Why don't they buy the planes anyhow, I am sure they are the best available, then download Rockbox, or whatever the warplane equivalant OSS firmware is.
If that does't work, there should at least be a LGPL version, right?
You must work for big boring companies or defense contractor types.
I too, have been at this for a while. The ONLY place that did a drug screen was for "the phone company". Gah! the clock-punchers there could have used some drugs, IMHO.
Over my career, I've had my fingers on the button for "big money" financial types, military stuff, and other things. Right now I have VPN access to various companies where I could, if I were of a mind to, make some "adjustments" to content that would probably find their way to the public. I was not tested or screened for 90% of my 20+ years of work in IT.
That said, if I were a jihadist wanting to do some damage, I wouldn't fail a drug test or have a criminal record, so test/screen away!
Nobel Laureate has a solution
on
Saving U.S. Science
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Beware the erroneous implication -- that because wealth is concentrated, the people at the bottom are in worse shape than they were when wealth is not so concentrated.
Exactly! Don't forget, much of the world's wealth is not valuable without wealthy people. And it is not directly useful to impoverished people. They can't eat plasma screens, art, gold, jewelry, iBooks, fancy cars, etc. If the wealthy didn't have disposable income to purchase those things, they would be worth less. Also don't forget the livelihoods earned by folks making "luxury" goods.
As the parent says - you want to keep the pie growing. Redistribution shrinks the pie. Redistribution, for redistributions sake is a waste. If you could wave a wand and magically redistribute every tangible and intangible asset equally, a lot of wealth would simply vanish. Many things have no intrinsic value, especially the premiums paid for designer goods. Other items would literally rot away over time; delicate art and fancy houses both need lots of care to maintain their value.
A small example; Let's say Bill Gates were compelled to sell all of his MSFT stock, TODAY (regulations restricting this, aside). What do you suppose would happen to the share price? Supply and demand would kick in, the price would drop and there would simply be less "wealth" in the world. While many a slashdotter might be happy at Bill's misfortune, not a single poor person would materially gain. (In fact, in this scenario, they would be worse off, figuring the effects on Bill's philanthropic endeavors.)
On balance, I think the world is better of with rich people.
Obviously the site isn't using a very fine scale - just big range buckets to lump everyone in a category. It is kind of pointless to put an exact figure on it, like 107,565 - that is just to fool the uncritical into thinking it is accurate. If it came up with round numbers people would naturally recognize them for what they are, estimates, and it wouldn't personalize the site as much... thus lessoning the emotional appeal for donations.
It is a site asking for donations - of course they want to say you are "rich", so you give more.
For me, the site doesn't say how rich you are, so much as how "poor" everyone is. Around here, a kid flipping burgers makes $8.00 an hour. So he is in the top 12% of the worlds wealthiest? Give me a break.
There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know - Ambrose Bierce
Just because someone patents a "non-obvious" idea, doesn't mean that it is new. It may have been thought of before, but not thought important enough to patent.
I think geeks in particular like to cry "That's obvious", because it is... but since geeks aren't "sleezy marketers", they don't rush out and patent things. (Hey, don't knock marketers, we need them to sell crap. I don't want to sell crap. I want to make stuff.)
In other words, one's personality has as much to do with patentability as obviousness.
Lots of smart people think of stuff and do nothing. Some folks think "pet rock" and market the hell out of it.
I have, on more than one occasion, come across "new" ideas in SF novels that I invented. Again, independent invention does not mean "new".
I had a philosophy teacher once describe a scale of "complexity"... at the bottom was straightforward stuff like Math. Up the scale you had other natural phenomena, up thru quantum physics and the like. At the top of the scale of complexity was "human organizations" - politics and the like.
Patents, law, etc - All in this category. "Artificial", and harder than hell for rational geeks to deal with. That's why it is such a hot button.
Nature is out to get you!...Lead, Tobacco, DDT, Oil...
Lead, Tobacco, and Oil are all natural products, and bad for you.
Meanwhile, a man-made product,
DDT is In (and used, of course, to fight nature).
Let's just pave everything and live indoors. That way we can just set the thermostat wherever you like. Global warming, global cooling - irrelevant with enough styrofoam insulation!
If nature is a circle, science is a square. Everyone knows the opposite of "circle" is "square".
That's why we live in boxes.
Once upon a time I generated a key, and discovered there was no one around to swap keys with.
That is exactly the issue. Most people have pretty boring lives, and don't need encryption. While many of us could make at least a business case that it would be a good thing to encrypt our mail, at the end of the day, expedient convenience wins out over The Right Thing.
Until strong encryption is seemlessly and effortlessly incorporated for a critical mass of users, it isn't going to happen.
This is where you need someone like Google, or some Mozilla project, or even some anti-spam infrastucture to "cram" encryption down everyone's throats...
However, be careful of what you wish for... if "everyone" encrypted "everything", it could mean the end of "anonymous" speach. (Unless there is a well-known anonymous signature, to prove it was from "anon":-)
But remember, marketing (and sales) pay the bills.
Sure, engineering "innovation" is cool, but engineers are built so that once the "that's cool" flag is set, it is soon forgotten in the zen of the implementation.
Sales and marketing guys who couldn't program "hello world", jump all over the cool idea with branding, marketing, patents, and "market differentiation" and turn it into actual money.
If you are an engineer with new ideas, it would not be a bad idea to align yourself with the "dark forces", if you care about making money from your work.
I, for one, do not begrudge our road-warrior, platinum mile club, twice-divorced sales wonk his high salary, he earns it too.
disclaimer: I am not a sales or marketing type. I see that they often earn more than I, but am old enough to appreciate why.
Yes, the corporate thing to do would have been to jack up the price... you know, like car dealers do on a hot new model that is in demand.
Off the top of my head, I can think of several cars that sold for waaay more than they were worth, but not with "scalpers".
If the consoles are in short supply, just add the equivalent of the "super wax job and extra 3 months of warranty" and charge an extra couple of hundred bucks for this "special package". When suppy catches up, stop adding the wax job and don't put the "special package" sticker on the box any more.
For guys as well as women. If you are murdering people, especially in another country, it means your had better cover your tracks well. Last I checked, in the last decade(decades?), criminal forensics is really advancing. Fingerprints, blood, and other bodily fluids and specs will get dropped THEN found soon than you can say "put a little bleach on that".
You can barely fake a name on a month-to-month in a shady district... But now we have the convienience of being invited to the victim's apartment, saving you the trouble of cleaning up your own crime scene. Muhahahaha!
Titles don't mean much, especially at small companies.
One of my first titles was "Director of Software". I had a staff of one. I too, was once a "Senior MTS" (at a "Baby Bell") - I was made "Senior MTS" straight from hourly contractor, over many MTS n staffers (clock-punchers) who had been on the job for 10+ years. The only other Senior MTS was over 30 years my senior and about to retire.
I had the largest staff as a "senior software engineer", but I made the most money with no staff and no title, as an independent contractor.
As far as describing what I do - it is always the same. For non-technical family and acquaintences, "I do things with computers" is adequate. For technical business contacts; "I can solve your problem " is usually about right.
I once knew a Ph.D. consultant who created complex signal processing algorithms - his business card actually said "Cheif Scientist and Bottle Washer".
In my experience, the bigger the company, the more the titles "matter" and the less they mean, other than a marker of longevity.
Evolution doesn't mean "better" in any sense other than "survives". There is no such thing as "de-evolution". For example, let's say life started in the ocean and "progressed" to land animals. If some of those animals then evolve back in to sea creatures and their limbs turn into flippers after a while, the land animal didn't "go backwards", a new sea creature evolved...
As far as homo sapiens goes, there is no need to "improve". People are smart enough to survive, and there are plenty of them. The "pressures" are no longer basic survival, they are cultural.
The trend, therefore, is for fewer and fewer rich, educated people and more and more poorer people who have large families to fulfill their religous ideals.
Not to be flip about it, but whatever happens, it will be the "natural outcome". Anything else would imply there is a purpose, and "42" is just as good answer as any.
Slashdot Mirror
If that does't work, there should at least be a LGPL version, right?
I too, have been at this for a while. The ONLY place that did a drug screen was for "the phone company". Gah! the clock-punchers there could have used some drugs, IMHO.
Over my career, I've had my fingers on the button for "big money" financial types, military stuff, and other things. Right now I have VPN access to various companies where I could, if I were of a mind to, make some "adjustments" to content that would probably find their way to the public. I was not tested or screened for 90% of my 20+ years of work in IT.
That said, if I were a jihadist wanting to do some damage, I wouldn't fail a drug test or have a criminal record, so test/screen away!
See chapter vi.
In a similar vein, people have beliefs that are just as "false". And there you have the basis for most of humanities problems.
Homo Sapiens brains just don't work right, depending on my definition of right, and you cannot disabuse me of that notion.
Exactly! Don't forget, much of the world's wealth is not valuable without wealthy people. And it is not directly useful to impoverished people. They can't eat plasma screens, art, gold, jewelry, iBooks, fancy cars, etc. If the wealthy didn't have disposable income to purchase those things, they would be worth less. Also don't forget the livelihoods earned by folks making "luxury" goods.
As the parent says - you want to keep the pie growing. Redistribution shrinks the pie. Redistribution, for redistributions sake is a waste. If you could wave a wand and magically redistribute every tangible and intangible asset equally, a lot of wealth would simply vanish. Many things have no intrinsic value, especially the premiums paid for designer goods. Other items would literally rot away over time; delicate art and fancy houses both need lots of care to maintain their value.
A small example; Let's say Bill Gates were compelled to sell all of his MSFT stock, TODAY (regulations restricting this, aside). What do you suppose would happen to the share price? Supply and demand would kick in, the price would drop and there would simply be less "wealth" in the world. While many a slashdotter might be happy at Bill's misfortune, not a single poor person would materially gain. (In fact, in this scenario, they would be worse off, figuring the effects on Bill's philanthropic endeavors.)
On balance, I think the world is better of with rich people.
Obviously the site isn't using a very fine scale - just big range buckets to lump everyone in a category. It is kind of pointless to put an exact figure on it, like 107,565 - that is just to fool the uncritical into thinking it is accurate. If it came up with round numbers people would naturally recognize them for what they are, estimates, and it wouldn't personalize the site as much... thus lessoning the emotional appeal for donations.
It is a site asking for donations - of course they want to say you are "rich", so you give more.
For me, the site doesn't say how rich you are, so much as how "poor" everyone is. Around here, a kid flipping burgers makes $8.00 an hour. So he is in the top 12% of the worlds wealthiest? Give me a break.
Just because someone patents a "non-obvious" idea, doesn't mean that it is new. It may have been thought of before, but not thought important enough to patent.
I think geeks in particular like to cry "That's obvious", because it is... but since geeks aren't "sleezy marketers", they don't rush out and patent things. (Hey, don't knock marketers, we need them to sell crap. I don't want to sell crap. I want to make stuff.)
In other words, one's personality has as much to do with patentability as obviousness.
Lots of smart people think of stuff and do nothing. Some folks think "pet rock" and market the hell out of it.
I have, on more than one occasion, come across "new" ideas in SF novels that I invented. Again, independent invention does not mean "new".
I had a philosophy teacher once describe a scale of "complexity"... at the bottom was straightforward stuff like Math. Up the scale you had other natural phenomena, up thru quantum physics and the like. At the top of the scale of complexity was "human organizations" - politics and the like.
Patents, law, etc - All in this category. "Artificial", and harder than hell for rational geeks to deal with. That's why it is such a hot button.
They mention fake airline itineraries, not boarding passes, but would a fake, used boarding stub also get you in trouble?
OT: having an affair is sleazy, but not illegal. If that alibi company is used to cover a crime, do they have any liability?
lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo
Gonna have to dig deeper.
Lead, Tobacco, and Oil are all natural products, and bad for you.
Meanwhile, a man-made product, DDT is In (and used, of course, to fight nature).
Let's just pave everything and live indoors. That way we can just set the thermostat wherever you like. Global warming, global cooling - irrelevant with enough styrofoam insulation!
If nature is a circle, science is a square. Everyone knows the opposite of "circle" is "square". That's why we live in boxes.
Learn more here!
And if you don't think I am joking, you're batty!
Speaking of which, yes, Penn & Teller did do an episode debunking the "landfill conspiracy". 2nd season, I think.
Most problems are political, not practical.
That's the same basis most Americans (who do) vote, base their vote on...
I don't get it. Why is there a moderation called "Funny", but no moderation called "Sad"?
If I had a nickel for every time I ended a notepad txt file with :wq, I'd retire NOW!
A "wide screen" must be better than ANYTHING in a old fashioned 4:3 ratio, right? That's Sooo 1990's!
Yeah, I liked my 1400x1050 screen too, but true hi-rez takes a back-seat to watching the latest video in the correct format...
And will I have done some brilliant bit of editing, killed a yeti, or totally lost it?
Yikes! I've been using "vi" for over half my life, and my life is probably half over!
The do it because they think the publicly traded company is worth more than the market does.
See here for a nice summary.
That is exactly the issue. Most people have pretty boring lives, and don't need encryption. While many of us could make at least a business case that it would be a good thing to encrypt our mail, at the end of the day, expedient convenience wins out over The Right Thing.
Until strong encryption is seemlessly and effortlessly incorporated for a critical mass of users, it isn't going to happen.
This is where you need someone like Google, or some Mozilla project, or even some anti-spam infrastucture to "cram" encryption down everyone's throats...
However, be careful of what you wish for... if "everyone" encrypted "everything", it could mean the end of "anonymous" speach. (Unless there is a well-known anonymous signature, to prove it was from "anon" :-)
a) Define "pork", using the bible, of course.
b) Genetically engineer pigs enough so that they no longer match "a"
c) Profit!
Sure, engineering "innovation" is cool, but engineers are built so that once the "that's cool" flag is set, it is soon forgotten in the zen of the implementation.
Sales and marketing guys who couldn't program "hello world", jump all over the cool idea with branding, marketing, patents, and "market differentiation" and turn it into actual money.
If you are an engineer with new ideas, it would not be a bad idea to align yourself with the "dark forces", if you care about making money from your work.
I, for one, do not begrudge our road-warrior, platinum mile club, twice-divorced sales wonk his high salary, he earns it too.
disclaimer: I am not a sales or marketing type. I see that they often earn more than I, but am old enough to appreciate why.
Yes, the corporate thing to do would have been to jack up the price... you know, like car dealers do on a hot new model that is in demand.
Off the top of my head, I can think of several cars that sold for waaay more than they were worth, but not with "scalpers".
If the consoles are in short supply, just add the equivalent of the "super wax job and extra 3 months of warranty" and charge an extra couple of hundred bucks for this "special package". When suppy catches up, stop adding the wax job and don't put the "special package" sticker on the box any more.
If a company like Dell announced that they were only pre-loading Linux from now on, Investors would be falling over trying to dump the stock...
You can barely fake a name on a month-to-month in a shady district... But now we have the convienience of being invited to the victim's apartment, saving you the trouble of cleaning up your own crime scene. Muhahahaha!
One of my first titles was "Director of Software". I had a staff of one. I too, was once a "Senior MTS" (at a "Baby Bell") - I was made "Senior MTS" straight from hourly contractor, over many MTS n staffers (clock-punchers) who had been on the job for 10+ years. The only other Senior MTS was over 30 years my senior and about to retire.
I had the largest staff as a "senior software engineer", but I made the most money with no staff and no title, as an independent contractor.
As far as describing what I do - it is always the same. For non-technical family and acquaintences, "I do things with computers" is adequate. For technical business contacts; "I can solve your problem " is usually about right.
I once knew a Ph.D. consultant who created complex signal processing algorithms - his business card actually said "Cheif Scientist and Bottle Washer".
In my experience, the bigger the company, the more the titles "matter" and the less they mean, other than a marker of longevity.
Yes and the copyright owner needs the money!
As far as homo sapiens goes, there is no need to "improve". People are smart enough to survive, and there are plenty of them. The "pressures" are no longer basic survival, they are cultural.
The trend, therefore, is for fewer and fewer rich, educated people and more and more poorer people who have large families to fulfill their religous ideals.
Not to be flip about it, but whatever happens, it will be the "natural outcome". Anything else would imply there is a purpose, and "42" is just as good answer as any.