coke-bottle, generally, refers to thickness. Technically speaking coke-bottle is the effect you get from stong near-sighted...
The coke-bottle tickness for glasses can now be much reduced by using high-densidy (and now even ultra-high-density) glass/plastics which have a (much) higher than normal refraction index, The higher refraction index means that you don't need as sharp a curve (and, thus thickness) to achieve the needed focus correction.
A you get older, your ability to change focus for various distances reduces, and so multi-focal lenses start to become valuable. When you first get them, they suck, but as your focus ability declines, they can become more useful. Bifocals (and, similarly progressives) are meant to give you easy access to reading at short (book) distances. Progressive lenses have two advantages over regular bi/tri focals:
you can focus at ANY distance by choosing how low in the progressive field you place the prime focal point, and
they look nicer (they make it less obvious that you are now old enough to need bifocals.
The problem with progressive is that (as pointed out), they have a smaller sharp-focus field, at any distance, and they take more getting used to. (once you get used to them, they are, actually, pretty useful for a lot of things)
One problem for computer users is that -- especially for desktop uses, we often are reading at mid distances -- neither far focus nor book distances. This is outside the historical "Best Practice" for the optometric profession. The first time my mom 'surprised' me with progressive lenses, we had a long talk about how my distances were not 'normal'.
What I would suggest doing is talking to your optometrist about the standard distances you encounter at work. (use a tape measure and actually MEASURE the distances), then come up with a bifocal pair for those> distances... having some hard numbers will also make it a bit easier for your optometrist to determine whether multi-focal lenses are even a good idea. This would probably also mean talking to a real optometrist, and not just an optician (essentially just an optical technician).
The probable best result (my guess) would be two pairs of glasses -- one set for work distances, and another set for 'normal' uses. If you go that path, you might want consider avoiding the 'pretty' stuff for the 'work' pair (i.e. don't bother with really high density glass, or anti-reflection coatings) It'll make the second pair that much cheaper.
Although I have generic sympathy for people being dicked around by an uncaring corporation, we're talking drunk drivers here. According to MADD, each year, Drunk drivers kill just over 10,000 Americans. In other words, Drunk drivers killed more innocent Americans in the last 4 months, than Al Quaida and the Taliban killed in the last decade (yeah, you can throw ISIS into that mix as well).
In all honesty, the biggest problem I have with the way that these companies (this company?) dicks people around is that they don't advertise it as a feature. Part of the reason why these machines are so finicky is that they have to be to keep people from gaming the system. The rest, I'll just put down to karma.
Seriously: You don't want to be dicked around by this system?
DON'T FUCKING DRINK AND DRIVE!!!
You have a death wish, then play russian roulette -- but don't bring innocent women and children into the game. ; You don't care about putting innocent lives at risk? Don't expect me to get all teary-eyed when it's your life that gets messed with -- at least its' not an innocent life being affected.
Sorry to be such a dick about this, but sometimes it takes people being a dick to shock drunk drivers out of their petty little world, and into thinking about the effects of their actions.
DUIs kill innocent people, so I'd say "Karma's a bitch". Pharmacists can also kill people if they fill prescriptions wrong -- or just fill a wrong prescription -- so I'm more upset reading what some chain pharmacists have to say (in that same thread) about how they're told to 'do' their job by beancounters.
People can die, end up in Intensive care or just plain psychotic as a result of a prescription mix-up. Pharmacists are the last line of defense against that happening. When a pharmacist is forced to fill prescriptions on very tight time limits, they stop being a line of defense against such problems and really end up being a potential source of problems on their own. Pharmacists are a profession for a reason -- turning them into pill-counters is a recipe for death and disaster.
with a dozen old voicemails lying un-listened to on my cell phone. I'm an over-50, So I guess that i'm one of those who is schizophrenic about voicemail.
big companies don't want to deliver to poor communiies -- period.
"We'll give your community 'internet service', but you're only allowed to use MSN" Isn't my idea of of improved service.
If you want to improve service, then stop banning communities from putting together their own ISP's. If AT+T doesn't want to service the South Bronx, then the South Bronx Community Association should be able to run it's own community internet service.
It seems to me that the next step would be to find a way to activate and release gratings electronicall (or, even better -- optically) , rather than physically.
Sec. 1519. Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy
``Whoever knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the investigation or proper administration of any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States or any case filed under title 11, or in relation to or contemplation of any such matter or case, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
The grouper was a tangible object which was evidence of an offense committed in the course of a federally regulated commercial activity. It was concealed in the ocean and/or falsified (the bigger fish was falsely represented as the offending fish) with the intent of frustrating the investigation for which they were explicitly entrusted with the evidence.
It's also not uncommon to have an offense covered by more than one statute. If I shoot someone in the head, that could qualify as either criminal negligence, aggravated assault or attempted murder (among others), depending on the related evidence and/or the mood of the prosecutor. Which statute the crime is prosecuted under is not the choice of the accused.
The mines and plantations are mostly owned by foreign interests, so the bulk of the profits flow out of the country. The IMF and World Bank make it almost impossible to nationalize the local companies.
It's a long, and sortid process.. The reason why Haiti is so poor is that France forced them to pay billions of dollars (in todays terms) in damages for the loss of their 'property' (i.e. freeing themselves from slavery). They ended up deforesting the country to pay for their freedom, and they haven;t really recovered since. It sucks to be a colonial serf.
..... . As such, the lesson taught was very much a "just don't get caught next time" one.
Who even cares about getting caught... They still got skilled technical work done at <10% above the local minimum wage. No matter how you spin it, it was still a massive deal.
Telling people (including 'enemies') which 'leaks' were authorized and which ones were really leaks could give people all sorts of interesting information -- including which disinformation^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H leaks to trust and which ones not to.
Higher levels of data capture should require more than just 'permission'. It should require explicit user actions. Just because MS is technically capable of recording pictures of you "testing" their program in the nude (or with your spouse nude in the background) doesn't mean that they actually need to do it or should do it.
The capability should remain off until such time as the user decides that (s)he wants to enable it -- and then only until the user turns it off (My preference would be to see it turn itself off after a certain period of time in the absence of user action.
Wording is very important:
'Turn it off' or 'remove it'?
It should also be noted that they promise to add/remove features all the time. This doesn't necessarily mean that they will also do it.
Besides -- if there really is a need to turn on keylogging and video capture, it should be under the explicit control of the user and only for as long as the user enables it for debugging purposes.
There is. of course, the problem that if the data is there, it makes life SOOOO Much easier on a malware author who no longer needs to install a key logger.. All they need to do is transmit the pre-existing keylogger 'debug' file to their C+C site to extract a (test) user's banking and password information.
Straightforward, for the most part. A Pi would be more than enough power because it doesn't need to process a full gigabit worth of traffic... just the 100M that's going to wireless N.... and if you're not also using it as your edge router, then you don't have to load it for bear, security-wise.because any potential attackers afe going to have to find their way within a stones ghrow of your outer.
Since mitochondrial DNA is passed on by the mother, this means that it's still possible that some guy's going around getting bears, dogs and horses pregnant. The human DNA match, of course would be from a woman getting pregnant by a bear.
They essentially 'lit up' the asteroid with an artificial light source, and then took the pictures.
Although, it seems to me that -- if they had used both recieving dishes at the same time, we might have gotten some useful stereo images. Why didn't they do that?
Nobody was seriously inerested in forking it... But the OpenBSD people have now gotten their claws into it, and chances are it's gonna be fixed bigtime.... or else!.
The problem was found because the code was Open Source. If it had been closed source, then the bug would still be secret. To the extent to which the bug was recognized (or commissioned) and exploited by the likes of the NSA, it would have probably remained secret for a lot longer.
According to Microsoft's EULA, for example, finding -- much less fixing -- such a bug is illegal. If the NSA had paid them to put such a bug into the Windows version of SSL, then it would probably remain unpatched for years after someone had pointed it out to them as an exploitable bug.,, and anybody openly reporting such a bug, even after 6 months of trying to get MS to fix it, would be roundly criticized for disclosing the bug 'prematurely'.
Even then, it would probably not be fixed by Microsoft until at least the next monthly bug release cycle (or even the one after that.
With the code being Open Source, the problem got fixed faster than yesterday. Period. If the OpenSSL people refused to fix it, then it would have been forked.... and more to the point: Such a security-centric fork would have been legal.
.. and that is the power and freedom of Free, and Open Source software.
If you don't get the sarcasm of the post (especially the 'doubleplus good' reference), then try reading George Orwell's 1984. Pay special attention to the section on NewSpeak.
Even if it turns out that those terms are not enforcable, you might be forced to spend thousands of dollars to defend your right to not do what you contractually agree to do by signing that contract.
I think that it could be said that, if they threaten punish you for not signing on to this contract, they are unilaterally changing the terms of your employment in a very nasty way. Talk to a lawyer about this.. You might have grounds for a constructive dismissal suit, because I don't think that any sane person would sign onto a contract like that without lots and lots of money up front.
The other thing to remember, is that everything is negotiable -- but be warned... if you actually negotiate with them starting with this contract, the other icky things in there (and I'm sure there are..) which come back to bite you may be all the more strongly interpreted by a later court because you had a hand in negotiating the contract. I think that the best thing you could do (though be warned: IANAL -- I'm not even American!) might be to simply baulk at the contract, and presume that the one you originally signed will do the job.
I Seriously doubt that signing any contract that they place on your desk was part of your original job description. They can ask you to gratuitiously sign a new, seriously hobbling contract in the same way that you can ask them for a 100% raise. In either case, saying no is not likely to be actionable.
I would, however, keep a contract of the egregious contract for future reference.
Slashdot Mirror
The coke-bottle tickness for glasses can now be much reduced by using high-densidy (and now even ultra-high-density) glass/plastics which have a (much) higher than normal refraction index, The higher refraction index means that you don't need as sharp a curve (and, thus thickness) to achieve the needed focus correction.
A you get older, your ability to change focus for various distances reduces, and so multi-focal lenses start to become valuable. When you first get them, they suck, but as your focus ability declines, they can become more useful. Bifocals (and, similarly progressives) are meant to give you easy access to reading at short (book) distances. Progressive lenses have two advantages over regular bi/tri focals:
The problem with progressive is that (as pointed out), they have a smaller sharp-focus field, at any distance, and they take more getting used to. (once you get used to them, they are, actually, pretty useful for a lot of things)
One problem for computer users is that -- especially for desktop uses, we often are reading at mid distances -- neither far focus nor book distances. This is outside the historical "Best Practice" for the optometric profession. The first time my mom 'surprised' me with progressive lenses, we had a long talk about how my distances were not 'normal'.
What I would suggest doing is talking to your optometrist about the standard distances you encounter at work. (use a tape measure and actually MEASURE the distances), then come up with a bifocal pair for those> distances... having some hard numbers will also make it a bit easier for your optometrist to determine whether multi-focal lenses are even a good idea. This would probably also mean talking to a real optometrist, and not just an optician (essentially just an optical technician).
The probable best result (my guess) would be two pairs of glasses -- one set for work distances, and another set for 'normal' uses. If you go that path, you might want consider avoiding the 'pretty' stuff for the 'work' pair (i.e. don't bother with really high density glass, or anti-reflection coatings) It'll make the second pair that much cheaper.
Although I have generic sympathy for people being dicked around by an uncaring corporation, we're talking drunk drivers here. According to MADD, each year, Drunk drivers kill just over 10,000 Americans. In other words, Drunk drivers killed more innocent Americans in the last 4 months, than Al Quaida and the Taliban killed in the last decade (yeah, you can throw ISIS into that mix as well).
In all honesty, the biggest problem I have with the way that these companies (this company?) dicks people around is that they don't advertise it as a feature. Part of the reason why these machines are so finicky is that they have to be to keep people from gaming the system. The rest, I'll just put down to karma.
Seriously: You don't want to be dicked around by this system?
You have a death wish, then play russian roulette -- but don't bring innocent women and children into the game. ; You don't care about putting innocent lives at risk? Don't expect me to get all teary-eyed when it's your life that gets messed with -- at least its' not an innocent life being affected.
Sorry to be such a dick about this, but sometimes it takes people being a dick to shock drunk drivers out of their petty little world, and into thinking about the effects of their actions.
People can die, end up in Intensive care or just plain psychotic as a result of a prescription mix-up. Pharmacists are the last line of defense against that happening. When a pharmacist is forced to fill prescriptions on very tight time limits, they stop being a line of defense against such problems and really end up being a potential source of problems on their own. Pharmacists are a profession for a reason -- turning them into pill-counters is a recipe for death and disaster.
The Romanian actually passed a law making the stuff they do 'legal',
with a dozen old voicemails lying un-listened to on my cell phone. I'm an over-50, So I guess that i'm one of those who is schizophrenic about voicemail.
Smoking gun is motive... Who other than N Korea would give a rat's ass about releasing this movie??
I mean, if North Korea can get into Sony's network, why can't Anonymous?
"We'll give your community 'internet service', but you're only allowed to use MSN" Isn't my idea of of improved service.
If you want to improve service, then stop banning communities from putting together their own ISP's. If AT+T doesn't want to service the South Bronx, then the South Bronx Community Association should be able to run it's own community internet service.
It seems to me that the next step would be to find a way to activate and release gratings electronicall (or, even better -- optically) , rather than physically.
The grouper was a tangible object which was evidence of an offense committed in the course of a federally regulated commercial activity. It was concealed in the ocean and/or falsified (the bigger fish was falsely represented as the offending fish) with the intent of frustrating the investigation for which they were explicitly entrusted with the evidence.
It's also not uncommon to have an offense covered by more than one statute. If I shoot someone in the head, that could qualify as either criminal negligence, aggravated assault or attempted murder (among others), depending on the related evidence and/or the mood of the prosecutor. Which statute the crime is prosecuted under is not the choice of the accused.
From the 'evidence' in the article, she might have just accidentally rested a book on her keyboard's 'delete' key.
How do you know it was the US govt. bs some Romanian hackers.. or the Chinese? There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of evidence here.
It's a long, and sortid process.. The reason why Haiti is so poor is that France forced them to pay billions of dollars (in todays terms) in damages for the loss of their 'property' (i.e. freeing themselves from slavery). They ended up deforesting the country to pay for their freedom, and they haven;t really recovered since. It sucks to be a colonial serf.
..... . As such, the lesson taught was very much a "just don't get caught next time" one.
Who even cares about getting caught... They still got skilled technical work done at <10% above the local minimum wage. No matter how you spin it, it was still a massive deal.
Telling people (including 'enemies') which 'leaks' were authorized and which ones were really leaks could give people all sorts of interesting information -- including which disinformation^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H leaks to trust and which ones not to.
The capability should remain off until such time as the user decides that (s)he wants to enable it -- and then only until the user turns it off (My preference would be to see it turn itself off after a certain period of time in the absence of user action.
It should also be noted that they promise to add/remove features all the time. This doesn't necessarily mean that they will also do it.
Besides -- if there really is a need to turn on keylogging and video capture, it should be under the explicit control of the user and only for as long as the user enables it for debugging purposes.
There is. of course, the problem that if the data is there, it makes life SOOOO Much easier on a malware author who no longer needs to install a key logger.. All they need to do is transmit the pre-existing keylogger 'debug' file to their C+C site to extract a (test) user's banking and password information.
Straightforward, for the most part. A Pi would be more than enough power because it doesn't need to process a full gigabit worth of traffic... just the 100M that's going to wireless N.... and if you're not also using it as your edge router, then you don't have to load it for bear, security-wise.because any potential attackers afe going to have to find their way within a stones ghrow of your outer.
The mystery continues.
Although, it seems to me that -- if they had used both recieving dishes at the same time, we might have gotten some useful stereo images. Why didn't they do that?
From earlier comments, it sounds like the journalist who wrote the article confused the two (either wilfully or neglectfully).
This is too close to the support model offered by pinko-commie Open Source and Free software long-haired smellies.
For more information, please see the MCSCF (Microsoft Customer Support Community Forum).
The problem was found because the code was Open Source. If it had been closed source, then the bug would still be secret. To the extent to which the bug was recognized (or commissioned) and exploited by the likes of the NSA, it would have probably remained secret for a lot longer.
According to Microsoft's EULA, for example, finding -- much less fixing -- such a bug is illegal. If the NSA had paid them to put such a bug into the Windows version of SSL, then it would probably remain unpatched for years after someone had pointed it out to them as an exploitable bug.,, and anybody openly reporting such a bug, even after 6 months of trying to get MS to fix it, would be roundly criticized for disclosing the bug 'prematurely'.
Even then, it would probably not be fixed by Microsoft until at least the next monthly bug release cycle (or even the one after that.
With the code being Open Source, the problem got fixed faster than yesterday. Period. If the OpenSSL people refused to fix it, then it would have been forked. ... and more to the point: Such a security-centric fork would have been legal.
If you don't get the sarcasm of the post (especially the 'doubleplus good' reference), then try reading George Orwell's 1984 . Pay special attention to the section on NewSpeak.
I think that it could be said that, if they threaten punish you for not signing on to this contract, they are unilaterally changing the terms of your employment in a very nasty way. Talk to a lawyer about this.. You might have grounds for a constructive dismissal suit, because I don't think that any sane person would sign onto a contract like that without lots and lots of money up front.
The other thing to remember, is that everything is negotiable -- but be warned... if you actually negotiate with them starting with this contract, the other icky things in there (and I'm sure there are..) which come back to bite you may be all the more strongly interpreted by a later court because you had a hand in negotiating the contract. I think that the best thing you could do (though be warned: IANAL -- I'm not even American!) might be to simply baulk at the contract, and presume that the one you originally signed will do the job.
I Seriously doubt that signing any contract that they place on your desk was part of your original job description. They can ask you to gratuitiously sign a new, seriously hobbling contract in the same way that you can ask them for a 100% raise. In either case, saying no is not likely to be actionable.
I would, however, keep a contract of the egregious contract for future reference.