About time. SCSI has a 32-bit block number built into the protocol. With 512 byte blocks, that a 2 TB architectural limit. We can expect to be able to buy a 2 TB disk off the retailer's shelf in another two or three years.
This whole “worker shortage” thing is completely idiotic.
The problem is not that there is a worker shortage.
The problem is that there is a slave shortage.
IT management comes up with some idea of what they think a position is worth.
That is always some minimal amount — after all, if they don’t understand it, it must be easy.
When they find their idea of the position’s worth to not be shared by the people who can actually do the work, they cry “worker shortage.”
Were they to try paying what the position actually is worth — easily determined by looking at supply and demand, the same as with every other position (or every other service, for that matter) — rather than what they wish it were worth, there would be no “worker shortage.”
There is nothing intrinsically more difficult about computer technology than about, for example, chemical manufacturing technology or aerospace technology. We as a society saw no need for special “chemical” courts or “aerospace” courts; I see no need for special “computer” courts.
However, I do see a need for some manner of qualifying expert witnesses in computer technology cases. The lack of such expert witnesses has resulted in a series of bad decisions that we will simply have to live with. I refer particularly to the expansion of copyright into a cheap and easy replacement for appearance and method patents.
I have heard the objection that the DeCSS case obviously showed the court simply did not understand the technical issues. I do not believe this was so. The court simply decided the technical facts were irrelevant under the DMCA, as arguably they were. (The court also engaged in considerable ad hominem attacks on the defendants, which is unfortunate: it means the first appeal will simply send the case back down for rehearing by an unbiased judge, rather than throwing out the DMCA on constitutional grounds.) The DeCSS case was not about technology, it was about the DMCA granting broad new powers to the copyright holder to control not only the copying but the use of its material.
It is not that technical questions are not difficult. They are. It is that technical questions are largely irrelevant in recent cases.
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I never found HHGTTG to be funny, or "humor for the geek." Stanislaw Lem, however...
About time. SCSI has a 32-bit block number built into the protocol. With 512 byte blocks, that a 2 TB architectural limit. We can expect to be able to buy a 2 TB disk off the retailer's shelf in another two or three years.
This whole “worker shortage” thing is completely idiotic. The problem is not that there is a worker shortage. The problem is that there is a slave shortage.
IT management comes up with some idea of what they think a position is worth. That is always some minimal amount — after all, if they don’t understand it, it must be easy. When they find their idea of the position’s worth to not be shared by the people who can actually do the work, they cry “worker shortage.”
Were they to try paying what the position actually is worth — easily determined by looking at supply and demand, the same as with every other position (or every other service, for that matter) — rather than what they wish it were worth, there would be no “worker shortage.”
There is nothing intrinsically more difficult about computer technology than about, for example, chemical manufacturing technology or aerospace technology. We as a society saw no need for special “chemical” courts or “aerospace” courts; I see no need for special “computer” courts.
However, I do see a need for some manner of qualifying expert witnesses in computer technology cases. The lack of such expert witnesses has resulted in a series of bad decisions that we will simply have to live with. I refer particularly to the expansion of copyright into a cheap and easy replacement for appearance and method patents.
I have heard the objection that the DeCSS case obviously showed the court simply did not understand the technical issues. I do not believe this was so. The court simply decided the technical facts were irrelevant under the DMCA, as arguably they were. (The court also engaged in considerable ad hominem attacks on the defendants, which is unfortunate: it means the first appeal will simply send the case back down for rehearing by an unbiased judge, rather than throwing out the DMCA on constitutional grounds.) The DeCSS case was not about technology, it was about the DMCA granting broad new powers to the copyright holder to control not only the copying but the use of its material.
It is not that technical questions are not difficult. They are. It is that technical questions are largely irrelevant in recent cases.