My comma density is right for the German i grew up with. This means it is too high when i get in contact with the English language. Locations of my commas are pretty erratic even in my native tongue;-).
Archives for As if millions of MP3s cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced....
Re:Sometimes it's the little things
on
Tales of IT Idiocy
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· Score: 3, Insightful
My pet theory is of the "norm problem":
Every person has a problem of which he thinks it is the most important one. He will scale all other problems according to his norm problem. He will devote the same energy on his norm problem as other people do for theirs.
The norm problem of a) may be that his family is starving and of b) that his neighbor occupies his parking space. Nevertheless they will approach their norm problem with max energy.
If you have two people competing for the same goal as norm problem, you will get a major turf war, no matter how trivial the object is.
IMHO: The internet is as destructive for the current form of politics as for the music industry. If we will have a free internet, ways and means of politics are changing massively and render most political capital of the current political generation meaningless.
Since they start to realize it, they start fighting the free internet. Just my POV.
My C64 (Serial #600) has a very strage bug: If you started a line at the end of the screen, entered more than 80 chars and backspaced into the previous line, it executed a "run" and the program would be non-interruptible. Used this to prevent my brother from stopping my programs and using the C64 for himself.
- about 30% voter turnout - Election looser becomes president (2000) - You need a billion US$ campaign funds to have a chance - Heriditary tendencies for seats in congress/senate -....
First: Overall security seems better to me in Israel. But experience breeds progress. The U.S. has an abysmal terrorist rate. Should you increase that, the counter terrorists will become better as well. For various reasons i discourage walking that path.
Second: If you carry lot's of gadgets (like me), the check while leaving may take 1+ hours for doing the x-rays alone.
Third: The checks start a lot earlier than the airport.
Fourth: There are good security people and not so good, even in Israel. User experience may vary;-). Security was more thorough 15 years ago. Seems more relaxed lately.
Fifth: Ask Israeli businessmen what they think about the security people. The don't like them more than their counterparts in the U.S. do.
Sixth: The terrorists already win, when flying becomes more of a burden. Life is a bitch:-(.
School Headmasters (among many others) have managed to do that in a lot of places over the last couple of centuries and leading craftsmen over a much longer period than that. The answer is not to do it as two full time jobs but one job with many elements.
In my school there was a fixed ratio between the two jobs and the headmaster had two full time secretaries.
While there may be special cases, doing two different jobs is usually a bad idea.
A difficult thing will be: you have to trust people doing the job, even though you know that they are not good as you. You will get back solutions, that are not the same you would have delivered or may even not be up to the standards you expect. You must take a step back and ask "Does it suffice?" and not "Do i like it?".
There are two big dangers:
a) Trying to do your previous job in addition to be a manager. This will kill you. The result will be abysmal performance in both jobs.
b) Having no reserves in your schedules to talk to people. This will get you disconnected and you may not realize problems until they bite you in your posterior.
The most difficult thing for me was, that i learn things about people i never wanted to know. You have tragedies (child/husband/parent dying of some illness), relationship problems (both sides being in the company more often than you think), all kind of quarrels (If n is the number of persons you manage, the number of conflicts is O(n)) and so on.... You have to develop a thick skin concerning this. If you cannot, step back. Otherwise it will break you.
Another lesson learned: If you make a decision, never postpone it. Pull it through with max burn;-).
After 8 years i had enough of that job and went into sales....
A multi party environment can become disfunctional too. But except for some special cases (some countries pefer to have more prime ministers than years, no matter how they are elected) these systems have quite some stability as well.
If i had a scientific proof, i would have given it to you. The only thing i can currently offer, is my outsider perspective. Perhaps i am seeing things, that you don't see anymore. Got no proof for that, but thinks like the following.
When i read the first time in an U.S. newspaper something like this, i really stumbled:
Rep. XXXX (D/R), who took over the congress seat from her father in 19xx, said.... (please forgive me that i don't have the names present).
First time, it was happenstance. But then i read things like that again and again and again. And worse: everyone took it as not unusual. Where i come from, it is not unusual for children of politicians to be well off. But having them succeed parents is rightly frowned upon. Then i noticed how many Senators and Congress(wo)men had close relatives already in politics.
This is IMHO only possible, because so many seats are rather safe for one of both parties. Once someone has a powerfull political machine in that district/state, he/she is enabled to pass it on to children, relatives or friends. A more fluid political environment wouldn't prevent it, but make it more difficult. The current overall throughput (change) of members in Senate and Congress is rather low for my taste.
I am no sociologist or in political scientist but an engineer. So you don't have to take me seriously since i will never be able to supply proof (or something that in my dictionary comes up to standards i hold to this word to).
My job is to travel a lot. I have visited 50-60 countries overall and i do this for quite some time now. The image of the U.S. democracy has suffered all over the world for the last 20 years. I am not counting the idiots burning flags on the street, but those people who worked their asses off as juveniles to afford classes in english, to whom the U.S. once had been a shining beacon. Loosing their confidence really means something....
Ask a cop.... Thieves are observing you, parking your car. If you shuffle items, they notice. We handed out several disciplinary measures in our companies for employees having their notebook stolen after putting them below the seat or in the trunk. We explicitly forbid that.
1. Eliminate risk: Don't leave anything in the car or leave your vicious dog in there... 2. Mitigate risk: Encrypt drives, backup often, insure financial loss 3. Security theater: Put everything in the trunk or leave it under the seat
Honestly, but this is not "math" but "calculating".
And in this case the quoted person is wrong. If you cannot do this kind of calculation, you should not make decision that impact others. Perhaps you shouldn't even make decision for yourself.
First: I am working in sales and i am using this pitch (rarely, but it happens). I have no bad conscience about it, since i am doing the customer a service. If he uses a U.S. based cloud for personal data of German citizens without their consent, he would be breaking German law.
The main problem with the Patriot Act is, that it allows seizures of data without court approval and is therefor violating due process as it is defined here (e.g. those infamous "national security letters"). While the U.S. company cannot be sued for following such lettters, the German customer who stored data there can be held liable.
The problem for U.S. companies is even bigger: Even if they store the data in a subsidary (e.g. Ireland), the Patriot Act forces them to hand over data from those data centers as well.
So as long as the Patriot Act is at it is, i will use it as sales argument.
Yours, Martin
P.S. I am simplifying legal issues here, didn't want to post 10 pages of text. The gist is correct.
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My comma density is right for the German i grew up with. This means it is too high when i get in contact with the English language. Locations of my commas are pretty erratic even in my native tongue ;-).
Your open pessimism helps to make it acceptable for politicians to do this.
I am afraid, they would do the same, should they catch me jubilating ;-).
Don't put your hopes to high. They are just waiting till the public's attention is elsewhere, e.g. occupied by a soccer cup.
There are two questions:
a) If you have drives with customer data of your customers and wish to refurbish them.
Here the answer is easy: Don't, if you don't have hundreds of drives, creating a safe procedure costs more than the drives will yield.
Every disk (that leaves us for ever) has an appointment with a drilling machine.
b) If you bought a refurbished drive with customer data on it.
Delete it before reading. Anything else brings trouble you're not getting paid for.
CU, Martin
Ubisoft CEO announced a new campaign to promote piracy.
Archives for As if millions of MP3s cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced....
My pet theory is of the "norm problem":
Every person has a problem of which he thinks it is the most important one. He will scale all other problems according to his norm problem. He will devote the same energy on his norm problem as other people do for theirs.
The norm problem of a) may be that his family is starving and of b) that his neighbor occupies his parking space. Nevertheless they will approach their norm problem with max energy.
If you have two people competing for the same goal as norm problem, you will get a major turf war, no matter how trivial the object is.
IMHO: The internet is as destructive for the current form of politics as for the music industry. If we will have a free internet, ways and means of politics are changing massively and render most political capital of the current political generation meaningless.
Since they start to realize it, they start fighting the free internet. Just my POV.
They should call it "Crackdown on Internet Piracy" and they would become best buddys with some congressmen.
The current political elite is loosing it's grip. So it is only natural that they start fighting. Same here, same there.
My C64 (Serial #600) has a very strage bug: If you started a line at the end of the screen, entered more than 80 chars and backspaced into the previous line, it executed a "run" and the program would be non-interruptible. Used this to prevent my brother from stopping my programs and using the C64 for himself.
Hmmm.....
- about 30% voter turnout ....
- Election looser becomes president (2000)
- You need a billion US$ campaign funds to have a chance
- Heriditary tendencies for seats in congress/senate
-
So not much left to endanger IMHO. Sorry!
First: Overall security seems better to me in Israel. But experience breeds progress. The U.S. has an abysmal terrorist rate. Should you increase that, the counter terrorists will become better as well. For various reasons i discourage walking that path.
Second: If you carry lot's of gadgets (like me), the check while leaving may take 1+ hours for doing the x-rays alone.
Third: The checks start a lot earlier than the airport.
Fourth: There are good security people and not so good, even in Israel. User experience may vary ;-). Security was more thorough 15 years ago. Seems more relaxed lately.
Fifth: Ask Israeli businessmen what they think about the security people. The don't like them more than their counterparts in the U.S. do.
Sixth: The terrorists already win, when flying becomes more of a burden. Life is a bitch :-(.
I had no problems with Frodo being there...
But two Bilbo scenes were the scenes from LotR:
- Bilbo writing down his story (shot from behind)
- Bilbo missing his (mislaid) ring (shot on his face)
Those scenes were used again in a different context.
At first i was afraid it was a hoax, because 2 scenes.were clearly from LotR. But i was appeased later....
The title doesn't really fit....
My suggestions:
- Return of the Grind
- A new quest
- The sleep deprivation strikes back
Yours, Martin
School Headmasters (among many others) have managed to do that in a lot of places over the last couple of centuries and leading craftsmen over a much longer period than that. The answer is not to do it as two full time jobs but one job with many elements.
In my school there was a fixed ratio between the two jobs and the headmaster had two full time secretaries.
While there may be special cases, doing two different jobs is usually a bad idea.
Yours, Martin
Hi,
A difficult thing will be: you have to trust people doing the job, even though you know that they are not good as you. You will get back solutions, that are not the same you would have delivered or may even not be up to the standards you expect. You must take a step back and ask "Does it suffice?" and not "Do i like it?".
There are two big dangers:
a) Trying to do your previous job in addition to be a manager. This will kill you. The result will be abysmal performance in both jobs.
b) Having no reserves in your schedules to talk to people. This will get you disconnected and you may not realize problems until they bite you in your posterior.
The most difficult thing for me was, that i learn things about people i never wanted to know. You have tragedies (child/husband/parent dying of some illness), relationship problems (both sides being in the company more often than you think), all kind of quarrels (If n is the number of persons you manage, the number of conflicts is O(n)) and so on.... You have to develop a thick skin concerning this. If you cannot, step back. Otherwise it will break you.
Another lesson learned: If you make a decision, never postpone it. Pull it through with max burn ;-).
After 8 years i had enough of that job and went into sales....
Good luck, Martin
A multi party environment can become disfunctional too. But except for some special cases (some countries pefer to have more prime ministers than years, no matter how they are elected) these systems have quite some stability as well.
If i had a scientific proof, i would have given it to you. The only thing i can currently offer, is my outsider perspective. Perhaps i am seeing things, that you don't see anymore. Got no proof for that, but thinks like the following.
When i read the first time in an U.S. newspaper something like this, i really stumbled:
Rep. XXXX (D/R), who took over the congress seat from her father in 19xx, said .... (please forgive me that i don't have the names present).
First time, it was happenstance. But then i read things like that again and again and again. And worse: everyone took it as not unusual. Where i come from, it is not unusual for children of politicians to be well off. But having them succeed parents is rightly frowned upon. Then i noticed how many Senators and Congress(wo)men had close relatives already in politics.
This is IMHO only possible, because so many seats are rather safe for one of both parties. Once someone has a powerfull political machine in that district/state, he/she is enabled to pass it on to children, relatives or friends. A more fluid political environment wouldn't prevent it, but make it more difficult. The current overall throughput (change) of members in Senate and Congress is rather low for my taste.
I am no sociologist or in political scientist but an engineer. So you don't have to take me seriously since i will never be able to supply proof (or something that in my dictionary comes up to standards i hold to this word to).
My job is to travel a lot. I have visited 50-60 countries overall and i do this for quite some time now. The image of the U.S. democracy has suffered all over the world for the last 20 years. I am not counting the idiots burning flags on the street, but those people who worked their asses off as juveniles to afford classes in english, to whom the U.S. once had been a shining beacon. Loosing their confidence really means something....
Yours, Martin
We had the samw try here. The result was a new party in the parliamental race.
If you don't break the grip of the two party system, you will have a ruling aristocracy in less than a generation.
Ask a cop.... Thieves are observing you, parking your car. If you shuffle items, they notice. We handed out several disciplinary measures in our companies for employees having their notebook stolen after putting them below the seat or in the trunk. We explicitly forbid that.
1. Eliminate risk: Don't leave anything in the car or leave your vicious dog in there...
2. Mitigate risk: Encrypt drives, backup often, insure financial loss
3. Security theater: Put everything in the trunk or leave it under the seat
Yep, but at least we at /. should not ;-)
Honestly, but this is not "math" but "calculating".
And in this case the quoted person is wrong. If you cannot do this kind of calculation, you should not make decision that impact others. Perhaps you shouldn't even make decision for yourself.
CU, Martin
Hi,
First: I am working in sales and i am using this pitch (rarely, but it happens). I have no bad conscience about it, since i am doing the customer a service. If he uses a U.S. based cloud for personal data of German citizens without their consent, he would be breaking German law.
The main problem with the Patriot Act is, that it allows seizures of data without court approval and is therefor violating due process as it is defined here (e.g. those infamous "national security letters"). While the U.S. company cannot be sued for following such lettters, the German customer who stored data there can be held liable.
The problem for U.S. companies is even bigger: Even if they store the data in a subsidary (e.g. Ireland), the Patriot Act forces them to hand over data from those data centers as well.
So as long as the Patriot Act is at it is, i will use it as sales argument.
Yours, Martin
P.S. I am simplifying legal issues here, didn't want to post 10 pages of text. The gist is correct.