"Erm what do you mean 'if'? "

If you don't understand what a conditional statement is then you're an idiot. I'm sorry, I started that with "If" so you aren't going to understand that sentence either, so let me rephrase. You're an idiot.

"They DO have their own CA's added to all browsers. Lots of governments do."

I've never seen a major browser delivered with a known government CA. There have been cases where it has appeared that a CA began issuing fraudulent certificates, and it appeared to be under the influence of a government entity. You might claim those are one and the same, but a legitimate independent CA is indistinguishable from a CA that is acting on behalf of a government entity until it starts issuing fraudulent certificates.

"A signed cert by any one of those is equally good for any site, unless you are also checking known signatures..."

What you are describing is what I already described via method #2. If and only if they are able to add their root public key to the user's computer will their fraudulently issued certificates successfully validate. Once it's added, then yes they can issue a fraudulent cert for any domain, and that user's browser will validate it.

"Have you seem the list of CA root certs in a normal browser install these days? Its in the dozens, if not hundreds."

Yes, so if you want to pursue method #1, you only need compromise any one of these CAs. Some CAs are going to have worse security than others, perhaps giving too many employees access to the private key, and some may reside in countries where governments or criminal elements leverage more control over the CA.

Some browsers have been more aggressive in removing CAs that have had issues where they were found to be issuing fraudulent certificates. It's kind of a moving target.

This new organization isn't necessarily immune to any of this. If they aren't secured well and their private key were compromised, then the same issues apply to them.

Anyone, even you and I, can have their own certificate authority and issue certificates. That is not enough for them to compromise the security of your SSL.

Keep in mind for them to use issue a certificate for your domain, and have your browser successfully validate it, the fraudulent issuer would need either of:

1) The real CA's private key, so that they can generate a certificate that validates against the CA's public key.
OR
2) Somehow maliciously insert their own public key onto your computer such that your browser sees certificates signed by the fraudulent party as valid.

#2 would be more likely if they are targetting some specific person or organization. If they managed to access a organization's network and deploy their own public key so that everyone's browsers will see the fraudulent CA as a valid CA.

#1 would be more likely if they compromised the real CA and stole their private key, were able to brute force or through some other method crack the real CA's private key(crack is probably the wrong word), or used a court order/raid to "steal" the private key. Keep in mind the fist two happens with malicious parties other than government entities. If you look through past stories there are cases of CA's being compromised and they have to revoke all of the certificates issued from that particular private key.

Yes, even with lots of data you'd probably have a hard time showing that some manufacturers are significantly more reliable, due to lots of factors that will create a large deviation within each manufacturer.

I heard a story of someone seeing a shipping container full of hard drives get dropped accidentally, and they just hooked it back up, put it on the ship, and sent them on their way. That probably generated a lot of the "I bought 3 SuchBrand drives, and they all failed in the first month".

I've had drives fail in the ~3 years range from a few different manufacturers. I think with a sample size of 3 drives you can't really draw any conclusions.

Their gripe is based on a previous case of Google being given discounts on fuel purchases, which the watchdog group themselves admits did not negatively impact the government or NASA. Google didn't steal this fuel or commit fraud to get these discounts. Their opinion is simply that it was unfair preference shown to Google(which, if anything, is misconduct on the part of NASA). So comparing this to stealing gas is unfair on the part of the watchdog group.

"These Google guys seem to think they can do whatever they want and get away with it"

So because Google was given got some fuel at a discount, "these Google guys" shouldn't be allowed to do anything at all anymore? What are they getting away with? Oh god they've leased some land and given the government some money for something that would have otherwise depreciated in value unused! The atrocity!

They've done this study twice a few years apart. Ask people non-objective questions that have factual answers, then find out which stations they watch. Perhaps a false correlation, but it is a pretty strong indicator. Maybe stupid people are drawn to Fox, and it's not Fox that's misinforming them?

http://news-beta.slashdot.org/...

The question I responded to was how is viewing a 3D image different, not an explanation of how it is harmful or any claim that it was or was not harmful. However there is flawed logic in your response.

" and found research conducted on adults (none on children) " ...and there you go. The lack of evidence doesn't prove/disprove anything. Although it's probably more a lack of diligent reporting on the journalist's part combined with the research may be in journals that aren't freely available(and abstracts with technical wording that don't turn up in a google). It sounds like to me you've pointed out why there SHOULD be such a study.

Additionally, studies where you hypothesize that subjects will come to significant irreparable harm are usually considered unethical. You have to instead observe those who already engage in those behaviors, and because they don't all engage in them in a consistent manner, then it's difficult to prove something. This is exactly why no one has proven cigarettes cause cancer. When a scientist talks about proving something, it's much more rigorous than what the average person thinks of. In the absence of a controlled experiment, you instead make statistical observations. Even if they found extreme statistics, such as 94% of people who smoke get cancer within a week of smoking, it still wouldn't prove anything cause you could have a correlation with some other variable out of your control. It is statistically significant however, and for these kind of things, it is the closest thing to proof you will get. That aside from rubbing cigarette tar on an animal and seeing cancer form. But that's usually not enough for people who like to argue.

The resolution is incredible.

Normally, your convergence and focus operate together.

With 3D imaging your convergence varies but focal point remains the same. No where outside of viewing a 3D image will your eyes ever experience such a scenario.

Granted, guidance counselors and advisers are sometimes of varying and questionable skill levels. It's not a job that has good performance benchmarks, and someone who is just a nice person can get by in such a position.

I would also absolutely like to see some alternatives to the university system, there are certainly lots of flaws and poor separation of concerns that result in a lot of detractors from effective education.

That being said:
Your wife should look through job postings for the field she intends to change to, see what skills and degrees they require or prefer. It may be she doesn't even need a new degree, but if she does she'll know what degree. Focus on the getting the "requireds", then start applying, and while applying/looking build skills in the "preferreds". It doesn't hurt to try and get in touch with someone in the field as well, and get their advice on what her next steps should be. Any of that will be orders of magnitude better information than what an advisor can give you.

Advisers are there to guide you through the bureaucracy of the university, let you know when/if you need to fill out this or that. Generally you should already have looked into course prerequs/requirements for your degree when you walk in their office. They will double check make sure your not skipping an important course that might not be offered for a couple semesters.

Have you ever had to help someone pick something out, like a new car, when they don't know what kind of car they want. It works out about the same way. "So what colors do you like? Ok that's a start, how about this one, do you like it? No? Ok this one? Ok this one? Do you like the big ones or the little ones? Sporty ones or do you want something big enough for a family?"

They are not trying to PUSH you into the system, you just are too stupid to come prepared with some basic research and life decisions in hand, and so they have to do exactly the same thing. Baby steps of "Well do you like art, or this or that?" That's not there job, they just do it because so many people are too stupid to realize they shouldn't make life decisions within a span of 15 minutes. They'd probably like to really so "HEY IDIOT! You need to do some serious research and consideration on this before you proceed." but if they did that then students would throw their hands up and complain about how the adviser didn't help them at all and they still don't have a major or courses registered blah blah blah.

If you come unprepared, then you've put them in the awkward position to try and "guide" your idiocy into anything they can get your drooling mouth to bite on to. They aren't going to have knowledge of literally hundreds of different fields. Do you have any idea the number of subfields there are within engineering alone?

Now you want them to sit there and look up job posting/candidate ratios, average salaries for the places you hope to live, etc. for all the possibilities? Right a couple hundred of them on cards and let you shuffle them and pull one out?

1) As for them pushing people into "a system", you walked into their office, which means you've probably already applied and been accepted to "the system". You were the facilitator to the participation in the system. If you are referring to jobs requiring a degree, that is not the educational industry driving that. The driving force there is it is one of the few benchmarks employers have to measure candidates. As ill prepared many degrees leave you, there is still a base body of knowledge that an employer will expect you to have if you have a degree in a certain field. Any degree at all indicates your commitment to completing something and following that process to completion.

Until something else comes along that becomes as well recognized as an accredited university, it will remain a recognized way to cull candidates.

2) Choosing a couple core courses to satisfy a humanities requirements, vs. choosing a for your degree major are two completely different things. I took music theory for my humanities requirements because I enjoyed it, but I degree is in computer science. I get your point though. Some people come in without knowing what major they want, and go with whatever without much thought, see #3

3) Would you choose a path that will affect the rest of your life based on a 15-30 minute meeting with someone who barely knows you? Anyone who doesn't do some research on their own is going to pay the price for making a major decision without major consideration. Should we blame the university for people who plow headstrong into something just because they don't know what they want to do with their life? If anything, the university should as a nicety say "HEY STOP! You need to take some time to look into this and what this decision means to your future." but I don't see how they are obligated to make your life decisions for you.

"are taking the advice of so-called "professionals" which are close ties to the for-profit education system."
Again you're trying to equate the advice of an advisor, to some sort of motivation of the university to increase revenue, and therefore are pressuring you into attending. Once again, if you're getting advice on class/degree choices and are in an advisor's office, you've probably already decided you're attending. The advisor isn't there to convince you to attend, and I've not seen anything you've described being such. The only way they might increase revenue is to push you into a specialty program like a health care program that has higher tuition rates than the standard courses.

There's a lot more factors outside of the university system that pressure people to attend.

I think that's hardly the college's fault. It's one thing if they don't give you practical knowledge in the field, but a different thing if YOU CHOOSE a field with poor job prospects. I don't understand why people don't do a little research into the job prospects for their major. Yeh the market fluctuates, but in 2 years its not going to change that much. (you spend two years on course class work, and can change your major without a lot of trouble and do the final 2 years) There's tons of sites that give you an idea of what potential salary would be.

Some people make the choice fully knowing of the poor job prospects. You want a burger with peanut butter and pineapple on it? fine, that's what you get, but you eat and don't blame the cook if it's gross. That's a calculated risk you are taking. Investment firms have no responsibility to prevent you from buying stocks that will do poorly.

On the other hand, if you want to make an argument on the basis of public universities being partially funded by tax dollars, and they have an obligation to this or that to contribute meaningful skills to the community etc., then that might be a valid train of though.

I started looking into my major interests while I was in high school. Between then and the first two years of college I changed my mind 4 times on what I wanted to do.

1. Should be something you don't hate to do all the time. It doesn't have to be something you love, but at minimum not hate.
2. Should be something that can make money. Doesn't have to be alot, just enough that you aren't constantly struggling.
3. Should be something you are somewhat good at. You don't have to be the greatest, but if it is something you struggle at then you may have trouble keeping jobs.

Those are the three simple things that guided me. I love my job. I make plenty of money. I feel I do a good job.

Anything like game design, art, or music is going to have more people competing for fewer jobs because it is something people really want to do. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but maybe if it's what you really want to do you should apply some of that passion to finding alternative learning resources, because you are taking a risk going down that path and a huge debt isn't something you should be accumulating if you are uncertain of your employability. Maybe get a computer science degree, get a job, and stretch your game design muscles in your free time.

Not only that, but all of these goals are targeting destruction and attack on the ideas of others. This indicates how they have no interest in learning or advancing knowledge at all. Any other organization around a theory would be trying to advance knowledge of its own theory. It's not a matter of them having their own theory and wanting to develop that theory or produce new knowledge around their field.

This all reflects why they are in their current state of mind, as they have no drive to learn, whether it be about their own ideas or the ideas of others. So they are in no position to rationally evaluate/compare/criticize their own theories against the theories of others.

So regardless of whether you believe in creationism or not, their whole approach is completely flawed.

Joking aside, the issue here that stands in the way of free market forces prevailing is the overwhelming cost of building the infrastructure required to compete on the same footing as established companies. If we had reasonable alternative ISP's we could vote with our dollars.

The reason telco's managing landlines were regulated so heavily is because they each get a slice of the infrastructure pie to provide their services on. Essentially a government mandated local monopoly, and thus the government dictates how much the telco can charge so that the telco cannot abuse their monopoly. This of course doesn't eliminate abuse nor guarantee that the rates are fair, but instead or the rates that the telco can convince the local officials are fair.

The benefits of this questionable arrangement are clear when you consider that the alternative is each company build its own duplicate infrastructure, which would result in poor under utilization of that infrastructure and result in higher costs passed on to consumers. Essentially this is why some want ISP's treated like utilities.

There are a handful of companies like Google who have the capital to build such infrastructures and bring competition to the table. Even in the presence of a true free market, companies often do not battle by providing competitive pricing, but instead find it more profitable to put money into advertising. If there are only two choices in an area, each will have a fair amount of people who are convinced by the advertising the X is better than Y, and then a fair amount of people who had a bad experience with X and so switched to Y. X and Y both charge way more than what it really costs to provide the service. They don't really have to coordinate price fixing, they simply come to the same conclusion after doing market research of what people are most likely to pay for service. Even if one has a slightly higher price than the other, the large profit margin will make up for the lost customers.

This made me laugh. I imagined the loud mouth guy from Dilbert doing this.