I can't remember the last time I used the file, view, edit, or history menus in firefox, but they are always there, taking up space. This is about re-organizing the browser menu to be more minimalistic.
Just download the Menu Editor add-on and you can hide anything you want.
You can also re-arrange anything, and I like the layout and grouping I use.
I always assumed there'd be other sources of noise, e.g. the tires - but that thing can be eerily quiet.
So can any modern, well-built small car from 100 feet away when travelling less than 12 mph.
Really, the noise is basically useless if you are less than about 40 feet away, as you probably won't be able to avoid the car by noise alone with less than 2 seconds notice. And, from 100 feet away, unless you are gliding in neutral and revving the engine, a car moving 12mph is basically silent.
Try it sometime...stand with your back to a car that starts 200 feet from you in a normally noisy parking lot, have it move towards you at 10-15mph, and then raise your hand when you identify the car by sound alone. I'll bet you identify a lot of other cars instead of the one heading towards you.
I'd be willing to pay the extra to purchase something that paid the extra off in savings in that time, so long as it's a quality vehicle I don't see anything wrong with keeping a car 15 years+.
The problem with doing that with a hybrid is you'll pay for at least one and maybe two new sets of batteries, which would push the payback even farther off.
Not to mention the fact that hybrid technology will improve much faster than normal car tech...the Prius has increased the mileage figures to 50mpg from 41 in about 5 years. So, you probably wouldn't want to keep a hyrbid long enough to make the extra cost worthwhile.
That's actually one of the goals of gasoline taxes: to encourage increased efficiency and use of alternative fuels.
Unfortunately, as long as payback on a hybrid is 7-15 years, the only people adopting them will be the ones that can't do math.
OK, so I guess that means you're probably right, and hybrids will sell like hotcakes.
Seriously, the Prius is the only hybrid that doesn't have a fossil-fuel-only counterpart, and I suspect that if it did, it would cost at least $5K less and get about 35mpg average, yielding a payback of about 9 years. Only the Saturn Vue has a payback of as few as 5 years.
Why should I pay a tax on mileage I drive on my own property?
There are a lot of posts like this in this thread, so I guess the average Slashdot poster doesn't actually live in their parents' basement, but rather on a 100,000 acre ranch.
Seriously, people, you have to have 640 acres to have a square mile of land. Even with a seriously large 25 square mile (16,000 acres) plot, and driving completely around it twice a day, you only drive 40 miles per day on your own land.
Anybody with that much land has some vehicles dedicated for driving only on that land...they might not even be legally registered for driving on public roads. But, even if they do, they're also out in the middle of nowhere, so they probably have to drive 30-40 miles just to get a loaf of bread, so it would turn out that the "private" driving would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the "public" driving.
One example I was reminded of by the "differences" table -- the authors note that the Solaris equivalent of Linux's "/tmp" is "/var/tmp" -- but they failed to point out that Solaris also has a/tmp, and that, by default/tmp is actually partially backed by RAM, which is extremely convenient and useful from time to time, when you want a little piece of lightning-fast filesystem space, or want to eliminate disk as a variable in some sort of timing test. Of course, linux also has ramdisks, but this is generally far more convenient.
Is the way Solaris handles/tmp really all that different from the Linux tmpfs implementation?
solaris-box:$ mount /tmp on swap read/write/setuid/xattr/dev=2
linux-box:$ mount
none on/tmp type tmpfs (rw,nodev,noatime,size=256m,uid=0,gid=0,mode=1777)
Other than picking the maximum size at mount time, tmpfs seems to be the same thing. If you pick a size equal to swap space, I think it is the same thing:
Both use RAM if available but are backed by swap (just like any other memory allocation).
Both use essentially no RAM or swap until you write files to the mount point.
Both can set various permissions and features on the mount point.
The machines are of little expense - a full blown quadcore is what? $3000?
For a server, that may be about right, but a workstation with a Core i5 or i7, 3-6GB of RAM, 500GB+ hard drive, all the normal stuff (DVD burner, card reader, etc.), and a 24" monitor will be less than $1500.
This supports your argument even more, as it skews even farther towards labor cost.
But, a smart company would write a test system that includes an automated browser clicker and screen reader that only needs one or two humans to review the results. The upfront cost would be about the same (3-10 developers), but you only pay that once. Although you are likely to continue to pay the developers, they will be working on new projects.
Seinfield didn't start off as a hit; it struggled for a season or two before it found a solid audience. Fox didn't give Firefly that luxury; they showed the episodes out of order and moved it around and pre-empted it several times, then canceled it before showing all the episodes or giving it a chance to find its audience (or giving its audience a chance to find it). Typical for today's corporations, concerned only for short-term profits.
Ever since September 22, 1994, no TV show has been given a chance to grow an audience. That was the day that NBC had their second show that week premiere at #1 in the ratings. ER was first earlier in the week, then Friends.
After that, every broadcaster believed they could pull off exactly the same thing with every show, and the few shows that have (CSI, Lost, Heroes, etc.) are keeping that same mindset in place.
Two of the biggest shows of all time (Seinfeld and Cheers) had horrible ratings for the first 30 or so episodes, and later became TV icons. You'd think some TV executive would remember those shows, but most can't remember anything past the last celebrity death that required them to run 24 hours of "special memories" programming.
And you should know this one to. To allow easy recompilation of programs that assume System32 is the System Dir. Yes this should be System64 but MS obviously knew that this would fuck up a lot of major applications and that versions would take longer so they decided to do it that way.
Or, they could have handle it exactly like they handle it now, but just with different mappings.
Any 32-bit program that asks for "System32" gets "SysWOW64", and any 64-bit program that asks for "System32" gets "System32".
So, the correct answer would be to have any 32-bit program that asks for "System32" would get "System32" and any 64-bit program would get "System64", which would allow them to get the version that matches.
Even if you have a written agreement saying "yes, it's Bob's laptop but he's using it for work purposes", it seems completely feasible that the IRS, a court of law, etc, would view that as a leased company asset, because it's being used for company business.
This makes about as much sense as an employee using their personal phone/car/whatever to accomplish some of their work tasks and then having to give the phone/car/whatever to the company just because the company paid them enough salary to cover their phone bill/car payments/whatever.
If the laptop is never mentioned in any official document (and a bonus payment would not have mention it), then there won't ever be a problem with ownership of the laptop.
Now, a lawsuit could require that the laptop be produced for evidentiary data collection, but that's entirely different.
Are there people out there who have more than 4GB of memory but still run old 32b operating systems?
I just upgraded my wife's system with a new motherboard, 2.8GHz quad-core CPU, video card, and 6GB of RAM. I kept all the drives (hard, optical, and flash readers) and left Windows XP Pro.
This allowed me to do the upgrade in a few hours and the new system is the same for her, but just a lot faster (old was a 2.8GHz single-core with 2GB of RAM). Sure, it's wasting about 2.5GB of RAM, but at $80 for 6GB, it's not a big deal, and when the OS upgrade does happen, the system will be ready.
I looked into RAM disks, and found that in order to get a decent amount of RAM onto a motherboard, you have to sacrifice processor speed and pay a LOT more.
Unless you are talking about more than about 24GB, there really isn't a major price increase for a motherboard that can handle that much RAM, and it's quite easy to run 3GHz+ on those motherboards.
For server boards with multiple CPU sockets, yeah, you'll pay through the nose if you want 64GB of RAM and processors faster than 2.6GHz.
Unfortunately, lots of Windows software won't run on 64-bit Windows XP.
I have no issue at all running standard 32-bit apps on XP64.
Most of the software that won't run is shell extensions, or other software that provides some DLL that must be loaded by other apps (like Microsoft Management Console plugins). Some of this can be worked around if there are both 32 and 64-bit versions of the app, and then you might not be able to use all the plugins you want at the same time, but at least you can get the job done. Because of this, the default for multi-version apps is usually the 32-bit one (like the IE shortcuts on the desktop and quick launch point to the 32-bit versions).
Overall, though, the design of 64-bit Windows userspace is a complete kludge. Why Microsoft chose to make the "standard" directories (Program Files, System32) the 64-bit versions is beyond me, especially when they already had a precedent for new names ("System" for 16-bit and "System32" for 32-bit). In 64-bit, they have "System32" for 64-bit and "SysWOW64" for 32-bit.
Put this in a computer context: would you run Folding@home at the exact same priority as your mouse driver, or do you enjoy having a responsive pointer (while still allowing your heavy background processes to run at full speed)?
This comes down to "it depends on how much bandwidth/CPU power you have".
I was doing completely normal computing the other day with no obvious speed issues, when I realized I was still running 4 instances of Prime 95 to stress-test the machine. Then, I fired up a game and couldn't even notice that anything was running in the background. This was on a Core i7 920 with hyperthreading enabled.
So, Comcast could just increase the bandwidth they have to the rest of the world, and there would be no need for any sort of traffic shaping that anybody would notice.
Almost everything I've purchased with a credit card has specified that the purchaser's details must be the same as the credit card details otherwise this gets tagged as a potential fraud.
This is generally true for physical items but not for services (like training classes) or "developer's kits" that are downloaded and the fee pays mostly for support or certification of apps.
Another example is that it's not uncommon for someone to pay for an airline ticket for another person. When I buy a ticket for my wife, nobody questions the fact that my credit card says "John Doe" and her name is "Jane Smith" (because she didn't change her name when we got married).
If you want to download ebooks to a device, you have to pay for internet access.
Not really.
It takes a long time to read one book, so occasional visits to free Wi-Fi hotspots should keep you in as many books as you want. For that, the iPod Touch does far better than the iPhone, as you don't have any monthly fees.
But, the 32GB iPod Touch costs over $350 and has a very small screen. You can get a decent netbook with as much storage and a much larger screen for about the same size, and that would be far better for eBook reading.
If you information does not match the payment information this throws up a whole bunch of red flags about credit card usage. They have to determine that you are, well who you say you are.
No, they don't.
Using my own name, I've signed up for a lot of different things (classes, software purchase, etc.), and the payment comes from a credit card in the name of the company I work for. The card isn't mine, doesn't have my name on it, and I never had to enter anything that indicated that I work for the company on the card. In most of these cases, there was no shipment of any physical item, but a few times there were training materials that got shipped to my home (which is also completely unrelated to the company address).
There has never been a problem where the seller of the good/service/whatever asked for more information.
At a previous job, things were pretty much the same, but the "corporate" card used had a person's name on it that wasn't mine, because it really was a personal card of the CEO. Again, no issues.
The only thing that really sets off red flags is if you try to ship something to an address not on file with the credit card company, but not every vendor checks this.
I70 from hagerstown to baltimore, or to frederick and then 270 to DC, its nothing for people to be doing 85 in a 65.
You must be driving at 3am.
During any "busy" times (near rush hour, holiday weekend, etc.), you're lucky if you can drive as fast as 5mph below the posted limit.
It really annoys me that people are driving at 60 on the two-lane section posted at 65, then when it expands to 3 lanes and drops to 55, everybody speeds up to 70.
Ditto on the D.C. beltway. I don't understand people who slowdown for bridges or curves. It's not going to kill you to take the curve at 65mph. That's why the sign says 65 - because it was designed for high-speed travel.
Although you are right that I-495 around Washington, DC was designed for 65+ mph traffic, there are no signs that say "65 mph".
The entire beltway is marked 55 mph. There are also decades-old yellow warning signs on the beltway curves with "55 mph" on them. These were there when the speed limit was higher, but they have never been removed.
I-95 between DC and Baltimore is marked at 65 mph, and I think some of US 50 is marked higher than 55.
But, it all seems slow, as I just got back from Texas where two-lane country roads are often marked at 65 or 70 mph.
Further Corn subsidies are a bad idea, from my point of view.
Agreed, but since they aren't going to stop anytime soon (until there is a presidential candidate with enough balls to not care about the Iowa Caucuses and their measly 7 electoral votes), they might as well do it some better way.
It depends on whether you consider all the unintended consequences (e.g., the price of all foods having risen dramatically since the reduction of corn available for human consumption and as feed for animals) from promoting corn-based biofuels to be "worse" or not.
Since biofuels cost much more than gasoline per unit of energy provided, a better strategy would be to tax gasoline until it matches that cost, and hand that extra tax money to the corn growers to not sell their corn to biofuel production facilities. This would both reduce the demand for oil and reduce prices at the grocery store.
Then there's the issue that who knows if you're really working in the evening if there's no-one to watch you do it? And if you would be trust-worthy, how about the others who will soon be demanding to be able to work evenings as well?
I don't see the problem if you already have a history with the company.
Your boss would then know how much to expect from you per day, and as long as you are at least that productive, then it doesn't matter if nobody "watches" you.
As long as people are in the office during hours when it is required (meetings, clients, etc.), then exactly when they do the work should be of zero concern. So, each person should be treated individually, and if they aren't productive enough, the boss just tells them that. If it goes on for more than a few weeks, then the boss should "suggest" that regular work hours would be better for that person.
This would even work if you have no history with the company. The boss tells you when they need something done, and if you repeatedly don't meet the expected deadline, then maybe you need a little more supervision.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't remember the last time I used the file, view, edit, or history menus in firefox, but they are always there, taking up space. This is about re-organizing the browser menu to be more minimalistic.
Just download the Menu Editor add-on and you can hide anything you want.
You can also re-arrange anything, and I like the layout and grouping I use.
I always assumed there'd be other sources of noise, e.g. the tires - but that thing can be eerily quiet.
So can any modern, well-built small car from 100 feet away when travelling less than 12 mph.
Really, the noise is basically useless if you are less than about 40 feet away, as you probably won't be able to avoid the car by noise alone with less than 2 seconds notice. And, from 100 feet away, unless you are gliding in neutral and revving the engine, a car moving 12mph is basically silent.
Try it sometime...stand with your back to a car that starts 200 feet from you in a normally noisy parking lot, have it move towards you at 10-15mph, and then raise your hand when you identify the car by sound alone. I'll bet you identify a lot of other cars instead of the one heading towards you.
I'd be willing to pay the extra to purchase something that paid the extra off in savings in that time, so long as it's a quality vehicle I don't see anything wrong with keeping a car 15 years+.
The problem with doing that with a hybrid is you'll pay for at least one and maybe two new sets of batteries, which would push the payback even farther off.
Not to mention the fact that hybrid technology will improve much faster than normal car tech...the Prius has increased the mileage figures to 50mpg from 41 in about 5 years. So, you probably wouldn't want to keep a hyrbid long enough to make the extra cost worthwhile.
That's actually one of the goals of gasoline taxes: to encourage increased efficiency and use of alternative fuels.
Unfortunately, as long as payback on a hybrid is 7-15 years, the only people adopting them will be the ones that can't do math.
OK, so I guess that means you're probably right, and hybrids will sell like hotcakes.
Seriously, the Prius is the only hybrid that doesn't have a fossil-fuel-only counterpart, and I suspect that if it did, it would cost at least $5K less and get about 35mpg average, yielding a payback of about 9 years. Only the Saturn Vue has a payback of as few as 5 years.
Why should I pay a tax on mileage I drive on my own property?
There are a lot of posts like this in this thread, so I guess the average Slashdot poster doesn't actually live in their parents' basement, but rather on a 100,000 acre ranch.
Seriously, people, you have to have 640 acres to have a square mile of land. Even with a seriously large 25 square mile (16,000 acres) plot, and driving completely around it twice a day, you only drive 40 miles per day on your own land.
Anybody with that much land has some vehicles dedicated for driving only on that land...they might not even be legally registered for driving on public roads. But, even if they do, they're also out in the middle of nowhere, so they probably have to drive 30-40 miles just to get a loaf of bread, so it would turn out that the "private" driving would still be a drop in the bucket compared to the "public" driving.
One example I was reminded of by the "differences" table -- the authors note that the Solaris equivalent of Linux's "/tmp" is "/var/tmp" -- but they failed to point out that Solaris also has a /tmp, and that, by default /tmp is actually partially backed by RAM, which is extremely convenient and useful from time to time, when you want a little piece of lightning-fast filesystem space, or want to eliminate disk as a variable in some sort of timing test. Of course, linux also has ramdisks, but this is generally far more convenient.
Is the way Solaris handles /tmp really all that different from the Linux tmpfs implementation?
Other than picking the maximum size at mount time, tmpfs seems to be the same thing. If you pick a size equal to swap space, I think it is the same thing:
The machines are of little expense - a full blown quadcore is what? $3000?
For a server, that may be about right, but a workstation with a Core i5 or i7, 3-6GB of RAM, 500GB+ hard drive, all the normal stuff (DVD burner, card reader, etc.), and a 24" monitor will be less than $1500.
This supports your argument even more, as it skews even farther towards labor cost.
But, a smart company would write a test system that includes an automated browser clicker and screen reader that only needs one or two humans to review the results. The upfront cost would be about the same (3-10 developers), but you only pay that once. Although you are likely to continue to pay the developers, they will be working on new projects.
Then why are we still paying for copies of classic newspapers and magazines even though they have ads in them?
Because an ad on page 47 of the magazine can't force itself onto page 12 where I am reading.
If the ads on web pages were like those in newspapers and magazines, then I wouldn't need an ad blocker.
There is also the joy known as having an unpublished number; not to be confused with the less-than-useful unlisted number.
If someone is going to violate a law by robocalling, then I suspect they would use a war-dialer.
So, unless your "unpublished" number isn't actually connected to the phone switching grid, you'd get calls.
Seinfield didn't start off as a hit; it struggled for a season or two before it found a solid audience. Fox didn't give Firefly that luxury; they showed the episodes out of order and moved it around and pre-empted it several times, then canceled it before showing all the episodes or giving it a chance to find its audience (or giving its audience a chance to find it). Typical for today's corporations, concerned only for short-term profits.
Ever since September 22, 1994, no TV show has been given a chance to grow an audience. That was the day that NBC had their second show that week premiere at #1 in the ratings. ER was first earlier in the week, then Friends.
After that, every broadcaster believed they could pull off exactly the same thing with every show, and the few shows that have (CSI, Lost, Heroes, etc.) are keeping that same mindset in place.
Two of the biggest shows of all time (Seinfeld and Cheers) had horrible ratings for the first 30 or so episodes, and later became TV icons. You'd think some TV executive would remember those shows, but most can't remember anything past the last celebrity death that required them to run 24 hours of "special memories" programming.
Every user on each computer should have their own account... no excuses...
Fixed that for you...after all, the average number of computer per household is probably pretty high for /. readers.
This pretty much solves the problem in several ways, because it would be unusual for anyone to routinely log in to someone else's computer.
>System32
And you should know this one to. To allow easy recompilation of programs that assume System32 is the System Dir. Yes this should be System64 but MS obviously knew that this would fuck up a lot of major applications and that versions would take longer so they decided to do it that way.
Or, they could have handle it exactly like they handle it now, but just with different mappings.
Any 32-bit program that asks for "System32" gets "SysWOW64", and any 64-bit program that asks for "System32" gets "System32".
So, the correct answer would be to have any 32-bit program that asks for "System32" would get "System32" and any 64-bit program would get "System64", which would allow them to get the version that matches.
Even if you have a written agreement saying "yes, it's Bob's laptop but he's using it for work purposes", it seems completely feasible that the IRS, a court of law, etc, would view that as a leased company asset, because it's being used for company business.
This makes about as much sense as an employee using their personal phone/car/whatever to accomplish some of their work tasks and then having to give the phone/car/whatever to the company just because the company paid them enough salary to cover their phone bill/car payments/whatever.
If the laptop is never mentioned in any official document (and a bonus payment would not have mention it), then there won't ever be a problem with ownership of the laptop.
Now, a lawsuit could require that the laptop be produced for evidentiary data collection, but that's entirely different.
Are there people out there who have more than 4GB of memory but still run old 32b operating systems?
I just upgraded my wife's system with a new motherboard, 2.8GHz quad-core CPU, video card, and 6GB of RAM. I kept all the drives (hard, optical, and flash readers) and left Windows XP Pro.
This allowed me to do the upgrade in a few hours and the new system is the same for her, but just a lot faster (old was a 2.8GHz single-core with 2GB of RAM). Sure, it's wasting about 2.5GB of RAM, but at $80 for 6GB, it's not a big deal, and when the OS upgrade does happen, the system will be ready.
I looked into RAM disks, and found that in order to get a decent amount of RAM onto a motherboard, you have to sacrifice processor speed and pay a LOT more.
Unless you are talking about more than about 24GB, there really isn't a major price increase for a motherboard that can handle that much RAM, and it's quite easy to run 3GHz+ on those motherboards.
For server boards with multiple CPU sockets, yeah, you'll pay through the nose if you want 64GB of RAM and processors faster than 2.6GHz.
Unfortunately, lots of Windows software won't run on 64-bit Windows XP.
I have no issue at all running standard 32-bit apps on XP64.
Most of the software that won't run is shell extensions, or other software that provides some DLL that must be loaded by other apps (like Microsoft Management Console plugins). Some of this can be worked around if there are both 32 and 64-bit versions of the app, and then you might not be able to use all the plugins you want at the same time, but at least you can get the job done. Because of this, the default for multi-version apps is usually the 32-bit one (like the IE shortcuts on the desktop and quick launch point to the 32-bit versions).
Overall, though, the design of 64-bit Windows userspace is a complete kludge. Why Microsoft chose to make the "standard" directories (Program Files, System32) the 64-bit versions is beyond me, especially when they already had a precedent for new names ("System" for 16-bit and "System32" for 32-bit). In 64-bit, they have "System32" for 64-bit and "SysWOW64" for 32-bit.
Put this in a computer context: would you run Folding@home at the exact same priority as your mouse driver, or do you enjoy having a responsive pointer (while still allowing your heavy background processes to run at full speed)?
This comes down to "it depends on how much bandwidth/CPU power you have".
I was doing completely normal computing the other day with no obvious speed issues, when I realized I was still running 4 instances of Prime 95 to stress-test the machine. Then, I fired up a game and couldn't even notice that anything was running in the background. This was on a Core i7 920 with hyperthreading enabled.
So, Comcast could just increase the bandwidth they have to the rest of the world, and there would be no need for any sort of traffic shaping that anybody would notice.
Almost everything I've purchased with a credit card has specified that the purchaser's details must be the same as the credit card details otherwise this gets tagged as a potential fraud.
This is generally true for physical items but not for services (like training classes) or "developer's kits" that are downloaded and the fee pays mostly for support or certification of apps.
Another example is that it's not uncommon for someone to pay for an airline ticket for another person. When I buy a ticket for my wife, nobody questions the fact that my credit card says "John Doe" and her name is "Jane Smith" (because she didn't change her name when we got married).
If you want to download ebooks to a device, you have to pay for internet access.
Not really.
It takes a long time to read one book, so occasional visits to free Wi-Fi hotspots should keep you in as many books as you want. For that, the iPod Touch does far better than the iPhone, as you don't have any monthly fees.
But, the 32GB iPod Touch costs over $350 and has a very small screen. You can get a decent netbook with as much storage and a much larger screen for about the same size, and that would be far better for eBook reading.
If you information does not match the payment information this throws up a whole bunch of red flags about credit card usage. They have to determine that you are, well who you say you are.
No, they don't.
Using my own name, I've signed up for a lot of different things (classes, software purchase, etc.), and the payment comes from a credit card in the name of the company I work for. The card isn't mine, doesn't have my name on it, and I never had to enter anything that indicated that I work for the company on the card. In most of these cases, there was no shipment of any physical item, but a few times there were training materials that got shipped to my home (which is also completely unrelated to the company address).
There has never been a problem where the seller of the good/service/whatever asked for more information.
At a previous job, things were pretty much the same, but the "corporate" card used had a person's name on it that wasn't mine, because it really was a personal card of the CEO. Again, no issues.
The only thing that really sets off red flags is if you try to ship something to an address not on file with the credit card company, but not every vendor checks this.
I70 from hagerstown to baltimore, or to frederick and then 270 to DC, its nothing for people to be doing 85 in a 65.
You must be driving at 3am.
During any "busy" times (near rush hour, holiday weekend, etc.), you're lucky if you can drive as fast as 5mph below the posted limit.
It really annoys me that people are driving at 60 on the two-lane section posted at 65, then when it expands to 3 lanes and drops to 55, everybody speeds up to 70.
Ditto on the D.C. beltway. I don't understand people who slowdown for bridges or curves. It's not going to kill you to take the curve at 65mph. That's why the sign says 65 - because it was designed for high-speed travel.
Although you are right that I-495 around Washington, DC was designed for 65+ mph traffic, there are no signs that say "65 mph".
The entire beltway is marked 55 mph. There are also decades-old yellow warning signs on the beltway curves with "55 mph" on them. These were there when the speed limit was higher, but they have never been removed.
I-95 between DC and Baltimore is marked at 65 mph, and I think some of US 50 is marked higher than 55.
But, it all seems slow, as I just got back from Texas where two-lane country roads are often marked at 65 or 70 mph.
Further Corn subsidies are a bad idea, from my point of view.
Agreed, but since they aren't going to stop anytime soon (until there is a presidential candidate with enough balls to not care about the Iowa Caucuses and their measly 7 electoral votes), they might as well do it some better way.
It depends on whether you consider all the unintended consequences (e.g., the price of all foods having risen dramatically since the reduction of corn available for human consumption and as feed for animals) from promoting corn-based biofuels to be "worse" or not.
Since biofuels cost much more than gasoline per unit of energy provided, a better strategy would be to tax gasoline until it matches that cost, and hand that extra tax money to the corn growers to not sell their corn to biofuel production facilities. This would both reduce the demand for oil and reduce prices at the grocery store.
Then there's the issue that who knows if you're really working in the evening if there's no-one to watch you do it? And if you would be trust-worthy, how about the others who will soon be demanding to be able to work evenings as well?
I don't see the problem if you already have a history with the company.
Your boss would then know how much to expect from you per day, and as long as you are at least that productive, then it doesn't matter if nobody "watches" you.
As long as people are in the office during hours when it is required (meetings, clients, etc.), then exactly when they do the work should be of zero concern. So, each person should be treated individually, and if they aren't productive enough, the boss just tells them that. If it goes on for more than a few weeks, then the boss should "suggest" that regular work hours would be better for that person.
This would even work if you have no history with the company. The boss tells you when they need something done, and if you repeatedly don't meet the expected deadline, then maybe you need a little more supervision.