they have known (northrop grumman) about the epoch changing for 20 years. This shouldn't be a surprise.
It was no surprise. The people that were there way back when knew perfectly well about the problem, and they also knew perfectly well that they wouldn't be around to be blamed for it in 20 years.
It was easy for them at the time to make the decision to "acknowledge the problem" and to quietly pretend that someone else would fix it later.
All those people are long gone, and the people that came after them just kept kicking the can down the road until they ran out of road.
Some of us realized we would still be around when the clock ran out. I watched others deal with DEC's date-75 problem. I fixed the Town of Hudson's Y2K problems in 1998, and later reported a Y2K bug in DEC's software. The next problem will come when the Unix 32-bit seconds counter overflows in 2038. There are people who are concerned with such things, but we don't get much attention until the crisis is upon us and it is too late for any of the easy solutions.
I do sound effects and sound reinforcement for local community theatre groups. Tracking the performance so I can make noises at the appropriate times isn't just a matter of dealing with speaking tempo. There is also the possiblity that the actors will get confused, and skip a page or two of dialogue. That is when the crew intercom becomes very helpful: "they are on page 52" gets the lighting guys back on track.
I think operating this subtitler will require a dedicated operator who will follow the script as it is being performed, line by line, sending each line of text as it is spoken. It is no easier to automate than lights, sound, and curtain.
Something/someone must be supporting these people.
Yeah. Crime.
Many people are gainfully employed at jobs not recognized by the government. This is called the underground economy. Crime is certainly included, but when I hire kids off the street and their friends to help me clean out my store, I do not report their earnings to the IRS.
A friend of mine once told me that he worked security at a flea market. At the end of the day he got a check for his wages, with deductions taken according to law. If he walks away with the check, every thing is above-board. However, if he wished he could cash the check on the spot, in which case he would receive more than the face value.
the labor force participation rate crashed in the recession and hasn't even recovered to it's carter-era level since then
Indeed, the baby boomers who took early retirement in 2008 have not flocked back to the workplace. Many of them are in their 70s. To get them participating in the workplace again you're going to need to completely gut social security and medicare. I know, they're working on that.
I am a leading-edge baby boomer, just turned 73 years of age. When I was laid off in 2008 I collected unemployment until it ran out, then took early Social Security. I worked in the gig economy until I was able to return to the labor force in 2015. Even with Social Security, Medicare to cover medical costs, and two pensions, I don't make enough to make ends meet, even though I live in suburban New Hampshire.
In the long run, you can....though that hasn't happened since the Civil War.
No, you can't change anything by voting third party, by your own admission.
Look at what Maine did. In the span of just a couple of years they started the process of breaking the two party hegemony with ranked-choice voting. That's a little quicker than the 150+ year example you cited as an example of how voting 3rd party in first past the post elections can work.
I don't see how that's a preferable option, unless you're a die-hard republican or democrat interested in self-preservation.
Breaking down a big party isn't the only path to change. Even if it were, everyone who rejects the big parties by voting for a small party is contributing to
the process, even if the final breakdown doesn't come for another 150 years.
Ranked choice voting lets people vote for a small party but also list the lesser of the two evil big parties as their second choice. That eliminates the argument that voting for a small party is "wasting your vote", an argument I don't buy but some people do. It appears that in Maine, one of the big parties is trying very hard to repeal ranked choice voting, which must mean they are concerned that it will mean less power for them.
Good idea! Lets pick minority candidates who can't win, making it a toss-up between whether we get the greater or lesser evil. That's much better than picking the lesser evil, right?
In a first-past-the-post system, the majority party candidates are the only choices. If you don't like that, you're SOL. The only option is to change the system. You can't fix anything by choosing a third party candidate.
In the long run, you can. If the vote for a small party is greater than the difference between the votes of the big parties, the big parties will attempt to attract those small party voters by changing their platforms, and even their actions. Also, a big party can collapse and be replaced, though that hasn't happened since the Civil War.
or hell, even Hilary Clinton. Yeah, she's a right wing corporatists bitch, but at least she isn't openly anti-science. As terrible as she was/is it's always better to pick the lesser of two evils.
Even better, pick someone who isn't evil. The major party candidates were not the only choices.
Because the choices we were given made it not worth voting. Both of them are vile humans unworthy of any position of power.
There weren't only two choices. The Libertarian party was on the ballot in every state, and in some states there were even more choices. Not voting is a cop-out. If you don't like either of the major party candidates, vote for a minor party candidate.
there are only 5 states or 1/10 of the states that do not have sales tax.
If your state does not want it, fine. The tax can remain with the feds and be used to pay down the GOP's debts
So you are proposing a federal sales tax, which is remitted to the states. How long do you think it will be before the remittance rate decreases to 0, and it becomes just a federal sales tax?
and at over 2%, you are 3rd highest. Most American citizens would scream bloody murder for such outrageous rates.
There is plenty of unhappiness about the high property tax rate. One suggestion for reducing property taxes was the imposition of a "broad-based" tax. That solution was rejected by the New Hampshire legislature. I get the impression that nobody trusts the State to actually lower property tax rates even after they get their hands on an additional source of revenue.
The biggest contributor to property tax rates is the cost of local schools. Having the costs be visible and local probably helps to prevent the unhappiness from climbing to the "scream bloody murder" level.
And then every state will increase income and property taxes to compensate. Eliminating one tax does not eliminate the need to raise revenue. Teachers and police officers aren't free.
Not completely true. New Hampshire does not have a general sales tax and does not tax wages. New Hampshire does have high property taxes, which pays for teachers, police officers and local road maintenance.
Local government doesn't need sales taxes. I live in New Hampshire, which doesn't have a general sales tax, and the same is true in Oregon and (I think) Montana. The simplest way to "level the playing field" between brick and online (including overseas) is to abolish the sales tax. That also eliminates the overhead caused by having to track the amount and remit the payments.
Even simpler, Congress can decide that the States cannot tax goods moviing between States, as that is a burden on interstate commerce. Set the single easy rate to 0%.
...Are there any happy Oracle customers? My (limited) research suggests that the vast majority of Oracle customers have one of three characteristics: (1) They don't know any better, (2) They have more money than time/expertise for converting, (3) They're locked in.
My experience is also very limited, but I can assure you that there is at least one customer who has all three characteristics.
I am an example of an old programmer. My career has had its ups and downs. I saw my first computer in 1963, and on my way up I worked as a System Programmer for a university and a military contractor, then as a Software Engineer for Digital Equipment Corporation. On my way down I was a System Programmer for a local government, a help desk jockey for a small company, a technical support part-time temp who was lucky to get an hour of work a week, and a security guard at a shopping mall.
As I started back up I did technical support for a hospital and now, at age 72, for a big multinational corporation.
Some old programmers have died, some have retired, some are in senior positions in the industry and some are working in obscure roles.
The next time you see a greybeard working security in a shopping mall, or an old coot operating the microphone mixer at your local community theatre
production, realize that you might be looking at someone who wrote the first FORTRAN compiler, or designed the Ethernet protocol, or built the first pipelined IEEE 754 math chip.
I drove from New Hampshire to Tennessee to watch the eclipse from a public park in Goodlettsville. I have had "total eclipse" on my bucket list since High School. The best part was that my children and grandchildren joined me for this experience.
When I arrived at Stanford in 1963, three computer languages were being taught: IBM 7090 assembly language, FORTRAN for the IBM 7090, and Algol 60, as implemented on the Burroughs B-5000. I learned all three, and taught myself DEC PDP-1 assembly language.
Slashdot Mirror
they have known (northrop grumman) about the epoch changing for 20 years. This shouldn't be a surprise.
It was no surprise. The people that were there way back when knew perfectly well about the problem, and they also knew perfectly well that they wouldn't be around to be blamed for it in 20 years.
It was easy for them at the time to make the decision to "acknowledge the problem" and to quietly pretend that someone else would fix it later.
All those people are long gone, and the people that came after them just kept kicking the can down the road until they ran out of road.
Some of us realized we would still be around when the clock ran out. I watched others deal with DEC's date-75 problem. I fixed the Town of Hudson's Y2K problems in 1998, and later reported a Y2K bug in DEC's software. The next problem will come when the Unix 32-bit seconds counter overflows in 2038. There are people who are concerned with such things, but we don't get much attention until the crisis is upon us and it is too late for any of the easy solutions.
I do sound effects and sound reinforcement for local community theatre groups. Tracking the performance so I can make noises at the appropriate times isn't just a matter of dealing with speaking tempo. There is also the possiblity that the actors will get confused, and skip a page or two of dialogue. That is when the crew intercom becomes very helpful: "they are on page 52" gets the lighting guys back on track.
I think operating this subtitler will require a dedicated operator who will follow the script as it is being performed, line by line, sending each line of text as it is spoken. It is no easier to automate than lights, sound, and curtain.
This car was preceded by the General Motors Firebird series, in the 1950s. See . It included the ability to follow a cable embedded in the road: .
Something/someone must be supporting these people.
Yeah. Crime.
Many people are gainfully employed at jobs not recognized by the government. This is called the underground economy. Crime is certainly included, but when I hire kids off the street and their friends to help me clean out my store, I do not report their earnings to the IRS.
A friend of mine once told me that he worked security at a flea market. At the end of the day he got a check for his wages, with deductions taken according to law. If he walks away with the check, every thing is above-board. However, if he wished he could cash the check on the spot, in which case he would receive more than the face value.
Indeed, the baby boomers who took early retirement in 2008 have not flocked back to the workplace. Many of them are in their 70s. To get them participating in the workplace again you're going to need to completely gut social security and medicare. I know, they're working on that.
I am a leading-edge baby boomer, just turned 73 years of age. When I was laid off in 2008 I collected unemployment until it ran out, then took early Social Security. I worked in the gig economy until I was able to return to the labor force in 2015. Even with Social Security, Medicare to cover medical costs, and two pensions, I don't make enough to make ends meet, even though I live in suburban New Hampshire.
In the long run, you can....though that hasn't happened since the Civil War.
No, you can't change anything by voting third party, by your own admission.
Look at what Maine did. In the span of just a couple of years they started the process of breaking the two party hegemony with ranked-choice voting. That's a little quicker than the 150+ year example you cited as an example of how voting 3rd party in first past the post elections can work.
I don't see how that's a preferable option, unless you're a die-hard republican or democrat interested in self-preservation.
Breaking down a big party isn't the only path to change. Even if it were, everyone who rejects the big parties by voting for a small party is contributing to the process, even if the final breakdown doesn't come for another 150 years.
Ranked choice voting lets people vote for a small party but also list the lesser of the two evil big parties as their second choice. That eliminates the argument that voting for a small party is "wasting your vote", an argument I don't buy but some people do. It appears that in Maine, one of the big parties is trying very hard to repeal ranked choice voting, which must mean they are concerned that it will mean less power for them.
Good idea! Lets pick minority candidates who can't win, making it a toss-up between whether we get the greater or lesser evil. That's much better than picking the lesser evil, right?
In a first-past-the-post system, the majority party candidates are the only choices. If you don't like that, you're SOL. The only option is to change the system. You can't fix anything by choosing a third party candidate.
In the long run, you can. If the vote for a small party is greater than the difference between the votes of the big parties, the big parties will attempt to attract those small party voters by changing their platforms, and even their actions. Also, a big party can collapse and be replaced, though that hasn't happened since the Civil War.
or hell, even Hilary Clinton. Yeah, she's a right wing corporatists bitch, but at least she isn't openly anti-science. As terrible as she was/is it's always better to pick the lesser of two evils.
Even better, pick someone who isn't evil. The major party candidates were not the only choices.
Because the choices we were given made it not worth voting. Both of them are vile humans unworthy of any position of power.
There weren't only two choices. The Libertarian party was on the ballot in every state, and in some states there were even more choices. Not voting is a cop-out. If you don't like either of the major party candidates, vote for a minor party candidate.
And yet New Jersey and Connecticut also have high property taxes, but do have sales tax. Perhaps the cause-and-effect is not so simple.
there are only 5 states or 1/10 of the states that do not have sales tax. If your state does not want it, fine. The tax can remain with the feds and be used to pay down the GOP's debts
So you are proposing a federal sales tax, which is remitted to the states. How long do you think it will be before the remittance rate decreases to 0, and it becomes just a federal sales tax?
and at over 2%, you are 3rd highest. Most American citizens would scream bloody murder for such outrageous rates.
There is plenty of unhappiness about the high property tax rate. One suggestion for reducing property taxes was the imposition of a "broad-based" tax. That solution was rejected by the New Hampshire legislature. I get the impression that nobody trusts the State to actually lower property tax rates even after they get their hands on an additional source of revenue.
The biggest contributor to property tax rates is the cost of local schools. Having the costs be visible and local probably helps to prevent the unhappiness from climbing to the "scream bloody murder" level.
And then every state will increase income and property taxes to compensate. Eliminating one tax does not eliminate the need to raise revenue. Teachers and police officers aren't free.
Not completely true. New Hampshire does not have a general sales tax and does not tax wages. New Hampshire does have high property taxes, which pays for teachers, police officers and local road maintenance.
Local government doesn't need sales taxes. I live in New Hampshire, which doesn't have a general sales tax, and the same is true in Oregon and (I think) Montana. The simplest way to "level the playing field" between brick and online (including overseas) is to abolish the sales tax. That also eliminates the overhead caused by having to track the amount and remit the payments.
Another dimension on the problem is time. Some places have "tax holidays" when they don't tax certain items.
How about not charging tax on interstate sales?
Even simpler, Congress can decide that the States cannot tax goods moviing between States, as that is a burden on interstate commerce. Set the single easy rate to 0%.
...Are there any happy Oracle customers? My (limited) research suggests that the vast majority of Oracle customers have one of three characteristics: (1) They don't know any better, (2) They have more money than time/expertise for converting, (3) They're locked in.
My experience is also very limited, but I can assure you that there is at least one customer who has all three characteristics.
Was that "really small one" a PDP-11/05?
I am an example of an old programmer. My career has had its ups and downs. I saw my first computer in 1963, and on my way up I worked as a System Programmer for a university and a military contractor, then as a Software Engineer for Digital Equipment Corporation. On my way down I was a System Programmer for a local government, a help desk jockey for a small company, a technical support part-time temp who was lucky to get an hour of work a week, and a security guard at a shopping mall.
As I started back up I did technical support for a hospital and now, at age 72, for a big multinational corporation.
Some old programmers have died, some have retired, some are in senior positions in the industry and some are working in obscure roles. The next time you see a greybeard working security in a shopping mall, or an old coot operating the microphone mixer at your local community theatre production, realize that you might be looking at someone who wrote the first FORTRAN compiler, or designed the Ethernet protocol, or built the first pipelined IEEE 754 math chip.
Aren't amendments supposed to be superior to the original text of the Constitution?
Why doesn't the first amendment greatly restrict copyright law?
The copyright laws are not in conflict with the first amendment because they include provisions for “fair use”.
I drove from New Hampshire to Tennessee to watch the eclipse from a public park in Goodlettsville. I have had "total eclipse" on my bucket list since High School. The best part was that my children and grandchildren joined me for this experience.
...Just be faster to the poll station than the folks across town that you can look up in the phone book.
In small towns the poll worker knows everyone by sight, so that kind of fraud is not possible.
Just ban them. They serve no purpose except for spying on people's daughters sunbathing by the pool, based on the comments I see on Slashdot.
That's a pretty important purpose. Say hi to your daughter for me.
When I arrived at Stanford in 1963, three computer languages were being taught: IBM 7090 assembly language, FORTRAN for the IBM 7090, and Algol 60, as implemented on the Burroughs B-5000. I learned all three, and taught myself DEC PDP-1 assembly language.