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Comment Bogosity (Score 1) 112

What he's saying is that the only "secure" version of something is x.x, x.y, z.x. Anything else is "insecure."

Well fuck, what about all those XP installations? Default apache configs? Systems using heartbleed SSL? What about if they're hosted on platforms that aren't current? What about embedded platforms?

Basically, 99% of the internet is insecure.

I mean, come on: 82.27% of perl installs are secure? 77.59% of python installs? Get real.

Comment Morons should read some economic history (Score 5, Insightful) 265

Actually, you really don't get it.

The financial system is fundamentally held together by one thing: trust. The US Dollar isn't the key currency because the US was the largest economy, or because we have the most weapons - although those things factor into it. The US Dollar is where it is because the US has the political will and ability to support the world financial system when things go bad, even though those actions may cause severe short-term problems in its own economy.

Do you trust China to manage your currency? Even the Chinese don't trust their government when it comes to money. Russia? The EU?

Good luck with that.

Comment Mirror neurons? Or just neurons? (Score 1) 323

The article sounds pretty ridiculous, but in reality studies have shown that imagining practice is almost as good as practice.

Those "mirror neurons" sound like neurons being used to simulate actions of others. Saying that they automatically reflect actions taken by another is a stretch in humans. In monkeys, maybe it's triggering a pavlovian-style neural pathway.

I would rather not try to base a whole philosophy of something or another on animal studies. Try it on some college students first and see.

"Watching porn triggered the same neural pathways as actual sex."
"When people see violent things it's like they're doing those violent things in their mind."

I think a more accurate statement which is consistent with humanity is:

"Kids model their behavior on what they see adults doing." That isn't the same as "mirror neurons" by far.

Comment ETL (Score 1) 55

I remember Cloudera saying that most people use hadoop for ETL. Not sure if you've checked, but hadoop is like the ne plus ultra of ETL tools. It's worth a look if you have to transform lots and lots of data.

Comment Penalties for unauthorized release? None. (Score 2) 209

Great, my data is protected by federal laws.

So what happens when there's an "unauthorized release" of your data by a federal agency?

Nothing!

That's why the laws on "unauthorized release" are bogus when you're talking about the government. No penalty = no enforcement = no care.

The TLA agencies care about your data when they need to ensure your cooperation with an ongoing investigation.

Comment Wrong conclusion: not "unintended consequences" (Score 5, Informative) 118

This is totally not a story about unintended consequences. If you read all three parts (which is a great read), you'll see that the cycle went like this:

Native fish taken out by alweifes
Alewifes taken out by Salmon
Salmon taken out by too few alewives (overfeeding)
Native species recover, because of no alewifes

The original guy did exactly what he set out to do: destroy alewives with salmon and build a fishing economy. That was pretty successful. After that population crashed they eventually discovered that the original fish came back, due to the lack of alewives.

The unintended consequences in this case are positive - marine biologists were able to learn something totally unexpected by doing experiments on a large scale.

The original goal was never to get the native species back; it was to make the lakes back into a commercial fishery. Is the state today "better" because the native species are back? Who knows. Just because things are status quo ante doesn't mean it's better. That population is just as vulnerable to a die off as it used to be.

That's why it's better to read the article instead of skimming it.

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