The doctrine of laches doesn't invalidate your ability to defend your patent; it merely prevents you from receiving retroactive damages in a case where you are proven to have egregiously and willfully ignored infringement to allow for bigger claims. You can still enforce your patent moving forward.
Trademarks, on the other hand, have to be actively defended or risk moving into common language.
However, there have been (and will continue to be) numerous incidents where jobs are inappropriately outsourced. Given a few decades, the economies of "insourcing" countries will rise as money floods in, corporate types will learn which jobs need to stay in country, and the system will reach equilibrium.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. There's been enormous pressure due to the dotcom bubble (and it looks like we're going through a smaller second bubble with the same pressures rearing their heads again) to show profitability at all costs. In the short term, reducing costs is a great way to achieve that. However, business are learning that outsourcing is an extremely risky proposition when it involves your core business. Outsourcing your web site, or outsourcing applications used internally, can be a cost savings when you're not talking about your core business tools. But outsourcing software that your business critically depends on, to make money, gives too much control of your profitability to outside sources.
In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, this results in a couple of things. 1, the software you develop in-house tends to be more important to the business, which is a Good Thing for IT folks. 2, the pendulum swings back from outsourced development to either in-house development, or purchase of off-the-shelf software (or integration of FOSS in a more progressive shop). And at many shops, OTS or FOSS still means extensive customization and/or system integration work. So in the long run, this is also a Good Thing for IT folks.
Business is about making money, so when management realizes that the short-term gains of dirt-cheap software are outweighed by the long-term cost of losing control of IT-driven business processes, outsourcing can really lose its appeal.
You are effectively saying that Google is better because it uses security by obscurity.
I'd actually say that this is correct, in this case. We're talking about a search of a (more or less) unregulated pseudo-software-like medium (the Web). If the algorithm to improve your PageRank were common knowledge, then we could reasonably assume that the highest-ranked pages would because of targeted SEO, and not because the pages were actually useful.
What the "many-eyes" approach would theoretically do is allow all purveyors of websites to optimize their pages equally. Then, perfectly-optimized pages could do battle for the top spots in terms of relevance. But do you really think that would be the result?
Besides, this issue has already been approached in the injunction refusal in the SearchKing lawsuit. Specifically, "Because the PageRanks at issue are protected speech, the Court concludes that under Jefferson County, SearchKing's tort claim is likely barred by the First Amendment." Google has standards for defining relevant search results. They can change these standards at any time, in any way, because it's more akin to criticism (a protected action, even for a corporate entity) than censorship.
From reading the linked explanation, it sounds to me like the playing really WAS essentially unattended. If a GM sent a tell while this guy was watching TV, and he didn't answer, but his character kept performing actions -- well, if it looks like a bot and quacks like a bot...
I know this may be somewhat unpopular advice, but here's my limited experience. (Of course, the plural of anecdote is not data, so YMMV.)
PEOPLE GET PEOPLE JOBS. Make connections. Network -- the social variety. And when all else fails, be ready to do a lot of legwork just like you were hunting for ordinary jobs -- lots of resumes, lots of time investment, and probably only a few interviews. So really, network network network. It's how the business world works. Remember, hiring you is a business decision -- you're going to cost money, so you have to sell yourself.
Practice your interviews. Make sure everything from the typesetting of your resume to your body language during the interview establishes that you're competent and confident (but not cocky!). Don't worry about the specific skills while you're looking for an internship -- if you're applying for that level of position, you have the unique benefit that your employer doesn't EXPECT you to have lots of experience. Contrary to some posts I've seen, many internships pay pretty well (at least, in my experience), so it's a nice way to spend the summer.
If you're purely looking for experience, and not planning to draw a paycheck from your internship, look to local volunteer organizations. There's almost always a church or a community organization that could really use a volunteer to help them out with tech. Maybe you could set up a CMS for a local organization, improving their web site and giving them the tools to keep it maintained. Projects like this are great for demonstrating genuine enthusiasm for the technology, and showing that you can work in a "real life" environment.
NETWORKING
I have two stories about networking.
"The University Job:" I worked in an R&D lab at my university. (This is a great way to start meeting people who can help you with your career.) While doing a presentation to a local business, I interested the right person in our services. Twenty minutes later, I had a 2-week proof-of-concept gig. After 2 weeks, I secured a summer internship to finish the study. After college, I went to work for this company.
"The MMORPG Job:" A few years later, I was looking for a job. Damn layoffs. As it turns out, a guildmate of mine was an IT manager looking for a new hire. I ran our guild and player-city web sites, I'd done some web-based "player events," and I generally talked the talk. It was enough to get me an interview, and eventually I landed the job.
CANVASSING RESUMES
I've never gotten a job offer this way. I've gotten a few interviews. It's hard -- because you're up against people who do have an "in." A lot of technical places give bonuses to employees when they refer new hires. A lot of technical workers and managers have out-of-work friends. And a lot of IT shops in particular are running at extremely minimal staffing levels, and really need a quick study who happens to already know the technologies they use. But now that I've said that, it never hurts -- there's always the chance that your typesetting, or the way you communicate in the resume, or even just your name will grab someone's eye. Make sure your cover letter focuses on the company -- I personally can't stand it when I'm screening resumes and the person just zipped off a copy of their standard letter.
I once went to something like this, at the Alliance Chautauquas Conference, Boston 1999. Neat idea, though a lot of the technology wasn't quite there. There were a series of art exhibits around the campus that were in one fashion or another "linked" to objects in a virtual-world "art exhibit." Some of the cooler ones even had ways that viewers in RL could interact with viewers in the software.
There may not be a lot of direct practical application of this stuff (yet), but it would definitely be interesting to see how this could work out with a virtual world that has a higher population than the one at the Chautauquas conference. (That one was fairly limited, as the only access was through pretty high-end SGI stations.)
I guess it's all in how this is approached, but it seems more like a neat technology demo than "pretentiousness" to me. Certainly, it's not a huge logical leap from "fun" interaction like this to "meaningful" real-life/virtual-world interaction.
Not quite a job interview in the Deadmines...
on
WoW the Next "Golf"?
·
· Score: 1
... but I was playing SWG back in the "good old days." I'd gotten laid off on January 6 (right after Christmas, very nice -- fortunately, I'd done a pay-cash-Christmas that year). I started complaining about the boredom in being unemployed, and living in an area with a weak job market. How was I supposed to know my guildmate was an IT manager?
(Believe it or not, it's a true story -- videogaming got me a job!)
I can vouch for ndiswrapper. In a late-night hacking frenzy, I went to the only source available in the wee hours and bought an el-cheapo Belkin 802.11g from the Evil Empire. After a bit of panic, I managed to Google my way to the easiest solution: ndiswrapper + Windows driver.
The up side: It was relatively easy and painless to get my Linux machine running wireless.
The down side: Watch your kernel settings! You may have to bump your kernel to 8k stack frames. (I did with FC4.)
That's funny. I had a coworker receive a 1 gig Shuffle, and immediately (well, Monday) exchange it for fullprice credit towards his new, shiny Nano. I wonder if it was store policy, or a grumpy and/or lazy employee at your local store.
Dang. I didn't put my deposit in until October, and I'm estimating I'll see an XBox 360 in (roughly) April. Still, that's pretty disappointing performance. Reservation: October 2. Current position in list: roughly 1/3 down page 2. Current delivered orders: roughly 1/8 down page 1.
I'd say, because it's just not that easy. It's not like there's a secret Microsoft XBox Factory hidden deep beneath Cheyenne Mountain, guarded by the SGC and NID, that's lying idle while Bill Gates twirls his moustache and cackles over the shortage he hath wrought. There's a whole process involved with manufacturing an item like this. Someone molds the case. Someone fabs the CPU chip. Someone fabs the power supply regulator. Someone fabs the ADC for the left stick on the controller. Someone makes cables. Someone etches the PCB. Once all 1700 or so parts are fabbed, someone assembles the whole shebang. Someone boxes it. Someone ships it to distributors. Distributors ship it to retailers. Meanwhile, marketing and accounting processes are running...
On the other hand, I still haven't received my preorder, so I'm sticking with the "Evil Bill and the SGC" theory.
I will preface the question with a little background. I played SWG quite heavily for the first 2 years of availability. I finally cancelled my original account in September, having played consistently since launch, built a guild and succesful player city, unlocked Jedi status, mastered piloting, run a successful crafting business, participated in player and roleplay events, and even earned an accolade badge from and talked briefly with the Events coordinator. (Suffice it to say, I've seen almost everything in SWG from launch through CURB, and have done my best to improve the SWG community.)
The quality of the software released in SWG has been lackluster. This eventually led to the disinterest of most of my guildmates; once my play group fell apart, I slowly drifted away. But, some concrete examples:
- Architect "Master Armoire" schematics were broken for quite some time after launch. The graphic was incorrectly the "furniture 2" image. Then this was "fixed" according to the patch notes, after many months. Oh wait, it wasn't! Now, the "Furniture 3" armoire was also set to use incorrect art (the "factional/tech" armoire), and the Master Armoire was STILL broken. Several months later, this was finally fixed... - Architects were unable to craft a vital component (I believe it was the "Harvesting Mechanism") for, again, several months after launch. This bug was not even acknowledged until well after launch. - City Management Terminals were broken for many months (and still broken when I retired from the game). A player could view the terminal menu once per access -- so, if I logged in during my semi-precious free hour at night, and checked the city's treasury balance, I was unable to make a deposit until the next day. Assuming I remembered....
The list goes on. As a professional software developer myself, I understand the difficulty of making upgrades and bugfixes in a complex system. But, this level of bugginess was a constant -- and, in fact, bugs were frequently reintroduced after resolution (as in the case of Recycler crafting). The constant stream of bugs -- and, in particular, bugs that rendered significant game features completely nonworking -- is what led to most of my fellow players' exit from the game. What obstacles are there in the QA process at SOE that cause this to be such an ongoing issue? Is there an expectation that reducing the overall level of complexity (~30 -> 9 classes, etc) will improve this problem?
I'm hooked on the RadialContext extension. It provides a circular "radial menu" around your pointer when you right-click. If you hover for a moment, it explains what the menu options are, and some of them are expandable -- but, once you've used it for a while, it's almost like having gestures. Or rather, it's like having gestures from the beginning, but with training wheels...
Clearly, the opposite of non-sensical! Although, dictionary.com doesn't believe it's a word. Of course, the Scrabble dictionary is clearly the mighty God-spoken truth -- but I don't have one handy.
Well, that was the initial pass at it. "Uber" items were player-crafted, but required rare drops. (IE, a "Krayt Tissue" that would only drop from a giant Krayt Dragon -- theoretically, a beastie so mean that it took a large grou pto kill, although balance issues made them quite soloable for some time -- could be added to an Advanced Blaster Power Handler, which could be used to make an extremely high-quality weapon.) Later quests added even rarer/more difficult loot (Bounty Hunter armor pieces were used to craft Mandalorian Armor in an "epic quest," for example). Relatively rare drops of item schematics / components were needed to craft various items.
Unfortunately, this ended up with a few problems: Spawn camping for extremely rare items. More emphasis on kill-stealing, which is always a way to make people upset with the game. A lot of resentment started to build between fighter and crafter types, with fighters perceiving crafters as "ripoffs" in trades to build uber weapons, and crafters perceiving fighters as rude and unappreciative of how much effort great crafting takes. Oh yeah, and careful play of a crafter-type character was viewed as an "easy" way to endless riches. (Before the flames, if any, start: I played several crafters, and I realize it wasn't as easy as it sounds. Then again, there were consumable items that were needed in mass quantities with quality irrelevant, and there were items that were chronically unavailable due to the relative difficulty of making them -- a clever merchant could work in these arenas and make huge quantities of money with little risk.)
This all missed one important thing -- fighting is hard, risky work. Players wanted to be rewarded. So, the loot kept getting cooler. Then, looted weapons and armor started appearing that were around the same quality as crafted... But, the above-noted fighter/crafter clashes caused fighter types to keep requesting more loot. (And, as a fighter type, I know I got bored hunting forever and then YAY RED CUBES, now I can go MAYBE get an item I want...)
Unless loot is (A) lower-quality than crafted and/or (B) raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare, then it's difficult for both systems to coexist. And if either A or B is true, then some players (primarily fighters) will be unhappy. And if A and B are both false, then some players (primarily crafters) will be unhappy.
In another system/game/etc, it may be workable, but it sure didn't work out in SWG. Plus in the next major revamp, it looks like items will no longer decay -- I'm extremely curious how crafting can be kept relevant in that sort of environment.
(I almost miss SWG... But, who has the time to work, and then go log into an MMORPG to.. . er... work?)
I don't think you're being fair to SWG at all with that comment. At least with the coal mines, you could look forward to dying of silicovolcanoconiosis.
Slashdot Mirror
That game defined... well... OK, bad example.
I liked how many Dreamcast games were something out of the norm...
- Rez
- Pop n Music
- Seaman
- Samba De Amigo
The doctrine of laches doesn't invalidate your ability to defend your patent; it merely prevents you from receiving retroactive damages in a case where you are proven to have egregiously and willfully ignored infringement to allow for bigger claims. You can still enforce your patent moving forward.
Trademarks, on the other hand, have to be actively defended or risk moving into common language.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. There's been enormous pressure due to the dotcom bubble (and it looks like we're going through a smaller second bubble with the same pressures rearing their heads again) to show profitability at all costs. In the short term, reducing costs is a great way to achieve that. However, business are learning that outsourcing is an extremely risky proposition when it involves your core business. Outsourcing your web site, or outsourcing applications used internally, can be a cost savings when you're not talking about your core business tools. But outsourcing software that your business critically depends on, to make money, gives too much control of your profitability to outside sources.
In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, this results in a couple of things. 1, the software you develop in-house tends to be more important to the business, which is a Good Thing for IT folks. 2, the pendulum swings back from outsourced development to either in-house development, or purchase of off-the-shelf software (or integration of FOSS in a more progressive shop). And at many shops, OTS or FOSS still means extensive customization and/or system integration work. So in the long run, this is also a Good Thing for IT folks.
Business is about making money, so when management realizes that the short-term gains of dirt-cheap software are outweighed by the long-term cost of losing control of IT-driven business processes, outsourcing can really lose its appeal.
I'd actually say that this is correct, in this case. We're talking about a search of a (more or less) unregulated pseudo-software-like medium (the Web). If the algorithm to improve your PageRank were common knowledge, then we could reasonably assume that the highest-ranked pages would because of targeted SEO, and not because the pages were actually useful.
What the "many-eyes" approach would theoretically do is allow all purveyors of websites to optimize their pages equally. Then, perfectly-optimized pages could do battle for the top spots in terms of relevance. But do you really think that would be the result?
Besides, this issue has already been approached in the injunction refusal in the SearchKing lawsuit. Specifically, "Because the PageRanks at issue are protected speech, the Court concludes that under Jefferson County, SearchKing's tort claim is likely barred by the First Amendment." Google has standards for defining relevant search results. They can change these standards at any time, in any way, because it's more akin to criticism (a protected action, even for a corporate entity) than censorship.
From reading the linked explanation, it sounds to me like the playing really WAS essentially unattended. If a GM sent a tell while this guy was watching TV, and he didn't answer, but his character kept performing actions -- well, if it looks like a bot and quacks like a bot...
No, that doesn't work out. The armband keeps shaking loose.
Oh wait, you meant with someone else? New here?
I know this may be somewhat unpopular advice, but here's my limited experience. (Of course, the plural of anecdote is not data, so YMMV.)
PEOPLE GET PEOPLE JOBS. Make connections. Network -- the social variety. And when all else fails, be ready to do a lot of legwork just like you were hunting for ordinary jobs -- lots of resumes, lots of time investment, and probably only a few interviews. So really, network network network. It's how the business world works. Remember, hiring you is a business decision -- you're going to cost money, so you have to sell yourself.
Practice your interviews. Make sure everything from the typesetting of your resume to your body language during the interview establishes that you're competent and confident (but not cocky!). Don't worry about the specific skills while you're looking for an internship -- if you're applying for that level of position, you have the unique benefit that your employer doesn't EXPECT you to have lots of experience. Contrary to some posts I've seen, many internships pay pretty well (at least, in my experience), so it's a nice way to spend the summer.
If you're purely looking for experience, and not planning to draw a paycheck from your internship, look to local volunteer organizations. There's almost always a church or a community organization that could really use a volunteer to help them out with tech. Maybe you could set up a CMS for a local organization, improving their web site and giving them the tools to keep it maintained. Projects like this are great for demonstrating genuine enthusiasm for the technology, and showing that you can work in a "real life" environment.
NETWORKING
I have two stories about networking.
"The University Job:" I worked in an R&D lab at my university. (This is a great way to start meeting people who can help you with your career.) While doing a presentation to a local business, I interested the right person in our services. Twenty minutes later, I had a 2-week proof-of-concept gig. After 2 weeks, I secured a summer internship to finish the study. After college, I went to work for this company.
"The MMORPG Job:" A few years later, I was looking for a job. Damn layoffs. As it turns out, a guildmate of mine was an IT manager looking for a new hire. I ran our guild and player-city web sites, I'd done some web-based "player events," and I generally talked the talk. It was enough to get me an interview, and eventually I landed the job.
CANVASSING RESUMES
I've never gotten a job offer this way. I've gotten a few interviews. It's hard -- because you're up against people who do have an "in." A lot of technical places give bonuses to employees when they refer new hires. A lot of technical workers and managers have out-of-work friends. And a lot of IT shops in particular are running at extremely minimal staffing levels, and really need a quick study who happens to already know the technologies they use. But now that I've said that, it never hurts -- there's always the chance that your typesetting, or the way you communicate in the resume, or even just your name will grab someone's eye. Make sure your cover letter focuses on the company -- I personally can't stand it when I'm screening resumes and the person just zipped off a copy of their standard letter.
I once went to something like this, at the Alliance Chautauquas Conference, Boston 1999. Neat idea, though a lot of the technology wasn't quite there. There were a series of art exhibits around the campus that were in one fashion or another "linked" to objects in a virtual-world "art exhibit." Some of the cooler ones even had ways that viewers in RL could interact with viewers in the software.
There may not be a lot of direct practical application of this stuff (yet), but it would definitely be interesting to see how this could work out with a virtual world that has a higher population than the one at the Chautauquas conference. (That one was fairly limited, as the only access was through pretty high-end SGI stations.)
I guess it's all in how this is approached, but it seems more like a neat technology demo than "pretentiousness" to me. Certainly, it's not a huge logical leap from "fun" interaction like this to "meaningful" real-life/virtual-world interaction.
... but I was playing SWG back in the "good old days." I'd gotten laid off on January 6 (right after Christmas, very nice -- fortunately, I'd done a pay-cash-Christmas that year). I started complaining about the boredom in being unemployed, and living in an area with a weak job market. How was I supposed to know my guildmate was an IT manager?
(Believe it or not, it's a true story -- videogaming got me a job!)
Already been done, it's called "Sociolitron."
I can't speak for everyone, but I know that I had to create a house rule after infecting my own PC. No software installation when using ethanol...
The up side: It was relatively easy and painless to get my Linux machine running wireless.
The down side: Watch your kernel settings! You may have to bump your kernel to 8k stack frames. (I did with FC4.)
That's funny. I had a coworker receive a 1 gig Shuffle, and immediately (well, Monday) exchange it for fullprice credit towards his new, shiny Nano. I wonder if it was store policy, or a grumpy and/or lazy employee at your local store.
Dang. I didn't put my deposit in until October, and I'm estimating I'll see an XBox 360 in (roughly) April. Still, that's pretty disappointing performance. Reservation: October 2. Current position in list: roughly 1/3 down page 2. Current delivered orders: roughly 1/8 down page 1.
On the other hand, I still haven't received my preorder, so I'm sticking with the "Evil Bill and the SGC" theory.
Wouldn't a system like that drive all modules toward an "Average" level?
I found a highly appropriate market research study for this "fashion" thing. It's called "GQ" and costs a couple bucks a month...
I was also always under the impression that Soul Blazer was a sorta-sequel to Act Raiser. (Yes, I know there was also an Act Raiser 2.)
I will preface the question with a little background. I played SWG quite heavily for the first 2 years of availability. I finally cancelled my original account in September, having played consistently since launch, built a guild and succesful player city, unlocked Jedi status, mastered piloting, run a successful crafting business, participated in player and roleplay events, and even earned an accolade badge from and talked briefly with the Events coordinator. (Suffice it to say, I've seen almost everything in SWG from launch through CURB, and have done my best to improve the SWG community.)
The quality of the software released in SWG has been lackluster. This eventually led to the disinterest of most of my guildmates; once my play group fell apart, I slowly drifted away. But, some concrete examples:
- Architect "Master Armoire" schematics were broken for quite some time after launch. The graphic was incorrectly the "furniture 2" image. Then this was "fixed" according to the patch notes, after many months. Oh wait, it wasn't! Now, the "Furniture 3" armoire was also set to use incorrect art (the "factional/tech" armoire), and the Master Armoire was STILL broken. Several months later, this was finally fixed...
- Architects were unable to craft a vital component (I believe it was the "Harvesting Mechanism") for, again, several months after launch. This bug was not even acknowledged until well after launch.
- City Management Terminals were broken for many months (and still broken when I retired from the game). A player could view the terminal menu once per access -- so, if I logged in during my semi-precious free hour at night, and checked the city's treasury balance, I was unable to make a deposit until the next day. Assuming I remembered....
The list goes on. As a professional software developer myself, I understand the difficulty of making upgrades and bugfixes in a complex system. But, this level of bugginess was a constant -- and, in fact, bugs were frequently reintroduced after resolution (as in the case of Recycler crafting). The constant stream of bugs -- and, in particular, bugs that rendered significant game features completely nonworking -- is what led to most of my fellow players' exit from the game. What obstacles are there in the QA process at SOE that cause this to be such an ongoing issue? Is there an expectation that reducing the overall level of complexity (~30 -> 9 classes, etc) will improve this problem?
I'm hooked on the RadialContext extension. It provides a circular "radial menu" around your pointer when you right-click. If you hover for a moment, it explains what the menu options are, and some of them are expandable -- but, once you've used it for a while, it's almost like having gestures. Or rather, it's like having gestures from the beginning, but with training wheels...
Clearly, the opposite of non-sensical! Although, dictionary.com doesn't believe it's a word. Of course, the Scrabble dictionary is clearly the mighty God-spoken truth -- but I don't have one handy.
Well, that was the initial pass at it. "Uber" items were player-crafted, but required rare drops. (IE, a "Krayt Tissue" that would only drop from a giant Krayt Dragon -- theoretically, a beastie so mean that it took a large grou pto kill, although balance issues made them quite soloable for some time -- could be added to an Advanced Blaster Power Handler, which could be used to make an extremely high-quality weapon.) Later quests added even rarer/more difficult loot (Bounty Hunter armor pieces were used to craft Mandalorian Armor in an "epic quest," for example). Relatively rare drops of item schematics / components were needed to craft various items.
Unfortunately, this ended up with a few problems: Spawn camping for extremely rare items. More emphasis on kill-stealing, which is always a way to make people upset with the game. A lot of resentment started to build between fighter and crafter types, with fighters perceiving crafters as "ripoffs" in trades to build uber weapons, and crafters perceiving fighters as rude and unappreciative of how much effort great crafting takes. Oh yeah, and careful play of a crafter-type character was viewed as an "easy" way to endless riches. (Before the flames, if any, start: I played several crafters, and I realize it wasn't as easy as it sounds. Then again, there were consumable items that were needed in mass quantities with quality irrelevant, and there were items that were chronically unavailable due to the relative difficulty of making them -- a clever merchant could work in these arenas and make huge quantities of money with little risk.)
This all missed one important thing -- fighting is hard, risky work. Players wanted to be rewarded. So, the loot kept getting cooler. Then, looted weapons and armor started appearing that were around the same quality as crafted... But, the above-noted fighter/crafter clashes caused fighter types to keep requesting more loot. (And, as a fighter type, I know I got bored hunting forever and then YAY RED CUBES, now I can go MAYBE get an item I want...)
Unless loot is (A) lower-quality than crafted and/or (B) raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare, then it's difficult for both systems to coexist. And if either A or B is true, then some players (primarily fighters) will be unhappy. And if A and B are both false, then some players (primarily crafters) will be unhappy.
In another system/game/etc, it may be workable, but it sure didn't work out in SWG. Plus in the next major revamp, it looks like items will no longer decay -- I'm extremely curious how crafting can be kept relevant in that sort of environment.
(I almost miss SWG... But, who has the time to work, and then go log into an MMORPG to.. . er... work?)
(Non-affiliate-or-whatever-they're-called but obligatory Amazon link here
I don't think you're being fair to SWG at all with that comment. At least with the coal mines, you could look forward to dying of silicovolcanoconiosis.
Be careful with those slave replicants. Sometimes, they get cranky and want to know their expiration dates.