If the constitution is silent on the matter, it's safe to assume that the feds lack that power - all the constitution does is assert what powers the feds have. It's unfortunate that it's been turned on its head to imply that the feds can do anything not explicitly denied - that's our role. Since the vast majority of flights cross state borders, it pretty clearly gives the federal government to regulate it under the commerce clause of the constitution.
I'm not saying I like the RealID stuff. I think it is a really stupid idea that does nothing to actually improve security. But that doesn't make it unconstitutional or mean that the federal government is overstepping it's authority.
If there is one thing that public schools across the country continue to prove it is that the government does a poor job of providing education
I'm not sure that is a good generalization. There are plenty of school districts in this country that are very well run and have great results. It really isn't that hard to find them either. Just follow the population growth. Good school districts tend to have great growth (and consequently good housing markets) because people want to move into those districts. The problem is that the school districts are locally run and there are lots and lots of them throughout the country. Statistically, some will be average, some will be above average, and some will be terrible.
Take a city like New Orleans. They were represented in Congress by William Jefferson. The FBI found $90,000 of marked bribe money in his freezer. They investigated him for years. (He was just recently indicted.) In the last election, he was reelected! What kind of oversight of the school board do you think those voters do? What kind of school board do you think they have? Would you want to send your kids to public school there?
There is competition in the market for schools, its just that it means moving and for many people that is a huge obstacle. Personally, I would move for better schools in a heartbeat, but not everyone is in my position. I think this is a big benefit to vouchers. In poorly run districts, people would flee the public schools in droves and this would put enormous pressure on those school boards.
why didn't they offer this proof when the newspaper called
The article never stated that they tried and failed to get proof from IBM. I read it that the school district's administration can find no paperwork. If IBM has no proof, then the school board is golden. All they have to do is refuse to pay and force IBM into court to prove its case. IBM did not become a multi billion dollar company by losing the paperwork on a $5 million dollar deal. IBM will have the contract, the purchase orders, the delivery manifest, everything.
This is exactly what I am thinking. I am a shareholder of IBM. I'm certainly not rich; I'm just a working stiff just like most other people. Why should I have to take the hit because of the idiots in that school district? (Yes, yes, I know that that $5 million has a negligible impact on my dividends due to IBM's size.) I am a reasonably charitable person, but I like to control who I donate money to. Mismanaged school districts do not seem like a worthy cause to me.
This school district has been able to defer this debt for over 15 years. Where is my 15 year, interest free $5 million loan? I want a piece of that action.
If we want to talk about bail outs, why not have the state of California bail out the school district? Why not have the citizens of that school district pass the collection hat round and round till they come up with the money?
I'm sure there are going to be lots of "think of the poor children" arguments about this. It is real easy to have sympathy when it isn't your $5 million at stake.
Disposable income is actually decreasing in both US and UK.
Where do you get this data? I can find no actual evidence of this. The US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Activity says that disposable income has increased every year since 1990 (see here).
The rest of your post discusses the savings rate, but that is separate from disposable income. It is true that personal savings has declined in 2005 and 2006. My guess would be that the recent mortgage difficulties are a major factor behind that.
There are lots of posts here complaining how things are getting worse and worse, but it is never backed up with any evidence. The actual data shows an extremely robust economy that is benefitting both corporations and workers. Is there anything that will make these people happy?
Public statement from the author(s) of a license will affect the decision a judge makes if it ever comes to a trial.
This is a good point. When the intent of something is in doubt, it is common for judges to look to the context of things to determine what makes sense. Where things really get hairy is if I use the GPL to license my own work. In that case, am I bound by RMS's interpretation of the license? I may interpret the license differently (and provide my own FAQ about what I think it means). The reality is that in many cases, the FSF view of the license won't matter since the FSF is neither issuing or receiving the license.
Every time I read about companies like this, it makes me want to start a business of my own. Seriously. I want every one of my competitors to be chock full of Wallys. You would get to slowly pick up their customers without them even knowing about it. (I work in a company whose has watched its market share erode over the years, and yet they keep patting themselves on the back about how great they are.) I would be able to easily recruit their best people to work for me. It seems almost impossible to fail when that is your competition.
Are there really that many bad companies out there? In my experience it hasn't been that bad, but maybe I just have been lucky.
I do think there is a tendancy in large organizations to stop innovating. Everyone becomes risk averse because they don't want to manage a failed project. Startups will often be very innovative because they know their best shot at big bucks is to try to create an entirely new market. Being part of a failed startup does not disqualify you from getting another shot, so they can try something, and if it fails, the project can be dropped so they can try something else. Corporate structures tend to penalize this and reward people who can figure out how to wring an extra 1% profit off of an existing investment.
The reason the news stories don't actually post the teacher salaries is because they are public information that is easily available. It only takes a quick google search.
For my state, North Carolina, that information is here.
The real problem with teacher shortages is that new teachers do not stick around very long. Usually after a couple of years they realize how low the pay is, how long it will take to get to a reasonable pay level, and how much better they could do in a non-teaching career. I think the pay scale is completely imbalanced. New teachers should ramp up with large raises quickly. After they have been in the system for 10 years, they are less likely to leave and smaller raises can be provided. This could help retain good, young teachers without actually costing the government money.
everyone seems pretty universally convinced that it's gone downhill since then. (Few features have been added, and those that have are of a blatantly revenue-generating nature, e.g. printing.)
I wouldn't say universally. I can't think of a single instance where things have gone downhill. Features have definitely been added, and the site has become a lot more reliable. They used to have tons of downtime before they got the benefits of Yahoo's infrastructure.
I don't think Flickr makes a lot of money from the printing. In fact, you really have to look for that feature. There was a lot of demand from users for printing. Flickr did it because people really, really wanted it.
it's pretty obvious that Yahoo bought Flickr for its userbase, and the whole idea is to develop Flickr users into users of Yahoo's other (ad-laden) services
Is it that bad for someone to try to run a profitable business? Why else would Yahoo buy Flickr? Why else does Google provide free maps and email? Of course they are in the ad business. Of course they want to expand the number of people who see their ads. They aren't trying to hide that from anyone.
Same here. I have been a Flickr user for a very long time. Switching is not a big deal, so I don't understand this hatred at all. It isn't like Flickr is kicking people off or deleting their photos. And Flickr has given plenty of warning that this was coming; I think they have bent over backwards to try to accommodate people. Flickr is Yahoo; they are not separate entities so it makes sense to have a common login. Do people really hate Yahoo that much?
I worked in retail for a long time and one thing I learned is that you just can't make some people happy. They will always find something to complain about. I found that it was better to let them storm out mad. You wouldn't really lose business because they get mad at your competition, too, and end up coming back.
I think the Yahoo/Flickr haters will find something to despise at every other photo hosting site.
I guess it depends on what he means by "interesting CS type stuff". A lot of the true research type stuff will definitely pay a lot less than what you can make in the business world.
But for R&D of new products, there is definitely no pay cut. I have been working on high end networking gear and there is definitely not that kind of pay gap here.
Most people forget that there is way more to computer science than just coding. I have been working as a tester of complex networking and telcom products, and I am on the same pay scale as the programmers. We deal with the same complexity, it is just at different levels. Then there is the technical support (not the stupid help desk kind), sales engineers, training, marketing, and documentation. All of this is necessary for a good product, they can all be technically challenging, and none of it involves coding. I've worked with brilliant people in each of those positions.
But the really important thing is doing what is fun. I'm about to take a break from working and get a masters degree because it is something I really want to do. Will it help my career? I don't care. There are a lot of topics I want to study in depth that I just don't have time to do while I am working. It definitely won't hurt my career, but since I have a lot of good experience it might not open any doors that aren't already open to me.
Having said all that, I do think there is overwhelming evidence out there that getting a bachelor's degree helps your career. When almost everyone else in the industry has a degree, it really sticks out when you don't. It may not be fair, but it is reality.
But that 15-20% are not carrying their weight. The VP's view is that they are not productive. Now I don't work at Yahoo so I don't know if he is right or not. But if he is right, then why is it fair to let 15-20% of the company drain the profits of the company? Why would the workers have more rights over the shareholders, who have invested cold hard cash?
I don't think the people that get let go will have big problems finding other jobs. Tons of companies would love to be in Yahoo's position and would like to get a piece of Yahoo's employees. If the workers can't convince someone to give them a job, then you really have to wonder what kind of value they really produced at Yahoo.
Some companies just have too many people for what they do. I would love to see headcount reduced by 15-20% where I work. I'm convinced it wouldn't hurt us a bit. The headcount grows so we can put more resources on projects to finish them sooner. The problem is that the projects are still hopelessly late. Only now we have to deal with more layers of the organization. We would be better off with a smaller, highly skilled core. It sounds like this is what is happening at Yahoo.
He was not indicted for burning a CD. He clearly possessed child porn so he would already be charged on that count. Now the law says that "making" child porn has a higher penalty (make perfect sense). The court had to determine if this counts as "making". The law does not define what constitutes "making". The law also does not have any provision for intent to distribute, so it really does not matter if he makes one copy or 500 copies.
It seems to me that he made a collection of child porn on each CD-R. If I select different pieces of music together and burn a CD, I think that would qualify as making a collection (or compilation). (Note that it does not matter whether I may have violated copyright in doing so; it is still something new.)
In fact, the legislature could have provided an exception to "making" by exempting copying for their own personal use. This has been done in other instances, but it was not done here. It seems like the court ruled pretty reasonably to me. I can see where the defendant may have been surprised, but too bad. He should have checked with a lawyer before making the copies.
Assuming the guy gets convicted, the sentence will almost certainly not be 20 years. A judge will look at the facts and give an appropriate sentence. The law provides for up to 20 years, but it is not mandatory.
Why not go down that road? There is a big difference here. Child porn is illegal in and of itself; violent video games are not. So, mass producing violent video games fuels the interest for more violent video games. That doesn't sound so bad unless you believe that violent video games are immoral in and of themselves.
What Jack Thompson argues is that violent video games fuels the interest for more violence, but that is completely different from the child porn argument. There is no need to prove that the possession of child porn leads to people harming children because mere possession is illegal.
One of my favorite examples is that companies expect a 2 week notice (minimum, they seem to want a 2 year notice?) when you are going to quit. Just TRY and get them to agree to giving YOU a two week notice before they can you.
That is interesting. I know that not all employers are like that. My company (a huge telecomm corporation) was always extremely fair when laying people off. Sure, they don't tell you about the layoff two weeks in advance. But when they tell you, they also provide a nice severance package. In fact, I knew many people that wanted to get let go because they were looking at almost a year of pay without having to work.
I wouldn't say that this makes me loyal to them, but it does mean that I will try very hard to be fair with them whenever I leave. Two weeks notice is the minimum, but I would not have a problem giving my current employer more notice than that.
I have also been with an employer that didn't treat me well. He got no notice when I quit. I just left him a note saying I was not going to come back.
This is absolutely correct. This is just a matter of marketing. Apple makes a great portable music player, but that is not enough; they also market it very effectively. It is important to make real contributions to a company's success, but it is just as important to publicize your contributions.
I know several very good engineers who got laid off simply because no one knew what they did. They did good work; they didn't make enemies; they didn't rock the boat. And they didn't market themselves. When the layoffs come, upper management is scanning a long list of names. Do you want them to stop at your name and ask, "What the heck does that guy do?"? I know that I am not immune from being laid off, but I guarantee that upper levels of management know what I do.
Some will interpret this as saying it is important to suck up to management, but that is not correct. Most of middle management isn't much different than the rest of the employees; they are expendable and in my experience, they come and go. Middle management is not the one that pays your salary. The company does that and the company is owned by the shareholders. In my mind, the shareholders are paying me to provide value to the company. The management is there to provide direction. But if management forces me to be non-productive, then it is my obligation to the shareholders to fight that. Could that get me laid off? Maybe, but who cares? Who wants to work for a company that is driving itself out of business?
Getting laid off from a company like that is an invitation to start a competing company. Show me a market where companies are letting go of their best people and ignoring the needs of their customers and I'll come running to start a business there.
The August issue of IEEE Spectrum also had a story about the space elevator. This article is available online here. Not knowing much about the space elevator, I found this article very informative.
All a kid needs to do is buy a credit card, they will sell them to anyone. Then they go on-line, and order wine.
I just can't imagine many 15 year olds out there buying 20 dollar bottles of wine to get drunk on. Wouldn't they just get a 18+ friend to buy some cheap beer for them? It has been a while, but that is what always happened when I was in high school. Besides, the current law in many states allow internet sales of wine within the state so the kids could already do this; they just can't order a California Chardonnay. I am very disappointed that there are 4 Supreme Court justices that bought this lame "save the children" argument and dissented on this.
Each bill should have a well-defined purpose and anything that doesn't deal with that purpose should be eliminated. There must be other means of compromise in the Congress besides the practice of lumping unrelated issues into budget approvals and omnibus acts.
The problem with this is most bills could never be passed because the consituency for many problems isn't large enough to push the bill through. (I guess some would argue that that would be a good thing, but I am not one of them.) For example, a typical bill related to agriculture only affects states with large farming industries, but there are plenty of people who couldn't care less. So to bring other groups on board, you have to add additional benefits to the bill. This is what happens when you have to get 535 people to come to an agreement on something.
I think the NSA already has satellites that do that. The photos are probably part of the President's daily briefing on National Security. They just need to make these photos available under the Freedom of Information Act.
I've always said that I would be extremely disappointed in our nation's intelligence services if we did not have good nude photos of Natalie Portman and Britney Spears somewhere.
I agree. I don't want to jump on NASA because of the mixup. These things happen, and it is great (or lucky) that this problem has an easy workaround.
But there was a clear, identifiable flaw in the system. They should not just shrug it off because there was no harm done. This is just asking for another disaster.
Mistake are one thing, but pretending that a mistake is a one-off incident instead of an indication of a flaw in the system is even worse.
Right, a Post-It. On a spacecraft to Mars? These are highly sensitive one of a kind instruments. You don't just go sticking paper and glue all over it.
Post-Its are not static dissipative. You could have a static discharge damage components and you wouldn't even know until the rover had landed on Mars. You could accidently leave a Post-It on the spacecraft and cause damage. How do you know residue from the glue on the Post-It won't cause damage? Now you have to test for that. It is amazing how one stupid thing like a Post-It note could add more complexity and make things even worse.
Now what would have been smart is to have devices like this keyed so that they can't possible be installed in the wrong place. But that tends to add complexity to the design and when you are only building a handful of rovers in highly controlled conditions, it can be hard to justify.
What is stupid is that there is no investigation of what happened. Sure, in this case the mixup was relatively harmless, but the next one might not be. NASA needs to be more proactive and not wait until things blow up to have an investigation. I don't expect perfection, but they at least have to understand their flaws.
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I'm not saying I like the RealID stuff. I think it is a really stupid idea that does nothing to actually improve security. But that doesn't make it unconstitutional or mean that the federal government is overstepping it's authority.
If there is one thing that public schools across the country continue to prove it is that the government does a poor job of providing education
I'm not sure that is a good generalization. There are plenty of school districts in this country that are very well run and have great results. It really isn't that hard to find them either. Just follow the population growth. Good school districts tend to have great growth (and consequently good housing markets) because people want to move into those districts. The problem is that the school districts are locally run and there are lots and lots of them throughout the country. Statistically, some will be average, some will be above average, and some will be terrible.
Take a city like New Orleans. They were represented in Congress by William Jefferson. The FBI found $90,000 of marked bribe money in his freezer. They investigated him for years. (He was just recently indicted.) In the last election, he was reelected! What kind of oversight of the school board do you think those voters do? What kind of school board do you think they have? Would you want to send your kids to public school there?
There is competition in the market for schools, its just that it means moving and for many people that is a huge obstacle. Personally, I would move for better schools in a heartbeat, but not everyone is in my position. I think this is a big benefit to vouchers. In poorly run districts, people would flee the public schools in droves and this would put enormous pressure on those school boards.
why didn't they offer this proof when the newspaper called
The article never stated that they tried and failed to get proof from IBM. I read it that the school district's administration can find no paperwork. If IBM has no proof, then the school board is golden. All they have to do is refuse to pay and force IBM into court to prove its case. IBM did not become a multi billion dollar company by losing the paperwork on a $5 million dollar deal. IBM will have the contract, the purchase orders, the delivery manifest, everything.
I don't understand something. Is there any proof that the computers were ever delivered?
:) It certainly isn't IBM's fault if the school district was disorganized.
I bet IBM has proof.
This is exactly what I am thinking. I am a shareholder of IBM. I'm certainly not rich; I'm just a working stiff just like most other people. Why should I have to take the hit because of the idiots in that school district? (Yes, yes, I know that that $5 million has a negligible impact on my dividends due to IBM's size.) I am a reasonably charitable person, but I like to control who I donate money to. Mismanaged school districts do not seem like a worthy cause to me.
This school district has been able to defer this debt for over 15 years. Where is my 15 year, interest free $5 million loan? I want a piece of that action.
If we want to talk about bail outs, why not have the state of California bail out the school district? Why not have the citizens of that school district pass the collection hat round and round till they come up with the money?
I'm sure there are going to be lots of "think of the poor children" arguments about this. It is real easy to have sympathy when it isn't your $5 million at stake.
Disposable income is actually decreasing in both US and UK.
Where do you get this data? I can find no actual evidence of this. The US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Activity says that disposable income has increased every year since 1990 (see here).
The rest of your post discusses the savings rate, but that is separate from disposable income. It is true that personal savings has declined in 2005 and 2006. My guess would be that the recent mortgage difficulties are a major factor behind that.
There are lots of posts here complaining how things are getting worse and worse, but it is never backed up with any evidence. The actual data shows an extremely robust economy that is benefitting both corporations and workers. Is there anything that will make these people happy?
Honestly, I consider the remark more sexist that racist. I guess in this day and age sexism is tolerable, but racism is an unforgivable offense.
Public statement from the author(s) of a license will affect the decision a judge makes if it ever comes to a trial.
This is a good point. When the intent of something is in doubt, it is common for judges to look to the context of things to determine what makes sense. Where things really get hairy is if I use the GPL to license my own work. In that case, am I bound by RMS's interpretation of the license? I may interpret the license differently (and provide my own FAQ about what I think it means). The reality is that in many cases, the FSF view of the license won't matter since the FSF is neither issuing or receiving the license.
Every time I read about companies like this, it makes me want to start a business of my own. Seriously. I want every one of my competitors to be chock full of Wallys. You would get to slowly pick up their customers without them even knowing about it. (I work in a company whose has watched its market share erode over the years, and yet they keep patting themselves on the back about how great they are.) I would be able to easily recruit their best people to work for me. It seems almost impossible to fail when that is your competition.
Are there really that many bad companies out there? In my experience it hasn't been that bad, but maybe I just have been lucky.
I do think there is a tendancy in large organizations to stop innovating. Everyone becomes risk averse because they don't want to manage a failed project. Startups will often be very innovative because they know their best shot at big bucks is to try to create an entirely new market. Being part of a failed startup does not disqualify you from getting another shot, so they can try something, and if it fails, the project can be dropped so they can try something else. Corporate structures tend to penalize this and reward people who can figure out how to wring an extra 1% profit off of an existing investment.
The reason the news stories don't actually post the teacher salaries is because they are public information that is easily available. It only takes a quick google search.
For my state, North Carolina, that information is here.
For Texas, it is here.
For Louisiana, it is here.
The real problem with teacher shortages is that new teachers do not stick around very long. Usually after a couple of years they realize how low the pay is, how long it will take to get to a reasonable pay level, and how much better they could do in a non-teaching career. I think the pay scale is completely imbalanced. New teachers should ramp up with large raises quickly. After they have been in the system for 10 years, they are less likely to leave and smaller raises can be provided. This could help retain good, young teachers without actually costing the government money.
everyone seems pretty universally convinced that it's gone downhill since then. (Few features have been added, and those that have are of a blatantly revenue-generating nature, e.g. printing.)
I wouldn't say universally. I can't think of a single instance where things have gone downhill. Features have definitely been added, and the site has become a lot more reliable. They used to have tons of downtime before they got the benefits of Yahoo's infrastructure.
I don't think Flickr makes a lot of money from the printing. In fact, you really have to look for that feature. There was a lot of demand from users for printing. Flickr did it because people really, really wanted it.
it's pretty obvious that Yahoo bought Flickr for its userbase, and the whole idea is to develop Flickr users into users of Yahoo's other (ad-laden) services
Is it that bad for someone to try to run a profitable business? Why else would Yahoo buy Flickr? Why else does Google provide free maps and email? Of course they are in the ad business. Of course they want to expand the number of people who see their ads. They aren't trying to hide that from anyone.
Same here. I have been a Flickr user for a very long time. Switching is not a big deal, so I don't understand this hatred at all. It isn't like Flickr is kicking people off or deleting their photos. And Flickr has given plenty of warning that this was coming; I think they have bent over backwards to try to accommodate people. Flickr is Yahoo; they are not separate entities so it makes sense to have a common login. Do people really hate Yahoo that much?
I worked in retail for a long time and one thing I learned is that you just can't make some people happy. They will always find something to complain about. I found that it was better to let them storm out mad. You wouldn't really lose business because they get mad at your competition, too, and end up coming back.
I think the Yahoo/Flickr haters will find something to despise at every other photo hosting site.
I guess it depends on what he means by "interesting CS type stuff". A lot of the true research type stuff will definitely pay a lot less than what you can make in the business world.
But for R&D of new products, there is definitely no pay cut. I have been working on high end networking gear and there is definitely not that kind of pay gap here.
Most people forget that there is way more to computer science than just coding. I have been working as a tester of complex networking and telcom products, and I am on the same pay scale as the programmers. We deal with the same complexity, it is just at different levels. Then there is the technical support (not the stupid help desk kind), sales engineers, training, marketing, and documentation. All of this is necessary for a good product, they can all be technically challenging, and none of it involves coding. I've worked with brilliant people in each of those positions.
But the really important thing is doing what is fun. I'm about to take a break from working and get a masters degree because it is something I really want to do. Will it help my career? I don't care. There are a lot of topics I want to study in depth that I just don't have time to do while I am working. It definitely won't hurt my career, but since I have a lot of good experience it might not open any doors that aren't already open to me.
Having said all that, I do think there is overwhelming evidence out there that getting a bachelor's degree helps your career. When almost everyone else in the industry has a degree, it really sticks out when you don't. It may not be fair, but it is reality.
But that 15-20% are not carrying their weight. The VP's view is that they are not productive. Now I don't work at Yahoo so I don't know if he is right or not. But if he is right, then why is it fair to let 15-20% of the company drain the profits of the company? Why would the workers have more rights over the shareholders, who have invested cold hard cash?
I don't think the people that get let go will have big problems finding other jobs. Tons of companies would love to be in Yahoo's position and would like to get a piece of Yahoo's employees. If the workers can't convince someone to give them a job, then you really have to wonder what kind of value they really produced at Yahoo.
Some companies just have too many people for what they do. I would love to see headcount reduced by 15-20% where I work. I'm convinced it wouldn't hurt us a bit. The headcount grows so we can put more resources on projects to finish them sooner. The problem is that the projects are still hopelessly late. Only now we have to deal with more layers of the organization. We would be better off with a smaller, highly skilled core. It sounds like this is what is happening at Yahoo.
But the Post Office makes money off of the stamps. Google is not profiting by making a change to their logo.
He was not indicted for burning a CD. He clearly possessed child porn so he would already be charged on that count. Now the law says that "making" child porn has a higher penalty (make perfect sense). The court had to determine if this counts as "making". The law does not define what constitutes "making". The law also does not have any provision for intent to distribute, so it really does not matter if he makes one copy or 500 copies.
It seems to me that he made a collection of child porn on each CD-R. If I select different pieces of music together and burn a CD, I think that would qualify as making a collection (or compilation). (Note that it does not matter whether I may have violated copyright in doing so; it is still something new.)
In fact, the legislature could have provided an exception to "making" by exempting copying for their own personal use. This has been done in other instances, but it was not done here. It seems like the court ruled pretty reasonably to me. I can see where the defendant may have been surprised, but too bad. He should have checked with a lawyer before making the copies.
Assuming the guy gets convicted, the sentence will almost certainly not be 20 years. A judge will look at the facts and give an appropriate sentence. The law provides for up to 20 years, but it is not mandatory.
Why not go down that road? There is a big difference here. Child porn is illegal in and of itself; violent video games are not. So, mass producing violent video games fuels the interest for more violent video games. That doesn't sound so bad unless you believe that violent video games are immoral in and of themselves.
What Jack Thompson argues is that violent video games fuels the interest for more violence, but that is completely different from the child porn argument. There is no need to prove that the possession of child porn leads to people harming children because mere possession is illegal.
One of my favorite examples is that companies expect a 2 week notice (minimum, they seem to want a 2 year notice?) when you are going to quit. Just TRY and get them to agree to giving YOU a two week notice before they can you.
That is interesting. I know that not all employers are like that. My company (a huge telecomm corporation) was always extremely fair when laying people off. Sure, they don't tell you about the layoff two weeks in advance. But when they tell you, they also provide a nice severance package. In fact, I knew many people that wanted to get let go because they were looking at almost a year of pay without having to work.
I wouldn't say that this makes me loyal to them, but it does mean that I will try very hard to be fair with them whenever I leave. Two weeks notice is the minimum, but I would not have a problem giving my current employer more notice than that.
I have also been with an employer that didn't treat me well. He got no notice when I quit. I just left him a note saying I was not going to come back.
This is absolutely correct. This is just a matter of marketing. Apple makes a great portable music player, but that is not enough; they also market it very effectively. It is important to make real contributions to a company's success, but it is just as important to publicize your contributions.
I know several very good engineers who got laid off simply because no one knew what they did. They did good work; they didn't make enemies; they didn't rock the boat. And they didn't market themselves. When the layoffs come, upper management is scanning a long list of names. Do you want them to stop at your name and ask, "What the heck does that guy do?"? I know that I am not immune from being laid off, but I guarantee that upper levels of management know what I do.
Some will interpret this as saying it is important to suck up to management, but that is not correct. Most of middle management isn't much different than the rest of the employees; they are expendable and in my experience, they come and go. Middle management is not the one that pays your salary. The company does that and the company is owned by the shareholders. In my mind, the shareholders are paying me to provide value to the company. The management is there to provide direction. But if management forces me to be non-productive, then it is my obligation to the shareholders to fight that. Could that get me laid off? Maybe, but who cares? Who wants to work for a company that is driving itself out of business?
Getting laid off from a company like that is an invitation to start a competing company. Show me a market where companies are letting go of their best people and ignoring the needs of their customers and I'll come running to start a business there.
The August issue of IEEE Spectrum also had a story about the space elevator. This article is available online here. Not knowing much about the space elevator, I found this article very informative.
All a kid needs to do is buy a credit card, they will sell them to anyone. Then they go on-line, and order wine.
I just can't imagine many 15 year olds out there buying 20 dollar bottles of wine to get drunk on. Wouldn't they just get a 18+ friend to buy some cheap beer for them? It has been a while, but that is what always happened when I was in high school. Besides, the current law in many states allow internet sales of wine within the state so the kids could already do this; they just can't order a California Chardonnay. I am very disappointed that there are 4 Supreme Court justices that bought this lame "save the children" argument and dissented on this.
Each bill should have a well-defined purpose and anything that doesn't deal with that purpose should be eliminated. There must be other means of compromise in the Congress besides the practice of lumping unrelated issues into budget approvals and omnibus acts.
The problem with this is most bills could never be passed because the consituency for many problems isn't large enough to push the bill through. (I guess some would argue that that would be a good thing, but I am not one of them.) For example, a typical bill related to agriculture only affects states with large farming industries, but there are plenty of people who couldn't care less. So to bring other groups on board, you have to add additional benefits to the bill. This is what happens when you have to get 535 people to come to an agreement on something.
I think the NSA already has satellites that do that. The photos are probably part of the President's daily briefing on National Security. They just need to make these photos available under the Freedom of Information Act.
I've always said that I would be extremely disappointed in our nation's intelligence services if we did not have good nude photos of Natalie Portman and Britney Spears somewhere.
I agree. I don't want to jump on NASA because of the mixup. These things happen, and it is great (or lucky) that this problem has an easy workaround.
But there was a clear, identifiable flaw in the system. They should not just shrug it off because there was no harm done. This is just asking for another disaster.
Mistake are one thing, but pretending that a mistake is a one-off incident instead of an indication of a flaw in the system is even worse.
Right, a Post-It. On a spacecraft to Mars? These are highly sensitive one of a kind instruments. You don't just go sticking paper and glue all over it.
Post-Its are not static dissipative. You could have a static discharge damage components and you wouldn't even know until the rover had landed on Mars. You could accidently leave a Post-It on the spacecraft and cause damage. How do you know residue from the glue on the Post-It won't cause damage? Now you have to test for that. It is amazing how one stupid thing like a Post-It note could add more complexity and make things even worse.
Now what would have been smart is to have devices like this keyed so that they can't possible be installed in the wrong place. But that tends to add complexity to the design and when you are only building a handful of rovers in highly controlled conditions, it can be hard to justify.
What is stupid is that there is no investigation of what happened. Sure, in this case the mixup was relatively harmless, but the next one might not be. NASA needs to be more proactive and not wait until things blow up to have an investigation. I don't expect perfection, but they at least have to understand their flaws.