Posts by Don Jefe 5059 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Nov 2011
The internal surveillance is what they're really in trouble over. All the other spying will be smoothed over in the international circle jerk called diplomacy.
Other countries are free to build businesses comparable to US offerings and would be crazy not to do so, but international surveillance is something all countries do, it's just if you get caught you've got to offer up some concessions.
"while respecting our commitment to privacy and civil liberties".
WTF is that supposed to mean: Your "commitment to privacy and civil liberties"! That's the Presidents job you poorly wiped asshole. It's not the mission statement of a company; those things are the foundations on which the country is founded. I'll make it easy you scrotum scab: Stop Spying On Your Own Citizens. Crisis sorted.
I like how they totally leave any mention of the Constitution out of their statements. Jackasses.
Subjectivity, or the lack thereof, is where suck, and always will. A non-faulty computer or calculation design will always return the same answer, assuming other variables remain constant. A Human brain is completely different in that it is likely to return a different answer each time, even if the variables remain constant.
In a Human brain each different answer to a subjective challenge is equally as valid as the previous or the next. Unlike a computer where different answers mean it is broken. Those equally valid answers are what allow Humans to assess and act wholly illogically, but still correctly.
But Capitalism falls down if you don't assume infinite exponential growth. It can't be (can it?) that economists are that bad at math, but they build the impossible right into their predictions and policies anyway.
Woe unto you if you point out the obvious failings with the way things 'work' now. You'll be accused of either hating freedom or of being a dirty communist.
A 6x orders of magnitude increase of anything requires quite a bit of trying. Just increasing assholish behavior by 6x orders of magnitude is difficult.
Maybe someday computers will act more like human brains but not only are they not directly comparable, medical science still has a long way to go to even understand how the brain works. Right now they are still poking it with a sharpened stick and that's nearly the state of the in neuroscience.
Until science actually figures out the secrets of the brain, it will be impossible to build an accurate calculation model around one. It would just be a guess and likely not a good one at that.
Did you mean baseball bat?
Honor amongst criminals only exists if it is enforced with violence. Unaffiliated criminals have never had a lot going on in the honor department. The faceless, 'virtual' nature of computerized crime pretty much guarantee a mob style power structure, and any accompanying 'honor' will never develop outside any real Mafioso's already engaged in it.
Additionally, I'm pretty sure most computer criminals are simply too lazy and agoraphobic to go outside and beat someone into shape.
There's also the "customer lock-in" component. You remain on probation until your fines are paid. That means finding a decent job is going to be difficult, as your employer has to submit regular paperwork and it's a pain in their ass. You also have to pay your probation officer for each visit (weekly, bi-weekly or monthly) and pay for drug and alcohol tests anytime they feel like giving you one. You can't even drink your sorrows away while you're on probation.
So not only are the finances of fines screwed up, they've found a way to extend the punitive portion of your sentence until the end of your life in some cases. Which I guess makes sense as the US justice system no longer recognizes rehabilitation except, oddly enough, in cases of violence. Once a criminal always a criminal here. It really isn't the way the system was intended to work.
Maybe, but I'll withhold judgement to see how many hundreds of thousands of impossible to pay back dollars the court fines him.
Making fines a metric by which prosecutors performance is judged is pretty stupid. They ask for, and get, ridiculous judgements, knowing they'll never be paid, but they get to add the total value to their performance scorecard and the State gets to count the payments as incoming revenue. Great for promotions and political capital but companies get in trouble for double booking sales revenue like that.
I can't see what real value there is in this for targeting an individual. Sure, you could annoy them, but unless you're planning to assassinate them it'll just be an annoyance. I would also, perhaps incorrectly, assume that if you were the type of person actually planning a stealthy assassination you'd have other, more suitable, tech available. Maybe I'm just missing something.
Yep, for most business nothing is in a name. The marketing creeps will try to tell you differently but they're wrong. Businesses will become associated with whatever product you put out.
I've fixed friends PC's who used 'Mozilla' for their browser and my assistant 'Xerox's' stuff even though our copiers are all Ricoh.
Even if it was sensitive data these guys are in the 'financial sector' so any hard time would likely be extremely limited anyway. We can't be locking up the crooks experts who keep the whole wonky mess from falling over.
Blackberry also created, possibly, the first corporate tech accessory that non-business people wanted. Even younger kids understood (thought?) that a Blackberry meant business and having a Blackberry meant you were a take care of business type of person.
That transition into the mainstream also hurt RIM. Business people lost their status symbol the minute kids started getting Blackberrys as their first phone. RIM even played into this by offering colored cases and cutesy colored light up trackballs. Business types couldn't be using the same tech as their kids and Apple's high priced, well packaged image was extremely attractive.
Catering to the mass market is extremely risky for all but the biggest and most robust companies. Woolworth, Montgomery Ward, Tesco, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart have continuously put their own suppliers out of business since the beginning of 'low, low prices'. Best to not even get into those markets unless you've got a massively diversified business (like a Samsung). If you're riding a single trick pony those markets will carve your pony into little pieces and sell it to IKEA in a heartbeat.
I'm afraid the only thing that will save Blackberry is if the Canadian government lets them use their time machine to go back to 2009 and get a second chance at those 'new fangled touch screens and cameras >1.5MP'. Alas, I don't expect the government to authorize the machines use for something like this.
In actual design 2D and 3D are inextricably linked. Both have distinct advantages and disadvantages. Engineers won't be going pure 3D for a long time, if ever, as only a poor engineer disregards another way to view a part or system.
An often overlooked advantage of a good ole blueprint is the fact you can scribble on it, fold it, spindle it or otherwise modify it with no limitations or software knowledge required. Software can seriously stifle creativity if one isn't careful. You'd be surprised at how many extraordinarily complex problems get solved, and ultimately sent into space, when a frustrated engineer on his sixth pint looks at the blueprint turned upside down on a table.
Visioning systems are neat and they show future promise, but as of now, they simply cannot provide that 'feel' of a traditionally viewed drawing or model. Maybe someday, but not now.
I'm still not convinced that moving non-sensitive data to 'the cloud' is a bad move for a lot of businesses.
Nuclear power plants, particle accelerators and jet engines all experience show stopping problems more often than the Amazon cloud offering and only the fringe complain about those things. Granted those issues are generally handled better, but as ElNumbre states, this issue is a failure to plan for failure; not a failure of the entire concept.
If you've got the manpower, tools and budget, hand torqued fasteners are always a superior option. Even the best powered drivers leave a lot to be desired in the accuracy department. For instance the $8,000 electric drivers we use for production assemblies show ~8% variance over a $3,000 old school manual torque wrench. Powered drivers also go out of calibration faster.
As far as this project goes though you are correct in that this is likely superfluous. Unless I'm really, really underestimating the speeds of this thing it probably doesn't create the harmonics necessary to allow a few out of spec fasteners to cause failure or accelerated wear.
I agree there has been some significant accomplishments for sure, but if you look back at previous cultures their most recognized legacies are their large engineering projects. Either through the fact they still exist or through story and legend.
The little things are of interest primarily to anthropologists: Day to day habits and possessions. Even then there's often no consensus on those things, just a lot of well educated guesses. Computing in all its current forms will be interesting to the future the same way that old brass cash registers, telegraphs, mimeographs, and printing presses are interesting. Current computing will be an interesting sidebar to a subset of the population, a step in communication technology, not an icon future cultures will identify with us.
Projects like this are great things. I think it is sad that the last generation (longer in some places) has been all about lowering costs and increasing efficiencies, two absolutely uninteresting things, and they've managed to make everything more expensive and less efficient. There is never enough money for governments and soooo much money is wasted trying to save a dollar.
There should be more large engineering projects in today's world, if for no other reason than to show the future that we weren't idiots and we also had a handle on technology. As it stands right now our civilization looks like it hasn't accomplished much of anything of storybook/legendary status since WWII (with rare exceptions, like this).
We've let the bean counters take control and that, oddly enough, never pays off for anyone: (Insert price/value and accountant colloquialism here). Down with accountants!
I've found it's best to spout bullshit on stage where people cant really argue and you can always claim you were misquoted. Look at politicians, they say absolutely insane stuff at rallies but you'll never get them to sign a statement verifilying they said it :)
I would add paranoid situationally aware customer to that.
Our business sector isn't really regulated, but a lot of our output itself is and our internal processes/competitive advantages would be too vulnerable in 'the cloud'. I'm sure there are many other businesses who simply can't afford a breach of security and/or the inability to internally manage that risk.
If something goes terribly wrong I want the responsible party where I can get at them in person. People with vested interests in their work, not a cog in an industrial machine*.
*Not a knock on the cogs of industrial machines, personnel portability/modularity just isn't suitable for all business.
Pressurized tire sealants have always been explosive, a least here in the States. There's a lot more than propellant in soda can sized widget that both inflates and seals a punctured car tire.
Here there are big signs at the mechanics shops telling you to inform them if you've used sealant as a spark from the bead breaker can cause explosion; trashes the tire too...
Radio frequency overlap and interference are going to be huge headaches for 'everyday' drones. As the tech becomes more popular it is only a matter of time until control and video signals are interfering with one another in fun/disastrous ways.
Inexpensive R/C has already made flying at public R/C fields problematic. On the weekends there's always at least a few newbies who are fiddling with their kit and screwing with people who actually have models in the air.
Long story short, you don't need specialized software to jam non-military drones. You can build a high powered jamming device for about $60 in parts from a hobby shop. If you want to be a real dick you can just buy a nice variable frequency transmitter and steal aircraft right out of the sky.
Have you seen the Surface retail displays? They are horrendously ugly and confusing. You can't make enough sense of them to even know what box to pick up to buy your chosen model. You could get an RT, a Pro, a keyboard cover, a lighted cover or god knows what else; it all looks alike.
I'm sure they must have been provided by MS (as opposed to purchased by the store like most retail displays) because they are far too awful for any self respecting retailer to put in their stores.
Don't feel bad, no one understands why RT exists or who it was even targeted at. Everything surrounding it has been confusing, vague, contradictory and occasionally insulting with the only clear functionality being the ability to buy apps, but failing even in that as they forgot to build any apps to buy...
It would likely have a more positive impact than chasing lone terrorists with robots, warships and armies: But what should they call the operation?
Operation Sandy Lube
Operation Wide Stance
Operation Canadian Pharmacy Offline
Operation Impressive Manhood
Operation Fill the Gap
I don't know. Naming things isn't my department and the marketing guys are off today.
You really wouldn't want to buy your penis pills from a small provider. Surely you'd want to get them from the people with the biggest operation you could find. Someone who has been in business a long time and is always ready and willing to deliver the performance that keeps you and your partners satisfied.
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Maybe that's really why Ballmer is leaving MS. He knows he's about to get caught with his hand in the jar. I'm kidding.
It hasn't come back up much since the ridiculously tiny PRISM sum in the slides. But even with that small sum you're talking about several people per organization that would have to either be paid off, tightly controlled or maybe even NSA agents working for the companies. I suppose they could be paid off in company stock, purchased by the NSA then magicked into holdings of those involved. It's easy for employees to justify having shares of the company they work for.
It sounds rather tin-foil-hatish, but putting agents on the staff with the preconditions that they work autonomously from everyone else really wouldn't be too difficult. That tactic already has form with the AT&T leaks from a few years back. They probably wouldn't have been caught then if they hadnt basically labeled the room "Super Secret Spy Stuff Closet". The less structured environments of the companies known to be involved would make it a lot easier than an old guard company like AT&T.
The logistics of all of the money are so potentially convoluted it makes it impossible to even guess realistically on how they've been hiding it. I suppose that's why they are intelligence agencies though, they aren't supposed to get caught spying. You have to assume they're good at it.
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