This is why companies love independent contractors for this sort of job.
There are plenty of studies that show us just how very little self-awareness and self-control the typical person actually has. Virtually everybody thinks they're made of stronger mettle than the other guy; virtually everybody thinks they can handle pretty much anything life could throw at them. Nobody wants to believe that they're the person who'd crack under pressure; nobody wants to believe that they're the person who would keep walking past a mugging. People tend to think that the flaws and limitations of the human race are things that apply primarily to other people.
Successful companies know this; manipulating people is a key part of how a company becomes successful in the first place. Google knows that this kind of work will eventually destroy the mental health of the person performing the work. Why would they shoulder the responsibility for dealing with this fallout when they have a nigh limitless supply of perfectly unremarkable human beings who think they're strong enough to hack it?
Note that I don't condone this behavior in the least; I find it reprehensible. But we live in a world where personal responsibility, level playing fields, and common sense are sacrosanct, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. Everybody thinks they're David; nobody ever considers the odds that they're one of the countless schmucks Goliath laid out before his ultimate fight.
As a long-time fan of Apple's work and devices, I can attest to being quite nervous about the Nexus 7. I mean, after the beating Apple's taken from the Galaxy Tab, the Xoom, the XYBOARD, the Nook, the Playbook, and the Kindle, I don't think they could withstand a gentle breeze, much less the Nexus 7 juggernaut currently bearing down on them.
Don't even talk about the terror that is the smartphone front; that keeps me up at nights with the chills.
Not a teacher--a multimedia designer who's been reviewing one too many presentations on "how to avoid plagiarism" lately. Do forgive my...let's call it heightened awareness at the moment.
It's somewhat pedantic, I know, but I work in education and this is something that far, far too many people a) don't get, b) don't care about, and c) don't appreciate its importance. When making a direct quote, you need to do more than simply drop a hyperlink to an original source to avoid plagiarizing your sources; you need to also name the original author.
It's really, honestly as simple as adding "Muriel Kane of Raw story writes:" at the start of the paragraph. Make a habit of giving proper credit where it's due, especially if you do a lot of writing. It's easy to do and gives proper credit and respect to the person who took the time to write the words you're using.
Yes, I have better things to do. No, I have no plans to try to sic Ms. Kane's lawyers on you. To be frank, there's a reason the editors were listed first there: it's their job to know this kind of thing inside out as a matter of professional competence, whereas you're just Random Person On The Internet. Still, it's important, and something worth knowing. That's worth at least a mention, yeah?
When you copy and paste an entire paragraph from a linked source without actually citing that source as the author of said material, you're committing plagiarism. NotSanguine did not write this blurb; Muriel Kane of Raw Story did.
Of course the utility companies can take steps between storms to upgrade outdated equipment and trim growth from around power lines.
The trouble is, we don't want to spend the considerable sums of public money it'd take to make that happen.
This should come as no surprise to anyone. Our utilities are a hybrid of private enterprise and public good. Since today there is no greater fundamental evil in the United States than the public sector and maintenance is a generally unprofitable annoyance for businesses, don't expect any more expenditure on energy infrastructure improvements than is absolutely necessary.
Of course something can. Something eventually will.
If that something is a tablet, it'll need to be something that has measurably better hardware, a superior form factor, a superior operating system, and an easier media acquisition and management chain. "Easier" and "better" here mean "easier and better for regular users", not "easier and better for power users"; our days of supremacy in this regard are gone, folks. Failure to win on all of these points means you're starting with an inferior product against a superior product with a massive head start.
If that something is not a tablet, it'll need to be something that renders the tablet paradigm obsolete; whether that something is Google's glasses project or something entirely different remains to be seen.
If neither of the above happens, then we simply need to wait for the day when Apple loses its direction as a company and stops making devices that meet their current standards. Then it's open season.
...so the simple response to your vision of "IP should not exist" is:
"Hey, that's fine. Instead of distributing mywork through public channels, I'll simply enter into one-to-one contracts with everyone who wants access to my creative work. The Internet makes this really, really easy. In my contract, I'll stipulate that you get to use my art for personal, non-commercial use, that you cannot redistribute it publicly via any medium. You, being an adult of the majority with free will and agency, are welcome to enter into this contract or not as you see fit. If you do decide to enter into this contract, you'll receive a uniquely imprinted, trackable version of the work in question. If this version of the work turns up on the Internet, you'll be in breach of contract, and I'll sue you."
or
"Hey, that's fine. I'll just keep all the important stuff you need to enjoy this creative work locked behind a secure server, so every time you want to use said product, you need to ensure that you have an Internet connection and that your account is paid in full in order to enjoy it. The work itself will be designed in such a way that the user only ever sees the assets they need immediate access to, so that it's virtually impossible for any given user to reconstruct the whole experience. That way, I can avoid a Blizzard of pirated copies of my work floating around out there."
Unless you want to fundamentally eliminate the ability to create service contracts, you can expect more and more people to distribute their creative works via onerous, legalese-laden means. This blade cuts both ways.
Sure, it sounds like a good deal, but you always end up gorging yourself on abstracts and citations right off the bat. By the time you're ready for methods or supplementary figures, you can barely lift your fingers off the keyboard.
It's easily an order of magnitude cheaper than the various uberdesks out there, to be certain, and it does the job quite well. The handles of a treadmill are already positioned at a natural height for the typical person. I'm using a pair of trigger clamps to hold the board in place, which works quite nicely--you can take the desk off in a matter of seconds if you want to do a proper treadmill workout, and pop it back on just as fast.
I walk at a good clip most of the time, so 2mph feels a bit slow--I'm up to a more natural-feeling 2.3 and still typing just fine. Wouldn't want to do too much precision work in Photoshop or Illustrator, but for plain old typing and point-and-click stuff, it's just fine.
I'm currently working at my treadmill. I've clamped a cheap-ass particleboard shelf to the thing, and I walk at a nice relaxed 2-2.5 mph while I work. It holds my laptop, tablet, and phone, with plenty of room to spare for a beer. Works wonderfully. Granted, I'm not actually going anywhere, but it's an excellent way to get a long, easy, steady level of physical exercise in without actually impinging on your productivity one whit. Between this treadmill and carefully tracking my intake (using a Fitbit,) I've lost nearly [30 pounds|14 kilos] since January.
As for mobility, we're beginning to hit the point where tablet apps can be used for real, if not necessarily heavy, work. Diet Coda is a good example. There's some nice connectivity out there, too: the company I work for uses Lync and Adobe Connect, both of which have surprisingly rich tablet apps available. If you do meetings and/or collaborative work, they're quite nice.
87k is not that great a sum of money. If you think a "failure of epic proportions" in the business world involves five figures, you've got a lot to learn about business.
At a news conference after the board meeting, Schilling said he’s been negotiating exclusively with Rhode Island for the last four months, and denied any intent to play one state off another.
“This is a partnership,” he said.
Under the terms of the deal, the state will issue $75 million in bonds, which would be purchased by private investors. 38 Studios is responsible for repaying the money, but if it can’t, the state would be responsible.
Regardless of who approached whom, Mr. Shilling was clearly willing to enter into a government-guaranteed loan, and spent several months securing the deal. If I'm mischaracterizing Mr. Shillings' political beliefs, I'm happy to be directed to a more thorough examination of his beliefs.
That said, given Mr. Shilling's political background and positions, I would indeed be surprised to learn he believes that government should take an active role in funding and guaranteeing loans to private enterprise, on principle.
"There can be no question our country is in the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. I also think there can be no question that it falls on us, the individuals, to find a way out of our own personal crisis." - Curt Schilling
It well and truly stinks that this man was ever allowed within ten feet of public funding in the first place. Even more confusing, though, is that he even pursued public funding in the first place.
It's enough to make one think that he never really believed the anti-gubmit pablum he was spouting in the first place.
Apple's perfected their time machine, then, because "wait, there are other phones?" is one of the (several) "joke" responses I got from asking "what's the best smartphone?" on the 4S launch day, amongst other responses like "the one you're holding."
You wouldn't mock people for calling their parents to let their kid talk to grandma and grandpa over the phone.
Yes I would, if they do it for 40 minutes each day.
If the grandparents are supposed to be such an important part in their lives: move.
If you say that it is not possible, it is because you have other priorities and being near the grandparents is a lower priority.
What you are looking at is a technical solution for a social problem.
One set of grandparents live in Washington State. Another set of grandparents live in Iowa. Even if we were able to pack up and move, we can't live in two states at once.
I agree with you very earnestly on one point: there are all sorts of things that responsible adults need to balance in their lives, and living close to family is one of those things. My wife and I have other priorities in life that we work to balance against, with one in particular being of note: my wife just spent seven years working her fingers off to earn a Ph.D. in biochemical, molecular and cellular biology. As wonderful as it would be to live close to either set of grandparents, neither set lives in an area with a strong presence in the biological sciences. Thus, to move closer to one set of grandparents, my wife would need to essentially abandon a decade's worth of highly specialized, extremely valuable learning. This would be an enormous waste of time, money, work, and talent, and it isn't something we're eager to do. Even if we did decide to abandon her career, though, we'd still be stuck half a continent from the other set of grandparents.
So yes, we Skype as a family with grandma and grandpa for long periods, several times a week. It's a suboptimal solution to a problem with no optimal solution; no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to avoid having to Skype with the grandparents. You are, of course, free to judge us for the decisions we've made, as is your right. For my part, I'll probably continue to call you out as a sanctimonious, simple-minded ass who would rather denigrate the lives and choices of others than grant other grown adults the benefit of the doubt and start from the premise that they're not whiny, spoiled idiots.
There are a lot of 1984/Truman Show/No Real Parent posts on this thread. Folks, understand that for some families, grandma and grandpa are a time zone away at best, and a grandkid is lucky to see her grandparents in person once a year, if that. Skype/videophone is a fantastic way to help bridge that gap. My parents can read our daughter stories. My wife's parents can sing songs with our daughter. They can see each other and interact in ways that you just can't do over the phone or with text.
Our kid is lucky--she gets to see each set of grandparents in person about twice a year. For the stretches between those times, though, she can still visit with them over Skype. It's far from perfect, but it's a huge leap ahead of a phone call, and helps all sides of the family feel closer.
You wouldn't mock people for calling their parents to let their kid talk to grandma and grandpa over the phone. Why the special hate for the extra level of closeness?
Build a simple, flat wooden box with an opening at the back that you can slide the laptop keyboard into. Add vent holes if necessary. Affix a cheap keyboard to the top if your kid tries to take off the box to get at the laptop keyboard.
He may well have operated on the assumption that if ever his enemies laid hands on his computer files, odds are that lack of encryption would be very, very low on his list of Things I Need To Worry About Right Now; thus, it would make little sense to spend his limited resources on this line of defense.
Discovering that John Derbyshire is a racist is somewhat akin to discovering that the sun rises in the east. The man's been quite candid about his views for years.
Kudos to National Review for finally discovering this fact and taking the blindingly obvious course of action, though.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple's marketing really helps them here.
That must be it, because their actual hardware and software are garish, steaming piles compared to the competition.
This time you'd better live down to the expectations of technology pundits.
They're getting really tired of you succeeding despite their most dire prognostications.
Sincerely,
An obviously brainwashed Apple zealot
This is why companies love independent contractors for this sort of job.
There are plenty of studies that show us just how very little self-awareness and self-control the typical person actually has. Virtually everybody thinks they're made of stronger mettle than the other guy; virtually everybody thinks they can handle pretty much anything life could throw at them. Nobody wants to believe that they're the person who'd crack under pressure; nobody wants to believe that they're the person who would keep walking past a mugging. People tend to think that the flaws and limitations of the human race are things that apply primarily to other people.
Successful companies know this; manipulating people is a key part of how a company becomes successful in the first place. Google knows that this kind of work will eventually destroy the mental health of the person performing the work. Why would they shoulder the responsibility for dealing with this fallout when they have a nigh limitless supply of perfectly unremarkable human beings who think they're strong enough to hack it?
Note that I don't condone this behavior in the least; I find it reprehensible. But we live in a world where personal responsibility, level playing fields, and common sense are sacrosanct, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. Everybody thinks they're David; nobody ever considers the odds that they're one of the countless schmucks Goliath laid out before his ultimate fight.
Apple fanbois are getting nervous.
As a long-time fan of Apple's work and devices, I can attest to being quite nervous about the Nexus 7. I mean, after the beating Apple's taken from the Galaxy Tab, the Xoom, the XYBOARD, the Nook, the Playbook, and the Kindle, I don't think they could withstand a gentle breeze, much less the Nexus 7 juggernaut currently bearing down on them.
Don't even talk about the terror that is the smartphone front; that keeps me up at nights with the chills.
How much beleaguering can one company take?
:D
Not a teacher--a multimedia designer who's been reviewing one too many presentations on "how to avoid plagiarism" lately. Do forgive my...let's call it heightened awareness at the moment.
Also much too late. Sleep.
It's somewhat pedantic, I know, but I work in education and this is something that far, far too many people a) don't get, b) don't care about, and c) don't appreciate its importance. When making a direct quote, you need to do more than simply drop a hyperlink to an original source to avoid plagiarizing your sources; you need to also name the original author.
It's really, honestly as simple as adding "Muriel Kane of Raw story writes:" at the start of the paragraph. Make a habit of giving proper credit where it's due, especially if you do a lot of writing. It's easy to do and gives proper credit and respect to the person who took the time to write the words you're using.
Yes, I have better things to do. No, I have no plans to try to sic Ms. Kane's lawyers on you. To be frank, there's a reason the editors were listed first there: it's their job to know this kind of thing inside out as a matter of professional competence, whereas you're just Random Person On The Internet. Still, it's important, and something worth knowing. That's worth at least a mention, yeah?
Dear Editors and NotSanguine,
When you copy and paste an entire paragraph from a linked source without actually citing that source as the author of said material, you're committing plagiarism. NotSanguine did not write this blurb; Muriel Kane of Raw Story did.
Respect authorship.
Of course the utility companies can take steps between storms to upgrade outdated equipment and trim growth from around power lines.
The trouble is, we don't want to spend the considerable sums of public money it'd take to make that happen.
This should come as no surprise to anyone. Our utilities are a hybrid of private enterprise and public good. Since today there is no greater fundamental evil in the United States than the public sector and maintenance is a generally unprofitable annoyance for businesses, don't expect any more expenditure on energy infrastructure improvements than is absolutely necessary.
Nah, Linux users'll see a listing of the closest people with nailguns and lumber on loan. (I kid! I kid!)
Can anything stop the all conquering iPad?
Of course something can. Something eventually will.
If that something is a tablet, it'll need to be something that has measurably better hardware, a superior form factor, a superior operating system, and an easier media acquisition and management chain. "Easier" and "better" here mean "easier and better for regular users", not "easier and better for power users"; our days of supremacy in this regard are gone, folks. Failure to win on all of these points means you're starting with an inferior product against a superior product with a massive head start.
If that something is not a tablet, it'll need to be something that renders the tablet paradigm obsolete; whether that something is Google's glasses project or something entirely different remains to be seen.
If neither of the above happens, then we simply need to wait for the day when Apple loses its direction as a company and stops making devices that meet their current standards. Then it's open season.
...so the simple response to your vision of "IP should not exist" is:
"Hey, that's fine. Instead of distributing mywork through public channels, I'll simply enter into one-to-one contracts with everyone who wants access to my creative work. The Internet makes this really, really easy. In my contract, I'll stipulate that you get to use my art for personal, non-commercial use, that you cannot redistribute it publicly via any medium. You, being an adult of the majority with free will and agency, are welcome to enter into this contract or not as you see fit. If you do decide to enter into this contract, you'll receive a uniquely imprinted, trackable version of the work in question. If this version of the work turns up on the Internet, you'll be in breach of contract, and I'll sue you."
or
"Hey, that's fine. I'll just keep all the important stuff you need to enjoy this creative work locked behind a secure server, so every time you want to use said product, you need to ensure that you have an Internet connection and that your account is paid in full in order to enjoy it. The work itself will be designed in such a way that the user only ever sees the assets they need immediate access to, so that it's virtually impossible for any given user to reconstruct the whole experience. That way, I can avoid a Blizzard of pirated copies of my work floating around out there."
Unless you want to fundamentally eliminate the ability to create service contracts, you can expect more and more people to distribute their creative works via onerous, legalese-laden means. This blade cuts both ways.
Sure, it sounds like a good deal, but you always end up gorging yourself on abstracts and citations right off the bat. By the time you're ready for methods or supplementary figures, you can barely lift your fingers off the keyboard.
It's easily an order of magnitude cheaper than the various uberdesks out there, to be certain, and it does the job quite well. The handles of a treadmill are already positioned at a natural height for the typical person. I'm using a pair of trigger clamps to hold the board in place, which works quite nicely--you can take the desk off in a matter of seconds if you want to do a proper treadmill workout, and pop it back on just as fast.
I walk at a good clip most of the time, so 2mph feels a bit slow--I'm up to a more natural-feeling 2.3 and still typing just fine. Wouldn't want to do too much precision work in Photoshop or Illustrator, but for plain old typing and point-and-click stuff, it's just fine.
I'm currently working at my treadmill. I've clamped a cheap-ass particleboard shelf to the thing, and I walk at a nice relaxed 2-2.5 mph while I work. It holds my laptop, tablet, and phone, with plenty of room to spare for a beer. Works wonderfully. Granted, I'm not actually going anywhere, but it's an excellent way to get a long, easy, steady level of physical exercise in without actually impinging on your productivity one whit. Between this treadmill and carefully tracking my intake (using a Fitbit,) I've lost nearly [30 pounds|14 kilos] since January.
As for mobility, we're beginning to hit the point where tablet apps can be used for real, if not necessarily heavy, work. Diet Coda is a good example. There's some nice connectivity out there, too: the company I work for uses Lync and Adobe Connect, both of which have surprisingly rich tablet apps available. If you do meetings and/or collaborative work, they're quite nice.
87k is not that great a sum of money. If you think a "failure of epic proportions" in the business world involves five figures, you've got a lot to learn about business.
From the Wayback Machine:
At a news conference after the board meeting, Schilling said he’s been negotiating exclusively with Rhode Island for the last four months, and denied any intent to play one state off another. “This is a partnership,” he said. Under the terms of the deal, the state will issue $75 million in bonds, which would be purchased by private investors. 38 Studios is responsible for repaying the money, but if it can’t, the state would be responsible.
Regardless of who approached whom, Mr. Shilling was clearly willing to enter into a government-guaranteed loan, and spent several months securing the deal. If I'm mischaracterizing Mr. Shillings' political beliefs, I'm happy to be directed to a more thorough examination of his beliefs.
That said, given Mr. Shilling's political background and positions, I would indeed be surprised to learn he believes that government should take an active role in funding and guaranteeing loans to private enterprise, on principle.
"There can be no question our country is in the worst economic crisis of our lifetimes. I also think there can be no question that it falls on us, the individuals, to find a way out of our own personal crisis." - Curt Schilling
It well and truly stinks that this man was ever allowed within ten feet of public funding in the first place. Even more confusing, though, is that he even pursued public funding in the first place.
It's enough to make one think that he never really believed the anti-gubmit pablum he was spouting in the first place.
Apple's perfected their time machine, then, because "wait, there are other phones?" is one of the (several) "joke" responses I got from asking "what's the best smartphone?" on the 4S launch day, amongst other responses like "the one you're holding."
Two minutes on Google backs this up.
C'mon, people. It isn't that hard.
Yes I would, if they do it for 40 minutes each day. If the grandparents are supposed to be such an important part in their lives: move. If you say that it is not possible, it is because you have other priorities and being near the grandparents is a lower priority.
What you are looking at is a technical solution for a social problem.
One set of grandparents live in Washington State. Another set of grandparents live in Iowa. Even if we were able to pack up and move, we can't live in two states at once.
I agree with you very earnestly on one point: there are all sorts of things that responsible adults need to balance in their lives, and living close to family is one of those things. My wife and I have other priorities in life that we work to balance against, with one in particular being of note: my wife just spent seven years working her fingers off to earn a Ph.D. in biochemical, molecular and cellular biology. As wonderful as it would be to live close to either set of grandparents, neither set lives in an area with a strong presence in the biological sciences. Thus, to move closer to one set of grandparents, my wife would need to essentially abandon a decade's worth of highly specialized, extremely valuable learning. This would be an enormous waste of time, money, work, and talent, and it isn't something we're eager to do. Even if we did decide to abandon her career, though, we'd still be stuck half a continent from the other set of grandparents.
So yes, we Skype as a family with grandma and grandpa for long periods, several times a week. It's a suboptimal solution to a problem with no optimal solution; no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to avoid having to Skype with the grandparents. You are, of course, free to judge us for the decisions we've made, as is your right. For my part, I'll probably continue to call you out as a sanctimonious, simple-minded ass who would rather denigrate the lives and choices of others than grant other grown adults the benefit of the doubt and start from the premise that they're not whiny, spoiled idiots.
As is my right.
There are a lot of 1984/Truman Show/No Real Parent posts on this thread. Folks, understand that for some families, grandma and grandpa are a time zone away at best, and a grandkid is lucky to see her grandparents in person once a year, if that. Skype/videophone is a fantastic way to help bridge that gap. My parents can read our daughter stories. My wife's parents can sing songs with our daughter. They can see each other and interact in ways that you just can't do over the phone or with text.
Our kid is lucky--she gets to see each set of grandparents in person about twice a year. For the stretches between those times, though, she can still visit with them over Skype. It's far from perfect, but it's a huge leap ahead of a phone call, and helps all sides of the family feel closer.
You wouldn't mock people for calling their parents to let their kid talk to grandma and grandpa over the phone. Why the special hate for the extra level of closeness?
Build a simple, flat wooden box with an opening at the back that you can slide the laptop keyboard into. Add vent holes if necessary. Affix a cheap keyboard to the top if your kid tries to take off the box to get at the laptop keyboard.
"Everyone: You're Being Replaced By Software"
From the and-by-small-purpose-built-robots dept.
He may well have operated on the assumption that if ever his enemies laid hands on his computer files, odds are that lack of encryption would be very, very low on his list of Things I Need To Worry About Right Now; thus, it would make little sense to spend his limited resources on this line of defense.
Word has it that you can't run Flash on the iPhone, either.
Discovering that John Derbyshire is a racist is somewhat akin to discovering that the sun rises in the east. The man's been quite candid about his views for years.
Kudos to National Review for finally discovering this fact and taking the blindingly obvious course of action, though.