Hijexx wrote:

Decius wrote:

When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no -- and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem.

Also see this:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/romney/windows.asp

New York magazine reported that:
The Los Angeles Times story that relayed Romney's airplane remark to the world was based off a pool report written by the New York Times's Ashley Parker. When we asked Parker whether it seemed as if Romney made the mark in jest, she left no doubt. "Romney was joking," she e-mailed. Parker told us that while the pool report didn't explicitly indicate that Romney was joking, it was self-evident that he was. "The pool report provided the full transcript of his comments on Ann's plane scare," she said, "and it was clear from the context that he was not being serious."

Thanks for the followup - they ran stories about that as if he said it deadpan.

RE: Romney Wonders Why Airplane Windows Don't Open

When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no -- and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem.

Reminds one of this:

That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

I don't know what is worse - the people who defend the idea that these are credible candidates for the highest offices in this country, or the thought that our political system actually selected these people for that role. Clearly, its not a meritocracy here.

Romney Wonders Why Airplane Windows Don't Open

The widespread prevalence and persistence of misinformation in contemporary societies, such as the false belief that there is a link between childhood vaccinations and autism, is a matter of public concern. For example, the myths surrounding vaccinations, which prompted some parents to withhold immunization from their children, have led to a marked increase in vaccine-preventable disease, as well as unnecessary public expenditure on research and public-information campaigns aimed at rectifying the situation.

Misinformation and Its Correction

The researchers found evidence that the command-and-control servers were set up to communicate with at least four pieces of malware.

Aside from Flame, none of the other three pieces of malware have been discovered yet, as far as the researchers know. But according to Raiu, they know that SPE is in the wild because a handful of machines infected with it contacted a sinkhole that Kaspersky set up in June to communicate with machines infected with Flame. They were surprised when malware that was not Flame contacted the sinkhole as soon as it went online. They only recently realized it was SPE. The SPE infections came in from Lebanon and Iran.

More undiscovered state sponsored malware out there...

Much hey is being made of Romney's comments about the Democratic base consisting of people who are dependent upon the state. The comments are being called "candid" but I really think Romney is still being a politician here. I think he is reflecting to these donors their own views regarding the poor, rather than his own.

I have no idea what Romney actually thinks, but I have to say I agree with the following:

Well, I wrote a book that lays out my view for what has to happen in the country, and people who are fascinated by policy will read the book. We have a website that lays out white papers on a whole series of issues that I care about. I have to tell you, I don't think this will have a significant impact on my electability. I wish it did. I think our ads will have a much bigger impact. I think the debates will have a big impact…My dad used to say, "Being right early is not good in politics." And in a setting like this, a highly intellectual subject—discussion on a whole series of important topics typically doesn't win elections. And there are, there are, there are—for instance, this president won because of "hope and change."

Some of these remarks provide an interesting view into the realities of our political system that are worth noting if you can see them through all the self serving outrage of the partisan machine.

SECRET VIDEO: Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters | Mother Jones

Democrats are now more likely than Republicans to say the government is doing very or fairly well in reducing the threat of terrorism. Fully 84% of Democrats give the government positive ratings compared with 64% of Republicans.

During the Bush administration, the partisan gap was reversed. In February 2008, 84% of Republicans and 57% of Democrats expressed positive views of the government's anti-terror efforts; the partisan differences were even larger (46 points) in January 2007.

There also have been partisan shifts in other attitudes and perceptions related to terrorism. Currently, 50% of Republicans mostly credit luck, rather than effective government policies (37% of Republicans), for why there has not been another attack since 2001. Among Democrats, 44% say it is mostly because of government policies while about as many (35%) say it is because the country has been lucky so far.

In August 2006, a majority of Republicans (58%) said the United States had not suffered another terror attack mostly because of government policies, while 54% of Democrats said this was mostly because of luck.

Continued Positive Marks for Government Anti-Terror Efforts - Pew Research Center

This is a very entertaining analysis of 99 problems from a lawyer's perspective. The most abrasive observation (albeit correct) is this one:

Cops are trained to ask for consent, and almost everyone gives it. Consent is useful for them because voluntary consent renders moot any other problems that might arise with the search (for example, a later determination that the officer lacked probable cause). Furthermore, awareness of the right to refuse is not a prerequisite to a voluntary consent to search. A suspect who thinks he has no choice can nonetheless give voluntary consent as a matter of law.

The use of the word voluntary in the preceding sentence strains the language.

JAY-Z’S 99 PROBLEMS, VERSE 2: A CLOSE READING WITH FOURTH AMENDMENT GUIDANCE FOR COPS AND PERPS

Data compression reduces the number of bytes contained in a file or data stream by removing redundant information. CRIME forces a web browser to compress and encrypt requests that contain attacker-controlled data that is combined with the cookie secret. If one of the requests produces fewer encrypted network packets, that's an indication there's more redundancy in the request, and hence the attacker data and the secret data have more information in common. CRIME algorithms decrypt the session cookies by guessing their contents byte by byte. The attacks don't require any browser plugins, and the use of JavaScript isn't necessary, although it does make the brute-force attack faster.

Good observation!

Crack in Internet’s foundation of trust allows HTTPS session hijacking | Ars Technica

Right now, if the cops want to read my e-mail, it’s pretty trivial for them to do so. All they have to do is ask my online e-mail provider. But a new bill set to be introduced Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee by its chair, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), seems to stand the best chance of finally changing that situation and giving e-mail stored on remote servers the same privacy protections as e-mail stored on one's home computer.

Cops might finally need a warrant to read your Gmail | Ars Technica

The first time Peter Thiel spoke at YC he drew a Venn diagram that illustrates the situation perfectly. He drew two intersecting circles, one labelled "seems like a bad idea" and the other "is a good idea." The intersection is the sweet spot for startups.

Black Swan Farming