this would be an area best left to Congress to fix.
Ahahahaha... but you're mostly right.
Still, I don't think it's outside a judge's ability to say "Look, stop wasting my time. You all go out there, get a caterer, pow wow over royalties, and if you really can't come to some agreement, then come back and we'll do this thing." It's not so much requiring that they do A or B, more like telling them to try acting like adults before the trial continues/commences.
It could have just been omitted from the article (or just unknown/not thought to ask), but I see nothing about the sue-ee contacting any of these companies seeking royalty payments before whipping out the good ol' lawyer.
I also note that IPAT "apparently purchased these patents from their listed inventor of Addison M. Fischer". It doesn't give the date that they bought it (I presume one could look through patent records to see a transfer of ownership?), but I would not be surprised at all if the purchase went through on Dec. 29 when the suit was filed Dec. 30.
If they did indeed jump straight to step three, I hope the court smacks them down. Companies should be required to put forth a good faith effort to enter into royalty agreements with those using their patents before wasting tax payer dollars. Also, since they were granted in the mid 90s, something about due diligence towards protecting an IP, or else it's relegated to the public domain (or the companies already using it do not have to pay royalties to continue using it in the same manner).
Even better, if this isn't already done, if someone files a patent/copyright suit, they have to pay for the judge, baliff, stenographer, etc. If the IP is truly that important, they'll have no problem spending an extra $100K to get it. Of course, this could backfire and cause independent inventors to not get the royalties rightly owed them, so some sort of middle ground would be best.
The downfall of ads certainly hurt both those displaying them and those paying for them to be displayed; an odd symbiosis has formed between the two, though it's not a strict 1-1 correlation.
To effectively both lighten the burden on websites as well as make ads more effective, the web in general needs to band together and figure out something effective for micropayments. Either some big site just does it (PayPal, Google, Amazon), or a number of semi-large sites (LiveJournal, Slashdot, major newspapers and webcomics) make a consortium to do it (something like OpenID, perhaps).
The problem with micropayments in the past has been two-fold: 1) Lack of adoption 2) Concerns over the majority of users (predominantly those under 13, or perhaps outside the region the service operates in) not being able to actually use such a service
Problem 1 can be solved by having what I described above. A huge backer (or group of large backers) would make it far more enticing. Make it easy to implement on a website. Then offer it up free at the beginning. Sites get to try it out so long to see how well it works on their site before actually going fully into it. Then, it's a flat monthly fee based on average income (over two or three months) instead of some percentage, which makes it far more appealing to users. (And under a certain level, say $5/mo average, it's just free.)
Make it prominent, even if somewhat unused, on many popular websites and it will gain adoption on smaller ones. Also, those doing the paying should not be charged a penny.
The infrastructure to solve problem 2 is already in place, it just needs to be modified somewhat and unified more. Lots of sites, such as Pogo, Moola, various feedback sites, "buy services get free stuff", etc., already offer "free" ways for people to get money or other items. Work with those kind of sites to set up an option to credit your micropayment account instead of whatever else they do. Voila, suddenly millions who don't have/want a credit card or check to do this have an alternative way to do micropayments. It could even be something like ad revenue sharing, where users who elect to still see ads on each page (perhaps an interstitial instead of a normal one) can share in a percentage of the money made on that ad that is credited to their micropayment account, which they can then use on that site or on other sites. For an example, one could do their normal reading on WSJ with this system, then go to use their credit on Youtube in order to view a certain video in high quality.
However, this doesn't mean that that the internet suddenly becomes a pay-for service. No site can switch to micropayments entirely and survive. Instead, make it an alternative: using a micropayment to read an article or something will remove all the ads from the page (so it loads faster and has less clutter), or perhaps offers various extras (many sites already lock things behind regular restrictions; I used to subscribe yearly to IGNsider, but there just wasn't enough stuff to hold my interest--being able to just make a small payment for each interested page would have worked much better, IMO). So stuff that is read now can still be read with all the ads as usual. Eventually, as more of the world comes online (and the current generation gets older), micropayments can become more prevalent.
Finally, I often here people talking about micropayments of $.25; in my opinion, that's just wrong. While profit is surely a motive, the idea is to allow them to replace ads. An average view for a page full of ads is lucky, if I remember my numbers correctly, to even bring in two cents. Micropayments should be limited to 10 or 15 cents; the majority of micropayments should only be a penny. This not only eases the burden on the payer, but also turns micropayments into a huge impulse purchase opportunity. If someone wants more for micropayments, say for viewing a long-ish video or downloading a song, then they should enroll in some secondary service from whoever offers the m
Even though I no longer own any VHS tapes myself, I have a dual-player that I'm going to hang on to. My family has a lot of video memories that are still on VHS, and it's unlikely they'll be converted anytime soon.
In fact, I'll probably try to get a mid-range VHS player (one of the small ones) once I have a bit of extra cash, and just store that away. Either it will come in handy for myself, or in 50 years I can sell it for a tidy sum to someone who needs one.
I'm also reminded of a certain Cowboy Bebop episode. Of course, they actually needed a Betamax player and got a VHS deck at first, but the same idea holds.
You may not be able to find that kind of information easily even if you know what to search for. And once you have that information, there are other people to give their insights on what that persons stories.
Not to mention that, in general, Ask Slashdot stories are about questions that would be useful to a wider group of people, not just the person who submitted the question. Perhaps someone else was needing an answer to this problem, or someone else has a similar problem but wasn't sure how to go about it and will get help from this. This one might be a bit more limited than most, but can still be useful by many.
And it's a great resource for the future, a good Google result.
...does this mean that those who are supposed to review such things are either incompetent or don't bother with their job, or that many "professional science" papers are actually pure bullshit, so you can't tell the difference?
While I wouldn't be against adding a bit more CS into education (especially at the upper levels, though voluntary stuff), there's enough wrong with the current educational system that the focus should be on fixing it rather than adding to it (excepting where "fixing" involves "adding", such as bringing certain classes up to modern times).
When we get to a point where we can have the ability to dream about CS in HS, the focus should be less on "let's type letters in a computer!" and more on things like logic diagrams or UML. While it won't give them any "real world" skills, it will allow them to better understand logic structures (and hopefully expand their mind a bit in the process), so that if they do choose to explore computers more they'll have a better understanding.
Having a required class where the kids learn C/C++/Visual Basic will just bore 95% of everyone and be a complete waste.
(Should fixing the system involve just rebooting the whole damn thing, a view I hold, then I'm all for looking to include a bit more CS in the curriculum. While we're at it, let's get a little more philosophy, psychology, and foreign culture (not just language!) in there, too.)
That, as the summary seems to indicate, may actually be more of a problem. Newspapers took on more and more advertisements in order to keep reader costs down (and/or line their own pockets), which was likely to their detriment, in my opinion.
Just yesterday, I fired off an e-mail to Wired, explaining that I would no longer be subscribing to their magazine. I had recently finished the Oct 2008 issue (I'm a bit behind), and I was quite annoyed at the amount of advertising in it. After I finished reading, I went through and counted all the ads: of 126 pages, about 117 were ads. More than 50% of the magazine was advertisements, some set up to look like it was regular content.
My wired subscription was cheap--$10, I think, for ten issues. A good deal, at least at the time. The renewal cards I've been getting offer the same thing. But I am not willing to put up with so much advertisement, even at that price. I would be far more likely to re-subscribe if the magazine were 25% ads and $20/ten issues.
While it's been rare that I pick up a newspaper lately, they seem to have fallen to much of the same--rarely do you get a full page of news, it's usually at least a quarter of ads if not more. Add in some sibling posts' comments on the cost and high use of AP, and the newspaper doesn't even become worth the cost it is now. Considering the popularity of Adblock, I'm not the only one annoyed by the prevalence of advertisement, and as time goes by much of my generation will join me in that sentiment.
When that happens, that will be a huge market. Assuming your software is cost effective for them to begin with, the prospect of having to spend a lot more to update hardware will be a huge pitfall, rather than a convenience.
Granted, we may be many decades away from such things, but if you get into that mindset now it will be hard to get out of it when you need to.
The tiny flicker of hope in this case is that the unwashed masses are not going to use change.gov. Most of them don't even know it exists. Change.gov is more likely to be used by those who are at least quite interested in government, if not educated to some degree. It doesn't throw out any possibility for bad judgement, but it does make it less likely. The flip-side is that many of the questions may come from outside the country, which has both good and bad connotations.
And then there are trolls. Imagine 4chan's/b/ deciding on five utterly ridiculous questions ("Do you believe Rick Astley to be the greatest or most greatest person evar?") and getting them all to the top.
Who would have thought the real prudes wouldn't be over zealous religious players and instead dowdy old government goons
You're making the dangerous assumption that these two groups are mutually exclusive.
Re:Watergate is a God Damned Hotel You Turds
on
Obama's "ZuneGate"
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· Score: 2, Funny
THANK YOU. I would be the president of your fan club.
Slapping "Gate" on everything annoys the fuck out of me, as well. First, it's not a fucking suffix, it's half the hotel name. Second, Watergate was Nixon's thing; stop being lazy fucking journalists and make up your own damn titles.
If you need me, I'll be in the Angry Dome. Rrrrrrr...
...to the non-hardcore crowd, whom I shall refer to as "casuals" for the purpose of this post (though the term is a bad one, IMO).
True, a lot of the "hardcore" Nintendo fans have embraced it, but more because they had to than they wanted to. The thing with casual players is that they have far less brand loyalty. If the PS4 or XBox1080 can match Nintendo's next console on controls (I guarantee they'll all use something based off of Nintendo's Wiimote) and offer the same price, these casuals fill flock. Part of that is because the PS3 and 360 already do a hell of a lot more than the Wii does now, and I don't think Nintendo's going to turn around on that. After all, their answer to "need more gigs" was "here, gigs transfer faster now!" Media playback (especially DVDs, BR with the PS3), profiles, working with friends accounts (seriously, who wants to deal with a 12 digit number when you can just get username?), and so forth.
What Nintendo does have going for it, though, is limit(CGI)->inf. Graphics can still increase, but every new leap will be less distinguishable from the last. Compare 2600 to NES, NES to SNES, SNES to PS1, PS1 to XBox, XBox to PS3. I don't know that there's a point where graphics won't ever be able to increase (we might hit a "good enough" level where further refinement slows down), but over time there will be less of a need to do so. Microsoft and Sony will likely focus on making another "leap" in their graphics, seeing that as a huge benefit when paired with their Wiimote-copycats, while Nintendo will be able to just play catchup. If Nintendo brings out a console that's on par with the 360, they'll be much closer to whatever MSFT/Sony comes out with than they are now.
But, for the time being, a lot of games that developers would love to stick on the Wii because of its install base aren't getting the Wii treatment when going mutli-console, because 95% of the time this means that the team has to re-work half the game rather than just cut bits and pieces then port it. When casuals are so willing to jump ship, Nintendo might find themselves in a precarious situation if they make the wrong moves (such as they did with the SNES->N64 era) since the more loyal and "hardcore" side may be straddling the line to get their fill of amazing graphics and good online play (Nintendo's online strategy is horrible.) It also doesn't help that many times the motion controls are "forced" on there by developers, making no sense and just being there so they can claim "we do waggle!" Not a fault of Nintendo, of course, but it still doesn't help.
(On a side note, I believe Nintendo should go with HD-DVD for their next console media format.)
You know, I'm a big proponent to Second Amendment rights (I believe anyone should be able to have a firearm, within reason), but this is just wow. I suppose it's good that the elderly would be able to defend themselves in the case of a break-in, but I honestly can't see them being able to actually use it, even if it's "elderly friendly". Their reaction time alone would prevent it from actually coming in use, unless they had a huge jump on the would-be thief (like they shoot the guy while hiding in the closet or something).
The flip side is that as we approach the point where we have Baby Boomers ==> Generation Geriatric the amount of burglaries related to the elderly will increase dramatically, especially if our economy doesn't turn around, so this might prove useful to some.
As for the disabled, that's cool. They'll run into the same problems, though, unless it's someone like Captain Hook. But then, why not use a regular gun? The good thing about this is that it looks like it requires three pressure points to fire, meaning if a little kid gets their hand on it for some reason they'll be less likely to shoot themselves with it.
But society has never worked that way. Outcomes often dictate the punishment as much as the cause.
Example 1: If one person robs a bank, and another a convenience store, then all other things being equal the one robbing the bank will likely get a harsher punishment.
Example 2: (Warning: Car Analogy) Consider drunk driving. Someone gets pulled over for drunk driving, they pay a fine, lose their license for a bit (in some states) and spend a night or two in the county jail. Someone plows into another car by swerving across the road, maiming or killing the other driver, and now they're looking at a much larger conviction.
By your account, the guy should just be charged for drunk driving, nevermind that the drunk driving caused the death of another. That's vehicular manslaughter. I would argue that the mother should be charged with depraved indifference homicide (or criminally negligent homicide, though in this case it would probably fit better for "Misdemeanor manslaughter"); she maliciously caused events that led to the girl's suicide[1]. Okay, so she didn't know that the girl was depressed already, but that doesn't excuse her. Giving someone seafood when they have an allergy unbeknown to you is one thing, continually egging a teenager that she should kill herself is quite another.
Had nothing come of the mother's actions, then, while I would like to see her charged with some sort of harassment, it likely would have resulted in nothing, and no one would have really got worked up over that outcome.
[1] If you really want to play games, her actions could be seen as assisting suicide, which is considered manslaughter in some states.
I suspect that this is because, unlike in the US, tips aren't expected and aren't at a more-or-less fixed percentage and instead patrons who want to tip usually round up the bill amount.
As a previous waiter in the U.S., and a patron of many establishments outside of the U.S., I've never had a problem with splitting checks. Whenever it looked like it wasn't a family unit, my policy was to ask when taking the order if checks would be split. I've had that happen maybe half the time at other venues (in some situations it's easily assumed). When not asked, a simple "please split the check" sufficed.
I would say that with our tipping system, splitting the bill is a benefit to waiters. When one guy pays for it all, he'll be less likely to tip largely; having four guys tip separately means you get four moderate tips (so, on a $40 total bill, you might get 4 $2 tips instead of one $5). Yeah, you'll get someone now and then who won't tip because the others did, but oh well.
(Related story: My fraternity went to a rather expensive (to us) restaurant to celebrate some new members. Everyone paid for themselves, and a few covered a new member a piece. No one made mention of splitting the bill at any point I remember, member or wait staff. At the end, we got one bill for almost a grand (this was about 15 guys). We asked that it be split, and were told that there system couldn't split a check after it was put in the system. What a horrible system for such an expensive place. I wound up taking the whole thing on a credit card and tracking down each person to get their portion of it. Yeesh.)
Automated killing machines were banned at the Geneva convention. This is generally a good thing when we're sending real, live humans (versus the walking undead) to fight our wars. It would be completely inhumane (haha) and tilt the outcome of a war towards those who can afford to develop such technology. That is, if one country can afford killer robots and another can't, then the former has no deterrent to invading the latter.
Also, while this may be true, I don't think it discourages robots on the battlefield: just make them defensive in nature.
A good defensive robot could act as moving cover, an ammo depot, a communications center, and, if someone gets severely injured, could whisk them away to a medical facility.
I can even see a "platoon" of nothing but defensive robots, going out by themselves. Sure, they can't kill, but they don't have to. All they need to do is surround and enclose the enemy, slowly pressing in-ward, until the enemy is either immobilized or you play a waiting game: the guys inside a building will eventually run out of food and water and either surrender or die. You don't necessarily even need troops standing around waiting for that to happen; the robots have camera, will detect motion, and the troops stand back until it's safe, then move in.
To be really civil we should also limit the power and effectiveness of our killer robots, and the number of machines that can enter the battlefield at once.
No nukes. No high-powered lasers. Fox only. Final Destination.
"Get the Facts: The W3C is the organization that defines how the world wide web is supposed to work and every web browser maker tries to remain adherent to standards so that the internet runs smoothely... that is everyone except Microsoft with its billion-dollar-budget of programmers that somehow can't get it right."
That uses a lot of large words, and has far too many words, in any case, for the American public. You need something more along the lines of:
"Microsoft's Internet Explorer makes the internet cry! Google's Chrome brings it cookies!"
As someone finishing his college career, and has had two internships, I can safely say that money is the last thing you should be focusing on.
The first job was doing IT work at a small, non-profit. I made $15, partially through work-study credit, and was told up front I'd never get a raise. I had about 130 PCs and 150 people I served in three locations; I was half of the IT department (the lesser). It was easy, the people were great, and I was apparently loved by all (the young, wacky college intern in a business of mostly 40-somethings). However, my degree was CompSci; I didn't feel that generic IT (where I had no special projects or stuff that challenged me), so I left for another internship.
That one wound me up in a Fortune-100 (50?) company where I did web application design and programming at a very, very low level. It was the work I wanted, but I had absolutely no proper leadership; no one in the department was a proper programmer or another CompSci (or even SoftEng), they had never had one (so far as I could tell), and the whole setup was very bootstrap-ish. The whole corporate setup was very dreary, and I hated it.
Everything I learned I did so because I taught myself. Even asking for basic advice brought up blank stares from everyone (once I asked another programmer whether I should use int or tinyint for a table column; he never really gave me an answer). I did get more experience, but I could have gotten about the same at my old place, and been much happier for it. I made $2 more/hour, but I would gladly have traded that away to get my old job back if I could have.
In short: Find a place that's not huge, that fits in well with your major and life goals, and that seems to have competent staff that will be guiding you. If those things are equal, then go for money. But an internship is more about you getting the experience, real world education, and networking than it is about the money.
A janitor would probably work to, but wouldn't be as "glamorous". Though, in the situation you pose, it does seem the better option.
Lawyer was the first thing that sprung to mind when I thought about this a while back.
Well, in the telecom industry, I imagine you'd have more security risks/hacking attempts than a textile plant, so active lawyers might not be such a bad comparison. Both are there to deal with the shit of others. Janitor is a good plan B, though.
This might not apply to your specific situation, and is meant more for higher ups, but may be of use, anyway.
If someone asks you why they should have IT, ask them if they have a lawyer either on retainer or employed full time.
Any large company worth its salt will have at least one. So, ask them if they are currently being sued or the government is investigating them. Probably not. Ask them, then, why they have the lawyer. They obviously don't need his or her services right now. They'll respond with something about ensuring the company is following the law, watching for copyright issues, drawing up contracts with terms only lawyers can understand, and so forth; basically, preventative maintenance (that includes the contracts). Point out that they are mostly preventative maintenance, and that the IT department/your job is exactly the same thing: you ensure that operating systems and software are regularly updated ("following the law"), plugging security holes and ensuring any government compliance you might have to follow ("drawing up contracts", sort of), and making sure the company is running at optimal efficiency with regards to technology ("copyright issues", or protecting your stuff).
If it's a small company (as your situation states), they might have a business card or three, but otherwise might not have a regular lawyer; they hire one when one is needed. In that case, IT is probably the same way, best done by some third party that's called in now and then and does a visit once a month to do regular upkeep.
Obviously, suggesting your role should be outsourced doesn't work well for you. So, to justify the maintenance, try to find disaster stories from similar-sized companies (or even somewhat smaller ones) to say "without my work you could be in this same situation". Start with sites like TheDailyWTF, which has a few entries about that kind of stuff, then go to various online tech magazine (a sister site of/., or CNET, or something) and do a bit of research. Then include the amount of man hours you save employees by being on hand to fix problems as they arise, rather than them having to wait for someone to drive in: Average the hours spent fixing something over three months, double it for an external worker (aside from driving, they won't be as familiar with everything and one, so it will take them longer), and show the difference (multiplied by hourly wages) as money you save the company.
Slashdot Mirror
Warning: Inept Congress has been known to implement worthless and bloated laws.
I wouldn't mind if our Congresscritters had to wear hats with that on them.
Ahahahaha... but you're mostly right.
Still, I don't think it's outside a judge's ability to say "Look, stop wasting my time. You all go out there, get a caterer, pow wow over royalties, and if you really can't come to some agreement, then come back and we'll do this thing." It's not so much requiring that they do A or B, more like telling them to try acting like adults before the trial continues/commences.
Hence why I wrote the second half of the paragraph you quoted.
It could have just been omitted from the article (or just unknown/not thought to ask), but I see nothing about the sue-ee contacting any of these companies seeking royalty payments before whipping out the good ol' lawyer.
I also note that IPAT "apparently purchased these patents from their listed inventor of Addison M. Fischer". It doesn't give the date that they bought it (I presume one could look through patent records to see a transfer of ownership?), but I would not be surprised at all if the purchase went through on Dec. 29 when the suit was filed Dec. 30.
If they did indeed jump straight to step three, I hope the court smacks them down. Companies should be required to put forth a good faith effort to enter into royalty agreements with those using their patents before wasting tax payer dollars. Also, since they were granted in the mid 90s, something about due diligence towards protecting an IP, or else it's relegated to the public domain (or the companies already using it do not have to pay royalties to continue using it in the same manner).
Even better, if this isn't already done, if someone files a patent/copyright suit, they have to pay for the judge, baliff, stenographer, etc. If the IP is truly that important, they'll have no problem spending an extra $100K to get it. Of course, this could backfire and cause independent inventors to not get the royalties rightly owed them, so some sort of middle ground would be best.
The downfall of ads certainly hurt both those displaying them and those paying for them to be displayed; an odd symbiosis has formed between the two, though it's not a strict 1-1 correlation.
To effectively both lighten the burden on websites as well as make ads more effective, the web in general needs to band together and figure out something effective for micropayments. Either some big site just does it (PayPal, Google, Amazon), or a number of semi-large sites (LiveJournal, Slashdot, major newspapers and webcomics) make a consortium to do it (something like OpenID, perhaps).
The problem with micropayments in the past has been two-fold:
1) Lack of adoption
2) Concerns over the majority of users (predominantly those under 13, or perhaps outside the region the service operates in) not being able to actually use such a service
Problem 1 can be solved by having what I described above. A huge backer (or group of large backers) would make it far more enticing. Make it easy to implement on a website. Then offer it up free at the beginning. Sites get to try it out so long to see how well it works on their site before actually going fully into it. Then, it's a flat monthly fee based on average income (over two or three months) instead of some percentage, which makes it far more appealing to users. (And under a certain level, say $5/mo average, it's just free.)
Make it prominent, even if somewhat unused, on many popular websites and it will gain adoption on smaller ones. Also, those doing the paying should not be charged a penny.
The infrastructure to solve problem 2 is already in place, it just needs to be modified somewhat and unified more. Lots of sites, such as Pogo, Moola, various feedback sites, "buy services get free stuff", etc., already offer "free" ways for people to get money or other items. Work with those kind of sites to set up an option to credit your micropayment account instead of whatever else they do. Voila, suddenly millions who don't have/want a credit card or check to do this have an alternative way to do micropayments. It could even be something like ad revenue sharing, where users who elect to still see ads on each page (perhaps an interstitial instead of a normal one) can share in a percentage of the money made on that ad that is credited to their micropayment account, which they can then use on that site or on other sites. For an example, one could do their normal reading on WSJ with this system, then go to use their credit on Youtube in order to view a certain video in high quality.
However, this doesn't mean that that the internet suddenly becomes a pay-for service. No site can switch to micropayments entirely and survive. Instead, make it an alternative: using a micropayment to read an article or something will remove all the ads from the page (so it loads faster and has less clutter), or perhaps offers various extras (many sites already lock things behind regular restrictions; I used to subscribe yearly to IGNsider, but there just wasn't enough stuff to hold my interest--being able to just make a small payment for each interested page would have worked much better, IMO). So stuff that is read now can still be read with all the ads as usual. Eventually, as more of the world comes online (and the current generation gets older), micropayments can become more prevalent.
Finally, I often here people talking about micropayments of $.25; in my opinion, that's just wrong. While profit is surely a motive, the idea is to allow them to replace ads. An average view for a page full of ads is lucky, if I remember my numbers correctly, to even bring in two cents. Micropayments should be limited to 10 or 15 cents; the majority of micropayments should only be a penny. This not only eases the burden on the payer, but also turns micropayments into a huge impulse purchase opportunity. If someone wants more for micropayments, say for viewing a long-ish video or downloading a song, then they should enroll in some secondary service from whoever offers the m
Even though I no longer own any VHS tapes myself, I have a dual-player that I'm going to hang on to. My family has a lot of video memories that are still on VHS, and it's unlikely they'll be converted anytime soon.
In fact, I'll probably try to get a mid-range VHS player (one of the small ones) once I have a bit of extra cash, and just store that away. Either it will come in handy for myself, or in 50 years I can sell it for a tidy sum to someone who needs one.
I'm also reminded of a certain Cowboy Bebop episode. Of course, they actually needed a Betamax player and got a VHS deck at first, but the same idea holds.
Not to mention that, in general, Ask Slashdot stories are about questions that would be useful to a wider group of people, not just the person who submitted the question. Perhaps someone else was needing an answer to this problem, or someone else has a similar problem but wasn't sure how to go about it and will get help from this. This one might be a bit more limited than most, but can still be useful by many.
And it's a great resource for the future, a good Google result.
...does this mean that those who are supposed to review such things are either incompetent or don't bother with their job, or that many "professional science" papers are actually pure bullshit, so you can't tell the difference?
While I wouldn't be against adding a bit more CS into education (especially at the upper levels, though voluntary stuff), there's enough wrong with the current educational system that the focus should be on fixing it rather than adding to it (excepting where "fixing" involves "adding", such as bringing certain classes up to modern times).
When we get to a point where we can have the ability to dream about CS in HS, the focus should be less on "let's type letters in a computer!" and more on things like logic diagrams or UML. While it won't give them any "real world" skills, it will allow them to better understand logic structures (and hopefully expand their mind a bit in the process), so that if they do choose to explore computers more they'll have a better understanding.
Having a required class where the kids learn C/C++/Visual Basic will just bore 95% of everyone and be a complete waste.
(Should fixing the system involve just rebooting the whole damn thing, a view I hold, then I'm all for looking to include a bit more CS in the curriculum. While we're at it, let's get a little more philosophy, psychology, and foreign culture (not just language!) in there, too.)
That, as the summary seems to indicate, may actually be more of a problem. Newspapers took on more and more advertisements in order to keep reader costs down (and/or line their own pockets), which was likely to their detriment, in my opinion.
Just yesterday, I fired off an e-mail to Wired, explaining that I would no longer be subscribing to their magazine. I had recently finished the Oct 2008 issue (I'm a bit behind), and I was quite annoyed at the amount of advertising in it. After I finished reading, I went through and counted all the ads: of 126 pages, about 117 were ads. More than 50% of the magazine was advertisements, some set up to look like it was regular content.
My wired subscription was cheap--$10, I think, for ten issues. A good deal, at least at the time. The renewal cards I've been getting offer the same thing. But I am not willing to put up with so much advertisement, even at that price. I would be far more likely to re-subscribe if the magazine were 25% ads and $20/ten issues.
While it's been rare that I pick up a newspaper lately, they seem to have fallen to much of the same--rarely do you get a full page of news, it's usually at least a quarter of ads if not more. Add in some sibling posts' comments on the cost and high use of AP, and the newspaper doesn't even become worth the cost it is now. Considering the popularity of Adblock, I'm not the only one annoyed by the prevalence of advertisement, and as time goes by much of my generation will join me in that sentiment.
Maybe in America and other developed countries. But, at some point these third world countries will move up and out of their current level. As they do so, they'll need both software and hardware to enable them, though they still won't have the funds to purchase en massé what we can.
When that happens, that will be a huge market. Assuming your software is cost effective for them to begin with, the prospect of having to spend a lot more to update hardware will be a huge pitfall, rather than a convenience.
Granted, we may be many decades away from such things, but if you get into that mindset now it will be hard to get out of it when you need to.
The tiny flicker of hope in this case is that the unwashed masses are not going to use change.gov. Most of them don't even know it exists. Change.gov is more likely to be used by those who are at least quite interested in government, if not educated to some degree. It doesn't throw out any possibility for bad judgement, but it does make it less likely. The flip-side is that many of the questions may come from outside the country, which has both good and bad connotations.
And then there are trolls. Imagine 4chan's /b/ deciding on five utterly ridiculous questions ("Do you believe Rick Astley to be the greatest or most greatest person evar?") and getting them all to the top.
You're making the dangerous assumption that these two groups are mutually exclusive.
THANK YOU. I would be the president of your fan club.
Slapping "Gate" on everything annoys the fuck out of me, as well. First, it's not a fucking suffix, it's half the hotel name. Second, Watergate was Nixon's thing; stop being lazy fucking journalists and make up your own damn titles.
If you need me, I'll be in the Angry Dome. Rrrrrrr...
Disclaimer: I own a Nintendo Wii and love it.
...to the non-hardcore crowd, whom I shall refer to as "casuals" for the purpose of this post (though the term is a bad one, IMO).
True, a lot of the "hardcore" Nintendo fans have embraced it, but more because they had to than they wanted to. The thing with casual players is that they have far less brand loyalty. If the PS4 or XBox1080 can match Nintendo's next console on controls (I guarantee they'll all use something based off of Nintendo's Wiimote) and offer the same price, these casuals fill flock. Part of that is because the PS3 and 360 already do a hell of a lot more than the Wii does now, and I don't think Nintendo's going to turn around on that. After all, their answer to "need more gigs" was "here, gigs transfer faster now!" Media playback (especially DVDs, BR with the PS3), profiles, working with friends accounts (seriously, who wants to deal with a 12 digit number when you can just get username?), and so forth.
What Nintendo does have going for it, though, is limit(CGI)->inf. Graphics can still increase, but every new leap will be less distinguishable from the last. Compare 2600 to NES, NES to SNES, SNES to PS1, PS1 to XBox, XBox to PS3. I don't know that there's a point where graphics won't ever be able to increase (we might hit a "good enough" level where further refinement slows down), but over time there will be less of a need to do so. Microsoft and Sony will likely focus on making another "leap" in their graphics, seeing that as a huge benefit when paired with their Wiimote-copycats, while Nintendo will be able to just play catchup. If Nintendo brings out a console that's on par with the 360, they'll be much closer to whatever MSFT/Sony comes out with than they are now.
But, for the time being, a lot of games that developers would love to stick on the Wii because of its install base aren't getting the Wii treatment when going mutli-console, because 95% of the time this means that the team has to re-work half the game rather than just cut bits and pieces then port it. When casuals are so willing to jump ship, Nintendo might find themselves in a precarious situation if they make the wrong moves (such as they did with the SNES->N64 era) since the more loyal and "hardcore" side may be straddling the line to get their fill of amazing graphics and good online play (Nintendo's online strategy is horrible.) It also doesn't help that many times the motion controls are "forced" on there by developers, making no sense and just being there so they can claim "we do waggle!" Not a fault of Nintendo, of course, but it still doesn't help.
(On a side note, I believe Nintendo should go with HD-DVD for their next console media format.)
You know, I'm a big proponent to Second Amendment rights (I believe anyone should be able to have a firearm, within reason), but this is just wow. I suppose it's good that the elderly would be able to defend themselves in the case of a break-in, but I honestly can't see them being able to actually use it, even if it's "elderly friendly". Their reaction time alone would prevent it from actually coming in use, unless they had a huge jump on the would-be thief (like they shoot the guy while hiding in the closet or something).
The flip side is that as we approach the point where we have Baby Boomers ==> Generation Geriatric the amount of burglaries related to the elderly will increase dramatically, especially if our economy doesn't turn around, so this might prove useful to some.
As for the disabled, that's cool. They'll run into the same problems, though, unless it's someone like Captain Hook. But then, why not use a regular gun? The good thing about this is that it looks like it requires three pressure points to fire, meaning if a little kid gets their hand on it for some reason they'll be less likely to shoot themselves with it.
But society has never worked that way. Outcomes often dictate the punishment as much as the cause.
Example 1: If one person robs a bank, and another a convenience store, then all other things being equal the one robbing the bank will likely get a harsher punishment.
Example 2: (Warning: Car Analogy) Consider drunk driving. Someone gets pulled over for drunk driving, they pay a fine, lose their license for a bit (in some states) and spend a night or two in the county jail. Someone plows into another car by swerving across the road, maiming or killing the other driver, and now they're looking at a much larger conviction.
By your account, the guy should just be charged for drunk driving, nevermind that the drunk driving caused the death of another. That's vehicular manslaughter. I would argue that the mother should be charged with depraved indifference homicide (or criminally negligent homicide, though in this case it would probably fit better for "Misdemeanor manslaughter"); she maliciously caused events that led to the girl's suicide[1]. Okay, so she didn't know that the girl was depressed already, but that doesn't excuse her. Giving someone seafood when they have an allergy unbeknown to you is one thing, continually egging a teenager that she should kill herself is quite another.
Had nothing come of the mother's actions, then, while I would like to see her charged with some sort of harassment, it likely would have resulted in nothing, and no one would have really got worked up over that outcome.
[1] If you really want to play games, her actions could be seen as assisting suicide, which is considered manslaughter in some states.
As a previous waiter in the U.S., and a patron of many establishments outside of the U.S., I've never had a problem with splitting checks. Whenever it looked like it wasn't a family unit, my policy was to ask when taking the order if checks would be split. I've had that happen maybe half the time at other venues (in some situations it's easily assumed). When not asked, a simple "please split the check" sufficed.
I would say that with our tipping system, splitting the bill is a benefit to waiters. When one guy pays for it all, he'll be less likely to tip largely; having four guys tip separately means you get four moderate tips (so, on a $40 total bill, you might get 4 $2 tips instead of one $5). Yeah, you'll get someone now and then who won't tip because the others did, but oh well.
(Related story: My fraternity went to a rather expensive (to us) restaurant to celebrate some new members. Everyone paid for themselves, and a few covered a new member a piece. No one made mention of splitting the bill at any point I remember, member or wait staff. At the end, we got one bill for almost a grand (this was about 15 guys). We asked that it be split, and were told that there system couldn't split a check after it was put in the system. What a horrible system for such an expensive place. I wound up taking the whole thing on a credit card and tracking down each person to get their portion of it. Yeesh.)
Also, while this may be true, I don't think it discourages robots on the battlefield: just make them defensive in nature.
A good defensive robot could act as moving cover, an ammo depot, a communications center, and, if someone gets severely injured, could whisk them away to a medical facility.
I can even see a "platoon" of nothing but defensive robots, going out by themselves. Sure, they can't kill, but they don't have to. All they need to do is surround and enclose the enemy, slowly pressing in-ward, until the enemy is either immobilized or you play a waiting game: the guys inside a building will eventually run out of food and water and either surrender or die. You don't necessarily even need troops standing around waiting for that to happen; the robots have camera, will detect motion, and the troops stand back until it's safe, then move in.
No nukes.
No high-powered lasers.
Fox only.
Final Destination.
That uses a lot of large words, and has far too many words, in any case, for the American public. You need something more along the lines of:
"Microsoft's Internet Explorer makes the internet cry! Google's Chrome brings it cookies!"
Or perhaps it should be a car analogy...
As someone finishing his college career, and has had two internships, I can safely say that money is the last thing you should be focusing on.
The first job was doing IT work at a small, non-profit. I made $15, partially through work-study credit, and was told up front I'd never get a raise. I had about 130 PCs and 150 people I served in three locations; I was half of the IT department (the lesser). It was easy, the people were great, and I was apparently loved by all (the young, wacky college intern in a business of mostly 40-somethings). However, my degree was CompSci; I didn't feel that generic IT (where I had no special projects or stuff that challenged me), so I left for another internship.
That one wound me up in a Fortune-100 (50?) company where I did web application design and programming at a very, very low level. It was the work I wanted, but I had absolutely no proper leadership; no one in the department was a proper programmer or another CompSci (or even SoftEng), they had never had one (so far as I could tell), and the whole setup was very bootstrap-ish. The whole corporate setup was very dreary, and I hated it.
Everything I learned I did so because I taught myself. Even asking for basic advice brought up blank stares from everyone (once I asked another programmer whether I should use int or tinyint for a table column; he never really gave me an answer). I did get more experience, but I could have gotten about the same at my old place, and been much happier for it. I made $2 more/hour, but I would gladly have traded that away to get my old job back if I could have.
In short: Find a place that's not huge, that fits in well with your major and life goals, and that seems to have competent staff that will be guiding you. If those things are equal, then go for money. But an internship is more about you getting the experience, real world education, and networking than it is about the money.
Radiohead's Nude, done with old hard drives and other hardware. Even if you're not a fan of Radiohead, I think it's worth a watch just to see the setup in action.
(And don't worry, only the hard drives get "nude", so it's SFW.)
A janitor would probably work to, but wouldn't be as "glamorous". Though, in the situation you pose, it does seem the better option.
Lawyer was the first thing that sprung to mind when I thought about this a while back.
Well, in the telecom industry, I imagine you'd have more security risks/hacking attempts than a textile plant, so active lawyers might not be such a bad comparison. Both are there to deal with the shit of others. Janitor is a good plan B, though.
This might not apply to your specific situation, and is meant more for higher ups, but may be of use, anyway.
If someone asks you why they should have IT, ask them if they have a lawyer either on retainer or employed full time.
Any large company worth its salt will have at least one. So, ask them if they are currently being sued or the government is investigating them. Probably not. Ask them, then, why they have the lawyer. They obviously don't need his or her services right now. They'll respond with something about ensuring the company is following the law, watching for copyright issues, drawing up contracts with terms only lawyers can understand, and so forth; basically, preventative maintenance (that includes the contracts). Point out that they are mostly preventative maintenance, and that the IT department/your job is exactly the same thing: you ensure that operating systems and software are regularly updated ("following the law"), plugging security holes and ensuring any government compliance you might have to follow ("drawing up contracts", sort of), and making sure the company is running at optimal efficiency with regards to technology ("copyright issues", or protecting your stuff).
If it's a small company (as your situation states), they might have a business card or three, but otherwise might not have a regular lawyer; they hire one when one is needed. In that case, IT is probably the same way, best done by some third party that's called in now and then and does a visit once a month to do regular upkeep.
Obviously, suggesting your role should be outsourced doesn't work well for you. So, to justify the maintenance, try to find disaster stories from similar-sized companies (or even somewhat smaller ones) to say "without my work you could be in this same situation". Start with sites like TheDailyWTF, which has a few entries about that kind of stuff, then go to various online tech magazine (a sister site of /., or CNET, or something) and do a bit of research. Then include the amount of man hours you save employees by being on hand to fix problems as they arise, rather than them having to wait for someone to drive in: Average the hours spent fixing something over three months, double it for an external worker (aside from driving, they won't be as familiar with everything and one, so it will take them longer), and show the difference (multiplied by hourly wages) as money you save the company.