the most interesting feature of which is that it has a 3G connection all the time.
Yay, now we can have a moving botnet!
Now we know the real purpose of the "Cornfucker" worm's activation on April 1st -- it's to spread to Tesla cars and activate the mechanical cob of corn that's sitting under the driver's seat.
Given how long radio has been around and the number of compression algorithms that must be available, I'm quite surprised this is considered an unsolved problem domain.
Thanks for the info. For some reason, I had thought that compression was a long-solved problem and that nobody would even need to bother with writing their own -- almost as if you had said that you invent sorting algorithms for arrays of strings.
(it's my job - I invent audio algorithms for broadcast, and related things)
I'm genuinely curious as to the purpose of the audio algorithms. Is it to obtain a specific sound? Can you describe a typical algorithm you've created and what it's used for?
5 employees @ $100,000/year (everything included) = $500,000/year 10 years @ $500,000/year = $5,000,000 over 10 years $30K first year + 9 years @ $5K = $75,000 $75,000 / $5,000,000 = 1.5%
Have a nice day.
As to your assertion that $100,000 per year per employee is inflated, Oracle averaged $153,000 in operating expenses per employee over the last 12 years[1]. Red Hat was almost $250,000 in operating expenses per employee[2]. So $100,000 per year is low in the software industry and it's doubtful you'll find any company with a lower figure than that.
If you're going to doubt my math, how about you bother to do some yourself? Your emotional hand waving arguments have no substance.
if you can't afford these costs, don't waste our time because odds are good you won't be in business in a year from now"
And that's what you're going to tell all the solo pediatricians and family practitioners who currently use paper charts and who are going to have to suck up that cost when they buy a certified EMR?
If you have five people in your minuscule company with salaries, benefits, office space, equipment, legal and accounting fees, insurance, and other overhead of $100,000 per year for each employee (and really, that's low for anybody decently skilled) then $30,000 represents 6% of the total cost. Over the course of ten years, the cost of acquiring and maintaining certification, assuming your expenses don't go up at all, represents an average of 1.5% of your total expenses.
So in answer to your question: no, if I were running such a software business I don't think I'd tell practitioners that certification costs represent an average of 1.5% of the business's operating costs because nobody's going to give a shit. Do you scream bloody murder when your movie ticket price goes from $10.00 to $10.15?
Speaking of cost... 25 to 35K one time fee and 5k a year? What kind of *scam* is that? One gurenteed to make it possible only for those with a huge finantial interest (and thus low OSS interest) to gain entry. Total bullshit. Who made these yahoos incharge?
I assume you have some basis for your outrage? Do you know how many hours of work goes into the one-time certification process? What sort of legal review is required? How much money in third party disbursements are involved?
Seriously, if you don't have $30K to pony up for the certification, what are the odds that you've spent the necessary money to ensure full compliance with all aspects of relevant legislation? Have you gone over your application with a team of lawyers to ensure full compliance? Have you hired UI designers to come up with a sane user interface and paid for a panel of doctors from various professions to perform UI testing and implement any suggested changes? Do you also have professional liability insurance to cover any errors and omissions that you might have made? How large is your support department, what's your SLA for support turnaround times, and what's the SLA for any bug fixes or feature improvements? What kind of physical and network-based authentication and permission policies do you employ in your office? If someone were to break into your office during the night and you've been examining data from my systems to track down a bug, can you guarantee that the data won't get compromised because proper information handling procedures have been followed? What's your two year roadmap for the product so that people comparing it against offerings can see where you're headed?
What it boils down to is that the $25K - $35K in fees is partly to cover the actual costs of the certification and partly a statement that "if you can't afford these costs, don't waste our time because odds are good you won't be in business in a year from now". Seriously, that's the salary and overhead cost of a half decent developer for a few months let alone all the other support staff you'll need to maintain a viable business.
Also from the article:
The "seal of approval" model is also problematic. Suppose I pay the fee to have MirrorMed (my project of choice) certified. There is no way for me to guarentee[sic] that only I benifit[sic] from the "seal". My competitors which have full access to the code that I would have certified would be able to correctly claim that the code had been certified, and would benifit[sic] with me. As with the original pricing there is no way to fairly spread these kinds of costs across a community.
Waah... cry him a river. He's complaining that because he's choosing to make his code available for everybody at no cost, that he's putting himself at a disadvantage because others can use his code at no cost? What the FUCK, dude? Choosing to use the GPL means that you've also chosen all the consequences of that particular license. If you don't like the consequences, then don't ask for special treatment because you think the GPL automatically gives you some kind of entitlement. Change your license!
Since you've received restitution for their oversight in notifying you about the policy change, it's too bad you can't retract the story. Perhaps you can email the editors and ask that they update it to reflect this new information?
I suggest this because it appears you signed up for a Slashdot account just to post this story and comments, your comments are scored at 0 by default so it'll be hard for others to find them.
My bad -- I thought this was a discussion. Had I expected to post a formal treatise free of logical defects, my original post would have either been significantly longer or absent.
The last time I checked, most land-lines in the United States do not support Short Message Service. Nor do I see how people who rely exclusively on a land-line are willing to buy a $50 prepaid mobile phone and a $20 top-up card just to sign up for one site that uses SMS verification.
Good point, so either scrap SMS or don't make it the only way to register.
Two words: "Absentee Landlord". My father-in-law owned a condo in the same complex where I lived. He moved to FL and rented out the condo. He obviously needs access to that site.
Two words: "phone call". If someone's affected and they shouldn't be, just pick up the phone (or fill out a form, whatever) and the site admin can create the account for him, bypassing the IP restriction at account creation. Once you have your account, it's not IP restricted. Given that the problem as posted is that the admin spends all his/her time weeding out those who shouldn't have accounts, I'm sure the admin wouldn't mind getting rid of that hassle entirely and only having to handle these kinds of exceptions.
No kidding. Basically, anyone who thinks geography-based filtering is a good idea should be shot. Imagine moving 2000 miles, then being told by some braindead webdesigner you can't talk to your friends anymore.
As others have pointed out, you only need to enforce this when creating the account. Once you have an account, there's no need to do any filtering.
Also, you're assuming this is some kind of social networking site where the goal is to talk to your friends. What if it's an association for condo owners in a specific building? If you move 2000 miles, you're no longer welcome at the site because you don't live there anymore. If you made friends in your building, follow them on Facebook not on some specialist site.
Download a database of IP address to location, then do a lookup. If it's within your state, for example, then allow access. Otherwise, send them to a "sorry" page with contact info in case they really are local and you need to add an exception.
Or implement SMS verification on account signup that only allows your area code and then do manual review, perhaps using a community approval process.
My only concern with that would be the heat factor. I wouldn't want the external drive to generate heat (some of them a fair amount!) and then the Mac Mini uses that air to attempt to cool its components. However, it appears to have its own cooling system which jets the hot air out the back, just like the Mini. Looks like a really cool [ahem!] product.
Someone should create a chronicle of all these Riddick threats. Who knows... it might someday make a great movie too.
And why am I not surprised that someone who insists on using such a pompous, bloated name has been accused of such tactics? Also see "Colin James III" who was the single most voted person for the "Kook of the Month" award years back:
I think this one further in the thread contains a better explanation:
a NOT IN b is equivalent in the spec to NOT(a IN b). a IN b is equivalent to a =ANY b. a =ANY b returns true if a = x is true for any x in b. a =ANY b returns false if a = x is false for all x in b. Otherwise it returns unknown.
0 = NULL returns unknown 0 = 1 returns false So, 0 IN (NULL,1) returns unknown.
NOT(unknown) is unknown.
WHERE clauses only return rows for which the search condition is true, so a row is not returned.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd recommend a cuter version of that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8atj26-jjo
So you won't mind if I send a load of spam to Google and use your email address as the return address?
Too much iron can lead to brain damage
You need to switch to wrought irony. It's just like regular irony, but twisted a bit.
Are you sure you didn't take that joke from Ferrous Bueller's Day Off?
the most interesting feature of which is that it has a 3G connection all the time.
Yay, now we can have a moving botnet!
Now we know the real purpose of the "Cornfucker" worm's activation on April 1st -- it's to spread to Tesla cars and activate the mechanical cob of corn that's sitting under the driver's seat.
Given the unlikelihood of this succeeding, I think Clownsourcing is most appropriate.
I'd just keep me head down and swab the deck, me hearty!
I would recommend that any SlashDot reader...
Note: Slashdot isn't written in CamelCase... it's written in Horsecase.
Given how long radio has been around and the number of compression algorithms that must be available, I'm quite surprised this is considered an unsolved problem domain.
Thanks for the info. For some reason, I had thought that compression was a long-solved problem and that nobody would even need to bother with writing their own -- almost as if you had said that you invent sorting algorithms for arrays of strings.
(it's my job - I invent audio algorithms for broadcast, and related things)
I'm genuinely curious as to the purpose of the audio algorithms. Is it to obtain a specific sound? Can you describe a typical algorithm you've created and what it's used for?
5 employees @ $100,000/year (everything included) = $500,000/year
10 years @ $500,000/year = $5,000,000 over 10 years
$30K first year + 9 years @ $5K = $75,000
$75,000 / $5,000,000 = 1.5%
Have a nice day.
As to your assertion that $100,000 per year per employee is inflated, Oracle averaged $153,000 in operating expenses per employee over the last 12 years[1]. Red Hat was almost $250,000 in operating expenses per employee[2]. So $100,000 per year is low in the software industry and it's doubtful you'll find any company with a lower figure than that.
If you're going to doubt my math, how about you bother to do some yourself? Your emotional hand waving arguments have no substance.
[1] http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/65518.html
[2] http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=RHT
if you can't afford these costs, don't waste our time because odds are good you won't be in business in a year from now"
And that's what you're going to tell all the solo pediatricians and family practitioners who currently use paper charts and who are going to have to suck up that cost when they buy a certified EMR?
If you have five people in your minuscule company with salaries, benefits, office space, equipment, legal and accounting fees, insurance, and other overhead of $100,000 per year for each employee (and really, that's low for anybody decently skilled) then $30,000 represents 6% of the total cost. Over the course of ten years, the cost of acquiring and maintaining certification, assuming your expenses don't go up at all, represents an average of 1.5% of your total expenses.
So in answer to your question: no, if I were running such a software business I don't think I'd tell practitioners that certification costs represent an average of 1.5% of the business's operating costs because nobody's going to give a shit. Do you scream bloody murder when your movie ticket price goes from $10.00 to $10.15?
Speaking of cost... 25 to 35K one time fee and 5k a year? What kind of *scam* is that? One gurenteed to make it possible only for those with a huge finantial interest (and thus low OSS interest) to gain entry. Total bullshit. Who made these yahoos incharge?
I assume you have some basis for your outrage? Do you know how many hours of work goes into the one-time certification process? What sort of legal review is required? How much money in third party disbursements are involved?
Seriously, if you don't have $30K to pony up for the certification, what are the odds that you've spent the necessary money to ensure full compliance with all aspects of relevant legislation? Have you gone over your application with a team of lawyers to ensure full compliance? Have you hired UI designers to come up with a sane user interface and paid for a panel of doctors from various professions to perform UI testing and implement any suggested changes? Do you also have professional liability insurance to cover any errors and omissions that you might have made? How large is your support department, what's your SLA for support turnaround times, and what's the SLA for any bug fixes or feature improvements? What kind of physical and network-based authentication and permission policies do you employ in your office? If someone were to break into your office during the night and you've been examining data from my systems to track down a bug, can you guarantee that the data won't get compromised because proper information handling procedures have been followed? What's your two year roadmap for the product so that people comparing it against offerings can see where you're headed?
What it boils down to is that the $25K - $35K in fees is partly to cover the actual costs of the certification and partly a statement that "if you can't afford these costs, don't waste our time because odds are good you won't be in business in a year from now". Seriously, that's the salary and overhead cost of a half decent developer for a few months let alone all the other support staff you'll need to maintain a viable business.
Also from the article:
The "seal of approval" model is also problematic. Suppose I pay the fee to have MirrorMed (my project of choice) certified. There is no way for me to guarentee[sic] that only I benifit[sic] from the "seal". My competitors which have full access to the code that I would have certified would be able to correctly claim that the code had been certified, and would benifit[sic] with me. As with the original pricing there is no way to fairly spread these kinds of costs across a community.
Waah... cry him a river. He's complaining that because he's choosing to make his code available for everybody at no cost, that he's putting himself at a disadvantage because others can use his code at no cost? What the FUCK, dude? Choosing to use the GPL means that you've also chosen all the consequences of that particular license. If you don't like the consequences, then don't ask for special treatment because you think the GPL automatically gives you some kind of entitlement. Change your license!
Since you've received restitution for their oversight in notifying you about the policy change, it's too bad you can't retract the story. Perhaps you can email the editors and ask that they update it to reflect this new information?
I suggest this because it appears you signed up for a Slashdot account just to post this story and comments, your comments are scored at 0 by default so it'll be hard for others to find them.
My bad -- I thought this was a discussion. Had I expected to post a formal treatise free of logical defects, my original post would have either been significantly longer or absent.
The last time I checked, most land-lines in the United States do not support Short Message Service. Nor do I see how people who rely exclusively on a land-line are willing to buy a $50 prepaid mobile phone and a $20 top-up card just to sign up for one site that uses SMS verification.
Good point, so either scrap SMS or don't make it the only way to register.
Two words: "Absentee Landlord". My father-in-law owned a condo in the same complex where I lived. He moved to FL and rented out the condo. He obviously needs access to that site.
Two words: "phone call". If someone's affected and they shouldn't be, just pick up the phone (or fill out a form, whatever) and the site admin can create the account for him, bypassing the IP restriction at account creation. Once you have your account, it's not IP restricted. Given that the problem as posted is that the admin spends all his/her time weeding out those who shouldn't have accounts, I'm sure the admin wouldn't mind getting rid of that hassle entirely and only having to handle these kinds of exceptions.
No kidding. Basically, anyone who thinks geography-based filtering is a good idea should be shot. Imagine moving 2000 miles, then being told by some braindead webdesigner you can't talk to your friends anymore.
As others have pointed out, you only need to enforce this when creating the account. Once you have an account, there's no need to do any filtering.
Also, you're assuming this is some kind of social networking site where the goal is to talk to your friends. What if it's an association for condo owners in a specific building? If you move 2000 miles, you're no longer welcome at the site because you don't live there anymore. If you made friends in your building, follow them on Facebook not on some specialist site.
The fact that only a small minority of computer scientists are women, means that upwards of half our best CS talent is going to waste.
I think that's a pity.
Is it a pity that upwards of half of our best nail salon talent is going to waste as well?
Download a database of IP address to location, then do a lookup. If it's within your state, for example, then allow access. Otherwise, send them to a "sorry" page with contact info in case they really are local and you need to add an exception.
Or implement SMS verification on account signup that only allows your area code and then do manual review, perhaps using a community approval process.
My only concern with that would be the heat factor. I wouldn't want the external drive to generate heat (some of them a fair amount!) and then the Mac Mini uses that air to attempt to cool its components. However, it appears to have its own cooling system which jets the hot air out the back, just like the Mini. Looks like a really cool [ahem!] product.
an E-paper newspaper could be (potentially) folded to fit in a pocket...
But this thing can't be folded: only bent on what looks to be about a 10cm radius.
Small moves, Ellie... small moves. Give it a few years or a decade and see how progress is then.
Someone should create a chronicle of all these Riddick threats. Who knows... it might someday make a great movie too.
And why am I not surprised that someone who insists on using such a pompous, bloated name has been accused of such tactics? Also see "Colin James III" who was the single most voted person for the "Kook of the Month" award years back:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.cyberspace/browse_thread/thread/4531d778be9f0bf9
I think this one further in the thread contains a better explanation:
a NOT IN b is equivalent in the spec to NOT(a IN b). a IN b is equivalent
to a =ANY b. a =ANY b returns true if a = x is true for any x in b. a =ANY
b returns false if a = x is false for all x in b. Otherwise it returns
unknown.
0 = NULL returns unknown
0 = 1 returns false
So, 0 IN (NULL,1) returns unknown.
NOT(unknown) is unknown.
WHERE clauses only return rows for which the search condition is true, so
a row is not returned.
If my math is correct, that's about 54 man-years at $500/hour for 8 hours a day, 365 days a year. Wow.