My wife works for a movie distributor, and a big one at that.
When she went to work for them in a NON-production capacity, they asked her to sign a contract that stated that the rights to anything she produced while with the company would belong to the company. This, even thought it was a NON-production position.
Trouble was, long before accepting their employment, she already had a signed deal for an independent production that was underway -- and her new company did not ask her to sign this contract until several weeks after she accepted and began employment. She immediately disclosed her existing deal, and made it clear that she would not sign the contract unless it specifically excluded this existing deal.
It took more than two months of phone calls and letters before they acknowledged their impasse. My wife's position was, "I understand that you don't want me to walk away with any of YOUR rights, but I don't want you to walk away with any of MY rights, so I will not sign this unless it specifically excludes my existing project." The company's lawyers responded with, "Gee, we have never encountered this type of situation before, and we don't know an appropriate way to handle it, so why don't you just do what everyone else does and sign it as is?"
Needless to say, she refused to do so. As of this writing, she remains employed, and the contract remains unsigned.
You know, I always took that aspect of Ayn Rand's books (esp. Atlas Shrugged) to be great in theory, but not directly applicable to the real world.
Then I was fighting someone at work who had put us into a really awkward and inappropriate situation, not by mistake or sheer incompetence, but because he knew we'd make it work no matter what.
When I pointed out what he'd done, and that while we COULD fix it, we SHOULDN'T, he said "You're being theoretical. You need to deal in practical reality."
That phrase is a common one in those books, and one I always felt was over-the-top and would never be uttered in the real world. Surprise!
This is only relevant because so many of her characters did just what the previous poster suggests -- stop thinking and working for those who would make it harder to work and think, even while profiting from the fruits of that thought and labor.
Or, as Scott Adams said in one of his books (paraphrasing) -- what if a coworker jumped out a high window, not because he was suicidal, but because he thought it was a great shortcut to the parking lot. Do you catch him, thus affirming his decision (and thus ensuring he will repeat it), or do you let him drop and suffer the consequences of your inaction?
We do automated testing where we can, to make sure everything's working properly after every build.
At the same time, we also utilize full-time testers when we hit milestones, to make sure that items related to look, feel and IA are caught and dealt with.
A bit trollish, but I'll respond: perhaps he's actually smart enough to seek outside opinions, even though he thinks he knows the answer.
That, or he's preparing some kind of presentation/paper to justify the use of stored procs to a boss who doesn't believe in them (or vice versa), and is seeking real-world examples to bolster his point.
I believe that he mentioned this because the guys at the startup viewed 'hacker' to refer to themselves, not to the crackers that they knew the marketers intended, and that they probably did in fact hate working on the AS/400 -- thus making the truth of the headline (for them) ironic.
I thought it was pretty funny, actually.:) Since, as you point out, the AS/400 is a secure box, the humor comes from the headline being true in both a literal AND an ironic sense simultaneously.
>...thinking of putting a touchscreen lcd up front so that i could display extra gauges at a minimal price...
Before taking this step, I hope you'll consider the four problems that LCD-based touchscreen automotive displays have. I'd hate to see a fellow slashdotter get in an accident.
1. Poor contrast compared to dedicated analog gauges -- your eyes can see a white needle on a black background on a standard gauge much faster than a while pixelated line on a black lcd background, because lcd black isn't really black -- it's gray. It also has no depth, and is more susceptable to being washed out by the sun.
2. You cannot navigate by feel using a touchscreen. Consider how often you change your CD tracks by glancing at your radio to make sure your hand is aimed in the right direction, then looking back at the road while you move your fingers to the correct button by touch.
I can't emphasize this second shortcoming enough; a friend has one of those palm-powered phones where you use the touchscreen to dial, and he said he never realized how often he dialed without looking until he tried to use the new phone. He got rid of it shortly thereafter.
3. Center-mounted LCDs tend to be too close to the driver, requiring a lot of neck rotation and eye refocusing to view. Even the manufacturers who put LCDs (and even standard gauges) in the center of the dash try to push them as far forward as possible to minimize this effect; with touchscreen LCDs, though, you can't push them so far away that they can't be touched.
Custom installations are even worse, since you won't have the same access to dashboard component reconfiguration that the manufacturer has without laying out a lot of cash.
4. Multiple screens on one display == more attention required to navigate the screens, when compared to buttons that have a single placement and a single purpose under all conditions. You're more likely to divert your attention to think about which menu you're going through, and that's dangerous unless you're at a stoplight.
And so, one of the best things about colsoles -- inability to update on the fly, necessitating stronger quality control before release -- falls to the wayside. Bluh.
Well, I'm a songwriter with a day job and no desire to pursue music for material gain -- the current record business is just stacked too far against little guys like me, so I just do it for pleasure.
But, if dentists and whatnot can't play the big boys' music without paying license fees, a whole market for creative-commons-type music will appear. Now by market, I don't necessarily mean money will change hands, but people (like myself) will write and share music, and other people (like the dentists) will seek resources that give them access to this music.
Perhaps, after a bit of time, my dentist might be able to surf to www.freetoshare.com and download many, many hours of free music to play in his office.
So one day I might walk into my own dentist's office, and hear my own music playing. That would make me happy. It would also do an even better job of taking my mind off the drilling, as I would be obsessing about "gee, I wish I'd written that part differently..." (grin)
My legal name WAS David, but I always went by Dave. It's now Dave legally.
I also changed my middle/last name, as part of a marriage thing -- whereas my full name was legally "David Pseudo Longarsepolishname", it is now legally "Dave P Longarsepolishname Shortnewname".
I have various documents (passports, licenses, credit cards, etc.) that have my name as:
"Dave Shortnewname" "Dave P Shortnewname" "Dave P Longarsepolishname" "Dave P Longarsepolishname Shortnewname" "Dave Longarsepolishname Shortnewname"
The only problem I've ever encountered, to date, is the need to make sure my passport name ("Dave P Longarsepolishname") matches the name on the visa and plane tickets that I purchase, so that the ticket agents don't look at me funny.
FYI: I have DSL extreme. I have a 6000/1500 DSL connection with three static IPs, a similar attitude to Blarg! regarding services and servers, and a proven track record at protecting my interests against spammers and extortionists.
And I pay $60 a month. Monthly. And it's a rock-stable connection, and their customer service is excellent.
But yeah, the DSL line itself is from SBC, and if they were my ISP, it would be awful.:)
All of those reasons you stated, such as "what if I can't find him in 20 years?", are the whole POINT of them retaining the copyright and/or negatives.
You see, they have a choice:
1. Actually store all of those negatives for 50+ years, etc., to alleviate your concerns;
2. Sell you the negatives for a fixed amount, and never see another dime;
3. Retain all rights so that their only method of easing your fears at stated is to buy as many of the photos as you can afford, right now, and in the future as you go.
My wife and I used a photographer that included an album with a single unretouched 4x6 of EVERY PHOTO THEY SHOT as part of the shooting package. Expensive? Yep, but we can always scan them in or get them copied for personal use to our heart's content. Great photos, too, even unretouched.
Here's the thing: you need negatives to make beautiful enlargements, but you might as well pay for those up front. If what you're looking for is memories, a mediocre copy of an unretouched small photo is as priceless as a big poster. Find someone that will give you an album like we got. It was well worth it, and we even have the pleasure of being able to look at the crappy, funny photos that we would NEVER have paid for framed versions of.:)
Good gaming is about good gameplay; if you don't believe that, go play with MAME for a bit. The problem is, game marketing has changed.
Once upon a time, you either watched someone else play in an arcade, risked a quarter to play it yourself, or went over to the house of the kid whose father bought every new console game that Nintendo advertised. Marketers had it easy.
These days, there are so many games available, and prices are so high, that you're at the mercy of relying on review articles or limiting yourself to the games that your friends have already bought. Articles can't show gameplay, and game companies can't control the games your friends choose to show you. What is a marketer to do?
Answer: great graphics! Great graphics == great screenshots for the magazine review. Great graphics == your friend using the game to show off how good their new video card looks. Both of those == increased sales.
Not all graphic improvements are bad -- certainly, I wouldn't play my trusty late 90s copy of Gran Prix Legends using software rendering -- but beyond a certain point graphic improvements are marketing-driven, not gameplay-driven, and we've long since passed that point.
For a driving-centric example of this, play Test Drive: Le Mans (Dreamcast version only). Then, play Gran Turismo 2 (PS2). Marvel at how crappy Test Drive: Le Mans suddenly looks. Then play Test Drive: Le Mans again. Marvel at how dull and unresponsive Gran Turismo 2 suddenly feels. And in a week, see which one you're still playing.
Well, that's a good question, isn't it? In fact, it's kind of THE question.
Would terrorists really go to the library for these materials, especially after finding out that the government monitors them? Why would they, when they can simply walk down to a local bookstore and pay cash for any darn book they please, without giving so much as a fake name?
Same goes for library Internet surveillance. I signed up for T-Mobile's wireless hotspot service for a trip to New York and Chicago, only to discover that in every Starbuck's I went to, there was AT LEAST one open, non-WEP'd wifi connection available, usually in better condition (speed and coverage-wise) than the "official" T-Mobile hotspot service -- two places in New York, and one in Chicago.
Once you get this far, you realize that library surveillance is only useful for monitoring people who use the library to access materials that the government might not approve of -- people who are at a critical development time in their lives, who generally do not have access to funding or resources other than those provided by institutions of learning or government, and whom most likely do not realize that anyone has a reason to surveil them until it's too late: students. Specifically, poor ones.
You know, those occasionally open- and critically-minded young people who are activists, who go to demonstrations, often study subversive material and speak their minds.
You know, I've thought about running for office on many occasions.
I'm intelligent, articulate, and open-minded. I genuinely care about people, and want to serve as a force of good in this country if I can do so.
I've never had an affair. I've never used drugs. I don't have a criminal record. The worst thing I've ever done that someone could use against me was have mediocre grades at one point in college because I was working two jobs at the same time, and ran out of steam.
Here's what stops me every single time: if my potential political enemies don't have any honest-to-goodness real material to use against me, what kind of fake stuff are they going to come up with?
I've never been ashamed of my choices and actions in life, and I can defend myself against any attacks of that nature -- but what do you do against out-and-out lies...or baseless innuendo that leaves the impression you've done something awful without actually saying it (see the PR industry)?
Random note; banks are also now required to ask what you do for a living if you're self-employed.
Seriously. My wife and I went to get a safe-deposit box (for storing our wedding/engagement rings and a few important documents while on vacation) at a bank we'd used for years, and suddenly they INSISTED on knowing what my wife does for a living -- something they never cared about before, "self-employed" was sufficient.
We asked why, in case it was just a nonsense paperwork thing, and she told us "the government requires it now. We have to ask, and get an answer, so that the government knows where your money is coming from." I'd love to hear from any banking experts if this is, in fact, true*.
We told her, but driving home that day, we vowed that from now on, we're going to tell nosy people like this (with a straight face) that my wife is a "bird detailer" -- a person who cleans and details show birds right before the judging. heh.
*I once had a realtor ask my wife for her driver's license while we signed some papers; when my wife said "I don't have it with me", the realtor looked shocked and said, I kid you not, "but you have to carry your driver's license with you at all times. You get it trouble if they catch you without it." My wife responded, "but I didn't drive today." Her reply: "It doesn't matter. you always have to have it on you." Proving once again that people don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Nobody asked me (they never do), but here's what I wish would happen. Take it for what it's worth; I just had surgery, am on pain medication, and feel like sharing.;)
1. Preferential voting, as you mentioned above. Absolutely the way to go.
2. No more political advertising. Period. You can't show pictures, names, or party affiliations in advertising.
3. Mandatory seven-debate series, one each week, leading up to the election. Each debate is an hour long, and live. Candidates must agree to participate. "You can hide, but you can't run." Heh.
4. After each debate, transcripts are made available on the internet (including at local libraries.) Candidates are also encouraged to write personal remarks about each week's debate, and they will be shared in a similar fashion.
5. Paper trail for all votes, with a twist:
Company A produces a machine that lets you vote and get a paper record;
Company B produces a machine that reads and records your vote FROM the paper record;
Company C produces a machine that validates the record stored electronically on the paper record, so that you can be sure it matches the name printed on the ticket in human-readable form.
Via encryption, there's a straightforward way to prevent voting fraud unless two of the three companies conspire to commit it -- and each of the companies will be selected by one of the major political parties, to discourage such conspiring.
Oh, and the machine code would be open-source, available for removal BY ANY VOTER; you would be able to get a CD-R copy if you bring your own CD-R, and in order for the machines to be certified, it must manually compile and run the very same code before voting begins.
FYI: Nikolai Tesla invented AC generators, not Edison. Edison pushed DC, and publicly electrocuted stray dogs using AC as a demonstration of AC's "inherent dangers" (keeping in mind that DC of the same voltage would have been just as deadly.)
IE being IE, if you leave him long enough with his machine using IE, he WILL get some kind of worm, virus, or what-have-you.
If he does, then you tell him how it happened. He'll lose his computer for a while while you fix it, and invariably ask "how can I keep this from happening again?" and you tell him.
If he does NOT, then your company's security in other areas is making up for IE's weaknesses, in which case good for you. Still, it might be a good idea to tally up how much money you're spending to protect IE users from themselves, assuming you would actually be spending a lot less if IE wasn't a concern.
And, at the end of the day, if his laptop isn't getting taken over by virii and such, and you can't make a good case for (a) saving money by switching, or (b) reducing non-boss employee downtime by switching...well, you don't really have a problem.
FWIW, I had the same problem convincing my wife to switch. Before her computer got infected, she was highly reluctant. After she lost her computer for a week until I had the time to fix it, she became a convert, and now uses FireFox exclusively.
Fry's in Burbank, CA -- I went to purchase a motherboard, and they didn't have the one I wanted in stock, except as an open-box. I bought it, and sure enough, it wouldn't post.
I brought it back and had to wait in a long line, and they tested the MB right there in front of me before accepting it as a return -- can't argue with that, actually thought "well, at least they know what they're doing" -- and they replaced it with a BRAND-NEW sealed box version of the motherboard for no additional charge.
I'm not a cheat, so I pointed out that they were giving me the sealed-box MB for the open-box price. Her response: yes, we are.
Every electronics purchase I've made since then has been at Fry's, and never shall I set foot in Best Buy again.
Two people who love each other very much own a dog together, and can't agree on how the dog should be taken care of.
One person believes the dog should be free to do whatever it wants, because it is a dog, and dogs should be able to do what dogs do. When the dog wants to eat, it should eat. When the dog wants to pee, it should pee, even if it's inside the house. The dog should sleep on the bed, eat people food and never be trained.
The other person believes the dog should behave as a member of the family, because it is a dog, but living in a non-dog world. The dog should eat at a specific time every day. The dog should pee outside, and be scolded and trained when it pees inside. The dog should not sleep on the bed or eat people food, and must be trained to obey.
This is a constant source of tension between the two people. They bicker, they fight, they pressure each other to conform to each other's approaches.
Why do they fight? Why do they care so much? Why is it so important?
To move the analogy being toyed with over a bit to the automotive industry, some cars are easier to break in than others. For instance, there's a car manufacturer (I won't say which) whose cars have been INCREDIBLY easy to break into, certainly throughout the 80s and most of the 90s. Take any old screwdriver, wedge it under a door handle seal (although many folks just use a hammer to tap the screwdriver through the sheetmetal) and twist. Boom. Open door.
Are cars inherently insecure? Sure. They're not safes, they're cars. They get broken into, and you don't keep valuables in them for that reason. BUT, some models being easier to break into quietly than others, and those models being really, really popular, you're going to see a lot more break-ins on those cars.
I should know. I owned two of them, one old and busted, one a new hotness. Both got broken into repeatedly, multiple times a year, even if there was nothing inside to steal. When I bought a different make of car (but still lived in the same area) the thefts stopped. Bought another make, the thefts didn't return. And to this day, friends of mine who own that type of car still get broken into fairly frequently.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife works for a movie distributor, and a big one at that.
When she went to work for them in a NON-production capacity, they asked her to sign a contract that stated that the rights to anything she produced while with the company would belong to the company. This, even thought it was a NON-production position.
Trouble was, long before accepting their employment, she already had a signed deal for an independent production that was underway -- and her new company did not ask her to sign this contract until several weeks after she accepted and began employment. She immediately disclosed her existing deal, and made it clear that she would not sign the contract unless it specifically excluded this existing deal.
It took more than two months of phone calls and letters before they acknowledged their impasse. My wife's position was, "I understand that you don't want me to walk away with any of YOUR rights, but I don't want you to walk away with any of MY rights, so I will not sign this unless it specifically excludes my existing project." The company's lawyers responded with, "Gee, we have never encountered this type of situation before, and we don't know an appropriate way to handle it, so why don't you just do what everyone else does and sign it as is?"
Needless to say, she refused to do so. As of this writing, she remains employed, and the contract remains unsigned.
You know, I always took that aspect of Ayn Rand's books (esp. Atlas Shrugged) to be great in theory, but not directly applicable to the real world.
Then I was fighting someone at work who had put us into a really awkward and inappropriate situation, not by mistake or sheer incompetence, but because he knew we'd make it work no matter what.
When I pointed out what he'd done, and that while we COULD fix it, we SHOULDN'T, he said "You're being theoretical. You need to deal in practical reality."
That phrase is a common one in those books, and one I always felt was over-the-top and would never be uttered in the real world. Surprise!
This is only relevant because so many of her characters did just what the previous poster suggests -- stop thinking and working for those who would make it harder to work and think, even while profiting from the fruits of that thought and labor.
Or, as Scott Adams said in one of his books (paraphrasing) -- what if a coworker jumped out a high window, not because he was suicidal, but because he thought it was a great shortcut to the parking lot. Do you catch him, thus affirming his decision (and thus ensuring he will repeat it), or do you let him drop and suffer the consequences of your inaction?
We do automated testing where we can, to make sure everything's working properly after every build.
At the same time, we also utilize full-time testers when we hit milestones, to make sure that items related to look, feel and IA are caught and dealt with.
So, to sum up:
Automated testing to sanity-check builds
Manual testing to ensure milestone quality
It seems odd that they would pick only games and demos that are NOT officially supported by Cedega.
A bit trollish, but I'll respond: perhaps he's actually smart enough to seek outside opinions, even though he thinks he knows the answer.
That, or he's preparing some kind of presentation/paper to justify the use of stored procs to a boss who doesn't believe in them (or vice versa), and is seeking real-world examples to bolster his point.
Just a couple of possibilities.
I believe that he mentioned this because the guys at the startup viewed 'hacker' to refer to themselves, not to the crackers that they knew the marketers intended, and that they probably did in fact hate working on the AS/400 -- thus making the truth of the headline (for them) ironic.
:) Since, as you point out, the AS/400 is a secure box, the humor comes from the headline being true in both a literal AND an ironic sense simultaneously.
I thought it was pretty funny, actually.
>...thinking of putting a touchscreen lcd up front so that i could display extra gauges at a minimal price...
Before taking this step, I hope you'll consider the four problems that LCD-based touchscreen automotive displays have. I'd hate to see a fellow slashdotter get in an accident.
1. Poor contrast compared to dedicated analog gauges -- your eyes can see a white needle on a black background on a standard gauge much faster than a while pixelated line on a black lcd background, because lcd black isn't really black -- it's gray. It also has no depth, and is more susceptable to being washed out by the sun.
2. You cannot navigate by feel using a touchscreen. Consider how often you change your CD tracks by glancing at your radio to make sure your hand is aimed in the right direction, then looking back at the road while you move your fingers to the correct button by touch.
I can't emphasize this second shortcoming enough; a friend has one of those palm-powered phones where you use the touchscreen to dial, and he said he never realized how often he dialed without looking until he tried to use the new phone. He got rid of it shortly thereafter.
3. Center-mounted LCDs tend to be too close to the driver, requiring a lot of neck rotation and eye refocusing to view. Even the manufacturers who put LCDs (and even standard gauges) in the center of the dash try to push them as far forward as possible to minimize this effect; with touchscreen LCDs, though, you can't push them so far away that they can't be touched.
Custom installations are even worse, since you won't have the same access to dashboard component reconfiguration that the manufacturer has without laying out a lot of cash.
4. Multiple screens on one display == more attention required to navigate the screens, when compared to buttons that have a single placement and a single purpose under all conditions. You're more likely to divert your attention to think about which menu you're going through, and that's dangerous unless you're at a stoplight.
And so, one of the best things about colsoles -- inability to update on the fly, necessitating stronger quality control before release -- falls to the wayside. Bluh.
In one way, this is wonderful.
Why?
Well, I'm a songwriter with a day job and no desire to pursue music for material gain -- the current record business is just stacked too far against little guys like me, so I just do it for pleasure.
But, if dentists and whatnot can't play the big boys' music without paying license fees, a whole market for creative-commons-type music will appear. Now by market, I don't necessarily mean money will change hands, but people (like myself) will write and share music, and other people (like the dentists) will seek resources that give them access to this music.
Perhaps, after a bit of time, my dentist might be able to surf to www.freetoshare.com and download many, many hours of free music to play in his office.
So one day I might walk into my own dentist's office, and hear my own music playing. That would make me happy. It would also do an even better job of taking my mind off the drilling, as I would be obsessing about "gee, I wish I'd written that part differently..." (grin)
CoffeeTalk will be the networking protocol that allows your appliances to talk to one another without configuration on your kitchen network.
;)
It will be used by your Apple-branded devices: iPerk, iCool, iHeat, iWash, iToast, iBlend, iRinse, iBake...
These appliances will all run natively on OSX.
And Java will sit in the corner and cry.
My legal name WAS David, but I always went by Dave. It's now Dave legally.
I also changed my middle/last name, as part of a marriage thing -- whereas my full name was legally "David Pseudo Longarsepolishname", it is now legally "Dave P Longarsepolishname Shortnewname".
I have various documents (passports, licenses, credit cards, etc.) that have my name as:
"Dave Shortnewname"
"Dave P Shortnewname"
"Dave P Longarsepolishname"
"Dave P Longarsepolishname Shortnewname"
"Dave Longarsepolishname Shortnewname"
The only problem I've ever encountered, to date, is the need to make sure my passport name ("Dave P Longarsepolishname") matches the name on the visa and plane tickets that I purchase, so that the ticket agents don't look at me funny.
FYI: I have DSL extreme. I have a 6000/1500 DSL connection with three static IPs, a similar attitude to Blarg! regarding services and servers, and a proven track record at protecting my interests against spammers and extortionists.
:)
And I pay $60 a month. Monthly. And it's a rock-stable connection, and their customer service is excellent.
But yeah, the DSL line itself is from SBC, and if they were my ISP, it would be awful.
Well, at least now we know exactly why Y! and AIM have fought to prevent other clients from using their services.
Sigh. And a half.
All of those reasons you stated, such as "what if I can't find him in 20 years?", are the whole POINT of them retaining the copyright and/or negatives.
:)
You see, they have a choice:
1. Actually store all of those negatives for 50+ years, etc., to alleviate your concerns;
2. Sell you the negatives for a fixed amount, and never see another dime;
3. Retain all rights so that their only method of easing your fears at stated is to buy as many of the photos as you can afford, right now, and in the future as you go.
My wife and I used a photographer that included an album with a single unretouched 4x6 of EVERY PHOTO THEY SHOT as part of the shooting package. Expensive? Yep, but we can always scan them in or get them copied for personal use to our heart's content. Great photos, too, even unretouched.
Here's the thing: you need negatives to make beautiful enlargements, but you might as well pay for those up front. If what you're looking for is memories, a mediocre copy of an unretouched small photo is as priceless as a big poster. Find someone that will give you an album like we got. It was well worth it, and we even have the pleasure of being able to look at the crappy, funny photos that we would NEVER have paid for framed versions of.
Good gaming is about good gameplay; if you don't believe that, go play with MAME for a bit. The problem is, game marketing has changed.
Once upon a time, you either watched someone else play in an arcade, risked a quarter to play it yourself, or went over to the house of the kid whose father bought every new console game that Nintendo advertised. Marketers had it easy.
These days, there are so many games available, and prices are so high, that you're at the mercy of relying on review articles or limiting yourself to the games that your friends have already bought. Articles can't show gameplay, and game companies can't control the games your friends choose to show you. What is a marketer to do?
Answer: great graphics! Great graphics == great screenshots for the magazine review. Great graphics == your friend using the game to show off how good their new video card looks. Both of those == increased sales.
Not all graphic improvements are bad -- certainly, I wouldn't play my trusty late 90s copy of Gran Prix Legends using software rendering -- but beyond a certain point graphic improvements are marketing-driven, not gameplay-driven, and we've long since passed that point.
For a driving-centric example of this, play Test Drive: Le Mans (Dreamcast version only). Then, play Gran Turismo 2 (PS2). Marvel at how crappy Test Drive: Le Mans suddenly looks. Then play Test Drive: Le Mans again. Marvel at how dull and unresponsive Gran Turismo 2 suddenly feels. And in a week, see which one you're still playing.
Well, that's a good question, isn't it? In fact, it's kind of THE question.
Would terrorists really go to the library for these materials, especially after finding out that the government monitors them? Why would they, when they can simply walk down to a local bookstore and pay cash for any darn book they please, without giving so much as a fake name?
Same goes for library Internet surveillance. I signed up for T-Mobile's wireless hotspot service for a trip to New York and Chicago, only to discover that in every Starbuck's I went to, there was AT LEAST one open, non-WEP'd wifi connection available, usually in better condition (speed and coverage-wise) than the "official" T-Mobile hotspot service -- two places in New York, and one in Chicago.
Once you get this far, you realize that library surveillance is only useful for monitoring people who use the library to access materials that the government might not approve of -- people who are at a critical development time in their lives, who generally do not have access to funding or resources other than those provided by institutions of learning or government, and whom most likely do not realize that anyone has a reason to surveil them until it's too late: students. Specifically, poor ones.
You know, those occasionally open- and critically-minded young people who are activists, who go to demonstrations, often study subversive material and speak their minds.
Just a thought.
You know, I've thought about running for office on many occasions.
I'm intelligent, articulate, and open-minded. I genuinely care about people, and want to serve as a force of good in this country if I can do so.
I've never had an affair. I've never used drugs. I don't have a criminal record. The worst thing I've ever done that someone could use against me was have mediocre grades at one point in college because I was working two jobs at the same time, and ran out of steam.
Here's what stops me every single time: if my potential political enemies don't have any honest-to-goodness real material to use against me, what kind of fake stuff are they going to come up with?
I've never been ashamed of my choices and actions in life, and I can defend myself against any attacks of that nature -- but what do you do against out-and-out lies...or baseless innuendo that leaves the impression you've done something awful without actually saying it (see the PR industry)?
Until/unless I figure it out, I won't be running.
Random note; banks are also now required to ask what you do for a living if you're self-employed.
Seriously. My wife and I went to get a safe-deposit box (for storing our wedding/engagement rings and a few important documents while on vacation) at a bank we'd used for years, and suddenly they INSISTED on knowing what my wife does for a living -- something they never cared about before, "self-employed" was sufficient.
We asked why, in case it was just a nonsense paperwork thing, and she told us "the government requires it now. We have to ask, and get an answer, so that the government knows where your money is coming from." I'd love to hear from any banking experts if this is, in fact, true*.
We told her, but driving home that day, we vowed that from now on, we're going to tell nosy people like this (with a straight face) that my wife is a "bird detailer" -- a person who cleans and details show birds right before the judging. heh.
*I once had a realtor ask my wife for her driver's license while we signed some papers; when my wife said "I don't have it with me", the realtor looked shocked and said, I kid you not, "but you have to carry your driver's license with you at all times. You get it trouble if they catch you without it." My wife responded, "but I didn't drive today." Her reply: "It doesn't matter. you always have to have it on you." Proving once again that people don't know what the hell they're talking about.
Nobody asked me (they never do), but here's what I wish would happen. Take it for what it's worth; I just had surgery, am on pain medication, and feel like sharing. ;)
;)
1. Preferential voting, as you mentioned above. Absolutely the way to go.
2. No more political advertising. Period. You can't show pictures, names, or party affiliations in advertising.
3. Mandatory seven-debate series, one each week, leading up to the election. Each debate is an hour long, and live. Candidates must agree to participate. "You can hide, but you can't run." Heh.
4. After each debate, transcripts are made available on the internet (including at local libraries.) Candidates are also encouraged to write personal remarks about each week's debate, and they will be shared in a similar fashion.
5. Paper trail for all votes, with a twist:
Company A produces a machine that lets you vote and get a paper record;
Company B produces a machine that reads and records your vote FROM the paper record;
Company C produces a machine that validates the record stored electronically on the paper record, so that you can be sure it matches the name printed on the ticket in human-readable form.
Via encryption, there's a straightforward way to prevent voting fraud unless two of the three companies conspire to commit it -- and each of the companies will be selected by one of the major political parties, to discourage such conspiring.
Oh, and the machine code would be open-source, available for removal BY ANY VOTER; you would be able to get a CD-R copy if you bring your own CD-R, and in order for the machines to be certified, it must manually compile and run the very same code before voting begins.
WHew. Okay, time for a nap.
25mph?
The article says 25kph.
That's a bit more than half of 25mph.
FYI: Nikolai Tesla invented AC generators, not Edison. Edison pushed DC, and publicly electrocuted stray dogs using AC as a demonstration of AC's "inherent dangers" (keeping in mind that DC of the same voltage would have been just as deadly.)
IE being IE, if you leave him long enough with his machine using IE, he WILL get some kind of worm, virus, or what-have-you.
If he does, then you tell him how it happened. He'll lose his computer for a while while you fix it, and invariably ask "how can I keep this from happening again?" and you tell him.
If he does NOT, then your company's security in other areas is making up for IE's weaknesses, in which case good for you. Still, it might be a good idea to tally up how much money you're spending to protect IE users from themselves, assuming you would actually be spending a lot less if IE wasn't a concern.
And, at the end of the day, if his laptop isn't getting taken over by virii and such, and you can't make a good case for (a) saving money by switching, or (b) reducing non-boss employee downtime by switching...well, you don't really have a problem.
FWIW, I had the same problem convincing my wife to switch. Before her computer got infected, she was highly reluctant. After she lost her computer for a week until I had the time to fix it, she became a convert, and now uses FireFox exclusively.
Fry's in Burbank, CA -- I went to purchase a motherboard, and they didn't have the one I wanted in stock, except as an open-box. I bought it, and sure enough, it wouldn't post.
I brought it back and had to wait in a long line, and they tested the MB right there in front of me before accepting it as a return -- can't argue with that, actually thought "well, at least they know what they're doing" -- and they replaced it with a BRAND-NEW sealed box version of the motherboard for no additional charge.
I'm not a cheat, so I pointed out that they were giving me the sealed-box MB for the open-box price. Her response: yes, we are.
Every electronics purchase I've made since then has been at Fry's, and never shall I set foot in Best Buy again.
About the definition of patriotism:
Two people who love each other very much own a dog together, and can't agree on how the dog should be taken care of.
One person believes the dog should be free to do whatever it wants, because it is a dog, and dogs should be able to do what dogs do. When the dog wants to eat, it should eat. When the dog wants to pee, it should pee, even if it's inside the house. The dog should sleep on the bed, eat people food and never be trained.
The other person believes the dog should behave as a member of the family, because it is a dog, but living in a non-dog world. The dog should eat at a specific time every day. The dog should pee outside, and be scolded and trained when it pees inside. The dog should not sleep on the bed or eat people food, and must be trained to obey.
This is a constant source of tension between the two people. They bicker, they fight, they pressure each other to conform to each other's approaches.
Why do they fight? Why do they care so much? Why is it so important?
BECAUSE THEY BOTH LOVE THE GODDAMN DOG.
Thank you very much.
To move the analogy being toyed with over a bit to the automotive industry, some cars are easier to break in than others. For instance, there's a car manufacturer (I won't say which) whose cars have been INCREDIBLY easy to break into, certainly throughout the 80s and most of the 90s. Take any old screwdriver, wedge it under a door handle seal (although many folks just use a hammer to tap the screwdriver through the sheetmetal) and twist. Boom. Open door.
Are cars inherently insecure? Sure. They're not safes, they're cars. They get broken into, and you don't keep valuables in them for that reason. BUT, some models being easier to break into quietly than others, and those models being really, really popular, you're going to see a lot more break-ins on those cars.
I should know. I owned two of them, one old and busted, one a new hotness. Both got broken into repeatedly, multiple times a year, even if there was nothing inside to steal. When I bought a different make of car (but still lived in the same area) the thefts stopped. Bought another make, the thefts didn't return. And to this day, friends of mine who own that type of car still get broken into fairly frequently.
So there ya go.