The programmers' experience, domain knowledge, and speed vs. quality all come into play, and it is highly dependent upon the culture of the team/organization.
My time estimates will be as accurate as your specs. You stick to the specs, I'll stick to the estimate.
I don't see them as trying to define news organizations. The issue seems to be commercial use of the photos for product endorsement and that's what they're trying to curtail.
There was a time no company would disrespect the office of the president like that so I doubt it was even considered when the image use guidelines were established.
...researchers took slices of dentin from extracted human molars, doused them with bacteria, and torched them with the plasma jet.
Do you ever wonder how they think up this stuff. Some researcher is sitting around drinking coffee thinking, "Hey, I wonder what would happen if you blasted a cavity with plasma?" How do you even think of questions like that without being stoned?
Then I started wondering if I'm going to be hearing my dentist going, "Pew! Pew! Pew!"
I use OpenOffice at home but it would be a tad heavy for a netbook. I think that was a good choice and if you needed a lighter weight word processor, you could always opt for Abiword.
Seriously though, what happens when you don't use the dns provider of the ISP (either running your own, or using a 3pd DNS provider)?
I'm using Google's open DNS, but the ISP could still figure out where I was going. Which means the FBI can track anyone who doesn't know how to use TOR. And I'm guessing one of those three letter agencies figured out a man-in-middle type attack for that. So I guess that means you'll have to do the really nasty surfing at McDonald's, Starbucks or some other unsecured wi-fi connection.
Whew, that was tough. I'm sure some of you could come up with even better alternatives. And to put people through that meager effort they're going to require your ISP to keep massive volumes of individually identifiable information for two years.
Time for the FBI to face up to the fact they're only going to catch the stupid ones.
Wired writer Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people erase their identities and start over.
We're getting ready to sell our house and move, only we're not buying another house right away. We're going to investigate locations to build an off-grid concrete home. In getting set up to go mobile I realized how easy it would be to make a few changes and drop off society completely. Not only can you do it, but if you have the money you can do it in style and comfort.
My wife has a medical condition that would keep us from participating in something like this, but after months of preparation I can tell you it can be done. You don't realize how much is tied to having an address until you face a situation where you won't have one. The biggest logistical hurdle we've faced is getting an address to establish residency without having a permanent physical address.
Now becoming someone else and assuming an identity is a whole different gig. That's a lot harder, but disappearing for a couple months. Piece of cake. And if someone was after us, I could have them chasing rabbit trails for weeks. There's a reason 12 million undocumented people can get by here.
'Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world. With every software update, the previous generation of "jailbreaks" stop working...
I can't see any reason for Apple to do things any other way. In some ways they're victims of their own success, just like Dell, HP, Microsoft and many other big companies. They've become so absorbed with their own chic they've lost sight of who helped get to where they are today. The artsy types have taken over from the tinkerers.
It's too bad their sense of style trumped everything else, because that used to be a nice bonus with Apple products, the "and they look cool" factor. Now style and marketing have edged out other factors. They're so absorbed protecting their market rice bowls they stopped caring about expanding it.
The.22 caliber guns will go on sale in the US within months, and the initial price is 7,000 euro.
A $12,000.22 is a completely safe weapon because no one in their right mind would buy one. It's useless for defense unless you're being attacked by balloons, it'll pop those.
It's just a test to see who reads the article before sharing their enlightened opinion.
We had a prof do that in college. There were a bunch of instructions, really tough problems, some with labs. Some people spent days working on them before they got to the second page of the instructions and it said, "It's only necessary to turn in question 3." Holy crap were people burned over that. But it was one of the core classes for pre-meds so there wasn't an option. But I bet as doctors they read directions.
It would have gotten me too but I had a lab partner who compulsively read all the directions. She was also traffic stopping hot. Those were great days.
I just want to caution everyone that you're reading an opinion piece by a security blogger with no corroborating evidence.
And how is he going to get the documentation now? Sue? The government steps in and claims state secrets, case dismissed. Ask Google for the documentation that admits they cooperated with a secret government program to spy on Americans? Bad for business and then they'd face federal criminal prosecution.
He probably has sources, but wants to protect them. Can't quote your sources, can't produce the docs, so the only option is to make the accusation and invite Google to sue him for defamation and tortious interference. He could still protect his sources and it would open Google up to discovery, something I'm sure the government isn't anxious to see happen.
We already know the telephone and cellular companies have found a way to monetize state surveillance by law enforcement, so they're not complaining. Who exactly is motivated to blab about any of this? And since Microsoft has decided to continue operating in China, one could also conclude they have back door systems as well and are more than willing to cooperate with both governments spying on their people. We assume for slightly different reasons, but how do we really know?
...Allison described Microsoft as 'an elephant that needs to be turned to stop it trampling the open source community
That's a great description of Microsoft. Slow to get up to speed, difficult to turn once they get rolling. The real problem with elephants on the battle field is once they got a head of steam they would charge through the enemy lines, then turn around and charge back through the lines and trample their own people. Not exactly a smart bomb.
Bob Lewis dispels the familiar litany that 'IT should be run as a business
IT is a service, a service that makes your business run better. And the better that service is shaped to your business, the more adapted to how you work, the more efficiently your business operates. The biggest payback from IT is saving money. A dollar saved is better than a dollar earned. A dollar saved is pure profit. A dollar earned you have to subtract the cost of overhead and doing business.
Too many times IT people operate from a perspective that's more religion than service. The time to upgrade to Windows 7 is not when SP 1 comes out, it's when upgrading saves the company money. A service mentality does not try to force-fit technology where it doesn't belong. Maybe not everyone in the company needs Windows 7. Maybe the call center can use Ubuntu workstations, maybe the graphics departments work more efficiently with Macs. A service mentality focuses on what works best for the company and saves money, not what your technical people know and where they've invested their training. Yet I see that a lot. Not what works best, but what the techs know. Their expertise limits their technology choices instead of expanding them.
So now the engines are available, along with other shuttle artifacts, for the cost of transportation and handling.
I wonder if you could make lamps, phone holsters and other geek baubles from the recycled parts and sell them with a certificate of authenticity that they were made from space shuttle parts?
I've got a two story garage already set up for metal fabrication...hmmmm.
*@aol.com instantly kicks in my "dumbass...." reflex,
And that was true at one time. But now it's almost like an internet antique. A retro fashion statement more than a declaration of internet arrested development.
so the net change is that you'll have a harder time telling you've been snooped on
It's also easier to hide things you don't want to be seen. GMail can turn over your emails, but if they're encrypted, even with something simple, it will be harder to make it useful. How many secret messages I have hidden in the pictures I email around or post online? Who has the resources to check every one?
Searches can be masked using TOR and private browsing. Again, not bullet proof, but it doesn't have to be. Just enough to poison the data and make it unreliable. Go buy a pre-paid phone with cash and take the battery out of your regular cell phone at random intervals. You're not trying to create a smoke screen, just sow doubt.
That's if you're worried about it.
Law enforcement may think search data and social media information is some kind of lucky charm, but it's pretty easy to spoil that data, leave false trails and really easy to hide things. If they gain confidence catching stupid people, all the better for those with a little clue.
Parent is right. It's not your problem to fix. Your coworkers would hate you and management wouldn't appreciate it. The best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut and your head down. Focus on your work. Make sure what you produce is quality code and make sure it's ready on time. If you want to be scrupulous about anything, make sure no one can take credit for your work.
And don't be totally surprised if no one notices or appreciates your effort.
According to a Net Applications survey, Google Chrome has replaced Apple's Safari as the number-three browser.
I remember when Chrome first came out it got panned, much like Google's phone is today and I'm sure will happen to their netbook when it arrives. And yet, here's Chrome, moving into the number 3 spot.
Maybe the initial release isn't so earth shattering, but over time they get more and more useful. It's like Google makes technology blank slates and lets users shape the functionality.
Personally, I think that's a brilliant business model. If one or two don't work out, no big deal as long as they didn't put too much money into it. Refreshingly different from how Microsoft operates.
Do not confuse one group's good will with something that should be expected from everyone.
I think you're being a little bit harsh but raise a good point all the same. It would be really easy to tweak the story line and character names to come up with an original story. At least then you'd have a small but non-zero chance of being able to sell your final product.
I've seen the same thing in Star Wars fan films. Some of them are really quite good and required a huge amount of effort. Had they put that effort into an original story in a vaguely similar universe, they'd own it.
A Zelda fan might enjoy a Zelda-like story line nearly as much. You just have to invest in the back story, which you can skip in a fan film. But if you use a similar setting and environment, the history can be pretty short. A narrator can read it in if you really want to go cheap. The fans will get it. If it's too similar you could still get sued, but then it's a big corporation beating up on a bunch of poor kids. Not a bunch of poor kids encroaching on a big company's copyright.
...which died a seven minutes later due to breathing difficulties, perhaps due to flaws in the DNA used to create the clone.
I have a goat herd and trust me when I say there doesn't have to be any flaws in the DNA to lose a baby. I've seen them still born, born too frail to stand up and get colostrum from mom, seen them live for a couple days and then die for no apparent reason. There's a reason goats have babies two and sometimes three at a time. The loss rate can be high, even under ideal conditions. The breed difference could account for it. Maybe the original breed had a slightly longer gestation period than modern goats.
Back in the day I used to help a vet implant zebra embryos in horses. The take rate was a bit higher than that experiment, but we had more embryos to work with. 10% was a pretty good rate for implants and there's a lot of data on horses.
Slashdot Mirror
August 29, 1997 Skynet becomes self-aware at 02:14 am
Do I win a prize?
The programmers' experience, domain knowledge, and speed vs. quality all come into play, and it is highly dependent upon the culture of the team/organization.
My time estimates will be as accurate as your specs. You stick to the specs, I'll stick to the estimate.
Researchers are currently developing a new auto body material that can store and release electrical energy like a battery.
And it would make the neighbor's dog peeing on my car a pay-per-view moment.
Also, how do you define "news organizations"?
I don't see them as trying to define news organizations. The issue seems to be commercial use of the photos for product endorsement and that's what they're trying to curtail.
There was a time no company would disrespect the office of the president like that so I doubt it was even considered when the image use guidelines were established.
Do you ever wonder how they think up this stuff. Some researcher is sitting around drinking coffee thinking, "Hey, I wonder what would happen if you blasted a cavity with plasma?" How do you even think of questions like that without being stoned?
Then I started wondering if I'm going to be hearing my dentist going, "Pew! Pew! Pew!"
I use OpenOffice at home but it would be a tad heavy for a netbook. I think that was a good choice and if you needed a lighter weight word processor, you could always opt for Abiword.
Seriously though, what happens when you don't use the dns provider of the ISP (either running your own, or using a 3pd DNS provider)?
I'm using Google's open DNS, but the ISP could still figure out where I was going. Which means the FBI can track anyone who doesn't know how to use TOR. And I'm guessing one of those three letter agencies figured out a man-in-middle type attack for that. So I guess that means you'll have to do the really nasty surfing at McDonald's, Starbucks or some other unsecured wi-fi connection.
Whew, that was tough. I'm sure some of you could come up with even better alternatives. And to put people through that meager effort they're going to require your ISP to keep massive volumes of individually identifiable information for two years.
Time for the FBI to face up to the fact they're only going to catch the stupid ones.
Wired writer Evan Ratliff wrote a story about how people erase their identities and start over.
We're getting ready to sell our house and move, only we're not buying another house right away. We're going to investigate locations to build an off-grid concrete home. In getting set up to go mobile I realized how easy it would be to make a few changes and drop off society completely. Not only can you do it, but if you have the money you can do it in style and comfort.
My wife has a medical condition that would keep us from participating in something like this, but after months of preparation I can tell you it can be done. You don't realize how much is tied to having an address until you face a situation where you won't have one. The biggest logistical hurdle we've faced is getting an address to establish residency without having a permanent physical address.
Now becoming someone else and assuming an identity is a whole different gig. That's a lot harder, but disappearing for a couple months. Piece of cake. And if someone was after us, I could have them chasing rabbit trails for weeks. There's a reason 12 million undocumented people can get by here.
I always said my dog could run a better network than EDS. Talk about prophetic.
One of the cardinal rules in IT is you never give EDS a working application.
'Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world. With every software update, the previous generation of "jailbreaks" stop working...
I can't see any reason for Apple to do things any other way. In some ways they're victims of their own success, just like Dell, HP, Microsoft and many other big companies. They've become so absorbed with their own chic they've lost sight of who helped get to where they are today. The artsy types have taken over from the tinkerers.
It's too bad their sense of style trumped everything else, because that used to be a nice bonus with Apple products, the "and they look cool" factor. Now style and marketing have edged out other factors. They're so absorbed protecting their market rice bowls they stopped caring about expanding it.
Tinkerers will always have a home with Linux.
The .22 caliber guns will go on sale in the US within months, and the initial price is 7,000 euro.
A $12,000 .22 is a completely safe weapon because no one in their right mind would buy one. It's useless for defense unless you're being attacked by balloons, it'll pop those.
It's just a test to see who reads the article before sharing their enlightened opinion.
We had a prof do that in college. There were a bunch of instructions, really tough problems, some with labs. Some people spent days working on them before they got to the second page of the instructions and it said, "It's only necessary to turn in question 3." Holy crap were people burned over that. But it was one of the core classes for pre-meds so there wasn't an option. But I bet as doctors they read directions.
It would have gotten me too but I had a lab partner who compulsively read all the directions. She was also traffic stopping hot. Those were great days.
I just want to caution everyone that you're reading an opinion piece by a security blogger with no corroborating evidence.
And how is he going to get the documentation now? Sue? The government steps in and claims state secrets, case dismissed. Ask Google for the documentation that admits they cooperated with a secret government program to spy on Americans? Bad for business and then they'd face federal criminal prosecution.
He probably has sources, but wants to protect them. Can't quote your sources, can't produce the docs, so the only option is to make the accusation and invite Google to sue him for defamation and tortious interference. He could still protect his sources and it would open Google up to discovery, something I'm sure the government isn't anxious to see happen.
We already know the telephone and cellular companies have found a way to monetize state surveillance by law enforcement, so they're not complaining. Who exactly is motivated to blab about any of this? And since Microsoft has decided to continue operating in China, one could also conclude they have back door systems as well and are more than willing to cooperate with both governments spying on their people. We assume for slightly different reasons, but how do we really know?
That's a great description of Microsoft. Slow to get up to speed, difficult to turn once they get rolling. The real problem with elephants on the battle field is once they got a head of steam they would charge through the enemy lines, then turn around and charge back through the lines and trample their own people. Not exactly a smart bomb.
Bob Lewis dispels the familiar litany that 'IT should be run as a business
IT is a service, a service that makes your business run better. And the better that service is shaped to your business, the more adapted to how you work, the more efficiently your business operates. The biggest payback from IT is saving money. A dollar saved is better than a dollar earned. A dollar saved is pure profit. A dollar earned you have to subtract the cost of overhead and doing business.
Too many times IT people operate from a perspective that's more religion than service. The time to upgrade to Windows 7 is not when SP 1 comes out, it's when upgrading saves the company money. A service mentality does not try to force-fit technology where it doesn't belong. Maybe not everyone in the company needs Windows 7. Maybe the call center can use Ubuntu workstations, maybe the graphics departments work more efficiently with Macs. A service mentality focuses on what works best for the company and saves money, not what your technical people know and where they've invested their training. Yet I see that a lot. Not what works best, but what the techs know. Their expertise limits their technology choices instead of expanding them.
So now the engines are available, along with other shuttle artifacts, for the cost of transportation and handling.
I wonder if you could make lamps, phone holsters and other geek baubles from the recycled parts and sell them with a certificate of authenticity that they were made from space shuttle parts?
I've got a two story garage already set up for metal fabrication...hmmmm.
What? You don't think Fox fakes video?
Or it gripes you to admit it?
Surveillance cameras operated by Fox News?
*@aol.com instantly kicks in my "dumbass...." reflex,
And that was true at one time. But now it's almost like an internet antique. A retro fashion statement more than a declaration of internet arrested development.
so the net change is that you'll have a harder time telling you've been snooped on
It's also easier to hide things you don't want to be seen. GMail can turn over your emails, but if they're encrypted, even with something simple, it will be harder to make it useful. How many secret messages I have hidden in the pictures I email around or post online? Who has the resources to check every one?
Searches can be masked using TOR and private browsing. Again, not bullet proof, but it doesn't have to be. Just enough to poison the data and make it unreliable. Go buy a pre-paid phone with cash and take the battery out of your regular cell phone at random intervals. You're not trying to create a smoke screen, just sow doubt.
That's if you're worried about it.
Law enforcement may think search data and social media information is some kind of lucky charm, but it's pretty easy to spoil that data, leave false trails and really easy to hide things. If they gain confidence catching stupid people, all the better for those with a little clue.
The only issue I see here is you-
Parent is right. It's not your problem to fix. Your coworkers would hate you and management wouldn't appreciate it. The best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut and your head down. Focus on your work. Make sure what you produce is quality code and make sure it's ready on time. If you want to be scrupulous about anything, make sure no one can take credit for your work.
And don't be totally surprised if no one notices or appreciates your effort.
According to a Net Applications survey, Google Chrome has replaced Apple's Safari as the number-three browser.
I remember when Chrome first came out it got panned, much like Google's phone is today and I'm sure will happen to their netbook when it arrives. And yet, here's Chrome, moving into the number 3 spot.
Maybe the initial release isn't so earth shattering, but over time they get more and more useful. It's like Google makes technology blank slates and lets users shape the functionality.
Personally, I think that's a brilliant business model. If one or two don't work out, no big deal as long as they didn't put too much money into it. Refreshingly different from how Microsoft operates.
Do not confuse one group's good will with something that should be expected from everyone.
I think you're being a little bit harsh but raise a good point all the same. It would be really easy to tweak the story line and character names to come up with an original story. At least then you'd have a small but non-zero chance of being able to sell your final product.
I've seen the same thing in Star Wars fan films. Some of them are really quite good and required a huge amount of effort. Had they put that effort into an original story in a vaguely similar universe, they'd own it.
A Zelda fan might enjoy a Zelda-like story line nearly as much. You just have to invest in the back story, which you can skip in a fan film. But if you use a similar setting and environment, the history can be pretty short. A narrator can read it in if you really want to go cheap. The fans will get it. If it's too similar you could still get sued, but then it's a big corporation beating up on a bunch of poor kids. Not a bunch of poor kids encroaching on a big company's copyright.
Roscosmos, Russia's Federal Space Agency, will start working on a project to save planet Earth from a possible collision with Asteroid Apophis
This would be the same people who just tried to engineer a winter without snow in Russia, with mixed results.
Now they're going to try diverting an asteroid.
What could go wrong?
I have a goat herd and trust me when I say there doesn't have to be any flaws in the DNA to lose a baby. I've seen them still born, born too frail to stand up and get colostrum from mom, seen them live for a couple days and then die for no apparent reason. There's a reason goats have babies two and sometimes three at a time. The loss rate can be high, even under ideal conditions. The breed difference could account for it. Maybe the original breed had a slightly longer gestation period than modern goats.
Back in the day I used to help a vet implant zebra embryos in horses. The take rate was a bit higher than that experiment, but we had more embryos to work with. 10% was a pretty good rate for implants and there's a lot of data on horses.