And beyond that, the majority shareholders of Nortel allowed the executives to take out loans from creditors, presumably because they thought it might save the company. The board could have just as easily prevented the company from going into debt, and instead liquidated it while it was still in the black so the shareholders would get something. But they didn't, and it is only fair now that the creditors get paid before them.
Except 99% of people in the class aren't going to sue anyway, so they gain nothing by opting out. I just got $16 from a Comcast Bitorrent blocking class-action lawsuit, which is more than I would have gotten otherwise.
It is possible that Android is sending more information than I am aware of, but the only thing I have heard of is the network based location service.
The way this works is that the phone looks at what WiFi base stations you can see near you. It then sends a list of these to a server that has a database of the location of a bunch these base stations. The server looks up the locations of the stations you are near and estimates your location from that.
It is impossible for the server to tell you where you are without knowing where you are! The only other option would be for the server to continuously distribute gigabytes of WiFi database information to the phones, most of which would never be used. Querying for just the information needed is a better design.
And as others have already pointed out, this service is off by default, and gives a clearly understandable warning when turned on.
People managed to do "real" work just fine a couple years ago when that computer was mainstream.
People were running different software with different minimum requirements 10 years ago when this machine is new. I wish modern software weren't as bloated as it is, but it is what it is.
It's not ONLY a stick of ram. It's an indicator to your employer that you don't understand boundaries, roles, and responsibilities.
Bullshit. This isn't a case of corporate policy mandates I will have this computer, but I am going to thumb by nose at it because I know better. It is a case of they'd like to give me a better computer, but they're swamped and my internship will be over by the time they get around to it, so I'll find a way to solve my own problems.
I would much have someone who shows the initiative to get things done than a slacker who just points the finger and says "that's not my job".
I too am running Firefox 3.6 on Debian Squeeze, but with 3gigs of RAM. I have FlashBlock and BetterPrivacy installed, but not NoScript. With only 20 tabs open I have to restart firefox at least once a week or my computer will grind to a halt. It seems to work like this:
Firefox: Hmm, there's still memory available, I'll hold more pages in memory. Linux: Crap memory is getting tight, I should move some of this to swap. Firefox: Hey look there's more memory available now, I'll hold more sites in memory.
And so on, until everything but firefox is pushed out to swap.
This happened to me (an apparently many other interns) at one of the National Laboratories. The lab wasn't strapped for cash nor going away anytime soon. The real problem was that the guy that hired me didn't plan ahead and order a computer (which can take weeks to get thanks to procurement overhead), so he panicked and snagged one on the way to reapplication. I scrounged up some more RAM from reapp, and it worked fine for the three months I was there.
Whatever. Given how busy it sounds the IT department is, they should have bigger things to worry about than whether an intern added more memory to a machine. That change isn't going to conflict with their prebuilt system images the way that changing a video card would, and this machine is most likely going to the dumpster as soon as his internship is over anyway.
Furthermore, any competent IT department will know that adding unsupported software is a bigger problem than adding unsupported hardware. If they don't care about him installing whatever browser he wants, why would they care about adding more memory.
I've had the same experience trying to take notes with a laptop. There are too many equations, graphs, diagrams, and characters not on my keyboard for me to possibly keep up with just a keyboard. I have ended up going back to pencil and paper every time.
Which is what really makes me shake my head about these new tablets. They completely ignore all the potential strong points of the tablet form factor. I would love to have something lightweight that I could take free-form notes on that were at least somewhat searchable (I can live without perfect handwriting recognition). I'd love to have an eBook reader that can handle standard size PDF documents (journal papers), and let me easily annotate them. I'd love to have something lightweight to draw on like a Wacom Cintiq that isn't tethered to a computer.
No instead they provide a glorified smartphone whose only input method is pointing and grunting. Which has to be tied to the Cloud to transfer any data to another computer, or preform half the functionality. Which can't use calender/contacts syncing standards that even my Nokia dumbphone supports. The MS tablets have their share of problems, since they insist on reusing applications written with keyboard and mouse in mind, but at least they try to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the form factor.
Unless you are using an alternate DNS root then you are already trusting ICANN, and DNSSEC will help prevent you from man-in-the-middle attacks, decreasing the number of untrustworthy people who can mess with your DNS queries.
I know the guy who headed that team; he waited until the iPhone shipped, and then quit Apple in disgust with having to work for Steve Jobs.
Which nicely illustrates that work environments where "heroic" tasks are performed are usually not the best environment for long term employee health or happiness. I don't agree with Joel on this issue (or others). However, I don't think that running a small profitable business that puts out good products makes him any less qualified to talk on this issue than the people you mentioned. In fact you could argue that those people tend to have a better idea of what makes a productive work environment than most.
I do enjoy work. If the only thing that makes your job enjoyable is socializing with your coworkers, then you need to get a new job.
Different people handle situations differently. You enjoy socializing and it helps you unwind. It doesn't help me. At best it's boring and extends my workday by an extra 30-60 minutes, which is time I would be rather spending with my real friends. At worst it creates more stress thus requiring more unwind time leaving even less quality time for my friends and family.
If your system puts almost total control over property and ownership in the hands of the government then it will always result in a totalitarian regime no matter how much you want to believe otherwise.
Any system of government can be awesome if you ignore it's inherent faults and focus on what it could be if everything magically worked they way you want it to. Benevolent dictatorships have lots of advantages, except that no one is good enough or smart enough for those to be realized, and most people in power aren't even close to good. Democracy can be awesome, but it takes a lot more than mere popular vote to get there; you have to have tons of checks and balances just to prevent the worst of rights violations to occur, let alone reach it's full potential. Considering how challenging it has been to make democracy work, just imagine how much harder it would be if the state had even more centralized power. But that is exactly what communism does. If we want to increase liberty we need power to be more widely distributed not less, and removing property rights does the opposite of that.
So, excuse me if I chose to judge socioeconomic systems on reality rather than fantasy.
If that was true, then no-one would be members of Open Invention Network or Open Patent Alliance, but both have several large companies that have joined and/or contributed patents.
Furthermore, Microsoft is a member of MPEG-LA and their VC-1 format is part of the Blu-Ray standard, but they still loose out on the deal, as they have to pay more in MPEG-LA licenses for windows than they get from their patents. They gain nothing by having MPEG-LA start charging license fees for WebM.
The fact is that no-one can do anything on their own anymore - they need to license patents from others, even if they invented the device independently and have a ton of patents their own. People that actually want to do things with patents therefore do benefit from no-money exchanged cross-licensing.
I've heard that is actually isn't, although it can appear that way. It will give you a warning that PSN is down, but if you keep clicking through, then you can play it fine. See the discussion at ars.
Here is an interview with the guy who built the airforce PS3 cluster. They haven't gotten any special privileges from Sony:
"The server runs on a Linux operating system that isn't available on the newer firmware of current systems," said Mr. Barnell. "We have to abide by the end-user license agreement like everyone else, so we're only able to use the systems as we get them."
If a Condor PS3 breaks it can't be sent in for repairs because it comes back with system updates that are unable to run Linux. After an update, it's useless in the Condor cluster.
"I have a few spares," he said. "But as they break, we'll end up removing consoles from the cluster."
If RIM doesn't want people judging the playbook in a crippled form then they shouldn't be selling it in a crippled form. It was their choice to allow AT&T to sell it without Bridge support. At the least AT&T users need to me made aware that the playbook is worthless for them, which is what the reviewer was doing.
The reason that SoundExchange exists is because Old Media lobbied congress to make New Media prohibitively expensive. SoundExchange is the gatekeeper preventing New Media from having the impact it would otherwise, while the same restrictions don't apply to Old Media.
WTF is that damn auto-updating twitterish piece of shit beside the article? It's like they are actively trying to make their site as hard to read as possible. It's worse than most advertisements. Please don't ever link to this website again.
Look, you just introduced a foreign object onto their network and on top of that want an exception to the firewall. While you may be competent enough to run that server, how do they know that, and why should they take your word for it? You could be introducing a serious security breach in their systems, you could be violating HIPAA regulations that you don't even know about. Think of the other computer lackeys that you have worked with over the years and whether you would blindly trust them? You can't completely verify the security of a system by external scans, let alone compliance with any auditing requirements or other regulations.
Keeping the hospital network secure is IT's responsibility, and the least you can do is let them look at how you have configured your machine. Besides if you have permissions setup correctly then there should be no harm giving them non-privileged login account anyway, right? Stop being so damn possessive about something that isn't even in your legitimate realm of authority.
The Business Software Alliance is another that regularly threatens and sues people on behalf of their members, and who does not require copyright reassignment.
As pjt33 pointed out, all of the lawsuits related to online filesharing have been filed by the actual recording companies / movie studios (which do hold copyright), not the by the RIAA / MPAA. Considering how slashdot reports the cases it is an easy mistake to make.
But you do have a good point. What about ASCAP and BMI who do regularly sue bars and other venues that play music without paying royalties? They do not require copyright assignment.
To be fair, the correct interpretation of "equal protection under the law" has been a matter of confusion since the day the 14th Amendment was passed. In your particular case however, there is additional law that states that race is one of the protected classes that cannot be discriminated against in nearly any circumstance. So the courts would cite that, and punt on the constitutional issue.
Slashdot Mirror
And beyond that, the majority shareholders of Nortel allowed the executives to take out loans from creditors, presumably because they thought it might save the company. The board could have just as easily prevented the company from going into debt, and instead liquidated it while it was still in the black so the shareholders would get something. But they didn't, and it is only fair now that the creditors get paid before them.
Pensions on the other hand ...
Except 99% of people in the class aren't going to sue anyway, so they gain nothing by opting out. I just got $16 from a Comcast Bitorrent blocking class-action lawsuit, which is more than I would have gotten otherwise.
It is possible that Android is sending more information than I am aware of, but the only thing I have heard of is the network based location service.
The way this works is that the phone looks at what WiFi base stations you can see near you. It then sends a list of these to a server that has a database of the location of a bunch these base stations. The server looks up the locations of the stations you are near and estimates your location from that.
It is impossible for the server to tell you where you are without knowing where you are! The only other option would be for the server to continuously distribute gigabytes of WiFi database information to the phones, most of which would never be used. Querying for just the information needed is a better design.
And as others have already pointed out, this service is off by default, and gives a clearly understandable warning when turned on.
People managed to do "real" work just fine a couple years ago when that computer was mainstream.
People were running different software with different minimum requirements 10 years ago when this machine is new. I wish modern software weren't as bloated as it is, but it is what it is.
It's not ONLY a stick of ram. It's an indicator to your employer that you don't understand boundaries, roles, and responsibilities.
Bullshit. This isn't a case of corporate policy mandates I will have this computer, but I am going to thumb by nose at it because I know better. It is a case of they'd like to give me a better computer, but they're swamped and my internship will be over by the time they get around to it, so I'll find a way to solve my own problems.
I would much have someone who shows the initiative to get things done than a slacker who just points the finger and says "that's not my job".
I too am running Firefox 3.6 on Debian Squeeze, but with 3gigs of RAM. I have FlashBlock and BetterPrivacy installed, but not NoScript. With only 20 tabs open I have to restart firefox at least once a week or my computer will grind to a halt. It seems to work like this:
Firefox: Hmm, there's still memory available, I'll hold more pages in memory.
Linux: Crap memory is getting tight, I should move some of this to swap.
Firefox: Hey look there's more memory available now, I'll hold more sites in memory.
And so on, until everything but firefox is pushed out to swap.
This happened to me (an apparently many other interns) at one of the National Laboratories. The lab wasn't strapped for cash nor going away anytime soon. The real problem was that the guy that hired me didn't plan ahead and order a computer (which can take weeks to get thanks to procurement overhead), so he panicked and snagged one on the way to reapplication. I scrounged up some more RAM from reapp, and it worked fine for the three months I was there.
Whatever. Given how busy it sounds the IT department is, they should have bigger things to worry about than whether an intern added more memory to a machine. That change isn't going to conflict with their prebuilt system images the way that changing a video card would, and this machine is most likely going to the dumpster as soon as his internship is over anyway.
Furthermore, any competent IT department will know that adding unsupported software is a bigger problem than adding unsupported hardware. If they don't care about him installing whatever browser he wants, why would they care about adding more memory.
I've had the same experience trying to take notes with a laptop. There are too many equations, graphs, diagrams, and characters not on my keyboard for me to possibly keep up with just a keyboard. I have ended up going back to pencil and paper every time.
Which is what really makes me shake my head about these new tablets. They completely ignore all the potential strong points of the tablet form factor. I would love to have something lightweight that I could take free-form notes on that were at least somewhat searchable (I can live without perfect handwriting recognition). I'd love to have an eBook reader that can handle standard size PDF documents (journal papers), and let me easily annotate them. I'd love to have something lightweight to draw on like a Wacom Cintiq that isn't tethered to a computer.
No instead they provide a glorified smartphone whose only input method is pointing and grunting. Which has to be tied to the Cloud to transfer any data to another computer, or preform half the functionality. Which can't use calender/contacts syncing standards that even my Nokia dumbphone supports. The MS tablets have their share of problems, since they insist on reusing applications written with keyboard and mouse in mind, but at least they try to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the form factor.
then you should use them for your DNSSEC root.
Unless you are using an alternate DNS root then you are already trusting ICANN, and DNSSEC will help prevent you from man-in-the-middle attacks, decreasing the number of untrustworthy people who can mess with your DNS queries.
I know the guy who headed that team; he waited until the iPhone shipped, and then quit Apple in disgust with having to work for Steve Jobs.
Which nicely illustrates that work environments where "heroic" tasks are performed are usually not the best environment for long term employee health or happiness. I don't agree with Joel on this issue (or others). However, I don't think that running a small profitable business that puts out good products makes him any less qualified to talk on this issue than the people you mentioned. In fact you could argue that those people tend to have a better idea of what makes a productive work environment than most.
I do enjoy work. If the only thing that makes your job enjoyable is socializing with your coworkers, then you need to get a new job.
Different people handle situations differently. You enjoy socializing and it helps you unwind. It doesn't help me. At best it's boring and extends my workday by an extra 30-60 minutes, which is time I would be rather spending with my real friends. At worst it creates more stress thus requiring more unwind time leaving even less quality time for my friends and family.
If your system puts almost total control over property and ownership in the hands of the government then it will always result in a totalitarian regime no matter how much you want to believe otherwise.
Any system of government can be awesome if you ignore it's inherent faults and focus on what it could be if everything magically worked they way you want it to. Benevolent dictatorships have lots of advantages, except that no one is good enough or smart enough for those to be realized, and most people in power aren't even close to good. Democracy can be awesome, but it takes a lot more than mere popular vote to get there; you have to have tons of checks and balances just to prevent the worst of rights violations to occur, let alone reach it's full potential. Considering how challenging it has been to make democracy work, just imagine how much harder it would be if the state had even more centralized power. But that is exactly what communism does. If we want to increase liberty we need power to be more widely distributed not less, and removing property rights does the opposite of that.
So, excuse me if I chose to judge socioeconomic systems on reality rather than fantasy.
If that was true, then no-one would be members of Open Invention Network or Open Patent Alliance, but both have several large companies that have joined and/or contributed patents.
Furthermore, Microsoft is a member of MPEG-LA and their VC-1 format is part of the Blu-Ray standard, but they still loose out on the deal, as they have to pay more in MPEG-LA licenses for windows than they get from their patents. They gain nothing by having MPEG-LA start charging license fees for WebM.
The fact is that no-one can do anything on their own anymore - they need to license patents from others, even if they invented the device independently and have a ton of patents their own. People that actually want to do things with patents therefore do benefit from no-money exchanged cross-licensing.
You will need root access to the device to read this directory." Which means you can't do that with an app.
Unless your Android device is rooted, which is common. Which means you can. Oops! Your bad.
No, apps run on a rooted Android device don't run as root.
I've heard that is actually isn't, although it can appear that way. It will give you a warning that PSN is down, but if you keep clicking through, then you can play it fine. See the discussion at ars.
A large number of people that are experiencing this outage, did pay for multiple availability zones, and it didn't help them.
Here is an interview with the guy who built the airforce PS3 cluster. They haven't gotten any special privileges from Sony:
"The server runs on a Linux operating system that isn't available on the newer firmware of current systems," said Mr. Barnell. "We have to abide by the end-user license agreement like everyone else, so we're only able to use the systems as we get them."
If a Condor PS3 breaks it can't be sent in for repairs because it comes back with system updates that are unable to run Linux. After an update, it's useless in the Condor cluster.
"I have a few spares," he said. "But as they break, we'll end up removing consoles from the cluster."
The Wii is already running on an ARM... wikipedia tells me it's a 243mhz ARM926se.
No. That is a tiny little processor used to handle I/O, DRM, and background downloads. Broadway is the main processor and it is a PPC.
If RIM doesn't want people judging the playbook in a crippled form then they shouldn't be selling it in a crippled form. It was their choice to allow AT&T to sell it without Bridge support. At the least AT&T users need to me made aware that the playbook is worthless for them, which is what the reviewer was doing.
The reason that SoundExchange exists is because Old Media lobbied congress to make New Media prohibitively expensive. SoundExchange is the gatekeeper preventing New Media from having the impact it would otherwise, while the same restrictions don't apply to Old Media.
WTF is that damn auto-updating twitterish piece of shit beside the article? It's like they are actively trying to make their site as hard to read as possible. It's worse than most advertisements. Please don't ever link to this website again.
In the meanwhile here is a non-ADD version of the article.
Look, you just introduced a foreign object onto their network and on top of that want an exception to the firewall. While you may be competent enough to run that server, how do they know that, and why should they take your word for it? You could be introducing a serious security breach in their systems, you could be violating HIPAA regulations that you don't even know about. Think of the other computer lackeys that you have worked with over the years and whether you would blindly trust them? You can't completely verify the security of a system by external scans, let alone compliance with any auditing requirements or other regulations.
Keeping the hospital network secure is IT's responsibility, and the least you can do is let them look at how you have configured your machine. Besides if you have permissions setup correctly then there should be no harm giving them non-privileged login account anyway, right? Stop being so damn possessive about something that isn't even in your legitimate realm of authority.
The Business Software Alliance is another that regularly threatens and sues people on behalf of their members, and who does not require copyright reassignment.
As pjt33 pointed out, all of the lawsuits related to online filesharing have been filed by the actual recording companies / movie studios (which do hold copyright), not the by the RIAA / MPAA. Considering how slashdot reports the cases it is an easy mistake to make.
But you do have a good point. What about ASCAP and BMI who do regularly sue bars and other venues that play music without paying royalties? They do not require copyright assignment.
To be fair, the correct interpretation of "equal protection under the law" has been a matter of confusion since the day the 14th Amendment was passed. In your particular case however, there is additional law that states that race is one of the protected classes that cannot be discriminated against in nearly any circumstance. So the courts would cite that, and punt on the constitutional issue.