When the machine AIs destroy the Earth, we won't be able to cash in though. But we can become famous and rich by writing about life in the 21st century!
For those that don't get it, read Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos, learn about Martin Silenus, and refer to my signature.
Your first error was taking this job without making it clear you do not pirate software and will not install and support pirated software on company systems. I'm a consultant who makes this very clear when I come in to a new customer, and although I've lost a few potential customers, my serious customers have understood and respected this.
The first thing I do is explain that I will not report them to the BSA-mafia or anyone else. I will simply not install pirated software or support it if the fact that it's not legal will cause problems (for example, if I need to install updates or reinstall an application to solve an issue). Next, I explain to them the issues of what software piracy will do to their computer environment: how many cracks and other such workarounds tend to be unstable, or often trojaned, that they prevent updates and upgrades from working, and that I cannot have access to official support for such software. Finally I will suggest a progressive plan to buy legal licenses, to work with their budget to correct their situation progressively. I will often suggest alternative software (either cheaper versions or FOSS software), explaining the drawbacks and advantages of each solution. Working with schools specifically, I make sure they are aware of the educational pricing they can get on a lot of commercial software, and will point them to organizations that resell used computers to such institutions.
Which version of copyrights? The MPAA and the RIAA where fair use doesn't exist? The US one where anti-circumvention tools are legal? The German version where hacking tools are illegal? Or the Canadian version where fair use and privacy actually matter ('till ACTA is signed and forces us to change our laws, at least)? Something might be legal in one situation and not in another. In the end, only the proper authorities and legal system (aka the courts and judges in most countries) of the users can fairly decide what is legal and what isn't.
And this "community-driven" system for black-flagging "illegal" content looks rife for exploitation.
Dowsers are right sometimes, but no better than a geologist would be just looking at the lay of the land. In double-blind controlled tests, they fail every single time.
There are people that speak something that descends from the mayan language, correct. That doesn't help us much in deciphering the written version of the language in hieroglyphics.
I've done some IT contracting work for Medicago for a few years, they're a local enterprise, and I know the people behind the technology and I know their installations quite well. It's quite impressive, and I know they're now set on human testing after years of work and animal tests. Glad to see them getting some attention. I think this kind of technology is the future of medicine production.
But this "study" isn't very good either, since they compared two wildly different codecs in what doesn't look like a controlled double-blind study. 16 people from "around the office" isn't a scientifically, statistically significant sample, and the rest of the methodology sounds iffy too. They were also missing the "no difference" choice which might have changed things quite a bit.
I seriously don't care about which is better, since I don't intend to use these services, but it does appear the conclusions reached in the news post are not clearly shown in the article to be factually, scientifically proven.
How CAN you trust them? Any big corporation offering those services are after only one thing: profit. And to get it, they WILL cut corners. Doesn't everyone? But in this case you'll have no idea where they cut short, and no idea where you're unsafe, and how much downtime you might have if something goes wrong.
I'm sorry, but the main issues with Cloud Computing aren't technological, they're issues of trust and reliability of the human, financial and legal factors at work. And when it's you vs Big Corp, you'll lose every single time.
I'll probably repeat what others have said, but these are my suggestions:
If you want to start from the origins, start from the beginning. I'd suggest excerpts from the Gilgamesh Epic as well as a few stories out of The Odyssey (the sirens, Charybdis, Circe).
Then you can move on to a few Bible stories (really). Jonah is probably a good one. Not the full book, but again excerpts that are relevant (Good & Evil struggle especially, in the God-Devil dialog).
Then mention something out of the Middle Ages. Beowulf is probably too dense for most. The King Arthur cycles are a good choice, though. Some stories like Tristan & Iseult for example can be very good choices.
Then early modern works: fairy tales from the Victorian Era. Up to here it's mostly short stories and excerpts, short stuff that can get the class going and can generate interest and start people thinking. For a first full reading, a Verne novel is probably a good choice, pick one of the shorter ones.
The Hobbit is definitely a great choice for the early 20th century. Faster and easier to read than LotR, and still quite important.
Then middle-20th century. At this point, there's a LOT of choice. Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov are all big names you have to mention. I'll suggest my favourites, but it's a harder call here.
Caves of Steel is a great choice from Asimov. You can add a story from the Foundation trilogy here too, it was serialized as short stories initially, so it's easily broken up. The story of Bel Riose might be a great way to connect to the mythology from the early class.
Dune from Frank Herbert is hard to pass on. It is probably the seminal hard SF novel of the 20th century, and it is certainly not hard to make it current considering the environmental issues now affecting us. A good way to show how SF can inform the modern issues.
Then more modern:
Raymond E. Feist's Magician:Apprentice can be a good choice for later era Fantasy, but it's a bit light fare.
I would recommend Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule but this is for high school, and there's probably a bit too much violence and sexual content in it and the rest of his work is pretty bad.
Robert Jordan's Eye of the World can be a decent choice, make them read the first half and compare it to Tolkien, he was actually trying to somewhat imitate his style to help immerse readers.
One choice that might not be popular, but which would connect more with females is Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince. Just have them read the first half of that book, it's decently self-contained. It does have some sexual content, but it's not exaggerated and often only hinted at. It has relationship, family, coming-of-age, politics, good fights, dragons, a lot of what Fantasy is often about.
This is clearly not exhaustive but it's a list of titles I like and that I think would make good choices.
Economics is as much a real science as MMOs have real economies.
As someone else said, many of the basics of those in-game economies are designed by economists and mathematicians. Of course they'll reflect economic theory.
Vote out the incumbents and replace them with whom, exactly? Your political system is so fucked up at this point anyone who can actually get on the ballot with some chance of winning in a national election is almost certainly bought out by the corporations who actually control the country while you're watching the political comedy going on in Washington.
Slashdot Mirror
Acid 1,2,3 all pass for me on Safari 4.0.4 on Mac OS X 10.6.2
Acid 1,2 succeed in Internet Explorer 8 on Windows 7
Acid 1 succeeds in Internet Explorer 7 on Windows XP
Lucky they're in the US, where the truth is an absolute defence against libel and slander. Were they in the UK, Verizon might actually be in trouble.
When the machine AIs destroy the Earth, we won't be able to cash in though. But we can become famous and rich by writing about life in the 21st century!
For those that don't get it, read Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos, learn about Martin Silenus, and refer to my signature.
Your first error was taking this job without making it clear you do not pirate software and will not install and support pirated software on company systems. I'm a consultant who makes this very clear when I come in to a new customer, and although I've lost a few potential customers, my serious customers have understood and respected this.
The first thing I do is explain that I will not report them to the BSA-mafia or anyone else. I will simply not install pirated software or support it if the fact that it's not legal will cause problems (for example, if I need to install updates or reinstall an application to solve an issue). Next, I explain to them the issues of what software piracy will do to their computer environment: how many cracks and other such workarounds tend to be unstable, or often trojaned, that they prevent updates and upgrades from working, and that I cannot have access to official support for such software. Finally I will suggest a progressive plan to buy legal licenses, to work with their budget to correct their situation progressively. I will often suggest alternative software (either cheaper versions or FOSS software), explaining the drawbacks and advantages of each solution. Working with schools specifically, I make sure they are aware of the educational pricing they can get on a lot of commercial software, and will point them to organizations that resell used computers to such institutions.
I read that in the actual Starcraft computer voice in my head. I think I played that game too much, even though it's been a while.
Which version of copyrights? The MPAA and the RIAA where fair use doesn't exist? The US one where anti-circumvention tools are legal? The German version where hacking tools are illegal? Or the Canadian version where fair use and privacy actually matter ('till ACTA is signed and forces us to change our laws, at least)? Something might be legal in one situation and not in another. In the end, only the proper authorities and legal system (aka the courts and judges in most countries) of the users can fairly decide what is legal and what isn't.
And this "community-driven" system for black-flagging "illegal" content looks rife for exploitation.
It doesn't count because there's absolutely no need to mod or hack your console to develop using the Microsoft tools.
Dowsers are right sometimes, but no better than a geologist would be just looking at the lay of the land. In double-blind controlled tests, they fail every single time.
Good question. The field size for DNS requests is in double words (16bits) increments, so I don't see why it couldn't have been.
200,000 to 500,000 die every year from the flu. I'm not sure how many children that usually is, but I think your claim is absurd.
I was going to post the same thing.
There are people that speak something that descends from the mayan language, correct. That doesn't help us much in deciphering the written version of the language in hieroglyphics.
I've done some IT contracting work for Medicago for a few years, they're a local enterprise, and I know the people behind the technology and I know their installations quite well. It's quite impressive, and I know they're now set on human testing after years of work and animal tests. Glad to see them getting some attention. I think this kind of technology is the future of medicine production.
"Audiophiles" are the type of people who buy this kind of cables in the hope it'll improve the sound of music. Totally unreliable, I say.
But this "study" isn't very good either, since they compared two wildly different codecs in what doesn't look like a controlled double-blind study. 16 people from "around the office" isn't a scientifically, statistically significant sample, and the rest of the methodology sounds iffy too. They were also missing the "no difference" choice which might have changed things quite a bit.
I seriously don't care about which is better, since I don't intend to use these services, but it does appear the conclusions reached in the news post are not clearly shown in the article to be factually, scientifically proven.
If you trusted the power company that much, you wouldn't have UPS and power generators in data centers.
Same, this news post is complete and utterly unsubstantiated BS.
How CAN you trust them? Any big corporation offering those services are after only one thing: profit. And to get it, they WILL cut corners. Doesn't everyone? But in this case you'll have no idea where they cut short, and no idea where you're unsafe, and how much downtime you might have if something goes wrong.
I'm sorry, but the main issues with Cloud Computing aren't technological, they're issues of trust and reliability of the human, financial and legal factors at work. And when it's you vs Big Corp, you'll lose every single time.
That's what *you* think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
might open your mind.
A lot of warez stuff has been hosted on such services for a while now, it's only more noticeable because other services are being used less.
Even better: burning oil in combustion engines is retarded. We need that oil to power modern industries like plastics and high tech engineering.
I remember them saying backporting some of the fixes from last month wasn't even doable to the W2K codebase. You're already obsolete.
http://www.smartusa.com/ starts for a bit more than 10k.
I'll probably repeat what others have said, but these are my suggestions:
If you want to start from the origins, start from the beginning. I'd suggest excerpts from the Gilgamesh Epic as well as a few stories out of The Odyssey (the sirens, Charybdis, Circe).
Then you can move on to a few Bible stories (really). Jonah is probably a good one. Not the full book, but again excerpts that are relevant (Good & Evil struggle especially, in the God-Devil dialog).
Then mention something out of the Middle Ages. Beowulf is probably too dense for most. The King Arthur cycles are a good choice, though. Some stories like Tristan & Iseult for example can be very good choices.
Then early modern works: fairy tales from the Victorian Era. Up to here it's mostly short stories and excerpts, short stuff that can get the class going and can generate interest and start people thinking. For a first full reading, a Verne novel is probably a good choice, pick one of the shorter ones.
The Hobbit is definitely a great choice for the early 20th century. Faster and easier to read than LotR, and still quite important.
Then middle-20th century. At this point, there's a LOT of choice. Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov are all big names you have to mention. I'll suggest my favourites, but it's a harder call here.
Caves of Steel is a great choice from Asimov. You can add a story from the Foundation trilogy here too, it was serialized as short stories initially, so it's easily broken up. The story of Bel Riose might be a great way to connect to the mythology from the early class.
Dune from Frank Herbert is hard to pass on. It is probably the seminal hard SF novel of the 20th century, and it is certainly not hard to make it current considering the environmental issues now affecting us. A good way to show how SF can inform the modern issues.
Then more modern:
Raymond E. Feist's Magician:Apprentice can be a good choice for later era Fantasy, but it's a bit light fare.
I would recommend Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule but this is for high school, and there's probably a bit too much violence and sexual content in it and the rest of his work is pretty bad.
Robert Jordan's Eye of the World can be a decent choice, make them read the first half and compare it to Tolkien, he was actually trying to somewhat imitate his style to help immerse readers.
One choice that might not be popular, but which would connect more with females is Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince. Just have them read the first half of that book, it's decently self-contained. It does have some sexual content, but it's not exaggerated and often only hinted at. It has relationship, family, coming-of-age, politics, good fights, dragons, a lot of what Fantasy is often about.
This is clearly not exhaustive but it's a list of titles I like and that I think would make good choices.
Economics is as much a real science as MMOs have real economies.
As someone else said, many of the basics of those in-game economies are designed by economists and mathematicians. Of course they'll reflect economic theory.
Vote out the incumbents and replace them with whom, exactly? Your political system is so fucked up at this point anyone who can actually get on the ballot with some chance of winning in a national election is almost certainly bought out by the corporations who actually control the country while you're watching the political comedy going on in Washington.