Things that people with short memories will have forgotten by now since they happened all of three years ago. Detailed summaries of his doing can still be found on Groklaw though.

You see, mr. Mueller is not just *any* publicist. He's a publicist who is, basically, for hire by large companies to provide a congenial account of their doings and their position. In short: he is a lobbyist. His (former) clients seem to include SCO (the company who tried to claim crippling copyrights on Linux and engaged in an intense campaign of legal blackmail aimed at companies using Linux) and one of his current clients seems to be Oracle (the company that reied to shut down Android by claiming copyright on Java library API's).

As summarised by the following posts:

http://www.groklaw.net/article...

http://www.dailytech.com/Top+A...

http://techrights.org/2010/08/...

My only question to him would be: who is on your current client list?

Based on the paper, I'd say this thing is genuine, even if we don't understand how it works yet.

Did you do any kind of analysis tracing existing malware to point-sources? Or did you see any data on that and did you identify and count those point-sources?

No? Then what is your opinion worth?

You seem to be confusing *operators* (i.e. the ones that actually push the button and run botnets, burglarise computers, and/or spread malware) with *researchers*, *designers* and *programmers* who never hack, but who write (and sell) the tools the operators use.

If you had actually read the article, you would have noticed that it's talking about those tool-makers, not operators. I could very well believe that those toolmakers number only about 100 world-wide.

If Google focuses on filtering content rather than providing it then it can certainly comply quicker and more completely with all such take-down orders.

The question of whether Google can " control and censor every last thing" is totally irrelevant, as the suit is addressed to Google on basis of what you can find using Google ... as opposed to what you can find "on the Internet".

It's simply a matter of where you put your priorities. Which in term depends on how reasonable you think the demands to censor search results are.

As noted in earlier posts, techies don't appreciate the extent to which society can suppress behaviour it doesn't want.

Lawsuits like this may well lead to a shift in Google's priorities and a substantial increase in the extent to which it filters search results.

But apparently it's not OK to sell software to allow people to use their perfectly ordinary cellphone to pick up other conversations from its vicinity.

How about securing the transmissions of cellphones instead of prosecuting someone for doing the obvious?

Ah well, we'll just have to work it into the next free-trade treaty then.

Allowing the security services to *monitor* the whole country looks like a panicky move and leaves the door wide open to abuse.

Curtailing the freedom of speech of journalists and bloggers, as in :

The legislation makes it an offence if a person "discloses information ... [that] relates to a special intelligence operation" and does not state any public interest exemptions, meaning it could apply to anyone including journalists. Those who disclosed such information would face up to 10 years' jail.

veers into police-state territory, given the vague way in which it's phrased. I think that the balance between on the one hand safeguarding the effectiveness of anti-terrorism measures and on preventing miscreants from benefiting from bloggers and journalists and a general gag-order on the other has been upset.

For example reporting on the crackdown of the past few days would probably fall under it. Reporting like the articles that exposed the TSA's practices of make-work and unprofessional conduct could fall under it, if the prosecutors happened to feel like it.

I'm not given to quoting historical figures as a rule, but I'll make an exception now:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. [Franklin, B. ((11 Nov. 1755) Reply to the Governor] .

Have they really considered the costs and benefits of this little gag-law? Are their "Special Intelligence Operations" that fragile that they come apart when people report about them? I can't imagine it.

The problem is to find those drones in the first place, especially if they're coming in low and slow, or high enough to be out of slingshot range.

The "droneshield" thingy seems to tackle the problem by analysing ambient sounds. From the webpage the article refers to:

Drones present many threats to military and homeland security forces and facilities. "Low, Slow, and Small" UAS are a growing threat that legacy CUAS will not detect. DroneShield compliments (sic) radar and RF detection systems against smaller, low signature UAS because acoustic emissions are difficult to conceal or spoof.

So it tells you if it hears a drone buzzing nearby, which is useful, ... but it doesn't (yet) do target-acquisition for BillyBob's anti-drone-slingshot batteries.

Maintenance programming is an example. Large development projects under the "waterfall" method (often) is an example. Custom-building standard systems is another. In such cases you're better off with predictable but competent standardised performance from a team of 9-5 programmers that with mob of empassioned risk-takers.

This "passion" thing is needed when individual performance counts. As in: when the "old" way of doing things no longer suffices (the old machinery has bogged down and needs to be replaced by something new), or when clear efficiency improvements can be realised (this is common engineering practice), or when there is room to experiment (e.g. in Open Source Software), or when your task is to see how far the envelope can be pushed and to come up with something new (e.g. research).

Of course there's a difference between not keeping up with mainstream engineering (as the opening post suggests) and spending your time "innovating" when there are adequate standard methods available.

And who's to say they're in the wrong to just install a missile battery in orbit to "reclaim their property" or to extract "reasonable compensation" from returning mining vessels?

Or even to send their own mining vessels (possibly armed) to the very same asteroids that Congress so graciously told you that you can keep the mining proceeds of?

The kind of attitude you display leads straight to armed conflict (if the rewards are high enough). Are you prepared to fight that conflict and hold the rest of us harmless from it, both financially and militarily?

Somehow I doubt that.

And last but not least: how about giving private citizens and private companies the power to mess about with chunks of rock near Earth's orbit? And what if those clowns decide it makes financial sense to install a motor on a really big asteroid and push it into earth orbit (for easier access)? And how about if North Korea or the Khalifate do that?

A little less short-sightedness there please.

Most R code does things like model fitting, parameter estimation, data visualisation, data analysis etc.. The code mostly is just a way to capture and operationalise an idea in statistics or data processing. If you can recognise, grasp, and follow through that idea then the code usually starts to make sense pretty quickly.

On the other hand, if you can't, then you'll be hard put to understand the code on its own terms and you really shouldn't try to modify it because you won't know what to look out for.

As I see it, the openings in "R" are for people who are "numerate", know about statistics, data analysis, a little database knowledge and who also happen to know R.

People like that are also likely to be able to work effectively with SAS, SPSS, SQL, Matlab and other high-level programming languages.

We would like to point out that your suggestion has already been implemented in the form of business class or first class travel.

Rather than complicating matters by offering a more heterogeneous product palette, we are currently researching a range of options which we consider to be both more realistic and more closely aligned with our mission and our strategic objectives.

One such programme, which we propose to field-test within the next three months, consists of administering sedatives and muscle relaxants (provided free of charge during the initial testing phase) to all economy passengers around 30 minutes before boarding. This courtesy relaxant will be individually dosed to wear off within hours of touchdown.

We believe that this will both eliminate disorderly conduct, increase security, reduce catering demands, and prevent injuries on the flight."

This applies for all taxicab companies, no matter their size. What Uber is doing is to make an end-run around those laws by offering taxicab rides from drivers who *don't* meet those requirements. Makes it easy to undercut people who do abide by the law eh? Sounds like unfair competition to me.

So how the hell is enforcing such laws "Socialist"?

And whoever decided this Anonymous Coward's drive-by comment qualifies as "insightful"?