Actually, it may not be as damaging as it appears to be on the surface. If some hardware company tried to sue/prosecute/persecute somebody exercising true fair use rights using this as a precedent, the defendant's lawyer would be all over the significant differences in the case. I don't think this will set a real, useful precedent except in the prosecution of people running warez sites and then selling devices to make the warez useful. In fact, I don't see this as a "sad abuse of the DMCA" at all. This is exactly the kind of case the DMCA was purportedly written to address, and if it were only applied to this kind of thing, it would pretty well be a non-issue.
At the risk of agreeing with somebody who sits quite a bit further to the left of the political spectrum than I do, you nailed this one on the head. My wife taught in public schools, and was very angry when she was basically reprimanded for actually teaching her students. She was told that her responsibility was to prepare these 3rd graders for the standardized test they would take at the end of the year, education be damned. She had to play their game of drilling practice tests, and most of her students ended up passing the test (ironically, the failing students were comprised of her smartest student and a couple of others who had serious learning disabilities), but half of the kids still had trouble reading and were incapable of composing a reasonably coherent sentence going into 4th grade. The worst part was that when she told the principal that she felt one of the students who failed should repeat 3rd grade since he still couldn't write his own name, she was told to just advance him anyway because it was too much trouble to hold a student back. I believe the justification was "He'll catch up eventually". So, in the end, the test was really only about one thing anyway. Take a wild guess at what that might have been.
I do remember 1988 quite well, and the stupid GUI is exactly what I always hated. Mac never had a real command line until OSX, and that always bothered me. I used to tinker with DOS commands all the time trying to do interesting things. The MAC clickety-clickety philosophy felt very limited and still doesn't work for me, and it's one of the reasons I now use Linux over Windows whenever possible (I am a realist. Some stuff just isn't supported on Linux, and trying to run important enigineering applications in Wine doesn't cut it).
No. They don't know anything about them, but their friends said Macs suck 15 years ago
15 years ago, Macs did suck. The one thing that made me start to consider actually crossing over to the dark side was OSX, but I'm not quite done with school, so I haven't had the cash to shell out for a Mac. Maybe once I graduate this summer I'll try one.
My solution was to itemize to my wife all the time I spend each day/week with her and with the kids, then compare it to time spent in front of the computer. When I put facts in front of her, she had to give in.:)
That actually worked? If I tried this, I would just get into more trouble. What I've discovered is that when she says, "We never spend any time together," what she really means is, "You're not paying attention to me right now." She doesn't care about how many hours I spend with her versus how much time I spend in front of the computer. In fact, I can't get anything done on the computer when she and our daughter are awake anyway. If I want to do something, it's usually after they've gone to bed, when I can have some peace and quiet. But I never try to logically compare how much time I spend with her to how much time I spend with the computer. You may as well try to use logical reasoning to try to convert a Muslim to Christianity (or a Christian to Islam). Some things just don't work logically.
Actually, bad variables are great job security. Right now, I'm working on a utility that will take your finished code and replace all of your good, intuitive variable names with "varXXXXXXXX" and remove all of the comments. It saves a password-protected "undo" state, so that as long as you are on the project, the code is maintainable. As soon as you get canned for somebody cheaper, Mr. No Experience goes crying to mommy.
Version 2.0 will replace all of your comments with your phone number and an increased salary demand.
Well, considering the fact that our "Faster/Better/Cheaper" probes are the ones that are now heaps of scrap metal freezing on the surface of Mars, I'd say that cheaper is not particularly better. A cheaper watch is no good if it can't tell time.
Yes, but I once worked at a Whataburger when I was in High School, and I have refused to eat there ever since. I have never worked at a McDonald's, so I can still create for myself a false sense of trust in their level of cleanliness. Every time I see a Whataburger, I am flooded with unsanitary memories, and the thought of actually eating food there is no more acceptable than eating food amongst piles of cow manure.
Damn, you let a few states join the Republic of Texas and next thing you know, they think they have the right to tread on Hallowed Ground. If you lived north of the Mason-Dixon Line, I'd come piss on your lawn, but since you're in Tennessee, you have to live with the likes of Shania Twain and the Dixie Chicks, which should be punishment enough.
Damn Yankees and your corrupt food terminology with "pop" in your "floats" and no ice cream in your shakes. It must be another liberal conspiracy. Now, where did I put my Big Red and Moon Pie.
It's all about Mountain Dew Code Red these days, old timer.
I'm sure Dr Pepper goes just fine with your FORTRAN subroutines.
I know you're actually trolling for a Code Red/"Real" MD flame war, but allow me to redirect a little. FORTRAN will kick your measly little VC++/Java/Drag 'n' Drop Programming butt. FORTRAN had hair on its chest before little sister C++ started wondering when she would get to shave her legs. There's a reason hard-core scientific programs are written in FORTRAN. Just try to show me native support for complex numbers in your Java applet. Better yet, try to show me native support for matrices of complex numbers, including the ability to seamlessly use mathematical operators on matrices. So, you go ahead and keep thinking FORTRAN is a dinosaur, but just remember that if it is, it's a big, bad T-Rex, and you should be wary lest it decides to eat you for breakfast.
Because that energy beam would look suspiciously like a weapon and make some people very nervous. This has been thought of before, and it sounds like a great idea, as long as you're the one controlling the energy beam.
On that note, has anyone else wondered what it would be like to take landfills, package them in rockets, shoot them to the sun and see what happens
Nothing would happen. The stuff would burn up and that would be the end of it. In fact, the whole earth could plummet into the sun and not cause a hiccup. Then why don't we do it? I'd say that the financial effect would be quite a bit less trivial.
More than one researcher has run afoul of the government by collected unclassified information into reports that get classified secret and confiscated.
I almost ran into this. We were working on a new whiz-bang modeling tool that would integrate a number of old FORTRAN codes that are used for a classified system. None of the codes or the data we were using were classified, but our security guy started getting nervous when the thing started working (particularly because one of the people working on the project didn't have a clearance yet). We ended up using good physics models with bogus inputs to make sure the models were not classified. Then we pitched to the potential users that they could import the correct data from their classified data bases to get classified runs. Anyway, totally OT, but I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes information that is not terribly useful by itself can become dangerous when combined with other information.
I too remember hearing that Mentor Graphics would cost upwards of $1M per seat. <SARCASM>The high price is clearly to compensate for the highly elegant user interface.</SARCASM>
Your.sig reminds me of the stupid SBC Yahoo DSL commercials I hear on the radio all the time, where they tell you how great Yahoo DSL is because it has a great homepage that will hold your hand as you explore the internet. Every time I hear their tag line ("it's internet that logs on to you!"), I can't help but thinking of all the bad In Soviet Russia jokes.
I can't wait to start my new service. It's going to be a helpful organization that will make sure that you get added to the national DNC list, and your state's, if it has one, for a mere $50. I think I'll use e-mail to get the word out.
You forget that a PE also requires 5 years of post-graduate work experience under another PE. And the exam is not trivial. Professionalism is subjective (notice, I said you think you're a demigod -- the junior Egnineer's envy you because you get paid a lot). However, you don't get to be a PE without having a good idea of what you're doing.
Slashdot Mirror
That's the only really funny post I've seen here all day. Long live the French Ministry of Surrender!
At the risk of agreeing with somebody who sits quite a bit further to the left of the political spectrum than I do, you nailed this one on the head. My wife taught in public schools, and was very angry when she was basically reprimanded for actually teaching her students. She was told that her responsibility was to prepare these 3rd graders for the standardized test they would take at the end of the year, education be damned. She had to play their game of drilling practice tests, and most of her students ended up passing the test (ironically, the failing students were comprised of her smartest student and a couple of others who had serious learning disabilities), but half of the kids still had trouble reading and were incapable of composing a reasonably coherent sentence going into 4th grade. The worst part was that when she told the principal that she felt one of the students who failed should repeat 3rd grade since he still couldn't write his own name, she was told to just advance him anyway because it was too much trouble to hold a student back. I believe the justification was "He'll catch up eventually". So, in the end, the test was really only about one thing anyway. Take a wild guess at what that might have been.
I do remember 1988 quite well, and the stupid GUI is exactly what I always hated. Mac never had a real command line until OSX, and that always bothered me. I used to tinker with DOS commands all the time trying to do interesting things. The MAC clickety-clickety philosophy felt very limited and still doesn't work for me, and it's one of the reasons I now use Linux over Windows whenever possible (I am a realist. Some stuff just isn't supported on Linux, and trying to run important enigineering applications in Wine doesn't cut it).
Version 2.0 will replace all of your comments with your phone number and an increased salary demand.
Well, considering the fact that our "Faster/Better/Cheaper" probes are the ones that are now heaps of scrap metal freezing on the surface of Mars, I'd say that cheaper is not particularly better. A cheaper watch is no good if it can't tell time.
Yes, but I once worked at a Whataburger when I was in High School, and I have refused to eat there ever since. I have never worked at a McDonald's, so I can still create for myself a false sense of trust in their level of cleanliness. Every time I see a Whataburger, I am flooded with unsanitary memories, and the thought of actually eating food there is no more acceptable than eating food amongst piles of cow manure.
But remember: just because you get flamed, that doesn't mean you don't suck.
Damn Yankees and your corrupt food terminology with "pop" in your "floats" and no ice cream in your shakes. It must be another liberal conspiracy. Now, where did I put my Big Red and Moon Pie.
(Note to self: Add "sleep" to To-Do list).
Because that energy beam would look suspiciously like a weapon and make some people very nervous. This has been thought of before, and it sounds like a great idea, as long as you're the one controlling the energy beam.
Mentor Graphics and
Synopsis for the slightly HTML literate.
I too remember hearing that Mentor Graphics would cost upwards of $1M per seat. <SARCASM>The high price is clearly to compensate for the highly elegant user interface.</SARCASM>
Your .sig reminds me of the stupid SBC Yahoo DSL commercials I hear on the radio all the time, where they tell you how great Yahoo DSL is because it has a great homepage that will hold your hand as you explore the internet. Every time I hear their tag line ("it's internet that logs on to you!"), I can't help but thinking of all the bad In Soviet Russia jokes.
I can't wait to start my new service. It's going to be a helpful organization that will make sure that you get added to the national DNC list, and your state's, if it has one, for a mere $50. I think I'll use e-mail to get the word out.
You forget that a PE also requires 5 years of post-graduate work experience under another PE. And the exam is not trivial. Professionalism is subjective (notice, I said you think you're a demigod -- the junior Egnineer's envy you because you get paid a lot). However, you don't get to be a PE without having a good idea of what you're doing.