"a sad, drug addicted nut who was overly influenced by her rough childhood". Sounds like a good description of a fair few writers out there. Seriously though, even if Rand wanted to impose her vision using methods similar to the Bolsheviks, you'd also have to compare her vision with theirs to make any sort of meaningful comparison between the two.
I've read some of Rand's books when I was 14 or so, and they did change my life. Not because they are such great books or because I agree with her philosophy, but because up to that age, most of the books you'll read will be your school books, and many of those books (as well as the teachers) extol the virtues of, for lack of a better word, socialism. (I'm talking about education in the Netherlands here, and no, I am not kidding. YMMV per school, though). After all that indoctrination it was a big surprise to find a book describing an outlook on life more closely matching my own views. Rand's books aren't amongst the better books that I've read, but they are amongst the books that made me a better person, and even if I discarded many of her views later on, they did get me interested in politics and philosophy in general.
That may be a dwindling market, though. People hate having to carry around multiple devices, and an increasing number of companies are re-thinking their mobile device and security policies. Wherever bring-your-own-device is introduced, I've seen a massive shift away from company provided Blackberries to personal devices, even in places where there's a choice between a company phone and BYOD. People are even willing to pay for the convenience of having corporate info on a private smartphone, by paying for the data and making the occasional business call on their own dime.
It's important that the voting process can be checked by anyone, not just by crypto experts. That's why many developed countries still use paper ballots. Any idiot can see how that process works, can understand that it is pretty hard to cheat if there are enough independent observers, and can even participate as an observer him/herself. Electronic votes are relatively easy to rig invisibly and on a massive scale. Fraud with paper ballots is possible as well, but it is very hard to do on a large scale without anyone knowing. In most countries where elections do get rigged, everyone knows that they are.
Some good electronic voting schemes have been proposed, but the best ones are a combination of electronic and paper ballots. Vote electronically and receive a printed paper ballot which the voter verifies, then deposits in a box to be counted manually per the usual process. Any large discrepancy between the electronic and paper tally would indicate fraud of some sort.
Don't knock flight simulators, after all that's what airliner pilots train on. Sure, those are different setups than the PC + joystick we have at home, but even so. If anything they taught me that flaring is indeed tricky; I've gone through all of the variations described in the GP post.
Then again they've also taught me that flying knife edge along the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge is easy...
Good point, this is actually covered in separate articles. Giving a false "statement" (= going to the police station to officially report a crime) is punishable. "Raising a false alarm" is punishable, as is prank calling the emergency number. Falsely telling the police that they saw a crime in progress is punishable only in certain cases. But there is definitely no article that covers lying to the police in general.
The Weekly Standard published a more devastating rebuttal to Professor Duane's video, in which the author describes the devastating effects that the "Don't Snitch" movement has had on high-crime neighborhoods, as a result of large numbers of people following Professor Duane's philosophy to the letter
How is that even a rebuttal? The devastating effects are the result of criminals, not of Prof. Duane's position, and it in no way invalidates his statement. If the police want people to talk to them, they need to make very, very sure that innocent people truly have nothing to fear from them. A lot of people probably follow his advise because it it necessary.
Is it really a felony to lie to the police in the US? That stinks, and even worse if they truly prosecute otherwise innocent people for it. Over here (NL), lying to the police is not punishable, whether you are lying about a case that involves you, or one that you merely witnessed. The only times you are obliged by law to tell the truth is when the police ask for your identity, or when you're put under oath.
In my experience it is rare to find a company that does IT well in general. Many aspects of IT are hard (including security), and hard to run well as an assembly line, i.e. managing by job compartimentalization, dashboards and processes (management "by the numbers"). I'm not sure why that is, but I often see two areas where IT does very, very poorly compared to other technical or engineering functions. 1) Poor middle management. Many of them are either IT people with poor management skills, or good general managers with no IT skills. 2) Failing talent management. Failure to attract top people, no coaching, poor training, lack of talent recognition (I don't just mean good pay, I mean knowing who your best people are and allocating that talent accordingly), and lack of a decent technical career ladder.
The biggest challenge in IT is not technology, and it hasn't been that in ages. It's management, or rather: figuring out how to do IT well, how to organize it.
Being a shithead does not and should not preclude you from getting the Peace Prize. Arafat arguably deserved to share it with Perez and Rabin for trying to work towards peace in the Middle East, putting aside politics, some of their own previously held beliefs as well as the express wishes of large parts of their constituents (who would prefer to rain fiery death upon the enemy). Even if nothing came of this in the end, this did merit a nomination and (I think) winning the Prize as well.
In contrast, Obama had done fuck all before receiving the Prize. His most relevant achievement at the time was to be Not Dubya. He also managed to be the first black president of the US, which is noteworthy but in itself hardly something to award a Peace Prize for
Yup, he's Evil (tm). Even so, take a look at Intellectual Ventures; they take an unusual approach (for patent trolls). What Nathan learned from his time at Microsoft Research is that such a setup is great at generating ideas. And at IV, they do just that: farming ideas, without having to go to the trouble of actually turning these ideas into practical, marketable products. That is left as an exercise for the poor saps who think they've come up with an innovation until IV's lawyer pops round with an infringement ransom note.
Building the wrong things? The mantra in corporate fantasyland these days is: "buy not build" (that little sentence looks a bit crappy but that is how I've always seen it presented or pronounced). This mostly applies to not re-inventing the wheel for mundane tasks and buying COTS packages instead of building a custom solution (sounds good but I still see it fail in spectacular ways). Anyways, for certain companies like Microsoft, this seems to apply to R&D as well: do not invent, but buy a nimble, innovative small company instead. Of course that nimbleness is crushed when they cram the smaller startup into the corporate mold; they get one good product out of it at best and very often even manage to screw up the rollout or re-launch of that one instance.
It sounds like people won't have to jump in randomly or unexpectedly, rather there are some types of roads that the system won't handle, requiring the driver to take over. It also sounds that if these systems sense a need to switch to manual control, warn the driver but get no response (hands on the wheel), they can at least bring the car to a controlled stop at the side of the road.
Depends on the country, I suppose. It appears that some of the vids coming out of Syria are doing a good job of convincing young muslims not to go and fight/die in a crappy jihad. And they're doing an even better job convincing the parents to convince their kids not to go.
In this case, confronting would-be supporters with the raw reality instead of a romantic picture of people fighting for their beliefs or freedom, may well work against the terrorists, losing them those supporters. With some luck the terrorists will be marginalized like ETA or the RAF (both the German and Colombian one).
Apparently it's good enough for the White House (and various other high traffic sites). Drupal is capable of handling high traffic, if you take care setting it up right.
The actual scanner is under the home button, which is pretty durable. Putting the scanner there is a great idea, since you will already have your finger there when you wake up the phone.
A coder who has spent 12 hours being forced (or forcing himself) to produce a certain amount of code or solve a hard problem will end the day exhausted. A coder in the zone attempting the same job in the same amount of time will often leave the office feeling energized and motivated, ready for another day of the same. The difference is huge
The secret is that you cannot force or plan for "the zone", but you can count on it to happen. When it does, don't get in the way. Don't make your team members stay for 12 hours, but for the love of god don't forbid them to stay that long either. As for the quality of their code, as always apply common sense QA in the form of code reviews or what have you. A coder in flow is working at their own peak performance, but that doesn't mean they cannot learn something about good design or coding practices, and in my experience they will apply such lessons learned in their next coding binge. Never stop coaching. Of course, also keep an eye on employees burning themselves out, as that is always a danger both in and out of the zone.
Good point about distractions. Good managers or team leads will make sure their coders are not distracted. Someone mentioned phone calls and silly questions taking up half of their work day, but interruptions are worse than that: interrupting a coder who is in "flow" even for one minute can easily cost half an hour or more of that coder's productivity. Even worse: nudging a coder out of flow several times a day for an extended period of time will lead to severe fatigue and, when under pressure to deliver, a high risk of burnout.
Working coders need to be left alone. Not because they are prima donnas, just because of the nature of their work and the mindset required for it.
Suppose you are an inventor. Perhaps you come up with something clever, but you cannot find a maker interested in making your widget. Or there are already a few making it but disputing their infringment of your patent (or simply using it without your knowledge), meaning massive legal fees before you can collect dollar one. In this case, the "IP venture" types can buy your patent. You get paid, and their market guys get to work finding makers interested in your invention, or they sick their legal department on makers who already use it.
The problem is not IP investors (your type 3); if you accept the basic idea of patents, and understand that inventors often lack the means to market or enforce their patent, then there is a legitimate market for people who buy patents and then do the legal legwork so they can turn a profit. The problem is threefold:
- The granting of overly broad patents, allowing the owners to tax the public for obvious stuff (Intellectual land-grab)
- The legal methods employed by some investors in IP (Legal extortion by what truly are patent trolls)
- The legal framework of patent law, for instance making it cheap to troll but expensive to mount a defense.
Also, what about the name "Information Dominance Center"? Creepy and pathetic at the same time; it sounds like BDSM-style slash-fic based on TRON. Bring in the Logic Probe!
Flash? Back then, Flash was an important plugin. Browsing on an iPad in the early days was a frustrating experience; most sites used a Flash player for video and many of the larger web shops and sites made extensive use of it. But these days, it's rare for me to come across a site with Flash.
Flash is on the way out (thanks in part perhaps to all those complaining iPad users), and the web is a better place for it. Nokia investing in a good mobile Flash player would prove once again that they are late to the game.
Slashdot Mirror
"a sad, drug addicted nut who was overly influenced by her rough childhood". Sounds like a good description of a fair few writers out there. Seriously though, even if Rand wanted to impose her vision using methods similar to the Bolsheviks, you'd also have to compare her vision with theirs to make any sort of meaningful comparison between the two.
I've read some of Rand's books when I was 14 or so, and they did change my life. Not because they are such great books or because I agree with her philosophy, but because up to that age, most of the books you'll read will be your school books, and many of those books (as well as the teachers) extol the virtues of, for lack of a better word, socialism. (I'm talking about education in the Netherlands here, and no, I am not kidding. YMMV per school, though). After all that indoctrination it was a big surprise to find a book describing an outlook on life more closely matching my own views. Rand's books aren't amongst the better books that I've read, but they are amongst the books that made me a better person, and even if I discarded many of her views later on, they did get me interested in politics and philosophy in general.
That may be a dwindling market, though. People hate having to carry around multiple devices, and an increasing number of companies are re-thinking their mobile device and security policies. Wherever bring-your-own-device is introduced, I've seen a massive shift away from company provided Blackberries to personal devices, even in places where there's a choice between a company phone and BYOD. People are even willing to pay for the convenience of having corporate info on a private smartphone, by paying for the data and making the occasional business call on their own dime.
It's important that the voting process can be checked by anyone, not just by crypto experts. That's why many developed countries still use paper ballots. Any idiot can see how that process works, can understand that it is pretty hard to cheat if there are enough independent observers, and can even participate as an observer him/herself. Electronic votes are relatively easy to rig invisibly and on a massive scale. Fraud with paper ballots is possible as well, but it is very hard to do on a large scale without anyone knowing. In most countries where elections do get rigged, everyone knows that they are.
Some good electronic voting schemes have been proposed, but the best ones are a combination of electronic and paper ballots. Vote electronically and receive a printed paper ballot which the voter verifies, then deposits in a box to be counted manually per the usual process. Any large discrepancy between the electronic and paper tally would indicate fraud of some sort.
Don't knock flight simulators, after all that's what airliner pilots train on. Sure, those are different setups than the PC + joystick we have at home, but even so. If anything they taught me that flaring is indeed tricky; I've gone through all of the variations described in the GP post.
Then again they've also taught me that flying knife edge along the deck of the Golden Gate Bridge is easy...
Good point, this is actually covered in separate articles. Giving a false "statement" (= going to the police station to officially report a crime) is punishable. "Raising a false alarm" is punishable, as is prank calling the emergency number. Falsely telling the police that they saw a crime in progress is punishable only in certain cases. But there is definitely no article that covers lying to the police in general.
The Weekly Standard published a more devastating rebuttal to Professor Duane's video, in which the author describes the devastating effects that the "Don't Snitch" movement has had on high-crime neighborhoods, as a result of large numbers of people following Professor Duane's philosophy to the letter
How is that even a rebuttal? The devastating effects are the result of criminals, not of Prof. Duane's position, and it in no way invalidates his statement. If the police want people to talk to them, they need to make very, very sure that innocent people truly have nothing to fear from them. A lot of people probably follow his advise because it it necessary.
Is it really a felony to lie to the police in the US? That stinks, and even worse if they truly prosecute otherwise innocent people for it. Over here (NL), lying to the police is not punishable, whether you are lying about a case that involves you, or one that you merely witnessed. The only times you are obliged by law to tell the truth is when the police ask for your identity, or when you're put under oath.
In my experience it is rare to find a company that does IT well in general. Many aspects of IT are hard (including security), and hard to run well as an assembly line, i.e. managing by job compartimentalization, dashboards and processes (management "by the numbers"). I'm not sure why that is, but I often see two areas where IT does very, very poorly compared to other technical or engineering functions.
1) Poor middle management. Many of them are either IT people with poor management skills, or good general managers with no IT skills.
2) Failing talent management. Failure to attract top people, no coaching, poor training, lack of talent recognition (I don't just mean good pay, I mean knowing who your best people are and allocating that talent accordingly), and lack of a decent technical career ladder.
The biggest challenge in IT is not technology, and it hasn't been that in ages. It's management, or rather: figuring out how to do IT well, how to organize it.
Being a shithead does not and should not preclude you from getting the Peace Prize. Arafat arguably deserved to share it with Perez and Rabin for trying to work towards peace in the Middle East, putting aside politics, some of their own previously held beliefs as well as the express wishes of large parts of their constituents (who would prefer to rain fiery death upon the enemy). Even if nothing came of this in the end, this did merit a nomination and (I think) winning the Prize as well.
In contrast, Obama had done fuck all before receiving the Prize. His most relevant achievement at the time was to be Not Dubya. He also managed to be the first black president of the US, which is noteworthy but in itself hardly something to award a Peace Prize for
Yup, he's Evil (tm). Even so, take a look at Intellectual Ventures; they take an unusual approach (for patent trolls). What Nathan learned from his time at Microsoft Research is that such a setup is great at generating ideas. And at IV, they do just that: farming ideas, without having to go to the trouble of actually turning these ideas into practical, marketable products. That is left as an exercise for the poor saps who think they've come up with an innovation until IV's lawyer pops round with an infringement ransom note.
Building the wrong things? The mantra in corporate fantasyland these days is: "buy not build" (that little sentence looks a bit crappy but that is how I've always seen it presented or pronounced). This mostly applies to not re-inventing the wheel for mundane tasks and buying COTS packages instead of building a custom solution (sounds good but I still see it fail in spectacular ways). Anyways, for certain companies like Microsoft, this seems to apply to R&D as well: do not invent, but buy a nimble, innovative small company instead. Of course that nimbleness is crushed when they cram the smaller startup into the corporate mold; they get one good product out of it at best and very often even manage to screw up the rollout or re-launch of that one instance.
Wind generators kill rhinos?
It sounds like people won't have to jump in randomly or unexpectedly, rather there are some types of roads that the system won't handle, requiring the driver to take over. It also sounds that if these systems sense a need to switch to manual control, warn the driver but get no response (hands on the wheel), they can at least bring the car to a controlled stop at the side of the road.
Depends on the country, I suppose. It appears that some of the vids coming out of Syria are doing a good job of convincing young muslims not to go and fight/die in a crappy jihad. And they're doing an even better job convincing the parents to convince their kids not to go.
In this case, confronting would-be supporters with the raw reality instead of a romantic picture of people fighting for their beliefs or freedom, may well work against the terrorists, losing them those supporters. With some luck the terrorists will be marginalized like ETA or the RAF (both the German and Colombian one).
That was our experience as well (on the one Drupal project I've been involved in). Especially the database load was a lot higher than we anticipated.
Apparently it's good enough for the White House (and various other high traffic sites). Drupal is capable of handling high traffic, if you take care setting it up right.
The actual scanner is under the home button, which is pretty durable. Putting the scanner there is a great idea, since you will already have your finger there when you wake up the phone.
Passing the Turing test on Facebook is (literally) a no-brainer...
A coder who has spent 12 hours being forced (or forcing himself) to produce a certain amount of code or solve a hard problem will end the day exhausted. A coder in the zone attempting the same job in the same amount of time will often leave the office feeling energized and motivated, ready for another day of the same. The difference is huge
The secret is that you cannot force or plan for "the zone", but you can count on it to happen. When it does, don't get in the way. Don't make your team members stay for 12 hours, but for the love of god don't forbid them to stay that long either. As for the quality of their code, as always apply common sense QA in the form of code reviews or what have you. A coder in flow is working at their own peak performance, but that doesn't mean they cannot learn something about good design or coding practices, and in my experience they will apply such lessons learned in their next coding binge. Never stop coaching. Of course, also keep an eye on employees burning themselves out, as that is always a danger both in and out of the zone.
Good point about distractions. Good managers or team leads will make sure their coders are not distracted. Someone mentioned phone calls and silly questions taking up half of their work day, but interruptions are worse than that: interrupting a coder who is in "flow" even for one minute can easily cost half an hour or more of that coder's productivity. Even worse: nudging a coder out of flow several times a day for an extended period of time will lead to severe fatigue and, when under pressure to deliver, a high risk of burnout.
Working coders need to be left alone. Not because they are prima donnas, just because of the nature of their work and the mindset required for it.
Suppose you are an inventor. Perhaps you come up with something clever, but you cannot find a maker interested in making your widget. Or there are already a few making it but disputing their infringment of your patent (or simply using it without your knowledge), meaning massive legal fees before you can collect dollar one. In this case, the "IP venture" types can buy your patent. You get paid, and their market guys get to work finding makers interested in your invention, or they sick their legal department on makers who already use it.
The problem is not IP investors (your type 3); if you accept the basic idea of patents, and understand that inventors often lack the means to market or enforce their patent, then there is a legitimate market for people who buy patents and then do the legal legwork so they can turn a profit. The problem is threefold:
- The granting of overly broad patents, allowing the owners to tax the public for obvious stuff (Intellectual land-grab)
- The legal methods employed by some investors in IP (Legal extortion by what truly are patent trolls)
- The legal framework of patent law, for instance making it cheap to troll but expensive to mount a defense.
That's a logical step if this type of trolling is indeed classed as extortion. In that case, the lawyers are complicit in the crime.
Also, what about the name "Information Dominance Center"? Creepy and pathetic at the same time; it sounds like BDSM-style slash-fic based on TRON. Bring in the Logic Probe!
Flash? Back then, Flash was an important plugin. Browsing on an iPad in the early days was a frustrating experience; most sites used a Flash player for video and many of the larger web shops and sites made extensive use of it. But these days, it's rare for me to come across a site with Flash.
Flash is on the way out (thanks in part perhaps to all those complaining iPad users), and the web is a better place for it. Nokia investing in a good mobile Flash player would prove once again that they are late to the game.
Even so, it's astounding that Voyager is still operational after all these years, going strong, and sending useful data back to us.