on the same wavelength as normal skeptics. A good skeptic remains skeptical until good evidence is presented to prove the phenomenon. Cranks have borderline OCD type mental issues , where making up conspiracy theories gives them a sort of control over things they have no control of. In their minds the moon landings had to have been faked to promote this fantasy of an all powerful world order government. As contradictory to their motives it sounds, they make up some sort of conspiracy agency that "pulls the strings" because they're utterly afraid and in denial of the reality that there is no one in the pilot's seat running things. Governments are just institutions made up of people that are as clueless as the next person. |
Indeed you're partially right however I'm not saying that these theoretical concepts like string theory and the multiverse have been proven. Not even remotely.
What I'm saying is they are based in reality and have mathematical basis. That's it.
There is no experimental or empirical evidence that they (string theory, dark matter, multiverse) actually exist. Just mathematical evidence which is a lot more evidence for their possible existence than say faeries and unicorns have. |
Okay -- this is a big part of what I do for a living: what they're talking about is information disposition . Most well-run businesses do this, with the usual reasoning being that as information gets older, it has less bearing on current business, and is more likely to be a source of liability in future litigation.
A business that knowingly deletes information relevant to pending litigation is said to have spoliated evidence, and faces nasty penalties in court... so the strategy is usually to create a rule like this one, and show that the deletion took place according to policy, and totally had nothing to do with concern about any evidence that's lurking in there.
The "proper" way for a government to do this is to classify records (in this case, emails) into categories, based on what the emails were for, and delete the ones that are jokes, cat videos, and spam, and keep the ones that provide records of the process by which the government came to its decisions.
Some forms of government (like Westminster system parliaments) offer a special legal protection to certain parts of the government relating to proposals of law - their records are sealed, and not subject to disclosure.
"22 at the top" is not a reasonable rule for records to retain. |
I'd like to think it was her altruistic nature, but I suspect it might have something more to do with the many high-profile constituents who make lots of money in the email/data archiving business.
Retaining email is actually really freaking expensive. A cost of $1,000/year/user isn't out of the ballpark, and the wonderful (from the vendor's perspective) thing about it is that even users who have left the organization must be retained. If there's a disagreement on how or what to delete, it has to be retained. If there's a legal hold or even a possibility of a legal hold, retain, retain, retain.
I'd seriously doubt these are operational emails, more likely the drudgery of any large organization; meeting reminders, reams and reams of compliance documents, expense reports, complaints about slow processing of expense reports, requests for a reciept for a $16 lunch at Applebees, angry SECOND requests to itemize car rental expenses per day - you thought you could upgrade to mid-size and get away with it?? |
I would guess that the data is compressed, but I also suspect that the size of data we've used in the calculations is somewhat low, so probably a wash, overall.
Imho, the main challenge to long term archiving of electronic records is the changing format of storage media. In order for the information to be readable, you either have to maintain a reader that is compatible with the media, or migrate the information to new media every few years. It takes a lot more space, but we have paper records that are over two hundred years old and yet we can still access the originals for information. I sometimes wonder what will happen if 1000 years from now, some archeologist digs up our electronic records and wonders why we were storing so much black plastic tape on reels in plastic cartridges. "It's everywhere, but we can't seem to figure out why these blocks with wheels tied together were important." |
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