Sure, god created us just to fuck with. While I'm not saying you're wrong, that is not the theory of Christianity I was brought up to believe. Of course, I stopped believing about age 8, but that's another story.
Man asks "Why is man created only to suffer and die?" God answers "Why not?"
>Well, the First Amendment doesn't neccessarily
>apply to an 8 year old.
Put simply, bullshit.
You either have rights or you do not. Rights are not priviledges, they are not granted. Unless and until you violate the law and consequently have your rights revoked by a court of law, they remain.
An 8 year old has the same rights as you or I do. Effectively more, as many juvenile crimes have few lasting penalties.
Before you parrot it, maybe you should read the Constitution.
Or maybe, start with the Declaration Of Independance, which states "WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...", which pretty concretely indicates that Rights are present from the moment of creation.
Or did you somehow miss the whole abortion debate?
The provisions in the Bill Of Rights restrict the Government's power over the citizenry. Parental rights are long established under rights of guardianship, and are not in any way in conflict with the Bill Of Rights.
Our schools should be an exercise in education, not an exercise in conformity. Their primary goals should be to instill a love of knowledge and exploration, and a teaching of the fundamental tools necessary.
Our schools can serve as a very useful laboratory in which to teach social skills, cultural mores, and so forth, but when indoctrination becomes more important than education, we need to be honest about it.
OK, let me ask a follow up. I might learn something.
In a clustering or load balancing environment, wouldn't the software controlling the clustering or load balancing not only have to support power management itself, but also at the intermachine level to allow nodes to sleep without causing problems? I know that the individual operating systems may do this, but I hadn't seen any discussions of NETWORK POWER MANAGEMENT, just individual machine level power management.
If I have a 20 node cluster, what arbitrates allowing individual nodes to sleep? I can see how this would work, and how it would be beneficial, but I was not aware of clustering or load balancing software that supports this specifically in terms of power management. I would think that you'd have to have true network power management before this scenario would truly be viable.
Are we there yet? If we are, are we there on enough operating system platforms to justify building it into hardware on servers?
I've managed networks for 0-2000 client nodes for more than a decade now. I've seen a lot of desktops in that time. I can tell you that many people who don't want to deal with it immediately disable the power saving features as they deploy the desktops. In the last couple of years, I've started to insist that they go out with the power management enabled, with reasonable default settings.
On the server end, though, I'm not sure I see the potential. My systems are always designed around 7x24 availability. Not all the network operating systems I support include support for power management on the server. Aside from the lag time required to wake up after going to sleep, I also worry about the cyclical tasks that most servers perform that would keep waking it up - reducing power management to a performance drain and defeating any savings.
I guess the real question I've got is this: Why would you want your server to sleep? I can see powering down the monitor, but most of my servers don't have monitors. I don't like the sound of powering down RAID arrays. I could see slowing the CPU clock when it wasn't under load, but that level of power management is usually reserved for laptops, not desktops.
If my new servers started arriving with power management features, I'd probably disable power management.
But it is hard to argue against Yahoo! being an attractive acquisition target for any company trying to compete with AOL/TW and MSN. Let's see - of the traditional broadcast networks, NBC is partnered with MS already, ABC is owned by Disney, and CBS is owned by Viacom. This week, Disney is folding GO. CBS has done the most decentralized job, it seems to me. Is Fox even on the radar?
My point is that if you look at MSN and AOL/TW, someone's going to want to compete with them, and Yahoo! is the prime option to bring into the fold.
It may not be an automatic conclusion that a bought-out Yahoo! would become a preferential gatekeeper for those who own it. Though I admit that it is likely, if not probable.
But isn't this just life in the foodchain? Won't another service come along that provides an open view if Yahoo!'s become's closed? And won't they eventually become large enough to get bought when whichever megacorp that buys Yahoo! runs it into the ground and ditches it, like Disney is doing to GO?
I haven't received this message from eBay, and I opted out of virtually all their message types. I can certainly see that someone who registered back when they were rolling out then rolling back their new software might have registered some preferences that the database can't deal with.
I buy a LOT on eBay, and I sell occasionally, too. I've got a good feedback rating, and they haven't seen fit to fuck with me yet.
My understanding is that ASCAP and BMI retain the performance rights administration, and that what the RIAA is attempting is a unilateral power grab to take more power back from the artists and give it to the record companies. ASCAP and BMI seem to have remained curiously silent on these issues.
I didn't get an Apex 600a when they were available with the loopholes menu. Though I've found a site that sells them (modified) for about $100 more than retail, this seems a bit ugly. Are there any commercial players out there that allow all regions and macrovision defeat? I'm a bit skittish about the Delux that's mentioned here - I'm not a gamer and it appears to be mostly pirated software at that.
To those who suggest abolition of the Electoral College, I'll again suggest reading the Constitution, the 12th and 20th Ammendments, and Federalist 68. This is a system designed to give the most power to the individual voter at the local level, and to prevent or minimize manipulation at any higher level. As was pointed out, we live in a Republic, and a move to a straight national popular vote would parallel the genesis of the U.S. Civil War in terms of trampling on "states rights".
"Major" candidates receive substantial federal funding for their campaigns. Add to that the "soft money" that may be impossible to eliminate without trampling on the 1st Ammendment. While some have called for federal funding of all campaigns, I think it would be a more fair solution to ban federal funding of any campaign.
There is no reason nor need for the federal government ot dictate election policy to the states in terms of how the ballots are voted and counted. However, it would be in the national interest to modernize the system nationwide. I would suggest offering matching block grants to the states to defray the cost of updating their voting systems, and to offer partial credits to states who have done so on their own (without federal assistance) within the last four years. That is NOT to suggest that the federal government should dictate the system, or even the type of system, to be used.
The election isn't even over yet, and I've already received more than one message advocating the abolition of the Electoral College. I used to share this opinion, but did an about face a few years ago when I found a few pieces of information that forced me to change my mind.
The Banzhaf Power Index - The Banzhaf Power Index was introduced in 1968 by John F. Banzhaf III for the purpose of analyzing block voting systems, such as the U.S. Electoral College that elects the president. Banzhaf's method and previous methods are based on probabilistic analysis of the individual voters in a block voting system.
A detailed explanation and analysis of the Banzhaf Power Index is located at:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~livingst/Banzhaf/index.ht ml
Math Against Tyranny - Physicist Alan Natapoff studied the system and published a 1996 paper outlining why, mathematically, the Electoral College actually gives MORE power to the individual voter at the local level. To quote from the summary linked below, "This process seems undemocratic, and for many years people have talked of getting rid of it. However, physicist Alan Natapoff has recently argued that the system, instead of taking power out of the hands of individual voters, actually gives them more power than a direct vote would!"
There's a useful summary, which includes a comparison with the Banzhaf Power Index, located at:
http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/esm/app/ph-la/ excursions/html/EIMM_C02.html
The entire text of the article is located at:
http://208.245.156.153/archive/output.cfm?ID=907
As I said, I was absolutely convinced that the Electoral College should be abolished until I read this paper. Then, I went back and read the Federalist Papers, and damned if I didn't find myself changing my opinion 180 degrees. I think it's a national shame that The Federalist Papers aren't required reading in every high school in the country. Federalist 68 concerns the mechanism of the Electoral College, though that mechanism has been altered by the passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution.
Federalist 68 is located at: http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/fed68.htm
The text of the 12th amendment is located at: http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/amendments.html
(note that part of the 12th amendment is superceded by part of the 20th amendment)
I'm not saying they do a good job, but I think it's fair to point out that academic education isn't the one and only goal of our school systems.
They're supposed to expose our children to people who are different than they are. They're supposed to take a primary role in the socialization of our children. They're supposed to balance discipline with free expression, and security with discretion.
In school, our children should learn to deal with controversy and adversity. It isn't the purpose of the schools to shield them from these things, but to help them develop the skills to deal with them, and lay the foundation of knowledge that will allow the student to develop the wisdom to transcend them.
As such, competition, even popularity contests, are more than appropriate. "Everyone's a winner" is bullshit, and teaching that does a disservice to the students, and to the society we'll unleash them on.
I'd be a different person if I'd learned better social skills while I was in high school. Was I "at risk" to the point where the school should have intervened? No. Would I be a better person? Probably, but probably not as successful.
Who do I blame? Myself, first and foremost. My parents - between being an only child of a single mother, then being kept under the thumb of an asshole step-father - let's just say that my shrink spent most of his time convincing me I wasn't as screwed up as other people wanted me to believe I was. My school? No. Much as things have changed in the last 20 years, when I went to high school, they still made the jocks who stuffed me in my locker pay for it. They tolerated and even encouraged weirdness as long as it was tempered by intelligence and creativity. When I got beat up by a girl, they made me take another semester of PhysEd. But they let us show monster movies as fund raisers, take over the PA system, and cause all sorts of legitimate weirdness because we were "gifted".
These days, it seems like most parents and schools have refused to take the responsibilty. When zero-tolerance replaces discretion and judgement, that's not responsibility. When parents expect the schools to protect their children from ideas rather than to challenge them, that's tantamount to child abuse.
But the kids still need to be taught. We shouldn't shield them, we should give them the tools to deal with the things we might sheild them from. They need to be taught social skills and how to deal with adversity as much as they need to be taught math and science. And that's mostly a matter of maintaining an environment that's conducive, rather than outlawing everything that anyone's afraid of.
... between plagiarism and failure to provide attribution for reprinted text that appears under your byline.
I understand lifting the text as a verbatim quote for editorial purposes. I understand that this would be within "fair use" and is a normal and appripriate editorial device. However, failing to provide attribution, regardless of the link, is deceptive at best, and I don't think that an accusation of plagiarism is out of line.
Better to claim it was a simple editing error than to claim that such accusations were acts of bad faith. And since you obviously CAN edit it in such a way as to provide accurate attribution, and did so (only under fire), you defeat your own argument.
I've been tempted to reach for the button that blocks Katz postings. I think I've just fallen over the fence...
I've seen this argument before. This time it's gaming. Last time, I think, it was IMAX. It is not simply a matter of anything beyond the limits or human perception being wasted. It's about providing a more intense experience. I occasionally run a psychedelic light show. Rule number one is that you START at the point of sensory overload, then pile on.
While you may not be able to visually process 200fps, you can most certainly distinguish a qualitative difference between 60fps and 200fps. The sheep who patronize Blockbuster don't know that the 220 lines they're seeing don't approach broadcast quality, let alone DVD/LaserDisc/Satellite - they're still able to boggle when they see a nice quadrupled high-res image at or above 1600 lines.
More data gives the brain more to work with, whether you can process every individual frame or not, subliminally you're going to pick up MUCH more information, and the result is a more intense experience.
Of course, not everyone runs their games on a 90" screen, either.
There has been a trend toward the criminalization of intent in recent years, largely in the form of "hate crime" legislation. This type of legislation increases the penalties for certain crimes based on the motivation or intent behind those crimes. For example, a harsher or higher minimum penalty for killing a black man because he was black, or for beating a gay man because he was gay. As the underlying crime is already prosecutable, doesn't the increased penalty based on intent constitute "thought crime" in addition to the physical act? Is it not the case that "hate crime" penalties distort the law by punishing belief?
To me, it seems that we should limit ourselves to punishing behavior, not beliefs.
It may be non-voting now, but it is convertible. I think that usually takes the form of a time-bomb or a balloon payment.
Does anyone know the particulars of how Microsoft can convert their stock to voting stock? Also, at current valuation, what percentage of Corel have they acquired?
IF the material is authentic, copyrighted material owned by Lucasfilm and posted without permission, they are well within their rights to demand removal. Even if it isn't real, but features their copyrighted characters, they are within their rights.
I've never understood why fans feel they have some rights of ownership. You may have supported and promoted something, but that does not make it your intellectual property.
Does George have some responsibility to the fans who have made him rich? Ethically and morally, quite probably. Legally, not at all. May this hurt them? Sure. But biting the hand that feeds you always does.
First, this is beta software, and this "feature" may not survive to the production release, especially given the press it's getting them.
Second, this is not done without the users knowledge and acceptance. It is the default behavior, but it can be disabled with a couple of clicks. Of course, the average user for whom this product is targeted will probably accept the defaults without question...
I've been doing network management and support since 1989, and working with desktop to departmental systems since about 1977.
My last job was pure hell. I left the job before that because I thought things were bad, but my last job definitely forced me to recalibrate my scale of "bad". Pretty much everyone was always working overtime, downtime was seldome scheduled more than 15 minutes in advance, and we were often asked to work the weekend at about 5pm on Friday. The company wasn't that bad, but our department was a disaster. Most of the problems were due to a lack of planning and foresight, not because of any valid emergencies. I'm still looking for any good points...just so I can see that there was some positive impact.
When looking to get out of hell, I found that I could easily pick up a contract job in a week or two that would get me by. Not a perfect job, by any means, but something that would hold me for a year or two and pay all my bills. This kept me going, looking for the perfect job, because I knew there was a safety net.
I looked at what was important to me. Near the top of that list was to get to do the right things technically for sound reasons, rather than to constantly be playing political or bureaucratic games. Not to be constantly reacting, but to be proactive. And to get my evenings and weekends back. The more I looked, the more I realized that was going to mean moving into management or moving into a narrow technical specialty. At my age (I was 34 at the time, now 36) I was a bit worried about the narrow specialty, but also worried about having to deal with managing. In the end, of all the jobs I interviewed for, the ones that looked the most interesting all involved managing a small department. The best purely technical prospects all involved sitting in a cubicle.
In the end, I found a much smaller environment where I am a now department head. I get to keep my hands on technically, but we get to do things my way. I have management responsibilities, but they're, well, manageable.
I was used to supporting 500-2000 node networks, now I'm supporting a 50-60 node network. But it gives me the opportunity to set the direction, establish the policy, and prevent most of the stupidity I've suffered through elsewhere. By the time I'm ready to move on, I'll be better at dealing with the management aspects, and ready to move back into a larger environment. But I'm not really in any hurry. The deadlines are largely of my own creation, and I can keep politics from dictating network design or policy.
Yes, it can be a headache to deal with managing. But in my experience over the past year, I'm far happier to deal with the management issues than with the insanity of having non-technical managers dictating tech policy irrationally. We have a better network for it, and even our most cynical users recognize that. And I get to keep what little sanity I have left. When it comes down to it, getting to do things my way is so much more rewarding than any management inconvenience can detract from.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, god created us just to fuck with. While I'm not saying you're wrong, that is not the theory of Christianity I was brought up to believe. Of course, I stopped believing about age 8, but that's another story.
Man asks "Why is man created only to suffer and die?" God answers "Why not?"
-- Kilgore Trout, "Venus on the Half Shell"
>Well, the First Amendment doesn't neccessarily
>apply to an 8 year old.
Put simply, bullshit.
You either have rights or you do not. Rights are not priviledges, they are not granted. Unless and until you violate the law and consequently have your rights revoked by a court of law, they remain.
An 8 year old has the same rights as you or I do. Effectively more, as many juvenile crimes have few lasting penalties.
Before you parrot it, maybe you should read the Constitution.
Or maybe, start with the Declaration Of Independance, which states "WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...", which pretty concretely indicates that Rights are present from the moment of creation.
Or did you somehow miss the whole abortion debate?
You're simply nuts.
The provisions in the Bill Of Rights restrict the Government's power over the citizenry. Parental rights are long established under rights of guardianship, and are not in any way in conflict with the Bill Of Rights.
Our schools should be an exercise in education, not an exercise in conformity. Their primary goals should be to instill a love of knowledge and exploration, and a teaching of the fundamental tools necessary.
Our schools can serve as a very useful laboratory in which to teach social skills, cultural mores, and so forth, but when indoctrination becomes more important than education, we need to be honest about it.
And not necessarily even a technical question.
"What do you shave, and why?"
OK, let me ask a follow up. I might learn something.
In a clustering or load balancing environment, wouldn't the software controlling the clustering or load balancing not only have to support power management itself, but also at the intermachine level to allow nodes to sleep without causing problems? I know that the individual operating systems may do this, but I hadn't seen any discussions of NETWORK POWER MANAGEMENT, just individual machine level power management.
If I have a 20 node cluster, what arbitrates allowing individual nodes to sleep? I can see how this would work, and how it would be beneficial, but I was not aware of clustering or load balancing software that supports this specifically in terms of power management. I would think that you'd have to have true network power management before this scenario would truly be viable.
Are we there yet? If we are, are we there on enough operating system platforms to justify building it into hardware on servers?
If we are, you've convinced me.
I've managed networks for 0-2000 client nodes for more than a decade now. I've seen a lot of desktops in that time. I can tell you that many people who don't want to deal with it immediately disable the power saving features as they deploy the desktops. In the last couple of years, I've started to insist that they go out with the power management enabled, with reasonable default settings.
On the server end, though, I'm not sure I see the potential. My systems are always designed around 7x24 availability. Not all the network operating systems I support include support for power management on the server. Aside from the lag time required to wake up after going to sleep, I also worry about the cyclical tasks that most servers perform that would keep waking it up - reducing power management to a performance drain and defeating any savings.
I guess the real question I've got is this: Why would you want your server to sleep? I can see powering down the monitor, but most of my servers don't have monitors. I don't like the sound of powering down RAID arrays. I could see slowing the CPU clock when it wasn't under load, but that level of power management is usually reserved for laptops, not desktops.
If my new servers started arriving with power management features, I'd probably disable power management.
Can I get one that does DSL and has an 8-port 100-Base-T hub?
But it is hard to argue against Yahoo! being an attractive acquisition target for any company trying to compete with AOL/TW and MSN. Let's see - of the traditional broadcast networks, NBC is partnered with MS already, ABC is owned by Disney, and CBS is owned by Viacom. This week, Disney is folding GO. CBS has done the most decentralized job, it seems to me. Is Fox even on the radar?
My point is that if you look at MSN and AOL/TW, someone's going to want to compete with them, and Yahoo! is the prime option to bring into the fold.
It may not be an automatic conclusion that a bought-out Yahoo! would become a preferential gatekeeper for those who own it. Though I admit that it is likely, if not probable.
But isn't this just life in the foodchain? Won't another service come along that provides an open view if Yahoo!'s become's closed? And won't they eventually become large enough to get bought when whichever megacorp that buys Yahoo! runs it into the ground and ditches it, like Disney is doing to GO?
Bill Gates appears as a drop down list choice on every write-in slot.
BSOD counts as a straight party line vote.
Unisys as a contractor guarantees DOD oversight of elections.
Microsoft as a contractor guarantees DOJ oversight of elections.
Dell as a contractor guarantees a 50% plus failure rate if the systems are portable.
Two words: BANNER ADS
Votes for third party candidates cause segment faults.
VNS hires the same triuvirate to produce inaccurate results for media feeds.
Bill Gates replaces Jim Lehrer as moderator for the debates.
Katherine Harris becomes a UN Election Monitor.
Depends on whether you did it for love or money.
I haven't received this message from eBay, and I opted out of virtually all their message types. I can certainly see that someone who registered back when they were rolling out then rolling back their new software might have registered some preferences that the database can't deal with.
I buy a LOT on eBay, and I sell occasionally, too. I've got a good feedback rating, and they haven't seen fit to fuck with me yet.
My understanding is that ASCAP and BMI retain the performance rights administration, and that what the RIAA is attempting is a unilateral power grab to take more power back from the artists and give it to the record companies. ASCAP and BMI seem to have remained curiously silent on these issues.
I didn't get an Apex 600a when they were available with the loopholes menu. Though I've found a site that sells them (modified) for about $100 more than retail, this seems a bit ugly. Are there any commercial players out there that allow all regions and macrovision defeat? I'm a bit skittish about the Delux that's mentioned here - I'm not a gamer and it appears to be mostly pirated software at that.
To those who suggest abolition of the Electoral College, I'll again suggest reading the Constitution, the 12th and 20th Ammendments, and Federalist 68. This is a system designed to give the most power to the individual voter at the local level, and to prevent or minimize manipulation at any higher level. As was pointed out, we live in a Republic, and a move to a straight national popular vote would parallel the genesis of the U.S. Civil War in terms of trampling on "states rights".
"Major" candidates receive substantial federal funding for their campaigns. Add to that the "soft money" that may be impossible to eliminate without trampling on the 1st Ammendment. While some have called for federal funding of all campaigns, I think it would be a more fair solution to ban federal funding of any campaign.
There is no reason nor need for the federal government ot dictate election policy to the states in terms of how the ballots are voted and counted. However, it would be in the national interest to modernize the system nationwide. I would suggest offering matching block grants to the states to defray the cost of updating their voting systems, and to offer partial credits to states who have done so on their own (without federal assistance) within the last four years. That is NOT to suggest that the federal government should dictate the system, or even the type of system, to be used.
The election isn't even over yet, and I've already received more than one message advocating the abolition of the Electoral College. I used to share this opinion, but did an about face a few years ago when I found a few pieces of information that forced me to change my mind.
t ml
/ excursions/html/EIMM_C02.html
7
The Banzhaf Power Index - The Banzhaf Power Index was introduced in 1968 by John F. Banzhaf III for the purpose of analyzing block voting systems, such as the U.S. Electoral College that elects the president. Banzhaf's method and previous methods are based on probabilistic analysis of the individual voters in a block voting system.
A detailed explanation and analysis of the Banzhaf Power Index is located at:
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~livingst/Banzhaf/index.h
Math Against Tyranny - Physicist Alan Natapoff studied the system and published a 1996 paper outlining why, mathematically, the Electoral College actually gives MORE power to the individual voter at the local level. To quote from the summary linked below, "This process seems undemocratic, and for many years people have talked of getting rid of it. However, physicist Alan Natapoff has recently argued that the system, instead of taking power out of the hands of individual voters, actually gives them more power than a direct vote would!"
There's a useful summary, which includes a comparison with the Banzhaf Power Index, located at:
http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/esm/app/ph-la
The entire text of the article is located at:
http://208.245.156.153/archive/output.cfm?ID=90
As I said, I was absolutely convinced that the Electoral College should be abolished until I read this paper. Then, I went back and read the Federalist Papers, and damned if I didn't find myself changing my opinion 180 degrees. I think it's a national shame that The Federalist Papers aren't required reading in every high school in the country. Federalist 68 concerns the mechanism of the Electoral College, though that mechanism has been altered by the passage of the 13th amendment to the Constitution.
Federalist 68 is located at: http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/fed68.htm
The text of the 12th amendment is located at: http://www.mcs.net/~knautzr/fed/amendments.html
(note that part of the 12th amendment is superceded by part of the 20th amendment)
I'm not saying they do a good job, but I think it's fair to point out that academic education isn't the one and only goal of our school systems.
They're supposed to expose our children to people who are different than they are. They're supposed to take a primary role in the socialization of our children. They're supposed to balance discipline with free expression, and security with discretion.
In school, our children should learn to deal with controversy and adversity. It isn't the purpose of the schools to shield them from these things, but to help them develop the skills to deal with them, and lay the foundation of knowledge that will allow the student to develop the wisdom to transcend them.
As such, competition, even popularity contests, are more than appropriate. "Everyone's a winner" is bullshit, and teaching that does a disservice to the students, and to the society we'll unleash them on.
I'd be a different person if I'd learned better social skills while I was in high school. Was I "at risk" to the point where the school should have intervened? No. Would I be a better person? Probably, but probably not as successful.
Who do I blame? Myself, first and foremost. My parents - between being an only child of a single mother, then being kept under the thumb of an asshole step-father - let's just say that my shrink spent most of his time convincing me I wasn't as screwed up as other people wanted me to believe I was. My school? No. Much as things have changed in the last 20 years, when I went to high school, they still made the jocks who stuffed me in my locker pay for it. They tolerated and even encouraged weirdness as long as it was tempered by intelligence and creativity. When I got beat up by a girl, they made me take another semester of PhysEd. But they let us show monster movies as fund raisers, take over the PA system, and cause all sorts of legitimate weirdness because we were "gifted".
These days, it seems like most parents and schools have refused to take the responsibilty. When zero-tolerance replaces discretion and judgement, that's not responsibility. When parents expect the schools to protect their children from ideas rather than to challenge them, that's tantamount to child abuse.
But the kids still need to be taught. We shouldn't shield them, we should give them the tools to deal with the things we might sheild them from. They need to be taught social skills and how to deal with adversity as much as they need to be taught math and science. And that's mostly a matter of maintaining an environment that's conducive, rather than outlawing everything that anyone's afraid of.
... between plagiarism and failure to provide attribution for reprinted text that appears under your byline.
I understand lifting the text as a verbatim quote for editorial purposes. I understand that this would be within "fair use" and is a normal and appripriate editorial device. However, failing to provide attribution, regardless of the link, is deceptive at best, and I don't think that an accusation of plagiarism is out of line.
Better to claim it was a simple editing error than to claim that such accusations were acts of bad faith. And since you obviously CAN edit it in such a way as to provide accurate attribution, and did so (only under fire), you defeat your own argument.
I've been tempted to reach for the button that blocks Katz postings. I think I've just fallen over the fence...
I've seen this argument before. This time it's gaming. Last time, I think, it was IMAX. It is not simply a matter of anything beyond the limits or human perception being wasted. It's about providing a more intense experience. I occasionally run a psychedelic light show. Rule number one is that you START at the point of sensory overload, then pile on.
While you may not be able to visually process 200fps, you can most certainly distinguish a qualitative difference between 60fps and 200fps. The sheep who patronize Blockbuster don't know that the 220 lines they're seeing don't approach broadcast quality, let alone DVD/LaserDisc/Satellite - they're still able to boggle when they see a nice quadrupled high-res image at or above 1600 lines.
More data gives the brain more to work with, whether you can process every individual frame or not, subliminally you're going to pick up MUCH more information, and the result is a more intense experience.
Of course, not everyone runs their games on a 90" screen, either.
Imagine an engine that stored data in its cooling system.
There has been a trend toward the criminalization of intent in recent years, largely in the form of "hate crime" legislation. This type of legislation increases the penalties for certain crimes based on the motivation or intent behind those crimes. For example, a harsher or higher minimum penalty for killing a black man because he was black, or for beating a gay man because he was gay. As the underlying crime is already prosecutable, doesn't the increased penalty based on intent constitute "thought crime" in addition to the physical act? Is it not the case that "hate crime" penalties distort the law by punishing belief? To me, it seems that we should limit ourselves to punishing behavior, not beliefs.
It may be non-voting now, but it is convertible. I think that usually takes the form of a time-bomb or a balloon payment.
Does anyone know the particulars of how Microsoft can convert their stock to voting stock? Also, at current valuation, what percentage of Corel have they acquired?
IF the material is authentic, copyrighted material owned by Lucasfilm and posted without permission, they are well within their rights to demand removal. Even if it isn't real, but features their copyrighted characters, they are within their rights.
I've never understood why fans feel they have some rights of ownership. You may have supported and promoted something, but that does not make it your intellectual property.
Does George have some responsibility to the fans who have made him rich? Ethically and morally, quite probably. Legally, not at all. May this hurt them? Sure. But biting the hand that feeds you always does.
First, this is beta software, and this "feature" may not survive to the production release, especially given the press it's getting them.
Second, this is not done without the users knowledge and acceptance. It is the default behavior, but it can be disabled with a couple of clicks. Of course, the average user for whom this product is targeted will probably accept the defaults without question...
I've been doing network management and support since 1989, and working with desktop to departmental systems since about 1977.
My last job was pure hell. I left the job before that because I thought things were bad, but my last job definitely forced me to recalibrate my scale of "bad". Pretty much everyone was always working overtime, downtime was seldome scheduled more than 15 minutes in advance, and we were often asked to work the weekend at about 5pm on Friday. The company wasn't that bad, but our department was a disaster. Most of the problems were due to a lack of planning and foresight, not because of any valid emergencies. I'm still looking for any good points...just so I can see that there was some positive impact.
When looking to get out of hell, I found that I could easily pick up a contract job in a week or two that would get me by. Not a perfect job, by any means, but something that would hold me for a year or two and pay all my bills. This kept me going, looking for the perfect job, because I knew there was a safety net.
I looked at what was important to me. Near the top of that list was to get to do the right things technically for sound reasons, rather than to constantly be playing political or bureaucratic games. Not to be constantly reacting, but to be proactive. And to get my evenings and weekends back. The more I looked, the more I realized that was going to mean moving into management or moving into a narrow technical specialty. At my age (I was 34 at the time, now 36) I was a bit worried about the narrow specialty, but also worried about having to deal with managing. In the end, of all the jobs I interviewed for, the ones that looked the most interesting all involved managing a small department. The best purely technical prospects all involved sitting in a cubicle.
In the end, I found a much smaller environment where I am a now department head. I get to keep my hands on technically, but we get to do things my way. I have management responsibilities, but they're, well, manageable.
I was used to supporting 500-2000 node networks, now I'm supporting a 50-60 node network. But it gives me the opportunity to set the direction, establish the policy, and prevent most of the stupidity I've suffered through elsewhere. By the time I'm ready to move on, I'll be better at dealing with the management aspects, and ready to move back into a larger environment. But I'm not really in any hurry. The deadlines are largely of my own creation, and I can keep politics from dictating network design or policy.
Yes, it can be a headache to deal with managing. But in my experience over the past year, I'm far happier to deal with the management issues than with the insanity of having non-technical managers dictating tech policy irrationally. We have a better network for it, and even our most cynical users recognize that. And I get to keep what little sanity I have left. When it comes down to it, getting to do things my way is so much more rewarding than any management inconvenience can detract from.