My take on this is from a system person's view. If someone can't delete a file then the file will stay even though someone writes a zero length file to it. In this manner, whomever did the intentional write to the file to try to get rid of it will show up in the owner and group permissions. It is one way to help a system person find out who is doing what to the system.
(But then, having the ";###" after a filename was also a good idea because it gave versions to thing. Not that CVS et al aren't a good way to do this also but VMS by default only used the latest file and then you had all of your previous versions. I believe the PACK command was needed in order to get rid of these previous versions.)
The whole thing of the D option though was be able to prevent someone from coming in to a system, deleting files they weren't supposed to delete, and then there is no record of who tried to do what. So, in my eyes, there is a world of difference between being able to write to a file (zero length or whatever) and being able to actually delete a file (and thus remove all traces of its existence).
2. No D flag in the RWX flags. DEC expanded upon the standard unix RWX flags to include a D flag so that people could not delete a file. I have also seen on some systems that you can not write to a file unless you also had the execute flag. I forget which version/flavor of Unix I was on but it seemed a bit dumb to have to have both.
Code scrutiny is not difficult or impossible. All you have to do is to download the CVS's software and recompile it on your system. Once that is done you just do whatever you want to with it.
I would have to say that the fifth line is untrue. In my experience, progress and innovation start with a new piece of software and then these new ideas are gobbled up into large aps.
If the methodology behind finding and apprehending software priates becomes totally automated then the courts are going to be flooded with cases of this sort.
I would think that, given the fact that there are now many free software packages which are as good as (or better in some cases) pre-existing software packages, maybe the pirates could be convinced to switch to other software. Sort of a rehab for pirates. After all, why do we - as citizens - want to have even more people in jail freeloading off of the taxes we are paying? I say give'em better software which is free to begin with and let them use that instead of ripping off some company which may have buggy code in the first place.
(But then again - I'm also in favor of a redlight district in every major city so people who want that kind of thing can get it without getting into trouble. We are, after all, living, breathing, creatures with needs which, when suppressed, find their outlet in other ways - like pirating software. So make this legal and regulate it like we do everything else.)
Try installing a microcomputer into your brain. At the sizes that everything currently is at (and that is likely soon to become even smaller) a microcomputer could have enough of a charge to run off of the currents within your brain. Once that is achieved, it makes sense to install a microcomputer (all on one die chip including over a GB of RAM and, who know, maybe even a TB of chemical memory) directly into the brain. Like some science fiction stories of old (and the film The Matrix showed), the base of the brainstem would be an ideal place to locate an ethernet connection would be where the bitstream is closest to the computer (but not invasive into the skull).
Has anyone else noticed that we already have a solution which you can live and breath in and in which nutrients can be stored and used? We presently use it to allow divers to go further underwater than they ever have before. But doesn't that make you wonder just how close we really are to a Matrix-like life? Hmmmmmmm.....:-/
Yes I have. However, you are probably thinking in terms of a webapp which works across the web. The original poster did not say they were going to be doing something like that. They were going to be doing an in-house type of program. At least that is the general feel the person gave in their original post. Since we are talking about a trusted internal LAN security concerns should be less than if the whole world could get to the server and/or program. Further, it is likely that if they are going for a hospital or clinic that either of these two places will have their own system's person who will have made sure (hopefully) that their network is secure and that only certain other facilities (such as another hospital in their network) can get to the server.
It is true that I am giving them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the sysadmin's abilities - but that is why there are sysadmins. To hopefully monitor what is going on with their systems and networks. I have a brother who has worked in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for the past twenty years. He worked as one of the staff at a major hospital there and part of his job was to monitor the networks and make sure no unauthorized personnel gained access to the system. They never had a problem. But my other brother (who installs networks) had all sorts of problems when he was helping out to install networks into a new hospital which was being built. It seems that the doctors thought they new how to do everything and tried to be helpful by cutting ethernet lines, taking computer parts that they thought they needed, and resetting various components when you least expected them to do so. It finally came down to the doctors were not allowed to touch anything because they'd already caused about a two month delay in getting the internal network up and running.
In both instances though, once the internal network (or LAN) was installed neither experienced any kind of problems. This is not to say that they won't - just that someone would have to bring their own computer into the hospital (or CD), gain entrance to a room with an ethernet connection (and/or a computer) and then break into the network.
So long as the outside network and the inside network are kept separate - I don't see any problems with Perl or PHP being used. Even with an external network (or WAN) though, if they keep up with patches on ALL of the networking software they have (including Apache and Linux) they should be able to keep a reasonable expectation of not have a compromised system.
From the sound of it I would have to say that their first step is to just decide whether it they want to create a webapp, standalone, or client/server program. My choice would be a webapp for the very reasons stated in the above post.
For languages, although some differ, I would suggest Perl or PHP first (not only because they are fast but both languages run on a large number of systems in the same manner. So if your boss comes to you one morning and says you are moving from a Windows box to a Linux box you can rest assurd that your programs will still execute properly), Java next, C++ after that, and then I might consider.Net. In reality, if you go with a webapp then the backend is not as important as if you were trying to create a standalone or client/server program. This is because as long as the program runs it is more a matter of the hardware than the software that you need to think about. For instance, when the industry at large went from using 200Mhz systems to using 1Ghz systems people were raving about just how fast even basic scripts were executing. Since most systems are now over 2Ghz in speed; scripts execute (to the layman's eye) as quickly as compiled programs. And in truth, unless you are dealing with thousands of hits per minute - to all intents and purposes scripts do execute as quickly as a compiled program. But that's only because most of the work is being done to simply set up the process to run and to take the process back down. The actual execution time of a script or a compiled program is quite small. So to be honest about everything (at least as honest as I can get about this and still keep everything on a general basis) I'd be in just as much of a favor in using Perl/PHP as I would anything else.
With Perl you create packages. With PHP you create classes. With Java you create classes. With C++ you create classes. With.Net you create classes.
So it is all (basically) the same - no matter which language you go with. Once you have your classes (or packages) set up all you are doing is reading to include them into your program and then running the program. Further, Perl, PHP, Java, and.Net all have built-in encryption. But there are libraries for C++ to do encryption. So (again) it is all about the same.
(At work I have VI set up so I can just hit two keys and my work automatically compiles and another two keys and it will execute. I know I could combine these commands but in this way, if the compile dies I can go back to editing without having to kill the sub process. What this is leading to is that whether it is Perl, PHP, Java, C++, or.Net - this process is the same as well. Edit, compile, and execute. So there isn't any difference here either. So the whole thing really just boils down to what you feel comfortable working with. Just remember though that in order to use.Net on any other system besides Windows XP you will have to install Mono first. Since Microsoft doesn't do Macs, Linux boxes, Minicomputers, Mainframes, or anything else that doesn't look, sound, and act like a Windows box.)
Although DRM is terrible a software workaround will probably be forthcoming. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the pirates versus xxAA people. They say it will be impossible to break. That has been said so many times in the past that it just doesn't even rate a reply. They say it is encrypted. So what? The encryptions have been broken in the past they will be in the future. (Not that I'm saying go around giving away free DVDs - I'm just saying you have to the right to view the contents of the DVD and if you have to decrypt it to do so that is ok in my mind - although you may differ in your opinion.)
But to truly hit the xxAAs where they will most feel it - go buy a lot of DVDs and then take them all back. If you really want to torque around the stores do this repeatedly. Get your friends to help out. Believe me - if a few thousand people do this (like a couple of hundred dollars worth of DVDs) then this will make everyone sit up and notice. Because a few million dollars of DVDs being sent back will make everyone reconsider their policies. I plan on doing it myself. And of course writting to our reps in office as well as the DOJ people and complaining of misleading advertisements (the OWN it versus licensing).
And remember! Now that Microsoft et al have agreed that their EULAs are offensive and are having to change their method of selling software - this bleeds over into buying movies. It is just as illegal to say you own the movie and then make it like you are actually licensing the movie as it is to have a restrictive EULA you can't read before you buy the software (and not allowing you to return the software).
Also, don't forget to open all of the DVDs before you attempt to return them. Just say you had to (of course) try all of the DVDs before you returned them.:-)
Can't do that.:-) PBS had a great show on the how and why of timezones. The reason timezones were invented was because of trains. Originally, everyone used whatever time they were at so that if you traveled across the country from Florida to California you would have a slightly different time in each city you entered. Well, this caused problems because the trains would not know exactly the when and where they were. This caused train wrecks. To stop the trains from being in wrecks they got everyone to agree on time zones. Thus, the entire world agreed that although it was midnight at Greenwich, it was GMT +/- however many time zones you were from there.
Even though all of the known world at the time agreed to do this there are still some countries which refuse to abide by the GMT time but everyone basically ignores these small countries and most of the people living in those countries ignore their government's wishes and abide by the standard GMT timings anyway. (You have to if you are going to even partially operate in the 20th or 21st centuries.)
But the whole reason for timezones is because of trains. Given that many trains are now run via computers and given that wireless transmission of commands are becoming more prevalent, it may be that we will be able to reduce or remove time zones. But like the reason roads are built the way they are - it is highly unlikely that any time soon will we see a demise of the time zone system.
As for daylight savings: If they really wanted to save money then why not just adjust the clocks half an hour ahead and leave them alone? After all, you'd save thirty minutes in the winter and thirty minutes in the summer and it all works out. This Spring Forwards and Fall Backwards stuff is like being a dog in a carnival show. That is to say - you are being made to jump through hoops and are being treated the same as an animal in a carnival when we should be treated as human beings instead.
My idea for a new calendar:
30 days for every month - period.
One week of varying length. Five days for three years and six days for the leap year.
The week would be a mandatory time off week to celebrate the end of the year and to allow everyone a chance to get ready to pay taxes et al.
Benefits:
1. It would eliminate the varying length months. 2. It would could eliminate a shifting calendar by making the free week a standalone week. We could call it Reboot week;-) or maybe Christmas week, or be lazy week, or whatever.
Drawbacks:
1. Everyone who was born on the 31st would have to be taken out and shot. (Just joking!) 2. People who sell calendars would basically be out of a job.
I've advocated such a calendar for over thirty years. No one has listened to me before about this but ya just never know.:-)
I think one of the things MGM is forgetting is that yelling for contributory negligence on the part of a vendor such as Grokster, Morpheus, et al means that MGM will soon be out of business for producing films that urge people to commit violent crimes.
Should such a religious change to our laws (basically the "Am I not my brother's keeper?" question) should never be allowed into our laws or court system. If you think about it, our whole basis for our life here is the statement that everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No where does the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, or the Bill of Rights say that we are all responsible for what everyone else does. All of it just states that we are responsible for our own actions. Which is why a murderer is put on trial and not his friends, enemies, family, and the like (so long as they did not participate of course). It is the same with these companies. Just because they make a piece of software which could be used in a harmful way against companies such as MGM is no excuse to hold them responsible for another party's usage of their software. Just like it is no excuse to hold a VCR production company responsible for how a VCR is used. Or Radio Shack for carrying the parts necessary to build a cable box which circumvents the cable company's security measures. Or Intel because its CPU chips were used to create a new virus. The allusions are ridiculous. The entire country can not function if such a law were passed. George Bush's "We are a litigious society," will be absolutely true. For no company will be able to function under such a law.
I believe that, as Americans, we should all go out and file lawsuits against every major company for psychological damage to our brains for being asked to function under laws which contradict the very basis of the manner in which this country was not only founded (ie: Freedom to do as you please) but to even work in this country (ie: If you get a job then you have denied someone else that very job).
Think about it. You really can't even respond to this message because you will have broken the copyright laws as they now stand. Why? Because you have to first get my permission to even reference this message. We ignore that here and respond anyway but this is just another example of common sense versus stupidity when it comes to crafting laws.
In the original documents about Zefer, I would concur with the written statement except for the following:
Any company which publicly exposes its information, under standard brick and mortar rules, loses its right to keep anyone else from using that information once it has been released to the public. Although it is true that there are reasonable expectations (such as no one person can take all of the candy which someone might put out to help attract customers) implied - the use of scrapers should not be denied. Instead, reasonable usage patterns should be met for the use of scrapers. (Like one request every three to five minutes is not unreasonable because it allows anyone else who wishes to use the site to be able to do so without interruption by the scraper program.)
On the internet, setting up a website and allowing the general public into the website effectively is the same as someone entering into a brick and mortar building to look at the goods, check out the prices, and leave. Therefore, someone coming to a website (or ftp site in this case) and checking out what you have is not illegal.
What would be illegal is if some goods were stolen (which is not the same as the viewable information - the information would have had to be kept secret and the person or persons would have had to ferret out the information in some way, shape, or form), or someone entered a clearly marked area designated as private (like the area behind a cash register or the back room of a brick and mortar area).
If IBM entered the FTP site in the normal manner and if the files were freely available to anyone to download (and were not in a classified or protected area), then it is the same as placing a bowl of candies out on a table and telling people they may take some to eat. Or to put this whole thing into brick and mortar terms - IBM came in through the front door (which was wide open), looked around, saw SCO was giving away candy for free, took some to eat, and now SCO is complaining that they didn't buy any of their other wares.
IMHO the judge should tell SCO they have to do charity work for the next few decades in retaliation of all of the BS they've done and all of the harm they have caused to everyone.
You do everything you can, take it to the prof, and show it to him:
Prof: This says there aren't any problems with the Unix OS. Student: Yeah, I know. Prof: Well, where are the holes? The security problems? Student: Aren't any. Prof: Well, there probably are but you just can't find any. You get an F! Student: Well, that may be but me and a couple'a million other people beg to differ with your opinion.
Actually, the payment of fees to the Patent Office should be modified so that each time a patent is submitted some sort of a fee is charged. Presently (someone correct me if I am wrong about this!) I believe that there is a single fee paid and then X number of tries are allowed before the person has to pay another fee. If the fees were lowered somewhat but were charged each time then the "incentive to grant patents" would be removed. Instead (unfortunately) there were be an incentive to NOT grant the patent as they would make more money in this manner. However, because Congress is stealing money from the PTO, the PTO might still grant the patents just to get back at them.
In a related story....
One of our engineers who was retiring was in a meeting with some high level people. When asked for his input into a problem he smiled, calmly told them that he had put in his retirement paperwork that morning, was leaving, didn't want a going away party, and then promptly tore into all of the high level people about just how badly they were running everything, how stupid they all were, and how it took them ten times as long to do anything. His parting remarks were that Best Buy could do a better job at service than any of them combined together.
I'm not sure if he will be back Monday or not. But he was smiling and he looked a heck of a lot happier than I've ever seen him in a long, long time. He's been working with the department for the past forty years.
Actually, no we were not. Congress and the Senate are not supposed to pass bills which modify either of them (ie:Changes to Congress and the Senate are supposed to be voted on by the people) yet they continue to do so. Presently, the laws which they have passed and never asked anyone if they could do so include:
1. Not having to vote a pay raise each year. Originally both Congress and the Senate had to vote FOR a pay raise. In this way, the founding fathers assured the public at large that Congress and the Senate would never abuse money coming in to the government. It would be a public scrutiny rather than just an after thought. However, both the Congress and Senate conspired together and passed a law which tied their salary increases to those that the Supreme Court gets automatically each year. The reason the Supreme Court gets it is because they were set up so they could not be bribed (supposedly). However, unlike the Supreme Court, both the Congress and Senate were there for the people and at the leave of the people. Thus, they were not supposed to get a free ride when it came to salaries. This problem can only be corrected by taking the entire thing to the Supreme Court and having it thrown out. The chances anyone being able to remove it are the same as hell freezing over. That is to say it would take a majority and no one wants to cut off their paycheck.
2. The removal of Congress and the Senate from having to pay into or be a part of the Social Security program. Congress and the Senate voted to remove themselves from the Social Security Act and to instead put in place a new regime where, when they retire from service, they are paid their annual salary (with pay increases each year) for the rest of their life. Just like the president is paid. Unlike the generous gift the people of the United States gave to the president for having to take on the hardest job in the country, this was a coup by Congress and the Senate. Think of it. 1)Both the Congress and the Senate know that Social Security sucks and got themselves out of it as quickly as they could, and 2)Since there are 100 Senators and (Population/X) number of Congressmen in office at any one time, this means that as the years go by our largest payout will be the retirement salaries of these people. Since most Senators and Congressmen make over $100,000.00 a year and since presently there are somewhere around 400 Congressmen for a grand total of 500 people in all; we are looking at $500 million a year just in retirement payouts for just the people currently in office. Under Social Security the payout would only be somewhere around $2,000.00 a month * 12 = $24,000.00 a year per person or $12,000,000.00 a year. Now, multiply the $500 million times the number of years this has been going on and you can easily see it is more than a billion dollars a year being paid out to people who, IMHO, do not deserve it.
3. No accountability for writing bad checks. Congressmen and Senators are above the law when it comes to writing bad checks. This has been shown many times and on a rare occasion, when someone vastly abuses the right to do this - something has been done about it. But only rarely are our nation's Congressmen and Senators held accountable for their inability to balance their personal checkbooks. Yet we entrust these people to run out country. Is it any wonder we are having the problems we do?
4. Placing companies above the law. As with insurance companies and HMOs, PPOs, etc.... There are new instances of Congress and the Senate giving Carte Blanc to companies. Putting them above reproach and above the law. Never before have we had people or companies above the law. Everyone has been answerable and thus have always taken precautions to ensure that what they did was within the law. Now though, the laws written to protect us from companies who produce such things as Vioxx are being removed. This, to me, is the largest indicator that we are coming into a time of crisis. For when people, corporation, or coun
As I wrote some time ago (I looked for it so I could just put the link in here but couldn't find it on SlashDot), one of the things that keeps getting left out of this debate, is the fact that because the PTO is being bombarded by thousands of patents each year it needs to computerize the way it works. The steps I see are:
1. Create a dictionary of all words used in applying for a patent. This is rather obvious because a good spell checker is needed anyway. But this goes beyond that. It allocates a unique id number to each of the document's words. This allows you to reduce the overall size of the document quite a bit. (After all, if you use a four byte word that gives you around four billion words and the largest dictionary only has a couple hundred thousand words in it.) Legal jargon usually uses more than four letters in a word and thus the document would be smaller overall.
2. A second dictionary of terms which are equal to each other. This dictionary would grow over time. Basically, things like "flashlight", "Light emitting device", "a device with a lamp in it which projects a beam", and "hand held light device" are all the same or similar. Thus, when a term which is unrecognized comes up in a document it can be added to one of the lists and from then on it is associated with that term. (And yeah, they should be able to add, remove, etc... from the list.)
3. The program should have already scanned all previous patents and created the above two dictionaries. Then when a new patent comes through (since they have to be submitted electronically now anyways) it is passed through the program which determines how closely a given document comes to other patents. Note that this is different from "are the sentences the same" or "are the sentences in the same order". The program should not care what order anything appears in - just do a search like Google and find how many words are the same or similar (remember they could replace all words of "flashlight" with "hand held light emitting device" via word processor).
3a. Since the patent system is divided up into various areas (ie: Games, Construction, etc...) the program should scan across all boundaries to ensure that something from one area is not now being patented in another area.
3b. All entries should be listed (just like with Google) in a descending order of revelance. So a patent which was given out in, say 1816 (The Stirling Engine) isn't re-patented as "The Audacious Engine" simply because all of the places where it says "Engine" in the orginal patent are replaced by "a non-internal combustion device".
4. All applied for patents should be kept on file so they too can be checked against. Notes on why the patent was denied should also be kept on file so they can be referred back to.
People may say we can't do this. Google has to handle over a billion web pages yet it can do it in a matter of a few seconds. There are only a couple million patents. The PTO should be able to handle this really easily. Hire the guys from Google to set things up. (And no - I don't work for Google.)
As for graphical pictures showing how something works - it depends. There are software packages which can compare one item/picture to another but all it would take is to accidentally send the picture reversed, rotated slightly so it looks different, use different colors, shades, shadows, etc.... You can look for similarities but that is about it.
In any event - it is nice that the powers that be are trying to fix the problem (or at least suggest changes) but it would be more realistic to try to automate the whole process so the patents can be throw out faster and faster. Which is why both good and bad patents are needed and both should have their own set of dictionaries. You need the bad patents in there as a way to say "Hey! Here are examples of why you can't have a patent!" Further, the bad patents could be used just like the good ones to show how someone tried once before to get something pas
...is that NASA stops setting up duplicate, triplicate, and worse teams of people to all go out and work on the same tasks. I have been with NASA since the 80's and I can not tell you how many times I have seen three or four sections all working on the same exact thing. Years after these committees/groups/whatever have been set up someone finally notices that they've been spending money hand over foot and all of the groups are shut down at one time.
My worst experience was when I first came to NASA. NASA wanted to upgrade their method of creating the 3D landing strips. Sounded fair enough. Here was the original process:
Original: 1)Digitize landing strip with digitizing tablet, 2)Make Tape, 3)Take tape to simulator, 4)Read in tape, 5)Try landing. If it looked ok - you keep it. If it doesn't - go back to #1 and start over.
New Method: 1)Use new Digitizing table, 2)Convert information to new computer system, 3)Create tape, 4)Take tape to old computer system, 5)Read tape, 6)Convert information to old format, 7)Create another tape, 8)Take new tape to simulator, 9)Read it in and try it. Again, if it works - great. If not - you go back to #1 and try again.
I went "This is a nightmare. You are adding even more chances for everything to muck up and the three computer systems (Graphics Tablet, First computer, and Second computer) are each backwards to the other (ie: Big Endian, Little Endian, Big Endian again) so you have to switch the floating point numbers around each time and each system's precision isn't even the same. Could we give everything back and start from scratch on this?" The answer was no.
Original cost was supposed to be around $300,000.00 plus the computer equipment. The project (when it was finally shut down) had cost NASA over $3,000,000.00.
This wasn't just wasteful it was down right criminal. And ya know what? It hasn't gotten any better.:-/ The same kinds of things keep happening over and over and over again because each group wants to keep its turf. So everything breaks down into finger pointing and squabbles over how to do something. Those who don't like how someone else is doing something simply apply for their own money and go off and do the exact same thing - only with slight differences.
To say something good though - even with all of this back biting and people going off in all directions; those responsible for getting things done still manage to pull it all together. The truth is - we need fewer chiefs and more indians. As the saying goes.
I thought that it would be a great idea to put an entire city's traffic lights on a private LAN system which monitored for traffic sitting waiting to go through the intersection. (Using whatever method to detect this which is cheapest.)
So instead of having all of those individual boxes out there that cost money to take care of on an individual basis - you just have a simple control box which sends and receives information. Think of it - each light detects if it is working or not and automatically calls for a human to come out and fix it. Lights become more coordinated than before because entire series of lights can all be set to green at one time. Emergency vehicles can carry wireless boxes with an encrypted password on it that tells the lights they are coming up to that they need to get through. And for those who misuse such things, the system could be rigged to monitor where each vehicle is located and if a vehicle is in two places at the same time the fake vehicle could be flagged and stopped by police officers.
How is the signal transmitted? Does the city have to lay hundreds of miles of new cable/DSL/Fiber Optic lines? NO WAY! All they have to do is to do the IP over the electrical lines and suddenly the entire set of traffic lights in any city is connected. You would have to install the proper boxes to listen for and accept the commands from the central server. But it is a lot less in cost than having to lay new communication lines. This might even be possible with wireless communications soon.
So you say: "What about large cities with several small cities within it or nearby? Won't they affect each other?" The answer is: NO - They won't. Remember that with TCP/IP v6.0 you have billions and billions of IP addresses to choose from. I think we can dole out a few thousand from this group for this purpose. Also, the power to the lights are (I believe) on a dedicated circuit which would effectively make all of the lights reside on a private LAN line not available to the public. (So someone would actually have to try to sabotage the lights rather than there being an accidental sabotage by a private individual on the same electrical line.) Filters can keep the two separate (ie: Public and Private IP over the electrical grid.).
Would it be bogged down? Not really. You don't have to be connected all of the time to the light. Only for the few milliseconds it takes to connect, tell the light to change orientation, and then disconnect. Let's say there are 100,000 traffic lights in your city. What do you do? You break it down into lots of 5,000 (so 20 servers). The average web server can handle 5,000 people per second while dealing out static web pages. This should be a snap because the information is a lot less than the average web page. The twenty servers are attached also to a single system which monitors all of the twenty servers by simply flipping between them like a TV monitor camera does. Or you could hire twenty people (one per server) to watch what was going on.
Similar to how monorail systems are monitored presently (only we throw out the static LED display and just use a monitor to display the light's status'), this system only has to keep track of if a light is working or out and can be programmed for different algorithms depending upon what part of the day it is. So rush hour traffic coming into the city is given preferential treatment over cross town traffic. At the evening rush hour the flow is reversed. Otherwise, lights respond according to the sensors. Keeping lights green for on coming traffic and red for empty streets.
Think of it - no more traffic lights that stay red for five minutes or more for no reason. Traffic lights that help you reach your destination. Block crooks from escaping areas by always turning their lights red and blocking their escape by always having the cross traffic moving through the intersection.
I read through what the judge wrote and I take issue with his first statement. (To be truthful - I take issue with everything he wrote.) That being that the courts are not meant to impede Congress in its passing of laws.
Ok - if the courts are not meant to be a check against Congress' passing of laws then why are there so many court cases dealing with laws going through the courts? As per many lawyers I've spoken with - each and every court case is a test of the pre-existing laws. The judge's statement therefore, is not logical and throwing out a case on this basis (IMHO) means the judge should be removed from presiding over a court.
If he had said that he does not want to preside over such a case - that would have been one thing. But to say the courts don't go around deciding on whether or not a particular law is just - just doesn't make sense. For without the courts there would be no way to cause change within our system without resorting to violence. The courts are our bulwark against badly crafted laws or laws which tip the scales too far one way or the other. Without the courts we would, for all intents and purposes, be thrown back into a medieval era of haves and have nots. Oh wait - I forgot - we are in that type of an era! Nevermind!
Remember, oh yea of short term memory loss, that Moses had to tell the crowd at least ten times not to have intercourse with animals, not to steal, not to rape, not to murder, not to bear false witness, and all of the other rules and regulations.
Multiplied by the number of years the Bible has been around in its various forms and you have billions of times that people have been told this throughout history.
Yet we still do it.
So what does that say about your logic and the current order of things?
The "limited time" clause is a referral to the Bible. Check it out. Just like many of the other references to the Bible and God, "limited time" appears in the Bible in several areas.
As our country fights over the separation of church and state we forget what the word "separation" means. It does not mean "To Divorce" nor does it mean "To live with or through". It means that we must recognize some basis for our laws and ways of life but that the church can not control how we live our lives. Thus, the two are separate - but equal.
The church has its way of doing things, the government its own way of doing things. But the basis for both is the same - the Bible. Including the terms. After all, why do plaintiffs pray the court hear their plea? Why did you use to have to swear on a Bible to give testimony? In God We Trust isn't there by accident. We put our trust in God to know the difference between right and wrong. The Bible has within its pages how you are supposed to act. (And yeah, some of the things in it are a bit strange!) But the basis of our entire country is within those pages and as much as some people wish to divorce church and state - it can not be done. You have to have some foundation to start from or else murder is not a crime, fraud is not a crime, and rape is not a crime. All of these are shown within the Bible to educate people on what is right and wrong.
Taken in its proper context (and not from the angle of greedy corporate rules lawyers) the term "limited time" is easily recognized to mean exactly what the original writers of our laws concerning copyrights meant it to mean. Not the twisted "limited" meaning misconstrued to mean for as long as anyone wants it to mean, but the realistic, common sense, for a single 14 year period with a single extenstion of an additional 14 years.
To put this all in plain speak: This is the same crap some people who played D&D would do. They would contort the rules to fit their own demented outlook on life. Not satisfied that they had good characters they always wanted more. Never caring whom else they hurt doing so they continued on until no one really wanted to play with them.
Well, those are the people who are now in office and are now making the rules and from where I sit it looks like soon no one else (ie: other countrys) are going to want to play with us. After all, how many messages are you now seeing on SlashDot where people in other countries are not saying nice things about us anymore? There's a reason that is happening.
Our country was founded by people who were fed up with over the top bad government (and who just happen to have been ruled by another George). Let us not forget that for the moment it still is a government of, by, and for the people. If the people say we do not want this loudly enough - the government has to obey. So SCREAM! Organize letter writings, phone calls, I know it is drudge work but if you don't do it you will have to live with a corporate run government and we will all become slaves to the corporations.
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My take on this is from a system person's view. If someone can't delete a file then the file will stay even though someone writes a zero length file to it. In this manner, whomever did the intentional write to the file to try to get rid of it will show up in the owner and group permissions. It is one way to help a system person find out who is doing what to the system.
(But then, having the ";###" after a filename was also a good idea because it gave versions to thing. Not that CVS et al aren't a good way to do this also but VMS by default only used the latest file and then you had all of your previous versions. I believe the PACK command was needed in order to get rid of these previous versions.)
The whole thing of the D option though was be able to prevent someone from coming in to a system, deleting files they weren't supposed to delete, and then there is no record of who tried to do what. So, in my eyes, there is a world of difference between being able to write to a file (zero length or whatever) and being able to actually delete a file (and thus remove all traces of its existence).
Now THAT is something which should be mod'ed up! If I get your reply on my MetaMod stuff you can rest assured I'll mod it up!
The problems with Unix?
:-D
1. Not enough sex.
Really though, I'd say:
2. No D flag in the RWX flags. DEC expanded upon the standard unix RWX flags to include a D flag so that people could not delete a file. I have also seen on some systems that you can not write to a file unless you also had the execute flag. I forget which version/flavor of Unix I was on but it seemed a bit dumb to have to have both.
Code scrutiny is not difficult or impossible. All you have to do is to download the CVS's software and recompile it on your system. Once that is done you just do whatever you want to with it.
I would have to say that the fifth line is untrue. In my experience, progress and innovation start with a new piece of software and then these new ideas are gobbled up into large aps.
If the methodology behind finding and apprehending software priates becomes totally automated then the courts are going to be flooded with cases of this sort.
I would think that, given the fact that there are now many free software packages which are as good as (or better in some cases) pre-existing software packages, maybe the pirates could be convinced to switch to other software. Sort of a rehab for pirates. After all, why do we - as citizens - want to have even more people in jail freeloading off of the taxes we are paying? I say give'em better software which is free to begin with and let them use that instead of ripping off some company which may have buggy code in the first place.
(But then again - I'm also in favor of a redlight district in every major city so people who want that kind of thing can get it without getting into trouble. We are, after all, living, breathing, creatures with needs which, when suppressed, find their outlet in other ways - like pirating software. So make this legal and regulate it like we do everything else.)
Try installing a microcomputer into your brain. At the sizes that everything currently is at (and that is likely soon to become even smaller) a microcomputer could have enough of a charge to run off of the currents within your brain. Once that is achieved, it makes sense to install a microcomputer (all on one die chip including over a GB of RAM and, who know, maybe even a TB of chemical memory) directly into the brain. Like some science fiction stories of old (and the film The Matrix showed), the base of the brainstem would be an ideal place to locate an ethernet connection would be where the bitstream is closest to the computer (but not invasive into the skull).
:-/
Has anyone else noticed that we already have a solution which you can live and breath in and in which nutrients can be stored and used? We presently use it to allow divers to go further underwater than they ever have before. But doesn't that make you wonder just how close we really are to a Matrix-like life? Hmmmmmmm.....
Yes I have. However, you are probably thinking in terms of a webapp which works across the web. The original poster did not say they were going to be doing something like that. They were going to be doing an in-house type of program. At least that is the general feel the person gave in their original post. Since we are talking about a trusted internal LAN security concerns should be less than if the whole world could get to the server and/or program. Further, it is likely that if they are going for a hospital or clinic that either of these two places will have their own system's person who will have made sure (hopefully) that their network is secure and that only certain other facilities (such as another hospital in their network) can get to the server.
It is true that I am giving them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the sysadmin's abilities - but that is why there are sysadmins. To hopefully monitor what is going on with their systems and networks. I have a brother who has worked in the Dallas/Fort Worth area for the past twenty years. He worked as one of the staff at a major hospital there and part of his job was to monitor the networks and make sure no unauthorized personnel gained access to the system. They never had a problem. But my other brother (who installs networks) had all sorts of problems when he was helping out to install networks into a new hospital which was being built. It seems that the doctors thought they new how to do everything and tried to be helpful by cutting ethernet lines, taking computer parts that they thought they needed, and resetting various components when you least expected them to do so. It finally came down to the doctors were not allowed to touch anything because they'd already caused about a two month delay in getting the internal network up and running.
In both instances though, once the internal network (or LAN) was installed neither experienced any kind of problems. This is not to say that they won't - just that someone would have to bring their own computer into the hospital (or CD), gain entrance to a room with an ethernet connection (and/or a computer) and then break into the network.
So long as the outside network and the inside network are kept separate - I don't see any problems with Perl or PHP being used. Even with an external network (or WAN) though, if they keep up with patches on ALL of the networking software they have (including Apache and Linux) they should be able to keep a reasonable expectation of not have a compromised system.
From the sound of it I would have to say that their first step is to just decide whether it they want to create a webapp, standalone, or client/server program. My choice would be a webapp for the very reasons stated in the above post.
.Net. In reality, if you go with a webapp then the backend is not as important as if you were trying to create a standalone or client/server program. This is because as long as the program runs it is more a matter of the hardware than the software that you need to think about. For instance, when the industry at large went from using 200Mhz systems to using 1Ghz systems people were raving about just how fast even basic scripts were executing. Since most systems are now over 2Ghz in speed; scripts execute (to the layman's eye) as quickly as compiled programs. And in truth, unless you are dealing with thousands of hits per minute - to all intents and purposes scripts do execute as quickly as a compiled program. But that's only because most of the work is being done to simply set up the process to run and to take the process back down. The actual execution time of a script or a compiled program is quite small. So to be honest about everything (at least as honest as I can get about this and still keep everything on a general basis) I'd be in just as much of a favor in using Perl/PHP as I would anything else.
.Net you create classes.
.Net all have built-in encryption. But there are libraries for C++ to do encryption. So (again) it is all about the same.
.Net - this process is the same as well. Edit, compile, and execute. So there isn't any difference here either. So the whole thing really just boils down to what you feel comfortable working with. Just remember though that in order to use .Net on any other system besides Windows XP you will have to install Mono first. Since Microsoft doesn't do Macs, Linux boxes, Minicomputers, Mainframes, or anything else that doesn't look, sound, and act like a Windows box.)
For languages, although some differ, I would suggest Perl or PHP first (not only because they are fast but both languages run on a large number of systems in the same manner. So if your boss comes to you one morning and says you are moving from a Windows box to a Linux box you can rest assurd that your programs will still execute properly), Java next, C++ after that, and then I might consider
With Perl you create packages.
With PHP you create classes.
With Java you create classes.
With C++ you create classes.
With
So it is all (basically) the same - no matter which language you go with. Once you have your classes (or packages) set up all you are doing is reading to include them into your program and then running the program. Further, Perl, PHP, Java, and
(At work I have VI set up so I can just hit two keys and my work automatically compiles and another two keys and it will execute. I know I could combine these commands but in this way, if the compile dies I can go back to editing without having to kill the sub process. What this is leading to is that whether it is Perl, PHP, Java, C++, or
I told those peskey custodians to NOT clean the rover while it was on the set!
Although DRM is terrible a software workaround will probably be forthcoming. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the pirates versus xxAA people. They say it will be impossible to break. That has been said so many times in the past that it just doesn't even rate a reply. They say it is encrypted. So what? The encryptions have been broken in the past they will be in the future. (Not that I'm saying go around giving away free DVDs - I'm just saying you have to the right to view the contents of the DVD and if you have to decrypt it to do so that is ok in my mind - although you may differ in your opinion.)
:-)
But to truly hit the xxAAs where they will most feel it - go buy a lot of DVDs and then take them all back. If you really want to torque around the stores do this repeatedly. Get your friends to help out. Believe me - if a few thousand people do this (like a couple of hundred dollars worth of DVDs) then this will make everyone sit up and notice. Because a few million dollars of DVDs being sent back will make everyone reconsider their policies. I plan on doing it myself. And of course writting to our reps in office as well as the DOJ people and complaining of misleading advertisements (the OWN it versus licensing).
And remember! Now that Microsoft et al have agreed that their EULAs are offensive and are having to change their method of selling software - this bleeds over into buying movies. It is just as illegal to say you own the movie and then make it like you are actually licensing the movie as it is to have a restrictive EULA you can't read before you buy the software (and not allowing you to return the software).
Also, don't forget to open all of the DVDs before you attempt to return them. Just say you had to (of course) try all of the DVDs before you returned them.
Have fun!
I would worry more about a child going around the store pressing all of those little buttons on the cans. Two things would happen:
1. With so much extra heat the cans might explode.
2. Think of all of the mad consumers who buy a can and it won't reheat.
And who is going to pay for:
1. The child being burned accidentally?
2. The used cans which now won't heat?
I just wish we'd get rid of timezones.
:-) PBS had a great show on the how and why of timezones. The reason timezones were invented was because of trains. Originally, everyone used whatever time they were at so that if you traveled across the country from Florida to California you would have a slightly different time in each city you entered. Well, this caused problems because the trains would not know exactly the when and where they were. This caused train wrecks. To stop the trains from being in wrecks they got everyone to agree on time zones. Thus, the entire world agreed that although it was midnight at Greenwich, it was GMT +/- however many time zones you were from there.
;-) or maybe Christmas week, or be lazy week, or whatever.
:-)
Can't do that.
Even though all of the known world at the time agreed to do this there are still some countries which refuse to abide by the GMT time but everyone basically ignores these small countries and most of the people living in those countries ignore their government's wishes and abide by the standard GMT timings anyway. (You have to if you are going to even partially operate in the 20th or 21st centuries.)
But the whole reason for timezones is because of trains. Given that many trains are now run via computers and given that wireless transmission of commands are becoming more prevalent, it may be that we will be able to reduce or remove time zones. But like the reason roads are built the way they are - it is highly unlikely that any time soon will we see a demise of the time zone system.
As for daylight savings: If they really wanted to save money then why not just adjust the clocks half an hour ahead and leave them alone? After all, you'd save thirty minutes in the winter and thirty minutes in the summer and it all works out. This Spring Forwards and Fall Backwards stuff is like being a dog in a carnival show. That is to say - you are being made to jump through hoops and are being treated the same as an animal in a carnival when we should be treated as human beings instead.
My idea for a new calendar:
30 days for every month - period.
One week of varying length. Five days for three years and six days for the leap year.
The week would be a mandatory time off week to celebrate the end of the year and to allow everyone a chance to get ready to pay taxes et al.
Benefits:
1. It would eliminate the varying length months.
2. It would could eliminate a shifting calendar by making the free week a standalone week. We could call it Reboot week
Drawbacks:
1. Everyone who was born on the 31st would have to be taken out and shot. (Just joking!)
2. People who sell calendars would basically be out of a job.
I've advocated such a calendar for over thirty years. No one has listened to me before about this but ya just never know.
I think one of the things MGM is forgetting is that yelling for contributory negligence on the part of a vendor such as Grokster, Morpheus, et al means that MGM will soon be out of business for producing films that urge people to commit violent crimes.
Should such a religious change to our laws (basically the "Am I not my brother's keeper?" question) should never be allowed into our laws or court system. If you think about it, our whole basis for our life here is the statement that everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. No where does the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, or the Bill of Rights say that we are all responsible for what everyone else does. All of it just states that we are responsible for our own actions. Which is why a murderer is put on trial and not his friends, enemies, family, and the like (so long as they did not participate of course). It is the same with these companies. Just because they make a piece of software which could be used in a harmful way against companies such as MGM is no excuse to hold them responsible for another party's usage of their software. Just like it is no excuse to hold a VCR production company responsible for how a VCR is used. Or Radio Shack for carrying the parts necessary to build a cable box which circumvents the cable company's security measures. Or Intel because its CPU chips were used to create a new virus. The allusions are ridiculous. The entire country can not function if such a law were passed. George Bush's "We are a litigious society," will be absolutely true. For no company will be able to function under such a law.
I believe that, as Americans, we should all go out and file lawsuits against every major company for psychological damage to our brains for being asked to function under laws which contradict the very basis of the manner in which this country was not only founded (ie: Freedom to do as you please) but to even work in this country (ie: If you get a job then you have denied someone else that very job).
Think about it. You really can't even respond to this message because you will have broken the copyright laws as they now stand. Why? Because you have to first get my permission to even reference this message. We ignore that here and respond anyway but this is just another example of common sense versus stupidity when it comes to crafting laws.
In the original documents about Zefer, I would concur with the written statement except for the following:
Any company which publicly exposes its information, under standard brick and mortar rules, loses its right to keep anyone else from using that information once it has been released to the public. Although it is true that there are reasonable expectations (such as no one person can take all of the candy which someone might put out to help attract customers) implied - the use of scrapers should not be denied. Instead, reasonable usage patterns should be met for the use of scrapers. (Like one request every three to five minutes is not unreasonable because it allows anyone else who wishes to use the site to be able to do so without interruption by the scraper program.)
On the internet, setting up a website and allowing the general public into the website effectively is the same as someone entering into a brick and mortar building to look at the goods, check out the prices, and leave. Therefore, someone coming to a website (or ftp site in this case) and checking out what you have is not illegal.
What would be illegal is if some goods were stolen (which is not the same as the viewable information - the information would have had to be kept secret and the person or persons would have had to ferret out the information in some way, shape, or form), or someone entered a clearly marked area designated as private (like the area behind a cash register or the back room of a brick and mortar area).
If IBM entered the FTP site in the normal manner and if the files were freely available to anyone to download (and were not in a classified or protected area), then it is the same as placing a bowl of candies out on a table and telling people they may take some to eat. Or to put this whole thing into brick and mortar terms - IBM came in through the front door (which was wide open), looked around, saw SCO was giving away candy for free, took some to eat, and now SCO is complaining that they didn't buy any of their other wares.
IMHO the judge should tell SCO they have to do charity work for the next few decades in retaliation of all of the BS they've done and all of the harm they have caused to everyone.
You do everything you can, take it to the prof, and show it to him:
Prof: This says there aren't any problems with the Unix OS.
Student: Yeah, I know.
Prof: Well, where are the holes? The security problems?
Student: Aren't any.
Prof: Well, there probably are but you just can't find any. You get an F!
Student: Well, that may be but me and a couple'a million other people beg to differ with your opinion.
Actually, the payment of fees to the Patent Office should be modified so that each time a patent is submitted some sort of a fee is charged. Presently (someone correct me if I am wrong about this!) I believe that there is a single fee paid and then X number of tries are allowed before the person has to pay another fee. If the fees were lowered somewhat but were charged each time then the "incentive to grant patents" would be removed. Instead (unfortunately) there were be an incentive to NOT grant the patent as they would make more money in this manner. However, because Congress is stealing money from the PTO, the PTO might still grant the patents just to get back at them.
In a related story....
One of our engineers who was retiring was in a meeting with some high level people. When asked for his input into a problem he smiled, calmly told them that he had put in his retirement paperwork that morning, was leaving, didn't want a going away party, and then promptly tore into all of the high level people about just how badly they were running everything, how stupid they all were, and how it took them ten times as long to do anything. His parting remarks were that Best Buy could do a better job at service than any of them combined together.
I'm not sure if he will be back Monday or not. But he was smiling and he looked a heck of a lot happier than I've ever seen him in a long, long time. He's been working with the department for the past forty years.
Actually, no we were not. Congress and the Senate are not supposed to pass bills which modify either of them (ie:Changes to Congress and the Senate are supposed to be voted on by the people) yet they continue to do so. Presently, the laws which they have passed and never asked anyone if they could do so include:
1. Not having to vote a pay raise each year. Originally both Congress and the Senate had to vote FOR a pay raise. In this way, the founding fathers assured the public at large that Congress and the Senate would never abuse money coming in to the government. It would be a public scrutiny rather than just an after thought. However, both the Congress and Senate conspired together and passed a law which tied their salary increases to those that the Supreme Court gets automatically each year. The reason the Supreme Court gets it is because they were set up so they could not be bribed (supposedly). However, unlike the Supreme Court, both the Congress and Senate were there for the people and at the leave of the people. Thus, they were not supposed to get a free ride when it came to salaries. This problem can only be corrected by taking the entire thing to the Supreme Court and having it thrown out. The chances anyone being able to remove it are the same as hell freezing over. That is to say it would take a majority and no one wants to cut off their paycheck.
2. The removal of Congress and the Senate from having to pay into or be a part of the Social Security program. Congress and the Senate voted to remove themselves from the Social Security Act and to instead put in place a new regime where, when they retire from service, they are paid their annual salary (with pay increases each year) for the rest of their life. Just like the president is paid. Unlike the generous gift the people of the United States gave to the president for having to take on the hardest job in the country, this was a coup by Congress and the Senate. Think of it. 1)Both the Congress and the Senate know that Social Security sucks and got themselves out of it as quickly as they could, and 2)Since there are 100 Senators and (Population/X) number of Congressmen in office at any one time, this means that as the years go by our largest payout will be the retirement salaries of these people. Since most Senators and Congressmen make over $100,000.00 a year and since presently there are somewhere around 400 Congressmen for a grand total of 500 people in all; we are looking at $500 million a year just in retirement payouts for just the people currently in office. Under Social Security the payout would only be somewhere around $2,000.00 a month * 12 = $24,000.00 a year per person or $12,000,000.00 a year. Now, multiply the $500 million times the number of years this has been going on and you can easily see it is more than a billion dollars a year being paid out to people who, IMHO, do not deserve it.
3. No accountability for writing bad checks. Congressmen and Senators are above the law when it comes to writing bad checks. This has been shown many times and on a rare occasion, when someone vastly abuses the right to do this - something has been done about it. But only rarely are our nation's Congressmen and Senators held accountable for their inability to balance their personal checkbooks. Yet we entrust these people to run out country. Is it any wonder we are having the problems we do?
4. Placing companies above the law. As with insurance companies and HMOs, PPOs, etc.... There are new instances of Congress and the Senate giving Carte Blanc to companies. Putting them above reproach and above the law. Never before have we had people or companies above the law. Everyone has been answerable and thus have always taken precautions to ensure that what they did was within the law. Now though, the laws written to protect us from companies who produce such things as Vioxx are being removed. This, to me, is the largest indicator that we are coming into a time of crisis. For when people, corporation, or coun
I hear a Darwin award coming on! ;-)
As I wrote some time ago (I looked for it so I could just put the link in here but couldn't find it on SlashDot), one of the things that keeps getting left out of this debate, is the fact that because the PTO is being bombarded by thousands of patents each year it needs to computerize the way it works. The steps I see are:
1. Create a dictionary of all words used in applying for a patent. This is rather obvious because a good spell checker is needed anyway. But this goes beyond that. It allocates a unique id number to each of the document's words. This allows you to reduce the overall size of the document quite a bit. (After all, if you use a four byte word that gives you around four billion words and the largest dictionary only has a couple hundred thousand words in it.) Legal jargon usually uses more than four letters in a word and thus the document would be smaller overall.
2. A second dictionary of terms which are equal to each other. This dictionary would grow over time. Basically, things like "flashlight", "Light emitting device", "a device with a lamp in it which projects a beam", and "hand held light device" are all the same or similar. Thus, when a term which is unrecognized comes up in a document it can be added to one of the lists and from then on it is associated with that term. (And yeah, they should be able to add, remove, etc... from the list.)
3. The program should have already scanned all previous patents and created the above two dictionaries. Then when a new patent comes through (since they have to be submitted electronically now anyways) it is passed through the program which determines how closely a given document comes to other patents. Note that this is different from "are the sentences the same" or "are the sentences in the same order". The program should not care what order anything appears in - just do a search like Google and find how many words are the same or similar (remember they could replace all words of "flashlight" with "hand held light emitting device" via word processor).
3a. Since the patent system is divided up into various areas (ie: Games, Construction, etc...) the program should scan across all boundaries to ensure that something from one area is not now being patented in another area.
3b. All entries should be listed (just like with Google) in a descending order of revelance. So a patent which was given out in, say 1816 (The Stirling Engine) isn't re-patented as "The Audacious Engine" simply because all of the places where it says "Engine" in the orginal patent are replaced by "a non-internal combustion device".
4. All applied for patents should be kept on file so they too can be checked against. Notes on why the patent was denied should also be kept on file so they can be referred back to.
People may say we can't do this. Google has to handle over a billion web pages yet it can do it in a matter of a few seconds. There are only a couple million patents. The PTO should be able to handle this really easily. Hire the guys from Google to set things up. (And no - I don't work for Google.)
As for graphical pictures showing how something works - it depends. There are software packages which can compare one item/picture to another but all it would take is to accidentally send the picture reversed, rotated slightly so it looks different, use different colors, shades, shadows, etc.... You can look for similarities but that is about it.
In any event - it is nice that the powers that be are trying to fix the problem (or at least suggest changes) but it would be more realistic to try to automate the whole process so the patents can be throw out faster and faster. Which is why both good and bad patents are needed and both should have their own set of dictionaries. You need the bad patents in there as a way to say "Hey! Here are examples of why you can't have a patent!" Further, the bad patents could be used just like the good ones to show how someone tried once before to get something pas
...is that NASA stops setting up duplicate, triplicate, and worse teams of people to all go out and work on the same tasks. I have been with NASA since the 80's and I can not tell you how many times I have seen three or four sections all working on the same exact thing. Years after these committees/groups/whatever have been set up someone finally notices that they've been spending money hand over foot and all of the groups are shut down at one time.
:-/ The same kinds of things keep happening over and over and over again because each group wants to keep its turf. So everything breaks down into finger pointing and squabbles over how to do something. Those who don't like how someone else is doing something simply apply for their own money and go off and do the exact same thing - only with slight differences.
My worst experience was when I first came to NASA. NASA wanted to upgrade their method of creating the 3D landing strips. Sounded fair enough. Here was the original process:
Original: 1)Digitize landing strip with digitizing tablet, 2)Make Tape, 3)Take tape to simulator, 4)Read in tape, 5)Try landing. If it looked ok - you keep it. If it doesn't - go back to #1 and start over.
New Method: 1)Use new Digitizing table, 2)Convert information to new computer system, 3)Create tape, 4)Take tape to old computer system, 5)Read tape, 6)Convert information to old format, 7)Create another tape, 8)Take new tape to simulator, 9)Read it in and try it. Again, if it works - great. If not - you go back to #1 and try again.
I went "This is a nightmare. You are adding even more chances for everything to muck up and the three computer systems (Graphics Tablet, First computer, and Second computer) are each backwards to the other (ie: Big Endian, Little Endian, Big Endian again) so you have to switch the floating point numbers around each time and each system's precision isn't even the same. Could we give everything back and start from scratch on this?" The answer was no.
Original cost was supposed to be around $300,000.00 plus the computer equipment. The project (when it was finally shut down) had cost NASA over $3,000,000.00.
This wasn't just wasteful it was down right criminal. And ya know what? It hasn't gotten any better.
To say something good though - even with all of this back biting and people going off in all directions; those responsible for getting things done still manage to pull it all together. The truth is - we need fewer chiefs and more indians. As the saying goes.
...make IBM mean "I Buy Macintoshes"! ;-)
I thought that it would be a great idea to put an entire city's traffic lights on a private LAN system which monitored for traffic sitting waiting to go through the intersection. (Using whatever method to detect this which is cheapest.)
So instead of having all of those individual boxes out there that cost money to take care of on an individual basis - you just have a simple control box which sends and receives information. Think of it - each light detects if it is working or not and automatically calls for a human to come out and fix it. Lights become more coordinated than before because entire series of lights can all be set to green at one time. Emergency vehicles can carry wireless boxes with an encrypted password on it that tells the lights they are coming up to that they need to get through. And for those who misuse such things, the system could be rigged to monitor where each vehicle is located and if a vehicle is in two places at the same time the fake vehicle could be flagged and stopped by police officers.
How is the signal transmitted? Does the city have to lay hundreds of miles of new cable/DSL/Fiber Optic lines? NO WAY! All they have to do is to do the IP over the electrical lines and suddenly the entire set of traffic lights in any city is connected. You would have to install the proper boxes to listen for and accept the commands from the central server. But it is a lot less in cost than having to lay new communication lines. This might even be possible with wireless communications soon.
So you say: "What about large cities with several small cities within it or nearby? Won't they affect each other?" The answer is: NO - They won't. Remember that with TCP/IP v6.0 you have billions and billions of IP addresses to choose from. I think we can dole out a few thousand from this group for this purpose. Also, the power to the lights are (I believe) on a dedicated circuit which would effectively make all of the lights reside on a private LAN line not available to the public. (So someone would actually have to try to sabotage the lights rather than there being an accidental sabotage by a private individual on the same electrical line.) Filters can keep the two separate (ie: Public and Private IP over the electrical grid.).
Would it be bogged down? Not really. You don't have to be connected all of the time to the light. Only for the few milliseconds it takes to connect, tell the light to change orientation, and then disconnect. Let's say there are 100,000 traffic lights in your city. What do you do? You break it down into lots of 5,000 (so 20 servers). The average web server can handle 5,000 people per second while dealing out static web pages. This should be a snap because the information is a lot less than the average web page. The twenty servers are attached also to a single system which monitors all of the twenty servers by simply flipping between them like a TV monitor camera does. Or you could hire twenty people (one per server) to watch what was going on.
Similar to how monorail systems are monitored presently (only we throw out the static LED display and just use a monitor to display the light's status'), this system only has to keep track of if a light is working or out and can be programmed for different algorithms depending upon what part of the day it is. So rush hour traffic coming into the city is given preferential treatment over cross town traffic. At the evening rush hour the flow is reversed. Otherwise, lights respond according to the sensors. Keeping lights green for on coming traffic and red for empty streets.
Think of it - no more traffic lights that stay red for five minutes or more for no reason. Traffic lights that help you reach your destination. Block crooks from escaping areas by always turning their lights red and blocking their escape by always having the cross traffic moving through the intersection.
As a reply to my own posting...
I read through what the judge wrote and I take issue with his first statement. (To be truthful - I take issue with everything he wrote.) That being that the courts are not meant to impede Congress in its passing of laws.
Ok - if the courts are not meant to be a check against Congress' passing of laws then why are there so many court cases dealing with laws going through the courts? As per many lawyers I've spoken with - each and every court case is a test of the pre-existing laws. The judge's statement therefore, is not logical and throwing out a case on this basis (IMHO) means the judge should be removed from presiding over a court.
If he had said that he does not want to preside over such a case - that would have been one thing. But to say the courts don't go around deciding on whether or not a particular law is just - just doesn't make sense. For without the courts there would be no way to cause change within our system without resorting to violence. The courts are our bulwark against badly crafted laws or laws which tip the scales too far one way or the other. Without the courts we would, for all intents and purposes, be thrown back into a medieval era of haves and have nots. Oh wait - I forgot - we are in that type of an era! Nevermind!
Remember, oh yea of short term memory loss, that Moses had to tell the crowd at least ten times not to have intercourse with animals, not to steal, not to rape, not to murder, not to bear false witness, and all of the other rules and regulations.
Multiplied by the number of years the Bible has been around in its various forms and you have billions of times that people have been told this throughout history.
Yet we still do it.
So what does that say about your logic and the current order of things?
The "limited time" clause is a referral to the Bible. Check it out. Just like many of the other references to the Bible and God, "limited time" appears in the Bible in several areas.
As our country fights over the separation of church and state we forget what the word "separation" means. It does not mean "To Divorce" nor does it mean "To live with or through". It means that we must recognize some basis for our laws and ways of life but that the church can not control how we live our lives. Thus, the two are separate - but equal.
The church has its way of doing things, the government its own way of doing things. But the basis for both is the same - the Bible. Including the terms. After all, why do plaintiffs pray the court hear their plea? Why did you use to have to swear on a Bible to give testimony? In God We Trust isn't there by accident. We put our trust in God to know the difference between right and wrong. The Bible has within its pages how you are supposed to act. (And yeah, some of the things in it are a bit strange!) But the basis of our entire country is within those pages and as much as some people wish to divorce church and state - it can not be done. You have to have some foundation to start from or else murder is not a crime, fraud is not a crime, and rape is not a crime. All of these are shown within the Bible to educate people on what is right and wrong.
Taken in its proper context (and not from the angle of greedy corporate rules lawyers) the term "limited time" is easily recognized to mean exactly what the original writers of our laws concerning copyrights meant it to mean. Not the twisted "limited" meaning misconstrued to mean for as long as anyone wants it to mean, but the realistic, common sense, for a single 14 year period with a single extenstion of an additional 14 years.
To put this all in plain speak: This is the same crap some people who played D&D would do. They would contort the rules to fit their own demented outlook on life. Not satisfied that they had good characters they always wanted more. Never caring whom else they hurt doing so they continued on until no one really wanted to play with them.
Well, those are the people who are now in office and are now making the rules and from where I sit it looks like soon no one else (ie: other countrys) are going to want to play with us. After all, how many messages are you now seeing on SlashDot where people in other countries are not saying nice things about us anymore? There's a reason that is happening.
Our country was founded by people who were fed up with over the top bad government (and who just happen to have been ruled by another George). Let us not forget that for the moment it still is a government of, by, and for the people. If the people say we do not want this loudly enough - the government has to obey. So SCREAM! Organize letter writings, phone calls, I know it is drudge work but if you don't do it you will have to live with a corporate run government and we will all become slaves to the corporations.
No,' says Anna Marie Cox, author of Wonkette, 'A revolution requires that people leave their house.'"
When you get on the internet - you do leave your house.