"We" live in a democracy, which means "we" elect the greedy government officials that make and enforce the laws. If "we" believe the laws to be "wrong", then it is up to "us" to elect officials who will make and enforce the laws that "we" feel are "right".
But please, let "us" not pretend that downloading illegal copies of copyrighted material represents some form of civil disobedience. It doesn't. It represents "us" once again taking the easy and apathetic route to instant personal gratification, which is incidentally the same behavior that keeps the corrupt government officials in Washington.
If you want change, then work for change. If you want to maintain the status quo, then keep downloading your music illegally, and tell yourself that you're really sticking it to the man.
Against terrorists armed with box cutters in the confines of an aircraft, I've always favored the defense of a scalding hot pot of coffee. Just a little splash will do 'ya.
"If they won't pay your salary... then you are overpriced for the market."
You sort of missed the entire point. We're not talking about employees bucking for raises and being unable to secure them because of outsourcing. We're talking about employers who are currently unable to fill their required positions - not temporarily but on a recurring annual basis. The companies are lamenting that there are simply not enough math/science graduates in the United States, yet what is really at work here is the market is not paying enough to attract candidates to these fields.
Or to simplify, "If you aren't attracting job candidates... then you are underpaying for the market."
If theoretically the average math and science grad was to suddenly begin earning $1,000,000.00 annually, would there still be a shortfall of graduates in these fields? Doubtful. So at some point in the pay spectrum there is a sweet-spot, where the companies would be paying enough to convince enough graduates to pursue these degrees while still turning a profit for the shareholders.
Companies are very quick to accept the free-market premise that you presented (if no one will pay your salary expectations, you are overpriced) but seem resigned to fight the equivalent premise I presented (if no one is applying for your positions, you are not paying enough), even going so far as asking congress for more H1-B visas to fill an imaginary worker shortfall.
That's now what is happening, however. What we have now is the H1-B visa, whereby a U.S. company can hire a worker from say China at a fixed 6-year cost. That employee is now working in America, but is unable to negotiate for a higher salary, or compete for a different job within the United States, for 6 years.
It is being used as an mechanism to artificially hold down labor costs within certain segments of the economy.
Anytime I see American corporations complaining about the need to outsource labor due to a "shortage of qualified American workers" it makes me laugh to myself. It is absolutely hilarious how the same corporations who ceaselessly discuss the virtues of an open market suddenly revert when it comes to the issue of paying high enough salaries to attract qualified candidates.
The talent is always going to go where the money is. If the serious money was in math and science (instead of finance and business) then the brightest young Americans would be pursuing careers in math and science.
Popular mechanics has been printing articles for at least 75 years detailing all sorts of "do-it-yourself" alternatives to popular products. They've detailed plans for building your own home, a small car, your furniture, and the list goes on and on. So why are consumers still paying for these commodities when "free" alternatives exist?
I think the answer is obvious. We are a "branded" society. We draw identity and confidence from the brand-names we wear, eat, consume, work with, play with, and drive. We enjoy our brand-names even though cheaper (and oftentimes identical) alternatives exist. We have confidence in our brands, and in the corporations that back them. Plus, in America we unabashedly admire (some would say worship) success. Coming out on top of cutthroat corporate America is an accomplishment without peer in our culture. Upsetting the status quo of a major corporation and then eating your opponents lunch while racking up billions of dollars is like winning the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup, World Cup, and NBA Championship all rolled into one. America doesn't look down on Bill Gates, many Americans wish they'd had the brains, determination, business savvy, and cojones to pull off what he did.
Americans would love it now if Microsoft was upset and thrown off as the king of OS's, but they're not just going to hand over the title because Linux asked nicely. Linux will have to prove to America that it has the guts, determination, branding, and star power to knock Microsoft down and then proceed to eat Microsoft's lunch. Only then will America go crazy and pursue Linux as the rockstar superstar OS that it's backers hope it will one day be.
In other words, Linux has to stop showing us they are "as good as" Microsoft and show us why they are better than Microsoft. They can't be the "Microsoft alternative", they have to become the obvious choice.
This is BRILLIANT! They will force Congress to take a more careful look at the DMCA, and thus realize that it was so poorly conceived and written in the first place that it is inviting frivilous lawsuits such as the above.
Let me play devil's advocate here. Consider the following statements:
"I am going to destroy your organization if I have to personally talk sense into each and every member of your group. In 20 years, no one will believe as you do!"
"I am going to destroy your organization if I have to plant the C4 charges myself!"
"I am going to destroy your organization even if I have to personally fund the lobbyists that convince Congress to revoke our citizens 'freedon of religon'."
The first statement is OK, the second statement is probably criminal, the third statement is just plain scary.
That's going to be a difficult argument to make, given that Kazaa's default settings give users no reasonable expectation of privacy."
I'm not sure I understand a "reasonable expectation of privacy" within this context. I mean, if I leave my garage unlocked so my neighbor can borrow my mower, I expect that if either a thief OR a police officer used the occasion to open the door and poke around inside, that both would be trespassing?
Let's say I've posted a nice large sign stating such, "Private Garage. Keep Out! All Violaters Are Trespassing And Will Be Prosecuted!". Would I then have legal recourse?
So what's difference with my computer? Can a company really present a case that essentially says, "We know Party A is guilty because we broke into their home and stole evidence that implicates them in stealing from us". Isn't the company implicating themselves criminally when they introduce this evidence?
Passports are your ID internationally, not for use when buying cigarettes. A national ID would lead to ever more invasive tracking of citizen's activities. This is wrong.
It's funny that citizens are paranoid about privacy invasion via a national i.d. (i.e. your example of the federal government tracking the cigarettes you would buy), while in truth you would be forced to show your national i.d. to purchase the cigarettes, I highly doubt you would be scanning your i.d. in so the purchase could be tracked.
If I were you, I would be more worried that American corporations can use your credit cards, reward cards, and frequent shopper cards to track your every purchasing trend. They know, for example, how frequently you buy cigarettes, and unlike the U.S. government they have no constraint on selling such information to your health insurer.
Borders and Amazon has lists of your frequent reading material, Shell knows what hours you are out and about to purchase gasoline, Google knows your web browsing habits, and Visa can probably nail how long you will live by an aggresive analysis of your shopping patterns. FedEx even knows how late you procrastinated on mailing your Mother's Day gifts.
In most of the world the person who gets to the patent office first gets the patent and the one who gets there second gets nothing.
If two individuals file for the same patent at almost exactly the same time, assuming one party did not "borrow" the idea from the other party, then shouldn't this mean that no patent should be granted?
I mean, if two separate parties are arriving at the same conclusion at nearly the same time... then to me the idea is one that is obvious enough that most experts attempting to solve the same problem would arrive at the same conclusion. In my mind patents should only be granted on innovative ideas that completely shatter the status quo, not for simply being the first person to attempt to solve a particular problem.
Amazon knows which programming books I'm reading this month too. I'm not really concerned. My grocery, reading, and internet surfing habits are pretty tame.
It's the opinions I express on/. that concern me. Some could be cause for embarrassment.
Do you honestly believe that the situations faced by children today are entirely unlike anything faced by their parents? That times have changed that much?
You believe that youthful inexperience is wiser than hard earned, first-hand experience? That when your parents grew up there wasn't a culture of drugs, sex, and peer pressure for them to face? Usually when someone tells me "experience doesn't matter" what they are really saying is "I don't have any experience", so somehow that has to be justified into experience being irrelevant.
I'm not sure how old you or your brother is, but let's say you have graduated from high school, and your younger sibling is about to start high school next week. Which of you has the more accurate expectations of the pressures and difficulties your sibling will face in the next 4 years? Which of you has the healthier perspective of those pressures? Which of you is better suited to be able to look beyond those pressures and see how those 4 years will fit within the context of an entire life?
I had a friend in high school that was nearly suicidal over a girl who dumped him. I spoke to him a year ago, and we couldn't even recall the girls name. He now has a good career, loving wife, and great kids. If one of his sons ever goes through a similar experience, they have a father who could really relate. Will his sons be wise enough to listen to their father? Probably not. They'll dismiss his experience, deciding that their father could "never understand" what they are going through.
The world is a big and scary place. And children need to learn that too, and fast....
Sheltering kids has never helped them.
Does the fact that the internet allows everyone to share their opinion somehow make an uninformed opinion more valid? I mean, why is it that people feel the need to share an opinion about a subject they know almost nothing about? To put it in video game terms, it's like the guy who shows up and joins in the conversation about a video game he's never played (but he read a review on it once).
I guess it started in the 60's, when an entire generation of authors felt the need to inform parents they were raising their children wrong - yet when you check out the authors you discover that most of them never raised any children of their own. I guess having been a child at some point, everyone feels they just intuitively understand how to raise children well?
If you have not raised children, especially if you are not at a place in your life where you are personally ready to accept the responsibilities of parenting, then why on Earth do you feel you have something important to contribute on the topic of parenting?
Modern scientist's have been studying how this 100 million year old planet functions for literally decades now, so I am confident that they a complete and accurate understanding upon which to base their predictions. Sure they're only 50% accurate at predicting this weekend's weather, but still...
On the one hand, the point of paper writing is to teach young people a valuable real world skill. If they plagiarize, eventually it will catch up with them.
On the other hand, teachers are faced with additional hurdles if they truly care about helping their students learn. One solution might be to rely more on in class work. Take the students to the library for a week to research a topic. Have them record notes from their research on 3x5 cards. The next week, have them use 1 hour per day to write a paper on their research. The deal is, the note cards and writing remains in the classroom. All the work is done in the classroom.
The finished product may not be as refined as a traditional paper, but it would force the children to do the work and think for themselves. If the materials remain in the classroom, then a subsequent lesson could have the students edit their papers for clarity and readability.
Allow two months to pass so the material is no longer fresh in their minds, and have the students read their papers a 3rd time, writing down all the unanswered questions or improvements they can now see their paper needs.
The next week take them back to the library and have them conduct further research and rewrite their papers once more.
Voila! A finished paper, and hopefully a valuable lesson.
Judging a creature's sentience or intelligence is completely missing the point. Sentience (the ability to feel or perceive) and intelligence (the capacity for learning, reasoning, and understanding) were never considered unique factors that set humanity apart from every other organism on this planet.
No one is debating whether animals are capable of feeling or reasoning, to varying degrees many are.
What is at issue here is Sapience. It is humanity's sapience (ability to act with judgment concerning complex issues) that makes us human, and thus guarantees us rights apart from every other organism on this planet.
A monkey can kill another monkey, and the monkey can use their sentience and intelligence to feel sad that they will now be deprived of the other monkey's company, but a monkey is incapable of using judgment to determine that killing the other monkey was morally wrong.
It is that judgment, between right and wrong, that sets humanity apart.
Yes, but if you say 'remove', it means removing him out of society so he/she no longer poses a threat.
I watched a special recently, where the police discovered a prisoner being moved from a maximum security prison was smuggling a hit list on behalf of a Mafia member still locked up in the maximum security prison.
This despite the fact that the prisoners were kept completely isolated during their stay in the prison. The list, by the way, had been hidden up the prisoner's bum.
In this case, one of the toughest maximum security prisons in America was not enough to keep this prisoner from directing the deaths of other human beings. So what is a "civilized" society to do to protect itself from the evil machinations of such individuals?
I'm not sure if you were trying to be funny or insightful.
A little of both. If you considered my use of humble to imply the antonym as being 'arrogant', then it could be humorous. If you considered the antonym to be 'confident' then I suppose you could consider it insightful. I'll leave it to the programmers in your life to help shape which assumption you choose to follow.
I will say this, however. While overconfidence and arrogance have hindered many a programmer, confidence and ego are also the fuel that has launched many a programmer on an ambitious journey of accomplishment. Without them, you never get off the ground. Too much of them, and you never arrive at your destination.
There are complaints about the egos of the developers in the forums.
I believe it is a pretty generally accepted theory of Computer Science that humble programmers aren't much good on a project. So why would they discuss the inflated egos of programmers on these projects as though it was a bad thing?
For future reference, the formula is:
(BIG EGO == GREAT CODER)
(HUMBLE == BAD BAD BAD CODER)
Why do I suspect the executives at Circuit City had some egregious bonus they could receive *IF ONLY* they could find some way to bump their stock price up a few points by the end of Q1 2007.
Great business plan, that. Now may I ask what incentive future Circuit City employees have to perform well? So they can guarantee that they will be the first employees fired in the next round of lay offs?
What's my incentive as a customer to now shop there, knowing they have fired their best salesman?
Ah well, what's the loss of a few thousand of your best performing employees, the good faith of your customers, or the long-term financial health of your investors?
a) What is in question is how much she can claim in attorney's fees. I believe the RIAA's position is that the defendant cannot claim compensation above the amount she was being sued for, which would have been a relatively small amount of money. Her defense is maintaining that she was required to mount a defense equitable to the prosecution, which probably cost a considerable sum of money.
i.e. the RIAA is saying "we sued her for $5000.00, that is all she would have lost if she had not defended her innocence, so that is all she can claim in attorney's fees".
The defense is saying, "they spent $12,000,000.00 to prosecute her, so we were forced to spend $8,000,000.00 to defend her, and that is the amount we should be awarded".
Please note I made the above numbers up. I would not even attempt to ballpark the amounts involved.
It would only be cencorship if the U.S. blocked access to it.
Labeling or sorting content so parents can more easily control what content their children have access to is not censorship, anymore than Slashdot censors their news by tagging some stories with the "gaming" tag and placing them under a different subdomain. Slashdot's strategy enables me to more safely browse their developer and tech articles from work, and is a much appreciated feature.
But with the sorts of data mining they are doing, they could just as easily pick out groups of probable (insert political affiliation here). How would you like the FBI showing up at your door because some data mining program thinks that you are probably going to protest a visit to your hometown by the president?
That would be the secret service showing up at your door, not the FBI, and the criteria for a visit would rate slightly higher than disliking the current President.
The real question is, if the government had been able to use software like this to prevent 9/11, how many people would be against it?
Slashdot Mirror
"We" live in a democracy, which means "we" elect the greedy government officials that make and enforce the laws. If "we" believe the laws to be "wrong", then it is up to "us" to elect officials who will make and enforce the laws that "we" feel are "right".
But please, let "us" not pretend that downloading illegal copies of copyrighted material represents some form of civil disobedience. It doesn't. It represents "us" once again taking the easy and apathetic route to instant personal gratification, which is incidentally the same behavior that keeps the corrupt government officials in Washington.
If you want change, then work for change. If you want to maintain the status quo, then keep downloading your music illegally, and tell yourself that you're really sticking it to the man.
Against terrorists armed with box cutters in the confines of an aircraft, I've always favored the defense of a scalding hot pot of coffee. Just a little splash will do 'ya.
"If they won't pay your salary... then you are overpriced for the market."
You sort of missed the entire point. We're not talking about employees bucking for raises and being unable to secure them because of outsourcing. We're talking about employers who are currently unable to fill their required positions - not temporarily but on a recurring annual basis. The companies are lamenting that there are simply not enough math/science graduates in the United States, yet what is really at work here is the market is not paying enough to attract candidates to these fields.
Or to simplify, "If you aren't attracting job candidates... then you are underpaying for the market."
If theoretically the average math and science grad was to suddenly begin earning $1,000,000.00 annually, would there still be a shortfall of graduates in these fields? Doubtful. So at some point in the pay spectrum there is a sweet-spot, where the companies would be paying enough to convince enough graduates to pursue these degrees while still turning a profit for the shareholders.
Companies are very quick to accept the free-market premise that you presented (if no one will pay your salary expectations, you are overpriced) but seem resigned to fight the equivalent premise I presented (if no one is applying for your positions, you are not paying enough), even going so far as asking congress for more H1-B visas to fill an imaginary worker shortfall.
That's now what is happening, however. What we have now is the H1-B visa, whereby a U.S. company can hire a worker from say China at a fixed 6-year cost. That employee is now working in America, but is unable to negotiate for a higher salary, or compete for a different job within the United States, for 6 years. It is being used as an mechanism to artificially hold down labor costs within certain segments of the economy.
Anytime I see American corporations complaining about the need to outsource labor due to a "shortage of qualified American workers" it makes me laugh to myself. It is absolutely hilarious how the same corporations who ceaselessly discuss the virtues of an open market suddenly revert when it comes to the issue of paying high enough salaries to attract qualified candidates.
The talent is always going to go where the money is. If the serious money was in math and science (instead of finance and business) then the brightest young Americans would be pursuing careers in math and science.
Popular mechanics has been printing articles for at least 75 years detailing all sorts of "do-it-yourself" alternatives to popular products. They've detailed plans for building your own home, a small car, your furniture, and the list goes on and on. So why are consumers still paying for these commodities when "free" alternatives exist?
I think the answer is obvious. We are a "branded" society. We draw identity and confidence from the brand-names we wear, eat, consume, work with, play with, and drive. We enjoy our brand-names even though cheaper (and oftentimes identical) alternatives exist. We have confidence in our brands, and in the corporations that back them. Plus, in America we unabashedly admire (some would say worship) success. Coming out on top of cutthroat corporate America is an accomplishment without peer in our culture. Upsetting the status quo of a major corporation and then eating your opponents lunch while racking up billions of dollars is like winning the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup, World Cup, and NBA Championship all rolled into one. America doesn't look down on Bill Gates, many Americans wish they'd had the brains, determination, business savvy, and cojones to pull off what he did.
Americans would love it now if Microsoft was upset and thrown off as the king of OS's, but they're not just going to hand over the title because Linux asked nicely. Linux will have to prove to America that it has the guts, determination, branding, and star power to knock Microsoft down and then proceed to eat Microsoft's lunch. Only then will America go crazy and pursue Linux as the rockstar superstar OS that it's backers hope it will one day be.
In other words, Linux has to stop showing us they are "as good as" Microsoft and show us why they are better than Microsoft. They can't be the "Microsoft alternative", they have to become the obvious choice.
This is BRILLIANT! They will force Congress to take a more careful look at the DMCA, and thus realize that it was so poorly conceived and written in the first place that it is inviting frivilous lawsuits such as the above.
Let me play devil's advocate here. Consider the following statements:
"I am going to destroy your organization if I have to personally talk sense into each and every member of your group. In 20 years, no one will believe as you do!"
"I am going to destroy your organization if I have to plant the C4 charges myself!"
"I am going to destroy your organization even if I have to personally fund the lobbyists that convince Congress to revoke our citizens 'freedon of religon'."
The first statement is OK, the second statement is probably criminal, the third statement is just plain scary.
I'm not sure I understand a "reasonable expectation of privacy" within this context. I mean, if I leave my garage unlocked so my neighbor can borrow my mower, I expect that if either a thief OR a police officer used the occasion to open the door and poke around inside, that both would be trespassing?
Let's say I've posted a nice large sign stating such, "Private Garage. Keep Out! All Violaters Are Trespassing And Will Be Prosecuted!". Would I then have legal recourse?
So what's difference with my computer? Can a company really present a case that essentially says, "We know Party A is guilty because we broke into their home and stole evidence that implicates them in stealing from us". Isn't the company implicating themselves criminally when they introduce this evidence?
It's funny that citizens are paranoid about privacy invasion via a national i.d. (i.e. your example of the federal government tracking the cigarettes you would buy), while in truth you would be forced to show your national i.d. to purchase the cigarettes, I highly doubt you would be scanning your i.d. in so the purchase could be tracked.
If I were you, I would be more worried that American corporations can use your credit cards, reward cards, and frequent shopper cards to track your every purchasing trend. They know, for example, how frequently you buy cigarettes, and unlike the U.S. government they have no constraint on selling such information to your health insurer.
Borders and Amazon has lists of your frequent reading material, Shell knows what hours you are out and about to purchase gasoline, Google knows your web browsing habits, and Visa can probably nail how long you will live by an aggresive analysis of your shopping patterns. FedEx even knows how late you procrastinated on mailing your Mother's Day gifts.
If two individuals file for the same patent at almost exactly the same time, assuming one party did not "borrow" the idea from the other party, then shouldn't this mean that no patent should be granted? I mean, if two separate parties are arriving at the same conclusion at nearly the same time... then to me the idea is one that is obvious enough that most experts attempting to solve the same problem would arrive at the same conclusion. In my mind patents should only be granted on innovative ideas that completely shatter the status quo, not for simply being the first person to attempt to solve a particular problem.
Amazon knows which programming books I'm reading this month too. I'm not really concerned. My grocery, reading, and internet surfing habits are pretty tame.
/. that concern me. Some could be cause for embarrassment.
It's the opinions I express on
Do you honestly believe that the situations faced by children today are entirely unlike anything faced by their parents? That times have changed that much?
You believe that youthful inexperience is wiser than hard earned, first-hand experience? That when your parents grew up there wasn't a culture of drugs, sex, and peer pressure for them to face? Usually when someone tells me "experience doesn't matter" what they are really saying is "I don't have any experience", so somehow that has to be justified into experience being irrelevant.
I'm not sure how old you or your brother is, but let's say you have graduated from high school, and your younger sibling is about to start high school next week. Which of you has the more accurate expectations of the pressures and difficulties your sibling will face in the next 4 years? Which of you has the healthier perspective of those pressures? Which of you is better suited to be able to look beyond those pressures and see how those 4 years will fit within the context of an entire life?
I had a friend in high school that was nearly suicidal over a girl who dumped him. I spoke to him a year ago, and we couldn't even recall the girls name. He now has a good career, loving wife, and great kids. If one of his sons ever goes through a similar experience, they have a father who could really relate. Will his sons be wise enough to listen to their father? Probably not. They'll dismiss his experience, deciding that their father could "never understand" what they are going through.
Does the fact that the internet allows everyone to share their opinion somehow make an uninformed opinion more valid? I mean, why is it that people feel the need to share an opinion about a subject they know almost nothing about? To put it in video game terms, it's like the guy who shows up and joins in the conversation about a video game he's never played (but he read a review on it once).
I guess it started in the 60's, when an entire generation of authors felt the need to inform parents they were raising their children wrong - yet when you check out the authors you discover that most of them never raised any children of their own. I guess having been a child at some point, everyone feels they just intuitively understand how to raise children well?
If you have not raised children, especially if you are not at a place in your life where you are personally ready to accept the responsibilities of parenting, then why on Earth do you feel you have something important to contribute on the topic of parenting?
Modern scientist's have been studying how this 100 million year old planet functions for literally decades now, so I am confident that they a complete and accurate understanding upon which to base their predictions. Sure they're only 50% accurate at predicting this weekend's weather, but still...
On the one hand, the point of paper writing is to teach young people a valuable real world skill. If they plagiarize, eventually it will catch up with them.
On the other hand, teachers are faced with additional hurdles if they truly care about helping their students learn. One solution might be to rely more on in class work. Take the students to the library for a week to research a topic. Have them record notes from their research on 3x5 cards. The next week, have them use 1 hour per day to write a paper on their research. The deal is, the note cards and writing remains in the classroom. All the work is done in the classroom.
The finished product may not be as refined as a traditional paper, but it would force the children to do the work and think for themselves. If the materials remain in the classroom, then a subsequent lesson could have the students edit their papers for clarity and readability.
Allow two months to pass so the material is no longer fresh in their minds, and have the students read their papers a 3rd time, writing down all the unanswered questions or improvements they can now see their paper needs.
The next week take them back to the library and have them conduct further research and rewrite their papers once more.
Voila! A finished paper, and hopefully a valuable lesson.
Judging a creature's sentience or intelligence is completely missing the point. Sentience (the ability to feel or perceive) and intelligence (the capacity for learning, reasoning, and understanding) were never considered unique factors that set humanity apart from every other organism on this planet.
No one is debating whether animals are capable of feeling or reasoning, to varying degrees many are.
What is at issue here is Sapience. It is humanity's sapience (ability to act with judgment concerning complex issues) that makes us human, and thus guarantees us rights apart from every other organism on this planet.
A monkey can kill another monkey, and the monkey can use their sentience and intelligence to feel sad that they will now be deprived of the other monkey's company, but a monkey is incapable of using judgment to determine that killing the other monkey was morally wrong.
It is that judgment, between right and wrong, that sets humanity apart.
I watched a special recently, where the police discovered a prisoner being moved from a maximum security prison was smuggling a hit list on behalf of a Mafia member still locked up in the maximum security prison.
This despite the fact that the prisoners were kept completely isolated during their stay in the prison. The list, by the way, had been hidden up the prisoner's bum.
In this case, one of the toughest maximum security prisons in America was not enough to keep this prisoner from directing the deaths of other human beings. So what is a "civilized" society to do to protect itself from the evil machinations of such individuals?
A little of both. If you considered my use of humble to imply the antonym as being 'arrogant', then it could be humorous. If you considered the antonym to be 'confident' then I suppose you could consider it insightful. I'll leave it to the programmers in your life to help shape which assumption you choose to follow.
I will say this, however. While overconfidence and arrogance have hindered many a programmer, confidence and ego are also the fuel that has launched many a programmer on an ambitious journey of accomplishment. Without them, you never get off the ground. Too much of them, and you never arrive at your destination.
I believe it is a pretty generally accepted theory of Computer Science that humble programmers aren't much good on a project. So why would they discuss the inflated egos of programmers on these projects as though it was a bad thing?
For future reference, the formula is:
(BIG EGO == GREAT CODER)
(HUMBLE == BAD BAD BAD CODER)
Are we all clear on this now?
Why do I suspect the executives at Circuit City had some egregious bonus they could receive *IF ONLY* they could find some way to bump their stock price up a few points by the end of Q1 2007.
Great business plan, that. Now may I ask what incentive future Circuit City employees have to perform well? So they can guarantee that they will be the first employees fired in the next round of lay offs?
What's my incentive as a customer to now shop there, knowing they have fired their best salesman?
Ah well, what's the loss of a few thousand of your best performing employees, the good faith of your customers, or the long-term financial health of your investors?
a) What is in question is how much she can claim in attorney's fees. I believe the RIAA's position is that the defendant cannot claim compensation above the amount she was being sued for, which would have been a relatively small amount of money. Her defense is maintaining that she was required to mount a defense equitable to the prosecution, which probably cost a considerable sum of money.
i.e. the RIAA is saying "we sued her for $5000.00, that is all she would have lost if she had not defended her innocence, so that is all she can claim in attorney's fees".
The defense is saying, "they spent $12,000,000.00 to prosecute her, so we were forced to spend $8,000,000.00 to defend her, and that is the amount we should be awarded".
Please note I made the above numbers up. I would not even attempt to ballpark the amounts involved.
It would only be cencorship if the U.S. blocked access to it.
Labeling or sorting content so parents can more easily control what content their children have access to is not censorship, anymore than Slashdot censors their news by tagging some stories with the "gaming" tag and placing them under a different subdomain. Slashdot's strategy enables me to more safely browse their developer and tech articles from work, and is a much appreciated feature.
When does SCO get to sue their lawyers?
That would be the secret service showing up at your door, not the FBI, and the criteria for a visit would rate slightly higher than disliking the current President.
The real question is, if the government had been able to use software like this to prevent 9/11, how many people would be against it?