Actually, one of the things left at each landing site (besides "space junk") was a reflector. Since the landings, these have been used to make increasingly precise measurments of how far the moon is from earth by bouncing what amounts to a laser rangefinder off of the various reflectors. So there actually is something at each landing site that can be seen from earth.
I wonder, how hard it would be to actually hit one of these and then be able to see the reflected flash? The fact that the experiment would only work if the laser were aimed fairly precisely at one of the landing sites would somewhat be proof that something had been left there although the real conspirialists would probably say we chose the supposed landing sites because they were near a natural reflector that no one had noticed before.
Elvis, I told you to keep quiet. Now get back to Graceland before somebody notices that you're not dead. If you're good, we'll borrow one of the black helicopters and slip down to Dallas and catch some rays on the grassy knoll right after I get back from my next trip to Area 51. Who knows, we might even see the woman in the red dress again.
Ah yes, and the Wright brothers failed because their flyer wasn't a 747 or a Concorde.
Get real. You develop a complicated system a piece at a time and you test the pieces as you develop them. You bring several pieces together in a "technology demonstrator" and then, maybe, just maybe, you move on to a prototype and only if that works do you develop a fieldable system. You are using the criteria for a multiple fieldable systems to criticize the demonstration of a component and, on top of that, you are criticizing said system because it may not be able to do something its not intended to do. Shheeeessh. I suppose you also don't like seatbelts in your car because they won't save your sorry behind if someone fires an anti-tank missle at you.
I haven't heard a single missle defense person claim we're safe now. We're just a little further down the road to maybe developing a system that might be able to keep us safe from a specific threat.
Patents claims are vulnerable when there is either prior art or they are being applied where they shouldn't be. My guess would be that at least one of these two cases (and maybe both) applies to the PanIP claim. So does anyone out there in/. land want to go try to find examples of "prior art" (web commerce sites established prior to the PanIP patent) or read the actual patent and provide a technical "white paper" to the folks at www.youmaybenext.com that shows why the PanIP patent doesn't apply to a web based e-commerce site? I vaguely remember reading some of the patent when this issue was previously posted and thought that the pataent granted sounded more like something fo a point of sale system not web based e-commerce. Anyone have links to the actual patents?
I do so enjoy it, when people comment without reading the articles first.
But that's the slashdot way!
It QUTIE clearly says, that in order to get on board with this plan, states have to harmonize their sales tax regimes. So that the state, and local taxes are the same.
That's about as likely as slashdot readers reading the article. You're talking about something that comes between politicians and money. That's like coming between a momma bear and her cub only the bear doesn't pretend that you like what she does to you because its "for you're own good."
I've been using Mozilla with Everbank since about 0.9.6 or so. They don't "officially" support it but it works fine for all of my on-line banking (EFT/bill pay, statement management, etc.). Great interest rates, too. If you're looking for an on-line bank, I highly recommend them.
Gee, I'd rather not kill trees in order to write checks and Mozilla's SSL works just fine for securing the transactions. I save time, postage, trees and gasoline by banking on-line. Plus, I don't have to worry about my cheques being stolen from my mailbox.
When I used to have a "brick and mortar" bank, I'd go for years without interacting with a live person because I used the ATM for most of my transactions and I've had autodeposit of pay checks since the early 80s. In addition to being convenient, my on-line bank's (www.everbank.com) interest pays in the top 5% of banks since they don't have to pay a bunch of tellers and suits to stand around nor pay for physical security since they have no cash.
1980 to 1981 - Missile Applicatiopn Program - Timing and Resolution: optimize launch times for ICBMs and SLBMs to minize launch interval and probability of conflicting arrival. (IBM FORTRAN) 1981 to 1982 - Missile Application Program - MIRV Domain Generation: provide interactive planning tool for assigning MIRVed missiles to targets. (IBM FORTRAN) 1983 (early) - Can't talk about it but FORTRAN 1983 - 1985 - Over-the-horizon Backscatter (OTH-B) Radar: Track History Programs (DEC FORTRAN 77) 1985 - 1987 - Relocatable Over-the-horizon Radar (ROTH-R): Detection and Tracking related programs (DEC FORTRAN 77)
Fortran is NOT the same language as in prior decades. Some differences:
Fortran77 and earlier where made for punchcard machines. Incorrect indentation caued lines to be treated as comments, variable declarations or something other than what was intended.
For the same reason, anything past character 73 was a comment in Fortran77.
Fortran allows dynamic memory allocation nowdays.
Global variables don't use the hideous common block
Gee, I used FORTRAN 77 on VAXes through most of the early to mid 80s and we:
Didn't use punch cards: VT100s baby
Only comments and statement numbers had fixed columns: you're thinking of FORTRAN IV.
Clarification: 1 through 72 code, 73 through 80 were comments.
Dynamic memory allocation existed as a DEC extension to VAX FORTRAN. Lots of other hardware manufacturers provided the same capability, it just wasn't standard.
...and explain to me the difference between a global variable and a variable in a common block.
Also, last I checked (admitedly a while ago), FORTRAN under Linux gcc was translated to C for compilation.
The original quote appeared in an issue of Scientific American that came out in the late 1990s. The article was on, you guessed it, the amazing longevity of FORTRAN. The bottom line is that there are a fantastic number of huge FORTRAN libraries out in the real world for doing all sorts of number crunching. The libraries are well understood, any bad behavior at boundary conditions is documented and they have a lot of milage on them so the results are generally regarded as valid. It makes far more sense to keep something called FORTRAN around that is compatible with this code than is does to attempt to re-write and re-test.
Oh, and no one cares that there isn't a pretty GUI interface to programs for analyzing structural stress, heat flow analysis, doing x-ray crystalography, etc.
BTW, the first link is to an article on Netscape.com. I guess their department of redundancy department decided it should be netscape.com.com. At least the link works.
And when they open the next doors they will find a large space extending beyond the outer walls of the pyramid! It contains the answer to life, the universe and everything, written in hyroglyphics all over it's walls...
unfortunately, this data miner will have next to nothing to do with people entering the country. it can only mine data on individuals for whom data is available, that is, citizens and residents flying within and out of the country.
Bingo. Give that man a ceeegar!
The system isn't about identifying terrorists so much as identifying who IS NOT a terrorist. Maybe this way we can stop doing extended searches of little old ladies and teeny boppers in the name of "Political Correctness". Lord knows we'd rather not single out for search young men from Flyspecistan who paid cash for one way tickets and who have otherwise never flown before. That would be "profiling."
I would guess that the system would be weighted such that someone who flies alot, paid with a well used credit card or corporate billing account, has an extensive credit history (implies they've been "in existence" for a while) and/or doesn't fit a large number of other characteristics will get "approved" and people who don't hit on enough of these will get the same treatment they're getting now. A few people with enough "negative points" will be non-randomly extensively searched. A "failure" would typically only mean that someone who doesn't need much "security attention" isn't identified and has to go through the regular process.
What this primarily does is make it so that business people in particular and a bunch of people who are fairly obviously not a threat can be given less attention by the airport security apparatus without incurring the wrath of the Political Correctness folks. Like it or not, a lot of the people who will fit the "don't worry about" criteria will be white, middle and upper class types and a lot of the people who fit the extra search criteria will be minorities. This is simply a result of existing demographics but would be more than enough to cause someone to yell, "Profiling."
(this should pretty thoroughly blow any karma I've accumulated).
A non-disclosure/non-compete agreement can not be construed as making it impossible for you to work "in your chosen profession." Example: a doctor leaves a pratice and signs a non-compete agreement: he/she shouldn't open a clinic across the street from his/her previous employer but he/she is only trained to pratice a particular type of medicine. The agreement cannot keep him/her from working in his/her specialty or force him/her to relocate.
This brings up the next step: You would need to disclose the existence of the agreement to anyone hiring you since they would potentially also be liable however; the further their business is from that of your about to be previous employer would make any attempt to sue unlikely to win. Note: law suits are about who has the best lawyer so a big company might not be a bad idea if you can go that route.
Final point: this is a civil matter; not criminal. Your previous employer has to bring suit against you and/or your next employer to make it stick. If you go to work for their direct competitor doing essentially the same work and almost invariably using your knowledge of their product against them, they can undoubtedly make it stick. Go to work for somebody who does something different (albeit, using software) and chances are they can't make it stick.
Actually, that wasn't final... you can also see what happens if you make a counter proposal that just says you won't work for a competitor. It might work and, if not, it makes your case stronger if you go to somebody and get sued.
I'm currently doing battle with the Quintessentially Worst Example of a Stupid Telco (bet you didn't know that Qwest was an accronym!) to get them to let a Covad reseller provide me with sDSL since they can't/won't. Needless to say, the last thing Qwest wants is a "competitor" even where they aren't competing.
A vague memory from when I took German in college (@ 1977): the instructor (a native German name Claudia) noted that in Germany at the time, all of the commercials were collected together rather than interupting the show. This meant that the advertisers went to some lengths to make their ads interesting and entertaining. A really simple solution but with a pretty profound effects. The five minutes or so of ads were more than long enough to do something else so, according to Claudia, the advertisers came up with some very inventive ways of keeping the audience to the point where some of the ads were better than the drivel.
Re:choice / customization is a *GOOD* thing
on
KDE Gets The Hat
·
· Score: 5, Funny
This is far too reasonable of a response. Who are you and what are you doing posting on slashdot?
I usually describe myself as a "Randian" rather then "Libertarian" for this and other reasons. Too many people seem to equate Libertarianism with Anarchism. What I find sad but still somewhat humorous is that the people who do this are both those who describe themselves as "Libertarians" and those who are opposed to "Libertarianism".
I've also tried using "19th century liberal" to describe my politco/economic beliefs but this seems to just confuse even more people.
Suggest that you read (or re-read) "Atlas Shrugged" for a really good exposition of how IP != government backed monopolies.
The issue is that some people, either as individuals or as part of a corporation, try to exploit existing laws and/or influence new laws to their specific benefit. This includes no only IP laws such as copyright and patent laws but also any other law (or lawmaker) that they can subvert for their own advantage. If you want an example of this, I suggest you research the restrictions that were placed on Southwest Airlines when they decided to operate out of Love Field rather than pay the fees that were required to operate out of Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. I'm sure Rep. Jim Wright would still insist that these restrictions are "in the public interest" as Southwest continues to make money while the airlines that lobbied for the restrictions are barely staying out of bankruptcy.
IP law is not the problem. Politicians making laws that benefit the few at the expense of the many in return for campaign contributions are the problem. I'm not saying that changes aren't needed in the IP laws but I don't see the legal concept of IP (both of individuals and corporations) going away. Again, read "Atlas Shrugged" for what this would mean.... and it ain't pretty.
1) I keep suggesting that McDonald's, etc. put a shrinkwrap type license on their coffee and other hot beverages stating something like:, "By openning this container the consumer acknowledges that the contents are hot and may cause injury if spilled." Although, they'd probably have to use really fine print if they used the same idea for all of their food with something like, "The consumer acknoledges that fast food can make you fat."
2) Actually, the second example in Ed's column wasn't all that bad. Someone had also sent him a membership directory that had a restrive use clause. If the restriction was something like, "...only for personal, private or professional use within the organization...", I don't think I'd complain. That says that somebody using the directory for spamming could get busted for violating the use restriction. Might be interesting to add something like that a web site that has contact information.
Slashdot Mirror
I'll just declare the funky looking stuff in the back of the fridge to be "compost."
Actually, one of the things left at each landing site (besides "space junk") was a reflector. Since the landings, these have been used to make increasingly precise measurments of how far the moon is from earth by bouncing what amounts to a laser rangefinder off of the various reflectors. So there actually is something at each landing site that can be seen from earth.
I wonder, how hard it would be to actually hit one of these and then be able to see the reflected flash? The fact that the experiment would only work if the laser were aimed fairly precisely at one of the landing sites would somewhat be proof that something had been left there although the real conspirialists would probably say we chose the supposed landing sites because they were near a natural reflector that no one had noticed before.
Complete instructions on how to make your own aluminum foil deflector beanie.
But the complete lack of evidence of the conspiracy simply proves how well its working!
Elvis, I told you to keep quiet. Now get back to Graceland before somebody notices that you're not dead. If you're good, we'll borrow one of the black helicopters and slip down to Dallas and catch some rays on the grassy knoll right after I get back from my next trip to Area 51. Who knows, we might even see the woman in the red dress again.
Ah yes, and the Wright brothers failed because their flyer wasn't a 747 or a Concorde.
Get real. You develop a complicated system a piece at a time and you test the pieces as you develop them. You bring several pieces together in a "technology demonstrator" and then, maybe, just maybe, you move on to a prototype and only if that works do you develop a fieldable system. You are using the criteria for a multiple fieldable systems to criticize the demonstration of a component and, on top of that, you are criticizing said system because it may not be able to do something its not intended to do. Shheeeessh. I suppose you also don't like seatbelts in your car because they won't save your sorry behind if someone fires an anti-tank missle at you.
I haven't heard a single missle defense person claim we're safe now. We're just a little further down the road to maybe developing a system that might be able to keep us safe from a specific threat.
Patents claims are vulnerable when there is either prior art or they are being applied where they shouldn't be. My guess would be that at least one of these two cases (and maybe both) applies to the PanIP claim. So does anyone out there in /. land want to go try to find examples of "prior art" (web commerce sites established prior to the PanIP patent) or read the actual patent and provide a technical "white paper" to the folks at www.youmaybenext.com that shows why the PanIP patent doesn't apply to a web based e-commerce site? I vaguely remember reading some of the patent when this issue was previously posted and thought that the pataent granted sounded more like something fo a point of sale system not web based e-commerce. Anyone have links to the actual patents?
I've been using Mozilla with Everbank since about 0.9.6 or so. They don't "officially" support it but it works fine for all of my on-line banking (EFT/bill pay, statement management, etc.). Great interest rates, too. If you're looking for an on-line bank, I highly recommend them.
Gee, I'd rather not kill trees in order to write checks and Mozilla's SSL works just fine for securing the transactions. I save time, postage, trees and gasoline by banking on-line. Plus, I don't have to worry about my cheques being stolen from my mailbox.
When I used to have a "brick and mortar" bank, I'd go for years without interacting with a live person because I used the ATM for most of my transactions and I've had autodeposit of pay checks since the early 80s. In addition to being convenient, my on-line bank's (www.everbank.com) interest pays in the top 5% of banks since they don't have to pay a bunch of tellers and suits to stand around nor pay for physical security since they have no cash.
Its probably more appropriate to tell it to:
C Tell FORTRAN to goto Hell
goto 666
or if you're into phone keypads:
goto 4335
Excised from my resume long ago:
1980 to 1981 - Missile Applicatiopn Program - Timing and Resolution: optimize launch times for ICBMs and SLBMs to minize launch interval and probability of conflicting arrival. (IBM FORTRAN)
1981 to 1982 - Missile Application Program - MIRV Domain Generation: provide interactive planning tool for assigning MIRVed missiles to targets. (IBM FORTRAN)
1983 (early) - Can't talk about it but FORTRAN
1983 - 1985 - Over-the-horizon Backscatter (OTH-B) Radar: Track History Programs (DEC FORTRAN 77)
1985 - 1987 - Relocatable Over-the-horizon Radar (ROTH-R): Detection and Tracking related programs (DEC FORTRAN 77)
Then I got to start writing stuff using Ada.
- Didn't use punch cards: VT100s baby
- Only comments and statement numbers had fixed columns: you're thinking of FORTRAN IV.
- Clarification: 1 through 72 code, 73 through 80 were comments.
- Dynamic memory allocation existed as a DEC extension to VAX FORTRAN. Lots of other hardware manufacturers provided the same capability, it just wasn't standard.
- ...and explain to me the difference between a global variable and a variable in a common block.
Also, last I checked (admitedly a while ago), FORTRAN under Linux gcc was translated to C for compilation.The original quote appeared in an issue of Scientific American that came out in the late 1990s. The article was on, you guessed it, the amazing longevity of FORTRAN. The bottom line is that there are a fantastic number of huge FORTRAN libraries out in the real world for doing all sorts of number crunching. The libraries are well understood, any bad behavior at boundary conditions is documented and they have a lot of milage on them so the results are generally regarded as valid. It makes far more sense to keep something called FORTRAN around that is compatible with this code than is does to attempt to re-write and re-test.
Oh, and no one cares that there isn't a pretty GUI interface to programs for analyzing structural stress, heat flow analysis, doing x-ray crystalography, etc.
An actual article here on ZDnet. It actually provides some background and some additional instances.
BTW, the first link is to an article on Netscape.com. I guess their department of redundancy department decided it should be netscape.com.com. At least the link works.
Bingo. Give that man a ceeegar!
The system isn't about identifying terrorists so much as identifying who IS NOT a terrorist. Maybe this way we can stop doing extended searches of little old ladies and teeny boppers in the name of "Political Correctness". Lord knows we'd rather not single out for search young men from Flyspecistan who paid cash for one way tickets and who have otherwise never flown before. That would be "profiling."
I would guess that the system would be weighted such that someone who flies alot, paid with a well used credit card or corporate billing account, has an extensive credit history (implies they've been "in existence" for a while) and/or doesn't fit a large number of other characteristics will get "approved" and people who don't hit on enough of these will get the same treatment they're getting now. A few people with enough "negative points" will be non-randomly extensively searched. A "failure" would typically only mean that someone who doesn't need much "security attention" isn't identified and has to go through the regular process.
What this primarily does is make it so that business people in particular and a bunch of people who are fairly obviously not a threat can be given less attention by the airport security apparatus without incurring the wrath of the Political Correctness folks. Like it or not, a lot of the people who will fit the "don't worry about" criteria will be white, middle and upper class types and a lot of the people who fit the extra search criteria will be minorities. This is simply a result of existing demographics but would be more than enough to cause someone to yell, "Profiling."
(this should pretty thoroughly blow any karma I've accumulated).
A non-disclosure/non-compete agreement can not be construed as making it impossible for you to work "in your chosen profession." Example: a doctor leaves a pratice and signs a non-compete agreement: he/she shouldn't open a clinic across the street from his/her previous employer but he/she is only trained to pratice a particular type of medicine. The agreement cannot keep him/her from working in his/her specialty or force him/her to relocate.
This brings up the next step: You would need to disclose the existence of the agreement to anyone hiring you since they would potentially also be liable however; the further their business is from that of your about to be previous employer would make any attempt to sue unlikely to win. Note: law suits are about who has the best lawyer so a big company might not be a bad idea if you can go that route.
Final point: this is a civil matter; not criminal. Your previous employer has to bring suit against you and/or your next employer to make it stick. If you go to work for their direct competitor doing essentially the same work and almost invariably using your knowledge of their product against them, they can undoubtedly make it stick. Go to work for somebody who does something different (albeit, using software) and chances are they can't make it stick.
Actually, that wasn't final... you can also see what happens if you make a counter proposal that just says you won't work for a competitor. It might work and, if not, it makes your case stronger if you go to somebody and get sued.
BTW, IANAL and IANAC (I am not a Cannuck)
I'm currently doing battle with the Quintessentially Worst Example of a Stupid Telco (bet you didn't know that Qwest was an accronym!) to get them to let a Covad reseller provide me with sDSL since they can't/won't. Needless to say, the last thing Qwest wants is a "competitor" even where they aren't competing.
A vague memory from when I took German in college (@ 1977): the instructor (a native German name Claudia) noted that in Germany at the time, all of the commercials were collected together rather than interupting the show. This meant that the advertisers went to some lengths to make their ads interesting and entertaining. A really simple solution but with a pretty profound effects. The five minutes or so of ads were more than long enough to do something else so, according to Claudia, the advertisers came up with some very inventive ways of keeping the audience to the point where some of the ads were better than the drivel.
This is far too reasonable of a response. Who are you and what are you doing posting on slashdot?
I usually describe myself as a "Randian" rather then "Libertarian" for this and other reasons. Too many people seem to equate Libertarianism with Anarchism. What I find sad but still somewhat humorous is that the people who do this are both those who describe themselves as "Libertarians" and those who are opposed to "Libertarianism".
I've also tried using "19th century liberal" to describe my politco/economic beliefs but this seems to just confuse even more people.
Suggest that you read (or re-read) "Atlas Shrugged" for a really good exposition of how IP != government backed monopolies.
The issue is that some people, either as individuals or as part of a corporation, try to exploit existing laws and/or influence new laws to their specific benefit. This includes no only IP laws such as copyright and patent laws but also any other law (or lawmaker) that they can subvert for their own advantage. If you want an example of this, I suggest you research the restrictions that were placed on Southwest Airlines when they decided to operate out of Love Field rather than pay the fees that were required to operate out of Dallas-Ft. Worth airport. I'm sure Rep. Jim Wright would still insist that these restrictions are "in the public interest" as Southwest continues to make money while the airlines that lobbied for the restrictions are barely staying out of bankruptcy.
IP law is not the problem. Politicians making laws that benefit the few at the expense of the many in return for campaign contributions are the problem. I'm not saying that changes aren't needed in the IP laws but I don't see the legal concept of IP (both of individuals and corporations) going away. Again, read "Atlas Shrugged" for what this would mean.... and it ain't pretty.
1) I keep suggesting that McDonald's, etc. put a shrinkwrap type license on their coffee and other hot beverages stating something like:, "By openning this container the consumer acknowledges that the contents are hot and may cause injury if spilled." Although, they'd probably have to use really fine print if they used the same idea for all of their food with something like, "The consumer acknoledges that fast food can make you fat."
2) Actually, the second example in Ed's column wasn't all that bad. Someone had also sent him a membership directory that had a restrive use clause. If the restriction was something like, "...only for personal, private or professional use within the organization...", I don't think I'd complain. That says that somebody using the directory for spamming could get busted for violating the use restriction. Might be interesting to add something like that a web site that has contact information.
I resemble that remark!
(PROUDLY)