Your statement is totally offtopic, and completely untrue. The US will seek extradition of an American serviceman that went AWOL in Canada, and the Canadian government will be willing to hear their case for asylum, but unless the person faces death on return to the US (unlikely), they will lose the case and have to go back. This is because the US runs a volunteer military, so if you're AWOL, you are not fulfilling your legally binding contractual obligation.
On the other hand, if the US started drafting people to fight in Iraq, then since Canada has not declared war against Iraq, Canada would probably offer asylum to draft dodgers again.
Most credit card fraud right now is done with a credit card number and an expiry date. If you remove that option, and they have to resort to signing up for a credit card in your name, presumably having the card somehow mailed to a physical address, that's going to make fraud a lot less common, which helps.
Your fob idea would work just as well if the credit card didn't have a human readable number on it, and was a fob itself. I think that if you combine that with a secret 4 digit PIN, it's quite secure. Even if the card is stolen, you need the PIN. Still makes phone purchases hard.
Right, blame the victim. How about we blame the person breaking the law, harming other people... the person committing the identity theft itself?
The technology exists to make credit cards secure. The technology exists to keep our identities secure from fraud. Let's have gov't and big corporations start to take it seriously. All they do right now is accept a certain % of fraud per year and consider it an expense against their bottom line, and charge all their customers extra to compensate. The criminals are getting away with it, and it costs everyone.
Heck, even if they integrated a 4 digit PIN on all credit card transactions in addition to a signature, you'd cut down on fraud significantly. Point of sale and internet transactions could easily be adapted to this. The only problem would be selling stuff over the phone, where you're left with the same problem, but the credit card companies already charge an extra amount to those retailers who can't do signature verification, and that makes this kind of transaction more expensive, so the buyer of that particular product ultimately pays the risk, which is better than the current situation where we all pay extra.
I have a theory that men carrying this gene tend to reproduce more per generation than men without the gene, because IQ is correlated to income, and people with higher income have larger families.
But it's just a theory. I'd like science to go and run some numbers to test it for me. Anyone looking for a grant?:)
VB.Net has all of the controls exposed as classes, which makes it child's play to modify or even write from scratch the GUI in code.
This is great until you want to create a derived control in VB.NET compact framework and then realize that the VB.NET compiler doesn't support the command line switches (error suppression, I believe) necessary to create the design time controls so you can actually use them during GUI development. I really hope they fix that soon.
In my opinion, the first step when going from command line stuff to GUI programming is wrapping your head around doing everything event driven. VB6 is a good step for that, if you're not set in the OOP-is-the-be-all-end-all-solution-to-every-proble m mentality. I've seen OOP abused heavily. Good old modular programming works almost as well, and better in some situations.
I think the difference is, as usual, what you're going to do with the language. You wouldn't use Perl to write a high end video game, right... you'd use C++. But if you need to write some text processing routine, you go for Perl. It's the same in Windows... if you need to write a quick front end GUI (assuming you know both VB6 and.NET), VB6 will get it done faster. If you need to write enterprise level code, or a widely distributed shrink wrapped program, go for.NET for all the reasons you describe.
I would definitely say that technically Delphi and VB6 are equally quick in terms of developing simple stuff. The only difference is that VB6 has a much larger userbase (anecdotally), so I can find a lot of answers very quickly online when I need to do something in VB. I'm sure the same is true of Delphi, but if you're a hobbyist, I've seen a lot of sample code for PIC chip programmers, robot interfaces, etc., all done in VB. It seems to be the amateur PC programmer's standard. This comes from a guy who has programmed in C, C++, Perl, Java, and a host of proprietary languages.
Re:Is programming getting much harder?
on
Build a Program Now
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Actually, if you just want to get in an write some code quickly, back in the early 90's, QuickBASIC was the way to go. You didn't need to worry about line numbers, and it was structured.
I find VB6 is also a quick way for a beginner if they wanted to jump from console applications to GUI development. However, for the hobby programmer to jump from anything non-object oriented to VB.NET is going to be a huge jump.
At work we've used VB6 extensively to write front-end GUI's for our systems, where the mission critical stuff is run either on a server or in an industrial controller of some kind. We love that VB6 is a "RAD" development environment and has a huge volume of "howto"'s available online for any task you might want to do. It's just a good fit for what we were doing.
Now that we're looking at switching to VB.NET, we're finding it much more cumbersome. We agree that it's more powerful, but we don't need any of that extra power - we just want simplicity and speed (of development). There are just too many cases in.NET where you have to remember to modify the code in 3 places just to make one little change, and VB6 took care of more stuff for me (like the whole "do I use Dispose(True) or Dispose(False), and do I even need to call it on this particular object?"). Don't even get me started on the compact framework.
I would have liked to see a VB7 that had no connection to the.NET framework. As it stands we're going to be programming in VB6 for several more years until something better than VB.NET comes along.
Sure, but Hitler didn't have to confiscate any firearms - he just blamed the troubles of the majority on the minorities, and convinced the majority to do his dirty work for him.
The US gov't isn't going to shoot "the people", they're going to shoot "the muslims" or "the gays" or "the atheists". Each one of those is a minority hated by the majority. Giving them guns probably won't give them enough firepower to get to the border and escape. I support their right to defend themselves, of course, but I doubt it'll work.
Dude, are you OK? You're getting overly serious about a comment posted on an internet message board that was a reply to someone else. I just don't want to see you keel over with a heart attack or anything.
Take it easy bud, it's Friday. Relax.
The point about the media is conceded, so long as the media digs itself out of the hole it's in now, where it's just a mouthpiece for the administration anyway.
However, if I were the government, and wanted to shoot my own people, I suppose I'd commandeer all radio stations and TV stations to make sure that none of them were under the control of the "eeevil terrorists", and most of the public would go along with that because most of them are sheep, just like the Iraqis or anyone else in the world. They want the government to protect them, which is why they'll gladly give up the freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and their guns in the interest of national security. The press will gleefully broadcast the press conference where the president tells the people that these measures are in their own best interest, and if you're not with us, you're against us. Then the press will show interviews with mouthpiece after mouthpiece that was recommended by the administration as a good source of balanced news.
And yes, the people could wage a guerilla war, but they're going to find it harder to do than the Iraqis because over here the gov't has your address on file, can tap nearly every means of communications you might use to organize (and with the patriot act, they have the right to do that just by labelling you a terrorist). They can stop all sources of funding for you (the banks are under federal control), and they don't just have 100,000 army guys to throw at you, they have every bit of the federal military, the national guard, and every single law enforcement officer will have your license plate number scrawled on their dashboard.
On top of that, you wouldn't be considered patriots, you'd be considered the bad guys because you blow things up, kill the good brave soldiers of the land, and otherwise be a disturbance of the peace, and people really care more about their SUV in the driveway, their cable TV, and their porn, and they don't really care about their freedoms. Therefore, everyone else will be ready to turn you in as well.
So yeah, it would be harder for a present day American to be a revolutionary, much harder than it is in Iraq. You're going to run out of willing suicide bombers in the US much faster than you will in Iraq.
While I agree with your logic, your last couple of statements are a bit laughable. Can you imagine a revolt with privately owned guns in this day and age?
"Hey Billy-Bob, we're gonna go overthrow the government. You stand here and when the STEALTH F*CKING BOMBER comes over that hill and tries to drop a 500lb smart bomb on your ass, try to shoot him first with your Vietnam surplus.50 cal machine gun."
I think the point you should be trying to make is that the majority of the military needs to divided up and put under direct *local* civilian control. Therefore, if the federal government wanted to use the military against the people, they would have to convince the local civilian leadership to issue those orders, which would be a much safer situation, until the civilian leadership in New Hampshire decides to bomb New York... but nothing's perfect.
In the event that a particular state attempts to us its military against its own people, then a coalition of other states could get together and liberate that state (hopefully).
Does anyone else think that this is partly because of text based advertisements, and also because of the "adsense" idea? They've finally made advertising that is relevant to what you're looking for.
Maybe Christians are tired of seeing the proliferation of these things throughout society, because they see them as harmful to people whether they are Christian or not.
Let me tell you something - from a non-religious person here. The reason we non-religious people are tolerant of the majority christians in this country is because the teachings of your religion are to be tolerant and respect other peoples' free will. We respect that and it lets everyone live in peace.
After all, it's your belief that gets you into heaven, right, not your actions? And a government that forces the people to live their lives the "right" way is exactly what we're all fighting against over in Afghanistan (i.e. the Taliban).
Christians accept a free country because they figure that forcing people to live the right way won't get them into heaven if their soul is still broken. Therefore, either you're the type of person that would submit to sins, or you're not, but if you're this type of bad person, it doesn't matter if you never get a chance to commit those sins - you're still a bad person. You're going to hell unless you ask jesus' forgiveness for the very thoughts in your head. These ideas are even encoded in our legal system as mens rhea (sp?), or the "guilty mind", meaning you have to mean to do your action to be found guilty of a criminal act.
Therefore, you live in a country where you have the freedom to live your life the way you please. If you happen to live it in a way that benefits you, go right ahead, and if I happen to live it in a way that harms me, it's not your fault, it's mine. It's also my right.
So get your nose out of my business, and let's both go help someone who is actually asking for our help.
The capital one is the one I got hung up on too, and even in the "why?" link, it suggests that you shouldn't click on any of the links in the email, and just open a web browser and go to the site directly because it's suspicious.
You are correct. The DSM only exists to function as a standard. As an analogy, look at internet RFC's. If you read all the RFC's, that wouldn't make you qualified to design a computer system until you took some courses, or got some experience in the field with real networks.
The same is true of the DSM - it is a reference manual for psychologists, not a do-it-yourself workbook. Psychologists diagnose people by talking to them first, then giving them a battery of psychological tests and scoring them on multiple criteria to determine if the person qualifies on each of the diagnostic criteria, and then finally using their professional judgement which comes with a lot of training and experience, peer review, etc., before giving the person a real diagnosis.
And sometimes (gasp!) they change their diagnoses so that they fit better into a category that the person's insurance company will recognize and agree to pay for the diagnosis and treatment. Oh, did I say that out loud?
So don't take the DSM too seriously. According to that book, everyone has some kind of diagnosable disorder.
You know what the real difference is? In home building the design is probably 10 or 15% of the total cost (pulled that out of my butt), but in software, the design is 98% of the total cost. When you finish the design (the code), you're essentially done.
When you're designing a $250,000 house, and you're half done the design and the future owner wants to move everything around, then it might become a $260,000 or $275,000 house cost and the owner sees a small percentage change because design is a small percentage of price. When you're designing a $250,000 software program which is 98% design cost, and the customer wants to make major changes half way through and you tell him the price is now $350,000 or more, they complain big time.
To fix this you need to break the software project up into pre-design and regular design stages. In the pre-design stage you need a mock-up of the application that you use can see and touch and feel, like the blueprints of a house, and let them change their mind then (i.e. rapid prototyping). The problem of course is that user interface design sometimes takes more than 10 to 15% of the total software time, so it's probably impossible, but something to think about.
Yes, I'm into Cryptonomicon right now, and was laughing quite a bit where he was explaining how Waterhouse (of the 40's) was using a mathematical model to explain his horniness (rho) and the model was becoming very complicated with the introduction of Mary Smith. That's the ultimate geek chapter right there.
I was going to recommend this book to some friends/family, but I realized that it's definitely only suitable for geeks.
Statutory specifically means that you don't have to prove how much damage was done. There are amounts already conveniently determined by the court (in the 10's of thousands of dollars per infringement range). It's at a judge's discretion depending on how willful the act was (and Sony would have a hard time saying they didn't intend to put that DRM software on the CDs, but they might be able to say that, had they known it contained copyrighted code, they would not have done so, which will only get them a few small points with the court). Kind of like manslaughter vs. murder. In either case you're responsible, and it just depends on how willful the act was.
What you're talking about is Actual damage. Not sure how much they could claim there (see the rest of this thread for more discussion on that).
Well, when the vehicles have a tendency to blow up, they MIGHT do a recall. Ford did not do the recall with the Pinto because they calculated that paying the lawsuits would be cheaper than the cost of fixing the problem. I wonder how they accounted for the public relations backlash though...
However, the people who actually had their car blow up can sue for lost wages, medical expenses, damages, and in the case of the US, "pain and suffering". That is where the big bucks are paid.
In the case of the CDs, it's two different issues. The consumers are harmed by the product, and they could sue, which is why you see the class action suits. However, this article is talking about the copyright infringement, which has nothing to do with the consumer, and everything to do with the copyright holder vs. Sony (and first 4 internet, perhaps). Doing a recall of the CDs won't compensate the copyright holder for the copyright violation. The copyright holder can sue for statutory or actual damages caused by the copyright infringement simply because Sony distributed a copyrighted work that didn't belong to them.
It depends. But one would expect that if aptitude is equally distributed throughout the countries of the world, and access to education is available, and the requirements for getting a Ph.D. is in the ballpark around the world, then you should be able to use a rate to compare how many people are actually getting their doctorate.
However, even with subsidized education, these other nations are going to find it harder to educate as many people due to economic reasons. If you grow up poor you're less likely to get a higher education, no matter what country you came from.
But I agree that if you're talking about all-out-technological warfare between countries then the sheer number of researchers (which is what a Ph.D. is) actually matters, as does quality of the research of course. Remember though, that in times of peace, almost all research done by academic institutions in the world is shared with the rest of the world, so even if China does end up doing much more research, then the US and other countries will still benefit from most of that research, just as the US currently benefits from research done in Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Brazil, Japan, etc., etc., etc., and those countries benefit from research done in the US.
Americans will still have a crack at taking research from elsewhere and selling it in the domestic market too.
MegaBlock clearly is in violation. IMHO this has less to do with Canadian law, and more to do with playing a game of tit for tat with the US over the Blackberries. That is not only a dangerous road to go down, but a foolish one.
I assume you're joking...?
First of all, LEGO is not a US company.
Secondly, MegaBlock is not in violation because the patent has expired. LEGO was trying to use trademark law to extend their monopoly.
Who cares about getting the $$$, this is supposed to be about getting people to do the right thing.
Slight correction - this is about deterring Sony from doing more wrong things in the future. I don't care where the money goes, as long as it costs Sony enough to pay attention to their mistake, and not repeat it.
Slashdot Mirror
Your statement is totally offtopic, and completely untrue. The US will seek extradition of an American serviceman that went AWOL in Canada, and the Canadian government will be willing to hear their case for asylum, but unless the person faces death on return to the US (unlikely), they will lose the case and have to go back. This is because the US runs a volunteer military, so if you're AWOL, you are not fulfilling your legally binding contractual obligation.
On the other hand, if the US started drafting people to fight in Iraq, then since Canada has not declared war against Iraq, Canada would probably offer asylum to draft dodgers again.
Most credit card fraud right now is done with a credit card number and an expiry date. If you remove that option, and they have to resort to signing up for a credit card in your name, presumably having the card somehow mailed to a physical address, that's going to make fraud a lot less common, which helps.
Your fob idea would work just as well if the credit card didn't have a human readable number on it, and was a fob itself. I think that if you combine that with a secret 4 digit PIN, it's quite secure. Even if the card is stolen, you need the PIN. Still makes phone purchases hard.
That depends... were they the TV antenna type of rabbit ears, or the real thing? If the latter, you really belong on a goatse page, not slashdot. ;)
Right, blame the victim. How about we blame the person breaking the law, harming other people... the person committing the identity theft itself?
The technology exists to make credit cards secure. The technology exists to keep our identities secure from fraud. Let's have gov't and big corporations start to take it seriously. All they do right now is accept a certain % of fraud per year and consider it an expense against their bottom line, and charge all their customers extra to compensate. The criminals are getting away with it, and it costs everyone.
Heck, even if they integrated a 4 digit PIN on all credit card transactions in addition to a signature, you'd cut down on fraud significantly. Point of sale and internet transactions could easily be adapted to this. The only problem would be selling stuff over the phone, where you're left with the same problem, but the credit card companies already charge an extra amount to those retailers who can't do signature verification, and that makes this kind of transaction more expensive, so the buyer of that particular product ultimately pays the risk, which is better than the current situation where we all pay extra.
I have a theory that men carrying this gene tend to reproduce more per generation than men without the gene, because IQ is correlated to income, and people with higher income have larger families.
:)
But it's just a theory. I'd like science to go and run some numbers to test it for me. Anyone looking for a grant?
VB.Net has all of the controls exposed as classes, which makes it child's play to modify or even write from scratch the GUI in code.
.NET compact framework and then realize that the VB .NET compiler doesn't support the command line switches (error suppression, I believe) necessary to create the design time controls so you can actually use them during GUI development. I really hope they fix that soon.
e m mentality. I've seen OOP abused heavily. Good old modular programming works almost as well, and better in some situations.
.NET), VB6 will get it done faster. If you need to write enterprise level code, or a widely distributed shrink wrapped program, go for .NET for all the reasons you describe.
This is great until you want to create a derived control in VB
In my opinion, the first step when going from command line stuff to GUI programming is wrapping your head around doing everything event driven. VB6 is a good step for that, if you're not set in the OOP-is-the-be-all-end-all-solution-to-every-probl
I think the difference is, as usual, what you're going to do with the language. You wouldn't use Perl to write a high end video game, right... you'd use C++. But if you need to write some text processing routine, you go for Perl. It's the same in Windows... if you need to write a quick front end GUI (assuming you know both VB6 and
I would definitely say that technically Delphi and VB6 are equally quick in terms of developing simple stuff. The only difference is that VB6 has a much larger userbase (anecdotally), so I can find a lot of answers very quickly online when I need to do something in VB. I'm sure the same is true of Delphi, but if you're a hobbyist, I've seen a lot of sample code for PIC chip programmers, robot interfaces, etc., all done in VB. It seems to be the amateur PC programmer's standard. This comes from a guy who has programmed in C, C++, Perl, Java, and a host of proprietary languages.
Actually, if you just want to get in an write some code quickly, back in the early 90's, QuickBASIC was the way to go. You didn't need to worry about line numbers, and it was structured.
.NET where you have to remember to modify the code in 3 places just to make one little change, and VB6 took care of more stuff for me (like the whole "do I use Dispose(True) or Dispose(False), and do I even need to call it on this particular object?"). Don't even get me started on the compact framework.
.NET framework. As it stands we're going to be programming in VB6 for several more years until something better than VB.NET comes along.
I find VB6 is also a quick way for a beginner if they wanted to jump from console applications to GUI development. However, for the hobby programmer to jump from anything non-object oriented to VB.NET is going to be a huge jump.
At work we've used VB6 extensively to write front-end GUI's for our systems, where the mission critical stuff is run either on a server or in an industrial controller of some kind. We love that VB6 is a "RAD" development environment and has a huge volume of "howto"'s available online for any task you might want to do. It's just a good fit for what we were doing.
Now that we're looking at switching to VB.NET, we're finding it much more cumbersome. We agree that it's more powerful, but we don't need any of that extra power - we just want simplicity and speed (of development). There are just too many cases in
I would have liked to see a VB7 that had no connection to the
Actually, in this case I might consider paying for a torrent download. Just not $19.95.
Sure, but Hitler didn't have to confiscate any firearms - he just blamed the troubles of the majority on the minorities, and convinced the majority to do his dirty work for him.
The US gov't isn't going to shoot "the people", they're going to shoot "the muslims" or "the gays" or "the atheists". Each one of those is a minority hated by the majority. Giving them guns probably won't give them enough firepower to get to the border and escape. I support their right to defend themselves, of course, but I doubt it'll work.
Dude, are you OK? You're getting overly serious about a comment posted on an internet message board that was a reply to someone else. I just don't want to see you keel over with a heart attack or anything.
Take it easy bud, it's Friday. Relax.
The point about the media is conceded, so long as the media digs itself out of the hole it's in now, where it's just a mouthpiece for the administration anyway.
However, if I were the government, and wanted to shoot my own people, I suppose I'd commandeer all radio stations and TV stations to make sure that none of them were under the control of the "eeevil terrorists", and most of the public would go along with that because most of them are sheep, just like the Iraqis or anyone else in the world. They want the government to protect them, which is why they'll gladly give up the freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and their guns in the interest of national security. The press will gleefully broadcast the press conference where the president tells the people that these measures are in their own best interest, and if you're not with us, you're against us. Then the press will show interviews with mouthpiece after mouthpiece that was recommended by the administration as a good source of balanced news.
And yes, the people could wage a guerilla war, but they're going to find it harder to do than the Iraqis because over here the gov't has your address on file, can tap nearly every means of communications you might use to organize (and with the patriot act, they have the right to do that just by labelling you a terrorist). They can stop all sources of funding for you (the banks are under federal control), and they don't just have 100,000 army guys to throw at you, they have every bit of the federal military, the national guard, and every single law enforcement officer will have your license plate number scrawled on their dashboard.
On top of that, you wouldn't be considered patriots, you'd be considered the bad guys because you blow things up, kill the good brave soldiers of the land, and otherwise be a disturbance of the peace, and people really care more about their SUV in the driveway, their cable TV, and their porn, and they don't really care about their freedoms. Therefore, everyone else will be ready to turn you in as well.
So yeah, it would be harder for a present day American to be a revolutionary, much harder than it is in Iraq. You're going to run out of willing suicide bombers in the US much faster than you will in Iraq.
While I agree with your logic, your last couple of statements are a bit laughable. Can you imagine a revolt with privately owned guns in this day and age?
.50 cal machine gun."
"Hey Billy-Bob, we're gonna go overthrow the government. You stand here and when the STEALTH F*CKING BOMBER comes over that hill and tries to drop a 500lb smart bomb on your ass, try to shoot him first with your Vietnam surplus
I think the point you should be trying to make is that the majority of the military needs to divided up and put under direct *local* civilian control. Therefore, if the federal government wanted to use the military against the people, they would have to convince the local civilian leadership to issue those orders, which would be a much safer situation, until the civilian leadership in New Hampshire decides to bomb New York... but nothing's perfect.
In the event that a particular state attempts to us its military against its own people, then a coalition of other states could get together and liberate that state (hopefully).
Does anyone else think that this is partly because of text based advertisements, and also because of the "adsense" idea? They've finally made advertising that is relevant to what you're looking for.
Maybe Christians are tired of seeing the proliferation of these things throughout society, because they see them as harmful to people whether they are Christian or not.
Let me tell you something - from a non-religious person here. The reason we non-religious people are tolerant of the majority christians in this country is because the teachings of your religion are to be tolerant and respect other peoples' free will. We respect that and it lets everyone live in peace.
After all, it's your belief that gets you into heaven, right, not your actions? And a government that forces the people to live their lives the "right" way is exactly what we're all fighting against over in Afghanistan (i.e. the Taliban).
Christians accept a free country because they figure that forcing people to live the right way won't get them into heaven if their soul is still broken. Therefore, either you're the type of person that would submit to sins, or you're not, but if you're this type of bad person, it doesn't matter if you never get a chance to commit those sins - you're still a bad person. You're going to hell unless you ask jesus' forgiveness for the very thoughts in your head. These ideas are even encoded in our legal system as mens rhea (sp?), or the "guilty mind", meaning you have to mean to do your action to be found guilty of a criminal act.
Therefore, you live in a country where you have the freedom to live your life the way you please. If you happen to live it in a way that benefits you, go right ahead, and if I happen to live it in a way that harms me, it's not your fault, it's mine. It's also my right.
So get your nose out of my business, and let's both go help someone who is actually asking for our help.
The capital one is the one I got hung up on too, and even in the "why?" link, it suggests that you shouldn't click on any of the links in the email, and just open a web browser and go to the site directly because it's suspicious.
I protest... that should have counted as correct.
"PC load letter?! What the f*ck does that mean??"
You are correct. The DSM only exists to function as a standard. As an analogy, look at internet RFC's. If you read all the RFC's, that wouldn't make you qualified to design a computer system until you took some courses, or got some experience in the field with real networks.
The same is true of the DSM - it is a reference manual for psychologists, not a do-it-yourself workbook. Psychologists diagnose people by talking to them first, then giving them a battery of psychological tests and scoring them on multiple criteria to determine if the person qualifies on each of the diagnostic criteria, and then finally using their professional judgement which comes with a lot of training and experience, peer review, etc., before giving the person a real diagnosis.
And sometimes (gasp!) they change their diagnoses so that they fit better into a category that the person's insurance company will recognize and agree to pay for the diagnosis and treatment. Oh, did I say that out loud?
So don't take the DSM too seriously. According to that book, everyone has some kind of diagnosable disorder.
You know what the real difference is? In home building the design is probably 10 or 15% of the total cost (pulled that out of my butt), but in software, the design is 98% of the total cost. When you finish the design (the code), you're essentially done.
When you're designing a $250,000 house, and you're half done the design and the future owner wants to move everything around, then it might become a $260,000 or $275,000 house cost and the owner sees a small percentage change because design is a small percentage of price. When you're designing a $250,000 software program which is 98% design cost, and the customer wants to make major changes half way through and you tell him the price is now $350,000 or more, they complain big time.
To fix this you need to break the software project up into pre-design and regular design stages. In the pre-design stage you need a mock-up of the application that you use can see and touch and feel, like the blueprints of a house, and let them change their mind then (i.e. rapid prototyping). The problem of course is that user interface design sometimes takes more than 10 to 15% of the total software time, so it's probably impossible, but something to think about.
Yes, I'm into Cryptonomicon right now, and was laughing quite a bit where he was explaining how Waterhouse (of the 40's) was using a mathematical model to explain his horniness (rho) and the model was becoming very complicated with the introduction of Mary Smith. That's the ultimate geek chapter right there.
I was going to recommend this book to some friends/family, but I realized that it's definitely only suitable for geeks.
Statutory specifically means that you don't have to prove how much damage was done. There are amounts already conveniently determined by the court (in the 10's of thousands of dollars per infringement range). It's at a judge's discretion depending on how willful the act was (and Sony would have a hard time saying they didn't intend to put that DRM software on the CDs, but they might be able to say that, had they known it contained copyrighted code, they would not have done so, which will only get them a few small points with the court). Kind of like manslaughter vs. murder. In either case you're responsible, and it just depends on how willful the act was.
What you're talking about is Actual damage. Not sure how much they could claim there (see the rest of this thread for more discussion on that).
Well, when the vehicles have a tendency to blow up, they MIGHT do a recall. Ford did not do the recall with the Pinto because they calculated that paying the lawsuits would be cheaper than the cost of fixing the problem. I wonder how they accounted for the public relations backlash though...
However, the people who actually had their car blow up can sue for lost wages, medical expenses, damages, and in the case of the US, "pain and suffering". That is where the big bucks are paid.
In the case of the CDs, it's two different issues. The consumers are harmed by the product, and they could sue, which is why you see the class action suits. However, this article is talking about the copyright infringement, which has nothing to do with the consumer, and everything to do with the copyright holder vs. Sony (and first 4 internet, perhaps). Doing a recall of the CDs won't compensate the copyright holder for the copyright violation. The copyright holder can sue for statutory or actual damages caused by the copyright infringement simply because Sony distributed a copyrighted work that didn't belong to them.
It depends. But one would expect that if aptitude is equally distributed throughout the countries of the world, and access to education is available, and the requirements for getting a Ph.D. is in the ballpark around the world, then you should be able to use a rate to compare how many people are actually getting their doctorate.
However, even with subsidized education, these other nations are going to find it harder to educate as many people due to economic reasons. If you grow up poor you're less likely to get a higher education, no matter what country you came from.
But I agree that if you're talking about all-out-technological warfare between countries then the sheer number of researchers (which is what a Ph.D. is) actually matters, as does quality of the research of course. Remember though, that in times of peace, almost all research done by academic institutions in the world is shared with the rest of the world, so even if China does end up doing much more research, then the US and other countries will still benefit from most of that research, just as the US currently benefits from research done in Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Brazil, Japan, etc., etc., etc., and those countries benefit from research done in the US.
Americans will still have a crack at taking research from elsewhere and selling it in the domestic market too.
MegaBlock clearly is in violation. IMHO this has less to do with Canadian law, and more to do with playing a game of tit for tat with the US over the Blackberries. That is not only a dangerous road to go down, but a foolish one.
I assume you're joking...?
First of all, LEGO is not a US company.
Secondly, MegaBlock is not in violation because the patent has expired. LEGO was trying to use trademark law to extend their monopoly.
Who cares about getting the $$$, this is supposed to be about getting people to do the right thing.
Slight correction - this is about deterring Sony from doing more wrong things in the future. I don't care where the money goes, as long as it costs Sony enough to pay attention to their mistake, and not repeat it.
Well obviously the guy who wrote the article can't do math. :) Or they don't even have a basic understanding of when to use absolute numbers or ratios.