It's interesting that the Washington Post is now going to educate us on journalism. Is suppressing information for the government considered journalism these days? I thought the entire idea behind freedom of the press was to act as a check to government power. I don't call what they do journalism, I call it state sponsored propaganda.
I don't fall into either of those groups and I care deeply. I would never ever call myself a libertarian, but I am deeply disturbed by the direction the world is going in. As the world becomes more extreme, the middle chooses a side. That is the way it has always been. The only question is, have oppressive powers finally "beaten" the game? If not, will they ever? That is yet to be seen.
"inspiring" and "planning" are two completely different things. You can, quite easily, inspire something without knowing that you will inspire it quid pro quo demonstrandum.
Most humans can tell if the person they are with is into what they are doing or not. If you can't, then you have problems, maybe asperger or something, idk, not a doctor. I'm not endorsing this guy in any way. The entire thing seems sort of pathetic to me, to be honest. But honestly, it's probably hard to write about things that most people intuit.
He mentions having only 2 options to decide whether to cancel or let the funds go through. Isn't there a third option that they could use in the future, Put a delay on the transfer while you review it?
It would be like if dogs sniffed your house, and their reaction was recorded, but not seen by anyone. And the recording could only be viewed after a warrant was obtained. The NSAs argument is that you can't become a suspect as a result of the recording. You have to become a suspect in some other way, and then they can go back and analyze the recordings.
It seems like the distinction that the NSA is trying to make is that, it's not illegal to possess the data, only to look at it. That argument may even extend to automatic processes that aren't seen by human eyes, who knows. If you happen to get a warrant in the future, you'll be able to "travel back in time" to see all communications of the person in question. The most maddening part of all this is that no one outside the government is even allowed to know the rules.
You bring up a good point. It's common knowledge that most countries have laws about spying on their own citizens, but not citizens of other nations. Furthermore, global intelligence organizations freely share intelligence. They have been using this "loophole" to effectively spy on their own citizens by proxy. It seems that it's in the best interest of all citizens of the world to form some sort of treaty that says they want spy on each other without due process. It's seems pretty counter intuitive that my own government would encourage, and even assist another government to spy on me. Isn't the main purpose of the government, the reason that I let the government exist in the first place, to protect me from foreign threats. Certainly another country spying on me is a threat worth protecting from.
I suspect that the type of person who is capable of becoming a whistle-blower, is also a lot less institutionalized. I'm not surprised that he didn't finish high school, if he is an extremely critical thinker. There are a ton of things that don't make sense about our education system. It certainly doesn't make him dumb.
Whistle blowing can be considered an extremely irrational act. It is basically ruining this guys life. Most people would never accept that sacrifice on the off chance that their small action might contribute to positive change in the world, for future generations. It takes a certain type of person to do it. Someone who is so irrationally devoted to the truth that they can't help but ruin their own lives in the name of what they perceive as the truth. If he is sincere in his motivations, then I'm sure this isn't the first time that he has bucked a system.
I wonder how it would be if we eliminated yellow lights altogether and instead had a countdown on the green light. At the very least it might save gas, as you could see that the green light ahead will turn red long before you could hope to hit the intersection, so you could coast in. Of course, you'd need to have an adequate "all-red" time for it to not be dangerous.
It is a common misconception that officers have quotas to issue a certain amount of tickets per month. The quota is actual for how many traffic stops they make. You'll see behavior like this from cops who haven't met their quota, but it's not about the money.
I once worked in a place where the size and location of someones office was so important that it seemed more important then getting work done or the success of the company. It was really sad and my coworkers often seemed like a bunch of children to me. I'm glad I left. Now when I visit a company with offices, I'm always weary of the politics involved.
There is something to be said for running your software on multiple environments. There is also something to be said for stubbing out pieces of your stack for testing and development purposes. There is often a lot to be learned. That said, I've used the VM approach on projects with high turnover. It is usually not the same as production deployment, so it does take effort, but depending on the team it might be worth the effort.
The author doesn't like that it is written in tcl/tk. I have no idea how this would matter at all unless he plans on modifying the source. I happen to like gitk and use it often. What language it's implemented is of little concern to me. At one time I used tig(it is pretty old at this point), but it never really caught on for me. Perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chane, perhaps it's much better now.
If they are already suspicious of you, then you've already lost. In the above scenario, voidnull's dna or fingerprints would have to be cataloged for them to find him.