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Comment Re:Simple solution (Score 1) 1051

Yeah, because litigation is the best social tool and we should be using more of it.
How about, if you come down with something, it's your problem for not getting yourself vaccinated.

Please, RTFS, or learn something about this topic before offering your attempt at insight, please. Some people are unable to get vaccinated (infants, those with certain diseases, etc.), and for some small percent, the vaccines don't work. If they get the disease, it's their fault, too? Or you just don't want to consider anything as complicated as the effects of one person's behavior on another person?

Government

Senate Report Says CIA Misled Government About Interrogation Methods 207

mrspoonsi sends this news from the Washington Post: "A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques. The report, built around detailed chronologies of dozens of CIA detainees, documents a long-standing pattern of unsubstantiated claims as agency officials sought permission to use — and later tried to defend — excruciating interrogation methods that yielded little, if any, significant intelligence, according to U.S. officials who have reviewed the document. ... At the secret prison, Baluchi endured a regime that included being dunked in a tub filled with ice water. CIA interrogators forcibly kept his head under the water while he struggled to breathe and beat him repeatedly, hitting him with a truncheon-like object and smashing his head against a wall, officials said. As with Abu Zubaida and even Nashiri, officials said, CIA interrogators continued the harsh treatment even after it appeared that Baluchi was cooperating."
Privacy

CBS 60 Minutes: NSA Speaks Out On Snowden, Spying 504

An anonymous reader writes "This week CBS New's 60 Minutes program had a broadcast segment devoted to the NSA, and additional online features. It revealed that the first secret Snowden stole was the test and answers for a technical examination to get a job at NSA. When working at home, Snowden covered his head and screen with a hood so that his girlfriend couldn't see what he was doing. NSA considered the possibility that Snowden left malicious software behind and removed every computer and cable that Snowden had access to from its classified network, costing tens of millions of dollars. Snowden took approximately 1.7 million classified documents. Snowden never approached any of multiple Inspectors General, supervisors, or Congressional oversight committee members about his concerns. Snowden's activity caught the notice of other System Administrators. There were also other interesting details, such as the NSA has a highly competitive intern program for High School students that are given a Top Secret clearance and a chance to break codes that have resisted the efforts of NSA's analysts — some succeed. The NSA is only targeting the communications, as opposed to metadata, of less than 60 Americans. Targeting the actual communications of Americans, rather than metadata, requires a probable cause finding and a specific court order. NSA analysts working with metadata don't have access to the name, and can't listen to the call. The NSA's work is driven by requests for information by other parts of the government, and there are about 31,000 requests. Snowden apparently managed to steal a copy of that document, the 'crown jewels' of the intelligence world. With that information, foreign nations would know what the US does and doesn't know, and how to exploit it."

Comment Re:Economics (Score 1) 178

I guess the excessive per-capita economic output in rich countries can be correspondingly reduced?

We don't create more natural resources, oil, pH-balanced seawater, or clean air in rich countries. We are just (generally) more effective at turning the resources we have into desirable things. Which makes it easier for us to consume more resources. Your implication is completely wrongheaded.

Comment Re:The revolving door continues to spin (Score 1) 304

adding that she has "no doubt that Tom will have an open door and an open mind, and that ultimately his decisions will be based on what he genuinely believes is best for the public interest, not any particular industry."

Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Of course, he can't help it if his opinions have been formed by working as a professional wheel-greaser for one specific industry. That is, of course, the most insidious danger to a good government - people of good faith who are overwhelmingly biased in favor of economic elite interests (which is why a randomly selected Senate, like juries, might be interesting). Since having jobs like his look like a positive mark for government jobs, and corporations tend to hire people who like corporations or are willing to become sympathetic, it's a tough, systemic problem.

Comment Re:Turns out (Score 5, Interesting) 473

I'd like to see a page about me that says, "Here's the information you've provided, and here's the information we're inferring from what we know about you." I suppose they'd never do that because it might very well creep people out too much, but then, it might get people whose inferences are wrong to directly supply the information to them.

BlueKai does something similar (except it's for a wide range of display advertising, not just facebook) - they infer things about you based on your browsing history and use that to target ads at you. They are all over the web, so they have a good amount of information, but the surprising thing to me is that they let you look at your profile on their website - http://www.bluekai.com/registry/ is the place to find it.

I don't work for BlueKai, or even for a company that uses them.

Star Wars Prequels

J.J. Abrams To Direct Star Wars VII 735

azzkicker writes "It looks like J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars VII. From the article: 'Sources have confirmed the Star Trek Into Darkness filmmaker will helm the next Star Wars movie, the highly anticipated installment in the landmark franchise scheduled to reach theaters in 2015."

Comment Re:It's employers rights (Score 1) 851

The point is that nurses are purportedly a greater risk to patients if they have not received immunisation.

Except that there is no evidence that this is the case. The evidence suggests that maintaining proper hygiene is as effective at reducing the transmission of the flu virus as having the entire staff get the flu vaccine. There is one important difference, having the entire staff get the flu vaccine reduces the transmission rate of the flu virus while maintaining proper hygiene reduces the transmission rate of every communicable disease.

Another important difference is that getting the flu vaccine (along with other vaccines) is enforceable and only has to be done right once per employee per year, not thousands of times without error.

Comment Re:Good (Score 1, Insightful) 851

They are largley a way to shift personal responsibility to the Big Sky Man.

Spoken in true ignorance.

Aside from the plethora of religions with NO deity, Christianity (one of the biggest religions) see the problem as being oneself-- that is, the responsibility is being shifted nowhere but inward.

That's an optimistic view - often this translates means they see the problem as being oneself - that is, the responsibility of the person that particular Christian is judging to be inferior.

Comment Re:Capitalism and You (Score 1) 573

People who are not participating in the negotiations do not always come out ahead, and the net social benefit might be negative. Here are some two-party deals that are bad for society (some more extreme than others, but I think they illustrate the need for laws and social rules outside of property protection):

1. You pay me $1200/oz for gold, and I open a gold mine. The gold mine leaks poison into a nearby river, killing tens of thousands of fish, reducing life expectancy in surrounding communities by 5 years, and not being my problem.

2. I am a congressman and you are a pharmaceutical company CEO. You pay me $10 million, directly and in jobs to my underqualified relatives (and me as soon as I retire from Congress), to sponsor a bill which makes competing drugs illegal by extending your intellectual property rights another 5 years. I win, you win, and consumers get screwed with higher prices for a longer time, competing firms go out of business, and the generic version of your drug appearing 5 years later results in 50,000 avoidable deaths among the under-insured.

3. I am a hitman. You pay me to kill your wife, only $20,000, and receive $10 million of her assets that you would have lost in the coming divorce. I win, you win, she loses.

4. I go to a futures market and make bets/investments relying on a 4-degree temperature rise in the next 4 decades, open shipping lanes at the north pole, a dwindling supply of ocean-based food, etc. These are highly leveraged and worth approximately $50 Billion dollars. I then pay you to put CO2 and methane in the atmosphere as quickly as possible, investing $2 Billion in this scheme and improving the likelihood of my payoff by over 10%, making the investment an easy decision. You make tons of money, and so do I. A win for unrestricted capitalism!

These examples are crude, but meant to illustrate certain anti-social impulses inherent in unrestricted deal-making in a capitalist framework. Property rights are not as important as other human rights.

Transportation

Sen. Rand Paul Introduces TSA Reform Legislation 585

OverTheGeicoE writes "Over a month after Sen. Rand Paul announced his desire to pull the plug on TSA, he has finally released his legislation that he tweets will 'abolish the #TSA & establish a passengers "Bill of Rights."' Although the tweet sounds radical, the press release describing his proposed legislation is much less so. 'Abolition' really means privatization; one of Paul's proposals would simply force all screenings to be conducted by private screeners. The proposed changes in the 'passenger Bill of Rights' appear to involve slight modifications to existing screening methods at best. Many of his 'rights' are already guaranteed under current law, like the right to opt-out of body scanning. Others can only vaguely be described as rights, like 'expansion of canine screening.' Here's to the new boss..."
Australia

Aussie Telco Lays New Fiber For Microsecond Trading Boost 212

schliz writes "Australian data center and telecommunications provider Vocus has installed two new underwater fiber links across the Sydney Harbor in a bid for the lowest connection latency between the city's financial district and the Australian Securities Exchange's recently opened data center, north of the CBD. The project involved 1.6 kilometers of custom, 312-core single-mode optical fiber cable, and was expected to deliver a route that is 400 meters shorter than existing links. RTFA for pretty installation photos."

Comment Re:metric? (Score 1) 237

It doesn't matter what we call them, but it does matter how many sets of competing standards we have. You are skipping steps in your argument, and your claim that 'a human is going to fuck it up anyways' is just negative bullshit. There are clearly ways to reduce the chance of that - one is to move away from having two competing systems.

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