Read the terms and conditions of your student loan first, and make sure that you are legally allowed to invest the funds you have obtained, particularly if you have a loan that is subsidized by the federal government. Old Uncle Sam doesn't like seeing his investment in your future put at risk.
I have no objections to the NSA data mining published information (we might change the line to "publish AND perish"). In fact, I think that they should make it very public that they will study social networks and relationships in just the way that this article describes. To get around the logic, terrorists would need to diversify their social interactions, interacting with more non-terrorists than terrorists in order to escape suspicion. I believe very strongly that building relationships is the best way to achieve cross-cultural understanding and peace. It is very possible that terror supporters could change their lives for the better when they enter into new relationships originally designed to avoid detection. If that results from a project of this nature, it could well be to the benefit of all humanity.
Indeed. John Allen Paulos has a very good explanation, available here of why a dragnet system, even with incredible accuracy, will still return a staggering number of false positives. Watch out for some pretty strong political opinions mixed in with sound mathematical reasoning.
The basic idea is that so few people are actually terrorists that any dragnet search will necessarily return more false positives than real leads.
And, just to make their job harder: Gonzales nuclear assasinate device
I did a little poking around, and Bloomberg is the only mainstream news service/news website with any stories about the EFF lawsuit or the Mark Klein statement. How come the general media hasn't picked up this story? Isn't it newsworthy that Ma Bell is being sued for colluding with an illegal government domestic spying dragnet?
When I read the article, I was concerned not with the ease with which a third party could hack the radio signals, but with the problems this technology could cause for regular users who want to take apart their consumer products. If, as the article predicts, these RF fasteners make visible screws and bolts a thing of the past, to be replaced by internal, remote-controlled fasteners, the main result will not be opening up new avenues for design, but limiting users' ability to take apart their devices. In this dystopian future, only qualified service representatives might be authorized to use the coded signals to open up the case on a PC or a phone, for example. Or the fasteners could be rigged to electronically keep track of "tampering" or "unauthorized access." I would prefer to at least have the option to void the warranty without having to smash open the case with a rock!
That's a very good point. I am encouraged becasue there is some recent movement in Evangelical circles to challenge this kind of policy on the climate. Driven by literal interpretation of Genesis, consumption of natural resources was once seen within conservative Chrstian theology as the birthright of humanity. That theology of dominion is starting to give way, now, to a theology of stewardship - still working from the idea that God has given the natural world to humanity, but changing the spin from domination to caretaking, and acknowledging that it is possible to "sin against the creation."
I think there is still a huge cultural gap in America that needs work on both sides to close - religious conservatives need to realize that scientific knowledge doesn't kill God, and scientists need to acknowledge that religion is not a dead weight to be cast off. But, the fact that Evangelicals in America are showing more openness to the science of climate change gives me hope that the conversation at least has a future.
Is it possible that Blizzard banned him not because his activities were violating the Terms of Service per se, but rather because he had the audacity to engage in another form of entertainment whilst he was playing the game? Blizzard was losing critical mindshare to some movie studio or television producer. Their customer might even have seen an advertisement for a rival video-game company - while he was ostensibly using their service. The horror!
I have read some research on MMORPGs that suggests that there is an endless supply of creatures to slay and mobs to fight (i.e. Blizzard keeps the economy running through infusions of resources). If that is true, then I don't think the game qualifies as a zero sum system.
I suspect that the real reason behind this move is actually that Symantec doens't like the L0phtcrack product. I understand from an @Stake/Symantec contact that Symantec views the password-cracking utility almost like a tool of the enemy. Since Symantec is devoted to data protection, while L0pht/@Stake is more about active intrusion, Symantec would probably just as soon see some of the old @Stake products die, most especially L0phtcrack. This may be just a first step, or else Symantec bowing to pressure from foreign clients, perhaps foreign government clients.
Ah, yes. I actually still have the t-shirt I bought to support OLGA's legal defense in the Harry Fox matter. As long as the lyrics weren't with the tabs, they were OK with it, correct?
My guess is that the MPA, or individual members thereof, are planning to launch their own for-profit, possibly subscription based, lyrics website.
That's the only explanation I can think of. The RIAA wants to eliminate free/pirated downloads becuase it cuts into their album sales, or their pay-download site profits. The MPA wants to eliminate free guitar tabs so they can charge instrumentalists for sheet music. IN both cases, there is a for-profit, legal market for those goods. MPA members cannot currently profit in any way from the desire of music fans to know or look up lyrics. So why shut down lyrics sites unless they're planning to find a way to make it profitable for them...
Anybody else agree that they're tired of flavor-of-the-moment words coined to describe this kind of thing. From the article, we get "camsnuffling" and my favorite: "podslurping." The recent "splogs" also comes to mind.
Not only is there no scarcity in this model, as several comments have already made clear, but there is also no way for a consumer to enter the market as a seller. If it were a true, market driven exchange, I would be able to take the track I bought for 25 cents when I liked Indie Band X, and sell it on the exchange for $3.00 when it becomes popular. I could then compete with the recording studio, who might be offering the track at $3.25.
But this won't work, again because of the fact that there is NO REASON for the price to go up as demand increases.
So, to review, we have a market for a commodity that isn't scarce, with a single seller, artificially fixing prices based on volume alone. Where's the market force in this?
No, that is not correct. Assuming that this study controlled for economies of scale, the per unit loss is fixed. It is $126 per unit. If you sell 100 units, you have lost $12,600. If you sell 1,000,000 units, you have lost $126,000,000.
Let me describe what happens when you stick around in a doomed office/company/branch/whatever. Morale gets low, standards of professionalism relax. No one will expect anything from you except to show up, maybe occasionally answer a question or reboot a failing host. You'll start coming to work in sweatpants, playing solitaire all day long, taking two hour lunches. You dream up ways to spend your severance package.
Sounds like a lot of IT workers' dream job, right? But the general attitude is not a good one. You can forget about being motivated to find a new job. A couple of months of coming in to play solitaire, and you're barely motivated to get up to take the two hour lunch. The most common topics of conversation are how many days are left and wouldn't it be nice to be the one guy that gets to keep his job. No new projects to add to your resume. If you're lucky, you get to list "decommissioning" as something you did at this job. What an accomplishment. It takes five thoughtless seconds to power down a server running the product of ten years' loving work. If that's what you want out of your final months with your employer, then read no further.
But if you want to use this time postively, here's my advice. Get your resume together and start interviewing ASAP. See if you can get your current employer to give you a paper promotion now - it may help you get a foot in the door at other firms to have a more important-sounding title. Tell any company that makes you an offer about the severance package, to see if they'll match it, or at least give you something as a signing bonus. Even if you don't get the bonus, if you like the new place, go. Now. If the prospects outside look slim, talk to the dreaded East Coast management team. Find out if there are any opportunities for you to go out there. If nothing else, showing initiative in that way may get them to throw you some additional work, or a leadership role in the decommissioning. The key is to stay motivated, stay focused. Delete the games from your PC. If there are people in your group who are going to stay with the company, talk to them, find out what new projects are going on, if there's anything you can do to help.
Above all, don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that because you're on the chopping block, you're not worth anything. That's what all those negative behaviors I mentioned before are all about. "They think I suck, they don't expect anything out of me, so I'm going to suck, and I'm not going to do anything." If you get trapped into that cycle, it may take longer for you to recover than your severance package can carry you. Just don't fall into the trap.
So, to sum up, do what you need to do to stay motivated and enthusiastic. If decommissioning projects are what you love, stay, and be happy about it. Enjoy your severance. But if you need to have new and engaging projects to work on, I would advise you to get out as soon as you possibly can, severance or not.
This raises a really interesting question about why Leia's ship was near Tatooine in the first place. According to the narrative in Episode IV, she had recieved the stolen plans from the Rebel spies, and was en route to Alderaan to deliver them to her father, Bail Organa, presumably the leader of the rebellion. I have always assumed, since we don't know where they started out from, and since it seems like a relatively short journey from Tatooine to Alderaan, that the ship was damaged and forced to seek shelter at the nearest available system (such as what happens to the Falcon in Episode V).
But then this raises the question of how Princess Leia knows who Obi-Wan Kenobi is, or how she knows that he is located on Tatooine. The end of Episode III tells us that Bail Organa knows this information, and so we need to conclude that he told his daughter. But this raises a startling additional point: Organa also knew that Luke Skywalker was in residence on Tatooine. It coule be that Organa has decided, now that Luke will also be of age, to call in Obi-Wan and Luke to assist the Rebellion. Since none of this is given in the narrative, it isn't very likely that this is Lucas's intent. It is perhaps more likely that Leia has a letter from her dad on the ship that says "Open in case of being marooned on Tatooine - it happens more often than you might think." Or maybe she had an emergency call back home and said "I've blown a tire near Tatooine, who can help me nearby?" Nevertheless, it is interesting to speculate about the possible motives for sending Leia to Obi-Wan at this point in the history of the Rebellion.
So, this service would "allow anyone with a Google Account to post information and other types of data into a massive, Google-run database".
Isn't all data information? I suppose they must be welcoming misinformation, disinformation, and noninformation as well. Sounds like a perfectly cromulent service.
The article is about Google's reputation among venture capitalists and technologists in Silicon Valley, and I do not think it's fair to extend this comparison to Microsoft into the realm of user exeperience.
Microsoft's products in the 1990's were essentially bloated foistware. Their software implemented critical functionality poorly and was outpeformed by other products, but they used marketing tactics bordering on extortion to ensure that they picked up a monopoly on end user operating systems. And they still made us pay for their crappy software.
Google's products in the 2000s are available for free. They compete with other free products for market share, and therefore are differentiated by performance and functionality.
In my opinion, Google is leading the way in good technology implementations, and they deserve to have an industry-leading position. Where they need to be careful is to remain competitive, and not stray into the realm of anticompetitive behavior.
My guess is that they are going to launch some initiatives in nontraditional (for them) categories of business, and maybe one or two will have some success. The rest will fizzle out because the company will not be able to translate its success on the internet to success in other media avenues. If they are smart about how much capital they risk on these projects, they will learn their lesson, and still keep the top spot in the internet-based free services.
I don't think any company can or should expect their workers to turn in 80 hours of work in a week. Even a crisis or release deadline shouldn't require that much work within 7 days. At the point where you have to make a decision like that, it's time to move the deadline - who are you kidding if you think your product is going to be ready when you have to have your people in the office 16 hours a day?
At my company, we have been in a push to release a beta of our new product, and the developers have been working 10-12 hours for the last four weeks. They're getting sick, they're getting frustrated, and the product is not in good shape.
Here is one of the more telling examples of how these long hours offer a diminished return on investment. I wrote the spec for a component and agreed the spec with the development and QA managers two months ago. The component was declared to pass QA four days before beta release. As business owner for that component, it was my responsibility to do UAT at that time. The component was not even close to the spec I had written. As it turned out, the developer never received my spec and programmed on the basis of an earlier incomplete outline doc (more evidence of bad tech management, in my opinion). With four days to ready the component, I ended up working some long hours myself to specify the changes that would be necessary to get things up to snuff. This is where the long developer hours started to take their toll: each time I sent a list of changes to the developer, some would get fixed, others not, and new ones would be generated. And the errors at this point were sloppy: data in the wrong columns; data that had been present before was now missing; and things of that sort. I know from other experience that these developers are not sloppy by nature, and I can only explain this unacceptable output on the basis of the ridiculous schedule.
The conclusion I would draw from all this is that the short term benefits of a push to make a deadline are hugely outweighed by the long term loss to morale, and even in some cases by the loss of quality in the near term.
My friend Tom owns a photo archiving company called The Family Reserve. He offers digital archiving, color correction, and restoration services, specializing in family photo albums.
Ultimately, it might be more effective if the Britons adopt a use tax for city-going automobiles. The tax would be proportional to vehicle size and fuel consumption, and would get higher the closer its place of registration to a major metropolitan area. If the tax was, say, 500GBP per year, people might be induced to sell their cars. A pay-as-you-go system such as the one described seems costly and overburdensome, and that doesn't even consider the privacy aspect.
And while I think that a use tax would work better, I think the whole idea is wrong-headed. Raising the price of operating a vehicle in London, no matter how it is done, is probably not going to decrease traffic all that much. They're trying to solve one problem (too many cars) with the solution to another (not enough money). The solution to the real problem (too many cars) is probably a combination of: innovative motorways to decrease congestion; introduction of better public transportation; and disallowing motor traffic in central areas. This shold all be accompanied by educating the next generation of young people not to think of automotive transport as the inalienable right of every human being.
Slashdot Mirror
Read the terms and conditions of your student loan first, and make sure that you are legally allowed to invest the funds you have obtained, particularly if you have a loan that is subsidized by the federal government. Old Uncle Sam doesn't like seeing his investment in your future put at risk.
I have no objections to the NSA data mining published information (we might change the line to "publish AND perish"). In fact, I think that they should make it very public that they will study social networks and relationships in just the way that this article describes. To get around the logic, terrorists would need to diversify their social interactions, interacting with more non-terrorists than terrorists in order to escape suspicion. I believe very strongly that building relationships is the best way to achieve cross-cultural understanding and peace. It is very possible that terror supporters could change their lives for the better when they enter into new relationships originally designed to avoid detection. If that results from a project of this nature, it could well be to the benefit of all humanity.
You can use clever pseudonymous login names to post on technology websites.
Indeed. John Allen Paulos has a very good explanation, available here of why a dragnet system, even with incredible accuracy, will still return a staggering number of false positives. Watch out for some pretty strong political opinions mixed in with sound mathematical reasoning.
The basic idea is that so few people are actually terrorists that any dragnet search will necessarily return more false positives than real leads.
And, just to make their job harder: Gonzales nuclear assasinate device
I did a little poking around, and Bloomberg is the only mainstream news service/news website with any stories about the EFF lawsuit or the Mark Klein statement. How come the general media hasn't picked up this story? Isn't it newsworthy that Ma Bell is being sued for colluding with an illegal government domestic spying dragnet?
When I read the article, I was concerned not with the ease with which a third party could hack the radio signals, but with the problems this technology could cause for regular users who want to take apart their consumer products. If, as the article predicts, these RF fasteners make visible screws and bolts a thing of the past, to be replaced by internal, remote-controlled fasteners, the main result will not be opening up new avenues for design, but limiting users' ability to take apart their devices. In this dystopian future, only qualified service representatives might be authorized to use the coded signals to open up the case on a PC or a phone, for example. Or the fasteners could be rigged to electronically keep track of "tampering" or "unauthorized access." I would prefer to at least have the option to void the warranty without having to smash open the case with a rock!
That's a very good point. I am encouraged becasue there is some recent movement in Evangelical circles to challenge this kind of policy on the climate. Driven by literal interpretation of Genesis, consumption of natural resources was once seen within conservative Chrstian theology as the birthright of humanity. That theology of dominion is starting to give way, now, to a theology of stewardship - still working from the idea that God has given the natural world to humanity, but changing the spin from domination to caretaking, and acknowledging that it is possible to "sin against the creation."
I think there is still a huge cultural gap in America that needs work on both sides to close - religious conservatives need to realize that scientific knowledge doesn't kill God, and scientists need to acknowledge that religion is not a dead weight to be cast off. But, the fact that Evangelicals in America are showing more openness to the science of climate change gives me hope that the conversation at least has a future.
Is it possible that Blizzard banned him not because his activities were violating the Terms of Service per se, but rather because he had the audacity to engage in another form of entertainment whilst he was playing the game? Blizzard was losing critical mindshare to some movie studio or television producer. Their customer might even have seen an advertisement for a rival video-game company - while he was ostensibly using their service. The horror!
I have read some research on MMORPGs that suggests that there is an endless supply of creatures to slay and mobs to fight (i.e. Blizzard keeps the economy running through infusions of resources). If that is true, then I don't think the game qualifies as a zero sum system.
I suspect that the real reason behind this move is actually that Symantec doens't like the L0phtcrack product. I understand from an @Stake/Symantec contact that Symantec views the password-cracking utility almost like a tool of the enemy. Since Symantec is devoted to data protection, while L0pht/@Stake is more about active intrusion, Symantec would probably just as soon see some of the old @Stake products die, most especially L0phtcrack. This may be just a first step, or else Symantec bowing to pressure from foreign clients, perhaps foreign government clients.
Ah, yes. I actually still have the t-shirt I bought to support OLGA's legal defense in the Harry Fox matter. As long as the lyrics weren't with the tabs, they were OK with it, correct?
My guess is that the MPA, or individual members thereof, are planning to launch their own for-profit, possibly subscription based, lyrics website.
That's the only explanation I can think of. The RIAA wants to eliminate free/pirated downloads becuase it cuts into their album sales, or their pay-download site profits. The MPA wants to eliminate free guitar tabs so they can charge instrumentalists for sheet music. IN both cases, there is a for-profit, legal market for those goods. MPA members cannot currently profit in any way from the desire of music fans to know or look up lyrics. So why shut down lyrics sites unless they're planning to find a way to make it profitable for them...
Anybody else agree that they're tired of flavor-of-the-moment words coined to describe this kind of thing. From the article, we get "camsnuffling" and my favorite: "podslurping." The recent "splogs" also comes to mind.
Not only is there no scarcity in this model, as several comments have already made clear, but there is also no way for a consumer to enter the market as a seller. If it were a true, market driven exchange, I would be able to take the track I bought for 25 cents when I liked Indie Band X, and sell it on the exchange for $3.00 when it becomes popular. I could then compete with the recording studio, who might be offering the track at $3.25.
But this won't work, again because of the fact that there is NO REASON for the price to go up as demand increases.
So, to review, we have a market for a commodity that isn't scarce, with a single seller, artificially fixing prices based on volume alone. Where's the market force in this?
No, that is not correct. Assuming that this study controlled for economies of scale, the per unit loss is fixed. It is $126 per unit. If you sell 100 units, you have lost $12,600. If you sell 1,000,000 units, you have lost $126,000,000.
Let me describe what happens when you stick around in a doomed office/company/branch/whatever. Morale gets low, standards of professionalism relax. No one will expect anything from you except to show up, maybe occasionally answer a question or reboot a failing host. You'll start coming to work in sweatpants, playing solitaire all day long, taking two hour lunches. You dream up ways to spend your severance package.
Sounds like a lot of IT workers' dream job, right? But the general attitude is not a good one. You can forget about being motivated to find a new job. A couple of months of coming in to play solitaire, and you're barely motivated to get up to take the two hour lunch. The most common topics of conversation are how many days are left and wouldn't it be nice to be the one guy that gets to keep his job. No new projects to add to your resume. If you're lucky, you get to list "decommissioning" as something you did at this job. What an accomplishment. It takes five thoughtless seconds to power down a server running the product of ten years' loving work. If that's what you want out of your final months with your employer, then read no further.
But if you want to use this time postively, here's my advice. Get your resume together and start interviewing ASAP. See if you can get your current employer to give you a paper promotion now - it may help you get a foot in the door at other firms to have a more important-sounding title. Tell any company that makes you an offer about the severance package, to see if they'll match it, or at least give you something as a signing bonus. Even if you don't get the bonus, if you like the new place, go. Now. If the prospects outside look slim, talk to the dreaded East Coast management team. Find out if there are any opportunities for you to go out there. If nothing else, showing initiative in that way may get them to throw you some additional work, or a leadership role in the decommissioning. The key is to stay motivated, stay focused. Delete the games from your PC. If there are people in your group who are going to stay with the company, talk to them, find out what new projects are going on, if there's anything you can do to help.
Above all, don't let yourself be fooled into thinking that because you're on the chopping block, you're not worth anything. That's what all those negative behaviors I mentioned before are all about. "They think I suck, they don't expect anything out of me, so I'm going to suck, and I'm not going to do anything." If you get trapped into that cycle, it may take longer for you to recover than your severance package can carry you. Just don't fall into the trap.
So, to sum up, do what you need to do to stay motivated and enthusiastic. If decommissioning projects are what you love, stay, and be happy about it. Enjoy your severance. But if you need to have new and engaging projects to work on, I would advise you to get out as soon as you possibly can, severance or not.
This raises a really interesting question about why Leia's ship was near Tatooine in the first place. According to the narrative in Episode IV, she had recieved the stolen plans from the Rebel spies, and was en route to Alderaan to deliver them to her father, Bail Organa, presumably the leader of the rebellion. I have always assumed, since we don't know where they started out from, and since it seems like a relatively short journey from Tatooine to Alderaan, that the ship was damaged and forced to seek shelter at the nearest available system (such as what happens to the Falcon in Episode V).
But then this raises the question of how Princess Leia knows who Obi-Wan Kenobi is, or how she knows that he is located on Tatooine. The end of Episode III tells us that Bail Organa knows this information, and so we need to conclude that he told his daughter. But this raises a startling additional point: Organa also knew that Luke Skywalker was in residence on Tatooine. It coule be that Organa has decided, now that Luke will also be of age, to call in Obi-Wan and Luke to assist the Rebellion. Since none of this is given in the narrative, it isn't very likely that this is Lucas's intent. It is perhaps more likely that Leia has a letter from her dad on the ship that says "Open in case of being marooned on Tatooine - it happens more often than you might think." Or maybe she had an emergency call back home and said "I've blown a tire near Tatooine, who can help me nearby?" Nevertheless, it is interesting to speculate about the possible motives for sending Leia to Obi-Wan at this point in the history of the Rebellion.
Isn't all data information? I suppose they must be welcoming misinformation, disinformation, and noninformation as well. Sounds like a perfectly cromulent service.
The article is about Google's reputation among venture capitalists and technologists in Silicon Valley, and I do not think it's fair to extend this comparison to Microsoft into the realm of user exeperience.
Microsoft's products in the 1990's were essentially bloated foistware. Their software implemented critical functionality poorly and was outpeformed by other products, but they used marketing tactics bordering on extortion to ensure that they picked up a monopoly on end user operating systems. And they still made us pay for their crappy software.
Google's products in the 2000s are available for free. They compete with other free products for market share, and therefore are differentiated by performance and functionality.
In my opinion, Google is leading the way in good technology implementations, and they deserve to have an industry-leading position. Where they need to be careful is to remain competitive, and not stray into the realm of anticompetitive behavior.
My guess is that they are going to launch some initiatives in nontraditional (for them) categories of business, and maybe one or two will have some success. The rest will fizzle out because the company will not be able to translate its success on the internet to success in other media avenues. If they are smart about how much capital they risk on these projects, they will learn their lesson, and still keep the top spot in the internet-based free services.
there is expected to be a sharp upturn in the number of mail drop customers in Northern Illinois.
At my company, we have been in a push to release a beta of our new product, and the developers have been working 10-12 hours for the last four weeks. They're getting sick, they're getting frustrated, and the product is not in good shape.
Here is one of the more telling examples of how these long hours offer a diminished return on investment. I wrote the spec for a component and agreed the spec with the development and QA managers two months ago. The component was declared to pass QA four days before beta release. As business owner for that component, it was my responsibility to do UAT at that time. The component was not even close to the spec I had written. As it turned out, the developer never received my spec and programmed on the basis of an earlier incomplete outline doc (more evidence of bad tech management, in my opinion). With four days to ready the component, I ended up working some long hours myself to specify the changes that would be necessary to get things up to snuff. This is where the long developer hours started to take their toll: each time I sent a list of changes to the developer, some would get fixed, others not, and new ones would be generated. And the errors at this point were sloppy: data in the wrong columns; data that had been present before was now missing; and things of that sort. I know from other experience that these developers are not sloppy by nature, and I can only explain this unacceptable output on the basis of the ridiculous schedule.
The conclusion I would draw from all this is that the short term benefits of a push to make a deadline are hugely outweighed by the long term loss to morale, and even in some cases by the loss of quality in the near term.
My friend Tom owns a photo archiving company called The Family Reserve. He offers digital archiving, color correction, and restoration services, specializing in family photo albums.
Here's a link to a filing he made in 1996.
And while I think that a use tax would work better, I think the whole idea is wrong-headed. Raising the price of operating a vehicle in London, no matter how it is done, is probably not going to decrease traffic all that much. They're trying to solve one problem (too many cars) with the solution to another (not enough money). The solution to the real problem (too many cars) is probably a combination of: innovative motorways to decrease congestion; introduction of better public transportation; and disallowing motor traffic in central areas. This shold all be accompanied by educating the next generation of young people not to think of automotive transport as the inalienable right of every human being.