I think that's just extremely wrong. They shouldn't start counting votes in the east until the voting has closed in the west.
What would also be a Good Thing (tm) is the ability to indicate a second choice counting as half a vote, or maybe a quarter vote, or maybe make it an option so you either throw your full weight at one candidate, or split it into 3/4 to your primary choice and 1/4 to your secondary. However you impliment it, it would allow people to, for example, vote for Nader, while giving Gore the second choice, which would be my vote in such a system if I were actually American:)
Voting for Gore in a state like Texas or Omaha doesn't make any impact whatsoever, voting for Gore in Florida could make the ultimate impact. In a democracy, shouldn't all votes count equally?
Exactly. How can they possibly call it a democracy when obviously the will of the people is basically ignored? If more people voted for Gore than for Bush, then Gore should be president, period, and you can't argue against that whether you've voted for Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchannan or Cowboy Neil.
Once upon a time, not very long ago, you had to speak German to become anything in any technological or scientific field, because most literature, or at least the most recent literature, was in German. Only very recently has this begun to change. Especially in computer science and electrical engineering, most literature is now in English, but literature regarding chemical engineering, physics and biology is still mostly German.
Instead of whining that you have to use Babelfish, whining that everybody should learn English - why don't YOU learn German? Personally, I speak Dutch, English and German, and a little bit of French - and I wish I hadn't dropped that in higschool...
gnome runs pitifully slow and all the fancy panels and such that make gnome worthwhile take up too much real estate on my P-166 laptop. XFce runs like a charm.
That is indeed the best reason to find a less heavy window environment. I currenlty use GNOME with Sawfish, and it's running like a charm on my PII 392MHz with 128MB. I rarely even run into my swap. I have used many lighter window environments too, like blackbox (loved it) and fvwm2 (hated it), and the system did feel much more responsive, but GNOME does the trick quite nicely, so why switch?:)
And we're right back to what makes Open Source so great: To each his own.
I'll stick to my desktop, but for those who need it's strengths XFce provides a needed alternative for them.
And why not blackbox, for example? It's a remarkably thin window manager. I've used it for quite some time, and was very satisfied with it. It feels... thin. That's the only way to describe it. It's like other window managers / desktop environments drop a very thick woolen blanket over your system, while Blackbox drops only a thin barely opaque silk sheet over it.
Currently I run GNOME + Sawfish and I like that too, but I have a history of switching desktop environments and window managers quite often:)
Once you start working 12-hour-plus days you get into negative productivity.
Exactly! A friend of mine works at Microsoft here in the Netherlands as a developer. He's also spent some time working for Microsoft in the US, working those notoriously crazy hours. He gets more work with his team here, all working a strict 40 hours a week, than with the larger team he had in the US, each working 60+ hours a week.
Stress and deprivation of life are in most cases counterproductive. There are a few people who work better under stress, but those are the notable exceptions that confirm the rule. If you spend more than a few hours on a problem, your mind begins to wonder. Trying to force it back to the job is less productive in the long run than taking a break, like getting a cup of coffee and having a relaxed chat with a few collegues, or playing a little frag match.
Also, I've found that if I don't drink much coffee I'll generally have my mind sorted more clearly. Coffee is great to get through the day after you've had a bad night's sleep for whatever reason, but it's not a structural solution... I much prefer (herbal || decaf) tea.
Now please don't mod this down because the word "Microsoft" is in it. That's basically irrelevant. Besides, the Penguin's got my soul, so there:)
Thanks for this dose of great info. I hope that one gets modded through the roof:)
At first I thought that wasn't possible, because the Space Shuttle and Venture Star don't have enough lift for take-off, only for a one-shot landing. But as you said, it won't need nearly as much wing surface to get enough lift to get off the ground, because it can lift off on virtually empty tanks with lots of payload, and refuel in the air.
You can improve the fuel to payload ratio even further if you put a refueling station in orbit. Then you can take off with enough fuel to reach the tanker aircraft, then top the tanks off - enough to reach the refueling station in orbit, and then take in enough for orbital manuvering and re-entry.
This is probably all pondered out by rocket scientists, but why not use a flying first stage?
The big problem of a vertical launch is that 80% of what you lift is fuel, and is spent on the way up. Why not put an SSTO craft like the Venture Star as a second stage on the back of a big and fast aircraft, a modified 747, 777 or Beluga for example? Simply fly that aircraft as high and as fast as it goes, maybe stick a rocket on it to gain some extra height and velocity at its ceiling to launch the second stage.
As I said, it's probably been thoroughly researched already - if so, can somebody explain why this isn't done / doable, while it seems so simple and feasable (too simple?) to simpleminded me?:)
Hehe... Imagine what would happen if they didn't recycle them and archeologists in a few million years stumble across a graveyard of large metal tubes in the middle of what once was an ocean?:)
I don't care whether it's an American or a British programme, I'll spell centre as centre.
Well, actually, in British English "center" isn't actually wrong (color and honor are, though). Both ways are allowed, though "centre" is preferred. It's just that "center" is American, so it's Evil. *grin*
Then the same would also apply to the space shuttles?
I suspect those booster rockets are subjected to an integrity check as thorough as the one the space shuttles themselves are put through: they're checked literally inch by inch.
Why the hell was that modded +2 interesting? It's redundant. It's been said a dozen times already. And the reply to it is also redundant:
They used to be able to get a greencard very easily, because processin for that took 6 months to a year. Now, getting a greencard takes up to four years. So while by far most H1-B people used to be able to get a greencard before their H1-B expired, now many are caught between ship and shore because their greencard paperwork won't be processed in time. THAT's the problem.
You know, that really smells like indentured servitude to me, just in a more obscure way. The company bound her as surely as with ball and chain.
Yes, there are probably a lot of H1B people who are treated fairly, but there are also a lot of them who are maltreated in various ways. On the one hand there's a certain Finnish kernel coder on an H1-B visa who drives a German car and wears an Italian suit (when necessary), on the other hand there's the Chinese woman in McKwant's example, and then there's also the whole spectrum inbetween.
Point is, a ruthless company could easily take advantage of H1-B people, bog them down in procedures, mire them in paperwork and work them to death for a low pay, while honest companies will treat them the same as any other employee.
Regardless of whether it's legal, that hardly seems fair...
Of course, not everyone's from mainland China... Well, according to the latest demographics, it's not very far off though:)
First of all, this is a German company we're talking about. Germans aren't as sue-happy as American.
Second of all, German banks are required to take due precaution against leaking of sensitive data, so sensitive data can't be sent out accidentally, and so that people guilty of leaking data can't claim in court that it was an accident.
It's stunning how many people don't actually read or interpret the article text. They don't want to block all possible ways of leaking information, because that's impossible, they just want to block the most obvious ways of leaking information. They don't want a legal solution, they want a technical one.
In all the posts in this thread that were moderated up, there were only two or three that are actually relevant to the article text, all the others, including the parent of this message, are based on misinterpretations of the article text and thus useless.
Ummmm, did you read the article text at all? There is no intention to prevent any and all kinds of sensitive data leaks, just the most obvious ones so leaks can't happen accidentally.
it's nothing your average school kid couldn't circumvent.
Yes, and that is also basically mentioned in the article text. Anybody is going to be able to get past this system, but the thing is that then they're going to have to take that extra step knowingly, so they can't claim they mailed that sensitive data out unknowingly, because they would have had to take extra steps to make sure it wasn't caught immediately by the filter. Thus, the filter only has to block obvious way of data smuggling, to make the company stand much stronger in court if somebody does smuggle data out, because the employee can't possibly claim he did it by accident.
They must be trusted in order to do their jobs properly.
Yes, ofcourse, but there's a rotten apple in every box. Of all the people I know who work at the company I work for, I wouldn't think they'd be thieves, yet still quite regularly stuff is stolen if it's not locked down. Very sad business...
Unfortunately, as a company, no matter how much you trust your employees, it's a given fact that at least one of them will at some point try to screw you. You can either wait around to be screwed, you can try to prevent being screwed (which is generally very invasive, inefficient and expensive) or, as this company is doing, you can try to increase your chances of finding out when somebody tries to screw you and increase your chances of taking successful legal steps against them.
In terms of monitoring outbound traffic for sensitive data, well, forget it. Heck, even compression will ruin pattern matches.
Ah, yes, but even compressing the sensitive data will be that extra willful step. Somebody could theoretically accidentally attach a sensitive file to an email message and send it out. It is however not necessary to compress or encrypt such sensitive data for internal use (I presume), so sending out encrypted or compressed sensitive data, so when you do detect a leak and find the person responsible, he can't claim in court that it was an accident. Yes, even in that case he'd still be responsible, but it could be considered negligence rather than a criminal act.
In short, copyright does nothing to hinder theft. It hinders copying.
Ofcourse laws and regulations don't prevent theft, because theft by definition breaks those laws and regulations. Copyrighting your code doesn't prevent it from being stolen, but it does give you a weapon to fight the thieves.
As for copying not being stealing - if what you copy is copyrighted and the way in which you copy it breaks that copyright, then it quite definitely equates to stealing.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that's just extremely wrong. They shouldn't start counting votes in the east until the voting has closed in the west.
:)
What would also be a Good Thing (tm) is the ability to indicate a second choice counting as half a vote, or maybe a quarter vote, or maybe make it an option so you either throw your full weight at one candidate, or split it into 3/4 to your primary choice and 1/4 to your secondary. However you impliment it, it would allow people to, for example, vote for Nader, while giving Gore the second choice, which would be my vote in such a system if I were actually American
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Voting for Gore in a state like Texas or Omaha doesn't make any impact whatsoever, voting for Gore in Florida could make the ultimate impact. In a democracy, shouldn't all votes count equally?
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Exactly. How can they possibly call it a democracy when obviously the will of the people is basically ignored? If more people voted for Gore than for Bush, then Gore should be president, period, and you can't argue against that whether you've voted for Gore, Bush, Nader, Buchannan or Cowboy Neil.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Once upon a time, not very long ago, you had to speak German to become anything in any technological or scientific field, because most literature, or at least the most recent literature, was in German. Only very recently has this begun to change. Especially in computer science and electrical engineering, most literature is now in English, but literature regarding chemical engineering, physics and biology is still mostly German.
Instead of whining that you have to use Babelfish, whining that everybody should learn English - why don't YOU learn German? Personally, I speak Dutch, English and German, and a little bit of French - and I wish I hadn't dropped that in higschool...
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
And what happens if five of those parts happen to be on computers that are currently switched off? *oops* :)
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
gnome runs pitifully slow and all the fancy panels and such that make gnome worthwhile take up too much real estate on my P-166 laptop. XFce runs like a charm.
:)
That is indeed the best reason to find a less heavy window environment. I currenlty use GNOME with Sawfish, and it's running like a charm on my PII 392MHz with 128MB. I rarely even run into my swap. I have used many lighter window environments too, like blackbox (loved it) and fvwm2 (hated it), and the system did feel much more responsive, but GNOME does the trick quite nicely, so why switch?
And we're right back to what makes Open Source so great: To each his own.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
I'll stick to my desktop, but for those who need it's strengths XFce provides a needed alternative for them.
... thin. That's the only way to describe it. It's like other window managers / desktop environments drop a very thick woolen blanket over your system, while Blackbox drops only a thin barely opaque silk sheet over it.
:)
And why not blackbox, for example? It's a remarkably thin window manager. I've used it for quite some time, and was very satisfied with it. It feels
Currently I run GNOME + Sawfish and I like that too, but I have a history of switching desktop environments and window managers quite often
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
This guy apparently hasn't invented the carriage return yet?
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Once you start working 12-hour-plus days you get into negative productivity.
:)
Exactly! A friend of mine works at Microsoft here in the Netherlands as a developer. He's also spent some time working for Microsoft in the US, working those notoriously crazy hours. He gets more work with his team here, all working a strict 40 hours a week, than with the larger team he had in the US, each working 60+ hours a week.
Stress and deprivation of life are in most cases counterproductive. There are a few people who work better under stress, but those are the notable exceptions that confirm the rule. If you spend more than a few hours on a problem, your mind begins to wonder. Trying to force it back to the job is less productive in the long run than taking a break, like getting a cup of coffee and having a relaxed chat with a few collegues, or playing a little frag match.
Also, I've found that if I don't drink much coffee I'll generally have my mind sorted more clearly. Coffee is great to get through the day after you've had a bad night's sleep for whatever reason, but it's not a structural solution... I much prefer (herbal || decaf) tea.
Now please don't mod this down because the word "Microsoft" is in it. That's basically irrelevant. Besides, the Penguin's got my soul, so there
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Thanks for this dose of great info. I hope that one gets modded through the roof :)
At first I thought that wasn't possible, because the Space Shuttle and Venture Star don't have enough lift for take-off, only for a one-shot landing. But as you said, it won't need nearly as much wing surface to get enough lift to get off the ground, because it can lift off on virtually empty tanks with lots of payload, and refuel in the air.
You can improve the fuel to payload ratio even further if you put a refueling station in orbit. Then you can take off with enough fuel to reach the tanker aircraft, then top the tanks off - enough to reach the refueling station in orbit, and then take in enough for orbital manuvering and re-entry.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
This is probably all pondered out by rocket scientists, but why not use a flying first stage?
:)
The big problem of a vertical launch is that 80% of what you lift is fuel, and is spent on the way up. Why not put an SSTO craft like the Venture Star as a second stage on the back of a big and fast aircraft, a modified 747, 777 or Beluga for example? Simply fly that aircraft as high and as fast as it goes, maybe stick a rocket on it to gain some extra height and velocity at its ceiling to launch the second stage.
As I said, it's probably been thoroughly researched already - if so, can somebody explain why this isn't done / doable, while it seems so simple and feasable (too simple?) to simpleminded me?
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Hehe... Imagine what would happen if they didn't recycle them and archeologists in a few million years stumble across a graveyard of large metal tubes in the middle of what once was an ocean? :)
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Maybe a nice new goal for Greenpeace?
--- SAVE THE BRITISH LANGUAGE ---
I don't care whether it's an American or a British programme, I'll spell centre as centre.
Well, actually, in British English "center" isn't actually wrong (color and honor are, though). Both ways are allowed, though "centre" is preferred. It's just that "center" is American, so it's Evil. *grin*
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Then the same would also apply to the space shuttles?
I suspect those booster rockets are subjected to an integrity check as thorough as the one the space shuttles themselves are put through: they're checked literally inch by inch.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
fix nerve damage (I'd love to see Christopher Reeve and many others walk again someday)
Superman
create ports on the body to parts of the brain; one step closer to true virtual reality
eXistenz
cybernetic organs
Basically any sci fi movie out there
human body used as a power source (lose weight and power your computer)
The Matrix
Any other movies out there?
This stuff is probably great for making neural networks, and thus maybe making sentient computers. 2001 / 2010
You could make bio-neural gel-packs and actually make USS Voyager's computer system. I sure hope this version isn't alergic to cheese though...
We could improve on Data and make an organic android.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of such computers. Deep Thought! Lets cross-check Douglas Adams' findings and see if we come to 42 aswell.
Fix Steven Hawking? Or is his amazing intellect _caused_ by the fact his brains don't do much with his body?
Give CmdrTaco a brain transplant so he can finally post some intelligent articles?
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
So, the "exploiting" company is giving the worker a better life (in the worker's opinion) than if the worker wasn't "exploited". How EVIL of them!
Ah, so just because somebody used to have a hard time is a good reason to give them a hard time now? To treat them differently from their peers?
I really hope you can see the flaw in your own argument. If you don't, I hope you never get into politics.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
People living below the 'poverty level' have a microwave and cable TV.
Ah, which poor neighbourhoods have you visited lately to come to that conclusion?
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Why the hell was that modded +2 interesting? It's redundant. It's been said a dozen times already. And the reply to it is also redundant:
They used to be able to get a greencard very easily, because processin for that took 6 months to a year. Now, getting a greencard takes up to four years. So while by far most H1-B people used to be able to get a greencard before their H1-B expired, now many are caught between ship and shore because their greencard paperwork won't be processed in time. THAT's the problem.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
You know, that really smells like indentured servitude to me, just in a more obscure way. The company bound her as surely as with ball and chain.
:)
Yes, there are probably a lot of H1B people who are treated fairly, but there are also a lot of them who are maltreated in various ways. On the one hand there's a certain Finnish kernel coder on an H1-B visa who drives a German car and wears an Italian suit (when necessary), on the other hand there's the Chinese woman in McKwant's example, and then there's also the whole spectrum inbetween.
Point is, a ruthless company could easily take advantage of H1-B people, bog them down in procedures, mire them in paperwork and work them to death for a low pay, while honest companies will treat them the same as any other employee.
Regardless of whether it's legal, that hardly seems fair...
Of course, not everyone's from mainland China...
Well, according to the latest demographics, it's not very far off though
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Jesus chased the money changers and Fallwell raises money for the republicans.
Which is why I believe Christians should chase Fallwell out of their temple. (I'm Pagan, btw, not Christian)
Vote Nader.
Couldn't agree more. (I'm Dutch, btw, not American)
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
But then you'd have all those Chinese falling back to earth...
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
First of all, this is a German company we're talking about. Germans aren't as sue-happy as American.
Second of all, German banks are required to take due precaution against leaking of sensitive data, so sensitive data can't be sent out accidentally, and so that people guilty of leaking data can't claim in court that it was an accident.
It's stunning how many people don't actually read or interpret the article text. They don't want to block all possible ways of leaking information, because that's impossible, they just want to block the most obvious ways of leaking information. They don't want a legal solution, they want a technical one.
In all the posts in this thread that were moderated up, there were only two or three that are actually relevant to the article text, all the others, including the parent of this message, are based on misinterpretations of the article text and thus useless.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
Ummmm, did you read the article text at all? There is no intention to prevent any and all kinds of sensitive data leaks, just the most obvious ones so leaks can't happen accidentally.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
it's nothing your average school kid couldn't circumvent.
Yes, and that is also basically mentioned in the article text. Anybody is going to be able to get past this system, but the thing is that then they're going to have to take that extra step knowingly, so they can't claim they mailed that sensitive data out unknowingly, because they would have had to take extra steps to make sure it wasn't caught immediately by the filter. Thus, the filter only has to block obvious way of data smuggling, to make the company stand much stronger in court if somebody does smuggle data out, because the employee can't possibly claim he did it by accident.
They must be trusted in order to do their jobs properly.
Yes, ofcourse, but there's a rotten apple in every box. Of all the people I know who work at the company I work for, I wouldn't think they'd be thieves, yet still quite regularly stuff is stolen if it's not locked down. Very sad business...
Unfortunately, as a company, no matter how much you trust your employees, it's a given fact that at least one of them will at some point try to screw you. You can either wait around to be screwed, you can try to prevent being screwed (which is generally very invasive, inefficient and expensive) or, as this company is doing, you can try to increase your chances of finding out when somebody tries to screw you and increase your chances of taking successful legal steps against them.
In terms of monitoring outbound traffic for sensitive data, well, forget it. Heck, even compression will ruin pattern matches.
Ah, yes, but even compressing the sensitive data will be that extra willful step. Somebody could theoretically accidentally attach a sensitive file to an email message and send it out. It is however not necessary to compress or encrypt such sensitive data for internal use (I presume), so sending out encrypted or compressed sensitive data, so when you do detect a leak and find the person responsible, he can't claim in court that it was an accident. Yes, even in that case he'd still be responsible, but it could be considered negligence rather than a criminal act.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity
In short, copyright does nothing to hinder theft. It hinders copying.
Ofcourse laws and regulations don't prevent theft, because theft by definition breaks those laws and regulations. Copyrighting your code doesn't prevent it from being stolen, but it does give you a weapon to fight the thieves.
As for copying not being stealing - if what you copy is copyrighted and the way in which you copy it breaks that copyright, then it quite definitely equates to stealing.
)O(
Never underestimate the power of stupidity