I'm just curious how much energy the SETI project has used with zero results thus far. Is the amount of resources and time they are contributing to this cause really worth the incalculable chance they get a signal from an alien civilization? Having millions of PC's running at 100% doing pattern searching seems like a huge waste of energy. I'll run distributed clients myself like folding@home that actually have research results. Usually, only during the winter though (since electric heat is my only option anyway).
How politically correct of you. Others however don't consider SETI a waste of time.
In fact the more narrowly we focus our view on only research that gives "tangible" results the slower our progress will be because not every discovery out there is low hanging fruit.
I do think, though, that Folding@Home is a better investment than SETI. Not that I'm not curious about finding life out there, but there are more important things to do here first.
If that's your attitude there will ALWAYS be a higher priority than SETI.
I expect these attitudes elsewhere but I'm saddened that the/. community now glorifies energy waste through the use of Christmas lights while SETI is considered a waste of energy. I expect to see this attitude elsewhere but not here.
Are you referring to the trackpoint (red dot)? If so that is a very well known problem with *ALL* joystick pointers. Thinkpads (if produced in the last 5 years or so) have hw recognition to determine if it is drifting, if it is LEAVE IT ALONE, it only takes a few seconds and as it recalibrates and stops.
My next computer was a Dell with a (blue not red) trackpoint and on the rare occassion it did drift, it fixed itself pretty quickly. Not so with the Thinkpad. The following Dell I got was also quite reliable. Both these machines had one major issue - screen scuffing against the keyboard. Livable but not nice. The following Dell had a suspected design flaw that Dell never acknowledged and left me claiming warranty against my credit card company (as the credit card purchase extended the warranty). It turned out that the motherboard wears against the case. I eventually got it fixed but it took months and I bought another laptop (a Dell with Dell 3 year warranty) - that one was rock solid. My latest Dell machine had blue screen issues, but it was software not hardware. Using non-standard drivers fixed it. Why am I buying Dells? Price (about $1k less than the competition) and features (really not much to choose from if you want good graphics, and everywhere else that adds a further premium). The build quality hasn't ever been terrible, but now I always wait till they're offering their warranty on special and buy then. I'd love to go for something "better" but I won't judge that by brand. Stuff the lot of them.
That's nice for a rocket engine - one piece of the puzzle that is very well solved. Perhaps for well solved pieces of the puzzle fixed price contracts will work well. (By the way I envy you for getting such work).
Now if you're doing something new, like say:
- Plunging into the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn with a probe - Calculating the alignment of planets - Putting a man on the moon for the first time...well then it's a different story.
NASA does a lot more with new technology and non-routine engineering. That is high risk. Fixed price contracts on high risk things tend to be between double and an order of magnitude the projected cost (depending on competition) in case of budget blowout. Otherwise the bidder goes broke rather quickly if their consistent strategy.
In general, I think fixed-price contracts would be a good idea. If you're worried about paying for a large project along the way, write the contract with intermediate deliverables, like test results from subsystems or prototype versions.
Oh yeah that would be much better. Let's see how it would work. Company A bids on the manufacture of lets say a new space vehicle. Lets use as examples 3 components - say: Engines, frame, and navigation system. Company X bids and wins design of the space vehicle, fixed cost. The contract is in parts - part 1 is the engine. They are able to do this without large cost overruns. So they bid on the frame, and costs blow out big time. Now company X does not want to bid on the navigation system. It turns out that all other bids are much higher than the orginal cost. So what does NASA do? Ditch the project? Wear the overrun? How is this better? What if NO ONE wants to bid? A single contract would mean at least one company was obligated to provide the product.
Note also that with the above there's higher overall uncertainty about who's going to eventually build what. Integration costs would skyrocket. The overall future of the project would continually be uncertain. Whereas up front contracts mean people can start talking and planning earlier on. When you're talking about a project that already may take a decade to design and build, that's the difference between success and failure.
I know that in practice different companies make different parts of a vehicle, but the idea of breaking a product up into smaller chunks and letting companies bid or not on stages to manage their risk is stupid, whereas splitting the work based on a company's expertise may have merit (though you do wear integration costs).
Space exploration isn't cheap. Doing new things means there are cost overrun risks. The question is whether it's worthwhile. I believe it is.
Believe me, this scheme fully qualifies you for that geek card, with nerd, dweeb and dork stamps on it. Producing transcripts is not going to get you a "win" in any meaningful sense of the word
Congratulations you win an ex-girlfriend! Features of your new ex-girlfriend include any time your name is mentioned bringing up your socially inept attempt to prove yourself correct in arguments. Your ex-girlfriend also includes high levels of resentment and generally thinking you're a loser.
My first laptop was a second hand Thinkpad, many years ago, can't tell you what model but it had a combination metal and rubberised plastic frame etc. I paid something like $400 and it was adequate for what I used it for. About six months into owning it the mouse pointer started drifting. I looked it up on the IBM web site. The official line was that this is not a fault, it just happens sometimes, and there was no fix for this. Never mind that it made the laptop unusable until the mouse stopped drifting - it could take seconds or minutes of fiddling with the pointer to get it to stop.
Ever since that experience whenever someone mentions how solid and stable the thinkpads are and how dodgy the asian laptops are, I just chuckle. I've owned Dells ever since, and I've had issues with those too. As far as I'm concerned brand loyalty is for suckers. You have to look at the specific model and unfortunately with model lifetimes decreasing often by the time people have 12 months of experience with a product it's no longer being sold.
- They said I'm allowed to troll at a reasonable volume.
- Now Milton, don't be greedy, let's pass along the karma and make sure everyone gets a piece.
- Excuse me? Excuse me, senor? May I speak to you please? I asked for an overlords joke, and they brought me an in soviet russia joke.....and I said no trolling, NO trolling for the replies, but it lots of trolls, big stupid trolls
- Oh, and remember: next Friday... is MS bashing shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear an MS bashing shirt and jeans.
- I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "social engineering" in a dictionary.
- Just remember, if you hang in there long enough, good things can happen in this world. I mean, look at me.
- Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
How about if such tools were only legal for licensed/certified IT and Information Security professionals?...and who would you trust to certify? The government that barely understands the technology?
Guns are licensed in the US. Does that stop gun crime?
Yes, this would mean our having to get certified as at least minimally competent at what we do, much like hairdressers and engineers.
This licensing is about ensuring competence so that if you hire a hairdresser or engineer you won't have all your hair fall out or have your bridge fall down.
The idea is analogous to how, in New York at least, it's illegal for random people to carry lockpicks.
No it's not. Lockpicks have 1 use: to pick locks. nmap's use isn't limited to hacking.
Pretty sure you misunderstood the intent of the OP #2 here. What they're saying is that if the "thing" in question becomes unavailable (either by lack of production or priced higher than the clockman diamond), _then_ copyright is revoked. As long as the item is in production as sanctioned by the copyright holder, it will remain protected.
I'm not misunderstanding.
If you're finding what I'm saying difficult, think about fad items like yoyos and hula hoops.
The lifespan of software is pretty short anyway. A 5-year protection cycle is a huge motivator to get a new product out the door on a regular basis and keep the programmers employed.
I wish that were true, but consider Windows XP. 5+ years old, and I know I'd personally never to Vista if XP was free and hardware was still made for it. Now you're right that'd have been better motivation to make Vista better, but can you imagine Microsoft letting go of XP? Hell can you imagine the impact it would have on Microsoft if XP were free. Whether it's good for the public is definitely something that can be argued but whether it's good for Microsoft as a company is not debatable. It'd be terrible for them.
1: Copyright cannot be extended beyond its original term. The reason for this is simple. Copyright exists to encourage creation and publication of the arts. Once that art is created under the copyright terms of the time, copyright has served its entire purpose. Anything beyond that is just giving more unnecessary rewards to a few at the expense of the many.
The idea of extension is that it creates a further incentive for it's creation right at the start. The artist knows that if they make something really well they can get more than if they make something mediocre. I'm not saying I agree or am completely convinced, but that's the idea and I do understand it.
2: Copyright is lost to any item not available for new sale in a 3 year period at a fair price. If you're no longer selling it, then you have no right to prevent other people from duplicating it and keeping it available.
That wouldn't work either. For anything that currently occupies a niche people would just buy cheap duplicates 3 years later. Suddenly good new work is competing with much cheaper work that was just as good 3 years prior. In other words it provides a strong disincentive to buy anything new which in turn is a strong disincentive to create anything.
What I'd propose is that copyright is replaced with a system that allows anyone to make a copy, provided they compensate the creator. i.e. no more restrictive ditribution and licensing. The creator of the work may sue if they're not compensated. How the price for using the creator is set I'm not quite sure (ideas include the creator sets it within some system that justifies that price, or a standards body sets and/or enforces it depending on measurable attributes). One thing that would have to happen would be that the original artist (or whoever the rights are sold to) would also have to be bound by this price.
Zero control over your creative work. No consent to use it.
However I'd give you the right to be compensated for its use for the duration of your lifetime, the right to demand payment when it's used, and the right to assign these rights to someone else (but only for the duration of your lifetime).
Oh wonderful. Now when I'm overseas, the terrorists can identify me as an American in a crowd from 20 feet away.
It's actually worse than that. They've just provided a good way for a terrorist (or automated weapon) to identify an American standing on any queue at a port.
Not just you. I presume officials won't be exempt?
How long ago did you have the surgery? How painful was it? The failure/recurrence rate after surgery for most sleep apnea is abysmal unfortunately so make sure you schedule another sleep test a year or so after surgery if you haven't already.
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea about 5-6 years ago now. I'm 32. CPAP machines are horrible but they're better than the alternative for me. (3 nights without CPAP and I'm a headachy zombie with a very sore throat, plus my wife gets no sleep. I don't doubt I'd have lost my job in a few months if I hadn't found treatment that worked (I was falling asleep and snoring at my desk and in meetings while working for a consultancy on a client's premisis!). In fact if I'm honest with myself I seriously doubt I'd be alive today.
The other thing is that in some ways the opposite experience to what I'd had. For me when I got REALLY sleep deprived I got to the point where I'd actually have mild hallucinations and about a half dozen episodes of sleep paralysis (you think you're awake but you're not quite awake). Technically you're right though - no REM = no real dreams.
By the way if you're treated successfully your dreams should come back. They certainly did for me. Now if only I could go to sleep without the mask. It took me about a year to get use to, if you can call me use to it. It feels like a giant squid has attached itself to my face. If the mask leaks or I don't use a humidifier it feels like I have windburn in my nose. The straps for the mask are uncomfortable and if placed wrong even dig into the back of my ear. If you have a cold or blocked nose the mask is ineffective and I often end up with a headache if I have a cold (and for some reason often if I sleep in). However I still manage over 6 hours a night almost every night and I can function like a normal human being.
Wow, any student who needs notes from 10 years ago has more serious problems than not being able to open an old Word file!
Spoken like a completely ignorant fool from the ADHD Playstation generation. People will go out of their way to get hold of "old" information in the form of notes and text books, and in the case of famous scientists historians would just about kill to get hold of their notes.
Imagine if Einstein lived in the age of MS Word. 30 years later no one could read his original manuscripts.
It's clear you know less about the academic world than you think you do.
Download Open Office open the file and save to a newer Office format. Problem solved. Now how hard is that?
Not hard at all, if you're aware of the problem (or the error messages are good enough), if you have an Internet connection, if you know about Open Office. In other words not hard if you're a geek. Oh and please be prepared for your layout to be screwed up completely.
Nothing more to see here, please continue pissing in the M$ wind....and it's stupid attitudes like yours that keep MS dominant.
So they re-install office without this patch, and open their files.
It's not hard....
You're assuming they know about the patch. You're also assuming that such a ridiculous hassle is reasonable. People have better things to do than learn how registry hack their fucking word processor! If it were part of the UI it'd be a minor hassle. As it stands you have to search the net to find the MS KB article to work out how to do it. Even then do you really want non-techies having to hack their registries (easy to do correctly but if you get it wrong you bork your machine).
It simply isn't reasonable. People who are defending this are insane.
This need to be noted: from my experience people do not buy msOffice - they either get it in 'free' packets together with their hw or they have the choice made for them by mighty admins (or whoever that is that makes decision about purchase of this or that software for big organisations).
I've seen people buy Office. I've also certainly been aware of large companies buying it. How do you think MS make money from it if it's not bought? If they didn't care about the home market there wouldn't be home specific versions.
Fortunately there are alternatives one can use if ms products fail - the results may not be ideal but better than nothing. I do not understand why all this fuss about such policy then.
Perhaps because some people have a life and have better things to do with it than waste it finding other software that aren't ideal to get around their software supplier crippling their software. Why should anyone waste time and/or money downloading a free office alternative, or applying registry hacks just to open a document they created 5 years ago. Way to demonstrate loyalty to the customer.
Unreasonable: Most students, business and personal users don't wish to be unable to open their 10 year old document because it's no longer supported. Students want to be able to access old study notes, businesses want to get at statistics, company history and old documentation of systems or business practices, and the end user wants to be able to open that wedding speech they wrote 10 years ago, or that collection of jokes in an MS word doc.
Stupid: Why do people buy Office instead of using something free? For the 3000 features? No, at least most don't. They buy Office for universal compatibility s that they can exchange documents with everyone. The moment users start complaining that they can't open the MS Office document with Office, but it's okay you can use a free alternative, people will start installing the free alternative. They're not forcing anyone to move up to a later maintained version, they're forcing people away to software that actually does the job they want it to.
Only fools and company sock puppets (sales and marketing) actually believe obsolescence is reasonable, particularly when it comes to data.
I'm not familiar with that particular case, and have been unable to find anything via Google that resembles what you describe, but I'm willing to bet that the termination had more to do with misusing company resources/having a blowjob story tied with the law firm's email address and signature than what she said in the email. If she had sent it from a Gmail account she'd probably be fine.
Misusing a company resource? Your argument (which is not based on any facts since you admit you're completely unfamiliar with the case) is that she was fired not for brining the company into public disrepute but for sending a personal email????
You're trolling aren't you? No one would put up an argument so weak and admit they know nothing on the topic otherwise.
That depends. If you're the CEO, definitely. If you're someone who has regular public interaction on behalf of the company, definitely. If you're someone that nobody even knows is affiliated with the company then it's irrelevant.
That's the problem. People leave a huge footprint on the net that can trace them to current and former employers.
The things you're talking about here with the ex-con cop or the convicted fraudster applying for a job at a bank fall under the term bona fide occupation requirements.
If you'd read the rest of my responses, you'd realize that's exactly what I said (though I did not use the term "bona fide job requirements". You'd also realize I made 2 other relevant points:
1) If the employer is able to demonstrate that your activities do affect your job (for example people won't hire your firm while you work for it due to those activities, or your position is undermined in the community you're meant to serve). A recent example: The young spears sister getting pregant may mean her show is not continued because they no longer believe you make a good role model.
2) That may be how it is suppose to work, but in practice an employer who feels wronged or slighted will find one or more minor transgressions of your work conditions to crucify you with.
Moral of the story is actually that if you're doing something in public, you can expect it to be publicly known about. In reality in your story you might even be able sue your friend for posting your picture on the net (defamation etc). I don't like your chances of winning though.
The other moral of the story is that if your employer has a problem with the way you act in public you either need to change your public behaviour or your employer, or quite likely both. A sensible employer is not going to take idle gossip like dontdatethegirl unless it's very strongly backed with evidence.
I hope your story is hypothetical, though taking a look at your "homepage" I don't doubt it could very well be personal experience.
Slashdot Mirror
No, he said the earth was not the center of the universe.Buy a history book.
Actually Copernicus said it first, and though he wasn't the first to say so he was the first to be scientific about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
Galileo (not Gallileo as the GP said) agreed but put it in a book that made fun of the wrong person (esentially making fun of the last Pope to expand church territory and calling him a simpleton)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair#The_Dialogue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_VIII
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A03E3D91031F931A2575BC0A9659C8B63
Of course he also did much more like observe such things as Jupiter's moons for the first time with a telescope.
If you're going to belittle someone for getting their history wrong, at least be clear about getting it right yourself.
I'm just curious how much energy the SETI project has used with zero results thus far. Is the amount of resources and time they are contributing to this cause really worth the incalculable chance they get a signal from an alien civilization? Having millions of PC's running at 100% doing pattern searching seems like a huge waste of energy. I'll run distributed clients myself like folding@home that actually have research results. Usually, only during the winter though (since electric heat is my only option anyway).
How politically correct of you. Others however don't consider SETI a waste of time.
In fact the more narrowly we focus our view on only research that gives "tangible" results the slower our progress will be because not every discovery out there is low hanging fruit.
I do think, though, that Folding@Home is a better investment than SETI. Not that I'm not curious about finding life out there, but there are more important things to do here first.
/. community now glorifies energy waste through the use of Christmas lights while SETI is considered a waste of energy. I expect to see this attitude elsewhere but not here.
If that's your attitude there will ALWAYS be a higher priority than SETI.
I expect these attitudes elsewhere but I'm saddened that the
Are you referring to the trackpoint (red dot)? If so that is a very well known problem with *ALL* joystick pointers. Thinkpads (if produced in the last 5 years or so) have hw recognition to determine if it is drifting, if it is LEAVE IT ALONE, it only takes a few seconds and as it recalibrates and stops.
My next computer was a Dell with a (blue not red) trackpoint and on the rare occassion it did drift, it fixed itself pretty quickly. Not so with the Thinkpad. The following Dell I got was also quite reliable. Both these machines had one major issue - screen scuffing against the keyboard. Livable but not nice. The following Dell had a suspected design flaw that Dell never acknowledged and left me claiming warranty against my credit card company (as the credit card purchase extended the warranty). It turned out that the motherboard wears against the case. I eventually got it fixed but it took months and I bought another laptop (a Dell with Dell 3 year warranty) - that one was rock solid. My latest Dell machine had blue screen issues, but it was software not hardware. Using non-standard drivers fixed it. Why am I buying Dells? Price (about $1k less than the competition) and features (really not much to choose from if you want good graphics, and everywhere else that adds a further premium). The build quality hasn't ever been terrible, but now I always wait till they're offering their warranty on special and buy then. I'd love to go for something "better" but I won't judge that by brand. Stuff the lot of them.
That's nice for a rocket engine - one piece of the puzzle that is very well solved. Perhaps for well solved pieces of the puzzle fixed price contracts will work well. (By the way I envy you for getting such work).
...well then it's a different story.
Now if you're doing something new, like say:
- Plunging into the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn with a probe
- Calculating the alignment of planets
- Putting a man on the moon for the first time
NASA does a lot more with new technology and non-routine engineering. That is high risk. Fixed price contracts on high risk things tend to be between double and an order of magnitude the projected cost (depending on competition) in case of budget blowout. Otherwise the bidder goes broke rather quickly if their consistent strategy.
In general, I think fixed-price contracts would be a good idea. If you're worried about paying for a large project along the way, write the contract with intermediate deliverables, like test results from subsystems or prototype versions.
Oh yeah that would be much better. Let's see how it would work. Company A bids on the manufacture of lets say a new space vehicle. Lets use as examples 3 components - say: Engines, frame, and navigation system. Company X bids and wins design of the space vehicle, fixed cost. The contract is in parts - part 1 is the engine. They are able to do this without large cost overruns. So they bid on the frame, and costs blow out big time. Now company X does not want to bid on the navigation system. It turns out that all other bids are much higher than the orginal cost. So what does NASA do? Ditch the project? Wear the overrun? How is this better? What if NO ONE wants to bid? A single contract would mean at least one company was obligated to provide the product.
Note also that with the above there's higher overall uncertainty about who's going to eventually build what. Integration costs would skyrocket. The overall future of the project would continually be uncertain. Whereas up front contracts mean people can start talking and planning earlier on. When you're talking about a project that already may take a decade to design and build, that's the difference between success and failure.
I know that in practice different companies make different parts of a vehicle, but the idea of breaking a product up into smaller chunks and letting companies bid or not on stages to manage their risk is stupid, whereas splitting the work based on a company's expertise may have merit (though you do wear integration costs).
Space exploration isn't cheap. Doing new things means there are cost overrun risks. The question is whether it's worthwhile. I believe it is.
Believe me, this scheme fully qualifies you for that geek card, with nerd, dweeb and dork stamps on it. Producing transcripts is not going to get you a "win" in any meaningful sense of the word
Congratulations you win an ex-girlfriend! Features of your new ex-girlfriend include any time your name is mentioned bringing up your socially inept attempt to prove yourself correct in arguments. Your ex-girlfriend also includes high levels of resentment and generally thinking you're a loser.
My first laptop was a second hand Thinkpad, many years ago, can't tell you what model but it had a combination metal and rubberised plastic frame etc. I paid something like $400 and it was adequate for what I used it for. About six months into owning it the mouse pointer started drifting. I looked it up on the IBM web site. The official line was that this is not a fault, it just happens sometimes, and there was no fix for this. Never mind that it made the laptop unusable until the mouse stopped drifting - it could take seconds or minutes of fiddling with the pointer to get it to stop.
Ever since that experience whenever someone mentions how solid and stable the thinkpads are and how dodgy the asian laptops are, I just chuckle. I've owned Dells ever since, and I've had issues with those too. As far as I'm concerned brand loyalty is for suckers. You have to look at the specific model and unfortunately with model lifetimes decreasing often by the time people have 12 months of experience with a product it's no longer being sold.
Office Space, meet Slashdot.
- They said I'm allowed to troll at a reasonable volume.
- Now Milton, don't be greedy, let's pass along the karma and make sure everyone gets a piece.
- Excuse me? Excuse me, senor? May I speak to you please? I asked for an overlords joke, and they brought me an in soviet russia joke.....and I said no trolling, NO trolling for the replies, but it lots of trolls, big stupid trolls
- Oh, and remember: next Friday... is MS bashing shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear an MS bashing shirt and jeans.
- I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "social engineering" in a dictionary.
- Just remember, if you hang in there long enough, good things can happen in this world. I mean, look at me.
- Looks like you've been missing a lot of work lately.
How about if such tools were only legal for licensed/certified IT and Information Security professionals? ...and who would you trust to certify? The government that barely understands the technology?
Guns are licensed in the US. Does that stop gun crime?
Yes, this would mean our having to get certified as at least minimally competent at what we do, much like hairdressers and engineers.
This licensing is about ensuring competence so that if you hire a hairdresser or engineer you won't have all your hair fall out or have your bridge fall down.
The idea is analogous to how, in New York at least, it's illegal for random people to carry lockpicks.
No it's not. Lockpicks have 1 use: to pick locks. nmap's use isn't limited to hacking.
Go directly to jail. Do not pass go.
Pretty sure you misunderstood the intent of the OP #2 here. What they're saying is that if the "thing" in question becomes unavailable (either by lack of production or priced higher than the clockman diamond), _then_ copyright is revoked. As long as the item is in production as sanctioned by the copyright holder, it will remain protected.
I'm not misunderstanding.
If you're finding what I'm saying difficult, think about fad items like yoyos and hula hoops.
The lifespan of software is pretty short anyway. A 5-year protection cycle is a huge motivator to get a new product out the door on a regular basis and keep the programmers employed.
I wish that were true, but consider Windows XP. 5+ years old, and I know I'd personally never to Vista if XP was free and hardware was still made for it. Now you're right that'd have been better motivation to make Vista better, but can you imagine Microsoft letting go of XP? Hell can you imagine the impact it would have on Microsoft if XP were free. Whether it's good for the public is definitely something that can be argued but whether it's good for Microsoft as a company is not debatable. It'd be terrible for them.
1: Copyright cannot be extended beyond its original term. The reason for this is simple. Copyright exists to encourage creation and publication of the arts. Once that art is created under the copyright terms of the time, copyright has served its entire purpose. Anything beyond that is just giving more unnecessary rewards to a few at the expense of the many.
The idea of extension is that it creates a further incentive for it's creation right at the start. The artist knows that if they make something really well they can get more than if they make something mediocre. I'm not saying I agree or am completely convinced, but that's the idea and I do understand it.
2: Copyright is lost to any item not available for new sale in a 3 year period at a fair price. If you're no longer selling it, then you have no right to prevent other people from duplicating it and keeping it available.
That wouldn't work either. For anything that currently occupies a niche people would just buy cheap duplicates 3 years later. Suddenly good new work is competing with much cheaper work that was just as good 3 years prior. In other words it provides a strong disincentive to buy anything new which in turn is a strong disincentive to create anything.
What I'd propose is that copyright is replaced with a system that allows anyone to make a copy, provided they compensate the creator. i.e. no more restrictive ditribution and licensing. The creator of the work may sue if they're not compensated. How the price for using the creator is set I'm not quite sure (ideas include the creator sets it within some system that justifies that price, or a standards body sets and/or enforces it depending on measurable attributes). One thing that would have to happen would be that the original artist (or whoever the rights are sold to) would also have to be bound by this price.
You'd like my idea even less.
Zero control over your creative work. No consent to use it.
However I'd give you the right to be compensated for its use for the duration of your lifetime, the right to demand payment when it's used, and the right to assign these rights to someone else (but only for the duration of your lifetime).
Oh wonderful. Now when I'm overseas, the terrorists can identify me as an American in a crowd from 20 feet away.
It's actually worse than that. They've just provided a good way for a terrorist (or automated weapon) to identify an American standing on any queue at a port.
Not just you. I presume officials won't be exempt?
I'm guessing the data won't be encrypted either.
Moronic.
How long ago did you have the surgery? How painful was it? The failure/recurrence rate after surgery for most sleep apnea is abysmal unfortunately so make sure you schedule another sleep test a year or so after surgery if you haven't already.
I was diagnosed with sleep apnea about 5-6 years ago now. I'm 32. CPAP machines are horrible but they're better than the alternative for me. (3 nights without CPAP and I'm a headachy zombie with a very sore throat, plus my wife gets no sleep. I don't doubt I'd have lost my job in a few months if I hadn't found treatment that worked (I was falling asleep and snoring at my desk and in meetings while working for a consultancy on a client's premisis!). In fact if I'm honest with myself I seriously doubt I'd be alive today.
The other thing is that in some ways the opposite experience to what I'd had. For me when I got REALLY sleep deprived I got to the point where I'd actually have mild hallucinations and about a half dozen episodes of sleep paralysis (you think you're awake but you're not quite awake). Technically you're right though - no REM = no real dreams.
By the way if you're treated successfully your dreams should come back. They certainly did for me. Now if only I could go to sleep without the mask. It took me about a year to get use to, if you can call me use to it. It feels like a giant squid has attached itself to my face. If the mask leaks or I don't use a humidifier it feels like I have windburn in my nose. The straps for the mask are uncomfortable and if placed wrong even dig into the back of my ear. If you have a cold or blocked nose the mask is ineffective and I often end up with a headache if I have a cold (and for some reason often if I sleep in). However I still manage over 6 hours a night almost every night and I can function like a normal human being.
Or just kill a few trees and make hard copies. Those tend to never go "obsolete" and can be re-created in any of the current formats.
Printing takes time and money. Storing printed text costs space (money). Re-entering data takes time and money.
You shouldn't have to go through this kind of SHIT to open a fucking word processor document a few years after you create it.
Wow, any student who needs notes from 10 years ago has more serious problems than not being able to open an old Word file!
...and it's stupid attitudes like yours that keep MS dominant.
Spoken like a completely ignorant fool from the ADHD Playstation generation. People will go out of their way to get hold of "old" information in the form of notes and text books, and in the case of famous scientists historians would just about kill to get hold of their notes.
Imagine if Einstein lived in the age of MS Word. 30 years later no one could read his original manuscripts.
It's clear you know less about the academic world than you think you do.
Download Open Office open the file and save to a newer Office format.
Problem solved. Now how hard is that?
Not hard at all, if you're aware of the problem (or the error messages are good enough), if you have an Internet connection, if you know about Open Office. In other words not hard if you're a geek. Oh and please be prepared for your layout to be screwed up completely.
Nothing more to see here, please continue pissing in the M$ wind.
So they re-install office without this patch, and open their files.
It's not hard....
You're assuming they know about the patch. You're also assuming that such a ridiculous hassle is reasonable. People have better things to do than learn how registry hack their fucking word processor! If it were part of the UI it'd be a minor hassle. As it stands you have to search the net to find the MS KB article to work out how to do it. Even then do you really want non-techies having to hack their registries (easy to do correctly but if you get it wrong you bork your machine).
It simply isn't reasonable. People who are defending this are insane.
This need to be noted: from my experience people do not buy msOffice - they either get it in 'free' packets together with their hw or they have the choice made for them by mighty admins (or whoever that is that makes decision about purchase of this or that software for big organisations).
I've seen people buy Office. I've also certainly been aware of large companies buying it. How do you think MS make money from it if it's not bought? If they didn't care about the home market there wouldn't be home specific versions.
Fortunately there are alternatives one can use if ms products fail - the results may not be ideal but better than nothing. I do not understand why all this fuss about such policy then.
Perhaps because some people have a life and have better things to do with it than waste it finding other software that aren't ideal to get around their software supplier crippling their software. Why should anyone waste time and/or money downloading a free office alternative, or applying registry hacks just to open a document they created 5 years ago. Way to demonstrate loyalty to the customer.
If a student has been held back that long, the old notes are probably not going to help
I don't suppose you've heard of lifelong learning, or life getting in the way of study.
It is unreasonable, and stupid to boot.
Unreasonable:
Most students, business and personal users don't wish to be unable to open their 10 year old document because it's no longer supported. Students want to be able to access old study notes, businesses want to get at statistics, company history and old documentation of systems or business practices, and the end user wants to be able to open that wedding speech they wrote 10 years ago, or that collection of jokes in an MS word doc.
Stupid:
Why do people buy Office instead of using something free? For the 3000 features? No, at least most don't. They buy Office for universal compatibility s that they can exchange documents with everyone. The moment users start complaining that they can't open the MS Office document with Office, but it's okay you can use a free alternative, people will start installing the free alternative. They're not forcing anyone to move up to a later maintained version, they're forcing people away to software that actually does the job they want it to.
Only fools and company sock puppets (sales and marketing) actually believe obsolescence is reasonable, particularly when it comes to data.
I'm not familiar with that particular case, and have been unable to find anything via Google that resembles what you describe, but I'm willing to bet that the termination had more to do with misusing company resources/having a blowjob story tied with the law firm's email address and signature than what she said in the email. If she had sent it from a Gmail account she'd probably be fine.
Misusing a company resource? Your argument (which is not based on any facts since you admit you're completely unfamiliar with the case) is that she was fired not for brining the company into public disrepute but for sending a personal email????
You're trolling aren't you? No one would put up an argument so weak and admit they know nothing on the topic otherwise.
That depends. If you're the CEO, definitely. If you're someone who has regular public interaction on behalf of the company, definitely. If you're someone that nobody even knows is affiliated with the company then it's irrelevant.
That's the problem. People leave a huge footprint on the net that can trace them to current and former employers.
The things you're talking about here with the ex-con cop or the convicted fraudster applying for a job at a bank fall under the term bona fide occupation requirements.
If you'd read the rest of my responses, you'd realize that's exactly what I said (though I did not use the term "bona fide job requirements". You'd also realize I made 2 other relevant points:
1) If the employer is able to demonstrate that your activities do affect your job (for example people won't hire your firm while you work for it due to those activities, or your position is undermined in the community you're meant to serve). A recent example: The young spears sister getting pregant may mean her show is not continued because they no longer believe you make a good role model.
2) That may be how it is suppose to work, but in practice an employer who feels wronged or slighted will find one or more minor transgressions of your work conditions to crucify you with.
Moral of the story is actually that if you're doing something in public, you can expect it to be publicly known about. In reality in your story you might even be able sue your friend for posting your picture on the net (defamation etc). I don't like your chances of winning though.
The other moral of the story is that if your employer has a problem with the way you act in public you either need to change your public behaviour or your employer, or quite likely both. A sensible employer is not going to take idle gossip like dontdatethegirl unless it's very strongly backed with evidence.
I hope your story is hypothetical, though taking a look at your "homepage" I don't doubt it could very well be personal experience.