I can see your point, but until we return to a policy of creating "smart kid" classes and "not-so-smart kid" classes, instead of the enforced homogeneous classes we have nowadays, it is unlikely that teachers will be able to cope with students that move at such different speeds.
In one of Carl Sagan's books (I think Demon Haunted World), we talks about this a little. He pointed out that schools routinely single out students who are excellent in sports and give them all kinds of specialized and dedicated training. This is not just accepted but expected. However to do the same with kids academically is considered elitism and unjust.
I've always felt we should get rid of the "grades" system and have tracks for the different subjects. If you're good at math, then do the math as fast as you can, even if that means you're with older students. If you're not good at English, you go slower and you're with younger students. It's just like real life where you work with and for people who are both younger and older than you... you might as well get used to it!
It's one thing to claim that their car doesn't work, it's another to claim it doesn't work because what it proposes to do is impossible. A few decades ago, people claimed it was impossible to go to the moon...
The difference here is that one was said to be impossible because it had never been seriously attempted and just seemed technically overwhelming.
The other is said to be impossible because it violates an immense amount of evidence gathered from many years of experimentation.
To get the moon didn't require revisions to the laws of physics as they were known at the time but merely the effort and drive to tackle the engineering problems.
The makers of this car, on the other hand, are claiming to have found a way to power this car in a way that DOES violate the laws of physics as we know them. That in itself is fine because the laws of physics as we know them get adjusted as we learn more - however the adjustments typically don't invalidate the existing laws but instead expose their limitations. For example, relativity didn't invalidate the laws of Newtonion motion. It did show, however, that those laws only apply at low velocities and that when you start approaching the speed of light, new factors have to be taken into account. (Instead of dividing by 2 in the Newtonian equation, you divide by 1 + sqrt(c^2 - v^2)/c. If v is small, then this is essentially 2.) Relativity didn't invalidate Newton but rather did a better job of fitting all the evidence and measurements.
Now, again, these guys are claiming to do something that invalidates a very fundamental understanding of the universe as we know it. That requires more evidence than a pretty car with fancy logos and a video on youtube. They're making an extraordinary claim ("we have found a way to violate the known laws of thermodynamics") but are providing no evidence to back this up. Skepticism is certainly warranted here.
Boy scouts was where I was introduced to DnD, the best thing to play when your'e out in the wilderness with absolutely no electricity and only your imagination. It was a wonderful experience,
That's funny... we used to chase each other with big sticks, "lose" the younger scouts in the woods, play chicken by pushing boulders down mountains, and light each other on fire. It was also a wonderful experience that truly prepared me for real life.
The problem is, this isn't the security check to get on a plane, it's the customs people when you enter the country. When you fly into the US, and assuming you are flying on to another destination, you get off the plane, get your bags, and go through customs. These people have an incredible amount of power over you and you probably have little legal recourse, even if you're an American citizen.
I find the contrast sad... when I recently flew into Amsterdam, I grabbed my bag, the guy stamped my passport, and I walked through a door out into the real world. No questions, no forms, no inspections, no going through my bags. And this while I'm coming from the "land of the free" to one of those wacky socialist European countries.
There are several steps in constructing useful models and the last, and most controversial is that of "model validation".
In building a computer model/simulation, you generally follow these steps:
1) problem formulation - what do you want to figure out, gather data, get the "reference behavior pattern" 2) formulate a mental model of the system - what are the entities involved and how are they related 3) build and debug your model 4) verification - this is where you ensure the model behaves as expected against specific sets of inputs - as you change inputs, does it do what you expect (I turn up the volume knob - and the sound gets louder)
5) validation - this is where you compare the results of the model with the reference data from the real world. If it doesn't match, you then have to back up and figure out what's wrong... was the implementation of the model incorrect? were your initial hypotheses incorrect? And if it does match, have you gathered enough real world data to know your model is functioning well? How confident are you of this model's ability to model the system you're interested in.
So suppose you've built a model that you can validate against gathered data, you still have to demonstrate that your model is valuable to the scientific community.
You're probably going out on a limb to make strong assertions when a model demonstrates/predicts behavior that has not been observed. However, it can serve a great role in helping determine what other things to look for, what conditions may exist, or help see relationships that you may not have seen before.
The controversy is over how much you can use a model to help prove a hypothesis.
Please spare me your diatribe about the Shah and SAVAK -- compared to the Mullahs of today many Iranians were better off during the Shah's reign than today.
Yes, but they were even better off under Mosadegh. You know, the popularly elected guy that the CIA removed from power because he had the gall to nationalize Iran's oil for the benefit of his people? The Mullahs of today could never have gotten the popular support of the Iranian people to overthrow him or more democratic people that could have followed.
The revolution and rise of the Mullahs can be traced almost directly to the removal of Mosadegh and the installation of the Shaw. The CIA even acknowledges this and applied the term "blow-back" to how badly the situation went.
So yeah, the Mullahs are bad, but most of the blame for them even being in power lies with the US. Imagine... we could have had that "model of democracy" in the Middle East had we supported Mosadegh rather than deposing him. Sure, just like any other sovereign country, there would be no guarantee that they would have "done our will", but frankly, I would rather have had Iran as a democratic ally rather than a theocratic enemy.
I wonder what nuking Iran would do for all the extremist among the Muslims out there who'd like to have an example of the US being an imperialist aggressor in the Muslim world. I suspect they'd be thrilled that we made their case for them.
You tell me why Iran needs nuclear energy for power generation? They could invest all that money in clean oil burning technologies and still have plenty left over to advance a very broad range of research on industries that would diversify their economy.
There are all kinds of good reasons. A prime reason would be diversification of their energy base. Oil might be cheap and plentiful now but it won't always be. That's merely a good strategic decision to help preserve their nation and have more options in the face of emergencies. Plus the oil is not likely to last forever; since you're deciding how the Iranians should run their country, what energy source should they use then?
A good economic reason is that a nuclear program means they can use their oil for other things (plastics other petrochemicals). Or they can make even more money by being able to export more of the oil rather than using it domestically.
There are also environmental considerations. As clean as "clean burning" is, there is still pollution generated and you can't avoid the CO2 emissions. Nuclear has environmental problems too, but for the most part they can be contained to a limited area.
So, it makes plenty of sense for them to invest in a nuclear program.
And if they want weapons, who is the US (I'm assuming, maybe incorrectly, that you're an American) to tell them they can't have them? I suppose when we get rid of our nukes, then we'll be in a morally sound position to tell others they can't have them. I'm much more worried about rogue military elements or "terrorists" in Pakistan getting nukes there.
What I find telling is that the Defense Minister was present. Why would he care about nuclear facilities that were meant for peaceful power generation?
It's not really so telling.
Let's take on face value Iran's claim that their nuclear program is peaceful and for energy and medical isotope production. That makes it quite important to Iran's economy and standard of living. Now consider that the world's dominant military power has taken particular interest in that program and is trying to work up its population into supporting military strikes on the facility. That justifies his presence there.
Now let's assume that the facility IS being used for a nuclear weapons program. That would also justify his presence there.
So, actually, it is NOT very telling that he was there. His presence is justified whether the program is to produce nuclear weapons or not.
I suggest you find another reason to justify yet another preemptive war than the presence of the Defense Minister in a nuclear facility. It really signifies nothing. Iran won't be "easy" like Iraq.
or if it was a contest, the winners would get the advertiser's featured products.
It will be "even better" because the cheapest shows are already the "reality" shows. But now, instead of the contestants on Survivor having to stand on top of a boring old log until the last one stands, you'll get:
"only 2 contestants are remaining atop their towers of delicious ice cold coca cola. Who will last the longest and get to drink all the wonderful bubbly, all American drink?... OH! She almost fell!.." [smash-cut to coca cola commercial]
The point of my previous post was: If you use "open source" products, you can do whatever the hell you want and live free from corporate dictatorship.
The problem with this analogy is that in the "real world" crops get pollinated by bugs, bees, birds, and the wind. I may choose to have "open source" crops while my next door neighbor does not. Unfortunately, there's no way to keep the birds, bees, and wind from picking up pollen from your crops and leaving it in mine.
That in itself is not such a big problem. But then Monsanto comes along and sues me, saying I have to pay them because some of my neighbor's crop's DNA is now in my crop. There's no freedom from the corporate dictatorship when they can get away using the law to unjustly smash "the little guys".
It's fine my neighbor and Monsanto want to make their GMO crops, but THEY should be held liable when they can't keep their DNA contained, not me. If anything, they should have to pay me damages for polluting my non-GMO crops.
But even worse, even though I have lower yields than my neighbor, I may like to promote my products as being free of the Monsanto GMOs and I know there are lots of customers who are willing to pay a premium for that. Unfortunately, Monsanto doesn't believe that I have the right to tell people that it doesn't have their stuff in it - yet they would sue me if it did. I end up doubly harmed by them.
The "real world" is that large corporations like Monsanto have big sticks that they can whack people with and there's not much you can do if you make the large corporation unhappy.
Sometimes rogue is the only way to go, especially when the IT organization is huge, monolithic, and anything but "IT at the speed of business".
In our situation it was also a reporting issue. Basically we (I) were tasked with doubling the number of countries we reported for. The process in place already required 2 full weeks of work (often with lots of unpaid overtime). The work couldn't start until the end of the month and had to be done by the 15th. Adding new people would have been stupid and it wasn't an option anyway. We were put in a position that if we "followed the rules" we'd either end up working 20 hour days for 2 weeks, or we'd simply fail to get our work done.
Our corporate IT group was willing to consider a more automated database solution... but after 4 months of meetings they wanted millions of dollars and said it would take more than two years to complete. This was a non-solution.
We then, with the help and advice of another "rogue" developer in the company, went to an external local company who built a very nice solution for $25k. Not only were we able to handle the doubled reporting workload, the actual workload itself went from 2 whole weeks each month to just a few hours a month. We did another round of development, spent another $25k, and folded in two other very time-consuming and error-prone processes into the tool (they only happen 3 times a year).
A few months ago I ran into the IT director that helped propose the multi-million solution and he asked how we were doing. I told him we got a great solution and he asked me to schedule a meeting to show him what we came up with. When the meeting was over, he basically picked his jaw up off the floor and expressed how amazed he was at by the tool and how disappointed he was that the IT organization in our company (a Fortune 500 BTW) couldn't accomplish anything even close to it.
To be fair, our IT organization is very good at huge capital improvement projects that take years to complete. Unfortunately they have no capability to support more tactical solutions that help keep the business going until the big project is going. They are unable to grasp the idea that sometimes you need to make temporary bandaid solutions that will be discarded when "big project xyz" is done. "It's just a waste of money and resources" is their usual response - but they seem to have no concept that the business is hampered and profits are not earned because the lack of any tool, even a temporary one, inhibits the business. You don't need to buy a car to get from the airport to work - sometimes it's okay to spend money on a taxi. IT wants to tell us we can't take the taxi because they're building a car for us - we just have to wait at the airport for 2 years or walk.
But as you suggested, we had buy in from our own director (who was able to shake loose the money for the rogue development) and ultimately, the VP in our "chain of command" is pleased - the quality of our reports has improved dramatically (because we eliminated so much manual work) and we're able to support the additional countries, along with even more detailed/graphical reports.
There are some in the IT group that don't like what we're doing. But my response to them is always, "Let me know when you can provide us a reporting system that does this, this, this, and this and we'll be glad to switch to it". "Oh, well, we can't do that, that, and that..." and they then leave us alone.
the culture of bad leadership that infests (at least western cultures) big business
I hope you weren't implying that other regions' cultures run businesses better... because if you were, you've clearly never worked with any!
Nah, my guess is that the poster was qualifying his statements so they are limited to the companies/cultures he has experience with. I think he/she is just being careful and more precise.
With good leadership, all the other problems can be mitigated or removed.
I agree with most of what you say except this. The problem is more systemic. Going back to the Peter Principle, consider how "western" companies are structured to reward good work. You either give them more pay/bonuses or you promote them, or both. Going along with the principle, a person keeps getting promoted, learning more, getting better, until finally they aren't able to master the position they've been promoted to. Now there are several rubs:
The "reasonable" solution to over-promoting someone is to simply drop them back a level to where they are good. The problem with that is the "societal shame" and that you have to cut the employee's pay. This is all demoralizing for the employee.
Another solution is to simply fire the employee for their inability to adapt to the new position. But now you've gotten rid of excellent talent and someone who knows the business well.
And then let's assume management is "enlightened enough" to not just promote the excellent employee but instead pays them more. Eventually, they are paying more for this excellent employee than the value this person can return in their work. They could hire a "pretty good" employee in that job and pay them less.
It's not just a leadership problem among individual leaders but a problem with the entire system within most corporations. They're just not set up to truly reward excellent employees in meaningful ways other than "money and power". Now, a more enlightened approach could take into account was is really meaningful to the employee and find ways to reward them in ways that work best for them.
Let me tell you that I truly appreciate your mastery of Game Theory. This is probably one of the most beautiful and elegant applications of the Prisoner's Dilemma I have ever seen.
I'm sure there were many employees in the American textile industry who said exactly the same thing. Unfortunately for them, all but the tiniest fraction of the entire industry is now located somewhere not in the US.
To make it worse, while it can be argued that outsourcing IT abroad is not as cheap is it appears on paper, there is still downward pressure on wages/salaries because you have more local people pursuing a decreasing number of jobs.
In an analogy, it's like having a bunch of farmers, so some great, some good, and some not so good. When the soil is fertile and the climate is good for growing, everyone does well. But throw in a 5 year drought, and even the great farmers will find themselves out of work.
So, while I'm sure you're an excellent, innovative, and adaptable employee, once companies and even whole industries move abroad, there's not going to be much for you but to take a lower paying job, probably not even doing what you enjoy. If anything you'll get stuck where you are because you already cost too much to be promoted and you'll be surrounded by the dead-sea residue that this article talks about... at least until the economy finally starts to swing in a more active direction.
The title here is pretty misleading. It reads as if an entire course was dedicated to the issues of Open Source, which would be a good thing. As it is, this is just one case study. If used in a course, it would be read and used in one class session.
These case studies are used in lots of MBA courses, and they are just little stories used to describe a business situation. They often have interesting business problems but they're also often filled with fluff ("Jane showed up at the factory with her DK shoes and her Gucci handbag... can't figure out why the client doesn't take her seriously") and tons of information that is irrelevant to the "problem". I'm sure part of the "training" from these case studies is learning to weed out useless information.
For example, we had one about Eli Lilly and whether they should build a line dedicated to a particular product or use a general purpose/configurable line. The dedicated line had a higher throughput and lower cost but the configurable line could be used for something else if the market didn't develop for the drug. But it would be quite a stretch to say that because we read and discussed a 10 page case study that "Pharmaceuticals" had been added to our curriculum.
The type of course that would have this case study on the syllabus would also have cases on motorcycle parts manufacturing, consultancy woes, and HR problems where people don't work well together. But this is hardly a serious curriculum about Open Source.
Besides, cable locks won't help me secure my the USB drive and other electronics that might wander off. The solution I imagine is a lockable, ventilated metal box that would sit under the monitor and house most of the electronics. If it was big enough, I could stick my laptop into it at night (while leaving it running) and feel confident that it would still be there in the morning. I'd be open to other types of solutions. Surely someone else must have dealt with this problem."
This is a common problem and what you're looking for is called a desktop computer. It's a box that sits under the monitor with all the electronics enclosed inside. It even has fans and vents to keep it all working at a proper temperature./sarcasm
Seriously, the whole point of a laptop is that it's portable and convenient to carry around, which also makes it easy to steal. The desktop can do all the things you need and will probably be more powerful than your laptop and cost about the same as some kind of powered box for locking your laptop in.
Then you can just leave the laptop locked in your drawer for when you need to work away from the desk.
I thought most manufacturers give you a list of all the drivers you need on their website when you select the model.
The problem is, if the company sells the laptop with Vista, then the download drivers are also for... Vista.
I got a Fujitsu with Vista and "upgraded" to XP. It was a bit of a challenge because the controller chipset wasn't supported with the Windows XP disk I purchased. I manged to get an install going using Nlite and adding the driver controllers I downloaded from HP.
That was challenging because the drivers came as a floppy image that had to be "burned" to a floppy with the special software. My laptop doesn't have a floppy - and I had to reconnect the floppy to my desktop - and then dig through all my boxes of crap to finally find a floppy to burn it to... just to put it on a USB stick so I could transfer it back to my laptop where I was building a new install disk.
I managed to get everything working on my laptop except for all of the buttons on the hot keys above the keyboard that would normally launch web browsers and such.
I'd LOVE to get a rebate on the unused Vista install disk that came with it.
The article mentions this: People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.
Of course, this doesn't even cover people discarding left over pills in the toilet.
Really, it's just another example of a multi-billion dollar industry making huge profits while not being responsible for the waste stream they create.
Then again, I'm sure they can just make a pill for all of us to take on a daily basis that will neutralize the effects of all these other drugs in our water supply.
Just make sure you get proof of the rate you agree to pay. I've had it for 4 months and they've consistently over-charged me by $5.00 a month. Sure, it's not a lot, but it's more than I agreed to pay - and they never help. I've written letters, sent e-mails, and got transferred from department to department on multiple calls.
I figure my last resort is to file fraud claims with my credit card about the overbilling.
Oh yeah, and if you don't have phone and cable, they only let you have their service by billing your credit card. I have billpay at my bank - that money goes through, but they won't stop billing my credit card.
The FIOS is a nice connection, but the customer service is crappy.
I can't stomach the thought of switching to Comcast, but I am about to do it anyway. Then maybe they'll return my calls.
See, I read it a different way altogether: the hacker was neither an employee nor a friend of an employee at the firm, and therefore [i]could not have committed insider trading[/i].
That's how I read it too, so really the title is misleading. It's not so much that the SEC says he can keep the money (they don't have the authority to do that across the board). They're simply saying that he didn't do anything wrong that they are able deal with, so THEY won't be taking the money away. In similar news, he didn't violate any FDA rules either, so they won't take the money.
I'm actually surprised, however, that stealing "inside information" and using it to trade is not a violation. If there isn't already one, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new market of overseas hackers selling inside information to domestic investors so they can do stuff like that. Regular US criminal processes really can't reach out and touch some guy doing his hacking in Israel or Russia. And how would the SEC ever figure out if someone is shorting stocks based on information they pay these hackers to get?
unfair advantage over those who did not have such a leg. If such a thing was allowed, where would it stop? Would a wheelchair with a V8 engine attached be allowed because it was simply a technological innovation that allowed amputees to move faster?
Yeah, I get really confused by things like this. On one hand there is a replacement for a body part that is passive, still requiring human power to actuate, and then there's this internal combustion engine. I'm so confused by the difference that I once, on a rainy day (it rains a lot here), went to the auto parts store asking for a replacement parts for my crutches. The guy at the store said not to be embarrassed because it was apparently a pretty common mistake to make. He warned me to be careful walking home from the store because the slope just up the road can get pretty slippery.
Seriously, what about the technical edge given by clothing, shoes, glasses with prescriptive lenses, goggles, etc. Maybe we should go back to how it used to be done, with the athletes performing nude...
Slashdot Mirror
I can see your point, but until we return to a policy of creating "smart kid" classes and "not-so-smart kid" classes, instead of the enforced homogeneous classes we have nowadays, it is unlikely that teachers will be able to cope with students that move at such different speeds.
In one of Carl Sagan's books (I think Demon Haunted World), we talks about this a little. He pointed out that schools routinely single out students who are excellent in sports and give them all kinds of specialized and dedicated training. This is not just accepted but expected. However to do the same with kids academically is considered elitism and unjust.
I've always felt we should get rid of the "grades" system and have tracks for the different subjects. If you're good at math, then do the math as fast as you can, even if that means you're with older students. If you're not good at English, you go slower and you're with younger students. It's just like real life where you work with and for people who are both younger and older than you... you might as well get used to it!
I'd imagine a substantial portion of their customers will now pay for two accounts.
Well, here's a customer who just changed to paying for no accounts. I'll just go back to getting movies from the library.
It's one thing to claim that their car doesn't work, it's another to claim it doesn't work because what it proposes to do is impossible.
A few decades ago, people claimed it was impossible to go to the moon...
The difference here is that one was said to be impossible because it had never been seriously attempted and just seemed technically overwhelming.
The other is said to be impossible because it violates an immense amount of evidence gathered from many years of experimentation.
To get the moon didn't require revisions to the laws of physics as they were known at the time but merely the effort and drive to tackle the engineering problems.
The makers of this car, on the other hand, are claiming to have found a way to power this car in a way that DOES violate the laws of physics as we know them. That in itself is fine because the laws of physics as we know them get adjusted as we learn more - however the adjustments typically don't invalidate the existing laws but instead expose their limitations. For example, relativity didn't invalidate the laws of Newtonion motion. It did show, however, that those laws only apply at low velocities and that when you start approaching the speed of light, new factors have to be taken into account. (Instead of dividing by 2 in the Newtonian equation, you divide by 1 + sqrt(c^2 - v^2)/c. If v is small, then this is essentially 2.) Relativity didn't invalidate Newton but rather did a better job of fitting all the evidence and measurements.
Now, again, these guys are claiming to do something that invalidates a very fundamental understanding of the universe as we know it. That requires more evidence than a pretty car with fancy logos and a video on youtube. They're making an extraordinary claim ("we have found a way to violate the known laws of thermodynamics") but are providing no evidence to back this up. Skepticism is certainly warranted here.
Boy scouts was where I was introduced to DnD, the best thing to play when your'e out in the wilderness with absolutely no electricity and only your imagination. It was a wonderful experience,
That's funny... we used to chase each other with big sticks, "lose" the younger scouts in the woods, play chicken by pushing boulders down mountains, and light each other on fire. It was also a wonderful experience that truly prepared me for real life.
The problem is, this isn't the security check to get on a plane, it's the customs people when you enter the country. When you fly into the US, and assuming you are flying on to another destination, you get off the plane, get your bags, and go through customs. These people have an incredible amount of power over you and you probably have little legal recourse, even if you're an American citizen.
I find the contrast sad... when I recently flew into Amsterdam, I grabbed my bag, the guy stamped my passport, and I walked through a door out into the real world. No questions, no forms, no inspections, no going through my bags. And this while I'm coming from the "land of the free" to one of those wacky socialist European countries.
There are several steps in constructing useful models and the last, and most controversial is that of "model validation".
In building a computer model/simulation, you generally follow these steps:
1) problem formulation - what do you want to figure out, gather data, get the "reference behavior pattern"
2) formulate a mental model of the system - what are the entities involved and how are they related
3) build and debug your model
4) verification - this is where you ensure the model behaves as expected against specific sets of inputs - as you change inputs, does it do what you expect (I turn up the volume knob - and the sound gets louder)
5) validation - this is where you compare the results of the model with the reference data from the real world. If it doesn't match, you then have to back up and figure out what's wrong... was the implementation of the model incorrect? were your initial hypotheses incorrect? And if it does match, have you gathered enough real world data to know your model is functioning well? How confident are you of this model's ability to model the system you're interested in.
So suppose you've built a model that you can validate against gathered data, you still have to demonstrate that your model is valuable to the scientific community.
You're probably going out on a limb to make strong assertions when a model demonstrates/predicts behavior that has not been observed. However, it can serve a great role in helping determine what other things to look for, what conditions may exist, or help see relationships that you may not have seen before.
The controversy is over how much you can use a model to help prove a hypothesis.
Please spare me your diatribe about the Shah and SAVAK -- compared to the Mullahs of today many Iranians were better off during the Shah's reign than today.
Yes, but they were even better off under Mosadegh. You know, the popularly elected guy that the CIA removed from power because he had the gall to nationalize Iran's oil for the benefit of his people? The Mullahs of today could never have gotten the popular support of the Iranian people to overthrow him or more democratic people that could have followed.
The revolution and rise of the Mullahs can be traced almost directly to the removal of Mosadegh and the installation of the Shaw. The CIA even acknowledges this and applied the term "blow-back" to how badly the situation went.
So yeah, the Mullahs are bad, but most of the blame for them even being in power lies with the US. Imagine... we could have had that "model of democracy" in the Middle East had we supported Mosadegh rather than deposing him. Sure, just like any other sovereign country, there would be no guarantee that they would have "done our will", but frankly, I would rather have had Iran as a democratic ally rather than a theocratic enemy.
I wonder what nuking Iran would do for all the extremist among the Muslims out there who'd like to have an example of the US being an imperialist aggressor in the Muslim world. I suspect they'd be thrilled that we made their case for them.
You tell me why Iran needs nuclear energy for power generation? They could invest all that money in clean oil burning technologies and still have plenty left over to advance a very broad range of research on industries that would diversify their economy.
There are all kinds of good reasons. A prime reason would be diversification of their energy base. Oil might be cheap and plentiful now but it won't always be. That's merely a good strategic decision to help preserve their nation and have more options in the face of emergencies. Plus the oil is not likely to last forever; since you're deciding how the Iranians should run their country, what energy source should they use then?
A good economic reason is that a nuclear program means they can use their oil for other things (plastics other petrochemicals). Or they can make even more money by being able to export more of the oil rather than using it domestically.
There are also environmental considerations. As clean as "clean burning" is, there is still pollution generated and you can't avoid the CO2 emissions. Nuclear has environmental problems too, but for the most part they can be contained to a limited area.
So, it makes plenty of sense for them to invest in a nuclear program.
And if they want weapons, who is the US (I'm assuming, maybe incorrectly, that you're an American) to tell them they can't have them? I suppose when we get rid of our nukes, then we'll be in a morally sound position to tell others they can't have them. I'm much more worried about rogue military elements or "terrorists" in Pakistan getting nukes there.
What I find telling is that the Defense Minister was present. Why would he care about nuclear facilities that were meant for peaceful power generation?
It's not really so telling.
Let's take on face value Iran's claim that their nuclear program is peaceful and for energy and medical isotope production. That makes it quite important to Iran's economy and standard of living. Now consider that the world's dominant military power has taken particular interest in that program and is trying to work up its population into supporting military strikes on the facility. That justifies his presence there.
Now let's assume that the facility IS being used for a nuclear weapons program. That would also justify his presence there.
So, actually, it is NOT very telling that he was there. His presence is justified whether the program is to produce nuclear weapons or not.
I suggest you find another reason to justify yet another preemptive war than the presence of the Defense Minister in a nuclear facility. It really signifies nothing. Iran won't be "easy" like Iraq.
Doubling zero still leaves you with zero. Sadly.
or if it was a contest, the winners would get the advertiser's featured products.
.." [smash-cut to coca cola commercial]
It will be "even better" because the cheapest shows are already the "reality" shows. But now, instead of the contestants on Survivor having to stand on top of a boring old log until the last one stands, you'll get:
"only 2 contestants are remaining atop their towers of delicious ice cold coca cola. Who will last the longest and get to drink all the wonderful bubbly, all American drink?... OH! She almost fell!
The point of my previous post was: If you use "open source" products, you can do whatever the hell you want and live free from corporate dictatorship.
The problem with this analogy is that in the "real world" crops get pollinated by bugs, bees, birds, and the wind. I may choose to have "open source" crops while my next door neighbor does not. Unfortunately, there's no way to keep the birds, bees, and wind from picking up pollen from your crops and leaving it in mine.
That in itself is not such a big problem. But then Monsanto comes along and sues me, saying I have to pay them because some of my neighbor's crop's DNA is now in my crop. There's no freedom from the corporate dictatorship when they can get away using the law to unjustly smash "the little guys".
It's fine my neighbor and Monsanto want to make their GMO crops, but THEY should be held liable when they can't keep their DNA contained, not me. If anything, they should have to pay me damages for polluting my non-GMO crops.
But even worse, even though I have lower yields than my neighbor, I may like to promote my products as being free of the Monsanto GMOs and I know there are lots of customers who are willing to pay a premium for that. Unfortunately, Monsanto doesn't believe that I have the right to tell people that it doesn't have their stuff in it - yet they would sue me if it did. I end up doubly harmed by them.
The "real world" is that large corporations like Monsanto have big sticks that they can whack people with and there's not much you can do if you make the large corporation unhappy.
Sometimes rogue is the only way to go, especially when the IT organization is huge, monolithic, and anything but "IT at the speed of business".
In our situation it was also a reporting issue. Basically we (I) were tasked with doubling the number of countries we reported for. The process in place already required 2 full weeks of work (often with lots of unpaid overtime). The work couldn't start until the end of the month and had to be done by the 15th. Adding new people would have been stupid and it wasn't an option anyway. We were put in a position that if we "followed the rules" we'd either end up working 20 hour days for 2 weeks, or we'd simply fail to get our work done.
Our corporate IT group was willing to consider a more automated database solution... but after 4 months of meetings they wanted millions of dollars and said it would take more than two years to complete. This was a non-solution.
We then, with the help and advice of another "rogue" developer in the company, went to an external local company who built a very nice solution for $25k. Not only were we able to handle the doubled reporting workload, the actual workload itself went from 2 whole weeks each month to just a few hours a month. We did another round of development, spent another $25k, and folded in two other very time-consuming and error-prone processes into the tool (they only happen 3 times a year).
A few months ago I ran into the IT director that helped propose the multi-million solution and he asked how we were doing. I told him we got a great solution and he asked me to schedule a meeting to show him what we came up with. When the meeting was over, he basically picked his jaw up off the floor and expressed how amazed he was at by the tool and how disappointed he was that the IT organization in our company (a Fortune 500 BTW) couldn't accomplish anything even close to it.
To be fair, our IT organization is very good at huge capital improvement projects that take years to complete. Unfortunately they have no capability to support more tactical solutions that help keep the business going until the big project is going. They are unable to grasp the idea that sometimes you need to make temporary bandaid solutions that will be discarded when "big project xyz" is done. "It's just a waste of money and resources" is their usual response - but they seem to have no concept that the business is hampered and profits are not earned because the lack of any tool, even a temporary one, inhibits the business. You don't need to buy a car to get from the airport to work - sometimes it's okay to spend money on a taxi. IT wants to tell us we can't take the taxi because they're building a car for us - we just have to wait at the airport for 2 years or walk.
But as you suggested, we had buy in from our own director (who was able to shake loose the money for the rogue development) and ultimately, the VP in our "chain of command" is pleased - the quality of our reports has improved dramatically (because we eliminated so much manual work) and we're able to support the additional countries, along with even more detailed/graphical reports.
There are some in the IT group that don't like what we're doing. But my response to them is always, "Let me know when you can provide us a reporting system that does this, this, this, and this and we'll be glad to switch to it". "Oh, well, we can't do that, that, and that..." and they then leave us alone.
the culture of bad leadership that infests (at least western cultures) big business
I hope you weren't implying that other regions' cultures run businesses better... because if you were, you've clearly never worked with any!
Nah, my guess is that the poster was qualifying his statements so they are limited to the companies/cultures he has experience with. I think he/she is just being careful and more precise.
The problem is bad leadership. end. of. story.
With good leadership, all the other problems can be mitigated or removed.
I agree with most of what you say except this. The problem is more systemic. Going back to the Peter Principle, consider how "western" companies are structured to reward good work. You either give them more pay/bonuses or you promote them, or both. Going along with the principle, a person keeps getting promoted, learning more, getting better, until finally they aren't able to master the position they've been promoted to. Now there are several rubs:
The "reasonable" solution to over-promoting someone is to simply drop them back a level to where they are good. The problem with that is the "societal shame" and that you have to cut the employee's pay. This is all demoralizing for the employee.
Another solution is to simply fire the employee for their inability to adapt to the new position. But now you've gotten rid of excellent talent and someone who knows the business well.
And then let's assume management is "enlightened enough" to not just promote the excellent employee but instead pays them more. Eventually, they are paying more for this excellent employee than the value this person can return in their work. They could hire a "pretty good" employee in that job and pay them less.
It's not just a leadership problem among individual leaders but a problem with the entire system within most corporations. They're just not set up to truly reward excellent employees in meaningful ways other than "money and power". Now, a more enlightened approach could take into account was is really meaningful to the employee and find ways to reward them in ways that work best for them.
Let me tell you that I truly appreciate your mastery of Game Theory. This is probably one of the most beautiful and elegant applications of the Prisoner's Dilemma I have ever seen.
I'm sure there were many employees in the American textile industry who said exactly the same thing. Unfortunately for them, all but the tiniest fraction of the entire industry is now located somewhere not in the US.
To make it worse, while it can be argued that outsourcing IT abroad is not as cheap is it appears on paper, there is still downward pressure on wages/salaries because you have more local people pursuing a decreasing number of jobs.
In an analogy, it's like having a bunch of farmers, so some great, some good, and some not so good. When the soil is fertile and the climate is good for growing, everyone does well. But throw in a 5 year drought, and even the great farmers will find themselves out of work.
So, while I'm sure you're an excellent, innovative, and adaptable employee, once companies and even whole industries move abroad, there's not going to be much for you but to take a lower paying job, probably not even doing what you enjoy. If anything you'll get stuck where you are because you already cost too much to be promoted and you'll be surrounded by the dead-sea residue that this article talks about... at least until the economy finally starts to swing in a more active direction.
The title here is pretty misleading. It reads as if an entire course was dedicated to the issues of Open Source, which would be a good thing. As it is, this is just one case study. If used in a course, it would be read and used in one class session.
These case studies are used in lots of MBA courses, and they are just little stories used to describe a business situation. They often have interesting business problems but they're also often filled with fluff ("Jane showed up at the factory with her DK shoes and her Gucci handbag... can't figure out why the client doesn't take her seriously") and tons of information that is irrelevant to the "problem". I'm sure part of the "training" from these case studies is learning to weed out useless information.
For example, we had one about Eli Lilly and whether they should build a line dedicated to a particular product or use a general purpose/configurable line. The dedicated line had a higher throughput and lower cost but the configurable line could be used for something else if the market didn't develop for the drug. But it would be quite a stretch to say that because we read and discussed a 10 page case study that "Pharmaceuticals" had been added to our curriculum.
The type of course that would have this case study on the syllabus would also have cases on motorcycle parts manufacturing, consultancy woes, and HR problems where people don't work well together. But this is hardly a serious curriculum about Open Source.
Remember there is a difference between responsibility and accountability.
That reminds me of a saying we had in the army: You can delegate authority but not responsibility.
Besides, cable locks won't help me secure my the USB drive and other electronics that might wander off. The solution I imagine is a lockable, ventilated metal box that would sit under the monitor and house most of the electronics. If it was big enough, I could stick my laptop into it at night (while leaving it running) and feel confident that it would still be there in the morning. I'd be open to other types of solutions. Surely someone else must have dealt with this problem."
/sarcasm
This is a common problem and what you're looking for is called a desktop computer. It's a box that sits under the monitor with all the electronics enclosed inside. It even has fans and vents to keep it all working at a proper temperature.
Seriously, the whole point of a laptop is that it's portable and convenient to carry around, which also makes it easy to steal. The desktop can do all the things you need and will probably be more powerful than your laptop and cost about the same as some kind of powered box for locking your laptop in.
Then you can just leave the laptop locked in your drawer for when you need to work away from the desk.
I thought most manufacturers give you a list of all the drivers you need on their website when you select the model.
The problem is, if the company sells the laptop with Vista, then the download drivers are also for... Vista.
I got a Fujitsu with Vista and "upgraded" to XP. It was a bit of a challenge because the controller chipset wasn't supported with the Windows XP disk I purchased. I manged to get an install going using Nlite and adding the driver controllers I downloaded from HP.
That was challenging because the drivers came as a floppy image that had to be "burned" to a floppy with the special software. My laptop doesn't have a floppy - and I had to reconnect the floppy to my desktop - and then dig through all my boxes of crap to finally find a floppy to burn it to... just to put it on a USB stick so I could transfer it back to my laptop where I was building a new install disk.
I managed to get everything working on my laptop except for all of the buttons on the hot keys above the keyboard that would normally launch web browsers and such.
I'd LOVE to get a rebate on the unused Vista install disk that came with it.
The article mentions this:
People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.
Of course, this doesn't even cover people discarding left over pills in the toilet.
Really, it's just another example of a multi-billion dollar industry making huge profits while not being responsible for the waste stream they create.
Then again, I'm sure they can just make a pill for all of us to take on a daily basis that will neutralize the effects of all these other drugs in our water supply.
Just make sure you get proof of the rate you agree to pay. I've had it for 4 months and they've consistently over-charged me by $5.00 a month. Sure, it's not a lot, but it's more than I agreed to pay - and they never help. I've written letters, sent e-mails, and got transferred from department to department on multiple calls.
I figure my last resort is to file fraud claims with my credit card about the overbilling.
Oh yeah, and if you don't have phone and cable, they only let you have their service by billing your credit card. I have billpay at my bank - that money goes through, but they won't stop billing my credit card.
The FIOS is a nice connection, but the customer service is crappy.
I can't stomach the thought of switching to Comcast, but I am about to do it anyway. Then maybe they'll return my calls.
See, I read it a different way altogether: the hacker was neither an employee nor a friend of an employee at the firm, and therefore [i]could not have committed insider trading[/i].
That's how I read it too, so really the title is misleading. It's not so much that the SEC says he can keep the money (they don't have the authority to do that across the board). They're simply saying that he didn't do anything wrong that they are able deal with, so THEY won't be taking the money away. In similar news, he didn't violate any FDA rules either, so they won't take the money.
I'm actually surprised, however, that stealing "inside information" and using it to trade is not a violation. If there isn't already one, I wouldn't be surprised to see a new market of overseas hackers selling inside information to domestic investors so they can do stuff like that. Regular US criminal processes really can't reach out and touch some guy doing his hacking in Israel or Russia. And how would the SEC ever figure out if someone is shorting stocks based on information they pay these hackers to get?
unfair advantage over those who did not have such a leg. If such a thing was allowed, where would it stop? Would a wheelchair with a V8 engine attached be allowed because it was simply a technological innovation that allowed amputees to move faster?
Yeah, I get really confused by things like this. On one hand there is a replacement for a body part that is passive, still requiring human power to actuate, and then there's this internal combustion engine. I'm so confused by the difference that I once, on a rainy day (it rains a lot here), went to the auto parts store asking for a replacement parts for my crutches. The guy at the store said not to be embarrassed because it was apparently a pretty common mistake to make. He warned me to be careful walking home from the store because the slope just up the road can get pretty slippery.
Seriously, what about the technical edge given by clothing, shoes, glasses with prescriptive lenses, goggles, etc. Maybe we should go back to how it used to be done, with the athletes performing nude...