Your children are at risk! While browsing online, they may be exposed to many forms of humor, including parody, sarcasm, and even irony. Most parents are unaware of the dangers these pose. Symptoms of exposure include:
Sassing and Talkback
Uncontroled Laughing
Creative Impulses
Original Thoughts
Your child could be reading The Onion at this very moment...exposing thier tiny, unformed brain to a world of raw, hardcore comedy. Take action now! Before it's too late!
You don't get to dictate their licensing terms any more than they can force you to purchace something. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Of course, the argument could be made that since Microsoft is a convicted monopoly you don't really have a choice, but enforcing anti-trust law is part of captialism too.
No, it's not.
To some people, having control is more imporant than making money. The music industry is full of these kinds of people. They just like to feel powerful, to make other people do what they say...making money is only a means to that end.
The music industry is not particularly profitable. The reasons why are completely obvious to all of us, and I suppose, to them. But they really don't care. If they were in it for the money, they'd be embracing digital music and finding new (and profitable) ways to deliver it. Instead, they fight against it, and sue anyone who gets in the way.
Ask yourself this...why is it that cell phone ringtones make more money than digital music sales? (Don't believe me? Google it) How could you possibly run a company so poorly?!?
The answer is, they're in it for the power...for the glitz and glamour. And from their perspective treating your customers like criminals and your employees like slaves is the best part of the job.
And although a lot of people around here would probably disagree, I think it would be worth your time to go back and try to get a Computer Science degree. Programming != Computer Science, but it's helpful to understand the scientific principles that modern software development is based on.
I don't see how promoting a duopoly is beneficial to the consumer.
Here's how:
Lets say that you're a huge telecom company. You're already hurting from all that fiber that you laid in the late 90's that's now sitting dark, and you're very skpetical about making that mistake all over again. Obviously, you're not going to invest billions of dollars creating an broadband infrastructure unless you can be reasonably sure that you're going to be able to earn your money back (and a little extra for the effort...keeps the shareholders happy, you know).
However, if rules are in place that require you to provide your competitors with access to your infrastructure, the level of risk you assume is much, much higher. If it works, you have to share the profits with your competitors. If it fails, you have to cover all the losses. It's a lose-lose situation...and so it doesn't happen. Companies will simply not deploy these networks if they have to assume all the risk and reap only some of the reward. If you want companies to take on all this risk you have to give them thier due.
remove all restrictions. Allow municipal wifi. Allow everything. Disallow cities from forcing companies to pay extortion to them in "franchise fees", one of the biggest hurdles and deterrents to small business starting up in an area.
Disallow? You mean restrict?
You can't have it both ways. If you allow people to do what they want, there's a chance they might not do what you like. The FCC does not have oversight over laws crafted in local municipalities and state governments. If you want to grant them that authority, be prepared when "Citizens United Against Smut" (or some other such group) convinces the FCC that municipal wifi should have adult content filters because it's funded with public money.
While I don't think it's a good idea to let IT vigilantes stop spam by launching what would otherwise be an illegal DDOS attack, it might be a good idea to allow this sort of thing as a formal punishment for uncooperative spammers.
Kind of like when the city boots your car when you refuse to pay your parking tickets, having law enforcement DDOS a spammer's site when they refuse to pay fines or show up in court might be an effective way to enforce anti-spam laws.
the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case where a local community siezed private houses for commercial development (not public works) under the guize of emminent domain.
No, what the Supreme Court ruled in this case is that what the city of New London is planning to do with the land IS a public use, in that it will create jobs and increase tax revenue, and therefore legal.
Of course, as a matter of opinion it may not be, but the Supreme court has not unilaterally declared that the government can seize your property for private use.
Instead of using high temperatures and incredible densities to ram protons together, the scientists at UCLA cleverly used the structure of an unusual crystal.
That crystal wouldn't happen to be Dilithium would it?
If you can't find a good software developer it's because you yourself are incompetant! Most managers are somewhat incompetant in evaluating a person's intelligence and skill level. Often they mistake an outgoing personality for intelligence. Try looking for the qualities you want. You may have to actually 'test' the candidates.
Maybe, but at least I can spell incompetent.
We do test our applicants...very thoroughly, in fact. We reject the vast majority of our applicants because they're not qualified, and as a result, the people that we do hire always work out well. Doing more and better testing is not going to increase the percentage of qualified people that apply.
I'm not sure where you found that ad (our website, maybe?), but I didn't write that. Quite frankly, I'm not sure who did, and you're right...it's awful. Here's the requirements from my job post (found on Monster.com and other places)
The required qualifications include a B.S. degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering, a passion for software development, an interest in learning new development techniques, the ability to aggressively overcome obstacles, and excellent communication skills. Desired qualifications include CO-OP, internship, or equivalent software development experience, and experience with Java, C# or C++. Knowledge of Object Oriented Programming or development methodologies such as RUP or TDD is a plus.
I don't think that asking for a college degree related to the field is unfair. Aside from that there are very few rigid qualifications, and even with that, we've gotten almost no good candidates.
Actually, yes, there is. I know because I've been looking for decent software developers for the last 6 months and have found a grand total of two. And it's not like I'm asking for anything too outrageous...just a basic understanding of software development principles.
Despite popular opinion, outsourcing has not created a vast sea of qualified but unemployed software developers. If you're one of these people, feel free to prove me wrong, but when I see developers complaining that they can't find a job, it's usually because they think HTML is a programming language and can't explain the difference between an object and a class.
I inherited a 1000 class Java based toolkit from my predecessor, which had exactly zero unit tests. Over the last two years, we've made a sustained effort to employ Test-Driven Development and add more tests to ensure that everything works as advertised. As of today the toolkit has over 830 tests, with line coverage of 61% and class coverage of 96%. We've still got a long way to go, but were much better off than we were. Here's how we got there...
1) A lot of people are going to tell you that you need to write your tests from scratch. That you should assume that your code is broken and work out the expected results by hand and create the test assertions accordingly. I disagree. If you're testing old code, it's much more useful to use the test to ensure that it does whatever it did before, instead of ensuring that it's "correct". I prefer to treat the code as though it is correct, and build the tests around it. Even if the assumption is occasionaly wrong, you can make the tests much quicker this way. That allows you to refactor and extend your system with confidence, knowing that you haven't broken anything. Remember, TDD isn't really about quality assurance, it's about design and evolving design through refactoring. More tests == more refactoring == better system.
2) You're probably not going to get a lot of extra time to sit around and write tests. You need to captialize on the time that you have and turn problems into oppertunities to add tests. Whenever you find a bug, make a test that reproduces it. If you need to add supporting stub or mock objects, consider making them reusable so that future tests will be easier to write.
3) If you need to add new functionality to the system, just follow the standard TDD steps of Test->Code->Refactor, and make sure that you add tests for anything that might be affected by the change.
4) I'm assuming that you already have a continous integration build that runs the tests, but if you don't, make one. Now. Also consider adding other metrics to the build like code coverage (we use Emma), findbugs, and jdepend. These will help you track your progress and can be very useful if you have to defend your methdology to people who view TDD as a waste of time (The Code Coverage to Open Bugs ratio gets them every time).
5) In general, you need to look for oppertunities to write tests. Don't understand how a module works? Write a test for it. Found a JDK bug? Reproduce it with a test. Performance too slow? Use timestamps to ensure that the performance of a alrorithm is in a reasonable range.
You've probably got a long road ahead, but it's worth the work. Keep at it, and good luck.
MTV and Market Segmentation
on
MTV Games Launches
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Ok, so here's the deal with MTV (as I see it).
Back when cable was new and fancy, cable channels were based around topics. MTV=Music, CNN=News, Discovery Channel=Science, etc. I think they did it this way because many cable channels were commercial free, so advertising demographics wasn't a real concern.
However, as cable TV has evolved, companies like Viacom (who own a whole bunch of cable TV channels) have starting selling ads, and have realized that it's easier to sell advertising when you have a clearly segmented market. Want to sell your [compact car|acne medication|mobile phone plan] to 12-28 year olds? MTV is just what you're looking for. That's why there are no music videos anymore...it's all programming directed at teenage/twenties/early 30s hipsters who care about Paris Hilton, extreme sports, and what car J-Lo is driving this week.
That's also why The Learning Channel has turned into the Home Improvement Reality Show channel (a.k.a the 18-34, married, middle-class channel). It's all about segmenting your market so that you have a consistent product (eyeballs) to sell.
Why don't we read the ruling from Perry in context? Here's the next paragraph after the one you quoted.
Public property which is not by tradition or designation a forum for public communication is governed by different standards. We have recognized that the "First Amendment does not guarantee access to property simply because it is owned or controlled by the government." United States Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Assns., supra, at 129. In addition to time, place, and manner regulations, the State may reserve the forum for its intended purposes, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker's view. 453 U.S., at 131, n. 7. As we have stated on several occasions, "[the] State, no less than a private owner of property, has power to preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully dedicated."
The last time I checked, highway rest stops are not "by tradition or designation a forum for public communication". Obviously, the government restricting free speech in a public assembly hall would be unconstitutional, but that's not what is happening here. And while the Internet itself may be a forum for public debate, nobody is required to use the state's WiFi connection in order to access the Internet.
And in UNITED STATES v. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, (the ruling that upheld the CIPA) the court finds that in order "to determine whether libraries would violate the First Amendment by employing the filtering software that CIPA requires, we must first examine the role of libraries in our society." They found that "To fulfill their traditional missions, public libraries must have broad discretion to decide what material to provide to their patrons."
The traditional mission of a highway rest stop is to provide soda and candy. The special exception made for libraries is due to their primary function as providers of information.
Google result #1 - CITY OF LADUE v. MARGARET P. GILLEO a case involving a city ordinance that prohibits homeowners from displaying certian signs on their property. So a citizen wants to use thier own personal property to promote a political cause. Hmm, ok that's not revelant, since the WiFi access is supplied and funded by the State of Texas. Lets try...
Google result #2 - Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Ok, so this is regarding a school voucher program challenged on First Amendment grounds but upheld by the court. From the ruling: "We would be loath to adopt a rule grounding the constitutionality of a facially neutral law..." - Rehnquist, citing an earlier case. Hmm, it seems the supreme court ruled agreed with a previous ruling by saying that legal neutrality is not protected by the Constitution. Ok, lets try...
Google result #4 - Alameda Books, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles et al. Ok so this is a position paper on the secondary effects doctrine, which argues that it "allows seemingly content-based laws that single out adult businesses to be analyzed as content-neutral". The paper then goes on to list a number of cour cases in which city governments used zoning laws to try to shut down adult bookstores and movie theatres. If the adult bookstores and theatres were being run by the State of Texas with taxpayer dollars, then that might be relevant to the law at hand...in fact, these cases just support my argument that the First Amendment protects an individual's right to free speech, and does not the require that the state provide a free (as in beer) platform for anyone to express themselves.
Ok, so how much reading do I have to do here before I find something that supports your argument? It seems to me that you've misunderstood the meaning of content-neutrality as it pertains to free speech protections. Tell you what...I've done my google searches...Why don't you find the specific court ruling or State/Federal law that says (in your words) "the state is required to do is provide whatever access it DOES provide (to adults) in a content-neutral manner."
What the state is required to do is provide whatever access it DOES provide (to adults) in a content-neutral manner.
Find me the law that says that and I'll buy you a pony.
The first amendment does not say "You have the right to free speech." That freedom is innate, part of the human condition, and it cannot be given or taken away by the Constutution or anything else. The first amendment simply says that the U.S. Government (and due to the 14th amendment, the State of Texas) cannot abridge your freedom of speech. It's not thier responsibility to give you a platform to speak from. By your argument, if the State of Texas wasn't around to build free Wi-Fi, you couldn't speak freely.
It would be completely legal, and well within the realm of the state legislature to decide. "Better" is not a question that matters when the topic is free speech...
My point here is that it's absurd to argue that denying access to part of the internet is more of a violation of free speech than denying access to all of the internet (through state funded hotspots). Clearly, it is legal not to provide any hotspots at rest stops...so how can it be illegal to have filtered ones?
It's pretty much a no-brainer, the Supreme Court has already said in a hundred different variations that municipalities (be they federal, state or local) can't restrict speech by and to adults solely on content.
You're absolutely right, but that's not what's happening here. The state of Texas is under no obligation whatsoever to provide you with free access to porn. It can't stop you from viewing or distributing it, and if you wanted to set up your own WiFi hotspots and provide unfiltered internet access to lonely truckers, there's nothing they could do to stop you from that either.
Let me ask you this...would it be better if they just turned all the WiFi hotspots off? Because that's certianly constitutional...
I played three hardcore charecters in Diablo II. Hardcore basically meant, when you died, you were dead...and there's no coming back. One of them lasted to level 74.
I'll tell you right now that every second of gameplay with those charecters was interesting. When your actions have great consequences, they also have great meaning.
Lag was just part of the game. If you started to lag out, a couple of quick health potions and an Alt-F4 was all you needed to keep yourself safe. Of course that's a double edged sword...die, and stay in the game, and you can have someone recover your stuff. If you were too slow on the keyboard, and quit after you died, you lost all your stuff too.
I say, being on the permadeath! I'd be nice to care about my RPG charecters again.
Back in high school, I used to fix computers for people to make a little spending money. One time, I went over to this guy's house because his computer wouldn't boot. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Your hard drive is dead. You're going to have to buy a new one.
Him: How much will that cost?
Me: About $100, plus the cost to install it...maybe $130 total.
Him: That's way too much, can't you just fix it?
The moral of this story is that if you system is fundementally broken, there is no band-aid patch that you can apply that will make it un-broken. If you can't hire trustworthy people, you're going to lose IP. Maybe you can implement a few security procedures here and there to slow the rate of loss, but eventually, all your IP is going to walk out the door.
The caliber of your people is the primary factor in determining the sucess of a software company. It's not the tools, the technology, or the procedures...it's the people. If you can't trust your people to do thier job and do it well, you don't have anything. I'd start by fixing that problem, and after that you can worry about USB drives.
Slashdot Mirror
Your child could be reading The Onion at this very moment...exposing thier tiny, unformed brain to a world of raw, hardcore comedy. Take action now! Before it's too late!
You don't get to dictate their licensing terms any more than they can force you to purchace something. If you don't like it, don't buy it.
Of course, the argument could be made that since Microsoft is a convicted monopoly you don't really have a choice, but enforcing anti-trust law is part of captialism too.
No, it's not. To some people, having control is more imporant than making money. The music industry is full of these kinds of people. They just like to feel powerful, to make other people do what they say...making money is only a means to that end. The music industry is not particularly profitable. The reasons why are completely obvious to all of us, and I suppose, to them. But they really don't care. If they were in it for the money, they'd be embracing digital music and finding new (and profitable) ways to deliver it. Instead, they fight against it, and sue anyone who gets in the way. Ask yourself this...why is it that cell phone ringtones make more money than digital music sales? (Don't believe me? Google it) How could you possibly run a company so poorly?!? The answer is, they're in it for the power...for the glitz and glamour. And from their perspective treating your customers like criminals and your employees like slaves is the best part of the job.
...I'd say here:
x
http://mindview.net/Books
and here:
http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors
and maybe here:
http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articleInde
And although a lot of people around here would probably disagree, I think it would be worth your time to go back and try to get a Computer Science degree. Programming != Computer Science, but it's helpful to understand the scientific principles that modern software development is based on.
http://www.xplanner.org/
You don't have to be eXtreme to use it. We're not.
In related news...
Rockstar responded to bullying.co.uk's demands by stealing thier backpack, throwing it in a trash can, and dumping a coke on it.
I don't see how promoting a duopoly is beneficial to the consumer.
Here's how:
Lets say that you're a huge telecom company. You're already hurting from all that fiber that you laid in the late 90's that's now sitting dark, and you're very skpetical about making that mistake all over again. Obviously, you're not going to invest billions of dollars creating an broadband infrastructure unless you can be reasonably sure that you're going to be able to earn your money back (and a little extra for the effort...keeps the shareholders happy, you know).
However, if rules are in place that require you to provide your competitors with access to your infrastructure, the level of risk you assume is much, much higher. If it works, you have to share the profits with your competitors. If it fails, you have to cover all the losses. It's a lose-lose situation...and so it doesn't happen. Companies will simply not deploy these networks if they have to assume all the risk and reap only some of the reward. If you want companies to take on all this risk you have to give them thier due.
remove all restrictions. Allow municipal wifi. Allow everything. Disallow cities from forcing companies to pay extortion to them in "franchise fees", one of the biggest hurdles and deterrents to small business starting up in an area.
Disallow? You mean restrict?
You can't have it both ways. If you allow people to do what they want, there's a chance they might not do what you like. The FCC does not have oversight over laws crafted in local municipalities and state governments. If you want to grant them that authority, be prepared when "Citizens United Against Smut" (or some other such group) convinces the FCC that municipal wifi should have adult content filters because it's funded with public money.
While I don't think it's a good idea to let IT vigilantes stop spam by launching what would otherwise be an illegal DDOS attack, it might be a good idea to allow this sort of thing as a formal punishment for uncooperative spammers.
Kind of like when the city boots your car when you refuse to pay your parking tickets, having law enforcement DDOS a spammer's site when they refuse to pay fines or show up in court might be an effective way to enforce anti-spam laws.
the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case where a local community siezed private houses for commercial development (not public works) under the guize of emminent domain.
No, what the Supreme Court ruled in this case is that what the city of New London is planning to do with the land IS a public use, in that it will create jobs and increase tax revenue, and therefore legal.
Of course, as a matter of opinion it may not be, but the Supreme court has not unilaterally declared that the government can seize your property for private use.
From the article:
Instead of using high temperatures and incredible densities to ram protons together, the scientists at UCLA cleverly used the structure of an unusual crystal.
That crystal wouldn't happen to be Dilithium would it?
Wasn't that a hovercraft of some kind?
If you can't find a good software developer it's because you yourself are incompetant! Most managers are somewhat incompetant in evaluating a person's intelligence and skill level. Often they mistake an outgoing personality for intelligence. Try looking for the qualities you want. You may have to actually 'test' the candidates.
Maybe, but at least I can spell incompetent.
We do test our applicants...very thoroughly, in fact. We reject the vast majority of our applicants because they're not qualified, and as a result, the people that we do hire always work out well. Doing more and better testing is not going to increase the percentage of qualified people that apply.
I'm not sure where you found that ad (our website, maybe?), but I didn't write that. Quite frankly, I'm not sure who did, and you're right...it's awful. Here's the requirements from my job post (found on Monster.com and other places)
The required qualifications include a B.S. degree in Computer Science or Software Engineering, a passion for software development, an interest in learning new development techniques, the ability to aggressively overcome obstacles, and excellent communication skills. Desired qualifications include CO-OP, internship, or equivalent software development experience, and experience with Java, C# or C++. Knowledge of Object Oriented Programming or development methodologies such as RUP or TDD is a plus.
I don't think that asking for a college degree related to the field is unfair. Aside from that there are very few rigid qualifications, and even with that, we've gotten almost no good candidates.
There is no IT employee shortage.
Actually, yes, there is. I know because I've been looking for decent software developers for the last 6 months and have found a grand total of two. And it's not like I'm asking for anything too outrageous...just a basic understanding of software development principles.
Despite popular opinion, outsourcing has not created a vast sea of qualified but unemployed software developers. If you're one of these people, feel free to prove me wrong, but when I see developers complaining that they can't find a job, it's usually because they think HTML is a programming language and can't explain the difference between an object and a class.
I inherited a 1000 class Java based toolkit from my predecessor, which had exactly zero unit tests. Over the last two years, we've made a sustained effort to employ Test-Driven Development and add more tests to ensure that everything works as advertised. As of today the toolkit has over 830 tests, with line coverage of 61% and class coverage of 96%. We've still got a long way to go, but were much better off than we were. Here's how we got there...
1) A lot of people are going to tell you that you need to write your tests from scratch. That you should assume that your code is broken and work out the expected results by hand and create the test assertions accordingly. I disagree. If you're testing old code, it's much more useful to use the test to ensure that it does whatever it did before, instead of ensuring that it's "correct". I prefer to treat the code as though it is correct, and build the tests around it. Even if the assumption is occasionaly wrong, you can make the tests much quicker this way. That allows you to refactor and extend your system with confidence, knowing that you haven't broken anything. Remember, TDD isn't really about quality assurance, it's about design and evolving design through refactoring. More tests == more refactoring == better system.
2) You're probably not going to get a lot of extra time to sit around and write tests. You need to captialize on the time that you have and turn problems into oppertunities to add tests. Whenever you find a bug, make a test that reproduces it. If you need to add supporting stub or mock objects, consider making them reusable so that future tests will be easier to write.
3) If you need to add new functionality to the system, just follow the standard TDD steps of Test->Code->Refactor, and make sure that you add tests for anything that might be affected by the change.
4) I'm assuming that you already have a continous integration build that runs the tests, but if you don't, make one. Now. Also consider adding other metrics to the build like code coverage (we use Emma), findbugs, and jdepend. These will help you track your progress and can be very useful if you have to defend your methdology to people who view TDD as a waste of time (The Code Coverage to Open Bugs ratio gets them every time).
5) In general, you need to look for oppertunities to write tests. Don't understand how a module works? Write a test for it. Found a JDK bug? Reproduce it with a test. Performance too slow? Use timestamps to ensure that the performance of a alrorithm is in a reasonable range.
You've probably got a long road ahead, but it's worth the work. Keep at it, and good luck.
Ok, so here's the deal with MTV (as I see it).
Back when cable was new and fancy, cable channels were based around topics. MTV=Music, CNN=News, Discovery Channel=Science, etc. I think they did it this way because many cable channels were commercial free, so advertising demographics wasn't a real concern.
However, as cable TV has evolved, companies like Viacom (who own a whole bunch of cable TV channels) have starting selling ads, and have realized that it's easier to sell advertising when you have a clearly segmented market. Want to sell your [compact car|acne medication|mobile phone plan] to 12-28 year olds? MTV is just what you're looking for. That's why there are no music videos anymore...it's all programming directed at teenage/twenties/early 30s hipsters who care about Paris Hilton, extreme sports, and what car J-Lo is driving this week.
That's also why The Learning Channel has turned into the Home Improvement Reality Show channel (a.k.a the 18-34, married, middle-class channel). It's all about segmenting your market so that you have a consistent product (eyeballs) to sell.
Me: "Ok, so lets see if I can make a "clean" copy of this DVD..."
Software: HELLO, WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO FILTER?
[ ] Sexual Content
[ ] Violence
[ ] Adult Language
[X] FBI Copyright Warning
Me: Perfect! Just the way I want it. Anyone have a blank DVD?
Why don't we read the ruling from Perry in context? Here's the next paragraph after the one you quoted.
Public property which is not by tradition or designation a forum for public communication is governed by different standards. We have recognized that the "First Amendment does not guarantee access to property simply because it is owned or controlled by the government." United States Postal Service v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Assns., supra, at 129. In addition to time, place, and manner regulations, the State may reserve the forum for its intended purposes, communicative or otherwise, as long as the regulation on speech is reasonable and not an effort to suppress expression merely because public officials oppose the speaker's view. 453 U.S., at 131, n. 7. As we have stated on several occasions, "[the] State, no less than a private owner of property, has power to preserve the property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully dedicated."
The last time I checked, highway rest stops are not "by tradition or designation a forum for public communication". Obviously, the government restricting free speech in a public assembly hall would be unconstitutional, but that's not what is happening here. And while the Internet itself may be a forum for public debate, nobody is required to use the state's WiFi connection in order to access the Internet.
And in UNITED STATES v. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, (the ruling that upheld the CIPA) the court finds that in order "to determine whether libraries would violate the First Amendment by employing the filtering software that CIPA requires, we must first examine the role of libraries in our society." They found that "To fulfill their traditional missions, public libraries must have broad discretion to decide what material to provide to their patrons."
The traditional mission of a highway rest stop is to provide soda and candy. The special exception made for libraries is due to their primary function as providers of information.
Do yourself a favor, take a break from slashdot, and google "supreme court content neutral ruling"
Ok I will, lets see...
Google result #1 - CITY OF LADUE v. MARGARET P. GILLEO a case involving a city ordinance that prohibits homeowners from displaying certian signs on their property. So a citizen wants to use thier own personal property to promote a political cause. Hmm, ok that's not revelant, since the WiFi access is supplied and funded by the State of Texas. Lets try...
Google result #2 - Zelman v. Simmons-Harris Ok, so this is regarding a school voucher program challenged on First Amendment grounds but upheld by the court. From the ruling: "We would be loath to adopt a rule grounding the constitutionality of a facially neutral law..." - Rehnquist, citing an earlier case. Hmm, it seems the supreme court ruled agreed with a previous ruling by saying that legal neutrality is not protected by the Constitution. Ok, lets try...
Google result #3 - Smith v. City of Jackson. Hmm, that's about an age discrimination suit...not really relevant here. What about...
Google result #4 - Alameda Books, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles et al. Ok so this is a position paper on the secondary effects doctrine, which argues that it "allows seemingly content-based laws that single out adult businesses to be analyzed as content-neutral". The paper then goes on to list a number of cour cases in which city governments used zoning laws to try to shut down adult bookstores and movie theatres. If the adult bookstores and theatres were being run by the State of Texas with taxpayer dollars, then that might be relevant to the law at hand...in fact, these cases just support my argument that the First Amendment protects an individual's right to free speech, and does not the require that the state provide a free (as in beer) platform for anyone to express themselves.
Ok, so how much reading do I have to do here before I find something that supports your argument? It seems to me that you've misunderstood the meaning of content-neutrality as it pertains to free speech protections. Tell you what...I've done my google searches...Why don't you find the specific court ruling or State/Federal law that says (in your words) "the state is required to do is provide whatever access it DOES provide (to adults) in a content-neutral manner."
What the state is required to do is provide whatever access it DOES provide (to adults) in a content-neutral manner.
Find me the law that says that and I'll buy you a pony.
The first amendment does not say "You have the right to free speech." That freedom is innate, part of the human condition, and it cannot be given or taken away by the Constutution or anything else. The first amendment simply says that the U.S. Government (and due to the 14th amendment, the State of Texas) cannot abridge your freedom of speech. It's not thier responsibility to give you a platform to speak from. By your argument, if the State of Texas wasn't around to build free Wi-Fi, you couldn't speak freely.
It would be completely legal, and well within the realm of the state legislature to decide. "Better" is not a question that matters when the topic is free speech...
My point here is that it's absurd to argue that denying access to part of the internet is more of a violation of free speech than denying access to all of the internet (through state funded hotspots). Clearly, it is legal not to provide any hotspots at rest stops...so how can it be illegal to have filtered ones?
It's pretty much a no-brainer, the Supreme Court has already said in a hundred different variations that municipalities (be they federal, state or local) can't restrict speech by and to adults solely on content.
You're absolutely right, but that's not what's happening here. The state of Texas is under no obligation whatsoever to provide you with free access to porn. It can't stop you from viewing or distributing it, and if you wanted to set up your own WiFi hotspots and provide unfiltered internet access to lonely truckers, there's nothing they could do to stop you from that either.
Let me ask you this...would it be better if they just turned all the WiFi hotspots off? Because that's certianly constitutional...
I played three hardcore charecters in Diablo II. Hardcore basically meant, when you died, you were dead...and there's no coming back. One of them lasted to level 74.
I'll tell you right now that every second of gameplay with those charecters was interesting. When your actions have great consequences, they also have great meaning.
Lag was just part of the game. If you started to lag out, a couple of quick health potions and an Alt-F4 was all you needed to keep yourself safe. Of course that's a double edged sword...die, and stay in the game, and you can have someone recover your stuff. If you were too slow on the keyboard, and quit after you died, you lost all your stuff too.
I say, being on the permadeath! I'd be nice to care about my RPG charecters again.
$20 an hour + a %10 finders fee for any hardware was my normal rate.
Pretty cheap considering it's a house call.
Back in high school, I used to fix computers for people to make a little spending money. One time, I went over to this guy's house because his computer wouldn't boot. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Your hard drive is dead. You're going to have to buy a new one.
Him: How much will that cost?
Me: About $100, plus the cost to install it...maybe $130 total.
Him: That's way too much, can't you just fix it?
The moral of this story is that if you system is fundementally broken, there is no band-aid patch that you can apply that will make it un-broken. If you can't hire trustworthy people, you're going to lose IP. Maybe you can implement a few security procedures here and there to slow the rate of loss, but eventually, all your IP is going to walk out the door.
The caliber of your people is the primary factor in determining the sucess of a software company. It's not the tools, the technology, or the procedures...it's the people. If you can't trust your people to do thier job and do it well, you don't have anything. I'd start by fixing that problem, and after that you can worry about USB drives.