What do you need Flash for, anyway? There's a reason the tag died an ugly death. 90-99% of flash usage is for animated distracting advertising, so why the fuck add epilepsy to your web browsing experience?
In other words, if Florida employment law allows such extreme non-competes, get the hell out of that state and move to a "right to work" state. Vote with your feet.
IANAL, but I've seen quite a few non-competes over the past 20 years and studied the issue a bit...
These terms are not normal. Also, they may not be enforceable (varies by state). For instance, California is considered a "right to work" state, meaning that a non-compete may not be construed in such a way that the employee is prevented from practicing his/her profession. Sometimes the really whacko non-competes are done just for the intimidation factor.
Another thing to consider is that they cannot change your non-compete without compensating you in some way, such as a raise, one-time bonus, stock option grant, etc. Changing it under threat of firing invalidates it.
Don't listen to your boss saying "it's just a friendly contract." He is not your friend, and his job is to get you to sign it. Also consider that no matter how well you may get on with current management, the contract is with the company, and management can change or be bought out.
So, my advice is to not sign it, tell your boss that it is ridiculous as written and likely unenforceable, and let your peers at the company know how you feel. You're probably not the only one in this boat. I did this at one small startup (about 8 people), and got the non-complete dropped from 14 pages down to two, and it was quite reasonable after that. Also, have a look at the non-disclosure contract available from Nolo press (nolo.com).
If Florida employment law really would deny you your right to use a computer at your next job, then get out of that hell-hole.
Two things: the sails are maneuverable, so you can get different thrust vectors within a certain rangle of angle.
More importantly, you have solar gravity pulling you in the exact opposite direction of the photon pressure. So, to go towards the sun, just use the solar sail to kill some of your orbital momentum. This also works around smaller bodies such as the earth, assuming you already are in orbit (which is a given for the Cosmos I satellite).
While sailing upwind by pointing into the solar wind is not feasible, what you can do is move up-orbit or down-orbit--changing your distance from the sun by either accelerating or decelerating. Remember, you start out with some pretty good speed due to the earth's orbital velocity.
If you go faster, you move away from the sun. If you angle the solar sails to slow down, gravity pulls you back in. Thus, you can acutally make round trips within the solar system.
For all the idjits posting in this thread: this isn't a freaking parachute, ok? It is a set of trimmable surfaces that may be individually rotated to achieve specific thrust vectors.
Re:this is just a patch to a kludge
on
Cubicle Privacy
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Suggestion: reduce your costs by subdividing your space, but not into single offices.. Someone else posted that they prefer "large" offices shared by a team of 2-4 people working on the same project. Also start a culture of "cell-phone goes on vibrate when you enter the building--or you buy lunch for everyone in earshot". Another inexpensive thing is a type of floor-to-ceiling whiteboard wall covering--per square foot must cheaper than white-boards, and placed in some of the large open areas it encourages ad hoc design, serendipity, etc. But the people sitting immediately next to those areas in their veal fattening pens may suffer... In an ideal world use a line of internal offices to create noise barriers--why do offices have to steal all the natural light?
Re:If they're anything like bose headphones...
on
Cubicle Privacy
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I've had good luck with the Philips brand noise attenuation headphones--not perfect, but they take the edge off. Last time I was on a plane overnight I actually got deep sleep using them.
this is just a patch to a kludge
on
Cubicle Privacy
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Cubicle farms suck. There's no avoiding it--they are soul and productivity killers.
Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN. Yes, on a nice spring/fall day I wouldn't mind being able to open the window.
Full disclosure; I got an office when I threatened my employer with working from home four days a week due to the clueless fuckwits who think everyone in a 50 foot radius needs to hear their cell phone ring.
TCP/IP by convention refers to the protocol stack, of which TCP and IP are subsets. As for IIS being a single token, why did the article submitter (or slashdot editor) feel they needed to append "web server"? Because outside of Microsoft coding/admin circles, IIS is not that well known. Just as one says "Apache web server" for the benefit of the unenlightened, one also has to say "IIS web server", which is a really cumbersome phrase when expanded.
Is it just me, or is the name "IIS web server" really lame? "Internet Information Server web server..." Yes, I know, Microsoft doesn't append "web server" to IIS, but if you have to tack on "web server" to remind people what the heck it is, then why not call it "Microsoft" web server instead of the nine-syllable babble-phrase? Sort of reminds me of PL/SQL, which when fully expanded is "Procedural Language/Structured Query Language".
Newsweek's "source" was an anonymous phone call from someone alleging to be a government official who paraphrased what they claimed was a report to be issued.
Newsweek's story was multiply sourced. The retraction by one source is about whether or not the Koran-flushing would appear in a particular government report, not whether the flushing of Koran pages occurred. Some released inmates from Gitmo have in the past (2004) said that their Korans were tossed in the toilet.
Miami Herald, March 9 2005:
Yet recently declassified court documents allege that, as far back as 2002, some of Guantanamo's staff cursed Allah, threw Korans into toilets, mocked prisoners during prayers and deliberately took away prisoners' pants knowing that Muslims can't pray unless covered.
Maybe you should think and research a little before repeating white house talking points? At least try to learn from how this one was spun: a minor backing detail was changed, so they seized on that to try to destroy the messenger and never have to respond to the message. Sorry guys, there are too many other sources describing Koran desecration, and stories from US intelligence officers participating in mock prison camps (as inmates), where the bible was desecrated. Seems to be SOP when trying to break down religious inmates.
The news media can talk about blogging killing the media, but bloggers haven't contributed to people being killed yet.
How many bloggers such as Instapundit fed the lie machine that convinced the US populace to back an unneeded invasion of Iraq, which has resulted in 1600 dead US troops, 50 to 100 thousand Iraqis, and crippled our ability to control the Taliban in Afghanistan?
We first show that there is a positive correlation between use of touch-screen voting and the level of electoral support for George Bush. This is true in models that compare the 2000-2004 changes in vote shares between adopting and non-adopting counties within a state, after controlling for income, demographic composition, and other factors. Although small, the effect could have been large enough to influence the final results in some closely contested states. While on the surface this pattern would appear to be consistent with allegations of voting irregularities, a closer examination suggests this interpretation is incorrect. If irregularities did take place, they would be most likely in counties that could potentially affect statewide election totals, or in counties where election officials had incentives to affect the results. Contrary to this prediction, we find no evidence that touch-screen voting had a larger effect in swing states, or in states with a Republican Secretary of State.
Um, folks, maybe the people who programmed the machines were a little more interested in winning a federal presidential election than who gets elected dogcatcher in Podunk, Ohio? There's a fallacious assumption here that the alleged fraudsters would have to be the local election officials. If you're going to hack the vote, you don't make it obvious--you do the absolute minimum required in order to sway the results your way.
I'm not sure what copy of XP you're using, by mine shows quite clearly "- Looking in " during the search.
After the search is over, it doesn't, but you can infer that from the search results that show the path of the results.
And this is good useability?
Chances are, you're not going to want to start your new search from somewhere below your current search, because your current search will have already included it.
Let us say I'm several directories deep, trying to find a photo of which I vaguely remember the filename. If I don't find it, I'm much more likely to search a nearby directory in the same tree, going up on or two, then down one or two. I don't want to start from "My Computer", pick a drive, wait while the search pane locks up for 5 seconds after I accidentally click Network Neighborhood, then go down 5 dirs to my current context. Again, bad useability. Yes, give me the option to start anew from the top, but don't arbitrarily discard the current context.
Uh.. it doesn't. (exclude files by extension)
Sorry, I was imprecise. Based on file extension it excludes files from results when searching for a word match within the file, but not when searching for matches against filename. Fucking inconsistent, and horrible useability. More on the Word search problem here:
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArti cle.asp?ID=323
Um, winXP is actually a regression from win2k, in terms of useability. Case in point: Run a file search, from explorer, then look at the results page. It doesn't even display the freaking start dir of the search! If you have two of them active, which is which?
Then, within the search results panel start a new search, by "browsing" to a new start dir. Guess what: instead of starting your browse from your original start dir, it starts from the top level of "My computer" and your physical drives. Fucking bullshit. Is microsoft paid by the click?
And don't get me started on the decision to by default exclude files from search results based on their extension.
Thanks, here's the quote I'm looking for (from article 39 in the thread you linked):
Charles, you're brilliant! I checked my copy of Accidental Empires and did indeed find the quote that I had half remembered. It's on page 133 and the entire paragraph goes like this:
--- Strart Quote --- Gary Kildall still thinks a lot of the QDOS code was stolen straight from his CP/M. "Ask Bill why function code 6 [in QDOS and still in MS-DOS, more than ten years later] ends in a dollar sign. No one in the world knows that but me." --- End Quote ---
I think he may have been misquoted, because function 6 is Direct Console I/O and doesn't use a "$" terminator. Function 9 is the one he must have been talking about.
I vaguely remember a comment where someone was asking why a certain QDOS system call ends in a question mark or other odd character, exactly like the equivalent CP/M system call which also broke the naming convention. I think it was in Robert Cringely's "Accidental Empires", which, alas, I don't have handy.
Among RUP's deficiencies, you left out the way the "roles" it defines in the process attract all sorts of deadwood in the organization, people who discover they can attend meetings, act as gatekeepers, check off forms and "contribute", WITHOUT EVER HAVING TO TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DELIVERABLE, OR SUPPORT IT ONCE SHIPPED. Only an organization dedicated to the billable hour could embrace this monstrosity.
A little reality check: only ONE THIRD of payouts go to retirees. The rest goes to the disabled and survivors of workers who died pre-retirement. That's right, so what do you say to the guy who loses a leg at age 28? Sorry kid, you should have saved more.
What's even worse is the complete absence of details in Bush's "plan". Who's going to administer these private accounts? Will they charge $64 per quarter the way Schwab tried on accounts having less than $50000 in them? What will you be allowed to invest in? Big Investment Bank's brain-dead IPO dumping ground fund?
There is no social security crisis. Wall Street just wants a new supply of suckers.
Thanks for the insight. Speaking anecdotally again, I have not seen any ESOs with a one-year hold requirement besides that for the tax benefit. In fact, most ESO exercises I've known of have been cashless exercises with immediate sales of the shares.
Will may be "discussing" it, but he's dead wrong. You cannot trademark a single word in common usage: see Microsoft's failed attempts to trademark "windows" outside the context of "Microsoft Windows". Should Google try to trademark the word "scholar" they'd be laughed out of existence by 8 centuries of prior usage. But the phrase "Google Scholar" is as acceptable a trademark as "Google Sponge".
Slashdot Mirror
Heh, slashcode dropped the bracketed BLINK tag in the above post. Should read, "There's a reason the BLINK tag died an ugly death."
What do you need Flash for, anyway? There's a reason the tag died an ugly death. 90-99% of flash usage is for animated distracting advertising, so why the fuck add epilepsy to your web browsing experience?
In other words, if Florida employment law allows such extreme non-competes, get the hell out of that state and move to a "right to work" state. Vote with your feet.
IANAL, but I've seen quite a few non-competes over the past 20 years and studied the issue a bit...
These terms are not normal. Also, they may not be enforceable (varies by state). For instance, California is considered a "right to work" state, meaning that a non-compete may not be construed in such a way that the employee is prevented from practicing his/her profession. Sometimes the really whacko non-competes are done just for the intimidation factor.
Another thing to consider is that they cannot change your non-compete without compensating you in some way, such as a raise, one-time bonus, stock option grant, etc. Changing it under threat of firing invalidates it.
Don't listen to your boss saying "it's just a friendly contract." He is not your friend, and his job is to get you to sign it. Also consider that no matter how well you may get on with current management, the contract is with the company, and management can change or be bought out.
So, my advice is to not sign it, tell your boss that it is ridiculous as written and likely unenforceable, and let your peers at the company know how you feel. You're probably not the only one in this boat. I did this at one small startup (about 8 people), and got the non-complete dropped from 14 pages down to two, and it was quite reasonable after that. Also, have a look at the non-disclosure contract available from Nolo press (nolo.com).
If Florida employment law really would deny you your right to use a computer at your next job, then get out of that hell-hole.
Two things: the sails are maneuverable, so you can get different thrust vectors within a certain rangle of angle.
More importantly, you have solar gravity pulling you in the exact opposite direction of the photon pressure. So, to go towards the sun, just use the solar sail to kill some of your orbital momentum. This also works around smaller bodies such as the earth, assuming you already are in orbit (which is a given for the Cosmos I satellite).
While sailing upwind by pointing into the solar wind is not feasible, what you can do is move up-orbit or down-orbit--changing your distance from the sun by either accelerating or decelerating. Remember, you start out with some pretty good speed due to the earth's orbital velocity.
If you go faster, you move away from the sun. If you angle the solar sails to slow down, gravity pulls you back in. Thus, you can acutally make round trips within the solar system.
For all the idjits posting in this thread: this isn't a freaking parachute, ok? It is a set of trimmable surfaces that may be individually rotated to achieve specific thrust vectors.
Suggestion: reduce your costs by subdividing your space, but not into single offices.. Someone else posted that they prefer "large" offices shared by a team of 2-4 people working on the same project. Also start a culture of "cell-phone goes on vibrate when you enter the building--or you buy lunch for everyone in earshot". Another inexpensive thing is a type of floor-to-ceiling whiteboard wall covering--per square foot must cheaper than white-boards, and placed in some of the large open areas it encourages ad hoc design, serendipity, etc. But the people sitting immediately next to those areas in their veal fattening pens may suffer... In an ideal world use a line of internal offices to create noise barriers--why do offices have to steal all the natural light?
0 43.html
0 68.html
Joel Spolsky has some insights on software development workspaces. Item 8 on the Joel Test: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
A seperate article here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000
I've had good luck with the Philips brand noise attenuation headphones--not perfect, but they take the edge off. Last time I was on a plane overnight I actually got deep sleep using them.
Cubicle farms suck. There's no avoiding it--they are soul and productivity killers.
Attention corporate masters! What employees want are OFFICES with DOORS THAT CLOSE and WINDOWS THAT OPEN. Yes, on a nice spring/fall day I wouldn't mind being able to open the window.
Full disclosure; I got an office when I threatened my employer with working from home four days a week due to the clueless fuckwits who think everyone in a 50 foot radius needs to hear their cell phone ring.
TCP/IP by convention refers to the protocol stack, of which TCP and IP are subsets. As for IIS being a single token, why did the article submitter (or slashdot editor) feel they needed to append "web server"? Because outside of Microsoft coding/admin circles, IIS is not that well known. Just as one says "Apache web server" for the benefit of the unenlightened, one also has to say "IIS web server", which is a really cumbersome phrase when expanded.
Is it just me, or is the name "IIS web server" really lame? "Internet Information Server web server..." Yes, I know, Microsoft doesn't append "web server" to IIS, but if you have to tack on "web server" to remind people what the heck it is, then why not call it "Microsoft" web server instead of the nine-syllable babble-phrase? Sort of reminds me of PL/SQL, which when fully expanded is "Procedural Language/Structured Query Language".
.Net is a migration path for VB (visual bastard) programmers. Nothing more, nothing less.
Newsweek's "source" was an anonymous phone call from someone alleging to be a government official who paraphrased what they claimed was a report to be issued.
Newsweek's story was multiply sourced. The retraction by one source is about whether or not the Koran-flushing would appear in a particular government report, not whether the flushing of Koran pages occurred. Some released inmates from Gitmo have in the past (2004) said that their Korans were tossed in the toilet.
Miami Herald, March 9 2005:
Yet recently declassified court documents allege that, as far back as 2002, some of Guantanamo's staff cursed Allah, threw Korans into toilets, mocked prisoners during prayers and deliberately took away prisoners' pants knowing that Muslims can't pray unless covered.
Maybe you should think and research a little before repeating white house talking points? At least try to learn from how this one was spun: a minor backing detail was changed, so they seized on that to try to destroy the messenger and never have to respond to the message. Sorry guys, there are too many other sources describing Koran desecration, and stories from US intelligence officers participating in mock prison camps (as inmates), where the bible was desecrated. Seems to be SOP when trying to break down religious inmates.
The news media can talk about blogging killing the media, but bloggers haven't contributed to people being killed yet.
How many bloggers such as Instapundit fed the lie machine that convinced the US populace to back an unneeded invasion of Iraq, which has resulted in 1600 dead US troops, 50 to 100 thousand Iraqis, and crippled our ability to control the Taliban in Afghanistan?
from the abstract:
We first show that there is a positive correlation between use of touch-screen voting and the level of electoral support for George Bush. This is true in models that compare the 2000-2004 changes in vote shares between adopting and non-adopting counties within a state, after controlling for income, demographic composition, and other factors. Although small, the effect could have been large enough to influence the final results in some closely contested states. While on the surface this pattern would appear to be consistent with allegations of voting irregularities, a closer examination suggests this interpretation is incorrect. If irregularities did take place, they would be most likely in counties that could potentially affect statewide election totals, or in counties where election officials had incentives to affect the results. Contrary to this prediction, we find no evidence that touch-screen voting had a larger effect in swing states, or in states with a Republican Secretary of State.
Um, folks, maybe the people who programmed the machines were a little more interested in winning a federal presidential election than who gets elected dogcatcher in Podunk, Ohio? There's a fallacious assumption here that the alleged fraudsters would have to be the local election officials. If you're going to hack the vote, you don't make it obvious--you do the absolute minimum required in order to sway the results your way.
Just wait until the poor guy discovers the wonders of British plumbing...
Texas--land of the world's biggest midgets.
No thanks.
I'm not sure what copy of XP you're using, by mine shows quite clearly "- Looking in " during the search. After the search is over, it doesn't, but you can infer that from the search results that show the path of the results.
i cle.asp?ID=323
And this is good useability?
Chances are, you're not going to want to start your new search from somewhere below your current search, because your current search will have already included it.
Let us say I'm several directories deep, trying to find a photo of which I vaguely remember the filename. If I don't find it, I'm much more likely to search a nearby directory in the same tree, going up on or two, then down one or two. I don't want to start from "My Computer", pick a drive, wait while the search pane locks up for 5 seconds after I accidentally click Network Neighborhood, then go down 5 dirs to my current context. Again, bad useability. Yes, give me the option to start anew from the top, but don't arbitrarily discard the current context.
Uh.. it doesn't. (exclude files by extension)
Sorry, I was imprecise. Based on file extension it excludes files from results when searching for a word match within the file, but not when searching for matches against filename. Fucking inconsistent, and horrible useability. More on the Word search problem here: http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArt
Um, winXP is actually a regression from win2k, in terms of useability. Case in point: Run a file search, from explorer, then look at the results page. It doesn't even display the freaking start dir of the search! If you have two of them active, which is which?
Then, within the search results panel start a new search, by "browsing" to a new start dir. Guess what: instead of starting your browse from your original start dir, it starts from the top level of "My computer" and your physical drives. Fucking bullshit. Is microsoft paid by the click?
And don't get me started on the decision to by default exclude files from search results based on their extension.
Thanks, here's the quote I'm looking for (from article 39 in the thread you linked):
Charles, you're brilliant! I checked my copy of Accidental Empires and
did indeed find the quote that I had half remembered. It's on page 133
and the entire paragraph goes like this:
--- Strart Quote ---
Gary Kildall still thinks a lot of the QDOS code was stolen straight
from his CP/M. "Ask Bill why function code 6 [in QDOS and still in
MS-DOS, more than ten years later] ends in a dollar sign. No one in the
world knows that but me."
--- End Quote ---
I think he may have been misquoted, because function 6 is Direct Console
I/O and doesn't use a "$" terminator. Function 9 is the one he must
have been talking about.
I vaguely remember a comment where someone was asking why a certain QDOS system call ends in a question mark or other odd character, exactly like the equivalent CP/M system call which also broke the naming convention. I think it was in Robert Cringely's "Accidental Empires", which, alas, I don't have handy.
Heh, you said "RUP".
Among RUP's deficiencies, you left out the way the "roles" it defines in the process attract all sorts of deadwood in the organization, people who discover they can attend meetings, act as gatekeepers, check off forms and "contribute", WITHOUT EVER HAVING TO TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE DELIVERABLE, OR SUPPORT IT ONCE SHIPPED. Only an organization dedicated to the billable hour could embrace this monstrosity.
Michael Powell steps down...
to be replaced by John Ashcroft.
"Let the eagle soar...."
A little reality check: only ONE THIRD of payouts go to retirees. The rest goes to the disabled and survivors of workers who died pre-retirement. That's right, so what do you say to the guy who loses a leg at age 28? Sorry kid, you should have saved more.
What's even worse is the complete absence of details in Bush's "plan". Who's going to administer these private accounts? Will they charge $64 per quarter the way Schwab tried on accounts having less than $50000 in them? What will you be allowed to invest in? Big Investment Bank's brain-dead IPO dumping ground fund?
There is no social security crisis. Wall Street just wants a new supply of suckers.
Thanks for the insight. Speaking anecdotally again, I have not seen any ESOs with a one-year hold requirement besides that for the tax benefit. In fact, most ESO exercises I've known of have been cashless exercises with immediate sales of the shares.
Will may be "discussing" it, but he's dead wrong. You cannot trademark a single word in common usage: see Microsoft's failed attempts to trademark "windows" outside the context of "Microsoft Windows". Should Google try to trademark the word "scholar" they'd be laughed out of existence by 8 centuries of prior usage. But the phrase "Google Scholar" is as acceptable a trademark as "Google Sponge".