I think it's approaching criminal neglect to foist any of this crap on young minds. If they gravitate to it, fine. Otherwise let them play with wooden blocks fer Christ sake....
I had a contract with MITRE in NJ. They were total liars. I was told it was a 5 month contract; it was really a 4 month contract. Four weeks into it they started pressuring me to go full-time, at HALF my consulting rate. (A rate which they determined, BTW.) I finished 2 projects in 10 weeks and they whacked me, supposedly because the NSA didn't want a contractor working on their project. (They loved my work though.) I was told later by EDP/Source (the company I went through) that they were no longer working with MITRE because they did that to other people, in one case after the guy had come from California and already taken an apartment and moved stuff. When an agency won't take your business, that's pretty bad.
They made NO backups, ever.
The "techs" (that would fix their aging Macs) were two former secretaries who were extremely dangerous with a screw driver and bitchy as hell. I couldn't touch the machines, and actually had to leave the room a few times as these women essentially beat the poor Macs with the blunt end of the screwdriver.
When I got out of the meeting where they made me the full-time offer, the woman I worked with (who had a recent CS degree but tons of security policy experience) asked if they offered over $50k! She was making about 40. Everyone I ran into bitched heavily about pay, except the managers. The people there were basically cool, but management was twice as evil as usual.
Three months later they called asking if I had made backups of my stuff because a disk died. (I had stored the projects in about 3 places because there was no real tape or disk backup available.) They wanted me to help - for FREE. They explained they were using my 10 wks of work for their entire year-long NSA contract.
Considering every machine ships with Windows, that part shouldn't be hard, right? And if the other software is legit, it was paid for by the city accounting office and there should be a record of it. It's not like the average guy who might just toss that stuff with the PC packing. All software on their machines is presumably a public asset and should be tracked.
gm would never force someone to pay twice for a car
No GM won't, but if you can't come up with the proof of ownership on the street when you're stopped the cops WILL take it from you, and you MAY have to pay to get it back. Of course you also won't be able to register it in the first place.
in america the burden of proof should still be on the accuser.
I certainly agree with the sentiment, but unfortunately that's not always the way it works anymore. Next time you're pulled over just refuse to show your license and tell the cop to prove you DON'T have one. In fact, in almost any transaction you end up with a receipt which is needed to show proof of ownership for service or exchange.
whether you like MS or not, there is such a thing as piracy. Since they don't play Open Source, and everybody knows it, why should we be surprised that they pop up and ask for receipts in particularly bad cases? Possibly some disgruntled employee (we should get some more gruntles for these folks) dropped a dime on 'em. Most companies I've worked for have been pretty serious about having licenses for everything, but a city government? Maybe not. As for it costing the public thousands, well, it would've cost money in the first place to buy the software, so that's a non-issue - they actually got use of the money in the meantime.
Personally I would find it more frightening if RMS descended on me and asked to prove no code on my possesion could ever have been under the GPL.
Um, wouldn't that be the "last day of ONLY terrestrial humans"? I mean, all of us still on Terra won't disappear or anything when those guys go up, right?:-)
Great, I turned his ass off on the front page, now I have to read his crappy posts here. I guess I need to filter him out at the freakin' firewall next time. Ok, here goes:
Ghettozing and homogenizing public opinion on op-ed pages and stuffing all ideas into a "left" and a "right".
Ok, from now on the NY Times will print (daily) 7000 pages of letters to the editor, color-coded along a banded continuum so we can easily select only the opinions of vegetarians who are pro-death penalty. I'm sure they won't have any problems with the practicality of that.
Exploting (sic) parents fears by sensationalizing issues of technology and safety?
Yes, better to have you exploit "geek" fears by sensationalizing issues of technology and safety.
Covering technology ignorantly and ineptly?
Horror of horrors! From a guy who posted apostrophes as question marks for a year. Let's see, are there any areas Slashdot covers ignorantly and ineptly? Um, yeah, just about everything but nano-tech and the GPL. You couldn't cover a recursive function if it bit you in the ass.
Becoming part of a disconnected elite?
Jon, you won't get this, but that fits you to a T. In my experience, getting one of your pat email answers is pretty much the same as having email ignored. Really.
Oh wait, and the corporate sky must be falling again.
I watch F1 regularly, and I'd say the challenge of controlling a 900HP 1300lb car on any given track to get a better time than a human would be quite a feat. These guys fly over curbs like crazy and then just correct like a madman; I can't see a robot doing it. Of course, they have unbelievable data sets to go on, so it's kind of like reverse-engineering the thing.
But I'd hate to see what it does when it spins in the rain, or clouts a tire on the car in front of it. Yikes. Keep a finger on the kill switch, fer sure.
I was working at a place doing some interactive cable stuff when one of the execs came up with what I believe amounts to prior art, or at least takes it to the next level:
I'm basically against software patents, but I just got an email from Amazon about a CD ready to come out, wanted it, and did buy it because it was so damn easy. If I had to type in all my info again I may have let it pass. I'd still rather see the patent challenged, but you have to give them some credit.
Well, let's look at the ultimate consequence - going out of business. I don't see anyone going out of business because they can't hire people for their projects. I do see them going out of business because they spend half of their money of SuperBowl advertisements.
I also see companies like Merrill Lynch who hire tons of H1B visa folks laying off people and paying $10-15/hr less than market rate while posting record profits. It's hard to believe they can't afford to pay people, considering their entire business depends on bits flying around. Why? Well, I guess they can get people from Bangalore a lot cheaper. It *is* capitalism - there's always somebody who will work cheap if it's better than they currently have, you can't blame them. But I still can't help thinking it's a pretty short-sighted personnel strategy.
I wish the Congress-critters being lobbied by big bucks tech companies on the H1B visa issue would read this thread. If they're all so starved for tech talent then why do so many people feel forced to move into management after 10 years? Or leave the industry altogether?
When an engineer hears about a bug, his first reaction is not to deny it's existance, but to fix it. He (or She) want's his 'baby' to be perfect. That's my experience, at least.
Good mature ones, yes. Be thankful for your positive experience. I had a gig at a very large financial company for awhile and got to know the QA people. This experience of yours would be new and wonderful to them.
C'mon, you never heard "It works on my machine!" ???
Personally I learned a long time to never say "that's impossible", but only after I had done it too many times. That's why I'm so humble now.:-)
Or, as Richard Pryor once said "Woman, who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"
Damn! I AM impressed! Most reasonable. On the other hand, I guess it shows how precise you need to be... for instance, "forgiveness" is certainly a loaded word.
Ah well... what to do when you can't beat up on RMS? Go back to Battleship Galactica!
What I'm worried about are the people who will be invstigated improperly because they're talking about something that snags the filters. You could have a conversation with your friend about lawns and be tagged as a drug kingpin. Throw in an innocent vacation to Mexico and suddenly you get to prove your innocence.
You can send email to a lot of people on the net that you don't know; that web of contacts is one of the things they're looking for. So I sell race tickets to a guy in California, and he's a bad guy and again, I have to prove my innocence because I'm guilty by association. I agree they need a way to "tap" email to some extent; I just don't agree with the approach. They can get the logs now from the ISPs with a court order.
Slashdot Mirror
I think it's approaching criminal neglect to foist any of this crap on young minds. If they gravitate to it, fine. Otherwise let them play with wooden blocks fer Christ sake....
I had a contract with MITRE in NJ. They were total liars. I was told it was a 5 month contract; it was really a 4 month contract. Four weeks into it they started pressuring me to go full-time, at HALF my consulting rate. (A rate which they determined, BTW.) I finished 2 projects in 10 weeks and they whacked me, supposedly because the NSA didn't want a contractor working on their project. (They loved my work though.) I was told later by EDP/Source (the company I went through) that they were no longer working with MITRE because they did that to other people, in one case after the guy had come from California and already taken an apartment and moved stuff. When an agency won't take your business, that's pretty bad.
They made NO backups, ever.
The "techs" (that would fix their aging Macs) were two former secretaries who were extremely dangerous with a screw driver and bitchy as hell. I couldn't touch the machines, and actually had to leave the room a few times as these women essentially beat the poor Macs with the blunt end of the screwdriver.
When I got out of the meeting where they made me the full-time offer, the woman I worked with (who had a recent CS degree but tons of security policy experience) asked if they offered over $50k! She was making about 40. Everyone I ran into bitched heavily about pay, except the managers. The people there were basically cool, but management was twice as evil as usual.
Three months later they called asking if I had made backups of my stuff because a disk died. (I had stored the projects in about 3 places because there was no real tape or disk backup available.) They wanted me to help - for FREE. They explained they were using my 10 wks of work for their entire year-long NSA contract.
The work WAS interesting.
if not, and they can't find everything
Considering every machine ships with Windows, that part shouldn't be hard, right? And if the other software is legit, it was paid for by the city accounting office and there should be a record of it. It's not like the average guy who might just toss that stuff with the PC packing. All software on their machines is presumably a public asset and should be tracked.
gm would never force someone to pay twice for a car
No GM won't, but if you can't come up with the proof of ownership on the street when you're stopped the cops WILL take it from you, and you MAY have to pay to get it back. Of course you also won't be able to register it in the first place.
in america the burden of proof should still be on the accuser.
I certainly agree with the sentiment, but unfortunately that's not always the way it works anymore. Next time you're pulled over just refuse to show your license and tell the cop to prove you DON'T have one. In fact, in almost any transaction you end up with a receipt which is needed to show proof of ownership for service or exchange.
whether you like MS or not, there is such a thing as piracy. Since they don't play Open Source, and everybody knows it, why should we be surprised that they pop up and ask for receipts in particularly bad cases? Possibly some disgruntled employee (we should get some more gruntles for these folks) dropped a dime on 'em. Most companies I've worked for have been pretty serious about having licenses for everything, but a city government? Maybe not. As for it costing the public thousands, well, it would've cost money in the first place to buy the software, so that's a non-issue - they actually got use of the money in the meantime.
:-)
Personally I would find it more frightening if RMS descended on me and asked to prove no code on my possesion could ever have been under the GPL.
Ducking for cover...
Um, wouldn't that be the "last day of ONLY terrestrial humans"? I mean, all of us still on Terra won't disappear or anything when those guys go up, right? :-)
Great, I turned his ass off on the front page, now I have to read his crappy posts here. I guess I need to filter him out at the freakin' firewall next time. Ok, here goes:
Ghettozing and homogenizing public opinion on op-ed pages and stuffing all ideas into a "left" and a "right".
Ok, from now on the NY Times will print (daily) 7000 pages of letters to the editor, color-coded along a banded continuum so we can easily select only the opinions of vegetarians who are pro-death penalty. I'm sure they won't have any problems with the practicality of that.
Exploting (sic) parents fears by sensationalizing issues of technology and safety?
Yes, better to have you exploit "geek" fears by sensationalizing issues of technology and safety.
Covering technology ignorantly and ineptly?
Horror of horrors! From a guy who posted apostrophes as question marks for a year. Let's see, are there any areas Slashdot covers ignorantly and ineptly? Um, yeah, just about everything but nano-tech and the GPL. You couldn't cover a recursive function if it bit you in the ass.
Becoming part of a disconnected elite?
Jon, you won't get this, but that fits you to a T. In my experience, getting one of your pat email answers is pretty much the same as having email ignored. Really.
Oh wait, and the corporate sky must be falling again.
I watch F1 regularly, and I'd say the challenge of controlling a 900HP 1300lb car on any given track to get a better time than a human would be quite a feat. These guys fly over curbs like crazy and then just correct like a madman; I can't see a robot doing it. Of course, they have unbelievable data sets to go on, so it's kind of like reverse-engineering the thing.
But I'd hate to see what it does when it spins in the rain, or clouts a tire on the car in front of it. Yikes. Keep a finger on the kill switch, fer sure.
Not if it's F1 - let's hear it for road courses!
I'm an American, and as such, absolutely fucking LOVE F1.
Pink-boy.
? I would estimate that emergency rooms would be filled with countless pot heads
Now that IS funny. What would they be doing, choking on milk and chocolate cookies?
> Or are we simply content to sit on our collective asses, and watch the world go by?
Um, yeah! What the hell, it's the ultimate immersion, eh?
Still, you're right about us having everything around for a (reasonably) cheap way-out barrage of the senses.
>Why isn't there any interest in homebrew VR
Yeah well, kids these days! In my day we watched TV with ONE eye, and were glad to have that...
I was working at a place doing some interactive cable stuff when one of the execs came up with what I believe amounts to prior art, or at least takes it to the next level:
"Do nothing to buy now."
was definitely:
"It's just interesting to see calculus presented in that way."
Gotta love it.
'nuff said.
I'm basically against software patents, but I just got an email from Amazon about a CD ready to come out, wanted it, and did buy it because it was so damn easy. If I had to type in all my info again I may have let it pass. I'd still rather see the patent challenged, but you have to give them some credit.
'nuff said.
Well, let's look at the ultimate consequence - going out of business. I don't see anyone going out of business because they can't hire people for their projects. I do see them going out of business because they spend half of their money of SuperBowl advertisements.
I also see companies like Merrill Lynch who hire tons of H1B visa folks laying off people and paying $10-15/hr less than market rate while posting record profits. It's hard to believe they can't afford to pay people, considering their entire business depends on bits flying around. Why? Well, I guess they can get people from Bangalore a lot cheaper. It *is* capitalism - there's always somebody who will work cheap if it's better than they currently have, you can't blame them. But I still can't help thinking it's a pretty short-sighted personnel strategy.
I wish the Congress-critters being lobbied by big bucks tech companies on the H1B visa issue would read this thread. If they're all so starved for tech talent then why do so many people feel forced to move into management after 10 years? Or leave the industry altogether?
Woof.
What makes you think geeks don't go out drinking on Friday night?
I JUST freakin' ordered one of these pups after waiting all this time.... NOW they go color. AAAAARRRRGHHHHHH!
When an engineer hears about a bug, his first reaction is not to deny it's existance, but to fix it. He (or She) want's his 'baby' to be perfect. That's my experience, at least.
:-)
Good mature ones, yes. Be thankful for your positive experience. I had a gig at a very large financial company for awhile and got to know the QA people. This experience of yours would be new and wonderful to them.
C'mon, you never heard "It works on my machine!" ???
Personally I learned a long time to never say "that's impossible", but only after I had done it too many times. That's why I'm so humble now.
Or, as Richard Pryor once said "Woman, who you gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?"
Damn! I AM impressed! Most reasonable. On the other hand, I guess it shows how precise you need to be... for instance, "forgiveness" is certainly a loaded word.
Ah well... what to do when you can't beat up on RMS? Go back to Battleship Galactica!
Anyway, you gotta believe Zen advice from a poster named digitalhermit. :-) Somebody give him an "Insightful" or two.
Well said. Somebody mod this guy up.
What I'm worried about are the people who will be invstigated improperly because they're talking about something that snags the filters. You could have a conversation with your friend about lawns and be tagged as a drug kingpin. Throw in an innocent vacation to Mexico and suddenly you get to prove your innocence.
You can send email to a lot of people on the net that you don't know; that web of contacts is one of the things they're looking for. So I sell race tickets to a guy in California, and he's a bad guy and again, I have to prove my innocence because I'm guilty by association. I agree they need a way to "tap" email to some extent; I just don't agree with the approach. They can get the logs now from the ISPs with a court order.