In this day and age of prenuptials and mistrust you can't fault the tactics only the rationale. If they pay for all background checks and as far as you can tell are only motivated by covering their collective arses then you have to decide if you want the job or not. It really comes down to wanting the job and wanting to work there.
Even without full cavity body searches I have worked for employers that I've regreted. Security checks, preferably based on some law on the books or if they are not unusual for that sector of the work force then it's pretty hard to fight it. You just have to judge their motives. If they are doing it in the best interest of the company or for a good reason, then I'd say let it slide and but perhaps look at them a little closer to make sure that's what you really want to get involved with. If you think it's bogus and they are just going through the motions, then in my opinion it's not a good place to work except for short term (1-2yrs).
If a company, or more accurately those who work for it, aren't introspective and rational about what they do then you are in trouble. It would only be a matter of time that they intrepret a policy or misintrepret something you do for their own ends. Rationality is not about "my way" or "your way" its about common ground and communication. If a company isn't "rational" about what they make their workers go through to satisfy their own ends no one will do well working there.
To quote one of my bosses when my sister's wedding and Burningman coincided with 4 months notice. "No one takes 2 weeks vacation!!!!"
Is that Amazon is now another corporate zombie. They will not own up to their mistakes or work for customer satisfaction in any real or coherent way they will simply execute policy or whatever directive given like the automatons they have become.
I'm still waiting 6-10 weeks for a refund from their newest affiliate(?) Target. No one I can argue with. If they go outside their window I'll consult my credit card company.
If you have a written contract and they contest it, it just makes the offense more aggregious. If they are not willing to honor their terms when they are trying to hire you on, what do you think they'll do when you are hired?
I'd say if they don't fix it toot sweet you best keep looking. Jobs hardly ever get better when you're hired on, they decline the longer you work. You'd best find out their true face now.
My current job they welched on my drug test and made me pay for it myself. 3 rounds of wage cuts later.. *SIGH*
Note sure if this will get modded up but here goes.
Microsoft is to me what is one of the worst sides of capitalism. Yes, Microsoft has, and I'm sure does continue, to do some great things. But since they've gotten to a size where they control the market I do not get a sense (and my perception may be faulty) that they really play well or gently with others. The world does not exist for corporations. The United States, U.N., Real Estate, and language itself did not come into existence so that Microsoft can derive large amounts of profit for intangible products.
But yet at every turn that Microsoft is threatened it will move heaven and earth to have its way. United States, international go to boy if it feels its market share is going down the tubes. U.N./WTO must have Microsoft designed DRM and IP laws woven in or Microsoft doesn't want to play. Real Estate, an out their example, yet I remember in the hayday of the 90's when they were touting that NT would be woven into routers (I still shudder at the thought) MSN (i.e. Microsoft) was even looking at getting into the Real Estate market taking over existing real estate information systems, offerings, and even brokers.
If M$ was really this simple cute cuddly thing that really cared about its customers, and not their continued payment to M$ until the end of time, I might judge them less harshly. Since I use linux exclusively I don't see their innovations only their excesses as they continue time and time again to not cooperate, but sublimate everything they can into a paradigm of their making for their profit. But time and time again I don't see M$ putting itself at the interest of customers I see it bashing through the world like a drunken has-been knocking this over and wanting the world to forgive their excesses cuz "I'm Microsoft, bitch."
At every turn when M$ gains any market advantage they use the time tried tools of obfuscation and lock in to stifle innovation. They make no apologies, they're a corporation, we don't expect them too. Investors don't expect them too. So they don't. And then when they finally do get around to implementing something, that frankly I've had under Linux for years, expect the world to lavish them with even more money for being cunning thieves. Great job if you can get it.
That's why it's not as simple, for me, to be OS agnostic. Linux exists not because it was the better tool, it only thrives when its the better tool. It exists because I, and a whole bunch of other people, want it to exist. At every turn M$ would be ecstatic if Linux failed or they could subvert it. How can you truly be even neutral for a company that in the end wants complete and utter control of every market in every industry it feels it can gobble up or dominate? Maybe after Balmer retires and they refocus on a few things rather than potentially $EVERYTHING$ I might be more forgiving but I don't trust their agenda, wisdom or lack of humility and frankly don't believe I ever will.
An elite man's ego trip does not deserve my dollars or contribution and frankly that's all I see M$ as being.
May the above be of value to you. For what it's worth I always espouse folks use the technology that works for them best. Linux does everything I could want and then some in a fashion I quite enjoy. To each their own. Well wish to ya!
A Linux brick. That's it. Just speak to it and it'll give you want you want. Powered by Ubuntu Speaks! (good dog...;-)
Seriously.
Until you have reduced the computer down to a simple brick with no peripherals Linux will never be completely "out of the box". Its one of those things where 80-90% is going to be all you get on out of the box is hardware capability.
Computer hardware (read peripherals) and software (read MS and games) are driven by the new. Linux is getting more market share but in the end corporations/markets look to their own. The day Linux becomes a viable gaming platform is the day most of this "Linux isn't ready" stupidity will go away. Until then Linux is what it is. It will do just about everything you want to do except for that 10%, whether that be the cheapest scanner or printer I could find, or the latest video card or cool new game, or proprietary interface (photo gallery or hell I dunno).
That 10%, that bleeding edge is a pretty nasty place to be anyways. I can't remember how many times my window boxen of old died on new drivers and incomplete games. For my money I'm glad I can't use those peripherals, they tend to suck anyway. (Dodged WinModems, thank you Linux developers!)
For the most part I think Linux is as good as its going to get until the computing industry and how people use computers changes. Whether that's all web based apps or hard/fast hardware specs like USB with a little more teeth to make the drivers easier to write or make drivers almost ubiquitous. Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming...
Going to a brick and mortar for the newest shiny baubble to install/load onto/into your system will always hedge to M$. Macintosh does ok but it's apples and... hmmm...;-)
For me, I'm just happy that 90% of the time I can see web content. Not sure when we passed that benchmark but for that 10% I can't access most of it is because they've disallowed my OS/Browser combo as "NOT COMPATIBLE" where I could look at the content if they didn't lock me out. When did we pass that milestone?
Also when did pass that silly idea that Linux only copies, never innovates?
Linux is doing just fine if you ask me. The diehards just aren't quite ready to admit the world hath changed. I think this new draconian DRM thing is going to hurt,
The current recommendation systems (if I understand them) are trying to suss out info by comparing the differences between the preferences of people. The problem is that each movie is a very complex mix of themes and connotations.
You need more information on the objects you are recommending to each person. Rather than just compare the preferences you want more information about the object than a rating of 1 to 5. You can do this with genre's, to a degree, but even genre's are imprecise. Is it SciFi or Romance? Is it more scifi than romance?
Think of an object that has width and breadth in a multitude of different dimensions. A Venn diagram meets a hypercube. But where do you get that information?
Why the same place/source that artists and designers do, DUDE!
Oddly enough, to me, the answer comes from a design class: Connotative association. When we are working on a design for a project we start sifting through media. Songs, books, images, ideas, anything that give us a "hit", Makes us think of that project. Think of it as brainstorming but you are sifting through contemporary cultural artifacts and your own psyche to "find" a commonality. Once you have all the media you start to sort it. Does this image work with this sound, does this clothing choice work with this color. As you winnow down those choices you start to get coherent choice of color, mood, and theme that you may not have known existed but thanks to your subconscious you have found a workable choices that should relate to a contemporary audience.
If artistic design uses that method to make new harmonious or understandable art to a culture as a whole than hooking into that same process will allow for better understanding, definition and recommendations.
So you construct a series of images, sounds, media and you use that to classify movies. Popular songs to classic folk hits. Artwork masterpieces to new artwork. All forms of media and periods. Hitchcock is going to "hit" with a black and white pinstriped suit and art deco design elements as will "Hudsucker Proxy" which are both movies that I would enjoy. If you delve into my connotative associations you will find others that are similar and start to generate a mathematical "map" of what I might enjoy based on those associations. You may find that different genre's and movies have similar associations that make them worth recommending. You can also pull from the mappings of other folks connotative associations to see how what they've seen might be of interest to me.
All in all you are just defining a new space. The idea, for me, is easy but I'm not a mathemetician or a database designer.
The downside is getting folks to go through a series of "warshack-esque" media to classify a film. I don't even like filling out the number of stars let alone listening/viewing/reading 5 media bits to relate them to a movie I've seen. But I think it's a viable way to go. The current recommendation system can approximate the above after comparing thousands of films/preferences but without relating it to other media and moods it won't be able to achieve more resolution or granularity.
In the end all art is merely a conversation of a time between the folks who lived in that time based on what has gone before. You are simply trying to better mathematically understand the deeper underpinnings of that conversation to make recommendations. Easy... Right?;-)
"I've had people make comments to me, 'Aren't you just making the world safer for unsafe sex?'" said Dr. Lynn Paxton, team leader for the project at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
YEAAARRRGGGHH! Religion aside, but how culturally biased can you be?!?!?! If our culture included the continual use of gloves and zero contact among our population would we stop the research of antibiotics?
I'm one for a leveled debate, I don't even like the idea of "Culture Engineering" the world but this consistent puritanical bias seems to be doing just that. If you don't believe what we believe or more importantly who we believe in you deserve no protection from science.
We would be opposed to putting our kids in quartine till the age of 8 or stopping all contact, but these so called "sins" of drugs and sex can be suppresed. What an "enlightened" world we have.
I fault the Africans for not embracing condoms due to cultural values but our blind adherence to our biases is just as damning. Boy I'm so glad I'm in the... majority?
If you looking for the cream of the cool then it's integration. I can buy lots of different gadgets that do lots of different things but the more integrated it is into the home the better.
My dream was having everything integrated into a voice activated system. The FOSS version would be Mr.House but the more integration the better.
For sanity sake I think you'd have to look at an integration design like a script engine that ties things together and check if they are ontrack.
Nice touches that integration allows: The muting/pausing of audio/video when you receive a call to the house. Doorbells or other notifications pausing/silencing or overlaying on video. UPS/FedEx delivery option where it will open the door to allow them to deliver a package and lock it behind them based on your cellphone ok. Lights that activate and deactivate based on where you are or what you are doing.
My personal dream touch would be handing guests a badge (star trek esque if you must) that gives them guest level access to the house and what it provides. No keys, no codes, just a small comm unit with an interactive help system.
But all of that integration comes at high cost. But I debug equipment all the time. Running my home like a server room with maintenance and logging just seems natural to me.
Right now my design architecture is older PC's, ubiquitous networking (WiFi or cabled) eventually migrating to mini-itx systems strategically stashed in different places. Primary focus is media (audio and video) for now but I may expand that as time goes on. Getting a reliable Linbox rescue server up and running has become a priority;-)
Too cool! So is the future going to truly be like pulp fiction?
For those that are clueless (and since no one commented on it) read about fads of old. Doc Savage. If memory serves Doc Savage was the basis/inspiration for Buckaroo Banzai.
He's been there for years and they haven't listened to him.
By what miracles of miracles are they going to start listening to him now?
I've been outsourced. I was the last one there and turned off the lights as we left. It wasn't because we were incompetent it's because they had already made the decision many months ago to send it to another geographic region. We were already the contractors running 12 hour shifts. The moral of this story is to look at the big picture and make your best decision.
I resemble your remark. I'm not incompetent. But my 20/20 hindsight tells me that after 6 months to a year if I haven't gotten what I wanted even though I outperformed every expectation and made the case for improvement you leave. Yes there are things you can do better but the time has already passed. We don't live for miracles, that's why we need to make good decisions.
He needs to make decisions for himself, not the company he works for.
I read an article a few months back that linked emotions to an evolutionary form of fast judgement making. The point? Trust your gut. If they haven't given you what they promised they would give you within the first few months in the last few years, leave. It may be your hairstyle, your sense of humor or they just don't like you. Get over it. Play the odds and find a new position with a new company that says they will give you what you feel you deserve, and trust you gut. If you think you are being lied to in the interview then continue to play the odds and find the job you want. Or don't.
I'm still getting used to living in the states, but there are times I do miss Anchorage. The folks there are... unique;-)
West Anchorage Highschool was a place of many tales as well. Underground bunkers that students from all over the district would try to sneak into the ductwork and access ways to go see. I even remember seeing a bunch of them down through an access plate in Junior Hall a good 20 feet down. Underground newspapers and pranks. But that's another tale.
If you ever get the chance to visit Anchorage it's a fun town. Nothing like living at the biggest town at the tip of the Western United States expansion. I wouldn't trade my youth there for anything.
When you are a corporation securing your assets against copyright infringement and piracy.
I personally think the flaw is in the premise. War is not acceptable, and music piracy is a false statement, but those assertions are no longer contentious to the society as a whole. They are considered to be decided in the opposite extreme.
War is not acceptable, ever, but sometimes it is necessary. It is not the place of someone to decide when war is necessary, it is when you have exhausted all other options. But yet we forgive those and ourselves when we go to war and we haven't exhausted all options. We find the very questioning of motive distasteful because it grates against our premise. There is a reason we do this. (Stick with me, I do have a point.)
Music piracy is an illusion. It is the media companies attempting to justify their economic model and pricing structure when logistically it is no longer required or justifiable in any other means except law and precedent.
But take a step back for a moment and realize that software companies are in this same position. They don't head off to the "bit mine" to mine more raw bits to put into boxes and send out from the factory. They craft abstract constructs from intangibles to create profit. Microsoft and Symantec are in this mode. It is something we no longer find contentious or disagreeable.
Sony doesn't plant and grow raw music plants so they can sell them at market. They act as gatekeepers between the producers, musicians constructing for whatever reason, and the consumers who will purchase music when it is marketed and presented in a certain fashion. So why do you fault them for taking a progressive step to protect their continued revenue stream?
You could say they are "in collusion" but you would be making the same mistake as calling Open Source communistic simply because it is in opposition to the existing retail and corporate fare. You would be trying to reduce the issue to a simplistic point that is no longer helpful or true.
So why does it suprise anyone that Sony took this action? Or why are you surprised that they would compromise the illusory integrity of your system which you purchased when day after day the computer manufacturer (Dell/HP) are working to have you buy more computers, more often (months instead of years), and charge you more money for them when they have spent less on the product?
(n). Yet another -ism or -ist used to convey identity and status upon those who engage in an art they no longer love and based on ideals they no longer practice.
Pardon me while I show my conservative side but this is just an attempt to resuscitate an imagined past (say the 50's with a dash of Edward R. Morrow) that never really existed. There are no more risks than there were back then. They require no more protections than they do now. Journalism is not an integral part of our society, citizens are.
If you are going to convey rights then you need to convey them to all citizens, not just to yet another elitist class that may or may not share your values, will have more rights and protections and have a "get out of court free card" when they engage in their frailties, such as bad judgement.
The fact that the current "poster child" sat in jail when she already had a written document from the person she was protecting that she could speak makes this whole thing patently silly, and decidely false. What's the real motivation for this bill and why does it single out big press and printing houses rather than getting to the core of what journalism is really about? A citizens' duty. All citizens, whether they wear the hat of a lawyer, judge, politician or journalist, have a duty for the common good. If journalism needs more definition then they should setup something like the bar association with their own legal defense fund and canons of practice. Politicians have access but should have no more legal standing than a citizen performing their duty; why should a journalism get more protection when they have no more duty then the rest of us?
I keep seeing that comment again and again. Health Insurance, oh my god. It is a concern that as a wage earner you don't consider but more and more the employers are putting the weight of the insurance on you. If you haven't looked at this before you should. At some places I've worked the insurance was a joke. High deductible, high premiums (do you look at what they are taking out of your paychecks?) and they DRAG their feet on paying any claim. One agency I worked was actually using health insurance as an income generator. Their work force was low, the fear and want of health insurance was high, so they charged a high premium but kept denying claims.
I gave up many years ago and pay $100 a month myself for BlueCross/BlueShield HMO/PPO. I get a copay, they have agreements with other providers that lower my cost. I'm actually thinking about switching to just a catastrophic policy since I have a $1000 deductible anyway.
The costs are rising, whether you are a wage earner or becoming a contractor you REALLY NEED to look into this and make smart decisions. If you are not looking at it chances are you getting fleeced BIG TIME because their is so much cost pressure on health care right now. Do note I am a Bachelor so my burden is less. Everyone needs to decide for themselves but you really need to look into this whether you are independent or a wage earner. You might find your money is best spent elsewhere than on the group plan.
If you don't manage the cost yourself then insurance will charge you big money to do so. And even a catastrophic will allow you entry to other insurances later, rather than being "uninsured" taboo. Insurance system as we know is under pressure so the old thinking can be dangerous.
Is the blatant disregard for his person or property. I can understand detaining him, perhaps. But after they have detained him and proven that he is no threat they are then unable to admit their mistake and backpedal. It's the bureacratic limbo and outright audacity that chaps me.
So they think he was a terrorist. Turns out he's not. So return his belongings all ready. Or at least acknowledge you have a grey area and figure out what he can do as a "good citizen" to gets his belongings back when you make a mistake. Reimburse him. Give him a copy of his data. Something.
Acknowledge that what you are doing is the most dangerous thing. Turning law abiding citizens into criminals by a mere human error. I donot have the adequate skills to evoke how BAD that is.
But because of their own incompetence (which they won't admit) they won't give this guy remedy for what they have done. It's all about fear. The police's fear. Fear they may incorrectly let him go, fear they may give his stuff back when they shouldn't. You know if I went to any other professional that had such a lack of confidence I'd run! But this is what we have to protect us?
If all they run on is fear and incompetence no bomb is required. We're already screwed. All the terrorists have to say is boo and we'll slit our own throats, hopefully metaphorically.
Where's the camera? I'm in some sort of action film? Can someone say cut and let me out of this B movie?!?!?!?
Create three variations of the test with each question yielding a slightly different mathematical answer. You could have it as simple as adding all the answer so they match a certain sum or have an algebra equation at the end that they plug the values into.
All you have to do is check the variation number of the test and the result of the algorithm.
To shake it up and prevent cheating you can use variations on the test (either variables or questions), you can use variations on the algorithm at the bottom of the test.
A simple algorithm would be the sum or the product of primes. Each question's answer is mathematically related to a distinct prime. You could have a computer program break it back out and let you know which question they got wrong. Or maybe a derivative of the double entry booking system with questions matched in pairs to cancel each other out.
All in all, whatever method you use you are putting the weight on the student instead of individual grading the exams by hand. So any human error they make will still have to be compensated with a human's eye (and compassion) but it will get you 80-90% of the way there.
Overkill would be to write a program with a set of rules to generate the questions on the test, the primes, and the algorithm. Then you put in the unique identifier for the test and the one result and it spits out which answers they got right and wrong, but you'll have to work them out yourself if the student contests. How much do you trust your programming skills?;-)
Grew up using dumb terminals and external modems. Still understand termdefs and batch processing. Willing to learn. Need specifics on position, teacher, and 6 figure salary.
My point being if its important to them they will pay. They didn't pay to upgrade or retrofit a new system so they will pay to have someone run it. Behold the glory of capitalism... or is that market economies?
This may be a little off topic but there's this list of technologies I'm waiting for.
Teleoperated robots Cars that drive themselves Flying cars Jetpacks;-)
But I have to remember the downside of these new technologies. I'm still debating wiring a kill switch for my daytime runner head lights, let alone worrying about remote exploits of my automative or household electronics.
So someone can take over my headset with "Eat at Joe's". How about a new crime wave of auto drive cars lulled away in the wee hours by a digital Pied Piper?? *SIGH*
Pardon the pun, but it's a lovely ride even if a wee bit scary from time to time...;-)
Chances are someone's pulling your bandwidth via WIFI or its creating some problem.
I haven't quite nailed it down yet but in the last few months both my personal network and a friend of mine's have been bogged down whenever the WiFi is turned on. I like to think I'm security savvy but I just started digging into it yesterday.
I'll reconfigure the netgear so it only accepts the MAC addresses I have but it's still quite annoying. I didn't broadcast the SSID and I used WEP/WPA but my surfing lags horribly whenever WiFi is turned on. Even in rural Idaho there be issues.
Memories. CTRL H for backspace./dev/dsp not writeable by the primary user on the system (and constantly being re-chowned to root).
USB drives showing up automatically on the desktop.
There tends to be a gap between possible/working and working well. This is one of the things Linux has the hardest time with. I felt I should chime in because I myself abandoned palms/visors a few years back for many reasons, one being that getting them to work in Linux was a major PIB. It would work but never flawlessly. (Yes, if HW does not work in Linux I abandon it.)
But if you hunt around you will usually find a distro that has decided to shine in tackling this particular issue.
I've seen a few recommendations so far, but my thoughts would be to try either Gentoo or Mandrake(Mandriva?). They are usually pretty good in working on these fine points. I think if you try out several distro and find one that works with no tweaking you will have a distro you like, and you may also get a good idea how to handle it if you want another distro.
I'm seeing some sort of setuid scripting hooking into hotplug to open up your graphical sync program. But that is a bit of work, debugging and little scripts like that tend to fail. I applaud folks who work on distro's for making those little things work so well.
Think about it. We push off decent transit long enough we may just adopt the "second generation" transit system.
Now what is the second generation transit system you ask? I see that it as an intelligent system of pods that use the existing road ways and surface streets.
I'm not saying its the smartest path, but who chastises third world countries for bypassing Telegraph and Telephone to jump right into JustInTime production and Internet.
Don't sweat the small stuff. We'll get there when we get there. You think transit is needed, how about peddling old folks around in bicycle based cabs in retirement communities? Better yet, start a rikshaw service in your downtown neighborhood. Start it locally.
I'm starting one next week. Ya believe me don't ya?
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In this day and age of prenuptials and mistrust you can't fault the tactics only the rationale. If they pay for all background checks and as far as you can tell are only motivated by covering their collective arses then you have to decide if you want the job or not. It really comes down to wanting the job and wanting to work there.
Even without full cavity body searches I have worked for employers that I've regreted. Security checks, preferably based on some law on the books or if they are not unusual for that sector of the work force then it's pretty hard to fight it. You just have to judge their motives. If they are doing it in the best interest of the company or for a good reason, then I'd say let it slide and but perhaps look at them a little closer to make sure that's what you really want to get involved with. If you think it's bogus and they are just going through the motions, then in my opinion it's not a good place to work except for short term (1-2yrs).
If a company, or more accurately those who work for it, aren't introspective and rational about what they do then you are in trouble. It would only be a matter of time that they intrepret a policy or misintrepret something you do for their own ends. Rationality is not about "my way" or "your way" its about common ground and communication. If a company isn't "rational" about what they make their workers go through to satisfy their own ends no one will do well working there.
To quote one of my bosses when my sister's wedding and Burningman coincided with 4 months notice.
"No one takes 2 weeks vacation!!!!"
Make your bargains where you must...
Is that Amazon is now another corporate zombie. They will not own up to their mistakes or work for customer satisfaction in any real or coherent way they will simply execute policy or whatever directive given like the automatons they have become.
I'm still waiting 6-10 weeks for a refund from their newest affiliate(?) Target. No one I can argue with. If they go outside their window I'll consult my credit card company.
Bound to happen. And this surprises us how?
Hahahaha... No... Seriously.
If you have a written contract and they contest it, it just makes the offense more aggregious. If they are not willing to honor their terms when they are trying to hire you on, what do you think they'll do when you are hired?
I'd say if they don't fix it toot sweet you best keep looking. Jobs hardly ever get better when you're hired on, they decline the longer you work. You'd best find out their true face now.
My current job they welched on my drug test and made me pay for it myself. 3 rounds of wage cuts later.. *SIGH*
Note sure if this will get modded up but here goes.
Microsoft is to me what is one of the worst sides of capitalism. Yes, Microsoft has, and I'm sure does continue, to do some great things. But since they've gotten to a size where they control the market I do not get a sense (and my perception may be faulty) that they really play well or gently with others. The world does not exist for corporations. The United States, U.N., Real Estate, and language itself did not come into existence so that Microsoft can derive large amounts of profit for intangible products.
But yet at every turn that Microsoft is threatened it will move heaven and earth to have its way. United States, international go to boy if it feels its market share is going down the tubes. U.N./WTO must have Microsoft designed DRM and IP laws woven in or Microsoft doesn't want to play. Real Estate, an out their example, yet I remember in the hayday of the 90's when they were touting that NT would be woven into routers (I still shudder at the thought) MSN (i.e. Microsoft) was even looking at getting into the Real Estate market taking over existing real estate information systems, offerings, and even brokers.
If M$ was really this simple cute cuddly thing that really cared about its customers, and not their continued payment to M$ until the end of time, I might judge them less harshly. Since I use linux exclusively I don't see their innovations only their excesses as they continue time and time again to not cooperate, but sublimate everything they can into a paradigm of their making for their profit. But time and time again I don't see M$ putting itself at the interest of customers I see it bashing through the world like a drunken has-been knocking this over and wanting the world to forgive their excesses cuz "I'm Microsoft, bitch."
At every turn when M$ gains any market advantage they use the time tried tools of obfuscation and lock in to stifle innovation. They make no apologies, they're a corporation, we don't expect them too. Investors don't expect them too. So they don't. And then when they finally do get around to implementing something, that frankly I've had under Linux for years, expect the world to lavish them with even more money for being cunning thieves. Great job if you can get it.
That's why it's not as simple, for me, to be OS agnostic. Linux exists not because it was the better tool, it only thrives when its the better tool. It exists because I, and a whole bunch of other people, want it to exist. At every turn M$ would be ecstatic if Linux failed or they could subvert it. How can you truly be even neutral for a company that in the end wants complete and utter control of every market in every industry it feels it can gobble up or dominate? Maybe after Balmer retires and they refocus on a few things rather than potentially $EVERYTHING$ I might be more forgiving but I don't trust their agenda, wisdom or lack of humility and frankly don't believe I ever will.
An elite man's ego trip does not deserve my dollars or contribution and frankly that's all I see M$ as being.
May the above be of value to you. For what it's worth I always espouse folks use the technology that works for them best. Linux does everything I could want and then some in a fashion I quite enjoy. To each their own. Well wish to ya!
A Linux brick. That's it. Just speak to it and it'll give you want you want. Powered by Ubuntu Speaks! (good dog... ;-)
... hmmm... ;-)
Seriously.
Until you have reduced the computer down to a simple brick with no peripherals Linux will never be completely "out of the box". Its one of those things where 80-90% is going to be all you get on out of the box is hardware capability.
Computer hardware (read peripherals) and software (read MS and games) are driven by the new. Linux is getting more market share but in the end corporations/markets look to their own. The day Linux becomes a viable gaming platform is the day most of this "Linux isn't ready" stupidity will go away. Until then Linux is what it is. It will do just about everything you want to do except for that 10%, whether that be the cheapest scanner or printer I could find, or the latest video card or cool new game, or proprietary interface (photo gallery or hell I dunno).
That 10%, that bleeding edge is a pretty nasty place to be anyways. I can't remember how many times my window boxen of old died on new drivers and incomplete games. For my money I'm glad I can't use those peripherals, they tend to suck anyway. (Dodged WinModems, thank you Linux developers!)
For the most part I think Linux is as good as its going to get until the computing industry and how people use computers changes. Whether that's all web based apps or hard/fast hardware specs like USB with a little more teeth to make the drivers easier to write or make drivers almost ubiquitous. Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming...
Going to a brick and mortar for the newest shiny baubble to install/load onto/into your system will always hedge to M$. Macintosh does ok but it's apples and
For me, I'm just happy that 90% of the time I can see web content. Not sure when we passed that benchmark but for that 10% I can't access most of it is because they've disallowed my OS/Browser combo as "NOT COMPATIBLE" where I could look at the content if they didn't lock me out. When did we pass that milestone?
Also when did pass that silly idea that Linux only copies, never innovates?
Linux is doing just fine if you ask me. The diehards just aren't quite ready to admit the world hath changed. I think this new draconian DRM thing is going to hurt,
Just my 0.02
So use connotative association.
;-)
The current recommendation systems (if I understand them) are trying to suss out info by comparing the differences between the preferences of people. The problem is that each movie is a very complex mix of themes and connotations.
You need more information on the objects you are recommending to each person. Rather than just compare the preferences you want more information about the object than a rating of 1 to 5. You can do this with genre's, to a degree, but even genre's are imprecise. Is it SciFi or Romance? Is it more scifi than romance?
Think of an object that has width and breadth in a multitude of different dimensions. A Venn diagram meets a hypercube. But where do you get that information?
Why the same place/source that artists and designers do, DUDE!
Oddly enough, to me, the answer comes from a design class: Connotative association. When we are working on a design for a project we start sifting through media. Songs, books, images, ideas, anything that give us a "hit", Makes us think of that project. Think of it as brainstorming but you are sifting through contemporary cultural artifacts and your own psyche to "find" a commonality. Once you have all the media you start to sort it. Does this image work with this sound, does this clothing choice work with this color. As you winnow down those choices you start to get coherent choice of color, mood, and theme that you may not have known existed but thanks to your subconscious you have found a workable choices that should relate to a contemporary audience.
If artistic design uses that method to make new harmonious or understandable art to a culture as a whole than hooking into that same process will allow for better understanding, definition and recommendations.
So you construct a series of images, sounds, media and you use that to classify movies. Popular songs to classic folk hits. Artwork masterpieces to new artwork. All forms of media and periods. Hitchcock is going to "hit" with a black and white pinstriped suit and art deco design elements as will "Hudsucker Proxy" which are both movies that I would enjoy. If you delve into my connotative associations you will find others that are similar and start to generate a mathematical "map" of what I might enjoy based on those associations. You may find that different genre's and movies have similar associations that make them worth recommending. You can also pull from the mappings of other folks connotative associations to see how what they've seen might be of interest to me.
All in all you are just defining a new space. The idea, for me, is easy but I'm not a mathemetician or a database designer.
The downside is getting folks to go through a series of "warshack-esque" media to classify a film. I don't even like filling out the number of stars let alone listening/viewing/reading 5 media bits to relate them to a movie I've seen. But I think it's a viable way to go. The current recommendation system can approximate the above after comparing thousands of films/preferences but without relating it to other media and moods it won't be able to achieve more resolution or granularity.
In the end all art is merely a conversation of a time between the folks who lived in that time based on what has gone before. You are simply trying to better mathematically understand the deeper underpinnings of that conversation to make recommendations. Easy... Right?
YEAAARRRGGGHH! Religion aside, but how culturally biased can you be?!?!?! If our culture included the continual use of gloves and zero contact among our population would we stop the research of antibiotics?
I'm one for a leveled debate, I don't even like the idea of "Culture Engineering" the world but this consistent puritanical bias seems to be doing just that. If you don't believe what we believe or more importantly who we believe in you deserve no protection from science.
We would be opposed to putting our kids in quartine till the age of 8 or stopping all contact, but these so called "sins" of drugs and sex can be suppresed. What an "enlightened" world we have.
I fault the Africans for not embracing condoms due to cultural values but our blind adherence to our biases is just as damning. Boy I'm so glad I'm in the... majority?
Uh oh.
But with this recent news I'm not sure if I should evoke a registrar switch...
;-)
Hmmm.... Geek Algebra will clarify this for me I think...
Bad Technical Debugging Skills (a malformed URL?!?!?! PUH-LEEEZ!)
plus
Microsoft ("We'll charge what we want when we want" Service)
plus
(-) Low Margins being the low cost provider
equals
RUN! FOR CHRISSAKES RUN!
Let the race begin!!!! Starters at your marks....
If you looking for the cream of the cool then it's integration. I can buy lots of different gadgets that do lots of different things but the more integrated it is into the home the better.
;-)
My dream was having everything integrated into a voice activated system. The FOSS version would be Mr.House but the more integration the better.
For sanity sake I think you'd have to look at an integration design like a script engine that ties things together and check if they are ontrack.
Nice touches that integration allows:
The muting/pausing of audio/video when you receive a call to the house.
Doorbells or other notifications pausing/silencing or overlaying on video.
UPS/FedEx delivery option where it will open the door to allow them to deliver a package and lock it behind them based on your cellphone ok.
Lights that activate and deactivate based on where you are or what you are doing.
My personal dream touch would be handing guests a badge (star trek esque if you must) that gives them guest level access to the house and what it provides. No keys, no codes, just a small comm unit with an interactive help system.
But all of that integration comes at high cost. But I debug equipment all the time. Running my home like a server room with maintenance and logging just seems natural to me.
Right now my design architecture is older PC's, ubiquitous networking (WiFi or cabled) eventually migrating to mini-itx systems strategically stashed in different places. Primary focus is media (audio and video) for now but I may expand that as time goes on. Getting a reliable Linbox rescue server up and running has become a priority
To each their own.
Too cool! So is the future going to truly be like pulp fiction?
For those that are clueless (and since no one commented on it) read about fads of old. Doc Savage. If memory serves Doc Savage was the basis/inspiration for Buckaroo Banzai.
Don't feel too bad. The author of the BBC article couldn't master Pennsylvania.
Maybe they ought to have a poll concerning dictionaries. Might tell us more about our culture and times.
For myself, I would be more interested in the reasons or motivations behind those that choose creationism/id. Is this just fear of the future?
Well said... But...
He's been there for years and they haven't listened to him.
By what miracles of miracles are they going to start listening to him now?
I've been outsourced. I was the last one there and turned off the lights as we left. It wasn't because we were incompetent it's because they had already made the decision many months ago to send it to another geographic region. We were already the contractors running 12 hour shifts. The moral of this story is to look at the big picture and make your best decision.
I resemble your remark. I'm not incompetent. But my 20/20 hindsight tells me that after 6 months to a year if I haven't gotten what I wanted even though I outperformed every expectation and made the case for improvement you leave. Yes there are things you can do better but the time has already passed. We don't live for miracles, that's why we need to make good decisions.
He needs to make decisions for himself, not the company he works for.
What... Are you still there?
LEAVE!
Problem solved.
That was the short answer. The long answer:
I read an article a few months back that linked emotions to an evolutionary form of fast judgement making. The point? Trust your gut. If they haven't given you what they promised they would give you within the first few months in the last few years, leave. It may be your hairstyle, your sense of humor or they just don't like you. Get over it. Play the odds and find a new position with a new company that says they will give you what you feel you deserve, and trust you gut. If you think you are being lied to in the interview then continue to play the odds and find the job you want. Or don't.
Decision is yours. Enjoy.
I'm still getting used to living in the states, but there are times I do miss Anchorage. The folks there are... unique ;-)
West Anchorage Highschool was a place of many tales as well. Underground bunkers that students from all over the district would try to sneak into the ductwork and access ways to go see. I even remember seeing a bunch of them down through an access plate in Junior Hall a good 20 feet down. Underground newspapers and pranks. But that's another tale.
If you ever get the chance to visit Anchorage it's a fun town. Nothing like living at the biggest town at the tip of the Western United States expansion. I wouldn't trade my youth there for anything.
When you are in war.
;-)
When is a rootkit not a rootkit?
When you are a corporation securing your assets against copyright infringement and piracy.
I personally think the flaw is in the premise. War is not acceptable, and music piracy is a false statement, but those assertions are no longer contentious to the society as a whole. They are considered to be decided in the opposite extreme.
War is not acceptable, ever, but sometimes it is necessary. It is not the place of someone to decide when war is necessary, it is when you have exhausted all other options. But yet we forgive those and ourselves when we go to war and we haven't exhausted all options. We find the very questioning of motive distasteful because it grates against our premise. There is a reason we do this. (Stick with me, I do have a point.)
Music piracy is an illusion. It is the media companies attempting to justify their economic model and pricing structure when logistically it is no longer required or justifiable in any other means except law and precedent.
But take a step back for a moment and realize that software companies are in this same position. They don't head off to the "bit mine" to mine more raw bits to put into boxes and send out from the factory. They craft abstract constructs from intangibles to create profit. Microsoft and Symantec are in this mode. It is something we no longer find contentious or disagreeable.
Sony doesn't plant and grow raw music plants so they can sell them at market. They act as gatekeepers between the producers, musicians constructing for whatever reason, and the consumers who will purchase music when it is marketed and presented in a certain fashion. So why do you fault them for taking a progressive step to protect their continued revenue stream?
You could say they are "in collusion" but you would be making the same mistake as calling Open Source communistic simply because it is in opposition to the existing retail and corporate fare. You would be trying to reduce the issue to a simplistic point that is no longer helpful or true.
So why does it suprise anyone that Sony took this action? Or why are you surprised that they would compromise the illusory integrity of your system which you purchased when day after day the computer manufacturer (Dell/HP) are working to have you buy more computers, more often (months instead of years), and charge you more money for them when they have spent less on the product?
I'm confused...
(n). Yet another -ism or -ist used to convey identity and status upon those who engage in an art they no longer love and based on ideals they no longer practice.
Pardon me while I show my conservative side but this is just an attempt to resuscitate an imagined past (say the 50's with a dash of Edward R. Morrow) that never really existed. There are no more risks than there were back then. They require no more protections than they do now. Journalism is not an integral part of our society, citizens are.
If you are going to convey rights then you need to convey them to all citizens, not just to yet another elitist class that may or may not share your values, will have more rights and protections and have a "get out of court free card" when they engage in their frailties, such as bad judgement.
The fact that the current "poster child" sat in jail when she already had a written document from the person she was protecting that she could speak makes this whole thing patently silly, and decidely false. What's the real motivation for this bill and why does it single out big press and printing houses rather than getting to the core of what journalism is really about? A citizens' duty. All citizens, whether they wear the hat of a lawyer, judge, politician or journalist, have a duty for the common good. If journalism needs more definition then they should setup something like the bar association with their own legal defense fund and canons of practice. Politicians have access but should have no more legal standing than a citizen performing their duty; why should a journalism get more protection when they have no more duty then the rest of us?
I keep seeing that comment again and again. Health Insurance, oh my god. It is a concern that as a wage earner you don't consider but more and more the employers are putting the weight of the insurance on you. If you haven't looked at this before you should. At some places I've worked the insurance was a joke. High deductible, high premiums (do you look at what they are taking out of your paychecks?) and they DRAG their feet on paying any claim. One agency I worked was actually using health insurance as an income generator. Their work force was low, the fear and want of health insurance was high, so they charged a high premium but kept denying claims.
I gave up many years ago and pay $100 a month myself for BlueCross/BlueShield HMO/PPO. I get a copay, they have agreements with other providers that lower my cost. I'm actually thinking about switching to just a catastrophic policy since I have a $1000 deductible anyway.
The costs are rising, whether you are a wage earner or becoming a contractor you REALLY NEED to look into this and make smart decisions. If you are not looking at it chances are you getting fleeced BIG TIME because their is so much cost pressure on health care right now. Do note I am a Bachelor so my burden is less. Everyone needs to decide for themselves but you really need to look into this whether you are independent or a wage earner. You might find your money is best spent elsewhere than on the group plan.
If you don't manage the cost yourself then insurance will charge you big money to do so. And even a catastrophic will allow you entry to other insurances later, rather than being "uninsured" taboo. Insurance system as we know is under pressure so the old thinking can be dangerous.
Is the blatant disregard for his person or property. I can understand detaining him, perhaps. But after they have detained him and proven that he is no threat they are then unable to admit their mistake and backpedal. It's the bureacratic limbo and outright audacity that chaps me.
So they think he was a terrorist. Turns out he's not. So return his belongings all ready.
Or at least acknowledge you have a grey area and figure out what he can do as a "good citizen" to gets his belongings back when you make a mistake. Reimburse him. Give him a copy of his data. Something.
Acknowledge that what you are doing is the most dangerous thing. Turning law abiding citizens into criminals by a mere human error. I donot have the adequate skills to evoke how BAD that is.
But because of their own incompetence (which they won't admit) they won't give this guy remedy for what they have done. It's all about fear. The police's fear. Fear they may incorrectly let him go, fear they may give his stuff back when they shouldn't. You know if I went to any other professional that had such a lack of confidence I'd run! But this is what we have to protect us?
If all they run on is fear and incompetence no bomb is required. We're already screwed. All the terrorists have to say is boo and we'll slit our own throats, hopefully metaphorically.
Where's the camera? I'm in some sort of action film? Can someone say cut and let me out of this B movie?!?!?!?
And make the students do the work...
;-)
Create three variations of the test with each question yielding a slightly different mathematical answer. You could have it as simple as adding all the answer so they match a certain sum or have an algebra equation at the end that they plug the values into.
All you have to do is check the variation number of the test and the result of the algorithm.
To shake it up and prevent cheating you can use variations on the test (either variables or questions), you can use variations on the algorithm at the bottom of the test.
A simple algorithm would be the sum or the product of primes. Each question's answer is mathematically related to a distinct prime. You could have a computer program break it back out and let you know which question they got wrong. Or maybe a derivative of the double entry booking system with questions matched in pairs to cancel each other out.
All in all, whatever method you use you are putting the weight on the student instead of individual grading the exams by hand. So any human error they make will still have to be compensated with a human's eye (and compassion) but it will get you 80-90% of the way there.
Overkill would be to write a program with a set of rules to generate the questions on the test, the primes, and the algorithm. Then you put in the unique identifier for the test and the one result and it spits out which answers they got right and wrong, but you'll have to work them out yourself if the student contests. How much do you trust your programming skills?
Or reverse it. Create your own bubble sheet but use a template, whether holes cut in card board or a transparent print out, as the grader key.
Grew up using dumb terminals and external modems. Still understand termdefs and batch processing. Willing to learn. Need specifics on position, teacher, and 6 figure salary.
My point being if its important to them they will pay. They didn't pay to upgrade or retrofit a new system so they will pay to have someone run it. Behold the glory of capitalism... or is that market economies?
This may be a little off topic but there's this list of technologies I'm waiting for.
;-)
;-)
Teleoperated robots
Cars that drive themselves
Flying cars
Jetpacks
But I have to remember the downside of these new technologies. I'm still debating wiring a kill switch for my daytime runner head lights, let alone worrying about remote exploits of my automative or household electronics.
So someone can take over my headset with "Eat at Joe's". How about a new crime wave of auto drive cars lulled away in the wee hours by a digital Pied Piper?? *SIGH*
Pardon the pun, but it's a lovely ride even if a wee bit scary from time to time...
Turn off WIFI and check your bandwidth...
Chances are someone's pulling your bandwidth via WIFI or its creating some problem.
I haven't quite nailed it down yet but in the last few months both my personal network and a friend of mine's have been bogged down whenever the WiFi is turned on. I like to think I'm security savvy but I just started digging into it yesterday.
I'll reconfigure the netgear so it only accepts the MAC addresses I have but it's still quite annoying. I didn't broadcast the SSID and I used WEP/WPA but my surfing lags horribly whenever WiFi is turned on. Even in rural Idaho there be issues.
who'd thunk it?
Good luck!
Memories. /dev/dsp not writeable by the primary user on the system (and constantly being re-chowned to root).
CTRL H for backspace.
USB drives showing up automatically on the desktop.
There tends to be a gap between possible/working and working well. This is one of the things Linux has the hardest time with. I felt I should chime in because I myself abandoned palms/visors a few years back for many reasons, one being that getting them to work in Linux was a major PIB. It would work but never flawlessly. (Yes, if HW does not work in Linux I abandon it.)
But if you hunt around you will usually find a distro that has decided to shine in tackling this particular issue.
I've seen a few recommendations so far, but my thoughts would be to try either Gentoo or Mandrake(Mandriva?). They are usually pretty good in working on these fine points. I think if you try out several distro and find one that works with no tweaking you will have a distro you like, and you may also get a good idea how to handle it if you want another distro.
I'm seeing some sort of setuid scripting hooking into hotplug to open up your graphical sync program. But that is a bit of work, debugging and little scripts like that tend to fail. I applaud folks who work on distro's for making those little things work so well.
Hope you find what ya seek.
and cell phones...
Think about it. We push off decent transit long enough we may just adopt the "second generation" transit system.
Now what is the second generation transit system you ask? I see that it as an intelligent system of pods that use the existing road ways and surface streets.
I'm not saying its the smartest path, but who chastises third world countries for bypassing Telegraph and Telephone to jump right into JustInTime production and Internet.
Don't sweat the small stuff. We'll get there when we get there. You think transit is needed, how about peddling old folks around in bicycle based cabs in retirement communities? Better yet, start a rikshaw service in your downtown neighborhood. Start it locally.
I'm starting one next week. Ya believe me don't ya?