I have to agree: The problem really has nothing to do with Fox news. It has to do with the entire profession of journalism. With very few exceptions, journalists have zero grasp of issues relating to science, engineering or technology. Too often, their idea of research is to talk to their equally clueless colleagues in the lunchroom. Alternatively, they just make up "facts" that sound right to them.
The entire profession is spiraling towards the drain. With the rise of the Internet, fewer people are willing to pay for news of any sort. Less income, budgets are cut, fewer journalists have to churn out more material, quality goes in the crapper, so even fewer people are willing to pay for news...
Just look at the quality of coverage on scientific/technical issues like nuclear power, health care, climate change. Find some specific bit of information, any factoid that seems fairly unique, and start searching. Most likely you will find a lovely merry-go-round: journalists copying from journalists copying from journalists. If you manage to find the original source of the factoid, likely as not it has been taken totally out of context and/or has been completely misunderstood.
Alternatively the entire article may be basically a copy of a press release. Companies and governmental organizations know the journalists are under time pressure, so they provide pre-written "articles" that can be used directly, no thinking required.
I've been in IT for 30 years; not having actively programmed for 10 years, I wouldn't even try to get back into it in any serious way. Technology moves too fast, and most companies are looking for younger programmers anyway. Coming from outside of IT, I really don't think you have a chance as a programmer.
If you have some related experience at it (as you may, being an electrician) you might be able to retrain as a network technician, or something along those lines.
Really, though, I think you'd be better off sticking to your own field, or a closely related one. Move to a supervisory position, or management, or consulting, or teaching. With lots of experience under your belt, one or another of those should suit.
The problem in the USA is the absolutely insane marketing. If public information shows that you make a good income and keep your debts under control, you will be bombarded with "pre-approved credit cards", "refinance your home with us", "buy a new car here", "lose all your money in our casino", and other lovely stuff.
If you live in Europe, you have no idea. When I went back to visit the US for several weeks a couple of years ago, I found the incessant marketing just incredible. The bank tellers trying to sign you up for credit cards. Every phone call to a company begins with a recorded sales pitch. Television shows contain more commercials than content, especially the children's shows. It's just incredible. I suppose you must eventually get numb to it...
If you are a bank considering loaning me money, then I can choose to share my salary information with you. There is no reason at all for this information to be made available without the individual's permission!
Now that is some irony! The US government is concerned about individual privacy? This is the same government that ignores laws stating they require a warrant to access your personal medical records? The same government that eavesdrops on its citizens at will? The same government that believes it has the right to know about all of your banking transactions? That can search you at will if you - like most of the population - live anywhere within 100 miles of the border of the country.
That said, the FTC report does actually manage to state the obvious: "App developers should have privacy policies", "Obtain consent before accessing data", "Participate in self-regulatory programs", and other bloody obvious things.
Oh, and by the way, that national deficit? Well, it's just a little bit higher, having funded this useless report...
Yep, "peer reviewed". This is apparently volume 1, issue 1 of a new series of journals started by an Indian publisher that decided to simultaneously launch 53 new journals. In order to fill them, they took pretty much anything that anyone wanted to publish.
Taking a larger set of stations would seem to mean that this study includes stations that other studies eliminated as poor-quality. For example, stations with siting issues, stations that have moved over time between rural/urban locations, stations suffering UHI in unknown amounts.
Given the need to work in corrections for all of these quality issues, and given a pre-stated conclusion, it is very easy to make the corrections in a way that supports your desired conclusion.
If Dell is going to go down the tubes, who's the replacement?
We've been very happy with Dell computers over the past 10-15 years. We don't need or use their support, but the computers themselves have been solid and reliable. So - if Dell gets bought out and goes down the tubes - what companies to/.ers recommend for an SME that wants the things to "just work"?
I have an even better idea: Let's get the entire population of US citizens to file a suit against the government, and all the politicians individually, for wasting our money bailing out failing companies.
You seem to be confusing "allowing work and private life to intermingle" with having no private life. Sure, there are people who just can't stop working - that's not what the GP is talking about.
I worked a few hours on New Year's Day, because something needed done. However, tomorrow morning (Tuesday) I will be taking off to deal with some private stuff. I read private email at work; check work email at home. Work tends to come in clumps - the second half of 2011 I worked 60 hours every bloody week; this Winter and Spring I will finally be able to compensate, and expect to average 30 hours or less. My employer only cares that my job gets done (and done well); they don't care a whole lot about exactly how and when the work happens. This offers flexibility, which is pleasant. Everybody wins.
Before even clicking on the link, I knew this was an American study. Schools in the US, especially elementary schools, are massively dominated by women. Boys do generally have more difficulty sitting still for long periods, and need to use up their physical energy. This used to be handled by recess periods and sports. They could run around, play games, be competitive, get a bit tired - and be ready the next period of sitting still.
This is no longer allowed. Competitive sports are out, even pretty tame things like tag or dodgeball. Playgrounds have to be ultra-safe, which means utterly boring. Because virtually all teachers and administrators in elementary schools are women, there is very little understanding of boys' needs. They are expected to behave like perfect little...girls.
Thank you for your good intentions, but...just why is this a task for the federal government? An ISP uses local infrastructure to provide service to local residents. Only in the strangest of cases (Texahoma) will an individual transaction cross state lines. The Commerce Clause does not apply. This is not the business of the federal government.
That would be the same 2012 that continues the trend in the IPCC AR5 report, which shows temperatures lower than predicted by any of the models. That ought to make people happy,, don't you think?
That would the the same 2012 with a drought that joins many others from the past 80 years. Guess what, droughts happen periodically, and this one was very much a local phenomenon within central North America.
We just survived the end of the Mayan calendar cycle. Whew. Quick, let's panic about something else!
The US government was (and is) certainly a major force here. The trail is even easier to follow, if you look at the hosting. After the Wikileaks servers were initially overwhelmed by DDOS attacks, they moved to Amazon EC2. On 29 November 2010, Ms. Clinton stated that the US would "aggressively" go after Wikileaks. Two days later, on 1 December 2010, Amazon threw Wikileaks off of EC2.
According to the fine print in the Amazon Terms-and-Conditions, they can do this for any reason or no reason. Which is not unusual, but it *is* unusual to see a company actually make use of such terms. It is surely coincidental that, at that point in time, Amazon was completing for some pretty big cloud-service contracts with the federal government.
Even if they have an EU subsidiary, that's almost certainly not who his contract is with. He's not going to be able to get a judgement against any company other that the one his contract is with.
For several years, I also ran a software business in Europe. When we started, our attorney had one bit of advice: never take a customer in the USA. We made exactly one exception, out of good will, and - sure enough, we regretted it.
If you are not based in the USA, it simply isn't worth the hassle and the risk. If they don't sue you (screw your contract, they'll sue you in a US court, which will claim jurisdiction using the long-arm doctrine), they'll screw you (as you are experiencing).
It doesn't help you in your situation, you're already there. However, for anyone else who may not yet have taken the plunge, don't. Ethics and law in the US reminds me of adventures in third world countries - it's just as dishonest and corrupt, only with prettier window dressing.
"The only people with guns are people in the military"
Apparently you live in a different Switzerland than I do. Must be some alternate reality.
First, lots of people hunt, and they hunt with their privately owned rifles. Second, basically anyone can own a gun. You are just required to register it with the local police. I know, because I have two, and the registration process was pretty simple. I don't know the rules about carrying a gun in public, because it's not something I've looked into.
That said, there is no trace of the American "cowboy culture" here. Owning a gun is not a manly requirement, like it seems to be in the US.
I see lots of businesses investing in Facebook and Twitter. This is driven by the marketing departments, and especially the younger staff that wants to prove something. Maybe I'm an old geezer, but I am not convinced - in the businesses I am familiar with, I haven't seen any sort of believable results, and the marketing departments can't produce any numbers, only "trust us, we know what we're doing".
Has anyone seen actual, solid numbers from any business that prove that these marketing channels were worth the investment? If so, for what type of business?
1. UK, France, Germany, etc. cannot declare that I owe them anything because I have no presence there.
I have no presence in the US, not having lived or worked there for 20 years. However, because I haven't (yet) handed back my US passport, the US thinks I ought to be subject to income tax. No other developed country claims the right to tax people who neither live nor work in the country.
The US clearly thinks that US interests and laws trump those of any other country. For example: the US demands access to international bank data, but refuses to provide foreign countries with data from US banks. Typical.
The corporate tax problem could be resolved entirely within US borders, but doing so would require actual effort and sensible legislation by the politicians. However, they might have to offend some of the companies that bankroll their re-election campaigns. Far, far better to blame "international" people and corporations, and to attempt to shove the problems off onto other countries. In any case, the US does not have a revenue problem; the US has a spending problem, and the politicians certainly don't want to make actual, serious cuts in spending.
This is old news, geez. Here's a quick summary of the facts:
- The Swiss intelligence agency had pathetic security. This guy was an IT guy with far too much direct access to data. Second, there was no policy in place restricting (and checking) what employees could carry in and out of the building. So he duplicated the contents of numerous entire disks, and walk out the door carrying the copies.
- The guy was an idiot. He copied terabytes of data, figuring to get rich quick. But he had no idea how to sell the stuff, so he apparently walked into some random foreign embassy and asked if they wanted to buy the stuff. The embassy apparently quietly informed the Swiss government, and the guy was arrested.
- Because of the way it went down, apparently there is little doubt that he never managed to sell anything. I.e., no data was compromised. This being entirely due to dumb luck, or rather, to the stupidity of the criminal.
Hey, at least Star Wars (as a whole, perhaps not this particular horrible episode) is at least something that has had a major influence on Western culture. That's a lot better definition of Art than the usual postmodernist tripe.
You have got to admire the objectivity of Slashdot readers. I posted an article with a reference to the NOAA site that has global sea-level data online, for all to see. This data contradicts TFA (which is primarily a political report). Slashdot did not disappoint - within a couple of minutes, my comment was moderated into nonexistence..
Here's a second chance: go look at the actual, raw data. Lots of stations have data for nearly a century. None of them show the kind of recent change in trend that the article claims.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to agree: The problem really has nothing to do with Fox news. It has to do with the entire profession of journalism. With very few exceptions, journalists have zero grasp of issues relating to science, engineering or technology. Too often, their idea of research is to talk to their equally clueless colleagues in the lunchroom. Alternatively, they just make up "facts" that sound right to them.
The entire profession is spiraling towards the drain. With the rise of the Internet, fewer people are willing to pay for news of any sort. Less income, budgets are cut, fewer journalists have to churn out more material, quality goes in the crapper, so even fewer people are willing to pay for news...
Just look at the quality of coverage on scientific/technical issues like nuclear power, health care, climate change. Find some specific bit of information, any factoid that seems fairly unique, and start searching. Most likely you will find a lovely merry-go-round: journalists copying from journalists copying from journalists. If you manage to find the original source of the factoid, likely as not it has been taken totally out of context and/or has been completely misunderstood.
Alternatively the entire article may be basically a copy of a press release. Companies and governmental organizations know the journalists are under time pressure, so they provide pre-written "articles" that can be used directly, no thinking required.
I've been in IT for 30 years; not having actively programmed for 10 years, I wouldn't even try to get back into it in any serious way. Technology moves too fast, and most companies are looking for younger programmers anyway. Coming from outside of IT, I really don't think you have a chance as a programmer.
If you have some related experience at it (as you may, being an electrician) you might be able to retrain as a network technician, or something along those lines.
Really, though, I think you'd be better off sticking to your own field, or a closely related one. Move to a supervisory position, or management, or consulting, or teaching. With lots of experience under your belt, one or another of those should suit.
The problem in the USA is the absolutely insane marketing. If public information shows that you make a good income and keep your debts under control, you will be bombarded with "pre-approved credit cards", "refinance your home with us", "buy a new car here", "lose all your money in our casino", and other lovely stuff.
If you live in Europe, you have no idea. When I went back to visit the US for several weeks a couple of years ago, I found the incessant marketing just incredible. The bank tellers trying to sign you up for credit cards. Every phone call to a company begins with a recorded sales pitch. Television shows contain more commercials than content, especially the children's shows. It's just incredible. I suppose you must eventually get numb to it...
If you are a bank considering loaning me money, then I can choose to share my salary information with you. There is no reason at all for this information to be made available without the individual's permission!
Just like the credit reporting agencies, gathering all sorts of financial information without your permission.
Now that is some irony! The US government is concerned about individual privacy? This is the same government that ignores laws stating they require a warrant to access your personal medical records? The same government that eavesdrops on its citizens at will? The same government that believes it has the right to know about all of your banking transactions? That can search you at will if you - like most of the population - live anywhere within 100 miles of the border of the country.
That said, the FTC report does actually manage to state the obvious: "App developers should have privacy policies", "Obtain consent before accessing data", "Participate in self-regulatory programs", and other bloody obvious things.
Oh, and by the way, that national deficit? Well, it's just a little bit higher, having funded this useless report...
The petitions are worthless. Opium for the masses. No petition has ever had any useful effect.
No petition will ever have a useful effect, unless you count the placebo effect as useful: "I did something for my cause, now I can go back to sleep".
Mr. Phelps, your mission, should you decide to accept it...
Yep, "peer reviewed". This is apparently volume 1, issue 1 of a new series of journals started by an Indian publisher that decided to simultaneously launch 53 new journals. In order to fill them, they took pretty much anything that anyone wanted to publish.
Taking a larger set of stations would seem to mean that this study includes stations that other studies eliminated as poor-quality. For example, stations with siting issues, stations that have moved over time between rural/urban locations, stations suffering UHI in unknown amounts.
Given the need to work in corrections for all of these quality issues, and given a pre-stated conclusion, it is very easy to make the corrections in a way that supports your desired conclusion.
In short: not credible.
If Dell is going to go down the tubes, who's the replacement?
We've been very happy with Dell computers over the past 10-15 years. We don't need or use their support, but the computers themselves have been solid and reliable. So - if Dell gets bought out and goes down the tubes - what companies to /.ers recommend for an SME that wants the things to "just work"?
I have an even better idea: Let's get the entire population of US citizens to file a suit against the government, and all the politicians individually, for wasting our money bailing out failing companies.
You seem to be confusing "allowing work and private life to intermingle" with having no private life. Sure, there are people who just can't stop working - that's not what the GP is talking about.
I worked a few hours on New Year's Day, because something needed done. However, tomorrow morning (Tuesday) I will be taking off to deal with some private stuff. I read private email at work; check work email at home. Work tends to come in clumps - the second half of 2011 I worked 60 hours every bloody week; this Winter and Spring I will finally be able to compensate, and expect to average 30 hours or less. My employer only cares that my job gets done (and done well); they don't care a whole lot about exactly how and when the work happens. This offers flexibility, which is pleasant. Everybody wins.
Maybe this is a European thing?
Before even clicking on the link, I knew this was an American study. Schools in the US, especially elementary schools, are massively dominated by women. Boys do generally have more difficulty sitting still for long periods, and need to use up their physical energy. This used to be handled by recess periods and sports. They could run around, play games, be competitive, get a bit tired - and be ready the next period of sitting still.
This is no longer allowed. Competitive sports are out, even pretty tame things like tag or dodgeball. Playgrounds have to be ultra-safe, which means utterly boring. Because virtually all teachers and administrators in elementary schools are women, there is very little understanding of boys' needs. They are expected to behave like perfect little...girls.
Is it any wonder they do poorly in school?
Dear Senator Wyden
Thank you for your good intentions, but...just why is this a task for the federal government? An ISP uses local infrastructure to provide service to local residents. Only in the strangest of cases (Texahoma) will an individual transaction cross state lines. The Commerce Clause does not apply. This is not the business of the federal government.
Anyway, surely you have more important things to worry about?
That would be the same 2012 that continues the trend in the IPCC AR5 report, which shows temperatures lower than predicted by any of the models. That ought to make people happy,, don't you think?
That would the the same 2012 with a drought that joins many others from the past 80 years. Guess what, droughts happen periodically, and this one was very much a local phenomenon within central North America.
We just survived the end of the Mayan calendar cycle. Whew. Quick, let's panic about something else!
The US government was (and is) certainly a major force here. The trail is even easier to follow, if you look at the hosting. After the Wikileaks servers were initially overwhelmed by DDOS attacks, they moved to Amazon EC2. On 29 November 2010, Ms. Clinton stated that the US would "aggressively" go after Wikileaks. Two days later, on 1 December 2010, Amazon threw Wikileaks off of EC2.
According to the fine print in the Amazon Terms-and-Conditions, they can do this for any reason or no reason. Which is not unusual, but it *is* unusual to see a company actually make use of such terms. It is surely coincidental that, at that point in time, Amazon was completing for some pretty big cloud-service contracts with the federal government.
Those darned privacy laws... Gruss How is poor Facebook supposed to properly monetize its members, if they are allowed to hide their identities?
That the one thing missing from the US Constitution: an explicit right to privacy.
Even if they have an EU subsidiary, that's almost certainly not who his contract is with. He's not going to be able to get a judgement against any company other that the one his contract is with.
For several years, I also ran a software business in Europe. When we started, our attorney had one bit of advice: never take a customer in the USA. We made exactly one exception, out of good will, and - sure enough, we regretted it.
If you are not based in the USA, it simply isn't worth the hassle and the risk. If they don't sue you (screw your contract, they'll sue you in a US court, which will claim jurisdiction using the long-arm doctrine), they'll screw you (as you are experiencing).
It doesn't help you in your situation, you're already there. However, for anyone else who may not yet have taken the plunge, don't. Ethics and law in the US reminds me of adventures in third world countries - it's just as dishonest and corrupt, only with prettier window dressing.
"The only people with guns are people in the military"
Apparently you live in a different Switzerland than I do. Must be some alternate reality.
First, lots of people hunt, and they hunt with their privately owned rifles. Second, basically anyone can own a gun. You are just required to register it with the local police. I know, because I have two, and the registration process was pretty simple. I don't know the rules about carrying a gun in public, because it's not something I've looked into.
That said, there is no trace of the American "cowboy culture" here. Owning a gun is not a manly requirement, like it seems to be in the US.
I see lots of businesses investing in Facebook and Twitter. This is driven by the marketing departments, and especially the younger staff that wants to prove something. Maybe I'm an old geezer, but I am not convinced - in the businesses I am familiar with, I haven't seen any sort of believable results, and the marketing departments can't produce any numbers, only "trust us, we know what we're doing".
Has anyone seen actual, solid numbers from any business that prove that these marketing channels were worth the investment? If so, for what type of business?
1. UK, France, Germany, etc. cannot declare that I owe them anything because I have no presence there.
I have no presence in the US, not having lived or worked there for 20 years. However, because I haven't (yet) handed back my US passport, the US thinks I ought to be subject to income tax. No other developed country claims the right to tax people who neither live nor work in the country.
The US clearly thinks that US interests and laws trump those of any other country. For example: the US demands access to international bank data, but refuses to provide foreign countries with data from US banks. Typical.
The corporate tax problem could be resolved entirely within US borders, but doing so would require actual effort and sensible legislation by the politicians. However, they might have to offend some of the companies that bankroll their re-election campaigns. Far, far better to blame "international" people and corporations, and to attempt to shove the problems off onto other countries. In any case, the US does not have a revenue problem; the US has a spending problem, and the politicians certainly don't want to make actual, serious cuts in spending.
This is old news, geez. Here's a quick summary of the facts:
- The Swiss intelligence agency had pathetic security. This guy was an IT guy with far too much direct access to data. Second, there was no policy in place restricting (and checking) what employees could carry in and out of the building. So he duplicated the contents of numerous entire disks, and walk out the door carrying the copies.
- The guy was an idiot. He copied terabytes of data, figuring to get rich quick. But he had no idea how to sell the stuff, so he apparently walked into some random foreign embassy and asked if they wanted to buy the stuff. The embassy apparently quietly informed the Swiss government, and the guy was arrested.
- Because of the way it went down, apparently there is little doubt that he never managed to sell anything. I.e., no data was compromised. This being entirely due to dumb luck, or rather, to the stupidity of the criminal.
"...art and literature have sadly been relegated to PhD's and ever-narrowing groups of intellectuals who 'get it', never bothering to ask if it's worthy of being gotten in the first place"
Hey, at least Star Wars (as a whole, perhaps not this particular horrible episode) is at least something that has had a major influence on Western culture. That's a lot better definition of Art than the usual postmodernist tripe.
You have got to admire the objectivity of Slashdot readers. I posted an article with a reference to the NOAA site that has global sea-level data online, for all to see. This data contradicts TFA (which is primarily a political report). Slashdot did not disappoint - within a couple of minutes, my comment was moderated into nonexistence..
Here's a second chance: go look at the actual, raw data. Lots of stations have data for nearly a century. None of them show the kind of recent change in trend that the article claims.