"We're just here to train as backups!"
on
How Were You Fired?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I worked for a local cable company while I was in college, as a traffic manager (collected and forwarded billing) and playback engineer. I was the only part-time employee -- everyone else was full-time. Our main purpose in life was to produce local-origination cable programming and serve as crew members when third parties rented TV studio space.
One random day, during the first day of a TV shoot for our primary third party client, several members of our "parent" cable station (a facility several towns away) showed up unannounced to work on the production. When asked why they were there (by the office PHB, who was as clueless as the rest of us) they said it was "to train as backups" when we were shortstaffed. Rumors started flying, and we "trained" them, which is a lot different than actual training.
The VERY NEXT DAY, the same people showed up for day two of the TV shoot, with the parent office's PHB in tow. The visiting PHB immediately called each person into our PHB's office one by one to fire them, as the "trainees" from the day before kicked us out of the studio and took over the third party production.
After everyone (including our PHB) had been fired except for myself and one full time employee, I was told I could keep my job if I was willing to commute several towns away for a one-hour "team meeting" every afternoon before driving back to my job in the regular facility -- an impossibility given my college schedule and the deteriorating condition of my car. I not-so-respectfully declined. The one remaining full-time person was told he was being kept on, at which point he quit (also not-so-repectfully). We all left the building en masse, and started helping each other look for jobs.
The end result: we all found placement elsewhere very quickly, the lucrative third party 2nd day shoot was a disaster, and the client never rented the space again -- in fact, they immediately shifted their business to a facility that one of the fired full-timers went to after the disaster. With the satellite office's primary source of revenue gone, the office was more or less shut down...which was probably the point in the first place.
My first "corporate" job came from a headhunter in Chicago, who called me on the phone after I unsuccessfully applied for another job through their company (they had just filled the position, but were impressed by the interview, and actually kept my resume on file as promised.) His name was Lloyd.
After an hour and a half on the phone with him, he put me in touch with the target company's representative. They were unimpressed with my phone skills, but hired me more or less on the strength of his recommendation.
In my first week, I met several other people he had hired for the company, all of whom were extremely well-regarded and doing well. It was clear that Lloyd was very well respected by both the employers and the hired employees. He did a lot of post-hiring followup with me personally, too. I ended up working there for a couple of years, and did well before leaving on my own for a better position elsewhere.
A few months after he placed me, the company he worked for was liquidated when the parent company decided to get out of the recruiting business. I got in touch with him, and found out that he had so many offers from other headhunter firms after the news broke that he was planning to take the summer off before starting work with a new firm. And that's exactly what he did.
So yes, there are headhunters out there who look out for their own interests AND those of the employee and employer, so that everyone wins. They're just few and far between, and possibly taking the summer off.;)
Perhaps Lindows knows that most, if not all, of the settlement submissions will be turned away as invalid -- but they also know that it can be a huge PR investment for them. Give away some free PCs and a whole boatload of LindowsOS software, and in return get a TON of publicity when Microsoft turns down their settlement submissions.
The funny thing is, in this case everyone would win except Microsoft, who about breaks even. To wit:
1. The schools win, because every legitimate claimant who uses the "instant settlement" (which will get turned down as invalid) will be one less legitimate person that gets paid -- so the schools get that much more money.
2. Lindows wins, because they get a LOT of publicity for their dollar, both from the original FreePC offer and later from their settlements being 'unfairly' rejected as invalid.
3. Microsoft breaks even, because they take a hit in the PR department, but they end up paying less actual cash to legitimate claimants.
0x0d0a: you're right, of course. I meant to type "Actually, SPEED itself is not dangerous." My bad.
Guppy: respectfully, I have to ask this:
How fast do you change lanes at freeway speeds? I ask, because I drive on LA's freeway system daily at speeds in excess of 75mph, and I don't experience anything that could even begin to be considered rocking.
Back to business. Regarding the torque thing, you might be wrong. Check this link, and consider that two vehicles side-by-side at the same speed that bounce off one another will be applying force on the x-axis, which is the axis of rotation of the wheels, so no torque will be imparted. Control will likely be maintained.
On the other hand, if there is a significant difference in speed between the two cars, some force resulting from the difference in speeds will be applied on the y-axis, so the torque would be imparted on the z-axis. That certainly could cause wheel hop or similar, which could easily wrench control from the driver.
Actually, speeding itself is not dangerous. DIFFERENCE IN SPEED is.
To wit: two cars going exactly 90 miles an hour, side by side, can bounce off each other repeatedly with very little damage and with neither driver losing control.
However, take a car going 50 miles an hour and bounce off a car going 25 miles an hour, and in that moment of contact that 25 miles an hour's worth of energy has to be dissipated in some fashion, so the trajectories of one or both cars is significantly altered, as is the sheetmetal.
Of course, driving 25 in a residential zone (full of objects moving at 0 miles an hour) is better than driving 50 -- but that's because the difference in speed is greater.
That's why it's always safer to go with the flow of traffic than simply obey the limits -- if everyone else is going 75 and you're going 55, you're creating a hazard, just as if you were going 75 and everyone else is going 55...or if you were going 55 and everyone else was going 10.
Hmm. I suspect "Theft of services" isn't just called "Theft" because the extra two words are necessary to make it an accurate statement.
Like so:
Man: "A theft has occurred!"
Police: "What was taken?"
Man: "My cable service was stolen!"
Police: "They stole your cable box?"
Man: "No..."
Police: "They stole the actual cable?"
Man: "No..."
Police: "So what did they steal?"
Man: "My cable service!"
Police: "Oh, so you no longer have your cable service?"
Man: "No, no, I do, but so does this other guy!"
Police: "But nothing's missing?"
Man: "Um...right. They just stole the service without paying for it."
Police: "Oh. Maybe you should call your cable company, then."
You see, "Theft of service" is a semantic construct necessary to explain the type of "Theft" that occurred, because "Theft" by itself is not an accurate descriptor.
So, set up a premise that making music is about making money, then show them that file sharing prevents them from getting that money.
Hmm. ok.
How about setting up a premise that making music is about becoming famous, then show them that file sharing gets them publicity for free?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about getting laid, then show them that file sharing gets their music heard by more members of the desired sex?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about simple pleasure, then show them that file sharing allows them to share that pleasure with others at no cost, and have others share their pleasure in return?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about meeting friends, then show them that file sharing allows other people with similar musical taste to find and contact them easily?
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Honestly, as a working stiff with a day job who makes and shares music for the pleasure of doing so, this disgusts me. You might as well take a class full of kids who want to be painters, and teach them that painting is about making money -- then show them how people with cameras can make and share copies of your artwork without paying you. Talk about a buzzkill for their enthusiasm! Wouldn't you rather they just learn to enjoy painting?
Heck, I just had two friends over at the house last night, a husband and wife (the wife was singing a track on a new song of mine.) Mind you, she can't sing very well, but that wasn't the point -- enjoyment was. By the end of the evening, they were BUZZING with enthusiasm, and had a great time. They couldn't stop talking about how much fun it is to make music. We're talking about 30-year-olds here; imagine how much fun this sort of thing is for 13-year-olds.
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With luck, this approach will backfire in some schools.
For instance, we assume the kids will say "hey, that's not fair, I worked really hard and didn't make any money!"
However, they might also say "hey, it didn't cost me anything but a little bit of time to write lyrics and make an album cover, and it was fun, and it's fun to share it with other people -- I only need the money if I have to pay off the record company for buying my paper, pens and crayons."
Or perhaps "hey, if all these people like my music, I should put on a show, then those people will all buy tickets, and probably buy a legitimate copy of my album -- and a t-shirt -- as a souvenier!"
Better still, they might say "boy, I guess music is a -- what did the teacher call it, a commodity? -- so I'd better put some effort into making desirable packaging and extras that you can't freely download over the Internet."
Then you'd have some 5th-9th graders with more of a clue than the RIAA.;)
I am a regular Opera user, and I was all set to say "Hey, with Opera, I can find and replace in form fields!"
Sadly, I just tried it and I cannot. Is this really such a difficult feature to implement, or has nobody really brought it up before now? Certainly in my years of using a browser I've not needed this feature (otherwise I would have known that Opera doesn't do it) -- but now that I know the feature is lacking, I want it.;)
I can think of one good reason -- although it's a reason that applies to me, not the person who posted the article.
Here's the reason: I don't know how to do it.
Okay, granted, it's not a GOOD reason. The thing is, I have a webstats monitor to check my WWW bandwidth, but I don't know how to check my OVERALL bandwidth. Good thing my ISP doesn't charge by the k.:)
Still, since your post seems quite confident that this should be an easy thing to do, I humbly (and sincerely) request that you give us some suggestions on how to actually monitor such traffic.
As an example, I'm running e-smith 5.5 on my home server. How would I monitor ALL my bandwidth? Not a step-by-step howto, mind you, just a "here's a great site" or "here's a good product" would help.
I'm surprised to hear that anyone clocks in for a tech job. I haven't clocked into a job since my part time job at a grocery store while I was in high school.
At my current employer, I am able to come in whenever I want, provided I make it to the morning's team meeting on time (anywhere from 9am to 10:30am) -- and if I'm late, it's peer pressure and open mocking that makes me on time the next day, not threats of wage garnishment.
Of course, we are all highly responsible individuals who have a finite amount of per-project work to get done, and we WILL get it done whether it takes 30 hours a week or 70 hours a week. Our employer knows this, and treats us accordingly -- with respect, and the understanding that the quality of work matters more than the specific time you start doing the work.
I suspect the poster's boss doesn't have much respect for his/her employees.
That's business-friendly vs. citizen-friendly
on
No Americans Need Apply
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Any government that is more concerned about their citizen's well-being than about corporation's well-being will block non-citizens from working.
Any government that is more concerned about corporation's well-being than about their citizen's well-being will allow companies to hire non-citizens to their heart's content.
I think that's pretty cut and dried. I am certain someone will correct me shortly.;)
>If there is one thing I can't stand it is people doing illegal actions and then claiming they are doing it for the greater good. This type of action cannot be condoned. Sure, you might be doing help, but you also might not.
Not to oversimplify, but jaywalking out here in California is a $50 or so ticket -- I know because my wife got one.
If I ran out into the middle of the street to pull a stray dog out of traffic, should I receive a ticket?
I'm not saying that the hacking and theoretical situations are comparable, mind you. I'm just suggesting that you must judge every case individually, rather than apply a blanket statement like yours.
I grew up with a modem, and full access to BBSes and the library's online catalog. Back then, it was a lot more expensive to have that sort of thing than it is now.
Honesty moment here: I never used the library's online catalog. Instead, I wrote notes back and forth to other people, looked up information that I found interesting, and downloaded games when nobody was looking. On one great local multiuser BBS, I regularly participated in online trivia contents in a chat room and usually won enough free credits to cover the following month's membership fee.
In the process, I learned to type. Really, really well. I could type over 50wpm before I was twelve, and now I type 100+wpm.
This kept me well-employed when I was working as an unpaid intern in my chosen field, but still had bills to pay (like tuition, which I paid myself with no financial aid or parental support.) I could pick up a phone and get a reasonably well-paying temp job at the drop of a hat.
It also kept me employed when I dropped out of college to work in my chosen field, as there were always computers around that needed fixing (you see, my father had a rule: if I broke the computer, I had to fix the computer.) If you're going to let one of two guys go, and one knows how the office computer works, you let the other one go.
When I was in my early twenties, I couldn't afford housing in Chicago on my salary (which included health benefits, by the way), so I lived in subsidized housing. I had dialup, but no cable.
Finally, when the dot-com boom happened, I had enough technical knowledge and skill gleaned from my casual and work-related use to jump on board, and now I have a stable and lucrative job in the technology sector. I've been untouched by layoffs, and I don't even have a college degree. Oh, and I like my work, and have time to write comments on Slashdot more often than not.
Without a computer + modem at home when I was nine, I wouldn't be here -- I'd probably be working a blue-collar, mentally-unstimulating job in a factory, like most of the people I grew up with.
One more thing -- I recently started going to the library. I can actually reserve books online and receive an email when they arrive. Shame they didn't have THAT when I was a kid.;)
It's probably too late to post, because nobody's reading this any more, but I'd like to respectfully disagree.
Music is ESSENTIAL. On the other hand, obtaining slickly-produced and packaged music is not.
I can live a happy life without listening to other people's music, but lord help me if I can't write and compose my own or sing songs that I make up in the shower. THAT would be a tragic life to lead.
I learned to type when I was ten years old, on my family's new Atari 800 with a program called MasterType. Unlike everything else I learned on that old machine (BASIC, PILOT, LIFE) I use my touch typing skills on a daily basis, and can hit upwards of 95wpm on a decent day.
There are five benefits to touch typing that I personally reap as a programmer:
1. If I am copying code from a book, or a printout, or notes that I took by hand, I don't have to take my eyes off of the printed material. This is quite helpful, as it means I don't have to find my place on the page every time I look away, then back;
2. I can repeatedly bang out long, descriptive variable names in roughly the same amount of time it would take someone else to hunt-and-peck a short variable name;
3. My comments and error messages tend to be more descriptive and useful, as I don't feel the need to save time and effort by writing in short words and sentences;
4. I can easily write documentation on the fly as I code, since little effort is required to whip out a quick paragraph or two about the code I'm working on;
5. My posts to Slashdot can be made quickly enough to be read by most people, yet still be long enough to warrant an automatic "+1 Informative" from any moderator who doesn't read the whole way through.;)
Well, with Slashdot so fraught with assurances of anonymity, and so littered with the maladjusted and juvenile, I guess I'll act like a jackass. Eeyore!
I recommend posting (via Google or whatever means you find appropriate) a detailed and well-written summary of the problem and your solution, with keywords.
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I did this over a year ago after banging my head against a wall for weeks getting my Gateway FDP1500 LCD monitor to work with my GeForce MX DVI card under Linux.
I stumbled across a solution that someone had posted to a mailing list, but the site had been taken offline, so the only copy available was from Google's cache. Luckily, I saved a local version of the cached page, because a short time later the information no longer came up on google search at all.
Determined to keep this information out there for others to see (and because I knew I'd lose my copy sooner or later) I wrote a short how-to article with the necessary monitor specs and XF86-Config settings, then submitted it to comp.os.linux.setup via Google Groups.
Just this month, I discovered that Suse (like most other distributions, Knoppix being a notable exception) still doesn't configure X properly with this monitor, and my personal copy of the info was long gone. So I searched on Google Groups for "Gateway FPD1500", and up came my posting: "Gateway FPD1500 LCD Monitor -- how to make it work under Linux."
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The key here is to post your article in the appropriate newsgroup, and make your article stand out from the normal, casual conversation by making it highly informative, well-written and searchable (be descriptive and detailed in your subject line and body copy). This way, it's a genuine contribution to the appropriate newsgroup, rather than something that nobody but you will appreciate or be able to find.
You make an excellent point here, and it really drives home the idea that Video Games are the new Movies.
After all, who hasn't complained that good movies can't be profitable any more, and so the big blockbuster hits are really, really dumbed down? Video games might be headed in the same direction.
How depressing.
Oh, and mad props for mentioning Settlers of Catan, which is indeed one of the best games out there right now.
Perhaps Ms Fryer meant 'easy and non-threatening' when she said "fun". Presumably, every developer is trying to make enjoyable games, but if the barrier to entry is too high (complex controls, steep learning curve) -- or appears to be high -- fewer people will take the time to play them, and so fewer will find out how much fun they (hopefully) are.
Case in point: when I bought my GameCube, I bought some games that I thought my wife would like, and Tony Hawk 3 for me. I convinced her to play Tony Hawk (and it took a lot of convincing at first) and got her through the initial tricks, and now it's her favorite game, hands-down. She kicks my ass in it more days then not, too.
If I hadn't been around to urge her to play, and if I hadn't helped her through the initial stages, she wouldn't be enjoying it now. That doesn't mean that she couldn't have figured it out on her own; it's just that she WOULDN'T have.
Let's view the original virus writer as the bank robber who masterminded a great vault robbery that entailed tunneling under the streets of Paris over the course of several weeks, and got away scot-free.
Let's then view the person they caught as someone who stumbled across the tunnels after the original bank robber got away, and used the tunnels to get into the vault and grab a few pieces the original bank robber left behind.
At this point, we can easily drum up sympathy for the second bank robber because his was a crime of opportunity -- he would never have gotten into the vault/released the virus if someone else hadn't already broken into the vault/written the virus first. We can also easily feel that his prosecution is unjust, as the "real" bank robber (who did far more harm) got away. So all of you who might feel that way, your feelings are reasonable and understandable. I had them at first, too.
They're also misguided, because his actions DID cause harm, and he did make a conscious decision to take the opportunity that presented itself. Your feelings would be better spent on someone who did no actual harm, and was instead being framed for a crime they did not commit.
Now, if the prosecutors in this case try and convict this person for writing the ORIGINAL virus, THEN it might be reasonable to have those feelings again. It would be akin to the second bank robber being blamed not for picking up scraps, but for the tunnels and major robbery that he didn't commit. In a way, he's being framed for a LARGER crime than he committed.
Then again, how do we know he didn't commit the larger crime? He could always just be claiming to be someone who found the tunnels afterward/renamed someone else's virus and sent it out. We can't be sure, and until someone else comes along as a suspect, most people would probably assume he was responsible for the whole thing.
Whew. Long post.
The lesson is this: don't be foolish enough to commit a crime of opportunity, lest you be charged with an enormity of crimes perpetrated by others who had the same opportunity -- or made the opportunity in the first place.
Some people love their country as a child loves a dog. As far as the child is concerned, the dog can pee on the carpet, chew up the shoes, and bite the neighbors all it wants -- the child does not see these flaws, and continues to love the dog unconditionally.
Some people love their country as an adult loves a dog. The dog shouldn't pee on the carpet, chew up the shoes, or bite the neighbors, and the adult gets mad at the dog and does what they can to stop the inappropriate behavior -- but at the end of the day, the adult loves the dog, too, as much as the child does.
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I am not calling anyone a child here, but simply making an analogy. I believe that Michael Moore, myself, and many others love this country as adults love a dog, while a whole lot of other people love this country as children love a dog.
Here's the good news: at the end of the day, the dog is still loved, and neither type of love is a threat to the well-being of the dog.
Here's the unsurprising part: those that love this country unconditionally believe that pointing out the flaws of this country == not loving this country. That is simply not true, and while you can shout us down all you want, we're going to keep on pointing out the flaws, for one reason:
We want to fix the flaws so that the country, like our dogs, can live a long and healthy life. I think we can all agree on that.
Perhaps if some other teenagers (who never played the game) go out and do this, they will claim to be emulating those boys in tenessee that they heard about on the news.
Do you suppose if they did, people would take it seriously like they do the influence of games, or would they just shout "copycat killing, personal responsibility"?
Interesting to think what would happen if they DID view it in the same way. Perhaps the original teenage boys would face additional charges for influencing the actions of the other teenagers.
Or maybe we'd just stick a warning label on their foreheads.;)
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*They live near a country club, and presumably they walked or biked a short distance to get there, and we know they own the latest video games, so I think it's a safe assumption.
I recently explored the possibility of going back to school for a technology degree from a local college.
One of the most disappointing things that I discovered was the huge number of Microsoft-specific classes (Visual Basic on up), the small number of Java classes (no pun intended), and most miserably of all, a single class focusing on Linux -- not mandatory, and worth only a single credit hour.
It wasn't a big school, granted, but the idea that most of the kids who go to this school to get a technology degree do so without ever having to lay a hand on a Unix machine...it just seems so wrong somehow.
Thanks for dropping this link. I had forgotten about the multiple clue tiers, commentary in place of clues, and fake questions/answers.:)
For those that didn't follow the link, each question had four hints. The first was a nudge in the right direction, and for hard puzzles the last was an outright statement of how to solve it.
For easier questions, however, the writers would give you the outright answer in the third hint, and the fourth hint (if you bothered to reveal it) was some kind of smartass comment.
The fake questions/answers were red herrings designed to confuse players who went through the InvisiClues book rubbing off clues that seemed interesting. These fake ones had nothing to do with anything that actually existed in the game, but the first three hints would escalate in the bizarreness of the steps you had to take.
The fourth hint would let you off the hook, and chastize you to 'only reveal hints when you're actually stuck on something' (or words to that effect.)
Slashdot Mirror
I worked for a local cable company while I was in college, as a traffic manager (collected and forwarded billing) and playback engineer. I was the only part-time employee -- everyone else was full-time. Our main purpose in life was to produce local-origination cable programming and serve as crew members when third parties rented TV studio space.
One random day, during the first day of a TV shoot for our primary third party client, several members of our "parent" cable station (a facility several towns away) showed up unannounced to work on the production. When asked why they were there (by the office PHB, who was as clueless as the rest of us) they said it was "to train as backups" when we were shortstaffed. Rumors started flying, and we "trained" them, which is a lot different than actual training.
The VERY NEXT DAY, the same people showed up for day two of the TV shoot, with the parent office's PHB in tow. The visiting PHB immediately called each person into our PHB's office one by one to fire them, as the "trainees" from the day before kicked us out of the studio and took over the third party production.
After everyone (including our PHB) had been fired except for myself and one full time employee, I was told I could keep my job if I was willing to commute several towns away for a one-hour "team meeting" every afternoon before driving back to my job in the regular facility -- an impossibility given my college schedule and the deteriorating condition of my car. I not-so-respectfully declined. The one remaining full-time person was told he was being kept on, at which point he quit (also not-so-repectfully). We all left the building en masse, and started helping each other look for jobs.
The end result: we all found placement elsewhere very quickly, the lucrative third party 2nd day shoot was a disaster, and the client never rented the space again -- in fact, they immediately shifted their business to a facility that one of the fired full-timers went to after the disaster. With the satellite office's primary source of revenue gone, the office was more or less shut down...which was probably the point in the first place.
My first "corporate" job came from a headhunter in Chicago, who called me on the phone after I unsuccessfully applied for another job through their company (they had just filled the position, but were impressed by the interview, and actually kept my resume on file as promised.) His name was Lloyd.
;)
After an hour and a half on the phone with him, he put me in touch with the target company's representative. They were unimpressed with my phone skills, but hired me more or less on the strength of his recommendation.
In my first week, I met several other people he had hired for the company, all of whom were extremely well-regarded and doing well. It was clear that Lloyd was very well respected by both the employers and the hired employees. He did a lot of post-hiring followup with me personally, too. I ended up working there for a couple of years, and did well before leaving on my own for a better position elsewhere.
A few months after he placed me, the company he worked for was liquidated when the parent company decided to get out of the recruiting business. I got in touch with him, and found out that he had so many offers from other headhunter firms after the news broke that he was planning to take the summer off before starting work with a new firm. And that's exactly what he did.
So yes, there are headhunters out there who look out for their own interests AND those of the employee and employer, so that everyone wins. They're just few and far between, and possibly taking the summer off.
So try this on for size:
Perhaps Lindows knows that most, if not all, of the settlement submissions will be turned away as invalid -- but they also know that it can be a huge PR investment for them. Give away some free PCs and a whole boatload of LindowsOS software, and in return get a TON of publicity when Microsoft turns down their settlement submissions.
The funny thing is, in this case everyone would win except Microsoft, who about breaks even. To wit:
1. The schools win, because every legitimate claimant who uses the "instant settlement" (which will get turned down as invalid) will be one less legitimate person that gets paid -- so the schools get that much more money.
2. Lindows wins, because they get a LOT of publicity for their dollar, both from the original FreePC offer and later from their settlements being 'unfairly' rejected as invalid.
3. Microsoft breaks even, because they take a hit in the PR department, but they end up paying less actual cash to legitimate claimants.
Something to think about, anyway.
0x0d0a: you're right, of course. I meant to type "Actually, SPEED itself is not dangerous." My bad.
Guppy: respectfully, I have to ask this:
How fast do you change lanes at freeway speeds? I ask, because I drive on LA's freeway system daily at speeds in excess of 75mph, and I don't experience anything that could even begin to be considered rocking.
Back to business. Regarding the torque thing, you might be wrong. Check this link, and consider that two vehicles side-by-side at the same speed that bounce off one another will be applying force on the x-axis, which is the axis of rotation of the wheels, so no torque will be imparted. Control will likely be maintained.
On the other hand, if there is a significant difference in speed between the two cars, some force resulting from the difference in speeds will be applied on the y-axis, so the torque would be imparted on the z-axis. That certainly could cause wheel hop or similar, which could easily wrench control from the driver.
I was addressing the question of language, not of law.
Actually, speeding itself is not dangerous. DIFFERENCE IN SPEED is.
To wit: two cars going exactly 90 miles an hour, side by side, can bounce off each other repeatedly with very little damage and with neither driver losing control.
However, take a car going 50 miles an hour and bounce off a car going 25 miles an hour, and in that moment of contact that 25 miles an hour's worth of energy has to be dissipated in some fashion, so the trajectories of one or both cars is significantly altered, as is the sheetmetal.
Of course, driving 25 in a residential zone (full of objects moving at 0 miles an hour) is better than driving 50 -- but that's because the difference in speed is greater.
That's why it's always safer to go with the flow of traffic than simply obey the limits -- if everyone else is going 75 and you're going 55, you're creating a hazard, just as if you were going 75 and everyone else is going 55...or if you were going 55 and everyone else was going 10.
Hmm. I suspect "Theft of services" isn't just called "Theft" because the extra two words are necessary to make it an accurate statement.
Like so:
Man: "A theft has occurred!"
Police: "What was taken?"
Man: "My cable service was stolen!"
Police: "They stole your cable box?"
Man: "No..."
Police: "They stole the actual cable?"
Man: "No..."
Police: "So what did they steal?"
Man: "My cable service!"
Police: "Oh, so you no longer have your cable service?"
Man: "No, no, I do, but so does this other guy!"
Police: "But nothing's missing?"
Man: "Um...right. They just stole the service without paying for it."
Police: "Oh. Maybe you should call your cable company, then."
You see, "Theft of service" is a semantic construct necessary to explain the type of "Theft" that occurred, because "Theft" by itself is not an accurate descriptor.
So, set up a premise that making music is about making money, then show them that file sharing prevents them from getting that money.
;)
Hmm. ok.
How about setting up a premise that making music is about becoming famous, then show them that file sharing gets them publicity for free?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about getting laid, then show them that file sharing gets their music heard by more members of the desired sex?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about simple pleasure, then show them that file sharing allows them to share that pleasure with others at no cost, and have others share their pleasure in return?
How about setting up a premise that making music is about meeting friends, then show them that file sharing allows other people with similar musical taste to find and contact them easily?
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Honestly, as a working stiff with a day job who makes and shares music for the pleasure of doing so, this disgusts me. You might as well take a class full of kids who want to be painters, and teach them that painting is about making money -- then show them how people with cameras can make and share copies of your artwork without paying you. Talk about a buzzkill for their enthusiasm! Wouldn't you rather they just learn to enjoy painting?
Heck, I just had two friends over at the house last night, a husband and wife (the wife was singing a track on a new song of mine.) Mind you, she can't sing very well, but that wasn't the point -- enjoyment was. By the end of the evening, they were BUZZING with enthusiasm, and had a great time. They couldn't stop talking about how much fun it is to make music. We're talking about 30-year-olds here; imagine how much fun this sort of thing is for 13-year-olds.
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With luck, this approach will backfire in some schools.
For instance, we assume the kids will say "hey, that's not fair, I worked really hard and didn't make any money!"
However, they might also say "hey, it didn't cost me anything but a little bit of time to write lyrics and make an album cover, and it was fun, and it's fun to share it with other people -- I only need the money if I have to pay off the record company for buying my paper, pens and crayons."
Or perhaps "hey, if all these people like my music, I should put on a show, then those people will all buy tickets, and probably buy a legitimate copy of my album -- and a t-shirt -- as a souvenier!"
Better still, they might say "boy, I guess music is a -- what did the teacher call it, a commodity? -- so I'd better put some effort into making desirable packaging and extras that you can't freely download over the Internet."
Then you'd have some 5th-9th graders with more of a clue than the RIAA.
I am a regular Opera user, and I was all set to say "Hey, with Opera, I can find and replace in form fields!"
;)
Sadly, I just tried it and I cannot. Is this really such a difficult feature to implement, or has nobody really brought it up before now? Certainly in my years of using a browser I've not needed this feature (otherwise I would have known that Opera doesn't do it) -- but now that I know the feature is lacking, I want it.
I can think of one good reason -- although it's a reason that applies to me, not the person who posted the article.
:)
Here's the reason: I don't know how to do it.
Okay, granted, it's not a GOOD reason. The thing is, I have a webstats monitor to check my WWW bandwidth, but I don't know how to check my OVERALL bandwidth. Good thing my ISP doesn't charge by the k.
Still, since your post seems quite confident that this should be an easy thing to do, I humbly (and sincerely) request that you give us some suggestions on how to actually monitor such traffic.
As an example, I'm running e-smith 5.5 on my home server. How would I monitor ALL my bandwidth? Not a step-by-step howto, mind you, just a "here's a great site" or "here's a good product" would help.
Thanks in advance.
I'm surprised to hear that anyone clocks in for a tech job. I haven't clocked into a job since my part time job at a grocery store while I was in high school.
At my current employer, I am able to come in whenever I want, provided I make it to the morning's team meeting on time (anywhere from 9am to 10:30am) -- and if I'm late, it's peer pressure and open mocking that makes me on time the next day, not threats of wage garnishment.
Of course, we are all highly responsible individuals who have a finite amount of per-project work to get done, and we WILL get it done whether it takes 30 hours a week or 70 hours a week. Our employer knows this, and treats us accordingly -- with respect, and the understanding that the quality of work matters more than the specific time you start doing the work.
I suspect the poster's boss doesn't have much respect for his/her employees.
Any government that is more concerned about their citizen's well-being than about corporation's well-being will block non-citizens from working.
;)
Any government that is more concerned about corporation's well-being than about their citizen's well-being will allow companies to hire non-citizens to their heart's content.
I think that's pretty cut and dried. I am certain someone will correct me shortly.
>If there is one thing I can't stand it is people doing illegal actions and then claiming they are doing it for the greater good. This type of action cannot be condoned. Sure, you might be doing help, but you also might not.
Not to oversimplify, but jaywalking out here in California is a $50 or so ticket -- I know because my wife got one.
If I ran out into the middle of the street to pull a stray dog out of traffic, should I receive a ticket?
I'm not saying that the hacking and theoretical situations are comparable, mind you. I'm just suggesting that you must judge every case individually, rather than apply a blanket statement like yours.
I grew up with a modem, and full access to BBSes and the library's online catalog. Back then, it was a lot more expensive to have that sort of thing than it is now.
;)
Honesty moment here: I never used the library's online catalog. Instead, I wrote notes back and forth to other people, looked up information that I found interesting, and downloaded games when nobody was looking. On one great local multiuser BBS, I regularly participated in online trivia contents in a chat room and usually won enough free credits to cover the following month's membership fee.
In the process, I learned to type. Really, really well. I could type over 50wpm before I was twelve, and now I type 100+wpm.
This kept me well-employed when I was working as an unpaid intern in my chosen field, but still had bills to pay (like tuition, which I paid myself with no financial aid or parental support.) I could pick up a phone and get a reasonably well-paying temp job at the drop of a hat.
It also kept me employed when I dropped out of college to work in my chosen field, as there were always computers around that needed fixing (you see, my father had a rule: if I broke the computer, I had to fix the computer.) If you're going to let one of two guys go, and one knows how the office computer works, you let the other one go.
When I was in my early twenties, I couldn't afford housing in Chicago on my salary (which included health benefits, by the way), so I lived in subsidized housing. I had dialup, but no cable.
Finally, when the dot-com boom happened, I had enough technical knowledge and skill gleaned from my casual and work-related use to jump on board, and now I have a stable and lucrative job in the technology sector. I've been untouched by layoffs, and I don't even have a college degree. Oh, and I like my work, and have time to write comments on Slashdot more often than not.
Without a computer + modem at home when I was nine, I wouldn't be here -- I'd probably be working a blue-collar, mentally-unstimulating job in a factory, like most of the people I grew up with.
One more thing -- I recently started going to the library. I can actually reserve books online and receive an email when they arrive. Shame they didn't have THAT when I was a kid.
-D
It's probably too late to post, because nobody's reading this any more, but I'd like to respectfully disagree.
Music is ESSENTIAL. On the other hand, obtaining slickly-produced and packaged music is not.
I can live a happy life without listening to other people's music, but lord help me if I can't write and compose my own or sing songs that I make up in the shower. THAT would be a tragic life to lead.
I learned to type when I was ten years old, on my family's new Atari 800 with a program called MasterType. Unlike everything else I learned on that old machine (BASIC, PILOT, LIFE) I use my touch typing skills on a daily basis, and can hit upwards of 95wpm on a decent day.
;)
There are five benefits to touch typing that I personally reap as a programmer:
1. If I am copying code from a book, or a printout, or notes that I took by hand, I don't have to take my eyes off of the printed material. This is quite helpful, as it means I don't have to find my place on the page every time I look away, then back;
2. I can repeatedly bang out long, descriptive variable names in roughly the same amount of time it would take someone else to hunt-and-peck a short variable name;
3. My comments and error messages tend to be more descriptive and useful, as I don't feel the need to save time and effort by writing in short words and sentences;
4. I can easily write documentation on the fly as I code, since little effort is required to whip out a quick paragraph or two about the code I'm working on;
5. My posts to Slashdot can be made quickly enough to be read by most people, yet still be long enough to warrant an automatic "+1 Informative" from any moderator who doesn't read the whole way through.
-Dave
>What's to be done?
Well, with Slashdot so fraught with assurances of anonymity, and so littered with the maladjusted and juvenile, I guess I'll act like a jackass. Eeyore!
I recommend posting (via Google or whatever means you find appropriate) a detailed and well-written summary of the problem and your solution, with keywords.
- - -
I did this over a year ago after banging my head against a wall for weeks getting my Gateway FDP1500 LCD monitor to work with my GeForce MX DVI card under Linux.
I stumbled across a solution that someone had posted to a mailing list, but the site had been taken offline, so the only copy available was from Google's cache. Luckily, I saved a local version of the cached page, because a short time later the information no longer came up on google search at all.
Determined to keep this information out there for others to see (and because I knew I'd lose my copy sooner or later) I wrote a short how-to article with the necessary monitor specs and XF86-Config settings, then submitted it to comp.os.linux.setup via Google Groups.
Just this month, I discovered that Suse (like most other distributions, Knoppix being a notable exception) still doesn't configure X properly with this monitor, and my personal copy of the info was long gone. So I searched on Google Groups for "Gateway FPD1500", and up came my posting: "Gateway FPD1500 LCD Monitor -- how to make it work under Linux."
- - -
The key here is to post your article in the appropriate newsgroup, and make your article stand out from the normal, casual conversation by making it highly informative, well-written and searchable (be descriptive and detailed in your subject line and body copy). This way, it's a genuine contribution to the appropriate newsgroup, rather than something that nobody but you will appreciate or be able to find.
You make an excellent point here, and it really drives home the idea that Video Games are the new Movies.
After all, who hasn't complained that good movies can't be profitable any more, and so the big blockbuster hits are really, really dumbed down? Video games might be headed in the same direction.
How depressing.
Oh, and mad props for mentioning Settlers of Catan, which is indeed one of the best games out there right now.
Perhaps Ms Fryer meant 'easy and non-threatening' when she said "fun". Presumably, every developer is trying to make enjoyable games, but if the barrier to entry is too high (complex controls, steep learning curve) -- or appears to be high -- fewer people will take the time to play them, and so fewer will find out how much fun they (hopefully) are.
Case in point: when I bought my GameCube, I bought some games that I thought my wife would like, and Tony Hawk 3 for me. I convinced her to play Tony Hawk (and it took a lot of convincing at first) and got her through the initial tricks, and now it's her favorite game, hands-down. She kicks my ass in it more days then not, too.
If I hadn't been around to urge her to play, and if I hadn't helped her through the initial stages, she wouldn't be enjoying it now. That doesn't mean that she couldn't have figured it out on her own; it's just that she WOULDN'T have.
Let's view the original virus writer as the bank robber who masterminded a great vault robbery that entailed tunneling under the streets of Paris over the course of several weeks, and got away scot-free.
Let's then view the person they caught as someone who stumbled across the tunnels after the original bank robber got away, and used the tunnels to get into the vault and grab a few pieces the original bank robber left behind.
At this point, we can easily drum up sympathy for the second bank robber because his was a crime of opportunity -- he would never have gotten into the vault/released the virus if someone else hadn't already broken into the vault/written the virus first. We can also easily feel that his prosecution is unjust, as the "real" bank robber (who did far more harm) got away. So all of you who might feel that way, your feelings are reasonable and understandable. I had them at first, too.
They're also misguided, because his actions DID cause harm, and he did make a conscious decision to take the opportunity that presented itself. Your feelings would be better spent on someone who did no actual harm, and was instead being framed for a crime they did not commit.
Now, if the prosecutors in this case try and convict this person for writing the ORIGINAL virus, THEN it might be reasonable to have those feelings again. It would be akin to the second bank robber being blamed not for picking up scraps, but for the tunnels and major robbery that he didn't commit. In a way, he's being framed for a LARGER crime than he committed.
Then again, how do we know he didn't commit the larger crime? He could always just be claiming to be someone who found the tunnels afterward/renamed someone else's virus and sent it out. We can't be sure, and until someone else comes along as a suspect, most people would probably assume he was responsible for the whole thing.
Whew. Long post.
The lesson is this: don't be foolish enough to commit a crime of opportunity, lest you be charged with an enormity of crimes perpetrated by others who had the same opportunity -- or made the opportunity in the first place.
Some people love their country as a child loves a dog. As far as the child is concerned, the dog can pee on the carpet, chew up the shoes, and bite the neighbors all it wants -- the child does not see these flaws, and continues to love the dog unconditionally.
Some people love their country as an adult loves a dog. The dog shouldn't pee on the carpet, chew up the shoes, or bite the neighbors, and the adult gets mad at the dog and does what they can to stop the inappropriate behavior -- but at the end of the day, the adult loves the dog, too, as much as the child does.
- - -
I am not calling anyone a child here, but simply making an analogy. I believe that Michael Moore, myself, and many others love this country as adults love a dog, while a whole lot of other people love this country as children love a dog.
Here's the good news: at the end of the day, the dog is still loved, and neither type of love is a threat to the well-being of the dog.
Here's the unsurprising part: those that love this country unconditionally believe that pointing out the flaws of this country == not loving this country. That is simply not true, and while you can shout us down all you want, we're going to keep on pointing out the flaws, for one reason:
We want to fix the flaws so that the country, like our dogs, can live a long and healthy life. I think we can all agree on that.
-Dave
Rich*, bored teenage kids with access to guns.
;)
I'd love to see what the parents are like.
Perhaps if some other teenagers (who never played the game) go out and do this, they will claim to be emulating those boys in tenessee that they heard about on the news.
Do you suppose if they did, people would take it seriously like they do the influence of games, or would they just shout "copycat killing, personal responsibility"?
Interesting to think what would happen if they DID view it in the same way. Perhaps the original teenage boys would face additional charges for influencing the actions of the other teenagers.
Or maybe we'd just stick a warning label on their foreheads.
- - -
*They live near a country club, and presumably they walked or biked a short distance to get there, and we know they own the latest video games, so I think it's a safe assumption.
I recently explored the possibility of going back to school for a technology degree from a local college.
One of the most disappointing things that I discovered was the huge number of Microsoft-specific classes (Visual Basic on up), the small number of Java classes (no pun intended), and most miserably of all, a single class focusing on Linux -- not mandatory, and worth only a single credit hour.
It wasn't a big school, granted, but the idea that most of the kids who go to this school to get a technology degree do so without ever having to lay a hand on a Unix machine...it just seems so wrong somehow.
Thanks for dropping this link. I had forgotten about the multiple clue tiers, commentary in place of clues, and fake questions/answers. :)
For those that didn't follow the link, each question had four hints. The first was a nudge in the right direction, and for hard puzzles the last was an outright statement of how to solve it.
For easier questions, however, the writers would give you the outright answer in the third hint, and the fourth hint (if you bothered to reveal it) was some kind of smartass comment.
The fake questions/answers were red herrings designed to confuse players who went through the InvisiClues book rubbing off clues that seemed interesting. These fake ones had nothing to do with anything that actually existed in the game, but the first three hints would escalate in the bizarreness of the steps you had to take.
The fourth hint would let you off the hook, and chastize you to 'only reveal hints when you're actually stuck on something' (or words to that effect.)