It's the Swedish equivalent to "Fool me once, shame on you: fool me twice, shame on me" - once you've been bitten by a mistake, you become reluctant to do it again.
There's a better english equivalent than that.
"Once bitten, twice shy."
The US Government isn't brave or cowardly.
Some of there actions are brave. Others cowardly.
They're fighting a war.
No. They really aren't fighting a war.
They are using the military as an international extrajudicial hit squad.
Call it a "war" to rationalize it is like rolling tanks down main street to wage war on shoplifters. After all, we can't simply send the police... they might get injured, how can we take that risk? We should use every advantage we have, all the time... right?)
The "brave" alternative is sending troops in to get killed. That's not a solution, then you just get more people killed.
There are a lot of options between "drone strike at wedding" and "boots on the ground invasion"; lets not frame the question as a binary choice.
And if you don't like policy, you don't frame it in terms of how effective we are at fighting
How we engage is as important as policy. We could use ICBMs, with nuclear warheads too, without loss of American life. That doesn't make it a sensible choice.
Drone strikes at weddings aren't sensible either.
no mod points here but that's pretty interesting/informative.
-cheers
The only intel that is usually received is that some high value target was going to be there.
That's not sufficient intel for a super power to drop a bomb on someone then; especially someone who really poses no real tangible threat.
Mistakes are made and perhaps too often.
Made too often, and admitted too rarely. Mistakes are usually rationalized. In this very thread we have an appeal to Sun Tzu and an argument that we must attack them where they are weak and that its entirely justified to bomb civilian weddings... somehow.
because their physical bravery is put to the use of evil.
Few conflicts should be framed in terms of 'good' and 'evil'. They have many very legitimate grievances; and they have committed many terrible actions. Same applies to us.
In any case framing them as 'evil' in a thread about us drone striking weddings comes across as pretty oblivious.
You can't call a drone pilot a physical coward in the same way.
I don't. I call the US government cowardly. The people setting the policy and calling the shots. Not the people literally taking them. I don't think drone pilots are cowards, or unnecessary.
But I do think strikes against civilian targets in foreign countries without a declaration of war
I'm sure you can imagine what we'd call drone strikes against American soldiers attending weddings perpetrated by North Korea...
"Ok, and with annual sales revenue of 180 Billion (with a B) or thereabouts, $450 Million amounts to the change you'd find under the couch cushions."
That is 1/4% If you routinely find 1/4% of your annual household revenue in your couch not doing very well.
Even for a household making a modest 30,000$/year; that would be like finding $75 in the couch. Hell, I make several times that per year, and I'd still consider finding $75 in the couch a pretty good day.
Now... http://www.macrumors.com/2014/...
According that Apple only had net revenue of $42.1 billion. So that's like our 30k household finding $320 in the couch. A rather nice day I'm sure.
And of that Apple only profited 8.5 billion...so more like the equivalent of finding $1588 in the couch. Come now, that's not couch money anymore... that's getting into hidden mattress money!!
If it's so easy why don't you just run right over there and arrest them?.
Don't be an asshat. Its not easy to capture or arrest the people shoplifting where I work. I have no illusions that it would be easy to capture terrorists in a foreign country.
But we don't need to bomb them at weddings just because capturing/killing them other ways would be harder. They aren't THAT much of a threat that we need to do that. Just as we don't shoot shoplifters in the back when they run when we try to arrest or capture them. It's not necessary; they simply aren't that dangerous.
Likewise terrorists 7000 miles away pose no real credible threat to us; we can afford to wait. There is no impending doom to the United States.
So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.
The relative strength of a super power to a terrorist network is such that that the terrorist targets are always weak. ALWAYS.
A terrorist network poses no existential threat to the United States whatsoever. At best they pose a limited threat to individual civilians roughly on the same scale as bathtub related accidents.
In other words, we aren't fighting WW2 here, we can well afford to take the high moral road, and attack harder targets.
The art of using troops is this:
When ten to the enemy's one, surround him;
When five times his strength, attack him;
If double his strength, divide him;
If equally matched you may engage him;
If weaker numerically, be capable of withdrawing;
And if in all respects unequal, be capable of eluding him,
Exactly.
Except we're already beyond the ten to the enemy's one. More like 1000 to the enemy's one. So we can simply surround and arrest them like criminals. We certainly don't need to be bombing weddings like cowards.
Bombing weddings is what *terrorists do*... because they don't have a massive force advantage. They can only inflict damage against against us in the most indirect ways; in small numbers; against extremely soft targets. THEY are the ones looking to elude their enemy (us) and withdraw.
There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all Hell. -- William Tecumseh Sherman
Yes. War is hell. Bombing weddings is not war; although its also pretty hellish.
I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country. -- Patton
So how many weddings do we need to bomb before we've won? Or are we actually just creating more enemies to fight faster than we're killing them?
It is not cowardly to use one's military advantages.
It's not necessarily cowardly. But it absolutely can be. In this case: it is.
If I have a gun that shoots a mile and yours only shoots a half a mile, why should I close to a half a mile, I should stay out of your range and kill you when you are easy prey and can't shoot back.
Ok. Now, if you have a gun that shoots a mile, and I'm not carrying a gun at all, because I'm just a regular joe at a wedding? What do you think you gain by shooting at me? I'm not even your target.
Now, that said, lets talk about your target. The guy with a gun that only shoots half a mile. That is 7000 miles from your border. Do you really need to shoot him at a wedding? Or can you wait until he's at least close enough that maybe he might eventually be in range?
Its not like he's a mile away and closing on you. If you don't shoot him now, he's gonna get you. Because that's not what's happening. He's a 7000 miles away, at a wedding, and if you don't shoot him now, he's gonna be 7000 miles away tomorrow too. So you can bide your time and hit him some other time. He's not even remotely even close to being anywhere near able to strike the US... so what's the panic rush?
Ah, so you're changing your argument. Fair enough.
I'm not changing the argument. My position was and remains that I don't use the force touch feature.
Next time you say that you don't use any part of a technology that you literally have to [...]
If I have a variable speed blender, and I only ever use one speed, then I am not using the variable speed feature.
The variable speed FEATURE is the ability to vary the speed. The fact that I always use one speed means I'm not using variable speed feature.
Then someone comes along arguing that the fact that the one speed I always use is technically a selection of one of the variable speed settings... who gives a shit? I'm still not varying the speed, so the variable speed feature is irrelevant.
Force touch is the same thing. I know damned well I'm technically using the force touch trackpad when I tap on it. I'm not using the force touch feature though, because I never vary the force; nor use variable force to access additional functionality.
You are just being a pedantic twit.
No, it really doesn't.
It really doesn't MATTER.
There are two thresholds where it clicks - the fact that its haptic vs mechanical is irreelevent. I never ever touch it with enough force to engage either click threshold.
So any additional functionality mapped to touching with greater force; I'm not ever using. So it may as well not be there.
So, every time you do or have "clicked" your track pad, you have used the force touch feature.
Nope. My macbook pro trackpad definitely has a haptic click if I acutally push on it, and then a second click if i push harder.
I *never* touch it with enough force to engage either.
So, every time you do or have "clicked" your track pad, you have used the force touch feature.
The feature is there, and I might be technically using it in the sense that I can't use the trackpad without using it. But the fact that it is 'force touch' is irrelevant to me, I find it no different to the trackpad in my previous macbook pro which didn't have it.
Secondly, force touch on the Apple Watch works beautifully
Meh, a gimmick on a product that is itself a gimmick?
and will be useful on the iPhone too. Contextual menus in iOS apps will be a great addition.
Yeah, maybe. Then again, a phone with more buttons kind of solves most of those issues too; and is more intuitive to use. Just saying.
I'm not anti-apple; I'm using an mbp to write this... but I have no interest in their walled garden; or their watch. The force touch tech... is an evolutionary step with some uses and I do expect to see it become ubuiqitous, but its hardly anything to get excited about.
This is Force Touch, which as it's name implies is about measuring the force of finger touches.
For what its worth, (and probably not much) I have a new macbook pro with the force touchpad. I've never actually used it. Not once. Not ever. I tried it on the demo unit in the store to see what the fuss was... but I count it as a total gimmick.
I really only ever use the tap-to-click; so I don't even click the touchpad, nevermind force-click it.
I agree with you. Especially about the speculative 'guff' from click-hungry bloggers.
I do have a question though; especially given the content of your post: why did you phrase your subject as a question instead of a declarative statement?
Was it deliberately ironic or just inadvertently so?
The NSA is an offensive organization, not a defensive one. That's it's mission.
That's according to you. Now according to the NSA their mission, from their Mission pagel:
"The National Security Agency/Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) leads the U.S. Government in cryptology that encompasses both Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) and Information Assurance (IA) products and services, and enables Computer Network Operations (CNO) in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances."
https://www.nsa.gov/about/miss...
Offense is definitely a big part of there job. But right up there with SIGINT is IA (information assurance); so what is IA?
Well I could look in a dictionary but lets see what the NSA thinks it is instead... since they are the ones charged with doing it:
https://www.nsa.gov/ia/ia_bann...
NSA's Information Assurance Directorate delivers mission enhancing information assurance technologies, products and services that enable customers and clients to secure operational information and information systems.
Or to paraphrase: enable its customers (government and its departments, domestic corporations, and our allies) to secure their data and computer systems.*
That is ALSO there mission. They have been so busy with SIGINT that not only have they neglected IA, but they have ACTIVELY subverted and sabotaged it in the process.
*and I'm not just putting words into their mouths when I say their job is to protect our allies (vs spying on them) that's also from them:
"The NSA [...] encompasses both SIGINT and IA [...] in order to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances."
Just because the government purchased something doesn't entitle you to its use. You don't get to borrow a navy fighter jet because your taxes helped pay for that
That's entirely at the governments discretion, and there's no public benefit to letting me borrow a fighter jet.
Besides, that $9.1mil is probably based on a certain number of licenses, it doesn't cover you.
1) Negotiate a flat rate.
It doesn't affect Microsofts costs. They'll do the updates as long as there is enough money in it for them. How many users is really completely irrelevant. If it costs $5 million to maintain XP then it costs 5 million whether there is 100 users or 300 million of them. We know this. Microsoft knows this.
2) Government makes the rules; so it can change the rules. Copyright is there for the public good. If a company is literally using copyright to deny critical security updates (that they have ALREADY been paid by the governement to develop) then make exceptions to copyright law, and then distribute those changes to the public.
Pass a law to strip security related software patches of copyright protection. Now if the company creates them, anyone one who is licensed for the software can have them. Now, the government wants security patches, and is still willing pay 7 figures to get them; does microsoft pass on the cash? Its still pretty lucrative.
Why not? I write software that I only get paid for once all the time, regardless of how many users it ends up with. For the right price, I don't give a shit about licensing. I got paid upfront. That model can work for security patches.
Yeah, I know it won't happen. But it could... perhaps even should.
Yeah +1 for spideroak. But you still do need to trust them.
The source is closed. So you can't inspect and build the client yourself. So you have no way of knowing whether its really zero knowledge or not; or whether the client can or is sending the keys to the server etc.
They also specifically disclaim zero knowledge for web based access and mobile. The former should be obvious, but the latter is a bit of a surprise/disappointment.
Still I -do- generally trust them; and recommend them. Their business model isn't advertising and harvesting data.
But the fact that I've decided to trust them is a far cry from it being a provably trustworthy system.
Without life, Biology itself would be impossible.
