I am picturing a person in front of a computer trying to get a critical peice of work done when the computer suddenly reboots. He looks up and screams, and the camera zooms into the blackness of his open mouth to a Linux logo with the words, "Got Linux?"
>> There's a reason why Intel hardware is so cheap. It's just plain not as reliable as Sun's.
No, PC stuff is cheaper because sun only makes a few thousand of any particular piece of hardware, while the PC vendor makes runs of a million parts or more. Plus, there is only one company making sun parts, so they have no real reason to cut costs, while a company making a PC video card, for instance, has to compete against dozens of other companies on price as well as performance.
All computer hardware is very reliable. I have only ever had a few hard drives fail on me. And never had any other computer hardware fail on me except the time that the lightning hit the house. Opps!
I do agree with you on the Oracle Licensing costs though. I have looked at their pricing and it is very easy to run up a million dollar oracle charge without even really trying.
I am waiting for a time when databases become a commodity product like Linux is making the OS a commodity product.
>> Remember, "Linux is free (as in beer) if your time has no value".
I figure, worst case it would take you two days to set up the Linux boxes, and most of that will be hardware setup that is the same in either case.
It costs $12,000 more to buy the equivalent Mac hardware for an 8 node dual cluster. Unless your time is worth more than $6,000 a day then it is worth going with a Linux and AMD solution. And even then you can just pay a Linux guru $1,000 to set up the system for you and still come out $11,000 ahead.
--
Where I see this clustering hardware being more generally useful is if you already have a mac shop and already have a bunch of macs on the same network that you want to cluster together. Then and only then does it make sense to use this solution, to harness a resource you already own.
I run a VPN client on a Pentium 266MHz and it isn't a problem at all. It isn't even noticable. The only concern that I have about hardware encryption is that it would have to be cheaply upgradable as people work out ways of breaking the encryption.
Re:Jerry Falwell is speaking quiet! HEATHENS
on
Wireless Year in Review
·
· Score: 0, Offtopic
And this is related to wireless networking how? Maybe you think that prayer is related to wireless networking somehow?
I think that the best way to use a wireless network is to merely use the WEP as a method to initially authenticate that users are allowed to connect to the wireless network.
Once people are on the wireless network, they come up against a firewall. They must use a VPN client to connect their computers to the network on the other side of the firewall. Any communications between clients also goes through the firewall.
Then and only then are you even close to safe. And some brainiac is probably already figuring out a way through both layers of encryption.
I believe that anything that gives us all more choices is a good thing.
I bought win98 on several computers and a lot of old games and programs over the past 10 years, and if I can find a way to run them in parrallel with a better OS, then I will do so.
One of the things that people don't realize is that windows 9x is no longer a supported platform, if there are security holes and the like on that platform, you are on your own. I bet that soon even the virus scanner people will abandon those old platforms, and then you will be in a lot of trouble.
At least WINE will be fully supported by a lot of dedicated programmers for a long time to come. Who knows, we might even learn a few things from the dark side of the source (i.e. windows) and become better programmers.
And I have been wondering about decompiling programs into their original source and recompling them for newer platforms. Doesn't transmeta and the as400 do something this on the fly? It would be so cool to take my windows programs into the coming 64bit and 128bit computing environments that are on the way.
Or to run my full on version of MSOfficePro 4.2 on a PPC.:) That was the best version that Office ever released. It was small, fast and had a reasonable number of features compared what we have now. grrrrr.
When I buy a book, a CD, a DVD, or a program, I have bought a set of data. I own it. It is mine. I can sell it. I can loan it to my friends. If it is covered under copyright and I don't have a license to cover that then the law doesn't allow me to make copies and distribute those copies or perform public reinactments. But that is the only right that I don't have.
I am sick and tired of all these butt pirate corporate executives and the judges they bend over the podium taking away my fair use rights to the software that I personally own. I'm not like the judges in these cases, I don't like taking it up the ass for the media companies.
I don't own a license to any of the software I have. I never agreed to any license. If I have agreed to a license, then show me the signed contract. Click through doesn't count. I left my computer unattended, the cat must have accidently pressed the mouse button. If you have a witness that proves it was me that installed software on my computer, then produce that witness.
I actually own that copy of the software, outright. Just like I own a book or a magazine. If I want to buy japanese DVD's and play them in my American DVD player, I should be allowed to do so. If I want to rip my CD's into ogg's and play on my computer, then that is my business. If I want to rip the content of a DVD that I own and turn it into a DIVX CDR so that I can watch it on my laptop, again, that's my business.
If I want to read the dialog off the DVD and play it audibly as juicy ass farts, again, that is nobodies concern but my own. And believe me, if I started doing that, I would definately be concerned.
The media outlets want to limit our rights and divide us into smaller and smaller markets, which they maintain a full monopoly on. They want to make it so we can't see anything without paying them royalties on it. And they want a royalty everytime we do so.
They are just losing any goodwill they had with the consumers. They tend to forget just how valuable goodwill is. It can make or break the richest of companies. Beware and bewarned media conglomerates, it is almost time for us to pay you back for all those abuses you have been heaping on us lately. And payback is a bitch. It'll start with judges that don't stay bought and go downhill from there.
I like your idea of having the iMac call the 900 number for cash. If it called enough times you could buy a brand new computer.
I'm thinking that you need to turn off the speakers, turn off the modem sound and if there has been no activity for a few hours, at 4am have the system call that $125 number about 20 times in just a few hours.
With this scheme you could sell reconditioned iMacs setup with this software out of the back of a van for about $100 apeice and just sit back and rake in the cash. The people who bought what they thought was stollen property will never say a word as long as you only ripped them off for a couple of thousand dollars.
So, people, if you buy computers from the back of a van, don't complain when you get ripped off.:) You were warned!
The law as a form of behavior modification. It probably works for some people.
When I was a 17 year old kid I would buy beer all the time. Of course, I had a full beard and looked to be in my mid 20's.
I was always careful to never get caught. And I never drank and drove because a friend of mine died that way. But I wasn't scared of the law, I was scared of the beating that mom would give to me if she caught me drinking. Mom would have left scars if she had ever caught me drinking under age. If I had gotten arrested and Mom came to pick me up, I would have asked to stay in prison so my mom couldn't get to me.
And I thank my mom for being such a strict parent. I believe that evolution gave us pain receptors for a reason and that if we want to prevent children from performing certain actions then we should stimulate the pain receptors to build up pathways in their brains in order to prevent them from performing certain actions.
There is a difference between abuse and discipline. Discipline is done because you love a child and they did something wrong that you don't want them to do again. It shouldn't leave a mark that lasts for more than a few minutes.
Abuse is done for the abusers needs and no change in behavior on the part of the victim will prevent the abuse. Abuse is wrong. Discipline is good.
Sounds to me like these children are abusing each other and need some discipline to prevent that from happening anymore.
>> Saying that some guy in a third world country deserves as much money as i do for the same task is ridiculous. Different countries have different costs of living and the wages should be appropriate to them.
Not when the same company is paying both your wages, which is the case in many instances. A multinational corporation should pay the same wage for the same job to every worker who is working for them... What matters is the _job_, not how crappy everyone lives in what ever hell hole the corporation decides to set up in.
So, I guess if a corporation set up in a place with thousands of people dying everyday from starvation, then they could have their workers handle toxic waste with no protection and only pay them with a cup of food to eat for their whole family.
Hey, that is what everyone else in the area has, what's the problem with that? And they would have just died anyway, the cup of food a day prolonged their lives enough to do the work for a few more weeks.
>> Someone making mid five figures would live like a king in most countries, but be doing only okay in the US. I'm not saying that it's okay for nike to set up armed camps in which they pay children 5 cents a day for stiching shoes. Wages should be reasonable, but what constitutes a reasonable wage depends greatly on the locality.
No, there should be a world price for stiching shoes. And many American corporations _do_ have slave labor stiching shoes and making clothes in places like Pakistan. With little 8 year olds doing the labor chained to their stools to keep them from running away.
>> Having people buy our stuff will not reduce our forgien debt, maintaining a balanced budget will. People buying our stuff will reduce the trade deficit which is good for the economy. Eventually, this will lead to increased tax revenue which leads to more money to pay down debts, but it's not a direct relationship as you imply.
That sounds like Reganomics. I am a lifelong Rebulican, but I left the party when that bozo was elected and him and Bush ran up 5 trillion dollars in debt while chanting, if we increase tax revenues, then we can pay off the debt.
But tax revenues have increased every year for the past 30 years and we never seem to pay the debt down even a single nickle. We haven't even paid one red penny to _reduce_ the debt. But we don't seem to have a problem paying 1/3 a trillon dollars every year to pay the interest on the debt.
They only way to reduce the national debt is to not spend more than you are receiving and to use this money to pay off the debt. And we as a people don't seem to have to courage and commitment to do this simple thing.
>> And finally, i think unions are a horrible idea. I don't like unions because they strip me of my individuality.
The company already stripped you of that individuallity.
>> A certian amount of money from every pay check i get goes to the union. They then use this money in any way they wish, often times contributing to the campaigns of politicans who i am not garanteed to support. I don't like the thought of my money bringing about a worse america.
The union officials are elected by the members of that union for a term of one year, usually, and are answerable to those members at the next election. If you don't like what they are doing, vote for someone you like better, or run yourself.
It is also normally set up so that any increase in union dues have to be approved by the members of the union.
The little bit in campaign contributions that they do give are to canidates that support unions. Why shouldn't they be politically active like the corporations are?
Maybe you just don't like democracy?
And by the way, the corporations donate about 10 times more than all private individuals and unions combined. Do you have any problem with this? I do.
Fair is fair though. Let's ban all monies being given from either corporations or unions, then I would agree with you.
>> I also dislike unions because of the "gang" mentality of union workers. Union workers, as you experienced first hand, often times think that they have special rights just because they belong to a union. Therefore they do thier best to make the lives of non union members miserable.
It would help if _everyone_ was in a union, or at least had the option of being in a union, then there wouldn't be this union/nonunion mentality. At least when they fire a union worker, then they have to give a reason.
They _do_ have special rights because they belong to a union. As long as they do their job, they won't get fired for no reason.
>> Plus, it wouldnt' have helped in this particular case because the people were temps and wouldn't have been in a union in the first place.
All the temp workers should unionize and make man power a union shop. These people are hired because businesses are in a bind and need people right now, that should be worth a lot more than $8 an hour.
I am thinking that temp workers could probably wring out at least 4 to 8 times more $8 from employers. If the job needs done and done now, normally you have to pay out the nose for it to get done.
I love capitalism, when it works right and you have groups of equal size and power competing against each other then everyone profits, and we all win.
When capitalism fails and you have multi-national corporations forcing people who are facing abject poverty being forced to work for the company to provide just the very lowest basics of living, with no hope of ever bettering yourself, and the fear of losing even the little that the corporation is doling out, then we all lose and we are all a little poorer because of it.
when I first dropped out of college because I ran out of money to finish my degree.
I was a temp worker, and was only given part time work so that they didn't have to pay me any benifits. I had to work 3 part time jobs and was also an officer in the Army National Guard in order to make just enough to support my family.
A union worker decided that he would cuss me out for no reason and I told him to fuck off. He ran off and lied about the incident and got me fired, the little coward.
After working for a year in shit jobs I finally got a break laying network cabling and doing help desk and support and I never looked back. I am currently a self taught programmer and make a great salary.
But even then I got laid off my Disney after working for them for just a few months, when they began downsizing go.com.
I lost my job while the executives got paid about $50,000,000 in bonuses and stock options. _My_ stock options. So even at a professional level you can be screwed over.
Of course I got 2 job offers in less than a week, during the height of the recession, so no big deal. But it was depressing to get laid off. And in my book being laid off without ever intending to hire you back is just fired.
The most important thing to remember is that the fuedal system was _not_ slavery. Sure, the serf had responsibilites to the lord and had to work hard, but the lord also had responsibilities back to the serf. The lord had to provide for the workers like you would your prize animals. And the church kept a strict eye on the behavior of the lords to ensure that they maintained law and order in the area.
The lord just couldn't arbitrarily throw someone off the land, because there was no replacement workers, even a lazy drunken lout was better than no lout at all. A lord that kept abusing his people would have to answer to the church and might even be excomunicated and exiled himself.
When capitalism replaced fuedalism the CEO became the fuedal lord, but the CEO no longer has any responsiblity to the workers and has to answer to nobody for their treatment of the workers. The unions formed in response to long hours of labor with little pay and the constant threat of being fired. The same reason that these people in the story have to face everyday.
I used to be against unions, because I had been brainwashed by the propaganda that unions were causing the US to be less competitive. But then I looked into the matter and found out that union shops are every bit as competitive as non union shops and that dollar for dollar they produce as many goods as non union shops. Mainly because in union shops you had long periods of employment that allow people to get good at their jobs.
The reason that companies go with lower paid inexperienced workers is because even though it is more expensive in the long run for the company, it allows the executives to make a lot more money for themselves individually, in the short run.
Ford paid his workers enough money to buy a model-T. I doubt that most of the workers in these third world countries could buy a pair of sneakers or jeans at full price. I doubt that the workers at the company in the story could have afforded to buy one of the printers that they were packing up. Sad really.
If we don't support the right for everyone to have a living wage that lets people get ahead, who will buy the things that we are making in the future. and if noone buys the things that we are making, how long do you expect to keep your job?
I think that it is time for high tech workers to form a union and protect our rights. We should also make sure that the workers in foreign subsidiaries of the companies that we work for get paid the same as we do. The the US will have someone to sell our stuff to overseas and we can reduce our huge foreign debt that we have every year.
PlusV works with ogg vorbis too...
on
Non-MP3 Codecs?
·
· Score: 1
They have heard of it at the plusv.org site and support the use of ogg vorbis with this new compression method.
It works by filtering out the noise in the higher frequencies and just compressing the music. If you play this music back on a normal decoder then it only plays back upto 11kHz of frequency. With a plus V enabled play back device you get normal frequency response in the playback.
It looks plausable.
I'd need to hear it to tell if it actually works. If this does work then I will need to re-rip all my CD's at 48kbit variable rate ogg vorbis, and fit my entire music collection on about 3 CDR's.
They also seem to be friendly to individuals using their technology.
And like all brand new technologies it is very expensive. I expect these devices to rapidly drop in price over the next decade.
The thing that really interests me about this technology is using solar and wind power in order to generate the hydrogen in the first place. Can you imagine the US power grid being fed from a 100,000,000 1000W solar panels spread across the US during the day, and from a 100,000,000 1000W fuel cells all night long?
There really wouldn't be power losses from downed power lines, that would just segment the section. Costs would definately be driven down with 100 Giga watts of additional power on the national power grid.
The systems would pay for themselves by running the consumers power meter backwards. If you put enough panels in, the power company would pay you.
Because the way I run it I have to copy my public key to every box that I want to connect to.
Since the original authentication sent me the servers public key encrypted with my public key then it is impossible for the man in the middle to ever see any unencrypted data.
The original article is written very well, too bad it is just wrong.
I was going to use KOffice or StarOffice for my desktop applications... The web applications that I was talking about are business apps, like a schedualling/appointment program for the entire organization being run through the web. Email being run through the web. I would also love to have a single interface into my voicemail / email / appointment / messaging systems.
Companies like hospitals could have web based registration systems and web based lab systems linked together seemlessly through a web interface.
If I ever run a business I would use this device for all my desktops, along with a black 15" LCD monitor at 1024x768. The sleek design and good looks of the systems would be a startling difference to customers who are used to seeing huge bulky computers and monitors.
I would have the machines boot from a file server and authenticate all the users using LDAP and openssh.
When users logged into a machine their home directories would be mounted to the local machine. Thus, all files would reside on a network file server for easy backup. All shared directories for this persons groups would be mounted under the users home directory, allowing shared access to the files that are needed by a team of people.
This way, if there is a problem with a workstation it will take about 5 minutes to replace the box and get the user up and running again.
Since all the files are in one location, updating the desktops or the applications is as easy as upgrading the files in a single location.
The company would use web based e-mail, appointment, contact management software to schedual appointments and business applications would all have to be web accessable or I wouldn't use them. Apache web server, PHP 4.x and MySQL would be the companies basic infrastructure for writing web apps that are fully integrated with all the information that the company has.
As the demand grows the database can be pulled off to a seperate server, upgraded to a proprietary database if needed, and the front end webservers can be clustered together to share the load across multiple web servers.
This also seperates the tasks performed among the various systems... The workstation performs the presentation of data... The web servers run the apps and provide business logic... And the database servers store and manage the data. This allows any one layer to be upgraded without affecting the other layers. (If testing was performed adequately enough!)
I would train people on the software that is provided to them, but such training is often needed for people to get the most out of new MS versions as well anyway, so this is not an additional expense. All training would be video taped and classes would be available on the web.
Home access would be done through VNC, using a seperate terminal server. This would allow access to the companies computer resources no matter what kind of computer the employee had at home. And if the employee didn't have a computer at home and needed to work, a ThinkNIC can cheaply be sent home that will connect to the companies terminal server and provide a VNC session that way.
The final thing that I would do is make all the workstations part of a large cluster that would allow excess processor to be utilized by the main server to perform the companies heavy number crunching. In a CAD/CAM or multimedia environment the secretaries computer can be used to render a video.
If you reduce the minesweep board to a single pair of squares that has a single mine in one or the other then the game would be won or loss with a single click...
This is the equivilant of flipping a coin.
So esentially the article is saying that if you can guess correctly heads or tail with every flip of any coin that you would win $1,000,000.
I am thinking that if you could guess that well that you could win significantly more than that amount of money.
Slashdot Mirror
I am picturing a person in front of a computer trying to get a critical peice of work done when the computer suddenly reboots. He looks up and screams, and the camera zooms into the blackness of his open mouth to a Linux logo with the words, "Got Linux?"
>> There's a reason why Intel hardware is so cheap. It's just plain not as reliable as Sun's.
No, PC stuff is cheaper because sun only makes a few thousand of any particular piece of hardware, while the PC vendor makes runs of a million parts or more. Plus, there is only one company making sun parts, so they have no real reason to cut costs, while a company making a PC video card, for instance, has to compete against dozens of other companies on price as well as performance.
All computer hardware is very reliable. I have only ever had a few hard drives fail on me. And never had any other computer hardware fail on me except the time that the lightning hit the house. Opps!
I do agree with you on the Oracle Licensing costs though. I have looked at their pricing and it is very easy to run up a million dollar oracle charge without even really trying.
I am waiting for a time when databases become a commodity product like Linux is making the OS a commodity product.
>> Remember, "Linux is free (as in beer) if your time has no value".
I figure, worst case it would take you two days to set up the Linux boxes, and most of that will be hardware setup that is the same in either case.
It costs $12,000 more to buy the equivalent Mac hardware for an 8 node dual cluster. Unless your time is worth more than $6,000 a day then it is worth going with a Linux and AMD solution. And even then you can just pay a Linux guru $1,000 to set up the system for you and still come out $11,000 ahead.
--
Where I see this clustering hardware being more generally useful is if you already have a mac shop and already have a bunch of macs on the same network that you want to cluster together. Then and only then does it make sense to use this solution, to harness a resource you already own.
I run a VPN client on a Pentium 266MHz and it isn't a problem at all. It isn't even noticable. The only concern that I have about hardware encryption is that it would have to be cheaply upgradable as people work out ways of breaking the encryption.
And this is related to wireless networking how? Maybe you think that prayer is related to wireless networking somehow?
I think that the best way to use a wireless network is to merely use the WEP as a method to initially authenticate that users are allowed to connect to the wireless network.
Once people are on the wireless network, they come up against a firewall. They must use a VPN client to connect their computers to the network on the other side of the firewall. Any communications between clients also goes through the firewall.
Then and only then are you even close to safe. And some brainiac is probably already figuring out a way through both layers of encryption.
I believe that anything that gives us all more choices is a good thing.
:) That was the best version that Office ever released. It was small, fast and had a reasonable number of features compared what we have now. grrrrr.
I bought win98 on several computers and a lot of old games and programs over the past 10 years, and if I can find a way to run them in parrallel with a better OS, then I will do so.
One of the things that people don't realize is that windows 9x is no longer a supported platform, if there are security holes and the like on that platform, you are on your own. I bet that soon even the virus scanner people will abandon those old platforms, and then you will be in a lot of trouble.
At least WINE will be fully supported by a lot of dedicated programmers for a long time to come. Who knows, we might even learn a few things from the dark side of the source (i.e. windows) and become better programmers.
And I have been wondering about decompiling programs into their original source and recompling them for newer platforms. Doesn't transmeta and the as400 do something this on the fly? It would be so cool to take my windows programs into the coming 64bit and 128bit computing environments that are on the way.
Or to run my full on version of MSOfficePro 4.2 on a PPC.
When I buy a book, a CD, a DVD, or a program, I have bought a set of data. I own it. It is mine. I can sell it. I can loan it to my friends. If it is covered under copyright and I don't have a license to cover that then the law doesn't allow me to make copies and distribute those copies or perform public reinactments. But that is the only right that I don't have.
I am sick and tired of all these butt pirate corporate executives and the judges they bend over the podium taking away my fair use rights to the software that I personally own. I'm not like the judges in these cases, I don't like taking it up the ass for the media companies.
I don't own a license to any of the software I have. I never agreed to any license. If I have agreed to a license, then show me the signed contract. Click through doesn't count. I left my computer unattended, the cat must have accidently pressed the mouse button. If you have a witness that proves it was me that installed software on my computer, then produce that witness.
I actually own that copy of the software, outright. Just like I own a book or a magazine. If I want to buy japanese DVD's and play them in my American DVD player, I should be allowed to do so. If I want to rip my CD's into ogg's and play on my computer, then that is my business. If I want to rip the content of a DVD that I own and turn it into a DIVX CDR so that I can watch it on my laptop, again, that's my business.
If I want to read the dialog off the DVD and play it audibly as juicy ass farts, again, that is nobodies concern but my own. And believe me, if I started doing that, I would definately be concerned.
The media outlets want to limit our rights and divide us into smaller and smaller markets, which they maintain a full monopoly on. They want to make it so we can't see anything without paying them royalties on it. And they want a royalty everytime we do so.
They are just losing any goodwill they had with the consumers. They tend to forget just how valuable goodwill is. It can make or break the richest of companies. Beware and bewarned media conglomerates, it is almost time for us to pay you back for all those abuses you have been heaping on us lately. And payback is a bitch. It'll start with judges that don't stay bought and go downhill from there.
I like your idea of having the iMac call the 900 number for cash. If it called enough times you could buy a brand new computer.
:) You were warned!
I'm thinking that you need to turn off the speakers, turn off the modem sound and if there has been no activity for a few hours, at 4am have the system call that $125 number about 20 times in just a few hours.
With this scheme you could sell reconditioned iMacs setup with this software out of the back of a van for about $100 apeice and just sit back and rake in the cash. The people who bought what they thought was stollen property will never say a word as long as you only ripped them off for a couple of thousand dollars.
So, people, if you buy computers from the back of a van, don't complain when you get ripped off.
to play around with the old Lions' Commentary on UNIX 6th Edition with source code by John Lions.
It is amazing how much you can learn from this old stuff. And now we can discuss, modify, and share the code with each other.
This is really great! Thanks Caldera!
Do you want to just give the book away for anyone to do anything with? Then just release the book into the public domain.
Do you want to allow free redistribution, but restrict people from making any changes? Then say that in your license.
Do you want to allow changes, but want the changes to be clearly attributed to the new authors? Then say that.
These things aren't rocket science. Just say what you want to happen with your book in clear straitforward language and that is how it will be.
The law as a form of behavior modification. It probably works for some people.
When I was a 17 year old kid I would buy beer all the time. Of course, I had a full beard and looked to be in my mid 20's.
I was always careful to never get caught. And I never drank and drove because a friend of mine died that way. But I wasn't scared of the law, I was scared of the beating that mom would give to me if she caught me drinking. Mom would have left scars if she had ever caught me drinking under age. If I had gotten arrested and Mom came to pick me up, I would have asked to stay in prison so my mom couldn't get to me.
And I thank my mom for being such a strict parent. I believe that evolution gave us pain receptors for a reason and that if we want to prevent children from performing certain actions then we should stimulate the pain receptors to build up pathways in their brains in order to prevent them from performing certain actions.
There is a difference between abuse and discipline. Discipline is done because you love a child and they did something wrong that you don't want them to do again. It shouldn't leave a mark that lasts for more than a few minutes.
Abuse is done for the abusers needs and no change in behavior on the part of the victim will prevent the abuse. Abuse is wrong. Discipline is good.
Sounds to me like these children are abusing each other and need some discipline to prevent that from happening anymore.
for a fixed fee, then I don't have a problem with this.
If only microsoft can do this, or if it costs microsoft less than other companies, then I have a problem with it.
I think I am going to go to the local postoffice and pick up a couple of handfulls of coasters... Errr, I mean demos.
>> Saying that some guy in a third world country deserves as much money as i do for the same task is ridiculous. Different countries have different costs of living and the wages should be appropriate to them.
Not when the same company is paying both your wages, which is the case in many instances. A multinational corporation should pay the same wage for the same job to every worker who is working for them... What matters is the _job_, not how crappy everyone lives in what ever hell hole the corporation decides to set up in.
So, I guess if a corporation set up in a place with thousands of people dying everyday from starvation, then they could have their workers handle toxic waste with no protection and only pay them with a cup of food to eat for their whole family.
Hey, that is what everyone else in the area has, what's the problem with that? And they would have just died anyway, the cup of food a day prolonged their lives enough to do the work for a few more weeks.
>> Someone making mid five figures would live like a king in most countries, but be doing only okay in the US. I'm not saying that it's okay for nike to set up armed camps in which they pay children 5 cents a day for stiching shoes. Wages should be reasonable, but what constitutes a reasonable wage depends greatly on the locality.
No, there should be a world price for stiching shoes. And many American corporations _do_ have slave labor stiching shoes and making clothes in places like Pakistan. With little 8 year olds doing the labor chained to their stools to keep them from running away.
>> Having people buy our stuff will not reduce our forgien debt, maintaining a balanced budget will. People buying our stuff will reduce the trade deficit which is good for the economy. Eventually, this will lead to increased tax revenue which leads to more money to pay down debts, but it's not a direct relationship as you imply.
That sounds like Reganomics. I am a lifelong Rebulican, but I left the party when that bozo was elected and him and Bush ran up 5 trillion dollars in debt while chanting, if we increase tax revenues, then we can pay off the debt.
But tax revenues have increased every year for the past 30 years and we never seem to pay the debt down even a single nickle. We haven't even paid one red penny to _reduce_ the debt. But we don't seem to have a problem paying 1/3 a trillon dollars every year to pay the interest on the debt.
They only way to reduce the national debt is to not spend more than you are receiving and to use this money to pay off the debt. And we as a people don't seem to have to courage and commitment to do this simple thing.
>> And finally, i think unions are a horrible idea. I don't like unions because they strip me of my individuality.
The company already stripped you of that individuallity.
>> A certian amount of money from every pay check i get goes to the union. They then use this money in any way they wish, often times contributing to the campaigns of politicans who i am not garanteed to support. I don't like the thought of my money bringing about a worse america.
The union officials are elected by the members of that union for a term of one year, usually, and are answerable to those members at the next election. If you don't like what they are doing, vote for someone you like better, or run yourself.
It is also normally set up so that any increase in union dues have to be approved by the members of the union.
The little bit in campaign contributions that they do give are to canidates that support unions. Why shouldn't they be politically active like the corporations are?
Maybe you just don't like democracy?
And by the way, the corporations donate about 10 times more than all private individuals and unions combined. Do you have any problem with this? I do.
Fair is fair though. Let's ban all monies being given from either corporations or unions, then I would agree with you.
>> I also dislike unions because of the "gang" mentality of union workers. Union workers, as you experienced first hand, often times think that they have special rights just because they belong to a union. Therefore they do thier best to make the lives of non union members miserable.
It would help if _everyone_ was in a union, or at least had the option of being in a union, then there wouldn't be this union/nonunion mentality. At least when they fire a union worker, then they have to give a reason.
They _do_ have special rights because they belong to a union. As long as they do their job, they won't get fired for no reason.
>> Plus, it wouldnt' have helped in this particular case because the people were temps and wouldn't have been in a union in the first place.
All the temp workers should unionize and make man power a union shop. These people are hired because businesses are in a bind and need people right now, that should be worth a lot more than $8 an hour.
I am thinking that temp workers could probably wring out at least 4 to 8 times more $8 from employers. If the job needs done and done now, normally you have to pay out the nose for it to get done.
I love capitalism, when it works right and you have groups of equal size and power competing against each other then everyone profits, and we all win.
When capitalism fails and you have multi-national corporations forcing people who are facing abject poverty being forced to work for the company to provide just the very lowest basics of living, with no hope of ever bettering yourself, and the fear of losing even the little that the corporation is doling out, then we all lose and we are all a little poorer because of it.
when I first dropped out of college because I ran out of money to finish my degree.
I was a temp worker, and was only given part time work so that they didn't have to pay me any benifits. I had to work 3 part time jobs and was also an officer in the Army National Guard in order to make just enough to support my family.
A union worker decided that he would cuss me out for no reason and I told him to fuck off. He ran off and lied about the incident and got me fired, the little coward.
After working for a year in shit jobs I finally got a break laying network cabling and doing help desk and support and I never looked back. I am currently a self taught programmer and make a great salary.
But even then I got laid off my Disney after working for them for just a few months, when they began downsizing go.com.
I lost my job while the executives got paid about $50,000,000 in bonuses and stock options. _My_ stock options. So even at a professional level you can be screwed over.
Of course I got 2 job offers in less than a week, during the height of the recession, so no big deal. But it was depressing to get laid off. And in my book being laid off without ever intending to hire you back is just fired.
The most important thing to remember is that the fuedal system was _not_ slavery. Sure, the serf had responsibilites to the lord and had to work hard, but the lord also had responsibilities back to the serf. The lord had to provide for the workers like you would your prize animals. And the church kept a strict eye on the behavior of the lords to ensure that they maintained law and order in the area.
The lord just couldn't arbitrarily throw someone off the land, because there was no replacement workers, even a lazy drunken lout was better than no lout at all. A lord that kept abusing his people would have to answer to the church and might even be excomunicated and exiled himself.
When capitalism replaced fuedalism the CEO became the fuedal lord, but the CEO no longer has any responsiblity to the workers and has to answer to nobody for their treatment of the workers. The unions formed in response to long hours of labor with little pay and the constant threat of being fired. The same reason that these people in the story have to face everyday.
I used to be against unions, because I had been brainwashed by the propaganda that unions were causing the US to be less competitive. But then I looked into the matter and found out that union shops are every bit as competitive as non union shops and that dollar for dollar they produce as many goods as non union shops. Mainly because in union shops you had long periods of employment that allow people to get good at their jobs.
The reason that companies go with lower paid inexperienced workers is because even though it is more expensive in the long run for the company, it allows the executives to make a lot more money for themselves individually, in the short run.
Ford paid his workers enough money to buy a model-T. I doubt that most of the workers in these third world countries could buy a pair of sneakers or jeans at full price. I doubt that the workers at the company in the story could have afforded to buy one of the printers that they were packing up. Sad really.
If we don't support the right for everyone to have a living wage that lets people get ahead, who will buy the things that we are making in the future. and if noone buys the things that we are making, how long do you expect to keep your job?
I think that it is time for high tech workers to form a union and protect our rights. We should also make sure that the workers in foreign subsidiaries of the companies that we work for get paid the same as we do. The the US will have someone to sell our stuff to overseas and we can reduce our huge foreign debt that we have every year.
They have heard of it at the plusv.org site and support the use of ogg vorbis with this new compression method.
It works by filtering out the noise in the higher frequencies and just compressing the music. If you play this music back on a normal decoder then it only plays back upto 11kHz of frequency. With a plus V enabled play back device you get normal frequency response in the playback.
It looks plausable.
I'd need to hear it to tell if it actually works. If this does work then I will need to re-rip all my CD's at 48kbit variable rate ogg vorbis, and fit my entire music collection on about 3 CDR's.
They also seem to be friendly to individuals using their technology.
of fuel cell technology to the general public.
And like all brand new technologies it is very expensive. I expect these devices to rapidly drop in price over the next decade.
The thing that really interests me about this technology is using solar and wind power in order to generate the hydrogen in the first place. Can you imagine the US power grid being fed from a 100,000,000 1000W solar panels spread across the US during the day, and from a 100,000,000 1000W fuel cells all night long?
There really wouldn't be power losses from downed power lines, that would just segment the section. Costs would definately be driven down with 100 Giga watts of additional power on the national power grid.
The systems would pay for themselves by running the consumers power meter backwards. If you put enough panels in, the power company would pay you.
Because the way I run it I have to copy my public key to every box that I want to connect to.
Since the original authentication sent me the servers public key encrypted with my public key then it is impossible for the man in the middle to ever see any unencrypted data.
The original article is written very well, too bad it is just wrong.
These regulations really do nothing to protect your privacy.
Most of the time your medical information is sent unencrypted across computer networks using well known protocols such as HL7.
Nearly anyone with a packet sniffer at a major university with a medical center can watch patient data flow past.
These regs are just feel good things and do not change anything.
I was going to use KOffice or StarOffice for my desktop applications... The web applications that I was talking about are business apps, like a schedualling/appointment program for the entire organization being run through the web. Email being run through the web. I would also love to have a single interface into my voicemail / email / appointment / messaging systems.
Companies like hospitals could have web based registration systems and web based lab systems linked together seemlessly through a web interface.
If I ever run a business I would use this device for all my desktops, along with a black 15" LCD monitor at 1024x768. The sleek design and good looks of the systems would be a startling difference to customers who are used to seeing huge bulky computers and monitors.
I would have the machines boot from a file server and authenticate all the users using LDAP and openssh.
When users logged into a machine their home directories would be mounted to the local machine. Thus, all files would reside on a network file server for easy backup. All shared directories for this persons groups would be mounted under the users home directory, allowing shared access to the files that are needed by a team of people.
This way, if there is a problem with a workstation it will take about 5 minutes to replace the box and get the user up and running again.
Since all the files are in one location, updating the desktops or the applications is as easy as upgrading the files in a single location.
The company would use web based e-mail, appointment, contact management software to schedual appointments and business applications would all have to be web accessable or I wouldn't use them. Apache web server, PHP 4.x and MySQL would be the companies basic infrastructure for writing web apps that are fully integrated with all the information that the company has.
As the demand grows the database can be pulled off to a seperate server, upgraded to a proprietary database if needed, and the front end webservers can be clustered together to share the load across multiple web servers.
This also seperates the tasks performed among the various systems... The workstation performs the presentation of data... The web servers run the apps and provide business logic... And the database servers store and manage the data. This allows any one layer to be upgraded without affecting the other layers. (If testing was performed adequately enough!)
I would train people on the software that is provided to them, but such training is often needed for people to get the most out of new MS versions as well anyway, so this is not an additional expense. All training would be video taped and classes would be available on the web.
Home access would be done through VNC, using a seperate terminal server. This would allow access to the companies computer resources no matter what kind of computer the employee had at home. And if the employee didn't have a computer at home and needed to work, a ThinkNIC can cheaply be sent home that will connect to the companies terminal server and provide a VNC session that way.
The final thing that I would do is make all the workstations part of a large cluster that would allow excess processor to be utilized by the main server to perform the companies heavy number crunching. In a CAD/CAM or multimedia environment the secretaries computer can be used to render a video.
Gee, maybe instead of making your programmers work unpaid overtime, maybe you should have them actually programming instead of going to meetings.
I am a great programmer, and I refuse to schedual more than 1 hour of meetings per week per project and will only meet with my boss 1 hour a week.
So I double my productivity by only going to about 5 hours of meetings a week.
I will walk out of any meeting where my input is not needed. If they want to tell me to do something they can e-mail me a request.
What a concept.
No, I have hit mines on the first click before.
Great minds and all that.
If you reduce the minesweep board to a single pair of squares that has a single mine in one or the other then the game would be won or loss with a single click...
This is the equivilant of flipping a coin.
So esentially the article is saying that if you can guess correctly heads or tail with every flip of any coin that you would win $1,000,000.
I am thinking that if you could guess that well that you could win significantly more than that amount of money.
My copy of the EULA _does_ say that! Ahhhhhh!