...is worth a thousand words, then what is a manga worth?
This manga, drawn by Makoto Yukimura, is about an aspiring astronaut (sp?) that starts his career as a lowly space garbage collector. The story is very interesting as it explains the life and perils of being astronauts. It also explains the danger of excessive garbage in space (it is even used as a plot device in book 2, but I won't spoil it!:)
Guess what? There is a free online version! It is located here. (Shockwave Player required), courtesy the editor (Kodansha).
Select the first episode. The shockwave file is an animated version of the first few chapters.
You don't need to understand japanese because it is subtitled in english.
Disclaimer:I'm French, I work in France and my employer is outsourcing about a third of our workforce in India.
Frankly, I have been expecting this for about a year or two: if you can/could telecommute, what prevented your employer to outsource your job?
The developed countries have been outsourcing blue-collar jobs to developing (really low-wage) countries, thanks to the development of international transportation for moving the goods all over the world. Those jobs go now wherever the workforce is the cheapest
Every single part of computer hardware you have in front of you, has been made in Anywhere But US/Europe/Japan(TM). I hope you enjoyed playing/working with your computer, because karma is a b*tch.
Today, the internet allows the transportation of knowledge, voice and data all around the world. Of course, your job will go elsewhere.
Heck, if you think about it, you can see that no one is really safe from this:
lawyers (you just need some meat in the court house, everything else, including C&D:), is outsourcable paperwork)
doctors (the remote chirurgy we dreamed about with Internet2)
teachers (online schooling anyone?)
people in the movie/entertainment industry: Bollywood could cripple Hollywood (Selling low-priced non-crippled CD and non-DRM DVD should be straigthforward for the Indian majors)
Here is some food for thought:
On my desk, there is a book borrowed to a co-worker. Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows 2000 by Powell (ISBN: 0761529373)
The indian version, really a reprint for sale only in India, sold at prakashbooks.com is offered at Rs. 276.50 (about $5.78)
My predictions are:
Salaries won't increase much in the developed countries in the near future
Due to rising unemployement and stagnation of buying power, the price of most goods will most likely be decreasing.
in short, US and Europe will experience what has been plaguing Japan for years: Deflation.
yet, the outsourced jobs will allow the developing countries to develop more and possibly enable them to buy us goods we have yet to invent.
furthermore, I guess there is a limit to the number of jobs they can import: those jobs require education AND generate other paying jobs. Sooner or later, the sucking noise will peter off.
So, what does it mean for me?
I am not going to deny anyone the opportunity to get a better job, even if it is mine: his race, his/her gender, his religion, his nationality or his living place are not important.
I believe this is a Good-Thing for the humankind, as a whole. So, I will have to cope with this, to the best of my abilities
I am currently evaluating my options. They include:
Making myself more productive by working smarter (not harder!)
Moving to a place with a low-cost of life. I can telecommute globally as well as anyone:)
Steer my career path towards high value-added jobs (which one, I don't know yet:)
Or a combination of the above
Or recycle myself in other fields (maybe a doctor? There is a growing shortage of surgeons in Europe and remote chirurgy won't allievate this. I am pretty positive that middle-aged people will be allowed to go to med schools within the next 5 years)
Microsoft's Tony Pierce is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors what better way to stem the tide of Open Source than to remove a valuable reference tool.
And, if you look at the same page, on the right, you see President
Al Yanes IBM Corp.
You would think that IBM, being relatively open-source friendly, would not order or prevent something like that.
Having read the C&D letter and the site, here is my opinion:
Guy maintains a free and excellent list of PCI device (at his own expense)
PCI-SIG decide to protect his trademark to prevent dilution (a not so unreasonable thing to do -- doesn't want to be kleenexed)
PCI-SIG hire lawyers to do this
Lawyer sees the PCI list
Lawyer fires a firmly worded C&D, doesn't even try a more delicate approach
List maintainer is pissed, and takes the ball home
The fault would be
PCI-SIG's for hiring such a rude lawyer
The law school's for not having mandatory 'common courtesy and etiquette' classes
I don't think it's unreasonable that foreign students be restricted from participating. After all, it's my tax dollars paying for this, and I would expect my government to provide for their own citizens before some foreigners who presumably will take their knowledge back to their home countries.
All this reminds me of a sci fi short story-turned-book that I read a while back. It was called The Weapons Shops of Isher and detailed how a group of shops distributed guns that would only fire for the owner and, even then, only fire when the owner wasn't firing at a person for anything other than self defense.
Anyone remember this?
You're thinking of "The Weapon Makers of Isher" and "The Weapons Shops of Isher" by A.E van Vogt.
I remember being first outraged by the Weapon Shops slogan "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free" until I understood those guns were limited to self-defense only.
Another interesting part of this universe is that the corporations are wildly out of control and are fougth against by the Weapon Shops organisation in a rather para-legal manner (they have special courts that routinely -and secretly- fine them).
IDC says factors other than software acquisition cost--particularly staffing and downtime--are the most significant factors when determining TCO over a long-term period.
Interfacing Perl with C has its uses, depending on what your current project is.
In my case, I'm part of a large scale C++ project. I have the ownership of a module with clearly defined interfaces with the other modules written in this project.
Since my module relies heavily on XML and strings, I have always wanted to pair it with the power of Perl for testing purpose.
Among various possibles solutions (XS, SWIG, etc.), I settled on SWIG because it could handle 'shallow' classes. (allowing to expose my module as a perl object)
This has been the best decision I have made over the last year: when I get a bug case, I simply write a perl script to try to reproduce the problem, add some loops to get some combinatory, then check the result. This drastically cuts down on the time spent on debugging my module (or the modules used by it, for that matter:)
Pros:
SWIG: Relatively easy generation of stub code (by using interface files)
SWIG: It is possible to use the same interface files to generate stub code for Java, Python (though, I didn't test this feature)
SWIG: Excellent doc.
Perl: you can leverage the CPAN/PPM modules to do some truly magical hackings
Cons:
While SWIG does a good job of hiding the gory parts of Perl Internals, you still need to brush up on it to better understand how it works, if only to avoid memory leaks
Perl: I haven't been to handle properly the passing of strings (I managed to do it by using a horrible hack that seems to work). I'm probably not smart enough to understand the documentation or the samples.
SWIG: the stub code is dependant on the version of perl used. It is therefore difficult to release it. This is mostly a dev tool.
Summary: If you are a C/C++ developper and your code can use XML/text files/strings, consider using SWIG or XS for testing purpose.
PS: if you want to Quantify/Purify your module/Perl script, using ActiveState Perl, you need to recompile Perl with the -DPURIFY option toggled on.
but I would not want to be crew on a flight taking people to the UberGeek Convention if there is no restriction on passengers' use of electronic and radiating devices.
I can see the headlines : "Plane 459 Slashdotted!"
Shudder...
Source: http://www.waynerad.com/work.html (I also remenber seeing it posted once on Slashdot by AC)
Hello, end-user vermin. Here's some software. It might work. It might not. No gurantees and in fact, we have no responsibility even if it fries your hardware, scrambles your hard drive, blows up your monitor, messes up your credit report, and gets you indicted for tax fraud with the IRS. You however, have no rights at all, peon. You will use the software EXACTLY as we graciously permit you to. Period. Any unauthorized use, regardless of wheather permitted by other laws is (thanks to our lobbying efforts), not just a minor civil violation, but a federal criminal felony. Ha! You agree to waiving all other "fair use" and other rights including constitutional rights and "inalienable" human rights by accepting this EULA. And we might change our minds about what you can do and you agree to that too. We might even decide to scan your hard drive and monitor your network traffic and secretly report that info back to anyone we wish, and without telling you. You, of course, agree to this too. But don't even bother to complain. You should be thrilled we're letting you do anything at all with our product. And if you don't swear blood oath, full compliance with this license, then FUCK YOU and your little dog Toto too and get this software the hell off your computer and destroy the disk. Oh, and if you don't agree, you can't even refund the software, thanks to omnipotent software store policies. Tee-hee! Thnaks for the cash. l00z3rZ! HA Ha ha.......
While $60 billion is a huge amount of money, let's consider the following facts:
Is it cost-effective to eradicate bugs? (think: is it cost effective to secure credit card to eradicate fraud? Banks prefer to eat it.)
Is this amount really damaging to the economy? (ie: $60 billion/year is not much against the GDP)
Enron market cap. at this top was $60 billion.
BTW, the report seems interesting. I've just downloaded it. It seems that it's got/.'ted (this reassures me that most/. are checking facts before replying...)
The most efficient way to make users sit up and listen to you is to stage a catastrophic loss of data.
Since it seems it is a small office setup, I suggest you do:
select your victim. Choice target is someone who gave you hard time about backuping being not important, (or someone who is on your sh*t list:)
for this to be effective, this guy must have important data on his computer
stay at work very late (wait for everybody else to be gone)
open your target's PC
make a backup of his hard-drive. Keep the back-up in a safe place.
substitute an out-of-service hard disk to the one in the box
hide the original disk somewhere safe
go home
next morning, come at work late [okay, that would be next afternoon]
watch how the guy grovels at your feet and begs you to save his ass
make a show of being modest and not promising any result any time [Do not say 'I told you so']
waste a few hours analysing the problem and mumbling mumbo-jumbo in your beard. You might want to take the defective hard disk to your box 'to do in-depth analysis with proper tools'
finally, when you think yor victim has suffered enough, magically restore the data. [if you really hate the guy, wait one day or two]
The extra backup is to CYA in case something goes very wrong.
Of course, this assumes that you are the only guy l33t enough to restore data, or you might get exposed.
While you're basking in your newly found hero status, suggest and implement a technically sound way of backuping (see others posts for this)
Disclaimer: for the sarcasm-impaired, this post is intended to be a joke. Do not blame me if you get fired becoause you tried this!
using strong security (cryptography, code signing, frequent patches, etc.)
some sort of booting (by vote, by cheat-detectors, etc.)
Either way is not completely effective:
there is a trade-off between security and functionnality
cheaters could create bot-players or/and aggregate in cheaters clans
Here is an idea I haven't seen yet.
I propose that each player deposits a given amount of money in an online-account (say 100$). If they get caugth, they lose it. This idea is to make cheating costly for the cheater.
This would be a mix of technological and social solutions. Of course, the idea need to be careful analyzed. Here are some considerations:
When subscribing to an online host, along with his monthly rate, the player would deposit 100$ to a specific account.
This account may or may not bear an interest rate.
If the player is suspected to be cheating, he gets a warning and the account is locked for at least 2 months (to prevent him running away)
If the player is caught cheating, he loses his subscription and the deposit.
Of course, to avoid conflicts of interest, the game hoster would give the deposit to a charity organisation (WWF, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, whatever).
when the player terminates his subscription, he gets back his deposit.
Like every decently equipped developer, you have a compile server. However, you recently (2 months ago, IIRC) said that you wanted to accelerate the speed of compilation.
Why did Germany go with IBM? I mean, if they wanted to go with Linux to save money or for other reasons, why didn't they just contact SuSE?
To this question, three possible answers:
According to the article, IBM will be using the SuSE linux version anyway. SuSE will certainly get $$$ for this.
Servicing the government is a huge task. SuSE was probably not up to this level in term of service capabilities. IBM, on the other hand...
Finally, there is a possible explanation... The UCA (United Corporations of America) is well known to be prompt to protect the profit of its members by pressuring foreign governments. The german government nipped potential diplomatic troubles in the bud by hiring another american firm.
Give a look at any paper by Sasse, Brostoff and Adams, such as this one, and then re-think your sysadmin I-never-change-my-dictionary-password-but-I-force- all-my-users-to-32-char-monthly-passwords bullshit attitude.
I am currently using a third party library with a badly designed API.
It uses parameters in a way that does not make sense often.
So, before calling one of those (more obscure) functions, I copy/paste the list
of valid parameter just before it.
This way, should I need to understand the intent of the call and wether it is valid or not, I just need to look the comment. [over the last two months, already saved me hours of debugging!]
Caveat: This works only if the function is seldomly called in the code. If called often, you're better off memorizing it.
My motion is that Islam is "a bit late" (200 years). Maybe, we are seeing the last spasms of radical Islamism and we'll see dramatic improvements in important areas (women's rights, religious tolerance, etc)
Disclaimers:
I type this in a hurry. You're welcome to do your own research.
Women rights: catholics were much worse than current muslims extremists.
While I'm catholic, I don't recognize the Vatican (and, given the current scandals, probably never will)
According to this, the kitchen is much more dangerous!
In one study completed earlier this year, Dr. Pat Rusin, of the University of Arizona, checked bacteria levels on objects in a group of typical homes.
Dish cloths literally were dirtier from a microbiological standpoint than toilet seats. The typical dishcloth harbored one million times more bacteria than a typical toilet seat.
"The attack doesn't happen through the chat client, so as long as you have MSN Messenger installed, if I send you a special URL, I can own you," said Marc Maiffret, Eeye's "chief hacking officer."
So, you'd better check if MS didn't helpfully install this fine piece of secure enginnering on your box. If so, either remove it, or update it to a newer and safer (?) version.
I found your email address online at the [school] site. As a citizen of [city/county/region]who is deeply concerned not only about the education of children, but also the costs of doing so, I am sending you a link to a new program being offered by Red Hat to bring open source software into the schools to replace proprietary (read: very expensive) software by Microsoft.
This is not a marketing letter, and I have no affiliation with Red Hat whatsoever. I'm simply a local software developer who can attest that the Linux operating system can do everything that Microsoft Windows can do (with few exceptions), with a lot more reliability and requiring fewer hardware resources.
Furthermore, on a general note, I would like to call your attention to the following facts:
Proprietary software vendors (BSA) are known to 'crack down' on institutions deemed to be behind in their licences dues [see this]
The cost of owning (actually renting) proprietary software is NOT limited to paying licences dues. The total cost of ownership (TCO) also include:
cost of having specialized lawyers of a retainer
risk of highly expensive of (precipitous) auditing
cost of accounting thoses licences: open-source software are usually license-free, and therefore much less burdensome to track.
Additionnaly, I am quite confident that you are using Microsoft software to read this mail. I am therefore quite confident you have had a close encounter (if not an actual catastrophe) with the various reliability/security problems that seem to be the trademark of Microsoft, including (but not limited to:
Losses of data because of a system crash
Outlook specific viruses/worm: Nimda, Klez, Code Red
I hope that [school] will be a technology leader and simultaneously fiscally responsible enough to consider all the possibilities that working with Red Hat and other open source software providers will bring to the table.
Best regards,
[Your name]
[Street Address]
[City,State,Zip]
Idea:Someone could build a web page with a generator: enter the relevant infos, click a button and presto a mail ready to be sent! We would, of course, need to refine the model and add more relevant links.
I live in a country where minors are legal to buy and drink alcohol. When I was 16, I used to get drunk at least twice a week, every week. I got to know the effects of alcohol *very well* at that age. I am 25 now, and I drink less than one glass of drink a week. I was exposed to alcohol at the age when it couldn't do too much harm to me (career, family, drink'n'drive), and I learned to cope with it.
It's the same with video games: I used to be a video game addict when I was younger. I still like to play games, but I can stay away from them if I want.
Take the games away from the kids, and you'll get a bunch of grown up people playing games.
OK, let's replace alcohol by guns:
I live in a country where minors are legal to buy and
use guns. When I was 16, I used to murder at least twice a week, every week. I got to know the effects of gun-totting *very well* at that age. I am 25 now, and I shoot less than once a week. I was exposed to guns at the age when it couldn't do too much harm to me (career, family, drive-by-shooting), and I learned to cope with it.
Ok, I admit I was a bit sarcastic. However, the more relevant remark is this (with tobacco):
It's the same with
tobacco: I used to be a chain smoker when I was younger. I still like to smoke, but I can stay away from them if I want.
Slashdot Mirror
... an australian court went medieval on a local Copernic?
This manga, drawn by Makoto Yukimura, is about an aspiring astronaut (sp?) that starts his career as a lowly space garbage collector. The story is very interesting as it explains the life and perils of being astronauts. It also explains the danger of excessive garbage in space (it is even used as a plot device in book 2, but I won't spoil it! :)
Guess what? There is a free online version! It is located here. (Shockwave Player required), courtesy the editor (Kodansha).
Select the first episode. The shockwave file is an animated version of the first few chapters.
You don't need to understand japanese because it is subtitled in english.
Happy reading!
PS: I know about it because it is translated in French :)
All of you in France, I highly recommend this manga.
I didn't find an english translation of it, AFAICG (as far as I can google).
Frankly, I have been expecting this for about a year or two: if you can/could telecommute, what prevented your employer to outsource your job?
The developed countries have been outsourcing blue-collar jobs to developing (really low-wage) countries, thanks to the development of international transportation for moving the goods all over the world. Those jobs go now wherever the workforce is the cheapest
Every single part of computer hardware you have in front of you, has been made in Anywhere But US/Europe/Japan(TM). I hope you enjoyed playing/working with your computer, because karma is a b*tch.
Today, the internet allows the transportation of knowledge, voice and data all around the world. Of course, your job will go elsewhere.
Heck, if you think about it, you can see that no one is really safe from this:
- lawyers (you just need some meat in the court house, everything else, including C&D
:), is outsourcable paperwork)
- doctors (the remote chirurgy we dreamed about with Internet2)
- teachers (online schooling anyone?)
- people in the movie/entertainment industry: Bollywood could cripple Hollywood (Selling low-priced non-crippled CD and non-DRM DVD should be straigthforward for the Indian majors)
Here is some food for thought:My predictions are:
So, what does it mean for me?
And, if you look at the same page, on the right, you see President Al Yanes IBM Corp.
You would think that IBM, being relatively open-source friendly, would not order or prevent something like that.
Having read the C&D letter and the site, here is my opinion:
The fault would be
Well, except for one teeny itty bit of fact: most of american brains come from abroad
If the U.S. start barring foreign students from high profile/risk projects, they will go elsewhere and the brain drain will crawl to a stop.
Then, maybe, we can count on the fine US school system to pick up the slack :)
I remember being first outraged by the Weapon Shops slogan "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free" until I understood those guns were limited to self-defense only.
Another interesting part of this universe is that the corporations are wildly out of control and are fougth against by the Weapon Shops organisation in a rather para-legal manner (they have special courts that routinely -and secretly- fine them).
The solution is quite obvious...
And stop reading /. while we're at it!!
<duck>
In my case, I'm part of a large scale C++ project. I have the ownership of a module with clearly defined interfaces with the other modules written in this project.
Since my module relies heavily on XML and strings, I have always wanted to pair it with the power of Perl for testing purpose.
Among various possibles solutions (XS, SWIG, etc.), I settled on SWIG because it could handle 'shallow' classes. (allowing to expose my module as a perl object)
This has been the best decision I have made over the last year: when I get a bug case, I simply write a perl script to try to reproduce the problem, add some loops to get some combinatory, then check the result. This drastically cuts down on the time spent on debugging my module (or the modules used by it, for that matter :)
Pros:
- SWIG: Relatively easy generation of stub code (by using interface files)
- SWIG: It is possible to use the same interface files to generate stub code for Java, Python (though, I didn't test this feature)
- SWIG: Excellent doc.
- Perl: you can leverage the CPAN/PPM modules to do some truly magical hackings
Cons:Summary: If you are a C/C++ developper and your code can use XML/text files/strings, consider using SWIG or XS for testing purpose.
PS: if you want to Quantify/Purify your module/Perl script, using ActiveState Perl, you need to recompile Perl with the -DPURIFY option toggled on.
I can see the headlines : "Plane 459 Slashdotted!"
Shudder...
(I also remenber seeing it posted once on Slashdot by AC)
BTW, the report seems interesting. I've just downloaded it. It seems that it's got /.'ted (this reassures me that most /. are checking facts before replying...)
Sigh.
It took (lots of) non-americans to make your Treasury change colors & sizes.
I really wonder how vision-impaired americans cope with this problem.
I guess that taking care of tourists is much more important that taking care of your own blind people.
See this for a careful design of bills. [To be honest, I'm not happy with the artwork personally]
Okay, I was a little harsh. Just see this initiative like a Section 508 applied to bills & coins.
It makes life much easier of handicapped people, as, it also help you normal guys (508-compliant Web sites are usually cleaner than non-508)
Since it seems it is a small office setup, I suggest you do:
The extra backup is to CYA in case something goes very wrong.
Of course, this assumes that you are the only guy l33t enough to restore data, or you might get exposed.
While you're basking in your newly found hero status, suggest and implement a technically sound way of backuping (see others posts for this)
Disclaimer: for the sarcasm-impaired, this post is intended to be a joke. Do not blame me if you get fired becoause you tried this!
- using strong security (cryptography, code signing, frequent patches, etc.)
- some sort of booting (by vote, by cheat-detectors, etc.)
Either way is not completely effective:- there is a trade-off between security and functionnality
- cheaters could create bot-players or/and aggregate in cheaters clans
Here is an idea I haven't seen yet.This would be a mix of technological and social solutions. Of course, the idea need to be careful analyzed. Here are some considerations:
What solution have you used?
Did you look at using ram disks?
To this question, three possible answers:
It uses parameters in a way that does not make sense often.
So, before calling one of those (more obscure) functions, I copy/paste the list of valid parameter just before it.
This way, should I need to understand the intent of the call and wether it is valid or not, I just need to look the comment. [over the last two months, already saved me hours of debugging!]
Caveat: This works only if the function is seldomly called in the code. If called often, you're better off memorizing it.
- Join the near PHB Golf Club.
Just don't expect to be able to go there very often!
Moreover, before ever considering managing, do consider how you will recruit high quality programmers!
An important thing is to note that both these religion are "relatively mature". (Hold on that flamethrower for a while as I explain)
Islam was born circa 632 AD and spread relatively far and would probably have done so in the European kingdoms if Martel didn't defeat the muslim forces at Poitiers (732 AD)
It was at this time that the Europe was plunged in the Dark Age and immobilism by the Catholic Church (a bout or two of plague didn't help, too)
The Dark Age lasted for more than 1,000 years before being dispelled by the Age of Reason and Enlightenment (Le siècle des lumières).
It then took about 200 years to reach a "relative maturity" where the religious institutions now have to answer for their actions.
Islam splintered and entered itself its Dark Age about 200 years after Christianism.(See Sh'ia and Sunnism, among other events)
My motion is that Islam is "a bit late" (200 years). Maybe, we are seeing the last spasms of radical Islamism and we'll see dramatic improvements in important areas (women's rights, religious tolerance, etc)
Disclaimers:
No comment.
The answer is here:
So, you'd better check if MS didn't helpfully install this fine piece of secure enginnering on your box. If so, either remove it, or update it to a newer and safer (?) version.
I found your email address online at the [school] site. As a citizen of [city/county/region]who is deeply concerned not only about the education of children, but also the costs of doing so, I am sending you a link to a new program being offered by Red Hat to bring open source software into the schools to replace proprietary (read: very expensive) software by Microsoft.
This is not a marketing letter, and I have no affiliation with Red Hat whatsoever. I'm simply a local software developer who can attest that the Linux operating system can do everything that Microsoft Windows can do (with few exceptions), with a lot more reliability and requiring fewer hardware resources.
Furthermore, on a general note, I would like to call your attention to the following facts:
Additionnaly, I am quite confident that you are using Microsoft software to read this mail. I am therefore quite confident you have had a close encounter (if not an actual catastrophe) with the various reliability/security problems that seem to be the trademark of Microsoft, including (but not limited to:
- Losses of data because of a system crash
- Outlook specific viruses/worm: Nimda, Klez, Code Red
I hope that [school] will be a technology leader and simultaneously fiscally responsible enough to consider all the possibilities that working with Red Hat and other open source software providers will bring to the table.Best regards,
[Your name]
[Street Address]
[City,State,Zip]
Idea:Someone could build a web page with a generator: enter the relevant infos, click a button and presto a mail ready to be sent! We would, of course, need to refine the model and add more relevant links.
OK, let's replace alcohol by guns:
Ok, I admit I was a bit sarcastic. However, the more relevant remark is this (with tobacco):
Really?