That is not a source that confirms SemiAccurate's claims, it's a nearly decade-old paper (~2008-2009) describing an attack against a completely different security feature. The "System Management Mode" described and attacked in the paper is unrelated to Intel ME.
>The details of our new SMM attacks will be made
available once Intel patches its firmware, most
likely we will present them at the Black Hat USA
conference in summer 2009. We will also make the
code of our TXT exploit available.
(I mean, no one can possibly suggest to a professional Photoshop user that the solution to the lack of support for non-destructive editing is: 'make a copy of a layer before you change it' or 'use git'? :))
I've been a Mac user through and through, since 2004. Switched from Linux back then. I've been using Linux but only on servers and VMs since then, as well. Just not as my daily driver.
I got the 2016 MBP w/Touchbar. I've been plagued with the GPU issues, and the crappy battery life. Add to that issues with PDF corruption, because of Apple's screwing with the frameworks.
It's starting to feel like Apple doesn't care about anything other than iOS devices.
When I buy stuff for myself, I get the highest-spec model, every time. I never want to come up short, if I need the power/storage. $4300 and change on the latest one.
I just ordered one of the new Dell XPS 15" laptops. Again, same thing. The high-end model. More powerful CPU, twice the RAM, better graphices, but half the storage. $1600 less for the Dell.
Starting to think Dell makes a better "Macbook" than Apple. We'll see. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's "interesting" to see the same methods that the tabacco lobby used are used again. We as a society haven't spent the past time in defending ourselves or our institutions any better then back in those days. Sad Indeed...
I wonder what point of view libertarians have on issues like this one. How can we regulate this without government intervention? what can we do to counter-balance the marketing power of those corporations?
I'm very libertarian, but I view "liberty" primarily as an individual thing; I don't subscribe to the notion that corporations are people or have human rights. I think it's most certainly in the interest of us all that the governments enforce certain rules and protect us in some ways, as long as there are ways to avoid the rules.
For example, killing is forbidden, except euthanasia (in certain countries). Hedge funds can exist, but they can't do any marketing and can only have "sophisticated" investors. In Sweden, alcohol is only sold by special stores.
I'd advocate the same approach to health & food safety. Businesses can sell everything, but there should be limits on (1) marketing (can't market sugar to kids, if at all), (2) taxes (more sugar, more tax - similar to tobacco), (3) general availability (can't buy cigarettes under 18), and (4) labeling (I support labeling of GMOs and of even trace amounts of trans fat).
Edit: especially number 4 above - I see no reason that a honest business would ever see information disclosure regulation as a negative thing; in addition, availability of (trustworthy) information will only increase the economic activity and decrease economic waste (again, only applies to honest companies and products).
If I were trying to run a small bakery or confectionary under all the terms (and more, presumably) of your last paragraph, I'd have a hard time believing you took my individual liberty (or that of my customers) very seriously.
Again, something that is solvable with smart regulation. E.g. some rules apply only for businesses with more than $100k turnover, or $1M or whatever. Alternatively, your customers need to sign a statement that they will pay out of pocket for any medical costs resulting from eating your sugar (similar to "sophisticated investors" and hedge funds).
But then again, as I said above, I see business as a privilege, not a right. After all, you could also say that your individual liberty is being infringed by taxes - but you can always move to a deserted island, stop using the services provided by the governments, and pay no tax!
A libertarian scheme would usually be like 'certification should be a business, and foods should be certified sugar free by a specific certification company, and bear that company's sugar-free logo'.
Again, something that is solvable with smart regulation.
But then again, as I said above, I see business as a privilege, not a right.
Wow. Stop considering yourself a libertarian, seriously. This is authoritarian talk. All I see you arguing for is rules, and if somone points out their flaws, more and 'smarter' rules. This is the exact opposite of libertarianism.
Maybe... But it's way more libertarian than any of today's societies... I mean, we still have so many prohibitions - drugs, prostitution, euthanasia, freedom of speech, ...
Without a government, a corporation can only be strong, when their customers are spending enough money. With a government a corporation can grow out by regulations/subsidies. Regulations are destroying small competitors, not the big corps themselves.
A part of the publication explained how large lobbying efforts are made to make labeling systems less accurate or get rid of them altogether. So, in short, the industry spends a lot of money so consumers don't even know which foods are "suger foods" and which aren't.
Your alternative with regulations requires politicians to be perfectly rational. Checkmate.
The argument that people can't be rational and think for themselves, therefore they need other people (a political class) to decide for them, is, frankly, disgusting. No thanks.
They just need to be more rational than the general population. Usually politicians don't really decide things though, but they're putting the stuff experts tell them into laws and arbiter between interests.
You'll need governments deciding things anyway. Otherwise you can't come up with fair contracts when there's a difference of power in the parties of the contract (think e.g. costumer and manufacturer and food safety regulations), even when both sides are rational.
No it don't. You're free to choose unhealthy products, but aren't forced to choose them. Just live healthy and promote your lifestyle to other persons, that is the best thing you can do for yourself and for any other person without harm.
> You're free to choose unhealthy products, but aren't forced to choose them
It's not that simple. For instance, kids aren't free to choose what they eat or drink and they can't make rationale decisions. Many adults lack the proper information and so on...
I don't think promoting your lifestyle to others is something that has any force, even if any of us were interested in evangelism. People pick up their everyday behaviour largely from what they perceive as normal, and mass media, which is filled with adverts and even the programming heavily decided by commercial factors, has enormous power to dictate what is normal. At the grass-roots, parents have a degree of power to set a concept of normality for their kids, but that's also strongly driven by peer-pressure which is in turn driven by mass media.
Without a government, there can be no corporations. A corporation is a creature of regulation. You can already operate a business under fewer regulations by forming a sole proprietorship or general partnership. Why don't people do that? The entitlement of liability limitation afforded by corporate regulation is what makes it possible for businesses to be bigger than a certain nominal size. Something like the "sugar industry" might not exist at all without that entitlement.
Likewise, if the individuals forming a sugar industry marketing or lobbying entity could be held personally liable for the actions of that entity, it probably wouldn't exist. That's the closest thing I can think of to a concept of business law in a libertarian sense: If you own a certain fraction of General Motors, then you're responsible for a fraction of GM's debts, if those debts exceed its assets.
How could we not buy "sugar products" when it is added without knowledge everywhere? Wouldn't your point of view also require removing labels; after all gov. regulation put them there. Sugar corp would sell to ag corp, with no transparency. How would we know how much sugar and compare? I know that humans over the past 50 years have been terrible judges on their own.
Yes, this is a big problem, but if you're waiting for the government to solve this problem, you'll wait a long time.
The humanity have to build new organizations that help the masses in picking up the right choices and we need new corporations that we can trust. Just have a look at the open source movement, where even commercial companies are opening their source code to improve to build up on trust. We need corporations that put labels of ingredients on their products. But if we force companies to do so, we're destroying the start up resources a new company needs to grow.
By forcing accurate labels we are disadvantaging small companies?
I am quite sure that, in a month of work, a well intentioned NGO with 1 or 2 people could develop a hand-holding website that every company could follow, for labelling.
No it isn't added everywhere. Not to fruit, vegetables, raw cereals, dairy products, meat or fish. If you feel you have to buy food industry products (those that undergo some kind of processing) then don't most of them offer low sugar or sugar free options? Finally it comes down to industry meeting human preferences. Change those and the industry will change.
I agree it's often a problem but why not carry a lens to check the small print on the package.
Yes, it is added everywhere, by often by methods you cannot tell. Fruit for example, is selected and bred for more sugar. Cows can be manipulated for more sugar, then dairy products. And again, since no government regulation was allowed, there will be no labels to even read, in that world. And I kindly disagree you can change human, innate, preferences on the whole. Unless you regulate them, which I understand is an anathema.
A 'lens requirement' cuts the effectiveness of any information in a package. I'd wager to less than a tenth of readers, compared with readable packages.
So go out and promote again big corps. Only education and enlightenment can build up a better world. Governments won't, governments are going to be bought by big corps.
no, but the concept of marketing still makes sense. We know that corporations devote a lot of resources in marketing. Is it ok to "brainwash" people into buying stuff that harm them?
Dishonest marketing does not infringe upon your property rights. I've never heard any libertarian claim that limiting speech, for any purpose, is justifiable base on libertarian ideals.
I've read a ton of libertarian stuff, and my impression is that they generally oppose dishonesty from one party in a commercial transaction.
It's not very different for a cigarette manufacture to claim their product is healthy than it is for a construction company to agree to build you a house but then stop halfway through despite receiving payment. I think it's pretty clear that both would be opposed by most or all prominent forms of libertarianism.
What is dishonest marketing? for instance, using various tricks to make people smoke cigarettes or drink coke (that is bad for them), is that dishonest?
Exactly, libertarianism cuts both ways. The protective regulations that the companies lobby for wouldn't exist in the first place in a system like that.
My libertarian view: Let companies add as much sugar as they like and consumers shall decide what tastes and feels best. If there's too much sugar inside your food, nobody's gonna buy it. Not the government should decide how much sugar I eat, I should decide that. Everything else infantilizes the people. The only thing that should be illegal is actually lying about sugar content.
The report cites Clinical Professor James Isbister from the Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney. “Professor Isbister said Jehovah’s Witnesses were given better treatment by doctors trying to preserve their [the Witness patients’] blood. As a result they had better survival rates, and shorter hospital and intensive care stays than people who received blood transfusions during surgery,” reports the paper.
I don't see how they could limit the conclusion to just blood transfusions. JWs tend to live a very healthy lifestyle in general (diet, activity, community).
This text is in Dutch. It explains that new grants from 1 December 2015 onwards will only be given to researchers you promise to publish in Open Access journals. If they're found not to follow these new rules they'll have to pay back the research grant.
