I live about a mile and a half from an AM tower and at times the station comes in loud and clear on anything with a long wire and an amplifier. The health claims may be bunk but the interference claims are not.
One quick addendum to my prior comment: timing is important.
If you ask me to complete a test as a gatekeeper function to granting an interview, I'm not going to waste my time on you because that tells me that you're full of crap. My resume should tell you enough to determine whether you want to speak with me on the phone. That call combined with my resume should tell you enough to determine whether its worth your time to give an interview. If it hasn't then I'm not the right fit for the job and its time for me to move on.
This means only the desperate applicants will spend their time on the gatekeeping test. And why do you think they're desperate?
On the other hand, once you invest 30 or 60 minutes of your time talking to me and discussing my skills, I know you're serious. It's then well worth my time to demonstrate why I'm a better choice than the other candidates.
However, it seems a lot of applicants drop out when I mention that this test is mandatory. Is this a sign that we caught them in a lie, or are we weeding out good people where we shouldn't be?
I won't venture a guess as to whether you've caught them in a lie but unless your test is seriously overbearing, you're not weeding out anybody you shouldn't be. Competent developers serious about finding a job won't balk at an interview merely because you ask for a demonstration.
I will say this though: be honest, be open and be brief. Tell them that the point of the test is to eliminate folks who talk the talk without walking the walk. Encourage them to take a copy of the test with them so they can use it to improve on any issues they weren't prepared for. And don't ask 100 boring questions. Something as simple as, "write a function in C to reverse the characters in a string," can be surprisingly revealing.
The problem defines the tool, not the other way around. The trained Bayesian filter is one of many tools for filtering spam and other undesired mail. But spam is not defined as "that which the Bayesian filter detects." Nor is all undesirable mail spam; spam is only a subset of undesirable email.
You cannot talk a person into doing something they truly don't want to do.
Sure you can. It's called "charisma." And anyway, you don't talk them into doing something they don't want to do. You convince them that they want to do it.
There was no intent to cause physical injury. This is like yelling fire in a theater and someone is trampled to death in the crush at the emergency exit. There was no intent to specifically harm anybody, yet a reasonable person would understand that someone could be killed as a result of such misbehavior.
No. Criminally this was a manslaughter case if it was anything at all. One that had to be brought in Missouri. Drew didn't particularly harass the child. One element of harassment is the repetitive nature of the offense. You don't just pester someone once; you do it over and over again. Megan didn't get an email every day for a year saying "Nobody likes you; today's a good day to kill yourself."
Instead, what Drew did do is negligently bring about the conditions which resulted her death. "Talked her into killing herself" is a tough case to prove though I seem to recall that when Manson talked a bunch of people into killing others it was possible to put him in jail.
Somewhat better odds of pursuing a wrongful death suit. That's a civil rather than criminal case. Still not great odds and still has to be brought in Missouri, not California.
Er.. Technically it doesn't "encourage" hosts to assume infringement so much as it -requires- hosts to assume the legitimacy of the takedown notice. If they fail to, they lose immunity. That's why the notice gets promptly forwarded to the user against whom the takedown is perform and its also why the user gets to send a "put back" notice which -requires- the host to restore the removed material until such a time as ordered to remove it by a court.
I thought that in order for a DMCA takedown to be valid (that is, for the ISP to gain immunity to legal action by the user) the complete notice had to be provided to the user against whom the takedown was performed? Am I mistaken?
1. Company buys the laptop. 2. You buy a hard disk. 3. You install your hard disk in the laptop. 4. Company wants the laptop back? No problem. Remove your hard disk and reinstall theirs.
if I figured out the One Great Internet Business Idea or write the Great American Novel and used the company laptop to do it, it's an avenue they could use to claim they own it.
They can claim anything they want regardless. Making the claim stick is another matter.
Unless your company has tasked you with identifying the next great business idea or writing a novel for them you're pretty safe regardless of what they care to claim. Copyrights on work done as a W2 employee within the scope of your job vest in the company. With a few very narrow exceptions every other copyright on work you create vests in you personally. Even if you signed a contract which claims otherwise. And "whose equipment was used in the production" is NOT one of the exceptions.
Sun classically built machines in which the airflow is better than the then-standard, substandard cases you get everywhere else.
Keeping drives alive is easy: just move lots of air past the top and bottom. But case designers don't... They pack them right on top of each other, attach sheet metal directly bottom screw holes and locate them somewhere in the case where the air doesn't move.
Dell circa 3 years ago was one of the worst offenders while HP's DL series products circa 3 years ago was best of breed. Now things have almost done a 180 where Dell's rackmounts have respectable spacing around the drives and well architected air flow while HP's SAS arrays are crap.
It's far better for Oracle to buy their own hardware supplier than depend on others
Perhaps, but if so they've just dived down a blind alley. The Sparc platforms are designed for general purpose computing. Oracle's competitors in the $250k+ database appliance market, like Netezza, have designed their hardware from the ground up for a database load, not general purpose computing. As a result, they run rings around Oracle for those specialized database loads.
Sparc fits a niche that Oracle has classically shied away from: the $10k database server. A niche now largely filled with MySQL, postgresql and similar open source products.
Unless you seriously think Oracle will keep the open source community happy enough to retain control of the mysql codebase?
I'd like to be able to go to a local park and hike the nature trail. If the trail is cordoned off for a race every once in a while, I'll skip it then. If it's cordoned off for a race every weekend, that's a problem. I'll expect the park rangers to reject requests which too frequently occupy the park's resources to the exclusion of people like me.
1% of the network's users take action with protocols like bittorrent which fully occupy the network to the exclusion of folks who just want to check their webmail and stocks. Hour after hour, day after day. If have zero problem with the premise that residential usage is unlimited until you're in the top 1%. At which point you accept the cap or buy the small business version. I find that eminently fair.
The acquisition of Sparc and Solaris further estranges Oracle from Microsoft... Most of Oracle's revenues come from windows-based products and the Solaris portfolio isn't likely to change that. Likewise, they now become a competitor in Java vs. Dot-net. It isn't smart to step up from mere competitor to antagonist without gaining a massive new strength, and that didn't happen here.
Then there's Java. Drains quite a bit of cash without making enough money and Oracle as a company has the wrong temperment to maintain and improve a programming language anyway. Start charging enough to make money on Java and Java dies. Nor does having Java particularly complement Oracle's product line.
And mysql is a mess too. Improving it drains sales from their flagship database product... but failing to improve it causes a fork which loses Oracle whatever value owning Mysql had for them. Bad mojo all around.
The Sun/IBM deal would have been much smarter. IBM has a huge market for the likes of Sparc and Solaris. Better yet, they have demonstrated the wherewithal to take code they own and insert it into Linux. There's lots of stuff in Solaris to like, IBM is already weighing heavily on the side of Linux-based products and services and a well supported Linux on Sparc could save Sparc from oblivion and maybe even return it to being a growing market.
Meanwhile, IBM's database product (db2) never escaped its tiny niche. MySQL would be a great complement to their portfolio, moving them squarely into the mainstream database business.
Lastly, IBM actually has a need for Java given the breadth of hardware and OS platforms they sell. Write once run everywhere would be a huge benefit to IBM. It strongly complements the rest of what they sell, even if they never make a nickle off of it directly. Sadly, IBM can't rely on Java when it's controlled by a company as boorish as Oracle. It has to remain a minor player in their portfolio.
The theme that seems to run through the various conditions in 13A-3-23 is that the guy you shoot has to be in the middle of commiting a violent felony in order for you to claim it wasn't murder.
Brandishing a firearm on your own property = absolutely nothing in almost every state in the Union.
Actually firing that weapon at someone in much of anything other than the defense of your life = murder or attempted murder. You haven't the right to respond to misdemeanors with deadly force.
Brandishing a firearm in any situation where you don't intend to fire = Darwin award candidate. Whoever you pointed it at has a legitimate fear for his life. If he isn't knowingly engaged in a crime at the time, he can legally kill you in self defense. Even on your own property.
Our DirecTV guy pointed the dish to full signal strength by eye.
That's what you think.
Pointing a dish by eye where you start picking up the signal is not too hard if you do it often. Even an amateur only needs a compass, a level and the software which calculates the elevation and bearing for your approximate position.
Centering the dish with no tools to evaluate signal strength and no reference landmarks except the position of the sun? Buddy, you got taken by a lazy joker who figured out that you can't tell the difference.
Cops are people too, dumbass. Any right you would claim for yourself, you must also grant to them. For myself, I claim the right to keep you out of my personal affairs.
I would hope that unlike this woman, you have enough sense to leave me alone when I demand it of you to so that you don't have to be physically restrained.
I don't want the boys in blue invading my life, but I don't want you invading my life either. That means I have to allow the boys in blue enough power to stop you from invading my life. Which means I have to allow the boys in blue enough power to stop you from invading their lives too. And if that means I can't peek through their windows at night like a self-appointed big-brother, if I have to rely on other mechanisms to catch and punish the ones who aren't worthy to wear the uniform, I can live with that.
Wait staff, if paid legally, earn at least minimum wage. If they don't get enough in tips the employer is required to make up the difference. Still, $750 is indeed hard to come by at minimum wage... the rent, groceries, clothes, etc. drain your wallet as fast or faster than the job fills it.
This lady, though... She had $3/gallon for gas to follow the cops in the car she owned, something she apparently did a lot of. She had money for the digital camera, the computer, the Internet service. But 8 of her friends didn't have $95 each that they'd lend her on the basis that they'd get the money back when she showed up for the court date.
They didn't arrest her when she followed the cops around on the job. They arrested her when she started posting address and pictures of an officer's home and family.
I think the most telling thing in this case is that she hasn't posted the $750 bail bond to get out of jail. That means that either she wants to stay in jail or everybody she knows hates her so much that no one will help her scrape together a measly $750.
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I live about a mile and a half from an AM tower and at times the station comes in loud and clear on anything with a long wire and an amplifier. The health claims may be bunk but the interference claims are not.
One quick addendum to my prior comment: timing is important.
If you ask me to complete a test as a gatekeeper function to granting an interview, I'm not going to waste my time on you because that tells me that you're full of crap. My resume should tell you enough to determine whether you want to speak with me on the phone. That call combined with my resume should tell you enough to determine whether its worth your time to give an interview. If it hasn't then I'm not the right fit for the job and its time for me to move on.
This means only the desperate applicants will spend their time on the gatekeeping test. And why do you think they're desperate?
On the other hand, once you invest 30 or 60 minutes of your time talking to me and discussing my skills, I know you're serious. It's then well worth my time to demonstrate why I'm a better choice than the other candidates.
However, it seems a lot of applicants drop out when I mention that this test is mandatory. Is this a sign that we caught them in a lie, or are we weeding out good people where we shouldn't be?
I won't venture a guess as to whether you've caught them in a lie but unless your test is seriously overbearing, you're not weeding out anybody you shouldn't be. Competent developers serious about finding a job won't balk at an interview merely because you ask for a demonstration.
I will say this though: be honest, be open and be brief. Tell them that the point of the test is to eliminate folks who talk the talk without walking the walk. Encourage them to take a copy of the test with them so they can use it to improve on any issues they weren't prepared for. And don't ask 100 boring questions. Something as simple as, "write a function in C to reverse the characters in a string," can be surprisingly revealing.
If we were talking about an adult victim without known mental disability (and you weren't posting as a anonymous coward) I might be inclined to agree.
The problem defines the tool, not the other way around. The trained Bayesian filter is one of many tools for filtering spam and other undesired mail. But spam is not defined as "that which the Bayesian filter detects." Nor is all undesirable mail spam; spam is only a subset of undesirable email.
You cannot talk a person into doing something they truly don't want to do.
Sure you can. It's called "charisma." And anyway, you don't talk them into doing something they don't want to do. You convince them that they want to do it.
There was no intent to cause physical injury. This is like yelling fire in a theater and someone is trampled to death in the crush at the emergency exit. There was no intent to specifically harm anybody, yet a reasonable person would understand that someone could be killed as a result of such misbehavior.
None of the developers spoke up and said, "Hey, this is a really bad idea!"
In point of fact, I spoke up. Loudly. And eventually resigned when the problems were not adequately addressed.
In August 2006 I wrote a white paper detailing the issues, including the "mail your friends" code that the invite URL falls under:
http://bill.herrin.us/composer.html
In fairness, the director of technology at the time no longer works for the DNC. The current guy inherited the problem.
No. Criminally this was a manslaughter case if it was anything at all. One that had to be brought in Missouri. Drew didn't particularly harass the child. One element of harassment is the repetitive nature of the offense. You don't just pester someone once; you do it over and over again. Megan didn't get an email every day for a year saying "Nobody likes you; today's a good day to kill yourself."
Instead, what Drew did do is negligently bring about the conditions which resulted her death. "Talked her into killing herself" is a tough case to prove though I seem to recall that when Manson talked a bunch of people into killing others it was possible to put him in jail.
Somewhat better odds of pursuing a wrongful death suit. That's a civil rather than criminal case. Still not great odds and still has to be brought in Missouri, not California.
It's like Dungeons and Dragons. Follow the rules too rigidly and you're so busy rolling dice that nobody has any fun.
Er.. Technically it doesn't "encourage" hosts to assume infringement so much as it -requires- hosts to assume the legitimacy of the takedown notice. If they fail to, they lose immunity. That's why the notice gets promptly forwarded to the user against whom the takedown is perform and its also why the user gets to send a "put back" notice which -requires- the host to restore the removed material until such a time as ordered to remove it by a court.
I thought that in order for a DMCA takedown to be valid (that is, for the ISP to gain immunity to legal action by the user) the complete notice had to be provided to the user against whom the takedown was performed? Am I mistaken?
Here's what you do:
1. Company buys the laptop.
2. You buy a hard disk.
3. You install your hard disk in the laptop.
4. Company wants the laptop back? No problem. Remove your hard disk and reinstall theirs.
if I figured out the One Great Internet Business Idea or write the Great American Novel and used the company laptop to do it, it's an avenue they could use to claim they own it.
They can claim anything they want regardless. Making the claim stick is another matter.
Unless your company has tasked you with identifying the next great business idea or writing a novel for them you're pretty safe regardless of what they care to claim. Copyrights on work done as a W2 employee within the scope of your job vest in the company. With a few very narrow exceptions every other copyright on work you create vests in you personally. Even if you signed a contract which claims otherwise. And "whose equipment was used in the production" is NOT one of the exceptions.
Sun classically built machines in which the airflow is better than the then-standard, substandard cases you get everywhere else.
Keeping drives alive is easy: just move lots of air past the top and bottom. But case designers don't... They pack them right on top of each other, attach sheet metal directly bottom screw holes and locate them somewhere in the case where the air doesn't move.
Dell circa 3 years ago was one of the worst offenders while HP's DL series products circa 3 years ago was best of breed. Now things have almost done a 180 where Dell's rackmounts have respectable spacing around the drives and well architected air flow while HP's SAS arrays are crap.
It's far better for Oracle to buy their own hardware supplier than depend on others
Perhaps, but if so they've just dived down a blind alley. The Sparc platforms are designed for general purpose computing. Oracle's competitors in the $250k+ database appliance market, like Netezza, have designed their hardware from the ground up for a database load, not general purpose computing. As a result, they run rings around Oracle for those specialized database loads.
Sparc fits a niche that Oracle has classically shied away from: the $10k database server. A niche now largely filled with MySQL, postgresql and similar open source products.
Unless you seriously think Oracle will keep the open source community happy enough to retain control of the mysql codebase?
I'd like to be able to go to a local park and hike the nature trail. If the trail is cordoned off for a race every once in a while, I'll skip it then. If it's cordoned off for a race every weekend, that's a problem. I'll expect the park rangers to reject requests which too frequently occupy the park's resources to the exclusion of people like me.
1% of the network's users take action with protocols like bittorrent which fully occupy the network to the exclusion of folks who just want to check their webmail and stocks. Hour after hour, day after day. If have zero problem with the premise that residential usage is unlimited until you're in the top 1%. At which point you accept the cap or buy the small business version. I find that eminently fair.
It's a bad deal for both companies.
The acquisition of Sparc and Solaris further estranges Oracle from Microsoft... Most of Oracle's revenues come from windows-based products and the Solaris portfolio isn't likely to change that. Likewise, they now become a competitor in Java vs. Dot-net. It isn't smart to step up from mere competitor to antagonist without gaining a massive new strength, and that didn't happen here.
Then there's Java. Drains quite a bit of cash without making enough money and Oracle as a company has the wrong temperment to maintain and improve a programming language anyway. Start charging enough to make money on Java and Java dies. Nor does having Java particularly complement Oracle's product line.
And mysql is a mess too. Improving it drains sales from their flagship database product... but failing to improve it causes a fork which loses Oracle whatever value owning Mysql had for them. Bad mojo all around.
The Sun/IBM deal would have been much smarter. IBM has a huge market for the likes of Sparc and Solaris. Better yet, they have demonstrated the wherewithal to take code they own and insert it into Linux. There's lots of stuff in Solaris to like, IBM is already weighing heavily on the side of Linux-based products and services and a well supported Linux on Sparc could save Sparc from oblivion and maybe even return it to being a growing market.
Meanwhile, IBM's database product (db2) never escaped its tiny niche. MySQL would be a great complement to their portfolio, moving them squarely into the mainstream database business.
Lastly, IBM actually has a need for Java given the breadth of hardware and OS platforms they sell. Write once run everywhere would be a huge benefit to IBM. It strongly complements the rest of what they sell, even if they never make a nickle off of it directly. Sadly, IBM can't rely on Java when it's controlled by a company as boorish as Oracle. It has to remain a minor player in their portfolio.
The theme that seems to run through the various conditions in 13A-3-23 is that the guy you shoot has to be in the middle of commiting a violent felony in order for you to claim it wasn't murder.
Brandishing a firearm on your own property = absolutely nothing in almost every state in the Union.
Actually firing that weapon at someone in much of anything other than the defense of your life = murder or attempted murder. You haven't the right to respond to misdemeanors with deadly force.
Brandishing a firearm in any situation where you don't intend to fire = Darwin award candidate. Whoever you pointed it at has a legitimate fear for his life. If he isn't knowingly engaged in a crime at the time, he can legally kill you in self defense. Even on your own property.
Our DirecTV guy pointed the dish to full signal strength by eye.
That's what you think.
Pointing a dish by eye where you start picking up the signal is not too hard if you do it often. Even an amateur only needs a compass, a level and the software which calculates the elevation and bearing for your approximate position.
Centering the dish with no tools to evaluate signal strength and no reference landmarks except the position of the sun? Buddy, you got taken by a lazy joker who figured out that you can't tell the difference.
Cops are people too, dumbass. Any right you would claim for yourself, you must also grant to them. For myself, I claim the right to keep you out of my personal affairs.
I would hope that unlike this woman, you have enough sense to leave me alone when I demand it of you to so that you don't have to be physically restrained.
I don't want the boys in blue invading my life, but I don't want you invading my life either. That means I have to allow the boys in blue enough power to stop you from invading my life. Which means I have to allow the boys in blue enough power to stop you from invading their lives too. And if that means I can't peek through their windows at night like a self-appointed big-brother, if I have to rely on other mechanisms to catch and punish the ones who aren't worthy to wear the uniform, I can live with that.
Maybe I should follow you home from work and take pictures. Day after day after day. See how you like it.
Wait staff, if paid legally, earn at least minimum wage. If they don't get enough in tips the employer is required to make up the difference. Still, $750 is indeed hard to come by at minimum wage... the rent, groceries, clothes, etc. drain your wallet as fast or faster than the job fills it.
This lady, though... She had $3/gallon for gas to follow the cops in the car she owned, something she apparently did a lot of. She had money for the digital camera, the computer, the Internet service. But 8 of her friends didn't have $95 each that they'd lend her on the basis that they'd get the money back when she showed up for the court date.
They didn't arrest her when she followed the cops around on the job. They arrested her when she started posting address and pictures of an officer's home and family.
I think the most telling thing in this case is that she hasn't posted the $750 bail bond to get out of jail. That means that either she wants to stay in jail or everybody she knows hates her so much that no one will help her scrape together a measly $750.