Bird's eye bird's eye, dancing guy, two chicks looking at each other, bird's eye, chicks again, that dog faced god looking to the heavens, some women throwing wheat into the air, guys picking ground, bird's eye, god of something, mound of cement.
The rules only require companies to maintain their normal course of business. The exception is if a company realizes it is going to be sued, or the target of a government investigation.
Think about that. Large companies are always going to be hit by this. Microsoft, Apple, Sun, IBM, General Motors, Ford, State Farm, Allstate... you name it, once they get large enough, there is always going to be a lawsuit or investigation either pending, or in progress. Some of these things can drag out for decades.
This rule essentially says "If your company is successful, you will eventually have to store everything, forever."
No, seriously... whenever a system crashes, you can pop it in, and BAM - you get the certain knowledge that, no matter how bad things might be, you're at least one step above absolute rock bottom.
information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause
Propaganda is a specific type of message presentation aimed at serving an agenda. At its root, the denotation of propaganda is 'to propagate (actively spread) a philosophy or point of view'. The most common use of the term (historically) is in political contexts; in particular to refer to certain efforts sponsored by governments or political groups.
Any media text which seeks openly to persuade an audience of the validity of particular beliefs.
The promotion of specific ideas or views, often political in nature.
information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc.
the deliberate spreading of such information, rumors, etc.
the particular doctrines or principles propagated by an organization or movement.
So, really, by definition, propaganda is any deliberate attempt at advocacy. The format and genre of "An Inconvenient Truth" may be that of a documentary, but it is definitely a piece of propaganda.
No, just trying to point out how easy it would be to abuse the "I shouldn't have to do any work to protect my copyright" position. It's one of those ideas that just doesn't scale too well.
??AA: "Just to play devil's advocate, why should we have to waste our time searching through all of these different computers to see if they have our content on them? Especially because even if we remove it all, it could easily be re-downloaded by someone else the next day. Our time is valuable to us, and if we have to spend some of it trying to protect our stuff, then that leaves us less time to sign new artists, or go on promotions, or count our money, or whatever."
No, of course you don't. Because you don't need to. You log in, access the data from the intarweb...
...at which point, you've just moved data from there to here. Maybe it's a different representation of the data, but you're moving it nonetheless. Network transparency is an old idea, and while it may make you think that all you're data is "over there", that's just a clever illusion created by moving data implicitly instead of explicitly.
* No clueless or senile volunteer workers that have to be shown where you are on the Registered Voter Roster, even when you fill out your "application to vote form" legibly. (God Bless the elderly, but please, keep them away from being a polling place volunteer. It's frustrating, every time I have voted in person.)
Have you ever thought of volunteering to help with an election? Where I vote, every year, they have a sign-up sheet asking for people interested in assisting to sign up. Every year for the past five years, I've put my name down. No calls, but this year, for some reason, the little old ladies in tennis shoes at the polling place seemed really excited about the fact that I was willing to volunteer. Maybe it's the presence of the new electronic voting machines being a change in the normal process that they're used to.
In any case - if you have the option to get involved, why not do so, instead of complaining?
I'm still waiting for the custom face razor, where with one scrape I am able to shave my entire face. 640 blades would be just about the right number needed for one of these.
Yeah, 640K... I mean, 640 blades ought to be enough for anyone.
most of the companies of that size that i have worked with are more likely to use an ugly cobbling of proprietary apps designed for their vertical market
Why are you assuming that the target for an Oracle appliance is the companies themselves? Sure, they will be the ones who will eventually use it... but they are not necessarily (nor likely) the ones who will be assembling it, testing it, selling it or supporting it.
An Oracle appliance has a whole lot of value if you're someone selling into a vertical market. Want sell your accounting software? Here - install it on this appliance, and you can sell it in it's own box, pre-configured for whatever business you happen to be in. No more worrying about which version of the DB you're running against, no more worrying about other processes on the box, no more worrying about botched installs or customer "fixes" to your database.... want to add parts inventory, web store, personnel management? Just add a couple of new applications. I wouldn't be surprised to see them come up with a product a small business support framework (if they don't have it already) - buy a developer's license for it, customize the business logic core, and resell it as part of your vertical business plumbing appliance. Think of the Oracle appliance as a core component of something like SAP for small businesses, and you get the picture.
2. You have to first present ID to get your ballot.
Why... how absolutely barbaric! I never realized that you Canadians were such... such... racists! How could you not realize that requiring voter identification is a burden that unfairly disenfranchises black and elderly voters?
Seriously. This is what we have to contend with. If you want voters to present ID, you're a racist. I've heard people argue that even maintaining a list of eligible voters is implicitly racist, since the only reason to do so is to be able to identify and remove the improper people.
We'd rather see 10,000 crooked elections go unchallenged than potentially inconvenience someone by requiring them to check their name on a list and have some form of identification.
I do however see a need for super computers who need to work with filesystems spanning perhaps hundreds of disks.
Super computers? Once, maybe - not today, and not for the last decade or so. There are a bunch of companies (I'm working for one of them, now) that will quite cheerfully sell you a storage system that spans hundreds of disks. Assuming your OS won't flake out when it sees a 500+ TB volume, you could mount it on your desktop, if you want. There's absolutely no need to conflate processing power (super computers) with storage capability (NAS, SAN, etc.)
Dedication to their principle is exactly what disgusts me. Principles should not stay in the way of being polite and fair.
In other words, you think your principles ("polite and fair") are better than their principles. It's your dedication to your own principles that results in your disgust.
For a lot of technology startups, there's got to be a point where the VCs are interested, but want to do some technical due dilligence. Things like making sure that new technology really does have the potential to perform as advertised, or that the founders aren't making obvious mistakes in areas outside of their direct expertise (ex, embedded hardware requirements from software developers, or software development plans from hardware jockeys).
So... who do you turn to when you feel the need to do some technical due dilligence on a company you're planning on investing in? Are there any opportunities for nuts-and-bolts technical people to get involved with a VC in this capacity, or is this something that is generally handled in-house or though personal contacts?
Say, something like LinuxLink from TimeSys. You can sign up for a free trial with LinuxLink, or if even that's too much for you, you can take a look at some free (as in beer) tools and FC5-based distributions built using LinuxLink on the TimeSys crossdev site.
Of course, I'm a bit biased, since I'm a former TimeSys employee and helped build a lot of what they're offering:-). Having been through all the pain of building a few hundred Linux SDKs over the past five years, I'd really, really, really recommend using something like LinuxLink. It probably takes away 95% of the pain and frustration of building a custom embedded Linux distro, which lets you get on to doing the really fun stuff more quickly.
The problem is, he didn't "see how people would react to an absence of information". He provided some information, and did it in a way that would make most people think immediately of military operations (using obviously encrypted data, terms like "deployment", etc.)
And he's surprised that people "expected the worst"?
If he had been serious, he wouldn't have left any (immediately) human readable text on the website. Instead, he prejudiced his own experiement by providing just enough information to prompt certain thoughts. If he had labelled his map "Elvis Sightings" instead of "Deployment Map", he probably would have gotten an entirely different set of reacations.
A police officer, in one of the 50 states, out of 200+ million people, acts like a jerk... and this is taken as "insightful" evidence that the USA is becoming a police state?
Sheesh. I'm surprised you didn't slip in "Bu$h i5 teh 5uxx0r!" as part of your comment. That seems to be the approximate level of of the political debate most people are operating on these days.
You'll need to add (or build) your own cross-compilers and debuggers.
If you're in the "add" camp here, I'd like to suggest you take a look at http://crossdev.timesys.com. This is the free (in both senses of the word) side of TimeSys, where I work; right now, we have freely downloadable releases for x86 and ppc7xx. These include cross-compilers (glibc and uClibc), host system tools, and over 400 target system packages. All the packages are based on FC5 rpms and built using tsrpm, a GPL tool (also available on the site) that makes cross-compiling most rpms trivial.
If there's something in particular you're looking for, join the mailing list and let us know. We're particualrly interested in hearing about what other processor architecture(s) and target system packages people would be interested in seeing us work on.
That's the real question here. Do you want to be treated as a professional, or a laborer?
On the one hand, you have more rigorous entrance requirements - think of lawyers, doctors, engineers - and a pay and advancement structure that's pretty much based on merit and how hard you are willing to work.
On the other hand, you trade the various perks associated with a "professional" job with the security of steady employment and a generally stable (if moderate) financial future.
Over the last 10 years, I've seen the topic of unions/professional qualifications come up more and more frequently. Whether you like it or not, I think that sometime in the next 10-20 years, those of us in the IT field are going to get pushed into making a decision one way or the other. Either we're going to have to bite the bullet and push for recognized professional status, or trade potential earnings for security in a union.
So the question is - which would you rather be? Myself, I'd rather be a professional. While it's a tougher life to lead, I think the potential rewards are more than sufficient to make up for the challenges and risks. On top of that... I know that most managers would prefer things remain as they are, with IT workers being something of a mix between non-union labor and professionals. When push comes to shove, though, I have no doubt that the cheaper cost for business overall will be to encourage IT unionization. That alone is enough to make me think that IT as a professional career is the way I want things to go.
Unless they are willing to reward me in some fashion they can forget about it!
Hmm. I see what you mean. Maybe they could do something, like, oh, I dunno, make their products free for people to use over the web. Or something like that.
The creature, named Najash rionegrina, is "a fantastic animal," said Jack Conrad, a researcher at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and co-curator of an upcoming exhibit on lizards and snakes. ... The creature's name comes from a Hebrew word for snake and the Rio Negro province of Argentina, where the discovery took place.
Oddly enough, we were discussing this article in class this evening (anthropology/hamartiology). Apparently there are rabbinical traditions that say the serpent in Genesis originally walked on two legs and stood upright. The researchers have apparently heard this as well, and were well-read enough to pick a clever name for their discovery:-)
I don't think they're making them any more but my brother's Chevy Astro EXT AWD V6 goes places that trucks get stuck.
I've heard that from other folks as well. It's high on the list of probable replacements for the Jeep when it finally goes under. We've got 8 years on the RAV now, and I suspect we'll be able to keep it running for another 4-5 years without any major problems...
The cherokee isn't too bad either, although I would never buy a Jeep SUV because of their long history of crap transmissions.
We've got almost 150K on the Jeep, and no problems with the transmission. The electrical system, though... AUGH! Two different mechanics have told us our Jeep model has a pretty reliable history of electrical problems. Mostly minor, apparently - there's some well-known locations where wires tend to fray or snap. But it is annoying.
In fact, a van or minivan is better at doing everything that a stock SUV does, except for looking manly, which is the only real reason people buy them.
I need a 4WD vehicle. I live on a farm, and I need something that can get up a quarter-mile driveway that becomes a complete sheet of ice in the winter, and is capable of tooling around the property in the spring and fall to take care of chores when the paths are muddy tracks at best. I also work in the city, and have three kids - driving (and parking) a truck in town and carrying 3 kids in a truck just isn't feasible. So my choices are: own a truck that's useless for hauling around kids (and buy a car for that purpose), own a car/minivan that's barely capable of getting up my driveway and useless around the farm (and buy a truck for that purpose), or - hey! - own a vehicle that gives me something that's not the best choice in for either task, but that is at least acceptable. We've got a RAV4 and a Jeep Grand Cherokee that suit us just fine - both would probably be classed as "small SUVs" or "mini-SUVs" these days.
Aside from the dual-use aspect, AWD just doesn't cut it for what we need a vehicle to do. Trust me, I need 4WD and good underbody clearance. Getting that in a minivan is nigh unto impossible (though with three kids, believe me, I've been looking.) There's a ton of folks who live in my area who are in more or less the same situation I am. SUVs of one sort or another make sense for where we live and what we do.
The fact that some suburban soccer moms and weeken d warriors choose to drive an obscenely large SUV for other than purely practical reasons doesn't mean that there is never a practical reason to drive an SUV. There are other environments in the US besides the urban, the suburban, and the coyote-howling wilderness. If you live in one of those (many) rural or semi-rural areas, particualrly in the northern part of the US, an SUV is a wonderfully practicaly vehicle.
You self-describe as a "fundamentalist", but you speak quite differently from other "fundamentalists".
This is an increasingly annoying problem of terminology. When a Christian describes themselves as a fundamentalist - as jdavidb has, and as I would describe myself - they typically have something in mind that is entirely different from what a non-Christian thinks of when they use the term "fundamentalist".
If you want an analogy, consider the term "hacker". Folks here on/. have complained about the misuse of this term by the popular media. A term that was once used as jargon by a select group has been appropriated by the common culture. In doing that, the term has been given a popular meaning that is not only different, but in some ways even opposed to the original jargon meaning of the word.
"Fundamentalist" and "fundamentalism" were adopted as identifying terms for a particular Christian theological movement. So in Christian circles, the term is essentially theological jargon. However, the popular meaning of the term has diverged so much that there are actually fundamental, evengelical Christians who refuse to use the term "fundamentalist" to identify themselves because of the negative connotations now attached to the term.
Why? For someone unfamiliar with the theological jargon, a Christian using the term "fundamentalist" can be as confusing as a computer programmer using the term "hacker". Or, even worse, it should be confusing, but it isn't... because the Christian/programmer assigns one meaning to the term, while the non-Christian/non-programmer assigns a different meaning.
Heh. I should start referring to myself as a "fundamentalist hacker" and really make some heads spin.
Slashdot Mirror
Squiggle, squiggle, hitch, bird's eye, urinating dog, urinating dog, urinating dog!!!
Think about that. Large companies are always going to be hit by this. Microsoft, Apple, Sun, IBM, General Motors, Ford, State Farm, Allstate... you name it, once they get large enough, there is always going to be a lawsuit or investigation either pending, or in progress. Some of these things can drag out for decades.
This rule essentially says "If your company is successful, you will eventually have to store everything, forever."
No, seriously... whenever a system crashes, you can pop it in, and BAM - you get the certain knowledge that, no matter how bad things might be, you're at least one step above absolute rock bottom.
Asking Google to define:propaganda turns up:
And dictionary.com says that propaganda is:
So, really, by definition, propaganda is any deliberate attempt at advocacy. The format and genre of "An Inconvenient Truth" may be that of a documentary, but it is definitely a piece of propaganda.
No, just trying to point out how easy it would be to abuse the "I shouldn't have to do any work to protect my copyright" position. It's one of those ideas that just doesn't scale too well.
??AA: "Just to play devil's advocate, why should we have to waste our time searching through all of these different computers to see if they have our content on them? Especially because even if we remove it all, it could easily be re-downloaded by someone else the next day. Our time is valuable to us, and if we have to spend some of it trying to protect our stuff, then that leaves us less time to sign new artists, or go on promotions, or count our money, or whatever."
...at which point, you've just moved data from there to here. Maybe it's a different representation of the data, but you're moving it nonetheless. Network transparency is an old idea, and while it may make you think that all you're data is "over there", that's just a clever illusion created by moving data implicitly instead of explicitly.
Have you ever thought of volunteering to help with an election? Where I vote, every year, they have a sign-up sheet asking for people interested in assisting to sign up. Every year for the past five years, I've put my name down. No calls, but this year, for some reason, the little old ladies in tennis shoes at the polling place seemed really excited about the fact that I was willing to volunteer. Maybe it's the presence of the new electronic voting machines being a change in the normal process that they're used to.
In any case - if you have the option to get involved, why not do so, instead of complaining?
Yeah, 640K... I mean, 640 blades ought to be enough for anyone.
Why are you assuming that the target for an Oracle appliance is the companies themselves? Sure, they will be the ones who will eventually use it... but they are not necessarily (nor likely) the ones who will be assembling it, testing it, selling it or supporting it.
An Oracle appliance has a whole lot of value if you're someone selling into a vertical market. Want sell your accounting software? Here - install it on this appliance, and you can sell it in it's own box, pre-configured for whatever business you happen to be in. No more worrying about which version of the DB you're running against, no more worrying about other processes on the box, no more worrying about botched installs or customer "fixes" to your database.... want to add parts inventory, web store, personnel management? Just add a couple of new applications. I wouldn't be surprised to see them come up with a product a small business support framework (if they don't have it already) - buy a developer's license for it, customize the business logic core, and resell it as part of your vertical business plumbing appliance. Think of the Oracle appliance as a core component of something like SAP for small businesses, and you get the picture.
Why... how absolutely barbaric! I never realized that you Canadians were such... such... racists! How could you not realize that requiring voter identification is a burden that unfairly disenfranchises black and elderly voters?
Seriously. This is what we have to contend with. If you want voters to present ID, you're a racist. I've heard people argue that even maintaining a list of eligible voters is implicitly racist, since the only reason to do so is to be able to identify and remove the improper people.
We'd rather see 10,000 crooked elections go unchallenged than potentially inconvenience someone by requiring them to check their name on a list and have some form of identification.
Super computers? Once, maybe - not today, and not for the last decade or so. There are a bunch of companies (I'm working for one of them, now) that will quite cheerfully sell you a storage system that spans hundreds of disks. Assuming your OS won't flake out when it sees a 500+ TB volume, you could mount it on your desktop, if you want. There's absolutely no need to conflate processing power (super computers) with storage capability (NAS, SAN, etc.)
In other words, you think your principles ("polite and fair") are better than their principles. It's your dedication to your own principles that results in your disgust.
Pot, meet kettle...
For a lot of technology startups, there's got to be a point where the VCs are interested, but want to do some technical due dilligence. Things like making sure that new technology really does have the potential to perform as advertised, or that the founders aren't making obvious mistakes in areas outside of their direct expertise (ex, embedded hardware requirements from software developers, or software development plans from hardware jockeys).
So... who do you turn to when you feel the need to do some technical due dilligence on a company you're planning on investing in? Are there any opportunities for nuts-and-bolts technical people to get involved with a VC in this capacity, or is this something that is generally handled in-house or though personal contacts?
Say, something like LinuxLink from TimeSys. You can sign up for a free trial with LinuxLink, or if even that's too much for you, you can take a look at some free (as in beer) tools and FC5-based distributions built using LinuxLink on the TimeSys crossdev site.
Of course, I'm a bit biased, since I'm a former TimeSys employee and helped build a lot of what they're offering :-). Having been through all the pain of building a few hundred Linux SDKs over the past five years, I'd really, really, really recommend using something like LinuxLink. It probably takes away 95% of the pain and frustration of building a custom embedded Linux distro, which lets you get on to doing the really fun stuff more quickly.
A second of reflection gets you:
The problem is, he didn't "see how people would react to an absence of information". He provided some information, and did it in a way that would make most people think immediately of military operations (using obviously encrypted data, terms like "deployment", etc.)
And he's surprised that people "expected the worst"?
If he had been serious, he wouldn't have left any (immediately) human readable text on the website. Instead, he prejudiced his own experiement by providing just enough information to prompt certain thoughts. If he had labelled his map "Elvis Sightings" instead of "Deployment Map", he probably would have gotten an entirely different set of reacations.
A police officer, in one of the 50 states, out of 200+ million people, acts like a jerk... and this is taken as "insightful" evidence that the USA is becoming a police state?
Sheesh. I'm surprised you didn't slip in "Bu$h i5 teh 5uxx0r!" as part of your comment. That seems to be the approximate level of of the political debate most people are operating on these days.
If you're in the "add" camp here, I'd like to suggest you take a look at http://crossdev.timesys.com. This is the free (in both senses of the word) side of TimeSys, where I work; right now, we have freely downloadable releases for x86 and ppc7xx. These include cross-compilers (glibc and uClibc), host system tools, and over 400 target system packages. All the packages are based on FC5 rpms and built using tsrpm, a GPL tool (also available on the site) that makes cross-compiling most rpms trivial.
If there's something in particular you're looking for, join the mailing list and let us know. We're particualrly interested in hearing about what other processor architecture(s) and target system packages people would be interested in seeing us work on.
That's the real question here. Do you want to be treated as a professional, or a laborer?
On the one hand, you have more rigorous entrance requirements - think of lawyers, doctors, engineers - and a pay and advancement structure that's pretty much based on merit and how hard you are willing to work.
On the other hand, you trade the various perks associated with a "professional" job with the security of steady employment and a generally stable (if moderate) financial future.
Over the last 10 years, I've seen the topic of unions/professional qualifications come up more and more frequently. Whether you like it or not, I think that sometime in the next 10-20 years, those of us in the IT field are going to get pushed into making a decision one way or the other. Either we're going to have to bite the bullet and push for recognized professional status, or trade potential earnings for security in a union.
So the question is - which would you rather be? Myself, I'd rather be a professional. While it's a tougher life to lead, I think the potential rewards are more than sufficient to make up for the challenges and risks. On top of that... I know that most managers would prefer things remain as they are, with IT workers being something of a mix between non-union labor and professionals. When push comes to shove, though, I have no doubt that the cheaper cost for business overall will be to encourage IT unionization. That alone is enough to make me think that IT as a professional career is the way I want things to go.
Hmm. I see what you mean. Maybe they could do something, like, oh, I dunno, make their products free for people to use over the web. Or something like that.
Oddly enough, we were discussing this article in class this evening (anthropology/hamartiology). Apparently there are rabbinical traditions that say the serpent in Genesis originally walked on two legs and stood upright. The researchers have apparently heard this as well, and were well-read enough to pick a clever name for their discovery :-)
I've heard that from other folks as well. It's high on the list of probable replacements for the Jeep when it finally goes under. We've got 8 years on the RAV now, and I suspect we'll be able to keep it running for another 4-5 years without any major problems...
We've got almost 150K on the Jeep, and no problems with the transmission. The electrical system, though... AUGH! Two different mechanics have told us our Jeep model has a pretty reliable history of electrical problems. Mostly minor, apparently - there's some well-known locations where wires tend to fray or snap. But it is annoying.
I need a 4WD vehicle. I live on a farm, and I need something that can get up a quarter-mile driveway that becomes a complete sheet of ice in the winter, and is capable of tooling around the property in the spring and fall to take care of chores when the paths are muddy tracks at best. I also work in the city, and have three kids - driving (and parking) a truck in town and carrying 3 kids in a truck just isn't feasible. So my choices are: own a truck that's useless for hauling around kids (and buy a car for that purpose), own a car/minivan that's barely capable of getting up my driveway and useless around the farm (and buy a truck for that purpose), or - hey! - own a vehicle that gives me something that's not the best choice in for either task, but that is at least acceptable. We've got a RAV4 and a Jeep Grand Cherokee that suit us just fine - both would probably be classed as "small SUVs" or "mini-SUVs" these days.
Aside from the dual-use aspect, AWD just doesn't cut it for what we need a vehicle to do. Trust me, I need 4WD and good underbody clearance. Getting that in a minivan is nigh unto impossible (though with three kids, believe me, I've been looking.) There's a ton of folks who live in my area who are in more or less the same situation I am. SUVs of one sort or another make sense for where we live and what we do.
The fact that some suburban soccer moms and weeken d warriors choose to drive an obscenely large SUV for other than purely practical reasons doesn't mean that there is never a practical reason to drive an SUV. There are other environments in the US besides the urban, the suburban, and the coyote-howling wilderness. If you live in one of those (many) rural or semi-rural areas, particualrly in the northern part of the US, an SUV is a wonderfully practicaly vehicle.
This is an increasingly annoying problem of terminology. When a Christian describes themselves as a fundamentalist - as jdavidb has, and as I would describe myself - they typically have something in mind that is entirely different from what a non-Christian thinks of when they use the term "fundamentalist".
If you want an analogy, consider the term "hacker". Folks here on /. have complained about the misuse of this term by the popular media. A term that was once used as jargon by a select group has been appropriated by the common culture. In doing that, the term has been given a popular meaning that is not only different, but in some ways even opposed to the original jargon meaning of the word.
"Fundamentalist" and "fundamentalism" were adopted as identifying terms for a particular Christian theological movement. So in Christian circles, the term is essentially theological jargon. However, the popular meaning of the term has diverged so much that there are actually fundamental, evengelical Christians who refuse to use the term "fundamentalist" to identify themselves because of the negative connotations now attached to the term.
Why? For someone unfamiliar with the theological jargon, a Christian using the term "fundamentalist" can be as confusing as a computer programmer using the term "hacker". Or, even worse, it should be confusing, but it isn't... because the Christian/programmer assigns one meaning to the term, while the non-Christian/non-programmer assigns a different meaning.
Heh. I should start referring to myself as a "fundamentalist hacker" and really make some heads spin.