It is a restraint of trade. If it was built into a contract it would be unenforceable at the least, probably illegal in many jurisdictions, although some restrictions in employment contracts are enforceable provided they are, "reasonable."
It tells you something that it had to be a gentleman's agreement. I'm sure if they could have legally put it into employment contracts they would have.
What worries me about this sort of knowledge, is that it could make it possible for political leaders to keep the masses working their asses off just above the breadline. But they can avoid pushing it so far that they get the kind of political activism that might result in regime change.
Please read up on the origin of IQ tests. To the extent they are calibrated to anything apart from other IQ tests, they are calibrated against academic performance. Because they were developed originally by British and French scientists, they are calibrated against specifically European standards of academic performance.
There is no objective, unambiguously defined, quantifiable quality of "intelligence" that IQ tests can be said to measure. It is an entirely subjective test with no real scientific basis. In fact the only thing that IQ tests absolutely and definitely measure is the ability to do IQ tests.
Because IQ tests are calibrated mostly against a cultural artifact (European academic culture) Cultural bias is as likely a reason for variations across different cultures (very closely correlated with different races for obvious reasons) as any other factor.
Until you can rule out cultural bias in any IQ test (and I really don't see how you can) all your theories about genetic differences are meaningless.
For extra bonus points, find me ANY objective, unambiguous and measurable definition of the term, "intelligence."
I'm assuming the GP's argument is that the higher than previously expected possibility of life-bearing planets early in the life of the universe increases the possibility of panspermia, all other things being equal.
The probability of panspermia is product of (at least) two other possibilities: 1.) Life exists somewhere 2.) Life is carried though space from one planet to another by some means.
Regardless of the probability of the latter, (which may be infinitesimal in any case) increasing the probability of the former at any point in time increases the overall probability of panspermia.
The US administration also believes the EIPC suit cannot move forward because it argues the [supreme] court lacks authority under the 2001 Patriot Act to weigh in on the legality of NSA activities.
So how does that work? I thought the Supreme court was the highest authority on the law in the US?
The last thing we need is awesome tech only spies and generals possess...
Your argument:
No, having the lack of privacy go both ways isn't as good as having privacy.
Which is shooting down a different position to the one the GP took. No one is arguing that privacy for all isn't the best situation. But this technology now exists, so the genie is out of the the bottle and that option is almost certainly off the table.
We now get to choose between the option where a small powerful elite has this technology, and the option where everyone has it.
The targets of this idea are not people, but the automated systems that scan all content and communications for random keywords etc. The bots searching for starting points that can be investigated further by humans. The idea is that if too many false postitives are thrown up, the manual parts of the process get overloaded, reducing the value of the automated systems.
Once an individual has the attention of human spooks he's already past the point where this strategy is relevant. So your anecdote is valid, but slightly off-topic.
I totally agree on Retroshare... I saw it and immediately loved it. I've had a hard time convincing non-techy friends and family to start using it though.
I think it just needs to be pushed more, and maybe some of the buggy bits will get a bit more attention.
You disgust me. I expect never to make use of your services, either looking for my next position, or when I am part of the hiring process where I work.
As an active web developer with a strong network built up over 15 years in the industry, I intend to make sure the details of your parasitic behaviour are shared as widely as possible. Everybody who works in the digital economy will see this as a crime that could have been perpetrated on themselves.
I will encourage everyone I can to see themselves as a potential victim of such cavalier behaviour and to boycott your services therefore. I know how many of my colleagues already despise the way big business flouts IP laws, whilst simultaneously using these same laws to crush players too small to afford protracted legal battles.
You are in a service industry and person you have just ripped off is the archetypal representative of your customer. I can only hope that the impact on your bottom line is what it deserves to be. I will do what I can to encourage everyone to make it so.
If the OP has to help maintain this code, and is also held partially responsible for the performance and robustness of the software, (management tends to see development teams as an amorphous software-producing blob) then the guy IS making his job a lot harder.
So;
When you deliver criticism of someone's code, always be as specific as possible. Choose one class, or function, or whatever and offer an alternative solution which is demonstrably better.
The message should not be, "You fscked up," but, "Hey I found a better pattern for this class of problem, don't you agree?"
Try to make the atmosphere of the interaction collegial rather than instructive. Nobody wants to be corrected, particularly by someone more junior, but if you can persuade him that you just have good ideas you might have a better chance.
You can probably find lots of other advice on effectively delivering criticism, I'm sure people write about this stuff. You can google for it, I can't be bothered.
I'm going to assume that this is a serious question, if slightly fuzzily worded. And that what you want is the best security position that is practical, and still have a computing environment that is useful to you.
So this is going to draw some fire I suspect, but maybe start by reading the PCI DSS Data Security Standard and apply as much as possible of the practical stuff to your environment.
PCI DSS has its issues and its critics and is most definitely not perfect. But it is an attempt by a group comprising of all the major credit and debit card brands to define how to secure a computing environment that is connected to the internet and contains sensitive information.
A lot of it won't be relevant to you. But if you're not trying to achieve compliance, you can throw out the bits you don't need.
Specifically the difference between what the camera has focussed on and what your eye is trying to focus on.
When we look at things In Real Life we look at something close, like our hand, and objects in the background are blurred. Your eye is not focussed on them. If we look out to the middle distance though, our eye quickly re-focusses and things near to us become blurred.
But in a 3D movie this doesn't work. Whether something is in focus or not is decided by whether the CAMERA was focussed at that distance when it was filmed. This is just as true in 3D movies as it is in 2D movies.
Now in a 2D film your eye never changes focus. It's focus is the movie screen. There is the false focus of the camera, but we're used to that. It's one tool (the primary one) the director has for telling us what is significant in the current shot.
In a 3D movie however, apparent distance is changing and your eyes ARE adjusting shot by shot, for parallax at least. But you have to guess what the camera has focussed on, or your eyes are going to strain to focus on objects that will simply never come into focus.
This is why 3D movies are so much more tiring to watch. And one of the reasons why it's not real 3D. And why I'm still suspicious of whether it will ever become the dominant form in the art of cinema.
Interestingly, there is the potential for CGI to make much better 3D movies, for the simple reason that everything can be in focus all the time. I have yet to see a fully CGI movie in 3D I believe.
The original Pacific Fibre project failed technically because of lack of funding, but just as much from international politicking. International infrastructure (intrastructure?) attracts these sorts of issues it would seem. The US didn't want China funding it and really didn't want them providing technology.
And of course theres's already speculation the US would take the same attitude to Kim Dotcom's involvement given they are trying to prosecute him for teh internet crimez.
A cynic might see this as a cynical PR move on his part. He offers The People of NZ goodies and the US government takes them away. He gets to look like the good guy again and it ultimately costs him nothing.
I read once (I think in a post on slashdot a couple of years back) that many hardware manufacturers keep their device drivers proprietary in order to hide the details of the hardware implementation. And that this is not so much to maintain, "a competitive edge," as to protect themselves from patent lawsuits from their competitors.
So my reference is possibly not the most reliable, but my point is that they might not be hiding stuff just to screw over consumers. There are many other possible reasons.
A closely related bug has kept me on on stuck Kubuntu 10.04. If I try to run an external monitor on my latptop with any variant of *ubuntu from 11.x on - or recent versions of Fedora for that matter - it freezes up.
Every time I log on it asks me to upgrade to 12.04 now. I would dearly love to, but it would render my laptop effectively unusable.
the slightly scary thing is that you can buy your own ANPR System off the shelf. (I know that geeks can easy create it themselves using motion and some OCR tools - but, imagine selling this to normal people!!
That's not the scary thing. That's the only thing that is at all positive. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. And given that, the most empowering thing you can do for people is to make the same powers of observation available to everybody.
You comment he was waiting for the police, but neglect to mention the fact he was waiting for them with a shotgun in his hands.
*Bullshit.*
Watch the news clip. He states was holding his hands up empty when he entered the room, and the police do not dispute this. There was, according to some reports I have read, a loaded gun in the room.
The fact that you embellished this part of the story makes me suspect that some of your other statements also might be less than the unvarnished truth.
People have been trying to measure intelligence for well over a hundred years now, but I have yet to see anybody precisely and fully define exactly what it is they are measuring.
And don't say IQ - the only thing IQ tests measure is the ability to do IQ tests. Read up on their history. There is nothing scientific about their origin.
Slashdot Mirror
It is a restraint of trade. If it was built into a contract it would be unenforceable at the least, probably illegal in many jurisdictions, although some restrictions in employment contracts are enforceable provided they are, "reasonable."
It tells you something that it had to be a gentleman's agreement. I'm sure if they could have legally put it into employment contracts they would have.
What worries me about this sort of knowledge, is that it could make it possible for political leaders to keep the masses working their asses off just above the breadline. But they can avoid pushing it so far that they get the kind of political activism that might result in regime change.
These days only log in to slashdot to read the fuck beta comments.
Oh yeah.
Fuck the beta.
Mod parent +1 fuckbeta
So I see they have deleted all references to the fuckbeta tag. That didn't take long.
P.S. Fuckbeta.
Please read up on the origin of IQ tests. To the extent they are calibrated to anything apart from other IQ tests, they are calibrated against academic performance. Because they were developed originally by British and French scientists, they are calibrated against specifically European standards of academic performance.
There is no objective, unambiguously defined, quantifiable quality of "intelligence" that IQ tests can be said to measure. It is an entirely subjective test with no real scientific basis. In fact the only thing that IQ tests absolutely and definitely measure is the ability to do IQ tests.
Because IQ tests are calibrated mostly against a cultural artifact (European academic culture) Cultural bias is as likely a reason for variations across different cultures (very closely correlated with different races for obvious reasons) as any other factor.
Until you can rule out cultural bias in any IQ test (and I really don't see how you can) all your theories about genetic differences are meaningless.
For extra bonus points, find me ANY objective, unambiguous and measurable definition of the term, "intelligence."
Someone's job is on the line.
I'm assuming the GP's argument is that the higher than previously expected possibility of life-bearing planets early in the life of the universe increases the possibility of panspermia, all other things being equal.
The probability of panspermia is product of (at least) two other possibilities:
1.) Life exists somewhere
2.) Life is carried though space from one planet to another by some means.
Regardless of the probability of the latter, (which may be infinitesimal in any case) increasing the probability of the former at any point in time increases the overall probability of panspermia.
... So long as there arent thousands of them per day, sure. In millions of vehicles used daily? Preposterous.
Right. Because nobody in their right mind would ride around in vehicles powered by a fuel known to burn violently from the smallest spark or even explode when mixed with air.
The US administration also believes the EIPC suit cannot move forward because it argues the [supreme] court lacks authority under the 2001 Patriot Act to weigh in on the legality of NSA activities.
So how does that work? I thought the Supreme court was the highest authority on the law in the US?
GP's argument:
The last thing we need is awesome tech only spies and generals possess...
Your argument:
No, having the lack of privacy go both ways isn't as good as having privacy.
Which is shooting down a different position to the one the GP took. No one is arguing that privacy for all isn't the best situation. But this technology now exists, so the genie is out of the the bottle and that option is almost certainly off the table.
We now get to choose between the option where a small powerful elite has this technology, and the option where everyone has it.
I, for one, prefer the latter.
Somebody needs to buy it and run it. How much would it cost?
The targets of this idea are not people, but the automated systems that scan all content and communications for random keywords etc. The bots searching for starting points that can be investigated further by humans. The idea is that if too many false postitives are thrown up, the manual parts of the process get overloaded, reducing the value of the automated systems.
Once an individual has the attention of human spooks he's already past the point where this strategy is relevant. So your anecdote is valid, but slightly off-topic.
I totally agree on Retroshare... I saw it and immediately loved it. I've had a hard time convincing non-techy friends and family to start using it though.
I think it just needs to be pushed more, and maybe some of the buggy bits will get a bit more attention.
At https://www.adeccowaytowork.com/en/contact
For example:
You disgust me. I expect never to make use of your services, either looking for my next position, or when I am part of the hiring process where I work.
As an active web developer with a strong network built up over 15 years in the industry, I intend to make sure the details of your parasitic behaviour are shared as widely as possible. Everybody who works in the digital economy will see this as a crime that could have been perpetrated on themselves.
I will encourage everyone I can to see themselves as a potential victim of such cavalier behaviour and to boycott your services therefore. I know how many of my colleagues already despise the way big business flouts IP laws, whilst simultaneously using these same laws to crush players too small to afford protracted legal battles.
You are in a service industry and person you have just ripped off is the archetypal representative of your customer. I can only hope that the impact on your bottom line is what it deserves to be. I will do what I can to encourage everyone to make it so.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/06/22/2316215/how-i-got-fired-from-the-job-i-invented
Yours sincerely,
[name redacted]
Incidently their twitter feed is interesting reading at the moment. As is their facebook page.
If the OP has to help maintain this code, and is also held partially responsible for the performance and robustness of the software, (management tends to see development teams as an amorphous software-producing blob) then the guy IS making his job a lot harder.
So;
When you deliver criticism of someone's code, always be as specific as possible. Choose one class, or function, or whatever and offer an alternative solution which is demonstrably better.
The message should not be, "You fscked up," but, "Hey I found a better pattern for this class of problem, don't you agree?"
Try to make the atmosphere of the interaction collegial rather than instructive. Nobody wants to be corrected, particularly by someone more junior, but if you can persuade him that you just have good ideas you might have a better chance.
You can probably find lots of other advice on effectively delivering criticism, I'm sure people write about this stuff. You can google for it, I can't be bothered.
I'm going to assume that this is a serious question, if slightly fuzzily worded. And that what you want is the best security position that is practical, and still have a computing environment that is useful to you.
So this is going to draw some fire I suspect, but maybe start by reading the PCI DSS Data Security Standard and apply as much as possible of the practical stuff to your environment.
PCI DSS has its issues and its critics and is most definitely not perfect. But it is an attempt by a group comprising of all the major credit and debit card brands to define how to secure a computing environment that is connected to the internet and contains sensitive information.
A lot of it won't be relevant to you. But if you're not trying to achieve compliance, you can throw out the bits you don't need.
Specifically the difference between what the camera has focussed on and what your eye is trying to focus on.
When we look at things In Real Life we look at something close, like our hand, and objects in the background are blurred. Your eye is not focussed on them. If we look out to the middle distance though, our eye quickly re-focusses and things near to us become blurred.
But in a 3D movie this doesn't work. Whether something is in focus or not is decided by whether the CAMERA was focussed at that distance when it was filmed. This is just as true in 3D movies as it is in 2D movies.
Now in a 2D film your eye never changes focus. It's focus is the movie screen. There is the false focus of the camera, but we're used to that. It's one tool (the primary one) the director has for telling us what is significant in the current shot.
In a 3D movie however, apparent distance is changing and your eyes ARE adjusting shot by shot, for parallax at least. But you have to guess what the camera has focussed on, or your eyes are going to strain to focus on objects that will simply never come into focus.
This is why 3D movies are so much more tiring to watch. And one of the reasons why it's not real 3D. And why I'm still suspicious of whether it will ever become the dominant form in the art of cinema.
Interestingly, there is the potential for CGI to make much better 3D movies, for the simple reason that everything can be in focus all the time. I have yet to see a fully CGI movie in 3D I believe.
Discuss,
The original Pacific Fibre project failed technically because of lack of funding, but just as much from international politicking. International infrastructure (intrastructure?) attracts these sorts of issues it would seem. The US didn't want China funding it and really didn't want them providing technology.
And of course theres's already speculation the US would take the same attitude to Kim Dotcom's involvement given they are trying to prosecute him for teh internet crimez.
A cynic might see this as a cynical PR move on his part. He offers The People of NZ goodies and the US government takes them away. He gets to look like the good guy again and it ultimately costs him nothing.
I read once (I think in a post on slashdot a couple of years back) that many hardware manufacturers keep their device drivers proprietary in order to hide the details of the hardware implementation.
And that this is not so much to maintain, "a competitive edge," as to protect themselves from patent lawsuits from their competitors.
So my reference is possibly not the most reliable, but my point is that they might not be hiding stuff just to screw over consumers. There are many other possible reasons.
A closely related bug has kept me on on stuck Kubuntu 10.04. If I try to run an external monitor on my latptop with any variant of *ubuntu from 11.x on - or recent versions of Fedora for that matter - it freezes up.
Every time I log on it asks me to upgrade to 12.04 now. I would dearly love to, but it would render my laptop effectively unusable.
Please watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjALf12PAWc
the slightly scary thing is that you can buy your own ANPR System off the shelf. (I know that geeks can easy create it themselves using motion and some OCR tools - but, imagine selling this to normal people!!
That's not the scary thing. That's the only thing that is at all positive. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. And given that, the most empowering thing you can do for people is to make the same powers of observation available to everybody.
You comment he was waiting for the police, but neglect to mention the fact he was waiting for them with a shotgun in his hands.
*Bullshit.*
Watch the news clip. He states was holding his hands up empty when he entered the room, and the police do not dispute this. There was, according to some reports I have read, a loaded gun in the room.
The fact that you embellished this part of the story makes me suspect that some of your other statements also might be less than the unvarnished truth.
People have been trying to measure intelligence for well over a hundred years now, but I have yet to see anybody precisely and fully define exactly what it is they are measuring.
And don't say IQ - the only thing IQ tests measure is the ability to do IQ tests. Read up on their history. There is nothing scientific about their origin.