I understand enough about public-key cryptography that it works if person A tries to send encrypted information to person B, preventing person C from trying to decode it. It doesn't work when person B and person C are both the same person (or machine, if it is hardcoded)
I deal with organoaluminum reactions all the time, which produce aluminum hydroxides on workup. The colloidal aluminum hydroxide sludge can be treated with sodium hydroxide to convert it to a filterable consistency.
In fact, I think that lithium aluminum hydride (and various other light metal hydrides) has been mentioned as a possible hydrogen storage source. I don't know anything more about it than it's been mentioned (specifically, how they plan to regenerate it, LAH isn't exactly cheap)
I don't even remember the name of the first company to come out with a MIDI card for PCs, but Creative is still going strong.
I believe it was Roland, and they're still going strong as well. (I actually have a Roland USB MIDI box connected to this machine). You may have been thinking of AdLib, which was the first cheap consumer sound card. The only way they could actually sell the original Sound Blaster was by saying it was "AdLib Compatible".
The reason people do research online rather than in the library isn't because it's easier or more pleasant, it's because they DON'T HAVE TO GO TO THE DAMN LIBRARY.
I'd rather read the actual book, but if I can read a crappy, awkward PDF instead, i'll do it if I don't have to get out of my chair.
The biggest problem for me, in the sense of having to read PDF's (don't know how ebooks work), is that I can't use a highlighter or make notes in the margins.
Besides, reading long pieces on the computer just sucks. I never read a PDF on screen. I usually can't even stand looking through them to see if the information is relevant. I print the damn thing out and look at it.
Fortunately, I get free laser printer paper from school.:)
No wonder companies hate IT people. What a bunch of bitches.
Seriously, though. Most of the IT people around that aren't in senior positions these days probably entered the field in the late 90's when it seemed like every kid who knew how to write batch files ended up being an idle millionaire at the age of 25.
IT is no longer seen as a golden egg that can turn any business around, it's just seen as another essential and noncentral function like janitors and electricians, with the requisite amount of respect afforded these positions. Aside from companies with a central focus on developing software for sale, the guy that keeps the computers working is no more important than the guy that makes sure the lights come on when you flip the switch next to the door. Less important, considering that qualified electricians are harder to come by than CS degree holders.
Sure, you could point to the higher skill level required for IT work (maybe versus a janitor, but even an electrician apprenticeship takes longer than a BS degree!). "Highly skilled" doesn't mean squat as long as there is some other guy waiting in line to take your job if you don't like it.
But, you say "If the computers stop working, the business grinds to a halt." Yeah, but computers run on electricity, as does everything else. The electrician is more important than you.
In short, IT people need to stop thinking they're so much more special than everyone else at the company. I suspect that this holier than thou attitude that most IT people seem to have is the real origin of the disdain that management has for IT staffs.
So, if you have an IT job, just be glad you have a job. If you don't, then the sense of entitlement IT workers have may work in your favor - when they quit because they don't have a special parking spot with their name in solid gold letters next to the front door.
I understand being bitter about how much better things were a few years ago, but it's over. Get over yourselves.
My job which requires a 4 year degree at least is the job that a 2 year degree person can do. The stuff that requires a Masters degree is the stuff that I can do and be close to showing my potential. The stuff that the PhDs are doing are things that Master Students could do just as easily (I could even argue a 4 year degree person can do some of the work)
I suspect this may be the same in every field. Personally, I'm a chemist, and the same situation applies. To get a job doing what you learned in a two-year program, you need a BS. To get a job doing what you learned in BS, you need an MS. And, to get a job learning what you did for MS, you need a PhD.
However, I don't think it's at all unreasonable (unlike I did before I started my PhD). Just look back at how ridiculously easy your freshman class material seems now that you've finished the BS. I vaguely remember my sophomore organic chemistry classes being challenging, but now that I'm a grad student teaching recitation to sophomores, I can't understand how they are having trouble with the material! In fact, I know the sophomore organic material far better after finishing my MS work than I did after I got my BS. Studying in the field for a couple years beyond the material you're expected to be able to implement on the job really serves to cement the information in your mind to the point where it's old hat.
See, I was desperately unhappy at that job, for various reasons. The main one, though was that I was treated as the junior developer for the purposes of salary, and my opinion on things was taken as seriously as a junior developers would be, but when it came to responsibility or workload, I was treated as some kind of hero programmer who could fix everything.
Welcome to the real world. This has nothing at all to do with IT, all industries are like this. I guessed the problem is that when you come in to these sort of jobs being inexperienced, you're more excited about entering the field than the established employees, and work at an unsustainable level. I've had similar experiences. I thought that management hadn't noticed my hard work at all, but apparently they did, and rewarded me by firing the other employees that helped dissipate the workload somewhat.
My take-home lesson from all this was to always keep in your mind what a realistic sustained work level is for you and to not exceed it. Management's expectations are like a boa constrictor snake. Once they see you working at a certain level, they'll just keep squeezing more to see how much they can get out of you.
I write software for a living. So long as I expect to get paid for my work it would be very hypocritical of me to support the illegal software trade.
I do synthetic chemistry research for a living, and all my work ends up in the chemical literature, free for anyone to use. Does that give me free license to copy software?:)
Tricks like this cannot be prevented, unless they use whitelisting of installation keys. This is a logistical nightmare and can also be circumvented because the software that checks for the valid serial must be able to access the whitelist.
Isn't that exactly what they're doing? Your computer sends your key to Microsoft's servers which check it against their serial list?
(From TFA) In 2002, the Illinois attorney general sued Leo Stoller after he used a Web site to solicit donations illegally on behalf of victims of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Then again, by the argument I sometimes hear, it's worse to rape a hooker than a random woman. That is, the argument that it's alright to copy something that the author doesn't offer for sale. That means It's ok to rape a woman, since you'd pay her the $100 if she was a hooker.
Of course, the point that I'm trying to make here is not it's ok to rape a woman who won't have sex with you for $100, or that it's evil to copy stuff that's not available for sale, but that the whole analogy is STUPID.
Nobody's locked into buying an iPod. iPod buyers are locked into using iTMS. (or allofmp3, or god forbid leaving the house to go to a store and buying a CD:)
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Actually, AFAIK, the moon has very valuable mineral deposits of rare metal ores.
Sounds unlikely. A king could just say "Give me the formula or I'll chop your head off."
I understand enough about public-key cryptography that it works if person A tries to send encrypted information to person B, preventing person C from trying to decode it. It doesn't work when person B and person C are both the same person (or machine, if it is hardcoded)
In five years, every single PC and PC motherboard will have a TPM.
:)
Only if they start confiscating any computer over five years old.. They can have my pre-TPM machines when they pry them out of my cold dead hands
What part of getting $5 off a $16 CD did you miss?
These class-action lawsuits usually end up with "penalties" that just end up giving them more money.
Then again, perhaps if anyone knew where the name "Brewster Jennings" came from, it might put things in a different perspective.
I deal with organoaluminum reactions all the time, which produce aluminum hydroxides on workup. The colloidal aluminum hydroxide sludge can be treated with sodium hydroxide to convert it to a filterable consistency.
In fact, I think that lithium aluminum hydride (and various other light metal hydrides) has been mentioned as a possible hydrogen storage source. I don't know anything more about it than it's been mentioned (specifically, how they plan to regenerate it, LAH isn't exactly cheap)
I believe it was Roland, and they're still going strong as well. (I actually have a Roland USB MIDI box connected to this machine). You may have been thinking of AdLib, which was the first cheap consumer sound card. The only way they could actually sell the original Sound Blaster was by saying it was "AdLib Compatible".
I thought this was what the FSSTND was supposed to accomplish?
Cannabinoids are not alkaloids, either.
WWIV is still around?
The reason people do research online rather than in the library isn't because it's easier or more pleasant, it's because they DON'T HAVE TO GO TO THE DAMN LIBRARY.
I'd rather read the actual book, but if I can read a crappy, awkward PDF instead, i'll do it if I don't have to get out of my chair.
The biggest problem for me, in the sense of having to read PDF's (don't know how ebooks work), is that I can't use a highlighter or make notes in the margins.
:)
Besides, reading long pieces on the computer just sucks. I never read a PDF on screen. I usually can't even stand looking through them to see if the information is relevant. I print the damn thing out and look at it.
Fortunately, I get free laser printer paper from school.
But, like he said... It's REALLY GOOD rope.
No wonder companies hate IT people. What a bunch of bitches.
Seriously, though. Most of the IT people around that aren't in senior positions these days probably entered the field in the late 90's when it seemed like every kid who knew how to write batch files ended up being an idle millionaire at the age of 25.
IT is no longer seen as a golden egg that can turn any business around, it's just seen as another essential and noncentral function like janitors and electricians, with the requisite amount of respect afforded these positions. Aside from companies with a central focus on developing software for sale, the guy that keeps the computers working is no more important than the guy that makes sure the lights come on when you flip the switch next to the door. Less important, considering that qualified electricians are harder to come by than CS degree holders.
Sure, you could point to the higher skill level required for IT work (maybe versus a janitor, but even an electrician apprenticeship takes longer than a BS degree!). "Highly skilled" doesn't mean squat as long as there is some other guy waiting in line to take your job if you don't like it.
But, you say "If the computers stop working, the business grinds to a halt." Yeah, but computers run on electricity, as does everything else. The electrician is more important than you.
In short, IT people need to stop thinking they're so much more special than everyone else at the company. I suspect that this holier than thou attitude that most IT people seem to have is the real origin of the disdain that management has for IT staffs.
So, if you have an IT job, just be glad you have a job. If you don't, then the sense of entitlement IT workers have may work in your favor - when they quit because they don't have a special parking spot with their name in solid gold letters next to the front door.
I understand being bitter about how much better things were a few years ago, but it's over. Get over yourselves.
My job which requires a 4 year degree at least is the job that a 2 year degree person can do. The stuff that requires a Masters degree is the stuff that I can do and be close to showing my potential. The stuff that the PhDs are doing are things that Master Students could do just as easily (I could even argue a 4 year degree person can do some of the work)
I suspect this may be the same in every field. Personally, I'm a chemist, and the same situation applies. To get a job doing what you learned in a two-year program, you need a BS. To get a job doing what you learned in BS, you need an MS. And, to get a job learning what you did for MS, you need a PhD.
However, I don't think it's at all unreasonable (unlike I did before I started my PhD). Just look back at how ridiculously easy your freshman class material seems now that you've finished the BS. I vaguely remember my sophomore organic chemistry classes being challenging, but now that I'm a grad student teaching recitation to sophomores, I can't understand how they are having trouble with the material! In fact, I know the sophomore organic material far better after finishing my MS work than I did after I got my BS. Studying in the field for a couple years beyond the material you're expected to be able to implement on the job really serves to cement the information in your mind to the point where it's old hat.
See, I was desperately unhappy at that job, for various reasons. The main one, though was that I was treated as the junior developer for the purposes of salary, and my opinion on things was taken as seriously as a junior developers would be, but when it came to responsibility or workload, I was treated as some kind of hero programmer who could fix everything.
Welcome to the real world. This has nothing at all to do with IT, all industries are like this. I guessed the problem is that when you come in to these sort of jobs being inexperienced, you're more excited about entering the field than the established employees, and work at an unsustainable level. I've had similar experiences. I thought that management hadn't noticed my hard work at all, but apparently they did, and rewarded me by firing the other employees that helped dissipate the workload somewhat.
My take-home lesson from all this was to always keep in your mind what a realistic sustained work level is for you and to not exceed it. Management's expectations are like a boa constrictor snake. Once they see you working at a certain level, they'll just keep squeezing more to see how much they can get out of you.
I write software for a living. So long as I expect to get paid for my work it would be very hypocritical of me to support the illegal software trade.
:)
I do synthetic chemistry research for a living, and all my work ends up in the chemical literature, free for anyone to use. Does that give me free license to copy software?
Tricks like this cannot be prevented, unless they use whitelisting of installation keys.
This is a logistical nightmare and can also be circumvented because the software that checks for the valid serial must be able to access the whitelist.
Isn't that exactly what they're doing? Your computer sends your key to Microsoft's servers which check it against their serial list?
(From TFA) In 2002, the Illinois attorney general sued Leo Stoller after he used a Web site to solicit donations illegally on behalf of victims of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
No, this guy's not a total fucking scumbag...
Actually, you end up paying $112, because Joe keeps his monitors at $106.
Then again, by the argument I sometimes hear, it's worse to rape a hooker than a random woman. That is, the argument that it's alright to copy something that the author doesn't offer for sale. That means It's ok to rape a woman, since you'd pay her the $100 if she was a hooker.
Of course, the point that I'm trying to make here is not it's ok to rape a woman who won't have sex with you for $100, or that it's evil to copy stuff that's not available for sale, but that the whole analogy is STUPID.
How did Bill Gates get AIDS and malaria?
Nobody's locked into buying an iPod. iPod buyers are locked into using iTMS. (or allofmp3, or god forbid leaving the house to go to a store and buying a CD :)
Electrons are blue.