That cop thinking about arresting me for smoking a joint needs a moment of pause to think about drug policy.
The cop wouldn't hesitate - if he believed you had superior firepower he'd call for backup. Don't you people learn from things like Ruby Ridge and Waco?
OK, but it would still make a certain amount of sense to organise the tags into some kind of grouping to make it easier to search the known universe for any given tag...
I have no idea how flexible RFIDs are in that regard, but it wouldn't surprise me if they wanted them to continue to activate while people were walking out of the store - something more useful than the "camera taking pictures" idea is simply to look for RFIDs of things that were in inventory, haven't passed by checkout, and are walking out the door. One wonders what stops them from doing this in the first place.
You're right - I forgot that there's literally trillions of RFIDs. You wouldn't want to zap them if the checkout computer and the door scanner are all linked together. The alarm would only sound when a tag scanned going into the store via the stockroom went out without passing the checkout. I suppose that could help keep store employees honest too - though I have no idea how much stock is "lost" each year due to employee theft...
The next big question is, if the manufacturers achieve their goal of tagging every product on the planet, how long will it be before we reach the Y2K-equivalent of RFID tags?? I don't know how the tags are numbered, but if I was inventing it, I'd have a manufacturer part, a product-type part, and a product serial number part, any of which was not limited to a specific number of digits... Possibly a product category as well. So, a pair of Levi's would show up as "Levi-jeans-501-#123456" when converted from the raw digit form. That would probably be immune from rollover, at least in my lifetime...:)
Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how store security would react if you held up (or wore) one of those rubber politician masks while picking up the Mach3s? "Hmm, Nixon's shopping for Mach3s... Isn't he dead?"
Don't they zap the RFID tags once the product has been scanned? I know a lot of stores use a (presumably) generic kind of tag that trips an alarm if you try to walk out with it without paying - these are burned out in some way by swiping them over a certain area of the checkout desk. I thought that RFIDs would be neutralized in the same way, otherwise the door scanner would be useless?
Of course, that doesn't stop someone with the PDA walking around the store pretending to shop and following a likely prospect (even using a camera phone to send a photo to an accomplice outside...), but at least it would protect you from the casual RFID-zapper on the street...
Hmm. Doing this without telling people, however, is certainly cause for objection... there should be a sign of some sort, I suppose...
That's probably why the spokesman for the store said that there's
plenty of in-store signage indicating the supermarket's use of CCTV cameras.
And anyway, if after the first purchase of Mach3's you decide that you don't like their policy, you don't have to go back to Tesco. I'm sure Boots, Woolworth and other smaller stores sell Mach3s...
Many stores have signs up saying that some kind of CCTV is in use. The bottom line is that they're protecting their inventory, as they have a right to do, and in so doing they're keeping their prices down. Anyone who doesn't like it is free to either walk out and go elsewhere and/or write a complaint to the CEO.P>Besides which, I'm sure at least a few of the CCTV cameras are fake... The problem being, which ones??
This will not only allow developers to view and modify CE, but also distribute software incorporated to the modified code.
WinCE may or may not be close, source-wise, to actual Desktop Windows of any flavor, but doesn't this raise the spectre of copyright violation? If WinCE source becomes easily available, Microsoft will soon be able to run around accusing all kinds of Open Source projects of stealing their stuff. Never mind that none of it may be actually useful... Just the possibility of being able to stall OSS projects might be enough to persuade Microsoft to start down the same road as SCO.
Even if the original govt guys are not still in govt, can they be prosecuted in any way for this serious misuse of govt funds? Is there a statute of limitations for this kind of thing? It's only been 9 years...
If the tax breaks were given for a specific purpose, and that purpose fails to be fulfilled, can the tax breaks be revoked? Retroactively?
C'mon, surely the IRS can do something here? I mean, they can invade a person's privacy and levy fines and such without much due process - think how much more fun it would be going after $2.1Billion...
How about a plain statement of the facts on PA newsmedia? "Verizon was awarded $2Bn in tax breaks, and is unable to deliver the goods..." Should have some effect on their stock, I would think. And as it's true (approved by the gov't, no less!), they can't get it censored as libel/slander...
More likely that rather than take over existing WiFi networks, they'll just set up a few honeypots in selected areas and hand out bogus files loaded with viruses.
Think it couldn't happen? Think they wouldn't dare because of the risk of being sued? By whom? To sue, you'd have to admit downloading via a wifi hotspot that you theoretically don't have legal access to...
Too much effort checking the INS web site, huh? That is exactly the way it works, judging by the raise I was given to bring my salary up to fair market level when my Green Card application was in progress...
As for US average SAT scores dropping - are you saying that's the H1Bs fault as well? That somehow the immigrants are depressing the learning ability of the citizens? Or is it perhaps that the US school system sucks, that in fact the lowering of SAT score averages is due to policies being implemented by school boards? One lamentable example - teachers are no longer allowed to let pupils swap papers in class to grade each others work. This means that the teachers have to expend yet more of their off time grading work. This is due solely to one woman suing a school district because she felt her kid was being unfairly picked on for getting answers wrong. Heaven forbid that she might encourage her kid to do better - no, she sued because her little darling couldn't possibly be a lazy brat with no inclination to learn. This was in Ardmore, Oklahoma, if you want to look it up.
One of my co-worker at $33/hr was replaced by a H1B @ $9.50/hr.
If that's true, it's illegal. The Immigration law governing H1Bs states that they must be paid the going market rate as determined by the Dept of Labor. Of course, if the Dept of Labor determined that your co-worker's job was only worth $10/hr, then it wouldn't be surprising he was laid off.
The Immigration law also states that the employer must take a US citizen instead of an H1B if the citizen is suitably qualified for the position. I think it also states that they can't fire citizens and then hire H1Bs to replace them. This assumes that the citizens are suitably qualified for the work they are already doing.
I wish people would get over this "H1Bs are paid peanuts" myth. It's illegal, and if you catch your employer at it, don't whine on/., report them to the Dept of Labor and get some action!
Another reason, and the principal one in my view, is that your statement:
you can get an Indian to perform a 70K job for 35K
is complete crap. Companies hiring H1Bs are required by law to pay the going market rate, as determined by the Dept of Labor. Companies that are found not to comply can and do lose their 'right' to use H1Bs.
Yes, H1Bs are little more than indentured slaves, and are liable to virtually instant deportation if they lose their job and can't find another sponsor within about 7 days. But, companies are not benefitting from being able to hire 2 H1Bs in place of a US citizen.
BTW, anyone trying to hire H1Bs is also required, by law, to publish the position(s) and if a suitably qualified US citizen applies, they have to take him. Sure, the position posting can be slanted to exclude most citizens, but the Dept of Labor is watching, and gets to compare resumes from all the applicants against the posting, which tends to level the playing field.
The thing to remember is that this only applies to foreign nationals working in the US. Outside the US, all bets are off. When jobs are outsourced to India, the employer may only have to pay $10k instead of even the $35k you mention, and that would get the same high quality programmer as $60k would get in an H1B. Could even be the same guy... Heck, give him $12k and he'd work nights to match US office hours and be as easily accessible by phone/email as another worker on the other side of the building.
The original question related to how to convince PHB's and marketdroids to admit that they were told up front that the quick and dirty solution wasn't necessarily the FINAL solution. The suggested contract wasn't so much between the developer and the end-user (customer), as between the developer and his own management/saleforce.
I think the only way to really get their attention is to hand the PHB's and marketdroids some form of paper statement notifying them that the quick and dirty solution is in fact version 0.1, may not have all the expected functionality of version 1.0, and will require time to make it a saleable product. If you can get them to actually sign the paper, even better.
Don't forget, when it comes to PHB's what they remember asking you to produce had better match up with what you actually hand them. Putting both your and their expectations down on paper helps to keep things straight.
In the meantime, the marketdroids can invite the customers to see demos of the 0.x releases so that they can see progress being made.
Re:Why use Exchange as the template?
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Presumably they picked the groupware server that most people would have, in order to reach a big audience very quickly.
Re:Interoperability with MS
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On the other hand, a drop-in replacement that is cheaper to operate might just win the day. If it's a close enough replacement that Exchange on the desktop can't tell, you can phase out your costly Exchange server and replace it with OpenGroupWare.
And unlike an actual MS Exchange server, I'll bet this one is compatible with other clients too...
EDS built the pilot student-tracking system after the 1996 immigration law was enacted. The company's current work on SEVIS is an outgrowth of that project...
So, apparently, SEVIS is inflated from the original (1996) prototype.
Actually, I don't see your "mid-late 80's" quote in the article. I do see "late 1990's" mentioned just under the Born Too Soon header, going on to the previous poster's quote and the above reference to EDS' pilot project.
Want to bet they're not doing it on paper as well? A database is great for ad-hoc queries such as locating all Pakistani students, or seeing how many Changs are taking particle physics, or getting the last known address of students that should have graduated but haven't crossed the border outbound.
For fine detail, though, you still can't beat a paper system. Handwriting analysis, for example - did the same person fill out application forms under different names, does that signature really match the original, etc. Even typewritten forms can be matched to a specific typewriter...
It actually says in the article that it started out as a pilot project that covered a few schools, and that the full-blown end product was supposed to have been designed and built using the experience gained. Instead, the pilot project became the end product, including any bugs, missing features, etc.
Having said that, there really shouldn't have been much of a problem scaling the thing up to 5,000 schools from the original dozen. Some of the troubles sound like an under-powered server (server down, data loss), some sounds like unanticipated database requirements (adding kids to records, changing majors), but the rest sounds like bad programming.
On the server side, it's some kind of Unix platform running Oracle. Client side is probably Microsoft Windows, because that's what most Uni's would have in their Admin offices.
I suppose that burning the flag while waving it in front of a TV crew or public demonstration would count as desecration and get you jail time, but quietly burning it in your backyard wouldn't.
Quietly stuffing it into a baked bean can and putting it out with the rest of your trash would probably count as desecration too, but the chances of anyone ever catching you are fairly small. Unless you're one of those people the police are trying to covertly collect DNA from by stealing your trash...
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The cop wouldn't hesitate - if he believed you had superior firepower he'd call for backup. Don't you people learn from things like Ruby Ridge and Waco?
"Oh, poor us! We're being attacked by terrorists! We really need to expand our *cough*illegal*cough searches to track these people down!"
OK, but it would still make a certain amount of sense to organise the tags into some kind of grouping to make it easier to search the known universe for any given tag...
You're right - I forgot that there's literally trillions of RFIDs. You wouldn't want to zap them if the checkout computer and the door scanner are all linked together. The alarm would only sound when a tag scanned going into the store via the stockroom went out without passing the checkout. I suppose that could help keep store employees honest too - though I have no idea how much stock is "lost" each year due to employee theft...
The next big question is, if the manufacturers achieve their goal of tagging every product on the planet, how long will it be before we reach the Y2K-equivalent of RFID tags?? I don't know how the tags are numbered, but if I was inventing it, I'd have a manufacturer part, a product-type part, and a product serial number part, any of which was not limited to a specific number of digits... Possibly a product category as well. So, a pair of Levi's would show up as "Levi-jeans-501-#123456" when converted from the raw digit form. That would probably be immune from rollover, at least in my lifetime... :)
Anyone want to hazard a guess as to how store security would react if you held up (or wore) one of those rubber politician masks while picking up the Mach3s? "Hmm, Nixon's shopping for Mach3s... Isn't he dead?"
Of course, that doesn't stop someone with the PDA walking around the store pretending to shop and following a likely prospect (even using a camera phone to send a photo to an accomplice outside...), but at least it would protect you from the casual RFID-zapper on the street...
That's probably why the spokesman for the store said that there's
And anyway, if after the first purchase of Mach3's you decide that you don't like their policy, you don't have to go back to Tesco. I'm sure Boots, Woolworth and other smaller stores sell Mach3s...
Many stores have signs up saying that some kind of CCTV is in use. The bottom line is that they're protecting their inventory, as they have a right to do, and in so doing they're keeping their prices down. Anyone who doesn't like it is free to either walk out and go elsewhere and/or write a complaint to the CEO.P>Besides which, I'm sure at least a few of the CCTV cameras are fake... The problem being, which ones??
Bugger!
WinCE may or may not be close, source-wise, to actual Desktop Windows of any flavor, but doesn't this raise the spectre of copyright violation? If WinCE source becomes easily available, Microsoft will soon be able to run around accusing all kinds of Open Source projects of stealing their stuff. Never mind that none of it may be actually useful... Just the possibility of being able to stall OSS projects might be enough to persuade Microsoft to start down the same road as SCO.
If the tax breaks were given for a specific purpose, and that purpose fails to be fulfilled, can the tax breaks be revoked? Retroactively?
C'mon, surely the IRS can do something here? I mean, they can invade a person's privacy and levy fines and such without much due process - think how much more fun it would be going after $2.1Billion...
How about a plain statement of the facts on PA newsmedia? "Verizon was awarded $2Bn in tax breaks, and is unable to deliver the goods..." Should have some effect on their stock, I would think. And as it's true (approved by the gov't, no less!), they can't get it censored as libel/slander...
Think it couldn't happen? Think they wouldn't dare because of the risk of being sued? By whom? To sue, you'd have to admit downloading via a wifi hotspot that you theoretically don't have legal access to...
Too much effort checking the INS web site, huh? That is exactly the way it works, judging by the raise I was given to bring my salary up to fair market level when my Green Card application was in progress...
As for US average SAT scores dropping - are you saying that's the H1Bs fault as well? That somehow the immigrants are depressing the learning ability of the citizens? Or is it perhaps that the US school system sucks, that in fact the lowering of SAT score averages is due to policies being implemented by school boards? One lamentable example - teachers are no longer allowed to let pupils swap papers in class to grade each others work. This means that the teachers have to expend yet more of their off time grading work. This is due solely to one woman suing a school district because she felt her kid was being unfairly picked on for getting answers wrong. Heaven forbid that she might encourage her kid to do better - no, she sued because her little darling couldn't possibly be a lazy brat with no inclination to learn. This was in Ardmore, Oklahoma, if you want to look it up.
If that's true, it's illegal. The Immigration law governing H1Bs states that they must be paid the going market rate as determined by the Dept of Labor. Of course, if the Dept of Labor determined that your co-worker's job was only worth $10/hr, then it wouldn't be surprising he was laid off.
The Immigration law also states that the employer must take a US citizen instead of an H1B if the citizen is suitably qualified for the position. I think it also states that they can't fire citizens and then hire H1Bs to replace them. This assumes that the citizens are suitably qualified for the work they are already doing.
I wish people would get over this "H1Bs are paid peanuts" myth. It's illegal, and if you catch your employer at it, don't whine on /., report them to the Dept of Labor and get some action!
is complete crap. Companies hiring H1Bs are required by law to pay the going market rate, as determined by the Dept of Labor. Companies that are found not to comply can and do lose their 'right' to use H1Bs.
Yes, H1Bs are little more than indentured slaves, and are liable to virtually instant deportation if they lose their job and can't find another sponsor within about 7 days. But, companies are not benefitting from being able to hire 2 H1Bs in place of a US citizen.
BTW, anyone trying to hire H1Bs is also required, by law, to publish the position(s) and if a suitably qualified US citizen applies, they have to take him. Sure, the position posting can be slanted to exclude most citizens, but the Dept of Labor is watching, and gets to compare resumes from all the applicants against the posting, which tends to level the playing field.
The thing to remember is that this only applies to foreign nationals working in the US. Outside the US, all bets are off. When jobs are outsourced to India, the employer may only have to pay $10k instead of even the $35k you mention, and that would get the same high quality programmer as $60k would get in an H1B. Could even be the same guy... Heck, give him $12k and he'd work nights to match US office hours and be as easily accessible by phone/email as another worker on the other side of the building.
I think the only way to really get their attention is to hand the PHB's and marketdroids some form of paper statement notifying them that the quick and dirty solution is in fact version 0.1, may not have all the expected functionality of version 1.0, and will require time to make it a saleable product. If you can get them to actually sign the paper, even better.
Don't forget, when it comes to PHB's what they remember asking you to produce had better match up with what you actually hand them. Putting both your and their expectations down on paper helps to keep things straight.
In the meantime, the marketdroids can invite the customers to see demos of the 0.x releases so that they can see progress being made.
Presumably they picked the groupware server that most people would have, in order to reach a big audience very quickly.
And unlike an actual MS Exchange server, I'll bet this one is compatible with other clients too...
Sorry, it was a question just begging to be asked... :)
So, apparently, SEVIS is inflated from the original (1996) prototype.
Actually, I don't see your "mid-late 80's" quote in the article. I do see "late 1990's" mentioned just under the Born Too Soon header, going on to the previous poster's quote and the above reference to EDS' pilot project.
For fine detail, though, you still can't beat a paper system. Handwriting analysis, for example - did the same person fill out application forms under different names, does that signature really match the original, etc. Even typewritten forms can be matched to a specific typewriter...
Having said that, there really shouldn't have been much of a problem scaling the thing up to 5,000 schools from the original dozen. Some of the troubles sound like an under-powered server (server down, data loss), some sounds like unanticipated database requirements (adding kids to records, changing majors), but the rest sounds like bad programming.
On the server side, it's some kind of Unix platform running Oracle. Client side is probably Microsoft Windows, because that's what most Uni's would have in their Admin offices.
Sure they do, but I'm not living over there. I'm living in the good ole USA...
Quietly stuffing it into a baked bean can and putting it out with the rest of your trash would probably count as desecration too, but the chances of anyone ever catching you are fairly small. Unless you're one of those people the police are trying to covertly collect DNA from by stealing your trash...