It wasn't enough to merely fire him and his 5999 coworkers. They made an example out of him.

That's power.

1) Advertising will become more lucrative. The attempt to de-anonymize has dollars and cents reasons. It's the reason behind store discount cards. You use the card so the store can target coupons and advertising to you, getting you to spend more.

2) Dissent will become more difficult. It'll lead to less whistleblowing, less speaking truth to power and less honest discussion of unpopular ideas (because only popular ideas are good, right?).

3) There is the side effect of having less nastiness and vacuous idiocy. But it's not the only side effect. 2) above is also a side effect. However, less nastiness is merely a sales pitch, not a real discussion, as it ignores 2) above.

Follow the money, follow the power considerations. As always.

mc6809e wrote:
There's about 1.53 million more square km of ice than what is usual.

Ol Olsoc wrote:
allow me to post the rest: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/

mc6809e noted that in the SOUTHERN hemisphere, there is a +1.53 million square km ice anomaly.

However, in the follow-on post, it shows that in the NORTHERN hemisphere, there is a -0.63 million square km ice anomaly.

So, +1.53 - 0.63 = +0.9 net global ice difference over the past 3 years. And this is relative to the mean from 1978-2008.

Personally, it does make sense to me that there is AGW, but these graphs indicate a net global sea ice increase over the past 3 years. Is it the last word in the discussion? No, but it is an interesting data point.

Pew Research report: "The Global Religious Landscape", with global numerical breakdowns.

If a virus cannot get into the Windows registry, it's not going to be able to be a persistent problem. The only way it can get into the registry AFAIK is via administrative prileges (or a privilege escalation exploit). Any simple file downloads will be blocked by the virus scanner. Obviously, keep the computer patched so that privilege escalation exploits are limited.

If a virus does get into the registry, the only way to be sure it's gone is to reset the computer. This pearl of wisdom comes from tedious experience.

Just give them a standard account on the computer, keep the administrator account password to yourself.

Also - it's very helpful to keep their computer behind a router which provides their WiFi. The router gets probed all day long and stays mute, and the nasties never get to strike up a conversation with the operating systems behind it.

In the long run what will make the drug companies more money.

The companies are merely vehicles for the people leading them. A cancer cure would make them wealthy beyond avarice, and allow those people a generational legacy. A cure would yield an immediate massive profit for the corporate leaders than would suppressing it.

It may destroy the company (exceedingly unlikely) but if destroying the company yielded a massive short term profit, lifting the company officers into the ranks of the ultra wealthy, the company would be beached on the rocks without a blink. The company is just a logical construct, a vehicle used to enrich the officers. Look at the financial sector. Wreckage of companies but massively enriched executives. Google Joseph Cassano and AIG to see an example.

1) One of the big drivers behind patent reform was the National Association of Realtors. The reason why is in the link.

2) They are the 5th largest all time donor to federal politicians. They pay both political parties nearly equally.

3) They are the part of the Finance-Insurance-Real Estate (FIRE) sector, which as a group, "is far and away the largest source of campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties" per the link.

Hence the overwhelming numbers. I'd be curious to see what other goodies are buried in that bill.

Step by step, so a non-technical type can understand just what the issue is. "Security" for some folks is a vague amorphous issue with no real consequence. I've been stunned by some of the malware and lack of security I've seen on people's computers. They don't "get it." They don't understand the risk and the damage.

Help your boss "get it" if that's the issue. Explain the consequences of a breach, and the damage to the brand. Show with other examples in the media.

My $0.02.

Is there any religion without strange doctrine?

"One man's religion is another man's belly laugh." -- Robert Heinlein

And a quick followup - think about a profession as well researched, as old and rigorous as civil engineering. The engineering of structures. Even in this environment where the concepts are well known, the profession is ancient, snafus happen. There is new metro station in the DC metro area. It is RIFE with problems:

Silver Spring Transit Center to get new layer of concrete to address construction flaws
By Bill Turque,September 06, 2013
Washington Post

"The $120 million bus and train hub at Georgia Ave. and Colesville Rd. is more than two years behind schedule and tens of millions of dollars over budget. Issues with concrete — including cracks, insufficient thickness and questions about strength in some areas — have played a major role in the delay." -- Washington Post

I can imagine managers are thinking, "What the hell? How many metro stations are there in this region? In this country?? There's no new concepts here! You people all have P.E's! The processes for design are totally standardized! How could this possibly happen?"

I think the most interesting thought in the article was about the author's observation of contempt between modern managers (in the example in the publishing business) and the engineers who actually create and manage systems.

I know why this is: A vice president of a staffing firm is in my social circle. A group of us were talking about a website idea. The VP and some quasi technical managers assured me that the solution was commoditized - already done before, available off the shelf as components. Nothing new, just need to get qualified people and equipment to plug and play. Very straightforward.

So, while that is technically true... it is an utterly different and vastly more difficult matter to be able to identify the right people and create an environment where they can obtain the right equipment and room to maneuver. So, while the CTO of Google might be able to snap his fingers and create the website in a few weeks, a staffing company doesn't have access to that specific elite experience, or that development environment.

Managers want to look at us - programmers, software engineers - as totally fungible, mere factory robots. Identical units which can quickly be obtained off the shelf and who can then implement a solution as long as it's kind of similar to any existing solution. HOWEVER - we're more like doctors and hospitals, where, despite having the same title, the variation in ability and intelligence and tools is quite high. Think about the medical stories you read about where the person goes through doctor after doctor trying to cure a malady, until they find the right doctor. Or where a person has a rare malady and serendipitously finds a doctor researching this issue and obtains a cure. I think this dynamic exists in all professions but it's quite emphasized in programming.

So, that's why there might be contempt - both sides really don't understand what they're dealing with. Managers looking at people who inexplicably can't just "do it" - they look at programmers like fungible factory robots (I don't say workers because even unskilled labor has variations in ability) turning bolts to put together pre-existing solutions. And programmers thrown into hidebound, designed-to-thwart-change development environments while trying to learn new concepts and put together novel solutions in a designed-to-fail environment.
 

Google Trends underscores this point.

What about a per-unit comparison of the environmental footprint of ICE cars versus battery-powered cars?

The oil infrastructure to support the US is huge. The battery manufacture infrastructure is not. How does environmental impact work out on a per unit basis? On an aggregate basis, of course the oil infrastructure is dirtier - if for no other reason, it's bigger. But the per-unit comparison will provide an idea of whether an individual electric car is environmentally dirtier than an oil burner.

I haven't seen a really good answer to the question yet.

Electricity generation in the US, by energy source.

"Coal 37%
Natural Gas 30%
Nuclear 19%
Hydropower 7%
Other Renewable 5%
Petroleum 1%"

How long does the battery last before it must be replaced? And will that cost offset any savings I've obtained during the life of the vehicle?

How does the environmental footprint of the battery compare with the environmental footprint of an oil burner?