I've been with AT&T for a few months now, and they've screwed up my billing consistently so far (and just about everything else for that matter). I guess I can look forward to more of the same great service!
Sadly, AT&T is the only service that works reliably at my work, and even that is mostly because they put a tower on the property, about 300 yards from my building.
The ironic thing is that I just got a call from SBC (who I've been very happy with BTW) this morning saying that they now own 60% of Cingular and wouldlike to offer me a free phone. I declined, explaining my situation. I guess they really wanted my business!;-)
Whenever I read an SCO story, you never hear about the 2.6 kernel.
You just haven't been paying attention then. They may not have mentioned it recently, but they've said pretty much all along that 2.6 is "contaminated". At first they were saying that 2.2 was safe, but then they changed their minds about that, though I don't know if 2.2 is specifically mentioned here.
However there is one big incentive that makes this more unusual than the rule. Money. As long as customers are buying a product, upgrades to it, or support contracts, the people making the product have a *big* incentive to continue work on it.
I've seen this arguement several times recently, and to me it smacks of a lack of real world experience.
My experience has been that the incentive money provides is to tell the customer "Sorry, we won't be supporting that feature in that product, but feel free to upgrade to our new product, which does support your feature, but isn't backwards compatable".
That's certainly how my company does it, and we're a top (some would say THE) name in video production equipment. We say that to the likes of NBC and Disney, and engineering says that to me, the lowly customer service repair guy. When the customer says to me "my anti-virus software requires NT4SP6" I get to answer "Sorry, we only support NT4SP3. Upgrade at your own risk. You should take your unit off the corporate network." This is a product that last shipped out of manufacturing only 2 years ago, which means we'll be supporting it for another 5-6 years (and that's considered a short lifespan in the video industry).
And while we're on the topic, when was the last update to Windows NT? I see SP6a, released in November 1999, followed by a Security Rollup Pack released in August 2001. By comparison, Linux kernel 2.0.x, released about the same time, was just updated last week.
I could go on and on with examples, but I feel I've already made my point.
Re:Your rights as I see them
on
Beyond Pay?
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· Score: 1
If the government stopped meddling so much in the way businesses work, the forces of capitalism would act much more directly on the way employment aggreements function.
Study your history. That's been tried, and it's been proven that there is a strong need for the government to meddle in such things.
Nope. We were talking technology. Not specifying country.
No, we're talking about the legalities of digital evidence under US law.
However i was talking this example to my friend, US based psychologist who is working for as an officially appointed expert. She said i would be probably OK. But she may be wrong, of course.
There are a lot of viriables to consider, but here's the basic situation:
If you never show those pictures to anyone else you would certainly be OK. Even if you did allow someone else to see them, you would probably still be OK, unless that person were EXTREMELY uptight and reported you. If you were to make them publicly available, like on the web for example, you would quite likely be arrested.
If it went to trial, I'd say you'd have an even chance in general, but it would depend very much on the community from which the jury was drawn and the laws of that area. Standards and laws regarding decency, obsenity, pornography, etc vary wildly from state to state. Indeed, the legal definition of obscenity is based on the standards of the community.
Age of consent is 15 in Czech and it is going to be lowered. It is as low as 12 in some European countries, including catholic Vatican. However it is OK to have sex if both partners are under this limit. I would bet, however I do not know any official statistic, that average age to lose virginity for a czech girl is under 15 these days, at least in large cities and certainly counting non coital sex pratices.
As I said, age of consent is determined by state law, not federal law. Here in California I believe it's 16, I know there are some states where it is 14, and there may be states where it is 12, though I don't know that for sure. 16 or 17 is always a safe bet, though if the age difference is more than 4 years it could still be statutory rape. Again, though, that varies by state.
Perhaps I should also note that it was illegal to produce pornography at all in California until less than 30 years ago (I don't know the exact date), when that law was challenged and struck down by the court.
That said, the average age when an American girl loses her virginity is probably also about 15.
The age for creating porn is however 18 but again, it is not used (or may be even does not apply) if people are taking pictures of themselves for their personal usage.
I've heard of people being prosecuted for child porn for having pictures of their infant taking a bath. That's an extreme case, and most of the time those pictures would be perfectly OK, but one always has to remember that it's based on the standards of the community as represented by the 12 people on the jury, and that the jury consists of 12 people who're too dumb to get out of jury duty.
it is either a country of hypocrites or a country of ascetics.
I wouldn't say we're any more hypocritical than the people of any other nation, just in our own particular way. The first colonists were Puritans, who known for being extremely uptight, and our laws still reflect that to a large extent, even though our society in general is rapidly degenerating into vulgar hedonism.
When my sister was applying to various ambulance companies a few years back she showed me a copy of one of the physical aptitude tests. It was almost exactly my workout! Mind you, at that time I was 6', 200lbs, and my sister was 5'1", 105lbs (I'm quite a bit larger now, she's stayed about the same).
I don't know if she passed the test or not, as she didn't end up working for that company. It wouldn't suprise me if she did. Of course, when she was actually doing the job it turned out that her real strength was getting big strong firemen to do the lifting for her;-)
I guess the lesson here is: sexism can be a tool in the right hands.
having a kiddie porn on your disk is not against law. at least in my country (and i hope it is similar in other civilized countries). it is criminal to distribute it to other people.
We aren't talking about your country, we're talking about the United States. Here in the US it IS illegal to have kiddie porn on your disk, and you WOULD be arrested and prosecuted for the pictures of you and your girlfriend that you describe further down in this thread (you might be acquitted based on the situation, but, considering the techniques often used by prosecutors in these cases, that's not where I'd put my money).
As mentioned below also, age of consent is typically 16 or 17, though it varies by state and I've heard as low as 14 in some states. However, that's the age at which on is given the right to have sex, NOT to have pictures taken of the act. You can't do that until everyone involved is 18.
And I'm sorry to say that "naked and petting" would almost certainly be considered pornographic by just about any jury in America.
I hate Microsoft as much as the next/.er, but I think you're over-reacting. SuSE uses some similar terms in the license for Yast, as does id in the QPL, as does even the FSF in the GPL. There's nothing onerous here.
Better to focus on what it doesn't prevent you from doing, I say. I see nothing there that prevents me from porting it to Linux, for example. Nor do I see anything preventing me from redistributing it, as long is it's not for a commercial purpose.
This is a big step for MS, and an important one, I think. We should not discourage them.
Even Dragon Naturally Speaking on Windows can't compare to a grad student volunteer, and from RMS's perspective the interface is pretty much the same. (Does Dragon require "training"? If so, that's another plus for the volunteer.)
IBM drives have always been good to me. Of course, I always make sure they have an empty space above AND below for airflow. I deal with a lot of IBM (SCSI) drives at work, and they also seem to be very reliable (more so than Seagate, which is the only other brand we use, and no I'm not saying Seagate's are crap, but the 73GB Cheetah IVs have some issues). IBM also had very good customer support, but that's gone to shit since they sold their drives unit to Hitachi. For that reason alone I will never buy another IBM/Hitachi drive.
That's a damned cool phone. It's also butt-freakin'-ugly. They call that "inspirational design"? That said, though, I would be a much happier guy had I gotten that phone instead of the 3560.
How so? After reading through the complete description it seems quite simple, and neatly eliminates the vast majority of the problems with both manual and electronic voting systems.
Most people just want the sexy thin screen, but don't care or don't realize how low the resolution is, and what they're missing out on.
Most people probably aren't missing out on anything. I recently bought a 42" HD monitor, but I don't have any HD video to watch on it. I mostly bought it because I mainly use my TV for watching movies and I prefer 16:9. I doubt I would notice much difference between 1920x1080 and 864x480 in my typical usage, except perhaps that my SD cable signal might not look quite as crappy (though I doubt it, the quality on my cable feed is pretty bad). I suspect many people feel pretty much the same way about it.
You're right, though, most people don't care about video quality that much. Remember back in the old days when a movie on VHS cost $60+ and everybody had a shelf full of tapes, each with 3 or even 4 movies on them? That and porn are why Beta failed.
And for the record, I test and repair some of the best video production equipment on the planet for a living, so I do know what I, they, and even the people who are actually recieving HD signal are missing. I fully admit that my jaw hit the floor when I first saw uncompressed 1080p, but it's not worth the extra $40/month plus $650 setup fee it would cost me to get it in my home (and that's for 1080i). Even if it were just an extra $20/month I doubt I would pay it, but I'd at least consider it.
You Americans are so lucky. The Universal Service Obligation in force in Australia mandates 2400baud (2.4kbits/sec) as the min data rate.
I think you misunderstood. American telcos are only required to provide 1400baud. Additionally, they are required to provide any service they offer as long as you're willing to pay the price (and it's technically possible).
For example, it cost me and 5 of my neighbors about $10k each to get basic phone service, plus we had to sign a 3 year service contract. I don't even want to think about what they would charge to run the extra pairs required for a T1, but they would do it as long as I had the cash.
None of these questions are appropriate for a resume.
I think you should figure out what a resume actually is before you start telling people what is or is not appropriate for them.
First of all, a resume is a document prepared by YOU in order to describe your qualifications to a prospective employer. There should be absolutely no questions on a resume.
You're probably thinking of an application, which is a questionaire given to you by the prospective employer, which generally covers the same basic ground as a resume, but should NEVER be mistaken for one. On an application, what is or is not an appropriate question is determined by the employer (and the law, in some cases). If it's easier for them to present these kinds of questions in short essay form on the application and then interview the people who give the best answers, then that's the appropriate way for them to ask.
Re:Not dead - just renamed - DLWG
on
United Linux Dead
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
That's a totally different beast, actually. UnitedLinux was a standardized server distro, and as such was about as far removed from doing anything with the desktop as you can be while still running a modern OS.
DLWG may include the same players, and that should be no surprise as those are the distros that have shown in the past that they recognize the need to work together, but that doesn't make it the same thing.
That lot is usually able to get warrants to enter places.
The BSA gets those warrants because the software they "defend" is under licensing agreements that say they can audit their customers. The customer's have agreed to that, or they wouldn't be running the software.
That kind of superior attitude comes mainly from walking through a sea of crashing Windows machines and recompile-reboot-repeat Linux machines only to end up at a FreeBSD machine that's more reliable than running water. Now, that's not to say that there's anything wrong with Linux, but its frequent updates to stay on the absolute bleeding edge does cost it a measure of reliability. On the FreeBSD end of things, you've got "running water", but not many of the newer toys. Things like firewire support, new file systems, CD and DVD burner support don't make it into the FreeBSD-STABLE line until long, long after Linux and Windows have had them.
I could have that same "stability" with Linux if I wanted to be stuck whith the "functionality" of FreeBSD-STABLE. All I'd have to do is stick with an older kernel. It's not like they aren't still maintained.
You talk about this alledgedly frequent compile-reboot-repeat thing like it's a requirement of running Linux, but it isn't. I run Linux exclusively, as do many of my friends, and I don't live that way, nor do I know anyone who does. My personal choice is to stick with a reasonably recent kernel (2.4.19) which is stable but still supports my "toys".
The single most dangerous threat to the success of Linux, especially in the workplace, are the legions of fanboys who show up at the most inopportune times and places to rant and rave irrationally, irreverently, and incessantly; spouting off profanity-filled immature propaganda about how Linux equals the second coming of Christ Almighty.
Where are these people, exactly? I keep hearing them mentioned, but I've never actually met one.
I've read the rest of this thread as it exists right now, and I know you claim to have had no intention to disparage Linux, but your comments about it were simply asinine. As a wise man once said, "The wise speak only of what they know."
How do you come to the conclusion that the critique is of Derrida? It seems to me that he was talking about Deconstruction as it actually exists in the wild, not as it was concieved. From what I've read here Derrida's origional ideas and what has become Deconstruction are as different as Jesus' teachings and Christianity.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been with AT&T for a few months now, and they've screwed up my billing consistently so far (and just about everything else for that matter). I guess I can look forward to more of the same great service!
;-)
Sadly, AT&T is the only service that works reliably at my work, and even that is mostly because they put a tower on the property, about 300 yards from my building.
The ironic thing is that I just got a call from SBC (who I've been very happy with BTW) this morning saying that they now own 60% of Cingular and wouldlike to offer me a free phone. I declined, explaining my situation. I guess they really wanted my business!
Whenever I read an SCO story, you never hear about the 2.6 kernel.
You just haven't been paying attention then. They may not have mentioned it recently, but they've said pretty much all along that 2.6 is "contaminated". At first they were saying that 2.2 was safe, but then they changed their minds about that, though I don't know if 2.2 is specifically mentioned here.
However there is one big incentive that makes this more unusual than the rule. Money. As long as customers are buying a product, upgrades to it, or support contracts, the people making the product have a *big* incentive to continue work on it.
I've seen this arguement several times recently, and to me it smacks of a lack of real world experience.
My experience has been that the incentive money provides is to tell the customer "Sorry, we won't be supporting that feature in that product, but feel free to upgrade to our new product, which does support your feature, but isn't backwards compatable".
That's certainly how my company does it, and we're a top (some would say THE) name in video production equipment. We say that to the likes of NBC and Disney, and engineering says that to me, the lowly customer service repair guy. When the customer says to me "my anti-virus software requires NT4SP6" I get to answer "Sorry, we only support NT4SP3. Upgrade at your own risk. You should take your unit off the corporate network." This is a product that last shipped out of manufacturing only 2 years ago, which means we'll be supporting it for another 5-6 years (and that's considered a short lifespan in the video industry).
And while we're on the topic, when was the last update to Windows NT? I see SP6a, released in November 1999, followed by a Security Rollup Pack released in August 2001. By comparison, Linux kernel 2.0.x, released about the same time, was just updated last week.
I could go on and on with examples, but I feel I've already made my point.
If the government stopped meddling so much in the way businesses work, the forces of capitalism would act much more directly on the way employment aggreements function.
Study your history. That's been tried, and it's been proven that there is a strong need for the government to meddle in such things.
I agree with your other points, though.
I guess Bush is right out, then?
I certainly hope so!
Nope. We were talking technology. Not specifying country.
No, we're talking about the legalities of digital evidence under US law.
However i was talking this example to my friend, US based psychologist who is working for as an officially appointed expert. She said i would be probably OK. But she may be wrong, of course.
There are a lot of viriables to consider, but here's the basic situation:
If you never show those pictures to anyone else you would certainly be OK. Even if you did allow someone else to see them, you would probably still be OK, unless that person were EXTREMELY uptight and reported you. If you were to make them publicly available, like on the web for example, you would quite likely be arrested.
If it went to trial, I'd say you'd have an even chance in general, but it would depend very much on the community from which the jury was drawn and the laws of that area. Standards and laws regarding decency, obsenity, pornography, etc vary wildly from state to state. Indeed, the legal definition of obscenity is based on the standards of the community.
Age of consent is 15 in Czech and it is going to be lowered. It is as low as 12 in some European countries, including catholic Vatican. However it is OK to have sex if both partners are under this limit. I would bet, however I do not know any official statistic, that average age to lose virginity for a czech girl is under 15 these days, at least in large cities and certainly counting non coital sex pratices.
As I said, age of consent is determined by state law, not federal law. Here in California I believe it's 16, I know there are some states where it is 14, and there may be states where it is 12, though I don't know that for sure. 16 or 17 is always a safe bet, though if the age difference is more than 4 years it could still be statutory rape. Again, though, that varies by state.
Perhaps I should also note that it was illegal to produce pornography at all in California until less than 30 years ago (I don't know the exact date), when that law was challenged and struck down by the court.
That said, the average age when an American girl loses her virginity is probably also about 15.
The age for creating porn is however 18 but again, it is not used (or may be even does not apply) if people are taking pictures of themselves for their personal usage.
I've heard of people being prosecuted for child porn for having pictures of their infant taking a bath. That's an extreme case, and most of the time those pictures would be perfectly OK, but one always has to remember that it's based on the standards of the community as represented by the 12 people on the jury, and that the jury consists of 12 people who're too dumb to get out of jury duty.
it is either a country of hypocrites or a country of ascetics.
I wouldn't say we're any more hypocritical than the people of any other nation, just in our own particular way. The first colonists were Puritans, who known for being extremely uptight, and our laws still reflect that to a large extent, even though our society in general is rapidly degenerating into vulgar hedonism.
Actually assertive guys get laid, be they assertive assholes or assertive nice guys.
I agree, but how many assertive nice guys have you met? (And I mean actually assertive, not just "not a doormat")
My favorite response to such situations:
"You're not cute enough to make up for your shitty attitude."
When my sister was applying to various ambulance companies a few years back she showed me a copy of one of the physical aptitude tests. It was almost exactly my workout! Mind you, at that time I was 6', 200lbs, and my sister was 5'1", 105lbs (I'm quite a bit larger now, she's stayed about the same).
;-)
I don't know if she passed the test or not, as she didn't end up working for that company. It wouldn't suprise me if she did. Of course, when she was actually doing the job it turned out that her real strength was getting big strong firemen to do the lifting for her
I guess the lesson here is: sexism can be a tool in the right hands.
having a kiddie porn on your disk is not against law. at least in my country (and i hope it is similar in other civilized countries). it is criminal to distribute it to other people.
We aren't talking about your country, we're talking about the United States. Here in the US it IS illegal to have kiddie porn on your disk, and you WOULD be arrested and prosecuted for the pictures of you and your girlfriend that you describe further down in this thread (you might be acquitted based on the situation, but, considering the techniques often used by prosecutors in these cases, that's not where I'd put my money).
As mentioned below also, age of consent is typically 16 or 17, though it varies by state and I've heard as low as 14 in some states. However, that's the age at which on is given the right to have sex, NOT to have pictures taken of the act. You can't do that until everyone involved is 18.
And I'm sorry to say that "naked and petting" would almost certainly be considered pornographic by just about any jury in America.
I hate Microsoft as much as the next /.er, but I think you're over-reacting. SuSE uses some similar terms in the license for Yast, as does id in the QPL, as does even the FSF in the GPL. There's nothing onerous here.
Better to focus on what it doesn't prevent you from doing, I say. I see nothing there that prevents me from porting it to Linux, for example. Nor do I see anything preventing me from redistributing it, as long is it's not for a commercial purpose.
This is a big step for MS, and an important one, I think. We should not discourage them.
Even Dragon Naturally Speaking on Windows can't compare to a grad student volunteer, and from RMS's perspective the interface is pretty much the same. (Does Dragon require "training"? If so, that's another plus for the volunteer.)
For God's sake, instead of getting people to type for him, he can't click a button?
And that would help how?
He has other people typing for him because he has RSI. Switching to a mouse-driven GUI is the opposite of what he needs.
IBM drives have always been good to me. Of course, I always make sure they have an empty space above AND below for airflow. I deal with a lot of IBM (SCSI) drives at work, and they also seem to be very reliable (more so than Seagate, which is the only other brand we use, and no I'm not saying Seagate's are crap, but the 73GB Cheetah IVs have some issues). IBM also had very good customer support, but that's gone to shit since they sold their drives unit to Hitachi. For that reason alone I will never buy another IBM/Hitachi drive.
Well, when I say "I could care less" what I generally mean is "I could probably care less, but I'm not sure how"
That's a damned cool phone. It's also butt-freakin'-ugly. They call that "inspirational design"? That said, though, I would be a much happier guy had I gotten that phone instead of the 3560.
How so? After reading through the complete description it seems quite simple, and neatly eliminates the vast majority of the problems with both manual and electronic voting systems.
I like it.
Most people just want the sexy thin screen, but don't care or don't realize how low the resolution is, and what they're missing out on.
Most people probably aren't missing out on anything. I recently bought a 42" HD monitor, but I don't have any HD video to watch on it. I mostly bought it because I mainly use my TV for watching movies and I prefer 16:9. I doubt I would notice much difference between 1920x1080 and 864x480 in my typical usage, except perhaps that my SD cable signal might not look quite as crappy (though I doubt it, the quality on my cable feed is pretty bad). I suspect many people feel pretty much the same way about it.
You're right, though, most people don't care about video quality that much. Remember back in the old days when a movie on VHS cost $60+ and everybody had a shelf full of tapes, each with 3 or even 4 movies on them? That and porn are why Beta failed.
And for the record, I test and repair some of the best video production equipment on the planet for a living, so I do know what I, they, and even the people who are actually recieving HD signal are missing. I fully admit that my jaw hit the floor when I first saw uncompressed 1080p, but it's not worth the extra $40/month plus $650 setup fee it would cost me to get it in my home (and that's for 1080i). Even if it were just an extra $20/month I doubt I would pay it, but I'd at least consider it.
You Americans are so lucky. The Universal Service Obligation in force in Australia mandates 2400baud (2.4kbits/sec) as the min data rate.
I think you misunderstood. American telcos are only required to provide 1400baud. Additionally, they are required to provide any service they offer as long as you're willing to pay the price (and it's technically possible).
For example, it cost me and 5 of my neighbors about $10k each to get basic phone service, plus we had to sign a 3 year service contract. I don't even want to think about what they would charge to run the extra pairs required for a T1, but they would do it as long as I had the cash.
None of these questions are appropriate for a resume.
I think you should figure out what a resume actually is before you start telling people what is or is not appropriate for them.
First of all, a resume is a document prepared by YOU in order to describe your qualifications to a prospective employer. There should be absolutely no questions on a resume.
You're probably thinking of an application, which is a questionaire given to you by the prospective employer, which generally covers the same basic ground as a resume, but should NEVER be mistaken for one. On an application, what is or is not an appropriate question is determined by the employer (and the law, in some cases). If it's easier for them to present these kinds of questions in short essay form on the application and then interview the people who give the best answers, then that's the appropriate way for them to ask.
That's a totally different beast, actually. UnitedLinux was a standardized server distro, and as such was about as far removed from doing anything with the desktop as you can be while still running a modern OS.
DLWG may include the same players, and that should be no surprise as those are the distros that have shown in the past that they recognize the need to work together, but that doesn't make it the same thing.
Are they maybe a menber of the BSA?
That lot is usually able to get warrants to enter places.
The BSA gets those warrants because the software they "defend" is under licensing agreements that say they can audit their customers. The customer's have agreed to that, or they wouldn't be running the software.
There is no such clause in the GPL.
That kind of superior attitude comes mainly from walking through a sea of crashing Windows machines and recompile-reboot-repeat Linux machines only to end up at a FreeBSD machine that's more reliable than running water. Now, that's not to say that there's anything wrong with Linux, but its frequent updates to stay on the absolute bleeding edge does cost it a measure of reliability. On the FreeBSD end of things, you've got "running water", but not many of the newer toys. Things like firewire support, new file systems, CD and DVD burner support don't make it into the FreeBSD-STABLE line until long, long after Linux and Windows have had them.
I could have that same "stability" with Linux if I wanted to be stuck whith the "functionality" of FreeBSD-STABLE. All I'd have to do is stick with an older kernel. It's not like they aren't still maintained.
You talk about this alledgedly frequent compile-reboot-repeat thing like it's a requirement of running Linux, but it isn't. I run Linux exclusively, as do many of my friends, and I don't live that way, nor do I know anyone who does. My personal choice is to stick with a reasonably recent kernel (2.4.19) which is stable but still supports my "toys".
The single most dangerous threat to the success of Linux, especially in the workplace, are the legions of fanboys who show up at the most inopportune times and places to rant and rave irrationally, irreverently, and incessantly; spouting off profanity-filled immature propaganda about how Linux equals the second coming of Christ Almighty.
Where are these people, exactly? I keep hearing them mentioned, but I've never actually met one.
I've read the rest of this thread as it exists right now, and I know you claim to have had no intention to disparage Linux, but your comments about it were simply asinine. As a wise man once said, "The wise speak only of what they know."
I know, but it didn't work with the resistor in series. Not sure why.
How do you come to the conclusion that the critique is of Derrida? It seems to me that he was talking about Deconstruction as it actually exists in the wild, not as it was concieved. From what I've read here Derrida's origional ideas and what has become Deconstruction are as different as Jesus' teachings and Christianity.