There are so many web programmers on the market right now that you can snap your fingers and fill a web programmer position. I'm acutely aware that to get past an interview I'd better not come off as "quirky". Creative, yes, but not "quirky". "Creative" gets about as far as "wear an interesting tie, or an oxford shirt that's a color other than white."
A few years ago I went to an interview in black dockers, a poofy red silk blouse, motorcycle boots, and a black leather jacket. They had called me and said "please come for an interview immediately, we don't care how you're dressed, just come directly in." I got the job. Today I doubt they'd look twice at me without the shirt and tie and jacket and slacks and shiny shoes.
I used to do call center consulting for Fortune 500 companies, and set up a computerized call center. If I remember correctly (it has been some years) there was no "grace period" - if you tell them "put me on your do-not-call-list" they can never call you again.
HOWEVER, the DNC list applies to the company calling you, not the company they're calling *for*. So for example, if company A hires companies B and C to do telemarketing for them, you get a call from company B saying "hi, this is Shirley calling from company A and..." then you tell them to put you on the DNC list. Fine. Then company C calls - "Hi, this is Suzy calling from company A and..." and you throw a fit. However, even though they *said* they called from company A, they're really company C. So, you never actually told *them* not to call, so it's legal. Then company A actually calls you, and you go ballistic. But you never actually spoke to A, you spoke to B and C claiming to be A, so it's still legal.
This is my understanding of the situation anyway. A judge might not take such a lenient view of A's behavior. Good companies share their DNC lists with anyone they contract to, so this sort of thing wouldn't happen.
My computer is a laptop. I will not carry around external hard disks for it. Therefore, the smaller my encoded music is, the more of it I can afford to have on the hard disk and take with me.
Therefore, the lower the bitrate of the encoding, the more music I can have.
I compared ogg to mp3 and didn't expect much difference... but ogg was the winner by a longshot. My ogg vorbis files average about 25% smaller than mp3's of equivalent songs and have superior sound quality. So, why should I go back to mp3?
Polaroid has, for many years, made a variety of products besides instant film and instant cameras, such as various lenses, glasses (as in eyewear), DIGITAL CAMERAS, and SCANNERS. Their scanners are well rated, and their digital cameras may have been nothing special but were stunningly cheap and performed well for the price. My aunt bought one for $50, and it was quite a nice thing for simple snapshots, which is all most people want out of a digital camera anyway. (Perhaps not us slashdotters, but we're not most people.)
Moreover, the instant film market isn't gone, it's just oblivious. Every january I go to a science fiction convention and bring several recent-model polaroid instant cameras, and walk around with at least one in my hands so I can stop people with costumes in the hall and tell them "smile!" I take two pictures of each person, and you should see how excited they get when they see I'm giving them a polaroid. The usual reaction is "Wow, I thought Polaroid went out of business years ago! You can still buy the cameras and film? Where do I get it? Can I buy it right here at the hotel? I want one right away!" I tell them what it costs and they tell me that's fine. I tell them they can buy it at Sears and they're amazed.
What that tells me is, Polaroid's market exists, and their products are fine, they just have lousy advertising.
I wish Polaroid well. I wish them a good ad agency. I've used their cameras all my life and loved them. My father and grandfather before me used polaroids for seemingly forever too. We've always had superb experiences with the products. I wouldn't want to see them die.
Atari (yes, Atari!) had this in prototype for the Jaguar a few years ago - the headset part, at least. It was going to sell at a consumer-acceptable price. Do you know what the problem turned out to be? Some consumers actually get motion-sick while wearing it, and worse, the majority of potential purchasers get convinced they will and won't buy it.
I know from experience that I can play these sorts of games without problem, but if I wasn't able to, I would be pretty adverse to taking a dramamine just to play a video game. While people who get sick may be a real minority, it's enough to scare off many people.
Gene Roddenberry co-authored a paper with a couple of astrophysicists from the Harvard/Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics regarding where the homeworlds of the various Trek species are. They used what the show said about the characteristics of the homeworlds and selected stars which had appropriate characteristics. If you want to know where the homeworlds are, or whether they got the show right or not, go look it up.
I know about the paper because one of my closest friends is one of the astrophysicists.
However, you're right: they messed up bigtime when they said that, and it nagged me at the time too.
First of all, I think you need to get it through your head that many employees can't work frantically 8 hours a day even if they want to. People get stuck waiting for other people, and that's just life. When your job is to integrate A, B, and C, and three other programmers are currently coding A, B, and C, there isn't always something productive for you to do.
Also, some of us find slashdot to be professionally informative from time to time.
In the last year, I've seen two jobs go down the tubes. The first one I left, but only because I didn't feel that the company would be around much longer, and indeed it wasn't. A lot of my friends there were laid off, and I watched the dance the company did to (successfully) try to get around the fairly flimsy federal laws that would otherwise have required them to have paid 60 days of severance pay to everyone they let go. (Look up the WARN act if you're interested.) I watched my friends go, knowing they were getting shafted, telling me they thought the company was probably breaking the law, but they took their miniscule severance packages and left because they knew the company (a fortune 500 company) had expensive lawyers who could fight an extended lawsuit and they didn't.
At the second job, the owners called us all to a meeting one friday afternoon (payday) and announced that they couldn't pay us because we had run out of money. Two weeks earlier they had called us to a meeting to tell us the company was just fine and they didn't want to hear anyone say otherwise and we weren't going to go out of business any time soon. The monday after they failed to pay us, I arrived in the morning and they fired me. I eventually got the back pay they owed me, but only because I called the office of the state attorney general and did exactly what they told me to. None of my former coworkers that I spoke to got their back pay.
We all worked damn hard at both companies. I put in as much time doing my work as it took to accomplish the tasks the companies gave me. I created software of superior quality. I made my clients very happy, and they contracted for more work.
In the first case, when we founded the company (as a subsidiary of a larger company), we were promised that we had a certain amount of base capital, and that we weren't expected to turn a profit until quarter 7. We had certain financial targets to meet along the way. We met them. However, at the end of quarter 3, the parent company suddenly decided that we were going to turn a profit *right* *now* and ordered management to start firing people until payroll was less than receivables. Also, they cut our benefits. So I left.
In the second case, the company was privately held. There seemed to be work coming in the door. The owners kept telling us everything was fine, keep up the good work. Then one friday there was no paycheck. I'll never know whether or not the company could have been viable, but I can say from experience that it wasn't due to any lack of work ethic on the part of the "little people" who made the place run.
For my whole career, every employer I've had has demanded "loyalty" from me. Yet, only one ever showed me any. The rest of them have treated me as a disposable tool, to be used when needed and then sent away.
Now I'm on unemployment. I can't afford COBRA, and I won't be able to afford the medications my doctor said I'm supposed to take *every* *day* either when I run out. So, I'll be sick all the time until I get a new job.
I have no problem with companies being able to terminate employees for cause. However, these massive layoffs have to stop. Every time I've taken a job it was because it looked like it could have a little stability, but every time I've ended up unemployed again fairly soon. My father worked the same job for 20 years at a time. I have yet to have a job that lasted more than 2.5 years. I don't think it's reasonable for society to expect massive numbers of people to have to throw their lives into disarray every year or two and scramble to find work. As a culture, it's time we put a stop to it.
Anonymity is a protected freedom, part of free speech.
Now, tell me what's so good about the idea of having a national ID card. In the US we all have social security numbers already which can differentiate us when absolutely necessary. It's also not going to do *anything* for security - you may note that the terrorists of the other week operated under their own names and used apparently legitimate ID. As far as I can tell, the only thing it would be useful for is for companies and government agencies to demand it so they can exercise ever more facistic control over our lives.
And don't give me any mealy mouthed bull about it being "voluntary" or "optional" - that will last about two seconds flat, until AOL, the phone company, the electric company, etc all calmly refuse to do business with anyone who doesn't "voluntarily" get a national ID card and show it to them.
When I was in college there was a guy who looked so much like me that I couldn't tell the difference. I saw him once and actually thought I was looking in a mirror - he was even dressed the same as me. Now, if I can't tell this guy isn't me when I'm staring straight at him, how is a piece of software going to manage the distinction?
I also understand there's another guy who looks identical to me who went to another area college. Some of my close friends swear he and I are absolutely indistinguishable. He is widely hated, and people have vaguely suggested to me that he might even be a criminal.
So, what happens if you put me in front of a facial recognition camera, it thinks I'm one of these guys? Let's pretend they're a known violent criminal. Are you implying they should have the power to arrest me based on some machine thinking I'm someone I'm not based on questionable criteria? That I should then be forced to prove my innocence in order to be permitted to go about my ordinary, boring, perfectly legal life? That the security staff should open themselves up to the liability of the multi-million-dollar lawsuit I would no doubt file against them?
And then what happens the next time I fly?
NEVER take the plane out of the pilot's control.
on
More On Tragedy
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· Score: 1
Look, computerized systems to ensure the pilot can't screw up have been tried in the past. The result was that a computer took over at precisely the wrong moment because it thought the pilot was doing something he shouldn't (even though he was actually reacting to an emergency), and the plane crashed. As a result, such systems were banned.
Airline pilots in America are about as safe as we can possibly ask for. Most of them are ex-military, and all of them have to have a lot of commercial flight experience before they get behind the yoke of a jumbo jet. It's not uncommon for a pilot to have 20 years professional experience before they get to pilot a commercial airline jet. These people are very well known and are very, very stable or they don't get the job.
I would rather trust an airline pilot to fly the plane I'm in than a computer any day.
Now, if you're worried about terrorists getting into the cockpit, perhaps you should be questioning why there's a door between the cockpit and the passenger cabin. Why can't they have a wall between them, and separate doors to the outside?
Apparently, he gets lots of cash from fund-raising organizations operating in rich (read: G7) countries. Could these be found out, their efforts
proved illegal, their money confiscated?
Better: if this is the case, if they can be found out, if it can be determined that they knew what they were doing, they can be prosecuted for treason and executed.
These methods could be used against multiple targets. They seem to involve less martyr potential than nukes. Any other suggestions?
I think what we need to consider is not "what will stop these people from seeming like martyrs", but rather, "how do we stop this from happening again?". I believe just bombing people, or assasinating them, won't do enough. We prosecute people for raising the money and put them in jail, that isn't enough of a deterrant. We drop some bombs on afghanistan, they'll probably shrug and say "oh look, more bombs." They're bombing each other there already, we won't be that big a deal to them.
However, if we drop a nuke on them, that's about the most severe action we can take. How do you think any nation would feel about harboring terrorists after that? Knowing that if they get caught, we'll destroy their homes... and their children... and their whole economy... and everything and everyone they've ever known and loved? Whether or not they think the people we nuke in the first place were martyrs, I sure as hell think they wouldn't want to try it themselves.
As far as I'm concerned, as soon as we know who is reponsible for this for absolute certain, we can drop a nuke on them at once.
If I remember correctly, if one engine falls off a 747, all the pilots have heart attacks, and the landing gear won't open, the autopilot can still land the plane safely.
Most commercial airliners fly primarily on autopilot: the pilot is a skilled professional, but they're there more to handle exceptions rather than just hang on to the yoke for hours of not much activity.
There is no excuse for not isolating the cockpit from the passenger cabin from now forward.
The Sims seems like it might be an excellent choice - it requires some literacy (enough to read the balloons with the actions in them, and item names like "dishwasher") but not much (no long text anywhere vital), it's not a violent game (the sims have to get along or they'll avoid each other), and the whole point is that it shows that making friends, holding down a job, and improving yourself in ways which reflect on your work all contribute directly to better income and better lifestyle. (Not to mention that reading, particularly about cooking, tends to prevent your sims from getting accidentally killed...)
The Myst series, on the other hand, much as I love it, does have some violence in it, both implied and direct. If you don't believe me, you really must not have explored the many ways you can die in Riven. It's not common, many players won't encounter it... but it's there.
Congratulations, you are now part of the problem.
on
Hotmail Hacked
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· Score: 1
This is a discussion of a security problem. The primary topic I see in the messages is "how serious is this bug anyway", and in order to make a determination of that the participants need to discuss how easily the bug can be exploited. This topic is an integral part of the discussion of the bug, and is essential whether the discussion is intended to be strictly academic or in order to actually cause hacking.
I, for one, found this discussion to be technically informative, in that it helps me to understand the current level of Microsoft's security thinking, which helps me (as a technical professional) to form an opinion regarding how worried I should be about using Microsoft products in my work.
So, what this comes down to is that you're claiming that it's illegal to disseminate this information, but at the same time there is no other way to discuss the subject for legitimate purposes. Federal law versus First Amendment. Which one do you think wins?
It's people like you, who think you can legislate away the right to talk about things, to take away first amendment rights, who are the problem. Keep it up and pretty soon there will be no computer security because nobody will be able to talk about it.
You know, in the midst of all the discussions about whether or not the name is cool, or whether or not it's better than MP3, I think there's one thing that needs to be said a little more...
Thank you.
I think the whole Ogg Vorbis team deserves a big round of applause for working hard to turn out a really super audio compression system and making it free.
I downloaded some vorbis software just to see what it was like and encoded a favorite song into the format. I also encoded it with the same bitrate (128kbps) as an MP3 using iTunes, and compared both with the original CD using the same earphones (Sony MDR-NC5) on same computer (Powerbook G4).
Vorbis beat MP3 hands down. It sounds fresher, more alive, more vibrant. The stereo separation is much better. Vorbis is, to my untrained ears and with the song I selected for a sample ("Quick" by Eddie From Ohio), indistinguishable from the original CD. The MP3, by comparison, sounded flat and dead.
I'm switching my computer-based music listening to Ogg Vorbis at once. I hadn't planned to, I had just thought it would be interesting to play with, but I'm now a convert. I will buy a portable digital audio player as soon as somebody makes one that supports the Ogg Vorbis format.
I love it.
Of course, I always wear my cloak to cons, and you could hide a baby elephant under my cloak without anyone noticing.
On the other hand, for Arisia next year I have a different, uniform-ish costume planned, and I'll consequently have to deal with the pocket problem. I suppose it's time for me to start designing that jacket I wrote about.
The problem with putting these sorts of pockets on pants in general is that sooner or later, the weight will pull your pants down.
Of course, overalls would solve that problem, but a lot of people don't like them.
I do tailoring for fun, so I tend to think of "how to carry large numbers of small objects" as a construction problem rather than a purchasing problem.
It should be perfectly possible to make a jacket or shirt with a fairly large number of pockets, many of which could be subtly concealed. Also, by fastening the insides of the pockets to an interlining (a layer of fabric which comes between the outer, visible layer, and the interior lining) and using a good interfacing (a layer which stiffens and smooths the outer layer) it should also be possible to make the jacket ride in a way that doesn't look at all baggy and doesn't give a lot of clue to the volume of contents.
Why isn't this on the market, then? Because it's a major pain in the ass to construct. Since everything would have to be subtle and hidden, all of the stitching would have to be done very carefully and a lot of extra work would have to be done to connect everything to the proper layers and connect all the layers to each other. (The alternative would be something like cargo pants, which have a lot of pockets on the surface, which is relatively easy to do.)
So, if you really want clothes that let you carry a bunch of small electronic items in style, learn to sew.
I think what we need to consider here is, if Sony tries to sell CDs in the United States that could potentially result in damaged equipment, their liability would be pretty high. Take me, for example. It is my *usual* procedure, with any CD that I actually give a damn about, to immediately make a backup copy, store the original on a shelf, and listen to the backup.
If doing so damaged any of my equipment, Sony would likely find themselves at the other end of a lawyer really fast. I imagine I wouldn't be the only one going after them, by a longshot. I'm sure their corporate lawyers would anticipate this fact too, and I think it would be a good guess that they would insist that Sony take steps to minimize/prevent the millions of resulting lawsuits.
Can you imagine how well Sony CDs would sell if each one had to come covered with all sorts of warning labels that it could damage your stereo? (Or your computer, or whatever else you listen to music on?)
The experiments on the viking landers to determine if there was or was not life present were originally designed not to give a binary answer: you could get back "yes" or "no" or "maybe" as a result. However, congress balked at the idea of spending all that money and not getting back a definite answer. So, to get the appropriation, the project simply redesigned the system so that if the answer was "maybe", it would return "no", and they got the money.
So the landers went to Mars, tested the soil, and sent back "no, there is no life on Mars."
Not long thereafter, somebody took a soil sample, took it back to the lab, dumped it in an identical test rig, and discovered that there's no life on Earth either.
After reviewing the raw data from the lander some 20 years later, it was determined that really the answer should have been "yeah, probably" all along. However, this didn't get any press because NASA was busy trumpeting their new Mars program.
(This is what I get for talking to my friendly neighborhood astrophysicist.)
Ads are only successful when they are annoying/intrusive.
For used car dealerships, perhaps, but there are a lot of companies out there that care about their corporate image.
Advertising is all about perception, and any ad agency worth its salt knows that one of the best ways to build customer loyalty is to make them have warm fuzzies every time they hear the brand name. Think of coca-cola. Most people immediately think of an ice-cold can, bright red, dripping with condensation, refreshment. Think of McDonalds. Clowns and laughing children often come to mind. Think of apple computer. Smiling, friendly computers.
I've worked with any number of clients who had a good public image, and good brand perception with their customers, and are incredibly paranoid about preserving that because they quite rightly believe that if they blow it they'll lose a bundle of customers. If I went to them and said "We can do this popup ad that will appear in front of the user's browser and force them to look at it and they'll have to get rid of it in order to see the page they were actually trying to get to, and I think it will increase your sales," they'd fire me in a hearbeat.
Oddly, I find that the ads I tend to click on aren't ads that flash or pop up or do anything annoying, they're the ads that have good color and good composition... generally, good graphic design... and which show a picture of a product I might be interested in, and/or a humorous slogan. The more they flicker and flash, the more likely I'll just hit apple-period and ignore them.
I am a business user. I rely on my Macintosh to do my job every single day. Without it, my work would be substantially harder and I would need five or six computers on my desk to take its place... and eventually I'd need access to a mac anyway, at least part time.
MacOS X solved some otherwise insoluble problems I was having trying to get my work done. Just as I was realizing what the problems were, OS X got released, and within a day of installing it these problems had gone away. Windoze, Linux, or Solaris would not have taken care of my needs. OS X did.
Presently, OS X is absolutely essential to my daily work. Is it slow? Yes, it's painfully slow sometimes. Is it irritating? Yes, it's irritating. Would I give it up? Not for the moon on a silver platter.
So, go ahead and complain about it all you like. If you don't like dealing with OS X, that's fine - switch back to OS 9. I use OS 9 at home, and for most purposes it's just fine. But remember that for me, having to live with the problems is more than made up for by the fact that I can actually get my work done, and $20 is nothing compared to the cost of an hour of my time to deal with downloading it.
Slashdot Mirror
There are so many web programmers on the market right now that you can snap your fingers and fill a web programmer position. I'm acutely aware that to get past an interview I'd better not come off as "quirky". Creative, yes, but not "quirky". "Creative" gets about as far as "wear an interesting tie, or an oxford shirt that's a color other than white."
A few years ago I went to an interview in black dockers, a poofy red silk blouse, motorcycle boots, and a black leather jacket. They had called me and said "please come for an interview immediately, we don't care how you're dressed, just come directly in." I got the job. Today I doubt they'd look twice at me without the shirt and tie and jacket and slacks and shiny shoes.
Of course, this might not have been as convincing if he had tried it with a man...
Speaking as a gay man, please allow me to tell you from experience that it works better.
I used to do call center consulting for Fortune 500 companies, and set up a computerized call center. If I remember correctly (it has been some years) there was no "grace period" - if you tell them "put me on your do-not-call-list" they can never call you again.
HOWEVER, the DNC list applies to the company calling you, not the company they're calling *for*. So for example, if company A hires companies B and C to do telemarketing for them, you get a call from company B saying "hi, this is Shirley calling from company A and..." then you tell them to put you on the DNC list. Fine. Then company C calls - "Hi, this is Suzy calling from company A and..." and you throw a fit. However, even though they *said* they called from company A, they're really company C. So, you never actually told *them* not to call, so it's legal. Then company A actually calls you, and you go ballistic. But you never actually spoke to A, you spoke to B and C claiming to be A, so it's still legal.
This is my understanding of the situation anyway. A judge might not take such a lenient view of A's behavior. Good companies share their DNC lists with anyone they contract to, so this sort of thing wouldn't happen.
My computer is a laptop. I will not carry around external hard disks for it. Therefore, the smaller my encoded music is, the more of it I can afford to have on the hard disk and take with me.
Therefore, the lower the bitrate of the encoding, the more music I can have.
I compared ogg to mp3 and didn't expect much difference... but ogg was the winner by a longshot. My ogg vorbis files average about 25% smaller than mp3's of equivalent songs and have superior sound quality. So, why should I go back to mp3?
Polaroid has, for many years, made a variety of products besides instant film and instant cameras, such as various lenses, glasses (as in eyewear), DIGITAL CAMERAS, and SCANNERS. Their scanners are well rated, and their digital cameras may have been nothing special but were stunningly cheap and performed well for the price. My aunt bought one for $50, and it was quite a nice thing for simple snapshots, which is all most people want out of a digital camera anyway. (Perhaps not us slashdotters, but we're not most people.)
Moreover, the instant film market isn't gone, it's just oblivious. Every january I go to a science fiction convention and bring several recent-model polaroid instant cameras, and walk around with at least one in my hands so I can stop people with costumes in the hall and tell them "smile!" I take two pictures of each person, and you should see how excited they get when they see I'm giving them a polaroid. The usual reaction is "Wow, I thought Polaroid went out of business years ago! You can still buy the cameras and film? Where do I get it? Can I buy it right here at the hotel? I want one right away!" I tell them what it costs and they tell me that's fine. I tell them they can buy it at Sears and they're amazed.
What that tells me is, Polaroid's market exists, and their products are fine, they just have lousy advertising.
I wish Polaroid well. I wish them a good ad agency. I've used their cameras all my life and loved them. My father and grandfather before me used polaroids for seemingly forever too. We've always had superb experiences with the products. I wouldn't want to see them die.
Atari (yes, Atari!) had this in prototype for the Jaguar a few years ago - the headset part, at least. It was going to sell at a consumer-acceptable price. Do you know what the problem turned out to be? Some consumers actually get motion-sick while wearing it, and worse, the majority of potential purchasers get convinced they will and won't buy it.
I know from experience that I can play these sorts of games without problem, but if I wasn't able to, I would be pretty adverse to taking a dramamine just to play a video game. While people who get sick may be a real minority, it's enough to scare off many people.
Gene Roddenberry co-authored a paper with a couple of astrophysicists from the Harvard/Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics regarding where the homeworlds of the various Trek species are. They used what the show said about the characteristics of the homeworlds and selected stars which had appropriate characteristics. If you want to know where the homeworlds are, or whether they got the show right or not, go look it up.
I know about the paper because one of my closest friends is one of the astrophysicists.
However, you're right: they messed up bigtime when they said that, and it nagged me at the time too.
First of all, I think you need to get it through your head that many employees can't work frantically 8 hours a day even if they want to. People get stuck waiting for other people, and that's just life. When your job is to integrate A, B, and C, and three other programmers are currently coding A, B, and C, there isn't always something productive for you to do.
Also, some of us find slashdot to be professionally informative from time to time.
In the last year, I've seen two jobs go down the tubes. The first one I left, but only because I didn't feel that the company would be around much longer, and indeed it wasn't. A lot of my friends there were laid off, and I watched the dance the company did to (successfully) try to get around the fairly flimsy federal laws that would otherwise have required them to have paid 60 days of severance pay to everyone they let go. (Look up the WARN act if you're interested.) I watched my friends go, knowing they were getting shafted, telling me they thought the company was probably breaking the law, but they took their miniscule severance packages and left because they knew the company (a fortune 500 company) had expensive lawyers who could fight an extended lawsuit and they didn't.
At the second job, the owners called us all to a meeting one friday afternoon (payday) and announced that they couldn't pay us because we had run out of money. Two weeks earlier they had called us to a meeting to tell us the company was just fine and they didn't want to hear anyone say otherwise and we weren't going to go out of business any time soon. The monday after they failed to pay us, I arrived in the morning and they fired me. I eventually got the back pay they owed me, but only because I called the office of the state attorney general and did exactly what they told me to. None of my former coworkers that I spoke to got their back pay.
We all worked damn hard at both companies. I put in as much time doing my work as it took to accomplish the tasks the companies gave me. I created software of superior quality. I made my clients very happy, and they contracted for more work.
In the first case, when we founded the company (as a subsidiary of a larger company), we were promised that we had a certain amount of base capital, and that we weren't expected to turn a profit until quarter 7. We had certain financial targets to meet along the way. We met them. However, at the end of quarter 3, the parent company suddenly decided that we were going to turn a profit *right* *now* and ordered management to start firing people until payroll was less than receivables. Also, they cut our benefits. So I left.
In the second case, the company was privately held. There seemed to be work coming in the door. The owners kept telling us everything was fine, keep up the good work. Then one friday there was no paycheck. I'll never know whether or not the company could have been viable, but I can say from experience that it wasn't due to any lack of work ethic on the part of the "little people" who made the place run.
For my whole career, every employer I've had has demanded "loyalty" from me. Yet, only one ever showed me any. The rest of them have treated me as a disposable tool, to be used when needed and then sent away.
Now I'm on unemployment. I can't afford COBRA, and I won't be able to afford the medications my doctor said I'm supposed to take *every* *day* either when I run out. So, I'll be sick all the time until I get a new job.
I have no problem with companies being able to terminate employees for cause. However, these massive layoffs have to stop. Every time I've taken a job it was because it looked like it could have a little stability, but every time I've ended up unemployed again fairly soon. My father worked the same job for 20 years at a time. I have yet to have a job that lasted more than 2.5 years. I don't think it's reasonable for society to expect massive numbers of people to have to throw their lives into disarray every year or two and scramble to find work. As a culture, it's time we put a stop to it.
>Which freedom, exactly, would we be losing here?
Anonymity.
Anonymity is a protected freedom, part of free speech.
Now, tell me what's so good about the idea of having a national ID card. In the US we all have social security numbers already which can differentiate us when absolutely necessary. It's also not going to do *anything* for security - you may note that the terrorists of the other week operated under their own names and used apparently legitimate ID. As far as I can tell, the only thing it would be useful for is for companies and government agencies to demand it so they can exercise ever more facistic control over our lives.
And don't give me any mealy mouthed bull about it being "voluntary" or "optional" - that will last about two seconds flat, until AOL, the phone company, the electric company, etc all calmly refuse to do business with anyone who doesn't "voluntarily" get a national ID card and show it to them.
When I was in college there was a guy who looked so much like me that I couldn't tell the difference. I saw him once and actually thought I was looking in a mirror - he was even dressed the same as me. Now, if I can't tell this guy isn't me when I'm staring straight at him, how is a piece of software going to manage the distinction?
I also understand there's another guy who looks identical to me who went to another area college. Some of my close friends swear he and I are absolutely indistinguishable. He is widely hated, and people have vaguely suggested to me that he might even be a criminal.
So, what happens if you put me in front of a facial recognition camera, it thinks I'm one of these guys? Let's pretend they're a known violent criminal. Are you implying they should have the power to arrest me based on some machine thinking I'm someone I'm not based on questionable criteria? That I should then be forced to prove my innocence in order to be permitted to go about my ordinary, boring, perfectly legal life? That the security staff should open themselves up to the liability of the multi-million-dollar lawsuit I would no doubt file against them?
And then what happens the next time I fly?
Look, computerized systems to ensure the pilot can't screw up have been tried in the past. The result was that a computer took over at precisely the wrong moment because it thought the pilot was doing something he shouldn't (even though he was actually reacting to an emergency), and the plane crashed. As a result, such systems were banned.
Airline pilots in America are about as safe as we can possibly ask for. Most of them are ex-military, and all of them have to have a lot of commercial flight experience before they get behind the yoke of a jumbo jet. It's not uncommon for a pilot to have 20 years professional experience before they get to pilot a commercial airline jet. These people are very well known and are very, very stable or they don't get the job.
I would rather trust an airline pilot to fly the plane I'm in than a computer any day.
Now, if you're worried about terrorists getting into the cockpit, perhaps you should be questioning why there's a door between the cockpit and the passenger cabin. Why can't they have a wall between them, and separate doors to the outside?
Better: if this is the case, if they can be found out, if it can be determined that they knew what they were doing, they can be prosecuted for treason and executed.
I think what we need to consider is not "what will stop these people from seeming like martyrs", but rather, "how do we stop this from happening again?". I believe just bombing people, or assasinating them, won't do enough. We prosecute people for raising the money and put them in jail, that isn't enough of a deterrant. We drop some bombs on afghanistan, they'll probably shrug and say "oh look, more bombs." They're bombing each other there already, we won't be that big a deal to them.
However, if we drop a nuke on them, that's about the most severe action we can take. How do you think any nation would feel about harboring terrorists after that? Knowing that if they get caught, we'll destroy their homes... and their children... and their whole economy... and everything and everyone they've ever known and loved? Whether or not they think the people we nuke in the first place were martyrs, I sure as hell think they wouldn't want to try it themselves.
As far as I'm concerned, as soon as we know who is reponsible for this for absolute certain, we can drop a nuke on them at once.
If I remember correctly, if one engine falls off a 747, all the pilots have heart attacks, and the landing gear won't open, the autopilot can still land the plane safely.
Most commercial airliners fly primarily on autopilot: the pilot is a skilled professional, but they're there more to handle exceptions rather than just hang on to the yoke for hours of not much activity.
There is no excuse for not isolating the cockpit from the passenger cabin from now forward.
The Myst series, on the other hand, much as I love it, does have some violence in it, both implied and direct. If you don't believe me, you really must not have explored the many ways you can die in Riven. It's not common, many players won't encounter it... but it's there.
This is a discussion of a security problem. The primary topic I see in the messages is "how serious is this bug anyway", and in order to make a determination of that the participants need to discuss how easily the bug can be exploited. This topic is an integral part of the discussion of the bug, and is essential whether the discussion is intended to be strictly academic or in order to actually cause hacking.
I, for one, found this discussion to be technically informative, in that it helps me to understand the current level of Microsoft's security thinking, which helps me (as a technical professional) to form an opinion regarding how worried I should be about using Microsoft products in my work.
So, what this comes down to is that you're claiming that it's illegal to disseminate this information, but at the same time there is no other way to discuss the subject for legitimate purposes. Federal law versus First Amendment. Which one do you think wins?
It's people like you, who think you can legislate away the right to talk about things, to take away first amendment rights, who are the problem. Keep it up and pretty soon there will be no computer security because nobody will be able to talk about it.
You know, in the midst of all the discussions about whether or not the name is cool, or whether or not it's better than MP3, I think there's one thing that needs to be said a little more...
Thank you.
I think the whole Ogg Vorbis team deserves a big round of applause for working hard to turn out a really super audio compression system and making it free.
My one question is: how can we help out?
I downloaded some vorbis software just to see what it was like and encoded a favorite song into the format. I also encoded it with the same bitrate (128kbps) as an MP3 using iTunes, and compared both with the original CD using the same earphones (Sony MDR-NC5) on same computer (Powerbook G4).
Vorbis beat MP3 hands down. It sounds fresher, more alive, more vibrant. The stereo separation is much better. Vorbis is, to my untrained ears and with the song I selected for a sample ("Quick" by Eddie From Ohio), indistinguishable from the original CD. The MP3, by comparison, sounded flat and dead.
I'm switching my computer-based music listening to Ogg Vorbis at once. I hadn't planned to, I had just thought it would be interesting to play with, but I'm now a convert. I will buy a portable digital audio player as soon as somebody makes one that supports the Ogg Vorbis format.
I love it. Of course, I always wear my cloak to cons, and you could hide a baby elephant under my cloak without anyone noticing. On the other hand, for Arisia next year I have a different, uniform-ish costume planned, and I'll consequently have to deal with the pocket problem. I suppose it's time for me to start designing that jacket I wrote about.
The problem with putting these sorts of pockets on pants in general is that sooner or later, the weight will pull your pants down. Of course, overalls would solve that problem, but a lot of people don't like them.
I do tailoring for fun, so I tend to think of "how to carry large numbers of small objects" as a construction problem rather than a purchasing problem. It should be perfectly possible to make a jacket or shirt with a fairly large number of pockets, many of which could be subtly concealed. Also, by fastening the insides of the pockets to an interlining (a layer of fabric which comes between the outer, visible layer, and the interior lining) and using a good interfacing (a layer which stiffens and smooths the outer layer) it should also be possible to make the jacket ride in a way that doesn't look at all baggy and doesn't give a lot of clue to the volume of contents. Why isn't this on the market, then? Because it's a major pain in the ass to construct. Since everything would have to be subtle and hidden, all of the stitching would have to be done very carefully and a lot of extra work would have to be done to connect everything to the proper layers and connect all the layers to each other. (The alternative would be something like cargo pants, which have a lot of pockets on the surface, which is relatively easy to do.) So, if you really want clothes that let you carry a bunch of small electronic items in style, learn to sew.
I think what we need to consider here is, if Sony tries to sell CDs in the United States that could potentially result in damaged equipment, their liability would be pretty high. Take me, for example. It is my *usual* procedure, with any CD that I actually give a damn about, to immediately make a backup copy, store the original on a shelf, and listen to the backup.
If doing so damaged any of my equipment, Sony would likely find themselves at the other end of a lawyer really fast. I imagine I wouldn't be the only one going after them, by a longshot. I'm sure their corporate lawyers would anticipate this fact too, and I think it would be a good guess that they would insist that Sony take steps to minimize/prevent the millions of resulting lawsuits.
Can you imagine how well Sony CDs would sell if each one had to come covered with all sorts of warning labels that it could damage your stereo? (Or your computer, or whatever else you listen to music on?)
The experiments on the viking landers to determine if there was or was not life present were originally designed not to give a binary answer: you could get back "yes" or "no" or "maybe" as a result. However, congress balked at the idea of spending all that money and not getting back a definite answer. So, to get the appropriation, the project simply redesigned the system so that if the answer was "maybe", it would return "no", and they got the money.
So the landers went to Mars, tested the soil, and sent back "no, there is no life on Mars."
Not long thereafter, somebody took a soil sample, took it back to the lab, dumped it in an identical test rig, and discovered that there's no life on Earth either.
After reviewing the raw data from the lander some 20 years later, it was determined that really the answer should have been "yeah, probably" all along. However, this didn't get any press because NASA was busy trumpeting their new Mars program.
(This is what I get for talking to my friendly neighborhood astrophysicist.)
For used car dealerships, perhaps, but there are a lot of companies out there that care about their corporate image.
Advertising is all about perception, and any ad agency worth its salt knows that one of the best ways to build customer loyalty is to make them have warm fuzzies every time they hear the brand name. Think of coca-cola. Most people immediately think of an ice-cold can, bright red, dripping with condensation, refreshment. Think of McDonalds. Clowns and laughing children often come to mind. Think of apple computer. Smiling, friendly computers.
I've worked with any number of clients who had a good public image, and good brand perception with their customers, and are incredibly paranoid about preserving that because they quite rightly believe that if they blow it they'll lose a bundle of customers. If I went to them and said "We can do this popup ad that will appear in front of the user's browser and force them to look at it and they'll have to get rid of it in order to see the page they were actually trying to get to, and I think it will increase your sales," they'd fire me in a hearbeat.
Oddly, I find that the ads I tend to click on aren't ads that flash or pop up or do anything annoying, they're the ads that have good color and good composition... generally, good graphic design... and which show a picture of a product I might be interested in, and/or a humorous slogan. The more they flicker and flash, the more likely I'll just hit apple-period and ignore them.
I am a business user. I rely on my Macintosh to do my job every single day. Without it, my work would be substantially harder and I would need five or six computers on my desk to take its place... and eventually I'd need access to a mac anyway, at least part time.
MacOS X solved some otherwise insoluble problems I was having trying to get my work done. Just as I was realizing what the problems were, OS X got released, and within a day of installing it these problems had gone away. Windoze, Linux, or Solaris would not have taken care of my needs. OS X did.
Presently, OS X is absolutely essential to my daily work. Is it slow? Yes, it's painfully slow sometimes. Is it irritating? Yes, it's irritating. Would I give it up? Not for the moon on a silver platter.
So, go ahead and complain about it all you like. If you don't like dealing with OS X, that's fine - switch back to OS 9. I use OS 9 at home, and for most purposes it's just fine. But remember that for me, having to live with the problems is more than made up for by the fact that I can actually get my work done, and $20 is nothing compared to the cost of an hour of my time to deal with downloading it.