"And so, on behalf of the entire city, I thank you Professor Robertsonworth. I now present you with the Internet Telephony prize, which we confiscated from Professor Zenstrom after it became apparent that he was a jackass."
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually sending legitimate email. Every list moderator on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you unsolicited emailers do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Spammers are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure." (Agent Smith, with some help)
An additional problem involved the impression that NASA and manned spaceflight was Kennedy's inspired contribution to society. Presidents who followed him didn't want "Kennedy's Boys" to remain in power, and systematically put the space program out to pasture. If the Saturn V heavy-lift technology had been allowed to evolve, or had even been retained, our space program would be vastly different. The Shuttle has a place in the space program, but it has nowhere near the payload capacity of the Saturn V. (Shuttle ~65ooo lbs; Saturn V ~ 250,000 lbs.) Why do you s'pose we took a major step backward in launch capacity? It wasn't a good engineering choice. It was a political decision... and a bad one.
From the article - Under the previous ruling, a disgruntled employee might be able to post a company's proprietary code online and claim free speech rights, for example.
Forgive me for being naive, but this incident is already covered by Copyright Infringement laws. No need to bring Free Speech into the picture.
This judgement leads us down a slippery slope to a point where any form of reverse engineering is illegal - just claim "trade secret rights" (whatever those are.)
SCO is attempting to be the Borg. (Don't get me wrong, I have lots of respect for the Borg, and I wish that the Star Trek creative staff hadn't written them off so easily.)
SCO wants to own anything that's come in contact with their operating system. "We consider that a derivative work" they'll say. They're trying to assimilate other people's work into their collective. That's Borg-ish behavior, though I doubt there are any Borg named "Darl-of-Seven."
I hadn't used the graphics tools in a while, and I saw this as an opportunity to revisit the skills I've let get rusty. You're more than welcome to make your own Pakled icon and post it for comparison. I'd be interested to see what you come up with.
I'm currently working on a contract job for a start-up (yes, there are still start-ups.) In the contract, we specifically stated that if the company goes out of business for whatever reason, ownership of the software and hardware designs we've done will revert back to us. We consider this fair because we're accepting a percentage of the future profits as compensation for our efforts.
It would be difficult to create a similar contractual agreement if you're a full-time employee. You've accepted compensation in the form of a paycheck. If they ask you to build Widget X, your employer may flush it down the toilet if he so wishes. You have no ownership rights because you traded them for the regular pay.
Consider this to be a "popular vote," as opposed to one that requires representation. I have cast my vote, and it says "go away."
It's kind of like having a speed limit on the highway. Yes, it restricts your ability to go fast, whenever you want. And yes, it places a restriction on how fast you can deliver material goods - which can be translated directly into "lost potential money" because it takes longer to deliver your wares.
Safety requirements "cost jobs" for manufacturers of toasters. Sound level restrictions on cars "cost jobs" for manufacturers of glass-pack mufflers. Telemarketing is an industry that is subject to federal/state/local regulations, just like all the rest.
I built the reference circuit in the Microchip app note that this design is derived from. It's amazingly simple and elegant. It works really well too. I spent exactly no time setting up the coupling inductors and still got decent performance.
Part of issue is that the ISS requires a bunch of shuttle flights just to maintain opreations with a full crew compliment and a decent science program. Since the shuttle is the only vehicle capable of servicing the needs, you might as well do crew rotations with it too.
If you do that, there's no need to perform crew rotations with an OSP. The only base you need to cover is emergency egress. That's what I'm proposing. Abandon the OSP, and build a handful on disposable Crew Egress Vehicles that are dirt cheap, fundamentally stable for ballistic reentry, and disposable. It's like the micro-spare tire in your car - you have one, but you don't want to use it for everyday driving.
I'd rather have the next generation shuttle replacement be an unmanned heavy lift vehicle that could be equipped with a crew compartment in the payload bay for crew rotation missions. Take all that life support crap out when you need to boost large pieces or go to decent orbits. Unfortunately, that's a "spam in a can" attitude, and the USAF won't allow it.
The conclusions at the end of the article are pretty decent. Using refurbed (or updated versions of old) Apollo-era capsules is a good idea. Wings on spacecraft are there because the USAF mandated that spacecraft be piloted by... you guessed it... pilots. Pilots fly things with wings. They were horribly opposed to the "spam in a can" image being laid out for them in the 50's. Much of the crap in NASA's systems are a direct result of pilot intervention being mandated by the USAF.
If I was scheduled to go to the ISS, I'd want the dirt-simplest flight equipment available. I'd definitely want the reentry profile to be *fundamentally* stable - just like the Apollo-era return vehicles. I don't give a crap where it comes down - that's what we have aircraft and helicopters and boats and trucks for.
The one missing experiment is to put one in a bell jar, pump it down, and THEN fly it. If it just sits on the table, it's ionic wind. They should be able to easily perform this experiment and end all the speculation.
Of course, antigravity sounds much more interesting than been-done-before-ion-propulsion, now don't it?
They've done a nice job of analyzing the residual influx of email, while not airing all the dirty laundry. They didn't post a complete session log, so there's no information that may get folks upset. The last business email listed as "1 other" is probably sensitive, and shouldn't be posted on the web (though sending them a "we know who you are" message may make them think twice about using spam in the future.)
The root cause here seems to be the almighty buck, pound, peso, krugerrand, etc. Spammers are in business because someone pays them to send spam.
Can we create legislature that makes it illegal to hire someone to send spam for you? You know, the same way it's illegal to hire someone to beat up your good-for-nothing neighbor. While the spammers are hard to backtrace, the product offerings have to be traceable, otherwise they wouldn't be selling anything.
The downside of this suggestion is that it's easy to frame a company by sending out spam in their name.
Mile high club? That is soooo 20th century. I suggest that the next module to be attached to the ISS should be the Space Erogenous eXperiment module. For the very reasonable price of USD 50M, you and your partner get a round trip ticket and a week's stay in the luxurious and private S.E.X. module on the ISS. (Meals and port fees are included.)
This is the kind of development that makes the budget woes of the ISS go away. If it costs <pinky> one Billlllion dollars </pinky> to put the thing up there, you've roughly broken even after 20 bookings. So be pessimistic and say that it takes 40 bookings. If they fly passengers 6 times a year, the module is "in the black" inside of 7 years. After that, it's generating revenue for the program and funding the science operations. How many other ISS modules could lay claim to that? I know I'd certainly welcome any structure that reduces the amount of money that the ISS sucks out of my wallet.
You can obtain a restricted Technician Class license without knowing Morse - FCC Amateur Operator Classes If you want to use HF, you're probably going to need it because the channel allocations are so small.
BSA's whole premise for existence is that there is rampant piracy going on. They'd never admit that the piracy rate was more like 1-2%, because the companies that fund the BSA would consider that "acceptable" and realize that the BSA exists only to pay for itself. The BSA needs to be a FUD-monger to ensure it's own existence.
The BSA would HATE for strong copy protection to be enforced, because it would shrivel up and die shortly thereafter. If the software vendors would release crippleware versions of their products for folks to try, sales would increase and the BSA would probably die off. Sounds like a deal.
Reading some of the history between Corbin Motors and MCM (Google cache here), Corbin seems to have bet the farm on the Merlin roadster. Specifically, they decided to build their own engine (for what possible reason, I dunno.) Here's a link to the MCM engine being developed for the Merlin. It's a cute engine, but it's development seems to have caused a rift between Corbin and MCM, resulting in litigation that eventually led to Corbin's demise. They should have just purchased an engine from Honda or Suzuki or anyone else who's willing to OEM one to them. It was a very bad decision to roll-their-own.
There's a lesson here for most engineers. Building something from scratch, while cool, may not be the best decision. It's hard to stay in business if you make decisions that bankrupt the company.
You can't get the zoning changed unless you have gobs of money, or are on the Board of Zoning. Don't pursue that route.
Many states allow "low impact" home based businesses. There are restrictions, like how many deliveries you may receive a week and so on. (example) The objective is to keep the residential areas residential, and move all the 18 wheelers into industrial areas.
Do some research into what the local municipality allows. You may find it's friendly for what you want to do. Otherwise, move.
Oh, and don't think you'll sneak by with having a PO Box as your registered place of business. Most states won't allow a PO Box as the business location. If you put your home address down, you can expect the local code enforcement officials to come a knockin' in a few months. The gub'ment has programs in place to hunt down folks who are "non-compliant." Your tax dollars at work.
Here's an ugly scenario - the RIAA wins a court settlement that prohibits the manufacture of non-DRM CD-RW drives. New "post ban" models will have a DRM crippler installed, and won't let you burn anything to CD unless you connect to RIAA HQ and get permission. The courts will need to grandfather "pre ban" drives because retrofitting will be impossible. If your CD-RW drive needs to be repaired, you'll need to take it to a certified repair shop. Don't even think about transporting it across state lines all by yourself. You'll need a special permit for that. Oh, and you'll need to register your "pre ban" CD-RW with ATF.
Yes, the shapes are... unique. Some look like little piles of dog crap. Others are more... anatomically correct?
I thought it was interesting that they're using laser-sintering techniques to make some of the fractal-looking blobs. I thought the Factory piece was a cool mix of mechanization and performance-art (without being too Rube-Goldberg.)
This explains why the Star Trek control panels are always exploding. It's not that they routed main power through a switch on the panel, it's that the fancy-assed graphical display needed a terahertz-class processor to render the warp field display in real-time. That last Romulan disruptor blast just dislodged the heatsink for a few milliseconds and {poof}.
Actually, there are benefits to having a small business where you can demonstrate that you're making the effort to behave like a business. You can deduct certain business expenses, and depreciate equipment like computers. You exchange pain-in-the-ass time for a refund. You need to decide for yourself if it's worth it.
My question is - why a C-corp? I created an LLC to simplify my paperwork and to only get taxed once. Without knowing the details of your situation, your general description makes me think that an LLC would be more appropriate. At a minimum, the paperwork is much simpler.
The BSA - bunch of thugs
on
BSA IDC FUD
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I started my own business recently. Not two weeks after I submitted the paperwork for a state business license, I received a mailing from the BSA that encouraged me to volunteer for an audit "just to make sure I didn't expose myself to the liability of unlicensed or improperly licensed software."
Uh huh. Riiiiiight. Seems that the state gub'ment sold a mailing list to these jackbooted thugs. You gimme any of that juris-my-diction crap, you can cram it up your ass.
Slashdot Mirror
"And so, on behalf of the entire city, I thank you Professor Robertsonworth. I now present you with the Internet Telephony prize, which we confiscated from Professor Zenstrom after it became apparent that he was a jackass."
"Yes! In your face, Zenstrom!"
- Yes, I'm easily amused. Why do you ask?
Every time I hear the name "Torino" I'm reminded of the 1973 Ford product that I took driver's ed in. Yes, it was a while ago.
So I can envision someone creating a mass-equivalent scale using this vehicle because it was his first car. Stranger things have happened.
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually sending legitimate email. Every list moderator on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you unsolicited emailers do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Spammers are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure." (Agent Smith, with some help)
An additional problem involved the impression that NASA and manned spaceflight was Kennedy's inspired contribution to society. Presidents who followed him didn't want "Kennedy's Boys" to remain in power, and systematically put the space program out to pasture. If the Saturn V heavy-lift technology had been allowed to evolve, or had even been retained, our space program would be vastly different. The Shuttle has a place in the space program, but it has nowhere near the payload capacity of the Saturn V. (Shuttle ~65ooo lbs; Saturn V ~ 250,000 lbs.) Why do you s'pose we took a major step backward in launch capacity? It wasn't a good engineering choice. It was a political decision ... and a bad one.
From the article -
Under the previous ruling, a disgruntled employee might be able to post a company's proprietary code online and claim free speech rights, for example.
Forgive me for being naive, but this incident is already covered by Copyright Infringement laws. No need to bring Free Speech into the picture.
This judgement leads us down a slippery slope to a point where any form of reverse engineering is illegal - just claim "trade secret rights" (whatever those are.)
SCO is attempting to be the Borg. (Don't get me wrong, I have lots of respect for the Borg, and I wish that the Star Trek creative staff hadn't written them off so easily.)
SCO wants to own anything that's come in contact with their operating system. "We consider that a derivative work" they'll say. They're trying to assimilate other people's work into their collective. That's Borg-ish behavior, though I doubt there are any Borg named "Darl-of-Seven."
I hadn't used the graphics tools in a while, and I saw this as an opportunity to revisit the skills I've let get rusty. You're more than welcome to make your own Pakled icon and post it for comparison. I'd be interested to see what you come up with.
A number of people have requested a borg-ish SCO icon for SCO stories. It's not my best work, but here ya go.
I sent a copy to Michael and CmdrTaco, though I wonder if they'll see it buried in the huge piles of spam they must receive.
MigraineMan
I'm currently working on a contract job for a start-up (yes, there are still start-ups.) In the contract, we specifically stated that if the company goes out of business for whatever reason, ownership of the software and hardware designs we've done will revert back to us. We consider this fair because we're accepting a percentage of the future profits as compensation for our efforts.
It would be difficult to create a similar contractual agreement if you're a full-time employee. You've accepted compensation in the form of a paycheck. If they ask you to build Widget X, your employer may flush it down the toilet if he so wishes. You have no ownership rights because you traded them for the regular pay.
Consider this to be a "popular vote," as opposed to one that requires representation. I have cast my vote, and it says "go away."
It's kind of like having a speed limit on the highway. Yes, it restricts your ability to go fast, whenever you want. And yes, it places a restriction on how fast you can deliver material goods - which can be translated directly into "lost potential money" because it takes longer to deliver your wares.
Safety requirements "cost jobs" for manufacturers of toasters. Sound level restrictions on cars "cost jobs" for manufacturers of glass-pack mufflers. Telemarketing is an industry that is subject to federal/state/local regulations, just like all the rest.
So cry me a river. Deal with it.
I built the reference circuit in the Microchip app note that this design is derived from. It's amazingly simple and elegant. It works really well too. I spent exactly no time setting up the coupling inductors and still got decent performance.
Part of issue is that the ISS requires a bunch of shuttle flights just to maintain opreations with a full crew compliment and a decent science program. Since the shuttle is the only vehicle capable of servicing the needs, you might as well do crew rotations with it too.
If you do that, there's no need to perform crew rotations with an OSP. The only base you need to cover is emergency egress. That's what I'm proposing. Abandon the OSP, and build a handful on disposable Crew Egress Vehicles that are dirt cheap, fundamentally stable for ballistic reentry, and disposable. It's like the micro-spare tire in your car - you have one, but you don't want to use it for everyday driving.
I'd rather have the next generation shuttle replacement be an unmanned heavy lift vehicle that could be equipped with a crew compartment in the payload bay for crew rotation missions. Take all that life support crap out when you need to boost large pieces or go to decent orbits. Unfortunately, that's a "spam in a can" attitude, and the USAF won't allow it.
The conclusions at the end of the article are pretty decent. Using refurbed (or updated versions of old) Apollo-era capsules is a good idea. Wings on spacecraft are there because the USAF mandated that spacecraft be piloted by ... you guessed it ... pilots. Pilots fly things with wings. They were horribly opposed to the "spam in a can" image being laid out for them in the 50's. Much of the crap in NASA's systems are a direct result of pilot intervention being mandated by the USAF.
If I was scheduled to go to the ISS, I'd want the dirt-simplest flight equipment available. I'd definitely want the reentry profile to be *fundamentally* stable - just like the Apollo-era return vehicles. I don't give a crap where it comes down - that's what we have aircraft and helicopters and boats and trucks for.
The one missing experiment is to put one in a bell jar, pump it down, and THEN fly it. If it just sits on the table, it's ionic wind. They should be able to easily perform this experiment and end all the speculation.
Of course, antigravity sounds much more interesting than been-done-before-ion-propulsion, now don't it?
They've done a nice job of analyzing the residual influx of email, while not airing all the dirty laundry. They didn't post a complete session log, so there's no information that may get folks upset. The last business email listed as "1 other" is probably sensitive, and shouldn't be posted on the web (though sending them a "we know who you are" message may make them think twice about using spam in the future.)
The root cause here seems to be the almighty buck, pound, peso, krugerrand, etc. Spammers are in business because someone pays them to send spam.
Can we create legislature that makes it illegal to hire someone to send spam for you? You know, the same way it's illegal to hire someone to beat up your good-for-nothing neighbor. While the spammers are hard to backtrace, the product offerings have to be traceable, otherwise they wouldn't be selling anything.
The downside of this suggestion is that it's easy to frame a company by sending out spam in their name.
Mile high club? That is soooo 20th century. I suggest that the next module to be attached to the ISS should be the Space Erogenous eXperiment module. For the very reasonable price of USD 50M, you and your partner get a round trip ticket and a week's stay in the luxurious and private S.E.X. module on the ISS. (Meals and port fees are included.)
This is the kind of development that makes the budget woes of the ISS go away. If it costs <pinky> one Billlllion dollars </pinky> to put the thing up there, you've roughly broken even after 20 bookings. So be pessimistic and say that it takes 40 bookings. If they fly passengers 6 times a year, the module is "in the black" inside of 7 years. After that, it's generating revenue for the program and funding the science operations. How many other ISS modules could lay claim to that? I know I'd certainly welcome any structure that reduces the amount of money that the ISS sucks out of my wallet.
You can obtain a restricted Technician Class license without knowing Morse -
FCC Amateur Operator Classes
If you want to use HF, you're probably going to need it because the channel allocations are so small.
BSA's whole premise for existence is that there is rampant piracy going on. They'd never admit that the piracy rate was more like 1-2%, because the companies that fund the BSA would consider that "acceptable" and realize that the BSA exists only to pay for itself. The BSA needs to be a FUD-monger to ensure it's own existence.
The BSA would HATE for strong copy protection to be enforced, because it would shrivel up and die shortly thereafter. If the software vendors would release crippleware versions of their products for folks to try, sales would increase and the BSA would probably die off. Sounds like a deal.
Reading some of the history between Corbin Motors and MCM (Google cache here), Corbin seems to have bet the farm on the Merlin roadster. Specifically, they decided to build their own engine (for what possible reason, I dunno.) Here's a link to the MCM engine being developed for the Merlin. It's a cute engine, but it's development seems to have caused a rift between Corbin and MCM, resulting in litigation that eventually led to Corbin's demise. They should have just purchased an engine from Honda or Suzuki or anyone else who's willing to OEM one to them. It was a very bad decision to roll-their-own.
There's a lesson here for most engineers. Building something from scratch, while cool, may not be the best decision. It's hard to stay in business if you make decisions that bankrupt the company.
You can't get the zoning changed unless you have gobs of money, or are on the Board of Zoning. Don't pursue that route.
Many states allow "low impact" home based businesses. There are restrictions, like how many deliveries you may receive a week and so on. (example) The objective is to keep the residential areas residential, and move all the 18 wheelers into industrial areas.
Do some research into what the local municipality allows. You may find it's friendly for what you want to do. Otherwise, move.
Oh, and don't think you'll sneak by with having a PO Box as your registered place of business. Most states won't allow a PO Box as the business location. If you put your home address down, you can expect the local code enforcement officials to come a knockin' in a few months. The gub'ment has programs in place to hunt down folks who are "non-compliant." Your tax dollars at work.
Here's an ugly scenario - the RIAA wins a court settlement that prohibits the manufacture of non-DRM CD-RW drives. New "post ban" models will have a DRM crippler installed, and won't let you burn anything to CD unless you connect to RIAA HQ and get permission. The courts will need to grandfather "pre ban" drives because retrofitting will be impossible. If your CD-RW drive needs to be repaired, you'll need to take it to a certified repair shop. Don't even think about transporting it across state lines all by yourself. You'll need a special permit for that. Oh, and you'll need to register your "pre ban" CD-RW with ATF.
Yes, the shapes are ... unique. Some look like little piles of dog crap. Others are more ... anatomically correct?
I thought it was interesting that they're using laser-sintering techniques to make some of the fractal-looking blobs. I thought the Factory piece was a cool mix of mechanization and performance-art (without being too Rube-Goldberg.)
This explains why the Star Trek control panels are always exploding. It's not that they routed main power through a switch on the panel, it's that the fancy-assed graphical display needed a terahertz-class processor to render the warp field display in real-time. That last Romulan disruptor blast just dislodged the heatsink for a few milliseconds and {poof}.
Actually, there are benefits to having a small business where you can demonstrate that you're making the effort to behave like a business. You can deduct certain business expenses, and depreciate equipment like computers. You exchange pain-in-the-ass time for a refund. You need to decide for yourself if it's worth it.
My question is - why a C-corp? I created an LLC to simplify my paperwork and to only get taxed once. Without knowing the details of your situation, your general description makes me think that an LLC would be more appropriate. At a minimum, the paperwork is much simpler.
I started my own business recently. Not two weeks after I submitted the paperwork for a state business license, I received a mailing from the BSA that encouraged me to volunteer for an audit "just to make sure I didn't expose myself to the liability of unlicensed or improperly licensed software."
Uh huh. Riiiiiight. Seems that the state gub'ment sold a mailing list to these jackbooted thugs. You gimme any of that juris-my-diction crap, you can cram it up your ass.