As I see it, standard engineering disciplines (mechanical, civil, etc) deal with open standards type of stuff - I can buy a book detailing all the shear and stress factors of given alloys of metal, the load that a pylon of material X can support, etc.
If as a civil engineer I engineer a bridge and it collapses, it's possible for a third party to forensically determine either the beam was improperly constructed, improperly riveted in place, or it was a case of me not carrying the double integral of 2 pi cos 3 delta theta in my design calculations, and as a result the beam was carrying lambda delta 3 cos pi two g Bilbo's constant, an insane amount of stress for that loadbearing item to carry.
If I develop for Microsoft (in doing so, my body of knowledge pertains MOSTLY to that platform, as opposed to portable things like physical constants, etc) software, I have NO IDEA what I'm grafting my code onto. Not even a third party is allowed to wade through MS's code and mine and determine what went wrong. I can't legally reverse engineer the DLL to see what the hell is going on.
Whereas a civil engineer's license is likely to hold cause neither PI nor the load-bearing properties of concrete nor the inherent properties of steel are likely to change any time soon, we're looking in the computer field anyway at things being in a state of constant change.
I worked for FedEx when this came out.
Fred Smith (The CEO) went rather ballistic, if I remember correctly. Not because the company was shamed or anything, he was legitimately fuming that someone would treat a customer's package that way.
I once received a hanger from UPS on my door indicating that they could not deliver my package because they couldn't find my address. Note that they would have had to parse the address properly to leave the paper hanger on my doorknob. The logic of this was lost on the customer service rep.
In any case, though - no offense, but you can't just wrap a computer in a cardboard box, no matter how sturdy, and expect it to survive, with anyone. UPS is crap, for sure. But these places have conveyor belts all over the shop that can't read the word "fragile" and that can throw other packages against your package as well as jamming your package against itself, walls, etc., you can even consider the fact that these packages get crammed into boxes and shifted onto planes. The human who takes your box at the counter will handle it with ginger gloves - the sweating ex-felon trying to get it and 300,000 other boxes onto the plane by 2 am cutoff or else won't.
Matey, for future reference - when shipping, pack the thing in a crate, and send it with a reputable company. Anticipate it being dropped. Anticipate it getting mashed by another package. Anticipate it sitting on a runway in below zero weather.
I'd like to advise this Canadian that his attempt to get back at UPS might not result in him getting his computer replaced (such a Canadian idea - complain and shame the company into refunding your money!) - instead, it might result in a process server hauling HIM into court and winning for millions for "slander", "libel", "daring to back-chat a multi-national" or any such crime.
Yeah, he is still around. He has a new gig, something called tele-presence: in essence an avatar of what you look like is created, and then transformed via a very complex set of equations that get sent real-time down the phone line. It means you can basically achieve things like speech and movement with a sampled model applying transforms rather than digitising and sending each individual frame of what a person is doing. And you don't need tons of bandwidth, either - you can achieve this with a dial-up connection. The power of wavelets.
They've got a set up that kind of looks like jail: Lanier (with dreads still) talking to someone (actually a wall) who's remote, but it looks like they're having a conversation through glass (like a bank teller). Cool stuff.
1) When the pr0nographers came by to say "great technology! Help us make virtual pr0n" from what I understand, he told them to get out of his office. Keeping in mind that the VCR got its start that way, ethics might have cost him
2) VPL (Lanier's company) got sold to a French firm that TOTALLY botched, ruined and shelved the company.
I'm sorry, I didn't want to be too harsh, it's just that leaving a place you've always known and moving to another country is hard enough, without moving into small-town version of same, with way different customs.
Consider this - I happen to really enjoy what I do. For me, doing what I do for a living is enjoyable. It has its drawbacks and its share of headaches, but I happen to enjoy it. On the other hand, staring at a bunch of trees all day would drive me insane.
So to you and the AC who talks about priorities, well, mine is doing what I do.
If you see what they charge for rent and/or real estate around here, you'd understand why. The only way I'd ever be able to afford my own home is to either win the lottery or invest in the next Amazon.com at $2 a share before it goes through the roof...
The only beef I have with "homogenisation" is this... well, first, let me say that when the last socialist is strangled with the entrails of the last "activist", we'll be far better off. I don't care what these shaven-headed balaclava wearing vegan wholefood endorsing socialist collective types say, you bring weapons to a demonstration, you don't anticipate protesting peacefully. Socialism means trying to find someone else to pay your bills, which explains why parts of Canada are cool to live in if you don't want to work, while the economy as a whole is tanking and taxes are going past 60%. Back to my point- the only problem I have with homogenisation is that it kills any regional character. When I went to Haight-Ashbury, at the very corner you had Ben & Jerry's (big corporation), The Gap (Everyone in Tie-Dye!)--- most of the interesting little businesses that were once there were priced out by Asian syndicates pumping out T-shirts ("I went to Haight Ashbury man, and all I got was this far-out T-shirt") etc. And what gets me is, those businesses don't belong there, if you get my drift, any more than Brooks Brothers has any relevance to sponsoring a Dayglow Abortions concert. I don't hate the Gap, but as far as I'm concerned them taking over the boutiques of Haight Ashbury doesn't want me to buy from there - it makes me not want to return to HA, cause it ain't what it was.
Change the tense. Many Chinatowns have kitchens and/or sewing rooms where people make far less than the minimum wage. Dishwashers from Ecuador in NYC making $2.50 an hour. Two choices: complain or be deported. People wanting easily exploitable people don't have to leave the country.
RE: The point I was trying to make is that a Provo does more than speak out about the British occupation -- he lashes out. Where there are Provo's there are often explosions, and while this may be a stunning coincidence, I think it probably has to do with the fact that blowing things up is what the Provos do.
What I'm trying to say is, there may very well be Provo's who just practice law to defend other Provo's, or fundraise. Anyone conspiring to commit a crime or committing a crime should be deported on those bases and those bases alone.
RE: I guess I'm sort of weird in this, but I feel that when we permit people to enter the US it's because they will make a contribution, or at least try.
The flip side of the coin is that they are entitled (and should be entitled) to the same rights. Including freedom of association and freedom of speech.
RE: In either case, if someone takes an oath to kill Americans, this is more than a difference of opinion, and I think it's reasonable to ask them to go away. I don't think it's necessary to wait until a conspiracy to commit a particular act of violence can be proved
The flip side is rounding up all Arabs in a given area and deporting them as a "pre-emptive strike". Like it or not, until there's proof someone's a threat, it is wrong to consider it otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty means exactly that - not innocent until proven guilty if you're a middle class WASP, not guilty based on skin color, creed, race, political affiliation or anything else. Your style of speech indicates you are of British extraction (if I'm wrong please correct me): please don't fall into the "They tried to teach me subtle racism at 6 by putting all these racial caricatures in "The Beano"" trap or the stereotypical Briton "give em a thousand pounds and send em back to where they came from" trap. Because it's a trap. A dark one.
RE: I'm not suggesting that, for instance, Catholics are guilty of the violence in Ireland, and that therefore every Catholic should be expelled. I'm not even suggesting that every Irish Catholic somehows shares the guilt.
What happens when you have a young Catholic emigre who opposes English "occupation" of Ireland (the fact that they're there by invitation is just as lost on the Irish as it is to the huddled masses plotting terror that US soldiers are on Saudi soil ALSO by express invitation), and starts getting VERY vocal, doing everything he can to spread info about "what's going on in Mother Ireland", etc. Should we deport him? How about all those folk we have in exile from other countries wishing the overthrow of their governments? (Gosh, I'd like my family home back from the Red Vietnamese.... Down with the Saudi Royal family...) How do we pick and choose whose protest is protest (Buddhists yelling "Chinese out of Tibet!") and whose is "terrorism" (Moslems yelling "Israelis out of Palestine!")
Let's remove "association", "point of view", etc. from this and just deport people who commit crimes and/or conspire to commit crimes, leaving the Orwellian thoughtcrime concept out of it. As for the "Provisional IRA" sticker example, you'll get some wag trying it on with Customs as a joke and bleating all the way to the ACLU about it, with some reason, if you think about it. If I was to wear a T-shirt that says "SWAT" on it (I bought it at a military surplus place) it's a shirt: if I try to use it to get into Ground Zero in NYC, that's a crime. Owning the shirt isn't the problem. Hope the analogy helps.
RE: I do see your point, and in general I agree. At the very least I think we'd agree that any such organizations need to be chosen with extreme care and only under duress.
I disagree. I think that actions, rather than membership, should dictate what goes on.
RE: However, there is precedent. When a soldier shoot an enemy, he does so because the other is a member of the opposing army, an organization inimical to his country.
The problems we are having now have nothing to do with conventional ideas about war - you in that uniform, me in this one. You have coalitions between, for example, the Saudi royalty, who worry about losing their oil-rich thrones to the rabble yet at the same time finance Bin Laden and Wahabism and refuse to block his bank accounts, and America, who just want to get the people responsible in the name of national security while realising full well there's a whole HOST of devils they're making deals with to do so.... Try bending your head around this: we must get the entire world in line to combat Islamist terrorism. Unless it's in Israel. Or Kashmir. Get the point? Hard sell...
Let's put it this way. Trying to fit a "uniform" on anyone is tricky because of the mercurial nature of things. Last year the Chinese were Satan incarnate, now they're our allies. America was paying for and training Bin Laden against the Russians. Now we're trying to get Russian support against the mujaheddin.
Can we not then, just do it based on what the people are doing?
RE: I don't think the laws of hospitality are so stringent in our culture that our nation's guests must be allowed to conduct themselves destructively, or even rudely. The fact is that they are not our citizens, and while our morals as well as are laws impel us to extend ordinary human rights to all, regardless of citizenship, remaining in the US is not such a right.
Agreed. But membership in an organisation, speech or point of view should not be reasons to deny anyone any rights. Otherwise who knows when you might be next? One final note: 80% of the mosques in the US are Wahabist (the same fundamentalist strain that Bin Laden belongs to). Should we start bombing them? Guilt by association dictates we should: although you and I both agree that would be a horrible crime. That's why I reject it.
I understand what you're getting at- but any legislation that allows one to get rid of, deport, harass or otherwise get after someone based on who he/she hangs out with, versus having committed a crime... opens the door to a LOT of other, scarier ideas.
Let's face it, if someone's a member of a CRIMINAL gang who hasn't committed a crime yet but intends to, he or she has still committed conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to arson, etc.
If we want to become like China, killing people and torturing them for belonging to meditation clubs, or like Afghanistan, trying to suppress any speech or ideas or belonging to any group antithetical to the status quo, let's just hand the victory to the terrorists and be done with it.
RE: Nope, I'm advocating deporting people based on their memberships, not their beliefs. Joining an organization is an action, not a belief.
Ever heard the term "guilt by association"?
RE: Those kids hanging around on your street corner wearing gang colors and trashing the place -- do you want them gone because of their creed, or because they're dangerous, they don't even live in this neighborhood, and maybe they should go piss on the walls of their own houses?
I'd want them gone if and only if they were trashing the place. Regardless of their gang colors, flashing the hand signals, etc. nothing wrong with that. Killing people and trashing stuff is wrong.
What you're advocating is deporting people based on beliefs or creed as opposed to actions.
Whereas our openness is our strength and freedom is our virtue, it's also something that can be used against us. As in, it technically shouldn't be a problem to live in the US and love Osama Bin Laden, so long as you don't mail anthrax and pilot planes into the side of buildings. Think of all the other freedoms that can be abused e.g. free speech, the right to own guns... I mean, you can't stop people from owning guns in this country until they commit a crime with it. The alternative is more frightening, though.
Slashdot Mirror
That's my point. Bankrupt. Soon.
This is a CANADIAN company.
Lest we forget Rebel.com? Corel? The share price of Nortel?
High taxes and the brain drain'll kill this one dead right quick.
As I see it, standard engineering disciplines (mechanical, civil, etc) deal with open standards type of stuff - I can buy a book detailing all the shear and stress factors of given alloys of metal, the load that a pylon of material X can support, etc.
If as a civil engineer I engineer a bridge and it collapses, it's possible for a third party to forensically determine either the beam was improperly constructed, improperly riveted in place, or it was a case of me not carrying the double integral of 2 pi cos 3 delta theta in my design calculations, and as a result the beam was carrying lambda delta 3 cos pi two g Bilbo's constant, an insane amount of stress for that loadbearing item to carry.
If I develop for Microsoft (in doing so, my body of knowledge pertains MOSTLY to that platform, as opposed to portable things like physical constants, etc) software, I have NO IDEA what I'm grafting my code onto. Not even a third party is allowed to wade through MS's code and mine and determine what went wrong. I can't legally reverse engineer the DLL to see what the hell is going on.
Whereas a civil engineer's license is likely to hold cause neither PI nor the load-bearing properties of concrete nor the inherent properties of steel are likely to change any time soon, we're looking in the computer field anyway at things being in a state of constant change.
Guess it wasn't news til one of the COOL people posted it...
Here are your recent submissions to Slashdot, and their status within the system:
2001-11-08 17:14:05 Iron Chef USA!!!!!!! (articles,tv) (rejected)
2001-11-09 19:36:44 Iron Chef USA! (articles,tv) (rejected)
Summary:
rejected (2)
I worked for FedEx when this came out.
Fred Smith (The CEO) went rather ballistic, if I remember correctly. Not because the company was shamed or anything, he was legitimately fuming that someone would treat a customer's package that way.
I once received a hanger from UPS on my door indicating that they could not deliver my package because they couldn't find my address. Note that they would have had to parse the address properly to leave the paper hanger on my doorknob. The logic of this was lost on the customer service rep.
In any case, though - no offense, but you can't just wrap a computer in a cardboard box, no matter how sturdy, and expect it to survive, with anyone. UPS is crap, for sure. But these places have conveyor belts all over the shop that can't read the word "fragile" and that can throw other packages against your package as well as jamming your package against itself, walls, etc., you can even consider the fact that these packages get crammed into boxes and shifted onto planes. The human who takes your box at the counter will handle it with ginger gloves - the sweating ex-felon trying to get it and 300,000 other boxes onto the plane by 2 am cutoff or else won't.
Matey, for future reference - when shipping, pack the thing in a crate, and send it with a reputable company. Anticipate it being dropped. Anticipate it getting mashed by another package. Anticipate it sitting on a runway in below zero weather.
I'd like to advise this Canadian that his attempt to get back at UPS might not result in him getting his computer replaced (such a Canadian idea - complain and shame the company into refunding your money!) - instead, it might result in a process server hauling HIM into court and winning for millions for "slander", "libel", "daring to back-chat a multi-national" or any such crime.
Dude, that looks more like a wrestler promo from a really bad indy outfit somewhere in rural Quebec.
WOW.
Tony Robbins he ain't.
Yeah, he is still around. He has a new gig, something called tele-presence: in essence an avatar of what you look like is created, and then transformed via a very complex set of equations that get sent real-time down the phone line. It means you can basically achieve things like speech and movement with a sampled model applying transforms rather than digitising and sending each individual frame of what a person is doing. And you don't need tons of bandwidth, either - you can achieve this with a dial-up connection. The power of wavelets.
They've got a set up that kind of looks like jail: Lanier (with dreads still) talking to someone (actually a wall) who's remote, but it looks like they're having a conversation through glass (like a bank teller). Cool stuff.
No. No. Iron Chef USA is Iron Chef, done in the USA, with William Shatner as the Chairman. No joke.
I'm sure that the story I submitted about Iron Chef USA (which was Rejected) will be posted soon, with Hemos or CmdrTaco's name plastered on it...
1) When the pr0nographers came by to say "great technology! Help us make virtual pr0n" from what I understand, he told them to get out of his office. Keeping in mind that the VCR got its start that way, ethics might have cost him
2) VPL (Lanier's company) got sold to a French firm that TOTALLY botched, ruined and shelved the company.
BTW Lanier = Jaron Lanier. Look it up.
The "self" refers to the prophecy itself, not the person making it. You can make self-fulfilling prophecies about other people.
Personally, I'd be Blaming Educational Institutions for teaching faulty capitalisation as well as faulty spelling.
I'm sorry, I didn't want to be too harsh, it's just that leaving a place you've always known and moving to another country is hard enough, without moving into small-town version of same, with way different customs.
Consider this - I happen to really enjoy what I do. For me, doing what I do for a living is enjoyable. It has its drawbacks and its share of headaches, but I happen to enjoy it. On the other hand, staring at a bunch of trees all day would drive me insane.
So to you and the AC who talks about priorities, well, mine is doing what I do.
Sure, I could move to a cabin in the Ozarks. But then I'd have to quit my IT job and do something else, like running moonshine.
Anywhere remotely desirable to live is overpriced. Anywhere noone wants to live isn't.
If you see what they charge for rent and/or real estate around here, you'd understand why. The only way I'd ever be able to afford my own home is to either win the lottery or invest in the next Amazon.com at $2 a share before it goes through the roof...
The only beef I have with "homogenisation" is this... well, first, let me say that when the last socialist is strangled with the entrails of the last "activist", we'll be far better off. I don't care what these shaven-headed balaclava wearing vegan wholefood endorsing socialist collective types say, you bring weapons to a demonstration, you don't anticipate protesting peacefully. Socialism means trying to find someone else to pay your bills, which explains why parts of Canada are cool to live in if you don't want to work, while the economy as a whole is tanking and taxes are going past 60%. Back to my point- the only problem I have with homogenisation is that it kills any regional character. When I went to Haight-Ashbury, at the very corner you had Ben & Jerry's (big corporation), The Gap (Everyone in Tie-Dye!)--- most of the interesting little businesses that were once there were priced out by Asian syndicates pumping out T-shirts ("I went to Haight Ashbury man, and all I got was this far-out T-shirt") etc. And what gets me is, those businesses don't belong there, if you get my drift, any more than Brooks Brothers has any relevance to sponsoring a Dayglow Abortions concert. I don't hate the Gap, but as far as I'm concerned them taking over the boutiques of Haight Ashbury doesn't want me to buy from there - it makes me not want to return to HA, cause it ain't what it was.
RE: Yes, we had sweatshops here.
Change the tense. Many Chinatowns have kitchens and/or sewing rooms where people make far less than the minimum wage. Dishwashers from Ecuador in NYC making $2.50 an hour. Two choices: complain or be deported. People wanting easily exploitable people don't have to leave the country.
RE: The point I was trying to make is that a Provo does more than speak out about the British occupation -- he lashes out. Where there are Provo's there are often explosions, and while this may be a stunning coincidence, I think it probably has to do with the fact that blowing things up is what the Provos do.
What I'm trying to say is, there may very well be Provo's who just practice law to defend other Provo's, or fundraise. Anyone conspiring to commit a crime or committing a crime should be deported on those bases and those bases alone.
RE: I guess I'm sort of weird in this, but I feel that when we permit people to enter the US it's because they will make a contribution, or at least try.
The flip side of the coin is that they are entitled (and should be entitled) to the same rights. Including freedom of association and freedom of speech.
RE: In either case, if someone takes an oath to kill Americans, this is more than a difference of opinion, and I think it's reasonable to ask them to go away. I don't think it's necessary to wait until a conspiracy to commit a particular act of violence can be proved
The flip side is rounding up all Arabs in a given area and deporting them as a "pre-emptive strike". Like it or not, until there's proof someone's a threat, it is wrong to consider it otherwise. Innocent until proven guilty means exactly that - not innocent until proven guilty if you're a middle class WASP, not guilty based on skin color, creed, race, political affiliation or anything else. Your style of speech indicates you are of British extraction (if I'm wrong please correct me): please don't fall into the "They tried to teach me subtle racism at 6 by putting all these racial caricatures in "The Beano"" trap or the stereotypical Briton "give em a thousand pounds and send em back to where they came from" trap. Because it's a trap. A dark one.
RE: I'm not suggesting that, for instance, Catholics are guilty of the violence in Ireland, and that therefore every Catholic should be expelled. I'm not even suggesting that every Irish Catholic somehows shares the guilt.
What happens when you have a young Catholic emigre who opposes English "occupation" of Ireland (the fact that they're there by invitation is just as lost on the Irish as it is to the huddled masses plotting terror that US soldiers are on Saudi soil ALSO by express invitation), and starts getting VERY vocal, doing everything he can to spread info about "what's going on in Mother Ireland", etc. Should we deport him? How about all those folk we have in exile from other countries wishing the overthrow of their governments? (Gosh, I'd like my family home back from the Red Vietnamese.... Down with the Saudi Royal family...) How do we pick and choose whose protest is protest (Buddhists yelling "Chinese out of Tibet!") and whose is "terrorism" (Moslems yelling "Israelis out of Palestine!")
Let's remove "association", "point of view", etc. from this and just deport people who commit crimes and/or conspire to commit crimes, leaving the Orwellian thoughtcrime concept out of it. As for the "Provisional IRA" sticker example, you'll get some wag trying it on with Customs as a joke and bleating all the way to the ACLU about it, with some reason, if you think about it. If I was to wear a T-shirt that says "SWAT" on it (I bought it at a military surplus place) it's a shirt: if I try to use it to get into Ground Zero in NYC, that's a crime. Owning the shirt isn't the problem. Hope the analogy helps.
RE: I do see your point, and in general I agree. At the very least I think we'd agree that any such organizations need to be chosen with extreme care and only under duress.
I disagree. I think that actions, rather than membership, should dictate what goes on.
RE: However, there is precedent. When a soldier shoot an enemy, he does so because the other is a member of the opposing army, an organization inimical to his country.
The problems we are having now have nothing to do with conventional ideas about war - you in that uniform, me in this one. You have coalitions between, for example, the Saudi royalty, who worry about losing their oil-rich thrones to the rabble yet at the same time finance Bin Laden and Wahabism and refuse to block his bank accounts, and America, who just want to get the people responsible in the name of national security while realising full well there's a whole HOST of devils they're making deals with to do so.... Try bending your head around this: we must get the entire world in line to combat Islamist terrorism. Unless it's in Israel. Or Kashmir. Get the point? Hard sell...
Let's put it this way. Trying to fit a "uniform" on anyone is tricky because of the mercurial nature of things. Last year the Chinese were Satan incarnate, now they're our allies. America was paying for and training Bin Laden against the Russians. Now we're trying to get Russian support against the mujaheddin.
Can we not then, just do it based on what the people are doing?
RE: I don't think the laws of hospitality are so stringent in our culture that our nation's guests must be allowed to conduct themselves destructively, or even rudely. The fact is that they are not our citizens, and while our morals as well as are laws impel us to extend ordinary human rights to all, regardless of citizenship, remaining in the US is not such a right.
Agreed. But membership in an organisation, speech or point of view should not be reasons to deny anyone any rights. Otherwise who knows when you might be next? One final note: 80% of the mosques in the US are Wahabist (the same fundamentalist strain that Bin Laden belongs to). Should we start bombing them? Guilt by association dictates we should: although you and I both agree that would be a horrible crime. That's why I reject it.
I understand what you're getting at- but any legislation that allows one to get rid of, deport, harass or otherwise get after someone based on who he/she hangs out with, versus having committed a crime... opens the door to a LOT of other, scarier ideas.
Let's face it, if someone's a member of a CRIMINAL gang who hasn't committed a crime yet but intends to, he or she has still committed conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to arson, etc.
If we want to become like China, killing people and torturing them for belonging to meditation clubs, or like Afghanistan, trying to suppress any speech or ideas or belonging to any group antithetical to the status quo, let's just hand the victory to the terrorists and be done with it.
RE: Nope, I'm advocating deporting people based on their memberships, not their beliefs. Joining an organization is an action, not a belief.
Ever heard the term "guilt by association"?
RE: Those kids hanging around on your street corner wearing gang colors and trashing the place -- do you want them gone because of their creed, or because they're dangerous, they don't even live in this neighborhood, and maybe they should go piss on the walls of their own houses?
I'd want them gone if and only if they were trashing the place. Regardless of their gang colors, flashing the hand signals, etc. nothing wrong with that. Killing people and trashing stuff is wrong.
What you're advocating is deporting people based on beliefs or creed as opposed to actions.
Whereas our openness is our strength and freedom is our virtue, it's also something that can be used against us. As in, it technically shouldn't be a problem to live in the US and love Osama Bin Laden, so long as you don't mail anthrax and pilot planes into the side of buildings. Think of all the other freedoms that can be abused e.g. free speech, the right to own guns... I mean, you can't stop people from owning guns in this country until they commit a crime with it. The alternative is more frightening, though.