A EE degree averaging 17 credit hours/semester is slacking off? Who knew?
If you are looking for sympathy, you are not going to find it from me. I majored in computer science and mathematics, which meant I was doing things like taking operating systems and real analysis at the same time. I averaged 18 credit hours per semester (usually 1 or 2 of those lab) and graduated magna cum laude. All the while I had a wife and two small children at home with half an hour commute to campus.
There is a big difference between the EE who graduates with a 2.5 and an EE who graduates with a 3.5. The rule isn't necessarily hard and fast; if you're coming from Cal Tech, CMU or MIT I'll take your 3.0 far more seriously than the average university. But short of that, yeah the EE averaging 17 credit hours and doing just well enough to pass is slacking off and I don't want to hire him. I want the EE who averaged 17 credit hours and super-performed, even if he comes from India.
At a price you are willing to pay. Start coughing up $500k/year and you'll find a lot of native talent magically appears -- and the finance people will hate you. H1bs are all about the benjamins.
Yeah, we had a situation eerily similar to that 10 years ago. During the dot-com boom we were paying people $5K-10K if they referred us a candidate we hired. We were paying recent grads into 6 figures right out of college, sometimes we'd poach them before they finished their degree. The universities were pumping them out as fast as they could, all CS classes were heavily impacted; students knew this was the fast track to high pay.
And you know what happened?
A whole lot of bad hires.
We cranked up the pay, universities cranked up the classes, but the number of well qualified candidates barely inched up. All you had was a whole lot of mediocre students flooding into the CS curriculum. Now instead of the top quartile being the "good" pool, only the top 10% were. The good engineers were still good engineers; they generally weren't there just for the money. The number of degree-holding lousy engineers was ridiculous.
You might want to re-think pay as a panacea for a shortage of engineering talent. If H1b's stopped and we told companies to raise pay to stimulate more native students into STEM programs, what would the result be? I think there are two likely ones: large companies move all their development overseas to countries with less protectionist labor policies; large companies poach all the top talent forcing small businesses and startups overseas to countries with less protectionist labor policies.
H1b's pay local, state and federal taxes. An expatriate pays only a smaller amount of federal taxes.
Our universities are pumping out plenty of CS and MIS grads as well as math and engineering graduates to keep up with demand.
As someone who works for a large employer that recruits actively among recent college graduates... NO. This opinion is ubiquitous and ignores one important fact: most recent graduates are woefully less qualified than their college education would seem to indicate. There are kids coming out of college who are bright and can do the work, but they represent maybe the upper quartile of all bachelor degree grads.
I don't hire RG's without two letters of recommendation from professors or one letter from either the department chair they graduated from or the dean of the college. I rarely hire RG's who did not graduate with honors. If you had a circumstance like working full time through college, or an illness that no longer affects your ability to work, I would consider that in lieu of honors. However, if you have no honors and no record of having worked full time - then you slacked off. Statistically, if you slacked off and did just well enough to get the degree in college, you're going to do the same to me. Yes there are diamonds in the rough. Time is valuable. I don't go looking for those rare gems because making a mistake is too expensive.
Our university's are not pumping out enough well qualified engineers.
The companies that say there are shortages are just saying that to justify going overseas or to bring in H-1bs.
No, we bring in H1bs because there isn't enough native talent. Or at least not enough that knew how to balance partying and working for the degree.
Something I've always been curious about... Before I got my degree in CS, I was studying Real Estate (California, specifically) and one of the things that was drilled into us is that "A contract must be accompanied with consideration to be legally binding" or something close to that.
At the end of my CS career, my school required us to do a Senior Project in industry and in order to protect industry we had to give up all ownership we had in the project. This sort of set off alarm bells in my head because I was paying for the school's facilities, the teacher's salary, etc.. How could such a contract be enforceable if they weren't going to give a payment of consideration for the contracted work?
In the end the project I did was one which I had absolutely no interest in holding onto the IP, so it wasn't a bone of contention. But I really felt that the school couldn't deprive me of my creative works, even with a contract, unless they paid me something for it. So, can't a student ignore the IP claims by the school because the school cannot lay claim to the creative works of someone else without payment, regardless of the contract?
The current Dalai Lama is not responsible for the conditions of Tibet prior to the chinese invasion, he was only a student.
He wasn't? So you're saying he isn't the reincarnation of Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama?
He was 25 years old when he left and he was the reincarnation of the guy before him. Many of the prior Dalai Lamas had no issue being leaders at the point, why does this one get a pass? The reason, I believe, is because if we don't give him a pass to all the evils going on while he was the monarch of Tibet it completely undermines his humanitarian mission he claims to be on now.
He's acknowledged that the whole leadership system is in need of change, and would like to see either a female Dalai Lama or two or none succeed him.
A female Lama? Two Lamas? Seriously? He does remember that he is one of many male reincarnations, right? Sorry, but this is looks to me like pandering to the west. It runs strongly counter to their theology.
Penn and Teller don't seem to be interested in constructing a balanced and reasoned argument
Nobody, including myself and even Penn and Teller, claim that their argument is balanced. Penn is an outspoken Atheist and blames religion for a lot of the world's evil. Their argument, however unbalanced, is reasoned. The Serfs in Tibet were overwhelmingly slaves - in the 20th century! Calling the whole Tibetan theocracy a load of crap is pretty solid.
I have no doubt that the Dalai Lama talks a lot about love, peace, tolerance and education. But a couple things seem quite sure: 1) He didn't learn those things from the Gelug school of Buddhism; and 2) He didn't talk so much until government funding for his guerilla activities dried up.
The problem with getting "The Story" on pre-1950 Tibet is that most of the information comes from two groups: The Chinese who wish to paint it as a caste system where the Lama caste mercilously ruled over the population with an iron fist; and the Tibet government in exile who want to paint the Chinese as an oppressive government mercilously ruling over the population with an iron fist.
The closest thing I have found to an independent review is this skeptoid article.
And for laughs, and an opinion not tilted by propaganda from either side, but maybe a little biased, is this Penn & Teller B*llsh*t bit.
The responses to the above from the Free Tibet crowd tend to go something like "But *THIS* Dalai Lama was a good one! He would have ruled with justice and compassion." Well, okay, maybe he really would. But history has shown us pretty conclusively that absolute monarchies tend to have more wicked than wonderful rulers.
Over at a skeptic forum I frequent, someone involved in investigating child sexual abuse made a rather enlightening post about children and the names of their body parts: TEACH THEM THE PROPER NAMES OF THEIR BODY PARTS. The argument went something like "investigating this is hard enough without having to figure out what a 'cookie' is."
Take Two may have the suit declared without merit because of extremely small response, in which case the defense lawyers will be unable to collect legal fees.
I replied to one of the CoreCodec guys, in the previous thread on this subject, but I think it bears repeating. I don't think there was "no bad faith" on CoreCodec's part. I am not a customer of their's. This response was originally to someone claiming that avc-for-linux broke CoreAVC's copyright protection and now THAT is why the DMCA take down was sent:
1. The DMCA take down notice only referenced a single law in the United States Code - Specifically Title 17 Section 512; the safe harbor take down clause. There is no safe harbor clause for taking down a circumvention device. "This correspondence is a formal takedown notice being sent to you pursuant to Tile 17 United States Code Section 512, et seq."
2. The reasons in the in the DMCA take down specifically stated that something was downloaded and verified to be infringing. "We have directly verified by downloading the file from the Site provided by Google Inc. that the file does include CoreCodec's copyrighted Software."
3. The reasons for the take down have evolved, as anyone following the thread can see. First it was copyright, then it was reverse engineering without permission "this is not about copyright (even thought the DMCA deals with that), this is mostly about reverse engineering without permission under the DMCA", then it was anti-circumvention (actually your post was the first I've read of that and is indeed a strange argument), then it was oops, sorry about that!
4. There are repeated references to consulting with counsel and having to file the take down quickly to avoid losing rights to your IP "Under the terms of the DMCA we 'had' to act on that complaint and asked Google to take the project down."... If this was a trademark issue, that is true. It strains credulity that an actual lawyer would confuse this issue.
From the outside looking in (I don't use CoreAVC) it really looks to me like spin doctoring. Why has every new justification contradicted the take down notice?
First mistake was made when the lawyer sent out the DMCA notice
The CEO signed and sent the DMCA notice.
The lawyer sends out the takedown notice under the pain of perjury - so b admitting that the notice was a lie, the lawyer can now be tried in court.
One reason so many people doubt a real lawyer was consulted in this matter is this. The CEO sent the takedown notice under penalty of perjury. Who in their right mind would not have their paid counsel do it?
You know, I really want to believe this, but there are some nagging issues which make me believe that this was, at best, an irrational act by someone acting out of anger and at worst - well something worse. In essence, I am having a hard time believing your argument that there was no bad faith.
1. The DMCA take down notice only referenced a single law in the United States Code - Specifically Title 17 Section 512; the safe harbor take down clause. There is no safe harbor clause for taking down a circumvention device. "This correspondence is a formal takedown notice being sent to you pursuant to Tile 17 United States Code Section 512, et seq."
2. The reasons in the in the DMCA take down specifically stated that something was downloaded and verified to be infringing. "We have directly verified by downloading the file from the Site provided by Google Inc. that the file does include CoreCodec's copyrighted Software."
3. The reasons for the take down have evolved, as anyone following the thread can see. First it was copyright, then it was reverse engineering without permission "this is not about copyright (even thought the DMCA deals with that), this is mostly about reverse engineering without permission under the DMCA", then it was anti-circumvention (actually your post was the first I've read of that and is indeed a strange argument), then it was oops, sorry about that!
4. There are repeated references to consulting with counsel and having to file the take down quickly to avoid losing rights to your IP "Under the terms of the DMCA we 'had' to act on that complaint and asked Google to take the project down."... If this was a trademark issue, that is true. It strains credulity that an actual lawyer would confuse this issue.
From the outside looking in (I don't use CoreAVC) it really looks to me like spin doctoring. Why has every new justification contradicted the take down notice?
Now I underclock the processor to, say, 60% of normal speed, and am able to reduce the voltage, and hence the power consumption, by 50%. The system power consumption is now only 75% of what it was. But my build takes around 50% longer. So I use 75% of the power for 150% of the time. The energy consumed in the build is 12% higher with the underclocked cpu.
What was the full speed system doing during the extra 15 minutes the low-speed system was still building? Did it power down so that you can get your 0 watt power usage at that time?
As a further example, replacing an old 4200rpm disk on a laptop with a 7200 rpm disk (where possible) may actually improve battery life because the disc is active for much shorter periods (with twice as much data per track, and 12/7 the speed, it can read the same amount of data in roughly 1/3 the time of the slower drive, which outweighs its 50% higher active power.)
Have you actually measured this? A substantial portion of a hard drive's power is consumed maintaining spindle speed. Once again in your example your 7200 RPM disk has to spin down in order to achieve its power savings. Unfortunately the power cost to spin up the platters (which requires a significant change to their angular momentum) is enormous and you conveniently ignore that cost. This is why there is usually a 5-10 minute delay before the OS spins down the drive because unless it is going to be off for several minutes, it is a net LOSS of power.
I have been shouted down several times here for objecting to the groupthink that Intel/Microsoft had some sort conspiracy going because the Classmate could run both Linux and Windows, but customers generally only wanted windows. I was informed repeatedly that "WinTel" was out to destroy OLPC.
So, here I am again to get beaten up by all the zealots... Ready for it?
THERE IS NO WINTEL CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY OLPC.
Intel just wants to sell semiconductors, no matter what software is running on it.
Microsoft just wants to sell software, no matter what semiconductor it is running on.
Flame away, but I think this development just proves my point.
OLPC: Every fanboys wet dream Classmate: Automatically evil because it is made by a large corporation that already gives hundreds of millions of dollars to third world education efforts. Eee: Can't fault the maker or OS, but isn't OLPC, so make a completely baseless charge.
I strongly suggest you read this criticism of the incendiary paint theory.
The short answer is: we can actually calculate how much static energy each panel could hold, and how long and how powerful the spark between panels would be. There simply wasn't enough energy to ignite the panels. I think the greatest testimony against the "electric spark started it" is that Addison Bain, who popularized the "thermite paint" theory, had to hold a piece of the Hindenburg fabric in an electric plasma-arc generator (Jacob's ladder) to get it to burn, and even then not very well.
Read Appendix B for a full discussion on how much electric energy each panel could hold and discharge.
What is not in question is that, since 1999, the amount of Mercury children have been receiving via Thimerosol has dropped drastically but the rate of autism diagnosis is still increasing.
Turned on its head you could argue that since the rate of autism has increased since the removal of Thimerosol, then Thimerosol must actually have a protective effect against autism. (That assertion is, of course, utter nonsense. But that's what you get when you go chasing a non-correlated variable.)
As I read on a different Slashdot post earlier today, the plural of anecdote is not data, but you may be surprised to know how many parents witness seizures in their children the same day they have a vaccination, and then over time the autism sets in.
Here's another one: sample size cannot overcome sample bias. What you have is a very biased population coming together and drawing conclusions based on their size.
To have any real discussion and make any kind of progress, we have to be able to at least listen to someone else's point of view, and acknowledge that they have a reason to feel how they feel, without prejudging them as crazy or paranoid.
It has been fairly well documented that, in instances such as children coming down with something as devastating as autism, parent's memories tend to slowly morph until it fits a desired order and timing of events. An example could be parents who remember "he had a seizure the same day he got the vaccine" will in truth be that the seizure happened a week afterwards. The human mind is a very strange thing, and this is why we look for properly controlled randomized studies to increase our knowledge.
People, even well-intentioned intelligent people, are not reliable. This is why we do not accept anecdotes, even a lot of them, as data. My apologies to the soccer mom's who feel slighted because we do not accept their theory at their word, but we have a better way.
When I worked at LLNL a few years ago, I interned with a group doing research on how to manage/process the monster data stream coming down from LSST. Everything we were doing assumed whatever solution was developed would be running on a Linux-based supercomputer.
Take this with a grain salt: my understanding is that software projects for LSST at the Lab didn't have their funding renewed.
I heard Google started doing some of this. Now that LSST is gaining more attention, I wonder if they're hiring?:)
In reality, however, almost every organization actually buying the thing is going to run Windows on it!
Windows has 90+% worldwide market share for desktop operating system and 55% for servers.
Imagine you're the minister of education for a poor country. You want to bring some of the first world's wealth to your shores via education in technology. From a purely practical standpoint, which would you choose?
I'm sympathetic to the Linux cause. My first install was Slackware on kernel 0.99pl14. Up until 8 months ago I made my living writing device drivers and test software specifically for Linux. Any machine in my home which doesn't need to run Windows doesn't. And I'm not real happy with the way Microsoft works its pricing such that it costs $100 for an OEM license of Windows here but only $3 over there for Windows+Office.
But step back into the minister of education role. For a price increase of 1.5% your students can be learning on the same software that powers 100x as many systems as Linux. Which would you choose?
So now I'm to believe that giant corporations like Intel lagged behind the likes of Negroponte and his all-volunteer staff because, they, of all people, couldn't produce the laptops at low enough price?
You shouldn't believe that because it isn't what happened.
Also, your argument about it was just a matter of time before someone produced something like the OLPC and therefore Negroponte meant nothing is pretty lame considering you could say this about any endeavor or activity. It's all just a matter of time, right?
Except that there is some very real evidence to support the assertion that in the span of time between when OLPC was announced and when it was released two things happened: component prices dropped and the cost of the OLPC went up. To prop your argument up, you need to produce some evidence that a $200 laptop could have been produced when the $100 laptop was announced.
The truth is that someone has to be the one to make it happen once. It's much easier for the followers to ride the coattails of the first guy.
Utter tripe. Not to mention he didn't "make it happen" before others were starting their own production.
Finally, you seem to derride him for the delays in releasing the product...as if that NEVER happens with every other fucking tech company product in the world.
No, I deride him for announcing it when it could not be done. He knew, based on historical trends, that prices were falling to the point where the third world could soon afford laptops. He did, however, miscalculate the second derivative of the curve and didn't realize that prices do resist falling very very low. Which is why there is no $100 laptop.
I don't know what your malfunction is, but you have an extreme bias against Negroponte/OLPC for some reason.
For the same reason I have an extreme bias against Bill Gates/Microsoft. I don't like monopolies no matter how good their intention. The third world could only benefit if there were three players in the ultra-low cost laptop sector. So yeah, I have an issue when someone goes around whining "nobody but me in this market because I started talking to the press about it first." Also, I don't have a standing bias against any corporation just because they are large. Negroponte shouts that Intel was selling a hundred thousand Classmates below cost (he has no good evidence for this) but never mentions that Intel is one of the world's most philanthropic corporations and has been giving away hundreds of millions of dollars for education over the last many years.
When he started this he said "$100 laptop" when "they" knew the components would cost $400. That is why "they" derided him. Not because they weren't looking at emerging markets, but because "they" knew the emerging market couldn't afford over $400 per laptop.
As time went, the cost, primarily the cost of flash, started coming down until the component cost was around $200. *Then* they could produce a laptop for the emerging market. It was a matter of market timing and would have happened with or without some egotistical loudmouth who wants the poor kids to use his product exclusively. If he poured his whole life (a laughable assertion) into this, I'm sorry.
You give OLPC all the credit because "he" started talking about it when it was impossible. When it finally became possible (after many delays), you attempt to give him all the credit. Well, sorry, the only truly interesting piece of technology on OLPC is the screen. And the inventor of that just left them.
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A EE degree averaging 17 credit hours/semester is slacking off? Who knew?
If you are looking for sympathy, you are not going to find it from me. I majored in computer science and mathematics, which meant I was doing things like taking operating systems and real analysis at the same time. I averaged 18 credit hours per semester (usually 1 or 2 of those lab) and graduated magna cum laude. All the while I had a wife and two small children at home with half an hour commute to campus.
There is a big difference between the EE who graduates with a 2.5 and an EE who graduates with a 3.5. The rule isn't necessarily hard and fast; if you're coming from Cal Tech, CMU or MIT I'll take your 3.0 far more seriously than the average university. But short of that, yeah the EE averaging 17 credit hours and doing just well enough to pass is slacking off and I don't want to hire him. I want the EE who averaged 17 credit hours and super-performed, even if he comes from India.
At a price you are willing to pay. Start coughing up $500k/year and you'll find a lot of native talent magically appears -- and the finance people will hate you. H1bs are all about the benjamins.
Yeah, we had a situation eerily similar to that 10 years ago. During the dot-com boom we were paying people $5K-10K if they referred us a candidate we hired. We were paying recent grads into 6 figures right out of college, sometimes we'd poach them before they finished their degree. The universities were pumping them out as fast as they could, all CS classes were heavily impacted; students knew this was the fast track to high pay.
And you know what happened?
A whole lot of bad hires.
We cranked up the pay, universities cranked up the classes, but the number of well qualified candidates barely inched up. All you had was a whole lot of mediocre students flooding into the CS curriculum. Now instead of the top quartile being the "good" pool, only the top 10% were. The good engineers were still good engineers; they generally weren't there just for the money. The number of degree-holding lousy engineers was ridiculous.
You might want to re-think pay as a panacea for a shortage of engineering talent. If H1b's stopped and we told companies to raise pay to stimulate more native students into STEM programs, what would the result be? I think there are two likely ones: large companies move all their development overseas to countries with less protectionist labor policies; large companies poach all the top talent forcing small businesses and startups overseas to countries with less protectionist labor policies.
H1b's pay local, state and federal taxes. An expatriate pays only a smaller amount of federal taxes.
Our universities are pumping out plenty of CS and MIS grads as well as math and engineering graduates to keep up with demand.
As someone who works for a large employer that recruits actively among recent college graduates... NO. This opinion is ubiquitous and ignores one important fact: most recent graduates are woefully less qualified than their college education would seem to indicate. There are kids coming out of college who are bright and can do the work, but they represent maybe the upper quartile of all bachelor degree grads.
I don't hire RG's without two letters of recommendation from professors or one letter from either the department chair they graduated from or the dean of the college. I rarely hire RG's who did not graduate with honors. If you had a circumstance like working full time through college, or an illness that no longer affects your ability to work, I would consider that in lieu of honors. However, if you have no honors and no record of having worked full time - then you slacked off. Statistically, if you slacked off and did just well enough to get the degree in college, you're going to do the same to me. Yes there are diamonds in the rough. Time is valuable. I don't go looking for those rare gems because making a mistake is too expensive.
Our university's are not pumping out enough well qualified engineers.
The companies that say there are shortages are just saying that to justify going overseas or to bring in H-1bs.
No, we bring in H1bs because there isn't enough native talent. Or at least not enough that knew how to balance partying and working for the degree.
Cheese contains approximately 2% of your RDA for Iron: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/7583/2
Something I've always been curious about... Before I got my degree in CS, I was studying Real Estate (California, specifically) and one of the things that was drilled into us is that "A contract must be accompanied with consideration to be legally binding" or something close to that.
At the end of my CS career, my school required us to do a Senior Project in industry and in order to protect industry we had to give up all ownership we had in the project. This sort of set off alarm bells in my head because I was paying for the school's facilities, the teacher's salary, etc.. How could such a contract be enforceable if they weren't going to give a payment of consideration for the contracted work?
In the end the project I did was one which I had absolutely no interest in holding onto the IP, so it wasn't a bone of contention. But I really felt that the school couldn't deprive me of my creative works, even with a contract, unless they paid me something for it. So, can't a student ignore the IP claims by the school because the school cannot lay claim to the creative works of someone else without payment, regardless of the contract?
The current Dalai Lama is not responsible for the conditions of Tibet prior to the chinese invasion, he was only a student.
He wasn't? So you're saying he isn't the reincarnation of Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama?
He was 25 years old when he left and he was the reincarnation of the guy before him. Many of the prior Dalai Lamas had no issue being leaders at the point, why does this one get a pass? The reason, I believe, is because if we don't give him a pass to all the evils going on while he was the monarch of Tibet it completely undermines his humanitarian mission he claims to be on now.
He's acknowledged that the whole leadership system is in need of change, and would like to see either a female Dalai Lama or two or none succeed him.
A female Lama? Two Lamas? Seriously? He does remember that he is one of many male reincarnations, right? Sorry, but this is looks to me like pandering to the west. It runs strongly counter to their theology.
Penn and Teller don't seem to be interested in constructing a balanced and reasoned argument
Nobody, including myself and even Penn and Teller, claim that their argument is balanced. Penn is an outspoken Atheist and blames religion for a lot of the world's evil. Their argument, however unbalanced, is reasoned. The Serfs in Tibet were overwhelmingly slaves - in the 20th century! Calling the whole Tibetan theocracy a load of crap is pretty solid.
I have no doubt that the Dalai Lama talks a lot about love, peace, tolerance and education. But a couple things seem quite sure: 1) He didn't learn those things from the Gelug school of Buddhism; and 2) He didn't talk so much until government funding for his guerilla activities dried up.
The problem with getting "The Story" on pre-1950 Tibet is that most of the information comes from two groups: The Chinese who wish to paint it as a caste system where the Lama caste mercilously ruled over the population with an iron fist; and the Tibet government in exile who want to paint the Chinese as an oppressive government mercilously ruling over the population with an iron fist.
The closest thing I have found to an independent review is this skeptoid article.
And for laughs, and an opinion not tilted by propaganda from either side, but maybe a little biased, is this Penn & Teller B*llsh*t bit.
The responses to the above from the Free Tibet crowd tend to go something like "But *THIS* Dalai Lama was a good one! He would have ruled with justice and compassion." Well, okay, maybe he really would. But history has shown us pretty conclusively that absolute monarchies tend to have more wicked than wonderful rulers.
Extremely off topic, but...
Over at a skeptic forum I frequent, someone involved in investigating child sexual abuse made a rather enlightening post about children and the names of their body parts: TEACH THEM THE PROPER NAMES OF THEIR BODY PARTS. The argument went something like "investigating this is hard enough without having to figure out what a 'cookie' is."
No, you should not do that. RTFA.
The best thing you can do is DO NOTHING AT ALL.
Take Two may have the suit declared without merit because of extremely small response, in which case the defense lawyers will be unable to collect legal fees.
I replied to one of the CoreCodec guys, in the previous thread on this subject, but I think it bears repeating. I don't think there was "no bad faith" on CoreCodec's part. I am not a customer of their's. This response was originally to someone claiming that avc-for-linux broke CoreAVC's copyright protection and now THAT is why the DMCA take down was sent:
1. The DMCA take down notice only referenced a single law in the United States Code - Specifically Title 17 Section 512; the safe harbor take down clause. There is no safe harbor clause for taking down a circumvention device. "This correspondence is a formal takedown notice being sent to you pursuant to Tile 17 United States Code Section 512, et seq."
2. The reasons in the in the DMCA take down specifically stated that something was downloaded and verified to be infringing. "We have directly verified by downloading the file from the Site provided by Google Inc. that the file does include CoreCodec's copyrighted Software."
3. The reasons for the take down have evolved, as anyone following the thread can see. First it was copyright, then it was reverse engineering without permission "this is not about copyright (even thought the DMCA deals with that), this is mostly about reverse engineering without permission under the DMCA", then it was anti-circumvention (actually your post was the first I've read of that and is indeed a strange argument), then it was oops, sorry about that!
4. There are repeated references to consulting with counsel and having to file the take down quickly to avoid losing rights to your IP "Under the terms of the DMCA we 'had' to act on that complaint and asked Google to take the project down."... If this was a trademark issue, that is true. It strains credulity that an actual lawyer would confuse this issue.
From the outside looking in (I don't use CoreAVC) it really looks to me like spin doctoring. Why has every new justification contradicted the take down notice?
First mistake was made when the lawyer sent out the DMCA notice
The CEO signed and sent the DMCA notice.
The lawyer sends out the takedown notice under the pain of perjury - so b admitting that the notice was a lie, the lawyer can now be tried in court.
One reason so many people doubt a real lawyer was consulted in this matter is this. The CEO sent the takedown notice under penalty of perjury. Who in their right mind would not have their paid counsel do it?
You know, I really want to believe this, but there are some nagging issues which make me believe that this was, at best, an irrational act by someone acting out of anger and at worst - well something worse. In essence, I am having a hard time believing your argument that there was no bad faith.
1. The DMCA take down notice only referenced a single law in the United States Code - Specifically Title 17 Section 512; the safe harbor take down clause. There is no safe harbor clause for taking down a circumvention device. "This correspondence is a formal takedown notice being sent to you pursuant to Tile 17 United States Code Section 512, et seq."
2. The reasons in the in the DMCA take down specifically stated that something was downloaded and verified to be infringing. "We have directly verified by downloading the file from the Site provided by Google Inc. that the file does include CoreCodec's copyrighted Software."
3. The reasons for the take down have evolved, as anyone following the thread can see. First it was copyright, then it was reverse engineering without permission "this is not about copyright (even thought the DMCA deals with that), this is mostly about reverse engineering without permission under the DMCA", then it was anti-circumvention (actually your post was the first I've read of that and is indeed a strange argument), then it was oops, sorry about that!
4. There are repeated references to consulting with counsel and having to file the take down quickly to avoid losing rights to your IP "Under the terms of the DMCA we 'had' to act on that complaint and asked Google to take the project down."... If this was a trademark issue, that is true. It strains credulity that an actual lawyer would confuse this issue.
From the outside looking in (I don't use CoreAVC) it really looks to me like spin doctoring. Why has every new justification contradicted the take down notice?
Now I underclock the processor to, say, 60% of normal speed, and am able to reduce the voltage, and hence the power consumption, by 50%. The system power consumption is now only 75% of what it was. But my build takes around 50% longer. So I use 75% of the power for 150% of the time. The energy consumed in the build is 12% higher with the underclocked cpu.
What was the full speed system doing during the extra 15 minutes the low-speed system was still building? Did it power down so that you can get your 0 watt power usage at that time?
As a further example, replacing an old 4200rpm disk on a laptop with a 7200 rpm disk (where possible) may actually improve battery life because the disc is active for much shorter periods (with twice as much data per track, and 12/7 the speed, it can read the same amount of data in roughly 1/3 the time of the slower drive, which outweighs its 50% higher active power.)
Have you actually measured this? A substantial portion of a hard drive's power is consumed maintaining spindle speed. Once again in your example your 7200 RPM disk has to spin down in order to achieve its power savings. Unfortunately the power cost to spin up the platters (which requires a significant change to their angular momentum) is enormous and you conveniently ignore that cost. This is why there is usually a 5-10 minute delay before the OS spins down the drive because unless it is going to be off for several minutes, it is a net LOSS of power.
Then why did they develop their own "Classmate PC" product line in direct competition with OLPC?
How many Intel semiconductors are in the OLPC?
Then why is Microsoft software that runs on anything but x86 processors such a remarkable rarity?
Wasn't always like that.
I have been shouted down several times here for objecting to the groupthink that Intel/Microsoft had some sort conspiracy going because the Classmate could run both Linux and Windows, but customers generally only wanted windows. I was informed repeatedly that "WinTel" was out to destroy OLPC.
So, here I am again to get beaten up by all the zealots... Ready for it?
THERE IS NO WINTEL CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY OLPC.
Intel just wants to sell semiconductors, no matter what software is running on it.
Microsoft just wants to sell software, no matter what semiconductor it is running on.
Flame away, but I think this development just proves my point.
I do, however, hold the various state ACLUs to a higher standard because they claim to be interested in all civil rights.
Civil liberties. There's a difference.
almost
OLPC: Every fanboys wet dream
Classmate: Automatically evil because it is made by a large corporation that already gives hundreds of millions of dollars to third world education efforts.
Eee: Can't fault the maker or OS, but isn't OLPC, so make a completely baseless charge.
You can get a Phenom for $90??!! Where?!
Long ago, FUD was the bread and butter of the IBM consultant, what's new?
Somebody got fired for buying IBM equipment.
I strongly suggest you read this criticism of the incendiary paint theory.
The short answer is: we can actually calculate how much static energy each panel could hold, and how long and how powerful the spark between panels would be. There simply wasn't enough energy to ignite the panels. I think the greatest testimony against the "electric spark started it" is that Addison Bain, who popularized the "thermite paint" theory, had to hold a piece of the Hindenburg fabric in an electric plasma-arc generator (Jacob's ladder) to get it to burn, and even then not very well.
Read Appendix B for a full discussion on how much electric energy each panel could hold and discharge.
That's just trying to divert the issue.
What is not in question is that, since 1999, the amount of Mercury children have been receiving via Thimerosol has dropped drastically but the rate of autism diagnosis is still increasing.
Turned on its head you could argue that since the rate of autism has increased since the removal of Thimerosol, then Thimerosol must actually have a protective effect against autism. (That assertion is, of course, utter nonsense. But that's what you get when you go chasing a non-correlated variable.)
As I read on a different Slashdot post earlier today, the plural of anecdote is not data, but you may be surprised to know how many parents witness seizures in their children the same day they have a vaccination, and then over time the autism sets in.
Here's another one: sample size cannot overcome sample bias. What you have is a very biased population coming together and drawing conclusions based on their size.
To have any real discussion and make any kind of progress, we have to be able to at least listen to someone else's point of view, and acknowledge that they have a reason to feel how they feel, without prejudging them as crazy or paranoid.
It has been fairly well documented that, in instances such as children coming down with something as devastating as autism, parent's memories tend to slowly morph until it fits a desired order and timing of events. An example could be parents who remember "he had a seizure the same day he got the vaccine" will in truth be that the seizure happened a week afterwards. The human mind is a very strange thing, and this is why we look for properly controlled randomized studies to increase our knowledge.
People, even well-intentioned intelligent people, are not reliable. This is why we do not accept anecdotes, even a lot of them, as data. My apologies to the soccer mom's who feel slighted because we do not accept their theory at their word, but we have a better way.
When I worked at LLNL a few years ago, I interned with a group doing research on how to manage/process the monster data stream coming down from LSST. Everything we were doing assumed whatever solution was developed would be running on a Linux-based supercomputer.
:)
Take this with a grain salt: my understanding is that software projects for LSST at the Lab didn't have their funding renewed.
I heard Google started doing some of this. Now that LSST is gaining more attention, I wonder if they're hiring?
In reality, however, almost every organization actually buying the thing is going to run Windows on it!
Windows has 90+% worldwide market share for desktop operating system and 55% for servers.
Imagine you're the minister of education for a poor country. You want to bring some of the first world's wealth to your shores via education in technology. From a purely practical standpoint, which would you choose?
I'm sympathetic to the Linux cause. My first install was Slackware on kernel 0.99pl14. Up until 8 months ago I made my living writing device drivers and test software specifically for Linux. Any machine in my home which doesn't need to run Windows doesn't. And I'm not real happy with the way Microsoft works its pricing such that it costs $100 for an OEM license of Windows here but only $3 over there for Windows+Office.
But step back into the minister of education role. For a price increase of 1.5% your students can be learning on the same software that powers 100x as many systems as Linux. Which would you choose?
So now I'm to believe that giant corporations like Intel lagged behind the likes of Negroponte and his all-volunteer staff because, they, of all people, couldn't produce the laptops at low enough price?
You shouldn't believe that because it isn't what happened.
Also, your argument about it was just a matter of time before someone produced something like the OLPC and therefore Negroponte meant nothing is pretty lame considering you could say this about any endeavor or activity. It's all just a matter of time, right?
Except that there is some very real evidence to support the assertion that in the span of time between when OLPC was announced and when it was released two things happened: component prices dropped and the cost of the OLPC went up. To prop your argument up, you need to produce some evidence that a $200 laptop could have been produced when the $100 laptop was announced.
The truth is that someone has to be the one to make it happen once. It's much easier for the followers to ride the coattails of the first guy.
Utter tripe. Not to mention he didn't "make it happen" before others were starting their own production.
Finally, you seem to derride him for the delays in releasing the product...as if that NEVER happens with every other fucking tech company product in the world.
No, I deride him for announcing it when it could not be done. He knew, based on historical trends, that prices were falling to the point where the third world could soon afford laptops. He did, however, miscalculate the second derivative of the curve and didn't realize that prices do resist falling very very low. Which is why there is no $100 laptop.
I don't know what your malfunction is, but you have an extreme bias against Negroponte/OLPC for some reason.
For the same reason I have an extreme bias against Bill Gates/Microsoft. I don't like monopolies no matter how good their intention. The third world could only benefit if there were three players in the ultra-low cost laptop sector. So yeah, I have an issue when someone goes around whining "nobody but me in this market because I started talking to the press about it first." Also, I don't have a standing bias against any corporation just because they are large. Negroponte shouts that Intel was selling a hundred thousand Classmates below cost (he has no good evidence for this) but never mentions that Intel is one of the world's most philanthropic corporations and has been giving away hundreds of millions of dollars for education over the last many years.
When he started this he said "$100 laptop" when "they" knew the components would cost $400. That is why "they" derided him. Not because they weren't looking at emerging markets, but because "they" knew the emerging market couldn't afford over $400 per laptop.
As time went, the cost, primarily the cost of flash, started coming down until the component cost was around $200. *Then* they could produce a laptop for the emerging market. It was a matter of market timing and would have happened with or without some egotistical loudmouth who wants the poor kids to use his product exclusively. If he poured his whole life (a laughable assertion) into this, I'm sorry.
You give OLPC all the credit because "he" started talking about it when it was impossible. When it finally became possible (after many delays), you attempt to give him all the credit. Well, sorry, the only truly interesting piece of technology on OLPC is the screen. And the inventor of that just left them.