Posts by dan1980

Re: Just look at Uber's CEO

@Adam 52

"Did she tell him she was uncomfortable before going to HR? What did he actually say? What was the context?"

I'm a bit late chiming in on this (time zones and all that) so you may have already done this but, well, read Susan's post.

If you do, you will see that, not only are the words of the manager clearly a proposition for sex, the HR team actually agreed with Susan that this is what it was and still insisted they would only give a warning and that said manager was fully within his rights to mark her negatively in her performance review for the complaint. No, really, They told her that if she didn't move to another team, that manager's action could not be considered retribution.

If that doesn't spin your head around, nothing will, because that is so large an outright betrayal of responsibility (to keep employees safe).

But, even pretending this wasn't quite so obvious and egregious a case, why should an employee have to confront the person directly? Indeed, that's - depending on the situation - sometimes expressly discouraged as some organisations mandate that you take your grievances to HR so that the proper processes can be followed and the authorised and qualified people can manage the process.

But, further, even if that isn't company policy (and it clearly wasn't in that part of Uber), why should she need to handle it on her own first? What if it was direct bullying? Should she have to confront her tormentor before HR will help?

I say no - the legitimacy and/or actionability of a harassment claim should not depend on whether the victim has tried to fix it themselves first.

Re: Big three … ?

Yes, I think that's it: five big tech companies, three of whom also run large cloud services.

On the article, however, this is what people mean when they say that the tangled patent/IP landscape threatens to stifle innovation.

Re: as said before

@Denarius

". . . workable AI is still am myth."

Perhaps being pedantic (sorry) but I would say that workable AI is more of a vision in a desert - it's not clear if it's real or how far off it is but it's being reached for.

So far as I understand it (poorly), we actually don't yet know whether real AI is something that is even achievable with anything like the technology we are working with. Part of that is that we don't really understand what 'normal' intelligence is.

Is it just accumulation and processing of data? If so, we're already there, but no one really believes that's all there is to it. Is it understanding a concept? If so, what does it even mean to 'understand' something? For me, I think real intelligence is the ability to create something new. I don't mean artistic creativity, so much as the ability to take the data you have and the concepts you understand and at least imagine something that isn't sitting in front of you.

But, again, that is a vague concept - as is intuition and leaps of imagination and inspiration. I think intelligence is displayed in Einstein's creation of the General Theory of Relativity. Well, yes, obviously it is, but I mean the type of creative process I am talking about. What inputs and processing could lead an artificial construct to be able to arrive at such a stunning realisation?

Hell - what led a patent clerk to it for that matter?

Because that's where AI would be amazing - in adding new knowledge to our pool. Within some definitions of AI, I can see great benefits like designing new structures and vehicles that are cheaper and more efficient yet more durable - trains with less wind resistance made of steel alloys that are cheaper yet more resilient; bridges that can be be built twice as fast with a third less materials yet still as strong.

That alone would be great, and figuring out the optimal places, weights and distributions of tuned mass dampeners to allow taller, more stable buildings or better suspension is a good thing, but it's not the same as coming up with the idea in the first place.

The goal (however well thought-out) is an intelligence that isn't just able to design a more efficient way to build a jet propulsion system but is able to invent an entirely new method of propulsion - it's something that doesn't just solve complex equations but develops new equations to describe the interactions of particles.

Re: Adam Smith got there forst

Exactly so.

A true, laissez faire, 'everyone go out and make as much money as you can without restriction' is a good economic plan in the same way that 'everyone going out and driving as fast as they can without restriction' is a good traffic plan.

Re: If I may...

@P.Lee

Maybe cut each coconut in half.

But that's silly. No, the most sensible option is for one person to have 11 coconuts and for the other 11 to have just one between them. Surely . . .

Re: We need a new icon

Bert the Turtle?

@Andrew Jones 2

I suppose the question is around whether the legal system should be geared towards retributive punishment or towards making society, as a whole, safer.

On the face of it, it seems likely that this person has indeed learned his lesson and would be very unlikely to do something similar again. Thus a severe punishment may - especially considering mental state - have a worse effect.

On the other hand, there is value, as a society, in punishing people even when that particular instance may not be best served. That is because the punishment must also be a sufficient deterrent to others, thus, while a severe punishment might not decrease the possibility of one particular offender re-offending, it might decrease the overall instances of similar offenses.

It's a difficult line to walk.

Re: Judge Fail?

Yeah, that's what I thought too - Uber claimed X was Y when in fact it was 0.7Y but one judge argued that X wasn't a very good choice in the first place.

Great, but that's still Uber's problem. If the choice of measurement is misleading, that's hardly a mitigating factor for Uber - it makes it worse.

Re: Root of the problem

And that could be exactly the point - it's possible that these impossible problems are really just laying the ground work for justifying a far more pervasive monitoring and identification system.

Re: Given most OEMs' approach to Android updates,

Until manufacturers make updates for existing phones a priority, I can see Google's side of it. Vendors are only interested in putting new features in new phones, rather than adding them to existing handsets.

I understand why they do that - to make upgrading to a new handset attractive - but a vendor complaining it gets delayed access to updates is a bit ironic.

Re: So, just to get this right...

@Pen-y-gors

While I understand the meat of your argument - that it is somewhat disturbing what the FBI did - I am not sure that you have thought this through because there are laws that do not apply to law enforcement - at least within the boundaries dictated by their job. (Ideally very narrow boundaries.)

This is necessary, otherwise a police officer could never arrest anyone as physically restraining someone and bundling them into a car against their will would see the police in jail for assault and kidnapping. They could never pursue a vehicle because they would have their licenses suspended for speeding and, in many countries and some US states, they certainly couldn't walk around with guns or tasers*.

Those examples might seem facetious but that's the consequence of applying the logic that law enforcement must follow all the laws that civilians have to, which is what you seem to be implying.

If that's not what you are saying then we can agree that, in the course of discharging their duties, law enforcement officers sometimes need to do things that would see a civilian arrested or at least fined. The question, therefore, is which otherwise-illegal activities should the law enforcement agencies and officers be able to undertake and under what circumstances.

This is very much a matter of personal opinion and that runs from 'whatever it takes' to 'don't look at me without a warrant' so there are clearly degrees of acceptability.

Establishing a child pornography/abuse ring would be, I suspect, over the threshold for pretty much everyone. But where does seizing control of one sit? Most people would, I hazard, consider that to be more acceptable but for many - yourself included, obviously - it is still over the threshold and thus unacceptable.

I'm not sure where that sits for me but I know that if it is acceptable then it's sufficiently close to the line to make me feel quite uneasy about it.

If the FBI actually ran the site in the same manner that the identified admin did, which is to say they "encourag[ed] users to create more original content", then that is so far beyond the line that it's nearly inconceivable. Instead, I think they controlled the servers and the back-end code of the site but did not run the site as an active admin, curating and soliciting content. And that's a not-insignificant difference.

Odd as it may sound, I'm actually more worried about the IT and warrant-granting sides because those actions have a far wider potential impact. Infiltrating and seizing a known criminal organisation is something that, by definition, requires there to be a known criminal organisation engaging in, well, criminal activities. And that just doesn't negatively affect the freedom of law-abiding civilians.

Allowing one-to-many warrants that authorise mass hacking of private PCs is rather something else because the very 'need' that prompts the hacking/malware is that the authorities have not positively identified the people involved. That, for me, is a step to far given the far-reaching consequences.

* - Of course, there are some who would argue that the police shouldn't engage in high-speed chases and shouldn't be carrying weapons, but that argument has more to do with the effectiveness and potentially dangerous outcomes of those actions, rather than an assertion that the actions are illegal.

Re: @dan1980

@druck

Damned right I do. And I have that, in part - hacked together with some custom scripts and several pieces of open-source software and various disparate devices. My point is that there are very few system that are 'off-the-shelf' that don't rely heavily or entirely on 'cloud'.

@fandom

That's exactly my point - the author appeared to simply assume that it was the product of some 'tech bro' company, which means two assumptions: that it was designed by a male and that male was 'tech bro'. To claim 'tech bro' isn't a perjorative term would be baffling given the context.

@adam payne

Exactly.

Far more likely is that the police higher-ups will fully support everyone and everything that was done, claiming their duty to protect kiddies from drugs overrides their responsibility to not deprive innocent people of liberty and then falsely accuse them of crimes in public.

And the politicians will, likely as not, support them too, because the majority of our 'representatives' are not only in favour of over-zealous displays of 'law and order' but actively work to increase the powers of the agencies and law enforcement while simultaneously reducing any restrictions or oversight and removing what few public protections are left.

No, the line is increasingly that the police are alway right, even when they are wrong.

Re: 'We...

Sure, on the face of it, the FBI dropping this case would seem to imply they would need to drop the 'future cases' they are trying to protect.

There are two likely explanations.

One is that they don't want to divulge the code as it would allow protections against vulnerabilities they are actively exploiting in a 'bigger' case. Therefore, they wouldn't be protecting themselves from scrutiny by refusing to release the code. (IF that's how it is . . . )

The other is that they are expecting to have laws made that prevent them having to disclose this information in the future - potentially using this case as a springboard: "unless we can circumvent due process, paedophiles will go free!".

Actually, whether the former is true or not, the latter is almost certainly on the cards. They've already got a nice bill waved through that allows them the 'right' to circumvent some of that due process - so far as warrants go.

Re: This law brought to you by ... the same idiots it is meant to hamper.

I am reminded of this lovely piece:

What is a photocopier?

The connection - loose though it is - being that the strict definition, rather than the spirit, was being argued.

But hey, if TfL can dance around what a 'taximeter' is and is not . . .

Re: The time has come .......

@Marshalltown

While I appreciate the sentiment, that's really what happens anyway, but just not at that stage. Either way, a judge must decide whether a given lawsuit is fit to be proceeded with and, either way, the lawsuit must be detailed and submitted before that can happen.

That submission of a complaint for examination is what filing is. It can also be considered that filing a complaint is really just telling the courts that you have a complaint with an entity and that you are seeking compensation from them. It need never actually make it to court but the filing essentially documents the issue so that you can seek redress in the courts, should the response from the other party be unsatisfactory to you.

In that regard, what you are describing is a prior vetting of any complaint so that a judge would have to be involved in every filing before the prospective defendant was even issued with the claim.

There is something in that, but I can't help feeling it would involve a lot of extra judicial work in an already over-worked system, especially as claims would just get re-filed. Doing so would also require to judge to make a decision based on only half the story, which might lead to a judge refusing a complaint on the grounds that he/she thinks it is ridiculous on the surface, where a response from the prospective defendant might reveal an actionable claim.

Re: Ginsters

Here's the summary:

If you can (with all that implies - time, resources, location, facilities), then a properly balanced diet composed of real food and fresh produce, consumed in healthy portions is not only good for you, but often cheaper (depends) and provides additional benefits such as satisfaction, taste, some small measure of exercise and activity in preparation and also an opportunity for socialising.

But all that is a governed by the mighty 'if'.

IF you have the time - not just to prepare but to eat it. IF you have the resources. IF you are in a location where preparing - or even bringing - fresh food is possible. IF you have the know-how (some people are really bad at cooking). IF you have the knowledge to choose a properly balanced and healthy diet and the will-power to do so. IF you are in a location and situation where you could and and want to socialise during meals.

The simple truth is that, whatever the reason, vast numbers of people are not in a position to do this, at least not for three meals a day, seven days a week. And the reality is that those meals that don't qualify are often either skipped or end up being less than healthy.

You decades, meal replacements have been utterly woeful - being aimed either at helping people lose weight or to supplement a poor nutritional intake. Anyone who has been on one for any length of time will attest that the result is often less energy. A replacement designed, from the ground up, to be a full, every meal of you life diet is needed, not so people can actually live on it, but so that those people who do, for whatever period and for whatever reason, decide to use it as a meal replacement, are getting something that is not deficient, nutritionally, when compared with 'real' food.

If people can't see value in that then they need not ever use it.

And certainly, anyone who worries that such options will cause the human race to become anti-social and devolve into pre-human savages can rest easy. Well, at least they can stop blaming meal replacements because if someone who otherwise could have nice social meals of healthy food in properly balanced portions chooses to eschew that so they can live alone, shunning all human contact, you can be sure that the reason is not the availability of this meal-replacement or its cousins. A person so inclined will do that anyway, it's just that most will resort to less-optimal diets and so put a strain on the health system later in life with all the problems that come with poor nutrition.

And, while I'm at it, plenty of people where I work (and sometimes myself) go to the gym in a group during their lunch break and then scoff a shake afterwards, spending next-to-no time actually ingesting any nutrition. I can vouch that there is a lot of socialising and that the result is a good work-out, a de-stress from the morning's work and a healthier body. We have a laugh and there is a lot of 'bonding' and good-natured ribbing along with mutual encouragement and genuine celebration of each others' goals - all the better to spur ourselves to do better.

I'll also mention that 'shakes' - on the train from work no less - has allowed me to meet up with friend for our indoor cricket matches that I would never be able to make, had I gone home and had a nice social meal with my partner first.

So don't discount the idea that taking drastically less time for a meal somehow automatically means that one is missing out of important social, emotional and health benefits.

Re: Incredible

@oiseau

Whether it's a "good idea" or not depends really on what your criteria are. So far as the company is concerned, a "good idea" is one which makes money.

This is a brush that is cheap to make - after all it's just a hollow brush with some off-the-shelf commodity parts that are ridiculously cheap due to their current ubiquity in smart phones. The 'app' that ties it together would have been very simple to code (so far as coding goes) and could have been farmed out to any number of low-cost out-sourced dev farms and the hosting required for the back-end again is pennies.

It's also not taking up any of their manufacturing capacity as it would all be done via third-parties.

So you've got a cheap device being sold for rather a lot of money - I don't think it has to sell overly well to make a profit.

Is it a rubbish idea when judged against the myriad other innovations that our species of clever little apes have made? Completely. Doesn't mean it won't make money. (Sadly.)

@kain preacher

"Now first thing first how are they going to define porn[?]"

What? No, no, no - that's way down the list - if indeed it's even on the list. Actually, the last thing you want to do is go ahead and put any limits on what you can block.

Think of the technical details of how such a device would work and the logistics of who would be responsible for it and what that means for sales of devices across borders and what the cost of trying to enforce this - if all that is still up in the air, what makes anyone think such a triviality as what it will do is relevant?

No, the first and only concern is to be seen to be 'doing something'. Actually doing it is optional, let alone doing it successfully.

Indeed. Lucky that you have the resources for that. Because, let's not kid anyone - properly testing updates is not cheap.

Because you never know what an update might affect, proper testing needs not just some VMs but full independent, representative hardware. After all, what happens if a software update causes some low-level issue that affects communication to your SAN, but only with specific HBAs. To catch that, you'd need to ensure you're using the same HBAs and same SAN back-end as you use in your production environment.

You also have to make sure that all those components are configured the same and running same firmware and patches and updates and hotfixes as the production kit. And running similar loads because what happens if the bug only occurs when a process or load reaches some saturation point.

And how long do you test for? Because some bugs are only apparent after quite some time. And do you test updates one at a time or in batches?

And just think of all the possible updates - firmware, drives, OS patches, infrastructure updates, application patches - that's a lot, especially if you're diligently testing each one.

And what if you have several, such systems? Each has to be replicated and tested.

Testing is always best practice, but it's also a trade-off and, at some point, testing even potentially critical bugs can be out of reach because those bugs may only occur in very specific situations.

@Ian Michael Gumby

"Or have Dan please tell us the differences in the IDs."

Sure - no problem. Given I can't post images directly and people may not believe an assertion made by me, please excuse the response being in the form of several links:

http://driveca.org/bill-ab60/

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/multiamerican/2014/09/19/17325/feds-approve-design-for-immigrant-drivers-licenses

And here is a link showing the identifying marks on several States' licenses (as California isn't alone):

http://commdiginews.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/sample-dl-cards.jpg

Do you know why they have these identifying marks that distinguish that these licenses are not to be used as 'real ID'. As hinted in one of the links above, it's because it's part of Federal law that they must:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/6/37.71

Will a doorman at a club know the difference? Maybe not, but will airline staff? Will the Secretary of State? You bloody bet. And you can be sure that the DHS will because they are the ones who must authorise the design of these licenses and ensure that they meet the requirements. If you didn't read the text of the above link then the summary is that the restricted licenses must state "clearly" that they are restricted both on "the face" of the card and also in a "machine readable zone".

The point is not, however, whether the license card outwardly shows clear and obvious signs that it is a restricted license (and it most certainly does show it), it's the nature of the license itself and the procedure for its issuance.

The assertion from BillG, several posts ago, was that the Motor Voter law means that undocumented immigrants can register to vote just by getting their license under AB-60. That is the assertion that I am disputing - not because I am a liberal or lefty or because I want to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. I am disputing it because it's just not true.

The simple fact is that the license requirements are different, as is the application process. The forms and the processes used when applying for a 'full' license include the portions related to registration under the Motor Voter law; the forms and processes used when applying for a restricted, AB-60 license do not.

"There is no difference from the outward appearance of the DL because they didn't want the ID to be used as a way to identify the illegals"

You are partially correct. They don't want the license used to discriminate against or infer the immigration status of any individuals but, as you can see from the links above, they clearly didn't make the license outwardly identical because to do so would be a violation of Federal law. Instead, it is part of the AB-60 Act that it is illegal to discriminate against or infer immigration status of someone holding an AB-60 license. See S2 in the text of the Act, below:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB60

The truth is not "on BillG's side" and it is not on yours. Please read the above links.

Oh, and your claim about licenses in Chicago? Given the very clear text of the Federal Act linked above, its should be obvious that the licenses must be "clearly" identifiable as not being a 'real ID' because if they weren't, Illinois would be in violation of the Act. So let's see what an Illinois TVDL (Temporary Visitor Driver’s License) looks like compared to a 'normal' license:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/10/29/undocumented-in-illinois-can-apply-for-drivers-license

I see what you're saying - yep, no difference there . . . I hope it is clear that claiming there is NO difference in these restricted licenses is just plain false.

Police not being able to use a restricted license to discriminate against the holder is not the same thing being able to use it to enroll to vote.

It doesn't take much to check your facts if you actually want to have an accurate understanding.

Re: Time remaining is always a guestimate

Lunchtime doubly so?