I'm surprised you see it that way. The storylines that follow Sgt. Shaftoe and Lt. Goto seemed to me to have a good bit of motion in them from the start. The Waterhouse storylines were slower, and the modern Waterhouse story was definitely the slowest.
I'm not sure that it's really correct to think of Randy Waterhouse as the main character. It's more of an ensemble of several characters who are followed in distinct stories which are woven together. Or, more accurately, one story which has been unraveled into numerous threads, each of which follows a character. Randy's storyline is the one that ties them all together, ultimately, so I guess in that sense he's the main. Anyway.
I developed a fondness for this sort of threaded story (that Stephenson has been writing lately) back when I was blown away by Arthur C. Clarke's "The Fountains of Paradise." It features two parallel stories separated by a thousand years and a few kilometers, which never explicitly converge.
Vernor Vinge did something structurally similar in "A Fire Upon the Deep", where he told stories concurrent in time, but separated by thousands of light-years and which are eventually convergent.
What Stephenson has done (in Cryptonomicon and in Baroque) is fragment the story into three or more threads, instead of just two. Some threads converge, others die off. Some threads are expository and slow, while others are action-based and fast. The fast-paced storylines are meant to keep the reader going through the slow-paced exposition bits, I imagine. For me, it works.
It's really a matter of taste. I can see why a person wouldn't like the structure, and goodness knows the Randy Waterhouse storyline wouldn't be much fun on its own. Thankfully, its not on its own.:-)
Edison was a P T Barnum IMHO, he wasn't fit to sweep the workshop floor of a man like Tesla [...]
Yes, that's probably true.
It is also true that P. T. Barnum was a smashing success as a promoter. You'll note that he died 113 years ago, and he still is the archetypal huckster. It's a truly dubious brand of success, but it still counts.:-)
I wonder if, in a hundred years, Bill Gates will be remembered as the popularizer of personal computers and the internet, even if the computers of that era descend from the free *nix's and MS-Windows has become a relic. I suspect so... just like we now use Tesla's AC, but think of Edison when we think of electricity.
Read what he said again. He didn't claim that Edison invented anything. He said: "Thomas Edison made electricity into a consumer product and developed the light bulb [...]"
If you will just tie your knee down a second to stop it jerking, you'll see that he actually agrees with you that "Edison didn't do dick"... at least not in the way engineers think of accomplishments.
However, what Stephenson said was accurate: Edison did have a huge influence on the widespread acceptance of electricity, and he did "develop" the light bulb as a consumer product. Edison wasn't half the inventor he claimed to be, but he was a brilliant marketer. (That's how he convinced everyone he was a brilliant inventor.) If you'll just take a deep breath, you'll see that he's simply giving Edison the credit he's due, and no more.
One of Stephenson's strengths as an author is that he understands the painful and symbiotic relationship between engineers and businessmen. This theme is central to Cryptonomicon, and important in Zodiac, Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and the Baroque Cycle.
Actually, now that you bring it up, I'd be delighted if he'd write a book on the rivalry between Tesla and Edison.... he's an author who could show both men as brilliant in their own distinct way.
I think Snow Crash and Zodiac show that he can write concisely. But in the Baroque Cycle, he has definitely chosen not to.
I just finished The Confusion last week. Quicksilver was an awfully slow read, but it was also packed with information. It turns out that a great deal of the apparently-irrelevant exposition in Quicksilver is necessary context for the second volume. I expect even more of it will become relevant in the third volume.
He could surely have told a more brief or lively tale, but I don't think the end result would have been so fulfilling as this is for me. But then, I like long, fiendishly complex books.
Things in The Confusion that I especially enjoyed: (Possible spoilers) * King Looie (as Jack would call him) is portrayed as a very cool fellow, supremely confident. It's an oddly humanizing portrait of such a potent historical figure. * The explanation for why Minerva is so fast. * Eliza's revenge... it's breathtaking in its subtlety.
Well, one could view all this as a difference of opinion between the administration and its opponents. But to me, that's not the real issue.
The problem here is that the TSA is a system easily abused by whatever group happens to be in power. The reins of power change hands from time to time, you know. Regardless of what one thinks of this administration, one can reasonably think that some administration might abuse this power in the future.
We have undisputed proof that a Senator, one of the most distinctive and recognizable members of the whole Congress, can be tagged by the no-fly list and actually held up at an airport he uses regularly in his home state. That is a big deal!
It is true that he did not miss a flight, nor a vote, because some airline supervisor recognized him and approved him to board. As a result of this debacle, it is proposed that the whole no-fly system come directly under the management of the TSA... which means it'd be TSA employees and supervisors controlling the whole process, including any urgent appeals.
Many members of Congress leave DC for various reasons during the session, and fly back to attend votes. If an unscrupulous administration's party wanted to ram something through Congress, the TSA would make an excellent weapon. A few anonymous tips could conceivably ground just the right Senators and Representatives to ensure the passage of a marginal bill. (For instance banning handguns, or outlawing all abortions, or declaring war.)
This is a frightening power for any administration to have, regardless of which side you're on.
This administration is deserving of criticism not because it has abused the no-fly system, nor because it might abuse the no-fly system, but because it is responsible for creating a no-fly system so ripe for abuse and error.
It's non-technical, and not about whether this change is good or bad. Instead my post is about a certain pundit who claimed the sky would fall (more or less) when XP was released due to its raw socket support. He was so strident that he was dismissed as a bit of a crackpot.
It turns out that now, a couple years later, Microsoft actually addressed his concern. It is anticipated that the pundit will have something entertaining to say about it.
What new functionality is added to this feature in Windows XP Service Pack 2?
Restricted traffic over raw sockets
A very small number of Windows applications make use of raw IP sockets, which provide an industry- standard way for applications to create TCP/IP packets with fewer integrity and security checks by the TCP/IP stack. The Windows implementation of TCP/IP still supports receiving traffic on raw IP sockets. However, the ability to send traffic over raw sockets has been restricted in two ways:
TCP data cannot be sent over raw sockets.
UDP datagrams with invalid source addresses cannot be sent over raw sockets. The IP source address for any outgoing UDP datagram must exist on a network interface or the datagram is dropped.
I imagine the exploit could include a VNC password change attempt. It would presumably only work on machines with a currently-logged-in admin user, but that's just the sort of thing a blackhat wants to find, no? It would be tamper-evident, at least.
[...] at some point the courts need to start standing up for the INDIVIDUAL, and not for the corporation.
This is (allegedly) a government by, of, and for the people. If we refuse to stand up for ourselves, the courts cannot save us.
It is because you are blindly in favor of giving all leverage to the corporation and essentially diminishing the value of a person to little more than a beast of burden.
What possible basis do you have for making that incorrect assumption? Nothing I said supports it.
From your other posts on Slashdot, I can see that you're clearly not an idiot. But on this thread, you are acting in a manner indistinguishable from one. Why don't you come back and try again after the meth wears off?
Rather than suggest that other people should take a stand on the issue and risk their careers, perhaps you should try it first and report on the benefits of unemployment.
Ah, grasshopper, you are hasty and have much to learn about trolling.
Firstly, I already did. I do work for an ethical employer, indeed a company that deliberately sacrifices a substantial amount of profit so they can better serve the community. (I recently learned how much under priveliged circumstances, and it's staggering.) I could not be more proud of the owners.
Secondly, what risk? The risk of failing to get a job with a company reserving the right to screw one over? The risk of being refused enslavement at the last moment because one stood up for one's basic human dignity? (How would that hurt one's career? It's not like all the employers will get together and make a blacklist.) Yeah, I'll take that risk next time I'm looking for a job. You damn betcha I will.
Thirdly: "Cynicism is the most supine moral position. If nothing can be done, then you're not some kind of shit for not trying to do anything about it." -Miles Vokisigan, hittng the nail bang on the head in "Borders of Infinity" by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Quit sniping at me, and stand up for yourself. No one else is gonna do it. Get some pride.
[sarcasm] Oooh, your clever words wound me. [/sarcasm]
I don't suppose you'd care to be more specific?
After all, it looks to me that I am in complete agreement with what you said here:
I've also found amusement that Uncle Sam is more than willing to spring to action to protect the rights of the corporations against a private citizen but, should any private citizen have a problem with the behavior of a major corporation, they'll have to come up with their own PIs, attorneys, and counsels who don't have the authority to just kick the door down, take everything in sight, and return most of it damaged and broken.
What amuses me more is that >50% of the posters on/. (and in the world) have been brainwashed to think that this is the right and true way for things to work.
I try to awaken people from the same "brainwashing" you decry, get them to not casually throw away what rights they have left, and you call me a dumbass?
I guess I must be, because that don't make no sense.
Like I said elsewhere, there are two ways to approach this problem.
One approach is refusing to sign abusive employment contracts, or attempting to alter them to be non-abusive. This guards one's personal rights, and has a small effect on the marketplace. If enough people do it, it will eventually have some large effect on the marketplace. (Although that effect might be offshoring, rather than the widespread use of fairer contracts. Unintended consequences, ya know.)
Another approach is legislative. Call or visit your state and federal representatives, and ask them to introduce legislation making this sort of abuse illegal. It worked in California, apparently, so it should be possible in your state too. This is a better solution in the long run, but much harder and less certain in the short run. (There's nothing preventing one from pursuing both solutions, though.)
Actually, there's a third way, too. Many people consider it a nasty concept they wish to have nothing to do with, though: collective bargaining. That's right... unionize. It remains to be seen if this solution can still be effective.
Bottom line...once you sign that contract, they own your ass.
I entirely agree. So don't sign the contract!!
A contract is an enforceable agreement between two parties. A contract proposal is nothing but a piece of paper with some ink on it. There's nothing magical or mysterious about a proposed contract that should prevent you from altering it to suit you better. (Think of it as legal source code.) If you don't like what it says or don't understand it, for heaven's sake don't sign until you do!
If you are presented with a pre-employment contract, you have nothing to lose by striking out sections you don't like and asking them to initial it. If they really don't like your proposed changes, I'm sure they'll be able to dig up a fresh copy while you re-consider the seriousness of your objections. (If they're willing to show you the door over one set of photocopies, after all the expense of interviewing you, I'm thinking it's not such a good place to work anyway.)
Maybe you need the job so bad you're willing to bear the burdens the contract imposes. Maybe they were just trying to see what they could get, and won't object to an altered agreement. There's only one way to find out... try it.
Obviously, sometimes it is that bad. I strongly suspected I'd get at least one reply like yours. I really do empathize with your plight.
But not everyone is in that position. Some people are in a much stronger position to negotiate, and accept unreasonable terms of employment simply because they are careless. This hurts us all.
This trend you note came to be when unscrupulous managers discovered that employees just signed whatever was put in front of them. Why not ask to own them? We have only two ways to stop it: legislate against it, or incite all of us to stop meekly complying with employers' unfair demands.
I can't legislate, but I sure can try to incite disobedience.;-)
No, seriously, leave. Get out. If you feel like you are being treated like a slave, get out while you can. We are citizens, not serfs, and we don't have to put up with that crap. Your dignity is worth a great deal of money. Find a way to leave.
For the rest of you, read the pre-employment contracts that your prospective employers ask you to sign. If you don't like something in it, cross it out and initial it, then point out the struck section for the hiring manager to initial as well before you sign. If they initial it, keep a copy forever. If they refuse to initial it, refuse to sign the contract. Sure, that may mean you don't get the job... is that really so bad?
(IANAL, of course, so my method may be insufficient. If you're really worried about it, then by all means seek proper legal advice.)
I was helping a user set up a new e-mail account last week. I got it set up to the point where it needed her to choose a password, gave her a brief refresher lecture on strong passowrds, and then stepped aside so she could enter one. I looked away from the keyboard.
As I started to hear keyboard clicks, I said "Remember, not your husband or child's name." I thought was kidding.
She stopped typing, and I looked over in time to see her deleting what she had. After a moment, she started typing again.
"Not pets, either" I said, mortified.
She stopped again.
I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. I know that people ignore password policies whenever possible, but still...
So I changed plans, and set up Password Safe for her, and showed her how to use it to generate and store passwords. Maybe if it's dead easy to use complex passwords, she might actually do it. She seemed grateful, so I'm hoping.
I don't care what the military shares, but I surely want to see more of her...
Okay, this is a little beyond belief, but the woman in that photo is a dead ringer for a former co-worker of mine.
The hair color, length, and style, the facial structure, nose, cheekbones, smile, skin coloration, and general build are all uncannily similar. (But then, I never saw her this scantily clad, more's the pity.) The photo looks so similar to her that I'm even tempted to pass it on to other former co-workers for their opinions... but I don't want to cause a scandal. (Her dad worked there, too.)
I only have two reasons to doubt: One, I'm not convinced that the woman in the photo is as tall as my former coworker. (About six feet.) Second, the sheer unlikelihood of it all is kind of staggering.
If the photo is of the woman I'm thinking of, then... wow. Strange and kinda cool.
To further torture you (if it's her) she's smart, too: a mechanical engineer. Allegedly she's a bit of a harridan, though I see that as unconfirmed... she seemed nice enough to me. But you'd best give up now despite all that. The photo would be at least five years old, I think, and now she's married to a burly, 6'4", highly protective prison guard and has a couple kids.
But if you manage to find any more photos of her... oh, nevermind.:-)
Um, Rutan's dumb choice of oxidizer means that he [...] could never scale it up to orbital flight.
Who said he wants to scale it up that far?
Whe Rutan builds a specialized craft, it tends to be excellent at what he designed it for, and pretty much useless for anything else. For instance, Voyager went around the world on one tank of fuel, but you don't see FedEx trying to modify the design for long-distance cargo delivery, do you?
SS1 is meant to win the X-Prize and demonstrate safe, shirtsleeve suborbital flight. Afterwords, the design might possibly be produced as a suborbital tourism vehicle. (I think that's likely.) But the evidence suggests that the design was never intended to see orbit. It doesn't have the heat shielding required for re-entry, it can't attain anything like the necessary speed, and it probably lacks sufficient life-support, too. It doesn't need that stuff to do its suborbital job, and that's why it doesn't have it.
Rutan chose a good propulsion tool for the job he wanted SS1 to do. The hybrid rocket does its job, and does it safely. If Rutan decides to do something different (like go to orbit) I expect we'll see him roll out an entirely new craft with a different propulsion system.
Calling his choice of oxidizer dumb is not helpful to your credibility.
The contaminated river in question is the Columbia. As the second-largest river (by flow) in the lower 48, and the largest to drain into the eastern Pacific ocean, I think it merits a mention by name.
But then I'm a local, so I'm biased.
Thankfully, the large flow means that the contamination is pretty dilute. The bad news, of course, is that said contamination flows through quite a few populated areas (including Portland), the river is used to irrigate and transport zillions of tons of wheat and other edibles, and lots of fish get pulled from the river and eaten.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm surprised you see it that way. The storylines that follow Sgt. Shaftoe and Lt. Goto seemed to me to have a good bit of motion in them from the start. The Waterhouse storylines were slower, and the modern Waterhouse story was definitely the slowest.
:-)
I'm not sure that it's really correct to think of Randy Waterhouse as the main character. It's more of an ensemble of several characters who are followed in distinct stories which are woven together. Or, more accurately, one story which has been unraveled into numerous threads, each of which follows a character. Randy's storyline is the one that ties them all together, ultimately, so I guess in that sense he's the main. Anyway.
I developed a fondness for this sort of threaded story (that Stephenson has been writing lately) back when I was blown away by Arthur C. Clarke's "The Fountains of Paradise." It features two parallel stories separated by a thousand years and a few kilometers, which never explicitly converge.
Vernor Vinge did something structurally similar in "A Fire Upon the Deep", where he told stories concurrent in time, but separated by thousands of light-years and which are eventually convergent.
What Stephenson has done (in Cryptonomicon and in Baroque) is fragment the story into three or more threads, instead of just two. Some threads converge, others die off. Some threads are expository and slow, while others are action-based and fast. The fast-paced storylines are meant to keep the reader going through the slow-paced exposition bits, I imagine. For me, it works.
It's really a matter of taste. I can see why a person wouldn't like the structure, and goodness knows the Randy Waterhouse storyline wouldn't be much fun on its own. Thankfully, its not on its own.
Edison was a P T Barnum IMHO, he wasn't fit to sweep the workshop floor of a man like Tesla [...]
:-)
Yes, that's probably true.
It is also true that P. T. Barnum was a smashing success as a promoter. You'll note that he died 113 years ago, and he still is the archetypal huckster. It's a truly dubious brand of success, but it still counts.
I wonder if, in a hundred years, Bill Gates will be remembered as the popularizer of personal computers and the internet, even if the computers of that era descend from the free *nix's and MS-Windows has become a relic. I suspect so... just like we now use Tesla's AC, but think of Edison when we think of electricity.
Fame is fickle, and rarely fair.
Whoa, there, pardner!
Read what he said again. He didn't claim that Edison invented anything. He said: "Thomas Edison made electricity into a consumer product and developed the light bulb [...]"
If you will just tie your knee down a second to stop it jerking, you'll see that he actually agrees with you that "Edison didn't do dick"... at least not in the way engineers think of accomplishments.
However, what Stephenson said was accurate: Edison did have a huge influence on the widespread acceptance of electricity, and he did "develop" the light bulb as a consumer product. Edison wasn't half the inventor he claimed to be, but he was a brilliant marketer. (That's how he convinced everyone he was a brilliant inventor.) If you'll just take a deep breath, you'll see that he's simply giving Edison the credit he's due, and no more.
One of Stephenson's strengths as an author is that he understands the painful and symbiotic relationship between engineers and businessmen. This theme is central to Cryptonomicon, and important in Zodiac, Snow Crash, Diamond Age, and the Baroque Cycle.
Actually, now that you bring it up, I'd be delighted if he'd write a book on the rivalry between Tesla and Edison.... he's an author who could show both men as brilliant in their own distinct way.
I think Snow Crash and Zodiac show that he can write concisely. But in the Baroque Cycle, he has definitely chosen not to.
I just finished The Confusion last week. Quicksilver was an awfully slow read, but it was also packed with information. It turns out that a great deal of the apparently-irrelevant exposition in Quicksilver is necessary context for the second volume. I expect even more of it will become relevant in the third volume.
He could surely have told a more brief or lively tale, but I don't think the end result would have been so fulfilling as this is for me. But then, I like long, fiendishly complex books.
Things in The Confusion that I especially enjoyed: (Possible spoilers)
* King Looie (as Jack would call him) is portrayed as a very cool fellow, supremely confident. It's an oddly humanizing portrait of such a potent historical figure.
* The explanation for why Minerva is so fast.
* Eliza's revenge... it's breathtaking in its subtlety.
Well, one could view all this as a difference of opinion between the administration and its opponents. But to me, that's not the real issue.
The problem here is that the TSA is a system easily abused by whatever group happens to be in power. The reins of power change hands from time to time, you know. Regardless of what one thinks of this administration, one can reasonably think that some administration might abuse this power in the future.
We have undisputed proof that a Senator, one of the most distinctive and recognizable members of the whole Congress, can be tagged by the no-fly list and actually held up at an airport he uses regularly in his home state. That is a big deal!
It is true that he did not miss a flight, nor a vote, because some airline supervisor recognized him and approved him to board. As a result of this debacle, it is proposed that the whole no-fly system come directly under the management of the TSA... which means it'd be TSA employees and supervisors controlling the whole process, including any urgent appeals.
Many members of Congress leave DC for various reasons during the session, and fly back to attend votes. If an unscrupulous administration's party wanted to ram something through Congress, the TSA would make an excellent weapon. A few anonymous tips could conceivably ground just the right Senators and Representatives to ensure the passage of a marginal bill. (For instance banning handguns, or outlawing all abortions, or declaring war.)
This is a frightening power for any administration to have, regardless of which side you're on.
This administration is deserving of criticism not because it has abused the no-fly system, nor because it might abuse the no-fly system, but because it is responsible for creating a no-fly system so ripe for abuse and error.
The truth might be that there is no money at all. But since we all agree that there is money, well... there is.
Gives me chills every time I think about what happens if the illusion collapses.
This guy drives me nuts. I can't stand FUD and lies.
:-)
Not supporting him. I'm just observing that there's some entertainment value in the situation.
You're right, you missed my point.
It's non-technical, and not about whether this change is good or bad. Instead my post is about a certain pundit who claimed the sky would fall (more or less) when XP was released due to its raw socket support. He was so strident that he was dismissed as a bit of a crackpot.
It turns out that now, a couple years later, Microsoft actually addressed his concern. It is anticipated that the pundit will have something entertaining to say about it.
What new functionality is added to this feature in Windows XP Service Pack 2?
Restricted traffic over raw sockets
A very small number of Windows applications make use of raw IP sockets, which provide an industry- standard way for applications to create TCP/IP packets with fewer integrity and security checks by the TCP/IP stack. The Windows implementation of TCP/IP still supports receiving traffic on raw IP sockets. However, the ability to send traffic over raw sockets has been restricted in two ways:
TCP data cannot be sent over raw sockets.
UDP datagrams with invalid source addresses cannot be sent over raw sockets. The IP source address for any outgoing UDP datagram must exist on a network interface or the datagram is dropped.
I bet his "I told you so" rant will be entertaining.
I imagine the exploit could include a VNC password change attempt. It would presumably only work on machines with a currently-logged-in admin user, but that's just the sort of thing a blackhat wants to find, no? It would be tamper-evident, at least.
I agree: Yuck.
[...] at some point the courts need to start standing up for the INDIVIDUAL, and not for the corporation.
This is (allegedly) a government by, of, and for the people. If we refuse to stand up for ourselves, the courts cannot save us.
It is because you are blindly in favor of giving all leverage to the corporation and essentially diminishing the value of a person to little more than a beast of burden.
What possible basis do you have for making that incorrect assumption? Nothing I said supports it.
From your other posts on Slashdot, I can see that you're clearly not an idiot. But on this thread, you are acting in a manner indistinguishable from one. Why don't you come back and try again after the meth wears off?
Rather than suggest that other people should take a stand on the issue and risk their careers, perhaps you should try it first and report on the benefits of unemployment.
Ah, grasshopper, you are hasty and have much to learn about trolling.
Firstly, I already did. I do work for an ethical employer, indeed a company that deliberately sacrifices a substantial amount of profit so they can better serve the community. (I recently learned how much under priveliged circumstances, and it's staggering.) I could not be more proud of the owners.
Secondly, what risk? The risk of failing to get a job with a company reserving the right to screw one over? The risk of being refused enslavement at the last moment because one stood up for one's basic human dignity? (How would that hurt one's career? It's not like all the employers will get together and make a blacklist.) Yeah, I'll take that risk next time I'm looking for a job. You damn betcha I will.
Thirdly: "Cynicism is the most supine moral position. If nothing can be done, then you're not some kind of shit for not trying to do anything about it." -Miles Vokisigan, hittng the nail bang on the head in "Borders of Infinity" by Lois McMaster Bujold.
Quit sniping at me, and stand up for yourself. No one else is gonna do it. Get some pride.
You're still a fucking dumbass.
/. (and in the world) have been brainwashed to think that this is the right and true way for things to work.
[sarcasm] Oooh, your clever words wound me. [/sarcasm]
I don't suppose you'd care to be more specific?
After all, it looks to me that I am in complete agreement with what you said here:
I've also found amusement that Uncle Sam is more than willing to spring to action to protect the rights of the corporations against a private citizen but, should any private citizen have a problem with the behavior of a major corporation, they'll have to come up with their own PIs, attorneys, and counsels who don't have the authority to just kick the door down, take everything in sight, and return most of it damaged and broken.
What amuses me more is that >50% of the posters on
I try to awaken people from the same "brainwashing" you decry, get them to not casually throw away what rights they have left, and you call me a dumbass?
I guess I must be, because that don't make no sense.
Like I said elsewhere, there are two ways to approach this problem.
One approach is refusing to sign abusive employment contracts, or attempting to alter them to be non-abusive. This guards one's personal rights, and has a small effect on the marketplace. If enough people do it, it will eventually have some large effect on the marketplace. (Although that effect might be offshoring, rather than the widespread use of fairer contracts. Unintended consequences, ya know.)
Another approach is legislative. Call or visit your state and federal representatives, and ask them to introduce legislation making this sort of abuse illegal. It worked in California, apparently, so it should be possible in your state too. This is a better solution in the long run, but much harder and less certain in the short run. (There's nothing preventing one from pursuing both solutions, though.)
Actually, there's a third way, too. Many people consider it a nasty concept they wish to have nothing to do with, though: collective bargaining. That's right... unionize. It remains to be seen if this solution can still be effective.
Bottom line...once you sign that contract, they own your ass.
I entirely agree. So don't sign the contract!!
A contract is an enforceable agreement between two parties. A contract proposal is nothing but a piece of paper with some ink on it. There's nothing magical or mysterious about a proposed contract that should prevent you from altering it to suit you better. (Think of it as legal source code.) If you don't like what it says or don't understand it, for heaven's sake don't sign until you do!
If you are presented with a pre-employment contract, you have nothing to lose by striking out sections you don't like and asking them to initial it. If they really don't like your proposed changes, I'm sure they'll be able to dig up a fresh copy while you re-consider the seriousness of your objections. (If they're willing to show you the door over one set of photocopies, after all the expense of interviewing you, I'm thinking it's not such a good place to work anyway.)
Maybe you need the job so bad you're willing to bear the burdens the contract imposes. Maybe they were just trying to see what they could get, and won't object to an altered agreement. There's only one way to find out... try it.
What have you got to lose, besides your freedom?
Obviously, sometimes it is that bad. I strongly suspected I'd get at least one reply like yours. I really do empathize with your plight.
;-)
But not everyone is in that position. Some people are in a much stronger position to negotiate, and accept unreasonable terms of employment simply because they are careless. This hurts us all.
This trend you note came to be when unscrupulous managers discovered that employees just signed whatever was put in front of them. Why not ask to own them? We have only two ways to stop it: legislate against it, or incite all of us to stop meekly complying with employers' unfair demands.
I can't legislate, but I sure can try to incite disobedience.
So quit.
No, seriously, leave. Get out. If you feel like you are being treated like a slave, get out while you can. We are citizens, not serfs, and we don't have to put up with that crap. Your dignity is worth a great deal of money. Find a way to leave.
For the rest of you, read the pre-employment contracts that your prospective employers ask you to sign. If you don't like something in it, cross it out and initial it, then point out the struck section for the hiring manager to initial as well before you sign. If they initial it, keep a copy forever. If they refuse to initial it, refuse to sign the contract. Sure, that may mean you don't get the job... is that really so bad?
(IANAL, of course, so my method may be insufficient. If you're really worried about it, then by all means seek proper legal advice.)
I was helping a user set up a new e-mail account last week. I got it set up to the point where it needed her to choose a password, gave her a brief refresher lecture on strong passowrds, and then stepped aside so she could enter one. I looked away from the keyboard.
As I started to hear keyboard clicks, I said "Remember, not your husband or child's name." I thought was kidding.
She stopped typing, and I looked over in time to see her deleting what she had. After a moment, she started typing again.
"Not pets, either" I said, mortified.
She stopped again.
I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. I know that people ignore password policies whenever possible, but still...
So I changed plans, and set up Password Safe for her, and showed her how to use it to generate and store passwords. Maybe if it's dead easy to use complex passwords, she might actually do it. She seemed grateful, so I'm hoping.
But I'm not holding my breath.
I hadn't thought of it before, but he's clearly another example of the rule presented in The Tao of Steve.
McGarrett. Austin. McQueen. Jobs.
Good luck, Steve.
He wouldn't happen to be posted to Guantanamo Bay, would he???
Not that I know of. Last I heard he worked at a county prison near Portland, OR.
It's seed corn. Seed, as in, what you don't eat, but save to plant next year.
Kids these days.
"a mechanical engineer" that is enough for me.. i will be right back...
Don't forget to wash your hands.
I don't care what the military shares, but I surely want to see more of her...
:-)
Okay, this is a little beyond belief, but the woman in that photo is a dead ringer for a former co-worker of mine.
The hair color, length, and style, the facial structure, nose, cheekbones, smile, skin coloration, and general build are all uncannily similar. (But then, I never saw her this scantily clad, more's the pity.) The photo looks so similar to her that I'm even tempted to pass it on to other former co-workers for their opinions... but I don't want to cause a scandal. (Her dad worked there, too.)
I only have two reasons to doubt: One, I'm not convinced that the woman in the photo is as tall as my former coworker. (About six feet.) Second, the sheer unlikelihood of it all is kind of staggering.
If the photo is of the woman I'm thinking of, then... wow. Strange and kinda cool.
To further torture you (if it's her) she's smart, too: a mechanical engineer. Allegedly she's a bit of a harridan, though I see that as unconfirmed... she seemed nice enough to me. But you'd best give up now despite all that. The photo would be at least five years old, I think, and now she's married to a burly, 6'4", highly protective prison guard and has a couple kids.
But if you manage to find any more photos of her... oh, nevermind.
Um, Rutan's dumb choice of oxidizer means that he [...] could never scale it up to orbital flight.
Who said he wants to scale it up that far?
Whe Rutan builds a specialized craft, it tends to be excellent at what he designed it for, and pretty much useless for anything else. For instance, Voyager went around the world on one tank of fuel, but you don't see FedEx trying to modify the design for long-distance cargo delivery, do you?
SS1 is meant to win the X-Prize and demonstrate safe, shirtsleeve suborbital flight. Afterwords, the design might possibly be produced as a suborbital tourism vehicle. (I think that's likely.) But the evidence suggests that the design was never intended to see orbit. It doesn't have the heat shielding required for re-entry, it can't attain anything like the necessary speed, and it probably lacks sufficient life-support, too. It doesn't need that stuff to do its suborbital job, and that's why it doesn't have it.
Rutan chose a good propulsion tool for the job he wanted SS1 to do. The hybrid rocket does its job, and does it safely. If Rutan decides to do something different (like go to orbit) I expect we'll see him roll out an entirely new craft with a different propulsion system.
Calling his choice of oxidizer dumb is not helpful to your credibility.
The contaminated river in question is the Columbia. As the second-largest river (by flow) in the lower 48, and the largest to drain into the eastern Pacific ocean, I think it merits a mention by name.
But then I'm a local, so I'm biased.
Thankfully, the large flow means that the contamination is pretty dilute. The bad news, of course, is that said contamination flows through quite a few populated areas (including Portland), the river is used to irrigate and transport zillions of tons of wheat and other edibles, and lots of fish get pulled from the river and eaten.