This is a good idea, one that hordes of sci fi writers have used to their advantage. A good example of this is Larry Niven's Footfall - bug-eyed monsters journey into the solar system and proceed to obliterate earth's culture, much of which is done by dropping rocks from the sky.
I also seem to recall reading several years ago about flying crowbars - shafts of steel with a rudimentary guidance system and image recognition. You space a couple of thousand of these guys over a country that you don't like with programming that tells the crowbar to guide itself towards military targets, and they use the kinetic energy gained from the fall from space to destroy the target.
Sure, many of the sciences out there actively use computer modeling to get the job done. Especially the theoretical branches. So what? I guess that *could* be considered "computer science," but only if you acknowledge that there are such things as "philips head science" and "pencil and paper science." Computers are just tools for the hard sciences.
Okay. The company that I currently work for is somewhat (well, try amazingly) disorganized. However, the work is very cool and the people that I work with are great. Once I was hired on, I was required to attend an orientation class and was told to 'bring my acceptance letter' when I came.
Of course, the orientation class was run by the HR department, and once everyone showed up everyone was presented with contracts that included clauses mentioned in the article. We were told to 'initial each page' to show that we agreed with it, and then sign the contract.
What did I do? I didn't initial the page that had the nonsense about them owning my inventions. I crossed the entire section out. When I was done, I handed it to the HR chick and that was that. I've been working here for the last year with no problems, and the minute someone comes barking at me about my 'inventions', I'll just point out the contract that I signed with them.
Does this protect me from getting fired if they don't like it? Probably not. But I have a feeling that they won't have any rights to my ideas, either.
I many not be able to eat principles, but at least I'll go hungry knowing that I stood up for what I believe is right.
The article starts off talking about napster-like software, and then mentions that they want to do similar things with web sites. Exactly how do they define illegal content?
Sounds a little flakey to me. What's to stop someone out-of-country from setting up a few open proxy servers for their german friends? Are they only going to block illegal content, or are they going to block what they consider immoral content as well? Are they going to extend these courtesies to sites within germany that offer content which many consider to be... less than legal?
It seems to me that much of Europe is becoming more and more dysfunctional. France shakes its little fists at yahoo, and they limit content. Italy decides that groping a woman's ass is a handshake and not a sexist act. I'm not even going to bother mentioning the many bizarre things that come from England. And now Germany wants to censor web content for their entire nation. Hey, I probably should be the last person to accuse a country of being screwed up - I'm an american. The entire world knows how dysfunctional WE are.
More importantly - is this a smart move for Germany to make? If they aren't careful in choosing their censorware, they could incite country-wide riots by accidentally denying the populance access to quality streaming scat and bestiality video. Everyone knows how serious germans take their porn....
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This is a good idea, one that hordes of sci fi writers have used to their advantage. A good example of this is Larry Niven's Footfall - bug-eyed monsters journey into the solar system and proceed to obliterate earth's culture, much of which is done by dropping rocks from the sky.
I also seem to recall reading several years ago about flying crowbars - shafts of steel with a rudimentary guidance system and image recognition. You space a couple of thousand of these guys over a country that you don't like with programming that tells the crowbar to guide itself towards military targets, and they use the kinetic energy gained from the fall from space to destroy the target.
Sure, many of the sciences out there actively use computer modeling to get the job done. Especially the theoretical branches. So what? I guess that *could* be considered "computer science," but only if you acknowledge that there are such things as "philips head science" and "pencil and paper science." Computers are just tools for the hard sciences.
they could have made millions on ebay selling all of that email that Gore deleted.
it'll be that stupid monkey from lost in space.
Okay. The company that I currently work for is somewhat (well, try amazingly) disorganized. However, the work is very cool and the people that I work with are great. Once I was hired on, I was required to attend an orientation class and was told to 'bring my acceptance letter' when I came.
Of course, the orientation class was run by the HR department, and once everyone showed up everyone was presented with contracts that included clauses mentioned in the article. We were told to 'initial each page' to show that we agreed with it, and then sign the contract.
What did I do? I didn't initial the page that had the nonsense about them owning my inventions. I crossed the entire section out. When I was done, I handed it to the HR chick and that was that. I've been working here for the last year with no problems, and the minute someone comes barking at me about my 'inventions', I'll just point out the contract that I signed with them.
Does this protect me from getting fired if they don't like it? Probably not. But I have a feeling that they won't have any rights to my ideas, either.
I many not be able to eat principles, but at least I'll go hungry knowing that I stood up for what I believe is right.
Resistance in the wires is what causes the heat. Superconducting wires imply no resistance, therefore, no heat.
The article starts off talking about napster-like software, and then mentions that they want to do similar things with web sites. Exactly how do they define illegal content?
Sounds a little flakey to me. What's to stop someone out-of-country from setting up a few open proxy servers for their german friends? Are they only going to block illegal content, or are they going to block what they consider immoral content as well? Are they going to extend these courtesies to sites within germany that offer content which many consider to be ... less than legal?
It seems to me that much of Europe is becoming more and more dysfunctional. France shakes its little fists at yahoo, and they limit content. Italy decides that groping a woman's ass is a handshake and not a sexist act. I'm not even going to bother mentioning the many bizarre things that come from England. And now Germany wants to censor web content for their entire nation. Hey, I probably should be the last person to accuse a country of being screwed up - I'm an american. The entire world knows how dysfunctional WE are.
More importantly - is this a smart move for Germany to make? If they aren't careful in choosing their censorware, they could incite country-wide riots by accidentally denying the populance access to quality streaming scat and bestiality video. Everyone knows how serious germans take their porn....