Absolutely.
Once the genie's out of the bottle (no pun intended) it's a bugger to put back.
Ask any employer - if you had access to stats on what day(s) of the week a person is out and for how long and to how many premises, would you not use it to find the ones who are out on the lash? Very valuable data for someone who might want to get it and sell it.
Last year in the UK, about 20 people took part in a nine week "space mission". The TV company took over an airfield in the UK, swapped all the electricity sockets and signage for Russian equivalents, put the 20 "astronauts" through weeks of training, shoved them in an old (and very earth-bound) soyuz training module, and let the cameras roll.
After a few weeks, these pricks were convinced they had been into space, all on national TV.
"We took 12 nob-heads to a secret location and had them doing experiments...."
You can just see it cant you. The 12 "selected scientists" will be every crank, pseudotech and nutcase they can find with wild theories and no clue about physics. They give them a lab full of equipment and stand bach while the opionionated pr1ck5 make fools of themselves. The people who have signed up to see the results can expect an email in a few weeks saying:
"Selection is complete. See how they get on on Channel 4 at 10pm Saturday..." and the viral marketing fun begins.
...Scientists trying to score their next round of funding by claiming "breakthroughs". I am sure the material is very good but I am cautious. Biomechanically, insects operate in a very different world to us and proteins (even structural ones) have a tendency to need care and feeding from surrounding tissues.
But, the law generally works on reasonable expectations. Maybe if I can describe some of the points, you might understand your company's position (not your boss's).
(1) Your commercial relationship is with the company you work for, not your boss.
(2) There are certain commercial points of law that you should be aware of that will override any informal agreement you and your boss have. Very generally: If your company was to be sold, floated or bankrupt the buyer, investor or administrator would want a clear idea of what value the company has within it. This value takes the form of assets such as buildings, vehicles, machinery, contracts and yes, any IP created by people like you.
(3) If the IP is in doubt then buyers and investors will steer clear until it is sorted out. Until it is, its value is practically nil.
(4) Some IP is more more valuable than other IP. Reasonably vanilla shell scripts implementing emails, lookups, scp, backups, reports and such have relatively little value since they can be easily replaced by anyone skilled in the art. C++ code implementing like a super-fast compression method or a super-addictive game, would obviously have much more value.
(5) Executives are obliged by law to "do the right thing" for the company. This pretty much means finding a way to clarify the situation described in (2) so as to avoid the situation described in (3). The steps they take would usually be pragmatic and proportional to the value of the IP(4).
(6) When a programmer writes code, the copyright belongs to him. Period. If it comes from your hand then its your copyright. HOWEVER, the law allows for mechanisms such as licensing to permit other people to use that copyright.
(7) It is reasonable, normal and well acknowledged among UK contractors that when a programmer writes code, the copyright belongs to him(6). However, by doing paid work for a company on company time, you implicity grant that company an exclusive and irrevocable license to use, modify, distribute, etc all or part of your copyrighted code in perpetuity and royalty free unless otherwise stated specifically and at executive level. From the company's point of view this comprehensive license is a reasonable expectation after paying you for your time. NOTE - This is the UK, not the US.
The reality is that most programmers have a favourite personal library of code that they dip into to and enhance throughout their careers. All managers know it but dont care. There is a net gain to be had by you copying your pet insertion sort than you writing and debugging one from scratch, even if it means you spent an hour enhancing it and taking the enhancement with you to the next job.
However, a company "X Inc" employing a programmer to invent and code up a very specific bioinformatics algorithm may well need something a little stronger than the implicit license described in(7). They would therefore ask you to sign something extra that suits my point (2) to (5) above. Non-compete clauses start to arise.
Conversely, an independent programmer who invents such an algorithm in his spare time and who then does a deal with "X Inc" to distribute it would grant a much more limited license with time limits, royalties and other clauses that tilt the balance back towards him.
Here's the bad news. Companies are by their nature and the rules of law that they have to operate by, the most vicious, opportunistic, psychotic carnivores you have ever seen. Better still, executives can go to jail if they dont work in the best interests of the mad psycho that employs them. They have no choice, unless they are being asked to go beyond the law. If you want your IP to be protected any more than the reasonable scenario described in (7) then you have to get it in writing from a company executive, and get a lawyer to look it over.
The world is full of nice guys who trusted the people with power over them to do the right thing and then got shafted. Please dont be one of them.
oops sorry Kafka. you are right.
I should have been more clear that my analysis was based on the point of view of a Microsoft executive who continues to evaluate the world on those terms.
Weaknesses:
1. Bloated and frankly god-awful code-base
2. Expensive to maintain, insecure etc
3. Cant really afford to start from scratch
4. Cant steal Linux due to GPL
Opportunities:
1. Use BSD
2. Convert some UNIX/Linux/BSD sites
3. Remove some barriers to entry at UNIX shops
Threats:
1. Linux
2. IBM
3. Open Sourcerors
The logical BUSINESS APPROACH is this:
1. Grab BSD.
2. Break the interfaces.
3. Call it "WinBSD".
4. Creat compatibility layer: "WinBSD-API"
5. Patent "WinBSD-API" so you now own WinBSD
6. Trivial porting exercise
7. Brand it like youve never branded before
What does this give you?
-It gives you something that looks like Windows and works like Windows, but is better than it.
-It leaves you with all your existing apps and protocols still working at minimal update cost.
-It means your customers expensively bought/developed apps will still work.
-It give UNIX shops one less reason to reject windows as a solution.
-It locks out OS/3rd party developers due to the broken (and patented) WinBSD interface.
-It offloads a large amount of knackered code.
Now add all this up and it gives MS EXACTLY what they have always strived for: Continuing user lock-in to the Windows monopoly while maintaining a very painful barrier to anyone else who wants to write for the platform.
Disclaimer: I am not an OS guru so there will be some technical issues with my analysis. Im just looking at it from a business point of view.
All cells have a fundamental shock response to heating as well as to UV and other stimuli. They produce various repair enzymes that wander around doing useful stuff like refolding damaged proteins and relinking damaged DNA.
The problem is they sometimes get it wrong leading to mutations or regulation imbalances. Heating also changes the shape of proteins. Go higher than 42C for many animal proteins and they cease to work properly, in some cases permanently until they are replaced (there is a natural turnover).
Now since proteins are involved in genetic switchgear and regulation I can easily see the possibility of one delicate subsystem going out of whack: growth factors, receptors, messengers, polymerase initiation factors, repressors etc. If one or more of these go wrong you _can_ have unregulated cell growth. aka Cancer.
This would be particularly true for children or individuals with a pre-existing disposition.
Numbers are hard for me to take a stab at without data and mammalian heat-shock isnt my field (although my degree in molecular biology is a good start).
However, and as most people would suspect, unnatural stimuli given often enough to a large enough sample will eventually throw up something bad in individual cases at a rate higher than a control group. Its a statistical certainty.
What "how often", "eventually" and "large enough" and "something bad" mean in relation to the weapon are anyone's guess. And I think thats a problem. You can find all this out for Aspirin, so why not the weapon?
On balance, if you get tagged by this thing once due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time then the chances are it's not going to harm you long term. That said, I would really, really steer clear of it. It sounds like a nightmare.
Speaking from a social viewpoint, I personally think its a dangerous escalation. If the authorities start firing this at people then it can surely only be a matter of time until they start firing back.
I could not agree more with this post. Part of MS' success was IBM's failure to engage "the lower end of the market" with OS2. Anyone on a budget (ie student like me at the time) had to use Windows. IBM concentrated on blue-chip corporate accounts where desktop OS2 deployment was heavily leveraged in Mainframe and AS400 installations. (I kinda know - I worked for IBM UK in the mid 90's).
What IBM failed to realise was that today's kids have a habit of becoming tomorrow's IT directors. For a lot of them, IT==windows not because windows==best but because windows==familiarity. Particularly in the SME space. (Note to non-UK readers - in the UK there are not many CS majors working as IT directors. They are often accountants, or God help us, marketers).
Im not a fan, but MS to their credit absolutely understand the need for getting the youngsters to equate technology with Microsoft. They also understand which wheels to grease to make it happen.
These days I live on the Isle of Man. My kids go to the local school which is wall-to-wall Apple Macs. OK its not Linux but at least they are able to see that There Is An Alternative.
I am Mr Lyman from Linux Credit Card. Recently the business was closed due to an unfortunate incident, leaving 126,000 (ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX THOUSAND) US DOLLAR in the account. I cannot get these funds to their ritghful owners as I am listed as the official company solicitor. Therefore I need a trusted associate with Western Union Credit transfer to do it for me. If you do this small job for me you will be able to keep half (SIXTY-THREE THOUSAND) US DOLLAR in your bank account. For your security I need to set up the right bank transfer in your name. Please send me your local bank detail in Lagos right away plus a Western Union Bank money transfer of 500.00 US DOLLAR to cover my costs. I cannot be seen to pay the costs myself you understand as it would appear on the accounts. God be with you and peace my brother. My Lyman New York, USA.
Please - let's get some perspective here. This is Stargate (or indeed Start Trek) we are talking about.
If I watch 45 minutes of pulp sci-fi (like Stargate), then yes, I am afraid I want eye candy since the chances of getting a decent story in the time allowed are pretty remote.
I myself am partial to a good story. My favourite films include "Blade Runner", "Brazil" and "Sleeper". Not a spaceship in sight. It is of course unfair to compare the genius and resources of Gilliam to Richard Dean Anderson but that kind of makes my point. The idea that a 45 minute pulp sci-fi show can say anything interesting is in itself an absurdity.
Anything has to be better than the latest god-awful Stargate series (UK CH4). As my young son said to me, tearfully: "When will we see the spaceships, Daddy?" and "When is the man going to stop talking?". OK I paraphrase but all the same...
I play footy (soccer) every weekend. I have done for the last 30 years. Week in, Week out, come rain, snow, storm or shine. On good teams and bad teams. I am *by definition* a team player. It drives me mad when some pencil-necked fuck in Human Resources starts lecturing me about how to be one.
The article is not so much an essay on science as a commentary on the most shocking kind of intellectual psychophancy. The sort that sadly seems quite common at Certain Educational Establishments.
Cut out the sniggering at the back. We all know where I am talking about.
Lead (as in Pb) in paint is bad h'mkay. We know that now after years of using it in our schools.
Asbestos is bad too. After years of using it in our, erm, other schools.
As it happens too much Cu and/or Al is not entirely healthy either. Especially this idea of "fibers". Painting an entire house also sounds a bit of an extreme measure compared to running nessus and typing:
1/disclaimer: i once lived in texas and i have in fact made the drive on 35 from kansas to dallas....and although other posters are correct when they say I35 (both versions) at DFW are a bit of sticking point, I still can't for the life of me figure out why Texas thinks it need a 1/4 mile wide piece of blacktop from the mexican border to oklahoma city.
i may be wrong/out of date but i have to say that this sound like using a 3Ghz computer to read email... oh wait...
Non-UK readers should be aware that David Blunkett, the UK Foreign Minister and parent of this god-forsaken legislation often uses the old "you can trust us with your data - it's not like we're the Nazis or anything" line when people complain about ID cards, biometrics and all the other good stuff he has in mind.
Non-UK readers shuld also be aware that Blunkett this week is facing charges of inappropriate behaviour when he was caught personally intervening in the visa application for his mistress' new nanny.
I find myself needing to give my face/fingerprints to a man who would appear to be a corrupt adulterer. How excellent is that.
Some interesting views here, but I would contend that this was a screw-up waiting to happen because screw-up potential was built in to the setup. A sysadmin has pressed the button here for sure but I wouldnt be too hasty to point the finger.
This is what happens when you have a fat client. There's a lot in a fat client. A lot to go wrong, a lot to be insecure. It therefore needs a lot of looking after. Many updates, many risks. Multiply by many desktops and it only becomes manageable by central updates. Central updates means lots of automation. Lots of automation means someone presses the wrong button and.. BANG.
But for the whole thing to go BSOD... now THAT is bad. It means you can't even back out. The reports I have seen imply that they had to nuke Windows or install stuff manually using some kind of recovery diskette... It's a disaster whichever way up you put it.
Would it have happened if they used Linux? Who knows. Linux is a complicated beastie too.
However, if they had used web apps or thin client for eveything then the issue might not have even come up.
It does make an interesting academic exercise to consider what would happen if the same screw-up hit other installations with many thousands of windows clients. Yes I am referring to the recently announced UK NHS (900,000 nodes) and US AirForce (500,000) Microsoft "wins".
I have seen NHS and DWP apps. Pretty basic stuff. Running these things on XP or W2000 is a bit of a hammer to crack a nut. The only earthly reason I can think of is the MS upgrade machine says they have to.
I concur. Although here in the EU it isnt such a hairy big deal yet, my work in biotech recently involved a very small company with a technology that may-or-may-not have infringed something called "The Southern Patent". No problems until the product was ready to ship and it started getting commercial exposure at which point a letter from the patent holder arrived. The letter (I paraphrase) read: "We are (blah) it has come to our attention (blah) we believe you may be infringing (blah) let's have a chat".
Most patent holders will not try to kill you but they will want, say 1-5% of your sales. They are not monsters and generally will work with you to find a solution. What they cannot do is ignore you as by doing so they kind of weaken their ability to defend th patent against other, bigger fish. Anything you do pay will be counted as a business expense hence will be deductable.
As a precaution, do a quick check on one of the free patent search engines and keep the printout. This will show that you haven't been reckless or wilfully ignored the filings.
Thanks for writing the reasons down for me.
Thanks also for failing to note my use of subtlety.
The presence of quotes around the world "interesting" should have been a dead give-away.
I have been using firefox since 0.7. I am a fan.
The content and in particular the tone of your reply shows me that I perhaps did not adequately explain myself.
I intended to make the point that IE squashed Netscape in spite of being inferior and also being a mile behind. As for free, well, so was Netscape if you picked up a beta. My subtle implication was that IE defeated Netscape by means other than a straight toe-to-toe fight in the marketplace.
Slashdot Mirror
Absolutely. Once the genie's out of the bottle (no pun intended) it's a bugger to put back. Ask any employer - if you had access to stats on what day(s) of the week a person is out and for how long and to how many premises, would you not use it to find the ones who are out on the lash? Very valuable data for someone who might want to get it and sell it.
OK Two Words. I need more coffee.
Last year in the UK, about 20 people took part in a nine week "space mission". The TV company took over an airfield in the UK, swapped all the electricity sockets and signage for Russian equivalents, put the 20 "astronauts" through weeks of training, shoved them in an old (and very earth-bound) soyuz training module, and let the cameras roll.
s tm
After a few weeks, these pricks were convinced they had been into space, all on national TV.
Here's the link:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4537748.
I think this is the same thing:
"We took 12 nob-heads to a secret location and had them doing experiments...."
You can just see it cant you. The 12 "selected scientists" will be every crank, pseudotech and nutcase they can find with wild theories and no clue about physics. They give them a lab full of equipment and stand bach while the opionionated pr1ck5 make fools of themselves.
The people who have signed up to see the results can expect an email in a few weeks saying:
"Selection is complete. See how they get on on Channel 4 at 10pm Saturday..." and the viral marketing fun begins.
Either that or they are genuinely freakin crazy.
...Scientists trying to score their next round of funding by claiming "breakthroughs".
I am sure the material is very good but I am cautious. Biomechanically, insects operate in a very different world to us and proteins (even structural ones) have a tendency to need care and feeding from surrounding tissues.
We had it in the UK.
Its brilliant.
IANAL.
But, the law generally works on reasonable expectations. Maybe if I can describe some of the points, you might understand your company's position (not your boss's).
(1)
Your commercial relationship is with the company you work for, not your boss.
(2)
There are certain commercial points of law that you should be aware of that will override any informal agreement you and your boss have. Very generally:
If your company was to be sold, floated or bankrupt the buyer, investor or administrator would want a clear idea of what value the company has within it. This value takes the form of assets such as buildings, vehicles, machinery, contracts and yes, any IP created by people like you.
(3)
If the IP is in doubt then buyers and investors will steer clear until it is sorted out. Until it is, its value is practically nil.
(4)
Some IP is more more valuable than other IP.
Reasonably vanilla shell scripts implementing emails, lookups, scp, backups, reports and such have relatively little value since they can be easily replaced by anyone skilled in the art.
C++ code implementing like a super-fast compression method or a super-addictive game, would obviously have much more value.
(5)
Executives are obliged by law to "do the right thing" for the company. This pretty much means finding a way to clarify the situation described in (2) so as to avoid the situation described in (3). The steps they take would usually be pragmatic and proportional to the value of the IP(4).
(6)
When a programmer writes code, the copyright belongs to him. Period. If it comes from your hand then its your copyright. HOWEVER, the law allows for mechanisms such as licensing to permit other people to use that copyright.
(7)
It is reasonable, normal and well acknowledged among UK contractors that when a programmer writes code, the copyright belongs to him(6). However, by doing paid work for a company on company time, you implicity grant that company an exclusive and irrevocable license to use, modify, distribute, etc all or part of your copyrighted code in perpetuity and royalty free unless otherwise stated specifically and at executive level. From the company's point of view this comprehensive license is a reasonable expectation after paying you for your time.
NOTE - This is the UK, not the US.
The reality is that most programmers have a favourite personal library of code that they dip into to and enhance throughout their careers. All managers know it but dont care. There is a net gain to be had by you copying your pet insertion sort than you writing and debugging one from scratch, even if it means you spent an hour enhancing it and taking the enhancement with you to the next job.
However, a company "X Inc" employing a programmer to invent and code up a very specific bioinformatics algorithm may well need something a little stronger than the implicit license described in(7). They would therefore ask you to sign something extra that suits my point (2) to (5) above. Non-compete clauses start to arise.
Conversely, an independent programmer who invents such an algorithm in his spare time and who then does a deal with "X Inc" to distribute it would grant a much more limited license with time limits, royalties and other clauses that tilt the balance back towards him.
Here's the bad news.
Companies are by their nature and the rules of law that they have to operate by, the most vicious, opportunistic, psychotic carnivores you have ever seen. Better still, executives can go to jail if they dont work in the best interests of the mad psycho that employs them. They have no choice, unless they are being asked to go beyond the law.
If you want your IP to be protected any more than the reasonable scenario described in (7) then you have to get it in writing from a company executive, and get a lawyer to look it over.
The world is full of nice guys who trusted the people with power over them to do the right thing and then got shafted. Please dont be one of them.
oops sorry Kafka. you are right. I should have been more clear that my analysis was based on the point of view of a Microsoft executive who continues to evaluate the world on those terms.
Bill Gates' SWOT ANALYSIS:
Strengths:
1. Marketing == Massive propaganda machine.
2. Proprietary == Huge market penetration.
3. Rich applications == User lock-in.
Weaknesses:
1. Bloated and frankly god-awful code-base
2. Expensive to maintain, insecure etc
3. Cant really afford to start from scratch
4. Cant steal Linux due to GPL
Opportunities:
1. Use BSD
2. Convert some UNIX/Linux/BSD sites
3. Remove some barriers to entry at UNIX shops
Threats:
1. Linux
2. IBM
3. Open Sourcerors
The logical BUSINESS APPROACH is this:
1. Grab BSD.
2. Break the interfaces.
3. Call it "WinBSD".
4. Creat compatibility layer: "WinBSD-API"
5. Patent "WinBSD-API" so you now own WinBSD
6. Trivial porting exercise
7. Brand it like youve never branded before
What does this give you?
-It gives you something that looks like Windows and works like Windows, but is better than it.
-It leaves you with all your existing apps and protocols still working at minimal update cost.
-It means your customers expensively bought/developed apps will still work.
-It give UNIX shops one less reason to reject windows as a solution.
-It locks out OS/3rd party developers due to the broken (and patented) WinBSD interface.
-It offloads a large amount of knackered code.
Now add all this up and it gives MS EXACTLY what they have always strived for: Continuing user lock-in to the Windows monopoly while maintaining a very painful barrier to anyone else who wants to write for the platform.
Disclaimer: I am not an OS guru so there will be some technical issues with my analysis. Im just looking at it from a business point of view.
It's hard to say.
All cells have a fundamental shock response to heating as well as to UV and other stimuli. They produce various repair enzymes that wander around doing useful stuff like refolding damaged proteins and relinking damaged DNA.
The problem is they sometimes get it wrong leading to mutations or regulation imbalances. Heating also changes the shape of proteins. Go higher than 42C for many animal proteins and they cease to work properly, in some cases permanently until they are replaced (there is a natural turnover).
Now since proteins are involved in genetic switchgear and regulation I can easily see the possibility of one delicate subsystem going out of whack: growth factors, receptors, messengers, polymerase initiation factors, repressors etc. If one or more of these go wrong you _can_ have unregulated cell growth. aka Cancer.
This would be particularly true for children or individuals with a pre-existing disposition.
Numbers are hard for me to take a stab at without data and mammalian heat-shock isnt my field (although my degree in molecular biology is a good start).
However, and as most people would suspect, unnatural stimuli given often enough to a large enough sample will eventually throw up something bad in individual cases at a rate higher than a control group. Its a statistical certainty.
What "how often", "eventually" and "large enough" and "something bad" mean in relation to the weapon are anyone's guess. And I think thats a problem. You can find all this out for Aspirin, so why not the weapon?
On balance, if you get tagged by this thing once due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time then the chances are it's not going to harm you long term. That said, I would really, really steer clear of it. It sounds like a nightmare.
Speaking from a social viewpoint, I personally think its a dangerous escalation. If the authorities start firing this at people then it can surely only be a matter of time until they start firing back.
I could not agree more with this post.
Part of MS' success was IBM's failure to engage "the lower end of the market" with OS2. Anyone on a budget (ie student like me at the time) had to use Windows. IBM concentrated on blue-chip corporate accounts where desktop OS2 deployment was heavily leveraged in Mainframe and AS400 installations.
(I kinda know - I worked for IBM UK in the mid 90's).
What IBM failed to realise was that today's kids have a habit of becoming tomorrow's IT directors. For a lot of them, IT==windows not because windows==best but because windows==familiarity. Particularly in the SME space. (Note to non-UK readers - in the UK there are not many CS majors working as IT directors. They are often accountants, or God help us, marketers).
Im not a fan, but MS to their credit absolutely understand the need for getting the youngsters to equate technology with Microsoft. They also understand which wheels to grease to make it happen.
These days I live on the Isle of Man. My kids go to the local school which is wall-to-wall Apple Macs. OK its not Linux but at least they are able to see that There Is An Alternative.
Dear Dr Obedience Oleweh
I am Mr Lyman from Linux Credit Card. Recently the business was closed due to an unfortunate incident, leaving 126,000 (ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX THOUSAND) US DOLLAR in the account.
I cannot get these funds to their ritghful owners as I am listed as the official company solicitor. Therefore I need a trusted associate with Western Union Credit transfer to do it for me.
If you do this small job for me you will be able to keep half (SIXTY-THREE THOUSAND) US DOLLAR in your bank account.
For your security I need to set up the right bank transfer in your name. Please send me your local bank detail in Lagos right away plus a Western Union Bank money transfer of 500.00 US DOLLAR to cover my costs. I cannot be seen to pay the costs myself you understand as it would appear on the accounts.
God be with you and peace my brother.
My Lyman
New York, USA.
Please - let's get some perspective here. This is Stargate (or indeed Start Trek) we are talking about.
If I watch 45 minutes of pulp sci-fi (like Stargate), then yes, I am afraid I want eye candy since the chances of getting a decent story in the time allowed are pretty remote.
I myself am partial to a good story. My favourite films include "Blade Runner", "Brazil" and "Sleeper". Not a spaceship in sight. It is of course unfair to compare the genius and resources of Gilliam to Richard Dean Anderson but that kind of makes my point. The idea that a 45 minute pulp sci-fi show can say anything interesting is in itself an absurdity.
Anything has to be better than the latest god-awful Stargate series (UK CH4). As my young son said to me, tearfully: "When will we see the spaceships, Daddy?" and "When is the man going to stop talking?". OK I paraphrase but all the same...
I play footy (soccer) every weekend. I have done for the last 30 years. Week in, Week out, come rain, snow, storm or shine. On good teams and bad teams. I am *by definition* a team player.
It drives me mad when some pencil-necked fuck in Human Resources starts lecturing me about how to be one.
An excellent response.
The article is not so much an essay on science as a commentary on the most shocking kind of intellectual psychophancy. The sort that sadly seems quite common at Certain Educational Establishments.
Cut out the sniggering at the back. We all know where I am talking about.
A third year molecular biology undergraduate could shoot down all seven theories without even breaking into a canter.
De Grey has broken the golden, unwritten rule of life sciences:
Have Humility in the Face of Nature
Lead (as in Pb) in paint is bad h'mkay.
We know that now after years of using
it in our schools.
Asbestos is bad too. After years of
using it in our, erm, other schools.
As it happens too much Cu and/or Al
is not entirely healthy either. Especially
this idea of "fibers". Painting an entire
house also sounds a bit of an extreme
measure compared to running nessus and
typing:
http://house_router/config?wep128=enabled
1/disclaimer: i once lived in texas and i have in fact made the drive on 35 from kansas to dallas. ...and although other posters are correct when they say I35 (both versions) at DFW are a bit of sticking point, I still can't for the life of me figure out why Texas thinks it need a 1/4 mile wide piece of blacktop from the mexican border to oklahoma city.
i may be wrong/out of date but i have to say that this sound like using a 3Ghz computer to read email... oh wait...
Oops.
Not foreign office. Home office.
Non-UK readers should be aware that David Blunkett, the UK Foreign Minister and parent of this god-forsaken legislation often uses the old "you can trust us with your data - it's not like we're the Nazis or anything" line when people complain about ID cards, biometrics and all the other good stuff he has in mind.
Non-UK readers shuld also be aware that Blunkett this week is facing charges of inappropriate behaviour when he was caught personally intervening in the visa application for his mistress' new nanny.
I find myself needing to give my face/fingerprints to a man who would appear to be a corrupt adulterer. How excellent is that.
I absolutely agree.
Im not a Windows expert but surely it was not beyond the wit of man for the "upgrade script" (or however it works) to begin:
if [ `uname` = "XP" ]
then
echo "I just saved your XP network"
echo "You can thank me later"
exit 1
fi
Some interesting views here, but I would contend that this was a screw-up waiting to happen because screw-up potential was built in to the setup. A sysadmin has pressed the button here for sure but I wouldnt be too hasty to point the finger.
This is what happens when you have a fat client. There's a lot in a fat client. A lot to go wrong, a lot to be insecure. It therefore needs a lot of looking after. Many updates, many risks. Multiply by many desktops and it only becomes manageable by central updates. Central updates means lots of automation. Lots of automation means someone presses the wrong button and.. BANG.
But for the whole thing to go BSOD... now THAT is bad. It means you can't even back out. The reports I have seen imply that they had to nuke Windows or install stuff manually using some kind of recovery diskette... It's a disaster whichever way up you put it.
Would it have happened if they used Linux? Who knows. Linux is a complicated beastie too.
However, if they had used web apps or thin client for eveything then the issue might not have even come up.
It does make an interesting academic exercise to consider what would happen if the same screw-up hit other installations with many thousands of windows clients. Yes I am referring to the recently announced UK NHS (900,000 nodes) and US AirForce (500,000) Microsoft "wins".
I have seen NHS and DWP apps. Pretty basic stuff. Running these things on XP or W2000 is a bit of a hammer to crack a nut. The only earthly reason I can think of is the MS upgrade machine says they have to.
I concur.
Although here in the EU it isnt such a hairy big deal yet, my work in biotech recently involved a very small company with a technology that may-or-may-not have infringed something called "The Southern Patent".
No problems until the product was ready to ship and it started getting commercial exposure at which point a letter from the patent holder arrived. The letter (I paraphrase) read: "We are (blah) it has come to our attention (blah) we believe you may be infringing (blah) let's have a chat".
Most patent holders will not try to kill you but they will want, say 1-5% of your sales. They are not monsters and generally will work with you to find a solution. What they cannot do is ignore you as by doing so they kind of weaken their ability to defend th patent against other, bigger fish.
Anything you do pay will be counted as a business expense hence will be deductable.
As a precaution, do a quick check on one of the free patent search engines and keep the printout. This will show that you haven't been reckless or wilfully ignored the filings.
Or move to the EU.
IANAL
Thanks for writing the reasons down for me. Thanks also for failing to note my use of subtlety. The presence of quotes around the world "interesting" should have been a dead give-away.
I have been using firefox since 0.7. I am a fan. The content and in particular the tone of your reply shows me that I perhaps did not adequately explain myself. I intended to make the point that IE squashed Netscape in spite of being inferior and also being a mile behind. As for free, well, so was Netscape if you picked up a beta. My subtle implication was that IE defeated Netscape by means other than a straight toe-to-toe fight in the marketplace.