Going to go out on a limb here, and say that none of them want him badly enough to storm another nation's embassy. If he was walking down a street? Yes. On a boat somewhere? Yes. Going in with your own troops, which will be played and replayed a few thousand times by the worldwide media, showing people in SWAT gear pointing large guns at unarmed civilians...and God help them if they shoot someone in the process, someone unarmed. Like the chief diplomat's son or daughter. Because we all know trigger fingers slip, and there's a fair chance that someone on either or both sides will try to play hero. They might get Julian, they might even 'accidentally' kill him, and in doing so, create both a martyr and a firestorm which, IMHO, the Crown probably doesn't want any part of.
So the question, asked somewhat quietly, will be: can they storm the embassy and guarantee not a single causality? Can the UK, right next to mainland Europe which is undergoing some powerful difficulties at the moment, survive all attention suddenly turning to it? "In the News this month: the UK hosts the Olympic Summer Games of 2012 in the spirit of global community & friendship, then proceeds to 'accidentally' put a cap in Julian Assange's ass during a botched raid of another sovereign country's embassy. Several nations have withdrawn or severed ties with the UK over the incident, while others have removed key diplomats, which heralds a darkening of relations for the troubled Isles. Next up, the continued plunge of the Euro, and what this means to the UK's financial district."
Agreed. Storming an embassy is the sovereign equivalent of pulling a pin on a grenade, and rolling it into crowd to stop one suspect from escaping; he'd damn better be worth it, as the ramifications of this action will appear in seemingly unconnected places.
Every time the UK goes to negotiate a trade treaty, the other party will bring up this incident as leverage. Every. Single. Time. Diplomats' ears are going to bleed from hearing it so much. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't matter that Ecuador is a third-world country, or that other sovereigns might agree that Julian should be dragged through the hot coals of hell for exposing their borderline non-secrets; it will still be an expensive operation, and one which will earn the UK a black mark.
And the Romans said the same...near the beginning of their empire, the currency was fairly close to gold...by its end, it did not contain any. Surprised anyone could study Ancient History, and miss that.
Indeed. It never ceases to amaze me how few people track real value versus face value. It's like the idea that there could ever be a problem, or that the silent increase of the money supply is quietly stealing wealth from their savings accounts (via demand / supply curve), is so horrible, they clamp their hands over their ears at the slightest hint of its mention.
I myself tend to track, as a hobby, the capacity of the dollar to buy various items, as well as how it stacks against other currencies. It means little to me if I am a millionaire, but have trouble buying a loaf of bread.
Question was somewhat unrelated to BitCoins, more in line with the chronic silliness than some of the programmers of Wall St. @ some of the larger financial houses have said they deal with on a daily basis.
Indeed. Was reading an article about x87 floating point precision, and the difference between compilers the other day. There are are at least two different flags that can be used with straight floats, giving different levels of precision. I think it was interesting how some compilers will convert a float to a double, then cast back to a float at the end of the operation.
Your physics teacher was a good man / woman. I've looked at the criteria for non-SE / CS degrees at my alma mater, and the other majors tend to get the shaft when it comes to learning programming -> just enough to be dangerous, not enough to know that it is dangerous.
And I believe the British are covered, in the case of this eventuality. They have a law, if I remember correctly, that punishes anyone who finds a philosopher's stone; apparently, there was quite a scare a few centuries ago that the alchemists would actually find one, so the Crown made a pre-emptive strike (you know, in case someone begins producing gold in copious quantities, which would drive the price down). If any of those alchemists succeeded in finding a solution (right guys?), they're probably very slowly selling their products off, to keep the demand high.
I could answer this one two ways, but I'm going to go with blaming the victim on this one. There have been a rash of thefts surrounding BitCoin wallets in some of the stupidest ways (any number of BitCoin sites, for God knows what reason, have been using MySQL for their backend, and more than a few have been using PHP) -> show of hands on/., if you were designing / developing a website that dealt primarily with money, would you use MySQL? And why not?
Your wallet.dat file is your wallet. BitCoins = cash. Think about online areas the same way you think about offline areas -> there this dude who wants to hold my wallet for me, I don't really know him, but everyone else seems to trust him, even though he's only been standing on this street corner for about 5 minutes, and has all the wallets in a 20 gallon transparent plastic bag...should I trust him as well? Fuck no. Put your wallet on your cellphone or usb keychain or anything that you can see, and PHP encrypt it. Don't know what PGP is? Good news, it's the equivalent of Fort Knox, has been around for a long time, and is the key to not hating yourself if / when you store over $1,000 worth of BitCoins in your wallet and have it stolen because you couldn't be troubled to lock the f*cking door. Takes like 30 minutes, possibly less, to find a helpful tech (something above the level 1 hell-desk types, find a domain / network admin, bring tea as a peace offering), have him / her generate the key and set you up.
Bonus question -> since I know a few of you are interested in getting into the financial district -> what is the natural consequence of using floating point data types for fiscal transactions?
Because hacking = 'the great unknown', so far as the unwashed masses are concerned. It's a small culture, with a lot of 'hidden knowledge,' that a lot of people who want to change how things work are naturally drawn to (because it gives them a lever to work with). The amount of disinformation surrounding it compares favorably with Judaism during the Middle Ages.
Not once is it pointed out to the common folk that while programmers could, like most scientists, engineers, or, I don't know, bankers wreck the world if even 1% of them said "Let's fuck 'em all" and started pushing in the same direction; the world itself has continued to survive for millenia, despite all of that potential. No one knows why. But since DHS & friends didn't even exist for much of those time periods, we know it's not do to their efforts. However, I have no doubt that if these types are harassed, more and more, while their art is cramped, it will almost certainly convince them that there is a mounting problem that needs to be dealt with; now, various parties have strange ideas how that might happen, and have positioned themselves to profit should they react as predicted; once again, this is unlikely -> if something does happen, it will have the effect of a monkey wrench thrown into an online generator. Maybe nothing, maybe something YouTube worthy, maybe a news report, or maybe a continent goes missing.
Eat a dick, you need one. Their culture is fine, might as well move to Texas and complain about all the guns.
Actually, you should do that, as I'm sure the Texans would give a big hearty welcome to someone who pops off the plane, and starts calling them all gun-toting psychopaths.
Yes, but the hacker culture has money, apparently, which is why this is even been brought up right now. It's simply a prelude to a deluge of lawsuits, which will destroy the culture, set the affected countries back about 40 years (economically speaking), and leave the historians picking over the refuse to come up with some inaccurate explanation for the collapse.
The original, or the new one? The original was supposedly started by RP followers (and almost immediately, all libertarians of any intelligence were attaching sticks of dynamite to any perceived ties between it and libertarians in general, because of...) while the new one was the old one, taken over about 5 minutes (politically speaking) after the Republicans needed something, anything, to re-energize their base, and thought this might be it. Which again, is why I, like most libertarians, held the Tea Party at sword's edge within a day or two of having heard about it, realizing that it wasn't something new, but something old -> a plank, that the Republicans were planning to walk over, and board our ship. Hence the dynamite, and the run to the Qwik-E-Mart for a box of storm proof matches.
But you have to hand it to the RP-libertarians...they are a tenacious bunch, filled with idealism, who steadfastly believe that the Republican Party could be 'saved.' However, after that Louisiana party convention, I think any stragglers in the Republican party have received the message: you're welcome as a second-class citizen, here to serve and bow, and never offer a word of disagreement, as we don't give a f*ck what you think. Even in my own household, I am receiving the scare treatment about Obama, and how Romney is 'our only hope'; it's fascinating watching the scare-game, especially when you have nothing to lose (something like that). The Republicans have had 8 years, in recent memory, to get their sh*t together; and on the way out, their commander-in-chief, tells us that 'I had to betray the free market, in order to save it' -> no, you ass, you didn't! You turned out like every other president, throughout history, who became captain of the ship, but having conspired to the position, had no plan for dealing with the true power-brokers once you achieved it. You became too indebted, listened too much to your friends, who saw you only as a fool they could make king, a puppet they could control. And the absolute saddest, the most tragic, part of it all, is that you showed us that you were weak. You were in a position of power, and you reminded us that even though you had climbed to high (politically speaking), you still had to bow and serve your silent masters. Since you call yourself a Christian, praying with people in robes, or so they've told us, you will be reminded that your Deity has written in his book something to the tune of "Woe be to the nation whose king is a servant." And yes, we are not a monarchy, so perhaps it does not apply, but I believe the idea behind it does hold some quiet wisdom -> you cannot truthfully pilot a nation to grandeur, pleasing the mortals or the gods, and be beholden to the powers operating behind the throne. If this were Britain, and you ascended to the throne with the help of the East India Trading Company, you know as well as I do, that their interests would find a seemingly irritating way of injecting themselves into otherwise straightforward legislation. If you've found yourself in debt to these interests, assume not the position until you are free of them. Self-sabotage if necessary.
Hmm. I always thought that they were saying that the happiness they were peddling was supposed to be superior to the happiness attained in this life, but then, I tend to just watch them violate their own rules, and quietly shuffle them into the category of hypocrites. Which is one of my quieter charms: in so far as I refuse to accept the validity of any law until it has been aggressively tested by myself or certain, trusted others, it's very hard to find myself being a hypocrite; being wrong doesn't carry any psychological weight (being wrong in of itself is no pain; however, the social requirements of being wrong are a chafing irritation; depending on what culture you come from, they tend to over-stress one part of the overall process, with many of them simply getting stuck in one part of it; endless loops of stupidity, as I twiddle my thumbs, waiting for others to gradually reach the conclusion I met hours, days, weeks, or months ago; I've since discovered that many of these individuals are actually mentally ill, as they ruminate on the memory of the implied mistake, constantly fixating on it, over and over again, until a molehill becomes a mountain), so updates are theoretically faster.
You want to play {holy man}? Fine. But for the love of {deity}, don't lie and say the money you're collecting is for {gender of deity}; it's for your own ass, pure and simple. But no, you mock your own {deity} by playing light music while passing around plates or bowls during the service supposedly dedicated to their spiritual enrichment. Yes, yes, you quote from your book about how money is sinful, or how you are too wrapped up in your studies to take a common job, or how your {deity} will provide for you from his own mouth, but it's the hands of the people which are providing you with the money you are so keen on receiving.
Sure, if your {deity} shows up with a magical {apparatus} that lets you get whatever you want without the need for fiscal transactions, by all means, accept my apologies; otherwise, realize the reality of the situation you are in.
At the very least, use a bloody donation box outside the main hall instead of your plates / bowls. I know, I know, without the psychological duress or social shunning that goes with watching who does and does not donate during a service ("That's the third week that Mrs. Bennings hasn't put something on the tray, perhaps we should approach her as a group, and ask her if everything is alright?"), the donations might be a little light; if this is a problem for you, consider a new occupation. Or do the priestly thing part-time, like many of your founding members supposedly did. Yes, it sucks, I know you want a leisurely lifestyle in which you have a 1.5-hour work week, and more money that you can imagine, all for wearing some funny clothes once in a while, and reading some verses / sutras / passages / whatever; no, that's not how things are meant to work.
Or they could simply be 'led' by the researchers into giving them the answers they 'want.'
Were I a big pharmaceutical, I'd be waking up in cold sweats over this trend, as sooner or later (right now, actually), I am manufacturing new drugs which are purely placebo in effect. Now, the sugar pills industry does work, for a while, in the same way that using the employee's pension fund for petty cash works for a while, but sooner or later, lawsuits will happen, and my shareholders will be pissed.
And yet, supposedly, the effectiveness of placebos is rising. What does this tell us? Human beings are becoming more pliable / suggestive, which is not a good thing.
For one, that level of pliability is probably a prelude to something really horrible, the least of which is a Justice / Legal system that will operate in "sideways mode." Not a problem until you're convicted of something you didn't do. But if you make sure you are always wealthy / powerful enough, it shouldn't ever be a problem.
*Attempt* to take ownership of the things you developed on your own time.
As for going to another employer, in theory, so long as it is a different (enough) implementation of the same algorithm, intellectual property laws say it is good to go.
Oh, I'm sure any implementation he developed at GS, while using company resources, belongs to GS. However, the courts frown on the idea of non-competes or contracts which clauses that banish a person from their chosen field should they leave their current employer. It would be as asking a mason or carpenter to never build a stone archway or wooden table again -> in such cases, those contracts only hold up if an employer is willing to offer (equal or greater to their current salary / benefits) consideration for the time spent not working.
Nonsense. His previous employers own the implementation that they paid for, they do not own the idea itself.
Were such a thing possible, web developers would be up to their eyes in lawsuits, as every implementation of a website after the first one would be grounds for a case.
Slashdot Mirror
Going to go out on a limb here, and say that none of them want him badly enough to storm another nation's embassy. If he was walking down a street? Yes. On a boat somewhere? Yes. Going in with your own troops, which will be played and replayed a few thousand times by the worldwide media, showing people in SWAT gear pointing large guns at unarmed civilians...and God help them if they shoot someone in the process, someone unarmed. Like the chief diplomat's son or daughter. Because we all know trigger fingers slip, and there's a fair chance that someone on either or both sides will try to play hero. They might get Julian, they might even 'accidentally' kill him, and in doing so, create both a martyr and a firestorm which, IMHO, the Crown probably doesn't want any part of.
So the question, asked somewhat quietly, will be: can they storm the embassy and guarantee not a single causality? Can the UK, right next to mainland Europe which is undergoing some powerful difficulties at the moment, survive all attention suddenly turning to it? "In the News this month: the UK hosts the Olympic Summer Games of 2012 in the spirit of global community & friendship, then proceeds to 'accidentally' put a cap in Julian Assange's ass during a botched raid of another sovereign country's embassy. Several nations have withdrawn or severed ties with the UK over the incident, while others have removed key diplomats, which heralds a darkening of relations for the troubled Isles. Next up, the continued plunge of the Euro, and what this means to the UK's financial district."
Agreed. Storming an embassy is the sovereign equivalent of pulling a pin on a grenade, and rolling it into crowd to stop one suspect from escaping; he'd damn better be worth it, as the ramifications of this action will appear in seemingly unconnected places.
Every time the UK goes to negotiate a trade treaty, the other party will bring up this incident as leverage. Every. Single. Time. Diplomats' ears are going to bleed from hearing it so much. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't matter that Ecuador is a third-world country, or that other sovereigns might agree that Julian should be dragged through the hot coals of hell for exposing their borderline non-secrets; it will still be an expensive operation, and one which will earn the UK a black mark.
And the Romans said the same...near the beginning of their empire, the currency was fairly close to gold...by its end, it did not contain any. Surprised anyone could study Ancient History, and miss that.
And we've seen the wonders they've worked since then. Only 5 more QEs before hyperflation sets in...
In response...perhaps that's why they're so against an audit of the precious metal supply @ Ft. Knox?
Indeed. It never ceases to amaze me how few people track real value versus face value. It's like the idea that there could ever be a problem, or that the silent increase of the money supply is quietly stealing wealth from their savings accounts (via demand / supply curve), is so horrible, they clamp their hands over their ears at the slightest hint of its mention.
I myself tend to track, as a hobby, the capacity of the dollar to buy various items, as well as how it stacks against other currencies. It means little to me if I am a millionaire, but have trouble buying a loaf of bread.
Question was somewhat unrelated to BitCoins, more in line with the chronic silliness than some of the programmers of Wall St. @ some of the larger financial houses have said they deal with on a daily basis.
Indeed. Was reading an article about x87 floating point precision, and the difference between compilers the other day. There are are at least two different flags that can be used with straight floats, giving different levels of precision. I think it was interesting how some compilers will convert a float to a double, then cast back to a float at the end of the operation.
Your physics teacher was a good man / woman. I've looked at the criteria for non-SE / CS degrees at my alma mater, and the other majors tend to get the shaft when it comes to learning programming -> just enough to be dangerous, not enough to know that it is dangerous.
And I believe the British are covered, in the case of this eventuality. They have a law, if I remember correctly, that punishes anyone who finds a philosopher's stone; apparently, there was quite a scare a few centuries ago that the alchemists would actually find one, so the Crown made a pre-emptive strike (you know, in case someone begins producing gold in copious quantities, which would drive the price down). If any of those alchemists succeeded in finding a solution (right guys?), they're probably very slowly selling their products off, to keep the demand high.
I could answer this one two ways, but I'm going to go with blaming the victim on this one. There have been a rash of thefts surrounding BitCoin wallets in some of the stupidest ways (any number of BitCoin sites, for God knows what reason, have been using MySQL for their backend, and more than a few have been using PHP) -> show of hands on /., if you were designing / developing a website that dealt primarily with money, would you use MySQL? And why not?
Your wallet.dat file is your wallet. BitCoins = cash. Think about online areas the same way you think about offline areas -> there this dude who wants to hold my wallet for me, I don't really know him, but everyone else seems to trust him, even though he's only been standing on this street corner for about 5 minutes, and has all the wallets in a 20 gallon transparent plastic bag...should I trust him as well? Fuck no. Put your wallet on your cellphone or usb keychain or anything that you can see, and PHP encrypt it. Don't know what PGP is? Good news, it's the equivalent of Fort Knox, has been around for a long time, and is the key to not hating yourself if / when you store over $1,000 worth of BitCoins in your wallet and have it stolen because you couldn't be troubled to lock the f*cking door. Takes like 30 minutes, possibly less, to find a helpful tech (something above the level 1 hell-desk types, find a domain / network admin, bring tea as a peace offering), have him / her generate the key and set you up.
Bonus question -> since I know a few of you are interested in getting into the financial district -> what is the natural consequence of using floating point data types for fiscal transactions?
Everyone! Everyone look at him!
He doesn't understand how his own country's currency works.
Because hacking = 'the great unknown', so far as the unwashed masses are concerned. It's a small culture, with a lot of 'hidden knowledge,' that a lot of people who want to change how things work are naturally drawn to (because it gives them a lever to work with). The amount of disinformation surrounding it compares favorably with Judaism during the Middle Ages.
Not once is it pointed out to the common folk that while programmers could, like most scientists, engineers, or, I don't know, bankers wreck the world if even 1% of them said "Let's fuck 'em all" and started pushing in the same direction; the world itself has continued to survive for millenia, despite all of that potential. No one knows why. But since DHS & friends didn't even exist for much of those time periods, we know it's not do to their efforts. However, I have no doubt that if these types are harassed, more and more, while their art is cramped, it will almost certainly convince them that there is a mounting problem that needs to be dealt with; now, various parties have strange ideas how that might happen, and have positioned themselves to profit should they react as predicted; once again, this is unlikely -> if something does happen, it will have the effect of a monkey wrench thrown into an online generator. Maybe nothing, maybe something YouTube worthy, maybe a news report, or maybe a continent goes missing.
Eat a dick, you need one. Their culture is fine, might as well move to Texas and complain about all the guns.
Actually, you should do that, as I'm sure the Texans would give a big hearty welcome to someone who pops off the plane, and starts calling them all gun-toting psychopaths.
Yes, but the hacker culture has money, apparently, which is why this is even been brought up right now. It's simply a prelude to a deluge of lawsuits, which will destroy the culture, set the affected countries back about 40 years (economically speaking), and leave the historians picking over the refuse to come up with some inaccurate explanation for the collapse.
Oh God, I wish. The reality is, they're just a different culture; appreciate it, or leave it.
The original, or the new one? The original was supposedly started by RP followers (and almost immediately, all libertarians of any intelligence were attaching sticks of dynamite to any perceived ties between it and libertarians in general, because of...) while the new one was the old one, taken over about 5 minutes (politically speaking) after the Republicans needed something, anything, to re-energize their base, and thought this might be it. Which again, is why I, like most libertarians, held the Tea Party at sword's edge within a day or two of having heard about it, realizing that it wasn't something new, but something old -> a plank, that the Republicans were planning to walk over, and board our ship. Hence the dynamite, and the run to the Qwik-E-Mart for a box of storm proof matches.
But you have to hand it to the RP-libertarians...they are a tenacious bunch, filled with idealism, who steadfastly believe that the Republican Party could be 'saved.' However, after that Louisiana party convention, I think any stragglers in the Republican party have received the message: you're welcome as a second-class citizen, here to serve and bow, and never offer a word of disagreement, as we don't give a f*ck what you think. Even in my own household, I am receiving the scare treatment about Obama, and how Romney is 'our only hope'; it's fascinating watching the scare-game, especially when you have nothing to lose (something like that). The Republicans have had 8 years, in recent memory, to get their sh*t together; and on the way out, their commander-in-chief, tells us that 'I had to betray the free market, in order to save it' -> no, you ass, you didn't! You turned out like every other president, throughout history, who became captain of the ship, but having conspired to the position, had no plan for dealing with the true power-brokers once you achieved it. You became too indebted, listened too much to your friends, who saw you only as a fool they could make king, a puppet they could control. And the absolute saddest, the most tragic, part of it all, is that you showed us that you were weak. You were in a position of power, and you reminded us that even though you had climbed to high (politically speaking), you still had to bow and serve your silent masters. Since you call yourself a Christian, praying with people in robes, or so they've told us, you will be reminded that your Deity has written in his book something to the tune of "Woe be to the nation whose king is a servant." And yes, we are not a monarchy, so perhaps it does not apply, but I believe the idea behind it does hold some quiet wisdom -> you cannot truthfully pilot a nation to grandeur, pleasing the mortals or the gods, and be beholden to the powers operating behind the throne. If this were Britain, and you ascended to the throne with the help of the East India Trading Company, you know as well as I do, that their interests would find a seemingly irritating way of injecting themselves into otherwise straightforward legislation. If you've found yourself in debt to these interests, assume not the position until you are free of them. Self-sabotage if necessary.
But there I go again, tilting at windmills...
Hmm. I always thought that they were saying that the happiness they were peddling was supposed to be superior to the happiness attained in this life, but then, I tend to just watch them violate their own rules, and quietly shuffle them into the category of hypocrites. Which is one of my quieter charms: in so far as I refuse to accept the validity of any law until it has been aggressively tested by myself or certain, trusted others, it's very hard to find myself being a hypocrite; being wrong doesn't carry any psychological weight (being wrong in of itself is no pain; however, the social requirements of being wrong are a chafing irritation; depending on what culture you come from, they tend to over-stress one part of the overall process, with many of them simply getting stuck in one part of it; endless loops of stupidity, as I twiddle my thumbs, waiting for others to gradually reach the conclusion I met hours, days, weeks, or months ago; I've since discovered that many of these individuals are actually mentally ill, as they ruminate on the memory of the implied mistake, constantly fixating on it, over and over again, until a molehill becomes a mountain), so updates are theoretically faster.
You want to play {holy man}? Fine. But for the love of {deity}, don't lie and say the money you're collecting is for {gender of deity}; it's for your own ass, pure and simple. But no, you mock your own {deity} by playing light music while passing around plates or bowls during the service supposedly dedicated to their spiritual enrichment. Yes, yes, you quote from your book about how money is sinful, or how you are too wrapped up in your studies to take a common job, or how your {deity} will provide for you from his own mouth, but it's the hands of the people which are providing you with the money you are so keen on receiving.
Sure, if your {deity} shows up with a magical {apparatus} that lets you get whatever you want without the need for fiscal transactions, by all means, accept my apologies; otherwise, realize the reality of the situation you are in.
At the very least, use a bloody donation box outside the main hall instead of your plates / bowls. I know, I know, without the psychological duress or social shunning that goes with watching who does and does not donate during a service ("That's the third week that Mrs. Bennings hasn't put something on the tray, perhaps we should approach her as a group, and ask her if everything is alright?"), the donations might be a little light; if this is a problem for you, consider a new occupation. Or do the priestly thing part-time, like many of your founding members supposedly did. Yes, it sucks, I know you want a leisurely lifestyle in which you have a 1.5-hour work week, and more money that you can imagine, all for wearing some funny clothes once in a while, and reading some verses / sutras / passages / whatever; no, that's not how things are meant to work.
Or they could simply be 'led' by the researchers into giving them the answers they 'want.'
Were I a big pharmaceutical, I'd be waking up in cold sweats over this trend, as sooner or later (right now, actually), I am manufacturing new drugs which are purely placebo in effect. Now, the sugar pills industry does work, for a while, in the same way that using the employee's pension fund for petty cash works for a while, but sooner or later, lawsuits will happen, and my shareholders will be pissed.
And yet, supposedly, the effectiveness of placebos is rising. What does this tell us? Human beings are becoming more pliable / suggestive, which is not a good thing.
For one, that level of pliability is probably a prelude to something really horrible, the least of which is a Justice / Legal system that will operate in "sideways mode." Not a problem until you're convicted of something you didn't do. But if you make sure you are always wealthy / powerful enough, it shouldn't ever be a problem.
Social policies implemented with technology. They haven't learned, and continue to refuse to.
The blowback from this will probably be the eventual destruction of Google itself.
*Attempt* to take ownership of the things you developed on your own time.
As for going to another employer, in theory, so long as it is a different (enough) implementation of the same algorithm, intellectual property laws say it is good to go.
Oh, I'm sure any implementation he developed at GS, while using company resources, belongs to GS. However, the courts frown on the idea of non-competes or contracts which clauses that banish a person from their chosen field should they leave their current employer. It would be as asking a mason or carpenter to never build a stone archway or wooden table again -> in such cases, those contracts only hold up if an employer is willing to offer (equal or greater to their current salary / benefits) consideration for the time spent not working.
Nonsense. His previous employers own the implementation that they paid for, they do not own the idea itself.
Were such a thing possible, web developers would be up to their eyes in lawsuits, as every implementation of a website after the first one would be grounds for a case.
And that will next Tuesday's project. Some food dye, some breakfast items, and the results.