Yes, the user agent switchers are useful. I was proposing to go one step further and have an interface for any information send to / from the browser.
Hmm. A thought. Much of what we see today comes from inventive minds of the past (Sci Fi paperbacks come to mind from the 50's and 60's onward). Once the idea is out..
I dislike that any web site I visit can pull irrelevant information from my browser.. perhaps a privacy option or plugin for Firefox which whitelists information provided to websites?
Perhaps allow either an override or random values to be sent instead?
and I'm fairly certain that all of the above, combined, has cost less than $100 Million:-)
Yes, the interior is "sparsely populated" - Not much water in there, and the climate can be harsh. Amount of water and comfort of living roughly equates to amount of people.
DBAN is probably the best tool for the job - quick AND easy.
However, He may not have had time. Sometimes it really is a case of pull the hardware out and run.
If you do have time, Truecrypt can be a very useful tool for removing data. At the very least, it could make data recovery quite expensive.
Nothing beats power tools and strong chemicals.
I used to pull old drives apart and use the magnets, spacers, hard drive platters and other bits from the drive to make a wind chime (or a wind clang.. depending on your point of view).
First of all, the hard drives get a format, then get encrypted a couple of times, then get a good scouring, finally, random holes punched through various locations with a drill - for aesthetic purposes (of course).
Watching them hang outside in the rain, rusting away, thinking that one day someone may feel the need to take them down and try and get the data off of the platters is always a good upper.
they'll activate your webcam and track your eyeballs.
This would be scary.. if it wasn't potentially true.
How long, exactly, until major websites "require" for a flash / silverlight bug to play.. the sole purpose of which is to enable the camera to track your eyeballs. Resolution? Not that great... but matched with mouse movements and matched up against clicks.. it could well be data worth having.
Of course, we all use flashblock, so it won't be a problem for us. Right?
Interesting list. Is the difference 'Money' or 'Position'?
Germany, for example, found itself in a position with the cash flow and work force which is required to wage a war on the scale required for world domination.
Looking through that list - is there any country there for which could be related to Germany?
Looks like Iran or Pakistan could go the same way.. except that they are being held in check.
Do you think Iran or Pakistan wouldn't go for conquest if there were not so busy dealing with the US and each other?
And if so, would their first move be to totally restrict internet access (ala Egypt)
The Net is not the anonymous place we all thought it was.
Not much can stop companies from doing whatever they please - this is more about the chilling effect than anything.
Yes, the code will be replicated elsewhere - but it won't be on github. That's the point.
(repost - I can't find the original source)
The Garden =========
We planted a garden. A wonderful rose garden. And there were people stopping to look at it and say "hey, that's neat!" and we, the good natured fools we are, thought it would be great to open our garden to the public, so they can come in and enjoy it. And hey, who knows, maybe some of them might want to plant a few roses themselves? We can only benefit from it, right?
So we let them in, even showed them how to plant roses. And while they were not really too good gardeners, we handed them a few tools to make the work easier for them. And some of them (ok, a handful of them) actually went and built something nice. Most just wandered about and smelled a few roses. We even built them a few paths they could wander on so they don't accidentally stumble upon that field we built that camo net over, ya know, with our "special spices".
A few came in and trampled all over the roses. We shrugged and grabbed them and threw them out, because we not only know how to plant roses, we also know how to use their thorns to smack those bullies about and give them a wedgie on their way out. We build this garden after all, and we know every plant and every bush here, you can't hide from us! Well, ok, I admit, some of us thought it's fun to make fools out of the idiots that have no idea how to plant roses and snuck into their gardens when they weren't looking (and too stupid to close the door so people can only look but not touch), dyed their roses pink and blue polka-dotted, mostly for fun and to ridicule them. It was good natured fun, hey, we did that to each other too and we really had a good laugh!
One cardinal mistake we made is that we built a few paths to the camo net patches, too, because, hey, they're nice folks and wanna have some of the good stuff too, what's the harm in giving them some? Well, there's not really a problem with that, but when the bullies trampled across our fields, they also trampled through the fields of those that can't defend themselves, and these guys started to call for the police. And they eventually stumbled towards our camo net patches and, well, erh... well, they decided that it's a problem, ya know? If we hadn't built paths to them, only we would have found our way to those "special places", through the hedges and the overgrown paths that need machetes to get to. Few policemen had those machetes...
Also along came the corporations who found out that people love to wander in our nice garden and started to built there too. At first, we didn't bother to worry. Like the native Americans didn't worry when the Mayflower came along, we let them settle in our garden. Until suddenly we were told that we can't go to a few places of our garden any more because that's now off limits. In our own garden! Not to mention that they were crying bloody murder if you went and polka-dotted their roses!
And now we're sitting here, in our ever shrinking corner of our once wonderful garden, trampled down by the masses, broken up into lots by corporations with a policemen at every corner making sure you don't plant where you're not supposed to, and of course that you don't try to camo net anything.
If there's any lesson to learn, than that we should not let the masses in next time we build a garden. The seeds will be more expensive, granted, but at least we can grow what we want and keep the harvest.
Perhaps it is time that everyone goes out and buys a device capable of mesh networking, and runs cable around their suburb (there is not much they can do when the pipe and cable goes under the fence).
The world learnt a lesson from Germany: When a government goes off the rails and tries to dominate its citizens.. the next step is the domination of the world.
Will a government really hunt down *everyone* with a *prescribed device* and shoot them? How many? A million? Two?
What happens if on the 18th of March 2011 every girl in a muslim country walks around all day with no head scarf and in western clothes - jeans and a tshirt? Are they going to kill all of their young women? If so, where do they expect the next generation for their country to come from? Not so long ago, women burned their bras in protest. How long until this happens in the rest of the world?
The question is: Is this the start of the next Nazi Regime?
Most employers that I know of tend to pad the job description. Things like '5 years experience' or '3 years experience with x, y, z, a, b AND c'.
Most of the time what they really mean is 'applicant to have a suitable level of understanding in x and y to be able to undertake duties of a and b'.
For most people this level of knowledge and experience can take 2 to 5 years to develop. For some people, it never does (see: Daily WTF).
If the position title has 'senior' in it, then it may be reasonable to expect 5 years of experience, or the equivalent. Otherwise, if the job requirements seem a little extreme then assume the employer may be advertising for multiple positions, or may be overstating skills required to see what fish take the bait.
On the other hand, they may indeed require someone with SQL Admin, Windows Admin, advanced ALM and coding skills in language z, y or z (applications for this one have closed:-) )
In reference to the OP, Java is still highly in demand around here. Not that you'll ever see an external opening as they are all filled internally before the external engagement process can be started.
Once you get over not having most of the nifty syntax and shortcuts available in more modern languages, COBOL programming isn't a terrible way to spend a couple of years. It certainly can put bread on the table.
Have a good for applications developer / analyst programmer / COBOL programmer jobs with your local government agency. You will find that each agency will have a 'cattle call' for types types of positions every 2 to 3 years (due to the turnover rate of contractors and aging COBOL programmer population).
And yes, for most places you don't need qualifications in writing COBOL - if you are sufficiently experienced with a coding language and platform there should not be a serious issue in learning a new language and platform. It's just something to mention at the job interview.
Yes, there are still lots of COBOL jobs around. Too many large corporations (mostly banks) and government agencies rely on COBOL / Mainframe / JCL for their business processing.
Right now I create and edit documents in Office XP (2002), Office 2007 and Office 2010.
At home I have the option of Open Office. Let's not go there.
I am very tired of fixing word (.doc) documents. Formatting going astray, the unsuitability of using MS word (any version) for any large document (100 pages+ of text.. and it all goes pear shaped), uselessness of the file conversion wizards (why can't a later version of office just edit the document from a previous version without corrupting it? too much to ask?).
I've lost track of how many times I have 'cleaned' bullet points, corrected fonts, and worst come to worst Copy all, paste to notepad, paste into a new document to fix very screwed up formatting problems.
Microsoft office can be very frustrating. While not being very funny, yes, it is a joke. When will they fix the basic problems with the office suite?
Unfortunately, the laughter is all on their side as they collect licence fees for each 'upgrade' while we get stuck in editing hell.
--
It will be interesting to see what oracle does with open office. Considering the tainted history the company has with software development in the past, perhaps they have learned and are turning over a new leaf.
... and how are you storing the checksum information?
It would be nice to have checksum information, eg MD5, on *all* files in any OS (in the file metadata).. but given that this is not a critical requirement for today's desktop systems I don't see it happening any time soon.
What I'd like is to have all files hashed natively by the OS and have that information available when required.
I joined a gym recently (Quick! Dataminers! Add this info you my profile!) and there was two questions on the standard A.S.L being:
Age: _____ D.O.B __/__/____
So, I filled in the Age and left DOB blank.
The woman asked me for my DOB and I asked her why it was required. Being a gym, she repeated the litenay of 'if you are, for example, over a certain age we will need to take this into account' to which I responded: "Great. I've given you my age. It's nowhere near 16 or 60. Why do you need my date of birth?"
Answer: "For the computer"
So I asked if it is required. She said she can enter zeros. I warmly thanked her very much.
No argument. No discussion.
Ok. It REALLY helped that when the 'gym consultant' (WHY is this required?) sat down to 'discuss' joining the gym the first thing said was 'It is REALLY hard to join this gym'... so she went into the 'I'm about to lose customers' mode.
---
Don't give up. Don't give in. Know where the line in the sand is. Push them back across it when they put their toe over. Be prepared to chop off that toe or walk away if required.
I believe what it means to say is "a user will download a file (movie) once" and "it is a rare case that a user will download a movie more than once".
Hence, each user can not be said to have 'stolen' 'many' 'copies' of a 'file' (movie), but instead may (according to this intepretation) can only be liable for 'one' copy of the file - therefor reducing damages.
Very little technology is useful 'without good software'.
However,
The various Atari input devices are a good example of hardware only being useful when coupled with good software.
I'm not disagreeing with your statement, I just think that you are stating the obvious without justification or examples (and hence not adding anything to the conversation).
First, some context. I work in a large dept. with ~500 IT (in the main IT group.. there are other small fringe IT groups as well) that writes Applications (COBOL / Java) for Mainframe and Midrange. Some of our systems are true 24/7, most are 23/7.
I work in 'environment operations', of which to clarify means that the actual "operations" for mainframe and midrange is supplied as a Service. So, I'm not a mainframe console operator, nor do I administrate midrange servers. I'm on the other side - support for Applications. Change management. Release management. Environment management. Production support. Performance management. Test support.
Several of our duties require for specialists to be onside or oncall outside of business hours. Where this is required, work provides a mobile phone (it pays for the phone and calls) and pays a 'restriction' which is a percentage paid per hour based on your current salary. For most people it means about $100 for an average week (7 days) of carrying the phone around. This is paid regardless if you answer the phone or not, and is directly based on the number of hours and time of day the phone is carried.
You don't get paid restriction, and can't be called, when you are Sick (or the night after being registered as On Personal Leave) or if you are on Rec Leave (holidays).
There are two types of payments associated with being oncall. The first is 'phone calls'. The second is 'onsite'. If I am called then I am paid at my rate, or at a bonus of my rate (1.5 or 2.0 x my hourly salary rate [Go Sundays!!! 2x hourly rate, yeah!]) depending on what time of day and what day the phone call is taken. The minimum time to be paid is 1 hour. If I am called any time during that hour, and the call lasts for less than 1 hour from the time the first call started.. it is still 1 hour. Any time over 1 hr is paid to the nearest 15 minutes.
The second payment type is 'onsite'. If they call me at 3am and it's a problem I can't solve over the phone then I have to come in. Normally, it's a mainframe related problem which requires direct mainframe access. So, they pay for the phone call at 3am, and they pay for me to walk into work at 3:30am. The minimum payment period is 3 hours. It is paid at normal rates for the first hour, and time and a half (1.5 x) for the 2nd and 3rd hours. Except on Sunday when it is always double time (2x hourly rate).
So, how it normally works out is that the oncall phone is called, on average, 3 times per weekend. That normally costs the business 3 hours of salary, plus the restriction for carrying the phone from End-of-Business each working day to Start-of-Business the next working day, and from Friday COB to Monday SOB. On average, we need to come in once per month. This costs the business 3 hours at time x 1.5 or doubletime. Sometimes, longer as some people can take 4 or 5 hours to solve.
Restriction is paid by drawing up a daily list of time spent carrying the phone (there is a template for this), and lists all phone calls received / sent (and time taken for each call), and all onsite visits. Every phone call and onsite specifies who called, what they called about, what the problem was, what was done to fix it, and what will be done (if possible) to prevent it from occurring in the future. This 'timesheet' for 'oncall restriction allowance' is signed by the Manager and sent to HR. HR verifies the claim and checks the claim against HR records - personal leave, public holidays, other claims, etc. The claim is put into the finance system and paid.
They reached a point here, a while back, when they declared that there shall be 'no restriction' and 'no oncall' and that this duty was 'part of the job'. That fell to pieces very quickly when most people undertaking oncall (several teams used to have to have oncall) put down the phones, and in some cases put in to have the oncall phones disconnected.
You know what happened next. That's right. Systems failed, and had to wait until the next Business Day to fix via Production Support. Problem
There really isn't such a thing as a stupid doctor.
This is about the same as saying that 'there really isn't such a thing as a stupid slashdot poster'.
Seriously. Get a grip. I can name two doctors I have seen in the last 12 months who could easily qualify under the heading of 'stupid'.
That is:
1. They make stupid mistakes
2. They fail to properly diagnose (or don't know / have forgotten how / don't care)
3. They fail to communicate (asking a patient questions you would normally ask someone of the opposite sex only?!?)
4. Stating to have an 'interest' or 'specialty' in a subject area they clearly only have passing knowledge in (I am SO glad someone knows that medicine X can *really* help with condition *Y*. I didn't know that. Really. Haven't known it for more than half my life. No, the medicine does not work for me. Really. Just believe me. No, don't write a prescription, I'm not going to have it filled. Why waste my money, and the government's, on something that I know won't work [yes, used it before; yes, I am in that 10% of people for which have no response. Here is my list of what I've done in the last decade and a half with this ailment. Why don't you recognise that half of what's on this list comes from the Authorities on this disease? Oh. Right. Because you only have a PASSING interest. *sigh*)
5. Inability to diagnose (what should be) straightforward standard complaints / issues
(having to diagnose myself, research the symptoms, validate the information, write it all up then present that to the doctor [to whom I am paying FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS AN HOUR (FRAUD! MORON! IDIOT! ASS!)] and to a second doctor to read it and say 'yes, well, that appears to be very accurate')...... (I want my money back:( )
I'm going to stop here. Look, it's entirely possible that you just happen to be one of the wonderful people on this planet who inadvertently make open and broad reaching statements. Please stop doing so. People may come to believe that you are trolling.
Now, back to our original story topic.
Shame this isn't America; couldn't the person with her insurance cut could possibly sue the insurance company for acting on unproven evidence, possibly with a side of 'will the company now prove that the evidence used is not fake' ?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the user agent switchers are useful. I was proposing to go one step further and have an interface for any information send to / from the browser.
Hmm. A thought. Much of what we see today comes from inventive minds of the past (Sci Fi paperbacks come to mind from the 50's and 60's onward). Once the idea is out..
Perhaps it is time to fight back?
I dislike that any web site I visit can pull irrelevant information from my browser.. perhaps a privacy option or plugin for Firefox which whitelists information provided to websites?
Perhaps allow either an override or random values to be sent instead?
We know that Mozilla is looking into similar options - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1334615/Privacy-victory-Firefox-plans-stop-firms-tracking-look-online.html - but this is addressing the problem at a higher layer.
Any thoughts out there?
I currently run NoScript, AdBlock Plus, Ghostery, Better Privacy plugins.. but nothing I've seen can prevent or change data sent to the web server.
I like TPG's Broadband map. Very useful - http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/
For nation wide see http://www.adsl2exchanges.com.au/
The new National Broadband network also has coverage maps - http://www.nbnco.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/main/site-base/main-areas/our-services/coverage-maps/ ....
and I'm fairly certain that all of the above, combined, has cost less than $100 Million :-)
Yes, the interior is "sparsely populated" - Not much water in there, and the climate can be harsh. Amount of water and comfort of living roughly equates to amount of people.
DBAN is probably the best tool for the job - quick AND easy.
However, He may not have had time. Sometimes it really is a case of pull the hardware out and run.
If you do have time, Truecrypt can be a very useful tool for removing data. At the very least, it could make data recovery quite expensive.
Nothing beats power tools and strong chemicals.
I used to pull old drives apart and use the magnets, spacers, hard drive platters and other bits from the drive to make a wind chime (or a wind clang .. depending on your point of view).
First of all, the hard drives get a format, then get encrypted a couple of times, then get a good scouring, finally, random holes punched through various locations with a drill - for aesthetic purposes (of course).
Watching them hang outside in the rain, rusting away, thinking that one day someone may feel the need to take them down and try and get the data off of the platters is always a good upper.
Yes, but what about those of us without phone?
Or, those of us who don't want to give GOOG our mobile phone number?
This is just another attempt by GOOG to match every user with a mobile #.
This would be scary.. if it wasn't potentially true.
How long, exactly, until major websites "require" for a flash / silverlight bug to play.. the sole purpose of which is to enable the camera to track your eyeballs. Resolution? Not that great... but matched with mouse movements and matched up against clicks.. it could well be data worth having.
Of course, we all use flashblock, so it won't be a problem for us. Right?
Interesting list. Is the difference 'Money' or 'Position'?
Germany, for example, found itself in a position with the cash flow and work force which is required to wage a war on the scale required for world domination.
Looking through that list - is there any country there for which could be related to Germany?
Looks like Iran or Pakistan could go the same way.. except that they are being held in check.
Do you think Iran or Pakistan wouldn't go for conquest if there were not so busy dealing with the US and each other?
And if so, would their first move be to totally restrict internet access (ala Egypt)
Not much can stop companies from doing whatever they please - this is more about the chilling effect than anything.
Yes, the code will be replicated elsewhere - but it won't be on github. That's the point.
(repost - I can't find the original source)
The Garden
=========
We planted a garden. A wonderful rose garden. And there were people stopping to look at it and say "hey, that's neat!" and we, the good natured fools we are, thought it would be great to open our garden to the public, so they can come in and enjoy it. And hey, who knows, maybe some of them might want to plant a few roses themselves? We can only benefit from it, right?
So we let them in, even showed them how to plant roses. And while they were not really too good gardeners, we handed them a few tools to make the work easier for them. And some of them (ok, a handful of them) actually went and built something nice. Most just wandered about and smelled a few roses. We even built them a few paths they could wander on so they don't accidentally stumble upon that field we built that camo net over, ya know, with our "special spices".
A few came in and trampled all over the roses. We shrugged and grabbed them and threw them out, because we not only know how to plant roses, we also know how to use their thorns to smack those bullies about and give them a wedgie on their way out. We build this garden after all, and we know every plant and every bush here, you can't hide from us! Well, ok, I admit, some of us thought it's fun to make fools out of the idiots that have no idea how to plant roses and snuck into their gardens when they weren't looking (and too stupid to close the door so people can only look but not touch), dyed their roses pink and blue polka-dotted, mostly for fun and to ridicule them. It was good natured fun, hey, we did that to each other too and we really had a good laugh!
One cardinal mistake we made is that we built a few paths to the camo net patches, too, because, hey, they're nice folks and wanna have some of the good stuff too, what's the harm in giving them some? Well, there's not really a problem with that, but when the bullies trampled across our fields, they also trampled through the fields of those that can't defend themselves, and these guys started to call for the police. And they eventually stumbled towards our camo net patches and, well, erh... well, they decided that it's a problem, ya know? If we hadn't built paths to them, only we would have found our way to those "special places", through the hedges and the overgrown paths that need machetes to get to. Few policemen had those machetes...
Also along came the corporations who found out that people love to wander in our nice garden and started to built there too. At first, we didn't bother to worry. Like the native Americans didn't worry when the Mayflower came along, we let them settle in our garden. Until suddenly we were told that we can't go to a few places of our garden any more because that's now off limits. In our own garden! Not to mention that they were crying bloody murder if you went and polka-dotted their roses!
And now we're sitting here, in our ever shrinking corner of our once wonderful garden, trampled down by the masses, broken up into lots by corporations with a policemen at every corner making sure you don't plant where you're not supposed to, and of course that you don't try to camo net anything.
If there's any lesson to learn, than that we should not let the masses in next time we build a garden. The seeds will be more expensive, granted, but at least we can grow what we want and keep the harvest.
Perhaps it is time that everyone goes out and buys a device capable of mesh networking, and runs cable around their suburb (there is not much they can do when the pipe and cable goes under the fence).
The world learnt a lesson from Germany: When a government goes off the rails and tries to dominate its citizens.. the next step is the domination of the world.
Will a government really hunt down *everyone* with a *prescribed device* and shoot them? How many? A million? Two?
What happens if on the 18th of March 2011 every girl in a muslim country walks around all day with no head scarf and in western clothes - jeans and a tshirt?
Are they going to kill all of their young women? If so, where do they expect the next generation for their country to come from?
Not so long ago, women burned their bras in protest. How long until this happens in the rest of the world?
The question is: Is this the start of the next Nazi Regime?
Say Nothing.
Don't get involved in the conversation if the manager asks, assume no interest at all.
Be one of the crowd.
Buy a copy of 'Death March' and put it on the manager's desk. - http://www.amazon.com/Death-March-2nd-Edward-Yourdon/dp/013143635X
Leave.
Firefox plugin BetterPrivacy - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/ - will delete LSOs
It can be set up to automatically delete LSO on browser exit; on a timer (every x minutes/hours/days) or manually
It allows you to set a whitelist (protection list).
It doesn't 'solve' the problem; but in the mean time it at least breaks part of the cycle.
Also: Ghostery - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9609/ - helps to stop the problem in the fire place.
Used with Ad Block Plus - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865/ - it makes surfing the web much better.
The Wild West era ended when there was no one left to conflict with.. right?
... except for those of us with a technophobe phone
Most employers that I know of tend to pad the job description. Things like '5 years experience' or '3 years experience with x, y, z, a, b AND c'.
Most of the time what they really mean is 'applicant to have a suitable level of understanding in x and y to be able to undertake duties of a and b'.
For most people this level of knowledge and experience can take 2 to 5 years to develop. For some people, it never does (see: Daily WTF).
If the position title has 'senior' in it, then it may be reasonable to expect 5 years of experience, or the equivalent. Otherwise, if the job requirements seem a little extreme then assume the employer may be advertising for multiple positions, or may be overstating skills required to see what fish take the bait.
On the other hand, they may indeed require someone with SQL Admin, Windows Admin, advanced ALM and coding skills in language z, y or z (applications for this one have closed :-) )
In reference to the OP, Java is still highly in demand around here. Not that you'll ever see an external opening as they are all filled internally before the external engagement process can be started.
Lastly, Good Luck!
Ah, it's not that bad. It could be worse.
Once you get over not having most of the nifty syntax and shortcuts available in more modern languages, COBOL programming isn't a terrible way to spend a couple of years. It certainly can put bread on the table.
Have a good for applications developer / analyst programmer / COBOL programmer jobs with your local government agency. You will find that each agency will have a 'cattle call' for types types of positions every 2 to 3 years (due to the turnover rate of contractors and aging COBOL programmer population).
And yes, for most places you don't need qualifications in writing COBOL - if you are sufficiently experienced with a coding language and platform there should not be a serious issue in learning a new language and platform. It's just something to mention at the job interview.
Yes, there are still lots of COBOL jobs around. Too many large corporations (mostly banks) and government agencies rely on COBOL / Mainframe / JCL for their business processing.
Right now I create and edit documents in Office XP (2002), Office 2007 and Office 2010.
At home I have the option of Open Office. Let's not go there.
I am very tired of fixing word (.doc) documents. Formatting going astray, the unsuitability of using MS word (any version) for any large document (100 pages+ of text .. and it all goes pear shaped), uselessness of the file conversion wizards (why can't a later version of office just edit the document from a previous version without corrupting it? too much to ask?).
I've lost track of how many times I have 'cleaned' bullet points, corrected fonts, and worst come to worst Copy all, paste to notepad, paste into a new document to fix very screwed up formatting problems.
Microsoft office can be very frustrating. While not being very funny, yes, it is a joke. When will they fix the basic problems with the office suite?
Unfortunately, the laughter is all on their side as they collect licence fees for each 'upgrade' while we get stuck in editing hell.
--
It will be interesting to see what oracle does with open office. Considering the tainted history the company has with software development in the past, perhaps they have learned and are turning over a new leaf.
In the virtual world? Yes
Now, imagine if they had posted the street and postal addresses of the organisations...
eg: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/Spam_King_Inundated_By_Junk_Mail_Fails_To_See_The_Irony/
Oh, I believe it too.
I bet he has a 'red folder' for "emergencies" too.
I know I do.
It's called a hammer. Google it?
(yes for the printer.. wait.. what were you thinking?
... and how are you storing the checksum information?
It would be nice to have checksum information, eg MD5, on *all* files in any OS (in the file metadata).. but given that this is not a critical requirement for today's desktop systems I don't see it happening any time soon.
What I'd like is to have all files hashed natively by the OS and have that information available when required.
I joined a gym recently (Quick! Dataminers! Add this info you my profile!) and there was two questions on the standard A.S.L being:
Age: _____ D.O.B __/__/____
So, I filled in the Age and left DOB blank.
The woman asked me for my DOB and I asked her why it was required. Being a gym, she repeated the litenay of 'if you are, for example, over a certain age we will need to take this into account' to which I responded:
"Great. I've given you my age. It's nowhere near 16 or 60. Why do you need my date of birth?"
Answer: "For the computer"
So I asked if it is required. She said she can enter zeros. I warmly thanked her very much.
No argument. No discussion.
Ok. It REALLY helped that when the 'gym consultant' (WHY is this required?) sat down to 'discuss' joining the gym the first thing said was 'It is REALLY hard to join this gym'... so she went into the 'I'm about to lose customers' mode.
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Don't give up. Don't give in. Know where the line in the sand is. Push them back across it when they put their toe over. Be prepared to chop off that toe or walk away if required.
1960's???
IBM *STILL* charge by the CPU "minute"
I believe what it means to say is "a user will download a file (movie) once" and "it is a rare case that a user will download a movie more than once".
Hence, each user can not be said to have 'stolen' 'many' 'copies' of a 'file' (movie), but instead may (according to this intepretation) can only be liable for 'one' copy of the file - therefor reducing damages.
Ya?
-1 Redundant
Very little technology is useful 'without good software'.
However,
The various Atari input devices are a good example of hardware only being useful when coupled with good software.
I'm not disagreeing with your statement, I just think that you are stating the obvious without justification or examples (and hence not adding anything to the conversation).
First, some context. I work in a large dept. with ~500 IT (in the main IT group.. there are other small fringe IT groups as well) that writes Applications (COBOL / Java) for Mainframe and Midrange. Some of our systems are true 24/7, most are 23/7.
I work in 'environment operations', of which to clarify means that the actual "operations" for mainframe and midrange is supplied as a Service. So, I'm not a mainframe console operator, nor do I administrate midrange servers. I'm on the other side - support for Applications. Change management. Release management. Environment management. Production support. Performance management. Test support.
Several of our duties require for specialists to be onside or oncall outside of business hours. Where this is required, work provides a mobile phone (it pays for the phone and calls) and pays a 'restriction' which is a percentage paid per hour based on your current salary. For most people it means about $100 for an average week (7 days) of carrying the phone around. This is paid regardless if you answer the phone or not, and is directly based on the number of hours and time of day the phone is carried.
You don't get paid restriction, and can't be called, when you are Sick (or the night after being registered as On Personal Leave) or if you are on Rec Leave (holidays).
There are two types of payments associated with being oncall. The first is 'phone calls'. The second is 'onsite'. If I am called then I am paid at my rate, or at a bonus of my rate (1.5 or 2.0 x my hourly salary rate [Go Sundays!!! 2x hourly rate, yeah!]) depending on what time of day and what day the phone call is taken. The minimum time to be paid is 1 hour. If I am called any time during that hour, and the call lasts for less than 1 hour from the time the first call started.. it is still 1 hour. Any time over 1 hr is paid to the nearest 15 minutes.
The second payment type is 'onsite'. If they call me at 3am and it's a problem I can't solve over the phone then I have to come in. Normally, it's a mainframe related problem which requires direct mainframe access. So, they pay for the phone call at 3am, and they pay for me to walk into work at 3:30am. The minimum payment period is 3 hours. It is paid at normal rates for the first hour, and time and a half (1.5 x) for the 2nd and 3rd hours. Except on Sunday when it is always double time (2x hourly rate).
So, how it normally works out is that the oncall phone is called, on average, 3 times per weekend. That normally costs the business 3 hours of salary, plus the restriction for carrying the phone from End-of-Business each working day to Start-of-Business the next working day, and from Friday COB to Monday SOB. On average, we need to come in once per month. This costs the business 3 hours at time x 1.5 or doubletime. Sometimes, longer as some people can take 4 or 5 hours to solve.
Restriction is paid by drawing up a daily list of time spent carrying the phone (there is a template for this), and lists all phone calls received / sent (and time taken for each call), and all onsite visits. Every phone call and onsite specifies who called, what they called about, what the problem was, what was done to fix it, and what will be done (if possible) to prevent it from occurring in the future. This 'timesheet' for 'oncall restriction allowance' is signed by the Manager and sent to HR. HR verifies the claim and checks the claim against HR records - personal leave, public holidays, other claims, etc. The claim is put into the finance system and paid.
They reached a point here, a while back, when they declared that there shall be 'no restriction' and 'no oncall' and that this duty was 'part of the job'. That fell to pieces very quickly when most people undertaking oncall (several teams used to have to have oncall) put down the phones, and in some cases put in to have the oncall phones disconnected.
You know what happened next. That's right. Systems failed, and had to wait until the next Business Day to fix via Production Support. Problem
This is about the same as saying that 'there really isn't such a thing as a stupid slashdot poster'.
Seriously. Get a grip. I can name two doctors I have seen in the last 12 months who could easily qualify under the heading of 'stupid'.
That is: ... ... (I want my money back :( )
1. They make stupid mistakes
2. They fail to properly diagnose (or don't know / have forgotten how / don't care)
3. They fail to communicate (asking a patient questions you would normally ask someone of the opposite sex only?!?)
4. Stating to have an 'interest' or 'specialty' in a subject area they clearly only have passing knowledge in (I am SO glad someone knows that medicine X can *really* help with condition *Y*. I didn't know that. Really. Haven't known it for more than half my life. No, the medicine does not work for me. Really. Just believe me. No, don't write a prescription, I'm not going to have it filled. Why waste my money, and the government's, on something that I know won't work [yes, used it before; yes, I am in that 10% of people for which have no response. Here is my list of what I've done in the last decade and a half with this ailment. Why don't you recognise that half of what's on this list comes from the Authorities on this disease? Oh. Right. Because you only have a PASSING interest. *sigh*)
5. Inability to diagnose (what should be) straightforward standard complaints / issues
(having to diagnose myself, research the symptoms, validate the information, write it all up then present that to the doctor [to whom I am paying FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS AN HOUR (FRAUD! MORON! IDIOT! ASS!)] and to a second doctor to read it and say 'yes, well, that appears to be very accurate')
I'm going to stop here. Look, it's entirely possible that you just happen to be one of the wonderful people on this planet who inadvertently make open and broad reaching statements. Please stop doing so. People may come to believe that you are trolling.
Now, back to our original story topic.
Shame this isn't America; couldn't the person with her insurance cut could possibly sue the insurance company for acting on unproven evidence, possibly with a side of 'will the company now prove that the evidence used is not fake' ?