The videos don't seem to be down. I just watched it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/BadLipReading#p/c/48076365A788CC3F/6/bQOJwDMZMXw

Except of course they did consider this notion by including in the same amendment the freedom of press. There is a big difference between free Wi-Fi at McDonalds and shutting off a utility. Yes, it is true that Verizon's networks are privately owned, but they also form a considerable portion of this nation's communication infrastructure, and it is reasonable to expect in a free society that something like this remains intact.

kdawson? Bah. I remember when people wanted to flog Jon Katz. Now get off my lawn.

Why does that data belong to you, or anyone who generated it? You aren't the ones that paid to collected, index, and stored this information. The information belongs to Google.

MIT's CS 101 course used to use a book called "Structures and Interpretation of Compter Programming" and was based on a LISP-variant called MIT Scheme. No compiler. Now, I think they use Python. Still no compiler.

Javascript isn't half bad of a language to use for an intro course, although I think it is far from ideal. Javascript as implemented in a browser, with the DOM and all is kind of a mess. Having examples to run in a browser is a nice perk though. You get to mess with a GUI without knowing much more than HTML.

This may be true for this particular instance, but Firefox certainly isn't guaranteeing that going forward. What happens with Firefox 9 is released with a feature that breaks their enterprise, and Firefox 8 is suddenly no longer supported?

This whole attitude I hear parroted that "release numbers are irrelevant because they are just numbers" ignores a whole bunch of realities regarding how new features are introduced and developed to different classes of users. And in the case of Firefox, this new strategy sends a disturbing message to enterprise customers that new and potentially disruptive features will be introduced "when they are ready" and support for previous versions will be immediately dropped.

You are right, they wouldn't. And for a good reason. The problem with the model Firefox is adopting is that they are no longer guaranteeing support for a browser that is a few months old. It might be fine in this particular instance where they've made "minor" changes from 4 to 5, but there is no guarantee of this going forward. The versioning numbers are used as a signal to management to indicate feature stability and adoption risk, and Firefox has gotten rid of that. Now the enterprise is left with an unsettling possibility that Firefox 6, or Firefox 9, will suddenly introduce a feature which breaks compatibility with their stuff, without little or no warning or support from Firefox.

You will? I thought the rip was digital.

You forgot to sack the people responsible for sacking those responsible for the suit.

Yes, this people are dumb for rioting. Yes, I don't mind if they spend some time in jail or pay some fines. But this might be a good time to remove the facial recognition profile data from your facebook account.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/06/how-disable-facebooks-facial-recognition-feature

Maybe it is absurd to be a music performance major if you are coming out of high school not knowing how to play an instrument. See where I am going with this?

This is the wrong message to take from Challenger. While it is true that there are risks that were taken with the space program, lets not forget there was a civilian teacher on board that shuttle, and at the time the flight was considered to be reasonably safe. The major contributing factors to Challenger were due to management taking priority over good engineering. That is a lesson we can't afford to forget.

It is really sad that you all aren't reading this report. Not even the executive summary.

But since you can't be bothered to read, the report does in fact attribute a major cause of the financial crisis in 2008 to the Fed keeping rates low. and it also blames the regulators for ignoring warning signs, and the ratings agencies for not fixing problems with their risk models and continuing to rate crap as triple-A. It also discusses in great detail such as AIG being able to issue insurance (in the form of CDSs) without having collateral.

So yes, all of your points were covered in your report. But go ahead and shit all over the thing that actually is trying to explain and justify precisely the things you see an being primal causes to the crisis, because government sucks right?

Maybe you should try to read the report. It doesn't say what you are saying it does. The fact you were modded up is kinda sad.

If you "despise the governments" maybe you would prefer an independent journalist, Matt Taibbi, who corroborates most of the conclusions of his report in the independent analysis he provides in his book, "Griftopia."

They do not find that more government is needed. They did find that regulators both failed to act when it was within their power and failed to request more power when they needed it. There is a long list of examples just in the executive summary of both of these.

They do not find that the people in power are not to be blamed. Quite the opposite. They find that people in power were very much to blame.

I am so sick of the prevalent simple-minded "explanations" of this crisis. Read the report. What happened in 2008 is complicated and it is worth understanding. Blame is very widespread, but can also be pinpointed. There are actions which can be taken to prevent this from happening again. But first, it is necessay to understand what happened. This report does an extremely thorough job of explaining it.

A summary of the report's conclusions:

- We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable. The crisis was the result of human action and inaction, not of Mother Nature or computer models gone haywire. The captains of finance and the public stewards of our financial system ignored warnings and failed to question, understand, and manage evolving risks within a system essential to the well-being of the American public.

- We conclude widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision proved devastating to the stability of the nation’s financial markets. The sentries were not at their posts, in no small part due to the widely accepted faith in the selfcorrecting nature of the markets and the ability of financial institutions to effectively police themselves. More than 30 years of deregulation and reliance on self-regulation by financial institutions, championed by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and others, supported by successive administrations and Congresses, and actively pushed by the powerful financial industry at every turn, had stripped away key safeguards, which could have helped avoid catastrophe.

- We conclude dramatic failures of corporate governance and risk management at many systemically important financial institutions were a key cause of this crisis. There was a view that instincts for self-preservation inside major financial firms would shield them from fatal risk-taking without the need for a steady regulatory hand, which, the firms argued, would stifle innovation. Too many of these institutions acted recklessly, taking on too much risk, with too little capital, and with too much dependence on short-term funding.

- We conclude a combination of excessive borrowing, risky investments, and lack of transparency put the financial system on a collision course with crisis. In the years leading up to the crisis, too many financial institutions, as well as too many households, borrowed to the hilt, leaving them vulnerable to financial distress or ruin if the value of their investments declined even modestly. For example, as of 2007, the five major investment banks—Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley—were operating with extraordinarily
thin capital. By one measure, their leverage ratios were as high as 40 to 1, meaning for every $40 in assets, there was only $1 in capital to cover losses.

- We conclude the government was ill prepared for the crisis, and its inconsistent response added to the uncertainty and panic in the financial markets. As our report shows, key policy makers—the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York—who were best positioned to watch over our markets were ill prepared for the events of 2007 and 2008. Other agencies were also behind the curve. They were hampered because they did not have a clear grasp of the financial system they were charged with overseeing, particularly as it had evolved in the years leading up to the crisis.

- We conclude there was a systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics. The integrity of our financial markets and the public’s trust in those markets are essential to the economic well-being of our nation. The soundness and the sustained prosperity of the financial system and our economy rely on the notions of fair dealing, responsibility, and transparency. In our economy, we expect businesses and individuals to pursue profits, at the same time that they produce products and services of quality and conduct themselves well. Unfortunately—as has been the case in past speculative booms and busts—we witnessed an erosion of standards of responsibility and ethics that exacerbated the financial crisis. This was not universal, but these breaches stretched from the ground level to the corporate suites.

THESE CONCLUSIONS must be viewed in the context of human nature and individual and societal responsibility. First, to pin this crisis on mortal flaws like greed and hubris would be simplistic. It was the failure to account for human weakness that is relevant to this crisis. Second, we clearly believe the crisis was a result of human mistakes, misjudgments, and misdeeds that resulted in systemic failures for which our nation has paid dearly. As you read this report, you will see that specific firms and individuals acted irresponsibly. Yet a crisis of this magnitude cannot be the work of a few bad actors, and such was not the case here. At the same time, the breadth of this crisis does not mean that “everyone is at fault”; many firms and individuals did not participate in the excesses that spawned disaster. We do place special responsibility with the public leaders charged with protecting our financial system, those entrusted to run our regulatory agencies, and the chief executives of companies whose failures drove us to crisis. These individuals sought and accepted positions of significant responsibility and obligation. Tone at the top does matter and, in this instance, we were let down. No one said “no.”