I have several RaidMax cases, and one reason I keep buying 'em is because the edges of the metal are all beveled and/or rolled. No sharp edges. I've had cases where you didn't dare open 'em without donning leather gloves first!
Also, the PSUs RaidMax useds seem to be pretty good -- haven't had any fail. And the included fans are quiet.
Plus the sides go on/off easily.
My only gripe has been that the 3.5" drive bays have this little extra piece in the mount that interferes with the fan doodad that I like to attach to the bottom of hot-running HDs. Tho I suppose I could just mount it in the next drive bay down; there are 6 such bays, so usually some surplus space.
Corp execs are more like a doctor or lawyer than a plumber, so was thinking in terms of penalties assessed in addition to mere loss of license. As to percentage of stock they'd get "fined", some BoD members own millions of shares, which has got to be a significant chunk of the company's total shares. My idea here was to penalise malcreants in direct proportion to their vested interest in their company.
Tying it to market cap might be a way to prevent other shennanigans, tho (am wondering if this might help prevent hiding stocks behind dummy owners).
As to private companies, that was my thought too -- if they misbehave, generally they just pretty much shoot themselves in the foot.
Too bad none of this will ever happen... tho if there's another big scandal, that might be a good time to suggest it to the SEC.:)
Applying it to publicly-held companies is likely the way to start -- indeed, it may be all that's needed, since private companies don't have the almighty stock price driving their every move -- nor legions of management who all have substantial shareholdings that in turn drive their behaviour.
Which leads to this thought -- requiring a CorpLic might be applied to anyone who is both an employee and is more than a 1% shareholder. That would hit most of the management, upper-level dept. heads, and certainly the entirely BoD set, but wouldn't penalize the working joes who may hold a relatively tiny fraction of the company stock as part of their benefits package. It would also make trying to duck the CorpLic requirement difficult.
Related notion... when someone's CorpLic is revoked, they could be penalized by confiscating some or all of the stocks they own from the misbehaving company, with the percentage depending on how grievous their offense. These confiscated stocks could then be sold by the SEC, perhaps with provisions making them easier for small investors to acquire -- thus the effect of a misbehaving company is to spread some of its wealth among average folk. Kindof like a fine, except someone other than the gov't can benefit from it.
If CorpLic is tied to stocks per above, that makes implementation and enforcement relatively simple, as the machinery for tracking stocks is already in place.
As to privately-held companies, I suspect the problem is not so great there, as one is answerable to the owner, not nonexistent shareholders. But another type of CorpLic could easily be worked up to fit that situation.
I agree with you. So, how to enforce it? How about a licensing scheme (akin to the Bar Association, perhaps) where if someone holds an upper-level corporate position (CEO and its kin, BoD, upper-tier management, department heads, and possibly major shareholders who also hold a position within the company), they MUST also hold a valid "corporate license". This need not be onerous or expensive to get, or even require any prerequisites, as it's really just a "Certificate of good corporate citizenship".
And if they're convicted of a corp-related offense, they should lose their CorpLic. -- with the effect that they lose their job and have to start over, climbing the corporate ladder from the bottom again. This provides both a substantial penalty (they're back on entry-level salary) and gives them a second chance, to hopefully show they've learned their lesson. Yet the company doesn't lose their expertise (if any).
Since culling evil but very highly paid executives could save some companies significant cash (and perhaps legal issues and fines), there would be at least some internal motivation to catch and punish malefactors -- making the scheme at least somewhat self-enforcing.
For even more fun and profit, create a bogus blog under the name of your most disliked teacher or principal. Enjoy watching them defend themselves once the parenting community reads that they smoke pot and enjoy a little chicken on the side.
In fact, I found myself wondering about the *legal* implications of a shcool setting itself up as law enforcement, OUTSIDE of school property.
Or do school officials see themselves as vigilantes doing citizen arrests? should they be required to *arrest* wrongdoers, thus bringing the criminal courts into the picture? Absurd, but at least that might shock a few parents into vehement protests over schools being the kid-police in non-school venues!)
What about blogs where kids yammer on about stuff that never happened, wishful thinking, etc., which may include fantasies about doing something illegal? How is the school to distinguish this from ACTUAL illegal acts? Or do they envision themselves as the thought police?
The problem is that schools have become more interested in avoiding liability than in teaching kids, and to avoid liability you have to make sure you're never "responsible" for anything the kid does... combine that with parents doing the same thing ("It's not our fault, it's that lax school!") and what do you have? a weird sort of police state where everything is controlled yet no one has responsibility for anything.
Speaking as a professional dog trainer with 36 years experience... dead on. Dogs and kids are functionally identical in how they behave and learn. Everyday love and attention are good and necessary. But you don't *praise* a dog just for breathing; praise is for *deliberately* doing good. Discouragement (painful if necessary) is for doing bad. And if you want a dog that really loves to work (ie. has high self-esteem and confidence in its own ability), you teach it that the best reward for good work is... more work! (ie. the chance to do something good *again*.)
Self-esteem cannot be GIVEN to a child. It is developed through the child's OWN accomplishments, and the knowledge that he HAS accomplished something. It's internal, not external. Fragile, yes, and easily damaged by an overbearing parent. But not something you can GIVE to the child.
In fact, trying to "give" kids self-esteem does the opposite -- the message winds up being "You suck so bad that the only way you CAN be worth anything is if I tell you so."
I've known kids who weren't even old enough to speak coherently who clearly understood the difference between reality and not-reality.
A friend's 2-year-old daughter (a middling-bright, perfectly normal child) would do things like give adults imaginary trinkets, which she would pick out of the air and lay on your open palm. Her mannerisms when doing this were obviously meant to be *mime*, quite different from when she picked up a real object and gave you that.
She also understood my game of calling a blanket the "refrigerator" and v.v. -- so if you asked her to get something FROM the fridge, she would go to the fridge and get it, but if you asked her to "get *the* fridge" she understood *that* to be the blanket. She was never confused about it -- she picked up on it the first time I did it.
When I was a little kid, we played Cowboys and Indians with our trusty six-shooters, and "killed" one another over and over, but not once did any of us confuse our toy guns with daddy's real guns (nor did any of us turn into serial killers in Real Life). Same with other toys -- we didn't try to run our toy trucks down the street, nor believe that wearing a Superman costume really gave us the ability to fly.
Reality and fantasy were quite distinct in our minds, with zero overlap, and I suspect we'd have been quite baffled by the idea that anyone COULD mistake one for the other.
And experienced web users soon learn, when presented with a 404 or other error, to hike back thru the directory structure until you hit a page that works or tells you where you wanted to be in the first place -- and when a site has crappy or absent navigation, that is often the only way to find anything.
Yet by the "you shouldn't have been looking there in the first place" theory of guilt assignment, merely looking for what was SUPPOSED to be there is enough to get you in trouble.
But in cases where a vulnerability is found by accident, it's more like walking up the door of someone you *intend* to meet for the first time, knocking on the door, and having the door swing open all by itself.
So you stick your head inside and yell "Hello, anyone home?" No answer, so you shrug and walk away... only to meet the owner coming up the sidewalk.
"Say,", you tell him, "did you know your door was open?"
And since he doesn't know you, instead of saying thanks, he yells for the cops, without even checking to see if anything is missing or broken.
This is not at all like going around *looking* for unlocked doors, but human nature tends to treat it as equally guilty of intentional wrongdoing.:(
"In addition, Russia employs the concept of compulsory copyrights, where the copyrights belong to the artist or music label, but copyright owners are required to license it to anyone who making a request."
ISTM if this were the case in America, firstly the RIAA cartel's distribution monopoly would cease to be such a flog on P2P, and second, it would encourage P2P affiliate sales, which would make everyone who cared to host files a little money, and probably make the cartels more money than they ever imagined.
I gave up on classical music in CD format, never mind MP3s, because I was so dissatisfied with how it sounds... the CD lacks all of the ambience that is part of an orchestra's personality, and the sense of depth (the sound-feel of where each instrument is in the pit) is also absent.
Example: from LP or tape, and even over fuzzy FM radio, I can ID the Chicago Symphony solely by the "ambient silence", before they play a single note, and I can also tell if they're at home or on the road. From CD, I can't.
"It costs money and time to store downloaded material- and there is *always* a chance you will lose it."
Precisely WHY if I like what I downloaded well enough to listen to it more than a few times, or view it more than once, sooner or later I go buy a hardcopy -- because I become afraid of losing the digital copy, and I want the hardcopy as a secure backup, from which I can make myself a new (and probably better quality) digital copy any time I need to.
Plus, once you're addicted to something, you get this "gotta have MY OWN COPY" thing going, and you wind up buying 'em Just Because.
Without "free samples", neither of these reasons for purchase is ever generated in the first place.
MP3s are really just a form of on-demand, all-request radio, where the listener has total control over what's played. And what's radio good for? (other than delivering advertising, that is) -- Exposing you to music you'd never hear (and never buy) otherwise.
I'd love it if MP3s all included a "where to buy the CD" link in their ID3 tags. Hell, there's an affiliate CD-sales system just waiting to be exploited, with zero advertising cost to the CD manufacturer and distributor.
Every album I've ever bought has been purchased secondary to being able to freely and repeatedly listen to UNencumbered copies, whenever and wherever the urge strikes.
In the analog era, it was taped LPs off the radio (or for us DJs, with studio equipment). In the digital era, it's MP3s that are both free (no risk) and totally portable.
Listen enough times to something I like, and I get so addicted that I want to own hardcopies of everything the musician ever recorded.
Conversely, restrict my listening, and I'll never get that chance to become addicted -- meaning you lose that hardcopy sale without even getting a chance to market your music to me. Indeed, when I haven't had access per above, my album-buying grinds to a halt.
My choice for over a decade. Reliable, competent, and lightweight.
And they've never once given me any reason to believe they're in anyone's pocket or have any hidden agendas. Just a good reliable AV solution at a minimal price.
Or have one of those setups where if you DON'T enter a passphrase every NN days, the system runs a zapper utility that nuked everything at bootup. I remember that there was something on this order commercially available for a while, and no doubt any competent virus writer could handle it.
Tho I can see how Trusted Computing could put an end to that -- not a trusted utility? no execute privileges for you!
I would say there is an expectation of an *appropriate degree of privacy*.
If I'm in my home, I expect no one else to see me.
If I'm in a street, I expect only the people on the street to see me.
Noting that there is a critical difference between being seen, and being watched.
"Invasion of privacy is a restriction of freedom."
Exactly what too many people just don't get. If the knowledge that you are under surveillance discourages you from a lawful activity, then your freedom to pursue that lawful activity is restricted. And it doesn't *matter* if this restriction occurs in public or in private.
Example: if your local library (a manifestly public place) is CCTV'd, would that discourage you from doing innocent research on some topic that you know is a magnet for Homeland Security cops?? After all, you might spend a few nights in jail before you're cleared and allowed to go home... and now perhaps forever tagged as a suspect.
Slashdot Mirror
I have several RaidMax cases, and one reason I keep buying 'em is because the edges of the metal are all beveled and/or rolled. No sharp edges. I've had cases where you didn't dare open 'em without donning leather gloves first!
Also, the PSUs RaidMax useds seem to be pretty good -- haven't had any fail. And the included fans are quiet.
Plus the sides go on/off easily.
My only gripe has been that the 3.5" drive bays have this little extra piece in the mount that interferes with the fan doodad that I like to attach to the bottom of hot-running HDs. Tho I suppose I could just mount it in the next drive bay down; there are 6 such bays, so usually some surplus space.
Corp execs are more like a doctor or lawyer than a plumber, so was thinking in terms of penalties assessed in addition to mere loss of license. As to percentage of stock they'd get "fined", some BoD members own millions of shares, which has got to be a significant chunk of the company's total shares. My idea here was to penalise malcreants in direct proportion to their vested interest in their company.
:)
Tying it to market cap might be a way to prevent other shennanigans, tho (am wondering if this might help prevent hiding stocks behind dummy owners).
As to private companies, that was my thought too -- if they misbehave, generally they just pretty much shoot themselves in the foot.
Too bad none of this will ever happen... tho if there's another big scandal, that might be a good time to suggest it to the SEC.
Applying it to publicly-held companies is likely the way to start -- indeed, it may be all that's needed, since private companies don't have the almighty stock price driving their every move -- nor legions of management who all have substantial shareholdings that in turn drive their behaviour.
:)
Which leads to this thought -- requiring a CorpLic might be applied to anyone who is both an employee and is more than a 1% shareholder. That would hit most of the management, upper-level dept. heads, and certainly the entirely BoD set, but wouldn't penalize the working joes who may hold a relatively tiny fraction of the company stock as part of their benefits package. It would also make trying to duck the CorpLic requirement difficult.
Related notion... when someone's CorpLic is revoked, they could be penalized by confiscating some or all of the stocks they own from the misbehaving company, with the percentage depending on how grievous their offense. These confiscated stocks could then be sold by the SEC, perhaps with provisions making them easier for small investors to acquire -- thus the effect of a misbehaving company is to spread some of its wealth among average folk. Kindof like a fine, except someone other than the gov't can benefit from it.
If CorpLic is tied to stocks per above, that makes implementation and enforcement relatively simple, as the machinery for tracking stocks is already in place.
As to privately-held companies, I suspect the problem is not so great there, as one is answerable to the owner, not nonexistent shareholders. But another type of CorpLic could easily be worked up to fit that situation.
(I keep typoing it "CorpLice"
Nonsense. In fact, I'll do the job on their hand myself! Want to watch??
[waving meat cleaver and chopping block]
I agree with you. So, how to enforce it? How about a licensing scheme (akin to the Bar Association, perhaps) where if someone holds an upper-level corporate position (CEO and its kin, BoD, upper-tier management, department heads, and possibly major shareholders who also hold a position within the company), they MUST also hold a valid "corporate license". This need not be onerous or expensive to get, or even require any prerequisites, as it's really just a "Certificate of good corporate citizenship".
And if they're convicted of a corp-related offense, they should lose their CorpLic. -- with the effect that they lose their job and have to start over, climbing the corporate ladder from the bottom again. This provides both a substantial penalty (they're back on entry-level salary) and gives them a second chance, to hopefully show they've learned their lesson. Yet the company doesn't lose their expertise (if any).
Since culling evil but very highly paid executives could save some companies significant cash (and perhaps legal issues and fines), there would be at least some internal motivation to catch and punish malefactors -- making the scheme at least somewhat self-enforcing.
For even more fun and profit, create a bogus blog under the name of your most disliked teacher or principal. Enjoy watching them defend themselves once the parenting community reads that they smoke pot and enjoy a little chicken on the side.
In fact, I found myself wondering about the *legal* implications of a shcool setting itself up as law enforcement, OUTSIDE of school property.
Or do school officials see themselves as vigilantes doing citizen arrests? should they be required to *arrest* wrongdoers, thus bringing the criminal courts into the picture? Absurd, but at least that might shock a few parents into vehement protests over schools being the kid-police in non-school venues!)
What about blogs where kids yammer on about stuff that never happened, wishful thinking, etc., which may include fantasies about doing something illegal? How is the school to distinguish this from ACTUAL illegal acts? Or do they envision themselves as the thought police?
The problem is that schools have become more interested in avoiding liability than in teaching kids, and to avoid liability you have to make sure you're never "responsible" for anything the kid does... combine that with parents doing the same thing ("It's not our fault, it's that lax school!") and what do you have? a weird sort of police state where everything is controlled yet no one has responsibility for anything.
If you wind up with a "stupid, barking, airheaded mutt", you have already failed the "ability to train something with the mind of a child" test.
[Speaking as a professional dog trainer with 36 years experience.]
Speaking as a professional dog trainer with 36 years experience... dead on. Dogs and kids are functionally identical in how they behave and learn. Everyday love and attention are good and necessary. But you don't *praise* a dog just for breathing; praise is for *deliberately* doing good. Discouragement (painful if necessary) is for doing bad. And if you want a dog that really loves to work (ie. has high self-esteem and confidence in its own ability), you teach it that the best reward for good work is... more work! (ie. the chance to do something good *again*.)
Self-esteem cannot be GIVEN to a child. It is developed through the child's OWN accomplishments, and the knowledge that he HAS accomplished something. It's internal, not external. Fragile, yes, and easily damaged by an overbearing parent. But not something you can GIVE to the child.
In fact, trying to "give" kids self-esteem does the opposite -- the message winds up being "You suck so bad that the only way you CAN be worth anything is if I tell you so."
I've known kids who weren't even old enough to speak coherently who clearly understood the difference between reality and not-reality.
A friend's 2-year-old daughter (a middling-bright, perfectly normal child) would do things like give adults imaginary trinkets, which she would pick out of the air and lay on your open palm. Her mannerisms when doing this were obviously meant to be *mime*, quite different from when she picked up a real object and gave you that.
She also understood my game of calling a blanket the "refrigerator" and v.v. -- so if you asked her to get something FROM the fridge, she would go to the fridge and get it, but if you asked her to "get *the* fridge" she understood *that* to be the blanket. She was never confused about it -- she picked up on it the first time I did it.
When I was a little kid, we played Cowboys and Indians with our trusty six-shooters, and "killed" one another over and over, but not once did any of us confuse our toy guns with daddy's real guns (nor did any of us turn into serial killers in Real Life). Same with other toys -- we didn't try to run our toy trucks down the street, nor believe that wearing a Superman costume really gave us the ability to fly.
Reality and fantasy were quite distinct in our minds, with zero overlap, and I suspect we'd have been quite baffled by the idea that anyone COULD mistake one for the other.
Not only that, but the telcos can make said surcharge as high as their markets will bear.
And experienced web users soon learn, when presented with a 404 or other error, to hike back thru the directory structure until you hit a page that works or tells you where you wanted to be in the first place -- and when a site has crappy or absent navigation, that is often the only way to find anything.
Yet by the "you shouldn't have been looking there in the first place" theory of guilt assignment, merely looking for what was SUPPOSED to be there is enough to get you in trouble.
But in cases where a vulnerability is found by accident, it's more like walking up the door of someone you *intend* to meet for the first time, knocking on the door, and having the door swing open all by itself.
:(
So you stick your head inside and yell "Hello, anyone home?" No answer, so you shrug and walk away... only to meet the owner coming up the sidewalk.
"Say,", you tell him, "did you know your door was open?"
And since he doesn't know you, instead of saying thanks, he yells for the cops, without even checking to see if anything is missing or broken.
This is not at all like going around *looking* for unlocked doors, but human nature tends to treat it as equally guilty of intentional wrongdoing.
And that's why if something is only available in a format that can't be backed up, I will regretfully decline to become a fan or a purchaser. :(
"In addition, Russia employs the concept of compulsory copyrights, where the copyrights belong to the artist or music label, but copyright owners are required to license it to anyone who making a request."
ISTM if this were the case in America, firstly the RIAA cartel's distribution monopoly would cease to be such a flog on P2P, and second, it would encourage P2P affiliate sales, which would make everyone who cared to host files a little money, and probably make the cartels more money than they ever imagined.
I gave up on classical music in CD format, never mind MP3s, because I was so dissatisfied with how it sounds... the CD lacks all of the ambience that is part of an orchestra's personality, and the sense of depth (the sound-feel of where each instrument is in the pit) is also absent.
:)
Example: from LP or tape, and even over fuzzy FM radio, I can ID the Chicago Symphony solely by the "ambient silence", before they play a single note, and I can also tell if they're at home or on the road. From CD, I can't.
(Yep, they are my fave orchestra.
"It costs money and time to store downloaded material- and there is *always* a chance you will
lose it."
Precisely WHY if I like what I downloaded well enough to listen to it more than a few times, or view it more than once, sooner or later I go buy a hardcopy -- because I become afraid of losing the digital copy, and I want the hardcopy as a secure backup, from which I can make myself a new (and probably better quality) digital copy any time I need to.
Plus, once you're addicted to something, you get this "gotta have MY OWN COPY" thing going, and you wind up buying 'em Just Because.
Without "free samples", neither of these reasons for purchase is ever generated in the first place.
MP3s are really just a form of on-demand, all-request radio, where the listener has total control over what's played. And what's radio good for? (other than delivering advertising, that is) -- Exposing you to music you'd never hear (and never buy) otherwise.
I'd love it if MP3s all included a "where to buy the CD" link in their ID3 tags. Hell, there's an affiliate CD-sales system just waiting to be exploited, with zero advertising cost to the CD manufacturer and distributor.
Every album I've ever bought has been purchased secondary to being able to freely and repeatedly listen to UNencumbered copies, whenever and wherever the urge strikes.
In the analog era, it was taped LPs off the radio (or for us DJs, with studio equipment). In the digital era, it's MP3s that are both free (no risk) and totally portable.
Listen enough times to something I like, and I get so addicted that I want to own hardcopies of everything the musician ever recorded.
Conversely, restrict my listening, and I'll never get that chance to become addicted -- meaning you lose that hardcopy sale without even getting a chance to market your music to me. Indeed, when I haven't had access per above, my album-buying grinds to a halt.
My choice for over a decade. Reliable, competent, and lightweight.
And they've never once given me any reason to believe they're in anyone's pocket or have any hidden agendas. Just a good reliable AV solution at a minimal price.
... OWWWWW! My kneecaps!!
Or have one of those setups where if you DON'T enter a passphrase every NN days, the system runs a zapper utility that nuked everything at bootup. I remember that there was something on this order commercially available for a while, and no doubt any competent virus writer could handle it.
Tho I can see how Trusted Computing could put an end to that -- not a trusted utility? no execute privileges for you!
At least that gives me a 50-50 chance of shooting the perp and taking HIS wallet instead... ;)
Best post of the day, hope someone mods it up.
If I'm in my home, I expect no one else to see me.
If I'm in a street, I expect only the people on the street to see me.
Noting that there is a critical difference between being seen, and being watched.
"Invasion of privacy is a restriction of freedom."
Exactly what too many people just don't get. If the knowledge that you are under surveillance discourages you from a lawful activity, then your freedom to pursue that lawful activity is restricted. And it doesn't *matter* if this restriction occurs in public or in private.
Example: if your local library (a manifestly public place) is CCTV'd, would that discourage you from doing innocent research on some topic that you know is a magnet for Homeland Security cops?? After all, you might spend a few nights in jail before you're cleared and allowed to go home... and now perhaps forever tagged as a suspect.