Never agree to a source code escrow agreement that doesn't call for periodically audits of the escrow. If you don't audit the escrow, don't depend on it really existing.
It's just like doing backups - if you never test your backup, it won;t work when you need it.
No, the Russian term is cosmonaut. European languages (incl. English) and Russian share quite a few words and also tend to create words in the same way.
It doesn't work well to use the same 'rules' with Chinese (or most Asian) languages.
Taikonaut was the term coined by an American (IIRC) observer of the Chinese program. The Chinese use "Yuhangyuan" which is closer to a proper translation of astronaut.
Taikonaut was formed by taking the Chinese Chinese word for 'Space' and adding the '-onaut' ending.
Thanks for the link - it was very interesting even though it only reinforced what I already knew: 1. Libertarian Candidate (100%)
Since I've voted for the Libertarian candidate in the past three Presidental elections, it sounds like I've been doing the right thing (for me, at least).
On the reverse side, my company does not require any such statement to be signed. So, technically, I own all my code. Should make any layoffs fun around here.
If you're in the US, this is wrong. According to title 17 of the US Code, an employer owns the copyright to "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment."
If you're a consultant this doesn't hold true (but that's why contracts stipulate the ownership). If you're an employee they already hold all copyrights to everything they pay you to do.
While those are bad keyboards, the worst of all time has to be the one on the original Commodore Pet - it had tiny keys laid out in straight rows/columns and they were laid out alphabetically (not qwerty or Dvorak). If you knew anything about typing, it was painful to use!
The later versions of the Pet had standard keyboards - it made the Pet into a good, usable computer.
Microsoft EOL's their products because of the fact no one is using them, right?
Wrong. Win95 has been EOL for a while and I still know companies and people using it.
Microsoft EOL's products because they want people to stop using old versions (which isn't always a bad thing). My wife's company only decided to move off of Win95 when MS EOL'ed it.
This wasn't a bad thing. They were having many problems with Win95 but management didn't want to pay for an upgrade until they had to (if they wanted support, that is).
If he advocated that Sun open source SunOS, stating that it was a feasible option, why hasn't he done the same for BitKeeper?
Simple reason - Sun doesn't make any (or so little it doesn't matter) money selling SunOS/Solaris - it makes its money selling the hardware that runs SunOS/Solaris. Even if they Open Sourced it and people ported it to every non-Sun computer in existance, they still wouldn't lose too many sales - and they'd gain the fixes/enhancements made for free by the Open Source developers.
BitKeeper, otoh, sells software. If they Open Sourced it, they'd loose a lot (most) of the sales of their ownly product.
Different companies, different products, different focus.
My uncle was in a band who self produced 500 CDs. Not much but all accounts, but even that was only 2 bucks a CD and that included studio time, equipement rental, editing, and album cover printing. And, of course, in more bulk the price goes down.
And how much did he spend on promotion, shipping, warehousing, returns, making video's for TV, etc. These are all costs that need to be considered. Just look at the $$$ spent on promoting CD's from average bands and making seldom played videos.
Your step 3, on the other hand, requires quite a bit of attention, as you would have to go to a hardware store (in the article, they say that you don't need to buy your own key duplication machine) and say "Could you duplicate this key, except make this notch higher? Oh, and I need 5 of them. Why? Oh, no reason." I don't see any way you could get away with that.
You don't need to buy your own keep machine (or go to a store) - you just need an ordinary metal file.
A key machine is faster, but key's are easily made from blanks by hand (that's how I got 50 hours of detention back in High School...).
I've an account on Rentacoder too, and have actually done a small job. The problem is that decent work is hard to come by and harder to get paid a decent amount for.
Most of the possible gigs are nothing more then 'do my homework for $10' or 'clone a major application/website for $100.' Even on the good projects, expect to be underbid by someone living in a low-cost country offering to do it for less then US minimum wage.
What makes the Russian's Soyuz spacecraft any different than our Apollo CMs?
The only difference is that the Soyuz has been produced in the past 20 years (they still use the same technology)
The only problem with using the Apollo CM is that NASA would rather do it 'sexier' - witness the X-38 project. Instead of building simple, reliable (and cheap) Apollo-style CMs, they decided it would be better to design a ship from scratch that'd also use the largest Parasail ever.
Unfortunately, they didn;t have enough money to finish it. A slightly redesigned Apollo CM would probably have been done for less then they did spend on the X-38...
The problem is that NASA can't write-off Russia for the ISS. Russia provides the only escape system for the long-term crews (via their Soyuz spacecraft).
Without the Soyuz capsules, the ISS can't have a full-time crew since there'd be no way to leave in an emergency. With the (non)reliability of the Space Shuttle, NASA can't depend on using it for rescue mission even if they had over a week notice.
There's also the issue of the periodic reboosts the ISS needs. Right now, the Progress cargo missions also boost the ISS back up to its optimal orbit. Without the Progress, the ISS will keep getting lower and lower (until eventually it does a bad impression of the Sklab...).
If you're doing price comparisons for books, Best Book Buys can't be beat.
A search for The Java Developers Almanac v1.4 by ISBN shows that there are several shops (including my favorite, BookPool) with lower prices then Amazon.
Both series (Honor Harrington and Miles Vorkossigan) are excellent 'space operas' and I enjoy both a lot.
The best indicator is to read a bit to see if you like it. Luckily, the first two Honor Harrington books are available as free downloads on the Baen Free Library. The first book is On Basilisk Station.
It's worth checking out The Baen Free Library - it has some books that the WOH CD doesn't (but it also doesn't have all of the books that are on the CD).
Actually, there's plenty of reasons to protest them. While they're good for the American economy, they're bad for the global good. Why? They buy their beef from 3rd world nations.
Actually, look at where they purchase beef. Most of the beef served in their US stores is bought from US suppliers (and the rest is mainly bought from Australia because they can't find enough US beef that has enough fat to stay together during cooking).This is the same for most of their products & countries - they buy the products locally.
Why? Two reasons, Good PR and it usually costs less then importing them (remember, most raw food products are cheap enough that shipping would be a large percent of the costs). Also, don't forget the hassle involved with shipping food products across most national borders (or even into California).
I worked at McD's corporate HQ for several years and knew some of the purchasing people. Cost was actually the main reason, but McD is also keenly aware of their PR.
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Never agree to a source code escrow agreement that doesn't call for periodically audits of the escrow. If you don't audit the escrow, don't depend on it really existing.
It's just like doing backups - if you never test your backup, it won;t work when you need it.
No, the Russian term is cosmonaut. European languages (incl. English) and Russian share quite a few words and also tend to create words in the same way.
It doesn't work well to use the same 'rules' with Chinese (or most Asian) languages.
Taikonaut was the term coined by an American (IIRC) observer of the Chinese program. The Chinese use "Yuhangyuan" which is closer to a proper translation of astronaut.
Taikonaut was formed by taking the Chinese Chinese word for 'Space' and adding the '-onaut' ending.
I never found the word 'blog' to be confusing - just stupid.
Thanks to AOL for naming it something else instead.
Thanks for the link - it was very interesting even though it only reinforced what I already knew:
1. Libertarian Candidate (100%)
Since I've voted for the Libertarian candidate in the past three Presidental elections, it sounds like I've been doing the right thing (for me, at least).
Why didn't you send them back and get cases that met your needs? There's no reason to put up with this when they didn't meet the specs.
Sometimes rolling over and playing dead isn't the best way to handle business transactions...
2 words: Galactica 1980
In a word: duh!
The later versions of the Pet had standard keyboards - it made the Pet into a good, usable computer.
Microsoft EOL's products because they want people to stop using old versions (which isn't always a bad thing). My wife's company only decided to move off of Win95 when MS EOL'ed it.
This wasn't a bad thing. They were having many problems with Win95 but management didn't want to pay for an upgrade until they had to (if they wanted support, that is).
BitKeeper, otoh, sells software. If they Open Sourced it, they'd loose a lot (most) of the sales of their ownly product.
Different companies, different products, different focus.
A key machine is faster, but key's are easily made from blanks by hand (that's how I got 50 hours of detention back in High School...).
I've an account on Rentacoder too, and have actually done a small job. The problem is that decent work is hard to come by and harder to get paid a decent amount for.
Most of the possible gigs are nothing more then 'do my homework for $10' or 'clone a major application/website for $100.' Even on the good projects, expect to be underbid by someone living in a low-cost country offering to do it for less then US minimum wage.
The only difference is that the Soyuz has been produced in the past 20 years (they still use the same technology)
The only problem with using the Apollo CM is that NASA would rather do it 'sexier' - witness the X-38 project. Instead of building simple, reliable (and cheap) Apollo-style CMs, they decided it would be better to design a ship from scratch that'd also use the largest Parasail ever.
Unfortunately, they didn;t have enough money to finish it. A slightly redesigned Apollo CM would probably have been done for less then they did spend on the X-38...
Without the Soyuz capsules, the ISS can't have a full-time crew since there'd be no way to leave in an emergency. With the (non)reliability of the Space Shuttle, NASA can't depend on using it for rescue mission even if they had over a week notice.
There's also the issue of the periodic reboosts the ISS needs. Right now, the Progress cargo missions also boost the ISS back up to its optimal orbit. Without the Progress, the ISS will keep getting lower and lower (until eventually it does a bad impression of the Sklab...).
A search for The Java Developers Almanac v1.4 by ISBN shows that there are several shops (including my favorite, BookPool) with lower prices then Amazon.
It's worth checking out The Baen Free Library - it has some books that the WOH CD doesn't (but it also doesn't have all of the books that are on the CD).
Why? Two reasons, Good PR and it usually costs less then importing them (remember, most raw food products are cheap enough that shipping would be a large percent of the costs). Also, don't forget the hassle involved with shipping food products across most national borders (or even into California).
I worked at McD's corporate HQ for several years and knew some of the purchasing people. Cost was actually the main reason, but McD is also keenly aware of their PR.