I'm not sure what perins will say but I would like to know who you think will be the ones abandoning software? If all open source development were consolidated into a few big projects only a few people would actually get to hack. What would be the fun in that? I say ignore what you read on freshmeat, the author obviously don't understand the spirit of hacking. Personally I like the fact that free software isn't being controlled by any authoritative figure. Most of us who contribute are told what to code at work and when we come home we like to play with stuff that interests us. If you have to ask bruce parens what you should do with your spare time I think you should seek help.
Good point. Knowing the account is only half the battle. You still have to put them in that account at that time in question as well as in this case prove that noone else was using that account. Seriously, I don't think they can do that. Plus they need to prove intent if I am not mistaken, which is harder than it sounds even in this case. This all kinda makes me think that this is as much a public scare tactic as anything. If these users can get a good lawyer they should be able to fight it from many different angles.
I never had a problem with the theory of the requirements phase. I took it to be a good way to get exactly what the customer wants in writing so they can't change there mind half way through. It is a flawed system though, because the customers don't usually understand what is involved in fulfilling those requirements. For example, the customer might want to add what they think is a small bullet but actually changes the very nature of the software. This could be avoided, only if the people involved with the requirements phase are experienced developers themselves. In the government you will usually find paper-pushers handeling the requirements (because hay, its just paperwork right? haha)
The point you raise about the lowest bid is definately a good point. My old managers method of software cost estimation was to ask me how long I think I would take, do some formula to that number (like doubling and adding 2 months or some crap), and then multiply that by equivalent hourly rate. About this time in my life I discovered Dilbert, and realized that I am not alone in the world.
Also speaking of lobying, nothing is worse for a government agency then getting mandated by congress to use the services of X company. X company pays contributions to candidate Y, candidate Y gets elected and throws kick-backs like mad to company X. I live in the state of senator Byrd, the patron saint of kick-backs.
Its just as painfull for the tech guys on the government end too. I remember one of our major outsourced projects ran about two years behind because we had a maniac at the helm of our org. Every time the contrator would show up to demo the software he would add to the list of manditory features. If only they would have had the balls to say NO!
As far as multiple organizations and composite requirements goes, I have never done that and I am less of a man for having though about it. Makes you wonder how people can be trained managers and not see that trane-wreck about to happen.
You are definitely on to something there about the "lowest bid." But from my experience software often starts spiraling out of control during the requirements process. I have a little theory that bureaucrats are the main people to blame for this as they have a knack for wanting to add software features to simplify their work and complicate the software. So, who has the most bloated software project requirements? I believe the answer will be who has the most bureaucrats?
With all the military cutbacks over the past ten years or so, troops are working longer and harders shifts and deployments. Morale needs to be maintained and the most effective way to do it is to get things the they guys actually like to do! What else would you spend the morale money on? a clown? some interesting literature? When it comes down to it, they like to play video games. The troops can play video games for 2 hours and feel more refreshed for another 24 or 36 hour shift. Also, please try to remember that most of the people over there only make about $15k a year so it is not too much to ask for a nice benifits package:)
I should have clarified, I speak only of US Mensa. I think we have different definitions of publicly available. If their tests were truly publicly available then you could get the test, memorize the answers, and score a perfect score. The mensa book that the problem he was talking about came from was probably not a test prep book but a puzzle book. As a side note to anyone reading, don't waste your money on IQ test prep books. There is really no way to study for any valid IQ test. A home test is still not an actual test, and it proves nothing about the intent of the test. Particularly not so when you are speaking of one question without the context of the rest of the test.
I've seen those books advertised before and I only looked through them breifly. The questions in those books were generally a bit harder than the tests because the tests are measuring for time and the books are meant to keep you busy for a long long time. The books are really just a money maker for the org more than anything. I'd have to say yes and no about the education working against you. Your scores are graded according to your age assuming that you will have a certain amount of knowlege comparable with your age group, but there could be some spots where you just look too far into things I guess. From what I remember a large portions of the questions are picture oriented which causes some people some problems. one example of this was that until recently their picture of a refrigerator for one question was the same picture they used since the 50's. people now days (kids) didn't recognize it as a refrigerator! They offer culture-fair tests as well for people who are not from this country or who are very young. As far as how education can work against you being the point of their testing, I suspect it was not the case. There test are pretty standard IQ tests and they are testing to determine if you are above two standard diviations above the mean score (which works out to about 2%).
Not to call you or your girlfriend a liar, but she couldn't have shown you a question from a mensa test. The test materials are controlled and even if they weren't the answers are not distributed outside of the scoring center (which I believe is in texas at the HQ). What you were probably looking at was some lame excuse for a mensa-like question which I would not give any merit. Also as far as I can remember, no question on the test has more than five possible answers so I would be highly skeptical of your a-j question. It kinda pisses my off when people bad-mouth mensa even though they have never been to a meeting. Also, I offer you this suggestion: if you want to criticize the test, TAKE IT FIRST!!!
Re:US vs French vacation packages
on
Working Hard?
·
· Score: 1
Dubya made me flee If you give up that easily then france is obviously the place for you!
Us: A grand total of 23 days off. France: 48 days off.
Once again, if your intention of having a job was to work as little as possible, then I would say france is a nice fit for you! I wish more slackers would move to france where they can be with there own kind.
You obviously don't understand how the military networks are set up. Its airgap all the way for anything with a classification level or even most non-classified mission-oriented systems. The only way for the system to fail is for some idiot user to manually put things in the wrong place. At that level it doesnt matter how many security bugs are in your software, your users are going to hose you every time. They keep this to a minimum with strick punishments and constant training and most of all, red tape. Red tape both figuratively and literally.:)
We still have the wolf so there is really no need to worry about the genetic pool of dogs. If the breed get too out of whack we can just start over. should only take 10000 years or so. I'm willing to wait. Nothing in my life will be put on hold if I cant have immediate access to a pug or chiuahua. The only reason these odd-ball creatures are around is because we need something to pity.
12 years sounds crazy now days, but up until recently life spans were only until your twenties. We as a species have not always held your victorian view of sexuality. In nature, things generally become sexually active with puberty. I am not sure what the exact mean age for girls to hit puberty is but it has been documented to have increased throughout history. If you go back 10 or 15 thousand years, a 12 year old girl would be sexually mature (And theoretically in a mid-life crisis:) and would likely be pregnant as soon as possible. You must not also forget that in those days you needed to give birth often, because the odds of it surviving to maturity were even at best.
So to answer you question no, it is not a particularly low estimate. But the time between generations is important to adaptability in genetics, since everything works on a generation level. Thats why those cockroaches can adapt so much faster that us. They can have hundreds and thousands of generations before we can have one. if you look at the original post, the context of that was that 8 thousand years is not much time genetically speaking when you have to wait at least 12 years to give birth. If you feel more comfortable saying 18 then that would only further prove my point, even though it is false.
If you are studying the development and relationships of and between primates, it makes sense start at the place where there is the most varieties. Besides, you are referring to the beginning of civilization, which is about the point in time where this type of research stops. Not much happens genetically in 8000 years when your time between generations is at least 12 years or so.
I've been out of the buisness for a while, but as far as I know the only real solutioon for XFS and ext3 would be standard inode recovery (via something like open-inode) or just breaking down and using lazarus. I don't have a link to the tool, as I am not especially sure that this is indeed the same company. Don't worry though, it wasn't worth you time.
Ya, my memory is a little fuzzy, I could have sworn there name was foundstone though.. The funny part about the situation was that when I asked there rep they sent to us "what can this do that debugfs cannot?" and he gave a blank stare. They were clearly out of there element.
who is it that knows me? Kieth? email me. nicholasharbour at yahoo dot com
Nick
This company had tried to market a ext2fs undelete tool to the computer forensics market. I looked through the binary and found several references to lib ext2 (they left all debugging symbols in so I could see exactly what files they had compiled and linked). the ext2 library is GPL and not LGPL so therefore their program should have been GPL. When we told them about it, they just wrote back and basically said "we arent violating anything". a short while later the tool disappeared from the market.
Food for thought.
If you harnessed (sp?) the energy from the vibrating cell phone, wouldent it cease to vibrate, and thus be quite lame?
The original article is ok, but this poster hasn't really thought this stuff through.
Nick Harbour
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not sure what perins will say but I would like to know who you think will be the ones abandoning software? If all open source development were consolidated into a few big projects only a few people would actually get to hack. What would be the fun in that? I say ignore what you read on freshmeat, the author obviously don't understand the spirit of hacking. Personally I like the fact that free software isn't being controlled by any authoritative figure. Most of us who contribute are told what to code at work and when we come home we like to play with stuff that interests us. If you have to ask bruce parens what you should do with your spare time I think you should seek help.
Good point. Knowing the account is only half the battle. You still have to put them in that account at that time in question as well as in this case prove that noone else was using that account. Seriously, I don't think they can do that. Plus they need to prove intent if I am not mistaken, which is harder than it sounds even in this case. This all kinda makes me think that this is as much a public scare tactic as anything. If these users can get a good lawyer they should be able to fight it from many different angles.
I never had a problem with the theory of the requirements phase. I took it to be a good way to get exactly what the customer wants in writing so they can't change there mind half way through. It is a flawed system though, because the customers don't usually understand what is involved in fulfilling those requirements. For example, the customer might want to add what they think is a small bullet but actually changes the very nature of the software. This could be avoided, only if the people involved with the requirements phase are experienced developers themselves. In the government you will usually find paper-pushers handeling the requirements (because hay, its just paperwork right? haha)
The point you raise about the lowest bid is definately a good point. My old managers method of software cost estimation was to ask me how long I think I would take, do some formula to that number (like doubling and adding 2 months or some crap), and then multiply that by equivalent hourly rate. About this time in my life I discovered Dilbert, and realized that I am not alone in the world.
Also speaking of lobying, nothing is worse for a government agency then getting mandated by congress to use the services of X company. X company pays contributions to candidate Y, candidate Y gets elected and throws kick-backs like mad to company X. I live in the state of senator Byrd, the patron saint of kick-backs.
Its just as painfull for the tech guys on the government end too. I remember one of our major outsourced projects ran about two years behind because we had a maniac at the helm of our org. Every time the contrator would show up to demo the software he would add to the list of manditory features. If only they would have had the balls to say NO!
As far as multiple organizations and composite requirements goes, I have never done that and I am less of a man for having though about it. Makes you wonder how people can be trained managers and not see that trane-wreck about to happen.
You are definitely on to something there about the "lowest bid." But from my experience software often starts spiraling out of control during the requirements process. I have a little theory that bureaucrats are the main people to blame for this as they have a knack for wanting to add software features to simplify their work and complicate the software. So, who has the most bloated software project requirements? I believe the answer will be who has the most bureaucrats?
With all the military cutbacks over the past ten years or so, troops are working longer and harders shifts and deployments. Morale needs to be maintained and the most effective way to do it is to get things the they guys actually like to do! What else would you spend the morale money on? a clown? some interesting literature? :)
When it comes down to it, they like to play video games. The troops can play video games for 2 hours and feel more refreshed for another 24 or 36 hour shift. Also, please try to remember that most of the people over there only make about $15k a year so it is not too much to ask for a nice benifits package
I should have clarified, I speak only of US Mensa. I think we have different definitions of publicly available. If their tests were truly publicly available then you could get the test, memorize the answers, and score a perfect score.
The mensa book that the problem he was talking about came from was probably not a test prep book but a puzzle book. As a side note to anyone reading, don't waste your money on IQ test prep books. There is really no way to study for any valid IQ test.
A home test is still not an actual test, and it proves nothing about the intent of the test. Particularly not so when you are speaking of one question without the context of the rest of the test.
I've seen those books advertised before and I only looked through them breifly. The questions in those books were generally a bit harder than the tests because the tests are measuring for time and the books are meant to keep you busy for a long long time. The books are really just a money maker for the org more than anything. I'd have to say yes and no about the education working against you. Your scores are graded according to your age assuming that you will have a certain amount of knowlege comparable with your age group, but there could be some spots where you just look too far into things I guess. From what I remember a large portions of the questions are picture oriented which causes some people some problems. one example of this was that until recently their picture of a refrigerator for one question was the same picture they used since the 50's. people now days (kids) didn't recognize it as a refrigerator! They offer culture-fair tests as well for people who are not from this country or who are very young. As far as how education can work against you being the point of their testing, I suspect it was not the case. There test are pretty standard IQ tests and they are testing to determine if you are above two standard diviations above the mean score (which works out to about 2%).
Not to call you or your girlfriend a liar, but she couldn't have shown you a question from a mensa test. The test materials are controlled and even if they weren't the answers are not distributed outside of the scoring center (which I believe is in texas at the HQ). What you were probably looking at was some lame excuse for a mensa-like question which I would not give any merit. Also as far as I can remember, no question on the test has more than five possible answers so I would be highly skeptical of your a-j question. It kinda pisses my off when people bad-mouth mensa even though they have never been to a meeting. Also, I offer you this suggestion: if you want to criticize the test, TAKE IT FIRST!!!
Dubya made me flee
If you give up that easily then france is obviously the place for you!
Us: A grand total of 23 days off.
France: 48 days off.
Once again, if your intention of having a job was to work as little as possible, then I would say france is a nice fit for you! I wish more slackers would move to france where they can be with there own kind.
You obviously don't understand how the military networks are set up. Its airgap all the way for anything with a classification level or even most non-classified mission-oriented systems. The only way for the system to fail is for some idiot user to manually put things in the wrong place. At that level it doesnt matter how many security bugs are in your software, your users are going to hose you every time. They keep this to a minimum with strick punishments and constant training and most of all, red tape. Red tape both figuratively and literally. :)
We still have the wolf so there is really no need to worry about the genetic pool of dogs. If the breed get too out of whack we can just start over. should only take 10000 years or so. I'm willing to wait. Nothing in my life will be put on hold if I cant have immediate access to a pug or chiuahua. The only reason these odd-ball creatures are around is because we need something to pity.
Nearly Half of all people are below average
screwed up the formatting. The last quote is the sig, not to imply that your girlfriend is in anyway below average.
she still downloads all her pictures into the default folder, and uses thumbnails to find the ones she wants
:)
"Almost half of all people are below average."
Sounds like you need to teach her the fine art of pr0n management.
12 years sounds crazy now days, but up until recently life spans were only until your twenties. We as a species have not always held your victorian view of sexuality. In nature, things generally become sexually active with puberty. I am not sure what the exact mean age for girls to hit puberty is but it has been documented to have increased throughout history. If you go back 10 or 15 thousand years, a 12 year old girl would be sexually mature (And theoretically in a mid-life crisis :) and would likely be pregnant as soon as possible. You must not also forget that in those days you needed to give birth often, because the odds of it surviving to maturity were even at best.
So to answer you question no, it is not a particularly low estimate. But the time between generations is important to adaptability in genetics, since everything works on a generation level. Thats why those cockroaches can adapt so much faster that us. They can have hundreds and thousands of generations before we can have one. if you look at the original post, the context of that was that 8 thousand years is not much time genetically speaking when you have to wait at least 12 years to give birth. If you feel more comfortable saying 18 then that would only further prove my point, even though it is false.
If you are studying the development and relationships of and between primates, it makes sense start at the place where there is the most varieties. Besides, you are referring to the beginning of civilization, which is about the point in time where this type of research stops. Not much happens genetically in 8000 years when your time between generations is at least 12 years or so.
Nicholas Harbour
I've been out of the buisness for a while, but as far as I know the only real solutioon for XFS and ext3 would be standard inode recovery (via something like open-inode) or just breaking down and using lazarus. I don't have a link to the tool, as I am not especially sure that this is indeed the same company. Don't worry though, it wasn't worth you time.
Ya, my memory is a little fuzzy, I could have sworn there name was foundstone though.. The funny part about the situation was that when I asked there rep they sent to us "what can this do that debugfs cannot?" and he gave a blank stare. They were clearly out of there element. who is it that knows me? Kieth? email me. nicholasharbour at yahoo dot com Nick
This company had tried to market a ext2fs undelete tool to the computer forensics market. I looked through the binary and found several references to lib ext2 (they left all debugging symbols in so I could see exactly what files they had compiled and linked). the ext2 library is GPL and not LGPL so therefore their program should have been GPL. When we told them about it, they just wrote back and basically said "we arent violating anything". a short while later the tool disappeared from the market. Food for thought.
If you harnessed (sp?) the energy from the vibrating cell phone, wouldent it cease to vibrate, and thus be quite lame? The original article is ok, but this poster hasn't really thought this stuff through. Nick Harbour