Well, most of it, anyways. It appears that the/. article linked to page 2, and the graphs are linked from page 1.
I've played with Plone a little bit, and it is resource intensive, to say the least. However, when you look at their graphs, eweek ran plone under both Windows Server 2003 and Suse Enterprise Linux. Given that they used the built-in Zope application server as the web server for Plone under both Windows and Linux, I would expect the performance to be equivalent.
When you look at the graphs, Plone on Windows appeared to outperform Plone on Linux by an order of magnitude. Something smelled funny. Like debugging.
While I'm not sure how Suse configures their Plone packages, by default, the Zope packages come with debugging turned on, which cripples performance. If you look at Chapter 2 of the Plone Book by Andy McKay, it states:
By default in Zope 2.7 debug mode is enabled. Note that Plone runs significantly slower in debug mode, approximately 10-20 times slower. To turn this off, add the following line to the configuration file:
debug-mode off
To make the out-of-the-box experience more impressive for Windows users (debug mode slows Plone down on Windows even more than on Linux), it ships with debug mode off already. If you have a Plone site running and want to know if debug mode is running, go to *portal_migration* in the ZMI and look at the variables listed there; this will tell you if debug mode is enabled.
If I were running an enterprise which needed to use something with the features and robustness of Plone, and was about to devote the hundreds (or thousands) of hours required to fill it with content, and tweak it to my heart's content, I'd read the [expletive deleted] documentation, and notice that I might need to turn off debug mode. Sure, eweek said that they wanted to keep everything untuned:
But the point was to test the stacks, not their ideal performance points, which is also why we didn't tune or optimize any of the systems but ran them as close to default as possible.
Too bad that they didn't turn Zope debugging on in Windows, just to be consistent.
This is not a complex tuning or advanced configuration issue. You don't need to use eye of newt, or sacrifice small animals on the night of a full moon to make this simple change. If debug was left on in Linux, it not only invalidates their results, it also shows their conclusions to be utter garbage. A big part of their conclusion that open source software worked better on Windows was based on the Plone example (the best "apples to apples" comparison in their entire test). Eweek said:
Probably most surprising was the solid performance that came from the stacks that contained a mix of a Windows server and open-source components.
Probably most surprising was the solid incompetence that came from the testers, and the failure to configure anything other than a Windows server in spite of readily accessible documentation on setting up these complex systems. The sad part is that some IT managers will rely on these flawed results.
I run Seamonkey (mozilla suite), which offers way more configuration options than Firefox - there is a preference option in which you can decide to "Open links meant to open in a new window" in (a) the current tab/window (b) a new tab in the current window and (c) a new window. Ajaxwrite opens in a new tab for me in Seamonkey.
I just downloaded and checked on the current portable Firefox, and while the options claim to allow you to configure similar behavior for tabs in the preferences (force links that open new windows to open in....), it didn't work for javascript - firefox opened Ajaxwrite in a new window instead of a new tab as it was supposed to.
Playing with about:config will give you the behaviour you want in Firefox. Type about:config into your address bar. Find the preference named browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction. Set the value to 3 (just double click on the preference name, and a popup dialog will allow you to change the value). Then keep on browsing (it automatically saves as soon as you change the value)
What they don't see is the second touch: you subtly phrase the article so that the impression left on reader is not that your product is incompatible, but that it is exclusive.
Article? This is slashdot. Who reads the articles?
For Zope, try Zwiki. With Zwiki under Plone (which runs under Zope; it is like an onion),which will take care of access control, at an overhead cost, though. I haven't played with it much in a year or so, and I cannot recall how fine grained the access controls are (I think it is wiki-level, not page-level access). For page level / group access, you would probably need multiple wikis, although you'd need to check the docs for certain. You can always just use a Plone site instead of a wiki (Plone offers full WYSIWYG editing, access control, tracking of revisions, rollback, etc). Zwiki - Access Control and membership. Plone also has some docs on zwiki, link to a plone/zwiki demo.
I'm going to have to spend many hours replying to comments and e-mails based on this story.
Don't reply to the emails. Stick to the comments. You posted a story to solicit comments. You also asked moderators to filter the comments for you. Browse at -1 on these stories only when you've run out of other things to do
The job of management is to delegate, delegate, delegate. You're the site manager. Do your own job, and leave the moderators to do their job. Don't even be tempted to read emails on this topic. In fact, you should set up an email filter RIGHT NOW to send them directly to/dev/null. You cannot do everything yourself. I'd rather see you do this every month (no more, as too much navel-gazing killed k5), and only respond to top rated comments, than every six months because it is too much work.
By the way, nice to hear from you in this manner. Even if you don't listen, thanks for asking.
It appears that your Milestone 2 search engine is Verity Ultraseek. Their list of customers overlaps quite well with those listed in Appendix 5 of your "report". Verity claims the following system requirements in their brochures:
Databases: Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL
on Solaris and Linux, any ODBC
compliant database on Windows.
Support for binary large objects
(BLOBs)
The lack of proofreading by Verity is rather amusing, as I was not aware that MS SQL was available on either Linux or Solaris, but I digress. I'm not sure which version you used, but Version 5.3 (June 2004) does not appear to use an external DB, and 5.4 (released June 2005) also does not appear to require an external DB, and does not appear to support MySQL out of the box.
The documentation from Verity recommends that
"In general, database collections are more difficult to set up than an HTTP spider collection. When possible, we recommend that you use an HTTP spider collection rather than a database collection to serve content to your users."
Furthermore, even the current version only requires glibc 2.2.4 according to the brochure, and from what I can find, Suse 8 shipped with glibc 2.2.5.So why the need to do something stupid like upgrade to bleeding edge glibc at Milestone 2, when the product does not require it?
The sole options for downloading Ultraseek versions 5.3 or 5.4 included a.tar.gz or a RedHat rpm. Without a Suse RPM, I wonder how well they really "support" Suse in the first place.
As other posters have more eloquently noted, the support time for Linux was skewed by the third party software. You claim that
"The specific 3rd party vendors are not disclosed
because the focus of the study is the methodology and not a specific component."
I call bullshit. You cannot expect the same level of support for a third party solution on such different platforms as Windows and Linux, and I would question the sanity and quality of any vendor that required bleeding edge versions of MySQL and glibc, as your report appears to indicate. In addition, what compelling reason is there to do an component upgrade which breaks a system - did your "leading" third party vendor drop support for a year old enterprise distribution? Many enterprise admins didn't apply SP2 on Windows for a year, so why would you do an equivalent upgrade on Linux just because of a component upgrade? The entire point of enterprise level distributions is that they are NOT moving targets. You're doing the equivalent of expecting the stability of Debian Woody, while running Sid.
A key premise in the scienctific method is that research be reproducible. Your work is not reproducible without a full listing of all software, all patches applied, all data used, and so on. Overall, while your study may appear to be valid, on a superficial basis (you have some good methodology), it is about as scientific as homeopathy or "zero point" drivel.
Steel toe / steel shank, and the boot should go above the ankle. There will be plenty of trip hazards, and you'll be out of action with an ankle injury in low-cut footwear. Safety glasses / goggles are mandatory, as are leather gloves. First aid kits and someone trained in first aid is also a good idea for any jobsite.
Worksites are dangerous. I can only imagine the carnage if you set loose a bunch of weekend warrior office workers with power tools and hurricane-damaged buildings. Make sure you have someone experienced in the type of work to provide a full daily orientation, along with tool and worksite safety training, and supervision to ensure that you don't injure yourselves. You don't want to add to the problem by becoming a burden on local medical resources, rather than helping out as you had planned.
You need some idea of what you'll be doing before you can properly plan. Will you be clearing damage, and demolition? Then you'll want chainsaws, chop saws, wrecking bars, etc. Will you have electricity (generator or powerlines), or will you want to bring as many gasoline powered tools as possible. But most importantly, you need some people who know what they're doing. Plan your work. Prethink each task before starting it. Stop and think (Exxon safety slogan) during each task.
It's been available on Google Earth since at least Sunday or Monday, from the Keyhole BBS. You had to download a file which gave you a layer showing a red dot at the centre of each satellite image, and when you clicked on the dot, it would then download each image separately for an approx 1 mile by 1 mile area.
Google Earth also allowed you to see all of the images for other areas, including places like Gulfport and Biloxi. Complete devastation, nothing left but matchsticks.
Also, Katrina images have been available on Google Maps since at least Saturday, as I was browsing it Sat afternoon. Kudos to Google - with that kind of speed, they should be running FEMA, too.
Sorry, can't fully relate. Had a significant other long before I had a/. user id.
If you're a geek, you should be smart. Smart enough to learn a system well enough to work within it - the social system of a workplace environment. Smart enough to make decisions, and sort information and ideas for relevance. Smart enough to learn what your manager wants / needs to know within a few weeks or months. Smart enough and aware of your limitations to know when to ask for help. Observant enough to know when the systems or projects you operate / design / administer are relied upon by your clients and co-workers.
Your argument works for a temp. It doesn't work anywhere else. As for getting into "trouble", any workplace where that is a real concern by simply trying to do your job and help out, is simply not somewhere you need to be.
I'm atypical, though - I tend to be a prankster, and am the token office clown. Way back in high school, I decided that I'd have a lot more fun in life if I stepped out of the shadows. Try as I might, while I certainly cause trouble, I rarely get into trouble.
The antisocial stereotype is what keeps nerds in jobs which are frequently one step above a call centre - where your technical skills may be valued, but your social abilities limit what you get to do. The best part (and the worst part) of my job in project management and consulting is dealing with people. I have good days and bad days, but for every time I get crapped on by a client, I have many more occasions where I come through for a client or manager, and make their hour / day / week / month.
Apologies if someone else already posted it. It is Bill C-60, and first reading is here (PDF print format here).
Unfortunately, it is an amendment (ie, a legal version of a diff file to an existing act), and no consolidated version yet exists highlighting the changes.
One potentially nice provision in Section 40.2(1) - ISPs may be able to charge a fee for submitting their notice and for gathering / storing information about supposed infringement. Unfortunately, based on 40.2(2), this fee is zero until a regulation is made. Sadly, in Canada, regulations are not passed by Parliament, but are approved by cabinet - ie, solely by the executive The act is generally a framework, and regulations provide the details..
You'll need some more room in the bends to make sure that there's plenty of space and cables don't get kinked
Most underground utility conduits (under roadways, etc) use sweeps - high radius curves. Sweeps make it easier to pull the cable through without binding. Utilities also commonly run string (I've seen rope actually) through empty conduits - in addition to dark fibre in the world, there are plenty of empty conduits in cities, as well. Easier to drop in an extra conduit rather than digging up the road when the land use and power load changes in an area. .
Please give a solid example of CBC being biased towards the left.
As It Happens. Sorry, but I stopped listening to it years ago, and cannot give you specific episodes and dates. I got sick of the totally soft questions asked of any left-leaning interview subject, or ones who shared an interest / belief of the hosts.
I also got tired of listening to interviews of right-leaning subjects, during which they would ask the same question 20 different ways, always hoping to extract their preconceived answer from the subject. Sorry,. but in my books, journalism is not based on trying to get people to say what you want / expect them to say. I'm amazed that right-leaning people even agree to be interviewed, based on the degree to which Ms Budd and Ms Findlay prejudge their subjects and try to put their own words into the subject's mouth.
I don't know if Marylou Findlay and Barbara Budd still host the show. It is too bad that I can't stand listening to it anymore, as they routinely manage to offer more relevant, newsworthy, and high profile interview subjects than any other radio show in Canada.
Another example would be the comedy shows. Maybe I'm more sensitive to criticism of my own leanings, but they spent a lot more time making fun of right-leaning sentiment than they do the (in your words, more prevalent) left-leaning sentiments.
Geez, look at Don Cherry. He's about as left wing as Bush
Don Cherry is a blowhard hockey commentator, and has no influence on newscasting or other news-related programming. I doubt that most CBC staff can stand him, and the only reason he's still there is because Joe Sixpack wants to see Don Cherry on Hockey Night in Canada, and Hockey Night in Canada is (well, was, with the hockey strike) CBC's largest non-subsidy revenue source. Someone like Rex Murphy has much more influence than Don Cherry (although I find Rex is quite balanced, the few times I've listened to him).
Rather dubious company to keep, based on previous Business Week top 25 members from 2001: Martha Stewart Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco) (also placed in 2002, now facing a possible prison term
I'm certain that a more careful review would find many other less-than-illustrious candidates in previous versions of the top 25.
Nowhere else do you buy products that are slightly defect (and still very expensive!)...
Everything has design and manufacturing tolerances. The ball bearings I just installed in my bicycle hubs are probably out of round by a few microns or more, but thats all. If they were perfectly spherical, they might roll marginally better, with less wobble in the wheel. The difference is not enough to make me want to track down better quality bearings (ie, $1 bearings instead of $0.05 bearings).
Same for your monitor. That $400, 19" LCD is not going to be perfect - but unless you want to pay 10x the cost, get used to it.
Obviously, you have the same difficulty turning off a cell phone as you do turning off your capslock key. You should relax, as comments like that can do bad things to your blood pressure.
Oh, and a nitpick - anyone who is "off duty 24x7" is generally unemployed. The intrusiveness of monitoring comes down to the type of employer in the end anyways - an employer who abuses this data will be unpleasant to work for in many other ways. Technology only adds more possibilities for people to act like jerks, but it does not make them jerks in the first place. In Dicken's story, "A Christmas Carol", Ebeneezer Scrooge was a terrible employer - this would not have made him all that much worse.
How does it differ from an employer viewing the logs to see which websites I visit during the day, and how long I spend doing it? Or your grocery store counting the number of items scanned per hour by a checkout clerk? Or a weekly review of sales figures for car salesmen? I believe that it doesn't, and it is routine to expect employer oversight in a workplace - this is merely a new form, that's all. The employer is paying you to do a task, using their equipment - it is reasonable for them to ensure that you are doing it properly and safely. Their shareholders and insurers expect no less in order to maximize returns and minimize risk. Got a retirement savings plan, and expect high annual returns? That makes you a typical faceless shareholder.
There are other places where it would be handy - transit systems could use it to nail bus drivers who decide to run 5 minutes early, or catch up from time lost on their cigarette break by driving recklessly. I've experienced a city bus driver trying to make up lost time by driving a 10 or 20 ton bus more than 20km/h over the speed limit (faster than I routinely drive my car) - when I got off at the next stop I was sure to let him know that I didn't feel safe, and was waiting for the next bus solely because of his reckless driving.
If the location and time were logged , the transit system would have had solid data to prove how fast he was driving, and could have taken appropriate disciplinary action. Just knowing that the speed and timing data are recorded could add safety, and ensure that buses don't run too early or late. The only thing worse than waiting 15 minutes for a late bus is having to wait 15 minutes for the next bus because a driver chose to ignore his timing points.
Yeah, let's tie all of our communications, transport, and energy infrastructure together, and place it into one convenient, easily-targeted place. What could possibly go wrong?
I'm not just referring to the ridiculous american fear of terrorism, but think about how something like a pipeline break, an earthquake, a propane tanker truck explosion, or a freight train derailment would impact all of the other services in this megahighway. Given the frequency of the above events, I would expect to see at least a few closures a year on what would be a critical piece of infrastucture.
Please re-read some Niven. The gripping hand is not a kewler way to say "on the other hand". If you check into the origin of the phrase, it is used for a third alternative - on one hand, on the other hand, and on the gripping hand.
Which allows the "moped sponge" technique. Rack up points on your policy, then buy a moped, transfer the "tainted" policy to the moped, and get a new policy on your Camaro, and continue driving like an idiot.
Going even further offtopic, that is not the case in BC. Your "points" accumulate to the driver, not to the policy. One of the benefits of an insurance monopoly operated by a crown corporation. Drive like an idiot, have lots of accidents, and you'll be paying high premiums for years (not high enough or long enough, though, imho). Only way around it is to borrow a friend or family members vehicle - a) if they'll let you, and b) no matter who owns the vehicle, the insurance rate is based on the driving record of the principal operator, so if you are the principal operator without being listed as such, ICBC can decline to provide coverage after a collision.
Not only that, but if a friend or family member crashes your car, I believe that both your insurance rates and their insurance rates go up. Cool, eh?
Look at how people in your region heated their homes before electricity. In England, that would be coal. In Ireland, peat. In North America, wood is the ticket. Another option might be natural gas or propane catalytic heaters - like what builders use during winter construction when installing drywall or painting (before the furnace is installed).
My low emission wood burning fireplace insert gets installed next Thursday, replacing the useless natural gas fireplace that has sat unused since we bought the house. Finally, I have an excuse to get a chainsaw - most importantly, an excuse that my wife will accept. At the low low cost of $2,500 installed.
Slashdot Mirror
I've played with Plone a little bit, and it is resource intensive, to say the least. However, when you look at their graphs, eweek ran plone under both Windows Server 2003 and Suse Enterprise Linux. Given that they used the built-in Zope application server as the web server for Plone under both Windows and Linux, I would expect the performance to be equivalent.
When you look at the graphs, Plone on Windows appeared to outperform Plone on Linux by an order of magnitude. Something smelled funny. Like debugging.
While I'm not sure how Suse configures their Plone packages, by default, the Zope packages come with debugging turned on, which cripples performance. If you look at Chapter 2 of the Plone Book by Andy McKay, it states:
If I were running an enterprise which needed to use something with the features and robustness of Plone, and was about to devote the hundreds (or thousands) of hours required to fill it with content, and tweak it to my heart's content, I'd read the [expletive deleted] documentation, and notice that I might need to turn off debug mode. Sure, eweek said that they wanted to keep everything untuned:
Too bad that they didn't turn Zope debugging on in Windows, just to be consistent.
This is not a complex tuning or advanced configuration issue. You don't need to use eye of newt, or sacrifice small animals on the night of a full moon to make this simple change. If debug was left on in Linux, it not only invalidates their results, it also shows their conclusions to be utter garbage. A big part of their conclusion that open source software worked better on Windows was based on the Plone example (the best "apples to apples" comparison in their entire test). Eweek said:
Probably most surprising was the solid incompetence that came from the testers, and the failure to configure anything other than a Windows server in spite of readily accessible documentation on setting up these complex systems. The sad part is that some IT managers will rely on these flawed results.I just downloaded and checked on the current portable Firefox, and while the options claim to allow you to configure similar behavior for tabs in the preferences (force links that open new windows to open in....), it didn't work for javascript - firefox opened Ajaxwrite in a new window instead of a new tab as it was supposed to.
Playing with about:config will give you the behaviour you want in Firefox. Type about:config into your address bar. Find the preference named browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction. Set the value to 3 (just double click on the preference name, and a popup dialog will allow you to change the value). Then keep on browsing (it automatically saves as soon as you change the value)
Otherwise, switch to Seamonkey.
Why is the above comment -1 at the moment? The openwengo site appears legit, and the comment on topic.
Maybe because Cory is an EFF Fellow, and also acts as a spokesman for the EFF? And BoingBoing is his site?
For Zope, try Zwiki. With Zwiki under Plone (which runs under Zope; it is like an onion),which will take care of access control, at an overhead cost, though. I haven't played with it much in a year or so, and I cannot recall how fine grained the access controls are (I think it is wiki-level, not page-level access). For page level / group access, you would probably need multiple wikis, although you'd need to check the docs for certain. You can always just use a Plone site instead of a wiki (Plone offers full WYSIWYG editing, access control, tracking of revisions, rollback, etc). Zwiki - Access Control and membership. Plone also has some docs on zwiki, link to a plone/zwiki demo.
The job of management is to delegate, delegate, delegate. You're the site manager. Do your own job, and leave the moderators to do their job. Don't even be tempted to read emails on this topic. In fact, you should set up an email filter RIGHT NOW to send them directly to /dev/null. You cannot do everything yourself. I'd rather see you do this every month (no more, as too much navel-gazing killed k5), and only respond to top rated comments, than every six months because it is too much work.
By the way, nice to hear from you in this manner. Even if you don't listen, thanks for asking.
The sole options for downloading Ultraseek versions 5.3 or 5.4 included a .tar.gz or a RedHat rpm. Without a Suse RPM, I wonder how well they really "support" Suse in the first place.
As other posters have more eloquently noted, the support time for Linux was skewed by the third party software. You claim that
I call bullshit. You cannot expect the same level of support for a third party solution on such different platforms as Windows and Linux, and I would question the sanity and quality of any vendor that required bleeding edge versions of MySQL and glibc, as your report appears to indicate. In addition, what compelling reason is there to do an component upgrade which breaks a system - did your "leading" third party vendor drop support for a year old enterprise distribution? Many enterprise admins didn't apply SP2 on Windows for a year, so why would you do an equivalent upgrade on Linux just because of a component upgrade? The entire point of enterprise level distributions is that they are NOT moving targets. You're doing the equivalent of expecting the stability of Debian Woody, while running Sid.A key premise in the scienctific method is that research be reproducible. Your work is not reproducible without a full listing of all software, all patches applied, all data used, and so on. Overall, while your study may appear to be valid, on a superficial basis (you have some good methodology), it is about as scientific as homeopathy or "zero point" drivel.
Darren
Worksites are dangerous. I can only imagine the carnage if you set loose a bunch of weekend warrior office workers with power tools and hurricane-damaged buildings. Make sure you have someone experienced in the type of work to provide a full daily orientation, along with tool and worksite safety training, and supervision to ensure that you don't injure yourselves. You don't want to add to the problem by becoming a burden on local medical resources, rather than helping out as you had planned.
You need some idea of what you'll be doing before you can properly plan. Will you be clearing damage, and demolition? Then you'll want chainsaws, chop saws, wrecking bars, etc. Will you have electricity (generator or powerlines), or will you want to bring as many gasoline powered tools as possible. But most importantly, you need some people who know what they're doing. Plan your work. Prethink each task before starting it. Stop and think (Exxon safety slogan) during each task.
Also, Katrina images have been available on Google Maps since at least Saturday, as I was browsing it Sat afternoon. Kudos to Google - with that kind of speed, they should be running FEMA, too.
If you're a geek, you should be smart. Smart enough to learn a system well enough to work within it - the social system of a workplace environment. Smart enough to make decisions, and sort information and ideas for relevance. Smart enough to learn what your manager wants / needs to know within a few weeks or months. Smart enough and aware of your limitations to know when to ask for help. Observant enough to know when the systems or projects you operate / design / administer are relied upon by your clients and co-workers.
Your argument works for a temp. It doesn't work anywhere else. As for getting into "trouble", any workplace where that is a real concern by simply trying to do your job and help out, is simply not somewhere you need to be.
I'm atypical, though - I tend to be a prankster, and am the token office clown. Way back in high school, I decided that I'd have a lot more fun in life if I stepped out of the shadows. Try as I might, while I certainly cause trouble, I rarely get into trouble.
The antisocial stereotype is what keeps nerds in jobs which are frequently one step above a call centre - where your technical skills may be valued, but your social abilities limit what you get to do. The best part (and the worst part) of my job in project management and consulting is dealing with people. I have good days and bad days, but for every time I get crapped on by a client, I have many more occasions where I come through for a client or manager, and make their hour / day / week / month.
Unfortunately, it is an amendment (ie, a legal version of a diff file to an existing act), and no consolidated version yet exists highlighting the changes.
One potentially nice provision in Section 40.2(1) - ISPs may be able to charge a fee for submitting their notice and for gathering / storing information about supposed infringement. Unfortunately, based on 40.2(2), this fee is zero until a regulation is made. Sadly, in Canada, regulations are not passed by Parliament, but are approved by cabinet - ie, solely by the executive The act is generally a framework, and regulations provide the details. .
I also got tired of listening to interviews of right-leaning subjects, during which they would ask the same question 20 different ways, always hoping to extract their preconceived answer from the subject. Sorry,. but in my books, journalism is not based on trying to get people to say what you want / expect them to say. I'm amazed that right-leaning people even agree to be interviewed, based on the degree to which Ms Budd and Ms Findlay prejudge their subjects and try to put their own words into the subject's mouth.
I don't know if Marylou Findlay and Barbara Budd still host the show. It is too bad that I can't stand listening to it anymore, as they routinely manage to offer more relevant, newsworthy, and high profile interview subjects than any other radio show in Canada.
Another example would be the comedy shows. Maybe I'm more sensitive to criticism of my own leanings, but they spent a lot more time making fun of right-leaning sentiment than they do the (in your words, more prevalent) left-leaning sentiments.
Don Cherry is a blowhard hockey commentator, and has no influence on newscasting or other news-related programming. I doubt that most CBC staff can stand him, and the only reason he's still there is because Joe Sixpack wants to see Don Cherry on Hockey Night in Canada, and Hockey Night in Canada is (well, was, with the hockey strike) CBC's largest non-subsidy revenue source. Someone like Rex Murphy has much more influence than Don Cherry (although I find Rex is quite balanced, the few times I've listened to him).Martha Stewart
Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco) (also placed in 2002, now facing a possible prison term
I'm certain that a more careful review would find many other less-than-illustrious candidates in previous versions of the top 25.
Same for your monitor. That $400, 19" LCD is not going to be perfect - but unless you want to pay 10x the cost, get used to it.
Oh, and a nitpick - anyone who is "off duty 24x7" is generally unemployed. The intrusiveness of monitoring comes down to the type of employer in the end anyways - an employer who abuses this data will be unpleasant to work for in many other ways. Technology only adds more possibilities for people to act like jerks, but it does not make them jerks in the first place. In Dicken's story, "A Christmas Carol", Ebeneezer Scrooge was a terrible employer - this would not have made him all that much worse.
There are other places where it would be handy - transit systems could use it to nail bus drivers who decide to run 5 minutes early, or catch up from time lost on their cigarette break by driving recklessly. I've experienced a city bus driver trying to make up lost time by driving a 10 or 20 ton bus more than 20km/h over the speed limit (faster than I routinely drive my car) - when I got off at the next stop I was sure to let him know that I didn't feel safe, and was waiting for the next bus solely because of his reckless driving.
If the location and time were logged , the transit system would have had solid data to prove how fast he was driving, and could have taken appropriate disciplinary action. Just knowing that the speed and timing data are recorded could add safety, and ensure that buses don't run too early or late. The only thing worse than waiting 15 minutes for a late bus is having to wait 15 minutes for the next bus because a driver chose to ignore his timing points.
I'm not just referring to the ridiculous american fear of terrorism, but think about how something like a pipeline break, an earthquake, a propane tanker truck explosion, or a freight train derailment would impact all of the other services in this megahighway. Given the frequency of the above events, I would expect to see at least a few closures a year on what would be a critical piece of infrastucture.
Please re-read some Niven. The gripping hand is not a kewler way to say "on the other hand". If you check into the origin of the phrase, it is used for a third alternative - on one hand, on the other hand, and on the gripping hand.
Not only that, but if a friend or family member crashes your car, I believe that both your insurance rates and their insurance rates go up. Cool, eh?
My low emission wood burning fireplace insert gets installed next Thursday, replacing the useless natural gas fireplace that has sat unused since we bought the house. Finally, I have an excuse to get a chainsaw - most importantly, an excuse that my wife will accept. At the low low cost of $2,500 installed.
Because they can trace the chisel marks back to your tools, which will also be registered. What, did you forget you tinfoil hat today?