Which is why, when asked, i say: buy off the shelf, but make sure there is a programmable api. then glue it together (python, perl, java, whatever).
I work for Health Net, a fortune 200 company. I tell you there's tons of custom stuff. It is supposed to give us an edge on the competition, but some of that stuff is so costly to maintain, one needs to ask oneself.
On glue elements: stick to the unix philosophy: make each program do one thing well, and ascii only.
Heck, since you're using python, why not have it intreface with a webservice on your webserver, get the torrent uri, investigate, and report findings (d/l, 404, etc) back to the webservice, to which you could hack together a web interface, so you don't have to ftp and ssh nothing, just launch your firefox, log in to your site, submit the uri, and mosey on your business.
Of course, I don't really want people to realize just how very brain dead it is to use python with old machines, since I "rescue" old boxes from fed up windows XP people who can't operate on less than P4 3.0 256MB.:)
Of course, that would be too easy, as then you could have a py prog on usb drive, and cli the torrent uri from anywhere...
So is it industrial espionnage? Are they calling the FBI?
No.
Because it isn't.
If I tell you, hey, fool, run your car into the street light, and you do it, who's the guy who rammed his car into the street light, you or me?
Who should pay for the street light, you or me?
Yeah, you guessed it, you.
Likewise: the only person who should be punished is the guy who broke the NDA.
Let me try again closer to home.
Me: "Hey, gimme your company's next year budget, even if you signed an NDA." You give me your company's budget.
Now, I post it on the web.
Who's stupid and should be fired? You, not me.
Who should not have let you get your hot little loose fingers on next year's budget: Your company.
Like I said last week: the company does not want to institutionalize good security. It wants to restrict free speech throught threat of costly litigation, and not to the guy who actually broke the NDA, but to the guy who talked to him.
If You break the NDA, then You get sued, You lose your job, You have to pay. No question about it. That's fine and dandy.
It's about the other guy. The guy you told. Why should he have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars just because he talked to you?
Imagine this: I'm in a bar, having an irish ale (yes I'm partial). You are next to me.
Me: Hey dude. You: Hey. Me: What's the score on the blonde at the end of the bar? You: She looks hot huh? Me: Yeah. Say, have you signed any non-disclosure agreements in your life? You: Hum, lemme think... Yeah, I think I did a couple years back... Me: Ok, sorry, dude, can't talk to you... Nothing personal, don't want to get sued. Gotta go. You: 'tsokay, I understand. Me, walking to the blonde: Hey sweetie, have you ever signed a non-disclosure agreement? Blonde: Hum, no... What's a, like, non-disclo... huh, a what? Me, grinning: Excellent.
Moral of the story: In order to protect myself from lawsuits, I can't talk to anyone who ever signed a non-disclosure agreement. If you think that's going a bit far, you ain't seen some of the rigamaroles that pass for lawsuits in this Fair Land of ours.
And since you don't know who has and who hasn't signed one, then who can you talk to? Get my drift about restricting freedom of speech?
A non-discosure agreement is a restriction on the Freedom of Speech. As part of a contract.
If I say to you: "Hey Aardv, I'll pay you $50,000USD to work on my software byt you can't tell anyone what you're doing", and you reply: "Sure thing Chris, you've got a deal," we now have a binding agreement and all that Jazz.
But if you tell your wife about it, and she writes about it on the Net, then what? Am I, your employer of the month, more important than your lifelong partner, the love of your life, the mother of your children? And for that matter, am I, your employer, more important than your Country, the Land of the Free, the Homeland we so dearly defend with Our Lives? I don't think so buddy.
Now, Should I be able to sue your wife? Eh? Think about that. Think about your priorities in life, about the men and women in uniform who so gallantly defend our Liberties with life and limb, about those who died on battlefields all over the world to ensure that very Freedom of Speech that you so disdainfully turn over to Corporate Greed and their slithering, slimy laywers.
Thnink about it. Which is more important? Apple's weekly stock value or the Right of the People to freely share information among themselves, to support the weak, to overthrow the oppressors, and to pursue happiness?
I come from France. We were occupied by the Nazis for 4 years. I for one am fucking GRATEFUL the Allies thought more about Freedom than about Money when they landed in Normandy.
You remember the Erin Brockevitch flick, when miss Sexylegs got an earful from an ex-employee who was supposed to shred but didn't? She used the info, she knew it was protected by NDAs and all sorts of shit. Yet, in the Public Interest, she used it to win a 300 + Million dollar settlement.
Now, I'm not sayin' nuthin' about this case, except that from the looks of it, Apple Inc. is trying to restrict Freedom of Speech.
I'll tell you how: I say I can force you to reveal your sources. And I can. So now, your sources tell you nothing. I have restricted communications between you and your sources. Arguably, the sources, being under NDA, should not talk. But if they do, does their NDA extend to you? I think not. Essentially it's a gag order between you and your sources. Since you can never know what falls under an NDA and what does not (since you don't know), your best bet is not to talk to your sources at all, since doing so may expose you to costly lawsuits. So anybody who ever signed an NDA cannot talk about anything to anyone else without the other person being potentially threatened with litigation.
That's what the corps want.
That's why they have got to lose. The United States citizenry, by allowing this civil suit to stand, would unfairly restrict First Amendment Rights granted to the People of the United States by themselves for perpetuity.
That, my friend, is why Apple had better be REALLY careful. And they should remember Adobe and Skylarov.
They think it's bad now, they should wait a few more weeks until it really hits the blogosphere. See how many people lost their Jobs at ABC over the Bush service memo?
Actually, if the W3 had a 50 million dollars prize for the first fully CSS1+2+3 compliant browser, people would fall over themselves to build the browser.
Yeah, but Wikipedia and Linux don't have a "Fly Virgin" sticker.
Private industry is all about capitalism, meaning, meeting consumer demand with supply. I guarantee you that if 5000 people were willing to pay 50 million each to overfly titan, Boeing and Lockeed would have people all over that. (That would be a quarter of a trillion dollars for you decimal-place challenged rednecks)
Yeah except if you can come here and work 5 years at 80K and live on 50K (it can be done), you save 30*5=150K. Which means you can retire in India. At 20K in india, it still takes longer to get the 150K together.
Yeah, but when 600 million didn't even finish high school because they were working in the fields at 13, that fairly narrows the pool.
Also, the really good people come the the US. If you're Indian and on-par with people here, why would you work for 20KUSD? You want to come to the US.
There's a guy from india 2 cubes over from me, and he said that in india, they throw you in front of a pc with a book and they say: Do it. No training, no team building. He says it's brutal. That's why he came here.
I bet there's a bunch of people in India that wouldn't work for IT even if they could, for personal reasons. I wouldn't work for Microsoft for personal reasons, for example.
I had the pleasure recently to help a couple friends of my wife with their "slow as molasses" computer. They paid for sushi, so I said ok.
The box was Win ME Dell box from 2000, dialup. Running ad-aware netted me 1400 nasties. The viruses (oh yes they were there) would not go away. They had not upgraded Norton Antivirus since their 1 year membership ended, in 2001.
So I took the box with me, to my business partners' and while I was working on code, he: *Installed Nic card *reformatted *put Win2k pro *drivers *windows upgrade *openoffice 1.4 *firefox *Zone Alarm *Adobe Acrobat Reader *ad-aware *spy-bot
The machine ran great, snappy, everything was hunky dorey.
And he gave them an unopened boxed Norton System Works 2004.
Then, I took the box back to my house, had the husband of the couple come over, and took 1 hour writing down, on paper, the dos and don'ts.
*Use Firefox for browsing the web *Don't use Internet Explorer except for windows update *Run windows update once a month *Run Antivirus update once a month (they're on dialup remember?) *Do not download email to your computer, use Yahoo mail. *NEVER install any installation CDs from internet service providers.
He took the computer home, and we haven't heard a word from them.
My wife is pissed now because the wife didn't even say thank you. I'm okay because they just don't know.
But I already know what I will find when I go to their house next time:
They installed the MSN cd. They are using IE. They did not run any windows updates. They did not even install the antivirus software. They are using microsoft outlook express They have viruses and spyware on their computer.
I told my wife: Computer security work for people she volunteers me for is $375USD per hour.
I have a great analogy, which I told here on slashdot before: If all car mechanics replaced car engines for free when they break, why would anybody ever have an oil change done? The only reason people change their oil is because a cracked engine block will cost them between $2,000 and $15,000.
So when someone comes and begs for you to "fix their PC", tell them it's a $1,000 flat. They'll come back and say: "But I can buy another pc for less than that!" And you reply: "Excellent! You do that. Now let me go back to my movie."
And if they say you are mean, ask them if their mechanic will fix their car engine for free.
Consolidation would only make sense if it makes a product better, and allows for the product to grow into a better product long term. Itherwise, it's not only a waste of time, but an insult to the people who have put in so much work creating the individual pieces to begin with.
Remember precept 1 of the unix philosophy: Each program should do one thing well.
Slashdot Mirror
Which is why, when asked, i say: buy off the shelf, but make sure there is a programmable api. then glue it together (python, perl, java, whatever).
I work for Health Net, a fortune 200 company. I tell you there's tons of custom stuff. It is supposed to give us an edge on the competition, but some of that stuff is so costly to maintain, one needs to ask oneself.
On glue elements: stick to the unix philosophy: make each program do one thing well, and ascii only.
Heck, since you're using python, why not have it intreface with a webservice on your webserver, get the torrent uri, investigate, and report findings (d/l, 404, etc) back to the webservice, to which you could hack together a web interface, so you don't have to ftp and ssh nothing, just launch your firefox, log in to your site, submit the uri, and mosey on your business.
:)
Of course, I don't really want people to realize just how very brain dead it is to use python with old machines, since I "rescue" old boxes from fed up windows XP people who can't operate on less than P4 3.0 256MB.
Of course, that would be too easy, as then you could have a py prog on usb drive, and cli the torrent uri from anywhere...
Them wheels are a'spinning.
So is it industrial espionnage? Are they calling the FBI?
No.
Because it isn't.
If I tell you, hey, fool, run your car into the street light, and you do it, who's the guy who rammed his car into the street light, you or me?
Who should pay for the street light, you or me?
Yeah, you guessed it, you.
Likewise: the only person who should be punished is the guy who broke the NDA.
Let me try again closer to home.
Me: "Hey, gimme your company's next year budget, even if you signed an NDA."
You give me your company's budget.
Now, I post it on the web.
Who's stupid and should be fired? You, not me.
Who should not have let you get your hot little loose fingers on next year's budget: Your company.
Like I said last week: the company does not want to institutionalize good security. It wants to restrict free speech throught threat of costly litigation, and not to the guy who actually broke the NDA, but to the guy who talked to him.
Bad Apple. Bad.
The "church" is so 20th century. Now it's "faith-based organization". Much more, hum, sinister...
Nobody expects the American Inquisition...
Read my sig.
I have no problem with that.
If You break the NDA, then You get sued, You lose your job, You have to pay. No question about it. That's fine and dandy.
It's about the other guy. The guy you told. Why should he have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars just because he talked to you?
Imagine this: I'm in a bar, having an irish ale (yes I'm partial). You are next to me.
Me: Hey dude.
You: Hey.
Me: What's the score on the blonde at the end of the bar?
You: She looks hot huh?
Me: Yeah. Say, have you signed any non-disclosure agreements in your life?
You: Hum, lemme think... Yeah, I think I did a couple years back...
Me: Ok, sorry, dude, can't talk to you... Nothing personal, don't want to get sued. Gotta go.
You: 'tsokay, I understand.
Me, walking to the blonde: Hey sweetie, have you ever signed a non-disclosure agreement?
Blonde: Hum, no... What's a, like, non-disclo... huh, a what?
Me, grinning: Excellent.
Moral of the story: In order to protect myself from lawsuits, I can't talk to anyone who ever signed a non-disclosure agreement. If you think that's going a bit far, you ain't seen some of the rigamaroles that pass for lawsuits in this Fair Land of ours.
And since you don't know who has and who hasn't signed one, then who can you talk to? Get my drift about restricting freedom of speech?
A non-discosure agreement is a restriction on the Freedom of Speech. As part of a contract.
If I say to you: "Hey Aardv, I'll pay you $50,000USD to work on my software byt you can't tell anyone what you're doing", and you reply: "Sure thing Chris, you've got a deal," we now have a binding agreement and all that Jazz.
But if you tell your wife about it, and she writes about it on the Net, then what? Am I, your employer of the month, more important than your lifelong partner, the love of your life, the mother of your children?
And for that matter, am I, your employer, more important than your Country, the Land of the Free, the Homeland we so dearly defend with Our Lives?
I don't think so buddy.
Now, Should I be able to sue your wife? Eh? Think about that. Think about your priorities in life, about the men and women in uniform who so gallantly defend our Liberties with life and limb, about those who died on battlefields all over the world to ensure that very Freedom of Speech that you so disdainfully turn over to Corporate Greed and their slithering, slimy laywers.
Thnink about it. Which is more important? Apple's weekly stock value or the Right of the People to freely share information among themselves, to support the weak, to overthrow the oppressors, and to pursue happiness?
I come from France. We were occupied by the Nazis for 4 years. I for one am fucking GRATEFUL the Allies thought more about Freedom than about Money when they landed in Normandy.
Except the courts are part of the government.
If you can't enforce something throught the courts, it's meaningless to file a lawsuit.
Yeah, but if ten people decided to buy the MINI based on Thinksecret repots, where is the sales commission?
It's a two way street.
----
Hey, here I came up with a nifty way to exmplain all that:
OSS && FREE Software:
You scratch my back I scratch yours.
The Corporate World:
You stab my back I stab yours.
You remember the Erin Brockevitch flick, when miss Sexylegs got an earful from an ex-employee who was supposed to shred but didn't?
She used the info, she knew it was protected by NDAs and all sorts of shit. Yet, in the Public Interest, she used it to win a 300 + Million dollar settlement.
Now, I'm not sayin' nuthin' about this case, except that from the looks of it, Apple Inc. is trying to restrict Freedom of Speech.
I'll tell you how:
I say I can force you to reveal your sources. And I can. So now, your sources tell you nothing. I have restricted communications between you and your sources. Arguably, the sources, being under NDA, should not talk. But if they do, does their NDA extend to you? I think not.
Essentially it's a gag order between you and your sources. Since you can never know what falls under an NDA and what does not (since you don't know), your best bet is not to talk to your sources at all, since doing so may expose you to costly lawsuits. So anybody who ever signed an NDA cannot talk about anything to anyone else without the other person being potentially threatened with litigation.
That's what the corps want.
That's why they have got to lose. The United States citizenry, by allowing this civil suit to stand, would unfairly restrict First Amendment Rights granted to the People of the United States by themselves for perpetuity.
That, my friend, is why Apple had better be REALLY careful. And they should remember Adobe and Skylarov.
They think it's bad now, they should wait a few more weeks until it really hits the blogosphere. See how many people lost their Jobs at ABC over the Bush service memo?
Yeah, I was thinking though that MSFT would not be interested in winning $200,000. So $50Mil would be enough of a bait.
Of course, it would be a great catch for Mozilla or Opera.
I also think the amount would get a lot of press (just look at the X-prize (well, and no space-- or is it "white-space: ignore;", I forgot))...
But yeah, there's a balance in there somewhere.
Actually, if the W3 had a 50 million dollars prize for the first fully CSS1+2+3 compliant browser, people would fall over themselves to build the browser.
That's no enforcement, that's $250 a hour!
Oh, did I just make a silly comment? Sorry... (again)
Yeah, but Wikipedia and Linux don't have a "Fly Virgin" sticker.
Private industry is all about capitalism, meaning, meeting consumer demand with supply. I guarantee you that if 5000 people were willing to pay 50 million each to overfly titan, Boeing and Lockeed would have people all over that. (That would be a quarter of a trillion dollars for you decimal-place challenged rednecks)
Well, that, and land on Titan without crashing, and broadcast the signal back. Then I'll be impressed.
I'll be even more impressed if they don't stick a "Fly Virgin" red and white sticker on it.
Beware, I hear they will also be killing those who make half-jokes about National Security Policy.
read my sig.
Use both.
One does not preclude the other.
Especially if you say: use IE on intranet (activex galore), use firefox on internet (better security, yadda^2)
Were a fortune 180ish, and enough people use FF and Moz that tech support has resigned themselves.
Yeah except if you can come here and work 5 years at 80K and live on 50K (it can be done), you save 30*5=150K. Which means you can retire in India.
At 20K in india, it still takes longer to get the 150K together.
Yeah, but when 600 million didn't even finish high school because they were working in the fields at 13, that fairly narrows the pool.
Also, the really good people come the the US. If you're Indian and on-par with people here, why would you work for 20KUSD? You want to come to the US.
There's a guy from india 2 cubes over from me, and he said that in india, they throw you in front of a pc with a book and they say: Do it. No training, no team building. He says it's brutal. That's why he came here.
I bet there's a bunch of people in India that wouldn't work for IT even if they could, for personal reasons. I wouldn't work for Microsoft for personal reasons, for example.
1. They still might need it for the odd site.
2. Done
3. Done. No local email.
4. Dialup only
5. same as 4
6. why do you need that if you use firefox and webmail?
7. I am not driving 25 minutes to their house to install software.
I agree with what you say (i run deb cli bare install) or damnsmallinux.
I don't actually use antivirus products on my machine. I do an avg install and scan as needed. yes I have backups, and yes, of the music too.
Oh, and I wrote the parent you replied to.
Remember that these people cannot program a VCR.
From the Tooth Fairy, 'k?
Then what happens, do you base64 the binary xml and wrap it in an ascii xml document?
I agree. To everything you said.
I had the pleasure recently to help a couple friends of my wife with their "slow as molasses" computer. They paid for sushi, so I said ok.
The box was Win ME Dell box from 2000, dialup.
Running ad-aware netted me 1400 nasties. The viruses (oh yes they were there) would not go away. They had not upgraded Norton Antivirus since their 1 year membership ended, in 2001.
So I took the box with me, to my business partners' and while I was working on code, he:
*Installed Nic card
*reformatted
*put Win2k pro
*drivers
*windows upgrade
*openoffice 1.4
*firefox
*Zone Alarm
*Adobe Acrobat Reader
*ad-aware
*spy-bot
The machine ran great, snappy, everything was hunky dorey.
And he gave them an unopened boxed Norton System Works 2004.
Then, I took the box back to my house, had the husband of the couple come over, and took 1 hour writing down, on paper, the dos and don'ts.
*Use Firefox for browsing the web
*Don't use Internet Explorer except for windows update
*Run windows update once a month
*Run Antivirus update once a month (they're on dialup remember?)
*Do not download email to your computer, use Yahoo mail.
*NEVER install any installation CDs from internet service providers.
He took the computer home, and we haven't heard a word from them.
My wife is pissed now because the wife didn't even say thank you. I'm okay because they just don't know.
But I already know what I will find when I go to their house next time:
They installed the MSN cd.
They are using IE.
They did not run any windows updates.
They did not even install the antivirus software.
They are using microsoft outlook express
They have viruses and spyware on their computer.
I told my wife: Computer security work for people she volunteers me for is $375USD per hour.
I have a great analogy, which I told here on slashdot before:
If all car mechanics replaced car engines for free when they break, why would anybody ever have an oil change done?
The only reason people change their oil is because a cracked engine block will cost them between $2,000 and $15,000.
So when someone comes and begs for you to "fix their PC", tell them it's a $1,000 flat. They'll come back and say: "But I can buy another pc for less than that!" And you reply: "Excellent! You do that. Now let me go back to my movie."
And if they say you are mean, ask them if their mechanic will fix their car engine for free.
Consolidation would only make sense if it makes a product better, and allows for the product to grow into a better product long term. Itherwise, it's not only a waste of time, but an insult to the people who have put in so much work creating the individual pieces to begin with.
Remember precept 1 of the unix philosophy: Each program should do one thing well.