I think part of the problem is that local media gives balanced reporting and thoughtful analysis of the problem, but as you go further away it becomes distilled, more cartoonlike, with the absurdity of the national news being the complete opposite of the local media and stimulating copycats - note the dispersion of the copycats after Columbine and Santana.
The local San Diego paper has had some pretty decent coverage, like this.
Searching uniontribune.com archives for things like Santana AND Granite Hills AND shooting, brings up a lot more (that is, when the search engine isn't broke - try a different set of dates).
Morbid humor is a healthy response to disasters. This is a yahaddabethere, but some people see the humor:
12:55 PM: shooting at Granite Hills.
1:30 PM: coworkers with kids there already out the door.
2:40 PM: I'm in the vanpool, news station droning on as they do when they don't have any new information, no one can find the police captain for the 2:30 news conference, bladdy-bladdy-blah. Driver finally punches the FM button to get away from it. I hear the first three notes, instantly name that tune, and sing out:
MY GUN BE JAMMIN'!
(nervous giggles from vanpool)
And Bob Marley replies: I wanna jam it wid you! We're jammin'!
Gales of laughter from vanpool, taking several minutes to die away completely.
The whole computing paradigm is shifting
to small hand held devices like the MS TabletPC or the iPAQ.
The whole computing paradigm is not shifting to the small hand held devices. Only the appropriate parts - just as minicomputers shifted parts of the mainframes that were appropriate (and a bit that weren't) and microcomputers did the same to minis. Now palms are getting the subset of micros that are appropriate, and some things that are not. There is also a merger of other technologies (ie, phone/paging, distributed computing etc.), but, as the Boyce interview someone else linked pointed out, 70% of data is still on mainframes.
There will always be a need for large centralized databases, to think your gasoline billing, banking, medical or government records can or should be distributed across a bunch of little devices is ludicrous.
Paradigm addition, paradigm division, fine, but not paradigm change.
...so the Japanese car company admired the Germans for how they had risen from the ashes of the world war to have the most prestigous nameplate in America. They realized some words sounded "funny" to other cultures, so they sent a marketing team to the most successful PR company in Germany to come up with a name palatable to Americans.
The Japanese explained the situation to the Germans, who nodded and asked what time frame they had to come up with a name.
Incorrect. This site has to comply with the law. Whether or not you agree with the law is
unimportant.
How can posting a bunch of links to the illegal copies of the copyrighted stuff be complying with the law that says "expeditiously to remove or disable access to the [infringing] material?
We need to see the penal code on it to really tell. Couldn't find with a quick search.
In common law, you would perhaps be correct. IANAL. If I say "hey, I saw a great deal on computers in the paper," and you go out and buy it, and it turns out to be stolen, and you lose the computer and your money, have I stolen anything from you? If I buy your house for $250K, and turn around that day and sell it to someone else for $325K, have I stolen anything from you? If I fake your IP address and use it to download free mpegs while you are offline, have I stolen anything from you? If I shoulder-surf your password to a mailserver, and don't do anything with it, have I stolen anything from you? If I encode stolen credit card numbers into a bogus napster file, have I stolen anything from any napster users? Are they receiving stolen propery? Is property theft? Is intellectual property law insane? Are the answers to any of these questions really as obvious as they appear?
About them being clueless, it's bull. They knew it was wrong, why else would they hack
into a open mail relay; why would they hide their identify?
When I wrote they are clueless, I was referring to them being so stupid as to try to claim they didn't know it was wrong, and being so easily caught, and thinking there would be no negative consequence to their acts. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. I'm a long-time spammer-hater. I even still have my Canter and Seigel spamming the globe t-shirt!
You are wrong. Search the CA code on line (you can get there from http://www.ca.gov )for unsolicited && electronic and you'll find it in the Business & Professions code as a misdemeanor (section 1738, if my 5 minute memory is working). Couldn't find the felony one in 5 minutes, though - anybody? It also specifically becomes moot if the feds pass a law.
to prosecute felonious spamming. Something actually has to break, not just use up someones electrons or time reading email. And, they have to be stupid enough to be caught. These guys were pretty clueless.
Ah yes, the old fortune. I once worked at a place that had a bunch of little old lady clerks. It had a bsd based unix, and would give a fortune when they logged on (cron ran it once a day and put it in motd). This fortune had specific switches for normal and offensive, where the normal was clean enough for little old ladies. Well, sure enough, one day the fortune said something to the effect...
The reason man learned to walk upright was to free his hands for masturbation. Lilly Tomlin
This is stupid. It allows a new kind of DoS attack - simply replicate real packets. What kind of signature can you get out of that? How do you know which are original/good packets?
Why do you think performance vehicles have temperature senders for differential fluids?
Which vehicles are those? Maybe I've just never run into the issue, but having had a 180MPH+ production car, I never heard of such a thing, and don't remember seeing any wires from the differential.
Often when there is a liquidation bankruptcy there is a public sale of leftover assets (Learn the differences between chapters 7, 11 and 13). Look in the classifieds of your nearest large metropolitan newspaper, and you can find the companies that are performing these sales. Usually you must have cash or a cashiers check, often they require you to put up a bond to bid, that means something like a cashiers check for $100 (or $5000 or...), then you have x days to bring the rest of the money for whatever you buy. For very large things, if you have a good relationship with your bank they might bridge loan you money, essentially charging you for the possibility they will loan you money on the item.
I went to the sale of a place I had worked at, and it was very interesting:
Old terminals: went for ~$50 (I missed them while chatting with someone - you must be alert!)
Nearly new VAX: not in evidence, turned out to have mysteriously wound up in the new company of the former "strategic planner."
Office furniture: various pretty decent deals.
Real estate (two large warehouse/office buildings): $1.4 mil (definitely the bargain of the sale, probably worth 50% more than that at that time. The guy had a cashiers check...)
Backstabbing former coworkers pleading for jobs: Priceless!
Another time I went to a government auction ("Buy jeeps for $52 from the goverment!"). It actually had some pretty decent stuff, although the Forest Service trucks they were selling seemed to be getting bids more than they were worth - I think the place was overrun with auto dismantlers who could make a profit at those prices. On the computer side, I bid on two pallets of stuff - I was only interested in the computers (a couple of unix boxes just like the ones I was using at work), although it included some big disk drives that I was considering converting into aluminum wheel polishers (no joke, a car magazine had published simple plans). IIRC, I bid $127 (written closed bidding), and it went for $135. Sheesh.
I've noticed that sometimes it will heal itself if you go to another page and then go back - even when reload doesn't work. What the heck is that all about? Inquiry to google got boilerplate.
It's all about personality. In my experience, employers don't give a shit about what
kind of marks you got in school. As large-scale software development is about
working in teams, employers are concerned about how you will fit in with the
team. If after the interview they have the slightest doubt, it doesn't matter what
your resume says, you will not be hired.
Having just seen the "Biography" on the Woz, I was going to take issue with this, until I realized you are exactly right. He never would have been hired for a large-scale software development project - an obscure, shy techie in HP was about as far as he would get.
Creating the personal computer industry was, literally, two guys in a garage, one of them working on software and hardware. Plus a venture capitalist.
You present a very negative and risk averse perspective on the world. Some might find
your strategy comforting, but you're never going to hit a "home run" that way, nor is it
the best strategy for finding and keeping a "good" job.
I have to say, for many people your view is bullshit. I've seen many situations (from both sides) where the contractors and regular workers do the same work for years and the only difference is their paychecks, often 3x more for the contractors - I've overheard Controllers and Directors exclaim about paying contractors more than them. I've even seen situations where there is more turnover of the regular employees, because the only way they can get more than a few percent increase in salary is to go elsewhere. In fact, in my 20 years, this year is the second time I received what I consider a reasonable raise - and I'm a contractor! Compared to tripling salary leaving one job...
Being a contractor is a good way to get a high salary ($150k - $300k annualized) but
GUARANTEE that you'll never A) work a full-time job again because you'll be so used to
your high salary, B) own equity in the company you work for and have a shot at making
a lot more than 200k, and C) feel a sense of loyalty to your company or have your
company trust and respect you.
A is not true, many contractors switch back to regular jobs when they get married or see the economy in their industry go in the dumper. In the early 90's, my salary went from 30K to 100K to 48K because of that (fortunately, I have non-salary income).
B is problematic - I've seen several people disprove it, because they have the ability to set their own hours so can devote time to creating their own company. Of course, most companies fail due to inadequate capitalization, but I do know one guy who started an ISP and actually sold it for a profit, and several who run little DSL ISP's (economically speaking, on the margin) for a bit of extra cash. Personally, I tend to get contracts that require way too much work to do stuff like that. Seems to happen every time I take a class towards a masters degree...
C is complete bullshit, as I'm sure others will respond to.
Good companies don't like hiring contractors because they offer no loyalty but demand
lots of money. Being a contractor is like being a mercenary -- companies don't like you
but you give them no choice and demand lots of money. I think that's a bad position to
put a company in.
There are no good companies, they've all gone bad due to short-term return considerations of the stock market.
Likewise, headhunters are also bad news to a lot of companies. They don't like hiring
people and paying 25 - 33% of year 1 salary as a fee. Again, this puts companies into the
position of not wanting to pay the money and make the headhunter rich, but ending up
doing it in the end because they want to hire you.
Headhunters fulfill a purpose. A scummy one, perhaps, but they provide a service to both parties.
Why not just find the company you want to work for and apply for a job directly? You'll
probably get a higher salary (becuase that money will go to you instead of the
headhunter...trust me, this is a consideration we make when hiring people at my
company!) and you won't start off feeling like a body that's just been brokered (which is
how headhunters talk about people to the hiring managers)
Slashdot Mirror
I think part of the problem is that local media gives balanced reporting and thoughtful analysis of the problem, but as you go further away it becomes distilled, more cartoonlike, with the absurdity of the national news being the complete opposite of the local media and stimulating copycats - note the dispersion of the copycats after Columbine and Santana.
The local San Diego paper has had some pretty decent coverage, like this.
Searching uniontribune.com archives for things like Santana AND Granite Hills AND shooting, brings up a lot more (that is, when the search engine isn't broke - try a different set of dates).
Morbid humor is a healthy response to disasters. This is a yahaddabethere, but some people see the humor:
12:55 PM: shooting at Granite Hills.
1:30 PM: coworkers with kids there already out the door.
2:40 PM: I'm in the vanpool, news station droning on as they do when they don't have any new information, no one can find the police captain for the 2:30 news conference, bladdy-bladdy-blah. Driver finally punches the FM button to get away from it. I hear the first three notes, instantly name that tune, and sing out:
MY GUN BE JAMMIN'!
(nervous giggles from vanpool)
And Bob Marley replies: I wanna jam it wid you! We're jammin'!
Gales of laughter from vanpool, taking several minutes to die away completely.
OK /., time for a contest - how long until zix comes out?
The only problem is what do they do with all those assembler programs which use bit 32 to indicate the end of an argument list?
Use perl to fix it.
The whole computing paradigm is shifting to small hand held devices like the MS TabletPC or the iPAQ.
The whole computing paradigm is not shifting to the small hand held devices. Only the appropriate parts - just as minicomputers shifted parts of the mainframes that were appropriate (and a bit that weren't) and microcomputers did the same to minis. Now palms are getting the subset of micros that are appropriate, and some things that are not. There is also a merger of other technologies (ie, phone/paging, distributed computing etc.), but, as the Boyce interview someone else linked pointed out, 70% of data is still on mainframes.
There will always be a need for large centralized databases, to think your gasoline billing, banking, medical or government records can or should be distributed across a bunch of little devices is ludicrous.
Paradigm addition, paradigm division, fine, but not paradigm change.
...so the Japanese car company admired the Germans for how they had risen from the ashes of the world war to have the most prestigous nameplate in America. They realized some words sounded "funny" to other cultures, so they sent a marketing team to the most successful PR company in Germany to come up with a name palatable to Americans.
The Japanese explained the situation to the Germans, who nodded and asked what time frame they had to come up with a name.
The Japanese replied, "We need by next Thursday."
"Dat soon?"
I am so sick of geeks claiming that they are being wronged but then not getting off the boxen long enough to make a difference.
The boxen is mightier than the pen.
Incorrect. This site has to comply with the law. Whether or not you agree with the law is unimportant.
How can posting a bunch of links to the illegal copies of the copyrighted stuff be complying with the law that says "expeditiously to remove or disable access to the [infringing] material?
We need to see the penal code on it to really tell. Couldn't find with a quick search.
In common law, you would perhaps be correct. IANAL. If I say "hey, I saw a great deal on computers in the paper," and you go out and buy it, and it turns out to be stolen, and you lose the computer and your money, have I stolen anything from you? If I buy your house for $250K, and turn around that day and sell it to someone else for $325K, have I stolen anything from you? If I fake your IP address and use it to download free mpegs while you are offline, have I stolen anything from you? If I shoulder-surf your password to a mailserver, and don't do anything with it, have I stolen anything from you? If I encode stolen credit card numbers into a bogus napster file, have I stolen anything from any napster users? Are they receiving stolen propery? Is property theft? Is intellectual property law insane? Are the answers to any of these questions really as obvious as they appear?
About them being clueless, it's bull. They knew it was wrong, why else would they hack into a open mail relay; why would they hide their identify?
When I wrote they are clueless, I was referring to them being so stupid as to try to claim they didn't know it was wrong, and being so easily caught, and thinking there would be no negative consequence to their acts. Sorry I wasn't clear on that. I'm a long-time spammer-hater. I even still have my Canter and Seigel spamming the globe t-shirt!
You are wrong. Search the CA code on line (you can get there from http://www.ca.gov )for unsolicited && electronic and you'll find it in the Business & Professions code as a misdemeanor (section 1738, if my 5 minute memory is working). Couldn't find the felony one in 5 minutes, though - anybody? It also specifically becomes moot if the feds pass a law.
to prosecute felonious spamming. Something actually has to break, not just use up someones electrons or time reading email. And, they have to be stupid enough to be caught. These guys were pretty clueless.
Well, there ain't any on my V12 E32.
Oh, I meant to mention I'm writing this from where several cow-orkers live within pistol distance of Santana High.
Ah yes, the old fortune. I once worked at a place that had a bunch of little old lady clerks. It had a bsd based unix, and would give a fortune when they logged on (cron ran it once a day and put it in motd). This fortune had specific switches for normal and offensive, where the normal was clean enough for little old ladies. Well, sure enough, one day the fortune said something to the effect...
The reason man learned to walk upright was to free his hands for masturbation.
Lilly Tomlin
No more fortune on that network!
Hey, even the police get pissed off about getting caught by cameras! Mod this link up: union-trib story about red-light cameras
In the US, they are using infrared cameras to look into people's homes. War on Drugs and all that.
When they outlaw ECM only criminals will have ECM. Oh wait... the FCC... "Rilly occifer, I didn't know my alternator was arcing so much"
Anti-camera privacy group gives up and says thanks for all the fish
This is stupid. It allows a new kind of DoS attack - simply replicate real packets. What kind of signature can you get out of that? How do you know which are original/good packets?
Actually, there is a simple answer to the speed of recharging problem. Swappable battery modules.
Can't remember where I read it (probably Autoweek), but someone (perhaps Ovoid corp) is actually pushing this idea - you could do it at gas stations.
Click here for alternative fueled vehicle links
Solar Challenger.
Why do you think performance vehicles have temperature senders for differential fluids?
Which vehicles are those? Maybe I've just never run into the issue, but having had a 180MPH+ production car, I never heard of such a thing, and don't remember seeing any wires from the differential.
Anybody remember gas-powered R/C cars?
Often when there is a liquidation bankruptcy there is a public sale of leftover assets (Learn the differences between chapters 7, 11 and 13). Look in the classifieds of your nearest large metropolitan newspaper, and you can find the companies that are performing these sales. Usually you must have cash or a cashiers check, often they require you to put up a bond to bid, that means something like a cashiers check for $100 (or $5000 or...), then you have x days to bring the rest of the money for whatever you buy. For very large things, if you have a good relationship with your bank they might bridge loan you money, essentially charging you for the possibility they will loan you money on the item.
I went to the sale of a place I had worked at, and it was very interesting:
Old terminals: went for ~$50 (I missed them while chatting with someone - you must be alert!)
Nearly new VAX: not in evidence, turned out to have mysteriously wound up in the new company of the former "strategic planner."
Office furniture: various pretty decent deals.
Real estate (two large warehouse/office buildings): $1.4 mil (definitely the bargain of the sale, probably worth 50% more than that at that time. The guy had a cashiers check...)
Backstabbing former coworkers pleading for jobs: Priceless!
Another time I went to a government auction ("Buy jeeps for $52 from the goverment!"). It actually had some pretty decent stuff, although the Forest Service trucks they were selling seemed to be getting bids more than they were worth - I think the place was overrun with auto dismantlers who could make a profit at those prices. On the computer side, I bid on two pallets of stuff - I was only interested in the computers (a couple of unix boxes just like the ones I was using at work), although it included some big disk drives that I was considering converting into aluminum wheel polishers (no joke, a car magazine had published simple plans). IIRC, I bid $127 (written closed bidding), and it went for $135. Sheesh.
The google cache seems to be garbled
I've noticed that sometimes it will heal itself if you go to another page and then go back - even when reload doesn't work. What the heck is that all about? Inquiry to google got boilerplate.
It's all about personality. In my experience, employers don't give a shit about what kind of marks you got in school. As large-scale software development is about working in teams, employers are concerned about how you will fit in with the team. If after the interview they have the slightest doubt, it doesn't matter what your resume says, you will not be hired.
Having just seen the "Biography" on the Woz, I was going to take issue with this, until I realized you are exactly right. He never would have been hired for a large-scale software development project - an obscure, shy techie in HP was about as far as he would get.
Creating the personal computer industry was, literally, two guys in a garage, one of them working on software and hardware. Plus a venture capitalist.
You present a very negative and risk averse perspective on the world. Some might find your strategy comforting, but you're never going to hit a "home run" that way, nor is it the best strategy for finding and keeping a "good" job.
I have to say, for many people your view is bullshit. I've seen many situations (from both sides) where the contractors and regular workers do the same work for years and the only difference is their paychecks, often 3x more for the contractors - I've overheard Controllers and Directors exclaim about paying contractors more than them. I've even seen situations where there is more turnover of the regular employees, because the only way they can get more than a few percent increase in salary is to go elsewhere. In fact, in my 20 years, this year is the second time I received what I consider a reasonable raise - and I'm a contractor! Compared to tripling salary leaving one job...
Being a contractor is a good way to get a high salary ($150k - $300k annualized) but GUARANTEE that you'll never A) work a full-time job again because you'll be so used to your high salary, B) own equity in the company you work for and have a shot at making a lot more than 200k, and C) feel a sense of loyalty to your company or have your company trust and respect you.
A is not true, many contractors switch back to regular jobs when they get married or see the economy in their industry go in the dumper. In the early 90's, my salary went from 30K to 100K to 48K because of that (fortunately, I have non-salary income).
B is problematic - I've seen several people disprove it, because they have the ability to set their own hours so can devote time to creating their own company. Of course, most companies fail due to inadequate capitalization, but I do know one guy who started an ISP and actually sold it for a profit, and several who run little DSL ISP's (economically speaking, on the margin) for a bit of extra cash. Personally, I tend to get contracts that require way too much work to do stuff like that. Seems to happen every time I take a class towards a masters degree...
C is complete bullshit, as I'm sure others will respond to.
Good companies don't like hiring contractors because they offer no loyalty but demand lots of money. Being a contractor is like being a mercenary -- companies don't like you but you give them no choice and demand lots of money. I think that's a bad position to put a company in.
There are no good companies, they've all gone bad due to short-term return considerations of the stock market.
Likewise, headhunters are also bad news to a lot of companies. They don't like hiring people and paying 25 - 33% of year 1 salary as a fee. Again, this puts companies into the position of not wanting to pay the money and make the headhunter rich, but ending up doing it in the end because they want to hire you.
Headhunters fulfill a purpose. A scummy one, perhaps, but they provide a service to both parties.
Why not just find the company you want to work for and apply for a job directly? You'll probably get a higher salary (becuase that money will go to you instead of the headhunter...trust me, this is a consideration we make when hiring people at my company!) and you won't start off feeling like a body that's just been brokered (which is how headhunters talk about people to the hiring managers)