Can you elaborate on what the term "fair use rights" means to the courts? That seems to be the gist of the original question. Is it spelled out anywhere?
All "lie detector" tests are bogus because the results are always "subjective" to the machine's operator. This one is no improvement on the old [also invalid] concept.
Anyone know when this concept was first used? Sending someone to stand in front of a mystic or seer so as to evoke a confession?
The logical problem with your statement is that the US judicial system is severely broken at present. Anything they do is evil - so keeping them occupied with this nonsense is probably a good thing. This busy-work keeps them from doing more damage to society as a whole.
You've obviously never been mugged. Nor lost your wallet.
A single point of failure is bad. Different "tokens" have different security needs. A passport is far to valuable to treat with the same regard for security as a mere credit card. Having someone chop off my finger so they can fake an ATM into thinking it's me is a Bad Idea (tm).
Now, was I just trolled, or were you trying to be funny?
I bought a box of the whitening strips. I found using them to be a big pain. Leaving the stupid things on for 1/2 hr to an hour is not a luxury I have every day (let alone twice a day.)
On the other hand, for the week or so I stuck with it, my teeth (to me anyhow) seemed a little brighter.
Thank you/. for reminding me to make a dentist appointment!
I agree that the onus should not be on google. More to the point, they (NYT) are publishing something in public for all to see and use how they will. It's not like they are publishing big secrets. They should be ashamed that they are putting something out for public consumption, then taking it back. Either publish or don't. They charge subscriptions based on the talents (ahem) of their writers, but the subject of what they are reporting on is not their doing. This seems like a way for them to say that the own the course of human events.
Your hair stylist may file a restraining order against you one of these days. Here in California, you don't get a trial or anything - the loss of 2nd amendment rights (that goes with a temporary R.O.) is usually automatic, and judges love to err on the side of "safety."
I cannot believe someone mod'ed your intentional mis-information as "informative"!
Do you really believe that changing the acceleration of acceleration makes that final acceleration any less harmful to the human body? 10 G will do less damage to YOU if you experience it all at once for less than one second, vs. experiencing it (gradually or not) for a full two minutes.
Please, go and try it both ways for me and report back on here if you survive.
By not seeking other employment you are encouraging them to screw their employees. You are rewarding them for screwing you (by staying.) Your employer has no other way of learning why underpaying employees is bad.
The longer you stay underpaid, the more they are encouraged to do the same to others.
Although I dislike the "requirements" phases of software development, it is unfortunately the primary way features are requested the the software's actual users. Especially in government contracting environments.
Bureaucrats generally do complicate the issue but on the other hand, the software we write is supposed to help someone somewhere! Adding desired features is not always a Bad Thing. Allowing scope creep (especially after the requirements phase) is. It is very hard to find the right balance.
With all that said, another factor in the "lowest bid" problem is that the lowest bidder may have spent the lowest amount of money in generating the realistic specifications for the project (instead spending it all on lobying/bribes.) The more time and effort you spend on the design phase, the more you will uncover earlier on in the requirements and prototype phases.
Logically, the lowest bidder is most likely to be the one who spent the least on the design phase, and the most on lobying.
I disagree with you. In my experience, every interface I have written to an EDS system has had to work around collosal conceptual errors on their part. YMMV.
What we need is real protection of SSNs. Having the credit information system today depending exclusivily on SSNs is becoming more devastating to our economy each passing year. Experian, Equifax, TRW (whatever they are called now) need to all be shut down. We need severe criminal penalties for individuals (like estranged wives) that missuse SSNs with the credit agency's blessing. This case (that the article is talking about) where a government agency screwed up is incredibly rare; it's just not a big enough problem to be wasting time and effort on. Instead, go after the evil credit agencies!
If they had put the code on-line the day their "oversight" was revealed to them (already over a year late) would indicate some inclination to "make amends." I don't see any "download" links on their site at this time.
They are therefore not trying to make amends. They are trying to stall using legal maneuvering and empty promises. For that, they should not be granted any leeway ever.
The VA has the VistA project, which covers pretty much every aspect of medicine. The application is based on 30 year old technology known as M (aka MUMPS, which evolved into "Caché".) The source code is not GPL, it is available because of the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA). And IIRC I believe RMS said a long time ago that the VA FileMan code was GPL-compatible.
The normal audit trail for record addition/modidifcation sounds like it would cover your needs. But more likely, they have something covering ICD9 in their medical dictionary subsystem.
Because M is a hierarchal dynamicly extensible b-tree database, it is VERY fast. Cache tends to be very scalable, in my experience.
See
http://hardhats.org/
http://intersys.com/
I know this doesn't address your specific question exactly, but perhaps a fresh look at your approach might help.
I am a sold on the concept of refactoring instead of completely rewriting.
About four years ago, I rewrote a 15 year old device handling sub-system. It was quite horrible. The primary justification for doing it was to generate billable hours to charge the government. The secondary justification was because the old code was horrible, nightmarish and impossible to maintain.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to redesign the legacy file structures it used. I also had to maintain 100% backward compatability. On my personal agenda was adding useful features. In hindsight, if we had used the refactoring approach the end result would probably hve been better. Certainly the beta testing would have gone smoother if it had been done in smaller increments. (Having a non-technical manager didn't help either.)
With that experience behind me now, I recommend two things to justify a major piece of work (either rewriting or refactoring):
1) Identify the current design flaws
2) Identify the features missing
These days, the only time I'm presented with a rewite opportunity is when an application is being migrated to a new platform. i.e. Web enabling a legacy app. The only applications that remain out there are still there because they are too ugly, outdated and nightmarish to maintain. So once again, I would recommend refactoring.
Don't be mad at management for being gun-shy when they hear the word "rewrite." They should be leery of a major rewrite. The end-user training costs alone can be devastating. And unless we're talking about your own personal copyrighted intellectual property, they do have a lot vesting in the old "ugly" code that they (rightly) should be scared of losing.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you for a factual, informative post.
Moderators please, MOD PARENT UP.
Hint: one of the screws on Logitech mice is usually covered by a label. Peel the label back to get at that last screw.
Even more distressing is that SAIC is being trusted as if it is an unbiased entity - which it most certainly is not!
SAIC is a private FOR-PROFIT corporation.
Disclaimer: I used to work there. I left after they certified Windows NT 4 as C-2 secure (for an extraordinary amount of money.)
I agree - it is so freaking rare to get GOOD news, this really really ought to be on the front page.
Doesn't particularly generate a lot of discussion, but man is it refreshing!
This is a very nice post. Why AC?
Can you elaborate on what the term "fair use rights" means to the courts? That seems to be the gist of the original question. Is it spelled out anywhere?
All "lie detector" tests are bogus because the results are always "subjective" to the machine's operator. This one is no improvement on the old [also invalid] concept.
Anyone know when this concept was first used? Sending someone to stand in front of a mystic or seer so as to evoke a confession?
The logical problem with your statement is that the US judicial system is severely broken at present. Anything they do is evil - so keeping them occupied with this nonsense is probably a good thing. This busy-work keeps them from doing more damage to society as a whole.
Interesting to see the arbitrary rules in florida that determine who can "legally vote." Anyone who pays takes should have representation.
You've obviously never been mugged. Nor lost your wallet.
A single point of failure is bad. Different "tokens" have different security needs. A passport is far to valuable to treat with the same regard for security as a mere credit card. Having someone chop off my finger so they can fake an ATM into thinking it's me is a Bad Idea (tm).
Now, was I just trolled, or were you trying to be funny?
P.S. "irregardless" is not a word.
I bought a box of the whitening strips. I found using them to be a big pain. Leaving the stupid things on for 1/2 hr to an hour is not a luxury I have every day (let alone twice a day.)
/. for reminding me to make a dentist appointment!
On the other hand, for the week or so I stuck with it, my teeth (to me anyhow) seemed a little brighter.
Thank you
I agree that the onus should not be on google. More to the point, they (NYT) are publishing something in public for all to see and use how they will. It's not like they are publishing big secrets. They should be ashamed that they are putting something out for public consumption, then taking it back. Either publish or don't. They charge subscriptions based on the talents (ahem) of their writers, but the subject of what they are reporting on is not their doing. This seems like a way for them to say that the own the course of human events.
Your hair stylist may file a restraining order against you one of these days. Here in California, you don't get a trial or anything - the loss of 2nd amendment rights (that goes with a temporary R.O.) is usually automatic, and judges love to err on the side of "safety."
I cannot believe someone mod'ed your intentional mis-information as "informative"!
Do you really believe that changing the acceleration of acceleration makes that final acceleration any less harmful to the human body? 10 G will do less damage to YOU if you experience it all at once for less than one second, vs. experiencing it (gradually or not) for a full two minutes.
Please, go and try it both ways for me and report back on here if you survive.
Find another job. You are worth it.
By not seeking other employment you are encouraging them to screw their employees. You are rewarding them for screwing you (by staying.) Your employer has no other way of learning why underpaying employees is bad.
The longer you stay underpaid, the more they are encouraged to do the same to others.
Hmmmm. I think I'll go update *my* resumé now...
Ummm, doesn't this require Georgie-Porgie's signature to become law? Is there ANY chance he'd ever sign anything remotely like this?
Although I dislike the "requirements" phases of software development, it is unfortunately the primary way features are requested the the software's actual users. Especially in government contracting environments.
Bureaucrats generally do complicate the issue but on the other hand, the software we write is supposed to help someone somewhere! Adding desired features is not always a Bad Thing. Allowing scope creep (especially after the requirements phase) is. It is very hard to find the right balance.
With all that said, another factor in the "lowest bid" problem is that the lowest bidder may have spent the lowest amount of money in generating the realistic specifications for the project (instead spending it all on lobying/bribes.) The more time and effort you spend on the design phase, the more you will uncover earlier on in the requirements and prototype phases.
Logically, the lowest bidder is most likely to be the one who spent the least on the design phase, and the most on lobying.
I disagree with you. In my experience, every interface I have written to an EDS system has had to work around collosal conceptual errors on their part. YMMV.
Well, it's not boiling in oil (for spamming,) but it is a good start.
What we need is real protection of SSNs. Having the credit information system today depending exclusivily on SSNs is becoming more devastating to our economy each passing year. Experian, Equifax, TRW (whatever they are called now) need to all be shut down. We need severe criminal penalties for individuals (like estranged wives) that missuse SSNs with the credit agency's blessing. This case (that the article is talking about) where a government agency screwed up is incredibly rare; it's just not a big enough problem to be wasting time and effort on. Instead, go after the evil credit agencies!
I use spamgourmet. http://www.spamgourmet.com
This reminds me of a saying (I think it was a smalltalk quote-of-the day):
"Never trust a programmer with a screwdriver."
If they had put the code on-line the day their "oversight" was revealed to them (already over a year late) would indicate some inclination to "make amends." I don't see any "download" links on their site at this time.
They are therefore not trying to make amends. They are trying to stall using legal maneuvering and empty promises. For that, they should not be granted any leeway ever.
The more abusive the Patent Office is in granting these absurd patents, the sooner the entire patent scheme will be abolished!
http://hardhats.org/
The VA has the VistA project, which covers pretty much every aspect of medicine. The application is based on 30 year old technology known as M (aka MUMPS, which evolved into "Caché".) The source code is not GPL, it is available because of the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA). And IIRC I believe RMS said a long time ago that the VA FileMan code was GPL-compatible.
The normal audit trail for record addition/modidifcation sounds like it would cover your needs. But more likely, they have something covering ICD9 in their medical dictionary subsystem.
Because M is a hierarchal dynamicly extensible b-tree database, it is VERY fast. Cache tends to be very scalable, in my experience.
See
http://hardhats.org/
http://intersys.com/
I know this doesn't address your specific question exactly, but perhaps a fresh look at your approach might help.
I am a sold on the concept of refactoring instead of completely rewriting.
About four years ago, I rewrote a 15 year old device handling sub-system. It was quite horrible. The primary justification for doing it was to generate billable hours to charge the government. The secondary justification was because the old code was horrible, nightmarish and impossible to maintain.
Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to redesign the legacy file structures it used. I also had to maintain 100% backward compatability. On my personal agenda was adding useful features. In hindsight, if we had used the refactoring approach the end result would probably hve been better. Certainly the beta testing would have gone smoother if it had been done in smaller increments. (Having a non-technical manager didn't help either.)
With that experience behind me now, I recommend two things to justify a major piece of work (either rewriting or refactoring):
1) Identify the current design flaws
2) Identify the features missing
These days, the only time I'm presented with a rewite opportunity is when an application is being migrated to a new platform. i.e. Web enabling a legacy app. The only applications that remain out there are still there because they are too ugly, outdated and nightmarish to maintain. So once again, I would recommend refactoring.
Don't be mad at management for being gun-shy when they hear the word "rewrite." They should be leery of a major rewrite. The end-user training costs alone can be devastating. And unless we're talking about your own personal copyrighted intellectual property, they do have a lot vesting in the old "ugly" code that they (rightly) should be scared of losing.