"This is something that is rapidly becoming a fundamentally ethically right and wrong decision."
And if by that you mean supporting a Federal "gay marriage" law, this is something that is pretty obviously head-up-the-ass thinking.
Because, you see, it ISN'T just a matter of whether gay people should be married or not. Unfortunately, a shitload of bonehead do-gooder not-quite-thinkers want to get the Federal government involved. And if that isn't the worst possible thing they could do for their cause, I don't know what is.
Historically, the Federal government has had NOTHING to do with marriage (except for influencing it via taxes, which is arguably unconstitutional). It has been a State issue since before the Federal government ever existed.
But a whole bunch of people want a quick fix, and aren't thinking about the consequences. These are people who want the Federal government to get involved, and pass a law saying that gay marriage should be legal in the entirety of the Union.
But see, there are some VERY SERIOUS FLAWS with that approach. Frankly, I don't give much of a damn who marries whom. But I *DO* care whether people hand the Federal government power over marriage on a silver platter. Because a government that is given the power to give you "rights", can also take them away. A government that is given the authority to decide who CAN marry, is also given the authority to decide who CANNOT get married.
So these so-called "rights" activists (they are actually anything but), are shooting themselves in the feet. They are so determined to get a Federal law TODAY that will "fix" this issue, that they don't realize that they are trying to give government the power to turn right around and take that "right" away on the merest whim. When they should be working from the ground up to change society's rules at more of the state and local levels. That is the only way they will make it stick.
A Federal "gay marriage" law is such a massively bonehead thing to do that I am actually in awe of its stupidity. I'm not "homophobic", or anything of that nature. I'm simply saying that if LGBT people want equal treatment, rather than a "quick fix" that will likely be disastrous for them eventually, they should take the longer view, and work toward a lasting solution.
And yes, any such marriage law WOULD eventually affect me, and everybody else. There would be nothing stopping the Government, for example, from saying "From this day forward, nobody is legally married." Far-fetched, you say? Well, the Federal government has done even dumber things. Don't put it past them.
"If you want to read a very well written and thought out argument as to why Ender's Game is one of the worst books for adolescents to read, check out John Kessel's thesis."
I just read the thesis, and to be honest, I think it's mainly horseshit.
It reminds me of so many, many overly-analytical "explanations" of poetry, by people who presume to know the author's intent because apparently they think they can read his mind.
I can think of several possible motivations for Card to do nearly all of the things Kessel describes, but Kessel seems to be intent on proving a specific, singular motive that as far as I can see is no more likely than any of the others.
For example, Kessel rejects the simple motive of self-defense for any of Ender Wiggins' actions, when in fact, in the novel, he has ample reason to act in simple self-defense, without presuming any other motive. Kessel offers lots of (repetitive) arguments about why he thinks the author intended something different, but I am far from convinced.
"I tend to agree. At my office a large number of employees live locally but work remotely often and it can be a big hassle when I need to get answers from them."
Then it isn't being done right. If your office has a proper telecommute setup, the remote workers should never be more than an IM or Campfire message away, and respond as immediately as they would if they were in the office.
I worked in an office in which it was often easier and faster to get an answer from a worker in another state than from someone two desks over.
"I work with people who telecommute. It is a justifiable accommodation for an especially good performer who would otherwise have to leave. But from my perspective, it doesn't seem as good as having the same person nearby, when that is possible to do."
You are only looking at a very narrow segment of the job market. I am a freelance programmer and web developer. My job is 100% telecommute, all the time. (I have done lots of work for people in other states and outside the country, for example.)
In most cases there is no reason to hire someone full-time to do my job. So an on-site requirement would make no sense.
"The job of police and prosecutors is to establish guilt."
Bullshit. It is exactly this attitude that is behind many of our society's ills. This is a gross distortion of the truth.
The job of a defense attorney is to get the defendant off if possible, by any legal means possible. To try to make the defendant look innocent.
However, the job of prosecutors is NOT analogous. Their job is to prove guilt when there is guilt. Their job is not to try to make the innocent look guilty, or to use "any legal means possible," to try to make someone look guilty. The prosecutor's job is to prosecute cases ONLY when he or she is convinced that there is already guilt.
And the job of Law Enforcement is neither. Their job is to gather evidence. Not to establish guilt. That's none of their business. Certainly, their job entails finding and arresting suspects... but that is precisely why they are called "suspects". It is not the job of police to be judges.
MOST people don't know enough to keep their mouths shut. This is simply a fact. They also expect other people to be reasonable, and are amazed when other people aren't reasonable. Example from TFA:
"It was beyond my understanding that these people could pick through his life, threaten his friends, tear through our digital history together, raid his house, surveil him, and never actually read his blog."
I bet you 90% of the people out there would feel the same. And have no clue what damage opening their mouths, even a little bit, can cause.
I bet even you would learn a few things by watching this video: Don't Talk To Police which is a talk given by a defense attorney and a detective.
I think I have to call BS here. Our privacy issues are far more due to our shitty laws than they are due to technology. It would be trivial to outlaw tracking, pixel bugs, etc. if only the American people had the will to do it. Technology, per se, is not the villain here. Congress is.
"Most judges are former litigators. Seems like a conflict of interest to me."
Interesting point. I don't think I have thought about it quite that way before...
In any case, I looked at the filing posted at that link, and some of the things Prenda lists are very clearly not libel or slander. For example, there is little question that the cartoon of Bart Simpson at the blackboard would be protected as parody. Some other things appear to be mere opinion, which can never be libel.
This looks to me like a SLAPP suit or suits (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), which is justification for the defendants to turn around and sue Prenda.
You have to wonder where these guys studied law. ( -- A statement that is provably not libelous. )
Caveat: that's a fixed number for a given rotational speed and platter size.
Halve the diameter of the platter, and you will improve the latency due to disk rotation. But the problem is, when higher-density technologies come around, manufacturers have usually put that to use making larger capacity drives, not smaller platters.
It's only a no-brainer if by that you mean a brain wasn't used in coming up with it.
This suggestion is not very efficient, and it is not ergonomic at all.
Looking down at a laptop on your desk is NOT a good, ergonomic working position. Simply substituting another monitor wastes good monitor space.
The solution? Put the laptop up on a stand next to the other monitor, and use both.
For good ergonomic working conditions, the top of your monitor(s) should be at about eye level. So place your main monitor at about that level, and raise your laptop up so they are side-by-side. Especially if the laptop has a high-resolution monitor.
That gives you the maximum screen real estate, AND the most ergonomic setup.
"Engineering's job is to make what marketing want work, not argue about whether the market wants the right thing."
Complete nonsense. Granted, that's how some companies are run, but generally it is not a very successful formula.
If you want your company to be successful, it is the job of Engineering to tell Marketing what works well and what doesn't. Marketing may want something specific, but if it doesn't work well, it won't sell well either.
Apple is a good example. Engineering drives marketing as much as the other way around.
"The market for HDDs isn't so much drying up; but strategies other than 'make the hard drive rotate faster' for making storage perform better have been getting cheaper and better pretty aggressively."
That is so. But unless you want to build huge buffers into your system (and in some circumstances even when you do), latency is still going to be a problem.
It's a spinning disk. It takes time for data to spin under the head. You aren't going to change that, and faster drives are better.
To me, this looks like a real bonehead move on the part of Seagate. Unless they know something I don't. Which is quite possible.
"When new models are being developed and tested at Colt, Ruger, Smith and Wesson, Winchester, Marlin, Glock, etc.... they put the gun in a "vice like" stand, behind a barrier, and fire it remotely..."
Gun vises, bench rests, barriers, and the like are cheap and easily obtainable (or buildable) by anybody. And "remote" firing can be as simple as a piece of string.
"Having said that, I expect this to be banned, with the NRA's support. Not because of safety regulations or what have you, but because the NRA's purpose is to get people buying more guns..."
"That is collusion of itself, since the companies agree not to have more than one cable and one DSL company compete in any given area."
And, I think, likely illegal collusion. It's legal for one company, like a franchise, to divide things up into territories. But I don't think it's legal for "competing" companies to do that.
Slashdot Mirror
"This is something that is rapidly becoming a fundamentally ethically right and wrong decision."
And if by that you mean supporting a Federal "gay marriage" law, this is something that is pretty obviously head-up-the-ass thinking.
Because, you see, it ISN'T just a matter of whether gay people should be married or not. Unfortunately, a shitload of bonehead do-gooder not-quite-thinkers want to get the Federal government involved. And if that isn't the worst possible thing they could do for their cause, I don't know what is.
Historically, the Federal government has had NOTHING to do with marriage (except for influencing it via taxes, which is arguably unconstitutional). It has been a State issue since before the Federal government ever existed.
But a whole bunch of people want a quick fix, and aren't thinking about the consequences. These are people who want the Federal government to get involved, and pass a law saying that gay marriage should be legal in the entirety of the Union.
But see, there are some VERY SERIOUS FLAWS with that approach. Frankly, I don't give much of a damn who marries whom. But I *DO* care whether people hand the Federal government power over marriage on a silver platter. Because a government that is given the power to give you "rights", can also take them away. A government that is given the authority to decide who CAN marry, is also given the authority to decide who CANNOT get married.
So these so-called "rights" activists (they are actually anything but), are shooting themselves in the feet. They are so determined to get a Federal law TODAY that will "fix" this issue, that they don't realize that they are trying to give government the power to turn right around and take that "right" away on the merest whim. When they should be working from the ground up to change society's rules at more of the state and local levels. That is the only way they will make it stick.
A Federal "gay marriage" law is such a massively bonehead thing to do that I am actually in awe of its stupidity. I'm not "homophobic", or anything of that nature. I'm simply saying that if LGBT people want equal treatment, rather than a "quick fix" that will likely be disastrous for them eventually, they should take the longer view, and work toward a lasting solution.
And yes, any such marriage law WOULD eventually affect me, and everybody else. There would be nothing stopping the Government, for example, from saying "From this day forward, nobody is legally married." Far-fetched, you say? Well, the Federal government has done even dumber things. Don't put it past them.
"If you want to read a very well written and thought out argument as to why Ender's Game is one of the worst books for adolescents to read, check out John Kessel's thesis."
I just read the thesis, and to be honest, I think it's mainly horseshit.
It reminds me of so many, many overly-analytical "explanations" of poetry, by people who presume to know the author's intent because apparently they think they can read his mind.
I can think of several possible motivations for Card to do nearly all of the things Kessel describes, but Kessel seems to be intent on proving a specific, singular motive that as far as I can see is no more likely than any of the others.
For example, Kessel rejects the simple motive of self-defense for any of Ender Wiggins' actions, when in fact, in the novel, he has ample reason to act in simple self-defense, without presuming any other motive. Kessel offers lots of (repetitive) arguments about why he thinks the author intended something different, but I am far from convinced.
"I tend to agree. At my office a large number of employees live locally but work remotely often and it can be a big hassle when I need to get answers from them."
Then it isn't being done right. If your office has a proper telecommute setup, the remote workers should never be more than an IM or Campfire message away, and respond as immediately as they would if they were in the office.
I worked in an office in which it was often easier and faster to get an answer from a worker in another state than from someone two desks over.
"I thought that the office was the place where the disgruntled ex-employee showed up and began firing at everyone in sight."
No, that's not the office. That's the Post Office.
"I work with people who telecommute. It is a justifiable accommodation for an especially good performer who would otherwise have to leave. But from my perspective, it doesn't seem as good as having the same person nearby, when that is possible to do."
You are only looking at a very narrow segment of the job market. I am a freelance programmer and web developer. My job is 100% telecommute, all the time. (I have done lots of work for people in other states and outside the country, for example.)
In most cases there is no reason to hire someone full-time to do my job. So an on-site requirement would make no sense.
"The job of police and prosecutors is to establish guilt."
Bullshit. It is exactly this attitude that is behind many of our society's ills. This is a gross distortion of the truth.
The job of a defense attorney is to get the defendant off if possible, by any legal means possible. To try to make the defendant look innocent.
However, the job of prosecutors is NOT analogous. Their job is to prove guilt when there is guilt. Their job is not to try to make the innocent look guilty, or to use "any legal means possible," to try to make someone look guilty. The prosecutor's job is to prosecute cases ONLY when he or she is convinced that there is already guilt.
And the job of Law Enforcement is neither. Their job is to gather evidence. Not to establish guilt. That's none of their business. Certainly, their job entails finding and arresting suspects... but that is precisely why they are called "suspects". It is not the job of police to be judges.
"Oh, c'mon, don't give us that !!!"
MOST people don't know enough to keep their mouths shut. This is simply a fact. They also expect other people to be reasonable, and are amazed when other people aren't reasonable. Example from TFA:
"It was beyond my understanding that these people could pick through his life, threaten his friends, tear through our digital history together, raid his house, surveil him, and never actually read his blog."
I bet you 90% of the people out there would feel the same. And have no clue what damage opening their mouths, even a little bit, can cause.
I bet even you would learn a few things by watching this video: Don't Talk To Police which is a talk given by a defense attorney and a detective.
"Days of privacy are over with technology..."
I think I have to call BS here. Our privacy issues are far more due to our shitty laws than they are due to technology. It would be trivial to outlaw tracking, pixel bugs, etc. if only the American people had the will to do it. Technology, per se, is not the villain here. Congress is.
"Most judges are former litigators. Seems like a conflict of interest to me."
Interesting point. I don't think I have thought about it quite that way before...
In any case, I looked at the filing posted at that link, and some of the things Prenda lists are very clearly not libel or slander. For example, there is little question that the cartoon of Bart Simpson at the blackboard would be protected as parody. Some other things appear to be mere opinion, which can never be libel.
This looks to me like a SLAPP suit or suits (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), which is justification for the defendants to turn around and sue Prenda.
You have to wonder where these guys studied law. ( -- A statement that is provably not libelous. )
Oooh, nice. Somebody decided they couldn't bother to reply with "I disagree" so they modded me "troll" instead.
Tell me, Mr. Mystery Modder: what is "trolling" about "Personally I don't care much for... [insert something here]"???
Hahaha. Yes, that's probably closer to the truth.
Caveat: that's a fixed number for a given rotational speed and platter size.
Halve the diameter of the platter, and you will improve the latency due to disk rotation. But the problem is, when higher-density technologies come around, manufacturers have usually put that to use making larger capacity drives, not smaller platters.
"Rotational speed isn't the only factor determining seek time."
No, it isn't the only factor. But that's beside the point, since that was the factor I was referring to.
You can change the seek time of the head. But you can't change the rotational latency. That is a fixed number.
"Would it make you feel better if I had called it the "gun-rights advocates subculture"?"
Whooooooosh!
"It's a complete no-brainer."
It's only a no-brainer if by that you mean a brain wasn't used in coming up with it.
This suggestion is not very efficient, and it is not ergonomic at all.
Looking down at a laptop on your desk is NOT a good, ergonomic working position. Simply substituting another monitor wastes good monitor space.
The solution? Put the laptop up on a stand next to the other monitor, and use both.
For good ergonomic working conditions, the top of your monitor(s) should be at about eye level. So place your main monitor at about that level, and raise your laptop up so they are side-by-side. Especially if the laptop has a high-resolution monitor.
That gives you the maximum screen real estate, AND the most ergonomic setup.
"Now there's two iPad sizes. And lots of sizes for Android tablets. A fair amount of choice for Win 8 too. Everyone's happy!"
Personally I don't care much for the 7-ish inch sizes. I think the original large size is better.
If we presume that other people feel as I do, then the reason for the success of the 7" form factor is more a matter of price than anything.
"Engineering's job is to make what marketing want work, not argue about whether the market wants the right thing."
Complete nonsense. Granted, that's how some companies are run, but generally it is not a very successful formula.
If you want your company to be successful, it is the job of Engineering to tell Marketing what works well and what doesn't. Marketing may want something specific, but if it doesn't work well, it won't sell well either.
Apple is a good example. Engineering drives marketing as much as the other way around.
"The market for HDDs isn't so much drying up; but strategies other than 'make the hard drive rotate faster' for making storage perform better have been getting cheaper and better pretty aggressively."
That is so. But unless you want to build huge buffers into your system (and in some circumstances even when you do), latency is still going to be a problem.
It's a spinning disk. It takes time for data to spin under the head. You aren't going to change that, and faster drives are better.
To me, this looks like a real bonehead move on the part of Seagate. Unless they know something I don't. Which is quite possible.
The name Barrett comes to mind as a good example.
By the way: I wasn't trying to be critical or sarcastic. I am just curious.
"Guns are not complicated, and one of the first things I did myself."
A "gun" is one thing. A nice piece of machinery with a good rifled barrel is another. Did you manage the latter?
"When new models are being developed and tested at Colt, Ruger, Smith and Wesson, Winchester, Marlin, Glock, etc .... they put the gun in a "vice like" stand, behind a barrier, and fire it remotely ..."
Gun vises, bench rests, barriers, and the like are cheap and easily obtainable (or buildable) by anybody. And "remote" firing can be as simple as a piece of string.
Don't underestimate DIY.
"Having said that, I expect this to be banned, with the NRA's support. Not because of safety regulations or what have you, but because the NRA's purpose is to get people buying more guns..."
Trading one conspiracy theory for another?
"There has been a lot of that happening recently in the gun-rights subculture."
"Gun rights" is not a "subculture". It is part of our Constitution.
You might as well say there is a "free speech" subculture or a "trial by jury" subculture.
"That is collusion of itself, since the companies agree not to have more than one cable and one DSL company compete in any given area."
And, I think, likely illegal collusion. It's legal for one company, like a franchise, to divide things up into territories. But I don't think it's legal for "competing" companies to do that.