I know Nvidia has made some statements saying they aren't looking at the uproc business, but they should seriously buy this company to put them on better footing to compete with Intel and AMD.
You understand that your stance here is still adhering to this same idea. You are still only looking out for your own best interests and, well, screw anyone else who doesn't have those same interests! You're still willing to screw over the other guy to get what you want. You may think what you want now is noble and just and blah blah blah, but this hasn't changed from when you were 20. I'm sure you thought the same thing then. In the end, it's still only what *YOU* want, and has nothing to do with what's best for everyone.
I am a 30-something as well. I've been working IT full-time for about 10 years now. I've been through the phase you've described when I started just as you have. I'm not an over achiever by any measure. I just like doing what I get paid to do. My dislike for other people in general makes it very unlikely that I will ever want a meaningful relationship with anyone, much less have kids and all that.
I understand your stance. I truly do, because I am also competing in the job market against those 20-something "jerks" that will work 14 hour days while I'm only working about 10. I also have things I want to do outside of work and my work-from-home time interferes with it.
But I'm striking a balance that I like and I see no reason for you to destroy my lifestyle to better your own. I'm not going to try to force laws on your employer that will harm your lifestyle. I'd appreciate it if you didn't do the same to me. When people do that to me, it hurts me. If you don't want me to hurt you back, then think about that before you do something like this because if you hurt me because you didn't care enough to not hurt me, then I will probably not care enough about you to not hurt you either. I'm never going to go out of my way to hurt you, but if this is the game we're playing, then I will not consider your situation when it's my turn at bat.
So you can see that your stance of trying to force me to fit into your mold will only serve to hurt you later. I'm saying we should try to find a way to allow you to have your cake and me to have my pie in such a way we can both eat them. If you try to force me to have cake when I want pie, I'm probably not going to eat the cake. Instead, I just wont bother to cover my mouth or turn my head away when I have to sneeze, even if I'm ill.
Yes, I agree with this as much as I agree with indentured servitude. These are voluntary and I do believe that people should have the right to voluntarily enter into any contract they choose. We do have laws about duress to protect people from contracts signed at gunpoint and I think they need to remain. But that is a whole different matter.
I agree the combination is possible. But the possibility is irrelevant when there is a looming chance of lawsuits.
If this is the case, it's your employer's fault for a total lack of understanding of the issues.
It's not my employer's fault for a lack of understanding. My employer already DOES understand. That's why I am currently in this situation. The lack of understanding is on the side that is pushing this law on my employer and thus on me. Rather than risk further lawsuits, my employer will reduce that risk as much as possible by enforcing uniformity (often misinterpreted as fairness) on all employees. This will mean everyone will get the same hours with the same strictness of policy and lack of flexibility. While this wont happen over night, it will happen a little more every time one of these lawsuits comes to bear until we have no flexibility and everyone across the globe has a uniform job with uniform benefits. Sounds like communism to me.
Partially, yes. But I'm also partially serious. We're talking about a law that requires companies to pay over time to employees when neither the employee or the company want that.
For instance, I currently work a salaried position in IT which is exempt from over-time. I enjoy the benefits of that position. I can come in a little late. I usually stroll in around 9AM and leave around 5PM. I usually take a 1.5 hour lunch. No one cares because they all see the next day that I also worked from home that evening for about 3 or 4 hours. I enjoy my work enough to work more than 8 hours a day, but in a cubicle farm, I get interrupted so much that I can get more work done at home in the evenings. I participate in an on-call rotation, but even when I'm not on-call, I often times take notice of emergencies and hop online and help out my co-workers with on-call issues. I have no wife or children, am generally anti-social, so I sit at home and work. And I enjoy it.
Enter the law about over time. What happens when these law suits become all the rage and my employer decides that, even though my position doesn't appear to be affected by this law, they make it hourly anyway? Now, I've lost my flex time, have to punch a time card, and must be at work from 8AM to 5PM with a strict 12PM - 1PM lunch. At the very least, I will be unhappy enough that I will no longer work more than 8 hours a day. I will perform worse during the 8 hours that I am there. Sooner than later, I'll probably leave for greener pastures. This is now a negative for both me, my team, and my employer and it's all because someone else somewhere else that has no relationship to me what-so-ever opened his mouth and bitched and complained.
We've got to stop this kind of non-sense. Let me live my life the way I want to live my life for fuck's sake! I'm tired of people bitching about every little thing, going on to spawn new laws that destroy my lifestyle, and then proceeding to bitch about even more shit! We have to stop catering to these people who want life handed to them on a silver platter. It only makes all of us suffer. They need to take initiative to make their lives better through action rather than using a flawed legal system to their advantage. When companies do this, these same bitchers raise holy hell and cry foul. When they do it, it's a self-righteous holy war that is destructive to everyone around them.
This kind of behavior attempts to normalize the work environment for our entire nation. In the end, all this senseless bitching will do is end us all up in a THX 1138 world. That is what a normalized world would look like and whether they know it or not, that's what they're trying to achieve. They decide it's too much work to stand on their own, so they attempt to pull down those who can by constant complaining.
A previous poster had it right. This is people doing this to people, not the companies doing this to people. The companies are just adapting to the crap the people are throwing at them.
While I agree with you on some matters, I disagree with you on others. Darwinist solutions are time-tested and known to work quite well. But we are destroying our ability to survive by pampering those that lack the skills and motivation. Instead, we should be pushing them harder.
I don't believe in blindly following laws written by people that are not affected by them. I am of the belief that our laws are too complex and as such are becoming more and more meaningless and useless. I should have the right to start a corporation and offer positions with the pay that I want to offer. In an open market like we have here in the US, if the offer I make to potential employees is not satisfactory, they will shun it. I may only be left with the bottom of the barrel and my company will die because of a lack of decent employees. This is not something laws should be governing in a capitalist environment. This is something free enterprise will take care of by itself if the government will merely make sure the market stays competitive.
Bullshit. We have too damn many hippies trying to pass laws to protect the weak and lazy from themselves. All those laws do is remove Darwinian survival of the fittest from our society which only serves to make all of us weak. If we are to progress as a species and/or civilization, we need fewer laws to protect those who can't be bothered to protect themselves.
In the end, this comes down to responsibility and we need to stop trying to pass the buck to everyone else. The fact that there is a law about over time in situations like this is pure stupidity. I apply for a job that is listed as a salaried position exempt from overtime, guess what? It's a salaried position exempt from over time. There is no reason what-so-ever that any laws should be allowed to override this contract between me and my employer.
Don't like it? Then become your own damned employer.
The kind of shit that needs to be stopped is whiny, bitching, lazy bastards complaining about every little thing they don't like. This is why god (aka, man) invented the firing squad. To rid ourselves of people who think that companies not wanting to pay over time is "EXACTLY the kind of crap that needs to be stopped."
Don't work your way up a corporate ladder. The best thing you can do is start your own business. Now a good idea is not enough. Do you have what it takes to run a start-up? Can you find investors? Can you put together a team that can consistently produce good results?
If you can do these things, then start your own business. Your goal could be to become a game publishing powerhouse or to simply get big enough to be noticed and purchased. Either way, it's better to take the risk. Putting yourself in position of selling your game to another company has no long term benefit to you and if you join a game company, you will become yet another employee. Remember, corporations have no loyalty to you. They have a loyalty to their bottom line and they will try to take advantage of you. If they cannot, they will let you go.
For maximum profit and long term benefit on your hard work, go it alone. If you do not have the skills to manage a startup, then find someone who does and put yourself in a developer's position within your own startup. If you're in a country currently in an 'economic recession' then this is the time to start up. Venture capitalists love to put money into startups during recession. When the recession is over and the per unit value of your country's currency increases, your company will be worth much more in a short period of time.
Mod the parent up, please. He's not flame baiting and he's no trolling. It's a legitimate post.
We see too many of these types of questions on Slashdot these days. While I also don't mind helping others, I would like to see less people asking how to do their jobs and more articles that give me good or interesting information instead.
It's still good to have questions asked, but they should be challenging and puzzling. Simple questions like this do not even merit interesting responses in the comments. They most certainly don't motivate me to try to come up with a solution.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's personal. At least for now. You'll have to wait until your grandchildren are in college to even be anywhere near that kind of value.
As a previous post says, it's how rare it is that counts. Basically, if you can still easily buy these games right now (and you can on Ebay for instance, with boxes intact even) then there will be little to no intrinsic value to these items.
I have been using a Motorola Q Phone with zaTelnet Professional for my SSH needs. It works like a champ! I have very large hands and have a hard time typing on a laptop keyboard but the Q Phone's keyboard provides for surprisingly easy typing.
At work, we're trying out a number of different mobile phones for our on-call phones. My list of necessary features includes also SSH. We're looking at the Tilt and the latest generation of the Q Phone. I have to say the Tilt's only nice feature is the wider screen. Typing on that thing sucks so that's the trade off.
If you need a wide screen for output, you might need a Tilt or Tilt-like device. If not, I'd go with something like the Q Phone.
Turn the photos over to the parents! What makes all of you people think this wasn't done?
If it's to the point where they absolutely reek of beer or weed, that's when you suspend them, call the police, etc But that is not their job. Isn't that right?
The job of the school is to educate. That's it. I think you're way out in left field, buddy. Schools are not to here only to educate you. They are here to help prepare you for your entire life. To think anything less than that is simply not thinking.
because then it becomes a problem for everyone around them. I have never in my life had a problem with someone absolutely reeking of beer or weed. It doesn't bother me a bit. As much as you choose to ignore their drinking, you can choose to ignore their absolute reek.
if they really want to engage in self-destructive behavior, let 'em. Make sure you identify yourself to me as the one who said this. I will be sure to let your loved ones be self destructive, especially while they're only kids. I wont try to stop them from drinking and driving or some other form of self-destruction. I wont even try to keep them from getting into the car with a drunk driver. When your loved ones die, I will be sure to point out that I could have saved them but left them to their own demise because I don't give a damn about you or your loved ones. Maybe you don't understand that kids, as much as they think they know, do not generally realize they are being self-destructive. Many think they are invincible. Many think these things happen to other people, not them. At least, they don't think that until it's too late.
I'm glad you're not a school administrator. I for one will continue to try to help people, especially kids.
Guess what the police would do if they obtained pics of these underaged kids drinking? Absolutely nothing
I've been through this process before. They don't do nothing. They will watch you more closely and try to catch you in the act. They will probably be successful on a number of them. I've observed this with my own two eyes too many times to count. Common sense tell us that these kids were probably drinking. But it doesn't have to escalate to the police I prefer to let the police handle the people who are committing crimes intentionally or crimes that are far more dangerous to larger numbers of people.
Or maybe they could just do... neither! Did this thought ever occur to you?
Of course. You understand that discipline really is for their own good, right? Your comment stems from the same attitude that says it's not *MY* problem so I'm not going to get involved. This mindset only serves to hurt everyone. Because when you need help, everyone else will kick back and proclaim it's not *THEIR* problem so deal with it yourself. Sucks to be on the receiving end of that stick.
but how do you draw the line?
That's a good question and anyone who says he has the perfect answer is wrong. But with a little common sense, we can at least draw a reasonable line and make reasonable decisions about how to go about enforcing it.
Actually, they should have called the parents. It's not the Administrators place to parent other people's children.
I half agree with you. They should indeed call the parents. But they should also enforce discipline.
the students had their parents' supervision while drinking, which makes it entirely legal in most states.
That's the most asinine thing I've seen posted to slashdot in a very long time.
I'd like schools to teach their curriculum, not take over ownership of the parents' responsibilities.
That is impossible. Too many people want to press charges and sue over every little thing. Too many parents are ruining the world for the rest of us. If a kid is injured in a school activity, it's becoming trendy to sue the school because the school is 100% responsible blah blah blah. Well, you can't have that kind of responsibility from 8:00AM to 3:30PM. There will be some bleed over and you just have to deal with it.
Also understand that the schools *ARE* raising your children while they are in school. They *ARE* the people who are taking care of your children while you're at work or home and not actively doing that job yourself. You can't turn that off just because the clock strikes a certain time!
I'm the one God holds responsible for the raising of my children.
Since you capitalized god in that sentence, I assume you're a follower of Christianity. In that case, you should know full well that your god will hold me responsible for not trying to help your children as well. I will also be held responsible by him for not helping you to raise your children. While some parents will take appropriate action, many in today's society will not. And don't try to claim the school is a state institution as an argument to this. If the school in the article happened to be a private school, the reaction would be the same.
I do not believe in the parents being the sole guardians of their children. Everyone needs help. No one can do this job alone. It's just too damn big. And while the school should inform the parents (they probably did,) they should also enforce discipline in their own way. Requiring parents to be solely responsible for the upbringing of their children is preposterous. It cannot be done. Our species doesn't work that way. It really does take a village to raise the children. The only way to make sure parents are doing their job with regards to discipline of their children is to punish the parents when their children do something wrong. I'm pretty sure that wont fly with the amount
You're all missing the point. The reason the school administrators are punishing the kids instead of reporting them to the police is to avoid giving (or adding to) the kids' criminal records. Kids do all kinds of things and sometimes these things are illegal. In this case, these kids may have been doing something illegal. The administrators are trying to punish the kids so they learn not to do it again.
What if your parents caught you doing something illegal? Should they not punish you? Should they instead go straight to the police and turn you in? What kind of Gestapo bullcrap is that? Do you really want to live in a police state where you can't even confide in your own parents?
Consider the options. "You take the punishment we are dishing out or we turn these photos over to the police. Which do you prefer?" Most kids will take the school's punishment and they would be right and smart to do so. The school may or may not be dishing out appropriate punishment and that needs to be figured out. But they are at least trying to do the best thing for these kids and that is to discipline the kids without the extreme of getting the police involved.
There will be some who decide to not post their photos on facebook/myspace/etc... But most will still take pictures and that's still a liability. The school wants them to just not do these things in the first place. While they can't control people like that, they can influence and that's exactly what they are trying to do and that is the whole damn point of punishment.
I've been playing DnD since '81. I think 1st Ed. sucks. Basic was fun when I was still learning simple math and my brother handled all that for me. I really liked 2nd Ed. I played it for years. I am playing in a 1st edition game right now and I can say after playing in this game for a few years, I see that 1st Ed and 2nd Ed are almost the same damn rules by the core books. That said, I think 1st Ed sucks because we play it very differently than we played 2nd Ed. back in the day. Of course, seeing the similarities in the books, I now see the differences are really between the house rules in each. I've been running a 3.5 game for a few years and as much as 3rd Ed./3.5 rules get to be a pain in the butt, I like it a hell of a lot better than 1st. And of course, I have just as many house rules as we do in the 1st Ed. game in which I play.
You bitch about DnD attracting fewer people over the years and base that complaint on how 2nd/3rd editions have become more complex and have more books, and blah blah blah. I can tell you, my biggest turn off to the game is rants like the one you've posted. I have as much fun playing 3.5 as I ever have Basic, 1st, 2nd, and 3.0. I have never played the 1974 rules so I have no opinion on them. But, when I look at a game to see if I want to play, if the game is using 1st Ed. rules, I am far less likely to play in it than if it were running any of the other rule sets.
You also complain about DM decisions being replaced by hard and fast rules. This is not the case. As mentioned above, I house rule just as much in my 3.5 game as my buddy does in his 1st Ed. game. No matter how you look at it, it's a game and it's meant to be fun. You are always free to and encouraged to house rule things for the fun factor/realism/whatever floats your boat, regardless of edition. This will hold true in 4th edition as well.
GM the game as the 1st Ed. rules suggest? It will be more fun?! Are you high? A combat round lasts one minute? A trained and experienced fighter (15th level for instance) gets two chances in an entire minute of combat to hit someone with a sword?! Of course, while this is going on, the 1st level magic-user gets 3 chances in the same time period to hit someone with save-or-die poisoned darts?! That's pure stupidity! The rules in 1st Ed are just as wonky and in need of changing as the rules in other editions. I don't care about the strategy wargaming history behind the development of 1st Ed. rules. This is not a strategy mini wargame. This is one-on-one combat and the rules translations are incomplete in 1st and 2nd Ed.
It sounds like you're on a very common rant which is really all about not liking change or maybe more about liking the 'original'. Original in this case is the first version you played, not the true 'original'. While it's OK to dislike change and voice your opinion about it, stop disguising it and just call it what it is. You've got a hard on for retro DnD. That's cool. I have the same for computing as seen by reading my handle. But give it a rest already. Let people have their fun without someone like you trying to troll them.
The child posts are right. You usually cannot pay rent in cash either. Consider that not only is it a large amount of money if everyone pays their rent on the same day, but the date is also a known quantity. Knowing that the due date for rent is the same every month means you could very easily observe when this date is and try to hit the apartment office on that date. If they simply don't accept cash, it makes any money stolen just about worthless and worse (for the robber,) much easier to track. Basically, it makes it not worth the risk to try to rob the place. It's a good policy.
Just FYI: I am NOT affiliated with GenCon in any way shape or form beyond the fact that I attend every year to play games and take some time off work.
I see a few people have said it but I'm amazingly surprised at how FEW people have said it! Take your game to GenCon Indy. It's the biggest gaming convention in the world. Buy a 4 day badge and go sit in the board game room and put your game out there. Set up near the end of a table that is near a doorway into the room. Stand by your game and ask people as they enter the room and inevtiably walk past your table if they're interested in playing a game with you. You'd be surprised at just how many people WANT to play random games with random people. I have played random games with random people every year I have gone all because they came up to me and asked, except last year because no one asked. It will give you a lot of exposure to people, free playtesting, and you'll have a good idea of how many people find your game interesting. About twenty six thousand people attend GenCon Indy so you're bound to find people who will be more than willing to play your game.
Tell the people who play that it is a new game that is still being designed. A lot of people will jump at the opportunity. I constantly hear people trying to pull bragging rights with something like this: "Yeah, that brand new game that just came out, I played it years ago with the guy who made it. I even gave inspired rule X when I did Y." There is an entire species of gamer looking for opportunities to jump on situations like this.
You can even go so far as to print out small feedback cards and ask the people who have just played your game if they would be willing to fill it out. Some will fill it out and some will not. But, any gaming company will probably already understand the basic percentages about quantity of feedback and be able to determine how many people actually played the game. Additionally, you can keep your own tally of how many people played.
You can also try registering it as an official GenCon event. You can setup a one hour game event that just repeats all day and costs people one ticket ($1.50) to play for an hour. You just setup on a table assigned to you by GenCon and people don't register for the time slots, but they stop by with generic tickets to play your game. I and everyone I know always buy about $20 - $30 in generic tickets in case we see something we want to play that we didn't know existed. This will help give you a real tally of the number of people who played your games and GenCon staff should be able to give you an official tally of the number of tickets you collected. This can be used when you approach a game manufacturer to give them an idea of the game's potential for success. Do this for a few years and see how it goes. Don't be dismayed at low numbers the first time around as it may take a few years to build up awareness. Also, don't be afraid to get on the online forums (including GenCon's forum) and start advertising your game. Let people know it will be at GenCon and let people know what to look for and where to find you.
Provide your students with one static IP address per dorm room. Require the students to use a firewall and sign an agreement that is legally binding to that sense. This will allow them to use the built-in WinXP firewall, iptables in Linux distros, cable routers, etc... You may even try to go so far as to require that they allow non-invasive attacks or just simple port scans on their PCs to make sure their firewall is in place and operating. That's touchy as hell, so ask the lawyers before doing it. It could also get expensive to implement, so consider it a nice bonus to the students if you can do it. If you do it right, you could even have automated reports going to the students about their particular firewall tests to let them know what their status is and possibly how they can reduce their risks.
The nice thing about this is it is a proactive step to *help* dorm network security. It helps protect your students' computers without requiring them to spend more money to do it using built in firewalls. Or, if the students will have more than one computer in the room, they can get a router anyway or setup a NAT PC and will probably still be behind a reasonable firewall.
Additionally, it takes the burden of maintaining the firewall off you. Mostly, this absolves you of responsibility. If your firewall were to get hacked and a students' PC invaded, the fact you provided a firewall makes you responsible in the eyes of a court. However, moving the responsibility to the students by getting a signed agreement requiring them to implement a firewall with certain specifications can alleviate that responsibility from your own shoulders.
If you have a hard time selling it, use the VD analogy. Would you have sex with a prostitute without using a condom? Then why wouldn't you use a firewall for your PC?
Once this is done, as someone mentioned earlier, use traffic shaping on your end to make sure that a few people aren't monopolizing the dorm bandwidth and you're good to go.
It seems most people here are of the opinion that attendance is not necessary if the student can obtain the knowledge without it. While I am in general agreement with this idea, there is one very VERY important aspect of attendance at universities:
Alumni that will actually show up to work and show up on time.
I have employed dozens of college kids and worked with more that have graduated and I can tell you there is a definite correlation between college kids that attended class vs those who didn't and graduates who show up to work on time and those who don't.
A university degree doesn't just mean you went through the hoops to get a piece of paper. It has the name of the university on that paper. It means THAT particular university says you're capable of doing the job employers need done. When employers fill out surveys about their employees and give lower ratings to the students of University X than University Y, it hurts University X and all of the students who do or intend to attend there. The school has a reputation to uphold. It's reputation for producing quality graduates has a direct bearing on what kinds of high school graduates will even apply for that school. So yes, attendance is important.
I will caveat this by saying that I believe it should be limited to 100 and 200 level courses. By the time a student is in the 300 and 400 level courses, attendance policies should be laxed. However, that is up to the university.
So, on to the subject of how to do this in the best way possible . . .
There are some other points missing too. What about students who were out sick? Students out on bereavement? Students out because they were otherwise reasonably detained? Those are going to cause a lot of problems for you and the students. One thing to keep in mind is that this is a BONUS. Universities have been around for thousands of years without this ability. Getting access to this should be considered a privilege, not a right. So make sure your students understand that this could become unavailable at a moment's notice or you might face students complaining to the Dean of Students that you said these pod-casts would be available and the fact they are not the night before an exam caused them to be unable to study effectively. Just nip that in the bud before it blooms.
However you take attendance, tell students that a minimum of a certain percentage attendance record is required to view the podcasts. If their attendance drops below that, remove them from the permissions file. Or, maybe make the policy if you miss X or more days of class in a given semester, you will not have access to the site.
This is about the best you can do. The only way to do much better than this is to go to such an extreme that you make more work for your podcast control than you do in teaching the class which is unacceptable.
I agree with a previous post in this thread in that you are looking for a working DRM which doesn't exist. As with all security, the old adage holds true: Locks are for the honest. Don't put too much effort into this until a reasonably valid DRM is available for your use.
Or, try to hook the university into implementing a university wide podcast system and put the security requirements on their end. Then you can bitch to them when they screw it up. That's how things work at my university. Always shift the workload AND the blame (since you know it will be there) to others. Just make sure you're not the one without a chair when the music stops.
Purdue's CS department uses some sort of automated submission for their CS assignments. You submit your code, it actually runs algorithms on it to see if it is *too* similar to other students' assignments to help find cheating. Simple things like merely changing variable names will NOT make it through this system. I know a CS roommate of mine had to submit his homework with all source files and a makefile. The entire project had to compile and run in a certain environment to which the students had access. The automated submission process actually put the program through compilation and execution and provided input and checked the output.
I will say to the naysayers out there: Get Over It! No one is arguing that the students need feedback. No one is arguing that automated grading is not without it's own problems. However, automated grading is very useful on some levels and it's here to stay. There is nothing you can do about it. We still need instructors/TAs to look over code, for sure. But, with hundreds to thousands of students submitting code and no budget to hire the manpower to manually grade the submissions (some exceeding 10,000 lines) we're left without too many options. Let the TAs cover style and other forms of manual checking on the small code the students submit early in their studies, as in 100 and 200 level courses. Even then, make sure it is only on the small projects. Asking a prof or TA to look over 1000+ line submissions for hundreds of students each week is asking the impossible. And, I think there is nothing wrong with asking students on the 300 and 400 level to be content with just getting the program running correctly. In their jobs, they will be given tasks which must be completed by the deadline. When they whine and complain to their employers that they should still be given some praise for their uncompleted task because they *mostly* got it done, they will be fired. Automated grading could help them with this. The program works as advertised or it doesn't.
And, as an aside: write it yourself. I wouldn't want to take programming from a school that didn't have people capable of writing an automated grader.
Slashdot Mirror
I know Nvidia has made some statements saying they aren't looking at the uproc business, but they should seriously buy this company to put them on better footing to compete with Intel and AMD.
Here's to hoping Nvidia takes it.
For bonus points, type STARTSSL and see if you can hand-negotiate an SSL connection.
Can I have the bonus points if I don't fart around with telnet and use openssl?
> openssl s_client -connect mail.example.com:465
. . . and make room for ME!
You understand that your stance here is still adhering to this same idea. You are still only looking out for your own best interests and, well, screw anyone else who doesn't have those same interests! You're still willing to screw over the other guy to get what you want. You may think what you want now is noble and just and blah blah blah, but this hasn't changed from when you were 20. I'm sure you thought the same thing then. In the end, it's still only what *YOU* want, and has nothing to do with what's best for everyone.
I am a 30-something as well. I've been working IT full-time for about 10 years now. I've been through the phase you've described when I started just as you have. I'm not an over achiever by any measure. I just like doing what I get paid to do. My dislike for other people in general makes it very unlikely that I will ever want a meaningful relationship with anyone, much less have kids and all that.
I understand your stance. I truly do, because I am also competing in the job market against those 20-something "jerks" that will work 14 hour days while I'm only working about 10. I also have things I want to do outside of work and my work-from-home time interferes with it.
But I'm striking a balance that I like and I see no reason for you to destroy my lifestyle to better your own. I'm not going to try to force laws on your employer that will harm your lifestyle. I'd appreciate it if you didn't do the same to me. When people do that to me, it hurts me. If you don't want me to hurt you back, then think about that before you do something like this because if you hurt me because you didn't care enough to not hurt me, then I will probably not care enough about you to not hurt you either. I'm never going to go out of my way to hurt you, but if this is the game we're playing, then I will not consider your situation when it's my turn at bat.
So you can see that your stance of trying to force me to fit into your mold will only serve to hurt you later. I'm saying we should try to find a way to allow you to have your cake and me to have my pie in such a way we can both eat them. If you try to force me to have cake when I want pie, I'm probably not going to eat the cake. Instead, I just wont bother to cover my mouth or turn my head away when I have to sneeze, even if I'm ill.
Yes, I agree with this as much as I agree with indentured servitude. These are voluntary and I do believe that people should have the right to voluntarily enter into any contract they choose. We do have laws about duress to protect people from contracts signed at gunpoint and I think they need to remain. But that is a whole different matter.
I agree the combination is possible. But the possibility is irrelevant when there is a looming chance of lawsuits.
If this is the case, it's your employer's fault for a total lack of understanding of the issues.
It's not my employer's fault for a lack of understanding. My employer already DOES understand. That's why I am currently in this situation. The lack of understanding is on the side that is pushing this law on my employer and thus on me. Rather than risk further lawsuits, my employer will reduce that risk as much as possible by enforcing uniformity (often misinterpreted as fairness) on all employees. This will mean everyone will get the same hours with the same strictness of policy and lack of flexibility. While this wont happen over night, it will happen a little more every time one of these lawsuits comes to bear until we have no flexibility and everyone across the globe has a uniform job with uniform benefits. Sounds like communism to me.
Partially, yes. But I'm also partially serious. We're talking about a law that requires companies to pay over time to employees when neither the employee or the company want that.
For instance, I currently work a salaried position in IT which is exempt from over-time. I enjoy the benefits of that position. I can come in a little late. I usually stroll in around 9AM and leave around 5PM. I usually take a 1.5 hour lunch. No one cares because they all see the next day that I also worked from home that evening for about 3 or 4 hours. I enjoy my work enough to work more than 8 hours a day, but in a cubicle farm, I get interrupted so much that I can get more work done at home in the evenings. I participate in an on-call rotation, but even when I'm not on-call, I often times take notice of emergencies and hop online and help out my co-workers with on-call issues. I have no wife or children, am generally anti-social, so I sit at home and work. And I enjoy it.
Enter the law about over time. What happens when these law suits become all the rage and my employer decides that, even though my position doesn't appear to be affected by this law, they make it hourly anyway? Now, I've lost my flex time, have to punch a time card, and must be at work from 8AM to 5PM with a strict 12PM - 1PM lunch. At the very least, I will be unhappy enough that I will no longer work more than 8 hours a day. I will perform worse during the 8 hours that I am there. Sooner than later, I'll probably leave for greener pastures. This is now a negative for both me, my team, and my employer and it's all because someone else somewhere else that has no relationship to me what-so-ever opened his mouth and bitched and complained.
We've got to stop this kind of non-sense. Let me live my life the way I want to live my life for fuck's sake! I'm tired of people bitching about every little thing, going on to spawn new laws that destroy my lifestyle, and then proceeding to bitch about even more shit! We have to stop catering to these people who want life handed to them on a silver platter. It only makes all of us suffer. They need to take initiative to make their lives better through action rather than using a flawed legal system to their advantage. When companies do this, these same bitchers raise holy hell and cry foul. When they do it, it's a self-righteous holy war that is destructive to everyone around them.
This kind of behavior attempts to normalize the work environment for our entire nation. In the end, all this senseless bitching will do is end us all up in a THX 1138 world. That is what a normalized world would look like and whether they know it or not, that's what they're trying to achieve. They decide it's too much work to stand on their own, so they attempt to pull down those who can by constant complaining.
A previous poster had it right. This is people doing this to people, not the companies doing this to people. The companies are just adapting to the crap the people are throwing at them.
You're an ass hat who has gone out of his way to miss the point for the sake of arguing. You sir, are the troll here.
While I agree with you on some matters, I disagree with you on others. Darwinist solutions are time-tested and known to work quite well. But we are destroying our ability to survive by pampering those that lack the skills and motivation. Instead, we should be pushing them harder.
I don't believe in blindly following laws written by people that are not affected by them. I am of the belief that our laws are too complex and as such are becoming more and more meaningless and useless. I should have the right to start a corporation and offer positions with the pay that I want to offer. In an open market like we have here in the US, if the offer I make to potential employees is not satisfactory, they will shun it. I may only be left with the bottom of the barrel and my company will die because of a lack of decent employees. This is not something laws should be governing in a capitalist environment. This is something free enterprise will take care of by itself if the government will merely make sure the market stays competitive.
Bullshit. We have too damn many hippies trying to pass laws to protect the weak and lazy from themselves. All those laws do is remove Darwinian survival of the fittest from our society which only serves to make all of us weak. If we are to progress as a species and/or civilization, we need fewer laws to protect those who can't be bothered to protect themselves.
In the end, this comes down to responsibility and we need to stop trying to pass the buck to everyone else. The fact that there is a law about over time in situations like this is pure stupidity. I apply for a job that is listed as a salaried position exempt from overtime, guess what? It's a salaried position exempt from over time. There is no reason what-so-ever that any laws should be allowed to override this contract between me and my employer.
Don't like it? Then become your own damned employer.
The kind of shit that needs to be stopped is whiny, bitching, lazy bastards complaining about every little thing they don't like. This is why god (aka, man) invented the firing squad. To rid ourselves of people who think that companies not wanting to pay over time is "EXACTLY the kind of crap that needs to be stopped."
Don't work your way up a corporate ladder. The best thing you can do is start your own business. Now a good idea is not enough. Do you have what it takes to run a start-up? Can you find investors? Can you put together a team that can consistently produce good results?
If you can do these things, then start your own business. Your goal could be to become a game publishing powerhouse or to simply get big enough to be noticed and purchased. Either way, it's better to take the risk. Putting yourself in position of selling your game to another company has no long term benefit to you and if you join a game company, you will become yet another employee. Remember, corporations have no loyalty to you. They have a loyalty to their bottom line and they will try to take advantage of you. If they cannot, they will let you go.
For maximum profit and long term benefit on your hard work, go it alone. If you do not have the skills to manage a startup, then find someone who does and put yourself in a developer's position within your own startup. If you're in a country currently in an 'economic recession' then this is the time to start up. Venture capitalists love to put money into startups during recession. When the recession is over and the per unit value of your country's currency increases, your company will be worth much more in a short period of time.
Mod the parent up, please. He's not flame baiting and he's no trolling. It's a legitimate post.
We see too many of these types of questions on Slashdot these days. While I also don't mind helping others, I would like to see less people asking how to do their jobs and more articles that give me good or interesting information instead.
It's still good to have questions asked, but they should be challenging and puzzling. Simple questions like this do not even merit interesting responses in the comments. They most certainly don't motivate me to try to come up with a solution.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's personal. At least for now. You'll have to wait until your grandchildren are in college to even be anywhere near that kind of value.
As a previous post says, it's how rare it is that counts. Basically, if you can still easily buy these games right now (and you can on Ebay for instance, with boxes intact even) then there will be little to no intrinsic value to these items.
I have been using a Motorola Q Phone with zaTelnet Professional for my SSH needs. It works like a champ! I have very large hands and have a hard time typing on a laptop keyboard but the Q Phone's keyboard provides for surprisingly easy typing.
At work, we're trying out a number of different mobile phones for our on-call phones. My list of necessary features includes also SSH. We're looking at the Tilt and the latest generation of the Q Phone. I have to say the Tilt's only nice feature is the wider screen. Typing on that thing sucks so that's the trade off.
If you need a wide screen for output, you might need a Tilt or Tilt-like device. If not, I'd go with something like the Q Phone.
Wake me up when they acquire Innotrode.
I'm glad you're not a school administrator. I for one will continue to try to help people, especially kids.
Guess what the police would do if they obtained pics of these underaged kids drinking? Absolutely nothing
I've been through this process before. They don't do nothing. They will watch you more closely and try to catch you in the act. They will probably be successful on a number of them. I've observed this with my own two eyes too many times to count. Common sense tell us that these kids were probably drinking. But it doesn't have to escalate to the police I prefer to let the police handle the people who are committing crimes intentionally or crimes that are far more dangerous to larger numbers of people.
Or maybe they could just do... neither! Did this thought ever occur to you?
Of course. You understand that discipline really is for their own good, right? Your comment stems from the same attitude that says it's not *MY* problem so I'm not going to get involved. This mindset only serves to hurt everyone. Because when you need help, everyone else will kick back and proclaim it's not *THEIR* problem so deal with it yourself. Sucks to be on the receiving end of that stick.
but how do you draw the line?
That's a good question and anyone who says he has the perfect answer is wrong. But with a little common sense, we can at least draw a reasonable line and make reasonable decisions about how to go about enforcing it.
Actually, they should have called the parents. It's not the Administrators place to parent other people's children.
I half agree with you. They should indeed call the parents. But they should also enforce discipline.
the students had their parents' supervision while drinking, which makes it entirely legal in most states.
That's the most asinine thing I've seen posted to slashdot in a very long time.
I'd like schools to teach their curriculum, not take over ownership of the parents' responsibilities.
That is impossible. Too many people want to press charges and sue over every little thing. Too many parents are ruining the world for the rest of us. If a kid is injured in a school activity, it's becoming trendy to sue the school because the school is 100% responsible blah blah blah. Well, you can't have that kind of responsibility from 8:00AM to 3:30PM. There will be some bleed over and you just have to deal with it.
Also understand that the schools *ARE* raising your children while they are in school. They *ARE* the people who are taking care of your children while you're at work or home and not actively doing that job yourself. You can't turn that off just because the clock strikes a certain time!
I'm the one God holds responsible for the raising of my children.
Since you capitalized god in that sentence, I assume you're a follower of Christianity. In that case, you should know full well that your god will hold me responsible for not trying to help your children as well. I will also be held responsible by him for not helping you to raise your children. While some parents will take appropriate action, many in today's society will not. And don't try to claim the school is a state institution as an argument to this. If the school in the article happened to be a private school, the reaction would be the same.
I do not believe in the parents being the sole guardians of their children. Everyone needs help. No one can do this job alone. It's just too damn big. And while the school should inform the parents (they probably did,) they should also enforce discipline in their own way. Requiring parents to be solely responsible for the upbringing of their children is preposterous. It cannot be done. Our species doesn't work that way. It really does take a village to raise the children. The only way to make sure parents are doing their job with regards to discipline of their children is to punish the parents when their children do something wrong. I'm pretty sure that wont fly with the amount
You're all missing the point. The reason the school administrators are punishing the kids instead of reporting them to the police is to avoid giving (or adding to) the kids' criminal records. Kids do all kinds of things and sometimes these things are illegal. In this case, these kids may have been doing something illegal. The administrators are trying to punish the kids so they learn not to do it again.
What if your parents caught you doing something illegal? Should they not punish you? Should they instead go straight to the police and turn you in? What kind of Gestapo bullcrap is that? Do you really want to live in a police state where you can't even confide in your own parents?
Consider the options. "You take the punishment we are dishing out or we turn these photos over to the police. Which do you prefer?" Most kids will take the school's punishment and they would be right and smart to do so. The school may or may not be dishing out appropriate punishment and that needs to be figured out. But they are at least trying to do the best thing for these kids and that is to discipline the kids without the extreme of getting the police involved.
There will be some who decide to not post their photos on facebook/myspace/etc... But most will still take pictures and that's still a liability. The school wants them to just not do these things in the first place. While they can't control people like that, they can influence and that's exactly what they are trying to do and that is the whole damn point of punishment.
I've been playing DnD since '81. I think 1st Ed. sucks. Basic was fun when I was still learning simple math and my brother handled all that for me. I really liked 2nd Ed. I played it for years. I am playing in a 1st edition game right now and I can say after playing in this game for a few years, I see that 1st Ed and 2nd Ed are almost the same damn rules by the core books. That said, I think 1st Ed sucks because we play it very differently than we played 2nd Ed. back in the day. Of course, seeing the similarities in the books, I now see the differences are really between the house rules in each. I've been running a 3.5 game for a few years and as much as 3rd Ed./3.5 rules get to be a pain in the butt, I like it a hell of a lot better than 1st. And of course, I have just as many house rules as we do in the 1st Ed. game in which I play.
You bitch about DnD attracting fewer people over the years and base that complaint on how 2nd/3rd editions have become more complex and have more books, and blah blah blah. I can tell you, my biggest turn off to the game is rants like the one you've posted. I have as much fun playing 3.5 as I ever have Basic, 1st, 2nd, and 3.0. I have never played the 1974 rules so I have no opinion on them. But, when I look at a game to see if I want to play, if the game is using 1st Ed. rules, I am far less likely to play in it than if it were running any of the other rule sets.
You also complain about DM decisions being replaced by hard and fast rules. This is not the case. As mentioned above, I house rule just as much in my 3.5 game as my buddy does in his 1st Ed. game. No matter how you look at it, it's a game and it's meant to be fun. You are always free to and encouraged to house rule things for the fun factor/realism/whatever floats your boat, regardless of edition. This will hold true in 4th edition as well.
GM the game as the 1st Ed. rules suggest? It will be more fun?! Are you high? A combat round lasts one minute? A trained and experienced fighter (15th level for instance) gets two chances in an entire minute of combat to hit someone with a sword?! Of course, while this is going on, the 1st level magic-user gets 3 chances in the same time period to hit someone with save-or-die poisoned darts?! That's pure stupidity! The rules in 1st Ed are just as wonky and in need of changing as the rules in other editions. I don't care about the strategy wargaming history behind the development of 1st Ed. rules. This is not a strategy mini wargame. This is one-on-one combat and the rules translations are incomplete in 1st and 2nd Ed.
It sounds like you're on a very common rant which is really all about not liking change or maybe more about liking the 'original'. Original in this case is the first version you played, not the true 'original'. While it's OK to dislike change and voice your opinion about it, stop disguising it and just call it what it is. You've got a hard on for retro DnD. That's cool. I have the same for computing as seen by reading my handle. But give it a rest already. Let people have their fun without someone like you trying to troll them.
The child posts are right. You usually cannot pay rent in cash either. Consider that not only is it a large amount of money if everyone pays their rent on the same day, but the date is also a known quantity. Knowing that the due date for rent is the same every month means you could very easily observe when this date is and try to hit the apartment office on that date. If they simply don't accept cash, it makes any money stolen just about worthless and worse (for the robber,) much easier to track. Basically, it makes it not worth the risk to try to rob the place. It's a good policy.
Just FYI: I am NOT affiliated with GenCon in any way shape or form beyond the fact that I attend every year to play games and take some time off work.
I see a few people have said it but I'm amazingly surprised at how FEW people have said it! Take your game to GenCon Indy. It's the biggest gaming convention in the world. Buy a 4 day badge and go sit in the board game room and put your game out there. Set up near the end of a table that is near a doorway into the room. Stand by your game and ask people as they enter the room and inevtiably walk past your table if they're interested in playing a game with you. You'd be surprised at just how many people WANT to play random games with random people. I have played random games with random people every year I have gone all because they came up to me and asked, except last year because no one asked. It will give you a lot of exposure to people, free playtesting, and you'll have a good idea of how many people find your game interesting. About twenty six thousand people attend GenCon Indy so you're bound to find people who will be more than willing to play your game.
Tell the people who play that it is a new game that is still being designed. A lot of people will jump at the opportunity. I constantly hear people trying to pull bragging rights with something like this: "Yeah, that brand new game that just came out, I played it years ago with the guy who made it. I even gave inspired rule X when I did Y." There is an entire species of gamer looking for opportunities to jump on situations like this.
You can even go so far as to print out small feedback cards and ask the people who have just played your game if they would be willing to fill it out. Some will fill it out and some will not. But, any gaming company will probably already understand the basic percentages about quantity of feedback and be able to determine how many people actually played the game. Additionally, you can keep your own tally of how many people played.
You can also try registering it as an official GenCon event. You can setup a one hour game event that just repeats all day and costs people one ticket ($1.50) to play for an hour. You just setup on a table assigned to you by GenCon and people don't register for the time slots, but they stop by with generic tickets to play your game. I and everyone I know always buy about $20 - $30 in generic tickets in case we see something we want to play that we didn't know existed. This will help give you a real tally of the number of people who played your games and GenCon staff should be able to give you an official tally of the number of tickets you collected. This can be used when you approach a game manufacturer to give them an idea of the game's potential for success. Do this for a few years and see how it goes. Don't be dismayed at low numbers the first time around as it may take a few years to build up awareness. Also, don't be afraid to get on the online forums (including GenCon's forum) and start advertising your game. Let people know it will be at GenCon and let people know what to look for and where to find you.
Who'll kill off other species and keep the world's gene pool in motion?
Provide your students with one static IP address per dorm room. Require the students to use a firewall and sign an agreement that is legally binding to that sense. This will allow them to use the built-in WinXP firewall, iptables in Linux distros, cable routers, etc... You may even try to go so far as to require that they allow non-invasive attacks or just simple port scans on their PCs to make sure their firewall is in place and operating. That's touchy as hell, so ask the lawyers before doing it. It could also get expensive to implement, so consider it a nice bonus to the students if you can do it. If you do it right, you could even have automated reports going to the students about their particular firewall tests to let them know what their status is and possibly how they can reduce their risks.
The nice thing about this is it is a proactive step to *help* dorm network security. It helps protect your students' computers without requiring them to spend more money to do it using built in firewalls. Or, if the students will have more than one computer in the room, they can get a router anyway or setup a NAT PC and will probably still be behind a reasonable firewall.
Additionally, it takes the burden of maintaining the firewall off you. Mostly, this absolves you of responsibility. If your firewall were to get hacked and a students' PC invaded, the fact you provided a firewall makes you responsible in the eyes of a court. However, moving the responsibility to the students by getting a signed agreement requiring them to implement a firewall with certain specifications can alleviate that responsibility from your own shoulders.
If you have a hard time selling it, use the VD analogy. Would you have sex with a prostitute without using a condom? Then why wouldn't you use a firewall for your PC?
Once this is done, as someone mentioned earlier, use traffic shaping on your end to make sure that a few people aren't monopolizing the dorm bandwidth and you're good to go.
It seems most people here are of the opinion that attendance is not necessary if the student can obtain the knowledge without it. While I am in general agreement with this idea, there is one very VERY important aspect of attendance at universities:
Alumni that will actually show up to work and show up on time.
I have employed dozens of college kids and worked with more that have graduated and I can tell you there is a definite correlation between college kids that attended class vs those who didn't and graduates who show up to work on time and those who don't.
A university degree doesn't just mean you went through the hoops to get a piece of paper. It has the name of the university on that paper. It means THAT particular university says you're capable of doing the job employers need done. When employers fill out surveys about their employees and give lower ratings to the students of University X than University Y, it hurts University X and all of the students who do or intend to attend there. The school has a reputation to uphold. It's reputation for producing quality graduates has a direct bearing on what kinds of high school graduates will even apply for that school. So yes, attendance is important.
I will caveat this by saying that I believe it should be limited to 100 and 200 level courses. By the time a student is in the 300 and 400 level courses, attendance policies should be laxed. However, that is up to the university.
So, on to the subject of how to do this in the best way possible . . .
There are some other points missing too. What about students who were out sick? Students out on bereavement? Students out because they were otherwise reasonably detained? Those are going to cause a lot of problems for you and the students. One thing to keep in mind is that this is a BONUS. Universities have been around for thousands of years without this ability. Getting access to this should be considered a privilege, not a right. So make sure your students understand that this could become unavailable at a moment's notice or you might face students complaining to the Dean of Students that you said these pod-casts would be available and the fact they are not the night before an exam caused them to be unable to study effectively. Just nip that in the bud before it blooms.
However you take attendance, tell students that a minimum of a certain percentage attendance record is required to view the podcasts. If their attendance drops below that, remove them from the permissions file. Or, maybe make the policy if you miss X or more days of class in a given semester, you will not have access to the site.
This is about the best you can do. The only way to do much better than this is to go to such an extreme that you make more work for your podcast control than you do in teaching the class which is unacceptable.
I agree with a previous post in this thread in that you are looking for a working DRM which doesn't exist. As with all security, the old adage holds true: Locks are for the honest. Don't put too much effort into this until a reasonably valid DRM is available for your use.
Or, try to hook the university into implementing a university wide podcast system and put the security requirements on their end. Then you can bitch to them when they screw it up. That's how things work at my university. Always shift the workload AND the blame (since you know it will be there) to others. Just make sure you're not the one without a chair when the music stops.
Purdue's CS department uses some sort of automated submission for their CS assignments. You submit your code, it actually runs algorithms on it to see if it is *too* similar to other students' assignments to help find cheating. Simple things like merely changing variable names will NOT make it through this system. I know a CS roommate of mine had to submit his homework with all source files and a makefile. The entire project had to compile and run in a certain environment to which the students had access. The automated submission process actually put the program through compilation and execution and provided input and checked the output.
I will say to the naysayers out there: Get Over It! No one is arguing that the students need feedback. No one is arguing that automated grading is not without it's own problems. However, automated grading is very useful on some levels and it's here to stay. There is nothing you can do about it. We still need instructors/TAs to look over code, for sure. But, with hundreds to thousands of students submitting code and no budget to hire the manpower to manually grade the submissions (some exceeding 10,000 lines) we're left without too many options. Let the TAs cover style and other forms of manual checking on the small code the students submit early in their studies, as in 100 and 200 level courses. Even then, make sure it is only on the small projects. Asking a prof or TA to look over 1000+ line submissions for hundreds of students each week is asking the impossible. And, I think there is nothing wrong with asking students on the 300 and 400 level to be content with just getting the program running correctly. In their jobs, they will be given tasks which must be completed by the deadline. When they whine and complain to their employers that they should still be given some praise for their uncompleted task because they *mostly* got it done, they will be fired. Automated grading could help them with this. The program works as advertised or it doesn't.
And, as an aside: write it yourself. I wouldn't want to take programming from a school that didn't have people capable of writing an automated grader.
Did you seriously mark this post as redundant? Whoever did that is a brain dead ass monkey.