Super-genius executive: Maybe we should promise not to do stuff like that any more, but exempt "security software and Lenovo applications". That way we can continue getting paid by McAfee and others to continue loading their stuff, as long as they don't mind us slapping our logo on it.

If that happens you should complain. Customer complaints aren't addressed quite as strongly as accidents, but getting many complaints is pretty bad for a driver.

So... you still have nothing to cite.

I said no such thing. You were the one who brought up the 30s, I just used your era.

And I really have no dog in this fight, and would be interested to hear about examples of the Teamsters behaving badly in recent years. So I asked if you had any evidence that they still behave this way. You apparently don't.

At UPS they incent performance for drivers in ways that don't interfere with the seniority system.

Accident handling is pretty simple: If you have one, barring really, really clear evidence that it's not only not your fault but there is no possible way you could have avoided it, you're fired. The Teamsters lawyer will fight to get you a decent severance package, but that's it. Even with said evidence, you'd better not ever have another.

As for packages/per hour, UPS has a system that calculates the time required for a given route, including driving and deliveries. Drivers get paid max(route_time, actual_time), so if they can get the route done in less than the estimated time they get to go home early without losing pay. Experienced drivers can always beat the estimated time, usually by large margins, and even in the event of breakdowns, etc.

Further, habitually beating your route time gives you the opportunity to take on longer routes. So, many good UPS drivers habitually do 12-hour routes in 7 hours, which means they get paid for 14 hours (the last four of the 12 are time and a half) for working 7. Meanwhile, drivers who habitually take longer than their estimated times get assigned shorter and shorter routes, and, of course, there is a point at which drivers are taking so much longer than the estimate, that they can be fired for cause.

BTW, if you have the perception that UPS drivers are well-paid, you're both wrong and right. Their nominal hourly wages are decent, maxing out at around $20 per hour or a bit above, but those who work hard can easily earn lots of "fake" overtime, as in my example of 14 hours' pay for 7 hours' work. That plus massive amounts of real overtime around the holidays means that UPS drivers' incomes can approach six figures -- but only if they work hard.

So, does that response mean you are applying their reputation from the 30s, rather than basing your comment on recent behavior?

A little more nuance:

Suicide attempts can be generally divided into sincere and insincere. Insincere attempts are those that aren't really intended to succeed, but just to call attention to the person's suffering in a way that is hard to ignore. Most attempts by people who think "This will show them all" are insincere, because the person's goal isn't really death. This doesn't mean insincere attempts aren't dangerous, they certainly are. The individual needs to get close enough to death to make it convincing, and a slight miscalculation -- by someone who isn't thinking all that clearly -- can be fatal.

Insincere attempts are basically always preceded by a long period of calls for help, of the form you mention. Sadness, thoughts of death, wishes for death, etc. Algorithms should definitely be able to detect this, and warning someone who can take action can save lives.

Sincere attempts may or may not have this call for help phase. People who are self-possessed and determined don't often commit suicide, but when they do, it's often without any warning. Most people will call for help for a while, but the biggest warning sign of a sincere attempt is that the calls for help cease. The individual suddenly cheers up, often without any apparent cause. The cause is that they have decided to end their lives, and that decision lifts a burden off of them and makes them feel much better. This cheerfulness also facilitates their planning of an effective suicide. Another key characteristic of this sudden happiness is that it rarely includes discussion of the person's future, because they've decided they don't have one.

I think very good algorithms could also detect this process of sadness with occasional thoughts of death, followed by sudden present-focused good cheer, and this is the situation in which prompt and active intervention is most crucial.

I'm an engineer, not a psychologist, but my personal life has unfortunately included a great deal of exposure to these issues.

Cite?

I think you're applying their reputation from the 30s. I'm not a fan of unions in general, but I see a little of the modern Teamsters though my brother, a UPS driver. UPS is a union shop. Other than their strict enforcement of a seniority system, I frankly don't really see any problem. I think they do a lot of good for the UPS drivers, and see no evidence that they believe it's still 1930.

This is untrue. S/MIME always used asymmetric encryption to wrap a symmetric key, and the symmetric key to encrypt the data. http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/...

Google is working on it: http://googleonlinesecurity.bl...

So... manufacture all the devices, then ship them to another country, to a facility under a different organization's control, modify them all, then ship them out for distribution?

That's not going to increase costs at all :-)

Nor with Google Wallet.

My phone is actually handier than my wallet, because I use my wallet less and keep it in a less accessible pocket. Actually, most of the time while I'm in a checkout line my phone isn't in my pocket, it's in my hand.

(Disclaimer: I work for Google and bits of my code support Google Wallet. However, I was a fan of NFC payment before joining Google, and whether it's Google, Apple or someone else I'm really glad to see it finally taking off.)

Symmetric cryptography is not "totally insecure", and there's no reason to accept the complexity, large key size and performance hit of asymmetric cryptography when there's a perfectly reasonable key distribution mechanism in place. Further, your proposal wouldn't even help... who cares if the private key was never off the chip? Given a public key how do you know that the corresponding private key was ever on any chip? Answer: You need to obtain the public key in a secure fashion in a controlled environment, such as during manufacturing. If you drill down on the requirements for the context and process needed to identify that public key as trustworthy you find that you have exactly the same requirements for a secure symmetric key injection, which is much simpler and easier to manage.

And as for attack by NSA/GCHQ, if those are your opponents, and they're actually focused on you, you can't win. At most you can make them work for it a bit, but not very much. So it really doesn't make much sense to include national intelligence agencies in your threat model.

Heh. I'm wrong a lot, definitely. Anyone who says they aren't is lying.

In that particular case, however, I never said what you claim I did. I never took a position one way or the other on hosts files as an ad-blocking tool. I just said you're annoying... and I greatly appreciate your continuing to demonstrate the fact!

Pedantically, I was wrong. But I think it was obvious I was speaking of a system producing so much waste heat that it was usable for cabin heating.