if you're an exempt employee, I'm not aware of any law that would force you to take a lunch break. Your employer can tell you to work through breakfast lunch and dinner, and your only recourse is to quit.
No. There is also the option of filing a complaint with the labor board. I once worked for a company that was caught up in a labor related lawsuit due to a sister company's actions (both companys owned by the same parent). Today the courts in California are ruling that too many people are considered exempt employees, that employers are trying to make an end run around labor laws. Basically all the engineers and lower level managers at the company had to reclassified from exempt salary to non-exempt hourly. If a company in California is still classifying its engineers and developers as exempt then change is one visit from the labor relations folks away.
If you're non-exempt, in California you have to take a 30 minute (unpaid) lunch whether you want to or not. (there are a few exceptions that would allow an on-duty meal break)
But those exceptions have to be rare events, not common occurrences, IIRC.
And that is why the state should stay the FFFF out of our lives. Stupid laws shouldn't be obeyed, and I will go home when I feel like it.
Your employer may agree with you in principle. However they will still have to write you up for failure to take a meal break and eventually fire you if you persist. They may not want to but the state effectively forces them to do so. Again, unless it is an extremely rare event, like you have to leave early for a doctor's appointment, the state presumes there is coercion if meal breaks are skipped. It does not matter what the employee says, the employer will get fined.
Personally... I'd rather spend that hour working and leave an hour earlier.
Your state laws may not allow that option. Even if its your idea and you *really* want to do so your employer can get into a lot of trouble. In some states the presumption is that you are being coerced by the employer (or fellow employees) and no statement made by you will change that presumption. Don't get annoyed with your employer if they say you must take a meal break away from your desk.
Off-topic: Have you considered releasing a Android version?
Yes we plan to add support for the Android platform. I don't have an ETA though.
If you don't mind being treated like someone we bump into on the street... What app store(s) do you use? Where do you go to learn about new apps? Thanks.
Heh, it's always fun to reinterpret requirements to make them easier to implement:)
A 99% success rate could also mean 99 pages with zero errors out of a 100 pages attempted. With 250 words per page that would represent a mandated success rate of 99.995%
Thankfully the client specified 99% with respect to character recognition not correct pages. If they were specifying pages we would have been straining to suppress pissing our pants rather than suppressing grins.:-)
seems to me that OCR would be an area that would be easy to build a framework for genetic algorithms, using a huge collection of solved OCR pages to evaluate. with each generation being tested on a random subset of pages so they do not learn to cheat instead of learn to solve.
Does that mean it couldn't be a viable candidate for some Summer of Code work then?
More like a bunch of masters/phd thesis to get started.
OCR is an area of AI research under the topic of Computer Vision. It is yet another area that seems simple in concept but turns out to be incredibly difficult in practice.
I don't think that spammers have any amazing tech, they just have different requirements. They can still send spam with a 1% success rate whereas with OCR you'd want a 99% success rate.
I once worked on an OCR project. The client specified a 99% success rate and we strained to restrain our grins. 99% is about one error every one or two lines of text. We got 99.6% in our first implementation before we even began to work on accuracy. Admittedly we had excellent image quality. This was a custom solution that had its own optics.
The only thing strange is that people bought this bullshit of an excuse given that the iPhone 4's camera comes in a fully self contained unit and couldn't give a shit what colour the glass it painted.
I'm sure that's what the Apple engineers thought too when they were designing things. Hence the plan to release both colored versions at the same time. However once they got actual samples in their hands, surprise. Feel free to get back to us after you scrape the paint off an iPhone's glass and try one for yourself. I'm open to the notion that the problem was something else but your speculation is merely that and does really disprove Apple's official explanation. That the camera is in a fully contained unit seems irrelevant. The lens still seems to be sitting against the interior side of the glass. Ever pick up a plastic clip board and notice how the edges seem to glow from the internally reflected light? Similar stuff could be happening on the glass the lens is looking through.
Apple has no qualms about making your computer obsolete so you have to buy new things. The promise of the PC was that you could keep upgrading on and on with inexpensive parts. That's not as true as I would like it to be, but it's not exactly a lie either.
Not a lie but somewhat misleading. Apple's computers are basically laptops, and hence no less upgradable than comparable PCs. Keep in mind that the iMac and mini are basically laptops embedded behind a monitor or without a monitor. All-in-one PCs designs like the iMac have similar limited upgrade options. Similar story for the ultra compact PCs comparable to the mini. Also keep in mind that Apple does offer computers in traditional tower configurations and their size, airflow, etc is such that you can fiddle with the components. Admittedly PCs towers are far more cost effective for most users. I think the real problem with Apple's product line is that they only produce a tower for the high end users, they don't offer a simplified tower for average users - basically what most PC towers are. So Macs are pretty much like their comparable PCs, Apple just ignores one particular niche of the market.
But with Apple, they care almost nothing about backward compatibility and backward portability. This makes all the G4 and G5 devices out there all but useless... before that, the 68XXX based machines. Now, with multiple iProducts out there, they are also abandoning the people who bought their iProducts less than 5 years ago expecting them to spend more money
Just like PCs. I had a Dell Latitude with a Pentium-M 1.6 GHz and 1GB RAM running WinXP. It was OK, but an upgrade to Vista would have seriously degraded the performance. Much like the iPhone 3G running iOS4.
I'm guessing Apple is already regretting their decision to go with Intel based architecture.
Bad guess. Going Intel basically doubled their market share.
nono, your misinformed! They now paint the glass with a different color paint!
Apparently Apple originally thought it was as simple as you seem to believe, that is why they originally thought the black and white versions would be available at the same time. Strangely, material science is not that simple and ambient light and UV penetrated the paint sufficiently to interfere with the camera and other components. It seems it took a while to find a proper non-toxic formulation of paint and to test it. Imagine that.
They used to charge $200 extra for the black MacBook... just because of the color... you should be thankful that this time it only costs like 9 month of wait time:)
IIRC the black macbook also came with a bigger HD.
Something else was upgraded too but I don't recall what. When you upgraded the components in the default white configuration to match the default black configuration the price difference was US$75.
The joke is that there are no competent Chinese engineers to fix it. They'll have to hire German, Japanese, or French engineers from the firms that produced the plans they stole to build these lines in the first place and then pay them to fix the mistakes the incompetent Chinese "engineers" made "adapting" them.
I'm not sure the joke is what you are thinking. Its not that the new guys have to turn to the old guys for help, its that the old guys are willing to train their competitors/replacements.
Oh really? You mean there are existing safety standards for new technology? And here I thought it was just the engineer's conservative estimates...
What new technology? High speed rail is over a hundred years old. The billion passenger mark was hit in the 1970s. I think there is sufficient track record to establish standards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail
It does not matter so much what you say you want, nor does it really matter what everyone knows is necessary or correct, you tend to get what you incentivize or reward. If you reward speed (wrt project/task completion) but only talk about quality then you only get speed.
Are you really that fucking stupid??? *Every* university requires that their graduate students and professors sign away all their intellectual work while at the university.
At the University of California researchers, both faculty and students, are required to inform a technology transfer office of any discovery that is potentially patentable. This agency handles all the paperwork and other legal issues, and it also handles licensing the patent to interested commercial organizations. The fees collected for the licensing gets split: *** 25% for the researcher ***
25% for the researcher's department
50% for the UC system
Also the fees take into account the nature of the licensing organization. Small local startups are changed less than large out-of-state conglomerates.
At least that's what I recall from the presentation I attended in 2007.
Two cars I've seen recently:
(1) An American brand name with 60% US components and assembled in Canada.
(2) A German brand name with 40% US components and assembled in the US.
Which is the more American car? Its an easy call if you go by brand name but if you go by American jobs then its a much more difficult questions.
IIRC it's the other way around, making it harder to mis-fuel a petrol vehicle than a diesel one. This doesn't make much sense considering the other way around is substantially more expensive, but there you go...
I am going to guess that mis-fueling a petrol vehicle is the more common error. Diesel owners, well at least in the US, are more likely to be carefully reading labels. Their pumps are not as common and they have to look around to locate their pumps.
I think that by now people know whether they like 3D or not.
I think everybody would like 3D if they thought about it. For those that do not enjoy the visuals they should like the fact that 3D TVs have cut the price of 2D TVs in half.
For sci fi old school authors would actually be Jules Verne, HG Wells, etc; maybe for fantasy Bram Stoker, etc. Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke may be more of a "classical era".
FWIW, the "literary snobs" might recognize Verne, Wells, etc. Perhaps the "literary snobs" of the next century will recognize Asimov, etc.
Steel is the most recycled material on the planet. It is also plenty strong for most applications. So my question is, how much does this super-nano-paper cost? That will be key in its success.
Steel was once incredibly expensive, a rarity only kings/warlords possessed. Aluminum was once so expensive it was mainly used in the luxury goods of the rich. I think the key to success is usefulness. Cost has more to do with how quickly that success occurs.
Slashdot Mirror
Your state laws may not allow that option
if you're an exempt employee, I'm not aware of any law that would force you to take a lunch break. Your employer can tell you to work through breakfast lunch and dinner, and your only recourse is to quit.
No. There is also the option of filing a complaint with the labor board. I once worked for a company that was caught up in a labor related lawsuit due to a sister company's actions (both companys owned by the same parent). Today the courts in California are ruling that too many people are considered exempt employees, that employers are trying to make an end run around labor laws. Basically all the engineers and lower level managers at the company had to reclassified from exempt salary to non-exempt hourly. If a company in California is still classifying its engineers and developers as exempt then change is one visit from the labor relations folks away.
If you're non-exempt, in California you have to take a 30 minute (unpaid) lunch whether you want to or not. (there are a few exceptions that would allow an on-duty meal break)
But those exceptions have to be rare events, not common occurrences, IIRC.
And that is why the state should stay the FFFF out of our lives. Stupid laws shouldn't be obeyed, and I will go home when I feel like it.
Your employer may agree with you in principle. However they will still have to write you up for failure to take a meal break and eventually fire you if you persist. They may not want to but the state effectively forces them to do so. Again, unless it is an extremely rare event, like you have to leave early for a doctor's appointment, the state presumes there is coercion if meal breaks are skipped. It does not matter what the employee says, the employer will get fined.
Personally... I'd rather spend that hour working and leave an hour earlier.
Your state laws may not allow that option. Even if its your idea and you *really* want to do so your employer can get into a lot of trouble. In some states the presumption is that you are being coerced by the employer (or fellow employees) and no statement made by you will change that presumption. Don't get annoyed with your employer if they say you must take a meal break away from your desk.
Off-topic: Have you considered releasing a Android version?
Yes we plan to add support for the Android platform. I don't have an ETA though.
... What app store(s) do you use? Where do you go to learn about new apps? Thanks.
If you don't mind being treated like someone we bump into on the street
Heh, it's always fun to reinterpret requirements to make them easier to implement :)
A 99% success rate could also mean 99 pages with zero errors out of a 100 pages attempted. With 250 words per page that would represent a mandated success rate of 99.995%
Thankfully the client specified 99% with respect to character recognition not correct pages. If they were specifying pages we would have been straining to suppress pissing our pants rather than suppressing grins. :-)
seems to me that OCR would be an area that would be easy to build a framework for genetic algorithms, using a huge collection of solved OCR pages to evaluate. with each generation being tested on a random subset of pages so they do not learn to cheat instead of learn to solve.
Sounds like a great thesis project. :-)
Does that mean it couldn't be a viable candidate for some Summer of Code work then?
More like a bunch of masters/phd thesis to get started.
OCR is an area of AI research under the topic of Computer Vision. It is yet another area that seems simple in concept but turns out to be incredibly difficult in practice.
I don't think that spammers have any amazing tech, they just have different requirements. They can still send spam with a 1% success rate whereas with OCR you'd want a 99% success rate.
I once worked on an OCR project. The client specified a 99% success rate and we strained to restrain our grins. 99% is about one error every one or two lines of text. We got 99.6% in our first implementation before we even began to work on accuracy. Admittedly we had excellent image quality. This was a custom solution that had its own optics.
The only thing strange is that people bought this bullshit of an excuse given that the iPhone 4's camera comes in a fully self contained unit and couldn't give a shit what colour the glass it painted.
I'm sure that's what the Apple engineers thought too when they were designing things. Hence the plan to release both colored versions at the same time. However once they got actual samples in their hands, surprise. Feel free to get back to us after you scrape the paint off an iPhone's glass and try one for yourself. I'm open to the notion that the problem was something else but your speculation is merely that and does really disprove Apple's official explanation. That the camera is in a fully contained unit seems irrelevant. The lens still seems to be sitting against the interior side of the glass. Ever pick up a plastic clip board and notice how the edges seem to glow from the internally reflected light? Similar stuff could be happening on the glass the lens is looking through.
Apple has no qualms about making your computer obsolete so you have to buy new things. The promise of the PC was that you could keep upgrading on and on with inexpensive parts. That's not as true as I would like it to be, but it's not exactly a lie either.
Not a lie but somewhat misleading. Apple's computers are basically laptops, and hence no less upgradable than comparable PCs. Keep in mind that the iMac and mini are basically laptops embedded behind a monitor or without a monitor. All-in-one PCs designs like the iMac have similar limited upgrade options. Similar story for the ultra compact PCs comparable to the mini. Also keep in mind that Apple does offer computers in traditional tower configurations and their size, airflow, etc is such that you can fiddle with the components. Admittedly PCs towers are far more cost effective for most users. I think the real problem with Apple's product line is that they only produce a tower for the high end users, they don't offer a simplified tower for average users - basically what most PC towers are. So Macs are pretty much like their comparable PCs, Apple just ignores one particular niche of the market.
But with Apple, they care almost nothing about backward compatibility and backward portability. This makes all the G4 and G5 devices out there all but useless... before that, the 68XXX based machines. Now, with multiple iProducts out there, they are also abandoning the people who bought their iProducts less than 5 years ago expecting them to spend more money
Just like PCs. I had a Dell Latitude with a Pentium-M 1.6 GHz and 1GB RAM running WinXP. It was OK, but an upgrade to Vista would have seriously degraded the performance. Much like the iPhone 3G running iOS4.
I'm guessing Apple is already regretting their decision to go with Intel based architecture.
Bad guess. Going Intel basically doubled their market share.
nono, your misinformed! They now paint the glass with a different color paint!
Apparently Apple originally thought it was as simple as you seem to believe, that is why they originally thought the black and white versions would be available at the same time. Strangely, material science is not that simple and ambient light and UV penetrated the paint sufficiently to interfere with the camera and other components. It seems it took a while to find a proper non-toxic formulation of paint and to test it. Imagine that.
They used to charge $200 extra for the black MacBook... just because of the color... you should be thankful that this time it only costs like 9 month of wait time :)
IIRC the black macbook also came with a bigger HD.
Something else was upgraded too but I don't recall what. When you upgraded the components in the default white configuration to match the default black configuration the price difference was US$75.
That sums it up nicely. A phone gets a new plastic shell.
I think its glass not plastic. If it were simply plastic there would not have been such a delay.
What will be next ...blue? Red?
That would be bondi or blueberry, and cherry. :-)
The joke is that there are no competent Chinese engineers to fix it. They'll have to hire German, Japanese, or French engineers from the firms that produced the plans they stole to build these lines in the first place and then pay them to fix the mistakes the incompetent Chinese "engineers" made "adapting" them.
I'm not sure the joke is what you are thinking. Its not that the new guys have to turn to the old guys for help, its that the old guys are willing to train their competitors/replacements.
Oh really? You mean there are existing safety standards for new technology? And here I thought it was just the engineer's conservative estimates...
What new technology? High speed rail is over a hundred years old. The billion passenger mark was hit in the 1970s. I think there is sufficient track record to establish standards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail
It does not matter so much what you say you want, nor does it really matter what everyone knows is necessary or correct, you tend to get what you incentivize or reward. If you reward speed (wrt project/task completion) but only talk about quality then you only get speed.
Are you really that fucking stupid??? *Every* university requires that their graduate students and professors sign away all their intellectual work while at the university.
At the University of California researchers, both faculty and students, are required to inform a technology transfer office of any discovery that is potentially patentable. This agency handles all the paperwork and other legal issues, and it also handles licensing the patent to interested commercial organizations. The fees collected for the licensing gets split:
*** 25% for the researcher ***
25% for the researcher's department
50% for the UC system
Also the fees take into account the nature of the licensing organization. Small local startups are changed less than large out-of-state conglomerates.
At least that's what I recall from the presentation I attended in 2007.
Two cars I've seen recently:
(1) An American brand name with 60% US components and assembled in Canada.
(2) A German brand name with 40% US components and assembled in the US.
Which is the more American car? Its an easy call if you go by brand name but if you go by American jobs then its a much more difficult questions.
The real question is, will it be worthwhile if some/all the employees have to learn to use a different OS all over again?
Perhaps Munich can provide some insight:
"LiMux project management, "We were naïve""
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/LiMux-project-management-We-were-naive-958824.html http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/03/19/1633241/The-Woes-of-Munichs-Linux-Migration
IIRC it's the other way around, making it harder to mis-fuel a petrol vehicle than a diesel one. This doesn't make much sense considering the other way around is substantially more expensive, but there you go...
I am going to guess that mis-fueling a petrol vehicle is the more common error. Diesel owners, well at least in the US, are more likely to be carefully reading labels. Their pumps are not as common and they have to look around to locate their pumps.
I think that by now people know whether they like 3D or not.
I think everybody would like 3D if they thought about it. For those that do not enjoy the visuals they should like the fact that 3D TVs have cut the price of 2D TVs in half.
For sci fi old school authors would actually be Jules Verne, HG Wells, etc; maybe for fantasy Bram Stoker, etc. Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke may be more of a "classical era".
FWIW, the "literary snobs" might recognize Verne, Wells, etc. Perhaps the "literary snobs" of the next century will recognize Asimov, etc.
"A foot, 12 inches, is easily divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6." ...and?
To a carpenter dividing by 12 or 1 would not be terribly interesting. :-)
Steel is the most recycled material on the planet. It is also plenty strong for most applications. So my question is, how much does this super-nano-paper cost? That will be key in its success.
Steel was once incredibly expensive, a rarity only kings/warlords possessed. Aluminum was once so expensive it was mainly used in the luxury goods of the rich. I think the key to success is usefulness. Cost has more to do with how quickly that success occurs.