Well, any company I've worked for has provided a severance package as part of the employment agreement, following a standard three month probationary period. Here in Canada, this is standard practice, where severance is, typically, one month for every year of service. Moreover, once the probationary period has passed, the company must have just cause for terminating the employee, lest they fall victim to a wrongful termination suit. Of course, if you don't sign the employment contract, and hence agree to the NDA, you get neither the severance package nor the wrongful termination protection.
Of course, things are almost definitely different in the US where companies, and the laws they must abide by, are apparently more hostile to employees.
Of course, in that case, they could lawfully fire him on the spot with no compensation since the employment agreement was almost definitely contingent on his signing of the NDA. Sounds like a risky proposition to me...
Umm... you read my post, right? In particular, you read the part where I said I agreed with the great-grandparent, right? Frankly, I think US military expenditures are absolutely ridiculous. BUT, that's not what most of the 'merican public thinks, especially in the wake of 9/11. No, if there's one area the president (especially a republican one) will *never* cut, it's the military budget.
Whoa, dude... while I completely agree with you... cutting the military??? Are you insane?? That's a great way to get voted right out of office in the next election... the US military budget is all but untouchable (well, uncuttable, anyway) these days. After all, there's a country to defend!
Because unless you can provide more concrete evidence, the statement that '"Spoiled little middle class kids" are the most dangerous demographic out there' is flat out ridiculous, and really nothing more than fear mongering. Hell, by your argument, it's also valid to claim that islamic fundamentalists are the most dangerous demographic out there.
because YOU are one person out of the millions of people who rely on BBC for their news. Out of the millions who don't care about your silly point, and feel as I do that the benefits far outweigh your complaint.
Sure. But that doesn't disprove my point. You said:
If the BBC doesn't want to list their corrections, there's no force that will make them
I said
If the BBC feels their losing business due to lack of credibility, guess what, they might just try to change that.
The point is that there is, in fact, a force which *could* make them change: market forces. Of course, that presumes that people, en masse, care enough to try and change the way the BBC behaves. Of course, if they don't (which is your point), then clearly, a boycott will have no force. However, if enough people wanted to change things, it could be done.
The sad thing is that not enough people care... why someone would be so naive as to believe that it's just fine for a news organization to silently change their articles whenever they see fit is beyond me. Especially regarding the BBC, considering behaviour as of late... lying, sensationalizing, and now, practicing revisionist history. Hell, just imagine if the article containing David Kelly's claims was stored online, and after the sh*t hit the fan, the BBC modified the article to remove their, err, "innaccuracies"? After all, they're just "[CORRECTING] a mistake", right?
Getting all upset because somebody CORRECTS a mistake seems like the last thing we should be doing.
Sure, unless the "mistake" is deemed so because it's not the view of the government, the owners of the company, etc. This is also known as censorship in more intelligent circles. The ability of a news organization to casually alter articles without public knowledge makes this *far* too easy, as now, it isn't just the editors who can prevent the publication of an article... if one slips through, the powers that be can have the article altered, or removed entirely, with little fanfare.
Anyway, on another topic, I find it funny that you went and contradicted yourself:
If the BBC doesn't want to list their corrections, there's no force that will make them
Followed by:
f you don't like it, you can get your news from another source
Guess what, that's called a "market force". And it's a great force for change, assuming the consumers care enough to wield it. If the BBC feels their losing business due to lack of credibility, guess what, they might just try to change that.
Oddly enough the article doesn't even mention XEN [cam.ac.uk], one of the most interesting virtualization systems.
Hardly... it's basically a standard virtualization architecture, where they've decided not to implement the hard stuff, meaning an OS needs to be modified to run on it. Sure, this makes it fast, but also relatively useless for most people.
As for colinux, it's really just another type of User Mode Linux, where the underlying OS is Windows, rather than Linux. The point being that it's not a virtual machine in the traditional sense.
Far more interesting and useful, IMHO, was the (now defunct) Plex86 project, or for x-platform emulation, the (active) QEMU project.
Err, they were *in* Chasing Amy? Heck, the name "Chasing Amy" comes from a speech Silent Bob gave in the movie regarding some chick he always regretted never going after. A speech which is, incidentally, referenced later in J&SBSB... specifically, after their monkey got kidnapped by the Hollywood Animals people, Silent Bob attempted to tell Jay that their license plate said "Hollywood" on it. So, Bob started miming, and predictably, Jay simply would not clue in. Anyway, at one point Jay said something to the effect "you can tell that damn Amy story all the time, but you can't talk now?".
Uh, if they say something that's wrong on an immutable medium like the internet, why shouldn't they change it?
Because then they don't have to take responsibility for poor reporting. The correct way to handle this is to 1) post a retraction, 2) correct the article, and 3) indicate, at the end of the article, a list of changes/corrections made since it's initial publication. Without these things in place, it's all too easy for a news organization to simply hide things when they screw up, which, I think we can agree, is a very bad thing (especially in a publically owned organization).
And, for those who do decide to try out the text adventure version of HHGTTG, be aware that it contains what is, hands down, one of the most bizarre puzzles I have ever come across (and anyone who's played the came will know what I'm talking about:). Just a hint, it involves a Babelfish...:)
They produce them based on demand. Since they are sold at a unit loss, a higher demand will mean a greater loss.
Do you honestly think that they'll continue to build units simply because the boxes are being sold, even though they're perfectly aware that they're hemorhaging cash?? Geez... Look, MS will build units as long as the combination of unit sales income, game sales, and licensing revenue results in a net profit. The minute they start losing money in a big way, they'll abandon the XBox and start on the next big console. I mean, honestly, how dumb do you think they are?
First, understand that, for Microsoft, producing XBox units is kinda like an investment. They sink a certain amount of capital into a production run under the assumption that they will be sold, thus generating revenue, both in the form of unit sales, as well as software sales.
Now, with this understanding, let's perform a little thought experiment. Suppose Microsoft produces 1,000,000 XBoxes at a cost of, say, $150 each. This means, at the outset, they must spend $150,000,000 making XBoxes.
Now, if no one bought any XBoxes, they would lose all the money they spent making the units, meaning a total loss of $150,000,000 (plus loss on games that weren't sold).
Now, if all 1,000,000 of those XBoxes are sold at a cost of $99, they recoup $99,000,000, for a total loss of $51,000,000. And this doesn't include the money they make from people buying/renting games to play on their new, shiny unit.
Installing and un-installing device drivers would become much easier for users.
Is insmod so difficult?
Manufacturers would like this too because then there would be less concern about GPL and device drivers. It would be easier to release binary-only drivers.
Since when did we care? Linus has flat out said he doesn't like binary drivers, for pretty good reasons, I think (harder to debug being the main one). Why encourage this?
So, any other good reasons why you'd want userland drivers? Are those reasons good enough to offset the additional overhead that this would incur (additional context switching,etc)? The new layers of indirection that would have to be added?
Frankly, I think you might have been bitten by the microkernel bug. But, sorry, Linux ain't no microkernel. And, so far, it hasn't needed to be. So, why start now?
Which is why I find it ironic.:) Although it's a matter of personal taste, I wouldn't consider the use of Perl's implicit variables a "good coding practice"... after all, there's nothing like inexplicable magic to keep the newbs confused.;)
So, you "use strict", and even run Perl with -w, no less, and then proceed to make use of Perl's implicit variables? Why does that strike me as amusing...:)
Which doesn't solve the satellite latency problem. The modem is great for sending out the request. Yup, it definitely fixes the problem of outgoing latency. However, if the satellite is used for the downlink side, the responses will still suffer from the latency induced by said link. Thus, this system will still be useless for, say, online gaming.
Now, if you use the modem for up *and* downstream communication (for low-bandwidth tasks), you're absolutely correct, the latency problem is solved. But only because you've bypassed the satellite entirely. The minute the satellite downlink enters the picture, the total roundtrip latency increases significantly (by as much as 500ms, according to some reports).
Err, no... you did not provide a link to "get around satellite latency". You provided a link to not use satellite *at all*. There's no way to avoid satellite latency short of not using it (for up- OR downstream), due to the (rather unbreakable) laws of relativity.
Oh please, don't be obtuse. Anyone worth an interview knows that the question is with regards to *work habits*. An answer outside of this sphere would definitely get the interviewee eliminated... for idiocy.
and bullshit questions like "what is your greatest weakness".
+1 Insightful. If you don't want me to play your interview like a game, then don't make it a game.
-1 Missing The Point. A question like this isn't intended to force you to bullshit. What it does is force the candidate to (hopefully) be honest and own up to a weakness about themselves. A good answer to this question indicates 1) honesty (duh), and 2) self-awareness. The value of the first quality is, I think, self-explanatory. The second should be pretty obvious, too: someone who is self-aware is capable of improving themselves.
What this question is NOT meant to do is force you to eliminate yourself from the running. I, as an interviewer, don't intend to use your answer as a direct reason to eliminate you. Rather, your answer will help to assess your character (is this person willing to own up to their inadequacies? Are they self-aware enough to understand what their flaws are? Do they have a desire to improve themselves? etc).
Slashdot Mirror
Well, any company I've worked for has provided a severance package as part of the employment agreement, following a standard three month probationary period. Here in Canada, this is standard practice, where severance is, typically, one month for every year of service. Moreover, once the probationary period has passed, the company must have just cause for terminating the employee, lest they fall victim to a wrongful termination suit. Of course, if you don't sign the employment contract, and hence agree to the NDA, you get neither the severance package nor the wrongful termination protection.
Of course, things are almost definitely different in the US where companies, and the laws they must abide by, are apparently more hostile to employees.
Of course, in that case, they could lawfully fire him on the spot with no compensation since the employment agreement was almost definitely contingent on his signing of the NDA. Sounds like a risky proposition to me...
Squeak Smalltalk is quite excellent for this purpose, IMHO.
Welcome to the world of beta software.
Umm... you read my post, right? In particular, you read the part where I said I agreed with the great-grandparent, right? Frankly, I think US military expenditures are absolutely ridiculous. BUT, that's not what most of the 'merican public thinks, especially in the wake of 9/11. No, if there's one area the president (especially a republican one) will *never* cut, it's the military budget.
Whoa, dude... while I completely agree with you... cutting the military??? Are you insane?? That's a great way to get voted right out of office in the next election... the US military budget is all but untouchable (well, uncuttable, anyway) these days. After all, there's a country to defend!
Because unless you can provide more concrete evidence, the statement that '"Spoiled little middle class kids" are the most dangerous demographic out there' is flat out ridiculous, and really nothing more than fear mongering. Hell, by your argument, it's also valid to claim that islamic fundamentalists are the most dangerous demographic out there.
because YOU are one person out of the millions of people who rely on BBC for their news. Out of the millions who don't care about your silly point, and feel as I do that the benefits far outweigh your complaint.
Sure. But that doesn't disprove my point. You said:
If the BBC doesn't want to list their corrections, there's no force that will make them
I said
If the BBC feels their losing business due to lack of credibility, guess what, they might just try to change that.
The point is that there is, in fact, a force which *could* make them change: market forces. Of course, that presumes that people, en masse, care enough to try and change the way the BBC behaves. Of course, if they don't (which is your point), then clearly, a boycott will have no force. However, if enough people wanted to change things, it could be done.
The sad thing is that not enough people care... why someone would be so naive as to believe that it's just fine for a news organization to silently change their articles whenever they see fit is beyond me. Especially regarding the BBC, considering behaviour as of late... lying, sensationalizing, and now, practicing revisionist history. Hell, just imagine if the article containing David Kelly's claims was stored online, and after the sh*t hit the fan, the BBC modified the article to remove their, err, "innaccuracies"? After all, they're just "[CORRECTING] a mistake", right?
Getting all upset because somebody CORRECTS a mistake seems like the last thing we should be doing.
Sure, unless the "mistake" is deemed so because it's not the view of the government, the owners of the company, etc. This is also known as censorship in more intelligent circles. The ability of a news organization to casually alter articles without public knowledge makes this *far* too easy, as now, it isn't just the editors who can prevent the publication of an article... if one slips through, the powers that be can have the article altered, or removed entirely, with little fanfare.
Anyway, on another topic, I find it funny that you went and contradicted yourself:
If the BBC doesn't want to list their corrections, there's no force that will make them
Followed by:
f you don't like it, you can get your news from another source
Guess what, that's called a "market force". And it's a great force for change, assuming the consumers care enough to wield it. If the BBC feels their losing business due to lack of credibility, guess what, they might just try to change that.
Oddly enough the article doesn't even mention XEN [cam.ac.uk], one of the most interesting virtualization systems.
Hardly... it's basically a standard virtualization architecture, where they've decided not to implement the hard stuff, meaning an OS needs to be modified to run on it. Sure, this makes it fast, but also relatively useless for most people.
As for colinux, it's really just another type of User Mode Linux, where the underlying OS is Windows, rather than Linux. The point being that it's not a virtual machine in the traditional sense.
Far more interesting and useful, IMHO, was the (now defunct) Plex86 project, or for x-platform emulation, the (active) QEMU project.
Err, they were *in* Chasing Amy? Heck, the name "Chasing Amy" comes from a speech Silent Bob gave in the movie regarding some chick he always regretted never going after. A speech which is, incidentally, referenced later in J&SBSB... specifically, after their monkey got kidnapped by the Hollywood Animals people, Silent Bob attempted to tell Jay that their license plate said "Hollywood" on it. So, Bob started miming, and predictably, Jay simply would not clue in. Anyway, at one point Jay said something to the effect "you can tell that damn Amy story all the time, but you can't talk now?".
Uh, if they say something that's wrong on an immutable medium like the internet, why shouldn't they change it?
Because then they don't have to take responsibility for poor reporting. The correct way to handle this is to 1) post a retraction, 2) correct the article, and 3) indicate, at the end of the article, a list of changes/corrections made since it's initial publication. Without these things in place, it's all too easy for a news organization to simply hide things when they screw up, which, I think we can agree, is a very bad thing (especially in a publically owned organization).
And, for those who do decide to try out the text adventure version of HHGTTG, be aware that it contains what is, hands down, one of the most bizarre puzzles I have ever come across (and anyone who's played the came will know what I'm talking about :). Just a hint, it involves a Babelfish... :)
They produce them based on demand. Since they are sold at a unit loss, a higher demand will mean a greater loss.
Do you honestly think that they'll continue to build units simply because the boxes are being sold, even though they're perfectly aware that they're hemorhaging cash?? Geez... Look, MS will build units as long as the combination of unit sales income, game sales, and licensing revenue results in a net profit. The minute they start losing money in a big way, they'll abandon the XBox and start on the next big console. I mean, honestly, how dumb do you think they are?
First, understand that, for Microsoft, producing XBox units is kinda like an investment. They sink a certain amount of capital into a production run under the assumption that they will be sold, thus generating revenue, both in the form of unit sales, as well as software sales.
Now, with this understanding, let's perform a little thought experiment. Suppose Microsoft produces 1,000,000 XBoxes at a cost of, say, $150 each. This means, at the outset, they must spend $150,000,000 making XBoxes.
Now, if no one bought any XBoxes, they would lose all the money they spent making the units, meaning a total loss of $150,000,000 (plus loss on games that weren't sold).
Now, if all 1,000,000 of those XBoxes are sold at a cost of $99, they recoup $99,000,000, for a total loss of $51,000,000. And this doesn't include the money they make from people buying/renting games to play on their new, shiny unit.
Installing and un-installing device drivers would become much easier for users.
Is insmod so difficult?
Manufacturers would like this too because then there would be less concern about GPL and device drivers. It would be easier to release binary-only drivers.
Since when did we care? Linus has flat out said he doesn't like binary drivers, for pretty good reasons, I think (harder to debug being the main one). Why encourage this?
So, any other good reasons why you'd want userland drivers? Are those reasons good enough to offset the additional overhead that this would incur (additional context switching,etc)? The new layers of indirection that would have to be added?
Frankly, I think you might have been bitten by the microkernel bug. But, sorry, Linux ain't no microkernel. And, so far, it hasn't needed to be. So, why start now?
Gah! Stupid HTML. Insert in those while() loops. :)
Why define a variable, then simple copy the implicit's value to that variable. Wasteful.
You're absolutely right. If you did this:
while () {
$line = $_;
print $line;
}
That would be wasteful. Not to mention stupid. You would do this:
while ($line = ) {
print $line;
}
Which doesn't involve the implicit variable at all. Clearer, easier to read, no less efficient... what's the problem?
Which is why I find it ironic. :) Although it's a matter of personal taste, I wouldn't consider the use of Perl's implicit variables a "good coding practice"... after all, there's nothing like inexplicable magic to keep the newbs confused. ;)
So, you "use strict", and even run Perl with -w, no less, and then proceed to make use of Perl's implicit variables? Why does that strike me as amusing... :)
Which doesn't solve the satellite latency problem. The modem is great for sending out the request. Yup, it definitely fixes the problem of outgoing latency. However, if the satellite is used for the downlink side, the responses will still suffer from the latency induced by said link. Thus, this system will still be useless for, say, online gaming.
Now, if you use the modem for up *and* downstream communication (for low-bandwidth tasks), you're absolutely correct, the latency problem is solved. But only because you've bypassed the satellite entirely. The minute the satellite downlink enters the picture, the total roundtrip latency increases significantly (by as much as 500ms, according to some reports).
Err, no... you did not provide a link to "get around satellite latency". You provided a link to not use satellite *at all*. There's no way to avoid satellite latency short of not using it (for up- OR downstream), due to the (rather unbreakable) laws of relativity.
Oh please, don't be obtuse. Anyone worth an interview knows that the question is with regards to *work habits*. An answer outside of this sphere would definitely get the interviewee eliminated... for idiocy.
You really don't understand what latency is, do you?
and bullshit questions like "what is your greatest weakness".
+1 Insightful. If you don't want me to play your interview like a game, then don't make it a game.
-1 Missing The Point. A question like this isn't intended to force you to bullshit. What it does is force the candidate to (hopefully) be honest and own up to a weakness about themselves. A good answer to this question indicates 1) honesty (duh), and 2) self-awareness. The value of the first quality is, I think, self-explanatory. The second should be pretty obvious, too: someone who is self-aware is capable of improving themselves.
What this question is NOT meant to do is force you to eliminate yourself from the running. I, as an interviewer, don't intend to use your answer as a direct reason to eliminate you. Rather, your answer will help to assess your character (is this person willing to own up to their inadequacies? Are they self-aware enough to understand what their flaws are? Do they have a desire to improve themselves? etc).