Not to mention situations like what happened to one of my previous employers. They needed to implement a Solaris PAM module to authenticate with an AFS Krb4 server (if you don't recognize the terms, essentially it says that they wanted their Unix machines to allow login to people who had the ability to log in to their network file system; a Microsoft Windows machine does the same thing with Active Directory's domain controller).
Anyway, they hired an expensive contractor whose resume said that he was an expert in PAMs (Pluggable Authentication Modules) on Solaris. His first day, they found him trying to compile Hello World (unsuccesfully). They ended up having someone in house figure out how to make the module.
You seem to be missing the whole point of trading. We do not trade to give people jobs. We trade to get stuff. If other countries are willing to send us stuff without us sending them stuff (which is what a trade deficit is), that is *good* for us. It means that we are getting free stuff.
The problem is that we have many unemployed people in industries where we are in surplus. Increasing exports to India won't fix that. They won't buy IT services; they'll buy things they need, like grain or pharmaceuticals. That still won't help IT workers (and might hurt us if it increases prices of food and health care).
For unemployed IT workers to find jobs, one of two things needs to happen: one, the market for IT could increase sharply (don't hold your breath); or two, IT workers could move into fields that are hiring. Unfortunately, most IT workers would be considered unskilled labor in other fields, so we are reluctant to take the pay cut involved in doing this. Also, most industries are more interested in skilled (in the work of that industry) workers than unskilled workers.
The only thing that we get from increasing exports without increasing imports is money. Since we (as a country) have the ability to print money (much cheaper than trading for it), that is not helpful. Instead, we need to fix the structural issues with the economy (i.e. move the unemployed into industries that are hiring) and produce more stuff for *us*. That way, we get the benefits of both the jobs *and* the stuff produced.
These (the jobs at the place IBM bought) are not high skilled jobs. They are call center jobs, which are essentially as low skill as you can get (at least in the manner in which they do them). One gives a small set of answers to questions based on what the computer says.
Personally, I think that this is kind of silly on IBM's part. Outsourced call centers are one of the worst products available. IBM's main image is of products that are expensive but worth it. This is a product that is cheap and might not be worth it (primary skill needed in an effective help desk employee: communicating; someone in their second language will never be as good at this as someone in their first).
I can see two things to which your parent could have been referring (neither of which would be quite correct):
1. Novell claims to own the Unix copyright still. SCO does have the right to license Unix code though. It's not stolen.
2. Unix (for lack of a better name; pre-SCO) apparently used some code that Linus Torvalds wrote. (Unix also used some code written by Donald Knuth or someone like that.) Linus isn't a company though.
If neither of those are it, then I don't know to what your parent was referring. While I realize this is slashdot, I too would be interested in references for "code...stolen by SCO from ANOTHER COMPANY" that might be in Linux.
"I've had SMS spams of 50 characters or so. It's certainly possible. The important bit is only http://tinyurl.com/abcd/ long anyway."
Yes, but then you can just bounce messages with subjects with URLs in the first 50 characters (from strangers).
Me: "In regards c, it is hard to run a POP server on a desktop PC."
You: "Actually, it's remarkably easy. Especially in these days of Windows NT based boxes. You don't even need to know that it's there."
Sorry, I thought the next line (which you did not quote) made this clear: it is technically easy but practically difficult. The problem isn't running the server software; the problem is that servers need to be *on* when you go to access the message. Desktop PCs are turned off frequently. Note: it's not impossible, just not something that would involve *millions* of virus infected PCs successfully.
"I can see denial of service possibilities here."
DOS attacks on mail servers are not difficult now. They already accept all connections (from any IP) over their SMTP port. Plus, you can add authentication to the system. Just generate a password for each message and send it in the notification. Then only message recipents can connect successfully.
"This is a 'requires everyone to switch overnight' solution."
Not really. If you are an IM2000 capable sending server, try IM2000 first. If the receiving server responds appropriately, pass just the notification. If it does not, pass the message via SMTP. The recipient can give IM2000 messages brownie points with your Bayesian filter. Immediate help (without an immediate switch). Not as good as SPF ( http://spf.pobox.com ) in this regard, but still better than the current system. Also allows for SPF records that specify a domain as only send IM2000 messages. Further, one can (relatively) safely allow IM2000/SPF messages from places where SMTP is blocked (residential DSL/cable, cyber cafes, etc.).
In this system, webmail, IMAP, and Exchange/Notes servers act as clients in the system. If you choose, you load the message from the IM2000 server to the storage server. If not, refuse the message.
It's a useful new protocol. It would be nice if mail servers supported notification receipt and if clients handled the handshake system. Much the same way that it would be helpful if clients handled public keys automatically.
Your a and b options are not a complete list. In actuality, you would send a subset of the headers in the notification (the recipient could potentially pick which ones--possibly in the response to the EHLO replacement). One can certainly limit subjects in the initial notification to (for example) 50 characters, not enough to get a real message across but enough to recognize many legitimate kinds of email (for one thing, how many legitimate emails have subjects longer than 50 characters?). In regards c, it is hard to run a POP server on a desktop PC.
Another possibility is that the notification could be just that (no content whatsoever), with you downloading the headers separately (i.e. 3 steps: notification; headers; body and full headers). That would force the server to exist, but you don't have to download the rest of the message if you do not want to do so.
Also consider how this would work with RMX proposals (like SPF: http://spf.pobox.com ). If the email is not from a validated IP, then you can reject the initial notification.
It is also worth noting that a spam method that requires illegal acts (like virus infection) is dangerous for the spammer. It is not really practical when selling everyday items, only scam emails (already illegal) or really high margin items that allow the spammer to change locations often.
Criticizing anti-spam proposals for not completely solving the problem is missing the point. No one anti-spam method is going to eliminate spam. Each one is designed to make it harder to spam, ideally without impacting normal email. IM2000 does this, since it merely shifts from POPping from the recipient's server to the sender's server. This is harder for senders but easier for receivers in most cases. The exceptions are those where the sender does not maintain a persistent (i.e. always on) mail server (e.g. spammers). This is very rare with legitimate emails (if the sender does not have a persistent mail server, then they can't *receive* email; legitimate senders generally want to be able to receive emails in response).
"Add to that things like the increased storage costs imposed on ISPs and thus their customers and issues like aging (how long will the ISP hold the message before collection?)."
The same length of time that they hold POP emails now (or until the outbox overfills or something). All this is is POP from sender (normally you POP from your mail server; with this protocol, you POP from the sender's mail server).
"if they were willing to amend it with a service guarantee that within xx hours your email would be deleted"
I'm not sure that they can make that promise. The Google method seems wasteful, but it is simply based on the idea that it is cheaper to buy a new hard drive than to fix the one that you have. Basically, they will make a good faith effort to retrieve the disk space (overwriting the email). If that doesn't work, they just delete the index and leave the email there. If they need more space, they add a new file server (with new hard drives).
I read a while ago that Google's server farms have "dead" servers in them. They don't bother to remove them, because with their system, it is more difficult to *find* the dead server and get to it than it is to buy a new server rack.
If the dead server is your email server, AFAIK, it could be sitting there with your email on the hard drive (assuming it was something else that went) for months/years.
"Microsoft is just trying to make money too. So why then do people around here believe Microsoft is EVIL, when they have the choice to simply use something else (like LINUX)."
Microsoft actively tries to destroy companies that it thinks might interfere with their monopoly. Further, it uses its monopoly position to force deals upon other companies (for example, if you sold *any* PCs with Microsoft OSes, you had to pay a licensing fee even for those machines that did *not* have the Microsoft OS installed). Google has never done anything like this, AFAIK. Microsoft leverages its monopoly by requiring people who accept one piece to accept others (e.g. their EU case). Google offers people the *option* of using this service (and it is possible that they may not be able to offer the *option* in Europe if this is a real limitation; more likely, they will just tweak their service to bring it in line).
It's not making money/not making money. It's living honorably when you're at the top. Google traditionally has; Microsoft traditionally has not.
With downloads, returns are instant (just turn off the DRM enabling), and sending out just takes the download time. Short of adding a new warehouse that is closer to you, I don't know that they can fix the mailing system (which is mostly USPS). This is in fact one thing that they can do to fix your problem.
Unrelated to your issue, but won't this make them international as well? Any reason why anyone with a credit card couldn't get the downloads?
From RTFA, it seems that Netflix doesn't feel that this is something that they need to do to get more business or replace their current model. Instead, they seem to be doing this defensively. They can foresee a time when people would prefer to download the movies rather than get the discs mailed to them. They want to be sure to have the technology established as theirs when this happens.
I would also point out that that time may already be arriving. If I have a choice between going on a "Long Wait" queue or doing a six hour download that can occur when I'm not home or asleep... I think that I would do the download. Yes, a 6 hour wait, but without the mailing time or queued time. The next day I can watch my movie through my TV out (or a separate PVR machine; expect a Tivo version shortly after release, perhaps even before the PC release).
I think that a lot of people are getting confused between download then watch (which can be done now) and stream while watching (which requires extremely high guaranteed bandwidth). Stream while watching is only barely possible now and uses tremendous resources. Download then watch allows the resources to be spread out over time and can certainly be done now (heck, I once downloaded an episode of Sliders over dial up -- my burstable 1.5 mbps connection should do much better, even with a higher definition picture). Also, given the increasing market share of TV out cards (my video card came with it; even some motherboards come with TV out now) and PVRs, there is no reason to think that people will watch on their computer screens.
"That would be fine if the Government itself were doing the outsourcing, but the companies actually paying for outsourcing services can't print their own money. This means that 'real' money, backed by some sort of product or service to produce it, is passed to the other country. Those products and services are what cause the money to be worth something. It's a modified 'gold standard'. Governments can print new money, for free essentially, businesses can't."
The claim was that importing sends money out that we don't get it back. You call that hogwash (essentially). I would generally agree (although we do get some seniorage value as the producer of the world currency, thus the trade deficit). My point was that even if money was going out and not coming back, that would be *good* for us rather than bad.
Trading our goods and services for their goods and services is not as good as trading nothing for their goods and services, but it is still better than the alternative (not trading). Trading allows us to concentrate our resources on areas where we do well (grain farming comes to mind).
It sucks for those of us in the tech industry that we can't get the salaries we used to get (although I personally am almost back up the level I was making in 2000 and doing better than I was in 1999). However, the system will right itself eventually. Either the market will expand to where it used to be (when American *and* Indian techies were fully employed), or some techies will move into other fields.
Make the person who *compiles* the software responsible. While this would hurt Debian, it wouldn't kill it (or other free distros). They would simply have to switch to a source based distribution method (like Gentoo's emerge or the BSD ports system).
With closed source (proprietary) solutions, they compile it themselves, so they (e.g. Microsoft) would be responsible.
No, capitalism is working just fine. In the 90s, there was a shortage of trained computer programmers in the US. As a result, countries like India and China started training programmers (some of whom went to US colleges; my CS graduate program had more foreigners than US members). In the 90s, this greatly increased the number of programming jobs in China and India but did not affect the US (at least not much, programmers were experiencing full employment in the US; otoh, it did provide an excuse for work visas and enabled some Indians/Chinese to move to the US to work).
The problem is that the programming boom ended. As a result, companies cut back. This (and the continuing educational push) created a large number of well-educated but unemployed Indians and Chinese. It is so bad over there that people with doctorates are manning help desks (and unable to actually help people, because outsourced help desks are all about minimizing call length; not to mention that a doctorate in programming is of little use in helping someone figure out that Word Perfect won't work during a power outage). As a result, a company can save money by switching to Indian/Chinese programmers and is under cost pressure to do so.
This is not a failure of capitalism; it's just a characteristic of business cycles. The big question is if the demand for programmers will return to its previous level or if it will be permanently lower. If the first, we techies should just ride it out. If the latter, many techies should switch careers.
"Because they don't contribute their hard-earned money back into our* economy. The money doesn't flow in a circular fashion. Its a one-way flow outbound."
Really? If so, that would be great...for us. You see, we can make more money. If they are stupid enough to give us goods and services for *nothing* (except electronic representations of paper that can be used to get goods and services from us...which you say they aren't doing) in return, that is a net gain for us.
If the problem is a shortage of money, the answer is simple: print more.
Note: to those who point out that printing money is inflationary, the assumption here is that the problem is a shortage of money. The parent post suggests that we stop importing and spend those dollars (or whatever) here to solve this shortage. My point is that if such a shortage exists (I'm not convinced that it does), then we would be better off just printing more money. That way, we would have the goods and services from foreign imports *and* the money. Further note: it is just as inflationary to stop importing as it is to print the same amount of money. Either increases the domestic money supply, which is what counts in inflation.
You should have told your prospective new employers that you were a black box device developer who only worked on classified projects.
Btw, in talking to a Microsoft salesman (named something like Joe Smith) who used to be a programmer, this job sounds *exactly* like what they did. They would be given a particular class/function definition and expected to implement it in C++ based on the provided input to output mapping. Never got to find out on what they were actually working. He hated it...that's why he became a salesman.
Properly defined, that actually sounds like good job experience (in terms of finding another sucker^H^H^H^H^H^Hemployer).
The actual reference from your link says "You can not use numbers in your name, like 911, in order to intentionally confuse people." From that, I take it that if your intent is not to confuse, you can use numbers in your name. If not, they should revise their wording in that statement.
By accessing the more exciting/better written games of the past, you are taking away potential XBox revenue from modern crap! What's wrong with you? How is Microsoft supposed to sell any games when you can play fun and exciting games from days past?
After all Microsoft has done for you (hey, you can buy an XBox for half production costs), you are morally obligated to purchase their games. Don't you understand anything? You act as if you didn't sign away your soul when you bought that XBox. Shame on you!
Most of the people who have the foundation to understand how security principles work will have access to these concepts anyway. Or to put it another way: most of the people that only find this stuff out from books like these won't be able to apply what's here because they lack the necessary foundation.
I am more concerned about people in the know making easy to use software that automates cracking functions than I am about them writing books. In general, the books require considerable knowledge to apply. A tool kit that includes things like "function brute_force($num_characters_to_try, $ip_number, $port)" can be used by the same kinds of idiots who write viruses (which are usually generated by tools).
It's like with nuclear weapons. The basics of building a bomb are relatively well known (used to be available at the local library in some places). The problem is generating the enriched plutonium (requires a nuclear reactor).
"Congress debated giving China MFN trade status every year, and every year Democrats (basically) said to give it up and grant them permanent trade status, and every year Republicans (basically) raked China over the coals."
I remember this as being the other way around. In particular, this was one of the minor issues of the Clinton campaign in '92...he supported revoking the MFN status while Bush had pushed for retaining it every year. It may have changed during the Clinton presidency (his position certainly did), but it was not as strictly along party lines as you say. At best, the democrats opposed to renewing MFN stayed quiet while Clinton was president.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to mention situations like what happened to one of my previous employers. They needed to implement a Solaris PAM module to authenticate with an AFS Krb4 server (if you don't recognize the terms, essentially it says that they wanted their Unix machines to allow login to people who had the ability to log in to their network file system; a Microsoft Windows machine does the same thing with Active Directory's domain controller).
Anyway, they hired an expensive contractor whose resume said that he was an expert in PAMs (Pluggable Authentication Modules) on Solaris. His first day, they found him trying to compile Hello World (unsuccesfully). They ended up having someone in house figure out how to make the module.
"Having good jobs is better than having cheap stuff"
They don't conflict. One can have both cheap stuff *and* good jobs. There is no shortage of work to be done.
The reverse is not true. It's pretty hard to have a good job if everything is too expensive to buy.
You seem to be missing the whole point of trading. We do not trade to give people jobs. We trade to get stuff. If other countries are willing to send us stuff without us sending them stuff (which is what a trade deficit is), that is *good* for us. It means that we are getting free stuff.
The problem is that we have many unemployed people in industries where we are in surplus. Increasing exports to India won't fix that. They won't buy IT services; they'll buy things they need, like grain or pharmaceuticals. That still won't help IT workers (and might hurt us if it increases prices of food and health care).
For unemployed IT workers to find jobs, one of two things needs to happen: one, the market for IT could increase sharply (don't hold your breath); or two, IT workers could move into fields that are hiring. Unfortunately, most IT workers would be considered unskilled labor in other fields, so we are reluctant to take the pay cut involved in doing this. Also, most industries are more interested in skilled (in the work of that industry) workers than unskilled workers.
The only thing that we get from increasing exports without increasing imports is money. Since we (as a country) have the ability to print money (much cheaper than trading for it), that is not helpful. Instead, we need to fix the structural issues with the economy (i.e. move the unemployed into industries that are hiring) and produce more stuff for *us*. That way, we get the benefits of both the jobs *and* the stuff produced.
These (the jobs at the place IBM bought) are not high skilled jobs. They are call center jobs, which are essentially as low skill as you can get (at least in the manner in which they do them). One gives a small set of answers to questions based on what the computer says.
Personally, I think that this is kind of silly on IBM's part. Outsourced call centers are one of the worst products available. IBM's main image is of products that are expensive but worth it. This is a product that is cheap and might not be worth it (primary skill needed in an effective help desk employee: communicating; someone in their second language will never be as good at this as someone in their first).
I can see two things to which your parent could have been referring (neither of which would be quite correct):
1. Novell claims to own the Unix copyright still. SCO does have the right to license Unix code though. It's not stolen.
2. Unix (for lack of a better name; pre-SCO) apparently used some code that Linus Torvalds wrote. (Unix also used some code written by Donald Knuth or someone like that.) Linus isn't a company though.
If neither of those are it, then I don't know to what your parent was referring. While I realize this is slashdot, I too would be interested in references for "code...stolen by SCO from ANOTHER COMPANY" that might be in Linux.
"I've had SMS spams of 50 characters or so. It's certainly possible. The important bit is only http://tinyurl.com/abcd/ long anyway."
Yes, but then you can just bounce messages with subjects with URLs in the first 50 characters (from strangers).
Me: "In regards c, it is hard to run a POP server on a desktop PC."
You: "Actually, it's remarkably easy. Especially in these days of Windows NT based boxes. You don't even need to know that it's there."
Sorry, I thought the next line (which you did not quote) made this clear: it is technically easy but practically difficult. The problem isn't running the server software; the problem is that servers need to be *on* when you go to access the message. Desktop PCs are turned off frequently. Note: it's not impossible, just not something that would involve *millions* of virus infected PCs successfully.
"I can see denial of service possibilities here."
DOS attacks on mail servers are not difficult now. They already accept all connections (from any IP) over their SMTP port. Plus, you can add authentication to the system. Just generate a password for each message and send it in the notification. Then only message recipents can connect successfully.
"This is a 'requires everyone to switch overnight' solution."
Not really. If you are an IM2000 capable sending server, try IM2000 first. If the receiving server responds appropriately, pass just the notification. If it does not, pass the message via SMTP. The recipient can give IM2000 messages brownie points with your Bayesian filter. Immediate help (without an immediate switch). Not as good as SPF ( http://spf.pobox.com ) in this regard, but still better than the current system. Also allows for SPF records that specify a domain as only send IM2000 messages. Further, one can (relatively) safely allow IM2000/SPF messages from places where SMTP is blocked (residential DSL/cable, cyber cafes, etc.).
In this system, webmail, IMAP, and Exchange/Notes servers act as clients in the system. If you choose, you load the message from the IM2000 server to the storage server. If not, refuse the message.
It's a useful new protocol. It would be nice if mail servers supported notification receipt and if clients handled the handshake system. Much the same way that it would be helpful if clients handled public keys automatically.
Your a and b options are not a complete list. In actuality, you would send a subset of the headers in the notification (the recipient could potentially pick which ones--possibly in the response to the EHLO replacement). One can certainly limit subjects in the initial notification to (for example) 50 characters, not enough to get a real message across but enough to recognize many legitimate kinds of email (for one thing, how many legitimate emails have subjects longer than 50 characters?). In regards c, it is hard to run a POP server on a desktop PC.
Another possibility is that the notification could be just that (no content whatsoever), with you downloading the headers separately (i.e. 3 steps: notification; headers; body and full headers). That would force the server to exist, but you don't have to download the rest of the message if you do not want to do so.
Also consider how this would work with RMX proposals (like SPF: http://spf.pobox.com ). If the email is not from a validated IP, then you can reject the initial notification.
It is also worth noting that a spam method that requires illegal acts (like virus infection) is dangerous for the spammer. It is not really practical when selling everyday items, only scam emails (already illegal) or really high margin items that allow the spammer to change locations often.
Criticizing anti-spam proposals for not completely solving the problem is missing the point. No one anti-spam method is going to eliminate spam. Each one is designed to make it harder to spam, ideally without impacting normal email. IM2000 does this, since it merely shifts from POPping from the recipient's server to the sender's server. This is harder for senders but easier for receivers in most cases. The exceptions are those where the sender does not maintain a persistent (i.e. always on) mail server (e.g. spammers). This is very rare with legitimate emails (if the sender does not have a persistent mail server, then they can't *receive* email; legitimate senders generally want to be able to receive emails in response).
"Add to that things like the increased storage costs imposed on ISPs and thus their customers and issues like aging (how long will the ISP hold the message before collection?)."
The same length of time that they hold POP emails now (or until the outbox overfills or something). All this is is POP from sender (normally you POP from your mail server; with this protocol, you POP from the sender's mail server).
"if they were willing to amend it with a service guarantee that within xx hours your email would be deleted"
I'm not sure that they can make that promise. The Google method seems wasteful, but it is simply based on the idea that it is cheaper to buy a new hard drive than to fix the one that you have. Basically, they will make a good faith effort to retrieve the disk space (overwriting the email). If that doesn't work, they just delete the index and leave the email there. If they need more space, they add a new file server (with new hard drives).
I read a while ago that Google's server farms have "dead" servers in them. They don't bother to remove them, because with their system, it is more difficult to *find* the dead server and get to it than it is to buy a new server rack.
If the dead server is your email server, AFAIK, it could be sitting there with your email on the hard drive (assuming it was something else that went) for months/years.
"Microsoft is just trying to make money too. So why then do people around here believe Microsoft is EVIL, when they have the choice to simply use something else (like LINUX)."
Microsoft actively tries to destroy companies that it thinks might interfere with their monopoly. Further, it uses its monopoly position to force deals upon other companies (for example, if you sold *any* PCs with Microsoft OSes, you had to pay a licensing fee even for those machines that did *not* have the Microsoft OS installed). Google has never done anything like this, AFAIK. Microsoft leverages its monopoly by requiring people who accept one piece to accept others (e.g. their EU case). Google offers people the *option* of using this service (and it is possible that they may not be able to offer the *option* in Europe if this is a real limitation; more likely, they will just tweak their service to bring it in line).
It's not making money/not making money. It's living honorably when you're at the top. Google traditionally has; Microsoft traditionally has not.
Zuma is made by a company called PopCap ( http://www.popcap.com ), not Microsoft.
With downloads, returns are instant (just turn off the DRM enabling), and sending out just takes the download time. Short of adding a new warehouse that is closer to you, I don't know that they can fix the mailing system (which is mostly USPS). This is in fact one thing that they can do to fix your problem.
Unrelated to your issue, but won't this make them international as well? Any reason why anyone with a credit card couldn't get the downloads?
From RTFA, it seems that Netflix doesn't feel that this is something that they need to do to get more business or replace their current model. Instead, they seem to be doing this defensively. They can foresee a time when people would prefer to download the movies rather than get the discs mailed to them. They want to be sure to have the technology established as theirs when this happens.
I would also point out that that time may already be arriving. If I have a choice between going on a "Long Wait" queue or doing a six hour download that can occur when I'm not home or asleep... I think that I would do the download. Yes, a 6 hour wait, but without the mailing time or queued time. The next day I can watch my movie through my TV out (or a separate PVR machine; expect a Tivo version shortly after release, perhaps even before the PC release).
I think that a lot of people are getting confused between download then watch (which can be done now) and stream while watching (which requires extremely high guaranteed bandwidth). Stream while watching is only barely possible now and uses tremendous resources. Download then watch allows the resources to be spread out over time and can certainly be done now (heck, I once downloaded an episode of Sliders over dial up -- my burstable 1.5 mbps connection should do much better, even with a higher definition picture). Also, given the increasing market share of TV out cards (my video card came with it; even some motherboards come with TV out now) and PVRs, there is no reason to think that people will watch on their computer screens.
"That would be fine if the Government itself were doing the outsourcing, but the companies actually paying for outsourcing services can't print their own money. This means that 'real' money, backed by some sort of product or service to produce it, is passed to the other country. Those products and services are what cause the money to be worth something. It's a modified 'gold standard'. Governments can print new money, for free essentially, businesses can't."
The claim was that importing sends money out that we don't get it back. You call that hogwash (essentially). I would generally agree (although we do get some seniorage value as the producer of the world currency, thus the trade deficit). My point was that even if money was going out and not coming back, that would be *good* for us rather than bad.
Trading our goods and services for their goods and services is not as good as trading nothing for their goods and services, but it is still better than the alternative (not trading). Trading allows us to concentrate our resources on areas where we do well (grain farming comes to mind).
It sucks for those of us in the tech industry that we can't get the salaries we used to get (although I personally am almost back up the level I was making in 2000 and doing better than I was in 1999). However, the system will right itself eventually. Either the market will expand to where it used to be (when American *and* Indian techies were fully employed), or some techies will move into other fields.
Make the person who *compiles* the software responsible. While this would hurt Debian, it wouldn't kill it (or other free distros). They would simply have to switch to a source based distribution method (like Gentoo's emerge or the BSD ports system).
With closed source (proprietary) solutions, they compile it themselves, so they (e.g. Microsoft) would be responsible.
No, capitalism is working just fine. In the 90s, there was a shortage of trained computer programmers in the US. As a result, countries like India and China started training programmers (some of whom went to US colleges; my CS graduate program had more foreigners than US members). In the 90s, this greatly increased the number of programming jobs in China and India but did not affect the US (at least not much, programmers were experiencing full employment in the US; otoh, it did provide an excuse for work visas and enabled some Indians/Chinese to move to the US to work).
The problem is that the programming boom ended. As a result, companies cut back. This (and the continuing educational push) created a large number of well-educated but unemployed Indians and Chinese. It is so bad over there that people with doctorates are manning help desks (and unable to actually help people, because outsourced help desks are all about minimizing call length; not to mention that a doctorate in programming is of little use in helping someone figure out that Word Perfect won't work during a power outage). As a result, a company can save money by switching to Indian/Chinese programmers and is under cost pressure to do so.
This is not a failure of capitalism; it's just a characteristic of business cycles. The big question is if the demand for programmers will return to its previous level or if it will be permanently lower. If the first, we techies should just ride it out. If the latter, many techies should switch careers.
"Because they don't contribute their hard-earned money back into our* economy. The money doesn't flow in a circular fashion. Its a one-way flow outbound."
Really? If so, that would be great...for us. You see, we can make more money. If they are stupid enough to give us goods and services for *nothing* (except electronic representations of paper that can be used to get goods and services from us...which you say they aren't doing) in return, that is a net gain for us.
If the problem is a shortage of money, the answer is simple: print more.
Note: to those who point out that printing money is inflationary, the assumption here is that the problem is a shortage of money. The parent post suggests that we stop importing and spend those dollars (or whatever) here to solve this shortage. My point is that if such a shortage exists (I'm not convinced that it does), then we would be better off just printing more money. That way, we would have the goods and services from foreign imports *and* the money. Further note: it is just as inflationary to stop importing as it is to print the same amount of money. Either increases the domestic money supply, which is what counts in inflation.
The best title is "Flunky." It works for almost any job (exceptions include CEO, owner, Chairman of the Board).
You should have told your prospective new employers that you were a black box device developer who only worked on classified projects.
Btw, in talking to a Microsoft salesman (named something like Joe Smith) who used to be a programmer, this job sounds *exactly* like what they did. They would be given a particular class/function definition and expected to implement it in C++ based on the provided input to output mapping. Never got to find out on what they were actually working. He hated it...that's why he became a salesman.
Properly defined, that actually sounds like good job experience (in terms of finding another sucker^H^H^H^H^H^Hemployer).
The actual reference from your link says "You can not use numbers in your name, like 911, in order to intentionally confuse people." From that, I take it that if your intent is not to confuse, you can use numbers in your name. If not, they should revise their wording in that statement.
Twins named Cookie and Candy. Didn't really know them, just heard the names a lot. They were sisters of one of my former bosses.
You mean like Spears? Or were you thinking more along the lines of Dick Trickle (Nascar driver; AFAIK, that is his real name).
By accessing the more exciting/better written games of the past, you are taking away potential XBox revenue from modern crap! What's wrong with you? How is Microsoft supposed to sell any games when you can play fun and exciting games from days past?
After all Microsoft has done for you (hey, you can buy an XBox for half production costs), you are morally obligated to purchase their games. Don't you understand anything? You act as if you didn't sign away your soul when you bought that XBox. Shame on you!
Most of the people who have the foundation to understand how security principles work will have access to these concepts anyway. Or to put it another way: most of the people that only find this stuff out from books like these won't be able to apply what's here because they lack the necessary foundation.
I am more concerned about people in the know making easy to use software that automates cracking functions than I am about them writing books. In general, the books require considerable knowledge to apply. A tool kit that includes things like "function brute_force($num_characters_to_try, $ip_number, $port)" can be used by the same kinds of idiots who write viruses (which are usually generated by tools).
It's like with nuclear weapons. The basics of building a bomb are relatively well known (used to be available at the local library in some places). The problem is generating the enriched plutonium (requires a nuclear reactor).
"Congress debated giving China MFN trade status every year, and every year Democrats (basically) said to give it up and grant them permanent trade status, and every year Republicans (basically) raked China over the coals."
I remember this as being the other way around. In particular, this was one of the minor issues of the Clinton campaign in '92...he supported revoking the MFN status while Bush had pushed for retaining it every year. It may have changed during the Clinton presidency (his position certainly did), but it was not as strictly along party lines as you say. At best, the democrats opposed to renewing MFN stayed quiet while Clinton was president.