An engineer's salary here in the valley might be $7-12k per month. About a fourth of this goes to taxes. Decent apartments here are $1,500-2,500 per month - that's not much cheaper than the infant care. (400 euros - I wish! I'm paying three times that...)
Keep in mind the cost of child care and housing is usually split between two working parents, each making a good salary. Of course having kids stretches most families a bit financially, but I think most Google employees should be able to afford this.
That said, I can see how a family which had planned for the low rate could be really pissed at the sudden change.
Lessig says the only two issues at stake are broadband penetration and net neutrality. McCain will try to solve the broadband penetration "problem" by providing subsidies to the cable and telecom monopolies, and he will oppose net neutrality.
Obviously Lessig would prefer to see more competition and open networks.
Personally, I think the broadband penetration number ("our rank has fallen to #22") is a bit of a red herring because the US is far less densely populated than most other countries and thus perfect broadband penetration is not feasible. And while I'm all for net neutrality, that issue alone is not going to determine who I vote for.
Despite the current lack of regulation I think I get a fairly fast, unrestricted Internet connection at a fairly low price. I think that as long as there are at least two providers available in any locality the market will force reasonable prices and net neutrality.
When solving these I sometimes find that there's more than one possibility for an illegible word, yet I can't tell which it is without knowing the context.
For example, in some fonts "cost" and "cast" might be indistinguishable in the image shown. But given the context of the sentence it's trivial for a human to tell the difference.
Suppose that they found these words on which people disagreed and had another captcha system which showed the full sentence. I'd guess they could improve their accuracy significantly in this case. Since they could prescreen for ambiguous words using the current captcha system, even if fewer people were willing to solve the "large" captcha, they would still get all the solutions they needed.
If he wants to disobey an illegal order, as far as I'm concerned he should do it on those grounds instead of using software as a made-up excuse; I'd like to be able to expect my elected officials to be honest. If in fact he's telling the truth and software is the problem, it seems to me that he's neglected his duty to keep the payroll system functioning.
Either way, he'll be hard-pressed to get my vote in the next election.
There are plenty of ways to get around this unless you critically need the full bandwidth at all times - share with your neighbor over WiFi, buy a cell-phone-based data card, stick a satellite dish out your window, etc., etc...
This is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money media are spending to cover the Olympics. When NBC spent $1.5 billion for their Olympic broadcast rights, and a $2k Internet connection reduces the chance that something will go wrong, how could they refuse it? They have plenty to worry about besides finding a cheaper Internet connection.
Most of the talk here is about forms of encryption, whether public-key cryptography will be compromised, etc. That's all well and good, but how many times have you heard of sensitive data being exposed because someone got it and broke the weak encryption? The average Joe whose hands the data will fall into probably won't know that the encrypted blob is anything sensitive or meaningful, and certainly won't know two bits about encryption. Usually data loss happens because an ignorant person copies the file to their laptop and leaves it somewhere, or forgets the CD marked "Account Information" in their car and gets it stolen.
The fact of the matter is that the biggest risks are who the consultant is, who else has access to their machines, and how much they care about protecting your information. Even if you don't use crypto over the network, I find it quite hard to fathom that your ISP is sniffing your data, and even if they were I doubt they could pick out the confidential information. That's a movie plot threat and not something that happens in the real world.
In analyzing this sort of risk, my opinion is that people are usually the biggest factor.
It's only 128kbps, and it can be rather expensive, but ISDN has traditionally been available in areas where DSL/cable aren't.
In my opinion, ISDN is a better option than cellular or satellite broadband because there is so much less latency.
If ISDN isn't available, the phone company may still let you sign up for several phone lines. You could then use multilink PPP with 2 or 3 modems. (Your ISP would have to support this.)
After that happened to Dad a couple of times, he made damn sure that the patent apps and design specs left out crucial elements such that they'd eventually have to come back and buy it from his company.
In some cases (depending on the scope of the patent and product) this sort of thing is illegal - when you file for a patent, you're required to disclose the best known mode for using the invention.
Slashdot Mirror
An engineer's salary here in the valley might be $7-12k per month. About a fourth of this goes to taxes. Decent apartments here are $1,500-2,500 per month - that's not much cheaper than the infant care. (400 euros - I wish! I'm paying three times that...)
Keep in mind the cost of child care and housing is usually split between two working parents, each making a good salary. Of course having kids stretches most families a bit financially, but I think most Google employees should be able to afford this.
That said, I can see how a family which had planned for the low rate could be really pissed at the sudden change.
Obviously Lessig would prefer to see more competition and open networks.
Personally, I think the broadband penetration number ("our rank has fallen to #22") is a bit of a red herring because the US is far less densely populated than most other countries and thus perfect broadband penetration is not feasible. And while I'm all for net neutrality, that issue alone is not going to determine who I vote for.
Despite the current lack of regulation I think I get a fairly fast, unrestricted Internet connection at a fairly low price. I think that as long as there are at least two providers available in any locality the market will force reasonable prices and net neutrality.
When solving these I sometimes find that there's more than one possibility for an illegible word, yet I can't tell which it is without knowing the context.
For example, in some fonts "cost" and "cast" might be indistinguishable in the image shown. But given the context of the sentence it's trivial for a human to tell the difference.
Suppose that they found these words on which people disagreed and had another captcha system which showed the full sentence. I'd guess they could improve their accuracy significantly in this case. Since they could prescreen for ambiguous words using the current captcha system, even if fewer people were willing to solve the "large" captcha, they would still get all the solutions they needed.
If he wants to disobey an illegal order, as far as I'm concerned he should do it on those grounds instead of using software as a made-up excuse; I'd like to be able to expect my elected officials to be honest. If in fact he's telling the truth and software is the problem, it seems to me that he's neglected his duty to keep the payroll system functioning.
Either way, he'll be hard-pressed to get my vote in the next election.
There are plenty of ways to get around this unless you critically need the full bandwidth at all times - share with your neighbor over WiFi, buy a cell-phone-based data card, stick a satellite dish out your window, etc., etc...
This is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of money media are spending to cover the Olympics. When NBC spent $1.5 billion for their Olympic broadcast rights, and a $2k Internet connection reduces the chance that something will go wrong, how could they refuse it? They have plenty to worry about besides finding a cheaper Internet connection.
Most of the talk here is about forms of encryption, whether public-key cryptography will be compromised, etc. That's all well and good, but how many times have you heard of sensitive data being exposed because someone got it and broke the weak encryption? The average Joe whose hands the data will fall into probably won't know that the encrypted blob is anything sensitive or meaningful, and certainly won't know two bits about encryption. Usually data loss happens because an ignorant person copies the file to their laptop and leaves it somewhere, or forgets the CD marked "Account Information" in their car and gets it stolen.
The fact of the matter is that the biggest risks are who the consultant is, who else has access to their machines, and how much they care about protecting your information. Even if you don't use crypto over the network, I find it quite hard to fathom that your ISP is sniffing your data, and even if they were I doubt they could pick out the confidential information. That's a movie plot threat and not something that happens in the real world.
In analyzing this sort of risk, my opinion is that people are usually the biggest factor.
In my opinion, ISDN is a better option than cellular or satellite broadband because there is so much less latency.
If ISDN isn't available, the phone company may still let you sign up for several phone lines. You could then use multilink PPP with 2 or 3 modems. (Your ISP would have to support this.)
In some cases (depending on the scope of the patent and product) this sort of thing is illegal - when you file for a patent, you're required to disclose the best known mode for using the invention.
You mean "copying verbatim from the Mercury News?"
If you read the article-
Vastech is not really a "rebate processor for Fry's".
They made the equipment for which the rebates were being offered.
But of course I agree that rebates are a waste of everyone's time,
I've been screwed countless times by Fry's rebates...