Comment Re:Missing option (Score 1) 270
I did not say that I did not waste time, I just don't waste time gaming
I did not say that I did not waste time, I just don't waste time gaming
Sorry: I did not explain myself adequately. My point is that even if we assume that what they are doing is reasonable, moral,
Assume that this report is true (I note that this is not the first time that we have heard this sort of thing) and take the NSA/GCHQ aims at face value and desirable: ie that they are acting to prevent harm to people in their respective countries.
What they appear to be doing is to damage some innocent people to prevent harm to some other people. I can understand that this might be a trade off that is worth paying - paid by the innocent people. I am far from convinced that this trade off is right or moral; but for the sake of this argument - I will accept it.
So: we have an equation, it is worth it if: Number-of-people-protected > Number-of-people-harmed.
It is, of course, more complicated. The above assumes that the amount of harm is the same in each case, this will not be true. Arguably the worst harm is someone being killed. There are lesser harms to individuals: financial loss, loss of reputation, damage to personal relationships (estrangement from families, divorce,
The difficult part is ranking the harms, so how much financial loss is equivalent to loss of liberty or death ? Cleverer people that me might be able to come up with a rough ranking.
There is also the general harm to society that is caused by gumming up free discussion and exchange of information.
Once we have done all of the equations: are we, as a society, better or worse off ? This is the big question.
The other question is: who is better off ? I said ''society'', but is that who this is really who benefits, might it not be politicians, powerful business people, those who work at NSA/GCHQ ? If those who suffer from these actions are different from those who gain - the cost equation changes depending on which camp you find yourself.
I note that some of these same tactics are also used by some large corporates who wish to protect their profits or confine knowledge of their wrong doing.
So: can anyone come up with a cost/benefit analysis, please ?
A lot of programming is about understanding a problem, seeing what the real needs are - not the ones that the users think they need. You then need strategic planning on how to meet those needs, a lot of that will be about understanding how the new program will fit into the existing ecosystem. Next comes the translation of that strategy into a programming language (or more: you may also need some SQL, HTML, shell,
So: programming is much more than just language skills.
Some here have asserted that programming is a branch of maths. This may be true for some sorts of programs (or some subroutines), but it is not true for most of what I do -- although an understanding of maths does help some parts.
Summary: please don't be simplistic, programming is a complex skill that requires many different brain subsystems, language is just one of them.
I didn't waste time gaming 10 years ago, and I do not now -- so all that I could select was 'About the same'
Some 6 months after I bought it HTC decided to not produce any more updates - the bullshit excuse was that what I had was optimal. The reality was that they considered it end of life and so could not be bothered -- they got the money from the sale, so why bother ? Well: it will cost them since I won't buy another HTC.
generate a small amounts of finite improbability
It was never a crisis to begin with? This is why you don't listen to chicken littles.
I don't know where you live, but at a guess I would put you in a country such as the USA or in United Kingdom. If you look at how many IP addresses there are per 1,000 population you will see that the USA has about 5,000, the UK 2,000 but that India has 29. So it might not be a problem for you, but for for some it is. It is not just 1st vs 3rd world, overall the EU has 19 per 1,000.
Many people use more than one IP address (think: office, home, mobile 'phone). Yes NAT can help, but it is not the complete answer.
How do they stop it spoiling ? Bacteria need 3 things to grow: moisture, time and nutrients (something to digest to provide energy). The article says that they keep it moist and try hard to remove oxygen, but things like Anaerobic bacteria don't need oxygen. They make it slighly acidic which might help, but too acidic and it will damage soldiers' teeth. The other way of stopping things growing in it is to remove nutritional content -- which is presumably the reason that soliders need to eat it. Hmmmm.
It is not all clear. If someone ''helped'' then they, in some way, knew what Snowden was about and so sharing-passwords/what-ever was a kind of tacit approval. If they simply acted to a job related request from a co-worker and did not know what Snowden was doing - can that be called helping ?
Whatever: this story still has the wrong focus, it is about Snowden. Snowden should not be the story. The story should be about the illegal activities of the NSA.
to Rahinah Ibrahim, not only for the financial loss that this has caused her but the inconvenience, emotional anguish, etc, etc. This should be paid by the individuals who acted to cover this up - not the organisations that they worked for, where the fine would just be added to the national tax bill. The fine must be high enough so that it really hurts all the individuals who contribute to the fine.
The fine should not be paid by the FBI agent who made the original error, he screwed up (we all do occasionally) and I doubt that he made the mistake maliciously. The fine should be paid by the individuals who were asked to review the case and who conspired to pervert the law of the USA, those who thought it more important to protect a decision by a government department than to see the right thing done. If these individuals are allowed to get away with it then expect this sort of thing to continue.
A bad analogy: if I take a bottle of milk from the refrigerator then it is no longer in it. If I copy some pages from a web server they are still there for someone else to look at.
A better analogy would be that I looked into the refrigerator and told the world what sort of cheeses you liked.
though they can't file bugs
Yes they can. RedHat will deal with the bugs in their own time, ie prioritise paying customers over anyone else.
Given enough money.
Once the USA government asks for bids on this, you will get many companies wanting a share on this juicy contract. This is supposed to be with the intention of increasing security, but just wait a couple of years and stories will start to pop up as to how corners have been cut to turn a few extra dollars with the result that this data becomes available to all sorts.
HOLY MACRO!