Trolls shouldn't be able to patent laws of motion or gravity, established math or physics relationships, or natural biological sequences like DNA. Merely expressing established ideas as computer functions or models is stiil nothing more than a model, not original. If you discover a new short-cut method of computing pi, you can publish, not patent, and expressing it software adds nothing but speed and convenience. Hopefully, this will curb some of the more absurd patents granted by a Patent Office that seems to be in it way over its antediluvian head.
Google is wrong. In matters of collision avoidance, safe navigation and busting regulations, one human is always designated as captain of the ship, pilot in command, or driver of the car. He or she is responsible for monitoring even the most highly automated systems, and for overriding them if necessary. Saying the company manufacturing the vehicle should get the speeding ticket is like saying Smith and Wesson should do the time in homicide convictions.
Keplier-186f is 500 light years distant. I wouldn't worry about it unless alien civilizations have time travel, hyperdrive and worm-holes. If so, maybe they have a quick cure for global warning that we can live with. Sometimes worrying about hypotheticals we can't resolve seems preferable to solving the problems we can actually do something about.
Gee, look at me! I get to spend 96 hours a week helping thousands of us build our Pharaoh's pyramid. I get all the millet I can eat. I will be provided for, and history will remember and honor my family. It's all about me, and no one will remember the pyramid.
"At long last a judge who is not impressed with the corporate idea that adding the phrase "on a computer", "on a cell phone", or "on the Internet" to a hundreds year old idea magically makes it a totally new, never thought of before idea."
That's the best comment I've read on the subject of patentable work that I've read in years. The patent system is totally out of control. Thanks.
Neither the problem nor the solutions are really new to the Internet. Honoring advertised prices is generally the law, though details could vary by state. In California in the 1970's, newspaper typos happened too. Honest businesses generally honored the prices because "false advertising" was bad business. Businesses could get around this by taking out a price correction ad immediately, and prominently posting a copy of the correction notice and corrected pricing near the sale merchandise.
We've heard it all before. Yes, Jobs was brilliant. Yes, he was great pals with Ellison. But it's still the tired old "There will never be another Harry Truman" line. "England has gone to hell in a hand-basket since the passing of Sir Winston."
If you're looking into reducing light pollution (not to mention courtesy to your neighbors) that's all good. Security lighting can be put on a motion sensor. It is not needed 99% of the time. Outdoor lighting should have reflectors and or hoods to keep the light out of the night sky and out of neighbors' windows. Efficient lighting directed only where needed is also less expensive. If you have ever gone out to try to see the Big Dipper or Milky Way, and couldn't find it, you're beginning to appreciate why most city dwellers have no clue what a dark night sky even looks like. Amateur Astronomy sites have copious information on practical lighting. One of the biggest selling points for saving the night sky is having commercial and residential lighting pouring in your own windows at night. It's particularly annoying when it's shining UP at you.
Well, surprise, surprise: instead of finding "The Lost Thing," we learn that programmers' worst fears are a good match to those in anybody else's profession.
Spot-on. If people charge their electrics from coal-fired power plants, they might as well just buy '65 Caddies. I was surprised to even see the original post, because this was widely examined n mainstream publications at least a decade ago.
Aye, just what we all need is a tablet with a full Office installation; hopefully, msconfig, a Windows registry if it doesn't already have one, and registry hacks. Maybe a new Vista retro look. I would no doubt love my iPad a lot more if I had to wait 1/2 hour for the weekly Windows Update before I could either use it or shut it off. I assume the Windows tablet will have OS2 keyboard and mouse ports, alt-shift-control keyboard shortcuts galore, a fan, and built-in BSOD. Cheers...
The shop where I worked had the same overconfidence problem. Project leaders would pull numbers out of a hat, or someplace else, and of course they would fall short. I was in QA. They would chop testing time to meet deadlines, and that's why sometimes we'd release an unusably buggy product to clients. IMHO, the only credible way to do it is for someone not personally involved in the development phase to rank it as "large," medium" or "small" and apply historical average times for that category to come up with an estimate.
Your employer is offering a false choice: sell your talent and experience cheaply until you are deemed no longer needed, else be terminated for insubordination. This is being set up to fail, but you probably have more control over who "fails" than you think. I believe the operative phrase in the business world is still "be cooperative without being forthcoming."
Writing good code isn't just writing clean elegant code with state of the art tools. Programmers have to be fundamentally convinced their code works. Quality assurance people have to be fundamentally convinced they can break the code. If your company is willing to take formal QA/QC seriously, QA needs to be established independently. Set up a small QA operation, make sure they are trained to learn how the code and interface should work better than the end users, send them to a quality assurance refresher course if needed, and give them "teeth." The CEO has to be enthusiastically involved and supportive if you're going to get a healthy and productive balance between two independent departments.
I spent almost two decades in an older development environment, and can share some of our prized secrets for success. It helped to have a team lead who was REALLY good with threats and verbal abuse. Everyone needs "Ivan the Terrible" role models to help foster a nurturing environment of back-biting and finger-pointing. Another secret is to always replace a programmer who was not a good fit, with another even more dysfunctional misfit. Lead from behind. Set your best people up to fail. When forced into a product upgrade, poll the clients to ascertain what they don't want, and give it to them. Have your system architects study Machiavelli. Never fix code when a kludge or spaghetti code land mine can be concealed for the benefit of future generations. Programmers, make sure QA or beta testers follow scripts YOU control, or else they'll be wandering off on fishing expeditions to find inoperative features and broken functionality. Make sure all your people understand that broken GUI's and grossly inaccurate algorithms are "working as designed." Above all: the healthy development environment will insure that everybody, from VP to administrative support, lives in fear of their job and absolutely dreads going to work every morning.
Oh, great. My old employer launched several waves of layoffs which culminated in closing the west coast office. The very first step they always took was to separate us from our company laptops and confiscate them. We always thought that was SO anal. I don't think so any more!
Slashdot Mirror
I know it's a stereotype, but "YES," my personal contacts with an AOL email address all generally seem to be computer illiterates.
Oh great, the next big thing is vehicle exhaust that smells like fermented baby diapers.
Trolls shouldn't be able to patent laws of motion or gravity, established math or physics relationships, or natural biological sequences like DNA. Merely expressing established ideas as computer functions or models is stiil nothing more than a model, not original. If you discover a new short-cut method of computing pi, you can publish, not patent, and expressing it software adds nothing but speed and convenience. Hopefully, this will curb some of the more absurd patents granted by a Patent Office that seems to be in it way over its antediluvian head.
Google is wrong. In matters of collision avoidance, safe navigation and busting regulations, one human is always designated as captain of the ship, pilot in command, or driver of the car. He or she is responsible for monitoring even the most highly automated systems, and for overriding them if necessary. Saying the company manufacturing the vehicle should get the speeding ticket is like saying Smith and Wesson should do the time in homicide convictions.
'People do bring it up every now and then.' Yep, and somebody brought it up again today.
Keplier-186f is 500 light years distant. I wouldn't worry about it unless alien civilizations have time travel, hyperdrive and worm-holes. If so, maybe they have a quick cure for global warning that we can live with. Sometimes worrying about hypotheticals we can't resolve seems preferable to solving the problems we can actually do something about.
From my years in QA, I'd add: "It should work now. Try it again."
'I think it's a tribute to the agency that we're not hiding this stuff, that we're actually out trying to do our job,' says William Gerstenmaier
Gee, look at me! I get to spend 96 hours a week helping thousands of us build our Pharaoh's pyramid. I get all the millet I can eat. I will be provided for, and history will remember and honor my family. It's all about me, and no one will remember the pyramid.
One instance of the use of one word in a game gives them a monopoly on "Candy?" What are the trademark folks smoking? That's Candy-ass.
"At long last a judge who is not impressed with the corporate idea that adding the phrase "on a computer", "on a cell phone", or "on the Internet" to a hundreds year old idea magically makes it a totally new, never thought of before idea." That's the best comment I've read on the subject of patentable work that I've read in years. The patent system is totally out of control. Thanks.
Is the airline pilot still responsible for the aircraft when it's put on autopilot? Who is liable when a firearm of theirs discharges?
Neither the problem nor the solutions are really new to the Internet. Honoring advertised prices is generally the law, though details could vary by state. In California in the 1970's, newspaper typos happened too. Honest businesses generally honored the prices because "false advertising" was bad business. Businesses could get around this by taking out a price correction ad immediately, and prominently posting a copy of the correction notice and corrected pricing near the sale merchandise.
We've heard it all before. Yes, Jobs was brilliant. Yes, he was great pals with Ellison. But it's still the tired old "There will never be another Harry Truman" line. "England has gone to hell in a hand-basket since the passing of Sir Winston."
If you're looking into reducing light pollution (not to mention courtesy to your neighbors) that's all good. Security lighting can be put on a motion sensor. It is not needed 99% of the time. Outdoor lighting should have reflectors and or hoods to keep the light out of the night sky and out of neighbors' windows. Efficient lighting directed only where needed is also less expensive. If you have ever gone out to try to see the Big Dipper or Milky Way, and couldn't find it, you're beginning to appreciate why most city dwellers have no clue what a dark night sky even looks like. Amateur Astronomy sites have copious information on practical lighting. One of the biggest selling points for saving the night sky is having commercial and residential lighting pouring in your own windows at night. It's particularly annoying when it's shining UP at you.
Well, surprise, surprise: instead of finding "The Lost Thing," we learn that programmers' worst fears are a good match to those in anybody else's profession.
Spot-on. If people charge their electrics from coal-fired power plants, they might as well just buy '65 Caddies. I was surprised to even see the original post, because this was widely examined n mainstream publications at least a decade ago.
Aye, just what we all need is a tablet with a full Office installation; hopefully, msconfig, a Windows registry if it doesn't already have one, and registry hacks. Maybe a new Vista retro look. I would no doubt love my iPad a lot more if I had to wait 1/2 hour for the weekly Windows Update before I could either use it or shut it off. I assume the Windows tablet will have OS2 keyboard and mouse ports, alt-shift-control keyboard shortcuts galore, a fan, and built-in BSOD. Cheers ...
The shop where I worked had the same overconfidence problem. Project leaders would pull numbers out of a hat, or someplace else, and of course they would fall short. I was in QA. They would chop testing time to meet deadlines, and that's why sometimes we'd release an unusably buggy product to clients. IMHO, the only credible way to do it is for someone not personally involved in the development phase to rank it as "large," medium" or "small" and apply historical average times for that category to come up with an estimate.
Pipe the wastewater into the executive washrooms.
Your employer is offering a false choice: sell your talent and experience cheaply until you are deemed no longer needed, else be terminated for insubordination. This is being set up to fail, but you probably have more control over who "fails" than you think. I believe the operative phrase in the business world is still "be cooperative without being forthcoming."
Instead of an Ark, maybe Noah should have just built a lot of rowboats.
Writing good code isn't just writing clean elegant code with state of the art tools. Programmers have to be fundamentally convinced their code works. Quality assurance people have to be fundamentally convinced they can break the code. If your company is willing to take formal QA/QC seriously, QA needs to be established independently. Set up a small QA operation, make sure they are trained to learn how the code and interface should work better than the end users, send them to a quality assurance refresher course if needed, and give them "teeth." The CEO has to be enthusiastically involved and supportive if you're going to get a healthy and productive balance between two independent departments.
I spent almost two decades in an older development environment, and can share some of our prized secrets for success. It helped to have a team lead who was REALLY good with threats and verbal abuse. Everyone needs "Ivan the Terrible" role models to help foster a nurturing environment of back-biting and finger-pointing. Another secret is to always replace a programmer who was not a good fit, with another even more dysfunctional misfit. Lead from behind. Set your best people up to fail. When forced into a product upgrade, poll the clients to ascertain what they don't want, and give it to them. Have your system architects study Machiavelli. Never fix code when a kludge or spaghetti code land mine can be concealed for the benefit of future generations. Programmers, make sure QA or beta testers follow scripts YOU control, or else they'll be wandering off on fishing expeditions to find inoperative features and broken functionality. Make sure all your people understand that broken GUI's and grossly inaccurate algorithms are "working as designed." Above all: the healthy development environment will insure that everybody, from VP to administrative support, lives in fear of their job and absolutely dreads going to work every morning.
Oh, great. My old employer launched several waves of layoffs which culminated in closing the west coast office. The very first step they always took was to separate us from our company laptops and confiscate them. We always thought that was SO anal. I don't think so any more!