Our leaders seek to return us to feudalism, and have been very successful at that. Remember that, next time you see a politician crying about the middle class.
I'll remember it when I hear the newly minted geek whining about the salary he is being offered at entry level.
If you think we're living because of monsanto crops, you're mistaken. sustainable solutions (and life as we know it) has existed for thousands and thousands of years without them.
We haven't had a global population of 6.7 billion for thousands of years. This isn't life as we have known it. The global population was a bare 3 billion in 1960. Global Population
There are less than one million full-time farmers in the US
Farmers represented over 50% of the US labor force as late as 1870. In the modern world it is hard to keep workers on the farm. It is a hard to protect agricultural land. It is hard to compete with first-world agricultural exports.
Climates change. Cultures change. Traditional solutions do not always work.
I thought we went through all this a week or two back.
it is impossible for a newcomer in our team to get up to speed and be productive in less than a month due to unnecessary complexity
The miracle worker. The mutant mastermind.
New to the team, Core component. Mission critical. Up to speed in less than a month?
A group of 2-3 of us want to change [things]. How do we effect the social change necessary to convince them of what is better and encourage them to take the effort to do it?"
Who is "them?"
Your supervisors or your managers?
More importantly, who are you?
Not the team leaders, quite obviously, and probably no more than a bare five to ten percent of the team, if that. Unless you have the social skills to build a much broader consensus for change, you'll get absolutely nowhere no matter how good your technical arguments.
WTF are you about? GM crops are not going to help 'feed the world'. Places that are having food shortages suffer from poor soil, lack of water, poor infrastructure and little money. GM crops don't answer any of those issues.
Seems to me that engineering a plant that needs minimal care and performs well under harsh conditions would be a perfectly sensible way to proceed. It is, after all, a strategy that the geek has applauded under other circumstances --- deep space exploration, the colonization of Mars and so on.
It doesn't matter how bad the encryption is. If the MPAA or RIAA break the encryption on Mega's files they are violating the DMCA plain and simple.
I am not a lawyer.
But I'm betting if you don't have a license to distribute a copyrighted work, you can't claim the protection of the DMCA when your illegal distribution of the work is exposed.
But that is not the way a civil engineer thinks. It is not the way an accountant thinks.
If you are ready to retire to your Cold War era bunker in the backwoods of Idaho, fine. If you are looking for gainful employment in the production and maintenance of mission-critical systems, look elsewhere, because we don't need you, don't want you,
Also, once you get good on Linux the power of having a Unix command line available really becomes a boon. It took me a good year to 18 months of primary use on Linux, but at this point I truly feel more comfortable and efficient in Linux than in Windows.
The geek is like the backyard mechanic who spends all his spare hours under the hood. Most of his neighbors would prefer a relaxed cross-country drive. There will always be some overlap. But fundamentally they have a different set of skills and a different set of values.
So you rely primarily on security thru obscurity and hope that genuine bad guys would never scan you? That's pretty scary.
That is not what he said.
What he said was that he would report suspicious activity to his superiors --- and whatever follows is out his control.
if you can find and talk to the guy in "minutes" as per the story, he's probably on your side or at worse is a hopeless noob script kiddie who's no more harmful or harmless than the other one million kiddies out there, so there's no sense messing with him.
The decision to pursue these guys is a policy decision - a management decision.
If your boss says he intends to come hard on anyone probing his systems without his approval ---- that he doesn't give a damn about their motives or their skills --- those are the rules you live by,
Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater is memorably integrated into the landscape. But it is also and unmistakably a home.
Wright's version of modernism was very much rooted in 19th century America. In the land, in the American culture, in the idea of home and domesticity, in warm materials that came out of the earth, wood and stone and so forth. The Europeans had a whole different set of priorities.
They were really Utopian socialists. They wanted to remake the traditional family. They envisioned a whole modern culture in which society itself would change. Wright was trying to create a different kind of architectural expression for a traditional culture which he very much believed in. ---- Paul Goldberger, Architecture Critic
Which is why most professionals, especially successful ones, would laugh at such a project. The people who are really being exploited by this are people who haven't earned much a reputation yet.
The pro learns to swallow his pride and admit that much of his work will be done "on spec." That he will be fighting against a great many others for the attention of a potential client --- all with credentials at least as good as his own.
That's the question to ask. Experience? Fun? Bragging rights? Whatever...
Campbell's has been around since 1869. Revenues $8 billion US a year. A company with a global reach and instant brand name recognition in North America. Clients like that do not fall from the sky ---- if you want their attention you are going to have to work for it.
There's no law that prevents me from going to a Chick-Fil-A and standing in line, and when I get up to the front to order saying "I'd like... hrm... um.. I would liiiike.... oh yeah, I'd like marriage equality for homosexuals." If I get a few thousand of my friends together to do just that, I've created a real word DDOS that is entirely legal.
Think again.
You've just described organizing and leading a campaign that will effectively deny legitimate customers access to a place of business --- elevating a misdemeanor trespassing charge into a felony conviction for conspiracy.
Chick-Fil-A will. of course, be suing you for damages....
So why would a company restrict availability of a product to a selected market at the outset; if making it available to a larger customer base is a matter of coding?
Because it is never just a "matter of coding?"
When you are as big as Microsoft you need to understand the language, the culture, the law, politics, and economics of every market you enter.
Your small startup doesn't have a global presence and accountability. Your mistakes do not make headlines.
In truth you are all but invisible and almost certainly judgment-proof.
It seems the DHS keeps expanding its mandate into ever broader areas.
And, quite frankly, that's a little creepy -- it's becoming this vast umbrella which has control over everything.
Well, yeah.
That is sort of the point of the thing.
The reason we have a consolidated Department of Defense (created ca. 1947-1949) is because of the absurd and damaging inter-service rivalries that became very visible in World War II.
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a cabinet department of the United States federal government, created in response to the September 11 attacks, and with the primary responsibilities of protecting the United States of America and U.S. territories...from.. terrorist attacks, man-made accidents, and natural disasters. DHS is the equivalent to the Interior ministries of other countries. An interior ministry (sometimes ministry of home affairs) is a government ministry typically responsible for policing, national security, and immigration matters.
Considering how easy it would be to set off some of those cheap Blue-Rhino propane tanks and get a similar death-toll, I hop that NYC is going to have gas control next on the agenda.
Clever, clever geek.
But no matter which side of the argument you take on video games and violence, there is no denying the visceral appeal of the first-person shooter. No denying what draws the crowds to the rifle range when military grade weapons --- or something very much like them --- are there to play with.
The bomb is sudden and immediate death.
The bomber isn't part of the action. He is only a spectator.
MIT's investigation is not about just and unjust actions - it is more about the fact that they did not actively stop the justice department from going after Schwartz.
The criminal prosecution is framed as "The People of the United States vs X" or the "The Prople of the State of New York vs Y."
This is not a principle to be discarded lightly.
It means that your church, your boss, or your school cannot simply abort a criminal prosecution when it becomes inconvenient or embarrassing. The geek-on-campus takes the hit on the felony charge. But so does the coach or chaplain.
That is the way it should be.
In the real world, of course, it is often the unique individual who is the victim of a violent or white collar crime who is under the most intense pressure to recant or remain silent to the protect the institution --- and his peers.
To be quite honest, if Disney opened up a Death Star theme park, I would HAVE to go there....
Disney Studio 90 years old.
Disneyland 58 years old.
Star Wars 36 years old.
The geek is obsessed with the icons of America's mass media culture.
He can see how they translate into an economic and political realities in states like New York, California and Florida --- and still wonder why the votes are never there to support his version of copyright reform.
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) did a study to evaluate the subjective video quality of HEVC at resolutions higher than HDTV. The study was done with three videos with resolutions of 3840Ã--1744 at 24 fps, 3840Ã--2048 at 30 fps, and 3840Ã--2160 at 30 fps. The five second video sequences showed people on a street, traffic, and a scene from the open source computer animated movie Sintel. The video sequences were encoded at five different bitrates using the HM-6.1.1 HEVC encoder and the JM-18.3 H.264/MPEG-4 AVC encoder. The subjective bit rate reductions were determined based on subjective assessment using mean opinion score values. The study compared HEVC MP with H.264/MPEG-4 AVC HP and showed that for HEVC MP the average bitrate reduction based on PSNR was 44.4% while the average bitrate reduction based on subjective video quality was 66.5%.
So lemme get this straight - the Department of Homeland Security spent taxpayer money finding and arresting a software pirate...
The DHS includes almost all law enforcement agencies in the federal government --- including para-military organizations like the Coast Guard. The software pirate who breaks federal laws is a legitimate object of pursuit. He will be charged and he will be convicted. It happens all the time.
If the dude pocketed a hundred million bucks, then it's a hundred million dollar piracy operation.
When someone breaks into your house or shop do you want to recover the full value of the property he stole or the price he received for his stolen goods --- mere pennies on the dollar at best? If he gives your stuff away, what then?
Suppose the death star gets about halfway done, and the requirement to convert to metric kicks in.
It doesn't.
The Death Star implies that the Galactic Empire has the political will, muscle, wealth and technical sophistication to build anything it damn well pleases using its existing system of weights and measures.
a country were women have no voice and homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death
Where are these "facts" coming from?
Among other things, the country is known for being the first country among Arab States of the Persian Gulf to allow women the right to vote.
Women in Qatar vote and may run for public office. Qatar enfranchised women at the same time as men in connection with the 1999 elections for a Central Municipal Council. These elections --- the first ever in Qatar --- were deliberately held on 8 March 1999, International Women's Day.
Qatar sent women athletes to the 2012 Summer Olympics that began on 27 July in London.
Sodomy between consenting adults in Qatar is illegal, and subject to a sentence of up to five years in prison. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered in any civil rights laws and there is no recognition of same-sex marriages, civil unions or domestic partnerships.
The extradition treaty of 2000 isn't the only one in play here.
The Treaty provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes:
taking the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; locating or identifying persons; serving documents; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures;
assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution to the victims of crime and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the State from whom the assistance is requested.
I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Treaty, and give its advice and consent to ratification.
Slashdot Mirror
Our leaders seek to return us to feudalism, and have been very successful at that. Remember that, next time you see a politician crying about the middle class.
I'll remember it when I hear the newly minted geek whining about the salary he is being offered at entry level.
In a country where the median household income is $50,000. Median household income falls again [Sept 2012]
If you think we're living because of monsanto crops, you're mistaken. sustainable solutions (and life as we know it) has existed for thousands and thousands of years without them.
We haven't had a global population of 6.7 billion for thousands of years. This isn't life as we have known it. The global population was a bare 3 billion in 1960. Global Population
There are less than one million full-time farmers in the US
Farmers represented over 50% of the US labor force as late as 1870. In the modern world it is hard to keep workers on the farm. It is a hard to protect agricultural land. It is hard to compete with first-world agricultural exports.
Climates change. Cultures change. Traditional solutions do not always work.
it is impossible for a newcomer in our team to get up to speed and be productive in less than a month due to unnecessary complexity
The miracle worker. The mutant mastermind.
New to the team, Core component. Mission critical. Up to speed in less than a month?
A group of 2-3 of us want to change [things]. How do we effect the social change necessary to convince them of what is better and encourage them to take the effort to do it?"
Who is "them?"
Your supervisors or your managers?
More importantly, who are you?
Not the team leaders, quite obviously, and probably no more than a bare five to ten percent of the team, if that. Unless you have the social skills to build a much broader consensus for change, you'll get absolutely nowhere no matter how good your technical arguments.
WTF are you about? GM crops are not going to help 'feed the world'. Places that are having food shortages suffer from poor soil, lack of water, poor infrastructure and little money. GM crops don't answer any of those issues.
Seems to me that engineering a plant that needs minimal care and performs well under harsh conditions would be a perfectly sensible way to proceed. It is, after all, a strategy that the geek has applauded under other circumstances --- deep space exploration, the colonization of Mars and so on.
It doesn't matter how bad the encryption is. If the MPAA or RIAA break the encryption on Mega's files they are violating the DMCA plain and simple.
I am not a lawyer.
But I'm betting if you don't have a license to distribute a copyrighted work, you can't claim the protection of the DMCA when your illegal distribution of the work is exposed.
If we even are alive by then.
Clever. So very, very clever,
But that is not the way a civil engineer thinks. It is not the way an accountant thinks.
If you are ready to retire to your Cold War era bunker in the backwoods of Idaho, fine. If you are looking for gainful employment in the production and maintenance of mission-critical systems, look elsewhere, because we don't need you, don't want you,
Well, for one, if you build your own PC's and don't want to pirate software, then Linux is free.
The enthusiast can live the with the weight and bulk of the DIY PC. But the desktop form factor is clearly evolving towards the style and convenience of other home appliances: Sony VAIO L Series 24" Multi-Touch All-in-One Desktop Computer
Also, once you get good on Linux the power of having a Unix command line available really becomes a boon. It took me a good year to 18 months of primary use on Linux, but at this point I truly feel more comfortable and efficient in Linux than in Windows.
The geek is like the backyard mechanic who spends all his spare hours under the hood. Most of his neighbors would prefer a relaxed cross-country drive. There will always be some overlap. But fundamentally they have a different set of skills and a different set of values.
So you rely primarily on security thru obscurity and hope that genuine bad guys would never scan you? That's pretty scary.
That is not what he said.
What he said was that he would report suspicious activity to his superiors --- and whatever follows is out his control.
if you can find and talk to the guy in "minutes" as per the story, he's probably on your side or at worse is a hopeless noob script kiddie who's no more harmful or harmless than the other one million kiddies out there, so there's no sense messing with him.
The decision to pursue these guys is a policy decision - a management decision.
If your boss says he intends to come hard on anyone probing his systems without his approval ---- that he doesn't give a damn about their motives or their skills --- those are the rules you live by,
Wright's version of modernism was very much rooted in 19th century America. In the land, in the American culture, in the idea of home and domesticity, in warm materials that came out of the earth, wood and stone and so forth. The Europeans had a whole different set of priorities.
They were really Utopian socialists. They wanted to remake the traditional family. They envisioned a whole modern culture in which society itself would change. Wright was trying to create a different kind of architectural expression for a traditional culture which he very much believed in. ---- Paul Goldberger, Architecture Critic
Fallingwater Interior
This Mobius strip looks more like a pavilion design for a World's Fair.
If I am reading the renderings correctly, it does not have an unbroken interior. Navigating from one "room" to the next looks to be quite a hike.
I don't see how you organize the interior space that is any way livable.
Which is why most professionals, especially successful ones, would laugh at such a project. The people who are really being exploited by this are people who haven't earned much a reputation yet.
The pro learns to swallow his pride and admit that much of his work will be done "on spec." That he will be fighting against a great many others for the attention of a potential client --- all with credentials at least as good as his own.
That's the question to ask. Experience? Fun? Bragging rights? Whatever...
Campbell's has been around since 1869. Revenues $8 billion US a year. A company with a global reach and instant brand name recognition in North America. Clients like that do not fall from the sky ---- if you want their attention you are going to have to work for it.
There's no law that prevents me from going to a Chick-Fil-A and standing in line, and when I get up to the front to order saying "I'd like... hrm... um.. I would liiiike.... oh yeah, I'd like marriage equality for homosexuals." If I get a few thousand of my friends together to do just that, I've created a real word DDOS that is entirely legal.
Think again.
You've just described organizing and leading a campaign that will effectively deny legitimate customers access to a place of business --- elevating a misdemeanor trespassing charge into a felony conviction for conspiracy.
Chick-Fil-A will. of course, be suing you for damages....
So why would a company restrict availability of a product to a selected market at the outset; if making it available to a larger customer base is a matter of coding?
Because it is never just a "matter of coding?"
When you are as big as Microsoft you need to understand the language, the culture, the law, politics, and economics of every market you enter.
Your small startup doesn't have a global presence and accountability. Your mistakes do not make headlines.
In truth you are all but invisible and almost certainly judgment-proof.
It seems the DHS keeps expanding its mandate into ever broader areas.
And, quite frankly, that's a little creepy -- it's becoming this vast umbrella which has control over everything.
Well, yeah.
That is sort of the point of the thing.
The reason we have a consolidated Department of Defense (created ca. 1947-1949) is because of the absurd and damaging inter-service rivalries that became very visible in World War II.
The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a cabinet department of the United States federal government, created in response to the September 11 attacks, and with the primary responsibilities of protecting the United States of America and U.S. territories...from.. terrorist attacks, man-made accidents, and natural disasters.
DHS is the equivalent to the Interior ministries of other countries. An interior ministry (sometimes ministry of home affairs) is a government ministry typically responsible for policing, national security, and immigration matters.
United States Department of Homeland Security, Interior ministry
Considering how easy it would be to set off some of those cheap Blue-Rhino propane tanks and get a similar death-toll, I hop that NYC is going to have gas control next on the agenda.
Clever, clever geek.
But no matter which side of the argument you take on video games and violence, there is no denying the visceral appeal of the first-person shooter. No denying what draws the crowds to the rifle range when military grade weapons --- or something very much like them --- are there to play with.
The bomb is sudden and immediate death.
The bomber isn't part of the action. He is only a spectator.
MIT's investigation is not about just and unjust actions - it is more about the fact that they did not actively stop the justice department from going after Schwartz.
The criminal prosecution is framed as "The People of the United States vs X" or the "The Prople of the State of New York vs Y."
This is not a principle to be discarded lightly.
It means that your church, your boss, or your school cannot simply abort a criminal prosecution when it becomes inconvenient or embarrassing. The geek-on-campus takes the hit on the felony charge. But so does the coach or chaplain.
That is the way it should be.
In the real world, of course, it is often the unique individual who is the victim of a violent or white collar crime who is under the most intense pressure to recant or remain silent to the protect the institution --- and his peers.
Cop protects cop. Priest protects priest. Hacker protects hacker. Or else.
To be quite honest, if Disney opened up a Death Star theme park, I would HAVE to go there....
Disney Studio 90 years old.
Disneyland 58 years old.
Star Wars 36 years old.
The geek is obsessed with the icons of America's mass media culture.
He can see how they translate into an economic and political realities in states like New York, California and Florida --- and still wonder why the votes are never there to support his version of copyright reform.
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) did a study to evaluate the subjective video quality of HEVC at resolutions higher than HDTV. The study was done with three videos with resolutions of 3840Ã--1744 at 24 fps, 3840Ã--2048 at 30 fps, and 3840Ã--2160 at 30 fps. The five second video sequences showed people on a street, traffic, and a scene from the open source computer animated movie Sintel. The video sequences were encoded at five different bitrates using the HM-6.1.1 HEVC encoder and the JM-18.3 H.264/MPEG-4 AVC encoder. The subjective bit rate reductions were determined based on subjective assessment using mean opinion score values. The study compared HEVC MP with H.264/MPEG-4 AVC HP and showed that for HEVC MP the average bitrate reduction based on PSNR was 44.4% while the average bitrate reduction based on subjective video quality was 66.5%.
High Efficiency Video Coding
So lemme get this straight - the Department of Homeland Security spent taxpayer money finding and arresting a software pirate...
The DHS includes almost all law enforcement agencies in the federal government --- including para-military organizations like the Coast Guard. The software pirate who breaks federal laws is a legitimate object of pursuit. He will be charged and he will be convicted. It happens all the time.
If the dude pocketed a hundred million bucks, then it's a hundred million dollar piracy operation.
When someone breaks into your house or shop do you want to recover the full value of the property he stole or the price he received for his stolen goods --- mere pennies on the dollar at best? If he gives your stuff away, what then?
Suppose the death star gets about halfway done, and the requirement to convert to metric kicks in.
It doesn't.
The Death Star implies that the Galactic Empire has the political will, muscle, wealth and technical sophistication to build anything it damn well pleases using its existing system of weights and measures.
It has no compelling reason to change anything.
Many countries that have officially gone metric still use local units for things like building materials.
That suggests to me that the geek would be happy with a symbolic victory even if there were no changes on the ground.
Mount the screen at an angle. Recess it. Problem solved. Dell S2340T 23" Multi-Touch Monitor
a country were women have no voice and homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death
Where are these "facts" coming from?
Among other things, the country is known for being the first country among Arab States of the Persian Gulf to allow women the right to vote.
Women in Qatar vote and may run for public office. Qatar enfranchised women at the same time as men in connection with the 1999 elections for a Central Municipal Council. These elections --- the first ever in Qatar --- were deliberately held on 8 March 1999, International Women's Day.
Qatar sent women athletes to the 2012 Summer Olympics that began on 27 July in London.
Sodomy between consenting adults in Qatar is illegal, and subject to a sentence of up to five years in prison. Sexual orientation and gender identity are not covered in any civil rights laws and there is no recognition of same-sex marriages, civil unions or domestic partnerships.
Human Rights in Qatar
the US has an extradition treaty with Belize
The extradition treaty of 2000 isn't the only one in play here.
The Treaty provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes:
taking the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; locating or identifying persons; serving documents; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution to the victims of crime and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the State from whom the assistance is requested.
I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Treaty, and give its advice and consent to ratification.
GEORGE W. BUSH
TREATY WITH BELIZE ON MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS/a