Not is you handle the filings yourself. You don't need a lawyer. In the words of Nolo Press, "Don't feed the sharks!".
I can prepare - for myself only, since I am not an accredited member of any bar - all of the filings outlined above with reference to a few books which are available in any university library.
Yes, it would take some time and some money - depending on your income you can get filing fees waived - but it can be done for a lot less than $400 an hour.
I most probably could pull it off for $100 in cash and a few hours of my time.
You can handle this outside of the criminal justice process for a fair amount of the process.
File a civil suit against "Joe Doe and Does 1 to N, etc." (just like the RIAA) for theft of private property and asking for a judgement ordering the return of the property, etc. In tandem with that, file a request for a subpoena with the ISP to whom this IP belongs for the associated address.
Because the filing of the suit, getting the subpoena, etc., is going to take some time, you should send a letter to the ISP informing them that the subpoena will be coming shortly and that you are informing them of their responsibility to preserve evidence in a pending civil suit.
Once you have the name and address of the party in question, you should do two things:
First, file a formal criminal complaint with the local police and DA concerning stolen property which is being used in their jurisdiction. The original theft may not be their concern, but the receipt of stolen property is there concern.
Second, file a request for in civil court for an order requiring the return of stolen property at address X. Once you have this court order, you can go and get a sheriff (usually at a cost to you) to accompany you to this address and force them to open up and show you it isn't there.
Too often people forget their are parallel legal systems - civil and criminal - in this country and fail to realize that they have control. The RIAA does and takes advantage of it. Why shouldn't you?
You said, The thing is, Apple's enigmatic frontman doesn't turn up to these geeky WWDC shindigs unless he has something to announce which will get the hyped-up gang of Apple fanboys and girls a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'."
Actually, this is part and parcel of the emasculation of juries which has been going on for some times. Oh, and by the way, some judges have been known to forbid jury members from taking notes in any way (yes, including with that old pen and paper)!
But to answer some of the questions, raised below, the necessary SO2 ranges - depending on scenario - from 200K (enough to offset Arctic Warming and establish a positive albedo feedback loop for cooling) to 2M tons per year (for a full on global cooling process.
This works out to from 2/10s of one percent to 2 percent of current SO2 emissions world wide (half of which come from man made sources). Current SO2 emissions are well below those we saw during the worse of acid rain.
To put it in perspective, Mt. Pinatubo kicked 20M tons of sulfur into the atmosphere in the course of a few days.
There have been studies on the impact of an additional 2M tons of SO2 in the atmosphere and they show miniscule impact.
It should be noted that any geo-engineering scheme is short term and designed to buy us the time to make the switch to more efficient and lower foot print energy systems.
The folks proposing these plans accept that AGW is real, but believe the measures being proposed are Too Little, Too Late, and Too Expensive.
If folks are actually interested in learning more about this - rather than taking cheap shots as anonymous cowards - take a look at what Intellectual Ventures have on their web site:
My understanding, from an admittedly cursory reading of the material, is that when the injection occurs in the upper atmosphere the issues with acid rain are not what they are with emissions from smoke stacks, etc. We are talking about injection at 70K feet or so.
Excuse me? How does a valid comment on a situation get rated a troll? Seems someone has an ax to grind and is doing it with mod points. First time I have ever had a post moderated as a troll.
If our goal is truly to reduce global temperature increases - for the moment let's concede they exist - then we should be looking for the most cost effective solution. Given that CO2 is not the number one global warming gas by far (it is actually methane and most of it comes from cows and other ruminates) and the contribution of CO2 to global warming lessens based on the amount in the atmosphere, curbing carbon emissions at a cost of billions per year, this isn't the best way to do it.
As outlined in Super Freakanomics, there are various geo-engineering approaches to address global warming being developed by people like Nathan Myhold and his Intellectual Ventures, which can do it at a much lower cost. The most promising is based on the Pinatubo Effect - sulfur in the upper atmosphere - and can be accomplished for under $100M per year (less than.30 cents per American per year). It also has the benefit of having been proven to be effective and safe.
So, think about that the next time a major push is on for a cap and trade system or carbon tax. And by the way, Al Gore, is opposed to doing this. He would much rather go the less effective, more expensive, and unproven way of reducing CO2 emissions.
And how do you get a peer reviewed AGW article?
on
The Limits To Skepticism
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Well, this article would have a lot more credibility, if the "Climate Gate" issue had not just hit the press. If you didn't read them, their were these emails promising to block any skeptical papers from appearing and to not cite papers in journals that accepted skeptical papers.
Unfortunately, no matter how you feel about Global Warming, the folks in "Climate Gate" have stuck a grievous blow to the credibility of the scientific method, the peer review process, and positions like this.
That said, if peer review was truly working in the field of Global Warming and skeptical papers which were backed up with legitimate data and arguments were able to get into peer reviewed journals, then this article would have a lot more weight and creditability.
So, did anyone RTFA? Did they go and take a look at Mr. Settles web site and notice what he does for a leaving? Well, he helps people deploy broadband setups! And one of his big draws is helping people through the grant process.
Hmm....could his criticism be tied to the fact that this is going to make his job of "influence peddling" a bit more difficult?
There is a strong tradition in the US of volunteers stepping up and doing as good, if not better, job as the so called Pros. Of course these "amateurs" (literally those who do it because of love or passion, check your Greek) are scorned by the "professionals" (literally those who do it solely for money, check you Greek again). And for good reason: the amateurs usually ask awkward questions.
Now, Mr. Settles throws up juries as a strawman to attack this setup. Well, if criminal and civil juries worked the way they did at the founding of our country, or the way Grand Juries do now in many locales, I say, "Sign me up." But if you want to treat me like a mushroom, I this thinking person says, "No thank you!"
Unfortunately, this misunderstands the purpose of an appeal.
An appeal is about matters of law and its application. A question for an appeal was appropriate representation.
An appeal is not about matters of fact. The assumption of a higher court is that the lower court got the facts right.
If a fact doesn't get on the record at the initial trial, it cannot be considered without significant work on appeal.
This is why it has been fairly hard to get people freed who DNA evidence clearly exonerate, and why it has often fallen to pardons or clemency actions to free them.
Actually, you position here does not reflect the history of juries under the Common Law System or in American History.
The current system of 12 people who are spoon fed everything is a relatively recent innovation (i.e. within the 2nd half of the last century).
Previously, juries were active participants, not dumb bunnies sitting on a bench. They asked questions. They engaged in debate. It was quite different. And I would argue better.
Oh, and that great bug-a-boo of the modern age, Jury Nullification? Well, that was an expected part of the package.
Juries made findings of not just fact, but of law. They decided if a law was constitutional or not.
But, the Legal Professionals don't like that and have over time used what were clear problems - juries convicting on prejudice - to emasculate the jury system in this country.
It really is interesting to me to see folks here on/. defending a system that has as its foundation the assumption that people need to be protected from information, which might inflame their passions, so we, the people who know better, will control what they can see and here.
If you have set in on a trial before, you will have clearly seen that the information that gets included and excluded is quite often not due to its inflammatory or prejudicial nature, but rather just because how the judge felt that day.
The value add is the reporter, paid by AP (they are called Stringers), who is gathering this news.
As Heinlein told us in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", TANSTAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch!
While you are building your great Web 2.0 service, funded using AdSense from Google, based on AP content, AP is getting zero for its contribution to the mix.
While the AP - and others - shouldn't be charging for a headline or to quote, but if you are carrying their content, you need to pay.
I have found Alice (www.alice.org) to be a great introductory language for this age group. Depending on how quickly them come up on it, Ruby would be a great follow-on (assuming they have some experience with HTML, so they can use it with web apps).
Daylight Savings Time has enormous costs and very little value in return.
We should get read of it and say, "Good riddance..."
If there are issues with available daylight in a particular area, then the times of events should be adjusted accordingly. If it is to dark at 7 AM for kids to go out in order to reach school at 8 AM, then push back the start time of school, etc., to 9 AM.
In reality, this is what Daylight Savings Time does, but at much greater cost.
Let's see...hmm...full tanks of aviation grade fuel.
The 767-200ER, the UA plane which went into one of the towers, has a fuel capacity of 23,980. The flight was a few hundred miles from it origin at Logan International Airport in Boston.
Let's assume that the plan had only 15,000 gallons onboard.
The flash point of jet fuel is 100.4 ÂF (38 ÂC). Many surfaces - including the engines of the plane - would be well above this point.
In addition, there were numerous electrical connections which could have sparked causing the fuel to ignite.
Jet fuel has between 127,000 and 135,000 BTUs per gallon.
Therefore, at the point of impact we had between 1,905,000,000 and 2,025,000,000 BTUs of energy being released in a highly concentrated area (3-5 floors).
Even without the energy generated by the burning of other materials, this is sufficient to inflame the entire area and to cause the required heat damage to the tower.
Several have already said it, but I had to endorse iChat.
I have 7x24 video conferencing up and running with a remote test team in India. The idea is that it is muted unless one or the other side wants to say something.
We tried both Skype Video (another frequently mentioned option) and iChat. We are staying with iChat due to the simplicity, robustness, and quality.
With Skype we had the connection drop multiple times in a night. With iChat it runs and runs and runs.
With Skype, we had significant video and audio artifacts all of the time. With iChat they are infrequent occurrences.
For Skype I had to write up an instruction guide. With iChat folks just got it.
The short answer to your question is yes. You can be terminated for any reason which - depending on your locality - isn't illegal.
Failing - refusing - to perform duties assigned to you by your supervisor is grounds for termination
The only way firing you for failing to perform duties assigned to you by your supervisor or manager is not grounds for termination, is if the task they asked you to perform was in and itself illegal.
So, they can't firing you for failing to kill someone or refusing the sleep with the bosses' niece's best friend.
Filing patent applications is a standard business practice and has certain benefits. It is completely within their rights to require you to file that application.
Yes, you have moral objections to filing the application. Just like pharmacists who have moral objections to filling birth control pill prescriptions or dispensing RU486. And just as they can be terminated for not performing their job tasks, so could you.
If you think this is a bad patent (not that software patents are bad) then make sure that you communicate the issues you see with it. Be clear, concise, and professional.
But at the end of the day, you need to either assist in filing the application or walk away from the job.
And walking away from the job may not protect you. If you signed an IP agreement upon hiring, you likely agreed to assist the company in the filing of any patent applications related to the work you did which the company chooses to file.
Folks ask, "Why the rush?" to get time on the Hubble and other instruments.
Simply put, astronomical events can be extremely short lived. Yes, it happened millions of years ago. And it could continue for millions of years. But just as it appeared, it could go out.
Think what happens to novas and super novas. They blink into existence and then disappear. The same could happen here. Having never seen this class of voorwerp (object, thing, etc.), it is possible it could go out tomorrow or change dramatically in way which would make baseline data of the current status incredibly valuable.
Going a bit off topic here, I have to say it is totally cool to see a reference to my old friend and fellow Geek, Bill Keel here on Slashdot.
Bill and I attended UC Santa Cruz in the 1980s. I entered as a Freshman while Bill was finishing up his Phd in Astronomy (by the way, UC Santa has the top graduate program in Astronomy).
Even then he was the galaxy nerd and his dissertation was on the topic of, if I remember correctly, formation of spiral galaxies. I remember helping him with nroff and troff as he put his dissertation together.
During his Post-Doc years, he would come back frequently to perform observations at Lick Observatory (above San Jose) and to crunch data using a program written in Forth that ran on a handful of systems in the world (one of which was at UCSC).
Our friendship continued over the years (I was even one of his groomsmen).
Bill is a passionate teacher and researcher. He is very supportive of amateur astronomy (one of the few fields left where a non-professional, non-academic can have a major impact).
Apple is pretty good at planning things but they are secretive so you don't know what they are planning.
Over 10 years ago, Apple bought NeXT to save themselves. Some analysts couldn't understand why Apple with it's faltering personal computer product line would buy a Unix computer company whose product line wasn't very successful. Was Apple going to start selling 2 product lines? What few understood was Apple bought NeXT for their OS expertise not their hardware business. That expertise became OS X. WTF? Every analyst (and even know-nothings like me) knew that Apple was buying NeXT for their OS (and Steve Jobs, of course). Mac OS (version 7 at the time) was an archaic mess underneath its pretty interface and the Copland project (which was supposed to modernize Mac OS) had been cancelled. Every analyst, business journalist, and tech enthusiast knew that Apple had been having discussions for months with Be Inc. so that Apple could use the PowerPC-compatible BeOS. What shocked most of these people at the time was that Apple bought NeXT instead of Be Inc. for their OS.
Let's go back to CNET News's story on that historic day (December 20, 1996): Apple acquires Next, Jobs
"In a stunning move, Apple Computer (AAPL) said tonight that it will purchase Next Software in a $400 million deal that will bring former Apple CEO Steve Jobs back to the company he cofounded."
[snip]
"The surprise merger also answers the long-awaited question of what Apple's next-generation operating system will hold. The company has been shopping for an operating system since abandoning its own Copland system earlier this year and had been negotiating with Be and other companies to fill that void.
Apple hopes that Next's object-oriented, Java-enabled open development platform will significantly improve its Internet and intranet position because its technology is agile. It also hopes to capture strength with Next's enterprise position.
Next's cross-platform development environments in the enterprise and Internet and intranet space allow developers to write once and deploy across a range of Internet and client-server platforms. Amelio said Apple expects to ship products with the Next operating system in 1997."
Hmm...Mac OS 7 the OS at the time? Really?
Actually, as someone who was involved in the lead up to the NeXT acquisition, was there that night (it was a long day), and was involved in the integration of NeXT into Apple, I have to say we were shipping Mac OS 8 at the time and then Steve worked to get OS 9 out to provide the bridge to Mac OS X.
I guess I expect better from Slashdot. Foolish me, I guess. But I had always expected that Nerds, Engineers, would be able to better analyze data and draw conclusions about it.
Let's define collapse: A collapse is a dramatic drop in population, numbers, etc. In this case it is the population of iPods sold each and every quarter.
Have iPod unit sales dropped this quarter? Nope, they actually increased. Was that increase statistically meaningful? Nope, but it was an increase.
Now, how about iPod revenues? Have they increased? Guess what, they have! The total revenues for iPods has continued to increase.
Now, if you wanted to talk about the drop in iPod unit or revenue growth over time, I would agree that this has happened. Was it a collapse? I would argue not. It has been an ongoing leveling off moving to a steady state replacement rate.
Face it, the iPod is a mature market. Folks aren't out there buying there first iPod (or even their second or third). We are looking at a replacement market. One where folks are looking at upgrading (or truly replacing because it broke, was lost, etc. their iPod.
But the iPod market is bigger than that of just iPod players. It is about iTunes for music and video, it is about accessories, etc. Apple has created a vibrant and significant business here. Is it going to grow like it did in the past? No way. But it will continue to throw off significant free cash flow, which can be invested in new businesses or returned to shareholders (via share buy backs [most likely] or a dividend).
Apple's immediate term growth opportunities are the Mac and iPhone platforms. Both are growing significantly and are supported by and support the iPod business.
Longer term, their drive to become "The American Sony" and be the leading consumer electronics company will continue and develop. AppleTV will someday be significant, and when it is, it will have build on a foundation provided by the iPod and iPhone.
So, let's get this right: How will Apple deal with a mature iPod business? Pretty damn well.
Slashdot Mirror
Not is you handle the filings yourself. You don't need a lawyer. In the words of Nolo Press, "Don't feed the sharks!".
I can prepare - for myself only, since I am not an accredited member of any bar - all of the filings outlined above with reference to a few books which are available in any university library.
Yes, it would take some time and some money - depending on your income you can get filing fees waived - but it can be done for a lot less than $400 an hour.
I most probably could pull it off for $100 in cash and a few hours of my time.
You can handle this outside of the criminal justice process for a fair amount of the process.
File a civil suit against "Joe Doe and Does 1 to N, etc." (just like the RIAA) for theft of private property and asking for a judgement ordering the return of the property, etc. In tandem with that, file a request for a subpoena with the ISP to whom this IP belongs for the associated address.
Because the filing of the suit, getting the subpoena, etc., is going to take some time, you should send a letter to the ISP informing them that the subpoena will be coming shortly and that you are informing them of their responsibility to preserve evidence in a pending civil suit.
Once you have the name and address of the party in question, you should do two things:
First, file a formal criminal complaint with the local police and DA concerning stolen property which is being used in their jurisdiction. The original theft may not be their concern, but the receipt of stolen property is there concern.
Second, file a request for in civil court for an order requiring the return of stolen property at address X. Once you have this court order, you can go and get a sheriff (usually at a cost to you) to accompany you to this address and force them to open up and show you it isn't there.
Too often people forget their are parallel legal systems - civil and criminal - in this country and fail to realize that they have control. The RIAA does and takes advantage of it. Why shouldn't you?
You said,
The thing is, Apple's enigmatic frontman doesn't turn up to these geeky WWDC shindigs unless he has something to announce which will get the hyped-up gang of Apple fanboys and girls a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'."
Actually, Jobs turns up at WWDC quite often.
Actually, this is part and parcel of the emasculation of juries which has been going on for some times. Oh, and by the way, some judges have been known to forbid jury members from taking notes in any way (yes, including with that old pen and paper)!
A extremely detailed overview on this topic is available at the Intellectual Ventures web site (see http://intellectualventureslab.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Stratoshield-white-paper-300dpi.pdf).
But to answer some of the questions, raised below, the necessary SO2 ranges - depending on scenario - from 200K (enough to offset Arctic Warming and establish a positive albedo feedback loop for cooling) to 2M tons per year (for a full on global cooling process.
This works out to from 2/10s of one percent to 2 percent of current SO2 emissions world wide (half of which come from man made sources). Current SO2 emissions are well below those we saw during the worse of acid rain.
To put it in perspective, Mt. Pinatubo kicked 20M tons of sulfur into the atmosphere in the course of a few days.
There have been studies on the impact of an additional 2M tons of SO2 in the atmosphere and they show miniscule impact.
It should be noted that any geo-engineering scheme is short term and designed to buy us the time to make the switch to more efficient and lower foot print energy systems.
The folks proposing these plans accept that AGW is real, but believe the measures being proposed are Too Little, Too Late, and Too Expensive.
If folks are actually interested in learning more about this - rather than taking cheap shots as anonymous cowards - take a look at what Intellectual Ventures have on their web site:
http://intellectualventureslab.com/?page_id=258
My understanding, from an admittedly cursory reading of the material, is that when the injection occurs in the upper atmosphere the issues with acid rain are not what they are with emissions from smoke stacks, etc. We are talking about injection at 70K feet or so.
Excuse me? How does a valid comment on a situation get rated a troll? Seems someone has an ax to grind and is doing it with mod points. First time I have ever had a post moderated as a troll.
If our goal is truly to reduce global temperature increases - for the moment let's concede they exist - then we should be looking for the most cost effective solution. Given that CO2 is not the number one global warming gas by far (it is actually methane and most of it comes from cows and other ruminates) and the contribution of CO2 to global warming lessens based on the amount in the atmosphere, curbing carbon emissions at a cost of billions per year, this isn't the best way to do it.
As outlined in Super Freakanomics, there are various geo-engineering approaches to address global warming being developed by people like Nathan Myhold and his Intellectual Ventures, which can do it at a much lower cost. The most promising is based on the Pinatubo Effect - sulfur in the upper atmosphere - and can be accomplished for under $100M per year (less than .30 cents per American per year). It also has the benefit of having been proven to be effective and safe.
So, think about that the next time a major push is on for a cap and trade system or carbon tax. And by the way, Al Gore, is opposed to doing this. He would much rather go the less effective, more expensive, and unproven way of reducing CO2 emissions.
Well, this article would have a lot more credibility, if the "Climate Gate" issue had not just hit the press. If you didn't read them, their were these emails promising to block any skeptical papers from appearing and to not cite papers in journals that accepted skeptical papers.
Unfortunately, no matter how you feel about Global Warming, the folks in "Climate Gate" have stuck a grievous blow to the credibility of the scientific method, the peer review process, and positions like this.
That said, if peer review was truly working in the field of Global Warming and skeptical papers which were backed up with legitimate data and arguments were able to get into peer reviewed journals, then this article would have a lot more weight and creditability.
This is just another example of Judges emasculating juries, dis-empowering them.
I long for the days when juries (before the 2nd half of the 20th century) actually decided cases and where not treated like mushrooms by all.
Jordan
So, did anyone RTFA? Did they go and take a look at Mr. Settles web site and notice what he does for a leaving? Well, he helps people deploy broadband setups! And one of his big draws is helping people through the grant process.
Hmm....could his criticism be tied to the fact that this is going to make his job of "influence peddling" a bit more difficult?
There is a strong tradition in the US of volunteers stepping up and doing as good, if not better, job as the so called Pros. Of course these "amateurs" (literally those who do it because of love or passion, check your Greek) are scorned by the "professionals" (literally those who do it solely for money, check you Greek again). And for good reason: the amateurs usually ask awkward questions.
Now, Mr. Settles throws up juries as a strawman to attack this setup. Well, if criminal and civil juries worked the way they did at the founding of our country, or the way Grand Juries do now in many locales, I say, "Sign me up." But if you want to treat me like a mushroom, I this thinking person says, "No thank you!"
Unfortunately, this misunderstands the purpose of an appeal.
An appeal is about matters of law and its application. A question for an appeal was appropriate representation.
An appeal is not about matters of fact. The assumption of a higher court is that the lower court got the facts right.
If a fact doesn't get on the record at the initial trial, it cannot be considered without significant work on appeal.
This is why it has been fairly hard to get people freed who DNA evidence clearly exonerate, and why it has often fallen to pardons or clemency actions to free them.
Actually, you position here does not reflect the history of juries under the Common Law System or in American History.
The current system of 12 people who are spoon fed everything is a relatively recent innovation (i.e. within the 2nd half of the last century).
Previously, juries were active participants, not dumb bunnies sitting on a bench. They asked questions. They engaged in debate. It was quite different. And I would argue better.
Oh, and that great bug-a-boo of the modern age, Jury Nullification? Well, that was an expected part of the package.
Juries made findings of not just fact, but of law. They decided if a law was constitutional or not.
But, the Legal Professionals don't like that and have over time used what were clear problems - juries convicting on prejudice - to emasculate the jury system in this country.
It really is interesting to me to see folks here on /. defending a system that has as its foundation the assumption that people need to be protected from information, which might inflame their passions, so we, the people who know better, will control what they can see and here.
If you have set in on a trial before, you will have clearly seen that the information that gets included and excluded is quite often not due to its inflammatory or prejudicial nature, but rather just because how the judge felt that day.
If you want more background on how the jury system has been perverted in this country, read Akhil Reed Amar's America's Constitution: A Biography http://www.amazon.com/Americas-Constitution-Akhil-Reed-Amar/dp/1400062624 or The Bill of Rights http://www.amazon.com/Bill-Rights-Creation-Reconstruction/dp/0300082770/ref=pd_sim_b_1.
People just don't get it.
The value add is the reporter, paid by AP (they are called Stringers), who is gathering this news.
As Heinlein told us in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", TANSTAFL: There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch!
While you are building your great Web 2.0 service, funded using AdSense from Google, based on AP content, AP is getting zero for its contribution to the mix.
While the AP - and others - shouldn't be charging for a headline or to quote, but if you are carrying their content, you need to pay.
I have found Alice (www.alice.org) to be a great introductory language for this age group. Depending on how quickly them come up on it, Ruby would be a great follow-on (assuming they have some experience with HTML, so they can use it with web apps).
Jordan
Daylight Savings Time has enormous costs and very little value in return.
We should get read of it and say, "Good riddance..."
If there are issues with available daylight in a particular area, then the times of events should be adjusted accordingly. If it is to dark at 7 AM for kids to go out in order to reach school at 8 AM, then push back the start time of school, etc., to 9 AM.
In reality, this is what Daylight Savings Time does, but at much greater cost.
No.
This is one of the competitive advantages that Apple has.
I honestly believe that some of the quality of iChat is due to the integration of the Apple stack.
Jordan
Let's see...hmm...full tanks of aviation grade fuel.
The 767-200ER, the UA plane which went into one of the towers, has a fuel capacity of 23,980. The flight was a few hundred miles from it origin at Logan International Airport in Boston.
Let's assume that the plan had only 15,000 gallons onboard.
The flash point of jet fuel is 100.4 ÂF (38 ÂC). Many surfaces - including the engines of the plane - would be well above this point.
In addition, there were numerous electrical connections which could have sparked causing the fuel to ignite.
Jet fuel has between 127,000 and 135,000 BTUs per gallon.
Therefore, at the point of impact we had between 1,905,000,000 and 2,025,000,000 BTUs of energy being released in a highly concentrated area (3-5 floors).
Even without the energy generated by the burning of other materials, this is sufficient to inflame the entire area and to cause the required heat damage to the tower.
Jordan
Several have already said it, but I had to endorse iChat.
I have 7x24 video conferencing up and running with a remote test team in India. The idea is that it is muted unless one or the other side wants to say something.
We tried both Skype Video (another frequently mentioned option) and iChat. We are staying with iChat due to the simplicity, robustness, and quality.
With Skype we had the connection drop multiple times in a night. With iChat it runs and runs and runs.
With Skype, we had significant video and audio artifacts all of the time. With iChat they are infrequent occurrences.
For Skype I had to write up an instruction guide. With iChat folks just got it.
So, I say go with iChat.
The short answer to your question is yes. You can be terminated for any reason which - depending on your locality - isn't illegal.
Failing - refusing - to perform duties assigned to you by your supervisor is grounds for termination
The only way firing you for failing to perform duties assigned to you by your supervisor or manager is not grounds for termination, is if the task they asked you to perform was in and itself illegal.
So, they can't firing you for failing to kill someone or refusing the sleep with the bosses' niece's best friend.
Filing patent applications is a standard business practice and has certain benefits. It is completely within their rights to require you to file that application.
Yes, you have moral objections to filing the application. Just like pharmacists who have moral objections to filling birth control pill prescriptions or dispensing RU486. And just as they can be terminated for not performing their job tasks, so could you.
If you think this is a bad patent (not that software patents are bad) then make sure that you communicate the issues you see with it. Be clear, concise, and professional.
But at the end of the day, you need to either assist in filing the application or walk away from the job.
And walking away from the job may not protect you. If you signed an IP agreement upon hiring, you likely agreed to assist the company in the filing of any patent applications related to the work you did which the company chooses to file.
Jordan
Folks ask, "Why the rush?" to get time on the Hubble and other instruments.
Simply put, astronomical events can be extremely short lived. Yes, it happened millions of years ago. And it could continue for millions of years. But just as it appeared, it could go out.
Think what happens to novas and super novas. They blink into existence and then disappear. The same could happen here. Having never seen this class of voorwerp (object, thing, etc.), it is possible it could go out tomorrow or change dramatically in way which would make baseline data of the current status incredibly valuable.
Going a bit off topic here, I have to say it is totally cool to see a reference to my old friend and fellow Geek, Bill Keel here on Slashdot.
Bill and I attended UC Santa Cruz in the 1980s. I entered as a Freshman while Bill was finishing up his Phd in Astronomy (by the way, UC Santa has the top graduate program in Astronomy).
Even then he was the galaxy nerd and his dissertation was on the topic of, if I remember correctly, formation of spiral galaxies. I remember helping him with nroff and troff as he put his dissertation together.
During his Post-Doc years, he would come back frequently to perform observations at Lick Observatory (above San Jose) and to crunch data using a program written in Forth that ran on a handful of systems in the world (one of which was at UCSC).
Our friendship continued over the years (I was even one of his groomsmen).
Bill is a passionate teacher and researcher. He is very supportive of amateur astronomy (one of the few fields left where a non-professional, non-academic can have a major impact).
If you want to learn more about galaxies, check out one of his many web pages here: http://www.astr.ua.edu/keel/galaxies/.
Well, TJX may have really screwed themselves. This issue touches on internal controls, a topic near and dear to SOX (Sarbanes Oxley).
:-)
SOX actually has fairly strong protections for whistleblowers who are pointing out internal control issues.
If they didn't work to communicate internal whistleblower chnnels (anon contact to Board of Directors) or didn't respond to it, they are screwed.
Firing him - if he tried those channels or wasn't aware of them due to insufficient publicity - could well be a violation of SOX.
I would love to get this one to the shareholders
Jordan
Let's go back to CNET News's story on that historic day (December 20, 1996): Apple acquires Next, Jobs
- "In a stunning move, Apple Computer (AAPL) said tonight that it will purchase Next Software in a $400 million deal that will bring former Apple CEO Steve Jobs back to the company he cofounded."
Hmm...Mac OS 7 the OS at the time? Really?[snip]
"The surprise merger also answers the long-awaited question of what Apple's next-generation operating system will hold. The company has been shopping for an operating system since abandoning its own Copland system earlier this year and had been negotiating with Be and other companies to fill that void.
Apple hopes that Next's object-oriented, Java-enabled open development platform will significantly improve its Internet and intranet position because its technology is agile. It also hopes to capture strength with Next's enterprise position.
Next's cross-platform development environments in the enterprise and Internet and intranet space allow developers to write once and deploy across a range of Internet and client-server platforms. Amelio said Apple expects to ship products with the Next operating system in 1997."
Actually, as someone who was involved in the lead up to the NeXT acquisition, was there that night (it was a long day), and was involved in the integration of NeXT into Apple, I have to say we were shipping Mac OS 8 at the time and then Steve worked to get OS 9 out to provide the bridge to Mac OS X.
CHeers -
Jordan
I guess I expect better from Slashdot. Foolish me, I guess. But I had always expected that Nerds, Engineers, would be able to better analyze data and draw conclusions about it.
Let's define collapse: A collapse is a dramatic drop in population, numbers, etc. In this case it is the population of iPods sold each and every quarter.
Have iPod unit sales dropped this quarter? Nope, they actually increased. Was that increase statistically meaningful? Nope, but it was an increase.
Now, how about iPod revenues? Have they increased? Guess what, they have! The total revenues for iPods has continued to increase.
Now, if you wanted to talk about the drop in iPod unit or revenue growth over time, I would agree that this has happened. Was it a collapse? I would argue not. It has been an ongoing leveling off moving to a steady state replacement rate.
Face it, the iPod is a mature market. Folks aren't out there buying there first iPod (or even their second or third). We are looking at a replacement market. One where folks are looking at upgrading (or truly replacing because it broke, was lost, etc. their iPod.
But the iPod market is bigger than that of just iPod players. It is about iTunes for music and video, it is about accessories, etc. Apple has created a vibrant and significant business here. Is it going to grow like it did in the past? No way. But it will continue to throw off significant free cash flow, which can be invested in new businesses or returned to shareholders (via share buy backs [most likely] or a dividend).
Apple's immediate term growth opportunities are the Mac and iPhone platforms. Both are growing significantly and are supported by and support the iPod business.
Longer term, their drive to become "The American Sony" and be the leading consumer electronics company will continue and develop. AppleTV will someday be significant, and when it is, it will have build on a foundation provided by the iPod and iPhone.
So, let's get this right: How will Apple deal with a mature iPod business? Pretty damn well.
Cheers -
Jordan