"This person visited 18:17 and checked his tax return, and for some reason or another we had a caching system hooked up to this site, which didn't belong there".
This only says not to buy those things with company money. IOW, Microsoft doesn't want its own company money to be supporting Apple and other competitors. It is not applicable for staff buying them for personal use.
Any company is perfectly within their rights to specify how the company money is spent.
Think of the RIAA members as banks. Instead of depositing $58B into accounts and letting it sit there, people are withdrawing that money and actually spending it on stuff. So the RIAA member banks are whining about loss of deposits. Want some cheese with that?
It's a changing business model, and piracy accounts for only a small percentage of the drop. No one wants CDs, anymore. MP3s may have artifact noise, but they do have a higher dynamic range than CDs. Even though a CD can range out to 96db, it has too few bits at the lower levels because it is linear PCM, so the dynamic range comes quantization noise, making it effectively just 48db usable dynamic range. Neither media is perfect, and people deal with it. High end audiophiles are trying to get things in 24 bit 192k samples, which does sound better. But, it cannot ever be on CD that way.
Actually, I have never pirated. But I have downloaded. What I did was use the downloads to preview the music. Then I discarded them. The only downloads I still have are ones from a few artists sites that were intentionally giving them away. I used the preview downloads to make decisions on which CDs to buy, and actually did buy CDs based on the previews. The rate was about 8%. That is, if I had bought a CD corresponding to every downloaded tune, that would be 100%. But most of it I didn't like, such as Electronica that had vocals injected somewhere (I much prefer instrumental music, but I do have some vocal music I like, too). The downloads helped me to actually buy CDs. Had the downloads NOT been available, these are CDs I would likely never have.
That said, CDs are today very impractical. It's physically too large. No one carries a player anywhere near that size. The RIAA needs to get that clue bashed into their stupid heads and figure out better marketing. Still, I have bought a couple CDs in the past few years... and "ripped" them so they could be a part of my collection. If I can't "rip" them I can't play them. If I can't play them, what's the point in buying them.
Today, most of my music collection comes from Magnatune, a site I do believe the RIAA has tried to shut down by means of illegal tricks, because it's a business model (not be evil) that they don't like. One of the great things with downloads from Magnatune is that I can modify and remix them. A lot of the music has a faster beat than I want, and I can actually slow it down in mplayer (I have my own wrapper program to do it). I can't do that with music played by some proprietary player program. And I doubt it hurts the feelings of the artists if I play their music in a different way or even remix it for my own playing as they get their bits either way and they can't hear how I might have corrupted their art.
Sales of CDs has gone down for reasons very similar to the reasons that vinyl has gone done... there's something better out there. Unfortunately for most big corporations, they didn't figure it out soon enough... to actually give people what they want. The vinyl format was industry produced. The CD format was industry produced. Music files that can be downloaded was not, and they just can't stand that they didn't invent it.
I just knew it... Anonymous Coward is from another country. Welcome to here.
Now just imagine how much you COULD make if you were the owner of your own H-1B and could jump to a better offer (and pursue them, too) with no further obligation but to reimburse the former employer's costs in getting that H-1B for you (the next employer would most likely be willing to add that to the bonus package).
In fact, I have no degree at all... because I was recruited before I could even get one. But the hiring manager was no PHB, and 8 jobs later over 33 years, that first boss is today in my Linkedin contacts. PHB types would not be there.
If you can "do the stuff" and show that you can, a smart manager will hire you if they have an opening. Some will even if there isn't an opening (got one job in the past like that, too). Trouble is, too many managers out there (generally PHBs) don't know how to figure out if you know your stuff or not. And others make hiring decisions to keep department "points" up (someone higher up is tracking numbers of degrees and certifications, not how well the department gets stuff done with not enough resources).
Python is also limit in speed handling large number arithmetic. I've noted huge speed differences for exactly the same algorithm between Python and Pike (didn't need to write in C at all).
Where is the due process? Just who (MPAA,RIAA vs Comcast,Verizon,etc) is making the determination that there is a violation to be acted on? We already know MPAA and RIAA have been getting it wrong in a lot of cases. Would Comcast, Verizon, and other ISPs be in any better position to get it right?
I hope they are not so stupid as to ass-u-me that torrent protocol connections automatically mean copyright infringement. What I download is GPL and other free license software.
I suspect there will be more use of HTTPS and SSL, too.
Your Audit Software failed to install. I had our senior system administrator take a look at it and he said it wasn't compatible with Wine. I asked him if maybe it would work with Beer. He gave be some puzzled look and mumbled something about a "DEB or RPM version". Do you know what he might be talking about?
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully, they have not done so, yet.
Summary: overly pricey poorly developed unreliable unscalable stupidly managed bloat.
This could have been done for less than $5 million.
Or maybe left hand vs. right hand?
"This person visited 18:17 and checked his tax return, and for some reason or another we had a caching system hooked up to this site, which didn't belong there".
There, fixed it for 'em.
threaded app server + global who_is_logged_in variable = big mess
This kind of thing doesn't need a server side cache system. This isn't Facebook.
At least HAL showed a red light.
My cookie monster is running loose.
... Reverse Engineering department in that ban. I wonder what's up with that omission. Oh wait.
You must be new here.
Same for mine, except we are not allowed to buy Dell (everything). For Apple, it only applies to phone products.
This only says not to buy those things with company money. IOW, Microsoft doesn't want its own company money to be supporting Apple and other competitors. It is not applicable for staff buying them for personal use.
Any company is perfectly within their rights to specify how the company money is spent.
Think of the RIAA members as banks. Instead of depositing $58B into accounts and letting it sit there, people are withdrawing that money and actually spending it on stuff. So the RIAA member banks are whining about loss of deposits. Want some cheese with that?
It's a changing business model, and piracy accounts for only a small percentage of the drop. No one wants CDs, anymore. MP3s may have artifact noise, but they do have a higher dynamic range than CDs. Even though a CD can range out to 96db, it has too few bits at the lower levels because it is linear PCM, so the dynamic range comes quantization noise, making it effectively just 48db usable dynamic range. Neither media is perfect, and people deal with it. High end audiophiles are trying to get things in 24 bit 192k samples, which does sound better. But, it cannot ever be on CD that way.
If the RIAA ran banks, they would be whining that people are withdrawing money to buy stuff.
Actually, I have never pirated. But I have downloaded. What I did was use the downloads to preview the music. Then I discarded them. The only downloads I still have are ones from a few artists sites that were intentionally giving them away. I used the preview downloads to make decisions on which CDs to buy, and actually did buy CDs based on the previews. The rate was about 8%. That is, if I had bought a CD corresponding to every downloaded tune, that would be 100%. But most of it I didn't like, such as Electronica that had vocals injected somewhere (I much prefer instrumental music, but I do have some vocal music I like, too). The downloads helped me to actually buy CDs. Had the downloads NOT been available, these are CDs I would likely never have.
That said, CDs are today very impractical. It's physically too large. No one carries a player anywhere near that size. The RIAA needs to get that clue bashed into their stupid heads and figure out better marketing. Still, I have bought a couple CDs in the past few years ... and "ripped" them so they could be a part of my collection. If I can't "rip" them I can't play them. If I can't play them, what's the point in buying them.
Today, most of my music collection comes from Magnatune, a site I do believe the RIAA has tried to shut down by means of illegal tricks, because it's a business model (not be evil) that they don't like. One of the great things with downloads from Magnatune is that I can modify and remix them. A lot of the music has a faster beat than I want, and I can actually slow it down in mplayer (I have my own wrapper program to do it). I can't do that with music played by some proprietary player program. And I doubt it hurts the feelings of the artists if I play their music in a different way or even remix it for my own playing as they get their bits either way and they can't hear how I might have corrupted their art.
Sales of CDs has gone down for reasons very similar to the reasons that vinyl has gone done ... there's something better out there. Unfortunately for most big corporations, they didn't figure it out soon enough ... to actually give people what they want. The vinyl format was industry produced. The CD format was industry produced. Music files that can be downloaded was not, and they just can't stand that they didn't invent it.
I'm still waiting for 4D.
Anonymous Coward has been on the watch list for years.
I just knew it ... Anonymous Coward is from another country. Welcome to here.
Now just imagine how much you COULD make if you were the owner of your own H-1B and could jump to a better offer (and pursue them, too) with no further obligation but to reimburse the former employer's costs in getting that H-1B for you (the next employer would most likely be willing to add that to the bonus package).
BTW, I love that post you made about 3 weeks ago.
Too much ...
All of the above
In fact, I have no degree at all ... because I was recruited before I could even get one. But the hiring manager was no PHB, and 8 jobs later over 33 years, that first boss is today in my Linkedin contacts. PHB types would not be there.
If you can "do the stuff" and show that you can, a smart manager will hire you if they have an opening. Some will even if there isn't an opening (got one job in the past like that, too). Trouble is, too many managers out there (generally PHBs) don't know how to figure out if you know your stuff or not. And others make hiring decisions to keep department "points" up (someone higher up is tracking numbers of degrees and certifications, not how well the department gets stuff done with not enough resources).
"My dog ate my shoebox of business cards"
Python is also limit in speed handling large number arithmetic. I've noted huge speed differences for exactly the same algorithm between Python and Pike (didn't need to write in C at all).
Where is the due process? Just who (MPAA,RIAA vs Comcast,Verizon,etc) is making the determination that there is a violation to be acted on? We already know MPAA and RIAA have been getting it wrong in a lot of cases. Would Comcast, Verizon, and other ISPs be in any better position to get it right?
I hope they are not so stupid as to ass-u-me that torrent protocol connections automatically mean copyright infringement. What I download is GPL and other free license software.
I suspect there will be more use of HTTPS and SSL, too.
Dear BSA:
Your Audit Software failed to install. I had our senior system administrator take a look at it and he said it wasn't compatible with Wine. I asked him if maybe it would work with Beer. He gave be some puzzled look and mumbled something about a "DEB or RPM version". Do you know what he might be talking about?
(signed) Bob, senior PHB.
50 employees (claimed). One (or fewer) Windows license. Yeah, makes them wonder.