T(source)FA implies he used a school computer, on his own time, to tweet; and the school's tracking software flagged his tweet. If that's the case, TechDirt's fee speech argument falls apart - the school did not prevent him from tweeting, just punished him for using their equipment to do something that violated their rules; not unlike yelling the same thing out of a bus would get you in trouble. Is the punishment unreasonable? I would argue it is; unless of course anyone who utters a profanity on school property is similarly punished; even then i would find it excessive. However, using school equipment leaves him open to punishment by the school.
Now, if as per HuffPost, he did it on his own time using his own equipment; then the school is way out of line.
I'm pretty sure that's what the competition is called in the US... they don't count their video/vod streams against your monthly data cap either, do they?
I know that their competing services offered north of the border don't count... you'd blow through the monthly cap in less than a day if it did. So how is this any different? They're offering a VOD service and saying it doesn't count against your monthly cap.
What we're seeing is the second shot in the war to monetize bandwidth. the bandwidth owners don't care so much about how much is used, IMHO, as to who makes the money of the bandwidth. Being dumb pipe is a low margin game relative to that content providers can make; so they want to ensure they get a cut of that revenue as well. Caps were first put in place to get people to used to the idea that content costs money - no they can move them to their "no cap" services and get them to subscribe to the appropriate Xfinity services. That's why they own content as well as pipes and fight attempts to provide low cost alternatives - they're not worried about losing internet access subscribers as much as losing subscribers to higher value services such as HBO if they can purchase that, without worrying about caps, directly from HBO.
Gaming is obviously a hobby which a lot of people take quite seriously, but instead of trying to tap into that sense of a hobbyist community, and trying to become a hub for that (lucrative) community, they just focussed on selling as many things as possible as efficiently as possible- something they couldn't hope to win on, against their competition. Compare and contrast with Games Workshop (seller of tabletop games and models); gangs of enthusiastic hobbyists hang around in there for hours at a time, playing games against each other, organising competitions, soaking up the atmosphere. You can buy Games Workshop models cheaper online or through some of the resellers- but the flagship shop is the place to be, and so is where most people buy their stuff from.
I wonder if the video and board / miniatures gamers represent two vary different markets, because of their two very different social aspects.
Miniatures and board games almost always require an opponent and face to face play to be enjoyable; much of the fun is in the interaction and, with miniatures, seeing how others have painted them and showing off your creations. Rules are to be argued over, historical authenticity debated, and playing fields to be created. In short, it is a very social activity, much like as card games, bowling, etc. where the game is only one part of the experience.
Contrast that with video games - which often are a solitary experience or one that can be done via the internet; there is no need for everyone to be physically present to have much the same game experience. While many games can be modded, that is not the normal experience; and most games provide a preset, (generally) unchangeable set of rules that govern play. The game is the entire experience, and thus much less of a social one. As a result, getting it as cheap as possible is much more valuable than with mixtures and board games, since there is no (or little) social karma, if you will, associated with the game.
As a result, Gamer's Workshop is a mecca for those gamers (and a cool one, go there whenever I am in London); and video games are sold on shelves in whatever store thinks that can make a few bucks off of them at the register.
As for the importance of our respective footballs, is the championship game of your football season essentially a national holiday?
Yes, along with the NCAA Basketball Championship, much of March Madness, and the BCS Championship game. We also have regional holidays, such as an NASCAR Cup race in the south.
msn messages are between sender and receiver. Microsoft has a duty to encrypt these messages so that no one else can read them. No one includes Microsoft.
Not really - all their obligated to do is what is in the TOS - if you don't like that, don't use their service. It's that simple.
What next? Microsoft will start auto correcting my grammar? So that the receiver gets messages with everything spelled correctly and with correct grammar? Why not just start sending messages with what Microsoft thinks I want to say?
I hope not, based on my experiences with Word's spell and grammar checking...
Really. This should be the same as the post office. Stay the fuck out of my personal correspondence. If you can't do that, there should be a law saying you are spying and should be in jail.
Honestly people. How can you tell China that deleting content is bad when an American company is setting this type of example? I'm tired of "Do as we say, not as we do."
Maybe because in China it's a government that is doing the censoring; whereas with MS it's a private company that offers a service and associated terms of service you can accept and use the service or reject and go elsewhere? You have no right to an expectation of privacy with a commercial service; beyond that in the TOS.
The problem isn't taking care of itself. We are seeing Apple, Google and Facebook doing rearguard actions because they are afraid of regulation and lawsuits. Remove that threat, and they'll stop worrying about privacy.
Privacy aside, companies are a lot less afraid of regulation than they say, simply because regulations actually help them in several ways:
1 - The make it difficult for new companies to enter markets because of all the things that must be done, and associated costs, of complying with regulations. This is especially true for internet companies - the more it costs to comply with regulations, the harder it is for a startup to threaten established firms.
2 - Regulations can often provide a shield from lawsuits by giving companies the argument that the government has set the standards for required conduct and they've complied with them. Whether it works is another thing but it's still appoint in their favor.
3 - Regulations can also be used to limit what they need to do - whether it's revealing how the use data, what data they've collected, etc.
A few years back, a friend of mine wanted to put out a newspaper at Burning Man. It's a fairly hostile environment for computer equipment - playa dust does nasty things to laser printers. She looked around on eBay and was able to find a genuine Gestetner Mimeograph machine, and she used a manual typewriter to cut stencils.
As a side note, you can also use gelatin as the transfer medium.
The question is, how much of your own creativity is in the selection of the number sequence you base your music on.
Pi is a quite canonical choice, so there is not much creativity in it. Creativity can be put into the rules that convert pi into an actual music sheet, and this still can be copyrightable. But just because you used pi, you cannot claim copyright infringment against someone else who used pi too.
The judge could have said "He can have your 3.141592654 and eat it too"
What about the daisy wheel boogie as the wheel whirrs and hits petals while printing?
Or the chain drive chorus, where the old IBM chain drive printers ripped off lines of printing in rapid succession? Print a line of the same characters for a delightful wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp or the sequence of letters on the chain for a satisfying BANG!
It wasn't the sound of a mimeograph machine, it was the SMELL of a new math or history test -- with purple ink.
Your confusing the mimeograph processes - in which (typically) a cut stencil is created on a ribbon less typewriter. attached to a drum and then ink is forced through the stencil onto paper. You're thinking of a spirit duplicator, commonly called a ditto machine, where the ink is on the master and each copy takes some ink off until the master no longer generates a copy. A mimeograph stencil could be saved and used to run copies for as long as it physically held together.
Yes, I'm being pedantic but that's the long term result of exposure to ditto copies...
Cpu6502 will no doubt rush through the ranks as a manager because he has the usual manager capability to confuse the disease with the symptom.
Car companies often have the parking lot filled with the companies cars and NOT because of any guidelines (cars are after all privately bought by the people in production) but because the employees feel connected to the company and are proud of what they produce.
While they may be proud of what they produce , most also get a sizable company discount. For many, wallet no doubt wins over price.
MS clearly is totally unable to inspire loyalty in its employees to feel proud of what they produce and want to show it. You can then put out a guideline forcing people to show fake pride but then you are just fighting the symptom, not the disease. If MS can't even build products good enough that people who want to work for you want to have the products... they got no chance in hell of selling to the rest of us. Eat your own dog food and if you got to beat the god to get it to eat, you failed.
No, they're saying that you can't use MS funds to pay for Apple products or phone bills for non-MS phones. Not unreasonable, and quite frankly having them use their products can also result in some real world feedback on what works and what doesn't. Do employees prefer Apple products? Probably,and I'd bet it was a big enough percentage that MS decided to stop paying for competitors products. I had a friend who filled up his company car with a competitors gasoline - and got a note back, after he expensed it, from his boss saying "we don't buy non- Union 76 gas with company funds."
I do agree that the company discount argument is irrelevant and MS should see why employees prefer Apple products to their competing ones; but that is separate form putting money in a competitor's pocket.
Because I've never understood how you can patent a gene someone already had.
It would seem the SCOTUS would allow gene patents, provided they do something beyond what is already known and is sufficiently significant- so that splicing a gene from plant X onto Y at point Z to give it great protection from A' may be patentable; but it also seems that the idea of splicing genes to give greeter resistance would not be nor would splicing plant X' onto Y at point Z to give it great protection from A' necessarily violate the first patent. Then, IANAL so I 'm probably wrong on all counts.
I'm glad to see "book burning" is alive and well in America. I guess that's what the conservatives mean by restoring America.
It is. Here's what a Pastor said while introducing Rick Santorum two days ago:
"This nation was founded as a Christian nation...there's only one God and his name is Jesus. I'm tired of people telling me that I can't say those words. [...] If you don't love America and you don't like the way we do things, I've got one thing to say -- Get out! We don't worship Buddha. I said we don't worship Buddha. We don't worship Mohammed. We don't worship Allah. We worship God. We worship God's son Jesus Christ."
So there you have it. Santorum didn't object at the time, either.
His historical and theological inaccuracy aside, the ironic thing is, depending on the pastor's faith, it may very well consider Catholics, and thus Santorum, as not being true Christians, for example, due to fundamental differences in how they interpret the Bible.
The student is not to blame, even if they were looking for a way to strike out at a teacher. The blame here lies in the parent(s) who made the complaints. The parent should have made sure the complaint was legitimate.
While I agree the blame lies with the parents, it's for a different reason: some parents seek to squelch any viewpoint that does not agree with theirs; "it's pornographic" is just once of many convenient hooks to hang their argument against something they don't like. As a result, books, videos, and ideas get squashed and all the other students lose a learning opportunity. Sometimes I feel like complaining about the most innocuous things so as to have a reason to argue "you didn't ban A so how can you ban B" later on; except the sad reality is most administrators will always take the easy way out
The linux support community are a bunch of assholes. Try and post a question in a linux forum asking how to do something, you get treated like an idiot.
We expect people to do their research beforehand, act mature and use proper grammar and spelling. Unfortunately, this seems to be outside of the abilities of "most people"
Says he who fails to put a period at the end of a sentence. Seriously, what you really mean is "we expect people to be able to wade through pages of Google hits and pointless diatribes to try to find an answer to a simple question; when they can't and post it in a Linux forum, rather than simply ignoring it, we feel compelled to respond with yet another diatribe about their obvious technical incompetence."
What I find amusing is how, when someone mentions how to make Linux more popular on the desktop or advances arguments as to why it is not; Linux users immediately respond with "we don't care, it's about freedom and sharing." If they really didn't care, this thread wouldn't have 200+ responses so quickly. Deep down inside, many are hurt that people think their baby is ugly; yet they are unwilling to do things to change that perception. Until they do that, Linux will always be an after thought on the desktop; despite it's ability to do many of the things the average computer user does currently with OSX or Windows.
Voice your support for H. R. 4004 the Public Access act and ask him or her to keep HR 3699 The Research Works Act, killed in committee. Lay out reasons why it's bad to limit access to research already paid for in whole or part by tax dollars. Be thoughtful, polite, and clearly explain what the bills do and why one is good and the other bad; since you'll be speaking to some poor staffer who probably doesn’t know what the bills are. Look at what caucuses they are on and tailor a message to that - less government, unfair "tax" on people, helping [people get information, good for business, etc. If enough get calls they will take notice; even if it's just to plant the thought that their constituents like one and oppose the other.
I give 10 or 20 workshops every year around the country, and I can usually capture the interest of an audience without needing PowerPoint.
That's the key. PowerPoint is all to often a crutch, with slides that have more toner on them than whitespace and presenters that read the slides. Ditch PowerPoint. Decide what you want to say, and talk to the audience. Use a flip chart or whiteboard for drawings.
If you do use PowerPoint, use it as a memory joke. Keep slides simple - no font less than 32 point, a few bullet points; and then talk. I regularly do presentations, and a 1 hour talk will have maybe 6-8 slides max; including the cover.
People want to here what you say, so talk to them. If you want them to have a bunch of data, give them a handout they can keep.
Admittedly I have no experience with city contracts and living in a different country I don't know much about american government's procurement process but it seems to me that all their deals will be put under a microscope from now on. I wouldn't be surprised if they lost their government contracts anyway, regardless of the fine.
Fact that an actual huge multinational corporation has actually been found guilty is what gives me hope.
They technically have not been found guilty of anything. had they been tried and found guilty, then they could have been barred from receiving new contracts but a settlement doesn't do that. At best some agencies may look at this and have second thoughts; but even so it may be tough, under the FAR (Fed Acquisition Regs)*, to not award them a contract on which they are the qualified low bidder simply because of the NYC settlement.
More than likely it will have little, if any, impact on SAIC's ability to win contracts. Oteh regencies will probably chalk it up to the typical implementation spat when a s/w project has problems.
How long until the code embedded in the boarding pass is cracked? If the code is meant to be deciphered by the naked eye, it's got to be remarkably simple.
It's not - the code is read by a scanner which indicates wether you are cleared for recheck or not
About being in the line with people who know the drill... many airports have been putting up signs at the different lines - eg: This line is for "expert travelers", this line is for families, and others who need more time. Naturally, being the model of efficiency they are, these signs tend to be at the very front of the line, thus you'd have no chance of knowing which line you're in until you've been waiting in it for several minutes.
And of course, the signs are ignored as everyone goes for the shortest lines.
Slashdot Mirror
Now, if as per HuffPost, he did it on his own time using his own equipment; then the school is way out of line.
I'm pretty sure that's what the competition is called in the US... they don't count their video/vod streams against your monthly data cap either, do they?
I know that their competing services offered north of the border don't count... you'd blow through the monthly cap in less than a day if it did. So how is this any different? They're offering a VOD service and saying it doesn't count against your monthly cap.
What we're seeing is the second shot in the war to monetize bandwidth. the bandwidth owners don't care so much about how much is used, IMHO, as to who makes the money of the bandwidth. Being dumb pipe is a low margin game relative to that content providers can make; so they want to ensure they get a cut of that revenue as well. Caps were first put in place to get people to used to the idea that content costs money - no they can move them to their "no cap" services and get them to subscribe to the appropriate Xfinity services. That's why they own content as well as pipes and fight attempts to provide low cost alternatives - they're not worried about losing internet access subscribers as much as losing subscribers to higher value services such as HBO if they can purchase that, without worrying about caps, directly from HBO.
Gaming is obviously a hobby which a lot of people take quite seriously, but instead of trying to tap into that sense of a hobbyist community, and trying to become a hub for that (lucrative) community, they just focussed on selling as many things as possible as efficiently as possible- something they couldn't hope to win on, against their competition. Compare and contrast with Games Workshop (seller of tabletop games and models); gangs of enthusiastic hobbyists hang around in there for hours at a time, playing games against each other, organising competitions, soaking up the atmosphere. You can buy Games Workshop models cheaper online or through some of the resellers- but the flagship shop is the place to be, and so is where most people buy their stuff from.
I wonder if the video and board / miniatures gamers represent two vary different markets, because of their two very different social aspects.
Miniatures and board games almost always require an opponent and face to face play to be enjoyable; much of the fun is in the interaction and, with miniatures, seeing how others have painted them and showing off your creations. Rules are to be argued over, historical authenticity debated, and playing fields to be created. In short, it is a very social activity, much like as card games, bowling, etc. where the game is only one part of the experience.
Contrast that with video games - which often are a solitary experience or one that can be done via the internet; there is no need for everyone to be physically present to have much the same game experience. While many games can be modded, that is not the normal experience; and most games provide a preset, (generally) unchangeable set of rules that govern play. The game is the entire experience, and thus much less of a social one. As a result, getting it as cheap as possible is much more valuable than with mixtures and board games, since there is no (or little) social karma, if you will, associated with the game.
As a result, Gamer's Workshop is a mecca for those gamers (and a cool one, go there whenever I am in London); and video games are sold on shelves in whatever store thinks that can make a few bucks off of them at the register.
At least in the UKoGBaNI?
As for the importance of our respective footballs, is the championship game of your football season essentially a national holiday?
Yes, along with the NCAA Basketball Championship, much of March Madness, and the BCS Championship game. We also have regional holidays, such as an NASCAR Cup race in the south.
msn messages are between sender and receiver. Microsoft has a duty to encrypt these messages so that no one else can read them. No one includes Microsoft.
Not really - all their obligated to do is what is in the TOS - if you don't like that, don't use their service. It's that simple.
What next? Microsoft will start auto correcting my grammar? So that the receiver gets messages with everything spelled correctly and with correct grammar? Why not just start sending messages with what Microsoft thinks I want to say?
I hope not, based on my experiences with Word's spell and grammar checking...
Really. This should be the same as the post office. Stay the fuck out of my personal correspondence. If you can't do that, there should be a law saying you are spying and should be in jail.
Honestly people. How can you tell China that deleting content is bad when an American company is setting this type of example? I'm tired of "Do as we say, not as we do."
Maybe because in China it's a government that is doing the censoring; whereas with MS it's a private company that offers a service and associated terms of service you can accept and use the service or reject and go elsewhere? You have no right to an expectation of privacy with a commercial service; beyond that in the TOS.
The problem isn't taking care of itself. We are seeing Apple, Google and Facebook doing rearguard actions because they are afraid of regulation and lawsuits. Remove that threat, and they'll stop worrying about privacy.
Privacy aside, companies are a lot less afraid of regulation than they say, simply because regulations actually help them in several ways:
1 - The make it difficult for new companies to enter markets because of all the things that must be done, and associated costs, of complying with regulations. This is especially true for internet companies - the more it costs to comply with regulations, the harder it is for a startup to threaten established firms.
2 - Regulations can often provide a shield from lawsuits by giving companies the argument that the government has set the standards for required conduct and they've complied with them. Whether it works is another thing but it's still appoint in their favor.
3 - Regulations can also be used to limit what they need to do - whether it's revealing how the use data, what data they've collected, etc.
A few years back, a friend of mine wanted to put out a newspaper at Burning Man. It's a fairly hostile environment for computer equipment - playa dust does nasty things to laser printers. She looked around on eBay and was able to find a genuine Gestetner Mimeograph machine, and she used a manual typewriter to cut stencils.
As a side note, you can also use gelatin as the transfer medium.
If we're really being pedantic, it should be touché (with the acute accent on the final é)
To be precise, the English spelling is correct with no accent, but only a pedant would care...
The question is, how much of your own creativity is in the selection of the number sequence you base your music on. Pi is a quite canonical choice, so there is not much creativity in it. Creativity can be put into the rules that convert pi into an actual music sheet, and this still can be copyrightable. But just because you used pi, you cannot claim copyright infringment against someone else who used pi too.
The judge could have said "He can have your 3.141592654 and eat it too"
Touche...
Or the chain drive chorus, where the old IBM chain drive printers ripped off lines of printing in rapid succession? Print a line of the same characters for a delightful wrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp or the sequence of letters on the chain for a satisfying BANG!
It wasn't the sound of a mimeograph machine, it was the SMELL of a new math or history test -- with purple ink.
Your confusing the mimeograph processes - in which (typically) a cut stencil is created on a ribbon less typewriter. attached to a drum and then ink is forced through the stencil onto paper. You're thinking of a spirit duplicator, commonly called a ditto machine, where the ink is on the master and each copy takes some ink off until the master no longer generates a copy. A mimeograph stencil could be saved and used to run copies for as long as it physically held together.
Yes, I'm being pedantic but that's the long term result of exposure to ditto copies...
Cpu6502 will no doubt rush through the ranks as a manager because he has the usual manager capability to confuse the disease with the symptom.
Car companies often have the parking lot filled with the companies cars and NOT because of any guidelines (cars are after all privately bought by the people in production) but because the employees feel connected to the company and are proud of what they produce.
While they may be proud of what they produce , most also get a sizable company discount. For many, wallet no doubt wins over price.
MS clearly is totally unable to inspire loyalty in its employees to feel proud of what they produce and want to show it. You can then put out a guideline forcing people to show fake pride but then you are just fighting the symptom, not the disease. If MS can't even build products good enough that people who want to work for you want to have the products... they got no chance in hell of selling to the rest of us. Eat your own dog food and if you got to beat the god to get it to eat, you failed.
No, they're saying that you can't use MS funds to pay for Apple products or phone bills for non-MS phones. Not unreasonable, and quite frankly having them use their products can also result in some real world feedback on what works and what doesn't. Do employees prefer Apple products? Probably,and I'd bet it was a big enough percentage that MS decided to stop paying for competitors products. I had a friend who filled up his company car with a competitors gasoline - and got a note back, after he expensed it, from his boss saying "we don't buy non- Union 76 gas with company funds."
I do agree that the company discount argument is irrelevant and MS should see why employees prefer Apple products to their competing ones; but that is separate form putting money in a competitor's pocket.
Remember - A Sword cuts two ways.
Does this also cover patenting genes too?
Because I've never understood how you can patent a gene someone already had.
It would seem the SCOTUS would allow gene patents, provided they do something beyond what is already known and is sufficiently significant- so that splicing a gene from plant X onto Y at point Z to give it great protection from A' may be patentable; but it also seems that the idea of splicing genes to give greeter resistance would not be nor would splicing plant X' onto Y at point Z to give it great protection from A' necessarily violate the first patent. Then, IANAL so I 'm probably wrong on all counts.
It is. Here's what a Pastor said while introducing Rick Santorum two days ago:
So there you have it. Santorum didn't object at the time, either.
His historical and theological inaccuracy aside, the ironic thing is, depending on the pastor's faith, it may very well consider Catholics, and thus Santorum, as not being true Christians, for example, due to fundamental differences in how they interpret the Bible.
The student is not to blame, even if they were looking for a way to strike out at a teacher. The blame here lies in the parent(s) who made the complaints. The parent should have made sure the complaint was legitimate.
While I agree the blame lies with the parents, it's for a different reason: some parents seek to squelch any viewpoint that does not agree with theirs; "it's pornographic" is just once of many convenient hooks to hang their argument against something they don't like. As a result, books, videos, and ideas get squashed and all the other students lose a learning opportunity. Sometimes I feel like complaining about the most innocuous things so as to have a reason to argue "you didn't ban A so how can you ban B" later on; except the sad reality is most administrators will always take the easy way out
The linux support community are a bunch of assholes. Try and post a question in a linux forum asking how to do something, you get treated like an idiot.
We expect people to do their research beforehand, act mature and use proper grammar and spelling. Unfortunately, this seems to be outside of the abilities of "most people"
Says he who fails to put a period at the end of a sentence. Seriously, what you really mean is "we expect people to be able to wade through pages of Google hits and pointless diatribes to try to find an answer to a simple question; when they can't and post it in a Linux forum, rather than simply ignoring it, we feel compelled to respond with yet another diatribe about their obvious technical incompetence."
What I find amusing is how, when someone mentions how to make Linux more popular on the desktop or advances arguments as to why it is not; Linux users immediately respond with "we don't care, it's about freedom and sharing." If they really didn't care, this thread wouldn't have 200+ responses so quickly. Deep down inside, many are hurt that people think their baby is ugly; yet they are unwilling to do things to change that perception. Until they do that, Linux will always be an after thought on the desktop; despite it's ability to do many of the things the average computer user does currently with OSX or Windows.
Voice your support for H. R. 4004 the Public Access act and ask him or her to keep HR 3699 The Research Works Act, killed in committee. Lay out reasons why it's bad to limit access to research already paid for in whole or part by tax dollars. Be thoughtful, polite, and clearly explain what the bills do and why one is good and the other bad; since you'll be speaking to some poor staffer who probably doesn’t know what the bills are. Look at what caucuses they are on and tailor a message to that - less government, unfair "tax" on people, helping [people get information, good for business, etc. If enough get calls they will take notice; even if it's just to plant the thought that their constituents like one and oppose the other.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks.html I watched Nancy in a smaller venue but she did the same talk for TED.
+1 for Nancy. Get her book "Resonate."
I give 10 or 20 workshops every year around the country, and I can usually capture the interest of an audience without needing PowerPoint.
That's the key. PowerPoint is all to often a crutch, with slides that have more toner on them than whitespace and presenters that read the slides. Ditch PowerPoint. Decide what you want to say, and talk to the audience. Use a flip chart or whiteboard for drawings.
If you do use PowerPoint, use it as a memory joke. Keep slides simple - no font less than 32 point, a few bullet points; and then talk. I regularly do presentations, and a 1 hour talk will have maybe 6-8 slides max; including the cover.
People want to here what you say, so talk to them. If you want them to have a bunch of data, give them a handout they can keep.
Admittedly I have no experience with city contracts and living in a different country I don't know much about american government's procurement process but it seems to me that all their deals will be put under a microscope from now on. I wouldn't be surprised if they lost their government contracts anyway, regardless of the fine. Fact that an actual huge multinational corporation has actually been found guilty is what gives me hope.
They technically have not been found guilty of anything. had they been tried and found guilty, then they could have been barred from receiving new contracts but a settlement doesn't do that. At best some agencies may look at this and have second thoughts; but even so it may be tough, under the FAR (Fed Acquisition Regs)*, to not award them a contract on which they are the qualified low bidder simply because of the NYC settlement.
More than likely it will have little, if any, impact on SAIC's ability to win contracts. Oteh regencies will probably chalk it up to the typical implementation spat when a s/w project has problems.
* If you really want a sense of how Byzantine the FARs are; drop by the Defense Acquisition Portal https://dap.dau.mil/Pages/Default.aspx
How long until the code embedded in the boarding pass is cracked? If the code is meant to be deciphered by the naked eye, it's got to be remarkably simple.
It's not - the code is read by a scanner which indicates wether you are cleared for recheck or not
About being in the line with people who know the drill... many airports have been putting up signs at the different lines - eg: This line is for "expert travelers", this line is for families, and others who need more time. Naturally, being the model of efficiency they are, these signs tend to be at the very front of the line, thus you'd have no chance of knowing which line you're in until you've been waiting in it for several minutes.
And of course, the signs are ignored as everyone goes for the shortest lines.