Bullshit, Rep #2 was probably making more money on each job by billing all the trips to do the fixes to the customer. Rep #1 did it right the first time but at a fixed price. Rep #1 has higher customer sat but lower overall revenue. Rep #2 has lousy customer sat but high revenues. Regional Manager figures out he gets bonus based on revenue not customer sat and fires Rep #1. Two years later with Sales in the crapper due to poor customer sat making customers go elsewhere rather than back to this vendor Regional Manager is fired and Rep #1 is hired back to fix the problems.
One drive FUBAR on a single drive you mightbe able to do data recovery. If your data is striped it's harder to get things back. If you use RAID 5 and the parity drive goes you are in deep trouble. Even with RAID, you should do regular backups. The laws on complex systems actually say the reliability decreases with the more working components you add since you multiply the reliabilities (i.e.99*.99 =.98). A completely redundant system is really 2X as reliable, but striping isn't the same as redundancy. RAID orginally meant Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives.
RAID's whole purpose was NOT speed it was REDUNDANCY. Most RAID controllers are just an upgrade over the standard ones in most PCs, that's where the performance upgrade comes in. They move data faster but if your program can't process the data as fast as it comes in you really don't see a benefit. And even with RAID the disk size makes a difference, smaller is better in many cases.
How about a space-based telescope in an L2 Lissajous orbit, about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth? It's the James Webb Space Telescope (http://www.nasa.jwst.org)
Some states have passed laws that contain a legal defintion of spyware. I also think there is a bill in Congress that bans spyware as well (I hope it is a better bill than the CANN-SPAM law). To prove libel or slander there has to be an element of "intent". If there was no intent to harm thier business they can't win.
It's your right as a user to ban whatever software you want, spyware tools just tell you about the supposedly "bad" software. You actually have to take an action and agree that it is "bad" and then delete it. Therefore the USER made the decision NOT the Spyware package. The spyware only provides you with information. This one will never make it to court, it's just a tactic to try to prop up a lost cause.
The FCC began this Broadcast Flag rule making process back in 1996. The Chair of the FCC doesn't make the rules ALONE, it's a committee that does it. For some background on this verus the/. half-cocked political hate BS check out:
http://www.hklaw.com/Publications/Newsletters.asp? ID=426&Article=2393
Most of these are still used:
The wheel
The Sail
The Map
The Stylus (tool used to mark clay tablets)
The Barometer
The Thermometer
Microscope
Telescope
Mirror
Language;)
Fire
Fireworks (Gunpowder + Rockets)
Forge
Drill
Hammer (whacking it to make it work has been
around a long time!)
Saw
Pulleys
Levers
Windmills..and many more...
Go see the summations at: http://www.components-online.com/Software/Cli ckwra pped/default.htm
This case was about click-to-accept licenses (in Pro-CD the end user could not progress beyond the first screen without agreeing to a license), not the same as the instant case where you agree to the terms the second you open the box. The cases are wildly different in many ways. The lawyer is right. Reading case law and drawing comparisons and differences is what lawyers do in preparing a brief. I would hesitate to question an attorney (or paralegal) unless I too had the same skills and training.
He/she does not have to be an expert in IP to know something. In fact in some states unless you are actually certified in an area you cannot claim anything except having a law license, in other words you might be a expert but unless you have certificates proving that you have to "sell" yourself as a generalist.
Sandia Labs is in New Mexico, not CA. You could have looked on a map and found that out! The pension fund of the UoCa belongs to the State, there would be no raiding. If these folks went to work for anyone else the pensions may be transferred or maybe not. Or maybe the get two pensions when they retire, part from UoC and part from someone else.
A contractor can't just walk in and take the work, there is a long complicated bid process and I can guarantee you there would be a line of companies bidding. These contracts are usually 7-10 year deals so they are serious money and the proposals getlots of scrutiny. LockMart is the #1 Defense Contractor but that does not mean they would win. I've seen them beaten by much smaller firms.
Absolutely correct. If it EVER goes onto a classified system it MUST be treated as if it was classified. That's been the rule as long as I can remember, they didn't make it up for this case!
There had been several serious lapses in the past and they were told by the DOE to fix it, they obviously didn't. If you have ever seen the type of information that requires these high level of classifications then you would know that a leak either inadvertent or not could be devastating. You don't just misplace that kind of data.
Conclusive proof does not exist for or against Scientific Theories like Global Warming. If you go back to the 1960s and 1970s you can find all sorts of ideas and theories about Global COOLING. The scientists can't make up thier minds. I wonder why? If they could all agree it IS or it IS NOT happening then all the research money would dry up!! It's self preservation to change your mind after a 10-15 years when no one recalls what you said the first time!
....The fact is, Earth is a single point of failure for the human race, and we can't predict when it will fail or what will cause the failure. The only safe solution is redundancy....
Umm, So is the SUN. So we need to build a redundant one? No Sun, No Solar System. No Solar System, No Earth, No Earth No Humans (assuming we are still here 10 Million years in the future when Sol is no long a G2 but collapses to a White Dwarf..no, not the one in the LOTR)
Mars does have an atmosphere, just not much of one! It's not a complete vacuum. Any atmosphere would have to be pretty much constantly regenerated as the weak magnetic field would allow solar radiation to destroy what was in place. Of course, it may take "billions and billions" (obCarlSagan)of yearsand millions of gas generators (how do we get them there?) to make enought atmosphere you even have to worry about keeping. It would be cheaper to build large domed cities, and put an atmosphere in those. But Scientists don't commonly think in practical economic terms, thats for the Engineers to do;)
I can't beleive three years of negotiation were redone in such a small time. Since we didn't know the details of what Reno's people proposed, how can we know that this was a lot different? RUMOR was Reno was going to break them up, I never saw confirmation of that. As in every negotiation,each side didn't get 100% of what they wanted but the final deal DID solve a lot of problems. And yes, M$ could figure out ways around them. A breakup would have had the same problems, each of the companies could "collude" with each other and each require the other's parts of a system. THat would probably mean Windows would cost MORE and then if something broke you get finger pointing and nothing gets fixed. So, you lose one way, you lose the other way. Pick which way you want to lose!
Bugs are bugs, but age in itself doesn't make software bad. In fact, one could claim that older software has had more exposure time, allowing the identification and debugging of more mission-critical bugs.
Agreed. But the new instruments were going to have new software, and some of the other systems were going to be upgraded. Probably a moot point now.
The MS suit on the grounds you mentioned was a Federal Anti-Trust case. Only ONE suit, not many. It was settled during the Clinton adminstration, the paperwork hung around till after GWB took office. The patent infringement cases have been settled out of court and MS has paid a LOT to settle each one. To effectively attack the Borg in Redmond you need to get your facts right.
That's right WFC3 was to go on SM4 which didn't go due to Columbia. My mistake. But there is a COS like instrument there already.
If ya really want to know the truth HST is limited more by it's gyro life than anything;)
The software DOES matter. Tell that to my friends and former team-mates at NASA IV&V who found a number of errors, several of them mission critical. The software collects the data from the detectors, packages it up and transmits it. It also controls which filters get used, the shutter timing, the control exposures, the temperatures and a lot of other things. IIRC, it's all written in C for an 80186 processor.
Good point on HST being upgradable and JWST not. Of course I suppose there could be a robot mission to JWST but the comm lag would make it have to be a very smart robot. It would have been great to see that technology pioneered on HST:(
Re:Question for you astronomers out there....
on
A Star of Space and Film
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
These images are made from spectral data not visible light(other than the fact the spectral data for the exposure MAY lie in the visible spectrum). The hubble is a digital camera but not like the type you have at home. The WFC3 (wide field planetary camera version 3) or the COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) take the images. Exposure times can be many minutes,and the instruments are very sensitive and highly calibrated. In fact they are calibrated to a known light source and a known dark source before each exposure. There are also filters that can be applied before the light reaches the camera so that only wavelengths in a given spectral range hit the detectors. Then the images are sent to the ground as binary data as groups of spectral frequency bins which are then post-processed (a the Space Science Institute) to give the (false) color images. The colors are pretty close to correct but are not perfect. So, yea they ARE manufactured in some sense by the Gov't;)
Hubble is nowhere near state of the art (some software in it is 25-30 yrs old) but it works and has exceeded the wildest expectations of it's builders. Kind of a Brooklyn Bridge in space, the first one built but still works great and setting a high standard.
They DID find a number of chemical precursors, and several 155MM shells with chemical agents that were "leftover" from the war with Iran. They also found papers that said as soon as they UN guys left, and things cooled down they would re-start the programs. Only Saddaam and his (dead) sons know the real truth and I don't think they are cooperating. Don't forget the Uranium and the other data. Did we find a "smoking gun"? No, but a lot of circustansial evidence that would probably convict anyone in court.
As screwed up as the Inspector General and the CBO says NASA's Finance system is, Hubble could cost $2B or 2 cents;)
Seriously, NASA's cost tracking leaves a LOT to be desired and thus it's ripe for abuse. By the time it's all over and everyone has gotten their cut from the Hubble mission, you can probably double the estimate.
Where do YOU get your news? The US Gov't does not filter anything except child porn, and even that is debatable (I think they put it out there to catch the pervs). The CDA act did NOT pass, thank goodness. I can't think of a single URL the US Gov't blocks unless it is the web site of known terrorists, you can even bet illegally via the web (offshore casinos) and make a date with a prostitue, both clearly illegal activities.
Flag burning had not even been tested as a 1st Amendment isssue until about 10 yrs ago, maybe less. Folks just didn't do it.
Probably 60% of Americans get thier news from the 3 main network newscasts. Talk about left wing, alarmist news which treats viewers as morons who should NOT make up thier own minds from facts.
Most parents do NOT censor what the kids watch on TV (or on video..ever see what the teens rent at Blockbuster?). If you believe the data about kids watching violent TV becoming violent themselves then that sure proves someone is NOT checking on the kids.
Been a LONG time since I was in college so I don't know what the teachers do. I recall my spouse taking a different view than her Am. Lit. prof and getting marked down a few years back, but I suspect that varies campus to campus and even prof to prof.
I'm all for High School papers, I used to be the editor! Maybe the reason there aren't any is the kids don't want to do it? We were not even censored, and we sure had a lot of non-standard ant-administration views about lunch, classes, polcies, etc.
Good Government is impossible WITHOUT free thinkers. Lack of thinking (on both sides of the aisle) is a BIG part of the problem in Congress. The only thinking is how does my state (or me) get my cut of the fiscal pie.
Slashdot Mirror
Bullshit, Rep #2 was probably making more money on each job by billing all the trips to do the fixes to the customer. Rep #1 did it right the first time but at a fixed price. Rep #1 has higher customer sat but lower overall revenue. Rep #2 has lousy customer sat but high revenues. Regional Manager figures out he gets bonus based on revenue not customer sat and fires Rep #1. Two years later with Sales in the crapper due to poor customer sat making customers go elsewhere rather than back to this vendor Regional Manager is fired and Rep #1 is hired back to fix the problems.
One drive FUBAR on a single drive you mightbe able to do data recovery. If your data is striped it's harder to get things back. If you use RAID 5 and the parity drive goes you are in deep trouble. Even with RAID, you should do regular backups. The laws on complex systems actually say the reliability decreases with the more working components you add since you multiply the reliabilities (i.e .99*.99 = .98). A completely redundant system is really 2X as reliable, but striping isn't the same as redundancy. RAID orginally meant Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives.
RAID's whole purpose was NOT speed it was REDUNDANCY. Most RAID controllers are just an upgrade over the standard ones in most PCs, that's where the performance upgrade comes in. They move data faster but if your program can't process the data as fast as it comes in you really don't see a benefit. And even with RAID the disk size makes a difference, smaller is better in many cases.
Good idea, but the "Mission to Mars" is taking a big bite out of scientific funds at NASA. JWST may get delayed due to this "reprogramming" of money.
How about a space-based telescope in an L2 Lissajous orbit, about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth? It's the James Webb Space Telescope (http://www.nasa.jwst.org)
Some states have passed laws that contain a legal defintion of spyware. I also think there is a bill in Congress that bans spyware as well (I hope it is a better bill than the CANN-SPAM law). To prove libel or slander there has to be an element of "intent". If there was no intent to harm thier business they can't win. It's your right as a user to ban whatever software you want, spyware tools just tell you about the supposedly "bad" software. You actually have to take an action and agree that it is "bad" and then delete it. Therefore the USER made the decision NOT the Spyware package. The spyware only provides you with information. This one will never make it to court, it's just a tactic to try to prop up a lost cause.
The FCC began this Broadcast Flag rule making process back in 1996. The Chair of the FCC doesn't make the rules ALONE, it's a committee that does it. For some background on this verus the /. half-cocked political hate BS check out:
http://www.hklaw.com/Publications/Newsletters.asp? ID=426&Article=2393
They also left off the condom, but we know Geeks have no use for those ;)
Most of these are still used: The wheel The Sail The Map The Stylus (tool used to mark clay tablets) The Barometer The Thermometer Microscope Telescope Mirror Language ;)
Fire
Fireworks (Gunpowder + Rockets)
Forge
Drill
Hammer (whacking it to make it work has been
around a long time!)
Saw
Pulleys
Levers
Windmills ..and many more...
I bummed they put didn't put the Ronco Bass-O-Matic on the list ;) And how in the world did they leave off the Ginsu Knives?
Go see the summations at:i ckwra pped/default.htm
http://www.components-online.com/Software/Cl
This case was about click-to-accept licenses (in Pro-CD the end user could not progress beyond the first screen without agreeing to a license), not the same as the instant case where you agree to the terms the second you open the box. The cases are wildly different in many ways. The lawyer is right. Reading case law and drawing comparisons and differences is what lawyers do in preparing a brief. I would hesitate to question an attorney (or paralegal) unless I too had the same skills and training.
He/she does not have to be an expert in IP to know something. In fact in some states unless you are actually certified in an area you cannot claim anything except having a law license, in other words you might be a expert but unless you have certificates proving that you have to "sell" yourself as a generalist.
Sandia Labs is in New Mexico, not CA. You could have looked on a map and found that out! The pension fund of the UoCa belongs to the State, there would be no raiding. If these folks went to work for anyone else the pensions may be transferred or maybe not. Or maybe the get two pensions when they retire, part from UoC and part from someone else. A contractor can't just walk in and take the work, there is a long complicated bid process and I can guarantee you there would be a line of companies bidding. These contracts are usually 7-10 year deals so they are serious money and the proposals getlots of scrutiny. LockMart is the #1 Defense Contractor but that does not mean they would win. I've seen them beaten by much smaller firms.
Absolutely correct. If it EVER goes onto a classified system it MUST be treated as if it was classified. That's been the rule as long as I can remember, they didn't make it up for this case!
There had been several serious lapses in the past and they were told by the DOE to fix it, they obviously didn't. If you have ever seen the type of information that requires these high level of classifications then you would know that a leak either inadvertent or not could be devastating. You don't just misplace that kind of data.
Conclusive proof does not exist for or against Scientific Theories like Global Warming. If you go back to the 1960s and 1970s you can find all sorts of ideas and theories about Global COOLING. The scientists can't make up thier minds. I wonder why? If they could all agree it IS or it IS NOT happening then all the research money would dry up!! It's self preservation to change your mind after a 10-15 years when no one recalls what you said the first time!
....The fact is, Earth is a single point of failure for the human race, and we can't predict when it will fail or what will cause the failure. The only safe solution is redundancy.... Umm, So is the SUN. So we need to build a redundant one? No Sun, No Solar System. No Solar System, No Earth, No Earth No Humans (assuming we are still here 10 Million years in the future when Sol is no long a G2 but collapses to a White Dwarf ..no, not the one in the LOTR)
Mars does have an atmosphere, just not much of one! It's not a complete vacuum. Any atmosphere would have to be pretty much constantly regenerated as the weak magnetic field would allow solar radiation to destroy what was in place. Of course, it may take "billions and billions" (obCarlSagan)of yearsand millions of gas generators (how do we get them there?) to make enought atmosphere you even have to worry about keeping. It would be cheaper to build large domed cities, and put an atmosphere in those. But Scientists don't commonly think in practical economic terms, thats for the Engineers to do ;)
I can't beleive three years of negotiation were redone in such a small time. Since we didn't know the details of what Reno's people proposed, how can we know that this was a lot different? RUMOR was Reno was going to break them up, I never saw confirmation of that. As in every negotiation,each side didn't get 100% of what they wanted but the final deal DID solve a lot of problems. And yes, M$ could figure out ways around them. A breakup would have had the same problems, each of the companies could "collude" with each other and each require the other's parts of a system. THat would probably mean Windows would cost MORE and then if something broke you get finger pointing and nothing gets fixed. So, you lose one way, you lose the other way. Pick which way you want to lose!
Bugs are bugs, but age in itself doesn't make software bad. In fact, one could claim that older software has had more exposure time, allowing the identification and debugging of more mission-critical bugs. Agreed. But the new instruments were going to have new software, and some of the other systems were going to be upgraded. Probably a moot point now.
The MS suit on the grounds you mentioned was a Federal Anti-Trust case. Only ONE suit, not many. It was settled during the Clinton adminstration, the paperwork hung around till after GWB took office. The patent infringement cases have been settled out of court and MS has paid a LOT to settle each one. To effectively attack the Borg in Redmond you need to get your facts right.
That's right WFC3 was to go on SM4 which didn't go due to Columbia. My mistake. But there is a COS like instrument there already. If ya really want to know the truth HST is limited more by it's gyro life than anything ;)
The software DOES matter. Tell that to my friends and former team-mates at NASA IV&V who found a number of errors, several of them mission critical. The software collects the data from the detectors, packages it up and transmits it. It also controls which filters get used, the shutter timing, the control exposures, the temperatures and a lot of other things. IIRC, it's all written in C for an 80186 processor.
Good point on HST being upgradable and JWST not. Of course I suppose there could be a robot mission to JWST but the comm lag would make it have to be a very smart robot. It would have been great to see that technology pioneered on HST :(
These images are made from spectral data not visible light(other than the fact the spectral data for the exposure MAY lie in the visible spectrum). The hubble is a digital camera but not like the type you have at home. The WFC3 (wide field planetary camera version 3) or the COS (Cosmic Origins Spectrograph) take the images. Exposure times can be many minutes,and the instruments are very sensitive and highly calibrated. In fact they are calibrated to a known light source and a known dark source before each exposure. There are also filters that can be applied before the light reaches the camera so that only wavelengths in a given spectral range hit the detectors. Then the images are sent to the ground as binary data as groups of spectral frequency bins which are then post-processed (a the Space Science Institute) to give the (false) color images. The colors are pretty close to correct but are not perfect. So, yea they ARE manufactured in some sense by the Gov't ;)
Hubble is nowhere near state of the art (some software in it is 25-30 yrs old) but it works and has exceeded the wildest expectations of it's builders. Kind of a Brooklyn Bridge in space, the first one built but still works great and setting a high standard.
They DID find a number of chemical precursors, and several 155MM shells with chemical agents that were "leftover" from the war with Iran. They also found papers that said as soon as they UN guys left, and things cooled down they would re-start the programs. Only Saddaam and his (dead) sons know the real truth and I don't think they are cooperating. Don't forget the Uranium and the other data. Did we find a "smoking gun"? No, but a lot of circustansial evidence that would probably convict anyone in court.
As screwed up as the Inspector General and the CBO says NASA's Finance system is, Hubble could cost $2B or 2 cents ;)
Seriously, NASA's cost tracking leaves a LOT to be desired and thus it's ripe for abuse. By the time it's all over and everyone has gotten their cut from the Hubble mission, you can probably double the estimate.
Where do YOU get your news? The US Gov't does not filter anything except child porn, and even that is debatable (I think they put it out there to catch the pervs). The CDA act did NOT pass, thank goodness. I can't think of a single URL the US Gov't blocks unless it is the web site of known terrorists, you can even bet illegally via the web (offshore casinos) and make a date with a prostitue, both clearly illegal activities. Flag burning had not even been tested as a 1st Amendment isssue until about 10 yrs ago, maybe less. Folks just didn't do it. Probably 60% of Americans get thier news from the 3 main network newscasts. Talk about left wing, alarmist news which treats viewers as morons who should NOT make up thier own minds from facts. Most parents do NOT censor what the kids watch on TV (or on video..ever see what the teens rent at Blockbuster?). If you believe the data about kids watching violent TV becoming violent themselves then that sure proves someone is NOT checking on the kids. Been a LONG time since I was in college so I don't know what the teachers do. I recall my spouse taking a different view than her Am. Lit. prof and getting marked down a few years back, but I suspect that varies campus to campus and even prof to prof. I'm all for High School papers, I used to be the editor! Maybe the reason there aren't any is the kids don't want to do it? We were not even censored, and we sure had a lot of non-standard ant-administration views about lunch, classes, polcies, etc. Good Government is impossible WITHOUT free thinkers. Lack of thinking (on both sides of the aisle) is a BIG part of the problem in Congress. The only thinking is how does my state (or me) get my cut of the fiscal pie.