scientists who refuse military work are exceedingly rare...may be in part because...the U.S. is facing dangerous foes
Or maybe because if you just completed a PhD in nuclear physics, you aren't going to apply those skills working in the research department of Toys R Us.
In the work place, I expect to have all my correspondence, activity, anything that crosses their network to, at least, be open to scrutiny...to *expect* privacy I think is assuming you have a different relationship with your boss/company than you do
OK and what about invasive background checks, and requiring doctors to disclose medical records of employees. You know, the stuff the article talks about? There is a line which can be crossed.
"Enterprise" takes place in a different time stream, caused by the Borg attack on Earth during "First Contact".
The events mentioned in the other movies and series' don't apply, it's a whole new ballgame.
While you may be right, it would represent a new level of asinine cop-out. First off, it is well established that there is only one time stream, as we see with this temporal cold war stuff, and the "we found data's head in a cave" episode. If you change the past, you change YOUR present and future.
So your idea means that the "First Contact" movie just wiped out all Trek history. TOS doesn't exist, TNG doesn't exist. It was all wiped out and Enterprise is the new story.
What a load. I guess they weren't skilled enough to write well within the existing framework.
What the hell is a western and space fantasy doing on the same page?!
Yeah, most westerns are about high adventure on the frontier of civilization. Whereas most sci-fi shows are about high adventure on the frontier of civilization. I don't see how they are compatible.
A full season? Don't be too generous now. Most good shows don't start to click until at least the 2nd season. Try watching first season next generation, or Seinfeld. It's so wooden it looks like the actors have underwear 3 sizes too small. I liked Firefly, but even if the network didn't, they should give it at least a couple of seasons to bring in some numbers. Even Enterprise is dumping, and they haven't given up on it yet.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for J. Lo or P. Diddy or whatever the hell their names are this week?
Not that I sympathize with the RIAA much, but for every J.Lo, there are a thousand musicians struggling day by day to keep their heads above water. Their contracts with the RIAA may pay them enough to eat, or in some cases, nothing at all.
It's like saying, why should I sympathize with you, when I hear Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are rolling in cash?
Well the cheaper price is a plus I guess, but God help you if you ever need support. With my residential phone line, a support call takes like 1 hour just to talk to a person who knows nothing. Then if a guy actually has to come to your house, that's a 3 week wait.
Shaw has never bugged me about anything for 9 years. Although, I doubt I ever hit 40GB/month. That's a hell of a lot of pr0n. Do you have a SAN array to store it all? I heard telus is slower, so you might not even be able to get 40GB/month if you D/L 24/7.
Really? The folks back in Toronto I keep touch with tell me tales of enormously shitty service from their wide array of choices between Rogers cable or Bell Sympatico.
This experience does not generalize to the whole of Canada. I can't speak for Toronto at all, but Vancouver is really good. I've had cable service since about '94 I think, and have never had a problem. I think upload is capped at about 256K, but that's plenty. Download is over 1 meg. When I moved, they had my new service ready in 8 hours.
I've hosted deathmatches, webservers and an ftp site for friends. I don't think you are supposed to, but unless you start chewing up insane bandwidth they don't bug you.
My experience is with Shaw cable, and I have always been satisfied, as has everyone I know. There is the option of getting ADSL from telus, but their horrible customer support keeps me away. At least an option exists, so as to keep Shaw on their toes.
From what I read here, it is definitely cheaper. Regular price of $42 Canadian for a Shaw cable modem connection where I live (Vancouver). I think that's about $30 US.
I can get ADSL from telus for $34, but they are just a nasty company and I refuse to deal with them.
I'm sure Canada is less dense than the US. The northern 4/5 ths is basically uninhabited wasteland, and I'm pretty sure you can't get cable service up there.
It's in Canada. Canada far outpaces the US for broadband connectivity for home users, but I'm not sure why. Currently about 64% of Canadians with internet access have a broadband connection, around double the figure in the US. Welcome to Canada, the new home of the free.
This doesn't apply. SCO doesn't want you to stop using Linux, they just want you to pay a licensing fee. One would take for granted that SCO does not need to pay themselves a licensing fee to run their webserver.
So is it better to lock up for life one innocent bystander for murder or let 10 murderers go free? I would say you should let the 10 go free.
If you feel differently, go live somewhere where you can be locked up on a whim for the "public good."
This is a significantly different question and offers very weak support for your original position. You have pretty much abandoned your original position.
Nonetheless, I will reply. I make a moral evaluation of 10 murderers versus 1 innocent by summing the bad in both options. Locking up one innocent destroys the life of the individual, as well as having a large detrimental effect on his/her family and friends. It also removes a viable worker from the employment pool. It also spends resources needlessly on keeping the person encarcerated. Badness.
Letting 10 murderers go free doesn't directly destroy any lives, but the families of the murdered have to live without closure on their tradgedy. This would affect quite a number of people. So far it is difficult for me to say which option is preferable. I would err for caution and let the 10 murderers go free. This position is consistent with the design of most criminal justice systems which also err for caution in providing the defendant presumption of innocence.
The scales would be tipped if the murderers were recidivistic. If releasing them would result in more deaths, then it is clearly preferable to lock up the 10 murderers along with the 1 innocent.
None of my assertions require people to be "locked up on a whim". Where I live, we still have a jury system, and none of my assertations require removing that system. The jury is instructed to find guilt when certain "beyond a reasonable doubt". The instruction is NOT "beyond all doubt". There is clearly the existing possibility that an innocent will be convicted. That possibility is inherent in the system and is not going away in the forseeable future. Innocents have been convicted before, and will be again. Innocents have been executed. Sad, but unless you want to free all prisoners, you must live with that possibility. If you feel differently, go live somewhere where there is no law.
Better to let ten spammers free than publicly chastise a single innocent bystander, I say.
chastising a single bystander: A major inconvenience to an individual. May have to change email address.
Capture of ten spammers: Significant reduction in the corruption of the world's youth through porn emails. Major reduction in network traffic, saving millions per year. Strengthening of privacy rights throughtout the world. Productivity of worldwide workforce increased by millions of dollars per year, due to reduction in waste effort dealing with emails. Basically free money useable for anything like feeding the poor.
Please explain why the first is more important than the second?
Somehow the PhD program elevates the undergrad program?
Maybe because PhD students make better TA's?
I'm not sure I believe that, or any of this really. This whole thing is like "Microsoft trusted computing", marketing hype for the masses.
The best CS classes I ever took were at "Vancouver Community College" which I know no one has heard of. It's a cheapo college that I went to before I went to a "real university". The university had the reputation, but 10 years later, I basically still rely on what I learned at VCC.
I don't think there is an issue of who will dominate chess - man or machine. People play computers at chess for practice or fun, because people want it. Normal competitive chess will continue to be restricted to humans, as are most competetive games and sports.
If there was some equal opportunity regulation for sports and games, the robots with the lazer beams would take over hockey, soccer, squash etc...
In a perfect world, yes. Unfortunately, enough people get offed by the cops for reaching for cellphones. I know radiation can kill, but that's policing gone too far. Also, remember...
OK so some cops suck. What I'm unclear on is how 'tagging' people is going to help. If a cop is going to shoot a guy for holding a cellphone, I doubt any form of mental illness tag will cause him to think twice. Furthermore, I'm dubious as to the popularity of cellphones amongst the homeless population.
The real issue is, how can a cop get the SSN from a homeless person acting "strangely" without asking him for it?
If that's the real issue, then you must be living in Soviet Russia. I'm unsure what business cops have walking around asking people for their SSNs. Further, if an officer is prepared to shoot someone if they don't have their SSN with them, then I think there are more serious issues here.
Where I live, people generally are not required to identify themselves, unless they cross international borders, commit a crime or are performing some licensed activity (driving, purchasing firearms etc..) Being homeless does not fall into one of those categories.
As I recall, there have been instances in the past where mentally handicapped have been confused by cops as criminals and shot or wrongly imprisoned. To be able to determine someone as mentally handicapped would be beneficial as the person may not him/herself be able to notify the officer he/she has a problem.
If a cop shot some guy, it should be because the cop was in imminent danger. In a self defense situation, the mental history of an individual does not change the situation. The fact that the suspect is mentally ill shouldn't be an issue.
If a homeless guy is arrested, it should be because there is reason to believe he committed some criminal act. Again, his mental state shouldn't be an issue at least until trial. At that point, the person may be found unfit to stand trial, or not criminally responsible and/or sent to a hospital.
If the cops are not behaving as above, then this is a general training/civil rights issue not specific to the homeless.
Given the choice between continuing to work at a cheap-ass company that won't pay for an electrician to do POTENTIALLY DEADLY rewiring and unemployment, TAKE UNEMPLOYMENT!!!
I don't see why he can't have both. Refuse outright to do the work yourself. Explain why (death, fire, insurance, safety, liability etc). If he gets fired, he would have a clear cut case of wrongful dismissal. Profit!
I heard about this latest virus scare on the radio, and I noticed it was called a "Windows virus" this time, and not the usual "computer virus." It seems even non-techies are finally catching on that these are Windows problems being exploited
That, or I think more likely, the average person thinks the only PC is a windows PC, and that "windows" is synonymous with "computer".
That doesn't go into support issues, game bugs, gamer abuses
It occurred to me that you were probably commenting on the ability to cash in gold for real money through the company, whereas I was commenting on Sony's ban of sales on eBay. Considering that, I agree with some of your points. A gold duplication bug could bankrupt the company for example.
it implies taxes, tracking monetary exchanges accross borders, etc...
I doubt I live in the same jurisdiction as yourself, but I didn't think a private sale between two individuals would require taxes, fees etc.. I bought a chair at a garage sale and didn't pay tax.
well, guilds will rise up and block non guild members from entering certian areas, or 'hog' the special spawn. meaning I won't get an opportunity to get at it.
If this were practical, I think it would occur already. There is already incentive for players to hog rare items - it would make them more powerful in-game. The games I've played have been balanced enough that it is extremely difficult for an individual or single clan to dominate.
What about liability from the parent company. I spent 20 hours(200 hours it desn't mtter) to get the 'rare' item, then you just made them less rare. they would get sued.
This situation already exists. Users spend time/money playing the game. They may get screwed when their item becomes more common. Money is already involved with user fees, yet the company seems to avoid litigation. The company doesn't even need to support any real money process. They just need to close their mouths and let users and eBay take care of the rest.
That doesn't go into support issues, game bugs, gamer abuses
The whole technology industry has issues with support, bugs, viruses etc, and we deal with much bigger bucks than Everquest. Yet for the most part, we avoid being sued. This should be a non-issue.
In the real world though, you're stuck with that... in a video game? If it bothers me, I stop playing the video game.
Matter of opinion I guess, but in my experience, if an ORPG is built such there is no risk, no death, no one ever gets screwed, then the game becomes boring and dies. It is, however, a fine line between challenging your users and just pissing them off.
Slashdot Mirror
scientists who refuse military work are exceedingly rare...may be in part because...the U.S. is facing dangerous foes
Or maybe because if you just completed a PhD in nuclear physics, you aren't going to apply those skills working in the research department of Toys R Us.
In the work place, I expect to have all my correspondence, activity, anything that crosses their network to, at least, be open to scrutiny...to *expect* privacy I think is assuming you have a different relationship with your boss/company than you do
OK and what about invasive background checks, and requiring doctors to disclose medical records of employees. You know, the stuff the article talks about? There is a line which can be crossed.
"Enterprise" takes place in a different time stream, caused by the Borg attack on Earth during "First Contact". The events mentioned in the other movies and series' don't apply, it's a whole new ballgame.
While you may be right, it would represent a new level of asinine cop-out. First off, it is well established that there is only one time stream, as we see with this temporal cold war stuff, and the "we found data's head in a cave" episode. If you change the past, you change YOUR present and future.
So your idea means that the "First Contact" movie just wiped out all Trek history. TOS doesn't exist, TNG doesn't exist. It was all wiped out and Enterprise is the new story.
What a load. I guess they weren't skilled enough to write well within the existing framework.
What the hell is a western and space fantasy doing on the same page?!
Yeah, most westerns are about high adventure on the frontier of civilization. Whereas most sci-fi shows are about high adventure on the frontier of civilization. I don't see how they are compatible.
This show deserved a chance to run a full season.
A full season? Don't be too generous now. Most good shows don't start to click until at least the 2nd season. Try watching first season next generation, or Seinfeld. It's so wooden it looks like the actors have underwear 3 sizes too small. I liked Firefly, but even if the network didn't, they should give it at least a couple of seasons to bring in some numbers. Even Enterprise is dumping, and they haven't given up on it yet.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for J. Lo or P. Diddy or whatever the hell their names are this week?
Not that I sympathize with the RIAA much, but for every J.Lo, there are a thousand musicians struggling day by day to keep their heads above water. Their contracts with the RIAA may pay them enough to eat, or in some cases, nothing at all.
It's like saying, why should I sympathize with you, when I hear Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are rolling in cash?
Well the cheaper price is a plus I guess, but God help you if you ever need support. With my residential phone line, a support call takes like 1 hour just to talk to a person who knows nothing. Then if a guy actually has to come to your house, that's a 3 week wait.
Shaw has never bugged me about anything for 9 years. Although, I doubt I ever hit 40GB/month. That's a hell of a lot of pr0n. Do you have a SAN array to store it all? I heard telus is slower, so you might not even be able to get 40GB/month if you D/L 24/7.
Really? The folks back in Toronto I keep touch with tell me tales of enormously shitty service from their wide array of choices between Rogers cable or Bell Sympatico.
This experience does not generalize to the whole of Canada. I can't speak for Toronto at all, but Vancouver is really good. I've had cable service since about '94 I think, and have never had a problem. I think upload is capped at about 256K, but that's plenty. Download is over 1 meg. When I moved, they had my new service ready in 8 hours.
I've hosted deathmatches, webservers and an ftp site for friends. I don't think you are supposed to, but unless you start chewing up insane bandwidth they don't bug you.
My experience is with Shaw cable, and I have always been satisfied, as has everyone I know. There is the option of getting ADSL from telus, but their horrible customer support keeps me away. At least an option exists, so as to keep Shaw on their toes.
Is it cheaper up there?
From what I read here, it is definitely cheaper. Regular price of $42 Canadian for a Shaw cable modem connection where I live (Vancouver). I think that's about $30 US.
Shaw cable modem service
I can get ADSL from telus for $34, but they are just a nasty company and I refuse to deal with them.
I'm sure Canada is less dense than the US. The northern 4/5 ths is basically uninhabited wasteland, and I'm pretty sure you can't get cable service up there.
broadband...Where is it?
It's in Canada. Canada far outpaces the US for broadband connectivity for home users, but I'm not sure why. Currently about 64% of Canadians with internet access have a broadband connection, around double the figure in the US. Welcome to Canada, the new home of the free.
broadband stats
'do as we say, not as we do'
This doesn't apply. SCO doesn't want you to stop using Linux, they just want you to pay a licensing fee. One would take for granted that SCO does not need to pay themselves a licensing fee to run their webserver.
So is it better to lock up for life one innocent bystander for murder or let 10 murderers go free? I would say you should let the 10 go free. If you feel differently, go live somewhere where you can be locked up on a whim for the "public good."
This is a significantly different question and offers very weak support for your original position. You have pretty much abandoned your original position.
Nonetheless, I will reply. I make a moral evaluation of 10 murderers versus 1 innocent by summing the bad in both options. Locking up one innocent destroys the life of the individual, as well as having a large detrimental effect on his/her family and friends. It also removes a viable worker from the employment pool. It also spends resources needlessly on keeping the person encarcerated. Badness.
Letting 10 murderers go free doesn't directly destroy any lives, but the families of the murdered have to live without closure on their tradgedy. This would affect quite a number of people. So far it is difficult for me to say which option is preferable. I would err for caution and let the 10 murderers go free. This position is consistent with the design of most criminal justice systems which also err for caution in providing the defendant presumption of innocence.
The scales would be tipped if the murderers were recidivistic. If releasing them would result in more deaths, then it is clearly preferable to lock up the 10 murderers along with the 1 innocent.
None of my assertions require people to be "locked up on a whim". Where I live, we still have a jury system, and none of my assertations require removing that system. The jury is instructed to find guilt when certain "beyond a reasonable doubt". The instruction is NOT "beyond all doubt". There is clearly the existing possibility that an innocent will be convicted. That possibility is inherent in the system and is not going away in the forseeable future. Innocents have been convicted before, and will be again. Innocents have been executed. Sad, but unless you want to free all prisoners, you must live with that possibility. If you feel differently, go live somewhere where there is no law.
Better to let ten spammers free than publicly chastise a single innocent bystander, I say.
chastising a single bystander: A major inconvenience to an individual. May have to change email address.
Capture of ten spammers: Significant reduction in the corruption of the world's youth through porn emails. Major reduction in network traffic, saving millions per year. Strengthening of privacy rights throughtout the world. Productivity of worldwide workforce increased by millions of dollars per year, due to reduction in waste effort dealing with emails. Basically free money useable for anything like feeding the poor.
Please explain why the first is more important than the second?
I wonder if it is because the PhD program potentially has the hot research that brings in money and big-name professors...
Perhaps it does, however research oriented profs tend to not want to teach, and view it as an annoyance. That can't be good for the actual undergrads.
Somehow the PhD program elevates the undergrad program?
Maybe because PhD students make better TA's?
I'm not sure I believe that, or any of this really. This whole thing is like "Microsoft trusted computing", marketing hype for the masses.
The best CS classes I ever took were at "Vancouver Community College" which I know no one has heard of. It's a cheapo college that I went to before I went to a "real university". The university had the reputation, but 10 years later, I basically still rely on what I learned at VCC.
Chess will fail to be dominated by people.
I don't think there is an issue of who will dominate chess - man or machine. People play computers at chess for practice or fun, because people want it. Normal competitive chess will continue to be restricted to humans, as are most competetive games and sports.
If there was some equal opportunity regulation for sports and games, the robots with the lazer beams would take over hockey, soccer, squash etc...
In a perfect world, yes. Unfortunately, enough people get offed by the cops for reaching for cellphones. I know radiation can kill, but that's policing gone too far. Also, remember...
OK so some cops suck. What I'm unclear on is how 'tagging' people is going to help. If a cop is going to shoot a guy for holding a cellphone, I doubt any form of mental illness tag will cause him to think twice. Furthermore, I'm dubious as to the popularity of cellphones amongst the homeless population.
The real issue is, how can a cop get the SSN from a homeless person acting "strangely" without asking him for it?
If that's the real issue, then you must be living in Soviet Russia. I'm unsure what business cops have walking around asking people for their SSNs. Further, if an officer is prepared to shoot someone if they don't have their SSN with them, then I think there are more serious issues here.
Where I live, people generally are not required to identify themselves, unless they cross international borders, commit a crime or are performing some licensed activity (driving, purchasing firearms etc..) Being homeless does not fall into one of those categories.
As I recall, there have been instances in the past where mentally handicapped have been confused by cops as criminals and shot or wrongly imprisoned. To be able to determine someone as mentally handicapped would be beneficial as the person may not him/herself be able to notify the officer he/she has a problem.
If a cop shot some guy, it should be because the cop was in imminent danger. In a self defense situation, the mental history of an individual does not change the situation. The fact that the suspect is mentally ill shouldn't be an issue.
If a homeless guy is arrested, it should be because there is reason to believe he committed some criminal act. Again, his mental state shouldn't be an issue at least until trial. At that point, the person may be found unfit to stand trial, or not criminally responsible and/or sent to a hospital.
If the cops are not behaving as above, then this is a general training/civil rights issue not specific to the homeless.
Given the choice between continuing to work at a cheap-ass company that won't pay for an electrician to do POTENTIALLY DEADLY rewiring and unemployment, TAKE UNEMPLOYMENT!!!
I don't see why he can't have both. Refuse outright to do the work yourself. Explain why (death, fire, insurance, safety, liability etc). If he gets fired, he would have a clear cut case of wrongful dismissal. Profit!
Would it not make sense to take 75% fo $45 billion and offere to replace hardware and update to winXp or longhorn to every MS custoemr worldwide?
Uh...no? Because companies exist to make money, not give it all away?
I heard about this latest virus scare on the radio, and I noticed it was called a "Windows virus" this time, and not the usual "computer virus." It seems even non-techies are finally catching on that these are Windows problems being exploited
That, or I think more likely, the average person thinks the only PC is a windows PC, and that "windows" is synonymous with "computer".
surely my windows 98 installation filled 500 mb or something like that? And it fit on a 680mb CD ?? What is the brilliant thing here?
Because 4.47 megs is much smaller than 500 megs? You know, they worked hard and made it smaller?
That doesn't go into support issues, game bugs, gamer abuses
It occurred to me that you were probably commenting on the ability to cash in gold for real money through the company, whereas I was commenting on Sony's ban of sales on eBay. Considering that, I agree with some of your points. A gold duplication bug could bankrupt the company for example.
it implies taxes, tracking monetary exchanges accross borders, etc...
I doubt I live in the same jurisdiction as yourself, but I didn't think a private sale between two individuals would require taxes, fees etc.. I bought a chair at a garage sale and didn't pay tax.
well, guilds will rise up and block non guild members from entering certian areas, or 'hog' the special spawn. meaning I won't get an opportunity to get at it.
If this were practical, I think it would occur already. There is already incentive for players to hog rare items - it would make them more powerful in-game. The games I've played have been balanced enough that it is extremely difficult for an individual or single clan to dominate.
What about liability from the parent company. I spent 20 hours(200 hours it desn't mtter) to get the 'rare' item, then you just made them less rare. they would get sued.
This situation already exists. Users spend time/money playing the game. They may get screwed when their item becomes more common. Money is already involved with user fees, yet the company seems to avoid litigation. The company doesn't even need to support any real money process. They just need to close their mouths and let users and eBay take care of the rest.
That doesn't go into support issues, game bugs, gamer abuses
The whole technology industry has issues with support, bugs, viruses etc, and we deal with much bigger bucks than Everquest. Yet for the most part, we avoid being sued. This should be a non-issue.
In the real world though, you're stuck with that ... in a video game? If it bothers me, I stop playing the video game.
Matter of opinion I guess, but in my experience, if an ORPG is built such there is no risk, no death, no one ever gets screwed, then the game becomes boring and dies. It is, however, a fine line between challenging your users and just pissing them off.