I'm sorry Dave but the U.S. I live in just isn't like that. Yes, we have mass produced swill "Brewed in vats the size of Rhode Island" which for some reason are consumed in massive amounts (ergo the successful business model). There are people who truly like that. Mr brother, for example, has probably consumed more different kinds of beer from around the country and world than you could ever hope to but when he's thirsty and wants to pound back a few you're more likely to find an easy drinking Miller Lite in his hand than any of the more robust beers.
What we also have is thousands of smaller breweries for those who have a different taste preference. Those breweries range in size from "I don't have to buy beer anymore" -> "enough for the neighborhood" -> "enough for the state" -> "enough for the region" -> etc. To find such beers? Go to just about any bar/liquor store. Even the little hole-in-the-wall by my cabin that used to only have 'Regular' and 'Lite' now has a fairly impressive selection.
Sorry tho... you'll have to come here to try most of it. Surly, for example, has been listed as one of the best beers in the world repeatedly but aside from what they submit to competition the only place you can get it is MN,USA. Their choice cause they feel like it. (Kinda like one of their other sayings: "We make hoppy beer. If you don't like hoppy beer then go drink someone else's beer.")
They do have a frequent traveler line (at least at a few airports I've been through)... IT DOESN'T HELP! You know who fills up those lines? Business travelers. The very same business travelers who spent an hour (or more) getting ready in the morning for their meeting when they get off the plane and spend that same amount of time getting practically undressed to go through the metal detector only to clog up the line putting themselves back together on the other end. What's worse? The business traveler who is now traveling with his family of 5 and feels he still has the right to use that line because he's a "frequent traveler" who can apparently get 3 fighting and confused children to also practically disrobe to go through the same scanners not to mention his trophy wife who decided to don the entire set of family jewels for that extra travel fashion. Grr.
I'm a modest business traveler... last few years I've averaged 75K miles per year although that is dropping off as my responsibilities change. I'm ready when I walk up to the checkpoint. Metal is not in my pocket/on my person. My shoes are ready to come off. My bag is ready to have my laptop slide out of it. I've walked up to an empty checkpoint and been completely through and out the other side in less than a minute. If more people would just freaking *think* before they got in that line then the line would move SO much faster and maybe there wouldn't be such a big line in the first place.
I had a similar situation... A company I worked for got bought and the new bosses tried to shove a document such as this down our throats. I refused and entered into legal negotiations with the new parent company. When all was said and done a significant percentage of our company (the other engineers mostly) sign the document that I negotiated which left us free to own our own work when it wasn't on the company dime or time with a reasonable accounting for non-compete.
Honestly it was kind of fun but the real answer is "Stick to your ground". If you are not enough of a bargaining chip then unfortunately they will probably let you go. Of course if that's the case then there's a possibility you don't have anything worth keeping them from either but that's the risk you play.
...but that's where it gets funny. Going through normal channels to get security clearance it extremely prohibitive. (I've been through it a lot) There are all sorts of reasons why they will turn you down some of which may surprise you.
BUT: There is nothing in the code of this land that says you win an election only after you've passed the proper clearances (all sorts of issues about barrier to entry, existing power having to much control over incoming power, etc). This tends to work out in a small way because anyone who gets elected to office usually goes through a MUCH more rigorous investigative process by the press and has their dirty little bits shown to everyone who cares to see BUT in the end that hasn't stopped certain crack heads from becoming president. SO you end up with people being given the highest clearance in the land (Presidents, Senators, Secretaries) when potentially they would be considered unworthy of such trust through normal channels.
The recording part is a complete non-starter as most professional therapists record ALL of their sessions for the purposes of further analysis or mostly just for malpractice/harassment lawsuits. This is done above board and they have no need to conceal it (and as my siblings have already mentioned they could just as easily hide in a live setting if they so wanted anyway)
Other people in the room is not that far off from the same deal. Therapists are required to have massive amounts of supervised sessions to get and maintain their licenses. Also professional consultation is often allowed (and even encouraged) and may be assisted by either live or post-via-recording viewing of sessions. Doctor-Patient privilege does not keep your doctor from seeking assistance from his/her peers.
The only thing the remote/digital conveyance of the session degrades in terms of security is the ability for someone external to the situation completely to gain access to the information. The patients knowledge of that risk should be considered no different from the risk taken when they call and talk to their therapist over a normal phone which is already a fairly regular practice.
I don't see that as evidence of foul play at all... "I'm giving this book away for free because they offered me me money to do so."
Anyone who submits to this could post the exact same wording in their CW page and be honest. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if there was some condition of the deal where you were required to include that wording. ("Hey... we'll give you money to give away your book to everyone else but every time someone looks under the cover we want them to see our name... deal?")
Now if a shady crew set up this foundation with the express purpose of "buying" their own books with other people's donated money... well then that would be plain old tax evasion and violation of the terms of their Foundation probably. I'm looking forward to the/. article on that in a few months!
Saving Private Ryan quote: "Well, what I mean by that, sir, is... if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Adolf Hitler with a clear line of sight, sir... pack your bags, fellas, war's over. Amen!"
Movie != Reality but still... at least Spielberg thought it was pretty reasonable.
A few points: 1) You say you live a couple hundred miles away from Minnetonka. That places you exactly no where that is even slightly resemblent of this area so I wouldn't use your personal local experience as a good reference. 2) The suburbs around the Twin Cities (especially the rich ones like Minnetonka) are plowed significantly better than the core. Faster, better plowing/QOS. We haven't had much snow this year at all but last year when we were buried the cores basically shut down because they had no where to put the snow and because the urban street parking gets in the way of fully clearing the roads. Also, this being a large enough private parcel, they will have no problem getting their property cleared privately for much less cost than you might think (especially if they find some cost effective way to use the plowed snow for cooling) 3) This is not being built in the middle of a bunch of McMansions... this is former, not yet developed, farm land (Minnetonka's about as close to the downtowns as you can get and still find that). A large part of Minnetonka is not the extremely expensive lake-living property. The real estate market is also terrible still (although recovering a bit) so the previous plans to develop this land probably fell apart. No one is financing new subdivisions because they can't sell the properties they've already built. This is a developer who had already purchased the land finding a new way to make use of it. Noise and traffic are not non-issues but when the developer owns all the land surrounding the place he can control a lot about who cares. TFA mentions the reduced density the land will have probably including significant distancing to reduce sound issues. 4) Although there is some merit to the scams theories popping up, they really are close to their target audience. Aside from the FTTH service that would probably be a small part of the new business, The outer tier suburbs have really exploded in terms of tech offices. We have a larger technical base out-city, especially around Minnetonka/Excelcior/Eden Prairie, than downtown has. The money out there is HUGE and they are being smart finding themselves close to their customers corporate AND residential.
Actually... you may have a false assumption there. Boiling, as described in at least one dictionary, is: "a phase transition from the liquid state to the gas state, usually occurring when a liquid is heated to its boiling point." The kicker is the "usually" part. Many substances make this transition in very undramatic ways and so, in a manner, it could be said that every planet is being boiled to a certain extent just not to the point that significant matter is lost from the neighborhood.
Add to all that the fact that planets are not homogeneous structures and different parts of the planet will "boil" as their specific chemistry allows and it would probably be hard to find a planet that isn't boiling in some respect.
One thing the article fails to comment on is what part of the planet is boiling. It's entirely possible that some non-solid substance is being boiled off of this planet and at some point (sooner than later in the next couple hundred million years) this loss of mass will slow or stop as that more boil able substance is eliminated.
...and numerous other movies. The prior art is all over the place. The opening scene in Total Recall for example. They're having breakfast in front of one of these windows!
Training only goes so far. The company I work for is in a very specialized field. It is extremely rare that anyone we hire would have any experience with our business and so we don't expect it. The presumption is, depending on the quality of the dev, there will be at least 3-6 months where we are doing little more than training (including babysitting any dev tasks assigned) heck I've been around for 4 years and I learn something new every day (hopefully that'll never change).
What is prohibitive to teach "on the job" is how to think like a programmer. If you don't have the mind to wrap your brain around a problem (any problem) and find a logical way to fix it then no amount of training is going to get you there. It is not necessarily impossible to tech these things but the gap for some is just too much to bridge and that bridge is not one you're going to teach a new hire. Some people just weren't meant to be developers just as I wasn't built to be many things I don't pursue in my work life.
Really, I'm currently in the position of needing to hire a couple-few good solid developers and am having a hard time finding applicants let alone qualified ones so the concept of increasing the developer pool sounds attractive... Except! 1) As you say these dealios have been around forever and they generally do NOT produce good developers. 2) Did everyone just forget about the tech bubble days?! Everyone and their freaking grandma tried to get into "computer stuff" clogging the market with many thousands of completely crap devs making it hard for those of us who actually knew the trade to rise above the mire until companies finally started to get a clue. 3) I'm currently dealing with a small handful of College trained, experienced developers who can't seem to code their way out of a wet paper bag which does not make me excited about the possibility of hiring someone who's programming knowledge is based on an online Java Script Tutorial.
I will qualify my statements: We live in different days than we did 10 years ago. The sea change that has occurred means that people of all ages are now, generally, more "aware" of computers. They get along with them and are less likely to find their inner workings completely alien so maybe some more cream may come out of a better primordial goo. That and the article, if you actually read through it, specifically says they don't expect everyone to learn to program... just to better understand what they now work with on a day-to-day basis... in between lines telling them they'll be able to learn to code in 3 weeks and below a title saying "learn to code, get a job". I'll give very partial credit there.
I've seen these in a few places... It seems many of the theaters around here have remodeled to have VIP section. (Minneapolis)
The best one I was in was a theater in Dubai tho... Picture the fine leather seats of an expensive automobile... all the movement toys... personal volume control in the seats (augmented vol) extremely tasty, diverse menu.
The VIP at MOA is barely a perk... the seats are only slightly better and you are basically paying $3 more to have the luxury of paying WAY too much for better appetizers and beer. No freebies.
There are others here that are more in the middle. It just gets out of hand... $12 ticket + $3 for 3D + $3 for VIP... $18 movie (pre $8 cocktails and good but overpriced food)! great...
I do a lot of this in my code just for the sake of writing solid code (not necessarily just secure). The number of times I've said to myself whilst coding some seat belt "This is an impossible case but the code will break if it were to magically occur so the seat belt stays." Add a little logging and oops... my typo over here caused a weird flip over there and the impossible occurred but wasn't able to crash the system because of a proper seat belt. Make what I'm writing a library / anything utilized by someone else (user input) and it never hurts to be over cautious.
That would depend a lot on whether they do a lot of cash transactions... profitable money laundering is wonderful: you set up company that sells crap for mucho-dinero then have your 'people' buy a lot of the product with the cash you are trying to cleanse. You make the price high enough to not have to perform an exorbitant number of transactions but low enough that it stays off your average regulator's radar. The random idiots who actually buy your product for real are the ones really paying for the cost of the crap you sell. If you get enough idiots you make even more money and it's clean from the start!
There's a Pizza chain in Minneapolis that started it's life as a funnel for coke money. The crazy thing was they made *really good pizza. SO at some point they started raking in so much dough (no pun intended) from the 'za that they no longer needed the stress of the coke business and went legit. (well... I'm not so naive as to say *completely legit but... you get the idea)
One of my profs in school was a specialist in fuzzing. Every project we created in that class got bombarded by a pile 'o fuzz and you were responsible for any adverse affects. (We'd get warnings: "Here's some sample fuzz for you to play with... you shouldn't try to view it as most software won't handle it correctly and I won't be held responsible for your machines nuking themselves.")
Excellent training. Gets you to think in different ways about what is really an edge/corner case and how to deal with unexpected problems / user input.
Not specifically the x1024's but honestly, given how much of the world runs on Base-2, I could see pushing some binary on younger classes: 2 things: 1) As I mention in the sentence, the world runs on binary at the moment and so learning a stretch of powers of 2 should be useful... 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024... etc. 2) It was quite an eye opener when we started learning math in other bases for me. I'd bumped into binary early on, kind-of, but when we started looking at octal, etc numbers just became that much more interesting. You don't have to teach them all but even just giving a younger audience the ability to walk a binary number and calculate its Base-10 equivalent might awaken a few more minds.
I think it's all a matter of how a given person's head works. Some people have MUCH better memories so they're going to be great at learning all of the different tricks and cheats and just applying them. Other people are better at calculation and so the long way is the easy way because they don't have to remember a bunch of little things just one big one. Other people are better at visualizing the problem... etc.
Calculus for example: We were originally taught that wonderful Limit function that is what a derivative is and shown how it was, itself, derived from the geometry. Then they taught us all the tricks... the "easy way" so-to-speak. {Like F'(X) of X^Y --> Y*X^(Y-1) }. We had people in our classes that found that to be the hard way because memorizing all of the tricks was too much BUT they could calculate that Limit function like nobody's business.
There's a few things y'all are not getting here on both sides of the issue:
As far as the venues: Ticketmaster created the ticketing systems that those venues use. The small surcharge you pay at the window reflects that. In most (not all but most) cases the tickets are cheaper at the window and don't show the TM fees.
As far as what the case was about: Ticketmaster adds all sorts of fees to the end of a ticket purchase. They are all itemized kind of like your phone bill and similar to your phone bill they are trying to justify charging you what others charge them as an additional fee on top of the "cost" of the ticket. In the old days the listed "cost" of the ticket would include padding to cover expenses such as these. The new(ish... not that new) practice of adding over fees is to make the ticket price seem affordable and then make it not so during "processing". Parts of that practice are only shady but not illegal. Parts of that practice are purely illegal (bait-and-switch type laws) and so TM got busted.
Honestly, from my personal situation, the entire deal is not even worth my time. I buy something in the neighborhood of 20-30 TM-sold shows per year. Over their 12 year span the "17" max is a joke. Only being able to use them $3.00 at a time is even more of a joke. Them being vouchers in the first place is severely a joke. It's my money they stole (or at least false advertised) and so I should be able to get it back as money I can spend at my choosing. If it *had to be some form of credit I would see it justly presented as follows: $1.50 * (all of the tickets I have bought... yes they have this data) --> stored in my TM account as credit. The next time(s) I use TM to buy more tickets that value is automatically deducted from my total until gone. Of course this doesn't matter because that's not the way it happened but honestly that would be a true settlement that would actually benefit the 'class' and bite TM in a proper way.
All that being said... if you would please just RTFS you'll get the following little tidbit: "using a chip and antenna that's just two centimeters long". Note the second half of that and-combo and your initial problem of "Antenna cannot be magically shrunk for same performance" seems to be what they've solved.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry Dave but the U.S. I live in just isn't like that. Yes, we have mass produced swill "Brewed in vats the size of Rhode Island" which for some reason are consumed in massive amounts (ergo the successful business model). There are people who truly like that. Mr brother, for example, has probably consumed more different kinds of beer from around the country and world than you could ever hope to but when he's thirsty and wants to pound back a few you're more likely to find an easy drinking Miller Lite in his hand than any of the more robust beers.
What we also have is thousands of smaller breweries for those who have a different taste preference. Those breweries range in size from "I don't have to buy beer anymore" -> "enough for the neighborhood" -> "enough for the state" -> "enough for the region" -> etc. To find such beers? Go to just about any bar/liquor store. Even the little hole-in-the-wall by my cabin that used to only have 'Regular' and 'Lite' now has a fairly impressive selection.
Sorry tho... you'll have to come here to try most of it. Surly, for example, has been listed as one of the best beers in the world repeatedly but aside from what they submit to competition the only place you can get it is MN,USA. Their choice cause they feel like it. (Kinda like one of their other sayings: "We make hoppy beer. If you don't like hoppy beer then go drink someone else's beer.")
Anyway... stereotype away.
They do have a frequent traveler line (at least at a few airports I've been through)... IT DOESN'T HELP! You know who fills up those lines? Business travelers. The very same business travelers who spent an hour (or more) getting ready in the morning for their meeting when they get off the plane and spend that same amount of time getting practically undressed to go through the metal detector only to clog up the line putting themselves back together on the other end. What's worse? The business traveler who is now traveling with his family of 5 and feels he still has the right to use that line because he's a "frequent traveler" who can apparently get 3 fighting and confused children to also practically disrobe to go through the same scanners not to mention his trophy wife who decided to don the entire set of family jewels for that extra travel fashion. Grr.
I'm a modest business traveler... last few years I've averaged 75K miles per year although that is dropping off as my responsibilities change. I'm ready when I walk up to the checkpoint. Metal is not in my pocket/on my person. My shoes are ready to come off. My bag is ready to have my laptop slide out of it. I've walked up to an empty checkpoint and been completely through and out the other side in less than a minute. If more people would just freaking *think* before they got in that line then the line would move SO much faster and maybe there wouldn't be such a big line in the first place.
I had a similar situation... A company I worked for got bought and the new bosses tried to shove a document such as this down our throats. I refused and entered into legal negotiations with the new parent company. When all was said and done a significant percentage of our company (the other engineers mostly) sign the document that I negotiated which left us free to own our own work when it wasn't on the company dime or time with a reasonable accounting for non-compete.
Honestly it was kind of fun but the real answer is "Stick to your ground". If you are not enough of a bargaining chip then unfortunately they will probably let you go. Of course if that's the case then there's a possibility you don't have anything worth keeping them from either but that's the risk you play.
...but that's where it gets funny. Going through normal channels to get security clearance it extremely prohibitive. (I've been through it a lot) There are all sorts of reasons why they will turn you down some of which may surprise you.
BUT: There is nothing in the code of this land that says you win an election only after you've passed the proper clearances (all sorts of issues about barrier to entry, existing power having to much control over incoming power, etc). This tends to work out in a small way because anyone who gets elected to office usually goes through a MUCH more rigorous investigative process by the press and has their dirty little bits shown to everyone who cares to see BUT in the end that hasn't stopped certain crack heads from becoming president. SO you end up with people being given the highest clearance in the land (Presidents, Senators, Secretaries) when potentially they would be considered unworthy of such trust through normal channels.
The recording part is a complete non-starter as most professional therapists record ALL of their sessions for the purposes of further analysis or mostly just for malpractice/harassment lawsuits. This is done above board and they have no need to conceal it (and as my siblings have already mentioned they could just as easily hide in a live setting if they so wanted anyway)
Other people in the room is not that far off from the same deal. Therapists are required to have massive amounts of supervised sessions to get and maintain their licenses. Also professional consultation is often allowed (and even encouraged) and may be assisted by either live or post-via-recording viewing of sessions. Doctor-Patient privilege does not keep your doctor from seeking assistance from his/her peers.
The only thing the remote/digital conveyance of the session degrades in terms of security is the ability for someone external to the situation completely to gain access to the information. The patients knowledge of that risk should be considered no different from the risk taken when they call and talk to their therapist over a normal phone which is already a fairly regular practice.
You're gonna need some bacon to go with the egg on your face when he actually does... !
I don't see that as evidence of foul play at all...
"I'm giving this book away for free because they offered me me money to do so."
Anyone who submits to this could post the exact same wording in their CW page and be honest. Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if there was some condition of the deal where you were required to include that wording. ("Hey... we'll give you money to give away your book to everyone else but every time someone looks under the cover we want them to see our name... deal?")
Now if a shady crew set up this foundation with the express purpose of "buying" their own books with other people's donated money... well then that would be plain old tax evasion and violation of the terms of their Foundation probably. I'm looking forward to the /. article on that in a few months!
Saving Private Ryan quote: "Well, what I mean by that, sir, is... if you was to put me and this here sniper rifle anywhere up to and including one mile of Adolf Hitler with a clear line of sight, sir... pack your bags, fellas, war's over. Amen!"
Movie != Reality but still... at least Spielberg thought it was pretty reasonable.
A few points:
1) You say you live a couple hundred miles away from Minnetonka. That places you exactly no where that is even slightly resemblent of this area so I wouldn't use your personal local experience as a good reference.
2) The suburbs around the Twin Cities (especially the rich ones like Minnetonka) are plowed significantly better than the core. Faster, better plowing/QOS. We haven't had much snow this year at all but last year when we were buried the cores basically shut down because they had no where to put the snow and because the urban street parking gets in the way of fully clearing the roads. Also, this being a large enough private parcel, they will have no problem getting their property cleared privately for much less cost than you might think (especially if they find some cost effective way to use the plowed snow for cooling)
3) This is not being built in the middle of a bunch of McMansions... this is former, not yet developed, farm land (Minnetonka's about as close to the downtowns as you can get and still find that). A large part of Minnetonka is not the extremely expensive lake-living property. The real estate market is also terrible still (although recovering a bit) so the previous plans to develop this land probably fell apart. No one is financing new subdivisions because they can't sell the properties they've already built. This is a developer who had already purchased the land finding a new way to make use of it. Noise and traffic are not non-issues but when the developer owns all the land surrounding the place he can control a lot about who cares. TFA mentions the reduced density the land will have probably including significant distancing to reduce sound issues.
4) Although there is some merit to the scams theories popping up, they really are close to their target audience. Aside from the FTTH service that would probably be a small part of the new business, The outer tier suburbs have really exploded in terms of tech offices. We have a larger technical base out-city, especially around Minnetonka/Excelcior/Eden Prairie, than downtown has. The money out there is HUGE and they are being smart finding themselves close to their customers corporate AND residential.
Just sayin...
Actually... you may have a false assumption there. Boiling, as described in at least one dictionary, is: "a phase transition from the liquid state to the gas state, usually occurring when a liquid is heated to its boiling point." The kicker is the "usually" part. Many substances make this transition in very undramatic ways and so, in a manner, it could be said that every planet is being boiled to a certain extent just not to the point that significant matter is lost from the neighborhood.
Add to all that the fact that planets are not homogeneous structures and different parts of the planet will "boil" as their specific chemistry allows and it would probably be hard to find a planet that isn't boiling in some respect.
One thing the article fails to comment on is what part of the planet is boiling. It's entirely possible that some non-solid substance is being boiled off of this planet and at some point (sooner than later in the next couple hundred million years) this loss of mass will slow or stop as that more boil able substance is eliminated.
...and numerous other movies. The prior art is all over the place. The opening scene in Total Recall for example. They're having breakfast in front of one of these windows!
Training only goes so far. The company I work for is in a very specialized field. It is extremely rare that anyone we hire would have any experience with our business and so we don't expect it. The presumption is, depending on the quality of the dev, there will be at least 3-6 months where we are doing little more than training (including babysitting any dev tasks assigned) heck I've been around for 4 years and I learn something new every day (hopefully that'll never change).
What is prohibitive to teach "on the job" is how to think like a programmer. If you don't have the mind to wrap your brain around a problem (any problem) and find a logical way to fix it then no amount of training is going to get you there. It is not necessarily impossible to tech these things but the gap for some is just too much to bridge and that bridge is not one you're going to teach a new hire. Some people just weren't meant to be developers just as I wasn't built to be many things I don't pursue in my work life.
Mod Parent Up Please.
Really, I'm currently in the position of needing to hire a couple-few good solid developers and am having a hard time finding applicants let alone qualified ones so the concept of increasing the developer pool sounds attractive... Except! 1) As you say these dealios have been around forever and they generally do NOT produce good developers. 2) Did everyone just forget about the tech bubble days?! Everyone and their freaking grandma tried to get into "computer stuff" clogging the market with many thousands of completely crap devs making it hard for those of us who actually knew the trade to rise above the mire until companies finally started to get a clue. 3) I'm currently dealing with a small handful of College trained, experienced developers who can't seem to code their way out of a wet paper bag which does not make me excited about the possibility of hiring someone who's programming knowledge is based on an online Java Script Tutorial.
I will qualify my statements: We live in different days than we did 10 years ago. The sea change that has occurred means that people of all ages are now, generally, more "aware" of computers. They get along with them and are less likely to find their inner workings completely alien so maybe some more cream may come out of a better primordial goo. That and the article, if you actually read through it, specifically says they don't expect everyone to learn to program... just to better understand what they now work with on a day-to-day basis... in between lines telling them they'll be able to learn to code in 3 weeks and below a title saying "learn to code, get a job". I'll give very partial credit there.
...about 20 years...
Obligatory XKCD reference (Happy 1000'th birthday XKCD!)
http://xkcd.com/678/
I've seen these in a few places... It seems many of the theaters around here have remodeled to have VIP section. (Minneapolis)
The best one I was in was a theater in Dubai tho... Picture the fine leather seats of an expensive automobile... all the movement toys... personal volume control in the seats (augmented vol) extremely tasty, diverse menu.
The VIP at MOA is barely a perk... the seats are only slightly better and you are basically paying $3 more to have the luxury of paying WAY too much for better appetizers and beer. No freebies.
There are others here that are more in the middle. It just gets out of hand... $12 ticket + $3 for 3D + $3 for VIP... $18 movie (pre $8 cocktails and good but overpriced food)! great...
I do a lot of this in my code just for the sake of writing solid code (not necessarily just secure). The number of times I've said to myself whilst coding some seat belt "This is an impossible case but the code will break if it were to magically occur so the seat belt stays." Add a little logging and oops... my typo over here caused a weird flip over there and the impossible occurred but wasn't able to crash the system because of a proper seat belt. Make what I'm writing a library / anything utilized by someone else (user input) and it never hurts to be over cautious.
I just wish the penalty had had more Teeth. As the company with more cash on hand than God, a $1.2M penalty barely a penalty.
"Oh no! $1.2M?!? I think I just wiped my ass with that yesterday... let me find that for you..."
That would depend a lot on whether they do a lot of cash transactions... profitable money laundering is wonderful: you set up company that sells crap for mucho-dinero then have your 'people' buy a lot of the product with the cash you are trying to cleanse. You make the price high enough to not have to perform an exorbitant number of transactions but low enough that it stays off your average regulator's radar. The random idiots who actually buy your product for real are the ones really paying for the cost of the crap you sell. If you get enough idiots you make even more money and it's clean from the start!
There's a Pizza chain in Minneapolis that started it's life as a funnel for coke money. The crazy thing was they made *really good pizza. SO at some point they started raking in so much dough (no pun intended) from the 'za that they no longer needed the stress of the coke business and went legit. (well... I'm not so naive as to say *completely legit but... you get the idea)
Capitalism.
Ya. I was severely disappointed to see only one detector when I clicked through.
I wanted the whole doughnut (in a Lego(TM) cave for bonus points!)
One of my profs in school was a specialist in fuzzing. Every project we created in that class got bombarded by a pile 'o fuzz and you were responsible for any adverse affects. (We'd get warnings: "Here's some sample fuzz for you to play with... you shouldn't try to view it as most software won't handle it correctly and I won't be held responsible for your machines nuking themselves.")
Excellent training. Gets you to think in different ways about what is really an edge/corner case and how to deal with unexpected problems / user input.
Not specifically the x1024's but honestly, given how much of the world runs on Base-2, I could see pushing some binary on younger classes: 2 things:
1) As I mention in the sentence, the world runs on binary at the moment and so learning a stretch of powers of 2 should be useful... 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024... etc.
2) It was quite an eye opener when we started learning math in other bases for me. I'd bumped into binary early on, kind-of, but when we started looking at octal, etc numbers just became that much more interesting. You don't have to teach them all but even just giving a younger audience the ability to walk a binary number and calculate its Base-10 equivalent might awaken a few more minds.
I think it's all a matter of how a given person's head works. Some people have MUCH better memories so they're going to be great at learning all of the different tricks and cheats and just applying them. Other people are better at calculation and so the long way is the easy way because they don't have to remember a bunch of little things just one big one. Other people are better at visualizing the problem... etc.
Calculus for example:
We were originally taught that wonderful Limit function that is what a derivative is and shown how it was, itself, derived from the geometry. Then they taught us all the tricks... the "easy way" so-to-speak. {Like F'(X) of X^Y --> Y*X^(Y-1) }. We had people in our classes that found that to be the hard way because memorizing all of the tricks was too much BUT they could calculate that Limit function like nobody's business.
There's a few things y'all are not getting here on both sides of the issue:
As far as the venues: Ticketmaster created the ticketing systems that those venues use. The small surcharge you pay at the window reflects that. In most (not all but most) cases the tickets are cheaper at the window and don't show the TM fees.
As far as what the case was about: Ticketmaster adds all sorts of fees to the end of a ticket purchase. They are all itemized kind of like your phone bill and similar to your phone bill they are trying to justify charging you what others charge them as an additional fee on top of the "cost" of the ticket. In the old days the listed "cost" of the ticket would include padding to cover expenses such as these. The new(ish... not that new) practice of adding over fees is to make the ticket price seem affordable and then make it not so during "processing". Parts of that practice are only shady but not illegal. Parts of that practice are purely illegal (bait-and-switch type laws) and so TM got busted.
Honestly, from my personal situation, the entire deal is not even worth my time. I buy something in the neighborhood of 20-30 TM-sold shows per year. Over their 12 year span the "17" max is a joke. Only being able to use them $3.00 at a time is even more of a joke. Them being vouchers in the first place is severely a joke. It's my money they stole (or at least false advertised) and so I should be able to get it back as money I can spend at my choosing. If it *had to be some form of credit I would see it justly presented as follows: $1.50 * (all of the tickets I have bought... yes they have this data) --> stored in my TM account as credit. The next time(s) I use TM to buy more tickets that value is automatically deducted from my total until gone. Of course this doesn't matter because that's not the way it happened but honestly that would be a true settlement that would actually benefit the 'class' and bite TM in a proper way.
All that being said... if you would please just RTFS you'll get the following little tidbit: "using a chip and antenna that's just two centimeters long". Note the second half of that and-combo and your initial problem of "Antenna cannot be magically shrunk for same performance" seems to be what they've solved.
IANAHFCD but I apparently can read...
Not that hard... I've done it several times (the dis-assembly/re-assembly part... not the screen hack)
It helps significantly if you have the assembly manual but not required.