They didn't take the Jordan Neely verdict very well either. Someone joked right after the verdict on Twitter that we should brace for more riots. Whoever runs the account said that sounded like a good idea.
Archived link used to highlight the relevant portion of the article, which is a digression, but worth highlighting.
Some HN users will use the ad hominem that the writer, Greer, is a wack job. Well, as Greer points out, William of Ockham was a medieval theologian. What does that make everyone who still (incorrectly) cites him?
Given the contempt media writers have for Western religion these days(and most HN users as well), it's amusing that a 14th century religious propagandist is treated as if he was capable of making such a broad claim about the nature of the universe. Maybe not all old philosophers were good enough thinkers to be worth citing.
Some HN readers will want a more mainstream source on this topic. How about the magazine whose owner was friends with Ghislaine Maxwell, and whose editor was a big pusher of the "Iraq still has an active WMD program" narrative in 2002? Great, here's an Atlantic piece: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/08/occams-r...
I'm just glad PRISM is nothing but an extremely expensive Rube Goldberg contraption for responding to warrants. Golly, why did Yahoo bother going to court to fight the notion that when a court issues a warrant ...
"Yahoo also felt that warrantless requests placed discretion for data collection 'entirely in the hands of the Executive Branch without prior judicial involvement' thereby ceding to the government 'overly broad power that invites abuse” and possible errors that would result in scooping up data of U.S. citizens as well.'
The most uncomfortable thing on an SF-86 would probably be your past convictions, but it's unlikely you would get a TS in that case. After that, maybe the names of family members. It also would have your current address and foreign investments, but nothing extremely personal.
It's too bad The Master has departed, I'm going to miss his words being quoted to "settle any possible HN argument" in the words of this great comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1716028. Also going to miss all the pearl clutching about "this comment/thread is horrible", okay maybe not. I assume work was never finished on the Lisp AI that would block comments he disagrees with, any of the mods still working on that?
"I don't do work for the USG". Talk about burying the lede. So where did you get this knowledge about the awesomeness of Government training? I DO work for a contractor, one that hires from the same market as everyone else, with lower salaries. We're not all morons, but I was unaware we were turning substandard hires into geniuses. I must have missed the training program.
I think the WaPo should start a section that's full of Hustler style porn. When people complain about porn in their Washington Post, they can just say "That's a separate department!". TLDR: if you disgrace your sub-organization, you disgrace the entire organization.
You seem to think you successfully defended Google and the NSA. My technical chops are just as good as your, if not better, and I found your efforts utterly buffoonish. If you don't like people disagreeing with you or criticizing the gov, time to pack it in.
All of which is happening now, in addition to the activity mentioned in the article. Ever hear of Meles Zenawi rayiner? I know, the New York Times didn't like to talk about him, but that doesn't mean he didn't exist. If the US started shipping arms to the reincarnation of Suharto tomorrow, I image Mr. Rayiner would be here arguing: "Guns are so much more humane than missile strikes. A bullet can kill at most two, three people. So much more precision!" Also: cruise missles were designed to take out installations. The relative payload of a weapon is an issue of cost and weight ratios, not mercy.
'Yonatan Zunger, the chief architect of Google+, wrote in a Google+ post today that: "I can tell you that the only way in which Google reveals information about users are when we receive lawful, specific orders about individuals -- things like search warrants."'
From the court order: "We add, moreover, that there is a high degree of probability that requiring a warrant wound hinder the government's ability to collect time-sensitive information and, thus, would impede the vital national security interests that are at stake." Cough
"Ecuador blah blah blah". Somehow, I feel that wherever Snowden ends up, said country will quickly become the second coming of the Third Reich in US state media. Note to the Vanity Fair hack: Snowden never cleared customs in Russia.
Yahoo now wants us to believe that this was a court order saying, in effect, Yahoo must comply with court orders to turn over specific user data. WTF? Yahoo also wants its users to believe that Prism is nothing to worry about, even though it tried to fight it back in 2008. "Notwithstanding the parade of horribles trotted out by the petitioner ... Little more than a lament about the risk that government officials will not operate in good faith." Nothing to see here folks, move along!
Here's the problem: Assume you were made CEO of a publisher tomorrow. Are you going to put your money where your mouth is and not take measures to mitigate freeloading? Remember, just the perception of risk can be bad. Shareholders will not be reassured by self-serving, unproven theories about how no one was going to pay for those copies anyways.