Without a degree upper management is pretty much out of reach.
If you want to get into upper management, get an MBA. But that's not relavant here.
Some senior technical positions are out of reach. You basically have to go a lot farther to prove yourself to those around you, but once you do prove yourself, nobody cares if you do or don't have a degree.
Many technical positions are out of reach, especially on the East Coast. Most companies rely on their personel departments for screening applicants and there seems to be some sort of notion stuck in people's heads that only college educated should apply for white collar positions.
There are companies that require degrees for decent jobs. Do some research into where you want to work. Do some research into if you want to work for such a narrow-minded company.
I agree that it's narrow-minded, but the unfortunate reality is that the techs (the good ones who know it's narrow-minded) don't usually get to screen every single applicant that sends in a resume. It is also prudent to plan ahead. You may have your eye on a company that doesn't require a degree, but it's a very real possibility that the company may not exist in 5 years.
College has always been an issue that bugged me. You go there to prove what you know more than you go to learn (at least at my school). A year or two after you're out, there's so much more to keep up on. The greatest thing my college experience gave to me was exposure to resources. Back then, the Internet was largely supported by education, research, and computer companies. I wouldn't have had access to so much information and interaction with other programmers. Now, it seems like the Internet is as common as cable.
The whole living away from home and learning how to be independent was quite valuable too, but didn't really help my programming skills. Then again, maybe it did. I guess I'll never know for sure.
From the Permitted Uses and Restrictions section of the CueCat license:
You acknowledge that the Software and:CueCat reader contain trade secrets and other proprietary information of Digital:Convergence and its licensors. Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, distribute or create derivative works based upon the:CRQ software or:CueCat reader in whole or part or transmit the:CRQ software over a network or from one computer to another.
[snip]
In any event, you will notify Digital:Convergence of any information derived from reverse engineering or such other activities, and the results thereof will constitute the confidential information of Digital:Convergence that may be used only in connection with the Software and:CueCat reader.
DISCLAIMER: IANAL
This leagalize does give them a leg to stand on. It's a matter of whether a court of law will find it enforcable. I guess it's a lot like the EULA. As long as Radio Shack employees aren't forcing anyone to sign an agreement, I think this license is unenforcable.
Whilest its true that you cannot yell fire in a public place to create mass hysteria or *PURPOSEFULLY* give out false information about a person or company, you can still use microsoft.org to tell MS to go fuck itself and be covered under the first amendment. What we are talking about here is exactly free speech. Free speech has a lot to do with telling some government or business what their problem is and that you don't like them.
You're talking about opinion. That's covered by first amendment. I was saying that it's possible that there could have been things posted that would not be covered under the first amendment.
Thats the problem with ICANN and WIPO, no garaunteed protection of free speech, only your corporate money. Its rather scary that mattradio.com could take away my mattradio.org (which I am fully using) just because they registered theirs before me and probably have a bit more money than me.. thank god i get free legal counsel... (note, mattradio.com guys kick ass and are not trying anything against me, just an example). Sometimes you just can't find a shovel big enough to PANG the WIPOs face.
I agree with you on this count. WIPO scares me. It is not elected and tends to act as a special interest to the corporations with the most money. The whole intellectual property thing kind of bothers me. I do think you should have an opportunity to profit off of a creative and original expression where it is clearly being used to make a profit. But I also think there should be some limitations to this. Reminds me of a Tank McNamera cartoon I saw back in the eighties. Someone copyrighted the phrase "that ball is outta here". He wanted to charge all sports commentators a nickle every time they said it.
Being unable to work, I *bought* generic domains for investment. As I thought of them first, they are my Intellectual Property. The corporates make billions out of their IP, I would like return for mine.
You and I have different philosophies about this. You're domain names were generic and you happen to get to them first. Corporations provide content (or at least have built up name recognition through advertising) to make their domain names valuable. OTOH, I also feel that domain names should be first come, first serve, as long as there is some sort of content being offered. I'm not exactly a fan of WIPO. They have a track record that shows they favor the haves.
>There's a fine line between free speech and slander.
There are laws in place already - why take the domain away before any crime is commited?
I don't know exactly what was said on that site. It could be that WIPO was unjustified in taking the name away. Then again, it could have been slander. The poster implied that free speech should have protected the domain name. I don't see this to be inherently true.
Procter & Gamble Co., the largest U.S. maker of household products, has bought thousands of domains. They have been sitting on many for five years. Are they squatters also?
Depends on your definition of squatting. Usually a cybersquatter is someone who registers a name with the intent of selling the registration for profit. Are they registering these names with the intent of selling them? Do they plan to use them at a future date? Are they trying to prevent anyone from using them? I think that if you register a name, it should have to point to some sort of content within a reasonable amount of time (say 2 months). I'm very much against the idea of allowing people to register names with the intent of selling them for profit without providing any sort of content. I'm also disgusted with the practice of registering names, not paying for them, and snatching them up again the moment they go back into the pool. Since the squatter knows exactly when that will happen, they can hold onto their "property" indefinitely for free. Registration services usually give you first and second notices over a few months, so the honest people have plenty of opportunity to pay for it. If you don't pay for a name, you shouldn't be allowed to register it again for at least a month.
>Likewise, the montyroberts.com dispute involves a person using it for negative commentary about the actual plaintiff. This would be considered misuse under most arbitrators review.
You do not believe in free speech?
There's a fine line between free speech and slander. Free speech (in the U.S. anyway) doesn't mean that you can say anything you want. There are restrictions.
Granted, there's a need for these "weird-level" languages, and some people love them - but I think that C++ and Java nicely fill the niche.
You seem to imply OO language where you say weird-level language. I thought that it was just a different design paradigm. Sometimes a project makes more sense if you think of it in objects than in terms of operation.
So, my first thought, which is even more valid, I think, in the face of this review, is "Why does Microsoft feel almost obligated to make an M$ version of *everything*??"
MS has NIH syndrome, plus they have an overwhelming need to be in contol. Not so much for the sake of power. I think it's more that they've become accustomed to making the rules instead of following them. I think that, if they could, they'd create their own variety of oxygen (not backwards compatible, of course).
However, that has nothing to do with Napster. Napster, in my mind, is not about copyright protection. It's about the independence of transport method. Let's say that 90% of all pirate videos were shipped fedex, and accounted for 90% of fedex's business (haha). Would fedex be a pirate courier service? No
Actually, I see it more like suing a bar because your spouse had an affair with someone s/he met there. Or suing a DNS because they made it possible for people to get to a pirate web site. Napster is really just a name service.
I really can't agree with Katz on this one. While I think there should be some limits to intellectual property, an artist (or software developer) should have control over his/her work. Unfortunately, the RIAA are going after Napster because it's an easy target as compared to hundreds of Napster users who provided pirated work. That's too bad for Napster. Kind of ironic that the Napster pirates (not to imply all Napster users are pirates) will still have the opportunity to find another means of distribution.
There are two observations that one can take away from this whole mess: the RIAA has made a profession of controlling copyrighted material and the legal system is really way behind when it comes to understanding how technology impacts the law. But then again, neither of these should come as any surprise to anyone here.
I would never condone an active attack, retaliatory or otherwise, but I don't see anything wrong with putting a punishing deterant into place. Bouncing packets back to their source when you are positive that you're under a DDOS is fine if you are absolutely positive that they are going to the originator.
There is the danger of injuring innocent bystanders (shooting through the wall and hitting someone else/destroying a hapless innocent's machine).
I don't have a problem with it if the packets are being laundered through an "innocent bystander", since they are inadvertantly an accessory. Presumably, the bounced traffic will get their attention and they could shut down the attack. It's when the packet's originating address is forged that you get into trouble. If that address is pointing to someone completely out of the loop, bouncing packets back to them will only create a second DDOS on someone who was otherwise unaffected.
The use of force may deter the individual offender, but won't necessarily stop potential offenders.
The goal is to stop as many potential offenders as possible. This must be balanced against the price of the deterent (active cost, side effects). A passive resistance (filtering packets, etc.) is far preferable to an attack, but as long as you're absolutely positive that you're hitting the right guy, turning an attack back on itself is more efficient.
Would I like to see something like Napster make it easier for me to make a living? Yes. But I'd like them to do it by *ASKING MY PERMISSION* before letting people distribute my work.
This whole thing reminds me of ftp archives that let anyone upload software. It was always up to the maintainer of a reputable archive to make sure that the software was legit. I think Napster's best bet to continue survival is to review submissions before posting them. Any recording that doesn't have the owner's permission to be in the public domain is rejected. At first, there would probably be a huge number of rejections, but people would get the message quickly. Of course, unless popular artists (or the record companies) give permission for some of their work, this would mean a huge loss of subscribers.
Nothing that Stallman wants would ever help the closed-source community. Stallman is single-minded about destroying all closed-source software. He doesn't want anyone to ever sell or buy software again. Therefore, every time he promotes something, it's always toward this same goal.
I can't help but think that Stallman wants to use the MS trial as a means to further his own agenda: the elimination of all commercial software.
While I agree that RMS does seem to have this agenda, it's unlikely that _every_ move he makes is designed to have that effect. I also don't believe that he's stupid enough to think that he would still look credible he suggested that the solution was to make any software corporation give their software away. His suggestions actually work well within the context of capitalism.
IMHO, Stallman's opinion on what should happen to Microsoft is irrelevant, because he can't get past the closed-software issue and actually concentrate on the MS issue.
RMS has had some pretty contraversial opinions but it's close minded to assume that he has nothing constructive to add without hearing him out. Did you read the article? If so, how does his solution promote the elimination of commercial software?
Richard Stallman has his own views on what should happen to Microsoft, which seem a lot more reasonable than simply splitting up the company. I have no problem with what Stallman proposes, but I think that one more thing needs to happen in order to make it feasible: employees of MS who willingly participated in the offenses must be removed. There are certain decision makers within MS who seem to have no respect for the court and will continue to direct MS as usual. Granted, companies and the DOJ can take them to court, but we're in that boat now. No real progress will have been made. What needs to be done is to get beyond the "We must *hurt* Microsoft" mentality into the "How will doing this to Microsoft effect the industry in the long-term?" mentality. Splitting the company up just seems like an appealing way of hurting them. It doesn't seem like it is doing anything constructive. I don't think that the DOJ is proposing a split up to punish. I think it's because the conduct remedy was ignored and, judging from MS's actions, would continue to be ignored. The split up doesn't solve the whole problem, but it does help to provide some relief. Splitting seems like changing one successful company with popular products into three. It does keep MS from using their monopolies in concert. It also takes away incentive for back scratching among their products (using Windows contracts as leverage for promoting, IE for example). -Jennifer
Question 1: I find it ironic that several of these early warning signs are often the hallmarks of those who are most likely to harass others to the point where they feel like violence is the only way out. In particular:
- Hits or bullies others. - Expresses uncontrolled anger. - Displays intense intolerance or prejudice. - Makes threats.
If a popular student was harassing a "weird" student and was reported through this hotline, is WAVE prepared to look past the student's image to the behavior? This is a chronic problem that I encountered at school. "Oh, but everyone likes < insert name here>. She/He's so nice. You're not popular. It must be you."
Question 2: Is WAVE prepared to deal with students who have lost faith in authority figures (because they have failed to protect them) and have little or no respect for others as human beings, especially those who have made their lives miserable actively or passively?
Question 3: What methods would WAVE use to determine whether or not a student is a threat?
Question 4: Does WAVE care about situations that are less than extreme? That is, if a student is found to be under a great deal of pressure but not to the extent that he is likely commit violence, would this student be tracked?
Question 5: How confidential is the information collected about students?
Question 6: Who determines whether a student is a danger?
Question 7: Once a student is identified as a danger, what would be the standard procedure for dealing with the student?
The usage tax tends to vary a little from state to state. Naturally, states with no sales tax don't have usage tax (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon), so it's moot there. I do know from my own experience and through the experience of others that Connecticut, New York, and California want you to pay it when you do your income tax.
In the case of Texas (one of the states with usage tax but no income tax), they have a form that you fill out and send in for the next tax period. Tax periods for Texas begin on the first of January, April, July, and October.
Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyomng also have no state income tax. If you're in any of these states, I would check with the agency that handles the sales tax for your state. Most, if not all, states have a state government web site that can be found at http://www.state.xx.us where xx is the state postal abbreviation. Many states have the tax information and forms on their site. Some even let you handle this electronically, if you trust that sort of thing.
I mentioned this last week, so at the risk of being moderated as redundant...
As far as I know, in the U.S., tax can't be charged on transactions across state lines. You'll see the simplest example of this on a mail-order catalog, where you only pay tax if you live in that state.
Purchases made across state lines may be taxed, but the basis of the tax can't be made on "interstate commerce". A prime example of taxing interstate commerce for a reason other than interstate commerce is usage tax. All U.S. states that have sales tax also have usage tax. This tax applies to any purchase where the merchandise is intended to be used within a state other than where the purchase was made. The usage rate is the state's sales tax rate minus what you paid in sales tax already. It's supposed to be paid on your state income tax.
This tax has been upheld by the Supreme Court and it applies to mail order houses as well as Internet purchases. So, just because BarnesandNobel.com didn't charge you sales tax doesn't mean that you don't owe any tax on your purchase.
The conflict here (did you read the article?) is between the Genome project and a private company, Celera, which is racing to sequence and patent as much of the human genome as possible before the Human Genome project does. The two have been in talks to assimilate the data into a single database, but they seem to be hung up on intellectual property issues.
It occurs to me that if Celera really wants to help (themselves as well as the project), all they need to do is NDA any researchers before they give them access to Celera's database. As I understand it, this effort is mostly to verify or give context to research from both sides. Any facts that the Genome researchers learn from Celera are not legally intellectual property, so as long as the Genome project doesn't release exact copy from Celera without permission, there shouldn't be any problem.
In the s/w world the US PTO is granting patents willy nilly. If you have to deal with patents in your life (as I have to for my work in R&D) you find a large number of obviously invalid s/w patents. There are numerous incredibly trival ones (today I was shown one on the method of loading an image file into a program and compressing it, then compressing it again, sending it somewhere and decompressing. That's it. I'll dig up the patent number if anyone wants it, an incredibly stupid patent, one of the worst I've ever seen).
My understanding is that the patent examiners are required to be engineers. It's not that engineers can't be wise in the ways of programming, but I don't think that the patent office has been hiring these programmer engineers. In order to be effective, the patent office needs to keep up with the day-to-day changes in the software industry. They need someone who understands what is obvious in programming and what is truly innovative. I believe that the fact that the patent office hasn't recognized this need is the root of the problem.
Then again, there's the patent granted in the 90's on using a laser pointer as a cat toy (can't find the patent number right now).
...at least, if the state that you live in taxes the type of purchase that you made (typically goods as opposed to services). All states that have sales taxes in the US also have usage tax. The rules regarding usage tax may vary a little from state to state, but the general rule is that if you purchase goods and have not paid the amount of sales tax that your state would charge you at, you owe the state the difference, typically paid on your next income tax form. The usage tax exists to protect local businesses from the difference between tax rates in different states, so I see no need for the feds to interfere on this one as long as the states are good about collecting. Of course, this is a very difficult thing to do unless they happen to catch you in a random audit, but the penalty tends to be pretty hefty (in CT, it's a fine up to $1000 and/or year in prison plus the tax that you owe).
Bjarne mentions the poor education of C++ programmers frequently in this interview. I can't help but think, is this poor education a direct result of the complexity of the language?
I think that there is a great deal of confusion caused by C++'s resemblance to C. There is a whole different way of thinking involved in using an object oriented paradigm versus a functional one. I've seen so many functionally thinking programmers learn C++ in an effort to broaden their horizons without really taking the time to understand the difference. This leads to situations such as not knowing how to use classes properly. There are some who seem to think that classes are just C++'s way of doing a struct, much less appreciate templates. They start to make assumptions about some of C++'s features by trying to equate them to C's features, such as using streams in place of printf. But then they fail to recognize the power of these features and try to use them just like they would in C. This creates all sorts of ugly code and usually leaves the programmer with a feeling that C++ is too complicated to be worth it.
think that it's a much shorter learning curve to learn the C language fairly well than C++. I think this has helped in the Gnome project, although I'm sure there are people who feel differently.
That said, many of the historical reasons for disliking C++ are becoming obsolete. In particular, the language seems to be settling down standards-wise, and there are now decent implementation to be had, both free and non. I've only used C++ sparingly in my own work so far, but I look forward to expanding my use of the language.
It has always been a matter of vendor implementation. The language itself started out reasonably strong and has grown stronger. The big stumbling blocks were vague areas of the language that vendors chose define (and sometimes rely on) and how efficient the compilers and linkers have been. Of course, the more experience a vendor has at creating programming utilites, the more efficient they tend to be as long as you don't try to keep cramming more crap into them (hello MS).
(which company says "we don't invent a lot of the products we make.... we just make a lot of the products we make better?")
BASF
Like many great inventors, he lucked out --- when, up against a deadline to come up with a working filament, he frustratedly took a singed piece of hair and put it in his bulb. It worked.
To be fair, most inventions are based on something similar that came before, including Tesla's. He didn't come up with AC. He didn't come up with wireless radio. But, he made them practical. His notebooks indicate that this wasn't by accident, though. He seemed to grok energy physics in a way that had not been seen before, and perhaps, won't be seen again.
Actually much of what Tesla did was built on the works of scientists before him. He didn't invent AC, but his innovations made it practical. He did the same for wireless. The same can be said for Edison and the electric light. Those who did work in the field prior to Tesla certainly deserve to have their names among those who made it all possible, but it's equally important to credit those who take abstract theories and put it to a real application.
I'm a web developer for a large educational publishing company. Naturally, I need to give my employer what it wants or they'll find someone else to do it. However, that doesn't mean that I should let them make uninformed decisions. When they ask for feature x, I try to figure out the most effective way to do it and tell them what the drawbacks will be.
We've established that the most important thing to include in our web sites is accessibility for our customers. Since we are now expanding our focus beyond schools to parents and students, this means the public at large. We keep an eye on our stats and decided that 640x480 at 256 colors for IE 3.0/Nav 3.0 on Mac/Win is an acceptable minimum. But that's our audience. This means strictly sticking to HTML 3.2 as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium.
We keep Javascript, Java, and Director/Flash usage to a minimum. Javascript has a nasty tendency to be pretty buggy, regardless of which browser you're using and the bugs tend to manifest in different ways on different browsers. The JVM that Navigator on the Mac uses only supports a very old version of the spec (1.1.2, I think) and there's no way to switch it to another JVM. Besides, both Javascript and Java can be turned off, so you don't want to make them manditory for navigation.
We use alot of Director and Flash in our CD-ROM products and have begun putting some of these on the web. Site access does not require that the user have the plug-in. You only need it to run the game or simulation. I think this is an acceptable trade-off.
So, what it boils down to is that you need to assess what your clients want, figure out the most effective way of doing it, and then let them know what the consequences will be. You need to put that in real world terms, too. They probably won't understand the implications of "You're home page will be 200K" but they will understand "For the typical user, it will take at least 40 seconds for them to get to the starting point in your site." You, as a web developer, should also be aware of how to make a site as accessible as possible (at least through ALT tags) and point out to your clients that the right META tags can make a site much more likely to come up in a search engine.
Not to mention that there are an increasing number of devices that can load a web page but may not have the resolution or even the ability to load graphics, such as cellular phones or PDAs. I've also heard of a service that you can access via telephone that will read a web page to you (can't remember where I heard that; it was a long time ago). With the popular trend of wireless devices and IAs, it seems to me like any site that refuses to use ALT tags is cutting off a potentially large segment of the users out there.
As for whether or not there would be any sight impaired people who might be interested in a pharmaceutical company's web site, I can remember there were at least a couple of professors at my college who were legally blind and active scientists. You never know if you're denying access to the person who has a budget to conduct a large research project.
I also seem to remember about a year ago that the U.S. government was talking about requiring any company who did business with them to use ALT tags. I'd think that a major pharmaceutical company would very likely fall into that category, but I can't remember what ever came of it. See the article at http://www.zdnet.com/ zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2243282,00.html
This observation is an instance of a more general problem in our society. We treat and raise girls differently than boys. In some ways, this may be appropriate (gender-specific issues), but we tend to allow gender to influence how we treat children in inappropriate ways as well. This is probably because we had these biases ingrained in us at an early age. The best that we can do in this circumstance is attempt to identify these inappropriate biases (they will vary from person to person) and be more mindful of them when dealing with our peers and with children. It's much easier said than done but, if you can see the big picture, the effort is worth it.
It is very hard to test for leadership when playing with Lego's.
You're looking at the wrong thing. I got the impression that this was a group project and the interaction among the particpants was what counted.
Someone might be more assertive and because it is a simple task it would appear that they had leadership ability, when in actuality they could not handle a real leadership position.
Assertiveness is a part of being a good leader. This shouldn't be confused with aggressiveness. I see an assertive person as one who is willing to speak up when the circumstances require it and to not give up ground just because you're being challenged.
I think a test of this sort would have to be more complex and stress different areas then just making a Lego space ship or whatever. I'm not saying it is a bad idea totally but this to me just represents one more step down in education.
Sometime the simpler solution is the better one, but I wouldn't necessarily call this simple. Human interaction rarely is. The big difference is that this test is not dealing in quantities which I think is what is bothering alot of people. We're not comfortable making public judgements without putting a number next to it so we can say X is better than Y.
But they wouldn't have *TESTED* your roommate with the lego test! They would only have tested him *if they thought he would do badly on the SAT's or ACT's*.
While I agree that the testing pool should have been a little more diverse than NYC, it didn't say that they were trying a new test on people who weren't able to hack it. They are taking a small sample from an area that has poor college admission numbers as compared to the national average. These numbers are probably the result of a combination of overcrowded schools, poorer access to resources, a different set of priorities (for some in the community), and the need to go on a full scholarship, which only the absolute best and brightest will get. I haven't seen any indication that students from this area have any less potential to learn and contribute than students in any other part of the country.
As to motivation, I don't think the Lego Test tests for that. That's what the interview is supposed to be for - and it won't always work, because some people *change* when they get to college.
And people don't cram for these standardized tests? There is no set of litmus tests that can predict the future. These are supposed to be indicators of where the potential lies. Standardized test are limited and need to be complemented with other forms of assessment, such as the interview. I wouldn't necessarily replace the SATs with anything, but I might disregard an individual's SAT scores if they didn't jive with the other indicators (whether those SATs are high or low). This test provides more insight into the potential that a person possesses. If successful, it may be a more consistant indicator of potential than the interview.
As for psych, I'm a scientist and take things that are said in the name of psych with a grain of salt. We don't understand enough about how the brain works (physically or logisticly) to make some of the assertions that are made. All you can really say, for any given individual, is that they have done x or they haven't.
Slashdot Mirror
Without a degree upper management is pretty much out of reach.
If you want to get into upper management, get an MBA. But that's not relavant here.
Some senior technical positions are out of reach. You basically have to go a lot farther to prove yourself to those around you, but once you do prove yourself, nobody cares if you do or don't have a degree.
Many technical positions are out of reach, especially on the East Coast. Most companies rely on their personel departments for screening applicants and there seems to be some sort of notion stuck in people's heads that only college educated should apply for white collar positions.
There are companies that require degrees for decent jobs. Do some research into where you want to work. Do some research into if you want to work for such a narrow-minded company.
I agree that it's narrow-minded, but the unfortunate reality is that the techs (the good ones who know it's narrow-minded) don't usually get to screen every single applicant that sends in a resume. It is also prudent to plan ahead. You may have your eye on a company that doesn't require a degree, but it's a very real possibility that the company may not exist in 5 years.
College has always been an issue that bugged me. You go there to prove what you know more than you go to learn (at least at my school). A year or two after you're out, there's so much more to keep up on. The greatest thing my college experience gave to me was exposure to resources. Back then, the Internet was largely supported by education, research, and computer companies. I wouldn't have had access to so much information and interaction with other programmers. Now, it seems like the Internet is as common as cable.
The whole living away from home and learning how to be independent was quite valuable too, but didn't really help my programming skills. Then again, maybe it did. I guess I'll never know for sure.
-Jennifer
From the Permitted Uses and Restrictions section of the CueCat license:
You acknowledge that the Software and :CueCat reader contain trade secrets and other proprietary information of Digital:Convergence and its licensors. Except as expressly permitted in this License, you may not decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, modify, rent, lease, loan, sublicense, distribute or create derivative works based upon the :CRQ software or :CueCat reader in whole or part or transmit the :CRQ software over a network or from one computer to another.
[snip]
In any event, you will notify Digital:Convergence of any information derived from reverse engineering or such other activities, and the results thereof will constitute the confidential information of Digital:Convergence that may be used only in connection with the Software and :CueCat reader.
DISCLAIMER: IANAL
This leagalize does give them a leg to stand on. It's a matter of whether a court of law will find it enforcable. I guess it's a lot like the EULA. As long as Radio Shack employees aren't forcing anyone to sign an agreement, I think this license is unenforcable.
-Jennifer
Whilest its true that you cannot yell fire in a public place to create mass hysteria or *PURPOSEFULLY* give out false information about a person or company, you can still use microsoft.org to tell MS to go fuck itself and be covered under the first amendment. What we are talking about here is exactly free speech. Free speech has a lot to do with telling some government or business what their problem is and that you don't like them.
You're talking about opinion. That's covered by first amendment. I was saying that it's possible that there could have been things posted that would not be covered under the first amendment.
Thats the problem with ICANN and WIPO, no garaunteed protection of free speech, only your corporate money. Its rather scary that mattradio.com could take away my mattradio.org (which I am fully using) just because they registered theirs before me and probably have a bit more money than me.. thank god i get free legal counsel... (note, mattradio.com guys kick ass and are not trying anything against me, just an example). Sometimes you just can't find a shovel big enough to PANG the WIPOs face.
I agree with you on this count. WIPO scares me. It is not elected and tends to act as a special interest to the corporations with the most money. The whole intellectual property thing kind of bothers me. I do think you should have an opportunity to profit off of a creative and original expression where it is clearly being used to make a profit. But I also think there should be some limitations to this. Reminds me of a Tank McNamera cartoon I saw back in the eighties. Someone copyrighted the phrase "that ball is outta here". He wanted to charge all sports commentators a nickle every time they said it.
-Jennifer
Being unable to work, I *bought* generic domains for investment. As I thought of them first, they are my Intellectual Property. The corporates make billions out of their IP, I would like return for mine.
You and I have different philosophies about this. You're domain names were generic and you happen to get to them first. Corporations provide content (or at least have built up name recognition through advertising) to make their domain names valuable. OTOH, I also feel that domain names should be first come, first serve, as long as there is some sort of content being offered. I'm not exactly a fan of WIPO. They have a track record that shows they favor the haves.
>There's a fine line between free speech and slander.
There are laws in place already - why take the domain away before any crime is commited?
I don't know exactly what was said on that site. It could be that WIPO was unjustified in taking the name away. Then again, it could have been slander. The poster implied that free speech should have protected the domain name. I don't see this to be inherently true.
-Jennifer
Procter & Gamble Co., the largest U.S. maker of household products, has bought thousands of domains. They have been sitting on many for five years. Are they squatters also?
Depends on your definition of squatting. Usually a cybersquatter is someone who registers a name with the intent of selling the registration for profit. Are they registering these names with the intent of selling them? Do they plan to use them at a future date? Are they trying to prevent anyone from using them? I think that if you register a name, it should have to point to some sort of content within a reasonable amount of time (say 2 months). I'm very much against the idea of allowing people to register names with the intent of selling them for profit without providing any sort of content. I'm also disgusted with the practice of registering names, not paying for them, and snatching them up again the moment they go back into the pool. Since the squatter knows exactly when that will happen, they can hold onto their "property" indefinitely for free. Registration services usually give you first and second notices over a few months, so the honest people have plenty of opportunity to pay for it. If you don't pay for a name, you shouldn't be allowed to register it again for at least a month .
>Likewise, the montyroberts.com dispute involves a person using it for negative commentary about the actual plaintiff. This would be considered misuse under most arbitrators review.
You do not believe in free speech?
There's a fine line between free speech and slander. Free speech (in the U.S. anyway) doesn't mean that you can say anything you want. There are restrictions.
-Jennifer
Granted, there's a need for these "weird-level" languages, and some people love them - but I think that C++ and Java nicely fill the niche.
You seem to imply OO language where you say weird-level language. I thought that it was just a different design paradigm. Sometimes a project makes more sense if you think of it in objects than in terms of operation.
So, my first thought, which is even more valid, I think, in the face of this review, is "Why does Microsoft feel almost obligated to make an M$ version of *everything*??"
MS has NIH syndrome, plus they have an overwhelming need to be in contol. Not so much for the sake of power. I think it's more that they've become accustomed to making the rules instead of following them. I think that, if they could, they'd create their own variety of oxygen (not backwards compatible, of course).
-Jennifer
However, that has nothing to do with Napster. Napster, in my mind, is not about copyright protection. It's about the independence of transport method. Let's say that 90% of all pirate videos were shipped fedex, and accounted for 90% of fedex's business (haha). Would fedex be a pirate courier service? No
Actually, I see it more like suing a bar because your spouse had an affair with someone s/he met there. Or suing a DNS because they made it possible for people to get to a pirate web site. Napster is really just a name service.
I really can't agree with Katz on this one. While I think there should be some limits to intellectual property, an artist (or software developer) should have control over his/her work. Unfortunately, the RIAA are going after Napster because it's an easy target as compared to hundreds of Napster users who provided pirated work. That's too bad for Napster. Kind of ironic that the Napster pirates (not to imply all Napster users are pirates) will still have the opportunity to find another means of distribution.
There are two observations that one can take away from this whole mess: the RIAA has made a profession of controlling copyrighted material and the legal system is really way behind when it comes to understanding how technology impacts the law. But then again, neither of these should come as any surprise to anyone here.
-Jennifer
I would never condone an active attack, retaliatory or otherwise, but I don't see anything wrong with putting a punishing deterant into place. Bouncing packets back to their source when you are positive that you're under a DDOS is fine if you are absolutely positive that they are going to the originator.
There is the danger of injuring innocent bystanders (shooting through the wall and hitting someone else/destroying a hapless innocent's machine).
I don't have a problem with it if the packets are being laundered through an "innocent bystander", since they are inadvertantly an accessory. Presumably, the bounced traffic will get their attention and they could shut down the attack. It's when the packet's originating address is forged that you get into trouble. If that address is pointing to someone completely out of the loop, bouncing packets back to them will only create a second DDOS on someone who was otherwise unaffected.The use of force may deter the individual offender, but won't necessarily stop potential offenders.
The goal is to stop as many potential offenders as possible. This must be balanced against the price of the deterent (active cost, side effects). A passive resistance (filtering packets, etc.) is far preferable to an attack, but as long as you're absolutely positive that you're hitting the right guy, turning an attack back on itself is more efficient.
-Jennifer
Would I like to see something like Napster make it easier for me to make a living? Yes. But I'd like them to do it by *ASKING MY PERMISSION* before letting people distribute my work.
This whole thing reminds me of ftp archives that let anyone upload software. It was always up to the maintainer of a reputable archive to make sure that the software was legit. I think Napster's best bet to continue survival is to review submissions before posting them. Any recording that doesn't have the owner's permission to be in the public domain is rejected. At first, there would probably be a huge number of rejections, but people would get the message quickly. Of course, unless popular artists (or the record companies) give permission for some of their work, this would mean a huge loss of subscribers.
-Jennifer
Nothing that Stallman wants would ever help the closed-source community. Stallman is single-minded about destroying all closed-source software. He doesn't want anyone to ever sell or buy software again. Therefore, every time he promotes something, it's always toward this same goal.
I can't help but think that Stallman wants to use the MS trial as a means to further his own agenda: the elimination of all commercial software.
While I agree that RMS does seem to have this agenda, it's unlikely that _every_ move he makes is designed to have that effect. I also don't believe that he's stupid enough to think that he would still look credible he suggested that the solution was to make any software corporation give their software away. His suggestions actually work well within the context of capitalism.
IMHO, Stallman's opinion on what should happen to Microsoft is irrelevant, because he can't get past the closed-software issue and actually concentrate on the MS issue.
RMS has had some pretty contraversial opinions but it's close minded to assume that he has nothing constructive to add without hearing him out. Did you read the article? If so, how does his solution promote the elimination of commercial software?
-Jennifer
Richard Stallman has his own views on what should happen to Microsoft, which seem a lot more reasonable than simply splitting up the company. I have no problem with what Stallman proposes, but I think that one more thing needs to happen in order to make it feasible: employees of MS who willingly participated in the offenses must be removed. There are certain decision makers within MS who seem to have no respect for the court and will continue to direct MS as usual. Granted, companies and the DOJ can take them to court, but we're in that boat now. No real progress will have been made. What needs to be done is to get beyond the "We must *hurt* Microsoft" mentality into the "How will doing this to Microsoft effect the industry in the long-term?" mentality. Splitting the company up just seems like an appealing way of hurting them. It doesn't seem like it is doing anything constructive. I don't think that the DOJ is proposing a split up to punish. I think it's because the conduct remedy was ignored and, judging from MS's actions, would continue to be ignored. The split up doesn't solve the whole problem, but it does help to provide some relief. Splitting seems like changing one successful company with popular products into three. It does keep MS from using their monopolies in concert. It also takes away incentive for back scratching among their products (using Windows contracts as leverage for promoting, IE for example). -Jennifer
Question 1: I find it ironic that several of these early warning signs are often the hallmarks of those who are most likely to harass others to the point where they feel like violence is the only way out. In particular:
- Hits or bullies others.
- Expresses uncontrolled anger.
- Displays intense intolerance or prejudice.
- Makes threats.
If a popular student was harassing a "weird" student and was reported through this hotline, is WAVE prepared to look past the student's image to the behavior? This is a chronic problem that I encountered at school. "Oh, but everyone likes < insert name here>. She/He's so nice. You're not popular. It must be you."
Question 2: Is WAVE prepared to deal with students who have lost faith in authority figures (because they have failed to protect them) and have little or no respect for others as human beings, especially those who have made their lives miserable actively or passively?
Question 3: What methods would WAVE use to determine whether or not a student is a threat?
Question 4: Does WAVE care about situations that are less than extreme? That is, if a student is found to be under a great deal of pressure but not to the extent that he is likely commit violence, would this student be tracked?
Question 5: How confidential is the information collected about students?
Question 6: Who determines whether a student is a danger?
Question 7: Once a student is identified as a danger, what would be the standard procedure for dealing with the student?
-Jennifer
In the case of Texas (one of the states with usage tax but no income tax), they have a form that you fill out and send in for the next tax period. Tax periods for Texas begin on the first of January, April, July, and October.
Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyomng also have no state income tax. If you're in any of these states, I would check with the agency that handles the sales tax for your state. Most, if not all, states have a state government web site that can be found at http://www.state.xx.us where xx is the state postal abbreviation. Many states have the tax information and forms on their site. Some even let you handle this electronically, if you trust that sort of thing.
-Jennifer
I mentioned this last week, so at the risk of being moderated as redundant...
As far as I know, in the U.S., tax can't be charged on transactions across state lines. You'll see the simplest example of this on a mail-order catalog, where you only pay tax if you live in that state.
Purchases made across state lines may be taxed, but the basis of the tax can't be made on "interstate commerce". A prime example of taxing interstate commerce for a reason other than interstate commerce is usage tax. All U.S. states that have sales tax also have usage tax. This tax applies to any purchase where the merchandise is intended to be used within a state other than where the purchase was made. The usage rate is the state's sales tax rate minus what you paid in sales tax already. It's supposed to be paid on your state income tax.
This tax has been upheld by the Supreme Court and it applies to mail order houses as well as Internet purchases. So, just because BarnesandNobel.com didn't charge you sales tax doesn't mean that you don't owe any tax on your purchase.
-Jennifer
The conflict here (did you read the article?) is between the Genome project and a private company, Celera, which is racing to sequence and patent as much of the human genome as possible before the Human Genome project does. The two have been in talks to assimilate the data into a single database, but they seem to be hung up on intellectual property issues.
It occurs to me that if Celera really wants to help (themselves as well as the project), all they need to do is NDA any researchers before they give them access to Celera's database. As I understand it, this effort is mostly to verify or give context to research from both sides. Any facts that the Genome researchers learn from Celera are not legally intellectual property, so as long as the Genome project doesn't release exact copy from Celera without permission, there shouldn't be any problem.
-Jennifer
In the s/w world the US PTO is granting patents willy nilly. If you have to deal with patents in your life (as I have to for my work in R&D) you find a large number of obviously invalid s/w patents. There are numerous incredibly trival ones (today I was shown one on the method of loading an image file into a program and compressing it, then compressing it again, sending it somewhere and decompressing. That's it. I'll dig up the patent number if anyone wants it, an incredibly stupid patent, one of the worst I've ever seen).
My understanding is that the patent examiners are required to be engineers. It's not that engineers can't be wise in the ways of programming, but I don't think that the patent office has been hiring these programmer engineers. In order to be effective, the patent office needs to keep up with the day-to-day changes in the software industry. They need someone who understands what is obvious in programming and what is truly innovative. I believe that the fact that the patent office hasn't recognized this need is the root of the problem.
Then again, there's the patent granted in the 90's on using a laser pointer as a cat toy (can't find the patent number right now).
-Jennifer
...at least, if the state that you live in taxes the type of purchase that you made (typically goods as opposed to services). All states that have sales taxes in the US also have usage tax. The rules regarding usage tax may vary a little from state to state, but the general rule is that if you purchase goods and have not paid the amount of sales tax that your state would charge you at, you owe the state the difference, typically paid on your next income tax form. The usage tax exists to protect local businesses from the difference between tax rates in different states, so I see no need for the feds to interfere on this one as long as the states are good about collecting. Of course, this is a very difficult thing to do unless they happen to catch you in a random audit, but the penalty tends to be pretty hefty (in CT, it's a fine up to $1000 and/or year in prison plus the tax that you owe).
See http://www.salestaxinstitute.com/Sales%20Tax%20Rat es.htm for more info about which states tax what.
-Jennifer
Bjarne mentions the poor education of C++ programmers frequently in this interview. I can't help but think, is this poor education a direct result of the complexity of the language?
I think that there is a great deal of confusion caused by C++'s resemblance to C. There is a whole different way of thinking involved in using an object oriented paradigm versus a functional one. I've seen so many functionally thinking programmers learn C++ in an effort to broaden their horizons without really taking the time to understand the difference. This leads to situations such as not knowing how to use classes properly. There are some who seem to think that classes are just C++'s way of doing a struct, much less appreciate templates. They start to make assumptions about some of C++'s features by trying to equate them to C's features, such as using streams in place of printf. But then they fail to recognize the power of these features and try to use them just like they would in C. This creates all sorts of ugly code and usually leaves the programmer with a feeling that C++ is too complicated to be worth it.
think that it's a much shorter learning curve to learn the C language fairly well than C++. I think this has helped in the Gnome project, although I'm sure there are people who feel differently.
That said, many of the historical reasons for disliking C++ are becoming obsolete. In particular, the language seems to be settling down standards-wise, and there are now decent implementation to be had, both free and non. I've only used C++ sparingly in my own work so far, but I look forward to expanding my use of the language.
It has always been a matter of vendor implementation. The language itself started out reasonably strong and has grown stronger. The big stumbling blocks were vague areas of the language that vendors chose define (and sometimes rely on) and how efficient the compilers and linkers have been. Of course, the more experience a vendor has at creating programming utilites, the more efficient they tend to be as long as you don't try to keep cramming more crap into them (hello MS).
-Jennifer
(which company says "we don't invent a lot of the products we make.... we just make a lot of the products we make better?")
BASF
Like many great inventors, he lucked out --- when, up against a deadline to come up with a working filament, he frustratedly took a singed piece of hair and put it in his bulb. It worked.
To be fair, most inventions are based on something similar that came before, including Tesla's. He didn't come up with AC. He didn't come up with wireless radio. But, he made them practical. His notebooks indicate that this wasn't by accident, though. He seemed to grok energy physics in a way that had not been seen before, and perhaps, won't be seen again.
-Jennifer
Actually much of what Tesla did was built on the works of scientists before him. He didn't invent AC, but his innovations made it practical. He did the same for wireless. The same can be said for Edison and the electric light. Those who did work in the field prior to Tesla certainly deserve to have their names among those who made it all possible, but it's equally important to credit those who take abstract theories and put it to a real application.
-Jennifer
I'm a web developer for a large educational publishing company. Naturally, I need to give my employer what it wants or they'll find someone else to do it. However, that doesn't mean that I should let them make uninformed decisions. When they ask for feature x, I try to figure out the most effective way to do it and tell them what the drawbacks will be.
We've established that the most important thing to include in our web sites is accessibility for our customers. Since we are now expanding our focus beyond schools to parents and students, this means the public at large. We keep an eye on our stats and decided that 640x480 at 256 colors for IE 3.0/Nav 3.0 on Mac/Win is an acceptable minimum. But that's our audience. This means strictly sticking to HTML 3.2 as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium.
We keep Javascript, Java, and Director/Flash usage to a minimum. Javascript has a nasty tendency to be pretty buggy, regardless of which browser you're using and the bugs tend to manifest in different ways on different browsers. The JVM that Navigator on the Mac uses only supports a very old version of the spec (1.1.2, I think) and there's no way to switch it to another JVM. Besides, both Javascript and Java can be turned off, so you don't want to make them manditory for navigation.
We use alot of Director and Flash in our CD-ROM products and have begun putting some of these on the web. Site access does not require that the user have the plug-in. You only need it to run the game or simulation. I think this is an acceptable trade-off.
So, what it boils down to is that you need to assess what your clients want, figure out the most effective way of doing it, and then let them know what the consequences will be. You need to put that in real world terms, too. They probably won't understand the implications of "You're home page will be 200K" but they will understand "For the typical user, it will take at least 40 seconds for them to get to the starting point in your site." You, as a web developer, should also be aware of how to make a site as accessible as possible (at least through ALT tags) and point out to your clients that the right META tags can make a site much more likely to come up in a search engine.
-Jennifer
Not to mention that there are an increasing number of devices that can load a web page but may not have the resolution or even the ability to load graphics, such as cellular phones or PDAs. I've also heard of a service that you can access via telephone that will read a web page to you (can't remember where I heard that; it was a long time ago). With the popular trend of wireless devices and IAs, it seems to me like any site that refuses to use ALT tags is cutting off a potentially large segment of the users out there.
As for whether or not there would be any sight impaired people who might be interested in a pharmaceutical company's web site, I can remember there were at least a couple of professors at my college who were legally blind and active scientists. You never know if you're denying access to the person who has a budget to conduct a large research project.
I also seem to remember about a year ago that the U.S. government was talking about requiring any company who did business with them to use ALT tags. I'd think that a major pharmaceutical company would very likely fall into that category, but I can't remember what ever came of it. See the article at http://www.zdnet.com/ zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2243282,00.html
-Jennifer
This observation is an instance of a more general problem in our society. We treat and raise girls differently than boys. In some ways, this may be appropriate (gender-specific issues), but we tend to allow gender to influence how we treat children in inappropriate ways as well. This is probably because we had these biases ingrained in us at an early age. The best that we can do in this circumstance is attempt to identify these inappropriate biases (they will vary from person to person) and be more mindful of them when dealing with our peers and with children. It's much easier said than done but, if you can see the big picture, the effort is worth it.
-Jennifer
It is very hard to test for leadership when playing with Lego's.
You're looking at the wrong thing. I got the impression that this was a group project and the interaction among the particpants was what counted.
Someone might be more assertive and because it is a simple task it would appear that they had leadership ability, when in actuality they could not handle a real leadership position.
Assertiveness is a part of being a good leader. This shouldn't be confused with aggressiveness. I see an assertive person as one who is willing to speak up when the circumstances require it and to not give up ground just because you're being challenged.
I think a test of this sort would have to be more complex and stress different areas then just making a Lego space ship or whatever. I'm not saying it is a bad idea totally but this to me just represents one more step down in education.
Sometime the simpler solution is the better one, but I wouldn't necessarily call this simple. Human interaction rarely is. The big difference is that this test is not dealing in quantities which I think is what is bothering alot of people. We're not comfortable making public judgements without putting a number next to it so we can say X is better than Y.
-Jennifer
But they wouldn't have *TESTED* your roommate with the lego test! They would only have tested him *if they thought he would do badly on the SAT's or ACT's*.
While I agree that the testing pool should have been a little more diverse than NYC, it didn't say that they were trying a new test on people who weren't able to hack it. They are taking a small sample from an area that has poor college admission numbers as compared to the national average. These numbers are probably the result of a combination of overcrowded schools, poorer access to resources, a different set of priorities (for some in the community), and the need to go on a full scholarship, which only the absolute best and brightest will get. I haven't seen any indication that students from this area have any less potential to learn and contribute than students in any other part of the country.
As to motivation, I don't think the Lego Test tests for that. That's what the interview is supposed to be for - and it won't always work, because some people *change* when they get to college.
And people don't cram for these standardized tests? There is no set of litmus tests that can predict the future. These are supposed to be indicators of where the potential lies. Standardized test are limited and need to be complemented with other forms of assessment, such as the interview. I wouldn't necessarily replace the SATs with anything, but I might disregard an individual's SAT scores if they didn't jive with the other indicators (whether those SATs are high or low). This test provides more insight into the potential that a person possesses. If successful, it may be a more consistant indicator of potential than the interview.
As for psych, I'm a scientist and take things that are said in the name of psych with a grain of salt. We don't understand enough about how the brain works (physically or logisticly) to make some of the assertions that are made. All you can really say, for any given individual, is that they have done x or they haven't.
-Jennifer