WTF are you talking about? Doctors will still be able to choose to practice or not. Many will make this decision based on pay and how they are treated. So the government agency running the program will have to decide how much doctors should be paid (for various services) in order to keep the optimal number of doctors. Yes, it's difficult to do this, as the Soviets can attest. But it's not that big a problem, and with modern information management, it should be just fine. Other western countries with socialized medicine seem to be doing OK.
Actually, I think the US is kind of headed toward such an economy.
Take a look at how much of our economy is dedicated to the essentials (food, shelter, clothing,...) and how much is dedicated to everything else (communications, transportation, entertainment, nicer clothing, gourmet foods,...). Granted, some of the communication and transportation could be considered overhead for producing the essentials. But only a small portion of our GDP would be required to provide everyone with the essentials.
I think this is starting to have a significant impact on our economy. It's hard for me to articulate my ideas, but I think it's the reason for the widening wealth gap. It's almost as if capitalism starts breaking down when there's enough to go around.
Yeah, but how do we know that these same folks didn't write the compiler, and have hidden code in the compiler to only be output when it receives this source code as input? Hmm?
I was not aware that KDE ran on Mac OS X. I assume it runs on top of X11, which I'm not terribly fond of running on my Mac. It wouldn't be so bad, if there was a decent SFTP/SCP client for Mac OS X. I tried a few, but the only one that was decent had 15% of the performance of the command-line SCP. On Windows, I find WinSCP to be good enough to keep me from complaining.
The reason Java runs on a cell phone is not that Java has a small footprint. It's because the computers inside cell phones are a lot beefier than they used to be. I used Ada on a 32-bit VAX system that was running at less than 100 MHz and had (I think) 32 MB of RAM. Today's cell phones are around that same magnitude of processing power.
Ada was considered a BIG language when it came out. Big as in complexity. The C++ folks used to make fun of it. That's before they added templates to C++, which makes Ada look simple by comparison. Ada also came with a large set of libraries. But nowhere near what Java now comes with standard.
Anyway, when I first started learning Java, I thought that it was almost more similar to Ada in spirit than C or C++. The set of libraries seemed similar, as well as the multi-threading capabilities. To me, the biggest difference was C versus Pascal style syntax. I guess the other big difference is the JVM.
I haven't used Ada or Java enough recently to know too much about their relative merits. But it seems to me that Java doesn't give us a whole lot more than Ada had about 10 years earlier.
HP owns it now, since they bought Compaq shortly after Compaq bought DEC. I don't see any reason they couldn't Open Source it. It's old enough that I'm sure they own almost all the copyrights to the code, and any patents would have expired by now. I can't image much 3rd-party code being used at that point in history anyway. Perhaps some add-on type software, such as the RDBMS, but not the core.
I want SSHFS, dammit! I've got SSH set up on pretty much every system I have. It's simple, and it's encrypted. What more could I want? Oh yeah -- seamless SCP/SFTP clients.
I agree that there was a lot in VMS that the world has "lost". I think that modern UNIX implementations should look at what VMS had, to reuse some of the good ideas that we still have not replicated. My favorite is the security system -- various small capabilities that each user (or program) could be granted. And the super-user only had one capability by default: the ability to grant privileges. I also appreciated the automated versioning, with the ability to pull up a previous version from the filesystem without having to use any special programs.
And yes, I know that Windows NT is sort of descended from VMS. But I've not seen many of the concepts make it up to userland cleanly implemented.
And I'm also aware that VMS is still around. It may not be on life-support yet, but it's clearly in the nursing home already.
Let me get this straight. It's not fraudulent to include language in a contract requiring 15% for broken CDs that never happens? But it is fraudelent to add in something that both parties have an opportunity to sign or not sign? OK, maybe the intent is a problem, but in both cases, what is written in the contract has a lot of weight behind it -- it's usually pretty difficult to get the terms overturned. As far as it failing -- I thought the whole point of a contract was the ability of both sides to negotiate terms. If both sides don't have that opportunity, then it's not really a contract.
One of the top rules in contract negotiations is to keep control of drafting the contract.
That's exactly what I was proposing, isn't it? I'd note that there can only be one side controlling it. I was suggesting that the band try to be on that side for a change.
I think I have a 3rd solution, but it would take a rather savvy band to pull off. And I'm not sure of the details of how they sign contracts, so it might not work in some situations.
Ask for a soft-copy of the contract. (Make up some BS story about wanting to send it to your lawyer ahead of time, and they're a "paperless office" or something.) Then modify the contract, and sign it before you give it back to the record company. As long as the contract visually looks the same, it's probably unlikely that the record executives would think to re-read it -- they've read it hundreds of times.
Be sure to have them make you a photocopy of the contract with their signatures on it!
Yeah, I already admitted to holding it wrong. And I do hold it too tightly too. Basically, it's all messed up -- wrist curled too much, fingers in wrong spot, grip too tight, palm wiping across the paper. (I always carry my own pen, with ink that won't smear when I write.) And my penmanship isn't very good anyway. And my signature is about the only thing I can write in cursive.
I think a Page 3 Girl would be more appropriate. And British women would be fine. There are plenty of hot British women; see the list in the Wikipedia article. Or go to Page3.com.
My wrists start hurting after writing about 2 full pages. Probably because I hold the pen wrong (like a lefty). So I rarely write with a pen and paper. I can't remember my wrists ever hurting from typing too much. Although I have had them start hurting from using the mouse after playing games for hours on end.
As some have mentioned, pair programming has similar benefits for similar reasons. Basically, you spend more time thinking things out and getting them straight in your head before typing them in.
That might work for some products, but I don't think it would fly in most engineering disciplines. For example, apply it to a bridge, or an airplane, or a vital component in an airplane. You don't really get to roll out Eads Bridge 1.1.6. And if an airplane has a fatal flaw, it can actually be fatal. Sure, you can apply some "patches", and you can learn to do a better job on the next one you design, but you'd damn well better make sure the original is still a solid design.
I like to put it a different way: availability is actually priority #1, when it comes to security. That is, the system should be available to those who need access to it. (If the system was not available at all, it wouldnt't need protecting, would it?) And if the users cannot get into the system due to stupid password policies, then you've reduced their availability to the system.
Unfortunately, just using an older video chip would not give longer battery life. Mainly because newer chips are manufactured with smaller transistors. So the newer chips can do more work with more transistors taking up about the same amount of space and power. Newer chips also have better power management features, to shut down parts of the chip when they are not in use.
Now, if you took some of the new features of the new chips and removed them, you'd have a smaller/cheaper chip that would take less power. I think this would be a great idea. The main problem is that the manufacturers think they wouldn't make enough money on them.
Intel makes ultra-low-power (ULV) CPUs, but they're not used all that much in mainstream laptops. I suppose people still want fast computers, even when they don't have that much need for the speed.
And don't forget the wireless and LCD backlight. Those are other major contributors of power utilization. Hopefully OLED will help resolve the latter. I'm not sure if there's any hope in reducing power used by radio transceivers.
I suspect that what Cringely is talking about isCodeWeavers CrossOver. Obviously CodeWeavers and Apple have been working together to get their product to run on Intel Macs. If Apple were to include such functionality in their OS, I would not be at all surprised if they simply licensed the CodeWeaver code. It makes sense for both companies. Perhaps Cringely is not aware that CodeWeaver is based on WINE. Maybe he's not even aware of CrossOver Office. But this seems like the best route for Apple to take if they wanted to do this.
I'd also note that Apple has been perfectly fine with taking and adapting Open Source code. Even the low-level operating system is based on Mach and FreeBSD. And don't forget that Safari (WebKit) is based on KDE's Konqueror. And WINE is not all that bad. If nothing else, it makes a good base for such a project, implementing a large portion of the Win32 APIs relatively well.
I bet if you made anything that sold 50,000 copies, or had 50,000 attendees, you'd be very proud of yourself. Maybe that can be considered a failure as a mass-market movie, but I think a lot of independent film-makers would be happy to get that kind of audience.
Do you really think the broken computer is giving someone else an unfair advantage?
It would seem that an online application would be preferable in terms of equal opportunity. The person reading the application wouldn't be able to easily determine your race from the electronic forms. And it could hide your name and other identifying information from the manager until he/she decided to interview you. I would also suspect that it would be easier to gather metrics using a digital medium, to ensure fairness.
To answer your question more directly, I don't think there's anything illegal or unethical about their system, unless they're using it as a filter to only allow "acceptable" people to apply. (Which may very well be the case.) But EOE disclaimers only list things like race, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual preference, and disability. I don't think we'd want them to go further into things such as intelligence, people skills, personal hygiene -- things that might actually effect performance and teamwork.
I also fail to understand why you'd ask for legal advice from a bunch of geeks. And why you read Slashdot, yet claim to be technically dis-inclined.
I'm still not convinced that it would help, but you did well in answering some of the concerns. Your points on extradition and pitting the economies against each other are excellent.
1. automatic sanctions against the country (China in your example) for harassing the company;
That sounds good. But we already have sanctions against countries violating human rights. We just can't have too many sanctions, because we still want the benefits of trade with China.
2. geometrically progressing fines for the company; it would push the balance in favor of the Right Thing.
A decent idea, but you're more likely to force them out of business in China than anything. And what if China had geometrically progressing fines for doing "the wrong thing"? Or worse yet, prison terms for those who willingly "aid" the "criminal" dissidents?
This argument has a fatal flaw. It assumes, the countries -- USA and China -- are equal. They are not (mildly speaking). There is no symmetry, much as various tyrants would love to claim "equal footing" with US and other free countries.
I think you may misunderstand the Golden Rule then. It doesn't say "do unto good people", it says "do unto others". You also fail to realize that the way we view the Chinese government is very similar to how many foreigners currently view the US government. (Just look at our agression against Iraq and now Iran.)
What I'm suggesting is exporting some of the good laws of our land abroad to counter some of the foreign bad ones.
Again, your perception of good and bad is not universally agreed-upon. So forcing your views on someone is no better than someone else forcing their views on you.
I considered modding you up, but I wanted to make a few other comments.
I think you're exactly right that Chinese people can choose whether or not to use Yahoo and Google services. They can decide whether it is worth the risk to gain the benefits. One caveat is the fact that when Chinese citizens choose to use Yahoo, they may not be aware of the fact that they may be subject to disclosure to the government. Remember, a lot of what the Chinese government does against dissidents is not widely known in China. There was recently a study showing that many Chinese are unaware of what happened in Tiananmen Square.
And equally, Google and Yahoo can decide whether or not to do business in China. But once they've made the decision, they really are bound by Chinese laws when in China. Just as Chinese companies in the US have to live with US laws.
So the real question is whether Google and Yahoo being in China is a net positive or a net negative. I think if people sat down and thought about it, they'd have to conclude that it is a net positive. The more information and communication the Chinese people have, the more freedom they will gain. For one thing, the Chinese government may be successful at keeping people quiet on a few topics, but the more communication/information there is, the harder it is to monitor it all. And if you take a look at the speed of information spread in the London bombings last year, imagine the Chinese government trying to supress that type of news if Tiananmen Square were to happen today. Given tools like Yahoo and Google, it would be impossible to supress.
Regarding the Supreme Court decision on rights for non-citizens, I thought that it granted non-citizens rights from the Constitution, but not privileges. Except for things like the 14th Amendment, which explicitly says that it applies to citizens.
While I would like it if the American companies had a good excuse like that to keep from revealing personal info about dissidents, I see a few serious (fatal) flaws.
1. Who gets to determine if a suspect is having his human rights violated? What happens while they are deciding?
2. It would put a company in jeopardy of having to decide which of 2 laws to violate -- the Chinese law or the US law. What makes us think they're more likely to violate the Chinese law, when they're operating in China? I think they're more likely to just pay the US fine, so they can continue operating in China.
3. I'm always surprised at how bad people are at seeing things from a different (opposite) point of view. What if China passed a law effecting companies doing business in the US? And made them do something we consider unethical or illegal. Let's say for example, they made it illegal for workers in the US to cooperate with terrorism investigations. Would we be happy with that? Would we find that to be acceptable? Then why would we consider it to be acceptable for us to do it to them? It's the freaking Golden Rule, people!
4. I think this whole debate is centering on a false decision. The decision is not whether to rat out the person or not. It is whether to follow the law of the land, or to face the consequences, or to not do business in that country. And these companies think they can provide more for the people by being there, than not being there.
I think the reason that the original FCPA works is that bribery is already illegal where it is practiced. It's just trying to enforce the rule of existing law. In this case, you'd be pitting 2 laws against each other.
I think there are a lot of us on the leading edge who emply this kind of method. Which means that there will be a good number of mainstream users starting to employ the same method soon.
Slashdot Mirror
WTF are you talking about? Doctors will still be able to choose to practice or not. Many will make this decision based on pay and how they are treated. So the government agency running the program will have to decide how much doctors should be paid (for various services) in order to keep the optimal number of doctors. Yes, it's difficult to do this, as the Soviets can attest. But it's not that big a problem, and with modern information management, it should be just fine. Other western countries with socialized medicine seem to be doing OK.
Actually, I think the US is kind of headed toward such an economy.
...) and how much is dedicated to everything else (communications, transportation, entertainment, nicer clothing, gourmet foods, ...). Granted, some of the communication and transportation could be considered overhead for producing the essentials. But only a small portion of our GDP would be required to provide everyone with the essentials.
Take a look at how much of our economy is dedicated to the essentials (food, shelter, clothing,
I think this is starting to have a significant impact on our economy. It's hard for me to articulate my ideas, but I think it's the reason for the widening wealth gap. It's almost as if capitalism starts breaking down when there's enough to go around.
Yeah, but how do we know that these same folks didn't write the compiler, and have hidden code in the compiler to only be output when it receives this source code as input? Hmm?
I was not aware that KDE ran on Mac OS X. I assume it runs on top of X11, which I'm not terribly fond of running on my Mac. It wouldn't be so bad, if there was a decent SFTP/SCP client for Mac OS X. I tried a few, but the only one that was decent had 15% of the performance of the command-line SCP. On Windows, I find WinSCP to be good enough to keep me from complaining.
The reason Java runs on a cell phone is not that Java has a small footprint. It's because the computers inside cell phones are a lot beefier than they used to be. I used Ada on a 32-bit VAX system that was running at less than 100 MHz and had (I think) 32 MB of RAM. Today's cell phones are around that same magnitude of processing power.
Man, I wish I still had mod points to give you.
Ada was considered a BIG language when it came out. Big as in complexity. The C++ folks used to make fun of it. That's before they added templates to C++, which makes Ada look simple by comparison. Ada also came with a large set of libraries. But nowhere near what Java now comes with standard.
Anyway, when I first started learning Java, I thought that it was almost more similar to Ada in spirit than C or C++. The set of libraries seemed similar, as well as the multi-threading capabilities. To me, the biggest difference was C versus Pascal style syntax. I guess the other big difference is the JVM.
I haven't used Ada or Java enough recently to know too much about their relative merits. But it seems to me that Java doesn't give us a whole lot more than Ada had about 10 years earlier.
HP owns it now, since they bought Compaq shortly after Compaq bought DEC. I don't see any reason they couldn't Open Source it. It's old enough that I'm sure they own almost all the copyrights to the code, and any patents would have expired by now. I can't image much 3rd-party code being used at that point in history anyway. Perhaps some add-on type software, such as the RDBMS, but not the core.
I want SSHFS, dammit! I've got SSH set up on pretty much every system I have. It's simple, and it's encrypted. What more could I want? Oh yeah -- seamless SCP/SFTP clients.
I agree that there was a lot in VMS that the world has "lost". I think that modern UNIX implementations should look at what VMS had, to reuse some of the good ideas that we still have not replicated. My favorite is the security system -- various small capabilities that each user (or program) could be granted. And the super-user only had one capability by default: the ability to grant privileges. I also appreciated the automated versioning, with the ability to pull up a previous version from the filesystem without having to use any special programs.
And yes, I know that Windows NT is sort of descended from VMS. But I've not seen many of the concepts make it up to userland cleanly implemented.
And I'm also aware that VMS is still around. It may not be on life-support yet, but it's clearly in the nursing home already.
Let me get this straight. It's not fraudulent to include language in a contract requiring 15% for broken CDs that never happens? But it is fraudelent to add in something that both parties have an opportunity to sign or not sign? OK, maybe the intent is a problem, but in both cases, what is written in the contract has a lot of weight behind it -- it's usually pretty difficult to get the terms overturned. As far as it failing -- I thought the whole point of a contract was the ability of both sides to negotiate terms. If both sides don't have that opportunity, then it's not really a contract.
That's exactly what I was proposing, isn't it? I'd note that there can only be one side controlling it. I was suggesting that the band try to be on that side for a change.
Thanks for the kind reply.
I think I have a 3rd solution, but it would take a rather savvy band to pull off. And I'm not sure of the details of how they sign contracts, so it might not work in some situations.
Ask for a soft-copy of the contract. (Make up some BS story about wanting to send it to your lawyer ahead of time, and they're a "paperless office" or something.) Then modify the contract, and sign it before you give it back to the record company. As long as the contract visually looks the same, it's probably unlikely that the record executives would think to re-read it -- they've read it hundreds of times.
Be sure to have them make you a photocopy of the contract with their signatures on it!
Yeah, I already admitted to holding it wrong. And I do hold it too tightly too. Basically, it's all messed up -- wrist curled too much, fingers in wrong spot, grip too tight, palm wiping across the paper. (I always carry my own pen, with ink that won't smear when I write.) And my penmanship isn't very good anyway. And my signature is about the only thing I can write in cursive.
I think a Page 3 Girl would be more appropriate. And British women would be fine. There are plenty of hot British women; see the list in the Wikipedia article. Or go to Page3.com.
My wrists start hurting after writing about 2 full pages. Probably because I hold the pen wrong (like a lefty). So I rarely write with a pen and paper. I can't remember my wrists ever hurting from typing too much. Although I have had them start hurting from using the mouse after playing games for hours on end.
As some have mentioned, pair programming has similar benefits for similar reasons. Basically, you spend more time thinking things out and getting them straight in your head before typing them in.
That might work for some products, but I don't think it would fly in most engineering disciplines. For example, apply it to a bridge, or an airplane, or a vital component in an airplane. You don't really get to roll out Eads Bridge 1.1.6. And if an airplane has a fatal flaw, it can actually be fatal. Sure, you can apply some "patches", and you can learn to do a better job on the next one you design, but you'd damn well better make sure the original is still a solid design.
I like to put it a different way: availability is actually priority #1, when it comes to security. That is, the system should be available to those who need access to it. (If the system was not available at all, it wouldnt't need protecting, would it?) And if the users cannot get into the system due to stupid password policies, then you've reduced their availability to the system.
Unfortunately, just using an older video chip would not give longer battery life. Mainly because newer chips are manufactured with smaller transistors. So the newer chips can do more work with more transistors taking up about the same amount of space and power. Newer chips also have better power management features, to shut down parts of the chip when they are not in use.
Now, if you took some of the new features of the new chips and removed them, you'd have a smaller/cheaper chip that would take less power. I think this would be a great idea. The main problem is that the manufacturers think they wouldn't make enough money on them.
Intel makes ultra-low-power (ULV) CPUs, but they're not used all that much in mainstream laptops. I suppose people still want fast computers, even when they don't have that much need for the speed.
And don't forget the wireless and LCD backlight. Those are other major contributors of power utilization. Hopefully OLED will help resolve the latter. I'm not sure if there's any hope in reducing power used by radio transceivers.
I suspect that what Cringely is talking about is CodeWeavers CrossOver. Obviously CodeWeavers and Apple have been working together to get their product to run on Intel Macs. If Apple were to include such functionality in their OS, I would not be at all surprised if they simply licensed the CodeWeaver code. It makes sense for both companies. Perhaps Cringely is not aware that CodeWeaver is based on WINE. Maybe he's not even aware of CrossOver Office. But this seems like the best route for Apple to take if they wanted to do this.
I'd also note that Apple has been perfectly fine with taking and adapting Open Source code. Even the low-level operating system is based on Mach and FreeBSD. And don't forget that Safari (WebKit) is based on KDE's Konqueror. And WINE is not all that bad. If nothing else, it makes a good base for such a project, implementing a large portion of the Win32 APIs relatively well.
I bet if you made anything that sold 50,000 copies, or had 50,000 attendees, you'd be very proud of yourself. Maybe that can be considered a failure as a mass-market movie, but I think a lot of independent film-makers would be happy to get that kind of audience.
Do you really think the broken computer is giving someone else an unfair advantage?
It would seem that an online application would be preferable in terms of equal opportunity. The person reading the application wouldn't be able to easily determine your race from the electronic forms. And it could hide your name and other identifying information from the manager until he/she decided to interview you. I would also suspect that it would be easier to gather metrics using a digital medium, to ensure fairness.
To answer your question more directly, I don't think there's anything illegal or unethical about their system, unless they're using it as a filter to only allow "acceptable" people to apply. (Which may very well be the case.) But EOE disclaimers only list things like race, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual preference, and disability. I don't think we'd want them to go further into things such as intelligence, people skills, personal hygiene -- things that might actually effect performance and teamwork.
I also fail to understand why you'd ask for legal advice from a bunch of geeks. And why you read Slashdot, yet claim to be technically dis-inclined.
I considered modding you up, but I wanted to make a few other comments.
I think you're exactly right that Chinese people can choose whether or not to use Yahoo and Google services. They can decide whether it is worth the risk to gain the benefits. One caveat is the fact that when Chinese citizens choose to use Yahoo, they may not be aware of the fact that they may be subject to disclosure to the government. Remember, a lot of what the Chinese government does against dissidents is not widely known in China. There was recently a study showing that many Chinese are unaware of what happened in Tiananmen Square.
And equally, Google and Yahoo can decide whether or not to do business in China. But once they've made the decision, they really are bound by Chinese laws when in China. Just as Chinese companies in the US have to live with US laws.
So the real question is whether Google and Yahoo being in China is a net positive or a net negative. I think if people sat down and thought about it, they'd have to conclude that it is a net positive. The more information and communication the Chinese people have, the more freedom they will gain. For one thing, the Chinese government may be successful at keeping people quiet on a few topics, but the more communication/information there is, the harder it is to monitor it all. And if you take a look at the speed of information spread in the London bombings last year, imagine the Chinese government trying to supress that type of news if Tiananmen Square were to happen today. Given tools like Yahoo and Google, it would be impossible to supress.
Regarding the Supreme Court decision on rights for non-citizens, I thought that it granted non-citizens rights from the Constitution, but not privileges. Except for things like the 14th Amendment, which explicitly says that it applies to citizens.
While I would like it if the American companies had a good excuse like that to keep from revealing personal info about dissidents, I see a few serious (fatal) flaws.
1. Who gets to determine if a suspect is having his human rights violated? What happens while they are deciding?
2. It would put a company in jeopardy of having to decide which of 2 laws to violate -- the Chinese law or the US law. What makes us think they're more likely to violate the Chinese law, when they're operating in China? I think they're more likely to just pay the US fine, so they can continue operating in China.
3. I'm always surprised at how bad people are at seeing things from a different (opposite) point of view. What if China passed a law effecting companies doing business in the US? And made them do something we consider unethical or illegal. Let's say for example, they made it illegal for workers in the US to cooperate with terrorism investigations. Would we be happy with that? Would we find that to be acceptable? Then why would we consider it to be acceptable for us to do it to them? It's the freaking Golden Rule, people!
4. I think this whole debate is centering on a false decision. The decision is not whether to rat out the person or not. It is whether to follow the law of the land, or to face the consequences, or to not do business in that country. And these companies think they can provide more for the people by being there, than not being there.
I think the reason that the original FCPA works is that bribery is already illegal where it is practiced. It's just trying to enforce the rule of existing law. In this case, you'd be pitting 2 laws against each other.
I think there are a lot of us on the leading edge who emply this kind of method. Which means that there will be a good number of mainstream users starting to employ the same method soon.