The basic problem with that logic is that I can't think of a single country that has not been attacked/invaded... but not all suffer this paranoia / xenophobia.
Opium was in use in China before the first Britain set foot on Chinese soil.
Opium is in use in China today.
Were the British drug-peddlers? Sure. Were they part of the problem for a time? Sure. Is that awful? Yes.
But did they bring Opium to China? No. Are they the reason Opium is a problem now? No.
It saddens me greatly to witness the hatred directed toward them, just as it saddens me to see so many intelligent people (on both sides) follow the party line on Tibet. My girlfirend is less than a year "off the boat" on a student visa and a staunch supporter of Chinese govenment policy. It makes for some colorful debates.
I hope you were not implying that I steriotyped, hated, or was entirely ignorant as to the Chinese people.
Not all strong things are threats. They can be powerful allies too.
The two are not exclusive. Don't confuse "a threat" with "threatening".
But the media is quoting the trade deficits with China as a means to inflame the sentiments of Americans against China.
They are? When the trade deficit comes up I generally get mad at Bush and Walmart. China is just selling to who will buy.
The Americans invaded Beijing [wikipedia.org] in 1900 and pillaged it.
While technically accurate, being part of a group that more than a century ago moved into a single city is hardly relevent.
When did that happen? AFAIK people are still condemning China to be "communists" (they're not now), while nobody condemns America for being "republicans".
The cold war didn't happen? China did not aid both North Korea and Noth Vietnam essentially because they were fighting the US? I'm pretty sure that the East-West dislike was recipricol.
Look around. I don't think people are directly blaming China for the debts, but many are arguing along these lines:
If so, they are idiots. But I've really not read the same conclusion you have.
Valid complaints, but America is dumping more CO2 per capita. A developing nation has to go through a few steps before being able to have the resources and technology to reduce its damaging effect on the environment. Every developed nation went through these stages. China is simply asking for their fair chance. I think that's a valid appeal too.
Not all developing nations were engaged in patent and copyright violation on a national scale, nor putting poison in pet food to make it sell for more.
As to pollution, I don't think a chance to progress like Europe or America did more than a century ago is something the world can withstand. Fair or not, they need to do better.
And per-capita is an unfair comparison when more than a billion Chinese are still below the poverty line. They are in the very early stages of industry.
Getting a bad deal out of a unjustified war doesn't mean America isn't committing those things in Iraq. It's just that somehow your country has decided to go into a lose-lose situation.
I'm still trying to figure out what we've gained from an exploit. It seems America has been exploited by the oil companies... interestingly enough to prevent a Chinese contract on Iraqi oil (as far as I can tell).
Duh. Like America had no part to play with Saddam's rise to power.
How does that excuse China?
Chinese people were subject to, painting the image that living in China was like living in hell. Well, surprise! It turns out many Chinese are supportive of their government, and the west refuses to listen because they dismiss those supporters as being brainwashed.
There's an unstated assumption that, whenever people are free to make their own opinions and voice them they will complain. A 100% favorability rating is proof of foul play. Considering the number of times I've heard Chinese over here (there are a lot of them on student visas) say "whatever the government does is for the best", while simulantiously spouting the party line of "opressed China", who believe without consideration that claim by the Chinese media that US media lies and we Americans believe it without consideration, the more I see "indoctorination".
Of course, I can also think of people specifically sentanced to re-education (one of the Tein-Min protesters, after re-education, became attached to the ambassidorial staff in Australia and attempted to defect).
What the GP is trying to say is: quit telling us what to think and what to believe, and speaking "on behalf" of us, we CAN speak and think for ourselves.
Once George Bush was asked "name three things you did wrong". He doesn't believe he made a single mistake excpet "perhaps to appoint some wrong people".
When we were seen as "Sick Men from East Asia", we were called The Peril. When we strived to get stronger, we are called The Threat. Strong things *are* a threat.
When we closed our doors to the world, you forced them open with drugs and guns. The major source of opiates, the drug of choice for centuries in China, is your neighbor Afghanistan. Don't blame us for that.
When we finally embraced Free Trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs. No we don't. That's why there aren't petitions to China to change what they charge. We blame our trade agreements with you for costing us jobs and try to change US consumers and leaders.
When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and robbed us blind. As someone from a country that provided troops and supplies to you during WWII, has never invaded you (minus perhaps a few miles near the Korean border after you attacked us), and that is largely responsible for the rapid growth in your economy thorough our trade (even gave you favored nation status), I'm really confused who you are talking about.
When we put the broken pieces back together again, "Free tÂbet" you screamed, it was an invasion! I don't think your economy was related to the free Tibet movement. Was it an invasion? Seems you have a red-herring there.
So, we tried Communism, you hated us for being Communists. That's fair. You hated us for being a republic.
Then we learned from Capitalism, you hated us for being Capitalists. I'm looking for the "China sucks because it's capatalist" group but I can't find that. You are lying.
When we had a billion people, you said "The planet is starving." So we tried to limit our population, you said it was Human Rights Abuse. I'll side with you here. I think the one-clid policy was a good idea and it's wrong for those who criticize it to do so without offering solutions.
When we were poor, you think we are dogs. When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts. Both simple lies. Our debts are the fault of our government and our buying. Few people are saying differently.
When we build our industries, you blame us for global warming. When we sell you goods you can afford, you blame us for dumping inferior products. You are warming the globe, your toothpaste tends to kill people. They are valid complaints.
When we buy oil, you called that exploitation and assisting genocide. When you fight for oil, you called that Liberation of Its People. Are we committing genocide in Iraq? Is putting $80,000,000,000 per year into a country with no real return and loosing thousands of American lives "exploiting"?
Don't get me wrong, I oppose the invasion of Iraq, but "exploting genocide" would have been continuing to support Saddam, much like China and Sudan.
When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted Rules of Law for us. When we uphold our law and order against violence, you called that Violating Human Rights. I am aware of no protest over China arresting people for violent crime. You are, again, making it up.
When we were silent, you said we have No Free Speech. When we are NOW silent no more, you say we are merely "Brainwashed". So before we said you had no free speech and now we say you have no free speech? Pointing out that we are consistant is hardly an argument. Prove you have free speech.
Truth is we really don't hate you either, but do you understand us? Not really. I don't understand BinLauden either. Is understanding a prerequsite to something?
"Well...that's a load. Short criticism: "experts" here is poorly defined. There's no reason to believe that your sample of either group is going to be anything close to representative."
I'll respond to this point, as it reasonably addresses other points preceeding it. Is my doctor an expert at treating common illness? with my most recent viral ilness he perscribed me antibiotics, with a refill in case I didn't feel better after the first round (not only are antibiotics useless on virui, "feeling better" should never be a criteria for discontinuing, nor is it at all normal to rerun a second identical regemine). The first three doctors presented with my cancer told me to add fiber to my diet (after several months of pusing and going back on my insantance the GI doc sent me for a CT scan).
My medical rant is far longer than that; but perhaps I should vary it up. When my girlfriend was witnessed letting the dog she was the sole leagl owner off leash, I was fined although it was established by the complaining witness that it was not me. The legal opinion of the "expert" judge (that is his job, legal expert right?) and the prossecutor, was that they could fine anyone who had *ever* "controlled, housed, or fed" the dog, and so they could fine the vet the dog went to a year earler. Cost me $500.
Ok. Maybe th law and medicine don't count. Did you know that there's a patent on a manuver? Of course, you can't patent them, but there is one anyway on using the moon to correct an orbit.
I guess patent clerks don't count either? The museam of natual history at the University of FL in 1992 who described dinosaurs as "cold-blooded reptiles" long after it was known false?
And don't get me started on the simple stupidity outside their fields. In 1999, Reuters did a survey among Nobel Laurets (I suppose I do forget that not all Nobel prizes are scholarly) asking the greatest invention of the second melennium. Answers included "the question" and "religion".
When Wikipedia has been vetted by credible institutions as more accurate (at least outside pop-culture) then the "credible expert" Encylopedia Britannica, the trust may be unwitting but is it really unfounded.
Honestly, I find that individual experts make far more mistakes that Wiki, which is to a good degree peer reviewed.
The errors in school textbooks are well known and discussed; many still in existance after decades. So shy of hitting peer-reviewed in-field journals or, of course, doing your own research: whom, exactly, isn't "light-weight" knowledge... or, more to the point, who can be trusted more.
At least Wiki lets you go into the history and see all the editors, everythign else they've edited, what the differing opinions were, and a discussion on the topic at hand. I can't do that with my encylopedia.
...if we just installed cameras and microphones throughout everyones house and used software to listen for people saying things like "record that show" or "copy this CD"? Heck, we could get those pirates using VCRs to record shows and then bring them over to a friends as well.
I believe that is the first ammendment in the bill of rights, that the RIAA has the right to ignore all other rights to prevent copying of material.
Password rules have long been a specific complaint of mine. Multiple, changing, complex passwords mean that 2/3 desks here have their PWs written down on their monitor, under their KB, etc; And service accounts, some of the most powerful, are immune to the resetting requirement and, often, fail the password strength rules.
Even worse, some of the password rules are counter-productive. I know of a company that requires a specific special character be in their 8-charater passwords. Know it (easy enough to find), and it's functionally a 7-letter password.
There's a saying about exercise that I think applies to security: The best exercise is which ever one you will actually do. We are attempting ever more complex technical solutions to what is an increasingly human problem.
Make sure that your passwords can sync across all of your systems. Make passwords complex but easy to remember. Let's be honest, if 5 failed logins locks you out, and I've assigned you a password like "bluefish", how likely is that password to be hacked by an automated system? About zero. But since it's short, simple, memorable, and universal: I can train you to not write it down. I'm convinced that's better security.
Why is it that I'm being told we need to cap damages to doctors who kill someone, but copyright infringement isn't sufficient when one copied CD will bankrupt pretty much any typical user of such material I'd care to imagine.
The thing about being hourly when working a job where you don't set your own time is that you actually know what you are being compensated for your work.
I'm not kidding when I say I've asked about work-week length in an interview... the reason being that my non-hourly salary requirement is based on how long my work week actually is.
At least hourly wages make it easier to compare apples-to-apples when it comes to compensation. I would say that it also works in the favor of the company, who will now have little trouble getting its employees to work extra hours... it moves from a drudgery with no compensation to a chance to make time-and-a-half.
Interestingly, IBM did a very large move to hourly work about two years ago, reclassifying thousands of previously exempt workers. At that point it did not, at least for me, also include a pay-cut; but because I was on-call and working weekends, there was a month or two where my income doubled, and then after that I worked quite a few less hours than before.
As to the "5 hours" comment, in IBM's case, 10% overtime was considered manditory in most groups I worked with for salaried employees.
Personally I'm glad. The "exempt professional" category has been abused far too long.
What sorts of tools do I use for effectively analyzing and understanding a large code base? Well encasulated code and liberal use of remark statements (plus documentation)... sadly, it looks like the people who wrote the code you are looking at did not.
I believe that's more a worst-case scenerio than it is a certainty.
Let's start with the most obvious: Power. We have a couple sources of sustainable power that, while not sufficient, are a start. Our existing solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, and hydro-electric generators can be used into the forseeable future at present rates.
Thanks to breeder reactors, existing nuclear technology alone may be enough to solve the base energy crisis.
Then there are the possabilities of nuclear fusion (if we can figure out how), and extra-terrestrial solar (if we can sort out how to put the arrays up an dbring the power down).
Given unlimited power, most everything else could be solved with existing recycling technology and planning.
As I understand it, the problem with using HDDs for backup, at least archival backup, has more to do with longevity than anything else. An LTO tape has a shelf life of 30 years. HDDs don't.
It does make sense for some companies to focus on provided resources, and some very good examples are given. Further, it makes sense for many comanies to outsorce their datacenters (IBM has been a major provider of dedicate, vendor-run, datacenters, as is EDS).
Of course, these providers will still need employees (the electric company has employees running their power plants), though there's an effeciency that should mean less are neccessairy.
Also, data isn't electricity. It doesn't make sense for all companies to move to such vendor-supplied computing power. Firstly, there's already a decent amount of efficiency in large companies IT / datacenters (it would take as many people from a vendor). A more important consideration from a company standpoint includes control of data security, disaster recovery, etc.
Then there's the need for end-user support and oversight. Sure, the business units could control their directories, and user accesses... indeed they *should*; but illiteracy and simple idiocy is still rampant. They don't. They need their hands held, and they need someone who can protect the company from the results of stupid mistakes.
And with all this we still are only discussing the server-storage side of things. Computers will not be in use in 20 years?!? OK. What will we access Google Apps on? Smart Terminals? I've heard that pefor. You won't need people to install and maintain the computers/smart terminals? There are people here who maintain the lights, and power outlets, and desks; why would these be better/more reliable?
Then there's the networking infrastructure (routers/switches/etc), the actual vendor interation, Auditing (Sorbains-Oxley anyone?). Can a business manager just add anyone to the network? What about cross-unit accesses?
Costs and licensing still needs to be managed. My depatment prints more than a million pages a month. We have two people just to run the printers. Then there's the reliability question inherent in any online software/access.
In the end, for large comanies, at best, we are discussing contracting out data-centers. That's beeen going on for decades.
Although "Dinosaur" is used very widely, and often used to refer to extinct reptiles like the Pliseosaur, Pteridon, or Leoplurodon; the groups wiped out were, properly speaking, the Therapods (popularly the T-Rex, Velociraptors, and their kin) and the Sauropods (Brachiasaur, Triceritops, etc). Neither of these groups survived the mass extinction at the end of the Cretatious period.
Sharks are sharks, Ceolocanths are fish, and Aligators are reptiles. Although all three forms date back very nearly how they look now to the time of the dinosaurs, it would be an equivocation to call them "dinosaurs" when discussing the "extinction of the dinoasurs".
Firstly: I think public institutions, and people serving in their role as public employees (the cop interrogating you, but not the samy guy going to the bathroom, or off-duty) should be subject to public scrutiny.
I also believe that al should have the right to record all of their own interactions, without notice, for the purpose legal argument (going to court and pulling out the tape). As odd as this sounds from people who know me, I'm all about accurate recordings. More, I don't believe that this should require disclosure, as it so often does at present. It's far to common for police or other agents to force remove/destroy recording devices when they know they are present, and certainly eliminates much of their probative value (people suddenly behave better when they know they are on camera).
That right, however, should come with one catch. Illegal dissimination (putting up a recording of a private interaction with your girlfriend on the internet without consent) should carry a hefty legal penalty.
This is, of course, simply my opinion. Actual laws allowing / disallowing recordings vary.
I'm not saying Sony was wrong. Most of the time it comes to these competitions Sony has, in my mind, the superior product. Unfortunately that's not enough.
It's a test to weed out those interested in content from those obsessed with finding grammatical fault. I hate investing energy into one because I mistook them for the other.
The DAT tape is a progression from the VHS tape's helical scan technology. As such, the technology had already succeeded before the DAT was introduced. In fact, PCM on VHS tapes predates the DAT by quite a bit.
I will admit that the DSS format, which had a healthy life, is more closely tied to DAT than some of the other relationships I've mentioned. Be that as it may: DAT was introduced to sell audio tapes and audio recording. Very few people baut DAT players/recorders (relative to the other technologies), and very few artists put out their albums on DAT. The format is dead and its competitor, the CD is still going strong.
DAT died, in no small part because of the RIAA... its children survived far longer.
Betamax, DAT, MiniDisc, Digital8, MemoryStick, etc, etc.
I'm almost serious in thinking "Bluray will loose because it is Sony". I don't know *why* sony always looses, but I can't think of one example where there were multiple standards and Sony won (game-consoles don't count as they are not standards).
All that said: I've in the "wait and see" crowd myself. I'm less worried about the players than investing in a media library that will self-obsolete. The desire for better quality created my LaserDisc collection, which sits unused.
I don't know what will tip the balance. Had the PS3 not been the most expensive toy on the block, its inclusion of a BluRay player might have given Sony a victory. If HD-DVD burners show up on the PC at a good price soon, my desire to transfer my DV-masters to a disc-based media might put one in my home (Ditto BluRay).
I've gotten to the point that I don't care who wins. I just want a victor.
1) Sounds exceedingly dangerous. What's the top speed limit on the island? Even 45 sounds pretty fast for those streets (downtown here is 35-40), and a 4-cyl Honda Accord is going to manage that in about 5 seconds.
Are there really a lot of high-speed chases through the middle of the city where apprehension is the result of running down the suspect? It seems the traffic and police density are far to high for there to be a need for every officer with a car to be in an interceptor-type vehicle.
Obviously to replace existing scooters. But what is there intended / current use?
My first guess would be to move officers more rapidly than feet. Doing patrols in areas like central park, moving to the scene of traffic accidents, etc. Things which don't require persuit, or apprehension... but merely getting bodies to a targeted location.
It's also a decent way to get foot-patrol to and from their area of operations. Scooter out, get off and walk patrol, get on and return to station.
But fair enough. Perhaps I should have said "It's impressive the quantity and variety of things waiting to kill you". I'm not actually "scared". My poor choice of wording.
The most fuel efficient vehicle, depending on how you want to define it, is either the footman, the officer on bicycle (vehicle), or the office on the Segway (powered vehicle).
You speak as though it's an either/or propisition. We should not replace the scooters because the existing ones are more efficient than the motor-cycles. Then I suppose we should not replace the motor-cycles as they are more efficient than the cars, which are more efficient than the trucks, which are more efficient than the helicoptors, which are more efficient than some of the large boats/small ships the NYPD uses.
So we can't do anything unless we do the worst first? That's silly.
If electric scooters prove appropriate for the job, let's applaud the improvement and use it as an example to encourage more. If they prove inappropriate in testing, let's applaud the attempt but do something else for this instance.
The electric scooters are replacing non-electric scooters. They are not replacing non-electric motorcycles.
There are police on foot, police on segways, police on bicycles, police on horseback, police on motor-cycles, police in patrol cars, police in interceptor cars, police in trucks, and, yes, police on scooters.
What I think is stupid, is being assumptive of the role involved and the needs without doing so much as actually even reading the article first.
Personlly, in my experience with law-enforcement, there is too often the purchase of too much vehicle... usually with the "that's what we normally get". There's really no need for a V8 in a Manhattan patrol car (or taxi, which are also generally Crown Vics with V8s that spend most of their time at a near-stand-still), no one goes that fast there. If you are highway patrol out here in FL, then you do need a large engine because 120mpg chases can happen.
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The basic problem with that logic is that I can't think of a single country that has not been attacked/invaded... but not all suffer this paranoia / xenophobia.
Opium is in use in China today.
Were the British drug-peddlers? Sure. Were they part of the problem for a time? Sure. Is that awful? Yes.
But did they bring Opium to China? No.
Are they the reason Opium is a problem now? No. It saddens me greatly to witness the hatred directed toward them, just as it saddens me to see so many intelligent people (on both sides) follow the party line on Tibet. My girlfirend is less than a year "off the boat" on a student visa and a staunch supporter of Chinese govenment policy. It makes for some colorful debates.
I hope you were not implying that I steriotyped, hated, or was entirely ignorant as to the Chinese people.
Not all strong things are threats. They can be powerful allies too.
The two are not exclusive. Don't confuse "a threat" with "threatening".
But the media is quoting the trade deficits with China as a means to inflame the sentiments of Americans against China.
They are? When the trade deficit comes up I generally get mad at Bush and Walmart. China is just selling to who will buy.
The Americans invaded Beijing [wikipedia.org] in 1900 and pillaged it.
While technically accurate, being part of a group that more than a century ago moved into a single city is hardly relevent.
When did that happen? AFAIK people are still condemning China to be "communists" (they're not now), while nobody condemns America for being "republicans".
The cold war didn't happen? China did not aid both North Korea and Noth Vietnam essentially because they were fighting the US? I'm pretty sure that the East-West dislike was recipricol.
Look around. I don't think people are directly blaming China for the debts, but many are arguing along these lines:
If so, they are idiots. But I've really not read the same conclusion you have.
Valid complaints, but America is dumping more CO2 per capita. A developing nation has to go through a few steps before being able to have the resources and technology to reduce its damaging effect on the environment. Every developed nation went through these stages. China is simply asking for their fair chance. I think that's a valid appeal too.
Not all developing nations were engaged in patent and copyright violation on a national scale, nor putting poison in pet food to make it sell for more.
As to pollution, I don't think a chance to progress like Europe or America did more than a century ago is something the world can withstand. Fair or not, they need to do better.
And per-capita is an unfair comparison when more than a billion Chinese are still below the poverty line. They are in the very early stages of industry.
Getting a bad deal out of a unjustified war doesn't mean America isn't committing those things in Iraq. It's just that somehow your country has decided to go into a lose-lose situation.
I'm still trying to figure out what we've gained from an exploit. It seems America has been exploited by the oil companies... interestingly enough to prevent a Chinese contract on Iraqi oil (as far as I can tell).
Duh. Like America had no part to play with Saddam's rise to power.
How does that excuse China?
Chinese people were subject to, painting the image that living in China was like living in hell. Well, surprise! It turns out many Chinese are supportive of their government, and the west refuses to listen because they dismiss those supporters as being brainwashed.
There's an unstated assumption that, whenever people are free to make their own opinions and voice them they will complain. A 100% favorability rating is proof of foul play. Considering the number of times I've heard Chinese over here (there are a lot of them on student visas) say "whatever the government does is for the best", while simulantiously spouting the party line of "opressed China", who believe without consideration that claim by the Chinese media that US media lies and we Americans believe it without consideration, the more I see "indoctorination".
Of course, I can also think of people specifically sentanced to re-education (one of the Tein-Min protesters, after re-education, became attached to the ambassidorial staff in Australia and attempted to defect).
What the GP is trying to say is: quit telling us what to think and what to believe, and speaking "on behalf" of us, we CAN speak and think for ourselves.
Once George Bush was asked "name three things you did wrong". He doesn't believe he made a single mistake excpet "perhaps to appoint some wrong people".
When we strived to get stronger, we are called The Threat. Strong things *are* a threat. When we closed our doors to the world, you forced them open with drugs and guns. The major source of opiates, the drug of choice for centuries in China, is your neighbor Afghanistan. Don't blame us for that. When we finally embraced Free Trade, you blame us for taking away your jobs. No we don't. That's why there aren't petitions to China to change what they charge. We blame our trade agreements with you for costing us jobs and try to change US consumers and leaders. When we were falling apart, you marched in your troops and robbed us blind. As someone from a country that provided troops and supplies to you during WWII, has never invaded you (minus perhaps a few miles near the Korean border after you attacked us), and that is largely responsible for the rapid growth in your economy thorough our trade (even gave you favored nation status), I'm really confused who you are talking about. When we put the broken pieces back together again, "Free tÂbet" you screamed, it was an invasion! I don't think your economy was related to the free Tibet movement. Was it an invasion? Seems you have a red-herring there. So, we tried Communism, you hated us for being Communists. That's fair. You hated us for being a republic. Then we learned from Capitalism, you hated us for being Capitalists. I'm looking for the "China sucks because it's capatalist" group but I can't find that. You are lying. When we had a billion people, you said "The planet is starving."
So we tried to limit our population, you said it was Human Rights Abuse. I'll side with you here. I think the one-clid policy was a good idea and it's wrong for those who criticize it to do so without offering solutions. When we were poor, you think we are dogs.
When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts. Both simple lies. Our debts are the fault of our government and our buying. Few people are saying differently. When we build our industries, you blame us for global warming.
When we sell you goods you can afford, you blame us for dumping inferior products. You are warming the globe, your toothpaste tends to kill people. They are valid complaints. When we buy oil, you called that exploitation and assisting genocide.
When you fight for oil, you called that Liberation of Its People. Are we committing genocide in Iraq? Is putting $80,000,000,000 per year into a country with no real return and loosing thousands of American lives "exploiting"?
Don't get me wrong, I oppose the invasion of Iraq, but "exploting genocide" would have been continuing to support Saddam, much like China and Sudan. When we were lost in chaos and rampage, you wanted Rules of Law for us.
When we uphold our law and order against violence, you called that Violating Human Rights. I am aware of no protest over China arresting people for violent crime. You are, again, making it up. When we were silent, you said we have No Free Speech.
When we are NOW silent no more, you say we are merely "Brainwashed". So before we said you had no free speech and now we say you have no free speech? Pointing out that we are consistant is hardly an argument. Prove you have free speech. Truth is we really don't hate you either, but do you understand us? Not really. I don't understand BinLauden either. Is understanding a prerequsite to something?
"Well...that's a load. Short criticism: "experts" here is poorly defined. There's no reason to believe that your sample of either group is going to be anything close to representative."
I'll respond to this point, as it reasonably addresses other points preceeding it. Is my doctor an expert at treating common illness? with my most recent viral ilness he perscribed me antibiotics, with a refill in case I didn't feel better after the first round (not only are antibiotics useless on virui, "feeling better" should never be a criteria for discontinuing, nor is it at all normal to rerun a second identical regemine). The first three doctors presented with my cancer told me to add fiber to my diet (after several months of pusing and going back on my insantance the GI doc sent me for a CT scan).
My medical rant is far longer than that; but perhaps I should vary it up. When my girlfriend was witnessed letting the dog she was the sole leagl owner off leash, I was fined although it was established by the complaining witness that it was not me. The legal opinion of the "expert" judge (that is his job, legal expert right?) and the prossecutor, was that they could fine anyone who had *ever* "controlled, housed, or fed" the dog, and so they could fine the vet the dog went to a year earler. Cost me $500.
Ok. Maybe th law and medicine don't count. Did you know that there's a patent on a manuver? Of course, you can't patent them, but there is one anyway on using the moon to correct an orbit.
I guess patent clerks don't count either? The museam of natual history at the University of FL in 1992 who described dinosaurs as "cold-blooded reptiles" long after it was known false?
And don't get me started on the simple stupidity outside their fields. In 1999, Reuters did a survey among Nobel Laurets (I suppose I do forget that not all Nobel prizes are scholarly) asking the greatest invention of the second melennium. Answers included "the question" and "religion".
That's just off the top of my head.
When Wikipedia has been vetted by credible institutions as more accurate (at least outside pop-culture) then the "credible expert" Encylopedia Britannica, the trust may be unwitting but is it really unfounded.
Honestly, I find that individual experts make far more mistakes that Wiki, which is to a good degree peer reviewed.
The errors in school textbooks are well known and discussed; many still in existance after decades. So shy of hitting peer-reviewed in-field journals or, of course, doing your own research: whom, exactly, isn't "light-weight" knowledge... or, more to the point, who can be trusted more.
At least Wiki lets you go into the history and see all the editors, everythign else they've edited, what the differing opinions were, and a discussion on the topic at hand. I can't do that with my encylopedia.
...if we just installed cameras and microphones throughout everyones house and used software to listen for people saying things like "record that show" or "copy this CD"? Heck, we could get those pirates using VCRs to record shows and then bring them over to a friends as well.
I believe that is the first ammendment in the bill of rights, that the RIAA has the right to ignore all other rights to prevent copying of material.
Password rules have long been a specific complaint of mine. Multiple, changing, complex passwords mean that 2/3 desks here have their PWs written down on their monitor, under their KB, etc; And service accounts, some of the most powerful, are immune to the resetting requirement and, often, fail the password strength rules.
Even worse, some of the password rules are counter-productive. I know of a company that requires a specific special character be in their 8-charater passwords. Know it (easy enough to find), and it's functionally a 7-letter password.
There's a saying about exercise that I think applies to security: The best exercise is which ever one you will actually do. We are attempting ever more complex technical solutions to what is an increasingly human problem.
Make sure that your passwords can sync across all of your systems. Make passwords complex but easy to remember. Let's be honest, if 5 failed logins locks you out, and I've assigned you a password like "bluefish", how likely is that password to be hacked by an automated system? About zero. But since it's short, simple, memorable, and universal: I can train you to not write it down. I'm convinced that's better security.
Why is it that I'm being told we need to cap damages to doctors who kill someone, but copyright infringement isn't sufficient when one copied CD will bankrupt pretty much any typical user of such material I'd care to imagine.
Good thing we have our priorities straight.
The thing about being hourly when working a job where you don't set your own time is that you actually know what you are being compensated for your work.
I'm not kidding when I say I've asked about work-week length in an interview... the reason being that my non-hourly salary requirement is based on how long my work week actually is.
At least hourly wages make it easier to compare apples-to-apples when it comes to compensation. I would say that it also works in the favor of the company, who will now have little trouble getting its employees to work extra hours... it moves from a drudgery with no compensation to a chance to make time-and-a-half.
Interestingly, IBM did a very large move to hourly work about two years ago, reclassifying thousands of previously exempt workers. At that point it did not, at least for me, also include a pay-cut; but because I was on-call and working weekends, there was a month or two where my income doubled, and then after that I worked quite a few less hours than before.
As to the "5 hours" comment, in IBM's case, 10% overtime was considered manditory in most groups I worked with for salaried employees.
Personally I'm glad. The "exempt professional" category has been abused far too long.
What sorts of tools do I use for effectively analyzing and understanding a large code base? Well encasulated code and liberal use of remark statements (plus documentation)... sadly, it looks like the people who wrote the code you are looking at did not.
I believe that's more a worst-case scenerio than it is a certainty.
Let's start with the most obvious: Power. We have a couple sources of sustainable power that, while not sufficient, are a start. Our existing solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, and hydro-electric generators can be used into the forseeable future at present rates.
Thanks to breeder reactors, existing nuclear technology alone may be enough to solve the base energy crisis.
Then there are the possabilities of nuclear fusion (if we can figure out how), and extra-terrestrial solar (if we can sort out how to put the arrays up an dbring the power down).
Given unlimited power, most everything else could be solved with existing recycling technology and planning.
As I understand it, the problem with using HDDs for backup, at least archival backup, has more to do with longevity than anything else. An LTO tape has a shelf life of 30 years. HDDs don't.
It does make sense for some companies to focus on provided resources, and some very good examples are given. Further, it makes sense for many comanies to outsorce their datacenters (IBM has been a major provider of dedicate, vendor-run, datacenters, as is EDS).
Of course, these providers will still need employees (the electric company has employees running their power plants), though there's an effeciency that should mean less are neccessairy.
Also, data isn't electricity. It doesn't make sense for all companies to move to such vendor-supplied computing power. Firstly, there's already a decent amount of efficiency in large companies IT / datacenters (it would take as many people from a vendor). A more important consideration from a company standpoint includes control of data security, disaster recovery, etc.
Then there's the need for end-user support and oversight. Sure, the business units could control their directories, and user accesses... indeed they *should*; but illiteracy and simple idiocy is still rampant. They don't. They need their hands held, and they need someone who can protect the company from the results of stupid mistakes.
And with all this we still are only discussing the server-storage side of things. Computers will not be in use in 20 years?!? OK. What will we access Google Apps on? Smart Terminals? I've heard that pefor. You won't need people to install and maintain the computers/smart terminals? There are people here who maintain the lights, and power outlets, and desks; why would these be better/more reliable?
Then there's the networking infrastructure (routers/switches/etc), the actual vendor interation, Auditing (Sorbains-Oxley anyone?). Can a business manager just add anyone to the network? What about cross-unit accesses?
Costs and licensing still needs to be managed. My depatment prints more than a million pages a month. We have two people just to run the printers. Then there's the reliability question inherent in any online software/access.
In the end, for large comanies, at best, we are discussing contracting out data-centers. That's beeen going on for decades.
Although "Dinosaur" is used very widely, and often used to refer to extinct reptiles like the Pliseosaur, Pteridon, or Leoplurodon; the groups wiped out were, properly speaking, the Therapods (popularly the T-Rex, Velociraptors, and their kin) and the Sauropods (Brachiasaur, Triceritops, etc). Neither of these groups survived the mass extinction at the end of the Cretatious period.
Sharks are sharks, Ceolocanths are fish, and Aligators are reptiles. Although all three forms date back very nearly how they look now to the time of the dinosaurs, it would be an equivocation to call them "dinosaurs" when discussing the "extinction of the dinoasurs".
Apologies for spelling, mine is pretty poor.
Firstly: I think public institutions, and people serving in their role as public employees (the cop interrogating you, but not the samy guy going to the bathroom, or off-duty) should be subject to public scrutiny. I also believe that al should have the right to record all of their own interactions, without notice, for the purpose legal argument (going to court and pulling out the tape). As odd as this sounds from people who know me, I'm all about accurate recordings. More, I don't believe that this should require disclosure, as it so often does at present. It's far to common for police or other agents to force remove/destroy recording devices when they know they are present, and certainly eliminates much of their probative value (people suddenly behave better when they know they are on camera). That right, however, should come with one catch. Illegal dissimination (putting up a recording of a private interaction with your girlfriend on the internet without consent) should carry a hefty legal penalty. This is, of course, simply my opinion. Actual laws allowing / disallowing recordings vary.
I'm not saying Sony was wrong. Most of the time it comes to these competitions Sony has, in my mind, the superior product. Unfortunately that's not enough.
It's a test to weed out those interested in content from those obsessed with finding grammatical fault. I hate investing energy into one because I mistook them for the other.
The DAT tape is a progression from the VHS tape's helical scan technology. As such, the technology had already succeeded before the DAT was introduced. In fact, PCM on VHS tapes predates the DAT by quite a bit.
I will admit that the DSS format, which had a healthy life, is more closely tied to DAT than some of the other relationships I've mentioned. Be that as it may: DAT was introduced to sell audio tapes and audio recording. Very few people baut DAT players/recorders (relative to the other technologies), and very few artists put out their albums on DAT. The format is dead and its competitor, the CD is still going strong.
DAT died, in no small part because of the RIAA... its children survived far longer.
Betamax, DAT, MiniDisc, Digital8, MemoryStick, etc, etc.
I'm almost serious in thinking "Bluray will loose because it is Sony". I don't know *why* sony always looses, but I can't think of one example where there were multiple standards and Sony won (game-consoles don't count as they are not standards).
All that said: I've in the "wait and see" crowd myself. I'm less worried about the players than investing in a media library that will self-obsolete. The desire for better quality created my LaserDisc collection, which sits unused.
I don't know what will tip the balance. Had the PS3 not been the most expensive toy on the block, its inclusion of a BluRay player might have given Sony a victory. If HD-DVD burners show up on the PC at a good price soon, my desire to transfer my DV-masters to a disc-based media might put one in my home (Ditto BluRay).
I've gotten to the point that I don't care who wins. I just want a victor.
1) Sounds exceedingly dangerous. What's the top speed limit on the island? Even 45 sounds pretty fast for those streets (downtown here is 35-40), and a 4-cyl Honda Accord is going to manage that in about 5 seconds.
:-)
Are there really a lot of high-speed chases through the middle of the city where apprehension is the result of running down the suspect? It seems the traffic and police density are far to high for there to be a need for every officer with a car to be in an interceptor-type vehicle.
2) Both would be nice, but you are correct.
Obviously to replace existing scooters. But what is there intended / current use?
My first guess would be to move officers more rapidly than feet. Doing patrols in areas like central park, moving to the scene of traffic accidents, etc. Things which don't require persuit, or apprehension... but merely getting bodies to a targeted location.
It's also a decent way to get foot-patrol to and from their area of operations. Scooter out, get off and walk patrol, get on and return to station.
But fair enough. Perhaps I should have said "It's impressive the quantity and variety of things waiting to kill you". I'm not actually "scared". My poor choice of wording.
The most fuel efficient vehicle, depending on how you want to define it, is either the footman, the officer on bicycle (vehicle), or the office on the Segway (powered vehicle).
You speak as though it's an either/or propisition. We should not replace the scooters because the existing ones are more efficient than the motor-cycles. Then I suppose we should not replace the motor-cycles as they are more efficient than the cars, which are more efficient than the trucks, which are more efficient than the helicoptors, which are more efficient than some of the large boats/small ships the NYPD uses.
So we can't do anything unless we do the worst first? That's silly.
If electric scooters prove appropriate for the job, let's applaud the improvement and use it as an example to encourage more. If they prove inappropriate in testing, let's applaud the attempt but do something else for this instance.
The electric scooters are replacing non-electric scooters. They are not replacing non-electric motorcycles.
There are police on foot, police on segways, police on bicycles, police on horseback, police on motor-cycles, police in patrol cars, police in interceptor cars, police in trucks, and, yes, police on scooters.
What I think is stupid, is being assumptive of the role involved and the needs without doing so much as actually even reading the article first.
Personlly, in my experience with law-enforcement, there is too often the purchase of too much vehicle... usually with the "that's what we normally get". There's really no need for a V8 in a Manhattan patrol car (or taxi, which are also generally Crown Vics with V8s that spend most of their time at a near-stand-still), no one goes that fast there. If you are highway patrol out here in FL, then you do need a large engine because 120mpg chases can happen.