I'm not saying they couldn't do better, but too many people have this idea that private organizations are magically exempt from corruption, nepotism, overspending, bad forcasting, bad designs, etc.
Not exempt, but the difference is when private corps do things wrong, they go out of business. NASA on the other hand never goes out of business. If they waste all of their money ahead of schedule this year, they simply try to increase their budget and do things again next year.
This isn't NASA's fault individually - the government as a whole works like that. If the government were run as a business, forcing it to work within a budget (no deficits), firing people when they do stupid things, then mabye things would be better. I remember vaguely a recent article saying the new NASA director had done some house cleaning, so mabye its a start.
Well sorry, but Apple isn't going to run out of business just because they lost your sale. They already make billions a year in profit with their mere 3% market share
Actually I think they are still in business because of the iPod, not because of their 3% market share.
Don't even pretend you were going to buy it anyway if they *did* release it for any x86 machine.
Actually I had considered getting a x86 based Mac if/when they do come out, however this DRM revelation has nixed that idea. If they put this in the OS fundamentals, it is only a matter of time before it starts creeping up into the apps and eventually my data.
Apple like Sun has a habit of coupling their nice OS with slow proprietary hardware and then attaching a premium price sticker on it. It would have been nice to put the OS on generic hardware because locking it to their hardware is very limiting, and it defeats the point of having cheap commodity hardware. Are they going to lock down the drives, ram, CD, DVD, etc? If you blow out a DVD drive can you only use a certified Apple DRM-compliant replacement at a couple hundred dollars each?
Please, that kind of thinking is for Microsoft OS's, Apple deserves a little better.
Hah, I don't know why you think thats true - Apple is as money centric as Microsoft, if not more. Its too bad for them really, its not a big deal for me to put another OS on my x86 hardware since I have several choices. Whereas I would have liked to have another choice (and yes I have the money to buy legit copies too!), now I don't even need to consider it any more. So yes they did lose my sale, and if they can survive without it good for them, because I can survive without their DRM.
I keep my Wifi open Just for that. From logs I can see some regular neighbors using my net (MAC addresses). Probably people siting in the Garden near my apartment. And I do the same, all the time.
You understand there is an element of risk there yes? If your neighbor gets on your wireless connection and starts uploading CDs or some other nefarious act, the RIAA or whoever will trace that connection back to your address. Mighty neighborly of you to take the wrap for their acts.
Of course you can assume that your neighbors are connecting to you and they are all nice people, but it could also be that other guy with a high gain antenna a half mile away.
Personally I turn on all the security features all the time on my wireless (and usually disable it when I'm not using it). Not so much for the above reason, but just because the wireless is on the inside of my hardware firewall. Yes I run software firewalls also, but its just better not to have anyone trying to plug into the samba/web/etc internal servers.
You can't just take an existing die and somehow create a processor design from it (well, you could strip each layer off, then reverse engineer each layer, then spend ages working out what bit does what - easier to just design it from scratch)
Regarding deprocessing then reverse engineering and copying each layer, I know it sounds absurd, but I have a taiwanese friend of mine who said this happens all the time. In fact this person had done it before when working back in Taiwan. She was particularly proud of having copied an RF design and having only a 3dB sensitivity difference between the copy and the original (which IMO is pretty good for having only a die to work off of).
Our group laughed about this on one RF IC we did because the top layer was copper. As soon as one tried to deprocess the die the copper would corrode and turn all green. If you looked at it under a scope it was just a big green blob, so we called it our 'IP protection layer'.
"The so called solution turns out to become much worse than the original problem." Yeah..this is something I fear.
I would think doubly so, since this is the same government that wants a national ID card. You know, to make personal information even more centralized and easy to access. In an ironic way the concept of a national ID card as a homeland security measure might make a person's identity easier to steal, resulting in less security.
I wish they's make it illegal to use it as an identifier in any public database not directly associated with SS taxable income.
I would also say not just a public database, but any database. Why should anyone other than those involved with social security have need of that number, and even if they need it temporarily as a way to certify identity, why should they need to store it?
There are many other bits of data I think companies really don't need to know. Birth dates are one. I've acquired the habit of entering completely bogus birth dates into online web forms (yahoo, etc). Those companies don't need that info (its never verified anyway), and I certainly don't trust them to keep it safe. As far as I'm concerned, those companies can continue believing that I'm 105 years old...
IMO its ethically required! I cannot say I like the fact that Chinese gov is trying to block the free flow of information, but I like it even less when people seem to think if you aren't doing the exact same thing as the US you are evil or not ethical!
And who exactly said that, you? China's censorship is unethical not because it disagrees with the USA, but because it IS unethical.
There are different cultures and different ideals. Just because someone feels differently than you doesn't make them unethical. Also if someone helps that person who thinks differently than you, the person helping isn't nessesarily unethical.
Really? So for all those companies which might enjoy, oh say, slave trading, its ok right? According to your logic its not necessarily unethical because perhaps it hasn't been expressly banned everywhere. And for banks and other companies which might help said slave traders, I guess they would be ethically ok with it too. Sheesh, your a MORON. You don't need laws to tell you whats ethical and whats not. The USA isn't the moral gold standard, and no one says it is, despite your stereotyping of it in that way.
I know "your either with us or against us", "you either do stuff like we do or your evil" sentiments are pretty popular in the US, but different is not wrong.
Again, really? Take a survey did you? Your stereotyping of whats "popular" in the US is way off base. I'd be willing to bet most people call things unethical when they are in fact unethical, not when they violate some US law. I think common sense is a fair way to tell whats ethical and whats not, but if that fails you here is a list to get you started. Try looking up Article 19. The chinese banning of people discussing the mere topic of freedom is unethical regardless of who's laws it does or does not violate.
Companies are in business for one thing only: To yield the highest amount of profit to its investors. That is the _only_ thing companies do and should do. People who think companies have a moral duty to anything are misguided.
Hardly. If that were the case, then slavery would be the ultimate corporate goal (although in some corps I imagine that might actually BE the goal).
Companies don't exist in a vacuum and they don't exist independently either. Corporations depend on the infrastructure around them to survive. They need the government to build roads to and from their factories, they need electricity, water, and they need customers to buy their stuff. You don't get any of that in a society based on slavery (certainly not the latter).
So, it is in the interest of the corporation to have a vibrant and healthy society in which to exist - a reason why the government does impose certain ethical/moral behaviors on corporations (they're not supposed to lie on their financial statements, they're not supposed to fabricate BS about the quality of their products, they can't shoot their underperforming workers, etc). Corporations are always trying to push the envelope, and outsourcing is one of the latest ways to do it.
And if the road to the highest return on investor investment leads through paying management insane amounts, so be it.
You would be a fool and a stupid investor to think so, although your not alone, the world is packed full of foolish stupid investors. How many millions did Carly screw HP out of - yeah good leadership job there...
Personally I think if companies want to outsource the bulk of their employees, effectively becoming a foreign company, then they should be treated as a foreign company. No tax incentives or whatnot, they can import their products just like any other foreign company (and be subjected to whatever import tariffs apply). Go incorporate in India or China (oh, and don't forget to take the CEO on the way out)...
People always talk about China/Saudi Arabia/*insert country US doesnt like* lack of human rights/free speech and so on, and are totally oblivious to the fact that they are being completely hypocritical. What about Guantanamo Bay, where people have been held for years without trial? What about the Patriot Act, that gives the government the right to arrest and spy on people without being questioned?
I think you'll find that many of the same people who criticise lack of freedom elsewhere are the same ones who think the Patriot Act is unconstitutional. In either case it is irrelevant. One does not need to live in a utopia in order to comment on the situation in other countries.
The fact is that the Chinese government is totalitarian and very motivated in the preservation of its regime. It will use any means necessary to maintain that position. It doesn't matter if it violates the rights of its citizens in doing that, as the "party" obviously considers itself above its own laws.
Here in the US the various agencies are held accountable (at some level at least) for their actions, and they can be taken to court (FBI, Waco, anyone?). We could certainly use more accountability in the office of the president and Congress however.
Talking about the US is simply a diversion on your part though. I've lived in Saudi Arabia. I've been to Taiwan and lived in South Korea. Seeing how Taiwan and South Korea regard their counterparts (China and North Korea), and having been in Saudi I can tell you the people of those countries do not enjoy the kinds of freedoms we take for granted in the US. In all those places having access to information deemed unacceptable (regardless of whether you actually DO - ie. perhaps simply owning a satellite dish), could be viewed as a major crime. Any society that needs to censor the topic of freedom cannot be free (you simply cannot give me a valid enough answer as to why China's massive censoring of the internet is a "ok" thing - its not, no matter what argument one might provide).
I've never quite understood why it is that there has to be a stable state in these "paradox" arguments. Looking at other physical systems, when you close a feedback loop in such a way that it is unstable, then the system inside the loop will oscillate.
It happens for mechanical systems, it happens for electrical systems (in fact I know it is trivially easy to make it happen in electrical systems - it is the source of many an engineer's headaches). Period of oscillation is related to the phase delay through and time constant of the loop.
Is there an known reason why this can't happen in such a time travel loop? (other than it would seem unnatural - although no more than time travel itself).
Second, the administration had every right to fire him anyway. He made unauthorized use of their facilities by holding what amounted to a rally in their cafeteria, after he was denied use of the proper venues. The University was simply protecting its interests, and this guy was intent on raising a stink. Heck, he even "contacted SGAE, National Police, and the Attorney General in advance to inform them about it."
Fire him for what? Holding an academic talk? Its a university, thats what they do there. This guy wasn't giving a talk about how to build nuclear weapons, its a talk about P2P software.
The most suprising and shameful thing about it is the fact that they have a completely spineless Dean who caves at the slightest industry pressure. The dean shut this guy down because he was threatened with what? a -software- audit, ~ooooo~, how terrible and scary. Give me a fucking break, you don't demand someones resignation just because the BSA threatens you with a software audit. What a spineless fool.
And as far as contacting those groups, well its a academic presentation on P2P, mabye he wanted to see if they wanted to -attend-. You know, to learn about P2P!?! Obviously nobody except the professor actually knows what it is and the fact that it is used all the time for legit software exchange (linux ISOs anyone???).
Has it occurred to anyone that maybe there was NOTHING WRONG with the capsule design in the first place, and that the only reason the Shuttle has wings is so that the Air Force could have warm fuzzies about it?
Mabye people like shuttles because they don't leave a trail of trash from here to the moon. Or mabye because less material resources are expended in recycling something that you know already works. Or perhaps because they don't smash into the ground like a meteor if the parachutes fail.
The various shuttles have flown a LOT more than the Saturn V ever has, so I would venture to say there is nothing wrong with a shuttle design. Perhaps one should try focusing on the real problem with NASA, which is the bureaucracy.
Even going with 130 nm technology (which is already "outdated") can cost a million dollars just for the masks. Yield, packaging, and other issues can easily push up the costs to several times that.
I'm a bit skeptical about that. We run 0.25um stuff here all the time, 5 layer metal, and the mask cost numbers I've heard are in the $100k range for a dedicated production mask. Shuttle costs are well below that (depending if your fab of choice runs shuttles and you can get on them). I just checked MOSIS and it looks like 0.13um on an IBM 8RF process seems to be in the $6k to $50k range for 40 parts (based on die size - assuming I read their numbers correctly).
Now tools on the other hand are a different matter. Layout, synth, and place-and-route tools can be -very- spendy. One could use Magic for layout (I don't know if it supports place and route though).
Package wise I would use some sort of quad flat package for prototypes. BGAs are a pain when it comes time for evaluation - you would need some sort of reflow oven to stick it to the board, and then forget about probing pins.
Same for RTS. There hasn't been a REALLY good one since Total Annihilation, though I suppose we can consider Warcraft 3, even if it was rather lackluster. RPGs seem to be doing somewhat well, with Morrowind being the most recent decent one, but KoTOR and Fable are also very worthy.
What a coincidence, just reloaded Total Annihilation the other night. I wasn't even sure it would run on XP given it came out in what 1997? Definitely one of the best RTS style games. I still can't figure out why new RTS games come out that don't match up to it. KoToR was decent, but looking closely it seemed a lot like the Black Isle stuff wrapped in 3D.
Stalled progress seems to happen across many game types though, I can think of a bunch off the top of my head that could have great sequels -
Total Annihilation (naturally - did read that a sequel is in the works somewhere)
Descent 1-3 (what do you call that style, first person shooter? wish somebody would resurrect it)
Morrowind (awesome RPG)
Freespace 1-2 (why they stopped making these I don't know)
Homeworld (Cataclysm was awesome, saw some others close to it, but like TA above nothing matches or outdoes it)
Deus Ex (the original, not the sucky sequel, so-so gameplay but great storyline)
>without a recorded vote so those of us who live in Texas can't even accuse our representatives of actually supporting this legislation
They all supported it.
Argh. Between this and the toll road disaster here in Austin its quite clear that the legislature has completely run amok. There is absolutely nobody looking out for the public interest anymore.
The silver lining (miniscule as it is) is that it will be quite easy to vote in the next election - all incumbents are out, along with that idiot Rick Perry. I can't wait to get to the polls.
The Mechwarrior Series has been downhill since mech 2.
I've never been able to figure out what the problem is with the Mechwarrior series. The gameplay and mechanics seem very straightforward, yet every game post MW2 has had some problem or another. I still remember getting MW2:Mercs back when it first came out and cursing out Activision nonstop for releasing a CD with a single player game that couldn't be won without patching. This was back when you had to download a 30+MB patch over a modem just to finish the damn thing (scarred for life - to this day I still check the publisher name on the box when I buy a game). Took them over a year to patch and repatch the game to the point it should have been when it first got released.
The gameplay hasn't really changed over time, except the storylines got thinner and the canned missions got even more boring. I remember picking up MW4 a long while back, played it thru once, and dumped it in the bottom of the "archive" box. MW4 worked better than the MW2 series, but it just wasn't interesting.
Interesting storylines, non-buggy rendering engine, and fully customizable keyboard layout seems like not too much to ask for 4th generation release... (Oh and mabye fixing it so one doesn't have to override those damn overheats - most irritating and persistant feature ever)
I also think this is going to get appealed to the Federal courts.
I should hope so, this bit got me from the article:
"New York provides the job, New York provides the professional opportunity, and New York should be able to tax that income, even if the employee for his own convenience was working outside of New York state," said Marc Violette, spokesman for state Assistant Solicitor General Julie Mereson, who won the case.
Actually the company provided the job and opportunity and New York had nothing to do with it. As I see it, the employee isn't using NY roads, schools, police or fire services, hospitals, or really any NY public service (which is the reason a state collects taxes, no?), so why should an employee like that have to pay NY state taxes?
Nope, I don't buy into that line at all. If it stands mabye he can send his kids tuition bill to NY marked "payment due"...
Even if they reverse the Court of Appeals on the issue and decide that Grokster can be held liable for contributory infringement, that doesn't make the technology itself illegal - it just means that, if the technology is used to infringe copyrights, the copyright holders can sue the company that made the technology instead of or as well as (not sure the deal on this minor point) the users who actually download copyrighted material.
But the effect of such a decision would be catastrophic on all software used to exchange information. I imagine it would be trivial to show that a given P2P software was used to exchange a copyrighted work. And if so, the companies and/or individuals creating such software would be sued out of existance. Who would step in to write any new software knowing that an unrelated 3rd party could do something to cause them to get sued out of business?
Frankly, I find the whole notion of specifically targeting P2P applications to be stupid - anyone could use email, ftp, or usenet to distribute copyrighted works - what are you going to do, ban ftp? sue the makers of email software? why not just shut down the internet? its ridiculous and I hope the courts think so also, so they can force the media companies to stop living in 1980...
Every time I've been asked to delete the games off of machines, I've expressed extreme disapproval. I've tried to explain until I'm blue in the face that it will not increase productivity. I've tried to explain that if you treat employees like they're four years old by taking away their toys, it will only cause resentment and a resulting LOSS of productivity.
I don't know about that. The building I work in used to have a dept of transportation office across the hall. Right outside the elevator in the hall you could see through the window to one of the office workers desks. Every single time I stood there waiting for the elevator there would be someone in there playing solitare. It never failed. As near as I could tell half of the workers in the office did absolutely no real work. Forget -loss- of productivity, there was -no- productivity.
A couple years later the office got moved someplace else (no idea where) so I can't tell if they got "downsized" or simply moved. However in this same time period the city and state government (this is in Austin TX) has been really pushing for additional transportation money. They recently have been pushing a ridiculously expensive toll road plan to fill the budget gap. Frankly I think the city can shove its toll system up its collective ass and then fire the slackers to fix the budget gap. The thought of my hard earned money going into tolls to drive to work which then eventually gets routed to some slacker to play solitare just annoys me to no end.
With the artificially inflated exorbitantly high prices of mobile data services from wireless carriers, the users are more prone to use a cheap WiFi connection, if one is available.
No sympathy for wireless carriers here, now they get to suffer for their own bad pricing plans...
The first of those things will likely never happen; instead, the government would simply make it legal to send spam for certain reasons, and likely make it illegal to mess with such "mail" - in the same way the federal mail system works.
This is true, the same way the US govt screwed up the federal Do-Not-Call list. The DNC list dealt with phones, and even an idiot politician knows what those are, yet they still put in loopholes. Yeah good job there - my answering machine still fills up with the same crap.
Politicians will never be technically savvy enough to understand the problem facing email, so there is no hope of them creating a law to deal with it. Even if they did it would only push the problem offshore. Eliminating spam can only be done with a technical solution.
are there any employers that would rather have a person who: wants to put in an honest day's work; get to know the job and the people well; and a desire to ultimately be a mentor for the company processes, instead of a here-today-gone-tomorrow programmer, who is interested in actually working there until retirement age?
[bendervoice] bwahahaha
[bendervoice] Oh wait, your serious
[bendervoice] BWHAHAHAHA
So you want a middle management job in a big coporation is that it?
Seriously, your goals might have worked 20 years ago, but the market really doesn't support working at the same place until retirement anymore. With offshoring jobs, market swings, and whatnot any given job could be gone tomorrow. The only place you could really stay until retirement is if you had your own company. But if that was what you wanted, you wouldn't be asking for a cushy middle management job where the skillset of yesterday is all you need.
If what your really after is less working hours then first cut your overhead. Get out of silicon valley, go find someplace with a lower cost of living (that way you don't NEED to work as many hours). Keep your skills up to date to be as mobile as possible. Having a good job, yet being mobile is the best way to keep the checks rolling in until retirement. I have a great job now, surrounded by people I like, but I realize that the odds of having that job until retirement is near zero. If it lasts 10 years it would be great (currently at 2), but I'm not counting on it. Sooner or later the company will screw up and there will be layoffs and reorgs. It always happens, and it always will.
Best to be prepared and be ready to move on (or start your own company). Sure go find some middle management job now, but don't be fooled into thinking it will last forever.
It is a (common) logical falsehood that software would be where it is now without software patents. It might, but the same could be said for any patents on anything.
Actually it would probably be farther ahead. The bulk of "inventions" are mostly refining an established idea. Patents as they exist today only serve to roadblock this process. In theory this would give the original inventor the ability to do the refining and reap the rewards but in practice this almost never happens. Patents only serve to limit the scope of development to a few, and in many cases they completely torpedo an idea. Bogus patents, IP holding companies (IMO nothing more than legalized fraud and extortion companies) and such only make things worse by completely killing ideas (the patent "holders" in this case will NEVER develop the idea - they simply wait for someone else to do it and then litigate).
The question is whether the protection of patents drive some people and/or companies to put effort (and money) into developing new things, whether they be medical devices or object recognition algorithms. Obviously it does drive some developments. The real question, which seems impossible to answer, is whether more developments + patents is better than just having the fewer developments.
The flaw in this argument is that lack of patents necessarily means fewer inventions. This is simply not the case. I know as a hardware developer myself that being able to develop devices without the potential of being litigated out of the blue would make things MUCH easier. If the patents on the books today were 100% legit and patent law was perfectly enforced then technical development in this country would come to a grinding halt. It would be impossible to develop a device without paying many times the value of the device in royalties to companies which truly had absolutely nothing to do development of the device (effectively it kills the notion of two people thinking of the same thing at the same time, despite the fact that it happens all the time - first to patent takes all).
Which is better? I don't know, and I'm sure you don't either.
Another bad assumption. In fact I DO know that the patent system today is completely busted. Try reading some of the stuff on PUBPAT sometime. According to one of their briefs an empirical study showed that 46% of patents litigated to judgement on validity issues were held invalid. How many individuals and companies were litigated out of existance in the name of these bogus patents? Those same individuals and companies would have produced far more innovation than the respective holders of the bogus patents.
The system today is nothing more than a way of extorting a profit rather than actually earning one. I'm a strong believer that people should be rewarded for actually "doing" not just "thinking". If someone can't DO anything with their idea then they should hell out of the way of people that can.
I could rant for hours on this, but then I'm far from alone. I would suggest checking out the December issue of Spectrum from the IEEE which had a decent article on the failures of the patent system.
You dont need a school or a grossly over-priced piece of paper for that. You need a brain and access to a library or the internet.
Well, thats nice and utopian and all, but without industry experience if you plan on getting a job that "grossly over-priced piece of paper" is going to be worth a lot more than all your self taught knowledge. When I'm planning to hire somebody I want to know that they know their stuff, and being that I don't know that person yet (since I would have probably just met them), I have no reason to trust them or their claim of how knowledgeable they are. In that case I would trust a university that says you know something more then I trust that person's opinion of themselves.
Yes some universities hand out diplomas like toilet paper, but for the most part good universities and departments have professors that are known and regarded. For instance if I know that someone went to a certain school and took classes from a certain professor, I might know that professor personally or have coworkers who know that professor. Those insights can say a lot about the education someone probably has.
Ultimately the interview determines it, but realistically to even get to the interview you either need experience or education.
Anybody who is worth their salt can guide themselves just as well as a professor with 200+ students to deal with.
This is simply not true. You are not going to become a brain surgeon by "guiding yourself". Nobody is going to hire a self-taught doctor - its laughable. I also can't imagine this working for many fields - lawyer, nurse, nuclear engineer, EE...
For only CS or mabye IT fields can I imagine this -might- work, but only because you can generate your own experience via open-source projects and such. And even then you will tend to run into the interview roadblock above...
I know that I really enjoy having a teacher help me along in my learning process...
There are many people who find they learn subjects perfectly well on their own...
This reminds me of a time in college when I was taking a EE course. The professor was explaining some algorithms, and one student started whining "do we REALLY have to learn this?!?", and the professor's response was "Well, you can learn it now, OR you can learn it the hard way." (implying - on your own).
I always remember that, because having been working in the industry for a while now, everytime I need to teach myself a new subject its definitely the hard way of going about it. If your lucky you get a coworker on the same task you can learn with.
Most things I learn now are not taught in classes, but given the choice I would definitely prefer a class over teaching myself something.
No country in the world has the military means to thwart an attack on Taiwan except the U.S. Personnally, I'm not willing to risk nuclear war over Taiwan.
It may not be a matter of risk, but more a matter of inevitability. The current positions of the respective countries - China, Taiwan, and US - are only going to solidify over the next years/decades. The only way for something not to happen is for everything to stay exactly the way it is (status quo - vague in terms of independence) or for either China or Taiwan to give in to the other.
As far as a conflict the US simply can't afford to let Taiwan be attacked. From an economic perspective the US has been pouring billions into Taiwan (and China also). Thats an awful big writeoff should China ever attack Taiwan, and value only gets larger over time. Just imagine the implications on the semiconductor and electronics industries. I would think that these industries would constitute a strategic value on par with oil.
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I'm not saying they couldn't do better, but too many people have this idea that private organizations are magically exempt from corruption, nepotism, overspending, bad forcasting, bad designs, etc.
Not exempt, but the difference is when private corps do things wrong, they go out of business. NASA on the other hand never goes out of business. If they waste all of their money ahead of schedule this year, they simply try to increase their budget and do things again next year.
This isn't NASA's fault individually - the government as a whole works like that. If the government were run as a business, forcing it to work within a budget (no deficits), firing people when they do stupid things, then mabye things would be better. I remember vaguely a recent article saying the new NASA director had done some house cleaning, so mabye its a start.
Well sorry, but Apple isn't going to run out of business just because they lost your sale. They already make billions a year in profit with their mere 3% market share
Actually I think they are still in business because of the iPod, not because of their 3% market share.
Don't even pretend you were going to buy it anyway if they *did* release it for any x86 machine.
Actually I had considered getting a x86 based Mac if/when they do come out, however this DRM revelation has nixed that idea. If they put this in the OS fundamentals, it is only a matter of time before it starts creeping up into the apps and eventually my data.
Apple like Sun has a habit of coupling their nice OS with slow proprietary hardware and then attaching a premium price sticker on it. It would have been nice to put the OS on generic hardware because locking it to their hardware is very limiting, and it defeats the point of having cheap commodity hardware. Are they going to lock down the drives, ram, CD, DVD, etc? If you blow out a DVD drive can you only use a certified Apple DRM-compliant replacement at a couple hundred dollars each?
Please, that kind of thinking is for Microsoft OS's, Apple deserves a little better.
Hah, I don't know why you think thats true - Apple is as money centric as Microsoft, if not more. Its too bad for them really, its not a big deal for me to put another OS on my x86 hardware since I have several choices. Whereas I would have liked to have another choice (and yes I have the money to buy legit copies too!), now I don't even need to consider it any more. So yes they did lose my sale, and if they can survive without it good for them, because I can survive without their DRM.
I keep my Wifi open Just for that. From logs I can see some regular neighbors using my net (MAC addresses). Probably people siting in the Garden near my apartment. And I do the same, all the time.
You understand there is an element of risk there yes? If your neighbor gets on your wireless connection and starts uploading CDs or some other nefarious act, the RIAA or whoever will trace that connection back to your address. Mighty neighborly of you to take the wrap for their acts.
Of course you can assume that your neighbors are connecting to you and they are all nice people, but it could also be that other guy with a high gain antenna a half mile away.
Personally I turn on all the security features all the time on my wireless (and usually disable it when I'm not using it). Not so much for the above reason, but just because the wireless is on the inside of my hardware firewall. Yes I run software firewalls also, but its just better not to have anyone trying to plug into the samba/web/etc internal servers.
You can't just take an existing die and somehow create a processor design from it (well, you could strip each layer off, then reverse engineer each layer, then spend ages working out what bit does what - easier to just design it from scratch)
Regarding deprocessing then reverse engineering and copying each layer, I know it sounds absurd, but I have a taiwanese friend of mine who said this happens all the time. In fact this person had done it before when working back in Taiwan. She was particularly proud of having copied an RF design and having only a 3dB sensitivity difference between the copy and the original (which IMO is pretty good for having only a die to work off of).
Our group laughed about this on one RF IC we did because the top layer was copper. As soon as one tried to deprocess the die the copper would corrode and turn all green. If you looked at it under a scope it was just a big green blob, so we called it our 'IP protection layer'.
"The so called solution turns out to become much worse than the original problem."
Yeah..this is something I fear.
I would think doubly so, since this is the same government that wants a national ID card. You know, to make personal information even more centralized and easy to access. In an ironic way the concept of a national ID card as a homeland security measure might make a person's identity easier to steal, resulting in less security.
I wish they's make it illegal to use it as an identifier in any public database not directly associated with SS taxable income.
I would also say not just a public database, but any database. Why should anyone other than those involved with social security have need of that number, and even if they need it temporarily as a way to certify identity, why should they need to store it?
There are many other bits of data I think companies really don't need to know. Birth dates are one. I've acquired the habit of entering completely bogus birth dates into online web forms (yahoo, etc). Those companies don't need that info (its never verified anyway), and I certainly don't trust them to keep it safe. As far as I'm concerned, those companies can continue believing that I'm 105 years old...
IMO its ethically required! I cannot say I like the fact that Chinese gov is trying to block the free flow of information, but I like it even less when people seem to think if you aren't doing the exact same thing as the US you are evil or not ethical!
And who exactly said that, you? China's censorship is unethical not because it disagrees with the USA, but because it IS unethical.
There are different cultures and different ideals. Just because someone feels differently than you doesn't make them unethical. Also if someone helps that person who thinks differently than you, the person helping isn't nessesarily unethical.
Really? So for all those companies which might enjoy, oh say, slave trading, its ok right? According to your logic its not necessarily unethical because perhaps it hasn't been expressly banned everywhere. And for banks and other companies which might help said slave traders, I guess they would be ethically ok with it too. Sheesh, your a MORON. You don't need laws to tell you whats ethical and whats not. The USA isn't the moral gold standard, and no one says it is, despite your stereotyping of it in that way.
I know "your either with us or against us", "you either do stuff like we do or your evil" sentiments are pretty popular in the US, but different is not wrong.
Again, really? Take a survey did you? Your stereotyping of whats "popular" in the US is way off base. I'd be willing to bet most people call things unethical when they are in fact unethical, not when they violate some US law. I think common sense is a fair way to tell whats ethical and whats not, but if that fails you here is a list to get you started. Try looking up Article 19. The chinese banning of people discussing the mere topic of freedom is unethical regardless of who's laws it does or does not violate.
Companies are in business for one thing only: To yield the highest amount of profit to its investors. That is the _only_ thing companies do and should do. People who think companies have a moral duty to anything are misguided.
Hardly. If that were the case, then slavery would be the ultimate corporate goal (although in some corps I imagine that might actually BE the goal).
Companies don't exist in a vacuum and they don't exist independently either. Corporations depend on the infrastructure around them to survive. They need the government to build roads to and from their factories, they need electricity, water, and they need customers to buy their stuff. You don't get any of that in a society based on slavery (certainly not the latter).
So, it is in the interest of the corporation to have a vibrant and healthy society in which to exist - a reason why the government does impose certain ethical/moral behaviors on corporations (they're not supposed to lie on their financial statements, they're not supposed to fabricate BS about the quality of their products, they can't shoot their underperforming workers, etc). Corporations are always trying to push the envelope, and outsourcing is one of the latest ways to do it.
And if the road to the highest return on investor investment leads through paying management insane amounts, so be it.
You would be a fool and a stupid investor to think so, although your not alone, the world is packed full of foolish stupid investors. How many millions did Carly screw HP out of - yeah good leadership job there...
Personally I think if companies want to outsource the bulk of their employees, effectively becoming a foreign company, then they should be treated as a foreign company. No tax incentives or whatnot, they can import their products just like any other foreign company (and be subjected to whatever import tariffs apply). Go incorporate in India or China (oh, and don't forget to take the CEO on the way out)...
People always talk about China/Saudi Arabia/*insert country US doesnt like* lack of human rights/free speech and so on, and are totally oblivious to the fact that they are being completely hypocritical. What about Guantanamo Bay, where people have been held for years without trial? What about the Patriot Act, that gives the government the right to arrest and spy on people without being questioned?
I think you'll find that many of the same people who criticise lack of freedom elsewhere are the same ones who think the Patriot Act is unconstitutional. In either case it is irrelevant. One does not need to live in a utopia in order to comment on the situation in other countries.
The fact is that the Chinese government is totalitarian and very motivated in the preservation of its regime. It will use any means necessary to maintain that position. It doesn't matter if it violates the rights of its citizens in doing that, as the "party" obviously considers itself above its own laws.
Here in the US the various agencies are held accountable (at some level at least) for their actions, and they can be taken to court (FBI, Waco, anyone?). We could certainly use more accountability in the office of the president and Congress however.
Talking about the US is simply a diversion on your part though. I've lived in Saudi Arabia. I've been to Taiwan and lived in South Korea. Seeing how Taiwan and South Korea regard their counterparts (China and North Korea), and having been in Saudi I can tell you the people of those countries do not enjoy the kinds of freedoms we take for granted in the US. In all those places having access to information deemed unacceptable (regardless of whether you actually DO - ie. perhaps simply owning a satellite dish), could be viewed as a major crime. Any society that needs to censor the topic of freedom cannot be free (you simply cannot give me a valid enough answer as to why China's massive censoring of the internet is a "ok" thing - its not, no matter what argument one might provide).
I've never quite understood why it is that there has to be a stable state in these "paradox" arguments. Looking at other physical systems, when you close a feedback loop in such a way that it is unstable, then the system inside the loop will oscillate.
It happens for mechanical systems, it happens for electrical systems (in fact I know it is trivially easy to make it happen in electrical systems - it is the source of many an engineer's headaches). Period of oscillation is related to the phase delay through and time constant of the loop.
Is there an known reason why this can't happen in such a time travel loop? (other than it would seem unnatural - although no more than time travel itself).
Second, the administration had every right to fire him anyway. He made unauthorized use of their facilities by holding what amounted to a rally in their cafeteria, after he was denied use of the proper venues. The University was simply protecting its interests, and this guy was intent on raising a stink. Heck, he even "contacted SGAE, National Police, and the Attorney General in advance to inform them about it."
Fire him for what? Holding an academic talk? Its a university, thats what they do there. This guy wasn't giving a talk about how to build nuclear weapons, its a talk about P2P software.
The most suprising and shameful thing about it is the fact that they have a completely spineless Dean who caves at the slightest industry pressure. The dean shut this guy down because he was threatened with what? a -software- audit, ~ooooo~, how terrible and scary. Give me a fucking break, you don't demand someones resignation just because the BSA threatens you with a software audit. What a spineless fool.
And as far as contacting those groups, well its a academic presentation on P2P, mabye he wanted to see if they wanted to -attend-. You know, to learn about P2P!?! Obviously nobody except the professor actually knows what it is and the fact that it is used all the time for legit software exchange (linux ISOs anyone???).
Has it occurred to anyone that maybe there was NOTHING WRONG with the capsule design in the first place, and that the only reason the Shuttle has wings is so that the Air Force could have warm fuzzies about it?
Mabye people like shuttles because they don't leave a trail of trash from here to the moon. Or mabye because less material resources are expended in recycling something that you know already works. Or perhaps because they don't smash into the ground like a meteor if the parachutes fail.
The various shuttles have flown a LOT more than the Saturn V ever has, so I would venture to say there is nothing wrong with a shuttle design. Perhaps one should try focusing on the real problem with NASA, which is the bureaucracy.
Even going with 130 nm technology (which is already "outdated") can cost a million dollars just for the masks. Yield, packaging, and other issues can easily push up the costs to several times that.
I'm a bit skeptical about that. We run 0.25um stuff here all the time, 5 layer metal, and the mask cost numbers I've heard are in the $100k range for a dedicated production mask. Shuttle costs are well below that (depending if your fab of choice runs shuttles and you can get on them). I just checked MOSIS and it looks like 0.13um on an IBM 8RF process seems to be in the $6k to $50k range for 40 parts (based on die size - assuming I read their numbers correctly).
Now tools on the other hand are a different matter. Layout, synth, and place-and-route tools can be -very- spendy. One could use Magic for layout (I don't know if it supports place and route though).
Package wise I would use some sort of quad flat package for prototypes. BGAs are a pain when it comes time for evaluation - you would need some sort of reflow oven to stick it to the board, and then forget about probing pins.
Same for RTS. There hasn't been a REALLY good one since Total Annihilation, though I suppose we can consider Warcraft 3, even if it was rather lackluster. RPGs seem to be doing somewhat well, with Morrowind being the most recent decent one, but KoTOR and Fable are also very worthy.
What a coincidence, just reloaded Total Annihilation the other night. I wasn't even sure it would run on XP given it came out in what 1997? Definitely one of the best RTS style games. I still can't figure out why new RTS games come out that don't match up to it. KoToR was decent, but looking closely it seemed a lot like the Black Isle stuff wrapped in 3D.
Stalled progress seems to happen across many game types though, I can think of a bunch off the top of my head that could have great sequels -
Total Annihilation (naturally - did read that a sequel is in the works somewhere)
Descent 1-3 (what do you call that style, first person shooter? wish somebody would resurrect it)
Morrowind (awesome RPG)
Freespace 1-2 (why they stopped making these I don't know)
Homeworld (Cataclysm was awesome, saw some others close to it, but like TA above nothing matches or outdoes it)
Deus Ex (the original, not the sucky sequel, so-so gameplay but great storyline)
>without a recorded vote so those of us who live in Texas can't even accuse our representatives of actually supporting this legislation
They all supported it.
Argh. Between this and the toll road disaster here in Austin its quite clear that the legislature has completely run amok. There is absolutely nobody looking out for the public interest anymore.
The silver lining (miniscule as it is) is that it will be quite easy to vote in the next election - all incumbents are out, along with that idiot Rick Perry. I can't wait to get to the polls.
The Mechwarrior Series has been downhill since mech 2.
I've never been able to figure out what the problem is with the Mechwarrior series. The gameplay and mechanics seem very straightforward, yet every game post MW2 has had some problem or another. I still remember getting MW2:Mercs back when it first came out and cursing out Activision nonstop for releasing a CD with a single player game that couldn't be won without patching. This was back when you had to download a 30+MB patch over a modem just to finish the damn thing (scarred for life - to this day I still check the publisher name on the box when I buy a game). Took them over a year to patch and repatch the game to the point it should have been when it first got released.
The gameplay hasn't really changed over time, except the storylines got thinner and the canned missions got even more boring. I remember picking up MW4 a long while back, played it thru once, and dumped it in the bottom of the "archive" box. MW4 worked better than the MW2 series, but it just wasn't interesting.
Interesting storylines, non-buggy rendering engine, and fully customizable keyboard layout seems like not too much to ask for 4th generation release... (Oh and mabye fixing it so one doesn't have to override those damn overheats - most irritating and persistant feature ever)
I also think this is going to get appealed to the Federal courts.
I should hope so, this bit got me from the article:
"New York provides the job, New York provides the professional opportunity, and New York should be able to tax that income, even if the employee for his own convenience was working outside of New York state," said Marc Violette, spokesman for state Assistant Solicitor General Julie Mereson, who won the case.
Actually the company provided the job and opportunity and New York had nothing to do with it. As I see it, the employee isn't using NY roads, schools, police or fire services, hospitals, or really any NY public service (which is the reason a state collects taxes, no?), so why should an employee like that have to pay NY state taxes?
Nope, I don't buy into that line at all. If it stands mabye he can send his kids tuition bill to NY marked "payment due"...
Even if they reverse the Court of Appeals on the issue and decide that Grokster can be held liable for contributory infringement, that doesn't make the technology itself illegal - it just means that, if the technology is used to infringe copyrights, the copyright holders can sue the company that made the technology instead of or as well as (not sure the deal on this minor point) the users who actually download copyrighted material.
But the effect of such a decision would be catastrophic on all software used to exchange information. I imagine it would be trivial to show that a given P2P software was used to exchange a copyrighted work. And if so, the companies and/or individuals creating such software would be sued out of existance. Who would step in to write any new software knowing that an unrelated 3rd party could do something to cause them to get sued out of business?
Frankly, I find the whole notion of specifically targeting P2P applications to be stupid - anyone could use email, ftp, or usenet to distribute copyrighted works - what are you going to do, ban ftp? sue the makers of email software? why not just shut down the internet? its ridiculous and I hope the courts think so also, so they can force the media companies to stop living in 1980...
Every time I've been asked to delete the games off of machines, I've expressed extreme disapproval. I've tried to explain until I'm blue in the face that it will not increase productivity. I've tried to explain that if you treat employees like they're four years old by taking away their toys, it will only cause resentment and a resulting LOSS of productivity.
I don't know about that. The building I work in used to have a dept of transportation office across the hall. Right outside the elevator in the hall you could see through the window to one of the office workers desks. Every single time I stood there waiting for the elevator there would be someone in there playing solitare. It never failed. As near as I could tell half of the workers in the office did absolutely no real work. Forget -loss- of productivity, there was -no- productivity.
A couple years later the office got moved someplace else (no idea where) so I can't tell if they got "downsized" or simply moved. However in this same time period the city and state government (this is in Austin TX) has been really pushing for additional transportation money. They recently have been pushing a ridiculously expensive toll road plan to fill the budget gap. Frankly I think the city can shove its toll system up its collective ass and then fire the slackers to fix the budget gap. The thought of my hard earned money going into tolls to drive to work which then eventually gets routed to some slacker to play solitare just annoys me to no end.
Poster forgot some words, it should read:
With the artificially inflated exorbitantly high prices of mobile data services from wireless carriers, the users are more prone to use a cheap WiFi connection, if one is available.
No sympathy for wireless carriers here, now they get to suffer for their own bad pricing plans...
The first of those things will likely never happen; instead, the government would simply make it legal to send spam for certain reasons, and likely make it illegal to mess with such "mail" - in the same way the federal mail system works.
This is true, the same way the US govt screwed up the federal Do-Not-Call list. The DNC list dealt with phones, and even an idiot politician knows what those are, yet they still put in loopholes. Yeah good job there - my answering machine still fills up with the same crap.
Politicians will never be technically savvy enough to understand the problem facing email, so there is no hope of them creating a law to deal with it. Even if they did it would only push the problem offshore. Eliminating spam can only be done with a technical solution.
are there any employers that would rather have a person who: wants to put in an honest day's work; get to know the job and the people well; and a desire to ultimately be a mentor for the company processes, instead of a here-today-gone-tomorrow programmer, who is interested in actually working there until retirement age?
[bendervoice] bwahahaha[bendervoice] Oh wait, your serious
[bendervoice] BWHAHAHAHA
So you want a middle management job in a big coporation is that it?
Seriously, your goals might have worked 20 years ago, but the market really doesn't support working at the same place until retirement anymore. With offshoring jobs, market swings, and whatnot any given job could be gone tomorrow. The only place you could really stay until retirement is if you had your own company. But if that was what you wanted, you wouldn't be asking for a cushy middle management job where the skillset of yesterday is all you need.
If what your really after is less working hours then first cut your overhead. Get out of silicon valley, go find someplace with a lower cost of living (that way you don't NEED to work as many hours). Keep your skills up to date to be as mobile as possible. Having a good job, yet being mobile is the best way to keep the checks rolling in until retirement. I have a great job now, surrounded by people I like, but I realize that the odds of having that job until retirement is near zero. If it lasts 10 years it would be great (currently at 2), but I'm not counting on it. Sooner or later the company will screw up and there will be layoffs and reorgs. It always happens, and it always will.
Best to be prepared and be ready to move on (or start your own company). Sure go find some middle management job now, but don't be fooled into thinking it will last forever.
It is a (common) logical falsehood that software would be where it is now without software patents. It might, but the same could be said for any patents on anything.
Actually it would probably be farther ahead. The bulk of "inventions" are mostly refining an established idea. Patents as they exist today only serve to roadblock this process. In theory this would give the original inventor the ability to do the refining and reap the rewards but in practice this almost never happens. Patents only serve to limit the scope of development to a few, and in many cases they completely torpedo an idea. Bogus patents, IP holding companies (IMO nothing more than legalized fraud and extortion companies) and such only make things worse by completely killing ideas (the patent "holders" in this case will NEVER develop the idea - they simply wait for someone else to do it and then litigate).
The question is whether the protection of patents drive some people and/or companies to put effort (and money) into developing new things, whether they be medical devices or object recognition algorithms. Obviously it does drive some developments. The real question, which seems impossible to answer, is whether more developments + patents is better than just having the fewer developments.
The flaw in this argument is that lack of patents necessarily means fewer inventions. This is simply not the case. I know as a hardware developer myself that being able to develop devices without the potential of being litigated out of the blue would make things MUCH easier. If the patents on the books today were 100% legit and patent law was perfectly enforced then technical development in this country would come to a grinding halt. It would be impossible to develop a device without paying many times the value of the device in royalties to companies which truly had absolutely nothing to do development of the device (effectively it kills the notion of two people thinking of the same thing at the same time, despite the fact that it happens all the time - first to patent takes all).
Which is better? I don't know, and I'm sure you don't either.
Another bad assumption. In fact I DO know that the patent system today is completely busted. Try reading some of the stuff on PUBPAT sometime. According to one of their briefs an empirical study showed that 46% of patents litigated to judgement on validity issues were held invalid. How many individuals and companies were litigated out of existance in the name of these bogus patents? Those same individuals and companies would have produced far more innovation than the respective holders of the bogus patents.
The system today is nothing more than a way of extorting a profit rather than actually earning one. I'm a strong believer that people should be rewarded for actually "doing" not just "thinking". If someone can't DO anything with their idea then they should hell out of the way of people that can.
I could rant for hours on this, but then I'm far from alone. I would suggest checking out the December issue of Spectrum from the IEEE which had a decent article on the failures of the patent system.
You dont need a school or a grossly over-priced piece of paper for that. You need a brain and access to a library or the internet.
Well, thats nice and utopian and all, but without industry experience if you plan on getting a job that "grossly over-priced piece of paper" is going to be worth a lot more than all your self taught knowledge. When I'm planning to hire somebody I want to know that they know their stuff, and being that I don't know that person yet (since I would have probably just met them), I have no reason to trust them or their claim of how knowledgeable they are. In that case I would trust a university that says you know something more then I trust that person's opinion of themselves.
Yes some universities hand out diplomas like toilet paper, but for the most part good universities and departments have professors that are known and regarded. For instance if I know that someone went to a certain school and took classes from a certain professor, I might know that professor personally or have coworkers who know that professor. Those insights can say a lot about the education someone probably has.
Ultimately the interview determines it, but realistically to even get to the interview you either need experience or education.
Anybody who is worth their salt can guide themselves just as well as a professor with 200+ students to deal with.
This is simply not true. You are not going to become a brain surgeon by "guiding yourself". Nobody is going to hire a self-taught doctor - its laughable. I also can't imagine this working for many fields - lawyer, nurse, nuclear engineer, EE...
For only CS or mabye IT fields can I imagine this -might- work, but only because you can generate your own experience via open-source projects and such. And even then you will tend to run into the interview roadblock above...
I know that I really enjoy having a teacher help me along in my learning process...
There are many people who find they learn subjects perfectly well on their own...
This reminds me of a time in college when I was taking a EE course. The professor was explaining some algorithms, and one student started whining "do we REALLY have to learn this?!?", and the professor's response was "Well, you can learn it now, OR you can learn it the hard way." (implying - on your own).
I always remember that, because having been working in the industry for a while now, everytime I need to teach myself a new subject its definitely the hard way of going about it. If your lucky you get a coworker on the same task you can learn with.
Most things I learn now are not taught in classes, but given the choice I would definitely prefer a class over teaching myself something.
No country in the world has the military means to thwart an attack on Taiwan except the U.S. Personnally, I'm not willing to risk nuclear war over Taiwan.
It may not be a matter of risk, but more a matter of inevitability. The current positions of the respective countries - China, Taiwan, and US - are only going to solidify over the next years/decades. The only way for something not to happen is for everything to stay exactly the way it is (status quo - vague in terms of independence) or for either China or Taiwan to give in to the other.
As far as a conflict the US simply can't afford to let Taiwan be attacked. From an economic perspective the US has been pouring billions into Taiwan (and China also). Thats an awful big writeoff should China ever attack Taiwan, and value only gets larger over time. Just imagine the implications on the semiconductor and electronics industries. I would think that these industries would constitute a strategic value on par with oil.