There is a large difference between the two. The Nazi flag represents one thing...the Nazi government and the atrocities it perpetrated during and before WWII.
The CSA battle flag is different in that it represents MANY different things to many different people. To blacks and anti-racists, the flag represents the evils of slavery. But it is important to remember that not every southerner fought for slavery. Many were fighting against what they saw as "northern domination". Because of that, many white (and yes, even some black) southerners are proud of the CSA and the war because their ancestors fought and died in the name of state freedom. And then, of course, you've got the redneck racists who hold the flag up as a white power symbol.
So, what do you do with a symbol that means different things to different people? Ban it? That just angers the people who see no evil in it...and in the south, that's a sizeable voting bloc. Not ban it? That just angers the people who view the flag as a representation of the repression of their ancestors...and in the south, that's ANOTHER sizeable voting bloc. So who wins?
Personally, I DON'T think that the CSA battle flag should fly on modern state flags, simply because there is little point in it anymore. The CSA is long dead, and it's presence is simply a nostalgic reminder of once was (kinda like the golden bear on the California flag). Some southerners get highly defensive when groups like the NAACP try to take it down, however, because the NAACP tries to paint all southerners with the broad "racist slave owners" brush, and insulting peoples ancestors like that just pisses people off. As a rule, angry people aren't reasonable.
If you'd read the article, you'd notice that there will be no full version. This was announced because the program has been cancelled and the aircraft mothballed. It was a technology test only.
First, let me state that as an educational web software developer, accessiblility is half my job.
The problem with tools like Bobby is that they only address half the issue, things like ALT tags, commenting, etc. What Bobby does NOT do well is address "readability" issues. While implementing CSS, using ALT Tags, formatting forms, and commenting your pages are nice, a poor layout can make the page completely unreadable to a blind user. I couldn't tell you how many pages I've seen that "passed" their Bobby checks, but were totally unuseable by screen readers because of poor table and content layouts. Instead of using Bobby, try this one on your next page: Download a copy of JAWS or the IBM Homepage Reader, put on a blindfold, and try to surf your website by ear. If you have designed your website well, you should have no problems. If the reader makes no sense, then your site is NOT accessible...whether or not Bobby likes it.
You've posted this twice now, BrianH. Is Novak paying you?
Heh, no. When I refreshed the page after posting it the first time, I realized that it was buried so far down inside the thread that few people would see it. I didn't realize it'd get modded to a five and move up the lists so far, so I reposted it elsewhere under a higher ranking thread. My bad:\ Or maybe you are Novak?
With my user number? Very funny. I just happen to have a problem with the misrepresentation that's going on here, and would like more people to actually read the suit.
If you really read the lawsuit, you'd see that he's suing because the search terms "pets warehouse" (two words) are bringing up the competing sites...The sites in question have not put the word "petswarehouse" or "petswarehouse.com" in their metatags -- they've put "pets" and "warehouse".
Yes, I did read it, all 18 pages, end to end. His allegation is that they have taken his legally registered trademark "Pets Warehouse", and have placed it in their meta tags and pay for click searches in order to draw business away from people looking for his company. That isn't legal. Now, I don't know how true his allegations are (I didn't look at the meta-tags), but they were never the point of my posts anyway. If he doesn't have any evidence to prove malicious use, Google will probably get a summary dismissal and the whole thing will be tossed.
I simply wanted to point out that this wasn't related to the earlier suits, despite the 700+ comments that seem to imply that it was.
Yes, I read it here, and I just saw standard legalese. He believes that the competing businesses are unfairly profiting by the use of his registered trademark. If he can prove in court that this is indeed the case, then he should have every right to prohibit these specific defendants from using his trademark, or popular variations of his trademark, in the future. His demands on Google are even more specific...he wants them to stop using his trademark for "Sponsored Link" advertisements placed by other companies. He claims that he already asked them to do this, but they refused. If this is indeed true, then Google (as much as I love the service) is indeed in the wrong and should be held liable.
Don't get me wrong, I think the guy is just as much a creep as all of you. My problem is that there are now over 700 comments in this discussion, and NOBODY ELSE seems to have bothered to read the complaint and find out what this is really about. Everyone is making comments based on Novaks past, assuming that they know what this is about, and ranting about how big an as*h*le he is. He is a huge as*h*le, but everyones assumptions have forced this discussion to miss the REAL issues brought up by this suit.
As much as I despise what Mr. Novak did with the whole fish complaint thing, a quick read of the ACTUAL LAWSUIT shows that this new suit has NOTHING to do with free speech or negative comments from unhappy customers. This is a completely new and UNRELATED lawsuit, that just happens to be from the same guy. Petswarehouse.Com is suing Google, and other search engines and petstores because they are using the Petswarehouse.com trademark to steal customers. Google is included in the suit because they are allowing paid placement customers (competing petstores) to use the PetsWarehouse.Com trademark as a keyword to display their ads. The competing petsores themselves are alleged to have put the petswarehouse.com trademark inside their meta-tags to attract customers. The suit also alleges that PetsWarehouse complained about the trademark infringement to Google, but that Google refused to abide by their own policy and remove the infringing material.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Novak may actually have a valid trademark suit here!
As much as I despise what Mr. Novak did with the whole fish complaint thing, a quick read of the ACTUAL LAWSUIT shows that this new suit has NOTHING to do with free speech or negative comments from unhappy customers. This is a completely new and UNRELATED lawsuit, that just happens to be from the same guy. Petswarehouse.Com is suing Google, and other search engines and petstores because they are using the Petswarehouse.com trademark to steal customers. Google is included in the suit because they are allowing paid placement customers (competing petstores) to use the PetsWarehouse.Com trademark as a keyword to display their ads. The competing petsores themselves are alleged to have put the petswarehouse.com trademark inside their meta-tags to attract customers. The suit also alleges that PetsWarehouse complained about the trademark infringement to Google, but that Google refused to abide by their own policy and remove the infringing material.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Novak may actually have a valid trademark suit here!
Some idiots forgot their original passwords and had to create new accounts (like me). I remember creating this account and thinking ""A user number in the THIRTEEN THOUSANDS?!?! Everyone will think I'm a freaking n00b!" I don't feel so bad now though:-)
Unfortunately, most of the early people moved on. Slashdot used to be a very different thing than it is today, with far fewer posts per thread, and with more of an emphasis on discussion than comments. The moderation system kinda did away with that by breaking the linearity of most comments and hiding some others, and the massive influx of new users made those types of discussions unfeasible anyway. When this all happened, many of us whined and complained, but a huge number of users simply left.
Can't give you a page number because each printing is different, but I'll add my 2 cents here and confirm that he is indeed a hobbit. Smeagol is the hobbit that found the One Ring on the bottom of the river where it had fallen from Isildur's dead hand (also alluded to in the beginning of the movie). He and a friend (another hobbit) stumbled across the ring in the river, and Smeagol fled into the caves after murdering his friend for the ownership of the ring. The evil power of the ring twisted his form over the centuries and created the shrunken, evil thing later known as Gollum.
I could be off (it's been a while since I read it myself), but I seem to remember that it's in the first book somewhere.
Hey, I'm a "big L" Libertarian myself, but I have to disagree with you here. There are certain areas where the government SHOULD get involved, and where we do need it's services. These include military defense, foreign relations, LAW ENFORCEMENT, and a few others.
At the minimum, this meets the legal definition of fraud (IANAL, but the guy down the hall is, and he just told me that this meets the "legal yardstick"). At the most, we may be looking at criminal theft. Either way, this consitutes a real crime and is the kind of thing that governments were meant to deal with.
Another factor to consider is the performance of the array. With RAID5, more spindles (disks) often means better performance. Going 20x120 will not only save him money, it will probably improve his performance.
Your post is in so far interesting that it gives indeed a hint why it is hard to bid. That was the idea.
I have NONE of such certifications you require. And I have a strong disbelieve in specialization, especialy in computer science. It is VERY likely that one of the guys who win a bid by you are trained BY ME. And I learned it by DOING As a college dropout myself, I can certainly sympathize with your argument, but it won't get you anywhere. This discussion is about people wanting to know how to win bids, and the easiest way to win a bid is to prove that you know your stuff. Portfolios are easily faked, and I don't have time to meet with you, so how am I to determine whether or not you know the technology? By asking an independent and unbiased third party source. That's what degrees and certifications are really all about. When I hold two bids, and one has certified and/or degreed developers while the other has nothing, I'm forced to compare a known minimum to a completely unknown quantity. Given the typical ten minutes per bid that we're given, which would you chose? Now, since 90% of bids are reviewed by MBA's and purchasing departments with little technical background, which do you think they would choose? We're not talking about what's fair or how things SHOULD be, we're talking about how they ARE. This is how things are, and people need to take this into account when bidding projects.
Would you ask Ivar Jacobson wich certifications he has? You know, I've got one of his UML books floating around my office somewhere, and I seem to recall that his proper title is Dr. Ivar Jacobson. A PhD in programming kinda speaks for itself:\
Also your rant about XYZ Web Inc versus personal projects.... its allways the PERSON who does it. Project usualy fail not beause of technical incompetence. They fail because of organisational incompetence and this one is often paired with personal or communicative incompetence, call it pride and selfishness if you like. You're missing your own point. First you say it's the person who does it, then you say it's not technical incompetence (i.e. "the person") who causes the project failures. This is my point and it's EXACTLY why I want to see portfolio projects from the company, not the individual developers.
You could, for example, put together 10 of the best web developers, graphic designers, and DBA's on the market and create a new company. On paper, if you list their individual projects, it might look pretty impressive. But what if the new company has bad management? Poor development processes? Unrealistic salesmen? The best developers in the world can't overcome working for a bad company, and their personal histories are no gurantee that projects taken on by this company will succeed. That's why we have to see projects done by the COMPANY. It not only shows us that you have competent developers, but that you can all work together and get things done. That's more important to a company than individual skill...I'm outsourcing to a company, not hiring a programmer.
By processes, I assume you mean web forms. You are talking a project that any reasonable competant webdeveloper can churn out in jps, asp, php or perl within two weeks. You got ripped.
No, by processes I meant use-cases. I use the terms interchangeably, and I realize that this can be confusing. To clarify, the developer on this project provided us with the UI, a department homepage, one blank content page (which was then fed into Broadvision so the secretaries and marketroids could write the actual content), and 40+ form pages, database driven content pages, and an online timeline generation app written in Java.
First, someone mod this guy up, I may not agree with him 100%, but he makes some good, relevant points that many people here will miss because of the Score:0
For instance number 2 on your list is that the more developers that you have working on a project, the more likely it is to be completed and delivered on time. In fact software engineering literature from The Mythical Man-Month on comes to exactly the opposite conclusion. Adding bodies to software development creates basic infrastructure problems that make the project more difficult to accomplish, let alone to accomplish in a timely manner. As a programmer myself, I agree completely. The debate, however, comes into play when deciding just where that line should be drawn. My personal standard is that there should never be more than 2 developers per use-case, but that it is preferable to limit teams to 1 developer per use-case and "cross-develop" features to ensure that a project stays developer independent. Using that theory, I would have accepted up to ten developers for this website.
then there is good reason to want a development environment that makes developers more productive and therefore reduces the minimum size of development team that you need for your projects
Fundamentally I agree with you, but a bid is NOT the place to propose architectural changes to a potential client. I once took on a $15,000 project to add several features to a website that was written in Delphi, running on an ancient HTTPd server running on NT4, and connecting to a really old Informix database. I wrote my proposal to the clients specifications, and won the bid. After I won the bid and began developing the new features for the client, I presented them with a list of suggestions to improve their website. These ranged from implementing WCAG-AA design rules, to switching to a Solaris/Apache/Oracle architecture to improve performance. I also didn't argue for these changes "because they're better", but instead made solid business arguments as to why the changes should be made (reduced maintenance costs, improved reliability, better performance, greater expandability). The client eventually OK'd the upgrades, and my $15,000, 30-day project became a $160,000, six month project. So, yes, architectural changes CAN be suggested to the client (and they can often lead to much more lucrative contracts), but they should NOT be placed within the bid itself.
...though I admit to thinking that your choices "leave room for improvement...
I'll actually agree with you there, but that brings up the other half of the "suggesting platform changes" issue: The people evaluating your bid may not have any control over the technologies used. In my position, for instance, I make web decisions daily that directly impact website development for more than 40,000 people. Despite this, I don't get to choose what goes in our datacenter. Decisions about what we run on are made by Datacenter Operations, the Director of IT's office, and the CIO herself. While I can make suggestions regarding what goes on our servers, I can't arbitrarily order them changed. So when I put out an RFP requesting a web-app that will run on IPlanet and Broadvision, and someone gives me a bid suggesting Apache and Slashcode, there just isn't much I can do with it...no matter HOW convincing your four page manifesto on the superiority of Apache might be. I've seen far too many proposals get chucked because development firms don't take this into account.
I pretty much agree with everything else you say:)
Brian? How'd you *know* it was worth the extra $20K?
As I stated in another post, the simple fact that there was some redundancy in the programming staff made it worth the extra $19k. We didn't expect the project to be done any faster, or the code to be any better, we simply realized that more developers meant that the project was less likely to be delivered late.
One other thing that I should have mentioned in my first post: The additional programmers don't necessarily have to be working on the project. For smaller projects where a large group of coders would be impractical, simply listing "backup" programmers in the bid may be enough to reassure the client that the project will be finished if a primary coder quits.
To be honest, there was a bit of arguing within our own committe about that point, but my argument won out. The problem with two coders is that the project becomes far too dependent on the individial. What if one coder quits? Gets injured in a horrible car accident? Decides he's "bored" with the project? What happens is the project ends up behind schedule or incomplete, and we end up losing time and money. Putting five coders on the project ensures that the loss of any one individual won't drastically effect the development timelines.
More developers are also useful for QA purposes. The more eyeballs you have on a particular project, the less likely it is that a major bug will sneak through.
I'm not sure that this is particularly true. I've sat on a half dozen bid evaluations in the past, and I recently chaired the bid committee for a government website and had this same discussion with a couple disgruntled bidders. Our project was for an educational website with about 10 processes and 45 screens. we received 17 bids on the project, with prices ranging from $8,000 to $325,000. The bid we selected was somewhat in the middle at $74,000. When some of the lower bidders called asking why they'd been overlooked, I had to explain a few points:
Price is often the last thing bid evaluators look at. While it is true that stupidly high and stupidly low bids get tossed without evaluation, price usually doesn't have any effect early in the evaluation process.
Company size really does matter. The point of view is that the more developers work on the project, the more likely it is to be completed and delivered on-time. In the project I recently awarded, we had two proposals that were even in every way, except that the $55,000 proposal had four developers (one graphic designer, a DBA, and two programmers), and the $74,000 proposal had seven developers (one graphic designer, a DBA, and five programmers). Guess which one we chose?
Company history is VERY important. Gaming and personal sites don't count, and neither do projects you completed while employed for someone else. If you are approaching me as XYZ Web Inc., then I want to see an impressive portfolio of websites that were actually built by XYZ Web Inc. I personally don't care if you've worked at Yahoo, Amazon, or Ebay, because I'm not hiring them to do the job. I'm hiring your company, so I need to see your companies credentials. It's amazing that such a simple concept can be so consistently forgotten by bidders.
You need specialists, or you need to go out of your way to show that your general developers have specific training in multiple fields. If I put out a bid for a website that requires graphics work and a database, then you had BETTER show me that there will be a professional graphic designer and a DBA working on the project, in addition to the web developers. If that's not possible, I need to know the certifications and training that your general developers have had in those fields. "Self Taught" earns your bid a short trip to my circular file.
Did you submit a proposal, or just a price? You cannot write a good bid that is less than 20 pages long...period. We need your company portfolio, your developer histories, the list of the technologies you plan to use, timelines as well as a quick development plan and at least one use-case scenario to prove that you really understand what the project is all about. I've seen far too many bids that basically said "We're XYZ Web Inc., and we can build your website for $5,000". Maybe you can, maybe you can't, but either way you have to give me enough information to base my decision on.
Never ever argue technology with the client. Our datacenter is pretty standardized: We run IPlanet on the webservers, Oracle on the databases, and Solaris as the OS for everything. When we put things out for bid, we make it clear that our websites/software must run on this platform, and that our web sites MUST be written in JSP. Given that, I've never understood why so many bidders see fit to argue the point; "PERL is better!", "Linux is cheaper", "Apache is more stable", "IIS is the web standard", and other pitches may or may not be true, but I really don't care. If my RFP says that you must use technologies A, B, & C, then that bid had better use those technologies. Anything else gets you dumped.
What about goodies? Maintentance? Most good bids (read:expensive) include statements that the developer will train internal staff to maintain the webpages, construct the site so that a secretary or merketing lackey can edit it, or otherwise pile on peripheral site features that aren't neccesarily included in the bid request. Showing the client that you're willing to go above and beyond what they asked for is a good way to get their attention.
See any room for improvement? Suggest it! The bidders who won the last eval I chaired partially did so because they improved our own requirements. When the developers saw our RFP and saw the requirments and features, they realized a better way to solve one of our problems and suggested it. We were so impressed with the improved suggestion that they got the project.
Be professional. Bids will often have bidder meetings where some of the top proposers get called in to answer questions or clarify their proposals. If you get called to one of these, you need to remember this: These are not your friends, or your bosses, or your co-workers, they are your potential clients and you need to treat them as such. This means no bluejeans and t-shirts with Google logos on them. Put on some slacks and a tie (and a coat if it's a large or formal institution), and toss that big pile of papers in a briefcase. If you can't present yourself properly, how can we expect you to rpesent us properly?
Price gets weighed in AFTER all of these factors are considered. If we evaluate our bids and find that two companies offer equally outstanding proposals, make equally compelling sales pitches, and have equal backgrounds and development staff, then we might weigh price in as the deciding factor. But that's actually a pretty rare situation:\
Much of the "you'll get sued if you shoot" crap is a myth. I should know...I actually had to do it. In July of 1997 a man with a long history of psychiatric problems entered my house and stabbed my wife in the abdomen with a 3" pocket knife. He then threw my three year old daughter across the room and pinned my wife down and began trying to stab her again. Unfortunately for him I heard the screaming, ran downstairs with my gun, and put five bullets in his back before he could hurt her any more.
Physically, my wife and daughter were OK (my wife was out of the hospital the next day, and my daughter landed on a couch)...mentally, it took a new house and a few years of counselling. But my point here is that nobody ever even questioned my decision to shoot him. The police declared it "justifiable self defense" in about 30 seconds, and the mans own family sent me a letter offering their sympathies for my wifes injuries and their hopes for a speedy recovery. While we were in counselling, we discovered that this was the typical response in these kinds of situations. Lawsuits by family members and the estates of the dead criminals are actually pretty rare, they just get a lot more press than they deserve.
In the U.S., Social Security is pretty much just for old people (there are exceptions however, including the disabled, widows, and orphaned children). All of us younger working stiffs pay our 15% to support this system, and that barely covers the bills for the present users. The last time a national healthcare plan was floated, I remember seeing a calculation that the SS withdrawal would have to increase to 30%-35% in order to cover every American. 35% doesn't sound too bad until you realize that many Americans currently pay at or near 50% of their salaries to the government: federal taxes, state taxes, local municipality taxes, special assessments and property taxes, sales taxes, smog fees, auto registration and license fees...it all adds up pretty quick. If we were to open our social security system up to everyone, that number would approach 70%...an amount that would break the financial back of many working families (mine included).
It's been a looong time (decades) since I've studied or used Latin, but here goes: Many people commonly believe that "lex" translates to "the law", but that's more due to it's usage than to its meaning. The more accurate translation of "lex" would be "the word" (hence its modern usage in words like lexicon), but ONLY when those words convey some kind of instruction or rule. It's a fine difference, but there is a difference.
An example of this comes to us though modern Christianity with the saying "The Word of God". I'm sure we've all heard people use the term, and it originates from the original translation of the latin Bible into English. The Latin Bible uses a phrase similar to Lex Deus, which literally translates to "The Word of God", but which actually means "The Law of God". You may have to study language to appreciate the difference;-)
The usage of "lex" in the legal sense probably originated in the earliest days of the Roman empire. At that time, all laws were approved by the king (we're talking pre-Republic here). Therefore, all of what we call laws would have been called "lex regium", or "the Word of the King". Over time, as happens with all languages, people would have shortened it to "the word", but kept the same meaning.
The proper phrase for law as we think of it would be "lex legis" or "the word of law".
Yeah, TOO quickly. I knew a guy (friend of a friend) who built a small GE "kit craft"in his garage. He destroyed it when he tried to "skip" over some boulders (while flying it in the Utah desert) and jumped from 15 to more than 50 feet. He managed to clear the boulders, but it cost him so much airspeed that he stalled out and hit the ground on the other side. The GECraft was completely destroyed...and he wasn't doing much better himself.
Certainly, but we SHOULD extend our support to corporations willing to help us fight these battles. Companies like Gateway have deeper pockets, better lawyers, and more Washingon clout than your typical grassroots.org, so I see no reason why we shouldn't be actively enlisting their support.
Conveniently, I was putting together a purchase recommendation for a few departmental file servers this morning when I noticed this article. Although I was originally going to recommend a few HP e800's, I instead called up Gateway and set up a quote on a few 930C's. I made it a point to explain to the sales rep that their support of consumer rights gained them this sale.
Put your money where your mouth is, and support the companies that are willing to support you.
Bingo, I've got an (albeit small) amount of code floating around in a few of the various Linux distros. Under copyright law in the U.S., and most other industrialized countries, if the GPL were to fail the rights on my code would revert back to me. At that point I would be legally allowed to charge a license fee for its use, completely ban its distribution or use, or relicense it under a more bulletproof version of the GPL (which is what I would do).
It would NOT be in the best interest of any company wanting to use GPL'd code to try and overturn the GPL.
That doesn't always work either. Not all of us are blessed with regularly running snowplow service. My vacation home/ski shack/money pit (<--the wifes opinion;) in the California Sierra's sits at the end of a 500 yard paved driveway shared by seven homes. The ONLY way I can clear the driveway after a heavy snowstorm is to attach a small plow to the front of my Suburban and clear it myself. Why a Suburban? MASS. Larger drifts across the driveway would stop a smaller vehicle cold. The Suburban is heavy enough, however, to push its way through those drifts and clear a path. My neighbors, with their Outbacks, Wranglers, and Rav4's, do just fine when there's only a few inches of show on the ground, but when we get real snow they always call me up.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a large difference between the two. The Nazi flag represents one thing...the Nazi government and the atrocities it perpetrated during and before WWII. The CSA battle flag is different in that it represents MANY different things to many different people. To blacks and anti-racists, the flag represents the evils of slavery. But it is important to remember that not every southerner fought for slavery. Many were fighting against what they saw as "northern domination". Because of that, many white (and yes, even some black) southerners are proud of the CSA and the war because their ancestors fought and died in the name of state freedom. And then, of course, you've got the redneck racists who hold the flag up as a white power symbol.
So, what do you do with a symbol that means different things to different people? Ban it? That just angers the people who see no evil in it...and in the south, that's a sizeable voting bloc. Not ban it? That just angers the people who view the flag as a representation of the repression of their ancestors...and in the south, that's ANOTHER sizeable voting bloc. So who wins?
Personally, I DON'T think that the CSA battle flag should fly on modern state flags, simply because there is little point in it anymore. The CSA is long dead, and it's presence is simply a nostalgic reminder of once was (kinda like the golden bear on the California flag). Some southerners get highly defensive when groups like the NAACP try to take it down, however, because the NAACP tries to paint all southerners with the broad "racist slave owners" brush, and insulting peoples ancestors like that just pisses people off. As a rule, angry people aren't reasonable.
If you'd read the article, you'd notice that there will be no full version. This was announced because the program has been cancelled and the aircraft mothballed. It was a technology test only.
First, let me state that as an educational web software developer, accessiblility is half my job.
The problem with tools like Bobby is that they only address half the issue, things like ALT tags, commenting, etc. What Bobby does NOT do well is address "readability" issues. While implementing CSS, using ALT Tags, formatting forms, and commenting your pages are nice, a poor layout can make the page completely unreadable to a blind user. I couldn't tell you how many pages I've seen that "passed" their Bobby checks, but were totally unuseable by screen readers because of poor table and content layouts. Instead of using Bobby, try this one on your next page: Download a copy of JAWS or the IBM Homepage Reader, put on a blindfold, and try to surf your website by ear. If you have designed your website well, you should have no problems. If the reader makes no sense, then your site is NOT accessible...whether or not Bobby likes it.
Six posts and it's slashdotted. Gotta love cheap webhosting ;)
You've posted this twice now, BrianH. Is Novak paying you?
:\
Heh, no. When I refreshed the page after posting it the first time, I realized that it was buried so far down inside the thread that few people would see it. I didn't realize it'd get modded to a five and move up the lists so far, so I reposted it elsewhere under a higher ranking thread. My bad
Or maybe you are Novak?
With my user number? Very funny. I just happen to have a problem with the misrepresentation that's going on here, and would like more people to actually read the suit.
If you really read the lawsuit, you'd see that he's suing because the search terms "pets warehouse" (two words) are bringing up the competing sites...The sites in question have not put the word "petswarehouse" or "petswarehouse.com" in their metatags -- they've put "pets" and "warehouse".
Yes, I did read it, all 18 pages, end to end. His allegation is that they have taken his legally registered trademark "Pets Warehouse", and have placed it in their meta tags and pay for click searches in order to draw business away from people looking for his company. That isn't legal. Now, I don't know how true his allegations are (I didn't look at the meta-tags), but they were never the point of my posts anyway. If he doesn't have any evidence to prove malicious use, Google will probably get a summary dismissal and the whole thing will be tossed.
I simply wanted to point out that this wasn't related to the earlier suits, despite the 700+ comments that seem to imply that it was.
Yes, I read it here, and I just saw standard legalese. He believes that the competing businesses are unfairly profiting by the use of his registered trademark. If he can prove in court that this is indeed the case, then he should have every right to prohibit these specific defendants from using his trademark, or popular variations of his trademark, in the future. His demands on Google are even more specific...he wants them to stop using his trademark for "Sponsored Link" advertisements placed by other companies. He claims that he already asked them to do this, but they refused. If this is indeed true, then Google (as much as I love the service) is indeed in the wrong and should be held liable.
Don't get me wrong, I think the guy is just as much a creep as all of you. My problem is that there are now over 700 comments in this discussion, and NOBODY ELSE seems to have bothered to read the complaint and find out what this is really about. Everyone is making comments based on Novaks past, assuming that they know what this is about, and ranting about how big an as*h*le he is. He is a huge as*h*le, but everyones assumptions have forced this discussion to miss the REAL issues brought up by this suit.
As much as I despise what Mr. Novak did with the whole fish complaint thing, a quick read of the ACTUAL LAWSUIT shows that this new suit has NOTHING to do with free speech or negative comments from unhappy customers. This is a completely new and UNRELATED lawsuit, that just happens to be from the same guy. Petswarehouse.Com is suing Google, and other search engines and petstores because they are using the Petswarehouse.com trademark to steal customers. Google is included in the suit because they are allowing paid placement customers (competing petstores) to use the PetsWarehouse.Com trademark as a keyword to display their ads. The competing petsores themselves are alleged to have put the petswarehouse.com trademark inside their meta-tags to attract customers. The suit also alleges that PetsWarehouse complained about the trademark infringement to Google, but that Google refused to abide by their own policy and remove the infringing material.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Novak may actually have a valid trademark suit here!
As much as I despise what Mr. Novak did with the whole fish complaint thing, a quick read of the ACTUAL LAWSUIT shows that this new suit has NOTHING to do with free speech or negative comments from unhappy customers. This is a completely new and UNRELATED lawsuit, that just happens to be from the same guy. Petswarehouse.Com is suing Google, and other search engines and petstores because they are using the Petswarehouse.com trademark to steal customers. Google is included in the suit because they are allowing paid placement customers (competing petstores) to use the PetsWarehouse.Com trademark as a keyword to display their ads. The competing petsores themselves are alleged to have put the petswarehouse.com trademark inside their meta-tags to attract customers. The suit also alleges that PetsWarehouse complained about the trademark infringement to Google, but that Google refused to abide by their own policy and remove the infringing material.
I hate to say it, but Mr. Novak may actually have a valid trademark suit here!
Some idiots forgot their original passwords and had to create new accounts (like me). I remember creating this account and thinking ""A user number in the THIRTEEN THOUSANDS?!?! Everyone will think I'm a freaking n00b!" I don't feel so bad now though :-)
Unfortunately, most of the early people moved on. Slashdot used to be a very different thing than it is today, with far fewer posts per thread, and with more of an emphasis on discussion than comments. The moderation system kinda did away with that by breaking the linearity of most comments and hiding some others, and the massive influx of new users made those types of discussions unfeasible anyway. When this all happened, many of us whined and complained, but a huge number of users simply left.
Can't give you a page number because each printing is different, but I'll add my 2 cents here and confirm that he is indeed a hobbit. Smeagol is the hobbit that found the One Ring on the bottom of the river where it had fallen from Isildur's dead hand (also alluded to in the beginning of the movie). He and a friend (another hobbit) stumbled across the ring in the river, and Smeagol fled into the caves after murdering his friend for the ownership of the ring. The evil power of the ring twisted his form over the centuries and created the shrunken, evil thing later known as Gollum.
I could be off (it's been a while since I read it myself), but I seem to remember that it's in the first book somewhere.
Hey, I'm a "big L" Libertarian myself, but I have to disagree with you here. There are certain areas where the government SHOULD get involved, and where we do need it's services. These include military defense, foreign relations, LAW ENFORCEMENT, and a few others.
At the minimum, this meets the legal definition of fraud (IANAL, but the guy down the hall is, and he just told me that this meets the "legal yardstick"). At the most, we may be looking at criminal theft. Either way, this consitutes a real crime and is the kind of thing that governments were meant to deal with.
Another factor to consider is the performance of the array. With RAID5, more spindles (disks) often means better performance. Going 20x120 will not only save him money, it will probably improve his performance.
Your post is in so far interesting that it gives indeed a hint why it is hard to bid.
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.... its allways the PERSON who does it. Project usualy fail not beause of technical incompetence. They fail because of organisational incompetence and this one is often paired with personal or communicative incompetence, call it pride and selfishness if you like.
That was the idea.
I have NONE of such certifications you require. And I have a strong disbelieve in specialization, especialy in computer science. It is VERY likely that one of the guys who win a bid by you are trained BY ME. And I learned it by DOING
As a college dropout myself, I can certainly sympathize with your argument, but it won't get you anywhere. This discussion is about people wanting to know how to win bids, and the easiest way to win a bid is to prove that you know your stuff. Portfolios are easily faked, and I don't have time to meet with you, so how am I to determine whether or not you know the technology? By asking an independent and unbiased third party source. That's what degrees and certifications are really all about. When I hold two bids, and one has certified and/or degreed developers while the other has nothing, I'm forced to compare a known minimum to a completely unknown quantity. Given the typical ten minutes per bid that we're given, which would you chose? Now, since 90% of bids are reviewed by MBA's and purchasing departments with little technical background, which do you think they would choose? We're not talking about what's fair or how things SHOULD be, we're talking about how they ARE. This is how things are, and people need to take this into account when bidding projects.
Would you ask Ivar Jacobson wich certifications he has?
You know, I've got one of his UML books floating around my office somewhere, and I seem to recall that his proper title is Dr. Ivar Jacobson. A PhD in programming kinda speaks for itself
Also your rant about XYZ Web Inc versus personal projects
You're missing your own point. First you say it's the person who does it, then you say it's not technical incompetence (i.e. "the person") who causes the project failures. This is my point and it's EXACTLY why I want to see portfolio projects from the company, not the individual developers.
You could, for example, put together 10 of the best web developers, graphic designers, and DBA's on the market and create a new company. On paper, if you list their individual projects, it might look pretty impressive. But what if the new company has bad management? Poor development processes? Unrealistic salesmen? The best developers in the world can't overcome working for a bad company, and their personal histories are no gurantee that projects taken on by this company will succeed. That's why we have to see projects done by the COMPANY. It not only shows us that you have competent developers, but that you can all work together and get things done. That's more important to a company than individual skill...I'm outsourcing to a company, not hiring a programmer.
By processes, I assume you mean web forms. You are talking a project that any reasonable competant webdeveloper can churn out in jps, asp, php or perl within two weeks. You got ripped.
:)
No, by processes I meant use-cases. I use the terms interchangeably, and I realize that this can be confusing. To clarify, the developer on this project provided us with the UI, a department homepage, one blank content page (which was then fed into Broadvision so the secretaries and marketroids could write the actual content), and 40+ form pages, database driven content pages, and an online timeline generation app written in Java.
We didn't get ripped
First, someone mod this guy up, I may not agree with him 100%, but he makes some good, relevant points that many people here will miss because of the Score:0
...though I admit to thinking that your choices "leave room for improvement...
:)
For instance number 2 on your list is that the more developers that you have working on a project, the more likely it is to be completed and delivered on time. In fact software engineering literature from The Mythical Man-Month on comes to exactly the opposite conclusion. Adding bodies to software development creates basic infrastructure problems that make the project more difficult to accomplish, let alone to accomplish in a timely manner.
As a programmer myself, I agree completely. The debate, however, comes into play when deciding just where that line should be drawn. My personal standard is that there should never be more than 2 developers per use-case, but that it is preferable to limit teams to 1 developer per use-case and "cross-develop" features to ensure that a project stays developer independent. Using that theory, I would have accepted up to ten developers for this website.
then there is good reason to want a development environment that makes developers more productive and therefore reduces the minimum size of development team that you need for your projects
Fundamentally I agree with you, but a bid is NOT the place to propose architectural changes to a potential client. I once took on a $15,000 project to add several features to a website that was written in Delphi, running on an ancient HTTPd server running on NT4, and connecting to a really old Informix database. I wrote my proposal to the clients specifications, and won the bid. After I won the bid and began developing the new features for the client, I presented them with a list of suggestions to improve their website. These ranged from implementing WCAG-AA design rules, to switching to a Solaris/Apache/Oracle architecture to improve performance. I also didn't argue for these changes "because they're better", but instead made solid business arguments as to why the changes should be made (reduced maintenance costs, improved reliability, better performance, greater expandability). The client eventually OK'd the upgrades, and my $15,000, 30-day project became a $160,000, six month project. So, yes, architectural changes CAN be suggested to the client (and they can often lead to much more lucrative contracts), but they should NOT be placed within the bid itself.
I'll actually agree with you there, but that brings up the other half of the "suggesting platform changes" issue: The people evaluating your bid may not have any control over the technologies used. In my position, for instance, I make web decisions daily that directly impact website development for more than 40,000 people. Despite this, I don't get to choose what goes in our datacenter. Decisions about what we run on are made by Datacenter Operations, the Director of IT's office, and the CIO herself. While I can make suggestions regarding what goes on our servers, I can't arbitrarily order them changed. So when I put out an RFP requesting a web-app that will run on IPlanet and Broadvision, and someone gives me a bid suggesting Apache and Slashcode, there just isn't much I can do with it...no matter HOW convincing your four page manifesto on the superiority of Apache might be. I've seen far too many proposals get chucked because development firms don't take this into account.
I pretty much agree with everything else you say
Brian? How'd you *know* it was worth the extra $20K?
As I stated in another post, the simple fact that there was some redundancy in the programming staff made it worth the extra $19k. We didn't expect the project to be done any faster, or the code to be any better, we simply realized that more developers meant that the project was less likely to be delivered late.
One other thing that I should have mentioned in my first post: The additional programmers don't necessarily have to be working on the project. For smaller projects where a large group of coders would be impractical, simply listing "backup" programmers in the bid may be enough to reassure the client that the project will be finished if a primary coder quits.
To be honest, there was a bit of arguing within our own committe about that point, but my argument won out. The problem with two coders is that the project becomes far too dependent on the individial. What if one coder quits? Gets injured in a horrible car accident? Decides he's "bored" with the project? What happens is the project ends up behind schedule or incomplete, and we end up losing time and money. Putting five coders on the project ensures that the loss of any one individual won't drastically effect the development timelines.
More developers are also useful for QA purposes. The more eyeballs you have on a particular project, the less likely it is that a major bug will sneak through.
- Price is often the last thing bid evaluators look at. While it is true that stupidly high and stupidly low bids get tossed without evaluation, price usually doesn't have any effect early in the evaluation process.
- Company size really does matter. The point of view is that the more developers work on the project, the more likely it is to be completed and delivered on-time. In the project I recently awarded, we had two proposals that were even in every way, except that the $55,000 proposal had four developers (one graphic designer, a DBA, and two programmers), and the $74,000 proposal had seven developers (one graphic designer, a DBA, and five programmers). Guess which one we chose?
- Company history is VERY important. Gaming and personal sites don't count, and neither do projects you completed while employed for someone else. If you are approaching me as XYZ Web Inc., then I want to see an impressive portfolio of websites that were actually built by XYZ Web Inc. I personally don't care if you've worked at Yahoo, Amazon, or Ebay, because I'm not hiring them to do the job. I'm hiring your company, so I need to see your companies credentials. It's amazing that such a simple concept can be so consistently forgotten by bidders.
- You need specialists, or you need to go out of your way to show that your general developers have specific training in multiple fields. If I put out a bid for a website that requires graphics work and a database, then you had BETTER show me that there will be a professional graphic designer and a DBA working on the project, in addition to the web developers. If that's not possible, I need to know the certifications and training that your general developers have had in those fields. "Self Taught" earns your bid a short trip to my circular file.
- Did you submit a proposal, or just a price? You cannot write a good bid that is less than 20 pages long...period. We need your company portfolio, your developer histories, the list of the technologies you plan to use, timelines as well as a quick development plan and at least one use-case scenario to prove that you really understand what the project is all about. I've seen far too many bids that basically said "We're XYZ Web Inc., and we can build your website for $5,000". Maybe you can, maybe you can't, but either way you have to give me enough information to base my decision on.
- Never ever argue technology with the client. Our datacenter is pretty standardized: We run IPlanet on the webservers, Oracle on the databases, and Solaris as the OS for everything. When we put things out for bid, we make it clear that our websites/software must run on this platform, and that our web sites MUST be written in JSP. Given that, I've never understood why so many bidders see fit to argue the point; "PERL is better!", "Linux is cheaper", "Apache is more stable", "IIS is the web standard", and other pitches may or may not be true, but I really don't care. If my RFP says that you must use technologies A, B, & C, then that bid had better use those technologies. Anything else gets you dumped.
- What about goodies? Maintentance? Most good bids (read:expensive) include statements that the developer will train internal staff to maintain the webpages, construct the site so that a secretary or merketing lackey can edit it, or otherwise pile on peripheral site features that aren't neccesarily included in the bid request. Showing the client that you're willing to go above and beyond what they asked for is a good way to get their attention.
- See any room for improvement? Suggest it! The bidders who won the last eval I chaired partially did so because they improved our own requirements. When the developers saw our RFP and saw the requirments and features, they realized a better way to solve one of our problems and suggested it. We were so impressed with the improved suggestion that they got the project.
- Be professional. Bids will often have bidder meetings where some of the top proposers get called in to answer questions or clarify their proposals. If you get called to one of these, you need to remember this: These are not your friends, or your bosses, or your co-workers, they are your potential clients and you need to treat them as such. This means no bluejeans and t-shirts with Google logos on them. Put on some slacks and a tie (and a coat if it's a large or formal institution), and toss that big pile of papers in a briefcase. If you can't present yourself properly, how can we expect you to rpesent us properly?
Price gets weighed in AFTER all of these factors are considered. If we evaluate our bids and find that two companies offer equally outstanding proposals, make equally compelling sales pitches, and have equal backgrounds and development staff, then we might weigh price in as the deciding factor. But that's actually a pretty rare situationMuch of the "you'll get sued if you shoot" crap is a myth. I should know...I actually had to do it. In July of 1997 a man with a long history of psychiatric problems entered my house and stabbed my wife in the abdomen with a 3" pocket knife. He then threw my three year old daughter across the room and pinned my wife down and began trying to stab her again. Unfortunately for him I heard the screaming, ran downstairs with my gun, and put five bullets in his back before he could hurt her any more.
Physically, my wife and daughter were OK (my wife was out of the hospital the next day, and my daughter landed on a couch)...mentally, it took a new house and a few years of counselling. But my point here is that nobody ever even questioned my decision to shoot him. The police declared it "justifiable self defense" in about 30 seconds, and the mans own family sent me a letter offering their sympathies for my wifes injuries and their hopes for a speedy recovery. While we were in counselling, we discovered that this was the typical response in these kinds of situations. Lawsuits by family members and the estates of the dead criminals are actually pretty rare, they just get a lot more press than they deserve.
In the U.S., Social Security is pretty much just for old people (there are exceptions however, including the disabled, widows, and orphaned children). All of us younger working stiffs pay our 15% to support this system, and that barely covers the bills for the present users. The last time a national healthcare plan was floated, I remember seeing a calculation that the SS withdrawal would have to increase to 30%-35% in order to cover every American. 35% doesn't sound too bad until you realize that many Americans currently pay at or near 50% of their salaries to the government: federal taxes, state taxes, local municipality taxes, special assessments and property taxes, sales taxes, smog fees, auto registration and license fees...it all adds up pretty quick. If we were to open our social security system up to everyone, that number would approach 70%...an amount that would break the financial back of many working families (mine included).
It's been a looong time (decades) since I've studied or used Latin, but here goes: Many people commonly believe that "lex" translates to "the law", but that's more due to it's usage than to its meaning. The more accurate translation of "lex" would be "the word" (hence its modern usage in words like lexicon), but ONLY when those words convey some kind of instruction or rule. It's a fine difference, but there is a difference.
;-)
An example of this comes to us though modern Christianity with the saying "The Word of God". I'm sure we've all heard people use the term, and it originates from the original translation of the latin Bible into English. The Latin Bible uses a phrase similar to Lex Deus, which literally translates to "The Word of God", but which actually means "The Law of God". You may have to study language to appreciate the difference
The usage of "lex" in the legal sense probably originated in the earliest days of the Roman empire. At that time, all laws were approved by the king (we're talking pre-Republic here). Therefore, all of what we call laws would have been called "lex regium", or "the Word of the King". Over time, as happens with all languages, people would have shortened it to "the word", but kept the same meaning.
The proper phrase for law as we think of it would be "lex legis" or "the word of law".
Yeah, TOO quickly. I knew a guy (friend of a friend) who built a small GE "kit craft"in his garage. He destroyed it when he tried to "skip" over some boulders (while flying it in the Utah desert) and jumped from 15 to more than 50 feet. He managed to clear the boulders, but it cost him so much airspeed that he stalled out and hit the ground on the other side. The GECraft was completely destroyed...and he wasn't doing much better himself.
Certainly, but we SHOULD extend our support to corporations willing to help us fight these battles. Companies like Gateway have deeper pockets, better lawyers, and more Washingon clout than your typical grassroots .org, so I see no reason why we shouldn't be actively enlisting their support.
Conveniently, I was putting together a purchase recommendation for a few departmental file servers this morning when I noticed this article. Although I was originally going to recommend a few HP e800's, I instead called up Gateway and set up a quote on a few 930C's. I made it a point to explain to the sales rep that their support of consumer rights gained them this sale.
Put your money where your mouth is, and support the companies that are willing to support you.
Bingo, I've got an (albeit small) amount of code floating around in a few of the various Linux distros. Under copyright law in the U.S., and most other industrialized countries, if the GPL were to fail the rights on my code would revert back to me. At that point I would be legally allowed to charge a license fee for its use, completely ban its distribution or use, or relicense it under a more bulletproof version of the GPL (which is what I would do).
It would NOT be in the best interest of any company wanting to use GPL'd code to try and overturn the GPL.
That doesn't always work either. Not all of us are blessed with regularly running snowplow service. My vacation home/ski shack/money pit (<--the wifes opinion;) in the California Sierra's sits at the end of a 500 yard paved driveway shared by seven homes. The ONLY way I can clear the driveway after a heavy snowstorm is to attach a small plow to the front of my Suburban and clear it myself. Why a Suburban? MASS. Larger drifts across the driveway would stop a smaller vehicle cold. The Suburban is heavy enough, however, to push its way through those drifts and clear a path. My neighbors, with their Outbacks, Wranglers, and Rav4's, do just fine when there's only a few inches of show on the ground, but when we get real snow they always call me up.