What's that bit about Jerusalem? Maybe Israel changed its capital to a city that is a point of discord with Palestine, without anyone but the poster noticing:)
I'm francophone as well, and I'm sure I saw dextre used as an adjective, meaning someone who has good dexterity. Though without surprise my Petit Larousse 1995 says the same thing as yours, so you're probably right:)
Defending Monsanto (even in a qualified way) isn't good for one's karma, but...
Even farmers who try to avoid Monsanto products can end up with their fields being contaminated with seed from other farmers' nearby plots, and then Monsanto sends their lawyers after them. Actually, not quite. If your fields get contaminated with Monsanto crops, they won't sue. This would be a good point, if it were true. Sadly, Monsanto *does* sue farmers who have accidental contamination of their fields :
Choice quotes : At the time, Roundup Ready canola was in use by several farmers in the area. Schmeiser claimed that he did not plant the initial roundup ready canola, and that his field of custom-bred canola had been accidentally contaminated. Possibly routes of this Gene flow include seed which escaped from passing trucks containing Roundup Ready harvests, or natural, accidental pollination. Monsanto initially claimed that Schmeiser planted Roundup Ready Canola in his fields intentionally, though they could offer no evidence for this. The company later admitted that it was possible for unintentional gene flow to have resulted in the initial presence of Roundup Ready Canola in Schmeiser's field. While the origin of the plants on Schmeisers farm remains unclear, the trial judge found that "none of the suggested sources [proposed by Schmeiser] could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality" ultimately present in Schmeiser's crop.[3]
Somewhat off-topic, but an anecdote related to massive consumer calls to tech support.
Back in the day, I was an IRC Operator for a large Undernet server, and there came a time where the new thing for troublemakers was to use open proxies on cable connections to flood channels/servers. One cable provider had a particularly large number of clients whose setup was used to attack the network and generally cause trouble.
At first, being in the area of that provider, I called tech support and escalated the issue as much as I could. My point was that they were ultimately responsible for the abuse coming from their network. Long story short, for months I got nothing but "we'll look into it".
After a particularly nasty week, and after consulting with the server admins, we decided to ban the whole ip range of that provider from using our server (they could still use the rest of Undernet, but our server was popular for them). The ban kicked > 1000 clients from the server with a message like : Your provider does not respond to abuse complaints. Contact your provider's technical support to have this issue resolved.
10 minutes later, there was a 30 minute wait at the provider's tech line. On a sunday afternoon. One hour later, I got an email saying they were blocking inbound port 1080 at their router to protect their clients machines from being abused.
I guess the point is, when something generates enough backlash, preferably with a nice surprise effect, things can change. The hard thing is to organize people enough to harass the company about it.
(posting cancels a moderation, but I'd rather contribute).
Consider not having the energy to get back up from your microwaved macaroni when you realize you forgot to take a fork, and just leaving it there uneaten because it's too hot to eat with your fingers, and just "not worth it", after all. Then try to imagine how someone in that state can draw the strength to "start focusing on what needs to be done".
It's an incredibly nasty circle to get drawn in, and not as simple as just changing a mindset.
I don't think there's a simple way to generally describe depression, as it is a consequence of so many different causes. Mine was because of work burn out.
For me, sadness and depression are two completely different feelings. Sadness is an easy feeling to describe : losing something dear, an opportunity, someone, or just generally being disappointed with life. It can go far, and can lead to depression, but it's "just" a feeling. I was sad I let down my team mates, for instance, but that wasn't the issue.
Depression is being so overwhelmed by a situation that feelings are a constant jumble. Sadness, hopelessness, rage, apathy, frustration, but mostly a serious lack of energy and motivation to do *anything*. Getting up in the morning takes you 15 minutes of anxious anticipation, as if all of the day's weight was concentrated in that silly little step off the bed. You sit somewhere, getting up to DO something takes forever, and the longer it takes, the more you hate yourself for being so lazy for not doing anything.
In a funny twist of english influence over french-speakers in Quebec, we imported 'fuck' into our day-to-day speech.
We use 'fuck' extremely casually: 'ah fuck!' is often used when a native english speaker would say "Ah, geez!", and 'fuck it!' is used just as casually...
Just wanted to add another example to your argument that the actual word has nothing to do with it, rather it's the way people are used to hearing/saying it in their culture.
Agreed, the DMCA forces a shoot first, call your lawyer later approach which I think puts an undue burden on the little guy (i.e. the one having to file a put back up notice). I didn't mention this in my previous post, because my point in that post was that for a company like Google (Youtube), not complying with the law is simply not an option.
That's not saying I think the DMCA is a good law (I don't). But, whether we like it or not, it's there to stay, and companies (and people) have to jump through its lawyer-filled hoops.
It's not that he *thinks* they have no choice. That's how the law (DMCA) is written. ISPs are protected from lawsuits by copyright holders because of the safe harbor provision.
When a copyright holder sends a takedown notice to an ISP, that ISP is *required by law* to take down the material, otherwise they lose their safe harbor and can end up being sued for the non-removed content. Grand-parent is right, the presumption of guilt is a feature of the DMCA. The ISP is not supposed to judge on the merits of the complaint: that dispute is between the end user and the copyright holder. The ISP, therefore, remains neutral in the 'conflict'. Complying with a takedown notice is the only choice that makes legal sense for an ISP/site such as Youtube, and therefore is not a choice at all.
I guess this is where our sense of morals differ: while you consider my point of view "idiotic in the extreme", I consider that saying in absolute terms that anyone who would break in to your house should be killed on sight extremely disturbing.
Then again, we don't have a God Given Right to shoot at our neighbors, where I live (neither does most of the civilized world).
Your mistake is in using the phrase, "thief who posed no threat". That would appear to be an oxymoron, to me. A thief by definition poses a threat to your property. It does not follow that the same thief poses a threat to your physical safety or your life. That's for one distinction.
For another, killing the thief after the theft is done serves no other purpose than revenge.
If you are willing to kill someone for reasons other than to defend your (or another's) life at the time where it is threatened, then I don't know what to say to you.
I switched from a software analyst job to teaching a year ago after recovering from a burn out. I find it extremely stimulating, and though correcting papers/projects isn't the funnest thing I can think of, there are tons of advantages you won't find in any regular workplace: the (usually) relax beat, the fun you can have seeing what it's like being a teen/young adult again, and the whole summer off (I get about 8 weeks vacation during summer, and over a month at Christmas)... those are really great conditions to be working in.
That said, teaching isn't for everyone (neither is IT, for that matter). But if you think you would like it, it can be a great opportunity, but prepare to take a drastic net salary drop (But do calculate it over working about 10 months instead of 12).
I'd like some precanned ones like 'Get out of the left lane slowpoke', 'Try a turn signal', 'Off My Ass' just to name a few.
<rant> Funny, considering how people who always complain of "slowpokes" in the left lanes are usually the same people that leave about 3 feet behind said slowpokes... thus becoming eligible for the "Off My Ass" message.
Why do WE have to do something about it? Where is the rest of the world? Why can't the UN and it's member parties that aren't the US grow some balls and take care of things?
In large part because the US does not want it to. It undermines (at the least, or vetoes at the worst) those initiatives almost systematically. For an example, check for the UN's many resolutions to do something about the "situation" in Israel, and what the United States did to make sure absolutely nothing happenned.
Sorry if that sounds selfish, but I think enough American lives have been lost in other countries, only to have us hated and ridiculed by other countries. Forget it. World police is a thankless job and I don't think my country should have to do it anymore.
No, you may not want your country to send soldiers to be killed in other countries, but the arrogance of the US's administrations (note the plural), and its desire to leave absolutely no doubt that they are the world's strongest country is rooted deeper than just one president. It's just gotten a lot worse since 2000.
Let me get this straight. You are proud that employees of the company you worked at successfully blackmailed directors into leaving?
What did it really accomplish? Those guys just quit, and will have another job in no time, maybe even a better pay, and they get to keep doing nothing while you get to work in an unstable, morose work environment, and you're still helping those at the top of the company make money out of your efforts.
No, you are not the first to have that kind of problem in any power structure. And over decades, people tried all sorts of means, and the "right" one still works best.
If you do not like your work environment, your bosses, or you feel the company is screwed up, you simply leave, explaining why. You find a better position elsewhere. Start your own company while you're at it. If something illegal is going on, you denounce it as you leave. I know, I know, it requires more effort. But think about it: you get to work somewhere you like more, and your (ex-)company has to spend resources to hire your replacement. What's more, if harming a company is your goal (it shouldn't), if many employees quit "en bloc", the company has a severe problem on their hands, and C*O's will start looking for people to blame as their revenue plummets. Then the problem boss gets fired (as opposed to quitting gracefully), and has more difficulty finding another job.
But then, it requires a quality that's sadly in severe decline in the technlogy industry: personal integrity.
I'm not keen on electrical physics, so I don't claim to understand why it happened the way it did, but your explanation makes sense. Maybe I touched two different pins of the plug to the outlet screws, I don't know. As I said, I wasn't looking at what I was doing.
It's an anecdote I get a good laugh out of now, but I didn't laugh back then. Feel free to believe it or not, it is not something for which I'll waste time trying to convince someone that it happened as I described.
Hint: Don't try this at home, it could cost you a computer:P
Back at my parent's house, we were juste done painting so the plastic plaques over the electric outlets were removed. Wanting to print something, I realized that the printer was unplugged. Not really looking at what I was doing, I aimed the printer's plug in the general direction of the outlet... and touched both little screws with the ground pin.
The end result was an inch-wide hole in the printer board, paper that caught fire, a sound very much like pop-corn coming from the computer case, and a completely ruined 486. When I opened it, There weren't many chips still welded to the motherboard. The CPU was stuck somewhere between the hard drive and the floppy, RAM was loose, some cards were welded in place. The last thing to blow was the power supply's fuse, though I can't say I would expect designers to think some wacko would send 120 volts through the parallel port:D
Yes. That's the job of law enforcement: to watch EVERYBODY for evidence of a crime.
No. The job of law enforcement is to investigate actual crimes that were commited to find those involved in commiting them, and bringing them to a court of justice where evidence is presented and the suspects judged.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, this is the first I've seen the Avatar games described as "ground-breaking".
They are aweful, scoring from 50 to 60 on metacritic. We're talking about a real revolution there!
I did not know that. Thank you for the pointers!
What's that bit about Jerusalem? Maybe Israel changed its capital to a city that is a point of discord with Palestine, without anyone but the poster noticing :)
I tagged this with the only thing I remember from learning COBOL :
DISPLAY SPACES UPON CRT WITH BLANK SCREEN.
which is quite a mouthful compared to the previous clrscr() I was used to! :P It makes a cute tag, too : displayspacesuponcrtwithblankscreen.
I'm francophone as well, and I'm sure I saw dextre used as an adjective, meaning someone who has good dexterity. Though without surprise my Petit Larousse 1995 says the same thing as yours, so you're probably right :)
Case in point
Choice quotes :
At the time, Roundup Ready canola was in use by several farmers in the area. Schmeiser claimed that he did not plant the initial roundup ready canola, and that his field of custom-bred canola had been accidentally contaminated. Possibly routes of this Gene flow include seed which escaped from passing trucks containing Roundup Ready harvests, or natural, accidental pollination. Monsanto initially claimed that Schmeiser planted Roundup Ready Canola in his fields intentionally, though they could offer no evidence for this. The company later admitted that it was possible for unintentional gene flow to have resulted in the initial presence of Roundup Ready Canola in Schmeiser's field. While the origin of the plants on Schmeisers farm remains unclear, the trial judge found that "none of the suggested sources [proposed by Schmeiser] could reasonably explain the concentration or extent of Roundup Ready canola of a commercial quality" ultimately present in Schmeiser's crop.[3]
Not that it makes the reference to the show any less funny, but "Dextre" is French for nimble. As in the easier word Dexterity :)
Somewhat off-topic, but an anecdote related to massive consumer calls to tech support.
Back in the day, I was an IRC Operator for a large Undernet server, and there came a time where the new thing for troublemakers was to use open proxies on cable connections to flood channels/servers. One cable provider had a particularly large number of clients whose setup was used to attack the network and generally cause trouble.
At first, being in the area of that provider, I called tech support and escalated the issue as much as I could. My point was that they were ultimately responsible for the abuse coming from their network. Long story short, for months I got nothing but "we'll look into it".
After a particularly nasty week, and after consulting with the server admins, we decided to ban the whole ip range of that provider from using our server (they could still use the rest of Undernet, but our server was popular for them). The ban kicked > 1000 clients from the server with a message like : Your provider does not respond to abuse complaints. Contact your provider's technical support to have this issue resolved.
10 minutes later, there was a 30 minute wait at the provider's tech line. On a sunday afternoon. One hour later, I got an email saying they were blocking inbound port 1080 at their router to protect their clients machines from being abused.
I guess the point is, when something generates enough backlash, preferably with a nice surprise effect, things can change. The hard thing is to organize people enough to harass the company about it.
(posting cancels a moderation, but I'd rather contribute).
Consider not having the energy to get back up from your microwaved macaroni when you realize you forgot to take a fork, and just leaving it there uneaten because it's too hot to eat with your fingers, and just "not worth it", after all. Then try to imagine how someone in that state can draw the strength to "start focusing on what needs to be done".
It's an incredibly nasty circle to get drawn in, and not as simple as just changing a mindset.
I don't think there's a simple way to generally describe depression, as it is a consequence of so many different causes. Mine was because of work burn out.
For me, sadness and depression are two completely different feelings. Sadness is an easy feeling to describe : losing something dear, an opportunity, someone, or just generally being disappointed with life. It can go far, and can lead to depression, but it's "just" a feeling. I was sad I let down my team mates, for instance, but that wasn't the issue.
Depression is being so overwhelmed by a situation that feelings are a constant jumble. Sadness, hopelessness, rage, apathy, frustration, but mostly a serious lack of energy and motivation to do *anything*. Getting up in the morning takes you 15 minutes of anxious anticipation, as if all of the day's weight was concentrated in that silly little step off the bed. You sit somewhere, getting up to DO something takes forever, and the longer it takes, the more you hate yourself for being so lazy for not doing anything.
In a funny twist of english influence over french-speakers in Quebec, we imported 'fuck' into our day-to-day speech.
We use 'fuck' extremely casually: 'ah fuck!' is often used when a native english speaker would say "Ah, geez!", and 'fuck it!' is used just as casually...
Just wanted to add another example to your argument that the actual word has nothing to do with it, rather it's the way people are used to hearing/saying it in their culture.
Agreed, the DMCA forces a shoot first, call your lawyer later approach which I think puts an undue burden on the little guy (i.e. the one having to file a put back up notice). I didn't mention this in my previous post, because my point in that post was that for a company like Google (Youtube), not complying with the law is simply not an option.
That's not saying I think the DMCA is a good law (I don't). But, whether we like it or not, it's there to stay, and companies (and people) have to jump through its lawyer-filled hoops.
It's not that he *thinks* they have no choice. That's how the law (DMCA) is written. ISPs are protected from lawsuits by copyright holders because of the safe harbor provision.
When a copyright holder sends a takedown notice to an ISP, that ISP is *required by law* to take down the material, otherwise they lose their safe harbor and can end up being sued for the non-removed content. Grand-parent is right, the presumption of guilt is a feature of the DMCA. The ISP is not supposed to judge on the merits of the complaint: that dispute is between the end user and the copyright holder. The ISP, therefore, remains neutral in the 'conflict'. Complying with a takedown notice is the only choice that makes legal sense for an ISP/site such as Youtube, and therefore is not a choice at all.
Don't take my word for it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCILLA
Grandparent was referring to oil made from the seeds of grapes, which you may just learn about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape_seed_oil
Besides why would one want to go to an asian market for canola oil? The stuff is everywhere!
I guess this is where our sense of morals differ: while you consider my point of view "idiotic in the extreme", I consider that saying in absolute terms that anyone who would break in to your house should be killed on sight extremely disturbing.
Then again, we don't have a God Given Right to shoot at our neighbors, where I live (neither does most of the civilized world).
For another, killing the thief after the theft is done serves no other purpose than revenge.
If you are willing to kill someone for reasons other than to defend your (or another's) life at the time where it is threatened, then I don't know what to say to you.
I switched from a software analyst job to teaching a year ago after recovering from a burn out. I find it extremely stimulating, and though correcting papers/projects isn't the funnest thing I can think of, there are tons of advantages you won't find in any regular workplace: the (usually) relax beat, the fun you can have seeing what it's like being a teen/young adult again, and the whole summer off (I get about 8 weeks vacation during summer, and over a month at Christmas)... those are really great conditions to be working in.
That said, teaching isn't for everyone (neither is IT, for that matter). But if you think you would like it, it can be a great opportunity, but prepare to take a drastic net salary drop (But do calculate it over working about 10 months instead of 12).
Well, you fooled a 100% wool Quebecer there!
:P
That sentence is gramatically and syntaxically correct in Quebec French
I think he has a pretty good chance of either getting off,[...]
:P
Sorry, can't resist: that's usually the point of pornography.
"So the US Postal Service is in unfair competition against FedEx and UPS?"
p
Funny you would say that, considering UPS is suing the Canadian Government over the Canadian Postal Service, which it accuses of unfair competition.
http://www.intmail.com/wds/info/USPSSuesCanada.as
I'd like some precanned ones like 'Get out of the left lane slowpoke', 'Try a turn signal', 'Off My Ass' just to name a few.
<rant>
Funny, considering how people who always complain of "slowpokes" in the left lanes are usually the same people that leave about 3 feet behind said slowpokes... thus becoming eligible for the "Off My Ass" message.
</rant>
Why do WE have to do something about it? Where is the rest of the world? Why can't the UN and it's member parties that aren't the US grow some balls and take care of things?
In large part because the US does not want it to. It undermines (at the least, or vetoes at the worst) those initiatives almost systematically. For an example, check for the UN's many resolutions to do something about the "situation" in Israel, and what the United States did to make sure absolutely nothing happenned.
Sorry if that sounds selfish, but I think enough American lives have been lost in other countries, only to have us hated and ridiculed by other countries. Forget it. World police is a thankless job and I don't think my country should have to do it anymore.
No, you may not want your country to send soldiers to be killed in other countries, but the arrogance of the US's administrations (note the plural), and its desire to leave absolutely no doubt that they are the world's strongest country is rooted deeper than just one president. It's just gotten a lot worse since 2000.
Let me get this straight. You are proud that employees of the company you worked at successfully blackmailed directors into leaving?
What did it really accomplish? Those guys just quit, and will have another job in no time, maybe even a better pay, and they get to keep doing nothing while you get to work in an unstable, morose work environment, and you're still helping those at the top of the company make money out of your efforts.
No, you are not the first to have that kind of problem in any power structure. And over decades, people tried all sorts of means, and the "right" one still works best.
If you do not like your work environment, your bosses, or you feel the company is screwed up, you simply leave, explaining why. You find a better position elsewhere. Start your own company while you're at it. If something illegal is going on, you denounce it as you leave. I know, I know, it requires more effort. But think about it: you get to work somewhere you like more, and your (ex-)company has to spend resources to hire your replacement. What's more, if harming a company is your goal (it shouldn't), if many employees quit "en bloc", the company has a severe problem on their hands, and C*O's will start looking for people to blame as their revenue plummets. Then the problem boss gets fired (as opposed to quitting gracefully), and has more difficulty finding another job.
But then, it requires a quality that's sadly in severe decline in the technlogy industry: personal integrity.
I'm not keen on electrical physics, so I don't claim to understand why it happened the way it did, but your explanation makes sense. Maybe I touched two different pins of the plug to the outlet screws, I don't know. As I said, I wasn't looking at what I was doing.
It's an anecdote I get a good laugh out of now, but I didn't laugh back then. Feel free to believe it or not, it is not something for which I'll waste time trying to convince someone that it happened as I described.
Hint: Don't try this at home, it could cost you a computer :P
:D
Back at my parent's house, we were juste done painting so the plastic plaques over the electric outlets were removed. Wanting to print something, I realized that the printer was unplugged. Not really looking at what I was doing, I aimed the printer's plug in the general direction of the outlet... and touched both little screws with the ground pin.
The end result was an inch-wide hole in the printer board, paper that caught fire, a sound very much like pop-corn coming from the computer case, and a completely ruined 486. When I opened it, There weren't many chips still welded to the motherboard. The CPU was stuck somewhere between the hard drive and the floppy, RAM was loose, some cards were welded in place. The last thing to blow was the power supply's fuse, though I can't say I would expect designers to think some wacko would send 120 volts through the parallel port
No. The job of law enforcement is to investigate actual crimes that were commited to find those involved in commiting them, and bringing them to a court of justice where evidence is presented and the suspects judged.