I think kicking old Darl in the gonads so hard his children are born spitting teeth would be justice at this point...
Actually, Darl is exhibiting a behavior known as "Barratry" which, if he's a member of the bar, can make him an EX-member of the bar rather easily. Attempting to manipulate matters by threatening legal action (for instance "License our product or we'll sue this engineer") without any basis to actually DO so, and you can get yourself in very deep shit with the courts.
I hope Darl finds himself in front of a federal magistrate with no sense of humor whatsoever (apart from perhaps a dark and vindictive one).
I'd wager that would be because it was REAL servers that were hacked, real people had a service they were paying for disrupted, and a real crime has been committed (malicious hacking still ain't legal).
" I've hired many people and a non-compete is an essential element of my hiring process."
You might try making selection of employees, behaving ethically toward them, and compensating them such that they remain loyal a part of that process as well.
My employer does not use non-competes (in fact they're illegal in the state I live in, but we're not the only office). Instead, they select employees carefully, treat them well, and in the rare instance that there is a headcount reduction, they provide a generous severance package, tied to an NDA.
If the only way you can instill loyalty and ethics in your employees is to put a virtual gun to the head of their chosen career, there is something fundamentally wrong with your selection process. I'll wager you're not getting the cream of the crop either, just the ones that can be intimidated into going along. An ethical employee won't give away trade secrets even without an agreement. Do you really want employees that only behave ethically under threat of legal action?
Just because the market is tight, doesn't mean it's OK to treat people that way.
"This doesn't materially deter one of my employees from getting a job elsewhere in the industry. 99.999% of all software jobs are still open. "
And likely outside that employee's specific expertise...
"It only prevents the employee from using the fact that he worked for me to land a job with my competition, which would gladly pay a premium inside knowledge about my company and technology."
It also allows you to dismiss an employee on a whim, without fear that your actions will come back to haunt you. For Example: to replace said employee with overseas workers that cost a fraction of their salary.
I'm glad I work for a company that doesn't hold such an adversarial view towards their own people as yours evidentally does.
What I'm getting at is that the ones that AREN'T part of the success|failure figures simply don't care, and can't be arsed to help diagnose a problem that they don't care to have fixed. This same group isn't a factor in IE success|fail with Flash, because they switched to Mozilla/Phoenix/Opera specifically to get AWAY from intrusive advertising technology.
I'm certain that if I WANTED flash to work it would. Thankfully, I'm not even prompted to install it, because my browser is smart enough to let ME ask for the plugin if I want it (unlike IE, I have no knowledge of Opera).
I'd have to venture that part of the problem, if you want to call it that, is that a good portion of users that use "fringe" browsers don't WANT flash, and so don't encounter any problem. I certainly don't need advertisements barking at me, so I would consider having Flash not work a bonus.
Possibly, but the company is much better equipped to defend itself than the individual that they (allegedly) fired without valid reason.
In the post you replied to, I'm assuming for sake of discussion that the facts of the matter are as described in the story. Under those circumstances, the company is WRONG, and any damage the individual they fired can do to them under the limits of the law is not only allowable, but applaudable.
If the facts are not as described, of course I don't encourage dragging the company's name through the mud.
well, after getting the bootstrap done, or a stage 3 install, you can always type
emerge vim
and you'll have your vi.
nano is much more useful and editor agnostic to those not schooled in the ways of vi. I was forced to use vi in my programming classes in college. I now ONLY use it when forced. preferably when I'm doing a system recovery for someone.
of course you can always alias, so that when you try to invoke vi, you get nano instead, but I know how personal editor choices can be.
Re:I've switched to gentoo then off and now return
on
Gentoo Reviewed
·
· Score: 1
What are you basing that on? I taught an informal internal training course based solely on the Gentoo install docs. To novices.
I suppose Slack has improved, but it wasn't workable for that purpose when I tried it a couple years ago. LFS might be more nuts-and-bolts for learning, but that's not really what I was looking for.
I personally have learned a LOT more from Gentoo regarding system configuration, compiler optimizations, etc, than I EVER did from the distributions I used previously.
Re:And now, a translation...
on
Gentoo Reviewed
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Just as an FYI, the post you responded to is a trollpost that has found its way into every Gentoo thread I've seen for the last month or so. I'm thinking Gentoo makes someone feel "inadequate" and he just has to share with us...
Re:And now, a translation...
on
Gentoo Reviewed
·
· Score: 1
but more, usefull stuff runs on Linux than BSD, in my experience.
I love FreeBSD for the applications it's appropriate for, but for my desktop system where I want to be able to run applications that I use on a day to day basis, it's just not workable for me.
I don't dislike any distribution (apart from Redhat, I'll pass on the "subscription fee in order to ever apply necessary patches in a reasonable timeframe" model, thanks), or Unix-like OS (apart from anything directly associated with SCO).
Yes, the *BSD's would have more support if more people ran them, but I'm not willing to make the jump and "do without" until develpers follow me.
After I got my first two systems installed at home (I never throw legacy hardware away) There wasn't enough waiting to speak of (distcc is a wonderful thing). I learned pretty quick how to keep the pitcher from falling over.
Never really had a good experience with Debian. Glad it works for you, I just prefer Gentoo.
Also, Gentoo is a relatively young distro, compared to Debian, Slack, etc. For the short time it's been widely available, it's made great strides in correcting many of the usability issues. Compiling 98% of everything from source isn't for everyone (OpenOffice is available as a Binary ebuild, due to the EXTREME touchieness it has regarding compiler settings) though.
Well, I'd agree as far as it requires at least ONE "speedy" system. Using distcc and ccache, if you have multiple machines, even the slowest will be quite usable. I have an old 233mhz notebook that I set up for a "library terminal" (complete with hacked Cuecat, etc). With distcc, I can emerge packages for it just as fast as for the 800mhz, 600 mhz and 1.1ghz machines that are available to help.
"Give your mom SuSE"
Good advice. Right tools for the right job.
Re:My experiences with Gentoo
on
Gentoo Reviewed
·
· Score: 1
Well... the version you had problems with first WAS a Release CANDIDATE.
It's not a distribution for "everyman" yet. It's a GREAT way to learn the HOW and WHY of making Linux work for people that are interested in learning nuts-and-bolts though.
If you're not interested in being a "Linux Genius" there's always Mandrake or SuSE, both of which have gotten ease of installation down to a science.
The right tool for the right job...Not cutting you down, just suggesting a better alternative if you're really not interested in Gentoo.
Usually, that's probably so. In this case, however, they fired the employee for "publicly embarassing them".
That's just not smart.
Also, trumped up "reasons" don't prevent retaliation. Fire an employee with intimate knowledge of your business in that manner without some sort of severance agreement, and watch all your dirty little secrets broadcast to every competitor you have, every regulatory body that might crawl up your companys rectum with a microscope, and every "consumer advocate" TV news guy who likes raking muck.
Making a minor annoyance into a major enemy isn't generally considered good tactics.
Your unusual lack of a sense of humor is one good reason why you'll be doing the same as the guy you responded to. Women generally appreciate a sense of humor more than they do an exagerated sense of self-superiority in moral rectitude.
OK, change the situation. Say you're in the office, and an unstable co-worker who happens to be in favor with the next level of management takes exception to some action of yours and proceeds to beat the living shit out of you with a baseball bat.
Do you "Work within the system" and let management discipline him, or call the cops and have his ass thrown in jail?
If you say "call the cops" How is it different if you're not the victim?
If you don't, when did you lose your self-preservation instinct, and did it hurt?
Precisely. Any company that would fire someone because such an act is "publically embarassing" should give some thought to
A) how embarrassing it will be when the news outlets get ahold of the story of them FIRING an employee for doing the right thing. and
B) what else the former employee might be able to embarrass them with once he's no longer employed and has a good reason to do as much damage to them as legally allowable.
Unless they provide the whistle blower with a spectacular severance package tied to a no-blabbling agreement, they might as well lay off their PR department, because at that point the company's reputation is officially worthless.
I think the protrayal of raw physical existance was a good element for the story, but I also think the scene went too damned long.
Re:The description is very vague
on
Gentoo Games
·
· Score: 2, Informative
They're doing pretty much what you're asking for. I believe the first one they did was an Unreal Tournament CD that booted off CD and ran. Here (http://gentoogames.supercomputerinc.com) they're offering America's Army on a cd, no OS install required.
"Similar to analogous efforts underway in the music industry, we are prepared to take all actions necessary to stop the ongoing violation of our intellectual property or other rights."
So old Darl is threatening hack attacks against installed Linux systems? That's not very bright. Please. Just try that once while the case is still in court. I'd love to watch footage of the FBI raid that would result from that.
Y'all haven't proven a damned thing and are bordering on BARRATRY with these baseless legal threats. (Now if you never intend to practice law again, by all means, go that route, but I've a feeling you'll be needing work Real Soon Now, and limiting your options isn't very bright.)
Without a court win in this, Darl, you have no basis for even the oh-so-questionable hacking like the RIAA are attempting. Try it. Just once on a clued organization, say another software publisher, and you're finished. Not only will you be in "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison, there will be NOTHING LEFT of SCO's assets to auction off, as they will have been siezed as evidence.
Try hacking some clueful individuals, and you could find yourself going away for any number of "suprise" charges based on evidence in your own systems.
I'm ashamed to share the last name with that fucker. I can't wait to watch him go down in flames.
I'm going to reply to myself with the karma bonus again, to give the dipshit that's been -1 overrated stalking me an opportunity to waste another mod point. Won't be long now before you get meta-modded to the "no mod points for j00" stage. Genius. on all your accounts.
Repost begins ------------
You simply had to connect the MFM drive to an rll controller and low level format it. That's where the debug command you refer to came in. It executed the low level diagnostic program in the controller's firmware.
I had a couple ST225 drives formatted to RLL for about two years. One eventually started to get a little flakey, but considering how frankensteined that particular machine was, I wasn't surprised.
The supposed explaination for this hack was that the ST225 and ST238 (I think these were the model numbers) were mechanically identical, but the platters on the 20 meg drive weren't certified for the RLL encoding that allowed the extra space. Some would take it, no problem, but others wouldn't. The RLL version was 30 Megs, so for every two of these you used this way, you got a third 20 meg drive "free"... if they both worked;) ---------------
You simply had to connect the MFM drive to an rll controller and low level format it. That's where the debug command you refer to came in. It executed the low level diagnostic program in the controller's firmware.
I had a couple ST225 drives formatted to RLL for about two years. One eventually started to get a little flakey, but considering how frankensteined that particular machine was, I wasn't surprised.
The supposed explaination for this hack was that the ST225 and ST238 (I think these were the model numbers) were mechanically identical, but the platters on the 20 meg drive weren't certified for the RLL encoding that allowed the extra space. Some would take it, no problem, but others wouldn't. The RLL version was 30 Megs, so for every two of these you used this way, you got a third 20 meg drive "free"... if they both worked;)
Slashdot Mirror
I think kicking old Darl in the gonads so hard his children are born spitting teeth would be justice at this point...
Actually, Darl is exhibiting a behavior known as "Barratry" which, if he's a member of the bar, can make him an EX-member of the bar rather easily. Attempting to manipulate matters by threatening legal action (for instance "License our product or we'll sue this engineer") without any basis to actually DO so, and you can get yourself in very deep shit with the courts.
I hope Darl finds himself in front of a federal magistrate with no sense of humor whatsoever (apart from perhaps a dark and vindictive one).
Soon.
I'd wager that would be because it was REAL servers that were hacked, real people had a service they were paying for disrupted, and a real crime has been committed (malicious hacking still ain't legal).
" I've hired many people and a non-compete is an essential element of my hiring process."
You might try making selection of employees, behaving ethically toward them, and compensating them such that they remain loyal a part of that process as well.
My employer does not use non-competes (in fact they're illegal in the state I live in, but we're not the only office). Instead, they select employees carefully, treat them well, and in the rare instance that there is a headcount reduction, they provide a generous severance package, tied to an NDA.
If the only way you can instill loyalty and ethics in your employees is to put a virtual gun to the head of their chosen career, there is something fundamentally wrong with your selection process. I'll wager you're not getting the cream of the crop either, just the ones that can be intimidated into going along. An ethical employee won't give away trade secrets even without an agreement. Do you really want employees that only behave ethically under threat of legal action?
Just because the market is tight, doesn't mean it's OK to treat people that way.
"This doesn't materially deter one of my employees from getting a job elsewhere in the industry. 99.999% of all software jobs are still open. "
And likely outside that employee's specific expertise...
"It only prevents the employee from using the fact that he worked for me to land a job with my competition, which would gladly pay a premium inside knowledge about my company and technology."
It also allows you to dismiss an employee on a whim, without fear that your actions will come back to haunt you. For Example: to replace said employee with overseas workers that cost a fraction of their salary.
I'm glad I work for a company that doesn't hold such an adversarial view towards their own people as yours evidentally does.
actually, I think she mispelled Gentoo ;)
*duck*
What I'm getting at is that the ones that AREN'T part of the success|failure figures simply don't care, and can't be arsed to help diagnose a problem that they don't care to have fixed. This same group isn't a factor in IE success|fail with Flash, because they switched to Mozilla/Phoenix/Opera specifically to get AWAY from intrusive advertising technology.
I'm certain that if I WANTED flash to work it would. Thankfully, I'm not even prompted to install it, because my browser is smart enough to let ME ask for the plugin if I want it (unlike IE, I have no knowledge of Opera).
I'd have to venture that part of the problem, if you want to call it that, is that a good portion of users that use "fringe" browsers don't WANT flash, and so don't encounter any problem. I certainly don't need advertisements barking at me, so I would consider having Flash not work a bonus.
Just a thought.
Possibly, but the company is much better equipped to defend itself than the individual that they (allegedly) fired without valid reason.
In the post you replied to, I'm assuming for sake of discussion that the facts of the matter are as described in the story. Under those circumstances, the company is WRONG, and any damage the individual they fired can do to them under the limits of the law is not only allowable, but applaudable.
If the facts are not as described, of course I don't encourage dragging the company's name through the mud.
well, after getting the bootstrap done, or a stage 3 install, you can always type
emerge vim
and you'll have your vi.
nano is much more useful and editor agnostic to those not schooled in the ways of vi. I was forced to use vi in my programming classes in college. I now ONLY use it when forced. preferably when I'm doing a system recovery for someone.
of course you can always alias, so that when you try to invoke vi, you get nano instead, but I know how personal editor choices can be.
Try
/dev/hda
/dev/hda
hdparm -iI
(assuming you're talking your first hd)
You might need
hdparm -c1 -d1 -u1 -k1
to get your drives fully up to speed.
What are you basing that on? I taught an informal internal training course based solely on the Gentoo install docs. To novices.
I suppose Slack has improved, but it wasn't workable for that purpose when I tried it a couple years ago. LFS might be more nuts-and-bolts for learning, but that's not really what I was looking for.
I personally have learned a LOT more from Gentoo regarding system configuration, compiler optimizations, etc, than I EVER did from the distributions I used previously.
Just as an FYI, the post you responded to is a trollpost that has found its way into every Gentoo thread I've seen for the last month or so. I'm thinking Gentoo makes someone feel "inadequate" and he just has to share with us...
but more, usefull stuff runs on Linux than BSD, in my experience.
I love FreeBSD for the applications it's appropriate for, but for my desktop system where I want to be able to run applications that I use on a day to day basis, it's just not workable for me.
I don't dislike any distribution (apart from Redhat, I'll pass on the "subscription fee in order to ever apply necessary patches in a reasonable timeframe" model, thanks), or Unix-like OS (apart from anything directly associated with SCO).
Yes, the *BSD's would have more support if more people ran them, but I'm not willing to make the jump and "do without" until develpers follow me.
After I got my first two systems installed at home (I never throw legacy hardware away) There wasn't enough waiting to speak of (distcc is a wonderful thing). I learned pretty quick how to keep the pitcher from falling over.
Never really had a good experience with Debian. Glad it works for you, I just prefer Gentoo.
Also, Gentoo is a relatively young distro, compared to Debian, Slack, etc. For the short time it's been widely available, it's made great strides in correcting many of the usability issues. Compiling 98% of everything from source isn't for everyone (OpenOffice is available as a Binary ebuild, due to the EXTREME touchieness it has regarding compiler settings) though.
Well, I'd agree as far as it requires at least ONE "speedy" system. Using distcc and ccache, if you have multiple machines, even the slowest will be quite usable. I have an old 233mhz notebook that I set up for a "library terminal" (complete with hacked Cuecat, etc). With distcc, I can emerge packages for it just as fast as for the 800mhz, 600 mhz and 1.1ghz machines that are available to help.
"Give your mom SuSE"
Good advice. Right tools for the right job.
Well... the version you had problems with first WAS a Release CANDIDATE.
It's not a distribution for "everyman" yet. It's a GREAT way to learn the HOW and WHY of making Linux work for people that are interested in learning nuts-and-bolts though.
If you're not interested in being a "Linux Genius" there's always Mandrake or SuSE, both of which have gotten ease of installation down to a science.
The right tool for the right job...Not cutting you down, just suggesting a better alternative if you're really not interested in Gentoo.
Usually, that's probably so. In this case, however, they fired the employee for "publicly embarassing them".
That's just not smart.
Also, trumped up "reasons" don't prevent retaliation. Fire an employee with intimate knowledge of your business in that manner without some sort of severance agreement, and watch all your dirty little secrets broadcast to every competitor you have, every regulatory body that might crawl up your companys rectum with a microscope, and every "consumer advocate" TV news guy who likes raking muck.
Making a minor annoyance into a major enemy isn't generally considered good tactics.
"Hey, I saw my boss whack Chuck in the basement, "
;) )
What your boss and Chuck do to each other in the basement are acts between two consenting adults, and you probably shouldn't comment...
(sorry your choice of words brought out the smart-ass in me
Your unusual lack of a sense of humor is one good reason why you'll be doing the same as the guy you responded to. Women generally appreciate a sense of humor more than they do an exagerated sense of self-superiority in moral rectitude.
I pity you. I honestly do.
OK, change the situation. Say you're in the office, and an unstable co-worker who happens to be in favor with the next level of management takes exception to some action of yours and proceeds to beat the living shit out of you with a baseball bat.
Do you "Work within the system" and let management discipline him, or call the cops and have his ass thrown in jail?
If you say "call the cops" How is it different if you're not the victim?
If you don't, when did you lose your self-preservation instinct, and did it hurt?
Precisely. Any company that would fire someone because such an act is "publically embarassing" should give some thought to
A) how embarrassing it will be when the news outlets get ahold of the story of them FIRING an employee for doing the right thing. and
B) what else the former employee might be able to embarrass them with once he's no longer employed and has a good reason to do as much damage to them as legally allowable.
Unless they provide the whistle blower with a spectacular severance package tied to a no-blabbling agreement, they might as well lay off their PR department, because at that point the company's reputation is officially worthless.
I think the protrayal of raw physical existance was a good element for the story, but I also think the scene went too damned long.
They're doing pretty much what you're asking for. I believe the first one they did was an Unreal Tournament CD that booted off CD and ran. Here (http://gentoogames.supercomputerinc.com) they're offering America's Army on a cd, no OS install required.
"Similar to analogous efforts underway in the music industry, we are prepared to take all actions necessary to stop the ongoing violation of our intellectual property or other rights."
So old Darl is threatening hack attacks against installed Linux systems? That's not very bright. Please. Just try that once while the case is still in court. I'd love to watch footage of the FBI raid that would result from that.
Y'all haven't proven a damned thing and are bordering on BARRATRY with these baseless legal threats. (Now if you never intend to practice law again, by all means, go that route, but I've a feeling you'll be needing work Real Soon Now, and limiting your options isn't very bright.)
Without a court win in this, Darl, you have no basis for even the oh-so-questionable hacking like the RIAA are attempting. Try it. Just once on a clued organization, say another software publisher, and you're finished. Not only will you be in "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison, there will be NOTHING LEFT of SCO's assets to auction off, as they will have been siezed as evidence.
Try hacking some clueful individuals, and you could find yourself going away for any number of "suprise" charges based on evidence in your own systems.
I'm ashamed to share the last name with that fucker. I can't wait to watch him go down in flames.
I'm going to reply to myself with the karma bonus again, to give the dipshit that's been -1 overrated stalking me an opportunity to waste another mod point. Won't be long now before you get meta-modded to the "no mod points for j00" stage. Genius. on all your accounts.
... if they both worked ;)
Repost begins
------------
You simply had to connect the MFM drive to an rll controller and low level format it. That's where the debug command you refer to came in. It executed the low level diagnostic program in the controller's firmware.
I had a couple ST225 drives formatted to RLL for about two years. One eventually started to get a little flakey, but considering how frankensteined that particular machine was, I wasn't surprised.
The supposed explaination for this hack was that the ST225 and ST238 (I think these were the model numbers) were mechanically identical, but the platters on the 20 meg drive weren't certified for the RLL encoding that allowed the extra space. Some would take it, no problem, but others wouldn't. The RLL version was 30 Megs, so for every two of these you used this way, you got a third 20 meg drive "free"
---------------
You simply had to connect the MFM drive to an rll controller and low level format it. That's where the debug command you refer to came in. It executed the low level diagnostic program in the controller's firmware.
... if they both worked ;)
I had a couple ST225 drives formatted to RLL for about two years. One eventually started to get a little flakey, but considering how frankensteined that particular machine was, I wasn't surprised.
The supposed explaination for this hack was that the ST225 and ST238 (I think these were the model numbers) were mechanically identical, but the platters on the 20 meg drive weren't certified for the RLL encoding that allowed the extra space. Some would take it, no problem, but others wouldn't. The RLL version was 30 Megs, so for every two of these you used this way, you got a third 20 meg drive "free"